Learn how this rural community works with Buxton to help recruit new retail.
This small, rural community in Idaho had a hard time opening doors with new retail and restaurant companies until they began working with Buxton. The city's retail recruitment strategy has completely changed after the partnership began and they now use the data and analytics tools to provide decision makers with the information they need about the city.
>>PAULA RIGGS: My name is Paula Riggs, I am from Mountain Home, Idaho and I am the Economic Development Executive Director for the city. >>COURTNEY LEWIS: I’m Courtney Lewis. I’m the Economic Development Specialist for the city of Mountain Home, Idaho. >>RICH SYKES: My name is Rich Sykes. I am Mayor of Mountain Home, Idaho. [intro music] >>PAULA RIGGS: Mountain home is a rural community. >>COURTNEY LEWIS: We have Mountain Home air force base, which if you haven’t lived in an air force town, you just have not experienced life. It’s a real close bond. It’s a different kind of atmosphere. >>RICH SYKES: We’re everything to everyone. We have the largest diversity per capita I think in the whole state of Idaho because of the air force base. >>PAULA RIGGS: The population is a little deceiving. The census will tell you that the population is 14,000 in our city limits with 30,000 in our county, but we have several surrounding communities that are not included in that demographics that come to Mountain Home to shop and to dine and for all of their service needs. Buxton contacted us and we talked to them and found out the cost to be a partner with them. Being a small rural community, that was not in our budget. However, we were lucky enough that, we had a new mayor coming in and economic development was one of his priorities. >>RICH SYKES: To me, looking back, I wish they would\ have done it years ago so that we’d be that much farther ahead. >>PAULA RIGGS: For a small community, it’s one of our struggles has always been trying to get past that gate keeper. How do you get to the right person? And you know, you can write letters, you can e-mail, you can call. And with Buxton, that has opened those doors for us. >>RICH SYKES: It has helped us, as Paula has alluded to, to get into the doors or get past the gatekeepers, get to where you can’t get to without Buxton. >>COURTNEY LEWIS: We haven’t actively perused retail before the way we are now. Now we have the right tools, we have the right terminology. We know what the people in retail are looking for and we’re able to give it to them and SCOUT is a tool that lets us have that information and get it to them. >>PAULA RIGGS: In my opinion in what makes them unique is that they really truly care about your community. They do a lot of homework, they do a lot of research, they visited us twice in just the past year. To me, that speaks volumes about what kind of a company that is. >>RICH SYKES: Obviously we pay them, but they don’t treat us like we’re paying them. They treat us just like family. They care about your community and want to make you- they want to make sure that you succeed in the future. >>PAULA RIGGS: One of the things that has impressed me the most is their customer service and they stand behind what they say that that they’re not just going to sign you up and give you the information and be gone. They’re there and they’re there immediately.