The Preferred Site Problem: When the Client Already Has the Answer

All right.

Part one, the invisible criteria.

Every client has two sets of criteria.

There's the set they write down, and there's the set they actually use.

The written set is the one we are all trained on.

Power, water, labor, logistics, incentives, cost of doing business.

It goes in the RFP.

It goes in the RFI.

It goes in the matrix and in the model.

It's clean and defensible.

And it's maybe 70% of the real decision on a good day.

The other 30% lives in hallway comments.

in the car on the way back from a site visit.

And it lives in who bothers to show up for which tour.

If you've ever watched one of those house hunting shows, you know exactly what I mean.

The couple says they need four bedrooms, a big yard, and a quiet cul-de-sac.

Then they walk into a downtown loft with exposed brick windows And 45 seconds later, they're signing.

The criteria they set out loud, well, they were real.

They just weren't the criteria that decided it.

Corporate clients are the same, just with more zeros.

So let me walk through the categories of invisible criteria I have seen over and over.

First, executive geography.

Where do the leaders live? Where did they grow up? Where did they go to school? Where did they vacation? Almost nobody says, I want to be near my alma mater.

But you'll hear a lot about direct flight access to headquarters.

Sometimes that's a real operating need.