(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Attracting talented workers to our area is just one of the goals of Choose Greater Peoria.

The collaboration of business, philanthropy, and government is committed to promoting our region's growth and prosperity.

I'm joined now by Misty Klobucher, owner of the Simantel marketing agency, and Laura Cullinan, the president of the Gilmore Foundation, which is one of the organizations leading Choose Greater Peoria.

Good to see you both.

Thanks for coming in.

- Thanks for having us.

- Thanks for having us.

- Laura, let's start with you.

You know, we've seen in the past a lot of initiatives to get positive publicity into Peoria by different groups, whether it's the Chamber of Commerce, Economic Development.

Tell us how Choose Greater Peoria may be different than those we've seen in the past.

- Well, we are working with the Chamber of Commerce and the Economic Development Group and as well as the 30 largest employers in the region, plus private philanthropy and private individuals and the state government and city government across the river, in Peoria.

So this is truly a regional effort, and it's really all hands on deck.

We have more committed stakeholders than we've ever had in the past, and we're just really proud that we've gained some momentum and we're in our third year and we keep adding stakeholders.

- Was there any events or timing that, you know, people said, "Hey, this is the time we gotta really start going after people to come into town and stay here and play here and live here?"

- Well, we gathered a group of around 15 of the region's largest employers a little over two years ago and we asked those employers what they cared about and they said that talent attraction was their top concern.

That these businesses in the region were having no problem selling their business, but they were having problems selling Peoria.

And so out of that, out of those discussions, Choose Greater Peoria was born.

It's primarily a talent attraction initiative, but there is also a branding component and that's an external Peoria brand, and then also an internal positive Peoria message.

- Yeah, that's interesting that we're dealing with internal also, besides external.

Misty, you know, you're on the marketing end of this.

When you're marketing Peoria, what do you want to get out there to people and are there any misconceptions that you have to overcome when you're pitching Peoria?

- Absolutely.

Well, as Laura mentioned, you know, when we were doing our research into the talent attraction piece, it was post COVID, we had just gotten through the great resignation, and so we really were researching, what do executives want?

And what we found is that they wanted more time, more space and opportunity to just enjoy their families, right?

And so we thought Peoria has a lot to offer in that way.

Are we telling our story in the best way?

And as you well know, when people come visit, they're always amazed, right, at the restaurants we have, the outdoor space.

And so we thought there's probably a way to package that up and let even our internal residents know, almost as if they were being a tourist in their own city, how much more there is to share here so that we have really this sort of inside-to-outside positivity and that gets shared with friends and family, and we're seeing people come to visit and we're seeing the sentiment online increase as well.

- You've come up with a very cool publication here, "Choose Greater Peoria, Illinois."

Congratulations.

It's very nice.

- Thanks.

- And I like how on your webpage, you know, right on the top, it says average commute's, I mean, it's so, average commute I think was, what, 17 minutes or something nice like that.

But let's talk about internally, because we talked about what people outside of Peoria may think about our area, but internally, you know, you look at Facebook, you can't make everybody happy, People have their complaints about the city.

What's it like trying to remind them that, hey, Peoria's really not that bad?

- Absolutely.

Well, you know, when we started this initiative, we really, to Laura's point, wanted to make this about Greater Peoria, because certainly there's Peoria proper, but when you think about all that our region has to offer, there's amenities in all the surrounding communities.

So one of the things we're doing online is we're highlighting the content from all of those spaces.

Everything from coffee shops to where to have a nice dinner.

And so I feel like the community's really getting engaged in that content.

And they're proud and they're commenting and as I mentioned, they're sharing and we're seeing the sentiment soar.

I think most recently our PR manager mentioned in the past two years, we've had something like 78 articles written about Peoria just in terms of pushing this content and trying to be more positive to the people who live here.

- Outside sources writing these articles?

- Absolutely.

News articles.

Yep.

That's great.

- That's great, yeah.

- The sentiment is positive.

I think that the difference is that the negative voices are louder, and what we're doing is we're amplifying the positive voices or just the baseline voices.

And we've really, we haven't encountered too many of the negativity, too much of the negativity or the trolls.

And what we hear are a lot of people that have moved here are the region's biggest advocates.

You know, I lived in Chicago for 15 years.

I moved back and I could not be happier to be here and there are a million reasons why I choose Peoria over Chicago.

And we hear that story over and over and over again.

- I bet Chicago definitely a lot of hustle and bustle.

Peoria not as much.

And I think people, especially as they get older, really appreciate that.

Let's talk a little bit about what's been happening in the last two or three years since you started this.

You mentioned a lot of outside articles being written.

Have you seen, can you give us any numbers or maybe people that have decided, "Hey, yeah, we're gonna move into Peoria," or how this is affecting the businesses in our area?

- Sure.

We've got numbers.

We've been very intentional on capturing data because that is what the businesses have asked us to do and we do quarterly report outs.

Since we launched in May of 2022, we've had over 4,000 requests through our website.

These are people who have seen an ad in their Facebook page or come across their LinkedIn or maybe a billboard and saw Choose Greater Peoria advertised, were curious about Peoria, went to our website, and filled out a form suggesting that they may wanna apply for a job.

From those people, we've had over 300 resumes received, qualified resumes that are in our database.

We've had 20 people that were directly hired, again, directly hired from seeing a billboard.

And then finally, we've had over 350 people who have been hired for our region's employers because of the materials that we've produced.

So we are so excited about these numbers.

This is just in 18 months and, you know, it takes a little while for campaigns to get going.

But there has been a great interest in Peoria.

And we think the timing is right.

You know, Misty mentioned the great resignation.

I think this is, we can capitalize on all the beautiful lifestyle amenities that we have here and the slower pace.

But Chicago hustle and bustle, Peoria has great restaurants and lots of activities for people.

The largest park district in the state.

So we could talk on and on about all the great things in Peoria.

- Well, and I'll add to what Laura said.

You know, what I've loved is watching the optimization of this effort 'cause as Laura mentioned, it was kind of hard to sort of get our footing and build this database, but over time, we see those metrics getting better and better because we're optimizing what we're doing.

And as we head into '25, we're having those conversations right now about how can we even improve from lead to close, right?

So we're getting even more resumes and hires to the Greater Peoria businesses.

- And it's great that you can see those numbers and actually see the progress that the campaign is making.

- [Misty] Absolutely.

- So tell me about competition around the state, because besides Chicago, we have a lot of mid-size towns, Champaign, Rockford, Springfield.

What kind of competition do we have with them and what do we have that they don't?

- We've actually been trying to be super collaborative with the surrounding communities.

So, you know, we did an event with the Chicago Bears Radio Network last year where we collaborated with Chicago, have been in active dialogue with Bloomington-Normal.

But our media campaign has really targeted those cities that are sort of two times the size of Peoria, not just in Illinois, but in the surrounding Midwest area, so that we can ensure our message is getting to a set of eyeballs in certain industries like the medical, the manufacturing, the IT, those areas that we know we have jobs.

And so we're pulling in from all over the Midwest.

- [Mark] And with the jobs, are you specifically looking for more executive type folks to come in first?

I mean, it seems like we have a great blue-collar community around here that can fill a lot of jobs.

But I guess the white collar is what we're trying to bring in mostly?

- Originally we were targeting executives and we've since expanded that definition because we found that our advertising can reach really a whole host of job titles and a whole host of industries.

So not only are we reaching outside of Illinois to pull people into Peoria, and we've actually seen, you know, the growth of the region rise of those efforts, but now we're really, to your point, talking about how do we also work on workforce development and building the talent pipeline because we do have so many qualified people here.

And so in the next year, we're gonna be really collaborating with the colleges and universities in the area to figure out how this message can even reach a college student audience that we want to stay in Peoria.

- And Laura, when you talk to a lot of the big businesses in our area, tell us again, you know, what they're looking for, what's on their wishlist as far as getting workers in and amenities that people are looking for when they move to a town like Peoria.

- Well, as Misty mentioned, we started with an executive target, but we opened that funnel up to sort of mid-level and above.

And there still are around 12,000 job openings, really high-paying great job openings in the Peoria region.

As far as amenities, I mean, we have so many things to offer.

And it's, again, thinking about this regionally.

You can live in Washington, you can live in Galesburg, you can live in Peoria, and the 17 minute commute is in Peoria.

But, you know, people live in Bloomington work here because of the incredible medical community that we have.

We have the cancer center and all of the, you know, the proton beam and all of that that's going into innovation in the area.

So I hope I answered that well.

- Yes.

You did.

- Yeah, Peoria is definitely more and more a healthcare community, right?

So with Carle and OSF making investments here, especially in our downtown, we're super excited about what that's gonna bring to the region.

And, you know, young people want to be downtown, right?

So we're hoping to see the vibrancy of that area continue to grow.

- I would imagine the warehouse district is something that will eventually, or if it isn't already, bringing in younger people because it's hopefully gonna be a cool and hip area.

- Sure.

- Yeah.

- Absolutely.

And one thing we haven't mentioned is just the events that this initiative has been able to sponsor and support.

Things like the Ledgestone frolf tournament was downtown at the Peoria Riverfront Museum last year, the Red, White & BOOM event that obviously this message gets out to something like 200,000 people annually.

So those are the kinds of things that bring young people out.

And we see, especially in talent attraction, if you can ladder that up to a hobby or something that they're already thinking about, then you're gonna bring them in and really engage them in the conversation.

- You know, Red, White & BOOM is the largest firework show in the state of Illinois, so larger than anything that Chicago puts on, and it's in the top 2% of the country.

That's just a great example of one of the many things that we have to offer that people just don't realize how wonderful it is.

- Mm-hm.

How do you overcome things that you can't have any control over in terms of, like, you can say all the great things about the area, but what about things like, "Oh, I don't wanna move to Illinois because of," I don't know, taxes or whatever?

You obviously can't change that, but how do you overcome some of those objections and have you seen any other objections like that, that people are saying, "Oh, that all sounds great, but"?

- Of course you can't overcome the headwinds of the state of Illinois.

But what we can do is talk about what amenities we do have.

So if you are already living in Illinois and you don't want to leave, this is a place that you could come to find a respite from the hustle and bustle in Chicago.

Positively, we saw our population grow this year 3.89% for the first time in years and we were one of the only cities in the state of Illinois to grow in population.

So we think that is wonderful momentum and we're gonna continue to push on that.

- The campaign theme is There's More Here, more with an asterisk.

Is the asterisk anything we need to know about or anything special?

- Absolutely, it is.

- Absolutely.

It's one of Laura's favorite parts of the campaign.

- Misty can talk about it because it's Simantel's brainchild, yeah.

- Well, one of our senior art directors sort of had this idea that an asterisk literally denotes that there's more to the story, right?

So lean in and look at all that we have to offer.

So we wanna do more with that little element in the new year, make it part of the sort of visual brand identity that people can connect with and know what that's about when they think of Peoria.

- And you can think of Greater Peoria as the asterisk.

So there's Peoria in the center and then all of the lines go out to the outlying communities.

And that's what we're really talking about too.

It's not just Peoria.

It's our region.

And if we start thinking of ourselves as this region of 1.7 million people, we've got a lot to offer.

- When we started the effort, you know, people always describe Peoria as being between Chicago and St. Louis, right?

But we thought, "No, we wanna build our own identity."

We are sort of a star among stars, and so that is where that sort of concept came from.

- Very good idea.

- Yeah.

- So when you, you know, you've got the magazine here, which is great, and it's online if anybody wants to look at it or get a physical copy.

We'll talk about that later.

But how are you marketing, say, the magazine to people outside of our area?

How are they finding out about this?

- It's a great question.

Well, first of all, I wanna mention that we partnered with Livability intentionally.

You know, they're known as sort of the credible expert when it comes to relocation.

They're surveying annually the cities that have the greatest quality of life.

So we knew that if we attached our brand to the Livability brand, we would get more exposure.

So that was step one.

But then as we started to work through the editorial calendar, we started to think about not only does this magazine provide an opportunity for pride for the residents who might read it who live here, but we have thousands of visitors annually for conventions and events.

Something like Steamboat Days, right?

Or, you know, the St. Jude Run.

Those are all things that bring thousands of people to our community.

How great is it to be able to hand them a magazine or have this in hotel rooms where people can flip through and learn a little bit about our community and find that it's a really cool place to live?

- Yeah, this is in the airport when you're picking up your baggage.

This is at Louisville Slugger.

We've got thousands of families that come to Louisville Slugger.

This year, it's at EastSide sports complex.

So we're hoping that families, people will pick this up and wanna go check some of the amenities that we have to offer out.

Restaurants, coffee shops, parks, events.

- Yeah, a lot to do, that's for sure.

Well, we talked about how our really large businesses here in town are behind this.

Tell us about local governments and how they've contributed to this and what they hope to get out of it.

- Absolutely.

Well, like Laura said, we're trying to be as inclusive as possible to all the outlying communities and chambers, but also our local city government and East Peoria.

Have a meeting actually with the mayor and Patrick Urich next week to talk about how all of this momentum that we've built around talent attraction, how can we think about the region's next biggest priority?

You know, we've been at this three years and we just wanna continue to push the envelope and use this momentum to continue to have the business community lean in.

That's one of the things, when you have the business community sharing their priorities regularly and often with city government and what we're calling the civic development organizations, or I'm sorry, the community development organizations, all working together, that's really how we see this thing moving forward.

- Mm-hm.

On your website, you have a lot of testimonials, and I know in the magazine you do too.

And those I think are just as important, if not more than the head of a Fortune 500 company saying, "Hey, come move here.

This is a great place."

How do you find those people that are doing the testimonials and are you looking for more?

- We're always looking for more.

And it was, and I'll let Misty elaborate, but it was easy to find those people because once you start asking, they come out of the woodwork.

And there are so many, and again, it's people that grew up here, but really we found it's more people, and we have to come up with a better word for them.

Maybe you can help us.

We call them transplants right now, and that's just not good.

But they have moved here from somewhere else and they are just blown away by the quality of life here and what they also come back to is the people.

The people here are special and that's something that we're gonna lean in to talking about a little bit more, and those stories we have amplified on our website and in Livability, and Simantel's done a great job of that, and I think you'll see a lot more of that next year.

- If you go to ChooseGreaterPeoria.org, there is a section on the site that features Greater Peorian stories, and we've called them ambassadors.

We have our influencers out there.

So it's everyone from the business community to the restaurateurs, to the entrepreneurs, who wanna share their story about why they love it here.

And so that's something that we definitely wanna see grow in the new year.

- You could share your story.

Reach out to ChooseGreaterPeoria.org and we'd love to hear from you.

- For sure.

- There you go.

We talked earlier about, you know, the fact that Peoria area has short commute times and give us some more interesting facts that people here may not, even if they lived here their whole lives, may not realize about why this is such a great place to live.

- I have a good one.

So the proton beam that OSF just has at the cancer center.

We have a proton beam in Peoria, Illinois.

The entire country of Canada does not have a proton beam.

That is a really big deal.

And it's an incredible healthcare amenity that we have and people from the outside are going to be visiting us to take advantage of that.

We have the largest park system in the state of Illinois.

- Absolutely.

- I didn't know that.

That's a great fact to tell people.

- And that's what we're gonna be leaning into even more in the new year.

You know, John Morris, everybody loves our beloved John Morris, talks about highlighting what is first, best, and only.

And so that's really been our strategy to make sure people know those things about Peoria, because if you're first, best, and only at something, then you are authentically owning your own story instead of trying to be something you're not.

- We have a symphony.

We have two symphonies.

A lot of people that we've been working with on the talent attraction side are surprised to know that.

Once you start peeling back the onion, you really do realize there's more here.

- Sure, and the Civic Center, our minor league sports teams are all great.

- Incredible, yeah.

- As far as attracting people, plenty of golf around here.

So coming up in 2025, what do you think that, you mentioned the second best thing that you're gonna talk to the mayor about.

Do you have an idea about what that is?

Or do you wanna hear what she has to say?

- Actually, we're developing that list right now.

I have about 10 things that have bubbled up, but our focus, just like we've done in the past, is to bring all of those folks together and have them prioritize and really put meaning, because it's one thing to, you know, write down an initiative or a project, but when you start connecting all the dots and all the tentacles that it can actually support, it makes it more well-rounded.

So that's work that we're gonna be doing after the new year, and we'll have more to report.

Hopefully you'll have us back on.

- I would love to have you back on.

We mentioned, Laura, you're with the Gilmore Foundation, which is helping out in this initiative.

Can you tell us a little bit more about the Gilmore Foundation?

- Sure.

- And also how some other folks are helping financially with this effort.

- Yeah, absolutely.

So the Gilmore Foundation was started in 2009 by Bob Gilmore, who was the former head of Caterpillar.

He grew up in Peoria.

He grew up on the East Bluff.

He went away to World War II.

He was a naval aviator and flew 35 missions in World War II.

Came back, worked third shift on the machine floor at Cat.

Rose all the way to the top of that organization, left his entire life's work toward the Gilmore Foundation.

It's been quietly supporting initiatives here in the Tri-County area since 2009.

We intentionally partnered with the business community because Bob wanted to engage the business community to make a larger impact.

And what Gilmore Foundation has pledged to do is match dollar for dollar every investment that the business community makes toward this effort.

- We are so blessed, obviously, to have the Gilmore Foundation.

When we have benchmarked other communities like Peoria, what has really helped them grow is to have a foundation like Gilmore, you know, at their backs to help fuel their growth.

So Doug Oberhelman currently sits as chair of the executive GPLC and on Gilmore.

And so his experience and background leading a company of that size and being connected to the Gilmore brand has also been instrumental in driving this forward.

- Any worry at all about our great little secret here in central Illinois becoming too big?

Or are we not even thinking about that?

We just wanna get folks in here and get them to live here and visit and work and all that good stuff.

- No, I guess that would be really bad.

We start touting our amazing commute and then all of a sudden it's an hour.

I don't think we have to worry about that yet, but it could happen.

I mean, a 3.8% growth this year.

Let's shoot for 6% next year and... - Yeah.

Not too big in terms of the community, but certainly this initiative is growing and it's gonna take more resources and more people to get done.

So sometimes I feel for Laura because this has been a second full-time job on top of what she does for Gilmore, but it's been fun and we both call it our baby and wanna see it to fruition.

- Yeah.

- We love the area.

- You know, we talked about Greater Peoria, so obviously the Tri-County area and maybe even further out, how have smaller towns, whether it's businesses, governments, whatever, how have they reacted to this initiative?

And are they on board?

Do they have any concerns?

- Super grateful.

I mean, I know that many of the small businesses have reached out saying, "Thank you for highlighting us," you know?

They don't have the resources to do this.

They don't have their own marketing teams.

And so when we highlight a small coffee shop or restaurant, nothing but positive PR.

- And we're working with businesses, we're working with Morton Industries, we're working with Pekin Insurance, we're working with the mayor of East Peoria, all of the outlying chambers of commerce.

Peoria Heights' Chamber of Commerce has been really involved.

And to Misty's point, it's free marketing for the area, for the small businesses.

So it's been nothing but gratitude and it's been really fun.

And I've learned a lot during this process.

- Me too.

- Mm-hm.

In addition to the magazine, have you thought about doing anything else media wise to get the word out there?

I mean, are we talking commercials, podcasts, talk shows, anything like that?

- That's on the list.

Don't give away all our ideas to Laura, but no, we not only are running a paid media campaign, but we obviously have social channels on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn.

We've done an influencer campaign last year, which is really exciting.

So people from Peoria who have massive followings, you know, 300,000 people in some cases, whether it's fitness or food blogs, things like that.

And so we're using those voices to speak authentically in their own tone.

Not even telling them what they have to say, but just saying, "Let others know, you know, why you live here."

And that's actually been some of the most successful work that we've done.

- Excellent.

What else in 2025 can we expect?

Is this gonna be a yearly thing, do you think?

- We're definitely committed to doing another one next year.

So we've just been encouraging people that if they have stories or ideas to please share because we're working on the editorial calendar now and we're trying to align the release with one of the major events next year.

So more to come.

- Okay.

Is there anything everyday folks, you know, watching this program can do besides share their stories?

Anything they can do to help out?

- Well, they can follow ChooseGreaterPeoria.org.

Follow us on social media, and if you have something positive to say, say it and say it loudly.

- That was gonna be my request.

You know, to your point about the trolls online, if you love where you live, it's maybe not something that's top of mind, but it's so important for all of us, especially myself as a business owner here in town, I wanna see Peoria grow and thrive.

You know, if the businesses succeed, then the community does.

And so we need all the people to come around and say why you love it here if you do.

- Are there any projects coming up that you're excited about?

I know that we're waiting for some money to redo the riverfront.

Any projects like that that you think could really help the effort and you could use that as saying, "Hey, look, we're growing, we're doing this, we're doing that?"

- I'm actually reading all of the plans right now throughout the various parts of downtown Peoria where there actually have been funding and modeling and that sort of thing.

And we will be, like I said, engaging the business community to try to figure out how do we wrangle all of that working with the city to really put a plan and roadmap in place.

And so, yeah, there's lots of blue dot visioning happening, but what I'm excited about this initiative is it hasn't been a flavor of the day.

There's long-term commitment to not just continue what we're doing, but also set another North Star so we can keep growing Peoria.

- Sounds like we've got plenty of ideas.

We just gotta get them out there.

- Yeah.

- Yep.

But unlike the past, I feel like we really are executing.

- I agree.

- Holding ourselves accountable to the numbers.

So it's not just ideation.

It's actual follow through.

- No, we are very intentional on making sure that we hit our metrics.

And we've also, if you talk about deliverables in 2023 and 2024, it's over 200 various things.

I'd love to bore your audience with all of them, but we are very intentional on keeping our metrics.

The business community has asked us to be accountable and we are doing it.

- A fair expectation, yep.

- Yeah.

- We are out of time, so I want you to come back later and bore us with all that stuff, okay?

- Okay, great.

- No, we really, come back in a year or so.

I'd love to see where we've taken this.

Misty Klobucher with Simantel marketing agency, and Laura Cullinan, president of the Gilmore Foundation, which is one of the big organizations behind Choose Greater Peoria.

Thanks for what you're doing and best of luck in the future.

- Thanks.

- Thank you.

Appreciate it.

- All right.

And thank you for joining us.

Check us out on Facebook and Instagram and at wtvp.org.

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