Ep 09: REI MBA - What is Your “Made Possible in the Lehigh Valley” Story?
On this episode, Michael Keller joins us for an interview. Michael is responsible for launching the initiative and spreading the word about "Made Possible in Lehigh Valley". A ton of amazing data is shared from Michael and his organization that directly impacts real estate investors. You need to listen to this episode!
Mike is the marketing manager for the Made Possible in Lehigh Valley initiative, which is a regional alliance that seeks to enhance Lehigh Valley’s brand and to increase awareness of the opportunities for visiting, working, learning and living in Lehigh Valley. Guided by Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation, Discover Lehigh Valley, and the Lehigh Valley Chamber, Made Possible in Lehigh Valley helps to give a unified voice to tell the world that Lehigh Valley is an attractive and welcoming place to visit, live and do business. Keller has nearly 10 years of non-profit marketing experience in the Lehigh Valley region.
You can reach out to Michael through LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeltkeller/
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Interview Transcripts
Tejas Gosai: Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to your favorite podcast for the Lehigh Valley. It's Real Estate Investor MBA. I'm your co-host. I have my partner Jeremy Moyer here.
Jeremy Moyer: Good morning.
Tejas Gosai: And today we have an awesome program. Check us out on Facebook. We're soon to be on iTunes. We're all over the Internet. We're having a lot of fun. Thank you so much for all the support. And with that Jeremy, let's get into our next guest.
Jeremy Moyer: Absolutely. Thank you Tejas. So with our next guest, I feel very fortunate. This morning we have Mike Keller who is the marketing manager for Made Possible in Lehigh Valley initiative, which is a regional Alliance that seeks to enhance the Lehigh Valley's brand and to increase awareness of the opportunities for visiting working learning and living in the Lehigh Valley. Guided by the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation, Discover Lehigh Valley and the Lehigh Valley Chamber, Made Possible in Lehigh Valley helps to give a unified voice to tell the world that the Lehigh Valley is an attractive and welcoming place to visit, live and do business. Mike has nearly 10 years of non-profit marketing experience in the Lehigh Valley region. Welcome Mike! Thanks so much for your time this morning and joining us. Can you tell the listeners just a little bit more about yourself and you know and where you came from?
Michael Keller: Pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. As you mentioned, I do have some non-profit marketing experience in the region. I actually worked for Discover Lehigh Valley, for the Chamber of Commerce, and then most recently for Lehigh Valley Economic Development, before this move to really focus on trying to unify those voices, those marketing arms of the region so we can tell that same consistent story about the opportunities for people to work here, to live here, to learn here at our colleges and universities, and also to visit here, because that first impression of visiting is so important and if they have a good experience, the more likely to come back. They become those word-of-mouth brand ambassadors and then they tell their friends and have a positive perception of the region. So at the end of the day, we know how great this region is. We want more people to know about it and we have some great stories to tell about what is 'Made Possible' here for all kinds of people and businesses.
Tejas Gosai: I'm going to jump in; its funny I just popped, popped in but, I spend a lot of time data crunching and Don Cunningham and some of the folks that are the cheerleaders for the Lehigh Valley are literally like the stars in my world over here and you too, you know. I've seen this campaign that seen this stuff, I've used it with my investors to explain why the Lehigh Valley is so great, things like that. Let me be a little facetious here. How come everyone doesn't know about this yet?
Michael Keller: That's a great question. I think part of it is we compete with much larger regions outside of Lehigh Valley. We are the 66th largest metro as far as GDP, but we sometimes get looped into being in the Philadelphia or the New York suburbs and that's really not the case. We have a vibrant, thriving economy here. We have wonderful downtown's and main streets, but I think sometimes the national media might lose us in the mix to are much larger neighbors.
Tejas Gosai: Well, you're hitting the nail on the head and I think it's funny because I say to all the people from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland. I'm like we're the next biggest thing and you know, you guys are seeing this exponential incline kind of kick off and COVID kind of messed some of those things up, but you know people are flocking here and we are becoming much more competitive, because we have the bigger companies that are moving here and things like that, that you guys laid the foundation over the past many years.
Michael Keller: That's a great point. I think just last year LVEDC either helped or assisted with 50 different projects of businesses coming here and they're manufacturing, they're downtown offices, they're R&D and doing really interesting Life Sciences work and the fact that these businesses are coming here. You know, you might think there was somewhat of a setback with COVID, but that is really an opportunity for the region because these dense metros where the quality life suffered a little bit, where people couldn't necessarily enjoy their favorite park or their favorite, you know, or couldn't go to work in all honestly. We didn't suffer nearly as much as many other regions did. Very fortunate to have that open space, to have those businesses here with many essential jobs. I mean Health Care is our #1 employer. Those people still had to go to work even more so. We're fortunate in this that there was an opportunity for the region to continue to grow and now to be a place where people kind of want to move. Where they see more opportunity, whether they maybe just want a backyard something that we could take for granted very easily, but to have that space and that peace of mind that is a really attractive thing right now.
Jeremy Moyer: That's a common.... I think...Tejas I don't know if you agree or not, that's a common theme we are hearing from a lot of our guests, is what you just said Mike. Can you tell us how you; the part of your bio is the initiative that Lehigh Valley Made Possible is with LVEDC and the Chamber. What kind of metrics do you guys see as you're evaluating and to tell your story to get the word out there to everybody?
Michael Keller: Absolutely. Yeah, the easy metrics that we can look at are channel growth, website visits, video views. More individuals like yourselves who are sharing our materials obviously help us out. But then when you get to the earned media and more businesses or business publications writing about Lehigh Valley. There was a New York Times story late last year about the Lehigh Valley. That earned media takes our message so much further. Visitation numbers, hotel traffic... obviously that was a little bit impacted with the travel restrictions recently. But we track the number of jobs that are coming here, the people that are moving here. We're working very closely with the Greater Lehigh Valley Realtors to get a feel for who's moving here. Where are they coming from? Why are they coming here? What are they seeking and measuring it that way. The businesses is to measure, that's very easy because LVEDC has a huge tab on that. Visitation..Discover Lehigh Valley has got that as well. People moving here is a little bit trickier, but we're seeing huge demand and as you probably know and if you've talked to your residential Real Estate Investors, houses are going very quickly and for much more than asking price. So there's enormous demand. There's not really the supply to keep up with it, but that creates more growth.
Tejas Gosai: I've been telling everybody for I mean, pre-COVID, during COVID, post-COVID, that the Lehigh Valley is insulated and I don't think people; like I see personally and review 20 to 30 contracts going in and out of my office with all the agents every week. And I'm the one who's fighting the appraiser sometimes and all of those things, but the activity is relentless. It's actually insane and COVID was kind of our best advertising. I've said that before because so many people before COVID were moving here to get away from these and those things you were saying. Their taxes are lower, better school districts, so on and so forth. I think it's important to say like the rest of the country, it's not a competition. You know, we're here playing golf and we are the 3rd most populated area in Pennsylvania and people are flocking here. You know, you guys have seen this 5 and 10 years before we all did and now it's just the story materializing. Can you shed some light on what you see happening in the next quarters and next year?
Michael Keller: Absolutely. All great points. You're such a huge cheerleader for the region; I really appreciate that. You say all the things that we like to say, you know. I think many of the reasons people had lived in cities and still do is because of the lifestyle, the job opportunities, and the network. And right now the network and the lifestyle are not quite there. The job...they can keep that. They can telecommute from wherever and work there and I think people are seeing that. There's going to be a...I think a very large increase in working from home opportunities as all of these businesses that may have been scared to do that before, realize their employees are still working. If anything they're being more productive these days. The interconnectivity, it's hard to turn it off when you're five o'clock hits. You've still got work to do. Normally you'd leave the office. So I think productivity has increased in a way we're almost as connected as before when you could walk into someone's office. You can easily hit them up on Teams or Google Chat. I think that when more people realize that if they're paying this exorbitant real estate, to live in some of these cities, where the quality of life isn't there, their network is not there, their favorite restaurants may not even be open anymore. And they're going to realize they're paying a lot of money for this rent when they could still do their job, take home more pay, take home more time, be with their family a little bit more and live and have this great quality of life that we all enjoy here.
Tejas Gosai: Nailed it.
Jeremy Moyer: Absolutely. Reading article after article, you know, in these big cities like San Francisco, the Bay Area or New York City and they're telling the exact same thing, that working from home is opening up a whole other world for people and they're looking for quality of life than the closeness to those jobs because they can work from home.
Michael Keller: That's great insight. I think the individuals that may have been leaving the city. I mean, there's not the data to support a mass exodus like we think there might be, but the people that are leaving probably were considering doing that in three to five years anyway. Maybe they're thinking about having a family and settling down and looking for those great schools still want to work for a great company, but to have the parks nearby or those fantastic golf courses that we do have. So I think it's just accelerating some decisions on people's ends, whether they're just renting for now or they've made the full commitment and purchased a home.
Tejas Gosai: Would you mind if we watched the video that you guys put together and can you just tell us about how and why this exists here?
Michael Keller: I would love to watch that video. So that's what we call our hype video for the region. We make this available to anyone if you want to embed this on your pages. We have a 2-minute version a 60-second version and a 30-second version. We're finding that this is a great orientation to the region, but it also gets the people living here really hyped up, feeling good about it. I think some of the inspiration for this came out of...this was produced shortly after the Eagles won the Super Bowl and the production company took some inspiration for that to actually create this real feel good hype video. You watch this and you're ready to do anything afterwards. So yeah, let's get to it.
Tejas Gosai: Alright. Awesome. Here we go.
LV Made Possible YouTube Video: The true hallmark of any location is the people. Those who choose to call it home. The Lehigh Valley is the land of makers and dreamers. Hard work is our heritage and it's that heritage that fuels us. Our traditions unite us. Our Legacy is determination. Our future will be built on the principles of creativity and perseverance, because when others said we couldn't we did. We've surmounted obstacles and exceeded expectations. Some may think of us as underdogs. Yeah. Well never underestimate the underdog. We're artisans, craftsmen, scientists, teachers and students. But most of all, we are neighbors. This isn't the big city, but it's not quite Mayberry either. Where salt to the earth meets clever ambition; that's where you'll find us, and our time is now. Because when the bases are loaded and the pressure's on, we don't crack. We strive, we thrive. The Lehigh Valley has been and always will be home to those with great vision. We know the value of an honest day's work; we practically wrote the book on it. We don't just innovate, we elevate. Out of the embers from the hands that forged a nation, come those that are crafting the future. We dream big because good enough is never good enough. They say it takes a village. Well we say, it takes a Valley. And the Lehigh Valley is committed to Excellence. Now if you'll excuse us, we got work to do.
Tejas Gosai: Bravo!
Michael Keller: Thanks. I have to say, after the hundreds of times I've probably seen that, I still get excited and amped up. And that was even produced locally in the Lehigh Valley too. So that goes to show the artistic talent that we have in the region.
Tejas Gosai: Yeah. 100%. I mean things like that. It needs to be...needs to be everywhere. We're going to put it everywhere as much as we can. Help support. But it really amps you up. You know, it's the Lehigh Valley, there's so much history here and I'm...maybe it's because I'm of Indian descent or something, but like I'm a history buff. I'm a transplant. I'm from the Pittsburgh area...grew up there. But when I, get to meet some of the folks that I represent that are, 60, 65, 70 years old, it's like this is there Super Bowl right? They've been waiting for the Lehigh Valley to become what it is now and they're vocal about it. They're excited. They don't want to sell their properties. Its age and you know, retirement that is requiring them to do that, but it's really nice to be able to see all of this like congeal with all the efforts of the folks in the Lehigh Valley and things like that. So major Kudos. Can we...we're running out of time soon. I really want to get into the other piece that you guys did which is not cinematic, but it's kind of just a little pamphlet on how and why we should be here.
Michael Keller: Absolutely. And Tejas, that's a great segue too because that video we do want everyone to use that and embed it. On the contact page of our site, there's a partner tool kit that will tell you how to do that. And just fill out the form and send me an information request too. I'll walk groups through it. This is a great way to show your customers your clients what Lehigh Valley is and what it means to you. And it does play on that heritage. It plays on, you know, we're here because of where we were. And we honor our past but we celebrate the future. And Lehigh Valley has really arrived on the global stage at this point. And that guide that you mentioned is also able to be embedded on peoples' sites. So it provides a brief overview to the region. You'll see right there our Instagram account which we're really active on. And that again, it's all positivity. You're going to go there and you're going to feel good about the Lehigh Valley afterwards. We tell great stories of success from within the region for people, places, and companies.
Tejas Gosai: Let's get into this. So this just came out maybe a month ago?
Michael Keller: Yeah, this spring it came out. We obviously had some delays but I have many printed copies still kind of waiting for people to receive them and this can be shared digitally and embedded on any site.
Tejas Gosai: So yeah, let's kind of run through this. So, you know super, here's the Valley. I think you quickly get into why visit and work here, but I want to go to what is my favorite page and it's got to be this. The GDP and what our economic drivers are doing. You know, this is like the top that translates down to why we will be competitive against Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and all these other cities. Can you kind of help give us some explanation here as to really why the Valley is not what it was?
Michael Keller: Absolutely, and it goes back to what you said earlier. The Lehigh Valley is insulated. So our economic diversity has been a huge strength of the region. Back in the day when this was a heavy manufacturing area, we had a lot of eggs in one basket. But it's really diversified with health care, with advanced manufacturing, with medical and scientific research and then there's the finance and insurance in downtown office industries as well. We can be that kind of that 'hub and spoke' model for people that still may want a headquarters in New York or Philadelphia, but their back office support, this is the place where they should be. And we've seen a lot of that growth recently over the last few years as well, before people didn't want to pay those huge rents to have all these thousands of employees in the offices. Lehigh Valley is the perfect spot for that. And then you'll see that graph there with some of the economic sectors of the most jobs. Healthcare is our leading employment sector in the Lehigh Valley with both of our health networks..Saint Luke's and LVHN, employing nearly 60,000 people with some other networks like Good Shepherd in there as well. But then the next 5, you'll see manufacturing, retail, transportation and logistics, hospitality and education around the same level too. So we are insulated, we're diverse. Nothing is foolproof, but this allows Lehigh Valley to be protected a little more economically because of these essential jobs that need to keep happening no matter what. If one industry suffers, the other ones can kind of pick up the slack a little bit and and help out.
Jeremy Moyer: I like to jump in right there Mike and kind of expand upon that. From a real estate investment standpoint of view, which I guess technically could either lag right behind jobs or could be right up where they're with job growth because people need a place to live. Bigger money, they do a lot of data mining right? To see if they want to invest and develop in an area and you just hit the nail right on the head with larger investors that build new construction or they purchase apartment buildings. They do new development. They are looking at...is the risk worth it to develop here? If all eggs are in one sector....one industry, you know…use Bethlehem Steel in manufacturing as an example. But with this diversity it de-risks that investment because they're looking 10 years, 20 years into the future. They're not just looking you know, next quarter. And I loved what you just said because that kind of speaks to the data and it speaks to what they look at when looking to develop in the Lehigh Valley. Because I think we need, as you mentioned before, there's definitely a housing shortage, with the housing stock, flying off the market as soon as it gets onto the market. Here….I see Tejas just brought up another page of the pamphlet. What are we seeing here? The demographics by age. Can you talk about the demographics that are moving here, that are here, the workforce?
Michael Keller: Oh, certainly. Lehigh Valley is one of the few kind of regions in Pennsylvania that has seen continuous population growth. We've seen people continue to move here for the last decade. I don't think that's changing anytime soon. And Q3 of last year Realtor.com ranked Lehigh Valley as the 6th best market in the nation for Millennial home buyers, and it was also, I believe, the best year-over-year increase for affordability. So people are moving here. People want to be here. The demographics of the region, 42% of our labor force in Lehigh Valley is 18 to 34 years old. So that is another thing employers really look at when they're making an investment. They want to know, is this a place where young people want to be or where I can attract my employees too and both of those answers are yes here. You can easily attract your current workforce here and you can hire other people to come here as well because there is a trend of it happening. There is data to support it. I mean the top 10 Market for Millennial home buyers in the nation. That's incredible. And yes, the prices have gone up a little bit, and I think we'll continue to see that but as more apartments are built.... I know, just downtown the other day, City Center did their 'City Place Apartments', which are slightly more affordable versions of apartments that people can get and they've built hundreds or thousands of apartments Downtown. You see groups like Peron Development and VM in Easton and they're building I think as fast as they can keep up with demand because they're seeing this increased interest from people that you know, we might have been that hidden gem. It's not that way anymore. I think the word has kind of gotten out and people's networks are starting to know in New York, New Jersey. They visit their friends here and they say why did I not do this? Why didn't we consider this sooner? And I think that's only going to be accelerated right now with this trend.
Jeremy Moyer: Mike, you just said another really important data point, again that investors and developers look at which is the demographics of the people that are moving here and living here, and developers are definitely evaluating that for new development. So that's perfect.
Michael Keller: I think Pennsylvania might be known for the past industry and also that it's a retirement friendly State. I think those are two brands that Pennsylvania has really solidified and part of the reason that we did even come up with this campaign is because we have to smash those old perceptions and get in front of the people that know nothing about the Lehigh Valley, with this story of what it is and what is offered here. And that yes, it's kind of that hidden gem, but there's no reason it should be hidden at this point.
Tejas Gosai: Yeah, it's fun. Which you can't say out loud in the year of COVID. It's like...it was really hard for me during COVID, while mind you, we are the only state in the entire 50 states that Realtors were literally not allowed to practice it. It was a very bizarre situation, but we still performed really well. There was people that were calling us and and I'll tell you how deep this goes. I got phone calls from more people from New York City, New Jersey, Connecticut during COVID that I had in the past 5 years of being in this market and it was cold calls inbound saying we're looking to move into this market. And then you know something kind of scary, not scary but, there's some of these people that were like, look I've been waiting for something like this to happen in the economy so that I can take advantage of it and it was kind of tough for me to say, okay, let's not talk about all the bad stuff, let's talk about the good stuff that's happening here. Why we have the best environment for you to come and play in. I hope everybody's safe. Everybody's healthy. But you know, I love for you to live in a 4,000 square foot house nearby here that's being built because we had a light winter, we had way too much farmland and everybody's fielding those discussions and why I'm in business today because there was some Realtors that really couldn't make it through but you know, we're busier than ever. And again, it's tough to describe it but your insights are awesome. Can you tie in a little bit of this with like what may happen next winter, the following winter, things like that? Like I think just my thesis, that we're not going to have an offseason. And you know winter is only one part of it, but you know, you guys hedge your stuff, my wife works at Muhlenberg College so she knows like they're looking at you know, 2027 and 2030 stuff. You must be doing similar things. Could you share any of that?
Michael Keller: Absolutely and I think even just bringing up the education aspects. That brings in a lot of people that might not be on the ground here that would have before. A lot of visitors, students that are studying remotely. I know some schools are bringing freshman only and then allowing the others to do kind of a combination or a hybrid model. We're still going to see interest from people visiting here, between the staycations and I think that visitation is so important because it is that first impression. Few people are going to just pick up and move here. I know that is going to happen and already has happened. Sight unseen, probably found a property, jumped on it as they saw the other properties getting eliminated from consideration. But the more people that visit here and get that first impression, that's when people are...I don't want to say pleasantly surprised, because I don't think there was a negative perception of the region before. There was almost no perception. And then that we're marketing the Lehigh Valley and you have Allentown, you have Bethlehem, Easton, you have the Slate Belt, Nazareth, all these other townships and cities within there that fit under the brand, but not everyone knows that either. So the more interest we can have, the more awareness and I really think there's a huge opportunity for earned media in this Market as many of the publication's in New York are writing about all of the U-Hauls that are coming in. They're all pretty much one way. They're all moving out of the city. You don't see a lot of people moving in at this point. I know what is happening, but that's the narrative that the media is going with right now. So we're going to capitalize on that. We're going to keep telling that story with our diversified economy, with our quality of life. Our open space, our park systems and that agritourism part of it as well. We're able to kind of be insulated in the visitation realm as well. So between the economy, the people visiting here, we are going to see increased growth. I'm of course a realistic optimist in this regard too. So it may be difficult. Our retail and our restaurants are suffering right now. If they can get open back up I think we'll have more opportunities for those groups to succeed through this as well. But that is a challenge we recognize. We're keeping an eye on that as best we can but I think that Lehigh Valley's business Community is level-headed, it's responsible. They are doing everything they can in the right, safe manner to allow people to visit, to spend their time here and not be too concerned about contracting COVID or you know, any health and safety issues that are on the back of everyone's mind right now.
Jeremy Moyer: Makes a lot of sense. So Mike, what is one of the best ways to partner with your group and your initiative because the initiatives are pretty holistic. It's with LVEDC, it's with the Chamber, it's with the Realtor's Association. It looks like it's a rather thoughtful process. So like what can we do, what can our listeners do to get the word out? Because that's...I think that's everybody's goal is to grow our area, to make the area better, bring more amenities in, etc.
Michael Keller: Thank you for asking that. A lot of what we do is try to get other stakeholders to buy into this brand. We have the social media channels. We have these positive stories on the contact page. There's a very simple form that goes directly to my email address and if you can post that too, I'm happy to get calls, emails, whatever you'd like. I want to talk about these positive stories that are happening here, but also embed this video on your website. Embed this guide on your website. Tell your clients, your customers what Lehigh Valley is, what it means to you, and from the investment standpoint how good of an investment it is. I think these products really helped to show that and to help solidify that decision for people. There's...yeah you brought up the partner toolkit, which you can find on our Contact Page. We're asking people to embed this logo on some of their ads. Maybe put it on your website in the footer, link to this page. So you can tell more people about the positive aspects of the region. Jump in on #lvmadepossible on your social media posts, and I'll see them and I'll share the relevant ones that we can. Follow us on Instagram @lvmadepossible to stay in touch with the positive stories that were putting out about the region. You'll see on the partner toolkit there, there's some fun facts that Realtors can use directly talking about the affordability compared to New York, New Jersey, DC, Boston, we have a cost-of-living calculator where it puts Lehigh Valley against these other metros and it's incredible. What we're afforded here in terms of opportunity and space and just quality of life, happiness is not really offset by a high cost of living like some of these other areas. So you'll find that, that's a tool you can use. All of this data that we put out, we ask that people share and use it. And the first step if you don't really know where to start, just hit that Contact Form, get in touch with me and we'll work something out.
Tejas Gosai: It's brilliant and I feel bad that we haven't been as forward as we could. So we'll make up for it by tagging all of our past stuff and over future stuff. We will get it all over the place. We got to....we are running out of time. The last question is the hardest question. And this is how we asked it. What's your favorite restaurant in the Lehigh Valley?
Michael Keller: That's easy. I'm probably going to make some people upset but it's Union and Finch in Allentown. We've been doing a lot of...we have a newborn at home, so we've been doing a lot of takeout as well. We've gone there and dined outside. They're still doing a phenomenal job. The team there is amazing and Ed and Shahnaz, the owners. If you haven't met them yet, they're going to become your best friends when you go in there. They're the nicest, friendliest people, the best food. Check them out.
Tejas Gosai: Listen, this has been probably one of the better interviews we've had. I'm going to ask that you come back on when you got something cool to share in a month or two.
Michael Keller: I would love to come back. I can't thank you enough for having me. Looking forward to reaching out to you in the future and having your audience reach out to me and let's keep this conversation and positivity in the Valley going.
Tejas Gosai: Same thing here. We will spread everything as much as we can. Thank you for taking the time and doing this with us. Greatly appreciated.
Michael Keller: My pleasure.
Tejas Gosai: It's Real Estate Investor MBA. That's my co-pilot Jeremy Moyer over there. We have Mike Keller on the other side. We're sharing all the information and we love the Lehigh Valley. We will see you soon. Cheers.
