Pittsburgh Firms Should Seek National Visibility
By Steven Alschuler on January 22, 2015
In a recent conversation with the general counsel of a middle market, private equity funded company, based in Pittsburgh, the GC expressed some frustration over his board’s insistence that he only use New York-based law firms. Firms in Pittsburgh were certainly capable of meeting the company’s needs, he said, but simply didn’t have the luster of the New York firms with which his board was familiar.
Pittsburgh is rapidly gaining recognition among national business and media audiences as a city on the move and hot spot for growing companies. These include entities that are be based in Pittsburgh, but serve markets around the world. They include companies that may have been founded here, but that now have grown to the point where they need to raise equity or debt through either national institutions or public markets. Or they may include businesses that are based elsewhere, but have come to Pittsburgh because of its many attributes: world-class universities that provide a highly skilled workforce, relatively low housing costs, excellent healthcare and cultural institutions that enhance its quality of life.
How do entities like those define themselves? What motivates them? How and where do they receive information and consume news? How should a Pittsburgh-based firm market to them? What tactics will elevate, define and help build an aura of credibility for anyone seeking to communicate with those potential clients?
