Del Boyette Rides the Zoom Boom

Kay Stebbins, left, director of research and analytics for Boyette Strategic Advisors, discussing projects with Research Associate Brock Hyland and Research Managerand Reteisha Byrd last week in Little Rock.

Del Boyette doesn’t like talking about the past but even he will admit that 2020 held a stunning twist.

Boyette is the CEO of Boyette Strategic Advisors in Little Rock, and he has been providing economic development consultations to companies and municipal organizations for 16-plus years.

In pandemic-plagued 2020, he thought shutdowns would hammer his business. Who could he advise if nobody could meet? Then came the shock.

“Business is better than it has ever been, to be totally honest,” Boyette said. “We had our best year in 2020, and we are on track to have even a better year this year. If you had ever told me that would be the case when I sent everyone home on March 13 …”

Boyette didn’t finish his thought, but he counts himself as fortunate. About five years ago, a client he met in Cambridge, Massachusetts, told him about Zoom, the videoconferencing platform.

Boyette had never heard of Zoom, but experience has taught him to research new ideas. So he went back to his office, dug into Zoom and made using it a company practice.

When the pandemic forced companies and consultants to work remotely, Boyette and his seven employees were old pros.

“We would have never been able to deliver the word we delivered in 2020 if we were all traveling like we typically do,” Boyette said. “Does that make sense? You spend so much time on the road, but because we were not traveling, we were Zooming.

“We had used Zoom and were used to it. We literally started doing everything over Zoom. It enabled us to still collaborate and still innovate to serve clients and make better use of our time.”

Personal Touch

Boyette, 63, has been in the economic development game for decades, notably as the head of what is now known as the Arkansas Economic Development Commission from 1993 to 1997.

Boyette also worked as deputy commissioner for economic development of the Georgia Department of Industry, Trade & Tourism and in private business with KPMG and Deloitte. Boyette, who was born in Newport, returned home to Arkansas and started BSA in 2005.

Del Boyette

Economic development consulting appears, on paper, to be mostly about numbers: available workforce, population base and demographics, and tax breaks and incentive awards. But Boyette knows better. He knows that his business is all about people.

That’s one reason why he was in a mini-panic when travel was shut down. If he couldn’t meet, he worried he couldn’t relate and business would suffer.

In the early days of the pandemic, Boyette ordered a stack of cocktail napkins from caterer Judy Adams in Little Rock.

Boyette went home and wrote a personal message to all his clients that read “For your Zoom cocktails. The best is yet to come. We will get through this.”

For Boyette, the idea was just a way to fill downtime and give him something positive to focus on. With typical thoroughness, Boyette looked up his clients’ home addresses since no one would be at the office.

“I was trying to find the best place in the house to sit; I didn’t have anything else to do and was too worried about everything else,” Boyette said.

“I’ll be durned but they started inviting me to their Zoom cocktail parties. It was just a crazy marketing idea.”

Later, Boyette sent 100 coffee mugs to clients, mugs that quoted humorist Art Buchwald: “Whether it is the best of times or the worst of times, it is the only time we have.”

“We were in such unusual times and relationships are so important, now more than ever,” Boyette said. “It was two crazy ideas, but it enabled me to do something to relate to the people who have given us the opportunity to do work for them.”

Boyette and his company have clients across the nation, many who have been with him for years, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority and Florida Power & Light.

When Boyette reads off a list of companies and organizations for which BSA is doing economic development strategic planning, a listener could use a map to follow.

“It is a heck of a lot of work,” Boyette said. “We do good work, quite honestly. We may be a little consulting firm located in Little Rock, but we do some really good work. I think we are the best there is at what we do. The reason we have been able to get through these times in a positive way is we just keep plugging along doing the right thing every day for our clients.”

Many of his clients swear by Boyette. James Chavez has known him for more than 25 years and called on his old friend when the South Carolina Power Team needed an economic plan on short notice in late 2013.

Chavez is the CEO of the organization, which is the economic development team for a cooperative of 20 South Carolina utility companies. Boyette came up with a plan quickly that included a $52 million site readiness fund, at the time a new concept.

“Guess who had to put their job on the line for that? Me,” Chavez said with a laugh. “We had a couple of heavy conversations about that. I trusted Del.

“I said, Del, this will never work. Dang if it didn’t. To say that we have been successful would be a crazy understatement. It was based on an exceptional strategy.”

Chavez said he has a team of nine and each of them thinks Boyette is a dear friend.

Boyette routinely sends birthday gifts, small but thoughtful gifts, to children of his colleagues.

“He has a gift I don’t think many people have,” Chavez said. “If he didn’t deliver good work, we’d just be good friends.”

Years ago, Boyette said a client told him that he didn’t care at all about Boyette’s past accomplishments. He only cared about what Boyette could do for his organization that day and the next, and that philosophy stuck with Boyette.

“What I focus on is continuing to innovate on new areas on a daily basis and doing things differently than we did them last week,” Boyette said. “I love what I do. I love the work. I love the clients.”

Chavez said Boyette’s plans are always unique, tailor-made for each client. He and his team meet with each stakeholder so everyone has the feeling that their input was heard, Chavez said.

“He makes it personal; it’s not going to be cookie-cutter,” Chavez said. “He is a crazy thinker. He listens and makes everybody feel like they are somebody. That’s why people keep coming back.

“That, and the plans work.”