The Ideal Chamber - Holiday 2009 Edition

Welcome to the Ideal Chamber -- This is a newsletter written by former Chamber Executive, Mary Kurek, for Chamber of Commerce leaders. Each issue contains advice for solving staff, member, and board problems, ideas for producing income and boosting membership, and useful tips from fellow Chambers. If you'd like to be e-mailed when fresh issues are available, contact mary@marykurek.com with name, Chamber name, and e-mail address. Thanks. Mary

This issue will run for the entire holiday season. I've decided since we've expanded our readership now to over 400, I'd extract from some early issues the best ideas and pool them into this issue to help you and your members out. But, I'll kick off this issue with a simple list you can offer your members via your own holiday e-mail or newsletter. Here it is:

15 Ways to Make the Most of Your Holiday Business by Mary Kurek, Visibility Consulting
Your Reprintable Article

1. Boost Customer Service (Have employees wear holiday attire and special holiday nametags. Train them to offer to hold items at the counter. Have them learn to "pay compliments" and jot personal thank you notes on receipts.

2. Attach your business to a charity during the holidays. Co-promote and give a % back to the charity.

3. Offer holiday refreshments on high traffic weekends.

4. Offer gift wrapping.

5. Offer in-house babysitting or children's entertainment corner.

6. Create a special rest or seating area of spouses of shoppers.

7. Offer free delivery.

8. Offer shipping.

9. Create a frequent shopper strategy - progressive percentage off or a special gift that graduates in value with each $50 purchase.

10. Hold an open house with specially packaged items and Santa with a "helper elf" to assist younger shoppers.

11. Hold a holiday sweepstakes, raffle, scavenger hunt, guessing game, or contest.

12. Bombard customer senses with visuals, aromas, music, and interactive displays.

13. Show the savings a customer receives at purchase (pointing out dollars saved is a winning idea used by many big department stores).

14. Institute a "check-out strategy" that could include a coupon on the receipt, pre-wrapped stocking stuffers at the register, buy 2/get 3rd free, or pick an ornament for a mystery % off. (Collect names/e-mail addresses)

15. Cross promote - create collaborations with complimentary businesses to include fliers in bags and in-store posters.

16. Have holiday candies at the register to draw attention.

17. Send out special customer Christmas cards with hand-written notes and offer a % off.

18. Send out a holiday newsletter with recipes, stress reduction tips, and local events.

19. Produce your own gift giving guide/catalog.

20. Hold a special customer/employee dinner or brunch where everyone contributes. Great bonding.

---------------------------------------

Now, here comes some of the best Ideal Chamber Ideas and Resources from 2009

Reprintable Article
Chamber Spring Cleaning

It is spring, and many of you are working on streamlining your operation and reinventing your Chamber. I have some critical advice for you in regard to your virtual office. In our promotion of The Ideal Chamber, we visited every Chamber web site in each state where we have campaigned. The e-mail that was sent out to each Chamber came directly from that Chamber site, not an outdated directory. I realize that those of you who are subscribers to this newsletter actually received our e-mail, however, there were many Chambers whose e-mails bounced back. Since a bad e-mail address is a closed door, and we want all doors open to prospects, I wanted to share a list of items that could help in spring cleaning your virtual office.

a) Change info-at e-mail addresses to a real person. Visitors feel more comfortable that they will get a response from a warm body.

b) If your Chambers e-mail address is attached to a free e-mail account, such as hotmail, get it changed to a more professional-sounding domain-specific address.

c) Unless you need to collect names and addresses of site visitors to sell to members, get rid of extensive contact forms that studies have shown annoy site visitors. The only time it is acceptable is when you are giving away something to the registrant. If you must have a form, include a warm-body e-mail address for those who just want to ask a question.

d) Add membership applications, ambassadors club info sheets, board of directors criteria, sponsor forms, new business resource lists, and anything that facilitates a process and keeps your visitors on the site longer.

e) Google your Chamber name occasionally and see what incorrect information is still on the Internet, such as physical addresses, site links, staff, and more. Correct, where you can.

f) Institute an About Us page (if you do not have one), with staff photos and e-mail addresses. Builds trust.

g) If you have an old web site out there with an active domain – have it forwarded to the new one.

Income Producing Ideas:

# 1) Actually, this first idea comes from a church. Each year, this church makes about $3,000 on a Superbowl Party. They secure donation of a space, large screen television, two recliners, beverages, and a pig. They throw a pig picking with trimmings and desserts provided by the ladies of the church and sell tickets for the event, selling out each year. At the event, they raffle tickets for 15 minutes in a recliner in front of the big screen.

#2) Claim your location/city on Twitter, similar to what you see I've done here. You can and should post to your followers a few times a day. You should interact daily by praising them, sharing resources, and answering questions. Once you've built a healthy following, you now have a product. And, when you have a product, you have income potential, whether you use it for sponsored tweets on occasion or use it as a benefit for membership, tweeting about them regularly. I allow for minimal sponsored tweets in my atlanticbeachnc Twitter account -- I have a sponsor during the holidays, and I have a regular real estate sponsor that pays $100 a month for one tweet a day w/ a link to his web site. I frame up the tweets appropriately and schedule them from http://www.hootsuite.com. If you can think of a way to accomplish this with your membership without compromising the value of your Twitter account, then it could be some easy income (much like how you charge for a member to have a web site link on your Chamber site.)

Getting the Most From Institute

If Institute is a fairly new concept to your board of directors, don't expect them to truly understand the value you'll be bringing back to the Chamber. A good idea, after each year, is to come back with a short list of the best ideas you gathered while there, and share them with the board through a special report at the next board meeting. Here's a few such ideas that other executives have mentioned that they brought back and instituted at their Chambers:

-policy manual
-ambassadors club applications
-job descriptions for board members
-spelling bee fundraiser
-military affairs committee
-hire an expert to run the board's long-range planning retreat
-prepare for an IRS audit before it becomes an issue
-election criteria for board members
-referral e-cards sent from Chamber to members when Chamber makes a referral
-Chamber going "green" with less paper (no more mailed newsletters, election ballots, etc.)

Chamber Resources:

Chamber Industry Career Web Sites List (Chamber Jobs)

In A Down Economy, Engagement Matters, 4 Tips to Boost Your Efforts

10 Ways to Keep Uncle Sam From Taking Your Self Employment Income (An articlesbin.com article)

Rhode Island Chambers Hold a State After Hours and Business Expo

Sauk Valley Chamber Virtual Candidates Forum

From the Charlotte Chamber: Twitter Your Chamber for Massive Growth

East Portland Chamber Starts Business Blog to Showcase Their Members

Why Shop Local? (Article by President of the Logan County Chamber of Commerce)

How One Local Coffee Shop Used Twitter to Double Their Clientele (Pass to your small biz members)

ChamberFIX

Q: How do I handle a Chamber crisis instigated by a staff member?

A: This is huge, and something that cannot be handled without knowing more, but to get things rolling in a good direction, I will give the first step that I would advise.

People will forgive if you acknowledge the situation, apologize for it (if necessary), correct the situation, (if possible), indicate the lesson learned, and move on. That is leadership. Board should prepare a statement. Decision should be made about who is the right one to be the spokesperson (not in every case should it be the paid staff). Determination should be made by board as to whether the situation calls for a news release or a press conference. Be unified, be confident, be supported, and be timely. Then, let it go. Do not camp out in the situation.

Dear Chambers: most of you probably never wander past the Ideal Chamber page on my site, but, what you may not know is that I continually update the Viz Witch blog and the Home Page blog with business information that could be useful to you and your members. You can RSS feed any of the pages on the site with a click of the button at the orange button at the top so that you'll know when fresh content is available.

Happy Holidays to you and your family and your members, and here's to a renewing and prosperous New Year. Mary