You probably have
used various versions of software for your computers. You know AOL 7.0, 8.0,
Publisher 2.0, 3.0, etc, etc. Well, I would like to introduce you to Your Chamber Connection 2.5.
That’s
right, YCC 2.5.
While you might do your membership drives
in-house over 2 to 6 weeks or bring someone in for 4 or 5 days or longer, our
Membership Events are done in 2-1/2 days with over 90% of the member
investments collected and in your bank. Unlike some companies, we get paid on
what we put in the bank during those two to three days we work with the
volunteers, not what comes in over a longer period of time.
Know what we don’t do? We don’t give you
references! Instead we invite you or your board members to pull up our website
and call any body with whom we have worked. We suggest you call those with whom
we have had Membership Events in the last three years because we have changed
so very, very much since starting almost 13 years ago.
In the beginning, we did membership
drives. Now we do Membership Events, or as one volunteer told us, “You
may call it a Membership Event, but really it is a Membership
Experience!”
YCC 2.5 is your Chamber’s
Event and your Volunteers’ Experience!
DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT
THIS TIME DEPT: Are your banquets boring? Does your
banquet need just a little something different?
Or does it need a total overhaul?
While running very successful Membership
Events over the years,
the one thing we’ve often heard is, “We need help with our
banquet,” or “It’s been the same thing year after year”.
Are you looking for a change? Do
you just need someone to fire up the crowd and get them laughing while still
thinking community and Chamber? Or do you need a whole
new program, look, and feel? Well we can
help! It can be as simple as a
few changes or something more complex.
It’s all up to you!
Everyone should walk away from a banquet smiling, laughing, and inspired
about the community and Chamber. They
should be proud of the community and business they represent. A banquet should be a coming together of
people celebrating the success of their city.
If you want a change or just want to spice
up your evening, give us a call. I’m
sure we can help. And if you’re not sure what kind of response there will be from the attendees,
check our website at www.chamberconnect.com and click the
“Quotes” button. Give some respondees a call, and
they will tell you their experience.
QUESTIONS DEPT: What is the one
thing you hate about
all the traveling you do with YCC?
The answer from both Jimmy and
And
RETENTION DEPT: YCC is making some inroads across the country when it comes to retention. Chamber Executives,
Presidents,
and CEO’s thoughts and ideas on this subject are changing drastically.
“How?” you ask. YCC has been telling our clients for years
now that there is no 100% retention guarantee in our events or in any kind
of membership drive. However, if you
have 50 to 150
business people working a membership event that is truly enjoyable, and they
are EDUCATED on how the chamber works and are knowledgeable about it’s
programs, then that is a form of current member retention. Then when you keep 50 to 85% of the new
members from your successful Event, the chamber ends up ahead of where it was
to begin with!
It sometimes amazes me still when I hear,
“We need members” (which equals $ with which you run your chamber with) but we
don’t want to do a Membership Event because we won’t keep them all. Well, if you didn’t have that opportunity to
get 100 plus new members,
then you wouldn’t have the opportunity to keep them! There is NO guarantee, but like I said
before, your chamber could still be 50 to 85% ahead a year from now. And that, my friend is GROWTH! More importantly, along with new members
recruited the right way, you have a volunteer experience that is 100% positive!
If you have never done a membership event
with YCC, or it has been
at least five years since your last big membership effort,
or maybe it’s something you’ve thought about but just haven’t researched yet,
go ahead and do it! If you
haven’t done it, you can’t knock it! So, do the research. We care about membership, retention, and even
more importantly we care about a volunteer experience that can’t be beat!
BUMPER STICKERS DEPT: Saw this in
CHILDREN DEPT: The
trials of rearing children in a cold climate:
Did you hear about the teacher who was helping one of her kindergarten
students put on his cowboy boots?
He asked for help, and she could see why. Even with her pulling and him
pushing, the little boots still didn't want to go on.
Finally, by the time the second boot was on, she had worked up a sweat.
She almost cried when the little boy said, "Teacher, they're on the wrong
feet."
She looked and sure enough, they were. It wasn't any easier pulling
the boots off than it was putting them on. She managed to keep her cool as
together they worked to get the boots back on, this time on the
right feet.
He then announced, "These aren't my boots."
She bit her tongue rather than get right in his face and scream, "Why
didn't you say so?" like she wanted to. And, once again she struggled
to help him pull the ill-fitting boots off his little feet.
No sooner had they gotten the boots off, when he said, "They're my
brother's boots. My mom made me wear 'em."
Now she didn't know if she should laugh or cry, but she mustered up the grace
and courage she had left to wrestle the boots on his feet again.
Helping him into his coat, she asked, "Now, where are your mittens?"
He said, "I stuffed 'em in the toes of my boots."
Her trial starts next month....
CHAMBER MANAGEMENT DEPT: The Chamber
“Coach” Theory -
by Jimmy Cusano
Playing competitive football, baseball,
and volleyball, the one thing I can say that has always and will always make a
difference is great coaching. Talent can
only get you so far. It’s that coach
that knows how to use
talent in different situations or how to put certain players with
each other to make a winning combination.
A good coach knows how to position the crafty veteran with the new, young hot shot that thinks he
knows everything and make them work as a team.
In today’s Chamber of Commerce, that is
what the heads of the Chambers have to be able to do. You are the coaches of the organization. Yes, the Board of Directors is the overall
boss that determines what goes on, but a great organization lets the coach,
coach! In today’s Chamber world,
coaching is more important than ever before.
Why? You must deal with Pre-Baby
Boomers, Baby Boomers, Gen-X, Gen-Y, and upcoming Gen-Z business people. Getting all these different types of people
together on the same page is tough, but that’s what has to happen
through your Chamber of Commerce, bringing people together to make a difference
in your city. Whether it be Economic Development, Government Affairs, or Networking,
Chambers should always be leaders, and you, the Coach, must keep it all
together.
Someday when I’m tired of traveling across
the country running membership events (which I would love to do forever), I would like to have
the opportunity to coach. The first
place I will look is a Chamber of Commerce.
I truly respect the loyalty and passion so many of you have for your
careers, and I love working for you when I’m in your city. You give my job that much more satisfaction. You are the coaches of the year in your city.
Have a great 2004!
ON A PERSONAL NOTE DEPT: I am not an early
riser by nature. As a matter of fact, I have an aversion to getting out of bed
before the sun comes up. This comes from a strong belief (a very strong belief)
that when you are born, God gives you a precise amount of air to breathe during
your waking hours. It is a known fact that when you sleep, you take shallower
breaths and conserve oxygen. If you get up before the sun is up, you will be taking
away oxygen from someone who has God’s permission to be on the night shift. I
certainly don’t want to be the cause of someone’s early demise.
I am so happy to
know that social scientists, Abigail Sellen and
Richard Harper conducted and co-authored a study of the Myth of the Paperless
Office. They noted that when people read at work, they use annotating,
cross-referencing, and paper-sorting to tackle complex problems. When only electronic files were used or when papers were filed
away, workers weren’t as effective. Piles of paper, it turns out, serve
as “temporary holding patterns” for ideas in progress. “People with messy desks
don’t have messy heads. Quite the contrary– they’ve taken the mess out of their
heads and piled it on their desks.”
One look at my desk,
and you will instantly realize why Sellen and Harper
are my office idols!
My brother-in-law
once told