Are You Maximizing Your Chamber (And Other Association) Memberships?

[HouseGirl]

I'll admit. I'm obsessed. I wake up every morning with one thought, "Where do my prospective clients congregate and am I involved there?"

As many of you don't know I work part-time in an office that provides basic bookkeeping and payroll preparation services. We also offer tax preparation services and are in our third year of service in a very small tight knit community.

My boss (and the owner of the business) was a member of the local Chamber of Commerce but never attended any events.

When I decided to branch out on my own I began attending every event on his behalf and although I often introduced myself as Leslie with Tried & True Tax (not the real name) I also began sharing some tips, tricks, and techniques on what we did to market on a no-cost, low-cost basis. It was a very popular topic.

I also offered to contribute content to and create classes for the local Chamber of Commerce, the Small Business Development Center, the local community college and anyone else who might need a speaker. I created content for a seminar on federal and state energy tax credits and offered it to the local solar energy association. I created content on the various versions of the new homebuyers' credit and offered to speak in local real estate offices. I offered seminars to in-home daycare providers through the local daycare providers association and the agency that administers the federal food program with which many of them are registered. I created content and columns for any and all of their newsletters (most of which I have or will re-purpose on our own websites). PLUS we used the same content to educate our own seasonal staff AND prepared handouts for the organizations/associations to keep on hand for their clients and customers. All we asked was that we be allowed to place a "Courtesy of: Tried & True Tax with our phone number at the bottom should their clients need further complimentary consultations.

People told us that we were crazy to "give away" all that good advice.

Guess what happened?

People started coming in to the office to get their taxes done. And their books done. And their payroll done. They started calling with questions and requesting resources. Other offices began referring their overflow clients to us and one of the local CPA's began requiring that all their seasonal preparers attend our annual 10-week certification course all because "they'd heard good things about us and found that their preparers were better prepared after taking our course".

And (for the most part) we did our work accurately and on-time and when we didn't we said we were sorry and offered to make it right.

So we started getting referrals.

Now please understand there are approximately 980 members in our local chamber. Less than 100 of those are actively involved. Of those 100 25% are newly minted members and overly excitable. They tend to fall by the wayside fairly quickly which leaves us with 75 potential promotional partners that we choose to develop by continually asking one simple question, "How can we help?"

How about you? Where do your potential clients congregate and are you involved there?

Leslie

[kelvin brown]

My local chamber is rather small as well. 600 plus members.
We had a networking dinner last night. My target yes, but only about 30 people showed up, 15 who are regulars.

Like you, I would guess the active members are around 10%.

The good news, even with low numbers is a larger potention for building stronger relationships, with the regulars.
Even if the regulars never need our services, they know others who may, in because of our relationships, they tend
to recommend us.

kelvin

[kelvin brown]

cross post:

Ok, i have been testing the directory and was slow on data entry.

Well, as a chamber member I have access to all the businesses basic info.
The format is like this:

Tulsa Connect
321 S. Boston, Ste. 601 (918) 584-1100
Tulsa, OK 74103
• Internet Providers
• Computers Products & Services
• Web Publishing
• Information Systems Integration


===================================

So, i have the name, physical address , phone, and category.
I know longer have to type it all, I can do cut and paste, will make it tremendously faster. I expect to have all this done next month.
And as soon as it is done, i expect to start sending physical notices to each business, about updating and or upgrading their listings.

The chamber has 600 businesses. So, in short as of next month, I will have without a doubt the best local directory online. I still need
to sell the businesses on paying for listings. ONce I have the listings, it will not take long to get them spidered, and that of course
will bring the consumers, searching for local biz.

YOur thoughts:

I was going to try to start out selling $50 to $100 a premium listings.

But now, i am considering not even adding a URL to the very basic listing. And charging say a one time fee (annual) of $10 to add their URL.

The reasoning is just to get them in the mood. And still make the upsell to full page ad. But at $5 to $10, that should be a no brainer, no barrier, and make it even easier to upsell.


Here you can see at the top of the page the very basic listing:
http://muskogeedirectory.com/category/misc/

And the first thing you notice is a white space for image, where most other listing have a color image of their URL.
I am setting up a page for those without a website, that references that fact, and says click here to claim your listing.


Kelvin

[kelvin brown]

Chamber update:

Nothing 100%, yet.

But it was the local chamber that asked me, today to submit a proposal to help manage social media.

Now, I don't expect them to pay the rates of a normal client, however, as I know I will do a good job, I expect to start getting
regular referrals from the Chamber, though other chamber members.

I have spent the last 19/20 months building a relationship with the chamber, and being very active.
So, active, that in January, I received the Ambassador of the Year award, for 2010. If the proposal is excepted, it will have
all been more than worth it.

kelvin

[klittle]

Leslie asked this question.

Where do your potential clients congregate and are you involved there?

The chamber is a popular answer.

How about other places?

What other places come to mind to answer Leslie’s question that we can go and get involved in?

Thanks

Keith

[kelvin brown]

Hi Keith,

I am also involved in civic groups which tend to have business owners as members.

Locally there are a couple of other smaller groups. You can check with meetup online to see what groups are in your areas.

kelvin