Maximize Your Chamber Membership (Should I Join?)

Rob  00:08

Welcome back, everybody to The Slow Pitch, and today we’re going to talk a little bit about how to get the most out of a chamber of commerce membership. I have been asked this question several times throughout the years, and there are several questions that kind of come up along the way, especially when I’m out networking, doing different things, and I thought it might be helpful to just go through some of these questions. So, let’s get started.

V/O  00:31

You’re listening to The Slow Pitch Podcast, a podcast about selling less and closing more.

Rob  00:38

For starters, what is the Chamber of Commerce? What does it actually do for its members? Why should I join that kind of thing? So, the number one question that I always get is like, is it worth joining? You know, if that kind of thing? So, my answer would be this, is it worth joining? The simple answer is, it really depends on the chamber that you’re attending, right?

Rob  00:55

So I have been to several different chambers of commerce, and there are some that are very, good. And then there are some that are not quite as good. And so, I kind of would give you the caution and say you should sample, you should test, you should see which one makes the most sense for you before you would ever know what the right answer is.

Rob  01:16

And also know that people that are members probably not going to tell you, oh, this is not worth it, or it is worth it without some sort of interest of their own right, because they want to make sure that there’s more people there that they can get business from. So just understand that, while I wouldn’t say they’re lying, I think they’re, they’re probably in it for themselves, right? So, you just got to keep that in mind when you ask that question.

Rob  01:39

Next question, is it worth it as a small business? And so, I would say, from a small business standpoint, it usually is worth it. And then the other question that was follows is, well, how much does it cost? I can’t answer that question. And the reason I can’t answer that is because a lot of times every chamber is a little different.

Rob  01:54

They charge it. They charge different for different size companies. They charge for different reasons. So I would say asking the question of the chamber person is going to be your better area to get a cost standpoint, depending on the size of the chamber, it can in range A lot of times, between a couple 100 bucks to 1,000s of dollars. And a lot of times the larger dollar amount is because it’s there.

Rob  02:16

You’re you’re part of a larger company. If you have a lot of employees, you have a lot of people that will be attending, they tend to charge you a little bit more, but most of the time it’s on the low, you know, hundreds, a couple 100, a few 100, and that’s usually worthwhile. I think I would ask you the question, how many leads and how many closes of leads would it take to recoup that dollar amount? And if that dollar amount, or that dollar amount, isn’t so insurmountable, after a couple closed leads, it’s worth probably joining.

Rob  02:44

So the other question is, is like, well, my business is this type of business? Is it worth joining? It based on that. So, if you’re a business that’s a professional services business, or some sort of a business that relates to a need for serving the community in general, or B2B, those two are usually pretty good for somebody to join the chamber.

Rob  03:06

If you’re a manufacturer, maybe it just depends on what you manufacture, right? So, B2B, B2C, typically great situation for those types of businesses to join a chamber. A couple other actionable items that people usually ask me about is, you know, how do I get the most value out of the chamber? Because, you know, every time I go, I don’t get much out of it.

Rob  03:28

Or, you know, those kinds of things where my experience in the past hasn’t been that good. So, I’m going to kind of go through, how do you get the most but it’s going to be kind of over the course of other questions that have been answered as well. And the other thing to keep in mind or think about, is that while you’re trying to get most of the membership value out of it, it’s a long game.

Rob  03:47

So, I think you need to keep that in mind. If you’re trying to recover a whole bunch of value right away, it’s probably not going to happen. There are no quick fixes. It’s like trying to run Google ads. It’s trying to it’s trying to run TV commercials, or it’s trying to just go out and sell people door to door. It’s a long play, right? So, this is one of those same types of things where you’re not going to get value right away, but over time, I guarantee you will, there’ll be value if you do some of these things that I’m about to talk about.

Rob  04:15

So, the first thing that people usually say is, well, what should I do when I’ve joined after I joined? So, the first 30 days, this is the time I think that you should really be just meeting as many people as possible, go to as many events as possible, attend as many things as you can. That would make sense for the people that you’re going to probably get in front of.

Rob  04:36

So, for example, if they have breakfast or have lunches that a bunch of people different, you know, they all go to these types of events. Those are the ones you should go to, and those are the ones you should be networking at. Get there early. Get there early enough to start to network with the people and start talking to a bunch of different people that are that are there and try to get as many different cards as possible. We’re going to talk about that in a second. But what you’re going to want to do is learn as many people as possible and learn what people do.

Rob  05:03

Your job is not during the first 30 days to hand out as many business cards as possible. If you do that, I guarantee you, you will be looked at as not the right type of person at a chamber, and people will avoid you. So do not hand out business cards. Unless somebody asks you for a card, we’ll get into that a little bit more later, but during your first 30 days, it’s critical that you don’t come across that way.

Rob  05:29

So, if you’re not going to give out business cards, how do you network effectively? So, here’s what I always try to do when I go to a networking event. I always try to have three, five questions in the back of my head that I know I can ask somebody to get a conversation started. The basic ones, obviously, are, you know, what do you do? Or, you know, what type of business do you have, or that kind of thing. Those are basic questions. Those types of questions are everybody asks.

Rob  05:56

So rather than asking some of those questions, because I don’t want to sound like everybody else, sometimes my first question is simply, I don’t know enough about what you do, but more importantly, who did you want to meet here and why? And so, what they will do is they will teach me who they want to be in front of. So first they’ll usually go into what they do, and then they can’t usually answer.

Rob  06:15

Most people can’t answer, well, who do I want to meet here? Which is a little bit odd to me, because usually when I go to an event, I know who I want to talk to already. So, if you have a chamber that you attend, and you have a list of people or members that are going to be attending on the website, when you register, you should look through that list.

Rob  06:32

And if you look through that list, see the people that are going to be attending the chamber event, and realize, Oh, here’s somebody that I should talk to that is going to be a target, or one of the targets you have, and you should know that when you walk in the door. And so, when you’re have somebody coming to you, like me, first thing out of their mouth says, hey, who do you want to meet here today? That’s why they attend the chamber, right?

Rob  06:51

You can answer that question first, and guess what? If they’ve been around for a while, they probably know that person, and could introduce you to that person, that would be like gold, right? So that’s one of those things.

Rob  07:01

So know who you want to meet, and then in your first few days that you’re going to be networking out there, you’re going to want to make sure that you have some questions that you can ask people, how did you get into this business? Is another good question I ask while networking at the chamber is, “Well, how did you get into that business? Why are you doing this? What was the driving factor of getting into this business?” And believe it or not, some of that history sometimes comes out, and it’s interesting what people will tell you.

Rob  07:22

You learn a lot about different people, where they came from, why they’re there now, and what they saw as opportunities. Because that’s a little bit fascinating to me. I can dig into some more questions and follow up questions. What did you do before that? Why? Why did you make that shift or change? Why did you join the Chamber? What was the problem that you saw that I don’t understand? You know, explain to me some of that, some more of that kind of thing.

Rob  07:42

Really, what I want to try to do is, when I’m done with that person, I really want to be able to know what they do and who they want to talk to.

Rob  07:49

And so that kind of leads to another question that comes up sometimes, is, when you’re a new member, what are some of the mistakes that you make, or I see a lot of mistakes that are made by new chamber members, and does that cost them opportunities? And what are those things? And so, I said one of those things earlier, which is handing out business cards like free candy, right? If you start handing out your business card willy nilly to everybody, here’s what you’re going to have.

Rob  08:10

Somebody, invariably, is going to say something behind your back to other chamber members about how you just don’t get it, which is, you don’t want to be that person, right? The other thing is, you’re probably going to find your business card laying on the ground out in the parking lot or somewhere in that chamber networking area, whether that’s a restaurant or who knows what, right? You don’t want to have your card laying on the ground where people step on it.

Rob  08:29

Number one, it costs you money. But more importantly, that’s not your image. You don’t be looked at as somebody that’s been stepped on. So don’t hand out all these business cards to everybody. Make somebody ask you for the business card. That’s really, really something that would make a big difference in making you stand out from somebody else.

Rob  08:47

I can’t tell how many chamber events I’ve been to, where I’ve been there, let’s say, for an hour and a half. And never handed out a business card because nobody asked me for it. And guess what? The reason nobody asked me for it was because nobody that I spoke to was interested in what I had to sell.

Rob  09:03

But when I’ve had somebody go, you know what, give me one of your cards I could use that, that’s when I know. I’m likely going to talk to that person again, right? I’m going to at least follow up with them. We’re going to connect again. We may go out for coffee, we may have some more conversations, but that person has some interest. I’m not going to try to sell them.

Rob  09:20

What I might do is, because they’ve asked her a card, I might say to them, I’m happy to hand you one of my cards. What? What should I do next? Like, I don’t want to assume anything. Are you just collecting cards? Or do you think we should ever talk again? What should what’s the reason I should? We should exchange cards. Or if I get their card too, like, in that exchange, I say, you know, let me give you one of your cards as well.

Rob  09:41

And then I might say, would you mind if I just gave you a call again sometime next week, just to touch base again and see if there’s anything else I can help you with? Because that goes a long way in terms of making that connection. And also, in the in the week that comes up I have their card in front of me, I may run into somebody at another networking event where I say, Boy, I need to kind.

Rob  09:59

Connect these two people because they’re good referral sources to each other, which I want to get into in a minute here too. But that’s one of the things that people don’t understand. Is, while everybody’s there to get business, nobody is there to buy, right? And so, as a new member, you shouldn’t be selling.

Rob  10:13

What you should be doing is connecting other people. The more people you connect, the more that they’re going to look at you as somebody who knows everybody, and then more people that you can do that to the more value that you have to the networking, or you know that networking event.

Rob  10:28

Because what ends up happening is, is people start to come to you and say, do you know that person? Or do you know somebody that does this, and that would be a good referral for them, and you become valuable to more people.

Rob  10:38

So the other question that comes up sometimes is, how many events should I go to? Like they have a lot of events. What should I go to? What’s the best ones? What should I do? What should I not do? And I go back to again. It really depends on you. And my initial feeling would be like the chamber that I belong to, one of the big ones that I belong to, they have the best.

Rob  10:57

It’s a breakfast event. It’s 200 people that attend that event. I get to meet at least eight to 10 other people, minimum, every time I go to that event. So, if that’s going to be the case and I’m going to go to that type of event, that would be the one I would recommend anybody go to, right?

Rob  11:12

But if that’s not very productive in that your chamber, find out what the one event is every month that everybody goes to. That’s the one you need to go to, right? That’s how you’re going to get results. The question of how many events you should go to is an interesting question, because some people think you need to go to everything. And yes, you can for a while in the beginning, but after a while, you need to value your own time, and you also don’t want to be the person that’s there everywhere.

Rob  11:41

Every time, everybody knows who you are, and you’re always looking for new business, it kind of comes across the wrong way, right? So, you need to be missing every once in a while, even on some of the big events and big, big things that you should be going to, you should be missing. Just kind of keep that in mind. You know, figuring out which ones are the best ones.

Rob  11:56

In the beginning, you should be hitting as many as you can. But after a while, find the one, two, maybe three, every month that you should be going to that will give you the best bang for your buck, if you will. All right, I think that’s enough for this time, because I think there’s a lot more to go into in the next episode.

Rob  12:10

What I’d like to do is kind of get into a little bit more of the advanced stuff and some of the ways that you can introduce yourself. And, you know, what are some of the things that are political, that happen at the chamber? What are some of the roles you can take on, or things you can do? I think that would be helpful to get into how that can drive business for you later.

Rob  12:28

So I think we’re going to get into that in the next episode.

Rob  12:30

If you found this episode to be a little bit helpful for you because you’ve not been involved in a chamber, I would highly recommend sharing this with somebody else who also might need this information. It’s amazing how many people don’t know this. And I wish more people knew this, because trying to network at a chamber event or other events can sometimes get a little bit daunting, and I get that, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

Rob  12:52

What are your objectives and of your chamber membership, and then figure out what are the steps you need to do to get those things accomplished. And we’ll kind of get into some of the more of those advanced things in the next episode, until next time. Next time, Slow Down and Close More.

V/O  13:05

Thank you for listening to The Slow Pitch. Do you have a question about sales call or text your question at (608) 708-SLOW. That’s (608) 708-7569. Or you can email them to Questions@TheSlowPitch.com.

V/O  13:23

Slow Down and Close More