[Music] even though was not a Chambers core competency many chambers produce Publications on their own inhouse you've each had experience producing a publication in-house so let me ask you um first we go to Robert uh Robert what compelled you to produce a publication inh house yourself well well two things the first thing is I got tired of hiring outside companies to do the publication and then leaving and in in our industry we've seen it over and over again and so that became a big issue for us the second aspect is I am greedy and I want more money for the CH for the chamber and um you know what we found that uh typically in hiring out salespeople to sell and they don't do as well as doing it inside as somebody that already has the connection and that was a big key and being able to control the whole process really set forth because typically most of your Chambers hear the same story oh you're doing a publication and all the print is out of town or the graphic design all these things is farmed out from outside when you do it in house you get to choose as much as you want or as little as you want being done in your backyard and giving back to your community even financially to the businesses that are members of your organization so it sounds like there was um a number of benefits but um including members in the process or giving members the opportunity to be part of the process or be vendors for the process was important too okay um Kathy I'll come to you last but Josh what compelled you to produce a publication in house well as as we' talked before that this is not a core competency of the Chamber of Commerce the what is a core competency is we know our community um so I think the overriding thing started as a financial reason to look for an alternative because we kind of got burked by one of our companies um at the end of the day so my board was getting skeptical about continuing doing business the same way and then we found a company um that that helped us put a template together to do it so if we could um have a revenue stream a modest Revenue stream is what we projected and a superior product then the board said okay we trust the staff to do it this is where I turned to our project manager because this is a team at the Citrus County Chamber that is um Karen and this is Jay g red managed the project did all the sales so um and and Jade did a lot of work on the content but Financial was the reason why we looked at it but we weren't willing to um compromise on uh a very nice product as as was just pointed out so um that's why we did it and we ended up making twice the money almost three times the money that I budgeted so it turned out to be a win-win for our members and for us and for the partnership that we um had with the um company you can say the company name oh oh what one other thing we control the finances too which was important for my board after getting burned um one time um we control the finances um but have somebody that's coaching us along the way we can pick up the phone with our um consultant and so we like controlling the money so uh and Kathy I want to get to you because you you inherited an in-house project um but one last question for Josh was what kind of trepidation was there what were you thinking oh my gosh we're going to take this all we got to do it all ourselves what was it was there staff burden considerations what what were your thoughts there well um you know chamber stay busy and taking on any kind of a new project um is very difficult and it can really temp um tamper down staff morale because I'm always bringing ideas I'm out of the community and I come back and say we ought to do this we ought to do that so you know this was a big project so you have to determine uh one who who could give us an outline to be successful because we don't know what we don't know so uh we were able to find that um relationship then who on our team um could pull this thing together and do it so you know obviously Karen um we collaborated on is this the right decision for us and um Karen not only met my expectations but exceeded them and then we have our own in-house Public Relation shop communication shop so instead of having an out of town writer write about Floral City or our Festival we we know how to best do that that doesn't mean that we don't need some help and guidance along the way um but but it just worked out very good the trepidation was can we handle this and um we were even taught how to manage our time on this project you know and and so I implemented those things that we were taught and um Karen certainly um adhered to those um she there's no problem with trust from our members they trust her when she brings a product to them it's just time management and so we were able to do all of that and me and we headed out of I say we these Karen mostly and Jade hit it out of the park it did thank you for sharing that Josh Kathy you inherited an house project so you came into it um and there it was tell me tell us about that we used to do two books so we we would have the little visitors guide that was just like half a page or something uh half the book and that went like hot cakes and then we found that the membership directory you know they really didn't want to take it so it was let's put it this way our my um membership and sales director Andrea Arnold is the real hero in making this so successful and of course Jennifer Cook because she's the backup and um Andrea used to say well I feel like I'm selling stale bread you have to eat but it's not the greatest so what can we do and that's what we looked at I mean our key is promoting our members but as the um president CEO I'm also looking at it helps let my membership and sales director make a lot that's going to be terrible English her commission will be a lot more than it she doubled in sales of what she was selling stale bread compared to what we're doing with ued with chamber marketing Partners totally different look people are wanting to be in it um and with her selling more obviously there's more touch points with our members there's a better building of relationships with them so I think it just brought us even closer with our membership and they and then we're making them look good um so they actually appreciate us for something so you you and Josh both have um somewhat larger staff for a chamber how many staff do you have Kathy I have seven and Josh how many do you have I have seven and um an inter and the part-timer during our busy season I see Robert smiling you guys are you you're blessed with having a larger staff Robert you didn't have as many staff when you were Key West and you sold the ads yourself so share with us kind of how what what that created what kind of issues that created for you and how you dealt with them so what was funny yet is as you know we it was me and my marketing person she wrote the you know I hired somebody specifically write articles on staff uh to do that I sold the ads I took pictures um and and things of that nature it would and we did it very quickly um our books probably were done faster than any of your other books because my time time lapse I think we did our projects like within three months on both projects that we did with you and uh it w you know it wasn't difficult because people trusted the staff already so when I sent out the emails they moved really quickly for us um which was a positive um we were able to cut down a lot of costs by doing it that way by just not having a designated salesperson other than me sending out some email blasts and doing follow-up calls um did we have as much sales as I wanted no but it was n a headache to do and we had a great publication at the end the best part I think um was that as we were going through the process and getting the pictures that we needed we didn't trade out hotel rooms and all this other stuff in the process of losing money for somebody else to come in and make a commission that money stayed with us I think and the bigest I think the biggest help that uh having a a partner in this was giving some guidance and the other big thing was finding us a printer that would keep keep our costs low in today's day and age you know print is expensive especially if you're doing glossy and asking for the high-end stuff it's expensive to do and if you don't have those connections and for some of our small Comm communities we don't have those individuals in our backyard we ended up saving gosh over I think over $2,000 by having our partner you find us a printer outside and it was the only thing that we really brought in from the outside and some graphic but you you took care of all the heavy lifting for us so um selling the ads yourself thank you selling the ad yourself um that's typically I mean that's a lot to layer on to a chamber CEO but you're saying that wasn't that big of an issue for you because you had already had the relationships and you were already talking with people it was so you know once you get get the ad slicks ready to go and you have your pricing created sending it out and talking to your board and making a couple call liter I did not spend a ton of time selling okay I didn't because I have a relationship with our members and they trust me because they hired me so when I said hey this is a publication they were jumping very quickly and what was even more fun was after we got the books they were jumping also of where else can we help you distribute those books too it wasn't even me that had to look for dist distribution they came out and said hey we need to push you to do this how do we help you in that process can I add to something Robert said that kind of resonated um Robert mentioned that you helped him find a printer that wasn't local and I know that's one of the perks that you offer to I'm sure every one of us that if we can use one of our Members First you always will price them out and and ask them to help along well we tried to do that and I'm sure everyone listening in chamber world will understand sometimes we just can't use our chamber members um we have a fabulous printing company uh the quality I know Ed was just really wanting to use but the cost was three times as much it was all I know is all I know is that it was pretty much what our profit would have been to make anything and I even went as far to the member to say will you split it with me so that we can work with a member and they said no so sometimes I mean you still have to do business and when it comes I know in our bylaws it's also stated when it's over a certain dollar you're supposed to shop anyway uh of course you wanted to be chamber members but then it does come down to doing business and I really tried hard and that that's another big perk by by doing this on your own but also having a partner that knows the industry if if we would have needed a writer I could have fallen back on on calling my partner and saying hey do you have a writer that's available that could do this luckily most of my stuff my photography everything was done in done locally um with our members and and things of that nature so I brought a lot more of those dollars and that exposure back home no and and you can only do so much um especially in small communities you don't have some of these larger companies but we ended up same thing when we were looking we were looking at even staying within the state for our printer and we found delivery and printing to be better much cheaper to go outside and bring in and did a wonderful job for us and hit our timelines yes said you know yeah that was the other thing we could work and and expand our timelines as we see fit if things aren't going well it's an expansion without someone coming down and going hey this is all the you know my second book wasn't the biger bigger seller than my first year but I had a great book I still made 36% profit 30 % 36% of the income came back to my organization I would say most of you don't get that kind of money back we got that kind of money back by doing it in house that was a big seller for us that we kept most of the money at the chamber so one of the things that you guys were mentioning is yes using a local vendor um It's Tricky like with printing um because a lot of Chambers when they do it themselves they're paying retail they're a one shot so they're they're paying retail rather than having volume discounts um I don't want to pitch us but one of the things that we do is we we consolidate printing from a lot of different chambers around the country through just a handful of of volume printers so we're able to pass those discounts along to our clients there's a question that comes up that can we get a list of the printers they go through us where we're the customer or the printer and that gives us volume buying and and then we just pass that along to our clients or to any chamber actually whether they're a client or not we can just do a print quote but um and that's the trick had a question Ed if I may they wanted to know what software did the various Chambers use to do their own to publish their book did they create the artwork inhouse or was that part of the partnership that was that your company did for them good question um well as far as working with us it's up to the chamber um we can use local vendors that are designers and that kind of St but typically it's our designers that will do the job they know what they need to do they've been doing it for a long time they can get it done really quickly we a lot of times there are members who come up and say we can design we can put together a publication after we start vetting them we realize that they can put a an ad together or a flyer with putting a full magazine style publication together is out of their wheelhouse so I've been surprised we found one that was a member of a board of directors at a chamber who actually does magazine layouts but that was once in 30 years that I've been able to find somebody like that so typically it's through us and um we provide that service but with going back to the printers It's tricky because you want to use somebody local but you're also running a business and you have a budget to meet and you know you if it's a th000 or $2,000 more well okay maybe it's worthwhile to keep it local but if it's $10,000 or more than that that's a real hit to the budget but it is up to the chamber that's that's why this is more attractive yes working with somebody like you because we have all these options we we we can go out and find a local printer if they're competitive we can do more on the publication or you can help us do more on the publication that's what I'm saying we have this freedom and and it takes a lot of pressure off knowing that you've got our back yeah well I sorry you guys I didn't mean to make this about us but to the panels to bringing it up um one of the things I did want to mention is this is a model that works for a number of Chambers this producing it inhouse number of Chambers it really started in the uh late 2000s during that recession of 2008 there were a lot of chambers that were using outside Publishers but with that recession Revenue went down non-d revenue and du's revenue went down so what anecdotally for me was 5% of Chambers publishing in-house went up to like 25% Chambers were chasing the cash and so they started to see that we CH you guys Chambers can sell anything you can sell this space right here for $5,000 a month and I have no clue how you guys are able to do that but it's like Chambers are Master salespeople uh Robert in particular can sell like that right there for a lot of money but um so there was an increase in the number of Chambers producing Publications in house and that's where I think the trend really started to go because it was it was about money and control that said there there aren't that many uh chamber Publishers out there these days but they're they're very good and they do do a very good job and it fits for a lot of different chambers of Commerce it's a traditional model TurnKey model you get the royalty there have been a lot that have gone out of business but a number a lot of Chambers are choosing to do it in-house Josh made that conversion Robert made that conversion Kathy adopted it it's not for everybody but it does work when everything does work right so I just wanted to say that to the audience it's not like we're bashing Publishers out there uh this just particularly fits for this group of panelists I and if I'm sorry and for me it was originally when when I had started working with you had was it was a one and done you were going to train me to do what I need to do and it was going to be my own in-house publication after that that's that was the goal originally when we started working with you what we found was that the money that we did pay to work with you we still saved a ton of money because you were able to shop out the things that I couldn't I couldn't done those Publications inh house the second year the problem is I would have SP still spent a ton of money on print I would have spent way more money on graphic design because we were pricing those things out because we were able to to partner with you you kept us on track you helped us through you gave us ideas to Think Through on how to sell and what account add into the publication but we had full control you never said hey you should do an article like this none of that we knew what we wanted to do and it was very easy for us to go and when we had an issue we' go Ed we got an issue here do you got it something to back up on this I knew that no matter what I was going to have a publication come out and it was either way it was a nice safety net for us I if I could add one of the things we forget is our time that you get so involved in doing this when the one I inherited our from the first year I was here one of the staff I mean was so focused on putting this on that she was a mess and God the rest of the team would come in and not want to be near her and then you you know then you try to do your job and do that at the same time so I I was I lost double the person because of all the time lost lost from doing her job someone else had to do it um and then just the stress among the team to it was too much so and and not everyone had to be involved because sometimes more hands in the pot I forget how that goes I don't cook so um doesn't make a good meal but um too many cooks in the kitchen that's what it is see I don't I don't spend much time in the kitchen proud to say that but um by not doing that it's really nice to just say Ed make us look good and honestly when we the first book we were putting um Square here Square here Square here Square here no wonder why no one wanted to look at it we didn't want to look at it so when you start looking at how things are laid out now because of your expertise we love looking at our book our guide is something we're proud to carry around and hand out so time is money and um whatever it's costing us to use um chamber marketing do it's just Priceless in its own way because we are making money so you can't beat that gosh okay thank you yeah we weren't asking for that but thank you um well let's uh we're at um 50 minutes in let's take some time to take some um questions from the audience um Tammy or Steve do we have any questions coming through well we had one question that says what exactly do you mean by doing it on your own does that mean the design or just selling the ads and writing the content well that's a really good question so um in doing it on your own means at least in our vernacular the chamber becomes the publisher which means there's not typically in the traditional model there's a publisher that comes in sells the ads does the Articles gets some articles from the chamber get some photos database um prints it delivers it all the the advertisers all pay the the publisher s