Events & Sponsorships with Rebecca Wildeboer

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability and to correct obvious transcription errors while preserving the meaning of the original conversation.

Episode 51 — Events & Sponsorships with Rebecca Wildeboer
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Rebecca Wildeboer
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.842 Brandon Burton
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
00:14.764 Brandon Burton
And now your host, he is proud of his Eagle Scout. He's my Brandon Burton. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. As my son Brody just mentioned there in the introduction, I am Brandon Burton. I'm your host, and I am proud of my Eagle Scout. my son Brody, he worked really hard and he's still 13 years old and just earned his Eagle Scout, which is pretty impressive for anybody who knows anything about scouting, but
00:44.28 Brandon Burton
He's a very driven young man and set some pretty ambitious goals. And my wife and I are just super thrilled that he attacked those goals and and did such a great job. So I am I am proud of my boy. But thank you for tuning in today. This is episode 51 of Chamber Chat Podcast. And our guest today is Rebecca Wildebor from the Sparta Chamber in Michigan. Rebecca, she lives in a small community just north of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her background that got her into the chamber came from when she opened a small retail business in their downtown and began to notice a lack of vibrancy and activities outside of school and church functions. She also noticed that most of her customers, primarily female, were not from the area and they were looking for places to venture. So like so many rural communities, Sparta was struggling to find revel relevancy. And Rebecca began hosting workshops, classes, and events in her business, and soon people requesting more. As the hospitality and events coordinator at the Sparta Chamber, she takes the same approach to community events as she did in her the events in her business. Rebecca believes people typically don't vacation in their backyard, and that a thriving and inviting community is one that has its own unique identity and attracts visitors who will come. spend and maybe someday live in that community. She sees sponsorship not just as a check to be written in exchange for a logo placement, but as an investment in the overall community, their business as well as their employees and their families. Today, as she is the hospitality and events coordinator, our topic of discussion today will focus around events and sponsorship, which we'll dive into as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsor. Every chamber is looking for new ways to increase their non-dues revenue. Has your chamber found a good affinity program? I have a great affinity program to offer your chamber that will continue to increase in revenue year after year. I want to introduce you to Swipe It for all of your credit card processing needs. Swipe It has a unique affinity program that 1.
03:08.354 Brandon Burton
Helps your chamber members be more profitable, and three provides recurring nondues revenue to your chamber. To learn more, please visit chamberchapodcast.com slash C C for credit card. Again, Chamberchap Podcast dot com slash C C and get swiping with swipe it. Alright, Rebecca, we are back. Thrilled to have you on the show today. Why don't you please take a moment to just say hello to the audience and if you would share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.
03:45.058 Rebecca Wildeboer
Well, hi Brandon. Thank you for inviting me to be on your podcast. I also am a mother of four children, and I love that your son is taking an interest in what you're doing. I have children that have an entrepreneurial spirit, and my youngest, as a matter of fact, works here at the chamber and she started working here before I did. She's made it through high school and college. So it's fun to work with your kids.
04:14.286 Brandon Burton
That's awesome. I not many people can say that, that they work with their kid at the chamber, but that is that is pretty neat. sure it helps that relationship, hopefully, and not not stresses it.
04:27.798 Rebecca Wildeboer
I sometimes think she is my left and right arm. So I have to remind myself that when we go home she doesn't get to be all four limbs. So
04:38.754 Brandon Burton
That's right. well, can you take a moment, just share with us a little bit about the Sparta Chamber of Commerce size, location, budget, things like that, so listeners can relate a little bit better to your perspective and where you're coming from in your chamber.
04:54.606 Rebecca Wildeboer
So our current membership sits at about a hundred and seventy, and it is extremely varied. So Sparta is a bedroom community just north of Grand Rapids, and we have a mix of small mom and pop style businesses, along with strong global manufacturing and heavy agriculture. So we are situated in the heart of the apple production. Community in Michigan. So our budget, of course, varies depending on sponsorship for each year, as well as the fluctuating number of members that we have. Our events budget is actually larger than I would say our chamber budget because we focus so heavily on trying to draw traffic into the community. for those people to make a spend at our businesses.
05:58.59 Brandon Burton
All right. So I'm curious as I went through your bio, what was your what was your business downtown that you had before becoming part of the chamber there?
06:09.432 Rebecca Wildeboer
Sure. So we my friend and I opened a small coffee shop and it was attached to a building that was functioning as a consignment shop. And we were open maybe three weeks when the consignment shop owner decided they wanted out and out in a hurry, and my partner's husband passed away. So we were sitting in this very little coffee shop that had been fully dependent on the consignment shop for business. And we were in a lease and we looked at each other and said, we have no idea what to do. And at that time, I had been selling on eBay for quite some time. And I said, Well, you know, we have the space. I'm just going to bring my inventory from home here and we're going to build on it. Now my background was actually in decorative painting. I did that for about mm twenty years at that time. So I was pretty confident that that I could refinish furniture and resell it. So that's what I started to do was vintage and antiques home goods and then I did custom furniture while we had the coffee shop.
07:26.816 Brandon Burton
Wow. So just a little bit of several things. Yeah.
07:30.034 Rebecca Wildeboer
Very very typical for a small, you know, town business. You do whatever you need to do to get people in your door and to keep the doors open. So that's how we functioned.
07:39.414 Brandon Burton
That's right. Very good. So as we move on to the the topic for our discussion today around events and sponsorships. Okay. Why why is this topic so important to you?
07:53.614 Rebecca Wildeboer
Well, because I was running that business, I noticed a lack of traffic, foot traffic and vibrancy in my community. And I felt that there were things that could have been done I don't like to use the word better, but different. And I started to recognize through networking opportunities with other like business owners that they were running into a little bit of the same problem if they were in a rural area and what they were doing to get people to come stay and make a spend was they were running indoor or excuse me in-store events and they were very, very focused. They weren't just random sale events. They were extremely specific. So I started reading and doing research about boutique events and what I soon discovered was that they are a huge draw. You're speaking to one particular group of people who has an interest in X. And once you are able to build a following of people who are interested in whatever that you know that hobby or interest is, they tend to be repeat either class takers, event attendees, whatever that looks like. And it was just a natural progression for me to take what I learned running my business and getting people to come in, whether it was a painting class, a writing class, or even using the coffee shop side as a meeting space to really focus on bringing that same type of people depending on the event into the community for all the b excuse me, for all of the businesses to benefit.
09:48.846 Brandon Burton
I love that you didn't just sit back and hope something would better your situation there, but that you took some initiative and created these classes and things to bring in the people and to kind of evolve that to where you are today at the chamber and continue developing those events and things that help bring people in. I think that's a great lesson that even business owners that are listening. I know some some business owners come across this as well, but Take some action into your own hands if things aren't exactly how you'd like and not just rely on others or rely on the chamber to fix it. But there at the Sparta Chamber, can you give us some examples of some events that you guys do get behind and and kind of what those look like?
10:38.168 Rebecca Wildeboer
Sure. So one of the first things that I noticed when I started working here was that Sparta, like many rural communities, had a huge absence of either college students or people who maybe had an interest in things that were, I'm gonna say non-uh agriculture or non-traditional based. So I asked my kids who would be self-proclaimed geeks or nerds, and they were all in college or high school at the time. I said, would you guys stay and work here? And they all said no, that it was too small, too boring, nothing to do, nothing that would interest them. You know, they weren't into farming and tractors or you know, just very you know, everything that would say rule my kids were not interested in. And I said, Okay, well, what would I need to do to get people like you to at least come visit? And my youngest daughter, their avid reader, said, Well, you need to do something with Harry Potter, because all of my friends are into Harry Potter. Okay. And I said, Okay, well, let's make that happen. So my oldest daughter called her friends. They were, I think Probably sophomores in college at the time. And my other three kids called their friends. And we had a meeting in my living room that night. And we planned a festival around Harry Potter to speak exactly to that missed demographic. That's what we did. We ran a Harry Potter festival for five years, not because I have this passionate feeling towards Harry Potter, but what I did recognize was the same thing I recognized in my shop was that.
12:16.91 Brandon Burton
That's awesome.
12:31.104 Rebecca Wildeboer
The group that is missing is willing to come if you provide a reason for them to be there. And the first event I think drew it was very, very small budget, probably a few thousand people. But, you know, by last year, you know, we were able to capture about six thousand people and from all over the world. I think we had people from every state. many different countries. And yeah, it was a it's a great event. We chose to not continue it this year because we have something else that we would like to do that is a little bit more diverse, but the same concept that if you can look at we already know who's there, right? I think each community or business needs to do kind of like a SWOT analysis. You figure out what you have and then look for the holes. And if you can just improve, make a 1% improvement on what you're already doing, and then look at a targeted way to fill in those missing gaps, you're just providing a new reason for somebody to come or stay. And that's really all the Harry Potter Festival did. And then I took that same approach and applied it to absolutely everything. What can we do that no one around us is doing to attract a certain demographic? And will those people Spend money when they get here.
13:59.522 Brandon Burton
So how do you go about trying to figure out which demographic you want to attract?
14:04.514 Rebecca Wildeboer
Well, so I tend to look at the businesses. Well, for Harry Potter, I knew that what I was looking for were people who had families who maybe wanted to live or visit here. maybe they would be willing to travel a few minutes outside of Grand Rapids to discover a place in the country. you know, could they come in if they lived, you know. 20 minutes away, would they make a second trip back here if they drove past a restaurant that they didn't know was here? Up until that point, if you were say into reading or into movies, we don't have a bookstore, we don't have a movie theater, we don't have a dance club, you know, we didn't have anything that would appeal to your average college student or you know, we'll say Harry Potter fan. Science nerd, whatever that looked like, we had nothing. So what I was trying to do was to provide an outlet for those people to come and hope that once they got here, they would discover something that I was unaware would appeal to them. Appealing. You know, I just wanted them to drive by something and recognize that there was something here that would appeal to them or. Would they be willing to come back to future events because they liked our community?
15:30.582 Brandon Burton
So in using this example with the the Harry Potter event, how did you go about reaching out to that demographic to try to attract them? Were you just hitting some of the bigger surrounding cities or I mean, what did that scope look like as far as where you're trying to draw them in from?
15:49.454 Rebecca Wildeboer
So what I did was admit that I didn't know what I didn't know. And I utilized my kids and their friends. And I said, How do I talk to you? If I need to talk to more of you, how do I talk to you? And really, you talk to the people who who are interested in it, and they will give you all their answers. So we sat down and we set up a specific Facebook page for the event. And my kids started sharing about it and they would tweet. I was not on Twitter, but they tweeted about it. And I let them do the heavy lifting because they liked it. They were interested in it. And by year number one, the Facebook page had a huge following. And even this year, we announced that we would not be continuing that particular event. The page itself still has Close to 9,000 followers. So it just started to grow organically. And here's the beautiful thing when you run a niche type event, those people will talk to each other and they will promote for you because they will invite their like-minded friends. And it will just kind of grow organically. So we have a we always had a very small advertising budget for it. And we sell tickets. And I worked with nonprofits. So then the nonprofits would also do the heavy lifting. And they have turned out to be some of our best supporters because we are were able through a very low cost event to get them on board and to provide an opportunity for them also to generate awareness about their cause.
17:37.1 Brandon Burton
Now, how were you able to through this event specifically involve the your chamber members, the the business community?
17:45.602 Rebecca Wildeboer
Right. So what we did is look at ways that the chamber businesses would actually fit into the theme. And we had one bar in town or brewery in town and we asked them if they would create a Harry Potter esque menu for the day. special Butterbeer. And then we got the Grand Rapids Food Truck Association involved. And they would do they did a food truck rally and we just asked the businesses who chose to participate to step into the theme. And then you know, that event was successful and it grew. But what it really did was lay a foundation for every subsequent event for the businesses to see how if you stay and you're willing to work within this. event theme, you know, everyone can win. And I just applied that same concept to, you know, all we run many events and festivals here. and and we we do this with every single one. This is I set a theme. That's how I solidify the sponsorship. I let them know the theme is going to be X this year. This is what we are going to do. This is you know, who our target audience will be, and then I ask them, how would you like to get involved and how can we help your business reach its target demographic through this event and this theme? And what I've discovered is our businesses appreciate having a chance to have freedom within a specific boundary because they don't have to Create a marketing plan. I'm handing one to them. They're busy, they're running their business. I'm just saying, this is what we're going to do. This is when we're going to do it. This is what it's going to look like. And can you think of something small your business can do to fit within the structure of this particular event? So they don't they don't have to develop anything new. They just have to, you know, allow themselves.
20:08.434 Rebecca Wildeboer
a little bit of creative creative freedom within the boundaries that I'm providing for them. So it really removes the burden from them.
20:16.258 Brandon Burton
So were these businesses that chose to participate, did they see an uptick in business or was it mainly around the the event itself? Or I'm just trying to see the the overall effect into the community, what that looked like.
20:30.392 Rebecca Wildeboer
sure what ended up happening with that event is of course the people who you know traveled from out of state they would come back each year for the other festivals the events that were a little bit closer we started to discover that by tracking through I use event right by tracking through zip codes we were able to see where Certain areas in Michigan were having a higher representation traveling to other events throughout the year. And we started to do things like register to win or, you know, come to this other event with a drawing. And those people who are going to travel more than 20 minutes, you know, they're going to buy gas here, they're going to buy food here, they're going to have to go to the bathroom here. They are going to make a touch at some business in this town. There there's no way around it. so it just worked out really good that the businesses were able to see that on event night or day there would be additional traffic. And what I would say to them is, you know what, this might meet not be the event where your business is going to win. For example, we had a Gus Macker event here, you know, and it draws a particular crowd. That's basketball. And if, you know, basketball players and their families are typically not running in and getting their nails done or their hair done. But if they're spending at the local restaurant and then that waitress is making more tips that day, and then she can take some of her tip money and go get her nails done the next week. You know, that's the local thing. That's where we're providing the local businesses an opportunity to get new money into their business and their employees then can take that and make a local spend. Yeah.
22:37.396 Brandon Burton
Circulates more money into your local economy. That's great. I I like how you mentioned the Facebook group has over 9,000 people. So at some point, if you ever wanted to resurrect the Harry Potter event, you've got a base you can go to. But I was gonna ask about how you went about selling the tickets. So use an Eventbrite. If you're able to so you're able to capture some more data and information from these people. So you could reach out to them as you have other festivals and things that
23:05.602 Rebecca Wildeboer
And we have done that, yes. Yeah. Yeah.
23:08.428 Brandon Burton
Great. So maybe let's make the transition over to the sponsorship side. Sure. And how does that factor in?
23:17.55 Rebecca Wildeboer
So we have a festival that's been running for several years. It's had a few name changes. Now it's called Michigan Apple Fest. And you know, an Apple is just such a general thing. We recognize that the attendance probably wasn't as good as it could be. And the sponsorship wasn't as good as it could be. So I sat down and I looked and I asked myself, is the festival really broken? Or does the festival need to grow or go away? Or is it just not attracting the right people? Who are we talking to when we're marketing this festival? So I really took one year and I just observed. We just ran the festival as usual. And I really looked around, looked at, you know, who's coming, who's going, where can we make approvement improvements? I kind of did my own audit. You know, looked at who's sponsoring it, who's not. And are they just writing a check because that's what they've always done? And really are we doing the best that we can for those check writers? And the answer was no. So I took all the data that I had self-collected and said to myself, okay, so we need to focus less on, you know, the apple just being an apple and think about what does the apple represent to a larger group of people. And you know, the Apple represents health, the Apple represents a phone, the Apple represents a computer. You know, the list is just endless. So what I discovered was if we take what the Apple has done for Apple and everything else, and we apply that same thing here, not only can we grow the festival, but we also can provide more opportunities. For our sponsors to get involved and make a bigger spend or investment. That's what I like to call it with us. So I set a theme. the first year when I changed it, we wanted to focus on the apple and your life or lifestyle. So we focused on movement. And what I did was
25:30.702 Rebecca Wildeboer
Created a festival that was multi-faceted with faceted, excuse me, with things that were happening at the same time. you know, we know that social media is big because people it creates a fear of missing out. That's why, you know, people are checking their phone every, you know, second because they don't want to miss something. So if we tap into that fear of missing out and we have multiple things going on at the same time at any event, The people who miss something in year one might want to catch it in year two. So I was able to go to sponsors and say, okay, we are going to be doing all these things at this event. And this is the group we're hoping to attract. We're hoping to attract people who see, you know, health and wellness as an important factor in their life through the apple. We want families who love the wholesomeness of the apple. And, you know. Who who do you want your brand to reach? And I well, this year I worked with a credit union and they were looking at younger families who wanted to invest in their kids' education. And that was primarily that is our largest group who comes to this Apple Fest. They they tend to be families. And I said, okay, so what we're going to do is I'm going to give you some opportunities at the event that I think will work for you to reach your target audience, because I think that's something chambers need to really think about when they're running an event, especially a community one, is they have the power to put that business right in front of their target demographic, face to face. I mean they they own that and they that is where they can capitalize on that because they can allow that business to be in or out of the event based on their ability to write a check to support the event. So I said at the credit union you need families, you need kids. So we need to create an opportunity for the family and the kids to walk up to your tent or your booth.
27:50.156 Rebecca Wildeboer
rather than just you know walking past it while you hand out a brochure. And what we ended up doing was we created a scavenger hunt. I bought a bunch of hollow apples that we hid raffle ticket type things in and in six of these apples, I think we probably had a hundred in six of the apples there was a special token and The credit union was giving away gift cards to the people with a token. And then they had candy or treats for everyone else who just had a ticket. So we then through our social media and through our promotions of the event explained that there would be, you know, you have to find the apple hidden in the event. You bring the apple to this booth and you will collect your prize. So, of course, everyone was looking for the apple. I didn't want to hide the apple. What I did was ask our vendors. our craft vendors and our other participating vendors if they would hide the apple somewhere within their tent or their booth area. Yep. And so that encouraged people to go to the small booth, look at what the vendors were doing, whether it was a local business who was bringing a tent in or whether it was a craft vendor who was paying to be here. And then of course then mom, dad, kids, whoever took the apple back to the credit union and everybody won. And we would not have been able to do that if we were not focusing on a very narrow group of people.
29:22.038 Brandon Burton
I love that idea, the Apple Easter egg hunt, if you will. Yeah. You hear a lot of times at events like this where you have a punch card, you know, and go to every every booth, get a punch or whatever, and then you get a prize if you do all that. But being able to hide the apple in these different booths and tents and everything really becomes more interactive. It's more fun. It engages the people that are there at the event to really get in and interact with these vendors. I think that's a great idea.
29:48.46 Rebecca Wildeboer
That's what the business is. I'm I'm not opposed to taking, you know, 100, 200, 300, whatever dollar check. And I certainly will take whatever money somebody just wants to send us to support an event in exchange for logo placement. But my personal feelings are that chambers leave a lot of money on the table by not going and making not an ask, but asking a question. You know, these are the events we are running. And who do you need to reach? And then thinking a little bit about what their answer is and then presenting them an opportunity to reach their demographic through your event and allow commerce to be created in that footprint. It it just takes an extra step and it's no different than what I was doing in my business. I needed these people to come.
30:35.542 Brandon Burton
That's great.
30:42.838 Rebecca Wildeboer
I needed to provide the footprint for them to come and I needed to have something engaging enough for them to remember it and want to come back. Yeah.
30:51.17 Brandon Burton
Yeah, when you initially brought up the idea of what does an apple represent, I just have to share kind of where my mind went when you said that. I immediately went to the word potential. And you may be like, why, why would you go there? But I think that's such a powerful word. And oftentimes when I talk to somebody about it or just think about the what potential means, I'll reflect back to an apple seed. And how that apple seed becomes a tree and puts off fruit and what that fruit provides, you know, nourishment for people and animals and the tree provides, you know, shade and shelter for, you know, birds and squirrels and whatever and the wood. I mean, it's just it's an endless thing of the potential that comes from such a small seed. And I don't know, maybe that can be used in how you market the whole process with the the potential of an apple.
31:42.806 Rebecca Wildeboer
I love So my sweet spot, I think, or the place that I tend to look are businesses who either have or have had billboard space. Because if you have a chamber member who is buying a billboard and they're spending, you know, several thousand dollars on this billboard that they're hoping somebody is going to drive by and maybe see and maybe remember. And the odds are they're not. I mean, I will be honest, I have never done business based on a billboard, and that's just myself. But they obviously have marketing money and they're obviously looking for a customer. So if you can figure out a way to have them not spend on the billboard and make an investment with you where you can put them right in front of their people and you know, make a good case for that by listening to what they want. I I think most chambers would be very surprised that there is money out there. They just don't know where to spend it.
32:55.328 Brandon Burton
Especially if you find someone do you guys have those digital billboards in your tent? Especially those ones, 'cause you come up on right when you can actually read what it says and then it changes. And it's like, Well exactly th their marketing dollars were just wasted.
32:59.822 Rebecca Wildeboer
Yep, we do. Mm-hmm.
33:10.094 Rebecca Wildeboer
And if we have a there's a pizza place in a neighboring town and just a few miles away from our downtown. So we've got you know lots of tiny towns around here. And I happen to know the owner, and I said, Jeff, you know, what can I do to help you? Because I know you had a bull billboard, you know, but I can't believe That your billboard is really as good of an investment as you think it is. And he said, you know, I want everyone to see my look pizza box, my name on a pizza box. And I said, okay, well, we can make that happen. And I went back to my desk and I sat down and I looked at the events we were running. And I went back and presented him every opportunity where I thought he could get a pizza box in someone's hands. And this little mom and pop business wrote me a very, very, you know, large check, several thousand dollars, more than they would have spent on a billboard because he was given multiple opportunities to have his box immediately placed in someone's hand. You know, and and you can't do that with a billboard.
34:30.294 Brandon Burton
No, no, that's a great example. I am curious though, is his billboard still up?
34:35.66 Rebecca Wildeboer
He does not have billboard this year. No, he will be a good investor next year. Yeah.
34:40.088 Brandon Burton
Yeah, that's great.
34:42.254 Rebecca Wildeboer
I I know that a lot of chambers feel they're not a marketing agency and they're not an ad agency, but I really think that they need to rethink that and say, maybe for the large companies who have staff and, you know, an unlimited budget, they maybe don't need the chamber to help them with this. But The truth is what I learned having my own small business is that you are so busy trying to run your business, keep the doors open, you know, not work for free for yourself all the time, that basic marketing plans or even, you know, figuring out how to find the time to get yourself involved is very overwhelming. You know, you're too busy running your business to think about how to market or manage the business. And I really believe the chamber has a great opportunity there to just run alongside these businesses, not to do it for them, but to show them a very clear path to be successful at certain times of the year.
35:50.806 Brandon Burton
Yes. I love that. You don't have to be a marketing agency, but help make the businesses in your community more profitable. Help them be more successful. And I can see that even on a individual level with chambers as they have chamber directories and different publications. Get them out there in the community. They do no good sitting at the front desk of your chamber. Get them out there and leverage that. So the businesses that are spending money in there or even just your members that are listed in there. Get them out in the community and help them get that return and make those businesses more successful.
36:25.364 Rebecca Wildeboer
I think the other thing that especially small chambers need to do is to realize chamber member or not, you need there has to be room for everyone at the table because your chamber member businesses are likely dependent on non-chamber businesses. So you're not helping your members by always excluding the non-members. They have something to offer, even if what they're offering is a sizable sponsorship without a membership, take the money and run. Because if you can use that to create a better event that your businesses will, your chamber member businesses will benefit from, you're helping them.
37:13.75 Brandon Burton
Yep. Call it a trial of what the chamber can do for that business. Right.
37:17.14 Rebecca Wildeboer
Exactly. And we also have to acknowledge, you know, the chamber isn't going to be everything for everybody. But that doesn't mean that every successful business who chooses not to join doesn't have something to offer to the ones who have chosen to join. So you can really be friendly and helpful, or you can kind of have a closed door policy. Now I do think there are some things that should be member exclusives and And I'm all for that. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a membership. But I I do think that chambers need to rethink going forward what that's going to look like because I am invited all the time to many different networking groups and functions and business type functions that have nothing to do with the chamber. And these businesses are choosing to not join the chamber. They have found a way through social media to do almost everything on their own to network together, to support each other. And, you know, they're bypassing what the chamber had to offer because the tools are ev available, you know, you can Google it and you can host your own event and you can get to know people. And so in my opinion, for the chamber to remain viable, especially in a smaller community, you have to use everything that's available and play up those strengths to the member businesses and be that central like a central processing organization. You want everybody to come here and then the people who are paying to be members get that extra touch.
38:53.23 Brandon Burton
Yep. Be that go-to resource. So I know we're running a little bit long, so we'll we'll start wrapping this up here. I I really appreciate it. What is one action item we can take from our discussion today that a chamber can apply and really to take their chamber up to the next level?
38:55.971 Rebecca Wildeboer
Yeah.
39:15.426 Rebecca Wildeboer
My thoughts on that are look and see what you are doing within your community immediately, right now, that is drawing someone from outside of the community to come there. That is new money. And if the answer is you're doing nothing, find one thing. Find one thing to do to bring new money in.
39:38.808 Brandon Burton
Sounds easy enough. Sounds too easy. so then the question that I I like to ask everyone that I have on the show is as we look to the future, okay. How do you how do you view chambers of commerce and their purpose going forward?
39:55.258 Rebecca Wildeboer
My belief is that the purpose of obviously a larger chamber is going to have the power of ag advocacy. I think for smaller chambers, they are going to have absolutely the power to be the connector. Yeah. They can be the connector.
40:12.914 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. I appreciate your perspective that you brought to this discussion today. It I think it's great and a lot of chamber professionals will be able to get a lot of value out of that. If a a listener wanted to get in contact with you and maybe dive in a little bit more about how you've done some of these events and how you work your sponsorships for these events, how might somebody best get in contact with you?
40:39.576 Rebecca Wildeboer
Sure, they can email me at events at Sparta I dot or G. That goes directly to me.
40:48.032 Brandon Burton
All right. And we will get that updated in the show notes page for this episode, which can be found at chamberchatpodcast.com slash episode fifty-one. But again, Rebecca, thank you so much for spending time with us today. And I hope everybody gets a lot of value out of this episode.
41:06.104 Rebecca Wildeboer
Thank you for having me, Brandon.
41:08.512 Brandon Burton
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