Virtual Conferences & Expos with Tom Argiro

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

Episode 94 — Virtual Conferences & Expos with Tom Argiro
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Tom Argiro
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. And now your host, he is grateful for the technology of Zoom. He's my dad, Brandon Burton. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I'm your host, Brandon Burton, and it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas so you can better serve your Chamber members and your community. We're you're tuning in today for episode ninety-four of Chamber Chat Podcast. And as we record this, we're early October of twenty twenty. And as everybody's familiar, we are kind of at different stages of you can call it recovery, or still in the throes of the the COVID-19 pandemic. And chambers are are looking for solutions, ways to engage with their membership and to offer value and to to really continue on with their mission and purpose in their communities. And Our topic today is going to be around some solutions to be able to continue doing that to to engage your your membership. But our guest today is Tom Argiro. He is the executive director at the North Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, which is a boutique chamber in a market with thirty other chambers. Founded in nineteen sixty three as a nonprofit. The initial organizers were concerned that money being earned in the North Phoenix area was being spent south of Camelback Mountain. Almost 60 years later, the only thing that has changed is what Camelback Mountain represents. The North Phoenix Chamber is a catalyst for growth, a connector of leaders and influencers, and a champion for business, as many of their locally owned businesses are going up against large big box chains and online retail stores.
02:04.458 Brandon Burton
In this role, Tom has a unique perspective on solving problems that many chamber leaders have in common, member engagement, retention, and new member growth. Tom has over thirty-five years of software development experience. His corporate career included experience in the financial sector, healthcare, state government, and Fortune one hundred companies. Tom's main interest and expertise has always been in data science, data warehousing. business intelligence, visualizations, analysis, and big data. Recent projects for Tom and his company, HBG Consulting, includes tools and solutions that help chambers stay con stay healthy and grow to help other chamber executives lead their organizations more effectively. Tom and his wife met in college and graduated together in nineteen eighty four with degrees in computer programming. They celebrated thirty two years of marriage this summer. No children, but they've enjoyed a full life surrounded by fur and feather babies. We're excited to get into our discussion today with Tom about virtual conferences and expos. And we will get into this discussion as soon as we hear from our sponsor. Every chamber is looking for new ways to increase their nondues 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. lowers your credit card processing fees at the chamber, 2. helps your chamber members be more profitable, and 3 provides recurring non-dues revenue to your chamber. To learn more, please visit Chamberchatpodcast.com slash CC for credit card. Again, Chamberchatpodcast.com slash C C and get swiping with Swipe It. As a podcast listener and as a chamber leader, have you considered the benefits that podcasting could have for your chamber? This is what I like to call the podcast pivot.
04:24.31 Brandon Burton
If you're like many chambers, you're always looking for ways to provide non involvement value to your member investors. Many chambers are finding that podcasting is a great solution. A podcast platform becomes a media arm for your organization that builds trust in your community, tells the stories about your members as well as your advocacy efforts, and becomes a valuable, tangible asset for nondu's revenue. If you'd like to see if podcasting is a good fit for your chamber, visit chamberchatpodcast.com slash pivot to learn more and to gain access to our free chamber podcasting guide. Again, this is found at Chamberchatpodcast.com slash pivot. All right, Tom, we are back. Thank you for joining us today on Chamber Chat Podcast. If you would say hello to all the chamber champions out there. And share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.
05:22.402 Tom Argiro
Thank you very much, Brandon. Hello to all the chamber champions out there. There's there's a lot of you. So I learned an awful lot from all the all these episodes that I've been listening to and from other resources. lots of chamber champions around the country. So thank you all for being as open and as sharing as you are and helping us. boy, a little bit about myself. my dad used to accuse me of jokingly, of trying to make a hobby out of finding the perfect hobby. And and the w one or two or three hobbies that have actually stuck over the years, probably the most important, has been learning how to juggle. it helps you incorporate more of your brain. There's all kinds of reasons why why I picked up that hobby, but I also enjoy photography, I enjoy cooking. So a little bit about me personally.
06:10.638 Brandon Burton
Well, I think juggling is a great character trait for a chamber executive. I mean, you gotta you gotta be able to juggle multiple things at one time. So well, tell us a little bit about your chamber. Give us some perspective about size, location, staff, budget, things like that, so we can all know where you're coming from as we dive into this discussion.
06:19.8 Tom Argiro
Yeah, no kidding.
06:33.558 Tom Argiro
Yep, perfect. so kind of put it all in perspective. as you had mentioned in the in the intro, thank you for that. We are a boutique chamber. We have about a hundred and fifty members at the moment. when I landed in leadership here five years ago, we had fifty-seven and we had enough money in the bank to stay open for six weeks and nothing in the pipeline. Wow. So we were literally the first board meeting. I was also voluntold that I would be chairman that night. And and
07:03.107 Brandon Burton
So it's
07:03.394 Tom Argiro
Nice. Yeah. And and two camps formed that night. somebody said we need to figure out how shut down. And I said, Well, hold on a second. We're four weeks away from our thirty second annual golf tournament or thirtieth annual golf tournament at the time. there's a legacy number there, there's a milestone that we can't necessarily just shut down. We don't have any golfers, we don't have any sponsors, but and we've got enough money for six weeks. Just 'cause we don't have a a storefront you know, two months from now doesn't mean we're not a chamber. let's figure this out. So it took us took us a couple years to grow to triple in size. We went and it tripling sounds amazing, but we went from about 160. and we've been kind of sitting here flat for a couple years at about 150, 170. We we fit in that window. and during this time we've been building a lot of tools internally, a lot of you know, process improvements that we're ready to to kind of leap into the next stage and and next growth spurt. But So our demographics, out of the hundred and fifty members, half of them come from five zip codes. The other half come from 33 zip codes across Phoenix in northern or central Arizona. Sixty-five percent, about two thirds of my membership are literally solopreneurs without storefronts. They're working off their kitchen tables. the other half of the other third, half of that upper third, have over a hundred employees. So we're kind of all over the map. the hundred and fifty members represent almost ten thousand workers here in North Phoenix because of all the employees that work for our chamber members. So we have, you know, good half dozen dozen large employers with, you know, over a thousand employees that are chamber members. So it's it's an interesting, interesting mix. Our average member is a member for five point two years. I'm a data guy. You can tell I've been diving in under the numbers. five point two years is about how long somebody sticks. So that's a twenty percent attrition every year. is about how that works out.
09:02.392 Brandon Burton
Sorry.
09:13.653 Brandon Burton
Okay.
09:14.926 Tom Argiro
here during COVID, you know, we had like everybody else, we saw twenty percent attrition in about a quarter. as as folks just didn't quite understand the value prop and all that. So we've had to pivot ourselves considerably.
09:28.62 Brandon Burton
Yeah. for sure. That's a good segue right there. So you know, you've had to pivot yourselves and as I kind of in the introduction here talking about our our topic for discussion today of being around virtual conferences and expos. So I know chambers all over the country, once things shut down with COVID, early, you know, mid March, it was that panic, you know, first of all making sure that their members are okay. help wise, financially, make sure their their own organization is okay. But then it was looking for where do they pivot? You know, what how do they keep their membership engaged? How do they keep getting information out? and how do they keep promoting their value proposition in their community? So I saw a lot of these you know, Zoom meetings, a lot of free webinars that chambers are putting out there. They weren't quite sure how to how to monetize webinar of that nature and if it was even whether whether or not it was even okay to charge for something like that given the current circumstances. So I know you've kind of developed not kind of you you have developed a a solution that allows for these chambers to continue engaging and and putting their value proposition out there. So tell us a little bit about what you what you've developed. around virtual conferences and expos.
10:57.742 Tom Argiro
Sure. so Virtual Business Expos. I actually own the URL. there's hyphens in between there, so it's it's virtual dash biz dash expos plural dot com. I I guess it's okay to plug the plug the business. then it all falls under HBG Consulting. It's it's one tool that I've developed out of a host of tools. But it really came to me early July, actually going into July fourth weekend. July fourth was a Sunday it was a Saturday this year. And I can remember on it was Thursday the second where I was just kind of exposed to to another organization that was doing this big virtual business expo thing and selling booth space to small businesses, completely unaffordable. they hit me up with you know, two thousand six thousand dollar options, two couple two, three tiers in that window. as a small business owner and there's no way I could have afforded that. And then I I guess it was on that Friday I kind of started brainstorming and mocking up what I thought a platform could look like and and what a electronic version of a of the confr of the convention center downtown would look like. If you could, you know, wander in, go to the registration table, pick up your lanyard, go to the expo floor, you know, all the activities going on then between the vendor booths and all of that. you know, live discussions, keynote speakers, a networking lounge with breakout rooms and all that going on. And I thought, you know, there's there's gotta be something here because I'm also hearing other chambers and we haven't had a big event for a couple of years, so we haven't really lost that revenue of you know not hosting our big, you know, chili cook off or whatever chocolate festival. But I know that other chambers are struggling with this. So during the course of that Fourth of July weekend, my wife barely saw me and I barely slept. but somewhere around Sunday afternoon, I shot an email to my sister and and said, Check this out. Look what look what I've been mocking up. What you think? And her and I started kind of bouncing some ideas back and forth and brainstorming a bit more. And literally in 48 hours, I had the shell of this virtual business expo laid out. It took
13:23.016 Tom Argiro
most of a couple months, three months now for throughout the summer, to add, you know, all the bones and structure underneath that shell and get it get it functioning and working properly. But one man band, you know, single developer. But I have b the whole reason I was building it and the whole time I was building it, I was keeping in mind, this platform needs to be affordable for chambers. It needs to be a way for chambers, even more so than than, you know, just affordable and a way for me to generate revenue. It's just as important They have a platform to showcase their chamber members. That's really what was driving me. you know, the small businesses are really struggling. And chambers here is this as this hub in all these communities across the country are struggling, trying to figure out you know, how do we lift up our members? How do we get them out there? How do we how do we promote them when we're not allowed to see each other? I mean if you told me in February that the Olympics was going to get canceled. we wouldn't be allowed to worship together for Easter. Yeah, I just I I I would have not believed you, I would have laughed at you and thought you were insane. Yeah, March Madness wasn't gonna happen. We wouldn't have basketball, all right. and and boom, here we are and it hasn't happened. it's been the strangest year. So yeah, that's just a little bit about the kind of the roots of how the system started.
14:29.56 Brandon Burton
Yeah. March madness. I mean
14:49.462 Tom Argiro
And where the the impetus for it came, so
14:51.896 Brandon Burton
So I I like the idea of taking your traditional expo or conference where you you come in, get your lanyard and and you got your booths and interacting keynote speakers, I mean, and implementing all of those elements into a virtual platform. the the one thing I guess when you're in person is somebody's you could argue they make the effort. They're there, you know, they drive their car or however they get to the call it an expo center. conference center and then they're there in person. You you kind of have their their attention because they're they're there in person and and if you have a booth you can you know have something displayed to kind of draw attention to bring them in to talk to them to keep them engaged throughout the whole process. So I imagine that is a maybe a hurdle to come across when you take things virtual. how do you keep the engagement up? on a virtual platform like this when people may be logging in on their computer and they've got their phone next to them and emails and social media and you know as as soon as they're distracted, they're looking at something else. How do you keep the engagement up?
16:04.28 Tom Argiro
Yeah. And the kids are being home schooled and
16:06.19 Brandon Burton
That too. Yeah, yeah. The list goes on and on. Except there there's there wasn't sports to watch, so
16:11.95 Tom Argiro
Yeah. Yeah. Sans the sports. Everything else is there. All the other distractions are there. so the booths have to feel very engaging. Right. So it's more than just uploading the logo, having a logo displayed when you wander into a booth and the contact information for the vendor. There's a brochure rack and there's a link then to interact live with that booth owner. with the vendor. So you know, one enhancement actually, one that's that it's in the backlog right now, it's it's going to be added sometime, you know, next version, next couple versions out, is actually having a video launch when you pop into the booth as an attendee. So if you've got a video right up front and it's done properly, it's more than just, hey, I want to sell you a candle today, come on in, right? And you know, and have something
17:01.131 Brandon Burton
Okay.
17:11.116 Tom Argiro
you know, kind of cheesy, it really has to be a traffic stopper, eye candy that really keeps you hooked. So it's gonna be up to the up to the businesses, the individual businesses to really have that kind of content, that level of of engagement, eye-catching stuff that entices the attendees to, you know, to wanna wanna visit the booth. The content that goes into the display rack. can be here's where the electronic world starts to shift a little bit and be different than than live and in person. You're not limited to just PDFs and brochures of you know of your services, products and services. You can have links in your brochure rack to videos, to MP3 files, audio content, etc. So any media, any media on the internet is available. within that brochure rack to be displayed. And then if the if the owner of that booth is available and they're and they're live and they're attending their booth, then there's a live chat button in the booth that brings you into it brings the attendee into that business's personal Zoom account or Google Hangouts or Microsoft Teams or you know whatever WebEx, etc. GoToMeeting, there's no restriction on which of those video tools are being used at each vendor. So it's the the expo really is a giant wrapper around 150 or more live video chat calls, to think of it.
18:49.197 Brandon Burton
Right.
19:00.718 Brandon Burton
So as an attendee, if you are wandering around and you see these different booths, you'd mention having a a booth, somebody manning a booth more or less. If they're engaged in a a call with another attendee, is there a way that they can are notified to know that there's another attendee that would like to talk with them, or is there a way for them to follow up maybe with a attendees that engaged with them throughout the the conference or the is there mechanisms built in there?
19:37.12 Tom Argiro
Yeah, absolutely. so once you click on the live chat button, the the host the booth owner sees just like you wouldn't it's obviously you're just calling their Zoom account at that point. So you're notified that somebody's in your waiting room. And you may go ahead and let them in because you might have ten or fifteen other booth attendees that you're entertaining at your booth, or you might be one to one with somebody. it's not any different than any trade show in the physical. Right. You you might be tied up with one client or one potential client and and you're you can't just ignore everybody around you that's standing there online wanting to talk to you. so and and doing this virtually and doing this through Zoom is probably the most common weapon of choice, I would suspect. It's just gone so wildly popular. Yeah that
20:08.814 Brandon Burton
Space.
20:33.526 Tom Argiro
At that point, you know, you're letting multiple people into the booth. Now, the follow-up question that you had, or the question you had about follow-up, as you're attending the the expo, everything that you're touching, all the all the items in the brochure rack, etc., are all being added to what I'm calling a goodie bag. It's basically your gift bag as if you're carrying that around at an expo. So so at the close of the day.
20:57.495 Brandon Burton
No.
21:00.3 Tom Argiro
You're going receive an email with all those links and all that content that you touched throughout the day, including all the contact information for all the vendors that were at the event that day. On the flip side, there's all that lead gen for the businesses. Because remember, I built this from the ground up for businesses and for and for chambers and other organizations to promote their members and help them grow their businesses. So on the flip side of that, is at the end of the day, as a booth attender, a ten as as a booth owner, you receive an email of everybody that touched your stuff and what they touched. And whether or not they it popped into your live chat, whether they clicked on something in your brochure rack, et cetera. If they were a looky loo and they stood back and they just you know went went next booth, next booth, next booth, and they ran right past you, you're not gonna know about because they didn't touch you. They didn't interact with anything in your booth. But as soon as they they click on something in the brochure rack, as soon as they click on the live chat, then you know who they are. All right. So you're f you're following up with somebody that at least twitched as you drag the lure in front of them. Yeah. Right. But but if they didn't twitch, if if they didn't show any interest, they're not a good lead for you anyway. So there's no reason to follow up.
22:04.107 Brandon Burton
Okay.
22:19.706 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. So I understand you've you've been testing the software. You actually have put it to use at your chamber. Yep. Tell us how that went. what was the experience like? What kind of feedback did you receive?
22:36.206 Tom Argiro
it was wonderful. We had I had about fifteen chamber members set up booths. you know, we put the call out very short notice. I was wrapping up software on a Saturday night and I I put out the call saying, Okay, we've I drew a line in the sand a few weeks ago. I had to come up with a deadline to make this thing work and and get some final touches on it. And so September eighth, we had our first live event, our first full day expo at the North Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. First expo in the country on this platform. And three days prior on Saturday, actually going in actually going into the f into the Labor Day weekend, I put out a call to my members and saying, Okay, it's ready, here's the link. Please get in and set up your booth between now and Tuesday morning. not great timing, and I still had fifteen booths set up.
23:26.114 Brandon Burton
That's ten percent of the membership right there.
23:28.206 Tom Argiro
That's ten per exact ten per ten percent of my members, exactly. And a few of the folks that reacted were not normally engaged. They're not the folks that show up on the weekly Zoom calls. So it was encouraging. but thank you for putting that in perspective. about the ten percent. the day of the event we had folks registering from other chambers across the country that I've been talking to and and letting them know this is coming. They wanted to see it working. not just my little demo page that I'd been showing them you know during sales calls during July and August. they wanted to actually poke their head into a live expo and see it work. And I had had a few of those that worked well. The biggest aha I guess for my chamber members as they were setting up we had about 30 attendees by the way. About twice as many attendees as we had booths. But the biggest aha moment for my members were the the calls I was getting, the emails I was receiving throughout the weekend were, you know, I've got clients on my calendar already for Tuesday. I can't I can't do this. I can't sit there all day and attend a booth. And and I and I had to explain to them, all you're doing right now is setting up a web page that's going to look like a booth. And you're just setting up some content and you don't have to be there. People will wander in and out all day long and they'll see your page. And if you're available
24:36.661 Brandon Burton
Mm-hmm.
24:49.527 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
24:55.49 Tom Argiro
They can click on the button that says you're available and if you're not available, they won't see it. And and so you can be tied up with your clients all day long and let this thing run for you.
24:59.299 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
25:05.186 Brandon Burton
Which is great. And the compared to the alternative of a an actual physical conference where e either you're there in person or you're paying somebody to be there in person. You can just have the content there and you get all the leads to follow up with them of anybody that that twitched.
25:21.644 Tom Argiro
Yeah, exactly. They reacted to your lore coming under their nose. Exactly. there's also the you know, the savings of of having to build a booth, a physical booth. The the travel time that's involved, getting to an event, to an expo, even if it's in town, you're you're down for a day. There's all that physical labor of setting up your table and display and and all that. That's you know, all that physical work is gone. Now, there's a downside to all this too.
25:46.68 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
25:49.388 Tom Argiro
You can't taste the chocolate. You can't kick the tires at the auto show. Right. There's there's certain types of events that this won't be a good fit for. but for this one. You gotta bring yeah, right, you gotta have your own scotch as as you're sitting in the living room doing this. But for eighty percent of at least for my chamber members, for my demographics, the knowledge workers, you know, if you're selling insurance, you're a financial advisor, et cetera.
25:57.134 Brandon Burton
Yeah. To provide your own drinks.
26:18.754 Tom Argiro
This makes an awful lot of sense. It's not for everyone, but it makes makes a lot of sense for most.
26:24.938 Brandon Burton
So in your case, in your expo that you did, were the attendees the general public or were they other members or a combination?
26:34.102 Tom Argiro
Yeah, with such short notice it was only chamber members and then leaders at other at a few other chambers that were in there kicking the tires for for me. So the general public was not really aware. We did a little bit of social media marketing for two days and it wasn't enough on a holiday weekend. So we've got another date set now for I don't know when this podcast will air. It may have already happened. October twenty first is a Wednesday, three weeks out from now. And
27:01.428 Brandon Burton
Th this will come out after that, but
27:03.598 Tom Argiro
Okay, good. Yeah. That's fine. That's fine. so we're now just starting all that media promotion around driving traffic to the to the business expo.
27:13.942 Brandon Burton
Okay. Very good. so I understand I want to give you a few minutes. I think this is a great tool. I think I mean I had the opportunity to kind of go in and and kind of take a take the tour and and see how it's set up. And I think this is a great solution. at least to explore. You know, is this an alternative that the that your chamber can use? It can you provide value to your members? Can you keep engagement there? I think the answer to a lot of that is yes, especially if you can bring an engaging speaker, a keynote, you know, just really use this like you would any other conference or expo. but Tom, I know you also you have some other tools that you've developed for specifically four chambers. If you want to spend just a couple, you know, two two, three minutes and just kind of run through what some of those tools are and and some of the highlights so they listeners can see, yeah, what other offerings you have out there.
28:17.186 Tom Argiro
Yeah, sure. Thank you. actually before I jump to that, there's there's so much more to that visual to the virtual business conference.
28:24.566 Brandon Burton
yes. I don't I don't want to cut you short at all, sorry.
28:27.35 Tom Argiro
touched. it's more than just the booth space too. So there's on-demand webinars. You know, chamber members can as they're setting up their booths also set up in a whole nother space links to videos that they've recorded about around their educational content. So on demand the attendees don't have to be at the booths. They can also go to the on-demand video webinar room. And then there's a there's a whole area set up for live tracks. Just like you would have at a you know a three-day conference, you might have you know multiple rooms going on and three or four rooms, you know, you could sit in one room all day and every hour the speaker will change and half the people around you will will shuffle in and out, and you can stay in one room and listen to one track all day long. This is no different. Yeah, so another feature that's built into the expo in a conference software is around roundtables. in those discussions. You can also bounce around from room to room and you can have multiple days configured. so a three day conference with multiple tracks each day and and live attendees. There's also a networking lounge setup that can be configured different ways. So there's there's an awful lot of functionality in here besides just the vendor booths.
29:49.184 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. So for example, the networking lounge, would that be for the attendees to network or for the the vendors? How does that work?
30:00.16 Tom Argiro
Or any any and all. Okay. If if you're a if you're a booth manager or booth owner, you're also attending the conference. Okay. You've got your you got your lanyard and you're in the you're in the house. you can walk away from your booth and go hang out and network and go attend live sessions. There's nothing stopping you from being able to to participate as an attendee as well. So yeah, absolutely. And in fact, the organizer of the event may choose to set up just a networking lounge for the speakers. Have a little speaker lobby, yeah, where they can hang out or speaker lounge, where they can hang out and compare notes and etc. That's always an option. I've had a couple of organizations tell me that they planned on using that networking lounge only after five o'clock and make it the after party. And they don't want the distraction of people wandering in there and not attending the conference and the content.
30:31.66 Brandon Burton
Okay.
30:49.612 Brandon Burton
Okay.
30:58.49 Tom Argiro
I've had other folks ask me if they could just have that module and and they're not so concerned about everything else. They're more concerned about just having the networking space. Yeah, I'm I'm getting some real interesting feedback on on how it's gonna be used and leveraged.
31:08.494 Brandon Burton
Yeah, that's awesome.
31:15.436 Brandon Burton
That is very good.
31:18.926 Tom Argiro
I was just gonna say back to the question you asked me a minute ago about other tools.
31:21.262 Brandon Burton
Yes. Yeah.
31:23.318 Tom Argiro
So I I think we're getting little close on time, so let me wrap this up. other software that I've developed had to help chambers with with their engagement and et cetera. One tool in particular that I'm I'm really proud of and I think is really a great fit is an ambassador toolkit. We have this implemented up on my website and again I have a few chambers that have subscribed to this tool from from me and are using it themselves. It's completely customizable to fit whatever the needs are for that organization, for that chamber, in order to put the tools that their ambassadors need at their fingertips. I've had I've struggled a little bit with an ambassador program, I'm not gonna lie. we've had a kind of a start and stall maybe three times in five years. And this about a year ago, a little less than a year ago, I had one young lady as she was exiting our ambassador program. candidly tell me, and it's the first time I'd heard this feedback, Tom, you didn't give me the tools I needed to be an ambassador. I didn't have the things I needed to be able to, you know, the membership directory. Well, membership directory's public. It's there. It's a vel it's a visit it's visible. You know, I didn't have an application form. Well, it's out there too. You can all right. But having everything swept together and in one place, and I kinda took that to heart and I thought, you know, maybe there's other reasons there's other reasons behind that. But behind her comments, but there's also other there's there's something that can be solved easily. So by putting things like an ROI calculator at the fingertips of our ambassadors and access to a PDF copy of our membership so that they can pass that on to somebody who's asking. the ability to sign somebody up for events as they're talking to somebody, hey, you know, why don't you come out to what are you doing for lunch next Tuesday? Why don't you come on out? Let me get you registered while we're right here. You know, and having quick access to the calendar. So I threw together this ambassador toolkit, including some training for the ambassadors and and some tips and tricks on how to use the the content. and again I built that from the ground up, knowing that I'm not the only chamber with that need. I've there there's other organizations that can license that and have access to it and customize it completely to fit their
33:23.576 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
33:50.518 Tom Argiro
organization and their needs. So I'm really happy with how that came together and and the value that it provides. And I've kept that so affordable. I am gonna throw just a a not a real price out here, but I'm gonna tell you that if you can pick up one new member a year, the toolkit pays for itself. It's it's it's priced roughly at the cost of one new member per year. So it's
34:17.376 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
34:17.806 Tom Argiro
Yeah. It it seems doable and it's a monthly subscription on top of that. So it's just as easy as, you know, making sure your ambassadors have access to whatever they need to to drive traffic into your into your organization and to help them engage existing members and potential.
34:35.317 Brandon Burton
Yeah. So that's good. I like the idea of the ROI calculator to be able to say here's here's what you can expect. So that's awesome.
34:44.393 Tom Argiro
Yeah, that was a fun little tool to write. I en I enjoyed that that day.
34:47.65 Brandon Burton
Yeah. It blows my mind when you say that day, you know.
34:49.485 Tom Argiro
Yeah. Yeah. I've got a lot of positive feedback on it too, as folks have used it. it's interesting. That I'm surprised that there's not more more of them out there. Interesting.
35:04.47 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Yep. well I wanted to see what what tips or action items you would have for the chamber champions that are listening to that they could do to help take their chamber up to the next level.
35:21.806 Tom Argiro
Sure. So here I am as a software developer and I'm here to, you know, talk a little bit about my business today. But I'm also going to tell you that the best thing you can do is not complicate your world with too many complicated tools. You know, find find software that fits a little more general purpose that that is is easy to use, like your membership management system, if you're MMS, you know, whether you're on Chamber Nation, ChamberMaster, you know, whatever tool you're using, leverage as much of that internally as you can without picking up extra software. and the biggest challenge and the reason why I'm saying that is because you end up duplicating your database. You end up with multiple copies of of your database out there and then it becomes unwieldy. So that's just out of my experience as doing this for thirty five, thirty six years now as a software developer. Anytime you can streamline processes and that includes not complicating workflow. The better off you're gonna be. So finding simple solutions. If you do need to add software like the ambassador toolkit, it's gotta be really simple to use. And the virtual business expo, it has to be easy for you to set up and configure on your on your end. And integrate as well as it can into your existing database. So I've actually made that really straightforward too on the Virtual Business Expo. We didn't even talk about this, but yet. We haven't talked about it. I've set it up to a point that I can import your database. So if you can if you can pull out of your C out of your membership database a CSV file, I can load all the booths for you. We just flag them as all unpaid if you ch if you're choosing to charge your chamber members for booth space. and then you're in there managing it at that point and helping them just finalize the setups of their booths, but they're already sort of sitting there.
37:17.204 Tom Argiro
and make that really painless and seamless. So
37:21.038 Brandon Burton
So I love the perspective that you bring coming from the software developer and engineering background to the chamber world. I think a lot of the people in the chamber world have it it's been a career. some have come from the corporate side, but other industries, but to be able to see from from your technical background, to be able to kind of merge what you see and and how you how you see the world. And be able to kind of mesh that with the chamber just to to be able to enhance it and give a better experience for for the chamber itself, but also for the membership. And I'm a big fan of of looking at different perspectives. I mean, I myself come from the chamber publishing background, and it it in itself brings a another perspective. So whenever we have the chance to to hear from people with a an outside perspective, like like you have, who's now on the inside. I think it brings a lot of value and and it obviously has with the these tools that you've developed. this I I like to ask this question to everyone that I have on the podcast. As we look to the future of chambers of commerce, and I think this is a a great question for you. How do you see the purpose of chambers going forward?
38:46.444 Tom Argiro
Wow. So that is a great question. I think the chambers that continue to function more like a marketing agency, more like a PR firm, and they consider their members clients that have hired them for marketing. I think is probably the best place in the near future that I can see a chamber positioning themselves as. really being a champion for businesses in the community. And and you know, back to the three C's, being a catalyst for growth, connectors of leaders and and champions for business, I think if you're focusing on the three C's and you're finding projects that help fire on all three of those cylinders at the same time, you're going to continue to be successful. but really focusing on on being that champion for your members is is just critical. Champions for business and the community in general is critical. but I think it's really a a s a spin in thinking of yourself as a marketing agency. It is v is different than how most chambers may have thought about themselves in the past. I think we're seeing from what I'm learning about about my peers, it looks like an awful lot of folks have have shifted in that direction. And I'm glad to see it.
39:55.798 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
40:09.43 Brandon Burton
So I as I asked this question to people that I have on the podcast, I've I've heard similar answers to this about chamber functioning as a marketing and PR firm. But what stood out to me in your answer is who's looking after the interest of these businesses that have hired you. So and that's what they've done. They're spending money with your organization, they've hired you and they have an expectation. So exactly. Exactly. Well, Tom, I think you
40:32.472 Tom Argiro
They're clients. Absolutely.
40:37.442 Brandon Burton
Provided some great perspective for us today. I'd like to give you an opportunity for anybody listening that would like to reach out to you and learn more about the virtual conferences and expos or any of the other tools you have to offer. What would be the best way for them to reach out and connect and and maybe your website where they could find these tools?
40:56.044 Tom Argiro
Absolutely. Thank you for for that opportunity. The business phone number is area code five three zero four two four eight six six five. That's that's the business phone number that rings right on my mobile. Comes straight across. That's on my hip twenty-four-seven. Okay. my website is HBG Helping Business Grow, HBG Consulting dot com. folks seem to trip that up quite a bit, and I'm not sure why. It's only three letters.
41:26.574 Brandon Burton
The B and the G. They sound too too similar.
41:30.232 Tom Argiro
That's part of it, I guess. I don't know. helping businesses grow. It was really the intent of starting that that company years ago and it has morphed a little bit into helping the businesses and their communities grow now that I've got a a chamber perspective. That's right. but HBG Consulting dot com is the website. And you've got the phone number. You can reach me at Tom at HBG Consulting dot com is This is my email address.
42:01.772 Brandon Burton
Very good. I will get all of this updated in our show notes for this episode, which will be found at Chamberchat Podcast dot com slash episode ninety-four. But again, Tom, thank you so much for spending time with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast and sharing your views and perspective as well as these great tools that you've developed for the chamber industry. I appreciate it.
42:24.344 Tom Argiro
Brandon, I appreciate you. This you know, this opportunity. I I listened to your podcasts. I'm glad I'm number ninety four, good lord. I learned so much from from others in terms of chamber leadership and and all that. So you are providing an amazing service. Thank you, sir, for what you're doing.
42:42.454 Brandon Burton
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