Pivot to Podcasting with Angie Whitcomb

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

Episode 95 — Pivot to Podcasting with Angie Whitcomb
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Angie Whitcomb
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 has been re-watching the series 24, this time with his older kids. He's my dad, Brandon Burton. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. This is your host, Brandon Burton, and it's my goal to introduce you to people and ideas so you can better serve your chamber members and your community. You're joining us today for episode 95 of Chamber Chat Podcast. And This topic for our discussion today is something that's close to my heart. We're going to be talking about the pivot to podcasting. And to join us today, we have Angie Whitcomb from the Shakopee Chamber and Visitors Bureau in Minnesota. And her expertise lies in strategic planning, leadership development, economic, and workforce development. She's a fierce business advocate who's committed to ensuring the business in her community have the tools and information to succeed. She's a 2014 graduate of the Institute of Organization Management. She currently serves as past chair of the Midwest Institute Board of Regents, as board chair of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce Executives, a director on the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce Board, and just accepted a position as director on the ACCE board. Prior to entering the chamber world, Angie spent 15 years as an accounting and finance recruiter for Fortune 500 company. As a wife, mother, business owner, and executive, Angie is passionate about helping people and businesses succeed. She also loves to get lost in a good book, spent her vacations on the beach, and is passionate about adoption.
02:00.854 Brandon Burton
We are excited to get into this discussion with Angie. Grateful to have her with us today. We'll get into our discussion as soon as we hear this brief message. 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. 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 C C for credit card. Again, chamberchatpodcast dot com slash C C and get swiping with swipe it. All right, Angie, we are back. Thank you for joining us today on the Chamber Chat Podcast. Please take a minute and say hello to all the chamber champions that are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.
03:19.16 Angie Whitcomb
Well, Brandon, thank you for the invite. I have to tell you, being that you were the first person I called when I had this crazy idea, I think it's kind of fun now that I get to be on your podcast. Full circle, right. Well, I appreciate the opportunity. And yeah, I am the president and CEO of the Shakopee Chamber and Visitors Bureau. I've been there a little over, well, about 10 and a half years now. And if you count the time between March and now, about 40 years.
03:28.898 Brandon Burton
Coming full circle.
03:45.368 Angie Whitcomb
and people always ask me, where is Shakopee? And we are 19 miles southwest of downtown Minneapolis. And our organization is made up of our CBB, our chamber with our you know, chamber operations, which includes a Main Street program, and our foundation. We have just over 300 members, a staff of four and a half, and a budget of just over $1 million.
04:07.598 Brandon Burton
All right. Well, that gives us a good snapshot of your organization and gives us a little bit of background. And I should have mentioned the reason that we're having you on the podcast today is this crazy idea that you're talking about is a couple months ago you guys started your own podcast there at the Shakopee Chamber. And you want to share with us the name of your podcast?
04:31.214 Angie Whitcomb
Super original. It's the Shakopee Chamber podcast, which we used just at the beginning as a filler until we could come up with something clever. And my colleague Tim and I would sit in my office and come up with fun names. And then we're just like, why are we complicating this? We've already got the like we just, it's the Shakopee Chamber podcast. Our members, it's easy to find, you know. So we we decided to quit complicating it.
04:55.83 Brandon Burton
I like the simplicity. I mean you see a lot of chambers try to get too cutesy with the names and then it doesn't it kind of loses the message of of what their chamber's trying to portray. So
05:07.17 Angie Whitcomb
You and the purpose of this is the chamber's got something to tell ya. The chamber's got something to talk about you need to know about. So it's the Shakopee Chamber podcast.
05:15.214 Brandon Burton
That's right. So let's go to kind of the origins of this this crazy idea. how did you come up with the idea to do a podcast? Why? what was the development of that like?
05:30.158 Angie Whitcomb
Sure. Well, we saw yours, quite honestly, and we're like, okay, we need to, in this time we're living through, we needed to find a new way to connect with our community and not just our chamber members, but our community. And when this pandemic hit, obviously we all went to work at home and we stopped gathering for our eggs and issues or a legislative breakfast or member luncheons, where we were bringing in. speakers and discussing topics in person that were important to the community or our membership and and things they needed to know about that throughout the course of the day maybe they weren't aware of. So we had to figure out a new way to communicate with our members. And I saw you doing yours. And I thought, all right, well the cool kids are doing it. Let's look into this. And I
06:15.946 Brandon Burton
If this guy can do it. No. How are you?
06:21.768 Angie Whitcomb
gonna be that's right no that wasn't it at all you were very gracious i called you and we didn't know each other and i said tell me about this because we need to figure out a way and i have a really innovative colleague in in my my vice president for the cbb tim who's super techie and said we should do a podcast and and so he started researching it and Yeah, it just it just kind of came together. I mean, we had plenty of topics and we wanted it not to be all COVID all the time. And as we rolled it out, it we we realized there was, you know, an element of COVID information that needed to be discussed in whatever issue we were discussing, because everything was impacted. And you know, when this thing first started, as all chambers across the country were doing, we were getting information out from our states as fast as we could. We were doing it on Facebook. We were doing it on our website. We were direct emailing. And I feel like there was, at least in Minnesota, you know, there was a new executive order, like it felt like every 10 minutes. And so we had to decipher that and get that inform, break it down and get it out in manageable nuggets. Here are here's what you need to know. And I feel like in the course of those first few months, as we were all growing more weary as business leaders, Facebook, well it was too much and it was too frequent and it was becoming white noise. So that was also a big driver in how do we change this up and engage with our members? And you know as well as I do that the best way to engage with your members is to meet them where they're at. Well, you know, regardless of the size of your chamber, whether you have hundred members or five thousand members, there's five thousand different places that your members are at any given time. And this allowed us to reach them when and where they wanted to. So we were still able to get information out to them, still able to bring them their topics, but they were able to digest it when they wanted to versus when we told them they had to show up for a lunch. So, you know, we were talking about important things before COVID hit and we still need to be talking about these important things. And this gave us a really good platform to do it.
08:29.908 Brandon Burton
I totally agree. I mean, that's a big reason why I got into it. I love the idea of being able to meet people where they're at. And whether that's when they're in the car driving or out walking the dog or at the gym, whatever it is, I I call it a net activity because it's it it requires no extra time. It's a net and it it's a way for your members to engage with what you have to say, to listen, to participate. without requiring requiring them to be somewhere and and committing that extra time. Yeah. So
09:02.488 Angie Whitcomb
Yeah, one of the fun things that we've discovered is and you know, having been in the chamber world and and everyone listening knows, you're trying to you've got this great program in mind and you're trying to nail down that speaker and coordinate dates and locations and times, and well, I can be there, but I have a hard stop at this time. It is so easy to get these guests for 30 or 40 minutes on a Zoom call. And so it's been really fun to be able to have the the speakers and the guests that we've been able to have. It's just a lot easier to book them than trying to book them the old way.
09:32.142 Brandon Burton
So let's talk about that a little bit. Tell us a little bit more. What type of guests do you have on? What is the format of your show like? Cause I've seen various different types of formats coming out of Chamber Podcast. So what direction have you guys chosen to go?
09:46.766 Angie Whitcomb
wherever we need to. So, you know, our guests have been buried. Our first first episode, we had both of our elected officials, our our local senator and our local state rep. And we try to keep our timeline to, you know, very much like yours, 30 minutes, and sometimes it goes a little bit longer. These guys with COVID, I didn't want them both in my office, and our studio is my office, right? So we tell everyone to be quiet. Tim and I go into the office and so They each went about 45 minutes. and you know, it it went a little bit long, but we talked about, you know, what what's happening with COVID, what is the follow-up from the last legislative session, and what can we be expecting? So all things legislative, because that's always a big get, right? And we had, you know, local elected officials, we had a local designer who's doing some good nonprofit work in the community.
10:27.885 Brandon Burton
What?
10:46.37 Angie Whitcomb
We had the executive director of an organization that works with women who are and well, not just women, people who are suffering in domestic violence situations. So the Southern Valley Alliance came on and they touted their big fundraiser. So whatever is happening. And then this last week, my last guest was a representative from the Minnesota Auto Dealers Association. And she and I had a great discussion about some pending executive action that our governor is considering implementing. we where he would just implement California's car regulations in Minnesota. And it's something that consumers and dealers need to be really aware of. And it's just, you know, when it's not being talked about at the legislature, it's not on anyone's radar. So we brought that and we got a lot of good feedback from that one on wow, I didn't know this was happening. And it's created some good follow-up conversations with our members in that industry. And some some good grassroots opportunities for our members and our community at large. So our format is, you know, whoever has a hot topic that people need to know about that week, we book them.
11:50.91 Brandon Burton
I think that's great. And just being plugged in to be able to know who would be a good candidate to put in front of your audience. Yeah. Now I did listen to that first episode and a lot of I had a long drive, so I was listening. But it sounded like the two were on the opposite ends of the political spectrum too. So it's probably a good idea to bring them in separately like you did, but Joking aside, at the beginning of that episode, you were kind of introducing the podcast to your audience and and you had mentioned the word pivot that you guys were pivoting. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about I mean, I guess you you kind of alluded to it a little bit earlier, but what does that pivot look like for you?
12:34.796 Angie Whitcomb
Yeah, well, you know, we were all forced to reevaluate our programming and figure out how how we continued to do it. And it and I go back, I was a huge friends watcher, right? And Joey and Chandler trying to get or not Joey, Ross and Chandler trying to get that couch up the stairs and shoving this big couch up the set of stairs that wasn't gonna go in pivoting. And that's what running a chamber felt like to me in that moment. I mean it was like, my God, how are we going to get this couch up these stairs? And how are we going to make sure our members stay engaged and that we find a way to keep revenue streams coming in, stay true to mission and all of that. So I mean it was, you know, you have to get outside of the box. And for me, Brandon, it was I looked at it as a great opportunity to reevaluate our programming. I mean, you know, we have to Sheila Birnbach always says, kill the sacred cows, right? So we have to take a look at what we've always done. And now we know it doesn't work because it can't work because we're being told that we can't do so how do we make it better? And so it was a really good opportunity. And you know, this was just it was at first it was daunting. And my colleague Tim went on YouTube. I mean like how you figure out how to change a light bulb or do switch out a light switch or whatever. You go to YouTube and figure it out. All the kids do it.
13:38.366 Brandon Burton
Mm.
13:56.494 Angie Whitcomb
So we went to YouTube and figured out how to do it. I called you and told the board we were gonna do it. And they kind of looked at me and scratched like and I'm like, here's where you find it. And I showed them how to find podcasts on their phones. and we just we just tried it. And you know, I'm a big believer in you don't know if something's gonna work till you try it. You're only gonna fail if you don't give it a shot. And worst case scenario.
14:04.692 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
14:21.538 Angie Whitcomb
You know, it doesn't work and you figure out something better, or best case scenario it does, or vice versa. Worst case scenario works and now you've got this monster you need to feed, but we're having fun with it. our community is responding well. And, you know, I I'd say it it worked. This pivot worked. Now we've tried some other things pivoting during this time and they haven't.
14:40.654 Brandon Burton
So how would you how would you think once we get out of this new normal and get back to our old normal at some point? How how would you see podcasting at your chamber going forward if things were to go back to how they were before?
14:58.862 Angie Whitcomb
I think it will continue. I think you know, the one thing we never have enough of is time and money, right? Yeah. And I have had feedback from our members that this allows them the time to be engaged and stay informed. So I don't know that this will go away. Now, will we continue to add in some of those in-person events that are really important to our members? Of course we will. In fact, we're all kind of chomping up the bit to do that. but this podcast I think is here to stay. We're having fun with it. There's a lot of things to discuss and it's again, it's changing, it's being innovative and our members are appreciating the flexibility it allows them without costing them you know, missing out on something.
15:40.194 Brandon Burton
So you're talking about the cost to the members, the time and money, right? On the members, but from the chambers vantage point, what did it take for you to get started? I know I I have a a free chamber podcasting guide that I I make available for anybody who wants it. And you can go to my website or even a new page on my website that I'll I'll put out on this episode, chamber chatpodcast.com slash pivot. Yeah. And podcast pivot. But you can get excuse me, you can gain access to that free podcasting guide there, really showing you how inexpensive and how easy it can be to get up and going fairly quickly. So what did it look like on your end? If you can kind of run us through what what did it cost time frame wise, what did it, you know, what was a turnaround from idea generation to launch?
16:34.594 Angie Whitcomb
Right. It was sort of ready, fire, aim. And in full disclosure, we're still building this plane as we fly it. Right. But we used your podcasting guide. And you know, I talked to you and you were gracious enough to send it to me. And I printed it out. And I sat down with my my colleague Tim and we we kind of just mapped it out like, okay, what equipment do we need? Where would we do it? You kind of look at the logistics of it, you know. And you talk about the turnaround, it was, you know, how fast it took Tim to research the equipment, order it in Amazon to deliver it. And get my first guests. And and I'm very fortunate, our elected official from Shakopee, if I call, they come. And they they are on opposite sides of the aisle and they do differ on a lot of things, but they work very well together, even in their differences. So we're very fortunate. So it's pretty easy to get our first guests. It was not easy to keep some of the time limit. But you know what it is, but it is. So when you talk about equipment, I was overwhelmed right now. I was like, my gosh, this is gonna be tens of thousands of dollars of. capital investment and who knows if this is gonna work. It's a crazy idea we have and we're just running with it. But in talking to you I realized we probably even spent more than we needed to. And I would blame him if he was sitting next to me so he'll
17:45.566 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
17:47.49 Angie Whitcomb
My partner Tim, he he got good equipment. You know, he wasn't gonna buy, you know, disposable equipment if we're gonna make this investment. So I really appreciate that about him. But he did he I set a budget and he stayed under it. So it all sort of worked out. So I mean it was really simple. He bought a sound mixer, two dynamic mics with arms, and you know, we used your guide. We got a lot of great info on YouTube about you know what's the best brand, who's got the best ratings on equipment. And then he bought something called a Zoom H6, which looks like I don't know, it's just a little box. It looks like a power box. Yeah. And you can take those two microphones and that box and go anywhere. So we can be, you know, on the spot live recording, live interviewing. We can take the podcast to our guests. we happen to do ours on Zoom and we do both video and audio, which is kind of weird, but
18:37.806 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
18:41.698 Angie Whitcomb
We have members who, you know, we had a good Facebook live following and we had a good following with our election activities. We do debates and candidate interviews. So we already had kind of our YouTube followers and we had our Facebook followers and they're looking for lives. So we didn't want to lose those. And so not only are we on anywhere you can get, you know, listen to your podcast, whether it's Apple, Google, Stitcher, iHeart, wherever, and now Alexa, you can just conveniently say, Hey Alexa, play the Shakopee Chamber podcast. As I say that, I hope mine doesn't
19:14.272 Brandon Burton
That's right. I see the blue ring go no, I'm just kidding.
19:18.226 Angie Whitcomb
but so you know we do it on both and but it's just it's it was really easy and I and start to finish a week and a half. I mean we want I mean when did I talk to you? In the middle of May and we did our first one in the first part of June. Fortunately I had a member who was willing to be our first sponsor and they've got a really vibrant marketing team. it's our local
19:28.878 Brandon Burton
A week and a half.
19:36.44 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
19:45.93 Angie Whitcomb
regional medical center. They've got a vibrant marketing team and we called them and said, absolutely, we would love to do that. And so they wrote a great copy. They changed their copy from week to week and they'd send it to me and we'd record it. And they got the intro and the outro. And their investment helped us pay for not only Tim's time to work all this and figure it out, but more than paid for the equipment. So now we just have a great platform to get information to our members and give Our members an opportunity to promote their business along the way.
20:17.11 Brandon Burton
That's right. I I love that it's already cash flow positive within a matter of weeks from from getting started. That's right. So does your board. but I think it's also really smart how you guys leveraged your following on Facebook Live and YouTube that you already had. So being able to do these recordings, this important information that you're trying to get out to your membership. Leverage that on the platforms you already have while you build up your new platform. Because I think I'd mentioned to you before that in I don't know, maybe others have thought about this too. But if you do a Facebook Live, yeah, it's a good platform. You get in front of a lot of people, you can target your audience and all that. If you do a a sponsored post and things like that. But when you think about a user on Facebook, what are they going to Facebook for? Usually they're going there to to unwind, to kind of unplug and just detach from the stresses of life. So they're not. Going there necessarily to see what the chamber has to say, but it is still a good opportunity to be able to get in front of them, let them know about your podcast, where they can subscribe, because as they do that, then they're really able to engage because they're choosing to subscribe. They're downloading episodes and listening on the go whenever they're out, when it's convenient for them. So I think it was really smart strategy how you guys launched your podcast that way on your YouTube and Facebook channels.
21:44.046 Angie Whitcomb
Well, we copied you, friend. Setting a good example. And and you know, I think that's the beauty of our industry. You know, we joke that it's RD, rip off, and duplicate, but there's a lot of really smart people in this industry with great ideas and it's scalable for all of our community. So what I probably the biggest takeaway of you know this pivot was
21:49.494 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
22:09.59 Angie Whitcomb
you know, getting out of my I once I got out of my own head and realized it wasn't going to be super expensive or frightening or hard to do and that the value to our membership it's tremendous. So rip off and duplicate. I want everyone
22:24.13 Brandon Burton
That's right. I think
22:25.122 Angie Whitcomb
want them have more listeners than I do, but I want them to be community.
22:27.406 Brandon Burton
That's right. I mean, there's no reason why every chamber shouldn't be able to have a podcast. I mean, time wise, what is it what does it cost you time wise for each episode as far as I mean, you gotta get a guest lined up as you do an interview format, recording. You've got somebody to help you with editing and and pushing it out there. But I'm thinking on on a smaller chamber size. I mean, you guys are you said four and a half. staff right now. So if if for a a one or two person chamber staff, is this something that they could do?
23:02.91 Angie Whitcomb
my gosh, absolutely. So we, you know, we record it, we tell our guests, we're not gonna edit it. You know, like we're having a conversation, we want it to be pure, we want it, we want the integrity of that to be preserved. So the only editing Tim does on the end, I'm not, I'm not skilled enough to do the editing. I'm I'm so fortunate to have a Tim. but
23:24.991 Brandon Burton
And a sponsor that pays for Tim.
23:26.904 Angie Whitcomb
And the sponsor, yeah. Tim's a full-time employee of the chamber, but yeah, but yeah, I mean so he put he drops in the intro, he drops in the outro, he you know, loads the the image of our logo and the fancy chamber music, the intro music. And then he puts it out. You know, he schedules it to drop on Thursday mornings and and so I would say we probably
23:30.334 Brandon Burton
I'm just fine.
23:44.43 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
23:53.518 Angie Whitcomb
Collectively, I book our guests, and that's usually a quick phone call or an interview or an email. And send them up. Here's what we're gonna talk about. So there's no surprises. and then you know, my time and Tim's time, an hour and a half a week, and that includes recording. I mean, we all have an hour and a half a week. Think about the in-person events we have created.
24:17.806 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
24:19.426 Angie Whitcomb
Exact same thing. No way ever in the history of any chamber executive have they produced and pulled that together in ninety minutes in a week. Never. So it's it's doable and it's fun.
24:28.203 Brandon Burton
Yeah. I think of all the logistics of catering a lunch and everything. It just I mean, you've got an hour and a half. It it's very doable. So even if you do have to edit it on your own, it it is very doable. So
24:46.21 Angie Whitcomb
think you know the platform we use is Buzzsprout and you know we use Zoom and so it's you you download it, you know, maybe take out the dog bark if that happened. I mean we're doing all of these via Zoom. So your secretary of state he was our guest one day and his kids were in the background. He's like, Yeah, edit those out if you have to. I'm like, we can hear them on our end. So I mean, you know, it's been kind of fun to have kind of the realism of it and talking to the secretary of state or we're talking to our deed commissioner and they're at home and we're just having these conversations and here's their life. So, you know, we haven't had to do a lot of editing and sometimes we hear a dog and we just leave it in.
25:28.36 Brandon Burton
That's right. Yeah. It it's real.
25:31.63 Angie Whitcomb
Well and isn't that our whole job? Our jobs are real. Chamber life is real and it's raw and these are real issues and let's just let's not overproduce it. Let's just have a conversation and get the information out there. And maybe that's not the right way, but that's how we're doing it.
25:46.2 Brandon Burton
So you've talked a little bit about the vision, kind of the idea creation of what brought this up. You've talked about how simple it was to get it up and going once you kind of had things in order and how quickly that time frame was to turn it around in about a week and a half. I mean, that that kind of shocks me. I mean, it maybe it takes other people two or three weeks, but it it can be done very quickly.
26:08.654 Angie Whitcomb
User gadgets how to guide. Step by step, done.
26:13.026 Brandon Burton
That's right. And you've even talked about how you've you've gotten a sponsor on the podcast now. Can you talk a little bit to what benefit? I mean, this is kind of a three-part question. So what benefit this has been to your chamber, to your membership, and to your community at large?
26:34.85 Angie Whitcomb
Yeah. you know, certainly to our chamber. It in a time when we felt like we were not going to be able to connect with our members because we couldn't see them face to face. We couldn't do what we've always done. It has been a gift to be able to communicate and engage with them in this new way. And and the benefit to us is we've engaged more people. Our reach is greater. And so, you know, any chamber exec listening understands that that's what we're all reaching for, right? So and it it's elevated us. I think it has given us, I don't know how to say this without sounding kind of egotistical about it, but it's given us a leg up. It's it shows we're innovative, we're engaged, we're creative, we're outside of the box, we're cutting edge. And isn't that what our members want from us? They want catalytic leadership, they want us showing them the way. And and so it's given us that little bit of a bump. Our membership and our community, they're just more engaged. I mean, they're they're getting the information, they're more informed, they're more engaged. and we're making it easy for them, right? Yeah. And their members, they've got another platform to promote their business and they like that. So that's our job. I mean, it's helping me do my job better. It's helping our members, you know, engage better.
27:54.21 Brandon Burton
That's right. I mean, we always hear about g having non involvement engagement from your membership. And I think a podcast is a a perfect way of doing it. I would say the one downside is I wish you could see who every one of your subscribers were. So you knew which members were engaging. And I don't know, maybe that'll come in the analytics sooner or later, but that that is the one drawback I would say. But you've been getting feedback from members telling you how much they love it and yeah, and even
28:24.012 Angie Whitcomb
Community members. I mean, we had so I ended up missing a week of recording and dropping it out for a medical thing that none of us saw coming. But it took me out of pocket for about a week and a half. So we did we missed a week and we had a community member call and say, Hey, we're really enjoying the podcast. And we missed it this week. Hopefully you you haven't stopped it. And are you guys gonna be talking about this particular issue? And so and it wasn't a chamber member, it wasn't a business owner, it was a community member. And I thought, All right, this is the best she
28:57.006 Brandon Burton
Yes. And so that shows you that you're providing value when you miss and they and they say, Where is it? We need it.
29:04.61 Angie Whitcomb
Where where's your podcast? And you know, I I couldn't go into the office for a couple of weeks. And so to talk about how easy this is to do this podcast anywhere, Tim packed up our little mixer, our little dynamic mic, and he came to my house all masked up and I spent him out and ice all. And we went in my sunroom and we recorded the podcast right there. It was great. I mean, the hardest part of that one was keeping my kid and my dog from disrupting the whole thing, but it worked great. So
29:29.41 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
29:30.806 Angie Whitcomb
Have have mixing board will travel podcast. And we recorded two episodes in about an hour and half. And it would have been shorter except for scheduling on our guest part. So
29:40.78 Brandon Burton
Yeah. So you had mentioned that you use Buzzsprout for your hosting service for the for the podcast. for anybody that's considering doing a podcast, just from the experience, the research that I've done, it looks like Buzzsprout and Libsyn are the the top two options out there and they're fairly inexpensive. Angie, what I don't know what plan you guys are on with Buzzsprout, but do you have an idea what you spend monthly to
30:10.574 Angie Whitcomb
I couldn't tell you I delegated that to somebody far smarter than me and Tim. But I do see the bill every month and come through on our, you know, on our auto pay and it's like twenty-three dollars a month.
30:20.898 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Very inexpensive.
30:24.01 Angie Whitcomb
investment for a huge return.
30:26.686 Brandon Burton
Exactly. I I personally I use Libsyn with with this podcast and I think I'm at about fifteen dollars a month on my hosting plan. So save that eight bucks. Yeah. But for anybody who's considering doing a podcast, if you wanted to give Libsyn a try, I do have a promo code, it is affiliate link for me. So I I get a little bit of kickback, but it also gives you your first month.
30:37.134 Angie Whitcomb
Like we should maybe switch.
30:56.646 Brandon Burton
actually the rest of the current month and the entire next month for free. So if you go to libsyn dot com and use promo code chamber. So nice and easy to remember chamber. You'll get that month plus free as you as you get started.
31:13.108 Angie Whitcomb
E even they they adapted my naming policy to keep it simple. Throw the word chamber in it.
31:19.244 Brandon Burton
That's right. So Angie, this is a great example of how you guys have gotten things started with the Shakopee Chamber podcast. Love the name. If you could maybe based on our discussion today, or maybe it's not even based on our discussion, but what might be one action item that you would suggest to a chamber to kind of take their game up to the next level?
31:33.486 Angie Whitcomb
Okay.
31:48.426 Angie Whitcomb
As in terms of pivoting their programming or doing a podcast or just in general. So, you know, I mean, I think, Brandon, I mean, you know, the role of chambers has never been more important. And I don't see that changing ever again, right? but we're facing challenges like we've we've never faced. And you know, some chambers are just Simply figuring out how they're gonna survive and be here in six months, as you know, their reserves run low and member engagement isn't. I would just say try it. I mean, you have to step outside of your box. There is no idea too crazy. But I think it's important that you understand what's important to your members. For for my particular community, they want to be informed. They want, they want to know what's happening in the city with hot issues.
32:29.206 Brandon Burton
Easy.
32:41.228 Angie Whitcomb
They don't want to rely on whatever concerned citizens Facebook feed there is. They want factual, relevant information they can trust. And they were getting that face to face. And so we knew doing a podcast that would be important to them. I think there's not a chamber exec in the country that probably doesn't understand what their members want and need. And so find a way to deliver it. There's no wrong way to get your members what they need. The only wrong thing is to do nothing. And I think collaboration, I mean, right now we all have a neighboring chamber. Partner with them, collaborate with them. It's gonna I mean, I think that's gonna be a conversation that we see happening more and more amongst chambers on whether they're how they're gonna change in order to remain relevant and and survive and how they might collaborate or maybe even combine their efforts. And I think MA is gonna be a conversation we're having. as chamber industry.
33:40.962 Brandon Burton
That's right. I like in one of your previous responses, you had talked about how having the podcast shows how innovative your chamber is. And I think at a time where the stress can be high, everything that you've done normally in the past has been kind of turned upside down. And it could be very easy just to kind of sit back and hide for a little bit and wait for things to try to get normal. But to be able to take that initiative and say, look. we still have value that we need to get out into our membership and our community. And we found a new way to do this, I think, is huge for you guys to step forward and do that and and for all the other chambers that have done the same thing and made that pivot, I think is huge.
34:22.67 Angie Whitcomb
I don't want it to s to sound like it was easy because Brandon, I throughout this time, I tell you, I full disclosure, there were days where I was like, my God, this is so hard. How are we gonna survive? I just want to crawl under my desk and wait for this pandemic to end and then go back to my regularly scheduled programming. There were days, and it's okay to have those moments. It's important to have your support structure. I happen to, as you mentioned in the intro, be chairing our MCCE group, our state association. And I will tell you, my colleagues around the state, we have when this started, we were meeting weekly on the Zoom just to say, my God, what are you doing? How are you like just to know you weren't alone and to to bounce ideas and to share ideas and to you know kick around those crazy ideas. And it's been it's been a godsend and and it's it's more than we've ever met in the history of my involvement for 10 years with this organization. But it was important. This is not easy. The work we do has never been easy. This pandemic and this this crisis has certainly made it even harder. But it's important to have your support and it's important to say I'm having a hard day and and and I don't know where to go from here. And then call you, call me, call anyone. Like we are a network that is strong. And you know, any one of us, whether we know each other or not. I didn't know you when I called you and said tell me. But we're here. I mean, we we are our peer group. And so I would encourage everybody
35:42.894 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
35:49.834 Angie Whitcomb
to reach out when you need it. I don't don't misinterpret that this was easy. It wasn't easy. You know, the hardest part was getting out of my own head though. And then the steps to do it were not that difficult. They were attainable.
36:02.262 Brandon Burton
So very good. So I like to ask this question that I have to everybody I have on the podcast, as we're always looking to the future. how do you view the future of chambers of commerce and their purpose going forward?
36:16.856 Angie Whitcomb
Well, as I just said, you know, I think the role of chambers has never been more important. And as we continue down this road to recovery, it's gonna we're not gonna lose our importance. We're going you know, our members need us, our communities need us. I had a board member say a couple of weeks ago at a meeting. You know, I don't wanna imagine our community without the chamber. And we as the business leaders around this table need to make sure that our chamber stays strong and the chambers around us stay strong. And I think chambers are going to be collaborating and partnering with one another more and finding creative, innovative partnerships to you know, create efficiencies in leadership so that we can continue to be the catalyst for recovery and the catalyst for a strong economy. So
37:09.236 Brandon Burton
I I love the answer. I love it. well I appreciate that. I guess in in wrapping up, I've make a I'll make a little bit of an announcement as well. And in working with you and and having our conversations with getting your podcast up and going and and other chambers as well. I'm gonna start offering my services as far as consulting goes to to help chambers do this, to make that pivot, because it is something important and it is something that you can do. I mean, this is something that any chamber can do. And I want to be there and be that support and be able to hold your hand through the process of whatever it takes. And a lot of times it just takes that having somebody to be accountable to, to say, here's what I want to do, how do I do it? And then have them check in with you and and kind of follow through with it. So
38:03.294 Angie Whitcomb
Proudly serve as your first reference because I reached out to you and you were so gracious and kind and you did follow up with me. You said, hey, I saw that it posted. I like the name. Have you thought about this? So yeah, let me be your first reference. And let me also say I'm glad I got you before you started charging for that.
38:13.646 Brandon Burton
No.
38:21.218 Brandon Burton
That's right.
38:24.256 Angie Whitcomb
for to anyone listening to this who's who's even for a hot second thought about doing a podcast to call you and get that guide and utilize your expertise. Cause really Brandon, you were you were kind of that you can do this cheerleader that I needed in that moment. And so I'm grateful to you because it's worked out really well for us. So
38:43.244 Brandon Burton
happy to do it. It gives me a lot of joy to be able to help out and to be able to see it come full circle, to be able to listen to the podcast and and know a little bit of the struggle kind of going into it, but then seeing you come through and do it and and own it. I mean, you guys have a great podcast there. You're a great host. You get great guests. It's a great show. So if it
39:02.424 Angie Whitcomb
standing here at episode ninety five of my own podcast. I feel like we're getting there. Any more to go to get that to to reach your level.
39:08.002 Brandon Burton
That's right.
39:11.682 Brandon Burton
That's right. So I'll refer people to that same pivot page on my website if they would like to learn more about the consulting or to get even just the free chamber podcasting guide, totally free. Chamberchatpodcast.com slash pivot. So but Angie, I wanted to thank you for spending time with us here on Chamber Chat Podcast. If any listeners out here wanted to connect with you, maybe learn a little bit about your process, you mentioned a couple of times, call you. What would be the best way for someone to connect with you offline to continue this discussion or kind of pick your brain as to how you did things?
39:48.93 Angie Whitcomb
Yeah, well, you can find me via our website, shakopee.org. Again, we're keeping it simple. shakopee.org.
39:57.39 Brandon Burton
So can you spell Shakopee for people just real quick? And I'll put it in the show notes page too.
40:03.424 Angie Whitcomb
It's S-H A K O P E E, shakopee.org. And my email is just awhitcomb at shakopee.org and I would love to chat with anyone about this or anything, really. I'm a big fan of this industry and a big fan and a big believer in the power of we as it relates to chamber executives.
40:27.69 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. We're all stronger together. So I appreciate you giving that support. And I will put your contact information in our show notes page for this episode, which will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com slash episode 95. But Angie, again, thank you for joining us today and sharing your story and your pivoting to podcasting at the Shakopee Chamber. I appreciate it.
40:52.238 Angie Whitcomb
Thanks for the advice.
40:55.328 Brandon Burton
If you are a Chamber Professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast, new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you're finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.
41:27.446 Brandon Burton
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. 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 us stories about your members as well as your advocacy efforts and becomes a valuable, tangible asset for nondues 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.