2019
OCTOBER
NEWSLETTER
INTRODUCTION
From the Lander Chamber of Commerce Although it betokens the fading of the year, the onset of autumn always brings with it an invigorating freshness that speaks of new beginnings. The crisp mornings and cool evenings that bookend summer’s waning warmth and daylight have a remarkable power to help us refresh and refocus. This is especially true for me this autumn as I begin my role as the Chamber’s new executive director. Many people are asking me about my vision for the Chamber. Candidly, that will take some time to determine since, rather than impose at the outset any grand scheme of my own, my intention instead is to spend much of my time over the coming months visiting with members (both current and potential) and listening to their ideas about the direction of the Chamber. With so many different kinds and sizes of businesses and organizations here, there’s sure to be much discussion of what the Chamber’s future should be; I ask you sincerely to be a part of it.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Susan Weideman, President Lander Vision Center
Michelle Mazur, Vice-Pres. Elevate Rehab
Joanne Slingerland, Treasurer Central Wyoming College
BOARD OF DIRECTORS Mika Baker, Past President Central Bank and Trust
Ann Espinosa Home Source Realty Inc. Inter Mountain Builders
Dave Fehringer
During my first week on the job, I discovered in my office an old book my predecessor described as “timeless.” In its opening pages is the following observation: It was, and still is, difficult for many to realize that each line of industry, business, or profession is in the Chamber of Commerce, not for direct benefits — aside from certain direct benefits — but for what it could contribute in the way of brains and energy to the broad community situation, the condition of which spells success or failure for any and all of its participants. ~ pg. 4, Chamber of Commerce Administration, 1942 To that end, it is my sincere hope as Executive Director to act in every case as much as possible for the greatest good for the greatest number of Chamber members. I have much to offer the Chamber, but I also have much to learn. I look forward to working with you and for you to support and promote this wonderful place that we are all blessed to call home.
WH Smith & Associates, Inc.
Suzanne Norris Wyoming Life Resource Center
Jonathan Tonkowich Wyoming Catholic College
Rick Bestul NAPA Auto Parts
Eric Andrews Fagnant, Lewis, Brinda P.C.
Mark Schatza Black Hills Energy
James Whiting Whiting Law PC
PROFESSIONAL STAFF Owen Sweeney Executive Director
Carol King
Owen Sweeney Executive Director Lander Chamber of Commerce
Associate Director
Kelsey Ball Operations Assistant
By Sarah Hamlin, Regional Director The landscape of social media marketing is constantly changing and getting started with a new platform can be intimidating. Pinterest currently reports 200 million monthly users and that number is continuing to grow. So, should your business take the Pinterest plunge? Here are some tips to help you make that decision. It is important to get to know your audience. The most popular categories for pins include: Food, Drink, DIY Crafts, Home Décor, Women’s Fashion, Quotes, Health, Humor, Travel, Technology, Hair, and Fitness. Behavior also shows that members are using Pinterest primarily to plan their life well in advance of the season, holiday or special event. The goal then, as a small business, is to make sure you are keeping your content calendar up to date and sharing relevant posts for trends and seasons 45 days before the event. If you’re ready to give Pinterest a go, contact me or your local Wyoming Small Business Development Center Network advisor. Our online marketing specialists and Market Research Center can audit your social media presence and help you design a content plan that best suits your business. Here is some of the advice we offer to help you get started: Make sure your boards have a relevant purpose to your business. For example, if you sold jewelry, I would also think about other fashion trends, care of jewelry, inspiration and other fashion type boards. Try to share to your boards during peak times. Pinterest reports that this is in the evenings and weekends, though the more we learn about your followers via your analytics, the better we will be able to tweak the most optimal times of day for you to post. Pin consistently. Aim for 10-12 pins daily. This is better than pinning everything at one time, once per week. I’m not saying that it has to be 10-12 pins every day, but the idea here is to pay attention to consistency over time. Have multiple pins that point to the same link on your website. Going back to my jewelry example, you might make three different pins for the same pair of earnings in different settings all sending people to the same pair on your website for purchase. Pay attention to keywords. Regardless of if you are creating new pins or repinning, it is good practice to create/update/change the descriptions of the pins so they are using your preferred keywords. Remember, descriptions in Pinterest are searchable, so it is important to make sure you are using the language in your descriptions that match how your potential customers are searching. For example, when I search ‘silver rings’, Pinterest allows me to check additional qualifiers like: ‘handmade’, ‘unique’, ‘with stone’, etc. Vertical pins tend to stand out more than horizontal pins. The ideal ratio is 2:3. For example, 600 pixels wide x 900 pixels high. Be picky with pictures. Lifestyle, product-in-action images perform better than standalone pictures. Consider paid promotions. Get in touch with me to discuss promoted pins as a strategy on Pinterest. Use your branding. Don’t forget to add your logo to your images when appropriate! Again, make sure to meet with your local Wyoming SBDC Network advisor to optimize your bio. We want your profile image to be your logo, so that it matches your other social networks, and that you are using your keywords in your bio. Our advising services are free of cost and completely confidential. To get started, visit our website at WyomingSBDC.org, send me an email at Sarah.Hamlin@uwyo.edu, or give me a call at (307) 851-2029.
PINTEREST FOR BUSINESS
BUSINESS AFTER Getting Started with Pinterest for Business
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sarah Hamlin is the regional director for Fremont and Teton Counties. Sarah has a marketing and operations background with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Denver and an MBA from Colorado State University. Her love for helping small business started when she was in high school working for the local, familyowned sporting goods store in northeast Ohio. Sarah specializes in social media and digital marketing, working with clients statewide to get their businesses online.
EVENTS
AFTER October CalendarBUSINESS of Events EVERY MONDAY Book sale at the Book Nook, 4-7 pm, Carnegie Room, Lander Library EVERY SATURDAY Lander Valley Farmers Market, 9-11:30 am, Lander City Park Summer market ends Oct. 12 EVERY SUNDAY Swing Dancing at the Coalter Loft, 6-9 pm, Coalter Loft 1-26 Art of Home Show, Lander Art Center, 224 Main St. 2 Benessere Open House 4-7 pm, 195 Capitol Ave.
7 Brain Injury Support Group, 5-6 pm, Soldier’s Home of Fremont County, Riverton 10 Crossroads Mural Series, 6-7 pm, Carnegie Room, Lander Library
19 Haunted Downtown Walking Tour, 5:30-9:30 pm, Riverton Museum 19 Kid’s Halloween Pumpkin Carving, Dubois Branch Library
10-12 CWC presents “Our Town”, 7 pm, CWC Theatre, Main Stage, Riverton
26 Manon, Met Opera Live in HD, 11 am-2:50 pm, Carnegie Room, Lander Library
13 CWC presents “Our Town”, 2 pm, CWC Theatre, Main Stage, Riverton
25-26 Halloween Night at the Museum 6-9 pm, Pioneer Museum, Lander
12 Turandot - MET Opera Live in HD, 11am-2 pm, Carnegie Room, Lander Library
Nov. 1 First Friday My Store Belles & Beaus, open until 9 pm, 258 Main St.
4 First Friday My Store Belles & Beaus, open until 9 pm, 258 Main St.
12 Barn Dance: Fall Festival + Chili Cook Off, 5-8 pm, Museum of the American West
4 First Friday: Art & Live Music, 5-9 pm, The Middle Fork
17 Business After Hours, 5:30-7:30 pm, Holiday Inn Express & Suites, Lander
4 Gear N Beer, 5-8 pm, Wild Iris Mountain Sports, 166 Main St.
17 Ghost Stories, Urban Myths and Legends, 6:30-8 pm, Riverton Museum
5 Fremont Fiber Arts Guild Fiber Fest, 9am3pm, Fremont County Fair Grounds Building, Riverton
18-19 Halloween Halls of Horror - CWC Entrada Club, 7-10 pm, CWC Arts Center, Riverton
5 Percussive Art Featuring Tattered Art Soldier Sounds, 7-8 pm, Pioneer Museum, 1443 W. Main
19 Guns, Boots & Brands Gala, Lander Kiwanis annual fundraiser, 5-midnight, Lander Community & Convention Center
Nov. 1 First Friday: Art & Live Music, 5-9 pm, The Middle Fork Nov. 2 Denim & Diamonds Presented By Help, 6-8 pm, St. Margaret’s Gym, Riverton
How long have you lived in Lander, and what first brought you here? My family and I moved to Lander in 2011 so that I could run the admissions office at Wyoming Catholic College (WCC). We had been living in the DC Metro area since 2000 or so, where I was working in government relations. The large tech company at which I was employed had a huge layoff, and my team was let go. At first we thought I’d just find another job in the lobbying field, but it didn’t turn out that way; given my experience, it was taking longer than we thought it should for me to find a new position, so we took that as a sign that a big change was coming. We were right! Being in DC, how did you ever hear of Wyoming Catholic College and Lander? I get that question a lot! I knew about WCC because many of the faculty and staff there were college friends of mine at Thomas Aquinas College (TAC) in Southern California. In fact, quite a number of us graduated together in the very same class. The curriculum at WCC is in many ways similar to that at TAC, so that knowledge combined with my lobbying skills and desire to get out of the DC rat race all worked together to bring us to Lander. How did the transition from DC to Lander go? We loved it immediately. Living in the suburban sprawl of Northern Virginia, many people there have a common dream of moving out to the Shenandoah Valley. Well, our dream came true; we just overshot the location by about 2,000 miles! We love the slower, saner pace of life out here. We’re not the kind of “city folk” who move “out to
the country” only to complain that the city isn’t here; from the get-go, we wanted to embrace what Wyoming has to offer, especially the outdoor activities. Have you been able to do that? Yes, and to our surprise, almost immediately. Only a few months after moving here, we were recruited by Game & Fish to participate in the Forever Wild Families program. I had done some hunting back in Virginia, but Forever Wild helped us make the transition to hunting and fishing here in Wyoming. We’ve also gotten into horseback riding, and some of our kids even have earned their own horses now. I also love hiking and biking in Sinks Canyon and JBR, and last winter I took my wife out snowshoeing. She loved it, and we’ll be back at it this winter. Our little ones love getting outside, too; they especially love clambering all over the hoodoos at The Bus. All in all, the Sweeneys love life here, and our children are experiencing things they never could have dreamed of doing in suburbia. So what attracted you to the Chamber? The executive director position seemed like the perfect fit for my skills and experience. All of my previous positions centered on developing relationships, and I view this new role in the same way. The Chamber interacts with many different constituencies, and my broad background gives me a comfort level among them all: government; business big, small, and micro; non-profit associations; education; you name it. What’s one experience from your career that you’d like to share? This one goes way back, but it was very formative for me.
Photo: Brad Christensen After undergrad, I was awarded a graduate school fellowship to serve as a legislative aide in the California State Senate. The senator for whom I worked represented inland Orange County (the area surrounding Disneyland), and at the time local businesses with as few as 100 employees were mandated by law to provide ride-sharing programs to reduce air pollution. This was an especially costly and burdensome requirement for these small business owners, and it was my job to shepherd a bill through the legislature that would provide them some relief. Not only were we able to prove that the program did nothing to reduce emissions, we also proved that employee ridership actually went down after the program was mandated! When the bill was signed into law, one of the senator’s constituents called our Capitol office; he had read the news in the paper, and he couldn’t believe that he no longer had to fund the program. He just kept thanking me over and over. It really was a moving moment for me to be able to say that I played a part in lifting an unreasonable burden from the shoulders of thousands of business owners. So, you might say that business advocacy is in my professional blood. I hope to do Lander proud.
MEET THE NEW E.D.
OWEN SWEENEY
COMMUNITY EVENT
Lander LIVE finale August 29:
Opener: Aaron Davis & the Mystery Machine, Headliner: Elizabeth Cook
Thanks to everyone who attended, supported, and sponsored our 2019 Lander LIVE concert series!
Photos by Brad Christensen
We hope everyone had a happy summer season!
Business After Hours season is underway and this is an excellent opportunity to network and meet new connections within the business community. Everyone is invited to attend! Things you can bring with you: Business cards, Promotions and information that you can inform your peers of, volunteer opportunities, star employees that you would like to introduce.
2019-20 Schedule Sept. 26 Teton Therapy Oct 17 Holiday Inn Express & Suites Nov. 21 Householder Properties Dec. 19 Wyoming Catholic College
Jan. 16 Lander Bodyworks Feb 20 Central Bank & Trust March 19 Lander Golf Course April 16 Ron’s Flooring May 21 Westward Heights Care Center
COMMUNITY EVENTS
Business After Hours 2019-20
Calkins, Kent & Leslie 233 Vista Circle, Lander City Plumbing & Heating Mike & Lynn McRann 340 Main St., Lander Farm Bureau Financial Services Jake Huhnke, Cori Slingerland 1630 Main St., Lander First American Title Insurance Company Margaret Pugh 902 11th St., Lander
Smartt Insurance Agency Eric Smartt 702 Main St., Lander State Farm Insurance Justus Jacobs 990 Main St., Lander Strike Consulting Group Andrew Strike 205 S. 3rd, Lander Valley View Vista Apartments Dawn Thorson-Johnson 121 Valley View Dr., Lander Western Printing Tracy & Donny Davison 546 Main St., Lander
First Interstate Bank Julie Cox, Branch Manager 8118 Hwy 789 , Lander
Wyoming PBS Foundation Joanna Kail 2660 Peck Ave., Riverton
Kellogg, Dave & Carol 10 Red Rim Road, Lander
Wyoming State Winter Fair PO Box 1013, Lander
Wyoming Windows & Cabinets Chris & Karlene Moore 3011 Hwy 287, Lander
WELCOME TO OUR NEW MEMBER! Maverick RV Park Polly Jones, manager 1104 N 2nd St., Lander
RENEWING MEMBERS
Basecamp 307 Reid Schell PO Box 1092, Lander
McCormick Marketing Paula McCormick 263 N 8th, Lander
RENEWING MEMBERS
Almost Home Wyoming PO Box 44, Lander
PRESORTED STANDARD U.S. Postage Paid LANDER, WY PERMIT NO. 78
This issue of the chamber newsletter is printed by Western Printing