Heart of the Valley Chamber of Commerce Newsletter
May 2016
The Heart of the Valley Chamber has some great events coming up in May! We continue to try to find ways to educate our members on topics that are valuable for you in your business and professional life.
""Landreman`s Family th
On Friday, May 13 , we will host a Meet and Greet - Panel Discussion with the Republican candidates running for State Assembly - District 3. The seat is currently held by Representative Al
Restaurant joined the Heart of the Valley Chamber in 1995 when we opened our business.
Ott. Al will be retiring after 30 years in the State Assembly. The Candidates are Brad Schinke, Ron
We enjoy the networking
Tusler, Josh Young and Christopher Schaefer. This event will take place at the Village Hall in Little
events as a way to meet other
Chute from 8am-9am.
members, as often as we can we use Chamber member th
On Thursday, May 19 we are co-hosting an event with the Fox West Chamber that will focus on
services. The Chamber Bucks
how to “Take Your Business to The Next Stage”.
are also a great plus. We give
Chamber Members including Stellar Blue
Technologies, Fox Communities Credit Union and Epiphany Law will be represented on the panel. Also, there is still time to register for “Experience Inbound” - sponsored by The Weidert Group. The event takes place on May 23rd at Miller Park and 24th at Lambeau Field and as a member of
them to our staff honoring their years of service and also like to use them ourselves when we shop local."
The Heart of the Valley Chamber, you will receive $30 off your registration! - Jean Landreman, There is sill time to your business involved with our upcoming Golf Outings! Our First Annual Women’s Golf Event on Wednesday, May 25 th and the 27th Annual Golf Outing that will take
Landreman`s Family Restaurant
place on Wednesday, June 15th. Sponsorship opportunities are still available! We are also looking good bag items, raffle items, etc. - get your business involved today! If you have any questions about your membership – please give me a call!
Kelli Clussman, Executive Director 920.766.1616 kclussman@heartofthevalleychamber.com
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
What’s Inside?
Upcoming Events
Welcome New Members
How to Increase Your Business’ Referrals
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Upcoming Events Name: Ribbon Cutting / Grand Opening: East Wisconsin Savings Bank co-hosted with Fox West Chamber of Commerce Date: May 5, 2016 Time: 2:00 PM - 6:00 PM Location: East Wisconsin Savings Bank1501 N Casaloma Drive, Appleton 54913 Name: Business Before Hours: Wireless Coaching Session Date: May 10, 2016 Time: 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM Location: Chamber Office Name: Business After Hours: Baker Tilly Date: May 11, 2016 Time: 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM Location: Baker Tilly 2201 E Enterprise Ave #100, Appleton, WI 54913 Name: Ribbon Cutting: Bank of Kaukauna Date: Tuesday, May 17, 2016 Time: 9:00 AM Location: Bank of Kaukauna 264 W. Wisconsin Avenue Kaukauna, WI 54130 Name: Business Between Hours: LinkedIn for Business Date: May 18, 2016 Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Location: Chamber Office Name: Grow Your Business Seminar / Co-hosted with Fox West Chamber of Commerce: Presented by Score Date: May 19, 2016 Time: 7:30 AM - 9:30 AM Location: Grand Meridian 2621 N. Oneida St. Appleton, WI 54911 Name: Business Card Exchange: Girl Scouts of the Northwestern Great Lakes Date: May 19, 2016 Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Location: Girl Scouts of the Northwestern Great Lakes 4693 N Lynndale Dr. Appleton, WI 54913 Name: Non-Profit Roundtable Group Date: May 24, 2016 Time: 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Location: Chamber Office Name: 1st Annual Women’s Golf Outing Date: May 25, 2016 Time: 1:00 PM - 7:00 PM Location: Sherwood Forest Golf Course N580 Robinhood Dr, Sherwood, WI 54169 913
To register for an event, go to www.heartofthevalleychamber.com or email jamie@heartofthevalleychamber.com
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Heart of the Valley Chamber and Fox West Chamber will join for this ribbon cutting. *Free food and refreshments *WAPL live 2-4pm *WHBY live 3-5pm *Play fun games *Register for some GREAT prizes! *Ribbon Cutting at: 4:30
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Business After Hours: BLC Community Bank Thanks to Landreman’s Family Restaurant and the 5th Quarter for providing so much great food and refreshments!
Ribbon Cutting: Anduzzi’s Sports Club
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How to Increase Your Business’ Referrals One of the easiest and cheapest marketing tactics today is building a referral network. If you concentrate on growing referrals and word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing you can cut your marketing budget. Not only does WOM marketing not cost you anything, it’s more believed by potential customers. A recent survey by PowerReviews of 800 retail customers reported 95% of respondents have consulted customer reviews in the past.
media. Not only did they make customers feel appreciated, they also continued their free advertising by asking people to post their items on social. Other great examples of delighting the customer are practiced by brick-and-mortar stores that add samples to customer bags without their knowledge or ones who wrap everyday items as if they were small treasures. These little things impress customers. Shoppers remember them and they tell their friends.
But how do you grow that solid base of referrals and people willing to write reviews?
Ask for Referrals
Hire Right
Most people want to view themselves as helpful. If you delight your customers and provide them with a great product and exemplary service there is no reason why they wouldn’t refer people to you or write a review. No reason, except that people are busy and good service is more apt to slip our minds than a bad experience. For this reason you have to ask for the referral or the review. Reviews rarely just happen out of some altruistic need for people to help businesses. Give them a reason to want to write a review and then ask them to. Referrals and reviews are the lifeblood of business these days. To improve your referrals hire right and empower your employees, delight your customers, and ask for them to share their experiences. It’s the easiest, most effective, marketing you’ll do for your business.
Begin at the beginning. If you employ people who are killing time in their position, you cannot expect them to provide mind-blowing customer service. Find people who are passionate about your product or service, or passionate about the industry. When someone is passionate about what you provide, your customers will feel it.
Treat Employees Right As John Jantsch says in the book The Referral Engine, “Employees will treat your customers the way you treat them.” An employee without passion for what you do, who is treated poorly will never wow and delight your customers. On the other hand, one who loves what they do and is empowered to do right by the customer will do so again and again.
Do Something Special When the boys from the Time Bandit (as seen on Discovery Channel’s popular show Deadliest Catch) opened a store to sell branded items like tee shirts and jackets, they could’ve relied on their notoriety alone to sell mass quantities. What small business wouldn’t love having items modeled every week on an internationally-acclaimed TV show? Instead, people who ordered from them online were surprised by a special note in each package thanking them for the purchase and encouraging them to share a picture of themselves wearing it on social 10 Connecting People – Promoting Business
Welcome New Members Sprout Media LLC Robert Schmidt - Publisher 410 W. Franklin St. #202 Appleton, WI 54912 (920) 450-8800 http://www.sproutfoxcities.com/ Sprout Fox Cities is Northeast Wisconsin’s preferred family and community resource magazine for all the best opportunities, events, people, and shopping that this unique region has to offer. Sprout Fox Cities magazine: * FREE full color, glossy, purse-sized magazine that is easy to take along with readership that consists of on-the-go parents and grandparents of all ages with children that range in age from infant to age 18. * One stop reading experience with everything from monthly columns, inspiring stories, expert parenting advice, recipes, non-profit spotlight, and a listing of community events for that month. * Available at strategic, high traffic, and convenient locations in the Fox Cities and surrounding communities including coffee shops, retail stores, child care centers, all YMCA locations, and more. Sit-and-read venues such as dental/doctor offices, dance studios, auto repair shops, salons, and child entertainment facilities love receiving our magazine. Sprout Fox Cities gets into the hands of thousands of parents each month. Call us today to reserve your ad space! Northtown Lighting, Inc. Deb Krueger
720 W Ridgeview Appleton, WI 54914 (920) 730-8116 www.northtownlighting.com From fun, functional, and fabulous, Northtown Lighting, Inc. will help you find the perfect light fixture for your home or business. Northtown Lighting is the top lighting supplier for both new home and remodeling construction in the Appleton, Green Bay and surrounding Fox Valley area. Whether you need one fixture to add a little light or personality to an existing room or a comprehensive lighting design for a new build, we have an extensive selection from which to choose and a trained sales staff ready to provide knowledgeable suggestions and tips. Since 1987, Northtown Lighting has provided a premier showroom at its 720 W Ridgeview Drive location in Appleton, WI. Nominated for both Showroom of the Year by Residential Lighting magazine and the ARTS award for the best Midwest Lighting Showroom in 2014, Northtown Lighting takes great pride in featuring some of the trendiest and budget-friendly interior and exterior lighting options in the Valley. So come in and browse our expansive showroom, and don’t forget to take a peak in our Closeout Room for that one of a kind treasure. And if you cannot find the exact light fixture, ceiling fan, mirror, or other home décor that you were looking for, we have access to much, much more from our many suppliers.
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MEMBER SPOTLIGHT By: Shelly Sullivan
I’ve been baking since before I can remember – one of my earliest memories is playing in the sandbox with a friend and packing the sand as if it was brown sugar as I baked my pretend chocolate-chip cookies. A few years after that I took chocolate-chip cookies to the county fair. A few decades (and thousands of cookies!) later, I decided I wanted to turn my love of cookies into a business. After many years of thinking about it daily, and envisioning a store as I drove past any vacant commercial space, my husband I decided to build a commercial kitchen in the basement of our home. The chocolate-chip cookies I bake today are still from my family recipe, with just a few changes, and they have also grown into a lot of varieties. I also taught myself how to decorate so I could offer cookie cakes and frosted cookies. Two things that make my bakery stand-out are every order is baked fresh and the designs are rarely duplicated.
I was asked to make 350 football cookies for the Kimberly Papermaker State Football championship banquet. It was my largest order-to-date, and it was exciting to be part of the banquet! The biggest obstacle ShellyCookies faces is not having a store-front. All orders have to be placed ahead of time, and without a storefront, there are no walk-in customers. I have overcome this somewhat with an active facebook page and word-of-mouth advertising. I’d like to develop a wholesale business, and within the next 8 years open a store-front. One of my favorite stories is when the CFO of a local company called me quite late in the evening and wanted a cookie cake with the company logo on it, for the next morning. At 10:00 that night I went and baked it quickly, and frosted it very early the next morning, being able to fulfill the order. The biggest secrets to my success are genuinely caring about my customers and their cookies/cookie cakes and also having a very supportive family.
The Chamber has been great for my business in many ways. Most importantly it has helped me connect with other business owners in the area, particularly at busiI’m simply proud of the fact that I turned a 10 - year dream into a reality. One of my favorite continual mo- ness card exchanges. I’ve also greatly enjoyed particiments is watching young customers react to their birth- pating in the Taste from the Heart event as well as the summer golf outing. day cakes!
Good News is Worth Repeating Stellar Blue Technologies, a Fox Valley, Wis. based digital marketing firm, has promoted Jess Brisson and Erik Erland to a full time Web Developers. They have also launched two new custom websites. The websites include Community First Fox Cities Marathon and Applied Technologies Inc. KELLER, Inc., a Design/Build General Contractor with offices in the Fox Cities, Madison, Milwaukee and Wausau the hiring of Jacob Lehmann as an Architectural Draftsman and the hiring of Scott Brooks as an Agricultural Project Manager. KELLER, Planners, Architects, Builders, a Design/Build General Contractor with offices in the Fox Cities, Madison, Milwaukee and Wausau will design and build a 4,000 square foot retail store for Terry Naturally under the direction of Keller Project Manager, Mark Nysted and Architect, Steve Klessig. Stainless Machining Technologies and Keller, Inc. broke ground on a 12,000 square foot new manufacturing facility on Friday, April 1 at 1306 Capital Drive, Fond du Lac.
KELLER, Planners, Architects, Builders, a Design/Build General Contractor, will build an exterior renovation for Big Ring Storage under the direction of Keller Project Manager, Dale Hulce and Architect, Rob Lindstrom. First National Bank – Fox Valley (FNB Fox Valley) has promoted Brooke Johnson, Staci Wied, Sarah Johnson, Beth Meisel, Heather Salzer and Lea Ann Kolb.
of the 2016 Fox Cities Woman Leader of the Year Award.
Marco recently announced the introduction of a new Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) solution. The cloudbased service will be delivered through the company’s longtime technology Erland partner Mitel.
Meisel
Frontier Builders & Consultants recently announced the addition of Rich Lewandowski, Dave Packett, and Cliff Sundquist to its construction team. Entrepreneurs Anonymous sponsored by Epiphany Law, LLC is a monthly meeting of a group of entrepreneurs and business owners with ten employees or less who share opportunities and experiences to promote growth and stability in today’s ever changing business world. Guest facilitators volunteer their Lehmann time and are experienced in their fields. Each session is an open facilitated environment where entrepreneurs are able to learn “Best Business Practices” by sharing their knowledge and experiences. Brisson
Please join us for Entrepreneurs Anonymous on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 Brooks from 5:00 – 6:30 p.m. at Holidays Pub and Grill, 1395 W. American Drive, Neenah, Wisconsin (2nd floor meeting room). The cost to attend is $10 and includes pizza and soda.
Salzer
Kolb
Packett
St Elizabeth Hospital Golf 24th Annual B. Johnson Women’s Golf & Luncheon Benefit Monday, August 1, 2016 North Shore Golf Club Lewandowski Registration: 9:45am Lunch: 11:00am Golf Shotgun Start: 1:00pm Bunco OR Wine & Beer Tasting: 1:30pm This year’s goal and project is to raise $150,000 to support the neonatal transport program and Wied isolette at St. Elizabeth Hospital: to provide very specialized, life-saving care and transport for tiny newborns in their earliest, most critical moments of life.
Huiting
Luncheon & 9 holes of golf - $200/golfer Luncheon & Afternoon Bunco - $75/Attendee Luncheon & Wine & Beer Tasting - $75/ Attendee S. Johnson Luncheon only - $50/Attendee To register, please visit: affinityhealth.org/ stefoundation Van Kauwenberg Women in Management-Fox Cities Chapter is For more information, contact Trina pleased to announce that Chris Hanson is the winner Doxtator at 920-831-1720 or tdoxtator@affinityhealth.org