BEULAH CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

APRIL 2016 VOLUME 29, ISSUE 4

CHAMBER CHATTER

2016 Board of Directors

Linda Pouliot, President Jerald Isaak, Vice President

Bill Suter, Director Deb Schafer, Director

Marie Mettler, Director Chastity Dolbec, Director Brent Torgerson, Director

Maverick Thompson, Director Leanne Stiefel, Director Amber Skalsky, Director Gaylen Sailer, Director

Staff Sarah Tunge,

Executive Director Terry Morrison,

Office Technicican Denise Brorby, Office Assistant

Publication First Day of the Month

Deadline Third Thursday of the month For both copy and advertising

Chamber Office 300 Highway 49 S

P.O. Box 730 Beulah, ND 58523

701-873-4585 phone chamber@westriv.com www.visitbeulah.com

The Beulah Chamber of Commerce is proud to announce the first of our Lunch & Learn series beginning in April!  Throughout the year there will be several Lunch and Learn events offering chamber members opportuni es to listen to speakers talking about marke ng, labor laws and social media.   “We are always looking for ways to engage our members and provide them with opportuni es to build strong businesses,” says Sarah Tunge, execu ve director of the Chamber. These events will be offered at no cost to current Chamber members.   The first of the Lunch and Learn series will feature Mar  Raad, an independent mar-ke ng expert specializing in small business promo on. Mar  launched her own business, brinHar Marke ng 5 years ago a er 18 years in adver sing sales and management. Her background includes non-profit marke ng, radio and print adver sing and design and mul -pla orm marke ng. Mar  has a true passion for helping small businesses brand their iden ty and promote products.   Mar  has presented to other chambers, including the Rural Business Marke ng Series through the Brush, CO Chamber of Commerce.    Please plan to join us Monday April 11 from 12p-1:30p at the Country Ke le for our first Lunch and Learn Series. For more informa on or to RSVP, please call the Chamber Office at 873-4585.  

Chamber to host first annual Lunch & Learn Series   

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TUNGE’S TAKE

 I’m really hoping for some April showers to bring in my May flowers!    There were no Chamber events in March—not to worry—we managed to keep busy coming up with new events!   I’m so excited to be hos ng the first installment of the new Lunch and Learn series. The goal is to provide a couple of informa onal/educa onal events through out the year in place of the normal membership mee ngs. They will be on the same days, because I know you all have your calendars highlighted to not miss a membership mee ng! You’ll see we extended the  me just a bit to allow for discussion and ques ons. I really hope to see many of you there. If you have employees you think would benefit from any of the events, please invite them to a end.   Another event that we are working on pu ng together are Business A er Hours networking events. These would be hosted at local businesses and held from 5p-7p. The Chamber will provide light appe zers and re-freshments for everyone a ending. This is a great opportunity to visit local businesses, see what they are doing and network with colleagues to find out what’s new and exci ng around Beulah. I’ve talked with sev-eral members who travel to other communi es for these types of events and they all say it’s worth while! If your business would like to host a Business A er Hours, please let me know.    Our annual membership drive is on-going. We been ge ng renewals in slowly but surely. We’ll be sending out reminder no ces to those businesses who have not yet renewed next week.    The appraisal company we are working with for an inspec on/appraisal is nearing comple on on their re-port. I’m hoping to have something by mid-April to share with you all. We are also wai ng on Bismarck State College’s ND Occupa onal Safety and Health Division to complete and air quality and ergonomics study on the building. They are tenta vely scheduled for some me mid-April.  We’ve been working on upda ng and adding photos to the lobby of the building. If you have any old photos you would like to share with us, we’d appreciate it. The current photos on the wall are photos of photos from a book that were enlarged and printed on paper. We are exploring ways to get higher quality images or at the very least frame the images we have. We’ve also ordered addi onal photos of the community to-day! We’ll be working with a photographer this summer to take photos around town, of main street and various a rac ons.  Efforts are on going to create a welcoming professional looking space for the Chamber, CVB and Motor Vehicle program!  Check back next month as the Cha er will be featuring staff profiles! Get to know the people who keep the office running.    Cheers, Sarah 

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Farmer’s Union Insurance—Kandie Kremer Agency Kandie Kremer along with the Mercer County Farmer’s Union organiza on hosted an Ag Day apprecia-on breakfast on Tuesday March 15 at the Beulah Civic Center. They cooked up sausage and pancakes 

in honor of Na onal Ag Day. The event was well a ended and the Chamber, Soil Conserva on District, Extension and Farmer’s Union all had displays up for people to look through.  

Planning for next year has already begun, with partners including Farmer’s Union, Mercer County Soil Conserva on District , NDSU Extension—Mercer County, the Chamber and others!  

Thanks to Kandie, her staff and the Mercer County Farmer’s Union mem-bers  for spearheading the first of many successful Ag Apprecia on events to come!  

 

  

 

 

Defining a Great Business

A good article discussing great businesses. For the small businesss owner, these thoughts hold extra meaning. Small businesses must also be community citizens. Yes, you need to make a profit , or else you won’t be there for the community. But a great business can be defined by many other aspects such as social responsibility, sustaina-bility (of itself and the larger environment), through sup-porting individuals and families and integrity just to name a few. http://blog.startupprofessionals.com/2014/11/focus-on-profits-is-not-enough-for.html

Don’t Ignore Social Media All businesses are impacted by social media. It may not be through using it as a marketing channel, as this article notes, but the impact that negative publicity occurring online may have on your bottom line! http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2015/07/30/business-age-social-media/30886859/

WANTED:

Chamber Businesses to host Business After Hours. You provide the location, the Chamber will provide the food

and refreshments!

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Small-business Savvy: Connecting With Your Customer Your customers are your business. Connecting with them means success or failure. How well does your business do in terms of connecting? You won’t find many answers in this column, but you will find lots of questions you need to think about. How do you connect with your customers? I suspect many of you have a phone at your business. Do you publish the number? I know businesses that don’t. And when you or one of your employees answers the phone, what do you say? What is your tone of voice? Do you ask what the person is calling about? How long does the phone ring before someone answers? And how quickly are transfers made? What about phone messages? How quickly are they returned? Think in terms of hours, not days. Then you have the people who walk into your store. Are they greeted, and if so, how? How long are they in the store before the greeting occurs? And how many employees might they pass before someone asks if they need some help? How about when people leave: Are they thanked for stop-ping? Do you encourage them to come back again or ask if they found what they wanted? Do you go as far as suggest-ing where they might find what they are looking for? (I am reminded of that each Christmas season when watching “Miracle on 34th Street.”) Today you also have to think about how you are connect-ing online with your customer. I won’t even ask if you have a website but instead ask how easily people can find your business contact information on your website. Make it visible and on every page. What about a comment/question box right on the website? Besides the standard information on your website, offer email addresses, driving directions and maps. Remember that your online audience probably isn’t who you think it is. You may assume it is the “younger” genera-

tion. It is, and that group rapidly is becoming the largest spending segment. But every age group is doing online activities, with those 60 and older the fastest growing seg-ment. In terms of email, how quickly do you respond? You should be responding in no more than four hours. Finally, don’t forget the online social media channels. You have two issues here. In the first scenario, your business doesn’t have any social media channels. While I might en-courage a business to have a channel, you certainly have reasons - time being a big one - for not having such an online presence. Even if you don’t have a channel, that doesn’t mean your business isn’t being mentioned in social media. So you want to be there to answer questions, thank those who offer positive remarks and respond to negative criticism. And while you are reviewing what is being said about your business on social media, don’t forget to monitor online review sites for comments as well. If you do maintain one or more social media channels, the preferred response time is an hour or less in most cases. Connecting with your customers is crucial. To do it well, remember all the options, practice and train on the meth-ods, and ask your customers how you are doing. For more help, visit our website, https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/smallbusiness, and sign up for the monthly newsletter. More information is available at your local Extension of-fice, as well as at http://powerofbusiness.net and www.eXtension.org/entrepreneurship. The Small Business Administration and its related organi-zations, such as the Small Business Development Centers and Service Corps of Retired Executives, along with many other state agencies, also can be valuable resources. By Glenn Muske, Rural and Agribusiness Enterprise De-velopment Specialist NDSU Extension Service

PAGE 5 CHAMBER CHATTER

CHAMBER LUNCH & LEARN SERIES Monday April 11th

12p-1:30P Country Kettle

Join us for

Small Business Marketing 101 with Marti Raad

Marti is an independent marketing expert spe-cializing in small business. She has over 20

years of experience working with non-profit mar-keting and small business!

This event is the first in a quarterly Lunch &

Learn Series.

Mark Your Calendar! Spring Fever

Garden Forums Monday Nights 

April 4, 11, 18 and 25 6:30 to 8:45 p.m. CDT 

Mercer County Extension

Office Call 873-5195 for

Information or to RSVP

Chamber Clean up Day

Monday May 9 Starting at 4p

Social & Burgers to follow at the Civic

Center! Please help us to spruce up

Beulah!

High Plains Concepts Greenhouse

Ladies Night

WHEN: Thursday May 5th TIME: 4p-8p

WHERE: 1133 59th Ave SW

Wine, Snacks and Flowers! Grab your friends and check it out!

Call 873-2334 for details or check them out on

Facebook!

PAGE 6 CHAMBER CHATTER

Service Plus—New Name—Same Number!

The name may be different but the service, professionalism and the number are the same! Service Plus formerly Steam Brothers is owned and operated by Dave Miller. Services provid-ed include 24 hour emergency service, Smoke, Fire and Water restoration along with Carpet

and Furniture Cleaning.

Dave will continue to provide great service to the local area. Call Service Plus at 873-5822 for all your cleaning and resto-ration needs!

www.serviceplusnd.com

M & L Concessions Newest State Processing Plant

M & L Concessions is owned and operated by Lori Yeager and her mother Marlene Sasse. They have been operating a concessions trailer and providing catering to local events, primari-ly a local favorite Fleischkuekle. In an effort to expand their successful business, they have completed the process of becoming an inspect-ed meat processing plant. This entitles them to sell their fleischkuekle in restaurants, bars, gro-cery stores etc. Lori says this has improved the business and is keeping them busy!

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Founded in 1970 as a day of education about environmental issues, Earth Day is now a globally celebrated holiday that is sometimes extended into Earth Week, a full seven days of events focused on green awareness. The brainchild of Senator Gaylord Nelson and inspired by the antiwar protests of the late 1960s, Earth Day was originally aimed at creat-ing a mass environmental movement. It began as a “national teach-in on the environment” and was held on April 22 to maximize the number of students that could be reached on uni-versity campuses. By raising public awareness of air and water pollution, Nelson hoped to bring environmental causes into the national spotlight. Links to more information: www.earthday.org https://www.epa.gov/earthday http://blog.earthdayfestivalbismarck.com/ https://www.facebook.com/BismarckEarthDayFestival

PAGE 7 CHAMBER CHATTER

CHECK IT OUT:

Bronson’s Salad & Hot Food Bar Daily food specials

Fresh Knephla or Borscht Soup daily

Take out or Grab a table in their relaxing seating area.

The Garden Mill 6th Annual Sneak Peak Night

When: Thursday April 21

Time: 5p-8p Where: 2001 1st Ave NE

Flowers, Fiesta & Fun

$5 entry donation to Hazen Arts Council Call 873-2841 for details!

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PAGE 9 CHAMBER CHATTER

APRIL 2016 Sun  Mon  Tue  Wed  Thu  Fri  Sat 

1

2

3 4 City Council Meeting 7p

5 6 7 Planning & Zoning 7p

8

9 BHS PROM

10 11 Chamber Lunch & Learn 12p-1:30p Country Kettle

12 Board of Equalization

13 Driver’s License @ Civic Center

14 15 High Plains Concepts Greenhouse Opens!

16

17 18 City Council Meeting 7p

19

20 Chamber Board 7a Country Kettle

21 The Garden Mill Ladies Night—5p-8p Planning & Zoning 5p

22 The Garden Mill Greenhouse Opens! EARTH DAY!

23

24 25 26 27 Driver’s License @ Civic Center

28 CVB Board 12p Chamber Office

29 30

ND Travel & Tourism Conference Grand Forks

Lignite Energy Council Annual Mtg Bismarck