by Kirby Lindsay, posted 9 April 2014
On Wednesday, April 16th, at Noon, the Fremont Chamber of Commerce general membership meeting will take place at the Fremont Abbey Arts Center. The featured speakers? Well, that would be anyone, and everyone, who attends – at least those who want to talk to promote their business, event, cause or need.
This is the Chamber’s Lunch of Shameless Self-Promotion, a meeting concept developed within this independent organization, and built on its history of grassroots, guerrilla marketing and boot-strap community building.
Shameless Self-Promotion?
A group of rag-tag business people started the Fremont Chamber of Commerce in 1982, to give themselves a larger voice and more representation with the City of Seattle than they had individually.
One of those business people – and the first Fremont Chamber President – was the late W. James Daly, owner of Daly’s Paint & Home Decorating. Daly’s father, Walter Daly, had a reputation as a charming motivator – a great salesman – and that may have passed on to Daly as a belief in marketing yourself, and your community, along with your business. He encouraged his fellow business owners to, ‘blow your own horn!’
Large, corporate businesses can afford major marketing plans and advertising campaigns, but small, independent businesses – like Daly’s, and most of Fremont’s companies, then and now – rarely have money, or time, for more than word-of-mouth and guerrilla (a.k.a. free) marketing tactics.
Shameless Self-Promotion was a term Daly gave the Fremont Chamber, and in its first two decades every monthly Chamber meeting started with a round. All meeting attendees would be given time – from a few seconds to a few minutes – to blow their own horn and update others on what their business was doing, what their issue was, or what great new campaign they’d dreamed up to draw more customers to Fremont, and their business.
Some attendees would pass on speaking, while others would monopolize, but everyone had a chance – with the quieter, less gregarious of the group being encouraged by the camaraderie and comfort of being among friends. These meetings were often more about a community coming together to solve collective problems (crime, parking, landlords, tenants, social services projects, library hours, chronic graffiti, etc.) and the Shameless Self-Promotion acted like a ‘verbal billboard’ (another term for essentially the same thing,) and a clearinghouse for problems that the community could solve together.
Goes Mainstream
Eventually, Fremont Chamber meetings became so crowded that there wasn’t time for everyone to speak, and leave time for the featured speaker to talk. In 2007, then Chamber Executive Director Michael Jerrett came up with the ‘Breakfast of Shameless Self-Promotion’ as an occasional opportunity for everyone in the Chamber to have a moment to talk about their special sales, new products, added staff, increased services, favorite cause, or desperate need.
When the Great Recession hit, in 2008/09, current Chamber Executive Director, Jessica Vets, announced that opportunities to network and self-promote would be key to the survival of Fremont’s small businesses, and the Chamber. She stepped up the number of events the Chamber hosted that brought people together, including Women’s Socials, Health & Wellness gatherings, monthly Geek Meet-Ups, Speed Networking and, of course, the meetings of Shameless Self-Promotion.
While most of these gatherings focus on bringing specific groups together, the Shameless Self-Promotion takes a more scatter-shot approach. That is its greatest strength – attendees learn about, and meet, people they wouldn’t otherwise have considered or approached as clients or providers.
Also, the Shameless Self-Promotion is about the easiest meeting to organize – a meal, a room, and a microphone (for those who never learned to shout about themselves.) Its second strength is that the Shameless Self-Promotion doesn’t favor the huckster over the wallflower. Everyone has time to talk. The showman salesperson may have a better patter, but the introvert can outshine simply by their earnestness, their passion, and/or their materials. Everyone is encouraged to bring along business cards, brochures, coupons, samples, gifts or any other handout that might speak for them. Personally, this is my favorite part as an attendee – the goodies I get to take home!
With Fremont Events
At the April 2014 Lunch of Shameless Self-Promotion, the Chamber has also specifically invited everyone organizing an event in Fremont – and offered them table space for displays and materials. With a summer schedule chock-a-block full with food rodeo, art cars, movies, concerts, fireworks, geocaching, and a fun run, organizers need to get the word out to neighbors, and area business people want to know how to take advantage of the crowds that will flow through our ‘hood.
The Fremont Chamber still holds firm with its first president’s belief in the power, and necessity, of self-promotion (shameless or otherwise) as a benefit to our community’s businesses – and, by their success, to benefit the Chamber. To find out how to either promote your event in Fremont, or shamelessly promote your cause or business, at the April 16th Chamber meeting, contact Vets at director@fremont.com or RSVP on-line through Fremont.com
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©2014 Kirby Lindsay. This column is protected by intellectual property laws, including U.S. copyright laws. Reproduction, adaptation or distribution without permission is prohibited.