Battle for Business by EcTownUSA and Chamber Nation

2011-07-26T21:32:00.001-07:00

We provide a great technology blog for Chambers and members. We share tech tools - FREE 98% of the time. http://www.ChamberTechBlog.com

2011-07-26T21:23:00.001-07:00

If you would like to easily post to ALL of your social networks way beyond just Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn then use: http://www.Ping.fm

2011-07-26T21:14:00.001-07:00

Looks like LinkedIn now offers a great way for Chambers of Commerce and others to automate job applicant process: http://ping.fm/l2NJO

Using New Blog Application Go to www.ChamberNation.com

2009-04-25T15:13:00.000-07:00

Please visit my new blog at www.ChamberNation.Com or follow me on Twitter at www.tritter.com/chambercommerce.

Thank you!

My Ad Cloud Launches Nationwide

2009-01-26T21:33:00.000-08:00

Chamber of Commerce members now have a full featured system designed to advertise heavily through search. The technology also supports mobile advertising services through camera phones.

Take a closer look at www.MyAdCloud.com - part of the Area Search Engine Network.

New Eductional Series Launching early 2009 for Chamber of Commerce Members

2008-12-20T17:59:00.000-08:00

Mark LeBlanc is launching a new educational series for Chamber of Commerce members who are using the Mark LeBlanc business development edition from Chamber Nation.

Please learn more by visiting this page: http://markleblanc.chambernation.com

bailout-shitty-cars.jpg - Gmail

2008-12-12T13:31:00.000-08:00

I think we may have no choice but to help in this case, but sure makes me wonder sometimes where we are heading. Convert them to GREEN CAR manufactures now?

bailout-shitty-cars.jpg - Gmail

Follow Me on Twitter

2008-08-22T20:43:00.000-07:00

I have a new Twitter account so that you can follow what I am doing every day. Hope to see you there too!

http://www.twitter.com/richardscully

Mark LeBlanc Edition Launched

2008-07-15T22:50:00.000-07:00

EcTownUSA (to) Chamber Nation News Update
New Branding, New System and Dealing with Member Retention

July 2008

I hope all of you are having a good summer and still managing to keep membership up during this economic bump.

Recently we've seen a major upswing in membership usage of the system. We feel that the economy is triggering members to use all of the tools they can find to help them succeed.

We know that keeping members is tough right now, so we're hopefully doing our part to help by providing a longer list of tangible member benefits and outstanding support. We're working with a record number of members who are seeking help in promoting their businesses online. The measurable results are impressive and getting much stronger every month.

On that note... I am pleased to announce some soon to be released enhancements to help your members promote their businesses like never before. But unlike our normal release of additional technology (yes that is coming too), we're now launching an educational system that will help your members define their business messaging and manage the process of growing their businesses. (see below)

Announcing the Mark LeBlanc Edition
"Growing Your Business"

I was a guest speaker of the SmallBusinessChamber.Com in Memphis Tennessee several months back. After I spoke to an audience at the small business expo, Mr. LeBlanc suggested that he and I should talk.

Over dinner I learned about Mark and his commitment to Chambers over the years to assist them in growing their members businesses.

Fortunately this relationship has blossomed into a rather exciting program that will be launched in August. This new program will be called Chamber Nation - Mark LeBlanc edition.

The entire program will absolutely help your members grow their businesses.

Mark is the President of the National Speakers Association (NSA) and author of the book "Growing Your Business" that we've transformed into a digital system soon to be available to thousands of members nationwide.

We invite you to read all about Mark LeBlanc and his long list of accomplishments by CLICKING HERE.

This new edition will provide a MAJOR upgrade to the member area, incorporates a FULL WEBSITE that replaces the current TCS pages (but no data is lost and automatically converted into the new system). Members will be able to do a whole lot more and includes a new SEO model that we believe will dramatically improve search results for members.

Although the TCS wizard will remain in tact, the system will offer a new area that includes an interactive business coach, developed using the proven Mark LeBlanc principals, downloadable eBook "growing your business" and a resource area that promotes some of your existing member businesses that can provide tools to help other members grow in your area (pretty unique in our opinion).

Once the member completes the interactive business coach, it produces a fantastic website that communicates their business better than ever online. With the new SUPER search engine optimization features, they will be promoted extensively online with the results to prove it.

A small license fee must be charged for this new service, but it will be quickly justified when you see what's included and able to demonstrate to prospective and current members. We believe that this new edition will truly help retain members during this rough economic period.

I invite you to contact me (Richard Scully) directly to discuss this program. Please feel free to call me at any time on my cell phone at: (925) 699-9997 as I look forward to showing this to you.

EcTownUSA is the Support Company, but Chamber Nation is our NEW BRAND

New Brand, Website and Services

EcTownUSA stood for "E-Chamber Town" and the "USA" was added to be patriotic just like Chambers of Commerce. Over time we've discovered that this name to most Chamber Executives meant we sold "E Commerce" services. Nothing is wrong with that, but it was limiting our ability to present what we're really up to... helping develop state-of-the-art programs designed to help Chambers grow and manage membership.

So this month, we voted as a company to change our branding to "Chamber Nation" which implies what we do much better... educate the entire country that Chamber of Commerce membership is one of the most important investments you can make to help grow your business.

With the edition of Mark LeBlanc we believe participating customers will have just what they need to improve membership sales, retention and most importantly a program that will positively help grow commerce in your area. After all you are a "Chamber of Commerce" !

Our Podcasting strategy is working well as we now have hundreds of Podcast subscribers and fantastic results thus far on iTunes. We thank all of the Chamber Executives who have participated thus far with many more soon to be recorded. If you are still waiting for your Podcast production we did fall a bit behind, but were now back on schedule and will be caught up soon.

You will notice from the new website that our focus is moving towards member education. The website now serves both the Chambers of Commerce and the members who are thinking about joining a Chamber to grow their business. We had to make this change as so many people were coming in from the Podcast and we're sure many of them are prospective members.

I hope you will take a minute to view the new website that can be found at www.ChamberNation.com. We invite any comments and suggestions.
We really appreciate so many of you that have been with us since we started and hope we're delivering outstanding services to each of you.

Sincerely,
Richard Scully, FounderEcTownUSA.Com, LLC.
ChamberNation.Com
Cell: 925-699-9997
Office: 530-283-5553 (Option 2)
Toll Free: 888-EzWay4U

Speaking in Memphis Tennessee Business Expo on May 1, 2008 - Guest of the Small Business Chamber of Commerce

2008-03-14T15:17:00.000-07:00

I have been invited to speak at the Memphis Tennessee business expo as a guest of the Small Business Chamber and Robert Staub. To learn more about this event please visit or contact the Small Business Chamber at http://www.smallbusinesschamber.com/.

Location is: Phone: 7777 Walnut Grove Rd. Memphis, TN
Website of Facility: http://www.agricenter.org/

Title Sponsor is Starbucks: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/mar/20/trade-showmanship/

Visit my LINKEDIN Profile

2008-03-14T15:12:00.000-07:00

I have a new profile up at LinkedIn and some of you have attached references there about my work. Thank you very much!

CLICK HERE

I'm Speaking at the NPCC Lunch April 10, 2008

2008-03-14T15:06:00.000-07:00

I will be speaking at the North Phoenix Chamber of Commerce lunch on April 10, 2008. If you would like to learn an entire new strategy for growing and managing a Chamber of Commerce please contact the Chamber and join us for lunch and a presentation in Phoenix Arizona on April 10, 2008 at 11:30am.

More information at: http://www.northphoenixchamber.com/

EcTownUSA Showcased at Oroville Chamber Business Expo

2008-03-14T15:04:00.000-07:00

Paul MacBeth and Brian Thompson of EcTownUSA will particiapte on April 9th 2008 in the Oroville Chamber of Commerce business expo.

If you are close to Oroville California on this date come in and see us. You can call the Oroville Chamber of Commerce to get location information: 530-538-2542

The Next EcTownUSA Company Car!

2008-02-25T17:05:00.001-08:00

I thought you might like to see our next EcTownUSA company car run by AIR! Watch the video or see the AIR CAR website at www.ZeroPollutionMotors.us. Hopefully the oil companies don't buy them out before we have a chance to reduce our fuel usage here in the USA.

Richard's Son Playing Basketball

2008-02-06T22:47:00.001-08:00

Corvallis Commerce - Fundraising Automation - Crazy Commerce!

2008-02-06T20:28:00.000-08:00

Corvallis Commerce - Fundraising Automation - Crazy Commerce!

Chamber Nation Launch

2008-02-06T15:48:00.000-08:00

We are very excited here at EcTownUSA to announce the launch of www.ChamberNation.com as part of our Chamber Broadcasting System. Please visit the Chamber Nation website to learn more or to request participation in the program.

Merry Christmas

2007-12-25T11:57:00.000-08:00

Nice 2009 Chevy Camaro we saw at the Sacramento Auto Show>: Needed a place to put a link to show family members and friends my photos.

http://picasaweb.google.com/richard.scully

EcTownUSA Launches New Website

2007-12-19T16:50:00.001-08:00

Take a look at our new corporate website by CLICKING HERE. The new website was required to support our expanding reseller network. We hope you like it... we've included a lot of content so people could get to the solution they are looking for to energize their Chamber or organization.

Chamber iTV Release Coming Soon

2007-12-19T12:21:00.001-08:00

Video is becoming highly important to businesses that are trying to convey an important message to their online audience. In January 2008, EcTownUSA will be launching Chamber Internet Television (Chamber iTV.Com) to help our customers and their members create the commercials they need for local online advertising.

Currently our systems offer a FREE system to members for creating commercials and automatically activating their multi-media advertising through the member directory. Chamber iTV will be a low-cost service that Chamber's can use to help their members present themselves properly online.

If you have any questions about this service please call me at my cell phone: 925-699-9997

Glad EcTownUSA Has a Disaster Recovery Plan

2007-11-06T13:57:00.000-08:00

We were recently knocked off of the Internet after Alabanza was bought by NaviSite. NaviSite is a very large International hosting company and decided to combine facilities. They reported to all customers that the transition should take 12 hours. Since it was taking much longer then they promised EcTownUSA enabled our disaster recovery plan and it worked just as designed. If they (NaviSite) had been honest with us about how long it would take to put us back up online, we would have had nearly ZERO down time for our customers. We'll in any case our recovery plan worked with ZERO loss of data thanks to Chris, Andy and Brian who worked really hard to restore all services in a short period of time.

I would also like to thank the customers who wrote and called us with kind comments during this very trying period.

Read all about what happened in real time at: http://www.ectownusa.com/NetworkOutage.html

Here is one recent comment about what happenned at NaviSite:

Navisite is going down in flamesSubmitted by Wayne on Mon, 2007-11-05 13:30.

Navisite must be one of the worst web hosting companies alive today. Besides their fiasco of a migration of Alabanza, going on 4 days of down time for thousands of sites (up to 200,000 websites), they repeatedly lied to their customers about the recovery process. They missed every deadline they set for themselves--repeatedly. They failed to provide even basic protection for DDoS attacks even though their NOC was supposedly more advanced than Alabanza's. (There are doubts the reported DDoS attack was even real or if it was just another lie of theirs.) Communication was embarrassingly absent and when present, it was either a falsehood or merely vacuous. As of this writing, no attempt to remedy the enormous losses to those hundreds of thousands of customers has even been hinted.

(http://tuscanycircle.net/drupal/post/navisite_is_going_down_in_flames)

Business of the Year Award for "Membership Enhancement"

2007-08-08T16:16:00.000-07:00

We would like the thank the Southwest Valley Chamber of commerce in Arizona for our recent award. They are an 1100 member Chamber and was one of EcTownUSA's first customers. I remember Sharolyn telling me "If you mess up my Chamber I'll be very mad" because we were so new. We'll we still have a great reputation with her and a new award from their Chamber because of her happy members!

Here is How Portola Sierra Valley Chamber handled Battle for Business Seminar in August 2007

2007-08-05T17:52:00.000-07:00

Come jump into the Chamber Pond!

We invite everyone to attend the first monthly "Good Morning" breakfast meeting, this Wednesday, August 8 at 7:30 a.m., at Sierra Valley Lodge in Calpine. These short and informative meetings are sponsored by the Portola-Sierra Valley Chamber (PSVC) and open to every business wishing to take advantage of the networking and educational opportunities.

Our first guest speaker is Richard Scully, Managing Partner of ecTown,USA. Those of you who had met Richard at the well attended Sierra County Chamber Mixer at the Lodge in April, remember Richard's instructional presentation of e-commerce for your business and its international and regional benefits. Members of the PSVC can use this free service to advertise their business globally and maximize exposure.

Sierra Valley Lodge's Chef Mark will prepare and serve continental style the following:

Fresh breakfast burritos with sausage, peppers, eggs and cheese (Optional housemade topping-sauce available)
Seasoned & lightly crisped potatoes
Chef's Apple Strudel and Scones
Mixed Fresh Fruit Bowl and Cut Cantalope Chunks
Variety of Juices and cold cereal will also be available
And...featuring the coffee we serve in our dining room...delicious Beckwourth Blend French Roast Coffee from High Sierra Coffee Roastery in Chilcoot

PSVC Members$15/pp; non-members $20/pp
RSVPs would be greatly appreciated by close of business Tuesday (the latest, please).

Forward Planner: Mixer at Sierra Valley Lodge, August 29, 5-7pm
Next Good Morning Breakfast: Sept 12, location TBD

Looking forward to seeing you Wednesday!
James & Nadine Norton

Hi Everyone,Just wanted to thank everyone who attended this morning's Breakfast Clubmeeting. Nadine and Jim Norton were great hosts and provided us with a verydelicious breakfast.We learned how to use the Portola Sierra Valley Chamber's website to promoteour businesses. Speaker Richard Scully gave us an overview on how to set upour individual business pages. He told us that the Chamber had over 3,500hits this past month. So the more we put on our website the more each andeveryone of us will benefit in the long run. We also signed up a few moremembers.If anyone would like some membership packets to carry with them when theyare out and about, stop by my office and we will give 5 packets. When yourun out just call our office and we will make sure that you get more or stopby Realty Executives Gold Mountain on Hwy 70 (next to Dollard's).It was wonderful seeing everyone there. See you at the next Good MorningBreakfast meeting to be held on September 12, th at 8:00 am at Carmelita'sRestaurant on Hwy 70. Speaker will be David Wade and Associates who willreport to us about the Woodbridge Portola Project that will be a developmentbuilt on land behind the Portola High School.Next month's Chamber Mixer is August 29th at Sierra Valley Lodge with hostsNadine and Jim Norton at 5:00pm to 7:00pm.By the way, Realty Executives will be hosting an Eastern Plumas ChamberMixer on August 22nd, 5:30 - 7:00 pm in Portola. It is good opportunity tosupport other Chambers and we invite you to come. I would love for you tosee our new office. So please put it on your calendar. Wine will beserved.For those of you who did not attend the breakfast, you do not know what youare missing. Imagine working with a Chamber that wants to help you growyour business.
Sincerely,Peggy GarnerChairperson of the PSV Chamber

This is why we work so hard - THIS CUSTOMER IS HAPPY!

2007-08-03T12:47:00.000-07:00

http://letters.ectownusa.com

July 2007 (Corvallis Chamber)

from Anita Balleby hide details Jul 20
to "Richard Scully - EcTownUSA, LLC."
cc Brian Thompson , Chris@EcTownUSA.Com
date Jul 20, 2007 6:03 AM
subject Thank you from the Corvallis Benton Chamber Coalition

Dear Richard, Brian and Chris,

We just wanted to take a minute to let you know how much we appreciate your software for member and event management and how awesome your whole staff has been in supporting us in learning the system.

The new features you’ve added since we’ve been on board are an even bigger help and your willingness to help us customize for our specific needs is something that would be hard to get from any other company.

We’ve pushed real hard to use your system to our best advantage and you’ve helped up accomplish that with great customer service.

Once again, just wanted to let you know how much we appreciate it.

Anita Balleby - Office Manager
Corvallis-Benton Corvallis Chamber
420 NW 2nd Street
Corvallis OR 97330

EcTownUSA 100 Million Milestone

2007-08-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

It's really hard to believe that we will be crossing the 100 million view and search engine request mark by early August 2007.

Sometime I wonder why it's surprising since we've put so much work into the EcTownUSA program and Broadcasting Network. After all that is why we built it... fortunately it is working as designed.

If your members are not using this system to advertise their business they are losing a lot of FREE promotion. Ask them to call us so we can help them get going. Our phone number is

1-888-EzWay4U or (530) 283-5553.

My Grandmother Passed Away

2007-08-01T11:40:00.000-07:00

It was a very sad time when I learned that my grandmother passed away in Rogue River Oregon. It was in the middle of a busy time for the company, but sometimes you just have to stop and get over it. Marjorie was a great lady and my grandfather Ralph Arnold was a great man too. Between my grandmother and grandfather they built a business called Keen-Kut Diamond Tools and created the first diamond drill to be used on electronic circuit boards. My grandfather also had the patent that created the grooves in concrete lanes you find in freeways throughout the country.

My they rest in peace!

Coming up on 100 Million Views and Search Requests

2007-07-03T11:50:00.000-07:00

EcTownUSA is proud to announce a very important milestone of delivering nearly 100 million views and search engine requests to Chamber members. If you are a Chamber of Commerce or member organization and promoting your members is important to you then you need to order a EcTownUSA program.

Community Inventory

2007-04-09T20:55:00.000-07:00

During our Battle for Business seminars we cover a lot of "practical" ground. One area we discuss is how to get the entire community on display. To make this a little easier, we have just launched a new plug-in tool for members to use in their system called Community Inventory.

It's still in testing, but we'll be uncovering it for the first time when we meet with the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce on April 11, 2007.

Request a Viewing of Seminar Material

2007-03-20T10:03:00.000-07:00

Chambers of Commerce, School Districts, and Merchant Groups who are currently using or plan to use EcTownUSA.Com, LLC. systems are eligible for artwork that is created by Mr. Russ Flint, famous illustrator.

The viewing will be done over Web EX and via a conference call.

The seminar material is geared towards medium to large audiences who reside in a certain area. Please contact us at support@ectownusa.com to learn more about scheduling a preview for your area. If you are a current customer please ask for Richard Scully or call his cell phone at:

925-699-9997.

Putting the Commerce Back Into the Chamber of Commerce

2007-03-12T22:59:00.000-07:00

It is so interesting to find so many Chambers of Commerce answer "I Don't Really Know" to the question... "What do you do to help your members cash registers ring?"

In a way it's a bit sad since so many small businesses join the Chamber and pay money they don't have on a membership thinking this will have a direct impact on their business.

Chambers who invest in Battle for Business seminars are fully committed to their members. These Chambers and Merchant Groups are planning their members success.

Is Walmart Coming to Your City?

2007-03-12T22:42:00.000-07:00

Battle for Business provides the venue necessary for small business owners to come together and plan a strategy to help minimise the potential loss in sales. From grouped educational programs, to highly effective Battle for Business training that is typically coordinated through the local Chamber of Commerce, Merchants Group, or Downtown Business Associations.

Overall program includes:

Software
Websites
Catalogs
Online Traffic
Slide Shows

How Battle for Business Started

2007-03-12T22:22:00.000-07:00

While the Chambers of Commerce work hard to create events that bring people to their cities, and merchants band together to get people in their stores, EcTownUSA is creating software and marketing systems to promote the entire community.

To begin the process of revitalizing a community it is critical that infrastructure be implemented first and then education second.

After implementing many systems we learned that sophisticated educational models bring the cities together via the Chamber of Commerce. The best catalyst we've found so far is a seminar series called Battle for Business that started in 2005 by Richard Scully and Russ Flint of Quincy California.