 Aloha and welcome to Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We're a show that broadcasts live every Thursday at 2 o'clock from 2 to 2.30. We have guests that talk a little bit about their successes in Hawaii and how they made it work both as a business and individual. There are challenges, we all know that, but there are people who have overcome those challenges and made it work for themselves. We also have organizations that help support those efforts and today we have one of the better organizations in the state of Hawaii. It's the Maui Chamber of Commerce. We have the CEO and president and she's been there for quite a while. Pam, welcome to the show. Aloha Reg, great to be with you today. So glad you could make it from Maui. Yes, my pleasure. And you brought a guest with you. I did. Sherri Reeve, I guess she's got one of the more popular successful galleries over on Maui. She absolutely does and has been a great chamber member. Right, Sherri, welcome to the show. You've been doing that for quite a while on Maui, have you not? 26 years. 26 years. So obviously you've been doing something right because you survived. That's great. But Pam, you've been running the chamber now for a while over there. It is going on 11 years in April. Congratulations. Thank you so much. And tell us a little bit about Maui. We have an idea of what chambers are, but what does the Maui Chamber do? How do they support their members? We support our members in a number of different ways. One of the key things that we do is legislative advocacy. And we do legislative advocacy on both the Maui County level, as we've always done, as well as the state level at the state legislature. And I've seen you over there before. You haven't. And we've done the walk around the Capitol together, it's been a lot of fun. So we do that. Of course at the chamber we hold monthly business after hours and networking opportunities, helping people connect and find new resources. And those are usually very well attended because I've been a few of those too. You have. And we miss you. We miss you. You're going to come back. I know. So we did those. Our upcoming one is November 22nd at Feed My Sheep. So I'll do a quick shout out to Feed My Sheep on Maui who feeds the hungry across the island. Okay. So Feed My Sheep, the sheep of the hungry people. The sheep are those who are in need of food and services. And we don't call them clients, we call them friends. And so every year on November, our business after hours is geared towards Feed My Sheep, which we take in instead of charging people to attend the business after hours, we ask them for food donations. Oh, wow. It's a great party and it's a great way to serve, especially around the holiday time. That's great. And from the ones that I've been to before, you usually have, what, a hundred people show up? We do. We get large crowds and we have a blast. It's also, it's about networking. We play games and we have fun as well and there's prizes. So and we find that often those who donate the prizes also seem to win other prizes. Oh, imagine how that works. You know, service works when you give, you receive. So it's kind of a funny trend, but it actually turns out to be true each month. So we do business networking. We also have training and education programs that we do for our members. What people also don't realize with the Chamber of Commerce is where their leverage team, when they have an issue that they're dealing with, they can call the Chamber of Commerce and we help them solve problems or connect them to the resources they need to get those challenges solved. You're like a clearinghouse. We are. And we do that for all of our members. We also do marketing and promotion. We have great advertising avenues and promotional opportunities for our members. So lots of ways to connect with the community and abroad. And in Maui, you know, and actually in Hawaii, we have a visitors bureau. Our visitor industry is just so strong that we have visitors' bureaus on each of the neighbor islands. But what many don't understand is that on the mainland and internationally, often your local Chamber of Commerce is your visitors' bureau. So we too get tons of visitor industry contacts and those members who promote on their website and take advantage of our advertising opportunities get a great bang for their buck. Well, you know, and the promotional advantages of being a member of the Chamber are significant because you have opportunities to maybe sponsor one of these business after hours or one of the events or one of the training. I mean, there are ways of getting the name out and getting, you know, some recognition for this. Absolutely. And people who understand what Chambers do also studies have been done to show that when you've got that Chamber emblem on your business and you promote that to the public or your website or wherever you're doing business, that shows that you stand for the local community. You stand for ethics and integrity because that's what Chambers are all about. And it gives you an automatic advantage. Right. It's instant credibility. It is. And it's a great brand to have as part of what you're trying to accomplish. And I guess Sherry's a member and you've been a member of the Maui Chamber for a while, right? About three years. Three years. Yeah. Okay. So have you been able to experience some of these benefits? I call her all the time. Yeah. She's such a wealth of information and, you know, I'm just so grateful to the Chamber and to Pam, who is the Chamber, but yeah, we get a tremendous amount of local traffic through the Chamber where I'm 99% tourism. It's really good for me to try and figure out ways to get the local business to me as well. Sure. Tell us a little bit about your business. So you're 99% visitor industry, but what is your business? Tell us a little bit about it. So about 20 years ago, I opened a gallery in the town of Mokowal on the island of Maui. And I'm an art gallery, but I also do products. I do a lot of greeting cards, mugs, t-shirts, all kinds of products with my art. So there's something for $5 in my store, up to $10,000 in my store, so wide range. And I use local businesses, Pacific Island Art is a company I use to do my products with. And I use a company out of Minnesota. My t-shirts are all U.S. made, called Lake Shirts. And so we sell mostly to tourism, but it's a local community, so I get a wide range of people. Sure. And I guess being a member of the chamber and getting some exposure from them establishes a little bit that local connection that brings that in. Yeah, I beg them to let me have after hours. They have to stagger me, but I try to get right before Mother's Day to have my afters hours event because I get so much business from them and then for the weeks to follow. Very good. I would imagine you also have a website so people can kind of check in and see what you have? Well, yes I do. It's sreve.com. S-R-E-E-V-E.com. S-R-E-E-V-E.com. S-R-E-E-V-E.com. And we have our entire store online. Really? Yep. So whatever you have in the store, you can buy through the website. You can buy online, yeah. Absolutely. Very good. And if I was over in Toronto or Florida or something, you'd ship to me? Yep. Within 24 hours of your order, you should get your order in the mail. Very good. Yeah. That's great marketing. Yeah. But you also have a lot. You said 99% are visitor industry. So this comes from Asia, it comes from mainland, it comes from all over? Yeah, all over. Mostly California, Canada, Florida, all U.S. but we've been doing it for so long. The store 20 years but six years prior to that I would do kiosks and malls. I would do any sort of a craft fair that they were having because I didn't have a location. So I built up my clientele from 26 years ago and right around then that's when the internet was coming to be and so I was able to open a store. That's when Jecle printing came to be. It just sort of grew. I've never taken out loans. I've always just built my business as I could afford to grow. Wow. I know. You're one of those unique ones. So access to capital has never been an issue. Never. I'm Maui. Were you born there? I was raised on Oahu from the age of three and then moved to Boston for three years and I did the New York Art Expo which is what gave me the exposure to get products done. You have to, as an artist, you need to get out there and have other people that can spend money on you when you have none. I have to learn how to do that. Well, it makes you very attractive to galleries down the road because if they can see that other people have invested money into you, like Island Heritage took me on back in the late 80s, early 90s and they did a whole line of greeting cards for me. So that put my greeting cards in every 24-hour photo booth in Hawaii. Wow. So when I came back to try and get into galleries, they say, hey, aren't you that artist that had those cards in that photo place? I'm like, yeah, and they took me in. So it helps to have local publishing companies take you on to help with that exposure even though you may not make a ton of money doing that, it all works for you. Having that recognition and that brand, if you will, that's out there, it does open some doors for you. Oh, sure. Absolutely. And I think that's where the Chamber can also play a part in this is through their network that they have on Maui and throughout the state for that matter, you can provide some good introductions and networking opportunities. We certainly do and we love it when Sherry hosts her annual May. At least the annual because she'd like to do it twice a year, but we leave room or three times. She's doing three times in the background. But she also does such an amazing thing, which we certainly promote and we have a program where members can offer discounts to other members. And if they do a special member-to-member discount promotion where they do something more than they give the general public, then we will promote them for free. And Sherry every year gives us a great discount during that business after hours just in time for Mother's Day. So we do that. And she recently participated in our Maiden Maui County Festival and was one of the phenomenal vendors there. And let me just follow up on that Mother's Day discount. Is this available online as well? Can people come online and get advantage of that? But they have to be chamber members, right? They have to be a chamber member, yeah. All of my prices are a comma and I just really try to keep my prices down low. But if you are a chamber member and you walk in there, you get a discount. All right. So that begs the question, how do you become a member of the chamber? Oh, that's easy. I'm going to give you our website. It's www.mauichamber.com or you can simply call 808-244-0081. And we as a neighbor island chamber really promote that if you're doing business on Maui, then real or if you're thinking of doing business on Maui, getting connected with the local chamber is really important. And we encourage people to be a member of the chamber in every island that they do business on. Well, that doesn't make sense. I mean, if you're going to be looking to do business there and getting to know the community, I mean, what better way to do that? Absolutely. Yeah. So they go on and how does the, don't mind me asking a question, how much does it cost to join a Maui chamber? Our base rate is $3.29 a year and that's for five or fewer employees. And then for each additional full-time equivalent, so two part time would be one full-time equivalent. It's an additional $10 after that. It's called our fair share investment. And what we really want to get out is that when you're a member of our chamber and under this fair share investment, it's not just the owners or the top managers that are members. All of the employees can come to our programs at the chamber membership rate. So the employees can come to business after hours and network your sales, your marketing team, your HR team. Everybody can come out. Or get a benefit of discount at the, uh... And get the Mother's Day discount as well as the other member-to-member discounts. Right. Yes. And that could be quite valuable. Very valuable. My goodness. I'm advertising. It's so expensive and a wonderful thing to do, but this is a great venue. Very good. Advertising. And I guess some of the member-to-member benefits, um, and I'm being a little selfish here, but does it include some of the nice resorts on Maui? Not yet. We're working on that because, of course, they also have comma-ina, just they all have great comma-ina specials, so not yet. But we do have many companies that offer the member-to-member discount. And then in addition to that, we have a lot of national affiliate programs that we're associated with. And there's many other discounts that members can access on the website in our specific member zone. So, and maybe we can come back to this in a minute. We got a little break coming up, but one thought would be to go through that member-to-member discount. And I'm sure you could probably come up with enough discount to more than pay for that membership. Absolutely. Absolutely. But we need to take a quick break here and we'll be right back. This is Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We're talking with the Maui Chamber of Commerce and one of their top members, the Sherry Reeves at Galleries. So we'll be back in about one minute. Thank you. Aloha. How are you doing? Welcome to Ubachi Talk. Gordo detects our here. We're here every Friday from one o'clock till about 1.45 when we talk tech with many, many great guests. I got Andrew, the security guy who helps me co-host, and I got Poppy Chulow who comes in once in a while to help us through the show. So please come join Ubachi Talk every Friday. Angus will be here too. So remember, like we say at the end of every show, how are you doing? Aloha and welcome to The Savvy Chick Show on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm the weekly host at 11 a.m. Honolulu time. Very excited for the next six weeks. We have the Aspire series, which is all about the coolest careers I could find and interviewing and getting insights from these amazing people who want to share it with you and help you live your dreams. Look forward to seeing you on the show. Aloha. Aloha and welcome back to Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We're here today chatting with the Chamber of Commerce of Maui and one of their top members, the Sherry Reeves Gallery. And we're just getting into some of the more finer details of the member-to-member program and how that can really, if you take advantage of these discounts that are available, more than pay for your membership. So Pam, can you just give us a little bit more flavor of some of the different types of member-to-member discounts that might be available? We have, I mean, they kind of run the gamut. We've got anywhere from companies who build out office furniture and customize office spaces. Those can be big ticket items. Those can be big ticket items to, again, discounts on bento lunches and things like that. I mean, it really runs the gamut because at the Chamber we represent every industry across the island. But when you pair those local shopping discounts and, again, or business expense discounts, and then you pair them with things like the OfficeMax discount, which again can be used for your major supplies or office furniture, the Dell computer, the constant contact, a lot of the new web services and things that people use, it adds up very quickly. So you can, as you said, you can easily offset the cost of your Chamber membership with the Discounts alone. Well, and some of these are products and services that you would use all the time. Absolutely. I mean, for example, IT support, do you have Chamber members? We do have Chamber members who offer IT support, website design and development. Yeah. So we have a lot of things that everybody can use every day. That's very good. Yeah. That's exciting because if you're joining and you're paying $300 or $400, you should be getting at least two or three times that value in return. Absolutely. And in addition to the Discounts, you know, what we know about Chamber members is there are some people who just renew their membership year after year as a good thing to do. And sometimes they forget to go look at the, we emailed them every week. We have an e-bust each week to keep them updated on legislative and community activities and Chamber activities. But some people renew every year and just want to be a part of the Chamber and recognize it as a good thing to do. But then there's those who are actively involved. And the more involved and you know this with your Chamber participation, the more involved and engaged you are in the Chamber, the greater your return on the investment. Yeah. The more involved and you've got different committees and you've got different events that are going on and there's a variety of ways for a member to get involved and get even more value out of the Chamber. Absolutely. Because through all these different opportunities, you have so many different avenues to connect, either to connect with government and government leaders, to connect with top business leaders, to connect with social services and community action and economic development projects. So there's many different realms in which people can get involved. And when they do, they build a network that is exceptional and everybody benefits. Sherry, not to put you on the spot, but have you gotten involved in some of these different committees and different events that are going on? I've gotten involved to the extent that if you are a Chamber member and you come into my store, you get 10% off. And even if you don't buy something, I give them a free luggage tag, which is exclusive to my gallery, so you can't get them anywhere else. They have to tell me they're a Chamber member. Well, she's also forgetting to mention that whenever we've needed auction items or things, Sherry is always there helping with making donations and contributing to other events that help with the fundraising. That's a great promotion. Yeah. Yeah. And to your point, Pam, I've been involved in different chambers over the years and I've chaired different committees and done different things. And the network that you can really build and the connections that you can make in that process are very, very valuable. They are. In my early 20s, I was the government action committee... That wasn't that long ago. It won't last you. I'm taking you with me everywhere, just to say that. Yeah. In my early 20s, I was the government action committee chair for the Maui Chamber of Commerce. I never dreamed, of course, back then that I would ever work for the Chamber. I was always a supporter. I also sat on the marketing committee. So I served in many different capacities with the Maui Chamber of Commerce long before I ever knew I was going to get a call to talk to them. It must have been a positive experience for you now because now you're running the chamber. Oh, it's always been a positive experience because it is what my passion is, supporting businesses. And the majority of our businesses are small businesses. But we support, of course, all businesses. But I support those who are good people, who care about our community and the environment and work hard to support others and take good care of their employees. And they always, our members always are passionate and they inspire me and I love helping them. It's great to be involved in an organization like that. It is. It's so rewarding. We are approaching a holiday season, believe it or not. Fast. Fast. It's only a couple more weeks and it's Thanksgiving. But any end of the year events going on or promotions or anything that's going on, do you want to announce? In Makawa, we have a third Friday event where they close the street down and local artisans and vendors come and participate in an evening art show. And that's really fun. Live music. Like a block party? It's a block party. Exactly. Yeah. Very good. And you participate in this? I do. I keep my store open. And all the stores stay open. Most of them stay open. And it's just a nice way to bring the locals in because usually Makawa, at least the town of Makawa closes down at 5.30, 6 o'clock. This stays open until 8.30 so people that get off work can come and go eat food on the streets. So there's food vendors, there's live music, there's merchants, there's all kinds of fun things to do. People are dancing around in the streets a little bit. That's exactly right. Yes, it's just, you know, it's a lot of fun. And I'm sure they're going to have Santa Claus and carolers and all sorts of things in December. But the third Friday for this coming one is November, the end of November. So it'll be fun. Very good. Yeah. And what does the chamber got in there? Well, actually this Saturday is our construction industry of Maui. That's the day after tomorrow. That would be the day after tomorrow. We've got, they're having their holiday party. The construction industry of Maui is a new trade council that we've brought in under the chamber to help them continue to have a voice in the community. And so they've been doing a great job building as a trade council under the chamber umbrella. So they didn't have to have their own staff and their own team, but had an industry representation on them. So they're having their big holiday party. The chamber is working on our holiday party. We're finalizing the details because we're trying to do something different and special. I hope you got the rule preserved. We have two rules that we're working on right now, because we're trying to see who will allow us to do the special activity that we're wanting to do. But we do have the November 22nd feed my sheep. And if I can give a shout out to Kailea Moikeja, who works for me because while Cheri said Pam is the chamber, actually I couldn't do it without Kailea, who's at the office manning the Ford and Amber Kutos who's on vacation this week, but we have a great team at the chamber. We're a small chamber. And of course we have an amazing board of directors. So I want to give a shout out to all of our board of directors. And that board is great. I mean, I know the staff is really good, but I've had more opportunity to meet some of the board members and they're very engaged and they're very involved in the community. It's a great board. And as you know, it takes a dynamic board to really make any non-profit successful. And sometimes people forget as a chamber of commerce, because we're all about business, they sometimes forget that we operate as non-profits in this community. Well, and you know, also it's a lot of small business too. There are big business members, but I have found from my personal experience that it's a lot of times it's the smaller chamber of members that really get in there and do the heavy lifting and make it all work. Very often it's absolutely. It's a great group of people to know. All right. So you've got those end of the year events coming up. Believe it or not, it's going to be 2017. Sherry, any holiday sales or any holiday activities that you've got going on? We have a new product and we have these beautiful Christmas ornaments with my art on them and I only do a thousand of each. And so those will be blown out by the end of the year. And so you can come in. When you buy four or more, you get discounts and all sorts of things that way. But we try to do something new and exclusive every year. So the ornaments are kind of fun for holiday giving. If you buy like 10 of them, they go down almost a third because you're going to be giving them as gifts for your office, I hope. Is that something that's also going to be available on the website or do they actually have to come in? No, on the website. Everything. All the discounts are available. The whole store is on the website. Yeah, she doesn't pick and choose. If she gives a discount, except there's something she does just for chamber members that's an incentive for the chamber. We're 99% tourism. So all of my internet sales are from people that have already been in my store. That's how I get my internet going so well. That's great. And we're going to be entering into the last three or four minutes of the show. And so I just wanted to touch on something. It's all been very fun and positive and great. But we all know that there's been some challenges here and there along the ways. I think all companies experience that at some point. We've had some economic slowdowns and start-ups and that kind of stuff. Pam, what do you think is probably one of the most common challenges that businesses will experience? The biggest challenge and I know you well know this. I mean, the biggest challenge is the cost it takes to do business and healthcare is a big part of that cost. And particularly on Maui, we saw that we're trying to have Kaiser come in and take care of our Maui Memorial Medical Center. And that's been delayed unfortunately until next July. So that's a big issue for our community overall. Between now and then, nobody gets sick, right? That would be wishful thinking. So it's a huge challenge and our community is working on that and we're working as a chamber on our other legislative priorities. But just in general, healthcare costs have really soared for companies of late. And so that's been a big issue that we're working on. And things are getting better so access to capital has been a problem. It's starting to loosen up a little bit as companies are starting to recover and do much better. So that's a rising interest rate. Some companies like Sherry haven't needed to borrow, but many of our small businesses do need to borrow to close that gap or to expand. And we've just come out of the Made in Maui County Festival where they need to expand because they're getting orders from buyers, wholesalers and distributors. And to that point, some of the sales are cyclical. And so sometimes people have to go out and buy the inventory every year. And sometimes they need that access to capital to make that happen. And that's why they call it Black Friday. It's when a lot of companies actually turn to corners and start making some decent profit. That's exactly right, because that's the biggest sales of the period and Sherry knows this because she brings in a lot of different inventory. To get the best pricing for her customers, she has to pony up to larger volumes so that she can pass on better pricing because that's what every business would like to give their customers the best possible pricing they can. So inventory management and timing that in such a way that you can move it and not have a lot of your capital tied up is really important. Sherry, you've been very fortunate to not have to deal too much about the access to capital issue, but are there any other issues that you have had to address now? We've got about 45 seconds. Yeah. When we could feel the economy was doing some shifting, we shifted with our products and took, you know, when my average product was $70, it's now $20 so that we can sell a whole range of... We didn't lose customers. We gained customers because we could reach across different prices. That's an interesting process you went through. So you actually took a look at all your products and you kind of looked at your customer base and you tried to make some tweaks that would bring the customers back in and keep getting them to buy. Yeah, absolutely. You have to and you have to do it with the economy and even though the economy is great for us, we're going to keep all those products going because it's really nice to offer everyone something they can afford. Now what I'd like you to do is box this up and I'm going to sell it to Blockbuster. Whatever you need, there's a commission involved, right? We'll talk about that. Anyways, I appreciate you both very much for being on the show today. I had a good time. It's great to have the Maui Chamber and the gallery over here. Let's come back in another few months and we'll do this again. We'd love to. Thanks for having us on the show. And this is Reg Baker. I'm the host of Business in Hawaii. We broadcast live every Thursday at 2 o'clock from 2 to 2.30 and we highlight successful companies and organizations that support those companies. Thank you.