Chamber Executive Ongoing Education Idea: Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy, Social World - by Gary Vaynerchuk; Is your Kansas or Missouri small business ready to go global? Not Getting a College Degree will Cost You $500,000; Famous Chamber of Commerce Quotation: (Membership) - Gary Vaynerchuk

New York Times bestselling author and social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk shares hard-won advice on how to connect with customers and beat the competition.

When managers, marketers, and small business owners outline their social media strategies, they plan for the "right hook"—their next campaign that will produce profits. Even companies committed to "jabbing"—creating content for consumers and engaging with customers to build relationships—still desperately want to land the powerful, bruising swing that will knock out their opponents or their customers' resistance in one tooth-shattering, killer blow. Right hooks, after all, convert traffic to sales. They easily show results and return on investment. Except when they don't.

In the same passionate, streetwise style his readers have come to expect, Vaynerchuk is on a mission to strengthen marketers' right hooks by changing the way they fight to make their consumers happy, and ultimately to compete. Thanks to the massive change in and proliferation of social media platforms in the last four years, the winning combination of jabs and right hooks is different now. Communication is still key, but context matters more than ever. It's not just about developing high-quality content; it's also about developing high-quality content that's perfectly adapted to specific social media platforms and mobile devices. It's about truly engaging with customers, not by shouting at them over social media but by using new narrative forms particular to each different media platform—especially, though not exclusively, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and Tumblr. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook is a blueprint to social media marketing strategies that really work.

Source: BarnesandNoble.com

Is your Kansas or Missouri small business ready to go global?

It may be an easier step than you think. Your local U.S. Export Assistance Center is your one-stop shop, designed to provide export assistance for your small- or medium-sized business. Below is the USEAC located in the Kansas/Missouri territory:

U.S. Export Assistance Center
4300 Goodfellow Blvd., Building 110, Suite 1100A
St. Louis, Missouri 63120
Tel: 314-260-3788
Fax: 314-260-3792
Email: john.blum@sba.gov


Not Getting a College Degree will Cost You $500,000

With so much discussion focused on the rising costs of a college education, many wonder if college is really worth the investment. The answer: you better believe it.
In a recent article in Science magazine, MIT economist David Autor explores the widening wealth gap within the so-called “99 percent” in which he attributes education as a primary factor. Autor researched the earnings gap between workers with a four-year college degree and those with only a high school diploma.
In 1979, the household median annual earnings gap between college educated and high school educated was roughly $30,000. Today, that gap has expanded to more than $58,000.  Autor simply states that, “The single most important factor [of inequality] is the rising return on postsecondary education.” Read more: U.S.  Chamber

Famous Chamber of Commerce Quotation: (Membership)

“Your story needs to move people’s spirits and build their goodwill, so that when you finally do ask them to buy from you, they feel like you’ve given them so much it would be almost rude to refuse.” - Gary Vaynerchuk, author Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy, Social World