Bringing People Together Pre, During, and Post Pandemic with Samantha Swaim

In this episode of Talking Shizzle, we sit down with Samantha Swaim who is the CEO and founder of an event fundraising company, Swaim Strategies. Sam has been in the nonprofit space for a while and is located in Portland, Oregon. For today's shizzle 🔥, the group talks about hybrid work environments, remote work life, and even more specifically, hybrid events. And yes, possibly even an $8 frozen yogurt cone 🍦that was purchased in New York City, beware of the expensive ice cream folks! Sam talks about how her company is focused on helping nonprofits raise money through events.

We also dive into some geographical discussion, and how Portland has changed since the pandemic began, along with all of our respective areas. The trio also touches on how the food scene has been impacted, with many restaurants having to close down during the pandemic. Of course - this has created opportunities for small business owners, which is somewhat of a silver lining.

Eventually, the conversation shifts to how the world has changed in the last three or more years, specifically in regard to events and technology. Innovative technologies like Zoom and Video Chatting have become a normal part of life for many people, and how things have changed in such a short amount of time. All in all, it's a great conversation! Tune in for this plus so much more:

📌 COVID-19's Impact on Restaurants in Different Regions of the U.S.

📌 The New Normal: A Conversation about Life Post-Pandemic

📌 The Impact of COVID-19 on Events and Human Interaction

📌 3 Big Obstacles Event Planners are Facing Right Now

📌 The Impact of COVID-19 on the Event Industry

📌 The Benefits of Hybrid Events & a Hybrid Work Environment

Check out Swaim Strategies and all the amazing things they can assist with here:

📌 https://swaimstrategies.com/

Connect with Sam for all of your events questions and needs here:

📌FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/swaimstrategies

📌INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/swaimstrategies/

📌TWITTER: https://twitter.com/SwaimStrategies

📌LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-swaim-she-her-a28a9a4/

Transcript

Taylor Shanklin  0:03  
Hey, hey, hey, talking shizzle listeners. You know, it's always been important for me to align our business with other companies and individuals who share our values, especially those who share a deep commitment to serving nonprofits and social impact. So for that reason, I'm super excited to announce our very first season to sponsor Keela. Keela is a fundraising and donor management CRM that is built specifically for nonprofits by nonprofit professionals. These folks really get it. Their mission is to empower nonprofits to deepen relationships, retain donors, and raise more for their cause. A several of our clients and partners use Keela and have continued to be impressed by just how easy Keela is to use, how affordable it is, and most importantly, the results they see using the platform. The Keela team is also phenomenal to work with. They are super friendly guys, and they have a continuous commitment to equity and inclusion. Now, go check them out. We got a special offer for you as Season Two sponsor of the talking shows or podcasts. Keela is offering our listeners and community 40% off their first year subscription tequila 40% You guys. That is a lot of shizzle. Think about all the other shizzle you can get done by saving that money on your nonprofit CRM. Plus, if you have under 250 records, you can get access to the keyless starter program for free. So if you are interested in learning more and booking a demo.

Hey, hey, how are you lovely people out there. You've got a lot going on in your day with big dreams and big goals for your world. Are you ready to talk some shizzle and learn some shizzle from leading entrepreneurs, changemakers coaches and overall interesting people who like to shake things up. I'm your host Taylor Shanklin, CEO and founder of creative shizzle and I am stoked to bring you a fresh episode of talking shizzle today, this show is all about helping you think differently so that you can grow. Talking chisel is brought to you by our team at Creative shizzle where we help businesses, entrepreneurs, and social good innovators make amazing marketing shizzle happen. Check us out on the web at Creative shizzle.com Now, let's talk some shizzle hello, hello friends. It's a new episode of talking shizzle we are going to talk about the hybrid work environment hybrid event with our good friend Samantha Swaim. What's up, Samantha?

Samantha Swaim  3:16  
Hello, thanks for having me.

Taylor Shanklin  3:19  
It's good to have you here. What's up? Well, we got sidekick Will on the line. Hey, What's up, Will?

Will Novelli  3:25  
I am here, ready to talk some shizzle!

Taylor Shanklin  3:28  
Hey, Will's got a new food truck in his background that we've been talking about, which is why we were riffing about ice cream. And I was sharing a story of an $8 frozen yogurt cone that I got in New York. And I was like, Why does anybody live in New York? This should not be $8

Samantha Swaim  3:52  
I'm having the world's food truck. 25 cent handed to ice cream Will's got

Taylor Shanklin  3:59  
25 cent handed ice cream at the Novelli household. All right. Well, let's talk some shizzle. Samantha, tell us a little bit about you. You run an event fundraising company. That's most of your focus. You've been in the nonprofit space for a while. You are located in Portland, which is just a beautiful city. We love Portland. Tell us a little bit about what's going on there. And what what you're all about? Oh, well,

Samantha Swaim  4:24  
thank you. Let's say Portland. Well, we'll get to Portland in a second. But I am with Swain strategies, fundraising consulting firm that my wife and I started about 18 years ago now. And we do fundraising events. So we produce big, fun ways to gather people around mission and gather people to raise money. So spend a lot of our time in fancy galahs a lot of our time now in kind of a hybrid space because the event world has changed dramatically through COVID. And so it's Portland Portland's changed tremendously through COVID, we've had definitely a shift, a lot of our sort of cultural icons went away during COVID, lots of restaurants, close lots of change to businesses, our downtown core has really changed tremendously. And we're just now I think, worn like on the back end of the COVID. Swing, and we're just now in recovery mode. So restaurants starting to open again, and businesses back open. So it's looking more promising now than it was just a few months ago. So things in Portland are good and beautiful. It's beautiful time of year, all the leaves are changing right now.

Taylor Shanklin  5:35  
So nice. So things were really shut down that long in Portland. Hmm. I mean, I don't know I actually really, I haven't been out there since pre COVID. Yeah,

Samantha Swaim  5:45  
we had, you know, restaurant, the foodie scene. And Portland is that scene. And we have this beautiful food scene that was so dramatically impacted. And a lot of the sit down, sort of nice occasion, restaurants closed permanently. And the opportunity that was created there for small business owners was kind of incredible, because all the sous chefs went followed their passion and started food cart. It's just like wills food cart, okay, he had a ton of new food carts pop up, we had a lot of small businesses open, a lot of like, people got to realize the dream that they had. And that's kind of now just starting to really boom in Portland again, for a long time, the only surviving restaurants were those that had to take out business. And if they didn't have a takeout business or couldn't convert, to have a takeout business, they were really struggling. But our patio scene is thriving, or smaller restaurants have opened, we've had a lot of new exciting openings. So Portland finally feels like it's kind of coming out of the pandemic.

Taylor Shanklin  6:48  
That's good. That's great to hear. It's you know, it's funny, I was, I was in Kansas City last week. And I haven't been to a place in a while that felt so closed still. And it wasn't necessarily close to Kansas City. But what I saw was how much I think the pandemic had affected the city because it was a similar thing, there were still a lot of restaurants and bars that seem to be closed down. And I don't know if it was just the time that I was there, or if it was a post COVID world and they just hadn't yet opened back up or had to shut down. And I haven't seen that as much in my area. But what's interesting is how much this world we're living in now, post COVID has affected so many different regions of the country in such a different way. You know, like I grew up in Texas, have been going down to Texas a lot lately to see family. Everything's been super open there for so long, went to a conference in Florida. And they were like, Yeah, we shut down for two weeks. It was like no one even thought COVID happened here. And then where I live, I live in a mountain town in North Carolina. And like, it's really been very open for a long time. So I don't know, well, what's it like in Jersey? Like, has it been shut down for a while, it's been pretty open. What's so I'm curious about this, because we're gonna be talking more about how people, you know, transition into this new world.

Will Novelli  8:12  
Here. It's very regional, Southern New Jersey and northern New Jersey are very split, northern New Jersey kind of segments a lot with New York and New York City. And there is even a lot of cities in North Jersey like Jersey City, New Brunswick, like a lot of Princeton, a lot of booming cities that are smaller cities, but their cities nonetheless. And I think probably like everywhere else, the cities are coming out of their shells a bit along with like Philadelphia, which would segment with South Jersey, and as far as regions go, Philadelphia, and like Atlantic City would be the two bigger cities in the area. And like the same coming out of the shells. It's the best way to describe it seems like it's getting a little bit back to what people would call normal. I would say the food scene is always booming here as well. I've always heard great things about the tapas out in Austin, and in Portland as well. But I'd love to visit once. It's sidenote. Yeah, it seems like this seems like getting a bit back to normal, whatever normal is making that new normal, right?

Samantha Swaim  9:18  
Definitely. That's true in the event world, too. We work with nonprofits all around the country. And we've had some organizations that have been gathering people and back into big events for quite a long time. And we have other organizations that are just now starting to do that. So I think but the new normal is really good way to frame it because it's definitely not the same. There's been so many impacts to technology has changed, you know, the just price of things has had changed. So there's a lot of shifting that's definitely coming out of this three year pandemic pause that the world was on.

Taylor Shanklin  9:53  
Yeah, I know. Yesterday, I saw a friend like story from two years ago that they read posted, that was a zoom screenshot of a company meeting, it was like, This is how we meet now. And it's just so funny, because that has now felt like the new normal for quite some time. And so looking back at that, and I was like, wow, that was really just two years ago, where it was like, Oh, now we're meeting on Zoom. And it's this whole new world. And it's really just kind of interesting, how much we've changed our expectations around how to operate in such a short amount of time, really, when you think they think about the grand scheme of the world or of life in general.

Samantha Swaim  10:37  
Well, I don't know that we ever won't meet and zoom now, right? It's such an easy way to just like have quick FaceTime and connect with people and to be able to have a meeting that you don't need to commute to, I imagine that we're always going to continue to be connecting in that way. And I don't know, I haven't sat around a big conference table a long time.

Taylor Shanklin  11:00  
Yeah, I've gone to a few conferences post pandemic. And I will say, first off, it's amazing, because like, just getting that in person interaction is not something that you can have in the same way in zoom. But what also I've noticed, and this gets into our topic of events, people are different now. And I want to ask you, if you've noticed that too, so and I was just at a conference last week, and I noticed this even a little bit more. And I've kind of noticed it, and then I started to put a pan on it a little bit like in my head where I was thinking about it. And I just think it's made us all a little bit different. We're so used to zoom and the video camera. And we're used to being home alone a lot. So people are a little more stand offish at event than they used to be. Are you finding that in your work?

Samantha Swaim  11:54  
Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a couple things that are happening, I think some people have various medical needs to continue to be very cautious. And so you have some folks that are still socially distancing, but don't know how to interact in a environment where you would normally handshake and hug and they're like pulling back. So I think there's just a little bit more sort of standoff behavior. There's also the like, I want to be considerate of how you feel. And so some people are like, do I hug and approach and greet. So I think how people interact has changed. But also I think people's time and attention and what's important to them, and what they're, the value of their time has really shifted, we've seen the attendance at events has really dramatically changed in the way people interact, a lot more folks come for a short time and leave a lot less people hanging out to the bitter, bitter end, there's a huge joy of like, seeing each other being together reunion feeling, but also a desire to also leave and do other things. And so families are coming to events as a whole unit, where we used to do a lot of events where it was an adults only environment. And that's just not the priority, often. And so we're seeing a lot of families attending together, we're seeing folks leave earlier. And I think just like our tolerance for crowded spaces has drawn. And so people I think are less willing to spend hours and hours and hours and hours and hours unless they're really getting something out of it. And so events really need to be experiential, and create an environment where people really want to be there and are fine and are, you know, worthy of their time because our time has changed and our priorities have changed.

Taylor Shanklin  13:44  
Yeah, I think you're really onto something with that about our priorities have changed. And it's like maybe maybe I want to go but I don't want to be those long. And I don't want to schmoozers longer whatever it is, that just seems to be something that I've picked up on at big crowded events. So let's let's talk about obstacles that you're running into these days as an event focused company, working with organizations on planning their events. What's a big obstacle you often see, and how do you overcome it?

Samantha Swaim  14:20  
There's three big ones right now. I think the first obstacle we're experiencing is still some uncertainty. And that often has to do more with the group dynamics of we work with exclusively nonprofits. So identifying, you know, how do we come up with a plan that everyone all key stakeholders are on board with? That, I think is one of the biggest challenges right now. There's often you know, an individual board member who feels really strongly about one thing and another who feels really strongly about another direction. And so coming to a place where there's consensus and a plan for how to gather is A big challenge that needs to be overcome right now around how do you actually like move the ball down the road. I think for so long folks were planning and then canceling and then planning and canceling that there's some fear and trepidation there. It's a big investment to plan an event. And that pause, and let's wait and see mentality is now causing sort of the second barrier, which is events are back, people really excited to be gathering all those weddings that got pushed for a year to all those retirement parties. That never happened, all those, you know, people are now celebrating their 50th birthday on their 52nd birthday, the big celebrations got pushed, and now everything in the event industry is in high demand. But at the same time, a lot of the event industry did not recover. So a lot of businesses went out of business, a lot of the event sort of smaller businesses haven't been able to staff backed up. And because some of the bigger venues and hotels haven't been able to stop back up entirely. They're really, I think, challenged with how to continue in the same bulk that they were trafficking in and therefore their pricing is gone up. So the wait and see is creating sort of this crisis where you can't find the venue you want, you can't find the caterer available anymore. And then that is also kind of compounded by just the event industry itself is challenged right now with staffing with hiring with supply chain issues, there's a lot of challenges just in being able to like get inventory available, you know, if you need napkins for 300 people, sometimes something that used to be so easy that you could get like that is really challenging. And little things like surprising things have become really hard to get a hold of food costs have gone up tremendously. Staffing has changed supply issue chain. And that just kind of creates this like crisis where sometimes organizations aren't able to actually execute the event that they want to have, because they waited too long, then they couldn't find the sort of facilities they needed. And then they couldn't find the rest of the like food and resources that they needed. So those three things are kind of compounding each other right now that my big goal and my big push with all of our organizations is earlier earlier earlier, like planning a year ahead, booking all of your things a year ahead, so that you're like, you know, you have a plan, and you can keep moving forward.

Taylor Shanklin  17:24  
And what do you, you know, say to people that are have that trepidation around booking too far in advance? Like, is there something that you're helping, you know, to kind of get them over over the edge over the finish line to say no, it's okay. Like, we should still plan this anyways, what like, what are you how you coaching your clients to get over that fear?

Samantha Swaim  17:46  
Yeah, I think the hybrid space is the thing that is the buzzy term right now is that hybrid events have allowed us to actually have a backup plan. It's allowed us to know that worst case scenario, we can broadcast all of our content. And, you know, I think early on in the pandemic virtual events became the need because so many nonprofits were really relying on those budget goals and relying on those funds raise. But what it did was kind of create this surge in the market, there's although the event industry has struggled, the technology industry has boomed. And that's created this surge of new tools. And so there's a whole bunch of ways that organizations can actually have sort of a plan A and plan B and even reach a broader audience by broadcasting. So even if they were thinking about a 500 person event, and it turns out to be 100 person event, they would really be able to do something fun and exciting for that 100 people being able to bring in something different than you have done before being able to have surprise elements, being able to you know, have will pull up with his 25 cent food, you know, ice cream cones, that is food truck. That's how you can create something special and meaningful, even if it's only a small audience. And then you can broadcast and create content for your audience at home if you need to. So I think there's there are tools and solutions now that we didn't have three years ago.

Taylor Shanklin  19:08  
Yeah, I was gonna say Will's food truck is also for hire if you ever have any clients who like really in a jam, and they need some food he's got to covered

Samantha Swaim  19:21  
he's very on trend very on trend right now.

Will Novelli  19:24  
We've got it yeah, no problem. We've got the music ready. We've got it all with you know, we can only serve up to like five people. That's the problem with

Mr. Softee drop.

Taylor Shanklin  19:39  
He's got this super cute kid who works for him too. So like he'll help draw in the crowds with this cute you know, smile at least.

Samantha Swaim  19:49  
Well, how old is your staff?

Will Novelli  19:53  
Leonardo is four.

Samantha Swaim  19:56  
Four Wow, you are training Leonardo to own his own Business at a young age,

Will Novelli  20:01  
he would love that to run his own food truck and he loves food trucks we we tried to encourage everything ninja and food trucks are probably his two top favorites right now.

Taylor Shanklin  20:12  
I love it. Alright, let's get into a little bit more on hybrid. Okay. Yeah, I know we've talked, I know it's a buzzy word. It's still a buzzword. People have defined hybrid a lot. But I always like to ask this of people who like events is all they do and events is really what you do. So what does hybrid even mean to you? Because I still think it's a word that people just throw out and don't even necessarily know what that

Samantha Swaim  20:40  
means. I think it's defined a million ways. It's really Yeah, everyone has a different definition. From Well, let's say, in a workspace environment, our workspace is hybrid, because we have people both working at home and working in the office. But our events are hybrid, because we have two audiences, we have an audience at home and an audience in the room. And so it can be a million different things. We've had organizations have crazy wild parties, and really streamline like learning environments and lectures that have very successfully been able to broadcast that content out to the world. And therefore we have people viewing at home and we have people in the room. So for us hybrid is a way that we can still have program storytelling, we can still raise funds and have folks that aren't in the room participating. The cool thing about it, though, is it's opened up for a lot of organizations that they're no longer restricted by like where the party is, or how much the party costs, to be able to include people. So lots of organizations doing some really fun stuff with hybrid where they're able to have, you know, folks tune in from all around the globe and participate from all over the place. So I think that, while it is super buzzy, it has a lot of benefits to and we're finding a lot of luck in the hybrid space of being able to pull in audience members that we never had attending events before. Now tuning in from home and giving from home and being very generous. So it's become a really inclusive way to be able to have an event.

Taylor Shanklin  22:12  
Yeah, I like that you use the word inclusive, it is a good inclusive way to have an event. And going back to the conference that I was at last week, it was something that I noticed and I wasn't even aware this was happening, because I was just planning on going in person the whole time. But then there's several people saying, Oh, I'm watching the virtual version, like I'm tuning in to the live stream. And I was like, Oh, they're doing that cool. Good. So there were, you know, a bunch of us at the event. But then a lot of people were tuning in virtually, and still watching all of the main sessions on the main stage and stuff. And so, I mean, that really is a good way to just define it, it's probably just offering the opportunity to dial in remotely.

Samantha Swaim  22:57  
Well, I think going back to how people are spending their time and the way people are interacting, I know there are a lot of educational opportunities I would love to participate in as a small business owner, but I don't always have the capacity of time to travel around the globe going to these incredible conferences, that hybrid has also meant I can attend more, and I can participate in a here's another buzzy word in an asynchronous way. That's very buzzy in education, but I can participate whenever it works for me and my schedule versus on the timeline in real time with the event as it's happening, I can tune in later.

Taylor Shanklin  23:36  
That is another buzzy word, a sequence. Alright, so let's shift this over away from events and talk a little bit more about the hybrid work environment. Is that what your company's doing now? Y'all are kind of part time in the office part time at home or what

Samantha Swaim  23:54  
we are? Yeah, I think the thing that we discovered in a virtual space is that we weren't in community together, we weren't in relationship to each other. And so while for some, I think it was much more effective to be able to have sort of like your own space and quiet time and be able to tap in and out of, you know, family and kids there also was the need to be able to cross pollinate ideas and to brainstorm and to have sort of that relationship of Oh, you're going through something I'm going through, let's figure it out together. So we have really enjoyed being in the office together. I would say it's probably a split of half and half. Most folks kind of split their week up and choose to work from home a couple of days and then be in the office couple of days. We do have some times where we like intentionally say hey, let's I'll be in the office today because there's a big lift or there's a project we're working on or even like just like an internal planning day, but it's allowed folks also that flexibility of maybe they had COVID exposure and so it's allowed us to stay safe as a team or stay healthy. You can keep moving forward, it's allowed folks to be able to be present with their families as well. So I don't think that we'll ever have an exclusively back to the office only environment, even how like our client interactions have changed. Our clients are like, I don't want to commute to your office, I don't want to like drive for a meeting, my time is more valuable than that. So it's I don't think that we'll ever not have this hybrid world that we all live in, where sometimes we're in person. And so those were tuned in via zoom our friend.

Taylor Shanklin  25:32  
Yeah, you know, it's funny, it used to be, especially in the agency world, like you go out and you visit your clients, and you do on sites pretty regularly. And now it's kind of like, yeah, why would you come see me? We see each other on zoom all the time.

Samantha Swaim  25:46  
Right, yeah, I, uh, we still do a little bit of travel to our clients to make sure that we have all of our pieces in place for a big event. But oftentimes, we find that we've, you know, covered all of it via previous and meetings. So it's nice to be able to actually, like spend the time with that we're together in relationship to each other versus to do lists and checklists and planning, and getting organized. It's like, No, this is where we can actually, like, have a conversation about life and the world and not just about the task list at hand.

Taylor Shanklin  26:18  
Now, it is nice. I actually, for the first time in a long time, went to a client event earlier this month, and I'm going to another one next month. And it's like, it's good to go get that in person time and like see people for real, it's a different connection that you have when you do that. I was looking at an office space today for myself, like a co working space. Before this podcast, I went over there and popped over there and like looked at it real quick. And I'm so used to working in my home office. Like I liked the idea of going to a co working office to meet other small business owners in the area. And at the same time, I was like, I walked in I'm like, I don't know feels kind of corporate at like my home is so cozy. I'm just like, I don't know about this.

Samantha Swaim  27:10  
It's true. I we're in the same boat I like I have moments where when I'm choosing to work at home, I realized like, Oh, I am able to add time back in my day that I don't have when I'm commuting, I'm able to like actually cook a meal versus like having a snack shoved in my head. So there's benefits.

Will Novelli  27:31  
Saving that time on driving places is really is really key. Yeah, I agree there,

Samantha Swaim  27:37  
other than your food trucks not getting out as much. So maybe you need to like take a first spin around the block when you're working from home.

Will Novelli  27:43  
That's sure we weren't thinking about starting a weed infused food truck recently. We're gonna call it the canna-bus!

Taylor Shanklin  27:53  
 And Leonardo is gonna work on this cannabis.

Will Novelli  27:56  
Yeah, maybe might get me in trouble.

Samantha Swaim  28:03  
You're very on trend. Are you sure you don't live in Portland? Portland is very popular right now with both combining food and cannabis. I think that you'd be a perfect fit for Portland.

Taylor Shanklin  28:14  
Well, they just legalized it in Jersey where you are right?

Will Novelli  28:18  
They did just legalize it in Jersey. They showed it which is awesome. Thank you. A lot of people don't like Phil Murphy. Good job Phil.

Taylor Shanklin  28:30  
All right. Well, I want you to go fact check that real quick and the age requirements for working on the cannabis. Go Let's go out to Wikipedia and let's fact check. Make sure Leonardo's okay to do that. You don't want to get in trouble.

Will Novelli  28:47  
I think I'd be in trouble already.

Taylor Shanklin  28:49  
Well, Sam, kind of play Sam, by the way to your friends clay Sam. Okay, I didn't know you know, it's like, no, I'm Samantha. I'm always so mad that

Samantha Swaim  28:59  
I most often I introduce myself in this like really formal way as Samantha but Sam is what everyone calls me except my mother. So I sometimes you know, think that maybe I'm in trouble. If you say Samantha?

Taylor Shanklin  29:11  
Well, then I'll definitely only call you Sam from now on. Your mom, you're not in trouble. So close this out with one tip you have for event coordinators or event planners who maybe are going into the holiday season or they're starting to think about 2023 events and what does that look like? What's the one thing if you could impart any one thing? One tip of wisdom? What would that be?

Samantha Swaim  29:38  
Well, I think the most urgent thing is having all of your vendors booked that that's really sort of a tip we've talked about. So the other sort of big piece of wisdom that I would impart is the importance of making the event meaningful, giving people an experience that's I think the difference is that you know, we have planned and I have participated and attended and a ton of Amazing event, if it isn't something that's creating an experience for people that are just not as invested in their time and energy being placed there. So really thinking about the purpose of your event, how you're gathering people and creating something that's different. I think that people want, they want to learn they want to experience one tasty food, they want to meet new people, give people the opportunity to have an experience so that their time is well spent.

Taylor Shanklin  30:23  
Love it, love it. And it could be a ride on the cannabis. That could even be an event experience. That'd be okay.

Samantha Swaim  30:32  
Canada, tourism is a big thing. I think. I think there is a future for Leonardo, probably not at age four. But

Will Novelli  30:39  
he's gonna have to wait, good. Yeah, you're way too good. Maybe you're 80 years. So but you know,

Samantha Swaim  30:45  
I You're just you're building your small business empire for your son to be able to grow into

Will Novelli  30:51  
for sure. I see some good apparel down the line to

Taylor Shanklin  30:55  
right. Well, Sam, this has been great. I appreciate your time today on the show with us if people want to talk some shizzle with you outside of the podcast, what's the best way to find you online to get in touch and hopefully hire you to help with their event planning?

Samantha Swaim  31:15  
Well find me at Swain. strategies.com. Our website, you can find us it Swaim strategies on Instagram on all the socials Twitter, LinkedIn. So we'd love to connect to folks, especially if they're looking to figure out how to move forward with their fundraising events.

Taylor Shanklin  31:31  
Cool. All right, everyone. You heard it all from Sam. Sam Swaim. Thank you so much. We'll see you on another episode next time. Or we'll talk some other shizzle I don't know what that's going to be yet. But sure we'll see you later, guys. Well, hey there. That was fun. I love how much mind blowing and mind opening shizzle our guests bring to us with every episode. We hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. Make sure you hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcast player so that you don't miss a beat of the talking shizzle podcast. And if you're listening on Apple, be sure to let us know what you thought and leave us a review. We'd love to hear from our listeners so that we can bring you all the good juicy Business Growth shizzle that you would like to hear about. Get in touch with us and follow along at Creative shizzle.com or email us at podcast at Creative shizzle.com Until next time, keep making your shizzle happen