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Richard Emmons is a local business owner and marketing strategist.
The author of three books, Marketing Survival Guide, Chamber Advantage, and 52 Things to do in Southern Oregon.
From serving on the board of the Gospel Rescue Mission for 21 years, to being named Man of the Year by the Grants Pass and Josephine County Chamber of Commerce, Richard has been an active member of our community for years.
On top of all that, he’s launched a new monthly newspaper called, Josephine County Eagle.
Join us as we take a fun journey through Richard’s travels in life, and his new project with JoCo Eagle!
- Active In The Local Community
- Away from the Rat Race! Our Move to Grants Pass
- What Makes Josephine County Special
- A Joy Helping and Sharing with others through, The Gospel Rescue Mission
- 20 Year Windows: Richard’s Entrepreneurial Journey
- Why Richard Became an Author of 3 Books
- Chamber Advantage: Get Involved, Get Known & Get Business
- Why I Started the Josephine County Eagle
- COVID-19 Lockdown’s Impact on Our Community: We Can’t Forget This!
- JoCo Eagle: It’s About Bringing People Together
- Thank You: Early Positive Responses to The Josephine County Eagle
- 2021 & Beyond
- The Value of Persistence
To get in touch with Richard and to find out what’s new with JoCo Eagle, checkout the links below!
Richard Emmons – https://richardemmons.com/
Josephine County Eagle – https://jocoeagle.com/
Transcription
Intro Brian: Tell me if I’m wrong. What I’m getting from you is that in your entire discussion of what the Josephine County Eagle means to you, it’s more about bringing people together instead of dividing people, you know, instead of dividing us between the city and county, instead of dividing us between Republican, Democrats have divided us between business owner and employees.
You’re trying to bring people together to understand each other more, to understand each other’s perspective more, is am I getting that right?
Richard: Dead on.
I mean, yes, we have differences. The old saying, learn to disagree agreeably, in some ways we have to learn to agree agreeably.
Podcast Intro: There’s a place in Southern Oregon, filled with gorgeous natural beauty, friendly yet independent people and a mild, comfortable climate.
That place is called Grants Pass.
These are the stories of the people that live and work Josephine County. These are the movers and shakers that make this place of the best.
This is Grants Pass VIP.
Brian: Richard Emmons is a local business owner and marketing strategist.
He’s the author of three books, Marketing Survival Guide, Chamber Advantage, and 52 Things to do in Southern Oregon.
Richard served on the board of the Gospel Rescue Mission for 21 years.
In 2014, he was named Man of the Year by Grants Pass and the Josephine County Chamber of Commerce. He lived in Rogue Valley with his wife, Kathleen and family since 1998. On top of all that, Richard is the publisher and editor of the brand new Josephine County Eagle.
Richard Edmonds, welcome to Grants Pass VIP.
Richard: Hey, Brian, thanks for having me on. It’s great to be here. great talking to you.
Brian: We’ve met on and off through the years, and I’ve always wanted to get to know you a little bit better. So this is a great chance to be able to dig in further.
First, just off the bat, other than what we heard from your bio, how would people know you possibly for people within the county?
Richard: You know, it’s funny, it depends on how they view me. Because, you know, through the chamber, I’ve represented one business for a long time, The Boardroom and Executive Suite. So they see me as Mr. Boardroom.
Other people see me as a longtime member of the Gospel Rescue Mission.
Some people see me just at church, those activities, promote my books here and there.
And now, you know, everybody sees me as the publisher and editor of the Josephine County Eagle. So I’ll just get that on the screen (logo of JoCo Eagle), even though this is an audio podcast, I still like to put it out there.
So people that know me from Toastmasters, I’m just a lifelong learner. I love to learn new things, and I love to tell other people about them.
My wife is extremely patient in this regard. She’ll often listen to a podcast, so you got to hear this, you know, are reading a book, you got to hear this. And she’ll sit there quietly say, okay, Richard, are we finished?
I say yes, yes. Thank you, Kathleen.
That’s so great, because I process out loud, you know, I think through things, and that’s just who I am. So they see me from Toastmasters.
I love to read a book, or have an experience or do something. Just give you one example, I learned about how you can publish on KDP on Amazon. It’s a great platform to publish your first book on.
Well, I go to Toastmasters, and I deliver a seven minute speech and how to do that. And three of the people in my club published a book on Amazon, following my process before I had done it.
So anyway, that gives you a little insight to who I am and how I do things.
Brian: That’s fabulous.
It’s so funny, there’s so much overlap and how your life runs and how my life runs. And we’ve been in this community together.
Just curious, how did you end up in Grants Pass, how did you end up in this area?
Richard: How it turned out was back in the mid 90s. I subscribed to Art Robinson’s Access to Energy Newsletter. And every once in a while, he would say well, you know, move to Southern Oregon. You can buy five acres and a house for what it costs to buy a townhouse in San Diego.
So we moved up here in 1998, partly It was y2k that had a certain element to it. But that really just got us thinking about raising our family. We have four daughters, getting them out of the big city and the rat race.
Business was very busy. I had a very demanding boss who’s very successful, you know, I was a controller at warehouser subsidiary at 28. And then at 31, we spun that company off into a separate company, and I became the chief financial officer, and my boss their Joe, he was fabulous marketer he built into a nationwide company.
But there are times when he come in on Monday, and I have my week planned out and he’d say, hey, Richard, I got to send you to Chicago. We got to open an office in Chicago, you get on the tomorrow flight and I was like, okay, Joe.
So it’s a little bit of that rat race. It was fun work. It was challenging work. It was lucrative of providing for my family, but we wanted to get to a slower pace of life.
And Art Robinson had written about Southern Oregon.
So we came up in 1997 and took, you know, “several vacations” up here, ostensibly to fish, but we’re really not looking for salmon or trout, we’re looking for a home, or a place to live. And that’s what we ended up doing.
I like to kid, you know, when I’m delivering speeches that I’ve moved my family up before the turn of the century, and then I say, 1998.
But yeah, that’s how we got up here and it worked out great.
We’re a homeschooling family. It was totally seamless, at the time our daughters got up here, and they really took to it.
They started getting into music, and that led to the Emmons Sisters Band. And they had opportunities to play at the Chamber’s concerts in the park series. Then other regional bluegrass festivals and other things. And it’s just a lot of fun things that I couldn’t have done if I had stayed down in Southern California.
Brian: Fabulous. That’s great. That’s what brought you up here originally.
So in retrospect, and from where you’re at today, what’s the reasons why you stay here, what really makes Grants Pass and Josephine County special to you?
Richard: There’s a number of different things.
Obviously, we joined a church, we got very involved in that. And that led to playing Ultimate Frisbee on Sunday afternoons are like 40 to 50 people, it was incredible.
I was in better shape in my 40s, than it was in my 30s. Because I’m playing Ultimate Frisbee so much. So it’s just a lot of fun.
We like being up here, I got involved with the Gospel Rescue Mission, as you mentioned in my introduction, and that really got me connected to the local community in a way that I just had never really thought about and I was invited to join the board.
I didn’t know anything about the Gospel Rescue Mission Board. But that’s part of my personality, I just jumped in with two feet, and I figure it out as I go.
And what I learned was that we’re big enough in Grants Pass, to have the Gospel Rescue Mission, and really help people in a big way.
But yet, we’re a small enough community that you can get to know some of the residents by name. And you can see who you’re helping.
These are real, live breathing men, women and children who are responsible, and they’re trying to get out of this cycle of poverty and homelessness and despair.
We offer them hope, and we give them food and clothing and a place to sleep. But we also give them the gospel. That was one of the things that kept me here, because we just liked the community. And like I say, I just enjoy getting to know people and helping people in one way or the other.
Brian: Awesome.
What led you into your line of work, into the things that you’re doing on a daily basis?
What brought you there?
Richard: Well, I’ll give you a little bit of my backstory.
Like I say, I just jump in, you know, I was in high school, I was reading college manuals for different colleges, and I saw the United States Naval Academy, and I said, Wow, that would be great.
You know, I like sailing. I mean, I didn’t have any family members in the military but it looked really interesting. And it was very rigorous academically.
So I got a congressional appointment and I went there.
I tried it out, they gave me two years to try it out. But during my second year there, I knew it wasn’t for me and I was looking for alternatives.
My brother was taking accounting in high school, he was a couple of years behind me says, you know, you might look into accounting, I said, well that sounds good. So I got a degree in accounting.
And then my first year out of college, I got married.
Right after college, I tried all these different entrepreneurial things, and I just kept falling flat on my face, we were trying this thing and that thing and the other thing.
I tried to sell things, making minimum wage plus commission, it just wasn’t working out.
It was kind of funny, because in college, I earn money selling attic insulation door to door, and I was able to make four times minimum wage. But then you graduate, you know, college degree in business and accounting, I was not making much more than minimum wage.
It was really kind of pathetic looking back on it all, but it’s just part of my story.
Then I decided to use my accounting degreee and I got my first accounting job, and I just stayed with it.
I had good opportunities, I made the most of them. I always joke when people talk about four, 10 hour days, I go, you know, it’d be neat if I could cut back the 14 hour days from the five, or the five and a half that I normally work. That’s just who I am.
So I did accounting, and as I said, I worked for a warehouser.
Then we had a leveraged buyout, and it was entrepreneurial. I was learning so much, was such a great thing at the time of computers coming on the scene. And you’re setting up networks, and you’re creating these things called email, which is new on the scene. And you know, I had an email account with compuserve. And it was just a different time.
Part of my job was, who got the $5,000 computer and who got the $4,000 computer?
Those computers are worth like $100 now, but back then it was a major expense to get somebody’s computer and that’s just part of what I did designing software. It was just a lot of fun. I got to do a lot of different things and I found it very interesting.
I did that for 22 years. I did it after I got up here.
The first year I was up here, I didn’t get a full time job. But I did design some software for my former company, which was very helpful for me, and I enjoyed doing that.
But then I became a Chief Financial Officer of a local company, did that for about six years. I was CFO at the same time for a company based out of they’re based out of Southern California, but their operations were in Mexico. And, you know, so I was kind of a virtual CFO for them, and I did all that.
Then finally, we decided to do employee buyout sort of speak, and it just didn’t work out. You know, there’s just a difference between being an owner and being a manager, and being one of the line workers.
And we had line workers, they’re really smart. But, you know, being an owner of the company is really different. So that didn’t work out.
I still remember one time, out of the 16 employees, we were given the opportunity, and there were nine of us to raise their hand. So yeah, we’d like to take on ownership.
And I remember the day after the deal closed, one of them said, Oh, this is great, as owners we can give ourselves raises now.
And I said, No, you don’t understand. We’re owners, we may have to take pay cuts.
Well, the day after that there were only eight of us, because he was a quick study. And he said he wanted to just be an employee. And that’s okay.
You know, not everybody’s cut out to be an entrepreneur, you have to sort of try, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
Sometimes it takes a long time before it works. And that’s okay, too.
But after that, I decided to do something different. And I had a year of kind of transition work freelance work.
Then, back in 1989 I started studying Jay Abraham, because I was very well rounded in business, except on the marketing side. And again, being a self learner, you know, my wife and I plunked down $5,000 back in 1989, which is a lot of money back then.
And I bought this protege mentor program by Jay Abraham. I just studied it and studied it, and it did rounded me out.
So even though I might have been a chief financial officer, I knew a lot about marketing, non traditional marketing, and I was able to be an asset.
But at the end of that time of being a CFO, I learned that you can be an owner, and you can be the chief financial officer. But the people that really make it happen, success or failure in a business, it’s in sales and marketing, and then it’s in operations.
You can be the chief financial officer. And you can give recommendations and advice. But you’re not out there selling, or you’re not out there delivering the service and directly touch with the customers. You’re really out of touch, kind of a lightbulb moment for me.
I enjoyed all that time.
And I’ve always admired Moses in the Bible, because he had three distinct careers of 40 years, he being a Prince of Egypt, and then a shepherd a sheep, and then finally a leader of the people.
I don’t look at 40 years, but more like 20 years.
I look at it like 20 year periods of time.
And so then I just started doing marketing, I was working with a company that sign business, he said, You know, I can’t pay you for doing the sign business, but you know so much about marketing, will you be my marketing consultant?
So I said, Sure.
I really don’t like a lot of government regulation. Thankfully, to become a marketing consultant, what I had to do was print a business card that said, Richard Emmons Marketing Consultant, and that was that, I didn’t have to go back and take more college classes and have to take a licensing exam, you just have to get clients and help them grow their business.
That client grew to others, and then I got an opportunity to be a partner in a business in the Boardroom.
So even though they weren’t a employer, I took a lot of time, a lot of energy, to get that to fully occupied. And now I’m still involved, but I’m not day to day manager. I’m not the day to day manager there, and I like that.
I like helping lots of companies.
It’s one of the reasons I wrote my books to help businesses do it. I’m a big advocate of reading books to learn more. And then if you really want to learn more, write a book on a topic, because you’re putting yourself out there and it’s permanent, because it’s in paper and toner.
Like your book is even a hardcover.
My book, they’re paperback, you know, they might not survive, you know, a flood or something. But yours is a hardback book. So there you go.
Brian: That’s a great segue. I’d love to ask you more about your books.
So tell me what first led you to write your first book?
Richard: Greed.
Brian: Lol.
Richard: Okay, that’s a short answer.
But seriously, back in 2009, I was writing the first draft of what became, Marketing Survival Guide. And I wrote that book, really to display my expertise in marketing.
I mean, you write it down, people can read it, and if they need help, then they’ll hire you.
But when I got involved in this other business, I set the manuscript on the back burner for eight years. And then I picked it up again, because I realized that there’s only a few companies that can really help as a marketing consultant, but there are tons of companies that need help.
And I’ve been in that position to where there’s no money for marketing. There’s no money to buy advertising, you have to get very creative.
So I rewrote the whole book to teach local business owners how to be their own marketing consultant. That was really the premise of the book, you know, how to set themselves apart from their competitors, how to create an effective advertisement.
Then how to stay in touch with your clients, so that your clients don’t become somebody else’s clients. That’s what I tried to do in getting that book out there.
Brian: Fabulous.
Did you get the results you were hoping for when you first got your book published?
Richard: Yeah, I did.
Because I literally announced the book at the chamber weekly greeters program in the morning. And I was literally, you know, it’s at the library of all places, they’re meeting at the library, because they meet at different places.
This is really old school.
For some of your younger listeners, we used to meet in person. And you could shake hands and exchange what are known as business cards, there’s really effective and hope someday they’ll make a movie and show some of that some people can remember.
But seriously, I walked out of the meeting and somebody walked up to me and they said, were holding the Oregon State Chamber Ambassadors Convention in Grants Pass, would you like to be one of the speakers?
I said, Sure.
So it got me a speaking gig, you know, literally within minutes of announcing the book in my local chamber, and that was good.
I like giving away the book, it’s a helpful thing.
And I’ve written another book called, Chamber Advantage, which was the second book.
Chamber Advantage, was a shorter book, you know, I’ve become more enamored with shorter books, because they’re easier to get through.
And if a book is really good, you want to read it more than one time.
So I know you make the point, the end of your book, it’s really good advice, you know, read it through really fast and read it again, set it aside, me read it a third time.
But you know, start reading, start implementing it.
And the Chamber Advantage book is all about how to help someone who’s new to chamber to get involved, get known, and then get business.
You sort of have to do it in a certain sequence. There’s some people that show up one time, and they announced that they’re in business, and you never see them again.
Then they don’t renew their membership at chamber, and they probably blame chamber, but really, they didn’t know what to do.
Are you taught about Chamber of Commerce, in high school or college, you know, generally not. But that’s why I wrote that book. And it talks about how to do your 32nd spiel, I’ve got little scripts in there.
I mean, I really tried to pour everything I know into that book, because I want to help people today.
And I’m also a grandfather, I’ve got five grandchildren, one on the way, coming in June, maybe by the time this is broadcast, I don’t know. But I’m excited about that, of course.
And I want to do something for multiple generations. So my new grandson to be born in June, you know, let’s say 20 years from now. I mean, it’s hard to think that far ahead.
But 2041, he could be 20 years old. And maybe he’s selling attic insulation door to door, just like I was, you know, a long time ago.
But in any event, he would be able to pick up one of my books, and learn from it, just like anybody else can.
That’s part of my drive to do it.
I want to help more than just myself and my business, help other businesses, and then help future businesses so they can succeed as well.
And it’s one of those things, there’s just not enough time on earth to learn from your own mistakes. You want to learn from other people’s mistakes, but more importantly, learn from their successes, and just try to find a better way to do things.
Brian: Wise words. Absolutely. That’s great.
Commercial: Okay, let’s take a break from that conversation.
I wanted to bring up a question for you, during these crazy times, do you feel like your business is indestructible? Most people don’t?
And if not, the real question is why? And what can you do to make it as indestructible as possible?
Well, that’s the basis of my new book, nine ways to Amazon proof your business. Let me talk about what we discuss in the first chapter, determine focus. So one of the main ways that you can Amazon proof your business is by determining the focus of your business. And the real problem isn’t that you’re not doing enough, the real problem is, is that you may be doing too many things in too many places.
So one of the things I suggest is decide whether your focus is going to be acquisition, ascension, or monetization. And I go into the details of what that means in this chapter. It’s really the only three ways that you can grow your business. And if you just do that one step of determining focus, you can have a huge change in your entire business. But I also have eight other ways to Amazon proof your business, basically the idea of making it competition proof to even someone as big as amazon.com.
So if you’d like to get your hands on a free copy of my book, go to AmazonProofBook.com sign up and you will get a free copy and get the chance to purchase a physical copy of it for a special price. In addition to that, if you happen to be in the Josephine County area or nearby, and you’re looking to have a speaker come and discuss these type of issues with your organization, club or group of friends, then I have a limited calendar that I may be able to fit you into.
Go check out BrianJPombo.com, slash speaking and fill out the application. We’ll be sure and get back to you on that. And now let’s get back to our show.
Brian: One of the things that got us in connection to get you on the show was the fact that you just took part in opening up Josephine County Eagle, which is the new newspaper, why don’t you tell everyone a little bit about that, who may not be aware?
Richard: Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, The Josephine County Eagle. You know, it’s something where I’ve jumped into enough businesses before and I think, I mean, I only think of like a couple people off the top my head, like Cory Fawcett, you know, he was on your show before. He’s been a success from probably kindergarten, he was probably, you know, Student of the Month, 10 months when he was in kindergarten.
But you know, and then you had Tim Thompson with Zipline Gear, started by young entrepreneur that I knew personally, when he launched the business, that happens, but most of the time it doesn’t.
I thought long and hard, because Josephine County Eagle is a monthly newspaper, it’s delivered free to every home and every business in Josephine County.
We put up 46,000 copies. And it’s a commitment.
But I’m committed to this community.
And I really want to have a wider discussion on topics that are important to give the complete story, not just part of the story.
You know, one of the advantages of being a monthly publication is that we don’t have the rush of the deadline.
Unlike if we’ve got to get the story out, and you don’t have time, or maybe choose not to get the other side of the story.
Because I have a high and very large incentive to get it right.
Because if I publish something, say June 15, next issues coming out, if I make an error, I can’t correct that until July 15.
So I have a big incentive to reach out to local leaders, you know, ask them a few questions and try to get their side of the story, and largely that’s not happening.
And I want to make that happen.
We also have an urban rural divide here in Oregon, between the big cities of the North and Southern Oregon and Eastern Oregon.
But we also have a bit of an urban rural divide here in Josephine county.
We have two cities, and we have a lot of federal land, first of all, but we have a lot of county land where people live out in the county, and I want people to know what’s going on everywhere in the county.
I mean, I remember going to a Josephine County Commissioners candidate forum, hosted by the Chamber of Commerce several years ago, not gonna say when. Between five and 10 years ago, let’s say.
But one of the questions that was asked to the 10 different candidates, because there are two different positions open was, can you name the mayor of Cave Junction?
Now to your listeners, outside of Josephine County, you can count all of the cities in Josephine County, not just on one hand, on two fingers. We have two mayors in two cities, and we had only one of the 10 candidates able to name the Cave Junction mayor, I was embarrassed for them all.
And any event, one of the things that the Eagle will do, is to let people know what’s going on, not just in Grants Pass, but also in Cave Junction and in the other parts of Josephine County.
And for your listeners out there, the Cave Junction mayor’s name is, Meadow Martell, and Grants Pass is Mayor Sarah Bristol.
So there you go, you can re-listen to this podcast episode. And you can commit to memory, the names of the two mayor’s in case you decide to run for county commissioners?
Well, that’s just a little piece of political advice from me.
Brian: That’s very cool.
Well, and this is, it’s really exciting on a whole lot of levels, because we have really one newspaper for Grants Pass, The Grants Pass Courier. And people have attempted to compete in the past and have been unsuccessful for the most part, in really creating another voice out there.
That gives an even more well rounded, like you said, whether it be regional, political or whatever, given a more well rounded view of things. I mean, kudos to you for going forward and building this up. This is fabulous.
Let me start off this question by saying to the audience, we’re recording this in May of 2021. So we’re at what appears to be on the tail end of the COVID-19 crisis?
So how has this whole situation affected you and your business in life?
Richard: Well, it was one of the driving factors for starting in Josephine County Eagle. I mean, there will be crises that come, you know, sometimes it’s wildfires.
In this case, it’s a medical related crisis.
And one of the articles that I wrote for the May issue, or issue number one, was get the COVID facts before you get the COVID Vaccine. Because there’s several different vaccinations, there are fact sheets for each of these that are, you know, emergency use authorization, and so forth.
And I was just encouraging, to get that fact sheet and read it, and then discuss it with their doctor.
I’m not going to tell them to get vaxxed, but I can tell them to go get the facts.
That’s just one of those things that people don’t realize that, you know, you’re putting an injected substance into your body. People that would never eat GMO food, depending on which Vax you got, you’re, in a certian sense, a GMO person, that’s called a GMP.
I’m very thankful that, especially for the Boardroom, and I hear this from other people that collect rent each month, we had a moment of truth in March, the end of March of 2020, Will people pay the rent or not.
And thankfully, in my experience, and people that I’m in contact with, they’re very thankful that people here in Josephine County, and they’re, you know, for them paid the rent.
Because this particular COVID has been, whatever it is, I mean, it’s allowed the federal and state governments to set down some edicts that have never been tried in the past, and never done in the past.
I mean, shutting down businesses, I’m very pro business because, if there aren’t businesses, there aren’t any jobs.
I mean everybody can’t work for the City of Grants Pass, you know, it’s just a mathematical impossibility. They’re the people that run businesses and work for businesses.
They’re the ones that provide the goods and services that people voluntarily, day in and day out, you know, we might vote once or twice a year, but we vote with money every day.
And it’s the businesses that provide the goods and services that families want, and they’re willing to pay for them.
And that’s where they get the jobs, that give them the money to pay for the stuff that they want.
So the idea that you can shut down restaurants, and then say, Oh, it’s a really big deal, you can have 25% of capacity. I mean, people don’t understand the restaurant industry, that is such a challenging industry.
And just in the last month, I mean, they’re going to be shut down again, no dining in, they may have laid off employees thrown away their food, whatever it might be, and just literally within days, well, now you can.
And that’s just something that the Josephine County Eagle will remember, and remind people, because when these things happen again, we need to be very careful about the power that we allow political leaders to exert over us, we can’t forget this.
However it is, you have to study history, back in the 14th century, which is 700 years ago, the black plague killed 35% of the population. So out of 100,000 people, it would have killed 35,000 people.
And then you compare that to COVID-19.
It’s like 110 people out of 100,000, you let that sink in.
And even during the black plague, they didn’t shut down the marketplace, because people had to go out and earn a living and buy food and try to survive to the next day.
I like history.
I didn’t major in history, it’s harder to make a living history, but I like it.
So I’m going to weave it into stories, just try to give people a little more context what’s going on, and make it readable. So when they read the paper, they’ll see the ads, because it’s the ads that float the boat, you know, you could be in a newspaper for 100 years, and reach 25% of Josephine County, or you can deliver free by the US Postal Service, not required, be subscribed to and just have the advertisers support it, and that’s the path that we chose.
We’re a 21st century newspaper, you know, we don’t have to do things the way they used to be done.
Brian: That’s really inspiring.
I love what you’re saying here because, and tell me if I’m wrong. What I’m getting from you is that in your entire discussion of what the Josephine County Eagle means to you, it’s more about bringing people together instead of dividing people, you know, instead of dividing us between the city and county, instead of dividing us between Republican and Democrats or dividing us between business owner and employees.
You’re trying to bring people together to understand each other more to understand each other’s perspective more, am I getting that right?
Richard: Yeah, no, you’re absolutely dead on.
I mean, yes, we have differences, the old saying, you know, learn to disagree agreeably. In some ways we have to learn to agree agreeably.
But that’s definitely, I mean, when they divide us, they conquer us.
So as a people as a county, community values aren’t 100%, it’s never 100%. But if we can think through some of this stuff and develop a way to avoid the divisiveness that is so negative, it’s so discouraging for people that are just trying to provide for their families and get their kids educated.
And not, you know, just all the politics, everything has gotten so much more divisive.
We’re a community newspaper.
The vast majority of our news is going to be Josephine County, we’re not going to fill it with Associated Press stuff about what’s going on in Washington, DC, that’s outside of our control, that just adds stress to our lives. And we want to be able to focus on the positive, and what we can do locally to make things better.
Brian: Absolutely. That’s fabulous.
Really good stuff there, Richard.
This is a question that I asked almost everybody that comes on the show.
That’s if we were to talk a year from now, and we were going to look back over the past 12 months, what would have had to have happen for you to feel happy with your progress, both professionally and personally?
Richard: That’s always a great question. Because the future is unpredictable, no one would have predicted 2020, or the first half of 2021.
If I’ve been on your show in 2019, would have been entirely different, of course.
But as a newspaper publisher, I would hope that we published 12 more issues, that we’re getting a positive feedback, we’ve gotten overwhelmingly positive for people that have emailed us and commented on our website.
So I’ve sent checks in just support the cause. I mean, when people want to send you money for what is a free newspaper, that’s great.
You know, as a marketer, you’re like, wow, we’re resonating with our market.
Yeah, we want to be able to help our advertisers, I teach in my book that an advertisement cost the same, whether it brings in you 10 new customers, one new customer, no new customers, we want to help our advertisers to succeed, and get more bang for the buck for their advertisements.
So a year from now I want to be able to look back, and know that I’ve got a really solid group of advertisers that support the Eagle, and know that I support them in their businesses.
So that’d be something I’d look back on.
And just the fact that we can get back to being normal people in like, I mean, I wrote my 52 Things To Do In Southern Oregon book, because I taught that, and I continue to teach it to my students, as part of the Ron Paul curriculum.
I teach a high school business course teach them to launch a business. And as part of that, I teach them valuable business skills, and one of them is the publishing book.
So I had to have a model that they could follow, no matter where they live, they could always do a book, you know, 10 things to do in Tupelo, Mississippi, you know, wherever happens to be, they can write a book.
So I wrote this book, but it was a good reminder to me, because I got to slow down, I’ve got to go see all these 52 things that are in my book, because many of us haven’t been to I’m not doing the research and writing the book, but I want to go see them, and I got a checklist in the back.
Any event, I know it’s a shameless plug for my book. But it’s a final reminder that as busy as we are, we need to slow down and spend time with our family lots of time, get to know people in our community, and just enjoy the great place that we live in Grants Pass and Cave Junction, you know, Merlin, all the areas.
Josephine County is a great place to live. It’s a beautiful place to live. And I intend to enjoy intend to look back. I think that made a difference in the community in a positive way, and got people thinking about issues, and maybe a new way a little bit out of the box.
And working toward a better future doesn’t happen overnight. But it won’t happen at all we don’t get started now.
Brian: Makes a lot of sense.
What are the obstacles that are standing in your way of getting there from where you’re sitting right now?
Is there anything that’s really in your way, or do you see a real bright future and you don’t see anything?
Kind of I mean, there’s always gonna be something but, what are the obstacles that are currently visible for you?
Richard: Well, obstacles are is that the economy is really tough right now.
I mean, we’re getting this free money floating down from the sky, it’s like manna from heaven, you know, nobody questioned it, they just eat it, in my view is just, for me speaking for myself.
We didn’t take any PPP loans, or any of that. Is the fact that that’s future money that they’re gonna have to tax us for, because eventually it all has to get paid for.
But in the real economy, we’re providing goods and services to other people.
That’s what we need to get back to more of a normal economy, where business owners can work with their employees and their customers and their vendors and just work it out.
It’s voluntary, it’s not a slave labor camp. People can work for whom they want to work.
And you can go do business with whom you want to do business with.
And if you want to mask up, you can mask up. And if you don’t, you don’t have to, you know, there’s just a little more freedom, a little more personal responsibility.
But the obstacles, first of all, any new venture and for anybody listening out there, you don’t know what you don’t know. There’s a lot stuff you do know, like I came into Josephine County Eagle, knowing a lot about advertising, having sold advertising created advertising, written a book on advertising.
My wife is a graphic designer, so she could lay out the paper.
There’s a lot of stuff we know.
And having written books, I know how to write. But there are things we don’t know.
But the obstacles could be not getting enough advertisers or getting somebody that says I can’t afford to advertise. And really see I look at things contrarily is that like, if none of your competitors are advertising, now’s a wonderful time to advertise.
Do the opposite of what the majority of people are doing.
And more often or not, you’ll do well, that’s an obstacle.
Obviously, we depend upon the United States Postal Service, you know, shout out all the postal workers out there every day, rain, snow, sleet, hail. COVID think they’re gonna add that as the fifth item.
Brian: No kidding.
Richard: Right?
They deliver the mail almost every day of the week. So something could come up with them. There could be a postal strike. I mean, totally unlikely.
But maybe I’ll be out on my bicycle delivering them to the houses, we’ll come up with a way, that’s an entrepreneurs do, you solve problems.
You know, you overcome them?
That’s just part of the business life.
Brian: Awesome. That’s just great.
And that plays well into my second to last question, which I’ll get to in a second.
But I want to thank you for being on, and we’ll definitely have you on again, Richard, your wealth of information and a lot of fun to listen too.
My second to last question is, is there anything I haven’t asked you that you’d like to answer?
Richard: One thing is the value of persistence.
You know, shout out to you and your producer for pestering me gently for months to get on your podcast. And I was always too busy.
And any event, I guess I want to talk to the audience is that be persistent, expect obstacles in life. And when you work to overcome them, it just makes you a stronger person.
Persistence is just a skill that you need to develop.
And there are ways you can learn it like I did in college selling ads, or insulation, I did both of that door. It takes a lot of persistence.
It’s not fun at times, but you just have to be persistent.
So that’s really one of the last things, find out something you enjoy doing. Try to do it well think big, and be persistent.
Richard: Fabulous, great, great advice.
Brian: The last question I wanted to ask you has to do with what you’re discussing.
I mean, if there are business owners that would like to advertise in Josephine County Eagle, or there are listeners that just want to get to know more about you and everything you offer, what’s the best ways for them to get in touch with you?
Richard: Great questions, they can go to RichardEmmons.com.
So that’s my main website for me. And I’ll have a link from that to JoCoEagle.com.
So JoCo Eagle dot com.
It’s a little tiny website, we’re gonna have a community forum in the next month or two. So that we can have discussion 24 seven. Not me 24 hours a day, but people in the community.
But if they go to RichardEmmons.com, they can learn about my books.
And they can also get a link over to JoCoEagle.com. And I welcome any feedback from people in the audience, whether you like the paper you didn’t like the paper, we liked the feedback.
We’re always looking to do things better and we appreciate all your feedback.
And especially if you’re interested in advertising, I have a new way I’m going to be doing that. And I’m putting on a webinar, which will probably be already done.
But I’m gonna be doing additional webinars, because I want to help our advertisers advertise better. So they see more results, and they want to keep advertising in Josephine County Eagle.
Brian: Awesome. And I can’t wait to see that and can’t wait to read your next book all about how to produce a community newspaper.
I’m just making that up, but I’d love to see something like that. Because this is powerful stuff.
It’s a way to be able to take what seems like insurmountable obstacles in people’s lives, you know, trying to get the word out, about things trying to get positive advertising. And you’ve found ways around that.
So I can’t wait to hear more about the success of JoCo Eagle, and everything that you do.
Richard Emmons, thanks so much for being on Grants Pass VIP.
Richard: Brian, thanks so much. I’ve enjoyed this chat it was a lot of fun.
Brian’s Closing Thoughts: Richard Emmons, what a great interview.
It was a really good conversation. It’s one of these situations where I have been trying to find a way to have a conversation with Richard for years, honestly, years, we had talked here and there, but I knew a little bit about his background, and I really wanted to be able to get to know him a little better.
So this situation with the JoCo Eagle, and then the fact that I have Grants Pass VIP, it gave me a great excuse to be able to sit down and have a great chat and I’m happy you’re able to join us here.
I think it’s a great example of why I created Grants Pass VIP to begin with.
A chance to get to know people without being invasive, without just walking up to complete strangers and saying, tell me your life story. You know, it’s a way for me to be able to do that on a completely selfish level.
But this is also a way for you to be able to do that. These are conversations with movers and shakers and I highly recommend going to GrantsPassVIP.com and seeing all the other conversations and the ones that we have going on from here on out so be sure and sign up for an update.
So you can be on top of these whenever they show up. That’s GrantsPassVIP.com
Outro: Join us again on the next Grants Pass VIP brought to you by the team BrianJPombo.com. Helping movers and shakers in Southern Oregon and beyond stand out. That’s B R I A N J P O M B O dot com.
If you or someone you know would like to be a guest or sponsor on Grants Pass VIP, go to GrantsPassVIP.com/Contact.
Guests who appear on the show not necessarily endorse the opinions of the hosts or sponsors. The music is FunShine, Kevin MacLeod. Our host is a Grants Pass resident and business strategist Brian Pombo. I’m Executive Producer Sean E. Douglas. Until next time, live Rogue and have fun.