Episode 074: We’re celebrating America’s 250th birthday!

Paul, if I would ask you on America's 250th birthday.

Go ahead.

What your favorite part of those 250 years were.

Okay.

What would you say?

Wow, a lot happened in that 250 years.

We had the

Revolutionary War.

That kind of started it

all.

Oh boy.

But I hate to say a war is the best part of

that period.

That's what kicked it off.

So that comes to mind.

Your

dad

was a history major, so you're qualified to answer this.

Yeah.

Longtime history teacher at Wausel West.

Major and teacher.

Yep.

And he did major.

I'm

assuming in college.

Okay.

Let's see.

What

happened that was great.

I mean, the

The Packers will make Super Bowls one and two.

Okay,

I'll give you that.

Episode number 74.

This

is Warsaw's founding father, the first mayor of Warsaw, August Kickbush.

I worked my ass off to move 750 people from Germany to Warsaw, Wisconsin.

What the hell have you done?

Anyway.

Happy 250th birthday to the United States of America.

And now, it's time for my favorite radio show with your papsed blue ribbon lovin' hosts, Ryan and Paul.

Stay off my lawn, you damn punks.

The Warsaw, the

Warsaw business show.

I left a good job in the city.

Working for the man every night and day.

Broadcasting from Wassup.

Wisconsin USA number 250 congratulations and happy birthday America

happy

birthday big milestone 250 years old doesn't look a day over 20 it's the wassa business show I'm Ryan Paul and this is episode number 74 so America's 250 years old and we're 74 episodes congratulations America all right who's coming up on the show this week Paul this week we have none other than executive director at Visit Wassa Tim White Wisconsin

He's responsible for marketing Wisconsin's base camp and getting as many people to visit Wausau as possible.

And he's thinking he's doing a pretty good job.

Trends are looking up.

Good.

He was here a couple of years ago talking about all the stuff he was working on.

Right.

Now let's hear about the results.

Yeah.

Has it been a success?

Yes.

Wings over Wausau

was

a hell of a success.

Yep.

Brought the kids there, had some fun.

Were you there for the F-18 flyover?

It was extremely loud.

I was actually at the Eagles Club across the lake during that portion of it.

Okay.

Flew right down the road.

I mean, it was incredibly loud, but really cool.

Did the kids hit the deck?

Yeah, they covered their ears.

That's for sure.

Did they start crying?

Nope.

They had seen it last year.

They saw whatever was there last year at

15 or whatever.

So they'd seen

something like that before that close.

But your whole body shakes.

We were in the bouncy house area with several other kids.

There was probably 20, 30 kids there.

And the F-18 flew right over their heads.

It must have been pretty low.

10,000 feet, 5,000 feet, really loud.

Were there tears?

Not just my kids, but all the kids in the bouncy house area, 20, 30 kids, hit the deck.

and all started crying immediately.

And I was like, Oh, snap.

I mean, if you've heard of the, I don't know, a commercial airliner jet, that's pretty loud.

This is 10 times louder and faster.

Yes.

It's crazy.

And so they were all brought to tears.

They all wanted to leave.

We're like, it's going to be cool.

Just wait, just wait.

But then I imagined like if I was in the remote parts of Afghanistan, Iran, and something like that flew over.

Oh, I'd be freaked out.

They're

more intimidating when you see him in person than you ever would dream of.

Yeah.

But a hell of a weekend, a Wingsover Wausau weekend, and they put on a great

event

once again.

So congratulations to everybody there.

And America is 250.

What an accomplishment.

Yeah, it really is.

That's pretty good.

So if we wanted to actually wish America happy 250.

Yeah, who do we say it to?

We can't really call Uncle Sam because you'd think you could call Uncle Sam and wish him a happy birthday.

I don't think he's a real guy.

Oh, OK.

that, and if he was, he's dead.

Yep.

What about Congress?

I was gonna say

something in Congress or something.

All

of them.

Congress?

Could go right to the White House.

I don't know.

All right, let's see if we can drum this up.

Okay.

Do we have a secure line?

I think we have to ask first, will they take our call?

There's only one way to find out.

I think I have the number here.

Not a political phone call that we're making right now.

No, no, we don't do that.

It's a patriotic phone call.

Yeah, we're just saying happy birthday.

It's celebration time.

Number 250.

For quality and training purposes, this call may be monitored, but will not be recorded.

Okay.

Sorry.

Who's this?

This is the White House.

Oh, I got this number, but I wasn't sure if it actually was the White House.

Is there a way to confirm that you're actually the White House?

How can I help you, sir?

I'm just curious if it's actually the White House.

My friend gave me this number and I have some important business to talk about.

Well, in order for you to speak with the President, you have to submit your request and write in one moment for more callback information.

Oh, hang on one second before we do that.

Thank you for calling the White House.

To write the first family or second family, please address letters to the White House.

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I think it's confirmed.

I think it's confirmed that we had the White House.

Okay, so let's go back.

Let's go back.

Let's go back.

It's actually the White

House.

Washington, DC.

Yeah.

For quality and training purposes.

Here we go again.

Okay.

It will not be

recorded.

I'm as nervous as when we called Byron Allen.

White House.

Sorry?

Hello, the White House.

Hello.

Yes.

Is this the switchboard?

Main switchboard?

Yes, sir.

How can I help you?

I'm calling about lobbying to get an executive order to have Taylor Swift perform at the Grand Theater in Wausel, Wisconsin, USA.

Is there somebody I could talk to about that?

I'm sorry, you're wanting the president to order Taylor Swift to perform at a concert venue?

In Wausel, Wisconsin, USA, if that's possible?

Could we get an executive order for that?

Possibly?

So, yeah, you would need to visit the White House's website on the contact page and submit your request there.

Okay, great.

And if I wanted to wish America a happy 250th birthday, is there somebody that I should direct that toward?

Well, whoever you'd like, if you'd like, I can transfer you over to the comment line.

You can direct it to the administration, however you

choose.

Sure, that would be wonderful.

Thank you so much.

Yes, sir.

Very polite.

Yeah.

Thank you for calling the White House comment line.

All comment line volunteer operators are currently assisting other callers.

Please continue to hold.

You are currently caller number three in line.

Not too bad.

Better than when we called Red Lobster.

True.

Better than when we stayed on hold for the CEO of Disney, right?

Not as good of music as I would have expected I would have expected a little more patriotic music especially this time of year before 250 You

are currently the next caller in line

moving

up

Wings over wassa that was that was really awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was a heck of a

Good morning.

This is a White House comment line.

May I please take your brief comment?

No problem.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday, dear America.

Happy birthday to you.

We

didn't know who else to call, so.

Well, thank you, sir.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

You have a great 4th of July.

Oh, you're so sweet.

You too.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

I wonder if she'll pass it on to the administration.

We'll be right back on the Wausau Business Show with executive director Tim White.

Happy 250

years, America.

Yeah, we're back to back on a big world war chance.

This is Grace Tanki, former Miss America nuclear engineer, and you're listening to the WASA Business Show.

What does it take to run a successful business?

It takes incredible courage to start at the beginning, incredible grit to achieve success, incredible determination to sustain results, and incredible perseverance to leave a legacy.

But most importantly, it takes an incredible local partner dedicated to helping you achieve your goals.

At Incredible Bank, we are that partner.

Let us help your business do the incredible.

Incredible Bank, member

FDIC.

Wassup Business Show, episode number 74.

Here we are with Tim White.

Tim, you've

got goals for this interview.

My goal here is to be the most engaging, funniest, dramatic,

best

guest ever had in the history of the Wassup Business Show.

Okay,

well,

that's

saying a lot.

I like that.

Let's go.

Well, with that, let's kick it off.

Ladies and gentlemen, executive director of Visit Wassup.

Tim White.

Thank you very much.

Hey, Tim.

Welcome.

Welcome

back.

Yeah.

Well, how long has it been?

It's been a couple of years.

Remind us, everybody that is all of our friends listening, that what it is you exactly do.

Yeah.

Other than, you know, act like the king of the greater Wausau area.

You do a good

job of

that.

And walk around and stare at people and ask them questions that strangers usually, you know, don't ask people

what

I want to

know.

rate you while we go on the interview, like so far, we need a little more enthusiasm.

Let's have put your bets on a Calci right now on our Clashie.

What is the betting thing, the real time betting?

Yeah,

I forget that's Clash.

Polymarket?

Yeah, put your bets right now.

Okay, so what I do is I'm the executive director of the DMO, which is the Destination Marketing Organization, right?

Our job, our mission is to raise the profile of the greater Wausau area.

actually Marathon County overall to really kind of showcase not only what it's like to visit here and provide authentic experiences and create memories, but also we're a part of the development of the destination to not just for visitors, but also for locals, for residents.

So if you, you know, if you create a place where people want to visit, because it always starts with a visit, create a place where people

think, oh, maybe I could live here, right?

Think about your travel experiences, right?

You

have a great travel experience.

You experience the hospitality

of the area.

Awesome

Texas.

Yeah.

Let me look at the housing market, the jobs, all that kind of stuff.

And then if you create a place where people want to live, you create a place where people want to work and want to invest.

And it's just a whole cycle.

And so we're a big part of all that.

So for example, we were a big part of making the Wisconsin River the great

Pineary Heritage Waterway, which now is a national trail.

With Bill Bertram.

Yep, with Bill Bertram.

So the National Parks, we gave the National Parks data and allowed us in our application for that.

We've gone from 75,000 paddlers to 90,000 last year.

We'll hit well over 110,000, especially with the weather being very nice.

How do you measure that?

So we have a program that we subscribe to called Zartico.

And it's a data platform, right?

It takes everything from your phone data to credit card spend.

You have to be in the destination for at least two hours to be considered a true visitor.

So

you

can't just get gas or go

to a fast food restaurant,

right?

Pass through.

Like the Ruder Wear ad.

Yeah,

like Ruder Wear ad.

Not a

place that

you

just pass through.

Yeah,

right.

Exactly.

Like pass through, like, you know, having a good, you know, movement.

Yeah.

Anyway, so we, uh, rate that joke.

No, so, you know, we take all these data sets, we're able to see where people come from, what they do in the destination to where else they go for it.

Like we knew, like four years ago, we did a study.

We knew that 58% of all of our visitors did at least two forms of outdoor rec,

which is big.

You know this because you're using like anonymized.

cell phone tower data?

Well, no, it's GPS.

So, you know how if you take your phone out in the wilderness and you see the SOS signal,

it's

still tracking

you.

But you're not tracking Paul when he's out in the woods.

Yeah, I am tracking Paul.

But do you know what's me, I think, is what you're getting at, right?

Yeah,

I know it's you.

We

have a

special flag for you.

And it's like, oh, that's Paul doing that.

Why that tree?

Wow.

OK.

Talk about pass through.

He wants to be the

best guess we've ever had.

We're holding you to that high standard.

Oh,

yeah.

So it's anonymous.

Paul, would you rate that joke?

That was an eight.

We're going up.

Going up.

Going up.

No, but it's like a crackpot of data, right?

So it's everything from credit card spend.

But it's pure anonymous data.

Yeah, it's pure anonymous data.

Don't worry, Ryan.

We're not tracking you.

Everything's okay.

Cool

technology.

Wow.

And then people start to go, oh my gosh, I can't believe that the Wausau area has all this stuff going on, right?

There were a number of people at the music festival, Summer Schindig, and I

make it a point to ask people, oh, where are you from,

right?

And talk to them and they're like, I didn't even know this was happening.

I just came to Wausau for da da da.

And this

is amazing,

right?

And so

people that have not been here for a long time are just amazed.

And I have to remember that too because we're always like future casting, right?

We're always trying to develop the next thing like with the Wisconsin gravel, ride Wisconsin gravel thing, which I'll tell

you.

Yeah, we want to talk about the biking trails that are coming.

So 120,000 people that are going on the greater pioneering.

Waterway.

110 I'm going to guess.

110.

So now we know how that's legitimate objective data.

It

grew from 70,000 you said?

Yeah.

That's wild.

That speaks to destination development too, right?

One of the ways to develop your destination is to take a look at the assets that you have, right?

What do we have that are sustainable assets where we don't have to invest a ton of money in, but it helps not only visitors but locals find their way, right?

So waymaking is one way.

And so with

the Great Pioneer Heritage Waterway, we put signage up in the 30 plus launches that

were

on the Wisconsin River.

Really nice branding on

that.

Yeah.

And it's an amazing, right?

So it not only shows you the paddle routes and where you can put in your boat, but also the amount of time because we don't measure paddling by distance, we measure it by time.

On average, it's going to take two hours to go from Brocaw to downtown Wasaw, right?

And then we also put a little history and some other things in that we worked

you know, with the Marathon County Historical Society

and

the

Historical Society

to tell a story because everybody engages it in different ways.

Some people want to paddle and they just want to get down the river, right?

And they're kind of competitive.

Other people want to take their leisurely time.

Other people want to identify birds.

Other people want to get out and stop and have a little drink at wasa on the water, maybe.

So we're cultivating and curating these experiences just by making it easier for people to really

Enjoy it.

And so we're doing the same thing with Wisconsin gravel.

We're putting up signage.

We're putting in routes.

Is that what it's going to be called?

Yeah.

Well, we're in the breaking news.

Well, it's already launched.

You can go to Wisconsin gravel.org

to

see our area is more fleshed out.

You

get a couple more

points if it's breaking news.

It's breaking

news.

All right.

All right.

There we go.

Not as

way to the best guest ever on the lawsuit business show.

So

far

so good.

We're talking.

Wisconsin gravel is live.

Wisconsin gravel.org.

But is that what this big new

bike trail system

around Granite Peak is going to be called?

Well, no, not around the base of Ribb Mountain.

That's going to be its own thing, but it is a part of the total infrastructure in Marathon County.

So again, taking sustainable roads.

So the Wisconsin gravel concept, you know all the township roads in Marathon County that are made out of red granite.

Red granite's kind of a rare rock.

It's the state rock, but it's as a for gravel bike.

which is the fastest growing bike sport or recreation.

And then when you add e-bikes to it, it's like exploding, right?

And so all these townships built these dairy roads.

They were basically dairy roads that the pasteurizers, the milk companies would come to the farmer, pick up the milk and take it to be pasteurized and commercialized.

And so there's 1,000 plus miles of these red granite trails.

The red granite is like soluble.

It's easy to ride.

Yeah,

like Hollywood Road and then out to Marathon or Curly Road.

And

there's almost a thousand miles in Marathon County.

Okay.

So what we've done is, you know,

couple of gravel bikers like Shane Hintz out in Athens, and especially Athens has already really embraced

this.

My minus

one point for pronouncing Athens incorrectly.

It's Athens.

Okay,

Athens.

Okay.

You got to make

that point back up now.

Near Pontuske, which we have the 45 by 90 marker,

which is

so crazy.

That's

awesome.

Yeah.

But yeah, so they've embraced the putting in this trail system infrastructure, right?

Improving the trails, grading the trails.

Yeah,

you think

about all this iron bull, now you got the

trails.

What's the official name again?

Wisconsin gravel.

So that's the funny thing about the Mountain Bay Trail.

It stops in Weston.

Yeah,

right.

But we want to

you know, bring

it into Wausau.

Right.

Right.

Bring it into Wausau and to Ribb Mountain.

So that's going to hook into the, because State Park Speedway got torn down and Wausau Business Rumor has it that they're putting in some sort of bike infrastructure.

Mountain bike.

Yeah.

This is going to all tie into that

too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We want to co-join all that.

So the base trail around Ribb Mountain, Kasurik Foundation is doing the stuff with the bike park there.

Okay.

And so the goal is to, yeah, create this system, connected system.

Ribb Mountain has the Trillium Trail and you can kind of hodge podge your way around town.

You know, there's a pedestrian bridge across Wisconsin River in Villager Ribb Mountain that actually takes you across the River Old Railroad Bridge and then gets you on that great trail that goes through Schofield and Rothschild.

And Schofield and Rothschild have done some co-trailing together as well.

So we're also working with the Lodging Association telling them, hey, if you can build some bike infrastructure, some

repair stations, those kind of things, storage.

So when people stay, they have a secure place and they don't have to bring it into their room.

Yeah, the Hilton

Garden Inn and Rim Mountain needs a bike rack.

I agree.

In the parking lot, I agree.

Yeah,

yeah.

And so we keep preaching that again, because again,

if you have those amenities, we'll promote them.

And we have a really healthy profile.

We have way more visitors engaging in local eateries than they are in fast food and franchise type things,

which is really good, right?

Because

again, that keeps, that makes the uniqueness of our area just kind of hold it up.

The specialty retail has kind of gone down and that's, you know, people will come and they'll visit.

They may not stay as long.

They may not drive as far because they're

They're definitely driving, but they may not buy that t-shirt or they may not

buy

it.

It's been tough for specialty retail, but we've again tried to communicate that to our partners that are in that space.

Is that because there's

not

enough critical mass of retail and what's the reason behind people not coming here for retail, specialty retail?

Well, I think one is that we can do better at marketing that, but it's a package thing too.

Again, if I'm from an urban center, I've got plenty of choices, right?

So

not unique enough or so with specialty retail, you know, again, some of the things that we need to help our vendors, you know, lean into our one, should you even open this kind of a business?

You

know, that's just because it's a great idea that your idea doesn't mean, again, what does the data say?

Right?

It'll work necessarily.

Love ideas, right, especially their own.

Right, exactly.

And that's my favorite.

I get

that.

But if you're going to run a business, right, you've got to go.

with where the need exists, what customers want,

right?

We just

sell what we like.

Yeah, right, exactly.

And so-

How we-

How we trending, Paul, on this interview?

We're going in the right direction.

Well, it is

Wassup

Business Show.

Keep going.

Right.

And then, you know,

even like basic things like, do you have a Google listing that you actually update, right?

People love Facebook.

They love because I think it's free, but Google is free too.

Yeah.

And Google being the number one search engine, you have to have your Google listing.

That's the a priority.

You can't just say on Instagram, we're going to be closed today.

Right.

What about ChatGPT?

How, you know, when I go on to ChatGPT and say, make me a list of things to do in Wassup,

when I'm there this weekend, what pops up?

Yeah, so you're talking, let's even talk, let's go backwards and talk about generative

AI, right?

So

Google, if you type into Google to search, even before you even go into a platform like chat GTP, Google is gonna come up with their own AI stuff, right?

Their

answers.

And so what we do to counter that, we have to counter that, is we work very hard at being the expert authority

on those kind of questions that people are asking, right?

So to combat generative AI, you have to write blogs that answer those questions, right?

So we have to up our content, up our lists.

We have to position ourselves as the experts in the area, right?

Then the AI miles are going to take it from us, right?

So that's really one of the big things that we do.

So

when you're doing competitive analysis, because people decide where to live and work and visit, who are you competing against the most?

to say about that.

Yeah, that's a great question.

A couple extra points for complimenting the host.

Yeah, that always works.

Yeah, one your style is your hairstyle is always amazing.

Okay.

Paul's got great hair,

he does.

And your lips are amazing.

Oh, okay, I

haven't

heard

that one.

Thank you.

Yeah, well, again, uniqueness that's worse.

Yeah.

No, so what was the question again?

I forgot.

We were talking about AI chat.

He's looking at your carabiner here.

It says Wisconsin's Base Camp, and I thought that was pretty cool.

I got to make sure to mention that Wausau is Wisconsin's Base Camp.

Nobody should forget that.

We try to mention it every week.

Yeah.

Who are you competing against?

Yeah, who are

we competing against?

So one of the things you probably are aware of the

GWPP Greater Wasap Prosperity Partnership.

They tore down the mall and built that beautiful foundry

on

third.

They

gave it a boost.

They applied for a WEDC grant, Wisconsin Economic Development Corp grant and got $500,000.

A portion of it, they're going to funnel through us where we're going to market the live work kind of recruitment.

So we're currently doing comparison studies right now, which are really interesting.

taking a look at profiles of cities that have common.

themes, common amenities, size a little bit, right?

Some of them are in our state, but others are, you know, in the heartland.

But then also we're also listening to the stories of the people that have moved here.

Okay.

So we have a number of people that have come from the Pacific Northwest, some without any kind of point of reference for the central Wisconsin,

which is

amazing.

We call them our poster children, right?

And so they just come in blind or they've done research

right again.

So they

stumble into time.

Yeah, they're gonna go to visit wasa

and they'll see a bunch

of stuff

what

they're looking for is so we have people that are from Bandor again from Portland from Washington State They've come here because that

Outdoors kind of remind them of the Pacific Northwest,

right?

And they, you know, the, I mean, we have a mini mountain.

I mean, well, it

was really a tall mountain.

Yeah,

until three,

I'm going to hold a bit with that mine.

No, it has

nothing

to

do

with that.

It's a

monodonac.

It's almost two billion years old.

And it was a mountain.

It's older than the Rockies.

The Rockies are 500 million years

old.

Couple of points

there, right?

And we, so we are positioned on some of the oldest geologic rock in the world.

It was at the equator, it moved up.

Yeah.

The Delzy the Eau Claire is volcanic rock, two billion years old.

It's amazing, right?

And so, and if you look at the geologic strata in our county too, we have so many different types of rock.

We have Moonstone.

Do you know what Moonstone is?

Is it from the moon?

Um, that's what the Romans thought.

Okay.

So

Rome.

So it was high.

Now

it would have been very

impressive.

I'm

fine with being compared to a Roman.

It's a show.

The guy in the great outdoors.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sorry.

It's a hearing.

convescent rock, right?

It shines and if you polish it up, it's just gorgeous, right?

Well, there's a field that is west of Satine that actually you can go and you can dig, right, and find Moonstone.

A very rare, not a lot of places in the

world.

In the world.

In the world.

Yeah,

in the world,

right?

Same thing with red granite.

So we've got this amazing geology and it really forms

a lot of the things that we enjoy, right?

And they love it when they come here from the Northwest.

Yeah.

But then they come, they visit, and they see

the culture,

right?

They see the arts and they see a community that's engaged, right?

That has a very nice social services net, right?

You look at the community partners campus and what our community has done with that.

You look at the foundations and how the foundations, you know, I think we have like 20-some foundations, right?

There's a lot of, yeah.

And I mean, we're punching way above our weight, right?

I mean, if you look at the profile of the county, we have 135,000 people, I think, total, but it's

It's just like, wow.

And so these people come in, like one couple lived in D.C., Washington, D.C., no reference of Wisconsin or whatever.

They moved here because, oh, I'm a club curler in D.C.

We have the number one private curling center in the United States.

Crazy, right?

Eight sheets of ice.

And of course, inside is gorgeous.

And that's one of the many reasons why we wanted to have you on the Wausau Business Show this week to celebrate America's 250, to make a reference from people moving from Washington, D.C.

to Wausau, Wisconsin, USA.

Do we compete more against Stevens Point, though, or Eau Claire, or Lacrosse, or up north?

Who's in the consideration set with us?

Well, yeah.

So, you know, our biggest markets,

that we compete with, in a sense would be the Fox Cities.

So I

would include Green Bay and that too.

I mean, you know, everybody is unique enough that they have, I mean, the Fox Cities and Green Bay have things that we don't have packers for one thing.

But we have things that...

they don't have, right?

The terrain.

We have this terrain that's amazing.

We're kind of like Eau Claire from a size standpoint and what we're doing.

But again, there's a couple of variations.

Everybody that are DMOs in the state, we work well together sharing ideas.

We're all a part of Destinations with Scottson, which is kind of a lobbying education group.

For example, one of the things we lobby for still is the

let's not start school before Labor Day, right?

So that's like a

big thing.

But other issues as well.

I don't feel like we're really comparing ourselves to anybody else.

I mean, I keep track of it.

Do you feel like Wausau's doing the best

or are there areas for improvement?

Oh, we can always improve.

Who do you think is doing it better than Wausau?

Yeah, is any city, comparable city doing it better?

Yeah.

Well, you know, if you ask the person on the street who's kind of an awareness, they would say maybe Eau Claire has been doing it better.

I would say they've been doing it.

They were doing it better earlier.

Okay.

But I think we've caught up.

I took a lot of inspiration from them.

Like for example, extra funding, right?

They would get gem grants, which is Travel Wisconsin's joint effort marketing grants.

Okay.

We've gotten 280,000 in the last couple of years of grants,

right,

to boost our marketing.

Nice.

A profile.

And so

I feel like, you know, yeah, we're just kind of like cousins, you know, and, you know, again, they have the draw from the Twin Cities.

So we may not advertise as much in Twin Cities, one market, two markets that we've really identified as great to market to our Madison and Milwaukee, right?

Milwaukee, we're doing things up here that are like, oh my gosh, this is like so in Northwoods, right?

Yeah.

And of course, Chicago, part of the thing with marketing and dollar spend is there's a marketing.

detail called share a voice, right?

So it's like, if you look in Chicago, there's so many voices trying to compete for the same, you know, person.

Attention.

Yeah, right.

And we don't

have the dollars to do it.

I mean, we visit Milwaukee and actually travel with Scots and spend the same amount of money, I think, and they get like a 0.2 share of voice.

What is like

Milwaukee's budget for marketing compared to Wasos?

Millions compared to not millions.

Okay.

What's your

budget?

Our budget is about $600,000.

But if you bundle it with grants and different things like that.

So there's a lot of marketing dollars flowing through your organization to market Wausau and promote Wausau.

Oh, yeah.

And marketing means a lot of different things, right?

So another really unique thing about us, again, is we emphasize the SEO, right?

Because, again, it's one thing to go and advertise outside of the area, outside of the region.

And again, it's about share of voice.

But if I am working on the

structure, right?

So if people put in, you know, mountain bike events and,

you

know, Wisconsin, foodie culture and art museums, you know, we want people to mostly pull the outdoor rec stuff, right?

And then when they explore, right?

So obviously in the customer journey, right, they start to investigate, right?

And so if I can get them investigating the greater wasa area, then they'll see our authentic content.

That's another thing that's very

unique that we do that most of you most don't.

We don't use an agency to create content.

We do it in-house because that's one of our strengths.

So we have our own in-house creative.

We won Emmys and Tellies now, you know, because of our content.

A little more authentic that way.

Yeah, right.

And we use those people, right?

Like even on the cover of the last year's visitor guide, this is a family.

that moved from the Twin Cities and their kids, they had one boy.

They were like, oh my gosh, you know, I think we need to go to Central Wisconsin.

Their parents on both sides are kind of in between, are on, you know, both sides of the state of, yeah, from Wausau.

And so they are like the quintessential couple.

I'll talk to them and they just took their boys bike riding and then they went skiing and then they went, you know,

it's

like boom, boom, boom.

The farmers market, right?

But what

drew them here?

Was it first they had a job offer that drew them here or they had multiple job offers and they decided to come here because of that job offer or did they first decide to move here and then look for a

job?

No, for Nate and Paige it was they were remote workers.

Okay.

They could go anywhere.

They could go anywhere.

They were tired of the big kind of urban life,

right?

Okay, cool.

Should

we talk to Larry up in the traffic copter?

Let's see if we can get him.

Yeah, right.

So what's the number one place that your data says, just wrapping up here, Tim, this has been really interesting as usual, but what's the number one place to visit?

What does your data tell you the number one place to visit?

What do people's cell phones show the number one place to visit in Wausau is?

Is it Granite Peak, I'm assuming?

Well, there's two things.

You were talking about spend too, right?

And we didn't answer that.

So one of the interesting things about our spend here is that the average visitor spends 140

three dollars a day on attraction stuff.

Okay.

So

that would be like, you know, granite peak or a festival or an event, the children's imaginarium, right?

So we have this and it's really, that's a high spend, especially for us, right?

For our size.

So the number one attraction, it depends on the

Bucket right because obviously families are different than

yeah,

you know other I was just going overall.

Yeah.

I well the most visited place is remount.

That's what it's a part.

Okay.

And then

what's number two?

Number two is downtown wassa.

Okay, I mean if you

put together

Can you pinpoint it down to the you know restaurant for example?

I can tell you yeah the profile of people in the restaurants that they're going to

the most What's the most

visited restaurant in wassa in greater wassa?

Yeah Well, it's the one that's open seven days a week

Okay.

You know what one that is?

Seven days a week.

It's going to be something like Texas Roadhouse or something.

No.

Okay.

No.

And it's downtown.

Open seven days a week.

Red

Eye?

No, that's not open on Mondays.

Yep.

And Sundays, I don't think.

Okay.

It's a fusion restaurant.

It's right.

Lemon grass.

That's right.

Lemon grass is open seven.

We're fans.

Love them.

Good job.

We're fans.

I'll take it.

100 points for you.

I'll take it.

Yeah, it's lemon grass because

it's always available.

And it's damn good.

And it is also very

good.

Yep.

It's really, really good.

So

cool.

And what's the award you got here

from the state of

Wisconsin?

So, you know, we do

all these

efforts that we've

been

talking about are paying off.

We get nominated for stuff all the time, which is nice.

Last year, the Wisconsin governor started the outdoor industry awards, right?

And so we had like four or five nominations.

Actually, Bill Bertram won the Big Tent Award.

Cool.

The Big Ten is like somebody who's really pulling everybody together.

And he really does that.

And so we had four nominations this year.

Someone nominated me for the trailblazer of the year.

And so it says recognizing

efforts that went above and beyond to raise the profile of Wisconsin's outdoor recreation industry in the past year.

Cool.

Yeah.

And

presented to Tim White

and profits

too.

So we are now.

So when I came on board, we were about 17th in terms of total economic revenue for the county.

Interesting.

And now we're in the top 10.

We're number 10.

I mean, total economics.

So every year.

In Marathon County, we were 17th?

Yeah, in Marathon County, right when I came on.

So the economic impact, I think, in 2019, which was flagged as the best tourism year ever, we were 17th.

In just Marathon County?

Yeah, in just Marathon County.

So Marathon County was the 17th of...

all the counties.

So travel Wisconsin, yeah, sorry to confuse

you.

That would have been

very confusing.

I get bonus points for confusing

the

host.

No, so travel Wisconsin puts these numbers out after, you know, the previous year.

And so we were, you know,

quietly moving up.

And this last year, we got back into the top 10.

Cool.

The top 10.

I mean, we're never going to beat the counties of, you know, at Dane County, Milwaukee, Green Bay, La Crosse even.

But to be in the top 10, you know, Highway 10 up, we're number one, right?

Wow.

And we brought in over half a billion dollars.

That's over Oneida and

all those counties.

Wow, that's wild.

I

wouldn't have guessed that.