Passing the Baton: Introducing the New Host, Graham Cobb

Beth Bobbitt records her final conversation as host and hands The New American Town to Graham Cobb, a strategist who’s worn plenty of Bentonville hats and still talks about the city with fresh-eyed wonder. Graham shares the story of his first real Bentonville visit in 2017, which started with a bike and gets more interesting from there... We dig into his consulting work at Paceline Strategies and pull back the curtain on the #BecauseBentonville and why it resonated beyond marketing. Graham also lays out his vision for the podcast and some fun facts: he was in a punk rock band!? Listen in for more!

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Transcript

Beth Bobbitt 0:02

This is the new American Town. I'm your host, Beth Bobbitt, and this is an extra bittersweet episode, as it's the last I'll record, but mostly sweet because I get to introduce today's guest, who'll be picking up the baton, and you're in for treat. So he's worn a lot of hats in Bittenville and beyond, publisher, policy hand, CEO, strategist around town. You've heard his name linked to tech summits and the hashtag BecauseBittenville campaign. I'm very pleased to welcome Graham Cobb to the show.

Graham Cobb 0:34

Thank you so much, Beth. I want to say like cue the audience participation in the gig.

Paceline Strategies And Serving First

Beth Bobbitt 0:40

Love it, love it. Congrats on the hosting gig. I'm super excited because I just know you're the perfect fit for a new American town as you've been shaping ideas in Bentonville since you arrived. And we'll get into that. But let's talk about what you're doing now. So maybe give us a little rundown of Paceline Strategies and then perhaps we'll work backwards from there.

Graham Cobb 1:02

Sounds great. Yeah. So Paceline Strategies is a consulting company that I started two years ago, roughly. And really, if there's a theme that runs through it, it's that I'm in love with the state of Arkansas and uh the relationships and the time that people have invested in me. And I like to bring those to clients and help them think strategically about how they can improve their processes, improve their organizations internally, but then also lead with and lean into how do you bring authentic value to the market? Like don't come with a handout open palm, come willing to help. So I have clients that are nonprofits all the way to national for-profit organizations. I'm a generalist, so I like to sit with folks. Hopefully, they will share their secrets and problems with me, and then we can find a solution for it.

Beth Bobbitt 1:56

Yeah. And just a little plug for your newsletter, the prologue. Are you still doing that?

Graham Cobb 2:00

I have committed to revamping it. Okay. Okay. I love it.

First Bentonville Visit By Bike

Beth Bobbitt 2:04

It's such deep thinking in that space. So um let's talk about some of the things that you've done that brought you here. So I'm curious, do you remember the first time you visited Bentonville?

Graham Cobb 2:16

Oh, I remember the first time I visited Bentonville. It's kind of funny. I had never been to Bentonville that I knew of on purpose until March of 2017. Okay. So I'm Little Rock, born and raised. Yep. Now look, in 1994, I graduated high school and the Razorbacks won the national championship. So I've been coming to root for the Razorbacks since I was a baby.

Beth Bobbitt 2:36

Yeah.

Graham Cobb 2:37

And then I had some clients up here, but had never come to Bentonville. And I was the chief operating officer at the Little Rock Regional Chamber. Through that experience, I got to chair an organization called Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma. It's a trade organization, it's a chamber for chambers. And our conference that year was at the then called John Q. Hammond's.

Beth Bobbitt 2:59

Oh wow.

Graham Cobb 3:00

I brought my bike because I love to ride bikes and proceeded to take off to Bentonville and had the bike on the back of my car. I drove to what I now know is A Street and Walton to find slaughter pen. And I'm like, where am I? There's like a medical plaza, you know, what is this? And I'm looking around and a car pulls up and can I help you? Yeah, I'm looking for slaughter pin. Like, well, you're here, but we've had rain for a month. I mean, it was one of those, you know, northwest Arkansas marches where you can get a lot of rain at a lot, you know, in a short amount of time. And they said, hey, follow me. And this person was not riding a bike. Like they may have had a bike wreck, but they're probably on their way to church.

Beth Bobbitt 3:46

Yeah.

Graham Cobb 3:47

It was a Sunday. Um, and I followed them to Blowing Springs, and they showed me a wet weather route. I had ridden in Colorado, you know, taking a bike vacation, mountain bike vacation in Colorado, and the same in Oregon. And Beth, that wasn't my experience there.

Beth Bobbitt 4:07

Right.

Graham Cobb 4:07

My experience was that locals have pride in their place, but they kind of want it for themselves. No one was sharing that, hey, here's a great experience, you know. Um, so that was a pretty interesting inflection point. And then I overdid it. I did back 40. It killed me because I was not used to a 25-mile mountain bike ride at that point in time. And then I went to Preacher's Son and sat at the bar by myself. I had a shaved Brussels salad with I think there's some dates on that plate. I was struck that they had a mock tail menu. I thought that that was very forward and kind and kind of a subtle way to be welcoming to all different kinds of folks. Plus, I'm raised in the South and just wasn't a thing in 2017. You know, and I remember walking outside, and I, in fact, I think I heard multiple languages, which I couldn't wrap my head around. Walked outside and I called Lisa, my wife, and and I said, Look, I don't know where I am, but there's something that's going on in this place.

Beth Bobbitt 5:17

That's my favorite response, is just awe. And it sounds like you're really just glamored.

Graham Cobb 5:23

Like I was pretty glamored. And, you know, I had uh can I can just walk down this path for a minute? So I'd been in the chamber industry for about five years, and I am self-aware enough to know, and this should not offend anyone in the chamber industry, that there are not a lot of like, you know, Stanford MBA grads that are out there looking for that chamber gig, right? So when you do well, people notice. And I've always been fortunate enough to be put into places to do cool stuff in that world. So I had been shortlisted as like uh for a number of CEO jobs for chambers. The last one being um the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. And but for the grace of God, there go I like thank goodness I didn't get that gig, right? So Lisa and I, my wife is an early childhood educator. She was working in the Little Rock school district. I was doing a lot of what I felt like was important work in Little Rock that was tough work. And we were committed, right? We had re-committed to Little Rock in a big way. I was the backup quarterback. I mean, I had a sweet deal in my hometown, you know, like never lost a game. Sure. Um and then lo and behold, about that was March 2017, in April of 2017. I got a call or a text from a buddy who had been a consultant for the city of Bentonville. He said, Hey, the chamber CEO is retiring. And I think you'd be great for that. I don't know. We kind of love Little Rock, you know. In fact, we really love Little Rock, and we're about to announce a big campaign called Love Little Rock. And he said, Look, it's about bikes. You love bikes. He grew up playing in punk rock bands and opening pizza restaurants and working in pizza restaurants, and they're all about food and art. The schools are the best in the state, they understand placemaking is their magnetism, right? And they're in a moment of hyper placemaking efforts. So I began to get curious.

Beth Bobbitt 7:28

It was a strong pitch.

Graham Cobb 7:29

Pretty strong pitch. And then I got um notification on probably what was Twitter at the time or something, and it said that Tom and Stuart Walton had just purchased Rafa. And I was like, oh, that was my favorite bike clothing brand at the time. Right. Because of course it is still is. And I was like, man, okay, something's going on here. It is they're building a destination, but they're also building an industry cluster. And really, that's where I was like, man. And in fact, at that point in time, I think I called the chair of the chamber at the time, and I was like, look, I might be interested in this gig. But if you're gonna choose anybody in the state, you're probably gonna want to consider me, you know. And lo and behold, what a dream. What a great job and what a great place to be.

How Because Bentonville Took Off

Beth Bobbitt 8:20

Wow. Thank you for sharing that. It's so interesting to hear like the path. And it sounds like yours was windy, but also, I don't know, the universe was pinging you all over the place. It was meant to be. I want to jump to one of my favorite campaigns, because Bitonville. So this has become really a calling card for cities can do culture. I'm wondering about the impetus and why you think it resonated so deeply beyond just marketing.

Graham Cobb 8:50

It was so much fun, Beth. I can't wait to talk about this. Let me, let me, um the foundation of it should be that one of my mentors once said never let facts get in the way of a good story. So we're gonna start there. Some of this is how I remember it. It may or may not have happened that way. And they committed to move to Bentonville, of course, but they had to wrap up school. I started the day after Thanksgiving. So the family drives me up day after Thanksgiving 2017, and we're kind of playing around and we're seeing what's going on in this two or three week period. Yeah, there's the holiday parade, right? There's the Christmas parade. And I had people walking up to me, just like introducing themselves to me and asking about my children and introducing themselves to Lisa and inviting her to go and do things, and it felt like something out of Back to the Future. And I was like, what is happening? This is so cool. And then I remember walking across the square from the old chamber office, and I walked into the Rvest Bank and relationships are so important to me. And they knew my name. And they, you know, the the women came out from around the little desk and introduced themselves to me. It meant such it just meant a great, great deal. So I fast forward the next week and Lisa and the kids are back up and by that time I know a few community members, one of whom is Sam Dean with the Amazing.

Beth Bobbitt 10:29

Good person to know.

Graham Cobb 10:30

Great person to know because he showed up at my office with a huge care package of really cool, fun items for play. Love it. Right? He's like, I know you have young kids, I know your wife is an educator. The Amazum wants to be sure that they have these because they're not gonna have toys in the little one-bedroom apartment that you're renting. Oh, so kind. Um, then of course, when you move somewhere to run a chamber of commerce, you get the like meet the chambered guy, you know, it's like a receiving line. And uh David Kersey is his name. And I'll this is where I'll get this a little bit wrong, but this is how I remember it. He came up to me and we were talking about like you do, what do you do for a living? You know, and he said, Well, I'm like the hair guy and the beard guy. I don't so you're a barber? No, no, no, no, no. I'm a I'm a designer. Like, what do you mean? Like, you build websites. He's like, No, no, no. Like, I'm an illustrator, a designer, I focus on hair and beards. And I was like, What do you mean, hair and beards? He was like, Have you ever seen Tangled or the Polar Express? I was like, sure. And he's like, Yeah, I did that. Like, well, what are you talking about? He was like, Yeah, I could live anywhere, I choose here.

Beth Bobbitt 11:46

Wow.

Graham Cobb 11:47

Then uh maybe the next weekend, Lisa and the kids are here, and we go to see uh a movie at Skylight.

Beth Bobbitt 11:56

And like, you know, it's Skylight, it's magical.

Graham Cobb 12:01

We're sipping milkshakes, ordering burgers, and I was like, this is pretty amazing. We get back to our little apartment, and I just looked at Lisa and I said, How is this happening? And kind of like walked through the last couple of weeks. I was like, Where are we? And how is this happening? Where we have these amazing, like high-touch, authentic, kind moments like the parade and like Sam. And then we have these kind of global phenomena we're meeting people that did our kids' favorite cartoon.

Beth Bobbitt 12:37

Yeah. Yeah.

Graham Cobb 12:38

And this very, like, what felt like a very metropolitan experience at Skylight. Yeah. And she looks at me and says, it's because it's Bentonville. And so Lisa is the one who actually brainchild. Yeah, I love it. Um, so we just decided to start using that hashtag.

Beth Bobbitt 12:55

You know, and I bet you had no idea the things that would fall into that campaign.

Graham Cobb 13:00

I mean, it was unbelievable. So I think it resonated because it was authentic. Yeah. Like I we didn't get a focus group together. We didn't shop some things, which you need to do for plenty of campaigns.

Beth Bobbitt 13:12

Sure.

Graham Cobb 13:13

This was just born. Yeah. And it was born of out of an authentic experience with a group of people moving to a town where I visited here first. I played here first.

Beth Bobbitt 13:24

Yeah.

Graham Cobb 13:24

You know, like the things that sealed the deal were putting our toes in the grass at the square. And like these it was just such an authentic experience. When I had my first annual meeting, which wouldn't be for a couple months, that's where I announced the because Bentonville hashtag. Yeah. Gave that story and asked the audience, just please use this.

Beth Bobbitt 13:46

Yeah.

Graham Cobb 13:46

Please use this. And within, I mean, within six months or 30,000 uses. And it started to really I had to warn my chairman and board, we can't control this message. True. That's true. So we really knew that once once there were things that we didn't love that were using that hashtag, like, man, I think we've made it. Like, this is right. This is truly authentic. And this is what yeah, this is what makes a place a place. So we used that. Then I had community members and stakeholders say, All right, what's next? How's the chamber gonna address economic development? And I said, Oh, well, it's all about, you know, talent attraction and recruiting the right kinds of companies. And I think we could embed a photographer with bike groups. And they could like Rafa had this really cool catalog at the time. Their aesthetic was like gritty, like you'd just fallen in some gravel, it was all black and white, like the suffering, embrace the suffering. So we could do that and build a coffee table book. And they're like, Man, Bentonville's not gonna get excited about a coffee table book. Okay. And uh they're like, what else you got? And so I said, Well, what if we mined data on LinkedIn and we reached out to adventurepreneurs? I'm like making this up on the floor. Yeah, they're like, What's an adventurepreneur? Like, it's Sam Walton. Think about it. He used to fly in his plane, he would cut the wheel or whatever, you know, and and that's how he would identify the next piece of land for a distribution center, the next store, or whatever. He's they did negotiating, you know, he negotiated with vendors on the Kings River, like adventurepreneurship. We can tout this as the place where CEOs who over-index for an adventurous lifestyle can come and start their business or grow their business. And lo and behold, they're like, Yeah, cool. Like, what now? Yeah. And so we did that, and that included like a virtual reality tour where we had um, and again, this was all natural. Like we shot these videos, and our videographer said, What's the scene? I said, The scene is we are riding to work, but instead of traffic that we get stuck in, we pause for deer. We'll never get that. We got it in 10 minutes. Um, and then we shot virtual reality tours of the town and all this, and it was recognized as a best campaign in the country, regardless of budget at that time. But uh what a cool, what a cool moment.

Vision For The Podcast Mic

Beth Bobbitt 16:15

So clever. And so if you build it, they will come. I mean, uh in so many ways, this is you know, really about the DNA of the community. And we want to sort of pivot and talk a little bit more about I guess what this podcast means to you, how it can be a bit of an extension of where you've been, what you're doing, and and you know, what you want to connect listeners to. There's the arts, there's trails, food, innovation. And so why say yes? And tell us a little bit about your vision for the mic.

Graham Cobb 16:51

I think this is a great transition. Um, why say yes is because I was taught to solve for yes. Um you know, that's that's a visit Bentonville approach, right? Is figure this out, solve for yes. And so I also try to embrace that with my life. Like, what is the next adventure? You know, try to think why not instead of why. Uh but you know what I'm really excited about for this mic is there's so many reasons to visit Bentonville, right? And I want to help people find their reason to be here. Our community benefits from visitors, and I want them to recognize that. I want our community to to know every day that um we're a welcome that. We are a welcome wagon, right? Um, but also visitors benefit from us, right? Like I think there's so much opportunity to send people back out better than they got here. It's a boat and harbor thing, right? So if you think of yourself as a harbor, every day boats come in and out of that harbor. There's a storm out there. When they come in, you have the opportunity to refuel them, to feed them, to send them out a little bit better than when they first came to you. And I think Bentonville does a great job of that.

Lightning Round And Final Hand-Off

Beth Bobbitt 18:11

Yeah. And of course, they those boats have megaphones and mouthpieces and you better believe it. Yeah, and so yeah, that word of mouth is what I find. I mean, yes, the travel and leisure hits and the New York Times hits, those are great, but people believe people. And and so I think this is setting it up for success. Um, okay, so let's do something fun. We got to know you a little bit, but I want to do a quick lightning round. So we're just gonna go through these fairly quickly. One Bittenville habit you hope newcomers adopt immediately.

Graham Cobb 18:47

The 10-foot rule. I think it's 10 feet. Um it was Sam Walton's rule of when you came within 10 feet of an associate or a customer, you said hello. I think the most powerful thing to do and the kindest thing to do is to help somebody start their day the right way. Um, and then selfishly, that's helping you start your day the right way. So a wave, a hello, a smile. I think we do that well in Bentonville. And I hope folks take that with them when they leave.

Beth Bobbitt 19:15

So good. Number two, underrated lunch spot within 10 minutes of the square, a bike ride.

Graham Cobb 19:21

Two friends books. If only for their cookies. I keep a best cookie in town. There's a lot of good cookies in this town, and I keep a podium of them. Uh and uh two friends is great.

Beth Bobbitt 19:33

Oh, I love it. Number three, a local collab you want to see happen in 2026. On this podcast or not?

Graham Cobb 19:39

This is not on the podcast. Uh, rule of three and rush running. So I started running and Bentonville has such a great the trails are so woven into the city and they connect so well with like the greenway and then um other shared pathways. Having a and then even a little bit of gravel with those gravel connectors. Uh-huh. If you had a rule of three, little gravel, little trail, little greenway, uh 50k and 25k.

Beth Bobbitt 20:06

Brilliant.

Graham Cobb 20:06

I think it would take off.

Beth Bobbitt 20:07

I'd be all about it. Number four, finish this. Because Bentonville, dot, dot, dot.

Speaker 1 20:13

Because Bentonville stays curious, our story is always being written.

Beth Bobbitt 20:19

So good. Thank you, Graham.

Speaker 1 20:21

Thank you, Beth.

Beth Bobbitt 20:22

So thoughtful. Listeners, you're in great hands here. I I'm excited to listen to what's to come. So we just appreciate you spending time with us today.

Speaker 1 20:31

Thank you, Beth. I'm grateful for this opportunity and I vow to uh pick up this banner that that you've so proudly and boldly carried and carried a little bit further.

Beth Bobbitt 20:43

Yeah, it's been fun. Whether you're visiting or call Bentonville home, Visit Bentonville is here to help you stay connected to what's happening in our new American Town. Check out the show notes for links to our website, social channels, and newsletter. Thanks for listening.