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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your hosts Brandon Burton. And it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.
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Our guest for this episode is Nikki Devitt. Nikki is the President and CEO of the Petoskey Regional Chamber of Commerce, a passionate community champion. She’s honored to lead an organization that emboldens positive outcomes by building a culture of thriving business to create a thriving community. With a background in broadcasting, management and marketing, she works creatively to build relationships and connections that foster positive change and growth. Nikki currently serves as chair of the Northern Michigan chamber Alliance, a coalition of 18 chambers and economic development organizations advocating for rural central business policies. She was appointed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer to serve on the Michigan statewide Housing Partnership to help facilitate Michigan’s first ever statewide housing plan. She’s on the board of directors for ACCE, a board regent for the US Chamber Institute for organization management, and is on the board of directors for the Michigan Association of Chamber of Commerce professionals. She’s a graduate of the US Chamber of Commerce business leads fellowship program, the Association of Chamber of Commerce executives, leadership and diversity cohort, and is a US Chamber of Commerce, Institute of organizational management graduate. She is a member of the Petoskey noon Rotary Club, and she donates her time to the Northern Community Mediation, Little Traverse, Pacific Theater and Women’s Resource Center of Northern Michigan. Nikki lives in Petoskey, Michigan, and spends as much time as she can hiking and enjoying all the beauty Northern Michigan has to offer. And Nikki, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening, and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better. Thank
Nikki Devitt 3:01
you, Brandon, and it is Petoskey.
Brandon Burton 3:06
I should ask these questions before we start.
Nikki Devitt 3:09
It’s okay. It’s Petoskey, Michigan. There’s a long history there, which is pretty fantastic. So thank you so much for allowing me this opportunity. It’s just absolutely a wonderful thing that we can do to as chamber professionals, to speak to one another, to learn from other one another, and share from one another. So I really appreciate that very much. And being here something interesting, I guess, or unique. That is, you know, not in my bio, although that sounds interesting in a lot of ways, I guess, is that. So I do have a broadcasting background about 10 years, and also spent a little bit of time as an audio book narrator, so something that kept me busy when I wasn’t on the stage. So I’ve spent a lot of time as well performing since I was a child, and still perform in our local community theater. Very
Brandon Burton 4:05
cool. So what type of broadcast it was? TV, or right? TV? Radio? No. Radio. You were built for this. This is awesome radio.
Nikki Devitt 4:15
I’ve done a few podcasts here and there, yes. So I was, you know, started out on the sales and marketing side, and then eventually was lucky enough to have the honor to be operations and programs for a very large cluster of stations, and spent quite a bit of time on the air as well. So kind of did every facet of it. And broadcasting is a fascinating industry, and I think until I ran into the chamber industry, I thought there was probably nothing as challenging. And then I entered chamber life,
Brandon Burton 4:49
yeah, and the story is still being written, exactly. Well, tell us a little bit about the Petoskey Chamber of Commerce. To give us an idea of the size staff, scope of work, budget, just to kind of set the stage for our discussion today,
Nikki Devitt 5:05
absolutely so our chamber is is, like many, I find it so fascinating. How many chambers are over 100 years old? We’ll celebrate 105 years next year, and we are so Petoskey, Michigan, is located at the very pretty much northwest tip of the Lower Peninsula. So for those who aren’t familiar with the lower and upper peninsula, I am about 35 miles from the Mackinac Bridge, and then I can be in our beautiful upper peninsula, which to Michiganders, as we like to call ourselves, is just a place that is hard to describe, unless you have the opportunity to be there. So Northern Michigan is a wonderful resort community. We’re built on a tourism economy. So our chamber is unique in the sense that we have a very thriving year round community. Our population in the city of Petoskey, or townships, if you will, incorporate, it is about 16,000 our county has about 34,000 so we’re not very large, but we essentially triple to quadruple that population in our summer months, and also have a huge uptick in our winter months as well, because we are a year round destination with our beautiful Lake Michigan, but also fantastic ski resorts. So there’s all kinds of things that you can do. So with that in mind, and our Chamber’s history and our community’s history, we’re also put in a situation where we are lucky enough to be on places in our state that has a huge tribal history. So Petoskey actually is goes back to Ignatius badass gay, who was the first Chief of our area, way back when, and the late 1700s or late 1800s and so our community is very diverse in the sense that we have a very rich cultural history here, and yet we cater to a new element of people coming to discover this region. So we have about 770 members. We’re one of the larger chambers in the state of Michigan, especially geographically and population wise. And we have four full time staff, and about 500,000 is our budget. So we do a lot with a little, if you will, from a small staff standpoint, and I like to consider us an impact chamber. And so that means that while we still host a farmer’s market every summer and do an art show in the summer in our beautiful park, we are a very much an advocacy chamber. So we’re very involved in our community’s future, whether that be economically, how we look at it, from a prosperity way, and also still maintaining that traditional programming of networking events, we like to call them connecting events, and then a very heavy programming piece that we utilize to make sure that our members have the tools at their disposal to grow their business, enhance their employees and enhance their relationship within our community and those around us. Oh,
Brandon Burton 8:07
that’s awesome. There’s a lot going on, and I’m always impressed by the chambers that can do so much with you know, little staff, and it’s just it’s a great testament to the work that you guys do. So sounds like you’re doing great work. And we’ll focus our discussion today on creating a thriving community, which is going to go on very well with the continuation of what you shared with us so far, but we’ll dive in much deeper on that as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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All right, Nikki, we’re back. So as we talk today about creating a thriving community, what sort of things have you seen? Obviously, every community is a little different. Every chamber is a little different. What works for you guys? Aaron Petoskey and to create a thriving community? And it sounds like I don’t know, I’ll let you define what you see as community, because I think the definition of community kind of changes over time.
Nikki Devitt 11:18
It does change. I think one of the most important factors that we take into consideration at our chamber is that the line between the business need and the community need is not a line at all. They are so interwoven within each other, we believe that from our standpoint, that our businesses only thrive when our community thrives. So we’re really looking at things in our community that impact our community and therefore would impact our businesses. So things that we hear about all the time now and more and more chambers are really into this space. Is what is that workforce impact? Is it housing? Is it childcare? Is it education? Where are the hurdles? Where are the places that our businesses need to grow and enhance themselves? We talk a lot in the state of Michigan about attracting talent, while we very much know in Northwest Michigan that we need to attract talent, we also need to retain talent. And so for us, the thriving community is giving our businesses the tools that they need to really, truly be the best that they can be. And we believe that, you know, it’s a basic conscious capitalism standpoint, if you will, the advancement of the human quality of life happens when your community is doing sustainable business practices. So that is everything that’s looking at, are you taking care of your employees? Are you taking care of your environment? Are you looking at the future of what your community could look like? So for us, we call it just chamber passion, and when you want to build a thriving community, you have to remember that first and foremost, everybody is involved, and everyone has a voice. And as we all know, that can be a very difficult prospect. With 770 members, not all of them have the same exact needs. So for us to make sure that our community thrives and our businesses thrive, we have to be nimble and we have to be ready to if we don’t have the answers or the resources to make sure that we find them and provide them for our businesses, so that our community can grow, and that everyone who wants to live and work in this beautiful, incredible place that I get to call home, has that opportunity
Brandon Burton 13:35
that’s awesome. So you touched on a ton of things there in that response, and as I, as I revisit some of that, I’m hoping you can dive in a little bit deeper. But as you talk about creating a thriving community, you talked about for these businesses to be the examples you gave, are you taking care of your employees in the environment and but then you talk about all the voices that come from people in the community and the businesses, and 770 members. So there’s a lot that needs to go out from the chamber, and a lot that comes in, as far as you know, feedback and data and so forth. So what is your approach? Because it’s hard to tackle everything all at once, so there has to be some strategy and how you build a thriving community. What, what approaches do you do from a strategy side to implement some of these things? First and foremost,
Nikki Devitt 14:29
it’s collaboration. You can’t do anything alone and community. I mean, by definition, is the work of many, not the work of one. So as a chamber, you have to realize that you are, at best, the collaborator that no one else can be. So you have to put yourself into the position when you’re looking at the issues that impact a community’s success, especially our members. Success is who needs to be at the table and whether as the. Where you’re leading those conversations, or you’re participating in them as the voice of business, you have to make sure that everybody that needs to be at that successful roundtable discussion is always there. So I mean COVID, I think we use as an example in chambers now more than ever, and I think it’s a fantastic thing that we do chambers. Were able to step into a space where we were working with our municipalities, our local government, our state government, as well, as you know, our human resources elements within our community, whether that be your health department or your hospital. How are you making sure that everybody knew what was going on and what challenges were coming for your community? It’s that same concept, except you do it for every issue that you have. So always making sure that, from a strategic standpoint, you reach out to the players that need to be involved for whatever that issue is. So if it’s housing, are you making sure that you have those relationships and that they have the information, say, from a you know, what your planning and zoning committees look like. Do they understand where the challenges are? Have they heard a business, whoa, why they can’t get employees or retain employees? Do they understand that it could be something that is within their power to address and change? And then, are you also making sure that the voices that come in are not just your big business, but your small business. So I think it’s that one first and foremost is strategically you have to if you’re talking about a thriving community, collaboration has to be your first step, and the recognition that you can’t do it alone. And it’s going to take many, many people to work on each of these individual issues to push a community as a whole forward. Yes,
Brandon Burton 16:43
yeah, you said it very well. Collaboration, as far as the what you have to work with within your staff, with within the office, how do you how do you disseminate, you know, all the things you need to do to kind of spark that collaboration and take some of the voices that you’re hearing and taking them back to those other partners in collaboration.
Nikki Devitt 17:07
I think you said it really well, though. You said with your staff. So I think that’s kind of it’s like, you know, if you’re gonna talk the talk, walk the walk, one of the first
things we do, and we’ve understood with our staff is we all have different skill sets. We all have different places of passion. We work with our members differently. So while we have defined titles and roles, we are a staff that works very collaboratively at all times, because we understand that, whether it be convening a work group to discuss child care challenges in our community, or whether it be instituting a program of work that is going to be more HR focused for some of our businesses, that helps them understand some best practices for talent retention that we have to be able to nimbly flex between those things as staff to make sure that we’re putting our resources forward, just as we’re asking our community members, our community leaders and our agencies to do to work together. So you’ve got to kind of lead with that mentality from a strategic standpoint as well, or you will burn your staff out in seconds. It does mean that we’re constantly having to adapt to circumstances within our community. Sometimes you put a lot more effort into one topic or one challenge, and then three months later, that’s something that you have to put a little bit on the back burner because something else has elevated itself into being a prior need for your community. Yeah,
Brandon Burton 18:39
I can see that for sure. So I’m curious, do you guys segment your membership at all to see, like, which ones have you know this need, like you’ve mentioned? HR, so if that is a need for, say, 20% of the businesses, business members, do you segment that or do you leave it open for any member? Because maybe there’s a need you don’t know about. I’m just curious on the approach. We do a lot of
Nikki Devitt 19:02
targeting. So everything that we offer, especially from a programming standpoint, or when we do say, you know, we do a housing Town Hall, we do Hot Topic conversations on childcare, on workforce, on legislative issues, all those things. So it’s always open to our full membership and our community as well. We make sure, especially if it is an issue that drives the community, that it is something that is open to anyone in the community, regardless of membership, when our programming is focusing on those talent attraction issues, what’s the corporate Transparency Act look like? What does the you know, latest Bill look like in the house? That how it could impact you? And there’s a lot going on with Michigan right now, and some of those, those we will open up to our home membership, but then we take a strategic approach from a staff standpoint, and say, who should be at this table? Who do we have to reach out to and maybe give a personal invitation to make sure that they are part of this conversation and or. Knowing that we know our businesses well enough, because we’re still a really small town, that which ones are going to be greatly impacted by whatever this may be, or who’s going to get the most of a benefit fact from it, and who do we make sure that they understand? So it’s always an open ended approach to everything, but then we dive down after the fact, usually give it a little bit, see where the interest lies, see who’s excited about it, and then start doing those targeted approaches by segmenting our membership based on just our category structure and how we know them. And that seems to have always worked quite well for us.
Brandon Burton 20:35
Yeah, sounds like a great approach. The worry I have with segmenting is that, you know, somebody gets invited to attend, and you have a seat at the table, and somebody else says, I had no idea the chamber even does that, not that they wanted a seat at the table, but they need to know, you know what? What is it the chamber does, and being able to get that messaging out there, so your approach seems to be well balanced, and it’s open for anybody, but then kind of hone in on those that that really need to be there. So some
Nikki Devitt 21:03
of our individual members always need that you know that special touch, and we know that, yeah, you have to know your membership well. You have to know your community well, especially when you’re taking this kind of approach. And always keep in the back of your mind that no matter what your best intentions are, you may, at some point, make someone feel like they were left out. And you have to be prepared and ready to, you know, remedy that in the best way that you can. Yeah,
Brandon Burton 21:29
so going back to the title, or the topic for this discussion, is creating a thriving community. And I’m asking, on behalf of a listener in, you know, I’m not even going to name a state, because I don’t want to get in trouble with anybody, but
Nikki Devitt 21:45
you’re doing it right now,
Brandon Burton 21:48
in the middle of nowhere. That says, you know, Nikki’s doing great. This is a, you know, she’s doing fascinating things, but she lives in a beautiful part of Northern Michigan. Got a lot of tourism. It brings people in year round. It might be a smaller community, but the reach is so much bigger. You know, I’m here in, you know, fill in the blank. How can somebody who maybe doesn’t see their community in the same light as you do? I can feel the love that you have for your community. Others may not have that same view, right? So, how can we, how can we help someone get excited about or to have that ability to create a thriving community? Because I think your enthusiasm drives that as well.
Nikki Devitt 22:30
I think, well, the first thing is, is, if you don’t feel that way about your community, why are you there? You have to have the passion for your community. First and foremost, I would be remiss if I, you know, I realize I can paint a picture that makes it look perfect, but you know, we have some huge challenges in our region and in our community in general, in that we are, while we are a, you know, mid sized, you know, chamber and pretty big for our area. We’re also in a very rural, remote area. It just happens to be pretty but rural areas come with a lot of challenges. I think my the bane of my existence will always be infrastructure. Water and Sewer are the absolute barrier to housing or commercial development or anything that we could possibly look out for future, forward thinking. And also we are a very, I’ll say, a non diverse community. So in a lot of ways, that presents challenges as the world changes, as our business needs change, what we are able to that’s just push forward is a strong sense of a term, but what we’re able to introduce our businesses to. So we have a lot of challenges, and it’s very difficult sometimes, when you see something that’s a pretty shiny Penny, to understand that maybe the other side isn’t so great. So you have to have passion, first and foremost, for your community, and you have to look at, what are our resources that make us unique. What is something about our community that makes us special? Why do our businesses choose to invest here and stay here? And you have to really believe that that is something worth fighting for and getting behind and really, really protecting, if you will, protecting from the mindset that your community isn’t special, because every community is special, if you really look into it and find what that is that makes it a place where somebody wants to live and work, and why a business wants to be there. So I think finding the passion is the first piece, and then the second piece to that comes with being aware of what your challenges are. Being aware there are obstacles you will never overcome. You can’t you can lay the groundwork for somebody 1015, 20 years from now to tackle that issue, and you can make sure that that’s an aware, an awareness to your community. But you can’t fix everything, but you have to love it first and foremost.
Brandon Burton 24:57
Yeah, I love that. The question you ask is, what makes your community special? Or find something to find, find what that is. And I’ve seen some communities that you know, what makes them special is a certain industry you know, that thrived 50 years ago, that maybe isn’t around in their community anymore, but they still recognize that. They still do a parade about it. They still have roots, you know, in that industry. And I think that’s great for a start. And then let’s look at what’s that next thing, you know, what this area was great for this industry for a reason. How can we make things great again? But I love that passion needs to drive all of it. So, absolutely fantastic. Um, so I like asking this question for listeners out there who are looking to take their organization up to the next level, or they have that that goal or desire in their mind, what kind of tip or action item might you share with them in trying to accomplish that goal?
Nikki Devitt 25:57
I think you have to take a very strong assessment of where you are and where you want to go. I mean, it’s strategic planning. 101, where are you today, and what makes your chamber what it is in your community? What? What do you do so well that the neighbor chamber couldn’t, couldn’t top it, that they want to, they want to R and D, that they want to rip off and duplicate that all day long. So taking stock of where you are and what you do well helps you determine where you want to go and what you can do better. And really, truly believing in your organization and your community is the first piece, and a very, very important piece, is you have to have the right people in the right seats. Everybody has to be on board to go with where you want to go and grow how you want to grow. And that’s a hard conversation sometimes, especially from a CEO standpoint, is to is everybody rowing the boat in the right direction? Because I truly believe that the best chamber is the chambers that is is a team. They are. They’re almost like an organism. They work so well together, and they believe so much in their mission and their vision and where they’re headed. So you have to make sure that critical piece is into place, or getting to that space in time that you want to and that goal that you have for your organization is either going to be something you won’t achieve or it’s going to take you a long time and a lot
Brandon Burton 27:28
of heartache. Yeah, I like that strategic planning 101, you got to have a vision of know where you are and where do you want to go and how you’re going to get there, so and have
Nikki Devitt 27:39
grace and space with yourself. Know that it takes time, and know that you’re never going to get everything in the time frame. You think either, you think we can do this in a year, two years, two years go by, you go, wow, we only moved the needle about 60% remember you moved the needle? Yeah, and remember that you went from where you were to where you are now, and that’s progress. And really, truly, credit yourself for that. Credit your team.
Brandon Burton 28:07
I wish I could remember who said the quote, but how people overestimate what they can do in a year but underestimate what they can do in 10 years, right? So absolutely moving the needle, but in that 10 year range, you’re really gonna see progress. Well, Nikki, as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
Nikki Devitt 28:29
You know, I truly believe I’m a big I would say supporters is an understatement. I’m a believer in acces Horizon Report, when the first one came out, it was so, let’s just say, comforting to see that. Here’s, you know, our national chamber organization, saying, these are the places chambers belong and should be, and the things that matter. And thinking, all right, we got 10 years to get there, and then 2020 hit. We all went, Oh, wow, look. We we just did all that in five years. Yeah. And so it comes back to kind of what the core theory really truly is of, you know, the horizon initiatives. And if you are not familiar, if you are listening and you do not know what the Horizon Report is. And by the way, little hint tidbit that the updated 2035
reports out. It comes out by very shortly. So we’re super excited about that,
but you have to look into that, because it really truly talks about that chambers are the most trusted entity. And the future of chambers, it’s limitless, because we truly, truly are the conveners. We truly are the entity that isn’t just the voice of business. We’re the voice of communities. We have the power to shape and build not just our businesses, but our communities and the Horizon Report, really. Helps you kind of hone in on that and and say, there’s, you know, nine of the different initiatives, and they’re everything from timeless to timely to linchpin initiatives. And it gives you the opportunity to look into it and go, okay, my community, this is never going to be an issue, or it’s not an issue that my chamber is willing or ready to get behind. But there might be others that you look at and say, Yes, this is something we need to go because these are things that are going to affect us all. I mean, we know without a doubt scarcity and abundance and political and social fragmentation, and you can’t even get into what technology is doing as far as affecting business and our future in the population shifts that we’re having, these are all huge, huge things, and and chambers, really truly are the only entity uniquely positioned to engage in all of them and really truly make a difference.
Brandon Burton 30:57
Yeah, sounds like you’ve drunk the Kool Aid too. So that’s
Nikki Devitt 31:01
I did. I can’t deny it.
Brandon Burton 31:04
Going back and looking at the first Horizon Report, for somebody who’s just hearing about it now, to go back and look at it, you have the advantage of hindsight, of saying, Wow, that you know, this really came to pass, like this really the way? Yeah, I mean, it’s, it kind of makes your, you know, hair stand up on the back of your neck, because you’re getting it absolutely
Nikki Devitt 31:24
does. Because if you could read it and think about the fact that it came out, you know, with the intention of being having come it would all come to fruition by next year. So it came out 10 years ago, and you look at it and realize that 2020 you as a chamber professional, whatever month it was, April, May, June, July, whatever, in that year that you woke up that day and you went to bed that night and realized what you accomplished from a chamber perspective, and you read that report and you go, Oh, wow. Okay,
then I just hit all nine of those in eight hours or 12, depending on what you were working but yeah, yeah.
Brandon Burton 32:04
Very good. Well, Nikki, this has been fun having you on. I love your energy. I love the enthusiasm. I love the impact that you’re making there. Toski, thank you for being with us today. Please share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you. Where would you point them to?
Nikki Devitt 32:22
I would absolutely and I’ll spell it because Heaven knows you can’t pronounce nobody. Don’t worry, nobody can pronounce it. Petoskeychamber.com and that’s P, E, T, o, s, k, e, y, chamber.com and my email is really easy. Nikki, nikki@petoskeychamber.com, and I would love to hear from anyone and just wish everyone the best for 2025 because I think that chambers are going to be needed once again, like we always have been, percent, you know, over a century, now more than ever. So this is our time to really bring our communities and together and elevate our businesses
Brandon Burton 33:02
Absolutely, and we’ll get that in our show notes. Make it easy. People don’t have to spell. They can just click and make it easy to connect with you. But thanks again. This has been wonderful, and wish you the best as you continue to build a thriving community.
Nikki Devitt 33:17
Thank you so much.
Brandon Burton 33:18
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