Category: Communication

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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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Brandon Burton 1:44
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Our guest for this episode is Travis Toliver. Travis is the is currently in his 10th year serving as executive director for the Waverly Chamber of Commerce and the Waverly Main Street Program in Iowa. Travis continues to use his acquired skills to help better the Waverly business community the state of Iowa in the upper Midwest. He proudly serves on the board of directors for the Mid American Chamber executives Waverly Area Development Fund, and several other local organizations. Travis is past board member for the Iowa Association of Chamber of Commerce. During his two terms as board chair Travis helped to lead IACC through a management change a rebrand and name change, and a revamp of IAC ces conferences and education programs. Travis is a 2020 IOM graduate in 2021, Travis was appointed by Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds to help empower rural Iowa initiatives grow Task Force, which focuses on addressing the recruitment and retention of emerging leaders in rural communities. Travis, we’re 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 share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Travis Toliver 3:20
Well, thanks Brandon for having me on the show. I really appreciate it a big fan of the podcast and just glad to be one of many amazing chamber directors out there that have been featured on your on your show. So thanks for having me.

Brandon Burton 3:33
Absolutely. We try to only get the best. So you fit that criteria.

Travis Toliver 3:39
That’s a high bar.

Brandon Burton 3:41
Well then tell us a little bit about your organization about the Waverly Chamber of Commerce and Main Street programming as a kind of group together with the two the two friends there but tell us about Scope of Work size a chamber staff just kind of set the stage for our discussion. Sure. Well, the

Travis Toliver 3:58
way really Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1937. And so we’re, we’re over 85 years old. And in 1989, we really became one of the first main streets communities in Iowa. About five years later, the two organizations decided to stop chasing the same money in town and merged together as the Waverly Chamber of Commerce and Main Street program. We have nearly 300 business members and investors in our organization. We’re in a town of the size of 10,000 people. We also the home to Wartburg College, which is a four year liberal arts college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. And we’re also the home to an array of amazing businesses from big corporate entities such as TruStage GMT, a lot of manufacturers in town, Nestle, anything that’s powder base that Nestle makes is made right here in Waverly. So our town always smells great. Right on down to right on down to small businesses and mom and pop businesses that

We We really cherish and our community. And so we’re really located in northeast Iowa, just north of Waterloo and Cedar Falls, were a wonderful stop along the Avenue of the saints to 18. And just really enjoy in this community, our organization, we have four staff members, myself, and another director who does our tourism and special events, our full time. And then we have two part time, folks as well, who helped us with marketing, and another one with administrative responsibilities, our books and those kinds of things. We have an amazing board of directors, I’m always blessed every year to have great people serving on our board. And then probably another additional 80 volunteers that help us throughout different communities or sorry, committees or different community events that we host. And so it’s truly a volunteer led organization. And I’m serving in my 10th year now as executive director and really find myself in a great place and love love being here. That’s great. I love doing these shows, because every chamber is so different. So we get a little bit of perspective from different types of chambers and the different work that they’re involved with. So

Brandon Burton 6:13
I’m looking forward to the perspective that you bring to the show today. Thank you. Yeah, so as we discussed, you know, some back and forth ideas about what to cover on this episode. Today, we settled on the idea because you had a lot of good ideas. So we wanted to kind of hone it down a little bit to just some tips of some tricks of the trade rather. So some of the things that you’ve learned throughout your career as a chamber executive, and just some of these things that maybe somebody new in the industry can hopefully pick up and adopt earlier on. And maybe those who’ve been in the industry a while longer, who are kind of banging their head against the wall might feel to take some of these tips as well and be able to implement them into their life as well to hopefully make things a little easier. So we look forward to diving deeper into that topic and discussion as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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All right, Travis, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break today we’re talking about some tricks of the trade when it comes to chamber work. And I imagine over the last 10 years, there’s been a few things that you’ve figured out maybe or I don’t want to say shortcuts because I think shortcuts kind of cheapens the idea of things but ways to be more efficient will say absolutely.

Travis Toliver 9:54
Absolutely. And you know it’s great to get on podcasts like this or or get on a webinars are conferences that talk about really big picture stuff. But sometimes I feel like when you just kind of narrow it down and like you said, drill it down to just the little nitty gritty tricks of the trades that helps you be more efficient. Certainly, as chamber directors, we know that our time is precious and valuable. And we don’t get a lot of time to do the things that we really need to be honing in and focusing on. So I thought I’d put a list together of things that would hopefully help others that I’ve learned, and certainly will, will keep improving upon. Absolutely.

Brandon Burton 10:30
So I think it may be best just for us to kind of work our way through the list and tell us how you utilize these different tools, these different tricks? And yeah, absolutely expand on it from there. So yeah, the first one I know is we set up this appointment, I use Calendly as a tool to schedule and to book guests onto the show. And in your quick dimension, the E is Calendly as well. So talk to us a little bit how you use the scheduling tools like like Calendly, to help alleviate some of the pressures in your life?

Travis Toliver 11:07
Well, yeah, and a lot of these are, you know, anxiety based, right. They’re, they’re supposed to be anxiety relievers. And so Calendly came along, somebody mentioned it to me, and I looked into it, and found that I was just really frustrated with how long it took to go back and forth with somebody to set up a meeting. And then found Calendly Sure, there’s other scheduling apps out there just like it. But it really helps to eliminate a lot of the back and forth. And so when you’re trying to set up a meeting, sending a link to your calendar, to your calendar, that Calendly links to, and having the other person choose a time that works best for them, is really, really helpful. In addition, I would also say to that if you’re going to use Calendly, and you maybe don’t want all of your free time to be options on there, make sure to block off other times on your calendar for yourself as well. If you’re working on a project, or you know you’re going to be out for a meeting or something like that, just make sure that those those times are noted on their calendar so that they’re they don’t become options on Calendly as well. But yeah, it really eliminates the back and forth. And I was really excited when you sent me a link to your Calendly. I was like yes, another person that’s using it. Fantastic. Yeah, and

Brandon Burton 12:19
I’ll say I’ll add just a couple things that I’ve learned in using it is one there, like you’re saying, there’s a lot of features within Calendly, where you can set your available times you can say if you only want to meet with people on these three days of the week, because then you’ve got office time or you know, office hours the other time, you can set that. But right. I’ve also learned that I need to be more disciplined in adding things to my calendar, like for my personal life. So if if my kid has an awards thing at their school, I need to put that on my calendar such as an you know that time slots occupied on my calendar. So when someone goes to Calendly, it doesn’t double booked me. Yeah, right.

Travis Toliver 13:03
Right. And if you really want to drill down to Calendly has a feature where you can embed certain time marks on your email to a person. So if you have certain options that you only want to give somebody, you can embed those into an email, and then just give them those choices and nothing more. And that’s very helpful as well. I think there’s also a kind of a polling option, so that you can pull multiple people on an email for different times. It’s just got a got a lot of great features, and they keep enhancing it year over year. And so it does cost a little bit to be a part of, but I think it’s certainly worth the investment.

Brandon Burton 13:41
Yeah, and I want to say, I just got an email the other day saying that the I’m hoping it was Calendly and not a different platform I use, but they’re saying about a pricing increase, and it was gonna work out to be like, I don’t know, 87 cents a week or something increase and like totally worth it.

Travis Toliver 14:01
Totally worth 88 cents that my question about 87 Yeah, 87 we’re

Brandon Burton 14:07
in a good deal, right. So along the lines with scheduling and managing your calendar and protecting your time, but also being available to those that you need, how to utilize out of office to work into your calendar time.

Travis Toliver 14:25
Yeah, so you know, a lot of people only use their out of office when they’re actually going to be out of the office, right on vacation or maybe a conference or whatnot. But I have found that if I that you can also use out of office when you need to you have some time to yourself, again, some of those white spaces that we talked about with Calendly on your calendar. If you want to block off time to maybe do some research or do some reading or just you know, maybe just simply get through emails. You know, putting it out of office on just letting people know that To expect a delay in your response, I think it’s very helpful. It’s, I think, maybe borderline too transparent. But at the same time, it just lets people know that, you know, hey, you’re focusing on something right now, and you’ll get back to them when you can. I think so many times people get caught up in responding to emails so fast and being a part of conversations. And this is just kind of my trick to make sure that emails are maybe a secondary priority, during certain times of the day, so that I can focus on, on things that really do need to get done. And so just just letting people know simply that there’s just gonna be a delay in your response, if you can gauge it out even better, if you can say, hey, you know, I’m not going to get back on my emails until you know, 4pm, or something like that, or the next day, I think that’d be very helpful to to let people know that, you know, there’ll be expecting a response from you in a certain amount of time. But again, just trying to carve out that whitespace for yourself, and, and just letting people know that you’re, you’re, you’re not going to be responding so quickly. And I think that’s very helpful to them. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 16:03
when I think of all the responsibilities that are put on a chamber staff, you know, there’s, you’re getting pulled so many different directions. And if you utilize your out of office response to say, something to the effect of, you know, I check emails between 8am and 10am each day, and, you know, if it’s after 10am, expect a response tomorrow, or, you know, that sort of thing, whatever your parameters are, it sets an expectation because we have become a world where people expect that instant response, and even in an email, how often have you email to somebody and they email right back. And then like, you might as well be texting, right, because the back and forth that the emails Exactly. And in I’ve used a tool called Boomerang. So if you use a Gmail platform, Boomerang is an add on. So even if I see the email, and I can type it out the response, and then I can schedule kind of a delay in when it gets sent. So I can say, send it tomorrow morning. That way, the person on the other end doesn’t think that I’m sitting here doing a back and forth with them. But it gets off my list. And I don’t have to think about that email anymore.

Travis Toliver 17:14
That is a that is a great tool. And of course, Outlook has that ability as well to schedule emails to go out at a later time. And I think for night owls out there that don’t mind, you know, opening up their laptops on their couch at 10 o’clock at night and started going through emails, that’s a great way to respond, rather than shooting off emails at all hours of the night. Some people surprisingly enough, you know, looking at their emails if their phone lights up. And you know, I typically try to, you know, turn that feature off at a certain time of the night, but others don’t. And so if you don’t want to be that person that gets caught, you know, sending out emails that obscure hours of the night. That’s a great feature. Absolutely. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 17:52
I utilize that quite a bit. So all right, good. Let’s get to No, no, but I think it’s important to block your time, you know, to be able to protect certain time and know, I’m going to be out visiting members, or we’ve gotten these events going on, like, I’m not going to be in front of the computer to respond to emails or my phone to respond to emails. And if it’s urgent, people can always call, you know, right, they can still get a hold of you. But email doesn’t need to be the first option for those urgent things. Absolutely.

Travis Toliver 18:21
And I would also mention to to make sure you block off that time on your calendar as well. So it doesn’t show up on your Calendly. Yes,

Brandon Burton 18:28
good idea. So I think this is progressing. Well. So as we talk about calendaring, you know how that translates over into email and managing your calendar and your time and the whitespace. But you had mentioned using Outlook, and I know other email platforms have similar options. But how do you utilize your Outlook to kind of prioritize those emails as they come in to you?

Travis Toliver 18:57
Yeah, so this is what I struggled with for years. I think all of us get an obscene number of emails each and every day from really important information to advertisements and just junk. And I was getting frustrated with trying to find different organizational methods to really get my my emails in a priority list, right? And to try to triage them in some way. And a few years ago, I had an assistant that came up with the idea of using the rules tool on Outlook. I’m sure it’s something else on another platform, but using rules to identify certain senders that might be of more importance than others for their emails to go to a certain folder, and then try to triage that way. So the way I set my email up, and it’s good that we get a lot of emails, it means we’re doing a lot of things. We’re involved a lot of conversations people want us to be in the know and that’s great. But I found myself finding that I was just getting better Ready with emails, a lot of important emails are getting buried under non important emails. And so this was just a really great way to eliminate that. So I set up three different folders, folders, one, two, and three. And this takes about, Gosh, I think maybe one or two months to really get implemented. But every day, when you start out, you set up these folders in your inbox or your your your outlook. And every day you go into your inbox, and each person that sends you an email, you’ve got to really think about how important that sender is to you. And so if it’s a board chair or board member of staff member, the mayor, the city administrators, somebody from, you know, some key stakeholder, a CEO of a large investor or something like that, I find those people to be you know, people that I really probably need to get back to pretty quickly. And so I set up in roles that all their emails, go directly into folder number one. Folder number two is folks on the secondary level that you know, people that don’t necessarily need an immediate response or don’t usually send as important information as others. But you still want to get back to you in a timely manner. Those folks go into folder number two. And then honestly, folder number three just ends up being mostly the rest of the emails, which usually is newsletters from other chambers or other organizations that you’re involved in, in your community, different businesses that might be sending out periodical emails, those go into folder number three, and fold number three, honestly, it gets checked maybe once a week, maybe even twice a month, sometimes just depending on how much time you really have. And so I have found that triaging my emails in this fashion really helps me to prioritize my emails by the sender, and how important that that person is for me to get back to so then when I open up my laptop in the morning, I don’t go right to my Inbox folder, I go to my number one folder, and I work through all those emails first, then I go to number two, and then knowing that most of the E newsletters and advertisements Go to Folder number three, I will then actually after number two, go back to the Inbox folder. See if there’s anybody new that’s emailed me that needs to be assigned a folder. And then honestly, the rest of the emails that are in that initial Inbox folder, are just usually junk. And so I just go through a deleting spree, and then get back to the other folders to go through more emails, it has lessened the anxiety of having hundreds if not 1000s of emails sitting in my inbox, especially after you come back from a time off or a vacation or a conference. It’s just a really helpful tool to be able to manage your emails easily and, and, and even my board members and folks that I’ve put in the folder number one have mentioned Wow, it’s so great that you’re getting back to me in a in a better in a timely fashion. And, and that that made me very, very happy that I was that the process was working and and I’m able to to manage my emails better. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 23:10
So just maybe a personal question in that folder. Number three, yeah, those are ones maybe once a week, maybe twice a month you get to? What’s your thoughts on unsubscribing? From some lists?

Travis Toliver 23:27
Well, yeah, absolutely. If you’re if you if it’s information that you’re really not reading about or don’t need, certainly unsubscribe for sure. But I do enjoy sifting through just newsletters and updates from other organizations, other chambers that I’m on their email list for because we’re always looking to steal rip off or duplicate ideas, right? So but I tried to just, you know, kind of skim through those and get that information. And then and then delete. But yeah, I don’t unsubscribe too much, unless it’s something that I just absolutely will not use or will not read. And I don’t know how in the world I got on their email list. So just unsubscribe and tick them off. But, but honestly, you know, go through, and I really try to make it a point to have that folder empty by the end of the month. I’ll let it build up. But I do take off some certain times of the day or even at night. Just kind of sift through those emails, see if there’s any pertinent information, I need to gather some ideas or anything from other organizations. And then then let them go. Yeah, that’s good.

Brandon Burton 24:30
And I think we can have a whole nother discussion about how to get your chamber newsletter to end up in folder number one for people instead of folder number three, okay.

Travis Toliver 24:38
There’s a way to do that. That’s absolutely true. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 24:41
So are there any newsletters or things like that, that may be by default would be a folder number three type of folder, but you tend to put in a folder one or two because the value that’s provided? Yeah,

Travis Toliver 24:55
for sure. Are a lot of our state organization. As you mentioned earlier in my bio, the Iowa Association chambers of commerce, which I used to be a board member for, they have great information, great little tidbits or tips, kind of what we’re talking about right now tips of the trade. But also I need to know about, you know, different roundtables or conferences coming up that I should be aware of. So I think organizations that are a little bit closer to home, tend to fall into folder number two, certainly, that US Chamber of Congress, certainly, if you’re a member of that organization, a lot of great information, that’s a folder number two. And so and then certainly, if there’s any organizations that you’re you know, a board member for or related to in any way, you want to make sure that you’re staying up to date on those, those will get tossed in the folder number two, but I mean, really, it is a it is a small amount that gets sent to Folder number two, you really got to be diligent about that. Because, again, you want to value your time and make sure that it’s being used appropriately. And so I would say that if there’s an E newsletter out there from an organization that you find extremely helpful, and you love reading, and it’s just a must have in your inbox. Yeah, put that in folder number two, for sure. Or even maybe even folder number one, but I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t get on the kick of doing too many of them, or else all you’ll be doing is reading newsletters all day long. Right?

Brandon Burton 26:21
Right. So hypothetically, if you were to get an email Tip of the Day from Harvard Business Review, which, which folder would that end up in for you,

Travis Toliver 26:33
that actually goes into folder number one, because I really enjoy reading those. And so yeah, that’s our next item on the list. If you’re a leader like me, that really enjoys learning more about just better management skills, HR skills, those kinds of things. Subscribe, please, please, please subscribe to the Harvard Business Review manager Tip of the day, it’s really easy, you get a you get a email, I think it’s like around five or six o’clock in the morning. And it’s like one of the first emails that I read. And it is just a fantastic little nugget each and every day of how to improve your management skills, your HR skills, just so many different scenarios that they put in front of you with great solutions, great ideas on how to combat different situations in our professional lives. And so as we continue to try to grow and foster good and better leaders, not only in our field, but in all areas of the business industry. I feel like if you’re not subscribed to the Harvard Business Review manager Tip of the day, then you’re really missing out on some really great free information. In fact, this is gonna sound like I’m a hoarder. But I really do keep all those emails, I drag them into another folder, just specifically for that, because if I get into a situation, and I’m looking for advice, or resources, that’s one of the first places I’ll go into, I’ll go into that folder. And I’ll type in maybe some keywords that will bring up emails that in the past that have addressed, maybe the issue that I’m confronting, and get some really great tip ideas. So it’s become kind of a little email storage of management and HR knowledge for me that I just keep right there in that folder.

Brandon Burton 28:13
Now, that’s a good exercise showing the value that you’re getting out of that, that email newsletter, right that absolutely. So being able to have that bank, that library to be able to go back to and topics arise. And like I know I read something about this and the Harvard Business Review email and you go search for it. And that’s great. Yeah, so great, great tip to share. What other kind of tips or tricks of the trade or we may be missing or, or didn’t touch on?

Travis Toliver 28:48
You know, I think one that I had on the list, I think it was the last one that we were going to talk about. This has nothing to do with our devices or anything like that. But during COVID I found I was looking for a way to gather some folks on zoom that could be kind of like an advisory council for me to bounce ideas off of you know how to better manage the crazy situation that we were all in. From a financial standpoint, marketing, from all different aspects. I didn’t want to bother my board because my board you know, we meet already once a month and they’re busy with their own their own lives. But I came up with the idea of reaching out to all my passport chairs that I could get in contact with and ask them if they would sit on an advisory council for me as the executive director and just meet so we can talk share ideas and and come up with some some some really great solutions. I found that these people are still highly invested in our organization even though they have not been directly so She had with it for a very long time, most of them are retired, most of them are, have a lot of free time on their hands. But at the same time, they still have a heart for our organization, you know, at one point they lead our organization. So they have to, obviously have an appreciation for for what we do. And so to reengage those, those individuals back into our organization, just by simply me asking them for their help, for their knowledge and their advice. And their experience has been extremely helpful. And so I would strongly suggest to any chamber director that if you are in need of a, of a little Council of people to just directly advise you, you know, reach out to your passport chairs and bring them together. And we have, you know, we don’t meet regularly, I’ve tossed this idea out to the other chamber directors who have then started meeting regularly with this group. But even if it’s as needed, just to reengage those folks and make sure that they’re involved in the organization that, obviously at one point they, they were a passionate leader for, I think is, is really special. And so I really covet my relation, in my relationships with with all those past board chairs. And then in turn, it gets them re involved again, and they get updated on what’s going on. And most of them have re signed up for our E newsletter to make sure that they’re getting into the to the organization, a lot of them are individual investors in our organization, they continue to be involved that way as well and supporting us. And so it’s been a really great tool to have, especially during that crazy time when we just were getting fed information like a fire hose and didn’t really know what to do or which way to turn. Those folks really helped me to stay grounded and push the the organization forward in uncertain times.

Brandon Burton 31:47
I love that idea. Because otherwise, what do you do with these past board chairs who have such a love for the community and the organization and everything else, they’ve been so involved, and then you’re just gonna let them go by the wayside? Like I mean, it makes a lot of sense to gather them together. And, and I like the way you approach it is having them be your advisory committee. So it doesn’t have to be a regular meeting. But when something comes up, you’re like, Oh, this is a tough situation. You can bounce it off them get some good sound advice. The one thing that comes to mind with this idea is, how would you I don’t know if it’s ever come up. But I can imagine maybe at some point, maybe the current Board Chair feels like, Hey, I’ve got a vision, I want to take this organization, you’re just listening to the voices of past board chairs. How would you address that? If that were to come up? Has that ever been a thought?

Travis Toliver 32:41
I’m actually it really hasn’t. But I do involve my current Board Chair in those meetings.

Brandon Burton 32:47
There you go. That’s a good way to overcome it. Yeah, absolutely.

Travis Toliver 32:51
And so you know, when it comes to the strategic planning, and those kinds of things, I think having that current board chair, you know, also talking with the past board chairs, not only get some, some gives some great information, but also gets some great feedback as well. And certainly an earful of what worked and didn’t work back in somebody else’s day. And it just, you know, I think tapping into those past experiences, really helps not only myself, but certainly our current board chair, in being able to shape their their thoughts about the future of our organization. And, again, I’ve been very blessed to have really great passionate leaders who have wanted nothing but great success, for the things that we do. And it’s been amazing. And I don’t know if I’d be interested to know if other board, other chamber directors feel this way. But I feel like with each board chair that I’ve had, over my tenure has brought their unique set of skills to the forefront, with whatever situation is going on with our organization, it just feels like the right timing, to have that person in that seat. On that year, when there has been an issue that has come up or some kind of obstacle in the way or project to be done. I’ve always had the right person in that chair to basically hone into one of their amazing skills to be able to see the organization through that. That situation, whatever it is. And so yeah, I just I think engaging past board chairs, along with our current board chair is a great thing. And then the current Board Chair knows they’re going to become a member of that group down the road not too far away. So it’s good for them to get involved as well. Oh, it’s

Brandon Burton 34:35
a great training ground and it’s a good way of being able to pass along culture to you better you’re not standing alone as that current Board Chair you’ve got to support as well. They’re in essence Advisory Council for the current board chair as well. So

Travis Toliver 34:49
absolutely. And I believe to that if we as directors move on to something else. The incumbent board, sorry chamber Director will find that very helpful and very useful. So I’m glad that we’re talking about this, because actually reminds me to reach out to those folks and maybe get another Zoom meeting set up and, and engage with those folks again, and again, you know, they can be, you know, anywhere we do it over zoom, you can have it in person, I guess, if they’re able to come. But, you know, we’ve found that a lot of our board chairs have have left the community or retired somewhere else. And so doing it over Zoom is just a fantastic way to just reengage those folks. So that’s awesome.

Brandon Burton 35:34
So I know, we’ve been talking about tips throughout the whole episode. But I always like to ask as we wrap up an episode for those listening, who are interested in taking their chamber up to the next level, if you might have any tip or action items that they might consider implementing at their chamber to accomplish that goal of going up to the next level?

Travis Toliver 35:56
And that’s a that’s a great question and certainly falls in line with everything that we’ve talked about thus far. I would just say, from a personal standpoint, just be open to new ideas, be open to to constructive criticism of events of any programming that your chamber does solicit feedback, whether it’s good or bad, you know, we I think So oftentimes, we only want to hear the good stuff, or we don’t want to have people step on our toes or make our feelings feel bad. But I am just one of those folks that I really welcome change. And I want to make sure that we’re constantly improving on the things that we’re doing. And so if there’s other opinions out there about how we can do something better, I’m all for it. And I have a, I have a dear friend, who always reminds me to stay curious. And so I love to ask a lot of questions. And I tell upcoming leaders, whether it’s through mentoring or other things to, to listen louder than you speak. And so when I go into businesses, I say hi, or introduce myself, and just start asking questions, and I listen, and just really take note of what it is that our businesses or our members are saying, and so that we’re going back to the table with me and my staff, and we’re trying to figure out solutions or, or taking input on events or different things that we do and trying to make them better, so that we’re serving everybody the best way that we can. So listen louder than you speak, stay curious, ask questions, solicit feedback, all those things, I think really help us as as leaders, and certainly is a win win for our Chamber members as well. And that’s, that’s, that’s what it’s all about, right? It’s all about our members and growing our businesses and our communities. And that’s, I think one of the best ways we can do that. Absolutely.

Brandon Burton 37:53
I love that listen louder than you speak. That’s a great leadership principle in general, because as a leader, once you start talking, everybody else kind of shuts down like he’s talking, what does he have to say, but if you can listen louder, let those ideas come in. It can help formulate your own thoughts and be able to help you know take the the ideas that other people are offering so they have more buy in to whatever it is that you end up deciding on because you have that extra buy in so great leadership tip there. I like asking everyone to have on the show, as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Travis Toliver 38:33
I think with each passing year is it gets increasingly more difficult to show the value of our organizations because you know, we’re not selling really a tangible product, right? We’re, we’re selling, promoting and marketing and different events and those kinds of things, bridging people together. And so I think as long as it kind of bouncing off of what we were just talking about, if you can find ways to show more value in the things that we do as chambers for our businesses, for our communities, it can only help reinforce the necessity for for businesses and individuals to to be a part of this organization that is supposed to only really do good for our business community. Right. And so just showing the value, and then telling your story making sure you know, here in the Midwest, we get caught up a lot of times of really being humble and not wanting to toot our own horns. But in this day and age, you really have to tell your story or tell your organization’s story and make sure that your your your the name of your organization or your logo is right out there in front and saying hey, we are doing this for the community and we’re hoping that you find a value in it that you want to be a part of it as well through your investment. And so just continuing to find More and more ways to show value, I think is the the key for the future and the longevity of chambers of commerce.

Brandon Burton 40:08
I love that always, always been on the lookout of how to express and show that value. So absolutely key. Yeah. So Travis, this has been a fun conversation kind of a rapid fire these ideas and principles you’ve implemented and hopefully people are listening, taking notes, you know, hitting that back button a few times and re listening to some of these points. But I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who might want to reach out and connect and learn a little bit more about some of these approaches that you take, what would be your best way for them to reach out and

Travis Toliver 40:42
absolutely, well, everybody’s free to reach out to me via email is travis@waverlychamber.com. We really wa VRLY Like behind me here chamber.com You’re also welcome to call our office at 319-352-4526. Or if you happen to be in northeast Iowa drop in and say hi, we’re downtown Waverly 118 East Bremer Avenue. And we would love to chat with you for a few minutes and show your community. But yeah, I’m always open to people emailing me and asking questions. And in turn, hopefully I can learn something from them as well. That’s

Brandon Burton 41:21
right, that email might end up in folder number three, but he’ll get back to you in the next couple of weeks. So there’s full transparency here. Right? Exactly. I love it. I love it. You got to stay on top of things and be able to take control of your time so you can be as effective as possible. So absolutely, absolutely. Well, I will get all that in our show notes for this episode make it easy for people to connect with you. But Travis, I want to thank you for spending time with us today here on chamber chat, podcast and for sharing all these tricks of the trade and things that you’ve learned through your experience. So thank you for being with us today.

Travis Toliver 41:56
Well, thank you for having me, Brandon. Appreciate it. And thank you for what you do for our industry. We appreciate it.

Brandon Burton 42:02
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