fbpx Skip to content

Category: Community

Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber-ACCE Chamber of the Year Finalist with Charlie Clark

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG_0371.jpg

Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Charlie Clark. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Introduction

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.

Now your host he recently took his dad to shoot machine guns. He’s my dad Brandon Burton.

Hello Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I am your host Brandon Burton, and it’s my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.

Our title sponsor is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Let’s hear from Kris Johnson, President and CEO of the Association of Washington Business in Washington State to learn how Holman Brothers has provided value for him. 

Kris Johnson 0:45
Well, Doug and Bill at the Holman Brothers have been a key ally in growth for my professional career working at three different chambers, a local chamber, a regional chamber, now a statewide chamber. And they’ve been the ideal solution, whether it’s a comprehensive training program, whether it’s working on individual sales growth, quarterly check-ins with the team, the ability to grow members has meaning more assets for the organization, more assets means we can do more things to serve our members. They’ve really been the perfect solution for us, a trusted resource partner and a growth partner for us all along the way. So hats off to Doug and Bill for their great success. They’ll be a great partner for you as they are for us.

Brandon Burton 1:26
You can learn more about Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions by visiting holmanbros.com.

Doug & Bill Holman know how to diagnose and solve
member recruiting issues faster and better than anyone else, and they want to put
that knowledge to work for you and your chamber. Learn more at HolmanBros.com.

Guest Introduction

You’re joining us for another special episode and our 2022 ACCE chamber the year finalist series, and our guest for this episode is Charlie Clark, Vice President of Communications at the Hilton Head Island Bluffton Chamber in South Carolina. Charlie is a proud Island graduate and has been in the chamber industry for over two decades. She serves as Vice President of Communications for the Hilton Head Island Bluffton chamber which is also a three time winner of accs chamber the Year award. As a combined chamber and Visitor’s Bureau. She oversees all communications for the organization as well as leading the charge for public relations efforts for the Hilton Head Island destination which hosts over 3 million visitors annually. During her tenure, she has helped Garner national broadcast coverage for the destination with the today’s show, Food Network, CNN Good Morning America and many others. She has also earned coverage from a variety of other media outlets including New York Times, USA Today Travel and Leisure and the Wall Street Journal and more. The chamber is the proud winner of numerous awards for communications excellence from ACC including the coveted Grand Award. In addition to awards honoring the Chamber’s efforts from the SE tourism society, HSM AI Adrienne awards and national awards for broadcast excellence. She’s a frequent public speaker committed and involved in her community having served on the boards of a number of organizations. She and her husband Tom are the proud parents of two sons, Brennan and Cameron. And, Charlie, I am excited to have you with me today on chamber chat podcast. Why don’t you take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions listening and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you better.

Charlie Clark 3:24
I’m so glad to be here. Brandon, as we were sort of talking about earlier before the before the podcast started. I love podcast, I listen to yours, as well as many others and it’s just such a great resource for information especially when you’re on the go. So, gosh, something interesting about myself. I think most people are often surprised to know that I actually moved to Hilton Head Island from Wyoming of all places. Wyoming after one too many good vacations, you know, I thought I was so original in moving to hills and hatches chucking it all and moving to this destination and found out that the island was full of people who had done the exact same you know, most people do for a job or they move for family. I literally moved just based on the sheer beauty of this place. And my husband I’ve always said you know, we will we will figure it out when we get there. And sure enough, the communications position popped open for the chamber and I said I think that’s what I’d love to do. And I’ve been doing it ever since and that was over 20 years ago.

Brandon Burton 4:24
Yeah, talk about a leap of faith and nothing against Wyoming. There’s beauty there’s just a different kind of beauty compared to the beach and you know, everything else that you guys have. It’s a

Charlie Clark 4:35
little it’s a little snowy or the last year I was there. I it snowed on June 27 Oh my God. I said you know, I think it’s time to go. So yeah, the only thing Yeah, the only call was the ice in your drinks here as they like to say so. living on the island. It’s wonderful.

Brandon Burton 4:52
That’s great. Well tell us a little bit about the Hilton Head Island Bluffton chamber just to give us some idea of perspec Did as to scope of work the size of your chamber staff budget, things like that, just so we have an idea of as we go into our discussion,

About the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber

Charlie Clark 5:08
you know, I think people are often surprised that they help them out. And Bluffton chamber is as large as it is we are almost 1400 members at this point. They have a staff of about 25 budget of about 8 million. We’ve been we’ve been at it for gosh, almost 60 years. So very entrenched in a community. And as you know, as you mentioned earlier that we have over 3 million visitors a year. So our chamber from a scope of work perspective is a chamber in the traditional b2b sense. And also combined with our visitor and convention bureau. Because when your economy is so heavily based on on tourism and is here, and for the state of South Carolina, and as a whole, it just makes great sense to combine those two organizations.

Brandon Burton 5:54
Absolutely. Guys have a lot of great chambers. They’re in South Carolina as well. So as far as a destin destination, you guys are, you know, supporting each other very well. From what I can say the

Charlie Clark 6:06
Carolinas do have very strong chambers very strong, very connected. It’s a great place to do business and chambers really do work well together here.

Brandon Burton 6:16
Absolutely. So with these chamber there finalist interviews, what I like to do is focus on the the two programs that you guys submitted on your chamber through your application. And what I like to do is just go at it from a high level at first just what the two programs are. And then we can dive into a little bit more detail in each of them as soon as we get back from this quick break.

Are you looking for a year round affordable and timely shop local campaign for your chamber or CVB Look no further build a custom each shop play mobile app with App My Community by visiting appmycommunity.com/chamberchat. App My Community mobile apps are not just simple membership directory listings. They provide many more capabilities to engage with your community. Provide your residents with a robust events calendar partner with a local fare festival or Farmers Market provide a schedule map and other resources to promote the event. Run a Small Business Saturday campaign any time of the year using built in scavenger hunts allow your membership to communicate directly to their customers via push notifications. Your app my community mobile app will be a unique member benefit allow you to generate non dues revenue with sponsorship opportunities and best of all provide a valuable resource to your community please visit appmycommunity.com/chamberchat now to receive 10% off your first year of an App My Community mobile app.

App My Community creates mobile apps that allow you to engage directly with your community. Enhance chamber membership by providing a unique advertising and communication channel to residents and visitors. Not just a member directory, App My Community has the tools to be useful to residents on a daily basis. Learn more at appmycommunity.com/chamberchat.

Chamber Nation hears from its customers that they help make it fun again to present the value of membership. That’s because so much is provided to help each member promote their business and with monthly ROI reports from Chamber Nation, they know their membership is already working to help them succeed.

There are three words in Chamber of Commerce…. and Chamber Nation knows that their customers take care of the CHAMBER, but Chamber Nation takes care of the COMMERCE. This way both teams working side-by-side deliver a whole lot more in membership value. 
With Chamber Nation, not only will you have a membership management system but also a membership development system all in one terrific package. So, SAVE MONEY and be impressed by visiting www.RichardsCalendar.com to set up a demo with their CEO. Or learn more at  www.ChamberNation.com.

Visit ChamberNation.com to learn more.

Chamber leaders know firsthand how unexpected disturbances in the business environment have become the norm. Even the most experienced membership reps need to continually evolve to overcome these disruptions and create new opportunities. Holman Brothers Next Level Coaching supplies the year round sales coaching and mentoring your membership rep needs to navigate change and continue driving revenue for your chamber. Visit holmanbros.com/nextlevel to learn more and request a free trial of Next Level Coaching. 

Click here for a FREE trial of Next Level Coaching from Holman Brothers.

All right, Charlie, we’re back. If you would share with us what what are the two programs that you guys submitted on your chamber that your application

Topic-Chamber of the Year Application Programs

Charlie Clark 9:29
is always interesting when you decide what programs to submit for your synopsis? I mean, it’s always wondering what this year it honestly it wasn’t as difficult based on the you know, the couple of years we’re all coming through with COVID. Two things we did one was called the path forward readiness plan. It fell under the sort of the heading of cataclysmic leadership. Just a comprehensive strategy for reopening our community post COVID You know when you have a community that is so heavily based on tourism Wow. what a what a game changer COVID was and how do we how do we reopen safely? How do we do that? So what we did is we we formed immediately we had 150 people on nine different task forces, everything from you know, churches and childcare to hoteliers, small business, retail service industry, you name it, we had it on those task forces. And as we were all just sort of starting to reopen and try and get back to business, which South Carolina did very quickly, by the way, but it’s just how do we how do we develop these industry specific protocols that ensure the safety of our residents, our workforce and our visitors? How do we make sure we’re all comfortable with that? So in a short amount of time, we convened those task forces. And they came up with those safety protocols. Those were then reviewed by a steering committee. And it just it just turned out to be such a great way to launch people back into business safely, and it worked really well. And the other. The other synopsis that we entered was a program near and dear to my heart that we did call them help for hope. We partnered with again, that word partnership comes through, I’m sure for a lot of award entries. Help for Hope was something we did in partnership with the Waterson Family Foundation and the Community Foundation of a low country. If you remember back when when COVID really hit was scary. It was a scary time when you have a workforce as many of ours here are and elsewhere as well. Going paycheck to paycheck, where your next meal was coming from was a reality. It was an actual reality here for workers, not just in f&b and restaurants, but in a variety of different when hoteliers are closing down those types of things. So we developed this plan that actually, you were given like your family, a community card for help for hope you could take that car to a restaurant, we had over 50 participating restaurants handed over, they’d give you a meal for four. And then the restaurant in turn, would take that to the Community Foundation of the low country for reimbursement. So restaurants were supported. People were getting fed. And you know, there was also a contingent of people who wanted to give, you know, how do I help if you remember that everybody wanted to dive in and do something this was a very tangible way. We had, we had donations from over 37 states. Coming in, in addition to corporate and people within our own community, people have a love affair with Hilton Head Island. And that really showed they had their favorite restaurants. They wanted to make sure that they felt supported. So those two programs were the ones we launched for synopsis and just just really, really great for our community and a great game changer for all.

Brandon Burton 12:47
Yeah, so let’s let’s start with that one with help for hope to just dive in a bit deeper. How did it get started? Like who who approached to with the foundations that you partnered with? How long did it take to develop the plan to actually work and then that, you know, broadcasts that out to the community to those people that needed it to, to either donate or to be a recipient of?

Charlie Clark 13:11
Well, I don’t know about you, but it seemed like during during the pandemic, things happen slowly and they also happened at lightspeed, you know, things just started moving. It just some conversations that got it started really and we looked around at our workforce and thought, you know, we knew we’d already on the on the kind of the bandwagon with the path forward and just really putting together those programs. But this was an issue hunger became an issue. We had some of our self help our Bluffton self help and soup kitchens coming to us and letting us know that oh my gosh, we’re inundated. So we thought how can we do this for this workforce? Who is really quite frankly, not used to utilizing those resources? So that’s how helper hope began. And originally, I remember when we first started this, it was somebody said, Well, what paperwork are we going to have people fill out for their, you know, to their meal? We said, there’s no paperwork. We’re not we’re not doing any paperwork. People who who come we were just going to give that handout that meal. And then the other thing was is how do you distribute it? Right? How do you get these community cards into the hands of families who needed them? We knew that that that wasn’t going to happen in the traditional way. We knew that some of those workers who had never been to a soup kitchen or bluffed and self help weren’t about to start now. So with this partnership, we launched popups, we launched pop ups and parking lots. And if you remember early days of the the pandemic as well, there was that no contact that type of thing. So we launched drive thru pop ups, and I’ll never forget, we launched our first one in a restaurant parking lot. One of our participating restaurants, had no idea put it out through social media, no idea how it was going to go or if anyone was going to show up. And the lines just started forming, snaking around the parking lot. And we ended up having to grow from larger and larger and larger venues because the word spread in the domain When was that great, we gave out over 19,000 meals, 19,000 meals distributed. And over, gosh, almost a quarter of a million dollars donated one of our restaurants who was participating in this, let us know that, you know, during during the help promote days, on the days those cards were distributed, he would see a 20 to 30% bump in his, in his restaurant traffic, which for his restaurant was was great too, you know, keeping those revenues and keeping people employed and, and getting paid. So it made a big, big difference. By the end, I knew we had something going when the second pop up we did. We had the sheriff’s department come and say we got to help you manage traffic. There’s too much traffic out onto Highway 278. So it was just a great, you know, feel good. I think for everybody involved, the folks who were in it was a happy, you know, help for hope. We had T shirts, it’s in hope dealer. You know, these pop ups? Yeah, these pop ups were very uplifting. You know, we were a little worried of like, oh, is this gonna be a downer, but we had music going smiles all around. And it just was. I mean, it just people were so grateful restaurants were grateful those receiving the cards were grateful. And it was just, quite frankly, one of the most rewarding things that that we’ve had the opportunity to be a part of.

Brandon Burton 16:18
Yeah. And I like how you guys remove the hurdle of having the paperwork to fill out and applying for program and all that. How did you identify who to target as people that may be in need for this? And then did it just spread word of mouth? Or how did you get the word out?

Charlie Clark 16:36
You know, social media, social media, social media, that became a conduit of information, we had a help for Hope website, we had help, perhaps social media, we had the restaurants themselves, we had businesses who were pushing out for their employees, hey, if you need this, take advantage of this, this is a great thing. So really, really spread that way. Could also could kind of gauge as things were happening, maybe there were restaurants who weren’t seeing as much traffic. And we were using social media to say, here’s the list of restaurants participating. Don’t forget about this one or that one, they’re doing this meal or that meal. So it became really through word of mouth and social media. And as we knew it continued to grow to the point where our last help for Hope drive thru pop up was in a university parking lot. That gives you any idea the size that was needed?

Brandon Burton 17:28
Yeah, well, I can imagine because just thinking back in those early days, the pandemic where there was so much uncertainty going on, that we didn’t know how long this is going to last, we didn’t know what businesses would survive, we didn’t know if your own job would be around, you know, a month or two from then. So being able to be to keep money set aside, as you know, the storms keep coming or you know, however, just to be prepared, it’s nice to be able to have some kind of relief like this even just to go out and enjoy a meal. And I can anticipate even especially in the Hilton Head area where you’ve got a lot of hospitality and tourism based businesses that there was probably even a higher level of uncertainty with a lot of people where this became a great program of rescue.

Charlie Clark 18:16
We all forget that too. We forget the early days of the pandemic, you know, we all seem so settled in now in terms of knowing what’s what and what’s going on. But those early days were scary. Yeah, they really weren’t for a lot of people. So we just sort of this as many communities do you just bootstrap you roll up your sleeves, you partner with your community and and you make things happen. And that’s what I think chambers, the role of a chamber can be so so beneficial when when times of crisis are around.

Brandon Burton 18:43
Yeah. And it could have been easy just to sit back and say, well, maybe this will be over in a week or two. But you guys didn’t you got together, you rolled up your sleeves and you acted and then maybe kind of transitioning into the other program to path forward readiness. The term has been overused but the these are unprecedented times. Right. So to be able to navigate your way through, you know, something that we’ve never seen before. You talked about 150 people nine dis different taskforce How did that develop? How did it evolve? What What kind of outcomes Did you see as you roll that out in the community?

Charlie Clark 19:27
You know, it came about quickly. I think a lot of us were like different timeframe when it came to putting programming together. During this time and putting we just again, we had we did a thing also that kind of leads into this Brandon which was we launched a thing called Power Hour power hours a once a week call where people could kind of get unfiltered information about everything from the latest COVID news to the community to what was happening and we weren’t finding that in the media a lot. You know, this kind of unfiltered there were those headlines that were or built for click throughs not for information. And it was a real need. So once we developed that, we saw that people, I think one guest in particular, we had Peter Greenberg on who was CBS News. He’s does all their travel coverage nationally. And he said to us on this call, he said, people who are coming to your destination, they know you’ve got great beaches, they know you’re a beautiful place. They want to know they’re safe. They want to know, they can travel somewhere where they’re gonna be safe. And again, the residents as well. They wanted to know we’ve coexisted with visitors since the 50s. They wanted to know that this was going to be safe for them as well, and the workforce, those people who were working with our guests, they needed to know so when you convene those task forces in every industry is different, what’s going to work for childcare isn’t going to work for a restaurant. So we brought together those task forces that were also made up of not only industry, peeps themselves, but also residents in the community when we wanted everybody to be involved, and have a voice in what safe look like in those early days, the pandemic and they did it. They came up with those safety protocols by industry. We had a steering committee that was overseen by medical professionals, and by the hospital CEOs in our community to to sort of say, Yep, this is this passes muster, this works. And then we immediately put it into action. We had businesses involved, we had hundreds of businesses do what we call take the pledge, they signed a pledge that said, here are the safety protocols, I adhere to. Those protocols were available on our website in English and Spanish. And you were given a seal to put on your door now that was actually adopted by many other communities. We saw that happen. We were sort of early in that game, the state of Florida through vacation rental Management Association, they adopted that for their locations in California and in Florida. So it kind of took off other communities as well. We’re interested in in doing that. And it really did Garner its fair share of immediate as well over 126 media outlets picked it up. And I think one of the best quotes we had was just that, you know, this is a community that’s doing it safely. This is a committee that knows what they’re doing. And that came out of Redbook magazine, Yahoo. So it really did it was great to see people coming. And then people actually asking going into business is going where’s your seal? Versus your seal? I’m not coming in without that. So that was a catalyst to

Brandon Burton 22:26
Yeah. So as things evolved, and coming through recovery and so forth, did you guys have to go back and re address some of those? Look, I’m struggling for the right word, but the the plan of action, the safety protocols and everything. How often were you guys addressing that?

Charlie Clark 22:49
We could convene those task forces really quickly. And as you know, we all became Zoomers, right, that was a whole different ballgame. So we could Can we still we still convened those task forces to this day when it comes to issues affecting their industry. So we also immediately set up resources, Zoom rooms, different things that we had here at the Chamber of studio that could help in that process. But yeah, it was it was honestly a process that we evolved over time. It wasn’t unusual at all for us to reconvene just to ask questions and to garner feedback, what’s working for you what’s not working for you? And times we put too fat task forces together so they could speak to each other so they could talk and I get the needs and and issues from from, for example, what does what does the hotel industry need from childcare? What is how those two work together? So it was a rewarding, rewarding part of what we do. I think like I said, I think it was the Redbook magazine said Hilton Head Island paves the path forward for fun and safe family travel and vacations. What is that big we were we were concerned for people that are going to come this summer and turns out 2020 occupancy for us was actually down only about 2.9%. Over the prior year. Our Yeah, our July of that year was up 17% over the prior year, because the word was out. And this was obviously wide open space. It’s a safe place to be families were coming and they were remotely working. They were remotely schooling, and they felt safe doing that.

Brandon Burton 24:28
Wow. That’s great. So it sounds like the task forces are still operating. The program’s still going for I was that was gonna be my next question. If it’s still operating, or if you’re able to sunset some of these task forces, or maybe hibernate them for a little bit as things get better. But how’s that landscape looking? Now?

Charlie Clark 24:48
Definitely, definitely. You know, we as we all did, we evolved as as the pandemic evolved, and we’re able to sunset implement whatever we needed to do on that front. So we’re just really, you know, proud of our business community for stepping up to the plate and doing it very quickly. I think speed was at the essence, because there were so many unknowns as COVID was making its way through our country. And I think that really did help a lot as well. Right.

Brandon Burton 25:15
So I’d like to ask how you guys at the Hilton Head, Bluffton chamber, how do you view the role of your chamber in the community?

Charlie Clark 25:26
You know, I think, I think in any community, and especially now the Chamber’s they’re really the ones that are getting it done. The one sort of doing the impossible what others say is impossible. Chambers often say, No, I think we can handle that. I think we can get that done. And we do it in partnership. And I think chambers are really often put forth those initiatives and programs are sort of game changers. For us, I know whether that’s attracting Southwest Airlines to start flying out of our area what you know, big, hairy, audacious goals are usually things that chambers don’t shy away from. And I think our role became even more pronounced as Chambers as we’ve gone through the last two years.

Brandon Burton 26:09
Yeah, I like that response. That’s great. I love that chambers are the ones that get it done. That should be a slogan on every Chamber of Commerce.

Charlie Clark 26:18
Yeah, as the other slogan, you never waste a good crisis. I think leadership always rises to the top. And I think that was definitely true for a lot of chambers across this country, during the past few years to take that leadership role was an important one for chambers.

Brandon Burton 26:36
That’s right. So I’d like looking at the all the chamber the year finalists as those kind of setting a benchmark in the chamber world, as far as you know, areas of work and the example you’re setting, if you were to provide maybe a tip or an action item for for those listening, who would be interested in taking their chamber up to the next level, what might you suggest?

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Charlie Clark 27:02
Well, you know, I think first and foremost is to utilize all the tools in your toolbox, I mean, utilize the incredible resources we all have with ACCE, and with the US Chamber, you know, the mentioned earlier about the power hour, we just pick up the phone and call and say, Curtis Dubay, chief economist for the US Chamber, could you be on our Power Hour and explain inflation? Yes, I can. I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s great. And then it’s a two way street, you can ask questions. I mean, it’s not every day, you get to ask questions from the chief economist or epidemiologists with the hack during the height of it. So I think utilizing those resources, whether it be web based resources, it’s just it’s all out there. And it’s really, really helpful. I’d also say, in terms of, you know, chambers, going to the next level is know your voice, I really encourage you to we encourage chambers to know the power and behind what we represent as chambers, you know, we always like to talk and our number of businesses or a number of members, but sometimes it’s easy to forget their their jobs and faces behind those businesses. Each business represents the livelihoods of so many people. And so I think to just know your voice to know that what a critical role that chambers play in the community and not be afraid, you know, to shy away from that, that, that we are the ones who who make change in our communities. And I think it’s hard to sometimes I think, for chambers to take that 40,000 foot view that often it’s easy, as I like to call it to major in the minors, you know, chambers are often held responsible for everything. And, you know, just you know, we get it done, and so

Brandon Burton 28:43
all credit for very little credit.

Charlie Clark 28:46
Right. So sometimes I think it’s hard to to look at your community from that 40,000 foot view, and not major in the minors because it’s easy to get get packed by those. And in addition to, you know, our mission statement, which every chamber has, we have a set of guiding principles, and we believe in only taking on endeavors that that we can do better than others in the community that we have a voice to pull people together to convene the community. So I think that’s an important aspect of of being an excellent chamber as well.

Brandon Burton 29:18
I love that. I love that response. So I like asking everybody who I have on the show about the future of chambers. And so how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Charlie Clark 29:32
You know, I think chambers are now more relevant than ever. I think the last few years have been a proving ground for chambers and boy did we all step up to the plate. We actually gained members during during the pandemic, at a time when economic uncertainty was tough for a lot of businesses based on our response and our ability to connect the community and offer information that was relevant. So I think the future of chambers is bright. I think we’ve been I’m more prominent in terms of our community leadership, I think we are viewed in our communities as as, as I said, conveners connectors of people in a world that while we seem to be more connected than ever, we’re really more disconnected than ever, in so many ways. And I think chambers do a great job of, of really having a coalescent community that you can actually, you know, take action and make change in your community, on those big, scary goals that often bring, you’re always gonna bring, you know, good and bad, you know, your goal is headed in the right direction when it comes to whether it’s a, you know, infrastructure problem or a piece of legislation which we all handle, you know, you’re doing something, right. If you have a little bit of a balance of people going yay, on that front, big, big projects always have that. So I think the future of chambers going forward, we feel it’s a really great time to be a chamber and a great time to make a

Brandon Burton 31:00
difference. Yeah, I think a lot of chambers, almost were surprised that they gained members during the pandemic, because you figure things are shut down, businesses are struggling, but they forget to remember that, that there’s a need, you know, and there’s that stress going on with these businesses, there’s a need. And so that bump and membership and then whatever, you know, recession we have that’s being talked about coming up on the brink of us. I think there’s going to be more businesses that are returning to their chamber to to figure out how do I navigate through this now. So we

Charlie Clark 31:38
saw we saw you know, we, we saw in our surveys, everybody our membership surveys, which we do each year, we saw some changes, which was interesting to see as the pandemic went on. That just speaks to I think, what’s happening and going to happen in the future chambers. Um, as you mentioned, with a potential recession, what’s happening economically is that we saw really rise to the top, the benefit for chambers for, for us being the ones to convey relevant, timely information, they want information, they’re starving for information, many of us are no in a world filled with it, you know, how do you localize that? How do you make it mean something to your business community in a way that makes a difference, and I think that’s going to be in a really important factor coming up as well,

Brandon Burton 32:21
and being trusted information. That’s key. Charlie, this has been a lot of fun having you with me on the podcast today. I’d love to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who might want to reach out and connect and maybe learn more about these programs that you talked about what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you.

Connect with Charlie Clark

Charlie Clark 32:41
You know, I would love for people just to reach out directly to me. I would love to have those conversations other chambers I can be reached easily at cclark@hiltonheadisland.org or you can always go to our website as well. hiltonheadchamber.org.

Brandon Burton 33:02
That’s perfect. Now I’ll get them both in our show notes for this episode, so people can find it easily and have to write while they’re driving or anything like that. So Charlie, this has been great. You guys are definitely making an impact in your community there and appreciate you spending time with us today. And I wish you and the and all of your organization Best of luck is chamber the

Charlie Clark 33:25
year. Thanks, Brandon. I’ll see you in Indy.

Brandon Burton 33:28
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

Have you ever thought about creating a podcast for your chamber? We always hear about how chambers need to be storytellers. What better way is there to tell the stories of your members and the work of your chamber than through a podcast?

Your audience is waiting to hear from you as a convener of leaders and influencers champion for business and catalyst for change within your community.

I just launched a Chamber Podcast Course with the goal to get your very own podcast started within 30 days. Visit chamberchatpodcast.com/pivot. To learn more and to enroll in the chamber podcast course today. For a limited time as a launch promotion. This course is being offered at a 25% discount. Be sure to purchase the course today to lock in your savings before the price goes up., even if you’re not ready to start right away. Again, that’s chamberchatpodcast.com/pivot.

Get started with your own Chamber Podcast and shortcut your learning curve with the Chamber Podcast Course offered by Chamber Chat Podcast.
Have you considered the many benefits of hosting a podcast for your Chamber? The options, leverage, and possibilities that a podcast offers are virtually endless. Download my FREE Chamber Podcasting Guide to learn how to start your own Chamber podcast!

Eugene Area Chamber-ACCE Chamber of the Year Finalist with Brittany Quick-Warner

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG_0371.jpg

Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Brittany Quick-Warner. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Introduction

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.

Voiceover Talent 0:14
And now, your host, he realizes that the next generation is already doing commerce in the metaverse.

He’s my dad, Brandon Burton.

Brandon Burton 0:22
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, 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.

Our title sponsor is Holman brothers membership sales solutions. Let’s hear Our title sponsor is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Let’s hear from Diane Rogers, President and CEO of the Rancho Cordova Area Chamber to learn how the Holman Brothers have provided value for her.

Diann Rogers 0:47
As a medium sized chamber, we recognize that it’s absolutely critical to have a well qualified and well trained membership development person. Holman Brothers trained that person, recruited that person then they even trained me on how to manage that person. We’re grateful for the support we got.

Brandon Burton 1:02
You can learn more about Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions by visiting holmanbros.com.

Doug & Bill Holman know how to diagnose and solve
member recruiting issues faster and better than anyone else, and they want to put
that knowledge to work for you and your chamber. Learn more at HolmanBros.com.

Guest Introduction

You’re joining us for another episode and our 2022 ACCE chamber the year finalist series and for this episode, we’re joined by Brittany Quick-Warner. Brittany is the president and CEO of the Eugene Area Chamber in Oregon. Brittany has successfully served in multiple capacities in her seven years with the chamber. Beginning in late 2016. Brittany served as interim president and CEO during the sudden medical leave and passing of the long term president and CEO and was ultimately selected in September 2017. To serve as the next President and CEO of the Eugene chamber. Brittany is the youngest and first known woman to lead the 1200 member organization. She has been active in the community since her arrival, serving as board member for several organizations including onward Eugene, travel Lane County, the Arts and Business Alliance of Eugene, bring recycling, better Eugene Springfield transportation and the Junior League of Eugene, as well as serving on the Eugene sustainability Commission and the Lane County poverty and homelessness board. She currently serves on the board of directors for WAC II and ACC. Brittany, I’m excited to have you with me today on Chamber Chat Podcast and congratulations being selected as a chamber of the year finalist. I’d love for you to take a minute to say hello to all the Chamber Champions and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Brittany Quick-Warner 2:41
Thanks, Brandon. I appreciate it. Super excited to be here with everyone. Like Brandon said, my name is Brittany and I have the honor of being the chamber CEO here at the Eugene Oregon chamber. I have actually been with our chamber for nine years, I realized, as you read that my bio, um, the small things that you’ve never remember to do. Yeah, so it’ll be nine years this summer. And when I got into this job, it was one of those things I definitely never knew or thought I would be a chamber staffer. I really honestly came into it not really knowing exactly what Chambers of Commerce do so. But I very quickly caught the bug and have been incredibly honored and blessed to have opportunities within the industry that have really kept me here because it’s a little bit sticky once you get really dug in. So something people don’t know or might not know about me. So I’m from the Midwest, I grew up in Kansas City. And my whole life I was a huge weather nerd actually got my bachelor’s degree in atmospheric science and was on the tornado chasing team. And that’s one of the I think most um, I don’t know, one of the saddest things about moving to the West Coast is we have much more boring weather.

Brandon Burton 4:02
We don’t have tornadoes, and yeah, exactly

Brittany Quick-Warner 4:04
my husband’s like, Okay, you have a different bar than most people. But yeah, and actually, I worked in emergency management before I moved to Eugene. So I work for the State Emergency Management Office in Missouri. And it is remarkable how many of the skills that I learned in that job, I deployed over the last couple of years as chamber CEO during the pandemic, so you never know where those previous lives will come back. So

Brandon Burton 4:30
yeah, so I’m in the Texas area. So I know what it’s like when these tornadoes pop up. And it is very interesting. And I’ll have family and friends call me and say, Are you okay? And I am on my back porch watching this thing, you know?

Brittany Quick-Warner 4:45
Yeah, it’s funny when I talk to people and worrying about that. They’re just like, wait, what? How are you kidding? I’m like, no, that’s just when you’re from the Midwest. You just kind of get used to it.

Brandon Burton 4:54
Let’s roll with it. Yeah. So tell us a little bit more about the Eugene’s. chamber, give us an idea of the size of the chamber staff budget scope of work just to kind of give us an idea before we get into our discussion.

About the Eugene Area Chamber

Brittany Quick-Warner 5:09
Yeah, of course. So our chamber has about 1200 Members, we have kind of bounced around between second and third largest chamber in the state of Oregon. We have currently 15 staff. When I got into this position five years ago, we had about six staff. So we’ve grown really quickly and pretty significantly in the last five years. We our budget this year is about 1.9 million. And it’s pretty split between a couple of different revenue streams. So we obviously have our membership base, which is about 30% of our income. We also just a couple years ago, which we can talk a little bit more about launched onward, Eugene, which is the economic development kind of entity for our region after a lot of turmoil in that space as a community for a while. And so a good portion of our income comes through the management of that entity. And then our sponsorships are about 35% of what our revenue is and and then we do a handful of events that bring in a little bit of revenue to

Brandon Burton 6:20
Alright, that’s good. Yeah, that that really helps to kind of set the table for discussion. So as a one of these chamber the year finalist episodes but at what I’ve been doing, what I like to do is focus on the two programs, the program synopsis included on your chamber the year application, and I look forward to learning about these programs and sharing some of those details as soon as they get back from this quick break.

Are you looking for a year round affordable and timely shop local campaign for your chamber or CVB Look no further build a custom each shop play mobile app with App My Community by visiting appmycommunity.com/chamberchat. App My Community mobile apps are not just simple membership directory listings. They provide many more capabilities to engage with your community. Provide your residents with a robust events calendar partner with a local fare festival or Farmers Market provide a schedule map and other resources to promote the event. Run a Small Business Saturday campaign any time of the year using built in scavenger hunts allow your membership to communicate directly to their customers via push notifications. Your app my community mobile app will be a unique member benefit allow you to generate non dues revenue with sponsorship opportunities and best of all provide a valuable resource to your community please visit appmycommunity.com/chamberchat now to receive 10% off your first year of an App My Community mobile app.

App My Community creates mobile apps that allow you to engage directly with your community. Enhance chamber membership by providing a unique advertising and communication channel to residents and visitors. Not just a member directory, App My Community has the tools to be useful to residents on a daily basis. Learn more at appmycommunity.com/chamberchat.

Chambers of Commerce have been around for over 400 years promoting communities all over the World. But today so much is found digitally that Chamber Nation believes it’s critical that there is a custodian of local digital information. They believe the Chamber is in a perfect position to be that organization. 

Chamber Nation provides an amazing membership management system you use to manage the chamber and the community. They also deliver a complete membership development system that they manage for you to be sure your membership community is fully documented for search and much more. Essentially, Chamber Nation delivers an entire membership support department which is perfect for those Chambers with a limited budget that needs to do more.

With Chamber Nation not only will you have a membership management system but also a membership development system all in one terrific package. So, SAVE MONEY and be impressed by visiting www.RichardsCalendar.com to set up a demo with their CEO. Or learn more at  www.ChamberNation.com.

Visit ChamberNation.com to learn more.

When you really think about it, is it realistic to expect your membership rep to deliver consistent results without consistent coaching? Much like an elite athlete, your membership rep must be aligned and performing at their best which doesn’t happen automatically. Holman Brothers Next Level Coaching programs supply the indispensable training, guidance and support your membership rep needs to keep their performance in high gear. Visit holmanbros.com/nextlevel to learn more and request a free trial of Next Level Coaching.

Click here for a FREE trial of Next Level Coaching from Holman Brothers.

Alright, Brittany, we’re back. If you would just take us through what the two programs are that you guys submitted on your chamber the your application, maybe just from a high level and then we’ll we can circle back and go into some more detail on those programs.

Topic-Chamber of the Year Application Programs

Brittany Quick-Warner 9:52
Yeah, of course. So this was our first time applying for chamber of the year at least in my tenure, and honestly we were pretty intimidated by the process for a while. And I will say it’s not an easy or it’s not a quick process. There’s a lot of time and effort that has to be put into it. But for those of you listening who think, oh, gosh, I don’t know if I could ever do that. It’s totally worth it. And I will say that because one of the things is it forces you to really think about, okay, where have we found success? And what programs do we have that are really cutting edge, and we’re really kind of pushing the envelope. And I think as chamber executives, we, we sometimes often move on to the next thing very quickly, without celebrating like, hey, we actually are doing some good stuff here. And we should, we should think about that. So it was hard for us to kind of whittle it down to a couple of programs that we really wanted to highlight. But the two that we did choose, one of them is last year, we launched a freemium membership model. So a basic membership that is 100%, free to, to folks to join the chamber, and took a lot of time to really analyze that decision to do that. Think about pros and cons. But ultimately, the reasoning behind it were was a couple of reasons. One, we were diving really deep into work on equity, inclusion and diversity and really trying to analyze internally, what can we do as an organization to really create a more equitable, membership and organization and more inclusive, and have a lot of listening sessions with bipoc members in our community and businesses who maybe weren’t members of the chamber and giving some perspective as to why. So that’s one piece. But then we also do a lot of advocacy as an organization. And we wanted to make sure that we could really bring in as many businesses as possible to help advocate on their behalf. Which leads to the second synopsis that we applied, using, which is the work we’ve been doing around homelessness. So the city of Eugene and Lane County, which is a county we sit in, we have more than 4000 individuals living on the streets of our community on housed. It’s one of the highest per capita in the country. And it is a really, it’s a crisis. And it is growing. And it’s feels to a lot of folks in the community like it’s completely out of control. And that was an issue that our businesses really kind of stepped up and said, we have got to do something and where is the chamber out on this issue? And how are we influencing the future of, of our community and the prosperity of these individuals who have living on the streets. So we dove in really deep, and we can talk a little bit more about the details of that program. But ultimately, what we ended up doing was releasing a really extensive report on the state of homelessness in our community. And then that has catalyzed a ton of things that have come out of it. One of it being a business leaders taskforce of over 100 businesses who’ve come together to really say we want to provide leadership in this space. So I can go into more detail about

Brandon Burton 13:09
let’s, let’s start with that one. So homelessness, and the focus you guys are putting on there, because I think there’s, there’s so many unique traits and attributes, you know, they go across that topic that, hey, and you guys probably ever realized there’s no one one size fits all right, for all the different reasons why somebody may be homeless. So as you dug in, and did research and and looked at what the problem is, what are some of those things that you’ve discovered? And have you gone about addressing it?

Brittany Quick-Warner 13:42
Yeah, good question. So when we decided that we needed to have some sort of voice in this, I very much said to my board, I don’t know what our role should be. At this point. There’s a lot of places where it feels like, we need improvements. And I don’t know what the Chamber’s role is. And I think we have two options. One, we can either just get really mad and angry about the state of this crisis and marched down to City Hall and pound our fists on the table and tell our city councilors, you have to do something about this. Which if I looked, you know, if I fast forward five years, and I looked back at this moment, I could not honestly say that I felt like that would make an impact on the number of people sleeping on the streets. And the other option was to get really deep and strategic and to to flex that problem solving muscle that a lot of chambers have that they might not feel like this is their problem to solve. But the reality is it’s impacting our businesses. It’s impacting our local economy. It’s impacting the overall livability of our community. And those individuals living on the streets obviously are in dire need of someone to advocate for better quality of life as well. So we decided to go that route. It was the harder of the two options. But what that looked like was, was us as it’s chamber has staff going out and having individual conversations with over 200 people in our community to really understand the issue deeper and to try to help suss out what are some of the barriers or the roadblocks that we’re facing in our system that has gotten to this point, we talked to unhoused individuals themselves, we talked to business owners to every nonprofit that works in this space in our community, which there’s a lot of them. We talked to communities across the country to try to find out best practices, what others are doing. And ultimately, what we had was about 250 pages of notes from all of these conversations that we realized we needed to do something with. And we knew we weren’t the experts on this. But we had gleaned an enormous amount of information that we really felt like if we could summarize this down and boil it to a handful of recommendations, just based on what we’ve learned from all these experts in our community, that we could bring a lot more clarity to the conversation. And so that’s what we did, we’re gonna release this report, which is a living document where, you know, we’re kind of always sort of going back and finding ways to improve or other ideas. But one of the things, you know, that we heard a lot in the community is we don’t know what’s happening in this space, or whatever is happening isn’t working, or we don’t think anything is happening at all. And all of those things were leading to this sense of hopelessness amongst community members that we will never be able to get our heads wrapped around this problem. So out of that, what we came up with was eight recommendations that we felt like if we could focus in on these eight areas, and move some initiatives forward together as a community, that we can make a real, real dent, in in that enhanced number. And a couple of key areas that we really pushed on is one, better accountability and transparency. Our city and county officials are the entities that control really the conversation around homelessness and services and funding. And they’re doing good work. But there’s not very good communication or transparency coming out of those entities. And so it’s causing this sense of hopelessness. The second was, there was no, there is no clear shared vision, every person we talked to had a different idea of what the end goal was. And we all know that without a really clear shared vision for what we’re trying to accomplish, we’re going to be going in different directions. Even if we all have the same sort of, you know, good hearted intentions.

We also knew that our community needed to take a serious look at how we’re holding people accountable. And that was something that we knew was going to get us a little bit of pushback, because a lot of times in this space, people don’t want to associate crime and homelessness. And we weren’t trying to by any way, say that we’re trying to criminalize homelessness, but there is crime happening on our streets that people need to be held accountable for. We also talked about good data, about wraparound services and how individuals we might be getting them into shelter, but we’re not providing them this the services they need to actually get well. So those eight recommendations came out. And one of the biggest ones that we’ve been pushing all along is this crisis is bigger than our city and our county can handle on their own, it’s bigger than our nonprofit community can handle on its own. It is to the point where it is truly the entire community’s issue that we all have to come together around the table to try and solve. And we’ve honestly, I think, gotten a surprising amount of pushback from some of our local park or government partners in sort of letting go of of some of those pieces and allowing private sector to come to the table to say, What could we be doing to contribute positively to this conversation. So that idea of collective impact and a shared vision is one that we’ve really been trying to hone in on as a chamber and to try to convene enough voices to actually achieve that shared that shared vision, or identify and then achieve that shared vision. So all of this really like capacity building community building work, is exactly where I think chambers should be in their communities. And while it feels maybe like that’s not a space that we should operate in, I think it 100% is if you’re living up to being the convener, catalyst champion chamber for your community, right. And there is a bottom line impact on businesses. So I do think there’s an argument for the chamber being involved in that conversation. We’ve been able to catalyze some really cool projects out of this. We’ve had private sector folks who are now coming to the table who’ve never been engaged in this and they’re coming up with these really big visionary ideas that they have the resources to execute on, that no one else had even thought about, including that person in the conversation and now they’re adding to the pie instead of splitting it up amongst other nonprofits. So it’s been a year Ever since we really started digging into this, and we’ve already, you know, we’ve already seen about 200 temporary, but emergency shelters open up that private sector individuals gave their space to be used for that, that were not happening before the chamber got involved in this conversation, we have a couple of workforce pilots, where we have a local business owner who’s starting an entire different business line specifically, and only for hiring unhoused individuals and building a workforce pipeline for them to get trained into other industry jobs in the community. We have really great communications out to businesses about how to protect their properties, how to report issues, if they have them resources for if they do have crime, or an incident happen. So, you know, we’re some low hanging fruit, but then also some really cool. Like I said, visionary projects that wouldn’t have happened if the chamber hadn’t has said, Hey, let us bring all these businesses to the conversation as well.

Brandon Burton 20:59
Right now, as I think of this topic, I view it as an onion, right, it’s got all these layers to it. And I agree, I think the chamber is the perfect entity to peel back those layers and to convene, you kind of reorganize and put put things together and get those right, you know, example together and look at what the real problems are. Because it for whatever reason, and you know, various cities throughout the country. Homelessness tends to be attracted to certain cities, for whatever reason, you know, for a variety of reasons, we’ll say. So to be able to identify what those reasons are, and then why you go about trying to solve the problem, to not make it more attractive for you know, to drum. It’s it’s a, it’s a balance and multiple layers,

Brittany Quick-Warner 21:46
for sure. Yeah, yeah. And I think just setting the table, like I said, for more people to come and sit and contribute positive ideas, and that’s something we’ve been very intentional about is this is not a space for you to come in to complain or event, right. We’ve all done that. We all know what the issues are. This is a place for you to say, okay, given all this information, I have here some ideas that I want to bring to the conversation. And it’s we’ve been really successful in that. And I think that’s one thing that even if there’s skeptics out there about the chamber, really leading this conversation, what we’ve gotten is great feedback that they feel like, okay, this is definitely constructive. It’s, you know, it’s moving us in the right direction, and not just distracting us from the overall goal, which has been really rewarding,

Brandon Burton 22:31
right. And in the end, it makes a huge impact on the community as a whole. So I think that’s a great, great program, great area of focus, for sure. Let’s shift gears a little bit over to your freemium model. Curious, did you guys reach out and talk to like Tom Baldrige or any of these other chambers that have rolled out freemium models in the past? Yeah, so

Brittany Quick-Warner 22:55
we, there was a couple of chambers out there that we knew when we started doing this research. And so we did we sit down, we sat down Tiffany Esposito down in Florida. And I believe my staff might have talked to Tom as well. Just to say, like, you know, you’re a few few months ahead of us, like, how’s it going? And we got good feedback from them that, you know, so far, so good. And our board was definitely interested in, in just looking at membership structures overall differently and trying to say, like, are we being proactive in the way that we’re sort of selling ourselves to the community. And it helped, I had a tech CEO as my board chair, during the time that we were having this discussion and, and he’s, he was the first one to say, like, our business model is totally based on freemium, you know, applications and services that we then convert into paid customers. And so you know, he really encouraged us to look at that at that model as not a way to give away our membership. But to bring more people in who we maybe wouldn’t have had the hook for prior to offering an option that really does just expose them to all the things that they could be investing in, right.

Brandon Burton 24:08
And chambers often say they’re the voice of business. And to be able to say, we’re the voice of business, but not your business, because you’re not a dues paying member doesn’t really seem right either. So I like the idea of a freemium model and being there as a support for all the business in your community. It’s just a matter of making it work to where the revenue still works out and your chamber can still function, right? Yeah. And

Brittany Quick-Warner 24:31
the Yeah, honestly, the pandemic was a big motivator for us because what we did is a lot of our a lot of our programs and the training and the information resources that we were putting out to the community, we took down that paywall for all of it during a pandemic. We wanted anyone and everyone who has a business to be to hear about and to have access to these resources. We did a lot of web hours and trainings on all of the federal regulations and you know, grants and all all of these things that were coming out. And we were not restricted to just members in that space. And so what we saw was a lot of people that had never engaged with the chamber, and then also would have never heard about any of those resources, if it wasn’t for the chamber reaching out to them, even though they weren’t a member saying, hey, take a look at this thing. And so that is what really inspired us to say, like, Okay, we could do this, we could open it up, we could bring more people under the umbrella. And then it’s on us as chamber staff, and as you know, our board leadership to show the value of their investment. So they hopefully transition up to a paid member, we’re just coming up on a year of this program. Actually, July one is when we launched it last year. And so right now, our membership staff have a strategy for getting, you know, obviously, they’ve been coordinating or engaging with those members all year, but making sure to sit down and have those sales conversations about hey, come in at this other level. And here’s the benefits we can provide. And here’s what your investment is getting you. And so that was one of the other motivations is it’s a built in sales pipeline, right? How many Tony chambers have sat there and sort of like bang their heads against the wall saying, where’s my leads? How do I get more leads in my sales pipeline, and we have 150 new members that are in our premium membership that now are built in sales pipeline for selling paid memberships. So, so far, we’ve done good, and in some of those conversions, we’re still sort of waiting on the big kind of number of how many of those people transition in the first year. So preliminarily, the numbers look good as far as our ability to retain and to bring in new members. But you know, jury’s still out a little bit to see how it ends up after a year.

Brandon Burton 26:52
So as you rolled out this program, the premium model, how did you go about informing the businesses in your community? Did you get a business list from the county and just do a mass mailing? Or how did you go about the messaging to get that out?

Brittany Quick-Warner 27:07
Yeah, good question. So our community, I think, is disadvantaged in that we don’t have a business license program. And so there is no formal like registration here locally for businesses, which would be so fantastic. And I’m we’re trying to convince our city, that’s a good idea. So it’s been really word of mouth, we leaned heavily on our board and some of our other members to sort of say, hey, invite somebody that you know, who maybe wants to consider the chamber, we had a really strong sort of marketing strategy, that first three months of the program, we did radio, we did TV, we had commercials, I was kind of going around and speaking to rotary clubs and other entities that have business affiliates, or memberships. And we had, we saw a lot of folks start coming in, and that in that first three months with just that general promotion, and then we’ve kind of just left it open. And as we’ve engaged folks, we we didn’t set a strong sort of number. On the freemium side, if we want to hit X number of members, we have an overall membership goal. And so, you know, that freemium membership will help us get to those numbers that we’re trying to achieve that way. But, you know, we were pretty regimen in the whole process, you know, we did a lot of deep work with our board to help them, you know, make sure they were comfortable with it, talk to other chambers laid out what the program would look like, got very specific on the benefits for that free membership, it’s very scaled back from what are other benefits offer, obviously. And then we did a lot of kind of focus groups talking to folks and got their feedback on it and, and then ultimately launched it. And it has helped us save some members, too. That wasn’t the main goal. But we have some businesses that you all know, did not fare well during the pandemic, and they appreciate want to continue to support the chamber. But financially, they aren’t able to, we’re able to bump them down to that freemium level, and then flag their membership database to like, get them back up, hopefully the next year. So instead of losing them all together, we get to keep them in the chamber kind of channels and networks, and then hopefully come bring them back up to a paid member later.

Brandon Burton 29:19
Yeah. And as far as to sharing information with them, and keeping them in the loop of what you’re doing advocacy wise, and things like that doesn’t really cost anything, you know, timewise so why not just keep them involved?

Brittany Quick-Warner 29:31
Yeah, and the other thing that, you know, that we have, we’re monitoring as well is the non dues revenue that they bring in, right, so our freemium members, now we’re on our email list, they see all the events that we have, and they’re paying to attend those events that they wouldn’t have been before they are a member. So we are seeing a good amount of of non dues revenue coming from those free members who are now advertising and they have a higher cost for advertising because you’re not a paid member for attending events. So yeah, there’s a little bit of that happening too, which is good, because we’re at least capturing some sort of revenue from that additional base of membership.

Brandon Burton 30:07
Yeah, absolutely. That’s great. So I wanted to ask you, Brittany, if How do you see the role of the Eugene chamber there in your community?

Brittany Quick-Warner 30:20
How do I see the roll? So, for those of you who are not familiar with ACC II, came out with the Horizon Report a handful of years ago. And in that report, there are a handful of sort of realities that they were predicting that chambers and associations and just sort of the world in general were leaning towards. And one of the things that really stuck out for me in that Horizon Report in which I, you know, I’m constantly going back to with our staff, is this idea of being the sane center. And, and not being afraid to dive into issues, but really, truly trying to bring a non bias perspective to the conversation. We have done advocacy for a long time. But even more so in the last couple of years, have really leaned into this place of being able to, to pull people from all across the community together to say, Look, our overall goal is economic prosperity, and people living happy, healthy lives in this community. And to do that we can’t be, you know, politically, ideological in one way or the other as a chamber. And so we want to represent the st center, the place where I feel like we can find some alignment. And I really think that in our community, our chamber has been really respected for that. And it’s a place that I’m proud for us to be we’re very data driven, we want to see the the actual impacts not just this hyperbolic kind of fear mongering. And because of that, I think we’ve been really successful in our advocacy because people really do respect how much kind of deep research we do on issues before we come out with a position or try to advocate.

Brandon Burton 32:02
Yeah, and I think being the same Senator goes back to the chamber, just seeing a trusted resource to like you had mentioned through the pandemic, these small businesses not knowing where to turn for some of these answers. And you could look at a social media post, or you could look to the chamber who’s done the research. And and same thing with being the same Senator, you can watch these polarizing news channels, or you can look at the Chamber who’s looking at the data and looking out for your interest as a business in the community.

Brittany Quick-Warner 32:27
Yeah, absolutely. And I you know, not to downplay, it’s not easy, often hearing that voice, because it takes a lot more work to actually have done your homework and, and to seek out multiple sources and to really hear both sides out.

Brandon Burton 32:41
And to put aside prices, right? Yep,

Brittany Quick-Warner 32:44
exactly, exactly. However, I think it gets us further in the long run. So it’s worth the extra effort upfront.

Brandon Burton 32:51
Absolutely. So Brittany, what might be maybe a tip or an action item for listeners who are interested in taking their chamber up to the next level? What might you suggest for them?

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Brittany Quick-Warner 33:03
Oh, my goodness, I think one of the things that I did early on that really kind of opened my eyes to what’s possible, is I I sat down and like very methodically went through chambers and other communities that I felt like, I wanted to be right, who we aspire to be like, and almost every one of them was in a community that was bigger than us that had more resources than us that had more members. And they weren’t able to do bigger things. Because of that, that level. And I think often if we just kind of look at the folks who are our peers, or who have are similarly resourced, we kind of keep our minds kind of close to what we could be doing. We implemented the Entrepreneurial Operating System, or Eos, which is explained in a book called traction. And Jane Clark at the Michigan West chamber was the speaker at an ACC conference about five and a half years ago that I heard talk about this. And I was absolutely, I just felt like, oh my gosh, someone just planted this in front of me the exact time that I needed it. We were in chaos art, my CEO had just passed away. We were trying to get our feet together under us. I was a new CEO. So I had never managed an organization before. And I desperately needed a tool to help us just like organize and set goals, and just get really strategic with our work. And that US process has helped us do that. But one of the things in that process is looking at 10 years out on a horizon and then backing up three years in one year, and actually visualizing what your organization will look like in 10 years and putting numbers to it. We put a revenue goal, we put a member size we put a retention rate, we put the number of staff that we wanted to see. So and then we backed up In three years, so 2022 was our three year or three year out picture for when we started this. We had envisioned 14 staff in our organization. And we were six people when we started doing this. Here we are in 2022. With 15 staff members, we envision a $2 million revenue. Here we are 1.9. I’m hoping we we beat our budget, and we get that 2 million we envisioned applying for and winning chamber of the year. So we’ll see, I think the honor of at least being a finalist, and you can look at it from three years ago, it was on our list of like, what is what do we imagine for ourselves? And it was remarkable to me how much just that sort of very specific visioning helped us actually get there, right, like putting an actual number to it. And then creating a roadmap to hit that number. And chambers of any size could do that. Right? It’s not it doesn’t have to be like, Oh, well, they’re a big chamber, or they, you know, have X number of members or whatever. Absolutely, you can do that as a one person, staff, volunteer staff member, you know, you can say, in 10 years, what I want to look like in three years, and then how do I get there? So to me, I feel like I we I owe a lot of credit to James Clark is with us process. And then just to our staff for being willing to dream big. We like to, I like to think about it as well, not how sometimes we we How the heck out of things, but we just need to sort of say what is our big vision, and let’s not tear it apart the first time it gets thrown out into the world, and then figure out how to get there. So yeah,

Brandon Burton 36:38
I love that creating that vision, it shows you what’s possible. And then as you create that roadmap, it aligns the resources to make it happen. Yeah. And as it comes together, it’s kind of like, holy smokes, how did this happen? Together, but we have a cup of

Brittany Quick-Warner 36:53
staff who are not with our chamber anymore. They’ve graduated out into the community, I like to say, who wrote me when they saw we post about the chamber of the year, nom, and they’re like, that was on our three year vision, like we actually did it. So it’s kind of fun to like, pull back in some folks who had been there. And they were a part of that. And they remember

Brandon Burton 37:11
that, too. It was impactful that they remember the timeline, and they know that it’s happening. Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah. Well, as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Brittany Quick-Warner 37:27
Oh, gosh, I think a lot about this being on the WAC and ACC board. I feel, and we’ve heard this from leaders in the industry over the last couple years, I feel like chambers are more valuable and more needed than ever right now. And a lot of it is because of so much just polarization in our world. And I think if chambers can rise above the fray, and really play that same center role and take that problem solver role seriously, communities are going to be desperate for someone who they can look to who’s local, who understands their local issues. It’s not some, you know, outside of the community, who has the interest of everyone in the community at heart and who can who can convene, and do so in a way that people respect and they want to they want to be a part of it. So to me, chambers of the future are not, I think will always be interested in in businesses and representing businesses, because I think the private sector is one that desperately needs to be a part of the solution. But I think that we’re going to be challenged to with solving bigger community issues than just sort of taxes and opposing taxes or supporting taxes, right. It’s homelessness. It’s our housing crisis, its climate and energy. It’s, you know, some of these big hairy issues that our country is facing. If all our chambers got together and really pushed out an agenda around homelessness at the federal level, I think we could do an enormous amount of good at actually impacting this crisis. So that’s where I feel like the future of chambers are is solving those big community issues that are desperate for someone with with respect to step up and solve them.

Brandon Burton 39:11
Yeah, well, everybody heard it here, first Britney’s vision of the future. So we’ll see. What’s the timeframe on this year.

Brittany Quick-Warner 39:18
Three years, give me three years

Brandon Burton 39:21
will solve all the world’s issues, at least the country’s issues and three. So Brittany, I’d like to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who might want to reach out and connect and learn more about how you guys are doing things here in Eugene, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with

Connect with Brittany Quick-Warner

Brittany Quick-Warner 39:39
you? Absolutely. So my email brittanyw@eugenechamber.com. And happy to also have folks give my cell phone or my office phone a call. If you go to the Eugene chamber website on our staff page, you can find those numbers as well. And I Absolutely love connecting with other chambers. I was very lucky to have other CEOs who said yes to me when I was new in this role, and still do for me to pick their brains. So I love returning the favor.

Brandon Burton 40:11
It’s so important. It really is. Well, Brittany, this has been a great discussion. I’ve had a lot of fun learning from you and and learning about these programs you guys are implementing and really making a difference there. And Eugene, so thank you for spending time with us today. And I wish you and your staff Best of luck as chamber the year.

Brittany Quick-Warner 40:31
Yes, thank you so much for the opportunity. I appreciate it.

Brandon Burton 40:34
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

Have you ever thought about creating a podcast for your chamber? We always hear about how chambers need to be storytellers. What better way is there to tell the stories of your members and the work of your chamber than through a podcast?

Your audience is waiting to hear from you as a convener of leaders and influencers champion for business and catalyst for change within your community.

I just launched a Chamber Podcast Course with the goal to get your very own podcast started within 30 days. Visit chamberchatpodcast.com/pivot. To learn more and to enroll in the chamber podcast course today. For a limited time as a launch promotion. This course is being offered at a 25% discount. Be sure to purchase the course today to lock in your savings before the price goes up., even if you’re not ready to start right away. Again, that’s chamberchatpodcast.com/pivot.

Get started with your own Chamber Podcast and shortcut your learning curve with the Chamber Podcast Course offered by Chamber Chat Podcast.
Have you considered the many benefits of hosting a podcast for your Chamber? The options, leverage, and possibilities that a podcast offers are virtually endless. Download my FREE Chamber Podcasting Guide to learn how to start your own Chamber podcast!

Conway Area Chamber-ACCE Chamber of the Year Finalist with Brad Lacy

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG_0371.jpg

Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Brad Lacy. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Introduction

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.

Voiceover Talent 0:14
Now your host he prefers taking notes with a pen and paper, he’s my dad, Brandon Burton.

Brandon Burton 0:20
Hello Chamber Champions. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host 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.

Our title sponsor is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Let’s hear from Tony Felker, President and CEO of the Frisco Chamber to learn how the Holman Brothers have provided value for him.

Tony Felker 0:46
One of the key benefits that we’ve realized from Holman Brothers it’s actually happened many years after we started using them. We just completed our new strategic plan and understanding those subtle differences between transactional benefits and transformational benefits. The companies that knew what they expect has been a key part in our strategic plan. And we really want to thank Holman Brothers for that.

Brandon Burton 1:08
You can learn more about Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions by visiting holmanbros.com.

Click here for a FREE trial of Next Level Coaching from Holman Brothers.

Successful membership salespeople are problem solvers. They ask better questions, uncover more problems and pinpoint how their chamber can help. It’s how they consistently drive better membership sales outcomes. Here’s the hurdle. Most membership salespeople don’t get enough coaching to recruit like this. Holman Brothers Next Level Coaching supplies the year round guidance that your membership rep needs to drive growth for your chamber. Visit holmanbros.com/nextlevel to learn more and request a free trial of Next Level Coaching.

Guest Introduction

This is a special episode and our 2022 ACCE Chamber the Year Finalist series, and our guests for this episode is Brad Lacy, the President and CEO of the Conway Area Chamber in Arkansas. Brad is a native of Ida Arkansas and began his economic development career in 1997 with the Arkansas Economic Development Commission as a community development consultant and later as a project manager where he worked to recruit companies to the state. Brad has served as president and CEO of the Conway Development Corporation or CDC, the city of Conway’s nonprofit economic development entities since 2000. In December of 2006, Brad became the president CEO of the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce. It marked the first time in nearly two decades at the chamber and CDC had been under the same leadership, the leadership of the same person. The combined management of both organizations brings the city larger staff to focus on economic development activities. In 2013. The Conway Area Chamber of Commerce was named chamber the year by ACCE and in 2018, was named runner up. Brad holds a bachelor’s degree in geography from the University of Central Arkansas, the Masters of Public Administration from the University of Arkansas Little Rock. He’s a graduate of the Community Development Institute at UCA, the Economic Development Institute at the University of Oklahoma and the US Chamber of Commerce Institute for organization management. Brad is a former member of the University of Central Arkansas Board of Trustees and has served two terms on the Board of Regents for the US Chamber West Institute of organization management. I’m excited to have Brad back with me on Chamber Chat Podcast, he was a guest way back in episode 103, where we talked about the way they go about their annual meeting. So if anybody wants to go back in the archive and check that out, it was a fantastic episode. But Brad, welcome back to Chamber Chat Podcast, go out and say hello to all the Chamber Champions and share something interesting about yourself so we can get to know you a little better.

Brad Lacy 4:01
Yeah, well, thanks for thanks for asking. I’m not sure I’m all that. Interesting. Maybe the most interesting things that I’ve been in the job over 20 years and have only been in one community that doesn’t seem to be very common these days in the chamber world. So that’s true. Yeah, maybe maybe that’s the interesting thing.

Brandon Burton 4:25
Good deal. Well, tell us maybe some background, this specs, if you will, on the Conway area, chamber size, location, budget, staff, that sort of thing, just to give us some perspective.

About the Conway Area Chamber

Brad Lacy 4:38
Yeah. So first, just a little on the city. So the city Conway is part of the Little Rock North Little Rock Conway MSA so we’re the Northern Gateway to the Little Rock MSA. The city has about 70,000 people. It is a little bit of several things. So it’s a College Town it has has three colleges and universities. A percentage of our population commutes into little rock to work every day. But most of our people stay here because it’s very much a business center too. So it’s not exactly a suburb, it’s not exactly a college town, it’s kind of a little of four or five things all mixed up, which makes us a little bit interesting. The Chamber itself has been around since 1891, and was formed to recruit the colleges here. So we’ve always had a real tied to the educational community here. And through the years, there have been a series of sister organizations that spin off from the chamber. So the other the biggest one being the CDC, as you mentioned in the intro, which is an economic development entity that spun off in 1959. And that was the that was the organization that initially hired me 23 years ago. And so today, what you have is really this collection of organizations that are tied through management agreements. And so the staff, which there’s a staff of 18, we manage, really, the assets and the work of those several organizations, budget is going to be anywhere from five to $7 million a year, which is a pretty big budget, especially for our community our size. But when you put all of those organizations together, that’s what that’s what it looks like. And on the economic development side, there’s a lot of property that’s involved. So land leases, building leases, land sales. And so that’s where a lot of that revenue comes from. But it’s an extremely diverse revenue stream, which is really by design and helps us sort of navigate changes in the economy or changes in one member, you know, leaving or whatever. So it’s pretty good model we think,

Brandon Burton 7:11
yeah. Sounds like from the wide scope of demographics even of what makes up Conway really creates a great personal identity as a as a community, it seems like for sure. And you mentioned 18 staff and I got to meet some of your staff at the Mako conference. And you’re surrounded by some great people so for sure you’ve got a good good people there around you. So that that always helps.

Are you looking for a year round affordable and timely shop local campaign for your chamber or CVB Look no further build a custom each shop play mobile app with App My Community by visiting appmycommunity.com/chamberchat. App My Community mobile apps are not just simple membership directory listings. They provide many more capabilities to engage with your community. Provide your residents with a robust events calendar partner with a local fare festival or Farmers Market provide a schedule map and other resources to promote the event. Run a Small Business Saturday campaign any time of the year using built in scavenger hunts allow your membership to communicate directly to their customers via push notifications. Your app my community mobile app will be a unique member benefit allow you to generate non dues revenue with sponsorship opportunities and best of all provide a valuable resource to your community please visit appmycommunity.com/chamberchat now to receive 10% off your first year of an App My Community mobile app.

App My Community creates mobile apps that allow you to engage directly with your community. Enhance chamber membership by providing a unique advertising and communication channel to residents and visitors. Not just a member directory, App My Community has the tools to be useful to residents on a daily basis. Learn more at appmycommunity.com/chamberchat.

Chamber Nation hears from its customers that they help make it fun again to present the value of membership. That’s because so much is provided to help each member promote their business and with monthly ROI reports from Chamber Nation, they know their membership is already working to help them succeed.

There are three words in Chamber of Commerce…. and Chamber Nation knows that their customers take care of the CHAMBER, but Chamber Nation takes care of the COMMERCE. This way both teams working side-by-side deliver a whole lot more in membership value. 

With Chamber Nation, not only will you have a membership management system but also a membership development system all in one terrific package. So, SAVE MONEY and be impressed by visiting www.RichardsCalendar.com to set up a demo with their CEO. Or learn more at  www.ChamberNation.com.

Visit ChamberNation.com to learn more.

Topic-Chamber of the Year Application Programs

So as we’re doing these chamber, the year finalist interviews, what I like to do is focus on the two programs that you submitted on your application for chamber the year. So maybe just from a high level what’s address what those two programs are and then we can go in a little bit deeper and have you share some of the more nitty gritty about each program.

Brad Lacy 10:07
Sure. So the first one is a visioning committee wide visioning process called Conway 2035. We do a community wide visioning process every decade. Well, not really decade if you’re looking at the census, but every 10 years, so we did well, I guess it is, it does line up with the census. So actually, 2010 was the first year that we did that it was extremely important for us as a community. Because it really marked the first time that any entity had asked the community at large what they wanted to see for the city. And what happens is you get some agreement from larger groups of people on where not only the chamber, but city government. various nonprofits should be focusing their time and energy. And we did a lot of really great things in that decade between 2010 and 2020. So, and there was sort of a mid, mid, mid like 2015, we we convened sort of a smaller group of people to do a little bit of a correction to the plan to see, you know, what have we accomplished, were there some things that we needed to change, based off of things that were happening in the in the country. So 2020 Mark, really the year that we were supposed to renew that. So we had gotten everything ready, we had pulled our steering committee together, and we’re getting ready to meet with them. And it was a week, really after everything closed down. So that first program was really how did we do that? How do you how do you do a city wide visioning process when you can’t convene people? Because we did, we did it and we finished it. So the second one is our festival so we have a very oddly named festival, Toad Suck days. That is, that’s the name of it,

Brandon Burton 12:20
set that head on with the name. So that is what is Toad Suck days.

Brad Lacy 12:25
So my my EVP, Jamie Gates says that no southern city that’s worth anything, doesn’t have a festival named after a food or an animal. And so ours is named after toads, believe it or not, it’s a it’s a festival that volunteers started 41 years ago. And it really turned into something big. And as is the case in many communities, when things outgrow volunteers, they give them to the chamber. times you may not want them. This was one that you know, ended up being really good. It’s a very iconic festival in Arkansas, with a funny name. But throughout the history of the festival, we’ve raised $2 million for primarily educational nonprofits in the city, and some community development. So the festival is really the conduit through which we do a lot of charitable giving. But it also helps pay, you know, helps pay the bills because 100 to 125,000 people come to the festival. And there’s a lot of revenue that comes from that. So

Brandon Burton 13:48
sorry, I was maybe let’s just go deeper right now and untold sick days. So as you go about the planning of it each year, as its annual festival, do you know which nonprofits you’re targeting to support as you go about beginning it? Is their target goals going into it? How do you go about your planning and in strategy of

Brad Lacy 14:12
it? So historically, the money was earmarked for college scholarships for County students who were choosing to go to one of the three schools in Conway. So historically, that’s where all the money went. Internally, we decided to take a different course probably 10 years ago, with the creation of the Arkansas scholarship lottery. Voters approved a lottery in Arkansas. All of the proceeds from that are going to scholarships. So really, if you want to go to college here, you’re gonna get you’re gonna get some help, for the most part, and we didn’t really think that maybe our money now needed to go to scholarships. So we started investing heavily in pre K. And STEM education for elementary school students. So there’s some various various programs that we put money into, that really hit on those, those topics. Now, we also do a decent amount of money for downtown Conway, because that’s where we have the festival. So believe it or not, not everyone’s a fan of us closing the heart of the city down for three days. So, so we, we buy about 20, to $25,000 worth of hanging baskets that go up in downtown after the festival and the city partners with us on that, and takes care of them through summer and fall. And so our downtown is sort of known for those, those hanging baskets. So, you know, we can do between probably, in a slow year, maybe 60,000, upwards to 80, or $90,000, in charitable giving directly from the festival. Now, the other thing that has happened through the years is we will sort of approve what we call sanctioned events that are allowed to use the festival name. And so this is where other nonprofits benefit. So the Kiwanis Club, for instance, has done a 5k 10k for years where they raise money. And that’s the Toad Suck 5k 10k. There’s a literacy organization that does the tour to Toad, which is bike race. So there’s all these, there’s all these other things that are happening, as well as we have nonprofits, that we have a certain number of vendor spots available for free to nonprofits, to help raise money. So the festival is really much bigger than just what it does for us. In the community loves it and region, really so.

Brandon Burton 17:12
So with the charitable giving, is that structured through a foundation or just directly through the chamber? How does that look?

Brad Lacy 17:21
So the festival itself is a 501 C three, organization that is wholly owned by the chamber. All right.

Brandon Burton 17:34
So I know, in particular, with your chamber, that your application, you had some unique challenges, around DedSec day should particularly during the, you know, the COVID, shutdowns and whatnot. So tell us about how you guys address that and how you navigated through still being able to do the good work that you did and bring community together when you come together? How did you approach that?

Brad Lacy 18:01
So and by March, when things shut down, and when you look at the way that we raise money. Most of our big sponsors were in place by that because the festival happens the first weekend of May. Okay, so we had all these commitments from corporate sponsors to, you know, be a part of the 2020 Festival, and then you figure out, well, we’re six weeks away from festival that we’re not going to have. So what do we do? And I think our first, you know, maybe our first inclination was that we’re just not going to do anything and then give the money back or not kill these people or whatever. Because I think like many people, we were just in a state of shock, right? I mean, like, you know, I was thinking, how are we going to survive this? You know, how do you how do you survive when at least part of your revenue comes from being able to convene people and you can’t compete with people? That’s a real problem. But what we what we decided was that we could pivot and we could do a series of things we could sort of deconstruct the festival and offer people experiences which in fact, they needed and wanted because after, you know, a few weeks, your your cabin fever sets in, and, and so we sort of deconstructed the festival and figured out that we could do some of the best parts of it. Regardless if we had a traditional festival, so we came up with some new things. So really, one of the first ones was an airplane parade where we partnered with the Pilots Association, that is here. in Conway, and we asked them if they would do an airplane parade throughout the city. And this was several weeks into the lockdown, and super safe, everybody can just stand out in their yard. We, you know, promoted it heavily, not only on social media, but our local newspaper promoted it. And I mean, there were 1000s of people in their yards. And we had dozens of planes that participated in we had planes that came in to participate, you know, some fighter jets did some formation type things. And so, you know, we had some sponsors attached to it. So we actually made some money off of that, that we needed at the time. And so that really, I think, gave us some confidence that we could, that we could do this festival in pieces. And so another one was, we did a Nature and Science drive thru. People were, you know, hungry to do stuff with their children. So we partnered with Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the Little Rock zoo, the Museum of Discovery, and maybe a couple of others to do these big exhibits. We put them in the middle of one of the university campuses. And then

we internally called it the drive thru zoo, that you know, the rule was you couldn’t get out of your car, but you could certainly drive through and you could see the penguins from the Little Rock zoo, you could go past the giant aquariums that Game and Fish broad. You could drive through these exhibits. And once again, people were hungry for it. They wanted to do things with their children. And we were going to do that from like three to six. Well, by four o’clock, the queue was so long wrapping through the campus that we had to start turning people away, because it was going to take us two hours to get everyone through the queue and see things. So we really started started building some confidence that we could provide some things that the community and really the region needed, would allow us to monetize it so that we could survive. And then we turned to television to we started buying blocks of time on network TV and the Little Rock market. And so we did a virtual concert one night where we asked friends that had really Arkansas based performers to perform for us and do a virtual concert at a particular time on the CBS affiliate and another great success. And so we just, we put a lot of different things together. That late spring and summer. That became the festival,

Brandon Burton 23:08
isn’t it, that’s about how long of a span that is.

Brad Lacy 23:11
So that was probably over three months that we did all of those things. And then you get to 2021. And things have loosened up a bit. But we still weren’t quite ready to go. First. As I say, you know, we were the first week of May. I didn’t want to be the first festival to you know, go forward. So it was the 40th anniversary of the festival. And so we decided we would again deconstruct the festival and do 40 days of Toad Suck. And so we brought the airplane parade back, we brought the Nature and Science drive through back except at this point, you didn’t have to drive through you could walk through because things were different than they were a year before. And we actually did our first real concert in person in a venue. We brought country music artists, Jimmy Allen to town and did a concert on UCaaS campus. And really, I think there there were several things there. One, it allowed us to continue to do charitable giving, which I wouldn’t have thought we could do. It allowed us to survive. Because we always take us you know 100 I think about $135,000 is what we end up charging back as a management fee from the chamber. So if you lose that chunk of money,

Brandon Burton 24:44
yeah, that makes an impact. You’re cutting salaries

Brad Lacy 24:47
or you’re cutting positions you’re doing something so you know, we did not want to do that and we did not want to use reserves and we did not do any of those things. We managed to survive and and that and ever lay anyone off. And then also just, it means so much this is kind of interesting, but it means a lot to the community to do the festival. Children love it. I mean, it’s really built around kids. And so to not do it, and not sort of recognize the legacy of it just seemed to be, you know, a terrible idea. And we should at least do our best to keep it going until we can have it for real. And, you know, the good news is, we had it for real this year. And it was crazy. I mean, it’s the best year we’ve ever had, we were very blessed. We had perfect weather, which we almost never have a full weekend at perfect weather. But we did this time. And everything was just more, you know, more revenue, more shirt sales more this more that. So there was definitely pent up demand for it.

Brandon Burton 26:03
That is awesome. Well, let’s circle back for a few minutes on your on the Conway 2035, the visioning program there. It is understand similar kind of circumstances when you need to be convening people together. First of all, I was glad to hear you say that you guys are revisiting like you get your 10 year vision, but then you’re revisiting it at the halfway point and kind of taking a barometer of seeing where you’re going because politically, things change, right technology changes, community demographics change. So there’s a lot of lot of reasons to kind of check the temperature, if you will. But take us through that in the next couple of minutes of how the the visioning program came together.

Brad Lacy 26:50
So in a normal year, what you do is is, well, the really the first part of it didn’t really matter, because the the important. First component of this is, is pulling together a diverse steering committee that represents sort of as many aspects of the community as you can get. So not only race, ethnicity, gender, and age, but things like how long have they lived here, like we always try to have one person on the committee who’s moved here in the last year or two, because they certainly have a different perspective about Conway than someone who’s lived here their whole life. But we have one of those people who’ve lived here their whole life, because their perspective is important, too. So we had we’d spent a lot of time and we had, I think, a 13 person steering committee that was just a cross section of the community. And we were getting ready to convene them when the pandemic hit. And obviously, we didn’t, well, by early June, I think we decided to at least get them together in person, and let them make the call on whether or not we were going to try to go through with this thing. And so we took we took a ballroom at UCA and had the I mean, it was like Vladimir Putin trying to meet with 20 people when you see those pictures of him with all this distance between Yeah, yeah, you know, so imagine putting 30 people in a gigantic Ballroom in a in a square table, where we add, you know, I don’t know, 40 feet between people are so dumb, it was crazy. But it was the only thing we could think of that would really be safe. So you know, we all meet wear masks, we put them at this table. And we just said, Look, should we move forward with this? Should we not we’re going to do what you want us to do. And if you tell us to go, we’re going to figure out how to do this. And to have one every one of them said we have to do this, like this is the most important thing we can do. We cannot we do not need to stay focused on what’s happening. Now. We need to come out of this stronger as a community, we need to give people hope. We need to ask people questions about what they want on the other side of this. And so Absolutely, we need to we need to do this. So the next part of this is the same regardless if it had been pre or pre pandemic or pandemic and that is we do a survey tool, just really through Survey Monkey, where we asked people to look at a list of like 40 to 45 topics, things like job creation trails. police fire. Anything almost that you could think of is pretty exhaustive list about things that might be important in a in a community. And we simply ask each resident who wants to fill it out to checkmark all the things that they think are important that we should focus on. So if you want to check 40 boxes, you can if you want to check to you can well, then we asked of these, what are your top three priorities? And then do you want to participate in writing plan? And if so, pick one section that you would want to help, right. So if you go back to 2010, we had 1400 people that participated at that level when filling the survey out. This time, we had over 1800 people that participated. And of the 1800, we had a few 100 that said they wanted to participate in writing plan. So here’s where you’re, you know, here’s, here’s where you hit the nitty gritty, like, how do you pull those people together? Because normally,

you would have four or five in person meetings, I mean, what we would normally do is take every volunteer that wanted to write the plan, meet in an auditorium and go over I mean, here’s how we’re going to do this, you know, and then we’re dividing them up, and they have their first meeting, and then they set subsequent meetings for the next three months. And they really craft this plan. Well, obviously, we can’t do that. So what do we do? So we reached out to the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute, which is a partner of ours that is in the neighboring community, and they do strategic they help communities with strategic plans really all over the place. And we just said, Look, we don’t know how to do this. Now. We need we need professional facilitators, because obviously, we’re going to have to use Zoom. And so that’s what we did. We hired Winrock to do that for us, and had a series of zoom meetings that took the place of the in person meetings. And it worked. I mean, it was, it was bizarre, because you were, you know, you somebody would be in their bed on this busier,

Brandon Burton 32:28
because there’s a quiet place in the house, right? When you

Brad Lacy 32:31
always have them after work anyway, you’re always doing them, you know, six or seven, because that’s when people can meet. So you’re really getting this glimpse into people’s lives, you know, like someone’s cooking dinner and is, is talking about, you know, soccer park, or whatever. And so, so we did that throughout the remainder of 2020. And then they really put it all together for us. And then by April of 2021, we had a summit at their facility. They have a big meeting facility with hotel rooms and a restaurant and everything. And so we convened over 50 community leaders in April, and we were all still masks, I’ll never forget it. We still had masks on. And took that plan and kind of did the final what for on it. And then that steering committee ultimately put their blessing on it. And by the early fall of 2021, we had a community wide visioning plan again. And who would have thought I mean, who would have thought that that we can pull that together? It really sets the stage for all of us to do the work that we want to do. So now. We’re in the process of all the various economic development boards in our organization. Our boards have done kind of the dot exercise where they’ve gone through all of the goals and said this is what we should concentrate on. And so our FY our strategic plan comes directly from that. The city for instance, did a $35 million. One my I think it’s probably maybe $40 million community center with pickleball volleyball, indoor and outdoor aquatics and soccer Park proposal that went to voters in February. Well, that checks off more than half of the parks goals that were developed. So that went to voters in February and it passed with 80% of the vote. And so what we would tell people is working that process is the most important thing, because what happens in a lot of communities is, well, meaning people think that they know what everybody wants. And they just move forward with an idea. And then they end up getting hammered at the ballot box. And it’s not because the idea was bad. And it might not even be that people disagree with it, but you never asked them what they wanted,

Brandon Burton 35:32
right? Just is a huge, such a huge factor.

Brad Lacy 35:36
So with this, you know, 1800 people spoke. And it’s pretty clear what they want. Yeah. And so we’ll use that as a guide, you know, for the next several years,

Brandon Burton 35:50
when really to be able to get their input, when you’re in the midst of a pandemic, like that, I’m sure is what spurred so many more people to participate in the survey, because they had more opinions, because we’re fresh, and they you know, and they, I’m sure appreciated that you’re reaching out and asking for their opinion asking if they want to be involved with the process. So I think the timing, although it didn’t seem great, on the surface, probably couldn’t have been better to get that for sure. Feedback from your community.

Brad Lacy 36:17
Yep, for sure.

Brandon Burton 36:19
I think that transitions well into my next question for you is, how do you view the role of your chamber there in your community?

Brad Lacy 36:31
I think we are often the middle ground that people are looking for these days. You know, Conway is pretty purple town politically. There’s a section of it, that’s very blue, and there’s a section of it, that’s very red. And I think we tend to be this place where a lot of the different sides can come to agree on things. And so we do our best to stay there. I’ve never seen a liberal or conservative person who didn’t think that job creation was important, right? I’ve never seen a liberal or conservative person who didn’t think quality place and quality of life was important. So I think chambers have the opportunity to play this part of, of helping bring both ends to the middle. Now, the extremes you’re never going to bring, because they don’t want. They don’t want to come to the middle. But the reality is, I think most of us are not the extremes. And so I think what we do is we help remind the community as a whole. And you’ve seen this, I think with our annual meeting, the annual meeting is really about helping people remember what we can accomplish. When we work together, it’s helping people understand why we’re special, it’s seeing their friends and neighbors on screen who look different from each other, who think different from each other. But they’re still working toward this common goal of building a world class city in the middle of Arkansas. And so I think that that’s the role we play is, is just this middle ground. Let’s roll our sleeves up and get the work done. And stay out of the, you know, crappy stuff that seems to dominate the headlines

Brandon Burton 38:39
like that. And, you know, you mentioned where the the ultra conservative or liberal like they both can agree that job creations are important. And and it’s not the chambers are looking for topics to grasp on to that are not controversial. But it’s topics that matter. And that can move the needle in a community and both sides can see where you know, something like job creation, and that example can move the needle. And I think

Brad Lacy 39:04
if you do those things, well, if you have a history of doing those things, well, there are things that you can get into. So for instance, and I don’t think this should be controversial, but I think it is, you know, the DBI diversity, belonging, equity and inclusion. I mean, you heard us present on that. And that would that would be controversial for some people. But we felt very strongly that we need to plant a flag there. And, and we have and we did and have, did we take on a little bit of water with some people in the community? Yeah, probably. But for the majority. I don’t think so. I think that they want us to speak on things like that. Because if it’s important to the business community that it’s important to us.

Brandon Burton 40:04
Absolutely. So Brad, I wanted to ask you if there if you might have a tip or an action item for listeners to help take their organizations up to the next level?

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Brad Lacy 40:16
Well, I think being ambitious is the biggest one, the main expecting more. I think that that probably guides us more than anything is that we expect more from ourselves. And we always think that we can get better. And we compare ourselves to the best. Which is part of the reason you do things like chamber of the year, you need to compare yourself to the best people out there. And you’ll always learn something from that, you know,

Brandon Burton 40:50
even just a benchmarking survey itself, that whole process, yeah,

Brad Lacy 40:54
right. And we do that as a community really, like we compare ourselves to other cities that we think we can learn something from, and we do that in a really formal way. So I just think being ambitious is is big. I think it’s so easy to just get caught up in the day to day activities of of what you do, and you just lose sight of trying to have some vision and and be the force that helps push your community in that direction.

Brandon Burton 41:28
I like that answer. So I’d like for a so many of your responses just flow right into the next question. So good. I like asking, yeah, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Brad Lacy 41:43
I think they’re incredibly important. And I think as important as they’ve ever been simply because of what I said before on this, this middle ground, that chambers should be able to be for people. Because of the interesting nature of our work, I mean, we represent the business community. Well, what the business community has to say, should be very important to whatever community they’re in, because if the business community disappears or go somewhere else, then you don’t have a community anymore. And, and so I don’t think that you have to be apologetic for having an opinion. If your membership is backing you up on it. I mean, that’s what you’re there for. However, I do think that the majority of things that we work on should be something that the majority of the people in your community can gravitate toward. You, you know, I’ve often said, in the 23 years that I’ve worked here, I have boards that have some of the most liberal and some of the most conservative people in the community on them. I have never in 23 years heard them argue or fight about national hot button political issues. I’ve never heard them talk about Barack Obama or Donald Trump or Joe Biden. I’ve never heard them talk about abortion, or any other all of the issues like I’ve never heard that. And the reality is, we don’t do that. That’s not what grows, the city of Conway, and so confer a common goal. That’s right. I mean, the stuff that we worked on is something that almost always, both sides can agree on. And and when you when you win together, it makes those harder times a little bit easier, because you end up knowing this person. And when you know somebody, even if they think differently than you. You can’t vilify them because you know, that you, you know, you’ve had lunch with them, you know, their families, you just you just think about the world a little bit differently. And so I really think chambers have this ability to can, again, it’s what we’re best at convening people, why we convene people better if we’re doing our job, we convene people better than any other group or organization in our community. And there is a power in that. There’s a responsibility in that. And so I think the future’s bright for chambers.

Brandon Burton 44:45
Absolutely. So Brad, this has been great having you back on the podcast. I’ve really enjoyed it. I wanted to give you an opportunity to put any contact information out there. So if anyone wanted to reach out and connect and learn more about how you’re doing things there and Conway, how should they have? Should they reach out and connect with you?

Connect with Brad Lacy

Brad Lacy 45:03
Sure, I mean, emails probably the easiest. And then if we want to move into a phone conversation or bring some other staff members in, we’d be happy to and that’s just brad@conwayarkansas.org in Arkansas spelled out completely.

Brandon Burton 45:18
That’s perfect. Now I’ll get it in the show notes for this episode as well. So people can go there and find it and shoot you an email and learn more about Toad sick days, you know? Absolutely. Well, Brad, I really do appreciate you coming on here with me and I wish you and the Conway area Chamber Best of luck, this chamber the air.

Brad Lacy 45:37
Thank you, we appreciate it.

Brandon Burton 45:38
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

Have you ever thought about creating a podcast for your chamber? We always hear about how chambers need to be storytellers. What better way is there to tell the stories of your members and the work of your chamber than through a podcast?

Your audience is waiting to hear from you as a convener of leaders and influencers champion for business and catalyst for change within your community.

I just launched a Chamber Podcast Course with the goal to get your very own podcast started within 30 days. Visit chamberchatpodcast.com/pivot. To learn more and to enroll in the chamber podcast course today. For a limited time as a launch promotion. This course is being offered at a 25% discount. Be sure to purchase the course today to lock in your savings before the price goes up., even if you’re not ready to start right away. Again, that’s chamberchatpodcast.com/pivot.

Get started with your own Chamber Podcast and shortcut your learning curve with the Chamber Podcast Course offered by Chamber Chat Podcast.
Have you considered the many benefits of hosting a podcast for your Chamber? The options, leverage, and possibilities that a podcast offers are virtually endless. Download my FREE Chamber Podcasting Guide to learn how to start your own Chamber podcast!

8 Content Methods to Strengthen Your Storytelling

Does Your Chamber Tell Stories?

How does your chamber show up as a storyteller in your community?  What types of stories do you tell?  Our current social media environment shows us that people love to consume stories.  Infact, some social media platforms are shifting from “social media posts” to “stories”.  We often hear how Chambers of Commerce need to be storytellers.  This is because we live in a world where facts and benefits about your organization are important but largely overlooked if you don’t have good stories to back up what you offer.  

I have seen many chamber websites and membership brochures that list the key benefits of and reasons why a business should become a member of their chamber.  While these “lists” have their place, showing the impact and value of your chamber is done much more effectively when done through stories.

Story Platforms

Your storytelling can take place face to face.  Stories can be shared in newsletters, emails, or on social media in snippets.  Some chambers may have a talented staff member who can shoot and edit video to tell their stories.  As you might guess, my preferred method of storytelling is through podcasts.

When thinking of the stories you have to tell, think about who is the ideal audience you want to share the story with.  Where are they?  Where do they hang out digitally?  Do they prefer printed text, pictures, video, or audio?  Are your stories better formatted towards a specific media?

Many chambers like to go straight to social media to tell their stories.  So do a Facebook Live video.  My observation and opinion is that people open their social media apps when they are bored, tired, or stressed.  Social media becomes a mindless activity to pass time without truly engaging on any kind of meaningful level.  For this reason, I would strongly recommend NOT having social media be your primary medium for telling stories.  By all means, use social media to magnify and perpetuate your stories but choose another medium to host and share your stories from.  You may choose to repurpose some of your stories on social media as a teaser or an advertisement for the story in its entirety.

For most chambers, this would leave two primary content mediums, video and audio.  Of course YouTube is the place to host any video content as viewers can subscribe to your channel to receive any updated content.  For audio, podcasts are the place to be.  I have a whole podcast course to teach you how to get started with a podcast.  Every iPhone comes with a podcast app already preinstalled.  This makes it super easy for your audience to listen.

Storytelling Content

Once you know what platform(s) you want to focus on to share your stories, you can then dive into the content for story creation.  I have identified eight types of stories you can tell through your podcast or YouTube channel.  You can choose as many as you feel are relevant to your community or that would add value to your members or attract new members.

  1. Member success stories or member spotlight.  You can interview your own members and have them share how your chamber has helped their business find success.  You can also go a little more generic and have your members tell you about their business or entrepreneurial journey.  People love to hear a good original story and it ends up being a great commercial for your member business as well.
  2. Impact of nonprofits.  Identify and interview other local nonprofit organizations in your area to tell the story of the impact they are making.  You can make the connection of how your chamber helps to support these nonprofits or ways you have partnered with them.
  3. Community Partnerships.  Community partnerships often need a bit more of an explanation for the general public to understand why the partnership exists and what the combined mission is about.  There are often success stories that can go along with partnerships and the impact that is being made in the community.
  4. Advocacy Efforts.  In a very generalized sense, many of your members are still transactional members.  They want to know what the chamber can do for them and if they don’t see it on their bottom line, then they don’t see any value.  By sharing the stories of your advocacy efforts and the direct impact to each member of your chamber, you may sway some of your transactional members to become transformational members.  Promoting your advocacy work also will show your community that the chamber is about business and what is good for business.  The chamber is the sane center where both sides of the isle can come together for the good of your community.
  5. Impact of Events/Initiatives.  If you have people in your community who complain about why the city and/or chamber of commerce shuts down traffic each year for a festival that runs the whole weekend, then it might help to share why.  Telling of the economic impact, increased sales tax revenue, and hotel occupancy in addition to the other positive outcomes of your events might help your community better understand what the chamber is about.
  6. Staff Spotlight.  Do your members and your community know your staff?  Do they understand what the role is of each member of your staff?  If they have a need, wouldn’t it be nice if they felt like they knew the person they were reaching out to?  Doing regular staff spotlights will lead to building stronger relationships with your members which should help with your retention numbers.
  7. Why Members Join.  You are well aware that there are always businesses in your community who don’t know what a chamber of commerce is or why they should be involved.  Collecting and sharing stories of why businesses join your chamber can help to tell a better story or what your chamber has to offer without producing a long list of member benefits.  Remember, people have short attention spans and taking time to highlight just one or two reasons businesses join your chamber at each time will have the most impact.
  8. Testimonials.  A while back, I had Shari Pash on the podcast to talk about testimonial strategies.  This is actually a very simple way of telling very short stories.  Testimonials can be used in many ways.  From reading a testimonial on a podcast episode to including a member testimonial in your email signature, you should be gathering and sharing testimonials all the time!  Testimonials create credibility, social proof, and help with recruiting and retaining members.  Feel free to leave a testimonial or review for Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple Podcasts and see how I might integrate your testimonial into my storytelling strategy. 🙂

You are now equipped with eight strategies for your chamber to be a storyteller.  Now, you just need to lean into your medium of choice (audio or video) and then amplify your stories on your social media channels.  You may find it beneficial to tell some stories over video while others are better on a podcast.  If you utilize this strategy, you can also cross promote your platforms to each other and continue to grow your audiences.


Please join our email list to receive new blog posts are they are released. You will stay in the loop with any announcements related to the podcast or the Chamber world in general.

Be sure you are subscribed to Chamber Chat Podcast in your favorite podcast app. Subscribers are the first to get episodes as new ones come out each week.

Eliminate the Question of What Your Chamber Does with Chris Russell

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG_0371.jpg

Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Chris Russell. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Introduction

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.

Unknown Speaker 0:14
And now your host, the rich of his podcast has far exceeded what he ever imagined.

Voiceover Talent 0:20
He’s my dad Brandon Burton.

Brandon Burton 0:22
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it’s my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.

Our title sponsor is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Let’s hear from Diane Rogers, President and CEO of the Rancho Cordova Area Chamber to learn how the Holman Brothers have provided value for her.

Diann Rogers 0:46
As a medium sized chamber, we recognize that it’s absolutely critical to have a well qualified and well trained membership development person. Holman Brothers trained that person, recruited that person then they even trained me on how to manage that person. We’re grateful for the support we got.

Brandon Burton 1:00
You can learn more about Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions by visiting holmanbros.com.

Doug & Bill Holman know how to diagnose and solve
member recruiting issues faster and better than anyone else, and they want to put
that knowledge to work for you and your chamber. Learn more at HolmanBros.com.

Guest Introduction

Our guest for this episode is Chris Russell. Chris joined the Nixa Chamber as the president and CEO and that’s Nixa, Missouri. He joined as the president CEO in March of 2018. Prior to his role, he spent several years in the real estate world with Keller Williams as a trainer, business coach and Team Leader of local ever local office. Chris also spent six years serving on Nixa city council, in addition to his many years volunteering at various capacities in his community, including 25 years as a high school football announcer. Currently, he not only serves the chamber, he serves on many other boards in the next area, the next chamber was a struggling chamber that really needed a boost. When he took over they had around 325 members and now have over 550 members and I’ve increased the annual budget by over $200,000. The Nixa chamber hosts on average about 110 various events from ribbon cuttings, groundbreaking ceremonies and luncheons are actually shows her thinks that luncheons are boring networking events, and they took over the town’s annual festival, that in 2018 was on the brink of being cancelled to now an averaging over 25,000 people in 2019, and even more in 2021. They also hold an annual business expo called Nick’s bow, which brought close to 4000 in just last month, and last year, they brought back the town’s firework show that had been gone for nearly 10 years. His latest thing he’s working on now is to bring the chamber world into the VR world, which sounds very interesting. Chris, welcome to Chamber Champions is share something interesting,

Chris Russell 2:51
Right and thank you so much. Well, here’s an interesting fact talking about Nixa. We’re the only Nixa in the entire world. Located right here to southwest Missouri. So if you know where Branson Missouri is, or Springfield, Missouri, we’re actually about 10 minutes south of Springfield and about 20 minutes nor I actually probably 3035 minutes north of Branson, but there’s parts of Brandon and get to pretty quick. So we sit right here in the center of the Southwest Missouri hub and glad to be here on the show with you today. Brandon only mix in the world. And another fun fact, we’re the home of Jason Bourne actually in high school. His name was David Webb. So if you ever watched the Bourne Supremacy, movies, all that kind of stuff, they say, Jason, whenever your front name was David Webb, you’re from Nixon, Missouri, so Yeah, fun fact.

Brandon Burton 3:29
I didn’t know that. Yeah, that’s

Chris Russell 3:31
yeah. The movie theater, watch the movies. He goes, You’re from Nixa, Missouri. When I went. I was like, What the heck? You know, that’s kind of crazy. I

Brandon Burton 3:38
know where that is. Well, tell us a little bit about the Nixa chamber. Yeah, besides being the only Nixon in the world, maybe sighs. You mentioned budget staff.

About the Nixa Chamber

Chris Russell 3:50
Yeah. So I have a staff of for two full timers and one part timer. We have a retired person. She’s also serves on the city council, but she comes in and covers lunches. So we can go do various events and activities and those kinds of things. And then I have an Events Coordinator, which she’s frantically preparing our big, huge Secretary music arts and crafts festival coming up in two weeks. And then we have our operations and membership director, which is at Christiana, and she course takes care of all membership related stuff, making sure our sponsors get taken care of those kinds of things. And then of course, my job is to kind of be that logistics guy, the big thinker guy, I’m in all the economic development meetings, planning meetings, of course, I’ll step in and meet with members and kind of puff them up a little bit. And then, you know, really, I love to sit down with our businesses and have one on one discussions. I had a new business startup come in here yesterday, we did a coaching session for about an hour about all the things that she needs to be doing to get prepared. So that’s kind of my role and kind of kept keep keep the ship moving forward, if that makes sense. Yeah, we have right at 557 Members, I think is what it was last week at our board meeting. We’re growing. We’ve actually continued to grow through the last two years, I think in the year of COVID we to 2020 122 new members As, and we have about a 91% attrition rate or mean, retention, retention rate, I don’t want to do

Brandon Burton 5:06
anything, you don’t want to brag about what you

Chris Russell 5:08
were there. And you know why? And here’s the thing, right? And it’s not me. I mean, yeah, we have some energy. And I bring a lot of fun ideas. But, man, I tell you what, I’m just really proud of the way that our community rallies upon around our chamber. And it’s all of our great board members are ambassadors, and we work with them, we do fun things for them, we encourage them and, and that is something that I’ve found that is really the lifeblood of our chambers growth is creating those great big fans out there and giving them a chance to be leaders to be seen to be to to listen to them to take their ideas and implement them and and make it one big family because that’s that’s where chambers really grow is when you have great support from the members and the community.

Brandon Burton 5:51
Absolutely. And I think that is a perfect segue into what our topic for today is, which is, chambers all over get asked the question whether to their face or behind their back of what is the chamber do? So the point of our discussion today, you guys are very active with events and activities. So the topic that we settled on is eliminating the question of what is your chamber do so we’ll get into that discussion as soon as we get back from this quick break.

Are you looking for a year round affordable and timely shop local campaign for Are you looking for a year round affordable and timely shop local campaign for your chamber or CVB Look no further build a custom each shop play mobile app with App My Community by visiting appmycommunity.com/chamberchat. App My Community mobile apps are not just simple membership directory listings. They provide many more capabilities to engage with your community. Provide your residents with a robust events calendar partner with a local fare festival or Farmers Market provide a schedule map and other resources to promote the event. Run a Small Business Saturday campaign any time of the year using built in scavenger hunts allow your membership to communicate directly to their customers via push notifications. Your app my community mobile app will be a unique member benefit allow you to generate non dues revenue with sponsorship opportunities and best of all provide a valuable resource to your community please visit appmycommunity.com/chamberchat now to receive 10% off your first year of an App My Community mobile app.

App My Community creates mobile apps that allow you to engage directly with your community. Enhance chamber membership by providing a unique advertising and communication channel to residents and visitors. Not just a member directory, App My Community has the tools to be useful to residents on a daily basis. Learn more at appmycommunity.com/chamberchat.

Chamber Nation hears from its customers that they help make it fun again to present the value of membership. That’s because so much is provided to help each member promote their business and with monthly ROI reports from Chamber Nation, they know their membership is already working to help them succeed.

There are three words in Chamber of Commerce…. and Chamber Nation knows that their customers take care of the CHAMBER, but Chamber Nation takes care of the COMMERCE. This way both teams working side-by-side deliver a whole lot more in membership value. 

With Chamber Nation, not only will you have a membership management system but also a membership development system all in one terrific package. So, SAVE MONEY and be impressed by visiting www.RichardsCalendar.com to set up a demo with their CEO. Or learn more at  www.ChamberNation.com.

Visit ChamberNation.com to learn more.

All right, Chris, we’re back. So as I teased with the topic for this discussion, eliminating the question of what is your chamber do? When was the last time you were asked? What is the next chamber? Do?

Topic-Eliminate the Question of “What does Your Chamber Do?”

Chris Russell 8:34
You know we still get it? Um, the lady who came in yesterday just to pop in she wanted to know what a chamber does, right? I mean, but they she was new, and she was new to entrepreneur, one wants to open up a juice bar here in town and really wanted to know what the next chamber was. The funny thing was, is that her food supplier, which is like us foods or something, they told her that she needed to come to the next chamber. And so I thought, well, that’s the first time that’s happened. You know, not a lot of times we get referrals from other Chamber members, but from a national distributor saying you really need to go in and I hear great things about the next chamber. And that that made me smile that made me happy. So So we still get that question, but we tried to eliminate that, you know, one of the things that I think we were already moving in this direction of really being not only business to business, that’s a big part of what chambers do, right? We create those networking opportunities. We create those training opportunities, we create those you know, the luncheons or whatever and those type of events, ribbon cuttings, of course, and that’s a lot of that business to business and we need to still do that. That’s that’s good old fashioned chamber one on one right there. What I noticed is that especially in a town like Nixa so we’re our population here in the city limits about 25,000 people. We look in the zip code, we’re about 32,000. But we’re tucked right up next to Springfield, which is 180,000 people and their chambers about 1300 people members and we’re we’re about 550 and what we noticed is that when you’re when you’re in a town this size, and we’re really in that suburb of Springfield, we have a lot of that service sector businesses we don’t have that many businesses that that actually attract people from around the area to come in here we have a handful, right? What I mean is that I’m not passing this franchise in Springfield to come to the franchise and Nixa. Does that make sense? Yeah. I’m not passing that dentist in Springfield to come to the dentist in Nixa. We do have a few Nick’s of hardware, it’s kind of renowned that they’re they track regionally, a lot of people that come in. So we started taking on this idea that if we’re going to help our small businesses grow, then we need to create an avenue or a platform that also connects to our community. So if I’m, so if I’m a small business, and I’m a, my, my primary customers or clients are coming from the next a proper, I don’t I can’t afford to go spend on advertising on radio or TV that you’re paying to hit a reasonable reach. Does that make sense? So I’m paying a lot of money, but I’m also going to be reaching out to a 60 or 70 or 80 mile radius. I don’t need that my customers are coming from right here Nixa. So that’s where, when we decided to take over the town festival, when we decided to take over the printing of our directory, our printed directory right here in our chambers of outsourcing it. When we added the firework show when we decided to take our business expo to a new level that was so that we’re creating a way that our businesses have a resource right here we become the media for them to reach the clients or reach our citizens. And that that really was a game changer for me. And we saw our revenues go up because they saw that as a valid resource. I think that’s one way that we’ve kind of answered that question on what are the Chamber’s do well, we create them a platform, through our events through our activities through our new experience Nick’s app, which is this a city wide garage so we can an extent we’ve been utilizing the app to do scavenger hunts with that for people, we made this big, long list, Brandon, of all these crazy things you might find at a garage sale, and find it was actually kind of fun making the list. But oh, yeah, I remember those. And they The goal is for people to go out with a garage selling to take a picture of it, upload it to the app, and then they’ll have a chance to win some prizes on Monday. Well, that’s another

Brandon Burton 12:06
word chambers providing the prizes to engage families in the

Chris Russell 12:10
that’s people shopping out there. Right. So. So that’s one of the ways that we’ve done that. And I know that a lot of times you see, what’s that? What’s that comment parades, or whatever, you know, it’s which one do the

Brandon Burton 12:23
three P chambers and pancakes and parades and pancakes, right?

Chris Russell 12:26
And here’s the thing is that, I think, especially in our community, when we’re so close to a major metropolitan area well, and Springfield is not even that big when compared to like St. Louis, Kansas City or Tulsa. But it’s still that in our scale of things, that’s that’s how we look at it, we have got to be that resource that is also giving our citizens and a chance to connect with our businesses. And that has been the game changer, which means a little bit more work. But honestly, it’s it’s fun. I mean, yeah, it’s a lot of work to do a town festival, it’s a lot of extra work to do an app and, and to create those resources for our businesses to connect to our community. But man, they appreciate it so much.

Brandon Burton 13:04
Yeah, that’s the end, you got to know your community. So I mean, it doesn’t work necessarily for every community, but understand your community. I think the example you gave the proximity of where you are to Springfield, and what’s going to draw people into your community, you need to have those events, those things that draw people in, and then once they’re there, you’re engaging with them, you’re providing great, whether it’s entertainment, like a show or a luncheon type show or so share with us maybe some of these things that you’re doing. You mentioned the app, which I think is fantastic. And and I imagine you can get creative with that too, with even plugging in some member restaurants or something, you know, find these things and scavenger hunt and eat lunch or whatever. And but what are some of these other activities or events that you guys put

Chris Russell 13:51
on? So let’s look at let’s look at this get back to the basis of a chamber right so a couple of things that we do. One of them is you know, the Chamber luncheon, right? Everybody has a lot of people have a chamber luncheon as well. luncheons to me are boring. I mean, you listen, let’s just let’s just play this out. And I’m not saying anything about about those who had the traditional luncheon because they they are normally very informative. But they’re very, they’re very scripted, if you will. So you walk in the network for about 20 minutes, and they sit down. And then you already have your cheesecake or the chocolate cake there and you get your salad plate there. And somebody stands up and they say thank you for coming. Thank you to our sponsors. Hey, we’re back in about 20 minutes with a guest speaker today. Enjoy your meal. You sit there with your table, eat for a little bit. And then finally here comes a speaker and let’s pray together good, right? And then you’re there for 45 minutes listening to them talk about a topic that you may or may not be interested in. And then you get up and as fast as possible. Can you leave that’s that’s the typical lunch. That’s the format that we’re all used to. Well, I like it and there’s there’s a time in place for that. Absolutely. But we decided that and of course a little bits of all my personality. You heard my bio that I’ve been doing, you know football games for 25 years. I mean when you when you’re a high school football announcer any kind of an announcer MC, there’s an element of a show that goes into that. So I decided that let’s let’s change this, let’s engage as many people as we possibly can at a luncheon and let’s do it in a talk show format. So I literally if you watch like the Late Show with Jimmy Fallon or any of those late shows, you know, What’s he do? He comes on? He has his opening monologue. Well, those are jokes. We call it. Good news Nixa. So I have a segment in there sponsored actually by expose marketing here Nixa, they sponsor that segment. And I tell about good news stories, I might play a video I might tell something that happened at city council meeting, I just was at a meeting went yesterday, one of our nonprofits kind of $35,000 grant from Delta Dental to help provide additional dental services to at risk kids. So that’s a good news story. So we’ll tell that for about 10 or 15 minutes. So that’s the opening monologue. And then we usually have our sponsor break, you gotta have a spotlight sponsor. But even then, unless that person’s a rockstar speaker, I will do q&a with them with a few slides, and I engage in them. And I’ll ask questions, and I’ll talk to them and have a conversation. And they see that so much more relevant than just getting up there and having to sit there make sure that they have their seven minute time, walked out perfectly with all these slides. And that has been more powerful. And that’s why those sellout each and every year, because they feel less pressure to have to do a presentation when it’s more about me doing an interview. And then of course, we get into some other segments where will we always have a transitional video. So when we go from one element to the next, I play video, because our school system is really good about making school videos, I will go grab one of their videos and we’ll play it right there like something that’s that happened at Nexus schools or something the city of Nixa did, or I’ll make a recap video of a chamber luncheon that we did a ribbon cutting that we did, and we do all of our ribbon cuttings on Facebook Live. And so it gives us a lot of content. And then after that we get into the sponsors, then finally, we’ll get into the actual meat of the subject. You know whether it’s last month it was I had, we did some grants for one of our Community Foundation. Well, that was fun. We were giving out free money at the Chamber luncheon. The month before we did an update with what the county’s master plan is for the next five years. Well, again, me and the county commissioner doing a q&a talking about it talking about the impact that is more of a show than it is a luncheon. And it involves so many people that they feel like they’re engaged, and we sell out each and every month. That’s just one of the things that we do differently.

Brandon Burton 17:18
That’s awesome. And that sounds a lot like a podcast to me. Now the way you do the interviews. Yeah, transitions. Yeah. I mean, you’ve got the all the elements that you’re selling tickets to you’re filling a room and you’re creating a great experience.

Chris Russell 17:31
And when you walk in, we’ve got it we got pumped up music plan we’ve got normally when you walk in, it’s not that hard to make videos, you know, these days to throw a bunch of pictures of your last month, until a little loop video. And we’re walking in there’s there’s energetic music, it’s fun, they’re dancing, we actually have somebody who announces the names and when they walk in. So my main sponsor of the annual sponsor, the lunches is GenCon, CPA and Kailyn. She’ll go And now ladies and gentlemen, welcome from the chamber podcast. It’s Brianna. And then we have our ambassadors are there with pom poms, and they’re cheering them on. There’s applause when everybody walks in, it’s like you’re walking up to bat at a major league baseball game. That’s awesome element that’s different. And it’s exciting. And it brings energy and people love it.

Brandon Burton 18:18
And it breaks down some of those, you know, resistances and barriers that people might have at a typical networking type function where you’re just sitting at the table trying to small talk with the people there, like you’re having a common experience and building upon it. So I love that. You

Chris Russell 18:32
know how a lot of a lot of chambers will do like raffle drawings at a chamber event. And they usually wait to the very end, they do the raffle drawings and nobody leaves. No, we do it. First. We want to get people excited right off the bat plus, it’s a nice transition to get everybody into their seats. And as you start the raffle drawing, so that was an element that we changed as well. And that was kind of a cool thing. So there I have an ambassador comes up, she gives out the raffles. And that kind of gets everybody ready. And then all of a sudden here come to the show and bring energy and it’s just a different way of doing it. But however, I see it working Brandon and people like to be there. Our chamber luncheon next week is I told Christiane, our operations that you might want to send a reminder email and she goes, Well, we’re almost full. Are you sure we need to? So we’re selling these things out? Well in advance and people and we do season passes, too. But so that’s that’s the excitement that we bring with that event, because we do have so many cool announcements that goes on during that chamber show, not the luncheon.

Brandon Burton 19:26
spend just a minute talking about the the annual pass. I think that’s yeah,

Chris Russell 19:30
no. So yeah, yeah, it’s really been a Well, I think we had 60 Some of them sold so you can buy your annual passes. Now, the way that we do our funding, Brandon, is that we do the total resource campaign model. And that was another big game changer for us. I know a lot of chambers use that. They also use like different campaign styles. By us having 30 to 40 volunteers go out each and every year and sell our inventory for us on non dues revenue. Those are 30 to 40 Cheerleaders that are out there talking about the Nixa chamber and saying here Here’s why you as a business need to be engaged. Well, we introduced with that the season passes so that they can buy an annual pass. Businesses don’t want to have to worry about logging in each and every week or month, I’m sorry, and making sure they have their ticket for the monthly luncheon or chamber show. And so they they’re more than happy to spend a couple 100 bucks and just buy that season pass at the beginning of the year. And then that way, they know they have a ticket each and every month. We do that with our working women and Nixa, our networking group, and then also our chamber show, and I think we’ve got, I think it’s 60 or 70, I’d have to go ask my operations, exactly how many we sold last year, but we have a guaranteed built in base each and every month because they just buy them. And if they can’t make it, they’re able to take their QR code and give it to one of their colleagues in our office.

Brandon Burton 20:43
Okay, that’s all right. Great idea. So you had mentioned at the beginning about the 91% retention rate, which is great feedback, you guys are providing value, your members see the value, they understand what you do, what are their feedback, so you get back from these returning members as they renew where they see in the most value from your chamber.

Chris Russell 21:03
You know, my favorite chamber member is not necessarily the one that we see all the time. My favorite chamber member that tells you as a chamber that you’re doing a good job is that company or corporation that you hardly ever see, because they see the value, but you never see them. So they know they want they read the emails, they see the Facebook posts, maybe they check the website, occasionally, maybe they’ve downloaded the experience next app, or they’re seeing the activities that we’re doing. And each and every year, they continue to write that check for six or $700 for them to be a member of the chamber, depending on their level, our lowest is 225. And our highest I think is 700. We do that we do that Fair, fair market value model with a mix of tears. So it’s kind of a combo. It’s a hybrid model. And that that that right there tells me that your chambers healthy when they’re not worried about what they get out of the chamber. And that’s a compliment. And I love to see those windows. I love to see the renewals of those who are engaged as well. Don’t get me wrong, there’s there’s value to that too. And as new members come in, and they get engaged in the chamber, that that’s new energy, it’s new blood is new volunteers. It’s new ambassadors. But again, when you have those members who say, hey, Nixa chamber, we see what you’re doing. Thank you so much. Here’s your annual check, no questions asked. That to me tells you that you’re doing something right. Does that make sense? Brandon?

Brandon Burton 22:16
Yeah, that’s another form of feedback that speaks volumes for sure.

Chris Russell 22:21
It does. And occasionally, you’ll see them show up to something big that we’re having, which is great. We had a groundbreaking for a $4 million new business coming into downtown Nixa a few weeks ago. And that brings out people that you don’t normally see. So that was fun. But that that to me, tells us that we’re doing the right things. You know, I think I think most people know that in my community that that I’m pretty engaged. I mean, I have I grew up here, Brandon, I went to high school. If you can’t see it, we’re on video here. But we’re not on video on the podcast. But right behind me. That’s my football helmet, you know, football helmets right back there. I played quarterback for the Knicks eagles. I’ve announced the games. My dad was a fire chief in town. For many, many years. I served on city council, I volunteer a lot and a lot of areas. So this is this is my bread and butter. There’s no doubt about it. However, you still have to maintain that this doesn’t mean you get a free pass, you still have to go out there and earn the respect. And they see that I’m at the city council meetings, they see that I’m I’m in these these these committees like the Nixon Community Foundation, the downtown revitalization group, they see me emceeing events promoting our community. And I think there’s a lot of that said that, that that’s another reason they want to get behind what the Chamber’s doing, not necessarily because of me, but because they see the overall efforts. And then I see how I engage and bring people up to be leaders. And that’s that’s what’s really been powerful for us is that finding those ambassadors, finding those board members that we are highlighting and showcasing and showing the community that it’s not just about the chamber, that we’re actually giving opportunities for other people in our community, to be seen and to have the spotlight and to take ownership of whatever they’re doing. You know, I mean, like our secretary music arts and crafts festival, we have 13 different nonprofits that we work with for that event. I have organizations running the dog show for the love of canines. I got the local FFA. That’s one of the the petting zoo. I’ve got the Arts Council that’s running the art show. I mean, so we engage a lot of different groups that they get ownership of that and therefore they get the highlight and the spotlight and it makes them feel good. And then they want to be a part of our chamber.

Brandon Burton 24:23
Yeah. So you’ve mentioned soccer days a few times for those people that are not from Nixa was a soccer days is. Yeah, it’s

Chris Russell 24:31
funny is that back in the 1950s. I mean, literally the entire town. I got to there’s a poster over here my wall that shows that it’s our history panel we used on our kiosks. But anyway, it talks about how the towns close going fishing or something like that. And the 1950s I mean, they would all go down to the river and sucker fish is a native, well, they’re sacrificial all across the world, but it’s one of those Ozarks traditions that they spawn in the fall or the spring and the town will go down and try to catch a bunch of sucker fish and they would actually A camp and celebrated the river. Well, in 1957, they brought the tradition back to Nixon started an annual fish fry. And with an annual fish fry, it kind of grew from there. And in 2018, the event was ran by the traditional good ol boys group that that held the festival. And it really had taken a turn where just wasn’t, it wasn’t very good. And people actually made fun of it. And they were they were going to shut it down. And I was at a breakfast with me and the committee and the mayor. And I was like, Guys, just let me think on this, just hold on. I grew up the Saturdays, this is my hometown. And I went back to my board of directors and said, I’m going to take over Saturdays I said, we as a chamber, I said, they went wack in at that time, I was fairly new. So I joined in March 2018. Sucker days in 2018, was May, I made the decision in June, so March, April, May, June, three months into the role and I’m going we’re taking it over. And the board was like, Are you sure I said, guys, I said I got a model. And I think we can do this. And it’s going to create an opportunity for more of our businesses to be exposed to our community. And it’s actually been pretty powerful and it’s really wonderful. It’s a wonderful event in a bring 25 to 30,000 people in downtown Nixa for three days and it’s a little downtown block. It’s not even that big and it’s just fun and it’s like a Hallmark Channel event. Like a Hallmark Channel movie right and so we have the Little Miss Main Street pageant. We have the Secretary King and Queen and we do all these fun things. We’ve been doing a new thing this year, the sucker day dog king and queen we got these cute little crowns today. So you know it’s just really really engages our community and my goal was to create as many opportunities for exposure for Nixa and we have several high school groups that are engaged. We have the marching band, we have the theater department, we have the art club, we have the FFA we talked about we have the JROTC so we have all these different groups of the high school kids that are getting engaged, and to be a part of it. So it’s really, it’s really become a cool thing. It is a lot more work. And we have to dedicate a lot of time to it. We do have a great committee, but in the end, it comes down to what happens here behind the scenes to make it happen. But it’ll generate 50 to 75. Probably I think I looked at the p&l the other day, I think we’re up to depending on weather, of course, right? We know whether an outdoor festivals, if we have a great weekend and we do a lot of ride tickets, then we should generate somewhere around 70 to $75,000 in revenue.

Brandon Burton 27:21
That’s great. Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s big.

Chris Russell 27:24
So it’s a big no. Our next, our next boat generated our business expo generate about 40,000 revenue this year. And that was 108 booths for six hours and our high school that we did our business expo. And I think the the it was 38,000. And something I had the p&l here the other

Brandon Burton 27:40
day, 36 hours. That’s yeah, pretty good. Good bang.

Chris Russell 27:44
We were sold out event. And again, the traffic was just unbelievable. That day, it was just nonstop traffic all day. And our businesses really liked that event. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 27:53
Well, I wanted to ask you is if you have any tip or action item for listeners to Yeah, they can do to make sure that they stay relevant. Make sure their members know what their chamber does. What would you suggest?

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Chris Russell 28:06
I’ll give you a couple of things here. First of all, unlimited thinking. I see as I talk to a lot of chambers at conferences and on some of the panels especially, you know, 2000 22,021 as we’re all kind of figuring out what was next I unlimited possibility unlimited thinking, you know, one of the very first things that we did when we found out that the city of Nixa was going to more than likely locked down the town like all of us went through, the very first thing that I did was I pulled in my staff and we re re rebuilt our master plan. We went straight to the drawing board and said, Okay, this is going to happen. How do we become more relevant? Now? The good news is, is that the next chamber I’m kind of techie, and that’s an advantage. I don’t disagree. I really am. We were already in the video world at a high level, doing Facebook Live videos with graphic overlays. And that was kind of fun things. And but we decided that it was time to take that to the next level that we weren’t going to let a lock down to slow us down. And we got creative on certain ways that we did things drive in chamber luncheons, right. I mean, we literally had everybody drive into a parking lot. And we had everybody even the cars were six feet apart. I mean, come on. But you know, the funny thing was, that was June of 2020. The funny thing was because we’re in the Midwest and southwest Missouri, and it’s a little little different than other parts of the country. So I respect that. I remember we were parking all these cars six feet apart. We had people out there with poles, making sure the cars were six feet apart. And we had our volunteers and we had box lunches were in basically hazmat suits to hand them out in June of 2020. And then what happened was as soon as they got there, you know what they did? They jumped out of the car and went jumped in with their friends. I mean, it is what it is. But it’s always thinking outside the box. What can we be doing different, right? And that’s like, you know, you and I were talking off camera before the podcast about Andre from Bentonville. And I hope you do get him on here. I look forward to that podcast. The guy was at it. We were at Mako conference and he brought up the VR headset. And I’m like, dude, I got to talk to you because I’m already there horizon worlds and meta is spinning billions upon billions of dollars creating this metaverse. And if we as chambers, don’t figure out how to grasp on or get ahead of that and get there now before everybody else does. We have local churches in southwest Missouri that have already built, already built their Metaverse church. And in addition to that, Wendy’s just spent like tons of money to build the first virtual reality world, Wendy’s, and there’s other companies that are following suit. And I’ve actually been talking to some other industry leaders don’t Hey, how do we capitalize on that I actually built within and learn how to build the world because it’s all user created content. I built one of our local parks and after Saturday’s, we’re having a virtual reality world meet up for all those who have headsets in the community. Then see the Facebook post and the invites to come in and check it out. Because we find that you can actually connect with the community easier in the VR world, you’re you have less boundaries, and how can we create that next step to connect with with Nixa. So that’s something that we’re doing. But the other thing too is, is that my other big tip is what’s been a game changer for us too, is what I call a video on the go live video on the go with graphic overlays good audio, I have taught this class to chambers all across the country, I’ve done one on one conversations, I’ve been on webinars done on the conferences, if you need help really, truly learning how to make professional looking videos, within 20 minutes when rolling up and a live ribbon cutting, I highly encourage you to reach out to me, I’d be happy to show you what we do. You go and check out Nick’s at chambers Facebook page, go to our video section, you’ll see what I’m talking about. We’re talking about rolling into a mower shop the other day, getting some quick B roll and then making a professional looking video within about 20 minutes. And so that’s something that I really think can be a game changer for your community is figuring out how to capitalize on Facebook Live video and not just a just holding up a camera and hitting record. That that has been a big game changer for us as well.

Brandon Burton 31:51
That’s awesome. So I asked everyone I have on the podcast this question and you’ve kind of been addressing it already throughout this interview. But as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future chambers and their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Chris Russell 32:04
Well, that’s a weighted question. You know, I think you know, you’ve been talked about that a little bit of Mako and I know I had that conversation. Again, what’s that common saying that you hear when you see in one chamber, you’ve seen one? Right? I think the biggest thing is understanding your position in your community. I think that’s step number one. I’m I also know that a chamber of commerce needs to have solid relationships with all entities in your community. And I’ve talked to so many chambers who don’t have a great relationship with their city or their school system, you need to fix that you got to fix that that’s, that has to be cured that there has to be something that you focus on and making sure that those relationships are solid. But the other one is you you know we have in our mission statement to be the premier business organization and it goes on and on, will be the premier business organization. If that means you need to have events for your community than have them. And that means you need to have networking events that have them. That means that you need to be techie. And you need to be the leading edge when it comes to showcasing because you are the example that a small business who moves into your town or start does a start up in your town. They’re looking at the chamber and how they function. And if we’re not functioning that that way, then how are they expected to function that way? I have the same conversation with businesses each and every month. I say, when I’m doing coaching, I say do you close out your your books each month? And they’re like No, I said, well guess what chambers? Do we have to close out our books each month and give our p&l statements right or our current budget statements to our board for review? Well, why businesses don’t operate like that? Well, if you’re not operating like that, and you’re not doing it at a high level, then how can you expect a business to do that? So I think the future of chambers understanding where you’re at in your town, and then being the most premier business that you can, and being techie, I think you’ve got to be techie. And you got to be innovative and figure out a way to connect with your audience. All right, that makes sense. That was a lot, dude, I just don’t, that was a big break.

Brandon Burton 33:52
It’s a podcast that can hit that backup, 30 seconds button a couple times this

Chris Russell 33:56
slow down button to you know, on the podcast, you can either speed it up, you don’t need to speed up my podcast, I

Brandon Burton 34:01
was thinking, you know, I usually stick to about 30 minutes on these podcasts. But these people, their listeners are getting about 60 minutes worth of value as they listen to you.

Chris Russell 34:11
I love helping I love I love what I do. And I looked and I love to help other chambers and I think that we only get stronger. I mean, I’ve had powerful conversations with like April Bragg and Georgia and some of these other chamber pros and when I go to these conferences, I’m there to learn. And when I find people are doing things at a high level like Bentonville, Arkansas, man I become a I become a sponge. I mean he he gave us some of those tech tips. We’ve already implemented three of them, right we’re slack, there’s slack in the right now I mean there it is right there I just got another message sitting here we’re already implementing other things that we can learn from each other. If we can help each other grow with our through leadership that was another thing great about Mako was a lot of leadership portions. We all go to these these these conferences and economic development Workforce Development what to do about childcare. I don’t take care of your members. No, we need more leadership opportunities to grow as people. That’s, that’s my, that’s what I love to do is help people grow. And that’s that’s and we do it for our businesses and we should be doing it internally as well.

Brandon Burton 35:12
Absolutely. So Chris, I wanted to give you a chance to put any contact information out there for anyone that wants to reach out and connect and ask him more questions about how you’re doing things. Absolutely.

Connect with Chris Russell

Chris Russell 35:20
I’m on MySpace. MySpace is my favorite place to go to MySpace. Yeah, we’re still there. No, I’m kidding. Literally, find me on Facebook. Look up. Chris Russell Nixa, Missouri. Of course, my phone number you want to text me Call me? 417-773-7678? I’d love to talk to you. Of course, we can do. email chrisrussell@nixachamber.com, actually, probably not on the email me email sucks. I hate that platform. It’s terrible. It really is. I mean, we’ve got to figure out a way to get past email. I mean, it really is becoming a burden. I think for all of us. Would you not agree, Brandon? memb. Yeah, me emailed me the other day about the bio and I didn’t even see it. And it took you a reminder email for me to go in and type the bio out. Yeah, yeah. It’s just not a great connect. So call me or text me, that’s probably the best thing.

Brandon Burton 36:07
Okay. I’ll get that in the show notes for this episode. So people can check that out and connect with Chris and he’s got lots of ideas, lots of energy, and he loves to share these ideas too. So do reach out and connect with him. Learn from him, let him learn from you. And, you know, make everybody better.

Chris Russell 36:25
I want to learn from you too, man. I want to find out what you’re doing. That’s, that’s the main thing. You just never know what you’re gonna learn. That’s right.

Brandon Burton 36:31
Well, Chris, this has been great, great discussion. I appreciate you being with me today on Chamber Chat Podcast and provided a ton of value. Appreciate it.

Chris Russell 36:40
Oh, thank you for having me, Brian. Appreciate it. Great job on your show too. It’s awesome.

Brandon Burton 36:43
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

From lost opportunities to miss recruiting goals, membership salespeople need expert coaching to push through and achieve.  It’s how top performers get ahead and stay there. With Next Level Coaching, the Holman Brothers become your membership reps de facto sales trainer, advisor sounding board, and mentor all rolled into one. Visit holmanbros.com/nextlevel to learn more and request a free trial of Next Level Coaching for your membership pro.

Click here for a FREE trial of Next Level Coaching from Holman Brothers.

Have you considered the many benefits of hosting a podcast for your Chamber? The options, leverage, and possibilities that a podcast offers are virtually endless. Download my FREE Chamber Podcasting Guide to learn how to start your own Chamber podcast!

Community Building with Karen Riordan

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG_0371.jpg

Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Karen Riordan. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Introduction

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.

And now your host she believes imagination brings the future into the present, he’s my dad, Brandon Burton.

Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host 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.

Our title sponsor is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Let’s hear from Kris Johnson, President and CEO of the Association of Washington Business in Washington State to learn how Holman Brothers has provided value for him. 

Kris Johnson  0:48  

Well, Doug and Bill at the Holman Brothers have been a key ally in growth for my professional career working at three different chambers, a local chamber, a regional chamber, now a statewide chamber. And they’ve been the ideal solution, whether it’s a comprehensive training program, whether it’s working on individual sales growth, quarterly check-ins with the team, the ability to grow members has meaning more assets for the organization, more assets means we can do more things to serve our members. They’ve really been the perfect solution for us, a trusted resource partner and a growth partner for us all along the way. So hats off to Doug and Bill for their great success. They’ll be a great partner for you as they are for us.

Brandon Burton  1:29  

You can learn more about Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions by visiting holmanbros.com.

Doug & Bill Holman know how to diagnose and solve
member recruiting issues faster and better than anyone else, and they want to put
that knowledge to work for you and your chamber. Learn more at HolmanBros.com.

Guest Introduction

Our guest for this episode is Karen Riordan. Karen serves as the President and CEO of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber in South Carolina, where she spends her time working with the business community and driving tourism. Karen brings 30 plus years of marketing and business management experience working as CEO for the greater Williamsburg chamber and Tourism Alliance, as well as at top marketing firms in Washington, DC and Boston. Over the course of her career, Karen has led marketing programs for leading brands and tourism including visit Williamsburg, the hub the Bahamas, Ministry of Tourism, Royal Caribbean International Amtrak Choice Hotels, international and Celebrity Cruises. Karen graduated from Boston College with a BA in speech communications and English. She was recognized in March 2021 is the first female president and CEO of the chamber at the city of Myrtle Beach’s celebration of Women’s History Month. In 2018, she was named chamber Executive of the Year by the Virginia association of Chamber of Commerce executives. She is the 2013 recipient of the American advertising Federation Silver Medal Award for service to the community and a 2012 honoree of the Washington Business Journal’s women who mean business when not working on branding Karen’s passions include traveling animal welfare, walking the beach, and all things made of chocolate. I think we could be best friends. No. I’m glad to have you with me today. Karen here on chamber tap podcast. I’d love for you to say hello to all the chamber champions and you hear something interesting?

Karen Riordan 3:18
Yeah. Hello to everyone and chamber world Chamber Champions. As you just heard, I do have a few core passions. I need to do all that walking on the beach to break even with all the chocolate that I eat. So that that other obsession right now and I feel like I absolutely have the dream job because it’s such a great honor to work in a tourism destination doing community work via the chamber. When I’ve had such a personal passion for travel my whole life. Ever since I was a little kid I’ve always wanted to see the country and see the world and I’ve been very fortunate to take my grandmother’s sage advice when I was young and tried to do that every chance I get so to again get to do this for a living his dream. So I feel very very fortunate to be able to promote beautiful Myrtle Beach South Carolina and get paid to do that.

Brandon Burton 4:16
That’s right it it is beautiful. I love Myrtle Beach. It’s an awesome place. Share with us a little bit about the Myrtle Beach chamber and its size, the staff budget kind of scope of work just to set the table for our discussion. Yeah, so

About the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber

Karen Riordan 4:30
the reason we have area in our name is Myrtle Beach area is that we are considered a Regional Chamber we actually have a pretty large trading area all the way from the northern part of our state that need is just a setting there underneath the North Carolina border up in Little River all the way down to beautiful Pawleys Island and then the entire west of the waterway as we like to call it which is Conway into Loris and Aner which encompasses Our entire county or county, so it’s a large trading area, we have about 2300 businesses, the 78% of the businesses that are part of our chamber are small business with 50 or less employees. So people think of Myrtle Beach and they think of tourism and they think of big companies. And yes, we do have some of those big companies as our members. But they said most of them are small. And a lot of them really are mom and pop. We have a lot of independent companies. Here in Myrtle Beach, it’s kind of part of our DNA. To serve those 2300 members, we’ve got 39 full time employees. And then we have five part time employees that work in our visitor centers. So we have a visitor center out at our airport, we have another visitor center located at our chamber. And then we have a mobile Visitor Center, which is a really awesome van that travels around the whole trading area, especially during event season popping in and giving away great Myrtle Beach swag to tourists and residents alike. So it’s a, it’s again, it’s a big chamber, it is a hybrid, in that we are both at Chamber of Commerce, and we’re also the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. So with that we have a huge responsibility to spend the public money that we do receive from our state and our county and our city’s well to you know, bring folks here to come and visit. So our total budget is about $65 million this year. So we do have a large budget to work with, which is a blessing.

Brandon Burton 6:34
Yeah, that is uh, I had no idea your chamber was so large 35 full time or 39 full time employees in the five part time in the the mobile visitor center. That is that’s creative. That’s something I haven’t seen before. Very productive, I’m sure to getting out to these different events currently. So we’ll be focusing our our topic for discussion today around one of those topics that really is core, I believe, for chambers of commerce, which is around community building. And that’s really how chambers got their start and kind of the reason why chambers exists throughout the country and really throughout the world. But I’m excited to get in this discussion with you as soon as I get back from this quick break.

Are you looking for a year round affordable and timely shop local campaign for Are you looking for a year round affordable and timely shop local campaign for your chamber or CVB Look no further build a custom each shop play mobile app with App My Community by visiting appmycommunity.com/chamberchat. App My Community mobile apps are not just simple membership directory listings. They provide many more capabilities to engage with your community. Provide your residents with a robust events calendar partner with a local fare festival or Farmers Market provide a schedule map and other resources to promote the event. Run a Small Business Saturday campaign any time of the year using built in scavenger hunts allow your membership to communicate directly to their customers via push notifications. Your app my community mobile app will be a unique member benefit allow you to generate non dues revenue with sponsorship opportunities and best of all provide a valuable resource to your community please visit appmycommunity.com/chamberchat now to receive 10% off your first year of an App My Community mobile app.

App My Community creates mobile apps that allow you to engage directly with your community. Enhance chamber membership by providing a unique advertising and communication channel to residents and visitors. Not just a member directory, App My Community has the tools to be useful to residents on a daily basis. Learn more at appmycommunity.com/chamberchat.

From frustrations trying to connect with decision makers to trouble demonstrating value to difficulties adjusting to an uncertain post COVID world who does your membership rep turn to for expert membership sales advice? Holman Brothers can help right now. They’re year round Next Level Coaching program supplies a total coaching and mentoring support system in a way that’s never been available for membership pros. Visit holmanbros.com/nextlevel to learn more and request a free trial of Next Level Coaching.

Click here for a FREE trial of Next Level Coaching from Holman Brothers.

Chamber Nation hears from its customers that they help make it fun again to present the value of membership. That’s because so much is provided to help each member promote their business and with monthly ROI reports from Chamber Nation, they know their membership is already working to help them succeed.

There are three words in Chamber of Commerce…. and Chamber Nation knows that their customers take care of the CHAMBER, but Chamber Nation takes care of the COMMERCE. This way both teams working side-by-side deliver a whole lot more in membership value. 

With Chamber Nation, not only will you have a membership management system but also a membership development system all in one terrific package. So, SAVE MONEY and be impressed by visiting www.RichardsCalendar.com to set up a demo with their CEO. Or learn more at  www.ChamberNation.com.

Visit ChamberNation.com to learn more.

All right, Karen, we are back. So as far as community building is concerned, how is the Myrtle Beach area Chamber approaching the task of community building?

Topic-Community Building

Karen Riordan 10:13
Great question. We’ve done a couple of different things in the last few years that actually began during the pandemic, or a little bit before. And even though it was more challenging to do community building, when we were quarantining, I really think that it makes a lot of sense that we continue to be as engaged as we possibly can with all of our stakeholders. So we actually have an official committee of our chamber, that’s called community engagement. And we have a several board members, that chair and vice chair that committee, and then we have lots of volunteers. So in addition to sort of a classic role as an ambassador that many chambers have, we have these additional volunteers that do have name tags that identify them as community engagement Council folks, and we go to neighborhood meetings. So we go to Hoa meetings, we go to city meetings and county meetings and civic meetings, and are constantly trying to engage with the business community, but also the residents. And that’s really, really important in our minds, because we do have a number of people now that have moved to Myrtle Beach in the last 10 years or so, that are retirees. Many of them are great captains of industry that have a lot to offer through programs like score and mentorship. But they’re not actively working in the business community anymore. So many of them are not Chamber members anymore. And we feel it’s really important to stay connected to them and have them be really educated and informed about what we’re doing at the chamber. And just things that are happening because Myrtle Beach is changing rapidly. And it’s hard to keep up with it if you don’t, you know, have sort of some constant communication. So the community engagement Council has been really important for us, as have our strategic efforts in diversity, equity inclusion, so we’re really looking to be able to reach out to more members of our community to make sure that our chamber board or chamber staff, our chamber membership really reflects the diversity that is here in the Myrtle Beach area. So those are those are two sort of things that I think most chambers would agree are important, and that they’re working on. Where we really kind of taken it beyond though, is to launch a new Chamber of Commerce Foundation. And we are calling that foundation partnership Grand Strand. One of the reasons we chose partnership, no surprise is because when we started doing feasibility interviews and community needs assessment interviews, the number one word that kept coming up in our interviews was, you know, we need to be better partners, we need to collaborate more, we need to make sure that, again, our governmental entities, like our city council’s and our County Council’s, even our state delegation, is really connected to the private sector and what the business community is thinking and feeling, as well as the resident community. So this has been a year and a half in the making. Or as they said, we started with a lot of research in serving and interviewing and focus groups, then we decided that we needed to do a feasibility study to see, you know, is this really something that the Chamber of Commerce should take on? Or is this better done, and led, say, for instance, by our economic development corporation here in the county, and overwhelmingly, we saw last fall when the results came in that people trusted the Chamber of Commerce. They believe that we had the right group of individuals here on our board in our membership to really make a go of it. So our board of directors voted in the fall of 2021, to proceed. And then we immediately started working on marketing materials and prospect lists and all those kinds of things and embarked on a quiet phase of a capital campaign to fund that foundation. We’ve just come out of the quiet phase and on a big public kickoff, with our goal of raising $3 million to fund five years worth of activity in the foundation. So very, very exciting. This is new territory for our chamber, we really leaned into what other chambers across the country have been doing in this area, and really did see that some of the most cutting edge and progressive chambers in our country, we’re really starting to move in this direction, to raise funds to do some of those projects that don’t ever seem to quite get done on our chamber repertoire because we’re so busy doing educational seminars and networking and legislative advocacy. And so we’re super super excited about this new chapter of community building.

Brandon Burton 15:04
Yeah. So I love I’m gonna take a step back just a little bit there. I love how you talked about involving the retirees in your community, a lot of people moving to Myrtle Beach as they retire. And for anyone who’s read on if you’ve read the book 13 ways to kill your community. And it was popular among chamber professionals. But one of those ways that communities and killed themselves is they ignore their seniors. And in the book, it talks about, you know, these seniors, they often have the time to volunteer, they they have an interest in the community they have experienced, they often will have money that they can help contribute to some of the causes and things you have going on. So I’d love to hear that. I mean, a lot of chambers are doing the D and I work, but to have that focus on the the retiree segment of the population, I think is huge. So I didn’t want to didn’t want to brush that over.

Karen Riordan 15:58
Yeah, no, I think that’s a great point. And the last thing I would add to that is that they both are very committed to the political process, and they do vote. And so they really do have the power to start to shape who are elected leaders are at the city level, the county level and the statewide level, which is really important. We want to make sure that folks that are you know, voting for different candidates, that those candidates are business friendly, that they are pro business, they, again, growth is a big issue in our area, just like it is in so many parts of our country, or a county has been named the second fastest growing county in the US. So with that growth comes a lot of opportunities, but also a lot of challenges. And so we do need to be all looking at ways to work together to make sure that the growth we have is manageable, and that our infrastructure can keep up with the growth that we’re experiencing right now. So yes, we absolutely ignore seniors at our peril, because they can also be such a force multiplier here. As you said, our local SCORE chapter, helping entrepreneurs start new businesses, you know, their whole mission is to recruit retirees that have run their own businesses, and teach that next generation of entrepreneurs, how to write a business plan, how to you know, how to set up how to get incorporated, how to hire folks. So I think we need to lean into the expertise that is in that community,

Brandon Burton 17:33
for sure. So I also wanted to touch on when you were talking about the foundation, and coming up with the name, partnership Grand Strand, you had done these surveys and got feedback and everything. And I can tell you have a marketing background because you use the language right that they were using in the surveys to help them resonate. So as you roll out the foundation, partnership, Grand Strand, you’re using their language, so resonates with them. And I think that’s a good lesson for chambers, you know, whatever programs or initiatives you’re trying to roll out, get feedback from people and use their language, when you go about launching it, whether it’s officially part of the name or just part of the material marketing.

Karen Riordan 18:14
You’re absolutely right, because that’s a way for them to to understand that they’ve been listened to that we’ve heard them. And that we also agree in this particular case, that partnership is a critical component. We, our community in years past has been accused of not being unified in sometimes not being able to progress the way we want to because, you know, one city squabbling with, you know, with a neighboring city, and we really are 14 communities along the coast. Many people who’ve never been here are shocked that we actually have 60 miles of coastline. And again, those 14 communities, which means I have 14 mayors to get to know and 14 city councils to attend and so forth, in addition to a county council, so it is a lot of work. But putting the time into building those relationships and understanding where they’re coming from and what they’re looking to do, and then trying to convene. I’m just a huge believer that a critical role in Chamber Leadership is to be a convener, to be able to bring different people together who may not agree on much, but try to find common ground on something. Sometimes we start with just the love of the beach, right? We all live here at the beach, we love the beach. We may disagree on taxes, or we may agree, disagree on this bill or this program, but we can start there with our love for the beach, and then try to move on and find some more common ground.

Brandon Burton 19:37
You’re making the other 90% of the country that doesn’t live at the beach, very jealous, right.

Karen Riordan 19:45
It is a perfect place to live and work.

Brandon Burton 19:48
So the thought that came to me is we focus our discussion on community building. You know, you could argue we’re much more of a global community now the internet is kind of taken down A lot of those barriers that we had and communities of the past, we’re not divided so much, you know, by geography or anything like that. So why is it important for a chamber of commerce still to focus on building strong communities?

Karen Riordan 20:16
Again, I think it’s just so critical, I happen to also believe that, you know, all politics is local. And again, we can’t really be getting the kinds of things done in Washington, DC, or at our state houses, if we’re not first and foremost, paying attention to what the folks on the ground in our local communities care about. And so it’s just again, building from the inside out, I have that same philosophy when it comes to enacting any kind of program, I want to do it first, internally, like Dee and I, I want to make sure that our staff is all bought in that we’re all rowing in the rowboat in the same direction. And then of course, have our board of directors be aligned, and then it just makes the job so much easier to go out into the local community. And again, find those points where people are in agreement and work, you know, from that position of strength, instead of, I believe, too often people are focusing on what sets us apart, or what makes us different, or what we don’t agree on. And that’s a very, very short conversation. And, you know, once those happen, it’s very hard to move forward and get any progress. So I just think, again, doing that work, it’s not maybe glamorous, but it is really, really important to also be be in touch with the community. So part of my style here as CEO, is to walk the halls a lot in the building, but also be walking in the community. Today, we did an Artwalk. And we were downtown, seeing all the murals and the public art that’s out there. And talking about that, and using that for additional social media content that we’ll share out with the local community. So if the residents don’t know about a great new mural, they just went up on Ninth Ave. And, you know, part of our job is to make them aware of it and hopefully activate that and have them come down and check it out. So I just again, think working from the inside out, creating that alignment. Getting people on the same page is a big part of what chambers at their best are trying to do.

Brandon Burton 22:24
Absolutely. So I know you guys have a focus as you do your community building efforts and work. Take us through what those those four pillars are of your your area of work.

Karen Riordan 22:37
Yeah, well, not surprising. In the end, this won’t be unique. I’m sure there’s many communities and many chambers that are grappling with some of these, what gets unique is sort of the secret sauce of the the nuance of the community. But I mean, the first thing that we really saw here in our destination is that we have too many of our eggs in our tourism basket. And I can I can say that also running the DMO. And no, that may sound crazy for people to hear us say that. But right now we have 74% of our economy is somewhat tied to the tourism and hospitality industry. And we saw with a pandemic and also with Hurricane Florence, which we experienced in 2018. That we’re putting our economy at tremendous risk, having so many eggs in that tourism basket. And so we really believe that a first pillar in this community building effort is to use the strength of a chamber our chamber, to go out and try to help diversify the economy, we have target sectors that we want to go after. And we’re going to be talking to those micro businesses, we are not doing the economic development work that our authority does. That group is really going and you know, talking to site selectors and investors and bringing people into the Myrtle Beach area. Those tend to be you know, bigger projects that could bring in 200 or 300 jobs at a time, what we’re really talking about is going to talk to those amazing entrepreneurs maybe that are working out of their home right now. Because they can, they can do that remote work. But they aspire to be the next Google and they’ve got a business plan to do that. And they may only have two employees now. But in a year, they want to have five employees and five years from now they want to be 100 person, you know, technology company or whatever the the industry may be. So part of our job will be to really focus on working with those companies understanding what’s holding them back. Do they need better ordinances in town so that, you know business licenses are more affordable, or do they need resources to find space for their business to grow? Is it talent that is holding them back because they can’t find the right people for critical positions they need. So that’s the first pillar, of course, to diversify the economy I just mentioned we need talent. The whole A World Needs talent. Right now we’ve all talked about and read about, you know, not just the great resignation. But for us in our economy, too. We’re also seeing the great retirement, we’re seeing 55 year olds that, you know, bully for them have done amazing things in their, their career, and they’re ready to retire now, and they have the financial wherewithal to do that. And they decide to retire here in the Myrtle Beach area. Could we again, convince them to come and be a mentor to other entrepreneurs who want to start a business? Could we have the mentor talent that wants to move from middle management into senior management. So we’re going to get really, really creative on talent, working with the K through 12 system, but also our educational institutions, to grow the talent we need, but also, if necessary, recruit the talent outside of South Carolina to come here to the coast. So we can’t really accomplish everything that we want to do with our economy, if we don’t have those critical, you know, pipelines established in terms of talent, so, so that that’s another really, really big pillar for us.

Brandon Burton 26:09
Absolutely. And I know that’s a focus for a lot of chambers is growing and recruiting talent to their area. But I like the approach you again, tying in the seniors, the retirees, I’m thinking of a young entrepreneur in your area, how lucky are they to be able to have so many options for mentors in your community, and to be able to market that and show these people were successful, great careers, they’ve got their full of knowledge they can share with you. So I mean, for our whole discussion to focus on retirees, but there’s

Karen Riordan 26:46
a lot of it again, it’s using the assets we have, we do have a great four year institution here. You know, again, graduating wonderful people, but like so many other communities, we have brain drain, a lot of those folks think, well, I’ve got to go work in Atlanta, I’ve got to go work in Charlotte, I’ve got to go work in, you know, bright lights big city. And, you know, part of our job is to convince them that we do have great opportunities here for them to either work in an existing business and grow their career or start a business. And part of that too, and especially attracting that 20 Something group is we have to give them a great place to live if the quality of life is not here. If our downtown is not vibrant. If we don’t have new fun clubs and bars and restaurants and things for them to do, they are going to pass us by and choose, you know, other communities that they think are more vibrant. So we’ve been in a situation where we’ve really built to the west and to the north, in terms of entertainment complexes, sports complexes, things to do, and they’ve been really thriving for the last 10 years. But unfortunately, we’ve done that at the expense of our core downtown. And so it really has suffered from benign neglect, where so many businesses left that area and went to some of these other you know, quote unquote, cooler places in the Myrtle Beach area, like the market common or some of our other sectors. And so we really do need to work very hard to bring that downtown back, it is our front porch to the world. We do welcome close to 20 million visitors a year and they come downtown Myrtle Beach, they walk the boardwalk and we want to have the right assortment of shops and businesses and restaurants and retail there. So we are very fortunate that our city has just entered into a public private partnership with an entity that is called the Myrtle Beach downtown Alliance. And so the downtown Alliance, his job really is to completely revitalize downtown if that means new landscaping and lighting and, of course, economic development, attracting new investment there. So the Chamber’s job really is to get out of the way and not duplicate efforts there. But really once again, amplify and support what the downtown alliance is doing. A good example is last week, we had a new business that came decided to locate downtown. They have their corporate headquarters in Charleston, South Carolina, we’re all excited to welcome them here. And we did a joint grand opening and ribbon cutting and mixer with the downtown Alliance and the Chamber of Commerce and we had over 100 people come see this space, you know, meet the partners of the new firm. And not only were we showcasing that firm and welcoming them to the community, but we’re also showcasing downtown and sending a message through our media outlets that downtown is coming back and look at look at this wave of this is you know the fifth new company that’s that’s come in since the end of last year. So it’s it’s creating some momentum and that’s again where The chamber’s knowledge of the community, our relationships with the businesses already in downtown. And our marketing ability allows us to tell some of those stories and really help the downtown, hopefully go further faster. With this redevelopment, we’re hoping it’s going to be really, really quite robust in the next three to five years.

Brandon Burton 30:21
Yeah. That sounds great. Is there anything that we’re missing as far as community building wise that that you want to make sure you share?

Karen Riordan 30:32
Well, yeah, the last pillar that’s connected to these three is infrastructure. So I’ll just talk about that briefly. You know, we can’t attract great people to come to our community, we can’t diversify the economy. And we can’t create a great place to live unless we have the right infrastructure. And specifically, we need transportation infrastructure, we need to be advocating for the roads that we have to be repaired to be widened to be improved. We are advocating for new interstate, that would come from the beach and go all the way up to the North Carolina border. And then on Interstate 7374, actually goes through six states, all the way to the Canada Border. So that’s a big, big project we’re working on. But again, we’ve got to have the roads, the bridges, the walkability and bikeability, that makes a good place a great place. And so that’s the last pillar of community building that we’re working on.

Brandon Burton 31:27
Yeah. And I think the way it is, is that road comes from North Carolina down into the South Carolina beaches right now, right off the off, it doesn’t go out and comes in, right.

Karen Riordan 31:40
From Rockingham, but it’s a critical highway, because we don’t have it now. And with evacuation, should we get another bad storm on the Carolina coast, which, unfortunately, is one downside of living in the Carolinas. You know, on any given day in July, we could have literally hundreds of 1000s of people that we need to evacuate both residents as well as visitors. And so having something like that to speed up the evacuation route would be much needed and appreciated.

Brandon Burton 32:12
Yeah, I was I was out there and South Carolina for Hurricane Floyd in, I guess it was 1989. And that’s a real thing need to be able to get out of town in a hurry. So

Karen Riordan 32:25
clearly, when a governor makes that, that announcement and says you’ve got you know, 48 hours to evacuate, you really need to do it. And the last thing people want to do is sit in a traffic jam for six hours. Especially with the price of gas right now. Right? You know, it’s just the whole thing is a little scary. And so we as a chamber are always advocating for people to leave the coast and get to safety, stay with friends and family and so forth inland. So that’s another important reason that we get the transportation infrastructure that we need.

Brandon Burton 32:56
Yeah, for sure. Well, what would be maybe one tip or action item that you could share with Chamber Champions listening that they could do to help take their chamber up to the next level?

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Karen Riordan 33:07
You know that that’s a great question, I would continue to say connect with the wider community. I know, we’ve touched on this already. And it does seem like an emerging theme, do not ignore your residents, particularly your seniors, but also your youth. Go out of your way to talk to people that are not members of your chamber right now. When I came into the chamber world, the best piece of advice I got from my mentor was that every business that you meet is a potential chamber member. So even if they’re not members today, if you treat them with kindness, and you show concern and interest in their business, chances are very good that as they get to know your chamber, and all the great things you’re doing for the community, they will want to be a part of that. So it’s like, you know, never met a stranger. It’s like, well, I’ve never met a non member right, at some point. Hopefully, they will, you know, they will join us. But that just being in the community like that hearing their issues is totally invaluable. If we understand what they need, what they’re looking for, we can be a better chamber. So I’m just very big on that and think that it can be hard to do because we’re all in our lane and our heads are down and we’re looking at the 50 things we’ve got to get done this week. And of course, we have to take care of our member investors. You know, they pay our dues, they pay our bills, but it is it’s kind of refreshing to lift your head up and and get to know some people that are not yet members and hear what their concerns are and also what their ideas are. They could have an amazing idea that we want to adopt. We just haven’t listened. So I think that’s really important right now.

Brandon Burton 34:52
Yeah, great tip. So I’d like asking everyone I have on the show as we look to the future of chambers of commerce how to use See the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Karen Riordan 35:02
You know, I think the chambers are more important than they’ve ever been. In my entire business life, I’ve always belonged to a chamber. But I have to say that particularly in the last two years, going through what we’ve all gone through with, with the pandemic, I believe our team, and I’ve heard this from so many other chambers here in South Carolina, we are more mission driven than ever before. Because when the business community is hurting, and they’re looking for information, and they’re concerned about whether their business is going to be viable, and all of these things really did happen in all of our communities, and 20 and 2021, you have a renewed sense of purpose to help because you realize, oh, my gosh, they’re turning to you at the chamber. And they do expect that if you don’t have the answer, you’re going to go call your congressman and get the answer or your get, you know, you’re going to find out about that bill, are you going to find out about why their PPP loan, you know, didn’t go through, and you know, and talk to folks in the banking community, whatever it may be, I mean, our phones rang off the hook during 2020 and 2021, with people saying Help, my business needs help. And I think as a result of that, we just feel such a strong sense of what we do matters, it really matters, it really helps a lot of businesses. And when we help a business community, we are lifting the tide for the entire community. So I think the future for chambers is very, very bright, as long as we stay very mission driven, and very focused and never forget, again, the businesses that we’re here to serve. So I feel very optimistic about that. Right.

Brandon Burton 36:42
I appreciate that, that response and that perspective, for sure. I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information. So if there’s listeners out there who’d like to reach out and connect and learn more about your efforts of community building and things you’ve shared with us today, what would be the best way for him to reach out and connect with

Connect with Karen Riordan

Karen Riordan 37:02
You can reach out to me at Karen.Riordan@VisitMyrtleBeach.com. And that’s my my email address. You can also check out our chamber website, MyrtleBeachAreaChamber.com. But I always welcome talking to other colleagues and hearing their stories. And if I can offer a bit of advice or fill in more detail as to what we’re doing in community building. I’m happy to do that.

Brandon Burton 37:36
Awesome. I appreciate that. I’ll get your contact information in our show notes for this episode, which will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode171. But Karen, I appreciate you being with us today and sharing your examples and and perspective as to how you guys are going about community building and, and especially in those important segments that you touched on as well. So I think it provided a lot of value for our listeners. Thank you.

Karen Riordan 38:03
Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. I appreciate it.

Brandon Burton 38:07
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

Would you be interested in creating even more value from the processes that you’re already doing on a daily basis? Swypit has been one of my sponsors for Chamber Chat from the beginning. Swypit provides credit card payment solutions that will save your chamber up to 40% on your processing fees and Swypit can integrate your credit card processing seamlessly into your existing membership software. Swypit does not charge chambers to switch and they will make switching simple. In addition to these savings Swypit has an affinity program for Chambers of Commerce so you can earn more non-dues revenue to support your budget. Learn more about Swypit by requesting your free cost savings analysis and become more profitable today by visiting chamberchatpodcast.com/cc as in credit card. Again, that’s chamberchatpodcast.com/cc and you can join many other Chambers as you begin swiping with Swypit!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is SwpitBanner-copy.jpg
Swypit can help you increase your non-dues revenue while also helping your members become more profitable by lowering their credit card processing fees. Click here to learn more about Swypit’s credit card affinity program. -P.S. Your members will love the savings you can offer them too!
Have you considered the many benefits of hosting a podcast for your Chamber? The options, leverage, and possibilities that a podcast offers are virtually endless. Download my FREE Chamber Podcasting Guide to learn how to start your own Chamber podcast!

What Makes a Chamber Board Successful?

What Makes a Chamber Board Successful?

Have you had any formal training on how to develop a strong, diverse, effective chamber board?  My guess is that most chamber executives who are reading this blog post have not been trained on board development.  Many find themselves in the chamber industry by happy accident.  What makes a chamber board effective anyway?  While I am by no means an expert on board development or management, I will share what I have learned from experienced chamber professionals and non-profit board experts.

When it occurred to me how many chamber leaders find their career in chamber work by accident, it prompted me to do a survey to ask chamber leaders about their experience working with boards before starting with the chamber.  The results were interesting.  Only 27% of chamber leaders surveyed had worked with a board previous to entering the chamber world.  37% had no experience working with a board at all while another 37% had served on a nonprofit board.  I think we could all agree how the perspective changes from serving on a board to being on the other side as the chamber executive.

Survey results about board experience.

To start, it may be helpful to understand what an effective board is.  I would argue that an effective board is one that will engage in meaningful discussion which leads to action.  These outcomes of these actions should support the mission of your organization and further build your community.

Chamber Board Selection

As I recently attended the MAKO (Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma) Chamber Conference, Dave Adkission was one of the speakers.  Of the many topics that he covered in his talk, he spent some time talking about the unique qualities of a Chamber leader.  He shared how you are often the only person in your city or town who does what you do.  You may have colleagues in neighboring towns but you are typically the only Chamber Director/President/CEO in your community.

Dave also talked about how as a Chamber Executive you have a new boss each year, of course referencing your board chair.  With this understanding, it is not very common in the workplace to have a say about who your next boss will be.  However, in the chamber world, you can be intentional about building your board of directors with people who share a similar vision for your community.

When it comes to board selection, you may be tempted to look to those business leaders who can be a strong source of revenue.  You probably want people on your board who are well connected.  Oftentimes the people who make up a chamber board are some of the most influential business people in your community.  This can lend more credibility and influence to your organization as a result.

On the flip side, by having your board filled with high level business leaders, there is a good chance that their time and resources will be stretched thin.  They are probably serving on other boards in your community.  They are most likely being asked for money from other organizations.  They will likely notice that they are being asked to participate on various boards because they are well connected and have access to money which can change their perception of your organization.

essCert logo. Paperless certificates of origin.
Boost your Chamber’s efficiency & revenues with digital certification of origin and movement documents, powered by essCert – the leading choice for 400 Chambers & 50,000+ satisfied Chamber members.

You want to be very intentional about recruiting for board service as you build relationships with other leaders in your community.  Be mindful of what mindsets and skillsets are missing or underrepresented on your current board.  Have discussions with some of these leaders who you think would be a good addition to your board to plant the seed or idea in their mind about the value or perspective they can provide.

Developing Board Diversity

In the past, at least in the United States, most chamber boards were composed of older, white males.  As demographics change, as social justice and awareness are more front of mind, it is important that chamber boards reflect the makeup of the community which they serve.

With chambers having a sharper focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, we are starting to see more of this shift in board seats.  As there are more women owned businesses, having the voice and perspective of women on your board is important.  As you develop your chamber board, notice if your community tends to have a younger demographic, you may want to recruit board members who represent your younger business owners.  Your community may have a larger makeup of hispanic, African-American, Asian, or Pacific Islanders.  This should be reflected on your board.  

As a chamber leader, you are expected to know your community and to have a pulse on what is important to them.  Should you focus on having more veterans on your board or people from the LGBTQ+ community?  Although the development of your chamber board should be very intentional, you should be careful not to recruit board members simply because the check a box. Each board member should bring specific skillsets to make your board whole.

It is important as you recruit new board members to work towards filling seats with the people who can help move your community forward and not just who has the money and influence.  Ultimately your chamber should carry the influence in your community that you are looking for.  You should be leading the way in showing what is important to building a stronger community and why each segment of your population is vital to this vision.

A while back, I had Matt Morrow on the Chamber Chat Podcast.  Matt is the President and CEO of the Springfield Area Chamber in Missouri.  Matt talked about the lessons he learned from a book titled “The Wisdom of Crowds”.  The main takeaway message was that more often than not, a diverse crowd of people can, together, come up with the most correct answer to problems than any one person or any one demographic can on their own.  This is because the diversity brings different perspectives which help point to the most correct answers.

Setting Clear Expectations

Communication and expectations are key to a functional board.  It may be tempting to complain about an underperforming board member.  You might get frustrated when the ball gets dropped on certain action items that come out of a board meeting.  Are certain members always late to your board meetings or not engaged?  These board members may not clearly understand what is expected of them and how important their role really is.

From their perspective, they may be complaining to themselves, a spouse, another board member or a co-worker about how unorganized and unproductive the chamber board meetings are.  They may not have clearly expressed what their expectations were from you as a chamber leader.

Either way, if the dysfunction is coming from the chamber side or from the board side, this will quickly result in a disengaged board.  Have open and honest communication about expectations.  Be intentional with the onboarding process for new board members so they clearly understand the importance of their role.  While in your board meetings, try to spend the bulk of your time in discussion about things that really matter for your community.  You will likely have some of the most influential leaders of your community in the same room so don’t waste their time.  Find out how your board members prefer their communications.  Do they want detailed drafts for each meeting or a simple outline? By defining expectations up front will save you a lot of frustration later.

Along with clear expectations, always be mindful of your board member’s time.  These are often busy people who live by a schedule.  Be as concise, yet thorough with communications and meetings to keep up the level of engagement.  As soon as you notice any disengagement, have an open conversation to assess the load your board member is carrying and encourage adjustments with assignments as needed.

Board Unity

It is not abnormal to have very strong personalities among a group of business and community leaders.  This is not a bad thing at all.  Oftentimes, these strong personalities are what land these individuals in the positions of influence where they currently reside.  However, some personalities can be like oil and water as they repel each other.

Be intentional about creating opportunities for board members to break down barriers and to get past personalities.  This could be done by providing opportunities for these individuals to serve directly with each other and to learn from each other’s experiences and skillset.  This is often facilitated through board retreats and training.  

If you can build buffer time around your board meetings to allow for your board members to socialize for a few minutes before or after board meetings, you will see more ideas generated once they are outside of the formal setting of a meeting.  A good signal of board unity is when you see several board members linger after a meeting to continue discussion ideas or even just getting to know each other better.

Community Matters, Inc. logo. Chamber publisher.
Directories, magazines, maps, and digital…
Consider Community Matters, Inc. for your next chamber publication.

Continue Your Chamber Board Development

As I stated at the beginning of this post, I am not an expert on nonprofit or chamber board development.  However, I have learned a lot as I have worked with chambers over the past 15+ years and as I have been interviewing chamber leaders on Chamber Chat Podcast for over 3 years now.  

One of the best people I have interviewed on the podcast about this topic is Hardy Smith, author of “Stop the Nonprofit Board Blame Game”.  I would encourage every chamber executive to read this book.  You will learn key insights about managing your board that you have never thought of.  

Book cover-Stop the nonprofit board blame game.

I would also encourage you to continue learning from others, whether that is through conferences, regional chamber meetings, listening to podcasts, reading blogs, or by reaching out to others directly who you admire and feel like you can learn from.

Chamber service and board development is a continual iteration as our tools become more refined and as the world continues to evolve.  


Please join our email list to receive new blog posts are they are released. You will stay in the loop with any announcements related to the podcast or the Chamber world in general.

Be sure you are subscribed to Chamber Chat Podcast in your favorite podcast app. Subscribers are the first to get episodes as new ones come out each week.

Ambassador Programs with Heath Taylor

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG_0371.jpg

Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Heath Taylor. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Introduction

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.

Voiceover Talent 0:14
And now your host he believes our ability to make choices are one of our greatest gifts. Here’s my dad Brandon Burton.

Brandon Burton 0:21
Hello Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host Brandon Burton, where it is my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.

Our title sponsor is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Let’s hear from Jason Mock, President and CEO of the San Marcos Area Chamber to learn how the Holman Brothers have provided value for his chamber.

Jason Mock  0:48  

Two years ago, we brought in Holman Brothers to help our organization go to that next level. And in those two years, our team has transformed the way that we think about sponsorships and non dues revenue. And I would really encourage you if you’re looking to take your chamber to the next level to bring on the Holman Brothers.

Brandon Burton  1:05  

You can learn more about Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions by visiting holmanbros.com.

Click here for a FREE trial of Next Level Coaching from Holman Brothers.

Chamber leaders know firsthand how unexpected disturbances in the business environment have become the norm. Even the most experienced membership reps need to continually evolve to overcome these disruptions and create new opportunities. Holman Brothers Next Level Coaching supplies the year round sales coaching and mentoring your membership rep needs to navigate change and continue driving revenue for your chamber. Visit holmanbros.com/nextlevel to learn more and request a free trial of Next Level Coaching.

Guest Introduction

Our guest for this episode is he Taylor Heath is the president and CEO of the Dublin-Laurens County Chamber of Commerce. Heath is a native of Augusta, Georgia. He served as the Vice President of Business and Community Development at the Aiken Chamber of Commerce and as a vice president at the Columbia County Chamber of Commerce in Evans, Georgia. He’s a graduate of the US Chamber of Commerce Institute through the University of Georgia and currently serves on the Board of Regents for the US Institute of organizational management, the Georgia Chamber Federation Advisory Council, the Georgia rural prosperity Council, the Georgia Chamber of Commerce executives board, Middle Georgia Easter Seals, board of directors and the Robins Regional Museum of aviation board of directors. Heath has served as community lay director for the Georgia Lena walk to Emmaus and currently serves as pastor of go Baptist Church. Heath is married to Tammy and has three children, Trent Camden and Kayla. Heath, I’m excited to have you with me today on Chamber Chat Podcast, I’d love for you to take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions and share something you find interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Heath Taylor 3:01
Well, thank you, Brandon. Appreciate the opportunity today. And I want to say thank you to all the folks out there that are in chamber world that understand what we do, how we do and why we do and really appreciate your efforts and the impact that you’re making in your communities. I don’t know how interesting. It may be two people but I get asked this a lot as president CEO at the chamber. Yes, this is a full time job. And I do this much more than 40 hours a week. And some people ask Well, are you a bi vocational pastor, I’m also a full time pastor. And so sometimes that involves 40 plus hours a week, it just depends on what’s going on. But what I really appreciate and enjoy the two jobs that I have complement one another. And I was telling someone this morning even I confuse people sometimes in the morning because I’m getting my coffee at a local restaurant here and they say What are you so happy about? And I tell them because I’m going to work. And I’m one of those people. I don’t have to go to work, I get to go to work. And I think that’s important for us, though. I love what we do.

Brandon Burton 4:07
Yeah. Now that mindset makes all the difference for sure of getting to go to work. But I found it interesting to your pastor as well, because you like he said the two different the two jobs do complement each other. And I don’t know maybe you’ll touch on that in our discussion today. Kind of some of that crossover. But why don’t you take a moment to tell us a little bit about your chamber, kind of the size budget staff just to kind of set the table for our discussion.

About the Dublin-Laurens County Chamber

Heath Taylor 4:35
Okay, fantastic. And I think it’s important to start but I’ve been here six years. When I came to Dublin Laurens County. We’re a rural community in the middle of Georgia. And this chamber had just over 400 members and an annual budget of almost $300,000 And as in a lot of rural communities, there was a lot of mentality. Some people call it cave mentality the citizens against her everything. But but a lot of people that have been here a long way a long time, and they’re used to doing things a particular way. So when I first came and we started talking about events and programs and sponsorships, Ambassador programs and different things, there was a lot of pushback. And I even had a few of my board members I remember laughed, actually laughed out loud in a board meeting, even at the mention of a $5,000 sponsor for our program. And they said, You know, I don’t know about where you come from, and Columbia County or Augusta. But we don’t do that here. So which I had to reply, we will start or I won’t be here very long. But to their credit, they’ve gotten behind our chamber supported our chamber today. We’re close to 600 members, and we’re closer to 650,000 on our annual budget, so we’ve doubled our annual budget, and grown about 150. Net, and our membership. So it’s been a great community to work with. And I believe that support builds support, momentum builds momentum. And more importantly, I think we’re starting to even work more regionally, because that’s so important as well for rural communities, especially in the state of Georgia. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 6:14
I think we could go down a whole rabbit hole of regional cooperation with with other chambers, especially when it comes to things like economic development and advocacy and things like that. But we’ll focus our discussion, our topic for discussion today, around Ambassador programs and in really understanding where your chamber fits in in your community, kind of what your role is. And we’ll get into that discussion as soon as we get back from this quick break.

Are you looking for a year round affordable and timely shop local campaign for Are you looking for a year round affordable and timely shop local campaign for your chamber or CVB Look no further build a custom each shop play mobile app with App My Community by visiting appmycommunity.com/chamberchat. App My Community mobile apps are not just simple membership directory listings. They provide many more capabilities to engage with your community. Provide your residents with a robust events calendar partner with a local fare festival or Farmers Market provide a schedule map and other resources to promote the event. Run a Small Business Saturday campaign any time of the year using built in scavenger hunts allow your membership to communicate directly to their customers via push notifications. Your app my community mobile app will be a unique member benefit allow you to generate non dues revenue with sponsorship opportunities and best of all provide a valuable resource to your community please visit appmycommunity.com/chamberchat now to receive 10% off your first year of an App My Community mobile app.

App My Community creates mobile apps that allow you to engage directly with your community. Enhance chamber membership by providing a unique advertising and communication channel to residents and visitors. Not just a member directory, App My Community has the tools to be useful to residents on a daily basis. Learn more at appmycommunity.com/chamberchat.

Oftentimes Chamber Nation’s customers agree that since Amazon is all centralized then why not their own community including their professional service providers. 

Since Chamber Nation includes a full-service membership services department to handle all of the new member onboarding and ongoing support at no extra cost to the Members, this is now possible. 

Once the program is all set up, each member going forward will receive monthly membership ROI reports. The entire community will also have access to community-wide economic development reports that are terrific for supporting grant opportunities too. 

With Chamber Nation not only will you have a membership management system but also a membership development system all in one terrific package. So, SAVE MONEY and be impressed by visiting www.RichardsCalendar.com to set up a demo with their CEO. Or learn more at  www.ChamberNation.com.

Visit ChamberNation.com to learn more.

Alright, Heath, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break we’re we’ll be talking about Ambassador programs, and it’s my understanding you have kind of a robust, I’ll say, Ambassador Program. So I’d love to have you share with us how you approach working with ambassadors, onboarding ambassadors, just your overall program and how you engage with them.

Topic-Ambassador Programs

Heath Taylor 9:21
So probably one of the programs I’m most proud of and most near and dear to my heart is the ambassador program here at the double Marins chamber. So we do have a program sponsor, and I mentioned that to a lot of folks in chambers because a lot of folks don’t have a sponsor. We have a really really great sponsor here and it just so happens to be bass physical therapy, which if you break down the word ambassador, right in the middle of it is bass so so that was a God thing for us here. To have bass physical therapy come on board with us. Something else that kind of shocked people Brandon when I first met you To them, because all of our ambassadors do pay $150 a year to participate in our program, I would tell you, I’ve not had one ambassador to date complaining about the $150, when they see the value of the program, this program was a big win for us, as well as the folks that participate. So they are interviewed anyone that’s in our chamber ambassador program, if I don’t know you personally, you have to come in just like you would for a job interview. And I got to know why you would want to be in this program, what you can bring to this program, if your supervisor or your owner is allowing you to participate, and we look for a particular type of person to fit into this program. Once they are accepted into the program, we have a full day of training that you must attend, in addition to be a part of the program, and that’s a that’s a day of training. It’s kind of chamber one to one. But it’s everything that we are in everything that we are not. So our ambassadors can answer the question, you know, when people say what you get out of it, what you put into it, but they get the right answer, you know, kind of a trick question asked him, sometimes they’ll be a membership. A lot of times they start off telling you about the programs and events, and I’m backing them up and stop them right there. Who are you talking to, you always have to know who you’re talking to. Because some things that we do are important to some people that are not important to others. So I would say pretty rigorous training for our ambassadors. And then they represent us in the community, we break up our entire membership among our ambassadors. So they get just over 20 contacts the piece. And again, they’re trained and coached on how to call how to email and how to make personal visits to those businesses. They meet together monthly for lunch. We have the mayor come in city council, we’ve had Arthur’s books, police chief different people come in to share information with them that other folks in the community or even in the businesses are not privy to. So they get firsthand knowledge on a lot of things there. They meet together monthly, have lunch together and build their network. Additionally, you know, they build networks and friendships and relationships with the people that are their personal contacts. That’s a kind of a, a real quick overview of of that program.

Brandon Burton 12:28
Yeah. So I think you’ve hit on several important highlights. So do you have like an open enrollment period for chamber ambassadors? Or is it as people are interested? How do you approach that?

Heath Taylor 12:42
So November is usually when we send out applications for the upcoming year. Training always takes place the last week of January. And because you are an ambassador, this year does not guarantee you a position on the team next year. Through doing that we’ve actually really created a lot of demand interest in the program. Whether it be good or bad, I do tell people and I want people to know we have way more applications than we have positions on our ambassador team. So it is a select elite group of folks. And it’s two words we’d like they used to be an ambassador here his privilege and responsibility. But I’m glad to know that people are applying and they’re interested, sometimes Brandon is just not a good fit. I’m honored to say, you know, we’ve had presidency, who at the hospital, inquire about the ambassador program and being on that team. And pets just not a good fit for the CEO in the hospital. Not that it’s beneath them. But this person’s busy. And they don’t have time to do the meetings and the networking and the ribbon cuttings and all the different things that we require of our ambassadors, right.

Brandon Burton 13:51
I think the similar thing could be said about a board position as well, trying to recruit for a board, it kind of falls in the same category, it’s got to be a good fit. absolutely make sure that the time is there and expectations are well known, which I wanted to touch on the expectations like through the interview process and through the required training that you provide. It really does help to set those expectations of this is what we expect of you to do this is what an ambassador role is and giving them those resources to go do it. I’m curious, how did this start? Like how did you come up with the ambassador program? And how would a chamber listening? Who thinks man he has really got it going on there? Like how would I get started?

Heath Taylor 14:38
Yeah, I think one of the most important things a couple of things go into that Brandon and first and foremost is when we have any networking event, whether it be first Friday of in a business after hours of women in business, a golf event, whatever it is, I’m looking for those people that walk up to people and introduce themselves, always willing to smile, shake a hand They’re friendly, and they’re outgoing. You know, and then the the people that that’s your job to be out in the community to build your network and build your alliances and friendships and things, those are the people that make a good fit for this program. So, pretty strategic in who I will tell you a majority 75% of the folks that are in my program, I stopped them out personally. Okay, the other 25% are probably people that applied that, that I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know over a period of time with that your ambassador chair is of utmost importance. And we are blessed here, the guy that’s our ambassador chair, he does say in the chamber of drinks, the Kool Aid, he believes 100% and the Chamber mission and the purpose. He’s our cheerleader, he keeps the the men and women involved. He has contest for them constantly. Gift Certificates at lunch for different things that he has them. So we have a fun group. It’s a personable, very personable group. We pray together, we laugh together, we’ve cried together, we’ve lost members of our ambassador team, for different reasons over the years. But our ambassadors are there for one another. It’s almost much more than a team. It’s it’s a extension of family.

Brandon Burton 16:22
Yeah, that that is great. Can you talk to us a little bit more about the spot the program sponsor for the Yeah. Yeah,

Heath Taylor 16:34
right. And people ask me because we have a $5,000 sponsor here, which is a lot more than I thought originally that we would have. And if I can tell you real quick how that happened. I don’t mind sharing, and they’re, they’re still happy and fun with this. But when I talked about our ambassador program, to our sponsor, I mentioned all of the things that we do as a team. And then I mentioned to them, you know, when we do our training, your company name, your logo, everything is on the notebook, we actually have notebooks for training for our ambassadors. You will also have a person on this team, which worked out well again with bass because my chair actually works for bass physical therapy, okay. We do quarterly awards, and we do those that are our monthly breakfast. So best physical therapy comes up and introduces that person and gives that award. On our website. If you go to the website, anything you read with ambassadors best physical therapy has their name and their logo. And probably the biggest thing is our annual award for Ambassador of the year is presented at the Chamber’s annual dinner. And of course, the folks from physical therapy come on stage and present that award as well. Anytime we have ribbon cuttings, we always recognize and thank our sponsor, and give them a minute to welcome the business and speak at the ribbon cuttings as well. So that’s part of that sponsorship. $5,000 How do we get $5,000? That’s what people asked me. My goal was 2500. But when I was in, I love to talk about negotiating. And maybe that’s another story another day. Yeah. But I like to sit down and ask my program sponsors. What what, what does this look like to you? What do you want out of this? Here’s what I’m offering. But what do you need? And we work together until I get them to ask me. Well, how much is how much do you want for this? To which I always reply, I would say Brandon, what’s it worth it worth to? Yeah, well, when Mr. Bass said, I don’t know, $5,000. I’m overwhelmed inside and bumbling, but how to keep a straight face and stay calm. And that’s not exactly the number I had in mind. Let me ask you this, if you’re committed to two years, I’ll do 5000. And so they said absolutely put us down. That was six years ago. They’ve stayed with us, they see the value in the program. And it’s awesome. Very fortunate there. Now some people do ask sometimes what if he would have said 2000? And that’s another story, like I said, on another day to negotiate.

Brandon Burton 19:05
Yeah. And even that even that example you shared, that’s a good example of negotiating, showing the value. Yeah, and it’s all having the discussion, right, and seeing what the value is what they need from it, what’s it worth to them, right? And make sure that things align, make sure those expectations are met.

Heath Taylor 19:25
I do I think too many times in the chamber world, people come in with their sheet are their flyer and they’re giving you here’s what you get and the sponsorship. When you know there’s two or three things on that list. It’s not even important to the person that you’re trying to build this sponsorship with. So I think we need to get their input, get their buying and you know, then yeah, they’ll pay for it.

Brandon Burton 19:48
Yeah, that’s good advice right there. So I’m wondering for a chamber who has a typical ambassador program, taking whatever volunteers will will sign up and show up but ribbon cuttings or whatever it may be, whatever their program looks like, how would you suggest if they wanted to go more this direction, having paid Ambassador ambassadors pay into the program, having a program sponsor, just changing the whole outlook of the program and really making it more of a program? Maybe your suggestion, yeah,

Heath Taylor 20:22
I’ve been all over the southeast, I would dare say almost 100 chambers that I’ve worked with own ambassador programs. And let me be clear to say the number one reason some of them fail, is they don’t charge for the program. And when you charge even $150, and you can explain that by saying we eat a catered lunch every month, and that’s where your money goes, even though I get a lot of lunches sponsored. That’s buying in, that has some skin in the game, you know, a volunteer program a lot of times and there’s no charge, well, they show up if they won’t do and they don’t. Back to what you mentioned earlier, a lot of them have people, Hey, whoever we can get to show up whenever we can get him to show up, we’ll take anybody we can get. Yeah, I don’t care if you only have three ambassadors have the three best ambassadors that believe in what you’re doing and how you’re doing and you will grow your program. But it’s be clear that it’s not for any and everybody to participate, train your ambassadors, equip them and make it to where, like I said, $450, this is a steal the training that you’re getting the networking, the connections that you’re making, the people that you have access to. So it’s all in building the program, and then presenting it to the folks that you want to be in the program.

Brandon Burton 21:40
And for those listening, figure out your own price point, it doesn’t have to be that 5200 300 could be 50, you know, just have some skin in the game is the point. And

Heath Taylor 21:49
the same with the sponsorship, whether it’s a $500 sponsorship, but that whatever it is, but you can actually turn so our our ambassador program here generates about $3,500 a year for us in revenue, after everything’s paid for. And we spend a lot of money on our ambassadors, and we invest in our ambassadors. We do bowling parties with them and numerous things to thank them and appreciate them for all the hard work that they’re doing. But at the end of the day, that’s a revenue generator.

Brandon Burton 22:17
That’s right. So talk to me about, you’d mentioned each ambassador has about 20 businesses that they’re kind of assigned to how does how do you figure out which businesses are assigned to who what kind of methodology goes into that,

Heath Taylor 22:31
you gotta love this. So at the beginning of every year, even if you’ve been an ambassador for five years, you get new context, okay. And so we start with the letter A, and those businesses, and if I’ve got, you know, 35 Ambassadors, then I put out 35 sheets of paper, and then I go back and stack on top up. So they are randomly assigned. Now, if you have somebody that you just are adamant, you want to have that person and keep that person, we work with you to do that. The other thing we allow is on that first day of training, it’s almost like kids trading bubblegum cards, but if there’s a company that you’ve really been trying to get your foot in the door, and you just haven’t been able to, and you want that company, if you can get the person that has that company to trade a company with you, we allow that trading to take place. Then as the year goes on, you know, 10 or 12 new members a month, we’ve got a great membership salesperson here, and we haven’t 10 or 12, sometimes 14 new members per month at the monthly luncheon was this is a real strategic process. So I’ve got 14 new member packets here. When I call out a new business, the first hand that goes up, that’s who gets that business. Okay. That’s how they’re assigned after the initial startup of

Brandon Burton 23:49
the program. Yeah. So each year, though, are their contacts changed up? Is that what I understood?

Heath Taylor 23:54
Each year they get a new list of contacts, because you’ve had 12 months in most cases to build a relationship, right? If you did, and they understand that a 20 to 23 contacts, you’re not gonna build 23 brand new friendships, relationships, partnerships, but if you get six or eight, is that not worth 150 bucks? Yeah. And most of the time, they’re probably average that six or eight, and then next year, you get a new book of business, and you got new opportunities to meet more people. Yeah, I love it. And, and probably about a quarter turnover. I like to have about 25% turnover in the program every year to have a few new people in and give some folks a chance to that might not have had a chance prior.

Brandon Burton 24:38
Yeah. So how do you manage that as you bring in new ones and let them out of the program? Is it I mean, they’re they’re doing the interview process application process each year.

Heath Taylor 24:51
And you know, at the beginning of the year in training, every ambassador is told, you know, prior service doesn’t guarantee you a spot on the team next year. So in November, you’re going to get one of two emails from me. One email says thank you for your service in the ambassador program, and we wish you well in your future endeavors. And one says We sure hope you’re planning to reapply for the program next year. Okay, and if you get an email saying we wish you well, if you do have any discrepancies, or you think you should have come back and give me a call, we’ll have a discussion about it.

Brandon Burton 25:26
Okay. I like that. It’s a good approach. So how about trying to figure out the role of your chamber in your community? What are your thoughts on that? And how does that? How do you How does the chamber go about finding where they fit?

Heath Taylor 25:44
I think Brandon, you mentioned in my bio, so I was in Aiken with 1000 members on a million dollar budget, Columbia County, same thing. 1000 members, million dollar budget, both five star credit chambers. And then I come to a little small chamber in Dublin, Georgia. You really have to look around in your community and find yourself and find out what does my community need that I can help solve? To me, that’s what we’re here for the Chamber’s your problem solver in the community, and we want people to come to us for solutions. But where can we really make an impact? And that’s as a board. I think we have to work together in every community. You know, I work with a lot of communities around me that are just poverty stricken communities, and they look at what we’re doing here. And they say, Wow, we see what you’re doing. We see what Dublin’s doing, and how do we do that. And I tell them, Don’t do Dublin, do your community and be the best chamber, you can be for your community what find a need or two, that you can address that you can make some progress with that you can toot your horn and say, Look what we did, and then grow that momentum. From there. That didn’t always happen. I think people reach for the stars sometimes too early. Yeah. You know, find some wins, get some wins for your chamber. Some things that you can say, hey, look what we did together, and then you can grow that momentum and grow your influence in your community.

Brandon Burton 27:12
I love that. Fact. That’s one of the next questions I was going to ask you as far as like a tip or an action item for a chamber to sing to help take them up to the next level. Do you have any other suggestions that you’d put out there to?

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Heath Taylor 27:28
Well, I do look at your larger chambers. And I’m fortunate because I worked at two of those chambers. And again, they were five store credit and chambers. So I’ve brought a lot of the things that we did in those chambers to this community. But as you mentioned earlier, I’ve had to tweak some of those things. You know, I had $8,000 table sponsors at my annual dinner when I was in Aiken. Here, I have $2,500 table sponsors. You know, some of the programs are the same program, but they get a new twist or a new look. But But look at greatness. And look at what greatness looks like so that you can become great. Sometimes we don’t know when a small community what greatness looks like, because we haven’t seen it. So that would be my advice, look at some successful chambers, some of your successful peers and find out what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. And then learn how you can adapt that to make it be successful in your community.

Brandon Burton 28:24
I love it to look at greatness, it makes me think of you know, when you have a limiting beliefs, you know, we can’t get a, you know, $5,000 Ambassador sponsor, you know, that could be a limiting belief, are you sure, but if you look to greatness, you know, for people listening, look to Heath and be like, Hey, you did it there in Dublin, right? I can’t I scale it for the size chamber, I have bigger or smaller, and to see something, you know, relative?

Heath Taylor 28:51
Yeah, great. I have to throw a scripture in their brain. And I do believe you know, Philippians 413, all things are possible. And we do work here. And we pray weekly, in our staff meetings here. You know, we want our work to be pleasing to the Lord. That’s important to us.

Brandon Burton 29:07
That’s great. So I like asking everybody this question that I have on the show, as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future chambers and their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Heath Taylor 29:18
I think that back to what we talked about a few minutes ago, you know, Chambers of Commerce should never embrace change, they should lead change. And I think we better realize how we need to do that in our communities. I love at the Chamber Institute where I get to serve on the Board of Regents one of my favorite courses there is called innovate or not. And that’s what I believe for our chambers. We better be change agents and innovative and leading our communities or we’re going to be irrelevant. And again, whatever that is to your particular community, whatever that change in that innovation needs to look like.

Brandon Burton 29:57
Yeah, and I know whenever we think Innovation, I’ve, I always get a little bit hesitant just because you know, it’s easy to chase those shiny objects, you know, it’s easy to chase the the next, you know, attractive thing. And it may not be aligned with your mission and may not be aligned with the direction that your chamber really should be going. So as you look to lead change, make sure it’s something that your chamber should be leading that change for, so that it aligns well.

Heath Taylor 30:30
And just a pet peeve for me, Brandon, the fact that throw it in there. But if you’re a chamber of commerce, listening or watching this that don’t do fundraisers, execute your program of work, everything that you do in your chamber should fall into your program of work. You’re not doing a fundraiser, you’re executing a program of work. And yes, we have to have money to operate just like any other business does. And we need to run our chamber that way.

Brandon Burton 30:59
Another great point. Yeah, I think of, you know, my daughter right now, playing middle school sports and basketball, volleyball. Every year, they’re tasked with a fundraiser, and they’re supposed to get 20 email addresses and basically spam these email addresses for any amount of donation. And that’s all it is. It’s a fundraiser, you’re asking for donations. And that really, if a chamber is just going after fundraisers, and donations, it really devalues what the chamber has to offer. So keeping it within your body of work is such an important point.

Heath Taylor 31:35
Absolutely, should fit with our program of work everything that we do.

Brandon Burton 31:39
That’s right. Well, he I appreciate you being with us today, you’ve shared a ton of value and and I think some good stuff for people to kind of mull over and see what they might need to change at their chamber, how they might be able to apply and scale some of these things we’ve talked about. But if a listener wanted to reach out and connect with you about your ambassador program, or anything else you’ve touched on, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect,

Connect with Heath Taylor

Heath Taylor 32:06
I’ll give you an email and a phone number, if that’s okay to do. Sure. 706-414-0014. And my email is htaylor@dublin-georgia.com. And if anybody is indifferent to anything I’ve talked about today, or, you know, has something different or better, I would love to talk with them to better ourselves and what we do here. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 32:43
and I’ll get your contact information in our show notes for this episode, which will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode170. But again, this has been a great discussion, and I think one that has probably opened the eyes of some chambers listening as new opportunities. So thanks again for for being with us and sharing this insight.

Heath Taylor 33:05
Thank you for the opportunity.

Brandon Burton 33:08
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

Would you be interested in creating even more value from the processes that you’re already doing on a daily basis? Swypit has been one of my sponsors for Chamber Chat from the beginning. Swypit provides credit card payment solutions that will save your chamber up to 40% on your processing fees and Swypit can integrate your credit card processing seamlessly into your existing membership software. Swypit does not charge chambers to switch and they will make switching simple. In addition to these savings Swypit has an affinity program for Chambers of Commerce so you can earn more non-dues revenue to support your budget. Learn more about Swypit by requesting your free cost savings analysis and become more profitable today by visiting chamberchatpodcast.com/cc as in credit card. Again, that’s chamberchatpodcast.com/cc and you can join many other Chambers as you begin swiping with Swypit!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is SwpitBanner-copy.jpg
Swypit can help you increase your non-dues revenue while also helping your members become more profitable by lowering their credit card processing fees. Click here to learn more about Swypit’s credit card affinity program. -P.S. Your members will love the savings you can offer them too!
Have you considered the many benefits of hosting a podcast for your Chamber? The options, leverage, and possibilities that a podcast offers are virtually endless. Download my FREE Chamber Podcasting Guide to learn how to start your own Chamber podcast!

Breaking Down Barriers with Ralph Staffins

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG_0371.jpg

Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Ralph Staffins. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

Introduction

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.

Voiceover Talent 0:14
And now your host. He believes with a little creativity there’s always a way, he’s my dad, Brandon Burton.

Brandon Burton 0:22
Welcome, Chamber Champions. Thank you for tuning into chamber tap podcast. I’m your host Brandon Burton, and it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.

Our title sponsor is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Let’s hear from Matt Morrow President and CEO of the Springfield Area Chamber in Missouri to learn how the Holman Brothers provided value to his chamber.

Matt Morrow 

Holman Brothers provide a great training for our sales team in terms of just outstanding sales techniques. But maybe even more importantly than that, they were able to provide us with a system a process that was repeatable and in that we’re able to see very clearly from one month to the next how the how the pipeline is doing, what prospects are in it, what kind of progress we’re making and what we can do to coach people to success.

Brandon Burton

You can learn more about Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions by visiting holmanbros.com.

Click here for a FREE trial of Next Level Coaching from Holman Brothers.

Successful membership salespeople are problem solvers. They ask better questions, uncover more problems and pinpoint how their chamber can help. It’s how they consistently drive better membership sales outcomes. Here’s the hurdle. Most membership salespeople don’t get enough coaching to recruit like this. Holman Brothers Next Level Coaching supplies the year round guidance that your membership rep needs to drive growth for your chamber. Visit holmanbros.com/nextlevel to learn more and request a free trial of Next Level Coaching.

Guest Introduction

Our guest for this episode is Ralph Staffins. Ralph is the president and CEO of the Brunswick Golden-Isles Chamber in Georgia. But before that in 2018, under his leadership, the Covington Newton County Chamber of Commerce was awarded the four star accreditation by the US Chamber of Commerce. And prior to serving in Covington. Ralph served as the executive director for forward McDuffie in Thompson, Georgia as the economic development director. Ralph was named president and CEO of the Brunswick golden Isles chamber in June of 2019. And he currently serves on the coastal pines technology book College Board. Georgia economic developers Association Board of Directors is twice served as chair of the Georgia Association of Chamber of Commerce executives and serves on the Board of Governors for the Georgia Chamber. During his time in the golden isles, Ralph proudly led the Brunswick golden Isles chamber to earning its five star accreditation with the US Chamber of Commerce. In 2021, Ralph was recognized by Georgia Trend magazine as one of the top 40 under 40 in the state of Georgia. Ralph graduated from the Georgia College and State University in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in political science, and earned a master’s degree in public administration in 2008. Ralph is designated by the International Economic Development Council as a certified economic development professional, and he makes a great impact in any community which he serves. He’s married to his lovely wife, Rachel and has four beautiful children. Ralph, I’m excited to have you with me today here on Chamber Chat Podcast if you will take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you a little better.

Ralph Staffins 3:42
Yeah, Brandon, thanks for having me today. I’m excited to be here with other chamber professionals listening, as always like to learn from others as well. I guess the most interesting thing about me as far as a chamber professional golfers, I’ve had the opportunity to live all over the great state of Georgia, and I’ve never done anything other than economic development in my career. As a young professional, I’m still learning balancing work and, and life and you said I had four kids. And that certainly keeps me busy on top of leading such a great organization down here at the beach in Georgia.

Brandon Burton 4:16
That’s right, I’ve got four kids myself, and it keeps you running all different directions. You know, every day after work, it’s seeing who’s got basketball or volleyball or you know, all these different activities. Well, it take a moment to tell us a little bit about the Brunswick vowel chamber just to kind of give us some perspective before we get into our conversation, maybe the size budget staff, that sort of thing.

About the Brunswick-Golden Isles Chamber

Ralph Staffins 4:39
Yeah, so we represent Brunswick-Golden Isles and many other communities. It on the coast. So our community is the economic hub in Southeast Georgia. And so we have a lot of members outside of our immediate community. But if the brothers would go now this chamber was actually a result of The merger between the St. Simons Island chamber and the Brunswick chamber about 20 years ago. And so we represent roughly about 1200 Members, we have a budget of almost a million dollars a year and we have six employees as well.

Brandon Burton 5:16
All right, well, that definitely helps to kind of set the stage for your resources that you’re coming from and and I think that’s important so as other chambers listening, they’re bigger or smaller can see kind of take a pulse as to what you’re able to do with with the Chamber your size and kind of adapted to their chamber and where they’re at at the time. So our topic for our discussion today where we’ve titled this breaking down barriers and it’s really much more than that and I’m excited to to hear Ralph from from you as to the the perspective and background there the golden isles, the Brunswick golden Isles chamber as to how you guys are being more intentional around this topic, and we’ll get into this discussion as soon as we get back from this quick break.

Are you looking for a year round affordable and timely shop local campaign for Are you looking for a year round affordable and timely shop local campaign for your chamber or CVB Look no further build a custom each shop play mobile app with App My Community by visiting appmycommunity.com/chamberchat. App My Community mobile apps are not just simple membership directory listings. They provide many more capabilities to engage with your community. Provide your residents with a robust events calendar partner with a local fare festival or Farmers Market provide a schedule map and other resources to promote the event. Run a Small Business Saturday campaign any time of the year using built in scavenger hunts allow your membership to communicate directly to their customers via push notifications. Your app my community mobile app will be a unique member benefit allow you to generate non dues revenue with sponsorship opportunities and best of all provide a valuable resource to your community please visit appmycommunity.com/chamberchat now to receive 10% off your first year of an App My Community mobile app.

App My Community creates mobile apps that allow you to engage directly with your community. Enhance chamber membership by providing a unique advertising and communication channel to residents and visitors. Not just a member directory, App My Community has the tools to be useful to residents on a daily basis. Learn more at appmycommunity.com/chamberchat.

Oftentimes Chamber Nation’s customers agree that since Amazon is all centralized then why not their own community including their professional service providers. 

Since Chamber Nation includes a full-service membership services department to handle all of the new member onboarding and ongoing support at no extra cost to the Members, this is now possible. 

Once the program is all set up, each member going forward will receive monthly membership ROI reports. The entire community will also have access to community-wide economic development reports that are terrific for supporting grant opportunities too. 

With Chamber Nation not only will you have a membership management system but also a membership development system all in one terrific package. So, SAVE MONEY and be impressed by visiting www.RichardsCalendar.com to set up a demo with their CEO. Or learn more at  www.ChamberNation.com.

Visit ChamberNation.com to learn more.

Topic-Breaking Down Barriers

All right, Ralph, we are back. As I mentioned before the break you guys there at the Brunswick-Golden Iles Chamber being very intentional with how you’re going about, you know, some some things that have been kind of contentious and you know, a lot of tension throughout the country, especially as it comes to race relations. But if you would tell us a little bit of the background in your community why this is a topic that we’re talking about today. And how you guys addressed it?

Ralph Staffins 8:49
Absolutely. Well, and I’m sure the listeners know, they would probably be living under a rock if they didn’t know about the mod Aubrey murder in our community. As COVID was going on, all across the country, our country faced riots in issues from Portland all the way to Atlanta. And we actually had a incident in our community where a young man was shot in one of our neighborhoods, young, young African American gentlemen. And so it was just like the perfect storm with George Floyd and all these other things going on. And I tell people sometimes, you know, we were fortunate that COVID was happening because it slowed the news down and slowed everything down a little bit for our community to be able to to catch up, but I am so proud of our community. Right And last week, actually the hate crimes trial wrapped up. And so we are completely through the judicial process of this tragic incident happened in our community. And so we’re thankful for that. But we’re very proud that we came through this entire process peaceful. We didn’t have rioting or looting both, but that was because our community came together. And I’ll tell you, it was the business community, the Chamber business leaders in the African American faith leaders who have such strong existing relationships as to why that was able to take place in our community that they always say silence is deafening, right, you’ve heard that saying, the silence of our local elected leadership, it was deafening. And there was no reaction whatsoever. And so we came together as a business community and a faith community and started meeting and having conversations. And while we as business leaders and the face side of the house, too, we couldn’t guarantee an outcome. But we knew something was going wrong with this process. And we did come together and promise our community that we would ensure that it was done aboveboard. And that’s really all they wish they could ask for. And so we welcome people to our community to protest and to be heard, we asked him to do it peacefully. And when you add brothers and sisters locking arms, because of the relationships we already had, it allowed us to keep it peaceful in our community.

Brandon Burton 11:27
Yeah. And I think communities across the country and in I imagined in some other countries as well, they’ve all been much more hyper aware even of these challenges in communities with with race in regards to race relations. And I think everybody’s trying to be more intentional with how they go about being inclusive. And, you know, whether it’s just a general membership or board selection, things like that. I think there’s definitely a balance of being inclusive. And also making sure that, you know, people are not being put in positions or businesses aren’t being highlighted strictly because of the race background. Yeah, there’s so much more that you want to highlight what the good things are they’re doing. And it’s not just because it’s an African American based business or anything like that. How have you guys gone about intentionally being aware that drawing the proper attention in your community?

Ralph Staffins 12:38
Absolutely. I tell people all the time, this was a tragic incident that happened. There’s no way of getting around that. But it is changed our community, including our chamber. Moving forward, right, the tragedy would be to have something like this happen, and just go back to the way you’re doing. Yes. And so I told you this all kind of transpired and unraveled. During the height of COVID pandemic and lockdowns in our community, unlike most in the country, was very fortunate our economy had a hard hit, because we’re a tourism based economy, but we had a immediate rebound from that little dip. And so our community was wide open. There was no doubt about that. But but people were still being costs. Our workforce wasn’t 100% back even though we had record numbers of tourists in our community. And you couldn’t go into certain businesses because of the the restrictions and the Coronavirus. And so what we did is we decided we were going to start a new part of our organization, we started a 501 C three Foundation. And that foundation focuses on three main things. It’s leadership development, workforce development, and diversity, equity and inclusion. And I say it all the time, leadership development and workforce development go hand in hand, and the D comes in to support those right? We want to make sure our programs as we’re developing the leaders of tomorrow, and the future workforce of our community looks like our community. We want to make sure people of black and brown skin have the same opportunities to advance their careers and become part of our workforces. Anybody else. And so that’s that’s kind of what we did. It’s a reaction to it. And I can give you an example, a lot of chambers, I would venture to say most chambers have leadership programs, leadership, whatever your county is, right? Yeah. And our leadership program historically, did not have much diversity in it. And so through our foundation, we set a realistic goal of having 33% of our leadership class, which is almost the makeup of our community to right, as far as diversity goes. And we even took that one step further. We said, doesn’t matter if you’re white, African American, Hispanic, it didn’t matter. We do not want cost to be a barrier to you being able to better yourself and workforce and leadership development. So we raise scholarships and our leadership program cost $1,200 A year to go through. And a lot of small business employers can’t afford that kind of investment. And so we want to make sure that cost could be a barrier. So we, I literally made two phone calls and hesitant scholarships, I needed. This community rallied around not only redefining our leadership program, but ensuring that there was access to that program. And we went from having we take 30 people a year into the program, and we went from having 32 applications, maybe they haven’t 52 applications this year, and the second year going through this, this process.

Brandon Burton 15:45
So how did you go about communicating that, as far as you know, trying to attract the diversity to the leadership group, as well as the scholarship opportunities?

Ralph Staffins 15:54
Absolutely. Well, we invited folks to the table. Okay, so I need to say this, I understand these kinds of conversations are uncomfortable, right? Nobody likes to have these conversations. It doesn’t matter. Your ethnicity or socio economic class. They’re not comfortable conversations. And we are that we invited all of our minority businesses to the table. And we had conversations, we invited that African American faith community I talked about earlier, to the table. And we identified 75 young leaders in those communities. And we just invited them to apply.

Brandon Burton 16:37
And what kind of feedback of the 75 young leaders he identified? He said, total was about over 50 applications. But obviously, they weren’t all, you know, from the That’s right, those he identified, did you get other feedback? I guess the purpose, what I’m asking is, as far as, you know, a starting point for building relationships. Even if they didn’t apply, did you get positive feedback from those who you’d reached out to and invited and identified?

Ralph Staffins 17:10
We absolutely, we absolutely did. And not everybody can make that kind of time commitment from their job to be away from their job to be a part of progress. So that that did cause the application number to be lower. But we have so many people out of that first 75 or so young people we identified as part of our our chamber in different ways. Now, they didn’t have to go ship, Glenn is what we leadership, Langley County. But now they’re in committees. They’re part of our young professionals, they’re part of our ambassador program. One of that 75 is already on our board, went through the leadership program, and immediately showed so much potential, and his employer encouraged us to add him to, to our board. So it’s the last thing any community will want to do. And I think anybody listening would agree with me is to look over your shoulder and be worried about the next set of leaders coming up. Right. And we don’t want that. So we’re going to make sure our leadership program is state of the art but more than that, we’re going to make sure it looks like our community. So we’re empowering leaders in every neighborhood and every type of business, whether it’s small or big in our community.

Brandon Burton 18:25
But there’s you know, the the quotes out there have never let a good crisis go to waste, and not to make light at all of robberies, death, but it definitely came in a time of crisis. It came at a time where you know, emotions were very sensitive, were raw, and to be able to not let his death go unnoticed. And to have a mean something by be able to be able to, to reach out and and involve others and like you said, having them more involved with the Chamber now where they weren’t before. And it’s it was a matter of bringing that to the focus to the attention and being able to say we want you to be more active in our community. At least that’s how I see it is kind of taking that approach of we want to include you we want people of every walk of life to be part of our community to make it

Ralph Staffins 19:25
great. Absolutely. It changed our chamber down to our DNA. And that’s, that’s just me being honest, we, we do things differently. We have conversations we weren’t having before. And we are better as a business community and as a chamber because of it. And that just many of your listeners might not know my area, but we’re diverse in many different ways. It’s not just religion and race. We socio economically we have the richest zip code and one of the poorest zip codes in the state. of Georgia, all here in the same place, we actually have a four mile causeway that separates those two zip codes. And so that’s why I told you we were positive emerge chamber, there were two chambers for a reason, right? We had a diversity does is passed, color of skin or your religion, it’s Island and mainland. Yeah, Richard for and so we we want to make sure that we are doing the best we can and developing the workforce a for employers but b we also want to help in generational poverty, that’s something that we at least in the south face a lot is this generational poverty, and we are certainly part of a task force that’s helping to, to erase that from our community.

Brandon Burton 20:45
I love that. And that you do have some obstacles a lot of other chambers don’t have with the mainland, and the island is a real divide, you know, geographical divide between the two. But you know, working to bring them together as one. And I can imagine by having this new group of leaders being brought up, it’s going to bring a whole new perspective going forward at the chamber to insights and feedback that you wouldn’t have received otherwise. So I see this as being a really long term play of really seeing that the growth and development of the chamber there.

Ralph Staffins 21:27
It really is. And truthfully, we also have a youth leadership class. And so we’re also talking about high school, right, we changed the way we did that program to it’s not exactly like our adult leadership class, but it’s, it’s diverse, and now you’re having to apply for and it’s not just a counselor, telling us who we’re going to get. We’re getting private school kids and in inner city kids, and we’re putting together because those relationships in the future are going to be important for them.

Brandon Burton 21:53
For sure. So with the schools, how are you? How are you working with them to get that set up? Do you? Are you working through the counselors through administrators? How do you How are you initially setting up that relationship?

Ralph Staffins 22:05
Well, yeah, you know, like all things, it always flows down from the top right. So I would encourage anybody listening to this, your superintendent needs to be your best friend, that school board needs to know you just as well as the city or county commission does, right? It’s, we’re facing as a country, a workforce crisis. That’s the result of this pandemic, let’s be really honest. We’re not in a depression. We’re not in a recession, we are facing a workforce crisis like our country has never seen before. We are a microcosm of that here in the golden isles, we’ve got a 2.4% unemployment, right? In 1800 open jobs so that I can point people to right now, those numbers just don’t add up. No, not at all. And while we are increasing our population, being tourism community being a place where people like to come and retire, right, we’re not attracting workforce aged people as fast as we’d like to. And so we recognize that that 1200 to 1500 kids, we graduate every year out of our K 12 program. That’s our pipeline, until we figure out how to attract new, new young people to our community. And so we’ve got to make sure those kids are understanding what the workforce of the future is going to look like in our community specifically. And so we work really well with our school system for a lot of workforce type things, and we marry him with our Technical College. And we actually have a four year school here in our community as well. And so there’s a seamless transition for our kids, no matter what, whether they want to go to a technical school, or a four year education. And we at the chamber in the business community, we just want to make sure that they’re aware of all of their options, and where the jobs are. And so we actually just got done with a new program we installed called our teacher externship. And so we sent a bunch of teachers from I mean, even kindergarten, we even had kindergarten teachers, Brandon going into industry to understand that it’s not smokestacks and Miss indigenous anymore. It’s it’s high paying jobs and no debt out of the technical college, for the for the young people. And so it’s it’s relationships, everything is, you know, comes down to relationships. And so if I could give any word of advice to the listeners, it’d be to make that superintendent your best friend, because it’s whether it’s a leader, Youth Leadership class, or workforce pipeline, it all comes down from him or her and their willingness to partner with the business community.

Brandon Burton 24:36
Absolutely. And, and I think just having discussions too, I mean, just recently, I had a discussion with my oldest child, he just turned 16. And we’ve talked about his future and say, Okay, do you see yourself living in our community in the future? Yeah, 10 years from now, are you going to be here? Are you going to be living somewhere else? It’s like, Well, geez, yeah, I haven’t really thought of that. But I know a lot A lot of youth as they’re growing up, they can’t wait to get out of mom and dad’s house and, you know, go to college and start a career. And I don’t know, maybe it’s just an assumption, but it seems that a lot of youth seem to look outside of their community for their future. So what can we do to develop that future vision within our own community to keep our youth there and for them to see a future there in your community? I

Ralph Staffins 25:23
think it’s all important. So, absolutely. Is them understanding the careers. And it’s not just them, let’s be real honest, as parents, too, right? We got to make sure the parents and the students, I understand that there are incredible jobs in our community, and

Brandon Burton 25:40
we live at the beach, right? We have

Ralph Staffins 25:42
quality of life. Let’s show them where the jobs are, and show them that it’s you can play with computers and technology and make a lot of money in our community. And then maybe they’ll go to college, and maybe maybe they’ll go to technical school, but hopefully they come back. It’s that brain drain that our community has got to continue to work on slowing down.

Brandon Burton 26:04
Yeah, I think that’s absolutely right. And, and you see chambers all over doing this now, as you know, showing those opportunities to the upcoming generation in showing that you can have a great career here. This is a great place to live. You’re familiar with it, you got family here, you’re showing all those highlights as to why it’s great to stay

Ralph Staffins 26:25
in your community. And I will I want to add one more thing. Yeah. I will say it’s, it’s more than just putting programming in your own community. I’ll give you an example. We want to build a new technical college building in our community $38 million. Once it’s all said and done. Our chamber spent the last two years working on that at the state legislature. In fact, we pulled all of our partners in this community together, and we all we could the chamber convinced them, we’re going to say our number one priority for our entire community is this new building. And I was actually there, the first four days of this weekend Atlanta, doing work in lobbying to get that financial commitment from from the state of Georgia. And so, you know, I see a lot of chamber professionals that I’m friends with good folks. And they’re good at events, or they’re good at workforce development, or they’re good and Governmental Affairs, but those things all just bleed together. Opinion. So even if you’re, you’re you’re not, it’s not your strong suit to do one of those things. Get out there and do it. Ask somebody how to do it if you don’t know and make sure those things are seamless, because because if they’re not, and we keep doing great workforce programming, but the kids don’t have a technical college to go to here. They won’t be back, right? Example.

Brandon Burton 27:42
Yeah, that’s a great example. So as we start to wrap things up here, I wanted to ask what might be one tip or action item that you would suggest for a listener that they could do at their own chamber to help take them up to the next level.

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Ralph Staffins 27:59
And I’ll say this, I think we were fortunate to get it done while we had to be stuck in our office. But it’s a 501 C three, I think every chamber should have a foundation. So that a they can get tax deductible gifts, I promise you those Chamber Champions, and those past board members, all those folks. They sit in December and try to figure out where they’re going to give their money to give them an opportunity. They spent all that time being on your board and becoming your chairman, I promise you we’ll see more funding. And the second thing is your have access to grants that the C six designation won’t let you get to, in fact, we sat in a meeting this morning, they all did a site visit for a huge grant to help us with the workforce development process, new program. And so it’s not that hard. Get your attorney that works. Work does work for your chamber already. And I’ll tell you something else, I think that’s I didn’t realize was going to be a huge benefit of starting a foundation. But it’s allowed me to get my former chairman, plugged back into the chamber. I know that everybody hears it, it’s I just need a break from the chamber. But after a year or two, they fell out of the loop. And in so this allows them an opportunity to stay plugged into the chamber and those past chairmen are always the ones who are connected to the money in the community.

Brandon Burton 29:24
Yeah. So for anybody who’s read Dave Atkinson’s book, horses versus chess, he dives deep into this the importance of having a foundation and for all those things, Ralph is just talking about to be able to have it as another source of income, but also a source of work and being able to provide maybe it’s scholarships in your community or different things to be able to help further develop and advance your community. So great point.

Ralph Staffins 29:53
And I’m a big believer that chambers should not be event planners. And I know that a lot of my rule rather Don’t have to play in Christmas parades and things for their their cities. But I don’t think that’s our role. Our role is to advance business. And my motto is we’re not doing if it doesn’t advance our mission, or make us money advance our mission. And so this foundation allows you to meet your mission through new grants and new fundraisers that you weren’t tapping into before. And if not, you’re going to ask your chamber champion for more money again.

Brandon Burton 30:26
Absolutely. So I like to ask everybody that I have on the podcast this question, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Ralph Staffins 30:40
So I truly think that we, as chambers, and chamber professionals have got to get back to our roots. We were designed, we were formed to be the voice of business. Because when I go to Atlanta, or I go to DC, and I tell him 1200 members and 45,000 employees feel this way, that’s a whole lot more powerful than the chamber feels that way. And so and I also think that we’re going to have to be more regional, we got to be at least in Georgia, we’re very territorial, right, we have 159 counties in this little state. And each one of them has a chamber, that that’s, that’s not going to work, we’re wasting resources duplicating efforts. And I really feel like and I’m already seeing it, chambers and are going to have to become more regional. If there’s a big city and a couple of small counties around and make one change, figure out how to combine efforts. And we’ve done that here in southeast Georgia, we we do a huge legislative event every December and this year was we decided to make it a regional event. So we had legislators from all over the region come and talk and we invited their chamber to come back community because we had the big facilities, we ended up with five 600 people instead of the 400 we normally have. And so and those smaller chambers, members got to hear what was going on where they generally don’t have that kind of and so start off with events, make events regional. And ultimately, I think we’re going to have some combination of chambers in the southeast George’s Regional Chamber, for instance. Right? Well, from that here, but I do think that’s that’s the future, you’re more powerful when you have a bigger voice. And you certainly don’t duplicate efforts and resources and waste resources.

Brandon Burton 32:29
Yeah, I think for advocacy, especially to be able to make things more regional and and there definitely is power in numbers, like you were saying, I see the value and having a, you know, the local identity with having the the county chambers to be able to say, hey, we were late with the local businesses and local issues. But as far as you know, advocacy and being able to get the attention of elected officials, you know, for sure, combine, combine your resources and make a louder noise. So, great advice. Well, I wanted to give you an opportunity to put out any contact information for listeners that might want to connect and learn more about how you’re doing things. They’re at the Brunswick gold Niles chamber, what would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect with you.

Connect with Ralph Staffins

Ralph Staffins 33:17
BrunswickGoldenIslesChamber.com. You can you can also follow us on Facebook, we really believe in marketing here at our chamber. And so we we do get a lot of stuff out. And so you can check out our website. But our our Facebook pages is up to date constantly, as well as our website, but our, our Facebook pages as scrolling accomplishments. And I think that’s a good way. But please, you know, if you’ve got a question about something we’ve talked about today, I want you to call me, I’m happy to help any way I can. Our office number here is 912-265-0620. As for me, I’m happy to help as the chair of our state association and is on the Georgia Chamber board. I think it’s my duty to help others especially in the state of Georgia, but I’m happy to to help this process any way I can. One of the best things I did during COVID is we started a support group can during COVID. And we I was able to mentor chamber presidents from all over the country. And it was just an amazing, amazing process and I still try to stay connected with those folks as much as I possibly can.

Brandon Burton 34:26
I love that I love hearing chambers supporting each other. That’s awesome. But I’ll get your contact information in our show notes for this episode. So in case anybody’s driving or out walking the dog while they’re listening, they can access it at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode167. But Ralph it’s been a pleasure visiting with you and I appreciate the examples you shared about how you guys are doing things there at the Brunswick gold Niles chamber and you know, hopefully provided a lot of value for people listening as well. So thank you.

Ralph Staffins 34:59
Thank you for having me. You need to.

Brandon Burton 35:01
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

Would you be interested in creating even more value from the processes that you’re already doing on a daily basis? Swypit has been one of my sponsors for Chamber Chat from the beginning. Swypit provides credit card payment solutions that will save your chamber up to 40% on your processing fees and Swypit can integrate your credit card processing seamlessly into your existing membership software. Swypit does not charge chambers to switch and they will make switching simple. In addition to these savings Swypit has an affinity program for Chambers of Commerce so you can earn more non-dues revenue to support your budget. Learn more about Swypit by requesting your free cost savings analysis and become more profitable today by visiting chamberchatpodcast.com/cc as in credit card. Again, that’s chamberchatpodcast.com/cc and you can join many other Chambers as you begin swiping with Swypit!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is SwpitBanner-copy.jpg
Swypit can help you increase your non-dues revenue while also helping your members become more profitable by lowering their credit card processing fees. Click here to learn more about Swypit’s credit card affinity program. -P.S. Your members will love the savings you can offer them too!
Have you considered the many benefits of hosting a podcast for your Chamber? The options, leverage, and possibilities that a podcast offers are virtually endless. Download my FREE Chamber Podcasting Guide to learn how to start your own Chamber podcast!