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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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.
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Brandon Burton 1:05
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Brandon Burton 0:00 This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
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.
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Brandon Burton
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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.
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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.
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Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Natalie English. 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.
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Voiceover Talent 0:14
And now your host he believes having an emergency preparedness plan is crucial is my dad Brandon Burton.
Brandon Burton 0:20
Hello Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host Brandon Burton, where it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.
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Guest Introduction
Our guest for this episode is Natalie English. Natalie currently serves as the president and CEO of the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce in North Carolina. She’s served for almost 25 years in a chamber of commerce leadership role and over 30 years advocating on behalf of business. Natalie believes it’s her calling to work with business government and elected leaders to make her community attractive for business growth and investment. Natalie has almost 30 years of experience monitoring legislative and regulatory issues locally statewide and at the federal level. She has had a strong track record of success and has been responsible for building community support for many investments in infrastructure that have been key to economic development in the communities in which she has worked. She’s had leadership experience and background in effecting policy that impacts the cost and ease of doing business quality of life and workforce. Natalie found herself faced with the opportunity to advocate on behalf of her community Wilmington, following Hurricane Florence. Natalie has taken many of the lessons learned during that natural disaster to lead her community through the economic crisis associated with the pandemic, which we’ll cover in this episode in more detail. In her spare time, Natalie enjoys spending time with her son Rick on the sidelines of many sports activities, playing golf, reading and writing.
Natalie, I’m excited to have you with me today on Chamber Chat Podcast, if you would just 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.
Natalie English 2:43
So hi, Chamber Champions at some, it’s great to be able to be with you this way. I have admire so many of you across the country, and appreciate inputs and things that I’ve learned from all of you. So I hope that I can share something helpful for you. So I guess something interesting about me. I love to sing. And while I’m not trained to do so I have a decent voice and so have enjoyed over the years in a couple of churches that I’ve been a member of to be able to sing with the band. So we’re not talking about just Tim books, which I do, but rock and roll. And so you never know I may when I retire from this go try to replace Mick Jagger, you know, as old as he is, but, but I’m not that good. But I do love to do it. So
Brandon Burton 3:33
what’s one of your favorite songs to sing?
Natalie English 3:36
Oh, gosh. Wow. I mean, there’s there’s so many my favorite artists, Christian contemporary artists is Natalie grant. Interestingly, she has the same name that I do, but we have had a bandleader tell me that our voices are similar. Now she’s way better than I am and much better trained than I am. But I can I can sing her songs really well, because we’re the same range. So I love her. And I’ve just love the I love worshipping through music. And so I just yeah, it’s what I like to do.
Brandon Burton 4:05
That’s awesome. I love these little facts I get to learn about people to do the podcasts. Thank you for sharing. Sure. Tell us a little bit about your chamber about the Wilmington chamber kind of size staff budget location just to kind of get us off perspective as we get into our discussion.
About the Wilmington Chamber
Natalie English 4:21
Sure. And there’s a little bit of a little bit of history perspective that needs to go along with that when I joined the Wilmington Chamber in March of 2017. We were a total of five staff. Our roles said we had around 900 members and our budget was in the 800 to $900,000 range. We have been through a major hurricane, a minor hurricane and a pandemic. And I’m really pleased to say that we finished 2021 with a $1.2 billion revenue and and expenses. million million sorry, well, I want to be doing sorry, 1.2 million, I’ve been talking about building bridges. And that’s always starts with a B, so sorry, 1.2 million. And we just added our eight staff person last month. So it’s continuing to grow finding the ways we do that, and doing that in the midst of and post disasters. So I’m really proud of my team.
Brandon Burton 5:27
That is great. Oh, it says a lot about the work you’re doing to still provide that value and which is going to be evident in our discussion today, but to see that return on investments and, and to see that growth continue, even through the pandemic. So our topic for discussion, so I’ve kind of hinted towards it as I read through your bio, and in just now but we’ll be focusing our discussion on disaster and economic recovery. And I’m excited to get into this discussion with you you’ve had some I hesitate to say great experience, because I’m sure it wasn’t great experience going through it. But some valuable lessons that have come out of that. So we’ll get into that discussion as soon as I get back from this quick break.
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All right, Natalie, we are back. So disaster and economic recovery. I’d mentioned before with Hurricane Florence that ripped through Wilmington and cause destruction, you had another minor hurricane as well. What kind of lessons did you learn through these natural disasters that would lead you to help your community be prepared and to be able to bounce back and recover afterwards.
Natalie English 8:45
It’s funny, you know, to be to think about being fortunate for a disaster, but and it was it was a great experience because it has equipped me, I think, to to help to lead my community through the pandemic. So in September of 2018, Hurricane Florence was expected to be a Category five storm and so I left town with my young son at the time and our our dog and we camped out in a basement at a friend’s house in Charlotte. And instead of being a Category Five, she downgraded but she sat here for days just dumping rain on our community in our region. And because I still had internet service and phone in Charlotte, I started calling colleagues around the country and so shout out to folks at chambers of commerce in the Houston area in the New Orleans area, who had been through major hurricanes who who provided advice and counsel to me. And so from that basement in Charlotte, one of the biggest pieces of advice that I’ve received from from our colleagues in the Houston area was to make sure that the community gets connected Some of the some of the scariest things that can happen, or that people get left behind in recovery. And the way to prevent that is to make sure that we’re talking as we’re responding to do the the immediate needs in the community. And so I called my friend, the CEO of the United Way of the Cape Fear area, and said, I think we need to get the not for profit response agencies together with the business community, because I had been getting calls, right? So from from the response agencies asking me if I had a business that could provide this or that, and then the requests started sounding the same. And so I had that fear that we were falling into this trap of having multiple responses to one family, and no responses to another family and so called in church leaders from across the community, and found that we did have some less connected communities, less affluent communities, communities of color, who were not receiving the same responses as others, and it was unintentional, and yet it still was happening. And so that was the biggest lesson I learned is that immediately after some sort of disaster, making sure that you’ve your community is well connected, putting aside competition and putting aside potentially partisan differences. And, and I’m so proud of this community for doing just that. And being able to develop not only the response, the immediate response, but then to continue working together, literally, even through the pandemic. We’ve been working together to identify grant dollars that could help us become a more resilient community when the next storm hits. So infrastructure, specifically water, sewer and electricity infrastructure that will withstand the next major storm that might come through with continued to stay together. Because response can sometimes takes years to complete. When there’s damage done to homes, then the second major lesson I learned is that there is a lot of opportunity to help individuals and families recover from storms. But there was nothing for business unless you wanted to take out a loan, we’ve we invited the SBA into the chamber building after that hurricane and said Come help our businesses. But when when a business is impacted, so detrimentally, they don’t have the capacity for a loan. And so so that’s so I started then advocating in this community and at the state level, to say, look, the next time a major storm comes to any, any place in our community, in our in our state, we need to be ready to respond. Because those businesses represent jobs. Sometimes it’s two jobs, sometimes it’s 20. Sometimes it’s 500. But whatever the number is, something has to be available not just for an individual to save their home, but for their employer or to save their job. That was a broken record.
Brandon Burton 13:04
That’s so important. Yeah. And I think that gets overlooked and curious, what kind of traction Have you seen as he started to advocate for businesses to be able to recover after disaster?
Natalie English 13:14
Well, and I can’t take credit for it happening at the federal level. And because I’m not sure my voice has been that loud. But I but I think that coupled with colleagues around the country who’ve been through this and had said the same thing, when when we hit the lockdown for COVID, the amount of investment that our federal government, our state government, and then our local government were willing to make in businesses that that were forced to shut down as a result of the pandemic, that that did. That doesn’t happen. You’re right. We so even though government doesn’t force a shutdown, post disaster, natural disaster, the shutdown still happens. But this time, because government forced the shutdown, they also saw themselves as a as a as a resource for recovery from that shutdown. And so we here at the Chamber advocated locally for our city and county to use some of the dollars that were allocated from the federal government to invest in the recovery and reopening of our business community. And they responded, four and a half million dollars that we were able to, to distribute in our community. And then because we were so successful and advocating for it, they turned around and said, Okay, can you manage the program? And of course, we said, yes, yeah, as wide open, what have we done, but that also brought in some revenue for us because they were willing to pay us to administer the program and then to help them get the money out more quickly. And while I’m looking around the state, other communities who still haven’t done You’re down how they’re going to spend their American Recovery Plan funds. We’ve already gotten ours out the door, because our local governments worked quickly.
Brandon Burton 15:08
Yeah. And the time is so key to that, right. I mean, it really just sits there. And you know, it’s not getting out to the businesses not doing the purpose that it’s supposed to be. Right. So I’m curious as he reached out to, through the the hurricane situations, he reached out to other chambers, he had mentioned the Houston area, did you happen to chance to chance to speak to Diane probes at Rockport Fulton. Now?
Natalie English 15:34
I don’t remember. I actually, yeah, spoke to so many.
Brandon Burton 15:39
I had her on the podcast way back in episode 12, over 150 episodes ago, when she was talking about, you know, the hurricanes that have hit them, you know, on the Texas coast. Yeah, and what they’ve did to, you know, prepare the infrastructure and everything going forward. But then it was interesting, because I had recorded that, and it was just a few months later that, you know, the pandemic hit. And I actually had several recordings for the podcast ready to go. But that week, when everything shut down, I was like, you know, what, we’re going to push these back a little bit, I’m going to replay that episode from Diane probes, oh, there are so many key lessons in there from a natural disaster that can be applied to economic recovery, and just, you know, a pandemic, you know, I guess at the time, we didn’t realize it is necessarily going to become a pandemic, right. But key lessons to be learned. So, share with us what some of these things are that you took from the natural disaster experience, experiences, and being able to roll those over into, you know, pandemic response and relief and recovery from that situation is that I see that being a lot more applicable to chambers across the country.
Natalie English 16:52
Yeah, absolutely. I think, um, I think that you sometimes Chamber members, they write their check, and maybe they come to an event or two, that maybe they they don’t really think they hear from their chamber, right for the year, and then the renewal notice comes up. See, so we are all struggle, we all struggle with making sure that our investors see the relevance even if they don’t participate in the programming, right? And and what’s the best communications tool to do that? I will tell you if Chamber of Commerce does not take full advantage of any disaster that strikes, but being that trusted source of information about the resources, where the pandemic was concerned about new regulations and new guidelines, I mean, the guidelines were changing and still are, right, it feels like by the hour, and and so we post hurricane, and at the beginning of the pandemic, we implemented daily and then for not for long, but for a few weeks daily, people wanted to hear from us every day about what was new, and what do we need to do? And where do we where are we going to find help and, and so we did daily emails probably for about six weeks into the pandemic. And then we waned back to about twice a week, and did that well into the fall of 2020. We’re now back to our once a week official news related email that we send to our members, but it showed them that we were on top of what was going on and that we could connect them, it improved our relationship with many of them who didn’t hear from us. And it also opened up a line of two way communication, so that they could tell us the issues they were facing, we may not know about ahead, manufacturers at the very beginning stages. So but we are essential services, right? So different types of businesses wanting to make the case to our elected leaders that they were essential to the to to to our country, to our community. And so it opened up to a communication with some companies we had been getting checked for, from for years that hadn’t really heard from and so never wasted disaster as a Chamber of Commerce’s what I would suggest.
Brandon Burton 19:19
Yeah, I’ve heard a quote about that, you know, never let a good disaster go to waste, right? So when you talk about two way communication is that they would respond back to the email or they would get that input from you from those weekly or daily emails, and then pick up the phone and call or how was that two way communication established?
Natalie English 19:41
So some of it would happen in response to the email. And then you know, when I when I moved here in 2017, I reluctantly put my cell phone number on my business card. But in hindsight, I’m glad because we all got sent home right and, and yes, I could My voicemail or I could forward my voicemail from officer, but they are members, those who wanted to reach out to me, and who were able to get their hands on my cell phone number, I believe that they felt like they had a more immediate connection. So a lot of it really did come through my cell phone number. But also, in response to the email to my staff team, I’ve surrounded myself with people who are well connected in different parts of our community than I am. And so they got direct phone calls from our members. And it just we were we were responsive that we were available. And we were responsive, even though we were not sitting in the chamber building. We were each sitting in our individual home offices, but but we were available for them.
Brandon Burton 20:48
Yeah. So I think you’d also touched on the idea of being the trusted resource for information. And we hear that being said a lot these days in reference to chambers of commerce. But just to stress that point a little bit more. We see in communities all over that the what was the traditional trusted news outlets, you know, local TV, newspapers, things like that are, you know, if they haven’t closed or shut down their resources, or much less to cover those important stories to, to establish that information base, where it creates a void in communities, where Chambers of Commerce really are very well suited to fill that void. And to get out that information. And you don’t need to cover you know, all the high school, you know, sports events and all that. But, you know, the things that are important to get information out in your community. What communication methods you met, you mentioned email, what communication methods do you guys use to help establish, you know, that trusted credibility in your community? Yeah,
Natalie English 21:55
yeah, I don’t, it’s not unique. I mean, we do we, we, under normal circumstances, let’s call them we send a weekly email and it includes a president’s report, we call it so it’s something some topic for me that’s current and maybe in in the works that we inform our members about. We then we also have gotten much better over the last few years at incorporating social media and connecting with our, our business community through our social media outlets, and we haven’t yet dived into Tik Tok, but we’re on every other channel there is out there. And so Tik Tok. Next, they keep my staff keeps telling me, they want me to start doing videos. So we’ll see how that goes. But um, and then, and then I would say, again, because we just celebrated last week, our 150/5 consecutive annual meeting. So this Chamber of Commerce is more than 155 years old. And many chambers right across the country, or many communities across the country have had Chambers of Commerce in their community for that long. And so I think, I think we need to be I think it’s incumbent upon us to keep being that trusted source because they I think that I really believe that we don’t fall into the same category as as same members of Congress, right? People say Congress is that I don’t trust Congress or I don’t trust the legislature, I don’t trust that’s the only because because the the, the the perception that they’re all about politics, and they’re still doing really good work on our behalf. But for us Chambers of Commerce were seen as the place to go for information about tourism, for information about starting a business. And so it’s not political at the start. And so just taking advantage of that reputation that we’ve had for over 100 years in most of our communities, I think is how to do it and then using every channel possible, because different people are communicated with differently. And then finally, I would say that you can’t only communicate with everybody with the same voice, right? So me as a white woman, chamber CEO, I’m probably isn’t the right person to communicate with our young professionals in this community. I’m probably a little older than they’d like to see. Or you we have some great leaders of two councils that we’ve created an African American Business Council and a Latin American Business Council. And so we make sure that whenever we have critical messaging that needs to get out to the entire business community, that we we engage with them to help us get that word out, and whether it has to be in a different language, or through different channels. Because everybody’s not going to listen to the white female chamber CEO and US got to accept that and and use those other vehicles and show that willingness to build those bridges between communities.
Brandon Burton 25:08
Right? I think a point that you touched on that, yeah, turn on the light bulb, in my mind is when you talked about, you know, 155 years for the woman can chamber. Talk about credibility, you know, you guys aren’t going anywhere, you’ve been around a long time, you’ve been representing business in your community for a long time. And being able to get that messaging out to the community and say, Look, we are here for you, we’re here to help make Wilmington or whoever’s listening, you know, your own community, a strong place, you know, a great place to live, and work and to do business. It builds that credibility. And, you know, I wanted to circle back and I apologize, this kind of goes back to when you’re talking about the disaster recovery, from the storms, that you had mentioned, how you reached out to church leaders, which I thought that’s genius. I mean, they have a close following right there in good. Typically, they’re going to be in close communication with members of their congregations. Granted, not everybody in the community attends a church or, you know, regularly to have that relationship, but you’re getting certain segments of the population that, like you’ve mentioned, are being missed. I wanted to kind of piggyback on that maybe, and even add in homeowners associations. So that would be another way to reach some of those in communities that normally your email blasts with necessarily reach. But in times of a disaster or emergencies, they can be a great resource to help you connect with the greater community.
Natalie English 26:42
Absolutely. And, and I would also say, other membership associations, right. So locally, we have strong partnership with our Home Builders Association, and our Realtors Association. And, and then other Chambers of Commerce in our region. So and in some of those cases, they have significantly fewer staff than we do. And so I considered it extreme flattery, when I would have a chamber exec from another county in the region, or another partner, you know, text call, email me and asked me if they could cut and paste our information. And I said, Absolutely, this is not this, I don’t own it, I got it from other places, to please just do whatever you need to do, you can board it as is or you can paste it in your own template and take credit for it, I don’t care because at that time in our region, it was it was about getting the word out about the resources available. And, and so I think it’s also incumbent upon us to be those partners and not see ourselves as competitors. With those organizations, we all have the same goals, we all want our economies to grow, and economies don’t stop at county lines or city lines.
Brandon Burton 27:56
That’s right. Now, I love that idea of especially if you can establish those relationships and just know, hey, going forward, we’re gonna put out a lot of information, we want to be that trusted source for information in our community. And if there’s anything that resonates with people in your group, whatever your organization is, please take it and share it and anything to support our community. So absolutely, that’s very key. Well, I wanted to ask you, if there might be one tip or action item for listeners that they could do to maybe lift their chamber up to the next level.
Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions
Natalie English 28:33
So I was I had to fill out a survey a questionnaire yesterday about something in our community. And I was asked what the best piece of advice I ever received. And, and it was about staffing, right about building a team. And so this one mentor of mine once said, surround yourself with people who think differently, and you have different skills and gifts. And I know we’ve all heard this Yeah. And and some of us do it really well. And, and some of us and even me at times, have fallen into that trap of of having people around me who think like me, and I’m I don’t know that unnecessarily horribly failed at those moments in my career. But I can tell you that in the moments of my career, when I have surrounded myself with people who have different perspectives, who think differently for me, who have different backgrounds, and different skills, we’ve been so much more successful. And so as I have rebuilt this Wilmington chamber team since 2017, it’s been the focus for me is to ensure that when I’m creating a position and then trying to fill it that I look at a broad array of talents and skills that I don’t necessarily bring because I am I am not the beyond the wall and I need people around me who can backfill my weaknesses, so that I can soar with my strengths and that would be the thing that I would say to get to the next level, it really is about building a team around you whether and for you small chamber staff leaders, I get it, it’s like, how can I do that I only have one other position, well then bring in volunteers who think differently. So whatever your team has to look like, just make sure that there are people who bring different skill sets to that table and different ways of thinking,
Brandon Burton 30:21
and what a great feeling neurologically, you know, when your mind is open to a new perspective, I don’t know if it’s a flood of serotonin, or dopamine, or whatever it is, it’s like, whoa, you know, that’s how some people see the world. This is. Right, it really changes your perspective and changes you as a person for the absolute LinkedIn. So I know chambers all over the world are always thinking about the future and trying to remain relevant. So I always like to ask as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see their purpose going forward?
Future of Chambers
Natalie English 30:55
Gosh, in certainly in the immediate future, it was before the pandemic. And but it’s just been exacerbated, I think we have to become the resource for Talent Development in our communities, we have to have our ear to our members in the business community about what they need in talent development, workforce development, if you will. And then we have to advocate with our education institutions. So that they while they are unbelievably smart, they don’t work in industry every day. And we have to help them as they’re creating the curricula and the programming that will develop our future workforce, that workforce that that our businesses need tomorrow and the workforce that they’re going to need 10 years from now.
Brandon Burton 31:43
I love that. It reminded me I just recently had Doug Griffin’s on the on the podcast, the author of 13 ways to kill your community. And when I asked him this question, he had a slightly different spin on it. But is he talking about talent development, a lot of times we think of the schools and workforce and talent development, which is I think, right on, and he was looking at it as training for employees of your member businesses, and really the businesses throughout your community. And he said the number one thing would be to train employees and customer service. Right. So when you have people visiting from out of town or new to the community, if they can go into the local businesses and have a great experience? Absolutely. Again, chambers perfect to help train the development in their communities. So just under that umbrella.
Natalie English 32:36
Absolutely. We talk about that all the time on our tourism development authority. Yeah, yeah,
Brandon Burton 32:42
that’s a great tip. Well, as we start wrapping up here, I like to give you an opportunity for any Chamber Champions listening that might want to reach out and connect with you and, you know, maybe expand on anything that you’ve shared with us today, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you?
Connect with Natalie English
Natalie English 32:59
So the best way is probably through email simply because I check it sometimes 24/7 It’s English, my last name english@wilmingtonchamber.org. And I do try to get back to everybody, at least within 24 or so hours, and we’d love to help I think that’s the best thing and I don’t know who coined the R&D phrase as rip off and duplicate but I do it proudly and unashamedly and I, I encourage people to rip off and duplicate for me anytime it helps.
Brandon Burton 33:31
Perfect. Well, we will get that in our show notes for this episode, which will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode165. That Natalie, thank you so much for joining us today on Chamber Chat Podcasts. I love hearing from your experiences and things that you’ve learned and, and ways to help the Chamber Champions that are listening. Thank you so much.
Natalie English 33:53
Thank you, it’s a great opportunity.
Brandon Burton 33:56 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.
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Ghost communities are on their way due to the innovation of ghost kitchens that emerged through the COVID pandemic. This concept allows for customers to order food delivery from popular apps like Uber Eats and Grub Hub. However, rather than having the food prepared in a standard restaurant, brands are learning to cut costs by opening ghost kitchens.
A ghost kitchen allows for the restaurant to utilize less expensive real estate. Some restaurants will even share this ghost kitchen with other restaurants. They also can be hired to prepare food for other restaurants.
When I first learned of this concept, I thought this is a genius way for restaurants to save money, become more efficient, and create a whole new dining experience. I still believe these initial thoughts to be true, but I have started to have some reservations around this concept.
Ghost Warehouse
I recently read an article about grocery chains adopting this same type of model with ghost warehouses. Many people have now experienced either grocery delivery or at least store pick up of their groceries. These concepts allow a customer to “shop” for their groceries online and never have to walk into the grocery store. I know this can be a huge time saver for the busy people in society.
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As I picture the idea of a ghost warehouse or grocery store, I picture a large warehouse with no windows. I picture endless shelves of food that doesn’t even have to be displayed well because after all, an employee is the one grabbing the items from the shelf. I imagine this would look very similar to an Amazon distribution center. The marketing of food companies would have to change entirely. We will become much more a target of even more digital ads from the food manufacturers for us to add their items to our online shopping cart.
Human Experience
While I see some utility and innovations around these concepts, the thought that rings loud in my mind is that we are killing our communities! This thought probably is top of mind for me after my recent podcast interview with Doug Griffiths about his book ‘13 Ways to Kill Your Community‘.
Human interactions at the market and sitting to break bread with others are what we as humans have done our entire existence. Oftentimes it is while sharing a meal that we collaborate and solve problems with colleagues, friends, and family. It is running into your child’s school teacher at the grocery store that makes your child feel special as they are able to have a one-on-one interaction with their teacher outside of the classroom. It is the smile that a stranger receives that makes their day and builds just a little more confidence.
Ghost Communities
This idea of turning into ghost communities is exaggerated even more as we hear more talk and adoption of the Metaverse. Again, I see some great possibilities and potential with this type of technology, but I wonder if we might be overlooking the potential negative side effects. I am a big fan of cryptocurrency, especially Bitcoin (This is an affiliate link that will award both of us with free Bitcoin when used.) but I am concerned about other applications utilizing the blockchain without having a better understanding of the potential outcomes, positive or negative.
The Metaverse can be a place where the playing field is leveled. Certain biases can be left behind the screen as users on the inside don’t know much about your real identity. Disabilities can be overcome in this alternate world. Race, gender, age are all non-factors in the Metaverse. These can all be viewed as really positive selling points.
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I would also argue that these identifying qualities are also what make us who we are. If we are constantly checking and putting aside our true identity, what does that do to our overall mental state? This question is probably better addressed by a mental health professional. I foresee this causing big problems in society.
Social Media
I hear many people say that if they could go back in time and do it over again, they never would have joined any social media. Social media was started or presented as a way to stay connected with others. Over time we have seen social media lead more to the division of people rather than a unifying force.
Social media has been attributed to a sharp increase in mental health issues, including depression. Comparing ourselves to others can lead to damaging self-esteem. Throughout human history, people have been limited to comparing themselves to others in their tribe or communities. As the Pandora’s box of social media has been opened wide, we are now pitted against others on a much larger scale. Social media influencers do a great job of making us feel less than what we should. Photo filters literally create the image of something that is not even real, yet we still compare ourselves to these artificial attributes of others!
Summary
The point of all of this is to say as a society, we need to be aware of the potential negative consequences of drastically changing our way of life. We should have discussions in our community, within our families about possible implications and go in eye wide open. As a chamber of commerce professional, you understand the value of community. You understand the power in numbers. Please lead these discussions in your communities. If nothing else, help others to be aware of what they are getting into before our cities and towns become ghost communities.
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Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Doug Griffiths. 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.
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Brandon Burton 0:00 This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
And now, your host she believes that there are a couple favorite ways to call community. Here’s my dad Brandon Burton.
Hello, Chamber Champions. Thank you for joining us today on 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.
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Guest Introduction
Our guest for this episode is Doug Griffiths. Doug, you may recognize as being the author of 13 Ways to Kill Your Community. Doug grew up on a ranch outside of a small community, where that contributed to practical education for him giving a strong work ethic and critical thinking skills. Education, whether he’s learning or teaching has always been an important aspect of his life. After teaching and ranching for several years, Doug successfully served as an elected member of the Legislative Assembly in the province of Alberta for four consecutive terms. In that time, he served in two senior cabinet portfolios as Minister of Municipal Affairs, and Minister of service Alberta, as well as three junior positions in agriculture, finance and Solicitor General. Doug retired from politics in January 2015. to actively pursue his passion of helping communities, organizations and businesses grow stronger in his best selling book 13 Ways to Kill Your Community. Doug identifies challenges and opportunities that all our communities face. The lessons that come from those stories are applicable to all types of communities, whether they’re towns, organizations or businesses. His talents include seeing through the lies, we tell ourselves, overcoming bad attitudes, targeting and focusing tactical planning, communicating with those who are afraid to change and building enduring prosperity for communities. His passion lies and building strong communities. Because within strong communities, leadership can succeed, businesses can prosper and families can find great quality of life.
Doug, I am super 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 that are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.
Doug Griffiths 3:05 Oh, Brandon, thank you, I am really excited to be on the Chamber Chat Podcast. And I appreciate the invitation. Especially when I get the chance to talk about how valuable and important the role the chambers are going to play in, in moving communities through the past, into the present, and then into the future, it’s going to be so critically instrumental in ensuring the success of communities and I fundamentally believe that building communities is single most important job on earth because as soon as communities are, are successful and prosperous, then families will be able to take care of each other and take care of themselves. So I’m really excited to be here. Something interesting about me, I I don’t know if there’s anything that you haven’t said already, except I will add one thing I was in provincial politics for 13 years for four terms, I resigned on purpose to go back to community building, which is is how I wound up in politics. I tell everybody, if you want in politics, just just keep talking. And if you want out of politics, just just keep talking, talking. Yeah. But you know what, I have been through rehab, I am fully recovered. So I’m I’m good. I’m pretty, pretty blunt and pretty focused on community building. So I’m glad to be here.
Brandon Burton 4:22 Well, I have a 16 year old son who would love to get into politics, I’m going to have to share that advice with him because he just keeps talking all the time. It’s like it’s going to get you in trouble or it’s going to get you somewhere one or the other. Or both or both. Yeah. So I shared a little bit in your bio, but tell us what you do with 13 Ways what kind of services you offer as a company and organization what what is your mission and goal that you hereafter?
About 13 Ways
Doug Griffiths 4:49 Yeah, it’s um, it’s kind of funny because it’s expanded. I mean, when I resigned from politics and the second edition I had finished just after That and released it. And it’s a national bestseller in the US and in Canada. Granted, we need about a 10th of the number of sales to be a best seller here. But it’s people ask me to come and speak and to do the 13 Ways presentation. And so I’ve been all over North America Speaking and then people would call me up after and say, so help us what, what do we do now. And so I would offer up some advice on you know, what I think strategic planning should look like, focusing more on strategy than on operations, because so many strategic plans are generic and watered down, and they’re about operations and there’s no strategy whatsoever in them. So we, we, I brought along a couple of people and our team has grown to five and we have specialists in economic development and chamber issues and communication in modernizing main streets with with designs and socialization in website design, and, and social media and traditional marketing strategies. And we’ve just grown into a pretty exceptional team. And so we, we tend to go into communities and, and assess what their real strengths are, they often think that, you know, what they think are their strengths sometimes aren’t and what they think are their weaknesses can actually become strengths. And then we, we engage people in the community, you know, a lot of public engagement people, you know, gather opinions, but you know, people are busy with their day to day lives. And oftentimes, it’s the the tyranny of the urgent the issue right in front of them they want addressed, and that’s not about what’s what you need to do to be successful 10 years from now. So we plant seeds with people to with new ideas, then we do a strategic plan. And then we do the marketing and communication strategy focused on, on helping people in the community get excited about their potential and, and crafting a real marketing strategy. So they don’t get lost in all the noise and new design websites. And so we sort of do the gamut from, we need help all the way through to we’re, we’re ready to take that first step and actually bring people in.
Brandon Burton 7:00 Awesome. And I think there’s so much value to bring in that perspective from somebody outside of your community, to be able to say, here’s your strengths and weaknesses, and I relate it back to some of the greatest athletes, you know, the Michael Jordan’s and Tiger Woods of the world. They all had coaches, right. I mean, they were the best of the best, but they had they still had coaches who could bring a different perspective and help them see those blind spots are the weaknesses and strengths to help exploit. So I think that’s so key.
Doug Griffiths 7:29 We often get called Community coaches or community therapists, because most consultants come in and they write a report and they leave and for our clients, we tell them once you’ve hired us, we never go away. We’re relentlessly going to advise you and, and give you strategies to make you successful. Because, you know, we we don’t just do this to make money. We do this because we believe in the cause we’ve we’ve adopted.
Brandon Burton 7:54 Yeah, for sure. Well, we’re going to talk more today about the 13 Ways to Kill Your Community. I know a lot of Chamber Champions are familiar with the book, but we’ll have some some more maybe deep dive conversation on that as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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All right, we are back. And as I mentioned before the break well, we’re talking about 13 Ways to Kill Your Community, your book. And recently, I was invited to join a 13 Ways to Kill Your Community for chambers Facebook page. And that’s how we got connected and kind of one thing led to another and now we’re here talking on the podcast. But um, and I’ll link to that Facebook group too. So if anybody wants to join in and and add their contributions to the discussions, it’s a great place. But what stood out to me as I started reading your book, is you start off with a story or I guess, I mean, it’s a real deal where where you address high school students, and have them kind of project themselves into the future. But you have kind of a unique twist on it. Do you want to share kind of that, that mindset and kind of set the stage for the discussion?
Doug Griffiths 11:22 Yeah, sure. I, we’ve actually had people say that one of the most valuable stories, because the 13 Ways to Kill Your Community, they say then isn’t about community building, it’s about the way we govern and manage our lives. And that’s, that’s where it was born from. So I was a, I was a junior high teacher, before its subs, I made enough money to subsidize my ranching habits, so I could buy more horses and cows. And I would go talk to high school students about how to be successful. And it was, it was a pretty straight up presentation, you know, so, you know, study hard, don’t do drugs, marry someone nice. It’s it’s pretty easy formula, and that the high school students would look at me go, I know, my parents told me that. And everybody’s told me that for for my entire life, I know how to do that. And so when I was done, they’d walk out and say, Thanks, that was wonderful. But nothing really changed. And then I walked into this classroom and had an epiphany right before I was going to do the presentation, instead of talking about how to be successful. I asked them to describe what it would look like, if they ruined their lives. If you failed, that they look down the road, they’re 40 years old, and they have absolutely ruin their lives. Describe it to me. And so their high school students, they would say things like, well, I’d, I’d be a drug addict, I’d write that on the board, I’d wind up in jail, I’d write that on the board, I would fail out of school. So I couldn’t take care of my family, I’d write that on the board, whatever they came up with, I put it on the board. And when they finished with compiling a really robust list, I’d say great, let’s pretend you want to do this. Any one of these things you want to ruin your life. How would you start today? So let’s say you want to be a drug addict? What would you do today to get down start on that path? And I mean, they’re high school students. So they’d hum and haw, and nobody would say anything until one person put up their hand and say, Well, if I wanted to become a drug addict, I’d, I’d smoke a joint after school, and two kids would turn red, because that’s what they did yesterday. And that, you know, they’d also debate well, but alcohol is worse than the marijuana and regardless, they, they started to realize what they were doing that day that would lead them down that path, because I guarantee you, not a single person has ever said, I want to become a drug addict, if you if you meet a drug addict, none of them say hey, this was my lifelong ambition. But somehow, we we get there, we wind up in jail, we wind up marrying somebody we’re not happy with, we wind up doing all sorts of things that ruin our lives. And and it’s because we don’t pay attention to what we’re doing. Now. We wind up trading away what we want most 20 years from now in our lives, for what we want. Now that’s pleasurable, easy and convenient. And it just, I tell that story, because then it struck me that I was working with communities and talking about how to be successful. And they’ll say, Yeah, we know. But they were doing things that were the opposite of what they needed to do to be successful.
Brandon Burton 14:10 Yeah, so that it really helps to apply that same kind of exercise to communities and say, if your goal is to kill your community, where do you start? And then you’ve got these 13 ways. So why don’t we run down real quick, what the 13 ways are, and I’m sure we’ll circle back to certain ones in our discussion, but that way, just to kind of set the table for the discussion what, what are the 13 ways how communities kill or how people kill their communities?
Doug Griffiths 14:39 Well, the number one is, is forget the water. I mean, water is so critical and fundamental to our success. And I’ve I have a lot of I mean, Alberta’s an oil and gas sort of jurisdiction and, and a lot of my former colleagues and I talk and they say, Oh, the economy runs on on oil, and the next World War will be fought over oil. It’s so funny. fundamental to our economy. And I always point out to them, the last World War will be fought over water, because whoever controls water controls everything. I mean, you know, my grandpa always reminded me, you, you can go for three minutes without air three days without water and three weeks without food. And then you die, you can do without just about everything else. But these are so fundamental. And yet we, we sometimes take for granted that we have clean water, or and we get upset when we don’t. And nobody shows up for you know, a ribbon cutting on a new sewer line or a new water line. everyone shows up for the new ribbon cutting on the football arena or, you know, but we don’t show up for those things that are so fundamentally important. And I hear people complain about paying for water, and the prices that they pay. But most people I know pay more than that for cable TV. So it’s, we we forget how fundamentally important it is. So water is the first one attracting business is the second one. The third one is don’t engage youth. And it has the quintessential story about how we do the opposite of what we mean to every strategic plan I’ve seen in a community says engage more youth. Every presentation I do someone says how do we get more young people here? How do we get them to stay here, but but off line, I hear them talking about how there’s no hope and no future in the community and all the young people need to move to the city because there’s no business opportunities and no jobs. And then they sit there and wonder why they leave when all of their conversations chased them away and forced them out of town. deceive yourself is number four. We get into shop elsewhere which I know is popular which is of commerce. It’s chapter five, Chapter Six is don’t paint followed by don’t cooperate in the past. And that’s one of my favorite chapters talking about the the NIMBYs the nopes the bananas, the cave people and the fears all acronyms for different perspectives that that sabotage our our thinking about the future. Nine is seniors that shut them out 10 is reject every new idea 11 out ignore outsiders. 12 is grow complacent. And that’s that’s particularly for communities that are doing well and assume they will always do well, which is not the case. And the last one this chapter 13 Don’t take responsibility. It’s a great way to ensure your community fails is just to turn around and blame other people for
Brandon Burton 17:14 Absolutely, yeah. Excuse me, those, those 13 ways really should be eye openers, I think when you put it in that perspective of here’s how you kill your community. I mean, if you went after it from the perspective of do these things, and you’ll be prosperous and do well, it gets ignored. So
Doug Griffiths 17:33 it does and everyone goes, Yeah, we’re doing that. Exactly. You’re also doing the opposite. And that’s most of us can find success if we just stopped doing the things that sabotage that success.
Brandon Burton 17:44 Exactly. So on this 13 Ways to Kill Your Community Facebook group, for chambers. I posed the question out there. This is the first time I’ve done this for a podcast episode, I actually asked people what questions they would like to have you answer. And I got some some good questions. So we didn’t go any you know, we didn’t do any prep. You and I on this. So I’m just going to ask you some of these questions, have you feel them and circle back to stories out of the book, as you see applicable? But the first one is, what is the biggest thing that chambers get wrong about community development? And their role in it? What what might be that blind spot for for Chambers of Commerce?
Doug Griffiths 18:30 That’s a, that’s a great question. And I may, it’s a big category, because there’s quite a few things that that chambers get wrong, there’s things that all of us get wrong. So I don’t want anyone to think I’m being hypercritical chambers. But so if we’re going to focus on chambers, there are multiple things one, chambers often think that they’re the BL and and all business, and that their role is simply to advocate or lobby for businesses. And and then you get the money sets where you get the perspective that hey, we need to lower taxes to make businesses more profitable and get rid of the regulations. And that becomes the the core the the fundamental issue that chambers deal with. And yet, that might have worked back in the 80s, when when businesses did locate just were that you have the lowest taxes and you had the least number of regulations. But that’s not the way the world works anymore. In fact, back in the 80s, my parents used to move to where the jobs were on parents generation. But now the jobs move to where people want to live. And so economic development is community building successful businesses is community building. Community Building is economic development there there there that you can’t separate them anymore. And so Chambers of Commerce need to also advocate for reasonable taxes and reasonable regulations to make sure that you can create the kind of community that’s called To attract people who want to live there, and then businesses will attract it because you now have a workforce. But I, you know, I see so many chambers just saying oh, are the highest tax jurisdiction and most of the time, that’s a lie. But the impression, I have yet to go to a community where people don’t say, Oh, we’re the highest tax jurisdiction in the entire state of the entire province, everyone believes that, but that can’t be true for everyone. And most cases, it’s not so chambers could help with that. And the other big issue that I think chambers, miss, and again, this isn’t every chamber, but a lot of chambers get so buried in what they think they’re supposed to be doing. They forgot what’s what’s important. So we’ve seen many chambers that charge membership dues to businesses to raise funds, so they can hire someone to put on a big event, so that they can raise enough money to keep paying someone to collect dues, so they can put on a big event and around and around we go. Yeah, and yet, I mean, a lot of businesses, chambers should be helping with some professional development for businesses about about how to make their business more successful, but how to how to ensure that they have quality brick and mortar locations, but also have an online presence so they can grow, showing them how to how to reach out beyond the community with their business practices, but also to fully engage the community so that people want to shop local, that whole mantra, shop local is a is a guilt ridden mantra, that doesn’t work anymore, you’ve got to give people a reason to want to shop local. So those would be a few of the big things that I think chambers miss.
Brandon Burton 21:37 Absolutely. What just struck a chord with me was the, you know, helping the businesses be able to sell brick and mortar but online as well. And reminds me of the chapter shop elsewhere. Right? If you’re not helping your members be able to sell their products online, essentially, people are shopping elsewhere. And that’s going to have effects down the road.
Doug Griffiths 21:59 Yet one of the challenges businesses we hear from businesses, which I mean chambers can help with this is that I don’t have time, I don’t have time to have an online presence. I don’t have time to wash the windows and put up a window display that will attract people in or to beautify the business or to change the aroma or to I don’t have time, except, except it falls right into that old mantra of why does everyone not have time to do it right, but they have time to do it again. If you don’t take time to do it, now you might not be in business, and then you’ll have nothing but time, but it’ll be too late.
Brandon Burton 22:33 That’s right, I’d seen a quote and I wish I could give proper attribution to it. But it is along the lines of if you had the importance of having systems and if you’re too busy to have systems, you’ll always be too busy. So you need to be able to set aside the time to do things right. So one of the the next questions that I wanted to pose to you, as we had mentioned, chambers being having a key role in economic development, community development. So if that’s the role of a chamber is to help develop and help their community progress. How does a chamber get others particularly government entities to take them seriously.
Doug Griffiths 23:19 If we we’ve seen a lot of communities where the the chamber is trying to be progressive that trying to help with beautification downtown and create more advanced to draw businesses downtown. And it falls on deaf ears with the the larger Economic Development Authority or Alliance, so the town or the city or the county or the and my I have the same advice for everyone. Around this. Most of the time, we see our role and we see our job. And we expect other organizations to realize how important we are. Or, or if they don’t we do a presentation to explain why our role is important and how important we are. So it’s like, it’s like we’re lobbying constantly to get attention. And if you want to be successful, stop lobbying, and start building relationships. Because then you can find common ground and you can find common understanding. So I say all the time we see Chambers of Commerce show up with a PowerPoint presentation to explain why businesses are important. Everyone knows businesses are important. We see Chambers of Commerce do a presentation to explain why the Chamber of Commerce is important. Of course they are. But instead find common ground between you in the town. I mean, they’re important to if you want to talk to somebody and build a relationship, you don’t show up and say I’m amazing and I’m important to you because I do this. You the art of conversation is to find common ground to find out what motivates them to find out what interests them, and then define how you can link your common motivations and your common understanding and your common purpose together and build an alliance well that’s that’s what chambers should be doing is So while my advice is always stop thinking you need to show up at Town Council with a presentation. And start with beer and burgers, like honestly start with building relationship in a common understanding. So you know each other’s first names, if you know the names of their kids, and they know the names of your kids, it’s really hard for you to argue, because you start to, to appreciate your human beings. And then when you’ve got common goals about growing the downtown core with new housing and beautification to make the businesses profitable, which increases the tax base as a generates new businesses and new employment. And now you have a common understanding. And you can talk about how you’re going to achieve it together. Instead of saying, Look, I’m important, and you need to do this for me in order for me to be successful, but every organization has 50 people showing up and saying that it starts to fall on deaf ears, because it gets tiring build relationships to distinguish yourself. Right?
Brandon Burton 25:52 I love that advice. As we, in different communities, there may be different initiatives that come up, and a chamber may get behind the idea of you know, a beautification project, or maybe it’s something legislative, that they’re trying to get behind. That’s pro business. And in the book, you talked about the different factions, you know, and you come up to voting, and in you mentioned, specifically the fourth faction, which is the largest, which is those that in the community that are just disengaged, they don’t show up to vote, they don’t pay attention to what’s going on in the community, necessarily. So this next question would be kind of around that, how do we rally the troops to get them engaged? Or how do we get that community buy in? Especially in a world where we see more decline with volunteers and youth joining civic organizations? And how do we reach out to them and make make it a priority for them to be engaged?
Doug Griffiths 26:53 That’s such a big question. There’s so much to unpack. And you’re right, those those. There’s always those factions, those in support of something that was opposed to something and the 95% of people that have no idea what’s going on and don’t care because they’re so busy with the day to day lives, we we’ve lost the art of real communication. I don’t know that it’s it’s a recent loss. It’s it’s been going on for a while, I mean, a lot of communication is got drilled down to press releases, and newsletters and announcements and not a lot of real conversation. And with social media that’s just amped up. Now. Now, you you put out a press release, and 500 other organizations have the same idea and that gets lost in the noise. So my advice always is to go back to the original social network, the word of mouth communication. You want to move people, the majority of people to start to be excited about the future and where you’re going and what you’re doing. You got to have the conversation with them. Again, it’s the same sort of argument with the with the town and chambers build some of those relationships, you’ve got to listen a lot to what what people’s issues are, and and then inspire them about what the potential for the future is so that they know what you’re doing and why. I mean, I can’t I can’t tell you how many communities I’ve seen that decide we’re going to undertake a downtown beautification project. Now they they understand the twinkle lights in the front edge, redoing the front’s and more social activities brings people downtown which makes businesses more profitable. It increases the social center and makes it a hub. And it’s a way to revitalize our downtown’s. And then you hear everyone in the community say, Well, this is this is just fluff. Why are we doing this? Because they don’t understand why there’s good. There’s good research, good, good evidence show that it’s valuable. But we don’t talk to people about it and explain why and then we wonder why they’re opposed. And then that that other faction that’s typically not engaged is easily swayed by the NIMBYs the nopes, the bananas, the cave, people in the fears, those negative people that are constantly critics and and afraid of what everyone’s doing. And and so even when they’re not very inspired still to participate, they’ll sign the petition, they’ll drop in a form letter, email, and suddenly this is wave of opposition. And it’s because we haven’t properly communicated. And so my advice is always reinvigorate the original social network, the face to face communication, you can’t do it once you can’t do it twice, you got to do it a million times, you got to do it forever. And if you ever stop, then the relationship stops. And then you know some of those some of those that can help with the buy in and the excitement and then volunteers understand why instead of just well, I need you to do this. They understand why they’re doing it. They’re connecting it every every good business, every good company has had a vision for the company and every single employee from from the janitor to the CEO, understands what they’re trying to achieve in the vision they have and then they understand their role in helping make that a reality and they want it to be successful. We should be doing that with our communities. That’s why we changed our, we have a different approach for strategic planning. And then we also with the even when we get more volunteers when people buy in, because they really get why we’re doing it. And it’s exciting. And they want to be part of an authentic community, which is only accentuated more since this pandemic, we also have to understand how people volunteer. So I hear way too many people say, Oh, these young people don’t care about their community, and they don’t want to volunteer that’s complete garbage. That is such garbage these, the younger generation, and millennials and the generation Zed Z, are are actually very staunch community builders, they’re very concerned about their communities and where they live. The challenge we have is that they don’t want to volunteer the way older generations did. There’s there’s there’s not one of them that wants to join the elks and show up for a meeting the third Thursday of every month to drink a bunch of beer and go, Yeah, let’s volunteer. They don’t want that commitment. But you give them a project, a gig to work on. And they will volunteer on that project, you know, you’ve got to an environmental cause you got to clean up a park, you’ve got to do something like that, they’ll come, they just don’t want to have to show up the third Thursday of every month at a meeting. And it’s part of the way societies evolve. We live in the gig culture now. And that’s the way they respond. So we got to stop complaining that they don’t want to volunteer and start creating opportunities for them to volunteer in the way they want to volunteer instead of lamenting the fact that don’t do what we’ve done for 40 years. Sorry, I know that was really long.
Brandon Burton 31:27 No, that’s good. I’d like that point that being in a gig culture, and that’s how we engage the youth now is it’s one one gig at a time, right? We got a cleanup project or whatever. And, yeah,
Doug Griffiths 31:39 it’s one of my favorite things. Sorry. Yeah.
Brandon Burton 31:43 I get so excited. This Yeah. If you’re asking for that long term commitment, they kind of glaze over. So I think that’s a great point. Go ahead.
Doug Griffiths 31:51 Oh, to start, because I get so excited about this stuff. I love doing these presentations. But one of my favorite stories was from it was a young man in a community of about 3000 people in the US. And he wanted to clean up one of the local parks, and it was him that wanted to do it. So we went to the town to say, Hey, I’m going to do this, can I do this? Well, the response was, Well, we should get you some garbage bags. And actually, we need to double check and make sure our insurance covers it. Because if you fall and break your leg or crack your head open, we might be insured. Oh, and by the way, maybe we should put a budget to get those garbage bags for you. And then we should actually create a a notice so that other people can come and join. And they had all sorts of issues to deal with. And they said come back in six months, and what will we be approved by them? Well, he looked at them and said, Forget you, I don’t think he used that F word. But when he went to the park with a bunch of his friends, and they cleaned up the park, they took pictures of it before and it wasn’t bad. They just wanted to brighten it up. And they took pictures of it after he got into trouble from the town because he didn’t get permission. But he posted the pictures on Instagram. And 1000s of other young people did the same thing in their community. They said this is a great idea. I think the hashtag was clean like community or clean up my community or clean up my park, something like that 1000s and 1000s of young people from Canada in the United States went into their community and cleaned it up. There was a massive movement. And and yet, not one municipality was responsible for it or instigated, and it just demonstrates that, that these younger generations don’t need permission. They’re not waiting for authority, they don’t give a damn what your title is. They’re used to working in a gig economy in a flat environment. And when they see a cause they want, they’re going to go take care of it. So that makes them some of the most ardent community volunteers we’ve ever seen. And we need to embrace that and find opportunities for them to succeed. Absolutely. I’m
Brandon Burton 33:41 sure there wasn’t one lawsuit either somebody tripping in the park while they’re cleaning up.
Doug Griffiths 33:46 Not one, not one. It was amazing.
Brandon Burton 33:49 Yeah. So if I understand the right word of mouth, Trump’s press releases for those that are disengaged, right. Yeah, imagine Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So the next question that we had is, is the chamber model that we currently have? Is it missing something? Or is it not providing the true needs of the businesses in our community? Yeah,
Doug Griffiths 34:15 definitely. I mean, there’s some modern chambers that are doing some pretty interesting things. But like I said before, this traditional chamber model seems to be collect some funds in membership dues to hire someone to put on an event to raise enough funds to keep that person hired to collect membership dues, and put on an event and round around we go. And yet they’re one of the biggest things I think that’s missing the chamber should be doing is some professional development for their businesses, showing them you know, how to enhance the bricks and mortar, having classes for them to you know, there’s still so many consults going around and you spent $10,000 to get a website designed and if you’re, you got the wrong person, if that’s what it’s costing to design. You should there’s so many Easy Ways to set one up very easily. I’m doing a little training about social media. I mean, there’s there’s a, there’s a business in Williston, North Dakota that was so impressed with Grayson plan you they started off with a, the main street was redesigned and beautified. And then this business opened up and it was very chic. It was very nice. But you can imagine and Willesden, they had smaller client base. But as they continued to sell product, they moved on to Instagram and, and they started posting pictures of their clothes, and clients would then post pictures of them wearing their clothes and built this sort of culture, this unique culture that they owned, and now they get orders from all over the United States and Canada, for the close, they do more of their business on Instagram than they do on Main Street. But they need both. And they would like both, we could use a little professional development for businesses like that. And I think chambers of the organization that can take the lead. And, and so they’ve got to sort of get over the mindset that the businesses are going to tell the chambers to lobby the town and start to think you’re a collective resource to help us grow the business community and make each of us more profitable, and then focus on on some of that professional development too.
Brandon Burton 36:13 I think it’s a great response. Good good fodder for for chambers to listen to and, and figure out how can they continue to stay relevant and and kind of adjust their their business models? This next question that I have is one that I was thinking of as I was reading through the book, and he touched on it some in the book, but I wanted to hear just straight perspective from you in today’s world. What is the importance of community?
Doug Griffiths 36:47 Oh, wow. All right. So we got an hour or so left? Yeah, that’s. Yeah, you know, so we do this, because I think community building is the single most important job on Earth. And I’ve thought that way since since I, when I entered politics back in 2002. And if anything, it’s more true today than it’s ever been. Now, I know being in political circles. A lot of people say families the most important thing. But I’m kind of hesitant about governments or programs to serve families, because families are so different. It’s so diverse. I actually believe if we focus on building communities, then leadership is successful. Businesses are profitable, and families can take care of themselves and each other. So I always encouraged all three levels of government to focus on community building. And that has been everything I had, had lobbied for and argued about for last 20 plus years, has has been proved important through and post pandemic. And it’s because we, we we discovered that if if we were homebound because we were sick that Amazon didn’t send us a note to say hey, are you okay? They sent a note and said, hey, it’s Friday, it’s a good time to shop. That’s it. But I heard, I’ve heard countless stories of now business saying well, you know, they come in every three days, and I haven’t seen them all week. And they’ll call and say, Hey, is everything okay? And they’re there to support each other and help each other. And we’ve we’ve actually seen, we saw the trend before the pandemic. And I’ve argued about this, I’ve I’ve presented the evidence about this people moving from Los Angeles and San Francisco and New York into places like Boise, Idaho, and Des Moines, Iowa and Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Zionsville, Indiana. And so they’re they’re moving to, to communities that are offering a quality of life. And it’s post pandemic or command of this pandemic. Even during the pandemic, people were fleeing to their parents place in small towns or to the cottage country like to get out of the city. And, and this pandemic has made us all aware that we can now work from home, we can do a lot of stuff from home, and that we really want to be in a community that we can where we can go down to the yoga studio, we can go to the brew pub, we can go to the the locally owned coffee shop, we can socialize and talk to each other on Main Street again, recreating that desperately after being locked up for two years. And so it’s demonstrated just how important community is. And it’s also demonstrated that this notion that rural communities, small towns are dying, is no longer true. That’s where people want to be and if we are ready to be to modernize and to provide the quality of life you want. We’re we’re the ones that don’t aren’t stuck with a lot of infrastructure and and sunk costs like the cities are so we can’t rejuvenate as quickly. We can do it very quickly, and they’re looking for us. We just need to make the changes necessary and attract them out there. So, I mean, everything to me has demonstrated, especially in the last few years, just how vital communities are to the human psychology. And I think this is a ripe opportunity. In fact, the next book I’m working on is 13. pathways forward for communities, it’s, you know, it’s about the mindsets and the things that we could do to capitalize on, on what’s coming.
Brandon Burton 40:17 I like that. So I guess the basis for that question about the importance of community in today’s environment is so much is done online. And you’d mentioned Amazon and I just I wanted to give a plug for the the Alberta chambers, I mean, right there in your region, is doing some pretty interesting things with taking things digitally, putting their, you know, the business members online and, and helping set up ecommerce sites and, and doing some of these innovative things. That is building their community. So people can shop online, but still support Alberta and the chambers in that region. So I think there’s a lot of significance still to community, even in the world of technology and, and internet and so forth. In your book, you had mentioned that you’re always looking and observing other ways that people go about community killing their communities. Is there a couple examples that you’ve learned since writing the book that that you’d be ready to share that you’ve learned, of, of way, new ways that you’ve found and are discovered? Yeah, I
Doug Griffiths 41:34 actually, I have a list in a folder on my desk. 13 More Ways to Kill Your Community. Yeah, it’s a long list. It’s it’s amazing how how often people find new ways to sabotage your own success, it’s. So if I was to write another 13 Ways to Kill Your Community, the first chapter would be don’t have conductivity and broadband service. Here in Canada, it’s been declared an essential service that the funding isn’t quite there yet to start to back it up. And we still haven’t even addressed all of our water issues, especially to our First Nations and indigenous communities yet, but I’m confident that we’re going to address that, but but everything the way the world is changing, especially again, post pandemic we can do education is important to the future of our communities and opens all those doors up to attract new people, that it’s as important as water is, and you will die without it. So that would be one of the top ones. The another new one that’s I’ve added to the list since through the pandemic, or over the last few years, is let politics divide you. We’ve seen and it’s it’s across, I think it’s around the whole world. Actually, we’ve seen this notion that, you know, the right is always right, and the left is always wrong, or vice versa. This this polarizing politics, we have got to prevent from infiltrating our community building. Because community is about having people with different opinions and different walks of life and diversity all being together. That’s what makes a community. If if we all agreed, if we all had the exact same mindset, then I mean, it’s not healthy. In fact, there’s been research done on on corporations and boards of directors that all have, this is my quote. But if you have a board of directors that that are all, quote, unquote, qualified, now that you’ve got 10 People who are all the most qualified to run a business, historically, they were 50 year old white males with MBAs. But if you put 1050 year old white males with MBAs in the room, you get one opinion, because they all have the same background, the same experience the same education, you need diversity, to be successful. And it’s the same with communities but, but we’ve got this notion that we we all need to think alike be alike, and anyone who isn’t exactly like us is now the enemy. And that is tearing our communities apart, for the sake of ideology and ideology, I have never found to be right ideas are what are important to help our communities move forward. And so I would, I would say, you know, the chapter two of the next book would be lead ideology where people park rip your community apart.
Brandon Burton 44:22 Yeah, that is powerful. That’s a very real example that we’ve been seeing lately.
Doug Griffiths 44:28 Yeah, and it’s been all over the world. I’m it’s not anyone. It’s not in any particular jurisdiction. But it’s it’s a dangerous precedent. And it’s built on anger. And I anger. You know, I don’t have it in the book, but I say during the presentations. The second most evil of all human traits is envy because it sabotages our own success when we’re envious of others. We need people in the community to be successful. But the most evil of all human traits is anger. And I use the phrase your anger is a liar. It’s a self propagating hatred machine. And he experienced it, you, you go to work hitting potholes and then the front of your car doesn’t, you know, it swears a little bit and you’re angry and you didn’t get the promotion at work and you come home and, and the kids didn’t take the garbage out, you’re like God told you to take the garbage out. And it just continues to feed until it becomes a rage. If you’re in a happy mood, and you come home and you see the kids didn’t take the garbage out, you’re like, come on, I asked you to try and remember, the angry you are, the more angry you look to become. And our anger is ripping our communities apart. And it’s being fed by politics, and we’ve got to get around it. Or we’re gonna sabotage your own success.
Brandon Burton 45:40 Yeah. Well, I hope you do come out with that book. It’s 13 More ways, your community. As we start wrapping things up here, I wanted to ask if you’ve been very generous with time and, and knowledge and insight, but what might be one tip or action item that you would suggest for Chamber Champion to do to help lift their community to the next level?
Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions
Doug Griffiths 46:04 Well, I mean, start the conversation about what the future can be and make sure the conversation is positive. Now we can we can always cite, you know, what’s wrong, oh, our main streets are ugly, or our, our town doesn’t work with us or taxes are too high, start with with something positive, and help educate people. And so my advice, the very first bit of advice I always give to chambers of commerce, is have a session on customer service. Because I’ve been to lots of small towns that go into the businesses and they look at me like, who are you? And what are you doing here? Yay, for customer service, me, every single person you connect within a community is a reflection of that community. So all it takes is the very first person to be unfriendly or look grumpy, or look like they’re there. They’re not You’re not welcome. And man, the impression of the is that the whole town is like that. It’s so customer service, whether you’re going into the town office, or going into a business, it doesn’t take a lot to smile and say, Hey, welcome. This is great. And then, you know, there’s so many ways to improve that customer service. And it’s funny, the mean, evidence, psychological research shows that if we smile, even when we don’t feel like smiling, we eventually feel like smiling, it put it changes our mood, if you walk around with a scowl, you get angry, or if you walk around with a smile, even if you don’t mean it, eventually it becomes a real smile. So just just realizing and helping the businesses realize that when a new person from out of town shows up on Main Street, that first impression is everything. Because it changes the tone changes, the brand changes a story into something positive instead of in something negative. And so my advice is, is that talk about how you can, you can sell your community with a smile.
Brandon Burton 47:59 I love that tip. And in fact, in today’s world, where we’ve have become more digital and chambers have been used to doing, you know, hybrid events and doing things over zoom, and they’ve dove in to the digital part of things, I would maybe take it a step further and do this educational series or, or training or whatever you want to call it on customer service that recorded and you have created a library of things like this. So your employers in your community, as they onboard new employees, five years down the road, 10 years down the road, they can access these trainings on customer service, because some of those things are, you know, they’re always applicable. And it continues to show the relevance for the chamber. It puts a good face on your community, it creates a stronger business there, it’s just a win win all the way around. But I would encourage chambers to capture that and create a library that can be shared amongst the businesses in your community.
Doug Griffiths 49:00 Brilliant, because it’s a good reminder after a year or two to watch, even if you’ve watched it once already a good reminder that customer service. No, that’s brilliant. Absolutely.
Brandon Burton 49:08 So I like asking everybody I have on the show 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
Doug Griffiths 49:21 Well, I think changing that that old world story, that same pattern of behavior, same pattern of operations is is what needs to change. And but anyone who thinks that chambers are defunct and that they’re going to fade away, doesn’t understand the value of chambers. What’s going to go away is the old way of operating and chambers that are going to be successful that are going to provide value for that that membership do that are going to provide value for the council that needs the advice on what businesses are looking for not just the lowest taxes on these regulations, but actually Bringing socialization downtown and Beautification and helping ensure that their prospers, that’s the future and chambers are going to have no problem being successful. If they’re prepared to adapt, just like every other organization, and every other business, adapt or die.
Brandon Burton 50:17 That’s right. And go back and read this book. And if you want to kill your chamber, there’s a course out here for you to do. There’s a bat for you to follow. Madang I have really enjoyed our conversation and having you here with me on Chamber Chat Podcast today, I want to give you an opportunity to share any contact information or ways for people to connect, if they have any questions about what we talked about today. Or if they wanted to connect with you about their community and the services you offer, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you.
Connect with Doug Griffiths
Doug Griffiths 50:51 So my email is Doug@13ways.ca or.com. We have both now. And that’s 13ways.ca or.com. And there’s my cell number two, I always advise people and you’ll hear if you call me. I say please don’t leave a message, you’re better to text me and say, Hey, here’s my name. Here’s where I’m from, quit schedule a time to chat, and then I can text you back. And otherwise you leave a voicemail. And then I have to stop what I’m doing and call in and write it down on a piece of paper and I’ll put it away in my pants and then watch them and I’ll forget you’ll think I’m a jerk because in callback, so text on my cell 587-335-0013. And of course, you can always look up 13 Ways on on Instagram On Facebook, check out our website 13ways.ca or.com where we have a lot of we have free master classes on strategic planning on marketing and communications. And and so check it all out. We also have a a community leaders camp coming up in the beautiful rocky mountains at the end of April. And we have a few spots left. It’s going to be intimate, there’s only going to be about 50 people with some amazing keynote speakers. Obviously, you can check out that information. And if you can’t find what you’re looking for, then just reach out because odds are if you need it, and we haven’t created it yet to help. There’s 1000 Other people needed to and so we’ll get to work on it. So I reached out.
Brandon Burton 52:21 Absolutely, I’ll get all that contact information in our show notes for this episode, which will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode164. But Doug, this has been a real treat to have you on the podcast. And I really appreciate you sharing your time with us today and sharing these key insights as well. Thanks a lot.
Doug Griffiths 52:42 Thanks, Brandon. I really appreciate the work you’re doing to with helping Chambers was so critical of an element to building communities. I just can’t thank you enough. Keep up the great work.
Brandon Burton 52:52 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.
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As the old saying goes “if you have seen one chamber, you have seen one chamber.” I understand that every community has different needs. They are different sizes and have different problems. They also have different things that make them uniquely great. I often wonder about the confusion of business owners who belong to multiple chambers.
Hypothetically, a business could be a member of a larger, more robust chamber that has multiple events each week and several ways to educate and market their business members. This same business (maybe a secondary location) could also be a member of a more rural chamber who has a totally different vibe. Both chambers are doing what they feel is best for their community. However, this hypothetical chamber member is having a very different experience with each of these organizations.
Common Member Experience
One way that every chamber could offer a similar experience for each of their members is through advocacy. Many chambers claim to be the voice of business for their community but what does that mean? Do their members know what that means for their business?
Some chambers tend to shy away from jumping into the advocacy arena for fear of offending people. They may worry about losing funding from a city contract or a large sponsor. Some worry about losing members because of the chambers stance on a topic.
Advocacy Creates the Voice of Business
If chambers could agree to represent the voice of business in their communities by promoting pro-business candidates and policies, then their members would better understand the value that they get from their chamber. They would understand why the chamber is branded as the voice of business.
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During election season, I have seen chambers invite local candidates to be interviewed on the chamber’s podcast. This provides a platform for residents to hear the ideas each candidate offers up, especially as it relates to business in their community. (If you are interested in starting a podcast for your chamber, see my free resources at chamberchatpodcast.com/pivot.)
I really like the idea of chambers in the same region banding together to support certain causes. This way as you advocate at your county or state levels, you can leverage the numbers of businesses who feel a certain way about proposed legislation that would impact their business. You can do this type of advocacy on your own, but a regional effort carries a much larger impact. This could even be taken to a national level as you bring chambers together across your state, province, or territory.
Advocacy Examples
I recently did a podcast interview with Marc Cohen, Chief of Staff at the Greater Rochester Chamber in New York. Marc offered up a great tip that may serve you well with your advocacy efforts. He suggested rather than trying to meet with the elected official, it is very effective to connect with a member of their staff instead. It is often easier to get a meeting with one of the staff members than it is to sit down with the elected official. If you can successfully create a relationship with the staff member, then you can create a great advocate on the inside.
When I visited with Roy William, and Brad Hicks on Chamber Chat Podcast, they both mentioned the great value of their chambers having political action committees. Setting up a P.A.C. requires more commitment and legal help but it can also become another source of revenue for your organization.
Here is a list of some ideas of ways to incorporate advocacy at your chamber. You may be doing some of these things already, and this list is not exhaustive by any means.
Learn about proposed legislation, taxes, regulations, or expiring regulations.
Talk to your business community/take polls about the expected impact of these proposals.
Look up who all of your local, county, and state elected officials are and start introducing yourself and your chamber to these leaders and explain who you represent. Write them each an email of encouragement and optimism of working together with them to represent their constituents in your community.
Coordinate letter writing and phone campaigns to show support or displeasure for certain proposals.
Organize or join a group on a regional or state level with other chambers to leverage your numbers.
Interview candidates in a forum to share their views to inform voters.
Endorse pro-business candidates and policies.
Consider creating or supporting a political action committee.
Summary
Your chamber does not need to set up a P.A.C. to make an impact advocating for the businesses in your community. But you should be doing something to make the voice of business heard in your area. I would encourage you to not let fear deter you from standing up for what is right for your business owners, their employees, and their families. Hold public forums, conduct interviews on your chamber’s podcast, YouTube, or Facebook page. Conduct polls to get real feedback from your business community. All of this will allow you to collect the information you need to help pro-business policies and candidates thrive in your community.
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As we are starting a new year, we are still in the midst of this worldwide COVID pandemic. I thought it would be helpful to share some tips in the written form to help you shortcut the work at your Chamber by sharing some lessons learned over the past 3 years of producing the Chamber Chat Podcast.
What Have We Learned?
Many Chambers are operating with fewer staff at the moment. Many have shifted what their working environment looks like by allowing for more work from home opportunities. Depending on where you are located, there may still be restrictions on the number of people who can gather at events. Each of these challenges present unique obstacles but I believe they also provide opportunities for growth.
Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, states that “Inside every problem lies an opportunity”.
Chambers have had to take a strong look at their value propositions and mission statements. As Chambers have done this, they have found ways to prove and show their relevance more than ever.
I have now been working in the Chamber world for over 15 years in the Chamber publishing space and 3 years with Chamber Chat Podcast. Over this time, I have learned a lot about what Chambers do, how they operate, the impact Chambers have in their communities, and I have also learned that many people in any given community don’t even know that their local Chamber exists or have any clue as to what a Chamber of Commerce does. I am working on a new project that will address this, so stay tuned for more details to come on this front soon.
2019 Lesson Highlights
At the end of each year while producing Chamber Chat Podcast, I have recorded a summary episode that highlights some of the key lessons that I learned that year that relates to the Chamber industry.
In 2019, some of the key lessons were:
A Chamber can and should be much more than a networking business community.
The importance of great community partnerships.
The need for talent & workforce development.
The importance of staying true to your strategic plan.
The future is bright for Chambers that stay relevant.
In 2020, as the pandemic hit and Chambers were stressed in new and complicated ways. As a result, several new lessons rose up to the top. In fact, I covered 20 lessons learned in 2020 for that year’s summary episode. Some of those key lessons were:
Trim the fat by burning sacred cows.
Chambers need to be agile to make quick pivots.
Set aside reserves in your budget.
We learned how to go virtual and how to use new digital tools.
Many Chambers saw podcasting as a way to stay connected with their members and community.
Probably the number 1 lesson from 2020 was the need to be flexible!
Lessons from 2021
As the “new normal” sets in, additional lessons need to be applied, which should help to sustain Chambers moving forward. Because of the timely relevance to these lessons, I will expand more than just a few highlighted bullet points. You can also access my lessons from 2021 at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode153.
Finance & Membership Models
Many membership organizations have had to really evaluate their overall structure. Everything from finances to membership models to strategic partnerships were on the table for discussion to keep their organizations in operation and to provide the needed service and value to their members. Some organizations saw the value in merging with another similarly aligned organization, possibly a tourism or economic development organization. Some Chambers even came together to create more of a county-wide or regional organization. There is value and strength in coming together. However, going back to one of the lessons from 2019, a Chamber must stay true to their strategic plan.
Some Chambers did not see the need to merge with another organization but they saw the need to create a triage for their business community whether or not a business was currently a dues paying member of their Chamber. As recovery from the pandemic started to pick up steam, some Chambers saw value in creating a free membership offering. I like the idea of how these Chambers are setting up these freemium models, but I would personally like to see the data from this model being implemented at other Chambers before applying it to my own.
In my opinion, Chambers are all about advancing their communities. This is accomplished through advocacy, networking, and connecting the right individuals for a stronger business environment. Doing these things will help to strengthen all areas of their community.
Online Communities
So, when more people are less involved in their communities, how does a Chamber go about doing this great work?
Well, one answer might be through creating strong online communities as a starting point. Online communities might serve as an on ramp to get others involved which can then transition into more in-person relationships. In today’s world, a Chamber would be doing a disservice to themselves if they are not utilizing the power and leverage of an online community.
Keep in mind that with many generations living and working in your community, they each prefer different methods of communication. Some really like in person events. Some will never attend an event but they will engage and support the Chamber in big ways through their screens.
Online communities can be set up on platforms such as Facebook. My word of caution is that you create a strategic plan for your online community BEFORE you launch it. This will help you in creating community guidelines and will guide you in the creation and frequency of content. This strategic plan should also create a road map for the member experience.
Preparing for the Future
Futureproofing is the next lesson that I will address. When COVID first reared its head, almost everyone caught off guard. Consumers made panic purchases of obscene amounts of toilet paper, business owners who were solely brick and mortar didn’t know if or when they would be allowed to open their doors again. Chambers adapted quickly to keep their business community apprised of government mandates and regulations, but at the same time were needing to cancel most of their non-dues revenue generators. Chambers were not prepared for this major disruption.
Moving forward, I would encourage Chambers to think and to prepare for worst case scenarios. How will you continue to serve your members if you had to shut down again? How will you bring in revenue if you are unable to gather and if businesses don’t know where their next dollar will come from? This idea of futureproofing can be wrapped in with the previous point of creating a strong plan for an online community. This can allow for you to pivot quickly and to deliver content and information to the people who need it the most.
Your Role as an Influencer
Casey Steinbacher’s e-book “From Relevant to Essential” laid out a great argument that shows why Chambers need to understand their role as influencers in their communities. I would encourage everyone to read this book for the full effect, but in a nutshell, we live in a world that is very different than it was 20 or 30 years ago. The newer generations engage in different ways and they tune into different voices. One of the main points of her book is to urge Chambers to embrace their role as influencers.
We don’t normally think of Chambers as influencers, but why are Chambers so great at conveening people and organizations for a greater cause…because they are influencers. Why do businesses join their local Chamber and ask for input on staffing, marketing, accounting, etc…because they are influencers.
Most Chambers turn to social media to flex their influence muscle. I find that many people turn to social media to tune out and they are not usually in the mindset to engage with Chamber content as it comes across their feed. Podcasts however, offer a much more intimate way to share information, and establish or reinforce your influence in the community.
Strategic Partnerships
This year as I did the Chamber of the Year Finalist interviews, each Chamber talked about their response to the COVID pandemic. Almost every Chamber shared how they created a strategic partnership with either their local Small Business Association, local banks, or other similar organizations to help distribute financial resources and relief to the businesses in their communities.
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These types of partnerships can open doors to new services and opportunities. These opportunities will help Chambers better serve their business community going forward.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
We have seen people and organizations of all types recognize the need for more focus and attention on diversity, equity and inclusion. Unfortunately it took the murder of George Floyd for the many of the racial injustices to rise to a higher level of importance. On the positive side, this extra focus on racial equity also allowed for a greater focus on other areas of diversity. It opened our minds to new ideas on how to be more inclusive to people who have traditionally been left out of our organizations for a variety of reasons. We also realized the need to provide more equitable opportunities for everyone in our communities. I believe we still have a long way to go with diversity, equity and inclusion, but we are going in the right direction.
Horseshoes vs. Chess
Anyone who listens to the Chamber Chat Podcast on a regular basis will know how much I love Dave Adkisson’s book “Horseshoes vs. Chess”. This book is what I describe as the best portrayal of what a Chamber of Commerce is and should be as well as what a Chamber Exec is and should be.
We are often asked what Chambers of Commerce do. Horseshoes vs. Chess helps to answer that question in a way that ordinary (non-Chamber) people can understand.
In the book, Dave shares an analogy about Chamber work compared to the games of horseshoes and chess. Some people look at Chamber work the same way they look at a game of horseshoes at a picnic. You don’t have to know much about the game, you can just toss your horseshoes towards your stake and if you get close you get a point.
Dave shares how Chamber work is really much more like a game of chess. You have different pieces that can do different things and you need to understand the role of each piece. One piece may be education. Another piece might be workforce development, and another tourism, and another economic development, etc. The idea is that you must know what each piece is capable of doing while also understanding that you can’t move all of the pieces at the same time. I think this analogy is perfect and it should resonate with most Chamber professionals.
Make Pivots
The final lesson that I will share from 2021 is that I need to make some pivots. I am coming up on the third anniversary of Chamber Chat Podcast. While I still plan to continue with the podcast, I do have some other new and exciting opportunities and projects that I am working on that I hope to reveal very soon. Hopefully you and your Chamber have noticed areas where you can grow and improve as well. In the end, it is about providing the best value and the highest level of service possible.
I wish you all a very successful 2022. I am sure it will be full of new lessons that will help us move closer to our potential. Keep up the great work!
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