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Category: Culture

Elevating Engagement with Amanda Lea Kaiser

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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your hosts Brandon Burton. And it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. You’re joining us for a special episode as part of our 2023 ACCE Chamber the Year Finalist Series.

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Brandon Burton 1:44
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Our guest for this episode is Amanda Lea Kaiser. Amanda is a keynote speaker and author of Elevating Engagement: Uncommon Strategies for Creating a Thriving Member Community. Through her research, Amanda is at the forefront of exploring how member and attendee engagement is rapidly changing when within professional communities. I’ll have to say as a side note, as I read through her book, I very much was able to visualize all of you as listeners, both attending your state and national chamber conferences and engaging on those levels, but also taking some of these lessons learned to your local chamber organization. So as we go through our conversation today, I hope you can see some of those parallels as well. But Amanda, I wanted to welcome you to the show give you a chance to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that are listening and if you wouldn’t mind sharing something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Amanda Lea Kaiser 2:58
All right. Hey, Brandon, thank you so much for having me here on your podcast and hello Chamber Champions. It’s it’s great to be here. Okay, something interesting about myself. So I got my start at Crayola and I rose up the ranks and marketing so I’ve got a classic marketing background. And and now I’m the keynote speaker but maybe even more interesting than that. I’ve got a two kittens adopted me during COVID I don’t know if if you’re a cat dad, but they adopt us I don’t think we adopt them. And and I named them after Muppets. So I love the Muppets, Kermit and all of those guys. So so my cat’s names are Robin in between. And you might see them running in and out because that’s what they do. Awesome.

Brandon Burton 3:44
Yeah, I did notice the Kermit quote in the book as well. So that carries through. I’m not a cat, dad. But I understand what you mean. It doesn’t matter how much you like the cat they have to like you to adopt. Right? Well, I am excited to get into our topic of conversation today. I think chambers across the country, even globally, are constantly thinking about the ways to elevate the engagement of their membership or their investors or those who participate in their organization at at any level. I often will out I’ll hear chambers talk about doing the yellow highlighter exercise where they will print out their membership list and then with a yellow highlighter, go through and mark any chamber member who’s participated or actively engaged with the Chamber in any way. And that may be the main sponsor of their annual banquet. It may be the sponsor of their board room, or maybe just somebody who’s constantly liking their Facebook posts. So literally any level of engagement and as they do this yellow highlighter exercise, oftentimes there’s not a whole lot of Yeah, low on that sheet once it’s marked up. So I think we’ll, we’ll be in for a treat today with a lot of these tips and ideas around how to elevate engagement with our memberships. So we will dive into this discussion as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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Brandon Burton 8:31
All right, Amanda, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, we’re, we’re talking about elevating engagement, you’ve got a book all about it. Some could say maybe you’re an expert on it. And I’m a little bit hesitant at all really setting the stage that way. I think I told you before we got on the recording. It’s like introducing a comedian and telling everybody how funny that comedian is and then your your setup to deliver. So you know, no pressure at all, but I’m looking forward to an engaging conversation. Good. So maybe let’s just start with why did you write the book like what what was it about your background and maybe personal history that led up to this moment where you’re like, there needs to be a book about elevating engagement of these membership organizations? Yeah,

Amanda Lea Kaiser 9:21
so Okay, so let me give you just a kind of quick, sober, quick, speedy history to get us to this point. So like I said, I started at Crayola. And then I had a couple of jobs in my career where I worked at an advertising agency and then I landed in a NAT at a national association. So I worked I worked in for a higher ed Association. Super cool. It was the first time that I even realized that associations and chambers and they were even a thing I just didn’t know until that point until I started working for them and I was director of marketing there. And and it just completely We opened my eyes. And I was so delighted by how collegial these professional groups are. They’re, they’re really fantastic. So I decided to open up my own business. And I was a qualitative researcher, my, my marketing focus has always been on research. And I decided to pursue the qualitative research side of things. And during my time, as a qualitative researcher, I worked with 33 different associations and got a chance to personally talk to 477 members from all different walks of life. And the conversations with them did two things, one, I would ask them about their industry or their profession. And the second thing that I asked them about was, what is it like to be a member? What is it like to attend? You know, what is engagement like, and all of that, and as I was conducting these interviews, one thing that I found is there’s this gap between members, and attendees and, and leadership, right. And so, so that’s why I wrote the book, I wanted to close that gap. And just to give you a sense of the gap is, is, you know, members, our members are having an experience there, whenever they engage with us, they’re having an experience, and very often when we’re on the inside, and I can say this, for sure, as the as being a staff person on an association, a lot of what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to provide value, we’re trying to do the administrative stuff very right. And we’re not, we’re not focused on the experience. And so, so that’s what this book is all about. The book is all about closing the gap. And and I’m also doing a ton of keynoting. Right now. And so I start out every time by saying we’re here to close that gap between you and your members.

Brandon Burton 11:52
Yeah, I like that. I think that’s a good summary. And that does kind of set the stage a little bit here. So my background is in chamber publishing. And often I’ll even joke with some of the different advertisers Chamber members that were selling ads to that. I often will hear a chamber member say that they want to advertise and whatever the chamber publication is, because there’s almost a sense of guilt, that they join the chamber at some point. And they see all the emails from the chamber about the networking mixer, the after hours, the Chamber luncheon, annual banquet, you know, there’s always something that golf tournament. And there’s a sense of guilt that they can’t be at all of the things, you know, they work during the day, so they can’t go to the luncheon or they’ve got family life after work. So they can’t go to the after hours. So they see doing some sort of advertising with the chamber as a way to engage. So how would you look at engagement? How do you define engagement? As you look at a membership organization, I guess what counts when it comes to? To engagement? Yeah, yeah.

Amanda Lea Kaiser 13:04
So So advertising counts and attending accounts. So so let me let me kind of step back, though, because what I tend to do is I tend to define engagement, the way a member would defined engagement and the way members define engagement is almost solely around emotions. And I actually, I asked when I when I keynote, I asked my audience this, I’ll ask them what is what does engagement feel like when you’re really engaged? What does that feel like? And I’ll ask them to, to recount a professional or personal community that they’re very, very engaged in, you know, what, when that makes their heart very happy. And so this is some of what they’ll say they’ll they’ll say, I feel valued. I feel welcomed, I feel belonging, connected, excited, inspired, it’s energizing, I feel included. I feel focused, I feel peaceful, I feel worthy. I feel like I’m being seen. That’s just some of the words this is I got 139 responses. But those are some of the key words that came up over and over again, so. So engagement is all about emotions. And when you’re when your members or our members are making decisions to engage, they’re making very emotional decisions. That what they’re what they’re what they’re trying to work out and might not be even conscious. But unconsciously they’re trying to say is this community for people like me, do people like me join a chamber like this? You know, do people like me go to events like this? Do Am I gonna find my people here? Am I gonna be long am I you know, all of those things. That’s, that’s the kind of what’s going on in the back of their minds. And so, I, I love to define engagement all around how members see engagement, because you’re right when we when we on the business side, talk about engagement. We’re talking about joins and when rules and registrations and opens and reads and click throughs and all of that. So we’re talking about the metrics of engagement. But I love to think about engagement as that, that very emotional emotions and feelings that drive those decisions to engage. And so that’s that’s typically where I’m coming from. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 15:26
What you said almost sound like a Seth Godin quote, right? People like us do things like this. Yeah. And it’ll often talked about enrollment, right? So the engagement level kind of at Next stage is yes, I want to engage. And now I’m going to enroll I am all in, I’m going to fully participate. And I know that’s a few steps down from where how you kind of break down that, that member journey, or that the experience journey. So maybe touch on that a little bit, because I think so much of that, the beginning of that membership journey is where that emotion really is probably at its peak. There’s some reason why they’re choosing to attend the conference or choosing to join the chamber. And I’ll say everybody does it for slightly different reasons. But understanding what that emotion what that driver is, I think, is so key to being able to help them have a successful journey going forward with the chamber. Yeah, can outline that for

Amanda Lea Kaiser 16:28
us? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So I’m so glad that you started touching on well, you know, what, what happens at the beginning, because So, for most professional communities, what they find is new members are the most fragile members. And, and so, you know, people, if you look at your metrics, you might see people join, and then they never engage. And then it’s not a surprise when they don’t renew, right, and, and so, so they’re very, very fragile. And, and so what we need to do is start appealing to their emotions, one of the one of the things that I often will say, when people are asking for, like, what is the definition of engagement, I’ll say, there’s two parts, there’s, there’s value, so we got to provide value. And the other part is positive experiences. So you want to provide good value and positive experiences. And when you do that, members will engage. And I would wager to bet that your chambers provide lots of amazing value, you know, people, all of you chamber pros, you’re doing all of these events, you’re publishing, you’re emailing, you’re providing all kinds of really amazing things and lots and lots of value. And it’s, it’s frustrating when people aren’t joining, and or it’s or renewing or engaging in, in some way. And so the, the piece that’s often missing is the experience part, the the part that triggers all of the emotions, and, and so this is very salient for new members, you know, new members join, they often don’t understand how to really engage, there is the old the emails are coming in there is I’ve heard that, Brandon, that guilt factor that you were talking about in so from so many different types of members, you know, they’re, they’re sending me emails, I feel like I and what they will say is, I’m not engaging, and it’s, it’s my fault. It’s not them, they’re, they’re making every effort, it’s me, right? And, and I can see that there’s a lot of benefits, I can see that there’s a lot of events and in what they would normally tell me is I feel like I’ve got to start going to these events, which I can never do, because the timing doesn’t work out. Or I’ve got to spend a lot of time on their website, understanding what they do. And I just don’t I don’t have the time yet. And, and so I think what we need to figure out is how to connect a lot quicker with them, you know, how to have how to provide a teeny bit of value so that they understand that taking that leap to come to your events makes a lot of sense. And also connecting on that emotional level. And you do that with experiences. So are there phone calls? Are there? Is there kind of a special quick Fitbit fun email that you could write to them, you know, what are all of the experiences that you can provide to new members that will get them saying this is not only going to be worth my time, but I think that this is going to be a really fun group. There’s a lot of energy. I’m super excited.

Brandon Burton 19:35
Yeah. And as you’re saying that it reminds me in the chamber industry, there’s a lot of focus on with the engagement of members to try to make the shift from being a transactional relationship to be more of a transformational relationship and that way, hopefully, if that’s communicated and modeled in correct ways, the guilt factor hopefully isn’t there. as much because they’re not in it, they didn’t join to say what’s in it for me, but they’re they joined to be part of something bigger, that’s making a positive impact in their community. I see some chambers that have the option to join their chamber right on their website, we can enter your name, credit card information, and click Submit. And you’re done. You’re a member. And I’m sure there’s the onboarding emails that come in. But that chamber doesn’t know anything about that member, why they joined, they didn’t really share their mission, their vision, any of that. And oftentimes, those are coming from another member as a referral. So you know, you need to be a part of the chamber, right? So I think right from the beginning, there tends to be a little bit of a disconnect. And I love in the book, you talked about doing a listening tour. And I think that could probably come in and in a couple different stages along the member journey. But to really tap into that emotion and their why you want to maybe expand a little bit on the listening tour, and how that can kind of pull on that emotion. Yeah,

Amanda Lea Kaiser 21:08
absolutely. So let me let me give you a couple of tangible stories that I heard dirt while I was while I was interviewing members. So. So there’s a couple of associations that were doing a really good job, and I got a chance to figure out what they were doing from their member saying I was on I was the recipient of the listening tour. And so there’s one, one association that did a very interesting thing. Now they had not very many members joining. It wasn’t like they were having hundreds of members join every week, they might have been having 10s of members join every week. And and so the the director of marketing of that particular organization, would schedule a call, it was about a 20 minute call with every single new member. And during that call, she would ask them a series of questions, you know, hey, tell me about yourself. And when did you start working at this company? Or when did you you know, when did you start the company? She would, she would ask them questions about projects, they were working on what their goals were, what their mission was, what if they’re having any challenges, she might even ask them, you know, what, tell me about some trends. And she would, she would take careful notes, and she listen intently. And at the end of the call, probably with maybe, I don’t know, three, four minutes to go, she would say this has been so interesting. And there’s a couple of things that I heard you talk about, that we might be able to help out with, there’s you talked about this really interesting project that you’re working on. And not many of our members are working on a project like this, but I know that Sue is. And I would love to introduce you, it’d be okay, if I introduced you to Sue, I think she’s a couple of steps ahead of you. And, but you know, I can introduce you via email in and then she will, she would also say and I also heard you talk about this system, that we’ve got some data from some of our research, or we’ve got an event coming up where we’re going to be talking about this topic, we’d love to have you I’m going to follow up with some emails. And so you know, she get off the phone and immediately send some emails, one introducing that new member to sue a longtime member and tell in telling Sue and you know, reminding this this person while why she was introducing them, and then she would follow up with a separate email saying, hey, you know, as we were talking, I told you, I was going to send you this research report and this invite to this event and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that that’s very time consuming very hands on for this organization that works. Because they don’t have a lot of members. Other organizations, there is the listening tour where you get into your car, you know, or your your get your staff into a van, and you book breakfast, lunch and dinner. Or you go to people’s offices or places of work or factories and and you spend 15 or 20 minutes with them doing the same kind of thing, asking them questions, touring, just being there letting them be seen. And it’s such a pleasure because now when they come to an event, they already know a friendly face. So there’s there’s that part. The other thing is if you are with a chamber that’s maybe spans a large geographic area, there’s a virtual orientation events. Now the virtual orientation events are not orientation webinars, there are much more responsive than that. So so people come you know, your new members come into a Zoom meeting. And then you ask them the same kind of questions, you know, where, where do you work what what kind of organization is your company? Tell us a little bit about it. What are some of your goals? What are some of the projects that you’re working on? And then as everybody’s feeding information to you, you the host can do some pattern matching for the biggest things that people are They’re struggling with and then make that link for them between their problem back to the to what the chamber provides in terms of, of benefits or upcoming meetings or something like that. So. So I love that you were talking about, you know, these these member listening tours, because there’s so many ways that they actually work, Brandon. And that’s really the key to it all. When when you know your members and you hear them talking over and over about their goals, then then we serve them a lot better. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 25:30
there was one chamber executive I talked to one time and he talked about how he’ll do three breakfasts each day, they’ll go meet with different members there. The first one maybe is just having a coffee is the second breakfast, awesome makes the third one, maybe a phase three. So he’s breaking it up. But he’s getting to three different member businesses to have these breakfasts. And he’s meeting with other members there. So like the levels of engagement with the organization with the members is on multiple levels, and able to gather a lot of that very important information to be able to better serve the member. And I love that. So it does kind of seem like though in today with everything digital, and we’ve got in person events, we got virtual events, we get emails, get social media, we’ve got podcasts, we’ve got YouTube, we’ve got all these different ways to get our messaging out there. Does that make it harder or easier to engage members? Like how it I think I can see both sides of the coin, but I’d love to hear your approach and maybe how chambers might want to look at this. Yeah,

Amanda Lea Kaiser 26:41
what I’m hearing across the board is, is engagement is getting harder, it’s harder to engage attendees most virtually and in person, it’s harder, harder to engage members, it’s harder to get those opens and reads. It’s just I think it’s harder. And some people are saying, you know, this is not uniform. There’s some associations and some chambers that are seeing these bright spots, like, hey, we went back into person. And and, and we’ve got some of our in person events are doing amazing. And we’re still doing virtual, and some of those are doing amazing. So this is not, engagement isn’t universally going down the tubes. But I think it is getting harder. And one of the reasons why it’s getting harder is is really time and attention. You just hit on it, Brandon, there’s so many ways that we’re trying to reach members. But there’s so many ways that they’re getting content and they’re connecting. And they’re you know that it’s just sort of, we all have a very frantic pace of life these days. And so we’ve got to do something different to engage members than what we did before. And I’m so glad that you asked that question about communications, because this is sort of a really great time to talk about how you not only provide value, but you also provide the experience so so every time we communicate, there’s two things that we’re trying to do. The first is the what we say. And that’s the value, it’s the message we’re trying to get across. The second thing we’re trying to do is is or the second thing we communicate is how we say it. And this is the tone, it’s the voice. And and this might be something that you’ve talked about a lot in publishing is the tone or the voice. And so I love to think about tone on a continuum. And so on one side of the continuum, there’s the very institutional tone, the very professional polished tone, it’s a lot of big words, it’s when we’ve got our business hat on, that’s the tone we tend to fall into is the institutional tone. On the other end of the continuum, I have a what I call the best friend forever tone, sometimes we’ll also call it the happy dog tone. So if you go into your personal email, and you read, you just quickly, like scan your personal email of all of the brands and companies and products you really love. They’re talking to you and the happy dog tone, there’s emoji, there’s hashtags, it’s casual, they’re talking to you like they’re your best friend. But for some reason, when we’re doing business to business, and we put our business hats on, we talk very, we tend to talk very institutional. And so I just like to remind everybody, that tone is on a continuum, and you can pick anywhere you want to be, and especially with your new members, they’re they’re looking for all of those cues on whether to belong, you know, is this the place for people like me, they’re looking for those belonging cues. And when you can warm up your tone in your emails or warm up your tone and your phone calls, you know, or any of the information you’re sending out to new members. They the sense that they sense that this is going to be a happy, warm, lovely place for them to meet other people and connect.

Brandon Burton 29:54
Yeah. So when I think of, maybe an in person or even a virtual event I think to on an event stage, it’s a maybe a little easier to gauge the engagement. You can see if people are looking down at their phone or distracted or getting up to get a drink or, you know, just the distraction, where as we try to with these communication channels, I’d love that you brought the the tone and the voice into the happy dog messaging. Besides maybe some of these metrics that we look at the open rates and social engagement tools, are there other ways that we can see if our message is landing, right? If we’re how do we get that kind of feedback when we’re not in a room or a Zoom Room even to be able to get that that instant? Hopefully, positive feedback. Yeah,

Amanda Lea Kaiser 30:47
yeah. So people are always asking me how, how do you measure engagement and and there are, you know, I think when your members are doing the yellow highlighter exercise, they’re measuring engagement, looking at your renewals, it’s a measured metric and a measure of engagement. And so as you’re engaging members and attendees differently, you’re going to see that metric go up some some organizations use Net Promoter Score, some of them do things as sophisticated as Engagement scoring. And so again, over time, if you’re, if you’re focused on those experiences, you’re gonna see those those metrics go up. But, but it’s engagement is a tough one. Because it’s very hard to make one change, it’s very hard to say, Okay, we’re gonna make this one event more experiential, and we’re gonna see renewals fly off the chart, that’s not the way it works, right? There’s, there’s, there’s not a lot of like one to one direct comparisons, you just sort of see a general lift over time. So So I think sometimes we have to measure engagement, again, with our own emotions, which is, you know, is there what’s the energy like? Okay, so we’re making it we’re making some improvements to try to be more engaging and say this one event? Was the energy better? Did people walk out smiling, you know, for virtual, one of the things that I think is a really good predictor of a virtual meeting is what’s going on with the chat. Now, you can do a lot of things to have a really robust chat and as a, as a very often speaker, I love the robust chat. I love when I’m talking. And people are busy in the chat and they’re talking to each other. And they’re asking each other questions and they’re tuning in to listen to me and they’re plussing up what I say and then plussing up what everybody else says. And that’s for me that schools because because they’re sure they might be listening to me and engaging with me, but they’re in if they’re engaging with each other. That’s lovely, too. So, so if you’re doing lots of virtual events have chat ambassadors in there. And that can be a micro volunteering opportunity for one of your members. Or it could be a staff, you know, job, but have those chat ambassadors in there that are, you know, they’re plussing up what other people say? And they’re asking questions, and they’re, they’re kind of saying, Oh, this, you know, the speaker said this, what do you think about this, everybody and, and really try to foster that excitement and get it going. And that’s, that’s You’ll sense the energy, you’ll, you’ll sense it, whether you’re virtual or in person, and that that’s almost I think, is Valley or it is as valid as some of those tangible metrics.

Brandon Burton 33:26
Yeah. So I hope this doesn’t feel like we’re taking a step back. But I was thinking about the emotion as people engage with an organization that emotion is, you’re able to maybe give them some small wins along the way. So in the book, you talk about, like speaking from stage, there’s little engagement questions or things you can do to warm up the room, right. So they’re engaging on a very minimal risk or risk free environment where they have nothing to lose if they just participate and engage. And as a member joins an organization. And there’s other little quick wins, I’ll say that you can do to kind of trigger that emotion or positively reinforced that emotion of yes, you’re here for a good reason. We’re here to listen to like, all of those things. Are there any strategies or tips that you want to share around maybe those small quick wins to warm up the audience or the new member, to help encourage them to give them that confidence to be able to engage at higher levels as they progress through their their membership journey?

Amanda Lea Kaiser 34:38
Yeah, let me let me tell you about a totally unexpected story that I heard when I was doing those interviews and it’s a it’s a story that I heard over and over and over in different ways with different words. But what I would hear people say is I went to my very first event for this organization. And while I was waiting in the registration Mine welcomer I didn’t know it at the time, but people were circulating, and they were talking to all of us in the line. And in somebody stopped and talked to me, and it was maybe just two sentences. And it was it, it made me feel like this community is super open and warm and welcoming. And it and I felt like I had to step out of my shell and I am going to, to just talk to other people, I’m going to introduce myself to other people and just see how it goes. And so, so it’s like, new members come in, and we have to give them the teeniest little nudge or a teeny little bit of permission, so that they can go and make their experience great for themselves. And so whenever we can do that, it’s great. So So let’s see, how do you do that you can do that with welcomers that in person events, you know, kind of warming up the crowd for in person or virtual events. Think about your icebreaker, you know, what is what is a an icebreaker question or an activity that is super safe and super easy. And so I’ll give you just an example, when I’m getting together a group and I want to get them to be really creative, I want to I want the group bubbling up lots of ideas, I want them collaborating with each other. And the topic is not is not very serious, you know, it’s we’re working on, we’re just going to work together on this problem. And we’re gonna have a really great time doing it. One of the questions that I love to ask is, would you like to be a dragon? Or have a dragon and why? And in the why is the key, you know, you can pick either one, but I love to ask why. And so you can ask that, you know, in person, with a smaller group, you can ask it on, you know, virtual meeting and get people responding in the chat. But that, you know, again, you’re you’re popping them out of the expected stuff. And in the their professional world, and you’re bringing them into sort of a different surprising experience where they can have a little bit of fun with it. They tap in their answer, and now they’ve started participating, which is half the battle, because once once you start once, then you’ll you’ll form that habit and you’ll keep participating. That’s

Brandon Burton 37:12
awesome. Having read the book, I knew that was the question you’re gonna you’re gonna bring up it’s I was waiting for the dragon question. So I’m glad you glad you brought it out. As we begin to wrap things up here, I wanted to ask usually I’ll ask for maybe a tip or action item for listeners who want to take their organization up to the next level. And what you would offer I think I may want to read phrase that too, for an organization that a chamber listening who would like to level up the engagement of their members to the next level? Where should they start? Yeah,

Amanda Lea Kaiser 37:50
yeah, absolutely. Oh, let me backtrack and tell you one other one. So if you’re looking for more icebreakers, or energizers the other one that is surprisingly, super fun, and people get you know, they have this very fun argument about it is, is a hot dog a sandwich. So what do you think Brandon? Is the hot dog sandwich? Or is it not a sandwich?

Brandon Burton 38:13
I’m gonna go yes. Is it the same way a cheesesteak is the sandwich.

Amanda Lea Kaiser 38:17
Oh, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. So so interesting. Usually, usually groups completely divide. And there’s some squabbling around if a hotdog is a sandwich and to my knowledge, there’s no real answer, you know, just like, Alright, are you know, is white chocolate, chocolate, you know, again, you get the you know, those are those are fun cup questions to ask.

Brandon Burton 38:40
In cornbread, and you have a corndog. Now, that’s a whole nother topic. I don’t agree with that. Yes,

Amanda Lea Kaiser 38:47
yeah. Yeah, that feels not sandwich like to me, but yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so. So what, you know, what can they do to take things to the next level, what, what I would suggest is go and start identifying all of your transactions anytime you have a transaction. So joining as a transaction renewing as a transaction, opening an email is transaction registering as a transaction registration at your events as a transaction. And in so think about and so like, anytime the staff has a job to do, you’re doing administrative stuff for that transaction. So think about how you can seamlessly keep doing the administrative part of it, and then layer the expensive experience on top of it. So that’s, that’s how you close that gap is to keep doing what you’re doing in terms of the transaction and the administrative stuff, but now figure out how to layer the positive experience on top. It’s easier than you think it is. So like, let’s say you’re, you’re you’re doing registration at one of your events, and you’ve got you know, 100 people coming through the door, and you need to give them all badges within 10 minutes or something like that, you know, people are coming at you, and you’ve got to log them. And you got to give them all their badges, even even in those moments where you’re so busy and so frantic, just smile, like just keep giving them a genuine smile. And now you’ve layered on that positive experience. I

Brandon Burton 40:22
love that. And I was thinking, I don’t know, man, I don’t know if this holds true all the way through or not. But if, in talking about those micro wins, as you know, micro positive experiences and micro engagements. Hopefully, if they’re engaging on that small risk free level, a way of maybe measuring that as if they’re engaging again, like if they’re taking another step, you know, on that journey. And if they’re, if they’re stalling out, if you make that initial engagement, and they stall out, maybe the communication needs to be refined, maybe you need to get more information. But they hopefully should be making another step and other engagement along the way. Would you agree with that? Or is that just totally my own thought? totally

Amanda Lea Kaiser 41:13
right. So I have identified it fine. I’ve identified six stages of engagement, and is exactly what you’re talking about that that at each stage, there’s generally speaking, a barrier for people to take that next step into the next stage of engagement. And so to the extent that we can be aware of all of those six, six stages, and just constantly helping people have those micro wins, and in sort of taking that next step, if they want to, one, one thing that happens is you know, sometimes like, boards will get burnt out and a new member, a new face will come to an event for the first time and a board member will rush up and say, We’re so happy you’re here. Have you ever thought about being on the board and the new members panicking and saying, oh my gosh, I don’t even know who you people are yet. And so you can’t rush people up the six stages of engagement, but what you can do is make the opportunity available if they want to. So if you you know, the book is elevating engagement, and right there in the beginning, I detail all of the six stages, and each chapter is devoted to one of those stages. And I talk about the the kind of go no go decisions that members are making at every single one of those stage stages. And then I just try to give you hundreds of ideas for helping them move from one stage to the next. Again, if they want to work, we don’t rush them, we just make those opportunities all available to them. And, and yeah, I think I love I was taking notes while you were talking Brandon, because this idea of micro wins or micro engagements. I just I love that terminology. And I hadn’t thought about it or articulated it that way. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to steal that from you. Because I think it’s cool.

Brandon Burton 43:04
Yeah, just reference me twice. And then you can own it after that. So a real life example that, that I was reminded of and reading the book, you you mentioned that the board members, you know, maybe seeking a replacement for their seat during the board recruitment. So my, my wife was the volleyball Commissioner for our local youth volleyball organization. And our two youngest, well, all of our girls played volleyball through it. So we felt invested. And she was giving back to the community and doing her thing and just ended up with a lot of things on her plate. And she was completely overwhelmed. It was draining all of her energy. So she would talk to the other volleyball moms, she would say, this is wiping me out. Do you want to take it from me? Do you want to do you want to do this? And everyone kept saying, No, it was like, You need to change your approach. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It doesn’t have to be a negative experience. You don’t need to lie to them, but just share what it entails, share what the upsides are, and let them make a decision. But if you sell it as you know, this is so time consuming and is totally drained me. I think the example he gave in the book is a board member saying you know, I’ve I’ve been affected finite, you know, negatively financially, you know, in serving on the board. Nobody’s gonna want to take your spot, right. So you don’t want to scare people away with being over engaged, maybe? Yeah, yeah.

Amanda Lea Kaiser 44:35
And then then a staff members, we can also get a handle on that as well. You know, if, if we feel like it’s hard for volunteers to volunteer, we can look at their roles. We can look at the time commitment, we can look at dividing things up we can but just like it just like we were talking about with new members, you know, we want to take new members and give them that little nudge to help them keep progressing along their membership journey, you can do the same thing with volunteers. I love thinking about the volunteer journey as well. And, you know, start the volunteer journey with a micro volunteering opportunity and then slowly build. And I think a lot of time as a staff people, we tend to think about volunteer roles is very specific things if you’re on a board, if you’re on a committee, those are volunteer roles, but to members welcoming as a volunteer role speaking is volunteer role hosting as volunteer role, right, and, and so, so think about all of those non traditional things that we want to do to engage members like like being a chat ambassador, and have that be a volunteer role. And, and so, you know, maybe people are spending three minutes volunteering, or 10 minutes volunteering, or 30 minutes volunteering, but now you’ve just flex their muscles so that if there’s a chance to do another volunteer role, they might take you up on it. Right.

Brandon Burton 45:59
I love that. So I like asking everyone that I have on the show this question that as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, and I’ll broaden that and say, just associations in general, how do you see the future of chambers and associations going forward?

Amanda Lea Kaiser 46:17
Yeah, I see it really bright. There’s, there’s such a need, you know, when, whenever there’s a need in the community, there’s the business propositions, I think the future is really bright. And it’s just about how to engage differently. And I, from the research, I see that the answer is in the experiential side of things. And again, I think I said this a little bit earlier that I would wager to bet a lot of your chambers are offering a ton of value. And if you offer even more value, that’s great. But it might not get you to engagement, what you got to start doing is focusing on those positive experiences. And so a really quick way to think about that in this is something that you can play with you with your staff or talk to your board about or your committees about is just start saying, you know, the any, anytime somebody starts asking what do our members need, you know, what do our website visitors need? What are our attendees need? What do people need? Start laying or layering on that question, which is how do we want them to feel? And so? So when you ask, how do we want them to feel? And this is an easy thing that we that you could try even tomorrow, right? The next time you’re writing an email, think, how do I want the reader to feel and you kind of lock in that emotion in your brain that you want them to feel happy or joyful or hopeful or something like that. And when you type your message will actually totally change in quality? In in, that’s a really great experience. So just always, always keep asking, How do I want people to feel? How do I want them to feel when they come to our website? How do I want them to feel when they walk in the door of our event? How do I want them to feel when they’re advertising or hosting or sponsoring or any of those things. And that that’ll that’ll get you to the experiences part. I

Brandon Burton 48:11
love that that’s a good gauge right there just to kind of make sure that what we’re doing is the right thing and getting people to to engage and feel good and hit on those emotions that brought them there in the first place. So Amanda, I enjoyed this conversation and having you on the podcast, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect or share where they can find your book or anything like that, that you’d like to share with the audience feel free.

Amanda Lea Kaiser 48:42
Yeah, absolutely. So you can find me at amandaleakaiser.com. It’s Amanda, Lea, and then Kaiser like the role.com. There’s information about the book there. It’s there’s information about speaking, there’s a newsletter all about engagement that I put out once once a week that you can sign up for if you’d like or you can type elevating engagement into Amazon or any online bookseller and you’ll find my book there.

Brandon Burton 49:09
I love it. Well get that in our show notes for this episode. But like I said, this has been an engaging conversation and I hope the listeners feel so as well. And that it may prompt them to make some micro wins to put themselves out there a little bit to touch on those emotions understand why their members are there and what can you do to make them feel the way that you’d want them to feel. So Amanda, thanks again for being with us today and for sharing your your insights and for for sharing this book as well.

Amanda Lea Kaiser 49:41
Thank you so much, Brandon, this has been delightful.

Brandon Burton 49:45
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Empowering Volunteers with Nick Kieffer

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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your hosts Brandon Burton. And it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. You’re joining us for a special episode as part of our 2023 ACCE Chamber the Year Finalist Series.

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Let’s hear from Becky Womble, President of the Bastrop Chamber to hear about her experience with Community Matters.

Becki Womble 1:03
I’ve been using Community Matters for probably six or seven years now. And in a previous life, I sold commercial printing so I can highly recommend Community Matters because it’s a complete turnkey job for any busy chamber exec and it’s a wonderful, beautiful printed product whenever you’re finished. And I just I’m very sold on Community Matters. And with a printing background I just big endorsement from me.

Brandon Burton 1:44
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Our guest for this episode is Nick Keefer. Nick joined the Goshen Chamber in 2007. As Vice President for Business Development, Nick became the president and CEO of the Goshen chamber in July 2017. He graduated the US chambers IOM program in 2011. Nick joined the Board of Regents for the winter Institute site for the IOM program in 2012. In 2013, he received the designation from the Indiana chamber executive Association as certified professional in the chamber industry. And October 2019, Nick was named to the National Board of Trustees for the US Chamber Foundation’s Institute for organization management. Nick is a past board president for the Indiana chamber executive Association. In 2022. He received his accreditation his accredited executive distinction from the Indiana chamber executive Association. Prior to working at the Goshen chamber, Nick ran a construction company with his father in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He received his bachelor’s degree in business from Indiana University and a master’s degree in communications from Purdue University. When he’s not working, he enjoys spending time with his his wife Molly and son Maxwell and daughter Caroline and and that they enjoy spending time outside and stay active chasing their kids around the family farm. But Nick, I’m excited to have you with us today on the podcast I’d love for you to take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions who are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know

Nick Kieffer 3:43
them better in this Brandon Thank you for having me. I think what you do for the chamber industry is great anytime we can hear from from other people and you being that source just greatly appreciate what you do something interesting about me oh my goodness.

I have two food trucks that I do on the side so with our family farm we have a couple food trucks we do around so when I’m not at chamber work I’m doing some food truck work all right, so tell me more what type of food are you serving? Yes. So so we we make apple cider mini doughnuts so my my wife’s family has an apple orchard here in Goshen and so we have what we call the cider shack. So we do cups of cider and mini donuts. And in our new latest food truck will be a sweet corn roaster so we’ll be roasted sweet corn with some different toppings and stuff like that. So keeps me busy. My wife doesn’t like me sitting sitting around home. Nice.

Brandon Burton 4:43
Now that sounds fun. The Cider donut sounds good. Yeah,

Nick Kieffer 4:49
I learned. I believe one every time I work I check the first one for quality. And then I stay away from them. But

Brandon Burton 4:56
yeah, I have to right. Yeah, like any good dealer knows you don’t use the product, right? Yeah. No, that’s great. Well, tell us a little bit about the Goshen chamber just give us an idea of you know size of the chamber staff budget scope of work just to kind of set the table for our discussion.

Nick Kieffer 5:15
Sure. Goshen is the county seat of Elkhart County, we are the RV capital of the world. So any PRVC going down the street, there’s a good chance that was made in my neck of the woods. The Goshen chamber, been around since 1954. We represent 448 businesses, and about 20,000 employees in the Goshen area. Goodness, I have a staff of I say two and a half. He’s really a full time third person but we two full time staff and a part time staff here at the chamber. And we’re on a budget of about 400,000 a year been pretty consistent in that room for the last couple of years.

Brandon Burton 5:59
Good deal. So I like getting that perspective. So as we go into the whatever topic we’re covering on an individual podcast episode, it really helps listeners be able to see how to scale Yeah, compared to their chamber. And you know, if if Nick and that Goshen chamber are able to do these things that three staff or two and a half staff, and a budget of 400,000. See what you can do is your chamber, whether it’s bigger or smaller, and just, you know, scale it, scale it to your size. But I appreciate you sharing that. And as we get into our topic for our conversation today we’ll focus the majority of our conversation around empowering volunteers. And I know chambers across the country utilize their volunteers a little differently and have different types of relationships with them. So I’m excited to dive into this conversation with you as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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Raquel Borges 9:13
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Brandon Burton 10:01
All right, Nick, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, we’ll focus our conversation today around what we can do to empower volunteers. And to know, volunteers are key to the success of pretty much any chamber. We need those people that understand the vision and mission of the chamber and who are on board and are really great community champions. So they’re in Goshen? How do you guys go about working with your volunteers? And I guess we’ll start there just in what aspects are utilizing the volunteers?

Nick Kieffer 10:36
Sure. So, you know, like I mentioned, a staff of three, we couldn’t do what we do without help, right? That’s, that’s the most important part. So you know, relying on our board and our ambassador group to really be the extra eyes and ears out in the community to really help us with what we do is imperative to how we operate. So, you know, we can utilize our ambassador group for, you know, retention for membership growth, or kind of that first year, handholding with a member of, you know, really engaging them and bringing them into the chamber. So a lot of different ways there to try to do that. But you hit the nail on the head with cultivating that volunteer aspect and how we do that it’s just, it’s so important to I think, for any chamber, no matter the size, to really have a group or a core group that you can rely on.

Brandon Burton 11:37
Absolutely. That reliability is key. So volunteers, they could take the the attitude of, I’m not getting paid for this, I’m not taking this serious, right. So getting those right people and we often talk about getting the right people on the bus in the right seats. And, and it’s, it’s true with volunteers to make sure that

Nick Kieffer 12:00
the time, yeah, it takes time to to do that you really have to, you know, it’s not something where, hey, next month, I’m going to have you know, a group of 20 people that I can go out and do this, this is something where you have to constantly work on it work on the relationships, get to know people find out who’s, you know, kind of invested in what they want from the chamber, right? So it’s that give and take of what we have to offer what we can help them with? And then how, how can you use that in a volunteer capacity?

Brandon Burton 12:26
That’s right. You know, it’s often said, you get out of the chamber, what you put into it? And yeah, that there’s a level of truth to that. Especially if you get involved with the committee or volunteering or different things like that. But what are what are some ways that you guys go about in, you know, empowering your volunteers, so giving them some control? And some, some say in everything, right,

Nick Kieffer 12:54
you’re right, you’re, you’re you’re trying to lead the organization and grow it, but but at the same time, you have to be okay with the fact that there’s a group that’s doing some work that you’re not, you know, you might not be able to make it so I can’t make every committee or group meeting that we have, it’s just not possible. And so finding, like you said, again, the key point, finding those right people that you can say, hey, I need notes, you know, where the chamber stands on these things, or, you know, kind of what to expect from the chamber as far as how we operate. And so our meeting should go this way, we try to get staff or myself at different ones, but sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Our young professional groups, probably my best example of, I’m not there all the time. And they really have kind of taken on that leadership role, and from a volunteer side that has really helped grow our wipey group.

Brandon Burton 13:49
And that’s great. So maybe just pulling the thread a little bit on the young professional group, what is it about that with, it’s really helped drive the leadership and that that group forward, as far as the volunteer base goes,

Nick Kieffer 14:05
I think, again, it gets back to that you have to, you know, give them give them room to feel that it’s their, their meeting their, their group, their identity. So, you know, they formed their kind of executive committee for the group. And, you know, I kind of gave an overall hey, here’s what the chamber kind of wants or expects, and how do you, how do you get there and then just kind of taken a step back and let them work through the process. And I was in the room on those early meetings and, you know, chime in when I’d be like, Okay, maybe not this way, we need to kind of shift over here, but not not to be too micromanaging of what they wanted out of the group. So they really bought into the overall idea of what we were doing because they were the ones driving it and so it just kind of stemmed from They’re, you know, they nicknamed me, they call me the DC the dream Crusher. So every time they come with an idea that is out of my budget, I say no. Or, hey, let’s figure out a different way we might be able to do it. But, you know, so just allowing that process it, allowing them to really take the reins and feel like, hey, you know, Nick’s not sitting over top of us, you know, telling us what to do, it’s really our group, that’s that they kind of elevated that program and really taken it on. So they like

Brandon Burton 15:34
it when when the dream crusher is not there, right. Now, so I mean, joking aside, I see, you know, a good feeling that comes out of it, when you can see the different committees, different organizations are able to continue on, even if you are a staff member is not there to help guide or, or even micromanage the whole outcome, but being able to see that they have a good trajectory and moving in the right direction, even without that, you know, staff involvement and every step of the way.

Nick Kieffer 16:11
Yeah, again, it gets to, you know, kind of recruiting those volunteers that understand chamber, the kind of the chamber talk and what we’re here for, and how we can, you know, really make an impact or a difference in what’s going on. And so you cultivate them, and then they you put them in positions to succeed. And then it’s, it just kind of perpetuates through through a program.

Brandon Burton 16:34
So I’m always curious to hear how people go about recruiting volunteer, whether it’s a volunteer for a different organization, a different committee or board member? How do you see, you know, the process of going about recruiting volunteers? Yeah, it’s,

Nick Kieffer 16:54
it’s listening right? There, there are so many conversations we have in chamber work, where somebody will slip it in or talk about, you know, I’m looking for an opportunity, or I need a connection to or I’m looking to connect with and so when you hear those, those things, you know, somebody’s wanting to put themselves out there and really get involved. And so when you, when I hear that, right, and then it’s like, okay, then you got to gauge how much and in their, their own personal traits, right, so you kind of have to do a little, you know, reading on their, how, in how much they want to be out in front of something, or if they just want to be kind of behind the scenes. But it’s really listening to, you know, at our after hours, or at our some of our programs, as you get introduced to more of the membership and, and who they bring from their organizations to kind of see, okay, hey, we can play somebody here, or where would this interest you, we have this program, you said you wanted, you know, more information on this in the community, I have a great program over here, and then you kind of start building it from from there. So it’s just throughout the year staff, my staff and I, you know, we kind of keep a little list of, hey, you know, have you talked to Joe Smith, or to Jane or whoever it may be, and then just kind of work them in. So it’s an ongoing process for us.

Brandon Burton 18:24
Yeah. And I’ve seen, it’s often a good idea to have those people that are engaged in the community to hopefully be in stepping up as volunteers and being engaged in a different level of the chamber.

Nick Kieffer 18:36
Right. And if you’re, you know, for us, we run our own leadership academy. And so, you know, we try to cultivate leadership and employees from organizations that want to be connected to so that’s a great pipeline for us. Our ambassador group, again, is a great pipeline for us. You know, so look around your community, there’s different pockets, and there’s different nonprofits that you can be like, Oh, hey, you know, they’re super involved in this this might be a really good fit for them over here and then you kind of start connecting the dots with with volunteers.

Brandon Burton 19:06
Absolutely. I think that makes a lot of sense it you know, I was joke about you don’t you want busy people? Busy people know how to get things done, right. You don’t want the person who’s sitting at home looking for something to do Oh, certainly.

Nick Kieffer 19:23
I mean, from from my my perspective, that is probably one of the most things for for volunteerism at all don’t waste their time, right? Like they, they have a lot of things to do. They’re not like they’re not my employees, right? It’s not their full time job to help the chamber out. So if, if you don’t have enough for a meeting, canceling, give them their time back because they will work harder for you knowing that, hey, they’re not going to waste our time. I mean, even even on a board level, right? If you’re if you’re, if your agenda for your board meeting isn’t jam packed or you don’t have a whole lot of things If you can afford to say, hey, you know what, this month we’re okay. And your exec team is okay with it, man, give those volunteers that time back. And it just, it makes a difference as you you’re building your relationship with your volunteers. Right.

Brandon Burton 20:12
And, and I think there’s ways of communicating that to where it is still keeps the weight of the importance of it. Without, you know, taking off that pressure of No, we’re not doing this. Like, it’s not important. Like, it’s still as important, but we also value your time. So we’re trying to prioritize things. And then given the circumstances right now that take Enjoy your evening,

Nick Kieffer 20:37
you know, I just had that situation where, you know, I took a took a vacation was gone, right. And I was gone during a week where you have your typical committee monthly meetings, and I told, you know, the three of them the bigger meetings and like, Look, I’m not going to be here, you know, it’s okay, we can move it back, or we can, you know, pick it up next month. And every one of them said, No, we got it, we got, you know, just give us a couple things that that we need, we’ll we’ll have the meeting, I’ll get your notes. And so that’s when you sit back and you’re like, Ah, I got a good group, right. This is your, you know, good group of volunteers that really see the long term, you know, mission to the chamber and really help out in that way. Right.

Brandon Burton 21:15
That’s one of the best feelings is to know that the organization doesn’t sink without you there,

Nick Kieffer 21:20
right? Like, from an ego thing, like, you know, that’s not true. But that’s, it’s just to be like, Okay, I don’t have to be there as an executive, you can kind of take that breath of like, it’s still gonna go on,

Brandon Burton 21:30
right? Yeah, I think sometimes we, we make ourselves feel more important than we already. Know, that’s good. So I’d like to try to get maybe, you know, for those who are listening, any kind of tip or action item as they are looking to take their chambers up to the next level? What would you suggest for them may have to do with volunteers, maybe something totally different. But what what comes to mind for you?

Nick Kieffer 22:00
I, I can’t. Huh, listening, I think I mentioned that a couple times, but just listen to your membership, they will tell you, the good, the bad, the ugly, everything in between, in a lot of different ways. But if you’re in your staff are listening to what’s going on, it’ll help cultivate your membership, it’ll help cultivate your volunteers, and it’ll strengthen your chamber. You know, it’s been, it’s been a roller coaster, last couple of years of volunteerism coming back out of it is kind of up and down, where things out, but it’s just, if you understand the needs of of your members and those that are looking to be involved, it’s easy to make decisions to help them and that’s, that’s our ultimate goal, I think as a chamber is to be a resource for the business community. And so anyway, you can do that that’s a you know, to me, that’s that else that’ll strengthen your chamber in the future. You know, as far as you know, growing yourself or, or getting more information. I’m a huge proponent of the IOM program and be involved in ACC. I think those are two phenomenal organizations that chambers, and chamber execs can pull a lot of information out, you know, whether it’s going through IOM or attending ACC, those are great. Listen to your podcast more, I think, you know, the more you talk with people, like we’ve all been through it, no matter the size of the chamber, you’re running, we’ve all been through it. And so there’s, there’s things you can learn from from anybody and, and, you know, just, I was just at a function where, who was the chamber directors third day on the job? Oh, you know, right. So just all excited about it. And she was telling me a couple of things. And I was like, Man, I didn’t think about it like that, like just three days on the job. But it was a nugget that I could take back and bring back to my chamber. So always be open to listen and to learn from from everybody. I love

Brandon Burton 23:56
that perspective that people bring from different experience, whether it’s, you know, three days on the job, so they’ve got a very green, you know, perspective

Nick Kieffer 24:05
to the 17 years where you’re, you know, you’ve kind of been through a lot of different different scenarios.

Brandon Burton 24:11
17 years or even prior prior employment before Yeah, whatever your career path was before the chamber brings a perspective to so absolutely being able to learn from others and just listening and in, like I said, at the beginning of Episode scaling, so you can’t necessarily do everything the same as other chambers and you shouldn’t content, yes, get the concepts, listen to the needs of your community, and then scale it to the size that makes the most sense. But Nick, I like asking everyone I have on the show as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Nick Kieffer 24:55
I’m my kind of mantra here is a resource center is That means you adapt and change. You know, technology’s going to throw wrinkles into our business world and business community and, and so being that constant resource that people can rely on and businesses can rely on for solid good information, I think is so important for chambers to to be at the forefront moving forward.

Brandon Burton 25:24
Absolutely. As you say that I’m thinking, we are recording this in March of 2023. And right now, all of the buzz is Chat GPT and artificial intelligence and all these different ways that it’s going to change workforce and change content and change our workforce and chamber work absolutely, exactly. So as a Chamber of Commerce to be able to be on the forefront of that, learning about the technology, helping to distill this down to the members that say, here’s what it means for you. Here’s how you can apply some of these technologies to better your business. And here are some pitfalls to look out for and to be aware of. And again,

Nick Kieffer 26:05
when you when you look back over the many years of what chambers have done that’s that’s the root of it. That’s the it’s the always saying okay, hey businesses, here’s what’s next here’s the next thing and so being at the the forefront of that and you know, kind of helping businesses navigate through it is is where I think we we need to focus on absolutely,

Brandon Burton 26:27
I couldn’t agree more. I appreciate that.Nick, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who might want to reach out and connect with you learn more about how you go about approaching volunteer working with volunteers in your chamber, what would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect?

Nick Kieffer 26:46
Yeah, goshen.org would have my contact information, email address, and keefer@goshen.org is my email. But I’m more than happy to help. Like I said, I’ve been in chamber work almost 17 years now. And it’s it’s fun. It’s fun work, but it’s more rewarding when when we’re sharing with each other. And I’m learning from from you and and hopefully I have a nugget or two that you find valuable as well.

Brandon Burton 27:14
Absolutely. And we’ll, we’ll get your contact info and that should be in the show notes for this episode so people can find you there. But I appreciate you setting aside some time to be with us today on chamber chat podcast and sharing your experience and insights is working with volunteers and really creating a culture that that helps them want to work towards the success of your chamber.

Nick Kieffer 27:39
Brandon, thank you again for all you do and having me on your show.

Brandon Burton 27:43
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Leadership Programs with Debra Orner

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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

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

Our title sponsor is Community Matters, Inc. With nearly 20 years in the chamber industry and over 100 media awards presented to their chamber partners, community matters provides the R&R that every chamber needs, revenue and recognition.

When it comes to publishing a Chamber Map directory or Community Guide, Community Matters has a trusted experience to help your chamber accomplish your goals. With different advertising sales models and publication styles, Community Matters will help you create a non-dues revenue machine!

Let’s hear from Becky Womble, President of the Bastrop Chamber to hear about her experience with Community Matters.

Becki Womble 1:03
I’ve been using Community Matters for probably six or seven years now. And in a previous life, I sold commercial printing so I can highly recommend Community Matters because it’s a complete turnkey job for any busy chamber exec and it’s a wonderful, beautiful printed product whenever you’re finished. And I just I’m very sold on Community Matters. And with a printing background I just big endorsement from me.

Brandon Burton 1:44
To learn how Community Matters can support your chamber with your next publication. Please visit communitymattersinc.com/podcast To request your free media kit and request a proposal to find out what kind of non-dues revenue you can generate.

Learn how you can partner with Community Matters, Inc. to produce your next Chamber Directory, Community Guide or Map.

Our guest for this episode is Debra Orner. Debra is the Vice President the Cambria Regional Chamber of Commerce in Pennsylvania. She began her career with the Cambria Regional Chamber in 1998. She’s responsible for the Chamber’s external operations including events and programs. And among these is her professional pride and joy the John V Gunter Community Leadership Initiative. Prior to coming to the chamber, Deborah worked in public relations at St. Francis University and on the staff of the late Congressman John P. Murtha. Debra is past chair of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce professionals, and has served on his board of directors since 2012. She was the first non CEO to be elected to this position. She has served as chair at the PACP professionals and leadership conference since 2013, and is also a member of the communications committee. Debra is also an IOM graduate. Locally, Debra is at the vice president of the Johnstown United neighbourhoods, which began as a community project of the leadership program. She also serves on the board of directors of several other local organizations. Debra, we’re excited to have you with us today here in timber tap podcast. I’d love for you to take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions and share something interesting about yourself so we can get to know you a little better.

Debra Orner 3:25
Thank you, Brandon. As mentioned in my bio, this is my 25th year in chamber work. Never thought I’d have a job that long. But once I started, it was just it was just Kismet. And I love doing it. I can’t imagine doing anything else. And my chamber friends actually like to joke that I knew what I wanted to do when I was eight years old because that in the summer of 1977, our city suffered the third devastating flood in our history. And one of the things that came out of that was an advertising campaign that was put together by some local businessman. And some of it was funny like they were they will put up billboards that say were wet but not washed out. But the one that stuck with me was one that says we will rebuild together. And I’m not saying that I knew that Chamber of Commerce was a job you could have when I was eight years old, but I knew I was I wanted to do what those men did. So it just made a huge impression on me. And the other thing that came out of that was our congressman at the time had only been in office probably about two or three years. And where I lived during the flood was across the street from an elementary school that had a very large playground. And that’s where National Guard helicopters would land and that sort of thing. And I was able to witness our congressman landing at our at that playground and getting out and kind of directing things and starting the process and helping to shovel mud and that sort of thing. And that was Congressman John Murtha. So at eight years old, I was looking at this man like he was some sort of John Wayne and he was just one of my first heroes and then I ended up working for him. So it was kind of that was a pivotal event in my I live to kind of had an effect on my later years that I never could have predicted at the time. But so that’s why they like to joke that I knew what I wanted to do when I was eight.

Brandon Burton 5:09
Wow. So I hear a lot of stories about how people get into chamber work. But that is a unique one. So I appreciate you sharing that. And not everybody has that kind of experience when they’re a young child and being able to have those impressions stick with them into adulthood. So thank you for sharing that. Well, tell us a little bit about the Cambria Regional Chamber just to kind of set the table for our discussion give us an idea of the size of chamber scope of work staff budget, that sort of thing, just to prepare us for our conversation.

Debra Orner 5:44
We’re located in Johnstown, which is in Cambria County in Pennsylvania. And that’s about as the crow flies 60 miles east of Pittsburgh. We have about 650 members at the moment and our budgets around $650,000. And we have four full time staff people. And we do a lot with those four people, we have probably 10 major events per year. And a lot of programs in between, like most chambers, we have a governmental action program, we have a women’s issues program. And of course, the thing that’s my favorite is our leadership program. But we also have branched out into kind of becoming a digital media company, we have a pretty strong social media program. We are we do a lot with promoting our members via social media. We do a lot with video. So that’s something that we’ve been getting into the last four years when our new president Amy Bradley came on with her background in news broadcasting. So that’s something that’s been kind of new for us. But we’ve been we’ve been doing pretty well with that, in addition to the other traditional things that the Chamber of Commerce does.

Brandon Burton 6:52
Yeah, that could be a whole conversation within itself right there under the digital media. And

Debra Orner 6:57
absolutely,

Brandon Burton 6:58
you guys are taking there. As we in thank you for sharing the background there on the chamber and what you guys are involved with in the staff. And as we move forward with our discussion today, we’ll be focusing on with what we’ve alluded to a couple of times already through your bio and what you shared with your pride and joy of being in the leadership program. You guys have there at the Canberra Regional Chamber. But we will dive deeper into discussion about that and how you guys approach your leadership program that says to get back from this quick break.

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Donna Novitsky 9:16
Hey, this is Donna. Yiftee community cards are free for you, free for your members and they bring lots of new sales and foot traffic into your local shops and restaurants. But don’t take it from me. Here’s Siobhan from Truckee, California to tell you about her program.

Siobhan Kenney 9:32
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Donna Novitsky 10:03
Thanks Siobhan. If you’d like to join Truckee in supporting the shop local movement, check us out yiftee.com or send an email to sales@yiftee.com. 

Brandon Burton 10:16
All right, Deborah, we’re back. So I’m curious to learn about the leadership program, it’s not often that you hear chamber professionals say that leadership programs are pride and joy. So I can tell this means a lot to you, it’s close to your heart. And I’m sure it’s because there’s been some big impact that’s come out of it. So share with us the approach you guys take and why it means so much to you.

Debra Orner 10:41
Well, I always joke with with my boss and my board of directors that I do leadership for free, and they have to, it’s everything else they have to pay me for, because I love the program that much. I actually took the program over, within two weeks of starting my job back in 1998. And back then, the program was only in its current format, about four years old. They had done a program in the early 80s. Back when corporate dollars for training were more easily had, they would bring in people like Lee Iacocca and Steven Covey, and it was more of an of a really higher level executive training. And it wasn’t a cohort group. The way it is now, back in about 1994 is when it when they started to form it into a cohort group where a group of about 18 to 24, people would go through a series of lectures throughout a nine month period. So then, when I took over in 1998, they also said, Well, a good way for you to learn how to run this program would be to go through it yourself. So my first year with the program, I was actually participating in the program, plus I was learning how to run it. And that was really unique. And I don’t recommend it to anybody because it was it was very confusing for everyone. For my classmates who didn’t understand that I was part of the class plus I was I was running the program and for me trying to be part of the class yet organizing everything. So that wasn’t probably the best way to go about it. But the following year, we instituted an overnight team bonding session. And that’s really where things took off. Because that really cemented the bonds the class would have with each other. And we had two amazing facilitators that I was lucky to have for almost my entire career here that really took the program to another level. And our program is a little different from other programs in that we meet twice a month. And we are skills based rather than the programs that typically have like a healthcare day or a Law Day where they go on basically like field trips to hospitals, and in court systems and that sort of thing. So our program is based around skills like project management, and we’ll do a session on soft skills, and we do emotional intelligence. And we do disk training, which a lot of other programs do as well, but we pair it with other sessions that basically benefit the person through professional development. So we’ll do honorable leadership and, and things like that. So we’re a little bit different from other programs. And we also do, the people that are in the program are required to work on a community project while they’re in the program. So we’ll we divide them up into groups of four, six people, they can choose to work on whatever they want to work on, we use a multi voting process for them to figure out what they want to work on. We give them some project management training at the end of the year. And from there, they run with it. And we’ve had some amazing projects over the years that have just touched 10s of 1000s of lives with the impact that they’ve had. And the the people that are in the program, sometimes the project means so much to them, we do a session at the end of the year where they have to do, they have to present their project to our board of directors. And they’ll do a session where they present to their classmates and their sponsors. And we’ve had grown men in the in the front of the class crying because the project meant so much to them. So it’s not just something we do to keep them busy. It’s something that really means a lot to them, and it ends up being something very meaningful to the community. This year, for instance, we have one group that’s working on building a pavilion at one of the trailheads here in town for one of our one of our hiking and biking trails. And we have another project that’s raising money for a project called the needy children’s shopping tour, which takes disadvantaged children and take they get to go shopping at Christmas time and they get to buy new things and it’s just it’s a really cool experience for everybody involved. And then we have another group that is raising money for an organization called wings for Warriors which is an organization that serves disabled veterans With all terrain wheelchair so they can still get out into the woods and do the activities that they enjoy before they were injured. And so that’s another project that’s that’s happening this year. And then we have a final project that is going to bring together some resources for first responders who we kind of tend to forget about them a little bit that they need some help, too, sometimes. So those are the just 404 examples of projects that our program does. And they will work on those throughout the nine months. And they don’t have to be finished with those by the end of the program. Usually they are. And sometimes the products are one and done. And sometimes the people continue to work on them past when they graduate from the program, which I think really says a lot for how much the project that they choose means to them. So that’s what I kind of think sets our program apart a little bit with some of the things that we do,

Brandon Burton 15:51
ya know, you you’ve covered a lot of things there is, as you talked about how the program’s laid out, but so if I understand, right, it’s a nine month program, you meet twice a month, so 18 times total throughout that that period.

Debra Orner 16:06
Yes, we meet we meet twice a month for half a day.

Brandon Burton 16:09
Okay. And tell us a little bit more about this overnight team building opportunity is that you guys set go somewhere off site, is it somewhere? Just how do you how do you come about that

Debra Orner 16:22
we did and actually the pandemic turned it from an overnight into just a two day session. But it’s still it’s still the same basic setup, it’s just, we don’t stay overnight anymore after after the pandemic happen. But we spend the first day basically with just team building activities and with them getting to know each other and kind of breaking down barriers, and really getting to know each other a lot more and what they what they have in common what they might want to work on for the next nine months. So it helps them to form their project teams. And then the second day is really when we spend putting the project teams together. So they’ll spend like the entire second day just discussing things like what does our area not have that if it did would make it a better place to live? Or, you know, what would you work on, if you knew you couldn’t fail those sorts of things. So we, we lead them through discussion like that, and then they they break down into areas of interest. And then from there, it’s all up to them, like what project they pick. So they might know that when they walk out on the second day, they might know for sure what they want to do. Some people come to the program with an idea that they want to do, and they just recruit people to help them. So and some people show up, and they have absolutely no idea what they want to do. And they’re they’re looking to be sold on something. So we have kind of all different methods happening there. But those two days are just so important because it really helps them bonded as a group. And a lot of times even sometimes we’ll have people from the same company that participate in the program in the same year. And people from the same company won’t know each other before they get to our program. So really, for the most part, these are 20 strangers who don’t know anything about each other. So we really take the time on those two days to help them get to know each other. And really, they walk out of those two days and their friends.

Brandon Burton 18:09
Very good. So that was my next question. So this is happening at the beginning of the leadership program to build those bonds, kind of build your teams select your products at a tone for the whole nine months.

Debra Orner 18:22
Yeah, we do that at the beginning. And then at the end of the year, we go back to the same site. And we do what we call a year on reflection. And that’s really their opportunity to kind of get their emotions out about what they’ve been through that year. And like the things that made an impact on them and just kind of talk it out and just really have a have a nice day, like a little Capstone session with with their classmates that they become so close to throughout the course of the program.

Brandon Burton 18:49
Nice. So you had mentioned that you’ve been blessed with a great facilitator, as you go about trying to figure out who facilitates a leadership program like this? What sort of traits are you looking for what what would make for a good facilitator for other chambers that are listening and considering building a similar program?

Debra Orner 19:10
Really, they just think it helps tremendously if they have a passion for the area, because that’s really what most leadership programs are trying to do is create something good for their community. And it also helps if if they like helping people develop, because that’s a huge part of what we do. So you really just have to have a passion for developing people and you have to really care about the community and the area and you have to want to see it get better. And we as Chambers of Commerce don’t often have large budgets and sometimes our facil facilitators most of our facilitators actually are volunteers with the exception of one person, everybody in my program is a volunteer. So we really have to be Find people and cultivate relationships with people who just genuinely just care. And that’s really, that’s really as simple as it is. Obviously, they need to have some proficiency in the thing you’re asking them to present on. But really, they just have to care. And they have to want to do it. And they have to have that volunteer capacity capacity themselves.

Brandon Burton 20:20
So I think that’s those are great things to consider. And like the passion for the community. And it made me wonder through this leadership program, it sounds like a lot of the skills like the skills based training, those sort of things that you’re going through, are I guess you can you can take it from one position to another, from one community to another, you’re developing leadership skills that are transferable. Are there other aspects, besides the project may be that are community based that are unique to your community? And maybe not, but I’m just I’m curious.

Debra Orner 21:02
Well, one thing that that I’m pretty proud of that we do with our program is we give them the opportunity to meet a lot of community leaders, because that’s who most of my facilitators are. They’re people who are business owners or leaders in some other way. And we also do a session on local government where they get to meet all of our county commissioners, and our city manager and our the community community and economic development director for the city will have the Director of Emergency Services for the county comm. So they get to meet people like that. And these are, again, community leaders who are giving back through this program by it. And that’s one of the sessions where I kind of call it the, it’s your opportunity to ask the why doesn’t someone or why don’t they questions, because a lot of times people just don’t understand why things are the way they are. And this is really just an opportunity for them to sit down and meet with oftentimes people who are elected leaders, and it just gives them a chance to form a relationship, and just to meet them and to see what their role can be in moving our region forward.

Brandon Burton 22:07
Yeah, I love that, like building those strong community ties. So the the year end reflection, that I can imagine that being kind of a high point, really to this whole program to be able to see the development to be able to look back at, especially going back to the same location that it all started right, then able to reflect back on that those beginnings, the relationships built the impact of their projects. You had mentioned grown men crying at the end, because they’re their program, what are some of those more impactful reflections that have kind of hit you over the years, as you’ve seen these people reflect on their their time in the program?

Debra Orner 22:53
Well, I always say that the people in the program, we’re going to learn more from each other than they will from almost any, any of us or any of the facilitators, because you get to meet the people who are doing the work in the community. And there’s just a lot of eye opening moments that you wouldn’t know about if you didn’t get to meet these people. And for me, just seeing the relationships that formed from people who didn’t, who wouldn’t know each other, except for this program, and who accomplish amazing things because they have met in this program. To me, that is just the most gratifying thing. And I think that’s what they get out of it as well is that people that they didn’t know, prior to be in the program, and they’ve accomplished these great things with. And a lot of times with the, with the, with the educational part, sometimes people will even tell me that it doesn’t apply to them right now. But years later, they went back to that training, and they used it. So it is something that stays with you forever. And that’s really why ours is more of a professional development kind of program. Because no matter who you work for, or where you go in your life, whatever community you’re a part of, this is yours forever. So it’s not just that it’s specific to our city or our county. We believe that you improve region by developing its people and by developing its leaders. And so that’s what we really try to do every single year in our program. Right?

Brandon Burton 24:21
I love that. So the question came to my mind is this is kind of your your baby your kind of pet project, right? There’s the leadership program. How do you I guess put the dividing line between what you do as an organizer and, and putting together this program versus the facilitator and their responsibilities and to where you’re not stepping on each other’s toes and identifying what your your respective roles are. How does that structure look with your organization?

Debra Orner 24:56
Really, I am just so fortunate with the people Will that are part of my program, honestly, we all just work so well together. And they know that I would do it for free. So that that helps to that they know what how much I love it, and how much how much of myself I put into it. But I basically recruit all of our all of our facilitators, which can be 18 per year, depending on on how many sessions we do. And, honestly, I just let them run with it, because they’re the experts in their field. So during the session, I don’t interfere with that, that’s up to them what they want to put it in their curriculum. Sometimes I helped facilitate that session in class, depending on on where the conversations going on try to help lead the conversation a little bit. But for the most part, our facilitators are just such professionals and they just care so much, there’s really no need for me to, to get involved in that part of it. And they let me handle all of the admin and that sort of thing and all of the communication and it just, it works really well together. And it’s just it’s it’s nothing but 25 years of cultivated relationships, that people know what we’re trying to do with this program, and they have just gone all in on it. And, you know, they have other things to do, they have other things they could be doing other than spending half a day with me. But they just, that’s just what great people they are. And so they take time away from their own businesses and at their own expense to come and share their expertise with our class every year. And I have facilitators that have been with me for really the entire 25 years. And I just think that’s a remarkable thing.

Brandon Burton 26:34
That’s fantastic. So as you go about recruiting facilitators, and I’m asking this for somebody who’s looking to build a leadership program at their organization, where are you looking in the community to everywhere from

Debra Orner 26:49
everywhere, and one of my favorite things to do is if there’s a graduate of the program that can teach something, I love to bring them back. And sometimes I have a list of people that I want to bring into the program, because I respect them as a person, and I want people to meet them and to learn from them. And sometimes I have a topic that I just really want somebody to teach, but I haven’t met that person yet. And really one of my favorite stories, I have one of money, one of my first friends that I ever made when I worked at the Chamber, he’s just a really good presenter. And you know, I’ve called on him in the past to present things. And the one year, I just had a really, things don’t always go smoothly. And I lost like three facilitators for you know, due to various reasons health and that sort of thing. And so I needed him to present a topic on or to present a session on public speaking for me, which was okay, and public speaking is kind of, that’s not really something that’s that unique, and you can get a lot of people, different people to do that. But the following year was the only the second year that we were going to present emotional intelligence. And back then that wasn’t something that was very common. And it wasn’t something that a lot of people, you know, were doing at the time. So I lost my facilitator for that session, probably 10 days before the session, and I just sat there, and I think I’m gonna have to cancel the session, because who am I going to get to present emotional intelligence is like, there’s like two people in the world that even know what it is, at this point.

Brandon Burton 28:18
tested your own emotional intelligence. Right?

Unknown Speaker 28:21
Exactly.

Debra Orner 28:22
So so this friend called me almost like 10 minutes later, and he said, Deborah was looking online at your at your syllabus for your leadership program. And I saw that you have emotional intelligence, and who teaches that for you? And I said, Oh, my God, why are you asking? He had just gotten certified in that like, I think two weeks prior. And I said, Oh, do I have an opportunity for you. So that was just somebody that I knew that it was just an existing relationship that I had that that I could peg into that slot. And another time I had, I had really wanted to include servant leadership in the program for some time, but just had not met somebody who could teach it. And so as you mentioned, I worked at St. Francis University, prior to coming to the chamber, and I still have some friends that work there. And so I was talking to one of them the one day, and I don’t know how the topic of servant leadership came up, but it did. And I had said how much I wanted to make that part of our program, but I just, I hadn’t found anybody to teach it yet. And she said, Well, you know, who could teach that for you? And I said, Who? And she mentioned, one of my alums, and I said, Oh, my God is so to see there, put them on the phone. And he wasn’t there at the time, but he did call me back. So he’s been teaching that session for me ever since. So it’s really just keeping your eyes open and seeing who’s around you and paying attention to what they do. If you’re friends with them on Facebook, or if you’re connected with them on LinkedIn, what do they post about? What do they seem to know about what do they seem to be an expert in? Or even just what are their interests because a lot of times people’s job isn’t necessarily their passion either. They can they can teach about something that’s not Not necessarily what they do for a living. So I’ve had that that happened as well. So it’s really it’s just a matter of using your own connections, and just just letting people know what you’re looking for what you want to do, what your goals are, and the people will help you get there.

Brandon Burton 30:16
That’s great advice. Deborah, is we start wrapping up here, you’ve, you’ve touched on some fantastic points as far as creating and building and nurturing a leadership program, it’s your chamber. What tip or action item might you have for listener who is interested in taking their chamber up to the next level?

Debra Orner 30:38
The best advice that I can give anyone is if you have a state association, and you probably do join it immediately and get involved if you’re not already, because nothing in my career has been more valuable to me than the Pennsylvania Association for chamber professionals. I learned more about this kind of work just sitting around with my colleagues over lunch and dinner, and possibly one or two late nights than I ever did in any classroom. Chamber professionals tend to be just the most generous giving people and they want you to succeed, and they will share with you and they will help you and they will cheer you on the whole time.

Brandon Burton 31:16
Absolutely. And, and that’s the only reason this podcast is a success is because the chamber professionals are so willing to share and, and share some of those best practices and tips and programs and things like you’re doing today. So thank you for that salutely. As we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Debra Orner 31:43
Well, I think one thing that the past few years has shown us is that and especially extremely epidemic, evident during the pandemic is despite their traditional nature, Chambers of Commerce adapt extremely well to serve our members. We have extensive extensive reach in our communities. And we tend to be extremely good listeners. And some of the hardest days we worked was when everything was shut down, because we were putting in so many hours trying to take care of our members. So we tend to be very good at adapting. And I think we will continue to do that to adapt to our members evolving needs. And the other thing that has been extremely evident the past few years is the importance of human connection. And that is something that chambers have always done exceptionally well. So I think as long as there are humans in business Chambers of Commerce will continue to be the conveners. And how we do that might change with the times, sometimes it might be virtual instead of in person. But I think that’s we’re going to continue to be the connectors.

Brandon Burton 32:44
Absolutely great points. And I would have to agree with the future chamber. So thank you for that. Deborah, I like to give you an opportunity, or really for the listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you learn more about the leadership program that you put on, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect and learn more? Sure,

Debra Orner 33:07
they can email me at debra@crchamber.com. And you can reach me directly through our website, which is crchamber.com. Or they can reach out to me on LinkedIn. And I love to talk to anybody about leadership. So if anybody out there is has a program that they want to maybe adapt or if you’re looking to start a program I would love to help. I’ve helped several of my colleagues start programs that are going extremely well right now. So

Brandon Burton 33:35
very good. We will, we’ll get your contact information in our show notes for this episode so people can can look you up and we’ll have your LinkedIn profile LinkedIn in there as well. But I really appreciate you sharing these insights and lessons learned and your approach to leadership program. They’re at the Canberra Regional Chamber. And thank you for being with us today. Really appreciate it.

Debra Orner 34:00
Thank you, Brandon. I really enjoyed it.

Brandon Burton 34:02

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Culture with Miles Burdine

Miles Burdine Chamber Chat Podcast promo image.

Below is an auto-generated transcription. 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.

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

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

Kris Johnson 0:41
Well, Doug and Bill at the Holman Brothers have been a key ally in growth for my professional career working at three different chambers, a local chamber, a regional chamber, now a statewide chamber. And they’ve been the ideal solution, whether it’s a comprehensive training program, whether it’s working on individual sales growth, quarterly check-ins with the team, the ability to grow members has meaning more assets for the organization, more assets means we can do more things to serve our members. They’ve really been the perfect solution for us, a trusted resource partner and a growth partner for us all along the way. So hats off to Doug and Bill for their great success. They’ll be a great partner for you as they are for us.

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Our guest for this episode is Mile Burdine. Miles is a native of Kingsport, Tennessee, and he’s been with the Kingsport Tennessee Area Chamber since 1994 and was promoted to his present position of president and CEO in 1999 Miles other career was with the United States Marine Corps. After graduating from University of Tennessee with a degree in business administration, he served on active duty for seven years before resigning and his commission and joining the Marine Reserves after having served 30 years and now retired at the rank of colonel Miles has extensive training and experience in war fighting tactics, terrorism, security, civil affairs, and the challenges faced in the Middle East. Three of his deployments have been to combat environments in Beirut, Lebanon and 1883, Operation Desert Storm in Saudi Arabia and 91. And Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq in 2005. And 2006. Miles and his wife, Denise have three daughters and three granddaughters. Myles, thank you for your service, first of all, and welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. We’re excited to have you with us today. And we’d love for you to say hello to all the Chamber Champions and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you a little better.

Miles Burdine 2:51
Well, I’m Brandon, thanks for the opportunity first and yes, good morning to all the chamber staffers out there and chamber world and has really don’t really have much interesting about me, except perhaps of all three of my daughters named Laura and I’ve got two tattoos and locations that only people I want to see them can see them.

That’s about the only interesting thing about me. I’m not sure that’s even interesting.

Brandon Burton 3:17
Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. Well, tell us a little bit about the Kingsport area Chamber just to give us some perspective, maybe the size of the chamber type of work, you’re involved with staff budget, that sort of thing. Just to give some perspective, before we get into our conference.

Miles Burdine 3:34
We’re we’re relatively small community, there’s only about 55,000 in our community, but you go outside the city limits, of course, it grows significantly, but our chamber represents probably around 900 Different businesses or organizations. We’ve got a staff of 30 budget of 4.7 million and but I’ll add to that there’s about 31 million that actually managed by our, our accounting department, when you had other programs and projects and things that were involved in it within the community. And our list of programs, projects, events, things going on this building is quite long. We’re involved in the typical things that you might expect to chamber be involved in membership, of course, workforce development, government relations, or visit Kingsport program, small business development, sustainability, a healthy Kingscourt program list goes on and on and on. Things that go on inside the walls of this, this building.

Brandon Burton 4:41
Yeah, you’ve got your work cut out for you, you and your staff.

Miles Burdine 4:46
Pretty much. But you know, I look forward to coming to work every day. 28 years, I still look forward to coming in every day. Good.

Brandon Burton 4:53
And I think a lot of that will have to do with our topic for discussion today around the culture that you guys have built They’re at the Kingsport area Chamber and we’ll we’ll dive into that discussion a little bit deeper since we get back from this quick break.

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So Miles we’re back. And as we get into our topic for discussion today, culture is it’s an important thing at any company and especially at a chamber where maybe we don’t always have the you know, all the resources to be you know, super competitive on pay or, you know, things like that. So getting a little bit creative with the with how the office works, how the culture, the teamwork, how that all fits in and being able to attract and keep the right talent in your organization. We’d love to learn more about what you guys are doing there in Kingsport to develop the culture at your chamber.

Miles Burdine 8:33
Well, very well said, Brandon, we’re very proud of the culture we’ve created here. No, it’s been said the culture culture, Trump’s strategy, but part of our strategy is our culture. And I went back and look to see how many employees we’ve had. We have our 30 employees. About a third of them have been here over 15 years. Wow. I’m very proud of that. Now, along with that, however, some of the younger ones that we hire, we know that in fact, this morning, I did an exit interview for 28 year old, it’s found a better opportunity where he can make a lot more money and he has met not that he need my blessing, but he has my blessing. So I’m excited for him. But you know that the younger ones we are unable to keep as long as we’d like. And that’s just simply because We can’t pay them as much as they can make out in the private sector. But they they always come to me Xander view and we talked about why they’re leaving. And they’re always very, very favorable comments about working here. And that goes back when when we get ready to hire someone. They’ve already already been through an interview process with whoever is going to be their supervisor, but by the time they get to me they’ve already learned the things I’m I’m gonna tell you right now and that is you get a free job interview every day and this is this business because you’re around volunteers that can possibly offer you a better option. Anybody and encourage them to seek those opportunities to. And if you decide to pursue them, I’ll help you find another job a better paying job. But our culture is one of when I’m when I meet with them, and they’ve already learned this, but I’m looking for someone who they are I know they already have the skills, but I’m looking for someone who has the attitude. As someone who doesn’t step over piece by piece of trash, they pick up the piece of trash, and they show up to meetings early. So they can help set up and then they leave the meeting later so they can help put the room back to where it was. I’m looking for positive attitudes, as my father used to say, I’m an optimist, because I choose to be. And I tell them, what’s your dash to make a difference? Have you ever read the book the dash? Yeah, so you know exactly what to study. Right. Exactly. Right. So

Brandon Burton 10:54
and they usually don’t know birth and death for those listening, right?

Miles Burdine 10:58
Yeah, that’s correct. That’s correct. Yeah. And so but the dash is what’s most important part of its of your tombstone, if you will. And I’ll always give them the military analogy is the Marine Corps approach was and approach still here is, I want you to take that hill. And we’ll give you all the weapons ammunition and Chow you need in order to do so to get halfway up and you run out of bullets, let me know I’ll bring them to you. But I’ll leave you alone when you get to the top of the hill, holler. And we’ll drink a bill beer and celebrate. So giving them what they need in order to be successful, but holding them accountable to being successful as well. Okay, thank you. And, you know, a couple of the things that I’m really proud of our titles here. We always believe that people don’t follow titles, they follow courage. In fact, that’s my, my challenge coin those very words. But we don’t use administrative assistants, we only have the word assistants and they have our titles we use ministry professionals, the lady at the front desk is not a receptionist, she’s director of first impressions. We’d like to say we work with we don’t work for we all work for each other. And we don’t care who gets the credit. We do expect supervisors to take the blame for things that go wrong. And our our motto here is never above you, never below you always beside you. And it’s worked well. For us. It’s worked well for us. We’ve also got some staff committees that are set up and they’re led, usually by a younger staff members give them opportunity to lead when called fluff and puff. And that’s all they do is put on parties, gatherings, showers and puff I like lots of puff, I don’t know who came up with that. It’s certainly not something I came up with. But, you know, things that we can do that to get the staff together to have fun fact our Christmas party was supposed to be today, we had to postpone it to next week, because we’ve got so many people out sick this week that we have professional development committee and various other internal committees that give opportunities for everybody to participate in leading this organization. We encourage everybody to volunteer, I mean, we expect our volunteers to be here to volunteer for us. So we expect our staff to volunteer as well. And they, they certainly enjoy it. We have a policy here called Bring Your Baby to Work. We actually had some research done on it. And obviously it was done by someone who was about to have a baby, right? And came back and said, Here’s how we can do this. So we allow new mothers to bring the baby into work. And we’ve even got a room set up where they can breastfeed it, the only problem we ever have is people arguing about who gets to hold the baby. Right?

Brandon Burton 13:59
They can become distractions at times but good team building too. So that’s good.

Miles Burdine 14:04
We’ve also got a policy here called leave loudly. My My office is actually in the back corner next to the employee interests. And so we encourage employees not to try to sneak off to go to a soccer match or go watch a Christmas show or whatever with the kids. So they’ll stand outside my door here holler. I’m leaving, because I’m gonna go watch my son, practice basketball. And we celebrate love it. I know they’ll get the job done and I don’t care when they get the job done. So, yeah.

Brandon Burton 14:40
So you’re hitting on a ton of great points here. And yeah, I think some of these are definitely worth circling back to so one of the the thoughts that came to me as you were talking about as you hire people, that, you know, how do you hire culture versus developing culture? Then any thoughts on that?

Miles Burdine 15:03
Hiring culture. You know, finding the right people is finding people with the skills is not difficult. But finding people who match your culture sometimes can do. But typically, we as a as an organization, and me individually, I keep a list of people I see out in our community, whether it’s a server, who’s done a great job has, in fact, we hired a server like that one time and one of our community, our staff parties, and I just liked the way that person handled themselves and how hard they worked and ended up eventually calling them in and gave him an interview and hired. Um, so I guess the moral to that is you just never know who’s watching. That’s right. And who, you know, one of the things we like to be proud of here, too, is like to tell her what to do you know what the custodians name is? And they wonder what I vote yes, that is the colder you are no unimportant people. No unimportant task. In fact, I give a leadership presentation. It’s called scrubbing toilets with enthusiasm. It’s, it’s about learning how to follow from people you’re supposed to be leading and speak about. Daughter, I’m supposed to be leading her. But she taught me some great lessons in life and Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps, third Lord, third, lowest rank in the Marine Corps, my dog, people you’re supposed to be leading, influencing and teaching and so they do the same to you. And often, I get asked, you know, what did you learn in the Marine Corps, and it’s helped you in your job, and it certainly wasn’t learning how to say an Arabic Stop, or I’ll shoot that hasn’t helped me at all. But you know, the Marine Corps taught me some very, very valuable lessons most one of which is learning how to follow before you learn how to lead that first one, and first one out. Last one to eat, you don’t get to eat if there’s not enough, and probably the most important that wasn’t absolutely successful. And this is bringing everyone home safe. But all of those things are important lessons to be learned that have helped me in my career as Kingsport chamber.

Brandon Burton 17:27
Now, those are, again, you’ve got, you’ve got a lot of these great one liners that you can really dive deep on and it really digest more meaning in that so you know, the idea of having no one important people, I’d love to learn to follow before leading and never above or below, but always beside you. So these are are things that are obviously are being taught there at your chamber. So through the onboarding, are you introducing some of this culture? Is it just being engrossed with the the nature there in the office? Or how are you helping to teach and develop the culture?

Miles Burdine 18:11
It’s a little bit of both, but typically, it’s someone who’s already aware of us. And they want to be a part of us. Not always, but often. And so they they know our culture, and they know what they’re getting into when they get here. And so they know what the expectations are. And, frankly, they want to be a part of it. So we don’t have to actually make them do it. I mean, it’s, it’s kind of, you know, just like in the Marine Corps here. If I tell someone to do it, they’re gonna do it. But I don’t want them to do it, because they want to do it. Because I told him to do it. And there’s a big difference.

Brandon Burton 18:49
So you know, the idea of like, the the titles and never having a job that’s above or below you, always beside it. Have you ever had as a staff member, that you had to have a conversation with a heart to heart, so to speak and say, Look, we’re all one team together, and we all have an important role to play, but you’re no important, no more important than anyone else. And

Miles Burdine 19:13
I need to step we know that yes. And actually did not follow my own advice, one particular occasion and that was when someone came to me and said, Why did not get why did I not get that promotion? And I said, I owe you an apology. And the reaction was, oh, yeah, you do owe me an apology. But I said, I’m not gonna apologize to you for not giving you the job, not apologize to you for not telling you what you need to do get to get the job. And it was one of those things I’d avoided and did not pull the person aside and tell them what they were doing wrong. Tell them to adjust their attitude. Tell them to quit being an eight to five or tell them to quit using all their sick days when I knew they weren’t sick. Tell them to help pick up trash. Tell them to show up from eight meetings early. I didn’t do any of that. And so therefore, all those things I just said they were doing. And so I apologize them for not leading them not teaching them what they needed to do is my fault. And I didn’t do it until they came to talk to me now to that person’s credit. They’re still in our community. And when I see them, they always come up and say, hey, yeah, I got to the meeting 10 minutes earlier today, or help pick up trash or I know the custodians name, whatever. So they learned, yeah, just unfortunately, that had not led them before.

Brandon Burton 20:37
So it’s never too late to learn those lessons, I guess. But I also I think the way that you went about owning that and saying I owe you the apology, and, and really reinforcing what that culture is, the things that you’re looking for, that are important to growing and developing, or developing a team that has that cohesiveness and ability to work well together. Thank you a great example. So I like to think of the the chambers out there who were, you know, wanting to take their chamber up to the next level, what maybe tips or action items might you have for them that are maybe looking to instill more culture or more of a defined culture into their organization?

Miles Burdine 21:27
I thought a lot about that when he asked me earlier, and really the only thing I could come up with is very simple. Put your employees first makes you looking at a book saying okay, this pile of books, some have read some, some I haven’t it’s the title is put your employees first, your employees or work harder for you. There’ll be more loyal. They’ll do things you want them to do if you put them first. And really rather simple. And the other thing I thought about sometimes we as chamber, employees, chamber execs, especially wonder whether or not we’re making a difference, whether or not we’re in the right industry, whether or not we’re improving our community, providing better live better lives for our citizens or developing our businesses. And, you know, I’ve had that feeling before too. And what I will usually do is go find someone who’s recently moved to our community, and asked him, Why did you move here. And boy, it just makes me feel so good. Because they tell you the things that we’ve all taken for granted. While this is a wonderful place to live, and it’s there in every community, so I feel better once I talk to them.

Brandon Burton 22:38
And that’s a yeah, you can feel better, especially if they mentioned things that you’ve been working on focusing on to further develop your community. But I think that also gives you some great material to go forward with whether, you know, I’ve heard that some of the best marketing material for a company or say, even for a chamber to help spread the message of what the work that you’re doing, is to use the language of the people that you’re trying to serve. So as you go to those new people and ask them what made you move to our community, and you can take that language, you know, what is it that that drove them to come to Kingsport and then to be able to repurpose that put that back out in the community. So you’re you’re speaking that same language to other people who may be looking for that fit to you know, in a future move or whatnot. So

Miles Burdine 23:30
well said we actually, you know, one of our networking breakfast called fourth Friday breakfast, which we copied off the Bristol chamber, which is the first Friday breakfast. Okay, we’re good at stealing from each other anyway. We started a part of the the event, it’s a networking event, but we also have a presentation that will have little segments and we have one on there called fresh set of eyes. And it’s a newcomer to the community who stands up and talks for three minutes why they chose to live in Kingsport, Tennessee. And you can see the people in the audience who’ve been here forever. Look it up going, Man, I forgot about that. I feel good about where I live.

Brandon Burton 24:12
That is awesome, fresh set of eyes. So it’s anyone listening doing your r&d right now? That’s a good one right there a fresh set of eyes, you know, it’s at a luncheon or whatever it may be set aside a few minutes and have a newcomer to the community share what they love about the community went through them there. That is a that is awesome. I love that one.

Miles Burdine 24:34
I guess Brandon, the only other thing I might suggest is, you know, no community is perfect. We certainly are not. But one of our attitudes here is we we seek the problems to help solve them. We may not be leading the solution, but we’ll always be at the table. You know that old saying around chamber world if you’re not at the table, you might be on the menu. There’s a lot of truth to that. We’d like to be at the table because we feel like that chamber, that chamber brand helps us to get people around the table who can solve community problems. And we want to be at the table, we may not be the only solution, but we can certainly help to solve community problems. So don’t run from them seek them out.

Brandon Burton 25:22
Absolutely. In the chamber world is one of the few examples I can think of seek out problems to solve. So that’s awesome. Well, Miles as we look to the future, how do you see the future of chambers of commerce and their purpose going forward?

Miles Burdine 25:42
I think it depends on the community, but our brand, that word Chamber of those words Chamber of Commerce, it carries a lot of weight, cares, a lot of Worcester, last is Arabic for influence. So it’s up to us to as chamber execs to just how much influence we can have. And that’s dependent depends on the individuals who are within the organization itself. You know, volunteers come and go. And we obviously we need to support them and promote them and give them all the credit. But the important work most important works done by the staff. And it’s up to us to, to keep carrying that water forward. I think our brand is one that that gives us the opportunity to help improve the lives of others and businesses and community in general.

Brandon Burton 26:43
I love that. And when you talk about influence, I thought of a Casey Steinbacher is ebook from relevant to essential and she talks all about the importance of chambers, understanding their role in their community to be influencers. Then she talks about the you know, the 16 year old with the cell phone in their bedroom that has a social media following of millions of people and making a very healthy income by being an influencer. And she really talks about that that’s, that’s what Chambers of Commerce needs to be as a force for influence within the community. Identifying those needs, solving those problems and, and being influential. And I thought I had an idea when you were talking about that, talking about fresh set of eyes, this would be a great idea for a chamber to do a podcast, where they focus and you can call it fresh set of eyes and bring on those those newcomers to the community and tell why they came in and can be a short three to five minutes segment. And boom, you’ve got a way to influence your community and share those stories

Miles Burdine 27:51
is a great idea. I’m gonna go talk to Vanessa Bennett. She runs our leadership programs. And she does a podcast every week. But it’s usually focused on just people in general, talking about the things that they’re working on. But I hadn’t thought about doing what you just described, is a great idea.

Brandon Burton 28:09
Yeah. When she puts it out there, I’ll help share. So. Yeah. So Miles, this has been a fantastic conversation. I think it’s so important for chambers to be mindful and be intentional about the culture that they’re creating in their organization to be able to attract the right people as they hire, but also to retain those people. You know, like, as he said, about a third of them, would you say a third of your staff had been there? 15 years? Is that right? Yes. Yeah, that is awesome. I mean, you just don’t see that in companies anymore, let alone in the chamber world. So

Miles Burdine 28:47
no one’s been here. 36 years. Another one just retired this past summer, after 34 years.

Brandon Burton 28:54
That’s awesome. Yeah. And of course, you know, there’s going to be those times that makes sense where a staff member finds it another opportunity that helps to develop their career and you celebrate those and you hate to see him leave, you know, for selfish reasons. But you are glad to see them move on and continue to develop especially as they are able to serve others in the community hopefully, so

Miles Burdine 29:16
Well, the way I look at it, too is they had a favorable experience here. They’re out in the out wherever they are, and they’re one of our advocates now. That’s right.

Brandon Burton 29:24
Yeah. And oftentimes they end up being members to whatever business they go to. So well, Miles. I’d like to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who might want to reach out and connect and learn more about how you’re establishing culture at the Kingsport area Chamber what would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect with you?

Miles Burdine 29:45
Yes, sir. My direct line at work is 423-392-8807. My cell phone is 423-956-1988 everybody in Kingsports got it so you’re welcome to it as well. My email address is mburdine@kingsportchamber.org.

Brandon Burton 30:12
Very good and I’ll get all that in our show notes for this episode so people can click on click through those and scroll to the bottom of the shownotes for Miles contact information to reach out and maybe learn more about what what they’re doing there in Kingsport to be intentional about building a good strong culture but Miles is you’ve delivered a lot of great value today. I know this is going to be very helpful for a lot of chambers out there listening. So thank you for that. Thank you for sharing some time with us today on Chamber Chat Podcast and wish you the best as you continue to develop your team and establish that culture there in Kingsport.

Miles Burdine 30:51
Thanks for the opportunity Brandon.

Brandon Burton 30:53
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I just launched a Chamber Podcast Course with the goal to get your very own podcast started within 30 days. Visit chamberchatpodcast.com/pivot. To learn more and to enroll in the chamber podcast course today.

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

Have you ever thought about creating a podcast for your chamber we always hear about how chambers need to be storytellers. What better way is there to tell the stories of your members and the work of your chamber than through a podcast? Your audience is waiting to hear from you as a convener of leaders and influencers champion for business and catalysts for change within your community. I just launched a chamber podcasts course with the goal to get your very own podcast started within 30 days. Visit chamberchatpodcast.com/pivot to learn more and to enroll in the chamber podcast course today.

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