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Category: Economic Development

Looking 25 Years into the Future with Bryan Derreberry

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

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

Introduction

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

And now your host, he enjoys smoked meat from his Traeger, he’s my dad Brandon Burton.

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

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Brandon Burton 1:02
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Our guest for this episode is Bryan Derreberry. As President and CEO of the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce for 11 years, Bryan leads one of South Carolina’s largest chambers in its regional advancement work. Bryan has an established executive management track record, featuring more than 30 years in chamber leadership and advocacy roles. Prior to joining the Charleston Metro Chamber. Bryan was president and CEO of the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce in Wichita, Kansas, where he directed the state’s largest Metro Chamber for seven and a half years. He also served as president and CEO of the Catawba County, North Carolina and Middleton Ohio Chambers of Commerce respectively. Bryan began his chamber career as a state lobbyist for the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, of course in Ohio. He holds holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in political science from Wittenberg University and is and has completed graduate coursework towards a combined MA and PhD in American politics, and international relations from the American University. Bryan, I’m excited to have you with us today here on chamber chat podcast. And I’d love for you to take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you a

Bryan Derreberry 2:31
little bit better. Well, Brandon, thank you for the opportunity. You know, it’s I love when you say chamber champions, because I I think about all my colleagues across the country and the amazingly important work they do and strengthening their business communities and advancing their regions. And I think one of the interesting parts of my background is my intention, when I started my career, was to go into lobbying full time, and had that chance with the Greater Cincinnati chamber. And at that time, that was the fourth largest chamber in America and represented that business community in Columbus, Ohio, four days a week and really treasured the opportunity. And somebody said to me, do you miss your lobbying days? And I think one of the things that people can learn about chamber executives, is that I said, I lobby as much now as I did when I did it full time, right? This looks different. I said it different audiences, different opportunities. A lot of times, it could be anything from a neighborhood association, embracing a new piece of infrastructure, or a group that’s not familiar with our chamber, we launched a major DNI effort three years ago. So we’re, we’re speaking out in numerous communities in our metro area, and sharing with them about the chamber for the first time. So it’s powerful to think about how every chamber exec in the country and many of their teammates day in and day out need great lobbying skills. So those degrees and that initial experience have really served me well.

Brandon Burton 4:15
Absolutely, yes. And I firmly believe that anyone listening to this it’s involved with the chamber, they are champions for their community and and when I tried thinking of a name for the audience, you know, that that seemed to fit well, so kind of rolls off your tongue but it has great meaning to so thanks for for recognizing that and you take a moment and tell us a little bit more about the the Charleston Metro Chamber to kind of the type of chamber Scope of Work size, staff budget, that sort of thing. Just to give us some perspective before we dive into our conversation.

Bryan Derreberry 4:52
You bet. We have 1600 members. A budget that said six and a half have million 30 full time staff members. And we have four primary platforms that we deliver our work through. Number one, like every chamber, a significant membership platform. Number two, a important government relations platform. We have three full time lobbyists on our team, one up in the state house in Colombia, and then two that work locally with our three counties and 30 municipalities. I think that’s a distinctive flavor for our organization, with regard to how important it is to get alignment, in all those communities, and I’ll talk a little bit later about, we use a partner ethos to lobby versus the bloody nose ethos that seems to be typical for the rest of our United States today. And that serves us very well. We have a large community advancement platform. And within that platform, we do diversity, equity and inclusion work. We do significant professional development programming work for our members. And also we do workforce and talent development. And then our marketing and communications platform is the fourth platform with regard to making sure not only that membership, can actively get engaged in what we do, but also the 830,000 people. And 165,000 employees represented by our membership, have an appreciation for what goes on within the chamber. So a very gifted group of folks, board of directors of 68, Executive Committee of 26. So very actively involving all the sectors in our metro area, and the volunteer leadership of our chamber. And I know one thing that chamber champions understand out there is that a lot of times we have to explain to people that we are a volunteer, directed organization. And they’ll come to us and say, Oh, you need to take a position on this issue. Well, we’ll go through our committee structure, and determine whether we take a position on the issue or not, it’s not my decision, or our government relations team, or our workforce development team to make a policy decision. It’s the responsibility of our volunteers. And I think after a number of years here, people now appreciate that, and they value that. So I think that’s another dynamic of our chamber is we very much want to put our members and key leadership roles in directing the chamber, we see ourselves as a regional advancement organization. So we look at that three county metro area and we look at big Rakesh used to work on already mentioned diversity, equity, inclusion, housing, attainability, mobility solutions, overall quality of business environment. So significant work that will advance our region over the next 25 to 50 years.

Brandon Burton 8:09
Right. I love that the fact that you pointed out you know, if the issue gets presented to the chamber, you take it to your committees, your board. A while back, I had Matt Morrow from the Springfield, Missouri chamber on the podcast, and he talked a lot about the wisdom of crowds. And when especially when you have a board of that size, 68 and different committees and whatnot, as you bring a different different topics in there. They all come in from their different backgrounds and experience and be able to know what the vision is the direction the Chamber’s trying to go. And then from there, combined experience and wisdom, they’re gonna land on the best possible outcome and direction to take up on different issues and policies even so glad you pointed that out.

Bryan Derreberry 8:57
You know, Brandon, I would strongly agree with your assessment. I am. This is my 36th year in the profession and I, overall, those board meetings, executive committee meetings, government relations committee meetings, I’ve seen the wisdom of our leaders proven out time and again. And I think another thing that every chamber champion listening recognizes is that they may come up with a position that’s contrary to what I personally believe, on a policy issue, maybe even what our team believes. And at the end of the day, we step forward and implement that decision, because it is their organization. So I think if you’re young and you’re chamber champion development, it’s important to realize that and of course, we want passionate people in our profession. And we want people that are highly skilled and able to craft how an issue needs to be examined. But then you have to be responsible to the degree See that it may end up somewhere that you didn’t imagine it would go. In over all those years, I’ve never seen it a selection of an outcome or a policy position that wasn’t best for the business community. So my encouragement would be to trust, that leadership, trust working with them to find the right pathway forward for your community. And there’s an old saying, you and I both heard of Brandon, you know, if they write it, they’ll underwrite it. And they, if they develop it and fill, it’s their own, they will get up and give public testimony, they’ll provide funding for lobbying efforts. So that’s part of the beauty of this profession is that, you know, we do lead heterogeneous organizations. This is not the American Dental Association or the American Medical Association. So we’ll have everything from a sole proprietor to somebody leading Joint Base Charleston here with 26,000 employees, and all across that spectrum, people will bring input an interest, and that’ll craft a composite position, or a composite direction. That’s really powerful. Right? Takes a lot of patients.

Brandon Burton 11:16
That’s right, it does. It takes a lot of patients. So our topic for discussion today, I’m a big fan of helping people and even chambers to understand the potential the power within them to become something greater. And for our discussion today, we’re focusing on looking 25 years into the future, which I think is very important in that aspect as far as realizing what the potential is of your organization, to be able to see what direction you can go and what needs to happen. You know, those those baby steps so to speak between here and there, and we’ll dive into this discussion as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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All right, Bryan, we’re back. And as I mentioned before the break, we’re talking about looking 25 years into the future as a chamber organization looking into the future. What at the end of this conversation, I’ll ask you how you see the future of chambers going forward. But in the meantime, before we get to that future and How do you see from here moving forward over the next 25 years,

Bryan Derreberry 15:04
Brandon and we do something that we feel is particularly powerful. About mid year we’ll begin a process called annual partnership calls. So we will go to somewhere between 180 to 250 of our members. And we sit down. And we ask a couple of questions that influence what that runway looks like over the next 25 years. The first question is, talk about the next three to five years of your company, and identify where you think there are excellent opportunities for your competitive growth, and then identify things that are impediments, speed bumps, and then we just, were quiet. And I think anytime you ask somebody about their company, and how they’re doing, where they’re going, what’s working, what’s challenging, you get really good, really good input. And the other the other question that really registers with them is that if there were one to two things in our metro area that you could change for the better, what would they be? So I’d love to tell you, we come back with a lot of disparate information and no agreement, we come back with a real clear picture as to what are the most significant opportunities, and what are the most pressing challenges. And when we look at those in combination, a lot of what we described on how we’re designed as an organization is influenced by the annual partnership calls in our area housing attainability is the number one regional issue. It will be a 25 year fix. To get the proper stock, the proper pricing, we’re in a real challenge with regard to our supply versus our demand. We’re growing by 33 net people a day, and we’re just having a hard time providing workforce housing that’s affordable. So we have a huge coalition working on that all three counties, public sector partners, private sector leaders, citizens, different associations. And we know right now we’re at 6000 houses behind for attainable housing in our metro market. That’s a couple of decades. So another one is mobility solutions, we’re getting ready in 2026 to undertake high speed bus lanes. So major mass transit project 21 Miles 2020 stops along the way. And for our metro, you know, if you’re in a, we were just in Boston for Metro leadership visit, they’ve been hopping on the tee for a while now. For us, that’s an important first step, there will be other lines to follow. But removing, even if we can remove eight to 10% of the traffic from our highways, that extends their longevity, it cuts down on congestion. So those are the kinds of issues that emerge. And it’s not us sitting in some room at the Chamber, figuring out where we go the next 25 years. It’s the people that want to be the employers, the citizens, the electeds, that continue to help our region thrive, identify where we’re going. And in that mix, there are many of our elected bodies, there are stakeholder partners. So we’re getting a really great level of input that’s formulating where we go. The other thing we just completed, we did an 18 month study. It’s called one region roadmap and used SP Friedman out of Chicago, Illinois to undertake our effort. And what it does, as a lot of communities don’t know what those big rock issues are, doesn’t take very long to figure those out. But this is going to be a 10 year plan, where every year we’ll identify five to seven priorities for the region to work on collectively. And there will be we’re using a local governing network,

which my political science professors from long ago would have really liked hearing. But what that is it means there’ll be a lead agent, we’re going to be the lead agent for housing attainability will involve other stakeholders throughout the community. And then we’ll begin to work on gaining annual metric identified success and creating more attainable housing. So equitable did Dual accesses another one, entrepreneurial development is another one. But this gives us a roadmap as a region for a decade. And at the heart of the one reaching roadmap is equitable access for all of our citizens to living, learning and earning opportunities. So I think you have to have a foundational piece that engages everyone. And that’s the piece, we want everybody to be able to have those attributes as we move through the decades ahead. So listen, well build a strategic plan that has lead agents that will be responsible for the work that’s being undertaken. And they get after it year in and year out, we have a large steering committee that will evaluate each of the lead agents on an annual basis to make sure they’re performing. So you know, it’s the classic thing brand. And if you if you fail to plan, you plan to fail, and we’re just really dedicated to that kind of work. And I would encourage chamber champions across the country that are listening, there’s a couple of key learnings in there. Number one, you want to bring as many people along as possible. So get out and talk to your members, talk to your elected officials, talk to the people that you’re going to need to do this with. We never say the chamber is going to do this work. We say along with our partners, we’re gonna tackle these annual priorities. The other thing is to make them concrete. That’s hard for a lot of communities. I’ve been in other communities that love to study and talk. But when you say annually, we’re going to achieve x, y, we’re gonna accomplish why. And then you report on it, then you have credibility, then it’s not a study that goes and sits on the shelf and collect stuff. So listen, well, engage others be concrete, and produce results. So we’re, we’re excited about one region roadmap, we kick it off in October. So when you and I talk this time next year, yeah, I’ll be able to, I’ll be able to tell you more about getting divorced in one region roadmap.

Brandon Burton 22:18
Yeah. So I know leading up to this discussion, you had shared with me, some of these topics that you guys are looking on. Maybe areas of focus, as you look to the future of Charleston, and and you talked about some of these, like the attainable housing and the you know, the infrastructure and mobility and things like that, as you have these different. We’ll call them topics areas of focus. How do you go about focusing on each one? I assume there’s some sort of a committee for each area of focus? Is that right? Have you said it’s one thing to create division, and we need to expand and put some focus and, and work over in these areas? But then how do you go from that, that vision to actually rolling it out to? Let’s take some action on these different steps? What does that look like there in Charleston?

Bryan Derreberry 23:12
You know, it’s interesting, and I think inherent in your in your question is a couple of things for chamber champions number one, regardless of the size of your chamber, and I have a deep passion for chambers that have staff under the number of 10. I think they work harder than any other chamber in the country, you’re going to need to hire some experts. We’ve been very intentional over the past 11 years, that we add people to our team that have significant expertise. So while they won’t do it on their own, they have a career track record in the areas whether it’s workforce development, government relations, diversity, equity and inclusion, attainable housing. They’re an expert. Because I think that you’ll be pleased as a chamber when you make that investment. And when you’re smaller, and maybe one or two major issues. So we’ve been very intentional about in that group of 30. Hiring people that have that level of expertise. The other thing that we’ve done is built a very strong committee structure. So however, those issues are moving through our organization, there are one or two or more committees that will be touching them. And we’ll be following through on what we commit to do organizationally to achieve results. The final thing is a talk a little bit about that local governing network and if anybody would like information on that we’re happy to share. You have to engage the whole region. So you look at something like the high speed bus lanes. Our Berkeley Charleston Dorchester Council of Governments is working with all the governments along that set of high speed bus lane routes. We’re working through our regional policy committee, which handles all of our local regional work. But there also is going to be a lead agent in that area that will pull together, how many ever stakeholders are required to implement. So a lot of it’s leveraging what I call critical mass. So you got some key folks at the top that have expertise, and then they’re bringing partners together to, in this instance, transportation, overlays for development on those 20 bus stops. So you know, there’s some sophistication that’s required when you do that kind of work. So, you know, my encouragement would get experts on your team, make sure the region understands the top issues, bring stakeholders together, that can move the issue. And then, again, metrics that make sure over 510 1520 years, you’re making progress, because in that timeframe, Brandon, you and I both know, you’re gonna have different mayors, you’re going to have different city councils, you’re going to have different county councils, you’re going to have a different state legislative delegation. So you have to be you chamber, and top stakeholders that are in it for the long run, you have to keep the plumb line very clear, and keep coming back to the issues. Because a lot of times public and private sector partners can get easily distracted. So that’s the other thing is that we look at all of our work as forever work. Okay, you’re forever doing housing affordability, you’re forever improving infrastructure. You’re forever maintaining your business climate. For us as a coastal community, you’re forever looking at resiliency. So part of that is developing a drumbeat internally to be in it for the long game. Yeah, every year, as you said, you want to have annual achievements. But you have to have those long game goals, talented team, great partners, focus and metrics to be able to move to we call them big rock issues. Because they don’t go away. You know, somebody said, you know, we have funding, we have something called Accelerate greater Charleston that funds. A lot of the professional staff that the technical professional staff is somebody said, Well, when are we going to stop doing accelerate greater Charleston? And we just smile, and we say never,

Brandon Burton 27:50
whenever you give up, you know, like,

Bryan Derreberry 27:53
you want to quit? Yeah, you know, and last one out, cut off the lights. And what I think what helps private sector companies, especially if they’re developing products, have said, you have an r&d arm, don’t you? And they Oh, yeah, we have research and development. Well, for chambers, your research and development is positioning the region for the future and putting the building blocks in place. I said, if your r&d went away, you’d be selling the same product over and over, you’re always looking to improve. And that begins to help people wrap their brains around. Okay, this is forever work. This is a long game. And the other beauty I just shared earlier, we went to Boston with 100 leaders, is get your leaders out to other metro markets that have like opportunities and challenges. So they can see the kind of work they’ve done. And then we come home and people say, hey, we saw how they did that in Boston, we can do that. Or they come home and say, wow, they had a big miss, we can really learn from that. So when we tackle a like issue, we don’t make the same mistakes. The other beauty of that trip is that you think all the leaders in your community know each other and kind of have a comparable set of aspirations. They don’t know. So when you get 100 people together that are having lunch and dinner and some staying up till college late hours, getting to know each other better. They come home aligned. You know, a lot of this is about not only what you’re tackling, but its alignment, and persistence. So that annual trip kind of says, Okay, we’ve gotten to x with high speed bus lanes. So we’re gonna go look at somebody that’s either built them all the way out, or maybe they have light rail. So again, it’s I call it staying 20% dissatisfied. Yeah, never, never 100% satisfied. that you have to continually prod the region to achieve at a higher level. Part of the challenge to Brandon is that, you know, I’ve been in places that are BB plus communities, it’s hard to get a BB plus to an A, it’s really easier to take a C or a D and pop it up to an A, because people feel the threat. They feel the need for collaboration and alignment. You know, when you’re a B plus, you’re kind of fat and happy. Right? Do we really need to be in a

Brandon Burton 30:33
you’re too comfortable? Any adjustments? Yeah.

Bryan Derreberry 30:37
And that’s when we say there are 396 other mshs in this nation, that one our employers and they want our talent. So yes, we need to be in a

Brandon Burton 30:45
Yeah, that’s I love that point. And that being the 20% just satisfied it. Yes. Always, always looking for that room to improve. I love that. salutely. So and I’m sure this answer will vary. But as there are different committees and whatnot on these different topics. You had mentioned doing these leadership visits to other cities, which I think is awesome. It’s a great way to look at a certain topic and how a city that you may aspire to be like and in certain aspects that I see great value in that. As far as the nitty gritty, the day to day. How often do some of these committees meet as a monthly? Is it weekly? Is it quarterly? Are they all different? Depending on what it is? How do you? How do you say that in your community?

Bryan Derreberry 31:32
There, at least monthly, if not twice a month. And we’re big believers, our board this year will have had 10 board meetings and 10 executive committee meetings. You know, I hear people say, Oh, we you know, chamber champions. I apologize if I’m stepping on toes. Oh, we do a quarterly. Okay, these kinds of issues. If you do a quarterly and somebody misses a quarterly meeting, they miss half a year. Yeah. Okay. We call that creating a drumbeat. Whether it’s committees that are working on policy, or programs or initiatives, or executive committee and board. If you lose the drumbeat within your organization on key issues, you’re not going to be able to move fast enough to make a difference. Well, they’re all busy people. And I’m gonna give you a great example. Brandon, we tried to go to every other month when I was in Wichita, and the board rebelled. That’s a cool message. Yeah, one I’m meet monthly. So I think sometimes, yeah, it’s a lot of work. We have an amazing executive ops team. And it’s a lot of work to do 20 meetings a year with, you know, large lead volunteer bodies. And it’s the work we signed up for.

Brandon Burton 32:58
Absolutely. And it’s that forever work as it’s that forever work.

Bryan Derreberry 33:03
And, you know, the the thing we talk about is, and I just met with our exec ops team yesterday, and they’re incredible. And we said, our goal is to create an experience for every volunteer that has never been met or matched in our metro area, from knowing about their family, their names, their interest, and taking care of them. So when it comes time for one of them to be an officer, or to lead a committee or to get more of their people engaged Hekia I’m going to deal with the Charleston Metro Chamber. And so that that kind of intentional focus. And that’s why we sold out that trip to Boston in record time. And we don’t want to take 200 people, you know, we’re kind of like 100 Yeah, you know, if you get over 100, you start to have a three ring circus, and they don’t bond the same way. Yeah. But that that internal clock for us? It’s kind of like a metronome. How are we honoring them and engaging them. So they think I’ve never had a volunteer experience like this. Because let’s face it, we are battling for their time, talent and treasure, there are 4600 non enough for profits, and just the greater Charleston area. You know, as your communities get bigger, that’s probably 15,000 20,000 25,000. So it’s pretty rarefied air to get top leaders. The other thing we do a little bit different because we are really committed to the ENI is that we don’t have to have the the gal or the guy in the corner office. A lot of organizations just say, Oh, I only want the CEO or the president. Right. Well, we’ll say is give me number three, or number four, that will be that CEO and president in 10 to 15 years Yeah, so we can have the level of gender ethnic, racial diversity on our board that reflects our community. It also makes us a lot more healthy from an organizational standpoint,

Brandon Burton 35:13
and possibly more time to give to the purpose and the cause that you’re working on to always go for the number one, they’re going to be some of the busiest people. Not that the number three or four is not busy, but they’re able to work it in a little bit more and build that future along with you. So you’ve hit on some really awesome points in our discussion here. If you were to try to condense down to maybe a tip or an action item for chamber champions listening that want to take their chamber up to the next level, what would you put out there and suggest for them to consider

Bryan Derreberry 35:53
my greatest tip would be pick one to three things in become an expert. And that that’s going to weave right back into what we’ve been talking about Brandon, you’ve got to be committed to do it long term. So let’s say you pick developing a pipeline from your high schools and middle schools for your top two or three business sectors just know front side that that’s going to be 15 to 25 years. Think what we learned during the pandemic, because it was probably a sharing experience for every chamber and business member Association in our nation is that it was the meaningful work that maintained our most significant investors. It wasn’t the business after hours, it wasn’t the networking events. It was they could look at the chamber. And the chamber in our metro area got together with the council of governments and other stakeholders. And we created a whole reopening strategy for our metro marketplace. We met every day at four o’clock, Monday through Thursday for almost six months to get the region opened again. I felt like I had a whole new family. And sometimes it got irritating. But I wouldn’t have traded that we build bonds between organizations and governments that we never had before. So that would be my tip be be substantive, be relevant. And we use a term I think it’s the you know, if you were to ask me the the Chamber’s magic power, our secret sauce, we use a term called seine center, sa N E. Your chamber, chamber champions can be the same center on these issues, you can bring parties together. And whether it’s workforce development, whether it’s diversity, equity, inclusion, whether it’s housing attainability, whether it’s infrastructure solutions, whether it’s recruitment and retention of either businesses or employees, you can be the organization that brings all the parties together, that need to be aligned to do the work. That to me is what a chamber really is. Our mission statement is initiate advocate and empower the region to produce a prosperous business environment. And it’s a little different than a lot of chambers. Because they flip business environment in a region, we know that our region has to have the ingredients that are aligned to make employers, employees and citizens successful. So look at the region as your laboratory, look at your county as your laboratory. If you’re a City Chamber, look at your city as a laboratory, and find those one to three things that really need to be worked on. That would be my greatest encouragement. And and when you do it, you’re gonna get real popular real fast. So you’re gonna have to learn how to say no, yeah. That’s right, because let’s say this camera does such a good job on developing those middle and high school talent pipelines for industry. We wanted to do this now. We wanted to do that. So I think the other thing is to when you do those annual partnership calls, as I mentioned to you, we didn’t come back with 50 Things came back with probably five to seven things that every employer is focused on. So you know, stick to those critical realities, and and go deep and do a great job. And then when it comes renewal time and recruitment time, somebody will say, Oh, yeah, that chamber. They really have the best interest of the business. Unity in our region in mind, they’re worth investing in. So that would be my do stuff that matters and do it. Well.

Brandon Burton 40:09
I love that. So the question that I mentioned at the very beginning that that we would circle back to towards the end is how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Bryan Derreberry 40:21
I’m bullish, I think about what’s occurred over the window is what we’re in pandemic endemic, the past two, three quarters of a year, and I know for our chamber just to bring it home to right here, we look totally different than when we entered. We have a set of members, a set of stakeholders, a set of raving fans in the community, because of how we opened up our organization, for allowing us to assist anybody that needed help. And that that runs a little counter to the the typical Oh, we only help members. Well, when when your community is facing what we’ve all faced. During the pandemic, you help everybody you can help. And you make again, choices. So we look very different today, we look more open to diverse partners, diverse audiences. And we’re working on stuff a lot of chambers, you know, 20 years ago, maybe if you were in a major metro community, you were doing DNI, but I think chambers are going to be leaders for their regions, excuse me. And the years ahead, unlike any other time, I think that the credibility of the chamber when they tackle those issues, even if they’re not successful, and they’re going to be successful in the vast majority of instances. I think there’s a caring tone and tenor and a level of respect by leaders saying, Yeah, we need a rallying point. And I think I think it’s changed. And if your your chambers worth its salt, it’ll step into that opportunity and, and really make a big difference. SOT I’m very excited for the future. However, I do believe one of the things we continually learn is that it can’t, it can’t be all about the fun stuff. Right. And I mean, there are, somebody said to me, how many organizations in your community do networking events, somewhat goods? Probably all 46 months? not for profits? Yeah. So yes, do we have strong programming? We do. We do. But we’re probably one of the communities leaders for providing professional development programming. We have the six different leadership types of offerings. So we know right now, as you well know, in your market, Brandon, attracting and retaining talent is the number one business issue. So again, always making sure your chamber is plugged into what’s relevant, and then providing it with the highest level of expertise you can undertake. And if you’re small, don’t let that slow you down. You’ve got people in your membership. You’ve got volunteers and members that can come alongside of you, and build out the type of programming that you need. That’s one of the powers of small communities is that they can really rally that type of asset set and make it work. So I’m excited. I’m, you know, I think that chambers have always been amazingly relevant. We celebrate a little birthday next year. Yeah. Yeah. We’re gonna be 250 years old. Wow. That we’re the we’re the oldest continuing operating chamber in America. So founded three years before our nation became a country. I’d say we’re in it for the long game.

Brandon Burton 44:13
Yeah, doing that forever work. I love it. So I’d love for you to be able to share some, any contact information for listeners who might want to reach out and connect with you and learn sure but as you’re doing there in Charleston,

Bryan Derreberry 44:27
it’s it’s a really easy, bderreberry@charlestonchamber.org.

Brandon Burton 44:43
That is perfect. And I’ll get that in our show notes for this episode, too. So if somebody always,

Bryan Derreberry 44:48
always happy to talk this profession, and you know, I think your question Brandon on the future is that many chambers are at an inflection point. Mm. But there were ways that they used to do things and things that used to matter. And the inflection point is some of those still have value. The greater value though is marshaling the the leaders and assets of your community and aligning them and doing significant work. So we’re at that neat juncture, so many chambers have already crossed over. And if anybody wants to talk about the both the rewards and the pitfalls, because it’s hard when you enter into a new area of work. And also there are ways to enter in that you can have some immediate victories and set yourself up for long term success.

Brandon Burton 45:47
Yeah, I think that’s important to be able to have that encouragement going along that, that you are going in the right direction. So I love that. Bryan, I appreciate you spending time with us today on chamber chat podcast, providing, you know, great vision and insight for chamber champions listening. I’m sure everyone got a lot of value out of this. But thank you for being a part of the program today. I appreciate it.

Bryan Derreberry 46:13
Well, I love you championing our industry. I believe so greatly in the work that I see peer organizations and colleagues do across the country and America is great because of great chambers. So thank you for being an advocate.

Brandon Burton 44:58
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Regional Coalitions with Glenn Morris

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

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

Introduction

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

And now, your host, he likes to explore new automation tools. Here’s my dad Brandon Burton.

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

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

Diann Rogers 0:45
As a medium sized chamber, we recognize that it’s absolutely critical to have a well qualified and well trained membership development person. Holman Brothers trained that person, recruited that person then they even trained me on how to manage that person. We’re grateful for the support we got.

Brandon Burton 0:59
You can learn more about Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions by visiting holmanbros.com.

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Guest Introduction

Our guest for this episode is Glenn Morris. Glenn leads the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce in California and developed in delivering on its mission to be a catalyst for business growth convenient for leaders and influencers and champion for a stronger Santa Maria Valley. The chamber is the leading business support Economic Development and Tourism Promotion Agency in Northern Santa Barbara County. Prior to joining the Santa Maria Valley Chamber, Glenn served as president and CEO for the Visalia Chamber of Commerce, which is also in California leading the chamber through a complete update of its programs, while establishing the organization as an influential voice and local policy decision making. In addition to his work with chambers, Glenn has professional experience in economic development, tourism and business advocacy. He brings nearly three decades of experience and leadership to bear on his passions of community organizational excellence, and the power of collaboration to achieve goals. His experience includes leading nonprofit organizations in Utah, California and Nevada. As a community leader, Glenn has been involved in a number of local and national organizations working on issues ranging from access to the arts, improvement of local schools and youth leadership development. Glenn has also been part of a number of community based political campaigns. Professionally, Glenn has served on a wide range of local, regional and national boards focused on business advocacy, economic development, workforce issues and youth career preparation. Glenn has served in numerous leadership and training positions for His church, community and professional organizations. He finds great joy in being a husband to Shana and as a father and a grandfather. Glenn, I’m excited to have you with me on Chamber Chat Podcast today, I’d love for you to just take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you a little better.

Glenn Morris 3:06
Well, Brandon, good morning, and thank you for this invitation. And the chance to chat about chambers, I think. I think chambers are just critical organizations and communities. And I was fortunate that kind of midpoint in my career to find myself in the chamber business and found my real home professionally. So I love that, that that you have this opportunity to bring chamber people together and help us all learn and, and grow together. So that’s wonderful. You know, something else about myself, I you know, I do a lot of work. But But I love all of it. But you know, I think the thing that makes it all worthwhile. At the end of the day, you mentioned the grandkids and that and that’s just you know, that’s the payoff in life, right? When you when you get those opportunities to see your family growing and thriving, and we’re really blessed in that way.

Brandon Burton 4:05
That’s right. I always like to say that’s how, you know you got your priorities right. You know, you can get at work and and all your responsibilities to be able to reflect on that. That’s where that that’s what matters. Yeah, indeed.

Glenn Morris 4:19
Very good.

Brandon Burton 4:20
Well, tell us a little bit about the Santa Maria Valley Chamber just to give us some perspective, midsize budget staff, that sort of thing is we get your discussion

Glenn Morris 4:29
today. Yeah, so Santa Maria Valley Chamber. We are the chamber for the city of Santa Maria and the surrounding. There’s a fairly large unincorporated community in our neighborhood. There’s a smaller city just down the street. So we kind of covered that regional area. We’re in Northern Santa Barbara County, so that three and a half hours north of LA for something south of San Francisco, right on the Central Coast. We, we think of it as God’s country. And you know, the we I joke with folks that I live in the land of the eternal 70s is that it’s really just a beautiful place to live and work. We have a wine country here that that’s a big draw for our tourism side. But there’s a significant amount of manufacturing in this area, as well. And so it’s a very diversified economy communities about 100. And, oh, if you take the all of the neighboring areas that we serve, it’s probably 150 to 160,000 people, kind of one of the last, growing communities along the central coast with with still some opportunity for new new development and new growth. Our chamber is a we think of ourselves as the one stop shop for all business needs. In addition to the traditional chamber functions, we are the tourism marketing organization for the community. And we are the economic development organization for the community. So we work with our city and the county in our area to lead in all of those areas. So we really are kind of a one stop shop I have a team of depending on the day 10 to 12 folks that lead those three functions. We have about 850 members of the chamber and our budget all in is gonna probably be in that two and a quarter million this next year. All right.

Brandon Burton 6:43
Well, that does help to give some of that perspective especially as we get into what our topic for our discussions today around regional coalition’s. We’ll get into this discussion as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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Topic-Regional Coalitions

All right, Glenn, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break we’ll focus our conversation around regional coalition’s and your responsibility or your chamber there, like you mentioned, as you kind of gave that background about the chamber is your typical chamber work you’ve got the tourism arm as well as economic development responsibilities, so you guys stay busy. But also that gives you the need really to reach out and, and work with others in your community and the region. So I’m always curious to hear how different chambers go about reaching out and working with other organizations because it can be, you know, competitive on some levels, but also, you know, rising tide raises all ships as they say. So, I’d love to kind of hear your philosophy and strategy as to how you approach that.

Glenn Morris 11:06
So this is a this is an issue that I’m really passionate has been kind of my, my new to the topic I’ve been evangelizing on in our community for since I got here. So good, let me give you a quick story, because it’ll set some context for how we came to this this approach, I joined the Santa Maria Valley Chamber, just over just right at eight years ago, came from another community in California, and moved over here, Santa Maria is the largest community in our region. But it’s not the county seat, right. So it’s not the political center of the county, that would be Santa Barbara. And San Luis Obispo, which is about 40 minutes to the north of us is the home to the regional university. And so you know, as you can imagine, I’m sure that this will ring true for many communities, when you’re the kind of the second community that you know, there can be a chip on the shoulder, right, we don’t get our fair share, some disapprove. Yeah, and so when I moved to the community that that perception was really clear that, that this community had felt for a long time, like it was a little isolated from resources and decision making power, and all of those kinds of things. I joke with people that when I moved to town that, you know, community leaders would discuss, you know, would say, Well, you know, the community is bounded by, you know, the Rio Grande and the Grand Canyon, there’s a riverbed on the north end of town, and there’s a kind of a choke point Canyon, you have to go through to get from us to Santa Barbara. And it was their way of kind of describing this sense of a little bit of isolation, right? Not being from the community and carrying some of that emotional baggage, I decided to my role was going to be you know, I would tell my board, you know, if there’s a moat around the community, my job is to build bridges across and, and to go out and create relationships that would benefit our community. But also knowing that we could bring value to the greater region where the where the workforce home, so many people in our community can move out to neighboring communities for work during the day, where the retail center, so people that live in those outer communities on either side of us come here to shop, and, you know, so that we add value to bring, but we also needed, you know, the health of the region. And then as we really got into that we really, you know, came to the what’s probably an obvious right realization, but but, you know, took us a while as a community to acknowledge that, that we’re, you know, business doesn’t care about political lines, right? The economy doesn’t stop at a city boundary or a county line, or probably even a state guide, right? That, that people’s lives flow across that right, you may live in one community, but work in another right and your business may be in one. But your customers are coming from, you know, three or four others, you certainly are going to have suppliers that are in other communities, you’re going to have, you know, all of that economic activity flows back and forth in really natural ways that have nothing to do with the way we organize for governments. Right. And so we’ve worked we’ve been working for that eight years to really create those relationships with those economic institutions. So initially, it was probably the universities that are one university 40 minutes to the north and another 170 miles to the south. But as we got into that, what we really found worked best was when we reached out to the other chamber Vers, in those communities that said, let’s stop competing and start working together, particularly on the things that matter, like, head of household jobs, and, you know, infrastructure, and you know, all of the housing, job bows, all of those kinds of things, right, we can fight over where the next, you know, cool retail store goes, but but when we come to, you know, where are the head of household jobs, we can work together to land those.

Brandon Burton 15:31
Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I, the thought that comes to my mind as he explained that because I mean, to me, it makes it like I said, it makes a lot of sense to work together to build a stronger region, because, like you said, the politics don’t stop, you know, certain lines, economies don’t stop at, you know, city boundaries. And even having a university, you know, in the community next door, doesn’t meet. Yeah, so there’s a lot of this crossover. But the question that comes to my mind is, how does one defined community these days when the world seems to be shrinking, and we have so much crossover into in these different areas and elements, that it makes sense to work together with other communities? But what defines a community anymore?

Glenn Morris 16:25
You know, that’s a good question. And I think it’s changing, right. And I hope that that, in my belief is that it’s expanding. Right. So, you know, I think you can define community by the neighborhood that you live in, I think you can define it by the city that you’re engaged in civically. And I think you can define it in that region that you live you that you really live your life and right, and where you do, you’re recreating, and you’re working, and all of those other kinds of pieces. And I think when you really think of it as kind of that Patchwork, right, with different pieces, it really adds a richness, and you know, a lot of value, right? You know, the you may not have every kind of thing you’re looking for in one in one of those boxes. But if you can pull that lens back just a little bit, you probably find, you know, what you’re looking for, right? And, you know, we would, we would have conversations about, you know, well, we don’t have this type of housing in our community, but you know, what, the guy five miles down the road does. And so, you know, if I’m selling, you know, if that’s what the, if that’s what somebody’s looking for, we can point them to it. Right. So, yeah, that, you know, the set the idea of community, I think, is really evolving, and, and hopefully growing. Right,

Brandon Burton 17:51
yeah. I like how you brought up the richness and the value that comes as we expand community and be more inclusive of others in those, you know, traditionally, bordering communities. And, you know, when, like the example you gave of certain housing, you know, you got to play with how the fields striped at the moment. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t help to redefine where the stripes go right over time.

Glenn Morris 18:17
Yeah, and, you know, we really, so Well, you know, a big part of our role in the community is economic development. Right. So we’re all we’re engaged in business attraction. And, you know, often we would get ourselves into these conversations with prospective businesses about, you know, well, we need we need more of this particular type. We need engineers, and, you know, in your city data, we don’t see enough engineers. Right. But But again, I pulled that lens out 40 miles, and I one of the top engineering schools in the country, right, just just across the river. Right. And, you know, so it’s like, the real, we got him, right. You may not see him as you walk down Main Street, but we got him. Right. And, and, you know, that held true for, you know, housing, it might hold true for available land, right, maybe they want to put a factory in, and, you know, my neighboring communities having that conversation, and they don’t have the 10 acres the guy needs, but I do right, but in so you do that. And I think this kind of an approach is critical on business retention. I’ll give you one quick story right before I moved to the community, we had a business that that moved 20 miles away. And people in the community when I moved into town, they were just really still upset about this, right. It had probably been about two years. And they were really still ticked off about it. Right because we lost the business. And as I thought about it, I thought, you know, okay, they you know, they’re fizzle. cool facility is 20 miles down the road. But all of the people that live in our community that work for that business are still in our community, they have a little longer commute. Right. But they’re still here, their kids are still playing on our kids soccer teams, they’re still volunteering on our local nonprofits. Right. And they’re still, you know, in, in our, you know, in our churches. So, did we lose? You know, I don’t know. You know, if, if people are your greatest asset, I’m not sure we lost, right. And, you know, maybe the city lost a little property tax, I don’t know, you know, but, but in the grand scheme of it, I think, because we were able to stay in the region. You know, I don’t think I don’t know that I would chalk it up as a loss.

Brandon Burton 20:50
And say, especially with that example, keeping them in the region, just 20 miles down the road, there is a facility that’s available now, for somebody that move into so yeah, the perceived loss is also a gain on another side, as well, bringing new people new resources, new, you know, everything else.

Glenn Morris 21:10
And, you know, the reason that they had moved was they needed to grow, and Mike tanned at that moment didn’t have a building they could grow into. Right, and, and I think without a regional kind of an approach, when the next one of those comes to me and says, you know, I need another 10,000 square feet, and we just don’t have it in the market. You know, I think without a regional approach, the risk is that they start looking at other states, right? Or completely different markets, where my neighbors who work for them are either going to have to make a choice to relocate, or find new employment. Right. And so, you know, do I want them to stand my town? Yes, I do. Right. But if I can’t make that work, and I can put them in the town next door, that’s a better outcome than, you know, letting them, you know, load a truck up and go someplace far away.

Brandon Burton 22:05
Exactly. So and those are tough decisions to make, too. And they need to do that. But maybe let’s talk a little bit more tactical. So as you started reaching out to some of these neighboring chambers, and saying, Let’s collaborate together, let’s work together, let’s not compete anymore, let’s, you know, level or let’s let’s raise the bar, I would say, How was that received? How did you approach it? And is there anything formal that’s come out of it as far as like a regional round table or something like?

Glenn Morris 22:37
So? So I think it starts with relationships, right? It starts with chamber CEOs, you know, having lunch with other chamber CEOs in the area, and building that relationship that you can get some trust, right, that, that if I need that business, I need to find that business that 10 1000s extra square feet, I can call you, and and we’re going to work that out together. But you’re not going to use that as an excuse to come poach to others or Mike. Right. Right. There’s that trust that you have to build there. And that’s really one on one. And then we found that, that one of the areas that we could, that was easy to collaborate on early in that process was around legislative advocacy, right? Because now we’re all fighting the State Capitol. And that’s, you know, a common, you know, foe maybe or, you know, and so it wasn’t about, you know, balancing between us, it was us all together, yeah, against an external thing. And so that got us started working together, taking common positions, collaborating around advocacy, kinds of discussions. And then from there, we’ve been able to move to more of the Economic Development kinds of things. But it’s also, you know, spun off into we do some joint staff development things and you know, all of those kinds of things, once you start working together, you can find lots of opportunities. But we do now have probably three formal Regional Chamber, you know, elaborate so we have one that’s around this advocacy piece, that actually is about 30 chambers in a three county region that come together for that. We have a another chamber group that is more more on MRI on local kinds of issues. That is what eight chambers in in one particular end of that region. And then we’re, we have a two County Economic Development, collaboration that started as the chambers and as actually now, we’ve actually stood up a new organization to really lead regional economic big development initiatives. So, you know, that was probably the one that became the most formal as it really just kind of became a new entity. Right?

Brandon Burton 25:12
Now, I love those examples and being able to put some numbers to that about what that looks like at the regional advocacy, you know, 30 chambers come in together, I mean, the power that comes with those kinds of numbers, and you go to the state capitol and say, Look, you know, 30 chambers representing I don’t know how many 1000s of business owners we believe strongly in this, you know,

Glenn Morris 25:34
it gets, you know, in my town, I have one member of the assembly, right, and I have one, Senator. But if I bring that Tri County group together, it’s like eight members of the assembly and three or four state senators, right. So all of a sudden, we have more people we can talk to. And so you know, that that gives us a different kind of a voice.

Brandon Burton 26:00
Right? So as far as the approach with with your membership, I know, there’s always going to be somebody that will find a problem with whatever the Chamber’s doing, you’re going to hear those voices. But hopefully, there’s more that are seeing the bigger picture of how you’re working with neighboring communities. What type of feedback are you getting of a note and a lot of times, so maybe preface that a lot of times members don’t see the work that’s happening behind the scenes. But with that in mind, what what type of feedback do you get from your members with taking a more regional and collaborative? Yeah,

Glenn Morris 26:40
so yes, you’re right, most of them probably don’t know what we’re doing. Right? Because because they’re focused on on much more transactional business and their day to day and that’s great, right. That’s what they should be doing. And we try to support them in doing that. But, you know, the most of our community leader level folks, you know, appreciate the, what we’re trying to do. And they see the bigger picture. You know, occasionally when, you know, we’re, we’re celebrating what they to them looks like a neighbor’s win. Right. You know, they can kind of go explain this to me one more time. Right. And so we have to be really good about telling the bigger story. Right. And so, you know, particularly with local elected, right, city council members who, by definition, should be passionate about their, their little spot in the world, right? Yeah. And, you know, so it’s important for us, if, if we’re celebrating a business location in a neighboring community, that we’re highlighting the jobs that are going to be, you know, filled by residents of our community, or, you know, the supplier relationships that our small businesses will not be able to have. And, you know, so you do need to localize the the impact and the benefits, you know, for folks so that they see themselves in, you know, what, on the surface can feel like someone else’s when, right, yeah,

Brandon Burton 28:12
help help them see where the insane fall, I usually fall out to negative connotation. But yeah, a positive fallout. The windfalls that come from a neighboring win? Yeah, yeah.

Glenn Morris 28:25
There’s a we have a nuclear power plant 30 miles north of us that is slated for closure. And, you know, when that was announced a couple of years ago, you know, people started ringing alarm bells, right, because it’s a significant economic driver, 1200 highly paid jobs, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And we jumped in and said, you know, this is a problem, and we need to help figure out what we do next. Right, what, how do we respond to that issue? And we got folks that were like, that’s, that’s their problem, right? We don’t, you know, city, folks, were saying, we don’t get any taxes off for that, right, that the taxes all go to the other county. And we them, yeah, but we have, you know, three or 400 people in our community that work there. We have, you know, a dozen businesses that are in the, you know, local supply chain that provide services and products to that facility. You know, so you just started have to figure out and, and just constantly be repeating that local impact of monies being

Brandon Burton 29:34
spent in your community from those jobs and mine, like how much of your communities receiving their power from that right plan? Yeah,

Glenn Morris 29:43
you know, so there’s those macro issues, but, but there are going to be local issues in regional impacts,

Brandon Burton 29:50
right. That’s a great example. So I wanted to to ask if you might have any tips or strategies that you could offer for a chamber champion, listening they can do to help take their chamber up to the next level?

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Glenn Morris 30:04
Well, you know, and I recognize that, that I’m in a little bit of a unique position, I, you know, we started this with kind of the, the DNA of our Channel by chamber, right. And I shared that I have a team of 10 to 12, you know, full time employees who helped me do the day to day work. That’s a blessing for me, because it frees up some of my time to go and do these other kinds of things like building relationships with regional partners, and some of that, and I, I’m fully aware, that’s not every chambers, reality. Right, right. But I do think that there are ways that, you know, we have chambers in our regional coalition’s that have, you know, a CEO and one staffer, and, you know, maybe a part time, you know, kind of helper, right, so we have some very small chambers that are part of this as well. And they they add value, they add, they add really important context to our discussions. And so, you know, I would say, Don’t worry about your size, if you can have a conversation with people, you can begin to become part of a regional coalition. The, the pandemic is awful, never want to do it again, there were definitely some benefits that came out of it. And one of them for us, was it really took what was it these fledgling kind of regional issues, you know, partnerships, and made them essential, right. So from the very beginning, we all started to go, you know, you can remember two years ago, we were immediately the kings and queens of webinars, right? We have information and our members need it, and we get it to him, and there’s no way to put them in a room. So we all learn how to do webinars on Zoom really fast. And we really quickly went, you know, they’re eight chambers right here in a 30 minute radius, we don’t all need to do the same webinar. Right, I can do the one on Tuesday, and you can do the one on Wednesday, we can both promote them to all of our members. And so we were able to share workload, right and, and provide consistent information. The reality is our businesses are members of multiple chambers. And if they’re getting different messages, that’s confusing, right? And in a crisis, confusing is not helpful. And if you’re not helpful, they don’t need you. Right, they’re going somewhere. And so I think we helped all of our chambers be more essential by doing it together, right. And so, you know, and it didn’t cost us anything fact, if anything, it probably saved us all, you know, some resources because we could share. So, you know, if you’re, if somebody’s really looking to start this kind of a journey, you know, I start with

Brandon Burton 33:15
all right, not sure what happened there.

Glenn Morris 33:18
The beauty of zoom, all of a sudden, you just stop moving,

Brandon Burton 33:22
as you’re talking it up about how great it is for these webinars and everything and just boom, it’s gone. Yeah, no,

Glenn Morris 33:29
you know, the point I would make is, you know, during the pandemic, it became you sent, it became really important that we all were doing consistent messaging, sharing resources quickly. And it became, you know, to try and do that all by ourselves, it was overwhelming. But if we could share the load, chamber, one takes Monday, we take Wednesday, somebody else does Friday, all of a sudden, we all looked better, and we’re more valuable to our members. Absolutely. And so, you know, if somebody’s really thinking, you know, I really should work more closely with the chambers and or other economic development, tourism or whatever, in your region, you know, I’d say, pick one issue, right, pick something that you have in common. And, you know, figure out how you can do it together, and then you know, it’ll grow from there.

Brandon Burton 34:30
Yeah, I think that’s a good tip. And you know, you started that answer by talking about not everybody has the luxury of you know, going and meeting but as you brought in the zoom, you know, there is the ashes you get to know these people, you don’t need to have the commute time just hop on a zoom call with the neighboring, you know, three or four chambers around you and talk about the latest stuff.

Glenn Morris 34:52
You know, when I when we started that the legislative advocacy group, we met in person, right and So the days of those meetings, you know, depending on where that was a, you know, hour and a half meeting became a half day commitment. Right. Now it’s back down to the hour and a half. Because we can do it on Zoom. Right. And that just creates a lot more opportunities.

Brandon Burton 35:17
Absolutely. So Glenn, I like to ask everyone, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Glenn Morris 35:27
Well, I think chambers are currently essential, and I think they’re going to be more so in the future. But I do think that there are some, there’s some risks out there, I think, if chambers aren’t becoming really focused on what matters in their community. And, you know, I think for me, that really is all about economic vitality. It’s about jobs. It’s about wealth creation, it’s about quality of life. If we’re not doing those kinds of things, businesses can find a lot of the other things that we used to be, you know, their provider for right, networking will always be part of our DNA. But there’s other ways to get networking, you know, general information about business, there’s a lot of resources out there. What chambers can do uniquely is be a convener to bring your leaders together, set economic and community priorities and then rally, you know, as a catalyst really bring the resources together and focus on that economic growth. Right. So I think, I think the future for chambers is really strong. If we’re really focused on what is, you know, essential to our businesses and the, you know, the people they employ.

Brandon Burton 36:49
I love that response. It’s a very well concise and good summary about the importance of being the convener of leaders, and then becoming that catalyst for those actions throughout the community. Glenn, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information, if anybody listening wanted to reach out and connect with you and learn more about how you’re doing things at the Santa Maria Valley Chamber, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect?

Connect with Glenn Morris

Glenn Morris 37:16
Yeah, absolutely. So our website is just SantaMaria.com. One of my predecessors early in their life, grabbed the best URL possible in our town for the chamber. So just simply Santamaria.com get a good price for that these

Brandon Burton 37:34
days, I’m sure. Yeah, exactly.

Glenn Morris 37:35
I think my city manager probably was like, how do we. And in the spirit of keeping it simple, our email, my email is glenn@santamaria.com. Right.

Brandon Burton 37:50
That’s perfect. And I will get that in our show notes for this episode. But Glenn, I appreciate you joining me today on Chamber Chat Podcast, this has been a great discussion. And hopefully some of these things just, you know, remind some of these Chamber Champions listening of, yes, I need to reach out and connect with, you know, one of those neighboring communities, or we need to form some kind of a more regional coalition together. So hopefully, this is a catalyst for them to move forward and do some of those things. I

Glenn Morris 38:19
I think what you’ll find if you as you do that, and you start to tell your businesses, particularly your, your primary, you know, Head of Household job businesses that you’re doing it, they’re gonna go it’s about time.

Brandon Burton 38:33
For sure. Yeah, I totally agree. I appreciate it, Glenn. This has been a great discussion. And again, appreciate your time with us today on the podcast.

Glenn Morris 38:43
It’s been my pleasure, I’ve enjoyed it.

Brandon Burton 38:45
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Bowling Green Area Chamber-ACCE Chamber of the Year Finalist with Ron Bunch

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

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

Introduction

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

Voiceover Talent 0:14
And now your host he believes it is important for chambers to produce digital content. He’s my dad Brandon Burton.

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

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

Matt Morrow 0:46
Holman Brothers provide a great training for our sales team in terms of just outstanding sales techniques. But maybe even more importantly than that, they were able to provide us with a system a process that was repeatable and in that we’re able to see very clearly from one month to the next how the how the pipeline is doing, what prospects are in it, what kind of progress we’re making and what we can do to coach people to success.

Brandon Burton 1:08
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Guest Introduction

You’re joining us for our 2022 ACCE chamber the year finalist series. And our guest for this episode is Ron Bunch. Ron is here with us today representing the Bowling Green Area Chamber as their President and CEO in their bid for for chamber of the year. But Ron as he leads the Bowling Green Area Chamber they are a five star credited chamber, placing in the top 1% of all chambers in America. The Bowling Green Area Chamber has served the Bowling Green and Warren County area for more than 85 years. As the driving force for the business community in Bowling Green Warren County. The chamber also serves as the lead economic development organization for the region and is responsible for the South Central Kentucky Regional Economic Development Partnership. Since Ron joined the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce, their community has announced over $6.1 billion in capital investment and more than 11,200 new jobs. Bowling Green has been ranked in the top six nationally by site selection magazine for the top 10 metros for new and expanding facilities for populations under 200,000 for nine consecutive years, including number one overall in 2018. The Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce has also won two consecutive Matt Conway awards from site selection magazine, which recognized the team as a top 20 economic development organization in the country for their performance in 2020 and 2021. Simultaneously, the Chamber has been invited to apply for chamber the year in the US by the by ACCE for five consecutive years and making it to the finalist stage for three of those years. Ron received the Kentucky Association for Economic Development’s 2014 James J. Coleman Community Economic professional of the year with nearly 30 years of professional economic development experience. Ron is a certified economic developer and his lead successful local and regional economic development efforts in Florida, Virginia and South Carolina before coming to Kentucky. Ron, welcome back to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m excited to have you with us today, especially under these conditions is at chamber the year finalist. Again, that is a great feat. But take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you a little better.

Ron Bunch 4:44
Well, I really appreciate you having me back on again. Let’s see something interesting about me. I went to West Point and one of the training opportunities I had while at West Point was to go to Northern warfare training in Alaska. So I got to do front spiking for bass rescue and all that other stuff while we lived on the glacier for a week as well, too. So it was a really great experience. So probably not many people know that.

Brandon Burton 5:11
That is pretty interesting and quite the experience to so

Ron Bunch 5:16
that was some of the best training I’ve ever done. And it was, it was really great.

Brandon Burton 5:20
Yeah, that’s awesome. So I’ll share it. A fun fact, too, is that Ron was a guest of ours back on Episode 24, which was the actually the very first chamber of the year finalist interview that I did on the podcast. So he, he helped pilot this series, originally back in 2019. So if anybody wants to go back and check that out, I think encourage you probably not to because I probably wasn’t as good then. And it wasn’t as well refined. But I’m excited that’s

Ron Bunch 5:51
still going on, considering I was the first guest.

Brandon Burton 5:56
That’s right, and we’re up to episode 182. Now on this one, so we’ve come a long ways from there. But Ron, take a minute and tell us about the bowling green area Chamber just to give us some perspective of size, staff budget, scope of work, that sort of thing to kind of give us

About the Bowling Green Area Chamber

Ron Bunch 6:12
some perspective. Sure, in our chambers, around 1300 partners or members, our annual budgets around 2.4 million. We’ve got a staff of approximately 16 full time, folks, we’re changing it up a little bit. Right now we do have some virtual employees that were contracted with reasonably we try that out. But probably the most unique part is that we run six different companies. So there’s five additional companies beyond the chamber, chamber houses, all the employees, but we have multiple development companies, foundations, so multiple pieces that we operate with one common management team.

Brandon Burton 6:50
Right. So those additional companies, are they primarily focused around economic development? And are the foundations, I guess, give us give us a little more sampling what that looks like. Yeah,

Ron Bunch 7:01
it’s sort of a balance. You know, two of them are development companies. So one of the public development company that owns and operates the trans Park was a private nonprofit development company that developed the south Industrial Park and own some buildings. And it’s been the tool that we use to build speculative building. Another entity is a public entity that we use to facilitate incentives and bond issues. We’ve got 2501 C threes. One is our foundation that we’ve used to raise money for what started out as Leader in Me that’s evolved into SC K launch, which is our K 12, comprehensive talent initiative, we’ve raised and invested about 2.6 million at this point. After that, we have another entity that’s a training Consortium. So we seek out and bid and deliver on Demand training for different groups of companies through it. And then there’s the chain province.

Brandon Burton 7:59
Yeah, you guys know how to stay busy and make it work. So

Ron Bunch 8:02
there’s no shortage of more money. So if anybody’s looking for a board meeting in DC, come on down here. We’ll set you up with one. That’s right.

Brandon Burton 8:09
But to put you in a room, right. Well, as I say, chamber, the year finalist series rolls out, what I like to do is focus primarily on the two programs that you guys submitted as your program synopsis on the chamber that your application. So I look forward to diving into what those programs are learning more about the impact you guys are making in your community. As soon as we get back from this quick break.

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Topic-Chamber of the Year Application Programs

All right, Ron, we’re back. Why don’t you take us through what the two programs are that you guys submitted on your chamber the your application just first at a high level and then we’ll we’ll circle back and get into a little more

Ron Bunch 10:57
detail on each of them. Sure, the two different areas we highlight this time one is a follow on initiative in talent. So for the 11 plus years that I’ve been here, 10 plus of those 11 have been focused on talent. And what we build out with SDK launch our regional talent initiative that spans the K 12, system, city and county schools, as well as what we’ve done a public workforce. So one of those is minorities in engineering, and our goal there was to seek to engage more minorities in K 12, and help lead them to engineering occupations, and education through our university. And then the other initiative is in our role of managing, developing and growing the trans Park, which was a 900 acre business park when we got here. That initiative, we essentially added double the acreage in about a 24 month period. And then were able to win several different projects as a result of that, during the pandemic. So when not many people were investing in more product development, we were able to convince our city in Canada invest in that and it really produced a lot of dividend for

Brandon Burton 12:14
that is that is a pretty pretty large impact there on the growth of the transport Web. Say, let’s dive a little deeper into that one. How did you guys approach that? I know as we went into the pandemic, yeah, we all thought it was gonna be two weeks, right? A little longer, right?

Ron Bunch 12:35
In our programs, and

Brandon Burton 12:38
there’s a reflection there, right? So how did you guys go about kind of seeing through the mess of the pandemic and kind of seeing where the light is at the end of the tunnel and the need to continue building, especially in this trans Park area to be able to double the acreage and investment in that area? What was your selling points and to be able to have clarity through all that?

Ron Bunch 13:02
Now, let’s that’s awesome. The so obviously, we’ve been managing the trans park all along. And as you mentioned earlier, we’ve been very blessed to be nationally ranked and economic development for nine consecutive years now. And so we’ve built some success in the transport and developing that winning projects. In the even during the pandemic, we were able to win 20 different projects. And so we both saw an increase in activity and a reduction in available property. But we had been talking about growing the transport for some time. So what the the effects of the pandemic were that, you know, we saw more global companies. So when you look at global impact, we were talking with more global companies that were looking for available product so that they could change their supply chain. We also knew from a scarcity and abundance standpoint that those communities that had an abundant amount of property would be more successful, because we had a track record and working with companies successfully. And but we knew we had a scarcity both on utilities and property. And so when you look to the Horizon Report, I mean, those are two of the key factors in our analysis of the transport. So really a couple of things played into it, you know, one was attractive, we had a winning project. So we’ve had let’s see, prior to the recent wins about three of the top investments in Kentucky in a given year in the transparency and we have consistently performed so the Sydney county had confidence in us. And so we began a conversation with them about doubling their investment from around 25 million to 40 plus almost 50 million in the trans Park and they saw the wisdom in that during the pandemic. So they put together a bond issue issued $46 million in debt that allowed us to acquire almost 608 First, and that allowed us to win several projects. And then, as we were recording one of the major projects, we it turned out, we needed an additional 14 to 16 acres. So we went back to the city and the county, who went into reserves to then provide funds so that we could buy additional property this time about, I think it was close to 500 acres or so and all said and done in a 24 month period, we brought on 1100 acres, which is larger than the original trans Park. And we’ve now won several projects, including the Envision project, which is the state’s second largest investment in Kentucky history. So had we not had the advocacy and relationships with local government, have we not performed we would have never been able to make that case for them to invest in such a challenging time. And so like everybody, we were also dealing with the effects of the pandemic and reassuring business and clarifying things for business and evolving how we do business. But we felt it was very important to bring on this additional property. And we were very blessed that it turned out to be great, we were able to win a project with ball Corporation, which is a $300 million project. Tyson Foods, which was the largest job creation project up from that point. And then the Envision project is a $2 billion investment with 2000 jobs. It’ll build about 3 million square feet here for an easy project.

Brandon Burton 16:27
Wow. That is That is awesome. So did you already have some of this in motion before the pandemic hit kind of division that where you wanted to take the trans Park? Or did the pandemic really kind of accelerate the need to be able to move forward with this?

Ron Bunch 16:42
Yeah, we had some of the conversations already happening with the city in the county because the public entity we run has appointees from the city in the county, including the city manager and others. And so they were aware we needed to increase the size of transport, we hadn’t solidified how much. And so as we did that, and then as we began to court, some of the projects that started to respond, then we identify we need even more land than we originally thought. So just after the city, the county doubled their investment, which we they had not planned to do with the 46 million, we came back say oh, by the way, another 500 acres, but that acreage allowed us to win the Tyson project and Tyson announced with 455 employees, which at that time was our largest new job announcement ever in Warren County. So that was a very exciting project. But it was amazing. Because that additional property, we needed about 14 acres to make this light work, right. And we were able to secure another 500 or so acres, that if we had not had, we could not have even talked to the folks at Envision. And so we were very blessed to be able to work the Envision project. It was pretty unique and that that mega project, we ended up having to work directly with the legislature. So I met with the Senate and I met with the House leadership, they were under NDA. And between the governor and his team and the Cabinet for Economic Development and the legislature, we were able to put together a package that ultimately won the project. So I mean, tons of parties helped us to when we were just the quarterback on the team. But what a great project.

Brandon Burton 18:22
Yeah, and what a great investment for your community as well to be able to increase his number of jobs and increases the tax revenue base for the city and county to put the money in. It truly is an investment it’s going to pay back pretty quickly. It sounds like yeah, no,

Ron Bunch 18:37
I’m glad you share it like that. Because I mean, like like all of us experience. I mean, everyone that’s a chamber leader does all they can do to take care of their community. And that’s all we’ve ever done. And in this instance, you know, we had probably 3000 jobs already in the transit Park. So it was generating a really nice return on investment to the city and the county, very positive. We’ve had, you know, we’ve been very blessed with success annually for years. And this envision project with 2000 jobs, the economic impact of that is more than the cumulative transport before it. Wow. So it’s it’s really hard to wrap your head around some of the numbers that and so I really firmly believe that the city and the county having confidence in investing during the pandemic made a huge difference. But we’re also have really worked with our team on recruiting and in closing projects. We’ve been a leader in developing what we call a continuum of property so there’s always property in different stages ready for us to CT project. So there’s been a lot of foundation work that then allowed this investment by the Sydney can to pay such dividends so quickly and we also had a reputation with Site Location consultants. stuff of being on go to group, a group that delivers. And so all those things kind of came together. But

Brandon Burton 20:06
amazing. Yeah, that’s a great win. And I look forward to seeing that continued development and the stories that come out of that that investment. And we’ve got,

Ron Bunch 20:15
we’ve got about five other projects teed up in the next 60 days. So we’re pretty excited.

Brandon Burton 20:22
That’s awesome. No, no rest there at the chamber. No.

Ron Bunch 20:26
That’s the other thing that all my chamber peers know. I mean, the chase and the courtship and the announcement are all exciting. But that’s about 20% of the work. Now we’ve got the 80% of the work of, you know, building 60 $70 million worth of infrastructure, helping with permitting, helping with incentives, helping them find talent. So now the real work begins.

Brandon Burton 20:46
The work, right. I love that impact that you guys are having there with economic development. Let’s, let’s shift gears over to the first program that you talked about with around talent and the minorities in engineering and tell us more about how that program works. How you guys saw the need to focus there. And you know, who’s involved with that, that program to make it successful? Yeah,

Ron Bunch 21:12
thanks. So, um, maybe a little preamble again, just to tie it together. So, you know, for the last decade, here, we’ve focused on talent, and we built what’s called SDK launch. So SDK is a region. So it’s also the labor market, 10 County area. And a launch is learning about unique and new careers here. And so that facet, we run the demand projections every month, that then guides our work. It’s interesting, because the Envision project to tie those two things together is cited our investments and our relationships that were built in SCK launch. That’s one of the key reasons why they chose because talent is tight everywhere. They like the fact that we had a decade of investment, a decade of relationship building a decade of different tactics that built on that core framework. And so that was a big difference maker in our courtship with envision the $2 billion project, the 2000 jobs. But the minorities in engineering specifically, was an effort to get more minorities in our community, to the university and into career. And so in this instance, we had about 11 1200 engineers in occupations now in our economy. But as we ran that monthly projection, we could see that there were 900, plus engineering slots that were going to be available. And so we became aware that in schools, students really didn’t have visibility to the courses to take that lead to engineering. Nor was there really a poll to draw any students into engineering, but specifically minorities. And so one of the companies that we call on this here had two parents that were minority with a daughter that was in school, and they brought this topic to us. And you know, up until then, even though we’re so engaged, it’s because we didn’t realize that facet. And so we convened five different companies that were here who all excited to come to the table, we put together a cohort. And we’ve begun to align the pathways in the school that then both engage and set up a series of courses that one would take, that could lead in engineering, and then we took, I think, 60 or so students to the university had a variety of different speakers, I got to be there for a couple hours of it was pretty awesome, because you had successful engineers talking about the profession and talking about all the different places you can go with it. And you had these students engaging with everything from virtual reality to just seeing hands on equipment to do prototypes and stuff. But it was the students came away, just really very impressed with it. And so now our goal is to increase the number of students that can participate, and to really make much more transparent. The pathway, of course, as one would take in high school, and then work with a group of companies University and school leadership, develop the right marketing materials to engage parents and students to make sure they know about not just the careers and what they pay, but the companies that would employ them here because we are blessed to have you know about 18% manufacturing here. So quite a array of engineers needed and with the automation, robotics and AI that’s really taking place. There’s a higher demand for a very sophisticated engineering to support that.

Brandon Burton 24:41
I love you when you started telling about this program, kind of making that connection between the SC K long CK Central Kentucky Yeah. And how that ties in to specifically with envision and seeing, as you’re given that response, I’m thinking this is just, it’s not just a program that you guys do. But this is part of your chamber DNA to say, This is who we are, this is what we do. And it bleeds through here as you go about other projects. To see, the value is.

Ron Bunch 25:17
That’s great. I mean, because you know, we’re inside it. And so for you to see that is very honoring, very important. I appreciate that it is. So like, I had been an economic development leader in three states before this five other positions. And even when I got here, one of the things we discovered quickly was the need for talent. And so as we started running the data, we could see that there was going to be a shortfall in data in people through the data, the only thing that pandemic did was make a bad problem, much worse. And so the fact that we chose to invest strategically, you know, back to scarcity and abundance, we knew that talent was going to be scarce. But we also knew that because of that talent was going to be critically important to our companies growing. On top of everything else we’ve done, we spent quite a bit of time and money and so like, some of my peers would raise money for the operations. We raised money to invest in school that we’ve raised and invested 2.6, we’re getting ready to invest raising investment up to two and a half, that will help us build out actual operations and each of the schools so you can have like a hands on Academy. So right now we have a credit union school, we have two stores. So it is great. If you ever have a bad day, which happens from time to time, in shame world, we just go to the school and see the young people enjoying the fruits of our labor. And we’re like, Okay, this is what matters, what’s the deal, what, put our shoulder back to the grind on make it work.

Brandon Burton 26:51
That’s right. And I love how, whenever I hear of any chamber that’s showing what the opportunities are to the youth coming up in their community to say, there’s great jobs here. Here’s a sampling of what a career could look like, if you stay here in our community. So any anytime you can do that, and you guys are obviously focused on focusing on minorities, specifically in engineering, because there’s a need there, right. And so seeing where the need is and filling that void. So I think that’s a great focus, a great area focus.

Ron Bunch 27:25
And what’s interesting, I mean, you can see two, we built it for the right reason. And then even with that program, the Envision project we won, we had no idea the level of engineering they were going to require. And so it was great that we had already done that, because we could point to what we already done that what we might do what we couldn’t do, we could point to what we had done. And so they really love the overall program, because it is a k 12. But that wasn’t important to you, because there’s going to be quite a bit of engineering and technicians is a very highly automated process in 3 million square feet to produce electric batteries that they don’t produce.

Brandon Burton 28:05
That is That is awesome. I love seeing these intertwining of these these programs. Ron, I wanted to ask you as how do you see the role of the bowling green area Chamber in your community?

Ron Bunch 28:21
Yeah, the I hate to keep going back to Horizon Report. But really, we see our role under that catalytic leadership. I mean, it’s our job really to listen to the business community, and then advocate at whatever level with local government, state government, federal government, whoever we need to advocate with, or to bring groups together early to make sure our businesses have what they need, not just today, but going forward. And you know, I think you can see that what we’re doing with adding twice the acreage at the Trent Park, good thing. So for those not viewing lights just went up in the building. So sorry for the distraction, but you know, investing in the transport, doubling in size, investing, you know, millions of dollars in the K 12 talent development is that catalytic leadership. So we seek to fill roles of convening people and doing what the community is not just today but into the future.

Brandon Burton 29:20
I love that and it shows you know that it’s, as we look at these chamber, the year finalists, it’s those who’ve really embraced the Horizon Report and have kind of leaned into that as far as what the future is like in their community are the ones that are being recognized and, and staying ahead of the curve, as I would say it to see what those needs are in their community. So I couldn’t agree more. I like asking everyone I have on the show. If you might have a tip or an action item for chambers that are listening who are interested in taking their chamber up to the next level, what would you suggest

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Ron Bunch 30:04
One would be to take risks. No, it’s easy to play it safe. It’s easy to stay within the bounds of what you think the board might be accepting, or volunteers might be accepting. But you if you find the right initiatives and take those on, it will work. And so take risks would be one thing I would say, especially now, because things are changing so quickly, you’re going to have to do things that maybe you hadn’t considered before done. So that would be one thing I would say, is to take risks.

Brandon Burton 30:38
Absolutely, I see a lot of chambers don’t want to be the first one to do something, right, you want to look around and see see what other colleagues have done, how’s it worked out, let’s test the waters. But to be able to be bold and take those risks, it takes some guts, but it can pay off big time.

Ron Bunch 30:54
Yeah, I’m gonna hate to keep going back to it. But I mean, had we not invested in building the relationships have we not invested in what we’ve done both in K 12, and public workforce, we would not have won the projects that we won over the last couple years, especially. Because in that time, everyone everywhere had talent constraints, even when we talked with international companies in Japan, they have the same talent constraints. And so companies that are looking now are finding the same thing everywhere, what has helped us is we could point to a decade of investments a decade of building. And so those things made a difference for us. But it was a risk at the time to to allocate that much of our organization and to fundraise, but that versus operation of the risk is paid off.

Brandon Burton 31:44
Right. In hindsight, it made sense to focus on the future, especially with, you know, the baby boomers that would be retiring and the need for talent, but then to have that exacerbated by a worldwide pandemic, and early retirements and layoffs and all these different things. Those who were looking ahead and preparing were much better positioned to be able to weather that storm. As we look to the future of chambers, speaking of future, how do you see the future of chambers and their role going forward?

Future of Chambers

Ron Bunch 32:18
Now, I think the other thing that we have thought we had sort of dabbled in and called different things solution based selling, we finally settled on spin that Neil Rackham put out and, you know, the wrong but short version of that is to truly have a heart for the person or the business. To ask the questions, you need to ask to truly understand what their needs are and what they value. And then to seek to meet those needs and values that they have. We don’t want to be a donation, we want to provide a return on investment. So looking forward, I think, whatever you call it, whatever sales methodology you look at, I would say chambers truly having that conversation, and we set a goal, to focus on spin as our methodology, and to have a conversation with every chamber investor at least once a year, to really understand in the coming year, have your value systems changed, what do you need from us. And I think that helps us to stay relevant to stay connected. And the partners see that we’re truly interested in them. We’re not selling at them, hey, we need money for this new program or event. It’s Hey, we’re doing this because we heard from many of you that this is in demand. And they it’s paid off for us and new partners joining without even talking to sales staff retention has increased, I think we’re tracking about 89% retention, which is higher than it has been in the past. I think, while the results are still fairly early, because I want to get you know, three to five years under our belt. I think it is paying off that spending compensation. I think that’s the kind of thing that would help chambers going forward not be what we think is the thing, but do what research and conversations have told us the thing that companies need in the area

Brandon Burton 34:14
like that it does show your relevancy it shows your interest in each of those investor businesses. I’d be curious how you and maybe it’s not an answer for now, but maybe in three to five years of as you gather that feedback and what their needs are and how they’ve changed. How you avoid trying to be everything to everyone. Yeah, because you can’t accommodate every need that’s presented to you, but how do you try to group them together to see the end goal of what their needs are?

Ron Bunch 34:45
Well, you know, those things have already happened. So I mean, you know, an example of that would be SC k one, South Central Kentucky, our region again, one and that was a network. It’s an umbrella delivery from the different entrepreneurship organizations. So as we heard from that was very confusing SBDC SBA accelerator, I mean, who does what? And who do I need to talk to? So we pulled them all together and created that new brand. And now you can go to any of them, and they’ll get you to the right resource. But we, because of conversations We’ve convened, and so we don’t try to be everything to everyone we do the things that we do well, we partner with others on those things that need to exist for our businesses and make referrals to those other resources. But then we have a conversation with them about the quality of delivery that we’re looking for. So there’s a consistent kind of quality and even chamber interaction or chamber affiliate interaction.

Brandon Burton 35:41
Right, that goes back to the connector and convener role of the chamber. So absolutely. Ron, this has been a great conversation that I’ve enjoyed having you back with me on the podcast, as I like to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who’d like to reach out and learn more about how you guys are doing things and Bowling Green and maybe compete for some of these projects from you. The best way for them to reach out

Connect with Ron Bunch

Ron Bunch 36:06
well, my competitions. We just want a fair shot at it. All. Right. Yeah, so it’s Ron Bunch. So it’s ron@bgchamber.com is the email and our main lines p 270-781- 3200. So yeah, we would look for we posted multiple communities, we’ve had a lot of conversations, we love sharing things we’re doing because we want our whole country to be stronger. So anything we can do to be of assistance to our peers. We’re happy to do

Brandon Burton 36:36
absolutely. I’ll get that in the show notes for this episode. So anyone who’s walking the dog or driving the car can can look it up and reach out and connect that way but this has been a great discussion. I’m impressed with the work you guys are doing and truly making an impact there in the bowling green area. And wish you and your team best of luck with chamber the year.

Ron Bunch 36:56
Thank you sir appreciate appreciate what you’re doing to to share these best practices there, but I think it really helps get the word out for each chamber can be better for their community.

Brandon Burton 37:05
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Zionsville Chamber-ACCE Chamber of the Year Finalist with Allyson Gutwein

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

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

Introduction

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

Voiceover Talent 0:14
And now your host. He recognizes great power when advocacy is done at a regional level. He’s my dad, Brandon Burton.

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

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

Matt Morrow 0:45
Holman Brothers provide a great training for our sales team in terms of just outstanding sales techniques. But maybe even more importantly than that, they were able to provide us with a system a process that was repeatable and in that we’re able to see very clearly from one month to the next how the how the pipeline is doing, what prospects are in it, what kind of progress we’re making and what we can do to coach people to success.

Brandon Burton 1:07
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Guest Introduction

You’re joining us for our 2022 ACCE chamber the year finalist series and for this episode, I have Allison Goodwin with me. She is the executive director of the Zionsville Chamber of Commerce. Allison serves as the Zionsville Chamber of Commerce and Zionsville Rhys foundation as executive director in Zionsville, Indiana. With a background in small business development, retention, growth and attraction. She has dedicated more than two decades of her life to creating and supporting small businesses. Allison was named Businesswoman of the Year in 2009. Business of the Year in 2012, was an ACC II national events speaker in 2021. done virtually member of the IC e a Hoosier inner Leadership Academy class, and her chamber is a five time Excellence Award winner with the IC EA. Recently Allison was one of 34 individuals nationwide named to the sixth cohort of the US Chamber of Commerce business leads Foundation, the preeminent program for workforce development in the United States. Alison and her team have gained more members in the Zionsville Chamber of Commerce in 22 months than the previous decade combined. In that same time period they grew their social media reach from 250,000 to over 2 million in 2020 and 2.8 million in 2021. They know that visibility is key element to success as a business and as a chamber. The Zionsville chamber team was recently named and ACCE communications excellent Excellence Award winner for digital content in 2022. Allison is a graduate of Indiana University and has earned certificates and leadership and development grant writing and chamber management from ACC. She has served in the capacity of President for the Indiana University Alumni Club. Herman B will Wells Chapter board member for the Boone County racial diversity coalition board member for the wisdom Hospital Foundation President of Lebanon vitalization Inc. and TEDx Zionsville. Organizer. She is the proud wife to Andrew step mother of two mother and loved one and step grandmother to one. Allison, I’m excited to have you with me today on Chamber Chat Podcast. Congratulations for being selected as a chamber of the year finalist. Why don’t you take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you a little better.

Allyson Gutwein 4:29
Well, I don’t know who you just read that bio from but they sound like a pretty cool check. So I would love to get to know her. No, nice. Talking to all of you today. We’re excited to be a finalist, incredibly excited to be a finalist for the ACC. We’re in the small size chamber of the Year category. We truly are a small chamber here in Central Indiana. But we tell everyone we’re small but mighty and We do a lot of things with very few people by being exceptionally efficient. You know, I love to do a lot of things outside of work. One of the cool fun facts about me is that I am a sixth time Indiana State Fair floral design grand champion. What random stuff people do some people golf, some people go out and play tennis. I make wreaths. And that’s my hobby outside of work. So we all have fun.

Brandon Burton 5:29
Being competitive is in your blood. It’s in your nature.

Allyson Gutwein 5:33
Probably more than I like to admit. Yes.

Brandon Burton 5:36
That’s awesome. Well, it tell us a little bit more about the Zionsville chamber you mentioned, you guys are small and mighty. But give us an idea of what that size looks like of your staff and budget and scope of work that you guys are responsible for.

About the Zionsville Chamber

Allyson Gutwein 5:51
So we are just north of Indianapolis about 20 miles. And if you are looking at kind of Indianapolis as the face of a clock, we’re at about 10 o’clock. So kind of gives you an idea. And you know, we are truly a charming small town, our town looks like it was pulled straight out of a Hallmark movie, and is the top tourist destination in our county, we have a lovely Main Street brick street that really draws a lot of tourism. So our chamber really has some interesting dynamics because that brick Main Street doesn’t have any chain restaurants doesn’t have any chain stores. So we really have the core of our chamber as small business. So our focus for many years has been on what can we do in order to accelerate and advance many, excuse me, many of these small businesses in our area. Because we have really no corporate headquarters for many businesses, we have a couple kind of on the outskirts of our area. But we really are a small business focused chamber. And we love that and you know, the businesses there are larger, understand that this chamber really has this really unique area because of what Zionsville is, it used to be called the village of Zionsville. So it does have that kind of quaint village II feel. And as it has grown, it really has wanted, you know, the people who’ve lived here, we’ve been a chamber for 61 years, we celebrated our Diamond Jubilee last year. And people have really wanted to kind of keep that quaintness as it has grown. And for many years, people have wanted to really make sure that it’s different and unique and charming. And that’s what one thing that really draws people to us here in Central Indiana, but also makes our chamber vastly different than many others. So some of the challenges we experience is, as a small town, where a small chamber doing a lot with what we have as a staff of three, our town really doesn’t have any public transportation outside of a Boone County Senior Services, which allows seniors and some other folks to get around. So we have some workforce challenges trying to, you know, and attract people and help retain folks in the service sector. So we don’t have a lot of workforce housing. So there’s some challenges in our area that we experienced that I’m sure many other many other areas in the country do as well. But we’ve done our best to work through them and find unique and innovative ways in order to overcome those, or at least address them and say, Hey, this is a long term challenge. We know that what can we do in order to kind of look at the long game. And part of that is we created a foundation for our chamber. And I know many chambers are kind of going to this model and looking to see how they can utilize a 501 C three arm in conjunction with their traditional chamber and for us, we just got that paperwork as of last October. So we’re really excel excited. Yeah, thanks to be able to do that. But now it’s standing that up. What does it mean to address kind of challenges that are long term and we use a golf reference that the Chamber itself has kind of a heads down what’s going on today? It’s the short game, but the 501 C three is kind of a long game. And what are we doing to kind of look at the overall picture of how our community is changing so that we can best utilize our C three arm, which has three tenants. One is environmental stewardship. One is D and AI and the other is workforce and workforce initiatives through leadership and development. So what are we doing within our community in order to make sure that not only is our chamber looking to take care of things today, but looking to take care of things tomorrow,

Brandon Burton 10:26
right. Now that that definitely gives us a good a good scope. And for anybody who’s read Dave Atkinson’s book, horseshoes versus chests will understand the importance of having that foundation that see three arm of your chamber especially looking forward as chambers look into the future. So for this, for our discussion today, we’re going to focus primarily on the programs you guys submitted on your chamber the your application. So I’m excited to get into those programs learn more about how you guys are making an impact and influencing the community or the village Zionsville. As soon as we get back from this quick break.

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All right, Allison, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’ll be highlighting the two programs that you guys submitted on your chamber the year application. Why don’t you take us through the two programs just at a high level and then we’ll circle back in a little more detail on each of those?

Topic-Chamber of the Year Application Programs

Allyson Gutwein 14:27
Sure. So our first program was on micro economic development around small businesses and what are we doing to really look at our our membership very holistically and say, What are we doing to develop this group of businesses that are often easily overlooked? So micro businesses, as deemed by the SBA? Are those with 12 or fewer employees? And many of the businesses that we have in our membership are much smaller even than that Um, so many of you are probably familiar with kind of the standard of SBA as being 500 or smaller as a small business, which, for many people, they look at that and they’re like, that’s huge, especially in comparison to, you know, many businesses that have zero employees are maybe just one or two. So we’ve really taken a look at what we can do in our community to attract and retain those businesses, because many of them are startups that grow into something even greater. And we’re excited to see how that really works and develops as we do more and more of it. But the programs that we’ve put in place for our little staff of three have done a great job of attracting new members. So far, our home based business membership level is now our second highest category of membership in our in our chamber. We just started it two years ago.

Brandon Burton 15:59
Wow. That is awesome. Yeah, that’s, that’s one. What’s What’s the other program you guys submitted?

Allyson Gutwein 16:07
Sure. The second was focusing on a social media and social media series that we started, which was called working for you. So working for you, we literally went and worked alongside our businesses. And we started this before the pandemic, but we really embraced it and leaned in during 2020 and 2021. This business has recovered, wanting to show people, this is what these businesses do in our area. So it’s not just, you know, maybe I want to work in this area. Well, now they know what this business actually does. Or they say, Gosh, I could teach a music class or, you know what, I’ve always been interested in working with equine therapy, I think I could go and volunteer there. So we worked alongside businesses to showcase really what they did, and have continued this as a long term kind of campaign and program in our membership in order to highlight more of our members. But that is one part of our larger social media experience that we have for our members. And we found that that made a lot of sense as a low barrier, especially cost wise low barrier to entry. And great way to meet people right where they are, you don’t have to go out and find a new audience. And you don’t have to even bring them to your website. A lot of times they’ll do that on their own. But if you’re reaching them on social media, and they’re already on Tik Tok, they’re already on Facebook, they’re already on Instagram, and you’re sharing your information. They’re really excited to see that information of faces of their neighbors and friends and business owners that they know, how are we doing the best job of getting that information out about our members, and making sure that it did its job which during 2020 and 2021, was give our members visibility?

Brandon Burton 18:05
Right. So let’s let’s focus a little more on that on the working for you program dive in a little bit deeper on that. So how do you as you implement a new program within your existing social media strategy? How did that fit? As far as content creation calendar wise? And what platform you mentioned different platforms, but sure, I’m curious which ones you’re on and how you’ve grown that social media presence? Sure.

Allyson Gutwein 18:33
So many people who are familiar with social media, Facebook is your largest audience. And we really took to social media. In 2020, whenever we realized folks needed to be seen, they needed to know exactly where, you know. And I kind of say there’s two, there’s two sides to this. There’s kind of the forward facing, which are the customers of the businesses. So we were reaching the customers of the businesses. And then there’s kind of the back side, which are the your Chamber members that you’re trying to help. And there’s often many of our posts, many of our videos were meant to help both but in different ways, right? You’re building loyalty whenever you’re going to a business and you’re sharing their information whenever you’re able to talk about exactly what they do. But all those people in the front side are now seeing it going oh, how can I interact with that business? So you’ve kind of got two two pieces to the same pie that you have to be able to do a good job with your social media having both working hand in hand right? So whenever we started our working for you series, it was really meant to be let’s go inside businesses that people can’t go inside every day. Let’s go inside a plant where I pack beans and I have to wear a hairnet let’s go inside I’m mourning dove equine therapy where I’m mucking stalls. wasn’t talking about their horses, then it became let’s go up inside a church that’s being remediated for over 1000 bats. And I was standing knee deep in bat guano. Because no one had known that there had been bats in their attic for almost 40 years, until the pandemic caused, you know, people to be out of buildings. And then they were starting to see things because people weren’t cleaning the building, as often, they were starting to see that there were probably rodents around, you know, they’re small, mammal rodents. And so, you’ve got, you’ve got evidence now, oh, we needed to get this taken care of. So I went up inside a church, beautiful, historic structure, they were absolutely fantastic people to let us watch this process. But it helped me showcase a business that most people don’t see from the inside out. Most people don’t see what it looks like to remediate, you know, slang types of urine from that. In the midst of this talking about a chamber member, and you know, people want to watch. And that’s what made

Brandon Burton 21:18
me that type of content just draws people in, right?

Allyson Gutwein 21:22
Right, whenever I have a GoPro on, I have a handful of bat guano. And I’m like, it looks like glitter, because it’s all these bug shells that are shiny people are like, show me more. You know, it’s fascinating, and I am not doing anything that any of my members don’t do as a daily part of their business. But what can we do to showcase that? What can we do to say, this might be a career path for you, if you find this interesting, you know, contact these folks for a job, or watch your chamber, because this is what’s happening whenever you need to call these folks, they’re doing a good job of being cognizant of when you can even move the bats out because of breeding season. And, you know, they have to make sure that the bats are taken out in a certain ways to not harm them, because they’re a protected species here in Indiana. So you’ve got all these components that are important that these folks are doing really, really well as part of their daily job. What can we do to showcase that, and it becomes really interesting social media. Now, not every day, am I in McLaren Senna, you know, a hazmat suit, and a respirator. But, you know, there’s so many things that we can show people about our businesses that make interesting content. And that content, where we really put the member out there, as the star of our story becomes why people want to engage, engage with us, as a chamber engage with our members, it really made our chamber kind of rocket to the top of what we could do in social media very, very quickly. And we took that reach, with consistent posting with interesting content with video use, from 250,000 in 2019, to over 2 million in 2020, like you said, and 2.8 million last year. So you know, it’s, it’s all about if there’s anything that people learn about social media, give people content that they want to see, it doesn’t always have to be curated, it doesn’t always have to be those rounded corners, where it’s, you know, perfect. Whenever it goes out. It can be just really interesting content, show people what your members are doing, and people engage. Right.

Brandon Burton 23:51
And I think that often gets over thought when you as for chambers, putting out social media content, especially in the form of video where they feel like it needs to be perfected needs to look right. But, you know, social media gives us so much leniency as far as the content going out there. And really, people aren’t spending hours on that content necessarily. Either they’re scrolling through their feed. So if it gets if it catches their attention and tells a story of a member or something impactful that you’re doing in the community, and getting a portion of that attention, then you win, you know, that’s that’s the goal. And you don’t need to spend all the money and all the time and everything doing all the editing and making it just perfect. Just do it. Get started. It’ll get better as you go and get more experienced, but just get started. Yeah, and we

Allyson Gutwein 24:37
do have a video company that we employ to do some of our videos, but we also do a lot of our videos in house. But you know, the the thing is, the generations coming up, they see things that are a little too perfect, a little too curious, almost disingenuous. So you know Most of what they’re seeing on Instagram, it might be a little edited. But it is certainly not content that someone has always gone through a photo editing program. Not always, they just want to see. That’s right. They always want to see good content. So give your audience good content that they want to see and engage with. And they will engage.

Brandon Burton 25:20
Yeah, so which platforms are you guys on with social media?

Allyson Gutwein 25:24
So we primarily focus on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. You know, for a chamber of our size, there’s always so many directions to be pulled. You know, we have done a few things on tick tock, mainly ribbon cuttings, just trying to put something out there in that platform. But Twitter is kind of its own animal in and of itself, it takes so much time to constantly update, we just don’t have the bandwidth available currently in order to be able to do that one well, so rather than not doing it, well, we would rather step back until we have the chance to really engage more on that platform specifically. So we’ve focused on those three, and those three have done a lot for our visibility for our members and for our chamber.

Brandon Burton 26:11
That’s great. Yeah. Well, let’s shift gears a little bit over to the micro economic development. And this intrigues me I just, so this may go a little bit off topic, but I just actually posted a blog post yesterday, talking about how entrepreneurship tends to attract diversity. So as chambers are after, you know, diversity, equity inclusion, you know, putting attention into that area, are we paying attention to the diversity that entrepreneurship brings and provides. So as you focus on these micro businesses, 12 or less, a lot of these are entrepreneurs, people that are putting it on the line to get started and joke about sometimes these entrepreneurs are unemployable in other places, but they go out and hang their own shingle because they need to make a living, or maybe they’ve got a great idea, or there’s a lot of different reasons why. But I’d love to learn more about the the approach that you guys are taking to help, you know, shine a light on these micro businesses and economic development.

Allyson Gutwein 27:16
Well, and that’s an area where I think it is it’s very easy to kind of go after some of the larger marbles in the bag, right. And I think a lot of times, these small businesses are easy to say, oh, gosh, it’s, it’s a lot of work to deal with them. But we have a lot of programs already in place that we’re using to help all of our members, but it’s really quite easy to mix them in with what we do, we have a few programs that we have developed specifically for them. And that also, they’re they’re very complementary to the rest of what we’re offering to our members. So they made a lot of sense to just kind of bulk up our portfolio overall. So we were really excited whenever we first saw our members starting to come in that were home based businesses. So home based business for us is someone who might work from home, they might have this as a side hustle, they might have a business, that’s a full time gig and those go everywhere from financial services to p are to people who are doing jewelry making. So we have a lot of people in this, you know, this sphere that we find encompass a lot of different elements that we didn’t have as a part of our membership. And you’re right, that diversity piece really does allow us to even encourage our membership to diversify pipelines of suppliers, through some of the small businesses that we’re now attracting because of whom, you know, we’re now offering services for that maybe they aren’t able to find elsewhere. So some of the statistics, you know, in the US, the SBA in 2021, said there were 32 point 5 million small businesses in the US, which accounts for 99.9% of all businesses. That’s a lot.

That’s almost everybody. So again, that’s 500 or fewer employees. So that’s quite a few businesses that many micro businesses would say, well, they’re not small, well, the SBA, that is their standard, but then 81% of those of that 32 point 5 million actually have no employees. So I mean, you’re looking at a giant percentage of our small businesses in the US that are exceptionally small. And, you know, the SBA says that micro businesses are 12 or under so I mean, that percentage even grows whenever you’re taking into account those that do have some employees but are still 12 or fewer. But small businesses have created 65.1% of the new job growth since 2000. So as we look at Sectors of growth, and to your point, what were claimed it kind of look at for the the growth of chambers, what are we doing to make sure that these businesses are a part of our chamber? are talking to our other members are feeling supported? are being utilized locally? For many you have a grocery store chain? What are you doing to connect some of those micro businesses, with your grocery shops? What are you’re doing to connect your brick and mortars with some folks that could be local wholesalers mean, now you’re talking about all these individual components that come into it, that’s more environmentally sustainable than having to ship something halfway across the country that’s more environmentally sustainable is to be able to reduce the amount of packaging because they don’t have to use packaging in order to potentially deliver something. So there’s a lot of pieces that feed into this. But if we’re doing a really exceptional job as a chamber, to make connections, we’re able to help a lot of different aspects of business be created. And that’s exciting to see and exciting to be a part of. But for us, it also means that we’re attracting more people now, because we have options, and they’re seeing, hey, my size of business is being supported, I have a place at that table. And we want to make sure that whenever they come into this area, you know, other people are telling that story for us who are also small businesses, whether they’re a tech startup, or someone who’s you know, a mom, and maybe with a side hustle of making jewelry, who knows what these businesses are going to turn into, but we’re going to support them today. So whenever we need to say, hey, we’ve got maybe a new brick and mortar that is opening, who’s interested in going in, we already have a developed pool of candidates that we have worked with, to plug into those openings. So we never really have a gap on our main street, really here in town. Businesses fill those spaces quickly, because we have a curated pool of people we’ve worked with,

Brandon Burton 32:25
that’s awesome. And I can get fired up on this topic. Because this is something I’m passionate about is the influence and the role that a chamber should have with these small and micro businesses in their community. But often what I see is these, you’d mentioned these home based businesses. You know, it’s easy when you see a new business, open their doors, you know, they hang a new sign, and you can approach them about membership. And you know, let them know about the value proposition of your chamber. How do you go about finding some of these home based businesses and expressing the value? And once you get their attention, it’s easy to express the value of the chamber, but how do you get their attention initially?

Allyson Gutwein 33:03
To be very fair, a lot of them find us. And that goes back to our social media reach. Whenever we have a social media reach where people are seeing that we’re sharing information about members and our members are visible, that what we’re doing as a chamber for those members as visible, they find us. So yes, have we gone out and actively sought out? Some businesses? Most certainly, are we finding just as many businesses that are finding us? Yes. So one of the ways that we actually connect many of our home based businesses is through something called micro groups. So think of as a distillation of our membership down into individual components where if you are a real estate agent, you’re going to have different needs different concerns than those that own a restaurant. So what are we doing in order to address those needs more directly and more specifically, and we have a home based business micro group. So peers can really share information share tricks that they have learned in order to make their business more visible, in, in encourage one another through what has worked for them. We actually learn a lot from these micro groups because they’re able to really say, Okay, this is what’s going on in our area. What can you do to support us here and we’re like, man, we wouldn’t have known that. Had we not listened to our micro group, listen to our members. So these meetings go on in these individual kind of little groups, once a quarter. For us, they’re really, not only are they the facilitation of peer to peer communication, they give us ideas for programming for the future. And that is a really important for member loyalty and member retention.

Brandon Burton 34:59
Yeah, And so this next question, I think you’ve addressed it throughout our discussion, but I’ll ask it formerly and maybe have you put it in a nutshell for us a little summary, but how do you see the role of the Zionsville? chamber there within your community?

Allyson Gutwein 35:15
Sure. So we really are a conduit of information and a facilitator for visibility. So for many of our members, we are not only the source of information on how to be able to grow a business, but how do you make your your business seen and heard, once it’s up and running, or once you’re getting it there? What do you do in order to create that kind of solid foundation for business creation of any size. So we truly are meeting with members that run the gambit of large national corporations that are interested in coming into the area to someone who, their sole proprietor. And that’s exciting to see that we’re we as a small chamber are able to facilitate both of those conversations effectively in order to make our membership robust, and unique.

Brandon Burton 36:11
That’s awesome. So and I think that shows with as you’ve been going through these programs on your application of that, that role that you guys have in your community, but I like asking everyone that I have on the show, for any tips or strategies that you might have for a chamber champion listening who would like to take their chamber up to the next level? What would you suggest?

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Allyson Gutwein 36:36
If you haven’t yet embraced the small businesses in your community, and those micro businesses do it, make sure that those those businesses feel as though they have as much place at the Chamber table as any of the other larger businesses. And as time goes on, you’re going to find that those people are some of your loudest voices supporting your chamber, because they feel included, they feel like they have a part of something larger than maybe they have ever felt that they’ve had a part of in the past. Many think gone are the days of, you know, chambers, just focusing on on large businesses, we have to make sure that if entrepreneurs are truly bringing 65.1% of the growth since 2000, what are we doing to be the voice to help them have a louder voice? So we’re the megaphone. We’re the people who are providing that information. And if we’re doing it, well, those folks are going to turn around and be our champions, too.

Brandon Burton 37:47
Yes, that’s what I was gonna come back to is oftentimes those large businesses, or maybe what funds a chamber and a lot of ways. But by being able to focus on those small and micro businesses, those are the ones that it’s kind of a paradox, right, because they tend to be the ones that need the most from the chamber, but can afford to pay the least in as far as their membership levels go. But as they see that impact that you can have on their business, they become some of your biggest advocates and best word of mouth and testimonials, you know, throughout the community to attract more business onto the mission of your chamber. So, Abdullah. So, Allison, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Allyson Gutwein 38:34
Sure. I think for a lot of folks, you know, it’s, it’s kind of a interesting time where they see kind of gone are the days of many people becoming joiners, right, everyone joining a chamber because it was just something you did for the community, you have to show value, you have to show that there’s something there as a real interest to their business, everyone’s busy. And if you can show that there’s something in your chamber that is going to be worth their time and their money, you’re going to be a group that people still want to work with. chambers are vitally important to being liaisons for advocacy, and, you know, information as a whole. But people are saying, well, I can find that elsewhere, not in the same way that you can through a chamber not in the way that you can through networking with your peers, not in the same way that we can help facilitate. And if we can show that value, and long term legacy of, hey, there’s real power in having a singular voice. Whenever you’re trying to advocate for something that will help our members that and telling that story. How do we tell that story going forward? Many of you know our local newspaper that served just our area closed down during the pandemic. So you That goes back to what are we? Where are we reaching our audience? And if that’s on social media, are we telling our story effectively for our members and for our chamber in order to make sure that people are seeing us as a place of value?

Brandon Burton 40:14
Yeah, I like that. I actually, I like to help chambers get started with their own podcast. And one of the things I’ll ask is what void in your community could your podcasts fill. So when you talk about local newspapers, shutting down or, or drastically cutting back, there’s voids all over the community, as far as storytelling and information sharing goes, whether you’re addressing that through social media, or through my my choice of platforms of a podcast, but there’s ways to reach members in your community and fill those voids. And and you’re absolutely right, that Gone are the days of just people joining you need to show the value and, and a reason to be a part of your chamber. So I appreciate that. And Alison, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information with listeners that may want to reach out and connect and learn more about how you’re doing things in Zionsville. And, and to be coached on how to get their social media over to millions. What would be the best way for him to reach out and connect,

Connect with Allyson Gutwein

Allyson Gutwein 41:15
always happy to help because, in fact, we have something coming up soon called Social Media summer school. And you know, we’ve been encouraging even our peer chambers to come join us we want to help. We’ve been able to have amazing amounts of success for a very small chamber, we have 500 members, you know, we we have a small budget, in fact, I’m sure I am sure our full budget are smaller than some of the marketing budgets for our large share chambers and in the US, and that’s kind of nuts. You know, we we can show we have data to show that we outpaced chambers that are many times our size. And that’s truly through our visibility, consistency, and what we post, people want to see interesting content. That’s something that we can show people how to do so please reach out to me, my phone number is 317-873-3836 where you can reach out to me through my email, agutwein@zionsvillechamber.org. You can also find us on please follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. So Facebook is zville chamber and the rest are Zionsville chamber. So we would love to have you follow our content and ask any questions. Sometimes you may say well, why did you post that? Or tell me why you’re posting two or three times in one day? Well, I’ll give you an answer.

Brandon Burton 42:56
Yeah, no, I like that. I appreciate you being generous with the fielding those questions as well happy to do it. I’ll get your contact information in our show notes for this episode. And I’ll link to the your social media pages as well. So everybody can hop on and follow and take these tutorials from what designs they’ll chambers doing with their social media accounts. So

Allyson Gutwein 43:17
they’re also one ACC EADS website to

Brandon Burton 43:21
There you go. Yeah. I appreciate you joining us today on Chamber Chat Podcast and you provided a lot of value and great example, as you guys are chosen as a chamber, the year finalists are setting the bar and doing great work. So I appreciate you coming on and sharing some of that with us.

Allyson Gutwein 43:39
Thank you so much for having us today.

Brandon Burton 43:42
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The Economic Development Role of Every Chamber with Bill Sisson

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

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

Introduction

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

Voiceover Talent 0:14
And now your host he is excited that his new home gym is now complete. Here’s my dad Brandon Burton.

Brandon Burton 0:20
Hello Chamber Champions. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host Brandon Burton, where it’s my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your members and your community.

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

Tony Felker 0:43
One of the key benefits that we’ve realized from Holman Brothers it’s actually happened many years after we started using them. We just completed our new strategic plan and understanding those subtle differences between transactional benefits and transformational benefits. The companies that knew what they expect has been a key part in our strategic plan. And we really want to thank Holman Brothers for that.

Brandon Burton 1:04
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Guest Introduction

Our guests for this episode is Bill Sisson. Bill is the president and CEO of William B Sisson and Associates, an economic and community development consulting business located in the Atlanta Georgia area. Prior to starting his business, he served as the president and CEO of the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce and Mobile, Alabama, from 2013 through 2021. Bill also served as executive director for the Mobile Alabama airport authority from 2008 through 2013. In that position, he was responsible for the mobile Regional Airport at Bakersfield and the Brookley industrial complex near downtown Mobile, the two airfields combined to make up more than 3700 acres of prime industrial development property in the central Gulf Coast region. Before joining the airport authority bill served as vice president of economic development at the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce and as Vice President of Business Development at the Birmingham Alabama Regional Chamber of Commerce. his professional career includes positions held at the University of Southern Mississippi and at Dominion Bank shares and first Virginia bank in Roanoke, Virginia. Bill earned his MBA from the University of Alabama and a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from James Madison University in Harrisburg, Virginia. He also holds a diploma from the Institute of organizational management. He is a member of Rotary International and has served on the boards of various local community organizations. He has also served on the board of directors for ACCE the committee of 100 of the US Chamber of Commerce and the Business Council of Alabama, and is a past chairman of the Chamber of Commerce association of Alabama. Bill, I’m excited to have you with me today here on chamber tap podcast, I’d like for you just to take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you a little bit better.

Bill Sisson 3:11
Well, Greetings, everyone. It’s a pleasure to be with you this morning, Brian, and thank you so much for the invitation to join you. You’re asked to share something interesting. And you sort of covered that in the bio in that, although I have worked in economic change or development really for most of my career over 30 years. And I did have that stint at the mobile airport authority. And that was decidedly different than anything that I had done before. It probably makes more sense if I explained that a lot of economic development was taking place at the at the mobile airport authority because of, as you mentioned, the Brookley aeroplanes, which is the largest industrial, you know, site in the in the mid the mid Gulf Coast. So that’s where Airbus located a number of years ago, and they just recently announced an expansion there as a matter of fact, so that was a different world going into aviation. I’m not a pilot. And in fact, when the board of directors came to me to ask me to take the position as executive director there, I was at the Chamber of Commerce at the time doing economic development. My first response was, Well, I don’t know anything about running an airport. So you can learn that and, and actually, it did end up being a great experience. So that’s a sort of a outlier part of my career, but it was certainly good for me during the process.

Brandon Burton 4:40
I could see where that could be a little bit overwhelming jumping into a field that you’re totally unfamiliar with, but I see a lot of parallels with economic development, as he had mentioned. Absolutely. So well share with us I know I shared in your bio, but I’d like for you to share maybe a little bit more background on your background working at chamber and economic development work just to kind of help set the table for our discussion today. And, and it may help just to give some perspective to the size of those organizations you

Bill Sisson 5:09
worked with as well. Yeah, I’d be happy to do that. While I was in graduate school at the University of Alabama, I’m actually did an assistantship there, I worked for the Alabama Productivity Center, and there was an executive on loan from Alabama Power, who introduced me to a job that was coming up at the Birmingham Regional Chamber. So people often wonder how people get into the chamber. That’s how I fell into it. I’ve always been interested in chambers of commerce, you know, even growing up, I was interested in what they did. You know, business developments always been something that I have observed and watched and wanted to be involved in. So it’s actually a really good fit for me. And as they say, the rest is history. I was involved in business development at the Chamber in Birmingham, which scale was a very large chamber. They had, I think, 55 on staff, or 4000. Members. And that’s where I first got involved in economic development. It’s when I went to chamber Institute learned more about the profession, we were working hand in hand with the separate economic development organization in Birmingham called the Metropolitan development board. But we still had a very strong role in economic development, which I can go into a little bit more as we continue this discussion. But we were basically responsible for ancillary economic development, you know, retail development, working with smaller prospects, providing research to the economic development, organization, and so forth. I left there to go work at the University of Southern Miss, and I worked there and they’re ran their community, their Center for Community and Economic Development, their people can get their their master’s degree in economic development in Southern Miss. And so that was, you know, a great learning experience for me to understand a little bit more how universities tick, because they have a huge role in economic development, as we all know. And then, of course, the research side of that, you know, that that was a great experience, I was recruited to come back to Alabama to be the economic developer, the Vice President of economic development for the mobile area Chamber of Commerce. And, you know, I did that stint for, you know, five, almost six years before, as I mentioned, going to the airport authority, and then was brought back to the chamber immobile to be the president and CEO, which I was in that role until very recently. That chamber also has a large chamber, they affording on staff, about a $6 million annual budget, little over 2000. Members. So I have primarily worked in larger, larger chambers, but I’m certainly a partner with smaller chambers, all along that, you know, along that road.

Brandon Burton 8:06
Yeah, I think that really helps is, we haven’t mentioned yet what our topic is today, but people may have seen from their podcast player, the topic being the economic development role of every chamber, so not just the big chambers that have that that task and responsibility of economic development. But even some of these smaller more local chambers, they have a role as well. So I’m excited to dive into this discussion with you as you’ve had experience with that direct responsibility and not so much directly. So to get your perspective on that as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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Topic-The Economic Development Role of Every Chamber

All right, Bill, we are back. And as I mentioned before the break our topic of the role of economic development for every chamber. So obviously, you’ve had a vast experience with economic development, whether it was something that you were tasked with directly or you were helping to support the economic development agency in your area, all the way to being the Director of Economic Development. So you’ve seen the the wide spectrum. So I’d love for you just to share from your experience. Maybe first of all, let’s let’s talk about some of the smaller chambers. What what role could a smaller local chamber have in economic development, if they’re surrounded by, you know, the 800 pound gorillas in the region that really run away with with economic development?

Bill Sisson 12:12
Well, I think that I’m very bullish on the fact that all chambers no matter the size, no matter whether they have direct role in economic development, or not, that they should be involved in that process. So I think as a director or vice president of a chamber, you really ought to be pushing to have a seat at the table. And here’s why really, um, as we all know, you know, chambers are different in every community, they take on the character of the community in which they’re located. This is true, but sometimes I hear small chambers say, Well, I don’t really do economic development, but but really, they are involved in economic development, if nothing more than on the existing business side of that side of the equation. I think that a smaller local chamber has an extremely important role in helping business prospects, businesses that are and individuals that are moving to the community, relocating to the community, helping them to connect with existing businesses that are there, and then is a very, very important role. As new businesses relocate, especially if they’re coming from overseas, they really want to know, hey, the water’s fine here. A chamber even if they’re not directly involved in the economic development process, the chamber can certainly set up those meetings, and help that company to understand the experience, hopefully positive one that existing businesses have had and are having in the community. And I think maybe most importantly, the chamber can illustrate that it is a pro business environment in which a business can grow, be happy, healthy, and continue to expand and add additional jobs as as time goes on. So that’s one very important role, and there are others. But that one, certainly in my opinion, sort of rises to the surface of what any chamber can

Brandon Burton 14:12
do. So as you mentioned, the role of connecting these businesses that are looking to relocate to a certain area and connecting them with existing businesses and showing them you know, how great the community is, would you suggest maybe connecting them with other businesses of a similar size, maybe different industry that similar size or maybe supportive type businesses who could develop a long term relationship with them? Should they make the move what what would be your thinking behind that?

Bill Sisson 14:41
So my thinking would be all of that, really, I mean, I think some, you know, of course meetings with similarly sized organization in similar sectors, but I think also hearing from other sectors and other sized businesses is helpful, as well. And of course, the site if there’s a site selector involved in this process, they would, of course, help direct that they would, they would ask you to, you know, find those existing businesses that are appropriate for those for those interviews, but being the facilitator and the convener of that, really nobody else that can do that quite like a chamber, or they are the members of the organization. So, you know, and in most existing businesses want to help, they want to help and they want to, you know, the sing the praises of the community, from the rooftops, so to speak. So, it’s a pivotal role in the process.

Brandon Burton 15:33
Yeah. What about any kind of, for lack of a better term on the call it marketing material from a smaller chambers perspective to maybe as packages are getting put together, I come from the publishing, industry, chamber publishing. So I think in terms of a media kit, right, somebody wants to do some advertising and send them some samples, media kits, I would anticipate with economic development, there’s some sort of package, it’s probably done more digitally now. But maybe there are some physical items, you send, magazines, brochures, maps, you know, things that have the area, are there things that come to mind, again, from the smaller chamber perspective that maybe they ought to be mindful of to try to include in these type of packets that go out to these businesses,

Bill Sisson 16:24
I’m really glad that you brought that up, Brandon, because I don’t think anything has changed as much as that since I’ve been in this business, you know, used to be you put those physical packages together, right, that you sent out to the business prospects, everything’s digital now. Which means that it has to be the, it has to be up to date, it has to be very current, there’s no forgiving of, you know, research or information with whiskers on it, that this is not going to work. And I think that it’s important for, for chambers to realize that they are the gateway to the community in many cases. So there may be some research that is going on way before anybody locally, or at the state levels, even contacted by the business or the site selector, where they’re doing some pre, you know, work some some research. So if they have bad information on their, on their website, that is going to get the community eliminated pretty quickly. So it’s really important for the chamber, regardless of whether they think they had that role or not to have information digitally, completely up to date, as if they’re on display display, you know, at any given moment, which they could be. So that’s an, I’m so glad you brought that up, because I think a lot of communities miss the mark, because of because of that,

Brandon Burton 17:46
I had actually just come across a chamber probably a month ago, that really was talking about their relocation guide that they, you know, their chamber directory relocation guide. And their economic development director said, you know, we use these in our packets that we send out for, you know, trying to recruit businesses to the area, because it’s a great snapshot of what our community is about, it gives a feel of the vibe and the community layout and all that. And that’s a great idea to include something like that, as you try to attract business to your area. So having something you’re proud of, to showcase and have have good articles and information in there that can help guide a decision. So

Bill Sisson 18:25
it also, you know, the service after the sale is so important in this work. And a lot of times I see that get I see that sort of fall through the cracks, but communities that do that, well, you know, really are going to be successful. And what I mean by that is, you know, helping the company assimilate into the community in a positive way. I’ll be honest with you, I have seen, particularly international companies relocate and do it very well. And I’ve seen them do it poorly. And, you know, their success in the community has to do with how well they assimilate into the, into the community. So wherever the chamber can help with that, to help, you know, connect them help them to understand what’s important in the community, whether it’s United Way or or what other, you know, whatever organization is integral to the community, but also helping individuals families to settle in smoothly, particularly with international prospects, because there’s, there’s families are moving here and know very little of how things really work. You know, how to get a cell phone, checking account, you know, just so many things that we just sort of, you know, sort of do in our sleep. They’ve got to start fresh and do it in a different way. So anyway, one of the things we did to iMobile chamber which I was quite proud of is develop a program called mobiel Connect, which was all about helping families that were moving to the area to I’m connect with, you know, movie Aliens into, to sort of develop those friendships quickly. So that those folks can be ambassadors and help them get get used to the community and to feel a part of the community as quickly as possible.

Brandon Burton 20:14
So I’m glad you brought that up. Because I think that is a key part of making a move easier, right, to be able to welcome those employees, that company with open arms, help them become part of the community. What are some examples with mobile connect that, you know, some tangible items that people can maybe get some of those ideas? And again, we can implement something like that in our community?

Bill Sisson 20:38
Where do you see success? I’m happy to share that. Yeah, um, you know, we did bimonthly, every other month sessions, where we would have a topic about the community, whether it’s the history of the history of the community, you know, the arcs in the community, certainly, you know, we did an economic development, you know, section of that as well to help them understand how economic development, you know, works in the community. But it also provided a social environment, because we always, you know, had heavy hors d’oeuvres and encouraged people to invite the newcomers out to dinner afterwards, to, you know, make those connections as quickly as possible, but giving them sort of a an overview of the community. I kind of, you know, I explain it, it’s sort of like a leadership class, except for the newcomers, so that they can learn more about the community quickly, and it was wildly successful, I was sort of surprised at how appreciative they were, the newcomers were to learn about the community and to understand a little bit more about the arts, fabric, and, and so forth. So, you know, I would highly recommend people look at that, maybe just some simple way, maybe one session, you know, but do something like that, to help people to connect quickly.

Brandon Burton 22:01
So, as you were explaining about that, it made me think, Yeah, I’ve seen before where a big corporation moves to a city, and they get a lot of attention from the city from the chamber, economic development. And you’re always going to have a handful of those Chamber members that feel slighted. Like you’re getting all the attention to the big corporation that just moved here, they can have a role in helping to welcome them, helping them to integrate into the community, I can see where that really strengthens the relationship, even with those existing members to say, look, you’ve got a new customer base, if you’re making new connections here. You’ve I mean, it just supports everything. So I think that is such a key part to not Shun, you know, the your existing members, but make them be a part of welcoming these new companies into town.

Bill Sisson 22:51
Yeah, Brandon, you’ve actually cracked the code there. No, seriously. We saw it as a way to not only help the new business coming, and certainly the families coming, but as a way to thank our investors, who were so involved in the process and helping us help them to make those connections, because, you know, the bonuses is that in many cases, they develop those relationships, and they end up being able to do business with, you know, some of those businesses that are that are coming to the area. So we saw it as a membership retention tool, as well.

Brandon Burton 23:27
Yeah, absolutely. So, maybe share with us some some thoughts from the larger chamber perspective. They are tasked with external economic development, they may have dedicated staff, you know, a number of staff dedicated towards economic development. I think some of this is becomes a little bit obvious because especially those listening, they’re kind of in the trenches, and they’re, they’ve been trained and they go to seminars and everything they certifications, they know, kind of the ins and outs. But I’m curious, from a larger chamber perspective, how can they work together with some of those smaller chambers within their region, to really boost economic development as a whole?

Bill Sisson 24:11
I think one of the main ways that the to sort of be a regional approach with all the regional chambers involved would be in the tradeshow arena. You know, I’m a big believer in when you’re showcasing your community at say, like the Paris Air Show, for example, that you have a regional push. And that means involving the other economic development organizations in the region, maybe throughout the state, but certainly the chambers of commerce in that area, invite them to come along, be a part of the booth, be a part of the process because I think whenever you can show that your community is united, and that it will be sort of a one stop shop for the business if they really relocate to the area. It is a huge positive for the community. So that’s one, you know, easy way to, to have that regional push that’s so important in this in this business.

Brandon Burton 25:11
So talent attraction, workforce development, they’re hot topics in the chamber world economic development as well. So they’re very closely related to economic development. It’s kind of a chicken or an egg. Kind of a thing, though, as I see it, you either have the workforce to support that company, or you’re trying to attract the company, and then hope with the promise that you can deliver the workforce. How do you think a community goes about workforce and talent attraction?

Bill Sisson 25:43
I think really focusing on why people rooms, I think, is incredibly important these days to sort of like I was talking about with that mobile Connect program, to have similar programs that are geared towards college graduates or about to be college graduates to help them connect with businesses in the local community, if your community is fortunate enough to have a university, there should be a lot of effort and helping those students to stay in your community, and to end up with a job in your community. So programs to help make those connections to to help the businesses to connect with those seem to be graduates, it’s golden. And again, I see a lot of communities sort of forgetting to do that. And if you just rely on businesses to reach out to those local graduates, you’re probably going to be disappointed. As we all know, they will often complain that they can’t find our workforce, but they’re not necessarily going to have a an organized program for reaching out to the local university graduates. So that’s where the chamber can come in. And, I mean, we’re the best conveners out there. Right. And so that’s an example of convening and bringing together those, that that workforce with business in the local area.

Brandon Burton 27:10
And I think being that that convener, that facilitator of setting up some internships, you know, in a sophomore and junior year of a college student is so critical for them to see I can stay here I love, you know, going to school here, why wouldn’t I develop the built my my life here after graduation?

Bill Sisson 27:27
Exactly. And then, you know, of course, that same program can be used to attract college graduates from outside of the the region as well. So, if a chamber does not have such a program, they need to get to work on developing that kind of program. Because as it’s almost cliche to say, but the workforce today they move where they want to move. They’re not necessarily just moving to where you know, the industry is or the businesses, they’re gonna pick their location. So chambers may be involved in helping sell the community that hey, this is a great place to live, work and eventually raise a family brass?

Brandon Burton 28:08
Absolutely. Well, as we start to wrap things up here, I wanted to ask you, if you might have one tip or an action item for Chamber Champions listening that they might be able to do to lift their organization up to the next level.

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Bill Sisson 28:22
You know, plain and simple I, you know, if you’re not already involved in your state, chamber Association, I’m a big believer in ACCE. I’m also a big believer in education through podcasts, like like, like the you facilitate Brandon, those ways to continue to learn and to network. And I just look back on my career. And I think that where I grew the most and learned the most were in those associations where I can meet with people that were dealing with the same things that that I was dealing with. And maybe I could not make the mistake that they made. Maybe I could share a mistake that I made, you know, it’s just a great way to learn and to continue to grow. The other thing is, and I had a professor years ago, you know, because I’m an old guy now, but years ago, he said, one piece of advice is to not be tied down to a house or community too much. It’s very easy to be comfortable wherever you know, you’re located. But in many cases in the chamber of business, if you’re going to advance, you have to be willing to make some moves. Now, having said that, I completely respect if somebody wants to sort of stay in place while their kids are in those formative years and in middle and high school or, or whatever. But I think the willingness to move to advance the career, it’s not bad advice

Brandon Burton 29:57
at all. Yeah, and Add them may be a tough one for somebody to swallow you get so committed in your community to then uproot and start over at a new community that can be so well, I like asking everyone that I have on the show this question is, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Bill Sisson 30:23
I think that chambers must get more and more involved in entrepreneurial activity. And that has been a big change since I first got into this business. Now, I think, you know, the entrepreneurial side is overshadowing everything else. And I really like it because it enables a framework for so much more diversity, equity and inclusion than typical economic development. And, you know, it leads to the business community beginning to look more like the demographics of the community in which the chamber is located. What I mean by that is, you know, we started an incubator at the mobile chamber while I was there, we were fortunate to get an EDA grant. It has exceeded every expectation we had as it relates to diversity, equity inclusion in that over 60% of the businesses are either minority or women that have started up out of that out of that incubator. That’s more that’s more like that’s more like the true face of the community. So I see that certainly as the future. And I think that the convening role that I talked about earlier, that’s the future we will continue to be a great convener organization in any community, I’ve always joked that, you know, being in the chamber business ensures that your conservative friends will swear that that you know, the chamber and you are, you know, wildly liberal. And your liberal friends think that the chamber is all about corporate greed and such, right, yeah. So I guess that the the true testament of that is that we’re in the same middle, which, you know, that’s a very strong position to be in as far as being able to convene all parties and bring all parties to the table. So I hope that doesn’t change. But I think that will continue into the future.

Brandon Burton 32:24
Yeah. And I think that need is so much more right now, to be able to do that, that same middle, that same center to bring together both sides and say, Yeah, we are working towards a common goal here.

Bill Sisson 32:35
So absolutely,

Brandon Burton 32:36
yeah. I love your response about entrepreneurship. At the chamber, I’ve not heard that response and the tie to entrepreneurship and diversity, equity inclusion, I think that’s so spot on. And I see that I see that as, as you embrace the the entrepreneurs in your community, you’re gonna see more of that reflection of the demographic and your community. Absolutely,

Bill Sisson 33:00
I would just add one thing, bring it in. And that would be you know, you can’t recruit your way to mirroring the demographics of your community isn’t very difficult to do, but you can begin to develop it from within. And that’s the beauty of that entrepreneurial, you know, economic development.

Brandon Burton 33:18
I love that. Hopefully, everybody took a note of that and start putting together a plan. But, Bill, this has been great having you on the podcast, I wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information. I know you’ve you’ve recently retired, so you might be a little harder to find than you were in the past. So what would be the best way for listener to reach out and connect with you?

Connect with Bill Sisson

Bill Sisson 33:40
Yeah, I retired from the chamber business, so to speak. But I’ve started my own consulting company. And, you know, I’m gathering clients. As we speak, I will be doing international economic development, kind of I talked about earlier, helping businesses that are relocating to the United States to understand and easily assimilate into the community in which they’re located. So if anybody needs any help with that, certainly reach out to me. It’s williambsisson@gmail.com, William B. Sisson and Associates, I’m on LinkedIn. And I would love to connect and partner and do whatever that could come out of potential relationships with folks related to consulting. So I appreciate your allowing me to, to be with you today. And certainly to provide that contact information. Thank you, Brandon.

Brandon Burton 34:29
Absolutely. And we’ll get that contact information in our show notes as well. So if somebody’s walking the dog or driving in the car and can’t write it down, just go to the show notes, and you’ll find it in there. But Bill, this has been great, great discussion and appreciate you spending time with me today here on timbertech podcast providing great value to the listeners. This has been a wonderful discussion. So thanks a lot.

Bill Sisson 34:50
Thank you, Brandon. Thank you for what you do.

Brandon Burton 34:53
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Unprecedented Opportunity in Southern Indiana with Wendy Dant Chesser

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

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

Introduction

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

Voiceover Talent – And now your host, he has never heard a Whopper or Big Mac. He’s my dad Brandon Burton.

Hello Chamber Champions. Welcome to the chamber tap podcast. I’m your host Brandon Burton, and it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.

Our title sponsor for this episode is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Is your chamber struggling to drive the revenue it needs to support your initiatives? It’s a common problem and one that our new title Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions knows a lot about Doug and Bill Holman aren’t just sales consultants. They’re real life chamber guys with 20 plus years of chamber leadership experience. They know how to diagnose and solve member recruiting issues faster and better than anyone else. And they’re ready to put that knowledge to work for you and your chamber. Call the Harmon Brothers today at 61985 to 1391. Or check them out at HolmanBros.com. That’s holmanbros.com.

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

Guest Introduction

You’re joining us today for episode 154 As I have windy Dan Chester join us today from One Southern Indiana or One SI. Wendy has been with One SI since November 2012. As President and CEO. She’s driven by a strong desire to implement change that would establish a stronger economic growth better educated and better paid workforce and structure of advocacy within the state of Indiana. One SI serves as the organization that speaks with one vision and one voice for Clark and Floyd counties. Its mission is to provide the connections resources and services that help businesses innovate and thrive in the region. Wendy came back to our home after serving as president of Cornerstone Alliance, a similar organization in southwest Michigan. Wendy’s role in leading the organization included serving as a trustee of the 530 acre Harbor Shores development and directing the 700 member Cornerstone Chamber of Commerce. Prior to removed in Michigan. She worked in various aspects of economic development for over seven years with the state of Indiana and spent the last year of her state government career as deputy Deputy Executive Director for program operations of the Indiana Department of Commerce. Wendy is a present or past member of several professional organizations including the International Economic Development Council and Economic Development Association in both Indiana and Michigan. She currently serves as legislative committee chair and past Chair for the Indiana Economic Development Association. Wendy was named one of North America’s top 50 economic developers in 2015 by consultant connect the Indiana Economic Development Association awarded her the Economic Development Professional of the next half century in June of 2018. And in 2016, her Indiana peers named her the Chamber of Commerce Executive of the Year, she was awarded the 2000 Outstanding Young Hoosier award from the Indiana Jaycees was recognized in the Annapolis Business Journal’s 40 under 40 for 2004 and was honored by Western Michigan’s business reviews business leaders under 40. In 2021, southern Indiana was named chamber the year by the Indiana chamber Executives Association and honor that her team was most deserving of due to their aggressive actions and to help businesses during the COVID 19 pandemic and resulting recession. Wendy is a native of Jeffersonville and she received her Bachelors of Science in Business Management from Indiana University southeast in 1991. She and her daughter Jocelyn reside in Jeffersonville. Wendy, I’m excited to have you with me today here on Chamber Chat Podcast if you would just take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions that are out there listening and I’d like to have you share something interesting just so we can get to know you a little bit better.

Something Interesting About Wendy

Wendy Dant Chesser 4:30
Well, thank you, Brandon. I appreciate the opportunity. It was a it’s a great opportunity to work in this industry. And one southern Indiana is a chamber that was emerged organization starting in 2006. I came back in 2012 to serve as president. I’m the third president of the organization and the dirty little secret is this is actually the third time that I applied to be president. So if Third time’s a charm It was really seen as an opportunity for me to come home and do what I love to do in the communities that helped raise me.

Brandon Burton 5:07
That’s awesome. I like that it’s kind of unique to be able to serve in the chamber where where you’re from. So that is awesome. Well share with us a little bit about one southern Indiana just so we can get a better idea of kind of the size staff to kind of the perspective that you’re coming from, as we entered our discussion today.

About the One Southern Indiana

Wendy Dant Chesser 5:32
So let me start with the geography. So the geography of the area is that we are part of the Louisville, Kentucky, MSA. So we’re truly a two state area, the only thing that separates us with our neighbors to the south is the mighty Ohio River. So if we look at the the area as a whole, we have about a 1.3 million population MSA, our piece of it the carved out piece for our southern indie or for the one southern Indiana area is basically Clark and Floyd counties, which are the two most populous counties on the Indiana side of the Ohio River, we have about 200,000 people in those two counties. So our chamber really does operate in conjunction with others as a Regional Chamber addressing regional issues. We have about 1025 business members today, we were up to about 1100 pre pandemic, but things happened and we are now slowly growing that, that that membership back, and we have really have dug in and said, you know, this is the role that we have to play, we’re not necessarily going to be the best at some things in our regions. But we know that the businesses that that are looking for assistance either through manufacturing through some of the small businesses, of course, hospitality businesses and some of the innovative businesses, we’ve been able to establish a presence with them and to continue to provide some assistance to them in terms of the business membership.

Brandon Burton 7:05
Very good. So that does help to give us an idea of where you’re coming from and kind of crossing over into Kentucky, someone with the membership and responsibilities there. As we get into our topic for discussion today. So the term that we all became very familiar with during the pandemic was these are unprecedented times. Right? So our topic for this discussion is going to be unprecedented opportunity Spoken like a true economic development professional, specifically in southern Indiana. And it’s my understanding that some of these opportunities sprouted as a result of the pandemic. So looking forward to getting that perspective and having you share those things it says we get back from this quick break.

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Topic-Unprecedented Opportunity in Southern Indiana

Alright, Wendy, we are back. Let’s have you share with us what some of these unprecedented opportunities are that kind of sprouted out of the the COVID 19 pandemic that maybe wouldn’t have been there initially. But because it’s you know, the pandemic happened and our worldview and everything kind of shifted. What’s resulted in southern Indiana out of that?

Wendy Dant Chesser 9:37
Well, one of the things I’m excited about and you mentioned this before break, we are also the local economic development organization for two of our counties and we have a third county under contract. One of the reasons that that I can be very optimistic about our economic future is that we have seen record interest in this is wanting to either locate or expand in our area. And don’t take that for granted. But I do recognize that we have decades of investment that has put us in this place. The states of Indiana and Kentucky have in the last five years, built not one, but two bridges across the Ohio River to truly connect our greater region. We have a 6000 acre industrial park that was formerly an Army Ammunition site that is really reached its peak in being able to provide one stop shopping for companies that are looking to locate and we’re seeing right now about 15,000 employees working there per day, but there’s a lot of room for growth. It’s about 15% occupied. So we know that there’s growth opportunities there as well. And we believe that Indiana’s stable business climate is helping us attract companies to the area. I don’t want to the short side, our neighbors to the south. Oh, wow. Well, you know, when we do economic development in southern Indiana, we often are best known for a city we’re not in a state we’re not a part of. That’s the challenge of being across the river from a metro area like Louisville, Kentucky. But we also have the advantage of taking advantage of the many investments that they make. They have an international airport UPS has its world, its Worldport distribution system in Louisville, we take advantage of that every day, then on the quality of place aspects. It’s a city, it’s got a lot of activities, it’s got professional, it’s got semi professional sports, it’s got a horse racing, it has a beautiful zoo, we can take advantage and sell all of those assets, while we’re growing the southern Indiana economy. And in addition, we’re working on those quality of place and those assets that give us an additional regional asset to share with our neighbors as well. So I’m really excited that we’re starting to see this this economic growth. A lot of interest in economic growth coming to our area. But it’s not just because we’ve got a new brochure, a new website is decades of investment to make our area attractive. And when you have a good product to sell at a time when people are in the buying mode, which they are, we are we are seeing some wonderful numbers in interest from prospects coming to our area, I believe, August of 2021, we had more interested projects tagged than at any time since our existence in 2006. So something’s worked in we’re trying to maximize it. But it also comes with, of course, with challenges and being able to make sure we’re good stewards of where we are in this place in time.

Brandon Burton 12:46
And like being able to leverage the greater area, you know, geography, like you mentioned, to be able to tap into to Louisville what they have to offer. And I mean, really a big development in Louisville was a big win for you guys to to be able to continue to leverage your communities, your counties that you’re representing, as you know, like these resources that are right here, and you don’t need to be in the mix of it all. But we’re, you know, the there’s different ways that you can kind of play that. But I like that. So what about some of these initiatives that have come out post COVID? Or through COVID? That you guys have implemented, that you can kind of touch on for us? Well, let

Wendy Dant Chesser 13:28
me let me talk about three of them primarily. The first is, we have recognized that, that when it’s most, most communities did, the businesses impacted by COVID, size of business really does matter. And so some of our small businesses suffered the most. And this is an opportunity for us, our board of directors had to retreat back in March and said, We want to be able to help those small businesses, those that are already there for those that are growing. So in partnership with the Indiana small business development centers, we have now a shared staff position. That is what we call our small business navigator gives us a someone who’s focused on small business and specific needs that they have, whether it’s technical assistance, whether it’s accounting assistance, whether it’s how access to capital in general, and helping them determine their best best path forward. There are a lot of resources for small businesses, but if you don’t have them all packaged and put together at the in the place where a small business needs them, including potentially some funding sources to keep them moving, then then then we’re not really doing them a good service. So we’re excited about what our small business services initiative is offering. The second is new to us and long, long overdue and that is our diversity, equity and inclusion activities. As an organization, we had not addressed DNI In any of the work that we were doing, the events of 2020 changed our perspective on that, and was quite frankly, a wake up call that that was necessary. And our board of directors took it seriously and incorporated DNI not only as a standing committee within the organization, that they incorporated DNI goals into all of our bylaws, responsibilities, really to make sure that it’s embedded in the fabric of who we are going forward. So our spending and hiring practices internally, how we help companies and promotion opportunities, those are those small things that we’re getting underway and excited to be saying, it’s finally time that we’re doing something in this area, which is long overdue. The third area, and this is the one I saved this for last, this is really as a result of the Indiana General Assembly working with the governor and putting together an initiative that’s going to help communities and regions focus on what their needs, their long term needs are going to be if it weren’t for the Recovery Act funds and things coming into the state and local governments, I’m not sure that this initiative would have occurred. But what is called the regional economic acceleration and Development Initiative, or ready for short, the state put $500 million into a pot and are asking regions around the state to compete for these funds to help leverage private investment to build out quality of place projects. So stop for a second think about where quality of place project may be. Whether it’s a developing an industrial park, which we’ve talked a little bit about weather is increased taking an area of 600 acres right in the middle of our waterfront area and creating a park inviting people in to not only understand the habitat that’s there, but also to also park called it’s called origin Park, that adjusts to the climate change issues when you’re on a river flooding as a part of your date of your annual the annual seasons that you go through. So we’re working on that. But how do we look into some of the more rural areas of our five county region and do things that will benefit them through a youth sports complex through helping one of our historic downtown’s become more of a destination for music goers gives us the opportunity to dream a little bit, but then to set put our priorities together in a five county region and tell the state we need your help to leverage these funds that are sitting on the sidelines, we know that population growth is one of their goals. There’s a lot of folks looking at our area and interested in our area, how do we now tap into those dollars that the state’s made available in a very competitive way, mind you to try to make sure that we’re doing the best we can in 2021 2223. So that all of these dollars that are being spent to help us recover are truly investments that our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren are going to benefit from. So those are the that’s what I’m really most excited about. We’ll have a decision on whether or not we were competitive enough by the end of this calendar year. But I tell all of our regional folks, every time I get the chance, even if we don’t get the full prize that we’re going after we’re in a better shape now than we were before. Because we’re working together, we’re supporting each other’s projects, and programs in trying to make sure that our quality of places stretches beyond our initial or our jurisdictional boundaries into a broader region.

Brandon Burton 18:49
Absolutely. So I love how you’ve identified these opportunities in your community. And I’d like for listeners that are, you know, tuned in right now to think about what opportunities are available in your community. And it might not look exactly like Southern Indiana. But would it make sense to have small business surpluses? Maybe probably, and those are the businesses that need a lot of the help. And it’s kind of that paradox. Sometimes they’re the members that can’t afford to buy the the higher level investment with the chamber, but they need the most help. They need the most assistance. So maybe having a focused effort on that. And I think integrating more the DEA and I you know, like you said integrating that into your bylaws and having more of a concerted effort on making sure that certain segments of the community are being included and that you’re reaching out and thinking about who’s who’s not here, who are we missing? And I think that’s something that every community and I think a lot of chambers are doing a good job at that looking at the DNI but these are your you’re seeing these as opportunities. And I love I love that vantage point instead of, you know, it’s one more thing that we need to take on, it’s one more thing to do. But you’re serving. So

Wendy Dant Chesser 20:11
we are serving it and and we have a team of professionals that work their butts off back during COVID. And so they were they’re tired, but boy does this give us all new energy. The the internal statement is, yes, we’re doing all of these new things, in addition to those things we were already doing. So it’s more we are adding a few new team members. But at the same time, we recognize that if we want to be relevant as an organization going forward, that it’s imperative that we take, we take a real good look at what is going on what’s needed, and what’s going to make our region competitive and our individual businesses. Again, we tell them all the time, because we have both of these roles. We’re a chamber of commerce, but we’re also an economic development entity, the Chamber side helps them go out and get a bigger piece of the pie. And we want that we want to be that and help them. But at the same time, we owe it to them. And everybody else can take a bigger pie so that there’s more for us to go after. So that the only thing I can do in the kitchen is talk about this and

the to do go hand in glove. And when we look at regional opportunities, we all we know that that there’s not a moat around in any of our communities that keeps people from going back and forth, and all that all that neighboring does is offer you and your businesses more opportunities to grow.

Brandon Burton 21:39
And I like that as looking at opportunity like like your analogy of baking the bigger pie. I mean, there’s definitely some opportunities where as a chamber, you need to look at new programming, for example, and say, how do we monetize this? How do we make it worthwhile? How do we do this. And then other things that you you do chamber work wise, is it’s really baking that bigger pie, that’s going to show the value of the chamber, you might not have that direct return on investment, you’re not collecting revenue necessarily for that program or for the focus and attention you’re putting into it. But it’s baking that bigger pie, it’s strengthening your business community, it’s proving your value to your members. And there’s a whole lot of value in doing that as well. So kind of two different ways of looking at the opportunities that are provided.

Wendy Dant Chesser 22:27
That’s the what we have going forward in the unknown, but we can look back and see how some of the work that was done. Pacific example 11 911 or 12 years ago, before I joined organization, we started a robust Business Retention and Expansion program where we would go out into businesses and specifically manufacturers. And the reason is, is that in Indiana, in our part of Indiana, manufacturing is still one of the most strongest sectors for us. About 20% of our payroll in our counties comes from manufacturing, not necessarily 20% of the jobs 20% of the payrolls, so it’s incredibly significant to us. So maybe 11 or 12 years ago, the organization started a Business Retention and Expansion program where they went out to manufacturers and they basically asked simple questions, how’s business? Do you have any opportunities to grow your business? And what are those impediments to doing more business for you? And the answers to those questions became our work plan came up became the strategy. So that that started and because of that, we identified that manufacturers had a lot of common needs, depending on regardless of what they were making. So we started a new membership category called the Metro manufacturers Alliance. And it started with eight manufacturers and has since now grown to about a we’re just under 80. So significant growth is really the most regional of our programs, about almost 50% of them are of the manufacturers are from Kentucky work the other 50% are Indiana, recognizing it’s a it’s an area for us to sell. And the biggest thing that we offer them a round table so your CEOs can get together in a facilitated roundtable environment. I call them support groups when sometimes they don’t like that, but that’s what it is. Doesn’t stop at the CEO that goes to the HR directors, it goes to the procurement folks right now, the busiest one is supply chain because supply chain issues are so critical. So it gives manufacturers at different levels of the organization peers to discuss these, truly. These these truly big issues that are either going to make or break where they are could make or break the workforce supply chain all of the things that we hear over and over again, that we may not have a solution for within the walls of our organization. We can pull together Are those like minded individuals who are looking for solutions, and then they can help come in that we can facilitate that process. So I, it’s a great, I look back on what my predecessors put into place to help us get to where we are today. And honestly, I feel very strongly we have an obligation to pay it forward, that making sure that those areas that we have to work on for the next 10 or 15 years are going to that we get out that all started today.

Brandon Burton 25:29
Yeah, I can see incredible value in those roundtables. Do you have any trouble getting participation on those or kind of hit or miss

Wendy Dant Chesser 25:38
is hit or miss. And I would say that they like any other initiative. If a company is going to get the most out of it, it comes from the top. So those CEOs that are most engaged are the ones whose team typically see more value in the in the programming that is created. And each of them has a facilitator that not staff, but an outside facilitator that can help guide the conversation, look for new ideas. When we went to zoom, obviously, we saw more participation, because at the time people were but we’re hungry for a interaction and be more information. Now that we’re back more live in person events. It’s everybody’s busy. So we’re trying to find ways to keep that enthusiasm going.

Brandon Burton 26:23
Yeah, that’s great. It’s like a giant mastermind group, you have people in the similar roles at different companies to be able to see what’s working for them and share ideas. I love it.

Wendy Dant Chesser 26:36
Just like we’re doing here, because when chamber, chamber folks can share and learn from one another. When I somebody gave me a great quote at one time, I don’t know if he made it up or not. But he said, If I ever take my candle and I light your candle, mine doesn’t become any less dim. We’re all brighter because of it. And I think that’s the that really resonates with me.

Brandon Burton 26:57
Yeah, I love that. Well, as we start to wrap up here, I wanted to ask you, if you have any tip or strategy or a piece of advice, maybe that you would share for listeners that they might be able to implement it their chamber to help take them up to the next level.

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Wendy Dant Chesser 27:16
I don’t really have any specific program advice that I’d like to talk about when a little bit along with the theme of this when a new initiative is started is what we’ve found out what worked best for us, when when we strategize about it, we don’t have to have all the answers. And the harder thing is we don’t have to have all the funding. Because if you get a good idea started and it starts to snowball, it gets a little bit bigger, it gets a little more if it shows more results. The funding, I would say always comes with a lot of times it does it as the funding will follow. So we’re not we’re I’m not overly I’m not an overly risk averse person. But in this role, sometimes you’re expected to be you know, to look before you leave, and we do but we also recognize that sometimes you have to do the right thing and you have to move in a direction because the time is now and then give the opportunity for the rest of it to catch up with you. So it’s not it’s not a renegade or derelict kind of approach. But it’s the reality that sometimes people have to see something happening before they will totally embrace it. Sort of the Henry Ford quote, you know, if he had asked his customers what they’ve wanted, they would have wanted a faster horse. When he was interested in making faster horses, he was interested in giving them something new. And look at where we are today. And that I think that analogy sticks true with a lot of what what a chamber organization does as well.

Brandon Burton 28:51
To your point the other day I had heard the the same that procraft Another word for procrastinator is perfectionist that people will hide behind the idea of being a perfectionist just to delay putting that thing out or you know, and like you’re saying you don’t need all the answers or the funding, just get moving and the pieces will come together. And it’s a failed initiative

Wendy Dant Chesser 29:15
in the chamber world is not necessarily a failure that a mark against your permanent record. It’s a learning experience. And as we see businesses do that all the time, try something new and learn from it. I think in the chamber role we can we can learn from that same philosophy.

Brandon Burton 29:32
Yeah, absolutely. But as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Wendy Dant Chesser 29:41
That our team has really looked at the AC e ACPE. Horizon Report. And those areas identified such as people will join in and engage in initiatives that they’re passionate about. The days of joining a chamber because it’s the right thing to do. Because your grandma, your father did it with his business, not there anymore. So we have to find ways of consistently making ourselves relevant. It spreads us maybe a little more thin than Lee, because because people find relevance in different things, whether it’s our young professionals group or sales and marketing group, they’ll find relevant in different categories. But as long as we’re nimble and are working to meet their needs to keep them engaged, we feel very strong, and they’ll continue to support us. So the future, the future for us is to continue to be continued to being open to those new ideas, those new initiatives to see if we can pull people together and help them collectively, while making sure that our organization is strong.

Brandon Burton 30:51
I love it. Well, I appreciate you spending time with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast, sharing some of the great opportunities there in southern Indiana, but also helping the Chamber’s listening to maybe better see the opportunities that are in their own communities. I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for anyone listening who’d like to reach out and connect and maybe learn how you’re doing some things they’re in southern Indiana, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you?

Connect with Wendy Dant Chesser

Wendy Dant Chesser 31:23
Well, I think our website is probably best it’s a portion of it or still are under reconstruction. So but it’s the information is still that is on there still accurate, it may just not be complete. That email, the website address is 1si.org. So that’s 1si.org and that’s where we try to at least get people in doesn’t have all of the information that but we have a wonderful team that can supplement any of those questions that come from it.

Brandon Burton 31:58
Very good. And I’ll make sure that’s in our show notes for this episode, which will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode 154. But again, Wendy, it’s been a pleasure visiting with you and having you on the show. Thank you for taking the time to be with us today.

Wendy Dant Chesser 32:14
Thank you, Brandon, and I appreciate it very much.

Brandon Burton 32:17
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Izzy West 32:49
Hey, it’s Izzy again. I’ve got some questions about the annual Chamber Pros Planner that I publish. so I wanted to encourage you to visit my website theizzywest.com as I have a video you can watch to see if my planner is right for you. I flipped through the physical books so you can see what the monthly spread, weekly to do list, and meeting notes pages are like. This planner is designed to help keep you on track for your 12 week goals as you push your Chamber forward. Again go to theizzywest.com for the preview. That’s theizzywest.com.

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