Category: Lessons Learned

Disaster & Economic Recovery with Natalie English

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

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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 having an emergency preparedness plan is crucial is my dad Brandon Burton.

Brandon Burton 0:20

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

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

Jason Mock 0:44

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

Brandon Burton 1:01
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 Natalie English. Natalie currently serves as the president and CEO of the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce in North Carolina. She’s served for almost 25 years in a chamber of commerce leadership role and over 30 years advocating on behalf of business. Natalie believes it’s her calling to work with business government and elected leaders to make her community attractive for business growth and investment. Natalie has almost 30 years of experience monitoring legislative and regulatory issues locally statewide and at the federal level. She has had a strong track record of success and has been responsible for building community support for many investments in infrastructure that have been key to economic development in the communities in which she has worked. She’s had leadership experience and background in effecting policy that impacts the cost and ease of doing business quality of life and workforce. Natalie found herself faced with the opportunity to advocate on behalf of her community Wilmington, following Hurricane Florence. Natalie has taken many of the lessons learned during that natural disaster to lead her community through the economic crisis associated with the pandemic, which we’ll cover in this episode in more detail. In her spare time, Natalie enjoys spending time with her son Rick on the sidelines of many sports activities, playing golf, reading and writing.

Natalie, I’m excited to have you with me today on Chamber Chat Podcast, if you would just take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you a little better.

Natalie English 2:43

So hi, Chamber Champions at some, it’s great to be able to be with you this way. I have admire so many of you across the country, and appreciate inputs and things that I’ve learned from all of you. So I hope that I can share something helpful for you. So I guess something interesting about me. I love to sing. And while I’m not trained to do so I have a decent voice and so have enjoyed over the years in a couple of churches that I’ve been a member of to be able to sing with the band. So we’re not talking about just Tim books, which I do, but rock and roll. And so you never know I may when I retire from this go try to replace Mick Jagger, you know, as old as he is, but, but I’m not that good. But I do love to do it. So

Brandon Burton 3:33

what’s one of your favorite songs to sing?

Natalie English 3:36

Oh, gosh. Wow. I mean, there’s there’s so many my favorite artists, Christian contemporary artists is Natalie grant. Interestingly, she has the same name that I do, but we have had a bandleader tell me that our voices are similar. Now she’s way better than I am and much better trained than I am. But I can I can sing her songs really well, because we’re the same range. So I love her. And I’ve just love the I love worshipping through music. And so I just yeah, it’s what I like to do.

Brandon Burton 4:05

That’s awesome. I love these little facts I get to learn about people to do the podcasts. Thank you for sharing. Sure. Tell us a little bit about your chamber about the Wilmington chamber kind of size staff budget location just to kind of get us off perspective as we get into our discussion.

About the Wilmington Chamber

Natalie English 4:21

Sure. And there’s a little bit of a little bit of history perspective that needs to go along with that when I joined the Wilmington Chamber in March of 2017. We were a total of five staff. Our roles said we had around 900 members and our budget was in the 800 to $900,000 range. We have been through a major hurricane, a minor hurricane and a pandemic. And I’m really pleased to say that we finished 2021 with a $1.2 billion revenue and and expenses. million million sorry, well, I want to be doing sorry, 1.2 million, I’ve been talking about building bridges. And that’s always starts with a B, so sorry, 1.2 million. And we just added our eight staff person last month. So it’s continuing to grow finding the ways we do that, and doing that in the midst of and post disasters. So I’m really proud of my team.

Brandon Burton 5:27

That is great. Oh, it says a lot about the work you’re doing to still provide that value and which is going to be evident in our discussion today, but to see that return on investments and, and to see that growth continue, even through the pandemic. So our topic for discussion, so I’ve kind of hinted towards it as I read through your bio, and in just now but we’ll be focusing our discussion on disaster and economic recovery. And I’m excited to get into this discussion with you you’ve had some I hesitate to say great experience, because I’m sure it wasn’t great experience going through it. But some valuable lessons that have come out of that. So we’ll get into that discussion as soon as I get back from this quick break.

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Topic-Disaster & Economic Recovery

All right, Natalie, we are back. So disaster and economic recovery. I’d mentioned before with Hurricane Florence that ripped through Wilmington and cause destruction, you had another minor hurricane as well. What kind of lessons did you learn through these natural disasters that would lead you to help your community be prepared and to be able to bounce back and recover afterwards.

Natalie English 8:45

It’s funny, you know, to be to think about being fortunate for a disaster, but and it was it was a great experience because it has equipped me, I think, to to help to lead my community through the pandemic. So in September of 2018, Hurricane Florence was expected to be a Category five storm and so I left town with my young son at the time and our our dog and we camped out in a basement at a friend’s house in Charlotte. And instead of being a Category Five, she downgraded but she sat here for days just dumping rain on our community in our region. And because I still had internet service and phone in Charlotte, I started calling colleagues around the country and so shout out to folks at chambers of commerce in the Houston area in the New Orleans area, who had been through major hurricanes who who provided advice and counsel to me. And so from that basement in Charlotte, one of the biggest pieces of advice that I’ve received from from our colleagues in the Houston area was to make sure that the community gets connected Some of the some of the scariest things that can happen, or that people get left behind in recovery. And the way to prevent that is to make sure that we’re talking as we’re responding to do the the immediate needs in the community. And so I called my friend, the CEO of the United Way of the Cape Fear area, and said, I think we need to get the not for profit response agencies together with the business community, because I had been getting calls, right? So from from the response agencies asking me if I had a business that could provide this or that, and then the requests started sounding the same. And so I had that fear that we were falling into this trap of having multiple responses to one family, and no responses to another family and so called in church leaders from across the community, and found that we did have some less connected communities, less affluent communities, communities of color, who were not receiving the same responses as others, and it was unintentional, and yet it still was happening. And so that was the biggest lesson I learned is that immediately after some sort of disaster, making sure that you’ve your community is well connected, putting aside competition and putting aside potentially partisan differences. And, and I’m so proud of this community for doing just that. And being able to develop not only the response, the immediate response, but then to continue working together, literally, even through the pandemic. We’ve been working together to identify grant dollars that could help us become a more resilient community when the next storm hits. So infrastructure, specifically water, sewer and electricity infrastructure that will withstand the next major storm that might come through with continued to stay together. Because response can sometimes takes years to complete. When there’s damage done to homes, then the second major lesson I learned is that there is a lot of opportunity to help individuals and families recover from storms. But there was nothing for business unless you wanted to take out a loan, we’ve we invited the SBA into the chamber building after that hurricane and said Come help our businesses. But when when a business is impacted, so detrimentally, they don’t have the capacity for a loan. And so so that’s so I started then advocating in this community and at the state level, to say, look, the next time a major storm comes to any, any place in our community, in our in our state, we need to be ready to respond. Because those businesses represent jobs. Sometimes it’s two jobs, sometimes it’s 20. Sometimes it’s 500. But whatever the number is, something has to be available not just for an individual to save their home, but for their employer or to save their job. That was a broken record.

Brandon Burton 13:04

That’s so important. Yeah. And I think that gets overlooked and curious, what kind of traction Have you seen as he started to advocate for businesses to be able to recover after disaster?

Natalie English 13:14

Well, and I can’t take credit for it happening at the federal level. And because I’m not sure my voice has been that loud. But I but I think that coupled with colleagues around the country who’ve been through this and had said the same thing, when when we hit the lockdown for COVID, the amount of investment that our federal government, our state government, and then our local government were willing to make in businesses that that were forced to shut down as a result of the pandemic, that that did. That doesn’t happen. You’re right. We so even though government doesn’t force a shutdown, post disaster, natural disaster, the shutdown still happens. But this time, because government forced the shutdown, they also saw themselves as a as a as a resource for recovery from that shutdown. And so we here at the Chamber advocated locally for our city and county to use some of the dollars that were allocated from the federal government to invest in the recovery and reopening of our business community. And they responded, four and a half million dollars that we were able to, to distribute in our community. And then because we were so successful and advocating for it, they turned around and said, Okay, can you manage the program? And of course, we said, yes, yeah, as wide open, what have we done, but that also brought in some revenue for us because they were willing to pay us to administer the program and then to help them get the money out more quickly. And while I’m looking around the state, other communities who still haven’t done You’re down how they’re going to spend their American Recovery Plan funds. We’ve already gotten ours out the door, because our local governments worked quickly.

Brandon Burton 15:08

Yeah. And the time is so key to that, right. I mean, it really just sits there. And you know, it’s not getting out to the businesses not doing the purpose that it’s supposed to be. Right. So I’m curious as he reached out to, through the the hurricane situations, he reached out to other chambers, he had mentioned the Houston area, did you happen to chance to chance to speak to Diane probes at Rockport Fulton. Now?

Natalie English 15:34

I don’t remember. I actually, yeah, spoke to so many.

Brandon Burton 15:39

I had her on the podcast way back in episode 12, over 150 episodes ago, when she was talking about, you know, the hurricanes that have hit them, you know, on the Texas coast. Yeah, and what they’ve did to, you know, prepare the infrastructure and everything going forward. But then it was interesting, because I had recorded that, and it was just a few months later that, you know, the pandemic hit. And I actually had several recordings for the podcast ready to go. But that week, when everything shut down, I was like, you know, what, we’re going to push these back a little bit, I’m going to replay that episode from Diane probes, oh, there are so many key lessons in there from a natural disaster that can be applied to economic recovery, and just, you know, a pandemic, you know, I guess at the time, we didn’t realize it is necessarily going to become a pandemic, right. But key lessons to be learned. So, share with us what some of these things are that you took from the natural disaster experience, experiences, and being able to roll those over into, you know, pandemic response and relief and recovery from that situation is that I see that being a lot more applicable to chambers across the country.

Natalie English 16:52

Yeah, absolutely. I think, um, I think that you sometimes Chamber members, they write their check, and maybe they come to an event or two, that maybe they they don’t really think they hear from their chamber, right for the year, and then the renewal notice comes up. See, so we are all struggle, we all struggle with making sure that our investors see the relevance even if they don’t participate in the programming, right? And and what’s the best communications tool to do that? I will tell you if Chamber of Commerce does not take full advantage of any disaster that strikes, but being that trusted source of information about the resources, where the pandemic was concerned about new regulations and new guidelines, I mean, the guidelines were changing and still are, right, it feels like by the hour, and and so we post hurricane, and at the beginning of the pandemic, we implemented daily and then for not for long, but for a few weeks daily, people wanted to hear from us every day about what was new, and what do we need to do? And where do we where are we going to find help and, and so we did daily emails probably for about six weeks into the pandemic. And then we waned back to about twice a week, and did that well into the fall of 2020. We’re now back to our once a week official news related email that we send to our members, but it showed them that we were on top of what was going on and that we could connect them, it improved our relationship with many of them who didn’t hear from us. And it also opened up a line of two way communication, so that they could tell us the issues they were facing, we may not know about ahead, manufacturers at the very beginning stages. So but we are essential services, right? So different types of businesses wanting to make the case to our elected leaders that they were essential to the to to to our country, to our community. And so it opened up to a communication with some companies we had been getting checked for, from for years that hadn’t really heard from and so never wasted disaster as a Chamber of Commerce’s what I would suggest.

Brandon Burton 19:19

Yeah, I’ve heard a quote about that, you know, never let a good disaster go to waste, right? So when you talk about two way communication is that they would respond back to the email or they would get that input from you from those weekly or daily emails, and then pick up the phone and call or how was that two way communication established?

Natalie English 19:41

So some of it would happen in response to the email. And then you know, when I when I moved here in 2017, I reluctantly put my cell phone number on my business card. But in hindsight, I’m glad because we all got sent home right and, and yes, I could My voicemail or I could forward my voicemail from officer, but they are members, those who wanted to reach out to me, and who were able to get their hands on my cell phone number, I believe that they felt like they had a more immediate connection. So a lot of it really did come through my cell phone number. But also, in response to the email to my staff team, I’ve surrounded myself with people who are well connected in different parts of our community than I am. And so they got direct phone calls from our members. And it just we were we were responsive that we were available. And we were responsive, even though we were not sitting in the chamber building. We were each sitting in our individual home offices, but but we were available for them.

Brandon Burton 20:48

Yeah. So I think you’d also touched on the idea of being the trusted resource for information. And we hear that being said a lot these days in reference to chambers of commerce. But just to stress that point a little bit more. We see in communities all over that the what was the traditional trusted news outlets, you know, local TV, newspapers, things like that are, you know, if they haven’t closed or shut down their resources, or much less to cover those important stories to, to establish that information base, where it creates a void in communities, where Chambers of Commerce really are very well suited to fill that void. And to get out that information. And you don’t need to cover you know, all the high school, you know, sports events and all that. But, you know, the things that are important to get information out in your community. What communication methods you met, you mentioned email, what communication methods do you guys use to help establish, you know, that trusted credibility in your community? Yeah,

Natalie English 21:55

yeah, I don’t, it’s not unique. I mean, we do we, we, under normal circumstances, let’s call them we send a weekly email and it includes a president’s report, we call it so it’s something some topic for me that’s current and maybe in in the works that we inform our members about. We then we also have gotten much better over the last few years at incorporating social media and connecting with our, our business community through our social media outlets, and we haven’t yet dived into Tik Tok, but we’re on every other channel there is out there. And so Tik Tok. Next, they keep my staff keeps telling me, they want me to start doing videos. So we’ll see how that goes. But um, and then, and then I would say, again, because we just celebrated last week, our 150/5 consecutive annual meeting. So this Chamber of Commerce is more than 155 years old. And many chambers right across the country, or many communities across the country have had Chambers of Commerce in their community for that long. And so I think, I think we need to be I think it’s incumbent upon us to keep being that trusted source because they I think that I really believe that we don’t fall into the same category as as same members of Congress, right? People say Congress is that I don’t trust Congress or I don’t trust the legislature, I don’t trust that’s the only because because the the, the the perception that they’re all about politics, and they’re still doing really good work on our behalf. But for us Chambers of Commerce were seen as the place to go for information about tourism, for information about starting a business. And so it’s not political at the start. And so just taking advantage of that reputation that we’ve had for over 100 years in most of our communities, I think is how to do it and then using every channel possible, because different people are communicated with differently. And then finally, I would say that you can’t only communicate with everybody with the same voice, right? So me as a white woman, chamber CEO, I’m probably isn’t the right person to communicate with our young professionals in this community. I’m probably a little older than they’d like to see. Or you we have some great leaders of two councils that we’ve created an African American Business Council and a Latin American Business Council. And so we make sure that whenever we have critical messaging that needs to get out to the entire business community, that we we engage with them to help us get that word out, and whether it has to be in a different language, or through different channels. Because everybody’s not going to listen to the white female chamber CEO and US got to accept that and and use those other vehicles and show that willingness to build those bridges between communities.

Brandon Burton 25:08

Right? I think a point that you touched on that, yeah, turn on the light bulb, in my mind is when you talked about, you know, 155 years for the woman can chamber. Talk about credibility, you know, you guys aren’t going anywhere, you’ve been around a long time, you’ve been representing business in your community for a long time. And being able to get that messaging out to the community and say, Look, we are here for you, we’re here to help make Wilmington or whoever’s listening, you know, your own community, a strong place, you know, a great place to live, and work and to do business. It builds that credibility. And, you know, I wanted to circle back and I apologize, this kind of goes back to when you’re talking about the disaster recovery, from the storms, that you had mentioned, how you reached out to church leaders, which I thought that’s genius. I mean, they have a close following right there in good. Typically, they’re going to be in close communication with members of their congregations. Granted, not everybody in the community attends a church or, you know, regularly to have that relationship, but you’re getting certain segments of the population that, like you’ve mentioned, are being missed. I wanted to kind of piggyback on that maybe, and even add in homeowners associations. So that would be another way to reach some of those in communities that normally your email blasts with necessarily reach. But in times of a disaster or emergencies, they can be a great resource to help you connect with the greater community.

Natalie English 26:42

Absolutely. And, and I would also say, other membership associations, right. So locally, we have strong partnership with our Home Builders Association, and our Realtors Association. And, and then other Chambers of Commerce in our region. So and in some of those cases, they have significantly fewer staff than we do. And so I considered it extreme flattery, when I would have a chamber exec from another county in the region, or another partner, you know, text call, email me and asked me if they could cut and paste our information. And I said, Absolutely, this is not this, I don’t own it, I got it from other places, to please just do whatever you need to do, you can board it as is or you can paste it in your own template and take credit for it, I don’t care because at that time in our region, it was it was about getting the word out about the resources available. And, and so I think it’s also incumbent upon us to be those partners and not see ourselves as competitors. With those organizations, we all have the same goals, we all want our economies to grow, and economies don’t stop at county lines or city lines.

Brandon Burton 27:56

That’s right. Now, I love that idea of especially if you can establish those relationships and just know, hey, going forward, we’re gonna put out a lot of information, we want to be that trusted source for information in our community. And if there’s anything that resonates with people in your group, whatever your organization is, please take it and share it and anything to support our community. So absolutely, that’s very key. Well, I wanted to ask you, if there might be one tip or action item for listeners that they could do to maybe lift their chamber up to the next level.

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Natalie English 28:33

So I was I had to fill out a survey a questionnaire yesterday about something in our community. And I was asked what the best piece of advice I ever received. And, and it was about staffing, right about building a team. And so this one mentor of mine once said, surround yourself with people who think differently, and you have different skills and gifts. And I know we’ve all heard this Yeah. And and some of us do it really well. And, and some of us and even me at times, have fallen into that trap of of having people around me who think like me, and I’m I don’t know that unnecessarily horribly failed at those moments in my career. But I can tell you that in the moments of my career, when I have surrounded myself with people who have different perspectives, who think differently for me, who have different backgrounds, and different skills, we’ve been so much more successful. And so as I have rebuilt this Wilmington chamber team since 2017, it’s been the focus for me is to ensure that when I’m creating a position and then trying to fill it that I look at a broad array of talents and skills that I don’t necessarily bring because I am I am not the beyond the wall and I need people around me who can backfill my weaknesses, so that I can soar with my strengths and that would be the thing that I would say to get to the next level, it really is about building a team around you whether and for you small chamber staff leaders, I get it, it’s like, how can I do that I only have one other position, well then bring in volunteers who think differently. So whatever your team has to look like, just make sure that there are people who bring different skill sets to that table and different ways of thinking,

Brandon Burton 30:21

and what a great feeling neurologically, you know, when your mind is open to a new perspective, I don’t know if it’s a flood of serotonin, or dopamine, or whatever it is, it’s like, whoa, you know, that’s how some people see the world. This is. Right, it really changes your perspective and changes you as a person for the absolute LinkedIn. So I know chambers all over the world are always thinking about the future and trying to remain relevant. So I always like to ask as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Natalie English 30:55

Gosh, in certainly in the immediate future, it was before the pandemic. And but it’s just been exacerbated, I think we have to become the resource for Talent Development in our communities, we have to have our ear to our members in the business community about what they need in talent development, workforce development, if you will. And then we have to advocate with our education institutions. So that they while they are unbelievably smart, they don’t work in industry every day. And we have to help them as they’re creating the curricula and the programming that will develop our future workforce, that workforce that that our businesses need tomorrow and the workforce that they’re going to need 10 years from now.

Brandon Burton 31:43

I love that. It reminded me I just recently had Doug Griffin’s on the on the podcast, the author of 13 ways to kill your community. And when I asked him this question, he had a slightly different spin on it. But is he talking about talent development, a lot of times we think of the schools and workforce and talent development, which is I think, right on, and he was looking at it as training for employees of your member businesses, and really the businesses throughout your community. And he said the number one thing would be to train employees and customer service. Right. So when you have people visiting from out of town or new to the community, if they can go into the local businesses and have a great experience? Absolutely. Again, chambers perfect to help train the development in their communities. So just under that umbrella.

Natalie English 32:36

Absolutely. We talk about that all the time on our tourism development authority. Yeah, yeah,

Brandon Burton 32:42

that’s a great tip. Well, as we start wrapping up here, I like to give you an opportunity for any Chamber Champions listening that might want to reach out and connect with you and, you know, maybe expand on anything that you’ve shared with us today, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you?

Connect with Natalie English

Natalie English 32:59

So the best way is probably through email simply because I check it sometimes 24/7 It’s English, my last name english@wilmingtonchamber.org. And I do try to get back to everybody, at least within 24 or so hours, and we’d love to help I think that’s the best thing and I don’t know who coined the R&D phrase as rip off and duplicate but I do it proudly and unashamedly and I, I encourage people to rip off and duplicate for me anytime it helps.

Brandon Burton 33:31

Perfect. Well, we will get that in our show notes for this episode, which will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode165. That Natalie, thank you so much for joining us today on Chamber Chat Podcasts. I love hearing from your experiences and things that you’ve learned and, and ways to help the Chamber Champions that are listening. Thank you so much.

Natalie English 33:53

Thank you, it’s a great opportunity.

Brandon Burton 33:56
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Lessons Learned to Start 2022

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes, 30 seconds.

As we are starting a new year, we are still in the midst of this worldwide COVID pandemic. I thought it would be helpful to share some tips in the written form to help you shortcut the work at your Chamber by sharing some lessons learned over the past 3 years of producing the Chamber Chat Podcast.

What Have We Learned?

Many Chambers are operating with fewer staff at the moment. Many have shifted what their working environment looks like by allowing for more work from home opportunities. Depending on where you are located, there may still be restrictions on the number of people who can gather at events. Each of these challenges present unique obstacles but I believe they also provide opportunities for growth.

Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, states that “Inside every problem lies an opportunity”.

Chambers have had to take a strong look at their value propositions and mission statements. As Chambers have done this, they have found ways to prove and show their relevance more than ever.

I have now been working in the Chamber world for over 15 years in the Chamber publishing space and 3 years with Chamber Chat Podcast. Over this time, I have learned a lot about what Chambers do, how they operate, the impact Chambers have in their communities, and I have also learned that many people in any given community don’t even know that their local Chamber exists or have any clue as to what a Chamber of Commerce does. I am working on a new project that will address this, so stay tuned for more details to come on this front soon.

2019 Lesson Highlights

At the end of each year while producing Chamber Chat Podcast, I have recorded a summary episode that highlights some of the key lessons that I learned that year that relates to the Chamber industry.

In 2019, some of the key lessons were:

A Chamber can and should be much more than a networking business community.
The importance of great community partnerships.
The need for talent & workforce development.
The importance of staying true to your strategic plan.
The future is bright for Chambers that stay relevant.

You can access this episode and it’s show notes and the other lessons learned at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode50.

2020 Lesson Highlights

In 2020, as the pandemic hit and Chambers were stressed in new and complicated ways. As a result, several new lessons rose up to the top. In fact, I covered 20 lessons learned in 2020 for that year’s summary episode. Some of those key lessons were:

Trim the fat by burning sacred cows.
Chambers need to be agile to make quick pivots.
Set aside reserves in your budget.
We learned how to go virtual and how to use new digital tools.
Many Chambers saw podcasting as a way to stay connected with their members and community.
Probably the number 1 lesson from 2020 was the need to be flexible!

Lessons from 2021

As the “new normal” sets in, additional lessons need to be applied, which should help to sustain Chambers moving forward. Because of the timely relevance to these lessons, I will expand more than just a few highlighted bullet points. You can also access my lessons from 2021 at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode153.

Finance & Membership Models

Many membership organizations have had to really evaluate their overall structure. Everything from finances to membership models to strategic partnerships were on the table for discussion to keep their organizations in operation and to provide the needed service and value to their members. Some organizations saw the value in merging with another similarly aligned organization, possibly a tourism or economic development organization. Some Chambers even came together to create more of a county-wide or regional organization. There is value and strength in coming together. However, going back to one of the lessons from 2019, a Chamber must stay true to their strategic plan.

Some Chambers did not see the need to merge with another organization but they saw the need to create a triage for their business community whether or not a business was currently a dues paying member of their Chamber. As recovery from the pandemic started to pick up steam, some Chambers saw value in creating a free membership offering. I like the idea of how these Chambers are setting up these freemium models, but I would personally like to see the data from this model being implemented at other Chambers before applying it to my own.

In my opinion, Chambers are all about advancing their communities. This is accomplished through advocacy, networking, and connecting the right individuals for a stronger business environment. Doing these things will help to strengthen all areas of their community.

Online Communities

So, when more people are less involved in their communities, how does a Chamber go about doing this great work?

Well, one answer might be through creating strong online communities as a starting point. Online communities might serve as an on ramp to get others involved which can then transition into more in-person relationships. In today’s world, a Chamber would be doing a disservice to themselves if they are not utilizing the power and leverage of an online community.

Keep in mind that with many generations living and working in your community, they each prefer different methods of communication. Some really like in person events. Some will never attend an event but they will engage and support the Chamber in big ways through their screens.

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Online communities can be set up on platforms such as Facebook. My word of caution is that you create a strategic plan for your online community BEFORE you launch it. This will help you in creating community guidelines and will guide you in the creation and frequency of content. This strategic plan should also create a road map for the member experience.

Preparing for the Future

Futureproofing is the next lesson that I will address. When COVID first reared its head, almost everyone caught off guard. Consumers made panic purchases of obscene amounts of toilet paper, business owners who were solely brick and mortar didn’t know if or when they would be allowed to open their doors again. Chambers adapted quickly to keep their business community apprised of government mandates and regulations, but at the same time were needing to cancel most of their non-dues revenue generators. Chambers were not prepared for this major disruption.

Moving forward, I would encourage Chambers to think and to prepare for worst case scenarios. How will you continue to serve your members if you had to shut down again? How will you bring in revenue if you are unable to gather and if businesses don’t know where their next dollar will come from? This idea of futureproofing can be wrapped in with the previous point of creating a strong plan for an online community. This can allow for you to pivot quickly and to deliver content and information to the people who need it the most.

Your Role as an Influencer

Casey Steinbacher’s e-book “From Relevant to Essential” laid out a great argument that shows why Chambers need to understand their role as influencers in their communities. I would encourage everyone to read this book for the full effect, but in a nutshell, we live in a world that is very different than it was 20 or 30 years ago. The newer generations engage in different ways and they tune into different voices. One of the main points of her book is to urge Chambers to embrace their role as influencers.

We don’t normally think of Chambers as influencers, but why are Chambers so great at conveening people and organizations for a greater cause…because they are influencers. Why do businesses join their local Chamber and ask for input on staffing, marketing, accounting, etc…because they are influencers.

Most Chambers turn to social media to flex their influence muscle. I find that many people turn to social media to tune out and they are not usually in the mindset to engage with Chamber content as it comes across their feed. Podcasts however, offer a much more intimate way to share information, and establish or reinforce your influence in the community.

Strategic Partnerships

This year as I did the Chamber of the Year Finalist interviews, each Chamber talked about their response to the COVID pandemic. Almost every Chamber shared how they created a strategic partnership with either their local Small Business Association, local banks, or other similar organizations to help distribute financial resources and relief to the businesses in their communities.

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These types of partnerships can open doors to new services and opportunities. These opportunities will help Chambers better serve their business community going forward.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

We have seen people and organizations of all types recognize the need for more focus and attention on diversity, equity and inclusion. Unfortunately it took the murder of George Floyd for the many of the racial injustices to rise to a higher level of importance. On the positive side, this extra focus on racial equity also allowed for a greater focus on other areas of diversity. It opened our minds to new ideas on how to be more inclusive to people who have traditionally been left out of our organizations for a variety of reasons. We also realized the need to provide more equitable opportunities for everyone in our communities. I believe we still have a long way to go with diversity, equity and inclusion, but we are going in the right direction.

Horseshoes vs. Chess

Anyone who listens to the Chamber Chat Podcast on a regular basis will know how much I love Dave Adkisson’s book “Horseshoes vs. Chess”. This book is what I describe as the best portrayal of what a Chamber of Commerce is and should be as well as what a Chamber Exec is and should be.

We are often asked what Chambers of Commerce do. Horseshoes vs. Chess helps to answer that question in a way that ordinary (non-Chamber) people can understand.

In the book, Dave shares an analogy about Chamber work compared to the games of horseshoes and chess. Some people look at Chamber work the same way they look at a game of horseshoes at a picnic. You don’t have to know much about the game, you can just toss your horseshoes towards your stake and if you get close you get a point.

Dave shares how Chamber work is really much more like a game of chess. You have different pieces that can do different things and you need to understand the role of each piece. One piece may be education. Another piece might be workforce development, and another tourism, and another economic development, etc. The idea is that you must know what each piece is capable of doing while also understanding that you can’t move all of the pieces at the same time. I think this analogy is perfect and it should resonate with most Chamber professionals.

Make Pivots

The final lesson that I will share from 2021 is that I need to make some pivots. I am coming up on the third anniversary of Chamber Chat Podcast. While I still plan to continue with the podcast, I do have some other new and exciting opportunities and projects that I am working on that I hope to reveal very soon. Hopefully you and your Chamber have noticed areas where you can grow and improve as well. In the end, it is about providing the best value and the highest level of service possible.

I wish you all a very successful 2022. I am sure it will be full of new lessons that will help us move closer to our potential. Keep up the great work!

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Lessons Learned in 2021

Below is an auto-generated transcription of the top 10 lessons I have learned in 2021. 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 would love to see chambers get behind the idea of encouraging overall healthy living beyond these unprecedented pandemic times. Here’s my dad, Brandon Burton.

Brandon Burton 0:25
Hello, Chamber Champions. 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.

Topic

As we wrap up the year of 2021. I like to do this type of episode at the end of each year where I can I look back at the episodes that I’ve done throughout the year and take out some of the top lessons that I’ve learned and possibly some of the best lessons that can be learned and applied at chambers all over. So not to try to pick out the top 10 episodes by any means, but maybe some overall principles that stood out to me that are worth mentioning again. And in this episode, I decided to pick out the top 10 lessons that I’ve learned in 2021. And with that, I will also be referencing some of the past episodes that I’ve done in this last year. So if you missed any of them, you can always go back and check them out. But as usual, I’ll have all of the links to these past episodes. And anything mentioned will be in the show notes for this episode, which will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode 153. But with that kind of table being said, as far as what the format of this episode will be. I’m going to run down just really quickly what these top 10 lessons are, and then then we’ll get into them in more detail. So I have them numbered, but really it’s no particular order. But number

10 is how important partnerships and membership models are especially in this last year. And taking a look at those
9 is the importance of online communities.
Number 8 is future proofing chambers and small businesses.
Number 7 is the need to go for chambers to go from relevant to essential
Number 6 more chambers are getting into podcasting. So we’ll talk more about that.
Number 5 is the importance of strategic partnerships. You may have your own ideas, but again, I’ll dive in deeper with that.
The number 4 is touching on the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion.
Number 3 is the international exposure. So this one is maybe more of a lesson that I’ve learned. But the the need of the show internationally. So I’ll dive more into that.
Number 2, I wanted to highlight the horseshoes versus chess a little bit more. That’s Dave Atkinson’s book.
And then the number 1 lesson is the need that I have to make some pivots.

So with that, we will we’ll get into this. More More detail more depth on these top 10 lessons that I’ve learned this year since we get back from our quick break.

Lesson #10

All right, we are back. So as I teased before the break, I went through quickly the top 10 lessons that I’ve learned this past year. And number 10, was the importance of partnerships and membership models. So as we’re all aware, we’ve been getting through the hopefully, in most places some of the recovery from the COVID pandemic, trying to put some of the pieces back together and try to get our communities up and running again. And as I was doing several of these interviews early on in 2021, the idea of partnerships and mergers between chambers, or economic development, partnerships, and tourism, coming together with Chambers was a big theme to kind of consolidate budgets and resources, and to really leverage what your community has to offer and kind of bring it all into one package. And kind of along those same lines. So before I move on from that Matt Pivarnik was on for Episode 102, which he talked a lot about that with that merging and bringing together the different entities economic development, tourism and chamber all under one roof for that partnership. But along with that, I would say is membership models as well. So through the pandemic, and and even some before there. So there’s been attention given to membership models, but especially through the pandemic and trying to figure out, you know, the best way to serve members. And the best way to show value and, and all of that, being able to take a step back and look at the offerings that are being put out there with a membership model. Tiffany Esposito, she spoke to that in episode 104. So again, any of these episodes that I referenced, you can always find them at the kind of the format to it is chamberchatpodcast.com/episode and then the number so like that one would be episode 104 for Tiffany episode about membership models.

Lesson #9

The number nine lesson that I learned this year was the importance of online communities. And April Bragg joined me for episode 118, where she talked about their beginnings of a Facebook group called Robins regional, that kind of spawned out of the pandemic, and how that Facebook group really gained a lot of traction brought their community together, and really shown some exposure to what the chamber can do for the community. So for a lot of people in their community that didn’t necessarily know what the chamber was, this was an opportunity for the chamber to be that hub, that convener to bring people together, and kind of be that information base of knowledge. So I love that episode, and that the examples that she gave around building an online community, it’s not for everyone, but

I decided to try to kick off an online community of my own to try to make these episodes here on the podcast a little bit more interactive. So I recently launched the Chamber Chat Champions Facebook group, which I know a lot of you are a part of already. So thank you for joining that if you’re listening and you’re not a member of that, please look it up on Facebook again, that’s Chamber Chat Champion’s Facebook group. And the idea there is to be able to take these episodes that are put out each week and to be able to have a little more discussion in depth, sharing resources, ideas, tips from other chamber professionals that listen and that are part of this community. So check that out and join my community.

Lesson #8

The number eight lesson that I learned this year was about around future proofing chambers and small businesses. And this is a it’s been something that’s been on my mind for a lot of the year now is the idea of so many things going digital Online, as far as retail shopping goes, a lot of people don’t go out to Main Street anymore. They hop on to Amazon or whatever’s convenient for them from the convenience of their home or office. So as a chamber, Boyd Stough talked about in episode 121, about how a Chamber of Commerce is the best small business resource in there in your individual community. And the need to be able to to grasp on to the idea of that, and believe that, and I really do believe that for small businesses that are trying to hang on trying to plan for a future, that is a chamber of commerce, that you all of us, we have that responsibility to help these small businesses be successful. And chamber commerce is that great resource. That kind of piggybacking on Boyd styles episode was Jason Leslie in Episode 125. Jason is at the Alberta Chambers of Commerce in Canada. And he had talked about how with a program that they were working on with Boyd, to roll out a program for all of the chambers in the province of Alberta, to bring them online to have the same type of membership offerings, and certain membership offerings, but same type of expectation. So when somebody joins the chamber, they can know what to expect from it. But also, they’ve set up what’s called chamber market. So every chamber in the province of Alberta is online with chamber market now, it’s just recently rolled out. And it is a online retail store for any of their Chamber members of any of the chambers in the province of Alberta. And I know they’re rolling it out in other provinces as well. But this is definitely one of those ways that the chambers there in Alberta are really being an advocate to help future proof these small businesses and chambers for that matter going forward. So great job there.

Lesson #7

The number seven lesson learned is from Casey Steinbacher book From Relevant to Essential. And I had her on the show in Episode 106, where she talked about the book, and it’s a great episode to listen to. But if you haven’t read the book, go download it. It’s a Kindle version or a digital, I think it’s on other platforms too. But I read it on a Kindle. It’s pretty inexpensive. I don’t remember exactly what how much it was. But it I read it all in a day. So it’s a very easy read. But it really talking about future proofing chambers, it’s really making sure that chambers are around in the future going from just being relevant to being an essential staple in your community. And she talks a lot about becoming an influencer in your community. So it’s just a little bit of a teaser into into her book there. And if he listened to last week’s episode, Episode 152, I went into more detail about that book and shared some of the quotes that she had in the book that really impacted me.

Lesson #6

The number six lesson that I learned this year is that more chambers are getting into podcasting. And I know when the pandemic initially kicked off that I had a lot of chambers reaching out to me about wanting to start a podcast not knowing where to start. And it’s been fun over this last year is is some of those have gone online. And they’ve they have their show up and running now to be able to get some of that feedback from these chambers saying hey, I listened to you, like I was inspired by or whatever it may be. And even if it had nothing to do with me, or Chamber Chat Podcast, it’s the idea that chambers are grasping that medium for being able to share their message. And a couple of those that that stood out to me was Michael Huber in Episode 140. And he talked about the podcast that he spun off that’s not necessarily the podcasts for his chamber for the indie chamber, but it’s one that he does under his own on his own power, I guess you could say, but he does it in a way where he’s really highlighting the people of Andy and and the stories that need to be covered there. One of the other ones is B Kyle. And that was episode number 139. But that was a neat story about how she came up with the name. It’s BS Table Talk and and how she came up with the name of Table Talk. So you’ll have to go back and listen to that episode 139 If you’d like to hear that story, but also, I had last week’s episode was the chamber podcasting presentation that I did for the Nebraska chamber executives. And that was really spawned because Justice Rhoden, she, she does a podcast at her chamber. She’s a listener of of Chamber Chat. And she had reached out to me and she’s obviously sees the value of podcasting at her chamber and wanted to help other chambers really get on board and see catch the vision of podcasting. So that’s episode 152. If you wanted to listen to that one.

Lesson #5

The number five lesson that I learned this year is the importance of strategic strategic partnerships. And I don’t have a specific episode to reference for this one, I will mention that this theme came up a lot as I did the chamber, the year finalist series this year, which if you were to go back, and look, that would be episodes 129 through Episode 142, I believe. So if you wanted to go check out some of the things that are talked about around strategic partnerships in more detail. But the couple of things that stood out to me was how some of these chamber the year finalists, they all had to highlight their response to COVID to the pandemic and how they stepped up for their business community. And several of them had partnered with local banks, or small business development associations to be able to offer loans actually loans through the chamber. Because they had these strategic partnerships in place. So there’s definitely a lot to be learned there. Not that you need to always be available to offer loans or anything like that. But to be able to know some of these things are available. So the next time there is a big need like that, that you can be quick to pivot and take action. So those are definitely worth taking a listen to.

Lesson #4

The number four lesson that I learned this year is something that a lot of us have been learning about this year. And that is around the idea of diversity, equity and inclusion. And I think a lot of our eyes have been opened to some of the things that have been ignored for a long time or under appreciated. And just recently in Episode 151 Leonardo McClarty came on and on the podcast and he talked about adding a little twist to the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion conversation. And he’s talking more specifically about you know, reaching beyond just race and gender but you know, to look at veterans or women owned businesses and things like that, to be able to look around your chamber events, your luncheons, your gatherings and really ask yourself who it is that’s missing, and how you can reach out to their, their group their if as a chamber, you’re supposed to represent the voice of business in your community, what businesses are not being represented, and see what you can do to reach out and include them. And I’m grouping this other episode under the same umbrella of diversity, equity and inclusion. And that’s episode 109 with Matt Morrow, and he talked about the lessons he learned from the book, The Wisdom of Crowds, and how as a group, a diverse group of people together are way more intelligent than in any one individual. And I think the more diversity we can bring into our groups, or whether it’s a board or a committee, at your, at your organization, being able to have diversity, and that is going to make the outcome that much wiser, that much smarter.

Lesson #3

The number three lesson that I learned this year is the need of you international exposure, specifically for chamber chat podcast. And I’ll have to admit, when I first started the podcast, that I was doing it with the small chamber in mind, you know, the Chamber who doesn’t have a huge budget, who maybe is not a member of ACCE or even their state, or regional associations, to be able to provide a way to share Best Practices and resources to help them be more successful to better serve their members and community, as I say at the beginning of each episode, and I’ll have to admit that my focus was largely on these smaller Chambers in the United States. I figured there’s a lot of Chambers in the US and I have no shortage really of, of opportunity there to present to these smaller Chambers. Well, that quickly grew to chambers of all sizes in the States. It grew to where I’ve had a couple of Canadian interviews on the podcast, I had Adam leg in Episode 123. He was the former president CEO at the Calgary chamber. They had Jason Leslie on who’s at the Alberta chamber and Episode 125, as I mentioned before, but I had a great introduction with a man named Houssem Touil, he’s at the Tunisia Estonia Chamber. I had who saw him on the podcast in Episode 120, because he just recently put together a global chamber index, where he took a look at it, he invited Chambers from all over the world to participate. And really to find out what the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic has meant to them, have they gained members lost members revenue, the whole nine yards, went in depth in the survey, and produced a really good report that really showed all the results from that survey, and made sense of it. And having that introduction with Houssem has opened up the doors for Chamber Chat Podcast is he is introduced me to others and the international scale introduced me to someone at the International Chamber of Commerce. And in fact, on episode 145 I had some representatives from the International Chamber on the podcast to talk about the World Chambers Congress that was going to be happening in Dubai over Thanksgiving break. So hopefully some of you are able to log in, at least virtually I know, a couple of you may have went even when in person there. But that has really opened the door to chamber chat podcasts on an international level, which is way beyond my wildest dreams when I started this, to think that within three years of starting the podcast that I’d have a an international audience as well. I know that’s not super relatable to you at your Chamber. But that is a lesson that I learned this year. So I thought I would share that.

Lesson #2

The number two lesson that I learned and really there was a lot of lessons in this one. But it was out of the out of Dave Atkinson’s book, Horseshoes vs Chess. And I’m going to do a shameless plug for his book. It is the the most well written book that I’ve that I’ve read at least, that explains the purpose of a chamber of commerce, what a chamber should be doing, what a chamber executive should be doing. I think we all have acquaintances and friends and maybe even family members who are not in they’re not involved with chamber work at all. And they know that you work at a chamber of commerce, but they’ll inevitably ask, so what is the chamber and I know oftentimes, I’ll see people kind of stumble and not really know how to respond to that. But Dave Atkinson’s book horses versus chess really does paint that picture in a beautiful way. Where he compares he shares the the analogy that was shared with him when he first got into the industry, about how some will like in chamber work to game horseshoes, where you all you have to do is show up and throw the horseshoe kind of close to the target and you get a point. And compared that or contrast horseshoes, rather to the game of chess, where you have to as a chamber professional as a chamber executive specifically, you need to know the different pieces you need to know what they’re capable of, and what kind of moves they can make any likens the chess pieces to being economic development and education and tourism and all the different aspects that a chamber can have influence in in your community, and realizing that you can’t move all of those pieces at the same time and they don’t all do the same thing. But being able to learn how to control the pieces and the board to better move your community forward to win the game ultimately. So I highly recommend everyone get your hands on that book, Horseshoes vs Chess if you haven’t already.

Lesson #1

And then Finally, the number one lesson that I learned this year is that it’s time for me to make some pivots and some adjustments to, I guess the offerings that I put out there. So this is coming up on my third year anniversary of doing Chamber Chat Podcast. And it’s a blast, I enjoy it I, I really love interviewing people for the show, and getting to expand my network, getting to know Chamber professionals across the country and globally now, as I mentioned.

But I’ve had an idea that’s been presented to me, I’ve been able to percolate it on it some time, and decided that it’s something that I need to act on. So I’m still going to be doing Chamber Chat Podcast, very similar to how I’ve been doing it. But I’m also early 2022, I plan on releasing a brand new podcast, and I don’t have the name yet to put out there. But it is something that is going to be relatable, something that you’ll be able to use as a resource for your membership. And something that fits in line with the the mission of Chamber Chat Podcast, to better help your serve your members and your community. So please stay tuned for that I will make more of an announcement as a get some of the things ironed out some of those details. But I’m excited to have a new podcast offering. And I’ve got some other things in the works as well as far as new offerings to put out there to better help you serve your members in your community. But I’m also open to some suggestions. So if there’s something that you would like to see from me a way that I can better serve you. Please reach out to me my email address is brandon@chamberchatpodcast.com. And I would love any feedback and ways that I can better serve you. So with that, I wish you all a great New Year, bright futures for 2022. And I hope that you’re able to kind of take inventory of some lessons that you’ve learned this last year, and be able to to move forward in a bright future a good direction for 2022. So thank you for listening, and I look forward to chatting with you again next week.

Brandon Burton 30:28
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