fbpx Skip to content

Category: Partnerships

5 Lessons Learned in 2022

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

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

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

Join the Facebook Group

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

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

Our title sponsor is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Let’s hear from 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 0:39
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 0:56
You can learn more about Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions by visiting holmanbros.com.

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

For this episode, I decided to do a top five lessons learned in 2022. Now as I record this, it is Christmas Eve 2022. And this episode we’ll be releasing on the Tuesday between Christmas and New Years. So purposely, I want to keep this episode a little shorter, just so you can still get some good value out of it and ideas. But I want you to be able to spend time with your family and get those things done around the house that you don’t normally have time to do because you’re your normal busy schedule. So before I get into those top five lessons learned now some of the lessons that I’ll share are ones that were directly related to podcast episodes that I’ve I’ve put out over this last year. And some are just lessons from observing the world and things going on in the environment. So keep that in mind as I go through the lessons. But before I get into those lessons, I wanted to share a personal lesson, I guess you can say that I’ve learned and that is that over, I guess almost four years now doing the podcast, I have reached a point where my time is being stretched very thin, a lot of responsibilities on my plate. And I’m at the point where I need to bring on some help somebody to help to edit and produce the podcast episodes, just to free up a little bit more of my time to where I can focus more intently on getting great guests on the podcast and other projects and special interests that I have to develop that are related to the show. So with that I’ve in you’re familiar as a chamber professional is you see a need for growth within your chamber. The next question is how do you go about providing the financial backing to justify it. And we just had a great episode last week, I believe it was last week where we had Susan Williams on. And she talked about staffing. So that episode came at a really good time for me, as I’m thinking about things that I need to do to staff up the podcast, and create a better experience for all of you as well. So continue to serve, you know, bigger and better going forward in the future. So as I was trying to figure out the best way of doing this, we do have some regular show sponsors. So I would love for you to support them and, you know, buy their product support their businesses, because that keeps their sponsorships coming to Chamber Chat Podcast. But I also, over the years have received messages and emails and ran into some of you at conferences, who have expressed the great value that that you find out of the podcast that lessons learned the way you’re able to stay and be able to stay engaged and continue to learn within the chamber space. So if you are one of those people, and you would like to find a way to support the podcast, a way to continue to see the growth of it. What I decided to do was I created a page on my website so chamberchatpodcast.com/support where you can become a sponsor yourself.

So when I created the podcast, the goal was to always have it be free. And that is still my goal to have this be a free resource, especially for those chambers that don’t have the resources to go to chamber conferences and be a part of their local or state association. I wanted to create a resource for them to be able to learn best practices and tips and strategies so they can better serve their business community. Ready. So this will always be free. What I posted on this page on my website, though the support page is different options if you would like to provide some financial support. So this suggestion, and these are just suggestions, so if you wanted to give a different amount, you can reach out and and contact me and we can set up a different structure. But just to make it easy. The suggested amounts, if you are a single listener, be $5 a month. And if you are comfortable doing that, I would appreciate that it would help to you know, if we, if we get several of you doing $5 A month that would definitely help to pay somebody to produce the podcasts for me. Hopefully, you are also sharing the podcast with your staff. So if you have different staff sizes, if you have a smaller staff, maybe two to five staff members, maybe you do $10 a month for your medium size in you know, five to 15 staff members, maybe $20 a month. And if you’re a larger staff more and there’s even a Superfan option. So if you want to check those out, see what makes the most sense for you. Maybe it comes out like as a single listener, maybe the $5 a month comes out of your personal credit card. If you’re doing it for your staff, maybe that becomes an office expense to help support and train sustain your your staff. So I’ll let you decide what what works best for you and your situation there. But with that aside, we’ll we’ll move on to the top five lessons that I’ve learned in 2022. And we’ll get into that as soon as I get back from this quick break.

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

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

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

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

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

Visit ChamberNation.com to learn more.

Success happens over time not overnight. It’s why fortune 500 companies and other forward thinking businesses are shifting to a more continuous learning format to coach and support their salespeople. Holman Brothers Next Level Coaching brings the same ongoing improvement opportunity to chamber membership salespeople visit holmanbros.com/nextlevel to learn more and request a free trial of Next Level Coaching for your membership pro. 

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

All right, we are back. So the top five lessons that I have from 2022. Again, these are these are no particular order necessarily. They’re just what stood out to me as I look back on the year. So one, the first lesson that I’ll highlight is the importance for chambers to be advocates, while also remaining as a sane center in their community. So Though we had an episode 162, Marc Cohen from the Greater Rochester Chamber was on and he talked about the role of chambers and advocacy and policy. And it was a great episode, I would highly recommend people go back and listen to that one. But also Episode 175, we had Bill Connors, on from Boise talking about being the same center at your chamber. So not being too extreme one way or the other, but really listening to what those needs are of your members. And then creating programs around that supporting candidates and policies that would enable strong business in your community. So there’s a lot of good that in those two episodes right there.

The second lesson that I wanted to highlight was the great value that comes out of collaborating and creating partnerships with others. So these may be collaborations or partnerships with other chambers. They may be another organization in your region, maybe a Convention Visitors Bureau, maybe an economic development, maybe your city itself. But what really came to mind is like created the CIO, or came up with this lesson learned. It was from a reflection, as I look back on some of the chamber, the year finalist interviews that I did this year. And a couple of those chambers, partnered with local banks through the COVID pandemic to help get funding to their members. And as we know, funding was extremely important at that time. And that was a very good strategic partnership for those chambers that took advantage of that. So keep your eyes open, keep them peeled for opportunities to create collaborations or partnerships that make sense to benefit your members.

The third lesson from 2022 that I wanted to highlight was actually an episode all in itself. So it was episode 188, with Jordan Clemons from Greater Louisville Inc. And he talked all about LinkedIn, for growing your chamber membership. And he has a great strategy. If you haven’t heard that episode, I would encourage you to listen or at least have your your membership staff listen to it, as he has a whole strategy of how he uses LinkedIn specifically, to put posts out that really highlight your community and drives a lot of engagement. And then he’s able to see who engages with those posts, learn more about them through their LinkedIn profile, and then reach out to them and create a dialogue that’s already a warm conversation because they’ve already interacted with his post. And by utilizing the strategy, he’s exceeded his sales goals year after year, and really done a great job for GLI. So getting that was episode 188. If you’d like to go back and listen to that one again.

The fourth lesson that I wanted to highlight was the importance of leaning into digital to create relevant and personal communication channels, or strategies. And we had a great, great episode with Sara Ray, and Episode 166, where she talked about just this, about creating relevant personalized communications, specifically through email. So when you look at your email response rate, your email engagement, you’re probably not as satisfied as you’d like to be, if you’re like any other chamber, but by creating relevant content. So as you look at what, why did this member join your chamber? What are they expecting? What are their expectations? What are they looking for what needs do they have to support their business. And then if you can customize your communication to these members based on their needs and desires, that will put your engagement through the roof, both on the digital front with email engagements or social posts, but also for having people show up to events that are relevant to them. That way, they’re not just tone, you know, tuning out everything that comes from the chamber because so much of it’s not relevant to them. Now they’re only getting things that are relevant to them so they pay more attention and engage at a much higher level.

The fifth lesson fifth and final lesson that I will highlight from 2022 is really a personal observation as I look at business environments, economy trends, I see a future where chambers Of Commerce can really benefit by embracing cryptocurrency and NFTs. So for those of you who may not be familiar, NFT stands for non fungible token, meaning there can only be one of that token. So think of it as maybe a coin or an image or some kind of a digital asset that has kind of like a stamp on it that says this is a one of one one of a kind token. And with that NFT’s initially kind of rolled out as expensive JPEGs. So, people would put out these digital images of cats or, you know, different cartoon type characters, and they would sell them for ridiculous amounts of money. It made zero sense to me, I can’t understand why anybody got behind that. But as I learned more about it, and heard about people creating NFT projects, they really focused on the community building aspect of NFT projects. And then my ears perked up. And I had somewhat of an aha moment. Right that anytime I hear the word community, I think Chambers of Commerce need to be involved. So when you look at building an NFT project, creating a community around it, how can a chamber of commerce utilize this? So here’s an example. I recently came out with a chamber podcasting guide to teach chambers how to create a podcast. About the same time I was creating that, that course that chamber podcasting course, I was learning more about NFT’s. And I thought, I wish the technology was developed enough that I could release this course as an NFT. So in other words, if I had access, I launched this course and I have 10 tokens, let’s say that are NFT’s non fungible tokens to access this course, then I can sell them to chambers, as a chamber takes a course learns how to podcast, then they don’t need the course anymore, because they know the material that’s in there, they could then turn around and resell that NFT to another chamber, who can then learn to podcast and that first chamber can get, you know, some or all or more of their investment back of what they initially paid. And within that NFT there are smart contracts that are involved. So within the smart contract, I could write in there a commission. So every time that NFT is resold, or every time that course is resold, I could get a 10% commission, let’s say, based on whatever the sale price was. So think about how would that apply to your chamber? Do you have programs? Do you have courses? Do you have tutorials, do you have different resources, that could be packaged as an NFT, that would allow for your members to market your product and services that would allow them to regain maybe their initial investment in that in that token, and continue to promote that to other businesses in your community. So that is a thought that I had had. But as I continue to think of chambers of commerce utilizing NFT’s many of you already have a tiered dues membership platform. So maybe you look at offering membership as NFTs. So if you have a different NFT for each level of your membership, and you have a certain number of NFT’s for each level, as a chamber member maybe levels up to a higher level of membership, they can sell their initial membership to another member and become an advocate for bringing other businesses into the chamber.

If a chamber were to move out of the community, they don’t have to just lose their chamber benefits but they could resell their membership to another business, there could be a whole other resale market. And with that, you can have the smart contract involved where you’re making revenue off of that every time that membership is resold. But my thought with this is you end up having your members become advocates who are out there are ambassadors we can say that are out there really promoting the value they get from the chamber especially as they go to resell their NFTs and level up their membership. So I don’t know that the technology is ready For Chamber’s to jump right into the NFT space, but something to keep in mind is as we look to the future, look to the kids look to the youth who are playing video games. They’re playing games like Minecraft, and Roblox and fortnight, you know, games like that you and I may look at them as games. I don’t play them. I don’t know much about them. My kids play them. And what I do know is that lots of commerce is being done within these meta verses. So dropped a couple of words there. So commerce when I hear commerce, I think Chamber of Commerce, how should a chamber be involved? There’s commerce happening in these digital platforms. And it is these games are levels of Metaverse where they’re buying and selling digital goods, whether it’s a skin or clothes, or a gun, or some sort of a weapon or a horse or whatever these things are they’re buying and selling and trading. Commerce is happening in the digital landscape. How can your chamber be involved? So have that in your mind? Because we hear these promises of the metaverse coming, which would be kind of an all inclusive digital landscape. I I don’t know I have some reservations about a full full blown metaverse. But there are definitely Metaverse landscapes that are out there. So pay attention to those see if there’s any way that makes sense for your chamber to be involved, especially as these youth aged up into the working class, the the the people that are being employed in your communities, what can your chamber do to be involved in that space? So with that, it may come back to NFT’s as NFTs even in these games. There can be NFT’s that are bought and sold that are a hat or some kind of a article of clothing that is an NFT but it can be utilized within the metaverse. So there’s a ton of opportunity here. So I guess moral of the story with this lesson number five of the future of chambers, embracing crypto and NFTs is learn about it. Be ready as the shift comes to your chamber can stay relevant. That is the biggest advice that I can give you right there. But with that, that summarizes the top five lessons that I have to share with you from 2022.

And again, I’m going to plug it if you would like to take a look at being a supporter of Chamber Chat Podcast. That website is chamberchatpodcast.com/support to see the different sponsorship levels that we have available there. So if you could check it out, I’d really appreciate it. Otherwise, we will look forward to see you again next week, and I wish you all a happy and safe New Year.

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

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

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

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

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

Chamber Collaboration with Nancy Hoffman Vanyek

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

Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Nancy Hoffman Vanyek. 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.

Join the Facebook Group

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,

Unknown Speaker 0:16
one of his favorite pieces sports memorabilia. Is this signed Steve Young jersey. 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 0:49
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 1:11
You can learn more about Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions by visiting holmanbros.com.

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

Our guest for this episode is Nancy Hoffman van mix. Nancy is the chief executive of the Greater San Fernando Valley Chamber of Commerce in California. She started as the communications manager at the then called Van Nuys Chamber of Commerce and within six years was named the Chamber’s first female CEO. Nancy is passionate about uniting people government, business and community towards a shared vision. She serves on the city of Los Angeles’s Workforce Development Board and chairs its business services marketing and Resource Development Committee. She was named the San Fernando Valley’s Business Journal CEO of the Year in 2021. On the strength of her actions to help businesses, WACE awarded her as Executive of the Year for our her outstanding performance as an industry leader. In March Assemblywoman Suzette Validez recognized Nancy as a 2022 Woman of the Year for the 38th assembly district. Nancy spearheaded the creation of the San Fernando Valley’s Regional Foundation to advance economic community and educational development. She’s a positive vision for the San Fernando Valley and actively works to find solutions for businesses large and small.

And Nancy, I’m happy to have you with us today on Chamber Chat Podcast, I’d love for you to take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can get to know you a little better.

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 2:48
Well, thanks for having me here. Something interesting about myself. That’s a hard one. I don’t I don’t always find myself as interesting probably as other people do. Well, for 20 years, I was a spinning instructor. So before I would head on over to the chamber office, I would start my day at 530 in the morning with 16 other people and teach them or lead a spin class. I grew up not being athletic at all. So to in my late 30s, became an aerobics instructor was, I think one of my most interesting things.

Brandon Burton 3:21
Wow. So you were teaching the spin class while running the chamber at the same time?

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 3:25
Oh, yeah. And then a lot of times, I got some of those people to join the chamber. Or some of my, my best volunteers like they’re, they become my friends. And when I need help, the some of those same people are the ones that come to all of our events and help us out. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 3:41
that’s great. build those relationships, for sure. Well, tell us a little bit more about the greater San Fernando Valley Chamber just to give us an idea of maybe perspective, size and staff budget, scope of work, that sort of thing.

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 3:57
So we have been around 111 years, and it’s a very big deal for us, because if you don’t know 111 And numerology means good fortune. And we felt that we didn’t get to celebrate our 100 and 10th anniversary because the pandemic so we launched this year call, it’s a grand new year, and we’ve been celebrating all of our past accomplishments and our current account and our future, what we’re looking forward to his future accomplishments. We have a staff of five, our budget is around a million dollars, which I’m going to say probably 40% as is attributed to some very specific job training grants that we have. So most of when people go oh, I can never be like, like greater San Fernando Valley Chamber. If we didn’t have the grants, we would probably just be what most books most chambers are within a budget, you know, probably a $400,000 range. We have only 400 members. People always think we have a lot of members because we’re a Regional Chamber. But we started in 1911. As the Vanna is chamber, we merged in the 80s with another chamber. And because there’s 23 chambers of commerce in the San Fernando Valley, which I’ve just want to really quick for geography, the San Fernando Valley is a suburb in the city of Los Angeles, we have 1.9 million people. If we were our own city, we would be the sixth largest city in the nation. So just put that in perspective. And yeah, we have 400 members, because there’s 23 chambers. And we have a different focus. So our members may not be the same as all the other chambers, we have some overlap, we definitely focus on a regional approach. So we get a lot of corporate offices, and as our members as well, that really come out and support us, and they support our initiatives. You know, we’re trying to shift from that. Let’s have you support this event sponsor this event come to this event to we have a job training initiative, we have a jobs initiative, we have this initiative and see how many people will support us in those those themes as focuses, which really helps us build our relationships with the business community. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 6:05
I like that. And it is a different approach for sure. Being a Regional Chamber versus a, you know, a smaller community type chamber.

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 6:14
We started off as a local chamber. Yeah, our area, communities kept changing their name. And our our businesses would move into these other communities was the valley still the Valley for us, but they would remain a member. And so we needed a name that reflected like, we can’t just be vandalized anymore. Man is being chopped up into three or four different communities. And so becoming regional was a big game changer for us. But it took us several years to really embrace what that was and how we were going to do it. We had a whole plan to get there.

Brandon Burton 6:46
Yeah. So that how long ago did you guys make that change from Van Nuys to the greater San Fernando Valley?

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 6:52
Well, we first went to Mid Valley, when we merged in the 80s, or mid San Fernando Valley, they kept plasmid Valley and that meant we could have been any Valley. Right? You know, it didn’t matter. We could be a valley in Appalachian Valley, for all that matter. And and so we, in 2007, we changed our name to greater San Fernando Valley Chamber. And that’s when we actually launched I think we changed it the year before. But we it was a it was a slow process to really change our internal events, because we didn’t want to scare off our existing members. You know, some of them already freaked out. When we moved our office, we didn’t move because we were coming regional removed because our building burned down. Yes, we couldn’t find another built in we we didn’t have like time we needed an office. So we moved to where we are now. And people in that neighborhood were very upset. And we’re like, well, there’s literally like a hole in the floor. We

Brandon Burton 7:46
didn’t plan for this. Yeah, I want to look

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 7:48
down and see into the into like the hallway or the restroom, because that’s what we were able to do. And so we moved our offices, and we already had to go through that trauma. And so when we became regional, we wanted to do it in a very thought out way, because we didn’t want we didn’t want to have any issues with other chambers, we always work well with them. And we didn’t want them to think we were coming in and we were going to overtake them, we still wanted to work well with them. Because local chambers, even if there’s a reasonable one and have a purpose, we all have a purpose, and how we serve our communities, whether it’s certain certain communities or cities or certain regions. And so we really have thought it out and how we were how each year something else was going to take us to the next level. And probably we went for like five, six years with not doing a lot. And then we brought in a new communications manager. And she saw the really big picture of it and started changing our narrative, changing how we looked at everything, really emphasizing how we need to change some of our events or bring in different events. And I think when we did that everything kind of just naturally shifted for us.

Brandon Burton 8:57
Yeah. So I think this is kind of naturally taking us to our topic for our discussion today. Being a Regional Chamber collaborating with other local chambers and just other chambers in the region becomes important. So our topic for discussion today is Ram chamber collaboration. And we’ll jump into our conversation as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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

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

Izzy West 10:32
Hey, it’s Izzy, publisher of the Chamber Pros Planner a weekly monthly planner that you can get on Amazon or Etsy I wanted to give a shout out to Diane Sawyer of the Reedsville Chamber who emailed me saying “I am loving this stuff! My admin assistant bought me the planner for Christmas before I could purchase it for myself.” The responses and feedback I get from my fellow Chamber Pros are a big deal to me and in fact the updates I make each year if you’d like physical planners, please check out the Chamber Pros Planner at TheIzzyWest.com. That’s TheIzzyWest.com.

Brandon Burton 11:04

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

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

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

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

Visit ChamberNation.com to learn more.

All right, Nancy, we’re back. Tell us how are you going about collaborating with other chambers and in your region to to create a stronger San Fernando Valley?

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 12:16
Well, I don’t think I’m just a regional collaborator. I’m definitely a national collaborator,

Brandon Burton 12:21
scaling it up.

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 12:23
So you know, I’m a longtime chamber exec 35 years, and I’ve always had collaboration envy. I’ve always seen like, some of these chambers come up with a project or a plan and do something. And I was always that person on the sidelines, I was never the leader in that collaboration, I kind of feel when it comes to collaboration, you have like, if you take the chamber three Cs, you could have put it this way, you have the person who is the champion, and they’re like they’re sitting at the table, and they have a voice. And then you have the catalyst and they take an active role in the collaboration. And I think I’ve moved up to being that active role probably 10 years when we changed our name to more active role. But you could be the convener of their three C’s and you could be the one who brings everyone to the table and that’s a big shift especially if you’re working with other chambers or other organizations, Business Development economic development agencies because most chamber execs are pretty strong personalities and we all want to be the leader so to be able to come to the table and be a convener and have other people who are normally conveners to move the needle takes a lot of patience internally tail so so how did I come about it? I looked at those three C’s and where I was with my collaboration and B I was always just a seat at the table I look at so there you know we have 23 chambers of La like I said we collaborate on some things especially through like I think a lot of communities have like a United Artists United chambers you know some of them have a Regional Chamber group. But might be collaboration came from other chambers that were like minded with us and our Eric’s had mentioned we’re in Los Angeles was like Hollywood, Culver City, people who were were very active in advocacy, economic development and workforce development issues that weren’t just networking and just the basic of the chamber. And so I’m gonna say that I used to just ride on their coattails. I was the youngest of our group, and I was the kid that everyone took care of, and then they all retired and left me in charge. And I was like floundering for a while and I wasn’t a collaborator, I was really just trying to keep myself afloat without anyone to lean on. You know, and I have not that, again, 35 years in industry, there’s a lot of people lean on, but not within Los Angeles for me, and that’s my hub. So, you know, over the years, I just, you know, it was kind of fiddling and everything around trying to figure it all out and doing things collaboratively with a bunch of different local groups and Then I’m gonna say 2016, I had a big shift. And I was, it was a shift entirely for me in our organization, where I think I finally understood, like, you could say, your mission based, but making the mission the priority and doing the best you can for your members becomes more important than your personality, your ego, and anything else that is you want and all of a sudden great things happen. So for me, it happened with breweries. I am the craft beer advocate of Los Angeles, okay. And we, in our area, like I mentioned, were part of Los Angeles, but the San Fernando Valley had four craft breweries, and as part of Los Angeles, it was a new industry and La didn’t know how to treat it. And what I mean is a brewery was brewery, so they were paying the same fees, licenses and taxes, as Anheuser Busch

Brandon Burton 15:53
doesn’t really work. Well, that way doesn’t work

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 15:55
well. So like, they didn’t do an inspection fee, and the city would show up. And then Anheuser Busch, you get in a golf car, and you drive across eight acres, and they look around. They were charging this brewery where you literally could stand on a stepladder, craning your neck look around the same inspection fee. And so the breweries came to me, and they said, Hey, we got a problem. We can’t afford this, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I called a bunch of land use planners who normally would help people. And it was a new industry, no one really knew where to start. And they just said, talk to this person, talk to that person. So I brought everyone to the table. And I said, I was just angry, I was angry on their behalf. There’s small family owned businesses, you know, their cousins, or husbands and wives. You know, sometimes I called one of them as a bunch of like college roommates, you know, that started it. And I just felt for them because they could not afford a land use planner. But Nancy’s not a land use planner, but Nancy’s gonna figure it out. And I got them off the table. And I was very lucky that someone completely understood the big picture. God is in front of the right person at the city’s economic development agency. And I know that sounds crazy, but it took a year but years very fast in Los Angeles, to literally get all the specs where they could now, we got four tasting rooms open within like, you know, they always were scheduled like within a very quick period of time, we got the fees reduced by over 50%, we got a qmD, which is the Air Quality Management District to waive all the fees for all their equipment, which was over $3,000. And I realized, and the big change for me on that on collaborating was unknown known to a lot of these people as a hothead. And I couldn’t be a hothead. I had to learn to just take a step back and say, here’s the problem. This is the solution I need. And once I did that all these people came to me and wanted to help. And they weren’t other chambers necessarily. They were just other people that could affect the change. And I just, it just was my game changer on how collaboration can work.

Brandon Burton 17:50
Yeah. So amazing. So what do you think it was early on in your career that made you feel like you couldn’t be that convener, the one to gather everyone together? Was it kind of an imposter syndrome or like you didn’t have that credential or how to yourself early on like that.

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 18:10
I started off being the communications manager, and then our program manager and I had a boss, longtime chamber exec as well. So he was really that convener, but I realized that was a better convener than that I’m definitely good at bringing people together. But I think a lot of it was imposter syndrome. I never felt as felt as secure as I imagined other people, and I can name them all and tell you who they are. And I always felt like I was kind of watching them but not doing. And if I did a program, and we have many awards and accolades, I never really felt like, did I really do that? Or did I copy that. And then I the brewery thing was just a whole shift in our whole organization where we thought we can do anything to help our business community. And when that all right, Lisa chambers say these things for years, but we don’t, and we do them sometimes with other people. But not everyone just steps up and takes up the mantle on behalf of an industry or an organization because we think it’s going to be too tough, right. And sometimes you just have to be fearless. And you just have to take that risk. And people are free to take that risk with their legislators because they don’t want to ruin that relationship. But you have to they have to you have to find the right ones who are going to be your champion as well. And we got very lucky because two of them joined us and then everyone else and we’ve had all of our city council members love craft beer. So that that was my big catalyst though, for when the pandemic started. And I started a nationwide coalition with my friend Patrick Ellis at the Marietta chamber to help businesses find economic recovery during the pandemic. And it was all those lessons from that brewery episode that helped me you know, do you’re just starting to save small business Coalition, which isn’t all my class braided efforts, but it was when I realized that you could put those there were so many components when I pulled together, people not that they were my friends, people I admired that I met at conferences that I knew were doers. They were respected, and they had. They were critical thinkers. And they were also action oriented. And so we formed a leadership committee. And we got together. And then from there, we all reached out. And before you knew it, we thought we had like 39 chambers, and we had 200 chambers across the nation. And I think the biggest thing part of it was we were having chambers join us that had never done advocacy before. Their chamber might talk about advocacy, they might do something, they have relationships with elected officials, but truly do advocacy, mobilizing their members or their business community to have a voice. And we create a toolkits for them, we made it easy for a chamber had never done advocacy, we literally handed everything to them with like a timeline, everything written out instructions, they could do all of it, they could do one piece of it. And we were able to mobilize these 200 chambers we on one of our letter writing campaigns, which was using one of those systems that everyone goes into a computer system, we were able in one day to mobilize 8000 advocates and advocates means people who write a letter so from all those 200 people, that was just the first day 8000 people across the nation right to Congress.

Brandon Burton 21:19
Yeah. So from these experiences from those craft breweries to help with the economic recovery, have you kind of formulated a a template of sorts for bringing people together to collaborate? What does that look like?

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 21:35
I’m not i For me, I think it’s really not having to have made the lead. You know, I’m like, I know that sounds crazy. We all want to be that leader and say, Oh, greater San Fernando Valley Chamber or whatever greater, I don’t know, degree chamber or whatever you want to call it. Like recently, recently, we received a grant for paid to give micro grants to small businesses. And I knew I could do it better. All the chambers have been promoting grants the whole time during the pandemic, right help businesses, and this is still recovery grant. And we received half a million dollars. But I knew I couldn’t do it alone. And every chamber has members that this grant could have helped. And so I reached out, I sent a big email to a lot of people I knew from small business coalition people I’ve just known from 35 years, all in California, and said, Hey, this is another grant, we’re not going to put our name on it, we’re just going to call it what it is. You can promote it as your branch if you want, however you want to do it. And everyone just joined in, because I think when you realize that you don’t have to be you might be the leader, but you don’t have to wear that crown the whole time that everyone can share the crown, you get a lot further, you have people who want to work with you, you want to work with them. I think I think it made me a nicer person. I know that sounds like so crazy. But I think, you know, I spent a lot of time on trying to prove to who I was versus trying to prove and what I could do for the business community.

Brandon Burton 22:59
Right. But I think it’s easier to get other in this instance, other chambers on board to help push it and promote it because they can look like a hero to to their members. And it’s not, you know, here’s a tool from the greater San Fernando Valley Chamber that we’re going to, you know, jump on top of, but it’s a, it’s positioned in a way that they’re there to help the business. And it’s not about where the credit goes. It’s just we’re here to help.

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 23:25
And we promoted all the partners on it, you know, because we want them to get credit as well. But we want them just to we give them a gave them a sample news, release your name in here, you know, and, and then we made the website that it wasn’t one organization, but there’s a partners page. So everyone has a piece of the pie. Yeah. And now we’re actually coming to it because of them with this is a two year grant is supposed to take 24 months to give us money. Through all these chambers. We gave out all the money and under 120 days. Oh, wow. It’s crazy. So I mean, this shows you the strength of what chambers can do when they get together.

Brandon Burton 24:02
Yeah, absolutely. So that how many chambers all together joined together for the

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 24:08
there’s now 29. And they’re all across the state of California. And you know, it’s interesting I reached out to I didn’t chase it down because I didn’t have time I needed to get it together. And I got 20 right away. If people didn’t respond to me, they didn’t need to respond. Because all I’m asking us to do promotion, we just gave them templates to an idea. So you can do it on social media, you can send news release, you can announce it at events, we didn’t care how it was done, right? Through everyone doing it. Different media picked it up, because everyone has a different source right? Before you know it. All these HR organizations picked it up and all these HR attorneys picked it up. And so it means so even though maybe we didn’t get a lot maybe our individual chambers didn’t have a lot of applicants. Our efforts had people who had a lot of influence pick it up that helped us give away all this money.

Brandon Burton 24:57
Yeah, all those different organizations have their different toolkits that they can leverage and apply it. And that’s great, really gaining momentum quickly.

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 25:06
I think you have to bring in people you trust, if you’re going to do that chip. I mean, if you’re like, there’s, I mean, not that everyone could collaborate, but you also have to know everyone’s strengths. These people are good at this, these people are good at this. And so at the basic level, like when we did save small business, everyone had different jobs to do whether it was locally in their state, or in their community. And then with this one, it was chambers that we knew that would actually spread the word that weren’t that have someone on staff cry that was doing the newsletter, or someone who’s doing social media, because if we didn’t get the word, if they weren’t, if they were just going to put their logo on our on our thing that wasn’t going to help us

Brandon Burton 25:39
need to have buy in. Yeah, that’s good. So I’d like to ask everyone that we have on the show, for any maybe tips or action items, to help other chambers that are listening, how to take them up to the next level? What might you suggest to help some of these other chambers that are listening?

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 26:02
Well, you know, I think there’s a few things, like I already mentioned, like be a risk taker, you know, be a little bit fearless. But I think that everyone needs to remember to be mission focused. And I’m going to just refer to a chamber I was talking to yesterday who had a committee, you know, we all have that that committee who says this grant was a that was great, let’s do 12 more times. We don’t have the bandwidth, the money or they’re not thinking about how you’re not going to get all the sponsors 12 times for the same amount of money, you’re gonna saturate yourself. And I said, are these other events the same? Or do they do they go back to your mission, because you know, how you could always manage everything as being mission based, you know, you have a mission, like our mission is to promote the economic vitality, you know, of our community. And if it doesn’t go to that, we’re not going to do it. And so it helps us one, filter out the things that that we don’t have, that we don’t have time for, and but it also keeps us on focus. And if you stay to your mission, and always act in the best interest of your members, you’re going to be a champion for your business. So I’d say that’s a big one. And then I think advocacy chambers are very afraid to get into advocacy, and they look at the big chambers to do it for them. But chambers can do it at a very small level too. And that goes to back to being not afraid. And then that small level, I’m going to use my concierge service with the breweries, maybe you don’t want to go fight a bill ello, I want to encourage everyone to to fight bills and to advocate for bills that help their business community. But if a business comes to you, and they have a problem, you don’t always have to refer them out. Right, you can act as their liaison and their concierge. And then you become the expert. And then other other businesses come to you other organizations come to you. And it’s such a wonderful feeling to actually see the success that you’ve helped those, that industry or that business, even if it’s something as simple as they need a permit, we had someone during the pandemic that they couldn’t get the city to sign off on something just because everyone was working from home. So they have been able to call someone and say, hey, the SBA is not going to give them their loan, if this isn’t signed off, like the next four days, and get that done. Get to know the right people. When I started in the business, I would have to institute and this is back when you had paper, you didn’t have a computer. That was guys to make a list. If you’re gonna do economics, all the key key offices are key players. So if someone needs a business permit, and all these different things know who they are, and I kind of operate with that, like I need to know who everyone is and what what role they play, so I know who to call. Yeah. So that’s how you could advocate at the most basic level.

Brandon Burton 28:39
And I think along those lines of advocacy, using the brewery example, as a, as you have some of these craft breweries come to you, you may see an opportunity for another business industry that could benefit from advocating for these breweries because they have some kind of tie in to whatever that that, you know, piece of advocacy is you’re going after, and then even get more on board.

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 29:05
People come to us all the time because they saw what we did with that and I have a beer named after me because a bit so plaque you got his plaques, all these words you heard like when you introduce me, you know really, I rather the beer has ever given me an award. I don’t want to say like I’m not grateful. But the people can walk into this brewery and it has the name of the baristas, Nancy’s beer. And then there’s our story of getting the the taproom event is really special.

Brandon Burton 29:31
So I will say you need to add that to your bio. So next time we can talk about Nancy’s. That’s great. Well, as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future chambers of commerce and their purpose going forward?

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 29:46
You know, I think we really learned a lot in the pandemic about what we can do, like, you know, we were closed and we were closed down in some ways, right? You didn’t do your events, all those things that we rely on, I know our CPAs to say, Oh, well we shouldn’t do this because that could go away tomorrow. Well, by the way All our events went away. And the one thing that was holding us up was this thing he told us, I shouldn’t be doing training, because Job Training still existed, you know, for certain, like manufacturing and different industries that we were doing. So got what I really think chambers need to dive more into workforce development, or economic development, or Business Retention and Expansion, which those two things kind of fall under, well, first of all meant economic development. And I really have a lot of envy for those organizations, too. I mean, I’m pretty competitive. And so like, when I have a friend that’s doing something in a different community, I’m in a different state, I want to know how they’re doing it and chambers are great, we all will share will pretty much give it to you in writing, look at your entire package of whatever it is we’re doing if you just fill in the blanks. And so how I got all these other things I’ve been doing is because there was one person I was kind of following, you know, like, follow the leader, and how do I do that in my area, because they were doing it further down in Southern California. And I think all chambers, once you do that, and you understand how it relates to your mission and how it relates to your members, it totally changes your chamber, you still do your network breakfast, but when you’re when you’re talking to them, and they hear you’re doing the job training, or you’re doing this advocacy on their behalf or, or doing concierge red tape busting. It really helps your business community move further ahead,

Brandon Burton 31:24
right. And that’s the whole purpose of this podcast is to share some of those best practices and, you know, shine some light on some of those things, and then reach out and connect with these people that are on the podcast and learn more about how they’re doing these things. So, Nancy, along those lines, what would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect with you if they want to learn more about how you’re doing things there in your area?

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 31:47
Well, my email is very long. So let’s start with my phone number. How’s that? Okay, you can reach me at 818-902-9455. That’s my direct line, my office, my email,

Brandon Burton 32:00
and I’ll get these both in our show notes. So you don’t necessarily need to spell the whole email out. You can say what it is and then we’ll we’ll have it in the show notes.

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 32:08
It’s nancy@sanfernandovalleychamber.com. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 32:15
you got a good URL, but it’s nice in like

Nancy Hoffman Vanyek 32:19
a shorter URL. It’s just not linked to our email. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 32:23
yeah. No, that’s great. So I’ll get those in our show notes. Anyone listening, you know, while they’re out walking the dog or driving in the car can can go on and look it up there. But, Nancy, this has been great having you on the show. Thank you for carving out some time to spend with us. Talk about the things you’re doing way easier. You’re building those collaboration efforts. I think this is terrific. So thanks a lot.

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

Success happens over time not overnight. It’s why fortune 500 companies and other forward thinking businesses are shifting to a more continuous learning format to coach and support their salespeople. Holman Brothers Next Level Coaching brings the same ongoing improvement opportunity to chamber membership salespeople visit holmanbros.com/nextlevel to learn more and request a free trial of Next Level Coaching for your membership pro. 

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

Looking 25 Years into the Future with Bryan Derreberry

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

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.

Join the Facebook Group

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.

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 0:45
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 1:02
You can learn more about Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions by visiting holmanbros.com.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Visit ChamberNation.com to learn more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Presenting Employment Opportunities to the Classroom with Bret Schanzenbach

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

Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Bret Schanzenbach. 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.

Join the Facebook Group

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 worked for staples. Well in high school, 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.

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

Kris Johnson  

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

Brandon Burton  2:03  

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

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

Guest Introduction

You’re joining us today for episode 191 of Chamber Chat Podcast. We are getting up there in the episode numbers. But for this episode, we have Brett Johnson back with us and Brett is he’s served as the president and CEO of the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce in California since January 2019. Brett is a native Californian and resident of San Diego’s North County since 1971. He came to the Carlsbad position from the VISTA Chamber of Commerce where he served as CEO for nine years is corporate background before the chamber was in residential real estate and the software industry. In 1992. He helped start the technical difference Inc, a human resource software company. before venturing into the corporate world. Brett spent seven years as a youth minister, Brett graduated from the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Steubenville, Ohio, earning a BA in psychology and a BA in theology. He earned his master’s in theological studies from the University of Dallas in 2001. He and his wife Jolene reside in Vista, California, and they’ve been blessed with six children and two grandchildren so far. Brett, I’m looking forward to having you with me on the podcast today. And and I want to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you a little better.

Bret Schanzenbach 3:07
Morning, Brandon, thank you so much for having me as a guest today. I’m excited to be here and have conversation. Something interesting. I mean, you read my bio, so that stole most of the stuff that’s actually interesting about me, I guess I would say one thing that’s interesting is, you know, like a lot of people like backed into the chamber career, I don’t know if anybody truly like goes to college and thinks, oh, I want to be a chamber executive when I grow up, you know, so, and the way I backed into my chamber career was through the real estate industry, I did real estate for eight years and found out that I hated it. And, you know, as you mentioned, my wife and I have six kids and you know, real estate, you have to obviously work on your client’s terms. And so they usually are available on nights, weekends, holidays, you know, things like that. And after a while, I just really did not enjoy that industry. And, but that’s the industry that got me super engaged with my local chamber. When I was a realtor, I had joined my chamber, joined a committee got invited to the board of directors and because of all that, you know, it’s how I got really familiar with the impact chambers could have in a in a community. And when the guy who was the executive of my local board there that I was part of, he decided to move back to the Midwest with his wife. You know, I’m like, Oh, this is great opportunity to get out of this because I’m so done with real estate and I didn’t really know exactly what I was getting into but you know, I so but I backed in. I had I remember having a conversation with him one day when we were talking about him leaving and me possibly applying for the job. And I said Um, I don’t actually know what you do on a day to day basis. What do you

Brandon Burton 5:07
board member? Yeah, what you do?

Bret Schanzenbach 5:10
So, but I threw my hat in the ring. And now I’ve been in the industry for 14 and a half years, I think it is or, or I’m in my 14th year, however that works and love it.

Brandon Burton 5:24
As I say, hopefully it’s going better for you than real estate. So yeah, I really do love it. And maybe that needs to be the question I ask people is how did you find your way into the chamber world? Because everybody has a unique story about how they are? Yeah,

Bret Schanzenbach 5:38
that is so true. You know, one of my neighboring chamber execs. He is one of those guys that came right out of college and got a job at his local chamber and moved his way up and all that jazz. But that is so rare. It’s mostly people who have come from all kinds of different. You do find a lot of people who served at a chamber before they became an exec. But the stories are so different.

Brandon Burton 6:02
Right? Yeah, I always find it fascinating. So thank you for sharing your journey. Absolutely. So tell us a little bit about the Carlsbad chamber just to give us an idea of size staff budget, kind of scope of work to give us an idea of what you guys do there.

Bret Schanzenbach 6:20
Sure. So we are located as you mentioned, in North San Diego County. We’re about 3530 35 miles from the city of San Diego itself. And we our community itself, is about 115,000 people in in our suburb here. But for our part of San Diego County, we’re kind of the economic hub. We have a robust tourism industry, but we also have robust industry in general, which is a nice combination, and at least in San Diego County is pretty rare besides the city of San Diego. We are we’re the number two generator and tourism dollars in our county behind the city of San Diego itself. And and I think we have the third largest industrial park in San Diego County. So both we have this great mix of both, you know, like biotech and high tech and that kind of stuff. And then the tourism side. So that’s great. Our chamber itself, we have right around 1000 members, little over 1000 members. San Diego County has 43 chambers of commerce, and we’re the second largest with the city of San Diego, the Regional Chamber in San Diego being the largest. So we’re the second largest chamber in the county, we have about a $1.3 million budget staff of nine. We do not our community has we have separate visitor Bureau, we have a separate Downtown Association. Our city has its own economic development department. So we don’t have any of those other add ons that some chambers do. But we obviously we work very closely with all of those entities matter of fact, we meet regularly have a great rapport with them. But but we don’t fulfill those, you know, those specific roles, like getting funding to be say a visitor center or a manage the downtown or any of those things. So So yeah, that’s a little bit about us. I have a very large board of directors. That was kind of the biggest, one of the biggest changes coming from my previous chamber where we we had what I thought was a big board at the time, like of 17. And, you know, I have 35 voting members and, you know, for other like, advisory members and then other emeritus members, we have a large board here.

Brandon Burton 8:56
Yeah, they work for a lot of people. That definitely helps paint the picture for sure kind of where you guys sit and the type of work I’m involved with.

Bret Schanzenbach 9:06
I do work for a lot of people. It’s very true.

Brandon Burton 9:11
Well, I’m excited to get into our topic for our discussion. Today we’re we’re going to be focusing our discussion around presenting employment opportunities to youth in the classroom. And we’ll dive more into this discussion as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Visit ChamberNation.com to learn more.

All right, Bret, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re talking about presenting employment opportunities to the classroom today. I know our our scheduling of recording this is being worked around both you and I both volunteering at at church youth camps and so forth. So I know for me, and I may be speaking for you as well, that the rising generation is important to me. And and I think for chambers in general to look at that future employment pipeline and creating a vibrant economy in your community. So I’m excited to have you tell us what the Carlsbad chamber has been doing to introduce these these students, these youth to what a future can look like in your community through the various employment opportunities.

Topic-Presenting Employment Opportunities to the Classroom

Bret Schanzenbach 13:05
Yeah, thank you for that lead in it is a very important topic for all chambers. And I feel like as we go to our conferences, and you know, you attend webinars, and you see this topic comes up more and more and more, because it’s a it’s not just a local issue. It’s a nationwide issue. And if I could, before I explain what we’re currently at, I want to paint a little bit of a picture of what we used to do. That led up to our current initiative and our chamber, like probably many others who are listening in, we’re very engaged at one point or another in trying to bring together the world of work and the classroom, you know, to bring those together as you as you alluded to, and what we had been doing before, we had this program called talent, cities, and we brought eighth graders out on field trips to actual businesses, like different manufacturing type businesses, et cetera, et cetera. And instead of just doing like a tour of the business, we specifically crafted a tour where they would stop strategically at different places at the company that they were visiting, and they would get a little interview with somebody. So a couple of those stops would be like, on a shop floor, for instance. And then a couple of stops would be more like in research and development and marketing and sales, things like that. So there’s always this mix, kind of a, the blue collar, the white collar type things, but we at each stop, they would hear from a staff member and employee who would talk about who they were, what they did, what they liked about it, what was challenging about it, and how they got to this point in their career. And our goal with that bringing those kids out on site was to just broaden their perspective. Have a little bit because what mostly we found is that most students know what their mom and their dad do if they have both parents. And sometimes they don’t even know what their parents do. Because sometimes what their parents do, they just, they just have no way of actually knowing what they do. But beyond that, they just know the big hero jobs like teacher, firefighter, policeman, military, you know, stuff like that. So our goal was to try to broaden their perspectives just a little on what kinds of jobs and career opportunities could be available to them. And when we started that program that we called Talent cities, it was we felt that was successful, like we would actually pull the kids before they would go through with this kind of a tour, field trip, etc. And then we would survey them again, after and we got some great comments, like one that really stuck out in my mind, one of the kids said, you know, I never thought I could use my love of art in, you know, a work setting or a job or a career or whatever. So things like that. That was exactly what we were hoping to do is help them to see a little bit bigger than they had had a chance to up to that point in their life. But we ran into challenges. So that program, when I was at the VISTA chamber, we ran 1,000/8 graders through in like an 18 month period of time. And at least out here in Southern California field trips are challenging for school districts, and all those logistics that they have to go through to make a field trip happen are not simple. And then secondly, I found that I was constantly going back to the same four or five different companies saying, Hey, I got another group of 38th graders or 20, you know, whatever, for you guys to host. And so, you know, it becomes challenging for businesses to interrupt their flow to do that on a regular basis. So all that being said, That was that was the precursor, when COVID hit, obviously, the whole world pivoted towards virtual learning, virtual interaction, et cetera, et cetera. And at the same time, our local hospital out here was working on some initiatives to help their career readiness workforce pipeline get developed. And so they were interested in, in creating some videos to help broaden people’s awareness of career opportunities within healthcare. Most people when they think of healthcare, all they think of as a nurse and a doctor. And obviously, when you have a big hospital, there’s usually something like, I think our hospital has, like 2200 employees. So there’s all kinds of careers, that all the way from marketing, you know, down to techs and an

Brandon Burton 18:00
average janitors, you know, everything Yeah,

Bret Schanzenbach 18:03
you got it, you got it. So there’s, there’s so much diversity within just a company like that. So they approached us and and so what we ended up putting together and one of the things I love about this is, this was a collaboration with three different chambers of commerce here in my area. So we the Carlsbad chamber, our two neighbors directly nearest the Oceanside chamber and the VISTA chamber, the hospital that I just mentioned, and then our regional EDC edge, our Regional Economic Development Council for our area, the five of us together collaborated on this project. And we went out to our local county representative and said, Hey, we have this idea. And so luckily, he bought into the idea that I’m going to share and funded it because this stuff doesn’t happen without some money behind it. But we created a web portal. And it’s called SoCal. And that’s an acronym that I always forget, but it stands for student opportunities for career awareness and learning. SoCal, and the website is called SoCal workforce.org, SoCal workforce.org. And so we created this web portal. And what we did as we were starting to conceive it, and one of the pieces that was really important to us as we wanted to do this in conjunction with our schools, we didn’t, we didn’t want to do this in some silo by ourselves and just do what we thought made sense. So we worked with the three school districts in the three communities that I just mentioned, Carlsbad, Oceanside and VISTA. And we said, hey, here’s this idea we have, we want to make this evergreen portal of jobs and careers, a video library, if you will, that you can use in the cloud. last room to expose students to the real world of work. And they love the idea, we met with them like two or three times during the process of developing it. And, and when we unveiled it in January of this year 2022, they were ecstatic. And so what the web portal has, when you go there, and it’s open to anybody, so it could be like a teacher who’s navigating this or an individual student, or like, anybody who’s in a, looking to change directions in life, right? Anybody can use this, this website, but you can look up job or career opportunities, three different ways, by industry, by company name, or by a job itself. So like industry, you could look and say, oh, what kinds of things exist in my area in healthcare and tech, in, you know, in public safety, or whatever the case might be? Or, Hey, I’ve heard of, in our area that, you know, there’s some big name companies like ViaSat, or Nordson, or, you know, whatever the company is, I’ve heard of that company, what jobs might be, what careers do they even have, I don’t even know what they do. Or you could just go the path of, you know, like, I want to know more about being an engineer or want to know more about being a this or that. So whatever way you navigate, you eventually get down to these three minute videos. And what we did is we shot all the videos on location. At the site where the worker works, we wanted it really, in their workspace in their flow, like all the B roll, we didn’t use any third party just B roll that you can just purchase, you know, anywhere, everything is shot at the actual site where these people work. And we interview these these various workers. And it’s the same kind of interview that I mentioned earlier, who they are, what they do, what do they like about it? What’s challenging about it?

How do they get to this point in their career, if they were adding a staff member to their team, what would they be looking for. And so in these three minute videos, you get a really good snapshot of a real life, you know, place of work, job, career, etc. And, on our portal, another piece that I really like, because we were trying to think of it from the student perspective is, when you get down to the actual job, before you watch the video, there’s a description there, hey, here’s a little bit about the job. Here’s what the average person in San Diego County makes, who, who performs this job, here’s the job outlook for the next five to 10 years for that profession, in our area. And then if, you know, educational resources are like if you need a degree or a certificate or something to do that job, here’s a couple of links of local institutions who offer those certificates or degrees, etc. And so then with all that background, and they can watch the three minute you know, video and and get to know, that particular job, career, etc. And school districts, when we rolled it out in January, we’re over the moon, they love it. Now, it’s not that a school district can’t like if they wanted to bring, oh, let’s let’s look at a day in the life of the engineer. They can they have resources, they can find that that’s out there. But what our school districts really loved about this project was that it’s so localized. So these are companies that they’re, the students may have heard of, these are places that they’ve driven by, I mean, these are right here in their backyard. And it just the teachers were so excited about making it tangible to their students.

Brandon Burton 24:02
So I’m gonna circle back towards some of the beginning of your comments, and you mentioned that students often will only know what their parents have done it Yeah, just funny. When I was in third grade, I drew some attention from the school when I told them that my dad sold drugs because a pharmaceutical sales rep but I would hear him come home talking about the new drug that he’s marketing. So you know, naturally when we talk about what is your dad do for a living my dad sold drugs so that prompted a parent teacher conference and Oh, no that so that was interesting. But so with these, this web portal and video library I love this idea that I love being able to have the different angles being able to filter by industry company and job type. Are you primarily focusing on the bigger companies because they have so many different levels, different types of positions? Or do you have some of the smaller entrepreneurs even that are highlighting what a day in the life of their work is? Like?

Bret Schanzenbach 25:11
Yeah, good question. Um, it is it is intended to be a mix of both. But initially, it was, when we were at the conception phase and trying to get it off the ground, it was a little bit easier to go to some of the bigger companies who have a diversity of roles already, and say, hey, you know, we want to shoot three different, you know, jobs through different roles at your company. But, but we have both some, so we have some large companies, but we also have some, I would say, medium sized companies. And, and when we launched in January, our goal was to get, I think our goal was to have 60 videos on the portal at launch. And we ended up we met that goal. And currently there’s, there’s 80, I’m trying to think through the numbers. Yeah, currently, there’s 80. And our goal by the end of this calendar year is to get to 100. And then obviously, continue to grow it but but yeah, the so we’re trying to diverse, like to your point, we’re trying to diversify as we grow, and get a more industries be more diversity of size of companies and things. The county supervisor who really bought into this initially, he wanted us to have a healthy mix of things that did not require going to get a four year degree. Sure. And as you probably know, there’s, you know, obviously, there’s the big push in the schools for STEM, and, you know, that kind of stuff. So we wanted to have, obviously, that kind of stuff, too. So we worked really hard. So there’s like some, there’s some construction jobs, you know, what I mean, there’s welders and you know, that kind of stuff in the midst of off. So there’s engineers and you know, etc. So we’re worked hard to try to have that kind of diversity in there.

Brandon Burton 27:07
Yeah. And I can see this library just growing over time with expanding the different companies. But there’s always going to be the need for an accountant and a lawyer and a doctor in some of those staples. But then you see new careers popping up to you know, from I’m thinking when the smartphones came out, and you had app developers, and that wasn’t like you had software designers, but now specifically apps and now. So we see technology shifting with, you know, the metaverse and things like that. And, you know, what is the career going to look like 10 years from now, it might look very different. But exposing these students to those opportunities might help them avoid, you know, eight years in the real estate industry if they don’t like that, right.

Bret Schanzenbach 27:53
Yeah, no, you’re but you’re you’re spot on it. I mean, there’s people who have careers right now that five years ago, those things didn’t even exist. So you know, so theoretically, somebody entering college today, you know, might end up in a career a few years from now, that doesn’t even exist as they start college at least. And Title and name like you, like an app developer. At one point, there was no such thing, right? Or what exactly is an influencer again, but making a lot of money at it. I don’t know what that means. You know, so that is a challenge to, but the other thing that we’re doing is one of the challenges we had when, you know, when I was sharing that example, at my previous chamber, where we were working hard to bring the, the classroom world into the real world of work. We were doing it within our given community, you know, I was the VISTA chamber, and these were Vista businesses, and this was the Vista school district and, but at least in our area, and I know, every region could be, you know, have some differences here. But in our area where we are a suburban, you know, area, it doesn’t make sense to do it. siloed but community by community, which is why this regional approach we felt made a lot more sense. Like, I live in community a I work in community b I go to school and community see my churches in community D. I mean, that’s, that’s actually true for me what I just said, you know, so it was really important for us to take a broader perspective, here in Carlsbad. There. 80,000 people come to work every day, but only 20,000 of those actually live in Carlsbad. So that’s a lot of people coming to work from neighboring communities. And so we had that mindset. So now what where we’re at is, since we launched in January, we’ve now added three more communities to our portfolio, San Marcos Escondido Encinitas have all joined us and their school districts as well. So we’re growing it growing the footprint of it geographically. And then as you already were talking about the companies, the jobs, the those kind of operates, the industries are growing as well. And so we eventually see it hopefully being county wide, but that’s going to take a little while, but county wide, and, you know, just continuing to expand the diversity of opportunities to,

Brandon Burton 30:27
I think it goes to show, maybe the definition of community is changing to some degree, you know, between online communities got your physical communities, you’ve got cities that were established before transportation was as robust as it is now, and, and the world just keeps getting smaller and smaller. So as we silo and say, We are the Carlsbad community, you’re really discounting a lot of opportunity from the neighboring areas that, you know, your residents or employers employees are interacting in those cities anyway. So maybe just kind of a reset on what community actually means.

Bret Schanzenbach 31:02
Yeah, I think that’s a good point. You know, we’re, we’re very fluid in this area, and I believe, probably in a lot of areas, and as you pointed out, transportation being, you know, robust, but this, this portal has been, you know, a great collaboration, and I think, in our industry, you know, that’s really important, you know, in the chamber industry to collaborate together, look for me, you know, how can we create win wins, you know, and it, it’s a, it’s been a really great thing for us to collectively work together on and create value for all of our memberships in this in this region. And our, you know, our bigger members who have a tendency to be members of multiple chambers, they love seeing this to, you know, they love seeing our chambers all work together on on big, more enterprise level projects. So, so that’s been a positive, I think our biggest challenge, you know, as we, we initially got that grant, which was super helpful, but, you know, to grow it, there has to be funding so, videography, high quality videography, and editing doesn’t come free. And, and we have done it at a very high level. So we’re at the point where, okay, we’re looking for some more grants and streams of funding. But we’re also going straight to the companies and say, Hey, if you want your company, you know, featured here, we have a path for that. So we’ve created corporate pricing for those that want to be added. It was interesting when we launched some industries that we hadn’t really thought of jumped up and said, Oh, we want to be featured. And so you know, a municipality, their, their water division, they’re like, We need to promote career opportunities in this field. You know, people don’t think about this. And so they jumped on board and sponsored, you know, right away and got some video shot at, at their, whatever water division at their municipality. So there’s, you know, there’s different pockets that we hadn’t really anticipated. And right now I’m working. You know, I mentioned at the outset that we have a strong tourism in Carlsbad. But at the moment, there is no tourism or hospitality listed on our portal at all. So I’m currently in dialogue with them, they they’re really hurting for workforce right now, after the pandemic, it’s been a challenge getting getting staffed back up to the levels, both at restaurants and hotels, and but we just hosted a panel discussion on tourism about two weeks ago, and they were all talking about how they need to, you know, promote careers within tourism. So, so we had a discussion this week about how they could get into our portal. So we’re putting a proposal together for them to to get some video shot at their place. So, you know, I love that, that we have this tool to be able to help serve those who have that need right now.

Brandon Burton 34:05
Yeah, I love that. And thank you for touching on the funding part of it too, because I was going to ask that next about day, how do you make all this happen? And yeah, variety of sources and, and being creative as you go along to and looking for those new opportunities.

Bret Schanzenbach 34:19
Very true. I mean, obviously, there we all in our communities know of some, some go to little, you know, channels where we go after funding for this or that, but eventually, you know, we need business to step up. You know, we were looking regionally at funding sources. You know, our local congressman really liked the idea what so one of the things that’s been that’s come up though, is multiple people have said, hey, it would be great. If your portal could be like a one stop shop for internships, companies who want to host interns, you know, people who want to have an internship and it could be a one stop shop and You know, we’re dealing with all these different jurisdictions now different school districts, and you know, all this stuff. And they all have their own

Brandon Burton 35:08
parameters. And yeah,

Bret Schanzenbach 35:10
exactly. So it’s like, oh, boy, how do we do this? So that’s probably like version three of the portal. Not even version two. But so those are things we’re aspiring to, though and are on our radar to continue to evolve, how this portal can continue to serve the needs of our community now that it’s launched, and it’s getting on people’s radar.

Brandon Burton 35:33
Yeah, I really liked that. But as we start to wrap things up here, I wanted to ask you, for anybody listening? What tip or action item might you share with them to any chamber that’s looking to take their organization up to the next level?

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Bret Schanzenbach 35:51
Yeah, that’s, um, you know, it’s a great question we talked about here. And, and other people have heard in the industry, that we can’t, we can’t be our grandfather’s chamber. You know, the chamber, the days when you think of kind of like, there was a time where businesses join the chamber, and you can pick a variety of reasons, the chamber was the go to place for networking, that was probably the easiest chamber was the go to place for advocacy, you know, you know, things like that. And we don’t have the market cornered on any of those things anymore. I mean, there’s a million ways to network from meet up and you know, online tools to lead clubs and all that kind of stuff. There’s so many ways to network, besides even just social networking. And then advocacy, every industry has its own, you know, vehicle, you know, their own Association, that advocates just for their specific niche needs, and really watches their back. And I still think chambers are excellent at broad scale advocacy, and networking, and all that kind of stuff. But we don’t have the market cornered on any of those things that used to be kind of synonymous with why you need to join a chamber. So we’re constantly asking, asking ourselves, you know, what is our you know, value proposition? What are we bringing to the table that nobody else is bringing to the table, which is part and parcel with this, this discussion we just had today, this is one piece of it for us, you know. So we’re, we’re involved in workforce development in about five or six different fingers or different ways. This SoCal project was just one of them. But that’s, for us, it was like, nobody, when I left broad scape, broad scale, nobody’s involved in this, nobody can bring to the table what we can and workforce development, the relationship with the companies and the relationship with a schools which already we have, you know, we can we can be this bridge that nobody else can serve. So we’ve, that’s one of the stakes we put in the ground, this is going to be a value proposition that we have for our membership. But looking at those things, what do you bring to the table that not nobody else is, you know, Rotary can’t bring to the table or, you know, some nonprofit in your community can’t bring to the table or some Meetup group can’t bring to the table, you know, what, what is it that’s unique. And so we look for those things we and we have, you know, we’re constantly developing new initiatives, which is a little daunting, to be honest, we have to be careful, we don’t get out of a mission and, and go off on some tangent, but, but, and I think, and one other thing I want to, I want to point out 25 years ago, when people thought of economic development, they primarily thought of, let’s try to get Company X or company wide to come to our city. And they’ll bring good jobs, and that’ll be good for the community. And we even saw it like five or six years ago, like the whole country was tripping over themselves to try and get the next you know, Amazon headquarters, you know, and it was almost comical, but and there’s I’m not saying that’s not valid, but even before COVID We knew and now since COVID We really know that people can be from work from anywhere. Yeah, you know, they don’t you it doesn’t matter where their job is. It’s where do they want to be and so we have to create a community that attracts people that want to be there not because their company’s there. So what does that mean? Well, what attracts people you got to have, you know, low crime rate, great schools, affordable housing, amenities and parks and stuff that people want, you know, a good entrepreneurial environment, you know, business friendly, me all these factors together. There are what make places desirable for people to locate. And, and, and be. So we have to be about all of it. You know, we can’t just be siloed in, we’re a business organization, we are going to work with business. That’s long gone. And so we’re constantly looking at how can we make a positive impact in all those areas, so that we can make our community a great place to, you know, live workplace shop, dying vacation visit, you know, all of that. And so it’s it’s exciting, but it’s daunting. It’s a, the the ways you can engage that are never ending, which wakes me up and gets me excited. And also overwhelms me sometimes at two o’clock in the morning. But that’s what I love about the industry.

Brandon Burton 40:51
Now, and I think something you touched on is, it’s the shift of placemaking. Like it used to be, you’re attracting business, and now it’s attracting those employees, attracting those people that want to live in your community. And I think your response, it may answer my next question, but I like asking everybody I have on the show, as we look to the future chambers of commerce, how do you see their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Bret Schanzenbach 41:16
Yeah, I think that the role that we serve as a hub within the community is so vital and important, and valuable, so valuable, you know, we can pull together stakeholders from so many different things from from public safety, and government, to education and nonprofits and business and we can put them in the same room. And, and sometimes you don’t maybe only need two or three of those fingers for what your initiative is, but, but you can, we can pull together things that nobody else can and, and so we have to, we have to embrace that role. And you know, find the issues within our communities that are meaningful, and, and go after them and be the solution. We don’t have to have all the answers, but be the one that convenes everybody to help create the positive movement for the community. And I think if we wholeheartedly embrace that role will continue to be relevant, and will continue to have a reason to exist. But you know, if we just kind of bury our head, and like, we’re the business community, I think that’s too narrow. And I feel like most chambers have evolved beyond that. But, but I see going forward, just we have to take that up, you know, wholeheartedly and run with that mentality to be community leaders, not just business leaders.

Brandon Burton 42:42
Right. And being that that embracing being a convener is is so important, and you guys are setting a great example with the SoCal program. Because that’s exactly what you’re doing is you’re bringing those those right people to the table to help provide opportunities for the the youth coming up that are going to be the future workforce. Yeah. So Brad, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who might want to reach out and connect with you and learn more about the SoCal program or how you go through all the things in Carlsbad, what’s the best way for someone to reach out and connect?

Connect with Bret Schanzenbach

Bret Schanzenbach 43:18
Sure. I have the easiest email in the world. So one of my emails is ceo@carlsbad.org. And you can email me the if somebody wanted to check out that website I mentioned socalworkforce.org. And you can see more. I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on all those different. I don’t know social media thing is, you know, I respond I actually check messages on LinkedIn. If anybody messages me on the other ones, I don’t check those but but you can connect with people all the time on LinkedIn, especially chamber pros. I love connecting with other chamber professionals. Because I value them and you know, there’s none of us has all the answers in this world of of what we do in the chamber. So I love learning and meeting other people and hearing what’s working in their communities and seeing if there’s any tidbits I can bring back to my community. So yeah, hit me up on LinkedIn. Email me ceo@carlsbad.org. And yeah, love to connect.

Brandon Burton 44:28
Very good. I’ll make sure if we get all that in our show notes for this episode, which will be found at chamber chat. podcast.com/episode 191. But Brad, this has been great having you on the podcast. I appreciate you taking the time to be with us and sharing this great example of what you guys and you know, in collaboration with your neighboring Chambers as well are doing and it’s a great template that others can look to and build upon themselves.

Bret Schanzenbach 44:55
Well, thank you so much for the invitation, Brandon, I really enjoyed it.

Brandon Burton 44:58
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

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

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

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

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

Regional Coalitions with Glenn Morris

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

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.

Join the Facebook Group

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.

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

Guest Introduction

Our guest for this episode is 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.

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

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

One reason chambers are so overwhelmed is because they are stretched thin trying to be everything to everyone. Setting up an automated email series to help with new member onboarding is a great way to passively build your relationship with members. These emails will strategically drip the most important information for members, freeing up your chamber staff to focus on day-to-day operations without neglecting your relationships.

My friend, Izzy West is organizing a 6 week guided email automation training to add more time back to your very busy schedule.  The result of this course will feel like you added a part-time membership retention employee who is fully automated.  Most associations see a 7% increase in their retention rate after implementing an automated email onboarding program.

To learn more and to take advantage of a 10% discount on this training, please visit chamberchatpodcast.com/izzy.  The training will begin the week of September 12 so be sure to reserve your spot today!

Join Izzy West for a 6 week training to create an email automation machine to build relationships as you onboard new members.

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

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

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

Visit ChamberNation.com to learn more.

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

Success happens over time not overnight. It’s why fortune 500 companies and other forward thinking businesses are shifting to a more continuous learning format to coach and support their salespeople. Holman Brothers Next Level Coaching brings the same ongoing improvement opportunity to chamber membership salespeople visit holmanbros.com/nextlevel to learn more and request a free trial of Next Level Coaching for your membership pro.

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

8 Content Methods to Strengthen Your Storytelling

Does Your Chamber Tell Stories?

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

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

Story Platforms

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

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

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

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

Storytelling Content

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

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

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

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

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

Wisdom from the Wild with Julie Henry

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

Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Julie Henry. 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.

Join the Facebook Group

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’s always intrigued when he sees a snake in the wild. He’s my dad, Brandon Burton.

Hello Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. It’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.

Our title sponsor is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Let’s hear from 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  1:06 

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

From athletes to business leaders, successful people from every walk of life have a coach. They realize that the next level is a continuous learning journey and they continually seek fresh ideas and advice. Holman Brothers Next Level Coaching supplies the professional coaching and guidance your membership rep needs to navigate challenges and consistently drive more revenue for your chamber. Visit holmanbros.com/nextlevel to learn more and request a free trial of Next Level Coaching.

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

Guest Introduction

Our guest for this episode is Julie Henry. Julie is president of finish line leadership and author of wisdom from the wild the nine unbreakable Laws of Leadership from the animal kingdom. Former Zoo and Aquarium senior leader, Julie has worked with over 55 organizations across corporate nonprofit government association and community sectors. She holds a Bachelors of Science degrees in both zoology and education and Masters of Arts and Communication and an executive program certificate in sustainable business leadership. She is dedicated to helping people deal with change lead teams and build resilience using insights from wildlife and wild places. Julie has presented over a million people across 32 states and six countries in settings ranging from auditoriums and ballrooms to boats, beaches, forests, theaters, boardrooms, and even underwater while feeding sharks and moray eels. She lives in Sarasota, Florida with her two children whom she lovingly describes as her zoo animal and her wild animal due to each one’s natural inclination towards life. Julie, I’m happy to have you with me today on Chamber Chat Podcast, if you would 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 bit better.

About Julie Henry

Julie Henry 3:06
Oh, it’s so great to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation. I love talking all things, wildlife and wild places, and especially if you can help somebody think about something a little bit different. I’m happy to do that. And something interesting about me is if you ask me what my favorite animal is, it’s not actually in the book. It is a giant squid. And I think giant squid are fascinating because, um, you know, they get in battles with sperm whales. And we didn’t even know that we didn’t see one alive for a long time out until like, the past 10 years alive in his natural habitat. So it was a it was a conundrum, you know, an animal of legend that we kept searching for. And I love that.

Brandon Burton 3:41
Right. Wow, that is a good insight. There might be another chapter in you somewhere about.

Well, I’d like for you to take a moment to share a little bit about your background about your organization Finish Line leadership and and your relationship with chambers of commerce throughout your work just to kind of show the relevance to why we’re having you on Chamber Chat Podcast today.

Julie Henry 4:10
Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that. You know, when I spent the first 10 years working for organizations working for other people in nonprofit and corporate settings, and then when I launched my business in 2008, my sister in law actually said to me, you need to join the Chamber of Commerce. And I said, Well, why I don’t understand I just never had really been involved in chambers of commerce. And she said, Well, you need to it’s, you know, community, it’s its growth, it’s networking. It’s everything, and especially if you’re going to run your own business, and I said, Well, okay, and, and so I checked it out and immediately, I was really interested to get involved in many as many ways as possible. So that was putting my hand up and saying, Yeah, I want to join this committee, and then it was sure I’ll serve on the board and then it was, yeah, run this committee for green business. leadership because to me, Chambers of Commerce are such a necessary part of our community to provide a gathering space, a convenient space for people to talk about things that are hard and challenging and business as well as to support each other. And then over time, they became my clients hired to help them with facilitation to find new executive directors, I’ve been helping recently with the leadership programs that many of them have in the local area. So I’ve, I’ve been on both sides or every side of the coin, and I continue to think that they provide a very valuable and necessary role in our communities.

Brandon Burton 5:38
Absolutely. I appreciate you sharing that background. And it is very fitting to you to have that such close contact with chambers of commerce and several communities. And to be able to integrate that with the lessons that you share in your book today, which is going to be the topic that we’ll cover is diving into a little bit more of your book of Wisdom from the Wild, which is the nine unbreakable Laws of Leadership from the animal kingdom. And we’ll dive into this discussion as soon as they get back from this quick break.

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

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

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

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

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

Visit ChamberNation.com to learn more.

Topic-Wisdom from the Wild

All right, Julie, we are back. You know, I’d like to say that it would be an understatement to say you hit a homerun with this book, you know, a lot of people, they, they talk about writing a book, and then when it comes down to it, they balk, you know, then they never actually do it. And sometimes, you know, if they’ve already put out information about it, they kind of find themselves in a pickle, you know, because they they’re not going forward with what they said they would do. And I’m saying all these things on purpose to dry out these these metaphors, these analogies there throughout life. All right, as we talk about hitting that home run or boxing or being in a pickle, a lot of these analogies are sports related. A lot of them are baseball related, I would say that wisdom from the wild, it covers a lot of the blocking and tackling of leadership. So there’s a football analogy there. But we don’t see a ton of analogies from nature in our everyday lexicon and conversations. However, I will say my oldest, my oldest child, he’s about a year and a half he’ll be leaving the nest and spreading his wings. So he’ll he’ll be getting out there in the world. But we could uh, we could either stick our head in the sand and pretend like these. These laws of nature don’t exist in leadership and have those parallels. Or we could talk to Julie and we could read her book and see some of these parallels. So Julie, I’d like to hand it over to you and share maybe what was your driving force behind writing this book writing wisdom to the Wild and drying out these lessons that you’ve noticed in the wild in creating those parallels to leadership?

Julie Henry 10:08
Yeah, you know, and I’ll the first thing I’ll say is that I find nature the great equalizer, because it doesn’t matter if you live in downtown Tokyo or rural Oklahoma, or if you have a Harvard MBA or if you’re 16 years old, and you haven’t graduated high school yet, you can walk outside and think about, hmm, I wonder why that’s happening. Or let me learn more about that. And you don’t have to pose in nature, you can just be yourself. In fact, nature demands that your yourself doesn’t let you

Brandon Burton 10:38
be natural. Yeah.

Julie Henry 10:41
Like it’s gonna call you out. If you try to hike a mountain in high heels, you’re not going to go very far. And so I think nature is a way for people to have leadership conversations that strips away the need to know the answers already, because nature is about being curious and asking questions. And that’s really what life is about, let alone leadership. And I also will say that when I was in college, you know, my dad was a leadership development guy, he ran his own business, my mom was a teacher, and I was a science kid. So somehow, it’s going to stitch them all together. And my college professor gave me a project and said, teach people about coral reefs. That was my project. And I thought, well, not everybody’s going to be interested in coral reefs, what if I use the analogy of a business and talk about how coral reefs operate together, just like a business does with different departments, etc. And that was in 1996. So it’s only grown since then. So when I worked in zoos, and aquariums, I would always invite companies in, like, come to a retreat here, this is an interesting place. And let me help you think about your communication challenges through the eyes of you know, a pelican rather than, like the top 10, you know, communication laws. And then when I flipped it, and I was working as a consultant, I would be, you know, literally 1500 feet underground in a limestone mine, working with people that work in shift work, and it’s 11 o’clock at night, and they’ve been there for 42 years, if I can tell them stories about, you know, a sea turtle, then suddenly I’ve got their attention. And that’s important. So it was for all of those reasons. And we learn everything else from nature, architecture, our medicine, music, everything, why not leadership?

Brandon Burton 12:18
Yeah, I love that. And I’m hoping after you, after people hearing this discussion, and and chamber leaders reading your book, hopefully, they can come out of it and say, I really need some coral reef time, or, you know, through this pandemic, you know, I was, I was quite the sea cucumber, you know. So, these things will make more sense as we get on with our conversation here. But you have your book broken up into three main sections. So you talk about change, teamwork, and resilience. So I think for the chamber for chamber professionals listening, change, teamwork and real resilience are three areas that they need to be hyper aware of all the time, because starting with change, you know, those changes always happening. But I’d like to focus on maybe one of these topics of change, where we you talked about not being distracted by fear? What lessons did you learn from nature that correlate to leadership revolving around fear?

Julie Henry 13:20
I’m glad you picked that one. Because I think change, of course, is ubiquitous, right? In every part of our life, let alone as a leader, but also, it’s your great calling. And as a leader, if you’re not leading change, then I don’t know what you’re doing. You can’t just No, no leader that I’ve ever talked to, I said, I just kind of want to manage the status quo, like, do you? Or do you want to innovate and serve your community better? I think it’s the latter. But in order to do that, you are going to be confronted by either your fear of the unknown, or people around you who have, you know, I don’t know, maybe brainstormed many, many times on giant post, it notes, all their ideas, and then they never get taken. So they’re afraid to do it again. Or they’re new at the organization, and they don’t want to commit their ideas. Or maybe you’re trying to change the membership structure of your chamber. Oh, my gosh, that’s so hard. I’ve been in those conversations, like, how do we restructure to better serve our members? And how do we price it and how do we market it? I mean, your listeners know exactly what I’m talking about. I know they do. And there’s innate fear, both on oh my gosh, are people going to like not join again? Because we’ve changed the membership structure. And who do we make more angry? Right, right. So think about the animals that scare us. Universally, right? Snakes, and spiders. Those are the animals that come to mind. And the thing about spiders is, I love spiders, love spiders. I find them totally fascinating, but even me, I can still be startled if I turn on the light and there’s a giant spider the size of my hand next to the light switch as has happened before. That still startles me So even if you’re totally comfortable with leading change, and you’ve been down that road, you can still be startled by fear. And it’s important to understand and recognize that fear is just a part of being a human. And you’ve got to validate that and call that out, and you cannot ignore it or sleep, sweep it under the table, if you want your change to actually stick when you’re on the other side of it.

Brandon Burton 15:21
I love that. And I think, you know, nature for us fear is something It’s a survival mechanism. You know, we have that fear for a reason, and it’s to survive. So when you see that, that spider or snake for me, I like snakes, I’ve had pet snakes, I’m fascinated by snakes. But if I’m out for a run, and there’s a stick in the road that kind of looks like a snake that catches me off guard, I’m going to stop, because I don’t know what kind of snake it is. But then I get curious, sometimes it’s a stick, sometimes it’s a snake, and I’ll stop and watch it for a bit. But it goes back to being curious. So don’t let the fear stop you from being curious. kind of lean into it and see what you can learn from it is what I understood.

Julie Henry 16:04
I love that. Yep, I call it fear is nature’s yellow light. Just slow down.

Brandon Burton 16:09
Yes, absolutely. So you talked a lot about teamwork. And there’s a I want to move on to the teamwork section. Because there’s a couple topics on this that I wanted to have you highlight and talk more about, but one of them is the the chapter is titled, there’s no one size fits all approach to teamwork. And in the chamber world, everyone has heard the saying that if you’ve seen one chamber, you’ve seen one chamber, meaning that no two chambers are alike. Talk to us a little bit about this and how that relates to leadership and specifically with chambers.

Julie Henry 16:46
Yes, I think that chambers are one of the most unique organizations that I’ve been involved with and worked with. And sometimes that’s a great thing. And sometimes that’s a challenging thing, especially when it comes to communicating, you know, your relevance, or why should people should get involved sometimes, like I did, I had, I didn’t understand it, you know, long time ago when I was first getting involved. And there are some animals that from the outside look a little unusual. In fact, one of my favorite animals about this is naked mole rats, and naked mole rats, when we first discovered them, literally, the people thought they were mutations because they’re super funky looking. And they have big teeth, and they look basically naked. They’re hairless, almost mammals, they live underground, they live together. And we just ignored them for a while until we rediscovered them in the 50s. And then came to understand that oh my gosh, they actually live in colonies like bees. And they’re super effective at how they’ve divided all of the labor, if you will, between these animals. And they’re basically blind, but they communicate by your trails of urine and stack up together, keep their body temperature regulated, even though they’re mammals, I mean, so, you know, I love naked mole rats, and I champion them. And I tell people, when your team seems a little unusual from the outside, or your organization does, I want you to lean into that and champion your naked mole rat team, you don’t own explanation, anybody and you’re probably super highly functional, even though you may look kind of strange from the outside, but embrace that and own it. And don’t ever shy away from it. That’s why I love that you call your listeners chamber champions, because I want them to champion the fact that they are also naked mole rats,

Brandon Burton 18:28
yes. Love that. can bring it full circle, I love it. And I think that’s so true that as we look at, you know, especially working with maybe people on a committee, you know, they might bring an idea or an approach. It’s like, man, that’s really weird, you know, and you can kind of put it aside and say, That’s weird, and stay away from it. Or you can, again, be curious and lean into it and say, Well, what, what is there that we can learn from this? And are there things that we can implement and become stronger for it and maybe attract other people to come along our mission with us? So I’d love the lessons from the naked mole rats. So the other chapter that I wanted to touch on under Teamwork was, especially I think, important during these times were in chambers all over focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion. And you have a chapter titled, surround yourself with people who are not like you. And you talk specifically about a termite meeting giraffe and giraffe meet the termite. And I’d love for you to share more about that story and maybe, you know, make those correlations to what we see in the real life today.

Julie Henry 19:43
Yeah, you know, if you thought about a termite giraffe, they may not even seem like they even live in the same habitat, let alone need each other but they do because you know, the Africans van it’s pretty hard place to survive. There’s not a lot of water out there and you’ve got to work together and so they while they’re not actively Working together, they’re participating in helping each other survive. So the termite is breaking down vegetation as they’re, you know, chewing it up, basically. And, and that is attracting the giraffes to come over and basically eat that vegetation. And then they’re laying their own feces and urine. If you Well, there’s a lot of conversation about this on this podcast, I apologize, hopefully.

Brandon Burton 20:24
We’re not advocating for chambers here. Just to be clear, right? Now, we’re not

Julie Henry 20:30
gonna remember this, because we’re talking about it. You know, so, you know, for me, I remember the first board I was ever involved in, I remember, in this giant, long, giant board, it was 40 people long meeting, it was eight hours long. And I remember thinking, Oh, my gosh, this is super stressful. And I don’t know, really how I’m participating, etcetera. And the formative thing for me was the fact that I think towards the end of this meeting, one person basically said one sentence and summarize the entire eight hours, we call the meeting to order, we took a vote and we finished it. And that is not how I operate. As you can tell, I have a lot to say, and I communicate with my words all the time. And immediately, I thought, oh, my gosh, he’s different than me. And I need to be with him on all of these projects, because we’re going to be better together, and the outcome is going to be even stronger. And that’s an uncomfortable thing, too, though, right? Because I’m like, What are you thinking? You’re not talking? I’m talking all the time? And what are you thinking, but I had to lean into that. So that’s, that’s, that’s one way of looking at it. And then the diversity, equity inclusion is, of course, the other part of that, because, you know, people who are not like us are, sometimes they scare us, because it makes us try to think differently, or just acknowledge that we don’t know all the answers. But remember nature’s about curiosity. And if the termites and drafts need each other, then you need also a termite to your giraffe.

Brandon Burton 21:55
Absolutely. And one thing that came to mind is you were giving your response there is, so there’s the diversity, equity inclusion, part of it of, you know, trying to figure out those people in your community that you may have not even noticed before, you might not have noticed that they were part of your community, you might not have noticed that they had a business in your community, because of whatever the type of business it is, or the person that’s running it, their background, or whatever it may be. There, I can guarantee their segments in any community where you have not noticed certain people or certain types of businesses. And if you can kind of open your eyes as a giraffe, like what purposes is giraffe have to look way down on the ground, there’s a little termites that are going around feces and stuff down there. Whereas, you know, in the chamber world to be able to look a little deeper within your community. And on the Diversity Equity inclusion topic, we always talk about who’s missing. And rather than just who’s missing, I would say, Who Have you not noticed, and try to notice a little bit more. And then I think there’s another part of it when it comes to networking, I mean, chambers, editorials for having networking events, and you’re making introductions, and if we can help certain businesses, see other businesses that they may not realize they’re connected, but to be able to help build, you know, build that bridge between their two businesses and say, here’s why you need each other, here’s how you can be stronger together, and help form those solid relationships. I think really reemphasizes that a whole story of the termite giraffe. So So as we move on to the resilience section, there’s a couple in this as well, that I wanted to touch on. So especially coming through this COVID pandemic, resilience has been a key topic of how do you, you know, first of all stay relevant, how do you adapt to that change? But then how do you thrive through it? And I think that boils down to resiliency. And your chapter titled you’re wired not just to survive, but to thrive. And you talk about sea cucumbers. Help us make that connection there.

Julie Henry 24:14
So before I answer that question, I just want to say that the reason why I’m so passionate about everything in this book, and everything we’re talking about is because I didn’t just think of these examples, and suggest to your listeners that maybe they should consider this. Everything we’re talking about is absolutely true. That’s why I call them unbreakable laws, like termites and drafts, they need each other spiders are needed and sea cucumbers are wired to when they are threatened. Ie they’re living on the bottom of the ocean floor. Here comes this predator are about to get eaten. Their mechanism to survive is literally to eat visceral, which means to throw up their own guts, right? That’s Crazy, this animal that is trying to eat the sea cucumber will either swim away or potentially eat the guts of the sea cucumber. Now, if that happens, this sea cucumber, which basically looks like a sausage on the ocean floor, it doesn’t actually look like it’s capable of much. However, it is related to sea stars. So probably most people listening know that a sea star can regrow its arm if it gets cut off, or eaten or whatever. Same thing with a sea cucumber, it can regrow its own guts, that is a biological fact and absolute certainty. That’s how it’s wired to survive, but also to thrive. So if a relatively innocuous animal on the ocean floor can survive a huge threat literally within inches of its life. Those times when you are afraid of change, or leading your team down a road, that you’re just really not sure if it’s even the right road to go. But someone’s got to make a decision. And that’s you. And you literally feel sick to your stomach. The awareness and the recognition that you’re wired to get through. This brings not only great comfort, but also should build your confidence and let you lean in a little more and totally erase it pastures is syndrome, anything else that we talk about, like, it’s your biological fact that you’re gonna get through this and you’re gonna thrive on the other side, it’s going to be uncomfortable, I can’t imagine what it feels like to regrow your guts, but you’re going to do it

Brandon Burton 26:31
just that image of regrowing your guts. So, I see the parallel to again, through the pandemic is you know, initially when everything shut down there was that kind of wait and see phase where chambers and businesses just kind of like okay, let’s let’s take the temperature, let’s see what’s going on here. And once we realize this is gonna go on longer than what we expected. It’s not just two weeks, this is gonna go on much longer. He saw businesses he said chambers that had to do layoffs. He said chambers that had to tap into their reserves that they’ve you know, saved up for decades, possibly those reserve funds. You said chamber offices that had to shut down their physical location and everybody was working remotely from home. And I don’t know that looks a lot like you know, getting rid of your your insides and in still figuring out how to pull it back together, how to regenerate how to get back into the office, how to rehire how to get your funding backup, all while at the same time remaining relevant and serving their their membership base that that needed them so badly at that time. So I think that is a an excellent parallel to the sea cucumbers. It probably one of my favorite chapters was was the last chapter the book, as you talked about resilience, and it’s titled even cheetahs slow down. I know. Well, I’m gonna, I’m gonna let you talk about that before I share any of my thoughts, because I think we may touch on some of the same things.

Julie Henry 28:16
This is the last chapter of the book. But the pivotal moment when I realized after 25 years of having the idea in college was time to write the book. Because I had talked to so many people at that point and felt that way myself, that it is again, a biological fact and unbreakable law that even cheetahs slow down. But if I were to ask your listeners to think in their head, when I say the word cheetah, what do you think of? Now? Chances are, you’re thinking about the fact that it’s the fastest land animal. And if you were to Google cheetah, you’re pulling up all of these images about how fast they run. And that’s what they’re talking about. Okay, well naive. How many of you have ever been to a zoo or even been to Africa and seeing the cheetah running? Probably not many people actually seeing the cheetah running unless the zoo has, you know, structured it for an event or for you know, interaction? Most of the time, they are hanging out and resting and relaxing. And they are not, I think overthinking when they’re resting and relaxing, right? So we glorify the idea of being busy with effective leader in our culture. And that’s why we are so fascinated by how fast this cheetah goes. But that cheetah goes for what less than a minute, and then they rest. And they don’t think about oh my gosh, I wish I would have jogged left instead of jogged right. And I don’t know if I can do it next time. And I’m not sure I have the courage and maybe I should ask somebody else what they think no, they just rest. Okay, what do we do? Well, I will rest on the weekend or everybody else leave at five. I’m going to stay and do the event tonight. Okay, well, first of all people are watching you. You can’t Don’t just burn yourself out and expect everyone else not to do the same thing. But the thing is, nature’s going to slow you down one way or the other, you have a choice, you’re going to be proactive and say, Nope, here’s what I need. Here’s how I manage my energy. resilience to me is about managing my energy. It’s not false positivity. It’s not Yeah, I’m good. I can totally do those three events on Friday night, and I’ll just bop around, can you No, you cannot, okay. And it’s also going to happen to one way or the other. So reactivity, proactivity, completely your choice. But you need to slow down, if you want to lead and have the impact you’re designed to have. And if you want to have other people around, you also do the same thing.

Brandon Burton 30:43
I love that. And I think for chamber leaders all over, I see them running constantly, whether it’s just in the office or at an event, but even after hours, you know, if they go out to eat with their family, they’re seeing people in the community and they’re constantly thinking work, they’re thinking the connections are, you know, trying to further the mission of the chamber, which it’s all you know, they good and honorable desires. But to avoid that burnout, and to really perform at your highest capacity, we need that that downtime, that respite time. And that’s, you know, for leaders, specifically, as you’re talking about in this book, but I’m thinking even your your membership salespeople, you know, they, they need that, because if they have any kind of commission structure, to their to memberships there, I mean, I’m a salesperson, you I understand sales, like you run, you run, you run. And I had this discussion this week, because of this book with with a sales rep that I said, you know, what, you’re running constantly, and you need to, you need to rest. And sometimes I think resting it, maybe you talked about not thinking about second guessing and everything. But I think some of that resting can come in the form of planning to some degree, not, not the big strategic plans, but maybe planning out your next day, or what you’re doing next week. Kind of on, let’s say lower level, brain power, but it’s not the high stress kind of brain power that you need to rest and to be able to perform it that the best of your ability. So I love that chapter. And, and especially, I think that was fitting to be the last chapter in the book, because you read through it, and you get all these great ideas about being a leader and like what you need to do to be like a sea cucumber, or a pelican or coral reef, or all these different things, I am gonna hit the ground running, and cycling hit, but I also need to rest. So it’s a good reminder.

Julie Henry 32:44
I’m still getting, you know, think of it like a bell curve. We spent all this time preparing and thinking and strategizing. And then we’re doing doing doing doing and then we just fall off a cliff. But it’s really a bell curve, like how do we ramp down? Like, are you checking your email, right, exactly. Soon after we get off this podcast like? Or can you take five minutes and like write down what you learned and reflect on it? Like you need to have a bell curve of your energy management, and then you’ll go back up. But it’s not a cliff. It’s a bell.

Brandon Burton 33:10
I love that those emails will wait for five minutes, they will I promise, they’ll still be there in five minutes. So take that time and jot down some notes. I love it. So Julie, as we start wrapping things up here, I wanted to ask you, if you might have maybe one tip or action item that you could share with chamber champions to help take their organization up to the next level.

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Julie Henry 33:34
You know, the one thing I would say to chamber champions is to pick one part, whether from well, you know, from this whole conversation or when they’re looking out, we tend to have all of these ideas and visions. And as you’re saying they are unique, because most of the time if not all of the time they’re living in the community that they are supporting. So they’re always on right. But what’s one action item that you can stop doing one action item that you can do a little more of and one action item, you can start completely in the next quarter. I like quarters because I think that’s a doable timeframe. Because you can see and measure progress. And the key to this is not only do you write down your goals, but just like I talked about with a mangrove method of change, you need to write where you are right now. So for example, if you want to stop checking emails immediately after every meeting that you get out of and you want to spend five minutes just thinking and decompressing before you check emails, then you need to write down. Alright, now I’m checking emails after I know it sounds silly, but I’m not kidding. Like if you want to run a marathon faster, the first thing you do is time how fast your mile is right now. If you want to lose 10 pounds, the first thing you do is get on a scale and see how much you actually weigh. So when we try to measure change in our personal leadership style, we go at it like that. I want to become a better leader. I want to become a better chamber professional. Oh my goodness, what does that actually mean? We have got to get specific and measurable. And it’s deeply personal. It’s deeply personal. And so pick achievable goals for you that makes sense to you. And maybe you won’t even end up on your annual review. And that is okay, is your personal journey.

Brandon Burton 35:19
That’s right. I love that. So one thing to stop one thing to do a little more of, and one thing to start brand new. I love that, too. So I know, chambers are always looking to the future says, as you look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see their future and purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Julie Henry 35:37
I would love chambers to continue to champion to use your word here. Their integral role of being a neutral place for people to convene, and have conversations that need to happen. So my analogy for this is when I used to run the Green Business Leadership Council, which was a committee of our local chamber was really important for me to create a space in which businesses felt safe, not necessarily comfortable. That’s always my marching order, right? But safe to come to the chamber and say, Gosh, I’m really struggling with how to do sustainability, my business right now, or I’m not sure if I should make this investment in, you know, the change in my restaurant or operations. But I know it’s better for my customers. But it’s not better for the bottom line right now. What are you doing? So how can people work together to affect change in the community, collectively? And I think chambers are unique in that position, because where else can businesses go and not feel like they’re either baring their soul or they’re going to get, you know, called on the carpet by somebody else? And maybe they don’t want to tell their customers yet or their stakeholders or even their employees, yet, they just need to have some thinking time first. And chambers are a convenient space. From my experience, in my opinion, it’s such a needed one. And so look to the future, what are the big things happening in your community, that you can step up and say, yeah, come talk at our place, like literally, here’s the space, or here’s a, here’s a neutral facilitator, or here’s a neutral listening person like that is so needed in order to continue advancing the communities, especially from diversity, equity, access inclusion, you all have these big hard topics that are happening. chambers have a unique role. And I know you can do it even better than you’re doing it now.

Brandon Burton 37:23
Absolutely. I love that, that look of the future. So Julie, I want to do to give you an opportunity to share any contact information with chamber champions, anyone who might want to reach out and connect with you or find your book. What’s the best way for them to reach out and connect?

Connect with Julie Henry

Julie Henry 37:41
Yeah, my website is JulieCHenry.com They can get on there shoot me an email. My email is also Julie@JulieCHenry.com It’s not all that creative, maybe. Yeah, you know, they can get my book anywhere their favorite local bookstore can order it if they don’t already have it. Or an Amazon has been in some airport bookstores with their you know, traveling again, and having some fun that might see it there as well. I’m on Instagram and LinkedIn both that Julie C Henry, and I would just love to you know, hear about what you’re doing and hear your plans for the future. Because it’s all exciting to me.

Brandon Burton 38:17
I love it. And we’ll get your contact information in our show notes for this episode as well. But I will say as you mentioned, finding the book in some airports and things like that it so it’s a leadership book, but it doesn’t feel like a leadership book, you know, says you read it the stories that you’re reading, they’re they’re real stories, they’re real parallels to life. And and that’s what I love about these analogies that I talked about at the beginning is the more familiar you are with them. You don’t need an in depth explanation to understand that an ostrich ostrich sticks its head in the sand to understand that metaphor, right? So the more familiar you are with these stories and the examples that Julie shares in this book, I think the better the leader you will be and being able to make those parallels in your life. So thank you, Julie. It’s been great having you on chamber chat podcast today that you provided a lot of value for the listeners and I hope everyone picks up your book and, and learns more about being a great leader from these laws of nature. Thank you.

Julie Henry 39:21
Thank you. It’s an honor to be on. And I hope everybody takes five minutes and goes outside today and asks a new question that you’ve never asked about nature and how that can help you be a better leader.

Brandon Burton 39:31
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

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

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

Community Building with Karen Riordan

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

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

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

Join the Facebook Group

Introduction

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

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

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

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

Kris Johnson  0:48  

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

Brandon Burton  1:29  

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

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

Guest Introduction

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

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

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

About the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Visit ChamberNation.com to learn more.

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

Topic-Community Building

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

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

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

Future of Chambers

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

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

Connect with Karen Riordan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Join the Chamber Chat Champions Facebook group to learn from others and share your thoughts on topics covered on the Chamber Chat Podcast.

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.  

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

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!

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

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