Category: Podcast Episode

Tom Baldrige, President & CEO of the Lancaster Chamber joins us this week to talk about adjusting business models. As we are continually working our way through the economic impact that has been caused by COVID-19, many Chambers are trying to determine the best way to approach member businesses who are struggling to renewing their membership. Some Chambers are finding creative ways to approach and deal with this problem. No matter how you choose to approach your membership, it is important to still keep the integrity of your organization intact.

Many in Chamber circles know Tom as the guy who took a risk with the membership model at his Chamber. Tom shares with us in this episode how they saw a need for making a change about three years ago with their membership model as they notice membership structures within other organizations struggling. They did take quite a risk with offering a “pay what you want” or “freemium” model. Initially, this model seemed to work very well. The Chamber was able to attract many businesses that they weren’t able to reach previously. Tom does share several lessons that they learned through this experiment and ultimately why it did not work. He also shares what they have landed on for their current business model.

If you would like to connect with Tom about anything he discussed in this episode or to continue this discussion offline, you can find his contact information below.

FREE resources to help you better serve your Chamber members and your community.

As you focus on your Chamber’s mission and purpose, you will find that your publications say a lot about your organization. Community Matters, Inc. is an award-winning Chamber publisher that would like to help your Chamber with your next Chamber Directory, Guide, or Map. Community Matters has a turn-key program that is very simple. In the end, your Chamber has a great looking printed & digital publication that will represent your Chamber very well while providing a smooth source of non-dues revenue. Click here to learn more.

Molly Gebler from the Chagrin Valley Chamber joins us for this episode to talk about injecting good into the community. This year of 2020 has brought problems and heartache to many people around the world, which is why the world needs people like Molly Gebler to help showcase the good!

In our discussion, Molly shares two very positive initiatives that their Chamber has been the driver for. One is a program where the Chamber sponsors a local non-profit for the year. The Chamber provides funding to the non-profit and they help to organize volunteers to serve the non-profit of choice. This year the chosen non-profit was their local food bank. Molly shares the story of the huge outpouring of care in their community to support those in their community who needed their help in a time of crisis through a food drive.

The other program that Molly highlights is what she calls a gift card extravaganza. With this program, the Chamber promotes and sells gift cards for local service or retail companies or restaurants and for a certain dollar amount of gift cards purchased, the Chamber gifts the buyer an additional dollar amount in gift cards to the same business. This program sold out of gift cards in the first 15 minutes! It was so successful that the Chamber is going to do it again and will be pledging more money in gift cards to put more money back into the hands of the businesses that they work so hard to support.

If you would like to connect with Molly about anything she discussed in this episode or any of her fun side projects, you can find her contact information below.

FREE resources to help you better serve your Chamber members and your community.

As you focus on your Chamber’s mission and purpose, you will find that your publications say a lot about your organization. Community Matters, Inc. is an award-winning Chamber publisher that would like to help your Chamber with your next Chamber Directory, Guide, or Map. Community Matters has a turn-key program that is very simple. In the end, your Chamber has a great looking printed & digital publication that will represent your Chamber very well while providing a smooth source of non-dues revenue. Click here to learn more.

Matt Mahood, President & CEO of the Silicon Valley Organization (SVO) is our guest this week to share with us a very successful partnership program that they have been a part of in their community to help serve some of their underprivileged youth. Their program, Strive San Jose, convenes the education sector, business, and government to help create, guide and influence the talent pipeline to ensure a talented workforce that will allow their businesses to continue to innovate and grow.

In its first six months, the program launched an internship program that placed 41 local high school students into paid summer internships with 31 SVO businesses, representing 13 industries, and generating $50,000 into the local economy. Since the program’s inception, they have expanded to include four school districts in total serving over 1,500 underserved youth in the past three years alone

If you would like to connect with Matt about anything he discussed in this episode or to continue this discussion offline, you can find his email below.

• mattm@thesvo.com

FREE resources to help you better serve your Chamber members and your community.

As you focus on your Chamber’s mission and purpose, you will find that your publications say a lot about your organization. Community Matters, Inc. is an award-winning Chamber publisher that would like to help your Chamber with your next Chamber Directory, Guide, or Map. Community Matters has a turn-key program that is very simple. In the end, your Chamber has a great looking printed & digital publication that will represent your Chamber very well while providing a smooth source of non-dues revenue. Click here to learn more.

Angie Whitcomb is the President & CEO of the Shakopee Chamber of Commerce and she is the host of the Shakopee Chamber Podcast.

Angie joins us today on the Chamber Chat Podcast to share her experience with producing a podcast from scratch at her Chamber. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, like most Chambers, Angie and the Shakopee Chamber were looking for ways to continue to engage with their members when they were not able to meet in large groups. It was during this extremely stressful time that the Shakopee Chamber decided that they needed to pivot to podcasting.

Angie downloaded the Free Chamber Podcasting Guide provided by Chamber Chat Podcast to learn how to get started. This guide shows the easiest way to start your own podcast, including the hardware, and software to start. In our discussion, Angie addresses how cost effective this pivot was and how they are already cashflow positive in a matter of a couple of weeks.

This has been an opportunity to keep the Shakopee Chamber members engaged while also reaching a new audience throughout their community.

I made an announcement in this episode that I will now be offering my services to consult with Chambers to provide guidance, feedback, and accountability to get started with their own podcast, quickly! If you are interested in learning more about working with me to explore podcasting options for your Chamber, please visit chamberchatpodcast.com/pivot.

If you would like to connect with Angie about the process of starting their podcast and the success that they are seeing, you can find her contact information below. Please check out the Shakopee Chamber Podcast and be sure to leave them a rating and a review!

FREE resources to help you better serve your Chamber members and your community.

As you focus on your Chamber’s mission and purpose, you will find that your publications say a lot about your organization. Community Matters, Inc. is an award-winning Chamber publisher that would like to help your Chamber with your next Chamber Directory, Guide, or Map. Community Matters has a turn-key program that is very simple. In the end, your Chamber has a great looking printed & digital publication that will represent your Chamber very well while providing a smooth source of non-dues revenue. Click here to learn more.

Tom Argiro is the Executive Director of the North Phoenix Chamber of Commerce and the founder of HBG Consulting, a software development company with the goal to help businesses grow. Tom has merged his technological background with his desire to help businesses as he serve within the Chamber.

With the shift this year for Chambers to look for ways to engage with and promote their members amid the COVID pandemic has led to some creativity. Some have turned to Zoom happy hours, some have adopted podcasting, and Tom has designed a way for Chambers to hold virtual conferences and expos which simulate many of the same functions that you would expect at an in-person conference.

Tom explains many of the features that are found in his virtual expos & conference software to paint a picture of what a user could expect. In a time where we are all making adjustments into a “new normal”, this may be a great option for many organizations to still interact and to provide value in terms of networking, programming, and education for their membership.

Tom has also designed other software tools specifically for Chambers. All of these resources can be found on his website at HBGconsulting.com. If you would like to connect with Tom to learn more about this great resource or to continue this discussion off-line, you can find his contact information below.

FREE resources to help you better serve your Chamber members and your community.

As you focus on your Chamber’s mission and purpose, you will find that your publications say a lot about your organization. Community Matters, Inc. is an award-winning Chamber publisher that would like to help your Chamber with your next Chamber Directory, Guide, or Map. Community Matters has a turn-key program that is very simple. In the end, your Chamber has a great looking printed & digital publication that will represent your Chamber very well while providing a smooth source of non-dues revenue. Click here to learn more.

Mike Paone joins us in this episode from the Joliet Regional Chamber to discuss how their organization in continuing to be an advocate for their business community through the current COVID-19 pandemic. In our discussion, Mike explains the measures that their Chamber did in the early stages of COVID to assess the needs of their members and to help secure funding from the various loans and grants that were made available.

One of the most important things that Mike mentioned is the need to keep an eye on the ball with all of the other advocacy efforts that they were already in the midst of before COVID hit. These other efforts are still important and many will have a significant impact on the community so it is important to see these efforts through even with the added burden of keeping businesses informed throughout the ever-changing COVID environment.

If you would like to connect with Mike about anything he discussed in this episode or how they are striving to keep a balance at the Joliet Chamber, you can find his contact information below.

FREE resources to help you better serve your Chamber members and your community.

As you focus on your Chamber’s mission and purpose, you will find that your publications say a lot about your organization. Community Matters, Inc. is an award-winning Chamber publisher that would like to help your Chamber with your next Chamber Directory, Guide, or Map. Community Matters has a turn-key program that is very simple. In the end, your Chamber has a great looking printed & digital publication that will represent your Chamber very well while providing a smooth source of non-dues revenue. Click here to learn more.

Megan Lucas, President & CEO of the Lynchburg Regional Business Alliance joins us for this episode of the Chamber Chat Podcast to discuss her experience while merging the Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development organization.

With many Chambers facing difficult choices recently in the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, some are seeing a merger as a very viable option to continue serving their business community. For some this is a merger between two Chambers. For others it may be a merger with the local economic development organization such as in Lynchburg or another organization all together.

Megan mentioned how any merger like this needs to be volunteer driven. These decisions should be managed largely by the board of directors for the organizations. She also made mention of an intercity trip that they took to Commerce Lexington to learn from Bob Quick about their experience with merging organizations.

If you would like to connect with Megan about her experience with merging organizations you can see her contact information below.

At the beginning of this episode, I made mention as my son introduced the episode that I recently helped him to produce his own podcast called “Imagine If?“. It is an alternate history podcast where he shares stories of how history might have played out if something in the story went a little different. If you feel like checking it out, he would love to see the bump in traffic! 🙂

FREE resources to help you better serve your Chamber members and your community.

As you focus on your Chamber’s mission and purpose, you will find that your publications say a lot about your organization. Community Matters, Inc. is an award-winning Chamber publisher that would like to help your Chamber with your next Chamber Directory, Guide, or Map. Community Matters has a turn-key program that is very simple. In the end, your Chamber has a great looking printed & digital publication that will represent your Chamber very well while providing a smooth source of non-dues revenue. Click here to learn more.

Izzy West is the Communications and Community Engagement Manager at the Little River Chamber of Commerce in South Carolina. She enjoys her job so much that she blogs about some of the neat tips that she discovers at theizzywest.com.

Izzy is the perfect guest to discuss the topic of content calendar management since she manages over a dozen social media pages in addition to email marketing and other strategies that she employs. In this episode, Izzy shares what works for her as well as a few strategy hacks and software tools that she uses like “If This Then That“.

In addition to the great value that Izzy provides for us in this episode, she also has a planner that is designed with Chamber Pros in mind. You can find her planner on her blog here, or you can also find it on Amazon.

If you would like to connect with Izzy about any of the ideas that she shared in this episode, you can find her contact links below.

FREE resources to help you better serve your Chamber members and your community.

As you focus on your Chamber’s mission and purpose, you will find that your publications say a lot about your organization. Community Matters, Inc. is an award-winning Chamber publisher that would like to help your Chamber with your next Chamber Directory, Guide, or Map. Community Matters has a turn-key program that is very simple. In the end, your Chamber has a great looking printed & digital publication that will represent your Chamber very well while providing a smooth source of non-dues revenue. Click here to learn more.

Doug Peters, President & CEO of the Abilene Chamber of Commerce joins us for this episode to discuss how they are working in each segment of their organization (CVB, Cultural Affairs, Economic Development, and Military Affairs) to develop leaders and to utilize community volunteers.

Doug highlights several ways in which their volunteers are utilized and pointed out the need to value these volunteers. Showing appreciation and recognition is important, but he also shares with us the monetary value that these volunteers are to their organization. They recently summed up the hours of volunteer time and put a dollar value to this time and came up with nearly $1.75 million in volunteer time to the Abilene Chamber!

In our discussion, Doug mentioned lessons he has learned from Chris Mead’s book, “The Magicians of Main Street“.

If you would like to connect with Doug about the great things they are doing in Abilene, he can be reached by email or phone below.

FREE resources to help you better serve your Chamber members and your community.

As you focus on your Chamber’s mission and purpose, you will find that your publications say a lot about your organization. Community Matters, Inc. is an award-winning Chamber publisher that would like to help your Chamber with your next Chamber Directory, Guide, or Map. Community Matters has a turn-key program that is very simple. In the end, your Chamber has a great looking printed & digital publication that will represent your Chamber very well while providing a smooth source of non-dues revenue. Click here to learn more.