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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your hosts Brandon Burton. And it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. You’re joining us for a special episode as part of our 2023 ACCE Chamber the Year Finalist Series.
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Becki Womble 1:03
I’ve been using Community Matters for probably six or seven years now. And in a previous life, I sold commercial printing so I can highly recommend Community Matters because it’s a complete turnkey job for any busy chamber exec and it’s a wonderful, beautiful printed product whenever you’re finished. And I just I’m very sold on Community Matters. And with a printing background I just big endorsement from me.
Brandon Burton 1:44
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Our guest for this episode is Tony Rubleski. Tony is currently the President of Mind Capture Group. His message is designed to help people capture more minds and profits. He’s an in demand speaker who’s given hundreds of presentations executive coach, best selling author and creator of the mind capture bootcamp. Now in its 13th year, he has over 25 years of experience in the personal development industry. His mind capture book series has spawned multiple best sellers in a variety of businesses and coaching categories with Amazon. The acclaimed series has received many endorsements from a wide range of leaders in marketing sales, psychology to academia and multiple New York Times bestselling authors. Book number eight in the series titled positive disruption Volume Two more quotes and questions to up shift your life, released globally in 2022. And book number nine will release in the fall of 2024. His work has been featured in various media outlets ranging from Toastmasters International magazine, the Detroit Free Press, the Fox TV network, ABC, NBC and CNN radio, NPR on an Entrepreneur Magazine, radio, and now on Chamber Chat Podcast. In addition, he’s also served as faculty member with the US Chamber of Commerce and CEO space International. But, Tony, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast, I’d love to give you a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better. Well, Brandon,
Tony Rubleski 3:35
Well, Brandon, thank you for bringing me on here and happy new year to all the chamber executives in the first thing I want to mention to all of them that are listening either now when they catch it live or time shift. Is that thank you for what you do. You know, we talked before we hit record here I’ve worked with hundreds of chambers the last 20 years and being the CEO, or even on staff at a chamber sometimes the loneliest job in the world, Brandon, you do a lot, you have a ton of spinning plates. Everywhere you go, people are watching you, and you have a vital leadership role in the community. So thank you for doing that. Because right now I’ll start out with a really hard hitting punch and a little bit of fun fact is leadership is in short supply right now, I believe the last three and a half years the post COVID World 2020 on it feels like we’ve been in an episode of The Twilight Zone. And people just look like they’re walking around kind of in a daze like an earthquake happen. And we’re still trying to recover I believe because we’re not going back to 2019 Brandon, and I think a lot of our chambers know it but again, I want to genuinely thank you because I think more than ever, here’s my opening salvo are shot across the bow chambers. If they position right we will grow at an even better rate. It won’t be easy. The chamber executives know this. But here’s why say that bold proclamation. Local businesses during the pandemic got hammered. Small Business still took it. You know many of them are still closing or trying to get back to where they’re at Brandon You can help them Ding ding ding. I got the cowbell here. Okay, I’m gonna ring and we’re gonna have fun is chambers of commerce. And I have a resource at the end of the podcast, I’m going to tease everybody. It’s an article seven reasons why every chamber, every business should join the Chamber of Commerce. So I’m going to tease the listeners here. I’m going to make that resource available at the end. But it really ties into the fact that you are the center of glue for many are small to midsize companies. I know you have your big board members, your power companies, your nonprofits, your hospital systems, you need them for sure. However, if we’re to revive small midsize business going forward now in 2024, I believe that chambers are well positioned massive credibility and a track record to attract those new businesses or those businesses. You know, we’re kind of struggling still. Okay, this is exactly why you need the Chamber of Commerce. So I’m sticking to it, Brandon, I’ve seen it. I was very active in Chambers of Commerce for many years before I started my own company. And to me, they are the essential glue, that sometimes even chamber executives forget they’re too close to it. They deal with all the you know, the firefights, and the committees and the board member that drives them nuts is again, huge thank you keep bleeding because it does matter. Yes,
Brandon Burton 6:15
I love that great. Shout out to all the chambers listening. So thank you for that for sure. Tell us a little bit more maybe about the mind capture group. I know I shared some in your bio, but tell us a little bit about the work that you do and kind of where your focus is. Well, I
Tony Rubleski 6:31
think the big thing is I came up with a new tagline with our team Kelsey Sanders and she’s my MacGyver on the mind capture team is really what I looked at as I helped companies and their employees get inspired to share ideas instead of staying disengaged and quitting. I’m gonna repeat this is like our, our leading charge next year, going into 24. As we go into chambers of commerce, for example, I do a session for their local membership in the whole goal. If they had the nonprofit community there. Some leaders and lots of small midsize companies that send their teams is I’m there to inspire them to possibly disrupt their mindset, which isn’t easy, Brandon, because the world is so doggone negative. We’re trained and conditioned to be drawn to negative news and headlines, I just came off and NBC affiliate this morning on live television, thanking them for bringing me on TV. Because most of the time, it’s about all the bad things in the world, or the good things far out nobody the negativity. So this is where the chambers to me shine. They bring in high quality events, they bring in training and workshops, sometimes they bring me in. But the whole goal, when I’m doing training with the Chamber coming in is to say look, I want the Chamber members that bring their teams to get inspired. Many times the chamber staff will sit in the back and I’m like, Oh my gosh, we need this to get re inspired to so that we can feel like we can share ideas that were actually being heard. So if your audience you know, if you’re listening right now, unless you’re driving, be careful, we’re at the gym on the treadmill is please write this down. People want to be heard random. Your Chamber members want to be heard like ham, small business on Main Street or ham, the, you know, the side hustle a working mom that has a full time job and has a little side hustle business on Amazon or Etsy. And they join maybe reluctantly, because money is tight. They want to know that their voice, their concerns are being heard. So the chamber can say, hey, we’re listening. And we have some new programs or we’re working on some programs that we’re going to roll out to members like you to serve you as well, not just the big players, not the old established companies or community. But the emerging companies that are new and in the startup phase or the side hustle as they grow, they’ll never forget that the chamber was there for him. So that’s a lot of what I do. I do a lot of training. As you might imagine. In for me, sometimes what I’ve seen last two years is chambers like, look, we used to come in and talk to our board about leadership. So a lot of times, they’ll say, Hey, we’ve got your book to do a program for our membership. We want you to come in the night before and talk to our board about leadership. So it’s been fun to see that reemerges last year to come out of COVID because the boy leadership, you couldn’t give it away in 20 and 21. Because everyone’s just trying to like figure out what’s just happened here globally, we’re all kind of been put into a timeout, the economy’s kind of in a long position. And I’m in Michigan, and our state got shut down for almost a year and a half Brandon. I’m not here to play politics, but it dramatically impacted a lot of the small midsize businesses to get back on their feet. And to me, that was where the Chamber’s really could shine by saying hey, this is why you need us more than ever had the group collective to have more of a voice versus just being alone on Main Street. Come join us to promote Chamber of what commerce commerce is business activity. So I hope that helps.
Brandon Burton 9:44
Yes, absolutely. And I like how you talked about kind of that mission that you go forth with positively disrupting mindset and that’s kind of our topic for today is how to positively disrupt your chamber community or and all of that starts with your mindset as a leader at your organization and we’ll dive in much deeper on this as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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Donna Novitsky 11:57
Hey everybody, Donna from Yiftee here today, just like Brandon, we’re bringing you a guest speaker. First up is Gina from Durham, North Carolina. We’ve sold more than 3300 community cards in Durham, that are being spent at 51 different merchants. There’s something for everyone.
Gina Rozier 12:15
I’m Gina Rozier, Director of Marketing, Communication and Peacekeeping for Downtown Durham Incorporated. And I’m a very happy Yiftee customer. We’re the Bull City, and we created our spendable community card with Yiftee years ago. Our participating businesses love it and we had our best ever sales figures last year. Yiftee is great to work with. They help with marketing the program and it is truly turnkey for us in our businesses. Choosing Yiftee has been a great decision for downtown Durham.
Donna Novitsky 12:44
Thanks, Gina. Wondering how you can have your own community card for free. Check out yiftee.com for next steps. Now back to the show.
Brandon Burton 12:56
All right, Tony, we’re back. So right before the break, we talked about the title of this episode, being positively disrupting your chamber community, but also your mindset. What does that mean for you as a leader? And I know there’s a difference between leadership and management. But maybe touch on some of that throughout our conversation today. But how do you inspire individuals to positively disrupt their mindset and in turn their their organizations?
Tony Rubleski 13:27
Well, I think for today, knowing the chamber, many executives or their staffs that may listen to this podcast is that I want to really hone in on what I call the three G’s make it really simple, the three G’s to start 2024. The first one is gratitude. The second is goals. And the third is get healthy, and I’ll go real quick through each one of those, Brandon. But what I mean by this is I want every chamber professional listening right now, to know that I designed a lot of the thought process when I reached out to you to come on, of how do we tune in recharge you the chamber professional, you get drained. I know this because I’ve had conversations many of you privately, or I do staff retreats sometimes where they’re like, Man, I just feel like why do I do this some days. So if you’re listening right now, I want to really give this tour you the chamber pro in really gratitude as the first gene is to sometimes sit back and go, Wow, we are making a difference. Boy, we had 20 events this year. And most of them were successful. That’s something to be grateful for, but strip it down what I do every day that I think might be a value. Actually handwrite in a journal with a pen and paper what I’m grateful for every single day. I know it’s old school. It’s not high tech, but it works and here’s the reason why I think it works. It reminds us as a daily habit that we have so many good things going on, that we can overpower that one or two nine problems that all humans have. It’s that one headache or that one issue that many times clogs our mental space like a virus of the mind. So Starting to deal with gratitude. It could be as something as simple as in the shower, you say, Hey, I’m grateful for another day. But I’m a big believer that when you write things down or you look at your gratitude list or your goals each day, it helps inspire you. When someone’s not there to give you a motivational talk, Brandon, and you’ve got to get yourself inspired. So gratitude to me, it also helps you get out of a funk really like me and I just feel like you know, this events driving us nuts here, the chamber, you go, Wait a minute, we’ve done successful events before, we will lead this event forward. It’s not going to be easy, but it gives you that extra momentum to keep pushing towards the touchdown or the goal line when you feel like quitting. Okay, the second genius goals we all know this Brandon, a lot of times chamber executives say a lot of your stuff is basic, but we forgot this. Really when I am in the remind he business of things we have forgotten that make us successful in our careers. Okay, goals to me. Simple thing again, just write them down, review them off and check off the goals you make. And Sarah there’s there’s momentum going on here. Like a domino, that tip she took one domino, the rest of the dominoes fall, but stop and go live, I put 10 major goals for the year, I already hit two or three of them. With that reminders, you’ve done this before, and you can do it again. And again, when you write your goals down, it becomes more of a reality versus a dream or an idea or a wish, or a written goal inspires you to go hey, what there’s some more clarity here. Okay? The third area, the third G is to get healthy. I mean body, mind and spirit. If you’re listening, the mindset to me is very, very important. That’s my realm of expertise. Okay, motivation, inspiration, positive disruption into me, the world is so doggone negative, that if you allow someone in a meeting or any event to rattle you, and you carry that over throughout the day, that negative energy does rub off on your staff, it rubs off on potential members, it rubs off on people walking into your office. So the best thing you can do is to remind yourself, hey, I have to like reset, almost like you do with your computer, like Ctrl Alt Delete to reboot. Let’s say look, I have to defend my mindset each day. That’s why I talk about gratitude, having your goals, reminding yourself with pictures of things you’ve done successfully at the chamber. On those tough days to go, Hey, we’ve been in tougher situations, we’ll get through this. Continue about getting healthy physical, this the physicality of our health, Brandon, I work out five or six times a week not to boast. I made a goal 12 years ago when I turned 40 that part of me being self employed is Tony, you have to stay in shape. If someone’s flying you across to timezones and you’re in front of 500 people, you have to look good, feel good and exude that you’re healthy. So, to me, we’re at the New Year here. Maybe it’s something as simple as taking a walk a mile a day, maybe it’s joining a gym today and walking on the treadmill. I’m drinking water as we record this with my coffee, okay, more water, watching what you eat, you know, the Chamber lunch and the Chamber breakfast, maybe cut back and you say instead of two plates, I’m only gonna have one plate. It’s simple little things that stack up and you get those little wins. That if you start to compound those little micro goals towards your health, all of a sudden, February, March, you’ve lost 10 pounds. Well, you were more intentional. You set some little small goals. You chipped away at it, and you started to stack little successes on it. So to me the mindset part of the goals is very important as far as getting healthy, the physicality and also the spiritual side. I’m not here to preach or talk religion. That’s not my lane. But I can tell you having a good spiritual grounding I’ve learned in many executives in the chamber space are more open to this gives you more of a deeper intentionality. So regardless of what faith walk you have, or belief in a higher power, I believe that gives you more focus to say, hey, you know what, there’s a bigger picture going on here. What is the legacy that you as a chamber executive want to hand off? A lot of times, that’s more of a spiritual quest of like, say, hey, next 10 or 15 years in the chamber space, I want to leave the community better. While typically with some spiritual grounding the body mind spirit part of the health component, Brandon, that gives you a deeper why a deeper reason to when you want to quit the chamber. Trust me, I bet half the listeners are going oh my god, he knows that he’s been in my office. No, it’s a demanding job. But here again, as the reminder, like I said, the onset right now, leadership is in short supply. This is the time again, for chambers and more importantly, each of you listening to shine as a chamber Pro, to step up and lead the community when they really really need you. So write this down. Most communities really, really need you more than ever, because we are still in a very funky timeline, where there’s a lot of confusion. What do we have coming up later this year, a presidential election. It’s gonna get nasty. I believe it’s gonna get very negative. I don’t like to say those words. But I’m also very pragmatic brand and I’m an adult, that it’s where chambers can be like, Hey, we know we got some politics going on. There’s a lot of name calling but we’re here to the matter of who wins the president election. We’re going to be here the next 10 years the next 20 Next 100 Switch he was the chamber leader steam Positive, when everyone’s going to be really bombarded with negativity during the campaign that I’m sorry, a lot of politicians thrive on dividing, we have a lot more in common. This is another hint for your marketing for chambers, we have more in common than we have that’s dividing us. I know that’s controversial. It doesn’t sell radio spots or television ads. But I’m here to tell you that if you can be a uniter, a great listener, a great leader, show the community what you’re doing to positively disrupt and keep moving the community forward. You’re going to shine, you’re going to get referrals and you’re going to retain a lot more members because they’re gonna go wow, you’re like a beacon of light. And all this negativity right now, especially with all the politicians really cranking up the negativity from about probably June, July on till November. So I want a little bit bigger, broad picture there, but those three G’s to me pick and choose if you’re listening to Hey, no, I’m doing a couple of those are hanging on I need to get my health better this year, and maybe this will be the inspiration to do it.
Brandon Burton 20:58
Ya know, just to maybe expand on that a little bit. The gratitude aspect, I think it really puts in focus your why why do we do what we do, and having the gratitude and, and seeing you know, all the good things you have in your life kind of keep that motivation going. The goals, just a little tip strategy that I that I was introduced to me a few years back is to picture yourself, you know, sitting at a an airport, right? And a good friend you haven’t seen for years comes up to you. It says five years in the future, they come up to you and say, Brandon, how’s it going? You know, how’s life and you say it’s great, but you really mean it? Like, what about life is so great? And like form your goals from there? What does that future life look like? What are those things that you accomplished five years from now or a year from now? Or whatever that timeline is? And kind of make that be your vision kind of makes it a reality? And then getting help? Go ahead?
Tony Rubleski 21:56
Oh, thank you for sharing continue. I love this. It’s future pacing. And it’s a lot of people don’t talk about this, but I love to hear your perspective. Because it’s awesome.
Brandon Burton 22:04
Yeah, well, and I was in touch on getting healthy. I think there’s there’s a few things that human beings are meant to do, right, like walking, eventually walking and drinking some of these basic things, right. And for some of us, walking gets harder, you know, as we age or, you know, get out of health. So simple things like like walking with some strength training, I’ve heard some indicators for you know, longevity, is being able to have good grip strength, you know, can you hang from a bar and just, you know, kind of have that be a measurement of how long can you hang from a bar as kind of a marker for for longevity. So it’s just interesting things, the ability to jump, you know, up onto a little box or jump rope or something. Another key for longevity. So, just little little to add
Tony Rubleski 22:51
to that. That’s awesome is to add to that. Yeah, our physicality does change as we age. I’m 51. And I started guitar lessons three months ago, I’ve always wanted to take guitar, I’m self taught. And without the second lesson, I almost quit. You think me like no, you don’t quit. You’re a goal setting guy. You’re in all that personal development stuff. But Vincent, my guitar instructor was so patient like look, I know that chords driving me crazy because my fingers wouldn’t move the way my other chords did on the guitar. I just said this is frustrated. Like a little kid. He goes now you’re not the first guitar player. And the thing is, it’s a fun challenge to start guitar lessons at 51 I feel like a seven year old with him sometimes he does a great job of keeping it simple, but he also pushes me because I know how to I have good speed on the guitar and I know someone how to play so I can tell you one other way to get healthy mentally is to try a new challenge go after an old goal. Maybe you take up dancing lessons maybe you try swimming at the local YMCA or you know a health club that of course is a chamber member and just keep pushing yourself and I don’t know random people get bored there’s so much good stuff from YouTube to podcasts. So much free knowledge out there there’s tons of I’m sure many of your listeners know there’s many of your Chamber members have really cool businesses they might have a cooking class at the local restaurant, take up cooking that’s one thing my partner Linda and I have done is we’re learning to cook a new meal every month in the wintertime. So instead of just you know getting food out or eating on our own we say let’s make the stuff mushrooms today let’s make some chili next week or two and it’s giving us something that we can both do together that’s fun she’s a better cook than me honestly. And I’m learning and it makes we sit down have that meal much more appreciative and grateful because we made it we spent time connecting so there’s tons of ways you can look at this doesn’t always have to be read like a self help book that that isn’t wrong with that practical thing is that when people ask me how do you know what your why is well go back to when you were a child what really engaged your head your interest, and maybe it was sports so maybe you join a you know, a part time rec league for softball or intramural softball. Maybe you said hey, I used to be really big into football, maybe join a fantasy football league I don’t know, there’s plenty of cool opportunities instead of staying in the same old status stuck, right? In as members are listening or your subscribers are in chamber world. This is a new year. So why not try something new? Yeah,
Brandon Burton 25:15
absolutely. So earlier in our conversation, you mentioned something stood out to me about leadership being in short supply. And and you also alluded to there’s a certain loneliness that comes in leadership to you get doing the work, and you’re often the only one in your community doing the work that you’re doing. Can you expand a little bit more on that about the leadership being in short supply, and there may be chamber leaders, not to damp anybody’s parade, there might be chamber, quote unquote, leaders that aren’t maybe leading, you know, maybe they’re doing more managing of the chamber, but not necessarily leading? So what do you mean there?
Tony Rubleski 25:53
Well, that’s a great question. I think the danger is you get into firefighting mode, so that many chamber executives go, I know exactly what that is. So you have to watch how much firefighting you’re doing versus actually implementing in successfully pulling off your agenda and adding a few new things into it. But let me give you a few resources. Again, I’m in reminding business, I think some chamber execs, no, some are like, I have not heard of that. Many of the state groups have state associations for chamber executives. That to me is a no brainer. If I’m in your realm, you join your state chapter. In addition, you have everything from ACC, which is more of an American Chamber of Commerce executives, the US Chamber Institute, I be remissed, I used to be faculty member there for many years in the Midwest. So you have ILM program, which allows you to network with other chamber and Association Executives so that you realize I’m not alone here. And here’s the big aha, you can exchange best practices all the time. And that is wonderful to have multiple minds helping you solve a problem. If you’re the chamber executive in Omaha summit in Savannah, Georgia might have already done an event or solve a certain board challenge. They go, Oh my gosh, here’s how I dealt with that, that could shaving years of worry off, save you a lot of time and frustration by just networking. So those are a few resources. And here’s the thing about being lonely. I’ve been self employed for almost 20 years, Brandon. And when you’re leading the company, with our team, or I’m out and about doing trainings and workshops, I can’t tell them about maybe my personal life issues, that I’m struggling sometimes, too. Here’s the big myth. People think that, you know, motivational speakers, or inspirational people like me, are always positive. We’re not always positive. You know, I’ve had issues with my kids before I have former partners, you know, I’ve, I’ve had business failures, too, I’ve had lots of success. But you don’t go over Facebook and social media and talk about your failures. That’s typically where you show your wins. So again, it’s very similar. If you’re the chamber CEO or vice president with with a for profit businesses CEO, many times that office, they cannot fully reveal the stress they’re going through. So to me, leverage. There’s nothing wrong with joining associations or groups that are there to support you so that you realize, Wow, I’m not the one that’s going through this. And more importantly, you can exchange ideas that work to help each other to be even more successful. So, again, leadership to me, you don’t just wake up and you’re born a leader, you learn to become a leader by doing the repetitions by doing the projects by getting work experience by failing a lot. John Maxwell calls it failing forward, the great leadership expert, you’re going to fail forward, you’re gonna have some events that fail and some that win, okay, we need to focus more on the winners, and then start to maybe get rid of a few events that are taking up too much of our staff too much bandwidth, we’re not making as much, you know, revenue off of it. That’s a constant adjustment of, if you’re like an airplane pilot, the stick that flies the airplane, you’re constantly making those mid course corrections, as you’re flying the plane is a leader because there’s turbulence, there’s change, there’s new passengers coming on the plane, you have to know how to land the plane, which to get the event done successfully, you know how to take the plane off, which is starting something new. So I don’t know where that aviation reference came from. But it seems to be a good parallel to what chamber life is like
Brandon Burton 29:04
it is and to go along with that the pilot has all this data, right, they’ve got all their dials and controls and altitude and everything that they can see kind of at their fingertips. And at your organization, if you don’t have the key data points to be able to make those decisions to be able to say, our revenues up or membership or attendance or whatever the things are that are important to you to measure at these events or at your organization in general with membership or programs or whatever it may be. Then how do you know what direction to go like you need to collect those key data points and revisit them often to see you know where you’re trending Are you going up or down? Is it positive momentum or negative and make those adjustments just like a pilot with Yeah,
Tony Rubleski 29:50
and the other thing too is for those members are listening is watch who in your chamber space locally that you’re listening to. I call it misery loves company, or Eagles hang out with Eagles misery loves company is the chamber that says, you know, all my other neighbor chamber executives around me and the surrounding committees are all complained about this watch out for that. It can bring you down. I’m not saying you ignore the obvious but you don’t spend as much time at the water cooler on a zoom call weinan Is there what do we do to solve it? And Eagles hang on Eagles is the other opposite side of the pendulum, model other successful chambers. It’s easy now in the point and click rule of either your cell phone or your laptop to find out what other chambers are doing online that successful pick up the phone and call chamber that’s two states away and say, Hey, I’m Executive here or vice president we want to try to do you have five or 10 minutes. It’s not being afraid to put yourself out there. And here’s the biggest mistake that most people make in business, including chambers. They don’t ask a SK, they don’t ask for an introduction to a potential member. They don’t ask a board member for some advice. They don’t ask another, you know, potential business. Hey, what do you guys struggling with? We assume that they’re going to tell us and we think well, I don’t want to bug them. I don’t want to be a problem. I know they’re busy. No, you don’t? If you hear the word no, it’s not going to kill you, Brandon. It’s not what you don’t get unless you ask it’s the old Wayne Gretzky quote from the hockey world, you’ll miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. Same with asking for help. There’s nothing wrong with it. If anything, it endears your peers to the fact that, hey, you’re just like me, you’re human. And you’re willing to listen to new ideas and even counter viewpoints to push you.
Brandon Burton 31:25
So hope that helps him as the younger crowd would say shoot your shot, right? So I wanted to ask for chambers listening who wants to take their organization up to the next level? Or you could say who want to positively disrupt their organization? What tip or action item might you have to share beyond what you’ve already shared with us that they could maybe implement in their organization?
Tony Rubleski 31:51
I think is we we aired this in the new year starting 2024 Is this is be thinking yourself, who can your best Chamber members take you to? That’s not a chamber member yet. Those not yet members. And here’s what I would give. If I was working with you in a in your boardroom, I’d look at your 1520 board members, for example, say, Hey, who are two or three businesses here in the community that need to be a part of this chamber? If I’m the executive, I grab the pen and paper I record and I write down. All right, Mike, were two or three companies that you do business with here in Omaha that are a part of the chamber, I’d like to reach out to them and talk about why they should consider joining the Omaha chamber. And you let your your current disciples, your true believers bring in more people via referral. I call it introductions. And matter of fact, I do an entire session on this for the last 20 years teaching referral marketing, specifically for Chambers as who can your top members introduce you to even if they used to be a chamber member brand. And here’s what I want to really convey everyone listening, don’t let the old biases of the history damper your ability to go back and say, Hey, that chambers keeps evolving. We’ve changed. We’ve got some new folks on we knew you remember 10 years ago, let me ask you has your business changed, our business has changed a lot the last 10 years, so has the chamber. That’s how you get rid of that old history. And you reopen the door because the only constant is change and grow forward. So that would be my big tip is your best members can bring it to other people that can join. If you ask them in, the more specific you get Brandon, if it’s one restaurant, you say who are two or three of the restaurants here in town that you network with a really respect to their good that haven’t heard of the chamber, the more specific on the Ask the much higher chance or probability they’re going to give you a referral because you’ve made it where they go, oh, yeah, I was just talking to my buddy Mike at the other law firm. For example, one lawyer talks to a lawyer, another banker might talk to another bank or credit union will talk to another credit union. So work vertical markets, ask intentionally and be very specific. So I just gave you a referral magic seminar in like two minutes.
Brandon Burton 33:56
For free to how about that? So I’m really like asking everyone I have on the show as we look to the future of chambers of commerce. I know you’ve got a long history working with chambers. How do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
Tony Rubleski 34:14
I think it bodes well for the chambers that believe in themselves. And if you don’t get too mired up in the politics, not only that the national level, but the the regional and the local is This to me is where chambers can really thrive. I gave up several clues in the interview, that small midsize companies sometimes are never even approached about chamber membership. Many of them know that they’re battling. Let’s be very candid. The data doesn’t lie. A lot of the big businesses during the pandemic got huge PTP loans that were never repaid and have to pay them back in a lot of small midsize mainstream businesses, the numbers, how many went out of business? They’re having a tough go at it. So I’m not saying you pick on your big members or your anti corporate America, but that’s a good data point to notice that, hey, we understand that it was challenging last few years, we want to help you grow forward and introduced other people that can help your business, bring you training to help you retain more employees to attract more employees. And that is a very, very key hot button for a lot of small mid sized companies as the chamber can help introduce them to those opportunities. So I believe the chamber future if you have the right mindset, obviously, it’s very much you can grow now, when the economy is really good. Here’s the paradox. People are too busy for the chamber, usually, while we’re just so busy, because everything’s going well, when you have a challenge economy or a flat economy. That’s where if you’re proactive in your outreach chambers can really, really flourish. So flourish while the timing is right, which to me, there’s the next several years. And
Brandon Burton 35:48
absolutely, and it is a paradox, you know, for the individual businesses or the economy in general, you know that the times that the chamber is really called upon is when it’s the toughest time. So as we wrap up here, I wanted to give you an opportunity, Tony to share any contact information for listeners who might want to reach out and connect. I know, you had also teased about an article that you wanted to share as well. Okay, good. Good recall,
Tony Rubleski 36:14
Brandon. So two things, the easiest way to find these, if you go to mind capture group.com, that’s my main web page, you’ll see my face there, and all the other goodies there. But MindCaptureGroup.com what I really want to issue as a special bonus here, for those that are listening, is I have an article on my blog, and you can try to find it, I’ll make it easy. Send me a direct email, or even a Facebook message. My email is simply Tony@MindCaptureGroup.com, I will send you a direct link, I’m not going to spam you, I’m not going to email you to the end of time. So please, no, I’m not going to do that. But the article is called “7 Reasons Every Business and Nonprofit Should be a Member of their Local Chamber of Commerce”. I can’t write a better headline than that. But the article on the blog post, feel free to share it, it’s copyright free. Share that with prospective members, share it with people that are getting ready to renew. But it’s a great article written from years of experience in the industry, of why more than ever, you should join the chamber. So it’s on my blog, but it’s a little tricky to find. So if you email me again, Tony at mind capture group.com put, you know the Chamber Chat Podcast, or you know the article seven reasons, I’ll make sure I send that to you right away. But again, I want to make sure we added a ton of value, because you’re only going to remember maybe a couple of key points from this interview. I know that because I listen to podcasts. And I want to make sure there’s some take home value that you can share with the organization that may not hear this podcast as well. Now,
Brandon Burton 37:36
and I appreciate that having that article that resource available to share. We will get your email and website in our show notes for this episode, too, to make it easy for people to reach out to you to get that article. But I hope as this episode comes to an end that everyone listening takes a few moments. And just hit pause, don’t let the next episode start playing. Just sit in some silence. Think about those three G’s, the gratitude goals and getting healthy. And what does that look like for you in 2024? And write down some notes about that, and maybe revisit it towards the end of the year and see, see what positive changes what positive disruption you’ve seen in your life. But Tony, it’s been a blast having you with us today. On the podcast, you have delivered a lot of value for us. If you have any, any parting words, before we let you go? I’ll let you share that. And then we’ll we’ll let you go.
Tony Rubleski 38:33
A couple things here. Thank you again, Brandon for bringing me on. I love it. I signed on scout in your chamber chat podcast for many months when I reached out to him, I love this. So thank you for what you’re doing. And I guess no happy new year. You know, if anything, know that what you do is extremely important. I’m getting ready to re up at one of my chambers here in Michigan, I’m going to call them up and say hey, I’m ready to join again. So I’m also an active, I don’t just preach about it, I actively work a couple of chambers in my home community. So thank you for what you do. And keep up the good work and know that especially now in the year of election, this to me is where the chamber really has a powerful chance to shine against that negative and say, Hey, we’re doing good things here locally. Come check us out. So thank you for that.
Brandon Burton 39:18
Absolutely. Thanks for being with us, Tony. This has been great.
Tony Rubleski 39:22
Thank you everybody.
Brandon Burton 39:25
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