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Category: Podcast Episode

Rapid Membership Growth with Jennifer Vincent

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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.

Our title sponsor is Community Matters, Inc. With nearly 20 years in the chamber industry and over 100 media awards presented to their chamber partners, community matters provides the R&R that every chamber needs, revenue and recognition.

When it comes to publishing a Chamber Map directory or Community Guide, Community Matters has a trusted experience to help your chamber accomplish your goals. With different advertising sales models and publication styles, Community Matters will help you create a non-dues revenue machine!

Let’s hear from Becky Womble, President of the Bastrop Chamber to hear about her experience with Community Matters.

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 Jennifer Vincent. Jennifer is the President of the Cambridge Area Chamber of Commerce in Ohio. She has a associate’s degree from Zane State College holds a license and health and life insurance and has over 15 years of experience in sales and marketing. Jennifer is involved in several local organizations and boards throughout her community. She is a 2019 2020 graduate of leadership and Guernsey. She served as a leadership Guernsey administrator for the 2020 2021 class. She was named president of the chamber in June 2021 and served as leadership Guernsey administrator for the 2021 22 as well. Jennifer’s been married for two bow for 11 years together, they have seven children and three grandchildren. And her spare time she enjoys reading, reading, traveling and spending time with family. But Jennifer, we’re excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast, we’d love 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 we can all get to know you better.

Jennifer Vincent 3:12
Well, thank you for having me. I am happy to be on here. And I feel like all the interesting things about me you already talked about in the in my bio, as you said, in my spare time, which there isn’t a lot of that. But I love to run and a few years ago because of my love of running a friend and myself. We had started a run group. And we were doing things to give back to our community through our run group. And so we ended up turning that group into a nonprofit. And every year we hold race series and do some other events and then give all the money that we raise to local local charities local groups here in Guernsey County.

Brandon Burton 4:06
Nice. That is a that extra step quite literally that you took there. But that’s that’s neat. I like learning these things about people’s they have you on the show. Why don’t you take a few minutes and tell us a little bit about the Cambridge area Chamber just to give us an idea of the size of the chamber type a chamber staff budget, that sort of thing to kind of set the stage for a conversation.

Jennifer Vincent 4:32
Sure. So as you said in my bio, I guess my my story is that I came to the chamber. I officially started in July of 2021 after being named the president in June and our chamber had not had a president serving in this role for 17 months when I took this position And so through a retirement and some other things, and then of course, hate to say it, but COVID That was the reason, you know that we didn’t have someone in this job. So when I, when I came into the chamber, we were the size of it was about 390 and membership. And it was myself and the office manager. The office manager that was here was also in transition, and she was able to get her dream job. So she left right after I took this job. So there was a lot of transitioning going on. I hired a new office manager, I ended up after a year having someone also take over the leadership Guernsey program. So now we are a staff of three. And as of yesterday, we are now a membership of 500. So yeah, yeah, so over the last year and a half plus, I have added 142 new members.

Brandon Burton 6:22
That is fantastic. And that’s a largely what we’ll we’ll spend our discussion on today is the rapid membership growth. So it talks a little bit about the the transition everything going on there at the Chamber before you came in as you came in. But you’ve had a steep learning curve in the short time you’ve been there at the Chamber, but also making a big impact while you’re while you’re learning and getting your feet under you as well so excited to get into this discussion with you and and some of the things you’ve learned along the way as you’ve been doing this and we will dive in deeper in this conversation since we get back from this quick break.

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Brandon Burton 9:49
All right, Jennifer, we’re back. So you kind of set the stage for us as you came into the chamber you were taken over a role that had been vacant for about 17 months. A lot of transition a lot of moving parts, middle of a pandemic, lots of things happening. So as you came on board at the Chamber, I guess what did you see as your first priorities as you came on board in this position?

Jennifer Vincent 10:20
Um, I mean, it’s probably going to sound obvious, but, you know, coming into the job, it was basically just learning who the current members were, and reaching out to them. And, you know, just letting them know that after 17 months, that obviously now there’s someone in in the role, and seeing what it is they needed from the chamber, as well, as, you know, I was I was learning, learning the job, you know, and learning who all the members were. And, you know, my, my intention was not to come in and say, you know, my top goal was not, gosh, I want 500 members. I just wanted to bring everything back together. And again, I know, this is probably obvious to say, but we were in the middle of a pandemic. So there was not a lot of events and a lot of things happening. There were no business after hours. There were no fundraising events, there was no education programs, like there was just nothing going on. And so coming into it, I, you know, wanted to see, okay, what is it, we can get started back? You know, what events? Can we get started again, and have the networking in the community, to just to get everyone back together? So, I mean, that was kind of the first thing I did was, you know, learn who the members were, and what can I do for all of us to be together?

Brandon Burton 12:04
Yeah. So and that’ll, that’ll take you far, just learning who the members are and what you can do to advance the community. And naturally, I would see some, you know, membership uptick anyway, just by having somebody in the position now, you know, giving some attention to it. But as you have had more of a focus effort on building the membership, and and I don’t think you mentioned in the recording 500 is the highest that the membership has ever been there in Cambridge, right?

Jennifer Vincent 12:39
Correct. Yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s an that’s a new record.

Brandon Burton 12:43
So congratulations there. But as you started to focus your efforts on on building the membership back up, what were those key priorities had to do in the middle of pandemic express the value the, you know, the unique selling proposition that you had to put in front of members or potential members, as he began signing them up?

Jennifer Vincent 13:09
So, you know, as I said it, I guess, my first thing, again, wasn’t that I just, I wanted to hit that goal, you know, so I want to make that clear, I still want the chamber to be here to be that, that voice of business. And you know, it, I guess it, it was kind of like an organic type thing, right? I just when the board hired me, they said, We want you to think outside of the box, we don’t want you to feel like you have to do what the chamber next door does. You just take this and make it yours. And so I started with just simple little things. The when a new member joins the chamber, I would email them, which I still do, but I email them and say, you know, welcome to the chamber, I want to come and see you and bring your plaque and your membership plaque. And I want to get a picture with you. And so we would in the past that, you know, the chamber would take a picture of the member with their plaque and post it on social media. So I wanted to just change it up a little bit. I’m in the picture with them, handing them the plaque. And when I would post their picture on social media, it’s a picture of us together, and I tell what their businesses and what they do and how you can find them and, you know, just give them a little bit of that, you know, five seconds of fame and some advertising. And it kind of took off as far as like you said, I’m also here. So that helped with membership growth, having someone in the position and then the other thing was What I was thinking a couple of months in, you know, these new members, they’re getting time on social media on the chamber page. What are we doing for the members that have been here? 25 years, 50 years, you know, has people forgot that company XYZ joined the chamber 50 years ago? Of course they have. So what can I do for them. So after tossing around a few ideas, I created member of the week, and every Monday at noon on social media, there’s an article that pops up member of the week. And I started that in October of 21. And I’m, I’m very proud to say I’ve never missed a single Monday, including holidays, I still run the article. But what I do with that, I could very easily just email a questionnaire to that business and say, fill it out and send me a picture. But I actually go to the business. So for the last, I can’t do the math, you have to for me, how many weeks that’s been? So it almost two years. Yeah. Yeah, we’re going on almost two years. So for that many weeks, I have made an appointment with a different business before their articles gonna come out on Monday. And I go see them. I spend time with them. I asked them questions, to be able to write that article, I take pictures of their business, I take pictures of them. And every Monday at noon on social media, that article is posted member of the week, and it gives a little story about how they got started, how they think they’re successful, you know, and been able to be in business. 40 years, I’ve met with some businesses, they’ve been in business 100 years, you know, they’re carrying on the family business. Yeah. So I think that helping our community, remember who some of the members are that have been here, our chambers been in existence, 76 years, helping our community remember those members, I think has largely helped our growth as well. It’s, again, it’s just reminding our community who’s here, and who you should be doing business with

Brandon Burton 17:25
right now. And I think that’s a great approach that you’re taking, I love that you spend the time with each of those members to do that membership spotlight member the week. And as you brainstorm or as chambers listening, brainstorm other ideas. It can be made easy for in some sense that, you know, there’s a manufacturer’s week, you know, that’d be a great week to highlight all the manufacturers in your community. There’s no national ice cream day, you know, what members of your community serve ice cream? Yeah, highlight them tell a little story about them. There’s, I think every every day of the year, there’s some national day, you know, or whatever. So play that to your benefit and highlight them and you don’t have to do it that way. But it’s just an idea as you brainstorm and create your content calendar, which you’re going to put out there be intentional about who you’re reaching out to and why. And as Jennifer seen, it draws attention, it shows that value and keeps people engaged and in renewing their membership and bringing up those members that have been around seemingly forever. So get get creative with it. Think outside the box. So there are there other things as you were given that that directive to think outside the box that you explored and maybe things that worked and things that didn’t work even.

Jennifer Vincent 18:51
Um, yeah, so another thing we started doing know a lot of people use the term lunch and learn as a business meeting, whatever, once a month. And I wanted to just again, change the name a little bit change up what we do. So we call it power lunch. And we don’t hold it every month, because I chose to hold it the first week of the month. And we tend to hit a lot of holidays for some reason. So we ended up having power lunch about six times a year. And typically what we do with Power Lunch is the speaker is from a group or organization rather than let’s say, a business trying to advertise for themselves if that makes sense. So for an example, one of our speakers has been the director of the visitors and convention bureau. And now we still have someone sponsor, so The way it works is if you want to be a sponsor of power lunch, then that is a business, right? That’s doing it, you know, for profit. So they sponsor Power Lunch, they get two tickets to come and eat lunch. And they get 10 minutes to talk about their business before the main speaker. And it’s, that’s went very well. For us, too. It’s a smaller type, venue event, we usually have Around 35 people in the place where we hold that lunch and could only have 40. Anyway, so it’s 30, fives kind of that perfect number. And that’s been really successful, because again, it’s helping to highlight the organizations in our community, that maybe we don’t know what they do, or we forgot how much they do for our community. So and then, of course, you know, we, I hate to say it, you put everything on social media, right? You you post about that lunch, and you know, who sponsored it and, you know, make sure they they get their thank yous. And that helps, too, because, again, there’s, there’s just so many organizations that our community doesn’t know why they’re in existence,

Brandon Burton 21:20
right? Yeah. If it’s not on social media, it didn’t happen. No, exactly. Yeah, I like to say that, you know, social media is used to perpetuate what you’re already doing. So it becomes that larger amplifier of your your power lunch to then amplify what you’re doing with the speakers, we’re about, you know who the sponsor was with these. Remember, the week, you know, you’re already doing the interview, you’re talking to people just naturally, you’re going to talk to others about it, but then putting it out on social media amplifies that message, and just makes what you’re doing go a little further. So directly tied back to the membership growth. Is there a process as far as you know, attracting members as far as onboarding the members that you’ve found to be successful for you? I mean, you’ve been, you brought on a lot of members in a short amount of time. So you’re either running ragged, which the chamber chamber executor has been known to do. Or you you may be starting to establish a system of some sort. But where are you at in that that process?

Jennifer Vincent 22:31
I would say it’s definitely the system. Some of the members have come to come to me and said, I see what you’re doing, and I love it. And then the other thing is, if I see a new business announced on social media, I’m reaching out to them immediately. Hey, congratulations on your new business. I see you’re going to be opening soon. I would love to help you with that. What can I do for you? When can we chat? When can we sit down. So I’m reaching out to them, I’m being proactive. And then once I meet with them, you know, I’m talking to them about the benefits. And this is what we can do for you at the chamber. They fill out their application, then the next step is, like I said, I go back and see them at their business. So I want the picture that goes on social media to be myself and the business owner in front of that business that they’re you know, that’s joining, you know, we post that and at that time, I also give them a packet of information. And just tell them, these are the ways you can get involved. Depending on what it is you need from the chamber, and just go over all those things with them again, I don’t ever want to leave them empty handed. I don’t want them to feel like wow, she got my money. I’ll never see her again. So you know, I leave them with a packet of information on how to get involved. And I always tell them, if you’re not sure what you want to do with the chamber, please don’t be afraid to reach back out to me and say, What can I do? I want to advertise more network more. I need insurance, whatever it is, whatever the reason was, I want them to reach out to me. And then after that, we’re I’m reaching out to the members again, you know, another touch point. We’d love to see you at a business after hours, that type thing because again, I just don’t want them to think, Oh, she got her money. She got her application and we won’t see her hear from her until next year when it’s due again.

Brandon Burton 24:45
Right. So I know I think I’ve shared this example once before but I have a friend who’s a he’s a realtor. And as a newer REALTOR at the time he had reached out to me he had just moved to a new community He knew I did the podcast and I worked with chambers. And he’s like, Hey, should I join my local chamber? And like, well, it depends, you know, what are you trying to do? What’s your what’s your goal? What’s your objective? Like? Would you like to get involved at the chamber? You know, see what kind of committees, you know, see what kind of work your chamber is involved with. It’s the old saying, if you’ve seen one chamber, you’ve seen one chamber. But as new members are on boarded, to be able to know what those opportunities are to see, should I join yes or no? and at what level do you want to be involved with, because there’s a lot of ways to be involved. If you want to add, I’d like that you’re spending that time with them and trying to really help them understand the the impact they can have, but also the level of involvement that they get with their membership. That’s a that’s key. Is there anything that you think for, for listeners out there is a focus on membership as a membership isn’t necessarily always the primary focus, but it’s always on your mind? Right? You’re always looking for opportunities. Anything that comes to mind that that other chamber, professionals out there should be thinking of, as they go about recruiting new members.

Jennifer Vincent 26:19
Um, I think that the, the best advices as you’re recruiting the new members, is to also be thinking about what you’re doing day to day or month over month to keep them. You know, you you want to talk to them about joining. But the next question, I’m sure in the back of their mind is okay, I’m joining today. But what, what, what am I going to do with this as we go forward? So what programs do you have that are going to retain them as well? And then, of course, you know, telling them about what you’re doing, is why they will join. And then of course, step two is how you keep them.

Brandon Burton 27:08
Right. And I would encourage anybody to use their membership software to, to put in some of those, those key benchmarks now along their memberships. So if they’ve been in for, you know, two weeks, you know, do they get some kind of an email? Or is that when Jennifer reaches out and schedules, the plaque delivery in the picture and the social media posts, and then a month later, and three months and six months? What are those touch points? Are you making a phone call? Are you sending an email? Are you making a personal visit? Are you having an ambassador go by? Or what are the what are these things to keep these members engaged and fully on boarded in that first year, and, and there’s various membership, software’s can can help you do that, and some of it automating but some of it, just those reminders of, hey, it’s time to reach out to this member and take the next step. So I hope everyone’s leveraging that. Well, as we start to wrap up, Jennifer, I wanted to see if there’s any tips or action items that you might want to suggest for listeners who are looking to take their organization up to the next level, from the things that you’ve learned in your your 18 month sprint, so far, what what stands out to you is some of the things that would really help take an organization to the next level.

Jennifer Vincent 28:27
You know, it’s showing them that, that you care about their business. You know, I gave a lot of I said that I do a lot of things with social media. But the other thing I do is I go to them, I go to their business, whether it’s to talk to them about joining, maybe, I mean, I do everything local, right. shop local, whether it’s using their business for, you know, my things that I need, if just whatever the reason may be that I need to talk to a member. I tried to do it in person. I think that that is something that we have let ourselves get away from. We rely a lot on email and texting. And while that’s a great, maybe first step or second step, I think that the in person, it takes more effort, it takes more time, and the business truly believes that you care about them. If you take the time to go see them, and it’s truly the favorite part of my job. I love I don’t even feel like this is a job. I love what I do. I never get out of bed The morning and not want to come to work. So I love going to see people face to face. It’s my favorite part. And if you incorporate that, in your day to day week over week, having members want to join the chamber is not hard,

Brandon Burton 30:22
right? And what I’ve learned from others is you need to schedule that into your day, because it’s easy for you to schedule it, block it out, and then hold it as an appointment. But nothing beats that personal connection, spending time with somebody and being face to face shaking hands, you know, spending time in their business to show that you care. Yeah. So I like asking everyone I have on the show, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Jennifer Vincent 30:58
chambers are we’re, we are still the voice of business, big or small. And I think that chambers are needed even more so in the future. Because not every business is a brick and mortar. We have so many businesses that are that are online. They’re their storefront is not what you drive downtown. You don’t drive past them. So who is their voice? who advertises for them if they don’t do it themselves? And granted, they are doing it, but they need that extra layer. So I see chambers being even more important now than ever.

Brandon Burton 31:46
Yeah. And I think continuing to adapt and stay relevant as you talk about so many businesses doing things online now that, you know, is your chamber equipped to help them with best practices online or to help someone set up a e commerce Store if they have a brick and mortar so they can sell out the back door to? Yeah, where’s your chamber at in that process of being able to stay relevant and help your members and potential members, these businesses in your community to be able to be relevant in a worldwide marketplace these days? Thank you for that, Jennifer, as we come to a close, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who want to reach out and connect with you or learn more about this rapid membership growth. You’ve seen there and strategies that you’ve implemented, what would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect?

Jennifer Vincent 32:43
If they want to start with email first, is the easiest. And my email is president@cambridgeohiochamber.com.

Brandon Burton 32:58
Right, well, we’ll get that in our show notes too. And I’m sure Jennifer would welcome in person visits to if you wanted to show up in person and

Jennifer Vincent 33:06
absolutely come to Cambridge.

Brandon Burton 33:09
Spend some money and spend some time in Cambridge? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Well, Jennifer, I appreciate it. It’s been great having you on the show and sharing your experiences in your your first 18 months or so they’re on the job and you’re making a big impact and learning a lot along the way as well. So thank you for coming on here and sharing some of these things that you’ve learned with us.

Jennifer Vincent 33:32
Thank you for having me.

Brandon Burton 33:33
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Board Structure with Ralph Schulz

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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.

Our title sponsor is Community Matters, Inc. With nearly 20 years in the chamber industry and over 100 media awards presented to their chamber partners, community matters provides the R&R that every chamber needs, revenue and recognition.

When it comes to publishing a Chamber Map directory or Community Guide, Community Matters has a trusted experience to help your chamber accomplish your goals. With different advertising sales models and publication styles, Community Matters will help you create a non-dues revenue machine!

Let’s hear from Becky Womble, President of the Bastrop Chamber to hear about her experience with Community Matters.

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 Ralph Schulz. Ralph is the President and CEO of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, one of middle Tennessee’s oldest and largest business Federation’s. Ralph joined the chamber in 2006, following a 30 year career in nonprofit management, marketing and fundraising. During his tenure, the Chamber played a key role in helping the region emerge from the 2007 recession to a period of unprecedented growth. The chamber’s also led the movement to improve public school performance through the creation of the academics of Nashville established the moving forward initiative to ensure the creation of a regional transportation solution through a cohesive community effort and developed into a respected publisher of data on the Nashville on the Nashville metropolitan statistical area. With an annual publication of the vital signs report, he currently serves on numerous civic and nonprofit boards. And He’s a graduate of the University of Tennessee that, Ralph, we’re excited to have you with us today. Here on Chamber Chat Podcast, I’d love 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.

Ralph Schulz 3:19
Well, Brandon, it’s great to be on the podcast here with you in chambers do such urgent work and every one of the communities that they’re engaged in that it’s just a pleasure to be a part of the industry and be a part of today’s podcast. You know, I think I think one of the things I probably share with chamber people even though this is my only chamber job ever, even though it’s been 16 years, is I’ve had the chance to live in 11 different cities and eight different states around the country. And Nashville was one of those places that I was fortunate to be able to choose to live in and stay in. So the biggest benefit of all of that is I have seven grandkids and they’re they all live here and I get to see them all the time. And I really do think that that’s kind of linked to the fact that opportunities in Nashville and so you know, their parents have things that they can they can do here and stay here.

Brandon Burton 4:26
That is a great point. Having that that livability aspect of being able to stay in the community that you’re from and be able to raise a family and I think often we see when we talk about workforce and talent development of trying to retain you know, people within our within our communities. So that’s a great testament to be able to have all your your kids and grandkids in the same community with you.

Ralph Schulz 4:53
I tell groups that I speak to all the time that eventually they’re going to realize what a blessing that is

Brandon Burton 4:59
that So, yeah, that’s fantastic. Well, tell us a little bit more about the Nashville chamber. And we all know Nashville. But give us an idea of the size of the chamber staff budget scope of work, things you guys are involved with just to kind of set the table for our discussion.

Ralph Schulz 5:20
Well, the Chamber has been around since 1847. But if you really want to track the work that has resulted in the economic boom, and so forth, that we’ve enjoyed in this region, you really go back to about 1990, when the public officials that were elected and business leaders who were interested, really began to focus on reversing what had been about a 20 year decline in the economy. And so the purpose statement for this chamber, which is to create economic prosperity by facilitating community leadership, that’s really the birth of that statement. And and what you see from that time forward is a five year planning process, we’re in our seventh five year plan. And that requires us to have a budget of somewhere in the eight to 9 million category, it requires us to have a staff of 40 to 50 people. We are the regional economic development hub for a 10 County area in this region. But I really want to emphasize that that is a role that we fill, as part of the larger team of economic developers we we interact as, as a partner with TVA on a regional basis with the state economic development operation with local EDA o’s and economic developers throughout that 10 county region. And, and the staff is really kind of devoted to four operational areas, they are devoted to a policy area because we are advocates for our, for our members in the business community. We have a workforce or a talent development team that is really focused on that workforce issue, which we think is going to be our essential priority for at least the next 10 years, and probably the next 20 We have an economic development unit job creation unit that is really focused on the recruiting and the expansion and the creation of jobs in the area. And then, of course, we have that all important growth area that is, you know, the growth team provides the financial fuel and volunteer engagement that allows us to undertake our projects. So, you know, in a nutshell, that’s kind of what we look like.

Brandon Burton 7:56
Yeah, but I would agree with you with the workforce and talent front, that’s a, it’s going to be a long term issue across the country, as so many skills of people that are out of work right now, maybe their skills are not as transferable, you know,

Ralph Schulz 8:15
look at in Middle Tennessee right now, we track the numbers every month, there are about 70,000 job openings available and effort. If every single unemployed person were employed, we’d still have a gap of 30 to 40,000 open jobs, and that reskilling and upskilling of the people who are already here is a major source of being able to fulfill those jobs in migration is strong. Retention is strong because the livability is good. But as affordable housing is a little bit of a challenge. The people who are already here being aligned with the right talent and the right skill for the jobs that are being created is crucial.

Brandon Burton 9:05
For sure. Well, that definitely helps to set the table for our discussion today is we’ve kind of settled on the idea of talking about the way you guys have gone about structuring your board of directors. And I think that’s a an important topic for chambers across the country to pay attention to especially if they’re in a fast growing climate in their region of the country to really make sure that there’s good structure around your board before it gets out of control and runs away from you. So we’ll dive in much deeper into this discussion as soon as I get back from this quick break.

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Raquel Borges 12:03
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Brandon Burton 12:42
All right, Ralph, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re talking today about your board structure. And I know you guys were very intentional two years ago as you went about creating a real structure to the board. So maybe you just tell us from a high level, what is the structure of your board look like? And and keep in mind for everybody listening that everything is scalable, right, so they take what Ralph was saying and scale it to your community and and try to visualize how that can work?

Ralph Schulz 13:16
Well, when I arrived at the Chamber in 2006, there were 70 board members, a large Executive Committee, and the general conclusion of the board met board was that the board wasn’t functioning at its best. And so there was a group put together that worked for about nine months to rewrite the bylaws that had been in existence since 1847. And there are a few key things that they focused on. First of all, they felt like the board needed to be a lot smaller, so that it was more functional that the board needed to be the actual decision making body of the organization as compared to say an executive committee and that the duties of the chamber would be divided into two main chunks. The first chunk was the function in the role of the board which was to make policy and to assure the achievements of the chamber in the community. And the second chunk was the staff which was identified as implementation, the implementation aspect of the organization. And so what that meant in board construction was that the board was cut in half in terms of size. The committee structure of the board was shrunk to only two committees and they are the Governance Committee which is responsible for the healthy function of the board. They’re also the personnel can MIDI when one is needed, but that governance committee is really about the function of the board. And the other is the Finance and Audit Committee, which is really about the financial stability and the financial status of the organization. It’s not a fundraising group or whatever. The reason they constructed it that way was because they wanted to focus on policy. And so you don’t see a lot of the typical implementational related committees like a membership committee, or a fundraising committee or an events committee or whatever. But realizing that, that limiting the board to 43 slides, there were still, there were still a lot of business leadership in the community that wanted to participate in a leadership role. They created a category of activity called chartered initiatives. And every year at our budget time, we will take the significant initiatives of the chamber, create a written document around the scope and the reach and the authority and the resources deployed against that initiative. And that charter will be given to a group of volunteers and a volunteer leader to say, Go forth, do good things achieve these objectives, and you have authority contained within this charter that allows you to achieve those goals. I think, you know, for a chamber professional, it’s important to know, though that the Accountable person for that initiatives achievement is a staff person. In other words, at the top of the list, when the Accountable individual is named, it is a staff person that is accountable. The volunteer is not the Accountable person. But they they manage the function of those volunteers and can make decisions about changes and strategies and things like that. But so the fundamental structure of the whole thing is built around the board role of policy, the staff role of implementation, the board takes their policy function seriously, only the board can make policy decisions for the chamber, the executive committee can the Finance Committee in the government Governance Committee have assigned roles, but the board is still king. So when you come on to the chamber board, you’re told that you have no obligation to provide any level of resource or per participating in research, participate in resourcing. But every board member does in their own kind of customized way. But it’s purely voluntary. You’re told that you don’t have to serve on a committee, you volunteer to be on that committee. And that’s the way those committees are, are properly staffed, that you get a certain priority to be considered for leadership of the initiatives. So the main board function is to main pop make policy. And then if you like, I can talk about how people get to the Board of Directors, but you know, the board very, very much functions in that policy space.

Brandon Burton 18:24
So I would like to go down that path. At first, I wanted to just mention, at the very beginning of your comments, or you had mentioned readdressing, the bylaws that hadn’t been touched since 1847. Right? And that just like sent off lights to me that I’m like, Oh, that’s a long time. We just recently had Jeremy Arthur on the podcast. And a lot of people are familiar with Jeremy and his work around governance. And in that was one of the things we touched on was the bylaws need to be something that you’re actively looking at, you’re actively making sure that the roles of your chamber are acting within those bylaws, and making sure you have that leeway that you need to to where you’re not going against your bylaws on accident. So that just really stood out to me. Because by addressing your bylaws, it saw the need for addressing the board issues that you are talking about here. There were

Ralph Schulz 19:25
some really fundamental changes that were made at that point. Instead of membership votes on policy. The board became the the functional policy maker we still serve a our membership. It’s not that we don’t get their input. But but thanks aren’t. The membership doesn’t really have a vote. The terms of officers are were changed to be two year terms because the board wanted to have more continuity and accountability because the feeling was a one year term for board off assessors wasn’t enough to assure that we would have the achievement over time that we needed. You know, the structure of committees, the, you know, all of that policy versus implementation aspect. There, there were a lot of changes in the way that that bite those bylaws shape things. And they have been modified along the way, little tweaks along the way to assure that we can function the way that the board wants us to function. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 20:30
that’s a good example of members voting on changes in 1847. I’m sure the membership was a little smaller than what it is today. Probably a little easier maybe to round up the people for of a bit. So yeah, I just wanted to draw attention to that. But yeah, let’s let’s go down the path of how does somebody find their way onto the board and your recruiting process or just how you work that into the structure?

Ralph Schulz 20:58
Well, the board, the board terms are two three year terms, that’s the maximum you can serve. And every three years, the Governance Committee sits down and creates a board development plan for the next three years. And they have a spreadsheet that they’re working with where, you know, when you think of the largest sense of the of diversity, they’re looking to have people on our board that bring perspectives from variety of industry, variety of geography, sex, or gender, race, et cetera. And they’re factoring all of that into the composition of the board for a three year period. They set minimums for for for participation from each of those categories, so that they are getting the right balance. When it comes to who sits on the board, there are four criteria that they apply to each possible participant on the board. And they all of those things happen to start with the letter I. So we call them the four eyes and our governance committee. First of all, the invitation to board members is to the individual, not to the institution, so you will find from time to time retired executives that are still on our board. And that that focus on the invite in individual invitation is very, is very purposeful. Because when you look at the four eyes that they’re looking for, they’re looking for people who are influential in the community, they are looking for people that are independent in their discussion and their perspective on things. They are looking for people that are informed on the community, and they’re looking for people that are invested in the community. Now, the fifth is institution does sometimes come into play. We’re a healthcare dominated economy. So you know, you always want healthcare representation there. And there’s some institutions that have greater influence than others. But fundamentally, it’s an individual invitation built around those four eyes. So on influence, they want people who can reach out to get feedback and also project information into the community into a sphere of influence. When it comes to independent, they want people that will sit at the table not advocating for their own business or their own industry. But also they want them to be at the table regardless of who else is at the table and willing to express their independent thinking, you know, if they have a client at the table, that doesn’t reshape their their expression. from an investment perspective, it’s not just about investment in the chamber, although at a minimum, you have to be a member of the chamber. But they will tend to engage people at the board level who have been engaged in the chamber in leadership ways, already. And then finally, from an information perspective, our board moves rapidly with support from staff on the issues they confront from a policy perspective. But it’s important that people aren’t starting from zero with regards to the information they have about a particular issue. So those four eyes are the things that that they center around and that governance committee will get together they’ll look at a long list of possibilities. Usually the three year planners have slotted some names for the future that they think would be good to consider. And then after they have settled on name they’d like to nominate, we go meet with those people tell them what the obligations are find out if they’re interested. And then the final step, if they say they’re interested is to place them in front of the board at our annual meeting. And then their orientation begins a couple of months after that.

Brandon Burton 25:20
Very good. Yeah, I love the four eyes, the four plus one, maybe sometimes. But the one that really stands out to me is independent, you know, being able to be independent thinkers. And I think a lot of the others being influential and informed and vested in the community. I think those all are. Yeah, they don’t need any additional explanation. I don’t think I think they make perfect sense. Being an independent, independent thinker, you’re not coming with your own agendas. You’re not they’re trying to better your business, or your pocketbook or anything like that. You’re there for the betterment of the community. And that’s you’re able to express yourself in a way that you’re not needing to be as careful unnecessarily with your comments, because of any other collateral damage, maybe that can happen. So that’s your that’s a key I,

Ralph Schulz 26:15
you’re, you’re expected not to be careful, okay? It, it has to be a free flowing and fast conversation, our board meetings happened five times a year, and they’re two hours. And there’s usually two or three strategic items they have to decide on. So, you know, bring your thought quickly, concisely and powerfully,

Brandon Burton 26:37
right. I like that. Well, as we start wrapping up your eye, we can talk probably another hour on this on your board structure and dive in really deep. But I wanted to see if you have any tip or action item for listeners who really want to take their organization up to the next level, what would you suggest for them?

Ralph Schulz 26:58
You know, I think what brought this chamber to the next level didn’t happen while I was here, it happened in the early 1990s, when the business community said our economy’s in decline. And what we’re missing is a plan. And we’ve decided that the chamber is going to be the place that that plan is is created. Intentional is is a constant buzzword at at this chamber. And I would say that for this chamber, that catalytic activity is that plan, you know, we’ll raise $25 million dollars just for our five year plan. And then there’s another 25 or $30 million added on top of that, that comes to us from other revenue sources. And the real secret to being able to do that work is the is the engagement in the planning process of the business and policy, public public leadership in creating that plan, so you know, as far as catapulting to the next level, understanding what people are seeking to achieve, and then being able to facilitate a process where that that becomes a plan with metrics, activity, investment, et cetera. That’s what will propel the organization forward. I will say one last thing, though, if you don’t have a board with heft, if you don’t have a board that is strong, powerful, independent, willing to take risks, willing to move forward with courage, then you’re likely going to stall. And that’s one of the things I love about this board. And one of the reasons I’ve been here 16 years, is because I’ve never had a board that didn’t have that courage, and didn’t have that willingness to invest in making things happen.

Brandon Burton 29:05
Yeah, no, I love that. I love that tip and that the intentionality of having that plan for your community. Ralph, I like asking everyone I have on the show as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Ralph Schulz 29:24
Well, first of all, I think the horizons work of of ACCE is really valuable work and when it was first unveiled, we took it seriously and began to engage in undertaking it. I do think that the future of chambers is still oriented or oriented around bringing prosperity the community we fill that important role as sort of an intermediary between the business community and the public policy arena. If you look at Nashville’s success over 30 years, it’s been B Because there has been a public private partnership with the public arena, defining an environment that encourages investment. And then it’s about bringing investors to to the table. And so I think the larger, the more the more focused. A chamber is on the community development, livability, workforce development, job creation, the more compelling its position is going to be in the future. And I believe that reaching out for, for for for feedback, and offering compelling plans. I think that’s the future of the chamber. I, you know, we’ve heard a lot in the horizons about how the nature of membership is changing, and what causes people to join and what causes people not to join. I think in the end results are what matter. And when people see results, they want to be a part of the team, they may have a different perspective on priority. But when you achieve results, people want to have the opportunity for their priority to rise. So I think the future of chambers is bright, mainly because of that intermediary role that they fill in communities. And I think that the the professional function of the staff, is what will keep it fresh, vibrant and fulfilling, going forward?

Brandon Burton 31:37
Absolutely. I mean, diving back into the horizons, we’ve seen over the last three years or so just how, you know, future telling that report really was to really give heed to that and and to continue looking forward. I think it’s so important.

Ralph Schulz 31:57
And this podcast is part of that.

Brandon Burton 31:59
So thank you. So, Ralph, I like to give an opportunity for anyone listening who maybe wants to dive in deeper or learn more about the structure of your board, or how you guys are doing things they’re in Nashville, what would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect?

Ralph Schulz 32:19
Well, the best way is to email me at the at rschulz@nashvillechamber.com. Because we do get requests from time to time to have information about board structure, and we’re prepared to provide a package of information. I’m happy to have conversations. Look, I think governance is the absolute root of the effectiveness of an organization. So I’m always happy to share with other chamber professionals our experience, but you said it earlier. And I think it’s worth emphasizing this structure and these protocols. And this practice is very well tailored to the Nashville environment and the Nashville business and political environment. You know, variations on this, you know, are inevitably created in other communities to fit their needs. But we’re always happy to share.

Brandon Burton 33:21
Yeah, and that’s the key, just get that information and adapt it to the best best way to suit your own community and the issues that your chamber is there to address. And your community is not going to look the same as Nashville. So make those make those adjustments where needed. But, Ralph, I really appreciate you setting aside some time to be with us today here on chamber chat podcast. You bring a great perspective and an experience with your board structure that hopefully it will help to energize and keep others motivated to make sure that they have a good structure with their board and see the trajectory of their organization move forward in a positive direction. So thank you for being here with us and sharing this today.

Ralph Schulz 34:09
Well, look, I just appreciate the opportunity to be here and appreciate what you’re doing to help help chamber professionals particularly improve their practice and performance. So these podcasts are really valuable.

Brandon Burton 34:21
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Small Staff, Big Impact with Jodi Owczarski

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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
To learn how Community Matters can support your chamber with your next publication. Please visit communitymattersinc.com/podcast To request your free media kit and request a proposal to find out what kind of non-dues revenue you can generate.

Learn how you can partner with Community Matters, Inc. to produce your next Chamber Directory, Community Guide or Map.

Our guest for this episode is Jodi Owczarski. For the first five years at the Michigan West Coast Chamber Jodi was accountable for providing leadership in all areas of the organization as well as serving as the integrator within the EOS framework. As the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Jody was responsible for all human resources, accounting and finance functions, as well as managing the staff Facilities and Operations and directing the West Coast Leadership Program. As of September 1 2022, Jodi was appointed as president and CEO of the Michigan West Coast chamber. Jodi’s limitless capacity for solving math problems has been essential to creating budgets and balance sheets, and her inviting personality and quick humor, combined with our strategic thinking give her the edge when managing staff communities and volunteers. Jodi’s contagious energy ripples out into our business community. Working with the Chamber is a perfect combination of all Jodi’s previous work experiences, including as a self employed small business owner, serving as the community center director at a nonprofit working in HR for a large manufacturer and overseeing operations for an international consulting firm. Jody currently serves on a variety of boards and throughout the community and including ACCE Jody is an enthusiastic Spartan, with a bachelor’s degree in psychology with an emphasis on Human Resource Management from Michigan State University. Jodi, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast, I’d love for you to take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Jodi Owczarski 3:41
Awesome. Thanks, Brandon. Truly, it’s an honor to be able to be a part of your podcast. I’ve been a fan for a long time and thrilled to have the opportunity to share what we’re working on at the West Coast chamber. I don’t know what more I have left. I feel like I could have you’ve summed up my whole life. You know more about me now than maybe my mom would even be able to say so. Thanks for the detailed intro. i Yeah, I’m honored.

Brandon Burton 4:10
Yeah. Well, we get personnel on here. So yeah. Well, tell us a little bit more about the Michigan West Coast chamber just to give us an idea, you know, size of the chamber staff budget that all play well into our discussion today, but also touch on the scope of work that you guys are involved with.

Jodi Owczarski 4:28
Yep, absolutely. So we’re located in Holland, Michigan. I’m glad you said Michigan West Coast chamber, because often if we’re called the West Coast chamber, people think we’re over in California. The West Coast chamber came about about 10 years ago actually when two of our chambers merged to make the West Coast chamber and that’s been a just a great process for us since that time, we have about 1200 members and recently grew our staff to seven so we’ve had a pretty small but mighty team by Stand the number of members that we serve. We are proud to be five star accredited through the US Chamber of Commerce, and hope to get that re accreditation status again when we reapply at this time next year. One unique thing perhaps about our organization is we run on something called EOS. The Entrepreneurial Operating System is maybe not as unique anymore. I think we were the very first chamber in the country to start running on EOS. But we’ve been evangelists because of the game changing that that has been for our organization. So we’re super active in our community, we say that we’re a catalyst for business growth and development. We’re a convener of leaders and influencers and a champion for a thriving community. Maybe not so unique, and we hear that often throughout the chamber community

Brandon Burton 5:51
right. Now, that is great. And I’m glad you mentioned the EOS system. And occasionally I’ll hear it in other podcasts that I listened to entrepreneurial bass podcasts and they’ll bring up the EOS system like the Michigan West Coast team or uses it Yeah. setting a good example with it. So hopefully, through our discussion today, we’ll have an opportunity to explore that a little bit and, and maybe how you guys implement that and along with our topic today. So as we focus on our topic that we’re covering for discussion today, it’s around small staff big impact. And that’s all relative, right? So each community, and staff sizes are all relative to you know, like Jodi mentioned, they’ve got seven staff but serving about 1200 Chamber members. So that is a relative small staff to that size of membership. Right now, some listening might have a membership, two or 300 and maybe be the only one but we’ll talk today about ways to make a big impact with a small staff and really getting the best bang for your buck as we go throughout this conversation today. And we’ll dive into that a little deeper as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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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.

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Raquel Borges 9:19
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Brandon Burton 10:06
All right, Jodi, we’re back. I am anxious to learn more about how you guys make a big impact, especially with your staff size and leveraging opportunities there in your community to serve your Chamber members. So what are some of those fundamental ways that you leverage that impact?

Jodi Owczarski 10:27
You know, the big thing for us, Brandon, I think is that part of Eos is being super clear on who you are, and what your focus area is in for us. When we look at making an impact, we really look at five different areas for us to work in the first being advocacy. I know that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For us, that means that we promote a business friendly environment, through access to elected officials and education on important business related issues. That’s, that’s a big focus for us. The second is business building, we want to help provide visibility connections and resources for business success, that really comes into play with our smaller businesses that are in our chamber. Third area for us is community impact, we think that we can maximize the community, the impact on our community through collaboration and innovation, right? Not everything that we do is business focused, because we know that if the community is strong, business is strong, and vice versa, right? Strong business leads to strong community strong community strong. And so we want to make sure that we’re right at that intersection, to make sure that we can help provide a thriving community. Fourth area for us leadership and talent development, we deliver education and training opportunities for employees to just grow their abilities. This has become especially important threw out this kind of post pandemic time staffs are stretched, thin, people have been pushed into positions that perhaps they weren’t quite ready for, or they’ve not been trained appropriately for, we want to fill that gap and provide opportunities to help develop the leadership and talent skill set within our employee base. And then the last one is inclusivity. We want to foster a culture of belonging within our business community, we want everyone to feel not only like there’s a seat at the table for them, but that we expect them at the table, we welcome them to the table, we’ve got a seat for them, and we want their voice to be present.

Brandon Burton 12:41
Absolutely, that makes a lot of sense. And it’s imperative, I would say to be clear, and who you are and what your areas of focus are, to be able to know what your day to day tasks and responsibilities are. Right, if you’re not clear that you just kind of wander?

Jodi Owczarski 12:57
Well, and I think honestly, Brandon is the chamber, when people don’t know where to go with something, where do they go, they go to the Chamber of Commerce, right. And so we get inundated with all kinds of I’ll call them opportunities to to be involved. And some of those things are fantastic. But if we don’t know who we are, and what our purpose, what our niches, it would be really easy to just get pulled into a ton of different directions and be less impactful. Knowing what our niches what those five things are that that we’re going to work on. If it doesn’t fit in one of those five, we’re gonna have to say no, for us, and our role may be just helping them find others that might be better suited to help with the work that needs to be done.

Brandon Burton 13:46
Yeah. And you often hear oh, but it’s great exposure. Yeah, the chamber is great. But you know, and I have to remind myself that people also die of exposure, so you need to channel that right,

Jodi Owczarski 13:59
I’m gonna I’m gonna hold on to that one.

Brandon Burton 14:04
So it helps being able to narrow down what that focus is. So you can kind of weed out those extra opportunities or exposure and really hone in on what your work what what you guys are focused on. So once you have that clear identity and focus, taking the staff that you have, how do you leverage your staff into delivering in these five key areas?

Jodi Owczarski 14:28
Yeah, you know, the big thing for us, honestly, Brandon, as we start before, considering staff, and look at what work needs to be done, and then creating those roles. So whether you have a staff of one or a staff of seven, you’ve really got to clarify what that work is. Usually it should be kind of those three to five main pieces of work that need to get done, and then find the right people to do that. And so for us, we work off an accountability chart, so that we’re all on The same page of who’s accountable for what looks a lot like an org chart, but really works more from this accountability standpoint. And once we’ve got that clarity, when all of those other opportunities and exposures come up, we’re again focused back on what are the three to five most important things that we need to focus on. And so we really leverage our staff in that way to make sure we continue to stay honed in and completing the most important work, because there’s always more to do. And I

Brandon Burton 15:33
love that approach of really being, you know, clarifying the work. And as you mentioned, finding the right people. And I’m thinking for those with a really small staff, if they’re a staff of one or two, it may not be where they’re finding the right people to do it. But maybe it’s finding the right time and blocking out the time in their schedule to focus on those areas of work. So really blocking in clarifying what that work isn’t needed needs to be done and assigning the time or the people to that, I think is key,

Jodi Owczarski 16:03
for sure. Further to that, for us, we work in 90 days segments. So we work at a quarter at a time. So at the end of each quarter, we look back and review, how did we do this last quarter accomplishing what we needed to get done. And what’s the most important work that needs to happen in this next 90 days for us to be successful and on track. And so there may be additional tasks and projects and things that bubble up that needs to be tackled in that 90 days. And as we assign those to an individual, it also gives them that clarity and permission really to reprioritize their tasks and know this is my number one priority in this 90 days, this has to get done. And so that that additional clarity really helps keep us on track.

Brandon Burton 16:54
I like that idea gives you a little kind of Sprint’s to be able to be accountable for exact area of work. And, and I’m sure that all fits within those 90 day sprints, or focus all fit within the mission of the chamber as well, it does. I’ve seen as we’re recording this, it’s March of 2023. And we’re coming off of these, these Silicon Valley Banks and everything that have crashed and, and as I’m diving into that a little bit just learning about it. All these banks are public banks, and they look at one quarter at a time to try to perform for their shareholders. But they don’t have that driving mission that’s driving that organism. And you can get in real trouble if you’re just you know, looking at the next month or 90 days or quarter, or whatever it is, without that bigger mission. That’s right purpose and focus. So

Jodi Owczarski 17:50
sure. For us, we back our way in right. So we start with a 10 year target of kind of where do we want to be 10 years from now? And then, if we pictured three years from now, what would be on track to get us to that 10 years, right? And then here’s our one year goals. Here’s our one year plan of what do we need to accomplish in the next 12 months to keep us on track towards that mission? That way any of those 90 day sprints or projects, we call them rocks? align with that to make sure are we on track to meet our goals for the bigger picture, right for that one year plan? And what do we need to do in the next 90 days to make sure we hit those goals?

Brandon Burton 18:32
Yeah, I love that. It may be helpful for listeners who I think a lot of chambers that have heard of the EOS system. But maybe it may not be so easy to just summarize in a nutshell, but maybe give it your best shot just so if someone’s listening and like what is EO that it will just save them a Google search and and just hearing from the chamber that implemented it first. What is it and what how does that work? Yeah.

Jodi Owczarski 19:01
ELS just really takes all of the best business practices from a variety of sources and puts it in one easy to follow kind of recipe or cookbook. For us, it means that we have absolute clarity on who we are, what we’re called to do, what our goals are, and what we need to accomplish those those things. So it’s not anything super unique. It’s just taking all of those best principles and putting them all together in in one place. So it’s it’s having that clarity. It’s giving you a long term vision. Our our strategic plan is really a kind of a two page document that’s called a VTOL vision traction organizer that just has everything in one place. You can ask anyone on our team, what our goals are, where we’re going and what our core values are, and they could just knock those out like this right it’s it’s not That’s something that’s a document that’s put away and we pull out every three years to see if we’re on track. It’s living and breathing in driving the work that we do.

Brandon Burton 20:09
So, for those listening, you may hear Entrepreneurial Operating System and think it’s an app or a program or something, it’s really just more of a framework to kind of structure the organization around and keep you on track with your, your purpose and those core values that you mentioned.

Jodi Owczarski 20:25
Absolutely. There’s a book called Traction by Gino Wickman. That’s the cookbook. So yeah, it’s a pretty easy, a pretty easy read. But once you kind of work your way through that, it’s like, Ah, this makes sense. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 20:43
So for those who are listening with the smaller staff, and I feel like every chamber out there can really, you know, hone in on this, because I feel like every chamber is always understaffed for everything that’s going on. Once they, you know, kind of focus in on their their areas of work their their areas of focus of purpose, I guess, clarifying the work and who’s going to do the work? What next steps would you suggest or what, what’s the next thing to try to really maximize the impact that they have with their limited staff?

Jodi Owczarski 21:17
You’re exactly right, you gotta have clarity and your purpose and your needs, you’ve got to find the right people, right, that can do that work. And then you’ve got to build the culture that are keen to keep your all stars in place. So it’s really easy, especially for chambers to just burn out, right? Chamber work is that eight to five, Monday through Friday. Chamber work is all encompassing 24/7, if I go to a wedding, I feel like I’m still representing the chamber, right, and so it never ends. So it’s also creating those boundaries for yourself to make sure that you continue to have gas in the tank, to be able to do the work that is so incredibly important for our community. For us, I sound like an EOS evangelist, I swear they’re not paying me to say these things. But a game changer for us this year, is we read another book called The EOS life. And essentially, it boils down to five questions and whether you do EOS or not. I love this self reflection to make sure you stay on track. One is you have to say yes to all five of these questions. Are you doing what you love? Are you doing it with people that you love? Are you making a huge difference? Are you compensated appropriately? And do you have time for other passions? We hold ourselves accountable to those five questions. Because if any of those answers are no, our time here at the Chamber is likely going to be short, right? If we’re not loving the work that we do, we’re going to end up finding our way out. The biggest issue we’ve had, frankly, is time for other passions. And so we continue to put guardrails and bumpers in place to make sure that our team is getting out. And they’ve got time for other things. And I’m asking them, what what makes you happy? What brings you joy? And we’re actually tracking on a scorecard. Are you doing those things? Are you filling that part of yourself so that you can continue to feel vibrant, joyful and prepared to do the work?

Brandon Burton 23:26
Right? Now, that’s so important to avoid that burnout and make sure in developing that culture, make sure people are enjoying life, make sure they enjoy coming to work, that they enjoy the work they’re involved with. And if not, you know, let’s make some adjustments. Let’s see, you know, what does bring them passion, let’s encourage them to take some vacation days, let’s encourage you know, those things that are going to help to sustain you know, a good, a good healthy balance, if there is such a thing.

Jodi Owczarski 23:56
And you know, and there is and I think if you’re a staff of one, you might think that’s almost impossible to do. But I would challenge and say it’s more important than ever, that you can say yes to all five of those things, right? Because it all does boil down to you. So if you can’t say yes to all those things, if it’s if it’s a time issue, then figure out what what has to come off your plate, you can’t do everything. Right. So goes back to knowing what your purpose is, and and making sure that all of your time is spent on those things. And kind of peeling away the rest.

Brandon Burton 24:33
And if you’re a staff of one, just feeling totally overwhelmed, you know, utilize your board, utilize your volunteers, you know, do you guys how do you utilize volunteers in your board there at the West Coast chamber?

Jodi Owczarski 24:46
Great, great question. We’ve really changed the expectations that we have for our volunteers. We had a huge ambassador program we had I think over 100 ambassadors. They were ineffective. It was cliquey. Anybody who wanted to be an ambassador could just be an ambassador. It was more of a social club than anything else. And a couple of years ago, we decided that that just wasn’t representing who we were as an organization. So we pushed pause, and completely flipped that program, we took what we do for our organization, from an EOS clarity standpoint, and put that same principles into place for our ambassadors. And so they had to know who we were and what their purpose was. And we had expectations for them. We’ve started an application process and an interview process for them to be a part of this important team for us. We’re down to I think, 40. Now ambassadors, and they are doing such incredible meaningful work for us that I can’t imagine not having them as a resource, and an extension for our team, we have a very robust member engagement process, we call them journeys. Here, it’s a defined track of what a member can experience, the touch points they’re going to have with our organization. We don’t want them just hearing from us once a year when it’s time for them to write another check, right. And so we’ve got the structure journey, that would happen throughout the year, we can’t do all of those touch points for 1200 members, with a staff of six or seven, not in that do it well. And so we engage our ambassadors to do a lot of that outreach and engagement. And it’s a great opportunity for them, right? It grows their connections for their own job outside of the chamber. But it also provides the that meaningful contact from the Chamber’s perspective, and gives us the insight that we need so that if a membership is at risk, we know about that before, it’s just a lack of payment for an invoice. And so we can get on that issue earlier.

Brandon Burton 27:00
Right now, I love the way you guys are have changed that Ambassador program and really creating that that honed in focus. Do you know how did that transition go go from going from 100? down to four? Because I can just see, listeners be like, yes, that’s our ambassador programs, clicky. It’s way too big and effective. But you don’t want to, you know, push people away. So how do you do that transition?

Jodi Owczarski 27:27
Great question. So the first year, we allowed, we provided clarity on what the new expectations were going to be. And we allowed everyone who was currently an ambassador to reapply, or to apply and be accepted in that first year. But they did have to apply. But we weren’t going to turn any of them away. Some of them with the new expectations in place. They’re kind of like, yeah, that sounds a lot like work to me. And I think I’m out. And so that was great, right? They self selected out. Yes. Others kind of came through that first year and thought, whatever, you know, they they knew how it was going to be. And after that year of clarity and expectations. They’re like, yeah, that felt a lot more like work. I’m out this year. And so it wasn’t an abrupt change. Others, we had to have some direct conversations like, it might be time, you know, you’ve served us well, we’re so appreciative of the number of years of service you’ve had. But it might be time to let somebody else have this opportunity. And that really had gone over pretty well. But you know, it probably took three, three years or so to really get it down now to this just all star all star team of ambassadors.

Brandon Burton 28:45
Yeah. I’ve been intrigued with all these different Ambassador programs that different chambers do and from applications and interviews to I’ve heard of some that, you know, the ambassadors pay to be part of the program. And it really helps to kind of not weed out but really qualify those who are really there to show up and do the work.

Jodi Owczarski 29:07
Absolutely. We’re turning them away now. Right. I mean, I saw the list of I’m thankful I don’t have to make the decisions, because I was like, Oh, are you kidding? This person doesn’t get to be an ambassador. But it’s it’s the right thing. Right. And so now you’re raising the bar and creating it to be something that people aspire to. What a mind shift,

Brandon Burton 29:26
right? Absolutely. And really, if you’re not qualifying those ambassadors as volunteers, somehow it really ends up just creating more work for you either damage control or hands on with each of those volunteers. And so help yourself by by helping to qualify those who are volunteering.

Jodi Owczarski 29:48
100%. You know, that makes me think of something else. Brandon, I think that so often in the chamber industry, we think about we’ll just we’re just grateful for anybody that will help or any members that will join. And we’ve kind of changed that mindset here. So even from a membership perspective, we raid our members a, b, c, d, if we’re clear on who our ideal members are, we spend more time going after those ideal. And we’d spend more time trying to retain those ideal, because we found that we spent so much of our time and energy chasing and dealing with these problematic members that were paying the very lowest tier membership dues, and really weren’t well aligned with chamber membership. Well, we take their money for a membership, absolutely, well, we support them 100%. But we’re not going to spend the same energy chasing after them. And once we gave ourselves that permission, we were so much more impactful. So I mean, we’ve been retained last year, we retained our membership at over 92%. Right, you find the right the right recipe, and it works. The same thing is true. From the volunteer standpoint, I kind of identify and define what’s your ideal Ambassador look like? And go after those people and raise the bar, don’t just be like, oh, we’ll take whatever we can get. Because those problematic ambassadors that don’t align with those expectations. Oh, they are soul sucking, right? It takes all of your time, all of your energy, and they don’t. And you don’t get anything for it. It’s just a double negative.

Brandon Burton 31:33
Yeah, well, and you can go another step with recruiting your board, right? It’s it across the board, whether it’s a member of volunteer board member, and the example he gave with the members, it’s kind of the membership paradox, right, like those that need the most help that need the most attention, can’t afford to pay more than just the basic entry level membership. So being being clear on that is very helpful. Absolutely. So Jody, as we start to wrap things up here, I wanted to ask you, if you have any tip or action items that you might suggest for listeners who want to take their chamber up to the next level, what would you offer them?

Jodi Owczarski 32:14
You know, I think one thing that is often a struggle for people is kind of making decisions based on data. And so I think don’t let data be something that is carrying you use that to inform your decisions, and your work, whether it’s to go to the board and say, I need another person, or if it’s to define new opportunities for you, or if it’s to kill the sacred cow, right? It’s that program that you’ve done forever, use data to help drive those decisions. We have a very robust scorecard system, that we go over once a week as a staff, with those key metrics that show us whether we’re on track or off track. And we use that really to drive the decisions forward, what are we going to continue to do? What do we need to stop doing? Or what additional resources we need to take things to the next level? So don’t be afraid of data really can be your friend?

Brandon Burton 33:14
Yeah. Especially as you go to your board and say, I feel like we need to get rid of the sacred cow versus we need to get rid of the sacred cow look at you know, what it was five years ago? This is what we’re getting now. The engagements not there. The money’s not there, whatever it is, it’s not aligned with our mission anymore, basically.

Jodi Owczarski 33:33
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, sometimes killing those sacred cows are the best things that you can ever do. Because it gives you opportunity, space capacity to do something new that might be more meaningful for your organization, for your community for your members. Don’t be afraid to try something new.

Brandon Burton 33:52
Right? So I like asking everyone I have on the show, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Jodi Owczarski 34:03
Now, that’s such a great question. I was talking to somebody about that. Yesterday, I talked before about the fact that we’ve got a 10 year target, right? Where are we going to be 10 years from now. And our 10 year target does not include the words Chamber of Commerce, we say that we’re going to be an organization that, right, because I don’t know what this is going to look like. And I don’t want to restrict myself so far to say that I do know what that is. Maybe it’s a chamber of commerce. But we know that we want to be the essential business resource and leading connector in the middle of a thriving and prosperous community, whatever that might look like. I think that that the needs from our business community are evolving so quickly, that we’re going to have to continue to change to be relevant and important for the community to continue to lean out in that way.

Brandon Burton 35:01
Yeah, I like that. I had a thought just as you’re given that response that has never really crossed my mind before. But when you talk about not necessarily being married to the term Chamber of Commerce, I’ve seen a lot of chambers make that shift already, right, where they’re, they’ve changed, they’ve taken chamber out of their name. But, you know, in today’s world of digital, you know, keyword research and you know, as people look at terms they’re find found on search engines. Chamber has multiple definitions, right? If you do a search for chamber, I mean, who knows? What’s going to come up? Right? Is there a more defining word or term that can be coined to really encompass what a Chamber of Commerce does? Right? So more clarity and more focus on allowing the community to understand you know, what this organization does,

Jodi Owczarski 36:05
right? I don’t know what the answer is to that, frankly, and maybe we’ll still be a chamber. But we want to be open enough to the fact that that might not be the same label that we have. But we’ll continue to evaluate that year over year. Regardless of what we’re called, I think that there’s a need for an organization, like a chamber of commerce, to be at the core of, of any community to really help it thrive, and to be the best that it can be,

Brandon Burton 36:37
for sure. But God, this has been a fun conversation. I’m sure people have been jotting notes as they’ve been hearing your talk. But for the listeners who might want to reach out and connect with you maybe learn more about the EOS system, or just in general how you guys are doing things Sarah at the Michigan West Coast chamber, what would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect?

Jodi Owczarski 36:58
Absolutely, I we love that. I love it. Personally, our whole staff does. So I would encourage you to visit our website, WestCoastChamber.org. And take a look, feel free. All of our contact information is on the website on our staff page. So if you’re a membership person and want to connect with Jess or Britt, reach out, they’d be happy to hear from you. If you want to talk to me about chamber in general, or anything about EOS forward thinking, click right there on the LinkedIn, contact me directly there as well. We truly are passionate about the work that we do, and are always honored to have the opportunity to talk with other chamber professionals to help support the work that you’re each doing in your own individual communities.

Brandon Burton 37:45
That’s perfect. We’ll have of course links to your website and staff page and everything in our show notes for this episode. So anybody can can find you there as well. But Jodi, thank you so much for being with us today on chamber chat podcast for sharing your experience and how you guys are doing things there at the West Coast chamber. I really do appreciate it.

Jodi Owczarski 38:05
Appreciate it. Thanks so much, Brandon.

Brandon Burton 38:07
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Leveraging Opportunities to Build Businesses with Danielle Fitz-Hugh

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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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When it comes to publishing a Chamber Map directory or Community Guide, Community Matters has a trusted experience to help your chamber accomplish your goals. With different advertising sales models and publication styles, Community Matters will help you create a non-dues revenue machine!

Let’s hear from Becky Womble, President of the Bastrop Chamber to hear about her experience with Community Matters.

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 Danielle Fitz-Hugh. Danielle has served as President of the Chesterfield Chamber of Commerce since 2017. Having held over the last 16 years positions as president at the Petersburg Chamber of Commerce and vice president of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce. Prior to the chamber profession, Daniel spent 13 years in the financial and hospitality industries in Charlottesville, Virginia market. She is known for bringing synergy energy and growth through her leadership at the helm of organizations. Danielle currently serves as a fellow for the US Chamber business leads fellowship and as chair of the Virginia association of Chamber of Commerce executives. She has been recognized as the nominee and recipient of several industry awards throughout her career including the 2016 chamber Executive of the Year by the Virginia Chamber of Commerce executives. Danielle’s involved locally and serving on boards of multiple organizations in her community. Danielle is an IOM graduate and received degrees from Averett University and Piedmont Virginia Community College. Danielle is passionate about youth development and spends time organizing officiating and coaching for the Chester church basketball league for 300 Boys ages seven to 17 each year teaching leadership team building and groupthink through sports. Danielle, I’m excited 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 you can get to know you a little better.

Danielle Fitz-Hugh 3:39
Yeah, thank you so much Brandon for having me and Hi to all of my chamber family. Across the country we do become our own little family and lean on each other for support and help when we need it. We will send out a lifeline so hi to all of you guys that I’ve sent lifelines to over these many years. And I think the last question was something interesting although you mentioned it in my bio, so most do not know that I coach and referee and run a basketball league and so I will tell you what my husband says is I get a whole new wife for about three months every year because you put on this you know this different hat when you are shepherding and pouring into you and leading them to learn team sports and work together and come up with something that’s called this game of basketball so it’s it’s it’s I don’t know any and I run and I do it for boat mostly boys, but 98% are all boys. And at least in the mid Atlantic region as best I know I might be the only woman running traditionally all boys in this league. I’ve had a few people reach out to me. So that’s pretty unique, although outside the chamber industry that we’re talking about today. You

Brandon Burton 5:00
Yeah, no, that is unique. And kudos to you for doing that. I know, I got a glimpse this year my wife took on being the volleyball Commissioner for our volleyball league in our community. And there’s a lot of work on the back end of that. And if you’re, you know, putting on the league and coaching and doing it all and that’s it’s a lot of work beyond your your day job. So

Danielle Fitz-Hugh 5:23
yeah, I don’t coach as much anymore. But I do love to referees. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 5:30
Well, tell us a little bit about the Chesterfield chamber give us an idea of the size of your chamber scope of work staff budget, just to kind of give us an idea of perspective wise, before we get into our topic today.

Danielle Fitz-Hugh 5:44
Yeah, so the Chesterfield chamber. Next year, we’ll celebrate 25 years. And we’re just around a little under 600 businesses that are members of the chamber and about a half a million dollar budget annually, I have four and a half employees, that includes myself, and we break our staff up because all chambers are very different and kind of how they lay out their work. We have a salesperson or business development manager, then we have someone that handles our marketing, and events programming. And then we have a member relations person, which is really a retention position that works with our members and making sure they’re using the benefits. We’re on a tiered membership level. And so we make, we should make sure that the investment level that they want to use is being taken care of. So they renew, and then a bookkeeper and myself.

Brandon Burton 6:40
Yeah, that engagement aspect is so huge with me, each part is important. Don’t get me wrong, but is there’s nothing worse than it’s time to renew. And they say I didn’t get anything out of the chambers. You didn’t take him. Right, right. Right. Right. So making sure they know, everything the chamber has to offer and really get the full value out of it that

Danielle Fitz-Hugh 7:01
that’s exactly right. That’s exactly right.

Brandon Burton 7:03
So are you guys primarily traditional chamber during doing a tourism economic development? What, what kind of work are you involved with?

Danielle Fitz-Hugh 7:11
Yeah, so we don’t do traditional tourism or economic development. However, I serve on our local EDA, so I’ve kind of got this two part hat that I wear here in the Commonwealth. And so in our county, you know, I work we work really closely with our locality in a variety of ways. You know, we clearly in all of my communities have been this way, you know, we want to be partners with our local economic development, our regional economic development engine and statewide so that they can get businesses here. And we can take care of them because we want to make sure that we provide opera opportunities for our community to work and live and do business here in Chesterfield.

Brandon Burton 7:59
That’s great. So I am looking forward to our conversation today and our back and forth and setting this up, I can tell you have a passion for helping businesses build and be successful and, and really building strong businesses throughout your community and, and we’re going to be focusing our discussion today around leveraging opportunities to build businesses and tapping into some of Danielle’s experience and I’m sure some stories that she’ll be able to share with us that hopefully, it’ll be very relevant to other chambers that are listening today. So we will dive in deeper in that conversation as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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Raquel Borges 10:58
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Brandon Burton 11:29
All right, Danielle, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, today, we’re talking about leveraging opportunities to build businesses. So I know just from some of your background that you shared with me that this is something that’s important to you, as it should be to any chamber executive, right? That should be kind of a passion for us to see, see the businesses in your community thrive and grow and, and really enhance the lives of people throughout your community through successful business. But I would love to hear from your perspective, what type of approach you take when we talk about leveraging opportunities to build businesses.

Danielle Fitz-Hugh 12:11
Yeah, so I really look at it as a two fold of education. So we have community that may or may not be in the background, understanding the day to day need for businesses in our community. And so every community out there has a little bit of that nimbyism that not in my backyard, don’t build it here kind of thing. And that’s not unusual. But I look at businesses, you know, I’m going to reference something and I should give credit, I’m going to give credit to Greg Fairchild, who used to be at the Taylor Murphy Institute at University of Virginia. So he has this theory around whales and dolphins as it relates to business. And so whales would be something like Amazon coming into your community. We just recently announced Lego coming into our community. So it’ll be the first Lego manufacturing facility in the country will be here in Chesterfield. And as they’re coming on board, you know, that will be a large development. I mean, again, who doesn’t want Lego in their community, right? But there are other types of big whales, right? And so I look at the big whales of yes, we need the big whales, but it is really the spool of dolphins that create the community. And those spools are dolphins are your mom and pop T Shirt Company that’s making you have a branded shirt on Brandon. That’s chamber chat. It is your commercial cleaning company that needs to go out there and get contracts. That’s your caterers, it’s your retailers? Those are your businesses right in your community that need the larger employees, larger companies so that they can build a full lifecycle of an opportunity of business opportunity. And so when you think of, Okay, do we want Lego or Amazon in our community so that we can have auxilary businesses then come? Because you don’t want a business desert? I’m sure many of our listeners have driven through a community and you’re going well, where’s the enterprise that there was some big business that left but if you have one whale or two whales in your community, and then you build 50 6600 Dolphins, when that one whale might leave, you still have all the dolphins. And so for me, what really creates opportunity is helping all those dolphins figure out how they can plug in, how can they get their next contract. Are they certified do Do they need to get MBE certified, swim certified, I mean, all these different things to make them the best candidate for their next piece of business.

Brandon Burton 15:09
Right? I love that analogy with the whales and dolphins and, and really in today’s environment, these dolphins can support these whales, you know worldwide really? I mean, that’s exactly right then tap in and get them educated and connect them. It helps having a big whale in your community for sure. But it’s not a deal breaker anymore, right? Like, that’s exactly right, and be very healthy, even without the whale in the community. Yeah, we’re seeing that in a neighboring community to where I am right now, where Universal Studios has announced that they’re bringing in a kind of a smaller scale, like a kid oriented theme park. And you know, for the city, it’s a huge economic development win, right? I mean, you’re bringing in a lot of tourism dollars, you’re bringing in a lot of jobs employment. But the whole idea of not in my backyard, there’s neighborhoods that back right up to that, and I, I can empathize with them. Like, I don’t know that I’d want a theme park in my back. But all the dolphins that that will bring that that will feed that that will really sustain that city for a long time. There are some trade offs and of course, infrastructure that needs to go along with it and the whole nine yards. But

Danielle Fitz-Hugh 16:25
yeah, I mean, infrastructure, education, I mean, money for schools, I mean, every community wants to have the most money going into school budgets, right and localities or are funding those budgets at a high level and in business helps that, right. So nobody wants their home taxes, you know, to go up or their business taxes to go up. But I mean, but the more enterprise you have in a community, the more opportunity to lower your household costs. But it also helps communities have sustainable employee employment. So that, you know, your wife has time to go out and volunteer as Commissioner of a volleyball group. You know, if you’ve got to think and struggle about how to keep the lights on, then you don’t have the time to go out and volunteer, and, or even have the resources to support or sponsor teams, and so forth. So we really look about look at it as an opportunity to provide community so that they can go back and build their community. So we like to say, we build business. So you can build a community

Brandon Burton 17:36
like that. I like that a lot. So I think as far as these whales go, for a large part, and I’m easy to talk about Amazon’s and Lagos and they, they kind of have the business part figured out, right? I mean, if we can create a welcoming environment to welcome them to our community, more power to us. But I see us focusing more of our attention on the dolphins Suzy talked about making sure they’re plugged in and trained. Can you talk to us more about your approach with these dolphins and how you go about finding the NA, I mean, we’re using this as a kind of a parallel, but these dolphins are the smaller businesses support bigger businesses and support your community. So how do you go about finding them learning about what they need addressing those needs, just the the day to day grit, I guess of what it comes down to is supporting these businesses?

Danielle Fitz-Hugh 18:28
Well, in our community, we really are about building relationships, and building a community to help you grow organically. So, you know, we really preach the match message of inclusiveness from a business perspective. So our small businesses, which we you know, most communities are small businesses, you just hear more about the large businesses, right. So you know, our smaller businesses, we really are working to make sure that they’ve got their financial house in order. And if they don’t hear the tools through our programming to help them keep their financial house in order, especially when they’re going out after contracts. I mean, really understanding sort of that cash flow model that, you know, you may not be getting paid the same week, because you’ve got to invoice and are they net 30. Net 45, that 90, you know, depending on how they’re working with their contracts on being able to leverage lines of credit so that they can offset that cash flow, demand and stay open and pay employees and that sort of thing. And then building their long term marketing and branding strategy. And through some of our, you know, member partners on what that looks like. So, yes, you have the contract now, but let’s look at what’s down the road for six months, two years, five years from now. So really working with businesses and phased approach So that zero to two year phased approach, you know, the entrepreneur who has a passion who started the business who’s hustling. And you know, I, like I love an analogy killing what they eat when you’re hustling as an entrepreneur. So they’re in the market, and they’re running on that little hamster wheel. So we work with them on building capacity. And then okay, they’re making some money, they’re ready to kind of take that next leveraged approach. And then you’ve got kind of those two year to five year businesses who nail can go after some significant contracts of business for the long term and put some things into place. And we really want to, you know, launch their businesses. So by the time they get to that five year mark, that they are the name that comes up in conversations when thinking about their services, their goods, their products, and the next piece of business that’s on the table. And so we work really hard with our chamber member partners on that education so that they can build not just the business today, but really a sustainable lifetime business.

Brandon Burton 21:07
Right. So I know, as businesses join the chamber, they join for a variety of different reasons, right? Maybe it’s just what they see on the surface, you know, maybe they have a friend and they hear about your Gala. And they really think that’s anything or they’re in it for networking or whatever. So you have this member engagement person on your staff to help share with the full array of services are? How besides having that member engagement person? How do you make sure people are really fully participating? Or at least knowing about everything that you have to offer? And how do you offer some of these things? So some of the education some of the you had mentioned marketing and branding, branding strategies? Are these in person kind of seminars? Are they? How do you what’s your approach?

Danielle Fitz-Hugh 22:02
So So Brandon, I might disagree with you just slightly, I might say businesses join for one reason. And that’s to make money. Sure. And the other pieces is how we deliver that. And so for us, we deliver it in a phased approach. So, you know, Brandon at chamber chat, decides they want to join the chamber, they’ve heard amazing things as you all do about your chamber. And they do and they decide to pull the trigger I’m going to join. So what our onboarding looks like is you’ve joined, we now team you up with an ambassador, which is pretty traditional, across our industry, that Ambassador is a member just like you are, who now walks you through all the things that they think are important for you to get involved with. And they stay with you for a year and build this tight community of relationships with you. They meet you at events, they talk to you about different programs, and really create a roadmap for your engagement, and things that you can do, because we do more than just what one member would want. And I tend to tell people all the time, you can’t do everything, because you got to do other pieces of your business, but really work with them on building that roadmap. And then at about the 90 day mark, my member relations person, my engagement person, you know, sets up a meeting with them, and says, Hey, because we’re tiered, which means you don’t just join the chamber, you join and you tell us how you want to engage with us? What value of engagement Do you want. And so based on how you’ve said, when you’ve invested on how you want to engage with us, our member relations person is saying, Hey, you said networking and marketing is important for you as a new business, because you’ve got to get your name and brand out there were 90 days and we still have some pieces that you haven’t done yet. Let’s schedule them for the next nine months. Because sometimes what will happen is a member will join. They forget the thing that bought them to the chamber. Or they only do that one piece, we have a 200 person luncheon every month. So it’s like putting on a gala every month. And so a lot of members join because they want to come to that one that one event. But we do so much more that our member engagement person will say, here is your list of 30 benefits, you know, whatever that list is, let’s go ahead and schedule them for the whole 12 month of this annual investment. That way, you’re not forgetting about your membership. We’re key and we’re also making sure that we keep your brand in front of our members for the whole year versus delivering all the benefits in the first 90 days, six months, four months, whatever that timeframe is so we’ve the engagement person really works with each member on those benefits and getting them across messaging for the whole 12 months of their annual investment lifecycle.

Brandon Burton 25:09
I think that’s a brilliant idea to sit down and say, here’s the main things that would be of most value to you, let’s get them on the calendar, let’s make sure you show up, let’s make sure you participate and be fully engaged, you know, to the extent of what you need for your business to succeed, to meet those expectations.

Danielle Fitz-Hugh 25:28
And we do have, and we do have, like many organizations, we do have some automation that we can do with that to some sort of like a drip automation, to remind certain tiered levels, that these things are coming up, we’ve got some concierge service, and that related to our member engagement person, so much like a concierge at a hotel would work with the hotel guests on making their reservations for the theater, or the next show, we have some concierge services built into our memberships. So at certain investment engagement levels, larger companies are whales, right? They might have someone that manages all of their benefits at that company. And we have some concierge services that allows them to work with us. They’re not going into the system, they don’t have time to log in. We take care of all of that for the for them.

Brandon Burton 26:25
Yeah, that’s so smart. As you’re explaining how you guys approach this, I see all these little rabbit holes that I can go to, for example, and we don’t need to go way down this road. But as your member engagement person reaches out and is helping to plan out the year with each of these members. Is the idea of sponsorships for any of these events ever brought up? Or does that responsibility fall on somebody else within your organization, or just I’m sure people listening here, this is great to schedule this out. And you can give them the opportunity to sponsor you know when or do these things?

Danielle Fitz-Hugh 27:06
Yeah, so we take a little different approach to sponsorship, we actually work with a national company called Why GM, Jason EB giving him a shout out. And we run sponsorship once a year for the whole year. And here’s the reason why we work with our members to match their need to fit in front of the right audience with the opportunities that we have. And it also creates space where we’re not going back to members several times a year going, Hey, we’ve got this program. It’s amazing. Do you want to sponsor we make one ask, we talk about what their marketing budget is for the chamber, we work we have volunteers that help us with this campaign. And then we take their marketing budget, much like we do their investment benefits, and spread them out for the year, we take their marketing budget, and spread out opportunities for the full year. So we’ve been doing this for three years. And it really does do an additional piece is that chambers are not chasing money to find the sponsorship to do the work that they want to do that our members are really telling us in front of the year. What are what things are important to them with their checkbooks, they’re sponsoring the things that make sense for them. So if you’ve got this program that you’ve been holding on, you’ve got you know, the sacred cow that you’ve been holding on to, and no one is sponsoring it and you’re trying to beg people to sponsor it during your campaign season, then, baby it’s not what your members want. I mean, members talk with their money. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 28:43
no, that’s very true. As we start to wrap up here, I wanted to ask any tip or action item that you may have for listeners who are desiring to take their chamber up to the next level? What might you suggest for them?

Danielle Fitz-Hugh 29:01
Yeah, I would say you know, the retention part, right. Everybody focuses on sales, getting the new members, everyone focuses on sales. I’m a defensive coach. I believe that if I can keep you from shooting, I don’t have to worry about how many shots you make. Right? That’s right. I believe that if I can keep you in. I don’t have to worry about getting the new the new are gonna come. Yeah, right. So so for for for me that one tip is think about how you strategically organize your teams. Because we know we’ve heard it for decades, that it takes less to keep a member than it does to recruit a new member. So we flip the funnel on upside down and we put the funnel of the retention because then if you’re working on retention, you all of a sudden have 600 Cheerleaders that are saying, come join this organization. And so for us, we’ve turned the ownership to the members, it is their chamber to grow. It is their responsibility to refer. Yeah, and we are at 5% referrals on our new members that come in. And so, I mean, that makes my salespersons job easier because it’s a warm clothes, right? We’re not going and doing cold calls anymore, right? There’s a new model out there. So we are so referral base, because we’re telling the members, if you want more people to market network build relations, to bring them to us. If you’ve enjoyed your membership, and you’re getting benefit from it, refer your friends refer your other referral group connections to our chamber. And we’ve built that way.

Brandon Burton 30:57
Yeah, those are great points. And I love the idea of focusing on retention. And if you keep them for the long term, and over time, your membership fees will increase naturally. And your membership continues to grow, because they’re getting value and bringing people in and just the overall health of the organization continues to get stronger, and you’re not focusing on, you know, like you said, killing what you eat, just constantly going after the next one. And each week, you’re able to grow in a healthy and sustainable way. So that’s a great model you guys are following. I like asking everyone I have on the show, as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Danielle Fitz-Hugh 31:44
Well, I think we will continue to be innovative. Chambers look different today than they did five years ago. If they don’t look different today, they didn’t make it through the last three years, right. And so we’ve got to continue to take risks, our businesses demand it, and we need to follow their direction. So for instance, when businesses had to, you know, open, chambers need to open so we can service them. And I know, you know, we were made open during this past three years, we look different, right? So we are not stuck to traditional models of what work has to look like, because our businesses are not stuck to traditional models of what work needs to look like. So I think using industry as the model, our chambers across the country need to take the lead because they’re able to shift so quickly. And so should our chambers be able to do there’s no more well, we’ve always done it that way. Okay,

Brandon Burton 33:01
yeah. And there’s a being able to be flexible and make that shift, follow the lead of your members, there’s coming out of the last three years, there’s a lot of, you know, innovations that allow for you to be more productive, to be able to service your members better to be able to connect with them, whether it’s a zoom call, whether it’s a you know, Cal a scheduling, you know, mechanism or app or something ways to connect, that we you know, three, four years ago, we weren’t using on a regular That’s exactly right. And now it really allows us to get a lot more done and be a lot more efficient and in the end, you know, serve our members in a better way. So great, great insight into the future. Thank you so much. Yes. So Danielle, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners out there who would like to reach out and connect and learn more about how you guys are doing things that are in Chesterfield, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you?

Danielle Fitz-Hugh 34:01
Yeah, so we’re pretty all of us are pretty active on all social media. You can find us at ChesterfieldChamber.com on social media, we are Chesterfield Chamber VA and as in Virginia, because there are a couple other Chesterfield Chambers in the country. And so since this is a podcast, I’ll make that notation that we are Chesterfield Chamber VA, just follow us like us, you know, follow us on Instagram. And we’ll if you message us there, we will message you and contact you back. Also on LinkedIn, I mean, we are crazy LinkedIn people in our community. So and I will say we also host Blitzer, which is, you know, one of these new pandemic platforms. And so we open it and so occasionally I’ll get businesses from all across the community across the country that will come into it and network because business does not have borders.

Brandon Burton 34:53
Absolutely. Yeah. As we talked about earlier with those dolphins supporting whales outside of your community. So how All right, very good. Well, I appreciate that, Danielle, well, we’ll get your contact information in our show notes for this episodes, people can find it there. But feel like we’ve had a great discussion today brought a lot of value and perspective. And I’m sure listeners are taking some notes and things that they can implement and discuss, you know, making some changes to be more productive in and serving the businesses and their community to build stronger businesses and in turn a stronger community. So thank you for being with us today and sharing your experience and insights.

Danielle Fitz-Hugh 35:32
Thank you for having us.

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Keeping Local Dollars Local with Donna Novitsky

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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.

Our title sponsor is Community Matters, Inc. With nearly 20 years in the chamber industry and over 100 media awards presented to their chamber partners, community matters provides the R&R that every chamber needs, revenue and recognition.

When it comes to publishing a Chamber Map directory or Community Guide, Community Matters has a trusted experience to help your chamber accomplish your goals. With different advertising sales models and publication styles, Community Matters will help you create a non-dues revenue machine!

Let’s hear from Becky Womble, President of the Bastrop Chamber to hear about her experience with Community Matters.

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 Donovan ski Donna is the co founder of Yiftee Donna has combined her interests in local community building and her interests in high tech to co found nifty to bring profitable business to local shops and restaurants. Yiftee has grown to more than 500 communities now 15,500 merchants and helped to keep $45 million local to help small businesses just the last three years. Prior to giftee. Donna has led several startup companies and worked with top tier venture capital firm. She teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford University and frequently speaks on topics related to entrepreneurship and women in business. Donna holds a BS and industrial engineering with distinction from Stanford University and a Harvard MBA. And Donna, I’m excited 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 to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Donna Novitsky 3:05
Thanks, Brandon. And hello chamber champions. It is such a pleasure to be here. I’ve really enjoyed meeting many of you at the ACCE show and on zoom over the year, last few years. But let’s see something interesting about me. Well, I guess depending on how you count them, as As Brandon mentioned, I’ve been in tech. So Yiftee is my third or my 19th. Startup. out right. So I guess you could say I’m an entrepreneur at heart. My dad taught me that word when I was 12. And it kind of stuck. So I love starting new things and helping others do so too. So I end up doing a lot of coaching and mentoring of young people, which is super fun, because they’re always challenging me to learn new things.

Brandon Burton 3:58
Right now that is that is interesting. I like getting these little facts about people. And I’m sure we could dig in deeper on on how you count those businesses that you’re part of starting. Well, before we dive into our topic for today, why don’t you take a few minutes and just tell us a little bit about Yiftee what Yiftee is kind of the purpose the vision with it. And then we can dive in a little bit deeper on on how it all works.

Donna Novitsky 4:24
Okay, great. So we launched Yiftee over 10 years ago, and for the first five or six years, the business went through the typical startup rollercoaster. In 2018. We did the first what we now call community cards. And I’ll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. But then the pandemic hit in 2020. And many chambers were worried about losing all their small businesses and they were looking for ways to help their members and we happen to have a solution for that. So calm cards as We call them took off. And as bright as Brandon mentioned, were in more than 500 communities and 15,000 local businesses. So I guess you could say we got here with hard work, a lot of stubbornness and even more luck, because who would have predicted a pandemic? We’re a small team. We are 100% remote and our headquarters in the Bay Area. And we have teammates in California, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, Florida and Puerto Rico. So we’re all over the place just like you guys.

Brandon Burton 5:35
Awesome. Now that definitely gives a good introduction to what Yiftee is, and I’m excited to get in a little deeper on it as we settled on our topic for this discussion. Today we are going to talk about keeping local dollars local. And as I mentioned in your bio, you guys have helped keep over $45 million local for small businesses and communities across the country. So I’m excited to dive in deeper on this learn how the program works and help tell chambers how they can help keep dollars local in their community as soon as they get back from this quick break.

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Raquel Borges 8:28
What if you could keep holiday shopping local this year? Launch a community card with Yiftee. And you can. Hi, I’m Raquel from Yiftee. Yiftee works with over 500 chambers, main streets, cities and downtown associations providing custom branded electronic gift cards that can only be redeemed at your local businesses. This program is free for you and your participating businesses. And if you sign up now, you’ll watch your local businesses thrive this holiday season. Email sales@yiftee.com to learn more, that’s sales@yiftee.com.

Brandon Burton 9:08
All right, Donna, we’re back. So tell us what with Yiftee How does it work? You’d mentioned these comm cards. So what is a comm card and how does it work and how does it lead to keeping dollars local?

Donna Novitsky 9:23
Okay, a comm card or community card. It’s a digital gift card and it is branded for a city town or neighborhood and can be redeemed exclusively at the local shops and restaurants in that area. So shout out to Spartanburg South Carolina chamber who was our very first chamber customer back in 2018. Followed by Lake Zurich, Illinois, Niles, Illinois and DeWitt, Iowa. If you’re out there thank you guys. Chambers often make the program a member benefit because they Control specifically which merchants can participate in it. It’s kind of like next generation chamber checks. But we do all the sales, customer service technology and financial management. And our chamber partner in each community promotes the program and recruits the merchants. So it’s a real partnership with the chambers.

Brandon Burton 10:23
So what does the recruitment look like as the chamber goes out to recruit businesses to participate in it? Is their marketing material that’s provided as their scripts is their coaching that goes along with it? What does that look like?

Donna Novitsky 10:36
Oh, that stuff. So in terms of getting the program up and running, we all they have to, there’s no cost. First of all, for the program, the chambers don’t have to pay anything. And the merchants don’t have to pay anything to participate. And it’s backed by MasterCard. So any merchant that takes MasterCard can participate in the program, and there’s no special equipment or integration with their POs that they need. So all they have to do is sign the agreement. And then we’ll have their portal set up within 24 hours. And we start sending lots of materials, there’s a four week launch program with lots of materials. So we’ll give you the copy to recruit an email to send an email message out to your members to invite them to the program. And then when you’re ready, we send what we call an activation card to the merchants, which is a 10 cent prepaid MasterCard, they process that they get the dime. And that registers their POS with us. And that’s how we limit the cards to be used exclusively at your members businesses. So we’re providing a lot of information along the way. Honest, to be honest, the long pole in the tent in terms of getting the program running is, is recruiting the merchants because they are just super busy. And you got to get their attention. So

Brandon Burton 12:05
Right. So in your experience over the years of launching these community card programs, is there an ideal time of year? Or does it depend on the community? Or how did how do you see the most successful timing maybe as far as rolling out a community card?

Donna Novitsky 12:22
Well, as you guys might know, gift cards are the number one requested holiday gift. So that means that your merchants are probably paying more attention to gift card programs at the holidays. So the ideal time to launch it takes about four weeks to launch in general, you can do it faster, but would be probably around September, October, because that’s when your merchants are starting to think about gift card programs. And you’ll it’ll be easier to get their attention. So we do six months worth of business in the month of December. So Oh, wow. By far the high point of the year for for the gift card business.

Brandon Burton 13:15
Yeah. So can you talk to us a little bit more about the digital gift, gift card aspect of it. So it’s a digital gift card in nature. So how does that work? Does it go on their phone? How do they do the transactions? How do they make the purchase? How does that? How’s that all of that structured?

Donna Novitsky 13:32
Right, so this is an all digital program. That’s how we can do it without any cost to the chambers or the merchants. So there’s no little plastic cards. The way that it works is people you’ll have a website where that we host for you, but it’s branded for your community, so you don’t even see it on that website. It’s all about your local community. And people you put a link on your chamber page, a button that says buy our community gift card, and go there to buy the gift card. And it’s just a really simple process that they go through to buy that card online. They can either send it to whoever they want to send it to through email, or they can print them out. So if they want it put it in somebody’s holiday stocking, they just print it out and put it in the in their holiday stocking. Then the recipient will get that either on a piece of paper or through email. And they take it into the shop. When it’s by eat if it’s on paper, they can also save it to their phone with a QR code. And they take it into the shop or the restaurant and show their phone to the say one of your merchants who is participating in the program. They will process that MasterCard, it’s a MasterCard so that merchants gonna process it like a like a phone order. So they would enter that the code from the MasterCard, MasterCard immediately validates that transaction And they know they’re gonna get paid in their normal nightly settlement with all the other credit card transactions from that day. And then the balance on the phone will change. So if you had a $25 card and you bought a cup of coffee, now your phone’s gonna say you have a gift card for $21. And I could go next door to the next shop and get my nails done or buy something in a boutique. So it’s multi use card, just like a MasterCard gift card, but it only works at your members stores.

Brandon Burton 15:31
Yeah. So I see, you know, similarly, I’ve got kids in high school, and every year that football team does their little, they do a fundraiser where they’re selling coupons to local businesses, and, and this year, they went digital with it. So it’s on your phone, you got to go show, if you go to the restaurant, it’s not nearly as high tech, you’re literally showing them the screen. And then they go manually enter it and it’s done. But I see this as being much more valuable in the fact of you have $1 amount that’s fixed with this gift card with this community gift card. And then you have your list of vendors that you can go spend it on whatever you want with any of these vendors, right, like you’re not limited to redeeming, you know, $5 off after a $25 purchase or anything like that. It’s not a confined it’s an actual cash on a card,

Donna Novitsky 16:23
right to build just like any other gift card, but it works at multiple different stores. And you know, until the money runs out on the card.

Brandon Burton 16:31
And then is all the list of vendors is that just kept up to date on the website, or is that within? How do the users of the gift card keep up to date on who’s participating? Yeah, we

Donna Novitsky 16:43
maintain that. So if a merchant if a new merchant joins your chamber and they and you want to add them to the program, they will automatically show up on the website once they run their activation card. And the all the people with cards out there in your community can just click on the card itself, scroll down and see all the participating merchants so it’s automatically updated.

Brandon Burton 17:07
Okay, so as a chamber rolls out a community card program, who are the typical people who are buying the gift cards and why?

Donna Novitsky 17:18
Well, that actually we had some surprises on that. So of course, when you think gift cards, do you think consumers so there’s a healthy chunk of consumer business of the people who buy cards, but also where a lot of our business comes from is bulk purchases. So again, if you have chamber checks, you know you sell a lot at the holidays from local businesses who buy them for their employees so they can keep their money in the community. Well, that has happened in spades with this program so schools will buy them for all the teachers in the school. Kent State University bought 10s of 1000s of dollars for their faculty of the Kent Ohio card. We’ve had Spartanburg had their local hospital buy cards. Frankfort, Kentucky and Riverdale Park Maryland have government programs for low income families where the government funds cards for these families and all the money stays in the community. Realtors and developers in Mountain View California give them as welcome gifts to new tenants and homebuyers. A nonprofit in Bullock, Arizona buys them for their volunteers, employers in Detroit and lots of other cities buy them for employee reward programs. And of course, there are huge corporate orders or holiday gifts. So that was we didn’t understand when we started this company that things you learned that about a third of the 180 $9 billion US gift card market is corporate purchases. Before this program, all that money was going to the big box stores and E commerce like Amazon and Starbucks, right? So now those organizations have a way to keep their dollars in the community. And that has been a great opportunity for us

Brandon Burton 19:23
that really turn the light on in my head going through that explanation because especially at the holiday time, a lot of these major employers, a lot of them are going to be big supporters of the chamber financially, you know, maybe some of the major investors, but they also have a lot of employees in the community. And around the holiday time it’s a normal thing to see whether it’s bonuses or some kind of a gift or maybe they give you know Amazon gift cards or Starbucks gift cards like you’re saying and if they can make that shift and say here’s a community gift card that you can use it any one of these men ders, that’s listed in the community. And instead of sending all of this, you know, purchasing power to Amazon, let’s keep it in our community and have it keep turning over, you know, time and time again. That’s very powerful. So I’m curious it with an individual chamber running their community card program, are they able to keep track? Or is there like a running total of how much money they’re keeping in their community?

Donna Novitsky 20:26
Yeah, there is. So we give them they can run reports anytime they want. As I mentioned earlier, they have a portal and you can log into your portal and run a report and see everybody that has purchased cards, and their how much the dollar value of the card and how much remains on the balance of that card. And they actually have marketing rights to that information. So if you have a chamber newsletter, you could add them to your newsletter or something, you know, contribute to building your community. But my favorite report is the gifts redeemed report. Because in that report, you can see every single transaction that was spent at each merchant in the program, so I could see that $4.27 was spent for a cup of coffee at the local coffee shop, I could see that someone went to a boutique and spent $92. So I can’t we don’t tell you who had the coffee or went to the boutique, that’s a privacy issue. So we don’t share that information. But for your members, you have reports of exactly how much business you have walked into the door in their stores. So yeah, program, you can really show the value added.

Brandon Burton 21:42
Yeah. And there’s really there’s no cost or no downfall really for business to participate to if you’re that local coffee shop or retailer. There’s, there’s no downside to it, it just gets access to more people coming in and to be able to get a report from the chamber saying we’d sent X number of dollars to your business over the last year, whatever the timeframe is, that can be pretty powerful, and and create that stickiness factor with your members with your with your chamber. Yeah, so I can imagine, you know, over the 500 communities that you’re working with, and over the years, that there’s probably been some pitfalls in rolling out a program. What are what are some of these things that you see that maybe get overlooked? Or maybe assume maybe something’s too easy? What are some of these pitfalls rolling out? The community card program?

Donna Novitsky 22:38
Yeah, life happens, right? Go. So honestly, the hardest thing about the program where the snags can happen is on the merchant recruiting side, you know, you think it makes so much sense, because it’s all upside for them, it doesn’t cost him anything, and we’re going to drive business in the door, but they are busy. And this is something new, and it needs to be explained. So sometimes that takes more time than the chamber anticipated. And it just doesn’t happen. Or it doesn’t happen as quickly as they wanted. So that’s one thing to be prepared for. And we’re always upfront about that. The cool thing is, as we and then I guess I would say the other thing is, you guys in chambers wear so many different hats, right? So the program will get launched. But then you’re off to planning, you know, the labor day parade or the Halloween festival or whatever is happening next, because there’s never a dull moment in the chamber. So the focus on marketing the program locally in the community wanes, and then the community forgets about it. So what we’re doing is, since we’ve been able to grow, I’m beginning to have started hiring some people on the 50 end, to help out our chamber partners and help them recruit some of those bulk purchasers or do some local marketing for them, or even help recruit those merchants. So as we grow, we will continue to be able to put more resources into ongoing sales of the cards and training and recruiting of merchants.

Brandon Burton 24:16
Yeah. So the thought just came to me as I say, for example, a chamber says we want to do a community card program. What is the onboarding process? Like? Do you try to get a certain number of vendors on board with it? So there’s some value as you start selling the cards or where’s that balance where that trade off is like Okay, now it’s time to turn this on and start selling the cards.

Donna Novitsky 24:39
Yeah, it’s a chicken and egg thing, isn’t it? Right? You need merchants you need card buyers. So we always say for the merchants. The best way to recruit is every community has two or three trendsetter merchants, you know the ones who are out there ahead of the pack and the other merchants really respect them generally So you start with those guys. And then they can help you recruit the next wave, we’d like to say we’d like to see around 15 to 20 merchants on the program at launch. And that’s plenty. And then it just grows from there. So they can get added in over time as as they figure out what’s going on in want to jump on board.

Brandon Burton 25:21
So that definitely makes sense. And there are those trendsetters and those individuals in the community that have some influence that that can bring others along with them. So great strategy. As we start to wrap things up here, I wanted to ask, I’d like asking if there’s any tip or an action item you might have for chambers who are listening, who want to take their chamber up to the next level, what what piece of advice might you have to offer?

Becki Womble 25:50
Let’s see. Well, there’s

Donna Novitsky 25:53
one more aspect to the program that I wanted to make sure and cover, which is which was also I mentioned at the beginning that we got here through a lot of luck. This is another part of the luck piece. So since 2021, when the US federal government issued $350 billion to the cities all across the country, 19,000 cities, and in the American rescue plan act, some of that money is still floating around out there. It doesn’t have to be spent until it doesn’t have to be allocated until 2024, or spent until 2026. And a lot of those dollars have found their way to this program. As a bonus program. So for instance, buy $100 card, get a free $50 card. And that is a win all the way around. Because to the merchants, they’re going to see it’s going to triple the grant money, right? To the consumer, they’re getting free money. And also to the merchants, it’s driving foot traffic into their stores, which is what they really need long term is the community shopping there and developing those new shopping habits. So I just want to throw that out there. Because I probably should have mentioned it when you asked about who buys the cards, because that has driven a lot of purchases lately.

Brandon Burton 27:22
Yeah. We also want to circle back to that.

Donna Novitsky 27:25
Yeah, we also have seen some programs sponsored by banks or realtors will sponsor bonus programs. So while it while that’s still that money is still available, it might be worth speaking with your City Office of Economic Development to see what might still be out there on allocated.

Unknown Speaker 27:48
That’s good. Yeah.

Donna Novitsky 27:50
So back to your other question of what to think about now? Well, you know, of course, I would love to, we’d love to chat with you and see if this kind of a program would be a good fit for your community. So that would be the next step, I guess.

Brandon Burton 28:05
Yeah. Well, and as many of you know, EFT is one of the sponsors of chamber chat podcast and the shows only here because of the sponsors that keep it going. So love for you to reach out and check out EFT and see if it’s a good fit for your community. But Donna, I like asking everyone I have on the show, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Donna Novitsky 28:34
So like, as I mentioned, we attend various chamber events like the ACCE and some of the regional ones. And it’s clear to us that chambers are really community builders. They bring residents, merchants, employers and city government together for the betterment of the community from a business point of view. And this program is something that we think is that is truly actionable and provides measurable results to the Chamber’s members, both for the employers who purchased the cards and the merchants who redeemed them. So I just see chambers can continuing to do what they do, which is, you know, build their communities from a business point of view. And hopefully, we can be a tool that helps them do that.

Brandon Burton 29:25
Awesome. So why don’t you share with everyone how they can reach out and connect. If you have any other questions about how the community card programs work, and how to get in contact with your team and get things started in their community. What would be the good next step or where would you point them to?

Donna Novitsky 29:42
Sure Yiftee.com and you can sign up there for a demo. We do them three days a week. And usually there’ll be a couple other chambers or sometimes main streets or downtown’s on the demo, which is super fun. It’s like little zoom party we have. And everyone gets to hear each other’s questions. And I love the collaborative nature of this community of chambers. It’s such a joy to work with people. And from there, you’ll get plugged into me or probably you’ll meet Raquel or Tyson on my team. And they’ll be doing a live demo. So you can ask all your questions. And we go from there. We’re happy also to do webinars or demos for your board of directors or whatever helps you.

Brandon Burton 30:33
Yeah. So another question I thought of Do you ever see a chamber and a Downtown Association, Merton to come together in a program like this to really leverage the the impact they both have all the time? Awesome, good deal? Well, I’d encourage everybody to reach out and and check out the demos they offer the FDA offers and just you know, explore it, see if this is a way that you can help keep local dollars local in your community and make a bigger impact as you and your chamber continue to build your community. Donna, I appreciate you coming on with us and spending time with us today on chamber chat podcast and, and I hope a lot of people take you up on the offer to check out what you guys have to offer in their communities.

Donna Novitsky 31:22
Thank you so much. And thanks to all the Chamber Champions out there for what you do. It’s amazing.

Brandon Burton 31:27
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Empowering Volunteers with Nick Kieffer

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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.

Our title sponsor is Community Matters, Inc. With nearly 20 years in the chamber industry and over 100 media awards presented to their chamber partners, community matters provides the R&R that every chamber needs, revenue and recognition.

When it comes to publishing a Chamber Map directory or Community Guide, Community Matters has a trusted experience to help your chamber accomplish your goals. With different advertising sales models and publication styles, Community Matters will help you create a non-dues revenue machine!

Let’s hear from Becky Womble, President of the Bastrop Chamber to hear about her experience with Community Matters.

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
To learn how Community Matters can support your chamber with your next publication. Please visit communitymattersinc.com/podcast To request your free media kit and request a proposal to find out what kind of non-dues revenue you can generate.

Learn how you can partner with Community Matters, Inc. to produce your next Chamber Directory, Community Guide or Map.

Our guest for this episode is Nick Keefer. Nick joined the Goshen Chamber in 2007. As Vice President for Business Development, Nick became the president and CEO of the Goshen chamber in July 2017. He graduated the US chambers IOM program in 2011. Nick joined the Board of Regents for the winter Institute site for the IOM program in 2012. In 2013, he received the designation from the Indiana chamber executive Association as certified professional in the chamber industry. And October 2019, Nick was named to the National Board of Trustees for the US Chamber Foundation’s Institute for organization management. Nick is a past board president for the Indiana chamber executive Association. In 2022. He received his accreditation his accredited executive distinction from the Indiana chamber executive Association. Prior to working at the Goshen chamber, Nick ran a construction company with his father in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He received his bachelor’s degree in business from Indiana University and a master’s degree in communications from Purdue University. When he’s not working, he enjoys spending time with his his wife Molly and son Maxwell and daughter Caroline and and that they enjoy spending time outside and stay active chasing their kids around the family farm. But Nick, I’m excited to have you with us today on the podcast I’d love for you to take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions who are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know

Nick Kieffer 3:43
them better in this Brandon Thank you for having me. I think what you do for the chamber industry is great anytime we can hear from from other people and you being that source just greatly appreciate what you do something interesting about me oh my goodness.

I have two food trucks that I do on the side so with our family farm we have a couple food trucks we do around so when I’m not at chamber work I’m doing some food truck work all right, so tell me more what type of food are you serving? Yes. So so we we make apple cider mini doughnuts so my my wife’s family has an apple orchard here in Goshen and so we have what we call the cider shack. So we do cups of cider and mini donuts. And in our new latest food truck will be a sweet corn roaster so we’ll be roasted sweet corn with some different toppings and stuff like that. So keeps me busy. My wife doesn’t like me sitting sitting around home. Nice.

Brandon Burton 4:43
Now that sounds fun. The Cider donut sounds good. Yeah,

Nick Kieffer 4:49
I learned. I believe one every time I work I check the first one for quality. And then I stay away from them. But

Brandon Burton 4:56
yeah, I have to right. Yeah, like any good dealer knows you don’t use the product, right? Yeah. No, that’s great. Well, tell us a little bit about the Goshen chamber just give us an idea of you know size of the chamber staff budget scope of work just to kind of set the table for our discussion.

Nick Kieffer 5:15
Sure. Goshen is the county seat of Elkhart County, we are the RV capital of the world. So any PRVC going down the street, there’s a good chance that was made in my neck of the woods. The Goshen chamber, been around since 1954. We represent 448 businesses, and about 20,000 employees in the Goshen area. Goodness, I have a staff of I say two and a half. He’s really a full time third person but we two full time staff and a part time staff here at the chamber. And we’re on a budget of about 400,000 a year been pretty consistent in that room for the last couple of years.

Brandon Burton 5:59
Good deal. So I like getting that perspective. So as we go into the whatever topic we’re covering on an individual podcast episode, it really helps listeners be able to see how to scale Yeah, compared to their chamber. And you know, if if Nick and that Goshen chamber are able to do these things that three staff or two and a half staff, and a budget of 400,000. See what you can do is your chamber, whether it’s bigger or smaller, and just, you know, scale it, scale it to your size. But I appreciate you sharing that. And as we get into our topic for our conversation today we’ll focus the majority of our conversation around empowering volunteers. And I know chambers across the country utilize their volunteers a little differently and have different types of relationships with them. So I’m excited to dive into this conversation with you as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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Raquel Borges 9:13
The holidays are closer than you think. And now is the time to get ready. Hi, I’m Raquel from Yiftee. Yiftee offers custom branded gift cards that can only be redeemed at your local businesses. And in December, we see six months of card sales in just one month! This means that by launching your community card, you’ll help generate 1000s of dollars for your local businesses this holiday season. Yiftee’s community card program is free for you and your participating businesses. Join over 500 chambers, main streets, cities and downtown associations that are using community cards to keep local dollars local. Email sales@yiftee.com to learn more, that’s sales@yiftee.com.

Brandon Burton 10:01
All right, Nick, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, we’ll focus our conversation today around what we can do to empower volunteers. And to know, volunteers are key to the success of pretty much any chamber. We need those people that understand the vision and mission of the chamber and who are on board and are really great community champions. So they’re in Goshen? How do you guys go about working with your volunteers? And I guess we’ll start there just in what aspects are utilizing the volunteers?

Nick Kieffer 10:36
Sure. So, you know, like I mentioned, a staff of three, we couldn’t do what we do without help, right? That’s, that’s the most important part. So you know, relying on our board and our ambassador group to really be the extra eyes and ears out in the community to really help us with what we do is imperative to how we operate. So, you know, we can utilize our ambassador group for, you know, retention for membership growth, or kind of that first year, handholding with a member of, you know, really engaging them and bringing them into the chamber. So a lot of different ways there to try to do that. But you hit the nail on the head with cultivating that volunteer aspect and how we do that it’s just, it’s so important to I think, for any chamber, no matter the size, to really have a group or a core group that you can rely on.

Brandon Burton 11:37
Absolutely. That reliability is key. So volunteers, they could take the the attitude of, I’m not getting paid for this, I’m not taking this serious, right. So getting those right people and we often talk about getting the right people on the bus in the right seats. And, and it’s, it’s true with volunteers to make sure that

Nick Kieffer 12:00
the time, yeah, it takes time to to do that you really have to, you know, it’s not something where, hey, next month, I’m going to have you know, a group of 20 people that I can go out and do this, this is something where you have to constantly work on it work on the relationships, get to know people find out who’s, you know, kind of invested in what they want from the chamber, right? So it’s that give and take of what we have to offer what we can help them with? And then how, how can you use that in a volunteer capacity?

Brandon Burton 12:26
That’s right. You know, it’s often said, you get out of the chamber, what you put into it? And yeah, that there’s a level of truth to that. Especially if you get involved with the committee or volunteering or different things like that. But what are what are some ways that you guys go about in, you know, empowering your volunteers, so giving them some control? And some, some say in everything, right,

Nick Kieffer 12:54
you’re right, you’re, you’re you’re trying to lead the organization and grow it, but but at the same time, you have to be okay with the fact that there’s a group that’s doing some work that you’re not, you know, you might not be able to make it so I can’t make every committee or group meeting that we have, it’s just not possible. And so finding, like you said, again, the key point, finding those right people that you can say, hey, I need notes, you know, where the chamber stands on these things, or, you know, kind of what to expect from the chamber as far as how we operate. And so our meeting should go this way, we try to get staff or myself at different ones, but sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Our young professional groups, probably my best example of, I’m not there all the time. And they really have kind of taken on that leadership role, and from a volunteer side that has really helped grow our wipey group.

Brandon Burton 13:49
And that’s great. So maybe just pulling the thread a little bit on the young professional group, what is it about that with, it’s really helped drive the leadership and that that group forward, as far as the volunteer base goes,

Nick Kieffer 14:05
I think, again, it gets back to that you have to, you know, give them give them room to feel that it’s their, their meeting their, their group, their identity. So, you know, they formed their kind of executive committee for the group. And, you know, I kind of gave an overall hey, here’s what the chamber kind of wants or expects, and how do you, how do you get there and then just kind of taken a step back and let them work through the process. And I was in the room on those early meetings and, you know, chime in when I’d be like, Okay, maybe not this way, we need to kind of shift over here, but not not to be too micromanaging of what they wanted out of the group. So they really bought into the overall idea of what we were doing because they were the ones driving it and so it just kind of stemmed from They’re, you know, they nicknamed me, they call me the DC the dream Crusher. So every time they come with an idea that is out of my budget, I say no. Or, hey, let’s figure out a different way we might be able to do it. But, you know, so just allowing that process it, allowing them to really take the reins and feel like, hey, you know, Nick’s not sitting over top of us, you know, telling us what to do, it’s really our group, that’s that they kind of elevated that program and really taken it on. So they like

Brandon Burton 15:34
it when when the dream crusher is not there, right. Now, so I mean, joking aside, I see, you know, a good feeling that comes out of it, when you can see the different committees, different organizations are able to continue on, even if you are a staff member is not there to help guide or, or even micromanage the whole outcome, but being able to see that they have a good trajectory and moving in the right direction, even without that, you know, staff involvement and every step of the way.

Nick Kieffer 16:11
Yeah, again, it gets to, you know, kind of recruiting those volunteers that understand chamber, the kind of the chamber talk and what we’re here for, and how we can, you know, really make an impact or a difference in what’s going on. And so you cultivate them, and then they you put them in positions to succeed. And then it’s, it just kind of perpetuates through through a program.

Brandon Burton 16:34
So I’m always curious to hear how people go about recruiting volunteer, whether it’s a volunteer for a different organization, a different committee or board member? How do you see, you know, the process of going about recruiting volunteers? Yeah, it’s,

Nick Kieffer 16:54
it’s listening right? There, there are so many conversations we have in chamber work, where somebody will slip it in or talk about, you know, I’m looking for an opportunity, or I need a connection to or I’m looking to connect with and so when you hear those, those things, you know, somebody’s wanting to put themselves out there and really get involved. And so when you, when I hear that, right, and then it’s like, okay, then you got to gauge how much and in their, their own personal traits, right, so you kind of have to do a little, you know, reading on their, how, in how much they want to be out in front of something, or if they just want to be kind of behind the scenes. But it’s really listening to, you know, at our after hours, or at our some of our programs, as you get introduced to more of the membership and, and who they bring from their organizations to kind of see, okay, hey, we can play somebody here, or where would this interest you, we have this program, you said you wanted, you know, more information on this in the community, I have a great program over here, and then you kind of start building it from from there. So it’s just throughout the year staff, my staff and I, you know, we kind of keep a little list of, hey, you know, have you talked to Joe Smith, or to Jane or whoever it may be, and then just kind of work them in. So it’s an ongoing process for us.

Brandon Burton 18:24
Yeah. And I’ve seen, it’s often a good idea to have those people that are engaged in the community to hopefully be in stepping up as volunteers and being engaged in a different level of the chamber.

Nick Kieffer 18:36
Right. And if you’re, you know, for us, we run our own leadership academy. And so, you know, we try to cultivate leadership and employees from organizations that want to be connected to so that’s a great pipeline for us. Our ambassador group, again, is a great pipeline for us. You know, so look around your community, there’s different pockets, and there’s different nonprofits that you can be like, Oh, hey, you know, they’re super involved in this this might be a really good fit for them over here and then you kind of start connecting the dots with with volunteers.

Brandon Burton 19:06
Absolutely. I think that makes a lot of sense it you know, I was joke about you don’t you want busy people? Busy people know how to get things done, right. You don’t want the person who’s sitting at home looking for something to do Oh, certainly.

Nick Kieffer 19:23
I mean, from from my my perspective, that is probably one of the most things for for volunteerism at all don’t waste their time, right? Like they, they have a lot of things to do. They’re not like they’re not my employees, right? It’s not their full time job to help the chamber out. So if, if you don’t have enough for a meeting, canceling, give them their time back because they will work harder for you knowing that, hey, they’re not going to waste our time. I mean, even even on a board level, right? If you’re if you’re, if your agenda for your board meeting isn’t jam packed or you don’t have a whole lot of things If you can afford to say, hey, you know what, this month we’re okay. And your exec team is okay with it, man, give those volunteers that time back. And it just, it makes a difference as you you’re building your relationship with your volunteers. Right.

Brandon Burton 20:12
And, and I think there’s ways of communicating that to where it is still keeps the weight of the importance of it. Without, you know, taking off that pressure of No, we’re not doing this. Like, it’s not important. Like, it’s still as important, but we also value your time. So we’re trying to prioritize things. And then given the circumstances right now that take Enjoy your evening,

Nick Kieffer 20:37
you know, I just had that situation where, you know, I took a took a vacation was gone, right. And I was gone during a week where you have your typical committee monthly meetings, and I told, you know, the three of them the bigger meetings and like, Look, I’m not going to be here, you know, it’s okay, we can move it back, or we can, you know, pick it up next month. And every one of them said, No, we got it, we got, you know, just give us a couple things that that we need, we’ll we’ll have the meeting, I’ll get your notes. And so that’s when you sit back and you’re like, Ah, I got a good group, right. This is your, you know, good group of volunteers that really see the long term, you know, mission to the chamber and really help out in that way. Right.

Brandon Burton 21:15
That’s one of the best feelings is to know that the organization doesn’t sink without you there,

Nick Kieffer 21:20
right? Like, from an ego thing, like, you know, that’s not true. But that’s, it’s just to be like, Okay, I don’t have to be there as an executive, you can kind of take that breath of like, it’s still gonna go on,

Brandon Burton 21:30
right? Yeah, I think sometimes we, we make ourselves feel more important than we already. Know, that’s good. So I’d like to try to get maybe, you know, for those who are listening, any kind of tip or action item as they are looking to take their chambers up to the next level? What would you suggest for them may have to do with volunteers, maybe something totally different. But what what comes to mind for you?

Nick Kieffer 22:00
I, I can’t. Huh, listening, I think I mentioned that a couple times, but just listen to your membership, they will tell you, the good, the bad, the ugly, everything in between, in a lot of different ways. But if you’re in your staff are listening to what’s going on, it’ll help cultivate your membership, it’ll help cultivate your volunteers, and it’ll strengthen your chamber. You know, it’s been, it’s been a roller coaster, last couple of years of volunteerism coming back out of it is kind of up and down, where things out, but it’s just, if you understand the needs of of your members and those that are looking to be involved, it’s easy to make decisions to help them and that’s, that’s our ultimate goal, I think as a chamber is to be a resource for the business community. And so anyway, you can do that that’s a you know, to me, that’s that else that’ll strengthen your chamber in the future. You know, as far as you know, growing yourself or, or getting more information. I’m a huge proponent of the IOM program and be involved in ACC. I think those are two phenomenal organizations that chambers, and chamber execs can pull a lot of information out, you know, whether it’s going through IOM or attending ACC, those are great. Listen to your podcast more, I think, you know, the more you talk with people, like we’ve all been through it, no matter the size of the chamber, you’re running, we’ve all been through it. And so there’s, there’s things you can learn from from anybody and, and, you know, just, I was just at a function where, who was the chamber directors third day on the job? Oh, you know, right. So just all excited about it. And she was telling me a couple of things. And I was like, Man, I didn’t think about it like that, like just three days on the job. But it was a nugget that I could take back and bring back to my chamber. So always be open to listen and to learn from from everybody. I love

Brandon Burton 23:56
that perspective that people bring from different experience, whether it’s, you know, three days on the job, so they’ve got a very green, you know, perspective

Nick Kieffer 24:05
to the 17 years where you’re, you know, you’ve kind of been through a lot of different different scenarios.

Brandon Burton 24:11
17 years or even prior prior employment before Yeah, whatever your career path was before the chamber brings a perspective to so absolutely being able to learn from others and just listening and in, like I said, at the beginning of Episode scaling, so you can’t necessarily do everything the same as other chambers and you shouldn’t content, yes, get the concepts, listen to the needs of your community, and then scale it to the size that makes the most sense. But Nick, I like asking everyone I have on the show as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Nick Kieffer 24:55
I’m my kind of mantra here is a resource center is That means you adapt and change. You know, technology’s going to throw wrinkles into our business world and business community and, and so being that constant resource that people can rely on and businesses can rely on for solid good information, I think is so important for chambers to to be at the forefront moving forward.

Brandon Burton 25:24
Absolutely. As you say that I’m thinking, we are recording this in March of 2023. And right now, all of the buzz is Chat GPT and artificial intelligence and all these different ways that it’s going to change workforce and change content and change our workforce and chamber work absolutely, exactly. So as a Chamber of Commerce to be able to be on the forefront of that, learning about the technology, helping to distill this down to the members that say, here’s what it means for you. Here’s how you can apply some of these technologies to better your business. And here are some pitfalls to look out for and to be aware of. And again,

Nick Kieffer 26:05
when you when you look back over the many years of what chambers have done that’s that’s the root of it. That’s the it’s the always saying okay, hey businesses, here’s what’s next here’s the next thing and so being at the the forefront of that and you know, kind of helping businesses navigate through it is is where I think we we need to focus on absolutely,

Brandon Burton 26:27
I couldn’t agree more. I appreciate that.Nick, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who might want to reach out and connect with you learn more about how you go about approaching volunteer working with volunteers in your chamber, what would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect?

Nick Kieffer 26:46
Yeah, goshen.org would have my contact information, email address, and keefer@goshen.org is my email. But I’m more than happy to help. Like I said, I’ve been in chamber work almost 17 years now. And it’s it’s fun. It’s fun work, but it’s more rewarding when when we’re sharing with each other. And I’m learning from from you and and hopefully I have a nugget or two that you find valuable as well.

Brandon Burton 27:14
Absolutely. And we’ll, we’ll get your contact info and that should be in the show notes for this episode so people can find you there. But I appreciate you setting aside some time to be with us today on chamber chat podcast and sharing your experience and insights is working with volunteers and really creating a culture that that helps them want to work towards the success of your chamber.

Nick Kieffer 27:39
Brandon, thank you again for all you do and having me on your show.

Brandon Burton 27:43
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Orlando Economic Partnership-2023 Chamber of the Year Finalist with Tim Giuliani

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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.

Our title sponsor is Community Matters, Inc. With nearly 20 years in the chamber industry and over 100 media awards presented to their chamber partners, community matters provides the R&R that every chamber needs, revenue and recognition.

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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
To learn how Community Matters can support your chamber with your next publication. Please visit communitymattersinc.com/podcast To request your free media kit and request a proposal to find out what kind of non-dues revenue you can generate.

Learn how you can partner with Community Matters, Inc. to produce your next Chamber Directory, Community Guide or Map.

Our guest for this episode is Tim Giuliani. Tim is advancing the pace of change and altering the perceptions of a place best known for tourism by reconceptualizing. The Orlando region’s economic future as the President and CEO of the Orlando Economic Partnership, Tim is leading the multi year pursuit to create a new model for economic and community development that changes the status quo and establishes a new path forward towards broad based prosperity for all. Before joining the partnership, Tim was the president and CEO at the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce. He also led the Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce and Council for Economic outreach. He lives in Orlando with his wife and three children. It Tim, we’re excited to have you with us today on chamber tap podcast. First of all, congratulations to you and your team for being selected as chamber the year finalist. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Tim Giuliani 3:06
Sure, appreciate you having me on. Certainly appreciate the recognition from ACCE for our organization. And as far as something interesting to start with, I guess, in the ways we use our free time, if you want to call it that. I coach a softball team, a travel softball team made up of 11 11 year old girls, and that’s a nice fun activity and development activity I get to do, you know, a few times a week.

Brandon Burton 3:43
Yeah, so any free time you might have had is the slug dried up with that. I know how those travel teams go. Yeah, it can be all inclusive, for sure. Yeah,

Tim Giuliani 3:51
these girls are serious. And I think I learned a lot growing up about leadership through baseball. And I think it’s a wonderful way to learn a lot about drive and determination and consistency. coachability teamwork, all of the things that are required in the workplace are things that you can learn on the softball field.

Brandon Burton 4:10
Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Well, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about the Orlando economic partnership just to give us a maybe a better idea of the type of chamber you are the size staff Scope of Work budget, that sort of thing to kind of set the stage for our discussion today.

Tim Giuliani 4:27
Yeah, our organization is only about seven years old. It was the result of a merger between the EDC of Metro Orlando and the Central Florida partnership which included the Orlando Chamber of Commerce. So we’re, we’re essentially a consolidated if you will, you know, economic development and Regional Chamber. We were given kind of white canvas as to what sort of chambers need to be doing in the 21st century without so much attachment to the to the legacy ways of do Doing business. And so we’re loving million dollar organization, we have a staff of about 45. And we’re just, you know, all focused on advancing broad based prosperity in Central Florida.

Brandon Burton 5:14
I love it. I love the name to Orlando economic partnership. So it’s not just focused on economic development, but it’s really is the partnership with the businesses. And in general, AMC can adopt set convener ability of chambers of commerce by encapsulating

Tim Giuliani 5:28
focuses on it focuses on that we don’t offer a lot of things that I’ve done earlier in my career as it relates to networking, or, or marketing and advertising. It’s much more, you know, a smaller group of companies that are interested in making change and improving the economy here. And they choose to do that by partnering with us.

Brandon Burton 5:50
Right? That’s great. So the way that we like to structure these chamber the year interviews is, I’d like to have you tell us what the two programs are that you guys submitted on your chamber, that your application just at a high level, and then we’ll circle back and dive into each of them in much more detail.

Tim Giuliani 6:10
Here, the first project is that we created the first of its kind, regional, digital twin. And so you have several 100 square miles of Central Florida. And when we host companies, or market executives or executives from, you know, corporate that’s looking at expansion, or asset allocation within central Florida, we’re able, instead of having to worry about driving them around all of Central Florida, you know, from the Space Coast, to UCF, to the airport, to our summer to conduct our cluster, etc. You know, we’re able to immerse them in a in a digital twin of our entire region. And then we overlay, like 80 data sources on top of that. So almost any question that anyone has, can be answered in a very engaging way with a digital twin that was largely made in Orlando. So it is an authentic representation of our tech community, which something that we have in spades. However, that’s not part of the brand that people know Orlando for, in most cases. So it allows us to put that technology forward, and then use it in very practical ways.

Brandon Burton 7:23
So yeah, I want to learn a lot more about that. I’ve got a lot of questions for you on it. But what’s the other program you guys submitted on your application?

Tim Giuliani 7:31
Yeah, the other program is part of part of an ongoing 10 year effort to build a semiconductor cluster here in Central Florida. There’s only about 17 states that really have semiconductor activity. You know, now, it’s a lot more popular than it was six, seven years ago, when we were in the throes of moving the ball forward. But in this in this last year, we were successful at attracting a $50 million federal grant that’s locally matched. So it’s a total of $75 million investment in all things to build that industry cluster here. So it’s a big shot in the arm a big step forward. And so we focused on the benefits and the work that we put into attracting and winning that federal grant out of there was like 570 Something applications nationwide, we won the only award in Florida. So that’s pretty remarkable. That speaks

Brandon Burton 8:34
volumes for sure. So I’m excited to dive into both of these programs in much more detail right after this quick break.

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Donna Novitsky 11:01
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 11:19
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 11:48
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 12:00
All right, Tim, we’re back. So let’s let’s circle back and tell us more about this digital twin, I want to figure out how you guys did this. What sort of platform are you using? Is this? You know, to use it on your phone? Do you need a headset? Like how does this work?

Tim Giuliani 12:17
Yeah, it’s pretty amazing, it’d be easier if you were an older listeners, we’re just kind of sitting in the same room in front of our display. But essentially, what we’ve created is a digital reconstruction of the region. And so you’ve, you’ve seen something similar on Google Maps to give you a frame of reference, okay. However, the magic is really, in bringing that to life in more three dimensional ways. And also overlaying all of the data. On top of sort of that that terrain or that map, we partnered with Unity Technologies and unity. You know, if there’s any 10 to 13 year olds listening, they’ve just got excited because they know unity, because they play their games all the time. And unity is a gaming platform. So essentially, we created a video game of Orlando. And it allows, you know, the use of a tablet, and standing in front of a full 180 degree LED wall, LEDs coming out of the floor into translucent panels. So you get a three dimensional perspective, you’re able to tour the entire region, dive into it, go down to more street level, and then see all the data on top of it. Whether you’re wondering about home prices, you’re wondering about income, educational attainment levels, prices and availability of commercial real estate buildings, classes of commercial real estate buildings, almost anything that you can look up in an Excel spreadsheet we have for our audiences live. And so currently, we’re we’ve executed phase one, which means it’s available in our office in our Marketing Center. It’s also available on a headset. So you put on an Oculus, and you get to enter the digital twin. It’s made on a platform that’s viewable almost anywhere. So tablet computer, Oculus, the Apple vision pro unities development, you know is the platform you can develop for that new product. So as essentially, as we get into phase two, and it comes off essentially our servers and goes into the cloud, it’ll then be accessible from anywhere.

Brandon Burton 14:35
Wow. That’s a that answers my next question. I was gonna ask if there’s a link that we can share in this episode where people can check it out and see what it looks like. That sounds like that’s part of Phase Two as I think

Tim Giuliani 14:48
but we put together a site orlando.org/digitaltwin, where you can really understand the capabilities and what it looks like and how we use it. You So there’s, it’s surprisingly, I mean, it’s got a lot of press, it’s very leading edge, we partnered with unity. Obviously, this is very applicable across the country across the world as cities, think about, you know, all the sensors that are out there all the data that’s out there. How do you visualize that and use that in in ways that help your current business and this for us really check that box.

Brandon Burton 15:27
So you had mentioned, basically anything you can find on the spreadsheet you can find on this digital twin as you kind of explore and dive in a little deeper throughout the whole platform. I imagine a lot of that is plugins on the back end. So as data is inputted and it gets updated live within the platform, I would assume. What about other updates along the way, when there’s new businesses or new development? How does that get implemented into the platform?

Tim Giuliani 15:56
Yeah, so the interesting thing about this project was it, you know, as we talked about it, as we were seeking to enable, you know, over the last six years, we built up reserves, and we ran, sort of net positive on our revenue. And so we had to make an investment. And we had to convince our, our board our finance committee, this was a smart investment for us to make. And so the challenge, though, was describing something that doesn’t exist, right. And so what we realized, you know, there’s gonna, there’s almost unlimited use cases for our members, community leaders to you to utilize this technology. But it was so hard for them to conceptualize without seeing it. So we move forward with phase one. And essentially, now you can see it, understand it, see its capabilities, understand how it can work for your business. And now we’re at a phase, where we’re talking to all sorts of partners, from transportation agencies, to utilities to developers, about taking this digital twin to the next level. So it’s really, you got to see it to really appreciate what it can do.

Brandon Burton 17:07
Yeah. Just my background has been in chamber publishing. So like, one of the things that we would do was maps, right for cities. So this kind of strikes a chord with me, because we would do digital versions of the maps. And there’s different plugins, like you’re saying, like, as it evolves, you can go to transportation kind of plugins, and you can see, you know, kind of live traffic updates and things like that, which is, it’s super intriguing to me. And I’m sure it’ll continue to evolve, too. But I can see this as a great tool as far as attracting, you know, economic development and showing available space and just that tour of the city. Do you? I don’t know exactly how to ask this question. I know some things you can definitely portray in that digital format. Some things you just have to be there. Right. So what percentage maybe do you think covers the check those boxes? As far as? Yeah, maybe you don’t need to be here in person or it gets a person so far, to where they say, yeah, now we need to plan a trip to come to Orlando and actually be there and see things in person? Or do they need to? I don’t know.

Tim Giuliani 18:18
Yeah, no, it’s changing, right. We landed a lot of projects during COVID, where they made like one quick visit. Yeah. So I think I think that’s changed a little bit. There’s two real answers I can give you. One is when we put it in the headset, and we’re in New York, and we’re talking to executives or site selection consultants, they could put on the headphones, the headset without ever visiting Orlando, and they could really get an immersive perspective on available sites and buildings, and their their relative connectedness to the rest of the community and what we have to offer so yeah, so that’s an example where someone doesn’t have to visit, they can get an initial look. And it’s much better than a brochure. Right, right. Second case is so pretend you’re visiting Orlando, and you’ve got, say, 24 to 36 hours here, which is typical. You know, we’re able to give them a great geographic orientation, because one thing I can assure you is that most people listening this podcast that don’t live in Florida, I really view it as a blob with Miami at the southern tip. And what we’re able to do is geographically orient people to the connectivity because, you know, Central Florida is really founded on its connectivity, not only from Disney’s perspective as sort of the crossroads of Florida, but over to the Space Coast, and our our particular longitude, latitude, and its ability to get to space. So we’ve benefited from that. So that continues to drive decisions and we want to show that connectivity which we can do, and then we can show them the have the sort of communities and areas which they’re considering. And then we get in the car and we can go to, you know, two or three places. So it just creates an opportunity to give someone a much better picture of Central Florida without putting them in the car and boring them with hours and hours of driving around to see things, we can just do that in our marketing center.

Brandon Burton 20:24
So when you say you get in the car in this virtual sense, what does that look like? I imagine you can just really shortcut a lot of the traffic and the distance and everything and say, Okay, now you go, here we head south. And here’s this place.

Tim Giuliani 20:37
Yeah, it’s just a flyover. And it’s really, you know, if we were standing in the studio, I’d be holding a tablet. And you’d be standing, you know, 1015 feet away from the monitors. And, and we would be pinching and zooming just like you do on your phone. Right? When you look at a map, and we’ll be showing you and, you know, taking you to UCF and showing you the second largest university in America, and then sort of driving along i Four into downtown Orlando and giving you that perspective. So then when we get out in the car, you know, we can only maybe we visit two or three sites, as opposed to having to make 10 or 11 visits around the region. So it just narrowed down. Yeah, I think when companies are looking at cities, they’re not just looking at one, they’re looking at multiple and so you’re trying to create a competitive advantage and a better experience. And we think this creates a better experience when someone’s considering an investment here in Orlando.

Brandon Burton 21:34
Right? Yeah. And I can see, as you, you know, do a presentation like this, obviously, you want to show the highlights, right, those things that are going to attract the business. And I know Orlando has no downsides to it, right. But I mean, some cities out there, they might have some spots that they might want to cover up and not show. So just to be able to kind of narrow things down and say, here’s the highlights and pique the interest of bring a visit, I think is a huge key in the selling factor.

Tim Giuliani 21:59
Yeah, and actually, for some of the areas, you know, that you kind of casually mentioned, that haven’t gotten a lot of investment over time, we’re actually partnering with some of them as well, so that they have the ability to make the same type of presentation to investors. Because some of those areas are very well connected to the the infrastructure of Central Florida, they’re very close to higher education institutions. And so they’re, you know, overlaid with opportunity zones and other special tax districts and that provide benefits to companies. So it actually not only enables us to show the highlights of Central Florida, but it allows us to showcase the opportunities that may have been overlooked, because maybe they weren’t part of that brochure, or that website in the past. So you know, it’s still early, but it’s an interesting way to think about showcasing the entire community,

Brandon Burton 22:51
right. So we’ll get the link to the digital twin in our show notes for this episode for listeners that want to go and check it out and kind of play around and see what it looks like. I think that would be good to get some visuals on it. But let’s let’s shift gears over into the second program focused on the semiconductor industry and creating that cluster there. Before we got on the podcast and started recording, I’d actually kind of poked around your guys’s website, and I noticed you have a good number of staff that are dedicated to the semiconductor industry. So this is definitely something that’s an area of focus and of importance to you. But tell us more about that. And the focus you guys have with semiconductors.

Tim Giuliani 23:36
Yeah, actually, this, this win that we featured in our application allowed us to build a team focused on semiconductors, because I can assure you, I cannot go through the supply chain dynamics, the parts, the tools, it’s a very specific knowledge base of which you need to be able to communicate with these companies. Because what they do is so highly technical. And, you know, over the last 10 years, we’ve there’s this piece of property, it’s 500 acres, just south of Orlando, in Osceola County, and the EDC at the time, and the county decided to come together, they kind of had two options, they could invest in a new spring training site for Major League Baseball team. Or they could go a different direction and do something to try to diversify their economy in the technology space. And so that’s the path that they went down. And over time, you know, now if I drove you over to what’s called Neo city, you’ve got 500 acres that the county owns. There’s all the infrastructures laid roads, utilities, water, stormwater, etc. There’s a fab. So that $160 million facility that currently is leased by sky water technologies. They’re a semiconductor, global foundry that their US owned. So they have an important niche in this whole semiconductor conversation and DOD. Many people don’t know that Orlando is actually heavily invested in by Department of Defense. And we have a long history of military instalments and investment. In fact, they’re all the branches of the government have offices here, some rather large, all around the areas of modeling and simulation. And all of that uses technology nowadays. And so we have a big defense base here. So the semiconductor you kind of think space, you think defense, and now you begin to understand sort of a niche that’s available here in semiconductors. And over time, we’ve worked to build that cluster. And then we were awarded a $50 million grant, through the regional build back better challenge, there was over 500 applications, I think there was about 25 announced winners, we were one of those 25. And so that combined local match and federal dollars, it means a $75 million enhancement, to those cluster building activities here. So we’re really excited about the path we’re on to provide a niche to the semiconductor industry that’s looking to restore, particularly as it relates to space, and defense. And as it relates to if you want to get technical into advanced packaging, which is a an area of product that’s provided by that industry.

Brandon Burton 26:36
So I guess that leads into the question I was gonna ask as to why you got you guys wanted to get into the niche of semiconductors. And that makes sense that the space aspect with the Department of Defense and looking into the future, are there other opportunities, you are kind of targeting in the semiconductor spaces, in addition to what’s already there? Yeah, I

Tim Giuliani 27:00
think that, you know, those are some industry verticals that they’re interested in. But I think as it relates to the technology and the product offering, you know, I don’t see us landing the next $10 billion Intel plant. That’s not, I don’t think that’s in the cards for us. What I do think is in the cards is, you know, advanced packaging. So think about when you were younger, you took apart a radio, and you found a really solid green board with the chips and transistors and connections on it. Well, that hard piece is the packaging. And so now the advanced packaging is when you’re putting multiple chips together. And that board has now become bendable. So it’s they can go into a lot more devices and helmets and different different things. That even though, you know as we seek to onshore or restore more chip manufacturing, you know, China still has about a 98% market share of this advanced packaging process. So we think that this important niche, so you need specific tools that are multimillion dollar tools that are in our fab here. We think that this advanced packaging component of the supply chain is a niche that we could do well in here in Central Florida.

Brandon Burton 28:24
Yeah. Oh, yeah. China’s got 98% of the market, if you can get most of the market share in the in the States, then you’d be winning in our country, so that’s great. So these are two great programs, obviously making a big impact in driving Orlando forward and making an impact in the community, especially as a chamber the year finalists, I like asking this question as far as chambers that are out there looking to take their chamber up to the next level. What tips or, or advice or action items might you have for for someone trying to accomplish that goal?

Tim Giuliani 29:06
My suggestion, I think, coming up in the industry, and I’ve been in this line of work myself for about 18 years. What we’re taught is a lot of what’s called strategic planning. And I think that there, you know, that’s a part of the strategy, but to really get a forward looking strategy, I really believe you need to adopt a strategic foresight process. And the planning can certainly come later. But I think you’ve got to really understand from the outside in, you know what, what’s going on in the marketplace. The world is quickly changing, and what are those variety of trends that are out there, and then pare that down to a set of drivers of what’s really going to impact our work. In our region, and understanding what what’s driving change, and then be able to think about what what you do to achieve your goals in the face of that change. So I just think it’s a different perspective and mindset that strategic foresight brings that enables, you know, the idea of coming up with a digital twin came directly out of that process. And it’s, it’s really digitally transforming our work as we speak. And we’re only in phase one. I mean, there’s unlimited ability. Now, as it relates to you know, transportation is one of our big priorities as it is for a lot of chambers. And as it relates to making future investments, you know, we’re now able to put in to the digital twin scenarios of what a new train line would bring, and what that would do to traffic and how to communicate that to elected officials in the larger media and public. So I think it just, you know, it came out of that strategic foresight process of understanding what was coming online from a technology perspective, and then being able to see how that relates to us. And then we were able to build a plan off of that.

Brandon Burton 31:13
That’s awesome. Yeah, I’d love you know, hearing the the other uses for the digital twin to that’ll, that’ll help with advocacy and those things that are important in the region. So that in the terminology is Strategic Foresight process, is there a formal process that you go through that kind of a structure that you follow? I don’t know if you’re prepared to speak to that, but that it is very intriguing to me.

Tim Giuliani 31:38
Yes, absolutely. There’s, you know, if you if you’re interested, there’s some online courses, the Institute, the future has a great online course kind of Crash Course and understanding strategic foresight. You know, it’s, it’s also, you know, what futurists use. And I know, some people may have preconceived notions of what that might be, and how many eight balls that entails. Right. But I can assure you it’s a it’s a business process. A lot of leading companies are leveraging this technique or this mindset in their companies to really think of whether it’s consumer insights, strategic foresight, so there’s definitely a process. I went through a program at the University of Houston. So University of Houston, University of Hawaii are the two universities in the US that have for decades had programs focused on strategic foresight. So there’s, there’s obviously books, websites, courses, higher education, certifications, etc. To help anybody become more familiar with that process.

Brandon Burton 32:41
Yeah, that’s great. Great, I love it. So speaking of futurists, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Tim Giuliani 32:53
Well, I’ve, I’ve always maybe had a slightly different take on things. And I really feel that the sort of things we’ve we did 15 years ago, and I did them too, you know, I’ve created directories I’ve edited. I’ve gotten the calls when we, you know, put the wrong phone number address, you know, I understand sort of those things that have been consistent in our industry. But I think, you know, over time, some of them have gotten commoditized and easily available online, through LinkedIn, through meetup through a variety of sources. And I think we’ve got to keep innovating in a way that’s just focused on impact, you know, what is going to drive the future of the region? What needs to be undertaken? You know, how do we set priorities for the community, that’s to the benefit of everybody. And I think we play an important role as chambers in setting those community priorities, by convening, and by, you know, kind of being the same center or the one that is able to be focused on progress and a longer time horizon than most elected officials have. And so I think we have that niche of we bring the community together, we help to set priorities or longer term, in our perspective, and then building programming and advocacy and work that’s tied to that mission, in my opinion, is a better and more sustainable technique than trying to be all things to all size companies and all parts of the community. I don’t I don’t think that’s actually attainable.

Brandon Burton 34:38
Yeah, I think you’re I think you’re right, figuring out what that impact is and setting those priorities, convening and be in the same center I think is spot on. Well, Tim, as we, before we let you go, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect and maybe learn more about the digital twin and Have you got that going or anything that we’ve talked about today? What would be the best way for them to reach out and connect?

Tim Giuliani 35:05
Yeah, absolutely. I think LinkedIn is really the best way. I’m happy to connect on LinkedIn or communicate, at least initially that way. But LinkedIn, I think the easiest way to get in touch with me

Brandon Burton 35:20
good deal, and I’ll have your, your profile linked on the well, so yeah, that’ll work.

Tim Giuliani 35:28
It’s not many of us. So under that name, so should be easy to find.

Brandon Burton 35:31
That’s right. Now well, we’ll get that in there. But I really appreciate you setting aside some time to spend with us today. You’re on Chamber Chat Podcasts and wish you and your team Best of luck is chamber the year and congratulations on the great impact you guys are making.

Tim Giuliani 35:46
Thank you really appreciate it.

Brandon Burton 35:48
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Portland Metro Chamber-2023 Chamber of the Year Finalist with Andrew Hoan

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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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When it comes to publishing a Chamber Map directory or Community Guide, Community Matters has a trusted experience to help your chamber accomplish your goals. With different advertising sales models and publication styles, Community Matters will help you create a non-dues revenue machine!

Let’s hear from Becky Womble, President of the Bastrop Chamber to hear about her experience with Community Matters.

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 Andrew Hoan. Andrew is the President and CEO of the Portland Metro Chamber, which was also a Chamber the Year Finalist last year. Andrew joined the organization in 2018 with years of successful business association executive leadership experience. Previously, Andrew served as the President and CEO of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, which was a word of the 2017 New York State Chamber of Commerce of the year. He’s a resident of Rose City with his wife Karina and children, Theo Rocky and area. For those of you who listen to the podcast for a while may remember Andrew from last year’s chamber, the year finalist series if you want to go back and check that out was episode 185. But Andrew, I’m excited to have you back with us on Chamber Chat Podcast, congratulations to you and your team for being selected again as chamber in the year finalists. Love for you to say hello to the audience and share something interesting about yourself so we can get to know you a little bit better. Sure,

Andrew Hoan 3:12
thanks, Brandon. And hello, everybody. And just thrilled to be back here for several reasons to be on the podcast, of course, but then also to be a finalist for chamber of the year. And it really is it’s a super honor. Because you realize that chambers everywhere, especially in big cities are facing so many challenges, and working so hard to bring our communities back and to be positive in a post pandemic world. And it is not easy. And so to be in consideration is an honor. And we’re up against Boston Orlando, which are incredible cities and awesome Chambers of Commerce. So we’re excited to go to Salt Lake City and compete but also just to be in that mentioned is exciting to be on this show to talk about is even better. So you know, for those that don’t know me, I feel really special because I’ve gotten to see and live in different parts of the world. I was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which we call the fresh coast. And then I moved out to Brooklyn, New York for nearly two decades. So I lived on the East Coast. And then my wife was recruited to come out here to Portland, Oregon. She’s a incredible physician and surgeon and so we’ve made our home here on the Left Coast. For almost five years. I started my job precisely five years and four days ago. So it’s been a wild ride. And that’s a little bit about myself. Well, happy

Brandon Burton 4:38
chamber anniversary there. Portland. will tell us a little bit more about the Portland Metro Chamber just to give us an idea of the scope of work size staff budget just to kind of prepare us for our conversation today.

Andrew Hoan 4:55
Sure. So the Portland Metro Chamber was founded in 1870. So we’re 153 years old, and it’s had an a storied history throughout throughout the years. And the modern iteration came about in 2002, where the downtown business group and the Regional Chamber of Commerce decided to form an affiliation and legal binding agreement between the two. And ever since then we’ve been known as the alliance. And so our modern chamber was established in 2002. And today, between the three affiliates that make up our alliance, the chamber, downtown Portland’s Business Improvement District, and partners in diversity, which is a diversity, equity and inclusion workspace effort. We have nearly 30 staffers, we have 2200 members, and we serve the 213 blocks of downtown Portland, with Fishel downtown business improvement district services like security and cleaning and retail promotion and marketing and things that you want downtown’s to be. So that’s who we are. And we just launched our sort of newest name and brand identity, we brought forward the the chamber name again, because it was sort of hiding in the background. And we also launched the three year strategic plan as well, simultaneously. So we get to the sort of be in the position now, to be proactive and looking into the future. But that’s a little bit about ourselves and about where we’re going.

Brandon Burton 6:32
Awesome. Yeah, I remember last year, the downtown Yeah, portion of the work that you guys do really caught me by a little bit of surprise, it says a chamber that that’s not something you normally hear chambers doing, but something you guys take on and then are in our managing well. So that’s, that’s definitely unique. So the way that I like to structure these chamber, the year finalist interviews is to really focus our attention on the two programs that you guys submitted on your chamber, the year finalist application. So maybe just at a high level, mentioned what the two programs are, and then we can circle back and a little more depth on each of those.

Andrew Hoan 7:15
Sure. So I’ll start with the first one. And it’s it’s unusual to hear good tax news for businesses, especially out here on the West Coast. And so I’ll start with our successes, on something that took a whole lot of time and effort. And that is completely reforming the business tax codes here in the city, county and our metro region, which is a government body as well. And the result, the headlines are this, because of our actions. The year that began here, 2023, every locally headquartered company will see their business taxes go down. And before this year, we had the unfair condition where businesses that that were from other places could operate in our community and not pay local taxes. And so clearly, that was unfair. And so we reached an incredible, call collaborative opportunity with our local governments, local elected officials to synchronize and change all three levels of governments tax codes simultaneously. And it took two years to do this, it took a lawsuit, and it took a lot of elbow grease. But we got to where we wanted to where all government side in their best interest to support their local business community, noting that it was not going to impact their revenues, and that it was going to strengthen our economy. And so this happened at the very tail end of 2022. And we were able to share the good news with our members and the region. And beyond that Portland, Oregon, and our region can work together on tax reform to the benefit of our local employer community, and that it wasn’t us versus them conversation. Again, though, it did involve a lawsuit. So there was a little bit of angst there at the same time, not gonna lie. And it created what I think to be the conditions to further improving the tax conditions for our business community here. And it’s no secret that we pay very high taxes in this region. Voters have elected to do that time and again, but it was it was too much in our community, our business community, our economy were hurting. And so this was a collaboration and then I think, a shared victory by all three governments that we were very proud of. And we built on that success ever since then. And I’d mentioned before we started talking that just this last May, we were able to, for the first time in over a decade, as the Chamber of Commerce, defeat a local citizen. tax initiative that was just really, really wacky. And we not only defeated it, but the victory margin was 80% opposed to the new tax and 20% in favor. And so I would just ask anybody to think about whether or not anyone’s agreed at 80% on anything in any community of late. And to note that Portland, Oregon, where, you know, socialist registration is out numbers, Republicans in our community was able to defeat a tax measure that that squares with your perception. And so I’d say not only did we reformed taxes, we prevented new ones from happening. And now we’re having really honest and open conversations about what’s the right thing to invest in as a community, whether we’re overburdened, and that doing it in a way that’s super antagonistic, but more collaborative, and focused on what our core issues are. So that’s, that’s number one that may need

Brandon Burton 10:51
to file in amendments with your chamber your application to be able to include that part, right. But eating? Yeah, it’s true.

Andrew Hoan 10:59
We thought about it, you know, and it was the success to was shared by a lot of people it was, you know, we have citizens initiative, like a lot of communities do. And people endorse or, you know, either side, yes or no. And what was a point of pride for us in this effort was that almost every single elected official in our region joined us. And usually, we would be in these opposing sides on tax issues. But I think we proved from last year when you work together to reform taxes, that it can be a win win. And so I think we built trust. And then we built on that trust so that they were able to join our side openly, and then involved community groups, specifically culturally oriented organizations that don’t traditionally take sides on taxes, but that we had also build trust and relationships with so that they were our chief spokesperson. And it wasn’t the business community saying no new taxes. It was our Asian Pacific Islander community, our Hispanic and Latino communities. And you know, our Congress member was one of our chief spokesperson, Earl Blumenauer, who’s not exactly a conservative anti tax leader. So we had great success there. And we’re gonna keep working on it and keep building trust and collaboration on these issues that impact our businesses.

Brandon Burton 12:16
So I’m curious with that initiative, what, what really no, we’re kind of going out of format here. I wanted high level and then details we’re getting into the details. So yeah, what was that driver that made you guys society needed to focus on tax reform in your city, the county and the Metro

Andrew Hoan 12:33
is so unfair on the surface, and we had a complete disconnect. So the business taxes that were created locally, we’re not aligned with our state business taxes. So it started off as sort of basic, this is just bad policies, you just looked at the surface of it. And you know, you’re a company that’s that’s headquartered in Portland, and you’re paying one kind of tax to Portland, and you’re paying another kind of tax to Oregon, and just was creating a sort of administrative mess. So you had a good problem statement. And then secondly, you looked at a company that might be safe from, you know, not to pick on Arizona, but let’s just call it a law firm from Arizona. Could be sir, you know, serving a client here in Portland. And a Portland law firm serving a client here in Portland, and the Portland law firm was paying an Arizona one wasn’t. So there was just fundamental unfairness there. And so by capturing out of state activity here locally, by doing what’s called market based sourcing for our taxes, we were able to capture that out of state activity, which again, it just was principally unfair, and most other locations had moved to that type of taxes. And we were the only organization that could do that sort of really heavy, frankly, boring work. But that was really important to our members absolutely no, resulted in the net savings, because that same Portland firm now is paying less in taxes versus the Arizona which is just getting to parity with a local companies. So there was there were that problem statement that just we couldn’t get away from, and we’re the only entity that could could drive it. And then it was for our members, they are going to see significant financial benefit from this. It’s not a lowering of the rates. It’s just fairness that allows their burden to be decreased. And it was just a matter of convincing the governments that it was a win for them to because when Oregon did this the state, it resulted in a net increase in revenue to the state. And so we were able to demonstrate that hate past can predict the future. You win, we win our companies win this is this is a win win. So it was just a matter of getting through the hard work of opening people’s minds to doing tax reform work and not thinking about it like it’s it’s an antagonistic experience, but a collaborative and positive one where everyone can win.

Brandon Burton 14:52
Yeah. Now that that program that tax reform definitely makes a big impact throughout the entire metro Oh yeah, like you explained the city, county and Metro. And so I’m thinking we need to kind of shift gears into your your other topic and let’s dive into that as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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Donna Novitsky 17:31
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Brandon Burton 18:25
All right, Andrew, we’re back. So what is the second program that you guys submitted on your application for chamber the year?

Andrew Hoan 18:33
Sure. www.OregonStateofSport.com. And as someone who moved here from the outside, you know, there’s a big difference in culture between Brooklyn, New York, and Portland, Oregon, it lasts similarities, but one of the big cultural differences is that Portlanders are very demure, you know, they don’t want to talk about their successes, they want to be humble. And that’s that, to me is a positive value. And in Brooklyn, you know, you go to Brooklyn, and people are like, Hey, I’m from Brooklyn, and you know, this is the greatest city on earth and don’t mess with us. And so I think it’s interesting, because when I came here, you know, you realize that the region had completely failed to capitalize on the thing that it is truly better than anybody else had, which is what we design the world wears. And whether you’re in outdoor, you know, high adventure activities, or you’re in fitness, you know, you are either climbing on Metolius gear, or you’re running in Nike sneakers and and what we make and wear and design here, everyone is wearing and yet nobody knows about that. So there’s a fundamental disconnect between our economic strategy and the way we market our region, and our own sort of cultural desire to be humble and not talk about our successes. Have, we decided coming out of the pandemic that we needed to focus on a new economic strategy that was predicated on our strengths. And it is one thing, but it was going to be a Portland, and valus are collaborating along with our state partners, and so we formed a quick analysis of proved what we all know that we have more companies, we have more employees. And we produce more economic outcomes in the athletic outdoor team and recreation, business ecosystem than any other place in the country. And that we wanted the world to know. So we launched this brand, this name, this website that’s focused on all the things you want, business attraction, growth work workforce development partner with academic centers, and cross regional collaboration, in part inspired by the work of our peers over in North Carolina, that has been branding themselves in a way the Research Triangle for a long time. So there’s this sense of focusing in on cluster based economic stress assaults and good outcomes for your business community and grows local businesses. And so after we launched this analysis, and this branding exercise, we’ve gotten to work on the policy front. And this has been adopted by our city’s economic development corporation, our region’s economic development corporation, we have a task force bill that’s nearly out of the state legislature right now to establish this as direction for our economic focus for the state. And we’ve had huge wins locally, where it’s pivoted the entire way that our local governments have thought about economic development, where they are pairing their objectives with supporting the state of sport ecosystem. And that’s resulted in simple things like huge wins on events like Formula E, which is going to be happening this weekend, specifically, because we’ve focused on attracting these major athletic and team based conferences and competitions to an entire expo center that is now going to be repositioned, and repurposed as an indoor athletic competition facility, one that will be unrivaled in the entire west coast, because we’re capable of hosting these types of large scale events. And we proved it last year, with the world Track and Field games, they came here for the first time to America. And right here in Oregon, where the first Nike was produced over in Hayward field in Eugene. So we’re building on our strengths. We’re converting that into a real economic development synergies and major investments by our local governments. And we see this as a huge potential to build on the economic engine that’s already driving growth, and to catalyze cross regional collaborations between places like bend and Eugene and Portland that didn’t always work together before, even though that’s we’re the flagship city. But they’re the places that have the major academic centers and the research campuses. So this is about borrowing from other people’s playbooks building on our successes and being a chamber that leading an economic development strategy, because the private sector knows how to get this done. And so we’re putting our voices first. And we’re bringing our governments along with us,

Brandon Burton 23:25
right. Now, to me, it makes a lot of sense. And you’ve got those other models that you can look at, like you mentioned the Research Triangle, North Carolina. And it makes a lot of sense to bring those synergies together. How has it been received throughout the community as a, I guess, community at large, right, because it’s a large area that you’re talking about. But from you know, those those natives to Oregon who may be a little hesitant to be boastful or to showcase you know, the good positive wins, things that are happening, how’s that been adopted and kind of changing that mindset of, you know, we’ve got something special here to show off to the world.

Andrew Hoan 24:06
I think that it’s now become a marker, because and I’ll give examples of this. Portland is in line right now, to attract a WNBA franchise, and our United States senator who’s the Chair of the Finance Committee, US Senate, Ron Wyden is working with us and our coalition to do the attraction of a WNBA franchise to Portland, and it fits all the things that we care about. So it’s about aligning our values and our culture, along with economic strategy and doing in a collaborative way. And we’re making that hard pitch right now to attract a franchise. Secondly, we’re also in line for a Major League Baseball franchise and so we have an MLB initiative here. It’s really going to be us on the West Coast and maybe a couple other cities that are vying for an expansion team but we are laying the groundwork now with our partners in government. To build a new stadium here in the city to acquire the land that makes that happen, and to make that hard pitch to the commissioner’s office about why Portland is the right place. So what it’s done is it’s just sort of the light bulb went off, you know, everybody’s like, Oh, right, yeah, we are the center of athletic and outdoor activity. And, yes, these big franchises are exciting. But who wouldn’t want to be a WNBA team in the place where Air Jordans were great. You know, come on, it’s just an incredible opportunity. And, you know, we really are in the Pacific Northwest, we don’t have that sort of galvanizing team base right now. Because you know, if it’s not in Seattle, or in Portland, it doesn’t exist. And there’s a lot of space between us and the rest of the country. But we’ve seen that the community embraces this type of economic development strategy already, because they’re just ravenous fans. And I’ll give an example, Major League Soccer opened up here, you know, over a decade ago, and the Portland Timbers and thorns are unrivaled successes, the thorns is, I think, arguably the most successful women’s soccer franchise on earth. And the brand and imagery in the fan base, loves and embraces the team. And it’s just to us the revelation, that community is already there. We in the business community just needed to sync up with the way that people in Portland felt about themselves for so long. And to give it a name and a brand and identity. So now all these efforts are finally working together in a way that is super collaborative and is going to move the needle if we land these two franchises, they’ll be game changers for

Brandon Burton 26:46
quite literally game. So that is super exciting. And I guess you need that balance after working on all the tech stuff, right? The super boring, the super exciting, you got to get out of that contrast. No these things they don’t happen overnight, right like to be able to be in position for Major League Baseball franchise or WNBA franchise, like if you guys weren’t already doing things well in that in your community to be able to attract the attention and be be a major player in that the running for these teams. It doesn’t happen overnight. So this is exciting stuff. I’m going to be, you know, keeping my eye on on Portland and seeing what happens here the next, you know, short future. But as we start to wrap things up here, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share maybe any tips or action items for listener who is really wanting to take their organization up to the next level what what kind of tips or advice might you offer to them?

Andrew Hoan 27:52
You know, I think reflecting now, five years into this job and the conditions of the city, our policy and our effectiveness five years ago versus where they are today. It was a really hard transition for me personally to come to Portland, where it felt like the business community was reviled that the job was impossible. And we couldn’t get anything done today feeling like there’s nothing we can’t do, we just have to be selective about what we engage in. I think what has borne the most fruit, which I believe is the thing that no chamber person should ignore, is to understand that you are inheriting an instance that will live beyond you. And that you have to focus on the fundamentals to be able to do the stuff that we’re talking about today. And when I mean fundamentals, I really mean inwardly looking staff and board development. And I look at our board now versus where it was five years ago. And this is not about somebody did something bad five years ago, it’s just we didn’t have strategic direction, we didn’t have goals in terms of behaviors and outcomes on our board. People didn’t understand how we’re making decisions. And it took a lot of time, effort and energy to build a strategic thinking on our board. That right now I can say looking at it five years on is what actually allows us to do the things that we do and it gives us the authority and influence that we need to be able to do our work externally. Because we have the weight of a highly functionally functioning collaborative board. And then secondly, on the staff side, you know, I think this gets right now everyone’s talking about building corporate culture. And you know, I think it’s almost become a cliche now but we have all gone through this unbelievably impactful experience last three years and staffs across every organization chain numbers are part of that have really gone through their own emotional journeys, physical ones tragedy, you know, political upheaval, you know, everybody’s feeling that impact about where we are as a society. And so as a chamber leader, and executive, you got to take care of your teams, because I look now at our staff, they work together, they support each other so that they know if if, if, for whatever reason, they’re dropping balls, or they’re just maybe lagging, or something’s impacting their work, or they’re stressed out and challenged, that people have their back. And that’s really a good thing. So staff and board, don’t ignore it, focus on it, and every investment you make into those two buckets will pay dividends in the long run.

Brandon Burton 30:50
I love that, that, uh, that response seems well, so well thought out. And the things that really stand out to me is, like you said, when coming in there and looking at some of these tasks as being impossible to now kind of be an unstoppable, right. Collective, but also looking at at the institution, you know, living beyond you, I think that’s huge to give that perspective, and, and we’re all making that that impact right now. And in your moment of time, but what you’re building and the community around you is going to live on well beyond you. That’s powerful. So maybe along those lines, how do you see the future of chambers going forward and their their purpose going forward?

Andrew Hoan 31:36
Well, you know, I think about chambers, I think about, you know, I’m biased towards the fact that we tend to represent, you know, large urban centers, you know, I think that’s probably most people know that every single city, big and small, has a chamber of commerce, and states do as well. But I think most people really connect with their local Chamber of Commerce, because it’s like, Who can I trust to tell me about what’s happening in my city and in my town, and chambers tend to be that unassailable voice of reason. And I think of it now more importantly, because cities and downtown’s we’re looking at very differently. You know, the, what happened with the pandemic and hybrid work will completely up and what happens with urban centers in the future. And I think that’s the Chamber’s of the future. Where we are today has never been more critical and understanding our downtown’s and downtown’s matter, because they’re where everybody comes together. They’re welcoming places. And right now they are hurting. I don’t know one city anywhere in this country that isn’t feeling that there’s something that’s really challenging the fundamentals there. And I believe in cities, I believe in urban centers, and chambers play a huge role in thinking about what comes next. And so the chamber the future, is focused on how do we future proof? How do we adapt, learn and create a more vibrant center city for all and I think that’s what we all need to be focused on talking about as we move our organizations into the future.

Brandon Burton 33:18
Yeah, I think that’s a that’s a good vision, looking forward. And hopefully, we’ll prove out well, his chambers have that focus on on the downtown’s and the city centers. And I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who might want to learn more about how you guys are doing things, they’re in Portland, what would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect with you? Sure,

Andrew Hoan 33:44
you can reach out to me at andrew@portlandmetrochamber.com brand new email, but serves the same purpose. And I love to hear from people across the country. We love to work with other chambers. And so I would love to hear from you and reach out and happy to grab a virtual cup of coffee or if you ever in Portland, we welcome you in our home. And we have a beautiful office that overlooks this resplendent environment. City and say you’re always walking with us.

Brandon Burton 34:16
Awesome. I appreciate that. We’ll we’ll get your email in the show notes as well. But everybody got to take Andrew up on that offer of that virtual cup of coffee or, or just learning more about how they’re they’re doing things. They’re in Portland. But Andrew, it’s been a pleasure having you back on the podcast and talking all good things Portland. Wish you and your team Best of luck as chamber the year and I look forward to chatting with you next time.

Andrew Hoan 34:46
Thanks so much, Brandon. Take care.

Brandon Burton 34:49
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Gwinnett Chamber-2023 Chamber of the Year Finalist with Nick Masino

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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 Nick Masino. Nick is the first Gen X President and CEO of the Gwinnett Chamber and Partnership Gwinnett. At the helm, Nick is known for a strong leadership commitment to Gwinnett and more than two decades of making an impact in the community and economic development arenas. As President and CEO Nick shepherded the most diverse board of directors and chamber history, reinvigorated its public policy focus, implemented new strategic plan and is currently overseeing a massive renovation of two Georgia’s largest Chamber of Commerce facility. He also led like Gwinnett Chamber to receive its first ever Five Star Accreditation rating from the US Chamber of Commerce in 2010. In 2022, the former Chief Economic Development Officer for partnership Gwinnett and the Gwinnett Chamber, Nick oversaw the business recruitment and retention efforts for Gwinnett and the implementation of partnership Gwinnett strategy. The chamber led initiative has since delivered roughly 357 company expansions or relocations, representing more than 28,000 new jobs and $4.1 billion in private capital investment. Prior to these achievements, Nick was an executive in the recruiting and staffing industry while serving as Georgia’s youngest mayor in the city of Suwanee. In addition to his day job, Nick serves on a plethora of boards including the Regional Business Coalition of Metro Atlanta, the Coalition for Quality Growth and the Georgia Chamber and the Water Tower Global Innovation Hub Aquanet. His influence in the greater Gwinnett region has earned him many accolades such as most named Most notable Georgians, power 100 Most Influential Atlantans, and 100 most influential Georgians. He holds a bachelor’s degree in interpersonal, interpersonal and organizational communication from The Ohio State University and resides with his wife Suzanne, in Suwanee, Georgia, and they’re the proud parents of three adult children. Nick, I’m excited to have you with us today on Chamber Chat Podcast. I’d love for you 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.

Nick Masino 4:29
Awesome. First of all, thank you so much for having me. It’s an honor to be here. And I’m sorry, you had to bore everybody with my bio. But I appreciate you introducing me. Interesting thing about me I’m, as you mentioned in the bio married to Suzanne Masino. And we actually met in a swimming pool in eighth grade. And she went on to become my high school, college sweetheart and we got married about six months after college, and we’ve been married for 29 years. In two Sundays, so really excited about that.

Brandon Burton 5:03
That’s awesome. Congratulations, you must have been a mature eighth grader because usually those interactions at a swimming pool don’t turn out well. So

Nick Masino 5:13
I don’t know that I was, but he was also only in eighth grade too. So that helps. That helps. Yeah, I think he was forgiving.

Brandon Burton 5:22
Well, and tell us a little bit about the Gwinnett Chamber and Partnership when and just to give us an idea of the type of chamber scope of work you do size, staff budget, that sort of thing to kind of set the stage for our discussion.

Nick Masino 5:35
Sure, absolutely. So the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce is located in Gwinnett. County, which most people have never heard of before. We’re situated directly northeast of Metro Atlanta. Gwinnett has a million residents. In 1987 8889, percentage wise was the fastest growing county in the United States. For three years, we’ve been in the top 100 fastest growing counties for the last three years, we average about in the last 10 years, I think we’ve averaged about 18. It’s probably 17 to 18,000 new residents, that’s births and relocations. I’m one of those. I graduated, as you mentioned, from the United State University. And about four weeks later, I moved to Gwinnett County, and I was in search of a job and a career and the Olympics were happening in Atlanta in 1996. This was two years before the Olympics, and there just seemed to be a lot of energy. And I don’t think I was alone. I think at one point, we were the the we had the most the highest percentage of Gen X’s of any metro area, the United States. And I just think it was a lot of people from the Northeast and Midwest. They were looking for something new and a little warmer. And apparently for about a 10 year period. We all moved to Atlanta. Some people moved, moved back home and some of those state. So I’m here in Gwinnett, lived here for 29 consecutive years. I live in the little hamlet the little city of Suwanee, Georgia, of which I was a mayor for eight years, and really, really enjoyed Gwinnett is made up of 16 municipalities, but the most of the counties unincorporated. But we have like every suburban area, we have jobs here we have about 24,000 companies 10,000 sole proprietors. And so we’re a really large suburban chamber, we have 32 to 34, based on the time, full time employees, we are in a 60,000 square foot chamber building, I do believe outside of the US Chamber. It’s the largest chamber building in the United States. We own the whole building, and we’re overseeing a massive 23 year update to the building and which is involving $4 million worth of construction. And hopefully in November, they’ll be delivering a million dollars worth of new furniture. And we’re really excited. With this reinvestment into this incredible building. We’re really unique. We’re right next to an arena and a convention center and to full service hotels. And we also have this is really unique. We have a first class steakhouse on the top floor of our building and a private club. The Chamber members the board members started the private club in the year 2000. The same year, the Chamber building was open. And we introduced in 2017. The Steakhouse and it is first class is the top five to top five revenue producing restaurant in Georgia. So it was really unique little hub of activity here in the middle of Gwinnett. County.

Brandon Burton 8:46
So does the chamber still operate the club and steakhouse or is that been going off?

Nick Masino 8:52
Well, we’ve never operated it. We just our board members started it. I mean, I’m the landlord. I’m a board member. I’m an executive board member of the private club. We have the lease agreement between the private club and the steakhouse. So it is like I had some guests up there for lunch yesterday. And they were like, Oh, this was really nice. And we’re like, yeah, we’re really that’s a really nice cafeteria bars.

Brandon Burton 9:18
That’s fantastic.

Nick Masino 9:19
It’s pretty awesome. It’s some of my peers at ACC. I was able to host I think it was in the summer of 21. I hosted a peer group of about 20 CEOs and I actually forgot to tell them we had a steakhouse. I just said, Oh, we’re going to dinner and I just told them where it was, but I did tell them it was on the third floor of the chamber. And they thought I was sandbagging, like as a show off. And I was like, Oh yeah, they were like Nick, you brag about everything. You didn’t brag about the steakhouse.

Brandon Burton 9:49
That’s awesome. I love it. Yeah, so you mentioned as far as the size of the building so had is it just like over the years hearing the size of a They’re chambers buildings, he kind of benchmark, you know, and where you guys kind of fall in there. It’s really

Nick Masino 10:05
interesting. I think in like 2007 or eight, we had that that years Chair of the US Chamber doing a road show. And he had been to like seven teen, like large suburban and Metro chambers. And he said, he said, I have been to almost every large chamber, you know, of a certain scale and above, he said, This is by far the biggest building. And so that just got us interested. So we’ve been kind of on the lookout for a building that might be bigger than ours. And we’ve yet well, we did find it, it was the US Chamber of Commerce. Yeah. We actually have two buildings in DC, which are both bigger than ours. qualify it?

Brandon Burton 10:47
Yeah. That’s good stuff, though. So you guys, obviously you’re involved with economic development, though? twos, as far as the chamber work goes?

Nick Masino 10:55
Yes, absolutely. i It’s funny, I failed to mention that, because you asked me. And I did lead our economic development initiative for almost 13 years, called partnership Gwinnett, which is a community collaboration between the county our municipalities or school system, or in community improvement districts, and then the private sector and the chamber. And we lead that effort. And it encompasses about 10 of our 34 employees. And they get up every day to recruit, retain and expand businesses, both domestically and internationally.

Brandon Burton 11:28
Awesome. Awesome. Well, what I the way I like to kind of structure these chamber, the or finalist interviews is to really focus on the two programs. So you guys submitted on your chamber, the your application, so if you could just tell us what those two programs are at a high level, and then we’ll circle back and go into more detail on each of them.

Nick Masino 11:49
Sure, absolutely. And so we really just set the stage for the one of the two, which it was our partnership with that initiative. And this is the community initiative. As I mentioned, it has three goal areas, recruit goal one, goal two, is to make sure we have the right workforce in place. And then goal three is all those it’s kind of that bucket that holds everything else from community development, to transportation to redevelopment. So it’s a three legged stool, economic development strategy, not uncommon to other large chambers. And then our second section that got us to where we are is our public policy initiative. And I think that that one probably is not super unique to large chambers. I think what was unique for us is, in our five US Chamber fivestar audit, for the previous audit we got, I don’t know that we got to zero, but I think we got to 20 out of Ardrey. So that’s pretty much a failing grade. And and then a few years later, when we really focused in the three years we were we went we’ve hired a full time public policy person put a lot of effort in initiative. And not only do we have the effort, and the action and activity, we have results, and we and then the US Chamber recognize that and gave us 100%. So we went from 20 I think it was 20% to 100%. So ACC the they recognized all of what I just mentioned. And I think we also did a really nice initiative this year with our state, House and Senate. I’ll talk more about that and follow up questions on on the Gwinnett day at the Georgia Capitol. And they went over really well. Yeah, no,

Brandon Burton 13:39
that’s great. So that that gives us a good idea what the two programs are. What we’ll do is we’ll take a short break, we’ll come back and we’ll dive in deeper on both of these programs and learn more how you guys structured them and maybe some of the origins of them as well.

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Donna Novitsky 16:09
Hey there, Donna Novitsky, CEO of Yiftee here, and we are all about the shop local movement. We’re working with more than 500 communities like yours and 15,000 small businesses like your members. We’re big fans of Brandon and his Chamber Chat Podcast, so we’re helping to sponsor the show. But while I’ve got you here, what’s a Yiftee? You ask? It’s a digital gift card branded for your chamber that people spend only at the local shops that you authorize. In 2022 we drove 10’s of millions of dollars to small businesses in the US. The program is free for chambers and free for your local shops. You can sign up for a live zoom demo with me or one of my teammates yiftee.com/demo or email sales@yiftee.com. That’s why Yiftee.com. That’s it for now back to the show.

Brandon Burton 17:06
All right, Nick, we’re back. So before the break had mentioned what the two programs are, if you don’t mind, let’s let’s dive in a little deeper on the partnership when it and you had mentioned it has kind of the three legs to that program. And maybe just tell us a little bit more about the program, the evolution of the program, kind of how you got to where it is today to be recognized on national stage.

Nick Masino 17:32
Thank you so much. I’m really proud of it. Because I was hired as the first partnership with that chamber employee and Ay, ay ay, ay, took the strategy. And then I hired all the employees raised the funds. So it was really, it goes back to 2007 When I started here at the chamber, and it was kind of my baby for 13 years. So it started in 2006, where Gwinnett County government, again, one of the fastest growing counties in the 80s that continues in the 90s got to the point by 2006 that they said, Hey, we probably need to have an economic Recruitment Policy. So they created their first ever economic incentives. And it was basically crickets for six months. And they thought, well, if we create it, they will come. Well, they didn’t because there wasn’t someone getting up every day, beating the drum to say consultants, corporate consultants, doing recruitment real estate consultants. So they said, Okay, we need to do something. And in communicating with the chamber, and the private private sector industry, there was a there’s a company, which everyone’s heard of is called Cisco. They have a major presence here in metro Atlanta, and then a huge office here in Gwinnett at the time, and they said, Okay, we’ll write a $50,000 check to do an economic study. And then that was matched with another $90,000. And they hired a consultant, they did a nine month strategy. And out of it, we came partnership on it, which is as as mentioned, and 2007, we rolled out this, it was a five year strategy. It had a three legged stool, which was focused on we need people to get up every day and targeted industries to recruit. So goal one is to recruit, recruit, retain expand jobs in our targeted industries. Number two, make sure that we’re aligning all of the workforce efforts, from K through 12, to post secondary to retraining retooling into those five target industries. And then make sure that we have a safe, clean, vibrant community that is continually redeveloping and investing in itself with new roads and infrastructure. And those three things if we stay focused on that we should have economic success. And so we implemented that strategy in 2007 to 12 months later running into Great Recession. We’re like so ready to go. And that was a bit of a pitfall. And we retooled. And it actually brought Market Street back and we said, hey, just 16 months ago, you said we’re supposed to create. It was something like 40,000 new jobs in five years. And they were like, Yeah, that’s probably not going to happen now. So they gave us, they brought him in for a couple of months. And they re told us a little bit, and we got going again. And it was really awesome. Because right out of the gate, in our first five years, we ended up landing NCR fortune 500 headquarters. And then literally, four months later, we landed Asbury automotive, another fortune 500. And then two years later, we landed and retained the merger of two companies, which became rock 10, which was another fortune 500. So we started the recession with one fortune 500 company and ended it with fours. So people were like, Oh, my God, this is the greatest thing ever. Let me tell you, we’re really good. But a lot of it is happenstance and being at the right place at the right time. And it all just worked out for us. And we have a lot of success. And we continue to have lots of success. But we went from like the high of here we go in 2007, to the low of eight, nine, to end that first five years with having, in our time starting the recession, with one fortune 500, ending with four it was, it was an amazing rollercoaster ride. But we’ve continued on an every five years, we brought in a consultant to do a top to bottom soup to nuts review of our strategy and our community. And we roll out a five year strategy plan, we then do a fundraising campaign behind it, to raise the money to fund the strategy that we’ve done that now for almost 20 years. We’re in year, I guess, like 17 or 18.

Brandon Burton 22:00
Wow. So as you kind of talked about the origins of it back in 2006 2007 kind of timeframe. And thinking, nowadays, a lot of things, you know, rely on social media to help, you know, perpetuate a message or, you know, whatever messaging you’re putting out there to try to attract and retain and everything. So at that timeframe that was before, I mean, that’s still like MySpace days, right, like 2006. And so there has to be different strategies starting off and building that momentum. Right.

Nick Masino 22:33
Yeah, 100%. And I have to say, I’m gonna be very quick. So I want to I’m sure you’re familiar with IEDC, the International Economic Development Council. So I was very involved in that as an economic developer. And I went to my basic 101 training. It was actually right here in Atlanta, Georgia Tech. And we had a session on social media. So the social media I knew was LinkedIn. Yeah. And, you know, we’ve all been on it, our resumes there. I was in the recruiting industry for 12 years. So I knew LinkedIn. Well, I left that session, and I was signed up for MySpace, and Facebook. We know how all that worked out. But it was funny is it 2008? Like, I’m doing all kinds of like, a posting stuff on Facebook, about the community. And my wife’s like, what are you doing? You’re wasting time. And she’s giving me such a hard time for being on Facebook. And then I could I love the like, two years later, she gets on it. And she’s like, Oh, okay, I was such a hater to Facebook. And I kind of didn’t understand what you were doing. Right. And of course, my face was completely creepy. And two weeks later, I turned the thing off. Never went back on it. Because of IDC, that course and we got super focused on creating Instagram. And we I think we maybe had one of the first Twitter economic development accounts. And we actually won an IDC award for like the best social media of a large IDI organization in the country. So like around 2010. So we’re really proud of that. But so yeah, there was really just that was just the beginning of social media. So I’m not kidding. We must have done a dozen a month of these community meetings that some like two people would come to and we were really pumped when we’d have double digits and people would come. And we had to just do it. I was I was at every rotary every cuantas club, every community HOA meeting, just tell them the story. This is what we’re doing. And not even I wasn’t really trying to raise money. I was just trying to get awareness out there. Yeah. It was really interesting. You know, people asking, you know, raising their hands. Why are you doing this? Why does it matter? And it was really awesome, because professional meanings people aren’t going to really put you on the spot, go to an HOA meeting. The hard questions and they’re like, they almost like revel in it. But it really helped me with my talking points and And after my first year of doing that, I was like I could take on any talking point I was. So I was like, excited to go out to public meetings.

Brandon Burton 25:06
That’s funny. Yeah. So with the three legs you talked about, the one that really stands out to me that I’d like to learn a little bit more about is how you approach the you’d mentioned aligning the workforce efforts from kindergarten on up to be able to keep and retain them in the community and have that workforce pipeline, what are some of those key things that you do to help align those workforce efforts?

Nick Masino 25:30
Absolutely. And I will tell you in 2008, to 10, really, up until almost it feels like the beginning of COVID. This was completely unique. People were barely talking about this. Now, every chamber in the United States, it’s their number one priority. And it’s very innovative to talk about the last three years. But in 2006, and seven, when we were kicking this off, it became very clear that we were pretty good at already doing this. But we had to create some formality around it, which was committees and goals and Task Force and action committees around getting the talent creators together with the employers. And so we literally started this, I guess, you know, 18 years ago, projecting, hey, we’re starting this new division. And we’re going to need this type of workforce. And we started at the same time creating career academies in our high school. And even now, it’s actually now all the way down to middle school. We that was one of the epitomises to start what we call the Gwinnett School of Math, Science and Technology. We went to go visit one on a peer tour outside of DC and Fairfax County. And we created it a year later in Gwinnett. And it’s been the number one academic school in Georgia, for the last 11 years. We’ve since because of this connection between the workforce, and in education, we now have four STEM schools, one focused on AI, and it’s actually a K through 12. Ai, integrated system. So a whole school cluster on AI. But we’re, we’re probably year five or four on our engineering STEM school. So if you want to be an engineer, mechanical, electrical, you have a specific engineering school. And then the last one is health, and it’s anywhere from EMT to a doctor, if you think you’re gonna go to medical school or become a nurse or a PT or an OT, you could go to this school. I also think it’s important to point out we have 183,000 students, and our K through 12 public school. And then we have a municipal school. And we have some very large private schools. So we have well over 200,000 students being educated K through 12, not including our college, and our 12 or two year technical school. So we have a lot of people like this past May, we grant we had we had 15,000 graduates in Gwinnett. County between all those school systems. So we don’t leave out the private schools or the city schools, the alignment, and we do the same with the technical college and the four year college.

Brandon Burton 28:12
Wow, I love how you refer to them as talent creators, instead of just schools, not just the school system and their talent creators. And I think if they can really adopt that, that title, it puts out that that talent and workforce with a specific focus on what they want to do and what they want to become when they grow up. Right?

Nick Masino 28:32
Yes. And in two weeks, I will be in front of 1500 new teachers, just because of turnover and our system is so large, it’s about 12 to 1500. And it’s the big orientation of all the new teachers. And I’ll go, they gave me five minutes as tamper CEO, and when I was Chief Economic Development Officer, and I just do five minute pitch on them. And they’re the future is on their shoulders, because the future workforce or Gwinnett. County is in your kindergarten class or is about to graduate in the next nine months. So that the talent creator, I’ve been using that for some time, and I give them I hopefully inspiring speech about what their impact is in the classroom, what it means to Gwinnett County’s future.

Brandon Burton 29:14
Absolutely. There’s so much focus these days on content creation. So to be a talent creator, that’s important. No, no pressure to those teachers, you know. But let’s shift gears a little bit over to the public policy initiative that you guys had on your your application for chamber the year and tell us about that. And, and what makes that stand out?

Nick Masino 29:36
Yeah, and just briefly, the standout is we were doing very little, and we started doing some stuff at a quick fast paced level. I always say whatever you put in your budget is what you do. And so we budgeted for a full time employee and we budgeted for them to have funds to invest. And right out of the gate, was it The first year of our first new leader in public policy. And almost seven years, we were up against a big community vote to for one cent sales tax to fund capital improvements for our cities in our county, which means police departments and 911 centers and parks and libraries, in roads and sidewalks and bridges. And so we said, we’ve got this, we’re going to take the take this on, we’re going to, we’re going to lead this effort through our newly staff position. And we raised monies and hired money and we hired consultants. And we actually at the end of that vote, we actually had that was the highest vote yes, in the previous three campaigns. And so that was huge. And then we said, well, we need to start doing one that Day at the Capitol again, and go down there. And we did one last year, which was pretty COVID centric. Last year spill, we’re very limited, but we were there. And we did it was within the rules of COVID. But this year, those rules were removed, and we’re all back to normal. And we’re trying to find the date that worked best for them. And for us. It actually ended up being Valentine’s Day. So our awesome marketing and communications graphics team came up with you remember in elementary school you gave Valentine’s out? Yeah, yeah, we created Quinn net loves Georgia, Valentine’s. And we’re giving it to all of our legislators with candy. It’s awesome. It is awesome. And I just say it’s cording, but apparently no one had ever done that before. And I was really shocked. Because our we have a state legislature that needs annually, and it meets from January to March. So Valentine’s Day is always there. Like, how are we the first I think it is, but we have a really, really creative marketing team. And they came up with it. And I thought it was 100% corny, but I didn’t want to do it. And they were like, no, no, we got to do it, we’re really gonna stand out. And I was like, I don’t know if we’re gonna stand out for good or bad. But well, we’ll go for it. And everyone loved it. I was wrong. They were right. It was it was super positive. And all the photos were super cool. And it was it was really memorable, which is what was important. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 32:21
it’s nice when you can have a little bit of humble pie when something really, you know, is well accepted. And it’s okay, you know, to accept that and give your team all the credit for their good ideas, right?

Nick Masino 32:34
Oh, yeah. If they would have listened to me, we would have would have not done it. And we would have not been a finalist in the ACC. I give all the credit other places? Absolutely not, I

Brandon Burton 32:45
think you hit on something important that you know, where you put the budget is what gets the attention, right. So being able to align your intentions, you know, fiscally towards public policy, you’re gonna see more focus and more attention and more results by doing so. So I think that’s a good leadership note right there for others to take note of that if you don’t budget for it, it’s not going to happen. So

Nick Masino 33:11
totally agree. That’s, that’s definitely one of my mantras.

Brandon Burton 33:15
Yes, for sure. Well, Nick, as we start to wrap things up here, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any tips or action items with listeners who are interested in taking their chamber up to the next level. What piece of advice might you offer to them?

Nick Masino 33:33
Absolutely. I think this one’s actually I’ve read it. Like he first stopped me when it when you kind of gave me the heads up, I needed to answer that question. It but I think the answer is so obvious. Because this is what I’ve done for my entire career. When I was a mayor, I got involved in the Georgia Municipal Association, surrounded myself with peers learn best practices. And I think just as important is to avoid the mistakes that they shared with you that they made. Then I became an economic developer, and I joined the International Economic Development Council did the same thing. And it literally, I started on as the chamber CEO, July 1 of 2019. Two weeks later, I was in Huntington Beach at the annual conference, learning best practices. And I literally showed up like I took a flight really early, so I could go attend the board meeting of which one I was not allowed to attend because I wasn’t on the board. And I tried to play the well no one said I couldn’t do it. Let me sit in I just like I like if I’m going to do something I’m all in and they were like Well, sir, sorry, you cannot see. First of all welcome, but you’re not here. You can be here I need to be just not in this office. So So I went I you know, I went to the new member orientation and then I went to the big welcome ceremony, and it was all awesome. And the next day I got on a peer group I have which I’ve been on for four years, I’ve met some incredible chamber leaders from literally across the country across. There’s great folks from Canada as well in the Caribbean. And it’s been awesome. And I have learned so much. When anytime I dive into something, I want to hear what the people that have done it, what they what, like, we didn’t have a foundation at our chamber. So I’m sitting there in a room with 40 CEOs, me and one other CEO did not have a foundation, I immediately went back, why don’t we have a foundation sound out we did. And we had created our Community Foundation 20 years prior, we just found it out. And they were doing a really unique, important work of the community. But it wasn’t around business. So we actually created a chamber foundation focused on helping businesses that have owners that have been historically left out people of color women, veterans that haven’t been given their fair share of the pie. So we’re focused on that group, because nobody else was doing that work. And so that those peer groups are so important. You never know what you can learn. And also, just as importantly, what you can avoid. So sorry, that was a long drawn out answer is join, well join ACC, get on one of their peer groups in there based on the size and complexity of your chamber. So there’s a peer group for anybody, any chamber CEO,

Brandon Burton 36:23
right. And that’s one of the main reasons why this podcast became what it is, is to be able to share some of those best practices, get to know others in the peer group and learn from mistakes and successes of others. So do do all of the above as far as learning from your peers and those best practices to adopt those. I appreciate that. Nick, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Nick Masino 36:53
Well, I see a bright future for chambers. I do think that that’s a complex question, because it really depends on the community. Because not there is no cookie cutter chamber. They are as different as the individual communities. And I think it’s a great question every chamber leader needs to ask themselves. For us. We’re a very, we’re the fifth most diverse county in the United States, again, a million people, a quarter of them 250,000 People were born outside the United States of a million people on my community. And so we’ve been super intentional about inviting people into the chamber. Because if you don’t know a chamber, you’ve never been involved with one. A lot of people think chambers are government. And we find people that are first generation American, don’t have a lot of trust in government. And so we have to be super intentional about inviting people. That was what it was for us. And we knew that our physical structure of our chamber wasn’t super inviting. So we had to make it more open and bright and welcoming. So we’re doing a $4 million renovation right now. And that’s what it meant for us. But I think, you know, view as 10 chambers that question, you might get 10 different answers. But I think what’s important is you’ve got to think where is your community headed? And are you headed? Are you in a parallel direction, because if you’re going east and your community is going west, that’s that’s not good for your chamber. You’ve got to be mirroring your community have what they need. And that means thinking differently, as your community might be changing.

Brandon Burton 38:24
Right now, that is such a great answer. So every chamber is right yeah, every chamber every community is so unique. And you need to be able to listen to that community see what direction you need to go and, and it’ll kind of chart the course for you. But every every answer is slightly different. As I asked that, you know, now in 238 episodes, we get different answers from everybody. So I love it. Nick, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who might want to reach out and connect and learn more about how you guys are doing things or when it would be the best way for them to reach out and connect.

Nick Masino 39:02
Sure you go to GwinnettChamber.org I will point out when that is two ends in two T’s by the way, Gwinnett you’ve never heard that name before. It is one of the three signers of the Declaration of Independence from Georgia. You’re gonna love this the guy’s name was button. Bu t t o n button good at

Brandon Burton 39:27
just don’t name their kids Button anymore.

Nick Masino 39:29
No, I know it’s such a classic thing. So what net chamber.org You can reach me at Nick@GwinnettChamber.org Pretty, pretty simple.

Brandon Burton 39:39
All right, we will get that in our show notes for this episode. Make it easy for people to find you but Nick, this has been great having you on the show and hearing about the exciting work you guys are involved with. I wish you and your team Best of luck as chamber the year and it’s been great having you on the show.

Nick Masino 39:55
Thanks so much. It really was an honor. I appreciate it.

Brandon Burton 39:58
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