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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 Jim Johnson. Jim has worked in the chamber industry for over 12 years and is currently the President CEO of the Pearland Chamber of Commerce in Texas. In his role, he oversees the daily operations, strategic planning and partnerships with multiple community organizations. Jay Jim came from Georgetown, Texas, where he was president and CEO of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce. Prior to Georgetown, he was the president and CEO for the Lufkin Angelina County Chamber of Commerce and the Lufkin Angelina Economic Development Partnership. He started his chamber career as the Vice President with the Pearland chamber. He currently serves as faculty for the US Chamber of Commerce Institute organizational management program, and as the Chair for the Texas Chamber of Commerce executives. He previously served on the board of directors for WACE and for the Texas Association of Business. He holds a bachelors of arts and history and a minor in Political Science from Texas State University. Jim is a CCE from ACCE and IOM designation as well from the US Chamber of Commerce. He was recognized as a 40 under 40 in 2021 by ACCE and Jim is married to his wife, Jasmine and they have one son, but Jim, I’m excited to have you back on the podcast before we hit record, we realized that you were you were on the podcast way back in episode 22. And as this releases we’re on 232 now so it’s been a minute but wow. Yeah.
Jim Johnson 3:48
That’s so congratulations to you, Brandon. I mean, that’s, you know, we’re, you know, still going strong and still great resource out there for the chamber profession.
Brandon Burton 3:55
Well, that was the hope that was the hope when it started and it’s still going so love to give you an opportunity, Jim to to say hello to everybody listening and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.
Jim Johnson 4:09
Yeah, that’s great. I glad to be here. Glad to be back here on the chamber chat podcast. Something interesting always is a US palsy go what is something interesting? I will say I’m in Pearland Texas, it’s interesting to me is that it though it’s a town about a fruit. I was thinking today I can’t think of a single place in town where there is a pear tree even though we are parallel and so maybe it’s not interesting about me but interesting about the town I’m in right now. So we’ll go with that.
Brandon Burton 4:43
Yeah, that’s good. Sounds like a project for the chamber.
Jim Johnson 4:46
Yeah, right. You know, I thought about and I’d like to do pear trees even grow in parallel and so to be determined for for Chamber Chat Podcast when I come back and another 100 or so
Brandon Burton 4:57
that’s right. That’s right. Well, we’ll get an appt and see how big those trees are then. Yeah. Well tell us a little bit about that parallel Chamber of Commerce, the size staff Scope of Work budget, that sort of thing to kind of set the stage for our discussion today.
Jim Johnson 5:12
Wonderful. The Pearland Chamber of Commerce is a town located directly south of Houston, Texas, our northern border is the South border of Houston, Texas. We are a have been a fast growing community that times rated one of the fastest growing in the United States, and continues to be a growing in our business in our population. Our chamber has a annual budget of over $700,000 a membership that this year eclipsed the 700 mark. And I have a great team with me. And we have including, myself six full time staff members.
Brandon Burton 5:57
All right, that definitely helps kind of prepare us for our conversation. I like to think, you know, these programs that we’ll talk about as a chamber of the year finalists should be able to be scaled up or down depending on the size of the chamber and the community. And, of course, the relevancy for your community as well. So thank you for for sharing all that. The way I like to structure these chamber, the year finalist episodes is to really spend the majority of our time focused in on the two programs that were submitted on your chamber the year application. So what I like to do is just at a high level, have you explain what the two programs are? And then we can circle back and dig a little deeper into both of them. Wonderful.
Jim Johnson 6:40
Yeah. It’s always a great process going through the ACCE chamber the year because when you get that notification that you’re a finalist, you pause and think what are the two projects that we really want to focus on in showcase and for us to really stood at the front. The first one was a local opportunity to engage with the public sector and our local city council on a proposed fee proposed storm water fee that was designed to help solve our drainage issues. But during the discovery, and I know we’re talking about this more we uncovered, businesses weren’t aware of the fee. They weren’t engaged in the process. So over a period of time, we engage with our local public City Council, to educate them on the impact of the fee on the businesses to remove that fee from consideration and to move them towards a bond study. That was a bond study and a bond to really have a true solution to drainage, and our community. And our second one focused on workforce related to the large amount of people being a suburb of Houston, that leave Portland every day for work. And with unemployment under 4%. In our community, we recognize that one of the best ways to fill jobs in parallel in was to showcase the jobs to local residents, and created a comprehensive resource board of career opportunities in our community. That wasn’t your traditional hey, here’s a job posting allowing folks to interact with companies allow them to search jobs. And on the flip in, allow the employers to tap into and see the job, the applicants in our community as well.
Brandon Burton 8:40
Awesome. Now two very worthwhile programs and interested to learn more about both of them. First of all, we’ll take a quick break and then we’ll come back and dig in deeper on both of those.
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Raquel Borges 11:30
Hi, I’m Raquel I work with Yiftee to help over 500 chambers cities and downtown’s across the US keep local dollars local and support their small businesses. Our CEO Donna Novitsky and I will be at the ACCE Conference in Salt Lake City from July 31 to August 3, and we would love to meet you swing by our booth to say hi and learn about our community gift card program, Community cards are custom branded for your community, and can only be used at your Chamber members businesses, plus the program is free. You can learn more by visiting yiftee.com. That’s yiftee.com or emailing us at sales@yiftee.com. See you at the ACCE Conference.
Brandon Burton 12:19
All right, Jim, we’re back. So you kind of piqued my interest when you said a storm water fee. Like we’re who comes up with ideas to charge people for storm water? Like, how does this come to be? And then to pick a fight with the Chamber of add it right?
Jim Johnson 12:36
Yeah, um, you know, Pearland is a, we’re a coastal community. And after Hurricane Harvey, in 2017. It, our community recognized that we needed to be more proactive with drainage. And throughout this local elected officials uncovered a way to do a storm water fee. And what that was, was a charge on impervious coverage in our community, a monthly ongoing fee per 1000 square feet of impervious coverage. And that doesn’t sound like a large amount. And so it was just kind of dripped to us in conversation, and it perked our ears that council had taken action to place this. This was in August of the year that it was gonna be placed on the ballot for voter approval the next May. So about 10 months down. And over time, we learned this is a no clue. And that that small fee of $1.79 per 1000 square foot adds up over a period of time for the average business that had 10,000 square feet is gonna be a little over $200 a year. But as we dug deeper into this and started talking to businesses and started pulling our members and gaining and listening to them about the impact. It wasn’t just $200 for some companies, it was $10,000 For some it was $100,000 a year. For some it was over $400,000 a year, every year forever. Right. And we listened and that was shocking and alarming to us in our businesses.
Brandon Burton 14:13
Yeah, and so often once a fee like that is in place like you say it never will go away and and oftentimes it may even increase over time. It’s like you’re already getting some let’s go back to the well and get some more like all these water analogies that the information is drip to you going back to the well, storm.
Jim Johnson 14:34
You’re absolutely right. And that was we realized that that was a concern. And we wanted a true solution to drainage in our country. We don’t want our residential and our businesses to flood and in the event of natural disasters. So it started a true education process and information gathering for the chamber. As we looked at the overall impact this would have On our businesses, and then the challenge of trying to educate counsel on the impact would have businesses, it was a five two vote in favor to place this on the May ballot in August of that year. And I’m proud to port Brandon by over a course of time. In February of that year, we’ve we changed that to a seven Oh, vote against the storm water fee being placed on the May ballot, and to move towards a bond study, which would lead to a community wide bond, which would be a more comprehensive solution to drainage in our community.
Brandon Burton 15:38
Yeah, that’s, that’s two big wins right there. Because just by having it ended up on the ballot, you know, to be able to have, you know, propose for businesses to pay for this. If you’re not a business owner, and you’re like, yeah, let them pay for it, you know, it’s off my plate, if I could see it very easily passing that way. But to be able to shift it as a bond, where everybody has buy in, in the community, really is much more equitable way of approaching it anyway. So as far as the bond process goes, did you guys go about educating the community about it? Because it was a big win with Ryan? So what was that process? Like?
Jim Johnson 16:17
Absolutely. So you know, we we over that that first initial period are asked to council was to postpone the storm water fee, and to do a bond study. The bond study, what was nice about us being proactive in this public engagement, is that the chamber it was a close committee of a roughly 11 individuals, and two of those people on that bond scope committee, were appointed by the Chamber of Commerce. So we had a seat at the table allowed us to share the impact on it. And over that that bond study group came back with a little over $100 million storm water bond, our largest bond package related to drainage projects in our community, the Chamber came out fully supported that package, because bonds, those tax rate increases was smaller than the original storm water fee, and over a period of time would be paid off, and would not be forever. And then on May 9 of this year, that bond related to drainage pass with 65% voter approval in our community. So it was a great win in a lot allowed us to truly work with our public sector. And, and live up to what we say we want to our tagline is, we’re the voice of business. But we have to speak up for business. And we it’s comforting to know that when we were at Council multiple times talking to about this, the room was packed, and it was business leaders in there. Some of them don’t have a vote in our committee because their businesses here, but they live in another community. And that was humbling, but spoke volume for our credibility as a convener of individuals throughout parallel.
Brandon Burton 18:00
Yeah, no, that is awesome. That visual of having a roomful of business owners saying, hey, this, this matters to us. That’s absolutely Oh, that’s awesome. But let’s, let’s shift gears a little bit into the other program that you guys submitted work in parallel. And you kind of gave a little bit of background on that. But maybe go back to some of that origin of you see people, you know, leaving and going into Houston to work and things of that nature. How did how did that evolve to be the program that it is today?
Jim Johnson 18:33
Absolutely. So our chamber in partnership with our economic development corporation or higher ed partners or workforce issues, did a comprehensive Workforce Strategy. During this input about what our workers were doing what was taking place, a stat stood out to the chamber. And it was that 38,942 workers commute outside of our community every single day. So we’re losing roughly 40,000 people. At the same time, we recognize our unemployment was less than 4%. So we have low unemployment, but mass exodus of people going into the fourth largest city of the United States for work. And so we wanted to showcase careers and opportunities in our community. And it actually started with a business trying to convince the chamber to buy a massive billboard on a major highway. They say stop driving on your road work in parallel. And it sparked interest in our staff and our board and our leaders to say how can we show folks to work in parallel and so we started researching different platforms for job postings spraying and you know, I mean, you can turn on the radio or anything. There are lots and lots of companies out there that focus on job postings, and we wanted to find a way that we could do it differently in our community to be hyper focused on jobs in parallel. And so that was the creation of work in parallel, which is a free standing standalone website. That is comprehensive job board, an employer Resource Center. So what we mean by that is you can go there and see over 200 job postings at any given moment. But also, if you’re an employer going there, we want you to come to this site, because we can highlight resources that are beneficial to you grants, training opportunities, childcare for your employees, so they can know were going on. But even better, you can look at all the applicants that are on the site, all those job seekers that are on there, and you can engage with them. This is 24/7 Metaverse, ability to interact schedule interviews, chat, share information, all through a virtual platform, all focused on pair land, and all absolutely free to businesses in our community. Because if we can move that needle and fill jobs, we can truly make an impact and see that large, almost 40,000 People start to work here locally.
Brandon Burton 21:09
That’s right. I like that. And it’s a two sided part with the website. So you get the job seekers, you know, with the job boards, and they can put, you know, fill out applications and whatnot. But to be able to track the employers there with these things, like you said, the grants and resources and everything for them. And then while they’re in there, they’re just kind of that stickiness factor of let’s see what else is in here, you know, resource wise, including, you know, workers, you know, staff. So I think that the billboard idea that that is interesting with that, you know, the origin there, it’s like, yeah, that that can be impressive. Like, you don’t need to convince anybody that a commute is terrible, right.
Jim Johnson 21:50
And that’s what’s great, Brian, I mean, you’re so this the platform, we chose what I remember, when we were researching platforms, this one you go to, and it’s it reminds you of a virtual trade show. I mean, that’s what we created an ongoing 24/7 virtual trade show. But what’s great is when you log into the site, the first thing you see is the exterior of the country, the virtual Convention Center. And there are billboards all over the place. And we’re like, that is our platform that we’re choosing for this site. And he talked about commuting, and part of the conversation that we uncovered during our research is that the average commuter spends 45 minutes one way in their car. And so we dug into that if you work locally, it’s about 15 minutes. So that’s 30 minutes, both ways. If you commute twice a day, we uncover that that leads to about 240 hours a year that you spend commuting, and I can do math, but 30 divided by eight, that’s 30 days, or 240 divided by eight, that’s 30 days, you get back, or 10 full days, so 30 working days, or 10 full days, you get back by working and living in the same community. And and that’s part of our message to folks is like, yes, you might want to spend time in your car, I don’t, I want you working in parallel at these great companies. And that’s what it does. It’s ongoing showcase of these great career opportunities for talented people.
Brandon Burton 23:17
Ya know, I love it when people are in cars listening to this podcast. But other than that, it’s a it’s not a fun thing to have to commute a long commute like that. And so with the work imperiling website and I’m intrigued, just because you said like, there’s a lot of companies out there that focus on, you know, hiring needs, right and matching employees with employers. So to be able to make this different and unique and targeted for parallel? And what are some of those things that are really driving traffic to it that are getting that attention that are making it stand up and above what other sites might be out there? And because I imagine some of these job seekers are probably on, you know, some of these other sites as well, in addition to work in parallel and but what makes it stand out in your opinion?
Jim Johnson 24:08
Yeah, a couple different things. Your absolute we’re competing with major companies in recruiting, we’re trying to showcase a job board when companies out there spending millions of dollars in marketing. What was the for our screen, this is the first time that we’ve gotten into Google advertisements in targeted that so we’re trying to be very proactive, like our businesses are in place ads, but actually what makes this stand out is we’re getting community wide buy in, in this process, or school districts or cities or elected officials are out there utilizing this message of work in parallel and.com And because by getting their involvement and recognizing to make it success, we need our major employers and our major stakeholders to show it out. That’s how it stands out. And We are seeing every month that this man has established astonishing growth. Like I mentioned earlier, over 200 jobs posted on the site at any given time, nearly 1000 applicants are already on the site looking for jobs interacting. It’s, it’s, it’s exciting. It’s, it’s our first, we’ve always had a job board. And I think that’s you what chambers can do, you’ve always had a job board, it’s been known as a member benefit, you can post your jobs on your website, we flipped that narrative and said, This is a community benefit. This isn’t just for you to post your jobs. This is a community wide benefit to know that if you’re looking for a career in our town, all the major companies are on it, all the major stakeholders, you go to one place and find all of their jobs. But the second fold, is it always the booths, the interactive side of it, you can learn about these companies. So you might not find a job with XYZ company right now. But you can learn about their culture, their benefits, their resources, and guess what, if you can interact with them, say, Hey, I’m in your community. Now, when there’s an opening that fits my skill set, I’d love to chat with you about more.
Brandon Burton 26:08
Yeah, and I just pulled up work in Portland website while you’re talking and, and I see you’ve got some of the major employers in your community that are sponsors of the website, and what a great way for them to get in front of these people who are job seekers to sponsor the website, be their front, you know, front and center, and help make some of those connections.
Jim Johnson 26:31
And, you know, the Chamber Leadership, our board through this process is we live our mission to serve business, promote growth and empower our community recognize that this is, it is it is non dues revenue for us, it is that we do have sponsors, as you mentioned, but we believe this is the lane we need to being going forward, we need to be the hub of information, we need to share this data that we have of careers, and send that back out to our community because the success of this is yes, we’re interacting with our businesses, we’re gonna fill their jobs. But the majority of our audiences, the community at large, an area that chambers traditionally don’t get into, unless it was a festival, this is our lane to say, This is why we exist. And we’re here to help our businesses by showcasing those shops.
Brandon Burton 27:17
Right. I love it. So you had mentioned kind of at the beginning of that part of the discussion that the in parallel, you had like a 4% unemployment rate. It makes it too early now to be able to see the change. Like I know, this is all pretty new. But yeah, it’d be interesting to follow that and see, you know, gee, bring it down to 1%. Or yeah, how does it right, and
Jim Johnson 27:38
that’s the greatest. Yeah, that’s the greatest thing about this, this this site is the we’re able to use metrics, we want to see that percentage of unemployment continue to go down, we want to see the next time we do a comprehensive study on commuting patterns that we want to see less folks commuting outside our thing. We want our companies to continue to see applicants come from our local area, we want to see continue to see people hired through our site and current or awareness of jobs in here. That’s that’s the approach is we have great companies, we’re a large community in the Houston area, and we need to showcase those jobs and get those individuals to live and work here so that ultimately their quality of life goes up to.
Brandon Burton 28:21
That’s right. I love it. It’s a great vision, and you guys are executing very well. So great job. As we start to wrap things up here, I like to see, you know, for those listeners who are out there, who are really interested in taking their chamber up to the next level, what tips or action items might you have to offer to help them in accomplishing that goal?
Jim Johnson 28:45
Yeah, I, I, this whole journey for us, was very strategic. And I think too often people look at strategic planning data. As a, as something that is scary or not what they should be doing it, I wouldn’t encourage and say it should be required that if you don’t have a strategic plan and a roadmap, not staff, that is truly as a not staff driven staff should be driven on driving it. But that’s, that has community wide support that has your stakeholders in your community and your board involved. That will allow you to continue to be a catalyst in your community. And if we hadn’t had a goal of two years ago to get 75 job postings on our website, and to recognize then that it was working but it wasn’t meeting that need to modify that to look at third party sites. We wouldn’t be having this conversation today Brandon about work in parallel. And so get a get a strategic plan and get a roadmap so that you can see truly be a a chamber that is moving in the right direction?
Brandon Burton 30:04
Yeah, no, I think that that’s so important. You need to know where you’re going right? You need to have goals need to be able to have that clear mission and vision. As we look forward to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
Jim Johnson 30:20
I think chambers, I think engaging with the public sector is so important of the future. And it’s not always advocacy, I think, as you engage and truly work with the public, the community, in your community, is that we have to recognize that we have to be involved with more than just what we do. And if we do that, you’re going to uncover more opportunities for your chamber to be a problem solver. Because they’re gonna look at us for those those issues, and ask us to step up, and if it aligns with what our community needs, what our chamber needs. That that’s the future, we’re gonna we saw that during the pandemic, you’ve had many podcasts talking about, chamber stepping up. In that area, during the pandemic, we build on that momentum, continue to be the person continue to be the trusted resource for information, truly, truly the trusted problem solver and community. And we want to say we do that. But you got to engage with the public sector, your elected officials, your community partners, your stakeholders to really make that happen.
Brandon Burton 31:37
Absolutely. That’s a great vision. And I like the idea of aligning your organization with those needs in your community. And I think that goes right along with your idea of having that strategic plan and, and that that needs to be part of it is being in alignment going forward. Well, Jim, I’d like to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners out there who might want to reach out and connect and learn more about how you guys are doing things, or maybe to do a little R&D with working in Pearland, and what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you?
Jim Johnson 32:14
Sure. I’d always encourage people to go to their website, PearlandChamber.org, because you’ll find under our staff section, my email, and my LinkedIn profile link either ways to connect, but because we’re on a podcast, and people can pause and make sure they write it down appropriately. It’s jim.johnson@pearlandchamber.org. And Brandon, I always think you at the beginning because you knew this a Pearland and not pearl. And that those that would I know, it’s the sales call, because they think we’re the land of pearls. But like I said, we’re the land of pears. asterik not really
Brandon Burton 32:48
fruitless pears, right.
Jim Johnson 32:51
There are a lot of those fruitless pear trees here that, but I don’t think that was your original idea with the message.
Brandon Burton 32:56
That’s right. That’s right. So I’ll get all that in our show notes for this episode makes it even easier to find you and reach out and connect. But I want to wish you and your team have first congratulations but wish you guys Best of luck as chamber the year and I look forward to seeing the results in about a month from now in Salt Lake.
Jim Johnson 33:18
Yes, sir. Thank you, Brandon for hosting me again. Thanks for bringing me back on and let’s make sure it’s not 210 episodes before the next time we do this together.
Brandon Burton 33:26
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