Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Susan Williams. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.
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Brandon Burton 0:00
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Our guest for this episode is Susan Williams, Susan has served as the president and CEO of the Venango Area Chamber of Commerce in Pennsylvania since 2007. Following 21 years in a banking support position. Her volunteer work led her to seek a job where she could impact the community through leadership, business and relationship building. She shares that her leadership journey continues, especially as she strives to engage others, in many of the programs that the Naga chamber has in recent years, much of that focus has been on education, young professional development and business advocacy. So it isn’t 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 listening and to share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you a little better.
Susan Williams 1:50
Thank you. It’s such a pleasure to be here. And anyone that knows me knows that I love being with my chamber people, I have really relied on a strong network to get me to the position I’m in where I’m very happy in a growing chamber. And so it’s it’s really a pleasure to be here. So I think one of the interesting things about me is that I’ve been fortunate enough to have really wonderful, you know, areas to work in my 22 years in banking, were a pleasure. And I often was told you’ll you’ll never find a job that you’re as happy. And that affords you as much opportunity to do what you love. And I don’t know that I thought that but I definitely got there. I knew the moment I arrived in a seat at the chamber that that it was where I belonged. And that was 18 years ago. So and that experience with both the bank and the Chamber has led me to be able to do really fun things in the rest of my life. So
Brandon Burton 2:49
very good. Now, I’m glad you found the right fit, you found that chair that’s nice and comfortable in that position that fits your personality and your your character traits. Well, so Well tell us a little bit about the Venango chamber area Chamber just to give us an idea of you know, size scope of work staff, as we’ll be discussing today, budget, things like that, just to kind of give us a perspective. Well, like many
Susan Williams 3:16
small world chambers, we were a City Chamber, we were formed in 1912. So we’re well over 100 years old. But we went through a merger in 2008. To become a Regional Chamber, we had leadership that believed that as they looked across our membership, we served a greater area. So that gave us a really great opportunity to grow. And we have done that since 2002 1005 was when that merger was completed with a small business organization. So we are about 450 members, but we are growing and growing as much. And in attracting the right members as growing in numbers. Our budget is around $250,000 a year. And our staff size is at full tilt six. We in fact last summer we had seven but we take every opportunity we can to engage summer interns. So that often gives us a chance to add some capacity during some of our busier times.
Brandon Burton 4:18
Very good now that that helps for sure. And I’m excited to to get into our topic for today. As I mentioned before, we’ll be talking about staffing. And as we look across the chamber spectrum, you know, there’s chambers of all sizes, whether they’re a volunteer only organization, or maybe they have a part time leadership or maybe one staff or two or three versus you know, some that have, you know, 30 or 50 staff and some of these huge chambers. But I think having a focus discussion on staffing is helpful for any level chamber just to kind of get some of those ideas around. You know what to look for what develops a good team what develops a good I’ll say culture even amongst your your office and your staff. So we’ll dive into that discussion around staffing as soon as they get back from this quick break.
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All right, Susan, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re we’re talking about staffing today. So I’d love for you to maybe just tell a little bit about your story there at the Chamber start where you want to start as far as you know what, what stands out to you with, you know, those important things and you look at staff in your chamber, right what I
Susan Williams 7:37
think of my approach to staffing, it’s important to start at the beginning when I was hired by a gentleman who was a mentor. He was my eighth grade geography geometry teacher. And years later, we’ve gotten involved as community volunteers. So when I had a break in my employment from my banking career, and talked to him about where I might land, he suggested that the Chamber might be the place but there wasn’t an open position. Well, as luck would have it, about a year later, there was an opening at the chamber. And I approached him and said, Is this something that where I might be a fit for an administrative assistant, and a very quick conversation led us to believe that it might not be right at that time. But that evening, I got a call from his staff. These were young women who were part time employees. And they said, We saw you come in, we’d like to interview you for the position here at the chamber. And that was my first introduction to really involving the people right, right on the ground, the staff in that process of interviewing, of course, Ron had welcomed them and doing so. And while I said, Well, I’m not sure if you’ve, if I was a great fit, they said, we definitely want you to come in. And again, once I got in there, I knew I was at the right place. So the full time staff was just me and the executive director at the time. But I had the opportunity to work with these young women who I’ve watched him develop and take their best skills and use them to accomplish things in the community and for the chamber, and really show me in the next two years, how to do that. He had a heart for young people. So while a lot of times I see people in all industries, look for staff that can kind of prove what they can do. He taught me how to look for people’s strengths and build on those. So that that was my first step into really hiring myself and developing a staff that would serve our community in our chamber.
Brandon Burton 9:43
Yeah, I love I love that that origin story. I like hearing how people find their way into the chamber industry. And one of the things he said it’s kind of stood out to me is how he taught you how to look for those strengths, those things that you need at your organization and and hire for those strengths. I know a lot of times as you’re looking to fill a position at your organization, you, you probably get people applying that aren’t really sure what the chamber does. Yeah, it’s a lot.
Susan Williams 10:15
Yeah, well, and to be perfectly honest, I didn’t know what the chamber did. Yeah. In my, in a position I served briefly before coming to the chamber, I watched that organization join the chamber, went to a chamber mixer. So I got a little tiny taste of what that was like. But there’s so much to learn. And I think, as we’re hiring staff at the Chamber, we need to be ready to really, you know, take the opportunity to teach people even that have lived in the community for a long, long time about how to approach the community in a different way. We have an employee now that’s just been here over a month. And she’s she’s very well connected in the community. But she’s astonished at what she didn’t know, our favorite things to teach people is, is to introduce them to people they don’t know and teach them about things in the community that they might not be familiar with.
Brandon Burton 11:08
Yeah, I love that. So as you look to hire for strengths, those needs, I’ll say, your organization, how do you go go about the onboarding of helping maybe it’s in the interview process, maybe it’s once they’re hired, that you really give them a deep dive on, here’s the type of work that we’re involved with here at the chamber?
Susan Williams 11:28
Well, maybe starting with the fact that we really have taken a very different approach. Now, first of all, I really love the internship model. So we’ve been fortunate enough to be able to have at least one intern every summer since I’ve been here at the chamber. And several of those interns have gone on to come to work for us after graduation. None of them expected that to happen. When they enter on their first year, too. It was just a summer job. But in allowing them to grow and learn the community and really give them an opportunity to shine. Most of our interns are excited about an opportunity to come work here if if you know it, if it feels itself. Yes, yes. So that has been a strategy that we’ve really liked. But also, you know, I’ve had a couple times in my 18 years where a position opened up. And so we actually had to invite resumes and applications and had to go through the traditional process. But we learned as we watch the rest of the community, and got to meet people who are looking for changes, that a better strategy was to watch for the right people, and then see if you can create a position. And that’s where we’ve really had some success. And the first time I couldn’t imagine how that could happen. Because we all go right to our budgets, say well, if we could hire more people, we would we just don’t have the money. But I have found that when I find the right people, I can find the money. Finding the right people has given me the opportunity to go and talk to stakeholders, including my board of directors, and tell them what we could do if we had the right people. So in it, my first and most successful case of that we had an opportunity to to get some grant money to to get something to happen. It’s and I can give you a little bit more information for the listeners that want to dig in. It’s a program I’m really proud of called be here. venango.org. But when we saw that we had the right person, then we could go to the grantor and say, We know you have something you want done in the community. We didn’t know we could do it before now we can we have the right person, and we can make this happen will you give us a chance. And since then, we’ve gone on to do that with at least a couple of other areas that our chamber serves in.
Brandon Burton 14:01
I love that idea of looking for the right people and then creating the position. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard somebody who’s the president CEO now at their chamber that when they came into the chamber work, that there wasn’t a position at the time that a position was created for them because the strengths and the skills are recognized and the love for the community or connections or whatever it may be. They were the right person so position was created and then you know a careers developed. I was going to ask you, when do you how do you judge when it’s time to bring on you know, a new staff member? What are those things you consider and you kind of answered it with that last question was looking for the right people in creating the position but I know sometimes that happens from the the other side as well. So
Susan Williams 14:52
there are any number of different things that can happen with the be here position. That program manager was hired around the opportunity for money. Now I do not normally let money drive my decisions. So it was it was something that I had known for a long time that a good partner and a community wanted to get done. It just happened to have money with it. So I don’t generally look for money first. But if I can know who’s out there in the community, then as those opportunities for programs we want to develop or openings come that that’s when we say, Oh, who do we have our eyes on. And that’s happened very successfully with our last two openings. So the last catalyst for growing our staff was the pandemic. So during the COVID pandemic, we had managed to stay afloat and actually thrive. So I did do a layoff of my full time employees, but only a small layoff. And during that time, we strategized very carefully and a few hours a week, how we could continue to serve our members that worked so well, that as we came back, we realized we couldn’t continue that pace full time without more help. And of course, we also had some changes in how people wanted to work, we still come to the office, but there’s more need for flexibility for we had growing families and things like that. So as we look to start to make sure that the employees we had had everything they needed, which is should be another part of our conversation, we also knew that we needed to add more staff. And my staff quickly told me who I needed to hire. And they knew who had stepped into our path who was showing up and everything we would do, who really understood our mission. And I said she’s not going to work for us. Great job. And they said, We think you should check. And so an afternoon walk within the next couple of days revealed that we had someone that wanted to come to work for us was a perfect fit. And then it was just a matter of, you know, working with my board and re examining my budget and, and seeing that we had room for for our, you know, our last person.
Brandon Burton 17:04
So that leads into the next question I was going to ask is, as you find the right person, typically the right person, because they have great skill set or connections or whatever it may be. But typically, that means that they already have a job. So how do you go about attracting them, convincing them that the chamber is really the place they need to be? And if you’re doing that, and taking them from a member business, how do you work that that exchange that transition, it’s really
Susan Williams 17:35
hard in a small community not to take someone from a member. But that is, that’s the advantage of the intern hiring, hiring your own employee. But you know, our, our best way to bring someone from somewhere else, when we are I think most of it admittedly not paying as well as we’d like to, is to make sure that you have a culture that’s attractive. So that’s always been our draw. I believe in lifelong learning for myself and for my staff. So it’s been really important for us to communicate to everyone in our membership, that we want an opportunity to grow our staff to grow them here, to help them take those strengths that they they want to do more of take the things they don’t like to do and do less of when possible. And all the while preparing them for the job they want to have at the chamber or somewhere else. So we have had a couple of move on from us over the years. But they’re often the ones crying as they tell me that they’re going to something that they know they need to do. And I’m smiling because I know that was the plan all along, that we want to develop good people to do what they what they want to do what they need to do what’s best for them. And when possible, we tell them, hey, we’ll bring you back. And if it doesn’t work out, you know, we will do everything we can to welcome anyone back.
Brandon Burton 18:58
Yeah, you’re leading this discussion, right where I want to go, that was my next thing. So we often will bring on staff, they get developed, they’re a great part of the team. And then usually it’s one of your Chamber members that see what a great asset this staff member is. And whether it’s a skill set and sales or community development, whatever it may be, but they they reach out and and track them and bring them on to their business. And and you’re right, you know, internally you’re excited for this for your staff member who’s going to move on develop new skill sets and continue on in their career. But I can I also see chambers where the turnover is it seems to be constant. You know, every year they’ve got new staff, a new team. So it’s constantly training and getting new people up to speed and I guess I’m not really sure what the question is here that I’m trying to add. I see
Susan Williams 19:52
that as well. So I think you have to examine why are you having that turnover? So if you’re having the turnover really frequently? Are you really developing people that well that they’re moving on to a better position? Or perhaps is there something you’re missing about what they’re looking for? Because I don’t think I’ve had anyone move on for the money. Right? You know, so people don’t tend to leave jobs to make more money. Occasionally they do. But But you, and I always invite them to have that conversation. So we can examine that. But it’s usually something that just has them not quite satisfied in the job. So we work very carefully to be having those conversations all the time to make sure that our culture is good to make sure that they have what they need. So most of our employees have stayed quite quite a while. So we don’t have much turnover. So I would really want to examine that if I’ve got people leaving frequently to make sure that there isn’t something that you need adjusted.
Brandon Burton 20:56
Yeah, that’s a that’s good to take that that check inside and just know, look at the culture, see, what are the real reasons versus the stated reasons why people are leaving, and see if you can do something to help keep them there a little longer? Or maybe you are just fantastic at building and developing the talents and they are able to move on and continue growing and and maybe they’ve outgrown their position at the chamber. So in and even at that, I would say there’s there may be opportunities. If somebody is developing those skills and outgrowing their current position, what can you do to keep them at your organization develop new responsibilities, or new positions or titles or whatever it may be to help them continue to progress within their career. Have you had any any experience with that with you know, as you see somebody developing to a certain point is being able to create those opportunities within your team
Susan Williams 21:57
that they might leave? Yeah. Well, when I think about it, but because most of ours have left, because there’s something quite different there, they’re going to do, they’re looking for a different experience. So it’s, it’s probably been more of that for us, our last employee that left we’re really excited about she had started her own business. So she had done that while at the Chamber, we were really excited to watch her grow there. And it became evident that that’s where her attention needed to be, she needed to be fully immersed in her own business. So she’s a chamber member. So that’s great, we zero all the time she’s close by. So I think if your turnover is a lot, you would want to be looking at making those changes. For us, we consider it we have an exit interview, we talked to our staff, about what what they liked, and what they didn’t like, what they’re excited about that they’re going to. But I think you have to get comfortable with the fact that that some of that change comes I mean, after 18 years, I’m starting to have the conversation in my community about what things look like, at some point when I go ahead and move on. And people get really anxious about that. But but the reality is part of that moving on allows room for someone else to to develop, there’s there will always be things, things to do, there’s room for all of us. But certain positions you do, you do need to make room for others to
Brandon Burton 23:21
run if you can have that discussion far enough ahead of time, and you can help develop the successor and be able to have a smooth transition, there’s so much value to that for the organization for the members, for you, you know at the exiting CEO to be able to have that peace of mind that you’re leaving it in good hands.
Susan Williams 23:39
And speaking of that, you know, there’s the idea of the successor within those positions being opened up. So we’re believers on great onboarding, too. So that’s a really important part of bringing people on. And getting them as part of your team and keeping them we’ve we have some members, even in manufacturing that are just doing phenomenal things on onboarding. And so we’ve taken some note from them, but we’ve developed some things for ourself over time. So we see that as a as a long process. So we we work together as a team, everybody takes pieces of it. And we onboard, you know, over a week over a month over a year. So that you know that we definitely have a cycle like most chambers, we have a cycle of activities that happen. So you live through your first festival, your first annual dinner, all of those things and then you have you know, you have the things that change one from year to year. Like like a pandemic. But I think the onboarding is really, really important and something that you should be thinking about if you’ve got employees that aren’t quite settled in or are are leaving you sooner than you thought you might not be bringing them on as strong as you could.
Brandon Burton 24:49
Right. So maybe let’s circle back for a minute on the your internship program. So are you working with the school district are you work how are you of attracting you’re the intern, typically one per year,
Susan Williams 25:05
typically, one we’ve had a few years where there was the some nice funding to help us weep, we have always in all of my 18 years here, we’ve been able to find a funding partner. So whether that’s our state program at a percentage or some of our career services, because they believe in that have most recently been almost fully funding, that a reimbursement of our intern, so we are always out there making sure that we have that. And some cases, again, we’ve been able to have more than one. For the summer term, we have always been able to identify a network from or we have always been able to identify an intern from our network. So because we have a long history of having interns, more often than not, they come to us and ask for an internship. And it’s often you know, the child of one of our members, or if we’ve, if we’ve needed to go looking, we go to our schools, we have a great relationship with our schools, we have some contacts, we trust a lot. And we always give them a little bit of an idea of the strengths we’re looking for. So we’re usually looking for someone that’s either in business, communications, hospitality, kind of things that align with with what we do, yeah. But we’re also looking for a great personality, that is a problem solver that’s not afraid to pick up the phone and asked for something. So having a really good vision of what the intern looks like, and what kind of experience they’ll have is a is a great start. And typically, our interns aren’t really, really concerned about what that we paid, we’ve been able to do, you know, a fair wage, you know, above minimum wage, but that’s usually not their question. They’re usually looking for an experience. We have not had interns that use their internship for their credits. So I know, in you know, some schools give them that opportunity, we always ask them if it’s something they need, if it’s something that we can help them with. But they’ve all come here for the just the experience of working in a community organization with a good reputation. And we tell them, you know, the benefit is they’ll leave with more context than they could imagine.
Brandon Burton 27:17
Right? So it sounds like you actively look for an intern like sometimes they they show up and the right person is there. But have you seen a change at all over the last 18 years? He talked about having somebody willing to pick up the phone and be social be personable? Has there been a change with these, you know, young people getting ready to enter the workforce? Has there been a shift? And how do you focus on training them? Are you just looking for the right person that already has that skill set?
Susan Williams 27:47
Yeah, well, there’s a change year to year, because just because of different personalities, we’ve had some very outgoing interns and some very quiet ones. In our case, they’ve all been young women, we would welcome a man in our office, they just haven’t come and ask for the opportunity. We have, of course, lots of volunteers. And we have a very, very active young, professional group. So a lot of young men that we interact with there. But the personalities of the young women are different, but our expectations are the same. So again, that kind of onboarding and orientation helps them understand what the expectations are. So even our more introverted interns, the ones that maybe find it a little more uncomfortable to pick up the phone or do some of those things. We prepare them we model the behavior. We help them with some tactics that make it more comfortable, you know, start with a when we know who they can call that will say yes and no, start there. Don’t throw them right into the, you know, into the lions pit and good luck. You know, we really try to set them up to be successful very quickly, like we do all employees so that they’re, you know, they’re they’re ready when the tough days come we can we can manage through those. Right there always are.
Brandon Burton 29:01
I like that I like setting them up with the wind helped build that confidence early on, because really, a summer goes by quickly. So you got to kind of front load those winds get get that confidence. And then But then no. Yeah.
Susan Williams 29:14
And we have had the good fortune many times to have interns that we’ve identified in advance enough that we can bring them into the office over the holiday season for even a week or two. And that gives us a chance to familiarize them with just our the layout of the office. Some of our systems are you know how to use the copier how to use the phones. So our summer intern is here now she just arrived in the last couple of days and she’ll work with us over the holidays to take us into the end of the year and and get us kicked off. You know we can is one of the things we’ll have her do early in the year is just update those kinds of documents that we use year to year and they just need new dates and things like that. But we try to give them things to do that are also really interesting and fun and challenging. Yeah, then invite them to give us input every day on what we’re doing.
Brandon Burton 30:03
I like that. And that’s a great tip to bring them in during, you know, that holiday, that winter break that they have from school and help get them familiar with the, with the office and some of the procedures and just kind of the layout. So When summer comes, you’re kind of speeding up that process.
Susan Williams 30:19
And the cost is nominal, you know, it’s, it’s really, you know, you can bring them in for a few hours a day or a few days a week. So it’s a really nice, nice time to bring them in. I shouldn’t say too, that one of the great advantages of our interns over the year is years is they have also been a really good connection to our young professionals. So we have a very active young professionals group, who also have been a feeder to some of our, our employees here. Some of them were active with their young professionals, some weren’t, but they knew of the active young professionals. So it gave them an opportunity to know and understand what the culture of the organization was like. But our interns are often that connection, because I was 18 years ago. But gradually I realized that Well, I love going into their things and grabbing their energy. It’s sometimes better to have one of our younger staff members actually doing the routine correspondence.
Brandon Burton 31:13
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. So that’s a good point. As we start to wrap up, I wanted to ask you, if you might have any tip or action item for listeners who are looking to take their chamber up to the next level, what would you suggest for them?
Susan Williams 31:29
Well, if you’re looking particularly to grow your staff, or or maybe if not grow in numbers, strengthen your staff, I think it’s all about having good conversations and continuing to learn. The culture of work has certainly changed in the 40 years that I’ve been working. But people don’t change that much. We all want the same things. We all really value, being safe and having time with our families and feeling like we’re part of the community, just how those things change how how those things change is different over the years. So make time in every day to talk with the staff that you have to talk with your board and talk to your community about the kind of place you want to work and the kind of place you want others to work with you. And I think if you start there, you’re you’re bound to find people that have things in common with you. And you can set common goals and take your chamber wherever it’s meant to go. But you should do that as a team. So build your team with you know, starting with a really great conversation
Brandon Burton 32:34
like that. Thank you. So I like asking this question everyone that I have on the show, and you probably know it’s coming. But as we look to the future, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
Susan Williams 32:47
Well, I think the opportunities are great. There are there are so many different people doing so many different things in the community that we sometimes think we’re saturated, but I think as chambers, we know we’re not that the chambers play an important role in connecting all of those other things. So in your community, who can you connect with one another, that need is never going to go away? So make yourself valuable as the best connector there is in the community? And I don’t think there’s any chance that communities will think be a thing of the past, I think we can be really excited about the future of chambers.
Brandon Burton 33:27
Yeah, I like that. And I like to think of the constant, you know, evolution of what community means to so how are you making those connections and an ever changing definition of community?
Susan Williams 33:39
Oh, it does. You know, certainly, again, that having been a small city chamber and now Regional Chamber, we’ve seen that. But over the last couple of years, you know, I see myself in Zoom Zooms and calls with people from all over the world. And we have so much in common and we we care about the same thing. So I think your opportunity to grow your chamber in thought leadership is just, it’s limitless.
Brandon Burton 34:05
Absolutely. So, Susan, I’d like to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who might want to reach out and connect with you and learn more about how you work through interns or staffing in general, what would be the best way for for someone to reach out and connect with you?
Susan Williams 34:22
Well, anyone’s welcome to call me here at the office at 814-676-8521. to email me at s Williams at Venango chamber.org. I’m going to spell Vinay NGO, v n a n g o and we have a great website that complements our website that is be here for the ngo.org BE He REVN a ngo.org and I think everyone would enjoy taking a look With that, and seeing how we’re inviting people to really enjoy their experience here in our community,
Brandon Burton 35:05
I love that and and, you know, I’m tempted to go down the rabbit hole of tell us more about what be here if an NGO is that let’s just let people go check it out themselves and see, see what it’s all about
Susan Williams 35:17
might be a good reason for another episode someday.
Brandon Burton 35:20
That’s right. And well, we’ll have your your contact information in the show notes for this episode as well. So people can go on there and hit those links or shoot us an email and give me a call. But, Susan, I really appreciate you being with us today on Chamber Chat Podcast for sharing your experience and, and specifically around staffing. And I think you shared some some neat insights. And for some of those chambers that maybe you’re feeling a little bit alone, because they’re a staff of one or maybe staff of two, this might give them some encouragement to be able to reach out, explore some new opportunities and find the right person and then create the position. So I love that takeaway. So thank you for that.
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