I am going to start this article with a disclaimer that I realize you may have personal thoughts, concerns, or prejudices towards NTFs and cryptocurrencies. I also understand that some of these terms may be completely foriegn to you. In this article, I will try to explain some of these trending technologies in terms that are easy to understand. I also want to encourage you to read this article with an open mind to maybe gain a better view of the direction the business world may be heading.
Over the past five year or so, I have been learning more about Bitcoin, crypto currencies, and more recently NFTs or non-fungible tokens. As I started this education, I have learned a lot and my thoughts on these technologies have evolved over time and will likely continue to evolve along with these associated ecosystems. I will also mention that the ideas that I will share in this article are very much to help you prepare for the future, not that you have to run and do anything about it today.
My Introduction to Bitcoin
So, let me backup my story to around 2010 when Bitcoin first hit my radar. I remember sitting in my car in Seguin, TX listening to the radio and the radio host was talking about how someone had just bought a Papa John’s pizza, just a large pizza for 10,000 Bitcoin. That was a news headline that day because it is the first time that we saw a real utility for Bitcoin. Still at the time, the guy at the pizza shop probably paid for the pizza out of his pocket and kept the Bitcoin because nobody really understood what Bitcoin was or what it could do. Fast forward to today’s price for Bitcoin, that was about a $300,000,000 pizza! Compare that to the previous high for Bitcoin, that price tag would have been $690,000,000! I guess that’s why they say hindsight is 20/20.
My next exposure to Bitcoin I believe was around 2014 when I was listening to a podcast about investing and the current price of Bitcoin was mentioned to be around $4,000. I was in shock. I could not believe anyone would pay that much for a digital coin that didn’t have any real utility. This did peak my interest though so I started to learn more about Bitcoin and why people would pay so much to own it.
The more I learned, the more it intrigued me. I learned that the creator of Bitcoin is anonymous and once Bitcoin was launched, he/she/they disappeared. This means that Bitcoin is a decentralized monetary system. There is no company headquarters. There is no person to be subpoenaed if someone has a grievance. Instead, there are 1) Bitcoin miners who are competing with other miners by completing complicated mathematical problems to then be rewarded with Bitcoin, 2) individual nodes on the Bitcoin network which validate transactions on the open blockchain ledger. I also learned that in the code for Bitcoin, there will only ever be 21 million in circulation. This is done through programming and the rewards to miners. So there is a fixed supply, and nobody has the authority or ability to create more.
Because of these traits, Bitcoin is often referred to as digital gold as a store of value or a hedge against inflation. However, unlike gold, Bitcoin is easily sent to the other side of the world almost instantaneously. Bitcoin also established what is known as the blockchain which is the technology that all other crypto currencies operate with.
Many other crypto currencies have since spun off from the initial creation of Bitcoin, each with different purposes and utilities. One of the most popular is Etherium which is known for it’s smart contract feature. However there are others such as Solana.
I mention these other crypto currencies because they are often used to transact NFTs.
What is an NFT?
An NFT is a non-fungible token. This means that it is a digital token with unique characteristics that cannot be duplicated, thus giving unique rights of ownership. If you think of a dollar bill, they are essentially all the same. If I asked you to hand me a dollar bill, I don’t care if it is the one in the front of your wallet, or the one in the back, or the one in your pocket, or from your junk drawer, they are all the same and carry the same value. An NFT, there is only one of a kind, each with a unique value.
In an effort to show utility for NFTs, the early adoption was with digital art. A creator or artist can publish or “mint” their art as an NFT and whoever purchases the NFT would be the authentic owner of that art. For me, there were too many holes with this example for me to grasp onto and I quickly dismissed the value of an NFT utility. Then I heard of some examples that caught my interest much like Bitcoin did back in 2014. Think of the title of your home, there is only one, and you are the owner of it. That could easily become an NFT and rather than purchasing title insurance, the owner of the NFT is verified on the blockchain network. I know, as I explain this, that seems like it is really far in the future, and maybe it is but it is coming. The same is true for a drivers license or any government issued ID. They could be issued as an NFT that you keep in your crypto wallet.
As I continued to digest what I was learning about NFTs, I was looking for other ways an NFT could be applied. I heard of Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary is a podcaster, wine seller, and social media influencer. During the pandemic, Gary started an NFT project called VeeFriends. The way it works is Gary minted over 10,000 doodles of different animals such as Passionate Parrot. Each NFT in addition to the art (which was not very special) you also gained access to Gary. Some of the NFTs also gave you 30 minutes of business consulting with Gary, dinner with Gary, or a game of chess with Gary. Gary also promised to hold an annual conference for the holders of his NFT and the NFT serves as your ticket to the conference.
Since launching VeeFriends, Gary has continued to “airdrop” more assets and value to his NFT holders. There is also a healthy aftermarket for NFTs and because they are bought and sold within the Etherium smart contract network, Gary earns a 10% royalty on every resale of his NFTs.
How NFTs Can Be Utilized
When I heard about VeeFriends, my mind began to wonder and to explore other NFT uses. I was working on a Chamber Podcast Course at the time I learned about VeeFriends. I had the thought of launching my course as an NFT essentially to give access to the course. My thought was if I only had 10 NFTs for my course, once a chamber took the course and learned how to podcast, they no longer have a need for it. Why not allow them to resell the course to another chamber. This would allow for the first chamber to recover their investment after they got the value they needed, and then they would have motivation to resell and essentially market the course to other chambers and I could get a royalty for the ongoing resells of the course. Great idea right? I think it was a great idea, a couple years too early…
That led me to think about chambers in general. As a membership organization, it is all about providing access to information, events, opportunities, products, etc. Why not bundle these offerings into a tiered dues type of NFT project? Because they are based on smart contracts, if a business were to move, they could sell their membership and you would get a commission or royalty. Your ambassadors could purchase multiple NFTs and sell them to other businesses. The NFT would be their ticket to your annual meeting, luncheons, trainings, etc. Businesses could purchase multiple NFTs for other staff members. You could set the terms within the smart contract for how long the NFT was good for, 1 year, 2 years, etc. I hope this is giving you some ideas.
As the idea of NFTs for membership continues to evolve, we could see a time where a DAO could be set up. A DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization. Essentially, this DAO could function as a board of directors. The options are limitless. However, timing is everything. At this stage, I believe education is key. Do what you can to learn about crypto currency, Bitcoin, and NFTs. Play with some “live ammo” or in other words make some small purchases to see how these things work so you know how to educate your members as the time comes.
Again, the purpose of this article is not for you to stop the way you are doing things and to make a hard pivot, but rather as Wayne Gretsky says skate to where the puck is headed rather than where it is.
If you would like to start playing in the crypto world, I do have an affiliate link for Coinbase which would give you and I both $10 worth of Bitcoin if you use the link provided.
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Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Chris Russell. 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 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.
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Guest Introduction
Our guest for this episode is Chris Russell. Chris joined the Nixa Chamber as the president and CEO and that’s Nixa, Missouri. He joined as the president CEO in March of 2018. Prior to his role, he spent several years in the real estate world with Keller Williams as a trainer, business coach and Team Leader of local ever local office. Chris also spent six years serving on Nixa city council, in addition to his many years volunteering at various capacities in his community, including 25 years as a high school football announcer. Currently, he not only serves the chamber, he serves on many other boards in the next area, the next chamber was a struggling chamber that really needed a boost. When he took over they had around 325 members and now have over 550 members and I’ve increased the annual budget by over $200,000. The Nixa chamber hosts on average about 110 various events from ribbon cuttings, groundbreaking ceremonies and luncheons are actually shows her thinks that luncheons are boring networking events, and they took over the town’s annual festival, that in 2018 was on the brink of being cancelled to now an averaging over 25,000 people in 2019, and even more in 2021. They also hold an annual business expo called Nick’s bow, which brought close to 4000 in just last month, and last year, they brought back the town’s firework show that had been gone for nearly 10 years. His latest thing he’s working on now is to bring the chamber world into the VR world, which sounds very interesting. Chris, welcome to Chamber Champions is share something interesting,
Chris Russell 2:51 Right and thank you so much. Well, here’s an interesting fact talking about Nixa. We’re the only Nixa in the entire world. Located right here to southwest Missouri. So if you know where Branson Missouri is, or Springfield, Missouri, we’re actually about 10 minutes south of Springfield and about 20 minutes nor I actually probably 3035 minutes north of Branson, but there’s parts of Brandon and get to pretty quick. So we sit right here in the center of the Southwest Missouri hub and glad to be here on the show with you today. Brandon only mix in the world. And another fun fact, we’re the home of Jason Bourne actually in high school. His name was David Webb. So if you ever watched the Bourne Supremacy, movies, all that kind of stuff, they say, Jason, whenever your front name was David Webb, you’re from Nixon, Missouri, so Yeah, fun fact.
Brandon Burton 3:29 I didn’t know that. Yeah, that’s
Chris Russell 3:31 yeah. The movie theater, watch the movies. He goes, You’re from Nixa, Missouri. When I went. I was like, What the heck? You know, that’s kind of crazy. I
Brandon Burton 3:38 know where that is. Well, tell us a little bit about the Nixa chamber. Yeah, besides being the only Nixon in the world, maybe sighs. You mentioned budget staff.
About the Nixa Chamber
Chris Russell 3:50 Yeah. So I have a staff of for two full timers and one part timer. We have a retired person. She’s also serves on the city council, but she comes in and covers lunches. So we can go do various events and activities and those kinds of things. And then I have an Events Coordinator, which she’s frantically preparing our big, huge Secretary music arts and crafts festival coming up in two weeks. And then we have our operations and membership director, which is at Christiana, and she course takes care of all membership related stuff, making sure our sponsors get taken care of those kinds of things. And then of course, my job is to kind of be that logistics guy, the big thinker guy, I’m in all the economic development meetings, planning meetings, of course, I’ll step in and meet with members and kind of puff them up a little bit. And then, you know, really, I love to sit down with our businesses and have one on one discussions. I had a new business startup come in here yesterday, we did a coaching session for about an hour about all the things that she needs to be doing to get prepared. So that’s kind of my role and kind of kept keep keep the ship moving forward, if that makes sense. Yeah, we have right at 557 Members, I think is what it was last week at our board meeting. We’re growing. We’ve actually continued to grow through the last two years, I think in the year of COVID we to 2020 122 new members As, and we have about a 91% attrition rate or mean, retention, retention rate, I don’t want to do
Brandon Burton 5:06 anything, you don’t want to brag about what you
Chris Russell 5:08 were there. And you know why? And here’s the thing, right? And it’s not me. I mean, yeah, we have some energy. And I bring a lot of fun ideas. But, man, I tell you what, I’m just really proud of the way that our community rallies upon around our chamber. And it’s all of our great board members are ambassadors, and we work with them, we do fun things for them, we encourage them and, and that is something that I’ve found that is really the lifeblood of our chambers growth is creating those great big fans out there and giving them a chance to be leaders to be seen to be to to listen to them to take their ideas and implement them and and make it one big family because that’s that’s where chambers really grow is when you have great support from the members and the community.
Brandon Burton 5:51 Absolutely. And I think that is a perfect segue into what our topic for today is, which is, chambers all over get asked the question whether to their face or behind their back of what is the chamber do? So the point of our discussion today, you guys are very active with events and activities. So the topic that we settled on is eliminating the question of what is your chamber do so we’ll get into that discussion as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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All right, Chris, we’re back. So as I teased with the topic for this discussion, eliminating the question of what is your chamber do? When was the last time you were asked? What is the next chamber? Do?
Topic-Eliminate the Question of “What does Your Chamber Do?”
Chris Russell 8:34 You know we still get it? Um, the lady who came in yesterday just to pop in she wanted to know what a chamber does, right? I mean, but they she was new, and she was new to entrepreneur, one wants to open up a juice bar here in town and really wanted to know what the next chamber was. The funny thing was, is that her food supplier, which is like us foods or something, they told her that she needed to come to the next chamber. And so I thought, well, that’s the first time that’s happened. You know, not a lot of times we get referrals from other Chamber members, but from a national distributor saying you really need to go in and I hear great things about the next chamber. And that that made me smile that made me happy. So So we still get that question, but we tried to eliminate that, you know, one of the things that I think we were already moving in this direction of really being not only business to business, that’s a big part of what chambers do, right? We create those networking opportunities. We create those training opportunities, we create those you know, the luncheons or whatever and those type of events, ribbon cuttings, of course, and that’s a lot of that business to business and we need to still do that. That’s that’s good old fashioned chamber one on one right there. What I noticed is that especially in a town like Nixa so we’re our population here in the city limits about 25,000 people. We look in the zip code, we’re about 32,000. But we’re tucked right up next to Springfield, which is 180,000 people and their chambers about 1300 people members and we’re we’re about 550 and what we noticed is that when you’re when you’re in a town this size, and we’re really in that suburb of Springfield, we have a lot of that service sector businesses we don’t have that many businesses that that actually attract people from around the area to come in here we have a handful, right? What I mean is that I’m not passing this franchise in Springfield to come to the franchise and Nixa. Does that make sense? Yeah. I’m not passing that dentist in Springfield to come to the dentist in Nixa. We do have a few Nick’s of hardware, it’s kind of renowned that they’re they track regionally, a lot of people that come in. So we started taking on this idea that if we’re going to help our small businesses grow, then we need to create an avenue or a platform that also connects to our community. So if I’m, so if I’m a small business, and I’m a, my, my primary customers or clients are coming from the next a proper, I don’t I can’t afford to go spend on advertising on radio or TV that you’re paying to hit a reasonable reach. Does that make sense? So I’m paying a lot of money, but I’m also going to be reaching out to a 60 or 70 or 80 mile radius. I don’t need that my customers are coming from right here Nixa. So that’s where, when we decided to take over the town festival, when we decided to take over the printing of our directory, our printed directory right here in our chambers of outsourcing it. When we added the firework show when we decided to take our business expo to a new level that was so that we’re creating a way that our businesses have a resource right here we become the media for them to reach the clients or reach our citizens. And that that really was a game changer for me. And we saw our revenues go up because they saw that as a valid resource. I think that’s one way that we’ve kind of answered that question on what are the Chamber’s do well, we create them a platform, through our events through our activities through our new experience Nick’s app, which is this a city wide garage so we can an extent we’ve been utilizing the app to do scavenger hunts with that for people, we made this big, long list, Brandon, of all these crazy things you might find at a garage sale, and find it was actually kind of fun making the list. But oh, yeah, I remember those. And they The goal is for people to go out with a garage selling to take a picture of it, upload it to the app, and then they’ll have a chance to win some prizes on Monday. Well, that’s another
Brandon Burton 12:06 word chambers providing the prizes to engage families in the
Chris Russell 12:10 that’s people shopping out there. Right. So. So that’s one of the ways that we’ve done that. And I know that a lot of times you see, what’s that? What’s that comment parades, or whatever, you know, it’s which one do the
Brandon Burton 12:23 three P chambers and pancakes and parades and pancakes, right?
Chris Russell 12:26 And here’s the thing is that, I think, especially in our community, when we’re so close to a major metropolitan area well, and Springfield is not even that big when compared to like St. Louis, Kansas City or Tulsa. But it’s still that in our scale of things, that’s that’s how we look at it, we have got to be that resource that is also giving our citizens and a chance to connect with our businesses. And that has been the game changer, which means a little bit more work. But honestly, it’s it’s fun. I mean, yeah, it’s a lot of work to do a town festival, it’s a lot of extra work to do an app and, and to create those resources for our businesses to connect to our community. But man, they appreciate it so much.
Brandon Burton 13:04 Yeah, that’s the end, you got to know your community. So I mean, it doesn’t work necessarily for every community, but understand your community. I think the example you gave the proximity of where you are to Springfield, and what’s going to draw people into your community, you need to have those events, those things that draw people in, and then once they’re there, you’re engaging with them, you’re providing great, whether it’s entertainment, like a show or a luncheon type show or so share with us maybe some of these things that you’re doing. You mentioned the app, which I think is fantastic. And and I imagine you can get creative with that too, with even plugging in some member restaurants or something, you know, find these things and scavenger hunt and eat lunch or whatever. And but what are some of these other activities or events that you guys put
Chris Russell 13:51 on? So let’s look at let’s look at this get back to the basis of a chamber right so a couple of things that we do. One of them is you know, the Chamber luncheon, right? Everybody has a lot of people have a chamber luncheon as well. luncheons to me are boring. I mean, you listen, let’s just let’s just play this out. And I’m not saying anything about about those who had the traditional luncheon because they they are normally very informative. But they’re very, they’re very scripted, if you will. So you walk in the network for about 20 minutes, and they sit down. And then you already have your cheesecake or the chocolate cake there and you get your salad plate there. And somebody stands up and they say thank you for coming. Thank you to our sponsors. Hey, we’re back in about 20 minutes with a guest speaker today. Enjoy your meal. You sit there with your table, eat for a little bit. And then finally here comes a speaker and let’s pray together good, right? And then you’re there for 45 minutes listening to them talk about a topic that you may or may not be interested in. And then you get up and as fast as possible. Can you leave that’s that’s the typical lunch. That’s the format that we’re all used to. Well, I like it and there’s there’s a time in place for that. Absolutely. But we decided that and of course a little bits of all my personality. You heard my bio that I’ve been doing, you know football games for 25 years. I mean when you when you’re a high school football announcer any kind of an announcer MC, there’s an element of a show that goes into that. So I decided that let’s let’s change this, let’s engage as many people as we possibly can at a luncheon and let’s do it in a talk show format. So I literally if you watch like the Late Show with Jimmy Fallon or any of those late shows, you know, What’s he do? He comes on? He has his opening monologue. Well, those are jokes. We call it. Good news Nixa. So I have a segment in there sponsored actually by expose marketing here Nixa, they sponsor that segment. And I tell about good news stories, I might play a video I might tell something that happened at city council meeting, I just was at a meeting went yesterday, one of our nonprofits kind of $35,000 grant from Delta Dental to help provide additional dental services to at risk kids. So that’s a good news story. So we’ll tell that for about 10 or 15 minutes. So that’s the opening monologue. And then we usually have our sponsor break, you gotta have a spotlight sponsor. But even then, unless that person’s a rockstar speaker, I will do q&a with them with a few slides, and I engage in them. And I’ll ask questions, and I’ll talk to them and have a conversation. And they see that so much more relevant than just getting up there and having to sit there make sure that they have their seven minute time, walked out perfectly with all these slides. And that has been more powerful. And that’s why those sellout each and every year, because they feel less pressure to have to do a presentation when it’s more about me doing an interview. And then of course, we get into some other segments where will we always have a transitional video. So when we go from one element to the next, I play video, because our school system is really good about making school videos, I will go grab one of their videos and we’ll play it right there like something that’s that happened at Nexus schools or something the city of Nixa did, or I’ll make a recap video of a chamber luncheon that we did a ribbon cutting that we did, and we do all of our ribbon cuttings on Facebook Live. And so it gives us a lot of content. And then after that we get into the sponsors, then finally, we’ll get into the actual meat of the subject. You know whether it’s last month it was I had, we did some grants for one of our Community Foundation. Well, that was fun. We were giving out free money at the Chamber luncheon. The month before we did an update with what the county’s master plan is for the next five years. Well, again, me and the county commissioner doing a q&a talking about it talking about the impact that is more of a show than it is a luncheon. And it involves so many people that they feel like they’re engaged, and we sell out each and every month. That’s just one of the things that we do differently.
Brandon Burton 17:18 That’s awesome. And that sounds a lot like a podcast to me. Now the way you do the interviews. Yeah, transitions. Yeah. I mean, you’ve got the all the elements that you’re selling tickets to you’re filling a room and you’re creating a great experience.
Chris Russell 17:31 And when you walk in, we’ve got it we got pumped up music plan we’ve got normally when you walk in, it’s not that hard to make videos, you know, these days to throw a bunch of pictures of your last month, until a little loop video. And we’re walking in there’s there’s energetic music, it’s fun, they’re dancing, we actually have somebody who announces the names and when they walk in. So my main sponsor of the annual sponsor, the lunches is GenCon, CPA and Kailyn. She’ll go And now ladies and gentlemen, welcome from the chamber podcast. It’s Brianna. And then we have our ambassadors are there with pom poms, and they’re cheering them on. There’s applause when everybody walks in, it’s like you’re walking up to bat at a major league baseball game. That’s awesome element that’s different. And it’s exciting. And it brings energy and people love it.
Brandon Burton 18:18 And it breaks down some of those, you know, resistances and barriers that people might have at a typical networking type function where you’re just sitting at the table trying to small talk with the people there, like you’re having a common experience and building upon it. So I love that. You
Chris Russell 18:32 know how a lot of a lot of chambers will do like raffle drawings at a chamber event. And they usually wait to the very end, they do the raffle drawings and nobody leaves. No, we do it. First. We want to get people excited right off the bat plus, it’s a nice transition to get everybody into their seats. And as you start the raffle drawing, so that was an element that we changed as well. And that was kind of a cool thing. So there I have an ambassador comes up, she gives out the raffles. And that kind of gets everybody ready. And then all of a sudden here come to the show and bring energy and it’s just a different way of doing it. But however, I see it working Brandon and people like to be there. Our chamber luncheon next week is I told Christiane, our operations that you might want to send a reminder email and she goes, Well, we’re almost full. Are you sure we need to? So we’re selling these things out? Well in advance and people and we do season passes, too. But so that’s that’s the excitement that we bring with that event, because we do have so many cool announcements that goes on during that chamber show, not the luncheon.
Brandon Burton 19:26 spend just a minute talking about the the annual pass. I think that’s yeah,
Chris Russell 19:30 no. So yeah, yeah, it’s really been a Well, I think we had 60 Some of them sold so you can buy your annual passes. Now, the way that we do our funding, Brandon, is that we do the total resource campaign model. And that was another big game changer for us. I know a lot of chambers use that. They also use like different campaign styles. By us having 30 to 40 volunteers go out each and every year and sell our inventory for us on non dues revenue. Those are 30 to 40 Cheerleaders that are out there talking about the Nixa chamber and saying here Here’s why you as a business need to be engaged. Well, we introduced with that the season passes so that they can buy an annual pass. Businesses don’t want to have to worry about logging in each and every week or month, I’m sorry, and making sure they have their ticket for the monthly luncheon or chamber show. And so they they’re more than happy to spend a couple 100 bucks and just buy that season pass at the beginning of the year. And then that way, they know they have a ticket each and every month. We do that with our working women and Nixa, our networking group, and then also our chamber show, and I think we’ve got, I think it’s 60 or 70, I’d have to go ask my operations, exactly how many we sold last year, but we have a guaranteed built in base each and every month because they just buy them. And if they can’t make it, they’re able to take their QR code and give it to one of their colleagues in our office.
Brandon Burton 20:43 Okay, that’s all right. Great idea. So you had mentioned at the beginning about the 91% retention rate, which is great feedback, you guys are providing value, your members see the value, they understand what you do, what are their feedback, so you get back from these returning members as they renew where they see in the most value from your chamber.
Chris Russell 21:03 You know, my favorite chamber member is not necessarily the one that we see all the time. My favorite chamber member that tells you as a chamber that you’re doing a good job is that company or corporation that you hardly ever see, because they see the value, but you never see them. So they know they want they read the emails, they see the Facebook posts, maybe they check the website, occasionally, maybe they’ve downloaded the experience next app, or they’re seeing the activities that we’re doing. And each and every year, they continue to write that check for six or $700 for them to be a member of the chamber, depending on their level, our lowest is 225. And our highest I think is 700. We do that we do that Fair, fair market value model with a mix of tears. So it’s kind of a combo. It’s a hybrid model. And that that that right there tells me that your chambers healthy when they’re not worried about what they get out of the chamber. And that’s a compliment. And I love to see those windows. I love to see the renewals of those who are engaged as well. Don’t get me wrong, there’s there’s value to that too. And as new members come in, and they get engaged in the chamber, that that’s new energy, it’s new blood is new volunteers. It’s new ambassadors. But again, when you have those members who say, hey, Nixa chamber, we see what you’re doing. Thank you so much. Here’s your annual check, no questions asked. That to me tells you that you’re doing something right. Does that make sense? Brandon?
Brandon Burton 22:16 Yeah, that’s another form of feedback that speaks volumes for sure.
Chris Russell 22:21 It does. And occasionally, you’ll see them show up to something big that we’re having, which is great. We had a groundbreaking for a $4 million new business coming into downtown Nixa a few weeks ago. And that brings out people that you don’t normally see. So that was fun. But that that to me, tells us that we’re doing the right things. You know, I think I think most people know that in my community that that I’m pretty engaged. I mean, I have I grew up here, Brandon, I went to high school. If you can’t see it, we’re on video here. But we’re not on video on the podcast. But right behind me. That’s my football helmet, you know, football helmets right back there. I played quarterback for the Knicks eagles. I’ve announced the games. My dad was a fire chief in town. For many, many years. I served on city council, I volunteer a lot and a lot of areas. So this is this is my bread and butter. There’s no doubt about it. However, you still have to maintain that this doesn’t mean you get a free pass, you still have to go out there and earn the respect. And they see that I’m at the city council meetings, they see that I’m I’m in these these these committees like the Nixon Community Foundation, the downtown revitalization group, they see me emceeing events promoting our community. And I think there’s a lot of that said that, that that’s another reason they want to get behind what the Chamber’s doing, not necessarily because of me, but because they see the overall efforts. And then I see how I engage and bring people up to be leaders. And that’s that’s what’s really been powerful for us is that finding those ambassadors, finding those board members that we are highlighting and showcasing and showing the community that it’s not just about the chamber, that we’re actually giving opportunities for other people in our community, to be seen and to have the spotlight and to take ownership of whatever they’re doing. You know, I mean, like our secretary music arts and crafts festival, we have 13 different nonprofits that we work with for that event. I have organizations running the dog show for the love of canines. I got the local FFA. That’s one of the the petting zoo. I’ve got the Arts Council that’s running the art show. I mean, so we engage a lot of different groups that they get ownership of that and therefore they get the highlight and the spotlight and it makes them feel good. And then they want to be a part of our chamber.
Brandon Burton 24:23 Yeah. So you’ve mentioned soccer days a few times for those people that are not from Nixa was a soccer days is. Yeah, it’s
Chris Russell 24:31 funny is that back in the 1950s. I mean, literally the entire town. I got to there’s a poster over here my wall that shows that it’s our history panel we used on our kiosks. But anyway, it talks about how the towns close going fishing or something like that. And the 1950s I mean, they would all go down to the river and sucker fish is a native, well, they’re sacrificial all across the world, but it’s one of those Ozarks traditions that they spawn in the fall or the spring and the town will go down and try to catch a bunch of sucker fish and they would actually A camp and celebrated the river. Well, in 1957, they brought the tradition back to Nixon started an annual fish fry. And with an annual fish fry, it kind of grew from there. And in 2018, the event was ran by the traditional good ol boys group that that held the festival. And it really had taken a turn where just wasn’t, it wasn’t very good. And people actually made fun of it. And they were they were going to shut it down. And I was at a breakfast with me and the committee and the mayor. And I was like, Guys, just let me think on this, just hold on. I grew up the Saturdays, this is my hometown. And I went back to my board of directors and said, I’m going to take over Saturdays I said, we as a chamber, I said, they went wack in at that time, I was fairly new. So I joined in March 2018. Sucker days in 2018, was May, I made the decision in June, so March, April, May, June, three months into the role and I’m going we’re taking it over. And the board was like, Are you sure I said, guys, I said I got a model. And I think we can do this. And it’s going to create an opportunity for more of our businesses to be exposed to our community. And it’s actually been pretty powerful and it’s really wonderful. It’s a wonderful event in a bring 25 to 30,000 people in downtown Nixa for three days and it’s a little downtown block. It’s not even that big and it’s just fun and it’s like a Hallmark Channel event. Like a Hallmark Channel movie right and so we have the Little Miss Main Street pageant. We have the Secretary King and Queen and we do all these fun things. We’ve been doing a new thing this year, the sucker day dog king and queen we got these cute little crowns today. So you know it’s just really really engages our community and my goal was to create as many opportunities for exposure for Nixa and we have several high school groups that are engaged. We have the marching band, we have the theater department, we have the art club, we have the FFA we talked about we have the JROTC so we have all these different groups of the high school kids that are getting engaged, and to be a part of it. So it’s really, it’s really become a cool thing. It is a lot more work. And we have to dedicate a lot of time to it. We do have a great committee, but in the end, it comes down to what happens here behind the scenes to make it happen. But it’ll generate 50 to 75. Probably I think I looked at the p&l the other day, I think we’re up to depending on weather, of course, right? We know whether an outdoor festivals, if we have a great weekend and we do a lot of ride tickets, then we should generate somewhere around 70 to $75,000 in revenue.
Chris Russell 27:24 So it’s a big no. Our next, our next boat generated our business expo generate about 40,000 revenue this year. And that was 108 booths for six hours and our high school that we did our business expo. And I think the the it was 38,000. And something I had the p&l here the other
Chris Russell 27:44 We were sold out event. And again, the traffic was just unbelievable. That day, it was just nonstop traffic all day. And our businesses really liked that event. Yeah.
Brandon Burton 27:53 Well, I wanted to ask you is if you have any tip or action item for listeners to Yeah, they can do to make sure that they stay relevant. Make sure their members know what their chamber does. What would you suggest?
Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions
Chris Russell 28:06 I’ll give you a couple of things here. First of all, unlimited thinking. I see as I talk to a lot of chambers at conferences and on some of the panels especially, you know, 2000 22,021 as we’re all kind of figuring out what was next I unlimited possibility unlimited thinking, you know, one of the very first things that we did when we found out that the city of Nixa was going to more than likely locked down the town like all of us went through, the very first thing that I did was I pulled in my staff and we re re rebuilt our master plan. We went straight to the drawing board and said, Okay, this is going to happen. How do we become more relevant? Now? The good news is, is that the next chamber I’m kind of techie, and that’s an advantage. I don’t disagree. I really am. We were already in the video world at a high level, doing Facebook Live videos with graphic overlays. And that was kind of fun things. And but we decided that it was time to take that to the next level that we weren’t going to let a lock down to slow us down. And we got creative on certain ways that we did things drive in chamber luncheons, right. I mean, we literally had everybody drive into a parking lot. And we had everybody even the cars were six feet apart. I mean, come on. But you know, the funny thing was, that was June of 2020. The funny thing was because we’re in the Midwest and southwest Missouri, and it’s a little little different than other parts of the country. So I respect that. I remember we were parking all these cars six feet apart. We had people out there with poles, making sure the cars were six feet apart. And we had our volunteers and we had box lunches were in basically hazmat suits to hand them out in June of 2020. And then what happened was as soon as they got there, you know what they did? They jumped out of the car and went jumped in with their friends. I mean, it is what it is. But it’s always thinking outside the box. What can we be doing different, right? And that’s like, you know, you and I were talking off camera before the podcast about Andre from Bentonville. And I hope you do get him on here. I look forward to that podcast. The guy was at it. We were at Mako conference and he brought up the VR headset. And I’m like, dude, I got to talk to you because I’m already there horizon worlds and meta is spinning billions upon billions of dollars creating this metaverse. And if we as chambers, don’t figure out how to grasp on or get ahead of that and get there now before everybody else does. We have local churches in southwest Missouri that have already built, already built their Metaverse church. And in addition to that, Wendy’s just spent like tons of money to build the first virtual reality world, Wendy’s, and there’s other companies that are following suit. And I’ve actually been talking to some other industry leaders don’t Hey, how do we capitalize on that I actually built within and learn how to build the world because it’s all user created content. I built one of our local parks and after Saturday’s, we’re having a virtual reality world meet up for all those who have headsets in the community. Then see the Facebook post and the invites to come in and check it out. Because we find that you can actually connect with the community easier in the VR world, you’re you have less boundaries, and how can we create that next step to connect with with Nixa. So that’s something that we’re doing. But the other thing too is, is that my other big tip is what’s been a game changer for us too, is what I call a video on the go live video on the go with graphic overlays good audio, I have taught this class to chambers all across the country, I’ve done one on one conversations, I’ve been on webinars done on the conferences, if you need help really, truly learning how to make professional looking videos, within 20 minutes when rolling up and a live ribbon cutting, I highly encourage you to reach out to me, I’d be happy to show you what we do. You go and check out Nick’s at chambers Facebook page, go to our video section, you’ll see what I’m talking about. We’re talking about rolling into a mower shop the other day, getting some quick B roll and then making a professional looking video within about 20 minutes. And so that’s something that I really think can be a game changer for your community is figuring out how to capitalize on Facebook Live video and not just a just holding up a camera and hitting record. That that has been a big game changer for us as well.
Brandon Burton 31:51 That’s awesome. So I asked everyone I have on the podcast this question and you’ve kind of been addressing it already throughout this interview. But as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future chambers and their purpose going forward?
Future of Chambers
Chris Russell 32:04 Well, that’s a weighted question. You know, I think you know, you’ve been talked about that a little bit of Mako and I know I had that conversation. Again, what’s that common saying that you hear when you see in one chamber, you’ve seen one? Right? I think the biggest thing is understanding your position in your community. I think that’s step number one. I’m I also know that a chamber of commerce needs to have solid relationships with all entities in your community. And I’ve talked to so many chambers who don’t have a great relationship with their city or their school system, you need to fix that you got to fix that that’s, that has to be cured that there has to be something that you focus on and making sure that those relationships are solid. But the other one is you you know we have in our mission statement to be the premier business organization and it goes on and on, will be the premier business organization. If that means you need to have events for your community than have them. And that means you need to have networking events that have them. That means that you need to be techie. And you need to be the leading edge when it comes to showcasing because you are the example that a small business who moves into your town or start does a start up in your town. They’re looking at the chamber and how they function. And if we’re not functioning that that way, then how are they expected to function that way? I have the same conversation with businesses each and every month. I say, when I’m doing coaching, I say do you close out your your books each month? And they’re like No, I said, well guess what chambers? Do we have to close out our books each month and give our p&l statements right or our current budget statements to our board for review? Well, why businesses don’t operate like that? Well, if you’re not operating like that, and you’re not doing it at a high level, then how can you expect a business to do that? So I think the future of chambers understanding where you’re at in your town, and then being the most premier business that you can, and being techie, I think you’ve got to be techie. And you got to be innovative and figure out a way to connect with your audience. All right, that makes sense. That was a lot, dude, I just don’t, that was a big break.
Brandon Burton 33:52 It’s a podcast that can hit that backup, 30 seconds button a couple times this
Chris Russell 33:56 slow down button to you know, on the podcast, you can either speed it up, you don’t need to speed up my podcast, I
Brandon Burton 34:01 was thinking, you know, I usually stick to about 30 minutes on these podcasts. But these people, their listeners are getting about 60 minutes worth of value as they listen to you.
Chris Russell 34:11 I love helping I love I love what I do. And I looked and I love to help other chambers and I think that we only get stronger. I mean, I’ve had powerful conversations with like April Bragg and Georgia and some of these other chamber pros and when I go to these conferences, I’m there to learn. And when I find people are doing things at a high level like Bentonville, Arkansas, man I become a I become a sponge. I mean he he gave us some of those tech tips. We’ve already implemented three of them, right we’re slack, there’s slack in the right now I mean there it is right there I just got another message sitting here we’re already implementing other things that we can learn from each other. If we can help each other grow with our through leadership that was another thing great about Mako was a lot of leadership portions. We all go to these these these conferences and economic development Workforce Development what to do about childcare. I don’t take care of your members. No, we need more leadership opportunities to grow as people. That’s, that’s my, that’s what I love to do is help people grow. And that’s that’s and we do it for our businesses and we should be doing it internally as well.
Brandon Burton 35:12 Absolutely. So Chris, I wanted to give you a chance to put any contact information out there for anyone that wants to reach out and connect and ask him more questions about how you’re doing things. Absolutely.
Connect with Chris Russell
Chris Russell 35:20 I’m on MySpace. MySpace is my favorite place to go to MySpace. Yeah, we’re still there. No, I’m kidding. Literally, find me on Facebook. Look up. Chris Russell Nixa, Missouri. Of course, my phone number you want to text me Call me? 417-773-7678? I’d love to talk to you. Of course, we can do. email chrisrussell@nixachamber.com, actually, probably not on the email me email sucks. I hate that platform. It’s terrible. It really is. I mean, we’ve got to figure out a way to get past email. I mean, it really is becoming a burden. I think for all of us. Would you not agree, Brandon? memb. Yeah, me emailed me the other day about the bio and I didn’t even see it. And it took you a reminder email for me to go in and type the bio out. Yeah, yeah. It’s just not a great connect. So call me or text me, that’s probably the best thing.
Brandon Burton 36:07 Okay. I’ll get that in the show notes for this episode. So people can check that out and connect with Chris and he’s got lots of ideas, lots of energy, and he loves to share these ideas too. So do reach out and connect with him. Learn from him, let him learn from you. And, you know, make everybody better.
Chris Russell 36:25 I want to learn from you too, man. I want to find out what you’re doing. That’s, that’s the main thing. You just never know what you’re gonna learn. That’s right.
Brandon Burton 36:31 Well, Chris, this has been great, great discussion. I appreciate you being with me today on Chamber Chat Podcast and provided a ton of value. Appreciate it.
Chris Russell 36:40 Oh, thank you for having me, Brian. Appreciate it. Great job on your show too. It’s awesome.
Brandon Burton 36:43 If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.
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Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Sara Ray. 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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Voiceover Talent 0:14
And now, your host…He encourages chambers to collect quality data so they can better segment their lists.
He’s my dad Brandon Burton.
Brandon Burton 0:23
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host Brandon Burton, where it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.
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Brandon Burton 1:31 You can learn more about Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions by visiting HolmanBros.com.
Guest Introduction
Our guest for this episode is Sara Ray. Sara became the president and CEO of the Douglas County Chamber in April 2018. Sara has more than 15 years of chamber corporate and nonprofit leadership experience including UPS Yancey bros as Strayer University, the Cultural Arts Council of Douglas, and four positions at the Douglas County Chamber. Sara serves on the Regional Business coalition executive committee is Vice Chair for the WellStar Douglas hospital regional board, and as a founding partner in Elevate Douglas economic partnership, a public private partnership created in 2021. She also serves on the board of the Georgia Association of Chamber of Commerce executives Georgia Academy of economic development, Cobb and Douglas public health steering committee and founding member of keep Douglas County beautiful. Sara received her Georgia certified chamber executive designation in 2021, making her one of only 22 in the history of the organization. She is a graduate of the US Chamber institutes of organizational management in 2015, the US Chamber business leads fellowship Regional Leadership Institute, Georgia forward young game changer, leadership Douglas and is it active in these alumni associations. In 2019, Sara was named by Georgia Secretary of State as outstanding Georgia citizen. She was also named as the West Georgia livings 40 under 40 in 2019, and a top 10 Young Professional in Douglas in 2015 and 2017. Her service to the community does not go unnoticed. She was recognized as Volunteer of the Year for the Georgia Ovarian Cancer Alliance in 2010 and 2012 Spirit Award by the city of Douglasville, Sara received her bachelor’s from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. When she isn’t working to support businesses and Douglas in the metro Atlanta region. Sara spends her time traveling and being outdoors with their children, Anna and Avery. Sarah, I’m excited to have you with me today on Chamber Chat Podcast, we will take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions and share something interesting about yourself so we can get to know you a little bit better.
Sara Ray 3:53
Yeah, well, thank you for having me today. I have thought long and hard about this question. But I think something interesting about me is while I was born and raised in Georgia, my parents are both from overseas. So I’m a first generation American. And my dad is from England and my mom is from South Africa. So a lot of times when people meet me they see you know, cute little you know, southern girl and they don’t realize you know that my summers were spent in Africa and in the wild so so it’s it’s people always kind of that’s kind of throws them off.
Brandon Burton 4:31
So you get together with your family to get a variety of accents going on.
Sara Ray 4:34
Yes, yes. My mom always joke that like when I was in preschool, I came home and the first time I said y’all, she just cried because I had a British accent until I went to school because that was all I ever heard. So
Brandon Burton 4:48
yeah, it’s funny. I can just see that British accent you know, saying Yo she’s like, where did my baby go? Well tell us about the Douglas County Chamber just to give us some perspective, maybe size budget staff, that sort of thing
About the Douglas County Chamber
Sara Ray 5:06
before we get us. Yes. So our chamber is 77 years old. We have about 650 members that are investors in our organization. And we are located in west, west, just west of Atlanta, we’re about 20 miles west. So we are considered the Metro Atlanta region, but still kind of close enough. We always say, you know, close enough to the city to be able to catch a baseball game with our, you know, world champion, Atlanta Braves. But also, we still have plenty of green space and amenities where we can explore and enjoy the outdoors. So yes, so our team we are, we have and we have an interesting kind of space, we are in the process of integrating staff with our economic development organization elevate Douglas, so we share staff, but our full team is about 12 Strong between both organizations. But as far as chamber employees, we have about eight, so I think it was there anything I missed?
Brandon Burton 6:02
No, I think that that pretty much covers it. And so it sounds like you’ve said that before. Yeah. how close you are to Atlanta. And notice you you mentioned Braves and the Falcons but that that’s okay.
Sara Ray 6:17
We got we got UGA we’ve been
Brandon Burton 6:20
you gotta get your highlights, right. Yeah.
Sara Ray 6:22
Falcons fan. I know. I still have like, you know, wounds from five ish years ago. But yeah, yeah. Yeah. We’ll definitely talk about the Braves all day long.
Brandon Burton 6:32
That’s right. That’s right. So as we get into our topic for discussion, today, we’re gonna focus our conversation around creating relevant and personalized communication, which I think is going to be something relevant for listeners as we try to figure out the best ways to communicate with not only our members but people in the community and really, you know, be in that that voice for business community. So I’m excited to get into this discussion with you as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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Topic-Relevant & Personalized Communication
All right, Sara, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re talking about communication, creating relevant and personalized communication. I’d love to hear what you guys are doing there at the Douglas County Chamber to do this. Yeah, you know, what, what spurred the thought for this to be the focus of our discussion.
Sara Ray 9:36
Yeah, so I think it’s probably best to start up I’m gonna say the beginning. You know, I’ve been at the chamber as, as you mentioned, for just around 12 years and took over SEO about four years ago. So I felt like I’ve seen a lot of different things and you know, experience different trends and marketing and communications. That was actually the role I started out in being at the chamber so then seeing it grow and evolve. But I would say the beginning of our journey to where we’re at now and how we have moved into a space of having more customized personal communications was like a lot of people during the pandemic. So, you know, as a, an organization that was primarily in person with our events, that leaned into that space we were very accustomed to, like, I would assume a lot of chambers are is casting a net at, you know, at all your businesses, you know, the more people the merrier in a room, you know, that that equated to a successful event. And that was very, very true with myself in spaces, but also with my team. So when we had to go into an environment where we couldn’t do face to face, or, you know, we were just trying to still cast that net, but not being able to have those one on one conversations, we knew we had to do something different. So I remember specifically, we had brought back, and it was probably like late 2021 of our after hours events, it was outside, you know, open air. And I remember, in our, in our after hours, events typically have about 75 to 125 people, this one, there were about 27 or 28 people, and my team was coming up to me, this is a failure, this is not great. This is you know, we’ve lost our you know, our our mojo, this is awful. And I just remember being like, you guys are missing the big picture, look around the room and see what is happening, I said people are able to not come into a space where they don’t know anybody, you know, or they feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed, because of the number of people that are there. I said, people are able to come in and have a conversation, they aren’t worried about working the room. And and you know, getting as many business cards out as, as they can, they’re able to sit and have actual conversations. And I was a perfect example of that. I mean, as, as our viewers probably know, chamber execs you’re out work in the room, making sure that everybody feels welcome and included. And I remember sitting down with one of our youth leadership students, high school junior, and having like a 10 minute conversation on their career path and their trajectory, and all of these different you know, like just actually getting to know them. And, and that was a conversation I had with my team. And I was I was like you guys are missing the big picture, like people are having more authentic intentional interactions with one another. And that fosters a relationship and a depth of depth to a relationship that we can’t touch. Like we can’t, we can’t touch that in an email or communication, not the way we’re set up right now. So we ended up working with an organization to do again. So we kind of looked at, we started shifting some our events, instead of being a catch all for everyone. And during the business after hours, we had targeted industries that we were networking with, we had, you know, different themes. So we started a minority business group, we started a women in business group. So we started out with our events, but then what we realized quickly was, how are we getting the information out to everyone in a way that they can, that it that it resonates with them, and that they find value in that. So we went through the process of doing a marketing communications analysis and looked at all of the different things that we were doing email, social website, how we were how people were getting the information, and that was members, and it was non members. So we were polling and surveying our business community at large. And one of the things that kind of came back to all of it was that people don’t like getting the emails that are that are sent to the droves, you know, email was definitely their number one choice for how they wanted to be communicated with and this is in my community could look different. But even with the way that you interact with people on social media, like it’s great that we were posting, you know, we had a content calendar, and we were posting something on wherever, every other day, and we had a process behind that. But people wanted the engagement, they wanted to see themselves they wanted, you know, they wanted to know the stories about people so so we’ve gone through the process of customizing how we communicate with our businesses looking at we’ve created like a preference center. So you know, what Brandon might want contact information on it might be leadership and events and I might want information on policy and economic development. So we’ve created a you know, an infrastructure in our in our communications and how we do our events, that it’s customized and catered to the individuals just so that’s kind of the high level, how we got there. So
Brandon Burton 14:30
I love this. I just in fact, it was a week or two ago, I actually wrote and shared out a blog post about this very thing. Well, when you’re talking about these mixers, it was about that very thing. It’s like you know, so many people show up at a mixer. They’re new to the chamber, right? They show up, got a pocket full of business cards, or they’re gonna get their drink and they stand there totally awkward. Yeah, they don’t know anybody. And then you know, 10 minutes later they leave because Yeah, nothing happens that they’re super uncomfortable and That’s one of the huge value propositions, you know, for joining the chambers and networking. Yeah. Well, if it doesn’t resonate for them, they have a bad experience at first time, how likely are they to come back. So being able to have these personalized, you know, relevant events for them to attend, and really make sure that they resonate with not only the topic, but the other people that are there. So it makes sense to communicate with them.
Sara Ray 15:24
Yeah. And it’s not just about like getting them to the event, it’s the before and after to like, we’ve incorporated pieces into the process where, when they register, it’s, Hey, thanks for registering. And it’s all automated through chambermaster. You know, and it just says, Thanks for registering before you get here, check out our speakers, and we have links to the bios, and then two days before they get an email that’s like, you know, get excited, these are things that we’re going to have here, if we have kind of upcoming announcements or things you need to know before you get there. And then on the backside, we have follow up emails that are thanks for joining, here’s the pictures, here’s the links to whomever was speaking, you know, share your experience, and we put in there literally a copy and paste of post this on so on your LinkedIn, and they just have to drop it in there. So it gives them a good way to engage with us outside of just the event. And we you know, we’ll put in there register for our next event. So it’s all about creating, we call it an engagement pathway. So it’s all about creating that it’s not ever a start to finish. It’s always the what’s next behind things. So
Brandon Burton 16:27
so how do you go about in your, in your database to segment your lists? You’d mentioned you know, what their interests are I, the way I’ve envisioned it is you have a conversation of sorts, and in some of these, you probably have to guess if they’ve been a member forever, and maybe they’re not super high, you need to make some guesses. But as you onboard a new member to be able to have a discussion of what’s your expectation from the chain? What are you joining for? Is that how you guys go about it? Or what does that look like to be able to Yes,
Sara Ray 16:59
I’m going to call I’m going to call it bite sized pieces, I’m getting an email about like this long, you know, like, four pages long, is very inundating and overwhelming for someone. So we’ve actually shifted to I would call it like a drip campaign. So when they get their first email, it’s, you know, Hey, welcome to the chamber, we’re so excited to have you, here’s your login, be on the lookout, we have this next thing coming up, your next email will be about XYZ and then the next email that they get is, hey, we want to learn more about you. Right, so talk to us about the things that interested you in joining the chamber. And we capture some of that through our member application. But then it’s getting more into the space of what did they as the primary contact one, the next email is, hey, tell us about your team, let’s make sure and add in anybody that you have that as a part of your team that we need to include in our conversations, because, again, Sara raise preferences, and Julia in my office, it might be different. And the things that they find value in as a member would be different. So we’ve shifted instead of it just being this one dump of information into small videos and and kind of little snippets, that cycle out, I would say at least once a week for the first month, and then we kind of lag it out a little bit. But that way, it gives them the information kind of on a consistent basis without overwhelming them. Because that was another thing people don’t want to read through, like I said, five pages of information. So we’ve we’ve just shifted to that kind of little bite sized piece of information. And then there’s some other things, we mail them some stuff too. So they’re getting that attention, we send we have somebody that does a phone call. So we have a whole process in place. But yeah, identifying their specific needs and interests, we do that some through the main contact through when they apply. But then it’s part of the process. And we just capture that through our CRM. And then we actually connect it into the campaign system that we use for email marketing. So and then you can go into if we’re getting super granular, like the tags and segments within your email marketing system. So then you can go through and kind of pick and choose and say, hey, I want to send this piece of information to people who are tagged that they like information about women in leadership, or it could be about policy. So we kind of lean on those different tools to to segment it out, because there is information you want everybody to get and know about your big signature event or your upcoming event or training that you have. But then some of the information, you know, might not be relevant to you know, a solopreneur that’s never that doesn’t need to hire anybody doesn’t necessarily need to have all the information on how to post a job on our on our job site. So yeah, it’s just trying to try to funnel down and fine tune that information to where it’s what they find this value in. And then you can track it all on the back end through analytics and see again, and we drive almost all of our activity, I would say all of it to our website so that we can track the analytics and know where people are going, what information that they’re actually likely looking at and learning from.
Brandon Burton 19:54
I love that and I think this is going to be one of those episodes that people go back and listen to or at least You know those last few minutes? Like, okay, take notes, and how did you do this step to the next day? So, simple question, what, what email platform do you guys use?
Sara Ray 20:11
Yes. So, we have tried a few, we use Constant Contact for a long, long time. I know as chamber people, we get it for free, which is great, but I and I mean, contact is wonderful. But there are other paid platforms that can give you more. So we actually investigated using Campaign Monitor, but then ended up going with MailChimp. So it integrates with chambermaster, which is our CRM that we use. So and has a lot of capabilities and even the visibility, the open rates are better with MailChimp than some of the others just because they don’t automatically pop into your junk folder and things like that. So we have some great partners that we work with, that are investors with the chamber that helped us kind of work through all that process, it wasn’t, you know, I don’t have a crystal ball. And I will say to that doesn’t mean what works for us will work for everyone. And Constant Contact has does have some great tools that are associated with it, if you’re on a little bit of a tighter budget, but that was we ended up moving forward with MailChimp was what we ended up going with.
Brandon Burton 21:11
So and I wanted to highlight that just so listeners when they talk about when they hear you talk about segmenting tags, and all these things like, Well, my software doesn’t do that, or where do you find that? So it’s within MailChimp that you’re doing those things. Yeah. So I love the way that you go about with that kind of introductory email, you know, here’s some things to look forward to. And then the follow up as to, you know, what kind of things are of interest to you? Where do you do you see, as people, you know, have a longer time with the chamber with their membership or investment where they learn about new offerings that the Chamber has and to be able to add that to their interest. So they’re getting those those pieces of information? How do you add that in along their membership journey,
Sara Ray 21:59
oh, you’re gonna laugh at this one, we have a nickname for how we do that in my office. So um, you know, we’ve used MailChimp for a lot of our you know, we use that for our I would say standard, we do a top five email that goes out on Mondays, you know, we have social that we post we did videos, those kind of things. If we are in a space, and we want again, because a lot of people just see chamber emails, and they’re like, Oh, I’m just gonna keep clicking through. So what we learned, and I honestly don’t remember how we got into the space. My team calls them, Hey, friend emails. And it’s literally me, emailing our entire database through chambermaster. And I write them just like it’s coming from, I mean, it is coming from me, but I read it just like I’m emailing you directly. And the tone and the language behind it is just as if I was writing to any, you know, any of my businesses that are members. And it’s, Hey, how are you very generic entry. Hey, there, and it’s, you know, I always try and make some kind of interesting subject line, like, got a second or one quick thing for you. And then I go into, hey, hope you’re doing great. Getting ready for the weekend, or whatever, you know, whatever, just some kind of little intro, but like, I just wanted to make sure, I don’t know if you saw the emails, but I want to make sure you knew about XYZ event or training or whatever that we’re doing. That’s coming up, I think it might be great for you. You know, we’d love to hear your thoughts on that. And we’d love to see, see your face at it. If it was an event or whatever. If there’s anything that you need from me, you know, I’m always here, have a great day. And I literally, that’s basically what are our response rate? And people like people have no idea? Well, some of them start picking up on it, they have no idea that it’s sent to 1000s of people. So I get responses from people. They’re like, Oh, my gosh, it’s been so long since we talked hope you’re doing well, thanks for checking on me, you know, so we call it Hey, friend emails in my office. And that’s a great way because then we’re able to go back. And if I get an email from someone, like I said, that I haven’t heard from in a long time or haven’t seen an event, and they’re responding to an event that we’re talking about, you know, going to our cap the state capitol, then I know that that’s piqued their interest in some space, if they’re choosing to respond to me, Hey, I hope I can make it please keep sending me the this this way, you know, would love to have this in a virtual format like we get we I get honestly I get better open rates on those than any other email platform that I do. And again, nobody knows what I mean. A few again, a few now know the secret, but for the most part, but that’s the bottom comes in. I have to be so let my team is there. There’ll be like, can you send a hey, for an email? I was like, I’ve already sent one this week. Like we’ve got to limit or they lose their hour. But yeah, so yeah, so Hey, friend, emails work really well. I actually had one of our state our congressional senators offices call me she’s like, I need to set up a meeting with you. She goes are those emails like really to everyone? Or is it just to me, because she said she forwards them out to her team every time and it’s like This is how we need to communicate with our business, you know, with our constituents, and it started as a random thing, but that’s kind of our, our secret sauce that you know, we have our templated emails. But if we need to pull a friend one out, then it works almost every time.
Brandon Burton 25:16
And I imagine that those Hey, friend emails are also going to help with your open rates and deliverability of the emails going out through MailChimp to see that those are getting delivered and opened and responded to, they’re gonna deliver more of those inboxes. Exactly. That’s, that’s awesome. But then, so you’re taking those manually those responses and saying this members interested in this and then updating their profile
Sara Ray 25:39
that, yeah, I have somebody on my team that I’ll just forward them to. And it’s also a great way to make sure we have bad emails that are coming through or bounces or changes in role, you know, because there’s lovely member info updates that we all try and send are only so successful before we have to get on the phone. So this is a good kind of consistent way to kind of work through that process. Yeah.
Brandon Burton 25:59
So one of the other things he had mentioned, I want to make sure that I understood it, right. It sounds like one of those follow up emails and member first joins is saying who else in your organization would be interested in XYZ. So you’re, you’re getting other contact information for each business, but then also able to further the segmentation to that person’s over HR versus, you know, over, you know, the CEO, as the company, they’re going to be, you have different interests, so you’re able to touch them on different levels at the same
Sara Ray 26:31
business. And I was trying to add something, we always add some language like, if this isn’t for you, please feel free to share with share it with somebody, you know, and make sure a lot of people and I know that you’ve heard this before, but they think that they’re the only person that’s a member of their chamber. I’ve had several conversations with our school district. I’m like, every teacher, every educator is a member of the chamber. So you know, like, use that leverage that leverage that bandwidth. Oh, yeah.
Brandon Burton 26:57
Yeah, no, I think that’s key. Yeah. They think whoever was the one that signed up to chat. Yeah, right. Yeah. Oh, crazy. Yeah. Or just the owner. But yeah, it can. And obviously, every chamber is a little different. But most chambers that I’m aware of is opened it. Yeah, buddy within their business. So good point. I think this topic is so important. I’ve mentioned this a few times. And I think it’s worth mentioning again, just with the topic is my background is in chamber publishing says I would go out and meet with different Chamber members. And they find out that I’m not actually with the chamber, but they open up to me. Yeah. It’s like, I’m a bartender, and they just start telling me, you know, this is this last experience, this last event was awesome. Or I get way too many emails from the chamber. You know, I’ll ask them, Did
Sara Ray 27:46
you get to see my, like, little chamber therapist?
Brandon Burton 27:48
Exactly. They’re like, I get so many emails from the chamber. I probably got it. But you know, yeah, I deleted or I just opened it moved on. So yeah, being able to segment make it highly personable, I think it’s so important. And that’s, that’s the age we’re in today. Anyway, I mean, if you’re just doing a blanket email, there’s, there’s a purpose for it, you know, at times, but if that’s your only communications, a blanket email, you’re missing the boat, and you’re missing opportunities to connect with members. So yeah,
Sara Ray 28:17
and our ultimate goal is to, for people to have value in what we do, right? Like the end game is for someone to say that they got what they were looking for out of their membership. And if you have simple tools in place to be able to pinpoint that so a year in you can say, Hey, you said you wanted information on policy, or you wanted us to go to bat for you, as the voice of business in our community, you can go back on that and say, You, this was what you you know, this is what you said you find value in here. Here is how we took that, like, let’s talk about that. So being heard is so important for businesses.
Brandon Burton 28:52
How do you use the information that you get? I’m calling it segmenting, just for maybe lack of a better term? How do you use that information to create content or plan future events? Do you ever look into it to weigh that into what you’re doing?
Sara Ray 29:08
Oh, absolutely. Yes. I mean, so think of Okay, so we’ve had events, okay. Our breakfast series is a great example. So we used to have a, you know, you know, just a networking breakfast. It was just putting people in a room together. And that was it. Like there was no agenda. I mean, we will get up give door prizes, you know, that normal kind of, Hey, everyone, thanks for coming. And we shifted that and based off of feedback from people saying, you know, what are you doing for minority owned businesses? Why can we have women’s programming we’ve done you know, we did surveys and focus groups talked with our board, of course, and then we’re able to create those events and then solicit feedback on Did you like this, what did you think? And then just continue to craft our programming to meet the needs of our members? You know, we’re a member driven organization as all chambers should be, and so meeting the needs of what our business is our and that looks very different than two years ago, it looks very different than 10 years ago. So just continuing, you know, I am, I am always a proponent of new and different, and sometimes I think exhausts my team. But at the same time, the things that were relevant, you know, three or four years ago are very different. Now, we were never in a space where we thought we’d be relying on Zoom to do, you know, a majority of our work for six or eight months, so. So I think just being open minded and nimble listening to your members, and then and then being okay with adapting and changing, you don’t have to go and completely rebrand your whole organization, you can do it in small spaces, do a beta test of something, try it out, see if people like it, get their feedback. And then you can look at expanding that. So we do a lot in that space of trying things with small groups of people before we pull it into a larger space.
Brandon Burton 30:49
Yeah. And I think as you gather that information on what their expectations are, as they join the chamber, you’re able to then speak their language. And then when it comes time to renew memberships, it’s very hard for them to say, you know, the Chamber didn’t do anything for me, I didn’t see any value out of the chair, if you’re sending them those direct communications and talking to them in exactly what they’re looking for. So yeah, I hope everyone’s taking notes. Yeah, and
Sara Ray 31:15
I think you one more thing, because you asked me about like sharing information, articles and things that you’re what we’ve what we do is we do a lot of alcohol, like inbound marketing. So sharing resources, I’ve always been a firm believer, we don’t have to be the doer of all things, or the creator of all things. So we have a huge focus on building partnerships with other organizations. So we have a great partnership with the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, right? We have, I’m going to call it a language barrier with dealing with our Hispanic business community, they are successful at that. So why would we sit and recreate the wheel in bringing that into the mix. So we have a lot of content that we gather from our members, subject matter experts, we partner with our colleges and universities, you know, they’ve great economists that work at colleges and universities, why not lean on them to do our economic development reports and things of that nature. So I think that that’s very important. Even with trainings and professional development opportunities for businesses, you don’t have to create things. It’s it’s even thought more highly of if you partner with others, so we have gone that direction. Our new our new tagline is where partnerships and businesses thrive, because that’s the environment that we try to create. So it’s a lot easier to than trying to recreate the wheel on things.
Brandon Burton 32:27
That’s right. I love that. So as we start to wrap up here, I wanted to ask you what might be one tip or action item for chamber champion listening that they could do at their chamber to help take them up to the next level?
Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions
Sara Ray 32:40
Yes, um, so I would say, and this is a super simple Hey, friend, email that basically anybody can send out is send an email out, I did this, I tried to do it about once a year. But send out an email to your membership and from from your executive, or whomever you deem that you think would have the baby could even be your board chair, and ask them how you what, you know, kind of three questions What what are you getting from us that you love? What are some things that you need from us? And what can we do differently? You know, and just get that feedback from them. It doesn’t have to be this highly calculated survey. And again, if you go with that personal approach of how can I best support you? I guarantee I remember the first time I did, I got like, 300 emails back and I was inundated, but took the time to respond. And because it was coming from me, it wasn’t again, this, it doesn’t have to be this robust, well thought out process, just zap out an email, ask them how they’re doing how you can best support is there anything I can do to support your business? And you’ll be amazed at the results that you get, it’s super simple, but I promise you, like people find value in that kind of thing.
Brandon Burton 33:47
Absolutely. lets them be heard. Yeah, yes, that’s awesome. Then you
Sara Ray 33:51
can just make a list. And then you know, and you have your marching orders for the things that you can look at adapting and changing. So yeah, and listen and listen to them. And share that information back with your members is also important. Don’t just take it all and keep it in a dropbox folder somewhere, share out with people what, what, you know what your membership is saying. So,
Brandon Burton 34:09
for sure. So as we look to the future, how do you see the future chambers and their purpose going forward?
Future of Chambers
Sara Ray 34:18
Oh, um, you know, I’m sure you’ve chatted with my buddy Casey Steinbacher. Before. She is a great friend of mine. And, you know, she preaches a lot about going from being relevant to being essential. And I think that and I have others that have kind of lived in that space. And I feel like that’s the environment. The things that we have done in the past, as far as chambers go, you know, think 30 years ago, chambers used to be the place that did parades and you know, they might have done ribbon cuttings every now and then. And now we have chambers that are moving the needle in Washington DC advocating on behalf of businesses and helping businesses stay afloat, you know, during the pandemic. So I think I think where I see it going is just continuing to move into that space of being essential. And that looks different for every community. And for every business. You know, during the pandemic, I had a business that was it, they it’s like a kind of like a farm of like a petting zoo farm. And she needed to feed the alpacas on her farm. And the only way she raised revenue to do that was by having visitors and she couldn’t. So helping her figure out what was essential to her helped her us be essential to her. Does that make sense? So. So I think that where we’re headed is into a space of, I mean, it sounds silly, but it’s a space of humanity, it’s listening to people, it’s talking to them. It’s providing a space where they can have those open, honest, intentional conversations, whether that’s about diversity, or whether that’s about you know, growing a company, I think it’s just giving people that personalized attention, where they feel that there is not another option than to be a part of the chamber. I think that that’s kind of the direction that we’re headed in. And that looks different for every business, and it looks different for every community. Yeah, it’s been open to that, too, is important.
Brandon Burton 36:07
I love that you brought up Casey, and in her book, you know, relevant to essential. And if anybody hasn’t read it, it’s a it’s an e book. So look it up on Amazon. terrific book, but I mean, she talks about being relevant to your members becoming essential to your community, which really changes perspective, as you read through the book and read, you know, see the ideas that she shares in there. Yeah, changes perspective. So thank you for that. What would be the best way for a listener to reach out and connect with you if they have any questions about, you know, how you’re doing things their communication wise, or they couldn’t keep up with what’s the best way to reach out,
Connect with Sara Ray
Sara Ray 36:48
I get excited, and I talk fast. So I would say the easiest way is on LinkedIn. And it’s just my LinkedIn profile, you can search at Sara Ray. You can also get to us through our very snazzy new chamber website. It’s DouglasCountyGeorgia.com. Or I’m happy to share my information with you. It’s ray@douglascountygeorgia.com is my email where you can look you can look me up anywhere.
Brandon Burton 37:14
That’s right. And we’ll get all your contact information in the show notes for this episode, which will be at ChamberChatPodcast.com/episode166. But Sarah, thank you so much for joining me today and talking to all the Chamber Champions about this great work that you’re doing and really moving your your chamber forward with your communication channels, and really being more essential to the businesses in your community. I appreciate that.
Sara Ray 37:40
Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
Brandon Burton 37:43
Brandon Burton 33:56 If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.
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Ghost communities are on their way due to the innovation of ghost kitchens that emerged through the COVID pandemic. This concept allows for customers to order food delivery from popular apps like Uber Eats and Grub Hub. However, rather than having the food prepared in a standard restaurant, brands are learning to cut costs by opening ghost kitchens.
A ghost kitchen allows for the restaurant to utilize less expensive real estate. Some restaurants will even share this ghost kitchen with other restaurants. They also can be hired to prepare food for other restaurants.
When I first learned of this concept, I thought this is a genius way for restaurants to save money, become more efficient, and create a whole new dining experience. I still believe these initial thoughts to be true, but I have started to have some reservations around this concept.
Ghost Warehouse
I recently read an article about grocery chains adopting this same type of model with ghost warehouses. Many people have now experienced either grocery delivery or at least store pick up of their groceries. These concepts allow a customer to “shop” for their groceries online and never have to walk into the grocery store. I know this can be a huge time saver for the busy people in society.
As I picture the idea of a ghost warehouse or grocery store, I picture a large warehouse with no windows. I picture endless shelves of food that doesn’t even have to be displayed well because after all, an employee is the one grabbing the items from the shelf. I imagine this would look very similar to an Amazon distribution center. The marketing of food companies would have to change entirely. We will become much more a target of even more digital ads from the food manufacturers for us to add their items to our online shopping cart.
Human Experience
While I see some utility and innovations around these concepts, the thought that rings loud in my mind is that we are killing our communities! This thought probably is top of mind for me after my recent podcast interview with Doug Griffiths about his book ‘13 Ways to Kill Your Community‘.
Human interactions at the market and sitting to break bread with others are what we as humans have done our entire existence. Oftentimes it is while sharing a meal that we collaborate and solve problems with colleagues, friends, and family. It is running into your child’s school teacher at the grocery store that makes your child feel special as they are able to have a one-on-one interaction with their teacher outside of the classroom. It is the smile that a stranger receives that makes their day and builds just a little more confidence.
Ghost Communities
This idea of turning into ghost communities is exaggerated even more as we hear more talk and adoption of the Metaverse. Again, I see some great possibilities and potential with this type of technology, but I wonder if we might be overlooking the potential negative side effects. I am a big fan of cryptocurrency, especially Bitcoin (This is an affiliate link that will award both of us with free Bitcoin when used.) but I am concerned about other applications utilizing the blockchain without having a better understanding of the potential outcomes, positive or negative.
The Metaverse can be a place where the playing field is leveled. Certain biases can be left behind the screen as users on the inside don’t know much about your real identity. Disabilities can be overcome in this alternate world. Race, gender, age are all non-factors in the Metaverse. These can all be viewed as really positive selling points.
I would also argue that these identifying qualities are also what make us who we are. If we are constantly checking and putting aside our true identity, what does that do to our overall mental state? This question is probably better addressed by a mental health professional. I foresee this causing big problems in society.
Social Media
I hear many people say that if they could go back in time and do it over again, they never would have joined any social media. Social media was started or presented as a way to stay connected with others. Over time we have seen social media lead more to the division of people rather than a unifying force.
Social media has been attributed to a sharp increase in mental health issues, including depression. Comparing ourselves to others can lead to damaging self-esteem. Throughout human history, people have been limited to comparing themselves to others in their tribe or communities. As the Pandora’s box of social media has been opened wide, we are now pitted against others on a much larger scale. Social media influencers do a great job of making us feel less than what we should. Photo filters literally create the image of something that is not even real, yet we still compare ourselves to these artificial attributes of others!
Summary
The point of all of this is to say as a society, we need to be aware of the potential negative consequences of drastically changing our way of life. We should have discussions in our community, within our families about possible implications and go in eye wide open. As a chamber of commerce professional, you understand the value of community. You understand the power in numbers. Please lead these discussions in your communities. If nothing else, help others to be aware of what they are getting into before our cities and towns become ghost communities.
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As the old saying goes “if you have seen one chamber, you have seen one chamber.” I understand that every community has different needs. They are different sizes and have different problems. They also have different things that make them uniquely great. I often wonder about the confusion of business owners who belong to multiple chambers.
Hypothetically, a business could be a member of a larger, more robust chamber that has multiple events each week and several ways to educate and market their business members. This same business (maybe a secondary location) could also be a member of a more rural chamber who has a totally different vibe. Both chambers are doing what they feel is best for their community. However, this hypothetical chamber member is having a very different experience with each of these organizations.
Common Member Experience
One way that every chamber could offer a similar experience for each of their members is through advocacy. Many chambers claim to be the voice of business for their community but what does that mean? Do their members know what that means for their business?
Some chambers tend to shy away from jumping into the advocacy arena for fear of offending people. They may worry about losing funding from a city contract or a large sponsor. Some worry about losing members because of the chambers stance on a topic.
Advocacy Creates the Voice of Business
If chambers could agree to represent the voice of business in their communities by promoting pro-business candidates and policies, then their members would better understand the value that they get from their chamber. They would understand why the chamber is branded as the voice of business.
During election season, I have seen chambers invite local candidates to be interviewed on the chamber’s podcast. This provides a platform for residents to hear the ideas each candidate offers up, especially as it relates to business in their community. (If you are interested in starting a podcast for your chamber, see my free resources at chamberchatpodcast.com/pivot.)
I really like the idea of chambers in the same region banding together to support certain causes. This way as you advocate at your county or state levels, you can leverage the numbers of businesses who feel a certain way about proposed legislation that would impact their business. You can do this type of advocacy on your own, but a regional effort carries a much larger impact. This could even be taken to a national level as you bring chambers together across your state, province, or territory.
Advocacy Examples
I recently did a podcast interview with Marc Cohen, Chief of Staff at the Greater Rochester Chamber in New York. Marc offered up a great tip that may serve you well with your advocacy efforts. He suggested rather than trying to meet with the elected official, it is very effective to connect with a member of their staff instead. It is often easier to get a meeting with one of the staff members than it is to sit down with the elected official. If you can successfully create a relationship with the staff member, then you can create a great advocate on the inside.
When I visited with Roy William, and Brad Hicks on Chamber Chat Podcast, they both mentioned the great value of their chambers having political action committees. Setting up a P.A.C. requires more commitment and legal help but it can also become another source of revenue for your organization.
Here is a list of some ideas of ways to incorporate advocacy at your chamber. You may be doing some of these things already, and this list is not exhaustive by any means.
Learn about proposed legislation, taxes, regulations, or expiring regulations.
Talk to your business community/take polls about the expected impact of these proposals.
Look up who all of your local, county, and state elected officials are and start introducing yourself and your chamber to these leaders and explain who you represent. Write them each an email of encouragement and optimism of working together with them to represent their constituents in your community.
Coordinate letter writing and phone campaigns to show support or displeasure for certain proposals.
Organize or join a group on a regional or state level with other chambers to leverage your numbers.
Interview candidates in a forum to share their views to inform voters.
Endorse pro-business candidates and policies.
Consider creating or supporting a political action committee.
Summary
Your chamber does not need to set up a P.A.C. to make an impact advocating for the businesses in your community. But you should be doing something to make the voice of business heard in your area. I would encourage you to not let fear deter you from standing up for what is right for your business owners, their employees, and their families. Hold public forums, conduct interviews on your chamber’s podcast, YouTube, or Facebook page. Conduct polls to get real feedback from your business community. All of this will allow you to collect the information you need to help pro-business policies and candidates thrive in your community.
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As we are starting a new year, we are still in the midst of this worldwide COVID pandemic. I thought it would be helpful to share some tips in the written form to help you shortcut the work at your Chamber by sharing some lessons learned over the past 3 years of producing the Chamber Chat Podcast.
What Have We Learned?
Many Chambers are operating with fewer staff at the moment. Many have shifted what their working environment looks like by allowing for more work from home opportunities. Depending on where you are located, there may still be restrictions on the number of people who can gather at events. Each of these challenges present unique obstacles but I believe they also provide opportunities for growth.
Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, states that “Inside every problem lies an opportunity”.
Chambers have had to take a strong look at their value propositions and mission statements. As Chambers have done this, they have found ways to prove and show their relevance more than ever.
I have now been working in the Chamber world for over 15 years in the Chamber publishing space and 3 years with Chamber Chat Podcast. Over this time, I have learned a lot about what Chambers do, how they operate, the impact Chambers have in their communities, and I have also learned that many people in any given community don’t even know that their local Chamber exists or have any clue as to what a Chamber of Commerce does. I am working on a new project that will address this, so stay tuned for more details to come on this front soon.
2019 Lesson Highlights
At the end of each year while producing Chamber Chat Podcast, I have recorded a summary episode that highlights some of the key lessons that I learned that year that relates to the Chamber industry.
In 2019, some of the key lessons were:
A Chamber can and should be much more than a networking business community.
The importance of great community partnerships.
The need for talent & workforce development.
The importance of staying true to your strategic plan.
The future is bright for Chambers that stay relevant.
In 2020, as the pandemic hit and Chambers were stressed in new and complicated ways. As a result, several new lessons rose up to the top. In fact, I covered 20 lessons learned in 2020 for that year’s summary episode. Some of those key lessons were:
Trim the fat by burning sacred cows.
Chambers need to be agile to make quick pivots.
Set aside reserves in your budget.
We learned how to go virtual and how to use new digital tools.
Many Chambers saw podcasting as a way to stay connected with their members and community.
Probably the number 1 lesson from 2020 was the need to be flexible!
Lessons from 2021
As the “new normal” sets in, additional lessons need to be applied, which should help to sustain Chambers moving forward. Because of the timely relevance to these lessons, I will expand more than just a few highlighted bullet points. You can also access my lessons from 2021 at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode153.
Finance & Membership Models
Many membership organizations have had to really evaluate their overall structure. Everything from finances to membership models to strategic partnerships were on the table for discussion to keep their organizations in operation and to provide the needed service and value to their members. Some organizations saw the value in merging with another similarly aligned organization, possibly a tourism or economic development organization. Some Chambers even came together to create more of a county-wide or regional organization. There is value and strength in coming together. However, going back to one of the lessons from 2019, a Chamber must stay true to their strategic plan.
Some Chambers did not see the need to merge with another organization but they saw the need to create a triage for their business community whether or not a business was currently a dues paying member of their Chamber. As recovery from the pandemic started to pick up steam, some Chambers saw value in creating a free membership offering. I like the idea of how these Chambers are setting up these freemium models, but I would personally like to see the data from this model being implemented at other Chambers before applying it to my own.
In my opinion, Chambers are all about advancing their communities. This is accomplished through advocacy, networking, and connecting the right individuals for a stronger business environment. Doing these things will help to strengthen all areas of their community.
Online Communities
So, when more people are less involved in their communities, how does a Chamber go about doing this great work?
Well, one answer might be through creating strong online communities as a starting point. Online communities might serve as an on ramp to get others involved which can then transition into more in-person relationships. In today’s world, a Chamber would be doing a disservice to themselves if they are not utilizing the power and leverage of an online community.
Keep in mind that with many generations living and working in your community, they each prefer different methods of communication. Some really like in person events. Some will never attend an event but they will engage and support the Chamber in big ways through their screens.
Online communities can be set up on platforms such as Facebook. My word of caution is that you create a strategic plan for your online community BEFORE you launch it. This will help you in creating community guidelines and will guide you in the creation and frequency of content. This strategic plan should also create a road map for the member experience.
Preparing for the Future
Futureproofing is the next lesson that I will address. When COVID first reared its head, almost everyone caught off guard. Consumers made panic purchases of obscene amounts of toilet paper, business owners who were solely brick and mortar didn’t know if or when they would be allowed to open their doors again. Chambers adapted quickly to keep their business community apprised of government mandates and regulations, but at the same time were needing to cancel most of their non-dues revenue generators. Chambers were not prepared for this major disruption.
Moving forward, I would encourage Chambers to think and to prepare for worst case scenarios. How will you continue to serve your members if you had to shut down again? How will you bring in revenue if you are unable to gather and if businesses don’t know where their next dollar will come from? This idea of futureproofing can be wrapped in with the previous point of creating a strong plan for an online community. This can allow for you to pivot quickly and to deliver content and information to the people who need it the most.
Your Role as an Influencer
Casey Steinbacher’s e-book “From Relevant to Essential” laid out a great argument that shows why Chambers need to understand their role as influencers in their communities. I would encourage everyone to read this book for the full effect, but in a nutshell, we live in a world that is very different than it was 20 or 30 years ago. The newer generations engage in different ways and they tune into different voices. One of the main points of her book is to urge Chambers to embrace their role as influencers.
We don’t normally think of Chambers as influencers, but why are Chambers so great at conveening people and organizations for a greater cause…because they are influencers. Why do businesses join their local Chamber and ask for input on staffing, marketing, accounting, etc…because they are influencers.
Most Chambers turn to social media to flex their influence muscle. I find that many people turn to social media to tune out and they are not usually in the mindset to engage with Chamber content as it comes across their feed. Podcasts however, offer a much more intimate way to share information, and establish or reinforce your influence in the community.
Strategic Partnerships
This year as I did the Chamber of the Year Finalist interviews, each Chamber talked about their response to the COVID pandemic. Almost every Chamber shared how they created a strategic partnership with either their local Small Business Association, local banks, or other similar organizations to help distribute financial resources and relief to the businesses in their communities.
These types of partnerships can open doors to new services and opportunities. These opportunities will help Chambers better serve their business community going forward.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
We have seen people and organizations of all types recognize the need for more focus and attention on diversity, equity and inclusion. Unfortunately it took the murder of George Floyd for the many of the racial injustices to rise to a higher level of importance. On the positive side, this extra focus on racial equity also allowed for a greater focus on other areas of diversity. It opened our minds to new ideas on how to be more inclusive to people who have traditionally been left out of our organizations for a variety of reasons. We also realized the need to provide more equitable opportunities for everyone in our communities. I believe we still have a long way to go with diversity, equity and inclusion, but we are going in the right direction.
Horseshoes vs. Chess
Anyone who listens to the Chamber Chat Podcast on a regular basis will know how much I love Dave Adkisson’s book “Horseshoes vs. Chess”. This book is what I describe as the best portrayal of what a Chamber of Commerce is and should be as well as what a Chamber Exec is and should be.
We are often asked what Chambers of Commerce do. Horseshoes vs. Chess helps to answer that question in a way that ordinary (non-Chamber) people can understand.
In the book, Dave shares an analogy about Chamber work compared to the games of horseshoes and chess. Some people look at Chamber work the same way they look at a game of horseshoes at a picnic. You don’t have to know much about the game, you can just toss your horseshoes towards your stake and if you get close you get a point.
Dave shares how Chamber work is really much more like a game of chess. You have different pieces that can do different things and you need to understand the role of each piece. One piece may be education. Another piece might be workforce development, and another tourism, and another economic development, etc. The idea is that you must know what each piece is capable of doing while also understanding that you can’t move all of the pieces at the same time. I think this analogy is perfect and it should resonate with most Chamber professionals.
Make Pivots
The final lesson that I will share from 2021 is that I need to make some pivots. I am coming up on the third anniversary of Chamber Chat Podcast. While I still plan to continue with the podcast, I do have some other new and exciting opportunities and projects that I am working on that I hope to reveal very soon. Hopefully you and your Chamber have noticed areas where you can grow and improve as well. In the end, it is about providing the best value and the highest level of service possible.
I wish you all a very successful 2022. I am sure it will be full of new lessons that will help us move closer to our potential. Keep up the great work!
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