Category: Small Business

North Tampa Bay Chamber-ACCE Chamber of the Year Finalist with Hope Kennedy

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Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Hope Kennedy. 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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Introduction

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.

And now your hosts his Saturdays are full with his daughter’s volleyball and basketball games. He’s my dad Brandon Burton.

Hello, chamber champions. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and you’re joining us for a special episode as we interview the 2022 ACC chamber the year finalist in this chamber the year finalist series.

Our title sponsor is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Let’s hear from Tony Felker, President and CEO of the Frisco Chamber to learn how the Holman Brothers have provided value for him.

Tony Felker 0:47
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Brandon Burton 1:09
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Guest Introduction

Our guest for this episode is hoped Kennedy Hope is the president and CEO of the North Tampa Bay Chamber in Florida. Hope assumed the role of president and CEO in July of 2012 and as a Florida certified chamber professional. Since this time, she’s led the organization through two chamber acquisitions, a name and brand change and a stringent certification process. In 2019, the North Tampa Bay chamber was recognized as chamber the year by the Florida Association of chamber professionals hopes work to support businesses of all sizes fans her entire career. Before joining the Wesley Chapel chamber in 2012. She served Pensacola Chamber members as the organization’s vice president of membership. During her tenure hope was instrumental in the recovery efforts post Hurricane Ivan and the BP oil spill. In this role hope also successfully designed implemented strategies resulting in the engagement of more than 200 of Pensacola businesses business leaders in a campaign to attract Southwest Airlines. Hope has also led membership and business development for United Way and the capital area as well as the greater Jackson chamber partnership both in Jackson, Mississippi. In 2001, her chamber received a prestigious recognition for being a pride business ally from the tampa bay business journal. In 2017, the tampa bay business journal named her as one of Tampa Bay’s most 100 influential business people. In 2005, the Mississippi Business Journal recognized hope as a top 40 under 40 for the state of Mississippi in 2008. ACCE awarded her for outstanding membership and in 2010 The Independent News in Pensacola named Hope a rising star. Hope is an MBA candidate at the University of Florida and earned her undergraduate degree in business from Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi, and resides in North Tampa with her 16 year old daughter. Hope I’m excited to have you with me here on Chamber Chat Podcast. First of all, congratulations for being selected as a chamber the year finalist. But why don’t you take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions and yourself?

Hope Kennedy 4:11
Yeah, hello to all my Chamber Champions. Those of us who are doing what I call the Lord’s work. They jack of all trades and the masters of nine. Thank you so much, Brandon, for having me here with you today. As you can tell them a chamber junkie. I’ve been doing this started in the basement in Jackson, Mississippi. Um, you wanted me to give a something a lot of people don’t know. In the chamber world. I was bitten by a pygmy rattlesnake. I’m live to tell about it. So there’s my fun there’s more of a story there. Yeah, there’s a very good story behind that of it. I stepped on the little guy and and ended up in ICU for five days. is so so there’s my fun fact of me.

Brandon Burton 5:04
Yeah. Wow, that is that is something interesting for sure that you weren’t expecting that one. No, I get to know people on a different level by asking that question. Well tell us a little bit about the North Tampa Bay chamber just to give us some perspective. Before we get into our discussion, just give us an idea of the size of the chamber type of chamber staff budget, that sort of thing.

About the North Tampa Bay Chamber

Hope Kennedy 5:28
Yeah, sure. I love to talk about it. So we’re a baby chamber, we’re only 27 years old. In the chamber world, we all know that as being a baby chamber. You alluded to it in my bio, we were the formerly the Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce. Back then, I took over in 2012. I like to refer to us with no disrespect to anyone in the industry. But we were the Mary Kay sorority, our chamber was doing all of the the fun stuff, the three P’s. Because we had to because we were the only organization in our community that was organized enough to produce events and these outcomes. As the years have gone by, we have had two mergers with two separate organizations leading us to become a Regional Chamber, we have a very large geographic footprint that we call our service area. But as we all know, chambers do not have boundaries, are you some some do just by geography of their names. But in general, US chambers have service areas. So we encompass a very large service area, just north of Tampa Bay in the city of Tampa. There are many chambers of commerce in our, in our area and our communities. And I, I love to say if you’ve seen one chamber, you’ve seen one chamber, each individual organization presents something different. And I always try and encourage our members that if you can join all of them, most certainly do that, because you’re gonna get something individualized for each and every single one of them. As far as the size of our organization, we have always been very lean and mean. We are now a staff of three. That includes myself, during the time in which we submitted this application. It is for the years, 2019 and 20. And we were a staff of two, during during that time, we had to make some very hard decisions at the beginning of COVID. We did and those are the reasons that I think that we’ve been been successful, we have just shy of 600 members. Within our within our chamber, we have a very small budget, which I’m actually not ashamed to say we are $400,000 budget. We are at 5% membership dues, which is an interesting model. And I’m sure I’ll have some interesting things to say and people will look at me just kind of a little cross eyed when when we talk about if we get a chance to talk about those things, but I have a very strong conviction that we are a membership based organization and that we should be reliant on our members to sustain our organization. So we set our budget each year based on actual retention numbers. We do not take any funding outside of our our membership organization we have a little bit of non dues revenue streams. But as far as other things we are 85% membership based

Brandon Burton 8:56
Wow. Yeah, that’s that’s not a normal thing to see these days.

Hope Kennedy 9:00
So it’s definitely not and I can tell you that it very much works for for us then in for our members and that’s

Brandon Burton 9:10
what it’s all about. But what works for your for your community. So that’s awesome. So as we do these chamber, the are finalists interviews, what I’d like to do is touch on the two programs you submitted on your chamber that your application and I look forward to diving into these programs with you learning more about what’s making the North Tampa Bay chamber great into the noticed at this level. And we’ll get into that discussion as soon as they get back from this quick break.

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Alright, hope we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, we’ll talk about the two programs that you submitted on your chamber the your application. So let’s let’s first approach them both from maybe a high level just what the two programs are. And then we can circle back into a little bit more detail on each of them.

Topic-Chamber of the Year Application Programs

Hope Kennedy 12:16
Well, I’ll start by saying this was not an easy exercise to nail down to programs that we wanted to showcase. And ACCE gives you the opportunity to send in your topic, synopsis reel, just a very brief and the first one came back and they loved it. The second one, they were like, No, everybody should be doing that one that one’s not going to move the needle, we want to see something else. So we looked internally to try and figure out what it is what you know, because when you do it all day, every day, and over these past couple of years, you kind of forget what you did that made an impact and what we submitted. Our first one was called the chamber roadshow. And it was a we are open a campaign that happened extraordinarily organically. There was no budget, there was no plan, there was no nothing. It just it just kind of happened. And I’m happy to dive into that and share that. And then our second one was our award show. And it wasn’t because that we took it virtually at all. That wasn’t what we wanted to highlight. What we wanted to highlight is us to focus on business Small Business of the Year Entrepreneur of the Year, new business over the year, Yatta Yatta, yatta. We knew those did not have any significance whatsoever with the year that just happened. So we had to reimagine what the awards would look like we knew that our community needed to have a celebration of sorts. As we were coming out of the shutdown, we we took a deep dive in and said, Well, why don’t we use our core values as an organization to award to our members. So instead of having Small Business of the Year, large business of the year, we went with the innovation award with the collaboration award, the inclusivity award in the integrity award. And so we set all new metrics and criteria for each of those and we spelled it out what those really meant it and then we were able to sprinkle in some community heroes into that as well. So we’re we’re very, very proud of being able to turn that into something that meant that meant our organization was highlighting the things that we hold dear. And we did it again the second year as well and our members have really taken to that in the those awards.

Brandon Burton 14:57
So I’m I want to learn more about both of these. But I have to ask the question, since you told the backstory to it, which one of these programs is one that you got the positive feedback from initially, and I only asked to help other chambers. Yeah, by in the future.

Hope Kennedy 15:12
The chamber roadshow got that one got a thumbs up. Our second submission was not our awards, if we were going to submit for our dei work. And the comments back were that all chambers should be doing that show something that you have moved the needle. Yeah. And so we, again, had to come back and look internally and say, Well, gosh, all of the stuff that we did, we couldn’t show metrics. We didn’t keep track of all of this information, to submit for an award. Just a backup really quick. Chamber of the year, ACC was not on our radar for this year. It it was I just wanted to submit the benchmarking survey. Yeah, to make sure that I was in line, I love ACC, and I love everything that they do. And I love to be able to have that data to show our board to show our volunteers. And so that was all I was doing. I was proud that I completed it, actually. And then we get the note that says, hey, you’re eligible to submit. And I sent it to my board chair, thinking, I don’t know what I was thinking I didn’t really know. I was just like, excited that we could submit. And then I started looking at some of the other applications from the year before and I was like, ready to pull the plug. I was like, we’re not ready for primetime. There’s no way we can get this done. It’s turned around. We don’t have a graphic artists, we don’t do this. Well, thankfully, my board chair who a phenomenal leader says to me and he says hope I don’t own this statement, but you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. And so I said, Alright, let’s do this. And so it was a awesome exercise. For for us in being such a small staff. I had four volunteers from my board that assisted with the application.

Brandon Burton 17:22
That’s great to get them involved with the process as well. So

Hope Kennedy 17:25
it was it was interesting, the questions that they came back and asked me, yeah, so you know, it was, again, the whole thing was just a really great exercise.

Brandon Burton 17:35
And that’s awesome. Well, let’s, let’s maybe start with the award show, you talked about reimagining the awards, making it more of a celebration, kind of looking at new metrics and criteria. Tell us how that unfolded. What did some of these new awards look like? How was how were they received, and just dive into whatever you feel would be relevant for listeners? Sure.

Hope Kennedy 18:01
So you know, I had some reservations, at the time of having an award ceremony, we still were not able to gather in the state of Florida, our awards had always been a cocktail attire, celebratory, you know, VIP event prior to just a big production. So we knew that we were going to take that all the way down to virtual in what the virtual looked like, was completely different. None of us knew what was going on. We figured it out. We lived through the logistics of that. And then when we set out for nominations, we explained what each category what we were looking for. So for collaboration, we were looking for programs from our members that showed that they collaborated with somebody else and what their metrics were and how they, they utilized it. The integrity award was more of an internal process than an examples of how they were. They showed integrity during COVID. And we used it for the last for those years. So we wanted to hear their stories about their business and how they were able to do these things to have inclusivity in within their organization when you couldn’t even meet. So

Brandon Burton 19:32
there’s kind of some healing that goes on as they’re able to tell their stories and kind of get that out there and kind of put it behind them as they move forward, I’d imagine.

Hope Kennedy 19:41
Right? And it was cathartic. It was you know and then to be able to celebrate those that were the recipients that hey, you did and do deed do some great things very similar to what you know we’re going through as an organization right now with this award. So it’s kind of like coming full circle. So we do request, nominations. And then the the business that is nominated submits an application. So we sent them the application, the application is six, five or six questions. And every application is in the same format so that it returns in the judges, they all get the same questions. And so they we had a record number of submissions that year, usually will have, I don’t even know the number right off the top of my head, I’ve heard I’ve already buried this one, onto the next thing. But usually, we have about a third that actually submit the application. That year, we had a little bit over half. So those that were nominated, actually took the time to submit their applications. So they are scored by an independent panel of judges. And then the, the judges don’t even come together. They don’t talk about it. It’s just based on those numbers. And then they’re presented. And then we have the finalists. So what we did was we made it into a storytelling opportunity. So each one of the finalists were highlighted within their categories. And so the world that was watching because we did have people watching from around the world, which was great, too. So some of the businesses whose family was out in another part of the country wouldn’t normally be able to attend a chamber award show, was able to attend and participate and watch it live. And then, so we got to tell their stories. And so the business community got to hear more about what they did. And we had watch parties. So people who were comfortable watching together as groups, a lot of the finalists companies kind of had like a company, company happy hour. And we would go we would show pictures from their watch party on the live feed. And it was great. And they were able to actually give acceptance speeches. So it was it was interactive. And, and it was great. But what we’re most proud of is that we were able to tell their stories, and it wasn’t about the chamber. At this point it was about them, and what they had done to come out of it. And you know, if one of the examples of innovation was one of our winners, was a wine company, they sell wine, they did Wine tastings, they did all of these wine pairing events, and all of these different things. Well, they weren’t technologically advanced. However, they managed to figure out a way to do wine tastings via zoom. And they did. And they have been extraordinarily successful. And they were able to get the wine to the people in the cheese, just all of the different components and then do the class online. And then all of these people could could participate. So they tapped into a whole new market that they didn’t know was even there. And so for them to share that story and how they partnered with other businesses in our community to do the same thing. So

Brandon Burton 23:25
that’s awesome. So I I’ve really liked the aspect you touched on about having viewers from all over the world, you know, in these finalists, yeah, these people have been selected to have their stories highlighted. I can imagine them sharing the link that to YouTube, or Facebook or whatever it is, for their family members or friends out of the area to watch. Like what a way to show the impact that a chamber has in a community than a broadcast. And I know we were forced to during COVID to go digital and broadcast things. But I think even going forward, there’s still some value to broadcasting some of these award shows, you know, let these people these recipients broadcast this out to their networks and show what a Chamber of Commerce is and what you do.

Hope Kennedy 24:11
Yeah. And you know, that’s very interesting, because we’re, we’re still doing that we’re able to tap into national speakers now and do in person or live stream or whatever the case is that we wouldn’t have access to had it not been for COVID. So we’re still doing hybrid type programming. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 24:37
And I think at some point, it may go away from being a hybrid, and just this is the program and we have it being broadcast as well. So absolutely, yeah. Just to reach

Hope Kennedy 24:46
out where you’re, yeah. So you have to go where your members are. Yeah, and if they’re stuck at their desk, let’s go to them there.

Brandon Burton 24:52
Right. Well tell us more about the chamber roadshow and what that entails because that obviously caught some attention initially. So let’s say let’s learn more about that program. Oh, well.

Hope Kennedy 25:05
So it all starts with a story. And I think as chambers you’re starting to catch the theme of of our world in those times is we were storytellers. And we have to be able to tell the story of how great we are as an organization, but then also realize that it’s not about us, it’s about our members and telling their story. So after we could go back to the office, during the the height of the pandemic, and we were all at home, I bought the ring light that everybody buys, because I was on Zoom, and my house obviously wasn’t set up for a professional studio. But then I also said, I can’t look like this on, you know, national broadcast, I need to look presentable. So anyways, I had this zoom light, and we had some other video equipment at our office, we had a tripod, and I literally came back to the office when we opened up and I just looked around, and we have a very beautiful office, very big boardroom. It was empty, 100% empty. And I sat there and I just said, I don’t I don’t know what to do. I literally have no idea how to help my members, or what, what to do. We what started. That was my members were calling me saying, Hey, can you help us get our message out about being open? And I said, Well, absolutely. So I called one of our board members who owns an LED truck, you know, the LED signs, change the advertising. And he and I created a we are open logo that was on the side of his truck. And he would go sit in front of our members business that says we are open. So anybody that was open, so I put out a message and said, Hey, if you’re open, let me know what your times are. And we’ll have somebody come sit there, well, they would, they would go and sit there, they take photos, and his guys did some social media around it. And it was great. And then as things started to open back up more, that wasn’t a feasible way of getting the message out. So when I got back to the office and just tried to figure out what we were gonna do, I made a video, and it goes something like this, Hey, everybody, we’re back in the office. But we don’t really have anything to do, because we can’t, you know, put all of these events together yatta yatta yatta. So I’m going to take this show on the road, and I’m going to come to you if you’d like me to come to your business and highlight your business and your protocols for being open. Just give us a call here at the chamber and we’ll get you scheduled. Well, that video started to get that in, let me just share with you is just me in my phone. And my ring light. And the quality is terrible. The sound is awful. But the message got out. And it was organic. I did it in one take for each business and like just tell me what your what you’re doing for businesses, what we need to know about your business. Are you open? Are you curbside? How you know what’s going on? And then I’d kind of tee up at the end, any lessons learned anything you want to share with anybody? I wouldn’t edit. I put up the raw footage on YouTube and then linked it to our social pages. I did 135 videos. Wow. Over the summer two years ago, I was able to tell the story of 135 of our member businesses. My my the last official one that I did on the chamber roadshow, I got to sit down with the president of the university, Saint Leo University and do more of a like a wrap up. You know, what, what did what did you learn? You know, what, what is something that you want to share with the business community. And so it was organic storytelling, and it was natural. It was raw, there were bloopers there were laughs There was cars.

It didn’t matter. I actually had a production company reach out to me and say, Would you like us to do this for you? And I said, No, no, actually, I don’t I want it to be real. Some authenticity. Yeah, it loses the authenticity and or the organic conversation that we have. When we did that. And my staffer at the time, she was at home base, she she doesn’t leave the chamber office and she would feel the call. She’d make the schedule and I tried to do three a day geographically Be respectful and then do that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then we trickle out the videos.

Brandon Burton 30:07
That’s awesome. I’d love that. And I know, it’s easier here almost to be able to make those visits and shoot the video. But then to set aside the time to upload it to YouTube and share it here and link it there. That’s where the time consuming part of it

Hope Kennedy 30:21
that is where the time consuming was. And I did not do a fabulous job of hash tagging, and, and all of the, you know, tags and different things. But again, we were learning as we went. And you can see the first one to the last one, there’s a huge difference. And, and what I probably should have led with was that I hated doing videos, I would never do a live interview on TV, because I said videos will live in infamy. Way beyond me. And then all of a sudden, here I was this, I just went into all my vulnerability and said, You know what, it’s not about me, it’s about these businesses. And so I sucked it up, and it did it. And they’re still in infamy. And I’ll live with that. Every time I turn on our YouTube channel, I have to hear my voice. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 31:17
But and I’ve seen some chambers do even a similar thing. But with, they’ll release it as a podcast, you know, go and interview the business in, you know, tell the story, and release it as a podcast. And there’s all these different ways now to be able to, you know, we always hear about chambers need to be storytellers. And there’s now a variety of different ways to be able to help get the stories out there of your chamber, and of your members and your community and things going on, and showing that you’re a convener of leaders and influencers and bring them you know, do those interviews, like you’re talking about at the college and, you know, you’re doing all the things, which is awesome.

Hope Kennedy 31:56
We we are and again it you know, when you’re in it, and you’re in the thick of it, and you know, you’re you’re trying to figure it all out, you don’t none of it was with, I’m gonna win an award, you know, none of this was for that. It was necessity for our business community. And now our members can look back and say, That was value, you provided me a value for my membership that I would not have been able to get anywhere else. You gave me a platform, you gave me a mic gave me an opportunity. And so, again, that goes back to our our being membership focused. And that we have a really good solid base and members that remember that stay members. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 32:49
that’s awesome. So I’d like to ask you, as we kind of shift gears here a little bit. As a chamber, the year finalist, how do you view the role of your chamber in your community?

Hope Kennedy 33:04
We are in a really unique position, because we are a to county, actually kind of three County Regional Chamber, we have several municipalities within our footprint of our service area. We view ourselves as the connector, the convener and the catalyst, the three C’s. We do those things extraordinarily well. And we we will say we do not have the answer. But we can sure connect you to the person that does for if they don’t let’s be the catalyst for that conversation for change or or or moving the needle as is that seems to be our buzzword here and ACCE land for for this year. And, and that is that is who we are. We are a very strong voice of business. We are extraordinarily good at ensuring a pro business environment. We will also fight against legislation. Anything that’s not pro business focused. And so we are what what makes us great and I share this because it’s it’s important for for other chambers to you cannot do business the way that you’ve always done business. This world is different. We’re not even doing business the way we did business a year ago. So as a chamber of commerce, our board knows that we have to be nimble enough within our strategic plan to be able to change and adapt to the needs of our community and what those needs are Are Not now but what they’re gonna be years from now. We We can’t stay focused on what’s happening right now or or our next event or what this or what that we have to be thinking of what this business community is going to look like, five years from now, we have to be futurist, we have to think about that. And it’s important for our board, when we’re sitting in a board meeting to have that in mind, of what is the future of our community? And how does the chamber fit into that, and some chambers and organizations have not been able to do that. And their their relevance may not be there in the years to come. And if, if you’re you’re focused or fed by one particular income source, or one particular event that’s not sustainable, as we’ve all learned, so being able to look forward and say, what, what are the needs of our community. And I can share our priorities. And because we take a very deep dive each year, when we set our strategic plan in our program of work of what was happening, and what are the effects gonna be, and the folks that sit around our boardroom table are thought leaders, and we are very comfortable being uncomfortable. And that’s part of the catalytic leadership and part of the horizons report, all of the things that I read six years ago are now you know, we’ve been working on them. And so housing and workforce, there’s a direct correlation between those. And that’s a huge priority, not just now, but we can see for the future, proper planning for your community now sets the stage for later. And think decisions that are made by certain municipalities might have unintended consequences that perhaps they haven’t thought about, and what certain actions that a governing body takes is going to have a trickle down effect later on the business community. So make sure that

every stakeholder within the conversation understands how the ecosystem works of the business community. So I think that that is that’s where we excelled and what sets us apart within our community, I do want to give a huge shout out to our region, because we have a, we call them our MOU partners. And so there are eight of us chamber CEOs that are in a partnership agreement together, that we support each other on issues. We don’t have to always agree, but we’re not going to come out against another local area Chamber. It makes a huge difference. When we have legislation in our state, when we, we all come out with a letter with all of our logos on it with all of our names on it, and say, Hey, we are now speaking for the entire region, this business community in it, they pay attention. So so we don’t do this alone in a silo with all of our all of the things I just talked about being a connector convener and a catalyst, we work very hard at making sure that we are bringing together the whole region.

Brandon Burton 38:45
That’s fantastic. Yeah, a lot more impact can happen that way, for sure. Absolutely. Um, what would be maybe a tip or an action item that you might suggest for listeners who are interested in taking their chamber up to the next level.

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Hope Kennedy 39:02
It all starts, it starts with you, as the CEO, as the leader of your organization and in ensuring that you have a really good understanding or a picture of where you want to take the organization with one thing in mind and that your members and the community in which you serve, and then ensuring that your board of directors is there right there with you that they are preaching the they are walking the talk, you know, whatever, whatever you want to come up with. They’re they’re right there with you and that you all have one goal in mind and that is x and that everybody’s there on the same page that there’s consensus or at least conversation around the consensus and just thinking towards towards the future of what? Look at the past of why chambers exist became a chamber in the very first place. And then look at that and start to look further ahead.

Brandon Burton 40:16
I like that. As we wrap things up here, I wanted to ask you, I know chambers all over are always interested in the future. You mentioned chambers need to be futurist. How do you see the future chambers and their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Hope Kennedy 40:34
So I think that chambers are in a very unique position right now. Every every one is looking to someone to to help heal, fix, try and make better, whatever was broken a few years ago. So as chambers, I think this is our opportunity to really take the lead in our communities and to really elevate our organizations by coming out with a a plan of action for the future, taking that show to the commissioners, to the City Council, to your legislators and saying, This is what we’re going to do. How are you going to help us get there? Because we are the voice, we’re the leading voice of business and chambers, chambers have a very unique opportunity. And if we don’t seize them, your relevance within in your communities are probably questionable. Yeah. So, so that that’s my that’s my tidbit.

Brandon Burton 41:44
I think you’re absolutely right. But hope I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information. If any listeners wanted to reach out and connect with you about how you guys are doing things in the north Tampa Bay chamber, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect?

Connect with Hope Kennedy

Hope Kennedy 42:00
Absolutely, please, I’d love to talk chamber to anybody that will listen, my email address is hkennedy@northtampabaychamber.com case our URL couldn’t get any longer. And that’s the easiest way to connect with me, you can check out our chamber website or social media. I’m very easily Google trouble. You can find Google and YouTube, you can watch all the chamber roadshow videos you ever wanted to watch,

Brandon Burton 42:39
you know what I will. I’ll link to that in our show notes. And see those videos that are out there to live on forever. And I’ll get your contact information in the show notes as well so people can can find that and reach out and connect with you. But hope I appreciate you joining me today on Chamber Chat Podcast. And I think you guys are doing some wonderful things there and the North Tampa Bay area and I wish you guys Best of luck as chamber the year.

Hope Kennedy 43:07
Thank you so much, Brandon for having me. And we’ll we’ll circle back when we come home with the hardware.

Brandon Burton 43:12
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Zionsville Chamber-ACCE Chamber of the Year Finalist with Allyson Gutwein

Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Allyson Gutwein. 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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Introduction

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.

Voiceover Talent 0:14
And now your host. He recognizes great power when advocacy is done at a regional level. He’s my dad, Brandon Burton.

Brandon Burton 0:21
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it’s my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.

Our title sponsor is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Let’s hear from Matt Morrow President and CEO of the Springfield Area Chamber in Missouri to learn how the Holman Brothers provided value to his chamber.

Matt Morrow 0:45
Holman Brothers provide a great training for our sales team in terms of just outstanding sales techniques. But maybe even more importantly than that, they were able to provide us with a system a process that was repeatable and in that we’re able to see very clearly from one month to the next how the how the pipeline is doing, what prospects are in it, what kind of progress we’re making and what we can do to coach people to success.

Brandon Burton 1:07
You can learn more about Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions by visiting holmanbros.com.

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Guest Introduction

You’re joining us for our 2022 ACCE chamber the year finalist series and for this episode, I have Allison Goodwin with me. She is the executive director of the Zionsville Chamber of Commerce. Allison serves as the Zionsville Chamber of Commerce and Zionsville Rhys foundation as executive director in Zionsville, Indiana. With a background in small business development, retention, growth and attraction. She has dedicated more than two decades of her life to creating and supporting small businesses. Allison was named Businesswoman of the Year in 2009. Business of the Year in 2012, was an ACC II national events speaker in 2021. done virtually member of the IC e a Hoosier inner Leadership Academy class, and her chamber is a five time Excellence Award winner with the IC EA. Recently Allison was one of 34 individuals nationwide named to the sixth cohort of the US Chamber of Commerce business leads Foundation, the preeminent program for workforce development in the United States. Alison and her team have gained more members in the Zionsville Chamber of Commerce in 22 months than the previous decade combined. In that same time period they grew their social media reach from 250,000 to over 2 million in 2020 and 2.8 million in 2021. They know that visibility is key element to success as a business and as a chamber. The Zionsville chamber team was recently named and ACCE communications excellent Excellence Award winner for digital content in 2022. Allison is a graduate of Indiana University and has earned certificates and leadership and development grant writing and chamber management from ACC. She has served in the capacity of President for the Indiana University Alumni Club. Herman B will Wells Chapter board member for the Boone County racial diversity coalition board member for the wisdom Hospital Foundation President of Lebanon vitalization Inc. and TEDx Zionsville. Organizer. She is the proud wife to Andrew step mother of two mother and loved one and step grandmother to one. Allison, I’m excited to have you with me today on Chamber Chat Podcast. Congratulations for being selected as a chamber of the year finalist. Why don’t you take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you a little better.

Allyson Gutwein 4:29
Well, I don’t know who you just read that bio from but they sound like a pretty cool check. So I would love to get to know her. No, nice. Talking to all of you today. We’re excited to be a finalist, incredibly excited to be a finalist for the ACC. We’re in the small size chamber of the Year category. We truly are a small chamber here in Central Indiana. But we tell everyone we’re small but mighty and We do a lot of things with very few people by being exceptionally efficient. You know, I love to do a lot of things outside of work. One of the cool fun facts about me is that I am a sixth time Indiana State Fair floral design grand champion. What random stuff people do some people golf, some people go out and play tennis. I make wreaths. And that’s my hobby outside of work. So we all have fun.

Brandon Burton 5:29
Being competitive is in your blood. It’s in your nature.

Allyson Gutwein 5:33
Probably more than I like to admit. Yes.

Brandon Burton 5:36
That’s awesome. Well, it tell us a little bit more about the Zionsville chamber you mentioned, you guys are small and mighty. But give us an idea of what that size looks like of your staff and budget and scope of work that you guys are responsible for.

About the Zionsville Chamber

Allyson Gutwein 5:51
So we are just north of Indianapolis about 20 miles. And if you are looking at kind of Indianapolis as the face of a clock, we’re at about 10 o’clock. So kind of gives you an idea. And you know, we are truly a charming small town, our town looks like it was pulled straight out of a Hallmark movie, and is the top tourist destination in our county, we have a lovely Main Street brick street that really draws a lot of tourism. So our chamber really has some interesting dynamics because that brick Main Street doesn’t have any chain restaurants doesn’t have any chain stores. So we really have the core of our chamber as small business. So our focus for many years has been on what can we do in order to accelerate and advance many, excuse me, many of these small businesses in our area. Because we have really no corporate headquarters for many businesses, we have a couple kind of on the outskirts of our area. But we really are a small business focused chamber. And we love that and you know, the businesses there are larger, understand that this chamber really has this really unique area because of what Zionsville is, it used to be called the village of Zionsville. So it does have that kind of quaint village II feel. And as it has grown, it really has wanted, you know, the people who’ve lived here, we’ve been a chamber for 61 years, we celebrated our Diamond Jubilee last year. And people have really wanted to kind of keep that quaintness as it has grown. And for many years, people have wanted to really make sure that it’s different and unique and charming. And that’s what one thing that really draws people to us here in Central Indiana, but also makes our chamber vastly different than many others. So some of the challenges we experience is, as a small town, where a small chamber doing a lot with what we have as a staff of three, our town really doesn’t have any public transportation outside of a Boone County Senior Services, which allows seniors and some other folks to get around. So we have some workforce challenges trying to, you know, and attract people and help retain folks in the service sector. So we don’t have a lot of workforce housing. So there’s some challenges in our area that we experienced that I’m sure many other many other areas in the country do as well. But we’ve done our best to work through them and find unique and innovative ways in order to overcome those, or at least address them and say, Hey, this is a long term challenge. We know that what can we do in order to kind of look at the long game. And part of that is we created a foundation for our chamber. And I know many chambers are kind of going to this model and looking to see how they can utilize a 501 C three arm in conjunction with their traditional chamber and for us, we just got that paperwork as of last October. So we’re really excel excited. Yeah, thanks to be able to do that. But now it’s standing that up. What does it mean to address kind of challenges that are long term and we use a golf reference that the Chamber itself has kind of a heads down what’s going on today? It’s the short game, but the 501 C three is kind of a long game. And what are we doing to kind of look at the overall picture of how our community is changing so that we can best utilize our C three arm, which has three tenants. One is environmental stewardship. One is D and AI and the other is workforce and workforce initiatives through leadership and development. So what are we doing within our community in order to make sure that not only is our chamber looking to take care of things today, but looking to take care of things tomorrow,

Brandon Burton 10:26
right. Now that that definitely gives us a good a good scope. And for anybody who’s read Dave Atkinson’s book, horseshoes versus chests will understand the importance of having that foundation that see three arm of your chamber especially looking forward as chambers look into the future. So for this, for our discussion today, we’re going to focus primarily on the programs you guys submitted on your chamber the your application. So I’m excited to get into those programs learn more about how you guys are making an impact and influencing the community or the village Zionsville. As soon as we get back from this quick break.

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All right, Allison, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’ll be highlighting the two programs that you guys submitted on your chamber the year application. Why don’t you take us through the two programs just at a high level and then we’ll circle back in a little more detail on each of those?

Topic-Chamber of the Year Application Programs

Allyson Gutwein 14:27
Sure. So our first program was on micro economic development around small businesses and what are we doing to really look at our our membership very holistically and say, What are we doing to develop this group of businesses that are often easily overlooked? So micro businesses, as deemed by the SBA? Are those with 12 or fewer employees? And many of the businesses that we have in our membership are much smaller even than that Um, so many of you are probably familiar with kind of the standard of SBA as being 500 or smaller as a small business, which, for many people, they look at that and they’re like, that’s huge, especially in comparison to, you know, many businesses that have zero employees are maybe just one or two. So we’ve really taken a look at what we can do in our community to attract and retain those businesses, because many of them are startups that grow into something even greater. And we’re excited to see how that really works and develops as we do more and more of it. But the programs that we’ve put in place for our little staff of three have done a great job of attracting new members. So far, our home based business membership level is now our second highest category of membership in our in our chamber. We just started it two years ago.

Brandon Burton 15:59
Wow. That is awesome. Yeah, that’s, that’s one. What’s What’s the other program you guys submitted?

Allyson Gutwein 16:07
Sure. The second was focusing on a social media and social media series that we started, which was called working for you. So working for you, we literally went and worked alongside our businesses. And we started this before the pandemic, but we really embraced it and leaned in during 2020 and 2021. This business has recovered, wanting to show people, this is what these businesses do in our area. So it’s not just, you know, maybe I want to work in this area. Well, now they know what this business actually does. Or they say, Gosh, I could teach a music class or, you know what, I’ve always been interested in working with equine therapy, I think I could go and volunteer there. So we worked alongside businesses to showcase really what they did, and have continued this as a long term kind of campaign and program in our membership in order to highlight more of our members. But that is one part of our larger social media experience that we have for our members. And we found that that made a lot of sense as a low barrier, especially cost wise low barrier to entry. And great way to meet people right where they are, you don’t have to go out and find a new audience. And you don’t have to even bring them to your website. A lot of times they’ll do that on their own. But if you’re reaching them on social media, and they’re already on Tik Tok, they’re already on Facebook, they’re already on Instagram, and you’re sharing your information. They’re really excited to see that information of faces of their neighbors and friends and business owners that they know, how are we doing the best job of getting that information out about our members, and making sure that it did its job which during 2020 and 2021, was give our members visibility?

Brandon Burton 18:05
Right. So let’s let’s focus a little more on that on the working for you program dive in a little bit deeper on that. So how do you as you implement a new program within your existing social media strategy? How did that fit? As far as content creation calendar wise? And what platform you mentioned different platforms, but sure, I’m curious which ones you’re on and how you’ve grown that social media presence? Sure.

Allyson Gutwein 18:33
So many people who are familiar with social media, Facebook is your largest audience. And we really took to social media. In 2020, whenever we realized folks needed to be seen, they needed to know exactly where, you know. And I kind of say there’s two, there’s two sides to this. There’s kind of the forward facing, which are the customers of the businesses. So we were reaching the customers of the businesses. And then there’s kind of the back side, which are the your Chamber members that you’re trying to help. And there’s often many of our posts, many of our videos were meant to help both but in different ways, right? You’re building loyalty whenever you’re going to a business and you’re sharing their information whenever you’re able to talk about exactly what they do. But all those people in the front side are now seeing it going oh, how can I interact with that business? So you’ve kind of got two two pieces to the same pie that you have to be able to do a good job with your social media having both working hand in hand right? So whenever we started our working for you series, it was really meant to be let’s go inside businesses that people can’t go inside every day. Let’s go inside a plant where I pack beans and I have to wear a hairnet let’s go inside I’m mourning dove equine therapy where I’m mucking stalls. wasn’t talking about their horses, then it became let’s go up inside a church that’s being remediated for over 1000 bats. And I was standing knee deep in bat guano. Because no one had known that there had been bats in their attic for almost 40 years, until the pandemic caused, you know, people to be out of buildings. And then they were starting to see things because people weren’t cleaning the building, as often, they were starting to see that there were probably rodents around, you know, they’re small, mammal rodents. And so, you’ve got, you’ve got evidence now, oh, we needed to get this taken care of. So I went up inside a church, beautiful, historic structure, they were absolutely fantastic people to let us watch this process. But it helped me showcase a business that most people don’t see from the inside out. Most people don’t see what it looks like to remediate, you know, slang types of urine from that. In the midst of this talking about a chamber member, and you know, people want to watch. And that’s what made

Brandon Burton 21:18
me that type of content just draws people in, right?

Allyson Gutwein 21:22
Right, whenever I have a GoPro on, I have a handful of bat guano. And I’m like, it looks like glitter, because it’s all these bug shells that are shiny people are like, show me more. You know, it’s fascinating, and I am not doing anything that any of my members don’t do as a daily part of their business. But what can we do to showcase that? What can we do to say, this might be a career path for you, if you find this interesting, you know, contact these folks for a job, or watch your chamber, because this is what’s happening whenever you need to call these folks, they’re doing a good job of being cognizant of when you can even move the bats out because of breeding season. And, you know, they have to make sure that the bats are taken out in a certain ways to not harm them, because they’re a protected species here in Indiana. So you’ve got all these components that are important that these folks are doing really, really well as part of their daily job. What can we do to showcase that, and it becomes really interesting social media. Now, not every day, am I in McLaren Senna, you know, a hazmat suit, and a respirator. But, you know, there’s so many things that we can show people about our businesses that make interesting content. And that content, where we really put the member out there, as the star of our story becomes why people want to engage, engage with us, as a chamber engage with our members, it really made our chamber kind of rocket to the top of what we could do in social media very, very quickly. And we took that reach, with consistent posting with interesting content with video use, from 250,000 in 2019, to over 2 million in 2020, like you said, and 2.8 million last year. So you know, it’s, it’s all about if there’s anything that people learn about social media, give people content that they want to see, it doesn’t always have to be curated, it doesn’t always have to be those rounded corners, where it’s, you know, perfect. Whenever it goes out. It can be just really interesting content, show people what your members are doing, and people engage. Right.

Brandon Burton 23:51
And I think that often gets over thought when you as for chambers, putting out social media content, especially in the form of video where they feel like it needs to be perfected needs to look right. But, you know, social media gives us so much leniency as far as the content going out there. And really, people aren’t spending hours on that content necessarily. Either they’re scrolling through their feed. So if it gets if it catches their attention and tells a story of a member or something impactful that you’re doing in the community, and getting a portion of that attention, then you win, you know, that’s that’s the goal. And you don’t need to spend all the money and all the time and everything doing all the editing and making it just perfect. Just do it. Get started. It’ll get better as you go and get more experienced, but just get started. Yeah, and we

Allyson Gutwein 24:37
do have a video company that we employ to do some of our videos, but we also do a lot of our videos in house. But you know, the the thing is, the generations coming up, they see things that are a little too perfect, a little too curious, almost disingenuous. So you know Most of what they’re seeing on Instagram, it might be a little edited. But it is certainly not content that someone has always gone through a photo editing program. Not always, they just want to see. That’s right. They always want to see good content. So give your audience good content that they want to see and engage with. And they will engage.

Brandon Burton 25:20
Yeah, so which platforms are you guys on with social media?

Allyson Gutwein 25:24
So we primarily focus on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. You know, for a chamber of our size, there’s always so many directions to be pulled. You know, we have done a few things on tick tock, mainly ribbon cuttings, just trying to put something out there in that platform. But Twitter is kind of its own animal in and of itself, it takes so much time to constantly update, we just don’t have the bandwidth available currently in order to be able to do that one well, so rather than not doing it, well, we would rather step back until we have the chance to really engage more on that platform specifically. So we’ve focused on those three, and those three have done a lot for our visibility for our members and for our chamber.

Brandon Burton 26:11
That’s great. Yeah. Well, let’s shift gears a little bit over to the micro economic development. And this intrigues me I just, so this may go a little bit off topic, but I just actually posted a blog post yesterday, talking about how entrepreneurship tends to attract diversity. So as chambers are after, you know, diversity, equity inclusion, you know, putting attention into that area, are we paying attention to the diversity that entrepreneurship brings and provides. So as you focus on these micro businesses, 12 or less, a lot of these are entrepreneurs, people that are putting it on the line to get started and joke about sometimes these entrepreneurs are unemployable in other places, but they go out and hang their own shingle because they need to make a living, or maybe they’ve got a great idea, or there’s a lot of different reasons why. But I’d love to learn more about the the approach that you guys are taking to help, you know, shine a light on these micro businesses and economic development.

Allyson Gutwein 27:16
Well, and that’s an area where I think it is it’s very easy to kind of go after some of the larger marbles in the bag, right. And I think a lot of times, these small businesses are easy to say, oh, gosh, it’s, it’s a lot of work to deal with them. But we have a lot of programs already in place that we’re using to help all of our members, but it’s really quite easy to mix them in with what we do, we have a few programs that we have developed specifically for them. And that also, they’re they’re very complementary to the rest of what we’re offering to our members. So they made a lot of sense to just kind of bulk up our portfolio overall. So we were really excited whenever we first saw our members starting to come in that were home based businesses. So home based business for us is someone who might work from home, they might have this as a side hustle, they might have a business, that’s a full time gig and those go everywhere from financial services to p are to people who are doing jewelry making. So we have a lot of people in this, you know, this sphere that we find encompass a lot of different elements that we didn’t have as a part of our membership. And you’re right, that diversity piece really does allow us to even encourage our membership to diversify pipelines of suppliers, through some of the small businesses that we’re now attracting because of whom, you know, we’re now offering services for that maybe they aren’t able to find elsewhere. So some of the statistics, you know, in the US, the SBA in 2021, said there were 32 point 5 million small businesses in the US, which accounts for 99.9% of all businesses. That’s a lot.

That’s almost everybody. So again, that’s 500 or fewer employees. So that’s quite a few businesses that many micro businesses would say, well, they’re not small, well, the SBA, that is their standard, but then 81% of those of that 32 point 5 million actually have no employees. So I mean, you’re looking at a giant percentage of our small businesses in the US that are exceptionally small. And, you know, the SBA says that micro businesses are 12 or under so I mean, that percentage even grows whenever you’re taking into account those that do have some employees but are still 12 or fewer. But small businesses have created 65.1% of the new job growth since 2000. So as we look at Sectors of growth, and to your point, what were claimed it kind of look at for the the growth of chambers, what are we doing to make sure that these businesses are a part of our chamber? are talking to our other members are feeling supported? are being utilized locally? For many you have a grocery store chain? What are you doing to connect some of those micro businesses, with your grocery shops? What are you’re doing to connect your brick and mortars with some folks that could be local wholesalers mean, now you’re talking about all these individual components that come into it, that’s more environmentally sustainable than having to ship something halfway across the country that’s more environmentally sustainable is to be able to reduce the amount of packaging because they don’t have to use packaging in order to potentially deliver something. So there’s a lot of pieces that feed into this. But if we’re doing a really exceptional job as a chamber, to make connections, we’re able to help a lot of different aspects of business be created. And that’s exciting to see and exciting to be a part of. But for us, it also means that we’re attracting more people now, because we have options, and they’re seeing, hey, my size of business is being supported, I have a place at that table. And we want to make sure that whenever they come into this area, you know, other people are telling that story for us who are also small businesses, whether they’re a tech startup, or someone who’s you know, a mom, and maybe with a side hustle of making jewelry, who knows what these businesses are going to turn into, but we’re going to support them today. So whenever we need to say, hey, we’ve got maybe a new brick and mortar that is opening, who’s interested in going in, we already have a developed pool of candidates that we have worked with, to plug into those openings. So we never really have a gap on our main street, really here in town. Businesses fill those spaces quickly, because we have a curated pool of people we’ve worked with,

Brandon Burton 32:25
that’s awesome. And I can get fired up on this topic. Because this is something I’m passionate about is the influence and the role that a chamber should have with these small and micro businesses in their community. But often what I see is these, you’d mentioned these home based businesses. You know, it’s easy when you see a new business, open their doors, you know, they hang a new sign, and you can approach them about membership. And you know, let them know about the value proposition of your chamber. How do you go about finding some of these home based businesses and expressing the value? And once you get their attention, it’s easy to express the value of the chamber, but how do you get their attention initially?

Allyson Gutwein 33:03
To be very fair, a lot of them find us. And that goes back to our social media reach. Whenever we have a social media reach where people are seeing that we’re sharing information about members and our members are visible, that what we’re doing as a chamber for those members as visible, they find us. So yes, have we gone out and actively sought out? Some businesses? Most certainly, are we finding just as many businesses that are finding us? Yes. So one of the ways that we actually connect many of our home based businesses is through something called micro groups. So think of as a distillation of our membership down into individual components where if you are a real estate agent, you’re going to have different needs different concerns than those that own a restaurant. So what are we doing in order to address those needs more directly and more specifically, and we have a home based business micro group. So peers can really share information share tricks that they have learned in order to make their business more visible, in, in encourage one another through what has worked for them. We actually learn a lot from these micro groups because they’re able to really say, Okay, this is what’s going on in our area. What can you do to support us here and we’re like, man, we wouldn’t have known that. Had we not listened to our micro group, listen to our members. So these meetings go on in these individual kind of little groups, once a quarter. For us, they’re really, not only are they the facilitation of peer to peer communication, they give us ideas for programming for the future. And that is a really important for member loyalty and member retention.

Brandon Burton 34:59
Yeah, And so this next question, I think you’ve addressed it throughout our discussion, but I’ll ask it formerly and maybe have you put it in a nutshell for us a little summary, but how do you see the role of the Zionsville? chamber there within your community?

Allyson Gutwein 35:15
Sure. So we really are a conduit of information and a facilitator for visibility. So for many of our members, we are not only the source of information on how to be able to grow a business, but how do you make your your business seen and heard, once it’s up and running, or once you’re getting it there? What do you do in order to create that kind of solid foundation for business creation of any size. So we truly are meeting with members that run the gambit of large national corporations that are interested in coming into the area to someone who, their sole proprietor. And that’s exciting to see that we’re we as a small chamber are able to facilitate both of those conversations effectively in order to make our membership robust, and unique.

Brandon Burton 36:11
That’s awesome. So and I think that shows with as you’ve been going through these programs on your application of that, that role that you guys have in your community, but I like asking everyone that I have on the show, for any tips or strategies that you might have for a chamber champion listening who would like to take their chamber up to the next level? What would you suggest?

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Allyson Gutwein 36:36
If you haven’t yet embraced the small businesses in your community, and those micro businesses do it, make sure that those those businesses feel as though they have as much place at the Chamber table as any of the other larger businesses. And as time goes on, you’re going to find that those people are some of your loudest voices supporting your chamber, because they feel included, they feel like they have a part of something larger than maybe they have ever felt that they’ve had a part of in the past. Many think gone are the days of, you know, chambers, just focusing on on large businesses, we have to make sure that if entrepreneurs are truly bringing 65.1% of the growth since 2000, what are we doing to be the voice to help them have a louder voice? So we’re the megaphone. We’re the people who are providing that information. And if we’re doing it, well, those folks are going to turn around and be our champions, too.

Brandon Burton 37:47
Yes, that’s what I was gonna come back to is oftentimes those large businesses, or maybe what funds a chamber and a lot of ways. But by being able to focus on those small and micro businesses, those are the ones that it’s kind of a paradox, right, because they tend to be the ones that need the most from the chamber, but can afford to pay the least in as far as their membership levels go. But as they see that impact that you can have on their business, they become some of your biggest advocates and best word of mouth and testimonials, you know, throughout the community to attract more business onto the mission of your chamber. So, Abdullah. So, Allison, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Allyson Gutwein 38:34
Sure. I think for a lot of folks, you know, it’s, it’s kind of a interesting time where they see kind of gone are the days of many people becoming joiners, right, everyone joining a chamber because it was just something you did for the community, you have to show value, you have to show that there’s something there as a real interest to their business, everyone’s busy. And if you can show that there’s something in your chamber that is going to be worth their time and their money, you’re going to be a group that people still want to work with. chambers are vitally important to being liaisons for advocacy, and, you know, information as a whole. But people are saying, well, I can find that elsewhere, not in the same way that you can through a chamber not in the way that you can through networking with your peers, not in the same way that we can help facilitate. And if we can show that value, and long term legacy of, hey, there’s real power in having a singular voice. Whenever you’re trying to advocate for something that will help our members that and telling that story. How do we tell that story going forward? Many of you know our local newspaper that served just our area closed down during the pandemic. So you That goes back to what are we? Where are we reaching our audience? And if that’s on social media, are we telling our story effectively for our members and for our chamber in order to make sure that people are seeing us as a place of value?

Brandon Burton 40:14
Yeah, I like that. I actually, I like to help chambers get started with their own podcast. And one of the things I’ll ask is what void in your community could your podcasts fill. So when you talk about local newspapers, shutting down or, or drastically cutting back, there’s voids all over the community, as far as storytelling and information sharing goes, whether you’re addressing that through social media, or through my my choice of platforms of a podcast, but there’s ways to reach members in your community and fill those voids. And and you’re absolutely right, that Gone are the days of just people joining you need to show the value and, and a reason to be a part of your chamber. So I appreciate that. And Alison, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information with listeners that may want to reach out and connect and learn more about how you’re doing things in Zionsville. And, and to be coached on how to get their social media over to millions. What would be the best way for him to reach out and connect,

Connect with Allyson Gutwein

Allyson Gutwein 41:15
always happy to help because, in fact, we have something coming up soon called Social Media summer school. And you know, we’ve been encouraging even our peer chambers to come join us we want to help. We’ve been able to have amazing amounts of success for a very small chamber, we have 500 members, you know, we we have a small budget, in fact, I’m sure I am sure our full budget are smaller than some of the marketing budgets for our large share chambers and in the US, and that’s kind of nuts. You know, we we can show we have data to show that we outpaced chambers that are many times our size. And that’s truly through our visibility, consistency, and what we post, people want to see interesting content. That’s something that we can show people how to do so please reach out to me, my phone number is 317-873-3836 where you can reach out to me through my email, agutwein@zionsvillechamber.org. You can also find us on please follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. So Facebook is zville chamber and the rest are Zionsville chamber. So we would love to have you follow our content and ask any questions. Sometimes you may say well, why did you post that? Or tell me why you’re posting two or three times in one day? Well, I’ll give you an answer.

Brandon Burton 42:56
Yeah, no, I like that. I appreciate you being generous with the fielding those questions as well happy to do it. I’ll get your contact information in our show notes for this episode. And I’ll link to the your social media pages as well. So everybody can hop on and follow and take these tutorials from what designs they’ll chambers doing with their social media accounts. So

Allyson Gutwein 43:17
they’re also one ACC EADS website to

Brandon Burton 43:21
There you go. Yeah. I appreciate you joining us today on Chamber Chat Podcast and you provided a lot of value and great example, as you guys are chosen as a chamber, the year finalists are setting the bar and doing great work. So I appreciate you coming on and sharing some of that with us.

Allyson Gutwein 43:39
Thank you so much for having us today.

Brandon Burton 43:42
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