Category: Strategic Planning

Stop the Non-Profit Board Blame Game with Hardy Smith

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Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Hardy Smith. 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
Now your host he tries to meditate, meditate daily. He’s my dad, Brandon Burton.

Brandon Burton 0:19
Hello Chamber Champions. You’re joining us on Chamber Chat Podcast where I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.

Our title sponsor is home and 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 0:45
One of the key benefits that we’ve realized from Holman Brothers actually happened many years after we started using them. We just completed our new strategic plan and understanding those subtle differences between transactional benefits and transformational benefits. The companies that knew what they expect has been a key part in our strategic plan. And we really want to thank Holman Brothers for that.

Brandon Burton 1:07
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Guest Introduction

Our guest for this episode is Hardy Smith. Hardy is a consultant and speaker who works with leaders who want to stop frustration with their volunteer boards. Through board retreats workshops, keynotes, and planning sessions Hardy provides solutions to board engagement challenges. Hardy’s extensive experience with diverse organizations provides the basis for his comprehensive book stop the nonprofit board blame game. His result oriented approach and ability to solve complex problems were developed during his longtime career in the high performance world of NASCAR racing. That experience included strategic planning for some of the country’s largest sports and entertainment facilities and spectator events. Hardy has also had more than a decade of senior leadership experience with local government which further refined his skills in improving organizational performance. Hardy has a wide range of personal and professional involvement with nonprofits, associations, chambers of commerce, and community groups nationwide. He has held numerous local, state and national volunteer leadership positions that have further contributed to his in depth understanding of nonprofit needs. Hart is a member of the National Speakers Association, Association of Fundraising Professionals BoardSource, Florida Society of Association Executives, ASAP and ACC. Hardy is also a faculty member of the US Chamber of Commerce Institute for organization management. Hardy, I feel blessed to have you with me today on Chamber Chat Podcast, I’d love for you to take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that are listening and share something else interesting about yourself so you can get to know you a little better.

Hardy Smith 2:58
Brandon, thank you so very much for having me on the chamber podcast today. And in the opportunity to visit with your Chamber Champions and really like chamber Tammy, what a label to assign just a tremendous group of people that all all too often are highly stressed, overworked, undervalued, and it kind of a bless their heart kind of a world. And hopefully we’ll have some, some help today to help alleviate some of those challenges.

Brandon Burton 3:37
That’s right. I believe we will, I mean, as I had the opportunity to read through so I’ll introduce may be a little premature, but we’re going to focus our topic today on Hardy’s new book, Stop the Nonprofit Board Blame Game. And I really do think after having the opportunity to read through the book, this is a great resource it’s going to help alleviate some of those sources of frustration. So we’ll get into that in just a minute. But Hardy Why don’t you take a little bit of time to tell us a little bit more about your your efforts especially in working with Chambers as it comes to you know, consulting and board retreats and things like that just so I think everybody in chamber world is familiar with your name at least I mean, they they see on social media, whatnot. But just give us a little snapshot of what you offer for chambers, your consultant work.

About Hardy Smith

Hardy Smith 4:30
Well thank you, Brandon, in in my production and of course, understanding Lear is a longtime personal and professional background and relationships and engagements with chamber groups all across the country. And I really, really appreciate those opportunities. When you know after a while and you know when you’re in this in this working with chambers, again, it’s very evident that the There’s a tremendous challenge their challenge. And it’s it’s the the frustration associated with working with boards who are either not engaged enough or perhaps in too many cases engaged too much, right? Well, my career in NASCAR racing was the head of a problem solver. My task was to identify problems really, before they existed and come up with the solutions to make sure the problems didn’t happen. Or if a problem did happen, make darn well sure I came up with a solution, it was gonna get the fix. So as I work with, with chambers across the country, and seeing the situation with with boards, the disengagement over engagement, seeing the the impact, emotional, physical, mental impact that it’s having on chamber professionals, and also the impact of the lack of productivity of chambers being able to meet the true potential that they have in their given community. And so that’s, for me, that’s a problem that needs a solution. And I see, you know, in the sector, there’s a whole lot of advice. There’s a whole lot of training sessions, and there’s a whole lot of consultants, and there’s a whole lot of speakers, and a whole lot of books and articles and blogs and podcasts that talk about this topic. But what’s happening, the problem still there. So in my kind of NASCAR mentality of, you know, taking the car apart at the end of a race, not by not bolt by bolt, and then putting it all back together again, to try to figure out why in the world did the car do what it did on that particular event? That was that was my mindset, and to look for solution, so to to get solutions that are going to be implementable and workable. Um, what I did differently, to help the sector and our nonprofit, and chamber professionals, Brandon is I reached out to board members. So not from a staff perspective, the book represents the board member perspective of, wow, why don’t you do what you’re supposed to do? And the answers they shared with me are extremely revealing. And those answers and responses lead to solutions that matched up and of course, the how tos for implementing the solutions matched up with these Org members themselves shared with me of why the good members become disengaged, why members don’t do what they’re supposed to do. And also very revealing as far as Wow, chamber professionals, have you considered you might be contributing to the problems that you’re having with board members. Problem contributor. So the book gets into that.

Brandon Burton 8:19
That’s absolutely right. And I look forward to diving a little deeper into your book as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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Topic-Stop the Non-Profit Board Blame Game

All right, Hardy, we’re back. And as you were, you’d mentioned right before our break about how you had reached out to nonprofit board members and got their perspective. And I love that you went out and did that, because it really does. It brings a different perspective to the whole approach. And as I was reading through the book, and preparing for this discussion with you, the thought occurred to me that and I would love to do a poll myself amongst chamber executives, to see how many chamber executives had experience working with the board before they started working the chamber. And if you look at that, and I’m going to guess there’s going to be some that had some experience, maybe they served on a board, you know, with another organization, but as far as being the executive director, and in that role, I think your book, really, it becomes kind of a manual to say, here’s how you manage a board, here’s the things you need to look for. But I like the you you went to these board members with a survey? I’m curious to hear from your perspective, what are some of the more revealing responses that you got as a result of that survey that?

Hardy Smith 11:56
Well, one of the one of the key things and anyone who’s involved in a long time relationship with another individual, it could be personal, like it’d be business understands that the number one key is effective communication. And so underlying, use bold red, and for the word effective. So it’s not just communication. So what the board members in the survey shared with me that communication related issues, poor communication, communication, that’s not timely, in a way that they’re left surprised by a particular issue. In some cases, communication doesn’t happen at all. So a whole lot of issues surrounding communication, is the number one contributor to board disengagement. Or, again, in a way, that’s not appropriate. And to go a little bit deeper there, if you’d like, you know, when does, when does effective communication begin? Well, it begins in the recruitment process. And so why the occasion is being shared with a prospective board member of what the expectations are, and what’s the most impart of effective communication? Is being a good listener? Yeah. So when you’re having the conversation with your board prospects prospect? Are you listening to see if they’re understanding the expectations? And are you listening not for what you want to hear, but for what you need to hear? And that’s their acceptance of fulfilling the expectations at hand. So that’s, that’s one issue. Another issue is simply that, you know, for our Chamber Champions on the podcast today, I just asked you to visualize your boardroom and look at all the faces around the board table. And for every single individual person, you’ve got every single individual represents a different communication style, a different communication preference. Every single individual has a personal preference for how they want to receive information, and also how they digest it or process that so let me explain real quickly. You’re here for the board meetings. I’m i It’s unfortunate that so many board excuse me, chamber execs. I’ve shared with me, Brandon about just oh my gosh, I’ve got a board meeting next week and I’m already in a panic. I’m losing sleep on this like a week ahead. And is it they’re the same, they’re just in a hot mess a week after. So it’s like two weeks a time, they will last out of a four week month. They’re just mentally and emotionally destroyed because of preparing for the board meetings. So not a great room, get the chambers and they’re not going to be read, but they still have to, they feel obligated to prepare the reports. So instead of going through this upside down exercise of preparing information that no one is going to pay attention to, how about maybe asking your individual board members how they prefer to receive the information. And they have multiple communication platforms, some may want a full on written report with all kinds of data and pictures and charts. And okay, some may want an executive summary, some may just want a tweet, you know, is an exaggeration, but you’ve got to understand the individual communication preferences, timing, you know, if you want someone to really read your your reports, you know, having it at the board seat for the board meeting, not in advance, so a busy board member has a chance to actually review it in advance, you know, you’re just you’re just shooting yourself in the foot. So communication issues are huge, huge. As far as creating dysfunctional relationships,

Brandon Burton 16:32
um, from what I can tell, you know, through the the communication, that the how and when of communication to make it effective, it’s also critical to be able to help set expectations. So when you’re talking about the chamber executive prepares the report, they have an expectation of, I’m preparing this, I would like for my board to read it, or at least look at it and give it to pay some attention. So through the communication is the opportunity to, to put forth some of those expectations as well. But I know the expectations go both ways, right, as we read in the book.

Hardy Smith 17:10
Absolutely. And, and so you, you know, and this is an very important part. You just can’t assume anything. And that’s where I think so many chamber professionals are champions, unfortunately get themselves into trouble. There’s a whole lot of assuming, and so far is as far as expectations go. Okay, well, let’s the chamber is the chamber board, and everyone just knows what’s expected? Well, you know, there’s, there’s your expectations as the chamber executive, and probably about 100% of the time, the individual board members individually and collectively have expectations. So is there any conversation happening at all, about merging the two sets of expectations or three sets? So yours? There’s individually and there’s as collectively? So that’s so critically important? You know, if, if, in again, in a relationship, are you asking, are you telling and I and I, I know from my 48 year marriage with de my wife, Debbie, and that that, you know, there’s a big difference between asking and telling, I’ve learned to finally ask me a while to get it. But I finally learned to ask so. So the point here is, is you can’t walk into a boardroom and say, here’s what I or the chamber needs for you to do. You’ve got to ask, here’s what we would like for you to consider. Are you willing to take on this task? And then even from even from a planning session, you know, you jumping ahead just a little bit, maybe, but in planning sessions, quite often, chambers and for a lot of reasons, decide not to bring in someone, perhaps, like URI is outside facilitators to facilitate a strategic plan. Development. Now, the Chamber executive, you know, gets their their favorite drink of choice, and spends a few hours writing up the plan presents the plan. If the board meeting the board, of course, passes the plan, no discussion, and there you go. And then the board executive is so frustrated, because no action is being taken on the plan. Well, why is that and it gets into expectations, and being having clarity around expectations, and again, the communication aspect. One of my great friends, who who I quoted a couple of times in the book is Dr. Jack Hawkins, who is the Chance to our toy University in Alabama. And he said Hardy, if they help bake the cake, they own the cake. So when you have a strategic planning session, you’ve got an opportunity where the board is actually involved, then they have a chance to evaluate our identify goals, objectives, the How to actions, expectations, their role and the expectations and implementing, you know, the activities at hand, and deciding what they’re going to do and what they’re not going to do. So the board role might be hands on personal engagement. They’re actually involved in implementation, or their role could be supporting the implementation of a strategic plan by staff. But you get clarity. And then so you’ve got a merging of bought and accept a sense of the direction of for expectations. Does that make sense?

Brandon Burton 21:09
It absolutely does, it makes a ton of sense. And as you started touching on the strategic planning and helping these board members to make the cake, as you say, it leads me to one of the other points I wanted to make sure that we could discuss it really stood out to me the chapter about creating a collaborative board. And there was a line specifically that talked about how the Board should be able to take ownership of a specific problem in their, their organization, their community, whatever it may be, and take ownership as they’re the ones who are tasked to solve that problem. You might speak in more to that and creating that collaborative environment.

Hardy Smith 21:51
Well, yes, what the one of the things that I’ve discovered just over time, is, is rather than really talk about strategic, okay, we’re going to have a strategic planning activity, you know, could be a process or couldn’t be an activity, there’s a little bit of a difference there. But I’ve started using the terminology, Brandon critical conversation. So the things that they need to talk about, everyone knows they should be talked about and addressed. And resolved is the important situation, rather than not addressing them at all, to be able to have a critical conversation. I use in the book, a fantastic lesson that I in case study I picked up from the book, creativity, Inc. Now, I know that one of your recent guests on the on the podcast was Pat Patrick. And he talked about how he and my friend Dave Kilby really are great readers and are always just dropping in these books. I’m just wanting to kind of help kind of support that. So creativity, Inc, by Ed Catmull. Now, creativity, Inc, is about the success of Pixar. And Ed Catmull was or still is, the leader of Pixar helped create Pixar. And he’s also now got a lead dual role with Disney Animation. Bottom line here is he says the secret sauce, I used to just think that Pixar was okay, they did Toy Story and a bunch of other cool movies that are that are great to watch and a lot of fun, right? But Pixar animation is way more than just that the the movies are just as kind of a side hustle. But what ad was able to do when he saw such dysfunction, because among the creative, so just substitute the word creatives for board members, his creatives, the producers, the writers, the Imagineers, the graphic artists, the cartoonist, all of those individuals, the technical people, you know, highly protective of turf, didn’t like change, couldn’t get a just couldn’t come together to agree on a price. So as a result, movies were just financial bust because they were spending millions and millions and millions of dollars way over budget taking way too much time to get done. So the fix was to create a collaborative culture. And so that everyone figure it out if they helped each other and solve each other’s problems. They can actually get something done. It’d be much more successful doing that. Now, what are some of the secret nuggets that that creativity by Ed Catmull shared? He said the secret to all that You have to have a safe place. So picture your board boardroom. Is your board room a safe place? Do new board members feel like? It’s okay to ask a question. Is it okay to challenge it? Do all board members feel safe and comfortable in challenging a concept? Maybe there’s a new program you want to offer? Maybe there’s a new expense to be considered. Maybe there’s a staff change? You know, whatever it is, do your board members feel comfortable in participating and actively and openly engaged meeting? Do your board meetings matter? And just let that sink in? Do your board meetings? Are they do they start at a time certain and ended a time certain? And to hack with any kind of robust conversation or engagement? Nope, it’s item 1-234-567-8910. And we’re done. See you next time. Are your board meetings, think about your who you own your board, typically, the most active and most engaged and most influential leaders in a community? Right? I mean, that’s kind of the the blueprint that I see that every single chamber wants?

Well, probably every single one of your board members has how many other activities they could have on their calendar, at the same time of your regular board meeting many probably blocks, right? Well, they’re making a choice, they’re making a choice? are they choosing to come prepared to your board meeting? Or are they looking forward to coming to your board meeting, because they know the board meeting itself is going to be stimulating the Listen, this is so critical. Chamber Champions, just just pay attention right now, go old school, get a pen and write this down on a piece of paper for having, say, chamber board members or volunteers, you’ve got to understand that volunteers get involved. Because they want to have an impact. They want to make a difference, it doesn’t matter if it’s a chamber board. Or if it’s a local nonprofit, dealing with a cause it’s special to them. Let me repeat that board members sign up, say yes to being recruited to serve on your board, because they feel like they’re gonna have a chance to make a difference and have an impact underscored that again. So if they’re coming to meetings, and they don’t think that’s gonna happen, you know, they have zero expectation for their fact is coming in, they’re wasting their time, and you want to get a disengaged board member, just show them that their time at a board meeting is wasted. That’s that I mean, that’s just like a circle with a big X right through the middle of it. You know, don’t waste time. So make your meetings matter we reorganize, reorganize your agenda. If you need to allow an extra extra few minutes to allow for discussion, allow for discussion. Don’t worry about meetings, wanting to hurry up and get back to work or excuse me, board members wanting to hurry up and get back to work. If the meeting is worth their time. If they feel like their opinion. They have a chance to share their opinion, get their questions answered. And it’s all their opinion is being considered. It might not be approved or agreed upon, but it’s being considered. They feel like and they feel like they’re having an impact. It will be worth time to stay. And you know what, it will be worth their time to come a little bit early. So they’re not just sliding in at the last minute. It 30 seconds before the start of the meeting. It might come a little early for Hey, how about an extra cup of coffee? And oh, by the way, what happens if board meetings, board members random are coming a little bit early, before meeting staying a little bit after a meeting is over? What important thing happens? What happens?

Brandon Burton 29:31
You build more of a team unity amongst the board?

Hardy Smith 29:35
Absolutely. There’s time for social interaction. And the board they may all know each other then they all do business with each other. Their their their kids all go to school they all play on the same team have the same teachers worship in the same place right. But in the board setting. They have so important they have a chance for socialization That Reince forces, okay, this is gonna be a safe place. I’m with people I have a positive relationship with, I enjoy being around, make meetings matter, and you will have a board that is fully engaged in a very positive way.

Brandon Burton 30:22
I love that great advice. There is another thing I wanted to have you touch on before we start to wrap up. And that is, you know, in the chamber world today, there’s a lot of focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. And a lot of times, chambers will look to their board and say we need to have people of a certain type represented on the board to show that we serve you know, all these different types of people and groups of people and, and whatnot. Sure, share with us your thoughts about going about to create diversity on the board, maybe some do’s and don’ts are things to be aware of. Before we start wrapping things up,

Hardy Smith 31:08
absolutely. Such an important question, such an important priority in today’s in today’s world. And let me let me share, I am not an expert on diversity. I’m a little bit better about inclusion. Big, big difference there. But you’ve got to have the D plus the I what I did and recognizing the problem that needs help. You know, here’s some important research, unfortunately. Well, fortunately, on the positive good news, bad news. So the good news his chambers included. But the good news is most nonprofits in this country do have a state positive statement about wanting to have increased diversity within their organization, specifically within their boards. That’s the good news. The bad news is the research shows very few organizations have actually made any progress taking any action at all, which is even worse. The reason why and not to not define blame here not to point fingers of fault. It’s because so many people have well intentioned individuals don’t know how. What I did was in the book, I relied on two highly qualified experts on diversity and inclusion. And Dr. Shirley Davis, world renowned expert, I interviewed and have some tremendous how to advice. And also Jim Taylor, who is the vice president for leadership development, with BoardSource. Now I will share with you both individuals are persons of color. And they are willing to share their personal experiences on being recruited strictly for board service, strictly because they’re persons of color. And that’s it, no consideration of qualifications of which they’re tremendously qualified. And that presents a huge mistake. So that’s an entire topic all in its own Brandon, I would highly recommend paying close attention to that particular I’ve devoted an entire chapter on how to achieve diversity and inclusion in the book. Thank you for asking about that.

Brandon Burton 33:36
Absolutely. I think it’s such an important topic. And before we all just, you know, go crazy and wild trying to recruit a variety of diversity on our boards. Let’s make sure we’re we’re doing it in a thoughtful way a meaningful way that’s really going to keep all of the board members engaged especially those you’re trying to bring on a maybe diverse backgrounds. But Hardy before we wrap up here I wanted to ask you what might be one tip or action items that a chamber champion could take to help elevate their organization up to the next level.

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Hardy Smith 34:11
Brandon this is this is probably probably one of my favorite tips. So Chamber Champions, here you go. Here’s the secret sauce. This is what you’ve been waiting for Pay Attention please be intentional about board relationships. And start that intentionality with recruiting board members with purpose and process established and we’ve talked about this establish clarity on expectations, yours and theirs and make sure your your Magic Cup and the matching up in the middle for the the sweet spot and that those are the expectations that are going to get there are going to happen. And don’t assume don’t assume that the direction of your board one year is the same is it’s going to be the next year or in future years. So be intentional about board relationships.

Brandon Burton 35:09
That is a great tip hopefully everybody if you didn’t have a chance to write it down hit the backup button on your your podcast player and listen again, it committed to memory. Hardy what would be? Well, I like to ask everyone I have on the podcast this question as we all like to look to the future and try to be prepared. How do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Hardy Smith 35:32
Wow, what a you know, that’s that you could just say what a loaded question but yeah, you know, being clairvoyant. Okay. All here. Here’s what I see. Chambers, like all organizations are challenged with staying relevant. Another book reference for you, a good speaker, colleague, consultant, colleague of mine is Mary bars, who wrote 10 years ago, race for relevance. She’s just done an update 10 year anniversary edition of rate relevance, and it’s about associations. Huge, huge reference throughout the book to chambers of commerce, and nonprofits as well. But chambers, again, like all over innovations, have got to be able to adapt to find new ways to implement the three key concept that chambers use, you know, a being that converter, catalyst and champion. So the way that you approached that concept 50 years ago, or 100 years ago, if you’ve paid attention to Chris meads, excellent book, Magicians of Mainstreet fabulous, fabulous book about about the history of chambers of Commerce’s across the United States, you’ll know that change and challenge has been a part of chamber world from the very beginning. So what we’re experiencing now what we’re likely to, or what we will experience going forward into the future. It’s no different. It’s just coming from a different place. So there’s always going to be change and challenge. And chambers have got to be able to adapt my solution, my How To, to be able to get the tool for adapting is benefit from a fully engaged board that’s used as a high value asset. And stop the nonprofit board blame game, we’ll show you how to do that.

Brandon Burton 37:48
I love that view. Your board is a high valuable asset that they really are. So don’t don’t take advantage of it. But Hardy I am so happy to have you on the podcast. Today I’d like to give you an opportunity to share any contact information with the with Chamber Champions listening, let them know where they can find the book. Anything you want to put out there as we wrap up.

Connect with Hardy Smith

Hardy Smith 38:11
Well, thank you so much, Brandon and Chamber Champions. Thank you for listening to this podcast. Thank you for listening to all of the Chamber Chat Podcast, you know what a great source of information that you have. And thank you for what you do in your communities across the country. I’m easy to find HardySmith.com is my website. Okay, find a book on the links to Amazon and Barnes and Noble and all those links are there in the website at Hardy smith.com I’d certainly welcome hearing from Chamber Champions who have maybe a particular issue they’d like to have some pop and advice on email me Hardy@HardySmith.com. I certainly welcome connecting on LinkedIn and Twitter as well. So that I look forward to continuing the conversation with chamber professionals. Thank you.

Brandon Burton 39:11
Absolutely. And I’ll I’ll get all the contact information with links to your social media and book links and everything in our show notes for this episode, which will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode 163. But Hardy has been a pleasure having you with us today on Chamber Chat Podcast bringing a lot of value and really I’d love for everybody to pick up a copy of his book and read it because it really will save you a lot of frustration. And thanks a lot Hardy.

Hardy Smith 39:41
Thank you, Brandon. Thank you.

Brandon Burton 39:42
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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Lessons Learned to Start 2022

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes, 30 seconds.

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.

You can access this episode and it’s show notes and the other lessons learned at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode50.

2020 Lesson Highlights

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.

Join the Chamber Chat Champions Facebook group to learn from others and share your thoughts on topics covered on the Chamber Chat Podcast.

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.

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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!

Please join our email list to receive new blog posts are they are released. You will stay in the loop with any announcements related to the podcast or the Chamber world in general.

Also, be sure you are subscribed to Chamber Chat Podcast in your favorite podcast app. Subscribers are the first to get episodes as new ones come out each week.

Creating a Vision with Pat Patrick

Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Pat Patrick. 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.

Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.

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 wants to support your health by encouraging you to go for a 30 minute walk outdoors. He’s my dad Brandon Burton.

Brandon Burton 0:23
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and 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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Guest Introduction

Our guest for this episode is Pat Patrick. Pat worked in executive marketing roles and advertising capacities for Safeway stores, Tyson Foods and Foster Farms poultry company and I see marketing systems overseeing multi million dollar budgets and multiple advertising agencies over his career. Pat came to the Lodi Chamber in California in 2001, where he was appointed the chambers president and CEO. Pat has been part of the success of Lodi wine country through establishing international access to Central America and China for Lodi wine exports and major strategy was leading the sponsor leading and sponsoring trips abroad for Lodi ventures and for foreign buyers to visit Lodi. He was also the author and developer of vision 2020 a catalytic economic look forward the Lodi community which has positioned Lodi for early success in the new decade. Pat has and is today active in volunteer roles, such as several local not for profit boards, including the Adventist Health Lodi Memorial Hospital, reaching outside of both Lodi both regionally and nationally in the chamber industry. Pat has served as past president of the Northern California Chamber association was asked to join two national fellowships one developing healthy communities and the other focusing on workforce development, and 2017. He was elected by his peers to be the board chair of WAC. In 2020, he was selected to receive the excellence and leadership award the organization’s highest honor. Pat is a graduate from the University of Texas and the Institute of organizational management. At Pat, I am happy to have you with me today here on chamber chat podcast. I’d love for you to take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions who are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can get to know you a little bit better.

Something Interesting About Pat

Pat Patrick 3:28
Well, thank you, Brandon. It is my honor to be on here. I think you’ve done a couple of 100 of these and so but I’m just honored to be included. I’m excited to share with my fellow chamber professionals, some of the success that has come to the Lodi chamber of commerce with a great program. And something interesting about me. Well, my best friend’s dog, his name is Tucker. I don’t know. I think I sent you a picture of Tucker. Yeah. So if the people can see Tucker then they’ll know Hey, I’m an okay guy. Because that dog is great looking dog and he’s my best friend back. He’s here. He comes to the office. He’s He’s our greeter

Brandon Burton 4:20
the chamber mascot there. Hey, man. That’s awesome. Oh, yeah, I’ll have to put a picture of Tucker in our show notes so people can log on and see that and we’re getting close to a couple 100 episodes. This is actually 158 But we’re getting up there. We’re racking them up. So met with a lot of great chamber people. So it glad to add you to the mix. Yeah. So before we get into our discussion today, I’d love for you to take a moment to tell us a little bit more about the Lodi chamber kind of the the the size the scope of your chambers. staph budget, that sort of thing to kind of set the table for our discussion.

About the Lodi Chamber

Pat Patrick 5:04
Sure. We are in 2022. Next year we will be 99 years old. Formed in 1923. And at that time probably our membership was made up of a lot of farmers because we are surrounded by something called the Hanford sandy loam. That’s not my description, but that’s the name of the dirt around us, which is very, very rich and has a long history of growing great things. Today there’s 100,000 acres of wine grapes that surround Lodi but I as a wine region, and with the home of Robert Mondavi, right, he was he grew up here is quarterback on the high school football team. And he worked in his family’s vineyards. And he when he’s he went to France to you know, learn his winemaking craft and then came back and put in a very large production facility in Woodbridge, which is a suburb of Lodi. Lodi is a town of 68,000 people. Okay, so we’re not, we’re not big at all. The chamber has 700 members, and we had a staff of seven prior to the pandemic. And since then, we’ve been operating on three and a half staff and we’re busy people. And so we have we are coming back with that, you know, pretty good bank balance in the bank right now. Because we cut a lot and so our membership stayed with us. We couldn’t do any of our events. We have a couple of large revenue producing events first those were gone. But we are coming back strong. It is good to hear Yeah, we got a good ambitious 2020 to play.

Brandon Burton 7:14
Good deal. So and I know we’ll we’ll get into that with our topic for the we’ve settled on for this episode is which is creating a vision. And specifically you guys have what’s called vision 2020 And we’ll have you share some of the details of that as soon as I get back from this quick break.

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Topic-Creating a Vision

All right, Pat we are back. As I mentioned before the break we were talking about creating vision and specifically around your Vision 2020 that you helped to author for the Lodi chamber there in a nutshell what is Vision 2020.

Pat Patrick 10:02
In a nutshell, vision 2020 is an act was an economic look forward. It started in 2014 an economic look forward for our community. We identified five major areas of great challenge for Lodi, but they also offered great promise for lota. And so as I told people, we get to decide which one that’s going to. You’re going to be for Lodi and those were Workforce Development how to you know, get the young people of today ready for the jobs that they’ll need tomorrow. And then our own communities economic competitiveness. Lodi was never has never been marketed as a place to come and do business. And we are 90 miles east of Silicon Valley, which was probably another at that time, the number one place for job creation in the United States, right. And then we had business and community health. We wanted to make sure businesses healthy and their number one asset is their people. And so we joined arms with the hospital and and some other health care professionals to create a whole plan to get Lodi healthier. And then we looked at the livability of Lodi because today we have 90 wineries. And this close to some major population centers we develop the tourism industry. But tourism was the other was the last area that we looked at. And we just need to bring more people to Lodi and the livability aspect which I skipped over was one of those people that we need in our community to grow our community. What do they think the livability is like Ilona, and so we’re concerned at that from a tourist standpoint, from a job creator standpoint, and then for young families to work in those new jobs.

Brandon Burton 12:24
I think those five points the workforce development, economic competitiveness, business and community health, livability and tourism are things that probably most chamber champions listening can kind of look internally at their organization and say, how do we measure up in these different categories? Where do we need to bulk up? Where do we need to shift some some focus to make their communities stronger in these different areas. So as we talk, I’m sure you’ll highlight some of the things like you have with the wineries and stuff that are very specific to Lodi, but for those listening, you all have, you know specific things for your communities as well that make you attractive and make people or that can make people want to live and work and visit and do all sorts of things in your community. So I’d encourage everyone to pay attention to those things in your own community as we go about our discussion today. But how, how is the division created? Kind of how you know who was involved with the with the creation of it?

Pat Patrick 13:34
Um, well, it’ll be fires often start from little sparks, right. And so I am a member of WAC, which was outlined in the introduction. And the president of that organization is a fellow by the name of Dave Kilby. And so Dave does a good job, and helping executives grow. Chamber executives grow. He’s a reader. I’m a reader. He has suggested some really great books to me over the years, right. And a couple of those really changed my life in terms of how I viewed my job, and here at the chamber, and what I’m really responsible for in this seat as president and CEO of the community Chamber of Commerce. And so it got to be when I looked in the mirror in the morning, here, it was, it was a challenge. I started to challenge and so the book that really got me was a book called The Coming Jobs War. Again, it was written in like 2012, but I think it’s very still very good and applicable for today. But it changed my life. It’s written by Jim Clifton. Jim Clifton is the CEO of the he’s the CEO of the Gallup Corporation, I’m sorry. Okay, who who does a lot of polling, obviously, not just political polling, but he polls on everything in the human endeavor that we go through. And he does. So in about 150 different countries, they have offices in 75 around the world. So he knows what’s on top of mine on people’s heads. And it says, In the number one thing was jobs, what happens if I lose my job in this world right now? What happens if I can’t get a job that I want, or, you know, 25% of the world’s population is without a job. And that’s still true today. So it’s a it’s problematic. So. And he talked a lot about the influences on a community. And it just changed me, I, I saw some challenges that we had in Lodi, and no one really addressing the community, you know, your city does a general plan, which identifies where to put the housing, where to put the industry where to put the commercial, but they don’t really plan that much on the economic growth, the security of that, because without that, you don’t have a good community at all. And so we, we, you know, I took that on, because we had health challenges, too, in the county where we live in California, one out of every two people are either pre diabetic or diabetic. That’s a lot of money that, you know, that the workforce has to put in to, you know, towards that element alone. So we got a good response from our larger employers, we came out with programs to help their people get healthier. That’s what one of those five areas was about in the workforce development, the retiring baby boomers, the younger people coming in, are they prepared to work with the millennial generation, there are some challenges. And so we see that and we wanted to have some frank conversations with our school district to make sure that we were preparing kids for the workplace, not only on hard knowledge, skills, but soft skills as well. And so I just sort of lit myself on fire.

And started talking to I went around groups and pushing this concept 2020, I had a population pyramid, which is one tool that I would recommend to any chamber commerce professional. It’s a bar graph that shows the population and how it is arrayed in your community, population pyramid, and ours, what I mean, there’s 1000 things that that one graph can tell you. And it makes you aware of the changes that are coming over the next 10 years in your community population wise. Right now, we see a lot of shifts coming in. So how does that impact your community? How do you change your community to or prepare your community whether you know for what’s coming? And so we I would go out and talk to service clubs, I got on the stage at the community theater with about 900 people, and I just wanted people to get close to me. So the what was burning inside me would catch them on fire too. Because what vision 2020 needed was about 70 volunteers, leaders and influencers to pick up this mantle and start charging and that’s what we did. We put about 15 people in each one of those five areas. We call them that vision action team. Okay, kind of goes with Lodi right wine. So it wasn’t the chamber. I always envisioned the chamber being on top of a mountain kind of kicking over some big rocks and hoping that a landslide would start when when the chamber rocks would hit the healthcare rock and in the education rock and it would start to roll down. And so it it quickly became bigger than the chamber but the chamber had the responsibility to drive it. And that meant the board I tried to put as many leaders and influencers on my board as possible. We only had a board of 12. Today we have a board of 15. But in those days, we had a board of 12. And the best business people in Lodi is what the goal is. I could talk about how we do that to the nominating committee, which is valuable for chamber execs. But what we did was we, we built the board drove it in five areas. So we put two board members on each one. And so they were in charge of running their that their vision action team. And if it was tourism, we had the leaders and tourism in our community on that committee. If it was workforce development, we had the career tech people from the high school we had the community college, we had employers, from industry and from business, all kinds of business sectors. And health, we had a bunch of health professionals, they’re trying to work on this big problem about the diabetes, and the health of our community, the health of our business community. Very important. So you kind of get the idea. We had 70 people from the community, top people, the superintendent of schools, a CEO of the hospital, and they brought some of their folks. We had this we had city government, their city council people even had county supervisors want to sit in because they heard about this. I had one county supervisor say, Well, can you come do this for the county?

No, I can’t. There’s only one of me. But we wrote a 43 page booklet with color photographs and graphs and things to back up everything that we were trying to the condition that our community was in where we wanted to go and how we thought we were going to get there. So each of these five vats, the people, they started with a vision statement, they created a vision statement for tourism, created a vision statement for workforce development and so on. What will this look like? What will tourism look like in Madang? In 2020? That was the question, what will it look like? Right, and so they wrote a vision statement of what that would be. And then the next thing they had to come up with once they had the vision statement was what are the strategies that we have to employ to make that vision come to pass? And then once you get the strategies, strategy, number one, number two, number three, what are the action steps over the next five years because this was 2014, to get us to 2020 to achieve our vision. So vision flowed into the strategies. And the strategies were made up of action steps that were on a timetable. lead organizations lead people were identified to make sure that that thing kept moving forward, that actions do

Brandon Burton 23:29
I love that. I love the idea of these bats to be able to have these or these committees to over these specific segments have the vision to three that vision, the strategies, the action plan and see these things through to you know, like you said over a five year thing, so I assume the people that are involved with these vats, it was a was it a five year commitment to be on one of these committees. Is that how I was approached Okay. Very good.

Pat Patrick 23:57
As some people you know, drop out some new ones. Come on. So, yeah, so a lot of great things happen. We have a huge today we have a huge biking community bicycle. It was enough we want to have one stage I guess you could say we had two people in our livability that and they formed bike Lodi and now bike Lodi has done fantastic things. I mean, we have bike trails that go from downtown now all the way out in all directions. We didn’t have that before. We didn’t have tourism wayfinding signs before we got those put up. These are examples of the action steps to get things done right. And so great things just sort of organically came out. And it worked. It worked.

Brandon Burton 25:05
So now here we are, as we record this, or at the end of 2021. This will be releasing beginning of 2022. But you guys have been able to see this vision unfold. How do you vision out? You know, the next five years? Let’s say, I have is that looking for Lodi? And are you continuing the same type of structure, same type of model or what? What’s your thoughts and plans going forward?

Pat Patrick 25:33
Okay, good question. We, there were a total of 55 action steps that were created for those five. That’s right. And we achieved 38 of them, which is quite a few. And some of the ideas were just a bridge too far. And some of them weren’t, didn’t turn out to be a good idea at all. And so what we did was we wanted to keep an effort going, but the main effort, what changed in our world was businesses started coming over the hill, there’s been an exodus from the Bay Area, Sacramento has really prospered from that. And again, load I really hadn’t been marketed. And so we we created a completely new website. Not a chamber website, but what I call an attraction website. Yeah. And it’s called grow in Lodi, very simple, you can go to it grow in lodi.com. And you’ll see a lot of information about Lodi from what, what the living is about here, what the climate is about, what, what’s to do here. testimonies from business owners who were doing business in the San Francisco Bay Area, and they came over to Lodi and started or renewed their business and what has been their experience and so it’s it’s been catching on slowly but good. We have one of the fastest growing businesses the fastest. Certainly the fastest growing business in Lodi, and one from Sunnyvale is a business called Cepheus. Their molecular diagnostic company that bought out a supplier here that supplied them with a key product. And long story short, they bought that company 38 employees today they’re at 750. Next year, there’ll be a 2500. Wow, molecular diagnostic and healthcare right now is head of premium. They went from one small building to now four very large buildings and made the made the step to bring their research and development over here. So that’s huge for a small town. And so they’re growing in Lodi, and we’re using them as sort of a bell cow to bring other people over, because they’ve had some great success here. And they’re big proponents, they love it here. And so there’s room for more. And so that grow in Lodi, today’s Board is saying okay, what’s next? We really liked what vision 2020 did. How about a vision 2030 And I couldn’t agree more. Yeah. I agree more. And so we’re, we’re in the very early planning stages of that. I’ve got an excited board. And that is so key to any success that a chamber executive at a chamber could have is to get the right people on the bus and sitting in the right seat. That’s right. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 29:01
And I think a big part of that is these bats he talked about that’s putting the right people in the right seats that are excited and know about what the opportunities are in these different segments that are specific and relevant to Lodi you know, in our conversation but you get get those people in the right seats, they are able to create that vision, bring it back together create the synergy it’s just it’s a great model that you guys have gone through and and you’ve done well explaining it to because I can see all the different intricacies you know that have gone into this.

Pat Patrick 29:36
Right. Yeah, and some of the serendipities are the real the relationships that form you know, because here’s the school district in their silo so to speak, you know, fighting the battles that they fight working every day hard, everybody’s busy. And then here’s city government over here and they’re doing their thing and then here’s, you know, health care over here. They’re doing their thing. And here’s the Chamber of Commerce trying to help everybody out in all directions. And so, hey, what if we all got into the same silo? Right? Instead of all working, so, you know, making time to align ourselves with each other over the big community, the things that are really driving to unity, and, and their little rolling, or their big rolling and working together. And that is, that has been great. And I think that’s really one of the things that is, in the My current board about wanting to, hey, let’s do that vision. 2030. Right, because we know we’re not where we want to be yet. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 30:49
So as we start wrapping things up here, I wanted to ask you, for the listeners, what would be maybe a tip or an action item that you would encourage them to do to help, you know, elevate their chamber up to the next level?

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Pat Patrick 31:03
Yeah. Well, I mentioned reading, it’s a funny thing, you know, you’re gonna watch a video or you can listen to something of book on tape or something. Yeah. And they’re great. But, you know, set a goal, if you’re a leader, set a goal to read a book a month. And usually books around 200 pages long. And so that’s like 10 pages a night, put up a nightstand, and then go to sleep 10 pages, you know, but pick the book, and ask some of the ask some of the CEOs that you look up to for some both times that can help that can help a person out in their leadership role, their community role there, you know, the, the Chamber of Commerce, there’s some great ones out there. One of them’s called Make it Happen. That was one of the first ones that I got. And what happens When the Boomers Bail was very intellectually about the changing indite. In the demographics as the seniors, the baby boomers move out of the work force, and the millennials coming in the changes, you know, dramatic. So it changes you, it makes you smarter, and it also touches something inside you. Chamber executives have, I think, the best job in the community, they really do. Yeah, because you’re working for some great people, working for all the different businesses in your community that create the jobs and those employees, buy homes, make loans through the bank, create property tax, create sales tax, and it makes the community go around. I really believe really truly and believe that you don’t see a good community without a very robust active business community. Face it, we make the we make the community work. If you can get it better for business, you’ll get it better for the community

Brandon Burton 33:31
very too. And I appreciate you sharing those, those book references too. So we’ll have those in the show notes that people can look up and if they wanted to check out one of those books make it happen or what happens in the boomers Dale and you mentioned earlier the Coming Jobs War as well. So good options.

Pat Patrick 33:50
Those are just three. Yeah, if anybody wants to get in contact with me or you can go to the to the chamber website, Lodi chamber comm click on grow in Lodi, and you’ll see just a little introduction to vision 2020. Not the whole thing. But I could supply them with other information. Somebody wants to go further. I knew, I know, chambers do a lot of community type plans. But I never came across one that was an economic look forward. Because that really gets to the heart of so many issues. It does.

Brandon Burton 34:29
Right And speaking of looking forward as we look forward to the future of chambers of commerce in general. And how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Pat Patrick 34:40
We only become more and more important in the information age if we still refer to ourselves as being in the information age. There’s so much out there. And we know that a lot of it can’t be trusted, or it’s always going to have a leftward spin or around With spin, where is where’s truth? Versus truth? A chamber is not Republican, it’s not Democrat. It’s not red, it’s not blue. It’s, it’s it’s the community. It’s about the future. That’s where That’s where a chamber is roll is. And it, it creates opportunity did, I think a podcast from chambers, um, we we started down that path. But then the board sort of took us in a new way. And so I’ve got all the equipment that I’m working because I think, to be the same middle, right, the same middle, on on community issues, you’re gonna tackle probably anything that’s happening in Washington, DC, or, in my case, even Sacramento, as low as a small community, but in that community, you know, if your newspapers are going out, or they’re getting thinner, now’s a good time to start, I think, bringing two people together, like point counterpoint. Yeah. And and do it very respectful of each other. And do it with information, not necessarily what your opinion is, but what you know, to be the facts on this issue, and the other person who may be and have an intellectual conversation. And I think that can be very, very valuable. And it they, I don’t know where it would go. But I think it would go in ways start on the business platform approach. But I think it could go very deeper into things like homelessness as I can. Yeah, every community’s got that challenge. And, hey, there’s the smartest people I know, are business owners, right? Very successful business owners. What do they think? How can they think out of the box, and help the community get a program?

Brandon Burton 37:11
I love that if if the purpose of a chamber is to help build stronger communities, you need to be that go to resource of trusted information, that’s that sane center to be able to bring both sides together and really get behind issues to drive progress forward. So I think you hit the nail on the head

Pat Patrick 37:29
is that we call ourselves a three C chamber. I don’t know if you’ve heard that before. Yeah, yeah. A catalyst for business growth, a convener of leaders and influencers, for positive change, but always to be seen as a champion for the community, three C’s catalyst, convener, and champion.

Brandon Burton 37:50
That’s, that’s why I call my audience chamber champions, you know, they that’s one of the essays to draw him in.

Pat Patrick 38:00
And that’s what they need to try to ascribe themselves to the film. Yes.

Brandon Burton 38:05
Well, Pat, before we go, I wanted to give you an opportunity to put any contact information out there for listeners who may want to connect with you and learn more about your vision 2020 and going about creating a vision of their own their chamber, what would be the best way to reach out and connect with you?

Connect with Pat Patrick

Pat Patrick 38:24
Well, I can be reached at PPatrick@LodiChamber.com. And the old fashioned way on a telephone for my direct line is 209-365-4604.

Brandon Burton 38:45
Which is perfect. And I will get that in our show notes for this episode as well. So we’ve got a lot of good stuff in there. We got some book recommendations, we’ve got pets contact info, a pitcher Tucker, hopefully we’ll get in there as well. So go to chamberchatpodcast.com/episode158. And, Pat, it’s been a pleasure having you on here. I really appreciate you carving out some time to visit with me and to talk about this important work that chambers across our country are doing and you guys are doing a great job there in Lodi.

Pat Patrick 39:18
Thank you. Thank you, sir. Enjoy.

Brandon Burton 30:28
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