Futureproofing Chambers with Boyd Stough

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability and to correct obvious transcription errors while preserving the meaning of the original conversation.

Episode 121 — Futureproofing Chambers with Boyd Stough
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Boyd Stough
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.83 Brandon Burton
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.
00:14.648 Intro Voice
And now your host, he enjoys finding chambers who have their own podcast. He's my dad, Brandon Burton.
00:20.066 Brandon Burton
Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I'm your host, Brandon Burton. You're joining us today for episode 121. And it is my goal here on Chamber Chat Podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Our guest today is Boyd Stough with Espy Revenue. Boyd is a revenue modeling consultant based out of Charleston, South Carolina. A former U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command Crew Chief and a graduate of Charleston School of Law. Boyd is an entrepreneur with years of experience working with clients to generate more revenue while reducing operational stress. Boyd, I'm excited to have you on the podcast today. why don't you take a minute to say hello to all the chamber champions that are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.
01:14.446 Boyd Stough
Absolutely. Yeah. first of all, thank you so much, Brandon, for having me. I'm excited to be here. and I'm excited to be able to, you know, speak with, albeit somewhat tangentially, right? With with people in the chamber community. It's probably the thing that's interesting about me is I don't know whether I mean I guess there might be plenty that could be interesting. I'm genuinely obsessed with this subject. I think you and I had some some back and forths and for I never saw You know, I know if you if you'd have told me five years ago that I'd be I'd be up to my my nose in in chambers, I would have I would have not believed you. I would not have understood how that could have happened. So but I'm absolutely taken by the by the idea of the chambers. just enthralled with the opportunity to work with them and and make a difference.
02:02.644 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. Yeah, it is interesting. So many people that are in the chamber world in one degree or another, they a lot of them will say they got into it by accident. And kind of looking back, like you said, five years ago, you never necessarily see yourself here, but you know, looking backwards, I could see somebody looking at you and be like, How did you even get into this? It's like, well, you kind of go here and turn left and then right and then right.
02:26.264 Boyd Stough
Not a thing you know. Yeah, exactly. That's right. Yeah, it kind of sucks you in.
02:30.198 Brandon Burton
That's right. Well, tell us a little bit about your business. What is it that you do, the services you offer? just to help give us some perspective as we kind of set the table for our discussion today.
02:41.902 Boyd Stough
Sure. My my my consulting business is a revenue modeling business and and the whole objective is to is to create a revenue model, which is basically how a business makes money, okay, in short, that is efficient as possible at achieving the objective of scale, right? That's the idea. We we want to spend as little money as possible, acquiring as much market share as possible and standardizing outcomes so that we can Consistently and effectively manage and grow the business. So does it really matter what kind of business it is? Doesn't matter if it's a for-profit or nonprofit. All of the rules are exactly the same. Of course, I'm sitting on this side of things and I can say, wow, it's just so much easier than people make it out to be. And in all reality, it is, but it does require such an enormous amount of awareness. The learning curve to getting to that point is, I guess, even somewhat ironic. Very steep.
03:41.878 Brandon Burton
Yeah, absolutely. So I think that that helps as we get into our our topic for discussion today, which as you help organizations, help help businesses kind of set up their revenue model, their structure for generating revenue. we'll we'll kind of take that background into our topic today of future proofing chambers and kind of what that means. And we'll get into that discussion as soon as we get back from the short break. Are you looking for a year-round affordable and timely shop local campaign for your chamber or CVB? Look no further. Build a custom Eat Shop Play mobile app with App My Community by visiting https://appmycommunity.com/chamberchat. App My Community mobile apps are not just simple membership directory listings, they provide many more capabilities to engage with your community. Provide your residents with a robust events calendar. Partner with a local fair, festival, or farmers market to provide a schedule, map, and other resources to promote the event. Run a small business Saturday campaign any time of the year using built-in scavenger hunts. Allow your membership to communicate directly to their customers via push notifications. Your App My Community mobile app will be a unique member benefit. Allow you to generate non-dues revenue with sponsorship opportunities, and best of all, Provide a valuable resource to your community. Please visit https://appmycommunity.com/chamberchat now to receive 10% off your first year of an App My Community mobile app. All right, boyd, we're back. as I as I mentioned before the break, our topic today is future proofing chambers. when you look at that topic, what does that mean to you?
05:35.662 Boyd Stough
I think I don't think that the importance of it can be overstated. I really don't. I think a lot of people look at somebody like me who's an outsider who to this day, Brandon, this is gonna be crazy, this is gonna sound crazy. To this day, I've never belonged to a chamber. I still don't belong to a chamber. I'm working with you know, upwards of a hundred and twenty of them, right? And I don't belong to a chamber. And I and and The reason I got into this, the reason it it struck me as important in the beginning was because I had that outsider's view. Right. I was the I was the untainted target demographic myself. And I'm looking at this organization going, my God, what is this? This this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen. And I can't believe it. It I cannot believe that this organization isn't is it isn't organized in such a way, right, that it's connected. And it ha some degree of sort of standardized management of value. That just blew my mind. If if if if that if that kind of helps at all, it just it took me to a whole nother place. And so I've ever since then I've seen it as, you know, the only real and I mentioned this to you, I think, in an email that we that we had, but chambers are are the only real hedge against what I see coming economically and what a lot of people see coming. I don't think that it takes a financial or economic genius, right, to be able to look at the current financial landscape, economic landscape, social landscape, right, bureaucratic government landscape, and realize that small businesses are at an extreme disadvantage. you know, we can we can make the argument that technology is generally available and and more available than it's ever been, and that the you know, the ability to do so many different things is is is greater than it's ever been. However, you know. Tools are one thing, acumen is another. Tools are one thing, relationships are another. Right. If anybody's been successful at all in business, they appreciate the value of relationships, of information, of awareness, of a sense of belonging, right? sense of community. Those things matter so, so much. The tools are only useful, right? if if they're in the hands of somebody who knows how to wield them. And and the chambers are really the only institution on the entire planet that that
07:55.19 Boyd Stough
No matter where you go, you can you can be in touch with bricks and mortar, boots on the ground, people who understand your community, who are interested, invested in understanding who you are, what it is your needs are, who do you need to do to be connected with, ultimately have the power to really well, empower local small businesses, you know, and it's such an amazing thing. And and so when you when you ask me the question, when I what do I think about when I think about future-proofing chambers, I'm really thinking about future-proofing small businesses. And I realize that the only organization on the planet that can effectively do that happens to be the world's most powerful small business resource. It just doesn't know it yet. And so that's become that's become my mission, right? Is is not only helping chambers realize and qualify that statement as true, but also provide them with the tools to allow them to put that truth
08:43.212 Brandon Burton
to work. I love it. And I know having a platform where you can where you can preach on and you know share this get evangelical about it. But how did you stumble into the chamber world? You mentioned you've you've never been a part of a chamber. How did you get introduced to it and and when did that light bulb click as to how a chamber can be that hedge?
09:07.782 Boyd Stough
Yeah. So as as with most things, some of that awareness was rel rel revelatory, right? it came through, you know, a series of revelations that that came themselves as a byproduct of of more and more awareness over time. But about five, four and a half years ago, at this point, I was hired by a company in Atlanta, Georgia that's an insurance company, to come in and basically understand why their non-insurance benefits weren't selling. Long story short, I ended up looking for a a large a large sampling of small businesses to survey. and you know, I'm not gonna make my job any harder than it's gotta be, right? So I asked myself, where can I find a large group of small businesses? There's a lot of chambers in the area where we were in the Sandy Springs area. So I was like, well, I'll just go to them. They'll they'll gladly participate, they'll drive data out of the exercise and we'll be able to soon and so forth. And then I I realized something really rather profound. Number one, I realized this is where the bit this is the benefit of not being in the chamber world, right? I had this idea, and I don't think I'm an idiot. I mean, I'm not the brightest guy, right? But I'm but I'm not I'm certainly not the the dullest knife, okay? I was like, wait a minute, there's no such thing as the chamber of commerce. There's a bunch of chambers of commerces, right? That occurred to me and I was like, okay, well, this this starts in my mind, right? Where you ha you make I was confused. I was very seriously confounded. I was like, okay, how could this organization's massive? it's not an organization. then that started to make a lot of other things make sense. Like, for instance, there is to this day, Brandon, there has never been conducted a longitudinal analysis of of the target demo, small business particularly wants, needs, and expectations by any one or any group of chambers ever. I I now I know that I'm still open minded to the idea that there's an exception to that, but I still haven't found it yet. And and as if you're a business, that's where you start. You start with understanding the people you serve, right? And then maintaining that understanding so you can continue to deliver relevant products and services. So that brings me to this, right? So then I get really deep and I start diving into what is this organization, the chambers of commerce, and I start seeing this word relevancy pop up. I mean, over and over and over again in articles stimming back, I mean, years and years and years.
11:35.276 Boyd Stough
And of course, the frequency of that term, as it turns out, you can search this by the way. the frequency of that term relative to chambers, it increases, it spikes after 2008, 2009, 2010. That's when I think a lot of chambers, if they've been around, chamber folks have been around for a long time, there was a splintering all over the country. There was splintering. You had a lot of larger chambers that there was kind of this, they had taken for granted the relationship with their chamber members. And then these chamber members came into hard times. They needed, they went to their chambers or They turned to their chamber with the expectation that the chamber would be a resource center. The chambers weren't in a position to actually help them. They hadn't developed those resources or a means of effectively managing them consistently. And so people left. People left and started their own chambers, started different chambers. So then I realized, my God, there how many chambers are there in America? I look it up and there was like at the time, and I don't know how many there are now, right exactly, but 3,600 plus okay, chambers in the United States of America. And then I've been sitting here, and in my brain, this is where that spark happened. And almost like it was like, you have to do something about this, was that in her voice? It's like, this is the this is the biggest opportunity to put your skills to work, Boyd. And it and it's clearly the most unbelievably impossible thing to even bother trying to do. was like I saw 3,600 individual dots where there were in some cases loose alliances primarily around advocacy and things like this.
12:39.522 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
13:04.546 Boyd Stough
But there was no infrastructure. I was like, wait a minute. There's 3,600 plus chambers with millions of small business members, particularly. If only you had a common infrastructure that functioned as a distribution system, you'd have this the world's single most powerful buying buying group in the world. Just that that occurred to me. So I saw in my head, I saw them all connected. And then I thought, well, what are the benefits of being connected? So then I started asking that question a lot. And then I started asking, you know, just questions to chambers, chamber executives, members, past members, people who weren't members yet, who you know may or may have an idea of what the chamber is, just to get the awareness that I didn't see, just to get the information that I needed that the chambers themselves had not generated, so that we could start really thinking about how how could that infrastructure be built, what we now call value management infrastructure. How could that infrastructure be built? built and and what is what's a way to carry this idea to the chambers. How do we get the chambers involved in forming the solution? and here we are four years later and and we've I've been lucky enough to have not just chambers but Academies of General Dentistry and Bridal Beauty Association and Veterans Leverage, which is a veterans business organization and you know other organizations help kind of inform inform this idea. And so to think I've in and and now we're Now we're working with the Canadian province, launching, you know, bringing the entire province onto one system. So it's kind of it's bizarre.
14:41.492 Brandon Burton
It it is neat to see the vision kind of come together, the the revelatory as you as you had mentioned, and and kind of seeing these these things come together, you know, these pieces come together to where now you're you're taking them all online, you know, in Canada. so yeah, as you're talking, I'm I'm thinking that some of these long standing, you know, traditional chambers, you know, they may be have been around for over a hundred years. And a lot of them when they first started, they had a common goal. So they had a group of chamber a group of, you know, small businesses got together. And at the time they may have been the bigger businesses in that given city and maybe come up with the idea of we need, you know, to pave some roads in our in our community. So they get a network of of small businesses together and and get a cause to advocate for that and and maybe fundraise and and do what they need to to accomplish a goal. And and you see that on various topics. So those tend to be how a lot of chambers kind of sprouted up, you know, 100, 150 years ago. And now we're our world, you know, our our cities when we pretty well have the infrastructure laid. it it's not necessarily on the back of the the small business to build out a city anymore. I think the the value proposition takes a a a different a different focus. So, you know, fast forwarding from you know, early nineteen hundreds to twenty twenty one. how do you see that value proposition changing from maybe what the base was when chambers started to where it is now and and where it kind of needs to go to kind of stick in with our topic of being future proof? Yeah.
16:32.14 Boyd Stough
Well, the first question we ask ourselves is, is what is the success metric? That you whenever you whenever you start working with a business, right, the first thing you have to figure out is what's the priority or primary success metric? How do we know we're succeeding? Right? Have to start there. and then what we do is we do a resource assessment, right? An objective resource assessment. We say, okay, what do we have at our disposal? And this is what I did when I started looking at the chambers of like, my God. I've never seen an organization with more access to more resources. It just it's unbelievable. Look at all of their relationships, their connections. Look at everything they look look, my God. There's no, there's no organization on the planet with with as much access, with as much latent power as the Chamber of Commerce. The only thing that's missing is is an is an infrastructure that allows them to organize that in a way to consistently focus that energy down to the member. in a way that right delivers the value expected in a manner that allows us to quantify the value of the organization, look at that priorities, prior priority success metric and determine whether or not we're meeting our objective. So when you ask about, you know, what is the value proposition, the value proposition of a business should always be open to change or modification. It has to be fluid because it's responsive. You know, you hear about responsive websites and responsive this and responsive that. Your business has to be responsive. And the chambers are a business. They're a business for business, right? Yeah. And and so you have to you have to have a value proposition, not so much the value proposition. That's really not even the objective. It's really the product market fit. A value proposition is merely how you communicate the existence of product market fit. What I like to call or give people a visual is like a value nexus, right? Kind of have this X where it's like the value, the the wants, needs, and expectations of the market, right? Meet the value of the organization. And it not only does that value have to exist, it needs to be organized in a way that it that it can be positioned and the value of that offering obvious to the target demo. That's it. And and and quite frankly, that's all the chambers really have to do. All they have to do is desire to establish a common priority metric. You know, I think in the United States, 70
18:51.352 Boyd Stough
five plus percent of this of of the chamber the members are small businesses. I I I can't get exact numbers because it I I think you you know the chamber world a little bit pretty well, right? There's the there's the members you claim and then there's the members right that you actually have and there's all this kind of stuff. But in in Canada where I'm working it's 93%, right? So but in any case, the majority of the members of the chambers of commerce are small businesses. And I'm just gonna go ahead and call that your target demo. Is it strange or And I'm kind of going a roundabout way of getting to you know an answer. But is it irrational to conclude that the more density that the organization has in terms of small businesses, the more powerful and influential that business that chamber is on behalf of its larger members? That's not irrational at all. In fact, that's absolutely true, right? but you can't take them for granted. You've got to focus on delivering value at the bottom, right? And drive that value up. And so That flow of energy, you need to be able to direct it. And so the chambers have all of this disorganized, amazing value that's out there. It's definitely out there. They all these relationships. They have all these connections. They have all these, they have there's money that's out there. There's there's unbelievable influence, not just directly, but in the form of partnerships and relationships with other organizations. And the chamber has the ability to focus, it does have the ability. Every individual by every individual chamber has the ability, could if it were a, if it were a a unified desire of the organization, people of the organization to do so. It could, you mentioned build a road or not build a road or fix a thing or whatever it happens to be, amplify that effect to be to bring down the entire weight, the entire power, the leverage of the entire organization all the way down through a a local chamber with 150 members all the way down to the small business that needs that help. That's possible. You just have to have an infrastructure that allows everybody to do that in a manner in a timely manner. And so that's that's all we endeavor to do is to help the organization say, okay, number one, what is the primary success metric here? Number two is how do we organize our resources relative to the wants, needs, and expectations of the target market, which are small businesses? How do we bring those things together? And the how do we bring those things together is really where the majority of our focus is.
21:03.758 Brandon Burton
So I want to know have you share more about this infrastructure, kind of the details of it. But before that, in in our communication leading up to this interview, you had mentioned the importance of being able to define the experience of a member, of a chamber member. and you know, the there's the old saying out there, and I know it's been attributed to to different people, but you know, if you've seen one chamber, you've seen one chamber. And And and chambers, you know, they they got their base in individual cities for a specific reason. And some chambers are very strong with advocacy, some are very strong on networking, some are very strong, you know, on you know, workforce development, talent development. So I mean, kind of pick your poison. But when you try to kind of standardize and and then define the experience for a member, how does that work when when chambers have such Different, you know, backgrounds.
22:02.144 Boyd Stough
Right. And it and that's a really great question because when I was speaking with Chambers earlier on, one of the things with kind of a knee-jerk reaction that a lot of them had to the idea of standardization, that it was that it also that with that came the elimination of individualization. And I and and and we talked about that kind of learning curve to get the kind of awareness that I have as a revenue modeler. It's like, no, in fact, the more organized you are and the more you standardize how you deliver a specific kind of value, the that becomes a habit, an organizational habit. Right. It becomes something you almost don't even have to think about if it's done correctly. It frees up enormous time and energy to do the things that you really are good at or or or feel like you know you need to be doing as an organization. How many chamber executives are running around chase trying to chase down dues? How many, how many, you know, executives are are unfortunately this is this is something I I actually had one membership director at one chamber begin to like shake and cry when I was talking with her. Because I brought up the word guilt, right? It and I just was I was thinking out loud. Yeah. I was thinking out loud, I was like, I I I just feel like there's almost a level of guilt with some of these executives I'm talking with because they genuinely want to help their bit their business members, but because the expectations of the members were all over the map at the outset of the relationship, it's an unmanageable relationship. And we talk about standardization, what's the value of that and how do we do that? So if if I could, if I'm speaking to any business, and this is again just rules, you have to standardize the expectation so you can standardize the experience. You have to standardize the experience if you intend to standardize outcomes. Right? If you work your way backwards from that, standardizing outcomes is the only way that you can effectively manage and scale an organization. Right. And the and the capacity to do that is the measure of your ability to deliver value consistently. If you can't deliver consistent outcomes, that is a that's that is that's evidence. That's evidence that your organization's not good at consistently delivering value. Just that simple. Doesn't matter what kind of business you are, I'm not pointing fingers at anybody, that's just the way it is. So when you look at a low level of effectiveness, it comes down to an inability to standardize outcomes. You can always, always, always.
24:20.962 Boyd Stough
Look back and see are they standardizing the experience? And if they're not a standardized, if they to the extent that they're standardizing the experience, usually has everything to do with their ability to standardize expectations. You standardize expectations by standardizing a value proposition. Think of it this way: people out there, before they come into an awareness of the chambers, okay, they they have an idea of what the chamber might be, right? It could be a relative's experience or a colleague's experience or something they heard or whatever. If you take them as they are and they join for their own subjective reason that's not been trained at all or conditioned at all, then that's the that's the dynamic that you have created with them. That's what's called a control dynamic. That control dynamic will forever control for the relationship. It's impossible to standardize satisfaction that way. What you have to do is understand and appreciate that There's millions of people with individual expectations. But when they show up at the door of a McDonald's, when they show up at the door of any other brand, right? The first thing that that brand tries to do is standardize the expectation and standardize the experience so they can standardize the outcome. The chambers are not are are not they're not above the law here. They have to be able to do the same thing. So when they look at I as a say as a as a chamber executive, I'm so stressed out, we're spending all of this money, you know. We don't even know where it's going sometimes. And we look at our we look at our bottom line. We d where we're, you know, we brought on eight members last year, but we netted two because we lost six. You know what I mean? This is not an uncommon thing. Okay. And the solution to that is a standardizing the promise, standardizing the value proposition, standardizing and and and the value nexus and creating product market fit. To do so does not steal away from the ability of every chamber. To be individual and individually deliver value from the point of commitment on. But you gotta, but in order to get them in the door and to give yourself as an organization the best possible chance of pleasing and satisfying your small business members, you've got to standardize the expectation, right? And then attempt to standardize some portion of the experience. You can deliver it in your own unique way with your own unique flavor, but you know, those are the rules.
26:39.808 Brandon Burton
Yes, very well said. So my background and and most people listening know my background comes from chamber publishing. And I would go about, you know, different communities meeting with chamber members and talking specifically about advertising in a chamber publication. And I would hear all their stories, their interactions or lack of interactions with the chamber and say, you know, I I would hear the story a lot. Yeah, I don't know if I'm gonna renew my membership. I just don't know that I got the value out of it. That I expected. And it's like, okay, so what was your expectation? And you hit on it when we what what's their when they're coming into it, they have some kind of a base for what they expect. And at the moment, like so many people are coming into it with different different expectations. And it tends to be it's kind of a paradox, right? The the people that need the chamber the most, the businesses that need the chamber the most, maybe can't afford. to spend, you know, at the higher levels of the membership, if you have a tier dues model, they end up being the people that require more the most resources from you. You know, they they're paying in the least amount, but they're expecting and wanting the most out of you. So then you have that gap there of unmet of unmet desires or expectations.
27:46.274 Boyd Stough
So they they
28:01.346 Boyd Stough
Yeah. Well, and and it's it's interesting looking at the tiered dues models of a lot of a lot of chambers. We worked with we work we worked with a few that that had very complex due structures. And what we offered to do was help them actually, you know, boil it down to three for small businesses, right? That are tiered up in terms of value and price, like like any subscription service, for instance, you know. nope, nope, they wanted to stick with the the really complex dues. Think about if you're creating any other kind of product or service, why would you add an unnecessary amount of friction to the process of joining? I've already formulated the idea in my head that the chamber might be valuable to me. Now you're asking me to under it's it's completely unnecessary. But what it is is also it's a manifestation of a lack of confidence from the organization itself. When you have when you have a dear a do a tier due structure that in effect is trying to please everybody, be somebody for everybody. That is, isn't that a perfect reflection of the ego of the organization? Right? Such a low level, a low such a lack of self-awareness or low level of self-awareness that it's it's this insecurity, right? It's this insecurity, it manifests itself in all sorts of ways to and include, by the way, the mistake of of having a super complex tier due structure, the organization always in every way trying to be everything for everybody. That is so expensive, Brandon. Yeah. It's expensive when I don't just mean in terms of money. I'm talking about in terms of stress for any organization. And it's such an easy thing to solve. Just as an example of one of the things that that that is so important. I have not found. And again, I'm wide open. I want to find the let me let me put it this way. I want to find the chamber that is the exception to this rule, but I haven't found a single chamber that calculates customer acquisition cost correctly. You know, at all. The chambers have chambers have metrics and and Brandon, chambers have metrics like cost per member and revenue per member. There is nobody in the revenue management business who you wouldn't hand that information to and they would go, What do you expect me to do with this? They that's what they would think. This is useless information. Because because cost per member, how many different kinds of members do you have? Well, if I've got, you know, a a multi, you know, tiered, you know, I mean almost like
30:15.971 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
30:26.83 Boyd Stough
taxonomical tier due structure and people are joining and their and their expectations are all over the place. What am I supposed to do with this cost per member? What am I supposed to do with this revenue per member? It's these aren't useful, these aren't useful at all. We can't actually calculate the ROI of any one decision or any activity against those metrics. And yet the chambers like the ACCE, one of the things that blew my mind was the 2013 ACCE, I think it was like the Revenue Models Report or whatever it was, it was And I read the section by Chris Mead and I was like, what is going on? Right. And it was the identification of all these issues, but they the metrics are useless. But the reason, the reason that there's not that level of awareness is because what do you do with it once you have it? Right. It's almost like there's an organizational subconscious block to developing the requisite awareness of the market, because then what do you do with it? Right? Or or the proper metrics on the on the business, which the chamber is a business, I'll be it a non-for-profit. Right. If you had them, what would you do with them? And I found that to be true with so many, so many chambers. It's like There's an honest, I'll I'll simplify it this way. I know talking to so many chamber executives and working with so many chamber executives, there is a sincere desire to deliver massive value to their members. That is not the issue. Right? I know, and all these executives know, right, that the chambers are the world's most powerful small business resource, that they have more resources and access to more power than anybody else on the planet. They know that too. So the will is there, the capacity is there in terms of resources.
31:43.224 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
31:59.244 Boyd Stough
The only thing that's missing right now is an agreement, right, as to what the value proposition of the organization is and an infrastructure be for being able to deliver on that on a promise. That's it.
32:11.742 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. I know we need to start wrapping up here, but I think that you know what what you just mentioned about having that that standardization and that that infrastructure is so key to to being able to to communicate what that value and what that expectation is so you can deliver on that. I I I love your energy and excitement as we as we talk about this. I mean I feel it. I hope everybody listening is feeling this. Based on our discussion, what would you say would be one one tip or action item that a listener can do to kind of take their organization up to the next level?
32:49.78 Boyd Stough
Easy. This is an easy one to answer. You if you're if you're the executive director, president, whatever your position may be, the the admin and the boards of of every chamber that really believes, right, that are genuinely invested in delivering massive value to their members, okay, on a consistent basis. If that if you're if you're one of those people, and I hope everybody listening is, get with your board and ask yourself one question. In the affirmative, why is it true that our chamber is the world's most powerful small business resource for our local members for our local businesses? It is true. I promise you it's true. And if you will actually qualify it for yourself, you mentioned earlier, Brandon, that you know it's almost kind of like that. I have this gospel, right? This is the gospel. It's the listen, I live in the south in the United States. We have firebrand preachers, okay? People that will. catch you on the corner while you're walking in the grocery store and they're going to tell you about Jesus. And listen, I'm a Christian, okay? So, you know, this is I'm not doing this in a joking manner, but I'm using them as an example. These people believe, truly believe deep in their heart, that if they don't share this good news with you, that this opportunity with you, right? That their own souls are are in jeopardy. They have a duty to share this with you because they care a lot about not only their own soul, but your soul. Now, if you choose not to say, you know, you convert and all this kind of stuff, that's your choice, right? They're free of that, they can walk on. But that is exactly how we have to feel. When I say we, not my just me, right? Because I'm an outsider at the end of the day, trying to help, do my part. But every executive in in in the chamber world who's genuinely interested in in delivering massive value, every one of them has got to feel that in their heart. They got to wake up every day and it's got to feel like the good news. And it will, I promise you. It is criminal to withhold from small businesses the power that you have as a chamber. The only reason that you're not out there meeting them at the corner near the grocery store, the bank, or on their way, what the only reason you're not out there, I promise you, is because you haven't answered this question. Why is it true? Why is it true that the chamber is the world's your chamber? Is is your members, your local businesses most powerful small business resource. Again, in the world, just answer the question. Go through the list.
35:16.33 Boyd Stough
Name all the different relationships you have with all the different powerful organizations. Name all and by the way, don't limit yourself to to to the to the organizations locally. You have tons of chambers all over the world you can reach out to to bring to bring an impact in on your members. There's no there's nothing else on the planet like it. So qualify that, build a list of reasons why that's true. And I promise you, you walk away from that exercise with a fire in your belly. It's it's it's unbelievable.
35:44.48 Brandon Burton
Yeah. I feel the fire. So our whole discussion's been about proof future proofing chambers. as we look to the future, everybody's always wondering, what does a chambers, you know, what do chambers look like going into the future? How do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward if you're kind of condense this?
36:05.044 Boyd Stough
I really see kind of a fork in the road right now. I really do. I think that I think that listen, the way that the world is going, there's and and a lot of people may not be aware of this, but there is a consolidation of power around the world. Not in and and the idea of the nation state, which is America, the United States or Canada or or or UK or right, the the idea of the nation state is breaking down in favor of more of a global well globalism, okay. This isn't conspiracy. This is the way it is. Right. And you have to acknowledge the realities if you're going to be able to, if you're gonna, if you're gonna be viable. All of those forces are are sucking the power out of communities, consolidating that power in one place where you basically are gonna have, I'm not gonna call it socialism or anything like that, but it is central management. Central management top down from the globe from the global level. This is really happening. You're gonna see a massive shift towards, you know, China's moved there, you know. There you want to digital. With that comes now, a fiat currency that's no longer operating on a parallel system to say blockchain, but is now a part of the same system. You're gonna see a lot of consequences flow from that. Control will become a name of the game. I'm saying all that to say this: that there is no organization right now that is standing in the way of that or or or in mass functioning as an advocate for small businesses and the communities that they serve and grow out of. The the chamber is the only organization on the planet that can be the hedge, right? That can actually take all of this change and funnel that in the form of and actually funnel power back into communities. If if they desire, not one or two or three or ten, but if the chambers collectively have that desire and appreciate that that's their responsibility, they're going to survive on into the future in in in a form that probably won't be very recognizable to a lot of chamber execs today. Right? Because because because it will function as an organization with with thirty six hundred dimensions. Right? Yep. Does that make sense? Yeah. And I think that that I think that that's necessary. I think it's absolutely necessary, but it it should be something the organization desires. I think if it fails to do that, Brandon, what ends up happening is that the organization is rendered
38:29.312 Boyd Stough
Irrelevant permanently. And I just want to say this, this is a big fear of mine, is that if the chambers go away, there's no bringing them back. You know, they survived 2008, 2009, 2010. But if the chambers go away this time, there's no bringing them back. The reason is is because you cannot make, okay, the for-profit argument, caug cost benefit analysis cannot reveal that there's any benefit to re-establishing boots on the ground in every community. That's something that we we have to respect is so powerful. We need to protect it, but not protect it for the sake of the chamber. But protect the chambers by protecting small businesses. Create that kind of dynamic, powerful dynamic with the businesses in your community. And you'll not just survive, but you'll you will become what's the word? You'll become invincible. I mean quite frankly. Yeah.
39:17.836 Brandon Burton
Yeah. No, I think that that thought process should be included with every chambers, you know, as they do their SWOT analysis and and really, you know, take a look at their strengths, their weaknesses, opportunities, and threats and see where do they fit in, not just in their community, but in the world, you know, be in that that firewall, if you will. So I I think that's very forward looking. So thank you for that. I want to give everyone an opportunity that would like to to reach out and connect with you, if they have questions, follow-up about anything that you discussed today, what would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect?
39:55.106 Boyd Stough
If somebody's interested in connecting, it's just Boyd B-O-Y-D at espyrevenue.com. And I welcome anybody to call me. I know this is probably not the wisest idea to give your phone number out, but I welcome anybody to call me 210-722-1120. I'm I'm so passionate about this subject. I know how to help, right? In at least my own way. we're we're being very effective. I would ask people to to kind of keep your eyes on Canada. I don't wanna I don't wanna name the province that we're working with, although you know. I want but I but I'm excited about what's growing out of it. I think we're gonna have you know, widespread adoption over the next year and and I'd l I'd I'd love people to pay attention and and and just kind of just just stay aware, you know.
40:43.126 Brandon Burton
Yeah, that's great. Yeah. So I would encourage anybody that has has questions about standardizing or or this infrastructure, the value management infrastructure, reach out to Boyd, learn more. I'm sure he's got a ton of value that he can offer to your organization. But I will get his contact information updated in our show notes for this episode, which will be found at chamber chat podcast dot com slash episode one twenty-one. But Boyd, I wanna thank you for hopping on here with us today, here on Chamber Chat Podcast, to share your experience and knowledge that you've gained and and the the fire in your belly for for standing up for chambers and what they can do for small businesses. I really appreciate it.
41:25.614 Boyd Stough
Absolutely. It's a great time, Brandon. Thank you so much for having me.
41:30.486 Brandon Burton
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42:06.606 Brandon Burton
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