Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Chris Russell. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.
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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.
Unknown Speaker 0:14
And now your host, the rich of his podcast has far exceeded what he ever imagined.
Voiceover Talent 0:20
He’s my dad Brandon Burton.
Brandon Burton 0:22
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it’s my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.
Our title sponsor is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Let’s hear from Diane Rogers, President and CEO of the Rancho Cordova Area Chamber to learn how the Holman Brothers have provided value for her.
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As a medium sized chamber, we recognize that it’s absolutely critical to have a well qualified and well trained membership development person. Holman Brothers trained that person, recruited that person then they even trained me on how to manage that person. We’re grateful for the support we got.
Brandon Burton 1:00
You can learn more about Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions by visiting holmanbros.com.
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Guest Introduction
Our guest for this episode is Chris Russell. Chris joined the Nixa Chamber as the president and CEO and that’s Nixa, Missouri. He joined as the president CEO in March of 2018. Prior to his role, he spent several years in the real estate world with Keller Williams as a trainer, business coach and Team Leader of local ever local office. Chris also spent six years serving on Nixa city council, in addition to his many years volunteering at various capacities in his community, including 25 years as a high school football announcer. Currently, he not only serves the chamber, he serves on many other boards in the next area, the next chamber was a struggling chamber that really needed a boost. When he took over they had around 325 members and now have over 550 members and I’ve increased the annual budget by over $200,000. The Nixa chamber hosts on average about 110 various events from ribbon cuttings, groundbreaking ceremonies and luncheons are actually shows her thinks that luncheons are boring networking events, and they took over the town’s annual festival, that in 2018 was on the brink of being cancelled to now an averaging over 25,000 people in 2019, and even more in 2021. They also hold an annual business expo called Nick’s bow, which brought close to 4000 in just last month, and last year, they brought back the town’s firework show that had been gone for nearly 10 years. His latest thing he’s working on now is to bring the chamber world into the VR world, which sounds very interesting. Chris, welcome to Chamber Champions is share something interesting,
Chris Russell 2:51
Right and thank you so much. Well, here’s an interesting fact talking about Nixa. We’re the only Nixa in the entire world. Located right here to southwest Missouri. So if you know where Branson Missouri is, or Springfield, Missouri, we’re actually about 10 minutes south of Springfield and about 20 minutes nor I actually probably 3035 minutes north of Branson, but there’s parts of Brandon and get to pretty quick. So we sit right here in the center of the Southwest Missouri hub and glad to be here on the show with you today. Brandon only mix in the world. And another fun fact, we’re the home of Jason Bourne actually in high school. His name was David Webb. So if you ever watched the Bourne Supremacy, movies, all that kind of stuff, they say, Jason, whenever your front name was David Webb, you’re from Nixon, Missouri, so Yeah, fun fact.
Brandon Burton 3:29
I didn’t know that. Yeah, that’s
Chris Russell 3:31
yeah. The movie theater, watch the movies. He goes, You’re from Nixa, Missouri. When I went. I was like, What the heck? You know, that’s kind of crazy. I
Brandon Burton 3:38
know where that is. Well, tell us a little bit about the Nixa chamber. Yeah, besides being the only Nixon in the world, maybe sighs. You mentioned budget staff.
About the Nixa Chamber
Chris Russell 3:50
Yeah. So I have a staff of for two full timers and one part timer. We have a retired person. She’s also serves on the city council, but she comes in and covers lunches. So we can go do various events and activities and those kinds of things. And then I have an Events Coordinator, which she’s frantically preparing our big, huge Secretary music arts and crafts festival coming up in two weeks. And then we have our operations and membership director, which is at Christiana, and she course takes care of all membership related stuff, making sure our sponsors get taken care of those kinds of things. And then of course, my job is to kind of be that logistics guy, the big thinker guy, I’m in all the economic development meetings, planning meetings, of course, I’ll step in and meet with members and kind of puff them up a little bit. And then, you know, really, I love to sit down with our businesses and have one on one discussions. I had a new business startup come in here yesterday, we did a coaching session for about an hour about all the things that she needs to be doing to get prepared. So that’s kind of my role and kind of kept keep keep the ship moving forward, if that makes sense. Yeah, we have right at 557 Members, I think is what it was last week at our board meeting. We’re growing. We’ve actually continued to grow through the last two years, I think in the year of COVID we to 2020 122 new members As, and we have about a 91% attrition rate or mean, retention, retention rate, I don’t want to do
Brandon Burton 5:06
anything, you don’t want to brag about what you
Chris Russell 5:08
were there. And you know why? And here’s the thing, right? And it’s not me. I mean, yeah, we have some energy. And I bring a lot of fun ideas. But, man, I tell you what, I’m just really proud of the way that our community rallies upon around our chamber. And it’s all of our great board members are ambassadors, and we work with them, we do fun things for them, we encourage them and, and that is something that I’ve found that is really the lifeblood of our chambers growth is creating those great big fans out there and giving them a chance to be leaders to be seen to be to to listen to them to take their ideas and implement them and and make it one big family because that’s that’s where chambers really grow is when you have great support from the members and the community.
Brandon Burton 5:51
Absolutely. And I think that is a perfect segue into what our topic for today is, which is, chambers all over get asked the question whether to their face or behind their back of what is the chamber do? So the point of our discussion today, you guys are very active with events and activities. So the topic that we settled on is eliminating the question of what is your chamber do so we’ll get into that discussion as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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All right, Chris, we’re back. So as I teased with the topic for this discussion, eliminating the question of what is your chamber do? When was the last time you were asked? What is the next chamber? Do?
Topic-Eliminate the Question of “What does Your Chamber Do?”
Chris Russell 8:34
You know we still get it? Um, the lady who came in yesterday just to pop in she wanted to know what a chamber does, right? I mean, but they she was new, and she was new to entrepreneur, one wants to open up a juice bar here in town and really wanted to know what the next chamber was. The funny thing was, is that her food supplier, which is like us foods or something, they told her that she needed to come to the next chamber. And so I thought, well, that’s the first time that’s happened. You know, not a lot of times we get referrals from other Chamber members, but from a national distributor saying you really need to go in and I hear great things about the next chamber. And that that made me smile that made me happy. So So we still get that question, but we tried to eliminate that, you know, one of the things that I think we were already moving in this direction of really being not only business to business, that’s a big part of what chambers do, right? We create those networking opportunities. We create those training opportunities, we create those you know, the luncheons or whatever and those type of events, ribbon cuttings, of course, and that’s a lot of that business to business and we need to still do that. That’s that’s good old fashioned chamber one on one right there. What I noticed is that especially in a town like Nixa so we’re our population here in the city limits about 25,000 people. We look in the zip code, we’re about 32,000. But we’re tucked right up next to Springfield, which is 180,000 people and their chambers about 1300 people members and we’re we’re about 550 and what we noticed is that when you’re when you’re in a town this size, and we’re really in that suburb of Springfield, we have a lot of that service sector businesses we don’t have that many businesses that that actually attract people from around the area to come in here we have a handful, right? What I mean is that I’m not passing this franchise in Springfield to come to the franchise and Nixa. Does that make sense? Yeah. I’m not passing that dentist in Springfield to come to the dentist in Nixa. We do have a few Nick’s of hardware, it’s kind of renowned that they’re they track regionally, a lot of people that come in. So we started taking on this idea that if we’re going to help our small businesses grow, then we need to create an avenue or a platform that also connects to our community. So if I’m, so if I’m a small business, and I’m a, my, my primary customers or clients are coming from the next a proper, I don’t I can’t afford to go spend on advertising on radio or TV that you’re paying to hit a reasonable reach. Does that make sense? So I’m paying a lot of money, but I’m also going to be reaching out to a 60 or 70 or 80 mile radius. I don’t need that my customers are coming from right here Nixa. So that’s where, when we decided to take over the town festival, when we decided to take over the printing of our directory, our printed directory right here in our chambers of outsourcing it. When we added the firework show when we decided to take our business expo to a new level that was so that we’re creating a way that our businesses have a resource right here we become the media for them to reach the clients or reach our citizens. And that that really was a game changer for me. And we saw our revenues go up because they saw that as a valid resource. I think that’s one way that we’ve kind of answered that question on what are the Chamber’s do well, we create them a platform, through our events through our activities through our new experience Nick’s app, which is this a city wide garage so we can an extent we’ve been utilizing the app to do scavenger hunts with that for people, we made this big, long list, Brandon, of all these crazy things you might find at a garage sale, and find it was actually kind of fun making the list. But oh, yeah, I remember those. And they The goal is for people to go out with a garage selling to take a picture of it, upload it to the app, and then they’ll have a chance to win some prizes on Monday. Well, that’s another
Brandon Burton 12:06
word chambers providing the prizes to engage families in the
Chris Russell 12:10
that’s people shopping out there. Right. So. So that’s one of the ways that we’ve done that. And I know that a lot of times you see, what’s that? What’s that comment parades, or whatever, you know, it’s which one do the
Brandon Burton 12:23
three P chambers and pancakes and parades and pancakes, right?
Chris Russell 12:26
And here’s the thing is that, I think, especially in our community, when we’re so close to a major metropolitan area well, and Springfield is not even that big when compared to like St. Louis, Kansas City or Tulsa. But it’s still that in our scale of things, that’s that’s how we look at it, we have got to be that resource that is also giving our citizens and a chance to connect with our businesses. And that has been the game changer, which means a little bit more work. But honestly, it’s it’s fun. I mean, yeah, it’s a lot of work to do a town festival, it’s a lot of extra work to do an app and, and to create those resources for our businesses to connect to our community. But man, they appreciate it so much.
Brandon Burton 13:04
Yeah, that’s the end, you got to know your community. So I mean, it doesn’t work necessarily for every community, but understand your community. I think the example you gave the proximity of where you are to Springfield, and what’s going to draw people into your community, you need to have those events, those things that draw people in, and then once they’re there, you’re engaging with them, you’re providing great, whether it’s entertainment, like a show or a luncheon type show or so share with us maybe some of these things that you’re doing. You mentioned the app, which I think is fantastic. And and I imagine you can get creative with that too, with even plugging in some member restaurants or something, you know, find these things and scavenger hunt and eat lunch or whatever. And but what are some of these other activities or events that you guys put
Chris Russell 13:51
on? So let’s look at let’s look at this get back to the basis of a chamber right so a couple of things that we do. One of them is you know, the Chamber luncheon, right? Everybody has a lot of people have a chamber luncheon as well. luncheons to me are boring. I mean, you listen, let’s just let’s just play this out. And I’m not saying anything about about those who had the traditional luncheon because they they are normally very informative. But they’re very, they’re very scripted, if you will. So you walk in the network for about 20 minutes, and they sit down. And then you already have your cheesecake or the chocolate cake there and you get your salad plate there. And somebody stands up and they say thank you for coming. Thank you to our sponsors. Hey, we’re back in about 20 minutes with a guest speaker today. Enjoy your meal. You sit there with your table, eat for a little bit. And then finally here comes a speaker and let’s pray together good, right? And then you’re there for 45 minutes listening to them talk about a topic that you may or may not be interested in. And then you get up and as fast as possible. Can you leave that’s that’s the typical lunch. That’s the format that we’re all used to. Well, I like it and there’s there’s a time in place for that. Absolutely. But we decided that and of course a little bits of all my personality. You heard my bio that I’ve been doing, you know football games for 25 years. I mean when you when you’re a high school football announcer any kind of an announcer MC, there’s an element of a show that goes into that. So I decided that let’s let’s change this, let’s engage as many people as we possibly can at a luncheon and let’s do it in a talk show format. So I literally if you watch like the Late Show with Jimmy Fallon or any of those late shows, you know, What’s he do? He comes on? He has his opening monologue. Well, those are jokes. We call it. Good news Nixa. So I have a segment in there sponsored actually by expose marketing here Nixa, they sponsor that segment. And I tell about good news stories, I might play a video I might tell something that happened at city council meeting, I just was at a meeting went yesterday, one of our nonprofits kind of $35,000 grant from Delta Dental to help provide additional dental services to at risk kids. So that’s a good news story. So we’ll tell that for about 10 or 15 minutes. So that’s the opening monologue. And then we usually have our sponsor break, you gotta have a spotlight sponsor. But even then, unless that person’s a rockstar speaker, I will do q&a with them with a few slides, and I engage in them. And I’ll ask questions, and I’ll talk to them and have a conversation. And they see that so much more relevant than just getting up there and having to sit there make sure that they have their seven minute time, walked out perfectly with all these slides. And that has been more powerful. And that’s why those sellout each and every year, because they feel less pressure to have to do a presentation when it’s more about me doing an interview. And then of course, we get into some other segments where will we always have a transitional video. So when we go from one element to the next, I play video, because our school system is really good about making school videos, I will go grab one of their videos and we’ll play it right there like something that’s that happened at Nexus schools or something the city of Nixa did, or I’ll make a recap video of a chamber luncheon that we did a ribbon cutting that we did, and we do all of our ribbon cuttings on Facebook Live. And so it gives us a lot of content. And then after that we get into the sponsors, then finally, we’ll get into the actual meat of the subject. You know whether it’s last month it was I had, we did some grants for one of our Community Foundation. Well, that was fun. We were giving out free money at the Chamber luncheon. The month before we did an update with what the county’s master plan is for the next five years. Well, again, me and the county commissioner doing a q&a talking about it talking about the impact that is more of a show than it is a luncheon. And it involves so many people that they feel like they’re engaged, and we sell out each and every month. That’s just one of the things that we do differently.
Brandon Burton 17:18
That’s awesome. And that sounds a lot like a podcast to me. Now the way you do the interviews. Yeah, transitions. Yeah. I mean, you’ve got the all the elements that you’re selling tickets to you’re filling a room and you’re creating a great experience.
Chris Russell 17:31
And when you walk in, we’ve got it we got pumped up music plan we’ve got normally when you walk in, it’s not that hard to make videos, you know, these days to throw a bunch of pictures of your last month, until a little loop video. And we’re walking in there’s there’s energetic music, it’s fun, they’re dancing, we actually have somebody who announces the names and when they walk in. So my main sponsor of the annual sponsor, the lunches is GenCon, CPA and Kailyn. She’ll go And now ladies and gentlemen, welcome from the chamber podcast. It’s Brianna. And then we have our ambassadors are there with pom poms, and they’re cheering them on. There’s applause when everybody walks in, it’s like you’re walking up to bat at a major league baseball game. That’s awesome element that’s different. And it’s exciting. And it brings energy and people love it.
Brandon Burton 18:18
And it breaks down some of those, you know, resistances and barriers that people might have at a typical networking type function where you’re just sitting at the table trying to small talk with the people there, like you’re having a common experience and building upon it. So I love that. You
Chris Russell 18:32
know how a lot of a lot of chambers will do like raffle drawings at a chamber event. And they usually wait to the very end, they do the raffle drawings and nobody leaves. No, we do it. First. We want to get people excited right off the bat plus, it’s a nice transition to get everybody into their seats. And as you start the raffle drawing, so that was an element that we changed as well. And that was kind of a cool thing. So there I have an ambassador comes up, she gives out the raffles. And that kind of gets everybody ready. And then all of a sudden here come to the show and bring energy and it’s just a different way of doing it. But however, I see it working Brandon and people like to be there. Our chamber luncheon next week is I told Christiane, our operations that you might want to send a reminder email and she goes, Well, we’re almost full. Are you sure we need to? So we’re selling these things out? Well in advance and people and we do season passes, too. But so that’s that’s the excitement that we bring with that event, because we do have so many cool announcements that goes on during that chamber show, not the luncheon.
Brandon Burton 19:26
spend just a minute talking about the the annual pass. I think that’s yeah,
Chris Russell 19:30
no. So yeah, yeah, it’s really been a Well, I think we had 60 Some of them sold so you can buy your annual passes. Now, the way that we do our funding, Brandon, is that we do the total resource campaign model. And that was another big game changer for us. I know a lot of chambers use that. They also use like different campaign styles. By us having 30 to 40 volunteers go out each and every year and sell our inventory for us on non dues revenue. Those are 30 to 40 Cheerleaders that are out there talking about the Nixa chamber and saying here Here’s why you as a business need to be engaged. Well, we introduced with that the season passes so that they can buy an annual pass. Businesses don’t want to have to worry about logging in each and every week or month, I’m sorry, and making sure they have their ticket for the monthly luncheon or chamber show. And so they they’re more than happy to spend a couple 100 bucks and just buy that season pass at the beginning of the year. And then that way, they know they have a ticket each and every month. We do that with our working women and Nixa, our networking group, and then also our chamber show, and I think we’ve got, I think it’s 60 or 70, I’d have to go ask my operations, exactly how many we sold last year, but we have a guaranteed built in base each and every month because they just buy them. And if they can’t make it, they’re able to take their QR code and give it to one of their colleagues in our office.
Brandon Burton 20:43
Okay, that’s all right. Great idea. So you had mentioned at the beginning about the 91% retention rate, which is great feedback, you guys are providing value, your members see the value, they understand what you do, what are their feedback, so you get back from these returning members as they renew where they see in the most value from your chamber.
Chris Russell 21:03
You know, my favorite chamber member is not necessarily the one that we see all the time. My favorite chamber member that tells you as a chamber that you’re doing a good job is that company or corporation that you hardly ever see, because they see the value, but you never see them. So they know they want they read the emails, they see the Facebook posts, maybe they check the website, occasionally, maybe they’ve downloaded the experience next app, or they’re seeing the activities that we’re doing. And each and every year, they continue to write that check for six or $700 for them to be a member of the chamber, depending on their level, our lowest is 225. And our highest I think is 700. We do that we do that Fair, fair market value model with a mix of tears. So it’s kind of a combo. It’s a hybrid model. And that that that right there tells me that your chambers healthy when they’re not worried about what they get out of the chamber. And that’s a compliment. And I love to see those windows. I love to see the renewals of those who are engaged as well. Don’t get me wrong, there’s there’s value to that too. And as new members come in, and they get engaged in the chamber, that that’s new energy, it’s new blood is new volunteers. It’s new ambassadors. But again, when you have those members who say, hey, Nixa chamber, we see what you’re doing. Thank you so much. Here’s your annual check, no questions asked. That to me tells you that you’re doing something right. Does that make sense? Brandon?
Brandon Burton 22:16
Yeah, that’s another form of feedback that speaks volumes for sure.
Chris Russell 22:21
It does. And occasionally, you’ll see them show up to something big that we’re having, which is great. We had a groundbreaking for a $4 million new business coming into downtown Nixa a few weeks ago. And that brings out people that you don’t normally see. So that was fun. But that that to me, tells us that we’re doing the right things. You know, I think I think most people know that in my community that that I’m pretty engaged. I mean, I have I grew up here, Brandon, I went to high school. If you can’t see it, we’re on video here. But we’re not on video on the podcast. But right behind me. That’s my football helmet, you know, football helmets right back there. I played quarterback for the Knicks eagles. I’ve announced the games. My dad was a fire chief in town. For many, many years. I served on city council, I volunteer a lot and a lot of areas. So this is this is my bread and butter. There’s no doubt about it. However, you still have to maintain that this doesn’t mean you get a free pass, you still have to go out there and earn the respect. And they see that I’m at the city council meetings, they see that I’m I’m in these these these committees like the Nixon Community Foundation, the downtown revitalization group, they see me emceeing events promoting our community. And I think there’s a lot of that said that, that that’s another reason they want to get behind what the Chamber’s doing, not necessarily because of me, but because they see the overall efforts. And then I see how I engage and bring people up to be leaders. And that’s that’s what’s really been powerful for us is that finding those ambassadors, finding those board members that we are highlighting and showcasing and showing the community that it’s not just about the chamber, that we’re actually giving opportunities for other people in our community, to be seen and to have the spotlight and to take ownership of whatever they’re doing. You know, I mean, like our secretary music arts and crafts festival, we have 13 different nonprofits that we work with for that event. I have organizations running the dog show for the love of canines. I got the local FFA. That’s one of the the petting zoo. I’ve got the Arts Council that’s running the art show. I mean, so we engage a lot of different groups that they get ownership of that and therefore they get the highlight and the spotlight and it makes them feel good. And then they want to be a part of our chamber.
Brandon Burton 24:23
Yeah. So you’ve mentioned soccer days a few times for those people that are not from Nixa was a soccer days is. Yeah, it’s
Chris Russell 24:31
funny is that back in the 1950s. I mean, literally the entire town. I got to there’s a poster over here my wall that shows that it’s our history panel we used on our kiosks. But anyway, it talks about how the towns close going fishing or something like that. And the 1950s I mean, they would all go down to the river and sucker fish is a native, well, they’re sacrificial all across the world, but it’s one of those Ozarks traditions that they spawn in the fall or the spring and the town will go down and try to catch a bunch of sucker fish and they would actually A camp and celebrated the river. Well, in 1957, they brought the tradition back to Nixon started an annual fish fry. And with an annual fish fry, it kind of grew from there. And in 2018, the event was ran by the traditional good ol boys group that that held the festival. And it really had taken a turn where just wasn’t, it wasn’t very good. And people actually made fun of it. And they were they were going to shut it down. And I was at a breakfast with me and the committee and the mayor. And I was like, Guys, just let me think on this, just hold on. I grew up the Saturdays, this is my hometown. And I went back to my board of directors and said, I’m going to take over Saturdays I said, we as a chamber, I said, they went wack in at that time, I was fairly new. So I joined in March 2018. Sucker days in 2018, was May, I made the decision in June, so March, April, May, June, three months into the role and I’m going we’re taking it over. And the board was like, Are you sure I said, guys, I said I got a model. And I think we can do this. And it’s going to create an opportunity for more of our businesses to be exposed to our community. And it’s actually been pretty powerful and it’s really wonderful. It’s a wonderful event in a bring 25 to 30,000 people in downtown Nixa for three days and it’s a little downtown block. It’s not even that big and it’s just fun and it’s like a Hallmark Channel event. Like a Hallmark Channel movie right and so we have the Little Miss Main Street pageant. We have the Secretary King and Queen and we do all these fun things. We’ve been doing a new thing this year, the sucker day dog king and queen we got these cute little crowns today. So you know it’s just really really engages our community and my goal was to create as many opportunities for exposure for Nixa and we have several high school groups that are engaged. We have the marching band, we have the theater department, we have the art club, we have the FFA we talked about we have the JROTC so we have all these different groups of the high school kids that are getting engaged, and to be a part of it. So it’s really, it’s really become a cool thing. It is a lot more work. And we have to dedicate a lot of time to it. We do have a great committee, but in the end, it comes down to what happens here behind the scenes to make it happen. But it’ll generate 50 to 75. Probably I think I looked at the p&l the other day, I think we’re up to depending on weather, of course, right? We know whether an outdoor festivals, if we have a great weekend and we do a lot of ride tickets, then we should generate somewhere around 70 to $75,000 in revenue.
Brandon Burton 27:21
That’s great. Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s big.
Chris Russell 27:24
So it’s a big no. Our next, our next boat generated our business expo generate about 40,000 revenue this year. And that was 108 booths for six hours and our high school that we did our business expo. And I think the the it was 38,000. And something I had the p&l here the other
Brandon Burton 27:40
day, 36 hours. That’s yeah, pretty good. Good bang.
Chris Russell 27:44
We were sold out event. And again, the traffic was just unbelievable. That day, it was just nonstop traffic all day. And our businesses really liked that event. Yeah.
Brandon Burton 27:53
Well, I wanted to ask you is if you have any tip or action item for listeners to Yeah, they can do to make sure that they stay relevant. Make sure their members know what their chamber does. What would you suggest?
Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions
Chris Russell 28:06
I’ll give you a couple of things here. First of all, unlimited thinking. I see as I talk to a lot of chambers at conferences and on some of the panels especially, you know, 2000 22,021 as we’re all kind of figuring out what was next I unlimited possibility unlimited thinking, you know, one of the very first things that we did when we found out that the city of Nixa was going to more than likely locked down the town like all of us went through, the very first thing that I did was I pulled in my staff and we re re rebuilt our master plan. We went straight to the drawing board and said, Okay, this is going to happen. How do we become more relevant? Now? The good news is, is that the next chamber I’m kind of techie, and that’s an advantage. I don’t disagree. I really am. We were already in the video world at a high level, doing Facebook Live videos with graphic overlays. And that was kind of fun things. And but we decided that it was time to take that to the next level that we weren’t going to let a lock down to slow us down. And we got creative on certain ways that we did things drive in chamber luncheons, right. I mean, we literally had everybody drive into a parking lot. And we had everybody even the cars were six feet apart. I mean, come on. But you know, the funny thing was, that was June of 2020. The funny thing was because we’re in the Midwest and southwest Missouri, and it’s a little little different than other parts of the country. So I respect that. I remember we were parking all these cars six feet apart. We had people out there with poles, making sure the cars were six feet apart. And we had our volunteers and we had box lunches were in basically hazmat suits to hand them out in June of 2020. And then what happened was as soon as they got there, you know what they did? They jumped out of the car and went jumped in with their friends. I mean, it is what it is. But it’s always thinking outside the box. What can we be doing different, right? And that’s like, you know, you and I were talking off camera before the podcast about Andre from Bentonville. And I hope you do get him on here. I look forward to that podcast. The guy was at it. We were at Mako conference and he brought up the VR headset. And I’m like, dude, I got to talk to you because I’m already there horizon worlds and meta is spinning billions upon billions of dollars creating this metaverse. And if we as chambers, don’t figure out how to grasp on or get ahead of that and get there now before everybody else does. We have local churches in southwest Missouri that have already built, already built their Metaverse church. And in addition to that, Wendy’s just spent like tons of money to build the first virtual reality world, Wendy’s, and there’s other companies that are following suit. And I’ve actually been talking to some other industry leaders don’t Hey, how do we capitalize on that I actually built within and learn how to build the world because it’s all user created content. I built one of our local parks and after Saturday’s, we’re having a virtual reality world meet up for all those who have headsets in the community. Then see the Facebook post and the invites to come in and check it out. Because we find that you can actually connect with the community easier in the VR world, you’re you have less boundaries, and how can we create that next step to connect with with Nixa. So that’s something that we’re doing. But the other thing too is, is that my other big tip is what’s been a game changer for us too, is what I call a video on the go live video on the go with graphic overlays good audio, I have taught this class to chambers all across the country, I’ve done one on one conversations, I’ve been on webinars done on the conferences, if you need help really, truly learning how to make professional looking videos, within 20 minutes when rolling up and a live ribbon cutting, I highly encourage you to reach out to me, I’d be happy to show you what we do. You go and check out Nick’s at chambers Facebook page, go to our video section, you’ll see what I’m talking about. We’re talking about rolling into a mower shop the other day, getting some quick B roll and then making a professional looking video within about 20 minutes. And so that’s something that I really think can be a game changer for your community is figuring out how to capitalize on Facebook Live video and not just a just holding up a camera and hitting record. That that has been a big game changer for us as well.
Brandon Burton 31:51
That’s awesome. So I asked everyone I have on the podcast this question and you’ve kind of been addressing it already throughout this interview. But as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future chambers and their purpose going forward?
Future of Chambers
Chris Russell 32:04
Well, that’s a weighted question. You know, I think you know, you’ve been talked about that a little bit of Mako and I know I had that conversation. Again, what’s that common saying that you hear when you see in one chamber, you’ve seen one? Right? I think the biggest thing is understanding your position in your community. I think that’s step number one. I’m I also know that a chamber of commerce needs to have solid relationships with all entities in your community. And I’ve talked to so many chambers who don’t have a great relationship with their city or their school system, you need to fix that you got to fix that that’s, that has to be cured that there has to be something that you focus on and making sure that those relationships are solid. But the other one is you you know we have in our mission statement to be the premier business organization and it goes on and on, will be the premier business organization. If that means you need to have events for your community than have them. And that means you need to have networking events that have them. That means that you need to be techie. And you need to be the leading edge when it comes to showcasing because you are the example that a small business who moves into your town or start does a start up in your town. They’re looking at the chamber and how they function. And if we’re not functioning that that way, then how are they expected to function that way? I have the same conversation with businesses each and every month. I say, when I’m doing coaching, I say do you close out your your books each month? And they’re like No, I said, well guess what chambers? Do we have to close out our books each month and give our p&l statements right or our current budget statements to our board for review? Well, why businesses don’t operate like that? Well, if you’re not operating like that, and you’re not doing it at a high level, then how can you expect a business to do that? So I think the future of chambers understanding where you’re at in your town, and then being the most premier business that you can, and being techie, I think you’ve got to be techie. And you got to be innovative and figure out a way to connect with your audience. All right, that makes sense. That was a lot, dude, I just don’t, that was a big break.
Brandon Burton 33:52
It’s a podcast that can hit that backup, 30 seconds button a couple times this
Chris Russell 33:56
slow down button to you know, on the podcast, you can either speed it up, you don’t need to speed up my podcast, I
Brandon Burton 34:01
was thinking, you know, I usually stick to about 30 minutes on these podcasts. But these people, their listeners are getting about 60 minutes worth of value as they listen to you.
Chris Russell 34:11
I love helping I love I love what I do. And I looked and I love to help other chambers and I think that we only get stronger. I mean, I’ve had powerful conversations with like April Bragg and Georgia and some of these other chamber pros and when I go to these conferences, I’m there to learn. And when I find people are doing things at a high level like Bentonville, Arkansas, man I become a I become a sponge. I mean he he gave us some of those tech tips. We’ve already implemented three of them, right we’re slack, there’s slack in the right now I mean there it is right there I just got another message sitting here we’re already implementing other things that we can learn from each other. If we can help each other grow with our through leadership that was another thing great about Mako was a lot of leadership portions. We all go to these these these conferences and economic development Workforce Development what to do about childcare. I don’t take care of your members. No, we need more leadership opportunities to grow as people. That’s, that’s my, that’s what I love to do is help people grow. And that’s that’s and we do it for our businesses and we should be doing it internally as well.
Brandon Burton 35:12
Absolutely. So Chris, I wanted to give you a chance to put any contact information out there for anyone that wants to reach out and connect and ask him more questions about how you’re doing things. Absolutely.
Connect with Chris Russell
Chris Russell 35:20
I’m on MySpace. MySpace is my favorite place to go to MySpace. Yeah, we’re still there. No, I’m kidding. Literally, find me on Facebook. Look up. Chris Russell Nixa, Missouri. Of course, my phone number you want to text me Call me? 417-773-7678? I’d love to talk to you. Of course, we can do. email chrisrussell@nixachamber.com, actually, probably not on the email me email sucks. I hate that platform. It’s terrible. It really is. I mean, we’ve got to figure out a way to get past email. I mean, it really is becoming a burden. I think for all of us. Would you not agree, Brandon? memb. Yeah, me emailed me the other day about the bio and I didn’t even see it. And it took you a reminder email for me to go in and type the bio out. Yeah, yeah. It’s just not a great connect. So call me or text me, that’s probably the best thing.
Brandon Burton 36:07
Okay. I’ll get that in the show notes for this episode. So people can check that out and connect with Chris and he’s got lots of ideas, lots of energy, and he loves to share these ideas too. So do reach out and connect with him. Learn from him, let him learn from you. And, you know, make everybody better.
Chris Russell 36:25
I want to learn from you too, man. I want to find out what you’re doing. That’s, that’s the main thing. You just never know what you’re gonna learn. That’s right.
Brandon Burton 36:31
Well, Chris, this has been great, great discussion. I appreciate you being with me today on Chamber Chat Podcast and provided a ton of value. Appreciate it.
Chris Russell 36:40
Oh, thank you for having me, Brian. Appreciate it. Great job on your show too. It’s awesome.
Brandon Burton 36:43
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