fbpx Skip to content
Published August 16, 2022
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG_0371.jpg

Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Charlie Clark. 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.

Now your host he recently took his dad to shoot machine guns. He’s my dad Brandon Burton.

Hello Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I am 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 Kris Johnson, President and CEO of the Association of Washington Business in Washington State to learn how Holman Brothers has provided value for him. 

Kris Johnson 0:45
Well, Doug and Bill at the Holman Brothers have been a key ally in growth for my professional career working at three different chambers, a local chamber, a regional chamber, now a statewide chamber. And they’ve been the ideal solution, whether it’s a comprehensive training program, whether it’s working on individual sales growth, quarterly check-ins with the team, the ability to grow members has meaning more assets for the organization, more assets means we can do more things to serve our members. They’ve really been the perfect solution for us, a trusted resource partner and a growth partner for us all along the way. So hats off to Doug and Bill for their great success. They’ll be a great partner for you as they are for us.

Brandon Burton 1:26
You can learn more about Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions by visiting holmanbros.com.

Doug & Bill Holman know how to diagnose and solve
member recruiting issues faster and better than anyone else, and they want to put
that knowledge to work for you and your chamber. Learn more at HolmanBros.com.

Guest Introduction

You’re joining us for another special episode and our 2022 ACCE chamber the year finalist series, and our guest for this episode is Charlie Clark, Vice President of Communications at the Hilton Head Island Bluffton Chamber in South Carolina. Charlie is a proud Island graduate and has been in the chamber industry for over two decades. She serves as Vice President of Communications for the Hilton Head Island Bluffton chamber which is also a three time winner of accs chamber the Year award. As a combined chamber and Visitor’s Bureau. She oversees all communications for the organization as well as leading the charge for public relations efforts for the Hilton Head Island destination which hosts over 3 million visitors annually. During her tenure, she has helped Garner national broadcast coverage for the destination with the today’s show, Food Network, CNN Good Morning America and many others. She has also earned coverage from a variety of other media outlets including New York Times, USA Today Travel and Leisure and the Wall Street Journal and more. The chamber is the proud winner of numerous awards for communications excellence from ACC including the coveted Grand Award. In addition to awards honoring the Chamber’s efforts from the SE tourism society, HSM AI Adrienne awards and national awards for broadcast excellence. She’s a frequent public speaker committed and involved in her community having served on the boards of a number of organizations. She and her husband Tom are the proud parents of two sons, Brennan and Cameron. And, Charlie, I am excited to have you with me today on chamber chat podcast. Why don’t you take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions listening and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you better.

Charlie Clark 3:24
I’m so glad to be here. Brandon, as we were sort of talking about earlier before the before the podcast started. I love podcast, I listen to yours, as well as many others and it’s just such a great resource for information especially when you’re on the go. So, gosh, something interesting about myself. I think most people are often surprised to know that I actually moved to Hilton Head Island from Wyoming of all places. Wyoming after one too many good vacations, you know, I thought I was so original in moving to hills and hatches chucking it all and moving to this destination and found out that the island was full of people who had done the exact same you know, most people do for a job or they move for family. I literally moved just based on the sheer beauty of this place. And my husband I’ve always said you know, we will we will figure it out when we get there. And sure enough, the communications position popped open for the chamber and I said I think that’s what I’d love to do. And I’ve been doing it ever since and that was over 20 years ago.

Brandon Burton 4:24
Yeah, talk about a leap of faith and nothing against Wyoming. There’s beauty there’s just a different kind of beauty compared to the beach and you know, everything else that you guys have. It’s a

Charlie Clark 4:35
little it’s a little snowy or the last year I was there. I it snowed on June 27 Oh my God. I said you know, I think it’s time to go. So yeah, the only thing Yeah, the only call was the ice in your drinks here as they like to say so. living on the island. It’s wonderful.

Brandon Burton 4:52
That’s great. Well tell us a little bit about the Hilton Head Island Bluffton chamber just to give us some idea of perspec Did as to scope of work the size of your chamber staff budget, things like that, just so we have an idea of as we go into our discussion,

About the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber

Charlie Clark 5:08
you know, I think people are often surprised that they help them out. And Bluffton chamber is as large as it is we are almost 1400 members at this point. They have a staff of about 25 budget of about 8 million. We’ve been we’ve been at it for gosh, almost 60 years. So very entrenched in a community. And as you know, as you mentioned earlier that we have over 3 million visitors a year. So our chamber from a scope of work perspective is a chamber in the traditional b2b sense. And also combined with our visitor and convention bureau. Because when your economy is so heavily based on on tourism and is here, and for the state of South Carolina, and as a whole, it just makes great sense to combine those two organizations.

Brandon Burton 5:54
Absolutely. Guys have a lot of great chambers. They’re in South Carolina as well. So as far as a destin destination, you guys are, you know, supporting each other very well. From what I can say the

Charlie Clark 6:06
Carolinas do have very strong chambers very strong, very connected. It’s a great place to do business and chambers really do work well together here.

Brandon Burton 6:16
Absolutely. So with these chamber there finalist interviews, what I like to do is focus on the the two programs that you guys submitted on your chamber through your application. And what I like to do is just go at it from a high level at first just what the two programs are. And then we can dive into a little bit more detail in each of them as soon as we get back from this quick 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 each shop play mobile app with App My Community by visiting 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 fare festival or Farmers Market 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 appmycommunity.com/chamberchat now to receive 10% off your first year of an App My Community mobile app.

App My Community creates mobile apps that allow you to engage directly with your community. Enhance chamber membership by providing a unique advertising and communication channel to residents and visitors. Not just a member directory, App My Community has the tools to be useful to residents on a daily basis. Learn more at appmycommunity.com/chamberchat.

Chamber Nation hears from its customers that they help make it fun again to present the value of membership. That’s because so much is provided to help each member promote their business and with monthly ROI reports from Chamber Nation, they know their membership is already working to help them succeed.

There are three words in Chamber of Commerce…. and Chamber Nation knows that their customers take care of the CHAMBER, but Chamber Nation takes care of the COMMERCE. This way both teams working side-by-side deliver a whole lot more in membership value. 
With Chamber Nation, not only will you have a membership management system but also a membership development system all in one terrific package. So, SAVE MONEY and be impressed by visiting www.RichardsCalendar.com to set up a demo with their CEO. Or learn more at  www.ChamberNation.com.

Visit ChamberNation.com to learn more.

Chamber leaders know firsthand how unexpected disturbances in the business environment have become the norm. Even the most experienced membership reps need to continually evolve to overcome these disruptions and create new opportunities. Holman Brothers Next Level Coaching supplies the year round sales coaching and mentoring your membership rep needs to navigate change and continue driving revenue for your chamber. Visit holmanbros.com/nextlevel to learn more and request a free trial of Next Level Coaching. 

Click here for a FREE trial of Next Level Coaching from Holman Brothers.

All right, Charlie, we’re back. If you would share with us what what are the two programs that you guys submitted on your chamber that your application

Topic-Chamber of the Year Application Programs

Charlie Clark 9:29
is always interesting when you decide what programs to submit for your synopsis? I mean, it’s always wondering what this year it honestly it wasn’t as difficult based on the you know, the couple of years we’re all coming through with COVID. Two things we did one was called the path forward readiness plan. It fell under the sort of the heading of cataclysmic leadership. Just a comprehensive strategy for reopening our community post COVID You know when you have a community that is so heavily based on tourism Wow. what a what a game changer COVID was and how do we how do we reopen safely? How do we do that? So what we did is we we formed immediately we had 150 people on nine different task forces, everything from you know, churches and childcare to hoteliers, small business, retail service industry, you name it, we had it on those task forces. And as we were all just sort of starting to reopen and try and get back to business, which South Carolina did very quickly, by the way, but it’s just how do we how do we develop these industry specific protocols that ensure the safety of our residents, our workforce and our visitors? How do we make sure we’re all comfortable with that? So in a short amount of time, we convened those task forces. And they came up with those safety protocols. Those were then reviewed by a steering committee. And it just it just turned out to be such a great way to launch people back into business safely, and it worked really well. And the other. The other synopsis that we entered was a program near and dear to my heart that we did call them help for hope. We partnered with again, that word partnership comes through, I’m sure for a lot of award entries. Help for Hope was something we did in partnership with the Waterson Family Foundation and the Community Foundation of a low country. If you remember back when when COVID really hit was scary. It was a scary time when you have a workforce as many of ours here are and elsewhere as well. Going paycheck to paycheck, where your next meal was coming from was a reality. It was an actual reality here for workers, not just in f&b and restaurants, but in a variety of different when hoteliers are closing down those types of things. So we developed this plan that actually, you were given like your family, a community card for help for hope you could take that car to a restaurant, we had over 50 participating restaurants handed over, they’d give you a meal for four. And then the restaurant in turn, would take that to the Community Foundation of the low country for reimbursement. So restaurants were supported. People were getting fed. And you know, there was also a contingent of people who wanted to give, you know, how do I help if you remember that everybody wanted to dive in and do something this was a very tangible way. We had, we had donations from over 37 states. Coming in, in addition to corporate and people within our own community, people have a love affair with Hilton Head Island. And that really showed they had their favorite restaurants. They wanted to make sure that they felt supported. So those two programs were the ones we launched for synopsis and just just really, really great for our community and a great game changer for all.

Brandon Burton 12:47
Yeah, so let’s let’s start with that one with help for hope to just dive in a bit deeper. How did it get started? Like who who approached to with the foundations that you partnered with? How long did it take to develop the plan to actually work and then that, you know, broadcasts that out to the community to those people that needed it to, to either donate or to be a recipient of?

Charlie Clark 13:11
Well, I don’t know about you, but it seemed like during during the pandemic, things happen slowly and they also happened at lightspeed, you know, things just started moving. It just some conversations that got it started really and we looked around at our workforce and thought, you know, we knew we’d already on the on the kind of the bandwagon with the path forward and just really putting together those programs. But this was an issue hunger became an issue. We had some of our self help our Bluffton self help and soup kitchens coming to us and letting us know that oh my gosh, we’re inundated. So we thought how can we do this for this workforce? Who is really quite frankly, not used to utilizing those resources? So that’s how helper hope began. And originally, I remember when we first started this, it was somebody said, Well, what paperwork are we going to have people fill out for their, you know, to their meal? We said, there’s no paperwork. We’re not we’re not doing any paperwork. People who who come we were just going to give that handout that meal. And then the other thing was is how do you distribute it? Right? How do you get these community cards into the hands of families who needed them? We knew that that that wasn’t going to happen in the traditional way. We knew that some of those workers who had never been to a soup kitchen or bluffed and self help weren’t about to start now. So with this partnership, we launched popups, we launched pop ups and parking lots. And if you remember early days of the the pandemic as well, there was that no contact that type of thing. So we launched drive thru pop ups, and I’ll never forget, we launched our first one in a restaurant parking lot. One of our participating restaurants, had no idea put it out through social media, no idea how it was going to go or if anyone was going to show up. And the lines just started forming, snaking around the parking lot. And we ended up having to grow from larger and larger and larger venues because the word spread in the domain When was that great, we gave out over 19,000 meals, 19,000 meals distributed. And over, gosh, almost a quarter of a million dollars donated one of our restaurants who was participating in this, let us know that, you know, during during the help promote days, on the days those cards were distributed, he would see a 20 to 30% bump in his, in his restaurant traffic, which for his restaurant was was great too, you know, keeping those revenues and keeping people employed and, and getting paid. So it made a big, big difference. By the end, I knew we had something going when the second pop up we did. We had the sheriff’s department come and say we got to help you manage traffic. There’s too much traffic out onto Highway 278. So it was just a great, you know, feel good. I think for everybody involved, the folks who were in it was a happy, you know, help for hope. We had T shirts, it’s in hope dealer. You know, these pop ups? Yeah, these pop ups were very uplifting. You know, we were a little worried of like, oh, is this gonna be a downer, but we had music going smiles all around. And it just was. I mean, it just people were so grateful restaurants were grateful those receiving the cards were grateful. And it was just, quite frankly, one of the most rewarding things that that we’ve had the opportunity to be a part of.

Brandon Burton 16:18
Yeah. And I like how you guys remove the hurdle of having the paperwork to fill out and applying for program and all that. How did you identify who to target as people that may be in need for this? And then did it just spread word of mouth? Or how did you get the word out?

Charlie Clark 16:36
You know, social media, social media, social media, that became a conduit of information, we had a help for Hope website, we had help, perhaps social media, we had the restaurants themselves, we had businesses who were pushing out for their employees, hey, if you need this, take advantage of this, this is a great thing. So really, really spread that way. Could also could kind of gauge as things were happening, maybe there were restaurants who weren’t seeing as much traffic. And we were using social media to say, here’s the list of restaurants participating. Don’t forget about this one or that one, they’re doing this meal or that meal. So it became really through word of mouth and social media. And as we knew it continued to grow to the point where our last help for Hope drive thru pop up was in a university parking lot. That gives you any idea the size that was needed?

Brandon Burton 17:28
Yeah, well, I can imagine because just thinking back in those early days, the pandemic where there was so much uncertainty going on, that we didn’t know how long this is going to last, we didn’t know what businesses would survive, we didn’t know if your own job would be around, you know, a month or two from then. So being able to be to keep money set aside, as you know, the storms keep coming or you know, however, just to be prepared, it’s nice to be able to have some kind of relief like this even just to go out and enjoy a meal. And I can anticipate even especially in the Hilton Head area where you’ve got a lot of hospitality and tourism based businesses that there was probably even a higher level of uncertainty with a lot of people where this became a great program of rescue.

Charlie Clark 18:16
We all forget that too. We forget the early days of the pandemic, you know, we all seem so settled in now in terms of knowing what’s what and what’s going on. But those early days were scary. Yeah, they really weren’t for a lot of people. So we just sort of this as many communities do you just bootstrap you roll up your sleeves, you partner with your community and and you make things happen. And that’s what I think chambers, the role of a chamber can be so so beneficial when when times of crisis are around.

Brandon Burton 18:43
Yeah. And it could have been easy just to sit back and say, well, maybe this will be over in a week or two. But you guys didn’t you got together, you rolled up your sleeves and you acted and then maybe kind of transitioning into the other program to path forward readiness. The term has been overused but the these are unprecedented times. Right. So to be able to navigate your way through, you know, something that we’ve never seen before. You talked about 150 people nine dis different taskforce How did that develop? How did it evolve? What What kind of outcomes Did you see as you roll that out in the community?

Charlie Clark 19:27
You know, it came about quickly. I think a lot of us were like different timeframe when it came to putting programming together. During this time and putting we just again, we had we did a thing also that kind of leads into this Brandon which was we launched a thing called Power Hour power hours a once a week call where people could kind of get unfiltered information about everything from the latest COVID news to the community to what was happening and we weren’t finding that in the media a lot. You know, this kind of unfiltered there were those headlines that were or built for click throughs not for information. And it was a real need. So once we developed that, we saw that people, I think one guest in particular, we had Peter Greenberg on who was CBS News. He’s does all their travel coverage nationally. And he said to us on this call, he said, people who are coming to your destination, they know you’ve got great beaches, they know you’re a beautiful place. They want to know they’re safe. They want to know, they can travel somewhere where they’re gonna be safe. And again, the residents as well. They wanted to know we’ve coexisted with visitors since the 50s. They wanted to know that this was going to be safe for them as well, and the workforce, those people who were working with our guests, they needed to know so when you convene those task forces in every industry is different, what’s going to work for childcare isn’t going to work for a restaurant. So we brought together those task forces that were also made up of not only industry, peeps themselves, but also residents in the community when we wanted everybody to be involved, and have a voice in what safe look like in those early days, the pandemic and they did it. They came up with those safety protocols by industry. We had a steering committee that was overseen by medical professionals, and by the hospital CEOs in our community to to sort of say, Yep, this is this passes muster, this works. And then we immediately put it into action. We had businesses involved, we had hundreds of businesses do what we call take the pledge, they signed a pledge that said, here are the safety protocols, I adhere to. Those protocols were available on our website in English and Spanish. And you were given a seal to put on your door now that was actually adopted by many other communities. We saw that happen. We were sort of early in that game, the state of Florida through vacation rental Management Association, they adopted that for their locations in California and in Florida. So it kind of took off other communities as well. We’re interested in in doing that. And it really did Garner its fair share of immediate as well over 126 media outlets picked it up. And I think one of the best quotes we had was just that, you know, this is a community that’s doing it safely. This is a committee that knows what they’re doing. And that came out of Redbook magazine, Yahoo. So it really did it was great to see people coming. And then people actually asking going into business is going where’s your seal? Versus your seal? I’m not coming in without that. So that was a catalyst to

Brandon Burton 22:26
Yeah. So as things evolved, and coming through recovery and so forth, did you guys have to go back and re address some of those? Look, I’m struggling for the right word, but the the plan of action, the safety protocols and everything. How often were you guys addressing that?

Charlie Clark 22:49
We could convene those task forces really quickly. And as you know, we all became Zoomers, right, that was a whole different ballgame. So we could Can we still we still convened those task forces to this day when it comes to issues affecting their industry. So we also immediately set up resources, Zoom rooms, different things that we had here at the Chamber of studio that could help in that process. But yeah, it was it was honestly a process that we evolved over time. It wasn’t unusual at all for us to reconvene just to ask questions and to garner feedback, what’s working for you what’s not working for you? And times we put too fat task forces together so they could speak to each other so they could talk and I get the needs and and issues from from, for example, what does what does the hotel industry need from childcare? What is how those two work together? So it was a rewarding, rewarding part of what we do. I think like I said, I think it was the Redbook magazine said Hilton Head Island paves the path forward for fun and safe family travel and vacations. What is that big we were we were concerned for people that are going to come this summer and turns out 2020 occupancy for us was actually down only about 2.9%. Over the prior year. Our Yeah, our July of that year was up 17% over the prior year, because the word was out. And this was obviously wide open space. It’s a safe place to be families were coming and they were remotely working. They were remotely schooling, and they felt safe doing that.

Brandon Burton 24:28
Wow. That’s great. So it sounds like the task forces are still operating. The program’s still going for I was that was gonna be my next question. If it’s still operating, or if you’re able to sunset some of these task forces, or maybe hibernate them for a little bit as things get better. But how’s that landscape looking? Now?

Charlie Clark 24:48
Definitely, definitely. You know, we as we all did, we evolved as as the pandemic evolved, and we’re able to sunset implement whatever we needed to do on that front. So we’re just really, you know, proud of our business community for stepping up to the plate and doing it very quickly. I think speed was at the essence, because there were so many unknowns as COVID was making its way through our country. And I think that really did help a lot as well. Right.

Brandon Burton 25:15
So I’d like to ask how you guys at the Hilton Head, Bluffton chamber, how do you view the role of your chamber in the community?

Charlie Clark 25:26
You know, I think, I think in any community, and especially now the Chamber’s they’re really the ones that are getting it done. The one sort of doing the impossible what others say is impossible. Chambers often say, No, I think we can handle that. I think we can get that done. And we do it in partnership. And I think chambers are really often put forth those initiatives and programs are sort of game changers. For us, I know whether that’s attracting Southwest Airlines to start flying out of our area what you know, big, hairy, audacious goals are usually things that chambers don’t shy away from. And I think our role became even more pronounced as Chambers as we’ve gone through the last two years.

Brandon Burton 26:09
Yeah, I like that response. That’s great. I love that chambers are the ones that get it done. That should be a slogan on every Chamber of Commerce.

Charlie Clark 26:18
Yeah, as the other slogan, you never waste a good crisis. I think leadership always rises to the top. And I think that was definitely true for a lot of chambers across this country, during the past few years to take that leadership role was an important one for chambers.

Brandon Burton 26:36
That’s right. So I’d like looking at the all the chamber the year finalists as those kind of setting a benchmark in the chamber world, as far as you know, areas of work and the example you’re setting, if you were to provide maybe a tip or an action item for for those listening, who would be interested in taking their chamber up to the next level, what might you suggest?

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Charlie Clark 27:02
Well, you know, I think first and foremost is to utilize all the tools in your toolbox, I mean, utilize the incredible resources we all have with ACCE, and with the US Chamber, you know, the mentioned earlier about the power hour, we just pick up the phone and call and say, Curtis Dubay, chief economist for the US Chamber, could you be on our Power Hour and explain inflation? Yes, I can. I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s great. And then it’s a two way street, you can ask questions. I mean, it’s not every day, you get to ask questions from the chief economist or epidemiologists with the hack during the height of it. So I think utilizing those resources, whether it be web based resources, it’s just it’s all out there. And it’s really, really helpful. I’d also say, in terms of, you know, chambers, going to the next level is know your voice, I really encourage you to we encourage chambers to know the power and behind what we represent as chambers, you know, we always like to talk and our number of businesses or a number of members, but sometimes it’s easy to forget their their jobs and faces behind those businesses. Each business represents the livelihoods of so many people. And so I think to just know your voice to know that what a critical role that chambers play in the community and not be afraid, you know, to shy away from that, that, that we are the ones who who make change in our communities. And I think it’s hard to sometimes I think, for chambers to take that 40,000 foot view that often it’s easy, as I like to call it to major in the minors, you know, chambers are often held responsible for everything. And, you know, just you know, we get it done, and so

Brandon Burton 28:43
all credit for very little credit.

Charlie Clark 28:46
Right. So sometimes I think it’s hard to to look at your community from that 40,000 foot view, and not major in the minors because it’s easy to get get packed by those. And in addition to, you know, our mission statement, which every chamber has, we have a set of guiding principles, and we believe in only taking on endeavors that that we can do better than others in the community that we have a voice to pull people together to convene the community. So I think that’s an important aspect of of being an excellent chamber as well.

Brandon Burton 29:18
I love that. I love that response. So I like asking everybody who I have on the show about the future of chambers. And so how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Charlie Clark 29:32
You know, I think chambers are now more relevant than ever. I think the last few years have been a proving ground for chambers and boy did we all step up to the plate. We actually gained members during during the pandemic, at a time when economic uncertainty was tough for a lot of businesses based on our response and our ability to connect the community and offer information that was relevant. So I think the future of chambers is bright. I think we’ve been I’m more prominent in terms of our community leadership, I think we are viewed in our communities as as, as I said, conveners connectors of people in a world that while we seem to be more connected than ever, we’re really more disconnected than ever, in so many ways. And I think chambers do a great job of, of really having a coalescent community that you can actually, you know, take action and make change in your community, on those big, scary goals that often bring, you’re always gonna bring, you know, good and bad, you know, your goal is headed in the right direction when it comes to whether it’s a, you know, infrastructure problem or a piece of legislation which we all handle, you know, you’re doing something, right. If you have a little bit of a balance of people going yay, on that front, big, big projects always have that. So I think the future of chambers going forward, we feel it’s a really great time to be a chamber and a great time to make a

Brandon Burton 31:00
difference. Yeah, I think a lot of chambers, almost were surprised that they gained members during the pandemic, because you figure things are shut down, businesses are struggling, but they forget to remember that, that there’s a need, you know, and there’s that stress going on with these businesses, there’s a need. And so that bump and membership and then whatever, you know, recession we have that’s being talked about coming up on the brink of us. I think there’s going to be more businesses that are returning to their chamber to to figure out how do I navigate through this now. So we

Charlie Clark 31:38
saw we saw you know, we, we saw in our surveys, everybody our membership surveys, which we do each year, we saw some changes, which was interesting to see as the pandemic went on. That just speaks to I think, what’s happening and going to happen in the future chambers. Um, as you mentioned, with a potential recession, what’s happening economically is that we saw really rise to the top, the benefit for chambers for, for us being the ones to convey relevant, timely information, they want information, they’re starving for information, many of us are no in a world filled with it, you know, how do you localize that? How do you make it mean something to your business community in a way that makes a difference, and I think that’s going to be in a really important factor coming up as well,

Brandon Burton 32:21
and being trusted information. That’s key. Charlie, this has been a lot of fun having you with me on the podcast today. I’d love to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who might want to reach out and connect and maybe learn more about these programs that you talked about what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you.

Connect with Charlie Clark

Charlie Clark 32:41
You know, I would love for people just to reach out directly to me. I would love to have those conversations other chambers I can be reached easily at cclark@hiltonheadisland.org or you can always go to our website as well. hiltonheadchamber.org.

Brandon Burton 33:02
That’s perfect. Now I’ll get them both in our show notes for this episode, so people can find it easily and have to write while they’re driving or anything like that. So Charlie, this has been great. You guys are definitely making an impact in your community there and appreciate you spending time with us today. And I wish you and the and all of your organization Best of luck is chamber the

Charlie Clark 33:25
year. Thanks, Brandon. I’ll see you in Indy.

Brandon Burton 33:28
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.

Have you ever thought about creating a podcast for your chamber? We always hear about how chambers need to be storytellers. What better way is there to tell the stories of your members and the work of your chamber than through a podcast?

Your audience is waiting to hear from you as a convener of leaders and influencers champion for business and catalyst for change within your community.

I just launched a Chamber Podcast Course with the goal to get your very own podcast started within 30 days. Visit chamberchatpodcast.com/pivot. To learn more and to enroll in the chamber podcast course today. For a limited time as a launch promotion. This course is being offered at a 25% discount. Be sure to purchase the course today to lock in your savings before the price goes up., even if you’re not ready to start right away. Again, that’s chamberchatpodcast.com/pivot.

Get started with your own Chamber Podcast and shortcut your learning curve with the Chamber Podcast Course offered by Chamber Chat Podcast.
Have you considered the many benefits of hosting a podcast for your Chamber? The options, leverage, and possibilities that a podcast offers are virtually endless. Download my FREE Chamber Podcasting Guide to learn how to start your own Chamber podcast!