Origin Story to 200 Episodes and Beyond

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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

And now, your host. He always enjoys the sense of accomplishment after doing yard work is my dad Brandon Burton.

Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it’s my goal here on the podcast 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 Jason Mock, President and CEO of the San Marcos Area Chamber to learn how the Holman Brothers have provided value for his chamber.

Jason Mock 0:47
Two years ago, we brought in Holman Brothers to help our organization go to that next level. And in those two years, our team has transformed the way that we think about sponsorships and non dues revenue. And I would really encourage you if you’re looking to take your chamber to the next level to bring on the Holman Brothers.

Brandon Burton 1:03
You can learn more about Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions by visiting holmanbros.com.

You’re joining us today for episode number 200. This is quite the milestone as you can imagine, as I’ve been about this podcasting journey. This is signifying of almost four years of doing the podcast with one episode each week, so a regular weekly frequency. And as I look back over the last four years, almost, I see that I’ve had 176 different guests that I’ve interviewed on the podcast. And there’s several that I’ve had on the podcast a couple of times because they were up for chamber of the year as a chamber of the year finalists of ACC. And as they do those chamber their finalist interviews each year. And it really solidifies that I’m getting some of the best chamber folks on the podcast and I get them again, as the chamber, the year finalist tells me that they’re doing something right. But in addition, 276 different guests. I’ve also done a few different book reviews and interviewed some authors of books.

So as we’re coming up on this as being Thanksgiving week, coming up upon the holiday season, I figured you may have a little bit of downtime, maybe to where you might want to pick up a book and give it a good read. So I was going to run through the books that I’ve highlighted on the podcast over the last four years. So if you feel so inspired to pick one up and give it a read over Christmas break, or or download it on your Kindle and read it over Thanksgiving, or whatever fits you best.

The very first book that I had highlighted on the podcast is called Superfans. And that’s a book by Pat Flynn. And if you wanted to dive in a little deeper on that, that was found in episode number 38 of the podcast. So Pat Flynn, I was made familiar with Pat over, he was a guest on another podcast that I listened to. It was a investing podcast, and he was talking about the the ROI on having your own business and said, you know, essentially that ROI is 1,000%. Everything is a is a return assuming you do business well. But it really intrigued me how he went about the interview on on that investing podcast that I listened to. And in that interview, he had mentioned that he has a podcast called Smart Passive Income. And at the time, his whole motto, I guess is that he was a crash, the crash test dummy for online business. So he would try things out and then be very transparent on his podcast into letting his followers know you know what works and what doesn’t work. So I subscribe to his podcast. I’ve listened to it for several years now but he came out with this book called Superfans where he talks about creating a identity for your following for your members maybe at your chamber and creating a name for this following hence, you know, I came up with Chamber Champions for the listeners of Chamber Chat Podcast because of his book so made a good impact on me but he really highlights several great factors that create a good following and not just followers but actual Will superfans for what you’re doing. So in the chamber world, there’s ambassadors, and if you can imagine every ambassador being a superfan, or having more members be super fans and doing Ambassador work and a natural way. Anyways, I think there’s a lot of value and it’s not as chamber specific book, but a lot of what he talks about in that book can translate over into chamber world. The second book that I had highlighted on the podcast, was back in episode 49. In the book was called Take the Stairs by Rory Vaden. And Rory, I was introduced to this book, he was a speaker at TCCE. So the Texas Chamber of Commerce Executives conference several years ago, that I picked up a copy of his book then. And I just found it to be very interesting. I mean, obviously, he was there speaking at a chamber conference, he had some resonance with the Chamber industry. And his book. The title, take the stairs essentially means if there’s an easy way and a hard way, and he challenges you to take the harder way, there’s more benefits and taking the stairs, that versus taking the elevator, for example. So he outlined some real world examples as to why it’s better to take the stairs. So after those two, those two books are really just book reviews, there are books that I read, that resonated well with me that I thought translated well to the chamber industry. The next several books that I highlighted, I actually got to have the author of the book on the podcast, which was great, it was a fantastic experience to have these authors. Some of them you may be very familiar with. So the first one was, From Relevant to Essential. And that’s the book that Casey Steinbacher wrote. So that’s episode number 106. If you wanted to go back and check that out, and from irrelevant to essential, it is a Kindle book. So you’re not going to get a hard copy of it. It is digital only. But it is a great read. It talks about how chambers need to embrace being influencers, in this new economy and moving forward. You’ve got social media influencers and chambers need to be community influencers in a variety of different ways. So she highlights some great examples in there and creates a vision really of what you can do to to become that influencer in your community. And any any of you who have heard me talk or do my presentation about chamber podcasting. I lean heavily on those teachings that Casey outlined in her book because so many of those resonate into the podcasting space for chambers in creating that a chamber of influence. It was just a few weeks after having Casey on the podcast that I was finally able to get Dave Adkisson. On the podcast. We’ve been talking back and forth for about a year because he was working on his new book, Horseshoes vs. Chess well knew at the time. And he was trying to wait until the book came out to actually come on the podcast and do the interviews. So as soon as I launched, we lined it up. And horseshoes versus chests. I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. I feel like it is the best book that I’ve come across for a chamber professional to really grasp the idea of what a Chamber of Commerce is, what it can be. And also to explain to others like how many times you’ve come across somebody who has no idea what a Chamber of Commerce does. Dave does a great job outlining what a Chamber of Commerce is and and he likens the the title horseshoes versus chests that he took that from from one of his mentors who likened the chamber work to either a game of horseshoes or a game of chess. He said some people think the chamber work is like a game of horseshoes where you show up at a picnic. You throw some horseshoes, and if you get close to the stake, you get a point versus chess where you have very, you know various different pieces and each piece is allowed to do certain things. And you can only move one piece at a time to move towards your goal. And he likened those chess pieces to the different factors in your community, your school district, your city, your economic development, your tourism, all of those different things and being able to get them to work in unison with each other towards a common goal so that as a as a community builder as a chamber leader, horseshoes versus chests is a must. You need to pick up that book if you haven’t already. The next book that author that I had on the podcast to highlight the book was done Doug Griffiths with his book 13 Ways to Kill Your Community. I know a lot of chamber professionals are familiar with this book. Rebecca Wildeboer, she started a Facebook group for 13 Ways to Kill Your Community. And that’s actually how I gotten in connected with Doug to have him on the podcast. And I just love his approach to, you know, saying, if your goal is to kill your community, how would you start, and then those are all those red flags you need to look out for in your community to avoid, and then do the opposite, do those things that will help build your community help your community thrive into the future.

After that book I had let’s see, I had actually Hardy Smith was the episode before 13 ways to kill your community. So Hardy Smith, he wrote Stop the Nonprofit Board Blame Game. And from my background, my experience with chamber work chamber industry, this book opened my eyes to how a board works, how it operates, the things that need to be considered when selecting new members. The interaction between a chamber leader and the board of directors. And really it just was a fantastic read, not necessarily like an entertaining kind of read, but it’s one very informational, very, it’s just a good resource base to have to better understand how to operate with your board. And from the same publisher for stop the nonprofit board game, board blame game rather, I had Julie Henry on and she wrote Wisdom from the Wild. And this book, although it’s not chamber specific, it is leader specific. It’s pulling these leadership qualities leadership traits that we see from the wild, and how they manifest in the business world and in leadership. So that was a great read and really seeing like in the animal kingdom. Certain animals have no idea that other animals exist yet they’re very reliant on each other, whether they know that or not. And there’s a lot of correlations, in chamber work and in the business world, all together with that. So those are the seven books that I have highlighted so far on the podcast, and next week’s episode, I do have slotted to highlight another book. So be ready and to pay attention to that.

But if any of you you’re trying to jot these names down to these books, I would encourage you if you haven’t already, check out the Chamber Pros Planner by Izzy West. She does a terrific planner for chamber professionals. And in there there’s a she has like a blank page with a bookshelf. So you can write in names of books that are on your wish list to read. So I would encourage you to pick up her planner, it’ll help you keep stay on track. But it also has that place to keep a record of these books he’d like to circle back and read at some point. Which also brings me to the fact that we are doing a giveaway with Izzy for her chamber pros planner. So if you are interested in getting a free copy of the 2023 chamber pros planner, what you need to do is go to Apple podcasts and leave a review for chamber chat podcast. Or you can also go on Facebook to the chamber chat podcast Facebook page and leave a review there. Then take a screenshot of your review and email it to me at Brandon@chamberchatpodcast.com and I will enter you in to a raffle to win one of five of these chamber pro planners. You can also pick one up and purchase one if you’d like it the is us.com but with that we’re going to take a quick break, hear from our sponsors and then get into the rest of the program.

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Izzy West 16:32
Hey, this is Izzy, publisher of the Chamber Pros Planner a weekly, monthly planner that you can get on Amazon or Etsy I wanted to give a shout out to Diane Sawyer other Reedsville Chamber who emailed me saying “I am loving this stuff my admin assistant bought me the planner for Christmas before I could purchase it for myself”. The responses and feedback I get from my fellow chamber pros are a big deal to me. And in fact the updates I make each year if you like physical planners, please check out the Chamber Pros Planner at TheIzzyWest.com. That’s TheIzzyWest.com.

Brandon Burton 17:06
All right, we’re back. So for the the rest of the program the rest of the episode today what I wanted to do being that I’m celebrating the 200th episode of chamber chat podcast, I wanted to just pause and go back in time a little bit. tell you how I got into the chamber world a lot of the chamber professionals interviewees that I have on the show, we spend a lot of time talking about how did I get into the chamber world headed what’s my background like? So this gives an opportunity for all of you to learn a little bit more about my background, how I got into the chamber world, how I got to where I am now. And we’ll talk a little bit about what I see coming up in the future. So back in 2006, I was a recent college graduate. I had been married for about three years. And my wife and I just had our first baby. So our son had just had been born a few months prior. But as I graduated college I was looking to, for my degree was in business management. And I wanted to get into the pharmaceutical sales industry. So I put out the applications. I’ve been doing the interviews, and I had quite a few interviews lined up. That was happened to be the career that my dad got into. So as a chamber professional, you know, that youth as they grow up, they tend to know what their parents did. And my dad had a great career in the, in the pharmaceutical industry. So I thought, yeah, I’ll go down that road, too. So I had a lot of interviews, each interview would get to the same part where they would ask me about my sales experience. I didn’t have a whole lot to lean on. I had, you know, a little bit of sales experience working at Staples in high school, I did retail at Staples. So I would sell, you know, warranty packages on computer or furniture pieces or something like that at Staples. But really, I was doing more stocking shelves in anything. So not a whole lot of real sales experience. But after several interviews where I got to that same hang up in the interview process, I decided, you know, I need to put this on hold. And I just need to get a job where I’m doing sales, I need to sell something, anything, I don’t care, I just need to get two years experience doing sales. So that’s where I came across community matters. community matters, Inc is a chamber publisher, so they work with chambers to do maps and directories. And you guys you may work with community matters. You may have another publisher, but you’re familiar with maps and directories for chambers so I got into that selling ads and that this is great. You know, we’re We’re supporting the Chamber of Commerce, we’re helping support small businesses and providing a, an affordable way to advertise and get their name out in the community. And I really enjoyed it. But as my two year mark came up, I was ready to ready to jump ship ready to get back into what I wanted to do with the pharmaceutical industry. And as luck would have it, right when that two year period came up, is when the recession of 2008 hit. And as it happened, pharmaceutical companies were laying off any of their newer sales reps. So had I gotten one of those jobs, I would have been without a job very shortly. So I took a look at internally at myself and said, You know what, I actually really like what I’m doing. I like who I’m working with, I like what I’m doing. So let me let me stick it stick out with stick this out. So I decided to stay with community matters, and kept selling each year I got better and better. And eventually, our the opportunity came up for me to be promoted and to become the sales manager for the company and manage the other sales reps. So I started doing that and decided you know what this job that started as a job at a college is very much becoming a career. So I decided to look at it as a career and refined my sales process became more and more of a refined sales rep. And got my other sales reps trained up on how to be great sales reps. And as a company, we did a great job, you know, year after year growth. Just really, we’re all in and doing great work with chambers. So great reputation in the chamber industry as well. So as much as I was loving that I was driving all over Texas, which as you know, is a huge state. And as I would drive around Texas, going from one chamber to another, I would find myself listening to the radio a lot. And as I listened to the radio, and I’d leave one market and get into another I kept losing the reception for whatever station I was listening to. So after time, that kind of got frustrating. And I stumbled across podcasts. And I thought this is great, I can look up any topic that I’m interested in. And I can learn more about it as I drive. And as I spend time in the car, I can continue learning and developing myself as a salesperson or as an entrepreneur or any aspect of life that I wanted to improve on. So I started listening to a lot of podcasts. And while listening to a lot of podcasts, and still working with a lot of different chambers of all different sizes. I started to notice that not every chamber was the same. You know, we have the saying in the industry that if you’ve seen one chamber, you’ve seen one chamber? Well, I got to see that firsthand. That is I met with these chambers, some chambers I could tell were operating very well, because as I met with their Chamber members, and sold ads, the sales process was super smooth than others. It was a struggle the whole time. And I would often feel like the bartender, you know, as I would meet with these different business owners, they would tell me their gripes with the chamber, or they would tell me how great their chamber was. And I started to think about this and wonder why is it that there’s such such a chasm between these different types of chambers. And the more I looked into it, the more I realized that these chambers that were struggling, they were not necessarily the chambers that were going to their state conferences, or the ACC conference, or they weren’t engaged with others in the industry. And I thought there’s got to be a way to reach these chambers and help them out, help them be successful and in turn be able to help their business community and their community in general thrive. And that’s when I had my aha moment. I thought a podcast is a way to reach these audiences that gets a free resource for people to listen to. And I can interview some of the best in the industry and share tips and strategies and best practices on what people are doing at their chambers. And then you can take an adopt in and apply whatever you need to to your own community to your own chamber and see what works. So I did that. I decided I’m going to give this at least two years. Like even if I don’t make a dime for two years. I’m going to give it I’m going to be all in and see if this has any legs. See what we can do with this. So that was beginning of 2019 is when I started chamber chat podcast. And as we know, the world changed in 2020 So I was a little over a year into doing the podcast when the world shut down. And suddenly, I had chambers that were reaching out to me saying, I see you do a chamber focus podcast. And we want to learn how to podcast we want to be able to reach our members because we can’t gather together anymore. We can’t do our luncheons, we can’t do our ribbon cuttings, we can’t do those things that we used to do on a regular basis, because the world is shut down. So I was blessed with the opportunity to help several chambers. With getting a podcast started. I had created a free resource, a chamber podcasting guide, that walk through how to get a get a podcast started and and grow an audience. And then even just more recently, I created a chamber podcast course that goes into a lot more depth shows you real live examples of how to use the software, how to do the editing, how to get your podcast up on the your podcast hosts, get it out on the different platforms, how to structure and organize your podcast, so all of the nitty gritty details about it. So I created a course for that which I was able to share with those who had downloaded the podcast guide. And that was a great way to to be able to continue to help chambers podcast. And in fact, being that we’re celebrating the 200th episode of chamber chat podcast, I want to make an offer to you if you’re interested in podcasting at your chamber. For we’ll say for two weeks, I’m going to take the price of the podcast course normally it’s $400. We’ll cut it in half. So for Episode 200, we’ll do a sale for two weeks at $200 for the podcast course. So the link will be in the show notes for this episode. But you can also go to chamber chat podcast.com/pivot. And there’ll be a link to the course there as well.

But even if you’re not quite ready to start a podcast, but you know that’s on the horizon of something you want to do, it’s a great time to get the course at a discounted rate and hang on to it until you’re ready to go through it. Anyways. So that’s that’s been another way that I’ve been able to help chambers with getting into podcasting themselves. And now, where I see myself is, I’m four years into this. And at about the two year mark. So getting through the COVID, experience the shutdowns, seeing more traction with chambers getting into podcasting. That’s when I had sponsors start to read start to reach out to me to advertise on the podcast. And I thought how amazing is that? I told myself I give myself at least two years, even if I didn’t make anything. And it was probably a month before that two year mark, I got the first check from an affiliate sponsor that I had on the podcast, which is swiping the credit card processing company. And they’re a great, great partner of the podcast and they have been from the beginning. And probably a month after that. I had somebody reach out to me I had at my community, they reached out to me and asked about being the sponsor. And when you know about two weeks later, the Holman brothers reached out to me about being a sponsor. And then soon after that I got in contact with Richard at at chamber nation. And he got started up as a sponsor and Izzy West has been a sponsor. And so it’s just continued to grow. And I meet other I guess potential sponsors are other businesses that are focused on the chamber industry at different conferences and just the tons of opportunities have opened up through through the sponsorship opportunity, in fact, when the listeners had listened to he’s been listening to the podcast for a while. And he went to the International Chamber of Commerce conference last November and was going around to all the different vendors asking if they had heard about chamber tap podcasts and how they needed to connect with me about being a sponsor. And I had some sponsors come out of that as well. So I love having good ambassadors good super fans out there, spreading the word so thank you for that. So at this point where I’m at with career wise the podcast wise with life in general. I I’m still the sales manager for community matters. So still doing chamber publishing and our can our company continues to grow we continue to get new Sales Reps continue to sign up new chambers to do their publications for them. And we can sit continue to see a strong demand for those publications. We obviously, I every now and then I have this little printing paranoia that comes about me wondering where the print industry is going to be 10 years from now. So we’re constantly trying to evolve and trying to stay in front of the game with digital products. digital offerings are our maps that we do, for chambers have a fantastic interactive map that people just love. So we’re continuing to innovate and grow that business. Obviously, I’m still doing the podcast as well. And it’s really taken off. So thank you to everybody listening. 200 episodes has been quite the journey. And when I started, I thought, yeah, probably at some point, I’ll be at 200 episodes, but here we are, we’ve made it to 200. And I imagine much more going on in the future. So recently, in personal life. So those of you who’ve been listening for a while you hear the little intros, I have my kids do a little intro before each episode. And we’ll see how long that continues, because it’s really hard to come up with little facts to share before each episode, but it’s fun to do with the kids get some involved. But I’ve got four kids right now that are ranging from almost nine. So next month, the youngest will be nine and the oldest is about to turn 17. So we’ve got quite the range there. But I’ve also, in the last few months been asked to take on a much larger role at my church. And for those of you who know I’m, I’m a I belong to the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And I’ve been asked to serve as a bishop at our church, which is kind of a part time job within itself on top of my regular work and the podcast and everything else. But it’s a great way to be able to serve the members of our congregation and in the community as well. And along with that as serving as a bishop, I don’t necessarily like there’s no pay involved. It’s all voluntary, but it’s kind of expected to be kind of a five year commitment is what they what they look at when they ask for, for someone to serve in that capacity. But I work with various committees, which I see being similar to board of directors to be able to get input and group consensus and the power of a group thinking so a lot of parallels there to the chamber world. But needless to say, that has taken a lot more of my time. So you know, going forward, as I put out podcast episodes, I may not get as fancy or as detailed on the social media posts, I may just try to automate a whole bunch of it, just to get it out there. But I would love it if those of you listening those of you fans super fans of the podcast, if you can help perpetuate that get it out to your chamber contacts help grow the fan base of the podcast and listenership I would greatly appreciate that. But in this role serving in the church, it gives me more opportunities where I’m speaking in front of people, I’m speaking from the pulpit up on the on the front of the sand, gives me a lot more of that experience, which is great, and correlates well into the podcast side. And as I look forward, kind of in the future of what I’m doing with the podcast and career wise and everything. I do see myself doing more speaking engagements, doing maybe some breakout sessions at conferences, and being able to maybe consult a little bit more with chambers on different topics, maybe not just podcasting, maybe I’m not just that podcasting niche, but being able to branch out in other areas too. And along those lines, I thought maybe you know, in the future, maybe I start doing like a quarterly webinar where chambers can sign up and join a webinar and we can just dive in deep on a certain topic on like a quarterly basis. I think that would be kind of fun. And yeah, I see myself starting another podcast as well. Kind of related to chamber chat podcast, but with a different spin to it. So I’ve been kicking that one around for probably a year and a half now and just trying to find the time to do it. Not that it’s getting any easier right now but I’m constantly looking for that runway to get that podcast started as well. But you know, needless to say I’ve jumped in with both feet into this chamber industry. And I love it. I love working with you guys. I love supporting you guys and bringing people onto the show, who know their stuff, who are doing fantastic things at their chamber and in their community. And I hope you’re getting a lot of value out of this podcast. I hope that as you listen, that you may be reached out to some of the guests that I’ve had on the show and ask them, how are they doing things how, you know, tell me more about what you said on this episode, and continue to broaden your network in the chamber industry. So that way, when you go to conferences, you see more people, you know, if you see me at a conference, come up and tell me, you know, come say hi, introduce yourself, I’d love to meet you. But this is great. I mean, I, I love the chamber industry. I love the impact that you all are making in your communities. And I just give you that encouragement to keep keep doing it. Keep doing that important work, because it is important, you are making a difference. And at some point, as you look back in your career, you’ll be able to see some milestones that you’ve made, you’ll be able to see students who you’ve helped develop into the workforce, you’ll see businesses and maybe industries that have been created in your tenure, serving at your chamber. So keep up that great work, continue to be innovative, look for new ways to serve, stay relevant. We talk about that a lot on the podcast. So continue to stay relevant and be innovative.

But that that kind of gets you up to speed on everything that I’ve been up to these last 200 episodes. It’s hard to say that I mean, it’s great. I just it’s hard to believe that Marty at 200 episodes. And big thank you to everybody who’s been on the show. And thank you to those in the future who will be on the show because it’s without you there wouldn’t be anything here to broadcast and to put out for listeners. So thank you all for your participation and for listening. And, you know, let’s say continue to share this good work continue to share the chamber practices and best practices you have with others in the industry. But thank you for being out there. Thank you for participating, and we’ll see you around next week.

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