Episode 26 · July 16, 2019

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Joe Unterreiner discusses the Kalispell Chamber's finalist work in infrastructure advocacy and manufacturing workforce connections.
About This Episode
Joe Unterreiner of the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce discusses its Chamber of the Year finalist work. He describes infrastructure priorities, including a highway bypass and competitive grant efforts, and how the chamber built community support. He also discusses manufacturing and workforce connections with schools and teachers. The episode shows a chamber taking a sustained role in regional projects that affect business growth.
What You'll Learn
- Track infrastructure needs that limit regional growth.
- Build support for grant and advocacy efforts.
- Connect educators with local employers.
- Keep workforce programs tied to industry needs.
About Joe Unterreiner
Joe Unterreiner is president and CEO of the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce in Montana. He also serves as executive director of the Kalispell Chamber Foundation and the Kalispell Tourism Business Improvement District, and he has long experience in chamber leadership, workforce advocacy, and regional economic development.
Episode Chapters
00:00.192 — Episode introduction
05:59.732 — Kalispell Chamber size and regional context
09:59.15 — Infrastructure project and BUILD grant strategy
16:16.108 — Washington, D.C. advocacy and grant win
21:18.614 — Manufacturing and innovation strategy
25:21.9 — Workforce development with schools and college
30:46.464 — Advice for chambers and network-building
34:44.79 — Future of chambers and revenue diversification
Supported by Our Catalyst Sponsors

Swypit helps chambers of commerce turn everyday payment processing into an opportunity to reduce expenses and generate additional revenue. Swypit offers credit card payment solutions designed to save chambers up to 40% on processing fees while integrating seamlessly with existing membership software. There is no charge for chambers to switch, and Swypit helps make the transition simple. Through its chamber affinity program, participating chambers can also create an additional source of non-dues revenue. Chambers can request a free cost-savings analysis to see what Swypit could mean for their bottom line.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
BUILD grants
Federal competitive grant program discussed as the funding source for the infrastructure project.
Link not yet available.
Used as a signature event to connect manufacturing tours and forums with public awareness and workforce development.
An Idea Worth Borrowing
Use chamber influence to mobilize community support
A chamber can act as a convener and advocacy hub by rallying members, partner organizations, and local leaders around a shared public priority such as infrastructure or workforce development.
• How can your chamber quickly mobilize member support for a community priority?
• Which partners should be included early to broaden credibility and reach?
• What current local issue could benefit from a chamber-led advocacy campaign?
Read the Full Transcript
Read the Full Transcript
This transcript has been lightly edited for readability and to correct obvious transcription errors while preserving the meaning of the original conversation.
Episode 26 — Kalispell Chamber 2019 Chamber of the Year Finalist with Joe Unterreiner
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Joe Unterreiner
Automated QA: Passed
00:00.192 Brandon Burton
This is a special edition of Chamber Chat Podcast as I begin a series of interviewing the finalist for Chamber of the Year for 2019. I hope you enjoyed this series, but first, the intro. This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
00:30.04 Brandon Burton
Thank you for joining us today for our third interview in our special series for the 2019 ACCE Chamber of the Year finalists. This is episode 26 of Chamber Chat Podcast, and I'm Brandon Burton. It is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas so you can better serve your chamber members and your community. If you are new to Chamber Chat Podcast, please visit our website at Chamberchatpodcast.com/slash start.
To learn more about what you can expect from the show, and you can also receive some valuable tips for some non-dues revenue ideas to use at your chamber. Again, that's ChamberTapPodcast.com/slash start. And before we jump into the show today, let's take a quick moment to learn about our sponsor. Chambers are not considered for chamber of the year without having great programs and steady streams of non-dues revenue. I want to introduce you to a great affinity program from Swipe It.
In partnership with ChamberChat Podcast, Swipe It is one of the best credit card processors in the business. With the Swipe It Affinity program, you can save up to 40% on your credit card processing fees at the Chamber and help your member partners to do the same. Chambers who take advantage of the Swipe It Affinity program can add thousands of dollars to their non-dues revenue annually. Please visit
Chamberchatpodcast.com slash CC for more information and to request your complimentary cost savings analysis from the experts at Swipe It. The first twenty chambers to respond will qualify for free equipment to get set up. Again, visit Chamberchatpodcast.com slash C C to start swiping with Swipe It. Alright, our guest today is Joe Unterreiner from the
Kalispell Chamber of Commerce in Montana. Joe is the president and CEO of the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce. In this capacity, he also serves as the Executive Director for the Kalispell Chamber Foundation and for the Kalispell Tourism Business Improvement District. In addition to his work at the Kalispell Chamber, Joe serves on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Committee of 100.
02:49.982 Brandon Burton
and Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives Certified Chamber Executive Commission. Previously, he worked from 1985 to 1996 in the field of commercial real estate development and financing in Southern California. In the government sector, Unter was selected as a US Presidential Management Intern and then completed assignments in the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Federal Home Loan.
Bank Board from 1980 to 1982. Following this assignment, he served in the budget and management office at the American Embassy in Athens, Greece from 1982 to 1984. Joe holds MPA and B.S. degrees in public administration from the University of Southern California. Joe received his certified chamber executive designation from the ACCE in 2006.
And earned his Institute for Organizational Management certificate in 2000. His work to improve the education and workforce system resulted in recognition from the National Association of State Workforce Agencies with its William Hartwell Jr. Award, and by the Governor of Montana with the Desiree Taggart Memorial Award. Under his leadership, the Calisbell Chamber earned a five-star accreditation designation from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
And ACCE has recognized Calispel Chamber for achievement in communication excellence and membership retention and growth. Joe, please say hello to the audience and share something interesting about yourself that we might not have learned about you in your bio, although it had interesting stuff scattered throughout it.
04:37.344 Joe Unterreiner
Yeah. Well, great to be with you, Brandon. excited to be on your your call today. a lot of great work going on in chambers all across the country. And so just pleased to be able to be with you and be part of that great group of chambers and chamber execs working out there. you've really covered that pretty thoroughly. I ended up in Montana, part part of the
thing you may not know from the bio there, I ended up in Montana because my wife grew up on a 18,000 acre wheat and cattle ranch in central Montana and all of our vacations were up here. When our kids got school age, we decided why just visit? Why not find a way to live up there? And so here I am 20 years later, the chamber exec in Kalisbell, Montana. So it's been a great move and we've been really happy with how all this has turned out here in Kalisbell.
05:34.338 Brandon Burton
That makes a lot more sense. I was wondering how you get a guy from Southern California up to Montana, but but I know Montana has its beauty and and it maybe a little bit more snow than Southern California, but definitely has its beauty. so can you share with us just a little bit about the size of the Calisbell chamber so we can all relate to to your area and your chamber a little bit better?
05:59.732 Joe Unterreiner
You bet, Brandon. So we're in a a really very special part of the United States up here in the northwest corner of Montana. so we're about 30 minutes from the Western Gateway to Glacier National Park. that's a national park that gets over three million visitors a year. we're an area that also has two ski resorts, including a major destination national ski resort.
And then we've got Flathead Lake and which is one of the largest lakes in in the western part of the US, and wild and scenic river systems, 80% of the county is in federal ownership with national parks and national forest service. So I think you begin to get an idea of the kind of landscape we have here that has made us such an attractive place for people to relocate and retire to.
we're the third fastest growing micropollan area in the United States, according to the US Census Bureau. So we're for all of those things I just mentioned, people are attracted here and we're a quickly growing area. But the county is 5,000 square miles that we operate in. It's about the size of the state of Connecticut to just give you a sense of the scale here in northwest Montana. And those
5,000 square miles only contain about a hundred thousand permanent residents. So we're spread out. Kalispell is the the county seat and the trade center for northwest Montana, which is a three county area. And so our market area is about 150,000 plus people. The county is a hundred thousand, but Kalispell is only twenty-five thousand.
of that. So that's how the dispersed the population is of the county. The Cowspell Chamber that here is has a staff of 10. It's a budget of 2.3 million. We're a chamber plus CVB and we have about 750 members.
08:10.806 Brandon Burton
Wow. That's you've got your work cut out for you up there.
08:15.638 Joe Unterreiner
Yeah. And so because because we're spread out, there's five other chambers in the county. We're more of the regional chamber, but we've got a total of six chambers of commerce in this county of a hundred thousand people.
08:30.582 Brandon Burton
All right. Well that sounds beautiful. I need to wake make my way up to Callispel sometime and check it out. It
08:37.895 Joe Unterreiner
yeah, absolutely. Well it's it's a place a lot of chamber execs have passed through and many of them stop in to say hello when they pass through this area. So that that's been a fun part of the job as well. Yeah.
08:49.004 Brandon Burton
Good. So as we get into maybe some of the dialogue and content of the interview today, I I just wanted to kind of hand it over to you and have you tell us what do you have going on there at the Kalisville Chamber that's grabbing the attention of ACCE to be invited and to become a a finalist for Chamber of the Year for 2019.
09:13.612 Joe Unterreiner
Well, I will try to do my best with that, you know, and I'm a little fuzzy on all of the criteria that sort of lands you in this Chamber of the Year finalist category. But but I'll talk about some of the things we're doing here. and I'll I'll highlight a couple of as part of this process they ask you to submit two projects. So I'll talk about those projects and and and hope that that'll
Give you some idea of some of the major areas of focus that we have.
09:47.512 Brandon Burton
That would be great. Yeah. We'd love to get some you know, some good feedback of what you're doing there that might give some ideas to other chambers that they can you know, rip off and duplicate at their at their
09:59.15 Joe Unterreiner
Yeah, absolutely. So that this chamber of the year application process asked you to submit two projects. so and one was workforce related and the other had to do with infrastructure development. so I'll start with the infrastructure project because
it it's affiliated with build grants, and build grants are a national competition. it's what followed the Obama administration's Tiger grants. And what what it is is earmarks were eliminated back in the late 2000s. so it's a bit of a competitive process for specific highway projects around the country. so because it's national
competition for these funds. It might be something that other chambers are interested in. and you know, this might be a case study to begin to think about how other chambers across the country could you know compete for projects in their market to help what's you know their infrastructure development. Yeah
11:10.166 Brandon Burton
What came about with the this infrastructure project? What was the needs that you found? How'd you come across the needs and yeah Yeah, just walk us through the the process.
11:21.324 Joe Unterreiner
Okay, you bet. So because we're a quickly growing area, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, our ability to grow our infrastructure, that's both rail, highways, train, and and air service are our top priorities in one of our strategic areas of initiative here at the Calus Bell Chamber. so we have we're we're 200 or 120 miles from an interstate. We're at the intersection of two U US highways.
US Highway 2 and US 93, but the closest interstate is 120 miles south of us. So it creates some interesting challenges for us to keep pace with our our needs for highway and through traffic, especially because we're picking up three million visitors, probably about half of which occur are visiting June, July, August, and September in the really great summer months of the year, especially with visiting Glacier National Park.
and so a highway, a bypass around downtown Calisbell was a high priority for us dating back to the early 2000s. that project with a two-lane kind of highway facility was an was initiated back in 2009 with stimulus funds. So that was the first part of that. But what's happened is
That that highway the traffic counts that were projected for 2030, we began hitting just two years into the completed project. so that's just how much heavy traffic volumes we were hitting. So we worked with our state highway department for a build grant, this federal competitive grant process, to compete for those funds.
And you know, I I think this highlights a little a little bit of the role of the chamber. This was us working with our city, our county, and our state government for a competitive federal grant. and so it took a you know a team of people together. Our role in that process, we we weren't the applicant. The applicant, it was the city of Calisbell with sort of the agreement of the county because the that bypass route covers both city and county jurisdictions.
13:44.766 Joe Unterreiner
but we were a convener of that and took the role of the primary or the lead for the advocacy component of that project. And it all happened pretty quick. this was just a year ago. So by the time that this process was announced in in May, the application was due by mid-July. So you really needed what's often referred to as
shovel ready projects. And this was one of them. The right-of-way had already been acquired and with the intent of somehow making it a four-lane facility. it was a two-lane facility with a center divider and we were wanting to widen that to expand the traffic volumes. so as part of that process then you know and I think it points out just the role of a Chamber of Commerce as a convener but also
One of the great strengths, I think, as of Chambers, both now and going forward, is just the grassroots network that we have. So our 750 members have almost 4,500 reps in each of those businesses. And so one of the first things we did was to send out a request for support to for our owners.
And our businesses to sign on both as a sign-on letter, like you know, for support of this project, both as businesses and as business owners. And we had almost 600 businesses and individual business owners sign on to this letter of support. So that's great support. We have a network here. I mentioned we've got several chambers of commerce and economic development groups, downtown associations.
15:14.476 Brandon Burton
Nice.
15:29.538 Joe Unterreiner
convention visitor bureaus and so on. So in our our greater market of Northwest Montana, three county area, we count 15 organizations in that count. and we're really happy to have all 15 organizations also sign on to a letter of support as a group of what's referred to as associated chambers of the flathead.
15:53.164 Brandon Burton
Yeah, I'd I'd love that being able to get that the rally of all these different organizations and all the your members, you know, the representatives and the different businesses that are members of the chamber to be able to sign on and give their support and and like you said, grassroots to be able to talk it up and and be able to help push something through. Really, there's a lot of power in that. So it sounds like you guys are leveraging that very well.
16:16.108 Joe Unterreiner
Yes, right. I just think that's really kind of comes to the core strength of what chambers of commerce bring to you know a community and to to to the business community. and then finally then we took a group of 14 people back to DC to lobby for this. so that application was due in mid-July. We went the second week of September.
2018 with this group, and we had a lot of support from the US Chamber through their regional office in Seattle. In fact, our regional w rep out of Seattle joined us for this trip. and they set up enabled our group to attend briefings at at the US Chamber, but they also enabled us to sit in on the US Chamber's Infrastructure Committee.
Meeting, which was a great connection for us to make as well. And it offered us an opportunity to visit briefly with the deputy assistant sec deputy secretary of transportation, who was ultimately making the approval on these grants. So we visited all of our congressional delegation. And Brandon, one of the great things about Montana is there's only three members in the congressional delegation. We were able to see all of them in a morning.
That's right. We know all of them quite well. And the Montalin delegation hosts a breakfast on a Wednesday morning. so we started with a that breakfast that they host for people who were in town in one of the congressional hearing rooms and then went on to have individual meetings with our delegation that morning. So that plus the US Chamber visiting with the U.S. Chamber's
infrastructure group really created you know kind of a compelling reason for our folks from this area to go back to DC for lobby this lobby for this project.
18:18.434 Brandon Burton
That is nice to be able to build those intimate relationships with their representatives. Get get their ear. That's awesome.
18:27.198 Joe Unterreiner
So then ultimately that it was announced and we were awarded $12.75 million for that project, which was a huge win for our community in terms of accelerating that project. So it was always the goal of the Montana Department of Transportation to to
widen that road. They hadn't anticipated anywhere that it would be developed that quickly or or needed to be widened that quickly. but there you go. So that and that was announced in December. we're hoping to that that contract will be let this December for construction to begin in the spring of 2020. So you know great just great win for our entire community with a grant that doesn't require
a state or local match. So that's also one of the beauty of those funds that your listeners may be interested in for their own projects in their own communities.
19:28.298 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. I I was thinking too, a lot of times when there's big highway projects like this, you always have the opposition too. You know, the people in town or throughout the county that don't wanna see the growth. The the good old boys that just want things to stay the same. But I think, you know, with having that rallying support like you you did, having all these members and their representatives sign on and the other organizations throughout the county really ought to be able to help, I would imagine, to
kind of counteract any of the the opposition that might be there, if there is any. Have you have you guys come across any of that or have you overcome it?
20:01.678 Joe Unterreiner
Fortunately, there's not a lot of opposition. There was some early opposition, you know, this would go back, you know, 15 years from the downtown, which you know sort of was a major impediment for this project going forward, a sense that, you know, downtown would lose its traffic counts, that you know, it would be a detriment to the businesses downtown. Although be just because of the growth of the area and the traffic demands,
US Highway 93, which it it becomes Main Street through downtown Kalispell, was getting so congested that they just felt that in order for it to be a pedestrian-oriented shopping environment, that they needed some traffic relief. Once the downtown business owners and residents
got on board with that idea and that that dates back probably twelve to fifteen years ago. That's really what enabled this project to advance and and become funded.
21:02.688 Brandon Burton
Okay. That that's good information to know because I know that opposition comes up and it's all about how you deal with it and and being able to to work with people. Should we talk a little bit about your other program that you guys submitted, the manufacturing?
21:18.614 Joe Unterreiner
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. so we're, you know, one of the groups out there that is have also we have, you know, as one of our strategic areas of work is what we refer to as manufacturing and and innovation. And in in that area is our work with our manufacturers. so you know, I think a lot of people that know this area think of us as a tourism area because of all the things we mentioned earlier.
But some of the legacy industry in in this area was the wood products industry because of the timber in this area. and we what's happened over the years, all those same you know, timber and you know, mountains and so on that were so attractive for the timber industry really became a huge draw for for the tourism industry. So we have a real legacy component of
manufacturing here that includes food manufacturing, electronics manufacturing, you know, metal machining, and just a wide variety of manufacturing categories. And you know, it's attractive for chambers and economic developers because those are typically, you know, good paying, full, full benefit, jobs that have significant
capital investment that contribute to a tax base of a community and state. And so that's why that became a strategic area of of focus for us and things we're looking for initiatives around. And our our look for initiatives in that area led us to National Manufacturing Day, which is the first Friday in in October. And so
We we latched onto that event as sort of a signature event on which to rally sort of public awareness of the contributions to manufacturing and an opportunity for us to connect both with tours and forums for our manufacturers. So our our first year of that was 2014. I think we had maybe seven or eight tours that involved maybe three or four hundred people.
23:37.012 Joe Unterreiner
so between NAN and 2018, in 2018 now we had we've had about 30 tours and forums that involve over 4,000 people. So it's just really grown in our area takes a lot of there's a lot of pride, just locally made products and and all of that and all of that. So with the growth of that area, then you know we've we've taken
more of a role just not so much just in the what public relations component and an issue awareness component that we started with in some of the early years. But naturally in today's workforce a huge area of emphasis and the top priority for our manufacturers is just assistance with workforce development. and that's what the submission of the project that we submitted for the finalist is the chamber of the year
submission was how we have evolved that into a what a major initiative around workforce development for manufacturers. You know, and I I think Brandon, what a what a lot of people find, and certainly in our area, is that just educators and counselors are just not aware of what you know the type and variety of good paying careers that are available
in manufacturing companies that don't require a four year curriculum.
25:08.282 Brandon Burton
I was gonna ask if you're how you're working with the schools and the educational, you know, facilities and stuff as regarding manufacturing and and those opportunities that are available. how are you guys involved on that level?
25:21.9 Joe Unterreiner
Yeah, so we're fortunate to have a really terrific community college and and two excellent high schools in in the area. one one of the high schools has an area of emphasis in STEM curriculum, science, technology, engineering, and math, and the other one has a bioscience emphasis, b both of which are areas that match up with our our economy here.
Yeah. So we've worked very closely with both our two high schools and our community college. and so how you know the there was the I think just you know a a perception by educators and counselors and so on, not not really aware of how to refer students into these areas and also a perception of you know manufacturing is sort of dingy and dull and and so on, when in reality advanced manufacturing today has
major, major components of IT and high high tech and kind of clean environments and you know and just you know more and more aspects of of all of that. So we worked with our high schools to bring high school students out to our community college in a day-long format that that provides
sort of some in class sort of seminar workshop type of formats on you know how you know the equipment that's available and the curriculum that's available and then that's paired with afternoon tours of manufacturing facilities. And so we have a we toured a unit of applied materials. They're a manufacturer for equipment for the high tech industry that makes chips that are in everybody's phones. We took them to you know
wood wood products manufacturing mills. we've taken them to a bioscience a pharmaceutical facility that we have here so there's just tremendous diversity in the kinds of businesses that are available in our community and I'm sure in all the other communities across the country. So that was an exciting part of that. So that was the student component, but we did the same thing with teachers
27:39.33 Joe Unterreiner
to schedule they call them here PIR days. They're essentially days where teachers are are are paid to acquire sort of continuing ed credits or you know knowledge you know about their their teaching. And we we w took them through a similar kind of exercise full day where they were able to get eight hours of credit for their continuing ed.
27:56.14 Brandon Burton
Makes perfect sense.
28:09.186 Joe Unterreiner
both with tours and with understanding sort of what advanced manufacturing in the twenty first century looks like. So th that's grown. the teacher group is about fifty last year, the student group is about a hundred and fifty, and we're looking to expand that even further this year.
28:26.326 Brandon Burton
That's great. It makes perfect sense to educate the teachers as they're the ones that these students look up to. have you seen with the manufacturing as far as hiring and bringing the talent and and workforce in, is it a lot of it coming locally or are they needing to recruit outside the Calespell area or d do you know what that looks like?
28:49.344 Joe Unterreiner
Yeah, so you know, fortunately we're you know an area that people would like to move to. So there's some of both of that happening. so we're hoping to capture capture more of just the high school students that are here and graduating and those that are going to the community college and picking up our manufacturing trades curriculum. But we're also you know, the kind of a place if we can you know kind of you know create some awareness out there that people are willing.
relocate here just because especially somebody that loves outdoor recreation you know kind of hiking and national parks and the you know kayaking canoeing fishing hunting and all of that in the you know and that this is you know an ideal kind of environment for that kind of person you know skiing in the winter you know cross country downhill and all of that and wonderful summer recreation outdoor recreational opportunities all summer long so so
29:46.496 Brandon Burton
selling it hard. I think I think you can start taking resumes and people would just fill up your inputs.
29:52.806 Joe Unterreiner
So we just had the launch for this year's manufacturing day. For us, it's actually about a month or four 40 days now. But so we just launched that. And one of the things that we heard from our manufacturers is is just that they're doing more marketing out of the area because you know the you know quad quality of life and the
employment opportunities are you know really expanding here.
30:27.746 Brandon Burton
That's terrific. So Joe, I know we we need to start wrapping up here, but I wanted to ask you with everything you've discussed today, what is one action item or or piece of advice that you can give to the chambers that are listening of how they can kind of step up their game at their chamber?
30:46.464 Joe Unterreiner
Okay. you know, I've got a a couple thoughts about that. you know, and I I referenced some of that earlier. I think one of the real strengths of a chamber, I think, is you know, it like I said, is just the grassroots of what we bring. So for example, in that first example of that project with the highways, yeah, we weren't the applicant, you know, that was gonna be the city of Calispell.
Right. And we have nothing to do with constructing highways or any of that. But what you know, chambers of commerce, you know, like ours and your other listeners have is perhaps the best network of influencers in any community is is going to be the the members of the chambers of commerce. And so one of the things we do is we sign up a new member. in our database, we attempt to just get as many reps.
listed under that business as possible because that adds to our network and our communications network. So, you know, I think that's one of the real strengths we have as chambers is this, you know, the a network of owners and managers of businesses in your market. And how and how we cultivate that, how we
connect and engage and try to retain those, I think is going to be some of the most important, is some of the most important work we do and and how we enhance that is going to be some of the most important work we do going forward. But also on that project, just as a convener, the nobody's got the the network we have to reach out to all of these businesses for a sign on letter or generate support in a lobbying trip to DC. So I I think that's a real strength.
I think the other thing is just our ability as chambers to focus on the top issues of the day and the role that we can play in making things happen in that area. even if we're not the lead organization, we just have tremendous assets to bring in. So I think how we focus on that and bring our collective strength to bear on that is gonna be
32:56.63 Joe Unterreiner
you know, how we succeed going forward. You know, I I also was I was in on a a recent ACCE webinar that where Dave Atkinson, the CEO of the Kentucky Chamber, spoke and he really I I think has maybe done the best thinking out there about connecting with foundations and five one C three grants for for chamber work in
things that are with a C three purpose. and in fact both of our projects were clearly within a C three purpose of advancing community projects. And and I think that I think Dave is right on track with that, that our ability to contribute to that and connect with C three organizations has the potential to offer a a great new source of nondues revenue for chambers across the country.
33:52.334 Brandon Burton
So several great tips right there. The one that stood out to me, probably just because it's simple, is being able to acquire as many contacts, reps for each business. So as you have these grassroots programs that you're trying or initiatives that are are kicking off to be able to have that contact information, go out and reach out to the community. So instead of just the primary contact, get as many reps for each each business as you can.
And that'll help in leveraging, you know, future initiatives. All your other great up points are great too, though. So, Joe, as we look to the future, and you're kind of answering this throughout the whole interview, but maybe just a synopsis. I ask everybody this question. As we look to the future, how do you view chambers of commerce and their purpose?
34:44.79 Joe Unterreiner
Well, first of all, I view it as quickly changing. I mean, I've I've been the chamber exec here for over twenty years in Calispel and just the nature of the industry and the pace of change has really been remarkable. You know, the way that we're connecting, how position descriptions have changed, how we've needed to change what's in those, particularly from a marketing communications point of view and the way we leverage, you know, media.
all of that has been just a tremendous change. And I think we're going to have to be become even better at that in the future. you know, through marketing communication, social media, just the way we're connecting there. So that that's a major factor going forward. I I think we're it's also important I think to continue to diversify our the way we view our revenue streams.
and how we how we develop them. you know, we you know, like you know, many your chamber listeners, I'm sure we've got people who won't think anything about buying a a couple thousand dollar auction item or sponsorship but you know to move them a hundred hundred dollars in a dues tier dues categories like you know you know that that could take
you know, months and still never happen. But you know, they wouldn't blink at you know, getting a five thousand dollar sponsorship or contributing to some auction prize. So, you know, I just think we're gonna continue to be open-minded and to different revenue streams and then keep pace with the change because those are gonna come and go. So it does create especially dues is what
you know, covers the overhead expenses of a chamber and how you develop sustainable you know revenue streams to cover the overhead costs, I think will be one of the big challenges going forward for chambers.
36:53.048 Brandon Burton
Well, Joe, I wanted to thank you for spending time with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. And as usual, I want to thank everybody who's out there listening and and participating in the show. The show notes for this episode can be found at Chamberchat Podcast dot com slash episode twenty-six. And Joe, if listeners wanted to connect with you about any questions they might have about what you're how you're doing things at the Callispel Chamber, how can they reach you?
37:20.9 Joe Unterreiner
yeah, happy to help any way I can there. They can email me at Joe, J O E at Kalispellchamber.com, K A L I S P E L L C H A B E R dot com, or call me direct at four o six seven five eight two eight four.
37:41.772 Brandon Burton
Right. And we will get all that in the show notes as well. So if people wanted to give you a call or shoot you an email and connect further, they're welcome to do that. But again, Joe, thank you for being with us today and best of luck with your chamber of the year.
37:58.088 Joe Unterreiner
opportunities. Yeah. And my best all your all your listeners out there.
38:04.471 Brandon Burton
Alright, thank you.
38:08.728 Brandon Burton
Thank you for listening to this episode today. I hope that you're finding value as you listen to Chamber Chat Podcast. If you are enjoying the show, I would encourage you to tell your colleagues that are in the chamber industry. Also, please hop onto iTunes and leave us a five-star rating and review to help others find this show. Thanks again, and I look forward to chatting with you again next week.
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