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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.
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your hosts 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.
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Our guest for this episode is Jimmy lane. Jimmy is the president and CEO of the Cocoa Beach Regional Chamber in Florida. Since august 2009 Jimmy Lane has held seven distinct positions across two chambers of commerce, gaining comprehensive experience in every aspect of chamber operations. In November 2021 he assumed the role of president and CEO of the Cocoa Beach Regional Chamber of Commerce, embarking on an ambitious mission to reimagine the organization as a chamber of the future. Through his visionary leadership, Jimmy has successfully modernized the chamber, introducing innovative initiatives, fostering stronger member engagement and embracing cutting edge technology to better serve the community. This reimagined chamber has seen a remarkable 33% growth during his tenure, a reflection of Jimmy’s Forward Thinking Strategies under his guidance, a Cocoa Beach Regional Chamber was recently awarded the prestigious FACP chamber of the year in the 500,000 to $1 million category, a testament to the organization’s success and impact in 2022 Jimmy was also honored as one of ACCE’s 40, under 40, recognizing his influence as a rising leader in the chamber industry outside of the office, Jimmy’s greatest joy comes from being a dedicated father to his twins, Cameron and Blakely, whether it’s train them on at their soccer games or competitive cheer events, Jimmy’s deeply committed to being present in their lives. Despite his busy schedule, he ensures his family remains top priority, while also pursuing his personal passions for fitness and travel. Jimmy, I’m excited to have you with us today, here on Chamber Chat Podcast. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better?
Jimmy Lane 3:01
Yeah, no, I’m excited about it. Thanks for having me. You mentioned the ACCE 40. Under 40, I think I made it by the announcement was about two weeks before I turned 40. So, you know, I used to have a coach that said, if you wait till the last minute, it only takes a minute. I’m not sure if that’s good advice. So that’s what happened there. I think you already said it a fun fact about me something interesting. I have twins. They’re 13 years old, boy and a girl, Cameron and Blakely, and they are my daughter. I say, is a chamber president in the making. She’s never met a stranger. She holds court wherever she goes. And her brother could be, could be alone, doing his own thing and be just fine with it. So I spent about almost, I think I started my 16th year in the chamber world, then with two different chambers, and seen some cool stuff. And I was actually telling somebody yesterday, when I originally got the opportunity at the Chamber in Forsyth County, Georgia, that I thought, Okay, I’ll be here three months. I’ll be here, you know, maybe a year. Let’s go meet some good people. And, you know, move on, and almost 16 years later, here we are. So, yeah,
Brandon Burton 4:03
that’s, that’s how the chamber world gets us, you know, that’s how I got into it. It was going to be a job to start my career, and then I was going to transition. It was just going to be two years, you know. And here I am, 18 years later,
Jimmy Lane 4:15
right, right, right. Yeah, I get it gets in your blood. Man,
Brandon Burton 4:20
that’s right for sure. Well, tell us a little bit about the Cocoa Beach Regional Chamber. Just give us an idea of the size of the chamber, scope of work, staff. You know, things you have going on there, just to kind of set the stage for our discussion today.
Jimmy Lane 4:35
Yeah, the Cocoa Beach Regional Chamber. It’s interesting. Those who know what US Chamber Institute program is my predecessor. I sat aside my very first year in Athens back in 2016 and she told me a lot about what was going on, and I and I remember thinking, dang, we don’t have it that bad. Or, you know, things aren’t as wonky. You know, in a. In the town, no, I say that jokingly, is a great community. We have eight staff. We are, we will be about a million dollars this year. When I first started, back in 2021, I think we’re about $625,000 and you know, the Chamber has had been that way for a long time. I mean, the roots go back over 100 years. But this iteration of it was 1968 it was formed, and it kind of stayed in that half a million to $750,000 range for a long time. Had as many as 1500 total members. And we’ve sort of redefined what that is. We know the idea of membership has changed quite a bit. And, you know, have changed, sort of our model, but it’s an it’s a neat community. We, you know, you hear about the SpaceX rocket launches and the Blue Origin rocket launches. Those happen here, really every week. I used to think a rocket launch that happens every 10 years, and literally, I get down here three years ago, and they’re happening all the time in my backyard. It’s one of the coolest things. And by the way, we have beaches and Disney’s, you know, 45 minutes an hour away, so it’s a pretty neat place to be. It’s pretty, pretty, pretty
Brandon Burton 6:10
cool. Yeah, that’s, that’s awesome. So I’m here in Texas, so we got the SpaceX headquarters here in Texas, yeah, yeah, very quick. It’s over there. So no that that sets the stage well for us is, as people can see in that the episode description today are the subject for our conversation is going to revolve around the massive revenue growth that that you guys have seen, especially in your time being there at the chamber, and I mentioned in your bio, 33% growth in just a few years. So that’s that’s something to remark about. So we’ll dive into that and find out what it is you guys are doing, the approach you’re taking and and get into it as soon as I get back from this quick break.
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All right, Jimmy, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, I introduced our topic for today. So we’re going to focus on this, this massive revenue growth that you guys have seen as as you’ve taken the the helm there at the Cocoa Beach Regional Chamber. Obviously, there’s a saying you’ve seen one chamber, you’ve seen one chamber, right? But what, what kind of approaches are you guys taking as a chamber to see that kind of growth you had mentioned that you’ve reimagined what a chamber is. You’ve had this charge to make your chamber, chamber the future, take that shape, it into what it means and the change you guys have seen since you’ve been there.
Jimmy Lane 9:17
Yeah, so I mentioned this is my second chamber, and the Chamber I came from was in Forsyth County, Georgia. They did some really great stuff. It’s about a $3 million chamber today, but when we all started, you know, 12 to 15 years ago, it was about 600,000 and and we didn’t, we didn’t grow and change it by adding more members and doing more networking events. Those things have their place. So we had a pretty cool model that we we decided to generate revenue that was mission driven. And for those who remember the horizons initiative that came out a few years ago, I think part two or 2.0 is coming out here pretty soon. We really bought into that. We really said, okay, the whole i. The membership is changing, and we need to, we need to embrace that. And you know, just as a side note, I was a math education major in college, went to military school, thought I was gonna be a math teacher, and you know, that didn’t. I found the chamber world, and thankfully, did that. But, but you know, data is a big deal to me, and so we pull a lot of data. And what I found when I first got here doing the benchmarking that ACCE and others have for you to take a look at, is that this organization was very, very heavily weighted on the membership due side of things, 90 plus percent in some years. And post covid, you know, had it had, prior to covid, it had probably 8085, maybe 90% retention rate at times. But post covid was 3040, 50, 60% and I remember, for us, thinking about during what covid, covid real made me realize that if your idea of success is just butts and seats, as we say from time to time, and you can’t do that anymore, where does that leave you? And so we said, Okay, first off, what can we do? What can we take that, that we do well, and kind of enhance and in that first year, we decided to revamp our programming events. We think that really, chambers have four areas that they can focus in. You know, there is the traditional networking. Of course, the stuff that they do every day, right is, there’s the traditional networking. There’s teaching and training, education classes, seminars, where you the leader in that area. There’s also that community development, community engagement events that you can do. They’re the pat you on the backfield, good events that everyone does to some degree. And then the fourth one that I’m the most excited about are, what are those strategic initiatives, those projects that you, if you’re not the major driver behind you, have a huge hand in we used to say, you know, this organization used to beg to have a seat at the table. Well, now we’re creating the table that people are asking to have a seat at, that are driving true legacy, transformational change in our community. And then all of a sudden we started doing that. And it’s taken a while for people to sort of reframe what they believe the chamber is and and what it can be. But now those folks are writing us checks, seed money, checks, for lack of a better term, at times, to go to fund these initiatives. And they’re not looking for their logo on a, on a, on a program or on the screen at an event. Or am I going to get chicken or steak tonight at the event. You know, it is for a very different reason, and I’ll tell you that is the start of it is reframing, sort of going from that transactional to transformational growth and focusing on mission driven investment.
Brandon Burton 12:56
Yeah, and I think a lot of chambers have gotten that memo now that you need to be more of a they should. Yeah, I think, I think for some there’s still some of that hesitation of moving away from what their traditional, you know, staple events have been, their their bread and butter, you know, what’s driving the revenue currently, and maybe some hesitation taking that bold step into something new, or a new revenue stream that hopefully will kind of turn the table on what that model looks like for their organization. So for a chamber that’s having these maybe hesitations or just having a hard time making that that bold move, what did you guys see that was helpful for you to step into that and really own that space?
Jimmy Lane 13:46
Well, I think it starts with understanding your why. So there’s a great book called Start with Why. Simon Sinek, he that really is at the base of everything that we do. He’s done a couple TED talks, if you go back and find one from like 2010 some of the references, you know, they don’t apply to line today, but you’ll get it if you’re you know, you know, during that time. But we had to start with our why, and we went through a multi stage process with the staff and with our board. And it was very interesting to me when I asked the those leaders who have been around for a long time, who are investing the most of their time and their resources into us, why we exist. They really couldn’t, you know, verbalize that. And the things they said was, well, well, to do networking events and to, you know, advocate at the, you know, state level, or whatever it may be. And I said, Well, why does that actually matter? And they kept, at times, got frustrated like, well, obvious for obvious reasons. Well, when we boil it down to the very foundational reason of why people invest in the work that we do, is they have hope that they’re this is a tool for them, that by investing in it, it’s going to. Give them greater opportunity to achieve the happiness that they so desire. And when you kind of get down to that, that that is the work we’re doing, and that what we do, the day to day, stuff changes over time. It makes your path Much, much clearer. And so some of the things that we looked at, you know, in our community, that provides more hope and can create more happiness for folks is like military you know, we have a huge military presence here. I think at one time we have about 650,000 people in this in this county, you know, 150 or so are have some military affiliation, retired, and we want them to stay in this community and do great things. Well, one of the problems we saw, and nobody had a solution for it, was when they’re in those last year, last few months of being active duty, whether they’re in the Air Force or Coast Guard or Marine Corps, whatever it may be, how are we transitioning them to civilian life. I mean, I grew up in a military family. I’ve seen it, you know, good and talented people. 2025, years in a leadership position in the army, and then they get out and they’re just not sure what to do. And sometimes their skills don’t translate. Their leadership skills do, but maybe their job that they did do not. And we’ve got a great guy on our on our board of directors, who’ll be the chairman of our board in a couple years. He he started out as our military affairs council chair. He lived that, and he is a growing and thriving and a huge success in our community, as a business owner in the cyber security world. But for a couple years, he floundered and didn’t really know what to do, and kind of bounced around and said, We need a real transition program for folks. And, well, interestingly, you know, when I first started, people used to say, well, the spacexes of the world aren’t going to give you any money. They don’t care about what we’re doing. Well, yeah, you’re right, because they don’t care about networking. And if you’re doing a networking loan, you’re telling them join the chamber and let everybody know you exist. Well, they don’t really care about that, but you know what they do care about is they care about this transition event that we’re doing in November, and they have raised their hand and beat on the door and said, We want to be a part of it, and by the way, we’re going to write a check, because this is so important for our community and what we do, because we all know that workforce is a big deal, and finding the right people, and the spacexes and ULAs and others of the world are saying, Hey, this is a big deal for us. And so I say all that. Say that’s how we’ve been making our shift. Those are the areas we said, Where can we be? Where can we get narrowly focused because for the next three to five years, and a couple of areas, and where can we just go make a huge impact, and regardless is if, whether or not you’ve ever stepped foot in our front door, you know we exist, you know, a chamber. What? What is a chamber? It doesn’t matter if we are doing things that positively, positively affect you and your quality of life, we’re doing the right things.
Brandon Burton 17:57
Yeah, that was that leads in perfectly to what my next thought or question was, is, how do you go after these, these bigger donors? And you talked about it being these events, these programs, being mission driven, but you’re not just going up to them necessarily, and saying, Hey, this is our mission. This is what we’re doing. Write us a check. But it sounds like you’ve got the programming around it that’s going to align with what they feel to be important, with what they see value in in the community, to help build community, and then just aligning those efforts together. Am I? Am I getting that right? Or is there Yeah? Nuances,
Jimmy Lane 18:33
yeah. Let me. Let me give you another just sort of small example. So years ago, SpaceX was having some issues, or one of the, you know, getting rockets in and out of certain this certain road. And it was before my time. So I’m gonna tell the story wrong, but you’ll, you’ll understand the gist. And there was a light in the way, and they needed somebody, they needed the D, o, t to move that light. And it was this big, huge ordeal. And I remember the chamber I came from, was typically the organization that stepped in and went and, you know, beat the drum to get that done and relieve that pressure off of a SpaceX, or whoever it may be that needed that, that to drive their business. It was, it was hurting their business. Well, those are the things that they care about. You’re there when they need you. You are. You are eliminating a speed bump or hurdle in the road for them to go do their work. And if you’re willing and able to go do that, and you can fill a need for them, they will invest in what you do. And again, going back, you know, Kennedy Space Center is a great partner of ours. We’ve got some really great people who work there, and they are very caring for our organization, and we’ve got a great partnership. But recently, they have said to us, the major thing, the thing we care about the most, is that the the the space industry, stays here number one, because that means that we are. Where we are secure and where we need to be, and we have done a bad job of finding the right people as we’re growing and thriving to hire enough people, and everybody has us, not just on them. And how do we how do we do that? And so something like this transition event from active duty military to to full time civilian is something they care about deeply and have invested heavily in themselves, because they’re like, you’re filling a need. We don’t have the headache of putting it on. We just have to be there and be a part of it. Yeah.
Brandon Burton 20:29
So I think, I think that’s a great example, and being able to quite literally remove those speed bumps that are in the way of these businesses being right, exactly, getting their targets. I’m trying to put myself in the shoes of a chamber listening right now, and they think, yeah, you know, we understand what you’re saying, Jimmy. We need to change our programming. We need to be, you know, somebody who’s there listening to the needs of our members and really help eliminate those problems. But I think it may be helpful to hear maybe just a few examples of the different types of programming you guys do, understanding every Chamber’s different, but it might get some of those creative juices flowing for people listening to say, You know what, maybe we should explore this, because that could align with our mission and our purpose. So if you don’t mind just going through some of that, some of those programming that you guys have been Yeah, absolutely.
Jimmy Lane 21:19
And I’ll step back just a little bit about how we determine what they were to again, my second chamber, I do a lot of R and D, rip off and duplicate, as we say, and I would encourage all of you to do so, and anything we talk about today, if you’re interested, I’m happy to share that with you. But the reality is, you don’t know what you need to do until you ask a lot of times again. I came from a different community. I had over 200 community conversations and said, Who is the chamber to you now? What should the chamber be? And if we were to stand in the gap and get focused on a couple of areas for a period of time, three to five years, and do them really, really well, what what would those things be? And so I think that helps you try to understand where you’re going and what you’re doing. You should ask, you should survey, you should have those conversations. But some of the things that we found for us that were a big deal is one of the things that’s been the most successful this year is our Brevard women Connect. Brevard County is the county that we’re in. There are some other women’s empowerment series in our community, and they do a great job. But we saw a need of creating something for that, and it’s sort of, we sort of dabbled in it. Last year, we did a Galantine stay event. We did a women’s empowerment series, women in engineering. Engineering is obviously a big deal here in the in the space program, or with the space program here, and we did a think pink, it’s a women’s and wellness sort of panel discussion that we had and and so the goal for that is to, how do we, how do we focus on one market in our community, do a quarterly event that gathers for us, which was pretty incredible, 100 or more women business leaders in our community, and gives them a place of belonging and gathering. ACC talks about that in the horizons initiative belonging and gathering another place for them to feel tied to the organization. So that was a big win for us, and has been a big win. And this is in We’re in our second year of it, and I can only see it growing. Tourism is a big deal for us as well. We realize that the traditional way of marketing to our folks, so we have a tourism development commission visit Space Coast that is here that that gets the tourism bed tax dollars and their their job is to attract people here. Well, our job as an organization through visit Cocoa Beach is, how do we get them to spend money while they’re here? And, oh, by the way, we have 650,000 residents here. What are we doing to encourage them to spend money in their own community? We’re all creatures of habit. And no matter how long you live somewhere, you go to the same places over and over, and oftentimes you you miss out on some of the great places. So we built an app. A few years ago, we worked with a company who helped us build an app. We spent, probably, at the time, the largest investment in anything we had ever done, to the tune of, you know, between 20 and $30,000 when we bought kiosk and other things and threw them in our community. And that has been a huge, huge win for us, because those who are in the tourism industry said, Hey, we want to be a part of this. We want to, we want to, you know, have our name and logo associated with it. We want to be a part of the top 10, top 10 things to do with your kids on a rainy day. We have those type lists that are associated with it. And that was able to help us do that. Um, we mentioned the transition event with the Military Affairs Council. That is a big deal for us. The thing that I’m most excited about right now is our Small Business Service Center. Our small business service center is something that is coming online now. We kind of had dabbled in it the last couple years. Exciting time for us. We’ve recently sold the building that we. Currently in, we’re doing a little at least back temporary, at least back while we find new space, because the space we were in didn’t have the capacity for us to build that. You know that entrepreneur hub where where small businesses could come in and get the necessary information, the teaching and training, the space to have meetings for them, to build and grow their business. One of the pillars is our is a, is a curriculum and education piece that we’re doing, we actually, you know, it’s going to go, it’s going to, you know, there’s going to be HR classes and social media marketing classes. There’s going to be tax classes. You know, it’s amazing to me, even you know, people who are in my seat, who I talk to all the time. There are some compliance things you have to do during the course of the year, and it’s not too fun when the state sends you a letter that says, Yeah, we’re dissolving your organization. Pay your $35 fee. Well, there’s all those things. I mean, we’re going to have a set, you know, a session where, you know, different labor attorneys will be here, and they’ll just do 15 minute sessions with these folks. And so the Small Business Service Center is a huge, huge deal for us. And will it generate revenue for us? Absolutely, because there’s organizations who want to be a part of it, and want to be, you know, have their name and listed with that. But what it’s going to do is help us drive entrepreneurship and help that small business, that one man, handy man, working out of his garage, grow into a much larger business and employ more people. And so we’re just excited about a ton of different things. Those are just a couple that we’re sort of scratching the surface on right now that have been very, very important for us.
Brandon Burton 26:40
Yeah. So it sounds like with a lot of these programming you have some sort of an event that goes along with it, that maybe you bring in speakers and training and things like that. As far as drawing the sponsors for these different areas of programming, are you, you know, looking through your membership, looking through businesses in the community, and thinking these people would be a great community partner in this, or right? Do you put it out to the chamber, and then those who are interested reach back out to you? How do you how do you approach that,
Jimmy Lane 27:10
all of those things, I think you know, again, the idea of membership is changing, and we’re not getting away from the membership model. So don’t hear me wrong on this, but there are certain organizations in our community and just outside of our community who are willing to invest in programming and certain things that we do. There’s a there’s a there’s an organization not too far from here, there, there, there, uh, their rule internally is we don’t join any chambers, but if they’re doing something that has to do with has to do with space, with the space industry, which we have a state of space event and some other stuff, we have Space Council that I didn’t mention, but I’m also very excited about, they want to invest heavily in it, and writing a check for $10,000 isn’t a big deal for them. And so to answer your question, we have a dedicated sales team. We have two sales folks who go out and they pursue Chamber members, obviously, to to invest in these events. And of course, we have, we have our means. Who would care about this? Who do we want to align ourselves with these folks tell a story when they’re aligned with the with the work that we’re doing. Who do we want? Who do we want to offer the opportunity to be a part of and to to stake their flag in the ground that their name is associated with this thing. But we have moved beyond just having Chamber members. We actually have different investment levels for sponsorships for chamber member versus a non chamber member to provide some additional value. It might be 10% it might be 50% more depending on the event, but we do offer them that. So, yeah, so we don’t limit it too much, but we don’t really take the the shotgun approach. Just, Hey, anybody who wants to do it, we’ll take me. If they call us, we’ll we’ll obviously take it. But we’re typically very strategic in calling on certain organizations for a certain reason and offering them the opportunity to align themselves with the work that we’re doing. So
Brandon Burton 29:00
I hope everybody just heard you say all that, I’ve seen too many chambers that will let a $400 membership get in the way of that $10,000 Do you know what you just said?
Jimmy Lane 29:14
Right, right. I will gladly not take your $300 membership to take your $10,000 check, and by the way, and this is for all of you listening, oftentimes, they’re the least headache you ever have because they care about that thing. They get what they need out of it, and they move on until the next time you do something with that. We all know the $250 member that spends hundreds of hours knocking on your door. Some money costs too much. Never forget that. It’s
Brandon Burton 29:43
the paradox. You know that the chambers, yeah, those who are often the least, you know, the lowest level investors, are the ones that have the most need from your chamber, so
Jimmy Lane 29:52
and they’re and they’re great people. And we have a rule here. We have a rule here we treat all of our our chamber investors for. Fair but not equal. Yeah, yep,
Brandon Burton 30:02
yep. That’s That’s good advice. Well, Jimmy, as we start to wrap things up here, you’ve given great tips, great insight, great just ideas of how you guys are approaching this topic. But for a chamber out there who’s really looking to elevate to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you share with them to help get them on that path?
Jimmy Lane 30:24
I think that you need to find some mentors in your industry. I have plenty of people that I turn to on a consistent basis, and I’m not talking about and this is regardless of size. You need to find those, those chambers, those associations, that really there’s other businesses that are aspirational in nature, again, regardless of size, that you can take the best from. And then you need to turn around and ask yourself, Why do we exist, not what we do, not how we do it, but why do we exist? You need to take yourself through that exercise, and once we determine that we went through really extensive work planning, and everyone on our staff has a work plan, and everyone has a plan that overlaps, like a Venn diagram, they all overlap with one another so that we can go realize the mission and vision of the organization. And if you can find those mentors to help you through the process, help you think through it and think differently, to understand and find your why, and then to plan the work accordingly. I think that gets you way, way, way down the field, and don’t do it just by yourself in your before walls you call your chamber building, bring key stakeholders, regardless if they’re a member of your chamber or not, bring key stakeholders into those conversations you it will be fascinating for you to under to to hear what people believe you are, what you should be in the story, and even more importantly, the emotion that is elicited when they think of your organization. So those would be my tips if I was, if I was coming to you and and consulting with you for that. Those are the those are the sort of the first couple steps we would take you through, and then you make adjustments along the way.
Brandon Burton 32:07
I love that great advice, so I like asking everyone I have on the show, and especially, I’d like you know from your bio you were given the charge to reimagine your organization as a chamber of the future. So how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
Jimmy Lane 32:26
Yeah, I think chambers. I know this chamber, when it was originally formed, they worked on things like roads and bridges and how that impacted, you know, their community and the economic development opportunities that it afforded them. And along the way, they lose their they lost their sight so on what they were doing, and they became a networking group. There’s plenty of that out there, and we do that a good, you know, really good. But that can’t be your North Star. And as we go into reimagining and building the chamber of the future. I think if you are, if you are planning your flag on being the best networking group, and we’re going to bring businesses in to tell their story, and, you know, network and, you know, sell their product and service, I think you’re missing the boat. There’s a place for that, and you should still do that, but you have to determine and chambers that will be the ones who will last, and the ones that will be the most impact on a community. Their communities are are begging for them to come and lead strategic projects, strategic initiatives in their community that nobody else can, that other people are scared of, that they’re just not sure where to go. You’ve got good and talented people, regardless of your size, who are affiliated with your organization. Lean on them, go and do those things. And again, if you’re focusing on mission, driven investment, all that stuff works out over time. We had a guy recently, I won’t share his name, but he rose to check for $25,000 to go fund an initiative we were doing. And he doesn’t even live in this state, wow. But he cares deeply about what we’re doing. He lived here for a long time, but he doesn’t live here. Doesn’t interact as much, but, but, but, but did that. And so I see that’s where chambers are going. You have to get out of these, these, these boundaries. You know, you have to be an organization that attracts we joke Tallahassee is five and a half, six hours away from us, the capital of our state. Are we doing something that may attract a small business person there to invest in something we’re doing? And I think that’s where I see the organization going, where, where you become truly regional and the whole idea of, well, I’m in my county, I’m in my city, this is where it ends. Goes away,
Brandon Burton 34:45
right? Yeah, I love that. And what really stood out to me is you had mentioned, and this is my words, kind of summarizing it, but recognizing that change that other people, other organizations, are scared of. Yeah. And maybe nobody else can, can take on these things, but a chamber can, and recognizing that and leaning into it is so important, that’s
Jimmy Lane 35:09
true. And I, and I’ve told our staff and the leadership of our board, I want us to get to a place where somebody has an idea, they see a need in the community, and they go, we’re not sure how to do it. It’s a little scary, but let’s call the chamber, because if anybody can do it, they can do it. Yeah, I love that. Well,
Brandon Burton 35:26
Jimmy, before I let you go, I wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information for people who want to reach out and connect with you and and learn more about how you guys are doing things there at the cocoa regional beach. What would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect?
Jimmy Lane 35:40
Yeah, I would, I would welcome that you can, you can find all of our contact information on CocoaBeachChamber.com. You can also download visit Cocoa Beach on the for your Apple iPhone or your Android. I would highly suggest you take a look at that as well. And then you can reach me via email. jlane@cocoabeachchamber.com, and anything you heard today that you want resources for or even to have a short conversation, happy to do it. We do these, these one on one sessions through the US Chamber, through their Institute program, and that’s one of the most enjoyable things for me, and I’ll tell you, oftentimes we’re going through through neat stuff, and I’m talking to myself during it as well. So they they work for people, and I would encourage you to reach out. That’s great.
Brandon Burton 36:32
We’ll get all of that contact information or show notes for this episode, so we’ll make it easy for people to find you and connect with you, but I really appreciate you spending time with us today here on the podcast, sharing your experience, your insights, great tips and vision of the future of chambers. I think there’s been a ton of value for those who listen and participate in this episode. So thank you for spending time with us today, Jimmy.
Jimmy Lane 36:58
I appreciate it. Hopefully you said something that made an impact.
Brandon Burton 37:00
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