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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 Carl Blackstone. Carl has a deep knowledge of working with small and large businesses as a well as well as professional trade associations on local, state and federal levels. Carl has served as the former manager of the State Government Relations for the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce and as a district field manager for Mark Sanford when he served in the US House, Senate representative, in addition to other community roles, currently, he serves on the board of the Association of Chamber of Commerce executives and the South Carolina State Chamber of Commerce as the President and CEO of the Columbia Chamber. Carl’s focus is creating a strategy to make and to help make the region more competitive for the next 20 years. Carl, 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 to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better. Well, greetings
Carl Blackstone 2:06
and from South Carolina. Great to be with you today, and thanks so much for having me. You know, this chamber world is so small. I’ve met so many folks from around the country. They’re in chambers, but I haven’t met you. I apologize, but look forward to one day, but I’m just a boring guy from the southeast. I got four daughters. They’re in college, and so I’ll be working forever. But I love what I do and enjoy it very much. But otherwise, I’m just a boring guy,
Brandon Burton 2:35
a boring guy. Yeah, I’ve got, I’ve got three daughters myself, son and three daughters. So I can, I can sympathize with you a little bit. It’s great, but, yeah, we’ll be, we’ll be working a long time. That’s right. Well, Carl, tell us a little bit about the Columbia chamber. Give us an idea of the size, staff, budget, scope of work to kind of set the stage for our discussion.
Carl Blackstone 2:56
So we’ve been around. Were found in 1902 and so we’ve been around for 125 years or so. We have we’re mid sized chamber. We’ve got a staff of about 15. We’ve got a budget little two, two and a half million dollars, and about 12, 1300 partners in our under the umbrella Columbia as a whole is capital city, smack dab in the middle of the great state of South Carolina. Metropolitan Area is a little less than a million people. It’s because it’s a state government town, capital city, we have the University of South Carolina two blocks from my office. It’s been somewhat of a different place for businesses, because everybody knows it’s a government town, and the government mentality has been very strong here for years, and so when I I’ve been here for 10 years as the CEO. I’m not didn’t grow up through chambers. I worked at the State Chamber and and did lobbying work for the State Chamber years ago, but I didn’t really understand chambers, and that was a State Chamber, not a local chamber. And so when I found myself in this position, I’m like, holy cow, it’s a new world, and I’ve learned a ton. But the hardest thing we’ve had to do is really change the mentality of Columbia businesses. Say, Yes, we are government town. That is a positive, that is a wonderful thing, great attributes to have for recruiting businesses. But that’s not the only thing we are. We have great companies here, we need to be a little bit more pro business and think differently on how we approach things. And so at that time, 10 years ago, the we weren’t doing well. The city was not growing. We’re pretty stagnant, quite frankly, over the last 30 years. And that’s combination of the. Poor leadership, poor planning. It literally was acting from the business community, quite frankly, that that had created systemic problems that we needed to address. And so we needed more business minded people representing us on the city county level. We needed just to be more aware of what was going on and engaged in the political process, which helps. I mean, if you think about what government does on a day to day basis, they can help you, hurt you, and if you learn the business, we have a significant as a whole. Everybody thinks the southeast is got cheap labor, cheap taxes, cheap land, everything. But in reality, that’s not the case, especially in capital cities. Capital Cities are unique, and we have to high taxes, and it keeps businesses from looking to this area. And so we’ve had a challenge over the last 10 years, but I think we’re in a good spot now, which is pretty exciting.
Brandon Burton 6:02
Yeah, I can see where being in a capital city could definitely have its its benefits, but some challenges along with it, and it’s something that piqued my interest is when you you’d mentioned some of the challenges when you came into this position 10 years ago, to kind of boil down to apathy from the business community. I thought that’s a that’s an interesting approach. Could you talk a little bit more to that?
Carl Blackstone 6:24
Yeah, well, a lot of the folks that were engaged Jamie, we had a stagnant board. We I, I’ve said it over and over, so this is not first time. So we were male, pale and stale, yeah, we were a functioning board that was doing the same things we’ve always done, and it was, in my opinion, wasn’t healthy. We weren’t creating an environment where new people wanted to come right?
Brandon Burton 6:50
Yep, it sounds like your chamber was a the traditional Chamber of 10 years ago. The male pale and stale, yeah. And so
Carl Blackstone 6:59
we were, we were, we’re a traditional chamber, but traditional in the sense that 35 years ago we split economic development out. We’d also we’re a chamber that does not have the local tourism industry at all. That’s a whole separate group. And my predecessors, and there were reasons why they did it. I wasn’t around sorts. I don’t want to criticize them for it, but the long term impact was, what is a chamber that does not have economic development, that does not have tourism? What do you do? And how do you make yourself not relevant? But how do you find how do you make yourself essential to a community that was really down on itself and not grow it. It was stagnant. And so it was interesting back in 1950 Richmond, Virginia and Raleigh, North Carolina, Charlotte, Atlanta, Columbia, Austin, Texas, we’re all about the same size. And then you fast forward to 1980 in Richmond, Raleigh, Columbia, three capital cities in these southern states were all the same size, and all of a sudden, now Columbia hadn’t changed. The same size they were in 1980 and Richmond and Raleigh are totally different. Not that I want to be I don’t think anybody in Colombia wants to be those other cities. It’s how do we attract and retain talent here in Columbia, and how do we make ourselves a draw? And a lot of the things that we were doing systematically were just not good for business, high taxes, not innovating and really not doing a whole lot to to change it. We were doing everything that we were doing, and so our hope, my hope, and you know, the team that we we have, was like, alright, we can, we can be the best Columbia. We want to be the best Columbia, but we don’t have to sit and do things just because it’s the way we’ve always done it. And it was maybe two months into my 10 years, like, Why? Why are we doing this? Why are, why are we doing this event? Or why are we sending stuff up? Well, that’s the way we’ve always done it. Yeah, that’s got to stop
Brandon Burton 9:12
the wrong answer, right?
Carl Blackstone 9:15
Hear that again and but changing the leadership, and then also you gotta have, if you want to attract new businesses, they gotta feel like they’re have a route to be participating. They gotta be participatory. We need them involved, but we needed to. We need to change. We need to have a board that reflects the community, both not just demographically, but also we needed different. You know, at one time, we had a board of, you know, our idea was diversity was had six different bankers sitting around the boardroom. Well, that’s not, yes, we diversity in banks, but we don’t have diversity of. Thought diversity of industry, and so we’ve been very, very deliberate in making sure that our community feels like we’re reflective of them, but but more importantly, that we’re actually we appreciate in their ideas and their thoughts. And how do we be a little bit more progressive?
Brandon Burton 10:18
Yeah, I like those thoughts and your comments around the you know, seeing the other similar sized cities grow and develop in that time period and and to have Columbia stay about the same as it was in the 80s, anytime something stays stagnant, you know, life kind of ceases to happen, right? Things start to die off a little bit. And to be able to invigorate that again, get it going. That’s that’s the key, to be able to keep it. Don’t let things become stagnant, right, right? Yeah, keep
Carl Blackstone 10:48
that part and but that’s where the chamber can really, is that the Chamber’s responsibility by itself? No, absolutely not. There are no, uh, single person that can do anything. And so you got to work with your city leadership and your business leadership and and the triple part, I mean, the triple PS really do work, not just in development, but also with ideas and how to get things moving along. And so we’re in a different spot than we were 10 years ago. It’s pretty amazing. You know, our growth in South Carolina has been substantial since the late 90s and early 2000s in Charleston and Greenville and south of Charlotte’s coming this way. And so we just have not been able to capitalize. But we finally been able to do so, and we’re seeing significant four or five times annual growth of what we saw two or three years ago, which is nice.
Brandon Burton 11:44
That’s awesome. Well, that’s a great setup for our conversation today, giving us kind of that the background on Columbia, how things are sitting, you know, the role of the chamber right now in Columbia and and as we focus our conversation today, we’ll focus on some of these maybe more unique approaches, you know, ways you guys approach things versus maybe the way some other chambers approach things and and I hope that there’s some some key elements out of this conversation that others can take and scale to their chamber and and be able to maybe implement some of these things to invigorate life in their communities as well. And we’ll dive in much deeper on this conversation, since we get back from this quick break.
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All right, Carl, we’re back, as I mentioned before the break, we’re going to focus most of our conversation today around kind of the the unique approaches that the Columbia chamber takes to your chamber work, versus maybe that of what some other chambers do. And in your explanation and background of the Columbia chamber, I think you’ve hinted on on several of these things, from the business apathy and kind of changing that mindset to the board makeup. But what are some of these other approaches or mindsets that you guys are taking there in Columbia to really see some of that growth that you guys are seeing and and to maybe energize some other Chambers as well, and kind of spark some ideas for them.
Carl Blackstone 16:22
Listen, let me just say we are not unique, and we’re also, I ain’t a smart guy. I want to set the record on this straight, because what I what I did when I got here was I had the privilege of having fresh eyes. Fresh Eyes is a gift. When you come in to an organization and you bring or whenever I hire new people, is really dig in with them to see what they see, because we get blinders on. And I guess my biggest fear is complacency, and complacency is a cancer. It’s a form of cancer that can erode an organization. And so I ask and spend a lot of time with new board members or new staff members or new partners. Say, what do we need to be doing differently? What do you see that we’re doing, that we’re missing? But so being always trying to find new ways to do things, I think, is critical for any organization. The problem we have in chamber world is we always underfunded. We have few two staff, and the easiest thing to do is what we’ve always done. Creativity takes time and energy, and you have to spend hours talking to folks, and that’s hard, but I think the end result is a better product for your partners, and we’re seeing that today. How do we continue to morph, even though we’ve had a good run the last three or four years? What we need to do differently? And I think taking steps back and really sending surveys to our partners and asking right questions, being on the phone and talking to them all the time or all right, this is good. Is this working? But their engagement is critical. And however we can find, I can’t say we have figured it out yet at all, but what I’m we are striving every day to make sure that we stay in front of the curve and businesses, you know, the chambers are in these unique spot because we have to understand politics, we have to understand the business and economics and accounting and law and all these Other things that we have to think about on behalf of our business partners, but we didn’t go to school for any of this stuff, right? I mean, we’re we’re learning on the streets like everybody else, but we need to lean on our partners to figure out what they need and and for us, in South Carolina, we’re seeing this huge post COVID surge of population and businesses coming in and great what’s our biggest issue? It’s workforce. How do we help our our partners? How do we help train and think about the workforce next week, next year, five years, 10 years. So it’s getting the mindset of, let’s being a community builder. Let’s think about thinking long term strategies on how we can be a player in not just the here and now, but later. It’s tough, and a lot of times the market throws a curve at us, and we’re not expecting it. We’ve just gotta alter our thought. I hate the word pivot after COVID, COVID, but I’ll use that word. We’ve gotta be always ready to think differently, which is, which is a struggle, but for us today, here and now, uh. We landed a very large OEM in Columbia that’s going to be producing a automobile, and they need 4000 workers by next year. And how do we ramp up? Because we know when a new new shiny object comes to town, you’re going to see folks leaving one job to go to another, and we got to find the workforce. Really dig in to think differently. On working with our local school districts, our state government for incentive purposes, on retraining folks, getting more high school kids into the workforce, workforce, work based learning opportunities for our kids. It’s a whole new world. We weren’t thinking about this four years ago.
Brandon Burton 20:45
Yeah, and there’s, there’s a lot of focus right now among chambers on workforce. I mean, it seems like you mentioned that P word pivot. You know, I think we can go the rest of our life without having any unprecedented pivots happening in our life, right? I mean, at least not calling them those, but yeah, to be able to see where these needs are. And there’s been, you know, this, this mass exodus of the workforce. And when you are looking for that growth and revitalization and trying to spark that energy into the workforce, where do you find them? How do you how do you retain talent that you already have in the community, and especially when everybody’s, you know, kind of vying for this attention as well that it is a it is a unique problem, and chambers are poised perfectly to address it. So
Carl Blackstone 21:38
addresses one thing is we’ve also got to embrace what our partners need, and they see us as a resource. And big companies typically don’t need us to help them with their workforce issue. I mean, they’ve got resources, they’ve got staff, but it’s a second tier, third tier, companies that struggle so much, and they need us because they don’t have the depth and that they don’t have the understanding of all the things that go into it, and so to be a resource for them, but also learning from our larger partners to say, Hey, how are y’all doing things that we can help teach others to do? It’s it’s not again. We’re not creating new products. We’re just trying to be dot connectors and say, Hey, how can we learn from one teach another? And it really helps the overall community.
Brandon Burton 22:31
That is an interesting thought, because I’ve heard a lot of chambers talk about when that big factory opens up, a big, major employer comes to town and they’re wanting to know, you know, we need, like you said, 4000 jobs filled. Can you guys help supply that? But in reality, those big companies come in and those jobs will flock to them, but they’re going to leave their current position. So that second tier is really it’s like, yes, we can help you find the workforce there, but you go to work overtime trying to find the workforce to fill the backside. So
Carl Blackstone 23:02
it is truly Robin chambridge. Is Robin Peter to pay Paul. And it’s the mindset, all right, understand that those are, there’s going to be fluctuations, but we need to that’s 4000 jobs. Doesn’t seem like a lot to some people that are, you know, in the Dallas area, that’s growing that many people in a month or whatever, for us, think about housing and the impact it has on the housing, on the track, on the schools. What does that if we bring in 4000 new people, is that 6000 kids we’ve got to start educating, and where are we going to put them? So the overall thought process we have to be we’re in a unique position. All chambers are that there’s no other entity that can bring the private sector with the public sector to sit down and find opportunities and and long term strategies on a lot of these issues. You know, we asked for years and years, we relied on government to fix problems, and we’re asking elected officials to do things more than we’ve ever asked them to do, but we as a chamber can provide a lot of resources to help assist find folks that are experts in their field, that work in your community, and sit them down. Let’s let’s have dialog. Yeah, but these community problems are long term. They’re not going away tomorrow, but we got to be thinking about them today, and building those relationships and having those relationships with both public and private partners really are beneficial.
Brandon Burton 24:51
Yeah. So the thought keeps coming back to me about the comment about the apathy of business owners and your comment about elected. Officials just now, elected officials definitely have their place, right? I mean, it’s important to work with them and to have the advocacy approach and everything, but they don’t have the same kind of skin in the game as the business does on Main Street, right? Who’s relying on this to feed their family, to for their employees to feed their families? They’ve got skin in the game. So to be able to get those businesses engaged in helping to find, you know, those the the employment, to help solve some of these problems that have to pop up in communities, to really rely on that business community, I think, is the key. And we’re chambers, help convene, and you’re convening with the electric the elected officials and everything as well. But, really leaning on those that have the biggest to lose and the most to gain, really by the success in the community. So I think you hit the nail on the head, whether you meant to or not. I don’t know.
Carl Blackstone 25:53
Well, the hardest thing to do is when you hit apathy. The apathetic feeling yes is re engagement and finding hope and that things can get better. And it’s, you know, if you’re a small business that has 10 employees and you’re barely eking out a paycheck to very worried about meeting payroll every two weeks, it’s like, All right, do I really have time to think about regulatory relief. I feel it every day. I see it. I have to have staff to deal with it, but they don’t have to. You’ve gotta really educate them on how we can make things better. They gotta see the light at the end of the tunnel. And so rebuilding is tough, maintaining is tougher, but I promise is better than the
Brandon Burton 26:46
alternative. Yeah. So how do you what’s your approach with your partners, as you guys call them there in Columbia, what’s your approach with partners to help get them engaged, to to step away from that apathy and to really buy in? I know you had mentioned before surveying and listening to them, seeing what their needs are and and I know other chambers are going to hear that and say, nobody opens our surveys, nobody opens the emails. So how do you do that? How do you get that feedback? How do you get them to step away from the apathy and to really lean into that engagement? Well,
Carl Blackstone 27:18
you have to have multiple redundancies, right? I mean, there’s the open rate on those surveys are pretty abysmal, but it has to be done at different levels. So we try to have meetings every year or every month that are opportunities to engage the public sector. Private sector have not just talking about politics, but projects that are coming and then making sure that we’re asking questions while we’re with them, have open dialog times to for them to voice their opinions. What’s going on, what’s good, what’s bad, but at all of our events, our goal is to ask questions of what we need to be, what do we need to know to help you all? And as soon as you start that dialog, and you do it over and over again, they actually start to believe it, which is good. That’s what we want, but it does. It’s not a just mention it one time and expect a flood of phone calls or emails. No, that doesn’t happen, but it’s gotta be built in to the process of every month, our annual our monthly meetings, our quarterly meetings, small I mean, you know, but also you gotta put your money where your mouth is if you really are trying to focus on small business, alright, let’s create a new group dialog, just for small business. What do y’all want to hear? What do y’all need to do? Let’s just focus on the area that needs focusing and that’s helped, that served us well. The other is, and this is the hard thing about I’ve got the best staff, best team in the world. I love they are fantastic. But we also, day in and day out are in a bubble. Yeah, they don’t have to go in and clock in clock out, and they don’t have to deal with regulatory issues, and they don’t have to deal with a lot of stuff. But we think we do and or more importantly, we think we know what our partners want. And quite honestly, you know, the worst thing we can do is think for ourselves. We need engagement, and that’s the key. And I remind our board this all the time. Look, we need y’all to tell us, don’t expect us to be you know, what did Ronald Reagan say? I’m here with the government. I’m here to help. Yeah? I can’t pretend to to know exactly what the issues are in a business. I need them to tell us and so, but we got to have that open dialog. We got to it’s it’s repetitive. I spent hours on the phone, but it’s important to to make sure that we have. People that we can call or give us straight answers to what we need to be working with and making sure that we’re providing that ROI
Brandon Burton 30:06
to our partners. Yeah, if I could summarize it, I’d say just stay curious on what those needs are for your your partners and and you mentioned, you know, you’re not going to get that flood of phone calls or emails, which is probably a good thing, because I wouldn’t really be sustainable either you couldn’t address them all last time. You might it might help in seeing some trends, but being curious in those personal interactions, if you’re at a luncheon, or if you’re, you know, visiting some members as you talk to them, what are some of the challenges you’re facing? And have it be a genuine conversation versus just greeting them, you know, thanks for coming to the luncheon. Yeah, you can elevate that that short conversation so much higher by being curious.
Carl Blackstone 30:45
Well, folks think you know if, if they get the first phone call from me, and I only call them once a year when their renewals up, right? I mean, there’s not a whole lot of authenticity in that call, right? I mean, they know exactly what I’m up to, so it’s important to have multiple contacts just to know, hey, we really do care. We really are inquisitive. We want to know how we can be helpful. And those, again, it’s all relationships and building out those relationships are are better for us as a chamber, but long term, it truly helps not only the chamber, but it helps our retention. It helps across the board. Yeah, absolutely.
Brandon Burton 31:26
Well, Carl, as we begin to wrap things up, I wanted to to ask for the chamber listening. Who’s wanting to try to take their chamber up to the next level. You’ve shared some great insights. But do you have any you know actionable, maybe tips or action items that you can share with those listening to maybe try implementing at their chamber to spark some life and step away from the apathy.
Carl Blackstone 31:52
Well, I think they’re different communities. Each you meet one chamber, you meet one chamber, right? Everybody’s different. Every community is different. But I think when you find we’re not good at everything, we don’t know everything, and so I think we try hard to stay in contact with partners, ask them what we need to be doing. I don’t have a silver bullet. I’m just making this up as I go quite honestly, but I think over time, people see us as a resource. They that they need, and they feel like, if we don’t know the answer, it’s okay, but we’re gonna go figure it out and try to find the answer. And I think companies and people are very happy with that answer. It may not work for us if we’ll try new things. We’re not saving the world, we’re not curing cancer, we’re not we’re not doing brain surgery or anything like that. We try different things all the time. It works. It works. It doesn’t. It doesn’t. It could be a timing issue, just could be whatever. But don’t be afraid to try new things. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t Don’t hesitate, because the end of the day, we’re going to be doing this tomorrow, and we’ll try something else. So I, I think too many people try not to take risks. I like taking risks even little old nonprofit that we run. I think it’s, it’s worth, worth doing, yeah, and then again, it goes back to my biggest fear, which is complacency. So taking risks helps alleviate a little bit of that complacency.
Brandon Burton 33:34
Absolutely get to find some comfort in the discomfort, right? That’s right. So you mentioned that, you know, you’re just trying to figure it out as you go, but I’d say that the key element to that is taking the feedback. So as you implement new things, you’re you’re being staying curious, getting that feedback and that that tells you that’s your your guide as to what’s working, what’s not. Well, I like asking everyone I have on the show as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the purpose of chambers going forward?
Carl Blackstone 34:07
I you know, I think the best years of chambers are yet to come. I recognize them. Why they were created years ago, and the value that proposition that they’ve offered in years to years have just been B to B, and I don’t think that goes away. What I do think, though, as businesses in this environment that we’re in right now, political, environment, world, environment, whatever chambers, have this unique opportunity to really help define their communities for generations, and what the stuff we’re working on today may not come to fruition for 10 to 1520, years, but being at the table and helping solve these critical problems are important, and there’s no other group, if you look around, who’s going to be there? Well, it’s got to be the chambers, and it may be uncomfortable at times. It may. Be not fun, but at the end of the day, is it necessary? And businesses want to go and relocate, or they want to flourish where they can feel like they have they want to live work and play. Their employees want to live work and play in a community that’s vibrant, that is in an atmosphere that can make money, but they have a great quality of life, and so chamber is going to have to be at the tip of the spear in creating some of these long term strategies in their communities to fulfill the needs of business. So it’s going to be a fun challenge for the next few years. I’m excited. It’s new, different. Every day is different, so it’ll be fun. But I think looking at your book of work today knowing that it’s got to change, what can you live without? What Can You Live Without doing and what? What’s the best ROI for your partners, your numbers, or whatever? That’s what’s going to have to drive you. So, yeah, what
Brandon Burton 36:07
I find super interesting about chamber work is it is never ending. You know, once you solve one problem, there’s always going to be another, another thing to address. So never Is it the work of a chamber going to be complete. So job security there. So well. Carl, for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you, what would be the best way that you’d have them reach out and contact if they had any questions we talked about you can hit our columbiachamber.com
Carl Blackstone 36:36
or cblackstone@columbiachamber.com we’ll get right to me. So love to if I’ve ever, if you ever have a question, if I can be a resource, let me know
Brandon Burton 36:45
that’s perfect. We’ll get that in our show notes for this episode. But appreciate you taking some time to be with us today, here on chamber tap podcast, share some of the approaches you guys have taken and really, you know, diving into engaging with your partners and helping them step away from that apathy that’s that’s so critical and keeping the work of chambers moving forward. So thanks.
Carl Blackstone 37:06
Yeah, absolutely, don’t be afraid to reach out. My My was reluctant when I first got to the Chamber of reaching out and asking for help, and call it pride, call whatever it was, but the best resources for me are other chambers, and we love the R & D working chamber world, reuse and duplicate, so embrace that as well, but find a mentor, find a friend at another chamber and and pick their brain. It’s a huge help.
Brandon Burton 37:35
I love that plug. That’s why this podcast exists. To your R & D. Well, thank you, Carl, this has been great, and I appreciate spending time with you today, and for you carving out some time to talk with us, this has been wonderful.
Carl Blackstone 37:47
Thank you. I’ve enjoyed it. Thanks.
Brandon Burton 37:50
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