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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 TJ Sullivan, after three decades as a top college leadership speaker, TJ Sullivan gave up his top airline status to become a chamber executive. TJ is currently the President and CEO of the Parker Chamber of Commerce and Foundation in Denver, Colorado area. He’s received CEO of the Year honors from the Colorado Chamber of Alliance. He graduated W, A, C, E Academy in 2023 and he also runs a Tuesday night bowling league. So, TJ, I’m excited to have you with us today 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 hopefully I didn’t steal your thunder, but, yeah, share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.
TJ Sullivan 1:56
Well, hello everybody. I was, I was teasing Brandon before we got on here that, you know, there’s probably, he’s probably done 8000 of these interviews, and he finally got to the to the to the dregs. So it’s nice to be here. And greetings from Colorado, where it’s a 68 degrees and sunny today, so in December. Yeah, and you put some pressure on me, say something interesting about myself. Um, okay, so here’s my favorite one. I tell at parties. I ate at the very first Chipotle on the very first day it was open. I was working at the time at the University of Denver, and Steve Ells opened the famously opened the chipotle literally across the street from my office. And we thought, oh, look a cute new burrito place. Let’s go check it out. And, oh, my God, I wish I’d quit my job immediately and gone to work for him. I think his net worth is now $500 million so, man, if I, if I had known, if I had only known, but I went back to my white collar job across the street and felt sorry for the people putting burritos together. Those people are probably billionaires by now. So, yeah, yeah, that
Brandon Burton 3:00
that is pretty cool though, you know, yeah, first day, first Chipotle. Then, yeah, if
TJ Sullivan 3:06
you go into any Chipotle back by the restrooms, you’ll see a picture of the very first Chipotle, and you can just picture me walking in there the first day, going, hmm, chicken or steak. You know, that’s
Brandon Burton 3:14
right. Hopefully you made a journal entry that day. Yeah, July,
TJ Sullivan 3:19
July of 1993 Good Lord, I’m old. Yeah.
Brandon Burton 3:25
Well, tell us a little bit about the Parker Chamber of Commerce. Give us an idea of size, staff, budget, scope of work to kind of set the stage for our discussion today? Sure.
TJ Sullivan 3:33
So like in back when I back around my 50th birthday, I decided I just couldn’t travel, like I had been traveling 200 nights a year for almost three decades, and I was looking for a job here in Denver where I could sleep in my own bed and and, you know, have a more normal life. And I got a job at the superior chamber, which is up in Boulder County, up close to Boulder, very a one person show in a cubicle, doing literally everything. Did that for two and a half years, and then COVID hit, and we, we actually did really well during COVID. Surprisingly, we were one of the few chambers in Colorado that grew significantly during during COVID. And then the folks down in Parker needed a CEO, so they, they recruited me down there. So Parker is about 20 miles southeast of Denver, if you imagine the Denver Metro area as a clock face. I used to work up at 11 where Boulder is. Now I work down at five where, where Parker is in very red Douglas County, and I’m a nice Denver blue guy, so that was kind of interesting to be recruited down there. But they hate being lumped in as a Denver suburb. But as growth continues to happen, it’s just sort of inevitable that we’re becoming this affluent Denver, suburban, exurban, type of a city. They still like to think of themselves as something very unique and separate from Denver. But the Denver influence is there very small business ecosystem. It’s we don’t have a lot of big corporations manufacture. Dollars. It’s a it’s sort of got a bedroom community type of feel to it. We have about 475 business members, which translates to about 1100 humans that are attached to those memberships, and about 300,000 or so in membership revenue each year, for about 43% of our annual revenue. So we do about, we in 2025, I think we’ll do about $680,000 budget. So, and I just hired my fifth staff person to very exciting. That’s a, that’s who we are.
Brandon Burton 5:30
Did you say today? Yeah,
TJ Sullivan 5:32
literally, this morning I call, I called a, called a nice guy. I don’t know. He hasn’t accepted yet. So by the time this comes out, he might have told me to, you know, go pound sand. But yeah, we and the funny thing is, it’ll be a three men and two women in the office, so we have a little bit of a male dominated environment going on for some reason. I’m not sure how that, how that’s happening, but, you know it’s happening. So, yeah, it’s pretty fun. You
Brandon Burton 5:55
just hit the scales today with that. That’s, I know, it
TJ Sullivan 5:58
wasn’t even my choice. I let my membership VP, choose, you know, between the between the candidates, so it wasn’t even my fault, although I’m sure I’m going to be blamed for it. So right?
Brandon Burton 6:08
Well, I’m looking forward to our discussion today. I think it’s a discussion that a lot of chamber leaders can resonate with, as they’ve either been in this position or they might be in the throes of it right now, but we’ll be talking about rebuilding a troubled chamber and yeah, looking forward to hearing about your experience with this and how you’re able to overcome and all the the ins and outs of that as soon as they get back from this quick break.
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All right. TJ, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re talking about rebuilding a troubled chamber. And sounds like maybe this might be something that that you’ve had some. Experience with at one point or another, but yeah, it might be something close, close to home for you. But tell us what’s your experience been like? And I know everybody has their own story of, you know, the Chambers as they’ve come into them, and the approach they had to take.
TJ Sullivan 10:15
I, you know, first, I want to say that when I go to a lot of chamber conferences, we see or ACCE, it’s amazing how many new chamber executives you meet who are who are there and introduce themselves as someone who just took over a month and a half ago, and they’ve got no money and they have no idea what they’re doing. And please help me. And so I see these people, these well meaning people who are thrown into these impossible situations all the time. And having been through that a little bit, I I always feel like, man, get ready. Buckle in, because you’ve got a, you’ve got a journey here in front of you, you know. So maybe somebody listening right now is, you know, is one of those people who is like, What the hell have I done? You know, saying, Sure, this, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so for those of you that resonate with this topic, you know, I understand where you are and what’s what’s ahead of you. When I got to Parker, it had gone. The Parker chamber had gone through about 40 years, 40 or 50 years of just boom and bust, boom and bust, boom and bust and and, like a lot of chambers, it depended on who was in charge of the chamber, and how they handled money and and the economy and all the different things that affect, you know, how chambers do? When I got to our chamber, we had about $110,000 total in the bank, 80,000 of that was encumbered it. We have a big festival called the Parker Days Festival, which is about a $2 million enterprise every summer. And when COVID happened, the festival was canceled. But there was about, you know, 100 grand that had been collected from vendors and different, you know, businesses before COVID Shut it down. So about $80,000 worth of those businesses said you can hold on to the money, unless you don’t bring the festival back at some point, then we want our money back. So imagine, like, you know, basically having 100 $100,000 in the bank, and 80 of it, you know, you can’t, yeah, or if you do, you’re, you’re spending the credit card. So the the chamber had hired, had, had fired their entire staff, except for one person who is now my VP of membership. And she basically cleaned house, stripped everything down to the studs. She saved the chamber. She got the annual budget down to less than $200,000 a year. She had found, you know, so many storage units full of stuff that the previous executive had purchased. And it was just, it was just a financial she had managed to stop the hemorrhaging, but we had to rebuild, and we had to decide if we were going to start that festival back up, otherwise we had to give that money back. So it was a pretty precarious situation. And when I went in there, and even when I was up in Superior same sort of thing, it was very, very small. It wasn’t really in crisis, but it was very, very tiny, and there was a lot of ambition to grow it. So I guess, because I started my own company and ran it for 16 years and bootstrapped the whole thing, I guess I just have an orientation toward, I like to make money. I like money in the bank, and I like to be able to pay for what we’re going to do. That’s sort of my ethic. And so those are attributes, by the way, yeah, yeah. But I also, but I’m, but I am pretty ambitious when it comes to money. You know, I’m not afraid to ask for money. I’m not afraid to to charge a fair ticket price for something, and so I’m not timid about that kind of stuff. Yeah. So anyway, that was the challenge. I just had to basically, we had a lot of potential and a lot of opportunity. We had to decide if we were gonna do that festival, and that I had never done a festival before. Oh, my God, we’re talking like 40 carnival rides and 200 marketplace vendors and, you know, dozens and dozens of food vendors, three stages. I didn’t know I had never done any of that. So it was crazy. So that was a big, scary challenge, but we, thank God, we pulled it off in 2023 we 2022 2022 we brought the festival. Back. We ended up making, you know, several $100,000 we we got back on solid ground, and then we could start building so for those people out there who are walking into a mess and a really, really sad bank account, you can do it. You can do it. You just have to figure out what your assets are and where your potential is, and go hard,
Brandon Burton 14:22
yeah. So some of these people coming into these situations, it can be a variety of different things. It could be just, you know, poorly managed, you know, ahead of time. It could be a toxic board member that’s Yep, or several, or several, yeah. It could be conflict with a city manager, or something, you know, something internally that is really, you know, given a bad name to the chamber, we’ll say. So there’s a lot of different ways that things can, can kind of go awry. But as you, as you come into a chain, or maybe even before you come into a chamber, are there things. It looking back that you would want to know more about before taking a job, or questions that you would ask, or just, even if you took the job, just going into it eyes wide open, of knowing you know kind of what you’re getting yourself into.
TJ Sullivan 15:15
Well, I think, I think one of the keys for me when I took the Parker job was that the the man who was hiring me, who was the chair of the board at the time. He was super sharp and very smart and very transparent, and I liked his vibe, and I trusted him. Immediately, I knew that the board was about half people that wanted to hire me and half that wanted to hire somebody else that was very different, very very established, old school type of thing. But it just so happened that Brian was the chair, and he made my hire happen, which, in a blessing, made all the old school cranky people quit the board. So I ended up being hired by the good guys, and then the good guys were able to recruit more good guys onto the board, so good guys and women. So yeah, it was just, it was, I got lucky that I did not walk into a toxic board situation. I don’t think I would have taken the job if I got that vibe, though, I am not interested in being told no, a lot, and I’m not interested in having stale, you know, ideas, stale, stale, pale and male, as they say, right? I I’m a big booster of women business owners and minority business owners and and, yeah, I just want, I want to see a lot of diversity in in the membership, and a lot of excitement and entrepreneurship. And fortunately, the person who hired me said to me, if you take this crazy job on, I promise you will support you. And that was, that was key. Man, I couldn’t have done it without that.
Brandon Burton 16:43
That is huge. Yeah, and having that supportive board, and being able to pale still and males, it’s good to be able to move away from that, have some of that diversity represents the greater business community. That’s the way to do it, and to be able to have that confidence of your of the board chair, to be able to say, hey, you take this and we’ll we’ll support you. I see those that take positions that are being micromanaged by their board and and that’s that would just be frustrating because they’re tired. I don’t even know how you could turn it, turn around a program that never micromanaged that way.
TJ Sullivan 17:25
Well, I guess people who come into these jobs come from lots of different places. I was I came from it from having owned several successful businesses, so I had that entrepreneurial mindset. I hadn’t worked for anybody for 30 years before I took the job in Superior so I was, you know, fortunately, they knew what they were getting when they hired me. They were not getting someone who was timid, you know, they were getting someone who was fairly aggressive. So, you know, they knew what they were hiring. And thank God they they committed to that, right? I don’t think I would have been a good hire for a lot of boards out there who had a lot of ego wrapped up in things. Because, you know, the first thing, one of the first things I think you have to do when you have a troubled chamber that you’re trying to get back on the right track, I think is just to take a real hard, data driven look at the events that you’re doing. I am. It’s kind of funny that in Parker, I that one of the first things I did in the first three weeks I was there was I killed the town Christmas parade. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For some reason it had fallen to the chamber to do this parade. And you know, here we were in end of September, and I looked at the I was like, show me the sponsors. Where’s the money, where’s the numbers? And, like, it wasn’t there. And I did my calculations, and I was like, we’re gonna lose $60,000 that we don’t have on this thing. So I killed the parade, and you can imagine how popular I was after doing that. I have people in downtown Parker who still aren’t members of the chamber and still hate my guts for that, but, but in a twist of irony, they
Brandon Burton 18:52
were the big sponsors, right?
TJ Sullivan 18:54
Well, they were on the committee who felt like this is something we need to do, but they hadn’t. They weren’t treating it like a business, you know, and, and so, in a twist of irony, tomorrow, I’m, I’m one of the announcers for the Christmas parade, for the 2024, Christmas parade. So it did come back, but, uh, but I killed it the first year. So, yeah, that was, but, you know, looking at the events, I mean, God, so many chamber executives walk into, into their jobs, and there’s these, just these events that make no sense, that they just have to do because everybody’s so emotionally attached to it, but the money isn’t there. And I think some if you’re not willing to go in and slay a couple sacred cows, you’re you’re gonna have a tough time turning that chamber around.
Brandon Burton 19:34
So let’s talk about that for a minute, because as somebody new to a community, new to a chamber that, yeah, you got fresh eyes, fresh perspective, taking your knowledge and experience from from where you come from, and taking it to this new community. Are there things you need to be careful? I mean, you can look at the data, you can look at the numbers, you can look at the math like, does this make good business sense? Are there any considerations beyond. On that, like, are you gonna, are you gonna make people upset, that are gonna make your job harder, and all the other aspects, or what other things need to be considered? Yeah,
TJ Sullivan 20:07
yeah. And that’s part of being a good business person. I mean, when you have, you know, if you’re we need to run chambers like businesses. I mean, I was like, I told you at 110,000 in the bank, 80,000 encumbered, and I was gonna lose $60,000 on a parade, like, There’s no way. And, and when I went to my board and showed him the numbers, I’m like, somebody tell me where I’m wrong here. And they’re like, No, you’re right. This is a mess. And I said, Okay, I’ll take the heat. And, you know, I’m not afraid to take the heat. Yeah, I was my the joke around town for about two years was, was calling me parade killer. That was my nickname. But, you know, I don’t care. I put PK. I got, I got a shirt with PK on it, you know, as my nickname. Like, yeah, I’m the parade killer. That’s cool, you know. And you know, when you, when you, when you, when you say, Do you want to see the numbers? And here it is. You know, people have a hard time arguing that, especially business members. There were community members who are very upset. Oh, my God, we love the parade. I’m like, well, good. Hand me a check for $25,000 and we will do it. Yeah. And so, you know, people don’t like being told no, but you know, if you’re going to be successful in business or successful in nonprofit management, you got to be able to stand up for the right decisions, especially when you have the data to support it. But yeah, no, you’re not gonna be popular all the time. Like I said, there’s still people who don’t like me in town, but then, you know, that’s all right. I, my board likes me, and they like the fact that we, we have money in the
Brandon Burton 21:23
bank. Now, you’re positive now, yeah, and I can, I can see the chamber member or the community, you know, just the average citizen saying, Oh, who’s this? You know, this hot shot coming in from out of town, thinking, oh, yeah, best, you know, oh, a Denver
TJ Sullivan 21:38
guy, a Denver in a list game. I still live in Denver. I live in Denver. I come from the, you know, the horrible city down to this, you know, Bucha, like small town, and I’m ruining everything. But, yeah, no, you know, I mean, again, I think it, and I’m not trying to say it. Say, like, it’s an easy thing to do, it’s a very hard thing to do, and you hurt a lot of feelings and and people are disappointed in the whole thing. But you know, maybe you don’t kill it if it’s if the numbers much smaller, you know, take a pause. So, you know, we need to take a year off and figure this out and and especially if you just came in and a damn event is happening in two months and you’re gonna lose a bunch of money on it, my goodness, you know, like, that’s not your fault. You walked into that. But right? You know, I that’s, I’m just putting that out there as a really hard thing to deal with, because when the event is over and it lost a bunch of money, they’re going to look at you and go, you know, how did this happen? Yeah.
Brandon Burton 22:31
So are there other obstacles you had to overcome in coming in here in Parker, or, yeah, yeah. We had
TJ Sullivan 22:40
to, we had to write, we had to right size our pricing. I mean, our pricing was a disaster, you know, because, speaking of not wanting to hurt anybody’s feelings, it was a lot of fear of raising the cost of the membership. So I had to, I had to quickly, you know, do a quick survey of what other chambers in the in the county especially, were charging, and make sure we were on parity. That’s a simple way to drive in some income. And, yeah, you lose a few members. But you know, whatever, everything go everything goes up in cost. And if you work really hard to provide the value, then you know, you don’t hear that much about it. In fact, I’m raising my prices right now for 2025, by $30 at every level. And I haven’t heard of peep so
Brandon Burton 23:17
I mean, and a lot of people say $30 like, how can you do that? How it can be scary as a chamber to raise your your dues by by $30 but when you talk about $30 for the year, yeah, really, that’s what we’re crying about,
TJ Sullivan 23:30
yeah? Well, we made a big move also to moving to recurring billing. So, you know, we move all those small members that that $400 level, or whatever that everybody has, that’s the majority of their members, we move. We’ve moved about a third of them to monthly charges. And the nice thing is, it’s taken off a lot of heat on renewals, because we just they automatically renew and keep going at $42 a month, or whatever it is. So the recurring billing and taking some of the pain out of the renewal processes is another really good move to do, because, you know, most of these struggling chambers are dealing with with not enough staff to get done what needs to be done. And so if you can get people on a monthly credit card charge and get used to the cash flow implications of that, then it can be that can be a really good strategy, too. So
Brandon Burton 24:12
that also makes it easier raising dues in the future, since at a 42 a month, maybe it’s $44 a month, and you’re not going to miss $2 Yep.
TJ Sullivan 24:20
I mean, I think, you know, another thing that we did that I think was is important, is I am a big what’s the right word? I a big critic of the commission based membership person. I believe that if you’re a membership organization, doing membership right is the most important thing you do. If you don’t do that, then why are you even in business? So I believe in paying the membership person. If you’re fortunate enough to have a membership person, I’m a big believer in paying them a competitive salary and moving on, you know, like this, this commission stuff, and people rotating in and out every three months and selling bad memberships to that that aren’t even real. I mean, there’s a Yeah. I believe in having a well paid membership person. My person at Parker is well paid. She’s a rock star. She does amazing work. Everybody in town knows her. She’s She’s phenomenal. You know, I generally, I just really believe that you have to put the money where the most important things are, and that’s the people that are actually making things happen. So I spend a little bit on board development, you know, I spend money on volunteer, you know, making sure volunteers feel valuable. I kind of tend to put the money more into people than events, development, publications or things like that. I mean, I’m more into like, people because, you know, yeah, so
Brandon Burton 25:39
I’m sorry, I kind of took the head there. You’re in the people business. So that makes sense. And as far as the membership person goes, it makes sense to not have to compete among staff, and who gets credit for the deal too, the new member. Well,
TJ Sullivan 25:53
when I got to superior, it said, you know, oh, Target’s a member, and Costco is a member. But I was like, no, they’re not. Like, I can’t find anybody there. Somebody went and, like, got a $50 gift card from Target or something, and then called them a member. I’m like, No, that’s, that’s not how we’re doing things here. So, you know, when I got to, when I got to Parker, first thing I did was, was chop about 50 non members out who hadn’t paid in over a year, and we’re still sitting on the books because, you know, oh, we got to have John the the attorney as a member, I’m like, No, we don’t. If John’s not paying, John’s out, like, done, and we’re gonna add a $50 application fee. So when John wants to come back, he’s gonna pay a penalty for that. So, you know, just you gotta, you gotta come and play ball, man. You know the chamber, chamber, chamber takes some courage. Chamber takes some, uh, some uh, guts. I think if you’re going to do it right and really succeed. So, yeah,
Brandon Burton 26:43
for sure. So there’s some, some pretty fun obstacles they had to overcome. And it seems like you’re, you’re still alive, you’re, yeah, they still run you out of town yet, either. So
TJ Sullivan 26:55
no, you know, you get. Gotta get people to the table, ask them what they want, you know, celebrate new ideas, try some things. Yeah, you know, we, we first thing. First thing I’ve done at both chambers that I’ve that I’ve run, is I analyzed every single event. I looked at the money, I looked at attendance, I looked at, you know, my friend Jim Johnson from down in a down at Pearland would be very, would be very impressed with my with me talking about data, because he’s a data geek, and I am not, but, but, you know, like we looked at the basic numbers and we’re like, I’m like, why does this event make sense? It’s gone. Okay, this one is good. How can we make it better and bring five more sponsors in? So you really have to do that financial analysis of your events, not just the big ones, but even the small ones. You know, your after hours and different things. Like, could you we took one of our after hours, for example, and first of all, first thing I did was get rid of the idea of that after hours mixer has to be monthly. We do five a year now that’s it. And and we make them good, you know, we make them really fun and good, and people look forward to them. But we also get them sponsored, and we turned our November after hours into a member appreciation party with a band and then a bar and the whole thing. And we had 200 people at it. We had 200 people at it a couple weeks ago. So, yeah, you know, just fix, fix what’s not working. Inject some new ideas, take some chances. I mean, people get excited about being part of an organization that feels like it’s winning. You know, there’s nothing worse than writing a check to an organization you feel is limping along. So, you know, big part of turning a chamber around is put some wins on the board, man, and celebrate them and make sure people are excited about it, and do one good event instead of four terrible ones. You know, those kind of things. I mean, again, I know it sounds easier to say than do, but I’ve done it, you know. And it can be done. It just takes time. It’s a
Brandon Burton 28:39
really good point, though, when you consider renewing a membership and you’re like, I don’t know if this organization is even going to be around for a whole year, but yeah, here’s my check, you know. But if you see, if you see positive things happening, you see these good things, it makes it a whole lot easier to check and sponsor things so well,
TJ Sullivan 28:57
people want to affiliate with winners. I mean, I, you know, I know that sounds very I sound like a, like a basketball coach, but people want to affiliate with winners. You know, you go to any college in this country and look at the football program. If they’re winning, the stands are full. If they’re if they’re losing, they’re not, you know, this is, this is a basic here. So, yeah, yeah, I think it’s really important. And then, and then you have to put in, like, some good procedures, you know, like at the Parker chamber, I got rid of all nobody goes for free. Nobody goes for free. Board members. You know, if we have an event that costs $10 board members pay. Everybody pays, unless you’re writing a sponsorship check, everybody pays. That was, like an ethical change. I had to put in place. You know, they were used to like, Oh, I’m on the board. That means I get free this, free that, like, no more. We’re not doing that anymore. So you know, some things like that too are really important to bring the integrity up of the organization. So
Brandon Burton 29:46
yeah, I think that’s good. Just updating policies, even just the way you approach things, it takes a bold stance. It takes some courage, like you were saying, it’s not for the weak and heart, for sure. Her, but I said you’re still standing. They haven’t run you out of town yet. So I
TJ Sullivan 30:05
think a big part of it too for me, as I take care of my people, even our team is really loyal, and we all have a good time at the office. We we don’t have office hours. That’s one of the best I wish every chamber would do this. On the front of our door says, staff available by appointment, and we might open on Tuesday at eight o’clock. We might open at 10 o’clock. We our staff makes our own schedules. We give them lots of flexibility. We don’t have office hours. People sometimes will drop by at 430 and go, oh, there was nobody at the chamber. I’m like, Yeah, because we are not working at 430 on on Thursdays. You know, that’s not what we do. So you know that those kind of things also, you know, like, be more like a modern business. We, our staff doesn’t work Fridays in the office, unless we have an event. We work from home on Fridays. And boy, my staff loves that. So, yeah, you know. So we do some, you know, what are the, what are the competitive businesses out there doing? And, you know, take, take lessons from what they’re doing and replicate that, you know, so we don’t have a visitor center. That’s, thank God we don’t have a visitor center. You know, different story if you did, yeah, if you have a visitor center and you have a contract, you have to be open from this hour to this hour. Okay, that’s a whole different ball of wax, which I’ve never done. But, you know, no, we’re, we’re off running around, selling memberships, setting up sponsorships for events. You know, I’m sometimes at home putting the directory together. You know, God knows, we work where it makes sense, and we control our own schedules, and boy, that’s done wonders for staff morale and every you know, you treat people like adults, they act like adults.
Brandon Burton 31:33
I’d always say, building the team culture, but also being able to attract people where it fits our lifestyle. To be able to be able to work something like that instead of you need to be clocking in now and can’t leave until, you know, and they’ve got kids or whatever else that they got to deal with. So some of
TJ Sullivan 31:49
my board members had a tough time with with with that policy that I put in place. But I was like, Okay, well, you enjoy it. Why shouldn’t? Why shouldn’t my staff enjoy it? And, right? And, you know, yeah,
Brandon Burton 31:58
and then collect your data, and you’ve got your evidence to justify it. Yeah, we’re growing, you know, and then you can make Jim happy too. So that’s right, that’s right. Well, TJ, for the chamber leaders listening who want to take their organization up to the next level, what kind of tips or action items or just what would you encourage them to maybe try to work towards that goal of advancing to the next level?
TJ Sullivan 32:27
Well, I feel like I’m going to say something that a million people have said, but if you’re a chamber executive, you need to make sure your board is investing in your growth and development. I cannot believe how many chamber execs don’t go to things like WAC or ACCE or their State Chamber association because they’re like, oh, you know, I can’t afford a night a hotel. You know what? You got to go to your board and say, you got, you got to invest, at least in sending me to something where I can meet, interact with my peers, find out their best practices, find out what the new trends are, you know, and and, and invest in yourself and your chamber by going and learning something, you know. I, you know, like I said, I was over 50 years old when I started this chamber thing, so I felt like I was, you know, I came in with a lot of experience, but, man, I had a lot to learn about what goes on. What the hell is chamber Master, you know, all these different things. And, yeah, I went to WAC, went to ACC, asked a million questions, met some cool people, got some people that I could call on, invest in that it is the one of the best things you have to demand from your board is that they find a couple grand to let you go to something where you can learn. And if they’re not willing to do that, you know that tells you mostly what you need to know about where your board’s priorities are because, you know, there’s so much benefit. I’ve never come in, I’ve never come back from one of those conferences without an idea that just dramatically affected the income bottom line, I always come back with ideas that change, change how we do things. And can I tell you one story that’s really interesting? I went to a round table type thing at WAC one time, and everybody just went around, and the question was, What’s the best thing your chamber does? And I’m like, it was a bunch of events and a bunch of other things, and one exec, and I wish I could remember her name, I don’t think she’s in the field anymore, she said, Well, we every, every two months or whatever, we just take, you know, six or eight of our members out for lunch and just do kind of a lunch with the CEO and just casually listen to them. And I was like, Oh my God. And, and so I wrote that down and took it back, and we instituted that, and we’ve been doing that for two years, and it is hugely impacted our sponsorships and our revenue and and different things simply by going to lunch with a small group. And, uh, boy, I never would have gotten that idea if I hadn’t gone to WAC. So, you know, invest, invest in your knowledge. You know, you don’t know everything. You certainly aren’t expected to know everything. Go, go listen to people who’ve been doing this for a while. So I’m
Brandon Burton 34:51
so glad you gave that as the tip that’s really the root of why this podcast exists is, I came across so many chain. Members that their boards wouldn’t, wouldn’t budget for, you know, career development for the for the chamber exec or any of the staff. And I saw the podcast as a way to be able to share best practices that didn’t tap into their budget, right? And they get to hear from people like you that’s that give that courage to approach your board, tell them you need this. You need to develop as a leader. You need the training that’s offered at these different conferences, and it’s well worth it for the organization. So I appreciate you giving us that tip, because it’s a it resonates with me very well. The question I like asking to everybody I have on the show is, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
TJ Sullivan 35:50
Well, again, with the answer that I think everybody’s probably saying, I think we have to be serious about advocacy. We have to become quasi lobbying organizations. If your chamber doesn’t already do that, start small, form a government affairs committee. You know, there’s a lot of chambers in every state that are killing it on government affairs. And that’s what brings the big dollars in, that’s what brings the big the big corporations, the big employers in, is when you can make something happen. We, we, I, when I came in, there was nothing. And we started a Government Affairs Committee, and in the second year, we decided to take on a ballot, a bond initiative that gave a big pay increase to the teachers in our area. We framed it as a workforce issue and and that same bond issue had failed three times in previous elections, and we got the chamber to go gung ho on it, and we got it passed. And now every teacher in Parker, you know, stops me and goes, thank you for what you all did. And when you have the teachers, man, you’re you’re doing well. So no, I think, I think, I think government affairs is the future. We’re going to our next big, huge hire, hopefully will be someone who is doing business advocacy, because that’s where that pays dividends. And so the future chamber is in advocacy and and when people say, Oh, I don’t like politics, I’m like, Well, you better learn, because you better start learning to like it and be that same center that’s that’s the big buzz phrase now is, you know, part of the chambers being the same center of a polarized society, there’s money to be made there, there’s there’s influence to be made there. And in my mind, that is the future of chambers. It’s not the networking with cheap Chardonnay. It’s, it’s, it’s going to your state representative and saying, let’s get a law passed that that’s more exciting,
Brandon Burton 37:35
yeah. And as you give that answer, I could, I know some are intimidated by the idea, but there’s ways to do advocacy that’s that’s very low barrier of entry, and just dabble in it. Get your feet wet, grow rely on your State Chamber. Rely on other chambers, regional chambers, get support there. And I think you’re right that that definitely is going to be a huge part of the future of chambers. And
TJ Sullivan 37:59
you know, if you’re not ready to take stand on issues or or take on a campaign or endorse candidates, that’s the big, scary one for everybody. You sure can be the the educational place where people go to learn about the issue. You know, you don’t have to take a stand on the new blah blah tax, but you sure can hold a town hall where you bring in people to explain it and discuss it, and that’s advocacy. That’s advocacy. So even if you’re afraid of of government and politics, there is a place for your chamber to to get noticed for making a difference in that area. So yeah,
Brandon Burton 38:33
absolutely. Well, TJ, I wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you and maybe be a lifeline if they’re at a struggling chamber right now, get some some other tips and strategies. What would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you?
TJ Sullivan 38:50
Well, LinkedIn is easy because it’s just LinkedIn forward slash TJ, Denver, that’s easy to find me there, or I think the more fun way is on Instagram. My handle is ParkerChamberCEO, all run together. And I, you know, Instagram is fun. It’s a little little lighter, a little more fun, and I love seeing what other people are doing. So I’d say those are the two best ways to interact with me. If you’re super serious, go to LinkedIn. If you’re more, you know, light, fun and silly. Go to go to go to Instagram.
Brandon Burton 39:17
All right, we’ll get those both your accounts linked in our show notes for this episode, so make it easy to find. But and if
TJ Sullivan 39:26
I only get two new followers, I’m gonna, I’m gonna let you know, Brandon that you know, please do not generate the followership that I was hoping for as as a huge social media influencer that I am. So that’s right.
Brandon Burton 39:39
Well, TJ, this has been fun. I appreciate you carving out some time and joining us today on Chamber Chat Podcast and getting real about some of your experiences and struggles and triumphs and things that you dealt with to overcome and to be where you’re at now in your chamber career, I appreciate that and the state you’re offering to others.
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