COY Finalist Series 2019-Effingham County Chamber with Norma Lansing

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability and to correct obvious transcription errors while preserving the meaning of the original conversation.

Episode 34 — Effingham County Chamber 2019 Chamber of the Year Finalist with Norma Lansing
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Norma Lansing
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.226 Brandon Burton
This is a special edition of Chamber Chat Podcast as I begin a series of interviewing the finalist for Chamber of the Year for 2019. I hope you enjoyed this series, but first, the intro. This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
00:29.912 Brandon Burton
Thank you for tuning in today for our 11th interview in our special series of 2019 ACCE Chamber of the Year finalists. This is episode 34 of Chamber Chat Podcast, and I'm Brandon Burton. It is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas so you can better serve your Chamber members and your community. If you're new to Chamber Chat Podcast, please visit our Getting Started page to learn more about what you can expect from the show. And you can receive some valuable tips for some non-dues revenue ideas to use at your chamber. That address is chambertepodcast.com/slash start. Our guest today is Norma Lansing, president and CEO of the Effingham County Chamber of Commerce in Illinois. Norma is a 40-year veteran in the chamber in Chamber of Commerce Management. She's actively involved in the community, serving on the executive board of the Effingham Regional Career Academy and on the boards of the Effingham Regional Growth Alliance and Effingham Regional Incubator Network. As a member of the Effingham Noon Rotary Club, Lansing has served as president, is a Paul Harris Fellow, and received Rotary's Vocational Excellence Award. She is past chairman of the board of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce Executives and recipient of the association's highest award for achievement, the Lester W. Brand Distinguished Chamber Executive Award. Lansing is also a recipient of the Outstanding Leadership in Community and Economic Development Award from East Central Illinois Development Corporation and the Illinois Workforce Partnership Leadership Award. Norma and her husband, Ken, have three children. Seven grandchildren and one great grandchild, and live at Lake Sarah. Today, Norma is going to teach us some things about chamber businesses leveraging their membership on behalf of their employees, and about how her chamber is helping new businesses start and grow. Right after we take a quick moment to learn about our sponsor for this episode. Chambers are not considered for chamber of the year without having great programs and steady streams of non-duce revenue.
02:47.882 Brandon Burton
I want to introduce you to a great affinity program from Swipe It. In partnership with Chamber Chat Podcast, Swipe It is one of the best credit card processors in the business. With the Swipe It Affinity program, you can save up to 40% on your credit card processing fees at the chamber and help your member partners to do the same. Chambers who take advantage of the Swipe It Affinity program can add thousands of dollars to their non-dues revenue annually. Please visit Chamberchatpodcast.com slash CC for more information and to request your complimentary cost savings analysis from the experts at Swipe It. The first 20 chambers to respond will qualify for free equipment to get set up. Again, visit Chamberchatpodcast.com/slash CC to start swiping with Swipeit. Norma, welcome to Chamberchat Podcast. Say hello to our audience and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.
03:53.976 Norma Lansing
Well, good morning. interesting about me, I think probably in my intro when it talked about me being involved with the chamber for over forty years, that's probably the most interesting thing for the audience because that's kind of unusual in today's in any of any vocation, any career choice that people stay in a position for that length of time or in it with a the same company. So but you do that. When you do that, it's because you enjoy what you do and really wanna continue to give back. And so, you know, when I think about the chamber here in Effingham County, we are very engaged in our community and our community looks to us for leadership in a number of ways. So yes, we're a membership organization and we rely heavily on our members for their support, but in reality we are a community development organization. at heart and and honor that in a in a variety in the in the program that we do.
04:57.75 Brandon Burton
Very good. I think what's really interesting is to be able to be a forty year veteran in the chamber industry and only be twenty nine years old. That's that's what's interesting to me. Now can you can you share with us a little bit about the Effingham County Chamber, kind of the size and kind of where you guys sit so we can all relate a little bit better to your chamber?
05:06.882 Norma Lansing
Exactly.
05:20.94 Norma Lansing
Well, we are located Effingham is at the crossroads of interstates fifty-seven and seventy in Illinois, kind of central Illinois location. So, you know, we're at the heart of not only Illinois, but the the whole country because of the transportation network that we have here. We have probably for a a community, a town, the city of Effingham is about fourteen thousand. Effingham County is about thirty-four thousand. But we have 20 motels, 65 restaurants, 20,000 vehicles a day passed through our community. So Effingham, the city proper, grows, the population of the city grows three times during the day at during the day versus at night when people are coming in for employment. So a regional hub for many different kinds of government entities and Like I said, the in the in the hospitality industry we're very large for our size.
06:24.172 Brandon Burton
Yeah, it sounds like it. That's that's pretty impressive to triple in size during the workday. So as I mentioned at the beginning, this is our eleventh interview of Chamber of the Year finalists. And I like to just see from your perspective what makes the Effingham County Chamber stand out to be considered this year as a finalist for Chamber of the Year.
06:47.864 Norma Lansing
Well, one of the, you know, if you know the Chamber of the Year process, first you have to qualify by meeting certain benchmarks in the Chamber Operations Survey. So I think our strong suit there is in our retention numbers. I mean, we are consistently in the mid 90% retention rate. So that speaks volumes about the people our members, the support that we have, the staff here at the chamber, in particular our membership director. Becky Brown who does a many, many things for us. And you know, she she's just a great connector with our business people and because of that we have this amazing retention rate. So I think that's that's key there is that being able to retain the members that you have, make them happy while continue to grow with new members and a new member base. So I think that's that's one of the keys in the Chamber the Year. process or felt the finalist category. The other thing I think is strong is is when I go back to that community focus that we have and the programs that we submitted for consideration.
08:00.428 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Okay. So can you tell us a little bit about some of those programs that you submitted?
08:06.196 Norma Lansing
the one that I I guess I'm really proud of is our business outreach center. And I think many communities, many chambers offer that service. Ours came about, ours is maybe a little different. we rely it's an all-volunteer effort with our members, both active business people and retired business people who are willing to give their time to help other business or who help others who either have a business already and have needs to grow or change their business focus to those people who have a business idea and really want to help help getting that started. So when the Small Business Development Centers program in Illinois kind of in many communities folded because of state budget concerns, we decided, we looked at many options and we decided to kind of build our own program. So Business Outreach Center is a part of the chamber, it's a fun as a program of the chamber. Like I said, we have about 20 or 30 active mentors who meet with clients. In fact, we just had an intake interview yesterday with someone who's wanting to look at starting a business. We've helped people sell businesses, we've helped people buy businesses, you know, we've done a number of different things. Some of our success stories have been a a popular downtown restaurant. Three young three young men, three young professionals who decided to buy a historic building and renovate it and open up a I would call it a Dave and Buster style restaurant. That's a great restaurant, but it has golf and hunting and simulators. It has a arcade area for kids. so it's a great it's a great program. We've got about 20 active clients right now who are meeting with various mentors. I think the other ne individual thing that we do well is when someone comes to us with an idea and this intake process that goes on, we identify, you know, what what are there really their needs. They come in, they might say, Well, I need a business plan. Yes, they need it, they need a business plan, but what else do they need? What unique feature of this business? So we really go out, reach out to someone who we feel can
10:30.188 Norma Lansing
be their best mentor. So even if they're not in our assist in our database of mentors, we'll go out and recruit somebody to help them.
10:38.574 Brandon Burton
I'm glad you mentioned that. I was gonna ask about the mentors, what kind of backgrounds they come from and how you go about getting these volunteer mentors to help out with the business outreach center.
10:50.488 Norma Lansing
So, you know, there's a just a lot of business people who who want to give back. We're this is a very giving community from every aspect of giving their time, giving their talent, giving their money. you know, from a charitable giving perspective, it's amazing here. But in this particular venture, you know, these are people who many who've volunteered, but as I said, you know, depending on the individual need, we'll go out and recruit.
11:16.366 Brandon Burton
I like that you're not afraid to go out and and find the people to to fit those matches that you're looking for. I imagine the people that are coming through the business outreach center have a wide variety of different needs, from just having a coach to writing a business plan to maybe financing, I would guess. What are what are some of those main issues that you see for somebody start looking to start or grow their business? What are some of those needs that they're looking for?
11:45.688 Norma Lansing
Well, I think that and this is, you know, with my long career it's not not ch some of those have not changed a lot. You know, people need when you're wanna start a business, you know, you have to have your own skin in the game. And I think that's the most important piece that people need to understand that they have to have they have to they have to have some cash in the bank to make that happen. They have to have the investment of their time, their personal time in being able to put this together. You know, we're we've got one client right now who has a great product. They're trying to figure out how to take it to a manufacturer, you know, find a manufacturer to help them manufacture this product. Just to to be able to connect people like that, even is something that we've done, which is really kind of a unique fact or a unique situation that that he's got a great product, found an idea of you know a need that's out there that needs to be addressed. has has the product developed now is just trying to take it to market basically.
12:46.86 Brandon Burton
Yeah, that's cool. are there maybe a couple other examples of success stories you've seen come through this business outreach center? You mentioned the the restaurant, the Daven Buster style restaurant.
12:57.326 Norma Lansing
A pet grooming company. we just assisted a a a woman who wanted bought our local health food store. so really all the whole process of purchasing, you know, putting together her her budget needs, her finan you know her long term, her goals for that. she's actually been able to purchase that. She's relocating it into a larger location that's right next door to where it was originally And then adding new adding new services and new products to that. She's planning to have a a juice bar and some other things like that. So it's really a gamut of things. We've, you know, we have a new client that's now looking at the hemp industry and trying to get into that industry. So just a l just a wide variety, like I said, everything from a pet grooming to starting a whole taking a product to market to starting a new business. But
13:56.462 Brandon Burton
Really exciting. Yeah is there do you have maybe a page on your website that would talk more about this program and what all it has to offer? Just so we could if for other chambers that are listening, we can point them there and they can see kind of how you're structured.
14:13.666 Norma Lansing
website it's under the business center section and it's still called in the drop down box the best business development center but if you go to the then it comes up to the correct information but yeah we've we've got a lot of different things that we're working on but we we have some information out there definitely you know part of that what we were able to offer them is we have a you know a notary here on staff who can handle that and we're finding that to be something that's being more widely used all the time. So there's many services like that in that particular environment. We have space that here at our office that we that they can utilize if they you know for if they need some help or if they just need to come in and and have a space. Some people don't want to work out of their home so we have that space here but the other exciting thing that we're working on is with our regional business incubator network and we're just getting ready to, we just signed a lease on a downtown space that we're really excited to be, more of a co-working environment for people, more of a drop-in space. So that's that's new and just like I said, that's still in development. So that's another aspect of the chamber and a collaboration that we have with other organizations and entities to make that happen.
15:35.096 Brandon Burton
So the co working space will actually be something the chamber helps to I guess promote and establish. Is that is that what I'm understanding? Okay.
15:45.614 Norma Lansing
you know, as talked about community focused and collabor you know, we're very we're very collaborative in nature and working with other organizations. So we partner with our economic development organization, our community foundation, other, you know, or entities like that, our library and many other organizations that we collaborate with to make things like this happen. Our so this incubator space, our new space. The other kind of interesting concept with that is as it's called the FM Regional Incubator Network. And the the network is several incubator sites across our s count our county and in a neighboring county. And so we all work together instead of competing for clients, we've created this network comp situation where we have a common application process and common rental agreements and things like that. So When you know, when somebody's looking for space, then they can use any one of those four or five locations that we have. but they're all working kind of with with the same structure. So that I think is a good thing for the community and the people looking or who are out there working from home or whatever their needs are. Say, you know, they're maybe part of the they work for a company who's in another state or something like that, but they want some place where they can get away from their home environment and have some place to meet with other entrepreneurs. So we're pretty excited about what this new space is gonna do for us.
17:24.354 Brandon Burton
I love it. And as you were explaining that, it really was kind of catching the vision of how it all ties together. You know, the chamber and the business outreach center and the incubator and the w coworking space and it all just kind of feeds into each other, all to support the main purpose and and I guess mission of the chamber to promote business in the area. So I that's great. I I think that's a a neat strategy that you're going about. So I had mentioned in the in the introduction that you'd also be going over some things with us about how your chamber member businesses can leverage their membership for their employees. can you share with us about that initiative that you have going on and kind of how that came to be and and just what it's all about.
18:16.074 Norma Lansing
you know and most chambers are and I think this is across the board with chambers, but when a business joins the chamber, all of their employees are basically chamber members too. So they can, you know, they can come to an event, they can come to any event they want. They can, you know, participate in a number of ways in the chamber. We like to to talk about, you know, being part of a a committee and and from a business perspective The leadership development that occurs with that, the networking that occurs with that. You know, the owner of the business, the manager business has one network of people that they affiliate with. Their employees have a different network that they affiliate with. And so they broaden the the their business outreach by getting their employees involved. That's one thing that I think is huge. But we created a We kind of created a poster for businesses to be able to post in their employee lounges or wherever their employees are at. It really talks about that thought of employees or members too. We have a a scholarship program that we're we we give every year that's both adult and high school senior graduates scholarships that businesses support through their donations, but then we give then the the other factor of that is Only employees or family members of employees can apply for that scholarship. But exponentially that means, you know, tens of thousands of people are act or have access to this scholarship program. This year we gave fourteen one thousand dollar scholarships, which is our most effort.
20:01.494 Brandon Burton
Yeah, that's that makes a nice dent in in some tuition there.
20:06.968 Norma Lansing
But with that scholarship program right now, what we're looking at is really how can we connect that more to the career and technical education market that's so important to our businesses. So probably in 2020 we'll have a new a different set of scholarships that we're gonna be offering for those, you know, tied to that particular category of work of people going into maybe going directly from call to high school into the workforce. And that's kind of driven. I wanted to be sure and talk about another program that we're doing that's we're very collaborative with in the community and that's our Effingham Career Effingham Regional Career Academy. Everything if you notice all these things have the word regional in them for a reason.
20:53.654 Brandon Burton
That's right. Well when you're when you're a county chamber, you you bring in the the region, right? It's it's bigger than just your town.
21:01.666 Norma Lansing
Not just our county. It's we we don't serve just the businesses here. We serve businesses in a pretty broad area. But the Career Academy is another y unique program that we're putting together through our affiliation with our community college and our high schools. We have six high schools in our county and they're all actively engaged in creating this career academy, which will be a actually a 36,000 square foot structure that our community college is going to be building. as part of their campus here in the city in Effingham. And so it will have that career and technical education and careers focus training. And we've identified five career areas that fit the needs of our community. So we have advanced manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, healthcare and technology are our five, the five career areas that we're focusing on. Initially we're currently doing some minimal programming with our in through our school systems right now, but we w won't have a physical building until about 2022, 2023, where students from all these high schools can come together in this learning environment to meet the needs of our businesses and and really focus. And it'll be a very 'cause I use that word collaborative a lot, but that's that's what we do. We do that. It's part of our the chamber kind of has a tagline. It's create, connect, collaborate. And we really feel strongly that collaboration is where we need to focus.
22:42.486 Brandon Burton
I love this change that we're seeing in the education models. And it's not just coming from individual school districts, but it's coming from chambers of commerce and from the community saying this is what the needs are of the employers. And let's let's help bridge that gap from what the students are learning at the high school level to making them be employable as soon as possible, set them up for success early on in life, and help the businesses here in your community to be able to higher from within the community and and just all together I love the way that model is shifting and how the chambers are taking a real driver's seat in and seeing that change happen. I love it. I I think it it seems like such a natural fit. It's one of those things you look back on and think, you know, how come this hasn't always been done this way, right?
23:34.146 Norma Lansing
yeah, and it it is not easy. I mean we're very fortunate that we have, you know, an education environment here that's we you know, we've always had a really strong connection and relationship and so it's it's great to have that. I know it's not that way everywhere. and that's unfortunate. So we feel really blessed that we have that here.
23:56.096 Brandon Burton
Yeah, for sure. Can you touch just a little bit on I I know in in some of the notes you had sent me before our interview, you had mentioned that you guys are preparing to undertake a countywide community mapping program in early twenty twenty. Yes. Can you let everybody know what that is and and what mapping is?
24:16.566 Norma Lansing
Well that you know we that is a a it's an acronym and it's through the Illinois Institute for Real Affairs at Western Illinois University, the mapping is is an acronym for management and planning programs involving non-metropolitan groups. So it's a lot, it's really, I mean, if you want to boil it down, it's community visioning is what it is. they've done this very successfully in many communities across Illinois. one of our communities here in Effingham County are getting ready to do their fifth mapping initiative through this through Illinois Institute for Real Affairs. We're we're getting ready to launch that in early 2020. We really want to take that on as a countywide initiative rather than an individual community. We feel that there are many issues that as a county effort we can address. And then hopefully you know each individual community will also look at how they can im have an impact in in any of those areas. Started down this path really looking at, you know, what do we want Effingham County to look like in the future and how are we going to get there? And who's gonna who's who's gonna take on what role in that? You know, the chamber's gonna be doing some of that. other, you know, the villages, the town, you know, the town boards, the county board, the city councils, whoever they are, other organizations, the community foundation, the library, whoever, you know, many of our small communities have small economic development groups or business groups that work. So everybody has a part to play in that. We're looking we're looking at having, you know, engaging about a hundred people in this effort from all over Effingham County to come together and spend some time just really drilling down into that, you know, who do we want to, who are we? And where do we want to FingM County grow in, you know, if it is it 2030, is it 2050, whatever that future benchmark is.
26:22.21 Brandon Burton
So I I think you've touched on some really great things today and some things that other chambers that are listening can take from and and apply at their chambers and maybe tweak some of their programs or some ideas that you've given today. But based on on what we've talked about, can you summarize down maybe one action item listeners can do to take their chamber up to the next level level?
26:49.678 Norma Lansing
Well, I think the most important thing for a the a chamber or maybe any community or countywide organization is just to make sure you're connecting with all the all the people, all the players in the county and and reaching out to other groups and your c education community, your governmental agents agencies and and economic development organizations and really sit down and work together. Because we're all in the we're all our all of our goals are to make our counties the best that they can be. And so we we we're stronger when we work together. So that's probably the message that I would have is just encouraging that collaboration, being being very collaborative, being very open and and honest in in in your functions, the way you do things. I mean, open, accessible as is is one of our values of our chamber. being open and accessible. So
27:50.616 Brandon Burton
I think that's a good piece of advice. And I would think also kind of going along with it is to not necessarily have to be the one to take the credit, right? If you're being collaborative, everybody's working for the good of those that you're serving. And that's how you're you're the most productive. That's great advice. So this next question I ask everybody that I have on the show, but as you look to the future, how do you view chambers of commerce and their purpose?
28:22.028 Norma Lansing
Well, I you know, as I've I've talked a lot about being collaborative, but being commun you know, community focused is very important, I think, that communities struggle. if you're familiar with the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives Horizon Initiative, you know, they they started out with these eight ho areas of and that and so then they've just added this ninth one about local governments. And I think that that's really important that we that we look at that. You know, not everybody's gonna get involved in political active action and that's fine. I don't think we need I don't think we need to we do it very in a very limited way. We're not strongly in in that ad we're more advocates than we are political and and animals.
28:48.206 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
29:16.482 Norma Lansing
But so I think just being part of the solutions in the community and not you know not worrying if if if we get the credit or not for that. I think technology is used for chambers in the future. I mean we're looking at we're we're getting ready to launch a chamber app in the first part of September, and that's gonna be one of our main communication vehicles moving forward with our members. because everybody has a cell phone, everybody has a you know that piece of technology that they hold in their hand, then everything's on that piece. So we need to be there, we need to be where our members are. I think that's really critical. but I don't think we need to throw out those different pieces of of outreach that have been in existence. You know, a lot of people have gone away from print or anything like that. I think it needs to be used very strategically, but I don't think it needs to disappear. Mm-hmm. Certainly don't need to disappear.
30:22.55 Brandon Burton
I would agree. I think there's there's always a place for print, you know, being at the chamber. Yeah. People come in all the time asking for your chamber directory or map or, you know, different things. They just know the chamber's a place to get that. but Norman, I wanted to thank you so much for spending some time with with us this morning on Chamber Chat Podcast. And I always like to thank everybody out there listening as well. The show notes for this episode can be found at chamberchatpodcast dot com slash episode thirty four. But Norma, where can listeners connect with you if they have any questions about what we discussed today or how you're doing things at the Effingham County Chamber?
31:06.284 Norma Lansing
Our website is FM CountyCamber dot com. We'll start there. My email is is NLansing at FM CountyCamber dot com. Phone number two one seven three two four one four seven is how you would call me and reach me. Or you can call my cell phone to two one seven two six five eight four four.
31:28.128 Brandon Burton
And we will get that updated in the show notes as well. And I'm gonna try to put that flyer that you had referenced for the the employees. employees are members too. I'll I'll try to put that flyer in the show notes so people can see that and see the kind of messaging you're getting out with that. But again, thank you for spending time with us today and and congratulations on being selected as a finalist for Chamber of the Year. Great job.
31:56.142 Norma Lansing
Thank you so much. Appreciate the time.
32:00.694 Brandon Burton
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