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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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Today we we have two guests with us. We have Michaela and Brandon from the Belle Fourche Chamber of Commerce in South Dakota. Michaela is the Director of the Belle Fourche Chamber of Commerce, bringing a diverse background to her role with a degree in Organismal Biology from Montana State University, Michaela has worked in various roles and is also the competitive cheer coach at Belle Fourche High School. She has been with the Chamber for one year and is an active member of our community. Brianne Bonnet serves as the Assistant Director of the Belle Fourche Chamber of Commerce, a role that she’s held for two years. She holds a degree in social work from Creighton University, and has a strong commitment to community involvement. Brandon has worked at the local newspaper Head Start and volunteered the Nash the Newell school board, demonstrating her dedication to supporting and connecting the bell food community. But Michaela and Brianne, welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. We’re excited to have you both with us today. I’d like to give you both the chance to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that are out there listening and to share something interesting about each other, so or about yourselves, just so we can get to know you both a little better.
Michaela Horn 2:31
Yeah. Well, thank you for having us. My name is Michaela Horn. I’ve been in Belle Fourche for about seven years, and something interesting is I have floated 560 miles of the Yellowstone River. So that’s my interesting
Brandon Burton 2:45
fact. Wow, that’s cool. The great views too, I’m sure.
Michaela Horn 2:49
Oh, fantastic. Yeah, I spent 28 days straight on the river. And yeah, that’s my,
Speaker 1 2:55
my dream. That’s awesome.
Brandon Burton 2:58
Brianne, what about you? What? What do you find interesting about yourself? Um,
Brianne Bonnet 3:03
not near as cool as Michaela has done in her life, but I just really focus around volunteering. I’ve been here in Belle Fourche for 10 years. Um, just different volunteer opportunities that I take part of and just really strive for being involved with the community, being involved. And she
Michaela Horn 3:26
is cool. I mean, she’s a former rodeo queen, and, yeah, she forgets that she’s getting involved in the roundup
Brandon Burton 3:33
rodeo this year. Maybe I should have had you interview say something interesting about each other that would have been better off so well, tell us a little bit about the bell food chamber. Just to set the stage for our discussion, I like to get a good feel for size of the chamber, staff, budget, scope of work you guys are involved with, just to kind of prepare us for our discussion today. Okay,
Michaela Horn 3:56
well, the Belle Fourche Chamber, we’ve been around since 1911 so it’s our 100 and 14th birthday. This year we’re celebrating. We have changed quite a bit, just constantly adapting to what our businesses need. Belle Fourche is population about 5800, and Butte County. We serve Butte County, and it’s 10,000 roughly, our budget is about 100,000 with 245 members and growing
Brandon Burton 4:26
alright that definitely helps us prepare for our conversation today. Are you guys involved at all with tourism or your economic development, or anything like that in your area? Or is it strictly chamber
Michaela Horn 4:38
um so we do have an economic development office that is separate from us. We have Visit Belle Fourche, which is also separate from us, and then a visitor center. So we are mostly promoting the businesses, but we do kind of help each other out and do some small form of tourism.
Brandon Burton 4:55
Yeah, very good. I would say a chamber has to be involved in all those different assets. Aspects, no matter what your formal responsibilities are, right? So for our topic today, we decided to lean into the topic or the idea of leaning into your unique background. And I find this topic interesting because I hear so many diverse ways you know, how people find chamber work, how they get here. You know, very rarely do you see somebody that went to school to become a chamber director. You know, it just, it’s not, it’s it’s not something you see at a typical career day, either. So it’ll be a, it’ll be interesting to dive into this topic with both of you and learn about your unique backgrounds and how others can lean into theirs as well. As soon as we get back from this quick break,
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Brandon Burton 12:40
All right, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, we’re going to cover the two program synopsis that were included in your chamber of the year application. Lindsay, it’s my understanding you had a significant, pretty significant role in the application and pulling everything together. So I’d like to hand the microphone over to you and have you highlight, I know there’s two different programs, one about an airport, one about move to Jackson. Do you want to highlight move to Jackson for us first, and what that program, what the origins were, kind of the background and and how things have evolved to what it is today.
Brandon Burton 8:32
All right, we are back, as I mentioned before the break today, we’re talking about leaning into your unique background. So with this topic, I don’t know which one of you would like to dive into this first about your uniqueness, your own background and and how that fits into chamber work, and how you see those applications being brought to life.
Michaela Horn 8:57
Well, I guess I’ll start you know, it’s nice, and that’s why I wanted to do this interview together, because we we go into the community together so much because between the two of us, we say that we can have a conversation or relate to everybody in town. We’ve worked with people of all ages. I worked with preschool aged children in Head Start. We actually had met working at a senior living facility. I mean, high school aged kids. She has a background in ranch life, and so when we are working with our local livestock businesses, I mean, she can pick up a conversation about that. I have a science background. Can pick up conversation about that. So, I mean, we really are good at marketing ourselves as the package deal to make sure everybody is included and everybody is involved in the conversation. Yeah?
Brandon Burton 9:50
Brandon, you have any anything to add to that with your your own thoughts, with your uniqueness and background and or if you’ve got things about Michaela that you want to spill the beans on? Yeah? No,
Brianne Bonnet 10:01
um, kind of it is the same we we really do. You never know who’s going to walk in the door, whether it’s a business member, um, just a community lay person. They come in all the time and chat with us too. You know to know what’s going on, and it’s just she’s involved in different groups. Um, she’s a competitive cheer coach, but she’s also, like a little bit more in tune with the arts as well, just being involved in the high school and that kind of stuff. So the community people I always bring up, an example is one comes in and he chats, and he talks about history with her. She’s a history kind of buff, too. Me, not so much. But he loves to come in and chat with her, and then she got him actually talked into volunteering, and the guy was just adamant about not, not. He’s like, No, I can’t talk publicly, and all these kinds of things. And he just and he is, and now he’s volunteering in a couple different things. So it’s just nice to have those different backgrounds. And then, like she said, I have a ranching background, a little bit more agriculture kind of type thing. She’s not into horses. I’m into horses. And so just those other people who call on the phone and they’re like, Hi, we’re traveling through where can I board my horses? And I’m like, Oh, yay. Question for me. I can answer that. So you just get, usually, between the two of us, you get your question answered. Yeah,
Brandon Burton 11:24
that’s great. So I know, before we hit record, we talked about how in the community, when there’s a question that comes up, people say, go talk to the girls. I believe is the title that has been given to you too. But some other you know, say other names, sweet and spicy. I guess the talk about that, some with, with your unique personalities, how you support each other, how it comes to supporting the community. I guess, first of all, being being called the girls like, how did that come about and and that happens, I imagine, from building a reputation throughout the community. But how did you go about building that and lean into that to own it?
Michaela Horn 12:12
Well, honestly, I think Jenny started it. She’s so our neighbor is weather hats, and it’s his wife, Jenny, who owns, uh, deals and steals and spear fish, and she would come over, she’s like, Oh, I’m gonna go check on the girls. Well, then it just kind of stuck and took off. And, you know, it, it’s a small community, and so it kind of spread like wildfire, and that’s people just started calling in. They were referencing to us. It also didn’t help that we had T shirts made that said the girls on the back. So
Brianne Bonnet 12:42
when we’re when we’re at events, or when the chamber hosts events too, we try to wear magic. It’s only us two in the office. I don’t know if that was ever mentioned, so it’s, it’s only us too. So whenever we have events and people have questions, we’re like, Ooh, you need to find us. We try to wear matching shirts to color coordinate colors.
Michaela Horn 13:02
Yes, like people can find us when we’re at an event, you know, whether it’s something sparkly or something a little out of the ordinary. So we’re easy to spot and find and get questions answered. Yeah,
Brianne Bonnet 13:14
we’ve been going out in the community and doing videos a lot too. And of course, you can’t go anywhere by yourself, so we just have to go together, yeah? Because I have to help hold the phone to record her usually. That’s why we’re just the package deal. And it became the girls too. So yeah, and
Brandon Burton 13:31
then you got to be careful about who you might hire in the future, right, to be able to keep that, that brand, going,
Speaker 2 13:37
yeah,
Michaela Horn 13:40
no. I mean, we’re, I mean, we’re open to change too, but, and we always say, you know, we’re one and a half people, so we are, I’m full time, and she is part time. So we try to accomplish and be as many places as we possibly can being one and a half,
Brandon Burton 13:52
yeah, and that’s, that’s a unique challenge of chambers is being overworked and understaffed and getting creative and figuring out how to do it. So I believe one of the other titles you had mentioned, sweet and spicy, is that right? Did I get that right? So who plays which role? What does that look like?
Michaela Horn 14:11
So I’m nice. No, she’s nice too. It’s just, you know, it depends on what kind of answer you’re gonna get. Sometimes you’re gonna get people.
Brandon Burton 14:22
Going to get people like, spicy, you know, yeah,
Michaela Horn 14:25
direct. There are some people in town that are just very direct. And, you know, they like to poke fun with her, and they have that banter going on. And, you know, it’s nice to send her all, you know, they kind of want the spicy one go have a cup of coffee, see what’s up with their business. And you know, if, if someone is very colorful and needs to calm down, well, then you, you send in the sweet one, and I go and butter them up. And, you know, get them talking about, hey, what’s going on next week? And you know, how can we help promote this? And kind of, we like to level people out. So it just depends. Depends on what what they need. So
Brandon Burton 15:02
I feel like some people get into chamber work. They feel like it needs to be buttoned up and professional, because you’re talking business, you’re you’re dealing with businesses and whether or not they succeed, or looking at the hard challenges that they’re facing. And maybe some people are a little hesitant to lean into their personality or their background, depending on whatever it was, what, what gives you that the comfort to be able to own, you know, your personality, because there’s, I feel like there’s a lot of benefit in leaning into that personality, to leaning into what makes you authentically you as you present yourself to business, you know, to the business community. I guess what? I guess the question is, what gives you the confidence to do that and and to not fear, I don’t know backlash or judgment that may come from it.
Michaela Horn 15:56
Well, for me, coming into this role, you know, I think we both work jobs where we were just, you know, expect to be very professional. You know, we worn the more Blazers had to dress a certain way. So we’ve had roles like that. It is nice to have this role where we can kind of express ourselves freely a little bit more, but also that’s just how I feel. Belle food is, you know, like we are a very ag community, and so it doesn’t look very traditional. How do I say this? Because if you go 15 minutes one direction, or a half hour, next direction, when you go to their mixers, they are where, you know, blazers and it is very bright lights and professional. I feel like it turns off or scares some of the businesses that we work with, and so we really do try to be relatable, and everybody is welcome, because we’ve been there Right. Like, you don’t have to get off of work and put on a blazer in order to come to our mixers. You don’t have to. You can come with, you know, cattle dirt and get off, you know, from the ranch, and come hang out with us. Check in with your business neighbors, make those connections, and everybody is welcome. Bell food has been great for letting us just kind of redirect and be relatable. We haven’t really got any backlash. So, I mean, we still do it in a professional manner. We’re just not as buttoned up as a lot of places, because I feel like that’s what our community was eager for and they had a positive response to it,
Brianne Bonnet 17:26
right? No, it’s just, it’s the community culture too. And they just, they, they have seen us enough around town through just our like social media and all that kind of stuff too, that we’re just real people. We we make mistakes too, and so I think that kind of
Michaela Horn 17:49
lets us in or decreases their fear of us, or anything of that matter too. We’re in it with them, yeah, you know. And a lot of people, especially with our social media, they’re afraid to get on Facebook to promote their business. Well, it has to be perfect, okay. Well, now we’re on Facebook, and we do silly stuff all the time, and it doesn’t have to be perfect, and it’s getting a response. We’re modeling that it is okay to be relatable and to be real. But also, we’ve had some members join since we’ve started. And just say, you know, I never, I always felt out of place. I never felt welcome because of the type of business that I’m in. And I’m like, Okay, well, I’ve, you know, we’ve worked in bars. We’ve worked, you know, the Sturgis rally, we’ve been, you know, growers. I’ve, I’ve had janitor gigs like it, whatever the job is. We’ve been there. We’re in it with you. And a lot of the businesses see that we are showing up with them. I mean, it’s not unheard of. I mean, Valentine’s Day, one of our flower shops in town, you know, she called us. She was struggling. We showed up with ribbon, and we started tying ribbon on flowers for her to get them out the door. We’ve had businesses. Hey, we really need help with this. We’re overloaded, so we’ve shut down the office for two hours and went and volunteered. And we’re really there for them, to help them and promote them.
Brandon Burton 19:02
Yeah, I love that response. It reminds me this last week, Simon Texas and I was at the Texas chamber conference earlier this week, and it just so happens that the city it was held in this year was it’s called Denton so Denton, Texas, and as with the welcoming, you know, message was was being presented to welcome all the attendees there. The point was made that, you know, here in Denton, you’re welcome, just however you are like so even those in attendance, some are there wearing suits and blazers. Some are wearing jeans and T shirts. Some are wearing shorts. I mean, it really just you get the whole spectrum, not only in what you wear, but just how you present yourself, too, because that community thrives on welcoming everybody, no matter where you are professionally. What your business type is, how you show up, looking at work, you know your appearance, it really is open for everyone. So I love the comment that you made, Michaela, about especially with the social media aspect, when your members feel like it needs to be perfect before you put something out there, I would argue the perfect stuff, nobody cares about whatever’s perfect that goes out on social media. Nobody wants to look at that. It you’re not getting surprised by anything. You’re not It’s not exciting any of the dopamine receptors right when everything is exactly as you expect. So being able to set that example and and help your members recognize that too and lean into that, I think, is a huge strength that you guys have in helping to model that. Are there other examples that come to mind how leaning into your personalities has helped to benefit you at the Chamber,
Brianne Bonnet 20:56
just our personalities and just our overall backgrounds, like she had mentioned, we work different jobs, but I think a real focus is that we’ve worked at all age spectrums. We worked from tiny kids to very old adults. So we’re just very community aware, and so then when people need things or have questions, that’s, that’s what gives us the knowledge, and we don’t use that knowledge in a like, we know it all kind of way, or anything of that, of like, yes, we understand. We see that we’ve been there, we know, and this is what we’ve learned to help, or that you can use, or other places other we really like to connect members other, from members to members. So like, when this a nonprofit business, was doing their annual banquet, and they’re like, Do you know where we can get baskets, you know, wicker baskets for auction items. And we’re like, yes, we have some. And then also, you know, the Senior Center, the thrift store, they just had a huge donation go over there and other places, and just connecting everybody to each other. And,
Michaela Horn 22:23
yeah, where are the resources? And, you know, they said, You made a fun point, because when we were working with kids, we used to say to families all the time, oh, you know, it takes a village to raise a family. Well, it takes a village to make the town run. There are, you know, the common saying, there’s 20% of people doing 80% of the work. And I’ll be darned if that’s not true, but connecting them with those people, like, hey, we have everything in town, and we can make this happen. You need black linens, okay, well, Belle silver lining has black linens. You need this? Well, grossenberg has this. Or, you know, we’re, we’re connecting our members and putting it all together to make really cool stuff happen in Bell food. And one of the cool things is, I just traveled through Wisconsin, and I was looking up one of the visitor guides, I think I was near Appleton, and I was going through their visitor guide, and I was like, ah, they have music on Main Street. I was like, Bill fuchsia is doing that. Oh, they have this festival. I was like, Belle food is doing that. And I looked up the population, and I think it was close to 70,000 and I was like, you know, we’re a small town, but there are some amazing things, and people who are doing really good work in Bell food, and so makes it easy for us to just shine a light on it and connect it. Be like, this guy’s already doing really cool stuff. You need to go over here. Or, you know, she’s started this organization, this nonprofit, and here’s the work she’s doing, you know, if you want to volunteer, or here’s how she can help your business. And so people are already doing the work. We’re just helping connect the dots.
Brandon Burton 23:42
Yeah. So I think we need to make a t shirt summarizing a quote you just said, that it takes a village to run a village. That’s
Brandon Burton 23:57
I’m summarizing that as a village to run a village. And you guys are the connectors that make that make all the pieces work. So I love that. I mean that should be a chamber slogan everywhere takes a village to run a village. So I love it. But I always like asking for listeners who are interested in taking their chamber to the next level. What kind of tip or action item might you suggest for those chambers listening as they try to accomplish that goal?
Michaela Horn 24:30
Well, let me see, I wrote down a response because we really thought about it. You know, I just think taking time to build relationships like I said, we’re spending time going out into the trenches with our businesses, being there for sport, um, I know a lot of people are like, you, we don’t have time, right? Everybody has the same amount of time, and it’s how you spend it, but we don’t have time. We don’t have time to go do this. We don’t have time to shut down our office. We don’t, okay, well, we’re, we’re choosing. Prioritize and shut down our office to be there for support when we’re needed, and in return, we’ve gotten more members from it because they notice what we’re doing. And one of my favorite quotes was actually told to me when I was 14 years old by Scott Lang, and he said, the more you give, the more you get, the more you get, the more you have to give. And that really, I mean, I think we use that all the time, so we are giving out into the community, and in return, the community is responding, and they want to be on board. And so our membership is growing, and we’re very appreciative, but that just means that we have to buckle up and do more. So
Brandon Burton 25:35
yeah, I like that. I love that response as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, granted chambers all different sizes, and they’re all over. But how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
Michaela Horn 25:56
It’s very different. Every chamber is different. Um, do you have to be adaptable and flexible. And I’ve listened to, I’ve been listening to your podcast so and, you know, there’s been some really good responses. The gentleman you had from Traverse City, Michigan, was really good, and his response, and, you know, I think you just need to be adaptable. We do a really cool thing out here. We just started with all the northern Hills chambers, all the directors get together for lunch. And so geographically, we’re not we’re not very spread out. We’re still the northern hills. There’s six of us, whether it’s spear fish, Lee Deadwood, Sturgis, spear fish is, I don’t know, 15 miles, 20 miles, away from us. And we are totally different. What we’re focused on is different. How we serve our communities is different, and you have to be adaptable to what your community needs. You know, some spend a lot of time in legislation and lobbying, and others are very heavily involved with Economic Development and Tourism, and it’s you have to serve your community based on what your community needs. So I think, just be adaptable. Yeah,
Brandon Burton 27:02
I love that idea, though, getting together and doing the lunches with the other regional say, like a regional coalition of chambers. And even though the communities look different, there’s strength and support you’re able to get from each other. There’s ideas you’re able to get from each other. And even though your communities may look and feel different, there’s still a lot of similarities, if for nothing else, that geography of where you are like that’s that would be one commonality that would, you know, kind of overlap all the chambers in a certain region. So when issues of advocacy come up, or, you know, things that need to be talked about. You know, legislatively, you can get a consensus of your membership and take it to that regional coalition and be able to have more power in numbers. So I love that you guys are doing that. And great.
Michaela Horn 28:01
I mean, I’m very thankful that they are willing to do that, because it’s helped with cross promoting each other. I mean, we’re close enough, but far enough away that it’s very easy to cross promote, but it’s nice to have that support system. I mean, even our last meeting that we had this month of another chamber was starting a foundation. Okay, well, can we look at the bylaws of your guys’ foundations? Like, what did you have to do to get this off the ground, and just having somebody who’s been through it, you know, to help you, and that’s nice to have locally, yeah,
Brandon Burton 28:29
absolutely. And the topic of foundations is kind of a buzz right now amongst chambers. And I think there’s a lot of chambers out there that are like, Well, yeah, how do you get started, right? Like the idea? Yes, that’s great. How, where do you even start? Right? That’s not really a Google search that you’re going to find a lot of results for and and even AI might get too deep in the weeds, yeah, to learn from others is really the key. So, great example. Well, before I let you go, I wanted to give you both an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect and learn more about your approach and how you guys are doing things. Where would you point listeners and what would be the best way for them to connect with you?
Michaela Horn 29:17
Okay, well, you can follow us on BelleFourcheChamber.org, and Fourche is F, o, u, R, C, H, E. And I think the easiest, most entertaining way to follow us is through our Facebook page or YouTube channel, which is just the Belle Fourche Chamber. We are, we are uploading all day, every day. There’s a lot going on in Belle Fourche. So we try to keep up, but they can also give us a call. I mean, our number is 605-892-2676, and if they have any questions, or I don’t know, want to come up with ideas, we are consistently the gears are turning. I mean, brainstorm, brainstorm. We have so many ideas that we have written down that we just don’t have enough time to get to. And we love. Collaborating with people, but also love just, oh, have you thought about this, this and this and this, and then connecting them with the resources so they can go out and do it
Brandon Burton 30:07
right? I love that we’ll, we’ll link in our show notes to your website and Facebook and YouTube and everything, so people can can look and follow and reach out and connect. But I appreciate you both spending time with us today here on chamber chat podcast, sharing your your personalities, your experience, and leaning in to your unique backgrounds, I appreciate
Michaela Horn 30:31
it. Thank you.
Brandon Burton 30:33
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