Highlights from the 2019 Chamber of the Year Finalist Series

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Episode 36 — Highlights from 2019 Chamber of the Year Finalist Series
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00:00.056 Brandon Burton
We just finished a 12 episodes series highlighting the 2019 ACCE Chamber of the Year finalists. This was a fun series to host as I was able to visit with some of the top leaders in the chamber industry and learn more about what they're doing at their chambers to stand out. In this episode, I wanted to do a recap to pull out some of the most valuable information that was shared throughout the series. But before we get into all this valuable information, we need 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.
00:45.144 Brandon Burton
Thank you for being here as we jump into episode 36 of Chamber Chat Podcast. For those of you who don't know, I'm Brandon Burton and I'm here to introduce you to people and ideas so you can better serve your chamber members and your community. First, I wanted to congratulate these 12 chambers for being selected as finalists for Chamber of the Year, and special kudos to the 2019 winners, the Murray-Callaway County Chamber. The Longview Chamber, the Asheville Area Chamber, and Greater Louisville Inc. Great job to each of you and thank you for your example and willingness to share with others in the chamber industry. As I explained at the beginning of this recording, today I'll be pulling out some highlights from our 12-episode Chamber of the Year finalist series. I hope you're able to listen to each of these interviews. If not, you can always go back to the past episodes and get caught up. I wanted to host this interview series since these are the top 12 chambers that ACCE chose to compete for Chamber of the Year for 2019. I myself, I like to learn from others, especially from others who are doing what I want to be doing and who are doing it well. When I decided that I wanted to host this podcast, I started looking to other podcasters who are at the top of their game, like Pat Flynn from the Smart Passive Income Podcast. and John Lee Dumas from Entrepreneurs on Fire. These guys know what they're doing, and I was able to learn a ton from them. It is my hope that these chamber professionals and everyone who I have on as a guest on this podcast will provide great value for you that you can implement at your chamber. One specific way that I'm bringing value to chambers already is through the affinity program that's being offered through my partner Swipe It. Swipit is one of the best credit card processors in the business. They often can reduce your processing fees by up to 40%, which will save your chamber money right away. Swipe It provides a way for your chamber to also earn non-dues revenue by promoting the Swipit services to your member partners as you help them to become more profitable. Some chambers are seeing as much as $5,000 to $7,000 each year in recurring non-dues revenue.
03:12.194 Brandon Burton
To get your free cost savings analysis, you can visit Chamberchatpodcast.com slash C C for credit card, and a representative from Swipe It will let you know how they can best serve your chamber and your member partners. Now, as we went through this series, there was a common thread that I noticed in most of these Chamber of the Year interviews. And that was that many of these chambers have a very strong workforce development initiative. That starts in the school systems, local colleges and universities, and provide a way to fill the needs for the employers in their city by matching these students with prospective careers. I'm sure that many of you have similar programs at your chamber, but I know that there are some tips that you can learn as you listen to how their programs work that might make a light bulb go off in your head as to things that you can improve on. In each of these interviews, I asked For each of them to provide one action item that chambers who are listening can implement to take their chamber up to the next level. I've compiled their answers for you so you can get the very best of what they had to offer all in one episode. First up is Justin Starlin from the Wooster Area Chamber, and he talks about what is your chamber's brand in the community. Yeah, If anything to one action minor item and we've done a number over the years, but I think one action I item would be personally really look at where your brand is in the community and and find out where you are you active. Who are the active players that are making a difference in your community? And truly be without bias, say is our organization a a change agent? Are we in the mix? And find out if we're not in the mix and we're not ones that are at the table when those important decisions are being made, or the you know, they're they're shaping the next step in your community. Why is that? How can we be there? And what imp what steps can we do to to truly implement and and be at the table? I think that bring that'll bring value to you as a as a chamber to say, we need to be here.
05:36.12 Brandon Burton
How do we get there and put a stri a strategy together to make that happen? All right. Great stuff, Justin. next up we have Norma Lansing from the Effingham County Chamber. And she talks about being connected to all of the players that are in your community. 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 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 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. All right. And now we have Joe Unterreiner from the Calispel Chamber. He had a lot to offer, a lot of good tips. But The one that really stood out to me is he talks about maximizing the number of reps with each membership. But here's Joe's response. Okay. you know, I've got a a couple thoughts about that. you know, and I I referenced some of that earlier. I think one of the real strengths of a chamber, I think, is you know, it like I said, is just the grassroots of what we bring. So, for example, in that first example of that project, with the highways. Yeah, yeah, we weren't the applicant. you know, that was going to be the city of Calispell, right? And we have nothing to do with constructing highways or any of that. But what, you know, chambers of commerce, you know, like ours and your other listeners have is perhaps the best network of influencers in any community is is going to be the the members of the chambers of commerce. And so one of the things we do is we sign up a new member. in our database, we attempt to just
08:01.53 Brandon Burton
get as many reps listed under that business as possible because that adds to our network and our communications network. So, you know, I think that's one of the real strengths we have as chambers is is, you know, the a a network of owners and managers of businesses in your market. and how and how we cultivate that, how we connect and engage and try to retain those, I think is going to be some of the most important, is some of the most important work we do and and how we enhance that is going to be some of the most important work we do going forward. But also on that project, just as a convener, the nobody's got the the network we have to reach out to all of these businesses for a sign on letter or generate support in a lobbying trip to DC. So I I think that's a real strength. I think the other thing is just our ability as chambers to focus on the top issues of the day and the role that we can play in making things happen in that area. even if we're not the lead organization, we just have tremendous assets to bring in. So I think how we focus on that and bring our collective strength to bear on that is gonna be You know, how we succeed going forward. You know, I I also was I was in on a a recent ACCE webinar that where Dave Atkinson, the CEO of the Kentucky Chamber, spoke and he really I I think has maybe done the best thinking out there about connecting with foundations and 501c3 grants for for chamber work in things that are with a C three purpose. and in fact both of our projects were clearly within a C three purpose of advancing community projects. And and I think that I think Dave is right on track with that that our ability to contribute to that and connect with C three organizations has the potential to offer a a great new source of non-dues revenue for chambers across the country. All right. And
10:20.546 Brandon Burton
next up we have Radonna Hessel from the Great Mind Chamber. And she talks about the importance of listening to your members, but doing so with a leadership role to to help implement that change. So Radonna. You know, over all these years I think it's a matter of listening to what the businesses want. listening to what they don't want. we tend to do things because they've always been done that way. and sometimes we ta have to take that leadership role and And kind of steering the ship in a different course, or strengthen if if we're going to continue what we've always done, let's take that and make it better. I think that you know, everything has its time and its place. And I think it's important for chambers to not just look at what we're doing, you know, today and what we did yesterday, but look at what we want to be doing 10 years from now. You know, if you have something that you're doing and you know. people are bound and determined to keep doing it, then okay, let's make it better. or you might be amazed to find that they're they're willing to let it go and to move on to something different. I think, you know, I think chambers, I'm not one of those that believes chambers will go away. I think the handshake still means a lot. And I think we provide that opportunity. I just think sometimes we have to make sure that we are meeting the needs of of who we have now and planning to meet the needs of who we have in the future. Right. And next we have Ron Bunch from the Bowling Green Area Chamber. And he also talks about having a leadership role in the community, kind of like Rodonna touched on, but let's hear Ron's perspective. I think you know, given the business challenges, the number one challenge that we see is talent. And you know, when you look at the six thousand open jobs for our economy, that represents one point three five billion in economic impact. And so With those kinds of business numbers and market opportunities, if that chamber's not working in the talent arena, there's probably a great opportunity to build a relationship with the business base in an area where they have a critical and immediate need. Secondly, one of the things that's you know works for us is really finding opportunities to shape the direction of the community, really taking a leadership role.
12:45.032 Brandon Burton
versus just putting on a program or event, but really stepping in and and and taking a leadership role. So whether it was raising the money to invest in schools, which we raised it to invest in schools, we didn't raise it for ourselves. Or you know, really I I had my COO operate as the interim president and CEO of the Workforce Development Board when we helped to reshape it for 18 months at no cost to take those leadership opportunities, even if you end up getting criticized at some point so that you can make it better because over time the community will the business community will stay around you and will have that really long term commitment to you because they see you leading. Okay. next up is Kevin Sheeley from the Ocala Marion County Chamber and Economic Partnership. And Kevin just he had it nice and succinct. He just said Barbecue sacred cows. Now he expands on that a little bit. So let's hear Kevin's perspective. I I would say it's o two things. I know you actually want to give two. One, it's okay to barbecue some sacred cows. Yeah. Barbecue's great. Yes. Barbecue's great. It it's time to probably those programs, those initiatives that really don't meet your mission, it's time to go ahead and and have a barbecue and just be done with those. We so many chambers get stuck doing things that really aren't advancing their mission and lead and certainly staff leadership knows it. It's just getting the volunteer leadership to understand it. and the other thing I'd say is it's okay to get outside the box. I mean, probably one of the most interesting things about our chamber is we don't have any committees. All right. We don't do committees. because what we've learned is in 2019, who wants to serve on a committee? you know, we we ha work a different model, but it's it's okay to change. It's okay to be different and you can grow and be successful. In particular, know your you know your community. So what do you need to to change to go be successful? As I interviewed Derek Miller from the Salt Lake Chamber, he talked a lot about their foundation that they set up with getting together civic minded business leaders for social awareness and impact. And his his response is along those lines.
15:02.924 Brandon Burton
Well, I guess I'm Brandon, I'm gonna go back to what I was talking about with the foundation and that is to if you're not already doing it, my recommendation on an action item would be to get a group together of really civic minded business leaders and talk about creating an outlet through the chamber for this social awareness and desire for social impact. And it it has so many benefits, not the least of which course is actually helping to improve those social challenges by bringing business solutions into play. But then it also just I think sets business in the appropriate light as being a partner for solutions to problems and countering the false narrative that that they're a cause of of problems. And now we've got Beth Bowman from the Irving Las Calinas Chamber and She had a n a nice little tagline talking about being the four one one and nine one one for your community. So here's Beth. Absolutely. So I'm gonna go back to, you know, the Horizon initiative and and elevate my my colleague and good friend in Huntsville, Madison County Chamber of Commerce, Chip Cherry, and he really took the lead on bringing the ninth influence. around the horizon initiative for engaging the public sector. You know, as we look to the future in in you know issue areas from governance to diversity, equity and inclusion are critical, you know, the chamber, as I shared earlier, you know, you're the 411 and the 911 for your community, which means you, you know, have to have a relationship with your municipal stakeholders, your governmental entities at a local level. It might not look like it does in our community of Irving Las Colinas and that is absolutely okay. But chambers have to be a resource for business industry and get into public policy, advocacy, and economic development day in and day out t in order to continue to thrive and survive through an ever changing economy.
17:18.773 Brandon Burton
really proud of the great work ACCE has done, the board, the entire staff to bring this influence in and sh and really help those chambers understand what does engaging the public sector look like and how can I apply that to my local community. That's right. You know, in urban Oscalinas, you know, there's not a day goes by that I'm not on the phone with our mayor or council or state leadership on on an item or an initiative and and you know they're calling myself or our team asking, you know, where's the chamber at on this or where's the business industry at on this and asking for our opinion. We are also calling them and making sure we're staying ahead of issues that might be coming forward and saying, Hey, are you aware there's a cluster of business industry that's going to have concerns? Have you thought about A, B, C and D? All right, so far these have all been great answers. And these last four that we're gonna hear from are the two thousand nineteen ACCE Chamber of the Year winners. first up is Michelle Bundren from the Murray Callaway County Chamber, and she talks about listening to data and your members and being willing to change. So here's Michelle. in terms of everything, you know, I think One thing that's really helped us over the years is to listen to the data, listen to your members. it's all relational, and then be willing to make any changes to programming, to anything, initiatives, maybe taking away some things you're doing and creating new things. I think listening and actually making changes shows that you're willing. to adapt to the ch you know, the ever evolving economy and and the way things are. I think we've been able to do that and, you know, members really respect that. So I guess my advice or action item would just be to be engaged and to really listen. to so that you're serving members' wants and needs, not what you think they want or need or what you can maybe you don't want to change some of the programming 'cause it's easy.
19:43.043 Brandon Burton
so that would definitely be a suggestion is to listen and be willing to make changes. Thank you, Michelle. next up is Dave Jokum from the Longview Chamber. And he talks about the importance of having a strategic plan. what I would say to that, Brandon, it's it's not an easy thing, right? So it's it's not something you're gonna do today or tomorrow or next week. It's gonna take some time. But I think a big key to all of this for us was that strategic plan. And so I think, you know, getting with whether it's the staff or the board or the executive board, whoever it is at your chamber that or the real decision makers for that, I I think it's it's thinking through and and setting down and writing what are we about? What what what do we need to be about for our town? What does our town need from us? And what does that look like? How do we how do we verbalize that? And then How do we make it a strategic plan so so that we're intentional in our work? We're not just I I I think a a challenge in chamber work is you can get so caught up in running from thing to thing to thing, you know, busy with event after event or w whatever it is, that you lose sight of the fact that you're trying to accomplish something bigger than the next luncheon, you know. and and we have luncheons. but we we started thinking of our luncheons in terms of how is this luncheon gonna help advance our strategic plan? How is this luncheon help us reach the goals that we have set forth? How is this luncheon contribute to the betterment of our community rather than just being, hey, come eat lunch, we'll either entertain you or give you some information and send you on your way to let's make it part of the strategy. so that again, I know that's not an easy thing to
21:46.574 Brandon Burton
To walk off with. But I think it's key if if you don't have that, man, I would I wouldn't do anything else until I had that set. What is our strategy going to be from here forward? All right. And Kit Kramer from the Asheville area chamber. She talked about the importance of a tier dues model, but not so much the model itself, but the program program exploration. as you put together a tear does model. And well, I'll let her explain what she means by that. Here's Kit. Gosh, I mean for us, I I'll tell you one of the processes we went through in the last year also, last year and a half actually, is is creating tier dos. And it's not so much the tier dues model itself, it's the exploration, I think, that has been so powerful. really understanding the motivations of our members. I mean, we've we've gone so far as to develop personas for the different types of members we have. And so that we have a shorthand to talk about those different types of members and what their motivations might be. Because we wanted everybody, because we do economic development as well as the chamber, it's important to us that everybody be able to speak to how people can plug in. and to break down silos between between the different areas of work. And that process of really taking a look at what your member, understanding what your members' motivations are and how you can, and then looking at your programming and figuring out what most appeals to different the different branches of your membership was I I think it's it's changed the way we think about the work we do. And it also allowed us to customize programming and in a way that that has been very, very impactful. So that's what I would recommend that they do that everyone do is take a look at their programming with that understanding member motivations. Okay, and f last but not least, we have Kent Euler from the Greater Louisville Inc. And Kent he focused his answer on the Horizon initiative. So here's Kent Euler.
24:09.942 Brandon Burton
Yeah, I I think that one thing that every chamber should do if they haven't already is go to ACCE dot org or wherever you get it and read the Horizon report that was written in twenty it's Horizon Initiative Chambers twenty twenty five. It was written a couple of years ago and then they've added there's eight mega trends within Chamber World and they've added a ninth one since that are just Critical for us to understand. And I know here at GLI we pay a lot of attention to that. We've had our board read it, our staff read it, we've built it into our planning. But it's things like the changing demographics. so as people get younger and the millennial generation doesn't join organizations in the same way and they're looking for different things. And there's technology trends on how people interact. for instance, now we we have big presence on Instagram, Twitter, probably on Snapchat for all I know. and and people spending a lot of time to make sure that our message connects with them. And I'm you know, I had to be convinced quite honestly on social media, how important it was and I'm just now I believe we have probably as many people on social media followers as we have on our our mailing list. So it's a big deal. but that's getting out the the messaging. And then you know it's there's population shifts that are happening. The job you know, the the the job wars are here. every chamber, every city has in a war for talent, and you are competing with each other. We are competing with other cities and other towns for talent. we have in our city twenty seven thousand open jobs, so you know, we have to be able to be masters of talent attraction and retention and that's the big initiative that we have here around talent attraction as as many people thought too. And I if anybody actually wants to see a really good talent site, we have this Our brand on that is called Live in Lou, L I V E I N L O U dot com. And we built out just a a a presence there as well as a lot of tools for employers to help sell our city because we know that Mobile's a nice place. It is a anybody that comes here after they're here, they always go, Wow, I didn't know I didn't expect that. This is great. But
26:36.13 Brandon Burton
They don't necessarily we're not on their radar screen, so we have to be able to be out there and market it. And then you know, the role of chambers is is kind of the the rational player in a very polarized world. I know we we had situations with our school system where it was there was a threat of it being taken over by the state and we had to help step in the middle and and work with both sides of that to to avoid take over the system, which we felt would be a disastrous for education for a kid. So you know all that stuff are are influences that are shaping chambers and chambers need to adapt or they risk being irrelevant. And we've embraced that. Alright. Well I hope that condensing all these answers into one episode for you is helpful. I hope that this episode provided some ideas that you can act on. It's one thing to sit here and listen to great ideas, but it's a totally other thing to go act on these ideas. So please take take one or two of these items. It may be overwhelming to try to implement everything at once, but take one or two items, start working on them, and then you can, you know, add more to it as you're ready. You can always go back to listen to this episode again or dive in deeper into their individual episodes. You can also visit the show notes page at chamberchatpodcast dot com slash episode thirty-six. For the Cliff Notes version of this episode as a reminder to to reference. But thank you for being here and for being a part of this Chamberchat Podcast community. I love doing this podcast, and I would love to hear feedback from you so I can better serve you. You can email me at Brandon at ChamberThat Podcast dot com or you can leave me a comment on the show notes page and I promise to get back to you.
28:32.896 Brandon Burton
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