Strategic Planning and Blowing Things Up with Henry Florsheim

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

Episode 40 — Strategic Planning and Blowing Things Up! with Henry Florsheim
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Henry Florsheim
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.83 Brandon Burton
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.
00:15.758 Brandon Burton
Hello and welcome to ChamberThat Podcast. This is episode forty of ChamberThat 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. Our guest today is Henry Florsheim, president and CEO of the Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce in North Texas. A native of Monroe, Louisiana. Floorsham is a graduate of University of Louisiana at Monroe. in business management and the University of Oklahoma's Economic Development Institute. He has an MBA from Louisiana Tech University and is alumnus of Leadership Louisiana. He received his IOM designation from the Institute of Organization and Management, where he now serves on the Board of Regents. He also serves as a board member for the Texas Association of Business and Texas Chamber of Commerce Executives. And was recently accepted into the Air Education Training Command Civic Leaders Group, representing Shepherd Air Force Base and Wichita Falls at a national level. Florsham was just named to the US Chamber Foundation's Business Leads Fellowship, which focuses on innovation in education and workforce development around the country. A creative problem solver, Florsham has nearly 20 years of economic development experience. And a history of developing successful strategic partnerships. He serves the implementation lead for the new community-wide strategy for Grow Wichita Falls. Henry and his wife Kimberly have six children and have served as foster parents to many other children in need. Today, Henry and I are going to be talking about strategic planning and one of Henry's favorite things, blowing stuff up. We'll get into this discussion right after we hear from our sponsor. Every chamber is looking for new ways to increase their non-dues revenue. Has your chamber found a good affinity program? I have a great affinity program to offer your chamber that will continue to increase in revenue year after year. I want to introduce you to Swipe It for all of your credit card processing needs. Swipe It has a unique affinity program that 1 lowers your credit card processing fees at the chamber, 2,
02:38.69 Brandon Burton
helps your chamber members be more profitable, and three provides recurring non-dues revenue to your chamber. To learn more, please visit chamberchappodcast.com slash cc for credit card. Again chamberchappodcast dot com slash cc and get swiping with swipe it. Okay Henry, we're back. Please Take a moment to say hello to the audience and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better. Sure.
03:11.892 Henry Florsheim
Something interesting. So I grew up in Louisiana, moved to Texas about six years ago. so I have have become pretty ingrained in Texas culture, but I'm I'm still a a Louisiana guy. I I went to the LSU Texas game and watched my Tigers destroy. Well, maybe it was close. Watched them beat Texas. I'm pulling out my gumbo pot this weekend because it just got cold. I speak French and I still love Louisiana, but man, we've been having a good time in Texas. My wife's from Texas and so it was it was a an easy way for us to get close to her family and Wichita Falls has been a great fit for us and so we're happy to be here.
03:54.414 Brandon Burton
That's great. I know I've been here in Texas for I think about twelve years now and just love it. So it's a it's a great place to be. yeah, in your bio, we hit on you guys have six children. I have four. And I think you know, we get a lot of comments and stared, you know, are those all yours? I'm sure you get you guys get that, I'm sure. Well, that's funny. Sometimes
04:16.992 Henry Florsheim
I feel the need to explain. But yeah, we got three biological daughters, and then we were we fostered for a while. We fostered probably 30 kids just because we wanted to do it. And one point we said, you know what, we could we could see adopting another kid. And it it didn't work out for a year and a half. All the kids that came through the house, that there were some we would have adopted, but they found other family members to to send them back to. And then we finally got a call and said, Hey, there's a five-year-old boy that needs to be adopted. And he's got two sisters. We yeah, we basically double the size of the family overnight. And it's just it was probably god, six seven seven years ago and it's just been awesome. They're they all fight and play and love each other just like birth siblings and no if somebody hadn't heard the story they would never know.
04:49.811 Brandon Burton
wow.
05:10.584 Brandon Burton
Just the way they should, right? Yeah.
05:12.365 Henry Florsheim
Exactly.
05:14.326 Brandon Burton
That's great. So before we just jump into the discussion today, can you give us all a little bit more perspective maybe about the Wichita Falls Chamber and your area so everyone can relate a little bit better to where you're sure.
05:25.688 Henry Florsheim
Sure. For starters, Wichita Falls is about two hours northwest of Dallas. So if you're heading to Colorado from Dallas, you're probably going to come up to 87 and you'll you'll drive through Wichita Falls, then you'll head due west to Amarillo and further. And so we're home to Shepard Air Force Base, which is a big flight training base and maintainer base. And the chamber here has about seven hundred and fifty members. We've grown a little bit over the past couple of years. We've grown more in in revenue per member than we have in the number of members, and we'll talk about why here in a little bit. But we are the economic developers for the community. We're a 4-A community, and the 4-A board hires the chamber to serve as the economic developers, and that's my background. I started out doing economic development 20 years ago in Louisiana. And so because of that, our staff Chamber and Economic Development Staff Combined is eleven people and probably gonna go to twelve by the end of the year. budget of about a million point six. Okay. And probably two thirds of that is is our economic development contract with the city.
06:43.702 Brandon Burton
Okay. Very good. So as I I mentioned in the introduction to the show, the topic for our discussion today is strategic planning and blowing stuff up. So let's let's jump into it. Why don't you from from your perspective, tell us maybe first of all, let's lead with the blowing stuff up. I was gonna save that for for later, but sure. What what does that mean to you?
07:11.81 Henry Florsheim
Well, I'm a change agent and I think that's why I was brought to Wichita Falls in the first place. This this city, when I got here six years ago, it was six years ago, October, and it just felt like an old city with old leadership attitudes, and the chamber felt the same way. The chamber was just in a big rut and there wasn't a whole a lot of excitement around what we were doing. And there was no real pathway. And I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that there was no plan. or vision. And so morale was bad. I mean, I had I had employees fighting with members about stuff, ac actively fighting with them, you know. Yeah. And it was just weird. And so I knew that I was gonna have to come in and blow the whole thing up and really just start over. It it's harder to to start over than it would be to start a fr a brand new chamber, right? Yeah. And so we so we had to to figure out how to strategically manage the blowing up of stuff. Because you can't just come in with a staff of ten or eleven. You can't come in and just empty the shop and start over. You can't just come in and stop all your programs and start over. So that's always been one of my challenges is how do we manage the transition from what we were to who we want to be? And so you you have to start small. And for us it was it was one employee needed to go more than any other. And and when I did that, I I started getting calls and emails from people saying, my God, I didn't think anything was ever gonna happen. And so so we started looking at the things that that really needed to change programs and due structure and figuring out, well what can we actively manage right now? Because Until you change over your staff, until you've got the right attitudes and skill sets on staff, it's not like you can just go and make something new. And so started out with some tweaks. But overall, if you look back, look at us from six years ago to today, nothing looks the same. Nothing. We don't have any staff left from then. there were a lot of programs we used to do that we don't do anymore. The programs that we do still do don't look anything like they did before.
09:31.574 Henry Florsheim
And one good example is our business expo. It seems like every chamber feels like they have to have some sort of business to business expo. And I know some communities do and still and they still have a lot of success with them. Well, ours, even though we were pumping in more promotional dollars to get the word out and we were doing better on social media getting the word out, attendance and feedback just kept dropping. And so finally, I I think it was last year. It may have been two years ago. Finally, we just made the decision internally. We said, we're not doing this anymore. Even though we made a little mu we made a little money on it. We said we're not doing it anymore because nobody seems happy with it. The attendance is not great. And really, if you look at does it fit our mission, may maybe you could twist it a little bit to say it fits our mission, but what else could we be doing with that time? And so we We basically blew it up and walked away and said, We're not doing that anymore. And you know how many complaints we got?
10:37.333 Brandon Burton
I'm guessing none.
10:38.58 Henry Florsheim
Not a sing not a single one. And I know I've talked to a lot of chamber professionals that are just scared to cut the cord on something like that. Not one single person complained. And think about it, we got 750 members, which means we represent probably tens of thousands of people throughout this community. And even if five people complained out of out of 10 or 20 or 40,000, does it really matter? It doesn't. They're going to complain once. And then then you're gonna move on. And even if they keep complaining, does it really matter? And so it it really all starts with what's your mission? And then you figure out the easy way to do this is figure out, well, what are we already doing that doesn't fit our mission, doesn't help us generate the resources to accomplish our mission. Those are the things we need to go blow up first. It's real simple, but we get caught we get caught up in the day to day. And we're down in the weeds and trying to answer all our emails and and it it's hard for us up to all to step back and think strategically about what those things might be.
11:45.742 Brandon Burton
Yeah. So there's always somebody in the community that will complain about any kind of change. And the fact that you had zero complaints about getting rid of the business expo, yeah. I mean, that tells me number one, like the impact that it was having on the community. Like people didn't miss it, right? Once it was done, they didn't miss so unless you drew attention to it and said, by the way, we're not doing the business expo this year, you know, nobody's missing it. To draw the attention to complain that you're So and I was just with any of the programs, you know, what if you were to evaluate and say if we didn't have this program anymore, would anybody miss it? You know, and and that's a good, you know, self check to see how relevant is it and what kind of tweaks need to be made. But sorry, go ahead.
12:15.65 Henry Florsheim
Yeah, exactly.
12:34.71 Henry Florsheim
And well and there are some programs like that that are easy to I say easy, relatively easy to kill and deal with the aftermath. And then there are some some communities, I know the chambers do things like the Christmas parade. and I was my last chamber in Arkansas, we had a parade that we we managed. And that's fine if that's part of your mission and that's what the community expects you to do, whether it's a festival or a parade or whatever.
13:04.27 Brandon Burton
Sounds like you were really enthusiastic about it.
13:06.926 Henry Florsheim
If it doesn't if it doesn't fit your mission, so that that's one of those where it's a little more dangerous because you'll definitely take some hits. But here's the thing I've always thought. If that Christmas parade or that Easter festival or whatever is so important to your community and and yet it doesn't fit your mission, if it's that important to your city, somebody else should be anxiously willing to take it to taking it over. And if nobody else is willing to take it over. And they're just using you to get what they want, then who cares? You don't need to be doing it in the first place.
13:43.404 Brandon Burton
Yeah. So I think that that's a perfect transition to lead into the strategic planning part of our discussion. So if you have that strategic plan and these programs or events don't align with that strategic plan, then you need to have that evaluation and see what you you know, see how you can blow it up, see how you can get rid of it. or like I had Kevin Sheeley on a few weeks ago from the Ocala Marion County Chamber in Florida.
14:11.011 Henry Florsheim
Right.
14:11.634 Brandon Burton
He just said you need to have a barbecue. You know, put these sacred cows out on the barbecue and just in here in Texas, you know, we like barbecues. So that that resonated with me. But so as you go about strategic planning and especially coming into a chamber where there was changes that needed to be made, how did you go about creating that strategic plan knowing that some things needed to be changed?
14:16.701 Henry Florsheim
Get rid of
14:35.0 Henry Florsheim
Sure. And let's let's talk about why first, then we'll get into it how we do that. A strategic plan, especially if you've never been through the process before, it can be a scary, imposing thing, right? Because it sounds it's so severe, it it's rigid, but it can be your best friend, especially when you've got programs you want to get rid of, or if you've got a board or a community where people are always bringing you new things that they think you ought to be doing. A strategic plan allows you to To point to that and say, I appreciate you bringing this idea to us. It doesn't currently currently fit with our mission and our plan, but I'd be happy to take a look at it again in a year or two when we update these things. And so it helps you more than anything because it helps you figure out how you should be budgeting and where you should be allocating your time, your staff time, your own time, your volunteers time. If it doesn't, if it's not on the plan. And the plan is the right plan and it has been is has been created the right way, then it's gonna be your absolute best friend in the world. Yes. It does. And so when I got here, we did not have a strategy. We so we actually we didn't have an economic development strategy for the community, and we did not have a strategy for the chamber either. And so since that time, really in the last two years, I I've addressed both of those. And so we
15:38.062 Brandon Burton
Yeah, it keeps your focus.
16:00.218 Henry Florsheim
used our our 4A board to help hire a facilitator for a community-wide economic development strategy that that I'm the lead implementation chair for. And so we pulled together a huge community group and developed a plan for that. And then last year we brought in another facilitator that helped chambers create strategies and worked with my board just my board and me and the facilitator to create a strategy for the chamber. And so The the good news is now there is complete clarity as to what we should be doing. The big challenge that you've always got to think about is that well, who's going to be in charge of it? Because you're going to end up with some action teams and a bunch of volunteers and staff people doing things, but there's got to be a person in charge of leading the implementation. And so for us on both of those strategies, it's me. And so it's it's a lot to handle. But the end the end result is going to be that we're doing the things. that we have deliberately determined we need to do as a chamber to improve. And as a community, we're going to be deliberately doing those things as a community in an economic development program to grow the city. And so to me as the the chamber CEO, those are two of the most important things I can be doing. And so if I have to put other stuff off to to dedicate time to to those two strategies and getting them implemented, that's what I've got to do. And so what I'd what I'd recommend is if somebody does not have a strategy for the chamber, first off, just reach out to some other chambers and look at their strategy so you have a general idea of what they're talking about. Because it wouldn't make sense to go talk to a facilitator and start the process yourself if you're not really clear on what a strategy looks like. And our strategy, so this is an interesting, interesting contrast. Our economic development strategy. And all the data that backs it up is like a hundred plus pages. And and that's the firm that we hired, we wanted that to be a data driven process. And so that's what that group wanted. Our chamber strategy is maybe four pages. It's very simple. Now we're building out the the list of action items, which will be longer than that, but the strategy itself is very, very simple. And so I'd be happy to share it with anybody. And it gives you a really good idea of the framework we're following to get better.
18:26.06 Henry Florsheim
And so just take a look at one of those so you have an idea when you go to your chair or your executive committee or your board and say, hey, I'd really like us to pursue the development of something like this. You have an idea of what that looks like. after you do that, figure out well, who's out there that can help you do it? Is do you have the money to hire a facilitator? Do you have a statewide organization that's got somebody that could do it for free or very, very cheap? Is there another ch is there another chamber nearby? I've seen a lot of chamber execs do it for neighboring chambers. And in fact, we've got a small town about 10 minutes north of us that's maybe 10,000 people. I'm gonna be leading their board and new director through a planning process in about a month because they don't have the funds to hire somebody. And so I'm just I'm gonna help them with it. So gat gather all that info first and then go to your your leadership and and just say, hey. What do you think about this? This could help us get better at at what we do.
19:26.924 Brandon Burton
Yeah. So we'll make sure we get your contact information in the show notes for this episode. So if people wanted to reach out to you and take up your your offer to share that four page strategic strategy that that they can reach out to you and get that. But knowing that you're coming into the situation where a lot of change needed needed to happen, how did you go about creating that plan? And then as you as you get those requests from members in the community. to do things that are not part of your plan, how do you keep track of those things to be able to address it as you reevaluate the plan the next time?
20:04.142 Henry Florsheim
Sure. So for us, we we probably did it backwards. We like I said, I've been here six years. So I got here at the end of thirteen and we we only just created the chamber strategy last year. So in 2018. However, we we hired somebody to help us revamp our entire due structure, God, probably four years ago. So back in 2015, because our due structure was such a mess. We were hemorrhaging cash each week, each month, and and it was the the due structure was a nightmare. There there were fifty different exemptions for different types of companies, you know, for a car dealership we were charging based upon how many cars you had on the lot, which is impossible to maintain. You know, for hotels, how many rooms you had and restaurants, how many seats you had, just all these stupid different things. And it was impossible, it was impossible for our staff to to even remember if we couldn't memorize the the structure, how do you expect business to understand it? And so we Yeah, exactly. And and ever and we were and and every member got the same benefits. And so whether you were paying us two hundred fifty bucks or
21:14.454 Brandon Burton
Or to or to recognize the value they get at
21:26.132 Henry Florsheim
or eight thousand dollars or whatever, everybody got the same benefits. And so it just didn't make sense. We were leaving money on the table. And so I s I still was not through with my rebuild of the entire organization, but I had changed out my membership and events team. And so I said, okay, it's time I can do this. Maybe I can't do a big strategy yet, but I can I can go ahead and change our due structure. And so my my board was already on board because I've been talking about this concept since day one. I learned about tier dos. at Chamber Institute back in back starting around 2011. And I had made the transition to a tier due structure at my last chamber. And so I knew we could handle that. And so we hired a facilitator, came in, worked with our board and some volunteers and the staff over a period of months and we started rolling that out. And as a result, our our revenue per member went way up. Our retention rate went up a little bit. And we started being able to show much more value to our members because it was easier to tell them what they got. And now they have a choice. And we were able to remind them that hey, you joined at this tier because you like this benefit. This event is coming up that addresses that need. And I just want to make sure you are aware of it. So when it came time for renewal, hey. How did you like this tier? Does it still fit for you? Those needs that you talked about? Did you did you attend? Did you participate? Are you getting what you want? And so that was really a strategic decision that changed the face of our chamber because the at that point we became much more focused on providing value, really providing individual value. Because the company specifically deliberately decided on it on a tier. And they're gonna upgrade their membership and they're gonna spend this much money because they want this thing over here. That allows us and forces us to think about, okay, for that member we got to focus on this, but for this other member, they want something different. So it changed how we deal with with individual members, existing members. It also changed how we sell our members membership because now we're focused way more on finding out needs up front instead of just dumping our briefcase and telling everything that we do.
23:47.04 Henry Florsheim
And so that was really a strategic change without being an overall strategy. And so we did that. and it was probably three years before we actually went out and and created our own strategy. But the good news was in our new strategy, due structure wasn't a part of it because we had already addressed that. And so I I worked with my board. I said, Hey, now's time. I've got some money dedicated in the budget to do this. And do you agree? And executive committee said, Yes, we're gonna do this. So I went out and found the the facilitator that I wanted. We worked out a schedule, worked out a fee schedule, and and brought him in. And we did it was a it was basically a a how did we do it? It was a couple of hours one afternoon, then a dinner with the facilitator and and just a couple of my leadership, and then the next morning we did a half day. And at that point we were done. And so it wasn't a it wasn't a Unwieldy amount of time for our volunteers. It wasn't you know, our economic development strategy took nine months to develop 'cause it was so so data driven. But it's a bigger thing. But for the chamber strategy, it wasn't you know, let's do trust falls and play with Plato Plato and all these icebreakers. No, the the guy we hired, it was just nuts and bolts and conversations about who we are, who we want to be, what does the community need out of us. And so then It took him another couple of weeks, I guess, to go back and and write everything up. And then we were able to review what he had written and determine if there were any tweaks that we needed to make to it or or clarity to add to any of the sections. And then we were done. It was so simple, didn't cost a whole lot of money. And and if you don't have the funds, like I said, there are there are other resources out there that can help you do this. And it just helps us in prioritizing. And so now we've got a strategy in place that we're working our way through. We're developing a list of all the action items, which then tell us what what groups, you know, what action teams do we have to create or committees or whatever. And then we just one thing at a time. And so I'm the lead on the implementation. And so I'm just constantly looking at where are we at on each piece? What is my tracking system look like? What what do we need to start yet? Because starting's the hardest.
26:08.49 Henry Florsheim
Starting something's always the hardest. And so it's just work once you've got the strategy, it's just working your way through what's priority right now, what would be the easiest thing to accomplish, or what's the most important thing to tackle first, and just biting off one piece at a time. And and and it's it's messy and it's difficult and it's challenging when you're in the middle of it. But then a year or two down the road, when you look back and say, my God, we actually accomplished something. Whereas Without that strategy, you just tend to stay down in the weeds all day, every day, caught up in your email or what's on fire or what's the biggest crisis right now, or what what employees having a problem, and you don't spend any time on on the strategic stuff and you don't accompl you don't move forward. And so what this what these strategies have helped us to do is even though we're hit with a thousand different things every day, you know You can ignore your email for a day and come back to it and it's gonna be okay. Right? Yeah. But you can't ignore you can't ignore bad cash flow or you can't ignore major community workforce issues for for years at a time and expect things to automatically resolve themselves. And so that's why that's why blowing stuff up is so important. And that's why making sure you got a clear pathway is so important. Whether it's a strategic plan or initially it's just a list of priorities. However, you do it, having that big picture stuff to fall back on is the most important thing you can possibly be doing because that's how we as chambers can create huge impacts on our communities. It's always interesting to see when we get together in big groups like ACCE or Chamber Institute or whatever, you know, every chamber is so unique. And our role in our communities is so unique. And so some chambers. are almost solely focused on big picture economic development type stuff and some are solely focused on membership and some are solely focused on these you know parades and stuff. And so it's it's interesting to see the difference in the dynamics of all this stuff, but it doesn't matter which kind of chamber you are, you still need a pathway. You still need to figure out, are we doing what we're supposed to be doing? And are we doing it as well as we could possibly be doing it. And if not, what's our plan to move forward?
28:34.132 Henry Florsheim
And so it's really a simple thing, but I know it is scary and intimidating before you do it if you've never been involved in it before. And so like I said, just reach out to others, look at some plans, talk to some facilitators. I guarantee you every one of the professionals out there is happy to talk to you about how their process works because that's how they find clients. And even if you find out how a process works and you can't afford to hire that person, you've learned a little bit about planning.
29:03.458 Brandon Burton
That's right. And so sorry, I wasn't saying you had mentioned the economic development strategy was very data driven. would it be fair to say, I mean, it sounds like even the the chamber strategic plan was data driven based on what you learned through the due structure. What was important to people. Yeah.
29:04.654 Henry Florsheim
Yeah, go ahead.
29:19.502 Henry Florsheim
Absolutely. They're both data driven, just in a different way. And so, you know, dealing with a community of 100 plus thousand people versus a chamber of with a staff of 10 or 11 and some volunteers, it's a different process. But yeah, it's absolutely data driven. And the way we did it, our board was fully engaged. Even the ones that couldn't participate, they they were given data ahead of time and were allowed to give input after. And so everybody had the chance to buy in, whether they did or not, everybody had the chance to buy into it. And and so that makes it so much easier moving forward when you create your next year's budget. It's gotta be strategy driven. And so those things in the strategy need they need accounts. They need they may need dollars tied to them. And so since you gotta have your board approving and buying into your financial plan, they they really need to understand and buy into the strategy that's backing it up in the first place. And so using the data and using the people that are gonna be vested in and need to be champions of that plan once it's done to help design it, it it just makes sense. And it's really not that difficult.
30:31.83 Brandon Burton
Yep. So Henry, I know I know we need to start wrapping things up here. but what based on what we've covered today, what is one action item listeners can do to to start taking their chamber up to the next level?
30:45.496 Henry Florsheim
Sure. I I'm gonna give you two. If that's all right. first first I would say reach out to me in our chamber on Facebook because we share a lot. We don't just share stuff, membership stuff. We don't just post our next event. We're we we post tons of community development type stuff. And I do on my my my own Facebook page is a complex mess of personal stuff, family.
30:48.46 Brandon Burton
Okay. I'll take him. I'll take him. Yeah.
31:14.464 Henry Florsheim
Stupid observations and football and food I'm cooking and chamber and community and economic development type stuff. And so I know a lot of chamber execs that are really personal and and walled off from their community on their social media feeds. And and I I think you miss an opportunity to connect with your community when you do it like that. And so so reach out and befriend me, even if we don't know each other, it's fine. I'm I'm I'm friends with a lot of people in this business that I don't that I haven't met personally. And so I'd love I'd love to help people through this sort of thing.
31:47.436 Brandon Burton
And that way we can see what your gumbo looks like too.
31:49.912 Henry Florsheim
Yeah, exactly. I'm cooking gum on yeah, this this weekend. and then the other thing, and you and I talked about this before the show, there's a Facebook group out there called Chamber of Commerce Professionals. And I got introduced to it a few years back. And it is the to me, it is the single best source, daily source of of lots of different chamber related issues, second to this podcast, obviously.
32:18.414 Brandon Burton
Yeah, that's right.
32:20.074 Henry Florsheim
But it it is a go check it out. It's called Chamber of Commerce Professionals, and there are close to 8,000 Chamber of Commerce employees from all over the world in this group on a daily basis posting about different issues, asking questions about hey, who's who's redone their due structure, who's done a strat, who's done a plan, who's done a you know, who's done a business expo lately, who's got an idea for this, or people sharing best practices about things that they do. And so it is an awesome way, even if you don't post. If you just go in and lurk and browse and watch the things other people are posting about, it it is a it is a great way to learn more about this business and it is a great way to make professional and personal connections. I've got hundreds of friends from that group that I haven't met in person and I'll go to ACCE and it's and it's like a reunion because we know each other. We see everything we're doing on each other's doing on Facebook. We just haven't happened to meet yet. And so just in as as an example, looking at this this Facebook group right now, there's a conversation about how do you manage your face your your chamber Facebook page? There's one about what do you do on Chamber of Commerce Week? There's one about how do you celebrate an out-of-town business coming to town? How do you engage with a micromanaging board? What marketing materials have you used to on a campaign to renovate your building? And so it's just this huge, crazy. array of stuff to talk about and you learn about other resources out there like this podcast too. And so it it is a great starting point, especially if you're new to the industry. But even if you're not, it's a great way to share what you do and learn from others. And so I highly recommend it. So the two things, reach out to me and and the Wichita Falls Texas Chamber of Commerce on Facebook. And then this other group is called Chamber of Commerce Professionals.
34:14.206 Brandon Burton
Great advice. And we'll we'll put links to both you, the chamber, and also the chamber pros Facebook page on the show notes. so Henry, as as we finish here, I asked this question to everybody I have on the show, but as we look to the future, how do you view chambers of commerce and their purpose? I I'm curious with your mindset of blowing stuff up. What do you what does it look like to you?
34:37.686 Henry Florsheim
I I think you know, a lot of times it d it definitely depends on our community and and the leadership in the organization. But and a lot of people talk about how, well, chambers are going away or chambers are losing their relevance. Well, they only do if you let it, right? They only lose their relevance if you let them. And certainly weak leadership or or a group that that lets themselves be dominated and and not really focused on what their mission ought to be. you can lose your relevance and some chambers will. But in general, we have an opportunity to be the lead organization in our respective communities in terms of moving us forward. Think about like this. What other organization in any community is generally tasked with building a better city? And and there's probably not one. Maybe city council or something, but but I'm not talking about government. So our job, especially the chambers that that are actively involved in economic development as well, we're all in economic development, but some of us are are involved in your traditional format of recruiting business and that sort of thing. as long as we pay attention to what what's going on in our community and what our mission should be, we have a chance to be that lead. go to organization that people that people look to when there's a crisis, that they look to when there's an opportunity. And so that's what I'm gonna make sure my chamber is. And that frankly, that's what we've done over the last six years is turn us from an irrelevant organization where people had very low expectations of us into a very vibrant, active, engaged organization That people expect great things from us. And so the challenge is the bar has been set much higher. It's been moved for sure. But I don't know about you. I don't want to I don't want to run a mediocre chamber. I don't want to run a group that nobody has any expectations. I'd rather run one, I'd rather be transparent and have people know what we're up to and why. And when we fail at something, we say, Well, this is what happened, and we move on, we try something else, and then when we succeed.
36:52.524 Henry Florsheim
We let the community celebrate. And so so to me, we to me we're we're even more important than ever because the world's becoming more polarized, the world's becoming more specialized. so many cities look just like any other city. And the ones that have good leadership are the ones that are they're the ones that are gonna win.
37:14.86 Brandon Burton
That's right. Yeah, that answer sounds like it could have come right out of your strategic plan. I mean
37:21.07 Henry Florsheim
We probably had that conversation while we were getting it for sure. And so if you know, I'll just say this. Everybody's got a different leadership style. And everybody has a different confidence level when it comes to talking to your leadership and your community about stuff like this. Obviously, and this this has come over over a lot of time in this industry. I don't have any problem talking about these things to my leadership. And so if you're just not quite there yet.
37:24.814 Brandon Burton
You're creating
37:50.658 Henry Florsheim
Learn from others. All right. Just pay attention to what's going on. And it will come. It may not be a natural thing for you, but man, this stuff is not rocket science. It's very simple to figure out what's happening in your in your community. What are the things people are really looking for help with? Can you accomplish those? Then and then if so, how are you going to do it? It's not complicated.
38:12.214 Brandon Burton
Right. And that's the whole purpose of this podcast is to be able to learn from others and apply it back to your channel. And that's the thing. You can learn but you have to apply. You have to take action and start, like you had mentioned earlier. Yeah.
38:22.778 Henry Florsheim
And I love that you do this podcast because so many of us we we get in this trap where where we feel like we're alone, especially if we're not part of a bigger group and we don't reach out to other colleagues and we don't reach out to other resources like this podcast. Man, there's so much stuff out there right now. Really, there's more content than you can ever possibly digest. But what's cool about it you know, but what's cool about it is you can pick and choose. And so if you're in the chamber industry and you really want to to get better at what you do, listening to podcasts like this and then the other resources I talked about earlier, it's easy to it's easy to do. There's no excuse for you not to to to do that. And so I don't care how scared you are about it, it doesn't hurt to to just behind the scenes do the research, listen to stuff like this, read some plans and learn about it. And if you do that, well, maybe in a year, maybe in two years. Maybe you're ready to to go talk to your board about it and I just I would love to help.
39:23.852 Brandon Burton
Yeah. And that absolutely you got to pick and choose, otherwise you get too overwhelmed. And even on the podcast here, if you go back in the past episodes, you can see the show titles and pick and choose the ones that may be relevant to what you're, you know, need to learn more about, you know, in your current situation. No doubt. And and you don't need to go back and listen to all, you know, the forty past ones. I mean, it's great if you do, but pick those ones that will be most relevant and resonate the most with you at this moment. Yeah.
39:52.62 Henry Florsheim
Absolutely.
39:53.976 Brandon Burton
But Henry, thank you for spending time with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. where can listeners connect with you if they have any questions or if they wanted to get that copy of the strategic plan or you had already mentioned your Facebook connections, but is are there other ways they can reach out to you? Yeah.
40:12.408 Henry Florsheim
Absolutely. And and I mean that about reaching out to me on Facebook, but also my email address is Henry at Wichita Falls Chamber dot com. And send me a note anytime our the number at our office is nine four zero seven two three two seven four one. I'm happy to chat. I'm also on LinkedIn, but I really don't know what the heck's going on there. So I I log into LinkedIn maybe a couple of times a month to click yes to connections. Yeah. our marketing director's trying to push us to get more engaged there and then I think Twitter's gonna have to be next, but man, I just
40:47.512 Brandon Burton
You know, run out of time and you gotta pick and choose. take your own advice.
40:52.302 Henry Florsheim
There's so much out there. And so yeah, absolutely. You gotta pick and choose and prioritize. And so yeah, call me at the office, send me an email, reach out to me on Facebook. I it doesn't matter to me. If you've got some questions, I'd love to chat. I would share our strategy with you, both the economic development plan and the chamber strategy. And yeah, I'd love to chat.
41:15.266 Brandon Burton
That's great. So we'll get all that updated in the show notes, which can be found at chamberchap podcast dot com slash episode forty. And Henry again, thank you so much for spending time with us today. It was a pleasure visiting with you.
41:27.724 Henry Florsheim
My pleasure. Thanks for the invitation.
41:32.662 Brandon Burton
If you are a Chamber Professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast, new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you're finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.