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Brandon Burton (00:01.262)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and here on the podcast I introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Today’s guest is Cindy Williams, CEO of the Cartersville-Bartow County Chamber of Commerce, where she works every day to build a stronger business community. With more than 20 years of chamber leadership experience, Cindy’s passionate about bringing people together to solve problems.
Help local businesses, develop future leaders, and strengthen the workforce. Her collaborative approach has helped create meaningful partnerships and opportunities that support long-term economic growth throughout Bartow County. Cindy is a Georgia certified chamber executive, a graduate of Leadership Georgia, the Institute for Organization Management, and the Georgia Academy for Economic Development. She’s also served in leadership roles across the state, including as past chair of the Georgia Association of Chamber Executives.
Cindy, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening and if you would share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.
Cindy Williams (01:15.616)
Okay. Well thank you, Brandon. What an honor to be asked to be on your podcast.
It’s great to be in the company of many other chamber executives. And as I’ve listened to a few of your other other episodes, I find that it’s quite helpful, of course, to listen to what others are doing and to get inspiration within the industry. So I’m sure we all, I speak on behalf of all of us in the industry. Thank you for what you’re doing to put good content out there for us to lean on each other in a new way and learn from each other. Yeah, so I grew up in North Georgia and really my background is marketing.
That’s what I studied marketing specifically in the business space. But like so many others, never ever dreamed I’d end up in the chamber world because who knew what that was, you know, when you’re in college. But landed my first job also in the northeastern part of Georgia, and then just really fell in love with it. And it’s really been my entire career. Did a few internships and things otherwise to gain some like event experience and different things. But something fun about me is chamber.
Work is all I have ever done for a professional career. So 20 years now doing that, and it’s all I’ve ever known from two different chambers.
Brandon Burton (02:29.74)
I’m always curious. Out of college to entering the chamber world, how did that transition happen? How did the opportunity present itself?
Cindy Williams (02:37.439)
Yeah, so I undergrad as I said was marketing. I did have an MBA and when I started doing my job search back closer to I’d moved back in with my parents, you know, because I didn’t have a job lined up as soon as I graduated. And my dad as I’m just exploring, really not even looking in the same area because to me success looked like going somewhere else, right? It was not gonna be next to my hometown. But at that time in that region, there were three chamber positions that were open and my
Dad came home one day, he had been talking to someone out in the community and said she should think about you know the chamber world. So I asked the question, what do they do? and looked into it. And it was honestly the event side of chamber that intrigued me because I always thought I would do event marketing. So, like so many, that’s what I saw and that’s what I knew of Chamber. But then as I applied and the one position, you know, it was offered to me, I realized how fun is it that I get to use all aspects of my business degree.
not just marketing, which was certainly a big piece of it in the community that I was in because they were heavy tourism. And so I think that’s probably why they selected me for that role because of the tourism marketing piece. But as my career has gone on and of course transitioned to Cartersville and Bartow County, I do honestly love that all aspects of business I get to dabble in in some way.
Brandon Burton (03:59.867)
Yeah, no, that’s great. I know there’s a lot of chambers out there thinking, can we get rid of all the events? And you’re like, Yes, pretty well. That’s right. That’s right. So before we dive into the topic though, tell us a little bit more about the Cartersville Bartow County Chamber to help give some perspective, the size of the chamber, staff, budget, scope of work, just to kind of set up the conversation.
Cindy Williams (04:05.069)
I’m gonna help with that. That’s what we’re gonna talk about today.
Cindy Williams (04:22.891)
Yeah, perfect. So our community we serve the entirety of Bartow County, which is in the northwest part of Georgia. And so it’s about a hundred and twenty thousand in population as far as community size. That translates to us. We just surpassed the 1,000 member mark. So we just had a big celebration. Yeah, thank you. We’re super excited about that. revenue, we’re just over, or budget size, just over a million dollars each year. And so staff is six.
Brandon Burton (04:40.506)
Congratulations. Yeah.
Cindy Williams (04:52.815)
Total of six individuals, but that basically means that each department has one person. So, you know, while we are fortunate, I know there are many chambers out there who would love to have six. we do still, I I would say, you know, we have to do a lot with a little since we only have currently just just one person running each sector of our chambers. So yeah, that’s us.
Brandon Burton (05:14.17)
Yeah, very good. That definitely does help to get us ready for our discussion today. And and like you said, having six staff. you know, some listening might be super jealous to be able to have six staff and and yet you still feel like you’re understaffed because that’s just the nature of chamber work, right? There’s always the bigger, more auditious thing to go after. So very good. Well today we’re gonna focus our conversation around how things can be simplified.
Cindy Williams (05:24.877)
Yeah.
Cindy Williams (05:31.691)
That’s right. It’s so true. That’s right.
Brandon Burton (05:42.725)
Within the chamber space, which I think for those listening, their ears are probably perking up because they would love to have things maybe just slow down a step and be a little bit more simple to manage everything. So I’m excited to dive into this conversation as soon as I get back from this quick break.
All right, Cindy, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, today we’re talking about simplification in the chamber space. So
I’m sure there’s been a know several sources, things that have come across your your desk, your plate, your mind space to make this topic be something that stands out to you, where you’re like, you know what, and let’s pay attention to this, let’s see what lessons there are to learn here. What are some of those key things that are standing out to you when it comes to simplifying things in the chamber space?
Cindy Williams (06:34.338)
Yeah.
Well, I’ll start with you’re exactly right that I d I’ve had resources, right? I’ve I’ve read up on this, I’ve learned on this, and and really all that we talk about today is gonna be based on a book that I read. It’s called Why Simple Wins, and it’s by Lisa Bodell. So that way, anybody listening, I highly encourage check out the book. If you like what you hear today, it’s gonna give you really a lot of resources in that book. But it I’d asked for that book for Christmas one year because I’m a person that just genuinely
Loves self development, professional development, learning, and I’ve learned through my career that some of the best ideas and practices that put into place come from my reading of this kind of content. And so when I read the book, basically it so resonated with me as I know it will for many in that we live in a world of addition, right? And so we’re all we’re constantly stressed for time, and how do we fit everything into our busy schedules? And what happens is we keep
Adding to our plate. And we think that’s glorious and we think that’s wonderful and it makes us look like heroes and we’re that’s right, productivity and we’re multitasking and we’re doing all the things. But the way the author presents it is there is something beautiful about subtraction, right? And it is so true that at the end of the day, when you think about subtracting things from your schedule, it allows you to then focus on the things that matter, to have joy in the work that you’re doing.
Brandon Burton (07:40.57)
Productivity, right? Yeah.
Cindy Williams (08:04.959)
To pursue the activities that matter the most to you and support the mission of the organization. So there’s a lot of personal satisfaction. And really, when you even when you say productivity, productivity can go up because you’re not so bombarded and inundated with the 500 million things that are keeping you from doing what really matters, right? So genuinely, probably so far you’re like, yes, yes, Cindy, that’s what everybody says, and I’ve heard these things before. But I can
Say that the toolkit and resources that are provided within the book genuinely helped me to start making changes in that regard. And so what it asks you to do is really take an inventory and ask the right questions: what are you doing that is consuming the most time? Just period. What tasks are you doing that are consuming the most time? And there is a full diagnostic chart that is provided that you can go through to identify.
The areas of the business, right, that seem to be occupying a lot of time or not have simplicity in their processes. And that will help you get a framework of is it our communications where we are complex and we’re adding more things to that than really need to be? Is it perhaps in our strategy? Is it in our HR practices? Because even though I know people would say we don’t even have, you know, an HR department, your chamber exec is typically, you know, HR.
As well as legal, as well as all the things. So, yes, while the book takes the approach of any business, it’s not specific to chambers, you can certainly dial that down just a bit. So, I love the process is that it’ll ask you, What are you currently doing? And does that add value? And then from there, you can look and say, Okay, what could we do? How could we either simplify this process? How could we cut this process, or perhaps even
Even outsource the process. There’s a normal, a lot of different ways, of course, that you can go about that. So that’s kind of the framework of how it starts. And I’ll add this, Brandon, that what we did, I read the book myself. I was inspired, and so we took a day with our team after it was not necessary for them to read the entirety of it. But I took a day and we, you know, got somebody to run the office, we sat down and we went through the entirety of the questions.
Cindy Williams (10:34.445)
Right. And said again, each person from their own framework was able to say what types of things are occupying the majority of my time, what types of things do I not enjoy doing, right? Because in especially in smaller chambers, we are agile enough that we can sort of move things around to somebody who maybe their strength is more in that area, such that that adds to productivity and doesn’t overly complicate the processes. And yeah, we went through that.
And we had conversation and dialogue once everybody had a moment to really reflect and think about what this looks like. And then we talked about each of those areas. So it was open-ended. Put anything down. It doesn’t even matter if it seems super far-fetched. Just write it down and then let’s talk about it. Because with a team that sees it from all different angles, it was amazing what people said, either we don’t even need why are you doing that? I didn’t even know you were doing that. Why are you doing that? You don’t even need to do that. Or, my goodness, I’m all
Brandon Burton (11:31.672)
I’m doing that too. Yeah.
Cindy Williams (11:32.927)
Yes, that’s the other thing. Or I why are you doing that? Because I’m doing that. Or we’re going two different ways. We could, you know, pull those together. So so many cool areas of opportunity by going through that process.
Brandon Burton (11:46.427)
So much value there. I think about so recently I did a presentation about creating a chamber flywheel. And one of the things that we talked about, so I likened it to like when you pull the string on a lawnmower, right? There’s a flywheel in that, that that effort should get that lawnmower started. And then there’s a system within there that keeps it running, right? So so many things that we do at the chamber are that first action of pulling that string.
And when you think about how many of those actions are just wearing you out, that are just wearing out your staff, you’re not getting the return on that effort that you’re putting in there. And it’s like when it when it’s not a well-tuned system and you just keep pulling that string over and over and over again, it just wears you out. But if you have a system that goes along with that effort that you’re putting in, then i it should amplify. You know, whatever you’re doing should be amplified through.
Cindy Williams (12:40.663)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Burton (12:44.246)
systems, which I’m a a huge proponent of integrating systems, which you may touch on that as well as part of this with figuring out what needs to be subtracted and simplified. So I love that you got your team together. You go through these questions. You’re able to see, yep, why are you even doing that? I’m doing that too. Let’s simplify like that alone has a ton of value just right away in that I’m gonna say brainstorming. That’s probably not the right word, but
Cindy Williams (12:48.673)
Yes.
Cindy Williams (12:57.911)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Cindy Williams (13:06.253)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brandon Burton (13:11.726)
Just getting in the same room and talking through all those questions. what’s kind of the next iteration after getting the team in the room together?
Cindy Williams (13:20.79)
Yeah.
Yeah, so what we did was we formulated our list, right? Some things that we could easily just make decisions on or some things we needed to go back and look at. And I I really if if you’re good with it, let’s go ahead and dig into like what some of those things were, right? Because I think this will resonate with chamber folks too. So one example was at the time our membership director what what was sucking up the majority of her time, right, was ribbon cuttings because we’re in a growing community. You heard the size already, and she said, by the time I go
Early to the ribbon cutting, we celebrate with the business. Ours were kind of over the lunch to hour, just so you know, people could more easily get there. And then she stays till the end. She’s like, I and we’re doing two at least a week, if not more, in some cases, trying to limit them to two. But she said, I’m spending so much time doing that, and then going back to the business to take their photo. I mean, it’s genuinely, and you heard me say she’s a department of one, and so that’s it. All the time that she’s dedicating to that is taken away from.
All the other tasks of recruiting members and retaining members, you know, otherwise. So we said, okay, let’s think about this. How could we make that time like what would what processes or what things could we put in place to help with that? So the first thing we said is, why what about a joint ribbon cutting, right? And I don’t maybe others are already doing this and we were just like behind the eight ball or something, but we knew that we had a lot of home based businesses, right, that didn’t have a location that they could host their ribbon.
Cutting. We also felt like people take advantage of a ribbon cutting because in our case there was no additional fee to do that. You just it was included with your membership. So, side note, my first thing was let’s start charging because that way if people don’t want it, then you know they they’re not gonna pay for it. But if it’s given and they just say, sure, I’ll do it because it’s free, why not? But my board didn’t that’s right, that’s right. I will say my board didn’t quite go for that.
Brandon Burton (15:12.706)
And extra busy work. Yeah.
Cindy Williams (15:18.761)
And so we haven’t gotten there yet. They said, No, no, we’re still gonna contend. I said, Okay, pair and no I still think you should recommend it to your board, see what they say. Yours may be different than mine. But
Brandon Burton (15:23.022)
Good idea though.
Cindy Williams (15:30.698)
If not that, then we realized we do have businesses that quite candidly they don’t want to host a party. They don’t want to provide the food and beverage. They don’t want to pull together. I mean, we were genuinely do the guest list, but they also invite their people. They just want the photo, right? Like they just want the social media love. This is what we figured out. And so we offered two different alternatives to what we call our traditional ribbon cutting, which is what we were doing with everyone previously. The first is a joint ribbon cutting, such that every couple of months,
Months we batch, you know, and it doesn’t have to be a home-based business, but we oftentimes find that it is somebody who doesn’t have brick and mortar in our community. And we go around the room and they have a little table set up and they talk about their business, and we have a backdrop, and everybody has their moment to cut the ribbon and snap their photo. And right there, we have six to eight ribbon cuttings that would have been probably 12 to 16 hours worth of time that are condensed to about two hours worth of time. So brilliant. The other thing that we offer
Was you know just a self-led ribbon cutting, not hasn’t quite been as popular, but it’s available to where if you don’t want to have your ribbon cutting at the times that we set, you know, for our ambassadors to show up, then you can just come and get the ribbon and scissors, get your staff a photo. We’ll still post it, we’ll still submit it to the newspaper. But chambers staff doesn’t even have to be there. You just do it on your own time and send us this stuff. And honestly, we’ve had a few people take advantage of that because again, they did not.
care about the party, they just wanted the media attention. So that was a good example of time saving and good for the customer, good for the member to give them options.
Brandon Burton (17:13.944)
I love that there’s you know multiple ways to get to that simplification with that example with the ribbon cutting. personally I like the idea of paying for it. I mean it doesn’t even have to be a big fee. It could be very minimal, but you just you pay it if you wanna if you want the the service. but the the idea of of batching and having that group ribbon cutting, because also you think of the time of all the people that are taking time out of their day to come to the ribbon cuttings, and if they can come and be there for eight businesses all at once.
Cindy Williams (17:23.767)
Did you? I did you? Yeah.
Brandon Burton (17:43.701)
and get to know them all like that’s a huge savings for them. I imagine you probably get better turnout for rhythm cuttings when you can leverage it that way. So a lot of value in that simplification step. Were were there other examples that came out through your this discussion with your staff?
Cindy Williams (17:56.275)
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yes, yes, yes, yes. So that’s a good example of programmatically something that changed, right? internally, communications is always a big one, and I think this would resonate with anyone, right? Is our simplification in our communications. And so we looked at well and reporting, so I’ll kind of tag those hand in hand. one individual that she runs a lot of reports for actually for our CPA, so for our monthly reporting, she would
Was running reports, exporting to Excel, sorting, pulling this, doing that, all the things. I mean, I said, How much time is that taking you each month to pull that one report? And she’s like, It probably takes about an hour to do all of the things and finagle it to get it, you know, to where it needs to be. Simultaneously, our business operations manager was also running some reports, and so going to the CPA, she just had like three and four reports, and yes, there was some overlap and all that, but again, sitting down and talking.
About the process when our digital media director, which sounds weird, but she’s very techie, so she was pulling some of the reports. That was her, like, this is just like eating up a ton of my time. And she’s she literally said in the meeting, I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it, but this is what came to mind. Like, I I know we still we just have to run the reports, right? Well, once we started talking about it, we realized our database system, there is a single report that you can press a button that would do all the things that both employees were doing.
Cindy Williams (19:33.536)
And when we send it to our CPA, like, are we crazy? Or would this one report that requires us to do absolutely nothing except run the report would work for what she needs? And she’s like, Yes. And then it’s easier for her, and there’s less mistakes because again, she’s not pulling from multiple resources. So I go back to so much of it is I really think dedicating the time to the conversation just to pull out those things that may even
Brandon Burton (19:51.044)
Yeah.
Cindy Williams (20:03.459)
even seem wild at like there’s no way we could ever do anything about this. But I guarantee you when you put heads together from your team, you’ll get some really cool ideas of like, yeah, there’s a better way.
Brandon Burton (20:14.756)
Yeah, I love that the answer is right there. And you just push a button and you get what you need. As you’re describing it all to me, I’m thinking, you know, AI can do this. AI, AI can, you know, pull all those reports in like 30 seconds. And you could probably even set it up with a timer. So, you know, the same date every month, the report’s delivered and you get you know everything you’re looking for. But so much to leverage, you know, when you think when you add AI into the equation of simplification, it opens up a ton of opportunities.
Cindy Williams (20:18.184)
Yes yes
Cindy Williams (20:23.658)
Yeah.
That’s right.
Cindy Williams (20:35.253)
So true. So true. Yeah.
Cindy Williams (20:41.889)
That’s right.
Which admittedly when we started this process, I’m not saying AI didn’t exist, but it was prior to really that being adopted, and we’re still, you know, learning how to adopt and things to do as well. But yes, it’ll be it will be, has been game changer in a lot of ways, you know. But I think also you have to be careful with those things because technology, we think it always makes things easier, but those are the things you really have to pause and say, does it does it really make it easier? Like especially with the human element of crafting and
Brandon Burton (20:48.75)
Early. Yeah.
Cindy Williams (21:12.955)
Yes, the answer is a hundred percent yes in many, many, many cases. But you also have to be careful with technology that it’s not overly complicating and you’re adding more human time to polish and craft and you know, do that sort of thing besides just making it your life easier and more streamlined.
Brandon Burton (21:27.812)
Yeah. Yep. So even for the brainstorming aspect, like you got your team together, so much value in getting them together and and see the holes and see the overlap. But I’m curious it have you taken that and brainstormed it into to AI and be like, here’s certain systems, here’s where we’re seeing some shortcomings, or we like to simplify this process just to see what suggestions are that are there.
Cindy Williams (21:52.428)
Ooh no, but that’s a great idea. That is a great idea and something that we absolutely need to do. Yeah.
Brandon Burton (22:01.06)
I think early on with AI I was like, you’ve got to be really careful, right? Because you didn’t know like it would hallucinate a lot. And now I think it it’s getting so much better that it’ll even just for the the ideation of processes and so forth can really be helpful. So very cool.
Cindy Williams (22:05.291)
Yeah. Yeah.
Cindy Williams (22:14.443)
That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. And I you know, going back a little bit to that communication piece, s it’s very some very, very simple things that we we actually killed our staff meeting. And some people may be like, You did what? But when we discuss I know, right.
Brandon Burton (22:32.056)
Yeah.
Cindy Williams (22:33.803)
Like there’s probably books out there that would say don’t kill your staff meeting, you know. But we we met once a week and it was on Monday mornings. And again, when it when people are honest and transparent and leadership says through the process, you need to say what you want to say. Nothing is off the table. I give you permission, whether it’s about me, the organization, this is all about a new culture for us. And so yeah, somebody said, Yeah, staff meetings are horrible. Like we spend half the time just chit-chatting from the weekend.
Brandon Burton (22:37.22)
Great.
Cindy Williams (23:03.747)
You know, I’m ready to go on a Monday morning. Like, I want to get some stuff done. So, what we did, we killed the staff meeting, and now we have team huddles. So, we don’t want to lose that connectivity to who’s doing what and what’s happening in the organization. But when somebody has an update on a project, let’s say, or introducing a project, we’ll do a huddle. We usually put it on the calendar for 15 minutes. It sometimes can go a little bit over, but those are fast and they’re focused, right? And it just is it pops up when it pops up, it’s not like you have a stand.
Meeting that you may have nothing to talk about. We went to staff doing some general reporting, basically in the membership and event space that requires a little bit more regular communication. They just send out like a brief report to the staff. You know, here’s what’s going on, so we don’t stay out of the loop of that. And we also introduced, I mean, we had Teams, but we probably weren’t using Microsoft Teams, but we probably weren’t using it to its max capacity. So we kind of trained on, look, if you just have a quick something,
Just put it in teams and be done. You know, that’s one less email to process and don’t feel obligated to reply. Thank you to every email. It’s just more emails to consume, right? Don’t go back and forth. Just God, you know, we know, especially internally, you don’t have to acknowledge every email or say thank you to every email. Permission to not reply.
Brandon Burton (24:20.708)
Yeah.
That’s right. Yeah, that that’s a a pet peeve, even in a text message or something, it’s like you give a reply, someone is seeking answer, you give a reply, and then it’s the thank you or the thumbs up and the extra and meanwhile your phone’s going crazy with all these other things. It’s like just eliminate the extra, you know, that that tail end of things. so yeah, getting rid of the the team meeting and I love the the idea of using technology, doing the team the the huddles, and there’s nothing to say that if
Cindy Williams (24:36.301)
Right.
That’s right.
Brandon Burton (24:52.992)
something bigger comes up and you need to gather the team, you can still do it. It just doesn’t have to be every Monday morning, right? So
Cindy Williams (24:59.051)
That’s right. That’s right.
Brandon Burton (25:01.954)
Are there any other valuable lessons that you got out of the the process of of simplifying?
Cindy Williams (25:08.543)
Yeah, I mean I think
We there were other examples, right, of things that we transitioned. the the major kind of overarching thing I would say, because you know, we started out talking about events and how we do so many events and and you know, the you do have to be a little bit bold. Some of the examples that I’ve given today are very internal to the organization. Those are quite candidly, I understand, a little bit easier because they’re not affecting anyone else, right? It’s just internally and we all agree and we all give the thumbs up and we’re ready to go. When it comes to programs.
Programs and events of the organization. Yes, understand some of those things are a little bit more difficult. There might be some different layers of governance and depending on how their chamber is structured, you know, what you have to go through. But I would say it takes courage and it takes boldness. And truly, if you keep in mind that doing less of what is just keeping you air quotes busy, then you can do more of what matters. And I know that’s a message we hear in Chamber of Professional Development all the time.
But it is true and it applies to programs and events as well. We we quick example was our youth leadership program. It was I think it was seven months in totality, seven or eight months, full day with the students. Our survey results were saying they were just bored to death for most of the time. Like they they felt like they were just sitting in classroom. So we from that we took a hard look. We didn’t kill the program, right? It’s not always you have to kill the program.
But we shortened the length. We made it five months instead of seven. We do half days instead of full days. And we’re winning. Like they love it. We’re able to occupy their brains. You know, we’re doing some really cool things. We’re not just filling dead space or whatever. And and it gave time back to staff coordinating the program, which in this case really was more of a byproduct, but it’s a win-win-win for everybody that’s involved. So, this yes, this process can really make you.
Cindy Williams (27:11.087)
You think about your programs and events as well. And I I truly encourage, you’ve got to measure those. Are they providing value? Are people and are people showing up? Because if they’re not, they’re not providing value. And if five people or ten people are showing up and that’s you know two percent of your membership, then you probably want to rethink that as well and give yourself space to innovate with new things.
Brandon Burton (27:34.683)
Somewhere in the history of mankind, I guess somebody thought we need to exchange time to learn things. Like you talk about this l this youth leadership program. And it’s like you gotta get them in a classroom, you’ve got to spend so much time, and we overlook, you know, the value, the impact that’s being delivered in that time. And oftentimes you can deliver that in a fraction of the time and then have them apply it, right? Get out and they’re gonna learn so much more as they’re getting out there and applying it. So
Cindy Williams (27:46.653)
Yeah.
Cindy Williams (28:01.485)
So much more.
Brandon Burton (28:03.724)
Love that example. well Cindy, as we start to wrap things up, I wanted to ask you, what kind of tip or action item might you leave for the listener who’s trying to take their chamber up to the next level?
Cindy Williams (28:05.111)
Yeah.
Cindy Williams (28:18.027)
Yep. Yeah. I’m a I’m a I’m a firm believer in this subtraction method that it will go a long way. It’s not always about more. That leads to burnout, that leads to doing things that are not adding value to the organization. And so what I would say in this case is first and foremost buy the book or
Look it up again, it’s Why Simple Wins by Lisa Bodell. there’s some great videos online and stuff too. If you just wanna, you know, get an overarching look at what that looks like. But again, I remind folks there’s a there are tools and resources. There’s a toolkit actually provided within the content that can lead you in that space. And I just say pull the team together, just do it, just take a half, you don’t even have to be a full day, just just take it could literally probably be in a staff meeting. There are some short and sweet ways to get started.
and then you will be amazed at the areas that are very complex in your organization that are bogging people down and causing them strain. or you yourself. I mean this applies to all of us and yeah, I just I I say go for it.
Brandon Burton (29:23.62)
I’m even thinking as you give that explanation that even putting it out maybe a week ahead of time and say, Hey, we’re gonna have a discussion about this, think about it during the week and then when we get together as a staff, the the ideas are flown, right?
Cindy Williams (29:33.793)
Yes.
Absolutely, yes.
Brandon Burton (29:39.31)
Well, Cindy, I like asking everyone I have on the show about the future of Chambers. So I’ll ask you, how do you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward?
Cindy Williams (29:48.739)
Yeah.
Get excited about it, and I know different chambers do different things, if you will. We all have a general mission to serve business, but that looks and feels very different. I’m excited about it because I tr what I see is if chambers of commerce are really listening to the conversations in their community, listening for pain points of their businesses, you know, that what what’s happening, the world of business is always evolving. Like, and so if we
We evolve with them and we’re always coming up with solutions to problems or challenges that the business owner is either saying or not saying. That’s a big part of it. What are they not saying that you hear you hear that and you say, I can solve that for them? They don’t, they’re not even asking me to do it, but I can do that. And I think it’s exciting because as long as we continue to innovate, make space for innovation in our organization to answer those challenges. I think the future of chambers is bright, but I do think.
That we have to stop, and events is kind of the number one. We have to stop doing things just for the sake of doing them, and we have to stop just putting on hundreds of events and programs if that’s not truly what the community needs. Do some of that, I’m not saying kill all of them, do what needs to be done, but make sure everything in that benefits list is adding true value to the business community.
Brandon Burton (31:14.862)
Love that. Love it. well Cindy, before I let you go, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you. Where would you point them and what would be the best way to connect?
Cindy Williams (31:27.052)
Yeah.
So again, it’s our chamber is the Cartersville Bartow Chamber. to connect with me, obviously can reach out. my email is cindy@cartersvillechamber.com . I love conversations about this stuff if you can’t tell. So, you know, if somebody’s out there and they’re struggling a little bit or want to kind of bounce ideas off of each other, I learn from other folks as well. Hey, even more so, if somebody has something to add to this that I can take from it, call me, let me know. I’m always on the journey to simplify and do things.
Brandon Burton (31:42.976)
Yeah.
Cindy Williams (31:58.223)
you know that are more valuable. So would love to have conversations with anybody interested in this space.
Brandon Burton (32:03.77)
Very good. We’ll make sure to get that in our show notes and make it nice and simple to connect. But I appreciate you, Cindy, for setting aside some time and joining us here on the podcast to share some of these lessons that you’ve learned that you’ve been able to implement at your chamber to help simplify and and I’ll say add more value to everything that you’re doing. I think there’s so much benefit in that. And just thank you for for joining us and sharing that with the audience today.
Cindy Williams (32:30.378)
It’s been fun. Thank you for having me.
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