Community Pain Points with Jason Camis

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

Episode 56 — Community Pain Points with Jason Camis
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Jason Camis
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.842 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.
00:14.274 Jason Camis
And now your host. He loves having his kids help him with his co cast. He's my g dad, Brandon Burton.
00:24.77 Brandon Burton
Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. This is Brandon Burton, your host, and you're tuning in here for episode 56 of Chamber Chat Podcast. Today we have Jason Camis with us. He's the president of the Gardner Edgerton Chamber of Commerce in Kansas. Jason was hired in late 2014 to rebuild the chamber, one that had lost half its membership and its nonprofit tax status along the way. During his short tenure, he's increased membership, balanced the budget, and successfully re-energized the business community. Approaching his role as a non-traditional chamber executive, he eschews wearing a shirt and tie in favor of a brewer's shirt and spends most of his time pontificating about the future of chambers in the 21st century. His background includes running a CVB, a YMCA, and his own coffee shop, among other things. He lives in Ottawa, Kansas with his wife, Molly, and two daughters, Gabriella and Luciana, where he's attempted unsuccessfully to create a second career as a sweet potato farmer. He serves on the board of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Organization Management. He's a chair of ACCE's Hometown Chamber Council and currently serves as program chair for the Mako Chamber Conference. Today's discussion we will be focusing on community pain points. and kind of what that means and and w how that's related to your chamber. And we'll get into that discussion as soon as we get back from hearing 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 Swipeit for all of your credit card processing needs. Swipe It has a unique affinity program that 1.
02:28.13 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.com slash C C and get swiping with swipe it. So Jason, we're back. I wanted to welcome you to Chamber Chat Podcast here on the show. And if you would, 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.
03:05.794 Jason Camis
Excellent. Thanks, Brandon. glad to be here today. And yes, Jason Camus, Gardner, Edgerton Chamber of Commerce. And you know, the my bio and the sweet potato farmer thing probably pulled my friends both kick out of it because I grew up in Detroit. And when I moved to Kansas, I thought, you know, I want to live on land, I wanna live out in the country. My wife thought I was crazy. I said, We're gonna we're gonna buy a tractor. So I went out and bought a tractor, you know. I could plow the ground and that was entertaining the first time I tried that. Other produce over the years. And it was fun with my daughters when they were young. We tried to sell we did kind of market farming. Farmers would say that's a garden. Garden people in the city who had a garden would say, Wow, that's a pretty big farm. And we were kind of in the middle. And you know, we had some really good sweet potato crops for a few years and then you know, things kinda with when it's hot and dry it they like it and things kinda went south for us and the last couple of years, you know, predators have slaughtered our chickens and we haven't been able to get out in the field in March and April because it's so wet and so we've kind of just written it off and now I just have this really expensive tractor sitting in my garage. You know. Maybe one day I'll do it again, or maybe I'll point where I've tried it. It's time to move back to the city.
04:31.762 Brandon Burton
Yeah, I'm just picturing you out there on a tractor and and you were serious. Like you took a serious stab at at being a sweet potato farmer. That's pretty awesome.
04:40.92 Jason Camis
We actually sweet potato we grew weighed six and a half pounds. Was about three inches taller than a standard bottle of wine. And we tried to take it. We did fly with it at Thanksgiving one year and took it to Michigan. It fed twelve people. one sweet potato. And the the the security TSA, they they thought it was a ham. They thought it was
04:45.513 Brandon Burton
my goodness.
05:06.722 Jason Camis
And they made me unwrap it, take it out, and they're like, Wow, that's the largest sweet potato we've ever seen. And so entertaining. I've got some good pictures with it. And but it was a fun time, you know, for a few years.
05:19.65 Brandon Burton
That is awesome. You know, I was thinking the, you know, you go to Costco and their sweet potatoes are huge, but they're not the size of a ham. I mean, that's that's pretty impressive. well, if you could share with us a little bit about your chamber there, the Gardner Edison chamber, the size, location, budget, just so we can all relate a little bit better to your perspective as we get into the discussion today.
05:41.934 Jason Camis
Sure. So our chambers located, we're the last two suburban communities in the Kansas City metro area on the southwest side. So we're in Johnson County, which is kind of the the big economic engine in Kansas for a county. our community sizes, so it's a very unique Gardner is about 23,000 people, and Edgerton's about two thousand. both have approxim a workforce of approximately about 5,000. So Edgerton is actually home to Logistics Park Kansas City, which is a yeah less than 10-year-old logistics park. Right now there's about 15 million square feet of warehouse and logistics space built there. And with a probably a build out of 25 or 30 million. So we have major, major companies, but only 2,000 people live there. They just got a Dollar General, which is the first commercial or retail store it built there in 40 years. And then Gardner is kind of a bedroom community. So 23,000 people, but in 1990 only had 3,000 people. And the business community really hasn't kept up pace with residential development. And so we actually have a really small commercial base. I mean, it's we probably only have 300 businesses in the community. and which is really small compared to you know neighboring or more standalone communities. And so 80% of our workforce commutes out, and 80% of our workforce commutes in. So it's we are definitely it's a unique community, it's very young, average age is 32. And when it's when I say 32, it's not like living in you know the urban core where it's a lot of young professionals that are single or just married. Here if you're thir there's nowhere to live here if you're thirty two and singles. So most of the people who live here are thirty two with young families. You know, it's a lot of a lot of times a starter community, starter home community. And so, we really try to build a chamber back up in a way that, you know, befits the community and that change in demographic and, you know, it goes to things like we don't do after hours because at five o'clock people come home and their kids are in school and that they have sports and activities and
08:04.406 Jason Camis
don't want to come to after hours. You know, our activ they and they aren't going to come to a meeting at seven or seven thirty in the morning. It just doesn't happen. You know, so it is a it sounds funny to say it's kind of a nine to four thirty chamber. and we do evening events and weekends, but when we do everything we do is family friendly. you know, we tell people all the time, bring your kids. If that's what allows you to come, we want you to be part of the business community and and that and be successful. And so that's what we see here.
08:33.834 Brandon Burton
That's awesome. I love that you guys are paying attention to who your target is in the community or just and maybe not even so much the target, but just what the demographics are and really catering towards that to make the chamber successful, which I think is a good segue into the the discussion topic for today of community pain points. So if you came with your experience to the Gardner Edgerton chamber and said, you know, this is how I've seen other chambers run, this is how we're going to do it here. How would that look?
09:05.516 Jason Camis
Well, it would probably it would probably be odd for you know, somebody f coming from the outside now would following me would probably be like, Wow, this is really interesting. Like, you know, and it and it took there were certain areas where we had to, you know, maybe massage the change a little bit. But, you know, like one of the first things we looked at was, you know, about being inclusive. We, you know, we wanted to be inclusive and we recognized that, you know, I I actually read an article recently that talked about country clubs. And how millennials don't join country clubs like you know our my parents' generation might have. And what they were saying is that country clubs are finding that the millennials and the younger Gen Z and that will will they'll use the country club, but they're not gonna they don't wanna pay like that exorbitant entry fee and and so forth. And so what they're finding is you know what, we have to change our model from you gotta pay to get in to we can make money off of you know, make money and make a profit off of people who play our golf course, but they're not necessarily going to pay, you know, five thousand dollar entry fees. And so we kind of look at it the same way. I mean, we we want people to come. We know we're here to serve the business community. And so we started with we're going to be inclusive. We and for us, a few things that means is we don't have non-member fees for any events. I should say we have probably one event that we do and it's it's a new event, which it'll change eventually. But so if you come to our annual dinner, yeah everybody pays the same price because it's the same price for the annual dinner. And our view is that events are a dime a dozen. We don't you don't need a chamber of commerce to go to a networking event. Every community's got dozens or hundreds of them every night of the week. And so we want people to come and attend and The more that are there, the more vibrant our chamber feels, and the more likely people are to say, I want to be part of this. And so then they do invest at a membership level or that. So rather than artificially trying to either keep people out by that additional or make an extra 10 bucks, we encourage more people to come. And I'd say most of our events we see 20% non-members at them. You know, some are, you know, fly by the seat of their pants businesses that'll be around for
11:23.832 Jason Camis
You know, a month and others are people who are coming to the community and they want to learn more and they feel very welcomed and and that's good for our businesses too, because the members who invest in our chambers, they didn't say, Jason, we want you to market us to in introduce us to other members. They said, Jason, we want you to market us to everybody you can. So to me, it would make sense on our end to bring more people together and create a a more vibrant culture.
11:53.974 Brandon Burton
That's so true. I love that idea of, you know, there's so many different networking opportunities. So at at the chamber level, why are you going to put a filter up and say, no, you can't come in? You know, go to one of those other things that it's not us. You know, be inclusive, bring them in and let them see and get on board with what the mission of the chamber is. So how do you and maybe it's a little bit off topic, but how do you take that opportunity bringing in these non chamber members to these events and to help get them on board with what the mission and purpose of the chamber is to where they want to join and be a part of it.
12:31.406 Jason Camis
Well, we see it a lot. I mean, we don't really I mean, I I would think that a lot of, you know, good chambers or most chambers, you know, first conversation you have with a business isn't typically gonna be, you wanna join the chamber. I mean, we we try to focus on their business, learn more about who they are, what makes them tick, what they're trying to get out of, you know, for their business, out of the community, that type of thing. introduce them, plug them in accordingly. we don't segment out and say, ooh, they're not a member. We'll only talk to them once or they can only come to one thing. And so you know, and then we, you know, we really spend some time just trying to understand them. And then we, you know, we I won't say we tailor every single membership approach, but we tailor a lot of our membership approaches because, you know, again, as we all know, members aren't coming in necessarily for You know, they're not all coming in for events, they're not all coming in for marketing opportunities. So we try to sell them based on what it is they're actually trying to get out of their investment in the chamber and connect them with whoever that is in the community.
13:40.414 Brandon Burton
All right. So with the topic of community pain points, what what about that topic? What so let me back up a little bit maybe. When I think of community pain points, I'm thinking of what are those problems in the community that you're trying to help solve as a chamber? from a business aspect, a business owner could say, you know, here's a problem in the business world. Let me create a product or a service to fill that void. And a chamber can do similar kind of a thing. So what were some of those pain points that you recognized in your community that has led to the way that you do business there at the Gardner Edgerton Chamber?
14:21.806 Jason Camis
Well, I think, you know, so we're when I said the types of businesses that are here. So we have major, major companies. We have two Amazon facilities here. Jet.com or Jet, which is a Walmart brand now. Kubota's North American distribution center for Kubota tractors is here. So we have some major big companies, and then like everybody else, we have you know, mom and pop coffee shops and small restaurants and real real estate and everything else. And so one of the things that we we try to do is figure out what are globally what are some of the issues they all face. for us, workforce is a big one. And then what are some, you know, and sometimes we'll segment them as well. So we know that a lot of our businesses, for instance, you know, struggle with marketing and even just the simple basics of marketing, like how do I use Facebook and not look like I'm an idiot. How do I f how do people find me on Google? you know, that type of thing. And so then what we said is, okay, let's create programs and services that can attack that. So I went out and taught myself and learned. I mean, I knew it a little bit, but I learned and went through Google's trainings to be a trusted verifier. And so I can verify and we can expedite the process for a new business getting It's Google listing, you know, just so it's found on Google Maps and they have a Google listing appropriately on the internet. And we tell them that's you know, if you're not going to do anything else, no website, no Facebook, I would start with Google and I'd probably start there anyways. And, you know, so we taught we learned that and then we started offering classes. And I was blown away because we get some locals who come, we'd get I mean, we had businesses drive for two hours because we were the only ones five years ago in this area offering that class. They wanted to learn more about it. And, you know, we got some membership investment. We opened it up. It was free. We offered it for free to anybody. And we probably sold two memberships at every one of the classes we offered, you know, and it wasn't our intent, but you know, they came afterwards like, wow, this is the type of stuff that you guys are doing for us. You know, it's kind of that give a gift up front.
16:42.746 Jason Camis
And and that that will pay dividends in the later on. And so that's kind of the way we looked at it. and for the big ones, the same would be, you know, so we have we try to break, you know, when people look at our our membership model, we have to be very clear, these are there are some things that are membership investment driven, but there are other things that we do for everybody. So if you want to post a job on our website, that is a member, you have to be a member. But I about once or twice a month will do a a Facebook post with, you know, 10 to 20 jobs from different employers. And I pick both members and non-members, big and small, from both our communities to share that. And you know, no one I've never once had anybody call me and say, my God, you posted one that was a member or wasn't a member. But what we get is we drive, you know, most of those posts are seen by five to ten thousand people. And so when companies that aren't members see it, they're like, wow, the chamber really has some good reach. And the other people are thinking that's good. And then selfishly for us, I mean, that boosts that that gives us an uptick in our algorithm. So the next thing I share the next day gets more exposure. So it's a win win all the way around. rather than thinking in a very compartmentalized idea of if I do this, I've gotta get money for it up front type thing.
18:10.368 Brandon Burton
Yeah. that's awesome. But I like both of those things you just addressed. But t tell me a little bit more about the Google Trusted Verifier. What as you were explaining that, it seems like that is a void in a lot of people's communities. And if a chamber could get on board and have somebody on staff that is a Google Trusted Verify, that's a great service that they can offer to their business community. So what what did that involve to to help solve that community pain point? What did you have to do?
18:39.416 Jason Camis
Not much at all. I mean, I went through a couple classes. I took, you know, I signed up. You can sign up to do it. And I would be happy if anybody w wanted to contact me, I'd be happy to share a referral link so they could go in and sign up. and you know, it's through the it's sometimes it's the Google My Business, they change the names a lot, GYBO, and that. But you can become and you can do an expedited verification, which is actually online, and they they've changed the rules a little bit to be more efficient. but you know, it it just started in a way that I could submit a document. And if I was sitting here with you and you're and we were doing it in person, I could submit it and you'd have your listing in two to three days rather than waiting for that postcard that might or might not show up at it some given time, or you might see. I learned a little bit more. And then now they offer, you know, they've they've evolved to offering workshops. I think they have a webinar. four or five times a year about different topics, advertising, Google ads, Google Maps, all the different parts of it. But it's free to do. And, you know, so we've offered that as free. And what we did is three, four years ago, we actually added it to our onboarding checklist. And so when we meet with a new member, that's one of the we'll do it for anybody, but it's on our onboarding checklist. So if you call and join the chamber, which many businesses join and We've never talked to before and they're like, Hey, we've heard we should join the chamber. So they call, we sit down and do their onboarding. We have it on there and we go in and we check it and make sure they're verified. If they are, we tell them good job. If they're not, we walk them through the steps, tell them what they need to do. And you know, they they see that as a a very it's a very simple value add that, you know, can go a long ways. And I and I suppose we do it a little bit with Facebook because you can verify your Facebook page, which a lot of people don't understand or claim your Facebook URL. I see that with a lot of new businesses. so we've added a lot of those types of things into our onboarding process. You know, big companies typically know what they're doing, but the smaller companies, you know, they tend to be like, I didn't understand how I could do this or how do I get listed type
20:53.014 Brandon Burton
That is a huge value to offer to new chamber members or getting started or or like you said, even just any business that's wanting to get verified on Google. I mean, so much value there. That is awesome. So and I like what you had to say about the job postings too, on Facebook and social media and being able to kind of build that momentum. So it's just businesses in the community see it, whether or not they're a member, they can see that traction that the chamber has and kind of that reach that you have.
21:05.569 Jason Camis
Mm-hmm.
21:21.586 Brandon Burton
And really helps them to kind of get on board with wow, you know, the chamber's putting this out there for these businesses. What they what can they do to help me or how can I be involved to help others and and kind of get that that ball rolling? So great ideas, great tips. what are what are some other ways that you're reaching out in the community to to be inclusive?
21:43.854 Jason Camis
Well, probably probably a couple of big ones would be so our website, we list all local businesses on our website, member or not. if you're an investor or you know, if you're a a member investor, you get all the bells and whistles, you know, the logo, the social media links, the website link. you can embed video on your website. You've got, you know, images, all that kind of stuff. But if you're not a member and you are physically located in Gardner Edgerton, or for us, New Century, which is the other area we serve, it's an unincorporated industrial park of about 60 companies adjacent to Gardner. So if you're physically located in any of those, you get a website listing, which is just name, address, and phone number, and which would be like a phone book. And we want to be information central because we know that. We have more op the more people who call us or want things from us, the more opportunities we have to interact with them, ultimately sell them or connect them, provide value for the business community. And so every couple of years we go through, we buy a updated data list through a big data provider. We we use an intern or one of our staff or volunteers will go through, we cull through all that information to make sure. We have updated information on those the basics. And and then we list everybody. And so they get pushed to the bottom. But probably the best example and how how I framed it when we first made this change four years ago was you know, if if somebody calls, McDonald's is not a member here, but if somebody calls for McDonald's, I can't lie and be like, we we don't have a McDonald's or I don't have a number or whatever. I'm not, you know, that's just bad customer service. Yeah. And so I was like, well, how can I turn that, you know, non-member request into more of a member referral? And so what we do most of the time and you know, is they'll call and be like, yeah, I can, you know, I can get you McDonald's number. But you know, if you'd like me to get you a list of all of our restaurants, I'd be happy to send that over to you. And nine times out of ten, they're like, that'd be awesome. So now I can send them a list or a link. Typically we try and drive them to our website, which is better traffic for us, which is great. Yeah.
24:04.202 Jason Camis
members and our sponsors, but you know, we send them a list of all of our restaurants. So I now just took that non member request about McDonald's and referred out, you know, 15 of my member restaurants. And it works. And and when you know I I tested this out on my wife and when I was trying it out and I said, So look at the caterers on here. I said, who would you call? She's like, well I wouldn't call these three. And I said why? Yeah. Well it wasn't just that because they had no information.
24:29.282 Brandon Burton
Member, yeah.
24:33.558 Jason Camis
All it was was a phone number and listing. So she viewed it as they didn't take the time to put their menu up there or any pictures or anything like that. Why would I call them? I'm gonna call the ones who have a built out or completely, you know, some in more information about them because it gives me more information about what I'm looking for. And so we see that as a big win. you know, we start and I've got tons of traffic. I mean, I can't remember our our web, our website, you know, for a small chamber. I mean, we're We push probably twenty five thousand to twenty-five to thirty thousand unique visitors a year through our website. you know, and I think on member page hits, we push close to a hundred thousand member page hits, you know, in the search directory and stuff. So I mean, that that was a big one for us. Another one was a little bit different, but we mail we do a magazine. We started a magazine three years ago where we just completed our third edition, annual edition. And rather than doing a traditional directory, which I've never understood chambers, why they do other than they make money, why they do a directory and then send 30 copies to each advertiser, because that I I would think as an advertiser, you want me I'd want you sending it somewhere else. But so we actually decided to give up our profit share that you know up front and mail it to every single household in both of our communities. And it is, and we we went with more of a lifestyle magazine that included a directory in the in it. So our members love it because they still they know you're putting my information in front of 11,000 for us, it's about 11,000 households and businesses. And so they love that. They think that is huge value. And you know, for selling ads and stuff like that, they're like, you can't beat that. And and you know, and then we get a lot of great exposure in the community and so people talk about the chamber and how the magazine you know, people actually call us the day the magazine comes out and talk about the stories. Of course, occasionally people call and correct us on the stories.
26:41.112 Brandon Burton
So whoever's answering the phone needs to be well versed on what the articles say, right?
26:45.356 Jason Camis
Exactly, exactly. That does surprise us a little bit because people are passionate about it. But you know, we feel that, you know, being in it that's kind of our way of including the community in with the business community and tying the two together. And we also go so far as we do not require the stories are stories about businesses in the community and the business people and so it's a lifestyle magazine. It there it's not a member magazine. Half I'd say half the stories probably in a given year come out and they're not about members. We we sit down with our publishing partner, we give them a list of story ideas, members and non-members, and you know, we had two baseball players this year from our small town that are playing pro baseball, which is a huge deal. you know, and so we did a whole story on, you know, peeva like kids who grew up in the school district here and what that meant to them and where they where they went afterwards and how the school district here shaped them. I mean, they're not member. This school district is a member, but you know, all the different individual people in the companies they work for aren't. But we view it as the community wants to read good stuff. They don't want to just read about the chamber. And and so it's just a different way of tying the two together.
28:01.762 Brandon Burton
That's right. I love the overall theme of just doing what's good for the community, for the business community, and not necessarily what's gonna get the most dollars for the chamber, but how can you best serve the community? And from that, the chamber's gonna benefit. And even like you said, with the website, having all the businesses listed on there, I just think that idea is brilliant. And how your wife said, you know, as you tested that out, that she would call the members because their listing is built out and it looks like they took the time, they cared more about it. So your members are going to get more play out of that. But I can only imagine it's going to help boost your SEO too by having every business in the community listed on your website and with how Google works and it wants to give the answers to what people are looking for. So if you are that go to resource, those answers for your community, that's going to help boost those SEO SEO results as well. But I d I love the whole overall theme. Do what's good for the community, not necessarily what's good for you at the chamber.
29:00.834 Jason Camis
Well, and it'll pay off. And that's the thing that I think people have to realize. I mean, businesses, you know, b there are businesses out here, out there that have the same philosophy. I mean, there is always you're you're not gonna do something that's necessarily detrimental to the chamber, but you're gonna do something if if you provide that out front. you know, we do ribbon cuttings for all businesses. doesn't matter, we don't ask for membership up front. Sometimes they've joined, sometimes they haven't. but our view was it's just a good thing to welcome a business to the community and start off on a good foot and that and nine out of ten join if they haven't joined, they join afterwards. Maybe two or three haven't joined. But well, here's the thing, it's not brain surgery. They can do a ribbon cutting without the chamber if they want to, and they're going to. So why wouldn't I want to have my name on it and the chamber's name on it? And our people think that when a hundred people show up at Orshlin's farm and home, think that. The chamber was involved with this. And so that's a win for us. And then Orchland's down the line is like, wait a minute, you did that for us. That's really awesome. We want to be a part of this. You know. So sometimes it's just taking that not being so forward of, Hey, I gotta do it for I gotta worry about today and I'm thinking about building for the future more than anything. Yeah.
30:18.7 Brandon Burton
That's brilliant. So Jason, I know we need to start wrapping things up here, but I was gonna ask if there's one tip or one action item that you can take from our discussion today and how you're doing things there at your chamber, what is one thing that you could tell other chamber professionals to help take their chamber up to the next level?
30:40.962 Jason Camis
I would say learn from outside of the chamber world. And not that, you know, the chain we have some brilliant chamber professionals and you know, and and some chambers that do some really awesome cutting edge type things. you know, I obviously went through IOM and and serve on the board. I think that's great. The conferences are great, you know, content is usually great. But I think there's sometimes I feel like it's very similar from year to year or conference to conference. I think we are have to start learning from, you know, I follow a lot of marketing blogs from other industries, trying to learn, you know, social media today and some of the other email newsletters that come out and and looking at other ways of, you know, even a even a big CRM like HubSpot, the the content that they provide about how to manage data or how to market or how to use email automation. There's so much more outside of our industry that applies to what we do. I would encourage people to start looking outside and bringing that in and then saying, wow, it works for this business. You know, how did Amazon get so successful doing what they do? And maybe if I learn from the industry that they're in, I can apply that to some of what I'm doing in the chamber world. and really elevate and set my chamber apart. that would be what I would encourage people to to consider more of.
32:10.156 Brandon Burton
That's great. Learn from outside the chamber world, besides Chamber Chat Podcast. I mean, listen here, but then go outside the chamber world. Yeah. So the the question I ask everyone that I have on the show is as we look to the future of chambers and their purpose, how do you see that? If if you wouldn't mind taking a few minutes to pontificate about that.
32:17.966 Jason Camis
Obviously.
32:32.568 Jason Camis
Well, it's interesting because you know, everybody always says when you've seen one chamber, you've seen one chamber, and we hear that repeated a lot. And it probably is true. but I think, you know, I think seeing the chamber in a bigger role in a in a community and really looking at where the community is going and how the chamber fits as part of that. I mean, I I know there's probably going to be chambers that are going to be heavily focused on economic development or public policy or, you know, even marketing and and small business programming. I mean that's that's good too. And if that's what your community needs, I think that's important. but I think it's important to, you know, again, step outside of what we're doing and really say and and really pay attention to to kind of the landscape in our own communities. you know, and and figure out how do I take what I'm doing now and how can I make that much more fluid and evolve. I think that's probably the biggest challenge chambers are going to have is I don't think most chambers are very fluid. And they don't kind of go with the flow. And if as times change and I I would go back to, if you don't mind, go back to the 1970s and you know when Walmart came out, when Walmart started its big boom across the country, I think what happened was a lot of smaller communities in particularly, they were like, my God, what do we do? How do we help these small businesses? And they were they were behind the times. And they if they had paid attention to what was happening in society in my mind, they would have seen Walmart coming and and and then are and then been ahead of the game to say, okay, this is changing. We've got to think about how do we help our businesses compete in this new age of I can get everything under one roof. you know, you could You could parallel that to the internet sales Amazon and what what's happening moving even into the future? Like what are people going to be doing? whether it's your community is going to be overrun by, you know, driverless cars or you know, you're they're you think that the city forefathers are gonna build a a bypass around your community, it's time to think about what is gonna happen and then start serving the business community based on that.
34:30.658 Brandon Burton
Amazon. Yeah.
34:57.098 Jason Camis
rather than always being reactionary. And I think that's a challenge for us, but I also think it's a huge opportunity.
35:03.478 Brandon Burton
I'm I'm a huge fan of that and being active and not reactive. I mean, there's some things you have to react to, but if you can be more active, kind of see that future and plan ahead, you're gonna be in much better shape than just reacting. So great advice. So Jason, as we get ready to to sign off here, I wanted to give you an opportunity to kind of put your contact information out there. If anyone has questions about what you talked about or how you're doing things at your chamber. What would be the best way for someone to get in contact with you to further this discussion?
35:36.728 Jason Camis
Well, they can reach out to me anytime. Email's probably always the best for me personally, 'cause, you know, I always like the email because I can respond at midnight if I'm just happening to be sitting up and wanting something to do. but my email is pretty simple. It's just Jason at Gardneredgerton dot org. they can always go to our website and find it off there. And that's probably where I should be driving them to. It you know, good for SEO, drive some more traffic to our website. we do have a new website that we launched this month, although there's still a few glitches on a daily basis. We'll be trying to figure out in the back end of it. But it is Gardner and it's G-A-R-D-N-E-R. and then Edgerton E D G E R T O N dot org. Pretty simple. happy to visit with anybody. I'll be out at the I like to go to the conferences and learn from some of the best in the industry. So I'll be out at the Western Association of Chamber of Execs in a week and a half and You know, we have a big Mako. The Mako conference is a Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma conference, in April. And, you know, so those are always good opportunities to connect with people as well.
36:43.11 Brandon Burton
Awesome. And I will update your contact information on our show notes page too for this episode. So people can click through to your website, get all your contact info. But that show notes page will be found at Chamberchatpodcast.com slash episode fifty-six. But Jason, thank you so much for spending some time with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast and for the great experience and examples that you brought and value that pr you provided to the other chamber professionals that are out there listening. Thanks a lot.
37:12.802 Jason Camis
Thanks, Brandon.
37:15.766 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 Chamberchat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.