Episodes - A Podcast for Chamber Professionals

Small Business Passion with Peter Guzman

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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your hosts Brandon Burton. And it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.

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Our guest for this episode is Peter Guzman. Peter currently serves as the president of the Latin Chamber of Commerce in Nevada. The Latin Chamber of Commerce is the most powerful Hispanic Chamber in Nevada, with over 45 years of community work and business representation. The Latin Chamber of Commerce has provided services to the community for over 45 years and continues to grow. The Latin Chamber of Commerce has been a beacon of light for the community and is a shining star of hope for those in need of assistance throughout the community. Peter is also an accomplished realtor, small business owner and real estate investor, and he came to Nevada 50 years ago at the age of two, but Peter, we’re 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 to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better well. Thank

Peter Guzman 2:05
you for that incredible entrance. I appreciate it very much. It’s amazing to hear that number of the length of years this chamber has been involved. We’re approaching 50 years now. It’s unbelievable. And my founder, Otto Merida, did an incredible job a long, long time ago, and I took over as president after him, but so thank you for that. That intro something interesting about me. I don’t find myself that interesting, I guess. But something that people don’t know is that I love turtles. I mean, I really love turtles. And I’ve, I’ve had a desert tortoise now with me 24 years, and I just love that turtle to death. And, yeah, that’s, I guess that’s interesting.

Brandon Burton 2:52
That’s, yeah, that’s cool. I actually, I had a pet turtle growing up, and it was just a box turtle, but whenever my brother would get upset with me. He’d go in my room and put the box turtle on top of its jar that had its water So stand up there and couldn’t move it, just sit on top of the jar. He’s like, thanks. Thanks for that. Yeah. No, I’ve been a big fan of reptiles my whole life, so that’s cool. Well, tell us a little bit more about the Latin Chamber of Commerce, give us an idea of the size staff, scope of work, budget, just to kind of set the stage before we get dive into our discussion today.

Peter Guzman 3:31
Yeah. So you know, like I said, our chamber is approaching 50 years, 48 to be exact, but we’re approaching 50 and, you know, predominantly we represent the Hispanic community, but because of the strength and growth of our chamber, we’re representing a lot more than just that, right? And so that was something that was intentional. I wanted non Hispanic businesses to be doing business with Hispanics and vice versa. And so we’ve really accomplished that, especially over the last three years, 30, 32% of my growth over the last three years has been non Hispanic business owners. That’s a really great number, and very intentional. Because again, I want business to be conducted and I want business to grow, and the only way you can grow is sometimes you got to go outside your comfort zone. And so, you know, we have, we have over 2000 members. We are a statewide chamber and and like I said, we represent the incredible small business community, which, in my opinion, is the most important segment of our economy representing the most job creations and and just just the whole plight of a small business owner, and we know how difficult that can be, and so we predominantly focus on that. We’re very, very focused. So that’s first and foremost, of course. Dollars because we’ve been around so long, and my founder ultimately did such a great job building a trust with the community. You know, we have to get involved in a lot of other things, you know. So we’re we have people that show up at our lobby that need help with immigration, or, you know, what hospital they should be going to, and all kinds of things that you wouldn’t believe. So our responsibility at the Latin chamber is much bigger than than a lot of chambers who just focus on on the small business community. We have to focus on even more than just that, because the demand is so big and the trust is so so high with the Latin chamber that inevitably, my day is filled with all kinds of things, so I’m grateful for that and and look forward to our future.

Brandon Burton 5:49
Yeah. So being a statewide chamber, how many staff do you guys have? And are you Where are you physically located? Are there multiple offices, or how does that work? Yeah.

Peter Guzman 6:00
So we’re physically located in Las Vegas, and we have, we have about eight people on staff and about four volunteers, and you know, there’s definitely room for more employees, but we got to be the right employees, and we’re going to look at that in 2025 because we’re just bursting at the seams. As far as other offices, we’re in Reno a lot Carson City is our you know, is where it all happens. As far as politically. So we always have an office there during this legislative session every two years. But stay tuned. The next time you and I have an interview, there’s going to be a lot more news regarding that. Okay,

Brandon Burton 6:44
build some anticipation there. I like that. Yes. Well, for our topic of conversation today, we’re going to focus on the small business passion that Peter has. It really drives the work there at the Latin chamber, and we’ll dive in deeper on that as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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All right, Peter, we’re back, as I mentioned before the break, we’re focusing our conversation today around small business passion, and I hope everybody listening has a passion for small business. But when somebody says that that’s that’s always your focus, that’s always your topic, that that is your passion, I’m always curious to dive in deeper, to hear what drives you, what motivates you? And I think you’re you may have alluded to it a little bit just with the the novelties of the the Latin chamber, that it’s more than just the small business community, but it’s the community in general you guys are focused on. But what is your approach? What gets you so excited when it comes to small business and serving that community.

Peter Guzman 11:03
Well, listen when you think about, first of all, I’m very, very grateful for, you know, having been born in America, the greatest country in the world. I say that because my father escaped communism of Cuba and came here and, you know, simply because he knew that his children will have a chance here. And so that’s kind of where this beginning passion starts, right like this is a country where a person can dream about owning their own business and can really pull it off. It’s not an easy road, but certainly that’s why I’m passionate about it, because Nothing excites me more than knowing about folks that take their pension or their savings and starts their business and, you know, one day, starts it off, and you know, three years later, they’re on their second or third location, or they’re on, you know, they went from one employee to five, then to 15. We have those stories. They’re very common in the Latin chamber. And I just, I don’t, you know, it’s hard to pinpoint why that, why that drives me and turns me on so much, but it just does. It’s just, it just does. And I also, because I’m a business owner and struggled in the beginning, I know what that struggle feels like. So I know the struggle, and I know the success of it, and I want everybody to that, wants that, to feel that. And so that’s why I’m so passionate in this position at the chamber where I can actually pick up the phone, make some calls and make things happen for folks, maybe a little quicker, maybe get them through an obstacle a little easier. That’s what really drives me again. My founder and mentor told me who ran, who opened this chamber and ran it. He said, What good is the power if you’re not using it to help others? And so that’s really the power of the chamber. Is the ability, if you do things right, to be able to pick up the phone and make things happen a little quicker, maybe a little easier. That drives me every morning.

Brandon Burton 13:19
Yeah, I love that. I love just the idea of the American dream and being able to create a business and have it grow and be successful, and with you being a business owner yourself, to be able to relate to the members that you’re talking to, to the potential Chamber members, and being able to resonate with them, I think that’s super valuable. Yeah,

Peter Guzman 13:38
and listen, you know, I like what you said in the opening there. Even if you’re not a small business owner, your life’s affected by a small business owner. I mean, every time you get in the car, you need that car to run. So chances are you’re going to, you know a mechanic, or you know a small business owner that that works on cars. We can start with that. Then when you need, when you need milk, you you may not run into the big grocery store. You may just stop at a little place and grab a gallon of milk. So small businesses is is intricate in our day to day life.

Brandon Burton 14:16
Yeah, I would say small businesses that it’s kind of the, backbone to our, our ecosystem, to our, our ability to be able to function as a society and and we saw it through the pandemic where small businesses got shook pretty hard, and those businesses you might have counted on, you know, reliably that that mechanic, or, you know, the the convenience store, whether They change their hours because of, you know, staffing issues through the pandemic, or whatever it may be, that disrupted their normal day to day operations. We felt it as citizens that are trying to carry on with our life, and it throws you for throws a wrench in your schedule. When, when that stuff happens? Yeah,

Peter Guzman 14:58
and, I mean, we haven’t even two. That’s the pandemic. I mean, the you know what I knew, what I already had, had experience and known. You can multiply it by 1000 during the pandemic. I mean, the the fact that business, small business people, have to pivot every day in normal society, because life changes. Consumers, needs and wants change every day. So you good business people know they have to pivot and and meet those needs, right? Uh, imagine during COVID. I mean, we were thrown such a curveball, and yet, especially in the Hispanic community, I saw these entrepreneurs pivot and figure it out. And, you know, I’m almost embarrassed to say that even during COVID, our our we are actually our chamber grew, first of all, which is unbelievable, because we delivered things that they needed. We pivoted. That’s what my mentality is. I’m a small business owner in the chamber is a business and and we pivoted. And that’s why we had success, even through COVID. But that’s, that’s, that’s how it is, that how that’s how it works. That’s right.

Brandon Burton 16:09
And being able to be nimble is so important, because these small businesses, they’re constantly pivoting. They’re constantly doing what they can to figure it out, just to make it work. You mentioned earlier, a lot of them put their entire life savings on the line to start a business, to be able to put their neck out there and provide a product or service, and constantly adjusting and honing in those skills to be able to make it work. I’m curious, in the the intros, you’re talking about the the Latin Chamber of Commerce. You had mentioned that with your the recent growth, 32% of that growth is non Hispanic business owners. And I’m curious the approach that you have to them, and especially as it comes to small business and and being able to resonate to them, to have them participate with the Latin Chamber of Commerce. What, what’s that approach been like? Because 32% that’s a good percentage, to see that growth in that segment, yeah.

Peter Guzman 17:07
And so I think that what was important was the fact that, you know, we intentionally went out and started going out to the community more, not just the Hispanic community. And you know, we have a very vibrant events programming, which is a fancy way of saying network opportunities. And so I, you know, some people use networking improperly. I think, I think networking is a science. I owe my entire very successful real estate career to networking and relationship building. And so there’s network, networking, where you walk in a room and have a cocktail and say hi to a couple folks you already know. And then there’s networking science, which is walking into a room of people you do not know, and getting to know people that you didn’t know. And so we, we have that down to a science, and that just made us grow and grow and grow.

Brandon Burton 18:23
So as you were talking, I turned around and grabbed a book off my shelf. I’ve plugged it before on the podcast, but it’s it’s titled, you’re invited by John Levy, great book. Yeah. So at the art and science of cultivating influence, and I think that should be on the mandatory reading list for any chamber to really curate a really effective networking situation. And

Peter Guzman 18:50
you know, when you combine that and I talk to young people, that’s really another passion of mine, is really talking to these young people who are still full of this innocence and inspiration and motivation. I love talking to kids like that, because if you mold that right, they’re going to be successful. And so I tell these folks how obsessed I was and am with networking and relationship building. I mean literally I came up with, and it’s not scientific, but it’s something that I drilled into my brain, because I believe in thinking to grow power, thinking to grow rich, which is another book, yeah, I convinced myself in year two of my real estate career, that every new person I met was going to turn into three transactions, three real estate deals, one way or another, either directly or indirectly. I’m telling you that it absolutely worked and continues to work and so I. What does that mean? It means I’m going to go up to people. When I go into a room, I’ll say hi to the people I already know, but it’s going to be brief. I’m going right at the people I don’t have no idea who they are, and I’m introducing myself. And that turns into transactions, that turns into deals. And so that’s that, that’s key to everything, yeah,

Brandon Burton 20:19
and that thinking gives you the confidence to make those approaches where a lot of people get in these networking situations and say, I don’t really know anybody, or you come in and get your drink, and then you have, you know, all the different sales people that are there coming and selling you insurance or whatever it is. So

Peter Guzman 20:37
that that reputation really grew for the Latin Chamber of Commerce. People now openly all around the state, talk about, yeah, it’s a must place to be. Is one of a Latin chamber events, because they know they’re going to be people of influence in that room. They know that there’s going to be people they don’t know in that room, and they’re going to come from all walks, not just Hispanic. And so that grew from, you know, 70 people to 150 people to 300 people to 500 people at a luncheon that we throw every month. You know what I mean? I mean, it just grew. And so we decided to even add a breakfast that we do monthly, where we intentionally keep that a little smaller and intimate. So that’s 50 to 80 people called desos Amigos, breakfast with friends. And it’s just wonderful opportunities. It starts there. You know, I always tell folks that want to join our chamber, because I’m brutally honest, don’t join this our chamber just to check a box because that we’re not interested in that. Yeah, we need to see value, and it’s value both ways, not just one way. And so I tell them, I’m not a magician. If you join this chamber and you apply yourself, inject yourself, you will have success. If you don’t, then don’t blame me for telling me you didn’t get a return of investment on your membership. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 22:07
I’ve, I’ve got several friends that have approached me because they know I do the podcast and I’ve worked with chambers a long time, and they’ll small business owners will approach me and say, Hey, I know you work with chambers. Do you think I should join my local chamber. Like, what do they do? I don’t know. What are you going to do? Where are you going to are you going to get involved, or do you just want to join and have some magic happen? Because you got to figure out what the mission of your chamber is. Get behind it. Get involved. Volunteer. Be a be a part of something to help build the community. And that’s where you’re going to see the magic happen.

Peter Guzman 22:41
It’s like, it’s like opening a business, right? You, you can’t just decide that you’re going to open this business, open the doors, and people are just going to come right? No, that. It takes marketing. It takes effort, right? Same thing with the chamber, but the fruits, the the return on investment can be huge, yeah.

Brandon Burton 23:01
So we’ve touched quite a bit on the networking aspect when it comes to having a passion towards small business. What are some of these other needs that you see rise to the top quite often with small businesses, to help them really get up and going and see success as they get involved with the chamber? Yeah,

Peter Guzman 23:22
a lot of a lot, if not most small business owners don’t realize that, you know that they hate politics, but they don’t realize how much politics is a part of every, everybody’s day to day life and in business as well. So what we another thing we do, really, really well is we help some small businesses entrepreneurs navigate politics, navigate the political side of you know, of getting your license of, of getting your project through Planning and Zoning, you know, finding, finding the right construction company, union, non union, all that kind of stuff. We navigate that really, really well. And so that’s a big advantage for a small business owner, because you can imagine, you know, walking into City Hall with nobody that can help hold your hand and navigate all of that can be overwhelming and can be destructive,

Brandon Burton 24:23
absolutely. And having that support, that guidance of what to do next and how to navigate those confusing, intimidating situations for a new business owner, small business owner is so crucial, and being prepared as a chamber to be able to help them navigate that is very important, exactly well. Peter, as we start to wrap things up, I wanted to ask you, for listeners who are interested in taking their chamber up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you suggest for them to try to implement that goal?

Peter Guzman 25:02
So you know, every every community is different, so every chamber can operate a little differently, but there’s some fundamentals that are, I think, key to every chamber success, and that is, you know, deliver on what you promise. So be careful what you promise, because you must deliver the folks are folks. You know this this how seriously I take this. My mentality of being President of the Latin Chamber of Commerce is I run a publicly traded company. The members are my shareholders. They literally write a check to this chamber, but in a lot of ways, they’re writing that check because they believe in me. I have to take it that serious. So yeah, that’s putting a lot of extra pressure on me, and I love it, and I take it very, very serious. So I want my shareholders to have value. They have a share in the Latin Chamber of Commerce. You’re going to have value. And I wake up every day thinking that way. So that sets the tone of what I’m going to do. And so I’m very focused, very laser focused on bringing value to my shareholders. That’s my members.

Brandon Burton 26:27
I love that approach and that it really just tones it down to, what do you need to do to provide value? And I mean, listen, what? I promise that’s huge.

Peter Guzman 26:38
Yeah, I’d like to provide you, you know, some fancier, long, strung out answer, but that’s the fundamental what I do. That’s the fundamental of how I think and wake up every morning. Yeah, but the the

Brandon Burton 26:51
first thing you said with that response is deliver on what you promised. And I think there’s a lot of times where chambers are really good at thinking of programs or accepting new programs that are presented to them, and things can become very overwhelming with all these things that need to be done, and just deliver on what you promise. And if you can’t deliver, don’t promise it. Don’t do it, you know, cut it out and and really focus on those things and move the needle. So I like that.

Peter Guzman 27:19
That’s That’s my approach. And I think if we start there, chambers will have success. Yeah, you have to be very careful to not turn into a social club. And you know, the the same old, same old, think outside the box. Get bold, because remember, you represent your shareholders, and they’re looking at to you for value, right?

Brandon Burton 27:43
So, Peter, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Peter Guzman 27:54
Well, listen, you know, there’s, there’s, I know, there’s nervousness out there in the chamber world because of artificial intelligence and and, you know, automation, computer modernization, I we look at that at the Latin chamber as all opportunities. It all it goes back to the very fundamental that I already said, but all of these tools now are going to help me deliver that with much more speed, much more accuracy. So don’t fear that. Don’t embrace you got to embrace it. If you want to exist in the chamber world, you have to embrace these things.

Brandon Burton 28:31
Yeah, I love that. So important to be able to embrace the the technologies and the changes that are coming and and, you know, I’ll say that with a caveat, because there’s some ideas that come out that they get a lot of traction and and they fizzle out, but those things that you can you get that feeling, that sense, this is going to stick, this is going to be around for a while and make an impact on business. You got to be all in. You got to learn it. You got to teach it. You got to be all in. With

Peter Guzman 28:58
the caveat for me, and you know, I’m old school, but I’m never going to change what I’m about to tell you, and that is, you can automate, modernize, embrace all those tools I do and I will, but walking up to an individual, the one On one, person to person contact, making them feel a way that AI and automation won’t be able to still makes us important,

Brandon Burton 29:29
yeah, that the human contact that person can’t replace that. Yeah, yeah. Amen, well, Peter, I wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you and learn more about your approach or things you guys are doing there at the Latin chamber. What would be the best way for them to reach out and connect? Yeah, man,

Peter Guzman 29:52
feel free to say hello. Feel free to, first of all, go to our website. LVLCC.com, LV, as in. Las Vegas, LV, LCC, as in Latin Chamber Commerce.com, uh, our phone number is 702-385-7367. My name is Peter Guzman, and I promise you, and if you call, you will speak to me.

Brandon Burton 30:16
Awesome. We’ll get that in our show notes to make it easy. If someone’s driving, they don’t need to try to jot it down that phone number. We’ll get it in the show notes. So Peter, I appreciate you spending time with us today, sharing your approach, your passion towards small business this. This should be one of those episodes that reinvigorate somebody listening and says, Yes, let’s go basics, let’s drive. What’s important, right? I

Peter Guzman 30:41
hope so, and I hope we can do this again. Let’s, let’s make this an ongoing thing.

Brandon Burton 30:46
That sounds great. I look forward to seeing what the future is for the Latin chamber and what some of these upcoming changes might be. Sounds like a plan.

Peter Guzman 30:57
Excellent. Thank you.

Brandon Burton 31:00
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National Signing Day with Bryan Daniels

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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

Our guest for this episode is Bryan Daniels. And Bryan is the President and CEO of the Blount Partnership in Tennessee. Brian brings a wealth of experience in economic and community development, having spearheaded initiatives that have attracted over $4 billion in investments and created more than 12,000 jobs in Blount County. Under his leadership, the Blount Partnership, which includes a five star accreditation from the US Chamber of Commerce, has become a model of excellence in economic and tourism development. Brian holds certifications as A, C, E, C, D, i, o, M and C, C, E, highlighting his dedication to advancing the chamber and economic development professions. Brian, we’re 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 to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Bryan Daniels 2:03
Hello, everyone. This is a wonderful opportunity. Brandon, thank you for reaching out. I’m honored to be here regarding me of something of note and interest. I am also a small business owner outside of the chamber work that I do not in the community that I practice in, but isn’t more of a family business, and I chose to kind of chart my own path and and get into chamber work, but I still have kind of a an eye on what it takes to operate a Small Business, just due to my family’s involvement and how they make a living. That

Brandon Burton 2:44
definitely gives a good perspective as you try to represent business and look out for their interest and being one yourself, sure, that’s awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about the bond partnership. Just give us an idea, size, staff, budget, scope of work to kind of set the stage for our discussion today? Sure,

Bryan Daniels 3:02
happy to do so. Our Chamber of Commerce is celebrating its 100 and fifth anniversary. So there we’ve been around a long time. Our Chamber of Commerce is actually very diversified in the programming it does. It also beyond just being a five star credited chamber. It is the economic development agency for the entire county that we serve in this all the cities within it, then we are also the single point of tourism for the county and all the cities that service it. The advantage of that is, instead of these nonprofits or quasi governmental entities, you know, scrambling for resources, each one is able to pull those resources together, and we’re able to compete or provide programming that’s more much more robust than we could if we were apart. And I know there’s more instances in our country where each one of these agencies are separate, but for us, it really works well, allows us to play bigger than we are as a community. Our organization is we have two locations in our community. We have a staff of 26 people, and we have an operating budget just under 10 million a year.

Brandon Burton 4:20
All right, yeah, that’s

Bryan Daniels 4:23
and, and we serve as a population of roughly, when you look at the entire county in the cities, roughly 145,000

Brandon Burton 4:32
people, okay, yeah, that’s what I love about the chamber world is, you know, we say it all the time, you’ve seen one chamber, you’ve seen one chamber. But as I’ve been doing these podcast episodes, over 300 episodes now, we’ve done episodes where chambers are merging with their economic development or tourism departments, then episodes where they’re separating. There’s, you know, pros and cons both ways, but it’s obviously working in your. Community, they have it all under one roof and and being able to have that synergistic focus. So yeah, we’ve

Bryan Daniels 5:05
been under one roof combined since 1969 and so we actually stand on the shoulders of leaders that put this model together now. We have refined it over the years. We’ve changed it. We’ve we’ve actually written new state laws in Tennessee to allow others to adopt such programming, and we you know you have to change with the times, but the core mission and the philosophies and work culture are still very much the same as it was 50 plus years ago. Right

Brandon Burton 5:37
now, before we hit the record button, you had mentioned something else unique that your chamber does in the realm of construction, right? Can you tell us a little bit about

Bryan Daniels 5:48
that? Well, so I am an engineer by background. I’ve got a master’s in it, and I construction is something I did before I came to work in this chamber world. I work for an engineering firm for three to five year, well, three years, and then a private manufacturer. But I’ve been in this chamber I’ve been in chamber work in chamber world for 23 years now, and at the same the same chamber that hired me to come here, and it was to do economic development initially, and so with what we do in developing properties and infrastructure, and that’s everything from roadways To bridges to walking trails to business parks to recreation parks. We build all those things for the community, and as kind of a unique niche in my role, the community has allowed me to construction manage all those projects, just because it plays into my education. And so that’s kind of a value add we find providing for our local governments that empower us to do those things. And the business community too. We’ll build some infrastructure for our businesses. It’s usually tied to a business park when we do that, but we do that and and they’ll allow me to do the construction management of those pieces. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 7:21
I know chambers across the country all about finding that value add with their their staff, and how can we maximize, you know, the resources that we have. So thank you for for sharing that with us. Sure. So as we honed in our on our topic for discussion today, we decided to focus in most of our conversation around your guys’ approach to National Signing Day, and I’m excited to dive in deep and learn about your approach and the uniqueness and what’s made it successful in your community. As soon as I get back from this quick break,

Joe Duemig 6:26
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Joe Duemig 7:54
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Brandon Burton 7:58
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All right, Bryan, we’re back, as I tease before the break, we’re talking about your guys’ approach today to National Signing Day. So I guess, for any chambers out there who may not be familiar with National Signing Day. Just give us a brief synopsis about what it is, but then the approach that you guys take to it that has made it so successful in your community.

Bryan Daniels 10:29
Sure, this, this is a wonderful niche that we’ve carved out for ourselves, but National Signing Day is across the country. We did not start it. We’ve actually added into it. It was initially the idea was brought up by one of our CEOs of one of our manufacturers that, like all of us, we’re all struggling with labor force in a variety of forms. It could be relegated to a certain industry type, or it could be just in general, trying to keep your young folks from leaving and seeking those other opportunities. And we’re no different and and as we’ve had a lot of success the last call it 15 years with companies relocating here or expanding here, you know the natural progression of students wanting to leave has continued. It hasn’t ramped up, but our need for them to stay here and be a part of our labor force has grown significantly to where you know those students that are bleeding off. It is hurtful for us. We need them to stay here. They know the culture. They know the education. It’s it’s easier for us as a community to keep our students here versus trying to assimilate new people that move in. And so one of our, like I said, one of our presidents of a company. His name was David Bennett. He made a challenge when he was chair of the Chamber of Commerce his year, that he led us, that he wanted us to participate in signing day, and his overall vision was he wanted us to be the largest and if possible, a state model of how we would participate in signing day. And and signing day is truly getting students at a young age, somewhere around high school, engaged in what career opportunities are there in the community, and when they graduate high school, the next day, they already have a job lined up, and they’re entering the labor force. Some of this is apprenticeships are going into or they have been a part of why in high school, some of these are in in our in our state, we do dual enrollment so kids can get credit toward an associate’s degree or certificate along the way, and some of that they learn, they have the opportunity to leave school and go work for some of our local employers. And so it has a variety of ways of how you get there. But for us, when we started, we started in 2019, our first class, very modest. We had three employers that were willing to step up before signing day. Usually, signing day for us is the first part of June. And so that spring semester, those students were going to work part time or after hours to get experience in those different companies. And then when they graduate high school, they were they were signing a letter of intent that I’m coming to work for your company, and we had it in, in at our chamber. We had three companies, we had seven students, and we provided them gift cards, a lunch pail. We invited their families, our business community, of of our community, or our chamber, our our membership is rough. Roughly 1300 businesses belong to us, and so we invited all them, and and in our boardroom, we have approximately, I’d say, 7080 people showed up to to, you know, congratulate these seven students that were going right into the labor force, and we we made a big publicity movement highlighting their skill sets, who they were, and how big a deal this was to celebrate just like you would a professional athlete who’s signing a big contract to Go play for a team. We gave them the same pageantry as we could to prop them

Brandon Burton 14:46
up. That’s awesome. I love that because there’s there needs to be more of that attention and celebrate these people that are trying to do good things, positive things, and propel their quality of life forward, provide for their family. Set goals, achieve goals. I love it. Yeah,

Bryan Daniels 15:03
you know, so often in our in our country and society, we’re celebrating, you know, those four year degree students or even collegiate athletes that are going into professional sports. And the crux of what we need as a society are really, are really folks on the ground, hourly or certificate people that actually generate higher incomes than some four year degree education. And so we’re trying to we were, we’re trying to celebrate. That is our goal. It’s now morphed into, we have, we have a waiting list. This last group that we put through, we had 40 plus employers, I think it was around 44 and we had set, I think, more than 77 students that were celebrated. And it’s, it’s, it’s the cameras, the lights, the smoke show coming out into an audience of roughly 500 550 people just celebrating. And you’ve got all of our TV stations and our our newspapers are there interviewing these students. And it is, it is, it is an event. It is an event that will last about from beginning to end a couple hours, the employers get to introduce each well, let me back up. The students are introduced by a an emcee that has a very booming presence, and they walk out this curtain and smoke and lights and they’re highlighted of who they are as a person. Then they go and sit at a table in front of an employer that has a backdrop, and however many students they’re hiring that that that year, they sit in front and they do that for every employer around this convention center we have. And so as every student then gets seated, then our MC will then ask them to sign their letters of commitment, and then each employer gets an opportunity to talk about the career that students going to do and where their career path is for them, and talking about opportunities for travel or pay or lifestyle, all of that, each employee gets to talk about that, and they love it. They they love it. All of our school systems now participate, and we now have regional schools from other counties now wanting to participate with us in our signing day. That’s

Brandon Burton 17:48
awesome. So at the beginning, when you’re talking about what National Signing Day is, you had mentioned that the need to keep your keep the resources there in the community, rather than these students, you know, leaving the community after they graduate. And the thought occurred to me, you know, human nature, most people, they resist change, right? They don’t want change. But for whatever reason, this age frame, you know, as kids are graduating high school, college, that time of transition, it’s like they feel like the only option is change, and a lot in a lot of instances, so to be able to help them see, you know, the value of staying in the community, what the opportunities are, I think, is it’s such a great highlight to be able to to attract and and draw attention to these local employers and opportunities. And I’m hoping, in this audience of 550 people, that there’s some students in there too, and not just parents, so they’re catching a glimpse of these opportunities as well. Is that? Is that what you see?

Bryan Daniels 18:49
Yeah, it is. And I will tell you, leading up to signing day, our team has gone so far as we have life size cutouts. Made of each student, much like you see at a premiere of a film or something, where you can go stand beside the actor that’s in the movie and get your picture taken. We do these life size, uh, stand ups of every student, and then we put them in the schools, and so all the students see that this person is about to be celebrated at National Signing Day. And it actually creates a buzz within the schools to where those students are like, wow, I want to go participate or find out. Why are they doing all this celebration? And it has actually fed the recruitment within signing day with our employers. And it has, it is paid off so handsomely for our community and and and you hear the buzz in the in the in the in the school systems.

Brandon Burton 19:58
So I can see where the momentum. And builds as far as recruitment for employers goes, because they see this pipeline that comes in and solves a problem for them and that that’s an easy sell, it seems like, how does it work with the recruitment at the schools? Are you working with guidance counselors or what? What is that setup like?

Bryan Daniels 20:14
Sure, we are working with guidance counselors, but I will tell you of if I could give any advice for chambers of commerce, one of the things that we recognize that we’re trying to address is somewhere in our history, chambers kind of withdrew out of the school systems and involved in civics or history of the community, and that is a loss that we’ve tried to really insert ourselves into, in trying to help those teachers not only prepare the students for the community, but setting them up for these careers. And so the our first entree was in in working with the guidance counselors and trying to help identify students of different career paths as they’re trying to figure out where to go with their life. Is it associates degrees? The certificate is to go to four year school. What? What will life hold for them? And so the guidance counselors began to invite us into the school system to talk about those career opportunities, just to make them aware that would then bleed into we’re now into helping do instruction on what it takes for a community to grow and survive and thrive, and what responsibilities students have for their community. And so that’s really helped us a lot and and that has now perpetuated us into another feeder, which we call our eighth grade Career Fair, which is a a break off of our signing day that now the elementary schools have seen what Signing Day is doing, and then seen our involvement in to the curriculum of schools. We now do an eighth grade Career Fair of where all of the eighth graders, whether they’re homeschooled, public school, private schooled, are all brought in to a a one day event of where we have all of our employers that are willing to participate. And in our community, there’s roughly 104 140 plus employers. Here we have them our convention center, and then they bring something that represents their company for the students to have, hands on, looking, feeling, touching, of what is done at that company. And it is, it is now built in the curriculum. You’re there for every student to experience that. And we have aviation companies that are based here. We have headquarter companies, manufacturing companies, service companies, ex resort companies that are all kind of Permian our community that is as big a driver now for signing day as signing day is, and so it’s just kind of morphed into this bigger, bigger whole strategy.

Brandon Burton 23:13
Yeah, I’ve got a daughter in middle school right now, and this week, her school has been pushing out a career fair, very similar to what you’re talking about. That’s great and and when I saw it, I was like, this is fantastic, because with our older kids that have gone through, I’ve never seen them do anything like this. Now, I will say, for the chambers who have not really dabbled in this, I think there’s a difference between your guys’s approach and what I’m seeing here at our local level is for this career fair, they’re asking parents, essentially, parents of these students who are interested in coming and talking about what they do for a career to come have a table and do their thing, versus having the employers there. I think there’s a bigger impact having the employers there, but it may be easier to get parents involved, because they have some vested interest that the students already being at the school. But there’s a an easy on ramp there to be able to make that introduction with these middle school kids. So then ramp it up to the high school and and get that machine starting to move right.

Bryan Daniels 24:15
That’s right, it at any level, whatever. You know each community is going to be different in their approach, but I think the overall message is chambers have to be engaged in workforce development or education to at least help their community keep the culture that’s there. Because with a lack of understanding or knowledge of what a community has to offer, those students will seek other opportunities, just from a standpoint they don’t know they don’t know what they don’t know. So they’re going to be seeking opportunities and seeking knowledge. Why not try to engage them earlier on?

Brandon Burton 24:55
Absolutely. So I was curious when you talked about you guys being able to. Have a place in the schools now where you can come in and present, and you’ve got to, you know, ears to hear right? So you guys can get in front of an audience of students. Do you guys, have you created some sort of a replicatable type of curriculum that you present? Or is it more of a question and answer kind of thing? Or, how do you guys make that presentation? What does that look like?

Bryan Daniels 25:21
So it is different for it is different every year. There are different the, well, I mean, how to say it? The the we have three public school systems, and we have two private systems, and then you’ve got your home schooled folks. Each one of those utilize us in different ways, but they all utilize us and they utilize different parts of our organization. Like I said, we’ve got chambers of we’ve got a chamber, we’ve got a workforce development director, we’ve got an economic development person, we’ve got a construction person, of a litany of experience in our office, and different instructors will invite us to come in and talk on different topics now they we have already agreed upon what we’re going to talk about relates to subject matter that they’re discussing that week, and we know on the curriculum, what they’re learning about, what we come in and do is we take their curriculum and we apply it, or give instances of how what they’re learning is actually how it’s deployed in what we do day to day. And so, like, there’s a marketing class, so we’ll talk about the marketing do we do in economic development to recruit companies here, or the marketing we’re doing in our workforce development program, our finance folks will go in and talk about what they’re learning in in some of their math classes, of how that relates to accounting and and then when we talk, for when I’ve gone in, it’s usually talk about civics of local government, what it takes to operate one, and then the importance of of them being engaged In that electoral process from a business

Brandon Burton 27:20
perspective. Yeah, that’s fantastic, and that makes sense, having these different entities that you need to have some different approaches with, and the different classes you get in front of, I’d love that approach. Well, Brian, as we begin to wrap things up here, I wanted to ask you, for the listener who’s out there who wants to take their organization up to the next level. What kind of tip or action item might you share with them to as they try to work towards this goal?

Bryan Daniels 27:48
Well, I’m, I’m very big on training, and for us, you don’t know what you don’t know, especially in this profession, I don’t it’s, it’s more the norm that we all kind of fell into chamber work. Somehow it found us and it really, it really spoke to our soul at some point. That’s I hear that consistently. I would, I would, I would be very I would, I would encourage the listener to seek out training opportunities within the US Chamber, ACCE and IEDC, to further their breadth and knowledge that you’re going to be around folks with A variety of problems and solutions that you’re going to identify your communities addressing or needs to address, and you’re it’ll be worth your time and resources. So I would be encouraging everyone to get engaged in those organizations now for us, if I had to say, would there’s one thing is a threat to our our chambers of commerce in this country, I think it is not being involved in your local schools or being afraid of the political scene too. That more and more with the turbulence in our country, chambers of commerce and bid the business community is still seen as where there’s good information that comes out of there is trusted resources, and so I would encourage everyone, and that’s in this profession, to be engaged in your local school systems and to Be engaged into the political structure of your local community with that’s what, that’s what we originally founded on, is being advocates for the business community. And sometimes when you take funding from the business community or the the governments, it’s a kind of a weird relationship, but we still have to be. Advocates for our profession, whether it’s to the local governments or to students that are trying to figure out their way in life.

Brandon Burton 30:07
Yeah, I like that. I like that advice. I like asking everyone I have on the show, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Bryan Daniels 30:19
I think chambers are going to become more relevant. I think we’re going to continue to see the pressures of consolidation for those that are in areas where you have several different chambers together, and more regionalism will continue, but, but Chambers of Commerce are going to become more and more relevant as more pressures are put on our business community, from no matter your political affiliation, from the left or the right, there’s, there’s definitely pressures coming on the business community. So chamber is going to become more and more needed to be those advocates for those businesses.

Brandon Burton 30:58
Absolutely. I love the way you say that. So Brian, I wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and learn more about how you guys are doing things there at the bot partnership, and just maybe want to just connect and maybe learn more about National Signing Day and your approach. What would be the best way for someone to connect with you.

Bryan Daniels 31:21
Yeah, absolutely, thank you. So they can call us anytime. Our number is, 865-983-7715, or go to blountpartnership.com, or they can reach me by email at bdaniels@blountpartnership.com all of our contact information is there. I’m on LinkedIn, a variety of social media platforms and so yeah, we we welcome any opportunity to collaborate with fellow chamber professionals.

Brandon Burton 31:57
That’s perfect, and I’ll get all that in our show notes as well to make it easy to find you and connect with you and and send you a LinkedIn request. Brian, this has been great having you on chamber chat podcast. I appreciate you taking time to be with us today and to share your perspective with National Signing Day the way you guys have approached this and and sharing some of the successes and things you’ve learned along the way. I think it’s tremendous value, and I hope that some chambers out there listening who maybe are not participating yet and National Signing Day might have caught the bug and see the value in it to explore the opportunity as well. So thank you for sharing that with us today.
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Create a Thriving Community with Nikki Devitt

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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

Our guest for this episode is Nikki Devitt. Nikki is the President and CEO of the Petoskey Regional Chamber of Commerce, a passionate community champion. She’s honored to lead an organization that emboldens positive outcomes by building a culture of thriving business to create a thriving community. With a background in broadcasting, management and marketing, she works creatively to build relationships and connections that foster positive change and growth. Nikki currently serves as chair of the Northern Michigan chamber Alliance, a coalition of 18 chambers and economic development organizations advocating for rural central business policies. She was appointed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer to serve on the Michigan statewide Housing Partnership to help facilitate Michigan’s first ever statewide housing plan. She’s on the board of directors for ACCE, a board regent for the US Chamber Institute for organization management, and is on the board of directors for the Michigan Association of Chamber of Commerce professionals. She’s a graduate of the US Chamber of Commerce business leads fellowship program, the Association of Chamber of Commerce executives, leadership and diversity cohort, and is a US Chamber of Commerce, Institute of organizational management graduate. She is a member of the Petoskey noon Rotary Club, and she donates her time to the Northern Community Mediation, Little Traverse, Pacific Theater and Women’s Resource Center of Northern Michigan. Nikki lives in Petoskey, Michigan, and spends as much time as she can hiking and enjoying all the beauty Northern Michigan has to offer. And Nikki, 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 to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better. Thank

Nikki Devitt 3:01
you, Brandon, and it is Petoskey.

Brandon Burton 3:06
I should ask these questions before we start.

Nikki Devitt 3:09
It’s okay. It’s Petoskey, Michigan. There’s a long history there, which is pretty fantastic. So thank you so much for allowing me this opportunity. It’s just absolutely a wonderful thing that we can do to as chamber professionals, to speak to one another, to learn from other one another, and share from one another. So I really appreciate that very much. And being here something interesting, I guess, or unique. That is, you know, not in my bio, although that sounds interesting in a lot of ways, I guess, is that. So I do have a broadcasting background about 10 years, and also spent a little bit of time as an audio book narrator, so something that kept me busy when I wasn’t on the stage. So I’ve spent a lot of time as well performing since I was a child, and still perform in our local community theater. Very

Brandon Burton 4:05
cool. So what type of broadcast it was? TV, or right? TV? Radio? No. Radio. You were built for this. This is awesome radio.

Nikki Devitt 4:15
I’ve done a few podcasts here and there, yes. So I was, you know, started out on the sales and marketing side, and then eventually was lucky enough to have the honor to be operations and programs for a very large cluster of stations, and spent quite a bit of time on the air as well. So kind of did every facet of it. And broadcasting is a fascinating industry, and I think until I ran into the chamber industry, I thought there was probably nothing as challenging. And then I entered chamber life,

Brandon Burton 4:49
yeah, and the story is still being written, exactly. Well, tell us a little bit about the Petoskey Chamber of Commerce. To give us an idea of the size staff, scope of work, budget, just to kind of set the stage for our discussion today,

Nikki Devitt 5:05
absolutely so our chamber is is, like many, I find it so fascinating. How many chambers are over 100 years old? We’ll celebrate 105 years next year, and we are so Petoskey, Michigan, is located at the very pretty much northwest tip of the Lower Peninsula. So for those who aren’t familiar with the lower and upper peninsula, I am about 35 miles from the Mackinac Bridge, and then I can be in our beautiful upper peninsula, which to Michiganders, as we like to call ourselves, is just a place that is hard to describe, unless you have the opportunity to be there. So Northern Michigan is a wonderful resort community. We’re built on a tourism economy. So our chamber is unique in the sense that we have a very thriving year round community. Our population in the city of Petoskey, or townships, if you will, incorporate, it is about 16,000 our county has about 34,000 so we’re not very large, but we essentially triple to quadruple that population in our summer months, and also have a huge uptick in our winter months as well, because we are a year round destination with our beautiful Lake Michigan, but also fantastic ski resorts. So there’s all kinds of things that you can do. So with that in mind, and our Chamber’s history and our community’s history, we’re also put in a situation where we are lucky enough to be on places in our state that has a huge tribal history. So Petoskey actually is goes back to Ignatius badass gay, who was the first Chief of our area, way back when, and the late 1700s or late 1800s and so our community is very diverse in the sense that we have a very rich cultural history here, and yet we cater to a new element of people coming to discover this region. So we have about 770 members. We’re one of the larger chambers in the state of Michigan, especially geographically and population wise. And we have four full time staff, and about 500,000 is our budget. So we do a lot with a little, if you will, from a small staff standpoint, and I like to consider us an impact chamber. And so that means that while we still host a farmer’s market every summer and do an art show in the summer in our beautiful park, we are a very much an advocacy chamber. So we’re very involved in our community’s future, whether that be economically, how we look at it, from a prosperity way, and also still maintaining that traditional programming of networking events, we like to call them connecting events, and then a very heavy programming piece that we utilize to make sure that our members have the tools at their disposal to grow their business, enhance their employees and enhance their relationship within our community and those around us. Oh,

Brandon Burton 8:07
that’s awesome. There’s a lot going on, and I’m always impressed by the chambers that can do so much with you know, little staff, and it’s just it’s a great testament to the work that you guys do. So sounds like you’re doing great work. And we’ll focus our discussion today on creating a thriving community, which is going to go on very well with the continuation of what you shared with us so far, but we’ll dive in much deeper on that as soon as we get back from this quick break.

Joe Duemig 6:26
Hi, I’m Joe and I’m Rose, and we’re the founders of App My Community, a mobile app that can be customized to meet the unique needs of your chamber of commerce.

Joe Duemig 7:54
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All right, Nikki, we’re back. So as we talk today about creating a thriving community, what sort of things have you seen? Obviously, every community is a little different. Every chamber is a little different. What works for you guys? Aaron Petoskey and to create a thriving community? And it sounds like I don’t know, I’ll let you define what you see as community, because I think the definition of community kind of changes over time.

Nikki Devitt 11:18
It does change. I think one of the most important factors that we take into consideration at our chamber is that the line between the business need and the community need is not a line at all. They are so interwoven within each other, we believe that from our standpoint, that our businesses only thrive when our community thrives. So we’re really looking at things in our community that impact our community and therefore would impact our businesses. So things that we hear about all the time now and more and more chambers are really into this space. Is what is that workforce impact? Is it housing? Is it childcare? Is it education? Where are the hurdles? Where are the places that our businesses need to grow and enhance themselves? We talk a lot in the state of Michigan about attracting talent, while we very much know in Northwest Michigan that we need to attract talent, we also need to retain talent. And so for us, the thriving community is giving our businesses the tools that they need to really, truly be the best that they can be. And we believe that, you know, it’s a basic conscious capitalism standpoint, if you will, the advancement of the human quality of life happens when your community is doing sustainable business practices. So that is everything that’s looking at, are you taking care of your employees? Are you taking care of your environment? Are you looking at the future of what your community could look like? So for us, we call it just chamber passion, and when you want to build a thriving community, you have to remember that first and foremost, everybody is involved, and everyone has a voice. And as we all know, that can be a very difficult prospect. With 770 members, not all of them have the same exact needs. So for us to make sure that our community thrives and our businesses thrive, we have to be nimble and we have to be ready to if we don’t have the answers or the resources to make sure that we find them and provide them for our businesses, so that our community can grow, and that everyone who wants to live and work in this beautiful, incredible place that I get to call home, has that opportunity

Brandon Burton 13:35
that’s awesome. So you touched on a ton of things there in that response, and as I, as I revisit some of that, I’m hoping you can dive in a little bit deeper. But as you talk about creating a thriving community, you talked about for these businesses to be the examples you gave, are you taking care of your employees in the environment and but then you talk about all the voices that come from people in the community and the businesses, and 770 members. So there’s a lot that needs to go out from the chamber, and a lot that comes in, as far as you know, feedback and data and so forth. So what is your approach? Because it’s hard to tackle everything all at once, so there has to be some strategy and how you build a thriving community. What, what approaches do you do from a strategy side to implement some of these things? First and foremost,

Nikki Devitt 14:29
it’s collaboration. You can’t do anything alone and community. I mean, by definition, is the work of many, not the work of one. So as a chamber, you have to realize that you are, at best, the collaborator that no one else can be. So you have to put yourself into the position when you’re looking at the issues that impact a community’s success, especially our members. Success is who needs to be at the table and whether as the. Where you’re leading those conversations, or you’re participating in them as the voice of business, you have to make sure that everybody that needs to be at that successful roundtable discussion is always there. So I mean COVID, I think we use as an example in chambers now more than ever, and I think it’s a fantastic thing that we do chambers. Were able to step into a space where we were working with our municipalities, our local government, our state government, as well, as you know, our human resources elements within our community, whether that be your health department or your hospital. How are you making sure that everybody knew what was going on and what challenges were coming for your community? It’s that same concept, except you do it for every issue that you have. So always making sure that, from a strategic standpoint, you reach out to the players that need to be involved for whatever that issue is. So if it’s housing, are you making sure that you have those relationships and that they have the information, say, from a you know, what your planning and zoning committees look like. Do they understand where the challenges are? Have they heard a business, whoa, why they can’t get employees or retain employees? Do they understand that it could be something that is within their power to address and change? And then, are you also making sure that the voices that come in are not just your big business, but your small business. So I think it’s that one first and foremost is strategically you have to if you’re talking about a thriving community, collaboration has to be your first step, and the recognition that you can’t do it alone. And it’s going to take many, many people to work on each of these individual issues to push a community as a whole forward. Yes,

Brandon Burton 16:43
yeah, you said it very well. Collaboration, as far as the what you have to work with within your staff, with within the office, how do you how do you disseminate, you know, all the things you need to do to kind of spark that collaboration and take some of the voices that you’re hearing and taking them back to those other partners in collaboration.

Nikki Devitt 17:07
I think you said it really well, though. You said with your staff. So I think that’s kind of it’s like, you know, if you’re gonna talk the talk, walk the walk, one of the first

things we do, and we’ve understood with our staff is we all have different skill sets. We all have different places of passion. We work with our members differently. So while we have defined titles and roles, we are a staff that works very collaboratively at all times, because we understand that, whether it be convening a work group to discuss child care challenges in our community, or whether it be instituting a program of work that is going to be more HR focused for some of our businesses, that helps them understand some best practices for talent retention that we have to be able to nimbly flex between those things as staff to make sure that we’re putting our resources forward, just as we’re asking our community members, our community leaders and our agencies to do to work together. So you’ve got to kind of lead with that mentality from a strategic standpoint as well, or you will burn your staff out in seconds. It does mean that we’re constantly having to adapt to circumstances within our community. Sometimes you put a lot more effort into one topic or one challenge, and then three months later, that’s something that you have to put a little bit on the back burner because something else has elevated itself into being a prior need for your community. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 18:39
I can see that for sure. So I’m curious, do you guys segment your membership at all to see, like, which ones have you know this need, like you’ve mentioned? HR, so if that is a need for, say, 20% of the businesses, business members, do you segment that or do you leave it open for any member? Because maybe there’s a need you don’t know about. I’m just curious on the approach. We do a lot of

Nikki Devitt 19:02
targeting. So everything that we offer, especially from a programming standpoint, or when we do say, you know, we do a housing Town Hall, we do Hot Topic conversations on childcare, on workforce, on legislative issues, all those things. So it’s always open to our full membership and our community as well. We make sure, especially if it is an issue that drives the community, that it is something that is open to anyone in the community, regardless of membership, when our programming is focusing on those talent attraction issues, what’s the corporate Transparency Act look like? What does the you know, latest Bill look like in the house? That how it could impact you? And there’s a lot going on with Michigan right now, and some of those, those we will open up to our home membership, but then we take a strategic approach from a staff standpoint, and say, who should be at this table? Who do we have to reach out to and maybe give a personal invitation to make sure that they are part of this conversation and or. Knowing that we know our businesses well enough, because we’re still a really small town, that which ones are going to be greatly impacted by whatever this may be, or who’s going to get the most of a benefit fact from it, and who do we make sure that they understand? So it’s always an open ended approach to everything, but then we dive down after the fact, usually give it a little bit, see where the interest lies, see who’s excited about it, and then start doing those targeted approaches by segmenting our membership based on just our category structure and how we know them. And that seems to have always worked quite well for us.

Brandon Burton 20:35
Yeah, sounds like a great approach. The worry I have with segmenting is that, you know, somebody gets invited to attend, and you have a seat at the table, and somebody else says, I had no idea the chamber even does that, not that they wanted a seat at the table, but they need to know, you know what? What is it the chamber does, and being able to get that messaging out there, so your approach seems to be well balanced, and it’s open for anybody, but then kind of hone in on those that that really need to be there. So some

Nikki Devitt 21:03
of our individual members always need that you know that special touch, and we know that, yeah, you have to know your membership well. You have to know your community well, especially when you’re taking this kind of approach. And always keep in the back of your mind that no matter what your best intentions are, you may, at some point, make someone feel like they were left out. And you have to be prepared and ready to, you know, remedy that in the best way that you can. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 21:29
so going back to the title, or the topic for this discussion, is creating a thriving community. And I’m asking, on behalf of a listener in, you know, I’m not even going to name a state, because I don’t want to get in trouble with anybody, but

Nikki Devitt 21:45
you’re doing it right now,

Brandon Burton 21:48
in the middle of nowhere. That says, you know, Nikki’s doing great. This is a, you know, she’s doing fascinating things, but she lives in a beautiful part of Northern Michigan. Got a lot of tourism. It brings people in year round. It might be a smaller community, but the reach is so much bigger. You know, I’m here in, you know, fill in the blank. How can somebody who maybe doesn’t see their community in the same light as you do? I can feel the love that you have for your community. Others may not have that same view, right? So, how can we, how can we help someone get excited about or to have that ability to create a thriving community? Because I think your enthusiasm drives that as well.

Nikki Devitt 22:30
I think, well, the first thing is, is, if you don’t feel that way about your community, why are you there? You have to have the passion for your community. First and foremost, I would be remiss if I, you know, I realize I can paint a picture that makes it look perfect, but you know, we have some huge challenges in our region and in our community in general, in that we are, while we are a, you know, mid sized, you know, chamber and pretty big for our area. We’re also in a very rural, remote area. It just happens to be pretty but rural areas come with a lot of challenges. I think my the bane of my existence will always be infrastructure. Water and Sewer are the absolute barrier to housing or commercial development or anything that we could possibly look out for future, forward thinking. And also we are a very, I’ll say, a non diverse community. So in a lot of ways, that presents challenges as the world changes, as our business needs change, what we are able to that’s just push forward is a strong sense of a term, but what we’re able to introduce our businesses to. So we have a lot of challenges, and it’s very difficult sometimes, when you see something that’s a pretty shiny Penny, to understand that maybe the other side isn’t so great. So you have to have passion, first and foremost, for your community, and you have to look at, what are our resources that make us unique. What is something about our community that makes us special? Why do our businesses choose to invest here and stay here? And you have to really believe that that is something worth fighting for and getting behind and really, really protecting, if you will, protecting from the mindset that your community isn’t special, because every community is special, if you really look into it and find what that is that makes it a place where somebody wants to live and work, and why a business wants to be there. So I think finding the passion is the first piece, and then the second piece to that comes with being aware of what your challenges are. Being aware there are obstacles you will never overcome. You can’t you can lay the groundwork for somebody 1015, 20 years from now to tackle that issue, and you can make sure that that’s an aware, an awareness to your community. But you can’t fix everything, but you have to love it first and foremost.

Brandon Burton 24:57
Yeah, I love that. The question you ask is, what makes your community special? Or find something to find, find what that is. And I’ve seen some communities that you know, what makes them special is a certain industry you know, that thrived 50 years ago, that maybe isn’t around in their community anymore, but they still recognize that. They still do a parade about it. They still have roots, you know, in that industry. And I think that’s great for a start. And then let’s look at what’s that next thing, you know, what this area was great for this industry for a reason. How can we make things great again? But I love that passion needs to drive all of it. So, absolutely fantastic. Um, so I like asking this question for listeners out there who are looking to take their organization up to the next level, or they have that that goal or desire in their mind, what kind of tip or action item might you share with them in trying to accomplish that goal?

Nikki Devitt 25:57
I think you have to take a very strong assessment of where you are and where you want to go. I mean, it’s strategic planning. 101, where are you today, and what makes your chamber what it is in your community? What? What do you do so well that the neighbor chamber couldn’t, couldn’t top it, that they want to, they want to R and D, that they want to rip off and duplicate that all day long. So taking stock of where you are and what you do well helps you determine where you want to go and what you can do better. And really, truly believing in your organization and your community is the first piece, and a very, very important piece, is you have to have the right people in the right seats. Everybody has to be on board to go with where you want to go and grow how you want to grow. And that’s a hard conversation sometimes, especially from a CEO standpoint, is to is everybody rowing the boat in the right direction? Because I truly believe that the best chamber is the chambers that is is a team. They are. They’re almost like an organism. They work so well together, and they believe so much in their mission and their vision and where they’re headed. So you have to make sure that critical piece is into place, or getting to that space in time that you want to and that goal that you have for your organization is either going to be something you won’t achieve or it’s going to take you a long time and a lot

Brandon Burton 27:28
of heartache. Yeah, I like that strategic planning 101, you got to have a vision of know where you are and where do you want to go and how you’re going to get there, so and have

Nikki Devitt 27:39
grace and space with yourself. Know that it takes time, and know that you’re never going to get everything in the time frame. You think either, you think we can do this in a year, two years, two years go by, you go, wow, we only moved the needle about 60% remember you moved the needle? Yeah, and remember that you went from where you were to where you are now, and that’s progress. And really, truly, credit yourself for that. Credit your team.

Brandon Burton 28:07
I wish I could remember who said the quote, but how people overestimate what they can do in a year but underestimate what they can do in 10 years, right? So absolutely moving the needle, but in that 10 year range, you’re really gonna see progress. Well, Nikki, as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Nikki Devitt 28:29
You know, I truly believe I’m a big I would say supporters is an understatement. I’m a believer in acces Horizon Report, when the first one came out, it was so, let’s just say, comforting to see that. Here’s, you know, our national chamber organization, saying, these are the places chambers belong and should be, and the things that matter. And thinking, all right, we got 10 years to get there, and then 2020 hit. We all went, Oh, wow, look. We we just did all that in five years. Yeah. And so it comes back to kind of what the core theory really truly is of, you know, the horizon initiatives. And if you are not familiar, if you are listening and you do not know what the Horizon Report is. And by the way, little hint tidbit that the updated 2035

reports out. It comes out by very shortly. So we’re super excited about that,

but you have to look into that, because it really truly talks about that chambers are the most trusted entity. And the future of chambers, it’s limitless, because we truly, truly are the conveners. We truly are the entity that isn’t just the voice of business. We’re the voice of communities. We have the power to shape and build not just our businesses, but our communities and the Horizon Report, really. Helps you kind of hone in on that and and say, there’s, you know, nine of the different initiatives, and they’re everything from timeless to timely to linchpin initiatives. And it gives you the opportunity to look into it and go, okay, my community, this is never going to be an issue, or it’s not an issue that my chamber is willing or ready to get behind. But there might be others that you look at and say, Yes, this is something we need to go because these are things that are going to affect us all. I mean, we know without a doubt scarcity and abundance and political and social fragmentation, and you can’t even get into what technology is doing as far as affecting business and our future in the population shifts that we’re having, these are all huge, huge things, and and chambers, really truly are the only entity uniquely positioned to engage in all of them and really truly make a difference.

Brandon Burton 30:57
Yeah, sounds like you’ve drunk the Kool Aid too. So that’s

Nikki Devitt 31:01
I did. I can’t deny it.

Brandon Burton 31:04
Going back and looking at the first Horizon Report, for somebody who’s just hearing about it now, to go back and look at it, you have the advantage of hindsight, of saying, Wow, that you know, this really came to pass, like this really the way? Yeah, I mean, it’s, it kind of makes your, you know, hair stand up on the back of your neck, because you’re getting it absolutely

Nikki Devitt 31:24
does. Because if you could read it and think about the fact that it came out, you know, with the intention of being having come it would all come to fruition by next year. So it came out 10 years ago, and you look at it and realize that 2020 you as a chamber professional, whatever month it was, April, May, June, July, whatever, in that year that you woke up that day and you went to bed that night and realized what you accomplished from a chamber perspective, and you read that report and you go, Oh, wow. Okay,

then I just hit all nine of those in eight hours or 12, depending on what you were working but yeah, yeah.

Brandon Burton 32:04
Very good. Well, Nikki, this has been fun having you on. I love your energy. I love the enthusiasm. I love the impact that you’re making there. Toski, thank you for being with us today. Please share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you. Where would you point them to?

Nikki Devitt 32:22
I would absolutely and I’ll spell it because Heaven knows you can’t pronounce nobody. Don’t worry, nobody can pronounce it. Petoskeychamber.com and that’s P, E, T, o, s, k, e, y, chamber.com and my email is really easy. Nikki, nikki@petoskeychamber.com, and I would love to hear from anyone and just wish everyone the best for 2025 because I think that chambers are going to be needed once again, like we always have been, percent, you know, over a century, now more than ever. So this is our time to really bring our communities and together and elevate our businesses

Brandon Burton 33:02
Absolutely, and we’ll get that in our show notes. Make it easy. People don’t have to spell. They can just click and make it easy to connect with you. But thanks again. This has been wonderful, and wish you the best as you continue to build a thriving community.

Nikki Devitt 33:17
Thank you so much.

Brandon Burton 33:18
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Thinking Big with Ryan Tarrant

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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

Our guest for this episode is Ryan Tarrant. Ryan is currently the President and CEO of the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce and Experience Jackson, Jackson County’s destination marketing organization. In this role, he leads a strategy and vision to improve the regular quality of life in Jackson County for businesses and residents through advocacy, collaboration and destination development. Ryan previously served as the Chief Operating Officer of Business Leaders for Michigan, the state business roundtable, which he dedicated to making Michigan a top 10 state for jobs, education, widely shared prosperity and and a healthy economy, where he oversaw the execution of the organization’s work plan and public policy engagement strategy. He also has prior experience as a chamber executive, where his success included securing more than a million dollars in public funding for an award winning talent attraction and retention initiative, and created a robust advocacy strategy that drove community infrastructure projects, place made, placemaking activities and engagement with local, state and federal officials. Prior to his work in membership based organizations, Ryan held a variety of positions in government and politics, serving as chief of staff to US Representative John Molinar and as a district director for us, rep dave Camp and run numerous federal campaigns. Ryan has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Saginaw Valley State University, and he and his wife, Cheryl, have two mostly adult children and reside in Jackson, Michigan. Ryan, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. I’d love to give you a chance to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening, and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Ryan Tarrant 2:59
Yeah, thanks, Brandon. You know, reading through that bio, it’s starting to make me just feel old. You know, I didn’t feel that old before. And you know, have those Boomer, growing children that tend to go leave for college and then come home and stay for a little bit. So, you know, hopefully we’ll be empty nesters soon. But yeah, I grew up in a mid sized town similar to Jackson, you know, we’ve got 30,000 people grew up in Bay City, Michigan, and, you know, great town had a, had a great upbringing, you know, you had the river, you had the lake, you know, grew up, you know, sailing and doing those things. You know, they have a sailing association. So, you know, really, every kid in the community can go out and learn to sail. And, you know, just, just kind of a fantastic place to grow up and live, you know, real sense of community. But one of the things, you know, it’s a traditional Midwest blue collar town, and so, you know, over the years, as you lose some of that manufacturing, you know, I think there’s a tendency for people to kind of say, well, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re just, you know, I think Madonna called it the dirty little town, because she grew up there as well. Okay, you know. So, so I think for me, you know, growing up in Bay City, you had a region, and Bay City kind of always felt like that, that little bit of a red headed stepchild. You had Midland with the headquarters of Dow, and you had Saginaw that was twice as big and, and so, you know, you always felt a little bit less than maybe, but, you know, so I think that’s what’s kind of drawn me into to the chamber world.

Brandon Burton 4:31
Yeah, it turns into a fighter. It sounds like little scrappy. Yeah, yeah, that’s good. So as far as the the chamber goes, what? What’s the size look like? Staff, scope of work, things you guys are involved with?

Ryan Tarrant 4:48
Yeah. So our chamber is about little shy of 700 members, you know, budgets little north of 600,000 and then I also run experience Jackson, which is our destination. Marketing organization, which is actually housed in the same building, but has a completely separate board, had combined. We have a staff of 10, and then the combined budgets, you know, roughly about 1,000,006 or 1,000,007 between the two. So two distinctly different missions. You know, from the chamber perspective. We we have a strategic plan that, you know, really tries to put our members first. You know that customer service, what our events look like. How are we connecting our members? You know, you’re kind of, if anybody thinks of a chamber, it’s, it’s that traditional chamber experience, but it’s really only, you know, probably a quarter of a third of what we do. You know, the other two pieces are, how do we impact our community? You know, what kinds of things can we? Can we take on? Can we convene and collaborate on to to improve the community? And then the third leg of the stool for us is, is that government affairs and advocacy work? You know, here in Michigan, we we’ve seen some some changes for businesses on the public policy side. And, you know, how do we, how do we push back on that when we need to? How do we, how do we work with our elected officials on some of those issues? And, you know, so over the last year, I’ve been here about 14 months this year, we we’ve had some issues with aggressive panhandling, you know, coming out of the out of the pandemic, I think a lot more communities have dealt with, you know, homelessness, panhandling and some of those types of issues, maybe more than they had in the past. You know, we got to the point where in our downtown, specifically, it was getting pretty aggressive. We have a self described progressive city council, okay, who had had pushed back on it for a long time and and so we spent about nine months working with them, to come to a compromise agreement early in the summer, to to kind of abate that a little bit as far as that aggressive behavior, as far loitering and accosting. And so, you know, had some success there. You know, we go after a lot of different state appropriations, earmarks, if you will, to to kind of ramp up projects, and that’s kind of the scope of what we do. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 7:04
well, that should set the stage for our discussion today. You guys are busy, for sure, get your hands in some several things and making an impact, but we’re going to focus our discussion today around thinking big and some of these big swings you guys have tried and these ideas that that come to you, and I’m excited to dive into this conversation and learn from these things you present to us today as soon as we get back from this quick break.

Joe Duemig 6:26
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Joe Duemig 7:54
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All right, Ryan, we’re back. I mentioned before the break. We’re talking about thinking big today. So in all these different areas of work that you guys are involved with, what are how do you incorporate thinking big? That might be the better way of asking it. How do you incorporate it? You know, every

Ryan Tarrant 9:53
community has its own personality, I would say. And you know, a lot of places in the Midwest you look at and. And and those these communities kind of take a look. And, you know, in our state, if you’re in a mid sized community, you look and you say, Okay, well, you know, Grand Rapids and Detroit sort of get everything and you know, and they’re doing a phenomenal job. I mean, you know, we all know, know about the NFL draft in Detroit and things happening in Grand Rapids with beer city, and then you’ve got Traverse City up north and and so they get a lot of play and a lot of a lot of credit for things. And I think we can, we can have a little bit of fall into a little bit of a rut where we just sort of expect to get, get what we get, and move forward, and nothing really changes, you know. And I think we take a little bit of a different perspective on it, which is, you know, kind of that, why not us? You know, if, if there’s, there’s these opportunities out there, you know, I mentioned appropriation as far as the government advocacy side goes, you know, why not us? You know, if you’re not even asking, you’re never going to get anything, and everything’s always going to be the same. You know, downtown Jackson seen a lot of redevelopment over the last decade or so. I mean, it’s really come back. You have restaurants, you have businesses downtown, and, you know, we have Consumers Energy, which is, you know, either number one or number two, as far as the biggest energy companies in the state that’s headquartered on one end of our downtown, the other end of the downtown, on the other hand, has something called the Hays hotel. It’s this historic hotel, 10 stories, and it’s been vacant for 21 years. And as I came into the community, and you know, I we would talk about the Hays hotel, and you would have people who would just kind of roll their eyes because they’ve all heard it before, and something’s going to happen with it. You know, fast forward and, and there’s a developer who’s who’s committed to it, and, and, you know, through our conversations with them, learned that there was a little bit of a gap with with all of the the different funding components, you know, you look at over the last couple of years, the increases in interest rates and labor shortages and supplies. And so, you know, it would seem that every time they would fill a gap, there was, you know, maybe another hurdle at the back end. So, you know, we kind of took a look at that and said, Well, you know, what if we tried to hit the easy button here a little bit. And so we engaged with our elected representatives at the state capitol and and kind of had that conversation and said, Look, this is, this is sort of that, that transformational project that kind of completes downtown and books and bookends Consumers Energy to then start to infill some of those, those side streets. You know, we were successful in securing we, we actually asked for $3 million and secured four and a half million dollars. Wow, yeah, they treated it a little bit like the 2023, housing market. You know, you put it up for 100 and they give you 150 right? But, you know, those are the types of things that you know, if you say, why not us? And you make the ask, you know, it’s okay to fail. You know, nothing changes if you fail, but nothing changes if you don’t try either.

Brandon Burton 13:05
Yeah? So, and if you do fail, you learn something, and you can apply it to the next, the next, you know, big idea, right? That’s exactly right, yeah. So, as we talk about big thinking, I I can’t help but think of you can’t have big thoughts if you don’t have big vision, right? If you don’t see a bigger plan or bigger vision for your community, can you speak towards that as to how you see Jackson County, what the possibilities are, what how you would like to see yourself in the future, and to be able to apply that to these big ideas that you’re working towards?

Ryan Tarrant 13:42
Yeah, I’m a big fan of, you know, looking at what others are doing and kind of figuring some of those pieces out, like, what are those aspirational goals? You know, I mentioned Grand Rapids, you know, there’s some other communities out there. We actually transitioned one of our team members into more of a data and analytics role, you know, he has a skill set for it, and so, you know, he’s been doing a lot of this. And, you know, not just kind of the, you know, hey, we’re going to do a community assessment and ask people how they feel. You know, we’ve been doing those for 40 years. And over the last 60 years, the city has lost 40% of its population because people’s feelings aren’t based on anything that you know maybe is real or or achievable. And so, you know, we look at at similar communities and find those comparable communities, then, you know, okay, what are, what are their chambers doing? Who is that, that sort of spark plug in the community, that organization, or that individual, you know what? What’s caused them to grow to, you know, achieve additional educational attainment, those types of things. And so, you know, for us, over the last couple of months, we’ve started to look at some of those things. And you know, you can look at Grand Rapids, and the things that we found are, you know, the two biggest keys to to growth seem to be, you know, persistence in your goal and strategies. And you. Yeah, and then, you know, having sort of some spark or some leader that that actually moves it forward. And when I talk about that persists, persistence, when you look at Grand Rapids, you know that that downtown redevelopment in Grand Rapids started in the mid 70s when Gerald Ford was president. You know, the Secret Service, when he became president, told him he couldn’t do a parade in His own hometown because there were so many vacant buildings and they couldn’t secure him. So, you know, fast forward a few years, and they had a conference center come in, and then, you know, and then it was a civic arena, and then it was a medical mile and a four year institution. And it’s been driven by, you know, collaborative efforts, but also by a couple of larger corporations or families that are located there. You know, similar things can be seen around the country. You know, you look at Bentonville, Arkansas with with the Walmart and Walden family, and then you look at places that that have the opportunity to do those things, but maybe don’t have that one or two businesses or individual that individuals with wealth that can kind of pull it off and keep people together. And what does that look like? You know, I talked to our peers in Mankato, Minnesota last week, and, you know, talking to them, and that persistence is there too, you know, they, they’ve, over the last 40 years, had these 20 year plans. I mean, they’re telling me they’re on number three. And so how do we create that? I mean, you’re talking mid 80s, yeah, how many changes of leadership have we had in since the mid 80s? You know, I’ve been in in communities where where you look at things and you go, Okay, there’s this collective group of leaders who have this vision and support each other and collaborate. But then you have one or two leave, and you have another one retire. And if, if that vision isn’t written down, and you’re not not pulling in those successors immediately into that, those leadership roles and to help with that vision, it starts to fall apart. And so, you know, it’s, it’s that keeping people together and that consistency in what you’re doing. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 17:06
now I love that, the creating that vision, and being able to see where there’s certain individuals in a community that maybe carry more influence they might, and I’m not talking necessarily elected officials, but you gave the example of the Walton family, and, you know, they’ve got money, they’ve got influence, big business. How do you get those people within your community to kind of, I don’t know how to say this, in the way that that I intend, but to engage, but to to not be so hyper focused on their individual business growth and success, but to be able to look at the greater picture of the community and get them to engage in the community, to see it grow and success and succeed by applying some of their skills and connections and abilities to the greater good

Ryan Tarrant 17:55
and and I think the biggest, the biggest key there. I mean, you know, you talk to economic developers. And you know what number one or number two is always people, if you’re talking to site selectors, on what’s the first thing they look at if they’re going to go into a community, right? It’s, do you have the quality and quantity of workforce, you know? So when you start talking to those, those you know, whether it’s an individual or a larger corporation, you know, everything I try and do comes from a perspective of, you know, talent, attraction, retention. You know, is this something that’s going to help us attract and retain talent, or is it just something that that we’re doing to do and how does it move the needle? You know, on our destination marketing organization side, you know, we’re making a big outdoor Bucha. Because, you know, we have something called the Irish hills in our county, and there’s, there’s opportunities for for gravel biking out there, which is the fastest segment of cycling. You know, we’ve got 11 miles of mountain biking trails, and our one of our city parks that just needs to be regrouped and maybe added to. And so, you know, how do we do that? Because now those things translate to those quality of life amenities that, you know, when one of our major corporations, or even, you know, a physical therapy organization, is hiring somebody out of college, you know, do you want to go to Jackson, or do you want to go to Chicago? And if you don’t have those quality of life amenities that, you know, you’re not going to compete with the big city lifestyle, but that’s okay. Utilize the assets you have, but make them as good as they can be. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 19:27
that makes a lot of sense. That place making aspect is huge. And I love the example you gave, the Hayes Hotel. I’m in Texas, and there’s a big historic hotel not too far from where I’m at, that has been vacant since, I believe, the 50s. So it’s been it’s quite the icon. People see it, but just now, things are starting to happen to revitalize it. And it’s great to see it’s great to see those success stories and to see it turn around. And it’s something that builds a community. Be around it too, where you can see progress happening on like, a magnified level, right? Yeah,

Ryan Tarrant 20:07
yeah. And those are the sort of transformational things that you see in a community that, yeah, you know, it’s sort of the I mentioned the last decade in downtown Jackson. And you know that that, to me, is that transformational piece that sparks the next decade.

Brandon Burton 20:22
Absolutely, are there some other big things that that you’ve taken a swing at, or, you know, that they would fall into this category of big thinking that we need to highlight?

Ryan Tarrant 20:35
Yeah, so, you know, you mentioned big things, and I mentioned, you know, a lot of lot of mid sized communities out there, you know, sometimes I think in a in the chambers, we can get hyper focused on our day to day. We’re all so busy, you know, all of those things, but, but we’ve really gotta, gotta kind of identify some of those swings. I mean, we can do that by focusing a little bit, right? Yeah, you know, making sure we’re training our sites and we leave that capacity for for those big swings, you know, but for us, I, you know, revamping those, those mountain biking trails are one of our big pushes for next year, you know, because what we’ve learned is, is, if you’re in that 12 to 20 mile range of mountain biking trails, and you develop them so, you know, you I guess, and I’m learning about Cycling right now, apparently it’s like skiing. They have green so little kids can do it and like me, and then they have black diamonds that are really challenging. And, you know, I break my neck so, you know, bringing in a trail builder to develop that and to add miles to it, so that we can draw people in, you know. And it’s in one of the, you know, I would say probably lower income or more diverse neighborhoods in the city. And so the proximity of it, you know, it’s not just doing that for talent attraction, but how do you make that accessible to everybody? So as a piece of that conversation, we’re looking at it and saying, Okay, can we do a mount like library, if you will, where, you know, a kid from the neighborhood can walk down and and, you know, show his card and essentially rent a bike without paying for it, just like the library and go ride the trails and have fun. You know, you want, you want those things to be accessible for everybody. You want everybody to be able to enjoy them, you know, and to do that because it gives you that, that sense of community pride, because with each one of those things you accomplish, it, it builds on itself. You know, we’ve got, we’ve got another nonprofit in town that’s called the hope kitchen, that’s taking the old Masonic Hall and creating a community kitchen, teaching kitchen to sort of train chefs in front of the house. And, you know, to make sure that that we have that pipeline of of talent for our restaurants, so that, you know, when somebody comes into town, or when you go downtown or to a restaurant in our community, you’re getting the service that you you expect. I mean, I think we’ve all been out to eat over the last couple of years, since COVID and and it always feels like, you know, a lot of time, I wouldn’t say always, but often times it feels like, you know, maybe that level of service that we were accustomed to pre COVID is not the same as post COVID, yep. And so, you know, teaching those people, you know how to do that, and and for us, you know, how do we support that? You know, when they need, when they need to purchase their equipment. How do we how do we help them, whether it’s with with grant funding, through the advocacy process, you know, those types of things. So yeah, so those are some of the, some of the things that that are on our radar right now.

Brandon Burton 23:33
And actually just saw this last week, restaurant that had a sign posted on their door said, No, dine in, just take out only, and it’s something that’s stuck ever since COVID and and I hope that’s because the the data is telling them that’s the best solution for them, but my fear is they can’t get the staff to do dine in or decide easier at the community the Customer Services has fallen out something,

Ryan Tarrant 24:01
yeah, the worst one I’ve seen. I saw was I actually tried to order a pizza online, and got a note when I tried to to click Order, and it said, we’re short staffed. We’re taking time to orders for tomorrow. What I got pizza from somewhere else. I think I still have pizza. So yeah, but yeah, that was the most bizarre one. I mean, they updated their their website, and they’re ordering, oh my goodness, that quickly, that you know, hey, we’re just, we’re busy, and we can’t keep up, so we’re just not taking any more

Brandon Burton 24:35
orders. Wow. But hopefully your appetite is still there tomorrow. So that’s crazy. Well, as as we start to wrap up here, I like asking for the chamber that’s listening, who’s trying to elevate their organization to the next level. What kind of tip or action item might you suggest for them and trying to accomplish that goal? So

Ryan Tarrant 24:55
I think we were, we were sort of, you know, in that mindset of. You know, about a year ago, when we were sounds like, yeah, strategic planning, right? You know, how do we elevate to the next level? We hadn’t done a lot of community initiatives or, you know, over the past few years, we hadn’t done a lot of advocacy work for our members over the past few years. And so, you know, they’ve been doing kind of this, you know, event to event kind of mindset. And so one of the things that we did was we actually developed a survey for other chambers. And so, you know, I mentioned our revenues about 600,000 so we kind of kind of broke it out into those peer chamber, Chamber organizations, and then sort of those aspirational chambers that are in that next level at 700,000 to a million or so. And we really went through and kind of said, you know, how many, how many events do you have that would be considered, you know, kind of, quote, unquote, Premier events, you know, your annual meeting, or your community awards or, or those types of things and, and, you know, how many of these advocacy pieces do you do, you know, kind of went down the line to try and benchmark a little bit to see, you know, at different levels, is, is there a different, you know, what does that look like? You know, are we doing something that’s a little bit off and, and what we found from it, you know, we had, we had, it actually ended up getting 1010, or 11 responses, you know, we, we targeted, who we who we asked. But we it was split evenly between those, you know, smaller in our our level, and then those larger organizations. And what we found was, the larger you are, the less you do. It’s hard to think about, but say it again, right? Or at least the forward facing of what you do is less larger you are, you know, because so many of us think of events, the less you do. Yeah, and it was that, you know, it felt like, as you got to that larger, larger revenue size, and you start to get north of 700,000 you know, those organizations are focusing more, doing fewer premier events, probably doing them really well. But part of that is because they’re transitioning from doing more events to more of that community based work, more of that advocacy style work. And even within that advocacy work, they’re more focused. They might pick three or four priorities that they want to work on, versus having, you know, 10 or 15 and and throwing everything at the at the wall and seeing what sticks. So, yeah, you know, I think that that next level for all of us is, is probably being more focused, you know, we, we, and we can fall into that. I mean, I’m, I’m as guilty as everybody else, right? We get so busy, you know, that there’s so many things going on, and sometimes it’s hard to to put that focus and pinpoint on on that one thing that your members need. But you know, I think at the end of the day, you know, for us, if, if we can accomplish that, that top priority, versus numbers 10 through 20, I think our members are going to be happier with us. We’re going to continue to grow, and, you know, the community is going to be better for in the future.

Brandon Burton 27:59
Yeah, but it sounds like having your new data and analytics person is a great step in that direction, to really focus.

Ryan Tarrant 28:07
It does help to look at data. You know, fewer feelings, more things based on data, really, I think, helps us move the needle a little bit. So, yeah,

Brandon Burton 28:16
I just heard the other day somebody was trying to bring back an event after the pandemic, and they put out an email to all their followers and whatnot, and said, you know, if we get enough interest, we’ll put it on. And there was like 300 or so people that responded, yeah, we want to do this. And then the person thought, you know what this is? Just feelings, you know, let me put this out there again, to the ones that said that they want to come and have them put down a 50% deposit, and if we don’t get enough, we’ll refund everything. We won’t do it, but if we get enough, we’ll move forward. And I think he said, Out of the 300 plus, you know people of interest, I think six people put down a deposit. He’s like, we’re not doing it. So I pay cancel it.

Ryan Tarrant 29:03
And I started looking at our events, and kind of said, you know, and talk to our team about if people don’t want to come to an event, you know, they may say they want it in our survey end of year survey, which, you know, we do every year, to kind of, kind of benchmark ourselves and see how we’re doing and what their needs are. And they may say they want all the networking in the world. You know, for us, we offer 22 networking events a year for a grand total of $90 you know, it, it’s literally sort of boosted by sponsors and different things. But if you’re not going to come to it, but you say you want it, we’ll just stop doing it. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 29:39
yeah. Don’t need the practice, right, right?

Ryan Tarrant 29:43
It shows that, you know, we’re a week post election. It shows that sometimes the data and the polling can be

Brandon Burton 29:48
off. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Well, Ryan, as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Ryan Tarrant 29:57
I don’t know that the purpose changes. All that much. I mean, you know, we’re, we’re still going to have that need for businesses who who want to get together, and who want to want to network with one another, develop those relationships. But I think, you know, if there’s any change at all, it’s probably that more and more of that is going to be about that, that bigger picture work that you’re doing. I mean, when we look at our community work, we’re not thinking of, are we doing this? Does it benefit our members? It’s, are we doing this? And does this benefit the community as a whole? You know, if, if the city of Jackson grows, and the county of Jackson grows and we have a bigger employer base, it certainly helps, helps our members. And so, you know, we worry less about those types of things, you know, right now, we, we are we awaiting word on a million dollar grant that we partnered with our local two year college on. And as a part of that, it’s workforce development, you know, is building out a workforce development collaborative to make sure our educational attainment is where it needs to be, and that all of our workforce development partners are working together, you know. And so about a quarter of that 250,000 would be essentially directed to the chamber to run that piece of it, you know. So, so I think you know that community based piece is probably the biggest thing. If, if people aren’t already doing that, how do you impact your community? You know, we know our businesses want to impact their community. That’s why they’ve, you know, for 70 years, sponsored Little League teams, right? You know, done those types of things. They sponsor the local booster club like they they want their people to have community pride. They want to want to see their community and be be proud of where they’re from, and say, you know, you should come visit. You should move here. It’s a great community, you know. And I think the chamber really in in most places, can be a driver of what we look what their community looks like in the next you know, 1015, 20 years,

Brandon Burton 31:48
yeah, yeah, that’s a great point. Well, Ryan, for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you and maybe learn more about how you guys are doing things there in Jackson County, or maybe you’re one of the aspirational chambers that they’re looking up towards. But what would be the best way to to point somebody to reach out and connect with you? Sure my

Ryan Tarrant 32:09
email address is ryan@jacksonchamber.org, and my cell phone, because I actually got rid of my desk phone. I don’t use it anyway, is 989-708-7683,

Brandon Burton 32:26
that’s perfect, and we’ll get this in our show notes for this episode. Make it easy to find, but I appreciate you carving out some time to spend with us today on chamber chat podcast, sharing the example you guys are setting there in Jackson County and and sharing these ideas and some of these big things, these swings you guys are taking, I appreciate that, and it’s provided a lot of value to listeners today. So thank you for that.

Ryan Tarrant 32:49
Appreciate it. Thanks, Brandon.

Brandon Burton 32:50
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Creating Conveners with Tara Lea

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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

Our guest for this episode is Tara Lea. Tara has been involved in the chamber industry at the local, state and regional level for the past decade, with a passion for leadership and a commitment to making a difference. Tara currently serves as a Vice President of Community Affairs at the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce. In this role, she orchestrates programs and initiatives aimed at cultivating the next generation of leaders and empowering individuals to enact positive change in their spheres of influence. Prior to the Nebraska chamber, Tara was the president and CEO of the Fremont Area Chamber of Commerce. In that role, she managed the strategic, fiscal and programmatic goals for the Fremont Chamber of Commerce. She also served as a spokesperson for the chamber through their region. With almost 600 members in the Fremont area Chamber. It’s the sixth largest and one of the oldest chambers in the state of Nebraska. Tara started her career, her chamber career as the president of the Ralston Area Chamber of Commerce, a 275 member organization dedicated to creating business and community vitality. She’s had. She has a very active role in creating the Ralston 20 year development plan. Prior to joining the chamber industry, Tara was employed at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln Professional Golf Management Program, and as the educational specialist recruiting students from across the country to make Nebraska their home. Tara has served as a board member for a variety of civic and government organizations. She’s She was elected to the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce executives and Mid America Chamber of Commerce executive board of directors by her peers, and is currently past chairman of both organizations. Tara has been recognized for both service and professional leadership through the Midlands Business Business Journal, 40 under 40 Leadership Award. She has earned her Bachelor’s of Journalism and Broadcasting and has a master’s in educational leadership from the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Tara is also a 2021, graduate of the US Chamber of Commerce IOM program. Tara, we’re excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. I’d love to give you a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening, and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better. Well,

Tara Lea 3:32
thanks, Brandon, and hello to all my chamber friends across the country, so excited to be on the podcast today to share just a little bit of knowledge that I probably ripped off and duplicated. From some of my friends across the state over the years. My bio is very long with some big words that chatgpt helped me make up. So thank you, Brandon for sharing that. But a big thing that you see in there is Nebraska has mentioned many, many, many times. Born and raised Nebraska, very proud Nebraskan. I think something interesting about myself, and I’m going back a few years here, but when I was a senior in high school, I was both a Nebraska cow queen and pig queen in the same year. So I got to go around the state of Nebraska to fairs and community events and hand out ribbons and just be a promoter of short horn cattle and the pork industry across the state. So I think my, my love for Nebraska, and kind of ending up here in the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce role probably started way back in high school

Brandon Burton 4:31
and talk about something to aspire to, cow queen and pig queen. Wow,

Tara Lea 4:36
just the royalty of Nebraska. You know, I still get the crown out once in a while. No, I’m just kidding,

Brandon Burton 4:41
and we’ve got her on the show today, folks, I love it. But tell us a little bit about the Nebraska chamber, obviously, State Chamber, but give us some perspective the size scope of work, how you guys are involved working with other chambers staff. Just to you. Kind of get our mindset straight as before we go into this conversation today,

Tara Lea 5:04
absolutely so. As you mentioned from my bio Brandon, I’ve kind of climbed the chamber ladder here. I like to say I started a small chamber, went to a mid sized chamber. Now at the Nebraska State Chamber, it’s an entirely new beast and animal compared to the local chambers. We have about 1000 members here at The Nebraska Chamber of Commerce, and our focus is obviously statewide. So we want to make a huge difference from Western Nebraska all the way to Eastern and North and South. We want to cover the whole state. So as most chambers do, we do a lot of lobbying for our businesses and communities across the state. But my role, which is new, is really to work with the local chambers across the state of Nebraska as well. So I kind of have that inside track and know what a weird job that we have. So I can be that person to new folks who come into a chamber role and help do some training and education for them. I can also, if they, you know, chambers have issues or events or things they have questions on, we’re the resource for them, trying to do a lot more meetings with the local chamber folks. So in a way, we’re making all the local chambers an extension of the State Chamber, and I think that’s just going to make the entire state a whole lot stronger as we move forward with that. Here at The Nebraska chamber, we have 12 employees that are here in the office, and then we just started a new initiative a couple months ago, which is also my baby, called six regions one Nebraska. And we’ve hired six navigators across the state, who then are kind of an extension of the chamber as well, working on some regional projects in each of those, those communities, in those areas.

Brandon Burton 6:36
Man, that you guys are busy. I mean, this is, this is awesome. I love, especially your role, this new role that’s been created, and seeing the local chambers becoming an extension of the State Chamber and and having the six navigators. I mean, Nebraska is not a small state. I mean, you get in the East Coast and you get states you can drive across in 30 minutes. Not so much in Nebraska, right? So it makes a lot of sense to have your your delegates?

Tara Lea 7:03
Well, it makes a huge difference, because even for the 12 of us, you know, each of us trying to get out to the western side of the state, it’s eight hours across the state, so we were not spending nearly as much time out there as we should have been. So yes, to have somebody right there in the community, to always be a resource has just been huge for us.

Brandon Burton 7:19
Yeah. Now that is fantastic. And really, that could be a whole podcast episode there. But our focus for our conversation today is going to be around creating conveners. So maybe some of that comes into the conversation today when we talk about, you know, helping to lift up some of these chambers, get them trained and educated, but ultimately creating conveners and and becoming one of those, you know, pillars in that C, you know, the 3c of chambers. So we look forward to diving deeper into this topic as soon as we get back from this quick break.

Joe Duemig 7:53
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All right, Tara, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, our topic for our conversation today is creating conveners. So as you hear that topic and the approach to your work, what does that mean to you? How do you approach creating conveners in your day to day work?

Tara Lea 10:20
So that has been just a passion of mine the entire time I’ve been in the chamber industry. I mean, even at the local level, it’s so important to bring together not just your your members and local businesses, but make sure they’re still working with city government and county government and, you know, make all of us working together to move things forward in the right direction. So now, in my role, literally, I get to do it every single day. So I mentioned the six regions one Nebraska initiative. I also run our leadership Nebraska program. So I know we have a ton of leadership programs across the country. Each of them has its own awesome element, but, you know, a lot of are very similar as well, but that’s really where I have the opportunity. We have about 350 Alumni members who we do events for throughout the year. And then each year, we take a class of between 30 and 35 those folks are from all across the state, and then we go visit different communities across the state. So at that time, it’s all about those introductions, bringing people together. It’s amazing to see, even years later, folks that are working together because they met at an alumni event or they were in class together. So I really think that’s to form those partnerships is huge, and anything I can do to make that happen is just a true passion of mine,

Brandon Burton 11:32
absolutely. So tell us a little bit more about that. As you as you take these alumni, you divide up, you go out and visit others. What? What does that look like? What do you provide? What’s the curriculum, if you will?

Tara Lea 11:43
Yeah, great question. So again, if you have a local Chamber Leadership Program, you’re probably meeting one day a month or something along those lines. For leadership, we meet three days a month, so it is a huge time commitment for folks, but we start at noon on a Wednesday and wrap up on noon on a Friday. And the whole goal, obviously, is there’s a leadership development component, which is huge, but it’s also the relationship. So we are making sure the folks in this class are getting in front of the mayors of communities, or just the key people that are in that community, senators, whoever that might be, and then the top business leaders in those communities as well. So they have that resource and they know them. And then we take a lot of behind the scenes tours as well. So Nebraska is a large manufacturing state, so we get to see some really cool things that are made right here in the state of Nebraska. Each month, we’re in a different part of the state. So we do southeast, we do Western, northeast, central Lincoln, Omaha. We hit kind of all some of the hot spots across the state. And again, just to showcase it’s usually focused on the top hitting issues within a state right now. So obviously, this year, child care comes up in every single session. We go to communities and see what kind of facilities they have or how they’re kind of battling. The child care shortage crisis across the state. Housing has been huge for a number of years. It’s fun to go see some of the small homes and just or the things that are being created, you know, in these communities, to make sure they’re covering the housing they need, housing they need, and then just workforce. So issues in Nebraska, but also issues across the whole state, we are not going to find an answer. Unfortunately, I wish we had that crystal ball that told us, Hey, here’s the answer to all of this. And if someone listening does have that, please call me and tell me what that is. But it’s just nice to see what other folks are doing, so then the people in the class can take those ideas back to their communities and help build and try to solve some of these issues that we have across the state.

Brandon Burton 13:38
Even if somebody has solved it. It’s probably only solvable in their community and whatever adaptations need to happen. So the thought came to me as you’re explaining how this, how the program works with these visits, these manufacturing facilities, you know, just getting out and seeing, you know, the childcare place, the the workforce and the housing issues. How is this all working towards the goal of creating conveners? Or would you say that’s the goal? Absolutely

Tara Lea 14:09
is the goal. And I think it happens every single session, because someone will meet someone that then they can go work with or push a project forward, because they had the opportunity to convene and meet with those folks while they were on a tour, listening to a panel of speakers. Even just the leadership development, it’s it’s getting those folks in the class stronger and more knowledgeable, so that they can then go back to their communities and bring everybody together, convene people that need to be in the room to push things forward and make things happen across the state.

Brandon Burton 14:39
Absolutely, I was thinking just the just the perspective that’s opened up to these individuals to go through the program, I think is so valuable in creating conveners, to be able to look at a problem from multiple angles and say, Yeah, I know somebody over here. Let’s bring them in. Let’s and maybe that’s getting more into the catalyst phase. Is the you know that that other C, but I think being a convener is so important to be able to have those connections, bring them in, have that perspective, to approach things from from different, different angles, really, absolutely

Tara Lea 15:12
and as a State Chamber, we just really want to see all of our local communities advance and grow. And so that is obviously huge for us is when we can bring folks together and do some the right people, so then they can go back and make an impact within their community.

Brandon Burton 15:25
Absolutely. So I know we’re talking a lot about the leadership Nebraska, can we talk a little bit about how you work with chambers too? Because I want to know, because I feel like there’s some convener development going on with those chambers too. As you work with the local chambers, what are those interactions like? And what do you do to promote them, to support them, to train them. What does that look like? Yeah,

Tara Lea 15:55
so that’s something we’ve really focused on the last couple of years as well. We have no no better value than our local chambers across the state. They are huge resources for us as the Nebraska chamber. So we want to make sure folks are loving their job and wanting to continue working in the chamber industry. Obviously, that’s kind of an issue we’ve had across the state as well, as is folks kind of get burnt out or whatever issues might arise. So we really want to focus on, what can we do to make their lives a little bit easier? So the Nebraska chamber association is our statewide group of chamber executives, and we meet every other week on a zoom call where we’ll bring in experts in the chamber field. Maybe sometimes it’s just a social media expert, an HR expert, just people who can come in and educate our local chamber executives so that then they can be a resource in their local areas and their local communities. We also do two conferences a year where we get as many people together as we can. It’s usually two to three days, and it’s just pure professional development education, but also that awesome time to be with your colleagues who do the things that you do, day in and day out, and they understand how how this job is, so it can be a resource for folks moving forward, just to have that, that person to go to and talk to when needed. As far as spreading the word the chamber newsletter, we love to get local chambers in there. And one of my dear friends in Fall city and I Amber Holly started a podcast a couple of months ago called chamber chatter boxes, where we just interview local chambers and they talk about what makes their community unique, some of the events they have going on. We really encourage folks across the rest of the state or region to go and visit those communities in our podcast. So not nearly the level of the chamber chat yet Brandon, but we have goals to aspire 12 episodes in someday, we will also be at 309

Brandon Burton 17:47
Awesome, awesome. I love hearing chambers podcast. So this is, you know, going through COVID. That was kind of the vision that I saw. Is with the pivoting. I even set up a page on my website called the podcast pivot, right? So during during COVID, chambers still needed to get their messaging out and, and some did, you know, Zoom calls, and they used other tools where they could, you know, put out video. But podcasting, when people are at home and they’re doing different things, and they can listen and and be able to be educated while they’re doing other things, is so important. And I think the world we live in today where everybody’s so busy, that’s a way to reach people, absolutely, podcast so

Tara Lea 18:27
and drive time, yeah? I mean, just drive time in our state too. People in our car a lot, yeah, driving throughout Nebraska. So it’s a nice time to just pop on a podcast and use that, that that windshield time for good, absolutely,

Brandon Burton 18:40
instead of just listening to radio or whatever, I mean, right? Music, yeah, we all have those songs embedded in our mind already, so we don’t need to keep reinforcing. We can, you know, broaden our minds. But

Tara Lea 18:53
that’s right, I could sing a little bit for you if you want to. No, I’m just happy to everyone would turn their this podcast off right now if I started that.

Brandon Burton 19:00
But I was just gonna, I was just gonna say how great you sounded, you know, with the microphone and the podcast set up. So we’ll leave it right there. But

Tara Lea 19:07
perfect, sounds good.

Brandon Burton 19:11
So you guys meet twice a year for a conference that’s you. That’s kind of unique. I see most, most state association, State Chambers, are doing, you know, once a year. So do you know what was behind that? To do it twice a year, and is a turnout similar for both, or is one more supported than the other? Yeah,

Tara Lea 19:32
so we have a fall conference every year, and that’s probably that’s been going on for as long as I’ve been in the chamber industry, and we kind of rotate that across the state, so every region has a chance to be host and show off what they’re doing. That is our bigger event that definitely gets more chamber execs there. And then in the spring, we do what we call mini institutes. It’s just a two day session. It’s typically either centrally located in the state of Nebraska or Omaha, Lincoln area. And that started. Gosh, probably five or six years ago, just because people wanted more they wanted to get together more often. They wanted more education opportunities. And that one, it’s a little less attended, but again, it’s just a two day event, so sometimes people coming from further distances, it’s, you know, can I justify the day and a half compared to the three days? And so we tried to keep the prices really low on that too. We know there’s not a huge budget for professional development, a lot of small chambers, so we keep it under $100 for both of those conferences, and try to provide as much value as we can while folks are together. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 20:33
that’s great. I think for those listening who may be on a board for their state association, just take some ideas. See if there’s value in your state to do something similar. But from Tara’s perspective, it’s all about strengthening Nebraska. So don’t, don’t, don’t compete too Right, right? Don’t

Tara Lea 20:50
get too good. Go ahead and do a few things, but you know, don’t. Don’t be as good as us. Just kidding,

the whole country will be better if everybody works together. So it’s all good.

Brandon Burton 21:00
Absolutely. I love it. I love these approaches. I mean, you guys are, it seems like you’re doing things right, to build up leaders to to turn them into conveners that are going to strengthen their communities, be that extension of the Nebraska chamber throughout the state. I love the strategy that you guys are making. Is there anything else to the approach that you guys are taking that’s worth noting again, for those listening who may be taking something, taking what they hear today, back to state association or or up to their State Chamber and say, Hey, can we do this surgery? Have you thought about this? What? What would you suggest? Yeah, I

Tara Lea 21:36
know I mentioned it, but I really there’s so much value in having someone at the local level. And that’s, I think, when I came from a local chamber to the state that was the biggest piece that was missing. It was, you know, we were expecting our members to come to us all the time. And even at local chambers, we do that too, where it’s like we’re hosting these events. If they’re members, they should be coming to our events, coffees, urban cuttings, whatever it may be. At the State Chamber, we were hosting three events a year, and expecting folks to just show up. Well, that’s that’s not a great way to do business. That’s not a way we find out what our members need and want. So statewide, I think the best thing we did is have these local navigators in communities, where they can get out and hear from each individual member, or even if they’re not members, just communities across the state, local chambers, I think, do the same thing. And I’ve really stressed this to my local chamber friends, is that you need to meet one on one with with as many members as you can. We’re here to make the business community a better place. And if we don’t know what the issues are that our business leaders are facing, there’s no way we can do that. So that one on one, time that you spend with your members is so valuable and so important and and even if, you know, no solution comes out of it, just the fact that your business member feels heard is huge for them. And when that invoice comes around to pay again, you know, the following year, they’re going to remember that time they spent with you, and it’s going to be a lot easier for them to write that check, instead of, you know, debating if they continue their membership or not,

Brandon Burton 22:59
yeah, and this, I mean, I feel like we see this model from the US Chamber, where they have representatives that they come and they’re going to state conferences, and they’re going to local chamber, you know, events and being, being seen, being present, taking note on what, what are the issues of importance, and being able to take them back to the US Chamber say, Okay, let’s focus on these things. So it’s a great, great model. It seems to be working for them. So why not? Why not do it in Nebraska, or whatever state you’re in right now? So exactly

Tara Lea 23:32
Brita. The other thing I was going to mention that we do is, I know, when I was a local chamber exec, the lobbying side of things was not my cup of tea. I didn’t, didn’t follow very well. I didn’t, didn’t understand a lot about it. I can easily admit that. But so what we do at the State Chamber also is, during the legislative session, we’re giving our local chambers kind of cheat sheets that they can then share in their newsletters or meetings with their government affairs council, where we’re basically like handing it to them with the Cliff Notes, like, yes, here’s the big things that are happening during the session or even happened this week at the state capitol. Feel free to do a social media tweet that’s similar to this, or, you know, whatever it might be, just really getting those resources to the folks that aren’t comfortable with it and don’t, you know, I would never want to do a newsletter and put something that I wasn’t 100% sure about, and now we’re just taking the guesswork out of it for the local chambers. And here you serving on a platter, like here it is. Go ahead and just copy and paste, and then if they have questions, our government affairs folks here at The Nebraska chamber are amazing and more than willing to go out and do lunch and learns and things with the local Chambers as well with their businesses, so that it kind of takes some pressure off that local chamber leader and the experts can come in and really talk about what’s going on in the capital.

Brandon Burton 24:44
Yeah, and advocacy should be such a huge part of each local chamber, and we all know chambers typically run understaffed, so to be able to put in the time individually to do the research, take an opinion to say what’s best for our business community, that’s a huge and. That’s a full time job, really, yeah, and absolutely, to be able to have that support from the State Chamber to say, Here it is. Now, I would suggest for everybody still read it, you know, look at but yes, use that as a resource to promote and put out there and and call it your own, you know, say, in a partnership with the State Chamber, this is what we were standing on, and it’s hard to go wrong if you take that approach. So great point. Nobody

Tara Lea 25:27
goes to school to learn how to be a chamber professional, and we wear so many different hats that it’s just nice when we can have, you know, help out there along the way to make us look better. That’s always a good thing, absolutely.

Brandon Burton 25:39
Well, Tara, as we start to wrap things up here, I wanted to ask, on behalf of a listener who’s wanting to take their chamber up to the next level, you’ve shared some great, great tips and strategies, but what might you offer for a chamber that’s trying to accomplish that goal of of taking their chamber to the next level?

Tara Lea 25:55
Yeah, don’t be scared to try new things. I think we kind of get in our little ruts of we’ve always done it this way, so we’re going to keep doing it that way. And I think that mentality, hopefully, is changing a little bit as we’ve all had to reinvent ourselves, especially through the COVID years and things like that. But I think just go ahead and try that event. If you’re if you’re not sure if it’s going to work or not, do it one year if it flops, who cares? Don’t do the next year. If you are looking to change some initiatives within your city your community, go talk to the mayor. Go make those relationships happen so that you can really push things forward. But you can’t be scared to try new things, because we’re ever changing and continuing to show our value to our members and our communities. So take the leap and do whatever fun event or initiative that you’re hoping to achieve,

Brandon Burton 26:43
absolutely. That’s great advice. As we look to the future of chambers, I always like to see, you know, what does your crystal ball say? How do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward? Well, let

Tara Lea 26:56
me wait my taro cards out here. No, I’m just kidding. So I could not be more excited for I feel the future of chambers are going throughout our country. I mentioned before COVID, like we all did a rebrand, right? We were worried. What are we going to look like when we come out on the other side of this? We can’t do things the way we always did. I truly believe chambers are stronger now than we were five years ago. I think we’re just going to continue to grow. I do see some more partnerships happening, whether it be regional chambers forming or more economic development and chamber folks merging. I think that’s probably the way things are going to go. But I think we’re only going to be stronger because of that. So I think, yeah, I have no doubt that chambers will continue to play a huge role in their communities. They will be the people who know everything about what’s going on and the place that folks go to to find the latest and greatest information. And I can’t be I can’t wait to be part of the ride, and it’s so fun where I’m at now, because I not only get to see it at the state level, but I really get to see it happening in the local communities as well, and that is absolutely amazing. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 28:01
I love that vision of the future, and I am going to plug just our previous episode with Angela Wilson. She talked about negotiating contracts. So that is the future, with chambers merging and taking on more of an economic development role. Give that episode a listen and just really get into what you need to be considering as you approach contracts with these different partnerships. But I love that, that vision of the future. So thank you, Tara, absolutely. Yeah. So I wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you. Learn more about how the Nebraska chamber is approaching different things, or what they can do to to strengthen their chamber. What would you Where would you point people to to reach out and connect?

Tara Lea 28:45
Yeah, I am always available via email. I might take two emails, like it did when Brandon tried to set this up today, but I promise I will try to get back to you much of the first one. My email is just tlea@nechamber.com, again, T, L, E, A, at, N, E, chamber.com, or I’m always available. You can call me at 402-480-6918,

they also have a great Nebraska chamber has a website that’s great leadership. Nebraska has an awesome website. I would also, if you’re interested in leadership program, would follow leaders from Nebraska on Facebook. We’re always posting the fun things that we’re doing, so feel free to give that a follow and and steal some ideas from us as well.

Brandon Burton 29:31
That’s perfect. We’ll, we’ll do our best to link all of that in our show notes for this episode. Make it easy to find all the places and and links. But Tara, this has been great having you on chamber chat podcast. I love the energy and enthusiasm and the insight that you brought to us today, and appreciate you spending time with us. Thank you so much. Well,

Tara Lea 29:52
I so appreciate the opportunity and all the local chambers and State Chambers keep doing great work. Really proud of you, and can’t end without saying, Go Big Red.

Brandon Burton 30:00
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Navigating Contracts with Angela Wilson

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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

Our guest for this episode is Angela Wilson. Angela is the President and CEO of the Greater Muskogee Area Chamber of Commerce. Angela provides the overall daily management of all departments of the chamber and works with the Chamber’s board of directors to ensure the Chamber’s mission is achieved. She became the Chamber’s President and CEO in November of 2019 after serving as Vice President and Director of Programs for six years, she oversaw all of the Chamber’s programs and events and all non news revenue projects, which make up approximately half of the Chamber’s annual operating budget. Angela has worked at the Muscogee Chamber Since 2012 after serving as a tourism director and executive director for the Chamber of Commerce in Coffeyville, Kansas for four years. Angela began her career with the Muskogee chamber as the program and sales director in 2016 was promoted to Vice President and Director of Programs. Angela has a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from Metropolitan State University of Denver in Colorado. She is an IOM graduate and a graduate of leadership, Coffeyville leadership, Mugi OCC chamber Management Institute, OK, CNP, non profit management and Dale Carnegie effective communications and human relations. Angela currently serves as chair on the OCC board of directors, Mako Conference Board of Directors, and the President of the Board of Trustees for the Muscogee public schools, education board of directors. Angela, 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 to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better. Sure.

Angela Wilson 2:52
Thank you for having me today. It was an honor to be asked to do this. I should could throw rich Cantillon. We used to be with the Ponca City Chamber in Oklahoma, throw him under the bus for signing me up for this that he deserves it. And though I love to share, I love to help other chambers. So in any way, I hope someone takes maybe just something from this today to help them

Brandon Burton 3:17
absolutely, and I’m sure that’s, that’s what the whole purpose of this is, right? Is to bring people on and their perspectives from their their part of the world, their part of the country, and their scope of work at their chamber and and we’ll, we’ll flesh out those things that can be a value to others listening. So tell us a little bit about the greater Muskogee Area Chamber, just to kind of set the stage. Give us an idea the size of your chamber staff, budget, scope of work, just to kind of prep us for our conversation today.

Angela Wilson 3:48
Sure, and those of you don’t know we are Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA. You might have heard a song before okie from Muskogee, from Earl haggard. That’s usually what people associate us with. But we are located, for those, again, that don’t know, in eastern Oklahoma. We’re about 45 minutes from Tulsa, so we kind of sit out. We are a micropolitan community of about 35,000 people. Our chamber has about 375 members. We know, give or take those, our budget is about a $375,000 budget, and we have, right now a staff of three. I’m in that little transition where I’m down one staff and so again, we’re like all chambers. Do we reevaluate if we want to fill that position, or if we think we can, obviously we all know we can take on more work, because we always think we can, but we’re kind of in that time where we’re reevaluating if we want to fill that so normally we’re a staff of four, and we are again solely just a chamber. And. Yeah, we

Brandon Burton 5:01
love it. So I think it’s probably fair to say most chambers are operating one or two staff people below what they need, right? So probably, probably put you right in the right the sweet zone, right there. So

Angela Wilson 5:13
yeah, we always take on more work. For some reason, I It’s really weird. Yes, we can do it. Yes, we can

Brandon Burton 5:19
do it. Yeah, chambers have a problem with saying no or problem saying yes. Maybe is what it

Angela Wilson 5:24
is yeah that we need to go to get help for saying yes to everything

Brandon Burton 5:28
absolutely. Well, I’m excited for our topic today. It’s something we haven’t really spent much time on in over 300 episodes of Chamber Chat Podcast, but it’s a focus of navigating contracts. So I know a lot of chambers out there have either tourism contracts or economic development contracts or maybe a Downtown Association contract of some sort. But all these variety of different types of contracts may or may not come across the desk of the the chamber, and the Chamber might seek them out. They might be sought out in some cases, but either way, I think it’s a good opportunity for us to have a conversation about how a chamber can go about navigating and maybe even negotiating some of these contracts as a as they appear. So I think there’s going to be a lot of value for listeners today, and look forward to getting to this with you right after this quick break.

Joe Duemig 6:26
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All right, Angela, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, we’re focusing our conversation today around negotiating contracts. As you introduced the greater Muskogee Area Chamber, you mentioned that you’re solely a Chamber of Commerce. I know that hasn’t always been the case, but if, if you want to take the mic and kind of give us the background and evolution of of the Muskie chamber, just to kind of set the table for us. I think that may be helpful, sure.

Angela Wilson 9:08
So when I started in 2012 we had a contract with the city for tourism, and we had a tourism staff of about, I think, three other people, and again, the Chamber has an administrative fee that we take off that contract, like every contract that we have. Well at the time, every year, that contract auto renewed. We went to City Council, we did our presentation. What we did that year, we went about our way. The chamber was very heavy in tourism. We were known for having fun, doing all these parties, entertaining, you know, at all these big events that tourism was hosting, and the Chamber kind of took a back seat to that. Well, fast forward about five or six years, and that tourism budget was. Is over a million dollars. And so when people see that, oh, I can do that, they make it look so easy and so fun. And there was always people, every year, probably since I’ve been here, that thought they could do it better. And so, come about 2017 18. There was a lot of pressure from City Council. They were, they were feeling the pressure from outside sources to kind of put their thumb on what tourism was doing. And so, you know, around here, we batten down the hatches. We jumped through tons of tons of hoops. I think our president and CEO of the chamber at the time, she spent probably 85% of her time dealing with tourism, and so again, the Chamber suffered from that. So I’m over here as vice president, holding down the chamber because we’re dealing with all of this outside noise for tourism. They completely changed. Our board completely made. You know, everyone track their time like just everything was ridiculous, almost, um, and so, you know, my president, CEO, she left, and at the time, I’m thinking, Oh, God, do I want this job? Do I want it? Do I want it? And my kind of analogy of it is, I know it was a bowl of crap, and I’ve decided to eat that bowl of crap when I applied for this job. So that’s go to 2019 I accept this job, and, you know, the pressure is still there, the red tape we’re dealing with non stop. And then COVID happens, and then I’m really thinking to myself, Oh my gosh, what did I really do? Well, when COVID happened, we didn’t know what our budget was going to be. We didn’t know if people were gonna they’re not traveling, like, oh gosh, you know, layoffs, whatever. We just didn’t. Nobody knew. And so, um, we worked. I spoke with my board, and I said, you know, guys, is this really worth it what we’re dealing with, and our chamber is suffering. Um, our Chamber members. They just think we do tourism. They don’t know what they get as a chamber member. And so with kind of all of that background and just everything going on, we decided to part ways with that contract. It wasn’t easy. It was some difficult conversations with my board, with the city manager, with the mayor, but we decided we needed to do what was best for our chamber, and letting that contract go was what was best for our chamber. Now it came with a loss of that administrative fee, loss of jobs that I had to lay off people, and so it wasn’t a fun time. And you then COVID still going on. So you’re like, oh God, we can’t do events. Oh god, you know, what did we do as a chamber? Are we going to be okay? So the fall of 21 was October of 21 was the end date for that contract. So we gave it back to the city on a silver platter, and said, Here you go. Good luck. We’ll be here if you need some help, but have fun and take it on. And so the city took it in house for a little bit, and then they re contracted it back out to a third party again. But, you know, as a chamber, it was our time then to rebrand as a chamber and say, Where do we want to go from here? What do our Chamber members want? So we sent surveys out, we visited with members. We kind of rebranded of what we do. We had a whole new program of work. Just everything was completely new, and it was scary, very scary, but it took us about three years to recuperate that admin fee is about $30,000 so we took us years, you know, just biting away each year at a time, and we did it. And it was a very rewarding kind of deal to be a part of, to be like, we’ve done this, we’re okay. We never had to pull money from reserves. We never had to do any of that. And you know, it was just a time, and our members recognized that, hey, they’re really asking me what I want as a member. And so we put some new programs out there. We got rid of a couple programs, and so looking back now, is the best thing we’ve ever done. We are, I say, we live our best life. We have no other contracts. We don’t do the economic development contract. So we are solely a chamber on our own, and it is very nice. So we answer to our members. We do what we want. We want to make up something and do something. We do it. We don’t want to. We don’t, don’t, don’t want to. We don’t have to. We’re not on purse strings or Puppet Strings of any entity, if it’s a city, county, whatever it might be, just our members. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 14:59
Yeah, and I can see where it can be difficult to serve two masters, right? So if you’ve got your chamber board, you’ve got a tourism board, and they’re wanting different things, and you’ve got staff that are allocating time different ways, trying to keep all that straight. It can be a headache. It can be a burden. I can see the benefit, of course, to be able to synergize, you know, the efforts that the chamber is doing with tourism and trying to bring that all under one focus, I can definitely see that and and we’ve had episodes where we’ve talked about where that can be a huge benefit, but when it’s splitting time going different ways, it has you not able to perform to your capabilities, really, as a chamber, they mentioned for your members to be able to understand what they get as a chamber member, I think is so important to be able to put that focus back there. So since that separation, the decoupling of the tourism contract, we call it a divorce

Angela Wilson 16:01
and the COVID, I guess I don’t know,

Brandon Burton 16:05
good terms, right? Do you have visitation? Yeah, we

Angela Wilson 16:09
have. They come visit every now and then. That’s

Brandon Burton 16:15
funny, but I imagine I mean, you still have an interest in tourism, right? I mean, a strong tourism in the Muskogee area is going to benefit your Chamber members as well. So there’s still win win within that, but not having that that burden or that weight upon you to perform in certain ways and to have the expectations that you need to meet. Can you talk to us a little bit about what that approach has been like since then, and involvement with tourism now that it’s not you know that that weight that’s on you as well,

Angela Wilson 16:45
sure, and I will say when it got really bad. I mean, we had open records requests from people for tourism. The Attorney General’s office was calling me that we were embezzling all like it was just to the point where you’re like, This is crazy things, and nothing came of any of it. So you’re like, Well, we know we’ve had audits, and we do our audits every year. We’re okay, but you know, just going forward, we’ve been there to help them. When they transitioned over, they would call us to say, how did you guys do this? Or what did you do about this? And they’ve had a couple tourism directors since then. So each time they get a new one, they call us and you know, we’re there. If we need to be, we’re going to partner. We’re going to do what’s best for Muskogee at the end of the day. But do I ever want it back? I don’t think so, unless it’s just really that bad that we need to take it back in. But it was just an opportunity for us to be us and not be everyone just associated us with tourism before we were I mean, at one time, there was all women here, and they were the chamber chicks, but they were the happy go lucky face of Muscogee, because they were tourism, and so we needed to be a more professional organization and here for our businesses and be taken seriously, be at the table on serious conversations, and not just, you know, fishing tournaments and this and that and this, parties, fun things. So we have kind of really stepped it up as more of a professional organization. You know, we still have fun, but we try to be, you know, that pinnacle the top of what we can be in Muskogee, when we do things, we want to be the best at it. But with tourism, you know, we’re all partners. We all try to partner with things, with our economic development, with the city, with the county, we definitely try to break down those silos and partner and move forward and do what’s best for Muskogee. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 18:50
I can see we’re after the divorce to be able to focus more on the 3c versus the 3p right as a chamber and your focus. What would you say for chambers out there that are either considering a partnership or considering dissolving a partnership? What are some of those things that need to be thought of and really calculated into to making these sort of decisions? I know sometimes the decisions are made for you, but if you’re if you still have a seat at the table and you’ve got some input, what are some things to be considered sure

Angela Wilson 19:25
if you aren’t considering it, my top piece of advice would be, make sure that contract is strong, strong, strong, and you have your best interest at the very front of that. Because, you know, for ours, was just auto renew, auto renew, the good old boy system. Well, then all of a sudden they wanted to have batten down and hatch down this contract. And it was just, it was a waste of everyone’s time and money and effort for things, I get a contract. But looking back. Hindsight, there’s different things of who owns what. We’ve gone through that with a logo and a branding, does tourism own it, or does the chamber own it? Buildings? Did they pay rent? If they had, you know, put money into the building? Who has what desks like it is very simple, things you don’t think about. And then if your logo, if you’re going to dissolve it, if your logo has chamber and tourism, well, guess what? Your chamber is going to have to pay for all new branding, all new envelopes, all new signs, whatever it might be, business cards. There’s a lot of just little things you don’t think about that that logo and tourism was on, so make sure that you set yourself up as a chamber. Set yourself up right and solid. Consult with an attorney. Please do that before you sign any contract. Don’t just let the city or the county hand you one and say, sign this. Have those conversations with your board of if we weren’t to do this tomorrow, what would we look like? Can we still keep our doors open? Can we still be successful or and make sure it is tourism is one side and there’s a high wall of chamber on the other. Do not merge those. It can get muddy. It can get very gray, and you don’t want you don’t want any part of that either. So keep things very clear, separate, a separate checking account for your tourism, a separate checking account for your chamber. I know there’s some out there that blend those two and Good gosh, makes me cringe, but they are separate, separate audits. Just make sure everything is very clean financially. So you know, if you do have an open records request, here you go, and you’re clean. And that is another perk right now, is we don’t have, we’re not subject to open records, not that we’re doing anything shady, but yeah, but we can say no, if we really need to, but at the end of the day, make sure the chamber everything is secure for the chamber, and that’s what look out for the chamber at the end of the day. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 22:11
on a smaller scale, it makes me think of the small business owner who may be commingling their personal funds with their business funds, and, you know, working out of their other house, but not paying themselves rent, and then they go to sell a business, and, well, what do you have to sell? What? What’s here? And so keeping things clean, and, like you said, having the contracts really buttoned down, to be able to know, you know, is the tourism or is economic development? Are they paying for rent? Are they do they own certain computers and desks, and being able to have that, that separation, but within the same umbrella, Giving definition, I guess is, is the way to say it. But I

Angela Wilson 22:49
think document everything. And you know, most of the time you should have on tourism side. If you’ve purchased the desk computers, you know all that. So if you have it, but make sure it’s very clear who owns what in your office, because we had to spend many times of like, okay, this desk has been sitting upstairs. Who bought this? Or you just don’t know, sign on the side of the building, who owns that you don’t know. You know it’s one of those things. So definitely keep track of everything.

Brandon Burton 23:25
Yeah, I can see when you take on a contract, it can be exciting to say, look, we’re getting a new sign, new business cards, new website like all this to rebrand. And you know, this is a new, fun, exciting thing, and there should be an influx of of income coming with that to the chamber. But on the opposite end, when you’re separating, not only are you losing the contract, the administrative funds, but also the cost to go through and change all those things too. Yeah, may not be less exciting. It’s a different kind of excitement, I suppose, yeah.

Angela Wilson 23:56
And when you have to, you know, if you have delay people off, tourism employees, it’s going to affect your the Chamber’s unemployment rate for a couple of years that happened to us. So there’s just little things that trickle downhill. But at the end of the day, looking back, it was on my end. It was worth it, if I were to take on again, like we’ve said, another contract or something else, if it was be a main street or an economic development I know now to make sure that that contract is solid. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 24:30
absolutely. So. As you’ve seen this, the separation, the divorce, the uncoupling, the de burtoning, how have you been able to see the focus on the members. What’s the member response been like? Has you been able to focus on them and the value that they get as a chamber member? Now, sure,

Angela Wilson 24:50
one of our first things we did in the spring of 22 we did a membership Blitz, and we went and visited 100 members. I. Was our goal, and just sat down with them and just said, what’s going on? What can we help you with? We don’t want anything. We don’t want any money. What are you dealing with? What can we do better? And so a lot of them just appreciated that they hadn’t seen people from the chamber in a while. They hadn’t had a chamber voice in a while. And so we took some of that feedback and just built a better chamber for that. Or people, you know, hey, I would really like you to bring back this or this. And so we’ve tried to implement those things, and people have really appreciated it. And they’re like, you know, you guys are doing a great job, and I appreciate you. Guys have been more attentive to us, and so just those little things in, you know, making what we do more relevant. This is what the chamber is. This is what our mission is. This is what our program of work is, and that’s who we are. And what can we do for you is really what we spent that next year saying, what is our chamber want? What do you guys need? We’re here for you. We’re open. And we got so much positive feedback of that, of just those little conversations. And you know, I was driving yesterday home from a meeting, I’m thinking, I think I want to do another one of those membership blitzes again, just to go out and just visit people that we don’t normally get to visit with and see. But that was probably the most impactful thing that we did, was just visiting with people and asking what they want, not what we want, what they want. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 26:37
and another listening tour sounds like a great idea, and be able to being able to see now that about three years post separation, if I if I’m doing my math correct, yes, it’s not, it’s not hard math, but I want to make sure I got the dates right to be able to do another follow up listening tour like that. And I would be curious to see what’s the the image of the chamber. How has that changed over those three years? Sure people

Angela Wilson 27:03
take us more serious. Now we’re not just the party, fun, happy, go lucky. We’re here for our members. We’re intentional about what we do. We’ve made some other changes internally of our processes for new members. We just are really intentional about what our members want, and we’re more professional level of what we we want to do, what we need to do. We’re there. And, you know, people recognize that. They say, you know, the Chamber events are always the best events, and we always try to be, you know, creative when we do our events, of the best advice sometimes I ever heard was, if you don’t want to be there, probably they don’t want to be there as well. So I was take that into consideration when we’re planning events or planning programming. Good gosh, I want to be there, and if I don’t, probably nobody else really does and not being able to don’t be afraid to try new things. Try it if it fails. So what you tried it, and you can go on down the road if something’s not working. Don’t be afraid to get rid of it. That’s probably my biggest piece of advice of as a chamber of when I came on the first time I tried to get rid of a program, I was scared to death. I thought I was gonna lose my job. Thought people were gonna run me out of town. And people came back and said, Thank you for getting rid of that. I thought it was waste of time. I was like, Oh, thank you. So that would be my thing is, don’t be afraid to change just because I hate saying this, but you’ve always done it that way. Doesn’t mean you have to continue doing it that way. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 28:43
we’ve got a whole episode about burning sacred cows, so you can go back in the archives and listen to that and and learn how you can get rid of some of these programs that are not serving you or the chamber anymore. So if they’re not serving the chamber, they’re probably not serving anybody else, and people are doing it out of obligation or guilt, and you can level it up and do something much more effective and impactful. So yes, amen, good. Good comment. Well, Angela, as we start to wrap up, I always like asking for listeners who are wanting to take their chamber up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you have to share with them to try to accomplish that goal. You just mentioned one. But does anything else come to mind that you’d like to share? Probably,

Angela Wilson 29:26
again, I would just echo, don’t be afraid of Chinese things and look out for the best interest of the chamber. Be that arm, be that solid pillar in the community. Not everyone’s gonna like everything you do, but that’s okay, at least they’re noticing what you’re doing and do what’s best for you. At the end of the day, you need to have your back, your board needs to have your back and your chambers

Brandon Burton 29:54
absolutely and I’ve mentioned it several times in past episodes, but if you’re focused. On what’s good for the business community. In your community, it’s hard to go wrong, and it’s hard to have too many people upset with you if you’re at least the people you’re serving are not going to be upset with you if you’re focused on on how to best serve the business community. So

Angela Wilson 30:14
yeah, I always say too, you know, I don’t know everything. We don’t know everything, but we know people who do, yeah, and so. And you know, you do want to say no to people sometimes, but I think telling giving them the resources and helping them along, they appreciate that, and they recognize the chamber did help me. You just, you just picked up the phone and called it another person, maybe, but to them, that was a game changer in what they were trying to accomplish. And they really look back about, oh gosh, the Chamber really helped me out. And then they’re going to start showing up to stuff and being there for you and having your back. So it’s just little intentional things, I think, as well being very intentional on the little things, yeah,

Brandon Burton 30:55
absolutely, totally accurate. So I like asking, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Angela Wilson 31:07
I think chambers even looking back on, good God, I’d hate aging myself, because, you know, I look 20, but I’m getting in the 40s now. But you know, we have evolved over the time that I’ve been in the chamber world, and it’s exciting because it’s something new every day. And I think just being relevant and keeping up with those trends of what businesses need, what communities need, what you guys are, the chambers are the forefront. And so we need to be those leaders, and we need to have that creative mindset of what’s next. And so, I mean, chambers are still going to be around, but we’re different than we looked 10 years ago. We’re different than we look 20 years ago and even 50 years ago, when people just paid their dues because it was the right thing to do. But I think it’s just exciting, because you it’s up to you as a chamber you can do what you want to do, and what your Chamber members want. So it’s kind of exciting that you don’t always have to do the same thing every day or every year. So I think just making sure you’re on that cusp of what’s you know kind of what your members are wanting, and stay ahead of them one step so you can provide those services for them, but chambers are always going to be around. What they look like in 20 years might be completely different. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 32:27
I would argue, even from four years ago, from through COVID to today, chambers look different so well, Angela, this has been a good conversation. I think it’s provided a lot of value for listeners, and I appreciate you getting a little, you know, authentic and raw about an experience at your chamber that I’m sure was full of difficulties and challenges, but being able to rise above and come through on the other side with some lessons learned that are valuable for others that have been listening today. So thank you for sharing that with us.

Angela Wilson 32:58
Thank you for having me, and yeah, there was a lot of wine along the way going through that transition, wasn’t it always

Brandon Burton 33:05
rainbows and butterflies? Yeah, I wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect. And say, how’d you get the courage to move forward with this, or whatever it may be, what’s the best way for them to reach out and connect?

Angela Wilson 33:19
Absolutely, please contact me if you have it’s not a dumb question. No questions are dumb. We’re involved contacted peers. That’s what we rely on and how we survive sometimes. But you can visit our website, Muskogee chamber.org, or you can email me at angela@mugicha.org, or if you go onto our website, you’ll find our contact or phone number on there, and yeah, email me, call me, whichever. I’m always open, and that’s one of my favorite parts of my job is helping other chambers.

Brandon Burton 33:53
Yeah, it’s such a great profession for being able to do that. Yes, we’ll, we’ll get the website and email and our show notes for this episode to make it easy to find you. But again, Angela, this has been great, and thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your experiences and insight with with those that are listening.

Angela Wilson 34:10
I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

Brandon Burton 34:14
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Negotiating Compensation & Benefits with Bob Thomas

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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

Our guest for this episode is Bob Thomas. Bob is the Chief Operating Officer and integrator for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and Executive Director for the Michigan Chamber Foundation. Bob is a widely respected chamber and Association Executive with over 27 years of experience in the nonprofit industry. He served as the primary operations staff member since 2012 Bob is responsible for day to day operations of the chamber, including facilities, technology and information systems, human resources and finance. Bob also assists with strategic planning, revenue development, membership and meetings management. His accomplishments include assisting the chamber to achieve three designations as an accredited State Chamber with distinction as executive director for the Michigan chamber foundation. Bob oversees alignment and direction of its leadership programs, public policy, research and events related to free enterprise, competitiveness, leadership and entrepreneurship. Bob, 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 to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better. Hey,

Bob Thomas 2:23
Chamber Champions, glad to finally make it on the Chamber Podcast, Chamber Chat Podcast, it’s my pleasure to be here. Interesting fact about me, I set a goal about 10 years ago to see all 50 states before I turned 50, and I checked my last state off the list this last year with Alaska. Alaska.

Brandon Burton 2:45
That’s a good that’s a good capstone for or your 50th state. It’s a beautiful state.

Bob Thomas 2:51
Great trip.

Brandon Burton 2:53
Yeah, for a lot of people, I know they wanted to be much higher on their list of places to be, and it probably was for you as well. It’s just a matter of getting there.

Bob Thomas 3:00
That’s right, it’s probably the hardest one to get there, but it’s well, actually the Dakota is for the hardest one, because those weren’t necessarily a destination on my list, but I was actually pleasantly surprised everybody should actually make it to North and South Dakota as well.

Brandon Burton 3:15
Yeah, there you go. Shout out to North and South Dakota. Well, tell us a little bit about the Michigan chamber, just to give us an idea and set the stage for our discussion today, I usually like asking about the size of the chamber, staff, budget, scope of work. It’s a little bit different being a State Chamber, but give us the background and information on the Michigan chamber that could be helpful to listeners.

Bob Thomas 3:39
Sure. So we are a statewide Chamber of Commerce, one of almost 50 in the country. We are based here in the state’s capital, Lansing, Michigan. We’re just four blocks down from the State Capitol building. We have 29 staff, most of them are in our membership development and engagement teams. And then we have a $6 million budget, sometimes up to $8 million depending on whether or not and it’s an election year, because our main value proposition is certainly our advocacy components and how we connect our members to state government, legislators, other elected officials, and we pride ourselves on participating in the election process to help make sure that we’re getting pro business candidates there to represent Michigan’s over 200,000 businesses in the state. Yeah. So

Brandon Burton 4:35
as we’re recording this, this is the the first of November, 2024 so hopefully you guys are looking forward to a little bit of reprieve after next week with the with the elections, and be able to take a little bit of a sigh

Bob Thomas 4:47
of relief, hopefully, hopefully a sigh of relief. But

Brandon Burton 4:52
nonetheless, right,

Bob Thomas 4:55
every election presents new opportunities for us to represent our members and so. We’ll see what that brings us next week.

Brandon Burton 5:01
Yeah, fantastic. Well, as we get into our topic today, I think this is one of those topics that everyone listening can relate to in one way or another, as we talk about focusing our conversation around negotiating compensation and benefits. And I think you know, depending on where you are in your your career at a chamber, if you’re just starting out, if you’re just looking to get in to the chamber industry, or if you’re a long time seasoned chamber veteran, or somebody on the tail end of your career, hopefully we’ll be able to touch on on all those different aspects throughout this episode, as as Bob’s with us today to share some of his insights, and we’ll we’ll dive in much deeper on this topic. As soon as we get back from this quick break.

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All right, Bob, we’re back, and as I mentioned before the break, we’re talking today about negotiating compensation and benefits, which I know can be a very important topic for for those in the chamber world, but really for anybody. But also it can be a very uncomfortable topic for somebody to approach and to to say, here’s what I need. And just having some of those conversations that can be a little more difficult. So I’m hopeful that our in our conversation today, that we’ll be able to come, come out of this with some takeaways that could be helpful in giving that that encouragement and that support to help people have those conversations. So I’m going to hand the hand the mic over to you and share with us what what comes to mind first, when you when you think about negotiating compensation benefits, maybe from the perspective of somebody new or just coming into the chamber world,

Bob Thomas 8:28
sure. Well, I think most of the listeners can commiserate that we didn’t necessarily join the chamber for the money, that there are probably lots of other opportunities out there for us to make more money, but they don’t always necessarily line up with our life circumstance, our passion points, or even, you know, what we’re committed to doing as a career and so and that makes it sometimes more difficult when we’re talking about negotiating or asking for compensation that matches our unique abilities and the skills that we’re bringing to the table, because the budgets don’t always necessarily match what those abilities are. But I would say, you know, for folks who are looking at a chamber job, or are earlier in their career on a chamber job, there’s lots of questions that they should be asking themselves before they go into the negotiating process so that they’re best prepared to ask for what is reasonable and appropriate for their level of job. And the first one, I think, that we tend to overlook is what is the market actually paying for these jobs? And and on one hand, we could be looking at, you know, similar organizations, other nonprofits, or other chambers of commerce that have similar markets, but that data isn’t always accurate or fair to the talents that we’re bringing to the table. So I would always encourage folks to also look at. Are similar jobs paying in the private sector and to see what is a good match, you know? So if I’m a marketing and membership person, what are other marketing level jobs paying for similar size organizations? Or if I’m an accountant, you know, what are other accounting jobs paying for summer situation? So that’s the first one. I just know what is the market even available for that kind of a position? Yeah, I think

Brandon Burton 10:26
if you’re, if we’re strictly looking at other nonprofits, you’re going to immediately put yourself as at a little bit of a disadvantage, because I think chamber staff, they wear so many hats, and it’s not, it’s not necessarily like other nonprofit organizations, where you have the scope, and that’s that’s all you do, because everybody brings everything to the chamber and expect you to be magicians and figure it out. So if you can bring that skill set and say, here’s where these things fit in the private sector, this is what I’m worth. I think that’s great advice, yeah,

Bob Thomas 10:55
but with a caveat, because sometimes the first place where we shoot ourselves in the foot is we look at large mass market surveys like salary.com or Glassdoor, and those are really helpful to kind of give you a range, but that’s an average of lots of different size organizations, and so sometimes we either are over inflated, or, in the case of other nonprofits, under representing what our value potentially is to the organization. So I would say, especially if you’re already in the chamber world and you have access to your state survey or to the ACCE benchmarking data, those are great places to look.

Brandon Burton 11:29
Yeah, that’s that’s good advice. Being able to see what what other peers are getting is very helpful.

Bob Thomas 11:38
And don’t be afraid to talk about it with the network. I think chamber folks are more transparent than others to help share where they’re at and how they can help lift each other up. Yeah, they’re also probably your best supporters. For you to figure out what your value is, again, chambers tend to attract a lot of servant type workers, and so we go in with the idea of, I love this work, I’m happy to do it, but we don’t always emphasize what our value is to the organization. And so then sometimes we take less or ask for less than what we are due because we love the work so much that we’ll, we’ll do it for less. Yeah, and that doesn’t always set yourself up for sell your set yourself up for a long term success if you’re going to start on the low end.

Brandon Burton 12:31
Now, I’m from the maybe on the hiring perspective. You know, as we’ve got a lot of executives that are listening, some their boards give a lot of leeway, not a lot, maybe, but a lot might be generous, but give them some leeway as far as what salary could be for staff and others are very tightly controlled by their board. So I hope through our conversation today, we can integrate some of that too. How do we approach this at the board and show where the value lies in bringing on staff and our own self worth as well.

Bob Thomas 13:06
Yeah, well, that’s actually my next point is understand what the decision making process is. So if you’re a staff member going to the executive and asking for a raise, or you’re trying to negotiate your compensation, I think the last thing most executives want is a surprise number. I think this is a regular conversation you should be having with your boss in general about what your long term expectations are for your career and for what your compensation will look like, and how that might ebb and flow based on your personal needs. And that would give them an idea about when they can be an advocate for you with the board, or when they need to be more transparent with the budget, but just to have that open conversation and when it does come down to board clamps that are really difficult to get away from, at least understand, when do they have to take it to the board, and when would it get shot down in that particular case, or when is there a leeway so that you can take advantage of those opportunities to grow your compensation, but definitely have that transparent conversation, either with your board chair, if you’re the exec, or with your boss, so that they know kind of what you’re thinking and where Your goals are long term.

Brandon Burton 14:20
Yeah, I think that’s that’s good. I like the idea of the long term expectations. Have those conversations being had along the way. Say, Yeah, I’m new to the chamber now, but you know, down the road, this is what, how I’d like to see my career develop. I’d like to be at the Chamber long term, or this is a stopping point for a year or two, while I finish my degree, or while I do whatever it may be, and just being open and transparent, I think, helps both sides figure out what’s what’s the best and what’s most fair as far as compensation goes, Yeah,

Bob Thomas 14:51
at least give your boss a chance to come back and say that’s probably not going to work. You know, if it’s not realistic to match with your budget or these are the things that. Need to change in order for us to be able to afford that. Or, yeah, we could do that, but this is how you need to progress within your position in order to achieve that number. I think when you have that conversation, that makes it easier. It’s less of a surprise and less uncomfortable year after year, if you’re starting off a transparent foot, right?

Brandon Burton 15:21
So I’m always curious about the the more seasoned chamber professional that chambers are unique and that you you’re tied in with your community. You’re, you’re running things in the community, you know all the players. You’re, you know, convening. You’re bringing people together. But some seasoned chamber professionals feel the only way to advance in their career is to move to another community, to take another position at maybe a larger chamber. Is that true, or is that a fallacy? How can that seasoned chamber professional approach growth within their career path?

Bob Thomas 15:57
While I’ve seen that in Michigan and really with some of my colleagues from across the country, that is a real opportunity. And if you’re willing to up your route yourself and move to another community or another state, that probably is a great way to increase your compensation most quickly. But I don’t know that that’s realistic, especially for folks who have families or their kids are in school. You know you can potentially be looking at 12 to 15 years in a community where your kids are and that doesn’t really make it feasible for you to leave or perhaps your spouse or partner has a great job and they’re not willing to leave that either. So you know, there are lots of different reasons why you might have strings to a community that doesn’t make it easy for you to move to another community for a better paying job. And so when you think about that, those are the times to think about. You know, how can you grow the pot or the resources? How do you communicate with your board, what your intent is for staying with the chamber? I think most boards would find comfort in knowing that they’ve got some longevity in a leader for their organization, but not all. And so making sure that you’re going to bat for yourself with those folks who are also holding the purse strings to understand your value and to be able to negotiate that. And so one of the suggestions I have in those cases, especially if you’re in a community longer than five years, you should be creating that pat on the back file and documenting what your impact is every year so that you can show progress or achievements that you’ve been making within the chamber and remind the board what you’re doing in order to make that impact and how the chamber is progressing, and then try and link whatever your request is to organization goals. So if the board’s interest is in growing revenue, or if it’s in growing membership, tie your request for increasing compensation to those accomplishments and show how you’re going to get there or how you’ve achieved it, and why you’re due additional compensation. I know that a lot of chambers, especially if you’re small and mid sized, don’t always have the growth in revenue that would allow a year over year increase regularly. So a couple other solutions that you might ask for in lieu of a one time jump. And I know a lot of chambers, I’ve been successful with this, most recently, because of the inflationary increases, is try and phase it in over a period of time. So rather than going from a 2% increase to a 10% increase, could you do a two to five to seven or 10% increase over two or three years, that makes it more palatable for the board to absorb, and gives you more time to raise the resources to help fund that. Another one would be to think about alternatives to dollars. So if the short term need is that you need to pay for child care, or you’ve got an increased commute, could you ask for a car allowance or a child care stipend for that period of time rather than asking for a raise? So for boards, that’s a short term cash solution that helps retain you, that’s not necessarily tied to long term increases, but gets you through the things that you need in order to continue to work at the chamber. So those are just a couple of suggestions. If you’re not able to negotiate a large increase, figure out and have a transparent conversation about what do you need so that you can help bridge that gap.

Brandon Burton 19:36
Yeah, I like the idea of even being open to alternatives, too, to be able to say, here’s here’s some of the struggling or the pain points that I’m seeing and how obstacles that I need to be able to overcome in order to stay in this position. Yeah. How can you help me accomplish this? And again, it goes back to having that open and transparent conversation, which, if you’re doing the job that you need to be doing, there. Going to want to retain you and keep you there, and hopefully they’ll work with you to do that. I always think of especially with the the executive position, where you’re often in the same conversations with the city manager or the school superintendent and and you look at the salaries that these individuals are having, and you’re all working towards progress in the community in different ways, from different angles. And I think my personal opinion is the compensation should be a little closer to what they’re making, keeping in mind that everything you know, they have different responsibilities and whatnot as well. But if you’re expected to be in the same room, in the same conversations, the same table, with these other decision makers, these other influencers in the community, compensation should be more in that ballpark than having them way up here in the chamber, exec way down there. I don’t know if you have any other thoughts at that, or how to approach that, or bring that up at the board, yeah,

Bob Thomas 21:00
well, that is a great point, and making sure that in strategic planning, you’re talking with your board about what are the expectations of your leadership as the exec, and that if you are supposed to carry the same weight in that room, you know compensation is one element, access to resources, being able to commit to positions or have a conversation without always having to go back to the board. Are important elements that, you know, help create that equity, but they also have different pots of money and different resources than a lot of chambers. Sometimes it’s a much broader, bigger pot because of the tax base versus private volunteer investment in dues. But to that point, if a chamber Exec is able to garner those resources and they can start to match or create a fund that allows them to pay for that position, then absolutely the board should be looking at at that as some of those comparables in terms of position or responsibility, and so to that point, be thoughtful about who is on your compensation committee and helping to make those decisions. So are they other small business people who look at your compensation and you know, are looking at it through a lens about have and have not, or are they leaders in the community who recognize what the investment is in the chamber in order to move the agenda forward, and so also be thoughtful about are there elected leaders who are on that compensation committee who maybe aren’t making as much as the chamber director? Because in some cases, it could be a downtown development person, or it could be a city manager who isn’t clearing that that same kind of salary compensation, and so just be thoughtful about how you have staffed that compensation committee in order to give yourself the fairest shake possible. That’s

Brandon Burton 22:58
a really good point. Just being intentional about that. Who’s on there? What? What perspectives are they coming from, and how do they perceive you compared to themselves or others that they might see in a similar light as yourself? That’s That’s great advice. So you mentioned a couple different alternatives to compensation. Are there other other thoughts you have around alternatives, or maybe other ideas that it because sometimes to get to that outside the box thinking, some ideas need to be brought to the table. You can’t just say, here’s the problem. Solve it, right? As chamber leaders, chamber staff like we’re in the business of solving problems, so I think to be able to bring some ideas of alternatives to the table could be helpful.

Bob Thomas 23:46
Yeah, I mean, I think executives a lot of times don’t recognize the art that comes to their budgets, and sometimes the easiest money that they that they leave on the table are performance bonuses or bonuses tied to metrics that you’ve improved. So are there opportunities to ask for a percentage of net increase or percentage of margin at the end of the year or at the end of a quarter for exceptional performance? So maybe you had an event that you really knocked out of the park and it cleared a major revenue hurdle with sponsorship, or you had a bang up here with membership and fundraising. Are you asking for a percentage at the end of the year as part of that performance bonus? And that’s something that could waiver or change from year to year, that could be negotiated, or maybe it’s something that you build into an employment agreement, so that is something that you can count on and the board can budget for every year. I think that’s the first thing that’s easiest to budget for and also ask for. But other things, you know, chambers are amazing organizations to work with in terms of flexibility and because we work. Lots of different hours based on our event schedules or needs of the organization. You know, having that flexibility to come and go from the office or come and go from events is a tremendous one. So if you’re not actively using that as a method of your compensation or employment agreement, that could be something in lieu of compensation that you might not get at a for profit organization, professional development budgets, again, those are things that could be incorporated into your budget, especially if you’re looking to complete a degree. It’s a short term increase that could be a pre tax benefit, or maybe it could be negotiated with local university or college that would help defray the cost and only helps make you more marketable and equitable in your organization, ask for PTO vacation or personal days. Maybe you want Fridays off in the summertime that can be negotiated. Or is there something else in benefits, you know, asking for another percentage increase in a 401, K, or asking for things that don’t necessarily have direct tied to your bottom line, but they are ways that can increase your total package. So, you know, being thoughtful about what do you need or what do you want, and are there ways for the chamber to pay for it as part of your employment, rather than coming out in a paycheck, per se?

Brandon Burton 26:30
Yeah, and I think a lot of these things you wouldn’t necessarily have to feel at the bottom line of a chamber budget, some of these considerations, so I like this, especially the professional development budget, because there’s a lot of different ways to approach that and and ways to advance yourself and in your ability as a as a chamber leader.

Bob Thomas 26:52
Great. I know what’s Yeah, one last one is, if the chamber is not able to afford any additional increases, but they could flex some of your time. Are there creative arrangements that you could make with your board to allow you to do an outside employment opportunity? So are you available to consult? Are you available to do some marketing activity? You know, depending on what your skills are, would the chamber allow you to have some of those outside contracts that would help you supplement your income, that don’t necessarily compete with what the chamber does, but absolutely leverage your skills and give you access to a network that would help you build a side business that can be helpful, especially for people toward the end of their career, where the chamber just isn’t going to grow fast enough for you to see that in your compensation, But it would give you a runway or a launchpad into a post retirement career.

Brandon Burton 27:46
And say, I’ve seen a lot of people do that, that transition towards the end of the career, where they go into a consulting gig or marketing or, you know, some something in that realm, and and I assume with a lot of them, that that may have been a consideration along the way, towards the end of their careers, being able to to start something, because they didn’t necessarily just end their their job at the Chamber one day and then start their consulting gig the next day. Usually, it’s been something that’s kind of been building up, kind of in the background, but gaining some momentum as well. How have you seen that be successful for people making that transition from chamber life to more of the entrepreneur, taking it on on their own towards the end of the career? So

Bob Thomas 28:31
I’ve probably seen it be less successful more often than I’ve seen more successful in the sense that if you aren’t keeping care of the chamber as your first priority while also working on the second option. Things tend to end badly, because then people see that you have divided attention. But if you’re able to have those two things coexist, and you can use the resources of the chamber, and you know also the goodwill of your board to do both, then that works, but you do really have to be thoughtful and know that your first obligation is to the chamber, and then the second is that you can build those other things with strategic PTO, you know, or, you know, leveraging some of the relationship relationships you have with members to get additional referrals. So that’s where I would see it be most successful is when you’re able to keep your eye on both balls at the same time. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 29:31
yeah. That’s that’s a good point. One other thing I wanted to just touch back on you had mentioned, like, if you had a bang up here with with your membership or sponsorships or the certain event that’s driving in revenue to to try to get a portion of that back to as a some sort of a bonus, or, you know, performance related bonus. And in a big sense, that’s it’s sort of found money. You know, if you’re going above and beyond what the expectations were, I mean, every, ideally, every dollar coming in should have a purpose, right? That’s coming in. But if you can benchmark that, or kind of dog your that on the front end, and say, every dollar coming in has its purpose, but above this, this threshold, the purposes shift a little bit, and I get rewarded for the work that’s going in.

Bob Thomas 30:24
I think I’ve seen lots of chamber and sex do a fantastic job, and they end up with the year in the black, and then they’re building this reserve account, and they’ve got a major surplus, but they haven’t ever asked for a bonus. They’re just looking at their salary as the only compensation they bring in. And if you’ve done that great of a job that year and you’ve cleared all those hurdles, that should be the easy ask. It is money that’s waiting to be invested, and why not invest in your staff? Yeah,

Brandon Burton 30:56
absolutely. Well, are there any other considerations that we need to think of before we start to wrap up our conversation.

Bob Thomas 31:06
Just one is, you know when those conversations don’t work out in your favor? When should you start to have conversations with yourself or your family that maybe it is time to go? Because I do know that while we think and hope for the best with our boards or with our bosses. Sometimes the resources just aren’t there, or the recognition that the dollars could be invested as staff isn’t there either. And so maybe that’s the time when you’ve got to think, am I aligned with this work anymore? Is it worth the stress, or, you know, the effort that I’m putting into it is there are there other benefits that I would see outside of the chamber, and those are hard conversations, I know, especially because you love your job, or you love your members, and you love what you do, but there’s always a tipping point when it doesn’t necessarily work in your favor. And so also to have that open and honest conversation with yourself and with your board when the juice isn’t worth the squeeze anymore. And unfortunately, those conversations need to happen as regularly as they do when you’re asking for compensation, just to make sure that there’s alignment there with your personal goals and and know when to say when? Yeah, I

Brandon Burton 32:23
think that’s important to think about. And I, as I’ve seen it with a lot of executives as they exit their career, sometimes it comes back to a board member that they just can’t get along with. They can’t see I die. And rather than waiting out whatever is left in the term for that board member, they just see that as the better options to leave, because they can’t, they can’t make it work together. But it’s a whole nother discussion. And, you know, recruiting your board members to make sure you’ve got people on your board that you can work with and that you can move the ball forward and not have that kind of conflict, so that that’ll lead into a longer term ability at your chamber, if you’re if you’re the executive, if you’re staff, and you can’t get along with your boss, that’s a whole nother story. So Right?

Bob Thomas 33:11
And I would say probably in the most extreme case, and I’ve ran into a couple of chambers since the pandemic, where this has been more common than not, it’s never okay to work for free. So if cash flow has become an issue, or it’s a situation where the board is asking you to defer your compensation or just get through a slow period because of cash flow, in my opinion, that’s never okay. Everybody is worth a paycheck. And to be really thoughtful about, you know, what are the underlying issues that you don’t have cash that would make payroll, and in those particular cases, if they can’t afford you, let alone afford an increase that’s also not worth your time. So make sure that you’re holding your boards and yourself to the standard that you are worth the job of running a chamber is worth a paycheck. So I’m hoping there’s a lot of listeners out there that agree with me, and that nobody out there is not working for free, because that’s, in my opinion, just unacceptable. And I know it happens more often than we know about

Brandon Burton 34:18
Yeah, I 100% endorse that everyone is worth a paycheck. Yes. Well, Bob, as we start to wrap things up here, I like to see if there’s any kind of tip or action item for listeners who are looking to take their organization up to the next level. What would you suggest for them to try to implement to accomplish that goal,

Bob Thomas 34:39
specific around compensation, and, you know, asking for what you’re due or what you’re valued at, I would just say, you know, have an annual conversation with yourself about what’s important to you, what are your priorities, and how do you value those, both personally in terms of your own growth and development. And then also monetarily. What is that worth? What is your time worth to you and your family in order for you to achieve your goals? And then second is to share that and have an open conversation with the people who are making decisions about your compensation, so that you’re aligned. And if you’re not aligned, then you at least know where the line was, because I do find that people who are willing to have those open and honest conversations are more likely to negotiate things that work for everybody than to be denied or catch people by surprise. And so I guess that would be my advice is just to know yourself first and then second. Don’t be afraid to ask for it. Just have that open conversation.

Brandon Burton 35:43
I like it well, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Bob Thomas 35:52
Well, this is a great time to ask that question, because I know ACCE is about to come out with our horizon 2.0 and I’m really excited about what that could look like for our chambers, in terms of a road map of things that we should be asking about. I find the chamber future to be bright, and I know that there’s a lot of movement and a lot of change right now. We’re seeing a lot of generational impact on what our chambers look like, but I also find that means the chambers that are disciplined to know what they’re all about and what value they bring to their communities, they’re going to find a business model that’s going to make them more relevant than ever. I always say, imagine what your community would look like without a chamber, and you’ve probably driven through it, definitely haven’t stopped in it. And so the chambers that have figured that out, or the communities that have figured that out, are supporting their chambers, and those chambers are vibrant, bright and offering a lot of value to the business community.

Brandon Burton 36:55
Yeah, yeah, I love that. But Bob, I like to ask everyone I have on this show. If there’s a listener who wants to reach out and connect with you, get to learn a little bit more about what we talked about today. What would be the best way, or where would you point them to reach out and connect with you?

Bob Thomas 37:10
Well, the easiest way is definitely through email, at the Michigan chamber B Thomas at MI chamber.com, or happy to connect with folks through my LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn slash Thomas Bob. Double check to make sure that was the right one. Yep,

Brandon Burton 37:31
there’s no other Bob Thomas, right.

Bob Thomas 37:35
There are a ton of Bob Thomas that would be the right Bob Thomas’s. LinkedIn slash Thomas, Bob, and would love to hear from my chamber colleagues, because I’ve worked at the Michigan Chamber for over 27 years, and these are some of my best friends and most valued relationships are in this community. So always glad to hear from them.

Brandon Burton 37:55
Very good. Well, we’ll get that in our show notes, including the LinkedIn, you know, the correct profile in LinkedIn to make it easy and have people find you, but I appreciate you setting aside some time to be with us today on chamber chat podcast and approaching this important topic, I mean it. It really does. It breaks my heart every time I see somebody exit the chamber world or and there’s a lot of different reasons, but when I see the good people leave for the private sector, I’m like, I wish we could keep them in the chamber world a little longer. So being able to have these conversations and hopefully keep some of these good ones in the chamber world as long as they want to be there, I think, is fantastic. So thank you for sharing this with us today.

Bob Thomas 38:38
Thanks for having me. It’s always good to have alumni if you’re not able to stay in the chamber. But I agree. I love working with chamber people, and it’s I’m glad when they’re able to work it out and they can stay.

Brandon Burton 38:50
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Paid Internship Programs with Rachel Beld

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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

Our guest for this episode is Rachel Beld. Rachel is the president and CEO of the Vista Chamber of Commerce in California, where she leads efforts to support local business growth and community development. With over 20 years of experience in economic development, strategic planning and program management, she has expanded the Chamber’s impact through workforce development programs like the velocity summer internship program and so Cal, which stands for student opportunities for awareness and learning. Rachel is a strong advocate for smart growth in housing, health, health care, access, child care, solutions and infrastructure improvements, all aimed at attracting and retaining talent and Vista. A first generation college graduate with a bachelor’s of business administration from National University, she is passionate about fostering a collaboration between businesses, local government and community partners to ensure a thriving future for the region. Rachel, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. I’d love to give you the opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening, and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Rachel Beld 2:21
Thank you, Brandon, hi everybody. Hi Chamber Champions. I’m Rachel Beld. And I guess something interesting about me is I love going to concerts. I go to a lot of concerts. Some people take vacations. I go to concerts. So that’s something interesting about me. I love live music, all different genres.

Brandon Burton 2:40
So about how often do you find yourself at a at a concert?

Rachel Beld 2:46
Well, they come in clusters. It seems I might go a month or two without a show, and then just over the last two months, I went to 12 concerts. So they come in clusters, which is not friendly for my wallet, but some a show will pop up and I’m just, oh, I can’t miss it. I have to see that person, or have to see that that group. So, so what’s

Brandon Burton 3:07
been one of the best ones you’ve been to? If you had, oh gosh, like the best one? Well,

Rachel Beld 3:13
I mean, there’s so many really great concerts. I mean, I took my daughter to Eris tour with Taylor Swift, that was amazing. But also, I think a bucket list for me was to see Paul McCartney and I had amazing seats. And I don’t know, singing, Hey Jude, with Paul McCartney and 25,000 of your closest friends was a pretty surreal moment.

Brandon Burton 3:36
That is cool. Those are, those are both great, great concerts. But I also

Rachel Beld 3:40
love really small shows too. I don’t just see big things. I like local folks too.

Brandon Burton 3:45
Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about the VISTA chamber, just to give us some perspective before we get into the topic of our conversation today, give let us know about the size of the chamber, staff, budget, scope of work, just to kind of set the stage.

Rachel Beld 4:01
Sure, sure. So the VISTA chamber, we’re in North County San Diego. We are 101 years old, which is great, because I don’t feel like I look a day over 95 so that’s good. And our we have about 550 members our budget. So our budget has grown pretty significantly in the last few years, partially because of some of our workforce development initiatives, but our budget is 1.2 million. We have a team of six, and that includes a workforce development employee as well a coordinator. And we are in North County San Diego, and there is a there are quite a few chambers in our area, and all of the chambers, we all offer a little bit different flavor, and we’re all friends. So each all the chambers in North County San Diego, the CEOs, we get together once a month for breakfast and to collaborate and talk about regional issues, which I. Think is unique and special. North County is really collaborative in a lot of industries, but the chamber world, especially, I

Brandon Burton 5:07
think that’s so important, especially in certain parts of the country, where you have people that may live in a certain area, but they primarily work in another and there’s a lot of value in collaborating and making a stronger larger community. All together. Now that’s, that’s fantastic. And I learned before we hit record. You guys have a podcast too at the VISTA chain. We

Rachel Beld 5:30
do, we do it’s, it’s actually called the velocity the VISTA chamber podcast, and we interview the movers, shakers and change makers impacting VISTA and beyond. So it’s fun. Check it out.

Brandon Burton 5:41
I love it. Big fan of chambers podcasting.

Rachel Beld 5:44
Like it

Brandon Burton 5:46
whenever I can.

Rachel Beld 5:46
Thank you.

Brandon Burton 5:48
So for our topic, for our conversation today, we decided on the topic of focusing on the paid internship program that you guys do there at the VISTA chamber and and I think there is, as we get into it, there’s lots of elements of it that can be replicated at other chambers. So get ready to do some R and D as we get into this episode and rip off and duplicate some of the things that Rachel and her team are doing, and we’ll dive into that as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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All right, Rachel, we’re back. So I love the idea of paid internship programs. I mean, I love the idea of internship programs, really, but if you can pay these interns, make them feel recognize the value that they bring to an organization is that much better, but also to get the buy in from schools and the business community and all that. So talk to us how you guys have gone about structuring this, getting the buy in from all the different parties and in the successes you’ve seen from it. That’s what everybody wants to know about,

Rachel Beld 8:37
right? Sure, sure, if it’s okay. I want to start with the kind of the idea for the program, because I think that really influenced how we developed the program. And so, you know, back during COVID shut down, and shortly thereafter, you know, a lot of our members were struggling to find talent, especially at the entry, entry level talent, and we were hearing, you know, for everyone, that they were having a hard time hiring. And then also, around the same time, I was working closely with our school district and our superintendent, and we’re talking a lot about students, and data around students and Vista, a pretty significant number of our high school students have paying jobs while they’re in high school. And then also, the statistic was something like 94% of Vista Unified graduates need some sort of paying job after they graduate high school, whether they go into two year school, four year school, grade school, they need some sort of working paid opportunity in order to keep going to school, or they enter the workforce completely. And so, you know, thinking about our businesses needed talent, our students need jobs. And just thinking about about connecting those dots. And at that time, the city, our local city, was going to receive a pretty. Significant amount of ARPA money, so COVID Relief dollars. And so I had this idea that maybe we could help businesses who were strapped for cash have some additional talent, help students connect with businesses in our community, and maybe we could use some of those COVID Relief dollars to fund the whole thing. And so I went to our city council and I gave a proposal. Actually proposed a lot of things, but this one stuck. And, you know, I went to our council and proposed this program and asked for a chunk of money to as a beta test to get this going. And so, and let me also just say that I grew up very low income. I grew up in a family where I worked basically full time since the time I was 15, and I had an opportunity in high school to intern as a as an unpaid intern at our local hospital. And when I told my parents about the opportunity, my dad said, Well, really need you to work over the summer to make money. You need you can’t we need your we need your help in this family. And so I had to turn down an opportunity that I think could have been important to me at that time, and so that that also really weighed into this idea of paying students for the summer. We don’t want someone to quit a paying job in order to have an opportunity to advance their their career exploration. So anyways, the city Vista gave us a grant. We were able to launch the program, and the grant funded it for about two years and for two, almost two, almost two full summers and and so then, and basically the program exists so that we hire students as chamber employees. We hire them as chamber employees. We cover the workers comp, we cover the insurance, and we match them with businesses that that match their career interest. And the students work 100 hours over the summer months, and they’re paid by the chamber, and they’re assigned to, you know, an offset, you know, a business location. And they work, they get mentorship, and they have the opportunity to work, and we picked 100 hours very strategically. The 100 hours was so that the students could keep their other summer job, but work 100 hours over about an eight or nine week period. It’s easy to do that, but also it’s enough amount of time that you can do a meaty project, you can really get a good understanding of whether you like this career or not, whether it’s something that might be interesting to you. So the program started small, you know, we had about 42 kids, and then we had 50 something kids, and then year two, I started our schools. Our school district was really excited about the program, and we were looking for additional funds to keep it going, and the school district said, you know, we have a responsibility to our students to provide career exploration opportunities, and we love what you’re doing, and so we want to fund the program. And so we’re going to contract with you, and you’ll fund, you know, run the program, we’ll pay for it and and then also we can expand our partnership so that for the four credit internships that are offered during the school year, the fall and spring semester, or for credit, maybe the businesses, there’s some connection there where they want to take four credit interns and then they do the summer, you know, paid program. That was a long answer to your question. I apologize for rambling on, but I love this program so much, and so now that the ARPA funds are gone, that we now have entered into a partnership with our school district. And year three, we had 74 students participate, and our goal is to our goal is just to keep growing the program. So I’ll pause there and see if you have a question.

Brandon Burton 13:43
No, I think that’s fantastic. That gives some some great groundwork for the idea how the funding comes that’s always important when you talk about paying interns, where, who’s going to pay for it? Where does that come from? So having the access to those ARPA funds is great. But then for long term, to be able to partner with the school district. The question comes to mind, about the students that I assume there’s an application to apply for the internship program. In the application, are they saying the type of work that they would be interested in, the career paths that they enter they have interest in? And then who is selecting the students. Is the school district involved with the selection now, with them funding it, or how does that look?

Rachel Beld 14:26
Sure, that great question. So there’s kind of a long ramp up to the summer program. So right now, our workforce development coordinator is going to all of the high schools. So we have three comprehensive high schools and two alternative high schools in the district, and then we have some charter schools and other schools that they’re allowed to participate to. So basically, the student attends a school district school, or they live in Vista, they can participate in the program, and the students have to be going into their senior year. So we’re targeting juniors right now that we’re looking that we’re reaching out to. And so right now. Our workforce development coordinator Karen is out talking to students and getting generally some some general sign up interest, general interest sign ups. And we’re asking kids what kind of industries they’re interested in. So then at the same time, while we’re ramping up for the spring for sign ups, we’re looking for businesses in those industries, so that we are kind of queuing that up, and then there’s an application process, both on the business side and on the student side. So, but it’s, it really is student driven. And so the students, they sign up, they apply online. It just, it’s a very simple application. And we, we have, we ask them, it’s a check the box, because they don’t know what industries are. They have no idea. So they say, you know, they can check the boxes of what kinds of industries they’re interested in. There’s also some fill in the fill in, you know, fill in, short answer questions. So really, just trying to to glean what, what do they want to do, what are they interested in doing? And so then we take those applications, and at the same time, we’re recruiting businesses, and we’re asking businesses for what help do you need? What type of give us a short job description for these internship positions, and then we have an orientation, a business orientation, and we have a student orientation. We have an onboarding process and a vetting process. There’s an agreement that gets signed, but the school district really doesn’t play a role in which students get to participate. And in fact, they have a real equity mindset with regard to making sure that there’s opportunities at all three comprehensive high schools, at our continuation schools, that there’s opportunities for everybody. So we have some goals around that. I will say the school district does have a say in which the school district will take interns as well as part of the program, and so they every business, every organization that participates, they actually interview the students. So once we get the list of students, we get the list of businesses the students kind of pick what their top five are. We send every business gets a list of three to five students to interview. Every student, gets a list of three to five businesses that are going to call them, and we say, do your homework on these businesses, learn about them, and then it’s basically mutually matching process. You know? Susie Jane picks company XYZ, and XYZ picks Susie Jane, boom. It’s a win. Now, where it gets a little tricky is sometimes there are students that are, they’re rock star kiddos, right? And everybody wants that kiddo, and then it’s up to that student to choose. But that’s the real world, right? If you’re interviewing and everybody wants to hire you, then you have, you have choice, but also really have a goal that every student that applies and goes through the process that they get placed. So it’s, you know, there’s, there’s a number of steps along the way. So last year, for example, we had about 130 students apply for the program, but we had 74 attend orientation, fill out their paperwork, come in and do what they needed to do, check all the boxes. And so we were able to place all 74 in some sort of internship opportunity.

Brandon Burton 17:59
That’s awesome, you know? And the thought always comes to me when you talk about internships, about these students, that they’re checking boxes on the application of what they think they might be interested in as far as a career goes. But reality is, they don’t really know what options there are for careers besides what they’ve been exposed to, right? So what opportunities are there in the process to maybe expose these students to something new that they wouldn’t have thought of before? How does that fit in with the matching, and is that part of having them interview with with multiple businesses to get that exposure? Sure?

Rachel Beld 18:38
So there’s a couple of ways that we layer in kind of that exposure, because students really only know the few careers that they’re exposed to. What does their mom do? What does their dad do? What uncle so and so and so, if they’re not exposed, they don’t necessarily know what could be possible. Now I will say our school district, the Vista Unified School District, has a pretty robust career exploration curriculum that’s woven into all the high schools, so there’s opportunities for students to learn about kind of what’s out there. And we also have another program called SoCal that feeds into that too, around the exploration piece. But when the students come for orientation, we actually have the all of the job opportunities, all the internship opportunities, listed on a piece of paper, and they can literally read them and circle, oh, that sounds good. That sounds good. Now someone may say they were really interested in HR, for example. Maybe they think they know, and then they see, oh, but there’s an opportunity to be a math tutor at this math tutoring place. That sounds kind of fun, like, I’ll check that out, right? So they can circle what they’re interested in, so they’re never locked into a specific thing. And then sometimes it gets to the end of the program where we have a few students that maybe haven’t been quite matched up or didn’t work out, and we have maybe two or three that we need to play somewhere. Then we just have a chat with them and say, You know what? We have this company over here doesn’t have an intern yet, but. Is what they’re looking for. Would you like to give it a try? You know, you’re going to learn skills, you’re going to learn this and and then they say yes. And sometimes those are our most successful because they say, I had no idea about XYZ industry, and now people want to check that out. I really liked it. And then occasionally it doesn’t happen that often students realize I do not like this, and I do not like this industry, or I thought I really would be interested in XYZ, and I just don’t like it. That’s really valuable, because as you’re going into your senior year of high school and you’re making some choices about post high school decisions, you need to know if you absolutely hate what you thought you were going to love. That’s good information to have at that time. It is. And I

Brandon Burton 20:43
The example I always think of with that is, you know, somebody who thinks they want to be an attorney, and maybe they do an internship at a law office and realize, yeah, I don’t want the stress. I don’t want the time away from family, whatever you know the things are, or they might say, this is exactly what I want, because I do debate in high school, or whatever it is, you know that that makes them gravitate towards that, but in the end, it saves them a lot of that trial and error that most people don’t get until they’ve already invested a ton of money into their education to go down a certain career path, only to find out, maybe this isn’t the best match for me, So I’d love getting these students the exposure, the thought that I had was as we I guess, as you guys are trying to play matchmaker here. How far in advance Are you soliciting from the business community to give you opportunities that you can try to match students to

Rachel Beld 21:38
so we start immediately. Upon conclusion of the program in August, we immediately reach out to the business. I mean, there’s surveys throughout. We have a mid midpoint survey and then a closing survey. But we’re reaching out to folks from the very beginning, you know, from the end of the program the prior year, to give get folks in the queue. And you know, sometimes we have businesses that apply? And they have a position they think is great and it doesn’t stick, there’s, you know, students aren’t interested in that for whatever reason, and so, you know, they can try again, or they can tweak, tweak it for the next time. But we’re already starting to think about that, and we have now that we’ve been doing the program. This will be our fourth summer coming up. We have some data around which industries and what types of jobs are the most in demand, and we also work closely with all of our schools, our school career counselors and CTE coordinators, and they have some good data around what what students are interested in. So we already are starting to reach out to businesses, and we’re cultivating those relationships. And like I said before, the school district hasn’t a for credit program that’s in the fall, in the spring, where it’s only make two or three hours a week for the students. So it’s very small with regard to the the meatiness of the projects that they can do. So we also refer, they refer those business to us, and we refer our paid summer businesses to them, so that there’s that synergy there. So we’re already starting to work on that. And just like we’re already outreaching to students to find out what industries they’re interested in, but it runs the gamut. We’ve had students do welding, you know, we’ve had students want to learn more about being an esthetician or cosmetologist. We have students doing accounting, finance, HR, real estate, social media, podcasting, set design, um, fire at the city doing shadowing in the engineering department, the fire department, fire department, admin at the school district with a nurse, construction trades. I mean, so you every industry, every type of career we’ve had somebody doing that, the ones that are the hardest to fill are actually in the medical, clinical roles because of HIPAA rules and because of the age of the students, that’s really challenging. So oftentimes students are really interested in those, you know, medical pathways, you know, nurse, doctor, those types of things. We have them working maybe in a physical therapy office, or we have them working a front desk, you know, working at a front desk in a doctor’s office that is really difficult to get them those clinical connections. And that’s a piece we’re really working with. We have a community clinic that we’re trying to navigate, carving out a specific area where we can have students do more of those clinical things,

Brandon Burton 24:20
if, if a problem can be solved like that, leave it to a chamber to figure out how to how to get around it and make it work. So I’m sure it’ll come together. So you mentioned earlier that you hire these students as chamber employees for the duration of the internship. Is there any considerations to be mindful of for other chambers that are doing their R and D right now, as far as hiring them as as employees,

Rachel Beld 24:45
yes. So the reason we do it that way is one, so everyone has a similar experience with regard to payroll, clock in, clock out, it makes it easy and we can, we can really manage and make sure that the student. Students are given breaks that they’re treated appropriately. We want to make sure, you know, of course, we’re vetting these companies, but you know, we want to make sure that everyone has a comparable experience with regard to that. But there are some considerations. So we have some things. We’ve had some serious conversations with in our insurance company. We don’t allow students home based businesses. For example, we don’t allow students to work in someone’s home. If someone has a home based business and they’d like to do this program, we have been able to establish some remote internship opportunities, or our office is actually in a co working space. And so we’ll allow students and businesses to meet, not every day, but on occasion, meet at our space to connect. So that’s a consideration. Obviously, we don’t want teenagers working in someone’s home. Also, we don’t allow students to ride in a vehicle anybody else’s vehicle. They need to have their they have to ride in their own car or their parents car. They can carpool with another student, and we’ll actually do some carpool connections. Will that’s a consideration. Transportation is a big piece of it, but we don’t allow it students to ride in vehicles we have. That’s one of the things too. Like, for example, we had some students interested in trades like H back or plumbing, things where you’re making calls to people’s homes or residences. And so unfortunately, our members in those areas which we have a number of of those types of members, we’re not able to have students right in those vehicles. So either they have to work at, you know, at the plumbing office, or if they have a plumbing supply store, they could work there. But where we’ve tried to handle those types of interests is working with our school district, our city or and or the hospital. We have large facilities. So then students can shadow someone who’s more well, all you know, like, not handyman, but you know, like a facilities manager, person who’s dealing with a plumbing issue and HVAC issue, those types of things. So there’s just some, some considerations. And really, you know, student safety is paramount, paramount to this. And you know, their safety is number one, and then their experience, as far as career exploration, is number two. And then also the businesses, you know, businesses again and again and again, our surveys are through the roof with their satisfaction with the program, because these students are amazing. They knock everyone’s socks off again and again and again. I have a member who had students put together a sales plan, sales strategy for a product, a brand new launch, and it was better than people who had been in the industry for a really long time. They couldn’t believe how great it was. Sometimes a

Brandon Burton 27:42
different perspective, right?

Rachel Beld 27:43
Yeah, exactly.

Brandon Burton 27:45
That’s awesome. So before we really start wrapping things up, I wanted to ask you know, you guys had the access to the ARPA funds to kick this off for you guys for a chamber today who’s looking to start a paid internship program through their chamber. What? What would you advise to get started today, to maybe look for other grant fund opportunities, or just go straight to the school district? Or what would be your your thoughts? Sure,

Rachel Beld 28:14
so both of those could be options. You definitely, you know, we were very fortunate that we had access to those funds to kind of show what we were trying to do and to prove a concept. But I would say, if you’re starting now, if you’re not, if you don’t have a you know, see, it’s hard to get funds if you’re not a c3 we do not have our own foundation. We do partner with the VISTA Education Foundation on occasion, but we don’t have a c3 which has made it difficult for us to find grant funding to continue this program. So if you have a c3 there’s a ton of money for workforce and internships that you can you can get going. And then secondly, you know, for us, the partnership with the school district has been really successful. And so if you’re not already meeting regularly with your school district and your superintendent, or your career technical education folks, or, you know, career services folks, start meeting with them, start having conversations. And find ways that you you know, if you offer to be a resource for someone, and you’re starting to try to help, people are going to want to know what you have in mind. And so just starting those conversations, you know, most schools, most high schools, have some sort of internship or work experience that they’re trying to cultivate. And it the thing about this is it can really be unique to what your community needs and what your community wants. And so I would, you know, you could go straight to your school district. I’m actually have offered for my other local chambers here in North County to go meet with them, with their superintendent, to just talk about the success of the program and share some data. And you know. And then the main things though, is that you want to spend some time working on some really tight agreements with regard to expectations. We have an employee, an employer handbook, or a. Site supervisor handbook, is what we call it, and then also the Student Handbook, so people know what’s expected to want to put some things like that together. But really it just starts with a conversation and an idea. And we think this is something that every student you know if, if I were in charge of the world of workforce, I would have every student who graduates high school with at least one or two actual work, real world of work experiences. I think that’s so incredibly valuable. So, and I will say, I we have, we always have an intern at the chamber, and I think we have a few future chamber CEOs coming out of the program. So, which I’m happy to say,

Brandon Burton 30:42
so that’s good. That’s right. A few years from now, I’ll be doing podcast interviews, and they’re gonna tell me I got my start as an employee at the VISTA chamber through their internship program and other chamber executives. So wait for it. We’ll see it. Yes,

Rachel Beld 30:56
I can’t wait. You know, one thing that we really didn’t expect with the program was that about 25% of the students who complete the internship program end up being offered some sort of ongoing work experience with the business, either part time or either after graduation or it’s a mentorship for now, but about 25% continue the relationship on after the program is completed for the summer.

Brandon Burton 31:20
That’s fantastic. That’s so huge. So Rachel, I like asking, usually people listen to the show to try to elevate their chamber, take their chamber to the next level. For those listening, what kind of tip or action item might you suggest in helping them to accomplish that goal of taking their chamber to the next level?

Rachel Beld 31:40
I think listening is such an incredible thing to do. And if you listen, you know, oftentimes the chamber, chamber executives, we are busy. We are jump out of bed and hit the ground running, and then we keep going until we collapse into bed at night. But if you don’t pause in the busyness of the day, to listen to other, to listen to what’s happening around you, and to look for gaps, look for opportunities. So we have a college that has a great internship program. We’re not talking we’re not trying to take college insurance, because that already exists. We have other we have folks who are doing career pathways, and they’re already working in a specific industry, and they’re pursuing that education and they can get internship. We were talking specifically about we have students. We listened and we saw the need. So we saw that there were students that need jobs. We have businesses that need workers, and we had a pot of money that we could use and about connecting those dots, and those things don’t happen until you can pause and listen and look for those gaps. And I know that sounds that’s not a super tangible piece of advice, but that’s really where this came from.

Brandon Burton 32:50
I like that listen and fill the gaps. Let’s see, see where those opportunities exist within your community. I like asking everyone I have on the show, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Rachel Beld 33:07
Well, that’s so interesting. You asked me that because I just wrote an article for our local newspaper about kind of how we’re not your father’s chamber anymore. And you know, I think historically, chambers have been focused on, you know, keeping taxes low. And you know, government advocacy, which that’s still super duper important. Government advocacy is still a huge pillar of our organization. However, when we ask our members what they need, and they say they need talent, then we need to lean in there. And that’s more than just an internship program. You can’t have robust talent without housing for people to live in infrastructure and roads for people to drive on child care that’s affordable, that people can put their kids in child care and go to work and you can’t you have to have good quality health care. If you don’t have a hospital where you can have a baby, then you don’t want to live in that community, and you don’t want to work in jobs in that area. So we’re really taking a holistic approach. You know, I’ve gotten some pushback from folks who say, you know, the Chamber should just be focused on business. And to my, in my opinion, we are. We are focused on business. Business need talent, and you can’t have talent if you don’t have everything else that talent needs in order to live and thrive in your community. And so that means that we have to have housing, we have to have infrastructure, we have to have public transportation, and our public safety has to be top notch. And so we’re leaning in on all of those things where I don’t know that that has always been the focus in the past. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 34:38
now that’s great for anyone listening who might want to reach out and connect with you and learn more about this program, the internship program, or anything else you guys are doing there at the VISTA chamber, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you?

Rachel Beld 34:53
Sure send me an email CEO@vistachamber.org, or connect with me on LinkedIn. Amber. Rachel Whitley Beld on LinkedIn, so find me and let’s chat. Let’s chamber chat.

Brandon Burton 35:04
That’s right. Chamber Chat, we’ll get your your email and LinkedIn profile linked in our our show notes for this episode, so we’ll make it easy for people to connect with you. Thank you, Rachel, this has been fun having you on the podcast and hearing about the impact you guys are making their investor and and really changing lives of these youth and and supporting the business community and helping to make these connections, playing matchmaker. It’s so valuable, and I hope that other chambers out there listening, do you know, take this program and at least explore the opportunity of, you know, seeing if there’s a need for it in your community, but then if there is to be that driver, that catalyst that takes it and runs with it. But thank you for for sharing your experience and insights with it. It’s so valuable. Brandon,

Rachel Beld 35:52
thank you so much for having me on today. It’s been really great chatting with you about our internship program, and I’m inspired by the folks that I hear on your podcast. So thank you so much for the work you do. If

Brandon Burton 36:04
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Advocacy that Bolsters the Community with Michael Guymon

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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

Our guest for this episode is Michael Guymon and native tucsonan The new word for me. Michael’s 25 year professional career has primarily centered on political strategy, business development and advocacy and organizational management. As president and CEO for the Tucson Metro Chamber, Michael is responsible for developing and implementing the goals and vision for the chamber to fulfill the Chamber’s mission and champion and to champion an environment where your business thrives and our community prospers. Michael’s previous positions include vice president of regional partnerships for sun corridor Inc, the executive director of Metropolitan Pima Alliance, chief to staff to Tucson city council member Fred Ron Stan, Assistant Vice President for governmental affairs for the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and political consultant to the bridges, a 360 acre mixed use, mixed use infill development that includes tech parks Arizona, Geico regional headquarters, housing and 111 acre commercial development. Michael holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Arizona. On a personal note, his passion is baseball, and he was named the official score for the Tucson Padres triple A baseball club from 2011 to 2013 the team moved to El Paso in in 2014 But Michael, 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 to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Michael Guymon 2:48
Yeah, absolutely. Brandon, thank you so much for that, that great introduction, and I’m happy to be here to talk to all of our team chamber champions that are out there. I guess one other little fun fact is, as much as my passion is baseball, I actually play ice hockey. So a lot of people ask me, Wow, a native tucsonan That plays ice hockey. How the heck did that happen? And when I was in college, my buddies and I were just kind of bored playing too much hockey on Sega, so we decided to buy some stick, a puck, and some roller blades, taught ourselves how to play, and that ultimately morphed into playing ice hockey. So So yeah, I am also an ice hockey player, and I still play in the adult league here in Tucson and and it’s a lot of fun. It keeps me, keeps me busy and and it helps me get, you know, some of that pent up nerve that some chamber CEOs can can experience out on the ice.

Brandon Burton 3:46
That’s right, that’s a I would not have guessed that, you know, baseball and hockey. I would not have guessed, you know, but yeah, that that’s awesome. Glad it keeps you active, keeps you involved,

Michael Guymon 3:56
absolutely.

Brandon Burton 3:58
Well, tell us a little bit about the Tucson Metro Chamber, just to kind of set the stage for our discussion today, give us an idea of the size of the chamber staff, budget, scope of work and all that, just to kind of give us your perspective.

Michael Guymon 4:10
Yeah, you bet. Thank you, Brandon. So our chamber has been around since 1896 and we have been the voice of business in a variety of forms for those 100 and now 28 years. So we are a staff of 11, budget of about 1.8 million, and we have 1400 members, and those members are everything from restaurants to Raytheon. Raytheon is our largest private employer here in the Tucson region. Aerospace and Defense is our biggest, not only employer, but also just from a economic impact part of the economy, our biggest player, between Raytheon, with its 14,000 employees and 200 companies that make up our airspace and defense. Sector here in in the Tucson region. So so that’s that’s a big component, but so are a lot of our small businesses here. And of course, the chamber is the main organization that helps to advocate and be the voice for those small businesses. So So it ranges, really good range, but that that’s kind of what makes up our chamber?

Brandon Burton 5:21
Very good. And I know Raytheon is a great company to have in your backyard there. We’ve got a campus probably about 15 miles from our house here in Texas, and they’re great employer and great community player and just a great one to have have on your team there in Tucson, absolutely well, as we try to hone in on what our focus for our conversation is going to be, today, we decided to focus our the majority of our discussion around advocacy, but more specifically, advocacy that bolsters the competitiveness of your community. And we’ll dive in much deeper on this topic as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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All right, Michael, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re talking about how advocacy can bolster your community’s competitiveness as we take that approach, what does that mean to you as far as advocacy and keeping the maybe the relevance in your community and staying on the cutting edge? Just tell us what that means from you and your approach to advocacy in this with this focus. Sure.

Michael Guymon 8:19
So you know, advocacy really is it really is our main value proposition for the chamber. We, as I mentioned before, we are the voice of business, and part of being the voice of business is making sure that we are that bold advocate for a lot of things that relate to the business community and really try to push pro business policies through our city and county, and actually, when I became CEO of the chamber about three years ago, I shifted our focus to purely local, local advocacy, because we did have staff member, various staff members who would go up to Phoenix to lobby positions at the legislature. But I felt it was there. There’s plenty of work to do within the city of Tucson and Pima County that we really needed to focus our efforts locally and address the pro business policies that would help bolster our business community here locally and partner with those organizations like the greater Phoenix chamber and the Arizona chamber that has a stronger presence of the Capitol. And if there are ways that we can, that we can partner with them on state legislation that addresses pro business policy, then we’ll do that. But the chamber is really going to take the lead here locally and and we’ve been very successful at doing that. So, so when it comes to competitiveness now, it really dry there, there are, there are main components to that. Competitiveness. It it comes down to workforce and talent. It comes down to transportation and. Infrastructure comes down to public safety, comes down to housing affordability and quality of life. Those are, those are the five sort of pillars that we look at when we are talking about our competitiveness. As a former employee of our economic development organization, the big thing that I learned there is that talent and workforce and labor drives 99% of the relocation expansion decisions, and it also helps drive whether companies decide to stay within a community so as the retainer of business now at the Chamber I when I was at our economic development organization. I was it was my job to help companies expand to relocate to Tucson now at the Chamber, it’s my job to make sure that they stay here. Talent drives a lot of those decisions, and so working on workforce development and making sure that our educational institutions, our post secondary educational institutions and our K 12 system, quite frankly, are laddering up to the skills and positions that are needed within our companies. Is critically important to make sure that those connections are made. So we do a lot of that work. We have collaboratives in healthcare. We have collaboratives in mining. We have collaboratives in that are focused on construct the construction industry, and then we partner with those organizations that address the issues in and around some of our other targeted sectors and industries. But but addressing workforce development is a big component of making sure that we are competitive, not only for companies that are looking to expand, to relocate, but also those companies that are here and want to expand here in our region

Brandon Burton 11:45
that is so important, and it’s kind of the chicken or the egg, right? Like you want the big business there, you want the companies to relocate, but they need to have the workforce. And at the same time, you’re trying to build the workforce, and kind of think, if you build it, they will come kind of a sense, you know, if there’s your baseball tie in, right? Very good. But I’m curious with the approach, with this, the schools, the, you know, school system, the secondary education, what, what approach is the chamber able to do from that advocacy effort to make sure that these students are being prepared to enter the workforce, and specifically in these key we’ll say categories, these key industries you’re looking to have workforce for. What’s that approach look like?

Michael Guymon 12:34
So Brandon, really, it’s our job as a chamber to make sure that the industries and the companies are engaged. You know, I’m not. I’m not here to tell our community college system or our university who do incredible work in our community and our true are truly our economic drivers of the community. I’m not here to tell them what to do. But what I can do is bring, come more, more and more companies to the table, for them to say, here are the positions that are open. Here are the skills that I need. Here are the skills that I think are lacking in our community, to have those conversations so that our post secondary education institutions understand what the needs are, in hopes that they will help address them. So it’s my job as a chamber to encourage those companies to be a part of those conversations, and we’ve been successful in that we have a lot of companies that are at the table. Could I use more? Absolutely, it’s imperative that I have more and more industries at those tables so that they can express the types of challenges that are they are facing from a workforce standpoint. But outside of that, you know, a lot of the issues that we hear, especially at the retail level, are related to public safety, they’re related to transportation they’re related to housing affordability these days. I mean, boy, you know, this is a topic that is certainly not unique to Tucson, but it is something I am hearing more and more chambers talk about how we need to make sure that we address our housing affordability. And the recent term I’ve heard is income. I don’t think it was income based, but basically, you know, income based housing, so making sure that we’re that we’re addressing the various aspects of housing, because it is diverse, we want to make sure that our housing options are diverse, but but those are, those are issues that our communities are facing, and we as a chamber, making sure that companies are at The table to be a part of those conversations and dialogs. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 14:44
I imagine having the companies at the table specifically with workforce and talent, is trying to keep some of that talent in the community. For whatever reason, it seems like a lot of maybe high school students see that they’re the. Horizons are somewhere else, right where they need to go away, leave the community, to go to school or to find a job and to be able to show them the opportunities that are right there in Tucson, I think is key in what you guys are after with this approach, absolutely,

Michael Guymon 15:13
and it’s, I’m glad you mentioned that, because we’re having conversations right now, particularly with our university, about that, whether it’s, you know, seen as a brain drain or a brain gain, and the ways that we can address that we used to actually host an event called the career crawl, and this was getting local companies and students connected. Because a lot of the jobs fairs that occur on college campuses are companies that are from outside coming into our community and saying, Hey, we got a great job for you the Bay Area, or we got a great job for you in Chicago. And they and those students leave because of that. Well, we wanted to create a local job fair so that students could have a better understanding of what that local job opportunity looks like. And the U of A the University of Arizona actually picked that up. They now have a have an annual and actually sometimes twice a year, Job Fair called Tucson jobs now. So they took our idea and they created their own job fair that focuses on local job opportunities. And what we’re seeing now, we’ve actually seen some of those statistics shift. It used to be that that a quarter of our of our graduates stayed here in Tucson, which is a really low number, because in some communities, it could be upwards to 50 and 60% that is now inching up. We’re now seeing that number is now 35% of our graduates staying here in Tucson. And so from a statistical standpoint, we’re actually seeing a brain gain over the last three to four years as a poor as opposed to a brain drain. Could we do better? Obviously, we could, but we’re at least sitting seeing those those graduates, stay here more than they have in the past, and and we’re hopeful it’s because of things like that, where we’re opening more doors to local opportunities.

Brandon Burton 17:14
It’s trending the right way, for sure,

Michael Guymon 17:18
absolutely.

Brandon Burton 17:19
I love the approach of local advocacy and in these areas that you talked about with transportation and quality of life and public safety and housing, and can you talk to us a little bit more about some of the different approaches? Maybe in these other categories, we spent some good time on the workforce and talent development, but talk to us a little bit about the transportation or quality of life and things of that nature? Yeah,

Michael Guymon 17:43
absolutely. So I’ll start with public safety. So couple, two and a half years ago, I created our coalition against retail theft. It was small businesses, even, oddly enough, one of our one of our mortuaries, as well as you know, places like CVS and Walgreens were a part of this coalition because they were experiencing retail theft today, more than they have, like, extremely, more more than they have in the past. And so we created this coalition to address a lot of those challenges that those companies were facing, and we brought in local law enforcement, we brought in our city and county attorneys. We brought in a lot of the individuals to be a part of those conversations, direct conversations, so that we could come up with with solutions. One of the solutions that we did come up with, we were the recipients of a local grant that awarded small businesses micro loans, or actually, sorry, micro grants. It wasn’t a loan a micro grant to put in new lighting, to put in new vegetation, to put do things with on their own property, to discourage retail theft and and vandalism and things that would happen, you know, private property vandalism. So so we were successful in that, and we want to do more of that. And so now our conversations have grown outside of retail theft and are really focused on public safety and things that we could do to to make sure that we are addressing public safety, and a lot of that comes down to making sure that we’re hiring more police officers and other things to to address public safety in our community. As it comes to trans transportation, we have a reauthorization that’s going to be on the ballot next year of our Regional Transportation Authority. This is a 20 year half cent sales tax that was approved back in 2006 it will sunset in 2026 so next year we’re placing on the ballot an extension of a 20 year extension to that half cent sales tax. And that, again, is just Pivotal, especially in a state where we’re seeing. Fewer and fewer state shared revenues coming toward transportation. If we don’t reauthorize that we locally are going to be in a world of hurt, and we know how important transportation is to our economy, to deliver the goods and services that companies and small businesses depend on, it is absolutely critical that we maintain a robust transportation network. And so that’s that’s some that’s a huge, going to be a huge focus of ours going into next year. And

Brandon Burton 20:31
I’ve seen chambers, you know, in other areas, have a lot of success with taking on initiatives like that transportation to get it on the ballot. And this is a renewal. So hopefully it’s a little easier to tell that story. But for the person that says, Well, I don’t take you know public transportation well, but a lot of the people that are you know, serving you your dinner at the restaurant, they do, and if you are not participating in this, you’re going to pay a lot higher or not have a wait staff, or whatever it is. I mean, there’s all different industries that have employees that rely on public transportation, and you see that across the board, for quality of life within a community, if you don’t have a strong, you know, transportation, says public transit system, then you suffer. So hopefully that’ll, you know, get that momentum you need, get it across the finish line and renew that and keep your community thriving. Are there other areas you touched a little bit about housing? What are some of the the approaches that you guys are taking on with housing?

Michael Guymon 21:35
So when it comes to housing, we are working with mainly our our county. So Pima County is the county that serves our region, and our Pima County, believe it or not, is the same size as the state of Connecticut. So counties in Arizona are quite large. We only have 15 we’re the sixth largest state, but we only have 15 counties. So our counties here are pretty big, but so Pima County does a lot of work. In fact, it does a lot of work that counties typically a lot of urban work that counties typically don’t do to counties typically provide rural services, but our county does a lot of urban services. So they’re pretty big player in terms of making sure that we continue to to establish a pro business environment here in the region. But when it comes to housing, they have established a Housing Commission, and we are looking at various proposals and initiatives that would that would help address that some of it, quite frankly, Brandon is going to come down to to public support, but we can also look at ways in which we lessen some of the regulation. So regulation is a big, big issue when it comes to being able to provide the housing supply. And as we all know in the chamber world, supply and demand, economics is a real thing, and understanding that is pivotal for communities as they’re trying to address some of these issues. And so the better we can lessen regulation, or at least address regulation in the right way that provides the ability for developers to build housing stock is going to help address the supply and demand issue, and if they’re able to build more supply that meets the demand, then those housing prices are going to come down. It is just basic economics. So So our focus has been and will continue to be on the regular regulation side of things. And there are some great examples out there. We’ve learned some examples in the Minneapolis area. There are some examples that are going on in California that really address that, that supply issue, and so we want to enact some of those things outside of sort of public support for for housing.

Brandon Burton 23:54
Yeah, no, that’s that’s great, and it really gives some ideas about how housing can be approached. Again, the local approach to advocacy, I think, is so important. And like you said at the beginning, it’s normal for chambers to have staff that are tasked with going to the state capitol or going to Washington, and there’s a place for that, absolutely, but be able to turn the advocacy internally within the community, to build that that place making really within your community, to have it be a place where businesses want to be, where people want to live, where you have that quality of life, is so key. Yeah. So I wanted to ask on behalf of listeners who are wanting to take their chamber up to the next level, kind of tip or action item might you share with them as they try to get after that goal?

Michael Guymon 24:46
Yeah, I would say just make sure that you are providing the right kind of value proposition, whether it’s serving your members on a regular basis or, you know, one of the one of the actions that we took was. So knowing that our advocacy was a primary driver for companies, small, medium and large to join the chamber, we actually embedded our Public Policy Council into our bylaws. So you know the normal committees that you would find in bylaws of it, like the Finance Committee and the Governance Committee, but we actually put our public policy council committee in our bylaws because we knew how important that was to our members, and by putting in the bylaws, that means that a board member of ours has to chair the public policy committee. So it’s that direct link between Board activity and our what we consider our number one value proposition for our members, and to demonstrate how important that is, our community, our connections important. Of course, they’re important. We’re going to continue to provide events. We’re going to continue to provide mixers and breakfasts and ways in which our businesses can connect and connect, whether that means connecting with leaders so that they can share their thoughts or connecting with each other so they can do business with each other. We want to make sure that we’re continuing to do that, but we are also putting together our next three year strategic plan, and as it stands right now, it has yet to be approved by the board, but we’re we are having conversations with all of our committees, our board, our high level investors, and at the end of the three years, we’re looking to have 80% of our funding go toward our advocacy efforts. That that’s a big percentage, that’s that’s certainly more than most chambers would be comfortable with accepting, but again, that is something that our members are telling us is important to them, and they’re willing to shift and maybe even grow dollars on the advocacy side of the of the of the staffing coin, so that we can be that stronger advocate for for the region and and part of that is because of what we are up against in Tucson, maybe different from and unique from other communities. We have a a government that doesn’t see the value in in business, thoughts and opinions, and so we have to push harder than some other chambers have to when it comes to our local governments, to say, This is why the business voice is important. This is why you need to include the business community in a lot of your conversations as you develop your ordinances or your initiatives. And so because of that push, because of that added push, we’re going to have to add resources on that side of the ledger, and our board seems to be comfortable in moving that direction.

Brandon Burton 27:51
That’s great. Just between the board and your members recognizing the impact and seeing you guys move the needle with your advocacy efforts to want to lean into it even more. I think is huge. So yep, Well, Michael, I like asking everyone I have on the show, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Michael Guymon 28:14
Well, it’s interesting. You say that because we are in a due diligence process right now to potentially merge with our economic development organization, the very same one that I used to work for, and I was there for seven and a half years. I’ve been to the chamber now here for for six years. And so I’ve seen both sides, and what I truly feel is and I and in my conversations with chambers across the country who have got who have actually successfully merged with their economic development organization to have the expansion slash attraction and retention arms under one roof, I think, is powerful. So I see, and again, based on a lot of the conversations and a lot of the trends that we are seeing in the chamber environment across the country, I see more of that happening. And so I think the trend to answer your question is moving in that direction, to to establish a merged relationship with economic development organizations, I think, is going to be the future of chambers. To be, not only that advocate for a pro business environment, but also, like we’ve talked about, be that advocate for their community’s competitiveness, because it is a much more competitive world out there. Companies are moving and relocating more today than they have in the past. And so for chambers and economic development organizations to be aligned in their messaging, be aligned in their content, I think is going to be not only the trend for chambers moving forward, but also to establish a more powerful organization. That can bring all of those services to bear and be that advocate for pro business policy and for competitiveness in their respective communities. So

Brandon Burton 30:13
out of curiosity, and I know it’ll look a little different in each community, but how does a conversation like that begin when you talk about a possible merger with the chamber and Economic Development Authority, yeah,

Michael Guymon 30:26
based on a lot of the conversations that I’ve had, some of them are like, like us. It’s come down to there are too many business organizations in your region, and sometimes it’s hard for that collective, unified voice to exist, and the more dispersed voices that you have in a region, sometimes can dilute that voice as you’re trying to advocate and lobby for a pro business environment. So sometimes it starts there, other times it starts with and I’ve had these conversations with other communities as well. It started with an exiting of of a senior official, like a CEO of either a chamber or an economic development organization, where, when that person exits the community, kind of takes a step back and says, Okay, well, that person’s exiting maybe now, maybe the timing is right now for us to take a look at whether or not these two organizations should should be under one roof.

Brandon Burton 31:27
Yeah, I think that’s helpful, just to be able to keep minds open and perspectives open, to see when that opportunity, when it makes sense. I would argue in a lot of cases, it does make sense, but to see when that timing matches up and how to start those conversations. Yeah, well, Michael, I wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information you’d like to put out there for listeners who may want to reach out and connect and learn more about how you guys are doing things there in Tucson. What would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you? Yeah, happy

Michael Guymon 31:58
to do that. So our website is TucsonChamber.org and my email address, should anyone want to email me, is mguymon@tucsonchamber.org happy to love answering emails. I’m definitely one of those individuals that gets back to folks within 24 hours. So love to communicate, love to learn, love to share ideas. Love to share best practices. And just love to communicate, like I said earlier, with other chamber executives. Because my way is not always the right way, but I can share what works for us, but I can also learn what works for others. So happy to do that absolutely

Brandon Burton 32:48
well. We’ll get that in our show notes to make it easy to find you and for listeners to connect with you, but I do appreciate you spending time with us today on chamber chat podcasts and sharing what is working for you guys there in Tucson, and thank you for being with us and sharing your perspective with us today.

Michael Guymon 33:06
Thank you so much. Brandon. I appreciate it.

Brandon Burton 33:08
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Your Chamber Does That with John Tayer

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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

Our guest for this episode is John Tayer as President and CEO of the Boulder Chamber in Colorado, John is honored to lead the organization that serves as boulders unified voice for business interests advances the community’s economic vitality and provides valuable business support services. Prior to joining the boulder chamber in 2012 John was Public Affairs and Communications Director for the pharmaceutical manufacturing company Roche, Colorado Corporation, and policy development director at the Boulder City Manager’s office. John also spent six years as the boulder area’s elected representative to the Regional Transportation District. As a native of Brookline, Massachusetts. John earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan. Spent a couple of years working on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, and moved to Boulder 34 years ago to earn a law degree from the University of Colorado. He now resides in South Boulder with his wife Molly, and enjoys playing outdoors, accessing local cultural attractions, and generally loves his community. But John, 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 that are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better,

John Tayer 2:27
Sure. Brandon, and thank you so much for reaching out and offering to include me in your podcast series. You know. I’ll just say this that you know i a Just so appreciate my chamber colleagues and I learned so much from conversations with them. One of my favorite things is getting together with them at professional conferences. And so this kind of a podcast is a great opportunity to for me to just share my thinking, but I look forward to just listening to others as well as I have previously. I will say that just if you think about me, just as a individual, quirky as I am, I’d say just I love the chamber universe and the work that we do. And I’m sure we’ll get into the details of that, but it is somewhat overwhelming. I mean, we are engaged in so many aspects of our communities, our schedules are, you know, seven or gosh, I get up so early, like four in the morning to get my emails done till late at night, and then just get up and do it again. So in order to balance that kind of a work lifestyle, I would say something different about me that might be relatable to other chamber directors, and that is, I have to be very compulsive about how I schedule in time to exercise and to engage in activities outside of my chamber experience. And what that looked like for quite some time was for three years, three months and three days. I ran five k5, kilometers or more every day, not skipping a day, and whether it was ice storms, the snow, rain, wind, crazy wind days. So you know, for me, that was a just a great way to a keep a consistent pattern of Exercise and Health, but just for also just finding a way to get space where I could just release my mind and think about some of the key issues that I was addressing at work or in life, just amazingly important. So I think maybe the compulsive nature, there’s other elements of that in my life, things I’ve done, but that might be something a little bit unusual to just to give you a sense of my character, yeah, that’s

Brandon Burton 4:56
a that is quite the feat. I. I’ll say, I I’m run. I’ve run as well. I Fitness is important to me. But most mornings, I’m getting my my oldest daughter up at 5am get her going and and I’ll take that time, I’ll get her up, and then I’ll put on the shoes and go out for a run. And in Texas, it’s either like, you gotta beat the sun up, or else, you know, it’ll beat you up, you know, on your run, yeah. So, so I do that, but this week I got her up, and we had a cold front come through, and it was, like, in the 30s, and it’s like, wow, I’m not up for yet. I’m gonna wait for the sun to come up today. Wow. So the fact we’re out nice and,

John Tayer 5:39
yeah, we haven’t had anything like that up here in Colorado. So interesting,

Brandon Burton 5:44
yeah, but I enjoy your your sentiment about, you know, going to chamber conferences and interacting with colleagues and learning from them, spending time with them, and I don’t think we have them enough. So that’s where this podcast kind of fills that void and gives us that, hit that we need in between. So love it, yeah. Well, tell us a little bit about the boulder chamber. Give us an idea of the size, number of staff, scope of work. You guys are involved with budget to kind of set the stage for our conversation today?

John Tayer 6:14
Sure. So the boulder chamber is about 1200 and mid 1200 membership, shooting for 1300 we are a we have about 21 staff members. And just to describe the character of it, we’re one of those chambers that has the opportunity to have economic vitality under our umbrella. So we serve as the economic development agency for Boulder and the broader region from a chamber perspective. And for me, I just we might get into this later, but I wouldn’t have it any other way, in terms of just that marriage of economic vitality underneath the typical chamber functions. So that’s, I think, key, about a $2.6 million budget and just a wide array of just activities that probably aren’t typical of a chamber. So we’ll get into some of that in our conversation. I’m

Brandon Burton 7:16
sure. Yes, absolutely, and and I agree. I think being able to have that marriage of chamber and economic development, makes a lot of sense. As far as that cohesiveness and really building community, you need to be able to be on the same page. So even if they’re separate organizations, being able to come together and be on the same page,

John Tayer 7:35
absolutely. I mean, I hate seeing when you have an Economic Development Authority, separate from the chamber, and they’re competing for funding events for, you know, the elbow throwing around what activities are within their purview. It’s, it’s, to me, that’s undermines Community and Economic Vitality.

Brandon Burton 7:56
Yes, I would agree with that. So we settled on a topic for our conversation today around your chamber does that and that can either that can be a statement or that can be a question. So we’ll get into that much deeper as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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All right, John, we’re back, and before the break I’d mentioned so your chamber. Does that can be a statement or a question, as as we approach the topic today, what, what direction do you want to go with it? First is a statement or a question?

John Tayer 10:09
You know, I’d say that it’s a it’s a statement and, and we do that, it’s, you know, got a period, but it might as well have an exclamation point at the at the back of the the end of it. And the point of that statement is, when you think about chamber organizations, many folks, they’ll say, Well, what does a chamber do? I mean, you’d like to think that the job that you’re doing daily and working your tail off, and folks would completely understand it and have awareness of what Chamber organizations do. But when you, when you talk to average business leaders, citizens on the street, many of them have no idea what a chamber is. And they, they’re, you know, once I tell them what I do, I’m the head of the boulder chamber, they they’ll next question is, and then what do you do for work? And I have to this is actually a full time, more than full time job, really. And so you know the chamber, your chamber does, that is a statement about you should know what your chamber does. And if you you know, if you’re have an issue as a business, if you’re thinking about a community issue that’s impacting the economy, you should talk to us. And so, you know, it’s an expression for us about the just wide range of activities and programs that our chamber is involved with. And you know, I’ll just touch on it. But I mentioned, I mean, we have the traditional three areas of chamber activity, member support and marketing, services and networking. We have our advocacy, which is the being the voice for business interests. And I would say that, you know, that was for us, a very important element of our own sustainability and our strength as it as an organization drawing in members. And then third is that economic vitality element. So we, we are the economic development group looking to retain and attract businesses, to carry the data resources for our community on the health and vitality of our economy and generally helping businesses build toward their future vision. But in addition to that, we’ve taken on significant other ancillary activities that are important to business success. So for example, when we think about one of the challenges for business activity in our region, it’s workforce retention and attraction. And so we’ve we’ve had to approach things like workforce development, helping to develop the talent that we have in our community, to serve the best, serve and align with the businesses needs for different expertise and skills. In addition, we become very active in housing policy, because it’s become very expensive to live in central boulder. So how do we help to develop a ray of housing, not just in Boulder, but around the region? And then third, just as another example, and there’s so many more, we are very active in transportation, where the transportation management organization for our community, and that is facilitating workforce mobility that is in around Boulder, but also, more importantly for workforce retention and attraction, it is what helps us facilitate longer regional commutes for Our workforce, making it really convenient for them to travel to Boulder for work and back maybe to housing outside of our community.

Brandon Burton 14:09
So that gives a great scope of some of those things that you guys are involved with. I love that even in your email signature, you say your chamber does that, you know, so you’re, resonating, that you’re putting that out there and that messaging to your community. So for those listening, yeah, I’m thinking of the chamber executive who’s already overwhelmed, who’s like, we can’t take on one more thing right now. And then somebody in the community will come to the chamber and say, Hey, I think you should do this. So talk to us about that. How do you approach when the new ideas, either if it self generated within the chamber, or ideas are presented to you from the outside, how do you figure out how that aligns with your mission, if it’s something that you’re going to take on and to really run with? Tagline of your chamber. Does that? How does that fit in with this? What

John Tayer 15:03
a brilliant question, a brilliant question. Because I will tell you that that was one of the conversation elements when we did our rebranding to think about, you know, the message that that sends is that, do we become the sponge for just about anything that a chamber can do, because that is one of the greatest challenges in this role, is figuring out what are the things we don’t do, what are the the the opportunities to have an impact on our community, on the economic vitality of our area and support our businesses. And you know, every day, somebody’s calling and saying, Hey, we’re having this parade, and we’d love the chamber to lead it, and you know all this. So how do we approach the decision making around what is appropriate for our organization? And I won’t claim to be expert on this. In fact, if you talk to our staff team, they say we need to do a better job at this. And I think we all with that. But it first starts with the strategic plan. We the way we plan strategically is every year we do, we update our strategic plan. So it’s not a three year plan or five year plan that we we we point toward we know that the conditions in our community and our economy are changing all the time. So every year, we do a soup to nuts review, and that’s everything from just making sure that our mission, our vision, are still in in alignment with what we want them to be, making sure our core values are are still what we feel are critical for our organization to represent. But then you start getting into the meat of the work, of the strategic plan, and we have key pillars they relate to the kinds of things I mentioned earlier, things like being the voice, being the the strong economic vitality pillar member support those kinds of things, a little bit broader scope to to them and nuance. And then, you know, those things don’t change that much. But then underneath are the activities that support success in those key pillar areas, and that is reviewed every year, and they change regularly. I mean, sometimes, you know, we’ll have programs that go on, and we know that they will for a number of years, but other times, we have a mission or goal project that we’re pursuing. We know it, and hope that it’ll be a one year, one and then we’ll be able to move on to something else. But under that umbrella, every year, we’re doing a check to make sure that we are keeping a focus on achieving our key pillar, pillar goals, strategic priorities and the programs, all our programs need to lead toward that we look to weed out things that maybe are no longer serving us in those areas, and then that sets the pace for the year, and we try to be strict about not deviating too far from What we set at the beginning of the year. But you know, opportunities come forward, and so when that happens, we do have a tool for analyzing. Are these things that you know are aligned with our mission? Are they going to serve our goals? Is it something that we have the capacity to take on, whether it’s financially or whether it’s with our staff team. And sometimes there are creative ways that we can either support others in achieving a goal and still be tied in a way that is comfortable and strategic for us. And then at other times, we just have to say sorry. We just can’t be involved with that at this time and and try to offer support and guidance, but you have to make that difficult decision, and you know that at times can be disappointing for folks, but I think the greater clarity you can provide to them up front without hemming and hawing, is serves, serves you long term. And last thing I’ll say about that is we just actually made a decision to take on, for example, the film commission under our umbrella, and something that I really excited about, wanted to pursue, and had to listen to our, my staff team, when they said, you know, no, not now. And this was, this was quite over a couple of years, really. And there, then came a point where we said, Okay, now we see that this fits with us. We see how we can adopt it. And. A way that doesn’t over Burton, our staff, team and resources. So it’s not always a permanent, no, it can be a hey, not now, but maybe in the future.

Brandon Burton 20:12
Yeah, I like how you say you have a tool for analyzing, you know, whether or not something is a fit or something you can take on, is there like a canned response when you get a phone call or an email to one of your 2021, staff members? How does that filter in from the the original source to that feedback of, yes, let’s explore this. Or, you know, how can we support you in another way with your parade or whatever it is, how is the staff trained to handle you know, as more things come your way, you

John Tayer 20:53
know, I think each of them have a different approach. I’ll say just my style. I mean, I just tend to be an exuberant person in general. So my initial response is, wow, that is an exciting idea, if I think it’s a great idea. And boy, I’d love to think about how we could be engaged with that. And then I will absorb as much information as I can. Usually entail some sort of a meeting and discussion. I’ll bring in the appropriate staff folks to have that conversation, and then the statement is, hey, I need to bring it back to the team. It’s kind of and I think folks respect that’s fair when I, when I, when I offer that. I’m really excited about it, but I need to take it back to the team. You know, it’s, it’s an honest statement. I mean, if I don’t think that this is a fit, then I’ll usually let them know. But I really do rely on the team. We have so such great, great staff team members and partners that I want to make sure that they buy in our I meet with our leadership team every week, we walk through just the list of issues that are coming to us, whether they’re existing projects or new ideas. And I’m always testing with them, and there’s some very hard conversations that they have, and you know, listen to periodically, I’ll get reprimanded because I got somebody a little bit too excited about the potential of working with us, and they’re like, wait a minute, you know? And I, you know, they’re they’re right to do that. And so I respect them and look for them to give me honest push back when it’s taking on something that is just not within our capacity, or maybe even not a good fit for us? Yeah.

Brandon Burton 22:40
So I like that approach. I think it’s good to show if there’s some genuine interest to express that, but take it back to the team, and it all has to go through that filter. I think that makes a lot of sense. So I had mentioned before you’ve got the tagline in your your email signature of your chamber. Does that? How do you guys go about telling the story? I mean, you guys are involved in so many things. How do you let your community know exactly what it is you’re involved with? I mean, it’s, it’s in your email signature. You’re on the podcast today talking about it. What are, what are other ways that you’re getting the messaging out there? This is what the Chamber’s doing to advance our community.

John Tayer 23:20
Yeah. So listen, I will defer to our expertise in the marketing era staff team. But you know what we will often do is tell the story through our programs and activities and so we, we, we are very aggressive in our media outreach, our editorial commentary, in our video content, all sorts of ways of communicating that we have this broad scope. And you know for me, some of the most effective tools are the opinion pieces that we write, which allow us to speak up on issues that are important to our businesses, important to our community, and indicate that our organization is at the table, playing a critical role, Speaking on behalf of business interests. I say, always say business interests in harmony with the values of our community, which we shared, environmental sustainability, social equity, but at the same time making it clear, hey, this is the impact this issue will have, or the position. This is why we’re taking this position on a particular issue area. And so to me, these kinds of proactive free media opportunities are really important, having a relationship with our local newspaper reporters so that they know and think to call us on the kinds of activities that we’re working on. And so we. Balanced that kind of approach with just our own marketing messaging, which covers an array of topic areas. We have newsletters in the economic vitality area, in our public policy programs area and in general membership, and try to meet them out in a way that doesn’t overwhelm our membership and our business community, but is demonstrating that we’re active in all of these different areas. I

Brandon Burton 25:31
like that, especially those opinion pieces and your idea of, you know, showing the business interests in conjunction with the community interests. I think it’s so important to show that that alignment there. When you take take something to the team to evaluate whether or not we’re going to take this on as something new that the Chamber does talk to us a little bit about what you look at, as far as the financial aspect, because all of it’s going to take some kind of staff time. I would assume most of these things are going to take staff time. There’s a cost to that. Are these programs? Are they going to be revenue generators? Are you going to have to go after grants? Are you going to so talk to us about the financial aspect as you, as you bring on new programs or new initiatives? Yeah.

John Tayer 26:16
So for me, that it starts with the foundation of the the characterization I have for our organization and any 501 c6 or 501 c3 and that is we are a non profit business, and that means that we have a mission and purpose to our work. We there are specific goals that we have for the work that we do, and we want to be incredibly impactful in those areas, but we know that we cannot achieve those goals or have as much of an impact if we don’t operate as a normal business that has a mindset of bringing in revenue that helps us to employ the staff, team members, pay them in a way that is appropriate for their expertise and skill levels, and also invest in the tools and and and support services that allow us to drive toward those, those those goals. So for everything that we do, we’re always assessing, how can we pay for that? What are the the sponsors? What are the the grant programs? And also thinking about some of the programs that maybe not drawing in direct revenue, but are a driver for membership at standard or even higher levels, because we’re doing that work. So there is that revenue assessment for just about everything we do. You know, there are some things that you would, you would say, Okay, we are doing this because that is a chamber activity. Were so many fewer of those than when I first came on board. I mean, there was just, I’d say, just an array of activities that we said, Well, we do that because it’s, you know what a chamber does? Well, let’s find out how we can turn that into a revenue, revenue generating mechanism for organization that allows us to do that and also supports our other operations and activities. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 28:35
I appreciate that perspective. I think hopefully that’ll help others that are, you know, facing those challenges to bring this on. How do we do this? Figuring out a way to pay for it, to make it all work, is super important. It’s, I

John Tayer 28:48
will say, Brandon. It’s a philosophy that just it. You know, even myself, you know, when I came in, you know, I will tell you that I wasn’t somebody who understood. I wasn’t, didn’t come up through the chamber ranks. I came into the organization and wasn’t clear on all the, you know, the Chamber financing tools and but was focused and compelled by the mission. And I think that’s probably most of the staff team members that that join. They want to serve and support our businesses. They want to achieve things that are important for our community and our economy. That said making sure that everybody has a mindset of generating revenue to then support and keeping some expenses at the lowest possible rate that allows us to perform our mission to do the programs and initiatives that we find so compelling and that lead us toward achieving our mission.

Brandon Burton 29:48
Yeah, that’s perfect. Well, as we shift gears here a little bit, I wanted to to ask for the chamber listening, who’s interested in taking their organization up to the. Next Level. What kind of tip or action item might you share with them? And as they try to accomplish this goal,

John Tayer 30:07
you know, I I listen. I first of all just, I say this with all humility, because there’s so many chamber leaders out there that I follow, and think I need to take that on so but what has been successful for I think our organization are a couple of really key elements. So one is that I do believe that there is a very critical need to represent business interests and represent them in a way that is constructive, that drives goal toward goal policy, goals that support our businesses, and I think, to the extent that that becomes a significant area of investment for chambers, to me, I’ve seen that propel colleagues around our region to much greater success and impact in their communities, and also a greater financial base. It’s it’s the larger businesses, the ones that have the capacity to invest in your work. They want to see you speak up on their behalf to help make sure that their businesses can operate most efficiently and effectively in their community, and at the same time they they want to be represented responsibly in a way that isn’t, you know, you know, hell with business interests. I mean, we have, I always joke that we have these beautiful flat irons that are the back backdrop to our community and really the the symbol of our our communities, just beauty. And, you know, I joke that, you know, we’re never going to be the chamber that says, let’s, let’s tear down the the flat irons and sell off that sandstone, because it’s really good for business. No, we are about long term business vitality and economic strength and the vitality of our community for the long term. So for me, that’s the character of advocacy that I think is so important for our business. In addition, I then move toward the economic vitality side of the equation. And to me, it’s not just the classic business retention and attraction and for us strong strengths and data collection and understanding the vitality of our community, but it’s the programs that have a broader, long term impact on our community, things that aren’t going to be addressed in you know, either a single, you know, you know, one month action or activity, but also aren’t things that are just part of your daily work. So for example, we have homelessness has become an issue in our community, housing costs are significant challenge for for our workforce. So we took on what we call the greatest challenges to our economy and to our community under the umbrella of what’s called the boulder Together program, and that initiative is allowing us to describe and define those issues that are of most concern to our businesses, and then attract resources that help us to tackle them for specific goals, to to for for Our community and for our economy. And so we’ve, you know, now in our seventh year, I think seventh year, yes, seventh year of Boulder together, and we’ve been able to see really important progress in transportation programs, in housing generation and in we developed an entirely new workforce development program through the boulder together umbrella, and I’d say that’s the message to our to fellow colleagues, and I know a number of them are doing this, but it’s instrumental to our success, and that is identifying the greatest challenges that our businesses have for their success and their their vision for the future, and then outreaching to them for support to tackle those issues with specific programs and initiatives that, to me, has helped to define Our organization as a leader in much broader scope of activities that I don’t think are typical for a chamber organization. I

Brandon Burton 34:49
love that answer that identifying those biggest challenges and go attack it. Yeah, go, go after it. Go get it. And I, I wrote down the the comment you made about the. Character of advocacy. I love the way you said that, and I think that resonates very well, John, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

John Tayer 35:13
Yeah, well, you know, listen, I’m a chamber believer. And you know, when I think about the state of our society, and that the challenge we have in communities, but nationally, internationally, just communicating and and getting folks together to address these very difficult issues. I see Chambers as becoming the place where we come together diverse perspectives, but with understanding that we have common goals. We want our businesses to be successful, we want our economy to thrive, and we want our communities to be wholly sustainable. And so a chamber organization has become that unusual place in society now where you can bring folks together in a in a in a in a in a problem solving nature brass tacks not not no fluff, but really pointing toward solutions that are actionable and drive toward positive results together. And I find that that’s just the the opportunity for chambers, especially in this day and age, it’s, it’s, it’s a community center, and it’s a place for achieving results that in many ways are are even our government entities are not capable of given the the consternation at the political sphere. So I see chambers evolving and developing to become bigger players in a whole array of community issues that impact our economy and business success. So I’m bullish on where we position ourselves for the future, and I’m just excited about just, of course, our own chamber. But just chambers writ large,

Brandon Burton 37:14
it’s a great vision. I love it. John, I wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and learn more about how you guys are approaching things there in Boulder. What would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect with you?

John Tayer 37:29
Well, I’m glad to reach or be connected with on LinkedIn. You can find me John, John Taylor, T, A, y, E, R, you can also email me directly at john.tayer@boulderchamber.com, and if you feel compelled, give me a call. 303-442-1058, and you know, I’ll just say this that I’m glad to respond to any questions. Just share what we know I was just emailing just yesterday, somebody on our team, and I said, Let’s do it. Let’s do that. R and D rip off and duplicate the work of other chambers. It’s just, you know, this is not a competitive business. This is a business of collaboration toward a broader vision of healthy economies, strong businesses and strong communities, and so anything that we can learn from each other and successes that we can share a newer to our common collective benefit. So I’m looking forward to getting any calls or questions folks have about the work we do, and I’m sure I’ll be reaching out to them after they call me and say, Well, how did you approach it? Right, right? Thank you for that opportunity. Brandon,

Brandon Burton 38:47
yeah, it definitely is a collaborative effort. So we’ll, we’ll make sure to get your contact information in our show notes for this episode make it easy for listeners to find you. But John, I wanted to thank you for spending time with us today and just, you know, shedding a little bit of light about how you guys are approaching things at the Boulder Chamber, the impact you’re making and those things that you guys do in Boulder so thank you for being with us today.

John Tayer 39:12
Your chamber does that. Just, you know that I’m sure your chamber, whoever’s chamber, does that too. Great.

Brandon Burton 39:20
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