Doug Holman from Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions presents Next Level Coaching. Next Level Coaching is group coaching, one on one mentoring, and a peer support community.
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Holman Brothers has been a great supporter of this podcast and I know Doug and Bill have valuable resources to share with you and your membership staff.
Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Pat Patrick. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.
Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.
Introduction
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.
Voiceover Talent 0:14 And now your host he wants to support your health by encouraging you to go for a 30 minute walk outdoors. He’s my dad Brandon Burton.
Brandon Burton 0:23 Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.
Our title sponsor for this episode is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Is your chamber struggling to drive the revenue it needs to support your initiatives? It’s a common problem and one that our new title Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions knows a lot about Doug and Bill Holman aren’t just sales consultants. They’re real life chamber guys with 20 plus years of chamber leadership experience. They know how to diagnose and solve member recruiting issues faster and better than anyone else. And they’re ready to put that knowledge to work for you and your chamber. Call the Harmon Brothers today at 61985 to 1391. Or check them out at HolmanBros.com. That’s holmanbros.com.
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Guest Introduction
Our guest for this episode is Pat Patrick. Pat worked in executive marketing roles and advertising capacities for Safeway stores, Tyson Foods and Foster Farms poultry company and I see marketing systems overseeing multi million dollar budgets and multiple advertising agencies over his career. Pat came to the Lodi Chamber in California in 2001, where he was appointed the chambers president and CEO. Pat has been part of the success of Lodi wine country through establishing international access to Central America and China for Lodi wine exports and major strategy was leading the sponsor leading and sponsoring trips abroad for Lodi ventures and for foreign buyers to visit Lodi. He was also the author and developer of vision 2020 a catalytic economic look forward the Lodi community which has positioned Lodi for early success in the new decade. Pat has and is today active in volunteer roles, such as several local not for profit boards, including the Adventist Health Lodi Memorial Hospital, reaching outside of both Lodi both regionally and nationally in the chamber industry. Pat has served as past president of the Northern California Chamber association was asked to join two national fellowships one developing healthy communities and the other focusing on workforce development, and 2017. He was elected by his peers to be the board chair of WAC. In 2020, he was selected to receive the excellence and leadership award the organization’s highest honor. Pat is a graduate from the University of Texas and the Institute of organizational management. At Pat, I am happy to have you with me today here on chamber chat podcast. I’d love for you to take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions who are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can get to know you a little bit better.
Something Interesting About Pat
Pat Patrick 3:28 Well, thank you, Brandon. It is my honor to be on here. I think you’ve done a couple of 100 of these and so but I’m just honored to be included. I’m excited to share with my fellow chamber professionals, some of the success that has come to the Lodi chamber of commerce with a great program. And something interesting about me. Well, my best friend’s dog, his name is Tucker. I don’t know. I think I sent you a picture of Tucker. Yeah. So if the people can see Tucker then they’ll know Hey, I’m an okay guy. Because that dog is great looking dog and he’s my best friend back. He’s here. He comes to the office. He’s He’s our greeter
Pat’s dog & best friend-Tucker
Brandon Burton 4:20 the chamber mascot there. Hey, man. That’s awesome. Oh, yeah, I’ll have to put a picture of Tucker in our show notes so people can log on and see that and we’re getting close to a couple 100 episodes. This is actually 158 But we’re getting up there. We’re racking them up. So met with a lot of great chamber people. So it glad to add you to the mix. Yeah. So before we get into our discussion today, I’d love for you to take a moment to tell us a little bit more about the Lodi chamber kind of the the the size the scope of your chambers. staph budget, that sort of thing to kind of set the table for our discussion.
About the Lodi Chamber
Pat Patrick 5:04 Sure. We are in 2022. Next year we will be 99 years old. Formed in 1923. And at that time probably our membership was made up of a lot of farmers because we are surrounded by something called the Hanford sandy loam. That’s not my description, but that’s the name of the dirt around us, which is very, very rich and has a long history of growing great things. Today there’s 100,000 acres of wine grapes that surround Lodi but I as a wine region, and with the home of Robert Mondavi, right, he was he grew up here is quarterback on the high school football team. And he worked in his family’s vineyards. And he when he’s he went to France to you know, learn his winemaking craft and then came back and put in a very large production facility in Woodbridge, which is a suburb of Lodi. Lodi is a town of 68,000 people. Okay, so we’re not, we’re not big at all. The chamber has 700 members, and we had a staff of seven prior to the pandemic. And since then, we’ve been operating on three and a half staff and we’re busy people. And so we have we are coming back with that, you know, pretty good bank balance in the bank right now. Because we cut a lot and so our membership stayed with us. We couldn’t do any of our events. We have a couple of large revenue producing events first those were gone. But we are coming back strong. It is good to hear Yeah, we got a good ambitious 2020 to play.
Brandon Burton 7:14 Good deal. So and I know we’ll we’ll get into that with our topic for the we’ve settled on for this episode is which is creating a vision. And specifically you guys have what’s called vision 2020 And we’ll have you share some of the details of that as soon as I get back from this quick break.
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All right, Pat we are back. As I mentioned before the break we were talking about creating vision and specifically around your Vision 2020 that you helped to author for the Lodi chamber there in a nutshell what is Vision 2020.
Pat Patrick 10:02 In a nutshell, vision 2020 is an act was an economic look forward. It started in 2014 an economic look forward for our community. We identified five major areas of great challenge for Lodi, but they also offered great promise for lota. And so as I told people, we get to decide which one that’s going to. You’re going to be for Lodi and those were Workforce Development how to you know, get the young people of today ready for the jobs that they’ll need tomorrow. And then our own communities economic competitiveness. Lodi was never has never been marketed as a place to come and do business. And we are 90 miles east of Silicon Valley, which was probably another at that time, the number one place for job creation in the United States, right. And then we had business and community health. We wanted to make sure businesses healthy and their number one asset is their people. And so we joined arms with the hospital and and some other health care professionals to create a whole plan to get Lodi healthier. And then we looked at the livability of Lodi because today we have 90 wineries. And this close to some major population centers we develop the tourism industry. But tourism was the other was the last area that we looked at. And we just need to bring more people to Lodi and the livability aspect which I skipped over was one of those people that we need in our community to grow our community. What do they think the livability is like Ilona, and so we’re concerned at that from a tourist standpoint, from a job creator standpoint, and then for young families to work in those new jobs.
Brandon Burton 12:24 I think those five points the workforce development, economic competitiveness, business and community health, livability and tourism are things that probably most chamber champions listening can kind of look internally at their organization and say, how do we measure up in these different categories? Where do we need to bulk up? Where do we need to shift some some focus to make their communities stronger in these different areas. So as we talk, I’m sure you’ll highlight some of the things like you have with the wineries and stuff that are very specific to Lodi, but for those listening, you all have, you know specific things for your communities as well that make you attractive and make people or that can make people want to live and work and visit and do all sorts of things in your community. So I’d encourage everyone to pay attention to those things in your own community as we go about our discussion today. But how, how is the division created? Kind of how you know who was involved with the with the creation of it?
Pat Patrick 13:34 Um, well, it’ll be fires often start from little sparks, right. And so I am a member of WAC, which was outlined in the introduction. And the president of that organization is a fellow by the name of Dave Kilby. And so Dave does a good job, and helping executives grow. Chamber executives grow. He’s a reader. I’m a reader. He has suggested some really great books to me over the years, right. And a couple of those really changed my life in terms of how I viewed my job, and here at the chamber, and what I’m really responsible for in this seat as president and CEO of the community Chamber of Commerce. And so it got to be when I looked in the mirror in the morning, here, it was, it was a challenge. I started to challenge and so the book that really got me was a book called The Coming Jobs War. Again, it was written in like 2012, but I think it’s very still very good and applicable for today. But it changed my life. It’s written by Jim Clifton. Jim Clifton is the CEO of the he’s the CEO of the Gallup Corporation, I’m sorry. Okay, who who does a lot of polling, obviously, not just political polling, but he polls on everything in the human endeavor that we go through. And he does. So in about 150 different countries, they have offices in 75 around the world. So he knows what’s on top of mine on people’s heads. And it says, In the number one thing was jobs, what happens if I lose my job in this world right now? What happens if I can’t get a job that I want, or, you know, 25% of the world’s population is without a job. And that’s still true today. So it’s a it’s problematic. So. And he talked a lot about the influences on a community. And it just changed me, I, I saw some challenges that we had in Lodi, and no one really addressing the community, you know, your city does a general plan, which identifies where to put the housing, where to put the industry where to put the commercial, but they don’t really plan that much on the economic growth, the security of that, because without that, you don’t have a good community at all. And so we, we, you know, I took that on, because we had health challenges, too, in the county where we live in California, one out of every two people are either pre diabetic or diabetic. That’s a lot of money that, you know, that the workforce has to put in to, you know, towards that element alone. So we got a good response from our larger employers, we came out with programs to help their people get healthier. That’s what one of those five areas was about in the workforce development, the retiring baby boomers, the younger people coming in, are they prepared to work with the millennial generation, there are some challenges. And so we see that and we wanted to have some frank conversations with our school district to make sure that we were preparing kids for the workplace, not only on hard knowledge, skills, but soft skills as well. And so I just sort of lit myself on fire.
And started talking to I went around groups and pushing this concept 2020, I had a population pyramid, which is one tool that I would recommend to any chamber commerce professional. It’s a bar graph that shows the population and how it is arrayed in your community, population pyramid, and ours, what I mean, there’s 1000 things that that one graph can tell you. And it makes you aware of the changes that are coming over the next 10 years in your community population wise. Right now, we see a lot of shifts coming in. So how does that impact your community? How do you change your community to or prepare your community whether you know for what’s coming? And so we I would go out and talk to service clubs, I got on the stage at the community theater with about 900 people, and I just wanted people to get close to me. So the what was burning inside me would catch them on fire too. Because what vision 2020 needed was about 70 volunteers, leaders and influencers to pick up this mantle and start charging and that’s what we did. We put about 15 people in each one of those five areas. We call them that vision action team. Okay, kind of goes with Lodi right wine. So it wasn’t the chamber. I always envisioned the chamber being on top of a mountain kind of kicking over some big rocks and hoping that a landslide would start when when the chamber rocks would hit the healthcare rock and in the education rock and it would start to roll down. And so it it quickly became bigger than the chamber but the chamber had the responsibility to drive it. And that meant the board I tried to put as many leaders and influencers on my board as possible. We only had a board of 12. Today we have a board of 15. But in those days, we had a board of 12. And the best business people in Lodi is what the goal is. I could talk about how we do that to the nominating committee, which is valuable for chamber execs. But what we did was we, we built the board drove it in five areas. So we put two board members on each one. And so they were in charge of running their that their vision action team. And if it was tourism, we had the leaders and tourism in our community on that committee. If it was workforce development, we had the career tech people from the high school we had the community college, we had employers, from industry and from business, all kinds of business sectors. And health, we had a bunch of health professionals, they’re trying to work on this big problem about the diabetes, and the health of our community, the health of our business community. Very important. So you kind of get the idea. We had 70 people from the community, top people, the superintendent of schools, a CEO of the hospital, and they brought some of their folks. We had this we had city government, their city council people even had county supervisors want to sit in because they heard about this. I had one county supervisor say, Well, can you come do this for the county?
No, I can’t. There’s only one of me. But we wrote a 43 page booklet with color photographs and graphs and things to back up everything that we were trying to the condition that our community was in where we wanted to go and how we thought we were going to get there. So each of these five vats, the people, they started with a vision statement, they created a vision statement for tourism, created a vision statement for workforce development and so on. What will this look like? What will tourism look like in Madang? In 2020? That was the question, what will it look like? Right, and so they wrote a vision statement of what that would be. And then the next thing they had to come up with once they had the vision statement was what are the strategies that we have to employ to make that vision come to pass? And then once you get the strategies, strategy, number one, number two, number three, what are the action steps over the next five years because this was 2014, to get us to 2020 to achieve our vision. So vision flowed into the strategies. And the strategies were made up of action steps that were on a timetable. lead organizations lead people were identified to make sure that that thing kept moving forward, that actions do
Brandon Burton 23:29 I love that. I love the idea of these bats to be able to have these or these committees to over these specific segments have the vision to three that vision, the strategies, the action plan and see these things through to you know, like you said over a five year thing, so I assume the people that are involved with these vats, it was a was it a five year commitment to be on one of these committees. Is that how I was approached Okay. Very good.
Pat Patrick 23:57 As some people you know, drop out some new ones. Come on. So, yeah, so a lot of great things happen. We have a huge today we have a huge biking community bicycle. It was enough we want to have one stage I guess you could say we had two people in our livability that and they formed bike Lodi and now bike Lodi has done fantastic things. I mean, we have bike trails that go from downtown now all the way out in all directions. We didn’t have that before. We didn’t have tourism wayfinding signs before we got those put up. These are examples of the action steps to get things done right. And so great things just sort of organically came out. And it worked. It worked.
Brandon Burton 25:05 So now here we are, as we record this, or at the end of 2021. This will be releasing beginning of 2022. But you guys have been able to see this vision unfold. How do you vision out? You know, the next five years? Let’s say, I have is that looking for Lodi? And are you continuing the same type of structure, same type of model or what? What’s your thoughts and plans going forward?
Pat Patrick 25:33 Okay, good question. We, there were a total of 55 action steps that were created for those five. That’s right. And we achieved 38 of them, which is quite a few. And some of the ideas were just a bridge too far. And some of them weren’t, didn’t turn out to be a good idea at all. And so what we did was we wanted to keep an effort going, but the main effort, what changed in our world was businesses started coming over the hill, there’s been an exodus from the Bay Area, Sacramento has really prospered from that. And again, load I really hadn’t been marketed. And so we we created a completely new website. Not a chamber website, but what I call an attraction website. Yeah. And it’s called grow in Lodi, very simple, you can go to it grow in lodi.com. And you’ll see a lot of information about Lodi from what, what the living is about here, what the climate is about, what, what’s to do here. testimonies from business owners who were doing business in the San Francisco Bay Area, and they came over to Lodi and started or renewed their business and what has been their experience and so it’s it’s been catching on slowly but good. We have one of the fastest growing businesses the fastest. Certainly the fastest growing business in Lodi, and one from Sunnyvale is a business called Cepheus. Their molecular diagnostic company that bought out a supplier here that supplied them with a key product. And long story short, they bought that company 38 employees today they’re at 750. Next year, there’ll be a 2500. Wow, molecular diagnostic and healthcare right now is head of premium. They went from one small building to now four very large buildings and made the made the step to bring their research and development over here. So that’s huge for a small town. And so they’re growing in Lodi, and we’re using them as sort of a bell cow to bring other people over, because they’ve had some great success here. And they’re big proponents, they love it here. And so there’s room for more. And so that grow in Lodi, today’s Board is saying okay, what’s next? We really liked what vision 2020 did. How about a vision 2030 And I couldn’t agree more. Yeah. I agree more. And so we’re, we’re in the very early planning stages of that. I’ve got an excited board. And that is so key to any success that a chamber executive at a chamber could have is to get the right people on the bus and sitting in the right seat. That’s right. Yeah.
Brandon Burton 29:01 And I think a big part of that is these bats he talked about that’s putting the right people in the right seats that are excited and know about what the opportunities are in these different segments that are specific and relevant to Lodi you know, in our conversation but you get get those people in the right seats, they are able to create that vision, bring it back together create the synergy it’s just it’s a great model that you guys have gone through and and you’ve done well explaining it to because I can see all the different intricacies you know that have gone into this.
Pat Patrick 29:36 Right. Yeah, and some of the serendipities are the real the relationships that form you know, because here’s the school district in their silo so to speak, you know, fighting the battles that they fight working every day hard, everybody’s busy. And then here’s city government over here and they’re doing their thing and then here’s, you know, health care over here. They’re doing their thing. And here’s the Chamber of Commerce trying to help everybody out in all directions. And so, hey, what if we all got into the same silo? Right? Instead of all working, so, you know, making time to align ourselves with each other over the big community, the things that are really driving to unity, and, and their little rolling, or their big rolling and working together. And that is, that has been great. And I think that’s really one of the things that is, in the My current board about wanting to, hey, let’s do that vision. 2030. Right, because we know we’re not where we want to be yet. Yeah.
Brandon Burton 30:49 So as we start wrapping things up here, I wanted to ask you, for the listeners, what would be maybe a tip or an action item that you would encourage them to do to help, you know, elevate their chamber up to the next level?
Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions
Pat Patrick 31:03 Yeah. Well, I mentioned reading, it’s a funny thing, you know, you’re gonna watch a video or you can listen to something of book on tape or something. Yeah. And they’re great. But, you know, set a goal, if you’re a leader, set a goal to read a book a month. And usually books around 200 pages long. And so that’s like 10 pages a night, put up a nightstand, and then go to sleep 10 pages, you know, but pick the book, and ask some of the ask some of the CEOs that you look up to for some both times that can help that can help a person out in their leadership role, their community role there, you know, the, the Chamber of Commerce, there’s some great ones out there. One of them’s called Make it Happen. That was one of the first ones that I got. And what happens When the Boomers Bail was very intellectually about the changing indite. In the demographics as the seniors, the baby boomers move out of the work force, and the millennials coming in the changes, you know, dramatic. So it changes you, it makes you smarter, and it also touches something inside you. Chamber executives have, I think, the best job in the community, they really do. Yeah, because you’re working for some great people, working for all the different businesses in your community that create the jobs and those employees, buy homes, make loans through the bank, create property tax, create sales tax, and it makes the community go around. I really believe really truly and believe that you don’t see a good community without a very robust active business community. Face it, we make the we make the community work. If you can get it better for business, you’ll get it better for the community
Brandon Burton 33:31 very too. And I appreciate you sharing those, those book references too. So we’ll have those in the show notes that people can look up and if they wanted to check out one of those books make it happen or what happens in the boomers Dale and you mentioned earlier the Coming Jobs War as well. So good options.
Pat Patrick 33:50 Those are just three. Yeah, if anybody wants to get in contact with me or you can go to the to the chamber website, Lodi chamber comm click on grow in Lodi, and you’ll see just a little introduction to vision 2020. Not the whole thing. But I could supply them with other information. Somebody wants to go further. I knew, I know, chambers do a lot of community type plans. But I never came across one that was an economic look forward. Because that really gets to the heart of so many issues. It does.
Brandon Burton 34:29 Right And speaking of looking forward as we look forward to the future of chambers of commerce in general. And how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
Future of Chambers
Pat Patrick 34:40 We only become more and more important in the information age if we still refer to ourselves as being in the information age. There’s so much out there. And we know that a lot of it can’t be trusted, or it’s always going to have a leftward spin or around With spin, where is where’s truth? Versus truth? A chamber is not Republican, it’s not Democrat. It’s not red, it’s not blue. It’s, it’s it’s the community. It’s about the future. That’s where That’s where a chamber is roll is. And it, it creates opportunity did, I think a podcast from chambers, um, we we started down that path. But then the board sort of took us in a new way. And so I’ve got all the equipment that I’m working because I think, to be the same middle, right, the same middle, on on community issues, you’re gonna tackle probably anything that’s happening in Washington, DC, or, in my case, even Sacramento, as low as a small community, but in that community, you know, if your newspapers are going out, or they’re getting thinner, now’s a good time to start, I think, bringing two people together, like point counterpoint. Yeah. And and do it very respectful of each other. And do it with information, not necessarily what your opinion is, but what you know, to be the facts on this issue, and the other person who may be and have an intellectual conversation. And I think that can be very, very valuable. And it they, I don’t know where it would go. But I think it would go in ways start on the business platform approach. But I think it could go very deeper into things like homelessness as I can. Yeah, every community’s got that challenge. And, hey, there’s the smartest people I know, are business owners, right? Very successful business owners. What do they think? How can they think out of the box, and help the community get a program?
Brandon Burton 37:11 I love that if if the purpose of a chamber is to help build stronger communities, you need to be that go to resource of trusted information, that’s that sane center to be able to bring both sides together and really get behind issues to drive progress forward. So I think you hit the nail on the head
Pat Patrick 37:29 is that we call ourselves a three C chamber. I don’t know if you’ve heard that before. Yeah, yeah. A catalyst for business growth, a convener of leaders and influencers, for positive change, but always to be seen as a champion for the community, three C’s catalyst, convener, and champion.
Brandon Burton 37:50 That’s, that’s why I call my audience chamber champions, you know, they that’s one of the essays to draw him in.
Pat Patrick 38:00 And that’s what they need to try to ascribe themselves to the film. Yes.
Brandon Burton 38:05 Well, Pat, before we go, I wanted to give you an opportunity to put any contact information out there for listeners who may want to connect with you and learn more about your vision 2020 and going about creating a vision of their own their chamber, what would be the best way to reach out and connect with you?
Connect with Pat Patrick
Pat Patrick 38:24 Well, I can be reached at PPatrick@LodiChamber.com. And the old fashioned way on a telephone for my direct line is 209-365-4604.
Brandon Burton 38:45 Which is perfect. And I will get that in our show notes for this episode as well. So we’ve got a lot of good stuff in there. We got some book recommendations, we’ve got pets contact info, a pitcher Tucker, hopefully we’ll get in there as well. So go to chamberchatpodcast.com/episode158. And, Pat, it’s been a pleasure having you on here. I really appreciate you carving out some time to visit with me and to talk about this important work that chambers across our country are doing and you guys are doing a great job there in Lodi.
Pat Patrick 39:18 Thank you. Thank you, sir. Enjoy.
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Introduction
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.
And now your host. He’s a fan of Bitcoin. He’s my dad Brandon Burton.
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to the chamber chat podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.
Our title sponsor for this episode is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Is your chamber struggling to drive the revenue it needs to support your initiatives? It’s a common problem and one that our new title Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions knows a lot about Doug and Bill Holman aren’t just sales consultants. They’re real life chamber guys with 20 plus years of chamber leadership experience. They know how to diagnose and solve member recruiting issues faster and better than anyone else. And they’re ready to put that knowledge to work for you and your chamber. Call the Harmon Brothers today at 61985 to 1391. Or check them out at HolmanBros.com. That’s holmanbros.com.
Doug & Bill Holman know how to diagnose and solve member recruiting issues faster and better than anyone else, and they want to put that knowledge to work for you and your chamber. Learn more at HolmanBros.com.
Guest Introduction
Our guest for this episode is Gina Suydam . She’s the president of the Wyoming County Chamber of Commerce in Pennsylvania, where she works with a variety of businesses in rural Northeast Pennsylvania. Gina believes a strong community leads to better quality of life for residents of Wyoming County and the surrounding endless mountains region. Over the past eight years in her position, she’s facilitated the development of natural gas utility service to the white Wyoming County Seat of Tunkhannock. Working with the county commissioners and Borough Council chamber board of directors GUI Utilities and Cabot Oil and Gas Corporation. Gina encouraged public private partnerships, securing $2 million in grant funding from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development to launch this development and bring natural gas service to residents and businesses in Tunkhannock. Currently, Gina is collaborating with several other Wyoming County organizations on a community heart and soul Initiative, a humanities based approach to community planning sponsored in part by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council. Gina facilitates leadership Wyoming Regional Leadership Program, which she implemented to develop to develop a more complete awareness of Wyoming County’s industries amongst local professionals. In 2021 22, Gina will lead new initiatives to engage youth with local workforce and structure an Economic Development Council to identify sites for potential development.
Gina, I’m thrilled to have you with me today on chamber chat podcast. And if you would just take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions that are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you a little bit better.
Something Interesting About Gina
Gina Suydam 3:12 Sure. Well, hello, Brandon. And thank you for having me on the show. And thank you to all of our chamber champions out there. I’d said it’s great to be here with you today and great to talk with you after we’ve had such a crazy past, you know, two years in the in the chamber world than in the business world in general. But it’s great to be here today. Something interesting about myself. So I was born and raised in Wyoming County. And I grew up on a very small dairy farm. So I come from, you know, kind of very humble rural beginnings. And being here as a part of our chamber now seeing industry kind of take off here in our area has been really exciting for me. When I grew up in our town, there was really nothing to do right now. I have three teenagers who tell me there’s nothing to do here and I just shake my head.
Brandon Burton 4:09 You only knew and I was a kid. Yeah.
Gina Suydam 4:13 You feel like it really all they say back when?
Brandon Burton 4:16 That’s right. No, that is something special, though, to be able to work at the chamber where you grew up, and then that’s your community. So that’s a rarity to see that in the chamber industry. So that is pretty neat. Yeah. So share with us a little bit more about your chamber kind of size, scope, first staff budget, that sort of thing, just so we can kind of get into our discussion.
About the Wyoming County Chamber
Gina Suydam 4:44 Sure. So our chamber is a county wide chamber. We are the only chamber in our county. Our county total population is about 27,000. So our chamber remains small. Were at about 300 60 Members, we have a three, two full time staff and a part time staff person. And then our budget is roughly about 250,000. But I’m going to talk about some interesting things today that will allow me to have about a $350,000. budget next year. Right. So it’s a we’re very excited about the movement and things that we’re doing here in Wyoming County to help grow our community. But again, I think that size right doesn’t matter in you know, in the chamber industry. Thank you. You can do great things for your community, but it’s all in perspective. And it and that’s that’s what it’s about.
Brandon Burton 5:51 That’s right. And I’m hoping everybody’s ears perked up when you talked about budget going from 250 to what you have going on? It’s going to take it to 350. And percentage wise, that is huge. So I mean, as you scale that for chamber who may be larger, you scale that up to your size, I mean, tune in, you know?
Gina Suydam 6:12 Yes, exactly.
Brandon Burton 6:14 So our topic for discussion today we’re going to talk about partnerships with nonprofits, and how that plays into your budget like you kind of alluded to, but we’ll get into this discussion as soon as they get back from this quick break.
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All right, Gina, we are back. So as we talk about nonprofit partnerships, why don’t we just start by having you share what you’re currently involved with and things that you’re doing there at the Wyoming County Chamber in this room?
Gina Suydam 8:58 Sure. So back in 2019, kind of you know, the pre COVID world, I was approached by the Wyoming County Community Alliance, which was a small nonprofit that received some funding from our local United Way. They received about $10,000 A year from United Way and they really only ran one program and focused on students and kind of helping students to engage in activities. Great program, and I was really excited about it. But really, why they asked me to get involved was they were their 501 C three was kind of in jeopardy. They were they were at a place where they didn’t have a strong board of directors and they didn’t really have a strong vision for the future of their organization. So they asked me to come in and do some strategic planning initiatives with them. And fortunately for me, one of my chamber board members also sat on their board. And he said, I think this is a real opportunity for chamber, because we had been talking about getting our own 501 C three, as many chambers are right now. And he said, I think this is an exciting opportunity for us to partner with his 501 C three, get a lot of our things accomplished that we want to accomplish, but still have that 501 C three, a little bit at arm’s length. And so that’s how that started for us. Right. And And now we’ll get into I think some of the the bigger things that we’re able to accomplish with with that partnership.
Brandon Burton 10:46 Yeah. So as you work that partnership, what is the scope with what this nonprofit? So, so the Wyoming County Community Alliance? What is it that they were doing? And then in partnering with them, what was the chamber able to add and bring to the table to help further the mission and vision of the chamber as well?
Gina Suydam 11:09 Sure. So in in 2019, when I got involved, we were looking at creating the Alliance to be an organization that would really help other nonprofits in our community to grow. In the chamber world, we spent a lot of time focusing on our businesses. And there’s this the sector of nonprofits who, at least for my chamber, I didn’t feel were getting enough attention from us, right. They they wanted or needed, you know, training on how to do proper fundraising and those things. So that was our vision going into 2020 is that we would start setting up some trainings and helping other nonprofits. And the mission, let me just back that up a little bit. The mission of the Wyoming County Community Alliance is to create a healthy community. Right? So it was very
Brandon Burton 12:04 vague, it was like a chamber kind of
Gina Suydam 12:06 which was perfect, right? To get us, you know, to get that chamber and the Alliance melded together, it was it was perfect for us. So when 2020 started, you know, we were you know, we were kind of in that mode of, alright, let’s get some of these trainings scheduled that we talked about. And then as we all know, the world came to a screeching halt. And in March, and by about April, one of my fellow board members on the Alliance said to me, Hey, do you think that that the alliance could run a Food Distribution Program? Because we are, you know, as in many communities, food resources became very scarce? And I said, Sure, the alliance can do that. Right? Because we had the ability to filter in money as we were doing through the United Way with this other student project. So we started a Food Distribution Program. And then we went on and then throughout COVID, other organizations approached us the local four H group approached us and said, Hey, for he has kind of shut us off for the year, right, shut our funding off for the year, but we have students in our agriculture program that have raised livestock, and they normally sell them at the county fair. Well, there is no county fair this year. But these students have $800, you know, cows and pigs that they still need to sell, because what happens is they sell the pigs, they get scholarship funding, and then those, then they use that scholarship funding to buy their animal for next year. And eventually they use that money to go off to college. So these kids are they’re entrepreneurs, right? These are the kids we want to invest in now. So they said, Do you think the alliance could help this livestock group, this Wyoming County livestock group and be our pass through for the the auction of our animals and then pass through the money to the students of scholarship funding? And I said, Well, sure. We could do that. Right. You know, again, much like chambers where? Yes, yes, we can do that. Yes, we can help right, let’s figure out a way. So by the by the end of 2020, the Alliance had also run a restaurant workers relief program where we funneled money out to our restaurant workers who, in the state of Pennsylvania, all the restaurants were shut down about three weeks before Christmas. So we had, you know, lots of moms without jobs, three weeks before Christmas, and they were feeling a little a little down on their luck. We were able to give, we were able to give 40 families $500 In a very short timeframe just again get getting this money and kind of leveraging the chambers
in the chamber name in the community and saying we’re partnering on this, we believe in this organization, this is a good cause. This is a, this is an organization that you can give to safely and the money is going where we say it’s going, right. So we did all of those things very quickly, in 2020, which was great, because we then got that notoriety of the partnership between the chamber and the Alliance. And now going into 2021, we were able to step up our game. And we have gotten $170,000. For the projects that you talked about, in my introduction, the student engagement, we’re continuing a Food Distribution Program, realizing that transportation is a big issue for a lot of our families and in our rural area, and then, again, with economic and community engagement. So the chamber is going to run those programs. But the funding for those programs was donated by a chamber member through a tax credit program that is offered here in the state of Pennsylvania. So I’d encourage you all out there and chamber world to kind of look at those programs in your prospective states to see if there’s anything like that I think I was Googling the other day think Missouri has a similar program. And I know a few others came up. But it’s in our community anyway. In Pennsylvania, it’s called the neighborhood Assistance Program. Okay. And it allows for corporations to receive tax credits for their donations. So my $170,000 of donations was just leveraged by those companies receiving 75% Tax Credit. On that donation
Brandon Burton 17:15 makes it easier. Yeah,
Gina Suydam 17:16 yes. So so the asked is really right, so much easier when you’re saying all this money. One is staying with a trusted entity, right here in our local community, all of your dollars are going to an organization that you believed in for years. Right. And it’s, it’s just been, it’s been an incredible process for me to see, you know, of course, how you apply for state funding is, you know, as anyone who’s ever applied for state funding, I’ll tell you, it’s a little tricky, right. So that process of applying for the state funding was very eye opening, and then kind of walking through those other pieces. And you know, now we’re at the point where we’ve received the donations, and now we’re going to begin implementing the projects.
Brandon Burton 18:05 So do you know about how long the state tax credit program has been available?
Gina Suydam 18:11 I don’t, um, it’s an annual program here in Pennsylvania. So you have to apply annually for those tax credits, and you have to, you know, find your own donors. But it’s much like the education tax credits. It Well, it’s similar but different, right? As, you know, as many states do, they create these similar programs, but put their own little nuance, to make it you know, to make it a little little more difficult for everyone to understand. But it’s definitely a program I think, worth worth looking into. Because as I recruited, you know, I recruit my own donors. So that’s what makes it different than the education tax credits, his education, tax credits all go into one pot. You know, someone else is working to recruit those donors and get that money in the door, where this is, I’m recruiting my own donors. And that was a very valuable thing for me. And you told me before the recording got started that that Kyle Sexton had recommended that you talk to me, and I just want to share this little chamber story because many of us know Kyle and I was out with Kyle when I had my my tear dues, right our chamber moved to tear dues, and we’re having those meetings and I met with a gentleman in our community, who’s been a chamber supporter for a long time owns many businesses. And we walked out of the meeting and I had gotten my big win from him. I’d got my big yes pile, you know, pat me on the back and he was all excited for me. And then he turned to me. And we got the car and he said, save that guy’s phone number, right. Put his card in your back pocket for the big ass because he is your go to. He’s the guy when you want something big. He’s going to be at the table giving it to you And sure enough, he funded $150,000 of my $170,000 project. Wow. So, so thank you to Kyle. Right. Yeah. For giving me the the encouragement. Right that I could ask that big. And pointing out who to go to when your site? Yeah, right. Yeah. So that was that was really exciting for me. So I’ll share that with you that, that maybe that’s why Kyle connected. That
Brandon Burton 20:32 is me. Yeah. Yeah. So what’s coming to my mind is, I mean, you’re having some great partnerships, it seemed to align very well with the Chamber’s mission. I know most chambers are not sitting around saying what else can we do? You know? So how do you? How do you manage it as you as you run these additional programs, these partnerships with nonprofits? As far as bandwidth goes, they’re in your office, your staff, versus with the nonprofits that you partner with? How much of it is on your shoulders? How much of it is on on their side? And how does how did those relationships look?
Gina Suydam 21:15 Sure. So I think every, every, you know, relationship is going to look a little different. For us, the alliance has no paid staff. Right. So the staffing part does fall on our chamber. But that’s, again, where the where the financial relationship comes in. So the alliance has hired us contracted with us to do that work for them, therefore, enabling me to hire another person, right to bring in and then I do hope to bring in another person this year on our team, who will help us facilitate this. But I want to step back a little bit, because you said, you said a little bit that right, creating more for me to do, all of these things are something that most chambers are already doing, or are feeling like I wish I could write, I didn’t take on anything that I didn’t think we should be doing, maybe with the maybe with the exception of our Food Distribution Program, which was really just a wild lead for our community. But that is 100%, volunteer driven, right, we have, you know, my staff time on that is, is pretty limited right now. But everything else, our student engagement will eventually turn into, you know, workforce awareness here. And that’s something chambers are doing our economic and community development. I mean, if you’re not at at those tables in your communities, you need to find a way to be and for us having the money, right is is a way for us to call the right people to the table. And I think that was really important for us to, to kind of step up. So now my county commissioners are paying a little more attention when I say, hey, we need to do this in the way of economic development, because I can leverage and I can leverage now, a lot of funding that they have, right? So they’ve already come to me and said, what else do you need? Right? We have some funding, what else do you need? Right? So that that makes it interesting, it’s it’s very much turned to the turn the chapter for me, to put us I think, to leverage our chamber, where we should be in a in a role of community leadership.
Brandon Burton 23:40 There’s that lesson from Kyle, again, if seeing a couple steps ahead. And you know, being strategic with how you do these partnerships to, to build to have that leverage going forward and to develop more meaningful programs, even in the future that kind of sprout out of these things that you’re doing now. So I think that’s a very important distinction that you pointed out. And just a lot of times we look to simplify joblessness, to add to it, but every year, right, everything you’re doing is adding to the greater mission of the chamber and where you want to be, you know, a few years down the road. So I think that’s very good. I’d like to ask if there’s any maybe tip or action item, that a chamber listening maybe based on our discussion, maybe not something they can take to help elevate their chamber up to the next level.
Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions
Gina Suydam 24:38 So I think my my advice in that space, right is to make sure that your board as I said, again, it was my board member who came to me with the Alliance and said, you know, hey, we can help them and I think in turn, they will help us Right. And if he if he didn’t know what I was looking for. And many of you may be saying, well, my board isn’t that engaged or my board doesn’t really understand the picture. I didn’t think my board did either. Right. But it’s those one or two little nuggets of people that, that they’re listening, right? They’re listening. And when the bulb lights up for them, they will take action. Right? And, and sometimes, right? Sometimes it’s, it’s those off the wall ideas that are going to bring the big dollars to you, right? It’s those, hey, let’s, let’s build a strategic plan for this other organization that that is essentially falling apart. Right? Let’s, let’s help them with their strategic plan and figure out how we can partner and I’m thinking great, here’s one more thing on my plate, right? And then I stopped and said, let me look at the big picture this, let me really see how down the road, we can really become a powerhouse. And I think that that’s what has happened.
Brandon Burton 26:09 But there was something else that you had mentioned early in our discussion about that about going into 2020 wanting to do some of these trainings for other nonprofits in the community. And I think some chambers would look at that as competition, you know, why are you going to go and get the competition, the tips to be able to get those resources that you’re after to in your community? But you obviously don’t see it that way. And that in, and I don’t think that’s the right way to look at it either, is competition because it’s all for building the community. And if you can align some of those same missions and visions together to further the cause of the community. I think that’s right on what you’re doing. I don’t know if you have anything more you wanted to add to that. I meant to ask you about it earlier as a follow up, but as far as looking at other nonprofits is competition.
Gina Suydam 26:59 Yeah, I, you know, I’ve never, you know, for me, I started in the nonprofit world, right? I started with places like the American Cancer Society, and the Muscular Dystrophy Association. So I have a strong fundraising background. And for me, when I look at other nonprofits in our community, I really look at Yeah, maybe, you know, maybe they are asking for funding, but they’re asking for funding for their cause. And where and and there’s enough, you know, funding, if you will, you know, to kind of go around. And I think that when we do start creating that community over competition, right, that that that community space, where we’re all working together. You know, I think that that joints that unity really raises, you know, raises everyone up.
Brandon Burton 27:57 Have you seen from the other perspective, as you go to some of these nonprofits? Do they view the chamber at all, as any competition? Have you experienced?
Gina Suydam 28:06 Um, no, I don’t think they do. I think they understand, you know, what our role is, and, and the role we can play in helping them. So there are many nonprofits who who come to me who come to the alliance and say, you know, hey, I’m struggling to get funding in x area, right, or I don’t understand how I can apply for this grant. Right. And then, you know, we help them in that space. Because again, I think a lot of times that funding is funding, I’m not going to get right that funding is specific to Veterans Services, or, you know, library education or funding, you know, it’s not, it’s not funding for me, and I think, again, creating that, that better community for all takes our chamber and takes our community to the next level.
Brandon Burton 29:02 Yeah, I would agree. So as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward? Well,
Future of Chambers
Gina Suydam 29:13 I again, I think, and I think ACC he says says this, The best is that, you know, chambers are really poised right now, right to be that, that center space that everyone can come to the table and realize that, that the future is about, about growth, that the future is about coming together and uniting and bringing our community forward. And that’s really where I see chambers. I think we need to continue to have an open mind and I think we need to continue to to grow and encourage our members at every level. All right to participate and allow their voices to be heard.
Brandon Burton 30:06 I love that. And I think you’re so right. ACC is right about being that that same center. When you look at a community, if you’ve got that division, you know, the polar opposites, all that does is pull your community apart. So how can you pull people together be that that center, that meeting place that table where you can bring together both sides, it’s so key to building a strong community. The Gina I wanted to give you the opportunity to share any contact information for people who are listening, who might want to reach out and connect with you maybe learn more about how you went about creating these partnerships, how you got the right board people on your board to to help do this, what would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect with you?
Connect with Gina Suydam
Gina Suydam 30:52 So I’m, you know, pretty accessible, right? So my email address is gina@wyccc.com. I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Facebook, I’ve connected with a lot of chambers. I’m also on Twitter, I don’t use it very often, but I am there. So I’ve connected with chambers and colleagues from all across the country. And I really truly enjoy it. My I’m in my second year, I just finished my second year of IOM. I try to attend ACC conference when I can. So I’ve met a lot of chamber colleagues and I’m always happy to connect and encourage each other because they do again, I do really think it’s about that collaboration.
Brandon Burton 31:39 Absolutely. Well, I will get your contact information in our show notes for this episode, which can be found at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode157. But Gina, I enjoyed visiting with you, you guys are doing some neat things there, the Wyoming County Chamber and and I think this idea of partnerships and really just having a model for someone to follow and, and be able to do their own R&D and see how they can apply this back to their community. So thank you for sharing all this with us today.
Gina Suydam 32:11 All Thank you, Brandon for having me on the show.
Brandon Burton 30:28 If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.
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Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Lindsay Frilling. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.
Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.
Introduction
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.
And now, your host he thinks this is not a fun time to purchase a used car. He’s my dad Brandon Burton. Hello chamber champions.
Brandon Burton 0:23 Hello Chamber Champions. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host Brandon Burton, and it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.
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Guest Introduction
Our guest for today is Lindsay Frilling. Lindsay serves as the CEO for the Obion County Joint Economic Development Corporation which includes the Obion County Chamber of Commerce, and Obion County and Industrial Development Corporation. Lindsay joined the OCJEDC in 2009. Prior to joining the OCJEDC, that’s a mouthful. Lindsay was the director of marketing and special events for the Boys and Girls Club of Northwest Tennessee in Union County, and is also the former customer service supervisor for Midwest CBK. Lindsay holds a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration with a concentration in Management Information Systems from the University of Tennessee at Martin and a Master of Business Administration from UTM. Lindsay is a graduate of Tennessee chamber Institute and US Chamber Institute organization management and earned her certified economic developer designation from the International Economic Development Council. As an active member of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce executives, Tennessee economic partnership, and Tennessee Economic Development Council. Lindsay currently serves on the board of directors of for all three organizations and was chosen for the 2016 s EDC Chairman’s Award. Lindsay is a past president of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce executives and served on the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry board of directors. In 2015. She was named as one of West Tennessee’s up and coming top 40 under 40. Lindsay is a proud mother of two children alley, Kate and Houston.
Lindsay, I’m excited to have you with me today. You’re on Chamber Chat Podcast. And I’d love for you to take a moment 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 better.
Something Interesting About Lindsay
Lindsay Frilling 3:19 Well, thanks, Brandon. I’m excited to be here today. Um, the all the exciting things you said, have a degree in it, which just kind of makes me a nerd. I guess my two kids. The fun fact about them is they’re nine years apart, really not sure why I decided to wait almost a decade. But it’s a fun ride. One went to high school and one went to preschool this year. So you know, life. Life is interesting to say the least. But you know, being in the chamber world, they are the reason I do what I do every day. So it makes life even better knowing that I’m helping to create a community in an environment that if they choose to live here, when they are old enough, then they can find a job and have a good quality of life.
Brandon Burton 4:06 Absolutely helping to build that future for the rising generation. I love it. The good news is they’re both in school now. So that’s awesome.
Lindsay Frilling 4:16 Yes, yes.
Brandon Burton 4:19 Well, share with us a little bit more about the your, your organization there kind of the size, scope, staff budget, those kinds of things to kind of set the table for our discussion today.
About the Obion County Joint Economic Development Corporation
Lindsay Frilling 4:31 Well, I’ll just say we’re in Union City. We’re in the very northwest corner of the state of Tennessee, so I’m located on the Kentucky border, almost to the Mississippi River to the Missouri Bootheel. Just to give people frame of reference, I’ll say Northwestern say they say Knoxville I’m like no West northeast, so I’m probably closer to Dallas, Texas than I am Knoxville. So two hours north of Memphis three hours west of Nashville. Three and a half hour south of St. Louis. So that kind of gives you an idea of where we’re located. Pretty much all of the Northwest Tennessee area is considered rural area. I’m about an hour from Jackson, Tennessee, and an hour from Paducah, Kentucky. So that would be your, your closest metropolitan ish areas near us. Um, my county that we serve, has a population of around 30,000. And we have myself and one other full time staff member, I have a part time staff person and currently have an intern from the University of Tennessee at Martin so to full time to part time right now. Our budget will run anywhere from 400 to $500,000 a year, we collect dues as we are a Chamber of Commerce in an Economic Development and Tourism Organization or our income comes in the form of membership dues from Chamber members, industrial members and hotel tax collections, which is really what keeps the doors open. As many of you know, memberships just really don’t give you enough money to have a good operating budget.
Brandon Burton 6:18 So that does set the table. Well, especially for our topic of discussion today being focused more around chamber financials and kind of what does it take to keep those doors open and the lights on in your office. And we will get into this discussion as soon as I get back from this quick break.
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Alright, Lindsay, we are back. So as we get into the topic today of chamber financials, I wanted to discuss this topic, specifically because we’re this time in chamber world, it seems like there’s been quite a bit of turnover with people retiring or go into the private sector. So we have a lot of new executives that are entering the chamber world space and trying to get their heads wrapped around. Yeah, the management of the office, the Chamber financials is a big, important part of that. So it’s hoping to just have a discussion around chamber financials, I know you’ve, you’ve seen kind of, you know, different ends of the spectrum when it comes to chamber financials. But I’m hoping we can get into maybe some best practices and things for these newer chamber executives to think about as they go about their budget and, and where to spend money. So maybe just as a starter, as you’re trying to get your head wrapped around what we talked about today. I know you had some reflections on on previous times. What are what’s maybe a couple lessons that you’ve learned when it comes to managing chamber financials?
Lindsay Frilling 9:12 Well, me personally, a treat it as if it’s my own money. And my first question is what I spend this if it was my money. And then the second question is, you know, obviously would would the board approve of this? And third, would it benefit my members? So first, those are just basics. You know? Unfortunately, I’ve served on boards over the years with very, very intelligent people, business people, business owners, and we get into a room and we’ll be making financial decisions for whatever organization it is, and they they make decisions and I’m thinking would you do this in your business? Would you do this with your own money? And I’m thinking No, you wouldn’t because you wouldn’t be as wealthy as you are, if you did so. I try to keep Have everything in the frame of reference of what I do it for myself, and would my members appreciate this spin or this purchase? Or, you know, whatever it is just keeping that first and foremost in whatever decision it is that’s made about money. Because I mean, as you probably have heard, involve your podcast, not many people wake up, grow up and say, oh, I want to be a chamber executive when I grew up, I mean, because most people don’t still know what a Chamber of Commerce is. So I kind of bounced around and landed into this job. And then the next thing I know, they were like, well, here are you do you do QuickBooks take care of that for us write the checks. And, and I got into it. And, of course, I fortunately had a business degree. So I knew how to read financials, I guess the first thing is, is if you don’t know how to read a profit and loss statement, or a balance sheet, go take a class, go sit down with somebody, ask somebody to help you understand those basics. I’m not to insult anybody. But you know, you’ve got to be able to know what’s coming in what’s going out and where it’s going. And then I started doing some projections as I got to look at these numbers, because I realized quickly that way more was going out and what was coming in on a monthly basis. And I finally said, Hey, by this month, six months down the road, like we’re gonna be negative, this chart is going down, up. So I was, you know, I was freaked out. I was like, I want to have a job in six months. So what are we going to do? And so that worked itself out eventually. But in the meantime, I spent the next several years just, I mean, basically saving money pinching pennies, and trying not to spend money unless it was absolutely necessary while still providing the services to our members.
Brandon Burton 11:58 So this question, maybe, kind of basic, but you had mentioned earlier on about, yeah, they’re at your organization, you have chamber work, you have Economic Development and Tourism. So you’re getting income from those different areas. And not every chamber is set up the same way. Some are just doing chamber work. Some will have an economic development contract, and some will focus more on tourism, but you’re, you know, blessed enough, if that’s the word you want to use. Three. But there are different revenue sources. So when you’re looking at projections, and you’re seeing, you know, the expenses going up, and the income, not keeping up with the expenses, besides cutting expenses, which obviously, that’s something to be looked at. What do you do as far as revenue generation? Are there maybe some thoughts around non dues revenue that a newer chamber executive maybe should consider and contemplate doing?
Lindsay Frilling 13:04 Well, I guess the first thing is, is look at what’s already being done in your chamber. And if it’s not making money, you need to get rid of it, or you need to change it, period. We don’t just because we’re called a quote, unquote, nonprofit, that’s for one day of the year, that’s when we file taxes. That’s the only day that the nonprofit status means anything. We are the voice of business as that we are the largest business in the community, we must operate like a business, everything we do must generate revenue. And that sounds very selfish, but to your question to answer that, if you’re doing things and it’s not making money, it’s not benefiting you. It’s not benefiting your members, because you’re not operating at a sustainable level. With that said, Do you offer complimentary things to your members? Absolutely. But you know, say free, you know, you know, go out and promote as oh, we’re doing this as a as a goodwill for the community. Because you can do that you can do it as an isolated event or something that you know, wraps around something else. But in the long term, whatever it is, whether you host a golf tournament, even your annual banquet, like you don’t need to lose money on those events. And the first thing you’ve got to do is make sure your board members understand that because I tell people all the time, you know, you all as the board, own this organization, I’m the hired help to make sure that I run it the way that you want it ran. So you know, you got to have those hard conversations, but if they’re on the board, that means they’re more vested in the organization than just your average member anyway, so you lean on them to lead the charge. Let them be the first ones to offer up a sponsorship or whatever it may be. Just start the generation of revenue or whatever the event is, or just a capital campaign.
Brandon Burton 15:05 And so you had mentioned, kind of the criteria that you look at the money can be treated as your own money, get to make sure the board approves the spending of the money, and does it help the members. So as you have these discussions with a board, whether it’s you or chamber executive listening, looking to have a conversation, one of these tough conversations, any any advice on how to help them navigate, kind of the difficult conversation that may come up from time to time,
Lindsay Frilling 15:38 um, you it, find a mentor, find somebody to have this conversation with first, somebody else, probably best to find somebody geographically located near you. Because in this area where we live, our county mayors talk to the next county mayor or the next city mayor or the next elected official or the next board chair, like they’re always talking. So you know, the best thing to do is find out what’s happening around you figure out how they have the conversations, figure out how money is spent, how boards operate, I mean, and and I say it all the time chambers are like fruit, but we’re all different fruit, apples, or just bananas, because every chamber operates differently because your chamber has to operate to fit your community. And just because your community sits next door to another one, doesn’t mean you’re going to have the same needs. And I mean, we’re we have a huge tourism draw, we have Discovery Park of America and Reelfoot Lake. And then you know, the next community down may not have those assets. So we have to tailor our programs and services to fit the community. So find somebody close to you, but also find somebody similar to you another chamber or chamber Exec. I’m a firm believer in mentorship and ask questions, ask questions, ask questions, because you know, r&d in this world is rip off and duplicate what’s working over there, and you think it’s gonna work for you scale it up, scale it down, put it in place, give it a try. And you know, find a champion, find a champion for your chamber, find a personal champion for you, and have that volunteer by your side. Because, you know, the first role of the chamber world is keep a volunteer between you in the issue. And that issue is always money, whether it’s a positive issue or a negative issue, it’s always an issue. So, you know, find somebody close that you can keep as your champion, whether it be your current president or somebody else on the board, but you’ve got to have a mentor, you’ve got to have a volunteer, you got to have people around you because you cannot do this work on your own.
Brandon Burton 17:58 Absolutely. I love that. That advice of having a mentor specifically someone within your region because your state your region, it’s going to vary from you know, a chamber in California to a chamber in Maine is going to be very different. So find out some of those best practices in your area. One thing I wanted to ask you about as as far as like income to expense, during the COVID pandemic, we realized how important it was for a chamber to have reserves. You know, when when PvP loans are going out and and chamber most chambers didn’t qualify? How do you look at income versus income to expense and specifically, setting aside reserves that kind of that rainy day fund?
Lindsay Frilling 18:45 Well, as I said, I’ve served on a lot of boards and different capacities in generally, the best practice that we aim for, is keep a reserve of half of an annual costs. So whatever your annual budget is, have your goal is to set aside half of that. Now, Is that realistic for everybody? Absolutely not. But, you know, it gives you six months of time should something, you know, catastrophic occur. So that’s just generally what I have seen. Again, that number could fluctuate up and down, depending on the type of organization you have. But, you know, people want to tell you three months, but in reality, how quickly does three months go by when you’re in the middle of a crisis? I mean, six is going to go pretty quickly, but at least you’ve got double that amount of time, if you can, if you can aim to, you know, put back at least half of your operating budget for the year.
Brandon Burton 19:50 Yeah, I think for me, it goes back to treating it as your own money. So if you look at your own personal finances, right, the recommendation is save for a rainy day right? If If you were to go unemployed for some period of time, maybe it’s ideally and I hear different numbers. But you know, some people will say try to have a year’s worth of savings. And that’s not feasible when you’re just starting, right? If you’re starting from zero, but you build up to it, right. So whether it’s a percentage each, each month that you’re putting aside or whatever, you got to start somewhere
Lindsay Frilling 20:24 in savings should be a part of your budget, just with your business, just as it should be with your personal income. And as you said, I would much rather have six months of my personal expenses than three, but if I’m going to go to six, you know what, I’m going to go to 12, I’m going to get there. So nothing’s to keep you from raising the bar, once you hit that 50% to just keep on going, you know, and putting it into investing it, you know, letting it make money for you. So that, you know, down the road, your chamber is sustainable, and you don’t have to go through the struggles of you know, where we’re going to get our next meal. I mean, you know, that’s reality for a lot of chambers. But it doesn’t have to be if you know, you try to put all of these puzzle pieces together. I mean, it’s not going to happen quickly. I’ve been at this 12 years. And I will say that it probably hasn’t been until the last two to three years that I’ve actually felt comfortable about our finances.
Brandon Burton 21:26 Wow, that says a lot what these last two to three years have been. So yeah, well, let’s say if you could tell us a little bit more about that. He’s the had mentioned about investing those reserves. Just for, say a new executive, is that something a chamber can do? What options are there? Who should they talk to what what would be your thoughts?
Lindsay Frilling 21:50 We have in the past, we’ve had CDs, we’ve had that money put into CDs at certain rates, we’ve had it small CDs, large CDs, we’ve had different funding financial funds. With that, I mean, again, that’s going to go back to your chamber your board. Right now, my board chairman is a CPA, so I pretty well have a sweet deal going on when it comes to that. So he’s very helpful. But again, in within your community, reach out, utilize those resources, utilize those members that you have asked for a meeting and go ask that question, say, would you even if they’re not on your board, would you be willing to sit down and look at this budget with me? And help me go through this? Give me your thoughts, because you know, they’re the experts. Chamber execs are generalist, we know, we know a whole lot about a lot of things. But we’re not necessarily experts in any one thing. And generally not financials we need to be I mean, I’ve made it a goal over the years for that to be my forte, I want to know everything about my budget inside and out. But I didn’t come into it that way. I’ve just learned and asked questions. And, you know, being almost broke at one time, helped me get there a lot more quickly than most people. But my I definitely, definitely recommend contacting your local members and just asking for 30 minutes of their time to sit down and say, Hey, what do we do? How do we look? And if we wanted to get to X amount of savings, then what what can we do with it because you know, what we do in the chamber world is manage expectations every day. And if we can set that goal and cast that vision of, hey, we want to have this amount of income each month, we want to save this much each month, we want to get to this much in savings. And then once we get there, we want to put it in invest it here or put it over here and let this money make money for us.
Brandon Burton 24:03 I think that is a wise piece of advice. I don’t hear a whole lot of chambers talk about that. So I’m glad to have you gone a little deeper about investing some of those reserves. Are there certain metrics? Maybe the look at his you look at it. Well, maybe let me back up. profit and loss statements. How often should you be looking at over?
Lindsay Frilling 24:30 I reconcile ours monthly, and some chambers wait and get audited annually. And then you know, if there was a discrepancy, you won’t find it for 12 months, three months, whatever timeframe. And, I mean, I again at home, I’m not going to wait 12 months to look at my balance in my checking account. So why would I do that at work? So I literally You know, write checks, pay bills make deposits throughout the month, but at the end of the month, I sit down, reconcile it and QuickBooks, send it to the accountant and they put their stamp on it every single month. And it keeps us because it’s essentially, the way it’s set up. It’s essentially as we’re getting audited every single month, so that we’re not going through and paying for a massive audit once a year, it’s literally getting their stamp every single month. And if you’re not doing it, at least monthly, you should be.
Brandon Burton 25:36 And it gives you a good pulse to as to the healthier chamber, the financial health of your chamber, where things are at, if there needs to be adjustments made, you’re not waiting till the end of the year, it’s easier to make small adjustments along the way to get to that end goal. Well, and
Lindsay Frilling 25:51 we’re a chamber that collects days, once a year, I know there are chambers that lets you come in and pay as you go, which is fine. But for accounting purposes, it’s just easier for us to bill in July, the beginning of our fiscal year, and then spend, you know, three months that window of time collecting the money and bringing it in. Now it makes it tough because toward getting closer to June, you have less income. So your p&l doesn’t look as healthy as it does in July, August, September. But again, that’s what a budget is for, you know what to expect throughout the year, you know, who’s going to renew and how much you’re going to have pretty much the first quarter of your calendar year, what are your fiscal year, whatever that is. And then as people join throughout the year, we just prorate their days, whatever right that is. And then we bill everybody in July. Again, what works for you is on you. But like it keeps us from having somebody having to manage that piece of our budget in our organization every month. I mean, it just, you know when you have and 5060 members may seem tiny to some people. But imagine if you have 2030 4050 of those a month, and you’re sending out invoices every single month, I mean, ah, my personal opinion is prorate those days, get them all done at once. And that way you kind of know, early on in your year, what’s your incomes gonna be, especially if your chambers are your sole source of income?
Brandon Burton 27:31 I like that. And obviously, every chamber is different. So they’re gonna approach it differently. But as you look over your your p&l, are there certain, certain indicators that you look at to kind of measure the health of your organization?
Lindsay Frilling 27:46 Well, you know, there’s so many numbers and percentages out there about what your your salary and compensation percentage should be of total revenue. And I’ve looked ACC has information, your State Chamber will have information. And, you know, unfortunately, and this is really difficult for people that are looking to outsiders that look at your budget to understand that we don’t we don’t make a product, we don’t make widgets. So our biggest expense is our people, it’s going to be in payroll and salary. And when people look at your budget, and they see that it’s over 50% of what’s going out the door. Some people really you know, are taken aback by that. But you have to just again, manage that expectation and say, We are a service organization, we are marketing, we are everything except for creating a product. So we don’t have any necessarily raw materials going into our process and into our budget that we’re paying for. We’re paying for talent. And that’s probably the biggest line item that you’re going to have to overcome in the chamber world that and travel because if you’re not out traveling and interacting with others, you know that some of the best things that I’ve learned as a chamber exec has come from other chamber execs, networking with those executives, attending conferences, attending trainings, Tennessee has an awesome Institute, a two year program that’s, you know, a couple of days long, I did that and then transitioned right into the US Chamber Institute, but it’s expensive, you know, so that can be kind of a line item that sticks out in your education and your travel expenses. Again, you’ve got those two just tied directly back into what I was talking about your people your talent, and if you’re not investing in your talent, you’re going to lose your talent. And again, I’ll go back and say it all day. Long we need to operate as a business and how many businesses do you know that do not invest in their people? I mean, if they’re not, then they’re probably not going to make it.
Brandon Burton 30:11 And to your point, if you were making widgets, you should be looking at ways to source better materials or better logistics for distribution, and you’re putting money into that to get a better return. And when your core product is your people, you got to put the money into them to make them better, to better serve.
Lindsay Frilling 30:30 And if you you know, a lot of chambers can’t pay at the pay scale that your businesses can they should be. I mean, that’s a conversation I have a lot. I’m like, if we’re representing business, we need to be hiring like a business, we need to be paying like a business, we need to be compensating like a business. And I wouldn’t have said that 10 years ago, because I didn’t have the money to do it. But you know, now we’re there. And I’m like, we are a business, there’s no reason to keep saying, Oh, your nonprofit, you can’t pet Yes, you should be able to is numb people should always be number one. And in everything you’re thinking about as a chamber, internally and externally. But it’s got to start from within. Because if you’re not taking care of your people inside, they’re not going to go out and take care of your members, businesses outside. I mean, I literally hire people for passion. And then I can teach them how to do it, because I can’t teach them to care. I can’t make them care. And if they don’t care about people, and they don’t care about the community, they don’t need to be at a Chamber of Commerce. Right? Sure. Well, so being able to allow them to go travel and network and get training to me is a little can add to that overall compensation package. Job.
Brandon Burton 31:52 So everyone listening needs to take like the last four or five minutes and send it to your board. Just a little friendly. Listen, you know, this is this is coming from a you know, well respected chamber executive. Yeah, it just, it’s not coming from you individually. So just a friendly tip there. But
Lindsay Frilling 32:14 say it all the time. You can, I can say it all day. But if I just bring somebody else in to say it, you know, it becomes gospel. So you know, yeah, use my words. It’s fun, it won’t be the first time.
Brandon Burton 32:25 Yeah. So as we start wrapping up here, I’d like to ask if you have any, maybe a tip or action item, the chair for anyone listening that they can do to help take their chamber up to the next level.
Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions
Lindsay Frilling 32:38 As I said, Go to chamber Institute, whether it’s state level US Chamber Institute, invest in yourself, invest in your people, get a mentor, two or three of those, always keep a volunteer between you and the issue. Be authentic, and don’t accept the invitation to every argument you’re invited to attend. Because the Chamber’s you know, it’s fun when it’s fun. But then when it’s bad, we tend to get all we get, we don’t get the credit, we always get the blame. And I just always, always tell my people when you know, Facebook, or whatever, people are being negative, you know, just consider the source know that what you’re doing is good. And if you’re doing it right, you’re laying your head down at night, and you can sleep and just let the rest of it go.
Brandon Burton 33:30 Yeah, that’s good. So as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
Future of Chambers
Lindsay Frilling 33:39 We’re always going to be the voice of business. And business is driven by people. So it’s always going to be about people, whether it’s in education, workforce development, entrepreneurship, whatever we can do to help people is always it always has been, and it’s always going to be where we go. So I think it just goes back to what I said earlier, you got to care about your people, you got to care about your community, and you got to hire staff that have the same thoughts and feelings about it. And then you help others whether whether it’s the economic development organization, the Tourism Organization, Main Street, downtown organizations, just make yourself the hub of the community when somebody wants to know something or needs to know something, make them think I’m going to call the chamber.
Brandon Burton 34:30 That’s right. And you know, most responses I get to that question are pretty similar, but I love just kind of hammering that home, you know that chambers are about people. And the feature of chambers is about strengthening your communities and making your communities better. And those responses I get come from all different points of view. So I hope it’ll continue to resonate with everyone listening and really getting that sense of the purpose of what chambers are all about. But Lindsey Before we let you go, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for anyone listening who might want to reach out and connect with you what would be the best way for them to reach out and do that,
Connect with Lindsay Frilling
Lindsay Frilling 35:10 um, you can reach me my cell phone number is 731-592-1083 which is the best way because as you know, for sitting behind a desk, we’re not being very effective for our community. So that is my cell phone number. My email is lindsay@obioncounty.org and you can always find us online.
Brandon Burton 35:46 Awesome. I will get all that in our show notes for this episode, which will be at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode156. But Lindsay, thank you for spending time with me today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. I think the perspective that you brought and and just experience around chamber financials is very helpful for those who are just getting their, their feet wet. And really, you know, I’m going to reiterate it you know, get a mentor. Get with people in your region, your communities, neighboring communities and see what they’re doing and and learn from others. So, thank you for that, Lindsay. And it’s been a pleasure chatting with you.
Lindsay Frilling 36:28 You too. Thank you so much for having me.
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Introduction
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.
Voiceover Talent 0:14 And now, your host he believes that a level of stress is necessary to provide the traction for life. He’s my dad, Brandon Burton.
Brandon Burton 0:22 Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.
Our title sponsor for this episode is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Is your chamber struggling to drive the revenue it needs to support your initiatives? It’s a common problem and one that our new title Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions knows a lot about Doug and Bill Holman aren’t just sales consultants. They’re real life chamber guys with 20 plus years of chamber leadership experience. They know how to diagnose and solve member recruiting issues faster and better than anyone else. And they’re ready to put that knowledge to work for you and your chamber. Call the Harmon Brothers today at 61985 to 1391. Or check them out at HolmanBros.com. That’s holmanbros.com.
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Guest Introduction
Our guest for this episode is Mark Egan. Mark serves as president and CEO of the Capital Region Chamber and the center of economic growth based in Albany, New York. The Chamber and the Center for Economic Growth affiliate drive economic prosperity, with one voice one mission as one region. Mark began his Chamber career in 1987 and held executive posts with chambers in Mansfield, and Brockton, Massachusetts, and South Bend, Indiana. Prior to being recruited to New York’s Capital Region in 2008. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Stonehill College and a certificate and executive management from the University of Notre Dame. He’s an IOM at the University of Delaware and the Center for Creative Leadership is also earned his CCE designation. As Mark served as chairman of ACC and chaired his foundation and certified chamber executive commission. He serves on the US Chamber committees of 100. And as a past chair of the New York, Indiana and Massachusetts Association for Chamber of Commerce executives. And past chair of the Institute for organization Management Board of Regents has been recognized as chamber Executive of the Year both by the New England and the Indiana chamber executive associations. Mark, I’m excited to have you with me today here on chamber chat podcast. I appreciate you carving out some time to be with us today. And I’d love for you to take a moment to say hello to everyone out there listening and share something interesting about yourself. So you can get to know Mark Egan a little bit better.
Something Interesting About Mark
Mark Eagan 2:58 Well, terrific. Thanks for having me. And thanks for doing this program. It’s a great way to inform and inspire and connect us all over the country and different size communities, and how we can do our work with greatest impacts. So again, you thank you for you know, creating this, this forum. So you’ve probably heard through the you know, that that intro, I’ve been doing this for a long time, I can’t believe that, you know, that job out of college has now turned into 34 years later. But I guess the piece about myself as a relates to personal but also to sort of what we do for a living is, you know, I learned about business by the kitchen table, my dad ran a small business. So I learned about the struggles, but also really the rewards of of hard work. And I saw the relationships he had with other businesses in our community and what they’re able to do together. And I think, quite frankly, that’s sort of what spurred my original interest to get involved in chamber work.
Brandon Burton 4:03 Gave you a taste at a young age of what the power of a chamber could do. That’s awesome. Well take a moment to tell us a little bit more about the capital region’s chamber, kind of the size, scope, budget staff, that sort of thing and kind of set the table for our discussion for today.
About the Capital Region Chamber
Mark Eagan 4:21 Sure, well, I guess what I would say because of my career, I’ve been in chambers in all different sizes. So you know, some of you might be in a smaller community and you might hear what I when I say the size of our organization or budget, you might say well, this his comments are going to relate to me. And I really want I want to say is that you know, my my first chamber when I started I was the only employee and we had a budget of 100 $110,000. Our organization today that I work for has 32 employees. We have a budget of $7.3 million. We serve a Metro area a little over a million people. So, so I’ve, you know, gone through sort of the, all those phases of being the only employee or being in a couple community chamber to county chamber to a Regional Chamber and now more of a Metro Chamber. So hopefully some of my experiences can relate to everybody, no matter where they’re at.
Brandon Burton 5:26 Absolutely, you’ve definitely have seen the whole spectrum of chamber work. So for those listening, listening to what Mark has to say, because he’s he does come from experience from all different backgrounds and, and I think what he’s will share with us today is going to bring a lot of relevancy. Our the topic that we’re going to focus on today is specifically around the idea of taking a job that you love and turning it into a career or even a job that you just like and make it into a career. And I’m looking forward to getting into this discussion as Mark as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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Topic-Turn a Job You Like into a Career
Alright, Mark, we are back as I kind of set the table before the break is we’re going to be talking about turning a job you like into a career, which is something that you’ve done successfully going from, you know that that chamber that you started with, with 110 members and, you know, to where you are now with the more of a Metro Chamber. I know I like having this kind of discussion with with chamber professionals, because very rarely does somebody get into the chamber world intentionally. Usually, it’s something you kind of fall into. You’d mentioned a little bit about seeing your dad as a small business owner, but why don’t we just start with with your your origins and chamber work and what made you fall in love with it.
Mark Eagan 8:09 So you know if remnants of my accent still give me away, I’m originally from Massachusetts, I live there now and 24 years or something like that, but some of that accent will never disappear. And I went to to those of you haven’t heard of Stonehill college, it’s it’s in Massachusetts. It’s a liberal arts college, they have these amount of business majors about 2500 students. And I, when I went there, I graduated in 1987. The economy was really strong. There recruiters on campus, I had multiple job offers before I graduated, and I walked across the stage to get my diploma with without a job. And I remember when I’d have an interview and have an offer my my dad would say, Well, why don’t you take it? And I’d say, well, didn’t really excite me. And you know, my dad grew up in a generation where, you know, I sort of joke the jobs were to provide not to excite. But it was literally it was two days before my graduation, I read this article in my hometown newspaper, about this new chamber of commerce that they had been, you know, it was had been grassroots developing, you know, members, and they had enough members to open an office and to begin to hire a staff. I thought, Boy, that sounds really interesting. And, you know, in my, in my clinical modality, they reached out to somebody who knew who was had been involved in helped create the chamber and they’re like, Oh, well, it’s a group but you know, we don’t really know where we’re going, what our focus is going to be we really don’t have any, you know, money to pay much and I thought this this sounds like such a cool opportunity. I had led a membership association. I know some sushi a club on campus and And so anyway, I throw my hat in the ring. I remember they used a local, like HR company and help sort of, you know, go through applicants and interview and they, you know, basically said to me, we’re gonna think we’re going to put you in the mix that’s going to see the board. But you know, basically you’re a longshot, because you know, you’re, you’re young, and you’re green. And, and, but we like to have a variety of candidates. And ultimately I get offered the job. But in quite frankly, I think part of it was, again, they didn’t have a lot of money, and I could be hired cheap right out of school, my starting salary was $15,000, in 1987. The, but they also, I think, they can see my passion. And they also knew I was from the local community, it was the chamber covered three different towns, I think they thought because I knew the community because again, my dad knew people that may be able to help them get members. So again, it just started as a job. But as a 22 year old, I literally had to, you know, go and pick out the you know, get get Office Furniture have the phones turned on, but it literally was a startup organization. They hadn’t. And I remember going to the first board meeting. And I said, you know, so what’s your first goal, and I said, my first goal is to get members went back the next month, Bobby, I said, I changed my first goal. We need to do something, we need to know why we exist. And why would someone want to be a member? And, and, and I remember, you know, you know, way back then, you know, used to having all these breaks through going through school. And then in college, I thought, how do you take this new job and get two weeks off. And you know, that kind of feel like I’m in jail. And and I remember my first year, I literally other than a few days and get away one time during the winter, I didn’t take any time off. Because I was just so excited by the work we were doing and what we were trying to what we’re trying to build. And again, to your point, it was, you know, still a job, but was a job that I felt like I really was I was enjoying and I could see sort of the rewards not just for me, but more importantly, for the businesses that we were we’re working with. So you know, a lot of times, chambers will work together. And sort of in that part of Massachusetts, we had this informal group, where we would we’d get together, I think it was quarterly with the execs and then certain number of times a year, we’d actually bring in a volunteer leader.
And the, again, I was three years into the job, there was a chamber that was nearby, that again, we were three years old, at that time that the Chamber I think was 77 years old. You know, by the time I left the chamber, we had a little over 300 members, this organization about 750 members that their exact was leaving. And one of those volunteers who had seen me at those meetings, reached out to me and said, we have an opening, do you think you want to be a candidate? And I thought, Well, again, this is going to be a stretch because I’m still this young guy that I have this experience here. But they saw something in me and and and I was hired. And that’s where I grew my skill sets in a whole different way. And I went from just you know, three suburban towns to an old urban city industrial city that had a lot of challenges, as well as the neighboring communities. So the lawn but I’ll I’ll take a
Brandon Burton 13:46 take a little pause there and kind of backtrack a little bit. It sounds like you’re a quick learner, you have to change your first goal. On the SIR early on to getting members to really saying Hold on, we need to figure out what our mission and vision is to get people to get excited about what we’re doing. But I’m curious in those first three years, how did you learn to run a chamber? How did you well, who did you rely on? Did you have mentors that sounded like you’re part of a regional group of other chambers. But what were some of those outlets and resources that you relied on?
Mark Eagan 14:22 A great question. And I remember just describing myself as a sponge, literally. That’s what I felt I was just soaking in from everybody. I could learn from a lot of my neighboring chambers, right nearby or other chambers in the state. So I started my job and July. And so again, I reached out to some chambers nearby to start with. I remember in January was the first state association meeting I went to, which was a big deal for me to sort of get real sort of professional development. And I remember then the that, that someone said to me, are you going to go to institute. And of course, my response was what’s Institute, I had never even heard of it. And particularly at that time, it was sort of a standard that most chamber folks did. Today, depending on the size of the chamber, it’s I don’t know, it’s as prevalent today as it was, you know, in the 80s. But as soon as I knew about it, my goal was to go and to find out, find a way to, you know, to find enough money for to pay the, you know, the, the tuition and all that to go. And because I was in the northeast, back, then it was in Delaware. And, and I remember, you know, back then you used to get materials that you had to read, and you have to use it to do a written test. And, and I remember, some of those materials I read a couple of times before I even went to institute because it was again, I was like, oh my god here, this is like someone to tell me how to do this. And back then I thought that there were things we were, when an idea would come forward by volunteers, sometimes I would call on, you know, sort of one of the deans in the area, to say, you know, can we do that, because I thought there was things that we could do and couldn’t do, and I realized, you can do anything. It’s really what’s the needs of your community, and you have the capacity to deliver. So it was really those, those those folks that took me under their wing, had a huge impact, and helping shape me. And then, you know, my connections that when I went to institute, I got to meet people that weren’t just from my state are really from the Northeast region, the country, and then it just continued to grow over the years.
Brandon Burton 16:50 So you went from the, this the original chamber, the smaller, you know, where you’re the, you know, the the chief cook, and bottle washer and doing everything, you’re doing the membership sales, managing the office manager, retention, the whole shebang, right. And then you get this new opportunity at a new chamber that expands your I guess, available skill set. So you had to learn some new skills, you had to learn how to manage people, you had to learn, you know, the probably a larger scope maybe of what that chamber covered. So what was that transition, like with the with this next step?
Mark Eagan 17:33 It was, it was a big one. Because, you know, I again, the the, the tri John chamber was my first chamber, again, because the three towns so as a creative name. And so as myself and I had a part time, like, administrative assistant, and we had like a contract kind of membership person, by the time I left, then the chamber I went to, I can’t remember the exact number of employees when I got there, I want to say five or six. But I think what happened for me at that next chamber was the first chamber, we were very much focused, I would say, as a, as a member of benefits organization, you know, our sort of whole programme of work was programs, you know, what are you registered to go to? It was, you know, pretty sort of transactional. And then go into my, to the second immunity. And as I mentioned, it was a, you know, you had a city of about 100 and 1000 people in the surrounding communities, and the city was on a decline. So part of it was how do you use the strength of the business community to help turn the community around? So that was probably when I started to realize that the chamber was more than an organization to serve its members, or an organization to help strengthen the community. And I guess the thing I would just say that sort of in addition to it, I always look to say, how do I keep one at that point, I realized, Okay, well, this is great, but who knows, someday I might want to be somewhere else and do something else. And so I remember it was I think it was my first ACC first ACC meeting I went to, and there were these. There weren’t even like breakouts because the conference was different back then. But it was like this optional sessions, you could go to sort of in your free time. Free time, and I went to this session about tourism. And one of my friends said, What the hell you go into that one on tourism from your community, you’re in, you know, does nothing in tourism. And I said, but I don’t know if the next community I might want to go to might have tourism. So I need to learn those skills today. And then, you know, long story short, when I did move to South Bend, Indiana A component of the chamber there was the Convention Visitors Bureau, we had six or seven staff people who just worked on tourism. So that was the example how’s it goes full circle?
Brandon Burton 20:12 Yeah. And if you’re already at the conference and the the informations being shared, why not be there be that sponge because you never know what that next opportunity is going to be. And, and for those listening, it may be something you decided to try to implement at your own organization that you’re that you’re currently at, and talk to your board about and say, Does this make sense for our community? But it sounds like I was going to ask you at what point did you realize, gee, this isn’t just a job, like, this is a career I’m going to be in this for the long haul. Sounds like it might have been then when you started kind of broaden the scope and think, you know, further down the road, is that accurate?
Mark Eagan 20:50 Yeah, I yeah, I think it is, you know, I was I, when I was at the, what’s called the mountain, it’s called the Metro South chamber, which is in Brockton, Massachusetts, about 27 miles south of Boston. And I realized that I felt like, I felt like I was getting into a routine there. And I was there for, and I was there for a little over seven years. And I said, I, I’m not comfortable with the routine. And so I said, Okay, I need to decide, am I going to look for another chamber job? Or am I gonna look for a different job. And I, you know, born and raised in Massachusetts, was always very close to, to, to my, you know, immediate family, my folks, my siblings. And but I realized, if I was really going to have a be my career, I couldn’t just say, Well, what other chamber might open up within, you know, a 30 mile radius. And so I, again, things are a little bit different today than they were back then. That was before, you know, larger chambers and higher search firms. There was a guy who used to work for the US Chamber, well being and said, Have you ever thought of living in the Midwest? And my response was what? And he said, You know, there’s he goes, there’s an opening in South Bend, Indiana. And he goes, when they described who they are, and the kind of leader they thought they might need, because I thought of you. And, and my first thought was my own literally, my only experience in the Midwest was changing planes at O’Hare, I literally had not been to any of the offices people refer to as the flyover communities. I thought, you know, what, I should probably explore this. And I did. Again, that was a huge step. Not just personally from the whole geography side, and sort of moving away from home. But the organization was significantly larger than where I was at. You know, the staff that I had at the Metro South chamber, I think we were seven people. There were 22 people on the staff itself, and it was going with nothing was familiar. You know, I didn’t know the community knew any of those things. So it’s really a test to say, Have I developed these skills, when I can go somewhere where I literally know nobody, but can, you know, develop sort of do community assessment, build skills, build relationships, and help maybe bring the chamber and the organization in the community to, to a different level, and it’s funny, I remember on my I was a newlywed going through that process. And I went out for my final interview, and my wife, they wanted her to come. And so we did a tour, we did do a dinner with volunteers, and she had a column and the next day, I was going to have interviews for the half of the day. And I remember when I left the hotel in the morning, that she said, Well, what do you think’s going to happen? I said, Well, this is the piece and I said, you know, I guess, you know, the next day, probably get a call saying, you know, they’ll debrief whatever. Well, I could walk from where the chamber office was to where the hotel were saying, I get back to the hotel room. And I said to her, then go away, I thought and she has what didn’t go well. It didn’t know they offered me the job right then. And, and, and I remember all these emotions going through me. And, and I thought through it, I said to her, Can you see any reason for me not accepting this job, other than it’s not Massachusetts? And she said, I can’t. And I said, I can’t either. I said, so if I don’t take this job. It means I’m going to look I’m going to leave chamber work, because I really can’t I can’t continue to grow in chamber work if I’m not willing to really make a big move. Obviously, the know you already know the rest of the story I, I took the leap. And, you know, my two children were both born there. And I, you know, had the pleasure of working in South Bend four and a half years.
Brandon Burton 25:19 Wow. So as you tell the story, it sounds like there’s a couple decision points. And and I think it’s probably similar to a lot of people’s career path where, you know, one decision point was making that choice to take on more learning, whatever level it is, but taking in stuff that you maybe don’t currently need. But then the big one is to open up the opportunity, or the idea of moving outside the area to be able to continue your career. How does that, uh, I know, everyone’s different in their, you know, their, their home life status, you had mentioned you were a newlywed at the time? How do you go about that conversation with I mean, it’s a big move. Some, some people have children at this point in their career. So you’re dealing with schools and everything, but what kind of advice would you have with the, with those kinds of discussions?
Mark Eagan 26:21 Well, you know, I think everyone’s different. And you and you have to say, you know, okay, you know, again, I totally push myself out of my comfort zone. One, just because the chamber and the size and the scope and all of that, but then again, the geographic piece. So you have to do what you know, you have to think it, read your own tea leaves. And I And again, I think the timing of children is important. You know, I think for most of us, you don’t want to make a move when your kids are probably a high school, if you can help it. You know, when when, when we made the move, when we move to, to Auburn, in New York, my kids were then in first and third grade. So again, it was ages that were easy, easier to adjust. And again, that was the move was, you know, for the sort of getting the opportunity that was there. But also the nice benefit was, you know, where the majority of our family is, we were 14 hours away for them. And now when we moved to New York, we’re two and a half hours away for them. So that was a nice added bonus to it. The thing I would also say if, you know, I have been so impressed of, you know, my colleagues that I’ve known for a long, long time, who maybe have chosen, not not because they were stuck, but they were chosen to stay in the same community for you know, 2030 years. And, and I give them a lot of credit, because, you know, in most cases, the reason they’ve been able to do so is they keep reinventing themselves. They don’t just sort of retire there and not tell people so go to work every day, you know, they challenge themselves that they meet the needs. And, you know, and you know, in for me, you know, while I’ve moved, I haven’t moved very much, you know, I’m only in my fourth chamber in 34 years. Yeah,
Brandon Burton 28:11 I think that’s a good point to make with. Some people choose to move Chambers as they develop their career in chamber world and others will stay in the same community they started with and stay at the same chamber for 30 or 40 years. But the you hit the key there is they keep reinventing themselves keep reinventing what the offerings are that the Chamber has to offer. And, and I’m sure they can see a similar path to when they first started at their chamber 30 or 40 years prior, and then, you know, towards the end of their career, to see how their chamber has grown because of the things they’ve learned and implemented and they didn’t just stay stagnant. So I think that’s cool
Mark Eagan 28:54 that we as Atari just personally, but I think even for our organizations, to fulfill its mission, we have to be willing to sort of challenge the status quo. And, and I guess what I’d say to folks that are watching and listening, again, who we’re all different sort of sized communities is the thing that I remember years ago, again, when I would, you know, read an article through ACC, or I would go to a conference or a state association meeting. You know, again, going back does really oftentimes, I was one of the smallest communities there. But I used to try to listen to what some of the larger communities were doing and saying, Hey, how does this relate to what we’re doing? And can I just scale it all back to a level? I think that was part of what some of the successes were able to have and part of the reason that I have grown, so I wouldn’t, you know, encourage all my colleagues to do that. Don’t look at something and say well, because we’re suburban, and their, you know, their city or because, you know, we have three staff and they have seven staff or whatever. I think that we can learn from each other we can we can grow together. And it’s really how can we have, you know, impact to strengthen businesses? And then how can those businesses, because they’re helping create jobs, create better opportunity for the people who live in our communities?
Brandon Burton 30:17 Absolutely. I love the idea of just being open minded as you don’t shut down ideas because the chamber that you’re hearing them from as much larger as a bigger budget or more staff, think, How can I take something an idea that I like, How can I implement it, maybe it includes a strategic partnership with an another organization in your community, maybe it involves outsourcing. So I mean, the opportunities are limitless, if you can be creative and stay open minded to Western. So I like that we’re having this discussion. Right now, as we’ve kind of worked through this COVID pandemic, we’ve seen a pretty large exit, I would say, of people in the chamber industry, either retiring or maybe going into private sector work. And that means there’s opportunities, there’s openings for new people to kind of fill these voids that are new to chamber world. So I’d like to ask you what would be maybe one piece of advice that you would have for somebody who’s just now getting into chamber work to maybe explore the idea of actually making it a career, not just a holdover job until something else better comes but to really fall in love with it and make it a career? What would you what would you have to say?
Mark Eagan 31:38 If you’re if you’re new, I guess I would go on from my experiences, going back to that analogy of the sponge, you know, try to soak in as much as you can. You, you know, in through the years, it’s not just learning from other callings, but, you know, learning from the volunteer leaders that we work with. And I have, you know, you also learn from the people that you don’t like what they do, and you learn what you don’t want to do. You know, I remember, you know, years ago, when back when I was still in my 20s, and, you know, one of my colleagues who sometimes, you know, would, you know, get so full of himself, and I would, you know, say to somebody, you know, forever like that shoot me. And because, you know, I think we have to realize that, you know, you know, the work that we do is important, but you know, we’re not the chamber, you know, we have the privilege of working there. But, you know, I, I hope that each of those chambers, I worked out that I had an impact while I was there, but none of them went out of business when I left. And, but I think that is we work together as a team and our community can make a big difference. And, you know, there’s opportunities I’ve had, you know, what, I’ve had folks in the private sector try to get me to leave and go to work for them. And really, what I’ve tried to ask myself is, you know, can I think of another career where I think I would find it satisfying? And that I could impact so many different people? You know, and I, the answer is I haven’t been able to, and that’s why I’m, you know, I’m still doing this every day. Yeah, during the pandemic, there were times where, you know, to say, Geez, how many more years before I can retire? But the reality is, you know, you know, recently somebody was talking about it, and I said, Well, you know, I, I started to work quite a few more years. But I said, even if I didn’t have to, I’m not ready to retire yet. You know, it still really energizes and motivates and inspires me every day.
Brandon Burton 33:45 So I love that answer. I wanted to ask you, since you have been at a variety of different chambers, you’ve seen the scope of the spectrum. Maybe, you know, a tip or an action item that you can offer to somebody listening that who may be trying to take their own their chamber up to the next level, what would be a piece of marking and advice?
Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions
Mark Eagan 34:12 I guess I’d say is, you know, by looking look through my development over the years, a lot of it ties to my colleagues. Some of my closest personal friends are folks who I met, you know, over the last 30 years, and they’re in lots of different states. And in even in a we haven’t seen each other as much because of the pandemic, but we’ll still have the zoom call that we’re, you know, together. Because as we know, there’s nobody else in our community that does exactly what we do. So I wouldn’t, you know, encourage you to develop that network. It could be again, the Chamber next door, but it could be a chamber across the country. Somebody that you click with, you know, personally and professionally, if you haven’t yet plugged into whether it’s, you know, whatever your budget is, and leave him in school and your state association, or if you can go to institute, if it’s the right program for you, ACC, you know, even if you, you know, don’t have the budget to ever go to a program to go to their convention, you know, for a pretty minor investment, just to have access to all the tools and resources that are on their website. There’s so many best practices, you can’t just take it and duplicate it at your organization. But as I said earlier, you can take it and adapt it to the needs of your community and your membership.
Brandon Burton 35:39 Absolutely. So I like asking this question to everyone that I have on the show is, as we all look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
Future of Chambers
Mark Eagan 35:55 You know, I guess what I’d say is, is, if we can all think back to why did chambers originally get formed? I think over the years science where we’ve evolved to isn’t why we got created. So you know, to my earlier comment about, you know, being a member of benefits organization, or is the purpose broader than that. And yes, without members, we couldn’t do our work, you know that we’re a membership based organization. But I think our mission can be more than serving our members. Because if it’s just coming to us, because of an educational programming or networking program, a for profit company can do that. But But if we look at it, and say, it’s really about strengthening the economic and social well being of our communities, we’re at a unique intersection to be able to do that. And there’s probably no one that can do it, as well as our chamber, whether we’re a community of 10,000 people, or a metro of millions of people. So I think if we focus on that bigger mission, you know, chambers are going to be here for a long time. But if we just that transactional organization, I think that that folks can question. You know, really what I direct value is,
Brandon Burton 37:17 I love that answer. I think, as the world changes around us that that core reason as to why a chamber exists is still to strengthen and develop their community. And I think that purpose becomes even stronger. As the world becomes more digital and money flows different ways. It’s even more of a reason to have a strong core within the community to build it and bring people together. So thank you for that. So Mark, as we wrap things up here, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for anyone who might want to reach out and connect with you about, you know, your career or anything you had to share with us today. What would be the best way for for someone to reach out Connect?
Connect with Mark Eagan
Mark Eagan 38:00 Yes, feel free. And I can I can put my email in here if I’m doing it with my glasses on. So hopefully, I don’t have a typo. Yeah.
Brandon Burton 38:12 And I’ll put them in the show notes as well.
Mark Eagan 38:15 So it’s meagan@capitalregionchamber.com. Feel free to send me an email if there’s a question or the resource that I can point you to if you want to set up a time and do a conversation, I’d be happy to do it. And my direct line, it’s 518-431-1424.
Brandon Burton 38:37 That’s perfect. And again, like I said, I will get this in our show notes for this episode, which will be at chamber tat podcast.com/episode 155. Mark, thank you so much for spending time with me today here on chamber chat podcast. I think what you provided is a lot of value to those listening, especially those who may just be getting into the chamber world. Mark is a great resource and, you know, a wealth of experience and knowledge. So hopefully everyone was being a sponge and soaking this up. But thank you, Mark, for being with us today.
Mark Eagan 39:09 Well, thanks for the invitation and thanks for all that you do.
Brandon Burton 30:28 If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.
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Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Wendy Dant Chesser. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.
Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.
Introduction
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.
Voiceover Talent – And now your host, he has never heard a Whopper or Big Mac. He’s my dad Brandon Burton.
Hello Chamber Champions. Welcome to the chamber tap podcast. I’m your host Brandon Burton, and it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.
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Guest Introduction
You’re joining us today for episode 154 As I have windy Dan Chester join us today from One Southern Indiana or One SI. Wendy has been with One SI since November 2012. As President and CEO. She’s driven by a strong desire to implement change that would establish a stronger economic growth better educated and better paid workforce and structure of advocacy within the state of Indiana. One SI serves as the organization that speaks with one vision and one voice for Clark and Floyd counties. Its mission is to provide the connections resources and services that help businesses innovate and thrive in the region. Wendy came back to our home after serving as president of Cornerstone Alliance, a similar organization in southwest Michigan. Wendy’s role in leading the organization included serving as a trustee of the 530 acre Harbor Shores development and directing the 700 member Cornerstone Chamber of Commerce. Prior to removed in Michigan. She worked in various aspects of economic development for over seven years with the state of Indiana and spent the last year of her state government career as deputy Deputy Executive Director for program operations of the Indiana Department of Commerce. Wendy is a present or past member of several professional organizations including the International Economic Development Council and Economic Development Association in both Indiana and Michigan. She currently serves as legislative committee chair and past Chair for the Indiana Economic Development Association. Wendy was named one of North America’s top 50 economic developers in 2015 by consultant connect the Indiana Economic Development Association awarded her the Economic Development Professional of the next half century in June of 2018. And in 2016, her Indiana peers named her the Chamber of Commerce Executive of the Year, she was awarded the 2000 Outstanding Young Hoosier award from the Indiana Jaycees was recognized in the Annapolis Business Journal’s 40 under 40 for 2004 and was honored by Western Michigan’s business reviews business leaders under 40. In 2021, southern Indiana was named chamber the year by the Indiana chamber Executives Association and honor that her team was most deserving of due to their aggressive actions and to help businesses during the COVID 19 pandemic and resulting recession. Wendy is a native of Jeffersonville and she received her Bachelors of Science in Business Management from Indiana University southeast in 1991. She and her daughter Jocelyn reside in Jeffersonville. Wendy, I’m excited to have you with me today here on Chamber Chat Podcast if you would just take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions that are out there listening and I’d like to have you share something interesting just so we can get to know you a little bit better.
Something Interesting About Wendy
Wendy Dant Chesser 4:30 Well, thank you, Brandon. I appreciate the opportunity. It was a it’s a great opportunity to work in this industry. And one southern Indiana is a chamber that was emerged organization starting in 2006. I came back in 2012 to serve as president. I’m the third president of the organization and the dirty little secret is this is actually the third time that I applied to be president. So if Third time’s a charm It was really seen as an opportunity for me to come home and do what I love to do in the communities that helped raise me.
Brandon Burton 5:07 That’s awesome. I like that it’s kind of unique to be able to serve in the chamber where where you’re from. So that is awesome. Well share with us a little bit about one southern Indiana just so we can get a better idea of kind of the size staff to kind of the perspective that you’re coming from, as we entered our discussion today.
About the One Southern Indiana
Wendy Dant Chesser 5:32 So let me start with the geography. So the geography of the area is that we are part of the Louisville, Kentucky, MSA. So we’re truly a two state area, the only thing that separates us with our neighbors to the south is the mighty Ohio River. So if we look at the the area as a whole, we have about a 1.3 million population MSA, our piece of it the carved out piece for our southern indie or for the one southern Indiana area is basically Clark and Floyd counties, which are the two most populous counties on the Indiana side of the Ohio River, we have about 200,000 people in those two counties. So our chamber really does operate in conjunction with others as a Regional Chamber addressing regional issues. We have about 1025 business members today, we were up to about 1100 pre pandemic, but things happened and we are now slowly growing that, that that membership back, and we have really have dug in and said, you know, this is the role that we have to play, we’re not necessarily going to be the best at some things in our regions. But we know that the businesses that that are looking for assistance either through manufacturing through some of the small businesses, of course, hospitality businesses and some of the innovative businesses, we’ve been able to establish a presence with them and to continue to provide some assistance to them in terms of the business membership.
Brandon Burton 7:05 Very good. So that does help to give us an idea of where you’re coming from and kind of crossing over into Kentucky, someone with the membership and responsibilities there. As we get into our topic for discussion today. So the term that we all became very familiar with during the pandemic was these are unprecedented times. Right? So our topic for this discussion is going to be unprecedented opportunity Spoken like a true economic development professional, specifically in southern Indiana. And it’s my understanding that some of these opportunities sprouted as a result of the pandemic. So looking forward to getting that perspective and having you share those things it says we get back from this quick break.
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Topic-Unprecedented Opportunity in Southern Indiana
Alright, Wendy, we are back. Let’s have you share with us what some of these unprecedented opportunities are that kind of sprouted out of the the COVID 19 pandemic that maybe wouldn’t have been there initially. But because it’s you know, the pandemic happened and our worldview and everything kind of shifted. What’s resulted in southern Indiana out of that?
Wendy Dant Chesser 9:37 Well, one of the things I’m excited about and you mentioned this before break, we are also the local economic development organization for two of our counties and we have a third county under contract. One of the reasons that that I can be very optimistic about our economic future is that we have seen record interest in this is wanting to either locate or expand in our area. And don’t take that for granted. But I do recognize that we have decades of investment that has put us in this place. The states of Indiana and Kentucky have in the last five years, built not one, but two bridges across the Ohio River to truly connect our greater region. We have a 6000 acre industrial park that was formerly an Army Ammunition site that is really reached its peak in being able to provide one stop shopping for companies that are looking to locate and we’re seeing right now about 15,000 employees working there per day, but there’s a lot of room for growth. It’s about 15% occupied. So we know that there’s growth opportunities there as well. And we believe that Indiana’s stable business climate is helping us attract companies to the area. I don’t want to the short side, our neighbors to the south. Oh, wow. Well, you know, when we do economic development in southern Indiana, we often are best known for a city we’re not in a state we’re not a part of. That’s the challenge of being across the river from a metro area like Louisville, Kentucky. But we also have the advantage of taking advantage of the many investments that they make. They have an international airport UPS has its world, its Worldport distribution system in Louisville, we take advantage of that every day, then on the quality of place aspects. It’s a city, it’s got a lot of activities, it’s got professional, it’s got semi professional sports, it’s got a horse racing, it has a beautiful zoo, we can take advantage and sell all of those assets, while we’re growing the southern Indiana economy. And in addition, we’re working on those quality of place and those assets that give us an additional regional asset to share with our neighbors as well. So I’m really excited that we’re starting to see this this economic growth. A lot of interest in economic growth coming to our area. But it’s not just because we’ve got a new brochure, a new website is decades of investment to make our area attractive. And when you have a good product to sell at a time when people are in the buying mode, which they are, we are we are seeing some wonderful numbers in interest from prospects coming to our area, I believe, August of 2021, we had more interested projects tagged than at any time since our existence in 2006. So something’s worked in we’re trying to maximize it. But it also comes with, of course, with challenges and being able to make sure we’re good stewards of where we are in this place in time.
Brandon Burton 12:46 And like being able to leverage the greater area, you know, geography, like you mentioned, to be able to tap into to Louisville what they have to offer. And I mean, really a big development in Louisville was a big win for you guys to to be able to continue to leverage your communities, your counties that you’re representing, as you know, like these resources that are right here, and you don’t need to be in the mix of it all. But we’re, you know, the there’s different ways that you can kind of play that. But I like that. So what about some of these initiatives that have come out post COVID? Or through COVID? That you guys have implemented, that you can kind of touch on for us? Well, let
Wendy Dant Chesser 13:28 me let me talk about three of them primarily. The first is, we have recognized that, that when it’s most, most communities did, the businesses impacted by COVID, size of business really does matter. And so some of our small businesses suffered the most. And this is an opportunity for us, our board of directors had to retreat back in March and said, We want to be able to help those small businesses, those that are already there for those that are growing. So in partnership with the Indiana small business development centers, we have now a shared staff position. That is what we call our small business navigator gives us a someone who’s focused on small business and specific needs that they have, whether it’s technical assistance, whether it’s accounting assistance, whether it’s how access to capital in general, and helping them determine their best best path forward. There are a lot of resources for small businesses, but if you don’t have them all packaged and put together at the in the place where a small business needs them, including potentially some funding sources to keep them moving, then then then we’re not really doing them a good service. So we’re excited about what our small business services initiative is offering. The second is new to us and long, long overdue and that is our diversity, equity and inclusion activities. As an organization, we had not addressed DNI In any of the work that we were doing, the events of 2020 changed our perspective on that, and was quite frankly, a wake up call that that was necessary. And our board of directors took it seriously and incorporated DNI not only as a standing committee within the organization, that they incorporated DNI goals into all of our bylaws, responsibilities, really to make sure that it’s embedded in the fabric of who we are going forward. So our spending and hiring practices internally, how we help companies and promotion opportunities, those are those small things that we’re getting underway and excited to be saying, it’s finally time that we’re doing something in this area, which is long overdue. The third area, and this is the one I saved this for last, this is really as a result of the Indiana General Assembly working with the governor and putting together an initiative that’s going to help communities and regions focus on what their needs, their long term needs are going to be if it weren’t for the Recovery Act funds and things coming into the state and local governments, I’m not sure that this initiative would have occurred. But what is called the regional economic acceleration and Development Initiative, or ready for short, the state put $500 million into a pot and are asking regions around the state to compete for these funds to help leverage private investment to build out quality of place projects. So stop for a second think about where quality of place project may be. Whether it’s a developing an industrial park, which we’ve talked a little bit about weather is increased taking an area of 600 acres right in the middle of our waterfront area and creating a park inviting people in to not only understand the habitat that’s there, but also to also park called it’s called origin Park, that adjusts to the climate change issues when you’re on a river flooding as a part of your date of your annual the annual seasons that you go through. So we’re working on that. But how do we look into some of the more rural areas of our five county region and do things that will benefit them through a youth sports complex through helping one of our historic downtown’s become more of a destination for music goers gives us the opportunity to dream a little bit, but then to set put our priorities together in a five county region and tell the state we need your help to leverage these funds that are sitting on the sidelines, we know that population growth is one of their goals. There’s a lot of folks looking at our area and interested in our area, how do we now tap into those dollars that the state’s made available in a very competitive way, mind you to try to make sure that we’re doing the best we can in 2021 2223. So that all of these dollars that are being spent to help us recover are truly investments that our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren are going to benefit from. So those are the that’s what I’m really most excited about. We’ll have a decision on whether or not we were competitive enough by the end of this calendar year. But I tell all of our regional folks, every time I get the chance, even if we don’t get the full prize that we’re going after we’re in a better shape now than we were before. Because we’re working together, we’re supporting each other’s projects, and programs in trying to make sure that our quality of places stretches beyond our initial or our jurisdictional boundaries into a broader region.
Brandon Burton 18:49 Absolutely. So I love how you’ve identified these opportunities in your community. And I’d like for listeners that are, you know, tuned in right now to think about what opportunities are available in your community. And it might not look exactly like Southern Indiana. But would it make sense to have small business surpluses? Maybe probably, and those are the businesses that need a lot of the help. And it’s kind of that paradox. Sometimes they’re the members that can’t afford to buy the the higher level investment with the chamber, but they need the most help. They need the most assistance. So maybe having a focused effort on that. And I think integrating more the DEA and I you know, like you said integrating that into your bylaws and having more of a concerted effort on making sure that certain segments of the community are being included and that you’re reaching out and thinking about who’s who’s not here, who are we missing? And I think that’s something that every community and I think a lot of chambers are doing a good job at that looking at the DNI but these are your you’re seeing these as opportunities. And I love I love that vantage point instead of, you know, it’s one more thing that we need to take on, it’s one more thing to do. But you’re serving. So
Wendy Dant Chesser 20:11 we are serving it and and we have a team of professionals that work their butts off back during COVID. And so they were they’re tired, but boy does this give us all new energy. The the internal statement is, yes, we’re doing all of these new things, in addition to those things we were already doing. So it’s more we are adding a few new team members. But at the same time, we recognize that if we want to be relevant as an organization going forward, that it’s imperative that we take, we take a real good look at what is going on what’s needed, and what’s going to make our region competitive and our individual businesses. Again, we tell them all the time, because we have both of these roles. We’re a chamber of commerce, but we’re also an economic development entity, the Chamber side helps them go out and get a bigger piece of the pie. And we want that we want to be that and help them. But at the same time, we owe it to them. And everybody else can take a bigger pie so that there’s more for us to go after. So that the only thing I can do in the kitchen is talk about this and
the to do go hand in glove. And when we look at regional opportunities, we all we know that that there’s not a moat around in any of our communities that keeps people from going back and forth, and all that all that neighboring does is offer you and your businesses more opportunities to grow.
Brandon Burton 21:39 And I like that as looking at opportunity like like your analogy of baking the bigger pie. I mean, there’s definitely some opportunities where as a chamber, you need to look at new programming, for example, and say, how do we monetize this? How do we make it worthwhile? How do we do this. And then other things that you you do chamber work wise, is it’s really baking that bigger pie, that’s going to show the value of the chamber, you might not have that direct return on investment, you’re not collecting revenue necessarily for that program or for the focus and attention you’re putting into it. But it’s baking that bigger pie, it’s strengthening your business community, it’s proving your value to your members. And there’s a whole lot of value in doing that as well. So kind of two different ways of looking at the opportunities that are provided.
Wendy Dant Chesser 22:27 That’s the what we have going forward in the unknown, but we can look back and see how some of the work that was done. Pacific example 11 911 or 12 years ago, before I joined organization, we started a robust Business Retention and Expansion program where we would go out into businesses and specifically manufacturers. And the reason is, is that in Indiana, in our part of Indiana, manufacturing is still one of the most strongest sectors for us. About 20% of our payroll in our counties comes from manufacturing, not necessarily 20% of the jobs 20% of the payrolls, so it’s incredibly significant to us. So maybe 11 or 12 years ago, the organization started a Business Retention and Expansion program where they went out to manufacturers and they basically asked simple questions, how’s business? Do you have any opportunities to grow your business? And what are those impediments to doing more business for you? And the answers to those questions became our work plan came up became the strategy. So that that started and because of that, we identified that manufacturers had a lot of common needs, depending on regardless of what they were making. So we started a new membership category called the Metro manufacturers Alliance. And it started with eight manufacturers and has since now grown to about a we’re just under 80. So significant growth is really the most regional of our programs, about almost 50% of them are of the manufacturers are from Kentucky work the other 50% are Indiana, recognizing it’s a it’s an area for us to sell. And the biggest thing that we offer them a round table so your CEOs can get together in a facilitated roundtable environment. I call them support groups when sometimes they don’t like that, but that’s what it is. Doesn’t stop at the CEO that goes to the HR directors, it goes to the procurement folks right now, the busiest one is supply chain because supply chain issues are so critical. So it gives manufacturers at different levels of the organization peers to discuss these, truly. These these truly big issues that are either going to make or break where they are could make or break the workforce supply chain all of the things that we hear over and over again, that we may not have a solution for within the walls of our organization. We can pull together Are those like minded individuals who are looking for solutions, and then they can help come in that we can facilitate that process. So I, it’s a great, I look back on what my predecessors put into place to help us get to where we are today. And honestly, I feel very strongly we have an obligation to pay it forward, that making sure that those areas that we have to work on for the next 10 or 15 years are going to that we get out that all started today.
Brandon Burton 25:29 Yeah, I can see incredible value in those roundtables. Do you have any trouble getting participation on those or kind of hit or miss
Wendy Dant Chesser 25:38 is hit or miss. And I would say that they like any other initiative. If a company is going to get the most out of it, it comes from the top. So those CEOs that are most engaged are the ones whose team typically see more value in the in the programming that is created. And each of them has a facilitator that not staff, but an outside facilitator that can help guide the conversation, look for new ideas. When we went to zoom, obviously, we saw more participation, because at the time people were but we’re hungry for a interaction and be more information. Now that we’re back more live in person events. It’s everybody’s busy. So we’re trying to find ways to keep that enthusiasm going.
Brandon Burton 26:23 Yeah, that’s great. It’s like a giant mastermind group, you have people in the similar roles at different companies to be able to see what’s working for them and share ideas. I love it.
Wendy Dant Chesser 26:36 Just like we’re doing here, because when chamber, chamber folks can share and learn from one another. When I somebody gave me a great quote at one time, I don’t know if he made it up or not. But he said, If I ever take my candle and I light your candle, mine doesn’t become any less dim. We’re all brighter because of it. And I think that’s the that really resonates with me.
Brandon Burton 26:57 Yeah, I love that. Well, as we start to wrap up here, I wanted to ask you, if you have any tip or strategy or a piece of advice, maybe that you would share for listeners that they might be able to implement it their chamber to help take them up to the next level.
Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions
Wendy Dant Chesser 27:16 I don’t really have any specific program advice that I’d like to talk about when a little bit along with the theme of this when a new initiative is started is what we’ve found out what worked best for us, when when we strategize about it, we don’t have to have all the answers. And the harder thing is we don’t have to have all the funding. Because if you get a good idea started and it starts to snowball, it gets a little bit bigger, it gets a little more if it shows more results. The funding, I would say always comes with a lot of times it does it as the funding will follow. So we’re not we’re I’m not overly I’m not an overly risk averse person. But in this role, sometimes you’re expected to be you know, to look before you leave, and we do but we also recognize that sometimes you have to do the right thing and you have to move in a direction because the time is now and then give the opportunity for the rest of it to catch up with you. So it’s not it’s not a renegade or derelict kind of approach. But it’s the reality that sometimes people have to see something happening before they will totally embrace it. Sort of the Henry Ford quote, you know, if he had asked his customers what they’ve wanted, they would have wanted a faster horse. When he was interested in making faster horses, he was interested in giving them something new. And look at where we are today. And that I think that analogy sticks true with a lot of what what a chamber organization does as well.
Brandon Burton 28:51 To your point the other day I had heard the the same that procraft Another word for procrastinator is perfectionist that people will hide behind the idea of being a perfectionist just to delay putting that thing out or you know, and like you’re saying you don’t need all the answers or the funding, just get moving and the pieces will come together. And it’s a failed initiative
Wendy Dant Chesser 29:15 in the chamber world is not necessarily a failure that a mark against your permanent record. It’s a learning experience. And as we see businesses do that all the time, try something new and learn from it. I think in the chamber role we can we can learn from that same philosophy.
Brandon Burton 29:32 Yeah, absolutely. But as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
Future of Chambers
Wendy Dant Chesser 29:41 That our team has really looked at the AC e ACPE. Horizon Report. And those areas identified such as people will join in and engage in initiatives that they’re passionate about. The days of joining a chamber because it’s the right thing to do. Because your grandma, your father did it with his business, not there anymore. So we have to find ways of consistently making ourselves relevant. It spreads us maybe a little more thin than Lee, because because people find relevance in different things, whether it’s our young professionals group or sales and marketing group, they’ll find relevant in different categories. But as long as we’re nimble and are working to meet their needs to keep them engaged, we feel very strong, and they’ll continue to support us. So the future, the future for us is to continue to be continued to being open to those new ideas, those new initiatives to see if we can pull people together and help them collectively, while making sure that our organization is strong.
Brandon Burton 30:51 I love it. Well, I appreciate you spending time with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast, sharing some of the great opportunities there in southern Indiana, but also helping the Chamber’s listening to maybe better see the opportunities that are in their own communities. I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for anyone listening who’d like to reach out and connect and maybe learn how you’re doing some things they’re in southern Indiana, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you?
Connect with Wendy Dant Chesser
Wendy Dant Chesser 31:23 Well, I think our website is probably best it’s a portion of it or still are under reconstruction. So but it’s the information is still that is on there still accurate, it may just not be complete. That email, the website address is 1si.org. So that’s 1si.org and that’s where we try to at least get people in doesn’t have all of the information that but we have a wonderful team that can supplement any of those questions that come from it.
Brandon Burton 31:58 Very good. And I’ll make sure that’s in our show notes for this episode, which will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode 154. But again, Wendy, it’s been a pleasure visiting with you and having you on the show. Thank you for taking the time to be with us today.
Wendy Dant Chesser 32:14 Thank you, Brandon, and I appreciate it very much.
Brandon Burton 32:17 If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.
Izzy West 32:49 Hey, it’s Izzy again. I’ve got some questions about the annual Chamber Pros Planner that I publish. so I wanted to encourage you to visit my website theizzywest.com as I have a video you can watch to see if my planner is right for you. I flipped through the physical books so you can see what the monthly spread, weekly to do list, and meeting notes pages are like. This planner is designed to help keep you on track for your 12 week goals as you push your Chamber forward. Again go to theizzywest.com for the preview. That’s theizzywest.com.
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Below is an auto-generated transcription of the top 10 lessons I have learned in 2021. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.
Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.
Introduction
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.
Voiceover Talent 0:14 And now your host, he would love to see chambers get behind the idea of encouraging overall healthy living beyond these unprecedented pandemic times. Here’s my dad, Brandon Burton.
Brandon Burton 0:25 Hello, Chamber Champions. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.
Our title sponsor for this episode is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Is your chamber struggling to drive the revenue it needs to support your initiatives? It’s a common problem and one that our new title Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions knows a lot about Doug and Bill Holman aren’t just sales consultants. They’re real life chamber guys with 20 plus years of chamber leadership experience. They know how to diagnose and solve member recruiting issues faster and better than anyone else. And they’re ready to put that knowledge to work for you and your chamber. Call the Harmon Brothers today at 61985 to 1391. Or check them out at HolmanBros.com. That’s holmanbros.com.
Doug & Bill Holman know how to diagnose and solve member recruiting issues faster and better than anyone else, and the want to put that knowledge to work for you and your chamber. Learn more at HolmanBros.com.
Topic
As we wrap up the year of 2021. I like to do this type of episode at the end of each year where I can I look back at the episodes that I’ve done throughout the year and take out some of the top lessons that I’ve learned and possibly some of the best lessons that can be learned and applied at chambers all over. So not to try to pick out the top 10 episodes by any means, but maybe some overall principles that stood out to me that are worth mentioning again. And in this episode, I decided to pick out the top 10 lessons that I’ve learned in 2021. And with that, I will also be referencing some of the past episodes that I’ve done in this last year. So if you missed any of them, you can always go back and check them out. But as usual, I’ll have all of the links to these past episodes. And anything mentioned will be in the show notes for this episode, which will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode 153. But with that kind of table being said, as far as what the format of this episode will be. I’m going to run down just really quickly what these top 10 lessons are, and then then we’ll get into them in more detail. So I have them numbered, but really it’s no particular order. But number
10 is how important partnerships and membership models are especially in this last year. And taking a look at those
9 is the importance of online communities.
Number 8 is future proofing chambers and small businesses.
Number 7 is the need to go for chambers to go from relevant to essential
Number 6 more chambers are getting into podcasting. So we’ll talk more about that.
Number 5 is the importance of strategic partnerships. You may have your own ideas, but again, I’ll dive in deeper with that.
The number 4 is touching on the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion.
Number 3 is the international exposure. So this one is maybe more of a lesson that I’ve learned. But the the need of the show internationally. So I’ll dive more into that.
Number 2, I wanted to highlight the horseshoes versus chess a little bit more. That’s Dave Atkinson’s book.
And then the number 1 lesson is the need that I have to make some pivots.
So with that, we will we’ll get into this. More More detail more depth on these top 10 lessons that I’ve learned this year since we get back from our quick break.
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App My Community creates mobile apps that allow you to engage directly with your community. Enhance chamber membership by providing a unique advertising and communication channel to residents and visitors. Not just a member directory, App My Community has the tools to be useful to residents on a daily basis. Learn more at appmycommunity.com/chamberchat.
Lesson #10
All right, we are back. So as I teased before the break, I went through quickly the top 10 lessons that I’ve learned this past year. And number 10, was the importance of partnerships and membership models. So as we’re all aware, we’ve been getting through the hopefully, in most places some of the recovery from the COVID pandemic, trying to put some of the pieces back together and try to get our communities up and running again. And as I was doing several of these interviews early on in 2021, the idea of partnerships and mergers between chambers, or economic development, partnerships, and tourism, coming together with Chambers was a big theme to kind of consolidate budgets and resources, and to really leverage what your community has to offer and kind of bring it all into one package. And kind of along those same lines. So before I move on from that Matt Pivarnik was on for Episode 102, which he talked a lot about that with that merging and bringing together the different entities economic development, tourism and chamber all under one roof for that partnership. But along with that, I would say is membership models as well. So through the pandemic, and and even some before there. So there’s been attention given to membership models, but especially through the pandemic and trying to figure out, you know, the best way to serve members. And the best way to show value and, and all of that, being able to take a step back and look at the offerings that are being put out there with a membership model. Tiffany Esposito, she spoke to that in episode 104. So again, any of these episodes that I referenced, you can always find them at the kind of the format to it is chamberchatpodcast.com/episode and then the number so like that one would be episode 104 for Tiffany episode about membership models.
Lesson #9
The number nine lesson that I learned this year was the importance of online communities. And April Bragg joined me for episode 118, where she talked about their beginnings of a Facebook group called Robins regional, that kind of spawned out of the pandemic, and how that Facebook group really gained a lot of traction brought their community together, and really shown some exposure to what the chamber can do for the community. So for a lot of people in their community that didn’t necessarily know what the chamber was, this was an opportunity for the chamber to be that hub, that convener to bring people together, and kind of be that information base of knowledge. So I love that episode, and that the examples that she gave around building an online community, it’s not for everyone, but
I decided to try to kick off an online community of my own to try to make these episodes here on the podcast a little bit more interactive. So I recently launched the Chamber Chat Champions Facebook group, which I know a lot of you are a part of already. So thank you for joining that if you’re listening and you’re not a member of that, please look it up on Facebook again, that’s Chamber Chat Champion’s Facebook group. And the idea there is to be able to take these episodes that are put out each week and to be able to have a little more discussion in depth, sharing resources, ideas, tips from other chamber professionals that listen and that are part of this community. So check that out and join my community.
Lesson #8
The number eight lesson that I learned this year was about around future proofing chambers and small businesses. And this is a it’s been something that’s been on my mind for a lot of the year now is the idea of so many things going digital Online, as far as retail shopping goes, a lot of people don’t go out to Main Street anymore. They hop on to Amazon or whatever’s convenient for them from the convenience of their home or office. So as a chamber, Boyd Stough talked about in episode 121, about how a Chamber of Commerce is the best small business resource in there in your individual community. And the need to be able to to grasp on to the idea of that, and believe that, and I really do believe that for small businesses that are trying to hang on trying to plan for a future, that is a chamber of commerce, that you all of us, we have that responsibility to help these small businesses be successful. And chamber commerce is that great resource. That kind of piggybacking on Boyd styles episode was Jason Leslie in Episode 125. Jason is at the Alberta Chambers of Commerce in Canada. And he had talked about how with a program that they were working on with Boyd, to roll out a program for all of the chambers in the province of Alberta, to bring them online to have the same type of membership offerings, and certain membership offerings, but same type of expectation. So when somebody joins the chamber, they can know what to expect from it. But also, they’ve set up what’s called chamber market. So every chamber in the province of Alberta is online with chamber market now, it’s just recently rolled out. And it is a online retail store for any of their Chamber members of any of the chambers in the province of Alberta. And I know they’re rolling it out in other provinces as well. But this is definitely one of those ways that the chambers there in Alberta are really being an advocate to help future proof these small businesses and chambers for that matter going forward. So great job there.
Lesson #7
The number seven lesson learned is from Casey Steinbacher book From Relevant to Essential. And I had her on the show in Episode 106, where she talked about the book, and it’s a great episode to listen to. But if you haven’t read the book, go download it. It’s a Kindle version or a digital, I think it’s on other platforms too. But I read it on a Kindle. It’s pretty inexpensive. I don’t remember exactly what how much it was. But it I read it all in a day. So it’s a very easy read. But it really talking about future proofing chambers, it’s really making sure that chambers are around in the future going from just being relevant to being an essential staple in your community. And she talks a lot about becoming an influencer in your community. So it’s just a little bit of a teaser into into her book there. And if he listened to last week’s episode, Episode 152, I went into more detail about that book and shared some of the quotes that she had in the book that really impacted me.
Lesson #6
The number six lesson that I learned this year is that more chambers are getting into podcasting. And I know when the pandemic initially kicked off that I had a lot of chambers reaching out to me about wanting to start a podcast not knowing where to start. And it’s been fun over this last year is is some of those have gone online. And they’ve they have their show up and running now to be able to get some of that feedback from these chambers saying hey, I listened to you, like I was inspired by or whatever it may be. And even if it had nothing to do with me, or Chamber Chat Podcast, it’s the idea that chambers are grasping that medium for being able to share their message. And a couple of those that that stood out to me was Michael Huber in Episode 140. And he talked about the podcast that he spun off that’s not necessarily the podcasts for his chamber for the indie chamber, but it’s one that he does under his own on his own power, I guess you could say, but he does it in a way where he’s really highlighting the people of Andy and and the stories that need to be covered there. One of the other ones is B Kyle. And that was episode number 139. But that was a neat story about how she came up with the name. It’s BS Table Talk and and how she came up with the name of Table Talk. So you’ll have to go back and listen to that episode 139 If you’d like to hear that story, but also, I had last week’s episode was the chamber podcasting presentation that I did for the Nebraska chamber executives. And that was really spawned because Justice Rhoden, she, she does a podcast at her chamber. She’s a listener of of Chamber Chat. And she had reached out to me and she’s obviously sees the value of podcasting at her chamber and wanted to help other chambers really get on board and see catch the vision of podcasting. So that’s episode 152. If you wanted to listen to that one.
Lesson #5
The number five lesson that I learned this year is the importance of strategic strategic partnerships. And I don’t have a specific episode to reference for this one, I will mention that this theme came up a lot as I did the chamber, the year finalist series this year, which if you were to go back, and look, that would be episodes 129 through Episode 142, I believe. So if you wanted to go check out some of the things that are talked about around strategic partnerships in more detail. But the couple of things that stood out to me was how some of these chamber the year finalists, they all had to highlight their response to COVID to the pandemic and how they stepped up for their business community. And several of them had partnered with local banks, or small business development associations to be able to offer loans actually loans through the chamber. Because they had these strategic partnerships in place. So there’s definitely a lot to be learned there. Not that you need to always be available to offer loans or anything like that. But to be able to know some of these things are available. So the next time there is a big need like that, that you can be quick to pivot and take action. So those are definitely worth taking a listen to.
Lesson #4
The number four lesson that I learned this year is something that a lot of us have been learning about this year. And that is around the idea of diversity, equity and inclusion. And I think a lot of our eyes have been opened to some of the things that have been ignored for a long time or under appreciated. And just recently in Episode 151 Leonardo McClarty came on and on the podcast and he talked about adding a little twist to the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion conversation. And he’s talking more specifically about you know, reaching beyond just race and gender but you know, to look at veterans or women owned businesses and things like that, to be able to look around your chamber events, your luncheons, your gatherings and really ask yourself who it is that’s missing, and how you can reach out to their, their group their if as a chamber, you’re supposed to represent the voice of business in your community, what businesses are not being represented, and see what you can do to reach out and include them. And I’m grouping this other episode under the same umbrella of diversity, equity and inclusion. And that’s episode 109 with Matt Morrow, and he talked about the lessons he learned from the book, The Wisdom of Crowds, and how as a group, a diverse group of people together are way more intelligent than in any one individual. And I think the more diversity we can bring into our groups, or whether it’s a board or a committee, at your, at your organization, being able to have diversity, and that is going to make the outcome that much wiser, that much smarter.
Lesson #3
The number three lesson that I learned this year is the need of you international exposure, specifically for chamber chat podcast. And I’ll have to admit, when I first started the podcast, that I was doing it with the small chamber in mind, you know, the Chamber who doesn’t have a huge budget, who maybe is not a member of ACCE or even their state, or regional associations, to be able to provide a way to share Best Practices and resources to help them be more successful to better serve their members and community, as I say at the beginning of each episode, and I’ll have to admit that my focus was largely on these smaller Chambers in the United States. I figured there’s a lot of Chambers in the US and I have no shortage really of, of opportunity there to present to these smaller Chambers. Well, that quickly grew to chambers of all sizes in the States. It grew to where I’ve had a couple of Canadian interviews on the podcast, I had Adam leg in Episode 123. He was the former president CEO at the Calgary chamber. They had Jason Leslie on who’s at the Alberta chamber and Episode 125, as I mentioned before, but I had a great introduction with a man named Houssem Touil, he’s at the Tunisia Estonia Chamber. I had who saw him on the podcast in Episode 120, because he just recently put together a global chamber index, where he took a look at it, he invited Chambers from all over the world to participate. And really to find out what the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic has meant to them, have they gained members lost members revenue, the whole nine yards, went in depth in the survey, and produced a really good report that really showed all the results from that survey, and made sense of it. And having that introduction with Houssem has opened up the doors for Chamber Chat Podcast is he is introduced me to others and the international scale introduced me to someone at the International Chamber of Commerce. And in fact, on episode 145 I had some representatives from the International Chamber on the podcast to talk about the World Chambers Congress that was going to be happening in Dubai over Thanksgiving break. So hopefully some of you are able to log in, at least virtually I know, a couple of you may have went even when in person there. But that has really opened the door to chamber chat podcasts on an international level, which is way beyond my wildest dreams when I started this, to think that within three years of starting the podcast that I’d have a an international audience as well. I know that’s not super relatable to you at your Chamber. But that is a lesson that I learned this year. So I thought I would share that.
Lesson #2
The number two lesson that I learned and really there was a lot of lessons in this one. But it was out of the out of Dave Atkinson’s book, Horseshoes vs Chess. And I’m going to do a shameless plug for his book. It is the the most well written book that I’ve that I’ve read at least, that explains the purpose of a chamber of commerce, what a chamber should be doing, what a chamber executive should be doing. I think we all have acquaintances and friends and maybe even family members who are not in they’re not involved with chamber work at all. And they know that you work at a chamber of commerce, but they’ll inevitably ask, so what is the chamber and I know oftentimes, I’ll see people kind of stumble and not really know how to respond to that. But Dave Atkinson’s book horses versus chess really does paint that picture in a beautiful way. Where he compares he shares the the analogy that was shared with him when he first got into the industry, about how some will like in chamber work to game horseshoes, where you all you have to do is show up and throw the horseshoe kind of close to the target and you get a point. And compared that or contrast horseshoes, rather to the game of chess, where you have to as a chamber professional as a chamber executive specifically, you need to know the different pieces you need to know what they’re capable of, and what kind of moves they can make any likens the chess pieces to being economic development and education and tourism and all the different aspects that a chamber can have influence in in your community, and realizing that you can’t move all of those pieces at the same time and they don’t all do the same thing. But being able to learn how to control the pieces and the board to better move your community forward to win the game ultimately. So I highly recommend everyone get your hands on that book, Horseshoes vs Chess if you haven’t already.
Lesson #1
And then Finally, the number one lesson that I learned this year is that it’s time for me to make some pivots and some adjustments to, I guess the offerings that I put out there. So this is coming up on my third year anniversary of doing Chamber Chat Podcast. And it’s a blast, I enjoy it I, I really love interviewing people for the show, and getting to expand my network, getting to know Chamber professionals across the country and globally now, as I mentioned.
But I’ve had an idea that’s been presented to me, I’ve been able to percolate it on it some time, and decided that it’s something that I need to act on. So I’m still going to be doing Chamber Chat Podcast, very similar to how I’ve been doing it. But I’m also early 2022, I plan on releasing a brand new podcast, and I don’t have the name yet to put out there. But it is something that is going to be relatable, something that you’ll be able to use as a resource for your membership. And something that fits in line with the the mission of Chamber Chat Podcast, to better help your serve your members and your community. So please stay tuned for that I will make more of an announcement as a get some of the things ironed out some of those details. But I’m excited to have a new podcast offering. And I’ve got some other things in the works as well as far as new offerings to put out there to better help you serve your members in your community. But I’m also open to some suggestions. So if there’s something that you would like to see from me a way that I can better serve you. Please reach out to me my email address is brandon@chamberchatpodcast.com. And I would love any feedback and ways that I can better serve you. So with that, I wish you all a great New Year, bright futures for 2022. And I hope that you’re able to kind of take inventory of some lessons that you’ve learned this last year, and be able to to move forward in a bright future a good direction for 2022. So thank you for listening, and I look forward to chatting with you again next week.
Brandon Burton 30:28 If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.
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Below is an auto-generated transcription of a presentation that I recently shared with the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce Executives. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.
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Introduction
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
Voiceover Talent 0:10 community. And now, your host, he wonders what your favorite episode of the podcast has been. Here’s my dad Brandon Burton.
Brandon Burton 0:20 Hello, Chamber Champions. I am Brandon Burton, your host of Chamber Chat Podcast and it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.
Our title sponsor for this episode is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Is your chamber struggling to drive the revenue it needs to support your initiatives? It’s a common problem and one that our new title Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions knows a lot about Doug and Bill Holman aren’t just sales consultants. They’re real life chamber guys with 20 plus years of chamber leadership experience. They know how to diagnose and solve member recruiting issues faster and better than anyone else. And they’re ready to put that knowledge to work for you and your chamber. Call the Harmon Brothers today at 61985 to 1391. Or check them out at HolmanBros.com. That’s holmanbros.com.
Doug & Bill Holman know how to diagnose and solve member recruiting issues faster and better than anyone else, and the want to put that knowledge to work for you and your chamber. Learn more at HolmanBros.com.
I decided to do something a little different for this week’s episode. And in the past, I’ve I’ve done a couple book reviews where I kind of summarize books. I’ve shared a couple thoughts of my own in the past. But most of the episodes that I do, as you know is I interview other chamber professionals and get some of their insight and expertise on different topics. But for this episode, I’m playing a recording that I did with the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce executives group on a presentation that I’ve presented to them a couple months ago around podcasting and had the hows and whys and all the reasons I guess why a chamber should consider podcasting. So I want to put a shout out i Thank you to Justise Roden for inviting me to present to the Nebraska chamber executive group, and for that opportunity, but for this episode, I’ll just be playing the recording. Granted when I did the presentation live, it was over zoom. So I had a slide deck and everything on PowerPoint. I don’t think you need to see the visuals to get the concept and the overall ideas about why a chamber should consider podcasting. So I’m just I’m going to play the recording. You’re also welcome to visit the show notes page, which will be listed at the end of this episode, and have any links to anything that I mentioned. So with no further ado, we will get into the recording as soon as we get back from this quick break.
Are you looking for a year round affordable and timely shop local campaign for your chamber or CVB Look no further build a custom each shop play mobile app with App My Community by visiting appmycommunity.com/chamberchat. App My Community mobile apps are not just simple membership directory listings. They provide many more capabilities to engage with your community. Provide your residents with a robust events calendar partner with a local fare festival or Farmers Market provide a schedule map and other resources to promote the event. Run a Small Business Saturday campaign any time of the year using built in scavenger hunts allow your membership to communicate directly to their customers via push notifications. Your app my community mobile app will be a unique member benefit allow you to generate non dues revenue with sponsorship opportunities and best of all provide a valuable resource to your community please visit appmycommunity.com/chamberchat now to receive 10% off your first year of an App My Community mobile app.
App My Community creates mobile apps that allow you to engage directly with your community. Enhance chamber membership by providing a unique advertising and communication channel to residents and visitors. Not just a member directory, App My Community has the tools to be useful to residents on a daily basis. Learn more at appmycommunity.com/chamberchat.
My focus on this presentation today is going to be around chamber podcasting. And I’m curious how many of you on the call, have a podcast for your chamber. I just like to see how big the choir is that I’m preaching to see justice if if there’s others maybe even just, you know, put it in the chat. And I’d love to know the name of your podcasts. I can check it out afterwards.
But often as I come across somebody who isn’t familiar with podcasts, I don’t really come across that anymore. But about three years ago when I was kicking around the idea of starting a podcast, I had several people ask me what a podcast is. And the easiest way that I found to explain that was to think of a streaming platform kind of like Netflix, but For audio, so radio type of content in a streaming platform you can take with you anywhere. So a lot of ways I think it’s better than a Netflix platform because you can participate in a podcast while you’re doing lots of different things. But I’m going to try to share my screen and see if this will work too. Hopefully guys can all see that. So in this presentation today, I’ll be covering some of the stats, the reasons for having a podcast, the data, the ROI, and even a free resource as we get along in this. But as we start off, I don’t know how many of you let’s see, I’m not getting my slides to change. Here we go.
I don’t know how many of you have read Casey Steinbacher, his new book From Relevant to Essential. It’s a quick read, fantastic book. But in it, one of the main points that she makes is how chambers need to accept their role as an influencer in their community. And she tells the story of the 16 year old girl who sits in her bedroom with a laptop, a cell phone and a camera, and makes a million dollars a year as a social media influencer, telling other young women how to apply makeup and what clothes to wear. And Casey kind of correlates this to chambers being influencers, and pointing out the fact that chambers need to figure out how to monetize their influence in their communities. So in this example, this teenage girl, her platform was social media. Whereas a chamber you can have a lot of different platforms. But I’d like to explore podcasting as a platform for you. You may not realize it, but I will be presenting today with Casey Steinbacher as I share some of the quotes from her new book, because she’s just full of great value. So some of the quotes just to get us started. She says in just about every leadership book ever written, the ability to influence is valued as a key trait of great leaders. chambers have been slow to understand both the value of influencers and the role of content. And lastly, if the mission is prosperous communities, and the key strategy is transformational influence, then the core tactic for successful execution of that strategy is constant, high quality, diverse community nuanced, widely distributed content. So with that, let’s get into some of the stats with podcasting. So 75% of the US population is familiar with the term podcasting. Half of US households are podcast fans. 16 million people in the US are avid podcast fans, I think I would fall into that category as I subscribe to several different podcasts. But I find the age of the podcast listeners interesting. So a lot of those listeners fall into those age demographics of like the millennials and Gen Xers. So as you try to think of content and staying relevant to those upcoming generations, podcast could be a very effective way to do that. And some of these other stats just cover like income levels, and education, so forth, for podcast listeners, which could come in handy when you go about getting sponsorships for a podcast. But listener habits. So some of these stats are pretty intriguing. So 90% of podcasts are listened to while at home 64% of podcast listeners listen while driving. The big stat that stands out to me is this 93% listened to all or most of each episode, which is huge. If you think of your engagement on your social media platforms or your email content opens of your your emails that have 93% of your listeners listen to all or most of your content is outstanding. And then 65% of podcast listeners had been listening for less than three years. So this is a newer medium that people are adopting, and and kind of jumping on to. And then the most popular genres for podcasts are comedy, education and news. I’m not sure where a chamber falls in necessarily as far as a genre goes. But I think definitely could could fall under Education and news as you talk about what’s going on in your community and in keeping your community up to date. But hopefully it can be engaging and maybe maybe you can mix some comedy into your podcast as well. But I’m going to run down just real quickly. 10 reasons why you should maybe consider having a podcast for your chamber. So one would be to engage your members and your community at large to spread The mission and purpose of your chamber to promote and share your advocacy efforts to showcase your business community, to introduce your audience to their chamber leaders. I know a lot of times chamber leaders may may kind of seem untouchable, you can’t get time in front of them. But maybe being on a podcast can help connect with your community to encourage discussions for good in your community, to introduce a new source of non dues revenue, to leverage existing programs and events that your chambers already doing, to introduce a new offering to your tier dues model, and to be a resource for educating your membership. So let’s talk about engagement. I like to use this example this yellow highlighter exercise. So if you were to print out a list of all of your Chamber members and go through with the yellow highlighter to mark up the list, and anybody who has any level of engagement with your chamber, whether it’s you know, they attend all the luncheons and networking events, or they’re a sponsor of some program, maybe they are frequent commenter on your social media posts, whatever engagement if you just mark up that list, and then figure out what percentage of your membership does not engage on a regular basis. Now, Casey is quote on this slide here says that a few, a select few will engage in active leadership and support of the chamber. But most are too busy and appropriately focused on growing their own businesses to have more than a transactional interest with the chamber. And this is where I see podcasting fitting in because I call by podcast is a net activity, it requires no extra time to listen, you can listen while you walk the dog while you drive the car while you fold the laundry. Whatever you’re doing, maybe not while you’re engaging with your members. But anything outside you can, you can be listening to a podcast at the same time. You can also hold different contests to engage your membership. And maybe the winner of a contest can have a Business Spotlight or an interview on your podcast. And next podcast can be used to connect with your community. And Casey’s quote here says that chambers need a much larger platform and audience than it currently has. It needs to talk more frequently to the larger community and not just limit its conversations to the business community. And for that matter, primarily just its members. So I like the idea of having a a name for your podcast that is inclusive of the entire community. I used a couple examples here on this slide of chambers that I found that that have podcasts that that reflect that their names of their podcasts kind of reflect their greater community. So the first one is, It’s Happening in The Haven. So this is the Winter Haven, Florida Chamber. And nowhere on this cover artwork, do you see the name of their chamber, but you do see a guitar you see, you know, the fun and activities and events. So if I’m a resident of Winter Haven, Florida, I want to listen to this podcast to know what’s going on in my community. So I think that’s a great job that they’re doing there. The second example that I have on here is the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce. Their podcast is called B’s Table Talk. So their president and CEO is B Kyle. So I recently had be interviewed for my podcast, and she explained the name of their podcast to me, which I thought was interesting. She said, if you can imagine when you’re at Thanksgiving dinner, and your nephew brings his new girlfriend to Thanksgiving, everybody in the family, they all kind of scooch and they make room at the table for the newcomer. And she said that’s the goal for their podcasts in their community is to scooch and and bring, you know, newcomers to the table. So everybody has a voice and a inability to to talk there. So I thought that name was fantastic. It takes a little bit of explaining but once you get it, it really resonates. But your podcast can be an entertaining wait for your community to be in the loop while also learning thing a few new things at the same time. And you can introduce your your audience to new businesses in your community as well.
So we’ve all heard that Chambers need to be storytellers. What uh, what better platform is there for telling stories than a podcast? So you can interview your members and entrepreneurs to learn how and why they started their business. You can have valued members come on your podcast to tell the story of how the chamber has been there to serve them and help them through maybe a difficult time. You can have fun with things like National Donut Day, there’s a day for everything. So you can have, in this example, maybe a local bakery or donut shop, come on the podcast and just have some fun with it to engage your your greater community. You can use your platform to tell about your advocacy efforts. You know, let your community know what you’re doing on their behalf. And show your diversity, equity and inclusion efforts by interviewing all segments of your community. So the KC quote here is that chambers need to understand how to engage and activate more voices in that larger platform, their bigger audience, help them feel welcome to the conversation and that their voices matter. See, so create valuable content. So I love this, the quote that Casey has here says your meaningful content provides an incentive for your audience to share their influence with their network on your behalf, which is, and we’ve all heard of things going viral on social media, and so forth. So if you create good, valuable content, then your audience will create the legs for that to get out deeper into your community. But you can take some trainings and programs you already have at your chamber and maybe repurpose those into a podcast episode or vice versa, you might have a good podcast episode that you can repurpose in other ways. You can provide some how to lessons to give your listeners a quick win. So for example, maybe you start off each episode with some type of a social media tip that they can pull up their phone because their chances are they’re already listening on their phone, and they can pull it up and do whatever tip you’re telling them on social media and, and have that quick win to have them coming back for more. And I love this point here is that you can create an immense amount of goodwill, by shining light on a certain business or even a potential community partner by having them on the podcast and learning more about them sharing their story in your community that that goodwill is kind of immeasurable. And next we’ll, we’ll talk about non dues revenue, we all want to see what what can a podcast do for your chamber, right. So as we get in this conversation of non dues revenue, I’d like to think of there’s also non mana, non monetizing monetization and qualitative objectives such as re engaging members who haven’t been participating for some time, but maybe they hear your podcast and say I didn’t realize that the Chamber does XYZ, whatever it may be. But as far as non dues revenue go, you can leverage your podcast for existing programs and events by promoting them on your podcast increase attendance and or sales. You can teach business owners how to podcast, you can rent out your podcast studio or equipment. And of course, there’s sponsorship and advertising as well. And the KC quote around revenue is as you create content and use it effectively to monetize your influence in your community.
The some advertising stats around podcasting, hopefully this, this resonates with you, but 81% of podcast listeners pay attention to podcast ads. As you compare that to other media. 63% say they ignore TV commercials 66% Ignore digital ads. 61% Ignore billboards and 59% Ignore radio commercials. But 60% of podcast listeners have bought something from a podcast and even stretch that out a little more 72% of people who’ve listened to a podcast for four or more years have made a purchase. And Casey says it consistent high quality and engaging content influences audience decision making more than any other technique. And again, that goes back to being an influencer and being able to talk about these brands that you might have as a sponsor and and things like that to to really get people to make that decision to make a purchase. Now, I recently conducted a chamber podcasting survey. I looked up as many chambers as I could find that had a podcast. There’s not a whole lot right at the moment and again, it is a newer, newer platform, but of those that I that I got survey responses back from about half of those surveyed said that their target audience for their podcast is their community at large. And then the other half was kind of split up between being directed directly towards members and the other towards the general business community. 80% of the chamber surveyed have had their podcasts for less than two years. And that I saw a big uptick with chambers through the COVID shut downs, where they’re trying to find a way to stay engaged with their membership. And a lot of chambers did pivot to podcasting to stay connected, continue providing valuable content to to help their their businesses through that bet crazy time. And time spent. So of those surveyed 68% of the chambers that have a podcast spend between one to three hours a week on their podcast, so it’s not terribly labor intensive. And chambers of every size, are are in the podcasting game now. So the excuse of I’m just a one person show at my chamber, I’m too small, it’s not true chambers of every size are in this and succeeding at it as well. And then the format of podcasts. So 82% of chambers surveyed said that they do an interview based podcast. And all the rest had a combination of either sharing information or repurposing chamber programs and having interviews. So in the end, 100% of the chamber surveyed have some type of an interview based podcast which helps on creating the content so it’s not on you, as a chamber to create the content for each episode. Now the monthly expenses. I’m curious what what you guys would think monthly expenses would be for a podcast. With this survey, 65% of the chamber surveyed spend less than $20 a month on their podcast. So it’s not very time labor intensive, again, one to three hours and for most chambers less than $20 a month. And then the monetization side of it. Not a whole lot of chambers had figured out or applied monetization to their podcast yet only about 17% have about 35% say they would like to and about half of the chambers surveyed said that they don’t monetize your podcast. So whether that’s a choice, or they just haven’t gone down that road yet. I’m not sure I need to dig in deeper to that answer. But of those that are monetizing their podcasts, they’re seeing between five to $10,000 a year, income generated from their podcasts. And I imagine that number will will only increase the more the podcasting becomes popular light popular, I can’t say that word becomes more popular.
But I do have a free gift or resource for you guys. So during the the beginning stages of the shutdowns with COVID. I was thinking as I was about a year into my podcast at that point, and I was thinking of all the chambers that I work with, and how are they going to stay in contact with their members and help, you know, get information out there. So I put together a free chamber podcasting guide. It’s a downloadable PDF that goes over the software to be used for podcasting, the hosting platforms, the equipment, and resources for all of that as well as an outline to kind of structure your first 10 episodes. So if you would like to check it out, you can access that link there chamber chat podcast.com/pivot There’s some other things on that page. But you can look for that cover of the chamber podcasting guide to request request your free copy. And of course I would love to connect with with any of you that are on this call. My contact information is there my email, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. And of course, I would love it for you guys to subscribe to my podcast. So if you wanted to check out your your podcast app on your phone and search for chamber chat podcast, hit subscribe and you’ll get a new episode each week in your your podcast app. But with that we can open it up for questions.
Unknown Speaker 24:42 Brandon that was That was fantastic. I feel like he just literally gave us a playbook here in Seward County. So thank you. Thank you. I am I am curious. For those that have smaller chambers, I mean hat maybe give a couple of like easy way to wait easy ways to get started, because I think I was probably even overwhelmed with this concept until we had an awesome summer intern that put some of this stuff together for us. Sure. Do you have like a like a 101? Like people don’t even know what equipment to get or any of that stuff? Can you? Can you kind of briefly walk through some tips and tricks there?
Brandon Burton 25:22 Yeah, absolutely. And I just shared the my slides as well in the chat. So if anybody wants to access that, there’s some hot links on there for for some of the things that I covered. But I know a lot of chambers got into really upping up upping their social media game, especially through COVID doing live videos and things of that nature, some, you know, invested in doing YouTube videos, and they invested in in some equipment, you know, cameras and microphones, and so forth. And a lot of the equipment that you may already have around your office could work for doing a podcast. I’m, I mean, the sound quality is important. But you can get a I mean, even the microphone I’m using here at this is like $100 for the microphone and the arm and everything and it works great. And actually have a link to this microphone in the chamber podcasting guide. So the equipment, so there’s there are some, some hosting platforms, there’s one that’s called an anchor, that’s a free podcast hosting platform, which means that’s where you would upload your mp3 for each episode. And then it sends it out to all the different podcast directories to be downloaded. And anchor is a it is a free podcast hosting platform. And I’ve seen a lot of chambers utilize a anchor because it is free, so it fits the budget really well. The other ones that I know are good I use Libsyn is my hosting platform. And another good one that I’ve heard a lot of good things about is Buzzsprout. So both Libsyn and Buzzsprout are at pay for hosting platform Lipson, I spend, I think $15 a month to host. But when I was personally trying to decide what hosting platform to use, finger a lot of times on the free platforms, you kind of get what you pay for, although you get a lot with the anchor platform. So my son 15 years old, he’s he started a podcast and he uses anchor, like man, he got some good resources on there. But I get a little bit leery on the free platforms just because at any time that’s that model can change. And oftentimes, you’re giving away your rights to your content as well when it’s a free platform. So as long as I’m paying for it 15 bucks a month, I know it’s mine, I’ve got full control over it. For me it was worth that investment. So if you’re looking to to pay I think Lipson like for a decent package is about $15 a month, I think by sprouts around 20. So
Unknown Speaker 28:15 hey, Brandon, I have a question about like editing. Because we have our podcast and it. We sit down with our members for about an hour, go through an hour of content, and kind of edit down all those arms oz or anything that like sounds weird because like I’m used to it. And I probably spend three hours editing one podcast. I just was curious how long it takes you stop
Brandon Burton 28:45 it? No. No. So what I do, I record the majority of my interviews over zoom, because I used to use Skype a lot. And through the pandemic, everybody became familiar with Zoom overnight, and that nobody uses Skype anymore. But people understand how zoom works. I record on Zoom. And then I edit in a program called audacity, which is it’s a free editing platform that’s pretty user friendly once you get the hang of it. As far as the editing of it goes, I tell my guests right up front. I say I try to keep this raw, we keep it real. I don’t go through and edit out all the VMs and and and I mean sometimes there’s a reason to, I try to make sure that at least the introduction of the podcast is clean. But once we get into the meat of it, I just keep it raw and just just keep it going. You figure if it was video, you’re not going to go through and cut out all the ads and ohms because it’s chopping up the video too. So just just keep it real. Just get the sound quality right so it’s not too loud and too quiet.
Unknown Speaker 30:01 What would you recommend is the best target length of a podcast session?
Brandon Burton 30:07 Yeah, that’s a great question. So one of the things I encourage anyone to do who is creating a podcast is they say create your avatar, think about who your target audience is. And when is that prime time that they would be listening? So it may be some guessing on the front end as to who that audience is until you can get some feedback. But try to think about when that primetime is, if it’s on their drive to or from work, how long is their commute? Is it five or 10 minutes? If they’re going to be listening, when they’re out walking the dog, maybe 2030 minutes. I think beyond 3035 minutes, it kind of gets intimidating. You know, I know myself, I have some podcasts that I love. I mean, the content is great. But every now and then I see an hour and 45 minute episode, and I just don’t have the time today. And then it gets chopped up over several days of listening. And I’d rather get it all in one or two sittings. So I would say try to target for sure under the 3035 minute mark, but it may be quite a bit shorter than that to
Unknown Speaker 31:15 time. Because I am a fan of your podcast. What is your personal favorite or most memorable?
Brandon Burton 31:24 Oh, man, most favorite and most most memorable? So there’s been a lot of good ones. And that’s the politically correct answer, right. But I did I really enjoyed. They’re almost around the same time, and I’m gonna narrow it down to two. Because about the same time Dave Atkinson was coming out with his book, horseshoes versus chess, and Casey Steinbacher, with her book relevant to essential so I think it was within a week or two that I had them both on the podcast. And they both just bring so much knowledge of a career in the industry. And packaging it in a book that is so well done. They they both delivered a ton of content in those episodes. Another one that I really enjoyed was with Toby teeter from the Joplin chamber. And he was talking about how they use social media for their economic development and employee attraction to their to the Joplin area. And that was that was very fascinating. So they got really techy, it might be more than what most people are willing to dive into. But I really enjoyed that one. Thanks for being a fan to justice. Appreciate it. All right. I hope you enjoyed the chamber podcasting presentation that I did to the Nebraska chamber executives, it really was a blast to be able to do something like that it was the first time that I really presented in that type of format, but definitely open to doing it for others as well. So if you have a chamber group in your region, or your state that you would like to consider having me present to feel free to reach out to me, my email address is Brandon at chamber chat podcast.com. But in the episode, or I guess in the recording of that presentation, I did reference a couple of free resources. And I know I put them out there before. But I do have a free chamber podcasting guide that is accessible to anybody who’s who wants that and really just kind of helps to chart out your first 10 episodes, and tells you all the software and you know the ins and outs of how to how to get started. But I also recently conducted a survey, a chamber podcasting survey where I reached out to many chambers, who I know had a podcast to get some insight and feedback from them about the value of podcasting to them. There’s a lot of very insightful data in that and I’ve referenced some of that in the presentation. But if you want access to either the chamber podcasting guide or those survey results, you can find them at chamberchatpodcast.com/pivot But as usual, the show notes for this episode will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode152 And it’s been a pleasure presenting this this chamber podcasting presentation with you today. Hope you found a lot of value out of it. And even if you don’t decide to make the jump into podcasting, hopefully at least opens up your mind to other ways to become an influencer among the business community in your region. So with that, I will let you go and look forward to gotten with you again next week.
Brandon Burton 30:28 If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.
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Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Leonardo McClarty. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.
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Introduction
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.
Voiceover Talent 0:13 And now your host. He thinks positive affirmations are important playing and you are awesome. He’s gonna get Brandon Burton.
Brandon Burton 0:23 Hello Chamber Champions. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host Brandon Burton, and it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.
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Guest Introduction
Our guest for this episode is Leonardo McClarty is the president and CEO of the Howard County Chamber of Commerce in Maryland. His specific duties are largely centered in four distinct areas organizational leadership and business development, marketing and program management, public policy and Community Relations and fiscal management. Prior to coming to Howard County, Leonardo was director of economic and community development for the city of York, Pennsylvania, where he was responsible for promoting the city to the private sector and efforts to foster economic investment and neighborhood redevelopment. With his within his purview, were bureaus of economic development, help housing and planning, permits, zoning, and native of the Atlanta area. Leonardo served as president and CEO of the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce for nearly 10 years. A career economic development professional Leonardo has also worked for the city of Roswell, Georgia, to Cobb County, Georgia, and the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. He holds an undergraduate degree in political science from Furman University and a graduate degree in city and regional planning from Clemson University. He is a certified chamber executive through ACC, certified economic development finance professional through the National Development Council, and is a graduate of the US chambers Institute for organizational management. Leonardo is married to Shamika. And they have three daughters, Leonardo,
I’m excited to have you with me today, here on chamber chat podcast, I’d like to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that we have out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.
Something Interesting About Leonardo
Leonardo McClarty 3:15 Thank you, Brandon for having me. And definitely looking forward to this conversation and his chat. I always enjoy talking about the profession, and just my experiences and things I’ve perhaps been able to do or witness and even just learning just as we have these dialogues. And so I guess something maybe interesting, you know, former college football player played running back for farmer. And so definitely, I’m a Paladin, and so continue to to root on my alma mater, which plays in the Southern Conference. And then while they’re also had a radio show, and so my roommate and I, we, we had a hip hop show back in the early 90s. And so it’s seems to be a long time ago now. But that’s a little bit about me that maybe some folks would know.
Brandon Burton 4:07 That was the good old days of hip hop right there.
Leonardo McClarty 4:11 Yeah, and it actually it actually, you know, was it’s funny sometimes, you know, you’re sounding Oh, when you find when you start saying, Oh, I don’t listen to that anymore. anymore. You know, I guess the same way that our parents talked about, you know, they was, I guess sometimes they were stuck in the 70s. And I feel like I’m maybe stuck in the 90s Yeah, yeah, I
Brandon Burton 4:31 catch myself doing the same thing as I see, like, tick tock and stuff, you know, all these social media things and like, what a waste of time, you know, and, you know, older generations are looking at Facebook saying the same thing. So it’s, it happens with every generation, you know, it was rock and roll was going to be the downturn of society. And yeah, we’re still here. So share with us a little bit about the Howard County Chamber just to give us some perspective. Before we jump into our topic today, I’d like to get an idea of, you know, staff size, your chamber budget, that sort of thing.
About the Howard County Chamber
Leonardo McClarty 5:06 Yeah. So, so Howard County Chamber, we’re here and actually Columbia, Maryland. And so Columbia is actually situated in a greater Baltimore area. And so we’re right around the i 95. Corridor, where roughly about maybe 15 miles or so south of Baltimore, and then we’re about 30 miles or so. I guess that would be north of DC. And so if anything, as a community, probably in particular, Colombia, really grew heavily in the 80s. And kind of part of it was because it was it kind of served as a good in between place between Baltimore and DC. And for those that may, you know, be Greek government officials and also maybe doing something medical wise in Johns Hopkins, or, or what have you, as a community, we are about maybe a little over 300,000 as a county. So chamber wise, we have about 630 members, including myself, it’s six of us on staff. And so been around organizationally, I think we’re in our maybe 52nd 53rd year. And so budget wise we are we sit somewhere around about maybe around that 1000, close to a million dollars. Okay. Well, that
Brandon Burton 6:36 does help give some perspective. Both you know, where you are geographically in Maryland, but also the size of your chamber? And what type of chamber do you guys do economic development? Do you do tourism and just chamber what type of chamber don’t
Leonardo McClarty 6:52 want to just chamber one of the things I think that perhaps many of the listeners are fine, maybe adventurous or unique, depending on where you are? Maryland is probably and what I found, so as it was mentioning, a random chamber in DeKalb. County, Georgia, you know, now, I guess, gosh, that term ended, I guess about sometime in 2014. And, you know, so I would say when you get to kind of Richmond, Virginia, south, southwest, going into the Midwest, it’s not uncommon for chambers to do economic development, it’s not uncommon for even chambers to maybe have a tourism program or even sometimes a leadership program. Whereas what I’ve found that’s been interesting is probably Richmond, Virginia, North, particularly as you get into Maryland. Very few chambers here, do economic development, the tourism, a lot of places, even the leadership program to separate our leadership program here started as a part of our chamber, sometime in the maybe the mid 80s. And that kind of spun out on its own, I guess, might have been in the 90s or something. So you still have a close relationship with leadership, our county with our tiny tourism or Economic Development Authority, but as a chamber itself, we just do with just the chamber.
Brandon Burton 8:12 All right. Well, that does help. But I find this our topic for today’s is intriguing. Obviously, you know, across the country as diversity equity inclusion is kind of top in my top of mind for most chambers, I would say across the country. We’re going to take a little twist to the standard approach of DNI and we’ll get into this discussion as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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Topic-DE&I with a Twist
Alright Leonardo we are back. So for our discussion today talking about DE and I with a twist And I, I’ve been wanting to cover this topic for some time. And a lot of episodes, we’ve touched on it, but we haven’t had, you know, this be the the main focus. But I’m excited to have you with me today to talk about this this topic. From your perspective, what is what does DNI with a twist mean to you, but maybe just in general DEI and then we’ll add the twist on, you know, a little bit later.
Leonardo McClarty 10:30 So, so typically, when you talk about DNI, or diversity, equity and inclusion, obviously, you’re talking about it from the lens of particularly, you’re taking into account maybe gender, race and ethnicity, you’re talking about, perhaps sexual orientation. But it’s normally those facets, certainly some might even we then perhaps, if you’re differently abled, or, or maybe even, there’s another one that escapes me. But that’s generally when people talk about diversity, equity and inclusion, when I think about it with a twist, I think is adding other components to it. In a sense of particular, from a chamber perspective, recognizing that one, we either are charged with serving a city, multiple cities, county, sometimes, you know, state. And so we’ve got to take into account all of these other facets. And sometimes maybe that’s geographic location, maybe that is the size of business. Maybe even in this age, maybe it’s age, it’s ultimately trying to be, you know, trying to recognize that there are just all of these different components, and that at the end of the day, I like to say, people like to be able to identify the folks that look like them, and look like them can be a lot of different things, it doesn’t always mean, you know, again, that I identify because it’s a male speaking, but maybe it’s the fact that it’s a small business owner, and I run a small business. And so that’s kind of the twist component.
Brandon Burton 12:13 I think that’s great. As we get into this topic, you know, I see whether it’s the media culture, or whatnot, the world loves to put labels on people, right. And, to your point, I think, as we look in programming, or even speakers for different events, your participants that are there, they, they would like to hear from somebody that they can relate to somebody who’s walked in their shoes, somebody who sees the world in a similar way as they do. But I think a lot of this also goes to kind of what the purpose of your chamber is, what that ideal goal is, because I think in the end, most chambers aren’t looking at the world through the lens of, you know, we’ve got 16 Different groups of people. But we have one business community, you know, we’re trying to further the development of our community, we want to bring people together rather than divide. But I think part of that, to your point is, in order to bring people together, you have to have some of these segments to say, look, this person is part of this greater organization. And they’re like you in these ways, is that kind of how you that’s how I see it, as you’re explaining
Leonardo McClarty 13:39 it. No, it is, I think, if anything, perhaps maybe another way of saying it, and maybe even easier way of saying truly being able to answer the question who was missing? You know, we we like to say in the chamber world that we are the voice of business. And so if you’re the voice of business, how can you be the voice of businesses, if not all businesses there? And so I think about it as an example, you know, a few years ago, we were doing what we call it our vision for 2020, which is a three year strategic plan at the time. And one of the things that we recognize as an example and Howard County, we are a very diverse community. And yet, as a chamber, we didn’t have necessarily that much diversity. I mean, yeah, we had this is getting into the more traditional stuff. But yeah, we had, you know, white businesses and black businesses and we had, you know, women and what have you, but specifically as a community. I would say we probably have, you know, four distinct kind of ethnic groups, if you will, you know, we’ve got white black, but then we’ve got specifically a large Indian population and a large Asian In population, and so much so that there’s double, it’s double digits across the four. And then if you go and start breaking down aging into, you know, whether that’s Korean, Chinese, what have you, and so forth. But we said, we don’t have a lot of the other parts of the business community represented. And then it was kind of why, you know, so then it became a case of just trying to be more intentional about first listing this try to reach out to these other groups, and we started to want a multicultural networking event, just have nothing else to create a safe space for people that because what we ended up finding, when we spoke as an example to I think it was one of the Korean groups, they had members that wanted to move beyond just doing business, just amongst themselves, particularly if they were second generation, and maybe felt some hesitancy as to how do I quote, penetrate the larger business community? We had other members in the larger, more, I guess you could say motto with the chamber that had interest in other populations. And again, everybody’s trying to figure out, well, how do I get invited to their dance? And so we said, Okay, well, you know what, let’s create a dance that we invite everybody to. And so we did the first mixer where we had a couple of Indian groups we had, like the Korean society, we had our tourism partner, we had, I think, the Hispanic Chamber, we had the Maryland LGBTQ chamber, we probably had about 100 plus people there. And it was truly kind of this melting pot thing. And so I think, you know, again, with that, it was one just recognizing that, first and foremost, to your point, if we are about and as we talked about offline, if our job is to promote commerce to promote industry, the job creators, increase the tax base, be that true advocate for private industry, private enterprise. And we’re going to say, on our business cards and mission statements, that written voice of business, how can we truly be that voice? If not, everybody has a seat at the table?
Brandon Burton 17:20 Absolutely. And you hit on so many great things there, I was thinking, you know, a lot of chambers do a really good job at highlighting the women in business, and they have a great programming around women in business. And I think we’re seeing more and more of an effort to reach out to other other demographics that fit within business ownership. But when you talk about who’s missing, you know, if I’m in Texas, you know, and in Texas, we get a lot of Hispanic populations. And a lot of times you don’t get a whole lot of the Hispanic business owners as members of the chamber. Maybe they don’t see the value proposition they don’t, I don’t know, you know, what all the reasoning is necessarily behind all of it. But you had mentioned about these different segments, wondering how do I get invited to their dance? And it made me wonder, you know, are our most of these people asking how do I get invited? Or do I even want to be invited? Like, where are they on that spectrum? Yeah, yes. For me, what does it has?
Leonardo McClarty 18:28 Yeah, good. And I would say that it’s probably a little bit of both. I mean, and I think, you know, I’ve used this other analogy at times, you know, we may not ultimately increase our membership amongst these other diverse populations. But I say sometimes it’s one thing for me to stand on the front steps of say, of my porch, and to say, hey, you know, the doors open come in. And then you have a choice on whether or not you want to come in or not. It’s another thing for me to sit inside the living room. And the door is open. And I just kind of say, well, you know, the doors open. But I haven’t necessarily invited you and you haven’t seen me to say, look, come on in. You’re welcome. And I think if nothing else, I think that’s one of the big things in which, you know, different types of some groups were when they were they kind of a wondering, do I really want to be invited? It’s a case of, you know, have we created as a general chamber, an atmosphere, where we actually say, look, you’re welcome. We’d love to have you and I’ve got a board member, she’s actually gonna be my chair next year. And it was interesting, when she first interview and she, you know, to come on the board, one of the things she talked about with sometimes that that perception that we deal with is chambers, and a sense of maybe not being Open, you know, in some cases to just, you know, the other weather small businesses or coops that haven’t been necessarily in the know or in the loop. And so she challenged us to create an even more welcoming environment. And she even says, hey, if I’m on the board, I see chamber events, much like a dinner party at my house. And I find that if you if I invite you to my home, but I walk around to all the guests saying, hey, look, how are you doing? Maybe to anything else that drink and get something else to eat? Are you fine? Are you comfortable? And she was like, we have to create that same type of atmosphere, when people come to our events, as opposed to, as a previous chair said, when he used to be involved in chamber, he said, I would go to these events, and a joke would be told, and other people knew the punch line. And I did. Yeah. And so you know, so I think it’s just one of those being, you know, conscious of our perceptions. And whether they’re real or not constantly having to fight, you know, the perception of the I think I’ve even written a couple pieces here. As an example, when I would hear all the chamber still has all been. And it’s like, well, have you seen our website lately? That, you know, we’ve got about a 32 member board, and literally half of them are women. You know, and it’s like, you know, it’s not that, and I think I titled the piece that not to check not your father’s chamber, or something to that effect,
Brandon Burton 21:32 you know,
Leonardo McClarty 21:33 so I think we have to just tackle some of these perception issues head on, to really try to, to change, because I think, lastly, as we look at particularly, millennials, especially Z, you know, Gen Z, they are truly all about looking for inclusive organizations and seeing who’s being left out. And because we all, you know, fundamentally as we strive to grow, as an industry, and as we try to grow our respective chambers, I think we have to be conscious that it’s going to be hard to attract the younger generation if they see us being standoffish for, perhaps not being open minded to alternative box. And so cool.
Brandon Burton 22:23 Absolutely. And for me that the big takeaway is being able to, can have that outreach to these business owners of different diverse backgrounds, and sharing the messaging that the Chamber has for them, that you have valued offer to them. And let me show you how, you know, and then tying it in somehow that’s relatable to them, that they can see oh, there’s other people like me, there’s other people that that I can relate to. And it’s not just an exclusive membership for, for whatever the perceived, yeah, vision is from that business.
Leonardo McClarty 23:03 And Brandon, I think the other P That’s key is that the thing that they have in common is that, hey, we own a business. We employ people, we have payroll to make we tax. Right. And so, you know, so I think, you know, if anything is kind of, you know, trying to bring out that look, you know, you know, at the foundational levels, this is what we have in common, you know, that we all are struggling to make sense of some of the stuff that’s taking place, whether it’s in a regulatory environment, or just dealing with supply chain issues, or labor shortages, or what have you. And we can
Brandon Burton 23:45 learn from each other. Yeah, there’s a lot of issues that affect all of us, it doesn’t matter where you are in the community affects all of us is if you’re a business owner. So you shared the example of having your multicultural networking event, as there have been other successful outreach opportunities that you guys have had there that might be good to share with others listening.
Leonardo McClarty 24:10 The other thing that I would say that’s probably that we’ve done is I have internally this little matrix when we go through our board nomination process. And it’s kind of just an informal tool that I use, again, getting back not we’re factoring in this twist component, where I’m literally writing down everything from, you know, obviously, you got the, you know, the person and it’s easy to determine whether or not they’re, well. I’m gonna say we’ve phrased the statement. But you know, you’ve got, you’ve got the gender element, they may have an ethnicity piece, but then I’m writing down to their small business mid sized business for, you know, are they small business, where are they located? Did the county even down to now we’re looking at what’s their, their age group. And, and so we’ve been fortunate that we don’t necessarily deviate from our process our processes our process, but at the same time, were these conscious of, okay, if we’re bringing on five or six board members, you know, are we bringing, you know, bringing in maybe three men to weapon or two women and three men, you know, are we bringing in? Wow, okay, we’ve got a couple of boomers here, we’ve got lineal we’ve got to Jen’s ears. You know, one of the things I was sharing is just the fact that people like to be able to, you know, have something that they can relate to the other person. And so sometimes when people look at the board, and if they’re folks that they respect, and the community and our business community, and you’re younger in your career, and you say, Wow, she looks like she’s about my age, or we went to college together, how does she get on the board? or what have you, you at least feel like okay, well, you know, what, I, there, I don’t have to wait until maybe, you know, at this level within the company, or what have you before I have an opportunity, maybe to be on the chamber board. So. So it’s it’s those things that I’ve been really proud of over the last five or six years that we’ve been very conscious on, is again, classically asked that question, who’s missed? In some cases in industry, like we recognize last year, when we went for, I guess, it was earlier this year, going through our process, because our board development piece, people come on the board effective June one. And so we were looking at earlier this spring, and we recognize, okay, we don’t have any restaurant tours on the board. And so we brought this one board member on, she was what I call the three, four. He was a woman, she was a small business. And she was a restaurant tour. So And technically, she’s probably a Gen X. Whereas, you know, when we brought our YPN rep on, he was a guy. He’s I think, maybe Pacific Asia, he’s AAPI. He’s a millennial, you know, so he’s, I mean, so it wasn’t necessarily that we were trying to fill the slots. It’s just the fact that, you know, we had criteria, people met the criteria, they were in certain roles within the chamber already. And when we went back and looked at them, he said, Wow, we met all of these different goals. And so for me, it’s just a case of actually charting it. And something I think you’ve heard me say, offline is being intentional, I mean, I think are the same, you know, what gets measured gets done. And so I think actually measuring, you know, where we are. And lastly, what I would say is, you know, in some communities, you may not have as much ethnic diversity, but you’ve got diversity in terms of where your business is located. You’ve got diversity in terms of how you the size of business, or maybe the type of industry. You know, I think we’ve all heard if you’ve been in the chamber industry for a while. And here is I think, for me, I’ve got now almost, I guess, about 17 years in business. And you’ll constantly hear oh, chambers, just from the big guys. Well, 7870 80% of our members probably have 25 employees or less. So if you’re dealing even with just that stigma, oh, okay, well, then let’s take a look at who do I have speak? And where, who’s on my board? You know, am I addressing kind of the stigmas? And again, it doesn’t always have to be around, you know, racial components. It could be around again, industry, business size, geography, what happened?
Brandon Burton 29:06 So I love the great example you share, for sure. I love that the age component that you bring into it, and I think it, it cuts both ways. You know, there’s other young professionals and see, oh, this, you know, I relate to this person, but then you have the older generations that can see this younger generation, say, I thought these were just people lived in their mom’s basement, that this person knows what they’re talking about, you know, breaks down those stigmas. And I love that. When you talk about being intentional, and like who speaks How do you do incorporate that into the outreach somehow. So if somebody is not a member, but you have a young professional to try to open that up and invite some business owners that are younger, how do you go about that?
Leonardo McClarty 29:53 So for us, it kind of depends on the type again, well, obviously a couple of things a topic and the type of opportunity it is So for instance, if we’re doing a small business seminar, we really like to focus that within the chamber and see do we have someone or multiple people that have this level of expertise, and and start there, if it’s one of our conferences like we do, for instance, a Cyber Conference that this year I think was in Year 10, we do a Women’s Leadership Summit. That’s now it may be going on year seven, we do issues our first year, we get a wipey Summit, young professionals. And so as an example, then all three of those, we’ve actually had plenty of we’ve had some members, but we’ve also had plenty of non members to speak. On the conference side, we really want, because we look at it as a conference, we want to get the best and brightest. And for the Women’s Leadership Conference, in particular, we do a call for speakers and find evidence because there we are. This is a second year we’ve done this, I think we’ve allowed people to self certify, to say, for instance, that professional development affiliations, like Sherman, I think might have been APA and a few others. And so there were certain parameters that the speakers had to be able to address when they responded. And so in that case, it was open that we cast a wide net, because it was more about delivering value. And the fact that we do people would be able to be with continuing ed units. And there was a certain criteria we had to be. But even still, we chose we tried to have some topics that maybe with lend themselves to certain groups. And it just it worked out this year, again, that we had is the multifaceted group of speakers and so forth.
Brandon Burton 32:02 That is great. So I know we need to start wrapping up here, we’re starting to get a little bit long, but I wanted to see if you have any tip or action item, maybe based on our discussion today that you can put out there to help other chambers listening to take their chamber up to the next
Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions
Leonardo McClarty 32:20 level. The biggest thing and this speaks across the board, as I think I’m constantly challenged, or so, you know, the one thing that I think COVID has done for anyone running anything, whether you’re a small business owner, a not for profit, executive, corporate executive, but we’ve all had to challenge ourselves in some respects to think differently, as to how we solve problems is how we move forward. And I think that’s the one thing that I would say as you deal with things, whether it’s in the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion space, or just overall programmatically, just challenge yourself to think differently. And thinking differently might mean, okay, who do I need to talk to or reach out to that maybe I haven’t done so in the past. And even in some cases, you know, don’t be afraid to lean on the I’m new. Or it’s or it’s a it’s a new day. And the fact that I know, we haven’t worked together before, but it’s a new day. And we we probably have similar interest, how can we work together? So that’s the big thing I would say is we have to constantly challenge ourselves to do things differently.
Brandon Burton 33:35 I love that answer. As we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
Future of Chambers
Leonardo McClarty 33:47 I think you know, continually, I think our future I think continues to be right. I think the one thing the one place that I think we can really stand to continue to have leverage is the fact of being that convener. I think you and I talked about right now, we’re in a place where certainly divergent opinions continue to diverge. And as a chamber, oftentimes we’ve had to play a role in Switzerland. So I think that we can continue to be that piece that really for the betterment of our business communities. To try to me we have to be the one to be the level headed wanted to bring multiple parties and factions together. And and I think the more that we can do that we can continue to generate value for our members. The other thing and I think you did a podcast on this already. But I think also moving beyond just events and thinking about those in really getting into that economic and community development space, particularly maybe when it deals when it comes to advocacy, we don’t necessarily have to be the economic development entity to actually be an economic develop public policy and advocacy and how it impacts. This is economic development.
Brandon Burton 35:18 So, absolutely whether or not you have that official responsibility or not, there’s a role, I think, for every chamber to play in economic development and advocacy for their businesses. But Leonardo, I’ve enjoyed this discussion with you. This has been a lot of fun. I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for anyone listening who’d like to reach out and connect with you, what would be the best way for them to do that?
Connect with Leonardo McClarty
Leonardo McClarty 35:43 Yeah, they could always reach out, excuse me, reach out to me via email. My email address is lmcclarty@howardchamber.com. Alternatively, you can just look up Howardchamber.com. And go to the staff section, and you’ll see my smiling face and email address.
Brandon Burton 36:10 All right, we will get that in our show notes for this episode as well, which will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com/episode151. But Leonardo, thank you so much for spending time with me today, here on Chamber Chat Podcast, I feel like you brought a lot of value. And really a lot of action items that that chambers listening can take back into their communities to be more diverse and to really bring people together under the whole mission of the chamber and be in that same center moving forward. So thank you so much for that.
Leonardo McClarty 36:40 But thank you for what you do to expose others to the chamber profession, and certainly thank you for having
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