A Podcast for Chamber Professionals Posts

Tiffany Esposito is our guest this week to share with us the unique membership model that they have recently adopted at SWFL, Inc. SWFL, Inc. was recently created from what was previously the Bonita Springs Chamber. This transition has positioned their organization to serve more as a regional Chamber as opposed to identifying with just one city since they already had members throughout the region.

In this episode, Tiffany discusses what makes their organization different than a traditional Chamber as far as their membership model looks. As you hear Tiffany share how their Chamber is structured, you may want to check out their packages and pricing structures, including their freemium model.

If you would like to connect with Tiffany about anything she discussed in this episode or to continue this discussion offline, you can see her contact information below:

• Email: tiffany@swflinc.com
• Website: swflinc.com

FREE resources to help you better serve your Chamber members and your community.

As you focus on your Chamber’s mission and purpose, you will find that your publications say a lot about your organization. Community Matters, Inc. is an award-winning Chamber publisher that would like to help your Chamber with your next Chamber Directory, Guide, or Map. Community Matters has a turn-key program that is very simple. In the end, your Chamber has a great looking printed & digital publication that will represent your Chamber very well while providing a smooth source of non-dues revenue. Click here to learn more.

Brad Lacy joins us this week to share how the Conway Area Chamber makes a real show out of their annual meetings. As Brad puts it, if you don’t want to attend your own annual meeting, how can you expect others to come and for the meeting to be successful? With this mentality, Brad and the Conway Area Chamber have seriously taken their annual meetings to a much higher level and have become the “must have ticket” each year in their community. You can see a couple of samples below of promotional videos that they have created to really build up the hype for their annual meeting and to introduce a theme.

If you would like to connect with Brad about anything he discussed in this episode or to continue this discussion offline, you can see his contact information below:

• Email: brad@conwayarkansas.org
• Phone: 501-329-7788

FREE resources to help you better serve your Chamber members and your community.

As you focus on your Chamber’s mission and purpose, you will find that your publications say a lot about your organization. Community Matters, Inc. is an award-winning Chamber publisher that would like to help your Chamber with your next Chamber Directory, Guide, or Map. Community Matters has a turn-key program that is very simple. In the end, your Chamber has a great looking printed & digital publication that will represent your Chamber very well while providing a smooth source of non-dues revenue. Click here to learn more.

Matt Pivarnik joins us for this week’s discussion as he shares the knowledge and perspective that he gained while working at the Tulsa Regional Chamber that he was able to bring with him to Topeka to what has now become the Greater Topeka Partnership.

As you listen to Matt talk, you can understand why he is such a big fan of partnership organizations. As different organizations all try to promote their city, there is often a lot of overlap between the Chamber’s message, and that of the tourism organization and economic development and others. Matt shares his thoughts around combining organizations to leverage talent in certain areas which also allow for you to attract talent that any one organization on their own would have a hard time doing.

If you would like to connect with Matt about anything he discussed in this episode or to continue this discussion offline, you can email him at mpivarnik@greatertopeka.org.

FREE resources to help you better serve your Chamber members and your community.

As you focus on your Chamber’s mission and purpose, you will find that your publications say a lot about your organization. Community Matters, Inc. is an award-winning Chamber publisher that would like to help your Chamber with your next Chamber Directory, Guide, or Map. Community Matters has a turn-key program that is very simple. In the end, your Chamber has a great looking printed & digital publication that will represent your Chamber very well while providing a smooth source of non-dues revenue. Click here to learn more.

As we finally wrap up the year 2020, I wanted to reflect and share the top 20 lessons that I was able to extract from the crazy ride that 2020 has been for so many of us. You will see lessons I learned below with links to any past episodes or any other links that I mentioned. You will have to listen to the episode to get any additional context around each lesson.

1. The importance of being flexible.
2. The necessity of reserve funds. (Responding to Financial Impact Amid Hyper-Change with Michael Gellman part I, part II)
3. Burning of sacred cows.
4. The need to pivot.
5. The support system among Chamber Champions is strong. (Chamber of Commerce Professionals FB Group, Izzy West’s Blog)
6. Advocacy in new ways.
7. The need for business specific advocacy.
8. Virtual can also be reality.
9. Zoom can be highly effective.
10. The need for some organizations to merge together. (Merging Organizations with Megan Lucas)
11. The importance of personal communication.
12. The need for multiple sources of revenue.
13. The ability for brick and mortar businesses to sell online has never been more important.
14. The opportunity to show your membership that the Chamber is more than a networking group.
15. This is the time to be innovative for the needs of your community.
16. The need to be future ready. (Future Ready with Christy Gillenwater)
17. Disruption often brings new opportunities. (Disruption-The Necessity for Every Chamber with Shannon Full)
18. This will be a pivotal and a defining time for all of us.
19. Podcasting can be a great tool for Chambers of Commerce. (Should Your Chamber Podcast?, Pivot to Podcasting with Angie Whitcomb)
20. The worth of a Chamber has never been more valuable than in 2020!

FREE resources to help you better serve your Chamber members and your community.

As you focus on your Chamber’s mission and purpose, you will find that your publications say a lot about your organization. Community Matters, Inc. is an award-winning Chamber publisher that would like to help your Chamber with your next Chamber Directory, Guide, or Map. Community Matters has a turn-key program that is very simple. In the end, your Chamber has a great looking printed & digital publication that will represent your Chamber very well while providing a smooth source of non-dues revenue. Click here to learn more.

In conjunction with the celebration of episode #100 of Chamber Chat Podcast, I wanted to spend some time to discuss some ideas around celebrating milestones at your Chamber. In preparation for this episode, I collected ideas from several Chamber Champions so I could share what some other Chambers are doing to celebrate those major accomplishments. I am continuing to receive feedback and ideas around this topic that unfortunately I was unable to include when I recorded this episode.

As you listen to this episode, you may think about how you celebrate milestones both internally and externally at your Chamber. You may also think of some ways that you can help some of your members celebrate milestones that you are aware of. As you listen, if you think of some ideas, please share them with me and I will see what I can do to help share your ideas with our community. You can email me at brandon@chamberchatpodcast.com and please include “Milestones” in the subject line.

One idea that was shared with me after I recorded this episode was to have a Post-COVID Survival Party. I thought this would be a great way to mingle in person again and to recognize those businesses who were able to survive shutdowns. You may come up with other similar or some very different ideas.

FREE resources to help you better serve your Chamber members and your community.

As you focus on your Chamber’s mission and purpose, you will find that your publications say a lot about your organization. Community Matters, Inc. is an award-winning Chamber publisher that would like to help your Chamber with your next Chamber Directory, Guide, or Map. Community Matters has a turn-key program that is very simple. In the end, your Chamber has a great looking printed & digital publication that will represent your Chamber very well while providing a smooth source of non-dues revenue. Click here to learn more.

Michael Huber, President & CEO of the Indy Chamber joins us this week for a very timely discussion about how you can use your Chamber as a unifying force within your community. This discussion is relevant as we are coming off the heels of a very divisive U.S. Presidential election in a year where everything has become politicized. In addition to this election cycle, we have seen peaceful protests, riots, and civil unrest around race relations following the murder of George Floyd.

In our discussion, Michael shares some of the ways that the Indy Chamber has decided to actively become more of a unifying force in their community. They have established listening sessions to learn more about race inequity and how the Chamber can take action to help. They have also formed several committees to focus on unity in some of these areas. Michael admits that this is a journey and that they don’t have all of the answers, but that we all should be willing to listen, be open to new ideas, and be ready to take action.

If you would like to connect with Michael about anything he discussed in this episode or to continue this discussion offline, you can find his contact information at indychamber.com.

FREE resources to help you better serve your Chamber members and your community.

As you focus on your Chamber’s mission and purpose, you will find that your publications say a lot about your organization. Community Matters, Inc. is an award-winning Chamber publisher that would like to help your Chamber with your next Chamber Directory, Guide, or Map. Community Matters has a turn-key program that is very simple. In the end, your Chamber has a great looking printed & digital publication that will represent your Chamber very well while providing a smooth source of non-dues revenue. Click here to learn more.

Tom Baldrige, President & CEO of the Lancaster Chamber joins us this week to talk about adjusting business models. As we are continually working our way through the economic impact that has been caused by COVID-19, many Chambers are trying to determine the best way to approach member businesses who are struggling to renewing their membership. Some Chambers are finding creative ways to approach and deal with this problem. No matter how you choose to approach your membership, it is important to still keep the integrity of your organization intact.

Many in Chamber circles know Tom as the guy who took a risk with the membership model at his Chamber. Tom shares with us in this episode how they saw a need for making a change about three years ago with their membership model as they notice membership structures within other organizations struggling. They did take quite a risk with offering a “pay what you want” or “freemium” model. Initially, this model seemed to work very well. The Chamber was able to attract many businesses that they weren’t able to reach previously. Tom does share several lessons that they learned through this experiment and ultimately why it did not work. He also shares what they have landed on for their current business model.

If you would like to connect with Tom about anything he discussed in this episode or to continue this discussion offline, you can find his contact information below.

FREE resources to help you better serve your Chamber members and your community.

As you focus on your Chamber’s mission and purpose, you will find that your publications say a lot about your organization. Community Matters, Inc. is an award-winning Chamber publisher that would like to help your Chamber with your next Chamber Directory, Guide, or Map. Community Matters has a turn-key program that is very simple. In the end, your Chamber has a great looking printed & digital publication that will represent your Chamber very well while providing a smooth source of non-dues revenue. Click here to learn more.

Molly Gebler from the Chagrin Valley Chamber joins us for this episode to talk about injecting good into the community. This year of 2020 has brought problems and heartache to many people around the world, which is why the world needs people like Molly Gebler to help showcase the good!

In our discussion, Molly shares two very positive initiatives that their Chamber has been the driver for. One is a program where the Chamber sponsors a local non-profit for the year. The Chamber provides funding to the non-profit and they help to organize volunteers to serve the non-profit of choice. This year the chosen non-profit was their local food bank. Molly shares the story of the huge outpouring of care in their community to support those in their community who needed their help in a time of crisis through a food drive.

The other program that Molly highlights is what she calls a gift card extravaganza. With this program, the Chamber promotes and sells gift cards for local service or retail companies or restaurants and for a certain dollar amount of gift cards purchased, the Chamber gifts the buyer an additional dollar amount in gift cards to the same business. This program sold out of gift cards in the first 15 minutes! It was so successful that the Chamber is going to do it again and will be pledging more money in gift cards to put more money back into the hands of the businesses that they work so hard to support.

If you would like to connect with Molly about anything she discussed in this episode or any of her fun side projects, you can find her contact information below.

FREE resources to help you better serve your Chamber members and your community.

As you focus on your Chamber’s mission and purpose, you will find that your publications say a lot about your organization. Community Matters, Inc. is an award-winning Chamber publisher that would like to help your Chamber with your next Chamber Directory, Guide, or Map. Community Matters has a turn-key program that is very simple. In the end, your Chamber has a great looking printed & digital publication that will represent your Chamber very well while providing a smooth source of non-dues revenue. Click here to learn more.

Matt Mahood, President & CEO of the Silicon Valley Organization (SVO) is our guest this week to share with us a very successful partnership program that they have been a part of in their community to help serve some of their underprivileged youth. Their program, Strive San Jose, convenes the education sector, business, and government to help create, guide and influence the talent pipeline to ensure a talented workforce that will allow their businesses to continue to innovate and grow.

In its first six months, the program launched an internship program that placed 41 local high school students into paid summer internships with 31 SVO businesses, representing 13 industries, and generating $50,000 into the local economy. Since the program’s inception, they have expanded to include four school districts in total serving over 1,500 underserved youth in the past three years alone

If you would like to connect with Matt about anything he discussed in this episode or to continue this discussion offline, you can find his email below.

• mattm@thesvo.com

FREE resources to help you better serve your Chamber members and your community.

As you focus on your Chamber’s mission and purpose, you will find that your publications say a lot about your organization. Community Matters, Inc. is an award-winning Chamber publisher that would like to help your Chamber with your next Chamber Directory, Guide, or Map. Community Matters has a turn-key program that is very simple. In the end, your Chamber has a great looking printed & digital publication that will represent your Chamber very well while providing a smooth source of non-dues revenue. Click here to learn more.