A Podcast for Chamber Professionals Posts

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Lisa Hermes is our guest this week from the McKinney Chamber of Commerce in McKinney, TX.  Lisa visited with me about the efforts that the McKinney Chamber is doing to stay current as a 21st Century Chamber.  Some of these efforts involved trying to include technology as well as ways to adapt to the needs of businesses in their community that are evolving, whether it is more of a global customer base or a new industry in their area, they are always looking for the best ways to conned and serve these businesses.

Lisa shared an example about how the McKinney Chamber used to have a monthly magazine and an entire publishing side of the Chamber that we a for profit organization.  The magazine came about because of a need at one point to connect with the community and to get information out at a time when there were not many options for doing so.  A few years ago, the McKinney Chamber noticed that there was not as much of a need for the printed monthly magazine so they shut down the publishing side.  They did continue however to run a website that is separate from their Chamber website to connect businesses with the community while the Chamber website is focused more B2B.  You can see what both of these websites look like as you consider if this is a move that your Chamber should look at.  McKinneyChamber.com and McKinneyOnline.com.

Lisa did say that they still have printed publications, just not a monthly magazine.  Their publications now are more niche now with target audiences like a Senior Resource Guide, a B2B Guide, a Membership Directory, and a Map.

We discussed the value in having a 3 year plan for your Chamber and how that allows for you to adapt as needed without being strapped to a longer term plan.  A longer vision can be very helpful, but the plan for your Chamber should not be any longer than 3 years!

If you have any questions about this episode or if you would like to connect with Lisa, she can be reached at 972-542-0163 or by email at lhermes@mckinneychamber.com.

If you have a need for a publisher for your next Chamber Directory or Map, please consider Community Matters, Inc. as a partner with their turnkey system, award winning quality, and great reputation.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, Spotify

Shannan Reid is the Executive Director at the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce in Montgomery, Tx. The Montgomery Area Chamber is only about 5 years old and is a high growth area just North of Houston. With just 209 members at this point, Shannan explains how their Chamber is able to Play Big! They have a vision for what the mature version of their Chamber will look like and they are serving their community and membership as if they are already at this mature level. A major advantage that Shannan has is that they are in the process of creating this Chamber so it can go any direction that they feel is needed and they don’t have to be tied down to old traditions. They are very active in finding out what the needs are of their members and then creating programs to best serve their membership. By keeping a pulse on what the members needs are, also requires the Chamber to have the courage to sunset some programs that are no longer serving their members.

While surveying new members, Shannan found out that 95% of the businesses are joining the Chamber for engagement. Engagement can mean different things to each business, but there is both the give and take in the engagement process. Some businesses want to engage at the level of getting their name out in front of other businesses and the community, while others what to engage by learning what is going on in the community so they can better serve their target audience. In both types of engagement, the Chamber needs to be the trusted resource for your community. Chambers should leverage all of their relationships to best serve their members. Shannan has a neat phrase that she tells all new members, “My number should be in your speed dial”. She shares her cell phone number with each new business to give them the confidence that she is working for them and will be their trusted resource to get them the answers that they need.

We also discussed how important it is to learn something new. As a Chamber, education programs are a great way to keep your members engaged and learning how to better round out their business. I mentioned that in the digital age that we live in, education has never been easier. We used to have to be at a library or referencing a book or going through some type of format education to learn, but new we can learn about anything, even when we are on the go. That is way I love podcast! You can learn about any topic. Google and Youtube can also be great helps in allowing you to learn something new.

Shannan was a great guest to have on Chamber Chat Podcast. For anyone who would like to get in contact with Shannan about anything we disucussed in this espisode, she can be reached at her office 936-597-5004 or you can call/text her cell phone at 936-524-2484 or email at admin@montgomeryareachamber.com.

If you have a need for a publisher for your next Chamber Directory or Map, please consider Community Matters, Inc. as a partner with their turnkey system, award winning quality, and great reputation.

Diane Probst is the President & CEO of the Rockport-Fulton Chamber of Commerce. This episode is packed full of useful information for any Chamber to be prepared to jump into action after any disaster. For some Chambers, they may face the threat of tornadoes, others wildfires, earthquakes, flooding, terrorism, disease, and a number of many other types of disasters. Diane shares with us her experience during and after Hurricane Harvey which targeted the Rockport-Fulton area as ground zero!

With this disaster being a hurricane, they had the advantage of seeing the storm coming and a warning system to allow for evacuations and for residents and businesses to be prepared for impact. Their E.O.C. meetings would normally have around 75-100 people from the community attend, but as the storm got closer, Diane found herself as 1 of 15 people at this meeting to prepare to respond and to safe guard their community. At this point, many people had already evacuated inland but Diane was determined to be a hero to protect their businesses.

As the storm approached they were given timelines as to when certain services would no longer work such as toilets, electricity, and internet. Once Diane saw they were about to loose their internet, she went inland about 3 hours to be with family and set up a “remote Chamber office” on a kitchen table. Diane and her daughter were glued to any updates and were doing their very best to push information out to the community. Looking back, she would have developed a social media team to data mine information to better keep their businesses and community more informed.

When Diane returned after the storm, they found that the Chamber office, her husband’s business, and their home were all still standing and in good shape while most of the area around them was destroyed. This turned out to be a huge blessing to the business community to have a Chamber that was still able to function. A Go Fund Me account was set up and raised over $1.4 million dollars to help with the recovery. Over a half a million dollars was provided in small business grants. Over 5,500 white trucks showed up to help restore power and to clean up the area.

As the community continues to rebound from this terrific storm, 93% of the businesses are open again. Since the Rockport-Fulton area is very tourism driven, George Strait stepped in to help with a campaign to bring tourism back to the area.

There have been a number of other “silver linings” that the community is being blessed with as well. Ellen DeGeneres and Lowe’s have partnered to build a new gymnasium. Yeti is helping to rebuild the Fulton Pier. There is a new Center for Performing Arts that is planned, as well as a new Convention Center, and Courthouse & City Hall. The Rockport-Fulton Chamber is also partnering with other Chambers to build solar panel kiosks to help provide power, internet, and information to be better prepared in the future.

Some lessons learn are:

1. The world will respond. Just 6 weeks after the storm, the Chamber held their annual fundraiser which turned out to be their 6th best ever!
2. Every Chamber should have a seat with their Emergency Management Team. Do it now!
3. Visit other Cities to learn how they establish and implement their crisis plan.
4. Be prepared to be a leader when disaster strikes!

In addition to being a great leader at the Chamber and in her community, Diane is also an author. Many Chamber professionals know of her book, Chamberology. She is also coming out with a new book, co-authored with her daughter, titled When the Storm Comes which will be out in July 2019.

If you need to reach out to Diane about anything she shared in this episode, she can be reached at: president@1rockport.org or on her cell phone at 361-463-1585. You can also connect with Diane on Facebook.

If you have a need for a publisher for your next Chamber Directory or Map, please consider Community Matters, Inc. as a partner with their turnkey system, award winning quality, and great reputation.

Sandy Barton is the President at the Greater Magnolia Parkway Chamber of Commerce.  In this episode, Sandy shares her experiences with us around building/rebuilding a Chamber.  Sandy joined the Greater Magnolia Parkway Chamber of Commerce in 2017, shortly after efforts were made to combine two existing Chambers in the Magnolia area into one Chamber.  This effort brought some challenges with some mindset and logistical changes as well as some opportunities to chart a new course while taking the best attributes from the previous two Chambers.  

One of the great programs that Sandy shares with us is their new member ambassador program.  This allows the Chamber ambassadors to pair up with new Chamber members as a mentor for the first year of the new businesses membership.  This allows the new member to learn about the many benefits that they receive as a Chamber member.  This program also gives the new member a friend to look for at Chamber events.  The ambassadors get to choose which businesses they would like to mentor and often times the two businesses will be complimentary to each other and support each other very well.

Sandy is going a great job to get the Chamber’s message out into the business community and to build the trust of the local businesses to know that the Chamber supports them and will be there for a long time to come.

For those of you who would like to get in contact with Sandy, she can be reached by email at sandyb@greatermagnoliaparkwaycc.org or on her cell phone at 936-520-6828.

If you have a need for a publisher for your next Chamber Directory or Map, please consider Community Matters, Inc. as a partner with their turnkey system, award winning quality, and great reputation.

Tony Moline serves as the President & CEO of the Cedar Park Chamber of Commerce.  In this episode, Tony shares how he has been able to effectively participate in the decision making processes with his City.  Tony shared a great example of where the City of Cedar Park wanted to introduce a “no waste” mandate for the residents and businesses in the City.  Tony and his Chamber recognized how a mandate could be a hindrance to local businesses and to future growth. 

In a response to this proposed mandate, the Cedar Park Chamber of Commerce created and introduced a Green Business Initiative which encourages businesses to be green by creating a point system that contributes to different levels of how green a business is.  They also help businesses realize the green things that they are already doing such as LED lights and recycling that count towards the point total.  Tony mentioned that in these kinds of situations, you can either look for a problem, or you can help to be part of the solution.  

For more details or to connect with Tony Moline, you can reach him by email at tony@cedarparkchamber.org or by phone at 512-260-7800.

If you have a need for a publisher for your next Chamber Directory or Map, please consider Community Matters, Inc. as a partner with their turnkey system, award winning quality, and great reputation.

Beth Z is well known in the speaking circuit for Chamber Conferences.  I first came across Beth at TCCE in Texas a few years ago.  Beth is an entertaining presenter and really is an expert in adding depth and interest to marketing efforts by using various tools to bring that extra “bling” to make your efforts get noticed.  Beth is also an author.  Three of her books can be found on Amazon through the affiliate links below

In this episode, Beth highlights a few tools that can be used to dress up your images and videos that you use in your social media posts. Below is each tool with a link to to the features and samples for you to review.

In her answer about the future of Chambers of Commerce, Beth mentioned a website called “Will Robots Take My Job” where you can type in different job titles and it will then tell you the likelihood of a robot taking your job.

For those of you who would like to get in contact with Beth to hire her for a speaking engagement or to ask her about what you heard on the Chamber Chat Podcast today, you can find her at yournerdybestfriend.com. Also, please consider joining Beth’s newsletter to stay informed with all of your nerdy, tech trends and tools. You can join her newsletter by texting Nerd to 66866.

If you have a need for a publisher for your next Chamber Directory or Map, please consider Community Matters, Inc. as a partner with their turnkey system, award winning quality, and great reputation.

In this episode, Barbara Thomason from the Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce shares some of the unique challenges that her Chamber faces as they cover an area with a population close to 700,000 without the benefit a city entity or city funding to support the community.  By default and by the can-do attitude that their community has, they have stepped up and are truly serving the community in ways that are beyond what “normal” chambers do.

One of the major projects that the Houston Northwest Chamber undertook was to raise over $500,000 in private funding to provide green medians to over 8.5 miles of expanded highway.

Barbara also mentioned a book titled “Blue Ocean Shift” which you can find below on Amazon.  (Note, this is an affiliate link and purchasing the book from here helps support Chamber Chat Podcast.)

If you have questions about this episode or if you want to reach out to Barbara Thomason about the unique challenges they face at the Houston Northwest Chamber, she can be reached at BThomason@houstonnwchamber.org or at 281-440-4160.

If you have a need for a publisher for your next Chamber Directory or Map, please consider Community Matters, Inc. as a partner with their turnkey system, award winning quality, and great reputation.

Eddie McBride has been the President & CEO of the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce since 1999. The Lubbock Chamber is unique in terms of location as they are very remote and are able to pull from some of the surrounding counties for their membership.

In this episode, Eddie shares some wisdom with us about 5 ways that the Lubbock Chamber is focusing to serve their Chamber members and their community as a whole. These 5 areas of focus are:

1. Association Health Plan. Serves the member businesses by allowing an offering for their employees to receive healthcare benefits. Also serves the Chamber as the participants have to be a member of the Chamber to qualify for the group rate healthcare plan.
2. Association Retirement Plan. Similar to the Healthcare plan. The details are still in the works and should be rolled out in the next 6-12 months (hopefully).
3. Diversity Summit-Better Business Through Diversity. The Lubbock Chamber is hosting their 2nd Diversity Summit to educate businesses on the wide variety of diversity in the workplace such as mental health, gender, age, multi-generational, race, and more… The goal is to share how to attract and work with these diverse segments of the population.
4. New Tiered Dues Membership Model for Better Service. By offering tiered dues allows for more Chamber members to be better aware of services that the Chamber offers and to be more engaged with the Chamber. (Click here for the episode we did
   with Page Michel about Membership Models).
5. Chamber’s Role in Advocacy. This role of the Chamber allows the member businesses to stay informed and to have support in matters that are important to them. (Click here for the episode we did with Tony Felker about Staying Relevant as a Chamber where he discusses Advocacy).

If you have questions about this episode or if you want to reach out to Eddie McBride about how things are being done at the Lubbock Chamber, he can be reached at Eddie.McBride@lubbockbiz.org or at 806-761-7007.

If you have a need for a publisher for your next Chamber Directory or Map, please consider Community Matters, Inc. as a partner with their turnkey system, award winning quality, and great reputation.

In this solo episode, I dive into some thoughts that I have been kicking around in my head for some time about how we as people interact with vibrations, frequencies, and resonance. Throughout the discussion, we examine examples of how frequencies effect our daily life, how to “tune in” the the frequencies that we desire, and how to broadcast the frequencies that we want others to resonate with.

I extended an invitation to everyone to make a thorough list of the different messages that your Chamber tries to get out to your members throughout the year. Once you have that list of messages, make a note of the frequency of that message (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.). From this list with the associated frequencies, picture yourself as one of your members who is not very engaged with the Chamber. Think about what messages or broadcast sources may need to be adjusted to allow this member to “tune in” and resonate with the Chamber.

I want to see your lists! Please visit the Chamber Chat Podcast Facebook page and leave a comment with your list, frequencies, and ideas for message changes. You can also leave these lists in the comment section of this post. It is my hope that we can continue to learn from each other and get ideas that we can implement to better serve your members and community.

If you have a need for a publisher for your next Chamber Directory or Map, please consider Community Matters, Inc. as a partner with their turnkey system, award winning quality, and great reputation.