A Podcast for Chamber Professionals Posts

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

Episode 63 — Should Your Chamber Podcast?
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Solo
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.842 Brandon Burton
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
00:14.602 Brandon Burton
And now your host, his wife is a great supporter of his dreams. He's my dad, Brandon Burton. Hello and welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. This is your host, Brandon Burton, and I'm glad you're here today. This is episode sixty-three of Chamber Chat Podcast, and just as the introduction said, that was my daughter Bailey, s mentioning how my wife is a big supporter of my dreams. And before I get into this episode today, I just wanted to really give a shout out to Sarah, my wife. she really is the best. She is awesome and she does support me, especially with this podcast. not only that moral support and giving me that, you know, go to, go to it kind of a attitude, but she also helps with some of the graphic design that I have for the podcast, the logo and everything. very talented and helps me out with that and and the plan is that she will be helping me with some of the next steps with what I have to offer with through chamber chat podcast. So special thanks to my wife. She is amazing. So as we get into this episode today, I've been doing Chamber Chat Podcasts now for a little over a year. And really from the first couple episodes that I did, I had Chambers reaching out to me. Asking about you know what it takes to get started with a podcast. You know, how difficult is it? What do we need? Can you tell us step by step what we need to do for a podcast? And you know, I I'm happy to help. I love helping Chambers, that's why I do the podcast, right? with that said, I felt like I needed to get a little bit more experience under my belt before I started telling Chambers what to do as far as podcasting goes. But I'm feeling like I've got this down pretty good now as far as the software. I've made some refinements throughout the year as I've been going. the actual equipment needed to get started. But I thought as we get into this episode today, I wanted to talk about the question about should your chamber podcast? Now, for those of you who are familiar with Seth Godin, he's kind of a marketing genius.
02:40.812 Brandon Burton
But he's very much in the the blogging space. And just not too long ago, Seth Godin he said that podcasting is the new blogging. So as you think back, you know, over the last decade or so, you know, did you have a blog? Did your chamber have a blog? I know kind of pre Facebook social media days that blogging was the thing everybody was doing. And now that blogging has kind of transitioned over into podcasting. At least as far as the I think some of the blogging kind of transitioned into social media. I know my wife did a blog for our family for a long time, which was awesome because she could print it out after, you know, certain intervals, maybe on a yearly basis, and we'd have a really cool photo book with entries from our blog. But that kind of has gone by the wayside since social media came out and it's so much easier just to upload a picture onto Facebook and something like that rather than doing a whole blog post. But blogs are still out there for those that are kind of niching down into a certain topic or category, kind of teaching people how to do things or experts in certain fields. And That's kind of where I see that type of blogging is transitioning into podcasting. And a big reason for that, I've discussed on this on Chamber Chat Podcast before, is that with podcasting, you don't have to sit and read. You don't have to dedicate that time so much to digesting that content. It's what would I what I consider a a net activity, no extra time activity. So By that I mean you can listen to a podcast while you're in their car driving, while you're out for a walk. I listen to podcasts at the gym or when I'm running. it it becomes that medium where I can consume good things that will help me develop personally and professionally in whatever aspect that I'm trying to cover while I'm already doing other things. You know, doing dishes, folding laundry, cooking dinner, whatever. You can listen while you do those activities. So
05:01.868 Brandon Burton
With that being said, as a chamber of commerce, do you see value in your chamber having a podcast? Let's explore some of the reasons why you might consider having a podcast. So, first of all, a podcast can be a way to engage your members or the community at large. So I know a lot of chambers will do the yellow highlighter. exercise where you look at your membership list and try to figure out, you know, what which members are engaged with the chamber that are participating in different levels. And as we all know, not every chamber member has the ability or the time to take off to get to every luncheon or every mixer. But they still want to be engaged. They still want to know what the chamber has going on. But even at the simple level of reading an email, the emails the you know newsletters get lost in the shuffle of everything else that they have where podcasting is a medium that can be delivered to them on a a regular interval. I would probably suggest as a chamber to probably have a weekly podcast would be what I would think would be a a good frequency to be able to get that out to your your audience. But that way when they get it, they're not being bombarded with thousands of others like you do with email. and things of that nature. And we all know, I mean, social media you go to to tune out, not to tune in, if that makes sense. So being able to have a podcast delivered on a regular basis to your audience, your subscribers, is a way to help engage them, to let them know what's going on at the chamber, how the chamber is being involved in the community, and what all you have to offer the community. So that's that's number one, is would be engaging your your members and community. Another benefit to a chamber having a podcast would be it's a way to spread the mission and purpose of the chamber. So I know that there's a lot of people in the community, especially people that are not necessarily chamber members. They may not, you know, be involved in business at your, you know, the local level. They might work outside of your city.
07:26.156 Brandon Burton
And they may not have any clue what the chamber does. And I know many of you, chambers throughout the country are doing great things for the community, and the community doesn't know that you're the driver of that. So having a podcast is a way to promote those events and and programs and things that the chamber puts on and being able to take credit so your community knows what you guys are doing to support them. So another benefit would be that a podcast is a way to promote and share your advocacy efforts in the community. So how often are you trying to get behind a certain maybe it's le legislation or maybe it's an employment problem or transportation problem or any number of things that you get behind in your community is in terms of advocacy and just struggle? To get the message out there or f try to figure out what's the best way to reach the most people. I don't know if the podcast is the best way to reach everybody. I I think you need to be in a little bit of everything, but definitely podcasting is a way that you can drip in your advocacy efforts into your episodes. So as you have people on the show or just talk about what's going on in your community, you're able to to plug in and like I said, drip in. those efforts that you have as far as your advocacy goes, so your your community knows what you're doing on their behalf. So next is a podcast can be a way to showcase your chamber members. So depending on what kind of format you decide to go with for a podcast, you might decide that you want to spotlight a chamber member. It may be an interview that you do with them. It may be a short ad that that you play on the podcast. you can get creative with how you do these these little spotlights for your chamber members. You know, at the beginning of each of my episodes now I have my kids doing a little introduction about me. So you as the audience can get to know me a little bit better. You could do that at the beginning of one of your episodes is every episode you could spotlight a different chamber member so the community gets to know them better. I think that would be a really cool thing to do.
09:53.402 Brandon Burton
another benefit to a chamber having a podcast is it's a way for your members and community to get to know their chamber leadership better. So if you look at your chamber membership as a whole, how many of them can feel like they have a good connection with the the chamber CEO? not that the the CEO has to be the one that is in charge or does the the voice for the podcast. But it's an opportunity again for that community, your community, to get to know your chamber leadership on a better level. and I I think that goes back to engagement as well. But an another benefit would be that a podcast is a way to encourage discussion for good in your community. So as you have things, events, different topics of interest going on in your community, you can start the buzz with that. on your podcast and have it be something that starts a discussion amongst your community offline and be able to to further a cause or an effort that you're behind. Which I guess is kind of tied into the the advocacy there as well. let's see another benefit for a chamber to have a podcast. This can be a podcast can be a new source of non-dues revenue for your chamber. it can be a source of advertising. It can be where you have a show sponsorship. You know, you may have a a high-level chamber member that really wants their name out in the community, really wants to show that they support the chamber. They may sponsor your whole podcast for the year, and you mentioned them at the beginning of each episode and it may be in your show notes page with the link to their website, something like that. But you could also have different affiliate programs that can be tied into your podcast where you can offer basically connections to products or services. Ideally, it'd be great if they are your own chamber members that you're able to provide those referrals to. But in return for those referrals, a chamber could get a little kickback with a an affiliate program. So the options are almost unlimited.
12:15.168 Brandon Burton
with what you can do as far as a source of non-dues revenue through a podcast. another way that another benefit of a podcast to your chamber would be that it's a way to leverage existing chamber programs and events through another delivery system. So I'd already mentioned before social media people go to tune out, not to tune in. So if you're trying to enc increase engagement, Your chamber members and you're trying to rely on social media, people are not wanting to be engaged when they're on social media. They go there to check out and tune out. So being able to have a podcast to promote different events and and things through you know, programs that you're already doing, already offering, and to be able to promote that on a different medium is huge with a podcast. let's see, you can also A podcast can be a new offering in your tier dues membership model. So for those of you that are on a tier dues model, you may introduce a you know, an interview on your podcast for some of those higher level sponsors or some kind of a showcase of them, maybe an ad that's included in the podcast if they, you know, join at a certain level sponsorship. So there's some Some creativity that you can use there as well. A podcast for your chamber can also be a resource for educating your members about hot topics. So let's say, for example, and this probably ties into advocacy as well, but let's say if there's a some kind of legislation that gets passed and you're trying to help educate your chamber members on what needs to be done at their business to help. adopt this new legislation and new laws, you're able to to use the platform of your podcast to educate your members. Also, a podcast can be a great tool to leverage your website and social media traffic and engagement and vice versa. So the your social media and website can support the podcast and your podcast can support your website and social media by driving people back to it.
14:40.32 Brandon Burton
And oftentimes in the podcast, you can give a direct link on your website to be able to get referral traffic for registration for certain programs or affiliate sponsorships that you have to offer, things of that nature. So it can it can help drive the traffic on your website as well as social media engagement. anyways, that's definitely not an inclusive list or you know exhaustive list of. why or benefits that you can get out of doing a podcast at your chamber, but maybe some I some ways to kind of spark some ideas about what a podcast can do for your chamber. So hopefully you can take that, maybe kick it around with your staff and board and say, you know, how can our chamber benefit from a podcast? then kind of the next thing you would think about is who would be your target audience? For a podcast. Would it ex it be exclusively to your membership? Would it be to the community in general? Or both? Would you try to do kind of a hybrid kind of a a show? So that's something to consider. and maybe kind of creating who your avatar would be, who you're creating that show for, so you can really target in and hone in on on what you're trying to accomplish. Then, Another thing to think about is what kind of format would your podcast be? Would it be a solo show? In other words, would this be something that your you know CEO there your chamber is the voice and does it themselves? Is it your communications manager? Is it your membership engagement person? I mean, who who do you have kind of being the voice for the show? And what is the format? Is it solo? Is it co-hosted? Is it an interview type where you maybe you're interviewing some of your chamber members or people throughout the community? Another cool thing or a way to maybe integrate into your podcast is if you have a really great speaker at a luncheon, maybe you record that talk and get permission to replay it on the podcast. That way the the people that were not able to make it to the the luncheon maybe the next month.
17:06.702 Brandon Burton
You know, they can still get the content, but they have to wait a little bit. So there's still an incentive for them to come to that luncheon. But being able to replay some of those great speakers that you have at luncheon and different chamber events could be a great way to repurpose their content. What is the length of your show gonna be? I try to keep chamber chat podcasts to about a thirty minute runtime. As far as the episodes go. Sometimes they're a little shorter, you know, closer to 20, 25 minutes, and they've gone, you know, 45 minutes before. But I try to stick around that 30-minute mark just so it's not too long, but also make it be worth your time. If you're tuning in and listening, I want you to get some good content out of this. And it may be that you decide on a shorter format because of who you're targeting in your audience. Or maybe you go a longer format because of what you're trying to get into the show. But really, I think you need to figure out what format you want your podcast to be in first, and then try to figure out what the the length of your show should be. Do you do advertising in it? We I had mentioned earlier this could be a source of non-duce revenue. You could do advertising at the beginning, you could do an ad at the very end of the episode, you could have a mid-roll. Kind of ad that kind of you break the show up and do an ad in the middle. the great thing about podcasting is there's not really rules to it. So you can do whatever is going to work best for you and you can play with it. You can see what ads work best where, and and play with it. You know, move them around as you need to wherever it's appropriate. And then you'd probably have some kind of an intro and an outro that you have on the show. a lot of people A lot of chambers will do like some kind of an intro music, kind of introducing what the purpose of the show is, things of that nature. So that's something to think about. Then as far as equipment and software to use, I mean, going back to depending on what kind of format you want your show to be, you really can start podcasting very, very inexpensively. I'm talking probably less than $100. You can get up and going.
19:20.846 Brandon Burton
So for equipment and software to look at, you can look at obviously a microphone. And in the show notes page, chamberchatpodcast.com slash episode 63, I'll have some links to some of these resources that I'll put out there. In fact, I've got a brand new getting started guide for chambers to podcast. that I'll have linked in the show notes page. I'm still working on getting it put together. In fact, my awesome wife is helping me put it together with her graphic design skills. So it's going to be a great getting started guide to be able to get chambers up and going with the podcast. So whether it's up, whether that resource is ready or not, I'll have a link to it so you can either register and get it as soon as it comes out or if it's Hopefully it'll already be out by the time you listen to this, because I'm recording this a couple weeks in advance. But you can go to that show notes page again, chamber chatpodcast.com slash episode 63, and I'll have a link in there to direct you to that getting started guide for chamber podcasting. So microphones, and I'll I'll put the resources in there that I would recommend. possibly a mixer if you're doing like a co-host. kind of style or an interview, you know, on-site interviews. what I do on ChamberTap Podcast is the guests that I have on, because my guests are all over the country, I tend to use Skype and we'll do a Skype audio call. You can record that right on the computer. They often will use their own phone or microphone on their end. And of course I have my podcast set up on my end. But after I record it on Skype, I can do the editing and clean it up and make it sound really awesome. So Skype is a a resource if you didn't want to use a or if you didn't want to purchase a mixer or extra equipment. Zoom is another resource for recording audio calls. And then software, there's some free software out there that can help you to in the editing process.
21:36.074 Brandon Burton
So I tend to use Audacity and another free resource if you are a Mac user would be GarageBand. So again, both of those softwares, Audacity and Garage Band, are both free programs that you can use to edit your podcast shows. And they offer everything you need to get started. So there's really not a reason to spend a whole lot of money on editing software. Now there is a neat tool called Aphonic. That's A-U-P-H-O-N-I-C. And it's a web-based platform that you can upload your, you know, so after you record your episode and do the editing, you can upload it to Aphonic and it'll help auto-balance the sound. So even though you're maybe an amateur on the the editing side, you send it over to this website and it'll do the auto balancing for you and it works phenomenal. I had an episode where I had to break it up into two different recording sessions. When I edit it together, you could kind of tell where that segment was at. But after I ran it through Aphonic, it was crystal clear. You couldn't tell the difference because it balanced it out, just awesome. So they do have a free version of that, which is a limited time allotment. And then there's a paid version that gets you a lot more time to by time. like length of episodes. The other thing is you need a host for for your your podcast. So the host is basically gonna just literally host your RSS feed, which is what all the podcast players use to access your show. So in my opinion, the best one out there after doing all my research is Libson. That's L I B S Y N. And all of the big all the big name podcasters out there use libsen. And when I did my research, all the podcast hosts that I admired and that I followed, they all use Libson. And in fact I have an affiliate program set up with with Libson where if you think you're ready to go and you wanted to sign up for a a podcasting host for your podcast, you can use promo code chamber on libsen.
23:59.834 Brandon Burton
And you'll receive the rest of this month free and all of next month free for your hosting. So really, I mean, if you time that right, you can almost get two months free on your libsen hosting. So again, that's when you enter promo code chamber when you check out on libsen. But there's other hosts for your feed. There's Buzz Sprout, Blueberry, Podbeam, and Anchor. Anchor is an interesting one because that is a free podcasting host. now it's free for a reason because Anchor tends to kind of own your content. So once you put your podcast up on the Anchor platform, you're basically giving your rights away to it. And they will insert commercials into your show wherever they feel necessary. And you really kind of lose control over that. So a lot of podcasters as they get started, they're drawn to Anchor because it's free. I don't think any chamber should have a reason to need to use Anchor because when you start, you're gonna have an audience base from the beginning. A lot of podcasters out there are trying to build a base from nothing and they're scared. So starting with a free hosting service makes sense. But be in a chamber where you already have an audience base it that will listen, I would definitely go to a paid host just so you re retain control and ownership of your content. And again, my host of preference is Libson and plug in that that promo code chamber to get that rest of this month and all of next month free. Something else to consider, what would be the frequency? I'm gonna kind of go quickly through these last few items just because we're getting a little long on time. But what would the frequency for your podcast be? Is it daily? Is it a daily show? Is it a weekly show? Is it a monthly show? Et cetera. But I've done a whole episode on Chamber Chat Podcast about the importance of frequency. So whatever your frequency is, it's probably gonna be good, but just make sure you're consistent. You need to stay on top of that consistency to keep your audience engaged. I would probably recommend.
26:24.618 Brandon Burton
A weekly show format, just because a daily is going to be very exhaustive for whoever's going to be in charge of that at your chamber. And a monthly, I feel like goes too long between episodes. people will not stay engaged on a monthly show. So I I tend to think weekly is good. And then on the weekly show, you could do a frequency interrupt. So if you have a weekly show, but then you have a big announcement. Or you have something that you need it, you know, it's important for people to register for an event by a certain date. Some let's you know, something like that. You could do let's say you had your your show coming out on Tuesdays. Maybe on Thursday you have an off cycle show. maybe it's a shorter, maybe in instead of a twenty minute episode, you have a five minute episode talking about that specific thing. Maybe it's an advocacy thing that the chambers behind. But you can use that kind of frequency interrupt to really get their attention when they get a new podcast episode on a different day than what they're used to. So this one's important. What would be your desired outcome of a podcast for your chamber? And that may be something that you need to sit and ponder for a little bit so you can kind of put in some metrics for measurement. But is it a is it something that you're just doing to try to increase engagement in your community and with your membership? Is it something that has to be a source of revenue for your chamber? And if so, what does that look like? How much do you need out of it to make it look successful? or is it a just another way of communicating with the public? So there There could be other desired outcomes too, but really I would ponder what that desired outcome is so you can format your show in a way to meet that outcome. Who would be in charge of your podcast? I touched on this earlier as far as your voice, the editing, posting, formatting. Is it gonna be you? Is it gonna be another staff member? Is it gonna be a volunteer member? Or is it something that you outsource?
28:42.048 Brandon Burton
As far as outsourcing goes, I am actually considering providing some outsourcing services as far as editing goes to chambers who want to get started. So if you're interested in outsourcing your editing, I'm happy to explore that with you and see if we can work something out. But my email address is Brandon at ChamberThatPodcast.com. So if you again, if you're interested in looking at outsourcing your editing, reach out to me with that and we'll we'll see what we can come up with. Again, the Chamber Chat Podcasting how-to guide, that's coming out very soon if it's not out already when you're hearing this. So you can go either to the show notes page for this, chamberchatpodcast.com slash episode sixty-three, or you can go to the direct page that I'll have for that get started guide. Which is chamberchatpodcast.com/slash podcasting for a free guide when it comes out. Again, either it'll come out shortly from the time you hear this or hopefully it's already out. And again, I'll mention that Libson promo code if you think you're ready to to get started already with your podcast and just looking where to to host your your RSS feed. I would highly encourage Libson. And again, use cham promo code chamber at checkout so you can get the rest of this month and next month for free. I am thoroughly enjoying this podcasting experience. I think you will too at your chamber. And I just touched on some a few of the reasons or benefits why a podcast could be beneficial for a chamber. I'm hoping that as you listen to this, that you've had some of your own ideas too that you can incorporate. We know the old saying that once you've seen one chamber, you've seen one chamber. So as more chambers start to podcast, I hope to see a variety of different types of format to the podcast. And I would love to see at different chamber conferences, as they have media wards, you know, for websites and directories and maps. I would love to see a whole category for podcasts. And I think that's coming. I think that will come.
31:01.614 Brandon Burton
especially as more chambers get into it and see the great value out of podcasting. But with that, I'll wrap up. I'm glad you're here. Please keep tuning in. Look forward to talking to you again next time. If you are a Chamber Professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast, new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you're finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamberchat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

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

Episode 62 — Purpose Statements with Sarah O'Brien
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Sarah O'Brien
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.842 Brandon Burton
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
00:19.596 Brandon Burton
Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I'm Brandon Burton, and it is my goal to help introduce you to people and ideas so you can better serve your Chamber members and your community. This is episode 62 of Chamber Chat Podcast, and today I'm excited to have Sarah O'Brien with us. Sarah is the community whisperer at Collaborative Development Collective. Sarah is an award-winning seasoned public servant that brings over 15 years of local government experience to the table. As a two-time past president of the Texas Downtown Association, public service is in her DNA. Sarah takes great pride in her ability to cultivate cross-sector collaboration and leverage collect and leverage collective impact across multiple platforms. An expert generalist, she is well versed in storytelling. Policy implementation, crisis communication, destination development, urban placemaking, community planning, incremental development, special event management, strategic planning, community visioning, historic preservation, downtown revitalization, and effective engagement. She has served as a tourism, economic development, commercial district, and public information expert and project lead on assessment and resource teams. In almost a dozen cities. Sarah's ability to connect, motivate, and mobilize a community is deeply inspiring. She has a seemingly limitless amount of energy and passion when it comes to nurturing and revitalizing a sense of purpose and intention. Her enthusiasm is contagious. She seeks innovation and fearlessly leads. Sarah is hardworking and dedicated to the mission at hand. She stretches her own boundaries, and when asked to go the extra mile, she goes too. She's a regular speaker at the state and national level on a variety of topics and is always willing to lend a helping hand to friends, colleagues, teammates, neighbors, and communities that call on her. Sarah can often be found on the front porch of her historic home in Smithville, Texas, with her friends, family, and two babies, Boomer and Betsy. So as we have Sarah on the show today, we're gonna talk specifically about purpose statements and
02:40.152 Brandon Burton
That being different than a mission statement or a vision statement. And we're going to get into that discussion as soon as we get back from hearing from our sponsor. Every chamber is looking for new ways to increase their non-dues revenue. Has your chamber found a good affinity program? I have a great affinity program to offer your chamber that will continue to increase in revenue year after year. I want to introduce you to Swipe It. For all of your credit card processing needs. Swipe It has a unique affinity program that 1. Lowers your credit card processing fees at the chamber, 2. Helps your chamber members be more profitable, and 3. provides recurring non-dues revenue to your chamber. To learn more, please visit Chamberchatpodcast.com/slash C C for credit card. Again, chamberchatpodcast.com slash C C and get swiping with swipe it. Okay, Sarah, we are back. If you would take a moment to say hello to the audience and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.
03:51.404 Sarah O'Brien
Well, thank you, Brandon, for having me on today. Hello, everybody. I apologize. That was such a long bio. I really was hoping Brandon would cut something out, but
04:00.394 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
04:02.622 Sarah O'Brien
Gonna have to trim that down first year. I'll add that to the to-do list. since we're talking about purpose today, I think something interesting. I've I started my own firm last year, collaborative development, but prior to that I had been in local government for 15 years. And the weekend before I decided to walk out of City Hall, I actually found my purpose. we had been reading Simon Sinek's Start with Why in our executive cabinet book club. And so I had Found my purpose that weekend and so I thought that I would share that with you guys to kind of kick off the conversation. so personally my purpose is to inspire and empower curiosity, courage, and collaboration in the people and places whose paths I cross.
04:47.475 Brandon Burton
All right. Well that cuts the work right out for you, doesn't it? Have to be alert and look for those opportunities.
04:51.125 Sarah O'Brien
There you go, that's right. Absolutely.
04:56.686 Brandon Burton
Great. Well, tell us a little bit about your company, the Collaborative Development Collective. who do you serve? What do you do? just get us all familiar with you.
05:06.328 Sarah O'Brien
Sure, absolutely. And I think we'll start by talking about what a collaborative development's purpose statement is. and then we'll talk about more specific stuff, but it's to break down the silos and create consensus through collective impact that will ultimately create and cultivate community change. And, you know, my bio said I'm an expert generalist and you know, a a master of none, but I get into everything. and so we've done some strategic planning for chambers of commerces. We're getting ready to keynote and the Cameron, Texas Chamber of Commerce banquet in a few weeks. we also do some, you know, downtown and tourism planning as well as we've done some moderation, special event activation, and then we work with several small businesses too. about their purpose and getting their message out through creative marketing and storytelling.
05:57.518 Brandon Burton
All right. That's awesome. I know something that I've been learning more about as you, you know, look at defining a purpose. A lot of a lot of businesses, I'm thinking more of a business aspect, they come up with a product or a service and think, How can I get this out to the community? Or how can I get this out to the market rather than looking at it as what's the problem to be solved? You know, who am I serving and what's the desired outcome? And then figuring out that resource to to do that. So It sounds like you're you're helping people connect those dots, which is so Yeah. So with purpose statements being our our topic of discussion today, it it's a little different. Most people are used to having a a mission statement or maybe a vision for their chamber. and I know from for myself, coming from the publishing background, oftentimes I'll come across people that will ask me, What does a chamber do?
06:28.864 Sarah O'Brien
We're trying.
06:54.646 Brandon Burton
So a purpose statement can summarize what the chamber does and is maybe a little more descriptive or more purposeful than a a mission or a vision statement. it am I going the right direction with that, with your your thoughts on a purpose statement?
07:11.49 Sarah O'Brien
Sort of, you know, it's kind of muddy. So and I I always in the mud. I'm okay being in the mud. you know, sometimes making sausage is is difficult and messy. So purpose in and the way that we look at it is really about what the why you do what you do. it's sort of your belief and and how you want to focus
07:16.237 Brandon Burton
Did
07:39.382 Sarah O'Brien
And and why you want to focus, I guess. And like I said, it gets really, really muddy. But you know, according to the experts, depending on which expert you ask, a purpose is the why your organization has begun any type of journey, guided by deeply held values and beliefs that inspire it to make a difference. and so not all companies obviously have purposes. I think, you know, they've been talking about it for twenty or twenty five years, and originally chambers of commerce is purposed, was established to be, you know, a a business club, a voice for the business community. and so that's sort of the purpose. But I think that in today's age, and while we're here today, is chambers do so much more than that. And it has changed greatly. And I think when you're talking to folks like you just mentioned that, well, what does the chamber do? Why do I need to be involved in the chamber? I think that being a member of a business club isn't compelling enough for a lot of people. But the why why you do the things that chambers do, serving your communities is. And so I think we need to change the narrative.
08:42.95 Brandon Burton
It's very true. And you see it in business too, where a lot of the businesses nowadays that are being ver very successful are ones that have a definitive purpose. You know, they they have a maybe they help a charity, you know, the proceeds of their sales or whatever go to help a charity. And and people like getting behind a purpose and knowing that what they're doing matters. I think that's important to look at I initially you had mentioned how
09:05.451 Sarah O'Brien
Absolutely.
09:10.818 Brandon Burton
The why the purpose is the why you do what you do. And initially when chambers were set up, the why was very different than the direction they're going today. So
09:21.134 Sarah O'Brien
Even when you look at the name, so words matter, right? So chamber of commerce. we we obviously all know what commerce means, but I mean there's a pretty clear definition of what chamber means and it's based in the French terminology 'cause I think the first chamber was in France, like in fifteen ninety nine or something. but it's in a closed space, a private room. or large room used for formal or public events, which to me means kind of exclusive and closed off. And most chambers that I know are not that way at all. and so I think we're we're operating with some really old terminology that really doesn't describe the great work that is being done by organizations across the country.
10:07.342 Brandon Burton
Well, and you see some chambers changing their name because of that language.
10:11.362 Sarah O'Brien
See that I know, it's exciting.
10:13.89 Brandon Burton
Like Chris Roomer in in Colorado, the Bell Valley Partnership. So they don't have Chamber of Commerce at all in their title. And you see others that are business associations or or whatever it may be. But you're right, words do matter and they they have a definite definition behind them. So I'm curious what drew you to chambers of commerce to to work with them and and to help them define their purpose.
10:42.486 Sarah O'Brien
But you know, it's sort of an accident, I'll be completely honest with you. So I've working in community development, I've worked alongside chambers and friends and partners as I like to call them in every community. And actually my first job out of college was as a tourism director for the Cleburne Chamber of Commerce. and so I've always been, you know, pseudo involved in the chamber world. but Recently I had a regional chamber in my area, the Elgin, Texas Chamber of Commerce, called me. they needed to do some planning exercises. They did not have a plan on file, and they were struggling a little bit with leadership at the city and how to define the relationship and the funding and some other things. And so since I'm sort of the the city expert, And th this part as far as the community partnerships go, they called on me. And, you know, I of course had a three hour Simon Sinek Y exercise on the agenda, just like I would with any other group or organization or small business or government that I work with. and so we sent the agenda out, you know, two weeks prior. And the Sunday before we were getting ready to do the actual retreat that week, I started trying to find a sample. Chamber purpose statement somewhere just to use so that they would get an idea. and I'm not saying that there's not anyone in the country, but I went 23 giggle pages deep. I was on ACCE and the US Chamber of Commerce, and I literally ate a half-gallon Bluebell ice cream that night because I couldn't find one. and so I, you know, of course, was a little nervous about how this exercise would end up working out, but We just put our fears aside and went in there and the board is tremendous and their staff, Gina and her team are fabulous. And we were able to work through the exercise just like any other group I work with would. And they came up with a beautiful purpose statement. And so we did that and then I went back into my daily life and a few a month ago I saw an article where the US Chamber of Commerce was going to be working with small businesses to help them find their purpose. And I was like,
12:57.006 Brandon Burton
You're onto something.
12:58.264 Sarah O'Brien
We should talk about the US Chamber of Commerce members and their purpose. Sorry. it just fortunate. I was like, you know what? I'm gonna reach out to Brandon. So here we are. since that time I've talked to a couple of other chambers. We've got another strategic planning coming up and then of course w key knowing the chamber banquet and all that stuff. So we're we're here if they need us. but this was really just an accident, wasn't something that I set out to do.
13:02.275 Brandon Burton
Very
13:25.218 Brandon Burton
Well, you know, most people that are involved in the chamber industry come about it by accident. So you're in good company. Yay! So why purpose though? As we as we look at mission statements and vision statements and strategic plans and values. Sure. So why why the focus on purpose?
13:45.688 Sarah O'Brien
So you know, I think that the current context of the environments and our community in this country, that traditional mission, vision, and value statements that have typically been used as guiding lights to drive organizations for centuries and chambers isn't sufficient to meet the needs of what our communities, our businesses, our neighbors, and ourselves need moving forward. collective impact, collaboration. I I think and chambers And each one does something different. We know, you know, you know one chamber, you know one. But whether they're working on tourism or economic development or downtown revitalization or beautification, or they focus strongly on policy advocacy, they're all working to enhance their communities in some form or fashion to build connections. that's why they that's why they have a a purpose. I mean, that's what they do, right? they fund those activities largely through membership. So that's how they do what they do and what they do can be events and programming and all these other things. When you look at convention and visitors bureaus, which are now where they were destination marketing, now destination management, and I think will eventually be destination development organizations and economic development corporations and Main Street programs, we all have the same purpose. Especially in Texas with this legislature declaring war on city, our resources keep dwindling, our capacity is shrinking. But our needs are growing, you know, at a rapid pace. So we have infrastructure demands and and all kinds of things. And so I think we have to understand our purpose so that we can put our own personal and organizational priorities aside and figure out how to all sit at the table and work better collaboratively. Or, you know, there's such things as nonprofit mergers I've been researching about. But how do we sit in the room and help our communities? more effectively because we won't have a choice eventually. And if we're not on the forefront of that, I'm afraid that there's going to be, you know, more losers than there are winners as far as organizations working in that space.
15:54.488 Brandon Burton
Yeah. So when we once a chamber kind of narrows down and defines what their purpose is, then what? I mean, what are how do they apply that into their organization and make that be a a propellant, if you will, to to move forward?
16:10.776 Sarah O'Brien
Well, so, you know, I think all chambers and I've read some research articles the last few weeks have struggled over the last ten or twenty years as far as getting the buy in on membership. And so they've all figured out ways to diversify revenue. but I believe that a powerful purpose statement will make me write a check because they're working to enhance my community regardless of what member benefits I get. I think that a powerful purpose told through your storytelling to your local community was only going to enhance the support that you get from everyone. And so I think that you know having a compelling purpose and a a define and defining it to everyone will ultimately lead to an abundance of great things. and I mean, so you put it into place, your board needs to understand it and you need to To brag on yourself and talk about the great work that you do. you know, we've set chambers up for failure in this country because it's a membership model for a community organization that's working to enhance the community kind of sets them up for failure in a lot of ways. Because if they're working on tourism, and I know everyone has seen this in a ton of towns, if you're working on tourism, you're getting hotel occupancy tax in Texas at least, you have to promote all of your hotels. But you're Your solid foundation as an organization is based on membership dues. And what benefit is it to one hotel to join the chamber if you have to promote all of them? And so I've seen chambers struggle with that for years. and so I think we have to to stay true to our purpose and rethink how we're set up strategically so that we can have a greater impact.
17:57.918 Brandon Burton
I I agree. And I like what you'd mentioned about as a chamber, you need to brag about yourself. And I know chambers have a hard time doing that. It's a big struggle for a chamber to say, Look what we did or look what we're doing because what our purpose.
18:11.362 Sarah O'Brien
Does the great things that people the ch the things chamber should be bragging about have nothing to do with their membership model? And I think that's why it's so difficult, Brandon.
18:22.432 Brandon Burton
And a lot of time they're working in collaboration with maybe the city or school district or tourism. It's yeah. It's easy for those other organizations to ride the credit and say, look what the school district did or whatever. But a lot of times the chamber is that driving force and you need to brag on yourself and show how it it's meeting your purpose, those programs and and events. That's right.
18:28.664 Sarah O'Brien
Yeah, it's
18:40.321 Sarah O'Brien
Absolutely.
18:47.31 Sarah O'Brien
Got to toot your own horn. No one's gonna toot it for you.
18:52.43 Brandon Burton
So you had mentioned you worked with the Elgin Chamber of Commerce to help create a a purpose statement for them. are you able to share with us how they're implementing that and how that's looking?
19:08.632 Sarah O'Brien
Sure, absolutely. So their and let me their purpose statement is to build community through meaningful connections and partnerships. And and it's so simple, but it's just beautiful. And like I said, I'd write a check, you know, to that organization any time I could, whether I live there or not, because I I believe in community and connections and partnerships. and so they're and I call it a roadmap. So I actually think strategic planning is dead and you know. the process is still completely relevant and you still need to have a document. But with data and technology and the evolving landscape, I think a a three to five year plan, you know, oftentimes needs to be thrown in the trash after you're two and start fresh and you'll have some consistencies. And so I call it a roadmap. and Gina Carter, the president of the Elgin Chamber, if anyone knows her, recently had a new grandbaby arrive in Florida. And so she actually got to go and spend three weeks there because her board has been empowered and inspired by their their purpose and the the new roadmap and so they've actually been planning the banquet as she said almost entirely on their own. She's just kind of there for guidance. I think she's home now but was able to to leave, you know, and not have to worry because they've gotten some great motivated board members that I think really just needed to feel a sense of direction. they all are on the board because they want to contribute in some way. You know, I've never joined a chamber self with my self-interest, you know, that I want you to promote my business. And I understand that that's an effect, but I've always done it because I know they do good work in the community. And I think most board members agree with that sentiment. They're there because they want to make a difference. and when you make a difference in your community, ultimately your business will, you know, prosper. and so I think that they were lacking, you know, affirmation, that's it that it's okay to be there to want to build community and to do all those things. Yeah. And not just to improve your business.
21:20.014 Brandon Burton
So I think it it's probably appropriate, given the discussion that we're having, to look at the the purpose of this podcast, Steven.
21:30.136 Sarah O'Brien
I yes, because you articulate it so well.
21:33.292 Brandon Burton
I would say I I mentioned at the beginning of every episode that it's my goal to introduce people introduce chambers to people and ideas so they can better serve their chamber members and their community. So that's been you know, the the podcast is a tool that I'm able to do that by bringing people like you on to be able to share ideas and be able to do some of that RD, that ripping off and duplicating for one chamber to another. But another tool that's kind of evolving out of that. And again, this is looking at what's the end result. That I'm trying to help the chambers with. You know, who's the customer? Who's what's the end result? So one of these other tools, besides a podcast, is the opportunity for me to start teaching chambers how to do their own podcast as another medium to reach out to their community, to connect with them, to just engage with the their chamber members and and the community at large to really help get that purpose and mission of the chamber out there. So
22:29.78 Sarah O'Brien
That's so powerful. you know, when I I I love that you start every episode with your why. You know, this is why I'm doing this. I want everyone to be better connected and to have resources so that they can enhance the work that they do. I mean, that's just it's beautiful, Brandon. I love it.
22:45.634 Brandon Burton
Thank you. I appreciate that. So chambers, as we look ahead into the future, and and I ask a more detailed question on this as we wrap things up, but looking ahead at chambers in the future, how do you see maybe that development, that changing from what the why used to be with chambers to the why going forward?
23:14.498 Sarah O'Brien
I mean it's important to know that it's it's been a lot of chambers wise, I think for years. It just hasn't been articulated. So I don't want, you know, anyone to think that I don't realize that. So I have been doing a lot of research lately. There's a group called the US Department of Arts and Culture. It has absolutely nothing to do with the federal government. and they had this project a few years back called An Imagination Station. you know, and I think that our the power to imagine. what will be and to think about what if and wh why not is powerful. And so I see, you know, if chamber directors are thinking, okay, well what do I need to do and what are we going to look like in 20 years? I think an imagination exercise answering that very question, what are we going to look like in 20 years can be very powerful. I mentioned it earlier, but we used to have convention and visitors bureaus. And then we had destination marketing organizations. destination management organizations are the current, you know, buzz term. And then slowly coming up behind that, the other buzz term in some circles at least is the destination development organization. And so in 20 years, what is your chamber going to be called and what does it look like? And I think that I think it's going to be radically different. And I'm, you know, I can't predict the answer to that because I think it's different in every community. And we know every chamber is different. We talk about that all the time in chamber circles, right? that there's no two alike. And so I think when you look at the industry as a whole, it'd be very difficult to pinpoint what it's going to look like because I think it's going to be very localized and very specific based on what the community's needs are at that time. it needs to be flexible and nimble as well because it needs change.
25:05.484 Brandon Burton
I like that you brought up the name. You know, what is your chamber going to be called again in twenty years? So going back to the the meaning of you know, I just keep thinking the name chamber, you know, what what does that mean? And a hundred, hundred and fifty years ago, that's you met in a room, you know, it was that that was the form of communication, is everybody had to come together. But now, I mean, we've kind of bypassed telephones. I mean, we're kind of we still use phones, but It's the telecommunication is has kind of come and it's we're s we're still there, but between webinars Yeah. I mean there's the constant evolving with the internet connections and webinars and being able to reach out and have members of your organization that are far outside of your community, but they have an interest in seeing your community succeed and getting behind that that mission, vision, and purpose of what the chamber has to offer. So
25:38.04 Sarah O'Brien
Yeah.
26:00.95 Brandon Burton
I think people in general should look in their own life and see, you know, what am I personally in five years? What does my career look like? What are my personal relationships and all that? It's good to do that self assessment. But as you do it for your chamber, even as part of a strategic plan, you had mentioned you know, not seeing quite as much value in that. But the way I see a strategic plan is
26:23.618 Sarah O'Brien
Process. I just think it's a different name.
26:27.234 Brandon Burton
So I I see I see the the strong value in having the strategic plan, having that five year vision and outlook of kind of the direction that you want to go, but it needs to be a readdressed at least every year and see are you are you on track? Is that track still the right course? Or do we need need to pivot and make an adjustment because technology's changed or you know, something in the city has changed or big industry or whatever it may be. So have that long term vision. But be able to be nimble and adjust and pivot where you need to. So good stuff.
27:00.546 Sarah O'Brien
Good. Amen.
27:03.598 Brandon Burton
So what based on our discussion today and what you're doing with chambers around purpose statements, what might be one action item that you can encourage a chamber professional that's listening to do to help take their chamber up to the next level?
27:21.566 Sarah O'Brien
And I think you know, a lot of them, it's just I guess it depends on whether they're already doing it or not. But so get your mission and your vision out. And if it's not on your website, which I found one yesterday wasn't on their website, start talking about it publicly and start talking about expanding that and including your purpose statement, whether you start with a just a conversation at home with your family and then start with your chair. But you know why you serve. And so I think you're right. Let's start with why the director does what they do and articulate that. And then sit down in a room. You don't have to hire me to come in to do it. I mean, anyone can do it. I'm happy to come, but start identifying that purpose and talking about it. and and that's simple, but I think that's what needs to be done.
28:14.516 Brandon Burton
And if if I could, I'd like to add that it needs to be something that can resonate throughout the community. So as you start talking about that purpose, use their language. You know, don't use chamber language, don't use city language, use language that's going to resonate to those business owners and those people in the community that can say, I never I always wondered what a chamber does. I mean, by having a clear purpose statement, that question should never be asked in your community about what is it that the chamber does? Make it clear. Concise and use their language.
28:45.708 Sarah O'Brien
Absolutely. And that way they can connect with it and you'll I think have all the support you need.
28:50.772 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. So the question I ask everyone that I have on the show, and we've been kind of talking around this as we've been discussing, but as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see their purpose going forward?
29:06.316 Sarah O'Brien
think that their purpose is going to align directly with other community organizations and you know I think that there's going to be a lot more and you know collaboration is I believe in it passionately, but it's more than that. I think that there's going to be a lot more combination and merging and combining of these entities and these organizations moving forward. You're already seeing it in some places. And so I think that that will continue. And I think that those that are at the table leading the discussion will be better off for it instead of those that are scared of change and don't want to have those difficult conversations because their communities will have to have them with or without them at the table.
29:56.716 Brandon Burton
Very good. So I would like to to give an opportunity, Sarah, for you to put your contact information out there. If anyone has questions about purpose statements or how to get started or just to continue this discussion offline or to hire you to come in and help their chamber, how can they get in contact with you?
30:17.24 Sarah O'Brien
So it's very long, but www.collaborative developmentcollective dot com. and that has my email address, my phone number, my LinkedIn profile, and all of that good information on it. Or you can just stop by Smithville, Texas, and see if you can find me on my front porch.
30:36.344 Brandon Burton
Go to the front porch. Yeah. That's right. I will I'll get that updated in the show notes for this episode, which will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com slash episode sixty-two. So we'll get your website up there. And I'm sure you you probably didn't have any problem coming coming across that domain, right? When you went to purchase that.
30:38.306 Sarah O'Brien
We'll have church on the porch. That's awesome.
31:02.15 Sarah O'Brien
No, I did not know. And that's so long. I'm like, what was I doing? So my email is Sarah at which is even worse. But anyway, yeah. Yeah. We'll address that one. There you go. Thank you.
31:10.242 Brandon Burton
We'll make it easy for people. We'll we'll make Thank you, Sarah. I appreciate all you had to offer us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast.
31:19.53 Sarah O'Brien
Thank you, Brandon. I appreciate the great work that you're doing. Keep it up.
31:23.808 Brandon Burton
If you are a Chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast, new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you're finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

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

Episode 61 — Welcoming Industry Outsiders with Maureen Griffin
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Maureen Griffin
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.842 Brandon Burton
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
00:14.616 Brandon Burton
Now your host. One of his favorite TV shows is the Goldbergs. He's my dad, Brandon Burton. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. This is Brandon Burton and I'm here to help introduce you to people and ideas so you can better serve your chamber members and your community. This is episode 61 of Chamber Chat Podcast, and today our guest is Maureen Griffin. Who's the director of marketing and communications at the Granbury Chamber of Commerce in Texas? And as a high-impact brand developer and storyteller, Maure finds joy in her uncanny ability to connect with people, help them realize their potential, and assist them in creating their unique path to success. Prior to joining the chamber world in 2019, Maureen had a holistically diverse Career in broadcasting, marketing, public relations, sales, and real estate. Wow. Must be an interesting resume to look at. Maureen believes in her career path with the common thread of communications has positioned her perfectly to serve in the chamber world. In fact, she's very passionate about recruiting more seasoned corporate business professionals into the realm of serving businesses through U.S. chambers. An avid believer in playing to your strengths, Maureen decided. in the second half of her career life to include the top five strengths of Clifton Strength Finders and positioning, which are woo, communication, belief, ideation, and individualization. She believes the Granbury Chamber of Commerce is a perfect fit to use those strengths in helping other business leaders become successful. So I'm excited to to have Maureen on the show today, and as her bio talks about, she's passionate about involving others from other backgrounds. So our discussion for our conversate conversation today will be about welcoming industry outsiders into the chamber world. And we'll get into more of that as soon as we get back from hearing from our sponsor.
02:21.494 Brandon Burton
Every chamber is looking for new ways to increase their non-dues revenue. Has your chamber found a good affinity program? I have a great affinity program to offer your chamber that will continue to increase in revenue year after year. I want to introduce you to Swipe It for all of your credit card processing needs. Swipe It has a unique affinity program that 1.2 Helps your chamber members be more profitable, and three provides recurring non-dues revenue to your chamber. To learn more, please visit Chamberchatpodcast.com slash C C for credit card. Again, Chamberchatpodcast.com slash C C and get swiping with swipeit. Okay Maureen, we are back. Welcome to ChamberTap Podcast. Thank you for spending some time with us today. If you would please say hello to the audience and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.
03:27.33 Maureen Griffin
Fantastic. Well, thank you. First of all, I want to say thank you, Brandon, for having me on here. I'm I'm very excited to get to speak with my fellow chamber folks. And I like you said, I'm from Grandbury Chamber of Commerce. And Granbury is about 40 minutes south of Fort Worth, in Fort Worth, Texas, right on the beautiful Lake Granberry. And listen, we always questions, right? What's something that you can tell people that they won't expect?
03:57.603 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
03:58.382 Maureen Griffin
I have rode in the back of a cop car many times.
04:05.198 Brandon Burton
Okay. Should you expand on that or not? No.
04:10.89 Maureen Griffin
is always the response I get. It's it's it's wide-eyed and wide-mouth, like yes, I'll I'd love to expand on that. So kind of as you mentioned in my bio, I say that my resume is holistically diverse. And there was a time in my life during college where I worked as a bank teller and as a bank branch manager. And unfortunately I worked in an area that got robbed quite often. So when the officers would find the bank robbers, they would ask if you could please get in the back of the cop car and do a drive-by to to identify the suspect that they caught. So I have probably I have probably rode in the back of a cop car maybe 10, 15 times, but thankfully just to ID somebody else.
05:00.674 Brandon Burton
Wow. So when you said you were in college, we'd be in the back of the cop cars. I thought this is going a different direction. But
05:08.204 Maureen Griffin
that now that could really be good, huh? I should add that.
05:11.544 Brandon Burton
That's right. So that means you're robbed like fifteen times or so, right?
05:17.822 Maureen Griffin
Yes, or my tellers, like when I was a supervisor. Yeah, they they they very bold and brazen. They would walk right up and just rob them. So
05:26.072 Brandon Burton
Wow. Wow. That's crazy. Well you definitely shared something interesting about yourself. can you can you expand a little bit more about the Granbury Chamber? You mentioned kind of where it's located just outside of Fort Worth, but maybe more about the chamber and size and everything, just so listeners can relate to the perspective that you'll bring to our discussion today.
05:50.542 Maureen Griffin
Absolutely. I'd love to. So we are the Granbury Chamber of Commerce. And truly though, we really see in Hood County, we have, of course, Granbury, Crescent, Laipan, Toller, some of the you know smaller outlying cities. So as a chamber, though, we really try to present regionally because we know it's not just you know the city of Granbury. The city is actually quite small. We have about 8,200 people. However, in Hood County, we have about 65,000. So, you know, truly the bulk of our membership and and cons residents are outside of the city. our budget is about 500,000. Hood County is actually last year was the ninth fastest growing city in the US by percentage. So we are growing leaps and bounds. a lot of folks move here because of the, well, first of all, it's beautiful on Lake Granberry. the people are yeah yeah.
06:52.488 Brandon Burton
I can attest to that. I've been there, I've seen it, it is very beautiful.
06:55.956 Maureen Griffin
It is. And we have an an amazing, you know, downtown square that has kept its historic feel, but yet it is updated with all of the amenities that you want to enjoy. you know, we have a great on Highway 377, our business sector. And then the outlying areas more for like manufacturing and and whatnot jobs out there. So we have really like the best of all worlds, except for one thing. 75 Percent of our workforce that lives here drives 35 minutes or more to get to work each day. So as a chamber, we are heavily focused on economic development to obviously help and retain our businesses that are already here, to make them be all they can be, but then also to improve the quality of life for folks that live here so that 75% of our workforce age people do not have to leave town each day.
07:53.934 Brandon Burton
So I'm curious how that looks the other direction too. So the business owners that are there in the Granbury area, are most of them located in Granbury or are any of them coming in from outside in the Fort Worth area?
08:07.788 Maureen Griffin
Most of them are located in Granbury. You know, some of the manufacturing jobs and whatnot are out in the county lines outside of the city. And for I'd say the last three or four years, there was not a specific economic development program going on. So the chamber in connection with the city and Hood County this year, we started a partnership where we are specifically focused on economic development. To try to help those companies who can relocate here to get here.
08:41.526 Brandon Burton
Yeah, very good. So as I alluded in the the introduction, the topic for our discussion today is around welcoming industry outsiders into the chamber world. So coming from your ho what how'd you call it holistically diverse background? Yes. Why why is this such an important topic to you to to welcome industry outsiders into the chamber world?
09:08.408 Maureen Griffin
Well, it's important to me because I realized I just got back from my first year of chamber school, out at University of Arizona through the institute. And it if anybody has not done that, they need to get there. If they're in Chamber World currently, you need to go through the institution management chamber school. It is fantastic. You get the opportunity to learn from so many, not only chamber folks, but other associations that are attending the school as well. So it's a great opportunity to learn what has been going on in chambers and what we have the opportunity to do in the future in chambers. But one thing I saw when I was there, Brandon, I saw that chambers, a lot of our, and I have to be careful the way I say this. A lot of our you always want inclusion, right?
09:56.566 Brandon Burton
That's right. We don't want to stereotype too much, right?
09:59.854 Maureen Griffin
No, no. I will not use the term that the title companies are using. They're saying they're in a silver tsunami, meaning like all of their employees are aging out. But, you know, truly in a lot of the chamber world industries, different chambers, we kind of are. I mean, we we are looking at an opportunity now where okay, the long-term chamber employees are starting, especially leaders, are starting to age out. They get to go into retirement. enjoy that part of their lives. So I think we have a huge opportunity to reach out to, you know, corporate professionals, nonprofit professionals, to come on over to our side and and and experience the chamber life.
10:44.748 Brandon Burton
That's right. So I think that hits on an important key though. with these, you know, some of these older, maybe I don't use I don't really like using that term either, but these lifetime seasoned seasoned lifetime kind of chamber people. they had a certain way of doing things and and the chambers worked very well for a long time that way. And what we're seeing now with with some of these more seasoned and experienced Chamber professionals are are starting to exit as they move on to the next stage of enjoying life. it also is kind of coinciding at the same time with a shift in how chambers operate and kind of their focus and goals and and less of a networking kind of a organization and more of a workforce development and more of a you know education association where It's just a it's a shift where it's important to bring some outside perspective to say how can we make the the chamber most effective in our community based on what our needs are. And a lot of times it's hard to do that when you have people in in positions that have been there for a very long time, it's hard to get them on board with that change. So from your your diverse background, what are some of these Other out industry outsiders that you would look to for some of this background and experience that can help benefit chambers.
12:19.608 Maureen Griffin
Well, Brandon, you nailed what you just said, you nailed it right there. That we we could end the interview right there. Truly it But truly, I mean it is. You you mentioned, you know, not only is our you know, our chambers, you know, they're aging out, but the world is changing. The members that we're serving, their needs are changing. how we communicate is changing. The old ways of, you know, necessarily doing, you know, monthly luncheons.
12:26.072 Brandon Burton
All right, we'll see now.
12:49.362 Maureen Griffin
or you know, 30-minute you know networking breakfast before work, that may not fit everybody's needs nowadays. you asked for maybe examples of industry outsiders. when you mentioned workforce development, that's a huge piece of what the chambers can do with economic development. You know, think about bringing in folks who've worked in the education field. Maybe folks who've worked in your local school districts, maybe it's folks who have worked you know at nearby colleges or universities, but they can be a huge source for helping you understand, okay, this is what the education system is focused on, but you're telling me this is what the employers need in our community. Let's figure out a way to, you know, for the the needs to meet the the demands and whatnot. So I like the areas of looking at folks who have worked in education. and believe it or not, also people, I think sometimes we forget about this, not for profit agencies. You talk about somebody who can take a budget of three dollars and stretch it to three hundred. Right. You find a good nonprofit person, boy boy, you you've got, you know, somebody who's gonna work with the leanest and meanest budget and and be able to maximize it to its full potential. Plus, you know, the folks that work in in nonprofit, they are community connectors. They know everybody because they have to, because their budgets are are lean and mean.
13:53.727 Brandon Burton
That's right.
14:17.014 Maureen Griffin
So, you know, finding somebody that's worked maybe for your local United Way or, you know, other service organizations, immediately you're bringing on board somebody who is a connector in the community and can get you access to every single resource.
14:32.556 Brandon Burton
I I might add that a non profit person is also gonna be very purpose driven with what they're doing. So if they can get on board with the purpose and mission of the chamber and kind of piggyback with their resources and connections that they have, I can see that just, you know, adding fuel to the fire and just really taking off.
14:51.79 Maureen Griffin
Absolutely. Yep, you're absolutely correct on that.
14:54.35 Brandon Burton
So when you talk about adding these you know outside perspectives, are you talking about as staff? Are you talking about as committees? What what do you vision when you look at adding or welcoming industry outsiders?
15:10.466 Maureen Griffin
Well, I think we have a couple of different opportunities. I'd even start as high as the board. go ahead and take a look at your board. And you know, not that we're ever gonna out board members. We're not looking for a coup or anything here. But when you do have an opportunity, when when I I have to be careful how I say this, but when you do have an opportunity, you know, when somebody when you have a board member or two that say, you know, okay, I've enjoyed this, but I think that you know, this is my my time to step down or to step aside or whatnot. look at the opportunity, look at your board. You know, a lot of us chambers, even Granbury Chamber, we have a young professionals program now. And, you know, the nobody thought in a town of Granbury, which is known to be the retirement community, you know, south of Fort Worth, our first Brandon, our first GYP social had 70 young professionals show up. That's And even th the I know they told me that themselves that they all looked around like, what? We didn't know we had this many. quote young professionals in Hood County. So, you know, even starting with your board, take a look, is there a a young professional who would be excellent at serving to bring that fresh perspective? like you mentioned it also, your volunteers, your ambassadors, you know, usually the school districts are members of chambers. So reach out to somebody at the school district and and say, hey, who would make a great ambassador who would like to join as an ambassador for the chamber? You know, somebody who's a connector. Somebody who will be honest and with us and say, hey, this is what the schools really need. you know, and of course as employees and leaders in the chamber as well. But I'd say start with your board, start with your with your volunteers. I think those are the the quickest ways to make big influence and then bring them on into the chamber.
17:01.952 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Be strategic about it. you know, something you mentioned as you're talking about the young professionals. I it just struck me maybe that these call them millennials or whatever you want to call they I know that word can be offensive to some people. So we'll just we'll say that those young professionals, I think a lot of them They don't necessarily want to wait until retirement to live a retirement kind of lifestyle. So when you talk about Granberry being known for, you know, kind of being a retirement community, to me, it kind of makes sense that you would have such a strong young professional group because they want to be able to enjoy that lifestyle while they can still enjoy it, you know? and it it brings a different perspective that you don't always get when it's just the way things have always been done at the chamber. So I think that's an important it they may not have that experience that they're bringing, but they're definitely bringing a different perspective that that should be addressed.
18:00.716 Maureen Griffin
You you're you're correct. You know, and it's funny because a lot of times, you know, this kind of goes with industry outsiders, but you know, a lot of times we look at mentoring programs for young professionals and we look at it from you know top down. You know, how can I, a person who has 30 some years in the workforce, how can I mentor that person? No, we need to look at it from the young professionals up. How can I be mentored by that young professional? What do they know about technology? What do they know about pop culture? What do they know about the families' needs in our communities? You know, they I I have the opportunity. Rachel Derez is our director of events and membership, and she's a millennial. Okay. we tease her, we tease her that she's an old soul because she you know, to to everybody out there who's who puts all millennials in one box, shame on us because you know, as with as with everybody. We don't all fit in one box. millennials have so much to offer. And, you know, her and I can sit in here and brainstorm for an hour and an hour has gone by just like that. So, you know, just because you've been in the workforce 20, 25, 30 years, don't assume that you know everything. You know, get a mentor who is a millennial. Have them teach you what they're seeing and the stuff that that we're not necessarily as in contact with as we used to be.
19:23.574 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Very good. Well and I think even platforms like podcasts are a great way to be able to learn from outsiders and from a lot of times the younger, maybe millennials that you talked about having mentors. So it's not always necessarily a a formal mentor where you say, Hey, will you mentor me and and tell me what you're seeing with technology and stuff? But you can find these people. Whether it's online or podcasts or blogs or whatever medium that they're using to get their message out there. And you can learn a ton from them and kind of what those trends are that are up and coming throughout the world. So great point to make. Is there things that you're starting to implement there at the Granberry Chamber as far as welcoming these industry outsiders? How is that looking in practice there in Granberry?
20:14.042 Maureen Griffin
Well, we're a small staff. We boy boy, we are a staff of what six now. So we rely heavily on six people to get a lot done. But I'll I will say this. so I am on the chamber side, the newest person here. I started in July. And so I would say that most recently, prior to myself, Rachel Derez, you know, our millennial. She she was an industry outsider and she's and she's only been here a year previous to me. So she came with an art degree, a photography degree. She'd worked in in retail management and whatnot. So she brought, you know, several different industry outsider viewpoints to the chamber. And then our CEO, Mike Scott, you know, he did the same thing in hiring me. okay. Maureen's bringing, you know, a perspective of somebody who who is, you know, leaving the real estate industry right now. You know, so she knows land, she knows commercial development and whatnot. She's also worked in sales, marketing, broadcasting. but so you know, I will give him kudos to my boss that he was able to follow the thread and see, wow, okay, because she's worked in these different areas and because she's worked in corporate America, you know, she's gonna be able to relate to the needs of our membership. So we're I mean
21:18.957 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
21:39.862 Maureen Griffin
And and we're implementing it, I think, also through the GYPs, the young professionals. And we're really, you know, trying to bring them on as ambassadors, bringing them on in planning new events. why why do we have to show up everywhere for an event? Why can't we do a webinar? You know, I mean, those are questions we us us seasoned professionals might not have thought of, you know. So just like having committees, having you know, groups that you are willing to reach out to and and listen to because realizing that you don't have the answer to everything.
22:15.596 Brandon Burton
That's right. And I think that's so key when you talked about the interviewing process. Yeah, so often we want people that have the exact background that we're looking for. And oftentimes the background that's gonna work best, we didn't even know we're necessarily looking for. Yeah. So and that makes it hard to find those candidates that bring that unique, you know, background from the outside. But it also keeps us from being pigeonholed into saying we need somebody who has, you know, 10 years chamber experience or whatever it is that you're looking for. But to be able to say, you know what, this person has a background in retail or this person has a background in real estate or whatever education or any of these things that can be applied and be a a big strength for a chamber as they look for the new ways to to serve their community in a way that is maybe more relevant than it used to be in the past. So great point.
23:12.744 Maureen Griffin
Brandon, you brought up there the hiring practice, you know, are in the hiring practice you brought up, you know, are we sh are we making sure that we do not put on, you know, when we post for a job, just like you said, are we posting, you know, should candidates should have, you know, six to eight years chamber experience? Or are we talking about the qualities and the attributes and the experience that we want of a of an employee coming into the chamber? Longevity in one area doesn't always mean that they bring what we're looking for. So You I think you made a really good point there in, you know, in the hiring process when we're posting for these positions. Are we posting for qualities and attributes or are we posting for longevity? So I would definitely encourage all of us that are in the hiring process to sit down and take a look at the position we're hiring for. You know, what is it that I want in that candidate? Do I want somebody who, you know, knows the community? Do I want somebody who's you know comfortable and going out and speaking in in different size groups? presenting one-on-one? Do I want somebody who maybe we're really going down the road of economic development right now and that's rocky road for us? Do I want somebody that has government relations, you know, experience? Do I want somebody that has advocacy experience? So really, you know, it's I think when you said that, it made my my mind, my mind click that, you know, we need to make sure that from the hiring standpoint, that we're looking for those attributes that we're looking for. And like you said, don't just pigeonhole the the the 10, 15 twenty year chamber person.
24:40.556 Brandon Burton
That's right. And the wording, the messaging that you put in those job posting ads are is so important. there was a I'd heard of it, I guess it was a commercial for one of these staffing agencies and it talked about just that. The word, you know, if you use words like, you know, dog friendly environment or whatever, you know, that that sends a message to the people that are applying that, this is a more casual work environment or You know, you can't necessarily say certain things in a job posting of of exactly what it is you're looking for, but the way that you word it, the way that you put that messaging across will attract certain people that will fit what it is that you're looking for. So it's a little bit more difficult in making sure that messaging comes across the right way. You got to put it more intention into it. But in the end, the result that you get out of it is gonna be so much more impactful. So So I know we need to kind of start wrapping things up here a little bit. So I wanted to ask, based on on this topic today that we've been discussing of welcoming industry outsiders, what is one piece of advice or action item that you could encourage the the chamber professional listening to do to help take their chamber up to the next level?
25:56.974 Maureen Griffin
Okay, I thought that was a a great question and I had to think about that here for second and probably two pieces of advice if I can.
26:06.158 Brandon Burton
Sure. I mean we'll we'll charge everyone for the second piece, but no, the first one's free.
26:12.098 Maureen Griffin
There you go. Other revenue streams, right? Other revenue streams. I okay, so this is probably the easiest to do. Take a look at your membership. Okay. What does your membership look like? Do you have a lot of retail folks? Do you have a lot of hotels? Do you have a lot of you know, manufacturing? What I would do after you take a look at your membership is attend other industries training. So let's say, you know, Granberry. We're known for, you know, we are the mo we are the number one. historic small town in the US. And that was through US day-to-day. So that's a huge kudos. So what do you want to make a bet that we have an amazing hotel association here, right? So they are a huge driving force of our economy, big part of our membership. So what I might want to do is, huh, let's look take a look at when the hotel association has their next training session. going to a meeting is great. You know, I think that's a that's an easy baby step. But but Go beyond just a meeting. Don't just show up with donuts and pitch why the members, you know, the chamber is great for them. Go to one of their training sessions. You know, reach out and say, hey, when is your next training? What's the topic? And ask if you can actually attend the training session. Because what you're going to get from that, when you go to another industry's training, you're looking at everything from their eyes and what what they have to deal with every day. And you're going to get like a real candid view of of what their industry goes through. let's just say we'll use the hoteliers as an example. Say we are starting to get a lot of international travelers. So, you know, they're trying to learn different culture, different you know, ways to serve people. And and by being at that training, I would learn then some of the you know, the opportunities, the strengths, the weaknesses, and whatnot that that industry is going through. So right there, immediately it puts me looking at things through their perspective. So it it is. Basically it's welcoming those industry outsiders by being there and and soaking in it.
28:15.788 Brandon Burton
That's huge. Does that make sense? Being able to have yes. I was the whole time you were saying that, a perspective was just screaming in my mind that it gives a different perspective, a different way to approach problems and solutions by knowing just in that one industry, that one sampling. But if you were able to to attend a couple different ones and maybe see where those similarities are and see, you know, what what aligns best with how the chamber can serve it, I think that that is a great tip. Awesome.
28:43.244 Maureen Griffin
Okay, and here's here's my other tip. And I'm not gonna charge them. You can charge what you want to, but I'm not gonna charge them. Here's my other tip. Okay, so to look look at your position, you know, look at your strengths as an individual, what you bring to the chamber and training from a different perspective. You know, yes, you want to do the chamber school, the the institute of organizational management or other chamber like training. Absolutely, because that gives us a backbone and good quality insight to what chambers are doing. But then take a look at your role. Like, okay, for myself example, for example, you know, I looked at the CPC, the certified public communicator, and and how can that training like that, how can that help bring in an outside perspective? You know, and I'm it so it's it's it's training beyond my current level and current skill set, but using this the skills that I have each day in a different way.
29:35.926 Brandon Burton
Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. All this is just about having different perspectives to bring to the table. it's
29:42.678 Maureen Griffin
Awesome. Absolutely. Awesome. It it really is. And and it's important because let's face it, our current and potential members, you know, all of their mindsets are different than what we drive to work and and do every single day. So we want to make sure that we're in touch with their needs.
29:59.702 Brandon Burton
Yeah, for sure. So as we wrap up, the question that I ask everyone I have on the show is as we look to the future, how do you see chambers of commerce and their purpose going forward?
30:13.646 Maureen Griffin
I think it's a great question. I think it depends on your community because every community is unique. for us, heavy, heavy emphasis on economic development. And again, to remind everybody, economic development is not about forgetting our current businesses, but it's it's making sure that how our community grows is how you know the community wants it to grow. And what are we doing to help bring in new businesses, but also what are we doing to make sure that our current businesses are successful. So take a look at the opportunities. Kind of like we're we're doing we said, you know, welcoming industry outsiders, look outside of our current scope and see what we how we can best serve the community that we we're living in.
31:00.254 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. And that the focus on economic development is it is it's not just looking at new growth, but it is it is supporting the existing businesses as well. As you bring new life and new industry into the city, it's bringing in a stronger economy, which is going to filter through all the other businesses. So with having that focus, it's just a matter of helping the other members and the you know, everyone in the community really catch that vision of yeah, with us. having this effort and this focus on economic development, everybody is gonna benefit. So I I think
31:36.238 Maureen Griffin
And that's one thing that we're I'm sorry, that's one thing that we're really fortunate here is that we have a great partnership, you know, with our county and with our city. we're very fortunate that we were we're all on the same game plan with that. And having those partnerships, it helps create that vision. it's so much it's so much more effective to have everybody on board.
31:55.22 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. So Maureen, it's been a pleasure having you here on ChamberTap Podcast with us today. If anyone listening wanted to connect with you and maybe pick your brain a little bit more or follow up on this discussion offline, how might they get in contact with you to do that?
32:13.986 Maureen Griffin
Several ways. you can email me at the Chamber, Maureen, M-A-U-R-E-E-N at GranburyChamber dot com. we're on all the social media platforms. You can reach out to me that way. and subscribe to your podcast because I'm subscribing there as well.
32:31.134 Brandon Burton
All right. That's awesome. Everybody should subscribe. That's great. I will I will update your contact information in the show notes page for this episode too, which will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com slash episode sixty-one. So people can can find it there and connect with you. But again, Maureen, thank you so much for for being with us today and sharing this perspective. That seems to be the word of the day. the the your perspective on welcoming indust industry outsider.
33:01.39 Maureen Griffin
Thank you, Brandon, for the opportunity. I really appreciate it.
33:06.572 Brandon Burton
If you are a Chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast, new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you're finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

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

Episode 60 — Future Ready with Christy Gillenwater
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Christy Gillenwater
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.842 Brandon Burton
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
00:11.758 Christy Gillenwater
And now your host, he met his wife at a high school prom. He's my dad, Brandon Burton.
00:23.148 Brandon Burton
Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. This is episode 60, and I'm Brandon Burton, and it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas so you can better serve your chamber members and your community. Our guest this week is Christy Gillenwater, who's the president and CEO of the Chattanooga Chamber in Tennessee. Under Christy's leadership, the Chattanooga Chamber Collaborated with community partner organizations and leaders to superhead the Velocity 2040 Community Visioning Initiative. Velocity 2040 involved collecting community input from more than 4,800 area residents to inform the Chattanooga Climb's five-year talent and economic development plan. This plan benchmarks Chattanooga and Hamilton County against other communities to move towards their Velocity 2040 vision. Christy was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in public affairs from Indiana University and a Masters of Business Administration from Ball State University. In 2012, Christy was named a certified chamber executive. Christy has led two other chambers as president and CEO: the Southwest Indiana Chamber and the Greater Bloomington Chamber, where she led them to win the National Chamber of the Year. By the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives, as well as the Indiana Chamber of the Year by the Indiana Chamber Executive Association. In 2017, the Indiana Chamber Executive Association recognized her as Executive of the Year. Christy is a graduate from Institute of Organizational Management, Economic Development Institute, Indiana Economic Development Academy, and Richard G. Luger Excellence in Public Service Series. Christy is involved in several organizations in the following roles. She's part of the executive committee for the American Chamber of Commerce Executives Board of Directors, and Chattanooga 2.0. She's also a member of ACCE Board of Directors, US Chamber of Commerce Committee of 100, Chambers for Innovation and Clean Energy National Advisory Council.
02:42.36 Brandon Burton
Chattanooga Area Convention and Visitors Bureau Board of Directors, Principal Leadership Academy Board of Directors, Thrive Regional Partnership Board of Trustees. Christy and her husband Brad have four children: Jordan, Blake, Thomas, and Joshua. As Christy's with us today, we're going to be talking about having a future-ready chamber, being prepared for the future as a chamber. And we're excited to get into this discussion today, which we'll dive into as soon as we get back from hearing from our sponsor. Every chamber is looking for new ways to increase their non-dues revenue. Has your chamber found a good affinity program? I have a great affinity program to offer your chamber that will continue to increase in revenue year after year. I want to introduce you to Swipe It for all of your credit card processing needs. Swipe It has a unique affinity program that 1. Lowers your credit card processing fees at the chamber, 2, Helps your chamber members be more profitable, and three, provides recurring nondues revenue to your chamber. To learn more, please visit chamberchapodcast.com slash CC for credit card. Again chamberchappodcast.com slash C C and get swiping with swipe it. All right, Christy, we are back. Thank you for joining us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. Could you please just take a moment and say hello to the audience and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.
04:22.294 Christy Gillenwater
All right, sounds great. Well, Brandon, first of all, thanks so much for having me today. And hello to all of my chamber friends out there, all of our friends in the industry. I'll tell you, we are constantly inspired by the brilliant work being conducted every day by so many chambers and chamber leaders throughout the country. So thank you for inspiring our work. I will tell you something interesting about me. I actually I'm fighting a cold right now, so I apologize for my voice, but I started off in this industry as an intern when I was at Indiana University when my father, who know me knew me so well, suggested I walk down the street and offer to intern at the Bloomington Economic Development Partnership and the Chamber there. And that ignited just a real passion for communities and a passion for the amazing work that chambers conduct throughout this country. So that's something unique. I know there are a few others out there in our industry like me who also started out as interns and really never looked back.
05:27.81 Brandon Burton
That is awesome. I know for a lot of chamber presents, it kind of happens by accident. You just kind of stumble into it. But this seems like it was a bit more intentional starting as an intern, learning the business and falling in love with it. so I am curious, what was your father's background for him to think, you know, having you go intern at the economic development?
05:48.558 Christy Gillenwater
Great question, Brandon. So I lost my daddy nine years ago and been so tough as a daddy's girl. But he actually at the time was president of a company and he was conducting the site selection work. They were expanding throughout the country. They were a pavement maintenance company. And so he was interfacing with economic development leaders in different pockets of the country. And as he interfaced with them and they drove him around the community, you know, sold the community, told them about the data around the community and how they would partner with his company, he he just saw that as a great opportunity and alignment for my skill set. And again, he he knew me best. And I'm forever grateful for his vision there.
06:35.732 Brandon Burton
Yeah, that's great. Not everybody has that opportunity to make those connections on that level. So you were blessed from the beginning with that. That's for sure. So please share with us a little bit about the Chattanooga chamber. Kind of size, location, budget, just some of those indicators so we can all relate a little bit better to the perspective that you bring to our discussion today.
06:44.301 Christy Gillenwater
Right.
06:59.608 Christy Gillenwater
Sure, Brendan. And I and that is always important. You know, I've I've run I started out at twenty-two running a really small chamber and then you know, growing to Bloomington Evansville and then here. But but I think even whether you're a smaller chamber than us or larger, we can all learn from one another, right? And so I've made a career of R and D robbing and duplicating off of so many others who have conducted, like I said earlier, brilliant work throughout the country. But but for context. we we service our county. We are the only chamber in our county. We also have a regional footprint, the Greater Chattanooga Economic Partnership, which serves a 16 county, three state area. So I'll kind of tackle both. So in our county, we have a population of 362,000. We're growing f regular relatively rapidly. Chattanooga itself is right at 180,000. We as a chamber. If you it depends, you know, everyone kind of counts their members differently. If you count individual members, you know, we're right at about 1800. If you c count their sister organizations and sometimes multiple locations, we're around 2200. We have a staff just over 40 and a budget of 7 million. Now we have a 501 C6 side and C three side plus the regional partnerships. So On the C6 side, we conduct our membership work, an engage public policy component, which actually we've really just been building over the last two years since I've been here. Really taking that to a new level, being full-time at the state house, being very active locally. And then we have 11 geographic councils. So, like I said, we are the only chamber in our county. And we have 11 geographic councils that are fantastic with their own boards. We have 170 board members on those geographic councils. They conduct events, they have monthly meetings, they engage with the schools in their footprint. And then we also have an international business council we run through our C6 side. Now on our foundation, the Chad Nooga Chamber Foundation side, we run all of our economic development efforts, our talent development, talent recruitment, and talent retention initiatives.
09:20.578 Christy Gillenwater
That includes leadership programs. That includes our diversity, equity, and inclusion work. And then also we run, I believe, the country's third largest physical incubator. We have around 127,000 square feet, five staff over there, nearly 60 companies. And that is through our again, our startup called the Business Incubator. It's physically called the BDC. The Business Development Center in collaboration with our county, our county mayor actually, county, owned the building and then we operate it. So it's a great program. And then as I mentioned, Brandon, we also have the 16 County Greater Chattanooga Economic Partnership that we staff. And so that's you know, 1.1 million from a population standpoint, it's about a $33 billion economy among those 16 counties and three different states. Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. And you know, from an industry standpoint, we're very solid in manufacturing, transportation, logistics, flooring, healthcare. Unemployment like much of the country has been a challenge. You know, we're hovering around that three percent, but our our region is really seeing a a lot of growth and it's an exciting time. We're juxtaposed between Nashville and Atlanta, just under right around two hours from each one of those, right in between those two cities. And so as they are growing tremendously, we are as well.
10:56.854 Brandon Burton
Very good. Well that's that gives a really good snapshot of what the Chattanooga Chamber is trying to accomplish and and what all you have going on. And I love the point that you made about how we can all learn something from each other. And you know, I I have a hard time thinking of any other industry. Where somebody would willingly come on a podcast and say, Here's how we do things. Now take it and go copy it and apply it yourself, you know. But the the chamber world is something very unique like that, where everybody is willing to help and provide the tools and resources out there that they use. And even for a smaller chamber that is listening, to be able to they might listen to some of the things that you have going on and think, well, if I had a staff of forty, I could do that too, or whatever it may be. But Throughout our discussion today, I'm hoping that some of these things will resonate even with these smaller chambers where they can say, you know, maybe I don't have a staff of 40 or that kind of budget or that those kind of members to be able to leverage and work with. But you know, I just that sparked an idea for me what I can do in my community with the resources that I have and be able to grow and develop. So that's kind of the goal and the target direction that we'd like to go. So with our discussion today, I'd kind of introduce the topic that we'll be talking about as being future ready. So I know that's a big discussion in the the chamber industry is how do we prepare for the future? How do we stay relevant? And that's a question that I ask everyone that I have on this podcast at the at the end of the interview. And I'll ask you the question directly at the end, but I ask the question about how do we as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see it? and and the role that chambers have going into the future. So I think you'll probably answer some of that question in our discussion today, but when we talk about being future ready, what is the Chattanooga Chamber doing to prepare for the future?
12:56.354 Christy Gillenwater
That's a that's a great question, Brandon, and and one that again we can all learn from one another. I know when I w again was with smaller chambers, I'd always look to larger chambers, chambers of similar size and even smaller, for inspiration. And there's so many brilliant conversations happening right now within ACCE circles and throughout state associations, et cetera, the US chamber, you know, around continuing to inform us as chamber leaders around what we should be thinking about. And it and much like you know how our cities have changed, I mean, gone are the days where you know, talent wasn't that that much of the subject matter. And economic development today, that's the leading discussion item is tell us the composition of your workforce and give us very detailed information around talent pipeline initiatives, numbers, you know, specific pathway. programs that you just didn't see you know 10 years ago. And so whether your chamber has economic development function or not, you know, your awareness of that is really key as as you know an enabler of community prosperity. And so I think continuing to stay on the forefront of what is driving economic prosperity. We like to think of it as economic prosperity for all in our community. You know, I think it's paramount. And so What we're doing right now, Brandon, we've been inspired by a lot of work. As I talked about earlier, we loved R D and I've been really fascinated with Omaha's work around Prosper Omaha, and that really inspired our work. And I've had a lot of conversations with David there. that led to our Velocity 2040 work because we knew As we developed a five-year strategic plan for our community, we really needed a better understanding of where people wanted to go over the next 20 years. You know, what level of growth did they want? What was top of mind of concern? So we actually were blessed to hire Rebecca Ryan to come in and of course she's well known in our industry, trained futurists, and had her conduct three really engaging sessions with around 250 key stakeholders.
15:11.126 Christy Gillenwater
We ended up then serving nearly 5,000 people and we had people participate in every zip code. We partnered with United Way, Urban League, the city, the county, you know, a number of private organizations, foundations. And it was just a wonderful process. And and when we even broke it down into the zip codes, what top five things concerned people? Actually we asked top three things concerned them over the next 20 years. And then we asked what what three things should we do first. There was a great consistency. And number one is they were concerned that good jobs and good schools aren't available to everyone. And then when we asked what we should do first, they said make sure every student has what they need to learn. And then the other the three after that were all focused around workforce, making sure you know our our underskilled population has access to good jobs, making sure that they're trained in jobs for the future. So there was a real intentionality around, I think, neighbors and making sure their neighbors were successful as well. And that really led us then to Chattanooga Climbs, which is our five-year plan around our Chattanooga Chamber Foundation. that we've now gone out and raised $50 million, so three million a year. We're just under, we're so close to that bold goal. right, right coming in on that that bold goal for the next five years. And Chattanooga Climb is based on To your point, Brandon, first of all, future ready, making sure that our people have the skills for the new economy. Second, mobility for all, making sure every resident is thriving, and that's really jobs for all. So our economic development efforts. Three is gig city wins, you know, making sure entrepreneurs lead the way, and then all over that inclusive economy with collaborative leaders. And we feel that that's really bringing our part of Velocity 2040 to life, and that's the the thriving part, ensuring all parts of our community are thriving. There were some other key outcomes of Velocity too around education, around collaboration, around leadership. And so we think we bring a number of those components of Velocity 2040 to life, but we also are relying on other partner organizations and candidly every person in our community to bring Velocity 2040 and Chattanooga Climbs to life. And
17:28.0 Christy Gillenwater
Every time I have the chance to speak to groups or to individuals here in Hamilton County and Chattanooga, I talk about, you know, everyone's role in building our economy. And I would say it's the same everywhere in the US. It's, you know, welcoming a new neighbor to your neighborhood. It's welcoming coworkers into your workplace, you know, inviting them to lunch. It's growing your organization, right? It's promoting your community on social media or to friends or family who are. debating moving back there or moving there for the first time. So everyone in the community is empowered to be a part of Chattanooga Climbs and Vaucity 2040. And that's something we've been very intentional about. And to me, I think that is a a key component for economies of the future is really engaging more of the population and the economic prosperity for the entire community.
18:21.848 Brandon Burton
I love that as you found out this information that everyone was so interested in their neighbors and the surrounding communities being successful too. And I I would imagine that across the country that we could probably find a similar thing in in other communities too, that they want their neighbors and and neighboring communities to be able to be successful and be able to promote business amongst each other. But I would I would encourage any chambers listening to do that research in your own community as well and see that see if that feedback is the same for you before you go and implement anything, of course. But can you just maybe touch a little more detail on these different areas? You talked about mobility for all over education, gig city and inclusivity. maybe starting with mobility for all, what are you guys doing on that front as far as education and having that be a focus? Cause I I know education and and even workforce and talent development is a huge topic right now for chambers across the country. So I'd I'd like to hear what you guys are doing individually and maybe see how that compares to what other some other chambers are doing and maybe spark some ideas for people listening.
19:36.462 Christy Gillenwater
Sure, Brennan. Happy to. And and for further context on our Chinese climb strategy, we engaged with Avalanche Consulting Group, but it's something chambers can do on their own as well. We had a number, we had a 60-person steering committee. We had 800 people, actually, yes, 800 people contributing 900 hours to building this plan. So again, it was a very intentional plan. We had church groups, we had neighborhood groups, we had, you know, a plethora of business partners engaged in building this plan, something that again we could all own. And Future Ready really came out as the leading component of it, which was a switch for us because typically it's mobility for all, which is jobs for all. And so they're really intertwined, I guess is what I'm trying to say as you mentioned mobility for all and future ready. They're they're so intertwined for us So, in order to create mobility for all, and that's really again the economic development portion of what we're doing, you know, we need to also focus on the future part. But under mobility for all, we have a real intentionality around what our target sectors are, and we were thoughtful around those target sectors. Are those tar target sectors scalable? Do they create economic opportunities for Certain population groups within Chattanooga and Hamilton County who haven't had access to great jobs in the past. You know, we always like to talk about healthcare. I mean, healthcare jobs, you know, many communities on this podcast today have hospitals, right? You have primary healthcare organizations. You know, those jobs are located throughout communities. They often have a lot of opportunities for. Scale for economic mobility for different community members. And that intentionality to build sectors like that, we think really makes a difference. You know, one of our recent success, we had a company, actually a Japanese paint company, come in and they located in our inner city where people can walk to jobs, they can bicycle to their job. And you know, being intentional about that. So not only the industry sector.
21:49.656 Christy Gillenwater
but also thinking intentionally around where you have open land, where you're trying to recruit companies to, you know, as transportation can be challenging for folks. So it's it's so so related to one another. But but again thinking about intentionally what our target sectors are, thinking about where we locate jobs. that was a lot of our focus. And and candidly in Chinookan Hamilton County, You know, we have we are running out of land to some degree. and so really doing a lot of deep research around that and then leaning on our partners in the region who can really pull into that economic success. And that's why you know one of the reasons I think our region functions so h well as a cohesive group is we all understand the assets we bring to the greater region and and we work collaboratively together. So So again, mobility for all, you know, your your economic development efforts, but really taking them to the next level. And then you mentioned future ready as well, Brandon. And that for us is all around making sure our people have the skills necessarily for necessary for the future economy. And we're concerned about and excited about AI, right? As so many folks. you know, when you think about it and the impact it's going to have on your workforce. We're trying to make sure that we have the right talent pipelines, you know, to to really align with jobs for the future. And we're starting that work in the eighth grade with you know, youth science being conducted in our eighth grades. And then we have get future ready programming where students then have access to understand jobs here in the community. They then make a more informed decision around which future ready institute they want to join. In the ninth grade, and we're finding in our public education system, one four one third of the students are choosing a future ready institute. And those are 28 different institutes housed within our high schools that are focused on different industry sectors. So whether it's construction trades, whether it's healthcare, whether it's software and IT, and the business community is really coming alongside the school system and developing internship programs, accreditation.
24:07.794 Christy Gillenwater
you know, curriculum development, et cetera. And it's been a an amazing partnership. I know we have over, I think pushing 170 volunteers, you know, helping within that that creation of this Future Ready Institute. So and then when it comes to the two year colleges, you know, making sure that there's better alignment and we're we're helping to convene discussions, particularly for smaller companies who may not You have the numbers to talk around, you know, program development at our two-year colleges or our four-year colleges, that we're helping to convene those conversations around industry sectors or occupational sectors around what the demands are. Because we found through our Chattanooga Climbs work that we have some real, you know, challenges in that space in terms of what we're projected to produce over the next five years versus what our members will demand, what our economy will demand. And so having those. candid conversations, but coming alongside our higher ed, our K-12 partners and saying, what do we need to do differently as a business community to better assist you and and strengthening this talent pipeline. And so under Future Ready, we have, you know, high school graduation rates is one of our, you know, one of our metrics that we want our investors to hold us accountable to. Well, we're not in charge of that, but we, you know, need to come alongside and showcase to people how we're so interconnected. We do have apprenticeship participation, internship programs, you know, not only the number of employers participating, but also the number of students participating as some of our metrics. You know, we think that's important. We have the number of volunteers assisting with future ready institutes as a metric, degree completion rates, you know, it's those kind of metrics that we want to be held accountable to over the next five years. And so to really drive our economy to the next level.
25:56.326 Brandon Burton
That's awesome. I mean it's so integrated all of it. The education workforce and and I love that you're setting some of those benchmarks to what the outcome is at the schools. And like you said, even though there's not a you don't have a direct what's the word, I guess outcome responsibility for those graduates, but you are being influential in in seeing some of those programs and inspiring some of these youth to be able to to find those future ready jobs and career paths that they want to explore. can you touch a little bit about being a gig city? What why is that important for being future ready there in Chattanooga?
26:39.726 Christy Gillenwater
Sure, Brandon. And again, it goes back to collaboration and how we're so interconnected and our success is so reliant on other partners. And Gig City was a brand that really started, you know, over a decade ago here in Chattanooga when EPB launched gig internet service. And to this day we have some of the fastest internet in the country, and it's really helped land and and spur a very strong entrepreneurial, innovative economy here. And so we have really aggressive numbers around, you know, startup relocations, to VC and angel capital investments over the next five years, to, you know, who we want to see in our business incubator, you know, having more companies come into our incubator, tracking that in a more intentional way and, you know, trying to see more startups that align with back to my mention earlier around our target sectors. You know, logistics is a real strong space for us and number of other sectors. but again, working with other partners in our community like Colab, our enterprise center, and just ensuring that we have as cohesive as an entrepreneurial and gig city ecosystem as we can. But again, that broadband infrastructure is so critical to that. And encourage all chambers out there to push as much as you can for the strongest broadband service you can have. It really it impacts, you know, starting at very early ages on up through the chain.
28:16.782 Brandon Burton
having that technology and infrastructure that way is so important to be and able to have that economic growth and and stability in your community. I find it interesting that in a a five year kind of outlook or plan like this to to have something technology based, you know, with how quickly technology changes and everything, but having that connectivity is so important today and it will be important in the future as well. is there any kind of leeway or flexibility as you guys look into the future, you know, three years down the road, if maybe five G takes off to where that is more of a standard than having the the broadband, you know, wired kind of technology is I'm just curious what kind of ability there is to pivot if you need to.
29:08.834 Christy Gillenwater
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And in fact, we have 10 gigs in in our city as well, 10 gig access. And so EPB just continues to, you know, push the needle and provide the best infrastructure they can for us. And so for us to be able to have you know 10 gig internet service and be able to promote that is you know continues to be a game changer for us. So but I would say no matter where you are on the spectrum and your economy. You know, just continuing to encourage broadband, whether you're in a more rural setting or an urban setting, you know, working with those providers and encouraging that continual investment and and broadband gig service for your community, it does impact. And when you think about gig workers, you know, we've we've had a number of tremendous, you know, lists over the last five years for Chattanooga. And one is, you know, top place for gig workers. And it's that has led us to actually secure some company expansions. In fact, we just announced one not too long ago, Vigot, when they had an employee who was a gig worker here who, as he acclimated more to the city and connected more, thought this would be a great location for an expansion for our company. And long story short, you know, that's what happened. He met one of our board members who then introduced us to their CEO. And so You know, just those, you know, that kind of strategy that candidly, you know, ten years ago, we weren't necessarily thinking about. And so that opportunity to secure gig workers, of course, our outdoor we're so well known for our outdoor activities here from rock climbing to bouldering to engaging in our river and our our lakes. We have amazing opportunities for outdoor recreation. And so it draws a certain segment of the population. And so you're thinking about how how those assets of your community that maybe before were seen as a visitors bureau play, now can also be an economic development play for your economy.
31:15.692 Brandon Burton
Very good. I see how that can open up doors for sure in your economy there in your community. So I know we're we're getting a little bit short on time, but I wanted to give you an opportunity if you wanted to touch a little bit more on having the inclusive economy and the collaborative leadership. and see what what you might want to expand on there.
31:37.326 Christy Gillenwater
Sure, Brandon. And diversity, equity, inclusion work is so important. And again, a lot of chambers are doing great work in this space, many through their chamber foundations. I know there's been a lot of discussion within ACCE networks around you know encouraging more chambers to consider a chamber foundation, because it is a new way for companies to contribute to your organization and really further diversity, equity, inclusion work. And that's around You know, being really intentional within your business community and your larger community about being a place that you know all people feel welcome in, you know, be building that mosaic in your community where, you know, all workers feel a part of the community. They feel accepted and welcomed. And we're being really intentional about that, looking at, you know, how many companies are providing DENI training, how many employees are going through that training. the type of leadership and civic engagement programs that we're putting on and how we're putting that intentional, you know, hat on the DENI work. We hear it from our largest companies over and over, the company CEOs around the importance of DENI work and they're leading the way in a lot of those spaces. And that's really important, you know, but it's it's a change for a number of communities and To me, I think it's it's kind of a dance. I I think of a waltz and you you need to feel, you know, feel the steps of your partner and your community in this work and make sure that you're you're leading, but you're not pushing too hard. You know, it's important for communities and communities are on all level of the spectrum in this space, you know, throughout the country, depending on where you're located, you know, urban versus rural plays into it, where in the country you're located. But I think that intentionality around D E and I work is very important.
33:33.602 Brandon Burton
Very good. So I don't think that this discussion today is going to give any concrete answers for chambers to to be future ready. But what I'm hoping is that it inspired them, that it will help them to want to lead that dance like you're talking about, to be able to find those answers and what their community needs to do to be future ready. But with that being said, Christy, what would be maybe one action item that you could encourage the chamber professional listening today to do to help take their chamber up to the next level.
34:08.942 Christy Gillenwater
Great. Well, I would say check out ACCE's website for inspiration in this space. Listen to, you know, Brandon's podcasts for inspirational work that's happening throughout the country. Talk to other chamber executives around what are they thinking five, 20 years out, and talk to your business leaders who particularly those who have locations in other parts of the country, perhaps aren't from you know your community who have a lens that's a little bit wider and ask them, you know, what they're excited about with respect to your economy, what they're concerned about over the next five, 10 to 20 years, and what kinds of things they think you should be thinking about as a chamber leader. And the kind of work that they would encourage you to drive to make sure that your community really is on the tip of the toes, you know, ball of your feet, if you will. Thinking through, okay, are we positioned to be able to receive what's coming at us, but at the same time really, you know, lead the work and envision a more prosperous future for our members, our community, our economy, our people? And I think really just listening, taking that in, and then going through a process of okay, what level of process makes sense for us? Is it you know a board retreat then to You know, assess all of that information that's been received and then walk through developing a strategy, is it pulling in, you know, a consultant who can help your community walk through that process? But I think it's important that process matters. You know, process I think matters more and more today than it did five, 10, 15 years ago. It's no longer, you know, five people around a table making decisions for a community. you know, it takes a much wider lens. And I think also it takes. understanding your assets and the essence of who your community, who you are, you know, so that the work that you do is authentic. It's the next best version of yourself. But but it's authentic work. And and I'll tell you Chattanooga's whole renaissance started with cleaning our air. You know, back in gosh, 50 years ago, we were we were unfortunately had a national reputation around our air quality.
36:32.428 Christy Gillenwater
And leaders back then rallied together and said, you know, that's not acceptable. And it's been, we've been 50 years in the making. And it just took intentional work, time and time again, 20 year visioning and at a time. And as we, you know, checked off those projects, those initiatives, then the next 20 years began. And I think it takes that bold leadership, willing to look, you know, 20 years out and not being afraid of it and thinking about, okay. Let's break that down into five years. Let's break that into the next twelve months, what we need to be doing to ensure that, you know, we are really having our we have our eyes focused twenty years out on where we want our community to go. And no matter your size, you can do this work. It's just you need to think about what, you know, your your skill sets are within your team, within your community. you know, think about your resources. but be bold. Don't be afraid to be bold and and you know just go for it because your community needs you. I think there's so much relevancy for chambers. and but we need to continue to be bold, you know, listen to our community, listen to our leaders within the community and and listen to what's happening around us in our region, in our state and our country and really globally and thinking through those trends and how those trends, those global trends, those national trends, how they impact your economy.
37:59.406 Brandon Burton
I love that. Listen, have the big vision of the future and then eat that elephant one bite at a time. Break it down into those those smaller steps. So as we wrap up here, this is the the question that I posed at the at the beginning is as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see their purpose going forward?
38:22.678 Christy Gillenwater
Well, and I think to a large extent I just answered that, Brandon. You know, just being bold, thinking, you know, staying in tune again with our national association and what other chambers are are doing in the country, you know, thinking through that work and formulating how that impacts your economy, you know, staying inspired, listen to your elected leaders, your business leaders around what the needs are in your community and making sure you're very focused on. what makes sense for the chamber to bring to life in that work and and really activate and and just whatever you decide to do, do it well to your best ability. And you'll continue to have success. I believe that.
39:08.718 Brandon Burton
for sure. So Christy, as we finish up here, I think you offered a lot of great value for those that are listening and opportunities for them to to be inspired, to, to take these things back to their chamber, to their communities, to listen to what those needs are and make it that plan for their future. But for those that are listening, if they have any questions about how you're doing things there at the Chattanooga chamber, or if they wanted to follow up with any of the discussion. offline, how might they get in contact with you to do that?
39:43.214 Christy Gillenwater
Great question, Brandon. So you can learn more about Chattanooga Climbs and what we have going on here in Chattanooga at the Chad our website is ChattanoogaCamber.com. So check us out on our website. And you can also learn more about the Greater Chattanooga Economic Partnership as well at just search Greater Chattanooga Economic Partnership. you can also email me at cgillenwater at chattanoogachamber.com. feel free to reach out to Jocelyn Nielsen on our team. She runs my work life and tries her best. Awesome, by the way. she is fantastic. so feel free to reach out to Jocelyn. She's listed on our website under contacts.
40:24.16 Brandon Burton
And she's on
40:34.088 Christy Gillenwater
to schedule, you know, a call with me or or time with me as well. So and that is to your point at the beginning of the podcast, Brandon, what I love about our profession. I have learned so much and been inspired by so many great chamber leaders in our country. And you know, there's such a willingness and a culture around sharing. And you know, we think that's very important because it's it's been shared with us on so many levels throughout the years that we are happy to share as well.
41:04.31 Brandon Burton
That's awesome. Christy, thank you so much for being with us today. We will update that contact information, your website on our show notes page, which will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com slash episode sixty. But again, just thank you so much for spending time with us today and sharing about how you guys are doing things there at the Chattanooga Chamber and and helping to help these other chambers to be able to see a brighter future. I appreciate it.
41:30.114 Christy Gillenwater
Well, Brandon, thank you so much for spotlighting what chambers are doing in the country. And I just want to thank all the friends out there who you know, again continue to be bold and who are thoughtful enough to help us. So thank you so much for the listeners today and and for your time. It's really an honor and privilege to be in this brilliant profession and to be on your show today. Thank you.
41:58.124 Brandon Burton
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This transcript has been lightly edited for readability and to correct obvious transcription errors while preserving the meaning of the original conversation.

Episode 59 — Workforce Talent Development with Jordan Vogel
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Jordan Vogel
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.884 Brandon Burton
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
00:14.828 Brandon Burton
And now your host, he rarely misses a day of the gym, Brandon Burton. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. This is episode 59 of Chamber Chat Podcast, and I'm your host, Brandon Burton. It is my goal to help introduce you to people and ideas so you can better serve your chamber members and your community. Our guest today is Jordan Vogel. He's the Vice President of Talent Initiatives at at the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber in Ohio.
00:45.356 Brandon Burton
Jordan has an eclectic background, ranging from work as a professional classical musician to founding two small businesses and later bringing that entrepreneurial spirit to Sinterfuse. On the way, he made stops in corporate America, including serving as vice president of marketing for Berkshire Hathaway's Executive Jet Management, a private aviation company. In his current role as VP of Talent Initiatives with the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber, Jordan leads the chamber's effort to expand and diversify the talent base in a region through attracting new talent, developing and retaining existing talent, and connecting our their businesses to resources that drive growth. The goal to make Cincinnati the hottest city in America. Jordan is a member of the Northern Kentucky University Research Foundation Board of Directors, Flywheel Social Enterprise Hub Board of Directors, CPS Business Advisory Council, Inter Alliance Board of Directors and CVB Institute for Hospitality Board. Additionally, Jordan is a People's Liberty Hill Fellowship Mentor and a member of the Arts Wave Sustaining Impact Grant Committee. We're excited to have Jordan with us today to talk about workforce and talent development, since that's very much in his wheelhouse with what he does at the Cincinnati Chamber. And we'll dive right into this discussion as soon as we get back from hearing from our sponsor. Every chamber is looking for new ways to increase their non-dues revenue. Has your chamber found a good affinity program? I have a great affinity program to offer your chamber that will continue to increase in revenue year after year. I want to introduce you to Swipe It for all of your credit card processing needs. Swipe It has a unique affinity program that 1 lowers your credit card processing fees at the chamber, 2 Helps your chamber members be more profitable, and three provides recurring nondues revenue to your chamber. To learn more, please visit chamberchatpodcast.com slash C C for credit card. Again, Chamberchatpodcast.com slash C C and get swiping with swipe it. Alright, Jordan, we are back. First of all, thank you for joining us today on ChamberThat Podcast. And if you would
03:11.8 Brandon Burton
Take a minute and say hello to the audience and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.
03:19.15 Jordan Vogel
Thank you, Brandon, and thank you for having me on the podcast. And hello, everybody. I think I I might riff on one of the things you mentioned in my bio, which was that I was, in fact, a classical musician, in fact, a classical flutist. And that was for most of my career. I've spent the last 15 years doing other things, but the first well let's see, I don't want to give away my age, but then again, I was I've been a musician for about twenty-eight of my years on this planet. And That included multiple performances at Carnegie Hall.
03:52.354 Brandon Burton
All right. That is awesome. Performing at Carnegie Hall multiple times. There's not a I think I'd imagine that list is pretty short of people that can say they've performed there and perform multiple times in Carnegie Hall.
04:03.66 Jordan Vogel
It was an honor to do it a and it was a really fun time in my life for sure. And that's actually where I grew up, by the way, which was New York City.
04:11.84 Brandon Burton
All right. Well, if you could take a minute and just share a little bit about the Cincinnati Chamber so we can all relate to kind of the perspective that you're coming from, kind of the size and I mean, we know where Cincinnati is, but just tell us a little bit more about the chamber so we know where you're coming from.
04:28.706 Jordan Vogel
Sure. it's a fairly large chamber as compared to to many of the other chambers in our region. Part of the reason behind that is because we're what's called a regional chamber. So there are about 55 chambers in the Cincinnati Metropolitan Statistical Area, referred to as the MSA. and We actually serve the entire MSA where many of our colleagues at other chambers are serving one specific area of a county or one county, whereas we're serving sixteen counties in actually three states. there are about sixty people on staff. And as you mentioned, we're located in Cincinnati, which is a wonderful city. Kind of just on the edge of the Midwest, but you know, a hub to many places in the world. In fact, supply chain logistics, because we're a hub, is one of our strong sectors. Amazon's hub is here, DHL's hub is here. Tons of just to give you an idea of revenue, we have a zero balance budget as many chambers do, but it it's somewhere around sixteen point five million dollar budget. And that's kind of a little bit about the chamber. May maybe to also stay kind of top level, give you a sense of what we focus on. We focus on three core things. And one is we what we call being a bold voice for business. That actually includes a lot of our legislative work or government affairs work. And it also includes being focused on infrastructure and getting people to work at the healthcare and education and all the cool things the city has to offer. the second pillar. Is what we call expanding and diversifying the talent base. That's this the pillar that I lead. and we can we'll be drilling down on that today. And that's there are three components to that, which we'll talk about. And then the last one, kind of a fancy kind of sentence that we use, and we say that we are leveraging the the power of the region's unique assets. And what that really means is we're both cheerleader for all the great stuff.
06:40.098 Jordan Vogel
that that the region offers, everything from our brewing community to our arts and culture scene, to our startup scene, to the business community, to the parks and rec, et cetera, et cetera, to creating some of those cool things. So Oktoberfest, some of you may have heard of it, it's actually the largest Oktoberfest outside of the one in Munich. Blink, which was a light projection mapping show that took place over four days and crossed our river here. hit many different neighborhoods. that's something we created. We have something called Taste of Cincinnati. So combination of cheerleading stuff that exists and then creating some of it ourselves to make sure that we're keeping the talent that we have, that they want to be part of a a wonderful, vibrant city. And so we create those experiences and making sure that everybody knows who who may not be living in our bit of dirt here that we've got great stuff to offer. So evangelizing all of it, if you will.
07:39.19 Brandon Burton
Wow. Yeah, that's a lot of good work to do there. Sounds like with being a regional chamber there in Cincinnati that that would be prone to a lot of strategic partnerships with some of the other chambers within that region and probably work towards some of these goals with them, if I'm right.
07:57.286 Jordan Vogel
You're 100% right. Actually, we've got a lot of terrific relationships, a lot of reciprocity, if you will, or dual membership situations. Yeah. there are all sorts of things that maybe opportunities you could call them that the region would face. So, as for instance, when we were going up for a bid on Amazon's second headquarters, we did that in combination with a number of other local chambers. And we are stronger together, as you can imagine, 'cause some are across our river, but they're part of our region. and we wanted to show that united front. So absolutely, we've got terrific relationships with many of our chambers.
08:35.646 Brandon Burton
Awesome. So as you were talking about the kind of the three pillars that the Cincinnati Chamber focuses on, you touched on talent base and I heard you your voice kind of spike. You know, there's some excitement there about the talent base and rightly so with that's what you're in the weeds with. So you'd mentioned that there's three pillars that you guys focus on with as far as the workforce development and talent there at the Cincinnati Chamber. You want to expand on what those three pillars are?
09:04.32 Jordan Vogel
Yes. So w within the talent bucket of work, there are three areas that we focus on. The first one is attracting new talent to the region. So people who are not here. We are actively going after folks that aren't here to hopefully convince them that this is a pa place they ought to think about moving to if they are in a mobile frame of mind. So if Someone is actually thinking about moving to another region, we want to make sure that Cincinnati is in the top choice set, if you will. so one example of of an effort along those lines is to go after what we call potential boomerangs. People that may have actually grown up here and moved away, or went to school here and moved away. These are people who had a sense of Cincinnati once upon a time, may even have ties, but don't necessarily have line of sight to how much. it has grown and how much more awesome it is today than it was when they were here. This is definitely a city on the rise with an upward and to the right trajectory. And we need to keep getting the word out that it's not the city that they remember. it's one of actually the the most in demand cities now in in the nation for all sorts of reasons. So we have a lot of programs focused on attracting talent to our city.
10:24.654 Brandon Burton
I like the idea of the boomerangs. And I haven't heard that term when as far as when it comes to attracting new talent, but that makes a lot of sense. If they're from Cincinnati or came to went to school there, they've experienced it. They know the goodness that Cincinnati has to offer and reach out to them and and bring them back. Now, what are some of the ways that you're able to find those boomerangs and to bring them back?
10:48.6 Jordan Vogel
So interestingly enough, LinkedIn has an alumni tool. it yeah, it's a really powerful tool, and and we mine that pretty heavily. we also have great relationships with our higher ed partners, and we've got a fair number. We've got over two dozen colleges and universities in our immediate region, with at least four of them being major institutions like Miami University, University of Cincinnati. Northern Kentucky University and Xavier University. So we have relationships with them where we're helping identify alumni or they're helping us identify alumni. and then we're trying to make sure that we're staying in touch and keeping the city top of mind with them and giving them that line of sight that I mentioned to all the things that have changed for the better since they've been here. So we do things like that. But we also actually the lowest of low hanging fruit, Brandon, it are our university students. These are people that are in our region for some period of time. And here's kind of the missilar that that we attack here, which is we need to retain that talent. And my position on that is we actually don't retain that talent at all. And here's what I mean by that. I'm being a little bit facetious, but that talent upon graduation, all the data show that they are at their most mobile upon graduation. So we're not retaining anybody. We are attracting them. We have to be in a constant state of attraction. So our work while they're here is to make sure that they have awareness of the opportunity that exists on the business side, because we know people will move or choose a place for the career opportunity first. And then very close second is the livability piece, the quality of life and the cost of living. And we make sure what we learned kind of the hard way is early on is that they actually had no awareness. You'd go into a classroom, you'd ask these students, so who here has heard of, you know, Over the Rhine, which is our hot and upcoming you know, kind of cool place to be, in downtown Cincinnati. And and they just they've never set foot. And so when we started to realize that that was the problem or part of the problem, we created events and ways to engage and connect with all that the city has to offer. So going after that talent that is here for the a brief period of time.
13:11.47 Jordan Vogel
is one of our strategies.
13:14.496 Brandon Burton
I love that. I mean, both between the the mining, the the LinkedIn alumni networks, but also just attracting the current students are already there. I mean, too bad you can't just give out free season tickets, you know, to the football games for all the alumni just stay here, be stay at Resident, you get, you know, free football tickets.
13:35.214 Jordan Vogel
So it's really funny you say that. Now we're not giving away free tickets, but one of our higher ed focused programs is one in which we introduce interns who are interning in our region. They're coming from many different colleges and universities, not just within Cincinnati, but many within it. and we do take them to either a Reds game or an FC Cincinnati game, which is a soccer club here in town, which is a big deal right now. So you you're you're not far off there in that when they especially for the FC Cincinnati games, the the grassroots excitement around those games is so intense and so exciting that it it really does most of the work for us that we've been we've done that, I believe at least the last one year, and and we may have done it the year before, and we'll be doing it again. So that actually helps a lot.
14:32.302 Brandon Burton
Well, you create of a fan out of and you they just never want to leave. So that's right. So as far as attracting the current student base, are there certain majors that you're looking at the based on the needs there in Cincinnati as far as workforce needs go? how are you figuring out who to target as far as the the current student base goes?
14:38.714 Jordan Vogel
That's right.
14:57.526 Jordan Vogel
Yeah, that's that's an important question. So we absolutely do focus on the type of talent that our businesses need the most, right? So obviously if if we're a chamber, our actual core mission, believe it or not, is to become the hottest city in America. But we do that through helping our businesses grow grow and thrive, or one of the ways, one of the core ways we do that. So that means we have to be paying attention. To what their needs are. And IT or technology is one of the top needs that emerged in our region. If you can imagine, even though you may not think of Cincinnati as a place that's home to maybe Apple or you know Google or Facebook or what have you, we are home to more Fortune 500s per capita than San Francisco, Chicago, or Dallas. And What's interesting about that is they all share a similar need. And by the way, we have a strong startup community. We have small businesses, mid-sized businesses, not for profits, government organizations, and then those big cos that I mentioned. And they all have the same need. And that is tech talent. So we've developed quite a few programs around that. And we do go heavily after that type of talent. we're a manufacturing talent, so that's important to us. Sub as I mentioned earlier, supply chain and logistics is a really growing area for us. shared business services, food and flavoring, actually financial services is gigantic for us. Hospitality, healthcare is off the charts for us. We have at least six major systems. So that is the type of talent we focus on almost, you know, more than anything else. But obviously we have needs for for all sorts of talent, but we do pay very close attention to The data and we did release a twenty twenty eight jobs outlook report and that data has given us pretty good insight into the types of job openings that will exist over the next eight years and where we're gonna have supply chain or not sorry, supply, talent supply potential shortage. So that's that's where we kind of focus our energies.
17:10.57 Brandon Burton
That's awesome. Well, it sounds like you definitely have a finger on the pulse as to what the needs are in the business community and being able to kind of narrow down who those students are and and attract that talent to the Cincinnati area. What are what's the next pillar that you look at when it comes to the talent base?
17:29.39 Jordan Vogel
So the next one is what we call develop, but actually that's really just our word for retain. so we we talked a little bit about attraction. By the way, there's there's literally dozens of programs there, but we don't have enough time for all of them. So the the develop bucket of work is really interesting because here's here's the conclusion we've come to. Our leadership programs, which are best in class by many different kinds of I guess benchmarks or measurements, if you will. They're they're really wonderful programs. Our leadership programs and our round tables are our talent retention tools. But here's how. We bake into them a bit of secret sauce. And our secret sauce is that we bake into the curriculum elements that connect the people who go through these programs to each other, but also to the community. So here's kind of the trifecta of how the leadership programs and round tables wind up being retention programs. The first thing is, is people are developing skills. Well, if you develop skills and you do well at your place of employee, you're probably going to be elevated. And if you're elevated, there's not a lot of reason why you'd leave, right? Because you're doing well and and upward mobility and all of that. The second thing is, is let's just say there's a ceiling. And the company you're working at is not a great fit for you anymore. If we're successful in connecting you to others by very deliberate means, you can work your network to land somewhere else in the region. Because I don't wake up worrying every day about whether or not someone's going to stay in a specific company. I worry every day about whether or not they're going to stay in the region. Because we know, again, speaking about data. The data shows that, you know, two, three, four, five years kind of is the average for a younger workforce. and that's just the data. I'm not gonna argue with the data. So I need to make sure that they're well connected and they can call up Bob or Julie and say, hey, you know, I've tapped out over here, or I'm about to tap out. what do you know? You know, what's going on at your place or another place, right? So that's number two. And the third thing is connecting them more deeply to the community.
19:51.36 Jordan Vogel
If people feel like they're making a difference in their community and they're tied to things that matter to them, this place becomes stickier. And we do this very deliberately through our programs. We introduce them to things we feel as leaders they ought to know about in the community. And then we give them paths to get more involved or pathways to get more involved. and so that's become a a pretty cool secret sauce, if you will, the way we've built our programs to to connect people to each other and the community.
20:23.168 Brandon Burton
I love it. I mean, those leadership programs and roundtables have extreme value. And I like how you said, you know, it's about creating an environment or an ecosystem that becomes sticky to keep them there. And I the question that came to my mind as you were talking about developing or retaining this existing talent is how do you go about attracting these people to, you know, from their busy schedules and work and family life and everything else they have going on to give some time and to be a part of a leadership program and a round table. How how are you bringing them in?
20:57.356 Jordan Vogel
Yeah, that's that's that's interesting. So we start to get into kind of the biz dev piece of all of this. I mean, we're fortunate. I I wasn't I hope I didn't come off as braggadocious in that these are truly best in class programs. and we do enjoy a certain amount of our reputation preceding us on these programs. But that doesn't mean that it's you know, easy peasy and we always fill the the classes with no effort whatsoever.
21:24.77 Brandon Burton
Does help though.
21:26.496 Jordan Vogel
it absolutely helps. It it we have a a an edge and an advantage and you know many many of our participants come to us you know passively if you will, like we don't have to do anything and and they're you know putting in an application. But having said that, we're a membership organization with nearly four thousand members. we div we foster, we nurture our relationships with people at our member organizations so that we have our ear to the ground on what they find valuable or will find valuable. Like what do they want us to build into the future leaders? How can we make sure that there's ROI and those relationships take the shape of them joining committees that are tied to our leadership programs, where they're helping us draft curriculum. they're involved in making the days run. So as a for instance, the number of our programs are basically 10 or so months a year, one day a month. It's a pretty darn big commitment for an organization to put somebody or let someone be away from work for that amount of time. And then the cost is is significant. These are four-figure programs. And so we make sure that they are engaged with us deeply and that We're serving their needs, they're relevant, that that we've got our finger on the pulse. And so we go to them and s and by the way, it kind of crosses into the diversity, equity, inclusion conversation. Like we will talk to them and say, hey, we've we you've been sending us terrific participants, but we noticed again this year four people. And honestly, there's not a lot of cultural diversity in the folks that you sent us. Would you be willing to take another look? And that's but we have such great. relationships with them that they listen to us and and it usually they'll say something like, my goodness, you're right. we didn't even realize that and we we'd like to you know do something about that. So it's part of the how do you get people in the class? It's just this close contact with them and making sure that we're fulfilling their needs and that that we're doing a good job of making a class that's interesting also for the participants.
23:45.518 Brandon Burton
That's right. And that actually that adds a nice rich layer to that dynamic too, to be able to have that diversity and be able to see from different perspectives of everybody else that that's participating. That's awesome. so what about the this third third bucket for talent development?
24:06.83 Jordan Vogel
So the third bucket, we call it connect. what it is is it's pipeline building. So to us at least, here here at the Cincinnati Chamber, we felt that we'd be remiss if we didn't grow our population. And there's a whole school of thought around you also can grow by not attriting. So that's the retention piece, right? And then the third piece is is well that that's all well and good, but then what about developing pipelines of talent, whether that's getting people who are underemployed or unemployed off the sidelines, or what about reskilling incumbent workers who might be in a job that that's not fulfilling for them or dead end or whatever. So we don't necessarily have to grow population as much and to fill those open jobs I mentioned. If we know that we have a glut in the market in one occupational role, and a dearth in another, why don't we develop a program that can reskill them into something we know has desperate need and away from something that's got more than it you know they could possibly use. So that's what and then the final thing on the pipeline building is and then what about the next generation? Just you know quite frankly, with the silver tsunami underway, meaning you know, all the people who are retiring out of workforce. We absolutely have to be thinking about our younger generation being introduced to the world of work. So we have two signature programs on the workforce solutions or pipeline building front under my body of work, and then another one under a workforce innovation center that we also have here, which I can explain in a second. But the first those two programs, one focuses on IT talent to hearken back to your other question earlier. Around do we you know focus on talent that we know is needed? Well, we sure do. And there's a program called Apprenti Cincinnati. And what it does is it takes people who have aptitude to have a career in IT, not pedigree, but aptitude. So they take an assessment and it puts them through a boot camp, which is free to them. The employer actually covers the cost. It's basically a sixteen thousand dollar value, free to the yeah, pretty pretty cool, free to the participant if they
26:29.398 Jordan Vogel
you know, pass the assessment, guaranteed job, and then the apprenticeships s begin after the boot camp for one year with an employer and it's a guaranteed job and then when they're done with that apprenticeship and these apprenticeships are registered with the state so they have real currency they come in at the middle skill level so we have Java developers cloud specialists dot net developers business analysts you know the list is is growing cybersecurity And we propped this up a little over a year ago and it's doing great. And the reason, by the way, that the aptitude versus pedigree is important is it also hits another important thing for us, which is the that diversity, equity, and inclusion piece. When you take two things off the table, one is did you grow up in tech? You know, and you know, if if so, then you're you're automatically a candidate. Well, a lot of people didn't have that opportunity. and they might even not be your typical tech type worker, right? So tech is a male, you know, white male dominated field. Well, with apprentice Cincinnati, because it's an assessment and it's blind resume that basically interviews where the employer doesn't get to see the person's name or anything like that. We've got an outsized flow of women, minority and veteran talent. So that program is really a special one for us because it hits so many different things. from DEI to tech talent to getting getting people who are on the sidelines off the sidelines. It's it's just a cool program. The other one is work-based learning. So these are high school seniors who we're getting to come straight into the world of work upon graduation because they've said that that's what they want. They've identified themselves as not wanting to go on for further school schooling at present. They want to earn a paycheck and they they're not interested in going into the military as well. So they do want to go into the world of employment, and then we have a program where we're putting them straight into that world for paid internships in their senior year with a holy grail metric of getting offered a job and accepting that offer. And that's been a fun program to prop up as well. We s we started that a little over a year ago as well, and we are now in four, actually almost five now school districts.
28:55.976 Jordan Vogel
in our region. And again, we're a regional chamber. There's about fifty five districts in our region. So lots of opportunity ahead.
29:03.702 Brandon Burton
That's awesome. So we've got the the three pillars, attract, develop, and connect. And before we we move too much further along, I wanted to just circle back around. I know we're getting a little short on time, but you had mentioned there's about a dozen other programs you have geared towards attracting new talent. I just want to make sure we're not leaving anything out. Is there any maybe one or two of those programs that you want to touch on real quickly, just so the listeners can kind of get a flavor of what Some of these other programs would be.
29:34.542 Jordan Vogel
Sure. be happy to. I I won't go too long because again, we we could be here all day, but I think so the higher ed strategy was was one. But then then there's the exporting the Cincinnati brand to places that we want to recruit from. and in particular, we've got to focus on culturally diverse talent. So for 2020, one of the cool programs we're gonna launch is around having an experience. available to people not in our region of Cincinnati and the people of Cincinnati in a very authentic and kind of real way, if you will, where it might be over the course of a couple or few days and everything from you know evening events or you know portable art installations, just engagements, what what you what our our partners are calling engagements, where we're giving them a taste and they're connecting with real life people and it ties to another program that we initiated here a yearish ago which is our Hello Sidsee ambassadors. So indeed it's a very kind of passionate group people who really love this region and want to help grow the population and they'll go and they'll tell their story and why they're here or moved here, why they moved here and just what makes it a great place to live for them. So well our ambassadors will be part of this And they'll tell their stories. And it is all about storytelling, you know, after all, isn't it? So having those experiences, connecting to those people, showing them what Cincinnati's all about. And by the way, you know, har hearkening back to that boomerang strategy, I really what we'd be doing is maybe we would do a little bit of research on w the alumni that are in a given geographic, not here. And then we say, hey, we reach out, we say, we're coming to town. We wanna have a par, you throw a party and tell you all about what's been going on in Cincy since you've left. And now you're combining two strategies. We're taking it to them, A, and we already know they've got some tie here, maybe even family, right, or friends. And that's kind of a one two punch. So those are a couple of interesting things that we'll be doing in twenty twenty.
31:54.188 Brandon Burton
That's cool. I like the idea of ex exporting the Cincinnati brand. Yeah.
31:58.414 Jordan Vogel
We we haven't I'm sorry, go ahead.
32:01.622 Brandon Burton
I was just saying that's great branding of how you how you phrase that.
32:06.136 Jordan Vogel
Yeah, and actually one of our great partners in the startup community at Centrifuse, which was one of the places I used to work, which is a basically a a startup organization focused on making Cincinnati a landing pad for entrepreneurs, basically to to be the the silicon valley, but you know the prairie version. they went to CES, the electronics. Yeah, exactly.
32:31.95 Brandon Burton
Yeah, unless.
32:34.366 Jordan Vogel
And they exported the brand for the first time ever to and they brought one of our Cincinnati startups who got some tremendous exposure. Hey Herbie. and it was really a cool way to tell the world, hey, Cincinnati's out there, it's really a terrific place to build a business and get funding and all of that. You ought to check it out if you're thinking about having a footprint in another region. So exporting that brand is gonna be big Big time important for us in twenty twenty and beyond.
33:08.086 Brandon Burton
That's awesome. So as we wrap things up here, I wanted to ask you, Jordan, if there's one piece of advice or action item that you could share with chamber professionals that are listening that based on our discussion today about talent development, what's something they can do to take their chamber up to the next level?
33:28.398 Jordan Vogel
Yeah, it's an interesting question. I actually I I might reverse the the the question a bit and say, I'll tell you what I wouldn't do. Okay. which is tied to what I would do. What I wouldn't do is try to boil the ocean. Yeah. And I say that because I understand that this space we play in that is basically, you know, talent and workforce solutions can be absolutely overwhelming. And there is a true war for talent out there. It's global. We're all facing it. No one's unique in this respect. And there's so many aspects to it that a lot of people try to do a lot of things. So my advice would be don't boil the ocean. But what I would do is I would try to pick however many initiatives you feel you have the bandwidth to pick that you have a reason to win in. And The reason oops sorry, the reason to win comes from the resources that you have, the partners, the existing passion, even the funding, that sort of thing, that you can leverage, that you can build upon. If you're just gonna get you know enter the frame because you hear a lot of people talking about apprenticeships, but you don't have a single company that's either ever done one or you know no one in the community there there's a a kind of a uphill battle to educate people on what it even is. I wouldn't start there. so I think that that's something and when I got here there were a million things I could have done on the workforce solutions front. But notice I only picked two big bets for our first couple years out of the gate. One was deep pipeline building so that was the high school kids and the other was only on tech talent. Now I got a lot of flack, you know, so people, why not manufacturing? Why not healthcare? Why not this, why not that? I'll get to it. I gotta start somewhere. And the proof of concept for tech was it cut across all of our members, and we already had some reasons to win because we have a startup community that leverages tech. We have all of these big codes that actually have mature tech talent in them. We have a lot of training partners. The list is long of how we could actually leverage
35:30.188 Brandon Burton
Gotta start somewhere.
35:51.862 Jordan Vogel
that particular initiative or the resources available to that initiative. Whereas there are other things where I'd be just starting from scratch and it wouldn't make sense and it just would would have been an uphill slog.
36:04.108 Brandon Burton
That's right. So this next question, final question I have for you is something I ask everyone that I have on the show is as we look to the futures of chamber chambers of commerce, how do you see their purpose going forward?
36:19.806 Jordan Vogel
so one of the things I'm very proud of of of our chamber and our leader, Jill Meyer, our CEO, is we have absolutely planted a flag in the ground to lead our region. So we're not just doing things for our members, we're doing things for our entire community. And I think being willing to be the tip of the spear for positive change in your community is important. It's it's a role that in fact chambers are somewhat uniquely qualified to to play, and I'll tell you why. Chambers have superpowers. And the superpowers that you typically have are the ability to convene and the ability to connect and the ability ability to be an amplifier and a megaphone for the things that are important to your region. And you have the trust of your business community. And so to take those superpowers and leverage them to be that tip of the spear for positive change, if not Chambers honestly, then who?
37:29.377 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Good good point. Good point. I need to get some capes as we're all superheroes. Now that that's very very well taken point though. The chamber does have a way to amplify and and really does have superpowers that nobody else can really touch. So that's that's important. Well, Jordan, I wanna thank you for spending time with us today on ChamberTap Podcast. If somebody listening wanted to connect with you or had questions about what you had to share, wanted to continue this discussion kind of offline, what would be the best way for for someone to reach out to you?
38:07.618 Jordan Vogel
Yeah, easy the easiest way is email for me. J Vogel. So J V O G E L at Cincinnati Chamber dot com. J Vogel at Cincinnati Chamber dot com. My much preferred method of connecting. not voicemail, gets very but definitely and I'm pretty pretty quick on the on the the email. So yeah, please feel free and Yeah, I I it'd be my pleasure to connect with any of your listeners.
38:38.868 Brandon Burton
Awesome. Well, I appreciate what you brought to the show today. I think you put out some good ideas and opened minds probably even as to different ways to for chambers to use their superpowers to attract and retain talent and to build that workforce in their community. So thank you for for sharing that and for being with us today.
39:01.422 Jordan Vogel
Well, thank you, Brandon. It was my pleasure and I appreciated the opportunity to talk to you and your audience.
39:06.966 Brandon Burton
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This transcript has been lightly edited for readability and to correct obvious transcription errors while preserving the meaning of the original conversation.

Episode 58 — Disruption-The Necessity for Every Chamber with Shannon Full
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Shannon Full
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.884 Brandon Burton
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
00:14.218 Shannon Full
And now your host. He always celebrates his birthday with a turtle pie. He's my dad, Brandon Byrne.
00:22.862 Brandon Burton
Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. This is Brandon Burton, your host, and it is my goal to help introduce you to people and ideas so you can better serve your chamber members and your community. We're here today with episode 58, and our guest today is Shannon Full, who's the president and CEO of the Twin West Chamber in Minnesota. Now, Shannon has almost 20 years of industry experience. With expertise in Chamber of Commerce leadership, economic development, talent solutions, and organizational management. Shannon joined the Twin West Chamber as the president CEO in February 2017. Prior to coming to Twin West, she was most recently the president-CEO of the Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce and Regional Partnership in Appleton, Wisconsin. She began her chamber career at the Twin Cities North Chamber and subsequently led chambers in Melbourne. Melbourne, Florida, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. An experienced and accomplished professional, Shannon has received numerous awards for her work, including the Wisconsin Economic Development Association's Governor's Young Professionals Young Professional of the Year Award in twenty sixteen and the Best in Show winner for Talent Upload Program from the International Economic Development Council in twenty fifteen. She was a 40 under 40 winner in Iowa in 2009 and a 40 under 40 winner in Florida in 2008. Shannon has two children, Beckett and Finley, and she's married to her husband Travis and resides in Blaine, Minnesota. In our discussion today, we will be talking about disruption and how it is a necessity for every chamber. And we're excited to jump into this discussion and we'll get into it as soon as we get back from hearing from our sponsor. Every chamber is looking for new ways to increase their non-dues revenue. Has your chamber found a good affinity program? I have a great affinity program to offer your chamber that will continue to increase in revenue year after year. I want to introduce you to Swipe It for all of your credit card processing needs. Swipe It has a unique affinity program that 1.
02:43.192 Brandon Burton
Helps your chamber members be more profitable, and three provides recurring non-dues revenue to your chamber. To learn more, please visit chamberchatpodcast.com slash CC for credit card. Again, Chamberchatpodcast.com slash C C and get swiping with swipe it. All right, Shannon, we are back. Thank you for joining us today. Please take a minute to say hello to the audience. And if you would share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know Shannon Full a little bit better.
03:18.51 Shannon Full
Great. Well, thank you for the opportunity. Hello to everybody. it's my great pleasure to be here. you'll you'll hear quickly that the chamber industry and the profession is a love of mine. And so something interesting about me. well, I am a beach lover, an avid volleyball player and softball player and living here in the heart of of the Midwest. So love to travel and as I mentioned before, just really love the industry, spend a lot of my time working with chamber leaders all over the country on how do we not only better our profession, but how do we we better ourselves as chamber leaders. So I'm just thrilled to be here. Thanks, Brandon.
04:02.026 Brandon Burton
You're welcome. Thank you. And so you love to travel planes, trains, or automobiles or all of What what's your choosing your chosen way to travel?
04:10.27 Shannon Full
I prefer get me to where I need to go as fast as I can. So planes is probably the the case. and so but yeah.
04:19.534 Brandon Burton
So much the travel as it is a destination then.
04:22.424 Shannon Full
Correct, correct. yeah. It's the experience once I get there, not the experience while I'm in the in the in the wake in the in the means of getting there. So
04:31.854 Brandon Burton
well if you will share with us a little bit about the Twin West chamber, size, location, budget, and so forth, so we can all relate a little bit better to the perspective that you'll bring to the discussion today.
04:44.184 Shannon Full
Sure, sure. So I took the position coming back here to Minneapolis three years ago. actually came back. my family is from just over the border in Wisconsin, and so it was a good opportunity to come back to the family. But it's a smaller chamber than I had been leading, but one that actually has great potential and opportunity for growth. it is a large as it relates to scale of region. We serve ten municipalities in the western suburbs of Minneapolis. but interestingly enough, the Minneapolis marketplace has a high concentration of chambers. And so there are thirty-one local chambers of commerce in the metro alone. And so that also poses numerous challenges. But over three years we've seen great growth within our chamber, both from a budget standpoint. we're now about A $1.5 million operation with a very active and robust foundation. And then we've got about 850 members. And so we're a good regional size chamber of commerce, I would say, and looking for ways to look at synergies around streamlining our approach with the other chambers in the area. which may end up being some mergers and and looking at efficiencies as it relates to the chambers in general in our in our region.
06:19.0 Brandon Burton
So I have to ask, Wisconsin, are you a Packers fan? Or
06:24.19 Shannon Full
I am a diehard Packer fan. much to my dismay, we did not have a good showing against the Forty Niners. But yes, we had a great season and I live in a house that's a house divided. My husband's a a diehard Viking fan and I am a diehard Packer fan. Even our two children are divided. Yes, it's fabulous.
06:42.488 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Not to put salt in the wound, but I I was happy about that game. I've I grew up as a 49er fan, so I'm I I'm happy, but yeah. That's right. But I was a little nervous going into the game, so Aaron Rodgers can do anything. Anyway.
07:02.21 Shannon Full
Yeah, well not on that day apparently, but
07:06.446 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Speaking of disruption. No. As we get into our topic for discussion today, so disruption is necessary for every chamber. And I know it you've shared with me at some of these chambers that you've been at before and and currently at Twin West Chamber, you've helped to introduce some of this disruption. would you
07:09.506 Shannon Full
Yeah.
07:32.534 Brandon Burton
Just share some of those experiences with us, maybe from Cedar Rapids and Fox Cities, some of these disruptive moments that you've had.
07:41.966 Shannon Full
Sure. So I may start with just the the philosophy around disruption, right? I think that initially or even still in some people's minds, disruption signifies negativity or there's, you know, uncomfort with it. while although I do believe that there is uncomfort with change, and disruption is essentially change, right? the way that my philosophy has been reflected and why I've been recruited to the organizations that I have. has specifically been along the lines of of one of the factors that we see in the ACCE white paper all around kind of those factors around the that are helping to influence chambers. The one that we see is around catalytic leadership and this is really where I believe disruption is an integral part of of that that kind of philosophy. So When when I approach I've approached every organization around what are the areas that we should be looking at disrupting? And it doesn't mean that anything's wrong with them, but I always believe in continual improvements and how we can do things better. And when we look at the role of a chamber of commerce, we see disruption happening happening all around us within our communities, within our businesses. So we therefore should see the same thing in our organization. So In some of my organizations, we've seen disruption at multiple different levels. So some of it's at the strategy level, so around strategic planning and how do we approach the work that we've been doing for years and years and been doing well? How do we approach that from a disruptive mindset? some of the individual programs, so these legacy programs that we've heard about for years and years and years, how do we disrupt them and what does that look like? to some of the philosophy. So a big one that has been disruption for me in my last two organizations is the whole mindset around public-private partnership. There's been some resistance to that around should I be looking at public private partners, contracts for service? Will that deter us from being an effective advocate for business?
10:06.06 Shannon Full
to some of the work that we're doing. So major disruption for me, specifically in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, when I was recruited there. I was recruited two months following the disastrous six billion dollar flood that hit Cedar Rapids. 5,400 homes, 1200 businesses destroyed. And we looked at disruption around our entire business model had to change, right? So we were looking at now we were the only advocate for business to rebuild an entire community. And so that was a very different approach and a non-traditional approach to chambers of commerce. As I evolved and moved into the Fox Cities Chamber, we looked at disruption from the entire business model, everything from the funding model to what does membership mean and the how and how are we going to look at membership going forward? As I've moved into this role here, we see that even more front and center around what is the sustainable model for us for the future, but also what is the community demanding of us. Disruption also looks at what should be what's the needs assessment of the community, where are we positioned to help the community thrive. We're seeing that now more than ever in talent and workforce. We've disrupted a model in which now here we have six public private school di or six public school districts, two post secondary institutions that we're bringing together in a systematic approach with a technology software platform that's helping us to totally address our current and future talent pipeline needs. So that's kind of a in a in a nutshell, those that the chambers that I'm seeing thrive across the country and I'm very involved with chairing the ACCE Major Cities Group, very involved with both ACCE and the US Chamber. So I've had great opportunities to engage with chamber leaders all over the country around what disruptive models they're seeing within their communities as well. So this is why I'm so passionate about this and love this love this topic.
12:19.822 Brandon Burton
That's right. I I couldn't tell. No. so as you were as you were talking, I th the thought occurred to me when you talked about disruption is about looking at a problem or looking at a a current setting and seeing how can we do things better. So I like to think that I have that kind of mindset where I look at something and think, how can we make this better? What can we do? What tweaks can we make? Where I know a big part of the population is totally fine just sitting back and being complacent and saying, this is how we've always done it. So can this mindset is it something that can be taught or do you have to have the right people or how what would be your advice on how to get that the right mindset for disruption?
13:07.48 Shannon Full
Yeah. great question. I think that part of it is a mindset, right? Part of it there is just an an in an innate nature in some of us that likes to challenge the status quo. You know, I live with a a philosophy around different isn't always better, but better is always different. So you're constantly looking for what does that look like? and so but it can also be learned and it can also be taught. I think it can also be cultivated, right? So I think part of this is around that mindset is around all of us want to do better. We always want our communities to grow, to prosper, to thrive. And sometimes that means we need to look at it with different lenses. And but what I've also found in all of this is it's not only mindset, it's sheer will and courage, right? It's a lot easier to go with the flow and status quo and this is this is how we can just co coast right i am one that that never seems to be fulfilling to me so so i think part of it is also surrounding yourself with leaders that are going to continue to push and continue to strive for that excellence and what does that look for it also for me has been very beneficial and why I'm so passionate about going in and helping other communities and regions and leaders is that I like to to bring in outside experts that are able to help me challenge the status quo. It's hard to do on an island by yourself. So to have some of that support has been very beneficial to me in the past as well.
14:51.726 Brandon Burton
I love that. I love that difference isn't always better, but better is always different. And that that reminded me of the the whole idea if if you want something different, if you want your organization to be better or to meet certain goals, you're not gonna get there by doing the same things you've always been doing. You have to make a change to be able to meet those goals and move forward. And I like that you mentioned about bringing in outside help because a lot of times it's having that perspective from a different point of view. To be able to say, you know, have you tried this? Have you tried going this direction? And and challenge that status quo. So I I love that. Different isn't always better, but better's always different. So you had mentioned earlier in some of the disruptions that we'll call it at your at the chambers you've been at, about funding models and challenging and and changing how your chamber is funded. would you mind expanding on that a little bit?
15:52.718 Shannon Full
Sure, sure. I I know for a fact, in whether it's our ACCE conversations, whether it's my state association chamber association conversations, our Midwest Chamber Association conversations, there is not one conversation that happens that we don't talk about something regarding the s the sustainability of the chamber in the future, the changing business model, the way in which people are investing differently. so it's always top of mind around how chambers are funding themselves, right? So I'll give a perfect example. one of my organizations when entering into it, we were 75% of our overall revenue came from the dues paid by our members. we now three years later are that's 35% of our revenue because that whole mentality and philosophy. around membership and engagement and what membership investment gets us is changing, right? So it's changing from our small businesses, but it's also changing from our mid-size and especially our large corporations. Our corporations are investing differently now. So they are looking at many of our my largest funders are not funding based on our membership. In fact some of them have blatantly said we are not joining organizations, we're not funding memberships any longer. So we've had to take the initiative upon ourselves to say, what are the things that you want to fund? Where are you passionate about? And most of the time it's around certain initiatives. So it's around community initiatives, initiatives that in the past chambers have not been involved in. You know, I think about some of the leading chambers now that are leading on on massive community initiatives around poverty, around mental health, around you know, more of that that holistic type of approach. Others for me, so we're looking at we have funding aspects, initiative funding aspects now around some of our project work. So we right now are have been for twenty years working on a a transit line a southwest transit line that is a
18:16.654 Shannon Full
commuter line that is gonna be huge for us. Well, we've got companies that are going to be big beneficiaries of that. If we're going to continue to support that work from an advocacy standpoint, those companies should be helping us to do that and invest in the in that around there. Other initiative funding around talent and workforce. So if that's the number one challenge, which we're hearing from our companies, then they should be helping to fund some of our work around that, the helping to fund this public-private partnership, this new we have a new Elevate Futures, it's it's called, is our talent initiative. so we're seeing and having to look for funding in a different way. We also see a tremendous opportunity around specific contracts for service from our our public sector. I mentioned this before this whole mentality around public private partnership that's another funding model that can be somewhat contentious as it relates to the philosophy and the mindset, right? So we've got public-private partnership agreements with our school districts, six of them. That's about $150,000 of our budget. But we deliver contracts for service of being the liaison to help schools better connect students with and teachers with career connected learning with our businesses. And that Instead of the school districts hiring their own internal business liaisons to do this work, that's our that's our mission and what we've been doing for a long time. So why not contract with us to do that and streamline the process, making it easier for our our businesses and our the employees of those businesses to engage in our talent pipeline work. So those are the types of things that I think about from a funding model that could be massively different for us and allow us to actually increase our value proposition at the same time that we increase our overall revenue and support for that.
20:23.202 Brandon Burton
So it sounds like a lot more work though than just sitting back and like collecting membership fees, right? You gotta you gotta actually provide programming. You have to provide these opportunities and listen to your community and get that feedback, collect the data. I mean, not that it's it's not bad by any means. I'm just I'm just joking. But Can you dive in a little bit more on some of these public private partnerships? Are there some other examples? You mentioned the school district, but are there other examples that you've seen or you know that have worked out well? 'Cause I know there can be some points of contention, but I think in some of these private and partner priv public and private partnerships, it it helps sometimes to have a buffer between the chamber and the community and and you can use that strategically. But
21:10.2 Shannon Full
Sure. Yeah, I think there so this is not new. many chambers have done public-private partnerships or contracts for service for a long time. so some of our chamber, some of the chambers, even those within my metro may major cities group, they are the economic development arm for the city. So some of them have full contracts with their cities in that the the cities may not even have their own economic development department. They might have the chamber do that entirely. others of it is for us. It's just a portion of that. So we have 10 cities in the process of forming public-private partnership agreements with all of them. We started with three pilot cities. and interestingly enough, we do our contract for service with our cities is in two areas. One that is growing a lot more attention is in that talent and workforce space. A lot more city councils are going to their city leadership or their staff and saying, we want you to be in the talent programming. We want you to answer the challenge around talent pipeline. And we know that one of the greatest assets or aspects of economic development now is our ability to attract, retain, and develop talent. So cities are looking to doing that themselves. We've actually approached them to say, we're already in this space, we're doing it well. Contract with us, and together we will form a partnership in which we are delivering talent programming for your businesses, but you can help us to bring that message out there to those businesses through the city. And so what's interesting about this is this has nothing to do with membership, right? So we are working with companies that aren't members. around talent pipeline challenges because they're interested in engaging in that and they're willing to fund that, but they may not be willing to fund it in in a membership capacity. the other, so the one deliverable we have for our cities is is in talent and we have a contract around that. The other is around business retention and expansion. So most of our cities would love more resources, more opportunity to form
23:31.438 Shannon Full
stronger relationships with our businesses. We have a great in because we speak business language. We have credibility and the trust of those businesses. So we are actually doing a partnership around business retention and expansion where the cities invest with the chamber for us to have to build out additional capacity to go out and make face-to-face visits where we take city staff members or elected officials with us. And we form, we find out what is it that are the greatest challenges facing our businesses. We do so in a one on one fashion. We then are able to form resource response teams that are able to address their individual business challenges. So we've got companies right now that are saying they've got a challenge with talent, they might have a challenge with a utility, a re a certain regulation. That's either a county regulation, a state regulation, or a city regulation. so finding out we collect that data, we do that in a in a fashion that we're able to aggregate the data, and then twice a year we report back to those city councils on these are the themes that we're seeing. So that that's another form of that public private partnership. So yes, it's more work. I would say what it does is it gives us a much much more breadth and depth into our community and into our businesses that increases our value proposition as it relates to this is why the Chamber of Commerce exists and the work that we do very passionately around that.
25:11.506 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. And I think that I don't know if you see it as a challenge or not, but what I've seen as a challenge with other chambers is being able to get that idea of what that mission of the chamber is to those that are members and those that are still thinking that the chamber should be about networking and after hours and ribbon cuttings and everything. three Ps rather than three C's, right? So being able to to get that messaging across to those members of look, this is how we're serving you and the entire community in general by having these partnerships, by helping the school system, by bringing in the talent and workforce to keep your doors open. it's just it's a shift, but maybe not the direct benefit. So I I don't know if if you see that being a challenge in trying to get that messaging across to your members or not. what are your thoughts on that?
26:06.454 Shannon Full
Yeah. There is no doubt we will always have the component of our strategic plan that is our business services that is really focused on how do we help you get the individual business provide you the services that you need to directly see benefit in the organization. But this is the philosophical dilemma and shift that I think chambers are facing. We have huge opportunities when we look to being the catalytic leaders, when we look to being the conveners, the solution-based strategists. I think chambers are solution-based strategists and can be positioned to do that very well. But that shifts the value proposition from a what's in it from what's in it for me. So that whole that individual mindset around I'm joining a chamber to get something directly out of the chamber to benefit me. So It's shifting that from although you still may get some of that, we're trying to say the reason you should belong to the twin west chamber of commerce is for the greater good approach of the work that we are doing. And here's some of that. We want your if you're a small business and you're investing $500 with us a year, we want you to see that your $500 of investment is strengthening our talent pipeline. giving students more opportunity to create relationships so that we can retain them here. We're about providing opportunities around public policy that allows us to strengthen our overall business climate so that we can succeed and that you may not get the direct referral that you're looking for. And if that in all honesty is the only reason you're joining, we say great, engage with us in those areas. But there are so many other things that we're missing. And so it's really our conversations with and surprisingly, have been very well received by our small businesses. I think too often, unfortunately, we don't give s our small business businesses the credit that they want to invest for the greater good and not solely for the what's in it for me approach and that they will actually get these
28:30.442 Shannon Full
ancillary or indirect benefits that they weren't thinking of by joining us if they approach it from the mindset around what's the greater good of the the work that we can do. So so we've got don't get me wrong, we've got lots of our members that join just for the sake of the networking and they want to get out of that. What we find is they start to get involved in some of that greater good community outcome work and they actually see far greater benefit than what they ever anticipated.
28:59.382 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Now the way I see it is it is networking, but it's like networking on steroids because hopefully as you explain the messaging and what the chamber's about to these members that maybe were just joining for the networking aspect, they buy into it and then they get involved. They join committees, you know, they're they're involved and engaged on a higher level in which they're gonna build those deeper relationships that will in in fact help their business in the the long run and and probably the short run too. So in talking about disruption, what kind of foresight does a chamber need to have as they kind of look to the future and try to plan for those changes that need to come? What are some things that you look to?
29:43.554 Shannon Full
Yeah, so I look to so I think that that's a critical part, right? Foresight is everything, especially if we want to be the visionary leader within the community. If we want to be one of those visionary leaders, if we want to be the catalytic leader, having that foresight. So a few things that we look to are look towards is really figuring out where are the critical data points and the data centers in our region, what's driving the region. Whether that be for change or for sustainability. so we look to what are I'm really big on strategic partnerships. So we have a lot of strategic partnerships with what I would call unlikely friends, right? So we look to what are we seeing as trends in our unions? So we are we've got a highly unionized population. So what are we seeing as the trends in talent and workforce as it relates to our union. What is what are the trends in our school districts? So we're seeing a tremendous, a huge shift in demographics within our school districts. So what should we as a chamber be doing around diversity, equity, inclusion? Because we know that in order to be compelling and appealing to the next generation of leaders, we have to be open to that. So that's a a foresight piece around diversity, equity, inclusion. Some of the other factors that we should chambers should maybe look to are businesses so businesses of all sizes but also not just the businesses that are here but the businesses that are leaving our community why are they leaving what are their what have there been their big challenges when we look at talent attraction what what are where are we appealing but once we attract leaders here What are their challenges once they face, once they get here? are we as opening, welcoming, and inclusive as we think we are? No. so what should that look like? so those are some of the I think having foresight and really huge opportunity for chambers to start to be the leaders that have those catalytic conversations. It starts all with setting the table.
32:07.722 Shannon Full
and allowing diverse stakeholders to come to the table for those types of conversations. This is that area that we're seeing the greatest opportunity. We have more diverse stakeholders at our table now than we've ever had in the past. It's because we're asking for those that mindset that mindset and we're asking for that feedback. We're asking we're not saying that before long ago, so for you know, ten years ago when I was Halfway through my career chamber career, we had a very big mindset around if you're not a chamber member, we're really not, you know, engaging with you. instead, we've made a massive shift to we want to engage you as a stakeholder and show you the value of then the chamber and belonging and joining. And even if you're not joining, investing with us and being with us on certain of our initiatives. So that's a that's a big, big shift for us.
33:04.684 Brandon Burton
Yeah, I love it. That that makes perfect sense. So I know we need to start wrapping things up here, but I wanted to ask you as we kind of tie up this this conversation here, what is one action item that you can suggest to chamber professionals that are listening that they can do to help take their chamber up to the next level?
33:28.546 Shannon Full
Yeah, I think for me, disruption can happen in very small ways. It doesn't mean that you have to come in and blow up the entire plan and everything that everyone's done for, you know, the legacy of the organization for, you know, twenty years, fifty years, a hundred years. I think it's small steps of acknowledgement around where could we where is there a concentrated interest in looking at doing something differently? Right. So it doesn't have to be massive, although it can be. It could be the when I was hi in my previous the three organizations I've been hired into, I have interviewed as a catalytic disruptor leader. I that they hired me specifically to do this type of transformational work. But I think it's around identifying those opportunities, surrounding yourselves with champions that want to have the courageous will to do it. Everybody says they want change, right? I found this with my board. My my the board that hired me that wanted change is not the same board that is here three years later because things is hard. And so so it's finding where are areas you can make a little ripple which makes a massive wave once you are able to to convene the right people around the table.
34:50.422 Brandon Burton
That's right. Now, this next question I asked everyone that I have on the show, and you've kind of alluded to it throughout our discussion, but as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see their purpose going forward?
35:03.902 Shannon Full
I think we have a huge opportunity to continue to be massive catalytic leaders and truly conveners of knowledge, the ability to be a force to be reckoned with in chambers and really be a thought leader, but we have to be open to a different mindset. And so that's the part for me that's super exciting. I think chambers have a huge opportunity in the future. But I truly believe it will not look anything like what a chamber of ten years ago looked like. I think just evolution is not only gonna happen, it's an absolute necessity for us and that that won't happen without disruption.
35:48.886 Brandon Burton
Yeah, absolutely. So Shannon, I wanted to thank you for spending time with us today here on ChamberThat Podcast and ask if there is anyone in the audience who wanted to connect with you or had questions about anything you've you talked about today, how might someone get in contact with you to further this discussion?
36:08.718 Shannon Full
Great. Well, I would welcome it. I I love, as you could tell, I love this topic. I love working with other chambers. I love learning from other chambers. it's why I am so adamantly involved with our professional development organizations at the state level, at the regional level, and at the and at the national level with ACCE. But so people could get a hold of me. email is Shannon S-H-A-N-N-O-N at twinwest, t-in-n-w-e-s-t.com. so email is great. I'd be I'd even go out to say my cell number is nine two zero four two two three three three one. I look forward to calls from our our friends in the industry and yeah I I hope that anything that I've said can spark an interest or a light or want any more clarification, I'm happy to to lend any additional insights.
37:05.556 Brandon Burton
Very good. And I will update your contact information on our show notes page for this episode, which will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com/slash episode fifty-eight. So people can go there and and find your email and phone and get in contact with you. But again, thank you for taking your time today and sharing so many good insights and and helping everyone learn how to be disruptors in the industry.
37:28.686 Shannon Full
Great. Thanks for your tremendous leadership, Brandon. We appreciate it.
37:33.142 Brandon Burton
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This transcript has been lightly edited for readability and to correct obvious transcription errors while preserving the meaning of the original conversation.

Episode 57 — The Evolution of the Chamber Industry with Tallia Hart
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Tallia Hart
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.842 Brandon Burton
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
00:14.442 Brandon Burton
And now your host. He became a Texan in two thousand eight. He's my dad, Brandon Burton. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. This is Brandon Burton, and you're tuning in for episode fifty-seven of Chamber Chat Podcast. And for those of you who may be new to the show, it is my goal to help introduce you to people and ideas so you can better serve your chamber members and your community. And in today's episode, we have
00:43.864 Brandon Burton
Tallia Hart, who's the president and CEO of the Healdsburg Chamber of Commerce in California. And Talia is she's proven herself as a highly regarded leader in association management for more than 20 years. After working her way up to executive vice president of the Fort Collins area Chamber of Commerce, she took on the role of executive director at the Northern California Engineering Contractors Association in Santa Rosa. In two thousand five, she was selected as the president and CEO of the San Rafael Chamber of Commerce, where she was recognized by the North Bay Business Journal as one of the area's top forty under 40 business leaders. In two thousand nine, Telia was selected as president and CEO of the Urbine Chamber of Commerce, where she led one of only eleven four star accredited chambers in all of California. She has since been named among OC Metro's magazine hottest 25 business leaders and in 2013 was recognized as one of OC Business Journal's women in business. After another national recruitment, San Francisco hired her as the first woman to lead the 167-year-old organization. She was selected as one of the most influential women in the Bay Area in her first year. She was installed as a board member of WACE. Served as a committee chair for the 2017 WACE conference and served on the executive leadership team. In July 2016, Hart was also served she was also asked to serve on the United States Chamber of Commerce Committee of 100. She also serves on the 1OC Board of Directors, the Advisory Board for California United Bank, and UCI's Board of Counselors for the School of Social Sciences. Today, Talia facilitates many other chamber and organizational programs and retreats for various companies. She currently lives in Sonoma County and runs the Healdsburg Chamber of Commerce. She has a daughter named Lola and two bulldogs, SNYX and Boo. In our discussion today, we're going to be talking about the evolution of the chamber industry. And we will jump into this topic as soon as we get back from hearing from our sponsor.
03:08.672 Brandon Burton
Every chamber is looking for new ways to increase their non-dues revenue. Has your chamber found a good affinity program? I have a great affinity program to offer your chamber that will continue to increase in revenue year after year. I want to introduce you to Swipe It for all of your credit card processing needs. Swipe It has a unique affinity program that 1. Lowers your credit card processing fees at the chamber, 2. Helps your chamber members be more profitable, and three provides recurring non-dues revenue to your chamber. To learn more, please visit chamberchatpodcast.com slash C C for credit card. Again, Chamberchatpodcast.com slash C C and get swiping with swipe it. Alright, Talia, we are back. If you could, please take a minute to say hello to the audience and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.
04:11.662 Tallia Hart
Sure. Thanks for the great introduction, Brandon. I really appreciate it. I am Tallia Hart, as he mentioned, been in chamber work for 20 plus years, and I'm really excited to be here this morning and talking to everyone. A lot of us have very similar issues that we deal with on a day-to-day basis, so this is a great thing for us to have. let's see, people think it's really interesting that I trained for the Olympics in gymnastics. So in 1987 and 88, I moved to Houston and trained with Bella and Marta Carrolly, who did the famed Nadia Komanich and Mary Lou Retton and many other athletes today. So they are obviously retired, but just as of recent. But that is one thing that I think helped me throughout my career in terms of determination. and focus and balance of life and career and some of the other things that you'll probably hear us talk about.
05:08.62 Brandon Burton
That is awesome. So I asked that question to I have everybody that's on the show tell share something interesting. And you're the first person that trained for the Olympics that we've had on the show. So that that's a first. Yeah.
05:20.75 Tallia Hart
I I like to be first. First or last. There's nothing in between, right? That's right.
05:25.55 Brandon Burton
So if you could take a minute and share with us a little bit about your chamber there in Healdsburg and kind of size and location, just so everyone can relate a little bit better to the perspective that you're coming from. even though we'll be tying in perspective from some of your background at other chambers as well.
05:42.542 Tallia Hart
Absolutely. Healdsburg is a beautiful location in Sonoma County. It's north of San Francisco in the Bay Area. The chamber has about 640 members. We are in the heart of Wine Country. We have about a million dollars budget. That also comes from our hotel improvement district, which we manage and oversee here, and we do economic development for the city. So again, beautiful location. people are sort of calling us the upcoming Napa of Sonoma County. And we're also been compared to the Aspen of Colorado. So it's a beautiful place, lots of great business and industry, but also of a tourist focus as well, which has been a very unique opportunity for me, especially just recently coming from San Francisco. but very similar issues on workforce housing, transportation and homelessness.
06:42.798 Brandon Burton
Wow. You know, there's worse things that you can be called besides the upcoming Napa. I mean be honest. Yeah. It sounds like a sounds like a beautiful place and a lot of potential, a lot of things going on there. So that's awesome. So as we get into our topic for discussion today, I mentioned in the intro that we'll be talking about the evolution of the chamber industry. So you kind of have a unique background and that you've
06:48.216 Tallia Hart
Yeah.
07:12.416 Brandon Burton
served at some really large chambers like you just mentioned in San Francisco, as well as some smaller chambers. So from your perspective, what and and you've been in the chamber industry for over twenty years now too. So you've seen some change, you've seen some differences at at chambers. So from your perspective, what what things are you seeing in the evolution and and maybe tying it in with the larger and smaller chambers? Now that's a lot to answer there, but What what have you seen in your in your career?
07:44.556 Tallia Hart
Well, when I first started my career in terms of the evolution, chambers were very much about networking and giving people a space and opportunity to meet one another and get to know other businesses in their community and there was a very large membership focus. The interesting thing today is that most chambers of commerce actually are needing or the businesses that join are needing services. So We're seeing people in many chambers providing more advocacy, marketing opportunities, HR compliance, the posters. You know, they're they're kind of we've become the 411 of chambers where in the past it really was, I don't want to say just social, but there was a big component of it that was much more about gathering and being a part of the community. now what I'm seeing is that you have so many. additional organizations out there that are competitive, that it's, you know, you really have to find your space in your community and provide a very specific ROI. So one of the things I think that we've gotten more and more involved in in everyone is really making a statement on advocacy and being there for business legislation. not that that didn't happen, but I think early on people weren't as involved, people didn't have political action committees, and now those chambers that are very successful are really known as the drivers of politics in their community. So that's where I've seen the biggest shift is that it's just gone from a networking opportunity when I started in the early nineties. And now it's really evolved into what resources, what like just like a company, what ROI are you giving back to that member because they have so many places to choose to participate in.
09:43.138 Brandon Burton
Very good. So something that comes to my mind is with my background in chamber publishing, there's often oftentimes I'll meet with chamber members and some of the feedback that I get from members, if if there ever is negative feedback, it's the chamber doesn't do anything for me. Is something that I'll hear and and I think what that comes down to is maybe a skewed idea of what the chamber should be doing. And a lot of times those businesses join because they think it still is a networking and membership driven kind of organization, which there still are is those elements to it. But how do you go about getting the messaging and kind of the mission of the chamber out to the members, kind of the Joe on Main Street, you know, the who isn't really as engaged or plugged in with the chamber as he maybe should be? But how do you help them understand? This is what the chamber's purpose is and this is how we're benefiting you.
10:41.262 Tallia Hart
Well, I do still think that there is and this I will say is kind of the interesting thing about the evolution. There still does need to be some high touch and not just high tech, especially for those of us, and I can speak to both a larger community and then our my current community, people still want the one-on-one. People still want to understand what you're providing. They want you to talk to them, they want handheld materials and not everything electronically. they they want you to be able to talk with them and speak with them and really understand what their services are that they're going to be getting from the Chamber of Commerce. So I think that feed on the street is always a very significant and positive thing and you should always have someone, whether it's a excuse me, it doesn't have to be membership as it necessarily was in the past, but a lot of chambers and a lot of organizations are have they have community relations. People now that are essentially what we called member retention in the past. So those people are responsible for going out and making sure that you're not only recruiting, but you're retaining the members in a community relations focus, just like a company. So maybe having your team go out and sit on other boards as well and being part of the community, because not everybody is going to come to you anymore.
12:03.82 Brandon Burton
I love that. Being high touch and being tied into the community. Not everybody coming to you, but you going out and doing that outreach. That's awesome.
12:10.622 Tallia Hart
Yes, absolutely. You need to do both. And and again in big cities as well.
12:16.418 Brandon Burton
So about big cities, what are some of those comparisons, similarities, differences in serving at a at a big city versus a smaller chamber? Maybe differences and pros and cons between the two that you've seen.
12:33.08 Tallia Hart
So let's see, I I think, you know, I've liked both, to be honest. They're they're different experiences, but also have the same core elements. In a smaller chamber, you're gonna find the workload to be just as much. I know that people say, well, you have more resources when you're at a bigger chamber. Well, you're also expected and anticipated to deliver much more work based on the size of your community. in the smaller communities, I do think it's a little bit more community-oriented, meaning I think everyone knows a little bit more in depth and in detail about each other's businesses versus like when I worked in San Francisco, Google and LinkedIn and Twitter and the Warriors, they were, you know, more top level in terms of what they understood about each other's businesses. And you're going to get more participation, quite frankly. From a smaller chamber. The people at the smaller chamber of commerces tend to really want to work and get their hands dirty. Not that the larger ones do, but the type of companies that they work for only allocate so much time for them. As well as a great example, is it's very manageable when you have a smaller chamber. People say, you know, I only have five to eleven board members. Well, I will tell you right now, I had seventy-four in San Francisco and it was an absolute nightmare. Because you just can't possibly you know, it's it's not the typical 80-20 rule. I mean, you just have people coming in and coming out, and then there's not the same close relationships in terms of divvying up responsibility and being able to go to that board member that you know and say, Hey, how's that going? Da-da-da. because you're you're trying to spread out everything to multiple, multiple people. And I've heard that from other chambers. When I w I sat on the US Chamber of One Hundred committee as well and in working with a lot of the bigger chambers across the country, we all had the same issues with large boards. they're just harder to corral.
14:45.718 Brandon Burton
That's right. When I think of the idea of working with a large chamber like that, it's just so overwhelming to me. Yeah. Seventy four I mean, you can't make eleven board members happy, you know, all the all at once, let alone seventy four, and have those personal relationships and know what's going on.
15:02.046 Tallia Hart
Going on in their life. You're exactly right, Brandon. And I will say that I was gonna just mention that as a last layer to that is the larger chambers, as much as you think, you know, small towns, mid size, you know, kind of gossipy, this and that, the larger chambers have an incredible amount of politics. So w I I encourage people to think before they go to a larger chamber, think Washington, but on a smaller scale, because you have all those same components. and all those same players and you're kind of beholden to s specific state senators and there's just a different level of how you engage with electeds.
15:41.976 Brandon Burton
So in kind of staying with the topic of the evolution of chambers, at a large chamber versus a small chamber, what is that like getting the feedback from the community and from your members as to what the needs are? How do you how did you go about it at the larger? How do you go about it at the smaller?
16:01.366 Tallia Hart
Okay, so it I think going about it, you can use the same strategies. I think that you can do technology, I think you can do surveys, that type of thing. What I think though is you're gonna get more response still going out and kind of doing that high touch on a different level. So if I were in Heelsberg, say, I already have meetings currently with The City Council and the Assistant City Manager, where we go out on a quarterly basis and touch base with specific companies and specific industries. Now, this is, you know, only going to cover so many in a year. When I was at the Irvine Chamber, we had business walks and we had teams of business walks go out with the mayor or other people, and those teams were given a very specific zip code. They were gone all day. And they were acquiring information by a survey. Maybe it was two questions like, do you plan to stay in Irvine? Do you plan to expand your business? So I think you can go about it in terms of starting in similar ways, but you're just not going to be as comprehensive when you have more members and your spread a little more thin. And then also you're relying a little bit more on volunteers that you should train to go out and do these things. so I I don't think really the methodology is that much different. It's probably the response you're going to receive at the end.
17:30.626 Brandon Burton
Yeah. So I imagine at a larger chamber you're gonna get a lot more variety in the feedback as to what the needs are in the community. not that there's not variety at a smaller chamber, but right you just have a bigger base, so it's gonna provide more variety, but then it's a matter of kind of prioritizing what the chamber can really take on versus what maybe a strategic partnership looks at, you know, with the a a local business or nonprofit or I'm just kind of thinking out loud as I'm envisioning how you would go about this with these larger chambers.
18:08.446 Tallia Hart
Yeah. Yeah. No, you're correct. That's that's correct. I think you're gonna get a lot of more excuse me, a lot more diverse feedback where in a smaller community you have the same issues that are repetitive. Now, interestingly enough, on a larger scale, in advocacy, for example, you have the same issues across the board. So in advocacy, in every single chamber I've worked at, whether it's San Rafael, Healdsburg, San Francisco, Irvine Fort Collins. Every single one has had some kind of transportation or traffic issue. Every single one has had a workforce housing issue. And you see that more prevalent today, especially with these chambers where I am in California where the cost of living is incredibly expensive. I think the average home when I was in Marin at San Rafael was eight hundred and twenty nine thousand dollars. so that's difficult for that's not something that your grocery manager is gonna be able to afford or some of your service workers, teachers, doc even doctors. there was a goal in Orange County at one point and they were they were trying to recruit doctors as couples, so doctors who are married. So they just afford Newport Beach or certain places to live. you know it's
19:27.006 Brandon Burton
Those doctors are carrying a lot of student debt still too. Right.
19:30.206 Tallia Hart
Right. And even here in Healdsburg, you know, smaller population, more of a tourism focused town, but same thing where people are like, I just it's too expensive to live here. So every project that we're working on currently has, you know, a stipulated amount of affordable and workforce housing. So that's what's interesting, even though some of you know, there's significant differences in size, the bigger issues that you hear at other chambers are sort of steady across the United States with how the economy is changing.
20:04.972 Brandon Burton
Yep, with more political though, like you mentioned. Yeah. 'Cause everything you just mentioned, I didn't hear a whole lot about networking and membership. Chambers have have definitely evolved and taken on a lot more, more meaningful work, I would say.
20:14.026 Tallia Hart
No.
20:21.388 Tallia Hart
Yeah, and I do still think networking is an important component to provide. I don't think that every chamber should get rid of their mixer or whatever they call it, but I do think they should change the way that it's focused. So maybe it's a new member reception that goes also into a mixer, but there's some kind of engagement or opportunity or speaker at that thing versus just, hey, here's some a free drink and some chips. people just they really have time poverty issues and they wanna go somewhere and they wanna get something in return.
20:56.566 Brandon Burton
That's right. Now make maybe a little bit of a shift here about how you got into the chamber profession. I'm I'm picturing you as a hard training Olympic athlete and dedicating your whole life to your your diet and your workouts and you know all the the stringencies that you do as an athlete. And I think that probably makes the perfect person to be a chamber CEO. Because You're dedicating almost everything to what to what you're doing. So how did you get into the profession? And just kind of tell us that story.
21:34.264 Tallia Hart
So interestingly enough, I went to Colorado State University and my landlord, and this goes back to kind of, you know, who you know and making sure you have good relationships no matter where you are. My landlord was on the board at the Fort Collins Chamber and she was a VP at Wells Fargo. I had just graduated and I said, I'm kind of looking, you know, of course, like the rest of us, really not knowing what we want to do straight out of college. She said, you know, the chamber of commerce is hiring. And I had no clue what a chamber was. I in fact told my parents and I was like, What is a chamber? And they were like, You should definitely do that because you'll get a job with a company right away because you'll have exposure and access to all these different entities. And I was like, Okay, still had no idea. I actually Still I was hired by Pam Ridler from the who's now at the Castle Rock Chamber, very good friend of mine. She was my manager and I worked in membership sales commission only for the Fort Collins Chamber and then eventually got promoted to VP and probably worked almost every job within that office, which I think made it really nice for me going into other interviews because I had done every position at a chamber. But that's kind of how I got in. how I've retained is a different story, like you said. I think a lot of it is my competitive side. I think the diversity of working in a chamber and the different things that you get to do every day, you know, you're not you you do have to be very focused, say it is an advocacy issue and you're going after that, but at the same time, you have to have all these different other apparatus that you're working on and doing a good job on. but it takes a lot of determination. I think your volunteers can often challenge you and sort of light it light a fire under you. You've everybody I'm sure has had that challenging board member or volunteer or ambassador or whoever it might be. but the job is sort of being somewhat of a chameleon and you're playing with different teams all the time and learning different tactics on who you can work with, whether it's city council, your EDB, your C V B.
23:56.64 Tallia Hart
so it's it was. It was an experience that I think helped me, but mostly to stay focused on the mission, which is what a chamber should be doing, because there's too many of us that have volunteers with fifty seven different ideas, seventy-four in San Francisco, and you just you you have to stay focused on what the overall goals and mission are, or you will never be successful at your chamber.
24:22.19 Brandon Burton
That's right. I love that experience you shared at the Fort Collins chamber to be able to have experience in all those different departments and be able to really see the inner workings of a chamber and gave you great experience to to take you where you are today. That's
24:37.494 Tallia Hart
That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, you know, being able to go into an interview and saying I sold membership, but I also oversaw events or I d you know, it's that hands on that I think is so much more important these days than people recognize. So even if you're looking into getting into a chamber career, I mean it's good to volunteer on committee and participate. If you're looking at getting out and doing something or association work, it I always say to just you know, get involved and try to really understand what the role is because some of our jobs people think, yeah, these are all you do is go to meetings, have free lunches and this and that. And I think we all know, anyone listening to this podcast, that's not how it is at all. And you really do have to understand and be in control of what you're talking about, how you're talking, who you're talking to, and really understand the dynamics in your own community.
25:34.828 Brandon Burton
Say all those free chamber lunches that I've been to, I hardly ever see any of the chamber staff eating. You know, they're usually running around and putting on the show. So
25:45.836 Tallia Hart
Absolutely. They've given me nothing but extra weight over the years.
25:50.158 Brandon Burton
So as we talk about the evolution of the chamber industry, what would be maybe one action item that you could share with the chamber professionals that are listening to help take their chamber to the next level? Maybe take them from being a networking and membership type chamber to kind of a competitive organization that can help be that go to resource in their community for trainings and marketing and and all those things you touched on. Where can they get started?
26:21.234 Tallia Hart
Well, I do think you have to look at the businesses within your community for one and what they are looking for. And that's going to be different for all of you, but I think if you are the chamber, you're expected to be the leader of business, not the follower. So they're looking for you to put on the coolest social media seminar. They're looking for you to build the pop-up or the selfie station. The it's chamber really and I'm speaking about this at WACE in a week and a half here or so. chamber really needs to become an experience center. We're also competing with people like those co-working spaces where people will buy a membership, they can hang out, get a latte, meet other people, work on their projects, and be involved in things that that co working space is putting on. So it's almost like another yet competition for the organization. So I think you really have to look at where you're located, what you can offer members that are outside of your everyday just committees that you have. I and I this is a small example, but one that actually worked. So in San Francisco, we obviously had a lot of very different and unique members. Well, we we were fortunate to have people like Hintwater. Hint water, she was born and raised in San Francisco, was very active in the community. Well, she instead of for half her membership, she offered all her newest flavor and sparkling water. So we had cases of that every month. Well, it was exposure for her, but we also had somewhere fun to come where we were serving hint water. We also had a partnership with Pop Sugar, like there's all these things that we were able to provide that just kind of engage the member a little more than serving your regular chips at a meeting. And I know it sounds like a small thing or maybe a big thing to some, but just look around your community and see what types of products are available that you can engage and retain the member, but also service your members with something else that's fun.
28:41.424 Tallia Hart
we had Nespresso as a member. They put Nespresso machines throughout all of our committee rooms. So any meeting room and they would deliver the pods monthly. And it's something that's, you know, people like love Nespresso. They want just it's not regular coffee. They get to use the machine. and then there's just little things like a lot of people are doing pop ups with members and they're having a showcase where members can come put their local their local craft or whatever it may be. I mean I I just wanna make sure people know this isn't all about a larger chamber because smaller chambers can do the same thing. Here in wine country, we try to serve a board member or somebody's wine that's a member at all events versus, you know, anyone here that may not be as participatory. Yeah. So there's lots of little things I think people should look at.
29:38.254 Brandon Burton
That's those are good tips. I think even that coworking space example, that there could be a strategic partnership there too. So
29:45.72 Tallia Hart
But yeah, you're it's funny you mention that 'cause we're looking at one right now where they get a membership there and they are also a member of a cha the chamber, and then if they join at a certain level with the chamber, they also get a membership at the co working space. There you go. So that's exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah.
30:03.128 Brandon Burton
They don't have to be competition. So that's great. Right. So I always ask everyone this question, but as we look to the future, we've been talking about how the chamber industry has been evolving, but as we look to the future of chambers and their purpose, how do you see that evolution going forward?
30:25.566 Tallia Hart
that's I I really think if you don't get in the game of providing good ROI and even tangible, not just conceptual anymore, because it was so much easier back when I started to say, you know what, you're gonna get a business out of this and it was all a concept. You were selling a concept. Now people actually want things. So whether you're wrapping in those labor law posters to your membership Whether you're wrapping in a free case of beer from your local member that's participatory, people want something that they feel is of value intangible. So I I think that's important. But then I also think overall, interestingly enough, you've got to go a little bit back to that high touch and not just count on your social media and all of those things. You need to be out talking to key members, having special events for those high donors or just thanking them. Like in Irvine, we thanked our leader circle group once a year with just a lunch. It was not to talk about anything, really to sell anything. It was just like here's what we've done. Thank you for supporting us and have a great stake. So you really need to look at how you can engage the community, but know that your organization is competing with every other company out there.
31:49.966 Brandon Burton
Yeah, as you were given that answer, I you mentioned having something tangible and something of value and it's not just exposure. You know, it used to be say, you know, you'll get great exposure by being a chamber member. And yeah. You remind me of a quote that you know, people also die of exposure. So you know exposure's not always a good thing. So being able to provide something tangible and valuable is is important. And I think you're right, looking forward
32:07.906 Tallia Hart
Yeah.
32:17.452 Brandon Burton
that that is a a great way to look and see the future of chambers of commerce. So as we wrap things up here, if anyone listening has any questions about what you've discussed here or how you've done things at the Heelsburg Chamber or in your past experience at other chambers, how might they get in contact with you to continue this discussion?
32:21.934 Tallia Hart
Yeah, yeah.
32:39.982 Tallia Hart
So I can be reached in multiple ways, but the best way to reach me is to email me at Talia T A L L I A at Healdsberg.com. That is my email and I'm very good at getting back. for some reason if I don't, could have gone into spam. But also you can contact me at seven seven four three three I try to keep most of my social media actually private, but we do have social media for Healdsburg. And then we also have our website at www.healdsberg.com. So there's multiple ways, but emails usually the easiest. I do, like you mentioned in my bio, a lot of speaking, a lot of board facilitations. I've done different size cities, different companies. And I'm always happy to help people out. I also have a lot of mentees that I've worked with over the years, whether they're in chamberwork, association management, or I have a couple of grad of grad students from UCI since I sit on their board as well. So I'm always happy to help people in futuring their career and wherever they want to go.
34:00.224 Brandon Burton
That's awesome. And Talia's got a lot of great experience. So she's definitely somebody that would be great to reach out to and connect with if you if you're not already connected. but thank you so much for spending time with us today on Chamber Chat Podcast. And I will update all your contact information and our show notes for this episode, which will be found at Chamberchatpodcast.com slash episode fifty-seven. But again, thank you for being here. It's been a pleasure and I think you provided a lot of good stuff.
34:31.082 Tallia Hart
Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And obviously number fifty seven's the best number. That's right.
34:36.448 Brandon Burton
Okay.
34:40.575 Brandon Burton
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This transcript has been lightly edited for readability and to correct obvious transcription errors while preserving the meaning of the original conversation.

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

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