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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 10 — How to be involved in the decision making process with your City with Tony Moline
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Tony Moline
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.502 Tony Moline
And so we sent a survey out and we started collecting data and we brought it back to the city and we were I mean, we were at the forefront of this and and so it was one of those things where you can either it it sounds cliche, but you can be a part of you can start a problem with it or you can be part of the solution. And so
00:20.842 Brandon Burton
You just heard a sample from our guest today, Tony Molein, as he previewed our episode about how you can become part of the solution to the issues within your community. Stay tuned for this great conversation. Let's cue the intro. 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.
00:52.312 Brandon Burton
Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. 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. Let's start today's episode with another five-star iTunes review. This review is by Chamber Marcom, and it says, Love the concept. The Chamber Chat Podcast will be a valuable resource for chambers of commerce across the country. Thank you, Chamber Marcom, for this great review. Have you left an iTunes review yet? If you want to to help the show out, you can pause this episode and hop onto iTunes real quick and leave your review and you might be featured on a future episode. So if if you want to go ahead and hit pause, I I can wait for you until you get back and then we'll continue the episode. And and we're back. So that that time lapse is pretty awesome. So our our guest today on ChamberTap Podcast is Tony Moline. He Tony has been serving as the president and CEO of the Cedar Park Chamber of Commerce since November two thousand twelve. Professionally, Moleen is is serving his second term on the board of Texas Chamber of Commerce Executives Association or TCCE, and his second term On the Texas Association of Business, or TAB Board of Directors, which serves as a state chamber of commerce. Prior to serving in Cedar Park, Moline was the president and CEO for the Coppel Chamber of Commerce and the Vice President for the Lefkin Angelina County Chamber of Commerce. Moline has been working as a chamber professional since 2006. Moleen is a 2006 graduate of Stephen F. Austin State University. A 2012 graduate of the Institute for Organizational Management at the University of Arizona, and has rece received his IOM designation and is also a graduate of the Community Development Council's Professional Community and Economic Developer Program, where he received his PCED designation. Tony and his wife Devin had their first child, Hudson, in 2015 and are proud to have him grow up in Cedar Park.
03:09.016 Brandon Burton
Tony, please say hello to the audience and share something interesting about yourself that might not have been in your bio so we can all get to know you a little better.
03:17.522 Tony Moline
Hello. my my the biggest thing that I can share is I am an avid Dallas Cowboys fan. I you know can't say enough about them. They've had a a rebuilding couple of decades. but you know it it it this too shall pass. So something else that that may not be in there is I absolutely did not set out to be in a chamber. I actually wanted to work in public service, I think, but it was more towards the back office of some congressman or senators' office is where I started off wanting to do it and just kind of happened into this. and for many of you who are probably listening, once you get bit by this bug, you know it's hard to let go and and there's something new every day. So I really, I really do enjoy the work that we do.
04:12.108 Brandon Burton
That's great. Yeah. Sometimes those are the best things you just kinda stumble into and it's a great fit and seems like things have been working out well for you. So congratulations at that.
04:21.422 Tony Moline
Yeah. Thank you, thank you.
04:23.704 Brandon Burton
So Tony, as we get into our discussion a little bit today, can you just share with us a little bit about of Cedar Park, your chamber, kind of the size of the area and the chamber so we can all kind of relate a little bit better to what Cedar Park is like?
04:37.77 Tony Moline
Absolutely, absolutely. The the Cedar Park Chamber is about seven hundred and fifty members. We have a budget of around five hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And so we do quite a bit of stuff. We have a staff of four. We are trying to be a staff of five. but you know we we do the normal chamber things. Always have a banquet, a golf tournament, that kind of thing. We do some things that are a little different here. We have a a barbecue festival and things like that. but the growth here has been incredible since since getting here in 2012, the population has grown almost 20,000 residents. and so the overall service area right now is just under ninety thousand people. And so with that comes a lot of new businesses, a lot of new business growth. And it's a really exciting time to be here. Cedar Park is also the home to a couple of developmental leagues teams. We have the G Team, which is the developmental league for basketball, the G League Austin Spurs, they feed into the San Antonio Spurs. We also have the developmental team for the Dallas Stars. They are the Texas Stars. they're both housed at the HEB Center at Cedar Park, which is our venue. it's it for hockey, basketball, concerts, monster truck, rodeo, all sorts of things. So it's exciting to be there. We've had a lot of hotels kind of pop up in the last several years because of those types of things. So Again, just just a a great time to to be in a growing community.
06:31.958 Brandon Burton
That's awesome. What what do you see the driving force of the growth being?
06:36.824 Tony Moline
You know, I think there are a couple of things. About ten years ago, the city decided to get in on the type A and type B taxing type stuff, which allows for economic development projects. so we got out of what is known here as Cap Metro. It's our bus service, light rail, that kind of thing. We opted out and we started putting that money towards economic development. So through that, the city leaders were able to help go after a hospital, build in some nice retail shopping centers. so we've got a few of those that have been directly attributed to economic development incentives. We have a Costco, the HEB Center actually is part of an economic development agreement. So all those things combined kind of helped grow Cedar Park organically. And so, you know, I think a lot of of thought leaders, the the city leadership, some chamber leadership, just people looking at the future of what they wanted Cedar Park to look like and planning for that. and that included planning for for roads, and we have the water. that we need. You know, in Texas that's always a thing. It s certainly was a few years ago that cities were having to stop some of their building because they didn't they couldn't bring in enough water at that point. And so, you know, we we've we've been able to plan for that kind of stuff and that has helped a lot.
08:20.48 Brandon Burton
Yeah. So you've really seen a lot of the growth and development going on just in the time you've been there in Cedar Park since two thousand twelve.
08:28.49 Tony Moline
I have. It's it's been kind of it's been kind of neat to see. I've been in I've been in several different communities, like you mentioned. some of them were having the opposite problem. but this is the first one where I mean it is nonstop growth and it is just like I said, it's just a fun time to be here.
08:47.116 Brandon Burton
Yeah, absolutely. So I think that that's a great segue into our overall topic of discussion for today, which is how to be involved in the decision making process with your city. So you've talked about, you know, some of the growth and excitement and opportunity that comes with that, but can you just share with us why this topic is so important to you?
09:08.418 Tony Moline
Yeah, I think part of it is one of the things that that they when I got hired, the board really wanted a focus on improving the relationship with the between the chamber and the city. not that it was a terrible relationship, but they just wanted to see some improvement. And so, you know, it was kind of nice being the new guy to just go in and say, I don't really know how it was before, but you know, I want us to be partners. and and that can mean a a bunch of different things. but improving the relationship was was kind of the the key the key thing when I got hired. And so part of that was in my mind, you know, showing up to city council meetings, getting to do, you know, some some kind of alone one on one times with different city council members, the city manager's office, The director of economic development, the the key decision makers. And I wanted to be sure that they knew who I was and that I knew who they were and how we can work together. I I didn't set off to try to take anything over. and you know, I think that was that was a key thing there as well. And so I just let them know that I was happy and willing to to serve on. some committees. I didn't want to be put on any boards or anything, but I was happy to serve on some task force type committees and stuff like that. And so slowly I I started being able to do that. And so one of the first ones that I actually got on was their comprehensive plan advisory committee. And you know, this kind of this was a good time, and I got to meet some people, and I actually, you know, we did that process for about a year and a half. And I think through that, you know, just being able to have that that kind of working relationship allowed me to get in the the door a little bit easier with with city leaders. And so, you know, it was nice because I felt like we were the chamber was a part of that process. And so slowly but surely they they asked me to be on different committees. I was on the
11:32.728 Tony Moline
You know, some of these are are very exciting, obviously. The Sign Ordnance Advisory Committee. You know, the zoning ordinance advisory committee, the library master plan.
11:43.308 Brandon Burton
Be those committees that everybody loves, right?
11:45.472 Tony Moline
Yeah, but you know, i it's it's kind of what you make of it. And it was it was the fact that they were asking for the business community's input. And I tried to always think a little bit more globally than just the chamber, but but you know, the the entire business community. but certainly I was representing the seven hundred and fifty members that we have here and it was it was just nice being in that process. And so, you know, they they eventually asked me to be on the Charter Review Committee, and which was, you know, obviously a big one. It's for those who aren't familiar, the city charter is basically the constitution for the city. It it allows the city to to do everything that it does. And so we were reviewing that for the first time in in a long time, and and you know, so y you get involved in the process that way and you're able to help with other strategic decisions in other ways. and it's not it's not even helping. I it's it's keeping city leaders informed about what's going on with the chamber and then keeping you informed about what's going on with the city. And it's a very good relationship to have. And I am very lucky that we have such a good relationship with the city council, with the the city manager's office. they do a phenomenal job. And I don't I don't think that the the chamber would be as well informed and as n important to the business community without that solid relationship that has been built.
13:37.646 Brandon Burton
I would agree. I d as you were talking, I was wondering, and you answered the question that I had as as you serve on these committees, are you serving as Tony Moline or is he serving as the president and CEO of the the Chamber of Commerce? It sounds like you've you're going at the interest of the chamber members and the business community in mind. I am
13:58.774 Tony Moline
And and I think it's important to to make that distinction up front. Whenever, you know, whenever I I am on these, I feel I am I it's sh it's the same as anywhere else. You know, when you're when you're in the leadership with the chamber as an organization, when you make a comment on Facebook, it's not you the person that's making the comment always. It's it's they see they they're interchangeable. You are the chamber a lot of times. And so I always make it that way. And I think that that has served the chamber well because I'm I'm not trying to make decisions, although they are my decisions, I think, but I'm trying to base them off of what is best for the chamber and the community.
14:44.522 Brandon Burton
It's gonna ask do you ever do any kind of polling w among the members or try to get feedback from certain industries maybe that are within the chamber as certain decision making is gonna is
14:55.947 Tony Moline
We we we do. It's interesting you say that. so you know, I mentioned that that we're part of the decision making process and sometimes it's a little a little It's not as in your face as you would think. So one of the one of the examples that I can think of is we recently did a survey, it was last year. The city was looking at first, I believe, at a zero waste policy. basically making a mandate, possibly making a mandate, I should say, that to do as close to a zero waste policy as possible. So Everything would need to either be recycled or be in a compost. Your trash your your trash can would be a smaller trash can, would only get picked up every other week instead of every week. They were looking at a bunch of different things. And you know, that was on a residential side, obviously. But it was also they were talking commercially too, and and and retail. And so we sent a survey out and we started collecting data and we brought it back to the city and we were I mean We were at the forefront of this and and so it was one of those things where you can either it it sounds cliche, but you can be a part of you can start a problem with it or you can be part of the solution. And so we decided that we wanted to try to be a solution for it. So we we let everybody know that up front, absolutely the chamber would be absolutely against a mandate. that would force businesses to change their current business practices with regards to waste. That's you know, we've had phenomenal growth over the last few years. You can't change the rules on them halfway through, in my opinion. it it's bad for growth. It's bad for what what the business community will see as bait and switch almost. And so, you know, we we said that up front. But we also said, but we we understand kind of the
16:59.052 Tony Moline
the guideline here that you want that you would like to see some green initiatives maybe. So what we did was we started the Green Business Initiative. And it's it's a partnership between the chamber and the city. And there are there's an application you have to fill out to be a a green business in the city of Cedar Park. And it it's not It's not easy, but it's not overly burdensome. and I'll give you an example. A lot of businesses they have LED lights, you know, that's being green. They have programmable thermostats, that's being green. There there are things that you probably already have that will help you get this green initiative. So you that you you acquire so many points. and it's not just inside, it's you know, having bike racks outside, you know, if somebody wanted to bike, all those different things that can can lead to a a greener environment, so to speak. And so we did that through a collaboration with the city and us and we we surveyed our members and that program is coming up on its one year anniversary next month. And it has it has lowered the discussion of any type of mandate from the city. Yeah. and so, you know, that's kind of what we are in in my opinion, what we're here to do. And and so that's what I mean when I say we're part of the decision making process. We we aren't at the city demanding anything. We're saying, Hey, what if we went this way? And you know, it it works. It works for us.
18:44.152 Brandon Burton
So for these businesses that get this green business designation, what does that mean for them? is there like a sticker they put up or
18:54.27 Tony Moline
That's exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly right. So there's a sticker that says they are part of the Green Business Initiative. If they maintain that for three years, there's an additional designation. and you know it's it's pretty nice. So so you're either a green business, you're a sustainable business, or you are an innovative, sustainable business leader. Which means that you have done all these things and you you were there for more than three years. And so it's you know, it's it's kind of a fun thing. and it it has led to a little bit of competition between some businesses. we have roughly twenty, I think, right now. and Yeah, again it's it's it's
19:46.142 Brandon Burton
That's what the response is like.
19:50.39 Tony Moline
It's one of those things, it's a little cumbersome at first. And I think people s you you either absolutely want to jump on board with it or you kind of are like, Ugh, one more thing. And so we've been trying to educate, and we've gotten a we've gotten a decent response. We're obviously working towards a lot more than that. but again, I think I think this In conjunction with the talk of the mandate and everything, I think there's just been a little confusion. But it's it's a good thing. We're we're educating at the same time.
20:26.456 Brandon Burton
So is the the messaging part of it to try to you know, dissuade the the mandate? Is as as you get that messaging out to the members, is it like in an effort to try to get away from a mandate, we want you to support this and i I mean, is that kinda how it's approached?
20:43.98 Tony Moline
No, we've done it more as we've almost done it as a separate thing. We didn't want it to be tied to the mandate necessarily. when people ask what started this, I absolutely tell them. But we kind of let it be its own thing and we want it to be its own thing. we we don't want it to be tied to a negative or what in some some people's minds might be a negative, that mandate. We want it to be a positive, you're doing this because your business is green, you are innovative, you are doing things that are that are important to your business culture. And so, you know, I think that's how we've initially started off on this. Missed the boat. Maybe I missed the
21:29.312 Brandon Burton
I'd love to maybe I'm out on that though. No, I think that's a great point to not have the the negative tied to it. so what is the and I know it's hard for people to change, you know, when they have their ways of doing things, even something simple as changing light bulbs or thermostat or things like that. what where's the the motivation, I guess, behind it is is more the base of that question. what what's the messaging to motivate them to change?
21:59.384 Tony Moline
I I don't even know that it's messaging to motivate them to change. It's messaging to motivate them to understand what they already have. You know, I think I I I helped a couple of businesses who said, I want to do this, but I'm not gonna change a whole bunch of things. And I knew who they were and I was like, You already qualify, I know you do. Why don't I come by? And we'll walk through this together. And it took us about fifteen minutes to get them to the points that they needed. They don't You know, they don't necessarily realize all of the green things that are already built into our everyday lives. it's just it it's funny and I I don't mean to sound like a a tree hugger in this but, you know, people forget about programmable thermostats. People forget about fluorescent lights or if you have you know, the motion sensor lights in your restrooms or If you in you know have a recycling container next to your trash container at your desk. All those things we're counting as being, you know, in this green initiative. So, you know, it's not necessarily anything that we're trying to promote a change. We're trying to make sure that they recognize that they're doing a lot of this stuff already. Yeah.
23:19.82 Brandon Burton
I like I think that's a a terrific example of, you know, you're part of this decision making process and being able to offer some alternatives to come come to a common goal, a common desire. have there been other examples that you can share of of other I mean this is like a it seems like a really good one. So I don't know if you can top that, but but go for it.
23:41.364 Tony Moline
I don't know if I can top it, but you know, that that was a recent one. We had another one a few years back where we had a businessman wanting to allow food trucks in in the city and we hadn't really gotten on that, but the city had asked the chamber what our thoughts were. Well we what we did was we sent a a survey out to all of our restaurants and it was surprising because you know, you would think restaurants maybe don't want more competition. what we found was restaurants absolutely love the idea of having food trucks in the city because it helps with the destination. And if the line is big at a food truck, maybe they just move on to the next restaurant. And so it it's that whole a rising tide raises all ships, mentality that bringing more competition in helps everybody because more people hopefully will be going out to eat and doing that kind of thing. And so That was another example of just kind of behind the scenes helping with that decision making process.
24:47.298 Brandon Burton
Yeah. No, that's good. I like it it makes sense. It also, you know, provides the o an opportunity for some of those local restaurants if they wanted to expand and do a food truck. You know, they could
24:58.264 Tony Moline
That's exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think it also, you know, when we do these surveys, and we we don't do that many, I would say, but when we do these, you know, with a specific purpose in mind, it lets our members also know that we are paying attention, that we are there on their behalf, and that we are advocating for them. And I think all of that is important as well. There's another example of We have this this program right now. It's called our Bell Boulevard Redevelopment Project. It was it came off of that comprehensive plan that I mentioned earlier. Cedar Park didn't really have a downtown. we're we're 46 years old, I believe, this year. so it's it's a relatively young community. we don't have a downtown, but you know, that was kind of one of the overarching themes of this comprehensive plan is that we needed a a central meeting place. place that we could call downtown. We don't have a square. We don't have an old, you know, anything. And so Bell Boulevard is one of the main thoroughfares. And there, you know, part of what this is is is letting people know what we're doing. And so part of that we decided was going to to all the businesses in the redevelopment area. And we partnered with the city and with a university here to do what we called a Bizwalk. And we went door to door and did a face-to-face 10 question survey with either the manager or the owner of that business. And let them know kind of what the idea was behind the redevelopment, what their thoughts were, what they would like to see out of that, that kind of thing. And, you know, working in collaboration with a university, the city, and the chamber, I think worked well. And and it let us kind of do that one on one vibe with. them at their place of business. It wasn't online. It wasn't something they could push aside necessarily. We left information. and so that's another type of collaborative thing that that we have been able to do quite well.
27:12.898 Brandon Burton
That's great. Good good examples. so I'm I'm trying to think as a you know, a chamber professional that's listening that wants to get more involved with the decision making process in their city, what what kind of tips or action items can you share with them to to get involved?
27:32.29 Tony Moline
I think most importantly is having a good relationship with both the city council and the city manager's office. I think you don't always have to agree, but having a working relationship with both those entities is y you can't put a price on that. I would say overall that's my biggest tip is you know, sitting down with with all of them for coffee for lunch for something, trying to make sure that they see you and you see them at city council meetings. it's gotten to the point at my city council meetings where I even have my own seat. All right. So you know it's it's it's not a bad thing. You're informed. they see that you are there, that you are paying attention, that you're advocating for businesses. And honestly, when I go to city council meetings, there I've seen residents, I've seen organizations get up and talk every council meeting, every other council meeting during citizens' comments or or on a particular item. I try to talk I try to talk as little as possible. I try to only talk when it's something important to the change.
28:53.496 Brandon Burton
That that's good good advice. It sounds like you earned your seat there, so yeah.
28:58.69 Tony Moline
Yeah, it's it's in the back corner, so you know.
29:01.966 Brandon Burton
Well, I didn't say why you earned it, but no, I'm just kidding.
29:05.686 Tony Moline
Yeah, exactly.
29:08.111 Brandon Burton
so the the question I like to ask everybody that I have on the show is, you know, as we look to the future, how do you view chambers of commerce and their purpose?
29:18.51 Tony Moline
You know, I think it's funny. I knew you were gonna ask this question, and my answer is probably the same as my mentor's answer was ten years ago. Chambers are changing and you have to either, you know people do a lot more on Facebook. they don't need to advertise with the chamber all the time. I think that we have to kind of grow with the community. We have to grow with social media, do podcasts like this, and be out there. You you I think you have to kind of do a little bit more. but I think I think the future of chambers are good. You know, people still rely on chambers of commerce. It's funny, one of the the biggest things that people ask for when they come here are for those, you know, old school maps. chambers of commerce still do maps. you would think with phones and technology and everything else, but that is one of the biggest things that we can consistently get asked for is a city map. And so, you know, I think that there are staples for chambers, but you have to be willing to change what you've done. You can't do the same thing just because that's always work.
30:42.27 Brandon Burton
I agree. Gotta stay with the changing times and yeah, y the comment about the maps kinda makes me chuckle inside because yeah, that's my other other thing I do is with community matters and we do the maps and directories and stuff for chambers and
30:57.435 Tony Moline
See how I opened that up for a show.
30:58.986 Brandon Burton
I love you. Yes. That's awesome. but we hear that all the time from Chambers, you know, as we're at TCCE, you know, all these chambers will come up to our booth and say that the maps are what people ask for. So it it is funny. I mean, times are changing, but there are those staples that yeah, I think are going to be there for a long time. But Tony, I wanted to to thank you for spending time with us today here on on Chamber Chat Podcast. And also wanted to thank everybody who's listening for being here. The show notes for this episode can be found at Chamberchat Podcast dot com slash episode ten. And Tony, where can listeners connect with you if they have any questions about what was discussed today or how things are are going on at this at the Cedar Park Chamber?
31:43.926 Tony Moline
You can always email me. It's it's pretty hard. It's Tony at Cedarparkchamber dot org. our website is cedarparkchamber dot org and you can always call the Cedar Park Chamber. So happy to help in any way I can.
31:59.874 Brandon Burton
That's perfect. And we'll put that contact info in the show notes too, in case anyone needs to get in contact with you. but for those of you that are listening, if you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast and either Apple Podcast or iTunes or Google Podcasts, Google Play. as you subscribe to the show, each week when new episodes are released, they'll automatically show up in your podcast app on your phone. So they're ready to listen to whenever you're ready. If you're finding value in this podcast, and if you didn't do so already at the beginning of the show, please leave us a rating and a review on iTunes, and most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry. Hopefully you can take some tips that you learned from Tony today and apply them as you serve in your chamber. And please tune in again next week as I continue to bring you more great content to help spark ideas. I look forward to chatting with you again next week.

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

Episode 9 — Engaging your Chamber members through effective marketing techniques with Beth Ziesenis
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Beth Ziesenis
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.598 Beth Ziesenis
And if your engagement is boring, they are not paying attention. I'm sorry. They have so many other things to pay attention to.
00:08.972 Brandon Burton
That was just a little teaser from our guest today, Beth Z, as she gets into how we can add depth and interest into our marketing efforts with your chamber members. Stay tuned as we get into this interview with Beth. Let's cue the intro. 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.
00:40.684 Brandon Burton
Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. 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 today is Beth Zee, author, speaker, and nerd. Since her first Commodore 64 computer, Beth has made a verb out of the word nerd. She's here to help you filter through thousands of apps, gadgets, widgets, and dude ads to find the perfect free and bargain technology tools. Although the only real trophy she's ever won was for making perfect French fries at McDonald's in high school, Beth Zee has been featured on Best Speaker List by Meeting and Conventions magazine and Meetings Net. She has written four books on apps and speaks to about ten thousand people of year. About nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine of them who can't pronounce her last name. Beth, welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. Please say hello to the community and share something interesting with us about yourself.
01:47.094 Beth Ziesenis
Hey chamber folks, I am so thrilled and honored to be here. I think some of you may have seen me because I've been to WACE. I was on a webinar with the National, and so I'm hoping you're listening because you've gotten ideas before. let's see, something interesting about me. Well, I have four cats, so I'm one of those people. Actually, we bought a house with a barn cat, so we have five. And One of may crash our party. So just know that if you hear crash, a boom, a meow, or a whine, something may have happened with one of the crazy animals we live with.
02:28.332 Brandon Burton
We don't need to call the police. It's just a cat.
02:30.87 Beth Ziesenis
It's just a cat or four.
02:33.774 Brandon Burton
All right. Very good. so I know I had first been introduced to you and and you're speaking at T C C E here in Texas. And I know this is one of those things that you're not really supposed to do, but I just I thought you were, you know, very entertaining in your speaking and and funny. Yeah. But the problem is I say that you're funny and now everybody's gonna be waiting for you to be funny and it just doesn't work the same. But Our our topic for conversation today is engaging your chamber members through effective marketing techniques. So, you know, as as Beth explained, she has you know spoke at several different chamber conferences. And a lot of you have probably gotten some great tips from her in the past about, you know, relevant apps and techniques to be able to reach your your chamber membership. And we hope, you know, today, today's conversation will lead to some more maybe, you know, relevant things today versus what you may have heard you know a few months ago or a couple of years ago, just depending on when you've heard from Beth last. But as we get into our conversation today, Beth, can you just explain to us? And I I think we're all kind of on board with with social media now. I think if you don't have a social media account, you must be living under a rock. But can you explain to us how the engagement on social media translate into into real world engagement?
04:03.5 Beth Ziesenis
You guys are there to help people. Chambers are there to help your members, your small businesses, your medium businesses, your large businesses, do what they do best. And the way you can do that is by getting their attention to a lot of the networking and education ideas you have. And you're doing that by social media a lot of the times. You're spotlighting your members, you're you're advertising your events, you are trying to engage them. And if your engagement is boring, they are not paying attention. I'm sorry. They have so many other things to pay attention to. And if you've got boring, hey, come to our event things, which a lot of us do because that's what we think, you know, is gonna be there. gosh, nobody's gonna pay attention. And it's not their fault, it's not your fault. But what I call it is adding depth and interest. To your social media posts. So that's what I've been specializing in and playing around with. And I hope that's what we can talk about today to give you some ideas in that category.
05:11.478 Brandon Burton
Yes. So you mentioned what makes a a post boring. how do you make it not boring? You mentioned the depth and interest and what would be some examples or ways that let's say there's a a ribbon cutting you're trying to announce, how do you get that out and let people know without being boring?
05:30.658 Beth Ziesenis
Well, here is a trick to social media. The social media platforms love their own tricks and tools and tips, right? Every time they add a special feature like a filter or a video clip or something like that, they're like, if you use it, we will promote you. We're not gonna tell you that. But every time you go live on Facebook, wow, what interest. Every time you know what exposure you get. And y'all all know, I hope some of you know that these guys, you know, your Instagram, your Facebook, all these things want you to pay to get that exposure. But if you use their cool little things, they're like, we're gonna show them because we want people to see our cool little things. So that is one way that's easy to look at the latest and greatest little things that your platform has released and use those to engage with people because those are gonna get more exposure because they love each other.
06:38.156 Brandon Burton
That makes sense. Now, is there certain platforms that are more important than others or should a chamber be on every platform because you don't know who's on which one? Or what what needs our attention as we try to get, you know, messages out there?
06:55.126 Beth Ziesenis
In this area, I think. Now I want to tell you, I am not a social media guru. I fight with just like you guys with do I post at two o'clock on Tuesday? Do I do whatever? How can I get the most engagement? What are the formulas? What are the algorithms? I don't know. But what I do know is two things. Do what you're good at, right? So if you're good at Facebook and not good at Instagram, do Facebook because you're gonna get better in exposure and interaction. if you do things that you are good at or the person who's doing it in your office is good at. Second thing is figure out where your people are. There are some communities who don't eat. Period. That's just not their thing. But they're very family oriented and they'll be on Facebook with seventy five people every day. So where are your people? What kind of people do you have? If everybody in your group is loving Instagram, we just had a cat arrive by the way.
07:54.446 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
07:54.994 Beth Ziesenis
And it's the one who loves my lap more than anything in the world. so be very afraid. So, you know, where are your people? Your people you can see where your people are. You can see where they're posting things. You know, I speak for a lot of chambers themselves to their members. And I can look through in a matter of minutes, I can look at the member list, and then I can go look up sites, and then I can say, hey, these guys aren't tweeting, or these guys are only tweeting. These guys haven't updated their Facebook page since two thousand sixteen, but they've got an Instagram picture every day. What are your people using? Survey them, go there, and then what are you good at? use that and go there.
08:40.363 Brandon Burton
That's perfect. That's I really good advice is just finding out where your where your members are hanging out. What what platform are they using? And and I imagine there's going to be probably a couple that you need to focus on. Maybe Facebook and Instagram or I mean, but you know, poll and see see where they are for sure. what are some some top of mind I I know this is what everybody's thinking right now. What are the what are the things that are top of mind for you right now as far as the apps and you know ways to engage people and specifically for these chamber professionals to engage their members.
09:16.398 Beth Ziesenis
Three words, video, video, and video. And video. That's for so there's some some controversy lately because Facebook was accused of amplifying the video engagement numbers so that it made it look like video more engaging and people were engaging more with video than than other things. But in general video gets more Interest. Now, caveat with video. You have to have video that people will watch without audio because that's what they're doing, right? They're watching their feed. They don't want people to know they're at work watching their feed. Or it's kind of annoying to have it on or whatever. So you have to have that closed captioning, or you have to have a video, a visual only type piece. But video. Has been shown multiple times to get more attention and to get more exposure by these platforms. Remember that they love themselves. Here's a trick with Facebook: don't post your YouTube video on Facebook. Upload a video to Facebook. The same video, doesn't matter, but upload it to Facebook because Facebook loves that, thinks it's so great and wants things on its platform. So do it there. Rather than uploading and sharing it, do it on the individual platforms.
10:45.174 Brandon Burton
I was gonna ask you about that. It it takes a little bit more effort because you may still want it on YouTube also, but you need to get it on on the other platforms because that's gonna help with with what they rise to the top, is what's being seen in people's feeds, correct? It's they don't like promoting other sites platforms.
11:04.502 Beth Ziesenis
Right.
11:06.324 Brandon Burton
Okay. so what would be a way for a chamber to maybe expand their their social social media presence to create a a better following to engage their members?
11:26.542 Beth Ziesenis
Again, it it depends on where and what your members want. but adding animation animation, you talked about a ribbon cutting, right? Yes. So you can do a ribbon cutting with a picture of them with a big pair of scissors cutting a ribbon, which you've done. So instead, if you do what a time lapse video, my favorite is called hyperlapse, it was made by Instagram.
11:38.691 Brandon Burton
Yes.
11:54.464 Beth Ziesenis
If you do a hyperlapse where you're you're recording for maybe two minutes, but it can things it down to like 15 seconds, and you have your president and she waves and then she goes with the scissors and she cuts it and everybody claps. Well, instead of having that video play in real time, you have a fast forward of that video and it kind of looks a little bit bunny, but it shows the excitement and it it communicates that and it's a video. That you can share immediately. So that kind of accomplishes a number of things. Funny is always good. Funny adds depth. And people's faces is always good. Now, who's going to share that video? The business who just had its ribbon cut. The people in there who they're little smiling selves and they're like, Look, I'm kind of famous. And I'm not saying that in a in a bad way, but they're going to share it with their communities and they may share it on their business pages as well. So you have all of these layers of built in sharing with an interesting video that has movement, that has excitement. It's not just a long video of the clapping and the cutting or a picture of the cutting. It's several layers of that. you know, we've all done those things where you hold up the sign or you hold up the big check and everybody smiles and you take the picture. We've seen that. Yeah. Do something with a little bit more action.
13:24.024 Brandon Burton
So you said that that app is called Hyperlapse.
13:27.256 Beth Ziesenis
That one's called Hyperlapse. there's another one I like. It's a little bit quirky and it's a phone only thing. It's called Wurble. W E R B L E. And gosh, for the life of me. Hyperlapse is both Android and Apple. If you're with Blackberry, I'm sorry. I just can't help you. I'm sorry.
13:49.326 Brandon Burton
Who's on Blackberry?
13:51.386 Beth Ziesenis
I I was in a session the other day and somebody raised their hand. She's like, I can't give it up. And I'm like, you need to. Yeah. but Werble may only be on Apple. I can't remember. W-E-R-B-L-E. It's a funky little app, but it takes a static picture, like that picture of you gripping and grinning the the the ribbon and the scissors and it's very cool. But it will add like confetti. over it. And now not only do you have more depth to that picture, more interest to that picture, more excitement to that picture, but now that picture is a video and it goes into that cycle of being promoted better.
14:34.048 Brandon Burton
That's a great idea. Now with hyperlapse, you'd mentioned it it kind of takes little segments of that video. Are you able to choose which parts or does it just automatically pick some and then you approve it? Or h how do you get through that process?
14:47.694 Beth Ziesenis
So hyperlapse is incredibly simple. it you point it at a subject, the things happen, and then it speeds it up. And you can do two times faster, four times faster, six, eight, ten, twelve, and up. So it's good. Like let's say you're having an event and you've got the registration desk and you're greeting all the people at the registration desk, or they're all drinking or having a good time or playing, you know, What's that game? Cornhole or whatever outside in the front. so you just have playing for a couple three minutes and then it'll condense it down to 15 seconds of really fast, really fun smiling. With that, you would have to use editing software to trim it or get little hits. It's really just a moment in time sped up.
15:38.218 Brandon Burton
Okay.
15:39.532 Beth Ziesenis
There are other things that do what you're talking about in other ways. and this one is just a very basic speeding up what's happening in front of you and giving it animation and life.
15:52.148 Brandon Burton
Okay. So as I'm thinking of you know, chamber professionals trying to engage their members. You know, for example, they can have you know several hundred chamber members, but they hold a luncheon and maybe there's a hundred out of out of eight hundred of their members that show up. Or there's a ribbon cutting and you get twenty that show up. Or there's a young professionals and there's another thirty that show up. So I'm I'm thinking overall with the chamber membership. You know, there's different ways to engage the members. with these different platforms and the videos and everything. this may seem kind of obvious, but what are some ways to measure the engagement of these members through these different postings and and ways of communicating?
16:45.986 Beth Ziesenis
You know, I'm I I'm gonna say I'm not an expert in measurement and analytics and things like that. In fact, some of mine are complete failures. when I go to an airport, I always do what I call a hashtag airport selfie. Post it on Instagram and it automatically goes to Facebook and Twitter. And what I'm trying to do there is try out a different tool to see Number one, how it engages, and number two, how easy it is for me to do. So you know, I've used hyperlapse for years, but when I discovered Warble, I was like, okay, I'm gonna make something with Werble. And then I always try to, you know, add a filter or add something just to try out one of these new tools. And you look at my Instagram feed, and Instagram is not my strength. A lot of my people don't interact with me on Instagram. Facebook is much better for me. And I'm better at it. But you look at my Instagram thing and it's like, crickets on some of these things. Whether I'm posting too early at an airport at you know, what is four AM for most of my audience, or whether it's just not that cool to them, or whether it just you know, the way usually it happens is they show it to two or three people who usually integrate act with yours. If they pass it over, then you're kinda dead in the water. Right, unless you're using one of their tools like we talked about before, and then they'll give it a little bit more of a shot. So I'm not an expert in in the analytics and fine-tuning that machine. I'm an expert in experimentation, adding depth and movement, and doing things that have a higher probability of being more engaging than your grip and grin pictures.
18:40.206 Brandon Burton
Okay. So from what I gather from that is compare it to maybe a previous post. You know, if play with it a little bit, see what one post gets and then compare it to a a newer one and see what works better and learn from it, you know, expand and and try something different until you get some of that engagement and likes and shares and things that you're hoping for. is is that kind of what I what I would gather out of that?
19:08.492 Beth Ziesenis
Yeah, so and I've got a person later on if you want to know a person who's just superb at this and is always doing A B testing and trying different ways to engage and looking at the statistics. That's what he does. but yeah, you know, post something at two o'clock on Tuesday, you know, every Tuesday for a month, post something radically different using a different technique or tool and see what works. Sometimes though Random things will take off and other things will not. You're like, I am sure that everybody wants to see this white paper that I spent a lot of time on has the great statistics for our community, and everybody's gonna want that because it's gonna help their business. And you get nothing. And then you post a picture of a sunset or someone climbing a tree, or you know, the Halloween pictures of everybody dressed up at the office, and everybody loves it. So You know, or or you post the same thing on a different day and all of a sudden it takes off. And that's a part of the algorithms. and them trying to my god, the cat is jumping on my lap. I couldn't stop now sitting with the microphone. I'm sorry, I've been pushing her nose down for the past five minutes.
20:19.903 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
20:27.214 Brandon Burton
Just let her release, yeah.
20:29.73 Beth Ziesenis
Yep, yep. And sometimes people like me better when you should see that ale is in my face right now. We don't have video, but sometimes that makes me more likable.
20:40.364 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Yeah, that's great. so what are I know you've written some books on apps. over time, I'm sure some of these apps kind of go by the wayside where there's others that are strong and they hang on for a long time. are there a couple other apps that you can recommend? I know you're you know talking specifically with video creation or motion images. But are there other apps that come to mind that you'd like to share with the audience?
21:11.65 Beth Ziesenis
Well, one of my favorites and if you've heard me speak, you've seen me use it, is called Animoto. my gosh. I use it all the time. What a great and easy way to get a high energy video with a lot of people's pictures. Cause here is one secret. People love themselves. No big support surprise there. If you have taken a bunch of pictures of people at a young professionals event and gotten good pictures, I'm talking Close up, you know, not scary close up, but you know, you know, straight into the camera, more than just a room full of people all smiling to each other, but like funny pictures and close up pictures and interesting pictures. If you have a bunch of those, you can throw them in Anamoto, choose a theme, choose a song, press a button, bam, and like less my record is ninety-one seconds to make one of these. And in less than five minutes you go from having a pile of pictures to having a video that you can show that has pictures of people in it that they're gonna want to share and has that energy that other people, you know, like that FOMO thing, like, I didn't go to this one, who went to this one? What networking did I miss? What, you know, drama did I miss? Whatever. There's not that much drama necessarily. Sometimes there is. and
22:39.148 Brandon Burton
I'm sorry, go ahead.
22:41.129 Beth Ziesenis
and and those are really interesting and helpful for people.
22:45.343 Brandon Burton
So with Anamoto, is there you mentioned, you know, you add the pictures and everything in the music. Is there, you know, stock music within the app or are you choosing music off of your device or how does how does the music part of it work?
22:58.058 Beth Ziesenis
Yes, so you want to watch your royalty free your copyright infringement kind of stuff. And Animoto comes with a whole bunch of audio that you can use. sometimes when I've uploaded an Animoto video on YouTube, YouTube will flag it and say you're supposed to be paying royalties on this. And then I'm like, no, I'm not. It's okay, but it's it it's just too much effort to do whatever. But if you put it on Facebook, it should be fine. And if you put it on other social media, it should be fine. and so it's all built in there. You choose the songs. You don't want to use necessarily a popular song from the day, even though they're more interesting, because you're just gonna deal with copyright. And although you'll never get caught as a business, as a chamber, you don't want to mess with that stuff. So choose what they have in there and it's gonna give it to you. Now Anamoto is free for the first thirty seconds for your phone, so you can make a 30 second video. And believe it or not, guys, with eleven or twelve pictures, that's all you need, right? I take a maximum of fourteen when I make mine. I pay for the upgrade and I'm grandfathered in, so it doesn't cost me very much at all. But if you're using these a lot, you know, it's I think this one's one twenty for the lowest a year. for the lowest version. That's ten dollars a month to get that engagement and to have that a available, or you can use the free version. And this is great for turning your interns loose at an event, turning your professionals, turning your leaders loose at an event to come up with this, make it on their phones and share it.
24:44.776 Brandon Burton
Very good. are there any other top of mind apps that you'd wanna share with the audience?
24:53.698 Beth Ziesenis
Well, like I said, Facebook and Google Photos and Instagram I think all of these do automatic slideshow videos that they just have done for you because they wanna show off what they can do for you. And you're using their tools so they're gonna promote it better and it's all in there. I don't find them nearly as interesting. As Anamoto or nearly as flexible, but they're free. They're right there. They may even make them for you. Like if you have Google Photos where you can throw all of your photos, all your video clips, and it uses artificial intelligence to really very well recognize people in your photos. So you've got a volunteer who's been volunteering for three years. Find pictures of that person's face. And get a whole bunch of photos from over the years and thank them with a video of all their volunteer stuff. Right? And they make these things behind Google Photos. When you go back to it, it's called the Google Photos Assistant or something like that. You go in there and it's made them for you. It's like here is a little slideshow of last month's event already ready for you to just share. Because they're like, we're so special and we do this really well. So we're gonna make it for you so you share it. And that makes us happy and it makes you happy and it shows off what we can do.
26:22.998 Brandon Burton
And so I'd seen the same kind of thing with my iPhone after being on a vacation, taking a bunch of pictures and I put together this video and thought that is awesome. You know, I I could never make something that good on my own. But yeah, and I'd imagine if you do it through Facebook, you know, using their platform, it possibly will get better traction than using a third party service that you're then uploading to whatever social platform.
26:48.718 Beth Ziesenis
Yep, and it's free. It's just right there. And the Facebook one takes all the pictures that you thought were smart enough and good enough to be on Facebook and does it for you. Ta-da! And you're like, thank you. And Facebook is like, Thank you for telling people how great we are, and then you release it and everybody promotes it. And then you've got those wonderful pictures of people that they want to share of themselves and their businesses.
27:14.806 Brandon Burton
That's great. So I know you've you've shared some some good apps that listeners can check out and play with and and try to, you know, apply at their chamber and see how that increases their engagement with members. But if you were to recommend one action item that a chamber professional who's listening today can do to increase engagement of their chamber members, what would that be?
27:39.426 Beth Ziesenis
Go back to your most popular social media feed platform, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or whatever, go back to the one that has the most interest, go back and look at your last five or ten posts, evaluate what's doing doing the best, what's not doing the best, and see if you can do a makeover or conglomeration. A makeover of one that was important and nobody saw, or conglomeration of several that were really popular that you can put together in kind of a like the last five events, all the pictures, and you're last okay, I'm gonna put together a a retrospective of a month's worth of events or six months worth of events. Look at the last ten, see what you can do to repurpose the information there using one of these other tools and get more engagement and more excitement and invigorate some of those things you already have.
28:37.964 Brandon Burton
I appreciate that. I like the the idea of going back and reevaluating the things that did work well for you. I'm looking at that for myself even with with the podcast. You know, on my Facebook and you know social platforms that I utilize for the podcast, I'd come across a really neat tool called it it was on a website called headliner.app. And what that does is you it'll take an image and then a segment of audio. that it'll overlay on that image and essentially make it a video by putting the the captioning of the the audio that's being spoken on the on the photo that you're seeing. I thought that is really cool. So I I did that for a couple of episodes as I shared that out on social media and it looks really great. but it hasn't gotten the engagement that some of the just the still photos that I had, you know, posted out there before were getting. So I need to to go back and evaluate and see what's working better and try to, you know, tweak and play with them and and try to increase that engagement sum. So I appreciate you bringing that to top of our minds.
29:48.15 Beth Ziesenis
Yep. just evaluate what you're doing. I I swear if if static pictures are working best for you, use static pictures. Maybe make them a little bit more interesting or close up or more identifiable. But if that's what's working for you, don't listen to any of the other things I'm doing. Do more of that.
30:06.6 Brandon Burton
All right. so Beth, I wanted to as we wrap things up here, ask you a question, as you've spoken at several of these chamber conventions and conferences and so forth. How do you see the future of chambers of commerce?
30:21.646 Beth Ziesenis
Chambers are going to become more and more important because businesses are working against technology to stay viable and smart. You know, there's there's a whole bunch of people, there's a site, and it's a joke, but it's not a joke called Will Robots MyJob.com. And you've got some industries in a community that may be phased out. So chambers kind of help people number one educate themselves and number two grow with the growth of technology. So understanding the growth of technology and how that will affect your members and providing education and re education for those industries to help them keep ahead of the curve is gonna be so important.
31:12.32 Brandon Burton
I agree. And providing that education is gonna boost the engagement of the members too, because these members are gonna wanna know what they can do to stay on the cutting edge and be able to stay ahead of some of the technologies that are coming. So that education is key. So thank you for that. Well, Beth, I wanted to to thank you for spending time with us today here on the Chamber Chat podcast. And I also wanted to thank all of you for listening. Show notes for this episode can be found at Chamberchat Podcast dot com slash episode nine. But Beth, for those who are listening who would be interested learning more about you, maybe finding out more about your books or having you for a speaking engagement, where can they find you online and how can they connect with you?
31:57.358 Beth Ziesenis
Nerdy Best friend. So your nerdy best friend dot com is me. And that's my job. I I wanted to tell you one thing that I'm working on that I'm super excited about. It's a what is it, Beth?
32:13.324 Brandon Burton
Yeah, tell us, please.
32:15.246 Beth Ziesenis
by popular demand, people have asked me for this. It's a half day program. I think it's gonna be a half day that I'm putting together of actual making videos in the class. Yes, it's one thing to talk about, hey, you can do it on Animoto, how do you do it? It's one thing to talk about, hey, you know, let's you can just do it real quick on a hyperlapse, how do you do it? And people are gonna be able to bring their own projects to the class, they're gonna make other things during the class. They get a book, handbook, something, I don't know what it is, of I'm writing it right now that they can take back with the actual tips and what each was used for and that kind of thing. So I'm rolling it out. I'm gonna do be doing it at a couple of conferences as a pre-conference workshop, but I want to do it for chambers and chamber members as well as chamber executives and I think gonna put on my own here in the Nashville area and invite people to come and be a part of the program, spend the night or what have you and really get their video on. So I'm super excited about this. It's people came to me and said, will you physically teach us which button buttons to push and which apps to use? And I'm like, all right, I'm doing it.
33:38.208 Brandon Burton
Yeah. I that hand holding is is very necessary with some people just to be able to jump in and actually do it. It's one thing to talk about it, but to do it takes it to a whole new level. So that that'll be good. So that'll be found information on that on your nerd on your nerdy best friend dot com. Is that where they would find out more about that?
33:58.05 Beth Ziesenis
The best thing to do right now is sign up for my newsletter, which you can do by sending the word nerd to six six eight six six or going to my website, but send the word nerd to six six eight six six. I've been told it doesn't suck. So that's an unsolicited testimonial that I gave you by myself. and that's the best way to keep up because I'm I'm developing this course. I don't know it's just new and so as soon as I kind of cement and do it a couple of times as a pre conference workshop, I will figure out how to do it on my own, for the first time ever.
34:41.432 Brandon Burton
That sounds great. So for those listening and interested, the the number again is you send nerd to six six six eight six, correct?
34:53.272 Beth Ziesenis
Six eight six six.
34:56.184 Brandon Burton
Sorry, say that again. How many sixes?
34:58.808 Beth Ziesenis
Six six eight six.
35:02.21 Brandon Burton
Okay. So two sixes and eight and two sixes. Yes. Okay. That's perfect. so for any of you that are chamber professionals listening, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast and either Apple Podcast or Google Podcasts. If you're listening to this on your phone, just you know, tap the cover art and it'll give you a little button to hit subscribe. That way when new episodes are released each week, they'll automatically show up in your in your podcast app so they're ready to be listened to whenever you're ready. And of course, if you're finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and review on iTunes. And most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry. Hopefully you can take some tips that you learned from Beth today and apply them as you serve your chamber. Please tune in again next week as I continue to bring you more great content and to help spark some ideas that you can use at your chamber. I'll look forward to chatting with you again next week.

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

Episode 8 — How to find opportunity through unique challenges with Barbara Thomason
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Barbara Thomason
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.12 Brandon Burton
Does your chamber have challenges that you feel are unique to your chamber? Or do you ever find yourself doing things that you think, you know, most chambers just don't do this sort of thing? Well stick around with us today, and you may find out that you're not alone as we listen to our guest, Barbara Thomason, talk about some of the unique challenges at her chamber, but how those challenges bring opportunity as well. Let's cue the intro. 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.
00:41.58 Brandon Burton
Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. 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. As we start this episode today, I wanted to share a Apple iTunes review that Chamber Chat Podcast recently received. The title of this review is Every Episode Has Golden Nuggets. This is by Gulf Coast Chamber Pro. And the review says whenever chamber execs attend conferences or workshops, we hope to find those golden nuggets of information that make the time away from the office worthwhile. We love hearing tips from other pros that can help us back at our chambers. So far, each episode of Chamber Chat Podcast delivers. Well worth the time. Plus, it's cool learning more about these executives who are the key leaders today. What a great profession. So again, thank you. Gulf Coast Chamber Pro for that review. We appreciate that. So our guest for today's episode is Barbara Thomason, who's the president and CEO of the Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce, a 45-year-old org association of 700 members covering the northwest area of Harris County here in Texas. She previously served as the Dean of Corporate and Continuing Education at Lone Star College North Harris. She joined Lone Star College Montgomery in nineteen ninety four, developing customized programs for businesses business and industry. Prior to joining the college district, she owned her own franchise business, Jim Boree, and worked in training and development for American General Companies, which is now AIG. Barbara holds a bachelor's in psychology from the University of Texas at Austin and a master's in management specializing in human resource development from Houston Baptist University. In two thousand nine, she earned her Chamber Management Certification from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Organizational Management and her professional community and economic developer certification. Barbara has served as president of the Gulf Coast Chamber Executives Organization, the president of the Women's Business Forum, and currently serves on the Texas Chamber of Commerce Executives Board. In twenty fifteen, Barbara was named as Woman of Excellency by the Women's Business Forum and honored by the
03:07.082 Brandon Burton
At the Federation of Professional Women's Banquet. In early 2016, she was honored as a 2016 Distinguished Volunteer by Leadership North Houston. Barbara's married and has two children, one of them has graced her with two grandchildren. She's returning to her training and development roots as she transitions from her role as chamber president and takes the helm of the family training and consulting firm Leadershift LLC. in June of twenty nineteen. Barbara, welcome to the Chamber Tap Podcast. Please say hello to the audience and share something interesting with us that might not have been in your bio.
03:47.404 Barbara Thomason
Well, hello Brandon. Thank you for inviting me to be a part of of this program. So that bio is way too long. I hear that now. when I share something interesting about myself, I usually try and find something that has absolutely nothing to do with chamber work and and one thing that I've shared before with other people is that I have a a license to drive a motorcycle. and a license to carry a firearm. However, I neither own a motorcycle nor a firearm. So what does that tell you about me? Wow.
04:24.654 Brandon Burton
But say you're not a Texan if you don't have a license to carry a firearm. So I I get that part.
04:31.702 Barbara Thomason
I'm texting through and through. I can tell you that.
04:34.862 Brandon Burton
That's right. That's very good. So our topic of conversation today is gonna be around how to find opportunity through unique challenges. Now Barbara's there at the at the Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce, which is very unique and in that it's the only chamber in the country that serves an unincorporated community that has a population density that approaches that of Denver, Colorado. which is around seven hundred thousand people. Barbara, can you kind of dive in and and share with us some of the challenges that may come in having this kind of a setup at a chamber?
05:17.222 Barbara Thomason
Sure. first of all I want to say that dealing with the challenges of any community is the primary job, I think, of the chamber executive. We all have to take whatever we're given and make lemonade out of those lemons and and put the positive spin on it. But I never imagined what I you know what I was going to be dealing with, even though I had lived in this community. For well, I've lived in this community for almost 29 years before I became the president of the chamber. this community for various reasons has remained unincorporated. The city of Houston has grown all around, but this area remained unincorporated, and yet the population continues to grow and and grow denser. And Because of that, we have the very same issues that any urban community might have without the benefit of city government, municipality, town hall, or even a management district for that matter, without the benefit of those structures and without the benefit of the funding that goes along with those structures to solve problems. So I will give you one of the best examples. When one of our main thoroughfares was showing some some crash statistics that that were not good, TechStock decided to install raised medians, which you know is a good thing. That would help reduce accident stats. So when one of our community members heard this, she She indicated that well we needed to have pretty medians, not the kind that had weeds and yellow paint, but the kind that would be landscaped. And so she worked with us to raise over $550,000 in private money to run irrigation along eight and a half miles of this thoroughfare and to irrigate and to plant those medians. That was all a private effort.
07:43.118 Barbara Thomason
And typically in a community, it's you know the city or the management district that will do that work, but we don't have those things. The more miraculous thing that this volunteer did is that she for years called on utility districts, which is our primary form of government, if you would call it local government, and arranged for a dozen of them, got them to agree. To form a joint powers board to take care of the medians in perpetuity, to provide water, to provide seasonal planting and all the trimming and so forth. So that was a requirement of Text Dot. And not this is not typically what chambers do, but that's what we're called on by our community to do from time to time, is to step into the shoes of what would normally be a government's role. That's what we do.
08:41.304 Brandon Burton
That just in that example, that seems like quite a heavy lift, to raise that much capital and just that big of a project, eight and a half miles of of state highway. Where did you start in a in a project like that?
08:57.902 Barbara Thomason
That's an that's a great question. Well, you you certainly start with discussion and we've done it over and over again. Sometimes we're doing it, but sometimes there are other community groups. Our our community has a law has rallied around raising money and and created an art museum and a performing arts venue. more recently we began a capital campaign. To fund our economic development function. And it was many years of focus groups and calling on corporations and getting f pledges, and we didn't even get to the half million mark, but we did raise enough money to begin implementing our economic development plan and to hire an economic developer and you know, really have had some significant success in that area. You just have to begin with a strategy with your board and then turn to the community and get the input and the sanction from them, get your stakeholders and then start looking for the money. And we just have to keep doing it again and again and again.
10:19.18 Brandon Burton
Yeah, so with involving the community, would you hold some kind of like a public hearing where they can come and hear about it and kind of what the ideas are that are being proposed since is that something that would be organized there through your chamber since there wasn't the government municipalities involved?
10:36.162 Barbara Thomason
Yes, that we don't use the language of government. We don't use the words public hearing. It's more of a town hall or a community input meeting. And yeah, we host those from time to time depending on whatever it is we're working on. But one of the challenges we have is we're we're pretty spread out and as I've mentioned this population is is large. Communicating in this community is is a challenge. I was on the phone yesterday with a I'll call him an angry citizen. Okay. Okay. He's lived in this community for almost about as long as I have, and he's owned a business in this community. And he was not aware that we were unincorporated. He was not aware that that he kept talking about who Who is it that planned to who is it that installed those medians? Who are they? And I had to explain to him and I thought, isn't it fascinating that after all these years, how many of the people that live out here, they live and work and enjoy the amenities of this beautiful place? They also deal with the challenges of this place and they never really know why, what's going on, what's the the fabric behind it all. And it it's like that for a lot of people and and it creates, you know, some level of frustration for them 'cause they're wondering, who's running this place? Well, they are.
12:16.614 Brandon Burton
That's right. Yeah. Well, like yeah, he's he's one of the people that helped do it, right? I mean that ideally it's a community that got behind it. yeah, as you're explaining that, that it reminded me of yeah, we had Bruce Hillegeist on the on the show and I'm I'm sure you know Bruce well. he had he had shared a quote that you know, they're at the chamber, they do what the rest of the people in the community think just Things just happens. You know, it just you know, it's the behind the scenes stuff that everybody just assumes is gonna get taken care of, but it's a chamber behind it. And I think you guys there, you know, with not having the city backing or you know, any of that local government to help, really are, you know, what's behind anything, any progress like that. So kudos for that. That's amazing.
13:09.442 Barbara Thomason
Yeah, yeah.
13:11.31 Brandon Burton
so there's some challenges obviously in that with not having that kind of government support and backing, but I imagine in that there's a little bit of freedom, a little bit of opportunity in that as well. can you speak to some of the the benefits of being able to of having these different challenges? How how do you see the positive in it?
13:36.342 Barbara Thomason
Yeah, the positive is well first off the this community, this area is ripe with opportunity. you know, my family moved up here because of the beautiful treed neighborhoods, because of the strong s school districts up here, which continue to be strong school districts. people are very engaged in in their students in the schools. And all of these strengths continue to exist here. and for the same for the same reasons businesses continue to to relocate and to set up set up shop in this area. So you know, despite these challenges that we've discussed, it has less regulations, less red tape, you know, people can just you know, set up shopping and and run their lives and they don't have to deal with some of the shenanigans that they might otherwise find and dealing with a municipality. So we're kind of proud of that. And if they do run into any challenges, I mean they do have to certainly go through a fire marshal inspection and, you know, get their their utility hook up. And if they have any problems with those, we can help them. You know, we can help make the phone call or help them solve the problem. But it it really is an an easy way to set up set up business and to move your family and and to find affordable housing or to find executive level housing. we just think it's in an ideal place to live, work and play.
15:27.99 Brandon Burton
That's great. So I wanted to go back to you had mentioned that that it's been difficult to communicate throughout the community because it is such a large pot large population. What have you found to be more effective ways of getting your messages out there to the community as you're doing these capital campaigns for like the highway improvement or the the museum or arts program, all these different great things that you guys are doing? How do you how do you communicate? What's working for you?
15:57.026 Barbara Thomason
This has been a really funny evolution because, you know, and I have to have to qualify what I say and ask forgiveness for some of my newspaper members, but newspapers are less read than they used to be, with the exception of a few really, you know, quality publications. people don't necessarily read, you know, email, and of course we don't have everybody on an email list. billboards we don't necessarily support. We're trying to find ways to get them to come down. And but what seems to be a real fast way to get the word out about anything is next door. And and of course that is primarily set up for residents.
16:44.673 Brandon Burton
Okay.
16:50.914 Barbara Thomason
But boy, if you want to get the word out about something, put it on next door and get it out to twenty four neighborhoods, you know, in the in just a flash. And if it's news that creates a panic, it gets out even faster than a flash.
17:06.349 Brandon Burton
Whether or not you want it to, right?
17:09.218 Barbara Thomason
Yeah, right, exactly. But you know, we communicate with with our businesses, you know, through through e blast, through email primarily. And but you just have to use all the media that you can because people find it different ways and you have to do it repeatedly. And social media certainly is is coming to its own, but again there's large strata of our membership that don't really pay attention to that or don't pay attention to the form of social media that we post in. So it's just I think it's always going to be a challenge to reach the wide it's you know swath of people that we try and reach as a chamber. some chambers really do laser focus on business, but because of our unique nature, We really do have to have more of a shotgun approach because we're trying to communicate with a larger community. for example, we're hosting a meet and greet with Congressman Dan Crenshaw in April. Well, certainly this is of interest to business, but he's going to be talking a lot about flood mitigation and and things that are going on in Washington that will help. help us with some of the challenges we faced after Harvey. Well this is of particular interest to residents as well as businesses. So, you know, we have these things come up all the time and we have to get a hold of everybody.
18:46.274 Brandon Burton
Yeah. for people who may not be as familiar with next door, can you just explain to so do you would you set up a chamber profile for that or do you have to post as a community member or how did how do you how do you do your messaging that way? Yeah.
19:03.138 Barbara Thomason
Yeah, I yeah, we're sort of a love-hate relationship with next door. I I I actually do it as a member of a subdivision. I do it as an individual. I only set up chamber events on next door. If we want like the Dan Crenshaw, we have to set that up as an event and invite people to come to that event. but when I communicate, I have to communicate as a member of my subdivision. and then just ask that my message be distributed throughout 24 subdivisions. So it's it's just a platform. It's mostly, you know, garage sales and and people looking for lost pets, but it also has turned into quite a bullet a bulletin board, people looking for you know safety and security strategies or you know ways to s to solve a variety of problems and then community events that that different neighborhoods may be hosting. but it seems to be pretty well read so
20:15.862 Brandon Burton
that's good. I know e everybody's familiar with Facebook and Instagram, Twitter, you know, all the the major platforms, but I think something like next door might get overlooked and could be a great tool for chambers to use, especially when that messaging to the community may be a little bit harder to get out there. Yeah. so can you d you know, talk a little bit about the the art museum and the performing arts program that you guys helped to bring about as well?
20:43.486 Barbara Thomason
yes, with varying levels of of participation. I wasn't president when the performing arts venue was organized. It's it's it's called the the program is called the Foundation for Arts and Community Enrichment. And the venue that they used for gosh, I think they've been in existence for twenty twenty 25 years now, but the venue was flooded by Harvey. And so they had to move their program to some other venues. And I spoke to the director recently and she said it was really a blessing because having to operate out of other venues opened up new markets for them. And so they they have different audiences than they had before. And so they will move back into their their old location once the repairs have been made and they haven't been made yet. But she thinks that they may try and keep some of these satellite locations. So so that's a good thing. But I think we had a financial contribution to the creation of the Foundation for the Arts and Community Enrichment that used to operate out of what we call the Centrum. The Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts We had a financial contribution in and in sort of a supportive role. There was a lot of community support for this. There was I guess a community committee that was organized. We were not the lead role, and we just love it when we're not the lead role that we can be a support role. but it is a tremendous amenity in our community. It also suffered Harvey flooding. and just recently reopened. and we were very glad of that. That was one place where my husband and I went after Harvey and and started sloughing out muck and you know dumped out the refrigerator and that sort of thing because it's just heartbreaking, you know, when when something that valuable none of the art was hurt but but the facility was. But we, you know, so we consider that one of our babies.
23:10.414 Barbara Thomason
And the parks too. Now the parks are county parks, but we've worked hard on that as well as the greenway system, which has been a grassroots effort as well. We have a tremendous volunteer, Jim Robertson, he's a retired geologist. He just went to Austin with us. He is heads up the Cypress Creek Flood Control Coalition, but his primary focus has been securing Greenway property all along Cypress Creek so that we have a continuous green belt. And so we have been real supportive of his efforts. This involves like like our other volunteer going from utility district to utility district, working with them, asking their assistance in deeding over land to the county so that that green belt is you know legitimate county park. I mean these are efforts that are grassroots efforts all over our community and We're just we've had to become that kind of can do community and that kind of chamber in order to get the things that I think other communities sort of take for granted. And I'm real I'm real proud of our people for for being that kind of people, that kind of pioneering people.
24:38.506 Brandon Burton
Yeah, it sounds like the the community really rallies behind you and and helps out. So in these I I really liked your example with the the arts program, the performing arts program, how that they were able to recognize the opportunity of, you know, opening it up to new audiences even you know after the hurricane and be able to, you know, continue to see the the positivity and and potential growth that comes out of that, you know, devastating storm.
25:08.61 Barbara Thomason
Yeah.
25:10.058 Brandon Burton
so as you as you do these different capital campaigns, is it members in the community that you see primarily supporting it, or is it the business community at large, the chamber members that are supporting or I'm sure it's a combination of both, but kinda how do you as you go about it, what do you see or kind of expect as these different seems like there's always something going on, some kind of a campaign or initiative that you guys are working on. Yeah. Where do you see the big support coming from?
25:39.746 Barbara Thomason
Big the big dollar support comes primarily from our corporate members. because they have the most to gain and the most to lose. And and when I'm saying that I'm speaking primarily of our economic development initiative. and I'll give you an example. Houston Northwest Medical Center is a forty-five-year-old hospital that anchors one end of our community. And I had a CEO about 14 years ago tell me that they used to you know deliver babies, that was their primary product and service, and now they they treat you know gunshot wounds more often than they deliver babies. It's just become a different kind of a an area down at that one end of the community. And he was real concerned about the evolution of the community. And so He said, you know, we've got to do something. Well, it's very difficult to turn around a community. You can't do it quickly. It's like turning a large ship. But he recognized that until we began to turn around that ship, he had to be able to retain doctors, retain employees, retain patients in order to keep that hospital viable in the midst of a changing community. And so they pledged $100,000 over a four-year period to our economic development initiative, you know, with the faith that with the efforts that we employed that that we would be able to make a positive difference. And they were most reassured by some of the safety and security initiatives that we implemented during that four years, which is just now coming to a close. So we you know, we hope that they'll continue to support. Our economic development initiatives. But big companies have a lot to to lose in terms of employee retention and and customer base if they if they don't invest in their community in a significant way. so that's where most of the support comes from. Now when we were talking about the medians.
27:59.446 Barbara Thomason
Yeah. It wasn't just members, it was more those businesses that were going to be looking at them. So some of them were not members, some of them were hospit excuse me, restaurant chains that faced the medians and they wanted to see them look nice. We knew that they had an interest in that and so they were supportive and able to write checks that would help fund the planting of those medians. So they had a you know, they had a direct interest in it and we were able to to make that happen for them.
28:35.34 Brandon Burton
So I'm sure in in all these different initiatives there's always gonna be that that person that, you know, provides the opposition for you. But how do you stay optimistic? How do you how do you continue to see the opportunity that come through these challenges?
28:50.638 Barbara Thomason
Well you have to keep the vision in mind, just looking forward and it and sometimes it's hard because you always have the naysayers. I mean, even though we were working toward beautiful landscape medians, you had you had people who were in strong opposition. you know, they felt like trash would accumulate in the medians, you know, with the plantings there. They felt like that if we planted the median somehow that made them more permanent and they wanted the medians to go away. I I don't really understand that logic, but there were all kinds of r reasons they felt like they they blamed the chamber for the medians, even though it was a text dot infrastructure project. So you just have to keep the end in mind and and know that once they're planted it will be better. And Sure enough it was. Once they were planted, we started to get positive feedback from the community. And even more importantly, we began to see businesses starting to invest in their facades all along that corridor, as if to respond to the thought that people do care about this thoroughfare and therefore we will invest in it as well. And although I can't quantify that, I can give you lots of anecdotal evidence. that that was the response to the landscape comedians.
30:21.614 Brandon Burton
It's gotta be neat to see that ripple effect too, to see it translating over into the rest of the community.
30:27.074 Barbara Thomason
Yes, and I do have to give credit to the volunteers. She was the catalyst. My first thought was, my God, this is way too way too big, you know, I've already got a full time job. I don't need take this on, you know. But she was the one with the positive attitude that kept pushing, pushing and, you know, taught me really how to to persevere and stay positive. So once we had that That project behind us, you know, I I thought, Well, heck, we can do anything now.
31:02.286 Brandon Burton
That's right. Yeah. So I wanted to ask you, you know, through these challenges that you've seen there in your time at your chamber, what how can a person change their mindset to be more of that of finding opportunity through challenges?
31:21.294 Barbara Thomason
How can they? Well, I just think it it's really it's got to start from within. I do think it is the job of the chamber exec to to be able to find the advantage out of disadvantage. If we don't do that, then we really have no business sitting in in the chairs that that we're asked to sit in. And it's not always easy. There's a lot of negativity that we have to overcome around us, but that's our job is to overcome that. and we have to prioritize too. We can't be all things to all people. So it's a matter of knowing what's going to have the greatest impact in our community, finding the vision, sharing the vision, getting buy-in for the vision, and then implementing, which is often the hardest part. but that's what you know, my recommendation would be for anyone is is to vision it first. Now I I do have a resource that I'm still a little curious about, but that we we explored over the last year. And it's called the Blue Ocean. I don't know if anybody's heard of it. Blue Ocean Shift. There are a couple of doctors, Doctor Kim and Doctor Maborn and one can just Google Blue Ocean Shift. Okay. Well if if you want to kind of open up your mind to great possibilities, g you can go to that website. You could even order one of their books. But one of the best examples is the you know the circus. The circus is certainly a dying
32:50.134 Brandon Burton
We'll put a link to it in the show notes.
33:15.402 Barbara Thomason
industry, dead industry essentially. But so how does Cirque de Soleil come about? And the Blue Ocean is a a way of looking at a strategy in a way that that enables you to turn something that might have been competitive into something that is you know not competitive. It's like The Blue Ocean is the non-competitive rising up above the fray, whereas the bloody red ocean is where most of us exist all the time. If you imagine sharks and bloody red ocean of competition, but what we have to do is rise above that all and find our blue ocean, which is our area of of operation. And so it's not easy, it's a long, long process, and we proceeded through all the steps. And it's how we came up with our strategic plan for 2019, which we're still in the process of implementing. And I'm I'm fascinated with the blue ocean. But so maybe someone else can find some some value in it.
34:30.606 Brandon Burton
As you're saying blue ocean, I'm picturing a beautiful tropical island in the middle of a big blue water, you know, ocean. Yeah. That that's where I want to be. So well, as we start wrapping things up here at this interview, I I did want to ask you the question I ask everybody that I have on the show, which is as you as we look to the future, how do you see the future of chambers of commerce?
34:39.438 Barbara Thomason
Yeah, yeah, me too.
34:57.282 Barbara Thomason
Well, it it's one reason I even mentioned Blue Ocean. chambers will have to create a shift, I think, if they're going to survive. they're gonna have to be relevant and find relevance in their communities if they're going to survive because there are so many things that are creating a bloody red ocean for them. of competition and the internet is one of the biggest things. Businesses don't need to come to the chamber to find what they used to find there. They can just, you know, Google it or order a book or or go to any number of networking groups that they can find, particularly in a city like like the Houston area. So a chamber has to offer something so much more. And I can't dictate what that would be for any one community. I just know that we have to explore what it what it would be for our community and it will look different. You know, in a in a a a tourist-centered community, it's it's going to to look more like like con convention and and visitors bureau kinds of activities. In my community it might be more public policy advocacy activity. but Whatever it is, you've got to find your blue ocean, you've got to find your area that meets a real need that is not being met any other way. And and that's what chambers have to do. and to just go along with the status quo i means really certain death, I believe. And I hate to I hate to be the bearer of of that bad news, but I know I'm not the only one that's bearing that bad news. It's it's a message. that ACCE and the US Chamber have also voiced that we've got to wake up guys and and be meeting real needs, the real needs of of the next decades.
37:06.358 Brandon Burton
Right, we'd we'd just recently done an interview with Tony Felker at the Frisco chamber and it was all about staying relevant as a chamber and I you're you're hitting on those same notes, which I think is so important for for every chamber executive to recognize and and really take the pulse of their community and and be able to dictate kind of where things need to go and staying ahead of that curve. So
37:29.518 Barbara Thomason
Absolutely.
37:31.394 Brandon Burton
Well, Barbara, I wanted to to thank you for spending time with us today here on the Chamber Chat Podcast. I also want to thank everybody who's listening today. The show notes for this episode can be found at Chamberchat Podcast dot com slash episode eight, where we'll have a link to Blue Ocean that Barbara was talking about and and some of the other great things we've been talking about. But Barbara if if people listening today have any questions about things that we've discussed or how you're doing things there at the Houston Northwest Chamber, how might they be able to get in contact with you and and find you online?
38:07.768 Barbara Thomason
Well they can certainly email me B Thomason, B for Barbara, B. Thomason, T-H-O-M-A-S-O-N at Houstonn Wchamber.org, or they can find me on the website at Houston NWCamber.org. or just Google Barbara Thomason. And I think they can find me that way, but I'm happy to help. any chamber with anything they might need. I'm, you know, particularly interested in board development and strategic planning. And so if they have a need in those areas, I'm happy to help.
38:48.93 Brandon Burton
That's perfect. I appreciate you being willing to be a resource to these other chamber professionals. For for those of you listening, if you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to ChamberThat Podcast and either Apple Podcast or Google Podcast. You can do so by just tapping to cover art if you're listening on your phone and they have a nice little subscribe button. That way you get the new podcast episodes each week as they're released right on your phone as they become available. So they're ready whenever you are.
38:55.073 Barbara Thomason
My question.
39:19.384 Brandon Burton
But also if you're finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes, and most importantly, please share ChamberTap Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry. Hopefully you can take some tips that you've learned from our conversation with Barbara today and be able to apply them as you serve in your chamber. But please tune in again next week as I continue to bring you more great content to help spark some ideas. I'll look forward to chatting with you again next week.

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

Episode 7 — 5 Ways to Serve Your Members and Community with Eddie McBride
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Eddie McBride
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.216 Eddie McBride
Talking about women in the workforce. we have another one about the intergenerational. we're not talking about just millennials. I think it's it's in our opinion, we need to not focus just on how to work with millennials. We need to focus on intergenerational issues in the workplace, including working with people that look just like me. So that's that's another thing that we're trying to bring about is again improvements in the workplace, all based on understanding the respect that is necessary. for folks to feel toward each other to to do better and c and and and to try to be more successful and improve the bottom line of their businesses. So that's really what we're focusing
00:40.994 Brandon Burton
That was our featured guest for today, Eddie McBride from the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce as he's talking about their chamber's upcoming diversity summit as one of the ways that his chamber there in Lubbock is serving their members and community. Stay with us today as we dive into the other ways and more details of how Eddie and the Lubbock Chamber serve their members and community. Let's cue the intro. 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.
01:21.858 Brandon Burton
Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. 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 today is Eddie McBride, who has served as a president and CEO of the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce since 1999. Eddie grew up in Grand Prairie, Texas, earned a Bachelor's of Arts degree in political science from Texas AM University. And a master's in public administration from Troy State University, Alabama. He received his IOM from Tucson and serves on the boards of the Western Association of Chamber Executives, Workforce Solutions of the South Plains, and Covenant Hospital. Eddie also serves on the ACCE Major Cities Council and as a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Committee of one hundred. He is a past chair of the Texas Chamber of Commerce Executives. Serves on the boards of ACCE, Texas Association of Business, and several other local organizations. Eddie moved to Lebbock in nineteen ninety six and served as the first executive director of the Lebok Reese Redevelopment Authority, where he led the initial redevelopment efforts of the closed Reese Air Force Base. Before that, Eddie served a twenty year career in the Air Force. Eddie First of all, thank you for your service and welcome to the Chamber Tap Podcast. Please say hello to the audience and share something interesting about yourself that may not have been in your bio.
03:00.312 Eddie McBride
Brandon, thank you and I appreciate the opportunity to work with you today and and what what you don't always see is all the personal nature in in some of these bios, but I have three grandchildren and that's and that ends up being the purpose of life when you get to my age and the the opportunity to just not not think any more of your children, but just concentrate entirely on your grandchildren.
03:24.706 Brandon Burton
That is that's some truth right there. I I'm not to that point yet, but that's that's what I hear. Life is all about when you get to a certain point is that's why you have kids, right? Is to have grandchildren.
03:34.254 Eddie McBride
Absolutely. That's that's God's way of keeping you from killing your kids when they're teenagers.
03:39.378 Brandon Burton
That's right. well as we before we jump into the topic today, can you give us a little bit of background about the Lubbock Chamber, kind of an idea of the size so as other other people are listening they can kind of relate to what what size of a chamber you are there.
03:57.228 Eddie McBride
Yes, sir. Although the city of Lubbock's around probably two hundred and seventy thousand, we're not a huge metropolitan area. so our chamber doesn't necessarily reflect the size of the the city. We're we're relatively con considered a a medium to large size chamber. We have almost nineteen hundred members and have about a one point eight million dollar budget of which one point one million is is dues and seven hundred thousand plus is program or program revenue, non-dues revenue. So in reality, that that places us in a little bit larger category when it comes to member size and t size of chamber. But we're that way because obviously there's no competition out here in Lubbock as far as other chambers of commerce. There's there's the closest rural chambers that are close to us or forty five minutes away in the larger communities, whether it be Amarilla, Middle and Odessa, they're two hours away. So I like to characterize Lubbock in our chamber as being we're out here, we're remote remote, but we although we may be alone, we're very well armed and unafraid. So that's what causes our chamber to be a little bit different than than maybe other cities the same size.
05:16.118 Brandon Burton
I like that. I've I've noticed in my travels as I get around to other chambers, ones that are maybe isolated, you know, where you're not bleeding over into other cities, tend to have a a much stronger base just because, you know, people need somewhere to go to and and a chamber to advocate for and it it really helps gravitate businesses towards you when you're out there on your own like that. So
05:39.414 Eddie McBride
Yes, sir. And one other one other issue about that too, Brandon, and we're gonna talk more about it in a moment. twenty years ago when I first got here, it was less it was right at fourteen hundred members, with about, you know, fifty to sixty thousand less people. But we started growing in two thousand and six when we created a healthcare plan and I think that's what really you had to be in one of those golden handcuffs. You had to be a member of the chamber to be in the healthcare plan. So We've had this healthcare plan and and essentially we grew to about at that time twenty two hundred members. So it was the healthcare plan that really helped us grow besides all of the other stuff we just talked about.
06:18.452 Brandon Burton
All right. That's that's a good point to we you're right. We will touch on that a little bit here in just a moment. now I've as I meet other chamber executives, especially throughout Texas, I hear a lot of people talk about how they look up to Eddie McBride. Well and not to put you on the spot, but I know i there's there's a quote by Isaac Newton that if we've seen further, it's by standing on the shoulders of giants. I'm sure you've had giants that you've stood on your on their shoulders as people stand on your shoulders now to get a better view of of what they can do at a chamber. But I appreciate you taking time to to be with us today on the podcast. And I hope, you know, at the end, towards the end of the interview here today to be able to have you share a a piece of advice for other chamber professionals that are listening and and can Glean some some some wisdom from Eddie. but our our topic today that we're we're looking at is five ways to serve your members and community. And as we get into these five different ways to to serve members and community, I know Eddie, you you've shared with me how you the chamber there in Lovick, you've got the three Cs that you embrace as you serve your your members there. Can you explain to us a little bit what that is and how that kind of correlates into what we'll be talking about today?
07:45.47 Eddie McBride
Absolutely, Brandon. The three C's from the that have been created, it's an outgrowth of some serious membership planning and and trying to devise by the Western Association of Chamber Executives the the purpose, the twenty first century chambers. And the three C stand for the catalyst for business growth, convener of leaders influencers, and champion for a stronger community. And those three Cs essentially can form if if so if a chamber dis decides to take that in and and use it as both their membership messaging as well as the structure for the functions and the core competencies of their chamber. It obviously gives you a a a goal, if you will, a to not replace a mission statement for any shape or form, but it certainly help helps in your purpose and your value missions value statements creation. So the three C's, being a catalyst, convener, and a champion have become obviously one of our mantras in what we're doing in our messaging.
08:42.55 Brandon Burton
It sounds like it gives you a focus as you go about your mission. Very good. So these f five different ways that we're gonna talk about today to serve members and community. You touched a little bit on the first one, association health plans. I'm I'm curious to learn more and to have you share more about the maybe the stickiness factor that you alluded to.
09:06.956 Eddie McBride
Yes, sir. last last year, the Department of Labor, after an executive administration instruction to create an opportunity to allow small businesses, two to fifty employee businesses, essentially be carved out of Obamacare and create a an opportunity for an association health plan for those small businesses. So last fall they implemented it and we actually s created what we already had a health care plan, so what we did is we transitioned from pre-Obamacare era plan to the new Association Health Plan. And we grew from a nine-county area around Lubbock to a 34-county area. And it's really going to be focused on the rural parts of West Texas. But the intent again for two to fifty employee businesses to find a way for them to have a an affordable health care plan for them to implement. Some of them still never did employ any type of employee benefit plan when it comes to health care for their employees. So this is something that we consider to be, you know, as far as a catalyst for business growth, this is this is something that is extremely important for them to to to consider. We created a a health pl a healthcare cooperative at the state level and that was a structure by which we partnered with United Healthcare to provide this plan. And so we've been doing it now. It's really started getting more momentum after the first of the year. So we have about a little over four hundred groups, I mean f excuse me, four hundred lives and over forty groups. So we're transitioning from our old plan to our new plan. But it's something that any chamber, not only in the state of Texas, but in most states, can easily transition to or create if they if they didn't have a healthcare plan before.
10:56.846 Brandon Burton
So as you started to implement the healthcare plan, how did you go about the messaging to get it out to your members or how do you use it as a way to entice new members?
11:07.096 Eddie McBride
Well, the the initial rollout of it was rather easy by virtue of the fact that it was brand new. So it was one of these things that there's three critical ingredients. Not only is it your insurance partner that is very important to help you in this in the in the messaging and the in the marketing of it, but also when you have the agents that are actually going to be working with the businesses, they are the other Cree other critical leg in this in this triad between the chamber, the agents, and the insurance. partners. So it's been been a a very bonding experience of getting all three folks on the same sheet of paper and and being able to reach out through the community and make sure they understand that when it comes number one to new insurance products, this is very important for them to consider. But also during their renewal periods getting the agents to actually work with the businesses as well. So we find that not only do we have to market to the business community But we also have to market to the agents as well. And again, to participate in our association health plan, everyone, not only the agents who sell the product, but businesses have to join the chamber as well. So it is one of the things that in accordance with the state law when it comes to the to the healthcare co op as well as the national level association health plan, membership in our organization is required to take advantage of the plan.
12:29.558 Brandon Burton
That's a a great benefit and and strategy there. It I mean it helps helps the chamber, helps the businesses and all around. It's a win-win-win kind of situation, it sounds like. so moving on to the the second way to serve. You had mentioned to me about association retirement plans. Can you dive into that a little bit and explain how you guys are setting that up?
12:41.058 Eddie McBride
Yes, sir.
12:57.644 Eddie McBride
Yes, sir. And and Brandon, it's very similar again to the small business focus that we're having as part of our business growth strategy. Again, it's an identified, it's a parallel plan that's under cr you know, it's under creation right now. The rules have yet to be finalized for this particular plan by the Department of Labor, but it's very similar in nature that the executive administration said, Okay, small businesses typically don't have the the ability, both from a cash flow nature as well as the finances allowed for them to create retirement plans for their employees. So again, it's it's structured specifically for two to fifty employees and and we've been getting a lot of help from the US Chamber of Commerce on this as well, on on making sure that we can write language. We've actually given language to the Department of Labor. But we we're finding out that why did most employers, small business employers, never give retirement plans to their employees? It's because obviously of the the both the administrative nature, the difficulty and all the paperwork, but also just in the cash, the the there's not enough margins for them to be able to provide a lot of this support. So the the intent is the final wording that's gonna be out in the next couple of months, we hope before the summer, will give some type of tax credit to the employer for them to be able to allow their employees to be given some type of retirement plan. So we think that's going to be extremely important for two reasons. One is that obviously the future growth of these employees for them to be able to save some of their money is extremely important. But more so than anything else for the tax credits for the businesses, the employers themselves to get will be an incentive for them to obviously to offer these plans. I'm still looking forward to seeing what the final language will be, but nonetheless we do think that it might be something that is gonna be another another incentive for small businesses to help them both in their businesses as well and grow as well as to be able to provide some type of retirement plan for their employees. So stand by for news, but we're working, you know, still through the US Chamber of Commerce. The shutdown, the government shutdown really slowed down some of the the rural setting and some of the the the federal meetings and everything that couldn't be held until after. So they're still still even into the second month after the set or the first month after the shutdown
15:20.436 Eddie McBride
It's still a little bit slow in in the processing.
15:24.64 Brandon Burton
Yeah, I was gonna ask if you had an idea time frame wise what that looks like. It it sounds like a few months down the road to get the wording and everything down, but implementation, do would you have a guess of when these association retirement plans might be ready to to offer and roll out?
15:41.58 Eddie McBride
Well, if if we were to guess, as soon as the language is done, if they they had such a quick turnaround on the association health plans, we actually had sixty days after they announced it before we could actually get started. So if if if I if I'm betting on the fact that they're gonna be doing these retirement plans the same way they did the health plans, if they actually finalize the language for the before the summer, it it very well could become available by the end of the summer, first part of the fall. Now It all depends on hiccups if there's any changes. There's a a new Congress, obviously, the Democratic controlled house. Might there might be some language, some issues. Like the association health plans are still in in the courts. They s they were sued by thirteen different state attorney generals. So I don't see the same thing necessarily for retirement plans. but nonetheless you never can tell in this federal sausage making if there's any changes that could actually delay this particular process. But we hope by the end of the summer.
16:41.806 Brandon Burton
Yeah, I was wondering with the the healthcare plans already being out there, it I mean, I see both the healthcare plans and retirement plans can be very complicated and especially once you get, you know, legislation involved and it all the paperwork. Do you see any any more red tape maybe with the retirement plans than you did with healthcare, or do you think they're, you know, similar on the on the same kind of page?
17:05.836 Eddie McBride
Well, if there's anything you can guarantee dealing with any governmental entity, whether it be the federal, state, or even your local governments, yeah, I can I can anticipate it. But but right now, from what I understand from the insurance providers that obviously there's still some red tape that can be removed as well. So I think from the learning experiences that we've had so far, it could go both ways. Some additional regulation that might be added. but also the removal of some other regulatory burdens that keep from being as success successful. This insurance game is not an easy game. It's very complicated. And but nonetheless, whether it be the retirement plans or the health plans, we going forward we we hope that obviously they're they're long live and and they're gonna be able to really help small businesses continue the growth that they've experienced over the last year and a half and continue growing.
17:59.852 Brandon Burton
Perfect. Thank you. so we'll move on to to s the third way to serve the members and community, which is you guys there in Lubbock are getting ready to do your second diversity summit. Yes, can you tell us a little bit about how the first one went and what you're looking forward to with the second one?
18:19.766 Eddie McBride
Last year we did our first ever diversity summit and we're really proud on behalf of the business community in the in the chamber to be able to initiate these conversations at this level, at the public level in in in Lubbock, Texas. So last year, for one thing we learned, we had a great program. tried to stay away from just race and ethnicity being the the what everybody thought we were going to talk about. So we messaged it such that we had a wide variety of topics that we were going to cover. It was very interesting the fact that we had a unfortunately in our community we had a we didn't message as well because there was a lot of folks that number one didn't understand what we were trying to do. And number two, there was even a small core group of people who thought that we were obviously doing some bringing some potential programs to Lubbock that we weren't really trying to bring in. So it was it was also the year after the legislative session where they brought in you know, some of the societal issues, transgender bathroom bills and anti LGBT language that thank goodness didn't meet the light of day. Thanks a lot to the business community in Texas who stood up and really fought against the the that that last legislative session that tried to employ those. So obviously we were the victims of a little bit of that same same problem in Lubbock that some folks thought we were trying to do something we really weren't doing. So Learning that last year, Brandon, we we messaged it completely different this year. And the whole theme of this year's diversity summit is better business through diversity. So we're concentrating on the workplace. We're concentrating on bringing together those groups of people that that a wide selection. We have a couple of issues that we've instituted this year that we've never even talked about at the Chamber of Commerce in Lubbock before. And and one is invisible challenges, it's mental health, whether it be both mental disorders or whether it be behavioral disorders. we've entered that into our diversity summit and even into our che the opportunity for us to to serve as a convener of leaders and influencers, working with those folks that might bring about some awareness and and and opportunities in the business community to help employers understand both how to recognize the attraction and recruitment of folks with disabilities as well how better to work with them in the workplace.
20:40.62 Eddie McBride
So that is one issue. The other one that we're working on this year is is the the not social justice, but it's it's certainly criminal justice reform, it's economic justice when it comes to both the the criminal justice system and law enforcement in general. But obviously we're working that particular issue is again one of the first times we've ever entered into that that arena. So we got a a couple of breakout sessions that were dealing with both of these particular issues and Very unusual. Now, I'm not saying we're the only chamber that's ever addressed either one of these issues, but for us in Lubbock it's a it's something new for us. And so of course we have talking about women in the workforce. we have another one about the intergenerational. we're not talking about just millennials. I think it's it's in our opinion, we need to not focus just on how to work with millennials. We need to focus on intergenerational issues in the workplace. including working with people that look just like me. So that's that's another thing that we're trying to bring about is again improvements in the workplace, all based on understanding the respect that is necessary for folks to feel toward each other to to do better and c and and and to try to be more successful and improve the bottom line of their businesses. So that's really what we're focused on.
21:59.246 Brandon Burton
So I I can see the a huge value for talking, you know, bringing diversity to the forefront and be able to to talk about how business can be better through diversity. What does the summit look like for you? You talked about some breakout sessions. is it a you know a multi day thing? Is it one day? Is it is it for the community at large? Is what what does it look like overall?
22:21.57 Eddie McBride
Yes, sir. We have we'll start with the luncheon. It'll be Tuesday. We start with the luncheon and our keynote speaker is the the relatively new chief diversity officer for Texas Tech University. Her role is the vice president of diversion, equity and inclusion on the campus, and she brings a great level of expertise, talent, and background in the conversation. So her first her keynote presentation will be about her her explanation and definition of what is diversity. And then that afternoon after the keynote presentation we'll have two two breakout sessions with three panels, three three sessions in each breakout session. So again, we'll have a a great a great amount of conversation that'll be conducted that day. And then we'll have a we'll close out a reception because you know, you can't do a chamber event without having a little bit to drink and eat, of course. So that's that's another good attraction. So we start with eating and we end up with drinking.
23:15.596 Brandon Burton
Yeah, that that'll get people to come. So
23:19.266 Eddie McBride
We we'll have we'll have prob probably close to five hundred people attend that day and based on our our numbers from last year and and of course, just like any other community, folks are still calling and and wanting to sign up. So that as everyone knows from an event perspective how unfortunate that is.
23:37.708 Brandon Burton
Yeah, it it brings some challenges with that, but but you want people there, so you you do do what you can, right?
23:43.885 Eddie McBride
Yes, sir.
23:45.934 Brandon Burton
so the the next topic that we're we'll dive into is we're including how going to a tier dos model can help better serve the members and your community. And initially I wouldn't necessarily think of it in that way, but it the tier dos model is all about service to the members and and you know, the different levels of service. So I know you guys were maybe a little bit later in adopting the tier dues model. Can you explain, you know, what what made you make that change and what why you held on for so long and and how's it going for you?
24:22.06 Eddie McBride
Well, we we've you know, this has been about a thirteen year conversation and I'm not exaggerating when I say thirteen years. I first met Kyle Sexton thirteen years ago and and I told him, you know, I just didn't didn't think that we had any problem with our our dues model based on fair share and we had kind of a hybrid approach. We had a you know, different, you know, banks and utilities and even some of the bigger mi bigger businesses, you know, based on a separate model. So It was catch-of-catch can. So over the years we also created a total resource campaign. And then I said, No, we're not our eighth year of a total resource campaign. I said, No, we can't do tier dues because it'd mess up our sponsorship opportunities that we get from the same businesses. If we go in and try to raise their dues based on a higher expectation of a return of service for what we're offering, we thought that maybe it would hurt us. And so it took me a long time to finally get past the the fact that I need to really think outside the box and and again on on behalf of our of our members, you know, for them to understand what they get from the chamber, you need to have a different messaging model. And then this has been very good to to help in that respect by virtue of the fact that we're gonna be meeting just about with every I can't say that we'll meet with all nineteen hundred businesses, but we're gonna meet with the the huge chunk of them. And and both me with the the the larger business CEOs and our membership folks with the smaller businesses, I think it's very important for us to to make sure they understand the different tiered dues what they get for their their investments in the chamber. So so it does two things. It really, really it really does help in enhance our message on on what folks get for their chamber dues. And I think from two perspectives beyond that is the fact that we get a chance to do one on one. We enhance those relationships. We we make sure that we we live up to what we we offer them with their dues. And so I think we just started in in January and we've got off to a great start. And and I think all in all, by by accepting the opportunity of changing a business model, it it allows you to do a lot of things differently and then and with those business members you
26:35.2 Eddie McBride
not only enhance a relationship, but then again you you have a chance to to hear from them and make sure you get a chance to improve upon even the the change system that you have. So we're real happy in the respect that we made the final decision to do it. we're still working out some bugs. We we haven't finalized exactly what we're gonna be doing with our nonprofits. but what that's that's the only bug that we have in the system so far. but I got a sneaking suspicion we'll work that out very quickly and and move on from there because some of our nonprofits might not be able to get to our our new minimum level of our tier dues. So we're just gonna have to to incorporate that into the planning and and although we've talked about it now for about three months, I'm I'm not concentrating on finalizing that. It's a three year implementation period that we're we're under. So I'm gonna make sure that we do whatever is necessary to take care of our nonprofit members and even offer the opportunity for more nonprofits to join.
27:31.214 Brandon Burton
That's great. I'm sure you guys will get that work that bug worked out here pretty quickly. As you as you were introducing the tier dos model, I'm sure you guys did like other chambers and you're listing out, you know, all the services that as a chamber that you have to offer. in fact we did a a whole episode on this with Page Michel. We talked all about the the transition of fair sh fair share to tier dues and One thing I asked her and I want to ask you too is did you find any new services that as a chamber that you had had to offer as you were coming up with the tier dues models?
28:08.63 Eddie McBride
Well, you know, I don't know if it's necessarily new, but some of the first early adopters that we talked to, we were very surprised at the digital branding of that that was so important to them. Not only the digital branding, but making sure they understood, like in our online directory, the listings that were so important. I was very surprised at some of our folks that really bought up in the tier dos models that we've been been presenting. They they it was it was pretty apparent to me all along that obviously we didn't make sure they knew about those services that were available before. So let's say that although they weren't new services, these folks surely jumped on them because they they weren't aware of them before. So that shows that that the the information that we shared in our communications before, we weren't doing a very good job of making sure our members knew of all the available assets that they get what they're available to with their chamber membership. So new stuff we we created obviously some some some express you know for the higher level tiers you're gonna you don't have to sign in when you get to the to an event. You know, some folks like that because they they like not having to go sign up and and somebody that's there. So yeah, I like a fast pass. So we we we had some of those some of those convenience items that were added to the top layers as well. And again, it's a perk that for the hired the dues paying member then obviously we created some of those type of options that they they are pretty happy about. We even included one which that we that Kyle Sexton dis described for us and and it's proven to be very important for our higher level tier dues members. They they get to sponsor a nonprofit and and pay for their dues membership every year. with their investment. So that also I think is and that's reason I mentioned that nonprofit model a while ago. We're trying to figure out a way to make sure that we include them in all of our discussions. So not that it's pr it's not a primary goal of ours to make sure that nonprofits are are taken care of in the chamber, but it is certain one of our important goals.
30:20.398 Brandon Burton
For sure. I d I can totally see that. one of the things you had mentioned is with the having services there that the members maybe didn't realize were there before. And I can see where a tier dues model is going to allow you to to have the messaging to the members of here's the services that we have to offer, and we'll allow the members to engage more with the chamber, you know, in ways that they didn't know were even available in the past. So
30:49.354 Eddie McBride
One of the things that I that we were doing before we converted to the tiered dues model, we were doing literally a hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy five ribbon cuttings and groundbreakings a month. We we have a very ambitious and a very large ambassador group. but still that that was really we we we realize we're missing out on something. So last year we implemented a pay for play. So if you want a ribbon cutting, if you want it at a certain time, then obviously we have a lower fee and if you wanted it outside the normal hours and any other bells and whistles and it was going to be at a higher fee. Well, we incorporated that into our tier dues model as well. So you have to be at the second and third level to get the the basic and the premier levels of ribbon cuttings. And for the higher tier dues, they get one automatically every year if they want it. So that became a good selling point as well. So now now we're down to at least last year when we implemented it, we're down to nine a hundred ribbon cuttings. But nonetheless nonetheless it's become a cost center and the members feel like they're getting more bang for their buck buck. So because we've added a lot of bells and whistles that go with both both levels of those ribbon cuttings. So I think that's a wise thing. Now the the larger chambers might be able to get away with that. Not all the smaller chambers would be able to, but we find that has really been important to a lot of our new businesses as they sign up with the chamber.
32:08.82 Brandon Burton
All right. Thank you. so the fifth and and final way to serve that we'll we'll discuss today is the chamber's role of advocacy. I know you just got back from Austin, Texas, the state capitol. can you share with us what the Lubbock Chamber's doing for your members as in as in terms of advocacy?
32:32.876 Eddie McBride
Yes, sir. The and again back to the three Cs as far as a champion for a stronger community and a the convener for leaders and influences, one of the things that most chambers do that their members are happy with is allowing them access to their elected officials or creating the opportunities for access to their elected officials as well. So obviously legislative advocacy has been a huge role for us to play over the years and and I think most chambers need to even the smaller chambers need to at least play a role in making s making sure they represent their their business members at all levels of government, local, state and and federal government. And and one of the things that you can do, we've created a a general issues pack several year years ago, last year and this year so far, we've been very active in that pact, supporting both the May election last year, the November election. I don't know if we'll be involved in every single election cycle that we have in Lubbock, but we're gonna be very much engaged at some point in time at every every you know, ballot initiative that we have in in Lubbock. So I think all in all what we did down in Austin, one of the things that's our primary effort this year is the Texas Tech University veterinary school of medicine that they're trying to create. It's become a hot political topic in in in Texas and one of the things that We think not only for our Lubbock community but our West Texas community, the Lubbock Chamber Pack and and the Lubbock Chamber gave money to the Amarillo Matters Pack that is actually advocating on behalf of the Texas Tech Vet School in Austin. So one of the things that I suggest to your your your watchers and your viewers and listeners think of is the fact that it's not only about your your local chamber that you can represent in in in Austin, but also just like what the the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex did late last fall as they got together and they started generating the opportunity for many chambers to get together to represent their members in in Austin. So I think these regional interests have become very important. And so on behalf of West Texas we think that this particular subject is very important because it satisfied the needs for rural rural vets
34:49.054 Eddie McBride
and large animal vets that that are really solely sorely missing in West Texas so and in in all of rural Texas to be serious. So front y if you advocate if you're not at the table, then obviously you're gonna be on the menu. We've said that quite a quite a few times. And so I think the chambers can do an excellent job of representing their business members and and doing so, you gotta be pretty active. You gotta know what you're talking about. You gotta be you gotta do a lot of homework and make sure and and And not all s not all chambers are staffed enough to really do a good job in that respect. So nonetheless you gotta really be confident that what you can do that you do well.
35:27.256 Brandon Burton
So we've recently had a an episode with Tony Felker and Frisco and talked about advocacy and one of the things we talked about is how I know I mean you talked about doing your research and making sure you know what's going on and there's a lot of effort that goes into being an advocate for your members. how are you able to portray portray that value to your members of how you are being an advocate for them?
35:54.348 Eddie McBride
Well, we we have like at city level, we have a city council voter record. I call it a scorecard. So we're able to communicate with the council before they take a vote that's gonna be of business interest that meets our legislative priorities and that we've not only communicated to the mayor and council about what we want them to to know, that it is our background that we provide to them and and the issues that have been provided supported by the board of directors. so we keep them honest on that. and so we communicate that to our members. But also we have obviously the the both public pronouncements as well as communications that we share with them on what we're doing as far as keeping them apprised. Just like this Texas Tech Met School, we've kept our members posted all along and sought their support. you know, whether it be for whether it would be an action alert opportunity for them to share their voice. but also when we go to Austin and in DC. two years ago we actually sued the federal government. three years ago now, I guess it was over the last two to three years. we sued the g federal government six times. We served as both a plain or a friend of the court, an amicus brief supporter on several of those issues. So we got we made sure that those issues were shared via our communications vehicles to our of all of our members. And I think that's anything that you do in that public sector You gotta make sure that number one, you tell your members ahead of time that you're gonna do it. And then after the fact you tell why you did it. So that's very important conversations. And then it's not just through emails, it's also through phone calls, it's personal visits, it's the public gatherings, it's the focus groups, the task force. It is a really it's a lot of effort to make sure that you both generate the research and data that is necessary, but also on how you present it as well.
37:49.388 Brandon Burton
I couldn't agree any more. Yeah, that's just getting the the research and data and then being able to show to the members, you know, here's the value that you're getting out of this and why and I can see that being a a lot of energy going out, but well worth it as especially as these members are able to catch the vision of of what you're doing and and trying to support them.
38:12.17 Eddie McBride
And it's that relationship you have with the staffs and the elected officials as well. You gotta have that good communications with them also.
38:19.0 Brandon Burton
For sure. For sure. Thank you. so I know we're we're getting towards the end of our time, but I wanted to you know, as we mentioned at the beginning of the episode, wanted to ask you what what piece of advice could you share with chamber professionals that may be listening that they can, you know, imp try to implement into their own chambers back home.
38:41.474 Eddie McBride
Well, you've already mentioned a couple of super chamber pros with Page Michel and Tony Felker. So I think when you talk about the folks that I look up to in this industry, there's two primary characteristics and one is servant hearts, the servant leadership. You know, it it's not all about egos and and and looking good in front of in front of the camera, but it's it's the behind the scenes, it's the relationship building and everything else that true servant leaders actually provide. in that support support. So I think one of the things that is so vital to me in a successful chamber career is number one, knowing first that it's about your members and it's about the people that you're serving that actually come first. And secondarily it's it's not being afraid to take a risk and and and not only try new things and change and incorporate that, but it's listening to the people around you, especially on your staff. but it's also being able to take what they say and put it into program just like changing the tier dos. I I wouldn't about to move on that unless obviously the staff was involved in that conversation and I listened to what they thought we should be doing. So it's it's the taking the taking the voices of the people around you, not not being the only one who's making the decisions, but b taking the risk of doing something and and carrying it out and making sure it's done well. So it's To me it's about servant leadership and it's it's about the the risk of accepting change. So I think in our chamber I think those are the two things that have made us successful over the years.
40:18.72 Brandon Burton
I like that. I think there's wisdom in that, having a the servant leadership and and being willing to change, being able to change with the times and continue to serve. so just in in summary, the five ways to serve that we covered today is the ability to implement a association health plan and association retirement plan and
40:28.462 Eddie McBride
Yeah, sure.
40:44.008 Brandon Burton
possibility of diversity summits to explain how business is better through diversity in your communities and the value of being on a tier twos model for your membership and the role of advocacy with the chamber to to its members. as we wrap this up, Eddie I'd like to ask you a a final question. As you look into the future, how do you see the future of chambers of commerce?
41:13.678 Eddie McBride
you know, there this been a popular conversation, especially at the national level and even somewhat at the state level. Texas Association of Business, the changes that they have made at the state level with chambers, becoming obviously more involved in the processes that they think their businesses want for them. Number one, you gotta know what your businesses want you to do. number two, I think the horizon model from ACCE and the And the three C's that the WACE folks are promulgating, I think are are very important, obviously, to fit into your chamber to see how you go into the future. But but number one, in that respect, after having said all that, is just the ability to know your members and know what they need from you and to be able to change to accept obviously sometimes the direction that your chamber is going. you know, we're getting more involved in the advocacy arena because that's what our members are telling us. So I think going forward with the twenty one twenty first century chambers, what has to be done is you gotta know your members and know what they want and then adapt to that particular model. so I think all the research and data that you gather from them will help you make those decisions.
42:24.724 Brandon Burton
I appreciate that. I think like you're like you mentioned, that is a hot topic that's being discussed by a lot of people. And I think you're you're on the same page with all them. that we need to be willing to change, I think is the key takeaway as we that we never we don't know what tomorrow's gonna bring, but we need to know what our members need and be willing to change with the times. Well Eddie, I wanted to to thank you for spending time with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. And I also wanna thank
42:45.635 Eddie McBride
Yes, sir.
42:54.37 Brandon Burton
everybody who's listening for for tuning in and listening to the show. If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in either Apple Podcast or iTunes or in Google Podcasts or Google Play. As you subscribe to the show, when new shows are released each week, they will automatically show up in your podcast app on your phone, so they'll be ready to listen to whenever you're ready. If you're finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and review in iTunes, and most importantly, please share ChamberThat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry. Hopefully you can take some tips that you learned from Eddie today and apply them as he served in your chamber. And please tune in again next week as I continue to bring you more great content and to help spark some ideas that you can implement in your chamber. I'll look forward to chatting with you again next week.

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

Episode 6 — Good Vibrations, Frequency & Resonance
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Solo
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.142 Brandon Burton
I'm taking up 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.
00:29.292 Brandon Burton
Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I'm Brandon Burton, and I'm here to introduce you to people and ideas to help make your job at your chamber easier and more productive as you serve your members and community. Today's episode is a solo show. Just me. I don't have any guest interview today. It's just you and I. So as we set up the topic for today's discussion, I want to start with a little bit of an exercise. I'd like for you to think about your high school physics class. Think about the setting of the classroom and try to think about the other students that were in the class. Did you have any friends that were in the class? Any crushes? Hopefully this little exercise is not bringing back any bad memories. But I want you to think, was there maybe a favorite lab experiment or exercises that you remember? One that comes to my mind is a lesson that we had, we all had, about vibrations. These lessons usually involve tuning forks, or maybe a drinking glass made of crystal. But for the purposes of this discussion, I'll focus on the tuning fork example. If you have two identical tuning forks next to each other, you can tap one of the tuning forks and the vibration that is created will put off an audible sound. The second of the identical tuning forks will also begin to vibrate because it shares the same frequency as the first tuning fork. Which is what we've what we refer to as resonance. And this simple example, there are a few key words that I'd like to focus on throughout this discussion today. These words are vibration, frequency, and resonance. Now, at risk of getting too nerdy, I'd like to dive in a little bit deeper into science. Each of us is a bioelectrical being, meaning that our cells, tissues, and organs all function in part. The electrical system that is within our body. When you're hooked up to an EKG machine or electrocardiogram, the electrical current in your body will display a chart of peaks and valleys that show the rhythm of your heart. That's also why when a person who's suffering from a heart attack can have a defibrillator used to help shock the person's heart back into its proper rhythm or frequency. Because we all have these bioelectrical tendencies.
02:57.954 Brandon Burton
That means that we are all vibrating to some degree, since we have electricity in our body, and electricity carries a certain frequency. Now, when hearing a statement that it's true, have you ever said or heard anyone say that resonates with me or that rings true? I find language to be very interesting. We'll often use words in our everyday conversation without thinking about what the true meaning of certain words are. For example, in the phrase that resonates with me, I don't think it's any mistake that we use that word when a certain idea aligns with our own belief. Just as the first tuning fork makes a sound, it is on the same frequency as the second tuning fork and makes the second tuning fork resonate with the same sound. As you notice at the beginning of this episode, we started off a little bit different. I decided to start the show with a clip from the Beach Boy song Good Vibrations. As I was putting my thoughts together for this episode, my kids were watching the movie Hotel Transylvania 3. For any of you who have seen that movie before know that there's a part of the song of the movie where the song is played, and I happen to be walking by while they were watching it, and it hit me that I needed to include at least the chorus of that song within this episode. Now as the chorus goes, it says I'm picking up good vibrations, she's giving me excitations. If you were expecting me to sing that, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it's better for all of us. the couple in the song are noticing the quote good vibrations or good vibes as people refer to them today that can lead to excitations or as what I will call it, a noticeable interest in the other person. So they had these good vibes that created these noticeable interests interests in the other person. The couple was resonating with each other. It's a beautiful thing.
05:04.952 Brandon Burton
They are on the same frequency as these good vibes. Now, as people, we get to determine what our frequency is so we can resonate in the place where we belong. But we as people are not that simple. I believe that we can carry multiple frequencies, like a radio. A radio cannot play all of its frequencies at the same time. It works best when it only plays one station at a time. Have you ever tried to pay attention, to better notice the frequencies that are presented to you, and how to tune into the frequencies that you desire? Hopefully through this discussion today you will become more aware. We should all have a frequency for tuning into our jobs. We should have a frequency to tune into our spouse and family. We may have a frequency for hobbies, sports, rest, personal development, study, and prayer. When you think about a radio, you can picture the old fashioned kind with a knob that you tune that may not pick up the exact radio station you're looking for, but it could pick up something close. For example, if you're trying to tune into FM 102.1, as you tune that dial, you may actually end up on 102.3, which may still give you the music you were looking for, but it also may give you a distraction. of the Spanish station found at 102.5. Now compare that to a digital tuner that will tune in to 102.1 with exactness. We also work best when we tune in with exactness. Even at that, we need to be able to notice the frequencies that are presented to us. There are frequencies coming at you every day from various sources. Many times these frequencies are coming from a very strong broadcasting source, such as when you're trying to get everything pulled together for your annual chamber banquet. Those broadcast signals are stronger than ever. But it also comes from various less powerful broadcasting sources, which are still sending you signals all the time. And sometimes those are those nagging thoughts that are in the back of your mind that you know you need to get to when you have time.
07:29.73 Brandon Burton
Now tuning into a frequency is the act of noticing the importance of it and making it a priority. Once you can tell that it is a priority, then you can adjust or tune in to give the focus that is needed in that given area. In the English language, frequency has another common use. It also refers to how often we do a certain activity or how often we're exposed to certain elements. Frequency is used in relationship to time intervals. For example, how often we work out. It's really hard to get into a good fitness routine if we are not going to the gym frequently. There's that word again. As you start to pay more attention to the frequencies around you, you will notice that some frequencies are always there. Some are daily, some are weekly, some are monthly or even annually, while other frequencies are don't have a set schedule, but happen regularly or often. Now, as I got this podcast started, it was important to me to set the frequency of when the show would be released and to stick to it. As you may have noticed, I release a new episode every Tuesday morning. It is my hope that over time, those of you who listen regularly will start to look forward to seeing the new episode of Chamber Chat Podcast show up on your phone every Tuesday morning. Kind of like How we used to look forward to our favorite TV show coming on TV each week. I hope Chamber Chat Podcast can become that way for you. Likewise, I know that most chambers have some kind of a set schedule for their emails, maybe weekly. Also set schedules for morning mixers and after hours and young professional gatherings, luncheons, banquets, fundraisers, and many more regularly scheduled frequencies.
09:30.466 Brandon Burton
My purpose in pointing out these frequencies is not only to encourage you to stay consistent, as that is very important, but also to help you pay closer attention to the message that is being broadcasted from these frequencies. How are your members engaged in these activities? Should the message be more focused in a way to help your members tune in so they can become more engaged? Some examples that I've been thinking about are some of the longer frequency activities, like the golf tournaments and chamber publications that tend to take place more on an annual basis. Are these activities being talked about or promoted throughout the year? If your chamber has a magazine or a chamber directory, are you making members aware on a regular basis that this publication is being sent out throughout relocation packets? All throughout the year? Do they realize that when a large event is hosted in your city and hundreds of the chamber map that hundreds of the chamber maps are given out to visitors? Are the members aware of any of the long tail effects that come from advertising in the chambers golf tournament? As I visited and have been a member of many chambers, I've noticed that these type of longer frequency activities usually are promoted just once, rather than taking the opportunity to continue to show the value to the members who participate, that they continue to receive value throughout the year. I know some chambers are great at this, and their members are all aware and excited to participate the next time these opportunities come around.
11:19.296 Brandon Burton
It is my goal in this episode to spark some thoughts in your mind about how you can better brand your chamber message throughout the entire year. There are many tools now to help with setting a frequency, like email, social media, and yes, even podcasts. Some of these mediums can even be automated to make your job easier. We need to be careful though with some of these automated processes. As we need to be careful to not lose the personal touch that your members need to see. As an action item from this episode, I would like to encourage and invite you to make a list of the various messages and frequencies that you feel are important to get out to your members throughout the year. Write out this list and make a note of the frequency. Is it daily, weekly, monthly, or is it sporadic? Then think of yourself as one of your members that may not be engaged with the chamber. What messaging can be changed to help reach this person or business's frequency to give them a desire to tune in and resonate to become more engaged? I would love to see some of your what some of your lists look like. Please visit and follow Chamber Chat Podcast's Facebook page. There, I will post the question: What are the messages and frequencies that you feel are important for your members throughout the year? Please share your lists and even your ideas for messaging going forward to help your members resonate and to be more engaged. By doing this exercise, others will be able to benefit from your ideas as well. And as you read through the comments, you may pick up some ideas too. In addition to the Chamber Chat Podcast Facebook page, you can also share these lists and ideas in the comments section of the show notes, which are found at ChamberchatPodcast.com slash episode six. I realize that this episode is a bit shorter than some of the other episodes where I interview some of our awesome guests. The ideas for this episode have been kicking around in my head for a few months now.
13:41.11 Brandon Burton
And it feels great to get them out there now for all of you to hear and hopefully to resonate with. If you did resonate with this episode, I would ask you to please share it with others that you know in the chamber community. I would ask you all to leave a rating and a review, but really, the best way for this show to spread is for you to share it with others. You guys are awesome. I'm having a blast as we build this chamber chat podcast community together. Thanks for being here. And for listening, I'll look forward to chatting with you again next week.

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

Episode 5 — Staying Relevant as a Chamber with Tony Felker
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Tony Felker
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.366 Tony Felker
You know, there are churches all across this country and definitely all across Europe, great churches, and they're sitting empty right now because these churches wanted to continue with the traditions, quote unquote, or the customs that their grandfathers went through. And especially here in Frisco, where we have such a young community, to do what our grandfathers were doing, that's not gonna work for the next generation. I've even started challenging my team. we can't even be our father's chamber or even today's chamber. We need to be looking at what are chambers of the future gonna look like, what's our business community gonna look like that's gonna relate and be attractive to those millennials, those in their young twenties? Let's look at the kids that are coming out of high school.
00:48.728 Brandon Burton
So that was Tony Falker that you just heard from the Frisco Chamber of Commerce as he gave a little snippet of today's show. But I wanted to ask you, have you spent any time wondering how your chamber can stay relevant in these changing times so it doesn't become empty like these churches that Tony's talking about? Stick with us on this episode as Tony and I chat about staying relevant as a chamber. Let's cue the intro. 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.
01:33.24 Brandon Burton
Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I'm Brandon Burton, and I'm here to introduce you to ideas and people to make your job easier and more productive in the Chamber of Commerce. Today we have with us Tony Felker, who serves as president CEO of the Frisco Chamber of Commerce located in Frisco, Texas. As president CEO, Tony leads the chamber's charge to aggressively promote the interests of Frisco business. The Frisco Chamber has been the voice of business and In the Frisco area since 1970 and currently represents nearly 1,300 businesses, providing advocacy, resources, and connections for Frisco and surrounding communities. A 15-year veteran of the Chamber of Commerce Industry, Tony received his IOM designation from West Institute in 2009 and completed and received his CCE designation in 2014. During his nine-year tenure as president and CEO, Tony has helped lead the Frisco Chamber of Commerce through the U.S. Chamber accreditation process, where the Frisco Chamber received a four-star accreditation rating in its first submission in November 2014. Prior to moving to Frisco and getting involved with the Frisco Chamber of Commerce, Tony conducted business in real estate finance in the real estate finance industry. With 13 years of real estate finance, market analysis and asset prof asset. portfolio management experience, Tony understands and recognizes opportunities and obstacles facing businesses in the region. This understanding is crucial in helping such companies improve and move forward with their marketing, personnel, financial, and management decisions. Tony's involvement in the local and regional community, both on a professional professional and individual level, have been very valuable asset for future endeavors in the area. Tony served on the city council For the City of Frisco from 2003 to 2009. He was named Frisco Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year in 2003. Tony is also a former Frisco Planning and Zoning Commissioner and Board of Adjustments member. Having established himself as a respected leader and participant across many levels of the community, Tony brings immediate team building, partnership, and community development to the Frisco Chamber of Commerce, City of Frisco, Frisco Economic Development.
03:59.92 Brandon Burton
development corporation and surrounding communities. Tony earned his Bachelor of Business and Marketing from the University of Texas at Austin, as well as Bachelor of Journalism. Tony is also a graduate from the University of Oklahoma Economic Development Institute and is working on pursuing his CECD designation. Born and raised in Mexico, Tony's able to speak, write, and read Spanish. Active in the industry, Tony sits on the Board of Regents for the Institute of Organization Management, a program of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the boards for the Texas Chamber of Commerce Executives, North Texas Chamber of Commerce Executives Association, and is an ex officio board member for Visit Frisco. In addition, Tony is an active member of the community currently participating in Frisco Rotary Noon Club, host of an internet radio show named Frisco on Top of the World. A graduate of Leadership Frisco Class Three and Past Advisory Council Member, Heritage Association of Frisco Pass Board Member, and Frisco Chamber of Commerce Ambassador Council Member, and a graduate alumni of the Frisco Citizens Police and Fire Academy. That's quite the resume, Tony. Welcome to the show.
05:17.942 Tony Felker
Thank you. And that was a short resume. No, just kidding. Actually, we gotta work on revising that and shorting that down as well.
05:25.716 Brandon Burton
well welcome to the show. good and say hello to the audience and tell us something interesting about yourself that that we didn't learn in the the bio there.
05:34.882 Tony Felker
I think you covered just about everything. No, great to be here. looking forward to a chat here. You mentioned briefly that a lot of people don't know I was actually born in Mexico, spent my tw first twelve years there. I don't know how fluent it is right now, so that's one thing just it's a little bit interesting. The other thing that I always like to throw out is that I love to mow my yard. I love to mow my yard barefoot. I will even mow my yard and have when there's been ice on the ground. So I love to get out and relax working in the yard. That's the way I get away. So that's just a little something different there.
06:07.308 Brandon Burton
That's some dedication there to mow it in the ice.
06:13.304 Tony Felker
Hopefully it's for a while here.
06:15.512 Brandon Burton
That's right. So for those who don't know, Frisco, Texas is kind of the North Dallas area. very booming community. And we mentioned in the bio that the Frisco chamber currently has around thirteen hundred members. can you expand just a little bit about the size of the of your chamber and the and the city of Frisco itself?
06:37.748 Tony Felker
Yeah, ironically in the bio there it said I've been president nine years. I realized actually two days ago I hit the ten year mark and it got it got me thinking how much not only has the chamber evolved over those ten years, but how much the community has evolved. So, you know, ten years ago the community was probably about seventy-five thousand people. We're now at a hundred and eighty thousand people. as you mentioned we're currently at thirteen hundred members, about a one point six million dollar budget.
06:44.812 Brandon Burton
Hey, congratulations.
07:07.64 Tony Felker
We have ten employees. That has grown considerably over those ten years, but it's really more what the community is like, the makeup of the community, the influx of larger businesses, and that's really driven a lot of the changes that we've had to go through here at the organization over the last ten years.
07:25.004 Brandon Burton
That's a a good look back over the last ten years. I know you know, as as I work with community matters and doing the map for you guys there at the Frisco Chamber, it it's funny every now and then we'll look back to the very first map that we did of Frisco compared to now. there there is a lot more streets. It's it's pretty amazing to see.
07:46.232 Tony Felker
Let's basically think we're a hundred and eighty thousand now and population wise we're not even halfway. We're projected to build out probably somewhere around three hundred and seventy five, so there's a lot more to go as well.
07:57.996 Brandon Burton
Sure is. so that's a a good segue into kind of our overall theme for the topic that we'll kind of work around today in this interview, which is staying relevant as a chamber of commerce. So you've seen a lot of change in your 10 years there in Frisco, a lot of growth and and changes, you know, that we can kind of foresee in the future. So we'll kind of dive into that a little bit and trying to figure out, you know, what what chambers can do to stay relevant. So what are what are things that you focus on there at the Frisco Chamber of Commerce to to be relevant in the the business world today?
08:36.75 Tony Felker
Well, I think we have I mean, I imagine we've got a very broad audience here as far as different size chambers. And as we say in the business, when you've met one chamber, you've met one chamber. We're all different in That's right. The communities that we're in, the makeup of the communities, small chambers that have one person maybe, to chambers who have fifty employees. So everybody is different. we also oftentimes say that the problems are the same as just the number of digits involved that change. and I think that's true, but I think it's important that as you're looking at your community, your organization, and you mentioned staying relevant, it's important to see what is it that your business community, your community as a whole needs from the chamber, and how can the chamber best develop and serve those needs. In the ten years I've been here, we've been a chamber who's been very much a small town chamber when we first got here. Relevant then were ribbon cuttings and just connections and networking. And we really realized about three, four years ago that needed a change. We were still holding on to that model, but we needed to go ahead and change that to be able to go forward and still be relevant in our community. So about three, four years ago we started implementing a lot of changes, not only in programs that we offered, but the mental perspective that we brought to work every single day.
09:57.334 Brandon Burton
All right. I know in in preparing for this interview you had sent over, you know, a couple of things to me that you wanted to to touch on. And one of stood out to me. You said, Don't be a thermometer, be a thermostat. One tells you the temperature, the other makes things happen. How does that apply to the Frisco chamber? Yeah. How how are you guys being a thermostat? Yeah.
10:19.454 Tony Felker
Basically how that came about is I had a quick exercise when I first came into this position. I asked people to give me the headlines and then how the chamber was involved. And this was with my board. And I quickly realized that at that time my board wanted us to be educating people, telling people what was going on. In other words, telling people what the thermo what the temperature was and being a thermometer. I wanted to be much more of a thermostat, one, an organization, an entity that makes things happen. But I think an important lesson is you need to understand Where your organization is, where your board is, where your community is, so that you understand what they're ready for, not trying to implement a lot of changes before they're ready. I realized that that time they weren't ready to be very proactive in terms of advocacy and governmental affairs. So I worked for several years bringing them around. I stressed we were starting to look at accreditation and the need for governmental affairs as far as that. I would bring in speakers from other chambers that I that I believe we're doing strong advocacy governmental affairs efforts as a way to help lead them to that point that we needed to change. And we've gone from being very much of a thermometer chamber. Now we're a thermostat whereby my board, our board, is encouraging us to get involved in lawsuits, work with the US chamber, work with the Texas Association of Business, be out there, and we can go into more details to really have a robust advocacy and legislative program. And that's just one of the changes that we put in place. We've really gone from a what we were calling a sales culture and it's all about us to being a service culture where it really is about the members and what they need.
12:01.654 Brandon Burton
I like that, that difference is sales to service. you mentioned a couple of times advocacy. how do you how do you advocate for the businesses in Frisco? And maybe just as important, how do you express that value to your members and the the overall business community?
12:20.814 Tony Felker
Yeah, and that was a a huge shift that we were re really went to three, four years ago. We had a consultant that came in and kind of asked us, what is it that we're all about? If we were to talk to people, look at our website or newsletter, and we very quickly jumped in and said, we're all about ribbon cuttings and we've got our networking event, we have our ambassadors, and nothing against any of those programs, but is that really what your community is looking for? And when we looked at how many people were involved in those type of events. We thought, man, we got about two hundred and fifty people involved in that. And then very quickly said, and how many members do you have? we've got over twelve hundred. I see where he's going now. We realized that really we were spending eighty percent of our effort talking about activities that were only relevant to twenty percent of our members. And several people out there have said we're teaching eighty percent of our members or telling them they're bad members because they're not involved in those three or four things. as opposed to advocacy that impacts everybody. And we really break advocacy down into two areas, sort of a proactive area and a reactive area. Reactive is just finding out what's keeping our members up at night is what we like to say. What are the problems that they're encountering? How can we help them solve those problems? That's first and foremost. And we like to be problem solvers. proactively is going out and using our legislative efforts through local, state, federal levels. to try to make things happen in a positive manner through legislation, keep the business environment here strong and growing. And we really try to break it into those two areas there.
13:58.346 Brandon Burton
All right. So how does a your your average chamber member, I'm just picturing maybe a a a restaurant or an insurance agent or, you know, just somebody somebody down Main Street in Frisco, how do they see the value of advocacy? I can see where, you know, it may be an election year or some you know proposal on a ballot and being able to have the chamber behind it and drive it and this is why it's good for business. On the day to day level, how can you communicate the value of being an advocate for the business community.
14:32.642 Tony Felker
Well, obviously if it's in terms of problem solving, we'd visit with them. We really ask the tough questions. I remember one time I said to a chamber member, How's everything going? They said it's great. And then I said, Okay, is there anything we can do? No, just keep doing what you're doing. I was about to walk away and then I heard the consultant in my ear say, Ask the right question. So I said, Do you mind if I ask one more question? What is it that's really keeping you up at night? Is there a problem? And they went, my God, yes. I can't find enough vet technicians. And if I could find that, we'd hire two or three more. So you've got to be able to really dig in and kind of like we jokingly say, play Colombo and ask those follow-up questions to find out what really is the pain point that they're experiencing and how can we help. From a legislative perspective, it's a tough deal. We try to put it into place terms of how is this relevant to me. So if you're talking about working on Main Street and burying some transmission lines, or you're talking about department of labor changes it might be happening to different pay levels or it's water at the local reservoir. How do you translate that down to the everyday business by telling them, do you need water? Are you putting water out on the table on that restaurant? Is it important that you have good labor? Are you having problems bringing in labor that can afford to live in these towns? These are things that we're working on to keep the business comb community viable and relevant. But you've got to try to work through all the rest and bring it down to how is this impacting, as you say, the everyday business on Main Street. And it's a challenge, but if you can work with them on that and try to help them understand that, then they see the relevance and why you're working for not only them but the entire business community.
16:17.58 Brandon Burton
Yeah, I like that, you know, digging in a little bit deeper and asking them I mean the the base question of what's keeping you up at night, but what is what's their pain points? What is it that that's bothering them? And I can really see that way of becoming an advocate and a way of helping them solve their problems and really becoming more of a of a service oriented chamber, rather than you know, just trying to get members and trying to, you know, sell out the n at the next luncheon or, you know, anything like that. What are some of the best ways that you've found to serve the the members, your chamber members and the community at large?
16:54.326 Tony Felker
You know, it you know, it really sounds idealistic and pie in the sky, but it really is getting to know them, taking the time to find out, ask those questions, and looking at if you find one company or one business that has a particular problem, that's all you need to start a conversation. So somebody comes to you and says, I'm having problems finding enough cooks as a restaurant. Let's just stay with that example. Okay, you've heard that from one restaurant. It gives you a perfect opportunity now to proactively reach out to other restaurants and not just say, How are you doing? but to say, Let me ask you something. I've talked to some other restaurants. They're having some problems hiring enough people in and pain points in terms of housing in the area. Is this something that's affecting you? And that's a whole different approach where they actually sit back and go and hey, the chamber really is interested in what's happening in my business. It's not just about will I join and Will I sponsor this? But they're looking at what's relevant to me. So look for those reasons to go out and proactively stop in at a business and say, Is there anything in particular? I've heard this from others. Is this relevant? We can help we've helped other businesses like yours by addressing these needs. I think it's a great way to do it. I know a lot of people that are smaller chambers, organizations that are smaller. They don't have the ability to go out and hire a person just like we have for governmental affairs. We've actually hired a consultant down in Austin to help us on a state level. Many chambers don't have those resources, but it's important that chambers, as long as everybody's on the same page, do something. If it's merely sitting down and setting up a meeting with your local elected officials so that they know you and when they see you on the street, they recognize you. Do that. Write a letter to them. Invite them to a luncheon. Do something to start moving that needle and letting them know that you're in that arena and you're fighting for your members on different issues that may come up.
18:53.014 Brandon Burton
I like that. With the the example of the restaurant, you know, if if if one restaurant's having an issue with maybe staffing, chances are other restaurants throughout the city are having similar issues. So being able to be proactive and and showing that you care about them is is a great way to to get out and ahead of these things and really advocate for the businesses. Now with the size of your chamber, you know, about thirteen hundred members, how are you able to manage that? I mean you mentioned dropping in, you know, on on some of these places, but you can't get to all thirteen hundred ma and not all thirteen hundred are are the same type of business, but Exactly. How how do you manage, you know, getting the getting in front of the people and getting the the message out that you care about
19:37.676 Tony Felker
Right. Well, and and I mean we like many other chambers, we've recently done a little bit of reorganization and how we look at that. But I think the big question, a word that and a phrase that we stress over and over again right now is engagement. And we want to make certain that all of our members are engaged. Now, what does engage actually mean? It doesn't mean that everybody is coming to your luncheon. When we have thirteen hundred members Hey, you know, I don't necessarily want put on a luncheon for thirteen, fifteen hundred people. That's a big event. I don't want necessarily thirteen hundred people coming to our Thursday networking event. But we want to make certain that all of the members are engaged. Is that showing up to some events? Is that reading the newsletter? Is that just understanding what we're doing? Is that you know, everybody is different. So I think what you need to do is go through your membership list and kind of, you know, one consultant told us it's the Green highlighter exercise. You go ahead and you take a list of all your members and highlight those that you know are engaged. If they're showing up every single day and they're engaged, they're serving on your board, they're serving on committees, they're engaged, they're pretty safe. Sorry, phone calls, business control. the ones that you really want to pay attention to, and they might be very loyal members, but the ones that you don't see, you don't know what's going on with them. How their business is going, and you never see them. They might be very happy, but I think it's important that you stop in to see them and just proactively stop in and say, We realize we haven't come by and visited with you in four or five years. You seem to be happy, but I wanted to check in and see if there were any problems. Those that are one two-year members, we all know those are critical to getting them in the first two years. Visit with them and see if they're engaged in some manner. How do they want to be engaged? But I think that's a key thing is trying to break it on down. but also just appreciate those that have been with you. I was visiting with one member just yesterday. He's been a member now of our chamber for thirty-five years, I believe. He's the longest serving member. And I said, Hey, by the way, I think we looked the other day. You're the longest serving member now. The one before you, you know, has retired or is no longer in business. We should just get together and have breakfast sometime, if nothing else, where I can just say thanks. And he said, You know what?
21:56.556 Tony Felker
That'd be nice. I'd appreciate that. And just little things like that, just to make certain that they're engaged, that you know they're out there, they're not being taken for granted. and then the other thing I'll say is that so many of our members, even if they are eng or members, they the chamber of commerce has such a great branding name to it. Everybody knows the term chamber of commerce, but very few people know what a chamber actually does. And I think as an industry, we need to be out there helping to educate people. What is that? And once again, in a way of how does that impact them? If we can do that and we can start to put where people truly understand what a chamber is as it pertains to your community, then I think we can do a lot of good across the entire industry.
22:42.23 Brandon Burton
Well, and I think just to touch on something from earlier in our conversation, you'd mentioned kind of moving away from just networking and ribbon cuttings. And then you just mentioned that some people they're they're familiar with the term chamber of commerce, but they don't really know what the chamber does. I would argue that this is even a good time to define what a chamber of commerce does. You know, make it make it your own and let them know about what you do to advocate for them and And what you do to promote their business and help them find solutions and be there as a support to them.
23:15.288 Tony Felker
Comes down to that mission statement, doesn't it? And is it really relevant and pertain to your community and for what the community needs?
23:22.334 Brandon Burton
Exactly. Exactly. have you had I as you were talking, I got the impression that you may have had some success maybe of having chamber members become advocates for the chamber even, you know, as they talk to other businesses because of their experience with the chamber. Is there is there any that come to mind or any any kind of examples of that that you might be able share? Yeah.
23:47.468 Tony Felker
Well, like I said, we literally I love it and I hope this is appropriate, but Mick Fleming, when he was running ACCE, the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives, he's now left at ACCE, but he turned the turn he coined the term KAPS. And we've actually taken that as sort of our mantra and we actually have our strategic plan that's called KAPS Kick Ass Problem Solvers. And we tried to put that out there to literally say This is what the chamber is all about as problem solvers. And it's amazing and it made us feel so good when it started to catch on. There was one particular time when we knew there was going to be a major storm coming and we could see it coming across West Texas and it was dumping a lot of hail. Hail is not a good thing, but we get a lot of it here in North Texas. And we had a car dealership that called us up in a panic and saying, can you help us? We need to get X number of cars under some sort of cover. And we jumped on the phone and we've got one office development that has covered parking. We got with them. We said, Would it be okay if this dealership could move some cars over? They got the manpower going. We moved cars over under the structured parking and they are our biggest advocate now in terms of telling everybody we had a problem. They solved it. And I think the important thing is too many times we have successes like that. And the one thing that I think chambers a lot of times don't do because we're kind of told, hey, it's not about us, it's about everybody else. But when you have an opportunity like that, we have to tell our story. We have to get out there and let people know how we are able to answer that problem, how are we able to deal with it, and do it in a manner that's not once again about the chamber, but say, hey, this dealership came to us, this other office property owner stepped up and was willing to help. promote those two entities and yes, behind the scenes we were that problem solver that connector, but make it about them so it's not about us, but still tell the story of what we're doing. That's one example. And we've had more and more of those that have been just great success stories and it just drives us forward to know that, hey, I think we're doing something right here.
26:00.898 Brandon Burton
That's a great example. I think by the time that car dealership's calling you, it's a moment of desperation and to be able to to go to you as a source for answers and help. That that's a great, great story there. how do you how are you involved with other chambers, maybe in the region or or throughout, you know, North Texas area? And how does being involved with these these other chambers help keep things current for you and and being able to stay relevant?
26:30.766 Tony Felker
Well, it's interesting you asked me that, as mentioned in my very long biointroduction that we're working on. I do serve on the US Institute board for West because and we encourage everybody to get involved in institute, whatever site. But at one point I asked one of my board members, I said, you know, that takes some time when I've got to go off site for almost a week. It takes time. Are you guys okay with that? And this particular board member actually had gone through institutes themselves, so they understood it. And it was interesting what he said. He said, Hey, absolutely, it's not a direct and he says, it does impact our chamber. And I kind of was questioning him. And he said, The last thing that you want is for a company to relocate to Frisco in this case, who had a bad experience with another chamber somewhere else. And as a result of that, They come to Frisco and don't want to get engaged in our chamber because of that prior bad experience. If by working with Institute and by working with other chambers in your region, in your state, getting involved in chamber associations and groups, if you can help better the industry somewhere else, then you inherently have an opportunity to benefit our community right here based upon experiences that companies may have elsewhere. And it was just a a different way of looking at it to really say we hear all the time. No, you're not in this together. Nobody else is, you know, you've you're not going through something that nobody else has gone through. It truly is a family and it is an industry that we need to work together. there's very little original things in the chamber industry, really. You do have some people that are doing trying some different things. but the standard line that, you know, what is R and D, what's the R and D department in the chamber industry? here again, we've stolen this from other people, but R and D in the chamber industry is rip-off and duplicate. there are very few original things. I've quoted a lot of different consultants and different lines that we hear here. but I think it's important to share, give credit, be able to give back to others. I can still remember when I got in the industry fifteen years ago and people that I look to, and it's kind of scary now and makes me wonder, but now I've got people coming to me and saying, Hey, what kind of advice can you give me? Or when somebody says, you know, you're my mentor or something like that, it just it feels weird.
28:47.176 Tony Felker
but it's a great feeling as well to know that you can help give back to others and help others grow in the industry. So it's it's a good thing all the way around.
28:56.684 Brandon Burton
That's that's cool. That to be able to have that feedback if you're my mentor, you know, that
29:02.016 Tony Felker
It also seems to me as getting really, really old, I think.
29:04.942 Brandon Burton
I wasn't gonna say that, but no. So I wanted to ask it, you you mentioned that there's not a whole lot of new things in chambers, yeah, the rip off and duplicate and everything. But as I read your bio, talked about internet radio show, Frisco on Top of the World. Is that tied in with the chamber? Is that something more new?
29:27.586 Tony Felker
It's I mean, you know, I I think other communities I know of communities far smaller than us that have their own radio station and they're able to have a show on there. I think it's important for any chamber to look at opportunities they have and yeah, I know at one point you wanted to kinda talk about chambers of the future, things to be looking for, but I think it's important that everybody Look around here again, talk to other chambers, get engaged with State Associations National, the different opportunities that you have to learn from others. And don't be afraid to try some new things and try something. As long as it fits, we got back to that mission statement. As long as it fits in with your mission statement and you're trying new things, you may not hit on everything, but if you don't try anything, You're just doing the same thing over and over again. I think it's important for any chamber's members in the business community to know that any chamber, I don't care if it's a hundred member chamber or a four thousand member chamber, you're willing to try new things for the benefit of that business community and to get better. And as I said, if you're a very, very small chamber and you haven't done any governmental affairs work at all. Just getting to know your elected officials on city council or your state representative or county officials and letting people know that you're doing that. Take a picture of you having coffee with city council member and put that out there. That tells people, wow, look what the chamber's doing. Or if it's doing internet radio and trying to see what is it that we're trying to accomplish by being on the radio? Is it brand awareness? Is it telling people about advocacy efforts, if it's telling the success stories. but try different things, measure things, see if it's having an impact. let people know you're willing to try and not just do the same thing over and over again because that's what we've always done. I hate that phrase around here and every time somebody says, Well that's what we've always done, I don't that's bad look.
31:31.854 Brandon Burton
Closes down conversation right there. so with the the mindset of these people that may be listening that are doing their R and D right now, how long have you been doing the radio show for and kind of what's the target audience and and what do you guys talk about?
31:34.09 Tony Felker
Exactly.
31:49.238 Tony Felker
Yeah, we've been doing it about two years, and truthfully what we talk about fluctuates a little bit. one of the things that we've talked about in the past is numbers in the news and you know, we call it Frisco on Top of the World and Frisco number ones, but the number ones kind of campaign that we started off was a thumb finger number one. and it wasn't about here again, it wasn't about the chamber. It was about our community that has received a lot of accolades and it's about our members and promoting them. And so We encourage people to take pictures with a foam finger to display those companies. And when we said about Frisco on Top of the World and number ones and talking about numbers, it's helping everybody to understand what's happening in our community, translating news reports and numbers that they may hear and trying to make it relevant to them again. How does that impact them? Some of it was just brand awareness as we went into sort of new campaigns here and new strategic plan, a new emphasis and trying to communicate that out there. You know, we've all heard the point that you have to hit somebody seven times with a message before they start to get it. So this was one more opportunity to do that. We're a matter of fact, we're in the period right now where we're sort of reevaluating what do we want to do with that show? What's the emphasis? What's the goal of it? And I think here again, not just keep doing things because we've always done them, but challenge yourself every now and then. Is this still relevant? Is this still working what we originally did? Have things changed. So that's just a few examples there of what we've been doing.
33:18.786 Brandon Burton
I like that. So is the target audience in for that show your your membership?
33:23.958 Tony Felker
It's our membership and also I think, you know, the community as a whole. I mean, with internet radio, it's hard to really pinpoint down who's listening and where. obviously talking to our members is important, the business community as a whole, so that if they're not familiar with the chamber, they know some of what we're doing. we've had a lot of residents and people from outside of town that listen just to know what's going on. They may have moved away and want to keep in touch with what's happening here or They might be looking to maybe move to here and we can help promote the city as a whole. and it also, truthfully, it's given us an opportunity to share our personality with the community. And I think it's important that we often heard that the chambers, you know, there have been a lot of comparisons I've seen between a chamber and a church a lot of times, and the head of your church and the head of the chamber, it shouldn't be about any one person or the organization. I think it's important that no matter how many individuals you have in the chamber, your members and the people in the community should know all of the personalities. And I think it's a great opportunity to share some of those personalities out there and let it let people know who we're about. And we're not just the organization. We're about people as well. So
34:39.16 Brandon Burton
Great. so is the the next question I wanted to get to is it is about the future of chambers. I like to ask everybody that that I that I interview, but particularly I'm I'm looking at Frisco as an example where what'd you say ten years ago is about seventy-four thousand yeah. So up to now and for those that don't know, I Frisco Frisco, Texas is the home to the the worldwide headquarters for the Dallas Cowboys now. as well as Dallas Mavericks, you know, D League team and minor league team for the the Texas Rangers. I mean it's just really a big entertainment hub and business hub, F C Dallas. Absolutely.
35:25.046 Tony Felker
I think we have seven professional teams here now and so yes.
35:28.638 Brandon Burton
So i I know the stars are there too. I mean, so all these things you probably couldn't have anticipated ten years ago, you know, that Frisco would y I I'm sure you would ex you'd anticipate some of the growth, but to have the Cowboys, you know, headquartered now in Frisco looking forward, what do you see the future looking like for the Frisco chamber and chambers in general?
35:53.612 Tony Felker
Wow. that's a big question. I I guess I've got a couple of points on that. And it's funny, things happen just within a few days of of now that make me think of certain certain things, and yet there are also phrases that we repeat every single day here for years. I guess the first one that I think about and people say, everything's happening in Frisco, you know, the streets are lined in gold. No, that's not the case. but as I've traveled across the state and across the country, both when I was on city council and now with chamber, the phrase that we keep talking about or the word is partnerships. And I think it's huge and something that too com too many communities don't appreciate, those that have the partnerships and sometimes we take for granted, but we'll visit with other chambers or communities and we'll find out, well the school district and the city really don't get along very well, or the downtown merchants are suing the city or things like that. I would say the number one thing that chambers have the opportunity to be is to be that facilitator, that collaborator, whereby they can be the ones that help bring these community partners together. I think without that partnership and collaboration between the entities and whatever is relevant out there, community college, school district, city, tourism entities, major employers, without that collaboration, it's hard to really get things done that's for the benefit of the community as a whole. too many times I think chambers get relegated to being, well, they do the ribbon cutting and they have nice lunches and after hours. We need to shake that up. Anytime I come across a chamber that says, Well, you know, we're just the chamber. We just do those things. And if they continue to do that, they're perpetuating a bad image. We have the opportunity to really be the collaborators to bring these entities together to effect change, identify what the problems are and how do you become a problem solver? there's a phrase out there that I've heard many times. We are the most powerful, powerless organizations around. Chambers don't have the ability to levy taxes, to make rules.
38:09.048 Tony Felker
to create ordinances, to register or license anybody. But if a chamber is doing their job properly, and I'll throw it out as a challenge to everybody, if we're doing our job properly, we can have incredible influence by bringing the business community together, the different entities in the community together, and be that collaborator in a way that once again, it's not about us, but it's about bringing those entities together to really affect change. So I think that's something that we here in Frisco will continue and need to continue to focus on. But I think it's something that chambers everywhere can do. And the other thing is the phrase that we use is don't be your grandfather's chamber. too many times, you know, chambers are still doing what they were doing 30, 40 years ago. and it's important to think about that from a couple of perspectives. one, if you're just doing what you've always been doing, Going back to earlier comments, you're not pushing yourself in as or as an organization. And the board should push you, the leadership should push and make things happen and challenge yourself. But also, I was listening to my pastor a couple of weeks ago who said, you know, there are churches all across this country and definitely all across Europe, great churches, and they're sitting empty right now because these churches wanted to continue with the traditions, quote unquote. or the customs that their grandfathers went through. And especially here in Frisco, where we have such a young community, to do what our grandfathers were doing, that's not going to work for the next generation. I've even started challenging my team. we can't even be our father's chamber or even today's chamber. We need to be looking at what are chambers of the future going to look like? What's our business community going to look like that's going to relate and be attractive to those millennials, those in their young twenties, let's look at the kids that are coming out of high school. What do they think when they think of Chamber of Commerce? And is that an entity, an organization that they want to be involved with, that they respect? I think that's where we can challenge ourselves and then say, what can we be doing differently that'll impact the future?
40:22.902 Brandon Burton
Yeah, that's a great point. How I like not even just being your grandfather's chamber, but the your father's or even today's chamber. Yeah, look to the future, look to these high school students, college students, and what do they see? what do they know about a chamber and what would they expect out of it in the future?
40:38.83 Tony Felker
Exactly. I'm even actually taking and I kind of broached this issue. I've been thinking about it, but I'm starting we're starting to implement it. Well, we're taking our young professionals group. And I think in a lot of young professionals group, there is some leadership training in that, but I think oftentimes it's more social in nature and getting to know one another. I want to make more of a problem solving committee. Look to them and let's identify some problems, some opportunities in our community, and let's look to that group. To try to come up with the answers. They're gonna be the best option we have to say, how do you you view this problem, whether it's transportation, it's housing, it's workforce development, is it the entertainment scene in your community or whatever the issues are, how do they view it? What do they see the answers and actually have them be part of the solution to make it happen and be that collaborator again?
41:30.114 Brandon Burton
Well, and you d that's some of the best ways of networking too, is problem solving together. Once you solve you you make those bonds together by p solving problems and that network is is much more solid.
41:40.91 Tony Felker
Yeah.
41:42.2 Brandon Burton
Well, Tony, thank you so much for for s spending some time with us today on the the Chamber Tap podcast. I I think you brought a lot of value to the listeners and and hopefully some things that people can implement into their own chambers. And just before we go, I wanted to kind of hand it off to you and see if if anybody listening has any questions about what you're doing there at the Frisco chamber, or if they just have questions in general, how can they get in contact with you?
42:09.898 Tony Felker
Absolutely. First of all, it's been a pleasure to be on here. I think in doing things like this, it's great to be able to think back on what we're doing and challenge yourself. And if I can share anything that we're doing or just bounce ideas off of anybody, our website is just friscochamber.com and you can reach me there or my email address is T Felker. That's F is in Frank, E-L-K-E-R, T Felker at friscochamber.com. I know we've got we're out on all sorts of social media. Don't get me going on what they all are. But Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, we're out there on all of those. I am personally. and yeah, if we can help in any way to kinda share the information, be a resource for one another, be more than happy to help in any way we can. And I'm always reaching out to others as well.
42:55.874 Brandon Burton
Perfect. Thank you very much. We'll be sure to put your contact information in the show notes for this episode as well. And I just wanted to thank everybody for listening today. If you found some value in this episode, please share it with others that you know in the chamber industry. And of course you can find the show notes at chamber chatpodcast.com slash episode five. And if you haven't already subscribed to the Chamber Chat Podcast, please do so. The shows will show up out automatically in your podcast player of choice. a as new episodes get released. And if you could leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. That'll help us get the show in front of more chambers so we can all learn from each other. And thanks again and look forward to chatting with you again next week.

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

Episode 4 — Effective Chamber Management with Bruce Hillegeist
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Bruce Hillegeist
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.078 Bruce Hillegeist
for many years used to say that that we do what most people think just happens and that is absolutely true. most don't realize what a chamber
00:09.42 Brandon Burton
That was Bruce Hilligis of the Greater Tombaug Area Chamber of Commerce, just giving you a quick preview of today's show. Now let's cue the intro. 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.
00:34.85 Brandon Burton
Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I'm Brandon Burton, and I'm here to introduce you to ideas and people to make your job in the chamber easier and more productive. Today we have Bruce Hillegeist with us. He is the president of the Greater Tomball Area Chamber of Commerce. Bruce was born in Tomball Community Hospital. He's a fifth-generation Texan. whose descendants immigrated to Texas from the Black Forest region of Germany in eighteen forty two. Bruce is a lifetime resident.
01:13.868 Brandon Burton
lifelong member of Salem Lutheran Church. He is alumnus of Tomballan School, Tomball High School, and Sam Houston State University, also a graduate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Organization Management, as well as Leadership North Houston. Bruce was named Tomball Citizen of the Year in nineteen ninety four and presided as president of the Texas Chamber of Commerce Executives in 2010. At this time, Bruce is a member of the Tomball Regional Medical Center Board of Directors and a board member of the Tomball Pregnancy Center. He is also a supporter of various other civic and charity organizations in the greater Tomball community. Bruce, welcome to the show. please say hello to the audience and share something interesting about yourself.
02:03.084 Bruce Hillegeist
Well, hello, Brandon, and hi, Chamber Exec Friends. it's so good to have this opportunity and thank you so much to you, Brandon, and Community Matters, for including me in and I hope that what I have to say will be of some help and support to our profession. Brandon, you asked me to say something interesting about myself. and I I I guess I don't really see myself as very interesting. I'm very modest person, but Something that people don't always know is that when when when I was being raised, our family lived on a ranch. I used to always say a farm, but it was more cattle. and so I have an ag business degree from Samuson State University. So funny thing is, ironic thing is is that Brandi Beyer, she's our BP of operations, she also has an animal science degree from Texas AM. So we always tease that we have two you know, career agriculture people leading the Chamber of Commerce in Tomball. So Tomball used to be very rural and and farming and cattle is a major staple of of Tomball's legacy and and it was you know and and and it and really is not so much anymore, but that's something that people don't always know. And I do wear cowboy boots, usually every day to work. I like I like black cowboy boots, so they hopefully they go well with my this different suits that I wear. So I still keep that that ag that ag piece of me present every day. But that's not always something people know about me. It's in my blood. So is being German and Lutheran too. That just kinda goes together.
03:38.571 Brandon Burton
It's in your blood, isn't it?
03:45.314 Brandon Burton
There you go. yeah, and for those listening who don't know, Tomball is kind of say like the northwest Houston area.
03:55.326 Bruce Hillegeist
Correct. We're about twenty-eight miles northwest of downtown Houston. We are in Harris County. Montgomery County is just to our north. just a small portion of the city of Tomball is in Montgomery County. We have a creek called Spring Creek that divides Harris County from Montgomery County. And really our chamber is seven hundred and fifty members. our budget is six hundred and fifty thousand dollars. We are in that area that Houston cannot really grow that much more except to the north and northwest, which is our way. And Montgomery County, Conroe, Magnolia, those are all sister cities of ours close by. And I know Conroe has been named, you know, one of the fastest growing cities in the US. And so we're right in that pathway as well, seeing a lot of growth and change and that's something that that we we welcome, honestly. You know, we might feel as if we'd like to have our area the way it used to be when I was a child. You knew everybody and there was a lot of open land and now there are freeways, more and more concrete, new people. You can't go anywhere anymore and used to you would know everyone and now that has changed. But you know it's not a it's not a a challenge or a problem. It's an opportunity. And we certainly have always kept that mindset of of welcoming people. Hey, you know, years and years ago when our family came, we were welcomed. So we we love to see prosperity and growth and really that is the attitude that a chamber of commerce should have.
05:36.082 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. It's definitely full of opportunity when you have that kind of growth going on. You know, I know change can be hard and people can be resistant to change, but if you you know notice it and can take, you know, look for the positive things in it, there's always opportunity, especially with the growth like you're saying, from Houston kind of bleeding into the northern areas in Tomball where you're at. it's full of opportunity. You guys are in a great location and right in the path of some great growth.
06:05.004 Bruce Hillegeist
Exactly.
06:06.814 Brandon Burton
so if I did my math right, you've been at the Greater Tomball Chamber for about twenty five years now, is that right? Yes sir.
06:16.302 Bruce Hillegeist
Later later this year in November, it'll be 25 years. I used to have a career in banking. Excuse me. When I left college, I did come back home and I was a banker here in our city, our community for 13 years. And I I I fell in love with the chamber because during part of my stint at the bank, later, you know, a few years into it, I became a loan officer. But prior to that, The president made me the marketing director of the bank. He said, Hey, get out there and go get us some loans and new accounts and you go see Diane Holland. She's the president of the chamber and I want you to get involved in the chamber. And actually at that very time, Howard Leverett, who had hired me at the bank, was the president and he was the chairman of the board of the Tom Greater Tomball Chamber. And so that is what I consider the time that I really fell in love with chamber business. I used the chamber to write its coattails of going to ribbon cuttings and luncheons and being being the face of first bank and trust to those who I got to meet. And hopefully they would say, hey, you know he's a nice young man and trustworthy and and I'd like to maybe do business with him. So the chamber opened many, many doors and it wasn't until I got got more and more authority at that bank that I realized you know, the the value that the chamber brought my way because then people would ask me for, you know, more and more favors, I guess to say banking wise. But you know, I I took the chamber membership directory to different businesses and and would say, you know, well I'm Bruce Hillegeist, I'm with First Bank and Trust, but I'm here today to to, you know, to to share some information about the Chamber and And leave some scratch pads and coffee cups. You know, le leave a little gift on behalf of the bank. But that opened so many doors. And especially with a business that is already a member of the chamber and the bank being as well, businesses are more receptive because we have something in common. We are both members of the chamber. So that was the the best way for me to become known, even though my
08:31.394 Bruce Hillegeist
family on both sides have been from Tomball for many, many years. Still there were lots of people who didn't know our family or didn't know me. And of course my you know, bragging here, my mom and dad were very well respected here, but still you have to prove yourself. And so that chamber here in Tomball me open doors, meet people, and build relationships with folks. And I guess it was I know it was in nineteen ninety four in November the board of directors asked if I would take over the chamber, leave the banking business and come to work full time for the chamber. So it was it was like a scary moment, but then one that I was very excited to do. I know that when they asked me, I d said, Hey, you know Let me think about this. I knew right I knew right then I wanted the job, but never before had I really thought about it. I had thought about it six months earlier when Diane Holland had retired, but they didn't offer it to me at that time. They had hired someone and that person did not meet their expectations and was released from this job. And so then they came to me and asked. And so I told them, Let me think about it for about a week, even though at that very moment I knew that that's something that I'd like to pursue. I was not I was not ready to, you know, lead committees and and I've never really wanted to be the head or the president of anything. My my character and nature is to help lift someone else up and to be their support and promote them. And to be in a president's job or a chair like this where it all really, you know, falls on me in a way was was one thing that really w kept me from saying yes right away. But I I'm a Christian man and I know that God has a plan for me and looking back. In my opinion the evidence of God's guidance in each of our lives is better seen by looking backwards than forwards. To to this afternoon, tomorrow, next week, next year s is is unknown and it's scary, but God carries us through and he has certainly
10:49.912 Bruce Hillegeist
put me in a place, ordained this for me. and I I do what I do to honor and glorify him. And I've seen his gifts abundantly in my life to to help me lead the Chamber of Commerce. That's not about Bruce Hillegeist, it's about Tomball. It's about the eight to ten mile radius that we do serve here for business and community. So it's been my pleasure to do this and and and in one of my one of my thoughts is is that I know that any chamber executive needs to have passion for the job, to come into work every day ready to work and and excited and and I always have said I hope I know when it's time to go and that would be not to sit in this chair and and just receive a paycheck. Everything that we do needs to be new and fresh and revolutionary and but when I get to the point where I start feeling like it's a burden or not having that that excitement, then I I certainly hope that day when that if that day ever comes that I will say it's time for a new person unless the board decides it's time for me then and I don't realize it. I'm gonna I I I want I want what's best for the chamber overall. It's not about me, it's about Tom Ball.
12:10.266 Brandon Burton
Yeah, yeah. I I appreciate that. And I something you had said about your transition from the bank to the chamber really struck me where you said you never saw yourself sitting in a president's role or you know, that sort of a thing, but being able to serve and uplift and help and and that's exactly what you're doing, right? With the change I mean, yes, you are in a president role, but you are there to serve and uplift and help and and help these other businesses succeed.
12:34.998 Bruce Hillegeist
Well let me tell you that there is nothing better in this world. Nothing nothing in this world makes you happy. you can buy a new car, a new suit, get a new haircut, and that wears off for a while. But serving and loving others, that's what really makes you happy. God designed us, God is love, God designed us after his the what makes God who he is. And if you feel a bit down and out about goings on in your life, go out Get yourself up and go serve someone else. Now it'll make that other person that you're serving feel good, but it'll really, really, really make you feel good. And so one of our philosophies here is to chase the relationship, not the money. And when we can get out and serve and take care of others, let them know that we do care about them. I know, I know in church or chamber or any business, it's about the relationship. People will do business with those that they know and trust. And that's what I was hoping people would see in me when I was in banking, and I'm hoping that they see that now, a genuine care about their welfare. and and so that that carries, you know, that's what I want to to carry on is to to have the chamber be the the the the the information source, the four one one, when people want to know what is here or there to to have the chamber be the one that they call and that we genuinely help and take care of their situations, whatever that might be. And I'm talking about business, those members that we have, but also the community. Many community members have no clue. People don't really always understand what a chamber of commerce does, but it's always amazed us that they call the chamber when they want to know something. I'm not sure, you know, who's whispering in their ear to say, call the chamber, but we've got we've had a staff here of longevity that that we w it's not a brag when I say this, but I say that if we don't know, I guarantee you we probably know someone who does know the answer. And so that that tightness that we have, that seam seamless feel that we have here in Tomball between the chamber and the city, the county and and others that that our community relies upon.
14:58.326 Bruce Hillegeist
If they would call the chamber, I promise you that we'll get them on the right track. But it's all about relationship. And again, people will members of businesses will become members if they see a chamber doing the right thing, doing what it's supposed to be. So the money will come, just do the right thing, build those relationships. I like to use the word family a lot of times. that we're you know, we need to know them, they need to know us. Hey, we live here in the same place and guess what? We don't just do ribbon cuttings and have networking events, connecting events. Those are important. But, you know, we do a lot that Diane Holland, who was the president here for many years, used to say that that we do what most people think just happens. And that is absolutely true. most don't realize what a chamber of commerce does, but well y you know, in the background we we do a lot. And in and in that point on that point I will say that I'm a like I said earlier, I'm a very modest person. But if you don't get out there and explain to people and brag a little bit about what the chamber does and has done, people will not see that value. So that's very hard for me to to have us and it's not about what I've done, it's what we've done as staff and as a board and as a chamber itself, because we've made a lot of big accomplishments, especially in mobility. We have State Highway two forty nine, which is an arterial freeway going from Houston up to Bryan College Station. And and because of this chamber, and and you could talk to Tex Dot or any of the other agencies, they know that this chamber has been a driving force in making sure that that freeway happens. And so your ordinary person may not realize. They think, well that's nice. I see a road coming in or a freeway. Well that's just that's just by nature that happens, but it's It's a lot of lobbying and advocating and it's those relationships that when we have those established we can make phone calls and they take our call because they know who we are.
17:06.313 Brandon Burton
And it's having those big highways that are gonna really help, you know, boost the economy too in Tomball and in any city like that. But you're right, it's one of those things that just looks like it just happens. But eradicating. Yeah.
17:17.514 Bruce Hillegeist
Partnerships are important. That's right. Partnerships are important with your city, county, school, businesses, other chambers. We are all better together. I'll never forget that the second chairman that I had, his theme for the year was we are better together. And I I've used that since nineteen ninety six and it's so, so important. you know, our our neighboring chambers. Well we need we want to think regionally. It's not about just Tomball, it's about our our neighbors and it's about those in our state coming together as chambers of commerce to to promote the the the freeway because the freeway is going through other communities. So, you know, work on projects together. And it's not a matter of who gets the credit, it's that it gets done. Okay? And that's one important thing that we've learned is don't build don't burn bridges and just just do your best to do the right thing, even if you might have an adversary in an a different agency, continue to work on that relationship. And one day that relationship I promise will be repaired or hey, that person might leave. Okay? I've seen that happen so many times that that, you know, the person, you know, in eventually leaves the job. And not that I would ever wish that, but sometimes that happens. Things when you look back, you see how things worked out. But it's important to establish partnerships and and I go to city council meetings very regularly to be informed and lots of different meetings so that you know they always have said information is power and I have just seen that the information that I gather to share that with people and they're just amazed at what what all I know. Well it's you know, I I was a low C student in high school and in school and it wasn't that I'm academically brilliant at all. It's just that I like to gather information because I love this community and share with others, you know, what's happening so that they can get involved. When we're all in it together, it's you know, we're stronger and we're all better together.
19:27.788 Brandon Burton
I love that. We're better together. so the the overall theme for this this particular interview, we're kind of going with the idea of effective chamber management, but really it sounds more like effective chamber service. but i on the management side of it, can you tell us just a little bit about your staff and how you all work together?
19:49.368 Bruce Hillegeist
You bet. You bet. And it and right now I have what I would term as a dream team, but it's not always been that way. Since I've been here for twenty four years, there were a good five years that it was quite rocky. I'll remember that I had staff coming and going and I brought my mom to work with me several times just to answer the phone. There was really nobody left. And it was honestly not I have to say it was not anything that I did, but the chamber was was not paying. enough for the staff and there was no medical insurance and you know the chamber just didn't have money t to do it at that time and some of our members as chamber execs know sometimes your business members will take your best employees because they get to see them you know sometimes you know much more you know regular and see how they operate and that's really what was happening is that our employees were leaving to go to chamber member businesses that offered higher pay medical insurance and whatnot. But after five, six years, things started to change. I told the board, I said we've got to go up and pay and we have to, you know, provide more benefits to our staff. And since then, I know Brandy Bayer is our vice president of operations. She's the other Ag Ag degree staff member from A and and
21:11.458 Brandon Burton
So does she wear boots too?
21:13.438 Bruce Hillegeist
No, she does not. She does not. She does not. She's from Weatherford, Texas, up around Fort Worth, but she's from a cowboy town, let me tell you. All her her dad and her brothers, they do. It's just a normal everyday uniform for them is the tight Wrangler jeans and boots. That's right. I've met them cowboy hats, but no Brandy Brandy does not. But but Brandy came in two thousand and one, so she's been here all this time, you know, seventeen years. I've been here twenty four. We have Don Stone that's been here nine years, and then Amy Mason has been here for about two years, and we've hired our first membership director who is Deanna Youngblood, and her job is to to go out and and and find you know member members for us. That's the first staff person we've had there here that has done that as a part-time in her part-time role. But but the cohesiveness of our team, a chamber executive should not be a micromanager. I have learned that the hard way. I have learned that the more responsibility that you give your staff, and the more trust you give to them that they just take and run with it. And that took me a while to understand, but it is so true. And I know that I was of the mindset, well, I don't know them well enough to trust them. Now there are gonna be some failures and whatnot along the way and I want to be and anybody should be number one transparent and communicate well but then also you know take the bullet if it's you know the buck stops with me, the ch but buck stops with the chamber exec. But but I have realized that you know it's not just hire anyone, you've got to find the right people that have a passion for the community and and and don't be a micro manager and really be a be a team and work all together, show appreciation to that staff and in in all things and back back their word, but give them responsibility and you know they'll they'll run with it because they have ownership in the in the chamber.
23:23.923 Brandon Burton
Yeah, so I like that about not being a micromanager. you you mentioned that expect that failures will happen along the way. So how are you okay with knowing that some failures will happen and how do you how do you kind of work through that?
23:38.53 Bruce Hillegeist
Well, we we s we celebrate the wins of course and then we do have you you must have regular staff meetings. You know, our our chamber is small enough, so we have five on staff, two part time, three full time. So we're engaged constantly, more or less. I mean, we're not so big that we don't see each other often. We're we're together all the time. So we do s huddle and if we have a failure or whatnot, we see how we can best resolve that. And it's okay to say I'm sorry and you know we'll do better next time. and and but but celebrate the successes and then do go back and and and really dwell into, you know, what the failure was and see how we might not allow that to happen next time. so you know, huddles are important to to know what might be coming that may not be correct. But to to celebrate the wins and and and really in a way, if you could understand, celebrate the losses because that's how you you best win and how you best learn is to fail. If we won all the time you don't you don't w the teams learn much, much more when they lose.
24:51.872 Brandon Burton
I was gonna say that's what's gonna steepen that learning curve right there is when you you find those losses and those mistakes that happen and say, Yeah, what can we do to learn from this? What what can we put in place to see that this doesn't happen again? And a lot of learning happens then, for sure.
25:07.296 Bruce Hillegeist
I guess it was Nike that has, you know, just just what is it, just do it or whatever. But I just say just do the right thing. A promise is a promise. And you know, you always want to say what you mean and what you say. Your word is your bond. That's people say, gosh, that's history. That's what you can't, you know, make a handshake anymore. Yes, you can, and we do. And that's part of the solidifying with the community that this chamber of commerce means business and its word is its bond. And you know, failures are okay. It's not like we want to y you know, that may sound odd, but failures are okay because we're human and that will happen. But again, you learn much more if you take advantage of of really researching and reviewing what went wrong and how we might not how we how we cannot make that happen again.
25:58.42 Brandon Burton
Yeah. So I wanted to ask you, I mean, you've been at the chamber for twenty four years now, very involved in serving the community, your members. I imagine everybody knows Bruce now. I know everybody loves Bruce. So how do you manage your time? How do you manage your time between your personal life and your position at the chamber?
26:20.726 Bruce Hillegeist
Well, that is good. I'm glad that you brought that up because I am really good at telling you and other people, Brandon, how to set boundaries and how your life should be in balance, but really mine is not. Okay? So I will admit that. I I I I'm a caregiver for my mother. I live I I'm one of those fifty eight year old a lot lifelong bachelors. Which may sound a little bit odd, but my dad had a brother who was fifty seven when he got married for the first time. So I kind of follow the family heritage here. I even have a brother who's in his early fifties that's never been married and and so, you know, I I have broken the hillageist history in that my uncle was fifty seven when he got married, and I'm fifty eight, so I'm gonna have to kinda hurry hurry that up.
27:13.538 Brandon Burton
But we'll we'll put your picture in the show notes for this. So anybody listening wants to check Bruce out, you know, we can do a little matchmaking here.
27:20.846 Bruce Hillegeist
And and on on that matter, we've had a few matches at the chamber events. We've had three couples that have been come engaged and gotten married because it's in my time here. So hey, I I'd appreciate whatever you could put nationwide or whatever. But but but I do I do work very hard to try to balance. I know that my dad was ill for twelve years and my mom and I and brothers took care of him at home and
27:35.086 Brandon Burton
Absolutely.
27:47.31 Bruce Hillegeist
through that experience and now with my mom who has who suffers from Alzheimer's. I know that it sounds odd, but you've got to take care of the caregiver before you take care of the of the of the patient. My mom, I've got to take care of my health and my well being and and and have rest or I can't take care of my mom to the best of my ability. They
28:08.672 Brandon Burton
Yeah, the oxygen mask, right? You gotta put it on the airplane.
28:12.344 Bruce Hillegeist
Correct. Okay, so I'm really I'm really good at telling others how best to do that, but I am terrible at following my own advice and that's the the nature of the chamber of business is that you know we're really on most times twenty four seven. There's always an open house, a w a wedding. you know, I know honestly, and I don't want this to sound terrible, but sometimes when I get invited to fun things like a a friend's wedding or so. It's kind of like, gosh, you know, 'cause you kinda do things like that every day and you just want a day off. Though those personal things are not as as exciting anymore. And I hate to admit that, but you know, I I I I feel burned out sometimes, several times a year. I I can just point out a a couple of times a a year when I just it's hard to get up and hard to come, but But rest is is vital for me. I feel sometimes I can tell that I am grouchy and whatnot, like a like a kid. You know, your parents would say when you're two and three years old, well he needs a nap. Well, that's just how we are, I think, even as adults. a nap is not always enough. you need to to get away from the area. and I mean drive away for a few days or a week if you can. fly away, but get away from your normal surroundings and see let your eyes and ears see and hear new sounds and sights. Going from a chamber job to Las Vegas, not gonna not gonna do. Maybe to a cabin in the woods because we're so tied to our phones and to busyness. You don't want to go where there are lots of lights and sounds and and you know, loud noises. You really, my opin my opinion is to go somewhere quiet and peaceful and Take time for yourself. You you must take time for yourself in order for you to do a better job for everyone else. And again, I don't follow my own advice, but I know that it's true. It one of my favorite things to do is year years ago when I was in Chamber institute, organizational management institute, our our group, we went to SMU in Dallas and the drive from Houston or from Tomball to Dallas.
30:28.982 Bruce Hillegeist
You know, it's not a lot of thinking and and I would usually leave the radio off and just think and and maybe jot notes as I would drive the quietness is is really opportune for people like us in the chamber business is have some quiet time and some alone time. It's that's and that's okay. But setting boundaries when people are asking you as a chamber exec, would you serve on this, would you do this? It's very hard for me to say no, but for my own good I have to say no and set those boundaries. Say no in a kind and genuine way that that no they they would know that I wish that I could but but I just am not able to right now. That's important to to say thank you but but no thank you.
31:15.052 Brandon Burton
It is and it's it's a hard thing to do. I know that. so maybe we'll we'll shift gears a little bit since you're not great at taking your own advice on that and as far as setting the boundaries and and and all that. maybe you can kind of point us in into some resources you've been able to take advantage of to develop your career with the chamber.
31:18.2 Bruce Hillegeist
Very difficult.
31:36.482 Bruce Hillegeist
You bet. Well thank you. Institute number one. And I know Institute offered by the US Chamber of Commerce is, I believe, now a four year schooling, chamber school, and I know that it can be expensive, and so some chambers are able to afford institute and some are not. and and that's okay. our chamber of commerce, we from day one, well actually I'll I'll tell you six months into me being here at the Chamber, went to my first Gulf Coast Chamber of Commerce Executives meeting, which is in our our our here in our area G C E. I know the Dallas area has one and other other areas that have multiple chambers in in a in a region have s such, but it's really a support to chamber executives. We meet once a month. About six months after I started at the chamber, I d I finally took Diane Holland's advice and went to my first G C C E meeting in Katy. And when I came out of there and got home, I thought I've just been to like a pep rally. my gosh, there are people out there that know how I feel and know the frustrations that I feel. And the the the point of the matter is is that it's it's it's regional. I know that our G C C E we have members from Beaumont, Port Arthur you know, down to El Campo and up to Huntsville. And so we we get together once a month and we have a little business meeting because we do have a a conference that we host and also do some scholarships. But most of it, the most important thing is is just the the meeting other chamber executives and and building those friendships so that you can call them when you have a you know a situation but learning from others what they do. You know, we do have a round table and so we share successes and failures there. And in my twenty-four years, whenever I am able to go to G C C and it's very important for me to do that. Some say, gosh, it's on a Friday and I've got too much to do. Yes, but you need to make that your first priority. But I will tell you, Brandon, that every time I go, I have a full sheet or two of new ideas that I've learned. I I will if I was here fifty years, I know I would still
33:55.07 Bruce Hillegeist
feel that way. And I will tell you that not only the camaraderie and the new information that you get from all these different chambers, large and small, that one of the best parts of that day is the travel to and from with our staff. I you know cham the the G C C E used to be really just for the chamber exec, but it's turned into where a lot of the chamber execs bring some or or all of their staff. And for me, that's what I've done for twenty-four years. So the drive to the meeting place and from is is is where we best share things and and that that are related to us. What we've learned from G C C E or just some ways that we need to do our chamber better. That so that that is really great. The best bonding happens in the car going to and from those G C C E meetings. And we and Brandon, we really try hard. to, you know, that that that is GCC is a great mentor program. You know, we want our chamber members to know each other, shop local, use each other. Well, why shouldn't we know each other in the chamber business? So we is and we want we want to attend institute and regional chamber meetings and conferences and be excited to learn. we never know enough. We will never know enough. And so I'm I I'm just I just revel in the fact that when I come back from a GCC meeting and I see all the notes that I've taken and I'm like, my gosh, you know, I shouldn't by this time I should know all that. No, you never you never will know enough. So we're always we alwa I I want our chamber staff, whether it's attending chamber related meetings or if it's we're so fortunate here to have Lone Star C the Lone Star College system and we have Lone Star College Tomball that w we could we could learn computer skills. What whatever it would be, workforce development. If I and I realize that not all of our employees may stay here and make it a career, but if they do leave, and I would hope that they would never do that, but if and when they do, that the new employer that hires them says, My gosh, they learned a lot and became
36:05.004 Bruce Hillegeist
an extraordinary type of a team player here and they must have learned that at their previous job at the chamber. That would be the best compliment that we could receive is that that training that they could take with them to another job if that would be their choice.
36:19.864 Brandon Burton
For sure. That's a great point. I had never thought of that before. Being able to take these skills and and go somewhere else with them if if that ever came. And I I also really liked your point about the the car ride to and from these conferences. And I can see that being, you know, where a lot of the value is and being able to digest some of the things that you were taught and be able to come up with ideas you can implement, you know, once you get back home, you know, to your chamber.
36:44.118 Bruce Hillegeist
And Brandon, it's not all about in the car, it's not all about chamber, it's about well how is your dad? And and I hear you have a new niece. Tell us you know, it's it's more about getting personal with each other because it's all most of the time when we're here for the eight or nine hours together, it's about business. But let's get to know one another on a personal level too. And that's important. We we really honestly in our in our little small staff we really do genuinely love and care for each other. And I know that that so that solidifies our relationships and and we work better together.
37:20.332 Brandon Burton
That's great. I know as we start to wrap things up here, I I did want to ask one other question for you. As as you look to the future of chambers, what does it look like to you?
37:34.222 Bruce Hillegeist
that is that is a really good question. You know, chamber chamber executives, chambers are to be really visionary and and and and see that. I I do have some worry about chambers of commerce. There are you know others, other organizations I think that try to mimic and and whatnot chambers of commerce, but chambers have been around for thousands of years. That doesn't mean that they're gonna be around for thousands more because just in the last couple of years, things that have closed, businesses that have closed or you know things that we took for granted that were just part of life that aren't any any longer really that same thing could could happen. So we need to work hard in making sure that our value is known what all that we do. Relationships will never go away. Writing a handwritten thank you note will never take place of an email, thank you note or a phone call. And in and and the reason I I say all that is that that's some of the I guess the little big things that that we do, they're they may be seen as little things, but they're really big things for our businesses and for our community. We've got to share that and and always be educating and and form these young professional groups because I am growing. I'm getting I'm, you know, fifty eight and and we need a new generation to come in and and take leadership roles and be excited about the chamber. So we need to really change with the times, not so much change the gospel of the of the chamber. We we are what we are, but find new ways to to have accomplishments made and to celebrate those and to let your communities know that that you you know are a that that that you are the place that brings and and this is true, brings everyone really to the table. That's what a chamber of commerce should do. So So I I realized that, you know, I didn't know what a chamber of commerce necessarily was when I was in high school or even college. And so we've got to make changes in in maybe going to talk to or see how curriculum could be changed that when these young people graduate from high school or college that they know what a chamber of commerce is, so that when they are looking maybe to become a an independent business owner, that they know that we have resources that can be of benefit.
39:59.192 Bruce Hillegeist
benefit to them. and so we we've got to get out there and promote ourselves with the the younger generation. And I know that one thing that all chambers battle is really retention. And that is something I mean we had we we face that ourselves. We had like a hundred and twenty four new members in twenty eighteen and eighty drops. Well what what you know what we need to work on to survive. I know that we don't ever want to be an event chamber of commerce, whereas we have event after event after event that brings us revenue. Chambers should work very hard on relying on the the membership, the membership dues, grow the membership to be the blood of the chamber because because we can be a more vibrant and strong chamber because we have more and more members. There you know, we we we kinda know our twenty or thirty percent that that are very involved in the Chamber of Commerce. Well guess what? There are more good people like that out there that just need to be invited to to join and come in come into the chamber family. it helps us all, helps them helps us all. But we've got to find a way that as soon as a member joins that we get them that we get them plugged in in some way. If people do not I mean just coming to a luncheon I've noticed so many times over the years they may come to the luncheon a time or two as a new member and then Then you'll never see again. We've got to get them into an active working committee. You can't have someone come and just sit in the audience and they and and and listen to us. They will they will leave. They will leave. You have a few that may stay and and themselves get involved, but that's one thing that we have to as a Tomball chamber have to have to try really hard and we haven't mastered that at all. is to to get to plug in our new members and even those that are that are that are paying members for many years. And now it's their choice, but honestly, that will that will solidify and so they can see what all we do and and and participate and and have that buy in, just like I what I said about your staff, have that buy in. chambers are gonna change. The world is changing all the time. And yes, I I kind of you know
42:23.678 Bruce Hillegeist
a secret of me is I I wish that change would stop for a while, you know, but it's gonna always happen. Let us catch up, yes, and change is good, but it's not always welcome, but it's going to happen and chambers have to be you know that's why these regional chamber meetings are important is to stay abreast. the association of chamber of commerce executives, ACCE is important.
42:29.728 Brandon Burton
Let us catch up a little bit, right?
42:49.646 Bruce Hillegeist
the the Texas Chamber of Commerce executives is important to to if you if you're not not able to to have a membership in any of those, I guarantee you that a fellow chamber executive that you could make contact with would be happy to mentor a chamber exec in and what may be best to look for it in in the the ACCE's you know horizon program, like what they see chambers will be in twenty twenty five, what we need to be in chambers in twenty forty, what we need to to to be get ready and set and go for when that future comes.
43:28.194 Brandon Burton
That's great.
43:29.632 Bruce Hillegeist
It's an exciting time, Brandon. It's it's challenging. We see challenges as opportunities and you know, do not fear. Look at it, look at tomorrow and ten years from now as as in with optimism and that we're thankful that we're a part of this change. You know, good things good things are on the horizon.
43:51.254 Brandon Burton
I was gonna say if we could summarize this this whole interview up in maybe a couple of phrases is that we're all better together and that there's chat there's opportunity and change. So we can take that going forward and and see where we can, you know, implement these things, we'll all be that much better. Bruce, thank you so much for sharing your time with us today, being on the the Chamber Chat Podcast. If if any listeners wanted to reach out to you maybe ask questions about some things that you touched on today. What are some good what's a good way for people to be able to reach out and get in contact with you?
44:27.54 Bruce Hillegeist
Well, let me tell you that my staff years ago said don't put your cell number on your business card. But I didn't listen to them. And so I I prefer my cell phone. My cell phone number is two eight one seven eight two one four zero eight. Two eight one seven eight two one four zero eight. Call me on my cell phone. If I don't answer, leave a message. I'll call you back as soon as possible. Text me. Email is Bruce H at tomballchamber.org. Bruce H at Tomball Chamber dot ORG. And really anyone in this office, if if I don't answer, if I can't get back to you quick enough, we have experts here. I again I trust my staff. They can answer for you. I mean we've got longevity here. So reach out to me first, please. We we I I have been helped over the years by other chamber execs and it bring it gives me joy and a pleasure to help those out there who I might could support. I'd love to do that.
45:31.52 Brandon Burton
That's perfect. And we'll we'll put your contact information in the show notes as well, just in case somebody's driving while they're listening to this. you can check out the show notes and get the cell phone number or email. but I just want to say thank you to everybody for listening today. If you found some value in this episode, please share it with others that you know in the chamber industry. Of course, you can also find the show notes for this episode at chamberchap podcast dot com slash episode four.
45:43.118 Bruce Hillegeist
Please do.
46:01.902 Brandon Burton
also if you haven't already yet, please subscribe to the Chamber Chat Podcast on your your l your your podcast app of choice. And please leave us a review on Apple Podcast to help us get the show in front of more chambers so we can all learn from each other. Again, as we learned today, we're better together. And thanks again and I'll look forward to chatting again next week.

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

Episode 3 — Building Strong Community Relationships with Becki Womble
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Becki Womble
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.
00:16.938 Brandon Burton
Brandon Burton, and I'm excited about our show today. We have Becki Womble with us, who is the president and CEO of the Bastrop Chamber of Commerce, which is kind of a suburb of Austin, Texas. And Becky's going to be sharing with us some thoughts and strategies and tips around building community relationships within the chamber. So just a little bit about Becky. she was born in Festus, Missouri and raised in Abilene, Texas. She graduated from Abilene Cooper High School and went on to Texas Tech and then graduated from Harden Simmons University in Abilene, Texas. While in college, she married her high school sweetheart, Rick Womble. In Abilene, they made their home and began their careers. Becky is a sales rep for a local printing company and Rick as a banker. Becky was an active volunteer with the Abilene Chamber of Commerce and was a leadership Abilene graduate as well as Ambassador of the Year in 1995. In 2002, they moved to Midlothian, Texas, where Rick pursued his career in banking, and Becky stayed home raising their boys and worked part-time as a director of weekday education at FBC Midlothian. The rapid growth of Central Texas lured the wombles to south. To opportunities in Lockhart in two thousand eight. Again, Rick of Community Banking, and this time for Becky, working at the Lockhart Chamber of Commerce. She was instrumental in in introducing a variety of programs targeting at improving member services, including a massive 2012 overhaul of the Lockhart Chamber of Commerce website to include individual member pages, interactive directories, and a community calendar. She has an extensive history of community service and volunteerism, which includes membership at the Lockhart Kawanis and Lockhart Athletic Boosters Club, service with Project Graduation 2014, Lockhart Junior High PTO Treasurer, and service on the top 10 scholarship committee. Becky was also named Community Builder of the Year by the Lockhart Masonic Lodge in January 2014. She has continued her community service locally.
02:37.506 Brandon Burton
With the Cedar Creek Athletic Boosters Club and Cedar Creek High School Band Booster Club and Bastrop Education Foundation. In her four years at the helm of the Bastrop Chamber of Commerce, Becky's had significant accomplishments, which include graduating from Chamber Institute Southeast with her Institute for Organizational Management degree, a complete contact content management system conversion, redesign of the Chamber website. The launch of two additional websites for chamber initiatives, restructuring the membership investments from fair share to tier dues, coordinating board training, strategic planning sessions, hired new staff, quickly established herself as the voice of business with members, community leaders, and government officials. She has taken an active role in local politics and community issues, including a school bond, the We Believe in BISD campaign. advocated for road construction issues, launched bassdropboats.com and is a board member of the newly formed Visit Bastrop Destination Marketing Organization. Together Rick and Becky have two beautiful boys. Obviously mother's language, I would have said handsome, but Leland and Kasen, they attend River Valley Christian Fellowship and officially home in Bastrop in twenty fourteen. So Becky, welcome to the Chamber Tap Podcast. glad to have you here as a a guest today on the show. I why don't you take a minute, say hello to the audience and maybe share I just read your bio, but share something interesting with them to help them relate with you maybe a little more on a personal level.
04:24.782 Becki Womble
Well thanks for having me today, Brandon. it's a real honor to be asked to do this and just on a personal level, I mean that obviously my bio's all, you know, my profession over the last couple decades, but I absolutely love working in my yard. it's funny I will go out to Lowe's or the local Walmart or something to pick up stuff when I'm working in the yard and people don't recognize me because during the day they see me dressed professionally. And when I go to those other spots in town with a ball cap and shorts, I say hello to some of my members and they don't recognize me. So that's always kind of humorous whenever a couple of days later they'll call or text and say, Sorry, I didn't recognize you at Walmart and so
05:11.278 Brandon Burton
It's nice to be able to go out incognito every now and then, isn't it?
05:15.924 Becki Womble
It is, it is. Cause you know, I can't even get a pedicure sometimes without having to talk, you know, business. So yeah, it is it is nice.
05:25.486 Brandon Burton
That's right. Just rub a little dirt on yourself before you got in public. Yeah. Yeah.
05:31.15 Becki Womble
But I do love travel too. And one thing that a board facilitator helped me with and taught me many years ago was that he suggested joining a chamber in each community that you travel to. And so that's something that we've done as a family the last several years. the last chamber I just joined was the Rockport Fulton Chamber, and so that's just something that I do and I tell when I go in it's a one year membership, but I'm here traveling and I just join the chamber for a year in each town that I travel to.
06:07.672 Brandon Burton
That's really interesting. I've never heard of anybody doing that before. not to get off too much on a tangent there, but I I assume you've learned a few things from joining these chambers that you go and visit their their town in or their city. has there been, you know, things that stood out to you maybe as you s get receive communication from these chambers during that one year membership?
06:31.288 Becki Womble
Well, you know what, that is what is so awesome about the chamber industry is that everybody is so willing to share. you know, it's just you can take someone else's idea and, you know, put your own twist on it and make it your own. And so that's that's one of the my favorite things about working with chambers and working with my fellow peers and professionals.
06:56.79 Brandon Burton
That's great. And that's kind of hope what we what we hope to have people get out of this show is to be able to get ideas from people and tweak it and apply it to their own chamber and you know, take those ideas and run with it. So as we move into the the topic of conversation today, building relationships with community partners. maybe to start off, what what's one word that describes what you do as CEO of the Chamber of Commerce.
07:30.708 Becki Womble
that is very easy. I think the word connectivity to me is describes in a nutshell what I do every single day is connecting members with you know, resources, connecting members with elected officials when they have issues, but connectivity is the one word I think that describes what I do every day.
07:53.836 Brandon Burton
I think that's a perfect perfect summary of what you do and what a chamber should do is be that connection, that that that point of introduction, even you know, from the community to others. That's perfect. can you share with us why you're so passionate about building community partnerships and and why they're important?
08:16.174 Becki Womble
Well, I I've worked for a couple of chambers and what was so intriguing whenever I came to Bassdrop was the fact that there was already some great community partnerships in place. I really think that some of that goes back to the horrific wildfires that this community had back in twenty eleven and then repeated in twenty fifteen. But we found that if people did not have connections to the community that they did not rebuild and did not stay. They just moved on and moved away. And so I think that those tragic events really caused us to build better relationships and get to know our neighbors and take care of our neighbors and check on our neighbors. And that has flown over into relationships with our city government, our county government, our school district, our Bastrop EDC and I think it really strengthens a community. unfortunately, the community that I came from, you had different entities on different corners of a wagon pulling the wagon in different directions and pulling the wagon apart than trying to pull it the same direction on the dirt road. And so we have something here in our county that we call BEST leadership. And BEST is an acronym for Bassdrop Elgin Smithfield Texas leadership. And so We don't only work together as a community, but we work together as a county because we are rural Texas. And you when you introduced me, you said that we are a suburb. We don't like being called a suburb of the Austin area.
09:57.11 Brandon Burton
I I'm trying to picture people outside the area. That's the the best I can explain. But yes, Yar rule.
10:03.576 Becki Womble
Yes, we are. We're very rural Texas. and I'm just I'm just giving you a hard time because our mayor makes sure that we're not called a suburb. So but back on the topic, you know, I just feel like that it benefits our community as a whole when we work together and we can just build a stronger community. And here in Bastrop, you You don't even sometimes know or understand if you're an outsider or not involved with, you know, this the city government or the county government. Sometimes you don't even realize who does what because we work so well together, whether it's our own individual events and volunteering at eat at each of them. in fact we just did a what we called a breakfast spites and invited people in and we had all the entities up there talking about what they do. and how they support the other ones. So a lot of times, you know, obviously people think that chambers are part of a government entity, but obviously we're not. We're an independent body and independent organization. But it we just I think that it's just vital for a self, a healthy, successful community that's gonna move forward.
11:19.094 Brandon Burton
That's great. I I think you you kinda answered this next question a little bit as you're explaining that. And you know, you'd given an example of with the the horrific wildfires that that affected you guys there in Bastrop and how you're able to see the the people in the community that were connected tended to stay where the ones that were not connected left. Are there any other examples of benefits that you can see to the community or your membership from being connected in that kind of a way.
11:53.796 Becki Womble
yeah, example. I don't know if you've heard of the small business revolution. I think it's in season four now. But last year we made it to the top twenty of the small business revolution and then ended up finding out we were in the top ten and then we got into the top five and then ended up coming in second behind Alton, Illinois. But because of that, initiative that was speared by our Main Street program. because those relationships and connections were already in place, it truly became a community event for all of us to pull together and make sure that on social media we were hashtagging my bastrop, my bastrop, my bastrop and everything we did. you know, me and the Main Street director went several stories up on a billboard and and for better lack of we graffiti the billboard with the hashtag mybastdrop, but Yeah, check it out. It's out there. but because those relationships were in place, you know, that event last year was huge and it was an it got us nationwide publicity. And because those relationships are in place, we all pulled together instantly, you know, to benefit our community and you know, teach teach our business community some new things about getting on social media and promoting their business. So
12:53.73 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
13:21.632 Becki Womble
Anyways, you just never know where I'll go with, you know, what might come your way.
13:25.462 Brandon Burton
That's neat. Yeah, we'll have to put a link to the your graffiti art in the show notes so people can check out how talented you are.
13:35.142 Becki Womble
I didn't notice those cheerleading skills of painting run through signs would benefit me 30 plus years later. But I mean really it came together in, you know, a couple hours. we were at an event and one of my members owned this billboard and she was looking for somebody to lease it. And I said, we'll we'll find you somebody. I found you one last time and and all of a sudden just popped in my head. I said, could we hashtag it with my Bastrop? And You know, when I got the go ahead to do it, I mean all of a sudden we had a bucket truck from the city out there. We had paint, you know, we had filming equipment and anyways, like I said, you go to YouTube and search my my bath drop and you'll find the video.
14:16.31 Brandon Burton
That's perfect. That's funny. so obviously I mean the the goal of having these strong community relationships would be to benefit the community, benefit your members. But what value is provided to the chamber as you develop these relationships?
14:33.95 Becki Womble
I mean to the chamber, I mean, example, I you know a couple months ago, well, gosh, I guess it's been almost a year now, but we've had a couple new overpasses in our in our community that had been built on 71. And you know, I had an apartment community that was concerned about the access road and how it was gonna affect access to her apartment community. Well, you know. because of those relationships are in place and we we knew who to contact from TechSot, which is you know obviously a very large organization, the state of Texas, we were able to get that that apartment owner in contact with Text Dot and pull together a meeting so that you know her concerns could be met and discussed and a few adjustments were made and you know everybody was happy. you know another time you know it's a sign company who's having you know, issues with the sign ordinance, you know, and sometimes it's just making a couple calls and making sure we can bring some parties to the table and talk it out and figure out what what's gonna benefit everybody and and get everybody's point of view to come up with a common solution. so it benefits the business community by having those relationships and keeping, you know, a business owner from getting frustrated with processes that they're not used to dealing with. I mean personally here at the chamber right now we We have a 99 year lease on a billboard. And you know, I'm I'm working through stuff with, you know, the planning department to make sure that that billboard has a tourism sign on it. So again, just having those relationships in place, knowing who to call, you know, knowing, you know, different business people in town and getting them connected so that they can do business with each other, it just benefits your economy and just makes you more successful.
16:25.32 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. so what what do you do to build these relationships? Are there certain events that you put on in the community or what do you do to drive community engagement?
16:39.15 Becki Womble
Well, one thing, our board of directors is made up of fifteen elected board members, and then we have we can have up to eight appointed or ex officio members. typically we use four of those spots, one being the city, another being the county, the school district, and then the bassdrop EDC. So that we're coming to the table, and I don't want to say breaking bread, but you know, we have coffee and stuff at our board meeting. But there's there's something about having that. conversation with people and and bringing them to the family table and having those relationships in place. As leaders, we do have something we call our Bastrop Community Partners. And second Wednesday of every month, you'll find us all at Anita's and meeting together to talk about what we've got going on and what we need help with and just sharing, you know, what's going great and and leaning on each other when You know, we're having challenges. So I just think that that constant communication and dialogue month in and month out is just vital. And then like I said, I mentioned about our our best leadership program. And again, that's a breakfast that we bring the county together once a month. And it's the county judge, it's the chamber directors, it's the superintendents from the schools, it's the EDC directors from the communities. Sometimes commissioners attend, but we even invite our state rep and our our US congressmen. So we're all coming together face to face and talking and so much can be right into email or a text message, but I think there's something about having that dialogue face to face.
18:20.736 Brandon Burton
I would totally agree. In fact, as you were explaining all that, just a little bit of background for the listeners. we had met just a few months back as I was doing the the ad sales for your directory with with community matters, but as you were just talking, it reminded me, you know, right away you had said, you know, every Wednesday, I think it was Wednesday night, that you know, everybody gets together at this Mexican restaurant and you gotta come hang out and you know, get to meet everybody and it was the the act of inviting, you know, that I think gets people out, gets people involved and really promotes that face to face interaction that gets beyond the email and this the the digital way that people tend to go. So I think y not only are you telling us, but I saw, you know, real life example of, you know, inviting and and getting people out face to face. So
19:15.654 Becki Womble
Yeah, that's a kind of a Wednesday night tradition. it's called Gualahara. And it's what me and my family have done for gosh, 10 or 11 years. And it's the one time I a week that I know me and my boys and my husband are gonna sit down at the table, put our cell phones aside and talk about life, you know. so but we we do, we invite others to come along too. but again, like I said, it's just taking the time and I I think sometimes in our society today we don't take the time to build relationships and it it does take time to develop them.
19:46.572 Brandon Burton
You're absolutely right. It it it it gets too easy to send a text message or an email. So anything you can do to to get personal really helps. So what what kind of things can the chamber do? your chamber, other chambers, you know, people that are listening to help smaller businesses find a voice in their community.
20:09.058 Becki Womble
Well, I think the biggest thing is just letting letting your business community know that that's what the chamber's there for is you know to help them make connections. your chamber's there to be on the front lines for you every day so that you can be in your business running your business. And just knowing don't sit there and and get frustrated in business because you have an issue, a challenge, you can't get a sign up, you can't, you know, get this, that or the other done. is reach out to your chamber because they have those connections. They know who the players are in your community. And just not being afraid to ask for help so that you can be successful. I mean, I just think that's the biggest thing is just don't sit there and let it fester. Reach out to your chamber because they are there to help. That's what they're there for. And there's the voices of business are so much more powerful when you have numbers. And so you know, that's that's what you That's why you have a membership is to let us help market you and be an advocate for you.
21:12.258 Brandon Burton
So that's a good point. I know as I work with other chambers, occasionally I'll come across a chamber member that says, you know, the chamber doesn't do anything for me. I you know, I don't see any value in it and things like that. I didn't hear that at all in Bass Trop, by the way. But I think that's because of your yeah. I I think that's because of your approach of being approachable. You know, letting these small businesses know that we're here to serve you and come to us with your issues and your concerns and help us let us help be an advocate for you to find success in your business. So I think that's something that, you know, any any chamber can take as do whatever you can. And I think it goes back to being personable with these individual members, but be approachable so they feel like they can come to you with their issues and and then once you are approachable, help them. Solve some of those problems that they have.
22:06.926 Becki Womble
Well, I think one of the reasons why we're so approachable is we're very active on social media. I have very creative staff and they they push me to the edge of my creativity and comfort level sometimes, but we do a lot of videos, we do a lot of fun stuff to get interaction from our members. So they see our faces out there a lot, so they know who the chamber is. we obviously are try to be very active in other organizations that need volunteers. we we want to give back because you know the chambers based on people volunteering. And so we want to do the same thing for other organizations. But like I said, we're I think that's why we're so approachable is people see us on social media all the time because we're always doing fun stuff and posting neat things or making funny videos. So we have an annual staff video that we do every year for our banquet. And so People look forward to that every year to see what the chamber's done this year. So I think that's how we become personable.
23:10.06 Brandon Burton
I think that those are good points. Leveraging the social media like that and allowing people to kind of get an insight into the chamber and your personalities and and characteristics that will help them to feel like they know you before they've really developed that relationship. Yep. so what kind of initiatives does the Bastrop Chamber have to educate membership on community issues that affect them?
23:35.812 Becki Womble
we have two major initiatives that we're focused on right now. one is what we call we believe in BISD, and it is strictly an initiative to talk about the great things that are going on in our school district. unfortunately in the state of Texas, public school funding has been cut drastically. I think it's gone from like 52% to 38% from the state. So obviously that's gonna be a huge issue. on the state level this year. but it it's hard for an organization to talk about and tout their own successes. So we the school district is developing our future workforce. And so that partnership is vital. I mean we're we're in the same ecosystem together. They're developing the people that we're gonna be hiring in our businesses. And I have a great story. We have another initiative called We Believe or called Bastrop Votes. And that was started in January of 16. And not sure why we decided to do that on a presidential year, but we did. And we had six candidate forms that year. And it was absolutely crazy. But we worked with the school district and we have a great A D department through our school district. And so they had students that were behind the cameras. it was the equipment from the city. And then we used the performing arts center at those at the school district. And we live streamed all these candid forums. And one of the students that was behind those cameras in that spring of 2016 is somebody I hired to work for me about two or three weeks ago. So now when we go into the schools and we're telling these teachers and listening to their stories, their good their good news stories about what's going on. I have a good news story to tell them. A student that was a product of our school district is now an employee of mine. And so when I say you're developing our future workforce, I have a direct example of that. And so that initiative is again just to tell teachers thank you for what they do and let them know how important it is what they do and tell the great things that are going on in public schools because they get trashed all the time. And as we know, one you know unfortunate incident.
25:59.608 Becki Womble
Can, you know, put a real black eye on the school district or an organization. And so we want to talk about the great things that are happening. but again, the second initiative I alluded to was the backdrop votes. And it's just an initiative to promote the vote in our county, try to get pro-business candidates elected to office. And anyways, it's we do these forums every time we have an election, and there's descriptions of the positions that are people are running for. there's information about how to get registered to vote, voting dates. And so again, it's called bashrop votes dot com. And anyways, those are the two main initiatives that we've got going.
26:45.122 Brandon Burton
So I like the example with the the school district, bringing that full circle to be able to have that example to say, you know, we're not just, you know, giving you lip service, but we're practicing what we preach. what are how do you get the word out to the community about these initiatives? What what kind of marketing do you put into it or just what what's your strategy like?
27:07.326 Becki Womble
well, the we believe in BISD, we have it has its own independent Facebook page and the school district is very instrumental in helping us post to that about the things that they've got going on. we go out and we do campus visits yearly and we visit all 17 campuses in the district. involved in that is usually two to three sponsors from the community. And we go in there and take them snacks and drinks and then we usually fulfill a wish list item. And it might be something silly like you know, a popcorn machine that they want to do for, you know, special field days or extra laminating, you know, because their budgets are so tight. But it gets our business community into the schools so they can hear what their needs are. And then also we we hope to create partnerships where when know a school's having a science fair or they're having a field day and need volunteers or they just need greeters on the front curb on the first day of school. We can bring business people, you know, out of their businesses to the campuses and again try to forge those relationships. It has its own website as well where we post information about our sponsors and just testimonials about great things that are happening in the school district. And then our Bass Rot Votes Initiative has its own website as well that's updated during election time. So, you know, we're always again using social media and posting out information about those initiatives.
28:45.858 Brandon Burton
That's great. so and as you look at overall these you know, building these community relationships, how would you summarize the how d how do building these relationships make your chamber more effective?
29:03.976 Becki Womble
wow, that's a great question. again, I think it's it's going back to just knowing who to call when you need to get something done. knowing who to call so that you can work through a challenge that you might be having. again, just bringing people to the table together to talk about issues. I think it just it it just makes us more effective because we already have those relationships in place and You know, we can not make it difficult for someone to do business here. so again, I think it's just the communication aspect and just knowing knowing your family. I mean, that's what they are. They're our family.
29:48.318 Brandon Burton
Yeah. So I like that yeah, everything you had to say there. I as you're as you were just talking, I was thinking, you know, this is January right now as we're recording this. And you know, maybe a chamber wants to to make a resolution to build stronger relationships in their community. what what would be one you know plan of action, one actionable item? that somebody listening right now could implement in their chamber right away to start building stronger relationships.
30:23.254 Becki Womble
Ooh, that's a great question too. I think an action item would be is that you know to sit down again call up that city manager, call up that county judge, your mayor or whoever it is, and go sit down, have a cup of coffee, go to lunch, go to breakfast, and just really get to know each other on a personal level. So that way you have you know why they may feel a certain way and you can understand. them better. But just to sit down one on one and have a conversation and break bread together.
31:05.292 Brandon Burton
That's perfect. I think yeah, I mentioned it before, but I think you know what you and and your staff are doing there at the Bastrop Chamber are really our examples of building these relationships. And I'd I'd mentioned briefly earlier that yeah, I would I handled the the ad sales for your guys' membership directory with with community matters. And throughout that process and meeting with your members and the you know the businesses in the community. I was really able to see, you know, the level of respect that everybody had for the chamber, everybody wanting to be involved and connected. And you know, kind of a an unusual thing is I I don't think I don't I can't remember exactly, you know, what kind of stats I told you about the the sales process, but I think we only had one or two advertisers from the year before that did not renew, which is very unusual f you know, as we work with. all these different chambers. but it's telling me that they see the value that they're getting out of their membership and being involved and being connected. And as you know, we were able to double the the sales volume from the the previous year. Yeah. but you know, I I say thank you too, because if if you weren't doing your part, it you know, it'd make our job a lot harder. And it it definitely wouldn't have gone as well. So thank you.
32:19.63 Becki Womble
Thank you for the chance. Yes.
32:33.754 Brandon Burton
as we wrap up, I wanted to ask just, you know, as you as you look into the future of chambers, the chamber business, what does it look like to you? What what changes do you anticipate or do you hope to see?
32:49.804 Becki Womble
Well, again, I alluded to this earlier. You know, there's so much with social media and text messages and just technology and the way that we communicate. And I think it's gonna be real important for chambers to continue to focus on those personal connections and taking time to build those relationships. Just going back to, you know, the the topic that we were talking about today and you know, building relationships with our community partners, I think that they're gonna have to focus on continuing to make time to do that. And again, not relying on technology and email communications and that kind of stuff. And but at the same time, on the flip side, I think chambers are going to have to use social media to continue to promote themselves and and market their their business community. So it's kind of a double-edged sword. You've got to have balance of both. But I think the most important thing is having those personal relationships. to remain relevant and being able to connect your people that need to be connected together.
33:53.902 Brandon Burton
That's perfect. I appreciate you, you know, giving your time today, Becky, and being with us on the Chamber Chat podcast. I think you've brought some value that our you know listeners can apply and strive to develop stronger relationships with their community partners and membership and to really to advocate for the the businesses in their community. thank you so much for for being with us today. And
34:18.666 Becki Womble
Thank you for asking me. Thank you for asking me.
34:21.23 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. just for anybody listening, if if they wanted to get in contact with you and maybe dig into a little deeper with some of the questions that you answered, is what are what's a good way for somebody to reach out to and get in contact?
34:37.373 Becki Womble
my email is B is in Becky, last name womble, W O B L E at bastropchamber dot com. And I am perfectly fine with people having my cell phone too, if you feel like that's appropriate.
34:52.81 Brandon Burton
that's up to you. You know what? We can put it in the show notes and if people wanna to to look for it there, they can do that.
34:59.862 Becki Womble
As I as my husband says, it's always on. I think yesterday morning it was about fifteen percent by about ten forty five because I'd been on it so much. But yeah, they're more than welcome to call me on my my cell phone here at the office. I always I mean, again, I think it's about personal relationships and like I said earlier, I think sharing with other chambers in the industry is just vital and that's what I love about this business. And if I ever don't have a smile on my face, it's time for me to change jobs. So but I do love what I do.
35:31.97 Brandon Burton
That's great. Well and I can see it with with how you go about doing things. So keep up the good work and and again, thank you for for being with us today on the show and hope hope everybody got a lot of value out of this conversation. If you are enjoying the Chamber Chat podcast, I would invite you to share this podcast with your colleagues in the chamber industry. And if you've not done so already, please hop onto Apple Podcast to leave a five star review for the show to help us be seen by more chamber professionals so we can continue To learn, inspire, and grow from each other. Of course, you can always find the link to the show notes for this episode in your podcast app or at Chamberchatpodcast.com slash episodes. Again, thank you for being here. I look forward to chatting again next week.

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

Episode 2 — Membership models-"Fair Share" vs. "Tiered" with Page Michel
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Page Michel
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.
00:14.798 Brandon Burton
Hello and welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. This is your host, Brandon Burton. Thank you for joining us today for our first interview episode on the show. Today we have Page Michel with us. Page is the president and CEO of the Washington County Chamber of Commerce in Brenham, Texas. Brenham is one of my favorite places because it is home to Bluebell Creameries, which makes the best ice cream. Page's background includes over twenty five years of experience in public rel public relations. Client engagement, event planning, government relations, and nonprofit association management. She is originally from the East Coast, raised in New York and Miami before becoming a Texan. In Texas, she's lived in Dallas and Houston before moving to the country in Central Texas. Page graduated from Western Carolina University in North Carolina and has her IOM certification from the U.S. Chamber Institute. She also completed several years of coursework with the University of Oklahoma Economic Development Institute. Her career began in Miami and Fort Lauderdale working for PR firms. In Texas, she began working exclusively with nonprofit organizations on their PR programs. For the past thirteen years, Page has served as shared president for the Washington County Chamber of Commerce, the Convention and Visitors Bureau, and the Brenham Economic Development Foundation. Page is an active volunteer with several state and local organizations, including the Texas Chamber of Commerce Executive Association, the Gulf Coast Chamber Executives, and the Rotary Club of Washington County. She and her husband Vince have two sons, one soon to be daughter in law, and one bonus son, an exchange student from Germany. Now I first met Page about ten years ago as I was the sales rep with Community Matters to handle. the Washington County Chamber map. Right away I was impressed with Brenham and Washington and the Washington County Chamber of Commerce, not only because of Bluebell, but because I could see the influence that the chamber had in their community. Just as a point of reference, usually as I sell ads for most chamber maps, we expect the sales process to take anywhere from three to five weeks. The last time I sold the map for the Washington County Chamber, we were sold out after just seven days.
02:40.43 Brandon Burton
To me that's a sign that things are going great at the chamber. I'm glad to have Page with us today to give us a little insight as to what goes on over there in Brenham, Texas. So Page, I know I just shared your bio, but can you say hello to the audience and also share maybe just one thing about you that would help the audience get to know you a little better? Maybe a hobby, interest, or interesting fact about yourself?
03:06.168 Page Michel
Sure, I'll be happy to, and thanks for having me on the show, Brandon. I hope that whoever's listening wants to get more information about operating the chamber. That's what we're here to talk about today. A little bit about me, aside from all the business information you read. I have always been occupied by things related to my kids. I know a lot of people are like that. I was a Sunday school teacher for eighteen straight years, you know, following them through the kids program into junior high and then a youth teacher and now my two sons are in college and daughter in law, but they are all performers, musicians and actors. So I, as a mom, am always traveling to their performances, which are always great and it's my joy. I go to lots of shows in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, but also some of the small towns in Texas. Smaller, like Conroe, Nathasota, Bryan College Station, San Marcus, Granbury. I really get to see these other towns and a little bit of their nightlife and I love doing that. And also rotary is a big part of my life outside of the office.
04:12.396 Brandon Burton
That is really interesting. I d I had no idea about your children being in the entertainment and that that that's neat. It gives you an opportunity to get around and have some good sources of entertainment and like you said, to see other parts of the states and there's other small towns and and how they operate. That's it.
04:29.9 Page Michel
Exactly.
04:32.206 Brandon Burton
So you're with us today to discuss some differences in membership models, specifically some differences between tiered dues and fair share of membership models. I understand that your chamber just recently went through a change in membership structure. Can you tell us how and when the Washington County Chamber decided that this is a move that you guys needed to make?
04:57.622 Page Michel
Yes. Well, I learned about the trend from about dues, you know, income in two thousand and ten when I started going to the U.S. Chamber Institute. that is where we all learn, you know, the latest trends in membership management and moving from what's known as the fair share model, which most chambers started in over a hundred years ago, where how many employees do you have translates to how much dues you pay. The trend is for different tiers, different levels. cost is different for different levels that would include different benefit packages. So that makes sense. That's how people choose their cell phone minute plans or their cable plans. People want choice. Well after I graduated from yeah, after I graduated from Institute, I sent our chambers membership manager and she went through her four years and she began hearing the same thing about the trend. And it was very important for us to have her complete buy-in because she would be, you know, over that with the membership and a transition completely changes the way you do business. So I don't know a lot of people that just want to go in and say, I want completely change the way we do business, but for the good of the organization we really learned it was necessary to stay relevant. And so in two thousand thirteen the American chamber executives published a white paper on revenue models for chambers. I shared that with our board. I finished Institute, our other staff went to the institute, so by two thousand fourteen, I think we were pretty much ready. At our board's annual planning retreat, we had a major discussion about this and we formed a tier dues review task force. We needed the whole board now to be on with us now that our staff was. We had to bring all of these volunteer leaders up to speed. And the task force remained in place through two thousand fourteen and two thousand fifteen and at the very same time we were planning for our chamber centennial. Our one hundredth anniversary was in two thousand seventeen and so we were thinking, gosh, do we do all that and change the way we do business in the same year? I mean, it was this a good thing to do we we wanted to make sure the message to the members was this is not a dues increase. You know, that's something that you have to be careful about.
07:22.586 Page Michel
the statistic is that generally when a chamber transitions to the tier dues model, they will see about a twenty percent increase in revenue. So we knew that, but that's not what this was about. But as things were going through 2016, we held five focus group sessions with members from all different industries and different sizes. We wanted to run this by them all. And the new membership model was formally launched. in two thousand seventeen, our centennial year. So that was last year. And it ended up being about eighteen months for the actual transition, preceded by about three years of planning.
08:02.686 Brandon Burton
three years of planning. So as you started to implement some of those changes first of all, was it would you say it was difficult to get your board on board with changing it to a tiered structure? Or did they jump on board right away?
08:21.312 Page Michel
I well anyone that's in a chamber, anyone that's listening knows we are getting educated ourselves in our field, but every year we get three or four or five or seven new bosses, so to speak, and we do have to educate them on things. So there was a process to get the board on board because they're coming from different fields and didn't really understand. But the beauty of it was nobody was opposed to it. Everybody gets it. From the get go, you're giving members choice. There is no downside that. There is no downside to that, right? But how do you actually then flip your chamber to deliver that? That's where the work comes in.
09:05.47 Brandon Burton
So that that was kinda leading to my next question is how were you able to communicate to the your chamber membership that this was not a dues increase, but rather offering more services?
09:18.796 Page Michel
Well, beyond these five focus groups where we brought people in, we didn't really do any messaging about new changes coming. So that that was not a message going out. What we did instead was we created a really nice membership levels booklet that they could read. And we educated our ambassador volunteers whom we called the Washington County Blue Blazers, and we gave them this booklet that they could show to new businesses that really spoke their language. it clearly outlines what benefits are available at each level. You know, just like I said, it's like selecting your cable TV package or your cell phone service package. And I think prior to that it was difficult for a staff member or a blue blazer to go into a new business who's a restaurant or some kind of shop and say, How many members how many employees do you have? Here's what you need to pay to join this in quote club. They did not get what a chamber was. They weren't familiar. But now they could come around and say, here's a list of marketing benefits and credibility and things you could get by joining the chamber and everybody understood it. So the messaging went very well. I think that everything went smoothly and successful. It just makes sense to people. And we knew there would be a a positive change. But like I'm mentioning and we can talk more about this, it's actually the work inside the chamber. to completely transition that that takes a lot of time and planning. Because everything from in your operations, from how you invoice people and you know, all the levels, everything has to change.
11:01.302 Brandon Burton
Yeah, so tell me more about that with the as far as having the different levels, how are you able to keep track of who's at what level and what membership benefits they're taking advantage of and just can you expand a little bit more on that?
11:16.886 Page Michel
Yes. And I also want to mention to whoever's listening, I think a lot of chambers have already made this transition. I know that in the years two thousand fourteen and fifteen we studied a lot of our nearby chambers. We got their booklets and looked at but there are still many chambers that haven't done this. So the very first thing you have to do, you actually have to put on paper everything you do, all your benefits. And you think you may have that, we thought we did, but the more we studied other chambers booklets, we saw, there's so many things we do that we just don't even put into words. And so we hired a consultant to help us through the process. we selected Kathy Height as our consultant. A lot of people know her, and she's a teacher at Institute. She's helped a lot of chambers through the same transition. So she brought a lot of lessons learned. to our process. And once we got down on paper everything that we do, we were able to put them in different buckets, so to speak, and you know, the from the highest bucket down to the basic level. Once you do that, we had to figure out different pricing for the packages. And then we had to figure out which state at different levels. That was what a lot of the discussion was in the focus groups. What you know got people to choose a higher level, what needed the Yeah, yeah, basic that everyone got. And that was really the most difficult part of the process. There's so many things a chamber, in quote, just does. It's not until you actually see it in writing that you realize how much value you have, like just displaying brochures in your lobby. If you have five hundred or a thousand people through your office, that's a huge value. the value of the clock display in their business, you know, if it's attractive, that's that's a real value to them for their credibility. They're being eligible to be on committees and task forces. Wow. You know, that's not available to non members. just they're receiving our weekly emails to stay informed on the community. We've got a notary free, you know, on premises. There's so many things that we do that we hadn't thought to put in writing and and put in the different levels. So that was a lot of the work for us. Once we've got everyone on board is get it getting everything on paper.
13:38.042 Brandon Burton
So those are some great points. besides some of the obvious thoughts that come to mind, what are some of the the pros and cons to the two models? I know I mean with the pros you're able to choose your services, you know, like you you mentioned, like a a cell phone plan where you can pick and choose what you want. where the fair share it was just strictly on how many employees you have. So and that part seems pretty obvious to me, but what are some of the other pros and cons between the two different models.
14:09.57 Page Michel
Well, honestly, I can't think of any cons to move your chamber from the fair share method to the tiered dues process. I think that and this is funny, we hear this from some of our institute teachers. If you're asking the business every year how many employees they have and they're gonna get a bill in a way, you're asking them to lie to you once a year. Twenty five or below it's one price and twenty six to fifty another price. Hmm, what do you think they're gonna say if they've got you know, twenty six people. I mean it's kinda funny, but it's really
14:40.206 Brandon Burton
They'll either have res resentment towards you or they'll lie to you or maybe a little bit of both, right?
14:45.214 Page Michel
Right. Right. And so really just don't need to go through that. And nobody really understands anymore why if they have twelve employees or twenty seven it would make a difference in what they pay to the chamber. So rather telling a business here are things we can do for you to help you stand out from other businesses, to give you a competitive edge, which grouping of services do you want this year? That makes total sense to them. So that's a pro. And we knew that When we were talking to the other chambers around the state and seeing their lists of different tiers and benefits, we saw we really learned from each other. And we we say when we go to our state meetings and regional meetings and we learn from each other's experiences, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. It's something chambers are great at doing. We get together and we share and we call it R and D for rip off and duplicate.
15:41.838 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Yeah.
15:45.922 Page Michel
We learn from each other and we're happy to share.
15:49.358 Brandon Burton
Well and that's kind of the the point of this show also, of this podcast, is to rip off and duplicate, really. You know, what what's working well for a chamber and and take some of those tips and strategies and implement it into your own and you know, see the benefits that come from that. so what like you you had mentioned, you don't really see any cons to switching to the fair share I'm sorry, to the tiered model. Why would a chamber be hesitant to make the change. Would it you think it would just be out of fear of people not renewing or not understanding the the communication of it all? Why would somebody chamber hang on to it?
16:31.596 Page Michel
Yes, all of those comfort zone. That's what I think. I think that if you're doing business one way and things are fine, why would you want to change everything? It is hard. But the reason is for future relevance to stay relevant in the new millennium. I mean, to be relevant in the coming years and there's a lot of good information about this online, both through A C C E and other sources. You just you have to do this to stay relevant. That's my personal feeling. And we wanted to know if we made this change, how would we know we were successful? What would that look like to the members? What would that look like to us? And there's basically three key ways to measure your success. First is your total dues income. You can measure from year to year how much you make in your dues. Number two is how many members do you have and how many new members did you gain that year? And the third key way to measure a chamber's success is your retention rate. How many members are you keeping year over year? And I am happy to say I just crunched some numbers before the show. Our chambers tran since our chambers transition, we experienced over sixteen percent increase in dues income. So that feels very good to us. It's a very yeah positive sign. Like I said, we didn't do this for a dues increase, but it's kind of icing on the cake, right?
17:59.31 Brandon Burton
Well I and I would imagine you know, some chamber or some members may be paying less in dues, but you'd probably have more members, which would come to your your second point there. if you have more members paying a little less, but they're getting services that match what they're paying for their membership, in the end, it sounds like everybody wins. Is that what you saw with the number of members increasing?
18:22.974 Page Michel
Right. And you just hit the nail on the head with one of the key fears. some of the board members are afraid. You know, if you give everyone th these packages, what if some of our top members choose the lowest package? Well, you know what? If that's what they think of what they get from the chamber, that's so be it. That is our job is to work hard to give benefits that want to move everyone up to the higher tiers. But really need to give the member that choice. And The statistics told us, our consultant told us, you know, like I said before, typically chambers see about a twenty percent increase, and so you have to move forward with it. And so we did. We saw a sixteen percent increase, which has been great. Then in our number of new members, which we track every year, we had about the same number of new members in the year of our after our transition as the prior year. And by the way, I hadn't told you yet about our chamber. We have we are a countywide chamber, the Washington County Chamber is. We've got three or four small towns in our county and then Brenham is the county seat. We have eight hundred and thirty members, which is a really good size for a rural chamber. We see anywhere from sixty to seventy to eighty new members a year. And the year we launched our transition, we had seventy-seven new members, and then last year we had sixty-six new members. Now we don't do a membership drive. at all during the year. Some chambers do that and they'll gain a couple hundred members at a time. We are measuring our retention rate. but the key thing I wanted to say is in twenty seventeen, our transition year, we didn't lose a single member.
20:04.852 Brandon Burton
Not one. Really? That is impressive.
20:08.875 Page Michel
Yes, I know.
20:11.118 Brandon Burton
So for any any chamber out there that's scared about the transition Yeah. Here here's here's some proof that you that you guys did not lose any members at that transition. That's amazing.
20:22.828 Page Michel
It's amazing. And then here's the final membership measurement, the retention rate. So we had been measuring measuring that in the years before the transition, our chamber was already at a very high retention rate of eighty seven percent. And they tell us at Institute that for a membership organization, anything over eighty percent is a very good retention rate. So we were at eighty seven, which we were very happy about. And then the subsequent years to that we hit ninety percent and we were thrilled. The last Yeah, last year after the transition, we measured the retention rate ninety four percent.
21:00.064 Brandon Burton
Wow. That is amazing. It is amazing. It's almost unheard of. Yeah.
21:05.194 Page Michel
No, and that's so the businesses that we lose during the year are for, you know, they're moving or closing their doors, which is always sad, but that's inevitable. So we're very happy overall with the suc success of this transition.
21:19.502 Brandon Burton
That is awesome. So in the end, how many how many tiers did you guys end up offering as you switched to the tier model?
21:27.692 Page Michel
That is great question. We have five tiers and anyone that's interested can go to our chamber website and take a look at our booklet. It's a PDF, you know, stored on our website under Join This Chamber. And our website is www.brenhamtexas dot com. Brenham, Texas all spelled out dot com. And so we had and I should mention for those looking into this, we had a a quasi tiered basis for ten years before the transition. early on we knew and we heard, you know, at at conferences about tiers. So we had the fair share method, but optionally we had two high tiers, the presidential level and a chairman circle level. And some of our largest businesses chose those straight away. Some banks, you know, Bluebell Creameries, Germany Insurance are great, large businesses in Brenham. But the other eight hundred and you know, twenty members were still just fair share methods. So we had to at the start. And after everything was said and done, we have a basic level, we have a business builder level, a business investor level, and then the presidential level and the chairman circle. So we have five levels. Plus, we also identified a separate little level called the chamber friend. This is for retired individuals or people who might just want to pay a small amount just to stay involved and get our emails.
22:52.554 Brandon Burton
Okay. That makes sense. So can you give us a few examples maybe of benefits offered at the different tier levels? Maybe at each tier just, you know, two or three benefits that your members would be able to see?
23:06.978 Page Michel
Yeah. And some of the most important mem member benefits are always tax name out in the world. Okay, they want business referrals. That makes sense. So getting their name into the chamber printed directory, very important. But online, making sure that they're found online on a very credible source, which is a chamber website, that starts at the basic level. We believe in that. Everyone's going to get that. Plus a plaque to display, getting to put their brochures in the lobby. those are things that we feel all members should get. Then additionally, at the basic level, everyone, you know, gets into free into networking events or some have ticketed prices, and can serve on committees and be ambassadors. When you move to the next level, you think what's gonna get someone to invest a little bit more? There are growing businesses that have some unique needs, they want to get their name out there, and you know what? They may only have one or two employees. They may be a mom and pop shop but they want more. And so the Fair Share method would never allow that. But we have a level where they get additional listings on in the directory and online, additional ways for people to find them. They are able to display additional materials. They get featured in our weekly e blasts and business spotlights, things like that. They can also get our membership on labels that they can do mailings with them. They get tuition discounts on our leadership program. So you know you see there's some enhanced benefits just by moving up one level. And then in our next level Yeah, the business investor is a level where these are firms of all sizes who probably want more visibility, particularly online. And so we have a lot of good benefits from that. Plus we do a social media focus package. We will do videos at their business, share them online, they can reshare them. And while a business could do that for themselves, having a third party credible source do it for you throws you way, way up in the search results online. So that's something that we added. Then our presidential Yeah. Our presidential and chairman circle levels have a lot of prestigious things. They get invited to exclusive events with elected officials and things like that and plaques and recognition and all of our events.
25:30.156 Page Michel
And like I said, people can look that up on our website.
25:35.338 Brandon Burton
Okay. Yeah, and we'll we'll share that that PDF that you had mentioned in the show notes for this episode. so people can check that out and just click directly from the link there. In in coming up with the different benefits for the different tiers, did you find I know earlier you had mentioned that you had to start off just by really writing down, listing every service that your chamber offers. Did you find as you created the tiered package that you were creating new services, new benefits that you could offer? And if you did, how were you able to keep those benefits scalable?
26:13.72 Page Michel
Great questions. And yes and yes. So that was a big part of our transition, as I said before, was just getting everything down on paper with our staff, with our volunteers and our focus groups, and then putting them in the different buckets, you know, for the different levels. And then the thought to get people to go to the next levels, what would it be? And we did create a few new things, like the social media focus package and like having members in the different e blasts. And so some levels get that benefit once a year, the next level gets it every six months, the higher level gets it every quarter. So that's how we made it scalable.
26:52.248 Brandon Burton
That's great. I know I'd I'd seen some about you know, some chambers will maybe offer some consulting services. You have some time with the CPA or a marketing consultant. is that anything you guys considered or did you just strictly want to stick with what the chamber can offer?
27:12.15 Page Michel
Well, you know what? We do that for every member, starting at the basic level. When they join, we give them a lot of one on one attention and they can and do visit with all of our staff. We have what we call chamber one one a few times a year where they just come in and can have hands-on assistance and we will and we do we even sit down with members at their place of business, in front of their computers and help them with their social media. That's really why we're in the ninety percent retention rate is and you know, we're a smaller community, but we are able to get out there and do that with every member.
27:49.718 Brandon Burton
Yeah. And and like you mentioned, you being a smaller community, you guys have that advantage and it really really shows that the retention numbers and I'd encourage any of the smaller say smaller, but you know, eight hundred members or so to try to take advantage of, you know, having that personal contact with your members and help them with their marketing strategies and and things like that where you can. I know, you know, another option, maybe, you know, for a larger chamber is You know, if you have a chamber member that offers marketing consultation, maybe they would come on board and be part of that tiered package where they could offer their services at a discount, but maybe see, you know, new customers coming their way just by having that interaction with more businesses, you know, that join at that certain membership tier. that's just a a thought for some some larger chambers.
28:42.954 Page Michel
It is. And we do see that when we got booklets from other chambers. I mean, we probably looked at thirty. We for like two years were collecting from so many chambers of all different sizes. And some of them are able to do the mentoring like you know what you mentioned, some business to business discounts. There are great ideas out there. So I de I definitely stress working with a consultant and or just taking the time to look at what all other chambers are doing.
29:12.204 Brandon Burton
Right. So I I think my next question, I think you kinda answered earlier, when you talked about the the membership numbers and retention rates, but during this transition, did you have anybody that was unhappy?
29:28.202 Page Michel
Really we didn't. I know that there was one member who called and was just not happy about the change. You know, some people don't like change, but change is inevitable. However, you know, that so one thing that we implemented and our board agreed is we had two years that someone could stay at the fair share method. So two full cycles. They could still choose the old way before they had to make a chance. So we gave people time, time to you know, be become more informed and to choose their level.
30:01.902 Brandon Burton
That's great idea. I'm glad you shared that because a lot of people do kind of get in that mindset that no matter how good the offer is, they just don't want to change. You know, things have been good and why why fix something that isn't broken, right? So to give them that that time period to evaluate and maybe see what some of the other members are getting with the the new model will will help them bring them on board, you know, over that time period. what was what was the most difficult part during the transition? Was it the planning process? Was it implementing? Is it following through at the different tier levels? What would you say is the most difficult part?
30:39.468 Page Michel
Well, there were different phases and it was difficult throughout. It was moving everyone out of their comfort zone. So from my seat as the chamber president, getting each of the staff, you know, to embrace this and we we took our time, we sent our two additional managers through Institute so that they could embrace it, then moving our board and our own volunteers through it and then deciding with the board if we wanted to really invest in ourself and hire a consultant and we agreed that we did want that. Well then getting everything down on paper was the next and really the most difficult part of the process. And I can't stress that enough that I think the chambers should take the time and really identify all of those nuances, those things that you do. There's a value to that. And in our booklet, at the end of each of these benefits, we have in principles approximately what we value that as. you know, something is just worth fifty dollars, some things are worth two hundred dollars, five hundred dollars, a thousand dollars. I mean what if you had a ribbon cutting and had your photo and information about your new business in the local radio and newspaper, what would a business pay for that exposure, right? We need to think that way. What we're offering is this huge value. So taking the time with that and seeing what other chambers listed and we're like, yeah, we do that too, that was the most difficult part because it took eighteen months. But it was worth it.
32:06.178 Brandon Burton
Wow. So for the chamber folks that are listening, what direction would you give them to know when the time might be right for their chamber to make a change or to at least evaluate making a change in membership models?
32:19.404 Page Michel
Well, if there are chambers out there that haven't already done this or haven't fully done it, some of us have the mixed, you know, versions of it. I can't recommend more highly to get involved with your state and regional association. There are state chambers across the nation, they all have state conferences, many of us also have regional and share with your peers. I mean, just like they say in tennis, you want to play with a better player. So look at those chambers that you admire. Get their list of how they're doing their membership and study that, study that a lot. And then the Chamber U.S. Chamber Institute. We learn so much from those instructors. So I think just really getting educated is my number one tip.
33:01.452 Brandon Burton
I think that's sound advice. Just it's being stay staying up with the times, educating yourself and just keeping a pulse on your your chamber and the community and just try to really find when that time is right. Now as we as we kind of wrap things up here, I wanted to ask, as we all try to prepare for the future, kind of look at our our magic ball and look into the future. What do you see the future of chambers looking like and what changes do you anticipate or hope to see?
33:36.46 Page Michel
That is a great question. and that's something that we ask ourselves all the time. Certainly I feel like that's our job as chamber presidents to be looking ahead. Six months down the road, a year down the road, and then three and five years down the road. there is a great resource through the American Chamber of Commerce Executives, the Chamber Horizon Initiative, where they have identified eight key factors that we need to be looking at, and I would say every chamber exec needs to take a deep dive on that. You can find that online even if you're not yet a member of ACCE. But we also know that every chamber is different. Okay? We we like to say if you've seen one chamber, you've seen one chamber. Okay? They are not all the same. Yeah. And so ours, we're in a slightly smaller area. We're gonna be different from one of the big metro area chambers. But what I see the future of for our smaller area chamber is is to become like a marketing agency. And I say that over and over to our board and to the members. We are your local community marketing agency. So if we want we want to help small businesses have that competitive edge, how to stand out with their messaging in a very crowded field. And we can and we do do that. So they get that. Number two, I would say from an operational standpoint for the future, The chambers need to look at where they get their income from. If it can't all be some due, no matter how good your tiers are. And the guiding rule is about fifty fifty, dues income to non dues income. So what are those things your chamber is gonna do to have income that's not from due? Well many chambers do fundraisers like golf tournaments or taste of the town or things like that. And then we have ways that our big events get sponsored. There are many other ways to achieve nondues revenue and that's really what we are all sharing right now. We're learning from each other. What else are you doing besides, you know, just so that's the future. That's like the short term future. What are the things that a chamber can do with our limited staff and resources for non dues income?
35:53.72 Brandon Burton
That's great. Great advice to kind of be looking down the road and try to see what what you can do at your chamber to become that marketing agency. Be able to to help those members get their name out to the community and and really just drive more business to them. And in essence that's what a chamber's always been. But I think with times changing and social media and things digital and there's so many more options now for marketing and businesses are all different. you know, to as to what would be the best strategy for them. So I think that's a great point to a as a chamber to really know, you know, what you have to offer and and the direction you can point your members to. Thank you for that.
36:35.874 Page Michel
And I do want to tell you, Brandon, that we appreciate so much what you do with our project, with our community map, and that is a great source of non dues revenue and it's something that those members really value. So I also want to tell Chamber execs to reach out and bring those resources into your chamber if you're not already doing that.
36:55.79 Brandon Burton
Sure, I'd I I I'll just add a little bit to that. I you know I've heard some chambers, you know, hesitant to do an app or directory of some sort like that because they don't want to burden their members, you know, with with another cost. And you know, the the way we look at things is you know, it's advertising. And if it's something if it's a strategy that can work for them to drive more business to them, then it can't be looked at as an added cost to them, but it's a benefit that can add more business to them. So thank you for for mentioning that.
37:29.315 Page Michel
Yes.
37:31.29 Brandon Burton
well Page, I appreciate you, you know, coming on the show with us and sharing some of your insight and experience with this transition. if any of the listeners needed to get in contact with you or wanted more information about how you went through this transition, how can they get in contact with you?
37:51.31 Page Michel
Great. I'll give them two easy ways. First they can look for our website, which is our city name, city and state, Brenham Texas dot com B R E N H A T E X A S dot com and then I'll give them an easy email, they won't have to write down info at Brenham Texas dot com. So if they send that, we we will get that here and we will share with them all of our resources.
38:18.264 Brandon Burton
That's perfect. Thank you so much, Page. it's been a pleasure talking with you today. And I hope the listeners got a lot of value out of what you had to share. And for those that have not made the transition yet to a tiered model, I hope they can reevaluate maybe and I'm not trying to convince them one way or another, but maybe they can see the value of this and and maybe take a deeper dive into saying if this is something their chamber's ready to do. Okay. So you just Listen to my interview with Page Michel at the Washington County Chamber of Commerce. I hope you received some value out of this episode. If you have not changed membership models at this point, hopefully this episode gave you some compelling arguments why it might be something good to look into. And maybe you already have changed over to a tier dues membership. And if you have, maybe you got some ideas out of this of different levels of value that you can offer to different tier levels. Or just different ways to implement these tiered strategies. If you would like to access the show notes for this episode, they can be found at Chamberchatpodcast.com/slash episode two. And in the show notes for this week, we'll include the membership pamphlet for the Washington County Chamber of Commerce and the contact information for Kathy Heidt, who is the consultant who helped Page with her with the transition there at the Washington County Chamber of Commerce. Anyways, thanks for listening and we'll look forward to chatting with you next week.