Below is an auto-generated transcription. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.
Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.
Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your hosts Brandon Burton. And it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. You’re joining us for a special episode as part of our 2023 ACCE Chamber the Year Finalist Series.
Our title sponsor is Community Matters, Inc. With nearly 20 years in the chamber industry and over 100 media awards presented to their chamber partners, community matters provides the R&R that every chamber needs, revenue and recognition.
When it comes to publishing a Chamber Map directory or Community Guide, Community Matters has a trusted experience to help your chamber accomplish your goals. With different advertising sales models and publication styles, Community Matters will help you create a non-dues revenue machine!
Let’s hear from Becky Womble, President of the Bastrop Chamber to hear about her experience with Community Matters.
Becki Womble 1:03
I’ve been using Community Matters for probably six or seven years now. And in a previous life, I sold commercial printing so I can highly recommend Community Matters because it’s a complete turnkey job for any busy chamber exec and it’s a wonderful, beautiful printed product whenever you’re finished. And I just I’m very sold on Community Matters. And with a printing background I just big endorsement from me.
Brandon Burton 1:44
To learn how Community Matters can support your chamber with your next publication. Please visit communitymattersinc.com/podcast To request your free media kit and request a proposal to find out what kind of non-dues revenue you can generate.
Our guest for this episode is Jennifer Vincent. Jennifer is the President of the Cambridge Area Chamber of Commerce in Ohio. She has a associate’s degree from Zane State College holds a license and health and life insurance and has over 15 years of experience in sales and marketing. Jennifer is involved in several local organizations and boards throughout her community. She is a 2019 2020 graduate of leadership and Guernsey. She served as a leadership Guernsey administrator for the 2020 2021 class. She was named president of the chamber in June 2021 and served as leadership Guernsey administrator for the 2021 22 as well. Jennifer’s been married for two bow for 11 years together, they have seven children and three grandchildren. And her spare time she enjoys reading, reading, traveling and spending time with family. But Jennifer, we’re excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast, we’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you better.
Jennifer Vincent 3:12
Well, thank you for having me. I am happy to be on here. And I feel like all the interesting things about me you already talked about in the in my bio, as you said, in my spare time, which there isn’t a lot of that. But I love to run and a few years ago because of my love of running a friend and myself. We had started a run group. And we were doing things to give back to our community through our run group. And so we ended up turning that group into a nonprofit. And every year we hold race series and do some other events and then give all the money that we raise to local local charities local groups here in Guernsey County.
Brandon Burton 4:06
Nice. That is a that extra step quite literally that you took there. But that’s that’s neat. I like learning these things about people’s they have you on the show. Why don’t you take a few minutes and tell us a little bit about the Cambridge area Chamber just to give us an idea of the size of the chamber type a chamber staff budget, that sort of thing to kind of set the stage for a conversation.
Jennifer Vincent 4:32
Sure. So as you said in my bio, I guess my my story is that I came to the chamber. I officially started in July of 2021 after being named the president in June and our chamber had not had a president serving in this role for 17 months when I took this position And so through a retirement and some other things, and then of course, hate to say it, but COVID That was the reason, you know that we didn’t have someone in this job. So when I, when I came into the chamber, we were the size of it was about 390 and membership. And it was myself and the office manager. The office manager that was here was also in transition, and she was able to get her dream job. So she left right after I took this job. So there was a lot of transitioning going on. I hired a new office manager, I ended up after a year having someone also take over the leadership Guernsey program. So now we are a staff of three. And as of yesterday, we are now a membership of 500. So yeah, yeah, so over the last year and a half plus, I have added 142 new members.
Brandon Burton 6:22
That is fantastic. And that’s a largely what we’ll we’ll spend our discussion on today is the rapid membership growth. So it talks a little bit about the the transition everything going on there at the Chamber before you came in as you came in. But you’ve had a steep learning curve in the short time you’ve been there at the Chamber, but also making a big impact while you’re while you’re learning and getting your feet under you as well so excited to get into this discussion with you and and some of the things you’ve learned along the way as you’ve been doing this and we will dive in deeper in this conversation since we get back from this quick break.
Are you looking for a year round affordable and timely shop local campaign for your chamber or CVB Look no further build a custom each shop play mobile app with App My Community by visiting appmycommunity.com/chamberchat. App My Community mobile apps are not just simple membership directory listings. They provide many more capabilities to engage with your community. Provide your residents with a robust events calendar partner with a local fare festival or Farmers Market provide a schedule map and other resources to promote the event. Run a Small Business Saturday campaign any time of the year using built in scavenger hunts allow your membership to communicate directly to their customers via push notifications. Your app my community mobile app will be a unique member benefit allow you to generate non dues revenue with sponsorship opportunities and best of all provide a valuable resource to your community please visit appmycommunity.com/chamberchat now to receive 10% off your first year of an App My Community mobile app.
Exciting news! Introducing Pippily by Chamber Nation, the innovative solution to manage and promote your community for unstoppable growth.
Joining the Chamber of Commerce means one thing: COMMERCE. Businesses want to thrive, and Pippily is here to make that happen.
With Pippily, your members can experience remarkable benefits even if they can’t attend events. It’s a game-changer for retention.
Say goodbye to ordinary directories and embrace a transformative Commerce Management System. Unlock the true power of commerce management.
Picture a centralized Pippily dashboard, combining top mobile technologies for subscriptions, event registration, community communications, and more. It’s incredible!
Don’t miss out. Visit Pippily.com to learn more. That’s P-I-P-P-I-L-Y dot com. Schedule a demo at RichardsCalendar.com. It’s affordable and delivers more.
Pippily by Chamber Nation – your community’s future starts now!
Raquel Borges 9:18
Are you using chamber checks to keep shopping locally in your community? Then you know that schools, hospitals, city government and companies love buying them in bulk for their employees at the holidays. Now you can save yourself a lot of time and hassle with Yiftee, an online gift card that works exclusively at your members businesses. It’s free for you and free for your members. Email us at sales@yiftee.com. That’s sales@yiftee.com.
Brandon Burton 9:49
All right, Jennifer, we’re back. So you kind of set the stage for us as you came into the chamber you were taken over a role that had been vacant for about 17 months. A lot of transition a lot of moving parts, middle of a pandemic, lots of things happening. So as you came on board at the Chamber, I guess what did you see as your first priorities as you came on board in this position?
Jennifer Vincent 10:20
Um, I mean, it’s probably going to sound obvious, but, you know, coming into the job, it was basically just learning who the current members were, and reaching out to them. And, you know, just letting them know that after 17 months, that obviously now there’s someone in in the role, and seeing what it is they needed from the chamber, as well, as, you know, I was I was learning, learning the job, you know, and learning who all the members were. And, you know, my, my intention was not to come in and say, you know, my top goal was not, gosh, I want 500 members. I just wanted to bring everything back together. And again, I know, this is probably obvious to say, but we were in the middle of a pandemic. So there was not a lot of events and a lot of things happening. There were no business after hours. There were no fundraising events, there was no education programs, like there was just nothing going on. And so coming into it, I, you know, wanted to see, okay, what is it, we can get started back? You know, what events? Can we get started again, and have the networking in the community, to just to get everyone back together? So, I mean, that was kind of the first thing I did was, you know, learn who the members were, and what can I do for all of us to be together?
Brandon Burton 12:04
Yeah. So and that’ll, that’ll take you far, just learning who the members are and what you can do to advance the community. And naturally, I would see some, you know, membership uptick anyway, just by having somebody in the position now, you know, giving some attention to it. But as you have had more of a focus effort on building the membership, and and I don’t think you mentioned in the recording 500 is the highest that the membership has ever been there in Cambridge, right?
Jennifer Vincent 12:39
Correct. Yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s an that’s a new record.
Brandon Burton 12:43
So congratulations there. But as you started to focus your efforts on on building the membership back up, what were those key priorities had to do in the middle of pandemic express the value the, you know, the unique selling proposition that you had to put in front of members or potential members, as he began signing them up?
Jennifer Vincent 13:09
So, you know, as I said it, I guess, my first thing, again, wasn’t that I just, I wanted to hit that goal, you know, so I want to make that clear, I still want the chamber to be here to be that, that voice of business. And you know, it, I guess it, it was kind of like an organic type thing, right? I just when the board hired me, they said, We want you to think outside of the box, we don’t want you to feel like you have to do what the chamber next door does. You just take this and make it yours. And so I started with just simple little things. The when a new member joins the chamber, I would email them, which I still do, but I email them and say, you know, welcome to the chamber, I want to come and see you and bring your plaque and your membership plaque. And I want to get a picture with you. And so we would in the past that, you know, the chamber would take a picture of the member with their plaque and post it on social media. So I wanted to just change it up a little bit. I’m in the picture with them, handing them the plaque. And when I would post their picture on social media, it’s a picture of us together, and I tell what their businesses and what they do and how you can find them and, you know, just give them a little bit of that, you know, five seconds of fame and some advertising. And it kind of took off as far as like you said, I’m also here. So that helped with membership growth, having someone in the position and then the other thing was What I was thinking a couple of months in, you know, these new members, they’re getting time on social media on the chamber page. What are we doing for the members that have been here? 25 years, 50 years, you know, has people forgot that company XYZ joined the chamber 50 years ago? Of course they have. So what can I do for them. So after tossing around a few ideas, I created member of the week, and every Monday at noon on social media, there’s an article that pops up member of the week. And I started that in October of 21. And I’m, I’m very proud to say I’ve never missed a single Monday, including holidays, I still run the article. But what I do with that, I could very easily just email a questionnaire to that business and say, fill it out and send me a picture. But I actually go to the business. So for the last, I can’t do the math, you have to for me, how many weeks that’s been? So it almost two years. Yeah. Yeah, we’re going on almost two years. So for that many weeks, I have made an appointment with a different business before their articles gonna come out on Monday. And I go see them. I spend time with them. I asked them questions, to be able to write that article, I take pictures of their business, I take pictures of them. And every Monday at noon on social media, that article is posted member of the week, and it gives a little story about how they got started, how they think they’re successful, you know, and been able to be in business. 40 years, I’ve met with some businesses, they’ve been in business 100 years, you know, they’re carrying on the family business. Yeah. So I think that helping our community, remember who some of the members are that have been here, our chambers been in existence, 76 years, helping our community remember those members, I think has largely helped our growth as well. It’s, again, it’s just reminding our community who’s here, and who you should be doing business with
Brandon Burton 17:25
right now. And I think that’s a great approach that you’re taking, I love that you spend the time with each of those members to do that membership spotlight member the week. And as you brainstorm or as chambers listening, brainstorm other ideas. It can be made easy for in some sense that, you know, there’s a manufacturer’s week, you know, that’d be a great week to highlight all the manufacturers in your community. There’s no national ice cream day, you know, what members of your community serve ice cream? Yeah, highlight them tell a little story about them. There’s, I think every every day of the year, there’s some national day, you know, or whatever. So play that to your benefit and highlight them and you don’t have to do it that way. But it’s just an idea as you brainstorm and create your content calendar, which you’re going to put out there be intentional about who you’re reaching out to and why. And as Jennifer seen, it draws attention, it shows that value and keeps people engaged and in renewing their membership and bringing up those members that have been around seemingly forever. So get get creative with it. Think outside the box. So there are there other things as you were given that that directive to think outside the box that you explored and maybe things that worked and things that didn’t work even.
Jennifer Vincent 18:51
Um, yeah, so another thing we started doing know a lot of people use the term lunch and learn as a business meeting, whatever, once a month. And I wanted to just again, change the name a little bit change up what we do. So we call it power lunch. And we don’t hold it every month, because I chose to hold it the first week of the month. And we tend to hit a lot of holidays for some reason. So we ended up having power lunch about six times a year. And typically what we do with Power Lunch is the speaker is from a group or organization rather than let’s say, a business trying to advertise for themselves if that makes sense. So for an example, one of our speakers has been the director of the visitors and convention bureau. And now we still have someone sponsor, so The way it works is if you want to be a sponsor of power lunch, then that is a business, right? That’s doing it, you know, for profit. So they sponsor Power Lunch, they get two tickets to come and eat lunch. And they get 10 minutes to talk about their business before the main speaker. And it’s, that’s went very well. For us, too. It’s a smaller type, venue event, we usually have Around 35 people in the place where we hold that lunch and could only have 40. Anyway, so it’s 30, fives kind of that perfect number. And that’s been really successful, because again, it’s helping to highlight the organizations in our community, that maybe we don’t know what they do, or we forgot how much they do for our community. So and then, of course, you know, we, I hate to say it, you put everything on social media, right? You you post about that lunch, and you know, who sponsored it and, you know, make sure they they get their thank yous. And that helps, too, because, again, there’s, there’s just so many organizations that our community doesn’t know why they’re in existence,
Brandon Burton 21:20
right? Yeah. If it’s not on social media, it didn’t happen. No, exactly. Yeah, I like to say that, you know, social media is used to perpetuate what you’re already doing. So it becomes that larger amplifier of your your power lunch to then amplify what you’re doing with the speakers, we’re about, you know who the sponsor was with these. Remember, the week, you know, you’re already doing the interview, you’re talking to people just naturally, you’re going to talk to others about it, but then putting it out on social media amplifies that message, and just makes what you’re doing go a little further. So directly tied back to the membership growth. Is there a process as far as you know, attracting members as far as onboarding the members that you’ve found to be successful for you? I mean, you’ve been, you brought on a lot of members in a short amount of time. So you’re either running ragged, which the chamber chamber executor has been known to do. Or you you may be starting to establish a system of some sort. But where are you at in that that process?
Jennifer Vincent 22:31
I would say it’s definitely the system. Some of the members have come to come to me and said, I see what you’re doing, and I love it. And then the other thing is, if I see a new business announced on social media, I’m reaching out to them immediately. Hey, congratulations on your new business. I see you’re going to be opening soon. I would love to help you with that. What can I do for you? When can we chat? When can we sit down. So I’m reaching out to them, I’m being proactive. And then once I meet with them, you know, I’m talking to them about the benefits. And this is what we can do for you at the chamber. They fill out their application, then the next step is, like I said, I go back and see them at their business. So I want the picture that goes on social media to be myself and the business owner in front of that business that they’re you know, that’s joining, you know, we post that and at that time, I also give them a packet of information. And just tell them, these are the ways you can get involved. Depending on what it is you need from the chamber, and just go over all those things with them again, I don’t ever want to leave them empty handed. I don’t want them to feel like wow, she got my money. I’ll never see her again. So you know, I leave them with a packet of information on how to get involved. And I always tell them, if you’re not sure what you want to do with the chamber, please don’t be afraid to reach back out to me and say, What can I do? I want to advertise more network more. I need insurance, whatever it is, whatever the reason was, I want them to reach out to me. And then after that, we’re I’m reaching out to the members again, you know, another touch point. We’d love to see you at a business after hours, that type thing because again, I just don’t want them to think, Oh, she got her money. She got her application and we won’t see her hear from her until next year when it’s due again.
Brandon Burton 24:45
Right. So I know I think I’ve shared this example once before but I have a friend who’s a he’s a realtor. And as a newer REALTOR at the time he had reached out to me he had just moved to a new community He knew I did the podcast and I worked with chambers. And he’s like, Hey, should I join my local chamber? And like, well, it depends, you know, what are you trying to do? What’s your what’s your goal? What’s your objective? Like? Would you like to get involved at the chamber? You know, see what kind of committees, you know, see what kind of work your chamber is involved with. It’s the old saying, if you’ve seen one chamber, you’ve seen one chamber. But as new members are on boarded, to be able to know what those opportunities are to see, should I join yes or no? and at what level do you want to be involved with, because there’s a lot of ways to be involved. If you want to add, I’d like that you’re spending that time with them and trying to really help them understand the the impact they can have, but also the level of involvement that they get with their membership. That’s a that’s key. Is there anything that you think for, for listeners out there is a focus on membership as a membership isn’t necessarily always the primary focus, but it’s always on your mind? Right? You’re always looking for opportunities. Anything that comes to mind that that other chamber, professionals out there should be thinking of, as they go about recruiting new members.
Jennifer Vincent 26:19
Um, I think that the, the best advices as you’re recruiting the new members, is to also be thinking about what you’re doing day to day or month over month to keep them. You know, you you want to talk to them about joining. But the next question, I’m sure in the back of their mind is okay, I’m joining today. But what, what, what am I going to do with this as we go forward? So what programs do you have that are going to retain them as well? And then, of course, you know, telling them about what you’re doing, is why they will join. And then of course, step two is how you keep them.
Brandon Burton 27:08
Right. And I would encourage anybody to use their membership software to, to put in some of those, those key benchmarks now along their memberships. So if they’ve been in for, you know, two weeks, you know, do they get some kind of an email? Or is that when Jennifer reaches out and schedules, the plaque delivery in the picture and the social media posts, and then a month later, and three months and six months? What are those touch points? Are you making a phone call? Are you sending an email? Are you making a personal visit? Are you having an ambassador go by? Or what are the what are these things to keep these members engaged and fully on boarded in that first year, and, and there’s various membership, software’s can can help you do that, and some of it automating but some of it, just those reminders of, hey, it’s time to reach out to this member and take the next step. So I hope everyone’s leveraging that. Well, as we start to wrap up, Jennifer, I wanted to see if there’s any tips or action items that you might want to suggest for listeners who are looking to take their organization up to the next level, from the things that you’ve learned in your your 18 month sprint, so far, what what stands out to you is some of the things that would really help take an organization to the next level.
Jennifer Vincent 28:27
You know, it’s showing them that, that you care about their business. You know, I gave a lot of I said that I do a lot of things with social media. But the other thing I do is I go to them, I go to their business, whether it’s to talk to them about joining, maybe, I mean, I do everything local, right. shop local, whether it’s using their business for, you know, my things that I need, if just whatever the reason may be that I need to talk to a member. I tried to do it in person. I think that that is something that we have let ourselves get away from. We rely a lot on email and texting. And while that’s a great, maybe first step or second step, I think that the in person, it takes more effort, it takes more time, and the business truly believes that you care about them. If you take the time to go see them, and it’s truly the favorite part of my job. I love I don’t even feel like this is a job. I love what I do. I never get out of bed The morning and not want to come to work. So I love going to see people face to face. It’s my favorite part. And if you incorporate that, in your day to day week over week, having members want to join the chamber is not hard,
Brandon Burton 30:22
right? And what I’ve learned from others is you need to schedule that into your day, because it’s easy for you to schedule it, block it out, and then hold it as an appointment. But nothing beats that personal connection, spending time with somebody and being face to face shaking hands, you know, spending time in their business to show that you care. Yeah. So I like asking everyone I have on the show, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
Jennifer Vincent 30:58
chambers are we’re, we are still the voice of business, big or small. And I think that chambers are needed even more so in the future. Because not every business is a brick and mortar. We have so many businesses that are that are online. They’re their storefront is not what you drive downtown. You don’t drive past them. So who is their voice? who advertises for them if they don’t do it themselves? And granted, they are doing it, but they need that extra layer. So I see chambers being even more important now than ever.
Brandon Burton 31:46
Yeah. And I think continuing to adapt and stay relevant as you talk about so many businesses doing things online now that, you know, is your chamber equipped to help them with best practices online or to help someone set up a e commerce Store if they have a brick and mortar so they can sell out the back door to? Yeah, where’s your chamber at in that process of being able to stay relevant and help your members and potential members, these businesses in your community to be able to be relevant in a worldwide marketplace these days? Thank you for that, Jennifer, as we come to a close, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who want to reach out and connect with you or learn more about this rapid membership growth. You’ve seen there and strategies that you’ve implemented, what would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect?
Jennifer Vincent 32:43
If they want to start with email first, is the easiest. And my email is president@cambridgeohiochamber.com.
Brandon Burton 32:58
Right, well, we’ll get that in our show notes too. And I’m sure Jennifer would welcome in person visits to if you wanted to show up in person and
Jennifer Vincent 33:06
absolutely come to Cambridge.
Brandon Burton 33:09
Spend some money and spend some time in Cambridge? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Well, Jennifer, I appreciate it. It’s been great having you on the show and sharing your experiences in your your first 18 months or so they’re on the job and you’re making a big impact and learning a lot along the way as well. So thank you for coming on here and sharing some of these things that you’ve learned with us.
Jennifer Vincent 33:32
Thank you for having me.
Brandon Burton 33:33
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.
Have you ever thought about creating a podcast for your chamber? We always hear about how chambers need to be storytellers. What better way is there to tell the stories of your members and the work of your chamber than through a podcast?
Your audience is waiting to hear from you as a convener of leaders and influencers champion for business and catalyst for change within your community.
I just launched a Chamber Podcast Course with the goal to get your very own podcast started within 30 days. Visit chamberchatpodcast.com/pivot. To learn more and to enroll in the chamber podcast course today.
