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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.
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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
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Our guest for this episode is Cheryl Kilday. And Cheryl is the President and CEO of Destination North Myrtle Beach, formerly known as in North Myrtle Beach Chamber. Cheryl is an expert in destination marketing and management and has spent nearly her entire career working with membership based organizations pursuing economic development. Prior to joining the team in North Myrtle Beach, Cheryl has worked in a similar capacity at organizations in Oregon, Vermont and Washington State. Cheryl has earned the prestigious credential of certified destination management executive and has led three of the organization she has worked with to earn certifications as Destination Management accredited. In North Myrtle Beach they are in the accreditation with distinction. Destination North Myrtle Beach also successfully maintained their five star accreditation through the US Chamber of Commerce. Cheryl and her husband Tim are enjoying living in North Myrtle Beach and adjusting to being empty nesters. But Cheryl, I’m excited to have you with us today on Chamber Chat Podcast, I’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 a little better.
Cheryl Kilday 3:06
Yeah, thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here. It’s funny, when I saw that you were going to ask me to tell you something interesting about myself. I don’t think I’m very interesting. Nobody does. Say it was funny because my husband and I have zigzag the country twice. So we started in the northwest and went to Virginia. And then we went back to the northwest. And now we’re here in South Carolina. And one of the things that all four of the communities that I’ve worked in, in the destination work that we’ve done, they’re all very different, but they all have something in common. And that is they all have wine. And we were in the Willamette Valley before Oregon Pinot was really known for, you know, had the reputation it has today. So we started collecting wine many years ago now. And my coworker Aaron said, tell them that that’s where you rest your me. So I have we have a little wine collection. And that’s where I rest my me. Nice.
Brandon Burton 4:09
You may need to tell us a little bit more about that about your me. You know,
Cheryl Kilday 4:14
I guess it’s been a while but we we worked in Northern Virginia and Loudoun County and we put together a series of heritage videos. And they aired on television. It was the first year that tourism related videos was something that the Emmys include in any category, but we were up against PBS stations and all sorts of other you know, really great opportunities and we actually won an Emmy for our series of, of heritage videos that we did.
Brandon Burton 4:46
That is awesome. So that is something interesting.
Cheryl Kilday 4:52
Like right, is it still relevant?
Brandon Burton 4:54
Right, right. Well tell us a little bit about destination North Myrtle Beach just to give us some An idea of the scope of work the size, your organization, budget staff, that sort of thing to kind of set the table for our discussion.
Cheryl Kilday 5:07
So it really starts with our community. You know, we have 22,000 households in North Myrtle Beach, and less than 10,000 of those are permanent residents. So we are absolutely a tourism destination on any given day, visitors outnumber our residents, probably two to one on this load time is of the year and really, significantly over the peak season on Memorial Day to Labor Day. So we are both the tourism organization as well as the Chamber of Commerce. And in South Carolina. That’s a pretty common model. We have seven full time employees and one part time. And we have a contract with our city for the majority of our funding, which is tourism promotion. And then we have about 650 members that our dues paying and we have a budget overall of about 3.2 to 3.5 million All right, he described ourselves as small and mighty.
Brandon Burton 6:06
Yeah, yeah, yeah cuz you guys that you see a lot of traffic there’s through North Myrtle Beach and then with the team this size, and you guys are doing a lot of work carrying a big load so well, for our topic for today, we’ve settled around the idea of talking about destination master plans. So we’ll we’ll get into that conversation what that means how you guys are approaching that work and everything as soon as you get back from this quick break.
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Christine Langenfeld
Hi this is Christine Langenfeld with the Amherst Chamber of Commerce located in Buffalo, New York. We have partnered with Yiftee on our Shop 716 e-gift card program that has been incredibly, incredibly impactful for our small businesses. So happy to have incorporated this program in our shop local initiative here in Western New York. I highly recommend them and give them a chance to show what they can do.
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Brandon Burton 9:17
All right, Cheryl, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break we’re talking today about destination master plans. So talk to us about what is what do you see is it a destination master planned and kind of the melding between a destination organization and chamber organization how that fits together?
Cheryl Kilday 9:36
You know, destination master plans are becoming more common. And it really is the combination of looking at how all the different organizations in a community can intersect and share a purpose and vision for a long term plan for the community. So you know it’s different from a marketing plan or a strategic plan. is different from a comprehensive plan that community municipality may be required to have, but they do leverage off of each other. And so what we’ve been working to do is really concentrate with four guiding principles, and to look at what we wanted to do as a community. And we’ve used a quote from Warren Buffett quite a bit, where he talks about how somebody is sitting in the shade today, because somebody a long time ago, planted the tree. And, and so we use that as part of the starting point, because we weren’t really focused on aligning what the residents care about and what they see, for long term. We’ve been a rapidly growing community over the last few years. And there’s some pushback on that. What does the business community need? How do we make sure that we’ve got a thriving and sustainable economy? What are we doing to help the environment and the place that we live as things are changing, and then looking at the visitor experience, because we are built on a tourism economy, so we have to also look at that part of our community. So using those guiding principles, we’ve come up with some areas where we really feel like we can connect, and align all of those interested organizations and individuals to share in how to make a destination Master Plan come to fruition, right.
Brandon Burton 11:23
So you had mentioned how it’s different than a strategic plan or a community vision. And I see destination master plan can be a component of those things, as you have a greater community vision, or as a chamber, if you’ve got tourism responsibilities, having that be part of that strategic plan, that having that specific focus on on the destination and, and being able to align some of those resources and see where that crossover is to really, you know, make it a win win all across the community.
Cheryl Kilday 11:55
And part of that is defining roles, right? Because, you know, you’ve got to chambers in many communities, the there might be a Sports Commission and a tourism and see that separate, you’ve got regional governments, you’ve got local governments, you’ve got so many different places to intersect. And I think it’s really helps when you have a destination master plan, because it does, it defines who leads, and what the role of our organization is, because sometimes we’re an advocate, sometimes we’re a partner, sometimes where support, and sometimes we’re the leader. And so the destination Master Plan and the implementation strategy, we’re putting together a workforce to really look at that and make sure that we’re defining and an and have agreement on who are those leaders conveners, you know, advocates, that sort of thing, so that we aren’t stepping on each other. But we’re also, you know, agreeing that yes, this is in our wheelhouse, and we’ll take the lead on this. So. So that’s one of the first steps. We just got our master plan, literally last week, oh, consulting team. So we’re just in that good timing of looking at that implementation strategy and how to make it work. All right.
Brandon Burton 13:05
So I think that’s an important aspect to consider is the defining of roles. And as you mentioned, sometimes there’s, you know, individuals at the city level or within the chamber, or maybe the tourism is different than the chamber. whose role is it to divine the roles? And how do you say, this is what we’ll do? This is what you do. And I’m sure it’s a convening of mines and being able to hash through some of that, but how did it work for you guys?
Cheryl Kilday 13:33
Right, we had a very inclusive process and developing our master plan. We did twelves subject matter expert groups up there, like focus groups, where they met with the consulting team, we had 25 community leaders, both elected officials, public officials, and business leaders, with an resident HOA type leaders as well. So it’s we had 25 interviews, we had a community town halls twice, we had a resident survey, and we ran that twice. And for a community with, you know, less than 20,000 permanent residents. We had about 4000 people respond to our residents survey. And our consulting team gave us a comparison that when la did a similar study, they had 1000 and thought it was a great response. So I mean, we really had overwhelming participation throughout our development. And because it was so inclusive, we really feel like we we’ve got a good sense of the pulse of where the enthusiasm that concerns the shared opportunities are.
Brandon Burton 14:43
Right. So I’m always curious when I hear a chamber organization talking about reaching out to residents and citizens. First of all, a lot of the common people in in a community have no idea what a Chamber of Commerce does. So how do you go about soliciting? Those, those surveys and responses in a way that that warranted such a great outcome such a great return. Well, we
Cheryl Kilday 15:08
we literally talked about that we were going to do this destination master plan every chance we got. And we have reached out to the HOAs to try to get them involved. And we actually had a steering committee that still exists and one of the bigger HOAs is involved in it, which then also gives her access to work the network of HOA leaders. So that was, I think that was really valuable. I also we use social media and there are a lot of a lot of Facebook groups that I you know, I love Cherry Grove, I love Ocean Drive, you know, we’ve got four different very distinct features here. And so those, you know, each one has a group and there’s a lot of different Face Face Book opportunities. So we use boosted posts to really advertise the, the idea of this, we actually did some billboards, and we did radio and TV, and just really trying to let people know that we were doing it and that we cared about their, that their opinions, we really share those guiding principles and the importance of aligning with residents, because resident quality of life is really important to us. And, you know, we’re doing it in our community is becoming overrun with visitors that doesn’t help the visitor experience or the resident experience. And so to be honest about that, and invite that as part of the conversation, I think matter. Right?
Brandon Burton 16:29
So the for this next question, I’m not going to pretend that you’re the expert on the topic, necessarily. I’d love to get your perspective, although not an expert, you do have an Emmy. So I think it carries some weight. But as chambers listening, what would from your perspective, having gone through this, you know, creating a destination master plan, when would be the right time for a community to consider or to really explore the idea of creating a specific destination master plan. For us, we actually
Cheryl Kilday 17:01
started exploring the idea of doing it. In our last strategic plan, Eddie, Eddie merged, and we’re about a year behind on working on it because of COVID. So I know a lot of communities use COVID to sort of regroup and think about what they wanted to do. And so for some of them as they’re emerging from COVID, that might be a really good time. For us. It was we were crazy busy during COVID, and really didn’t have the same experience as all other communities. Because people wanted to go to the beach, we have so many second homeowners, if you’re going to be shut down, would you rather be shut down in a condo in an urban setting or at the beach? So we actually saw really busy COVID period which had a whole different set of issues, but I think every community has to kind of think about when is this opportunity right for us? How do we gain that trust and access to the residents to be to be really thoughtful about the inclusive factions and and how to bring them together to build trust. So we worked on, we worked on a resident campaign during COVID, because they were really upset with how busy we were. And so we really worked on saying, you know, we understand, we hear you, we are being accountable to you. And this is what we are doing because we were not advertising to for people to come during COVID, we were actually advertising on how to travel safely, because we wanted them to know we cared about people bringing things here and creating other issues. So we actually worked really closely with our residents and use that timeframe to help build trust, and that they knew that we heard them and felt the same way that we were not just about a bottom line, and we’re about people. And and so then the timing worked for us to go ahead and and develop the destination master plan after that. And but I think if we had tried to do it during when that was originally the timeframe, and because we were open we could have but it was the wrong time. So I think that if you look around and say, okay, is this the right time? What else is our community addressing? Is that supported by the development of a master plan? Or is it better to to wait and do it at another time? Another factor for us is that our city is required in South Carolina to do a comprehensive planning are so many years and every five years, they have to refresh it. And 2023 is the year they have to refresh it. And so our master plan becomes a tool for them because they’ve been very involved in this. And so it actually has an opportunity to utilize some of that and have fewer surveys or their own public meetings. It’s kind of shorten some of the things that they need to do that are already addressed in a destination master plan.
Brandon Burton 19:58
Right? I didn’t even think Got that with North Myrtle Beach being a drivable destination for a lot of people during COVID, when it was a little sketchy to get on an airplane or to do certain types of travel that they could hop in their car and still have that vacation experience and be at the beach and everything and outdoors and be safe. That really is a key for being able to drive, you know, success through co essay success in terms of, you know, high traffic with visitors
Cheryl Kilday 20:28
with the Wall Street Journal journal. Journalism, ask us, so, you know, aren’t you worried everybody’s, you know, coming to the beach? And I said, okay, so have you been to our beach, because we have nine miles and wide open beaches. So even if we have 100,000 people here, they’re not all going to be crowded up together, and they’re not all going to be at the beach at the same time. They were living here working remotely their students, you know, in their households were learning remotely. And they were being careful. I mean, we really, we really, as a community didn’t have, you know, these some of the crisis that some communities had, but we were able because, you know, golf and the beach, or to the big outdoor activities here, people, we’re able to do that safely. Yeah.
Brandon Burton 21:16
So I’m curious as far as so now you have this destination master plan together? What do the action items look at it? Or how do you go about executing on the this master plan?
Cheryl Kilday 21:29
Yeah, that’s now we’re at that stage of wow, we’ve got this plan. So you know, our goals identified in the plan, there’s four key areas, and then those guiding principles that sustainably sustainability, quality of of life, the visitor experience, and all of that those are all in each of these goals, like one of them, I’m just going to take one is to improve accessibility and connectivity. So that’s trails that’s, you know, becoming an autism friendly community and making sure that our hospitality and public amenities have been trained on what that means and are ready for that, that were accessible to all types of travelers, we’ve got some great adaptive surfing here that does that. But what else? You know, what’s, what’s consumer facing? And how can we make sure that that not just for visitors, but for residents is connected and accessible? And all the things that that looks like? So now we’re looking at that implementation plan and looking at what are those specific projects? And what short term midterm and long term because we’re really, this is a 10 year plan. It’s not something we have to knock off in three years. Otherwise, it would be very overwhelming. But we’re really just putting that workforce that cross functional work group together to to address the timing of those are the is as realistic as this, how are we going to fund it? How does the queue work? What’s ready? What’s the most ready? You know, I think it’s great when you receive a plan from a consulting team, they don’t live here. And they, you know, they can go home. But now we live here. And we’re like, Okay, what do we do? And I think there’s a certain value of adding in sort of a readiness model is, what are these that are the most ready? And are they the right ones at the at the right time? And if we queue things up, so we’re not competing against ourselves to try to get things done. How does that work? So at our executive committee meeting yesterday, we agreed that we’re going to reorganize that implementation plan that they gave us and give us some different colors and add in a couple of columns about some of those kinds of likelihood types of things is funding available. And I mean, that’s really important, because it may be aspirational, to have some of those things shorter term that they might be more appropriate mid term, if there’s some funding mechanisms that need to be secured first.
Brandon Burton 23:51
Right. So I think it’s important to mention that or to reiterate maybe that you’d said this is a 10 year plan. So it’s not like things are happening overnight. Like it gives you time and runway to get some of these things done. But along that tenure timeline, how often do you guys reconvene? And kind of, you know, check the pulse on the progress. And it may be correct course where needed and to be able to keep you on that target?
Cheryl Kilday 24:17
Well, I think that we’re planning to keep it top of mind in our organization with a separate budget item, as well as a reporting mechanism. So we’ve got a communications plan that we’re putting together to be accountable for being the shepherds of this plan, so to speak. And, and we will actually include some community campaigning going along as we go and make sure that they stay engaged with this. And so having said that, we are just like I said, we just got this plan last week and implementation strategy. We’re going to start meeting I believe, shortly with the city and our cross functional group. And then I anticipate that at the beginning, they’ll meet monthly and then probably get to a quarterly. And then we’ll probably have a separate reporting out every year. So that there’s a shared annual report on what we, we’ve the collective of who’s got specific roles in the plan, have some sort of shared output, that would be on our website, and ideally, the city would find a place to put on their website and some of the other partners as well. Right.
Brandon Burton 25:27
That’s, that’s good. So before we start wrapping up here, I wanted to see is there anything that we’re missing as far as going through the process of creating a destination marketing plan that should be considered that maybe we haven’t touched on yet in our conversation?
Cheryl Kilday 25:43
Yeah, I think I mean, one of the things that I know that we’re dealing with, since you’ve seen this implementation strategies, really making sure that you’re, that we’re all positioned for success, right? Because there are some things that we’re going to be able to knock off pretty easily and making sure that those are the things that are in the short term part of your plan. But you have to make sure that you have a dose of realism. And so funding is one of the first things that we’re going to be talking about, is making sure that we’ve got the right kind of funding mechanism, our dollars are very restricted for the tourism use. And there’s things that we need to do that we can’t do with the existing funding mechanism. And so how do we tackle that? And so, and I would say that for all of us, it’s not about money. It’s about programming and results that we want. And when you define what that is, then you figure out how the how the funding supports it. But if you start by saying I need x number of dollars, then people are like, well, what are you going to do with those dollars? So if you start by answering that question, first, we think that that will help that funding conversation, not be about, oh, we need money. It’s like we need to figure out how to make these things possible. Right.
Brandon Burton 26:54
I think that’s a really good point. So as we do start wrapping up here, I wanted to ask if you have any tip or action item that you’d like to share for any chamber champions listening who are interested in taking their chamber up to the next level? What would you offer them?
Cheryl Kilday 27:11
Yeah, I think whether it’s a destination master plan, or just making sure that you’re really well versed in what the comprehensive plan is, and what organizations are out there that have a plan, and have you ever sat down and just kind of asked everybody where you can find that way of supporting one another. You know, I worked in another community where we didn’t do a destination master plan, but we worked on a shared community vision. And we sat down with all the different organizations and understood each other and that helped prevent program creep. But it also helped them be advocates for us, and we can advocate for them. And so there’s certainly ways to accomplish some of the things that destination masterplan does with just having some of those really great opportunities for working together. And years ago, a gentleman that we worked with use the term we all need to be readily available with our coalition’s and alliances, and you develop those relationships when there’s no threat. And you build trust and awareness and appreciation so that when you need somebody, you can call on them. You don’t wait until you need something to try to develop a relationship.
Brandon Burton 28:21
I heard a quote before, and I can’t remember who said it, but I’m going to claim it as mine now, but it’s you dig your well before you’re thirsty, right? So you got to do put in the hard work ahead of time before you actually need something. So building those relationships, understanding what people you know, other organizations do. And then you know, as you need something from each other, you know where to go. And you have that trusted relationship that’s been built over time. And it’s not just coming with the need in the moment, saying I’m thirsty, you know, help me Yeah, like, I don’t know you. So that’s a that’s a great tip. 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 chamber their chambers and their purpose going forward?
Cheryl Kilday 29:07
I think that alignment with residents is changing in our country. I think people expect to be heard and that the balance of business need and resident needs. So I know we’ve worked to personify business, instead of making it seem like we just cared about bottom care about bottom lines, that those are people. We learned that during COVID that the residents were feeling like the the city was only concerned about keeping business open and they didn’t care about the residents. And so we talked about who those businesses are not what they are, but who they are. And you know that that bartender or that accountants or whoever that person is, and the community has a face and so we really tried to give businesses a face. And I think that that is going to continue I think people found their voice residents found their Voice during some of those, you look at whether it’s civil unrest or violence or COVID, there’s been a lot of ways where people have found a voice in our country. And I think we’ve had, as chambers have to hear that, and find those areas where we can reach out and make sure that we’re building alliances with that residence so that we can align and have a successful community.
Brandon Burton 30:23
Yeah. And I think in the world today, with all the social media platforms that are out there, it makes it a lot easier to put a face on these businesses, right, instead of just looking at a list of business names that are members of your organization, you can, you know, be friends with them on Facebook, or Instagram or Tiktok, or whatever they’re on, and really get to know who they are what’s important to them, you know, what’s their family life look like? What are they doing when they’re not, you know, at, you know, styling hair or serving you dinner or whatever it may be. So, I think that’s a great way of looking to the future and really making sure that that we’re listening to the peep the the residents and the business owners in the communities. That’s right. Well, Cheryl, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who are listening who want to maybe reach out to you and learn more about creating a destination master plan or just more how you guys are doing things here in North Myrtle Beach, what would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect with you,
Cheryl Kilday 31:25
thank you emails always the best way to reach me and that’s ckilday@destinationnmb.com.
Brandon Burton 31:38
All right, and I will get that in our show notes for this episode as well. So people can pull that up and and reach out and connect with you. But I really appreciate you coming on the show. And I know this is a new thing for you guys that are in North Myrtle Beach, but to be able to be a little bit vulnerable in the process and how you guys set it up and and how you’re looking forward on executing on this this new destination master plan. So thank you for for sharing this experience and insights with us today on chamber chat podcast.
Cheryl Kilday 32:08
Thank you very much.
Brandon Burton 32:10
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