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Michigan West Coast Chamber-2024 Chamber of the Year Finalist with Jodi Owczarski

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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.

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You’re joining us today for a special episode in our 2024 ACCE Chamber the Year Finalist Series and our guests for this episode is Jodi Owczarski. Jodi is the President and CEO of the West Coast Chamber in Michigan. For the first five years the West Coast Chamber Jodi was accountable to provide leadership and all areas of the organization as well as serving as the integrator within the EOS framework. As a vice president and CEO, Jodi was responsible for all human resources, accounting and finance functions, as well as managing the staff, Facilities and Operations and directing the West Coast leadership program. She was made president and CEO of the West Coast chamber on September 1 2020. To Jodi’s limitless capacity for solving math problems has been essential to creating budgets and balance sheets. And her inviting personality and quick humor combined with our strategic thinking give her the edge when making when managing staff committees, volunteers, Jodi’s contagious energy ripples into our business community, and today will ripple into this podcast episode. But, Jodi, we’re excited to have you back with us here on Chamber Chat Podcast. For those who are regular listeners she was with us almost a year ago, as I look back on it, she’s back in episode 244. But we’re excited to have you back with us and give you an opportunity to say hello to everyone listening. And I like asking for an interest. Interesting tip. Interesting fact about us so we can get to know you a little better.

Jodi Owczarski 2:49
I love that. Brandon, thank you. I’m honored to be back, especially as a finalist for chamber of the year. That’s something we’ve aspired to for a long time. Well, I almost had to ask the staff an interesting fact about me. But I guess as it relates to being part of the chamber world, I actually started at the chamber as an ambassador, and was an ambassador when I was hired on back in 2017. And was in the leadership class. And part of my new role at the Chamber was to be the director for the leadership program. So I started directing the program that I was still a member of the class were so that was an interesting twist on being a part of that program.

Brandon Burton 3:30
Yeah, very meta, right, like, and leading it. You took good notes at the beginning so you can have some idea what you’re doing. Exactly. Well, tell us a little bit about the West Coast chamber, give us an idea of the type of chambers kind of work, you guys are involved with size, staff budget, that sort of thing to kind of set the stage for our conversation.

Jodi Owczarski 3:52
Absolutely. The West Coast chamber is on the west shore of Lake Michigan. We are based in Holland, Michigan, a community of about 120,000 people in the greater Holland area. In this space, we have 1233 members, as of today, every member counts. And we’ve recently expanded to a staff of eight team members. interesting for us. We have found that we are a very fertile bunch over here. We’ve had four maternity leaves in six months and a fifth one coming. So our small team has been put to the test. Seems like we take having babies two at a time around here. So we’re growing our chamber membership. One, one baby at a time.

Brandon Burton 4:44
Wow. Yeah, your your team is it’s like doubling right. Is called Workforce Development. You bring them yeah,

Jodi Owczarski 4:53
we’re dedicated right to the workforce development. We’re all growing our own.

Brandon Burton 4:58
That’s right. I love it. Well Yes Congratulations to you guys for being selected as a chamber of the year finalist. It is a huge accomplishment I know even to to be selected and I on these episodes I love diving into the programs that were submitted on your chamber the your application. So we’ll spend the majority of our time today talking about those. And we’ll dive into those programs as soon as they get back from this quick break.

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All right, Jodi, we’re back. So why don’t you tell us what the first of the two programs is that you’d like to highlight today? And we’ll dive into the details of it and learn a little bit more.

Jodi Owczarski 7:32
Absolutely. So I mentioned that I was in the West Coast Leadership Program, our community based leadership program. And as I was trying to reimagine what that program could look like, I really worked to reevaluate that last day, the program that we had called graduation, and really thought about trying to discover ways that we could do a better job of tangibly launching those leaders out into our community. And so the first year I had them go around and volunteer around town. And the group of 25 or 30 people in the class at that point, had a great time. And from that, we discovered that we there’s a little something here. And so the next year, we did it again. And we allowed them to invite a friend or colleague along and internet, we had almost 100 people out serving. And that’s when the idea really hit that we could do something bigger. And from that our first initiative was born, which is called Community Impact day. So in 2022, we decided to take the afternoon of the last day of our leadership program, and facilitate volunteer opportunities with people throughout the community that were willing to serve. And so this could be anything from painting to spreading woodchips to helping stuff, mailers for nonprofit. And so we reached out to our nonprofit organizations, we set that up. And in 2022, we had 250 People go out and serve that afternoon. It was awesome. And as we were debriefing at the end of the day, my team was kind of energized and I had that post event high and threw a a b hag out there and said you know what, let’s do it again. And next year, let’s go for 1000 people and and so we did we we went for it. We ended up with 983 which of course is short of our goal, but it felt anything but short of the goal last year when I drove through the town and could see nearly 1000 people out volunteering all wearing our community impact a blue shirts, and and we knew that something great was really underway. This year. We did it again may 15 2024 And we had over 1500 15 122 people serving this year. And next year, we’re shooting for 2025 and 2025. So it’s so much fun. And our hope is that we’re going to get other chambers across our region across the state and even across the country, leaning in and doing this ideally, even on the same day, when that’d be

Brandon Burton 10:24
cool. That would be awesome. So you thought 1000 people out in the community serving was it be hag right? Yeah. And look at your look where you are now, right like that. It almost seems like a small goal, looking back on and seeing the growth and where the vision is going today. I love how you talked about creating something to be able to launch these leaders into the community. So what is their role in this these these leaders that go through the leadership program? Yep. What’s that launch look like?

Jodi Owczarski 10:57
Great question. So I knew that going from 200 to 1000, I had to do some creative things. And the leadership class played a big part in that. So we have a class of typically 25 people, they were each responsible for choosing a site that they were going to volunteer at, and being the leader at that site, which also meant identifying all of the volunteers that were needed for that location. So they had choices of where they could go, but each site needed at least 10 volunteers. So now I knew I was going to have 250 volunteers just with a leadership class. It also gave them a great opportunity to lead at that spot. Undoubtedly, the group of volunteers moved through the volunteer projects quicker than what the organization expected. And so we always need somebody on point to say, what more can we do, and hey, let’s go over here and do this next, and just kind of take charge and continue to make things happen. And so they’re able to serve in that way. Once we saw that model work, we expanded that same thing to our board of directors into our ambassadors, so that you get another, here’s another 150 volunteers coming, here’s another 400 volunteers coming over this way. And so it was it was a quick, repeatable way to gather groups, when you start seeing teams come right from businesses, etc, that it’s the whole IT department from this manufacturer, or, you know, fill in the blank with who that is that they’re coming out as a group to do that together. And in the benefits that they see in that come right along with that. Yeah, I

Brandon Burton 12:44
can see where certain Chamber members is different businesses in the community could see it as a corporate responsibility, kind of a thing to come out and give back to the community so they can create their own teams. And I could see, you know, competition coming out of this at some point for sure, the earning or something. Yeah,

Jodi Owczarski 13:01
there’s some other pieces of this as well, where it’s like, you look at the younger generation, and what we’ve studies are showing is that investing in the community, volunteerism is critical for them. And if they see their employer investing in that way, and allowing them space, to be able to go do that as a part of their work, their retention is so much higher. And we’re hearing that from our employers. We also worked really hard on inclusivity. This year, as we went from 1000, or 983, to 12. To 15 122, we wanted to look at who’s often overlooked in this process. And we went to Senior Centers where we were sending volunteers to go serve these senior citizens. But we also went to them and said, Yes, and we’d love to take your senior citizens out. And we believe that they’ve got great value to contribute, let’s find opportunities that they can serve, maybe it’s not spreading wood chips, but we’ve got some other things that we could create that could be meaningful for them to do. And so we had that happening. Same thing for an organization that serves adults with a challenges and sent the group into serve there, but also brought that group of participants out to come and serve and it was just the coolest thing to see the pride that they had in the work that they did out in our community.

Brandon Burton 14:32
I love it. You’re answering the questions that I have before I asked them about how you grow Yeah, so exponential exponentially like that. But it’s it’s getting you know, those leaders from the leadership class involved and then extending it to the board and the ambassadors and then kind of cross pollinating with those that you’re serving also providing service and I love it. I mean, you guys are just have your eyes wide open to opportunities, and inviting and being inclusive and What What kind of outcomes are you seeing through the community as you guys implement these, these community impact days?

Jodi Owczarski 15:07
You know, there’s there’s these easy, tangible outcomes, right. So if we look at the city of Holland, for example, we went and did two big projects. Last year for the city of Holland in 2023, we built a playground, for them that was replacing an old kind of broken down one and put in a new inclusive playground, that children of all physical and cognitive abilities would be able to utilize. We also went out and painted railing along the seawall and painted miles of painting of railing along the seawall, and for the city of Highland in that three hour time block, we saved them over $120,000. It’s just remarkable right to be able to do that. And it’s, it took us very little effort. But it’s a tangible outcome on on our city. So there’s those kinds of outcomes. Our nonprofits are seeing additional, we’ve tried to coach them up along the way to say, Man, this is an opportunity for you to have all of these people learn about your organization. So as they come there, and they’re ready to get started, take five minutes, give them your elevator pitch, right? Tell them about what you do and why you do it, and what your biggest needs are. And what we’re hearing from those organizations is that the relationships continue beyond this one afternoon. They’re coming in to volunteer on an ongoing basis. They’re becoming donors and, and financial supporters of the organization. They’re becoming advocates and helping to tell the story and grow awareness of these organizations. So it’s cool to see that happen as well. And then we see the impact of the investment of the volunteers themselves. They feel differently about the community when they go to the park where they built the playground, or where they painted the railing. That’s their park, they’re gonna pick up garbage that they see on the ground, right? They’re gonna take their family there with pride, because this is a place that they had an impact on.

Brandon Burton 17:18
I love that skit and people involved. Do you ever see people wearing the T shirts just around the city?

Jodi Owczarski 17:25
I love saw it yesterday, the first time that it happened, I made a fool of myself, I was giddy. I took a picture. Covertly, I’m yelling across the street, I love your teacher. The person looked at me like I completely lost my mind. But we’re intentional and buying a shirt that people are going to want to wear. They’re super comfortable. They’re beautiful blue color. And so we see them all around town. So there’s no charge to participate. That’s the one expense that we have. But the sponsor dollars have come in so readily, that it’s an easy thing for us to do. So you drive through the town, you see the shirts everywhere. And it was fun even to see some of the Facebook groups, you know, if your community has a for us, it’s a Holland informed group, right? It’s where all of the the gossip and things happen. If you want to know what’s happening in the town, this Facebook group, there was a number of questions about, Hey, what’s up with all the blue shirts in town today? And then reading the responses right at the people saying, oh, my gosh, it’s the coolest thing. This happened. And I want to do it next year. And, you know, how do I get involved? It’s it’s going to take on a life of its own. This, this project has legs, and I hope that I’m going to be 80 years old and coming back to participate in community impact day.

Brandon Burton 18:47
That’s great. I love it. Love it. So let’s shift gears a little bit into your second program. I know it’s somewhat connected, but introduce us to it. The second program is you submitted on your application. The

Jodi Owczarski 19:02
two tag team really well, although they were created in separate ways. Our second initiative is called West Coast Connect. It’s an online platform that we’ve created, that has a directory of opportunities for leaders in our community to serve at board elected or skilled committee types of opportunities, as well as a directory of individual leaders who are raising their hand and willing to serve. So our community did a deep dive a couple of years ago to look at what are the top issues facing our community. And at that time, we were going through a pretty big political upheaval and realized that we were going to be late to the game and having adequate candidates for some Local elected positions, and realize that we can’t be late to that, again, we’ve got to be more prepared and identifying and equipping those leaders in advance. At the same time, we’re looking around and seeing generational leaders that are at the same tables over and over, right? You see the same people. And we know from our West Coast leadership program, we have about 1000 people that have been through this program, why do we see the same 20 people serving everywhere, it’s because they’re top of mind, we know that there are far more people willing and capable of serving, we just have to get them more top of mind. As a chamber professional, I regularly would get a phone call saying, Hey, I’m looking for a board member. And here’s what I’m looking for. Right? Ideally, it’d be a female, if that person could be a person of color, that’d be fantastic. We really need somebody who has some financial acumen and, and so you kind of scroll through your brain and you think about the people you see, and you give the same list. This helps us go so much deeper into the list of potential people serving throughout our community. It can be self serve, our organizations can go. And not only post the opportunities they have, but also source their potential volunteers. But they can also come back to us to ask for, like, who do you know, in this directory, and give us the parameters. And we can pull some reports to make sure that we come up with, you know, a list of great people for for them to be able to connect with and explore whether or not they’d be a good fit. So

Brandon Burton 21:45
I know with a platform like this, the one of the struggles at the beginning, it’s like a chicken or the egg and everything, right? If you’re trying to match the two sides together, you need to have, you know, one or both sides populated to be able to make it useful. So how do you get started with creating a platform like this to be able to matchmake? And no, you’ve got kind of that list in your head that maybe you can start with populating that. But then it said that same list that you’re always putting out there, right? So sure, what’s the approach? Yep,

Jodi Owczarski 22:15
great question. We started with our current West Coast leadership class, right there in the class, because they want to serve in the community. And so they were the first 25 people to populate, then we went back to the three most recent classes and had them do it as well. Because we knew, again, they they were looking for those same opportunities. Once we had some of those built out, we could send it out more broadly. And people could see what they looked like what that looked like, and could see themselves in it. And so at this point, we have over 227 individuals that have raised their hand and are currently on this site. So

Brandon Burton 22:55
do they create their own profile, upload a picture and kind of a resume of sorts of you know, what their background is?

Jodi Owczarski 23:02
They do. So we knew for this to be successful, it had to be a couple of things. We were we run lean as a team here. So this couldn’t be something that required a lot of intervention on our on our part. And we needed it to be as self serve as possible. So we built it on our growth zone platform that we already use for our CRM system, they’ve got logins for their accounts already, they could create them right in there. We do allow non members to be a part of this, because it’s really more about the community than just the chamber. And so we’ve set it up so that they non members could could log in and create this as well. So they can update their profile at any time to keep that relevant, if they’ve gotten a few opportunities, and they’re no longer looking for a new opportunity, they could take themselves down, put themselves back up again, when they have fresh opportunity or capacity to grow that. And it’s the same thing for the organization, right? They can log in, they create the whole list of what it is that they’re looking for. And we just approve it, clean it up to make sure it looks good. And get it posted on our website. So it’s it’s very simple.

Brandon Burton 24:16
Are the organizations that are searching, Are they members or is that open to? That’s

Jodi Owczarski 24:22
open as well. Okay. Yep. Yep. Again, we believe that this is bigger than chamber, right? This is this is whole community. And we want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to be able to do this. So you know, when elections are coming around, we have more data behind the screen than what you can see visibly, we’re not going to share people’s personal home address in some other personal information, but information that’s helpful for us to be able to look and see, hey, I need someone in ward three for city council, who lives in that area that It has self identified as someone who cares about advocacy, and may be willing to run for run for a seat on city council in this in this geographical area, we can pull that up and and dive into that a little deeper.

Brandon Burton 25:14
Yeah. So right now it sounds like it’s been filled with leadership class participants, right? Is there any application process for anyone else in the community that wants to be involved? Do they need to go through the leadership class or what’s, how’s that structured,

Jodi Owczarski 25:31
they do not need to go through the leadership class. This too is open to anyone. We the third leg of this stool is education. So we will offer educational opportunity. So if they’ve not gone through West Coast leadership, or they’ve not served on a board of directors before you could come to a how to how to serve on a board class, right? So you understand what it is that you’re signing up for. We’ve also run things like how to run for office and had the County Clerk come in, to help equip people for what does that process look like? What are the financial obligations? What are the deadlines? What are the do’s and don’ts. And so we want to make sure that an educational component also comes alongside this so that we can help equip whoever is willing and interested to serve.

Brandon Burton 26:20
Well, that seems like a great solution. And way to think outside the box to play matchmaker there, if you will. As we start to wrap things up, I wanted to ask for those chambers who are out there listening who want to take their chamber up to the next level. What kind of tip or action item might you offer them? And it might carry a little more weight this time, especially with you guys being a chamber, the year finalist?

Jodi Owczarski 26:50
You know, that’s a great question. And I think, I don’t know what chambers are going to look like in the future and even day to day, they continue to evolve, right the way that we need to serve our community. And it’s very easy to get up on the treadmill of just continuing to churn out what we’re doing. My tip would be to take intentional, we call them clarity breaks, built in time into your schedule, on a regular cadence that takes you outside of the business. So you can think bigger, you can pause to reflect on everything from like, how’s my confidence? What am I procrastinating on? What do I need to? What do I need to get rid of or focus on? What do I need to make sure my board chair knows, I have a whole list of questions that I’ve worked through. But also pausing to think about how can we serve differently in our community? What needs are we seeing that are going unmet? And A is it something that is inside of our lane? And be how can we then approach it? If that answer is yes, it’s it’s something that we need to focus on. It’s one of our lanes, taking that time to pause and build that into a regular schedule is so important.

Brandon Burton 28:07
Yeah, I like that idea and having a name for it. And clarity breaks.

Jodi Owczarski 28:11
That’s right.

Brandon Burton 28:12
It allows you to to think bigger, and work on those bigger goals. I love it exactly. So I know you just said you don’t know what the future of chambers look like. But I always ask the question. How do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Jodi Owczarski 28:27
Yeah, I don’t know what it looks like. But it’s not because we’re not thinking about it. So part of our regular processes is always having a 10 year target. The 10 year target for our chamber is that we will be a trailblazing organization that creates a tidal wave of positive impact. Note that it does not say Chamber of Commerce, I don’t know if we’ll still be called a Chamber of Commerce in 10 years. But if we’re doing things that are causing a positive impact in our community, that I think we’re doing the right things. So we’ll continue to adapt and to learn and to grow in ways that our community needs. So that we can show up and meet those needs in whatever way that is. Two years ago, as I as I moved into the CEO seat, we changed one of our core values from Think Big be great to be a trailblazer. We knew that thinking big and being great was not big enough, it wasn’t great enough to be successful. We’re going to have to blaze a trail, we’re gonna have to go places we’ve never gone before. Maybe the other chambers have not gone before, if we really want to be able to make an impact for our community. And so that’s the mindset that will continue to take into the future so that we can make a positive impact.

Brandon Burton 29:45
Yes, it’s all about making those big swings, making a difference. Yeah, that’s right. I love it. Well, Jodi, for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you and learn more about how you guys how you guys are doing things there at the web. East Coast chamber what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you

Jodi Owczarski 30:03
know, our websites a great spot WestCoastChamber.org. All of our contact information is on there. My specific email is there as well. And that is Jodi with an jodi@westcoastchamber.org. We’d love to connect.

Brandon Burton 30:20
Very good. We’ll have that in our show notes for this episode. But this has been great having you back on the podcast and it says for a really good reason. So I’m excited for you guys and wish you and your team best of luck in Dallas.

Jodi Owczarski 30:34
I appreciate it. Thanks so much, Brandon.

Brandon Burton 30:38
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Small Staff, Big Impact with Jodi Owczarski

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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.

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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.

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
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Our guest for this episode is Jodi Owczarski. For the first five years at the Michigan West Coast Chamber Jodi was accountable for providing leadership in all areas of the organization as well as serving as the integrator within the EOS framework. As the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Jody was responsible for all human resources, accounting and finance functions, as well as managing the staff Facilities and Operations and directing the West Coast Leadership Program. As of September 1 2022, Jodi was appointed as president and CEO of the Michigan West Coast chamber. Jodi’s limitless capacity for solving math problems has been essential to creating budgets and balance sheets, and her inviting personality and quick humor, combined with our strategic thinking give her the edge when managing staff communities and volunteers. Jodi’s contagious energy ripples out into our business community. Working with the Chamber is a perfect combination of all Jodi’s previous work experiences, including as a self employed small business owner, serving as the community center director at a nonprofit working in HR for a large manufacturer and overseeing operations for an international consulting firm. Jody currently serves on a variety of boards and throughout the community and including ACCE Jody is an enthusiastic Spartan, with a bachelor’s degree in psychology with an emphasis on Human Resource Management from Michigan State University. Jodi, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast, I’d love for you to take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Jodi Owczarski 3:41
Awesome. Thanks, Brandon. Truly, it’s an honor to be able to be a part of your podcast. I’ve been a fan for a long time and thrilled to have the opportunity to share what we’re working on at the West Coast chamber. I don’t know what more I have left. I feel like I could have you’ve summed up my whole life. You know more about me now than maybe my mom would even be able to say so. Thanks for the detailed intro. i Yeah, I’m honored.

Brandon Burton 4:10
Yeah. Well, we get personnel on here. So yeah. Well, tell us a little bit more about the Michigan West Coast chamber just to give us an idea, you know, size of the chamber staff budget that all play well into our discussion today, but also touch on the scope of work that you guys are involved with.

Jodi Owczarski 4:28
Yep, absolutely. So we’re located in Holland, Michigan. I’m glad you said Michigan West Coast chamber, because often if we’re called the West Coast chamber, people think we’re over in California. The West Coast chamber came about about 10 years ago actually when two of our chambers merged to make the West Coast chamber and that’s been a just a great process for us since that time, we have about 1200 members and recently grew our staff to seven so we’ve had a pretty small but mighty team by Stand the number of members that we serve. We are proud to be five star accredited through the US Chamber of Commerce, and hope to get that re accreditation status again when we reapply at this time next year. One unique thing perhaps about our organization is we run on something called EOS. The Entrepreneurial Operating System is maybe not as unique anymore. I think we were the very first chamber in the country to start running on EOS. But we’ve been evangelists because of the game changing that that has been for our organization. So we’re super active in our community, we say that we’re a catalyst for business growth and development. We’re a convener of leaders and influencers and a champion for a thriving community. Maybe not so unique, and we hear that often throughout the chamber community

Brandon Burton 5:51
right. Now, that is great. And I’m glad you mentioned the EOS system. And occasionally I’ll hear it in other podcasts that I listened to entrepreneurial bass podcasts and they’ll bring up the EOS system like the Michigan West Coast team or uses it Yeah. setting a good example with it. So hopefully, through our discussion today, we’ll have an opportunity to explore that a little bit and, and maybe how you guys implement that and along with our topic today. So as we focus on our topic that we’re covering for discussion today, it’s around small staff big impact. And that’s all relative, right? So each community, and staff sizes are all relative to you know, like Jodi mentioned, they’ve got seven staff but serving about 1200 Chamber members. So that is a relative small staff to that size of membership. Right now, some listening might have a membership, two or 300 and maybe be the only one but we’ll talk today about ways to make a big impact with a small staff and really getting the best bang for your buck as we go throughout this conversation today. And we’ll dive into that a little deeper as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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Brandon Burton 10:06
All right, Jodi, we’re back. I am anxious to learn more about how you guys make a big impact, especially with your staff size and leveraging opportunities there in your community to serve your Chamber members. So what are some of those fundamental ways that you leverage that impact?

Jodi Owczarski 10:27
You know, the big thing for us, Brandon, I think is that part of Eos is being super clear on who you are, and what your focus area is in for us. When we look at making an impact, we really look at five different areas for us to work in the first being advocacy. I know that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For us, that means that we promote a business friendly environment, through access to elected officials and education on important business related issues. That’s, that’s a big focus for us. The second is business building, we want to help provide visibility connections and resources for business success, that really comes into play with our smaller businesses that are in our chamber. Third area for us is community impact, we think that we can maximize the community, the impact on our community through collaboration and innovation, right? Not everything that we do is business focused, because we know that if the community is strong, business is strong, and vice versa, right? Strong business leads to strong community strong community strong. And so we want to make sure that we’re right at that intersection, to make sure that we can help provide a thriving community. Fourth area for us leadership and talent development, we deliver education and training opportunities for employees to just grow their abilities. This has become especially important threw out this kind of post pandemic time staffs are stretched, thin, people have been pushed into positions that perhaps they weren’t quite ready for, or they’ve not been trained appropriately for, we want to fill that gap and provide opportunities to help develop the leadership and talent skill set within our employee base. And then the last one is inclusivity. We want to foster a culture of belonging within our business community, we want everyone to feel not only like there’s a seat at the table for them, but that we expect them at the table, we welcome them to the table, we’ve got a seat for them, and we want their voice to be present.

Brandon Burton 12:41
Absolutely, that makes a lot of sense. And it’s imperative, I would say to be clear, and who you are and what your areas of focus are, to be able to know what your day to day tasks and responsibilities are. Right, if you’re not clear that you just kind of wander?

Jodi Owczarski 12:57
Well, and I think honestly, Brandon is the chamber, when people don’t know where to go with something, where do they go, they go to the Chamber of Commerce, right. And so we get inundated with all kinds of I’ll call them opportunities to to be involved. And some of those things are fantastic. But if we don’t know who we are, and what our purpose, what our niches, it would be really easy to just get pulled into a ton of different directions and be less impactful. Knowing what our niches what those five things are that that we’re going to work on. If it doesn’t fit in one of those five, we’re gonna have to say no, for us, and our role may be just helping them find others that might be better suited to help with the work that needs to be done.

Brandon Burton 13:46
Yeah. And you often hear oh, but it’s great exposure. Yeah, the chamber is great. But you know, and I have to remind myself that people also die of exposure, so you need to channel that right,

Jodi Owczarski 13:59
I’m gonna I’m gonna hold on to that one.

Brandon Burton 14:04
So it helps being able to narrow down what that focus is. So you can kind of weed out those extra opportunities or exposure and really hone in on what your work what what you guys are focused on. So once you have that clear identity and focus, taking the staff that you have, how do you leverage your staff into delivering in these five key areas?

Jodi Owczarski 14:28
Yeah, you know, the big thing for us, honestly, Brandon, as we start before, considering staff, and look at what work needs to be done, and then creating those roles. So whether you have a staff of one or a staff of seven, you’ve really got to clarify what that work is. Usually it should be kind of those three to five main pieces of work that need to get done, and then find the right people to do that. And so for us, we work off an accountability chart, so that we’re all on The same page of who’s accountable for what looks a lot like an org chart, but really works more from this accountability standpoint. And once we’ve got that clarity, when all of those other opportunities and exposures come up, we’re again focused back on what are the three to five most important things that we need to focus on. And so we really leverage our staff in that way to make sure we continue to stay honed in and completing the most important work, because there’s always more to do. And I

Brandon Burton 15:33
love that approach of really being, you know, clarifying the work. And as you mentioned, finding the right people. And I’m thinking for those with a really small staff, if they’re a staff of one or two, it may not be where they’re finding the right people to do it. But maybe it’s finding the right time and blocking out the time in their schedule to focus on those areas of work. So really blocking in clarifying what that work isn’t needed needs to be done and assigning the time or the people to that, I think is key,

Jodi Owczarski 16:03
for sure. Further to that, for us, we work in 90 days segments. So we work at a quarter at a time. So at the end of each quarter, we look back and review, how did we do this last quarter accomplishing what we needed to get done. And what’s the most important work that needs to happen in this next 90 days for us to be successful and on track. And so there may be additional tasks and projects and things that bubble up that needs to be tackled in that 90 days. And as we assign those to an individual, it also gives them that clarity and permission really to reprioritize their tasks and know this is my number one priority in this 90 days, this has to get done. And so that that additional clarity really helps keep us on track.

Brandon Burton 16:54
I like that idea gives you a little kind of Sprint’s to be able to be accountable for exact area of work. And, and I’m sure that all fits within those 90 day sprints, or focus all fit within the mission of the chamber as well, it does. I’ve seen as we’re recording this, it’s March of 2023. And we’re coming off of these, these Silicon Valley Banks and everything that have crashed and, and as I’m diving into that a little bit just learning about it. All these banks are public banks, and they look at one quarter at a time to try to perform for their shareholders. But they don’t have that driving mission that’s driving that organism. And you can get in real trouble if you’re just you know, looking at the next month or 90 days or quarter, or whatever it is, without that bigger mission. That’s right purpose and focus. So

Jodi Owczarski 17:50
sure. For us, we back our way in right. So we start with a 10 year target of kind of where do we want to be 10 years from now? And then, if we pictured three years from now, what would be on track to get us to that 10 years, right? And then here’s our one year goals. Here’s our one year plan of what do we need to accomplish in the next 12 months to keep us on track towards that mission? That way any of those 90 day sprints or projects, we call them rocks? align with that to make sure are we on track to meet our goals for the bigger picture, right for that one year plan? And what do we need to do in the next 90 days to make sure we hit those goals?

Brandon Burton 18:32
Yeah, I love that. It may be helpful for listeners who I think a lot of chambers that have heard of the EOS system. But maybe it may not be so easy to just summarize in a nutshell, but maybe give it your best shot just so if someone’s listening and like what is EO that it will just save them a Google search and and just hearing from the chamber that implemented it first. What is it and what how does that work? Yeah.

Jodi Owczarski 19:01
ELS just really takes all of the best business practices from a variety of sources and puts it in one easy to follow kind of recipe or cookbook. For us, it means that we have absolute clarity on who we are, what we’re called to do, what our goals are, and what we need to accomplish those those things. So it’s not anything super unique. It’s just taking all of those best principles and putting them all together in in one place. So it’s it’s having that clarity. It’s giving you a long term vision. Our our strategic plan is really a kind of a two page document that’s called a VTOL vision traction organizer that just has everything in one place. You can ask anyone on our team, what our goals are, where we’re going and what our core values are, and they could just knock those out like this right it’s it’s not That’s something that’s a document that’s put away and we pull out every three years to see if we’re on track. It’s living and breathing in driving the work that we do.

Brandon Burton 20:09
So, for those listening, you may hear Entrepreneurial Operating System and think it’s an app or a program or something, it’s really just more of a framework to kind of structure the organization around and keep you on track with your, your purpose and those core values that you mentioned.

Jodi Owczarski 20:25
Absolutely. There’s a book called Traction by Gino Wickman. That’s the cookbook. So yeah, it’s a pretty easy, a pretty easy read. But once you kind of work your way through that, it’s like, Ah, this makes sense. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 20:43
So for those who are listening with the smaller staff, and I feel like every chamber out there can really, you know, hone in on this, because I feel like every chamber is always understaffed for everything that’s going on. Once they, you know, kind of focus in on their their areas of work their their areas of focus of purpose, I guess, clarifying the work and who’s going to do the work? What next steps would you suggest or what, what’s the next thing to try to really maximize the impact that they have with their limited staff?

Jodi Owczarski 21:17
You’re exactly right, you gotta have clarity and your purpose and your needs, you’ve got to find the right people, right, that can do that work. And then you’ve got to build the culture that are keen to keep your all stars in place. So it’s really easy, especially for chambers to just burn out, right? Chamber work is that eight to five, Monday through Friday. Chamber work is all encompassing 24/7, if I go to a wedding, I feel like I’m still representing the chamber, right, and so it never ends. So it’s also creating those boundaries for yourself to make sure that you continue to have gas in the tank, to be able to do the work that is so incredibly important for our community. For us, I sound like an EOS evangelist, I swear they’re not paying me to say these things. But a game changer for us this year, is we read another book called The EOS life. And essentially, it boils down to five questions and whether you do EOS or not. I love this self reflection to make sure you stay on track. One is you have to say yes to all five of these questions. Are you doing what you love? Are you doing it with people that you love? Are you making a huge difference? Are you compensated appropriately? And do you have time for other passions? We hold ourselves accountable to those five questions. Because if any of those answers are no, our time here at the Chamber is likely going to be short, right? If we’re not loving the work that we do, we’re going to end up finding our way out. The biggest issue we’ve had, frankly, is time for other passions. And so we continue to put guardrails and bumpers in place to make sure that our team is getting out. And they’ve got time for other things. And I’m asking them, what what makes you happy? What brings you joy? And we’re actually tracking on a scorecard. Are you doing those things? Are you filling that part of yourself so that you can continue to feel vibrant, joyful and prepared to do the work?

Brandon Burton 23:26
Right? Now, that’s so important to avoid that burnout and make sure in developing that culture, make sure people are enjoying life, make sure they enjoy coming to work, that they enjoy the work they’re involved with. And if not, you know, let’s make some adjustments. Let’s see, you know, what does bring them passion, let’s encourage them to take some vacation days, let’s encourage you know, those things that are going to help to sustain you know, a good, a good healthy balance, if there is such a thing.

Jodi Owczarski 23:56
And you know, and there is and I think if you’re a staff of one, you might think that’s almost impossible to do. But I would challenge and say it’s more important than ever, that you can say yes to all five of those things, right? Because it all does boil down to you. So if you can’t say yes to all those things, if it’s if it’s a time issue, then figure out what what has to come off your plate, you can’t do everything. Right. So goes back to knowing what your purpose is, and and making sure that all of your time is spent on those things. And kind of peeling away the rest.

Brandon Burton 24:33
And if you’re a staff of one, just feeling totally overwhelmed, you know, utilize your board, utilize your volunteers, you know, do you guys how do you utilize volunteers in your board there at the West Coast chamber?

Jodi Owczarski 24:46
Great, great question. We’ve really changed the expectations that we have for our volunteers. We had a huge ambassador program we had I think over 100 ambassadors. They were ineffective. It was cliquey. Anybody who wanted to be an ambassador could just be an ambassador. It was more of a social club than anything else. And a couple of years ago, we decided that that just wasn’t representing who we were as an organization. So we pushed pause, and completely flipped that program, we took what we do for our organization, from an EOS clarity standpoint, and put that same principles into place for our ambassadors. And so they had to know who we were and what their purpose was. And we had expectations for them. We’ve started an application process and an interview process for them to be a part of this important team for us. We’re down to I think, 40. Now ambassadors, and they are doing such incredible meaningful work for us that I can’t imagine not having them as a resource, and an extension for our team, we have a very robust member engagement process, we call them journeys. Here, it’s a defined track of what a member can experience, the touch points they’re going to have with our organization. We don’t want them just hearing from us once a year when it’s time for them to write another check, right. And so we’ve got the structure journey, that would happen throughout the year, we can’t do all of those touch points for 1200 members, with a staff of six or seven, not in that do it well. And so we engage our ambassadors to do a lot of that outreach and engagement. And it’s a great opportunity for them, right? It grows their connections for their own job outside of the chamber. But it also provides the that meaningful contact from the Chamber’s perspective, and gives us the insight that we need so that if a membership is at risk, we know about that before, it’s just a lack of payment for an invoice. And so we can get on that issue earlier.

Brandon Burton 27:00
Right now, I love the way you guys are have changed that Ambassador program and really creating that that honed in focus. Do you know how did that transition go go from going from 100? down to four? Because I can just see, listeners be like, yes, that’s our ambassador programs, clicky. It’s way too big and effective. But you don’t want to, you know, push people away. So how do you do that transition?

Jodi Owczarski 27:27
Great question. So the first year, we allowed, we provided clarity on what the new expectations were going to be. And we allowed everyone who was currently an ambassador to reapply, or to apply and be accepted in that first year. But they did have to apply. But we weren’t going to turn any of them away. Some of them with the new expectations in place. They’re kind of like, yeah, that sounds a lot like work to me. And I think I’m out. And so that was great, right? They self selected out. Yes. Others kind of came through that first year and thought, whatever, you know, they they knew how it was going to be. And after that year of clarity and expectations. They’re like, yeah, that felt a lot more like work. I’m out this year. And so it wasn’t an abrupt change. Others, we had to have some direct conversations like, it might be time, you know, you’ve served us well, we’re so appreciative of the number of years of service you’ve had. But it might be time to let somebody else have this opportunity. And that really had gone over pretty well. But you know, it probably took three, three years or so to really get it down now to this just all star all star team of ambassadors.

Brandon Burton 28:45
Yeah. I’ve been intrigued with all these different Ambassador programs that different chambers do and from applications and interviews to I’ve heard of some that, you know, the ambassadors pay to be part of the program. And it really helps to kind of not weed out but really qualify those who are really there to show up and do the work.

Jodi Owczarski 29:07
Absolutely. We’re turning them away now. Right. I mean, I saw the list of I’m thankful I don’t have to make the decisions, because I was like, Oh, are you kidding? This person doesn’t get to be an ambassador. But it’s it’s the right thing. Right. And so now you’re raising the bar and creating it to be something that people aspire to. What a mind shift,

Brandon Burton 29:26
right? Absolutely. And really, if you’re not qualifying those ambassadors as volunteers, somehow it really ends up just creating more work for you either damage control or hands on with each of those volunteers. And so help yourself by by helping to qualify those who are volunteering.

Jodi Owczarski 29:48
100%. You know, that makes me think of something else. Brandon, I think that so often in the chamber industry, we think about we’ll just we’re just grateful for anybody that will help or any members that will join. And we’ve kind of changed that mindset here. So even from a membership perspective, we raid our members a, b, c, d, if we’re clear on who our ideal members are, we spend more time going after those ideal. And we’d spend more time trying to retain those ideal, because we found that we spent so much of our time and energy chasing and dealing with these problematic members that were paying the very lowest tier membership dues, and really weren’t well aligned with chamber membership. Well, we take their money for a membership, absolutely, well, we support them 100%. But we’re not going to spend the same energy chasing after them. And once we gave ourselves that permission, we were so much more impactful. So I mean, we’ve been retained last year, we retained our membership at over 92%. Right, you find the right the right recipe, and it works. The same thing is true. From the volunteer standpoint, I kind of identify and define what’s your ideal Ambassador look like? And go after those people and raise the bar, don’t just be like, oh, we’ll take whatever we can get. Because those problematic ambassadors that don’t align with those expectations. Oh, they are soul sucking, right? It takes all of your time, all of your energy, and they don’t. And you don’t get anything for it. It’s just a double negative.

Brandon Burton 31:33
Yeah, well, and you can go another step with recruiting your board, right? It’s it across the board, whether it’s a member of volunteer board member, and the example he gave with the members, it’s kind of the membership paradox, right, like those that need the most help that need the most attention, can’t afford to pay more than just the basic entry level membership. So being being clear on that is very helpful. Absolutely. So Jody, as we start to wrap things up here, I wanted to ask you, if you have any tip or action items that you might suggest for listeners who want to take their chamber up to the next level, what would you offer them?

Jodi Owczarski 32:14
You know, I think one thing that is often a struggle for people is kind of making decisions based on data. And so I think don’t let data be something that is carrying you use that to inform your decisions, and your work, whether it’s to go to the board and say, I need another person, or if it’s to define new opportunities for you, or if it’s to kill the sacred cow, right? It’s that program that you’ve done forever, use data to help drive those decisions. We have a very robust scorecard system, that we go over once a week as a staff, with those key metrics that show us whether we’re on track or off track. And we use that really to drive the decisions forward, what are we going to continue to do? What do we need to stop doing? Or what additional resources we need to take things to the next level? So don’t be afraid of data really can be your friend?

Brandon Burton 33:14
Yeah. Especially as you go to your board and say, I feel like we need to get rid of the sacred cow versus we need to get rid of the sacred cow look at you know, what it was five years ago? This is what we’re getting now. The engagements not there. The money’s not there, whatever it is, it’s not aligned with our mission anymore, basically.

Jodi Owczarski 33:33
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, sometimes killing those sacred cows are the best things that you can ever do. Because it gives you opportunity, space capacity to do something new that might be more meaningful for your organization, for your community for your members. Don’t be afraid to try something new.

Brandon Burton 33:52
Right? 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?

Jodi Owczarski 34:03
Now, that’s such a great question. I was talking to somebody about that. Yesterday, I talked before about the fact that we’ve got a 10 year target, right? Where are we going to be 10 years from now. And our 10 year target does not include the words Chamber of Commerce, we say that we’re going to be an organization that, right, because I don’t know what this is going to look like. And I don’t want to restrict myself so far to say that I do know what that is. Maybe it’s a chamber of commerce. But we know that we want to be the essential business resource and leading connector in the middle of a thriving and prosperous community, whatever that might look like. I think that that the needs from our business community are evolving so quickly, that we’re going to have to continue to change to be relevant and important for the community to continue to lean out in that way.

Brandon Burton 35:01
Yeah, I like that. I had a thought just as you’re given that response that has never really crossed my mind before. But when you talk about not necessarily being married to the term Chamber of Commerce, I’ve seen a lot of chambers make that shift already, right, where they’re, they’ve changed, they’ve taken chamber out of their name. But, you know, in today’s world of digital, you know, keyword research and you know, as people look at terms they’re find found on search engines. Chamber has multiple definitions, right? If you do a search for chamber, I mean, who knows? What’s going to come up? Right? Is there a more defining word or term that can be coined to really encompass what a Chamber of Commerce does? Right? So more clarity and more focus on allowing the community to understand you know, what this organization does,

Jodi Owczarski 36:05
right? I don’t know what the answer is to that, frankly, and maybe we’ll still be a chamber. But we want to be open enough to the fact that that might not be the same label that we have. But we’ll continue to evaluate that year over year. Regardless of what we’re called, I think that there’s a need for an organization, like a chamber of commerce, to be at the core of, of any community to really help it thrive, and to be the best that it can be,

Brandon Burton 36:37
for sure. But God, this has been a fun conversation. I’m sure people have been jotting notes as they’ve been hearing your talk. But for the listeners who might want to reach out and connect with you maybe learn more about the EOS system, or just in general how you guys are doing things Sarah at the Michigan West Coast chamber, what would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect?

Jodi Owczarski 36:58
Absolutely, I we love that. I love it. Personally, our whole staff does. So I would encourage you to visit our website, WestCoastChamber.org. And take a look, feel free. All of our contact information is on the website on our staff page. So if you’re a membership person and want to connect with Jess or Britt, reach out, they’d be happy to hear from you. If you want to talk to me about chamber in general, or anything about EOS forward thinking, click right there on the LinkedIn, contact me directly there as well. We truly are passionate about the work that we do, and are always honored to have the opportunity to talk with other chamber professionals to help support the work that you’re each doing in your own individual communities.

Brandon Burton 37:45
That’s perfect. We’ll have of course links to your website and staff page and everything in our show notes for this episode. So anybody can can find you there as well. But Jodi, thank you so much for being with us today on chamber chat podcast for sharing your experience and how you guys are doing things there at the West Coast chamber. I really do appreciate it.

Jodi Owczarski 38:05
Appreciate it. Thanks so much, Brandon.

Brandon Burton 38:07
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