Economic Development

What role is your chamber playing in this sector of your community?

Do you have an economic development component to your program of work or do you rely on a separate entity in the community to do that?

At the end of the day, all chambers are in the economic development space whether it’s a formal public/private relationship or you’ve just taken on the role through your work in workforce development and on infrastructure issues.

In my experience, the metro chambers main focus is economic development.

While state chambers mainly focus on advocacy work at the state capitol and the local chambers are in the networking business at the local level, it’s the metro chambers that focus on economic development.

That’s not to say that all three chamber entities don’t do advocacy, economic development and networking, but each has a main focus and that’s what makes them a state, metro or local chamber.  Our roles are defined by our members and geography.

Did you know that there is a certification for economic development professionals?

Did you also know that many chamber CEO’s have their CEcD certification?

For more information on the certification and how you can get involved in the economic development space go HERE.

Trust: Are You a Key Broker in Your Community?

Is your chamber viewed as a trusted entity in your community’s health and well being?

As stated in the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives Horizon Initiative: Chambers 2025, the chamber can play the key role as the convener of business community, the public and local government.

As chambers, our role is to advocate on behalf or our small business members and what all small business members want is a thriving community where all can prosper and grow.

When a community (businesses, public and government) all work together to improve the lives of all is a place I’d want to live, wouldn’t you?

Part of being that convener is having the trust of the community and to be able to play the role of identifying the issues that need to be addressed in a factual and non controversial way.

I’ll finish with the word relevance!

We talk a lot about this in the chamber space.  Are you relevant?  Well, what better way to be relevant than to be the “trusted” leader in the community that gets a seat at the table whenever an issue needs to be addressed.

For a copy of the Horizon Initiative: Chambers 2025 go HERE.

Until next time!

Communicating the Value of the Chamber

What are you doing to keep the program of work your chamber is doing in the public’s eye in your community?

Do you have a regular communication tool that is informative and can be spread through social media?

There is no better entity than the chamber in telling the story of the community and how the chamber is playing a vital role in the health and growth.

Have you had a chance to review the great Horizon Initiative: Chambers 2025 report produced by the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE).  It’s a great starting point to focus your chamber on what issues chambers are facing all over the country.

While we have the saying “if you’ve met one chamber, you’ve met one chamber,” that doesn’t mean we don’t have common areas of focus.

The key to all of the reports and stories you may read on chamber management and the trends, you’ve got to ask yourself a question, “What do you want to be.”

And then spend some time on how you can maximize your resources in attaining that goal.

I’m reminded of the Hedgehog Theory in Jim Collin’s book Good to Great, focus on what you can be or are the best at, what you have passion for and where you make money.  That’s the business you should be in for your members.

Always remember, you can’t be all things to all people, so stop trying to please everybody!

Focus on your mission and the strategic plan your membership has set forth.

Good luck!

3 Tips to Engage New Members

You’ve heard me and many others say before, that engaging your members in your program of work, is the easiest way to improve your member retention.

So what are you doing, for not only your first year members, but also your base members too?

Here’s three quick things you could implement very easily, not only to welcome new members, but will also help on the back end when it comes to retention.

In fact, I know you’re already doing the first one.

New Member Kit - we’ve all got the thank you letter, web sticker and some form of the Chamber member plaque/sticker, but what else are you including in your new member kit?  Do you include a schedule of your upcoming programs or a copy of your mission statement?  The goal of your new member kit should be to make your new members feel welcome and to get a sense of what the Chamber will do on their behalf and the business community at large.

Special Invitation - pick an upcoming program or event for them to attend and make sure you have a buddy system where they are met at the registration table and that buddy will stay with them throughout their first event they attend.  Nobody wants to attend an event and feel isolated.  Formalize this in a way that works best for your Chamber.

Personal Phone Call - this is so easy to do and it gives the personal touch that any new member will appreciate.  The goal is to check-in and see how they are doing, ask if there is anything you can do for them and then end the call with a simple “Thank You” for being a member.  And by the way, the CEO needs to make this call.

If you do these three things to engage your new members it will be a good starting point to improve their engagement with the Chamber and it will help with your first year retention rates.

8 Tactics to Redefine Your Member Value Propositions and Experience

I recently attended a great session by Peggy Smith on how to redefine your member value proposition and experience.

I’ve written on that subject matter before and you can go HERE for that blog post titled What's Your Brand.

Her view on the Value Proposition is all about expectations and experience.

• Expectations - outcome driven, logical, meets needs, everyone has it, tangible. 
• Experiences - influences decisions, emotional, above and beyond, subjective, intangible.

She goes on to talk about how expectations are tied to the reason why your members join.  Traditional value propositions are the new expectations.  She states we are shifting to experience-driven value propositions.

During the session she asked each of us to share our mobile device and asked the other person to find where you can join that persons organization.  Wow!  While some organizations made it easy to join, others had a hard time finding any link anywhere on the mobile device.

Peggy talked about focusing on the following 8 Tactics to redefine your member value proposition and experience.

Meet Expectations with Mobile - everyone is on a mobile device so it's important that you have a mobile responsive website.  What that means is your website adapts automatically to the users device (i.e. desktop, iPhone, iPad, etc.). The research tells us that 4 out of 5 consumers are using their smartphone to shop.

Simplicity Meets Design - again research is telling us that your members have an 8 second attention span.  Do you have a clear navigation for your members and potential members and a clear call to action on your website. Focus on usability, accessibility and the ease of interaction as a guide.

Simplify the Onboarding Process - first impression is key, you don't get a second chance to make a first impression.  How many clicks does it take for a potential member to join?  Do you have a welcome campaign that goes beyond the thank you letter?  Do you give them a gift?  Maybe a pen with your logo, mouse pad, what do you have that you could give in addition to your plaque.

Get Social - networking is the #1 reason why members join your organization.  Do you have an online community?  Do you have a daily strategy to connect with your members, and by the way, consistency is the key with your strategy, whether it's a daily or weekly connection.  Having said that, most will tell you A daily habit is definitely the way to go!

Personalized Marketing - the ability to segment your membership by their demographics, lifestyle geographic and behavioral traits.  Are you getting them information that is important to them based on the above criteria?  Are you responding to their pain points.

Live Interaction at Events - do you have a mobile event app that allows for  ongoing interaction throughout your meeting in real-time?  Getting people to post to their Twitter and Facebook accounts is a way to get the event out to the community beyond those who are attending.  Are you using Gamification to get your attendees active in your live event?  What a great marketing tool.

Make it Easy - does your website have a member portal where it tracks the actions of your members and when they come back to your website relevant information will show up.  This is where you'll want to get your CMS provider involved to help you in this process.  The other question is are you automating your processes?  Membership renewal.  It's been stated that 29% of associations offer automatic renewals.  At the end of the day, eliminate unnecessary tasks.

Agile is the New Lean - go to strategyzer to get the business canvas for membership and the value proposition mapping.  Start on your member profile side first.

Keep in mind the above 8 tactics while your working with your membership engagement.

For more resources on membership from yourmembership go HERE.

Productivity: Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Day

I had the opportunity to attend an educational session led by Chris Bailey on productivity.  He states there are lots of books on the subject, good and bad!

The following is a recap of his session from my notes.

What is Productivity?  They mean different things to different people.

It has changed over the past 50 years from repetition of work (think working with your hands vs the brain) to knowledge-based work.  Factory vs Knowledge!

He goes on to state that there are 3 keys to productivity: Time Management; Attention; and Energy. Accomplishing what we intended to do is what productivity is all about.

He talked about the following 3 tactics that if we're aware of, that if we manage, it will make us more productive.

1. The Rule of 3
2. Procrastination
3. Taming the distractions/interruptions

The Rule of 3

Set better intentions, what 3 things to I want to accomplish each day or week.  Our brains are ingrained to do things in 3.  So what are your 3 daily intentions?

Procrastination

The research states that there are 7 reasons we procrastinate because the work is boring, frustrating, difficult, lacks personal meaning, lacks intrinsic rewards, ambiguous and unstructured.

How to beat it, think of your future self, list the costs, shrink your resistance, define the very next thing and do it and finally notice mindless busywork.

Taming the distractions/interruptions

Research tells us that we have 40 seconds of focus before we're distracted/interrupted.  Which translates into 26 minutes of lost productivity from each distraction/interruption.

He goes on to say there are four types of distractions/interruptions - control/no control, annoying/fun.  The key is to deal with these things ahead of time.

Give 3 goals to your staff for the day, week, month or quarter.  Your team, like all teams, can understand when you keep it to three.

As a manager, do you have a list of 3 things you want to do? Time management, attention and energy are the keys to productivity and where those three circles come together is productivity.

At the end of the day, we need to be our own traffic cop to increase our productivity.

For more information about Chris Bailey and his productivity project go HERE.

Creating an Entrepreneurial Culture in an Existing Organization

At a recent educational breakout session I attended, the speaker, Courtney Kiss, spoke of creating an atmosphere where your staff can make a difference and change the culture of your organization and in turn your community.

It's about building a culture that everyone has a voice and has the ability to change things from where they are in the organization.  It cannot happen in a vacuum.

The top three key things that jumped out at me that may also work for you and your organization that the Courtney mentioned are:

• Improve on what you already have - there is no need to start from scratch.
• Try something new - and this does not have to be a big thing, it can be small or it could be large.
• At the end of the day, it's about thinking differently - people who challenge the status quo.

Who drives the culture?

Management - buy-in from the top or who manages people.  It doesn't have to start at the top, but the top has to support.

Leaders - and that doesn't just mean the person with the title but the individuals that can inspire, constructive critique, and support (you will always have failure from time to time but the leader gives support and fail-forward. The leader can reinforce the message.

HR - supports the entrepreneurial culture through hiring and maybe even the review process and a consistent reinforced communication to all staff.

Benefits of an Entrepreneurial Culture

• More innovation
• Employee satisfaction - you are giving staff a platform to be heard
• Employee advocacy - great PR

How do you Build It (10 Key Things)

1. Embrace passion, share your passion
2. Allow the right amount of autonomy
3. Avoid homogeneity
4. Be brave and radical
5. Be patient with the process and timing
6. Small is ok (learn as you go)
7. You need to be ok with failure (you need to learn from it)
8. Celebrate the successes
9. You need to make way for change (you need to allow it to happen)
10. Transparency is critical (share the most information you can from where you stand)

Some Action Items to Create this Entrepreneurial Culture

• Create focus groups within your staff
• Utilize the technology you have (Dropbox or a comment box, etc. to get new ideas)
• Get your folks to talk to others outside your organization
• Create a competition
• Host a lunch with your staff to hear ideas but give it context

The good news is that it’s not expensive to change a culture, improve efficiencies, or the opportunity to make more people happy at work!