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Because I believe anything that we do, whether it’s geared towards women, men, whatever, you’ll learn something, but be your best self. It’s just that being your best self, how how do you improve your personal, personal, professional development, understanding that women at all levels in their career? There’s somebody out there that understands.

We are looking forward our way from Studio C in the five one one studios located in the Brewery district that’s south of downtown Columbus, Ohio. This is Brett with me as always. It’s Carol listeners. We’re welcoming back David Polakowski, the tribe village chamber partnership. He’s going to talk more about the value of organizations that are supporting our small business entrepreneurs in central Ohio. Welcome back, David.

Thank you. It’s good to be back. I feel like I haven’t been here in years.

It’s been a while.

We’re having fun always, so just time flies when we’re having fun.

I know. And it’s like we just left yesterday.

On top of that.

It does.

Exactly true.

Very true. David, thanks for coming. It’s so good to see you again. We had a great time the last time we talked. But as we were just saying, we’ve got some exciting news from the partnership and we wanted to get more information from you. We asked you to return with more information on these great programs that you’re putting on over the next few months. David has exciting news on two specific events and we want to make sure that we’ve got support for your membership and all of our communities.

Right. And we talked previously, you covered your background. I want to get our listeners up to speed. Your background in public service, economic development, nonprofit experience. Give us a little bit of insight where you came from, as well as that move to try Village Partnership and the time period you started, which is a story in itself.

Oh, that’s always fun. That’s always fun. But no, it’s hard to say. Doing nonprofit, almost 30 years. Part of that 30 years was in public health. I did the medical reserve corps. I’ve created a nonprofit. I’ve done a little bit of everything. But my experience started, ironically, at a chamber of the Mount Vernon Ox County Chamber of Commerce and Area Development Foundation back in the 90s. After a couple of years there, I was vice president of finance. So I balanced both the organization’s fiscal management, so it was a great opportunity. And then I went on to the march and dines and truly, that’s where I gained most of my experience with the fundraising. And that’s where I realized I can ask anybody for anything.

Nonprofit management gets you to that point, doesn’t it?

Yes. And you know the words are going to tell you now.

Exactly.

That’s exactly right.

You can’t take it apart. You’re starting to develop a relationship. So it is truly everything I’ve done is about developing relationships and building the previous position. I spent five years in pains, Ohio, which is about 30 miles east of Cleveland. It was with the downtown Paynesville organization. It was main street program. So I think, well, what I was doing there were about twelve to 1500 main street programs across the country, and it was a best practice program. So if I had guidelines and everything that we had to follow, and I’m still using that some today, I mean, it was a good balance that you can carry on in any job. Now, if you ask me what the four pillars are, I might not remember, but it’s organizations, promotion, and there we go. Two out of 450 percent, I might come up with the other one.

Exactly.

But you look at these four pillars, and it’s about how do you do them every day, and really blending it about. So, coming to the tribal chamber partnership, my husband had taken a job with a company called admit them. He was working with the schools they provide, the online platform. He started in September of 19. He got burned out by April of 21. So it was a bit much, his retirement job. So I’m like, okay, so that was really what brought us back down here. And I was up for this position, in a position with the German village society, and this came through, and I was like, okay, sure. And then we started in January of 2020.

As you were coming in, I was going out. I think I had the better of those deals.

Yeah, it was a challenge, a struggle. But we’re here, we’re strong. We had great two and a half years. I say two and a half years because I don’t know what’s going on this month yet. Our board meeting next month. We provide opportunities for personal professional development or power words develop, grow, and succeed. So truly, it’s really about working with businesses and how they can get to the next level and strengthen their business.

I think that the chamber had a great opportunity during that time period to really solidify its hold, its balance, its namesake. In that trip village area. It was a rock.

Well, it was either for all those.

Businesses that did survive, either you shifted.

What you were doing, or just stop and cease to exist. And we were lucky enough. We shifted. Our programming was all online. We did a lot of virtual stuff, which we have stopped, thank God. I’m really glad we’re doing more everything in person now. We started back in August the 21st with our legend, and it has just really developed and grown. We do a morning perk on second Tuesday of the month, which is our networking opportunity. We have a business that one of our members, always a member, hosts it. And we have done speed networking, we’ve done games, we done a variety of different things. We do our monthly lunch. And on the second Thursday of the month this month. We did Jungkim from one Columbus and looking at why I’m saying this. Because he was there and he came in and talked to us about just the effects of what’s going on with intel and believe it or not. It’s going to affect all of us. Central Ohio. All the way through the entire state. Yeah, going to be a lot of opportunities and I know there’s some challenges going on now and I say challenges and that’s all I’m going to say with the country and looking at where we’re headed.

But I think if you’re able to really just take a step back and look at what your business goals are, you’re going to be successful, you deal with the times and just adjust this too, like the pandemic, I’m sure. I think it’s an endemic now, isn’t it?

I haven’t heard it called that, but I suppose it’s probably going to be most likely because hindsight it will be.

Called that probably they’re at least saying it’s not going anywhere. So that would lead to an indemnity.

And it’s probably going to be like the flu. Everybody makes their choices on what they do, but our focus is bringing people together and networking and helping them build and connecting and we do our lunch and learn, which is the last Thursday, and that was what I had this morning and was able to step away because we have a phenomenal new staff person. Perfect time to add Katie, and I.

Was just going to say give her a shot out.

Katie Ellis, she’s amazing. She is our operations manager. She’s been with me for three weeks and has done amazing things already. She’s learned and picked up on the processes and she looked at me and like, how do you know this? I said, routine. Everything’s routine. You just get to that point. So as she’s watching and learning, we’re eventually going to get into the writing and create a continuation manual so that if I’m gone, she knows how to continue. But she is a very intelligent woman and a strong woman and I love having her as part of my team, my partner.

One of the things that we keep saying, the three of us, is Try Village, but none of us have said, what does Tri Village mean? It’s the village of Marble Cliff the city of Grandview Heights and the city of Upper Arlington all in central Ohio. For those listeners who are not familiar with those names, I was amazed when I was going through the website again to look at your goal, and the goal is connecting members, engaging members, expanding professional networking and helping members save time and money with referrals. So as you said, the whole notion is getting people together. So we’ve already talked a little bit about the pivot into the pandemic and out of the pandemic. If you’re really looking at some of the things that you’ve been doing, can you pinpoint some changes that you made that now coming sort of out of this mess. You can see how it’s helped your membership to become more effective and efficient.

You know, I get a lot of compliments, and I always tell people, yes, I’m the head of this organization, and I’m the driving force, but I couldn’t be successful. We couldn’t be successful as an organization if it wasn’t for our board members and our volunteers and our members really wanting. Michelle Wilson was the one that brought the two chambers together at the Granview Heights area, and the Upper Arlington chambers merged in 2016. She stepped away, and then Stephanie Evans took over for a year and a half. And after that, that’s when I came in. And everybody’s like, you do things different. Yeah, everybody has a way of doing different things, but it’s all on the same basis. So when Stephanie handed it over to me, I’m like, all right, let’s just see what’s working. So it’s not so much about switching, changing, or pivoting. It’s more about building on the strong basis that we have.

True. But I think, too, what’s most important, and maybe this is sort of my nonprofit hat talking. No, it’s not based on a person. It is based on the mission of the organization. But I think, too, that members become more coherent when they have the support of the agency. So if the agency itself is strong on a good platform, businesses know they can get together and talk because you’ve created that neutral place for them to be.

And that’s exactly what we want. We want to connect people. We want to bring them together. My perspective has always been, I will do everything in my power to make sure everybody is succeeding. But when you look at a chamber of commerce, we’re a 501 C six different from a C three, so we’re not tax exempt. It’s a membership organization, and you join this to network and build your network. Like I said, we’ve done speed networking, which was really a lot of fun. We had, like, 30 some people and trying to keep track of all those. It worked out. I was like, okay, yes, timing. But it’s about listening to what your members want.

Right.

I have a great board, and I’ll ask them a question, and sometimes they’re like, well, what do you think? I said, you are the board members. You’re actually members of this chamber. I need to know what you’re thinking. And then I’ll provide my input, and we’ll work from there. Very strong. We’re looking at how do we maintain that level? And that’s why we created our two special events, which we’ll get to, I’m sure. Last year, we created the Be Your Best Self program, which is our women’s initiative. Everything was virtual through the first to eight months, and I go back to February of 21 because we did a leadership panel. We had seven women, and we rehearsed, and they’re like, well, what’s our topic? What’s the one question? And our last time we met, I can’t remember who said it, but it was brought up, what did you have to give up? So I asked it. I said, what do you have to give up? And they’re like, well, personal, professional. I said, I don’t know. And we talked about this. I’m not a script person. Brett does the recording for our podcast, and it’s amazing.

And that’s the thing. Our guys are like, what do we talk about? I said, I don’t know. What do you want to talk about? What direction do you want to go? So, you know, it’s truly listening. But our beer self programming is huge. The leadership panel, we had 45 to 50 people on for an hour and 50 minutes, and it was the hardest event that I ever had to do because I relinquished power to the facilitator. I was on mute the whole time. And we started at, I think it was like eleven, and finished about ten to one. And she’s like, David, are you still there? And I’m like, yeah. She’s like, You’ve been so quiet. Are you okay? I said, no. It was one of the most powerful things I ever did. And these six, seven women really opened up about their career, their lives, and their balance and how to truly maintain that. And they were women in all different levels. CEOs, president of a bank, small business owners. There was some tear shed. And I’m like, I never have expectations and always feel however the program goes is the way it’s meant to go.

Yeah, well, also seeing the inside perspective, too. I know that you say, and I believe what you’re saying, that you’re getting feedback from the members and want to go to the direction that it’s supposed to go organically. But I also want to give you credit, though, too, because you did not waste any time during the deep darkness of Covet the Shutdowns, because you were still manufacturing in your head events you were talking about, okay, once we get out, once we get out, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this. You were creating events. You’re being creative in regards to where you wanted to see this organization be in 2022, what you wanted to put on. And you knew in 21, you had to put it in motion to actually make it happen whenever it might, whenever we were going to be set loose. And that leads me into the two events. These two events would not have happened if you had not talked about them and put thoughts in people’s head in 20 and in 21, it would not have happened.

In being a nonprofit as long as I have, when you’re looking at events, if you’re developing an event, it’s a good year and a half to two years before you can get this event off the ground. And now I’m sitting here going, okay, so tickets are it’s online. People can buy tickets. Let’s go, let’s go. But I find a lot of people.

Are last minute, and I think people have forgotten that too, because I’ve worked with a lot of performing arts groups when I was in radio, and this market is that seven to ten days out, that’s when tickets will sell because we don’t know what we’re going to be doing then. So we’re going to wait. Now, this is a little bit different than a performing arts event, of course, but at the same time, I think that still comes in to true. People just don’t buy tickets week to ten days out. They just don’t.

Yeah, it’s amazing.

Drives me nuts.

Now our lunch and learn that we had today, we max out at 15. I was sold out a week ago, which is unusual because we say 15, we have to set it. The luncheon that we had, we had 50 some people there, which was huge. And thank God to the Hyatt House for our new member who hosted it for us. It was just incredible. But yeah, it’s about what the people want and what they’re seeing they need.

We think our lives are really busy right now because of all the craziness that’s going on. But this whole notion of not supporting an event by buying the ticket as soon as possible has always been around. That’s always been a problem.

We’re trying to get businesses, restaurants to confirm that they’re going to participate. Yes. So the next month and a half, we’ll be working with that. But August 30 is and I can’t believe it’s here.

Let’s get over these events here. So August 30 is the Be Yourself best self expo. Excuse me, I’m sorry, dyslexia going in there. Let’s talk about that event first. We kind of touched upon it, but let’s deep dive.

My question too, along that line, is how did this get going as a focus for women?

So when I started in 20, we have four committees in our programming events committee. My thought is, with all our committees, if we’re not going to be productive, we don’t have an agenda, we’re not going to meet. So I make sure that we have an agenda and that we’re always discussing our next step. We talked about our women’s programming was here they are, hit or miss once in a while. We had happy hour every other month, but it got to discussion of how do we enhance it. And I can’t even remember who thought of being your best self. It was one of our volunteers. And I’m like that’s. It so looking at being your best self, and it is focused towards women and those that are supporters. So it is open to anybody because I believe anything that we do, whether it’s geared towards women, men, whatever, you’ll learn something, but be your best self. It’s just that being your best self, how do you improve your personal professional development, understanding that women at all levels in their career, there’s somebody out there that understands. So whether you’re a small business owner and just starting out or an existing business owner or CEO, president of a company, upper management, we want to still provide that opportunity for you to network and share.

And I see great success when we’re doing these programming and then all of a sudden I see these offshoots of people meeting, I know I’m doing my job and we as a chamber are being successful. So just the programming has been book club, wellness panel, leadership panel, just a variety of things. And I’m like, how do we take that to the next level? And that’s where the expo came from. And I use the word expo because it’s just going to be a variety of a mixture. We are hoping. And I’m knocking on wood aaron Moriarty from 48 Hours is supposed to be joining us for the day. She grew up and went to St. Christopher. Now Trinity elementary in Grandview Heights, went to Upper Arlington High School and then went to OSU for undergrad in law school and then Cleveland and Chicago and all the way to where she is today. And come to find out her twin sister still lives in Upper Arlington. So I got to speak with her on the phone for about a half hour and she is one amazing woman. Just what you see in here on TV is what I think we’re going to get in working with her.

We were looking at a theme of what you’re superhero and she’s like, I’m not really comfortable and I really don’t like that. And I said, okay. She’s like, because some women don’t know what their superpower is. And I said, part of this development is helping those women find that super power. So she’s supposed to be doing our closing keynote and she’s supposed to be with us all day. I’m hoping she’ll be able to facilitate and this is all barring a natural disaster, terrorist attack, any of these crazy things that happened. And she said, but it’s only happened once in her 40 years, whatever, how many years career. So my fingers are crossed.

I’ll give a testament. I have heard Aaron speak. Having worked at Ohio State for 30 years, it was sort of hard not to have an opportunity to hear Aaron speak. She used to go to the university quite a bit. Phenomenal. And absolutely it is going to be worth your time to hear her talk.

She’s real, she’s a reporter, but she’s not afraid to ask. She’s not afraid to take a direction that is very supportive of who she is and the people out there. So I’m anxious to meet her and hopefully you too will be joining us that day as one of our exhibitors and recording some. So we’re going to have to figure out a soundproof booth for you, at least quiet. You have met these people. Exactly.

I’d love to talk. That’s okay, though.

They are social butterflies. If I do a networking event four times a month, I’m sure we would be packed.

Well, you know, that when you were talking about needing to get members together to network. I mean, network is what businesses really are based on. Networking is what job seekers need. Networking is what employers need to find the good job seekers. But when you think about who’s been impacted by the pandemic, it’s all those moms that had to drop out of everything else to be home to take care of their kids. And networking events have not come back. So this is an incredible opportunity for women to get out there and meet other people.

Yes. And we have amazing speakers. We were talking about this Carrie Veracio, who is an author, and I have become pretty good friends with her. We talk every now and then. But anyway, we brought her in. She had written a book. It’s called the radical empowerment method. And it just talks about cleaning your closet out and the metaphor of taking everything out and putting all the things that are Zack are necessary back in. And she talks about her surviving cancer, her loss of her dad, or loss of her mom or loss of her. When you hear these powerful stories, it’s like, okay, so why do I get upset? We should all be grateful. But her topic is going to be what’s your ask hole? And everybody does that. Everybody laughs, but it’s just about asking. She realized this and it developed as her mom was sick and they diagnosed her with cancer. And I forget what type, but she was there, her mom, when you’re diagnosed wherewithal to understand. So she started asking and she started developing this program. And I guess it just is amazing. And when she came in for our book club, I was telling Brett and Carol that we talked about the book for five minutes and we spent an hour and a half just going off in so many different directions.

It was really powerful. We’re doing our leadership panel again. Hopefully, Aaron Moriarty will be facilitating. We have our lunch speaker is Tracy Sharp, who is the owner of the staffing studio. I hope I got that right. Sorry, Tracy. She’s a good friend, but she’s an author and wrote a book called God Send Me a Daddy the Prayer of a Daddy’s Daughter. If you have Audible, it’s worth the download. Just be prepared. It’s very powerful and amazing. Dr. Farre, who’s with the Arlington Dental Group, is working on his presentation, but geared towards victim or victor. So looking at that and then our closing will be Aaron. But we will have time for networking. We have four half hour sessions. We have lunch, we have snacks planned, and it’s just going to be a great day.

And where it is, is a great.

Place to yes, the grand event center. It is the only location currently that can host something of this size. I heard there’s something going on in Arlington, this community center, something that they’re building. Yeah, it’s a great opportunity. Our maximum is 250 for this. So the tickets are 75. And we do have group sales, sponsorship, opportunity, exhibiting space. So it’s just going to be an all around great opportunity to meet and mingle and network and just realize what we all have, if that makes sense.

And I think we have to start to again, understand what numbers mean. 250. You may hear that number sometimes. 250 is a very manageable number that you don’t feel like you lost in a crowd versus a 500 or $600. 250 is manageable that you’re able to network very efficiently and see the same faces and be able to talk. Where 500 or 600? You think, oh, wow, that’s the bigger the better. It’s like sometimes it’s not. No, I think a controlled crowd is very good. 250 is enough. It will be great.

Yes. For Sale trivillage Chamber Partnership.org when we will not take any walk ins or day of sales. So all tickets must be purchased and once the 250 is gone, it’s gone.

Good.

So yeah.

Well, another event that you planned way in advance and you had to for sure this one as well as totally different feel to it is the Tri Village taste. September 19. Yeah. You asked that’s like three weeks apart. What were you thinking?

Oh, it wasn’t it’s no problem.

It is true. If I had done that to my board, they would have rebelled. Good for you.

But you’re dealing with the board that it would work. You’re dealing with the restaurant. So that’s definitely hurting cats on this one.

Yes.

But I’m excited that this is going to be great.

I did that one too.

He’s going to buy your ticket for you.

There you go. But I’d love that we’re focusing on restaurants. This is good.

And I know it’s a struggle for some. I’ve already gotten some nose. A couple of maybe.

Is the issue.

And we picked a Monday night from five to ten. So it’s a quick event. Our goal is 20 to 30 restaurants. Tickets are $50 for members. And it is we’re going to have a DJ. We’re going to have silent auction. We’re just going to have a lot of fun. It will be a cash bar, which I was grateful that the grand event center said, let’s do it that way. And I’m like, I don’t have to worry about tickets.

Yeah.

They’re going to use our local members liquor, so High Bank and Watershed. They will be using them.

Nice.

Yeah. So we’ll be working. But it’s a food tasting and I’m trying to encourage our chefs and restaurants, food industry to maybe create something different off the wall and that they’re not used to or like they want to try something to put on their menu. But if you think about it, it’s a tasting, very small plates, the opportunity of maybe 20 samples of something, really should be plenty of food. And I keep telling them it’s like a catering gig. So the Grand Event Center chef is excited about it. Watershed Distillery was my first sign on and I was like, yes, we did a happy hour there. It was great. But it’s just the time to have fun. We’re only selling 300 tickets and again, no day of sales. So by midnight the night before, it will be closed, shut off, or if we reach that 250, we’re done.

I don’t know that we set the.

Date for that event september 19.

Okay.

From five to ten at the Grand Event Center Monday night. Because usually that’s a slower night for restaurants, but I think we’re going to get there again. They’re still trying to figure out coming out of the pandemic and getting their lives back to somewhat normal, trying to hire people, but it’s just going to be a fun night. And silent auction. I love a silent auction. Now I have one that I will say that we are doing our biggest silent auction. I’m not sure the value yet. So Co Hatch, where my office is, has a home down in Florida called Sandy Pants. It goes with the Co Hatch theme, I would say, and it is walking beach access. Has a pool, I think, sleeps like 15 or something. They are donating three nights with the purchase of four nights depending on and it will be limited depending on the time of the year. But this is like four a week, is anywhere from 40 00, 90 00, depending on the time of the year. So I’m excited about that. And now I did say this. So they have to do that.

Put it out in the universe, it becomes true.

It does exactly say it enough and it’s God’s word.

I did get confirmation, but we just have to work out the details. So trying to get unique. One of my board members belongs to no Soliciting. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that.

No.

It’s a private bourbon club. Oh, yeah. And she’s going to be donating a package, which probably would be close for, I think we said nine people or so. But you have to take her with you. It’s the only way you can go. But trying to keep it unique, some unique opportunities, just a lot of fun.

Good.

I think we need it.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, exactly.

So, David, we’ve thrown around the word networking a lot, and oftentimes I think people don’t understand what that means for job seekers. It’s looking to find employment opportunities, for employers, to find great people to work for them. So this isn’t within the context of a professional association. Who are they looking for in these in terms of networking opportunities? Vendors, their competition, supporting each other.

I. Learned in my previous positions and just through the years, you’re going to have competition, you’re going to have similar industries, especially in the chamber world. You got to work well together. And I’ll use three examples. cohes Versa and Haven collective are all members coworking spaces. The model is the same coworking, but yet they are very different in so many ways. And it’s just about your comfort zone. Looking at the retailers, looking at clothing, everybody, it’s the competition. But yet, how can you work well.

Together even when it’s your competition? Shoe stores were always located next to each other because if you went into one, you went into the other.

And we have too many fabique and blazers and bottoms. The concepts are similar. It’s a retail women’s boutique, but yet they’re different. Blazers and bottoms, exactly what they’re looking at. And fatigue is a different concept. So the ability to work to help my encouragement is to similar industries work together because one has might not work for whoever. So it’s just that referral and networking, I mean, networking is a big thing. I always tell people, come to our events, let’s talk. And I hate when you see that wall flower. And I’m like, I have to make that be line over to say, come on, start talking, and then slowly bring them in. And I love putting people or making people go outside of their comfort zone. And it just opened up. And I tell you, we have amazing people in the chamber. They’re a lot of very supportive, positive, business oriented individuals. And that’s it. I tell them, I can assist you, but I’m not going to run your business. It’s a two way street. You know your business better than anybody. You know what you need. We’re here to help fill those gaps and those resources.

I think, too, that when I was doing nonprofit management, even when I was talking to directors of agencies that could be considered competition, we were doing sort of the same job, maybe different audiences. Just the fact that we had an opportunity to compare notes, find resources that they may know of that I didn’t, or I knew that they didn’t. Being in competition with each other is a healthy experience and a healthy relationship. So I don’t think people should shy away from networking because they’re afraid to talk to their competition, but actually relish that opportunity to talk. And yes, wall flowers, that was always the fun thing to at job fairs. Go up and find the person who they walk into a job fair and you could see the terror in their eyes and they’re turning around to walk out and you just grab them and bring them over to an employer and get them to start talking. So, yeah, I think that people should not shy away from these great opportunities to learn something while you’re there, but also to create new relationships.

And that’s interesting because Grandview Heights is working on a new economic development plan, and they hosted a meeting for businesses, a Business Roundtable, to come and talk about what they have known and hearing what the businesses need from that. We’re starting Business Roundtable, so we will be inviting our members and non members, all the business community, to participate and attend. And let’s discuss what resources you have, what’s available, and how we can help make that connection. We’ll have representatives from each of the communities there. So we’ll have Grandview Heights and Marble Cliff. We’re doing there’s? August 10. I’ll be finalizing it. Versa and then the upper Arlington one. We have to set the date yet, but truly, again, listening. What resources do you need? What’s missing in your business.

To also qualify on the two events you don’t have to live in and or work in Grandview, Upper Pennington or Marble Cliff to participate?

Correct. We usually set a fee for members, and then there’s a non member fee, which is a little like $510 more usually. So we have that. But yes, you can participate. Now, restaurants or those in the food and beverage industries that are participating, they have to be a member or it’s $500.

Whisper, whisper.

It’s cheaper to become a member.

Yes. We’re one of the most cost effective chambers in Central Ohio. For two to nine employees, it’s 175, and then for ten to 29, it’s 250. So those are the restaurants. Usually that’s where the restaurants fall. But you were talking about competition. We have the Chamber of Commerce of Central Ohio Group, and we meet once a month, and we have some programming and just different share information. But chambers, I mean, it’s competition, but yet you can belong to multiple chambers if you feel it’s beneficial to be in different communities and you’re building your business. Look at your chambers. We’re not what we used to be. There’s shirt and tie. Someone said we should do a black tie affair, and I’m like, Absolutely not. If I don’t have to put a tie on. I don’t think I’ve worn a tie to work in 20 some years, maybe. Yeah. So things have changed, but there’s still the underlying meaning just with the chamber. It’s about networking and getting to know other businesses in the community.

Right? Yeah. We talked a little bit about this earlier about the restaurants having difficulty finding employees and such. Have you heard any of your members with some success stories for recruitment outside of restaurants? Whatever, it’s still difficult.

It’s been trial and error. I’ve had members that say they posted, they share the information and they set appointments and people don’t show.

Are you hearing different strategies for retention then making working there better? Maybe kind of looking inward and going, okay, to attract we need to maybe become better.

It’s not so much better. It’s about what you offer. And I know that it comes down to the dollars for both sides. Sure it does, but what are the benefits? I think we’re going to see more of the benefits as part of the deal are really an important part, which.

Is with Chamber offers that fantastic opportunities through Soca.

Yes, it’s the Southern Ohio Chamber Alliance. We have health insurance plan that’s a consortium for businesses 50 and under.

Huge benefit.

Yes, we have the Chamber energy Program, which will help shop around for your electrical and gas needs and get you the best rates, lock you in. And then we have ID shield, legal shield. But then we also have other chamber member benefits. Polype, who is a newer well, she’s a year now, has been in the Chamber. And they’re offering if you sign on with them, it’s credit card processing. They’ll provide some residuals to the chamber. We get residuals from the health insurance. So all these partners are part of help support who we are as a chamber in addition to being a member.

Right.

David, before we end our program today, we always ask our guests for words of wisdom. So can you give our listeners some suggestions on working with their local chambers and the kinds of resources that they need to take advantage of in their communities?

Well, here’s what I always tell prospects. If you want to take a time, come to an event, participate. Listen, we have a new member breakfast on Tuesday. We do that usually every quarter. We’re having mimosas. You must register.

Too bad I don’t have a business.

You can join as an individual.

Oh, yeah. I think I’m on here.

Yeah, the mimosa I got you.

Yeah, it’s pretty close.

Wow.

On a Tuesday, one of my committee members, one of our committee members asks, can we do Mimosa? And I’m like, sure, we’ll see how that goes.

I’m thinking, too, that’s how that goes for me.

Obviously, if I knew talk about great podcasts after that, I know maybe that’s what we should do with our podcast, just do mimosas in conversation.

That’s good. Yeah.

So many things wrong with that. But it is about connecting. There’s benefits, like the soccer plan. There’s benefits. Member, member. The networking, the ability to call the Chamber and say, hey, I’m looking for this connection. Do you know this person here? As long as they’re a chamber member, we can get information. I had someone called today asking me about a cleaner, dry cleaner in the area, and I’m like, I’m sorry, they’re not a member. But if you call Better Business Bureau Central Ohio, who is a great partner of what we do, they might be able to help you. But the resources are truly what you make of it. We’ll work with you to help build your brand, expand your brand. If you look at our website, we’ve done a lot of rebranding. We’re down to one page that needs to be rebranded. We have our new marketing brochures that we just printed. So it’s truly about what you need as a business. Ask your Chamber. Ask them what resources? This is what I’m looking for. How are you connecting with others? Westerville does a job fair. Several of them do taste events. So it just is what works.

One community might not, but yet what does may. So we share a lot of information.

But I think also too, that if you’re interested in becoming a member of the Chamber and maybe they don’t see something that they need ask, make the suggestion. Maybe that’s something that the Chamber hadn’t thought of. The other thing too, I think people from when I was growing up, I saw the Chamber as those guys who own businesses and there was like never the ends meet, the owners and the rest of us. But we know in our communities, our communities and economic development thrive on small businesses. And so even if we don’t have a company, we don’t have a business, we’re not a member of the Chamber to support local small businesses and support entrepreneurship.

Yes. And it’s funny because I’ve worked with several individuals that are looking at starting a business. The big thing is, do you have a business plan? That’s the first thing that people need to understand when you’re starting a business, you need a business plan because if you’re going for funding, you’re going to look at investors, they’re going to want to know what your plan is.

Right. Well, in the state of Ohio’s, small Business Development Centers will help individuals for free build their business. And isn’t that located in Grandview? It was on Goodale. I think they’re still on Goodale.

They could be. I know the SBA is also another government agency that helps a business and they provide free courses. SBA is at Columbus State, as is the other. Yeah. So the resources are out there. You just have to ask.

And that’s a good point too for our listeners, because we will have lists of these resources for you in case you are looking at starting your own business.

It’s not easy, it’s a challenge. I see our business owners as small businesses. It is a lot of work. 24, 724, seven. Because if it’s just you yourself and you vacations, you need time. My biggest suggestion is take a deep breath. You need to take the time for you to step away. But great things happen with conversations.

Absolutely right.

Well, Dave, thanks for being with us today. Listeners, thank you for joining us. You’re going to find this podcast as well as information and resources on our website lookingforward our way.com. We hope to hear from you. And don’t forget to review our podcasts on Google My Business. And good luck in pursuing your own entrepreneur dream.