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When the board of the Defiance (Ohio) Area Chamber of Commerce had its first meeting of the year last January, one of the members told President Tim Small, “Retention is our new growth strategy.”
The Defiance chamber’s retention ratio is somewhere in the mid-90 percent area, Small said. By bringing in a few more new members than it lost last year, the membership total actually grew 5.5 percent in 2009.
But chambers of commerce across northeast Indiana and northwest Ohio have been fighting to stay relevant and hold on to members in the last few years as the economy has sagged, putting some companies out of business and others on tighter budgets that preclude things like chamber dues.
Of 15 chambers of commerce included in a recent Business Weekly top list, only two — Defiance and LaGrange County — gained members over the past year. One stayed the same and the rest lost, although most of the losses were fairly small.
The Greater Fort Wayne Chamber dropped from 1,814 members in 2008 to 1,620, a decline of nearly 11 percent. Since Business Weekly first began tracking chamber membership in 2005, the Fort Wayne Chamber’s membership is down from 2,050, a decline of 21 percent. “Obviously, in tough economic times, some businesses look at (chamber dues) as an extra or optional expense,” said Hylant Group’s Pat Sullivan, the new chairman of the Greater Fort Wayne Chamber’s board. “What we have to do is we have to be relevant and we have to deliver member services.”
The duties of chamber staffers have been rearranged so that more people can devote time to member relations, and the chamber also has been trying to do a better job of promoting the services it offers and the benefits of membership.
“I think we just weren’t telling people what we were doing,” Sullivan said.
Some programs, such as the monthly Meet Me @ 5, have been reworked. Under the old format, too often the gathering just attracted salespeople, not the purchasing managers and other decision makers those salespeople really need to connect with. Now called “CC: me,” the program has been redesigned to make sure the right people are invited and encouraged to attend.
One other big change is coming. “Our plans are, in the near future, to co-locate with the (Fort Wayne-Allen County Economic Development) Alliance,” Sullivan said.
He declined to comment on whether the chamber would sell its historic but expensive-to-maintain downtown building, as some have suggested, in order to make the combination happen.
“We’re looking at developing a one-stop shop. We may go to them, they may come here,” Sullivan said.
The Fort Wayne chamber provides a third of the alliance’s funding and has three members on its board. Thanks to interim chamber President Mike Landram, the chamber and the alliance “are getting along better than ever before,” Sullivan said.
Additionally, the chamber is looking at creating a group purchasing program for members and bringing in high-quality training programs for smaller businesses. Sullivan also expects it to take an active role in developing and implementing some of the goals that he expects to come out of a regional planning process, spearheaded by the Northeast Indiana Corporate Council, that will begin in January.
An intense local focus, on the other hand, has helped the LaGrange County Chamber of Commerce more than double its membership in three years.
The turnaround began in 2006, when membership had dwindled to 146 members and the chamber’s board was considering just packing it in and dissolving the organization. In a last-ditch effort, the board brought in Jack Dold, and a few months later, Beth Sherman started there in what she thought was going to be a temporary replacement job as a secretary.
Dold asked Sherman, who had once worked in radio sales, if she thought she could sell memberships.
“I said, ‘If I can sell air, I can sell anything,’” Sherman recalled.
By 2007, membership was up to 258, last year it hit 300 and now it’s 325 and counting. Dold retired earlier this year and Sherman is now executive director. She runs the organization with the help of one 30-hour-a-week assistant, an achievement she said other chamber staffs find hard to believe.
When they call her for advice, they say “well, maybe we won’t mention that,” Sherman said.
The chamber’s success is due mostly to “getting the word out about the chamber’s benefits,” Sherman said. That is done both through newsletters and personal contact.
The LaGrange chamber’s ambassador program, for example, is a group of volunteers that goes out to welcome new members. Just last week, a group of eight showed up at a new member’s business, and she was overwhelmed, Sherman said.
The chamber has monthly lunches — which now average about 75 people, making it a challenge to find a space large enough to accommodate them — and it will hold its first-ever trade show in January. Spaces already have sold out.
Members also get discounts on goods and services from each other through a member-to-member program that covers everything from pizza purchases to real-estate title fees. Other programs offer discounts on health insurance premiums, business insurance and Internet and phone services.
Those member-to-member discounts are something the Defiance chamber, up to now, has avoided. “I just don’t think we should have to eat each other to survive,” Small said.
A study a few years ago found the Defiance chamber’s dues were about 40 percent lower than comparable organizations, so the board felt comfortable in raising dues about 5 percent. If additional funding is needed, Small hopes to do it through sponsorships rather than additional dues increases that might discourage membership.
“Dues to me is sort of your ante in poker. You pay just to get in the game,” Small said.
The Defiance chamber took on the Hicksville chamber this year, providing the smaller organization with staffing, and also is looking at developing regional leadership programs with neighboring counties and Defiance College. It has been ramping up its marketing efforts, but at the same time has worked to hold expenses down, switching to an electronic newsletter, for example, to save on printing costs, Small said.
“We’re selling the fact that we are a conduit of information and marketing and proving that we don’t just say that, we make it happen.”
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