EEDC: Last year was an interesting one for all businesses. Can you talk about the changes that the Chamber went through?
AK: The Chamber was experiencing much of the same challenges that the business community and our members were facing. On top of that, Al (Silverstein) announced his retirement at the end of the year. We opted to take dramatic measures to meet those challenges. When I took over, I felt it was a good time for the Chamber to rebrand and reflect the big changes we were going through. The whole point was to be more responsive and reactive for our membership to meet their needs better.
EEDC: Part of the change was a new logo, right?
AK: So, the logo came about in partnership with one of our members, the Rockfish Media group. I felt it would be an appropriate time to do a rebranding, and we put our heads together, each of us bringing something to the table. I had an affinity to a specific color scheme, which I felt was bright and fresh and modern and part of the messaging I definitely wanted to portray or convey. Then we looked at marrying the color scheme to a grouping of sails, the idea being that the logo should represent, in an instant, the lifestyle of Talbot County.
The sails’ coloring was meant to reflect the diverse membership, businesses, and business people in the community. Striving to have our board and everything that we do in the community follow that same philosophy—Chambers, by their very definition, are meant to be there for everybody and every business, no matter the size, no matter the people. And that’s something that I’m looking forward to getting that messaging out. This Chamber is here for you, no matter who you are.
This is a water adjacent community to the Chesapeake Bay, not that everybody is a boater. Still, I think the water and everything about it is part of the Eastern Shore experience. The idea of the grouping of sails is a message to the membership that the Chamber is acting as the safe Harbor for members to meet and say: ‘we’re going to get through this, together.’
Note: See the video on the creation of the logo here.
EEDC: Seems like you’ve had to do some thinking outside the box?
AK: I think this is a business philosophy that all businesses, and certainly our members, are facing, which is: things are changing. They have changed. And how do we pivot and reposition ourselves to meet and be successful in this, what seems to be, constantly changing environment. It’s presenting some inspiring opportunities that we maybe would have been slower to explore, but I think now is the best time to jump in and say, that’s a neat idea. Let’s go with it. This is a pretty neat idea! How can we make that happen?
EEDC: What is the Chamber doing differently?
AK: We’ve done a better job of representing ourselves on social media. In the coming weeks and months ahead, you’ll see us being more interactive using social media, as opposed to just putting things on Facebook. We’ve realized that it’s important to speak to your audience in a way that your audience is listening to you–and the digital platform is one of those areas.
We’ll be doing Instagram campaigns featuring and spotlighting members. We’ll also be doing something we’ve never really done before, which is telling the Chamber’s story. Not only our specific Chamber but Chamber membership in general. We’ll be listing statistics that show what a Chamber of Commerce is and why it’s important. I think people are aware that there are Chambers everywhere, but they may not know that it’s ‘not your grandfather’s Chamber anymore.’ We want to show the benefits of joining a Chamber, including the advocacy and the available resources.
EEDC: It sounds like there are some great and informative things coming up.
AK: One of the exciting things we’ll be doing is a 3-7-minute video series and companion podcasts called Chamber Chats. This will be in partnership with APG media. It will be an opportunity to help spread the word about our sponsors. It’ll be a video recording hitting the highlights of what a member has that’s great, new, or changed, and then the companion podcast will go along with it.
EEDC: You’ll be doing the podcast?
AK: Yes, I will be the interviewer. We will start those this month, and we are in the process of identifying who is in the first round. The goal is to have it be a weekly release.
EEDC: And where can people catch these broadcasts?
AK: More details will be coming, but certainly, the videos will be on our YouTube channel.
EEDC: We’ve also noticed some changes to your website.
AK: Yes. We’ve added a Jobs Search tab, which has been very well received. This is a great tool that will allow Chamber members to post any job openings that they have at no cost to them.
Our website, in fact, is an important benefit to members and it’s very user-friendly. Part of our new bi-weekly newsletter’s messaging will be to show members how to get the most out of it. The Job postings are free. The news releases are free. They can see member-to-member deals available only to other Chamber members. And there are also hot deals, which are viewable to the public. In our biweekly newsletter, the Chamber Compass, we’ll be featuring different parts of the website to continuously help remind people what our members have to say and what they have to offer.
EEDC: Talk about the Chamber’s involvement with PPP loan legislation.
AK: We participated in the effort to inform legislators that 501(c)(6)s were left out of the initial round of PPP loans, both on the local level in our state and also on the federal level. Throughout the whole pandemic, we were assisting members by providing resources for them to apply for PPP loans, helping them find bankers, finding tax professionals who could help with navigating through the process, all the while not being able to apply for that same assistance.
Last year, the Governor announced a NORI (nonprofit recovery initiative) grant specifically for 501(c)(6). We applied and got $10,000, which was very helpful last year.
This year, the PPP2 has been expanded to allow 501(c)(6) to apply, validating the work Chambers of Commerce were doing. We’re happy to say we just submitted our PPP loan application, and we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to hire a support staff member in the next few weeks. This is a much bigger job than one person should handle.
EEDC: It sounds like a lot has been accomplished. What are you most proud of?
AK: What I’m most proud of is the collaborative effort of board members and Chamber members. They have come together and rallied with me in support of how the Chamber is essential to the community and how to get the message out there so that current and potential new members realize what a valuable resource this is. Also, that Chamber membership is an investment, not only in their businesses but also in the community. Strong Chambers are an indication of a healthy business community, which I think Talbot is.
The pandemic has created obvious hardships across the whole world. The way to get through this is by leaning on each other; this isn’t a time for us to try to weather the storms alone. This is the time to rally together. And I’m very proud of having a community that has responded to that.
