How small chambers thrive through collaboration

Ted Wind: Welcome back to the Beyond the Ribbon Cut Podcast for chamber leaders. I'm your host, Ted Wind from Diagonal for Chambers, and today I'm joined by Marianne Cohen, the Executive Director at the Malden Chamber of Commerce in Massachusetts. Thanks so much for joining us on the pod today, Marianne.

Marianne Cohen: Thanks for having me, Ted. I'm so excited.

Ted Wind: Thank you for coming on. We're excited to have you. and before we hop into the bigger conversation today, would love if you could give the chamber listeners at home the quick version of the Malden Chamber, a little bit about your size and scale and the community you guys serve.

Marianne Cohen: Absolutely. So the Malden Chamber of Commerce, we were founded in the 1800s, one of the oldest chambers, I think, in the country. we are a very, very diverse area. we are one of the gateway cities. So and a lot of immigrants business owners, a lot of small independent business owners. I can't I we have maybe one or two chains that are actually in Malden.

So we're really focused on encouraging these entrepreneurs, these immigrants to get their businesses up and running, working together and trying to kind of revitalize downtown Malden. And we've been doing that with several different ways. So it's but it's been very exciting. So yeah.

Ted Wind: Love it, love it, that's incredible. And as far as like size, how many businesses or so are members?

Marianne Cohen: sorry. We have about two hundred members, give or take. I think like all other chambers, it ebbs and flows. You know, some chambers are doing really well right now, some aren't. And, you know, y you're always gonna lose members, right? I mean, that's gonna happen. Businesses close, businesses merge, people just leave the chamber, but there's always plenty more businesses that open or realize the value of the chamber, which we really hope they do.

Ted Wind: Totally, totally. Now, Marianne, I know that you've been involved in the chamber world for quite some time now. I wanna start today before we dive into a little bit deeper in the weeds, a little bit of the bigger kind of leadership question. What's your why for doing this work and being a chamber leader?

Marianne Cohen: I think it depends on the day. There are some days I'm thinking, I have no idea why I'm doing this. And I think many chamber directors feel the same way. But the satisfaction of connecting chamber members together or finding a way for them to fit in in the community or showing them the resources that they need to survive or flourish or any of that.

It's just so rewarding. I I you know, I'm a true believer in small business. Shop local, eat local, play local. And the chamber is all about doing that. And it's just it's fun. Our days are never the same, which I love. I you know, I I don't like just sitting behind a desk and the chamber offers a way to do that because you know, our chamber actually doesn't have an office because we realized why.

We spend more time out in the community than we do behind the desk. So we'd rather go meet the community where they're at than have them come to us.

Ted Wind: Love that. I love that. And and I think that passion for small business owners is one of the reasons why it's been just an absolute blast working with and talking with so many chamber leaders. one question around that is like, is there a certain business or a certain moment, a certain story when you feel like that really clicked for you, that that love for chambers and this work?

Marianne Cohen: I so I've been in this business for 11 years now, my second chamber. I just remember walking into the first chamber and looking, going, I have no idea what I'm doing. And so one of the first things I did was actually meet with SCORE, which is part of the small business administration, and they helped me write a business plan. And I'm thinking, okay, I am a small business. If I can do this and succeed. then anybody else can do it too. Well, you know, within reason. But I think that's probably when it clicked. It was very early on that I was able to see how small businesses work. I'd never owned a business, nothing. And I look at the chamber as a small business and how can I help other small businesses have that aha moment of this is how I survive. This is how I can grow. So

Ted Wind: I love that. I love that. And one of the things that I think really stood out about some of the things you said earlier was just how important collaboration and actually getting involved in the community is. And part of the reason I'm really excited to talk to you today is I think it's really incredible what you guys have been able to accomplish given your chamber size. One thing I've gotten to experience firsthand about the Malden Chamber is you've done an incredible job working together with and leveraging some of the other chambers in the region. particularly through multi-chamber events. Could you explain what your multi-chamber events look like and how those got started?

Marianne Cohen: Absolutely. I had I have no idea how they got started. in my first chamber there was a group called Ace, Area Chamber Executives. And I don't even remember how I I think my predecessor at this chamber was the one who said, Hey, we have this small group, we meet once a month. Do you wanna come? I'm like, sure. And it kind of started as therapy for us where we s would sit down and just be like, What are we doing? How do we do it better? And then I don't I to honestly, I don't know how it came together. We're like, hey, why don't we just try doing an event all together? And that way you're expanding our members' networking opportunities because with our at least our chamber, you know, the same people go to the same networking events. So if we can expand upon that, let's do it. And right now there's 15 of us, 15 smaller chambers that we try and do something once a month and invite the everybody to come. you know, we have a one price for members, one for non-members, but you of all people know. I mean, one of the first times I actually got to meet you in person was at a multi-chamber. And it's just the energy's incredible. People are so happy to be there and meet new people. And the venues who host us, I they get, you know, upwards of a hundred people that they normally wouldn't get into their venue. So it's it's just very fun.

Ted Wind: Yes, I can attest to that. They are quite, quite fun. A as far as the venues, what kind of shared events or or programs or maybe venue types have you found work best for these kind of multi chamber events?

Marianne Cohen: Well, the business after hours are definitely I I I think they're almost all restaurants. And, you know, we've had restaurants who say no, we don't want to do it and we don't understand why. You know, it's typically cash bar, so it's probably gonna be they're gonna make money off the bar that they normally wouldn't have, and we asked them to donate some food. But typically, like I said, I think we've always done it at a restaurant. So

Ted Wind: Mm-hmm. And as as far as those business owners that do participate in the multi-chambers, are you typically going back to the same ones? Are you trying to kind of share the love across different areas, different communities? What does that structure kind of look like?

Marianne Cohen: Mm-hmm. So we what we did this last year, we decided because almost all of us had a brewery, we would go from brewery to brewery. And that has been going well. But we also had some new restaurants open up. And if you have a new restaurant open, you you just ask them. it you know, it there's been no rhyme or reason. you know, we have someone who just said, Hey, we have a restaurant that would love to host one of these. Can we fit this in? And we're going to.

But then again, we've had other places. So for instance, we have one coming up at Boston Med Flight in Bedford, which, you know, they're a helicopter, you know, company that brings people to hospitals and Med Flight. So they're hosting one 'cause they want to show off their their venue and what they can do. So yeah.

Ted Wind: Yeah, that's incredible. And I I think that's one of the things too that we hear a lot when we talk to chamber members attending these multi chamber events. It's just like how how much diversity it opens up in terms of the members you're able to meet, the member businesses you're able to go to. really, really incredible work. As far as like on on the chamber side of things, is there something, maybe a metric or or something you could speak to that you know, these multi chamber events have led to, whether that's do you feel like there's been an increase in maybe new member applicants? Have you seen members kind of across different chambers signing up for membership at your chamber from these events, or do you feel like that's less of a factor?

Marianne Cohen: I think there's definitely some of the bigger companies are definitely joining all the areas, which is really fun for us because then we can, you know, share their resources. I find that with the multi-chambers we get a very different crowd than we do at our our own well, at least at our chamber after hours events. So a lot of our members like to go to the multi-chamber, but not our own because they do want to expand into their areas.

I've I've actually met several of our new members at multi chambers though. either inviting them to it or having them join the chamber. Not a lot, but we've definitely had some. So

Ted Wind: Mm-hmm. That's incredible. That's incredible. And from the members perspective, would you say, you know, what would you say changes when chambers collaborate well?

Marianne Cohen: that each of each chamber has its own personality, right? So when you get to work with another personality, it's a whole different environment in a way, right? So the way I do something is very different than, you know, the town or the city next to me. But when we work together, we get to bring those resources together and put together a a even bigger and better program for our members.

We you know, it's it's just pulling your resources. It's great. So for instance, I host our chamber hosts a beer garden. I needed some food trucks. I put it out to the chamber of directors and three of the chambers got back to me with a list of food trucks that they had worked with before. It was awesome. You know, I didn't have to do the work, I didn't have to do the research. And we're going back and forth with these these types of questions all the time. It we're just very collaborative. We are not competitive at all.

You know, if someone gets like a big memoir, like, how did you do that? Right? How do we get them to join our chamber? But we are very collaborative. We love working together.

Ted Wind: I love that. I love that. And that kind of leads into the next question of like some chambers we talk to might worry a little bit that sometimes, you know, collaborating with nearby chambers could create competition or like you said, each chamber has their own very unique identity, maybe blur their identity a little bit. How do you think about that?

Marianne Cohen: I don't because I we've never felt it. Now that's not to say that in another area of the country, I I'm sure that there are chambers that do compete depending on the local economy, the local how the local communities are built up. I think we are just very lucky that we have in a very small area, geographical small area, that we have chambers that are very similar but very different.

And I I so did that answer your question?

Ted Wind: Yeah, I mean that's that is helpful. I I think what I'm really trying to get at for other chamber leaders listening is just, you know A lot of chambers wanna start working more closely with some other chambers in the area. Sometimes they're less geo geographically close, like a lot of the multi-chamber chambers that you guys work with. but you know, I I'd love to try to provide a little bit more of some action items for chambers at home about like what's the first step maybe if you wanna start reaching out, working with another chamber, getting this initial multi-chamber off the ground.

Marianne Cohen: So I would think just talking to them, reaching out and setting up a meeting, s sending out an email possibly to the other local directors saying, I have this idea, would would you be interested in trying it? Here are some guidelines you you know we'd like to follow. We could secure a venue, we all invite our members. you know, it's no cost to us.

And this is a great just a great way, just outline the benefits of it. I I can't imagine any downside to a a multi chamber, personally.

Ted Wind: You mentioned those kind of initial guidelines that you talked about, like kind of up front, right? Like obviously securing the venue, of course. Are there any expectations that you and the other chambers like to set before going into a multi chamber event?

Marianne Cohen: Well, one thing is we decided on the pricing, you know, and that has changed over the years as we found what works, what doesn't work. You know, we have one price for members, one price for non members, and that's what we all charge across the board. You have to determine will one person be taking all the registrations or does each chamber take their own registrations, they keep the money. And, you know, it that's a personal preference. We have some chambers that we work with that will just take the link of the chamber putting it together and they have their members register through them. Personally, I'd rather, you know, have the membership fees in my bank account. that you know, we we have been dealing with the issue right now that we've had members or people just showing up and not paying. And they've realized, hey, I if I just show up that day, they don't charge me. So we now have come up with some guidelines on that. How do we deal with that? you know, making sure that the host knows that they have to provide all the registration numbers to the venue. you know, some venues want the list of people who are attending. you know, if if a chamber can't has put it out there but the director can't be there, is there someone else who can do the name tags for them? That happens a lot. So and we're reaching out all the time. Wait, I can't make it. Can you I'll drop off my name tags to you? Or, you know, can you print them?

Ted Wind: Hundred percent, hundred percent. And are there any kind of mistakes that you guys have run into doing some of these multi chambers advice maybe you'd have on how to avoid some of those mistakes for other chambers listing?

Marianne Cohen: Get a cap as to how many people they can have because we've had things be so packed you can't even move. So figuring out how many can you realistically have at the event works much better. that's one thing. something else just to go back is we a lot of times we'll have raffles. So, you know, do you have members? Let's make it more fun.

For the people in attendance. Do you have members who are really want to promote w something that they're doing? Have promote a raffle basket. That works that works great.

Ted Wind: And those raffle baskets, is that something where like you guys have kind of a primary lead chamber that's running that at each of these multi chambers or?

Marianne Cohen: Yes. That's a that's a great great question. So the host is usually the person in the area that's hosting it. So for instance, we're hosting one in September. Actually, I'm co-hosting it with another chamber because this venue is a member of both of our chambers. So we'll take the lead together. You know, one of us will introduce everybody, the other one will do the raffle, but it's usually the host of the chamber that's hosting the event. There's always one or two chambers that's actually hosting the event. So the Med Flight event is actually being hosted by two different chambers. So they will take the lead on everything.

Ted Wind: And then as far as like if you're a chamber that's kind of jumping onto that multi chamber, but you're not one of the one of the chamber leads, let's say, what's kind of your role look like then?

Marianne Cohen: promote, promote, promote and show up and, you know, network, greet the members. I mean I think our members love it when they walk in and, you know, I'm like, Ted, here's your name tag. You know, I know I know who my members are that are attending in most cases, but we do have members who, like I said, attend these things who don't attend our others. And I'm like, it's fun, it's so great to meet you in person. One thing that I have started doing with our our networking events is we have put into our marketing. If you are nervous about attending, you don't know anyone, let us know beforehand and we'll set you up with a buddy there. So you're not walking in alone.

Ted Wind: That's so clever. That's so clever. And what is that w do you typically pair them with like an experienced a chamber veteran or just you're dragging somebody from the hat? What does that look like?

Marianne Cohen: We just started. So we have a multi-chamber next week, I think. and you know, hopefully someone will reach out or, you know, we just had a multi-chamber and we had a brand new member show up and you know I'd never met her and it was great because I could bring her over to somebody and say, you know, have she's brand new to the chamber, you've been to a million of these events, show her the ropes.

And I think people I'm we're hoping people are gonna appreciate that.

Ted Wind: I think so. That's a I really love that initiative. And I think especially for those newer chamber members or someone it's their very first event, I think that's a really, really valuable thing you guys are doing.

Marianne Cohen: Well, some people hate networking. They they would rather get their teeth scraped than go to a networking event. A lot of these people are are introverts and they're gonna show up and they're gonna not know what to do. So it's nice to try and give them s some guidance. Yeah.

Ted Wind: 100%, 100%. And I I really love like, you know, just how much thought you guys have put into multi-chambers. We've seen a lot of different multi-chambers across the country, but I I really think you guys are doing an incredible job in the region to to really promote these events. kind of tied a little bit to what you were saying at the end there about, you know, different members like different things, right? And as chamber leaders, always trying to provide value to those members. And

Marianne Cohen: that's awesome.

Ted Wind: You know, make sure if you're going super hard on the in-person networking and the multi-chambers, you gotta make sure that we're finding ways to, you know, cater to maybe those more introverted members or or other members in the space. And that's another piece that I think you guys have done really well is around the kind of virtual events and online programming the Malden Chambers put out. I I'd love if you could share a little bit more about kind of that program, how that got started, and kind of what you've learned from doing those.

Marianne Cohen: Sure. So it all started with COVID because we were thinking, how do we keep our members engaged? So we actually with one of our breweries, they did a beer tasting online. And people could go beforehand, pick up the beer that they were gonna do a tasting. They did it in their their what's the room with all the, you know they have a special room where they actually brew it, you know. But anyway, they stood in there and they talked about each of the beers and that's how it really got started. But then we thought, okay, you know, we wanna do we We had some lunch and learns before that, but you know, it's hard for people to leave their desks. People were working from home a lot more. So we decided to bring our educational series online. So we do virtual lunch and learns. We try and do one a month. And we have a an education committee that we put together some ideas. We actually did a s poll to our board members because they are supposed to be representative of our membership and ask them what they wanted to hear about. And one of the th so for instance, one of the things was employment issues. So we have an employment consultant who and like an HR consultant. And we asked her to do a series and we just did one two days ago on policies without the pain and she talked about employee handbooks and and things like that. Unfortunately we're finding that people are signing up but not showing up.

So it's something that we're trying to figure out how to deal with that. Do we ask them to pay a cup of dollars dollars just to reserve their spot? Do we actually bring it to maybe we actually bring it back in person and you charge $20 and that covers a cost of a meal? Or you know, we had like 15 people sign up and one showed. And We do do a reminder the day before, an email reminder, so I don't know what's going on. But we're offering it.

Ted Wind: Interesting, interesting. Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. I I I'm curious, do you feel like those kinds of virtual events then are we're kind of as chambers like moving back into a fully in person format, or do you think there's still room for these kind of virtual events?

Marianne Cohen: I definitely do because people I think want people are still a lot of people are still working from home, right? A lot of people don't have time to leave the office at lunchtime for this. So, you know, we may try our morning educational session because we started morning mixers and those have been amazing. Where, you know, it's from eight to nine thirty in the morning and we have one literally next week and we have like twenty five people signed up.

So that's been great. So maybe we try an educational session in the morning. You know, people come before work and we do that. So I you know, we have had we do a legislative update every year with another chamber and we get our, you know, state rep, state senators, and that is always incredibly well attended and that's early morning. So

Ted Wind: Interesting. Yeah, that I mean, I think that timing piece is super important, especially kind of post COVID now. Like even when you do have I mean, there's been some studies on this, but even when you do have folks coming in to the office still, whereas before kind of pre-pandemic, a lot of folks would stick around for like post office happy hours. Now we see people are just heading right back home. So I think there is like that morning is maybe the, you know, the best time to catch to catch these folks. And

Marianne Cohen: Yeah. But the other thing, you know, I said a lot of people are still working from home, but I that in my mind, I like I mean, I work from home, right? We don't have an office. If I had the option to go somewhere and be around other people, I would want to do that. You know, it's but I think once again that's a personality thing, introvert versus extrovert. You know, I'm I would always pick the thing where I could be around people.

So I it's finding the sweet spot and maybe it's offering both. I I don't know. it's been it's been a quandary for us.

Ted Wind: Interesting. Yeah. last thing on the kind of I think this brings both of these together, the virtual events and the multi-chambers. I mean you mentioned as well that even this legislative event that you're talking about, that's not a multi-chamber event technically, right? But you're still working with another chamber. Do you call it this multi-chamber series or do you have a different name for that?

Marianne Cohen: Well we do it no, we just call it the legislative update. It's just because we share some of the same state reps. So, you know, Malden has its own and this other community has their own, but we do share one as well. And then the state senator obviously is for our area. So it just makes sense.

Ted Wind: Interesting. Okay.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I I think that could maybe be a great idea for some chambers. Maybe in regions where, you know, the chambers are a little bit more spread out. You're still sharing, like you said, a lot of chambers, sharing the same senators, sharing the same, you know, legislators, and bringing those all together in this kind of shared chamber event, I think is really, really important. and, you know, again, like I said, I I think you guys do a really incredible job of that.

Marianne Cohen: I I even at my last chamber we needed a new revenue source, so our local neighboring chamber did a golf tournament and I said, Hey, can we get in on this? And they're said, Sure. So I took over half the planning and we did it all together. So

Ted Wind: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And when chambers come together, like I mean, like you said there, like makes the job easier, right? Like you're you gotta you got another colic in this, you know? Obviously putting these events are really hard, so

Marianne Cohen: And and networking happens a lot on the golf course, so why wouldn't they wanna expand how many people got to network for the day, right? It just expanded that twofold. So, yeah.

Ted Wind: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 100%. I love that. Well, again, these have been super, super valuable, super, super helpful. one question we like to ask all our guests on the show, and it's just a kind of general question to help other chamber leaders who are listening in, is what's one final piece of advice you'd give to the other chamber leaders that are listening into the show?

Marianne Cohen: Can I make it more than one thing? Don't panic and just take it in stride. You know, you're gonna get the member who's mad about something that you can't control. You're gonna get the phone calls from the community saying, How come you didn't do this? or complaining about a business that's not a member. They don't understand that you're a membership organization or you're not part of the city. You know, we're I mean, we're a 501 C6, we're a nonprofit. You know, we work as a business. So

Ted Wind: Yeah, of course you can.

Marianne Cohen: I I sometimes I have to just sit back and go back to your very first question. The why of why we do this. You know, how do you turn that go back to the why. Sit back and think about it and how can you make things bigger and better for your members?

Ted Wind: that that's incredible and I think that is a testament to both how you have run the multiple chambers that you've been a part of and I think something that a lot of chamber leaders can get a lot of value in listening at home. So we really appreciate you having you on today Marianne. It's been an absolute pleasure. I think we tied in a lot of different themes today from the multi-chamber events, the virtual online events and just again like bringing it all back to what really matters.

Marianne Cohen: Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate that, Ted.

Ted Wind: why you're doing this and and what's important for chamber leaders. So again, thank you so much for coming on the show today, Marianne. If you want to learn more about the Malden Chamber and the work Marianne and their incredible team are doing, the link to their socials and their chamber website will be below in the description. That's all for today and thanks so much. We'll catch you on the next episode.

Marianne Cohen: Thanks, Ted.