Ryan Weaks With Lynchburg Regional Business Alliance

Intro: We’re broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Ryan Weaks with Lynchburg Regional Business Alliance. Welcome, Ryan.

Ryan Weaks: Thanks, Lee. It’s great to be here today.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about the Lynchburg Regional Business Alliance. How are you serving folks?

Ryan Weaks: So we are a combined economic development and Chamber of commerce here in central Virginia. We have about 800 members at the moment, and we are doing a lot of different things. We work primarily with small businesses. About 80% of our members are small businesses, but also larger corporations, nonprofits, individuals. So a lot of a lot of different people, a lot of different organizations.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you see kind of your role in being that, I guess maybe a common thread for all those disparate constituencies because they each have their own agenda and their own goals, But in some ways you’re kind of a glue that holds them all together and maybe helps them in ways that they couldn’t even anticipate.

Ryan Weaks: Yeah, I think I think our primary role is to help them tell their story, really. You know, we have all these different points of view coming in, all these different businesses of different size and tactics and everything in between. But really, we’re here to act kind of as their concierge or their storyteller to help them get from where they are to where they want to be, to connect them with fellow business owners and fellow people in the same field, stuff like that, just to elevate them and then help them to share their story with the world, too.

Lee Kantor: Now, how did you all handle kind of coming out of the pandemic when there was a period of time when there wasn’t a lot of face to face interaction and now there’s more of that happening? How was that for you guys? Were you able to navigate that in a virtual world and now coming out a bit more face to face?

Ryan Weaks: Yeah, we we took the tactic of going pretty much virtual. We have events. They all went virtual pretty much everything. We went to virtual, but we try to do more timely things rather than large events throughout the year. So we would host webinars on a particular topic of interest for the community. For example, we did one on inflation recently. Since that’s been such a huge topic and having things virtual helps you get things I would say done faster. So you know those timely things, you can get those up and running within a day or two, whereas a big event, you can’t necessarily do that. So we did that and we also set up a couple of sort of like focus groups. We would take an industry that might be suffering during the pandemic, for example, restaurants. So we would gather a couple of leaders from around the community, have them come to the same virtual room and talk through the issues that they’re going through and hopefully, hopefully find a few solutions. So that worked pretty well for our community as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, speaking about your community, your organization’s been around for a minute, huh? And you’re having a big birthday.

Ryan Weaks: Yes. Yes. We’ve been around since 1883. Can you believe it? So next year, 2023 is our 140th year, and we’re really excited to launch a huge campaign celebration commemorating that milestone. So we’re working on that right now, making a lot of plans and I’m very excited about it.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you have any advice for maybe a person that’s new to belonging to a chamber? How would you recommend they get the most out of a chamber membership and really wring out the most value? Because I think a lot of people out there that have enjoyed a chamber or maybe joined in weren’t thrilled with the results. They might have kind of I don’t want to say the wrong expectations, but maybe an incorrect expectation of what happens. Like this isn’t something you just join and then business comes your way. You’ve got to kind of earn it.

Ryan Weaks: Yeah, I’d say there’s a couple different ways, depending on what the person’s looking to get out of it. But number one, I would connect with the. Your key person, your key connection in the association or chamber. Always stay connected with them, make sure that they are on the same wavelength as you. Because if you’re looking to get recommendations out of this, or if you’re looking to find new business connections, you need to let that person know so that they can help you get those things. Secondly, if you’re looking for kind of engagement events is where you need to be or sponsorships is where you need to be, You need to be able to tell your story either in person or through some kind of visual or audio or something like that. And then third, I think it’s really important for someone who’s new to the chamber to increase their involvement from a leadership perspective. So just being a member is great, but you can get so much more out of being a part of a chamber or another association by leaning in. Maybe, maybe you join a committee. Maybe you help plan a project or volunteer your time for for something or other. And doing that really helps you get way more involved than just being at an event as a normal member or staying connected through a newsletter or something like that.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, that’s one of my kind of hacks. I tell a young person, if you want to accelerate your career, get involved in the chamber, but just don’t join. But just get start taking leadership roles and volunteering for things and being visible to people that might be your next boss down the road.

Ryan Weaks: Exactly, yeah.

Lee Kantor: Now, are you finding that the business community in today’s kind of chaotic world is embracing chambers and business associations more that they’re kind of not just saying, okay, only the highest level people will get a membership, but let’s let’s let more people in the firm be members. Maybe we’ll pay for it, maybe we’ll encourage it. But there’s a value in having more and more of your team as part of the chamber and getting involved in all those things you mentioned.

Ryan Weaks: Sure, definitely. So for for our model, if a business becomes a member, then all their employees are automatically members as well. So we have some companies that have, you know, 1000 employees. All those employees are automatically become a member as well. So that helps us to. Share more in the community and be out there. And they also the business also gets to take advantage of a bunch of our benefits as well. Over the course of this year, we’ve seen a huge growth in membership numbers and I think that’s because coming out of the pandemic, the businesses and people are looking to get back involved. And there’s more. More personal style of things rather than tuning in to a virtual talk or something like that. So I think a lot of businesses out there are seeing the value of associations right now. And I would recommend if for other associations to consider opening your membership to all employees of a business.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I agree. I believe in casting that wide net. It just there’s no reason to create kind of a scarcity mentality when it comes to something like this, because the value of the entire network just increases by having more people involved.

Ryan Weaks: Absolutely. I think that as we keep going this year, I know the economy is kind of a big issue right now for a lot of people looking to join an association or a chamber. But I think once we clear that hump, we’re going to keep seeing this this growth in expansion and people looking to get involved.

Lee Kantor: Now, what’s your back story? Have you always been involved in association work?

Ryan Weaks: No, I am fairly new. I’ve been at the chamber now three years. But before that, I worked with a couple of non-profits. I worked in athletics marketing. I also worked for a nuclear energy firm for a short minute, all kind of communications and marketing. But my journey to joining a chamber was actually doing an internship with a leadership program, so I got to see kind of how that works and how our leadership program connects with the same work that the Chamber is doing in the community, creating leaders in local businesses. So from there, that’s how I got involved now, and it’s been great for me. I really enjoyed the work and being able to connect and talk with people from a lot of different backgrounds and businesses, nonprofits, everything across the board. So I really enjoy it. I love marketing, communicating, so it’s great.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned storytelling is important in your mission and helping others tell their story. Can you share a story maybe where a member, you know, maybe kind of came into the alliance and maybe didn’t have the most high expectations, but were optimistic, and then maybe you can share how they were able to benefit being part of the alliance.

Ryan Weaks: Sure I can.

Lee Kantor: You don’t have to name the name of the company. Don’t name the name of the company, but just tell maybe their challenge and how being part of the alliance was able to help them kind of accelerate their growth.

Ryan Weaks: Sure. Well, we had a member come in. He was a former former employee for Google, and he had this idea of setting up a business that helps other businesses kind of set up their cloud network, moving things from from paper and digital to a centralized cloud kind of thing. So he had that idea. He had that experience coming from working at Google, but it was just him and he wanted to found this company. So he actually joined the chamber. We got to connect with him and we actually have office space for lease here. So you’ve got to take advantage of that and lease out that space. So he was figuring out where his business was going to go, where he was going to pull a couple of employees and join him in the work. And from there, he got to take advantage of actually having an office right here at the chamber and being able to pull people in, taking advantage of those opportunities to tell his story. So in the events that we had, he was already there ready to connect. And he grew his business from just himself to five, ten people. And now he’s actually at over 150 employees here. It’s crazy. And it’s only been. Three, four years now since he started. And they have their own building now, not here. But it’s it’s been a real blessing to have him come in and then see the growth that he’s been able to have with a little bit of our help.

Lee Kantor: Well, the impact is real. I mean, when you talk about those kind of success stories, not only is that great for that person, his family, his community, but I mean, he’s now impacting, like you said, over a hundred other families out there with their and their communities like it just kind of the multiplier effect is real. And the work you’re doing is important.

Ryan Weaks: Yeah. And he actually set up this business. It’s it’s for profit. But all the profit goes to two different charities. One is for supporting kids in the community, making sure they have good homes and food. And the other is for athletics. So he’s a big football fan, so he gets kids to come in so that they spend time in a controlled environment and interested in sports, getting good coaches, stuff like that. And then actually there’s a third one for specifically helping them kids going out of high school to help find jobs. So it’s really interesting. He’s pulled that in his business success and is giving back to the community through it. It’s really cool.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it’s super important and it’s a great story to share. Thank you for sharing that.

Ryan Weaks: Yeah, you’re welcome.

Lee Kantor: Now what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Ryan Weaks: Well, I think right now a lot of us are looking for ways to do more work with less, and that’s with time and energy. So I need advice on how to not have burnout, things like that.

Lee Kantor: In terms of you’re talking about burnout for your team or your volunteers. I would imagine, you know, with the hiring situation we’re having now, it must be just as difficult to get and keep volunteers.

Ryan Weaks: Yeah, it’s across the board. Staff. Staff are burnout from working so hard over COVID and volunteers are burnout from either being virtual for too long or too many events, too many commitments. And of course the holidays are always busy. It really is kind of across the board.

Lee Kantor: Well, if somebody wants to learn more about the alliance or connect with you or somebody on your team, what’s a website?

Ryan Weaks: Yeah. Our website is Lynchburg Region dot org. And we also have one specifically for economic development. That’s it’s yes Lynchburg region dot org.

Lee Kantor: And that’s Lynchburg l y and see HBCU r g region reg iwn dot org. Right?

Ryan Weaks: That’s right.

Lee Kantor: Well, Ryan, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re still doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Ryan Weaks: Thanks, Lee. I really appreciate coming on.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Association Leadership Radio.