How a chamber membership is like a health club membership (and why you should care)

Ever wonder what you get for your chamber membership? We regularly try to answer that question, as we should. Here’s a new way to look at your membership in the Chamber of Commerce and perhaps come up with the answer to that question: A Chamber membership is much like a health club membership. How so? Well, there are three main ways in which they are similar.

1. THEY BOTH PROVIDE YOU WITH SERVICES IN RETURN FOR YOUR INVESTMENT. When you join a health club you are paying for services, not making a donation. The same is true when you join the Chamber – you are purchasing a set of services for your business, not contributing to a charity. Joining the Chamber may not make you as healthy personally (!), but it should improve the health of your company by providing you with worthwhile services.

2. WHAT YOU GET OUT OF IT IS DIRECTLY RELATED TO WHAT YOU PUT IN TO IT. You get healthier if you actually go use your health club membership. If you just pay your fees and never use the services the club offers you won’t get in shape. The same is true of your Chamber membership. Your business only really benefits if you use the services the Chamber offers its members. With dozens of services provided for businesses of all sizes and kinds there surely are at least a few programs you could use from time to time that will benefit your company.

And if yours is the kind of business that does not need a lot of direct services from the Chamber, maybe because you are a large business or you only manufacture or you sell only outside of the area, let me assure you of something: You need the chamber because your sales grow when the community grows and your customers need jobs in order to BE your customers. And if you exclusively manufacture, you still need to chamber because you depend on the community's ability to attract and keep a quality workforce and meet your other needs, like activism on business issues and development incentives.

3. THEY BOTH DO GOOD THINGS EVEN WHEN YOU ARE NOT THERE. Health clubs promote good health and help individuals who are suffering from various afflictions, even if you are not personally in attendance on a given day. Their valuable services to others do not stop. Likewise, the Chamber is helping companies every day – if not yours, then someone else’s. We are routinely working on positive projects and pursuing the economic development of the community because that is our mission. So even if you don’t use a particular Chamber service or don’t feel the direct effect from some Chamber activity, you can be sure that someone else does. And that is good for YOUR business, undoubtedly. In the long run, that is how a community and an economy thrive and ultimately that does impact your business. And it was your investment in a Chamber membership that helped make that possible.

Tom Poorman