Chamber of commerce

[cdhowell]

How many smaller shops are Chamber members? Do you feel its worth the investment? Not much on this topic here.

[AndersonAuto]

I belonged to my local chamber for quite a few years. I think every local chamber is different, but I found that mostly it became a way for every insurance agent under the sun to market to me. I got very little business from it.

[Custom Coach]

I was a member of ours for about 3 years.

I felt let down and left out when I would attend their wake rattle and roll morning get together and I was the only body/service center there and was treated like the plague. ( probably because I didn't wear a suit and tie) but was cleanly dressed for work in a new shirt and clean pants.

No other business approached me all My business cards we all still on the table when leaving and if I walked up to some while they were talking and laughing they stopped or got quiet till I passed by almost like the popular groups in high school.

The worst part was they said they could help small businesses with insurance and other things sure they could if you had 50+ employees or were willing to pay top dollar to be on their top business list but a small shop of 10 or less was left out in the cold.

The local BBB is the same way if I want to PAY THEM $ 300.00 a year I can be on their A+ rated list ?  I was like (what are you serious pay money to be on the A+ list) I always thought the BBB was customer rated not another pay to be top dog listings?

 

 

[JustTheBest]

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[Custom Coach]

16 hours ago, JustTheBest said:

Hi Custom Coach! Welcome to the party! I found out YEARS ago that the BBB was only a "pay to play" club. Problem is that consumers don't realize that. 

With respect to chamber of commerce, etc, (there was also a "club" that was all about breakfast meetings) full of people who wanted to SELL you, not HELP you. All a bunch of blah, blah, blah. 

My recommendation is to save your money - time - and effort too. Bring me a person who actually GOT ANYTHING (and I don't necessarily mean sales - I mean ANYTHING) out of any of these "pay-to-play" clubs and I'll buy them dinner! 

Hope this helps!

Matthew Lee
"The Car Count Fixer"

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Just the best

Very well said.

The ONLY reason we ever got hooked into the chamber was the top woman there was a very good customer.

She promised great insurance rates through their membership and small business loans etc. etc.

After four meetings I realized it was all BS and it was more or less an excuse to start drinking at breakfast (don't condemn those that do) but don't like being the odd man out either!

I do know its very hard to get any kind of help when you really are a small business (under 10 total employees including the boss) most consider a small business to be from 50 to 100 employees.

Hopefully the new government administration will not leave us slip through the cracks as he has promised