How Brian Goldman Turned The Northwest Chamber Into One Of The Region’s Fastest Growing Organizations
by Julia Paulus Ogilvie
When Pat Hawn, the vice president of sales at MarketVolt, joined the Northwest Chamber of Commerce two years ago, he decided to dive right into what the Chamber had to offer. Today, Hawn is just as energetic about the Chamber as he was when he joined. He stays active as an ambassador to new members, a member of the Chamber’s young professionals group, YPD, and by attending every membership luncheon and extra event he can make time for from its homecoming to trivia night to golf tournaments.
Hawn’s drive to make the Northwest Chamber a priority in his schedule isn’t a one off but a commonality among the Chamber’s members. Most would say it stems from the new lifeblood Brian Goldman brought to the Chamber when he took the helm as its president and CEO in May of 2012.
Since becoming the Chamber’s leader, Goldman has more than doubled the Chamber’s membership from 249 to 538. According to Hawn, witnessing Goldman grow the Chamber’s energy, camaraderie and sheer number of members has been amazing. “Now that isn’t to say that other local chambers and organizations don’t have great leadership,” he says. “Brian is just a different personality and isn’t afraid to think outside of the box and bring in new ideas and I think that is reflected in both the way the Chamber works and the way that Chamber members engage with one another.”
Matt D’Rion, who joined the Chamber in January 2014 and is also active in a variety of the Chamber’s activities including YPD, also noticed the difference in how the members relate. “Having been exposed for a bit over a year, I notice most that the group lacks any pretense – if you’re there, you’re family,” says D’Rion. “Every member will trust you instantly until you give them a reason not to. This is a different approach to networking and membership organizations.”
Goldman and his members’ message of inclusion spreads beyond the Northwest Chamber to a desire to see other chambers do well. D’Rion believes this goes back to Goldman’s philosophy of running a Chamber that ultimately builds member businesses and the community. “His idea is that if a chamber in the area isn’t doing well for any reason, if they are perceived poorly by the business community, it will affect the Northwest Chamber too – and of course every other chamber around the region,” says D’Rion. “His goal is for all of them to boom, to do well, to grow. Viewing the benefits to businesses in the region through such a wide lens is refreshing.”
With such fast earned success, one might assume Goldman’s career has been spent working with chambers and directly on community building. However, his path was not so direct. Goldman believes the diversity of his background is precisely what has made him so successful in his role today. “I have had every position that every type of business that is in the Chamber has,” he explains.
Starting his career with Royal Caribbean as the youth activities director, Goldman then became the youth sports directors for the Jewish Community Center and then the City of Clayton and lastly owned FASTSIGNS in Bridgeton.
While Goldman took chances in his career, moving from corporate to non-profit and government and finally taking an entrepreneurial leap to a mom-and-pop franchise business, he always brought his courage to think outside the box. This was especially true with FASTSIGNS, which he founded with a partner. “I didn’t do what the franchise said we were supposed to do, and I was the fastest store to ever hit $1 million in sales,” he says.
Goldman did this by making bold moves, going after and winning national accounts like Nordstrom and Edward Jones. “I went and got the big guys and I made it work,” he says.
From this, Goldman learned to never be limited in his thinking or method, and although Goldman’s business partnership collapsed, causing him to lose his house and file bankruptcy, he came away with lessons about himself and business. “I learned a lot in my years with FASTSIGNS,” says Goldman. “What I learned about myself is that I don’t deal with the negative. In the end, I recreated myself and moved on.”
Goldman pivoted and landed on his feet by finding a new job while staying immersed in the business community by remaining on the boards of the Northwest and Maryland Heights Chambers of Commerce, both of which he had been active on for years.
Then, the unexpected happened. “I was chairing the Northwest Chamber’s Casino night,” he says. “I was speaking with Bob Swank, who was then president, about planning and he told me he was having chest pains. I told him to get to a doctor immediately. I was begging him to call 911 on the phone.”
The next day, Swank died of a heart attack. Suddenly, Goldman was given the responsibility to recommend people for the position of Chamber president. While he was seeking out the right candidate, he kept thinking about the outside-of-the-box ideas he had to strengthen the Chamber.
Although he knew it would be a pay cut – he was making almost double – he discussed it with his wife and decided to throw his hat in the ring. “I had ideas no one else did that I wanted to implement,” he says.
When in the interview with five other board members, Goldman told them he realized it was a conflict of interest that they interview him. “I said, ‘I don’t need this job, and if there’s someone better, hire them. I will continue to support the chamber and I can step down’,” he says.
As Goldman outlined his goals for the Chamber and his one, three and five year plan, it became clear that stepping down wouldn’t be necessary. The fact that he had been thinking about where his new ideas could take the Chamber for years became obvious. “I am known as a fun-loving guy,” he says. “They were expecting goofy Brian, but I had a plan for the Chamber.”
That plan landed Goldman the job as president and CEO and he immediately began to change how things were done. “I have a simple philosophy about chambers: chambers suck,” he says. “They nickel and dime their members and they say, ‘What can you do for me?’ instead of, ‘What do you need?’. I was a member for 14 years. The position of director gave me the ability to get rid of what I hated.”
It was time for a change.
Building From the Inside Out.
To build the Northwest Chamber, Goldman began by making sure his current members were satisfied. “We never do a phone-a-thon or pound the pavement trying to recruit members,” he says. “It’s all about retention for us and the idea that it’s easier to satisfy current clients than reach new ones. So, we keep our current members happy. We give them a good time. If they have fun at our meetings, they’ll invite their friends. We didn’t know it would work this quickly.”
By making all members happy, Goldman also eliminated the need for a membership director. “I tell our members, ‘You guys are membership directors, not me’,” he says. “I’m just the monkey with a microphone.”
Growing Fast, But Staying Focused.
Goldman’s tactic of satisfying members quickly made the Northwest Chamber one of the fastest growing chambers in St. Louis. Although it has been around for 63 years, Goldman knew that no one had ever heard of them. Where past presidents didn’t get to know the other chambers or attend state chamber conferences, Goldman made it his mission to get to know everyone and build new connections.
“I became director May 1, 2012 and we had 83 new members from May 1 until the end of the year,” he says. “Then it came time to budget and the board suggested we plan for 60 new members. I said the goal should be 100, or else I am not doing my job. If I didn’t hit 100, I thought I would resign. We budgeted for 75 and at the end of 2013 we had 150 new members.”
Goldman recognizes that they can’t have growth like this forever; yet, he has managed to grow the Northwest Chamber from 249 members to 538 today. “We have more than doubled in the past two years,” he says.
More impressive is the involvement of his members. “Large chambers of 1200 will average 135 at their monthly meetings,” he says. “O’Fallon had 185 and I called them immediately to say congratulations. Our worst turn out in the last two years was 175. Last year, we hit 264 twice. This year we had 200 on a day with a snow storm in January. In February we had 305. We sold out the next four months straight because the venue could only accommodate 230, and we’re a small chamber still.”
More Opportunities than it’s Possible to take on.
Goldman’s goal is to create more events than it’s possible for one member to attend, offering multiple well-attended networking events a week and happy hours in addition to the large monthly membership meeting. Goldman has also created groups for specific groups of people. These include: WIN (Women in Networking), YPD (Young Professionals Department), The Masters for those 45 and up, The Guy Thing a men’s networking happy hour, VET NET for veterans and those who work with or hire vets and 501 of Fun for non-profits to share their ideas and problems.
More Fun…
To achieve high attendance at all events, Goldman doesn’t do boring. “We do themes, silly, entertaining,” he says.
For his November monthly membership meeting, Goldman had a hockey theme where all members wore their favorite team jersey. “I told members to wear their Blues clothes and that if they had to wear Blackhawks gear, there would be a table set up for them in the bathroom.”
Goldman follows through on promises like this for extra entertainment to his members. Overall, he believes one of his members explains the monthly meetings best. “He told me, ‘We’re all busy, but you know that one day a month you’ll go to a meeting and you’ll laugh. You will be entertained. I wear a suit everyday but one day a month I get to wear a Hawaiian shirt. It’s day camp for a business person’,” says Goldman.
Another ritual that many members look forward to means Goldman becoming the entertainment, which he does happily. “Every other month, I pick a business card,” he says. “I go to work for that business for a day. Then I talk about it at the membership meeting. I have been a pizza maker, a roofer, a wedding planner, a UPS driver, a chiropractor. People love it and I have a blast.”
A Last Word of Advice.
While much can be learned from Goldman’s bold approach to business, networking and community building, all of his members have heard him repeat one piece of advice. “The whole thing is you need to be a farmer not a hunter. Plant seeds; build relationships,” he says. “And don’t sell to the room, sell through the room. Get people to know you and what you’re looking for, so they can tell others about you too.”
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