Andi brings her love for serving people to the Meridian Chamber of Commerce as their Membership and Development Manager. Come June, we will recognize her 2nd year with the chamber while celebrating record high new membership numbers. With Andi’s help, the chamber has grown from 500 members to 820 in just 2 years. When Andi is not helping chamber members grow their business, she is growing her own business as a NextHome real estate agent. Her past 15 years’ experience in retail corporate as a merchandise buyer and inventory analysis has helped shape her to build meaningful relationships, create impactful opportunities and serve her community. She currently sits on the board for the American Cancer Society of Idaho with her amazing fiancé and fellow leaders of the Treasure Valley.
When she is not helping others network, she is raising her two beautiful daughters, playing co-ed Volleyball or hanging out on the lake or near a pool.
Pretty much anytime you go into a room and you say you see someone, you know, you say, hi, and how are you? Right? Am I right? That's pretty much just a rhetorical question, right?
But if I was like, Hey, how are you? And they're like, well, let me tell you my daughter, she woke up on the wrong side of the bed, happens a lot. She decided to throw her oatmeal all over the floor. And so the next thing I know, we're eating oatmeal on the floor. She gets in the car, she slams the door, I slam the door, we drive to school, she leaves. I show up to my coffee meeting, and then I'm going sit down like, dude, I don't have any marketing material for you. <Laugh>.
Like, what would you do if that happened to you? What would you say if somebody spilled their beans and they just told you everything that happened? Right? And that doesn't normally happen. Well, I'm gonna have to pin that. So you guys think about what you would respond if someone came up to you and told you all their bad things. And we'll come back to that.
So let me introduce myself. First of all, I'm not a public speaker. If we all know me, I'm really good one-on-one, but this is not my deal. So excuse my nerves, please. My name is Andi Burke. I am I work at the Meridian Chamber. I am the membership and development manager.
So really, what does membership manager or membership and development mean at Brand Discovery? I'm still trying to figure that out. <Laugh>. I asked myself that same question and I'm standing up in front of all of you guys. Of course I was flattered. They're like, you wanna speak? I was like, sure.
No, they say never say no to anything, right? Say yes to everything. So I was flattered, but once that flattery wore off, I just started to sweat. Kind of like, right? Right now, <laugh> I'm thinking, what am I, what am I doing? What's little me gonna help and provide knowledge that everyone else has for the Treasure Valley?
The funny thing is, is I vividly can remember about a couple years ago talking to my now fiance Heath, asking what can I possibly bring the chamber? He had just left a first Friday where he was talking to Sean Evans, (oh, by the way, as my ceo Sean will be recognized for CEO Influencer of the Year. Woo woo. We're really proud of him). But he was like, the Chamber's hiring, and I'm crying. At the time, I was like, what is that? I was a single mom here. I just moved from Seattle. I'm a real estate agent. There's 8,000 agents and there's zero inventory. I definitely needed a more of a stable income, a stable job. And Heath really was my only friend at the time. I have an aunt and uncle that live in Emmett, but they really liked their neighbors like a hundred miles away from them.
So anyway, he was like, you know, it's really easy. All you have to do is just create value. I was like, okay, that sounds easy. Create value. I still don't know what that means, but I said yes to the job, and I put my boots on and I got to work.
The one thing I did know about myself is that I just love people and I love to serve. Rollback to give years ago, I was in San Diego, working in retail corporate. I was a buyer. I'd sit in traffic all the way to work. Then I sit behind on an Excel spreadsheet and shove materialistic things into these stores that were already full of stuff. Anyway then I would sit in traffic. I remember sitting on the freeway and all the cars were just lined up. (Kind of like how we do in Eagle Road). But we weren't getting anywhere. I was just sitting there and I'm like, gosh, I felt like I was just this ant in an ant farm, go to work, come back, go to work, come back.
And I was like, there's got to be more to this. I need a bigger purpose. So that's the bigger purpose I needed, and then my passion, it led me right here with you, all of you guys. And with that, I asked what is action oriented branding? I was really challenged with this topic. One, I really wanted personal branding, but I had to give it up to Kevin <laugh>. But when I think about my job, and I think about the chamber, and I think about talking to all of you guys and what can I talk about?
I really thought about networking. That's all I do. I just think about networking. Is that the same as action oriented? I don't know. I had to Google it. <Laugh>. And what Google told me, you must be right is that a goal of networking is to create acceptance. And a goal of marketing is to create that desire for your product.
So I knew that I needed to create value for this community that I didn't know anything about. I was new to Meridian. I needed to create acceptance for a community. I knew nobody and I had big shoes to fill. So I had one coffee meeting at a time, and that was my action, to just go down and sit down and have coffee with anybody who would have coffee with me.
And then I also came up with this brilliant idea. And it's not marketing material at all, but I printed it out, put it on my desk, and I said to my boss, we're going to hit a thousand members. And that was my goal.
And, and he laughed at me. <Laugh>. He's probably still laughing at me, but we started around that 500, 550 mark of members. And today, we actually got one new member just now as I was sitting here. So we're at like 831 now. Over the last two years, that's about 280 new members. And was that all me? Was that all my coffee meetings? No, it was not all me. We have a strong and mighty staff at the Meridian Chamber, me, Kirsten, Sean, and Holly.
So there's four of us. But we're really small, but we're really mighty. And it really does take that village to create a brand, to create a market of a need, of a value of that people need and want. It takes that village to help it grow. Oh, and then, you know what that old saying if you build it, they will come, right? <Laugh>.
So let's say this: this isn't rocket science. What I do it really is probably the best job ever. I get to hang out and party all day, and there's free food and, and there's free food today and free food and drinks everywhere we go. So really, all my best friends have now become everywhere I go as well. Like just here today, it's just fun to look around and see all the people that I love.
But I do, I just love people and I love to serve. I just started coffee meetings, coffee meeting after coffee meeting, after coffee meeting. I sat and I listened, as Kevin was saying, he almost took my quote, but I love to say it: God gave us two ears and one mouth. And that's what I did. I just tried to listen more than I spoke. And that's how I would respond.
So when I would sit down and I would ask them a question, and they would, they would tell me about their morning, and I like to get to the nitty gritty. I don't like the whole "good. I'm just great". I like to get deeper and deeper into, why are you good? Why are you great?
And I just kept asking specific questions. Eventually I just kept asking so much. Finally, they would be like, I really don't know why I'm telling you this. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard somebody tell me that they open up and they just start telling me about their life. And it's because I truly, truly care. It gets to the point where I'm literally inviting everybody I meet over for Sunday Football, <laugh>. We need a bigger house <laugh>, because I truly want them all to be my best friend. Which is a challenge, but because there's a lot of you.
But I really do love everybody. So really my action is always just to get out there and get in front of 'em. It's not a Chamber plug, but it really does come down to how great the Chamber is. And if you are a new business and you don't know where to start, if I knew about the Chamber, I probably could have stayed in real estate <laugh>. But it's a great place just to start to build a community around you because it does, it takes a village. You can only be so much. But if you come to the Chamber and you start making friends, you come to our leads group, you let you let your community around you help build your brand. You can't just rely on that and if you can rely on yourself, but it's a lot easier when you let other people help <laugh>.
One time Sean was like, you really are amazing, Andi, but your meetings go way too long. Like, you've got to cut it out there somewhere. <Laugh>. By the end of every one of my meetings, we both would look at each other and we're like, oh my God, we haven't even had Chamber talk yet. Sorry, <laugh>. I would forget that I didn't even talk about the Chamber. And I would literally have three seconds to wrap up my pitch for the Chamber, and I would slide my brochures over to them, and say, I really want to see you again.
And so what I'm going to do is, I'm going to send a calendar invite to you, and all you have to do is show up. You have to show up to these events that we have that the chamber puts on for you, for your business. So I'm going to put the calendar invite on your calendar. Everyone knows me for my amounts of emails, of calendar invites. But all you have to do is show up.
Also, when I finally do get to the chance to talk about the Chamber, same thing as Kevin, I ask, how can I help you? And it's really rewarding when I can meet somebody and they can tell me how I can help them. And I'm like, I'm going to pin that, and I guarantee you, in two months I'm going to meet another business owner that is going to be a perfect connection for you.
So I might not be able to help them at that moment, but I know that God is going to provide. And you put it out there into the world, somebody will come to me and I'm like, oh, this is going to be perfect for that person.
Take Scott Marker for instance. Is he here? I'm not sure. Oh, there he is. Hi. he called me one day and he's like, Andi, I need an accountant. There's no accountants in this group. Like, we're very low in accountants and I would love to put an accountant in my Network In Action group. And I'm like, you know what, Scott? That's so funny. Literally two days ago I had somebody call me and they're like, I'm looking to go out on my own and I want to grow my business. And so I was able to connect the two of them, and they were able to make magic happen.
Oh, and then I always loved to tell Kevin's story too. When he did join Glass Doctor, he wanted to work with Shamrock Foods. And so he would go to the front desk, and the front desk would say, oh, you can leave now. And every day he'd go back, to the front desk. Go the front desk, and hear, you can leave now. And he's like, oh, okay, fine.
So then he joins the chamber. Brilliant move, by the way. Which all y'all should join the chamber. Anyway, one of our ambassadors came to deliver him a new member packet. And it just so happened to be Mike Ruffner, the president of Shamrock Foods. And they then were able to build their relationship and again, make magic happen.
So, it's not all fun and games. As we grew, we got bigger and bigger, and the more coffee I had <laugh> the wilder it got, and I did get very overwhelmed. I could say I'm still in that overwhelmed stage. And so I kind of took my eyes off of my goal. I forgot about the thousand. I got really tired. Coffee just didn't sound good anymore, which should never be the case <laugh>.
But so I did, I kind of took my eyes off of the goal. And it really matters. We kind of could feel a shift in the numbers. They don't climb. They're not climbing as fast. They're still climbing, but they're not climbing as fast. And I started doing less and less coffee dates. And you really can tell.
So when you take your energy away from your work and you stop putting your boots to the ground, you stop going out there, you're going to see a difference. Like SERVPRO does do it right? As big as they are, they probably don't need any more business. They still show up, they still come to the events, they still put their hats on, and they still let everybody see them, even though they might not need that business. It still matters to show up to go to the events.
So just if there's anything I can teach you, it's just to remember that energy manners. And the energy is in Meridian <laugh>, but always get back to the basics. I got so busy, so many people were just emailing me and oh, it did take a village. It was all of my whole community sending me people that they knew that they were on a mission to meet. I had email after email, after email trying to get everybody in. I forgot to do the little things from about two years ago when I first started. And I didn't have any coffee dates.
I would be like, please go out to coffee with me. I would send thank you cards. I would send a follow up text. I would call every two weeks. I would send them a card in the mail. I would do all these little things that helped me grow. And then when you get so busy, you forget about them.
They really truly do matter. The small things matter, so stay in front of them.
Oh, and then also, let your community work for you, your Chamber. Membership managers should be your best friend. People that do the Chamber right, they stay right in front of me. Obviously, there's a lot of you want to meet. They stay right there. They call me, they're like, can you please send somebody for me to connect with? And I'm like, oh, sure, let me do that, easy.
So I was gonna mention Brandon Tarpley out there, if you could stand up. So if you guys don't want the energy in Meridian, Brandon is your go-to for the Boise Chamber. Yes. He has done it right. When we met, he told me he was really well versed in commercial real estate. So he took action by specializing in an industry to better serve his members. And that was what I remembered about Brandon. So now if people come to me and they need commercial real estate, I'm like, oh, Brandon will know. Yes, we are friends. We do have a secret competitive state, but that's okay. <Laugh>.
And then also, I was going to say Josh, he does it right. He won't let a couple of months go by before he's emailing me. He's like, Hey, we need to get coffee. We need to catch up. Because he wants to just stay plugged in and connected. And that really just goes a long way. He's doing the action by staying in front of the people that he knows can better serve him.
And then also we have John Schied, I don't think he's here, but he was an agent that came to Next Home. He moved from Oregon. I interviewed with him. He didn't like to network at all. He didn't have any friends. He had just moved here. And I was like, you know what? You need to come to the Chamber event and just stand by me. You don't have to talk to anybody. You don't have to say anything. Just stand by me. And so he would, he would just show up and come stand by me. And now a couple years later, we call him the second mayor of Meridian. And if you don't know, you can probably find him at Top Golf. And if you want to go to Top Golf, hit him up. He'll let you go for free <laugh>.
But these people are taking action and they're showing up and they're doing everything right. So if you can take anything from this just find what works for you, find your best action point and just stick with it.
It's very challenging. I definitely have a lot of folders inside of my Outlook for people that I need to contact. If I hadn't heard from 'em, I move 'em to a folder and then I go through the folder every now and then. I immediately set up a calendar invite and then that way it's out of sight, out of mind. And you just know when that calendar invite comes up, you're there. If it doesn't get on the calendar, it does not happen.
So my advice is if you're talking to somebody and you're like, Hey, let's set it up, put it on the calendar right there, right in front of them, like, I know it might be rude on your phone but just do it right then and there. Don't let time fly by.
Does that help? And lots of coffee.
If I could choose one chamber event a month, what would I choose? Well, that's pretty easy. It's got to be the After Hours, cuz that's where the drinks are. <laugh>