ATLANTA AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

This is a story about a small town. The town had a lot of things that made it unique, but it was located just off the beaten path for interstate traffic, and the town was struggling.

Realizing that population, business and tourism were all on the decline, a small group of residents made up of a couple business owners, and a couple longtime residents, some new volunteers and some “insiders” from City Hall decided to do something to save their town.

They got together and brainstormed and sketched until they decided on the perfect new brand to attract tourists and new residents. They divided marketing tasks amongst themselves and got busy preparing to release the new logo and tagline on an interstate billboard! This bit of grassroots initiative was going to be their saving grace and set them apart from the other struggling towns in their region… or so they thought.

As the town’s new campaign circulated, they were able to draw some attention from passing tourists, but to the dismay of the team of Hometown Heroes, their efforts didn’t seem to be paying off.

It turned out that the rest of the residents and business community were not “drinking the koolaid” the small group was selling. The shiny new brand meant nothing to the community stakeholders because they had never been included in the branding process. They weren’t excited about it, they weren’t telling people about it and they definitely were not taking ownership of it. When visitors came, their expectations were unmet, and their experience was not as advertised.

The town continued to struggle despite the efforts of the group because they lacked something crucial for success: community buy-in.

So what is buy-in and why is it just as important to the Chamber and the communities we represent? A basic definition for buy-in in this context would be the agreement to support a decision.

Community buy-in is a must to make anything good into something great. Our Chamber can push out the message all day every day that we are a valuable asset to our members and community, but if our members are not bought-in to supporting the Chamber, we will struggle to thrive.

Our team of three (with the help of our Board of Directors) can saturate social media, radio ads, posters and handouts, big banners all over town etc. about how amazing the Moonlight Madness Event is, but unless our businesses, schools and community agree to support it, the event will struggle to thrive.

We can host endless Cash Mobs, give out Small Business Saturday swag, or use hashtags and tee shirts to spread a message, but it is ultimately up to our community to believe and agree that shopping local is important and something they are passionate about before we will be able to overcome the age of Amazon and online shopping.

It is ultimately up to our community to take ownership of the things that make us unique and special. It is up to our Chamber Members to see the efforts being made and become an active part of creating connections and building community. It is crucial for our people to take ownership of the things that are special and unique and wonderful about our communities and become a storyteller of that positive narrative. Unless we truly have buy-in from our stakeholders, a narrative is all it will be.

Our quote of the week is, “If you aren’t loving your community, why would anyone else want to?”

Are you bought-in? Take time this week to notice something in your community that makes you proud.