If you’re a new business owner, or even if you’re a not-so-new one, there is a possibility you may not know everything there is to know about the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce.
As a member of the business community in Frederick, we want you to know exactly what we, as the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce, stand for. We want you to understand our role in the business community, what we do for businesses in the county, and how you can best benefit from being a member of our wonderful organization.
In a nutshell, the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce is a member-based organization that exists to support and advance the business community in Frederick County which is a wordy way of saying: we’re here for you!
We want to support you and your business goals with the guidance, education, advocacy, services, and opportunities you need to be successful. Things like expert-led seminars, well-attended networking events, opportunities to engage with significant members of our local and national governments, fruitful connections, promotion, and more.
We’re proud to say that we are one of the largest chambers in the state of Maryland with members who have been a part of our organization for many, many years. But, we also know that there are Frederick County business owners who have not found their way over to the Chamber yet, and we can only imagine one reason for that: they don’t know who we are.
We want to fix that and we are doing so with this new blog series: Chamber of No Secrets: Everything You Need to Know About The Frederick County Chamber of Commerce.
So, hello, Frederick County.
We are your Chamber.
8 Things Every Member of the Business Community Should Know About the Chamber of Commerce
1. The Chamber of Commerce exists to help your business.
The entire point of a Chamber of Commerce is to further the interests of businesses – to advocate on their behalf and provide needed services and opportunities for growth. We take this definition seriously here in Frederick. We want to be your voice, we are eager to help you succeed, and we believe that when you’re successful, our entire community benefits from that success. Don’t know about you, but we are all about the win-win scenarios.
2. The Frederick County Chamber of Commerce has been a part of the community longer than anyone living can remember.
That’s because the Chamber was established in 1912, the same year President Taft created the United States Chamber of Commerce. Our leaders at that time, enterprising individuals that they were, recognized the importance of having an organization designed to promote and protect the interests of the business community and we continue to believe in this mission today.
Shoutout to any centenarians we may have missed. If you’re alive, shoot us an email so we can come high five you.
3. We are not a part of the government.
And we don’t want to be!
While we appreciate our political leaders and work closely with them continuously on issues that impact our economy here in Frederick, we believe that it is our position as a nonpartisan, non-profit organization that allows us to successfully support business interests regardless of who is in office. We work with government officials without regard to their party affiliation and we advocate on behalf of all of our members to propel the best interest of the entire business community.
But we do often communicate and work closely with many appointed and elected officials at the city, county, state and even federal levels.
This is because we want to stay abreast of initiatives and law changes that may impact our members and we want to allow you access to these decision making individuals via our connection to them.
4. Every business owner is eligible to be a member of the Chamber of Commerce.
It doesn’t matter how big or how small your company is. If you’re doing business in Frederick County, you can be a member of our chamber.
5. And, when you join, everyone in your organization becomes a member.
That means it is also a great benefit to your employees. Feel free to play that one up at your next job fair.
6. To take advantage of all of our services and opportunities, you have to be an active member.
That’s why being a member is so important.
Ready to commit? You can request information about how to join The Chamber here: Chamber Member Information
7. Members are afforded many opportunities to improve their businesses via the Chamber.
Because we aren’t just here to hand out member plaques and do ribbon cuttings.
We provide our members with multiple ROI opportunities. Access to expert-led courses, networking events, opportunities to gain new skills, meeting space, marketing assistance and promotion–these are just a few of the ways you can benefit from your Chamber membership this week alone. You should see what we can do in a month (actually, you can see it if you just check out our calendar here: Chamber Events Calendar)
8. We can help you stand out.
We are happy to feature your business in a variety of ways via our own digital marketing channels. We often share cool things our members are doing on our Facebook Page, with a photo on Instagram, and on Twitter. If you want to share something noteworthy with us, go ahead and shoot our digital marketing strategist an email and you might see yourself in our feed.
We also just launched our feature series focused solely on our members. It’s our way of highlighting our members and telling your stories in fun and creative ways. If you have a story to tell (hint: we all have a story to tell!), go ahead and email our digital marketing strategist about that too. She LOVES emails.
Finally, we have some pretty easy ways for you to toot your own horn as well. You can share your news with us for feature on our website, submit your events for inclusion on our calendar, and you can even write a blog post for our site.
Note: Not everything you send in will be featured. Be sure to follow the guidelines provided, however, for a better opportunity of inclusion.
We love a show off.
We know that our members are multi-talented with multiple resources at their disposal. With that in mind, we have countless opportunities for our members to show off their talents.
We are always looking for members to share their expertise in a seminar format. Our Lunch & Learn series recently provided training on Microsoft Office 365, as well as an informative session on taxes and investments. Think about what you’re an expert in, and then we’d love to give you an opportunity to prove it!
You can also sponsor one of our extremely popular Business Card Exchange events. Those who sponsor these events are afforded the opportunity to get in front of a large number of prominent and engaged members of our business community in a meaningful way. From hosting the event at your venue–an awesome way to show off what you do–to speaking to attendees at the event, it’s a great way for local businesses to spread brand awareness.
If you’re interested in hosting a networking event or would like more info about sponsoring one, shoot us a note here: Contact the Chamber
Pro Tip: The best way to know more about what we do at The Chamber is to sign up for a New Member Orientation Event. Whether you’ve just joined or have been a long time member, we recommend coming to one of these from time to time to learn about any new offerings and engage with our current staff. We love getting to know our members!
Frederick Chamber Insights is a news outlet of the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce. For more information about membership, programs and initiatives, please visit our website.