New Chamber director sets membership goals
By Randy Bell
During his first five months as executive director of the Clinton Chamber of Commerce, Nate Jarnagin has been looking for feedback on how members can be better served. And he’s doing it with a personal touch, visiting those business leaders and listening to what they say.
“I’m asking what can we do, what kind of events can help them, how can we help them thrive?”
Jarnagin is also working to boost the Chamber’s membership by reaching out to businesses which don’t yet belong. Currently, there are 378 members, including thirty-five who joined this year.
“Pre-COVID, we had nearly five hundred members,” he says. “We’ve been slowly building back toward that. Over the next five years, we’d like to get back up to having right at five hundred members, which would be roughly fifty per cent of the business community here in Clinton.”
In October, Jarnagin says the Chamber held a new event, Clinton Connect After Hours, “a networking event which rotates through different businesses.” He calls it “an opportunity for our business professionals to meet each other to make those connections to help strengthen each other’s businesses.”
Jarnagin says the Chamber is also looking to establish better lines of communications between the business community and the mayor’s office.
“That was one of the first things some of our members asked for,” he says, “was to get updates from the City, because not everybody can make it to the Board of Aldermen meetings to find out what’s going on.”
A “coffee with the mayor” meeting is planned in January.
The Chamber is creating a new Community Guide and Directory as a resource to help the public to find local businesses. Limited supplies of the publication will be distributed in a targeted mailing, and plastic stands will be placed in twelve key, high-traffic locations across Clinton offering the guides for free. A digital version will also be available.
Jarnagin says, “A lot of Chambers have gotten away from having a printed guide,” but he sees the value of keeping it in Clinton.
“All of our residents and visitors can have something in their hands and sit there and go, ‘Oh, let me see who I need for an electrician or an engineer or a plumber or where I can go to eat.’”
He says the advertising space within the guide will provide additional exposure to local businesses as people are flipping through. There will also be handy information about Clinton, including contact numbers and city maps.
