Supporting the Business Community with Amin Samji

Supporting the Business Community with Amin Samji

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 60 of the business development podcast. And for this milestone episode, I am so fortunate to be graced by Amin Samji of the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce. We are going to talk about what is the Chamber doing, what can they do for your business and why you should join your local Chamber of Commerce.

I'm excited for this one.

Intro: The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world.

You'll get. Expert business development advice, tips, and experiences. And you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs, and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business. Brought to you by Capital Business Development. CapitalBD.ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the Business Development Podcast and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 60 of the business development podcast. Wow. 60 episodes already. It truly blows my mind. We are actually coming up on our seven month anniversary. So that's a lot of content for a short period of time. And yeah, believe me, it's a little bit exhausting, but I don't mind.

I don't mind. I'm loving the show growth of the business development podcast. And you know, going into episode 60, I was really wondering who we would have for this guest. And I can't tell you how excited I am to have Amin Samji from the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce. You guys know, I talk about the Chamber of Commerce quite regularly on the show and how beneficial it is for your business, but Today we really get to hear from the experts there to tell us kind of what's going on in Edmonton, why join the Chamber of Commerce, what it can do for you.

So let me introduce to you Amin Samji. Meet Amin Samji, one half of the Chamber Guys, a dynamic duo renowned throughout our region for their exceptional ability to forge meaningful connections and cultivate relationships. Amin's unwavering passion for the prosperity of our community is palpable in his role as a leader within the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce.

With nearly three decades of entrepreneurial experience and a deep rooted presence in the business community, Amin has gleaned invaluable insights. He understands that the bedrock of both business success and personal fulfillment lies in the cultivation of mutually beneficial partnerships and relationships.

In his capacity as the Director of Member Services at the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, Amin Samji alongside Ken Gee represent the face of the Chamber in our city. They are at the forefront of navigating the ever evolving landscape of Edmonton's business scene. Drawing from over 25 years in the realm of business development, Amin brings a wealth of experience with a specialized focus on a consultative approach that seeks win win solutions.

His mission is clear to empower businesses to thrive by fostering enduring mutually beneficial partnerships. Join us in exploring Amin Samji's journey marked by a relentless commitment to community collaboration and the pursuit of excellence. Amin, it's great to have you. How are you today?

Amin Samji: After that intro, man, I feel so good about myself.

Kelly Kennedy: You're doing a lot of good, man. And I'm really excited to have you on the show today. So thank you so much for coming.

Amin Samji: Are you kidding, man? Thank you for, you know, we've been meaning to do this for a while, Kelly, and I can't thank you enough for the opportunity. I love, I love talking about the chamber and and, and what we try to do for our community.

So my thanks to you.

Kelly Kennedy: I do too, but I can never explain it right, which is why you're here today. Well, let's see

Amin Samji: if we could fumble our way through it. Yeah,

Kelly Kennedy: absolutely. So you've been, you know, you've been in the business world a really long time, a lot longer than I even knew, to be honest. Once I kind of started reading through your information when I was looking at bringing you on the show, I was like, holy cow, like.

You have extensive business experience, like it, it actually blows my mind a little bit. I mean, you know, you're pushing at this point, like what, almost 30 years, 25, 30 years of business, direct business experience.

Amin Samji: Oh, yeah. You know, and when you, when you look back at the career, I mean, my goodness, lots of lessons learned, lots of heartache, lots of joy, lots of sleepless nights lots of high fives and yeah, it's, it's been a great journey.

Kelly Kennedy: I I always laugh cause you know, I think about all the bosses I've had in my life and you know, I'll be telling them, you know, one day I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to start my own business. And they just said, Kelly, you know what? Prepare for a lot of sleepless nights. And I had no idea what they meant, but tell you what I know now.

Amin Samji: Yeah. Initially when my wife and I first started our first business. We had she was pregnant. We're like, yeah, we're, you know, this will give us opportunity to spend time with our kid, we'll, we'll write our own journey, we'll create our own path, this is amazing. Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. It, it sounds really good on paper and it is, but understand that if you start your own business, you're working all the time.

Amin Samji: But you know, the best part is, is you get to put your stamp on what you think.

You know, it is right for you.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yes. And I would also argue too, that it doesn't feel like you are working a lot as a business owner, you know, you're putting in extra time, it's, it's your baby at the end of the day, I'll be honest. It doesn't feel. Like work sometimes, you know what I mean?

Amin Samji: 100% like, even, even what I do today you know, people say, my goodness, you guys are, you know, you're out of venture working all the time.

You're, you're doing this, you're doing that. It doesn't seem like it when it's your passion. It just, it doesn't seem like it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Like I would say like, you know, I'm not sure if everyone knows this or not. If this is your first kind of foray into the business development podcast and you just found us.

I operate a business development firm here in the city as well. So this is really my part term like part time passion at this point. It's it's a labor of love. I don't make any money off the business development podcast yet. I'm hoping someday, but not yet. So right now it very much is a labor of love.

It's a passion project. And I, you know, what I get from it right now is just the amazing feedback on the show. And that truly keeps me going, keeps me motivated. Cause I know we're helping a lot of people in the realm of business development or a lot of new business owners who, you know, they don't have money for a business development firm.

They don't have money for a business development rep. They're trying to do it on their own and they need some help. So I kind of get benefit at this point, just from the feedback from the show. But yeah, it's it's definitely a labor of love. It's a passion project. And between this and capital business development, my gosh, man, like time is hard to find.

Amin Samji: My hats off to you.

I know we've, we've chatted off air about your family life and about what's on your plate and your passion definitely comes through. When, when we spoke, my my hats off to you and what you do and what you bring to our, our community. Cause it's a great resource, you know, for for members of our business community.

I know we've had a great working relationship through the chamber, but but listening to some of the the podcasts and it's, it's fantastic. Good on you. Thank you.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I really appreciate that. I, I always find it kind of funny cause I never planned to do this. And, and, you know, people look at it and they're like, you started a podcast and you didn't plan to do it.

And it's like, not at all, honestly, like I ended up starting to look into it because in the new year I knew that I was taking on a lot more meetings. Things were getting a lot more formal. It was time to upgrade, you know, my, my microphone equipment and stuff. And when I started digging into it, I thought, well, you know what?

Like I love podcasts. Like maybe, maybe I could try one like this. And so it really just started out as like. Let's just try it and see what happens. And it's really built into this gigantic monster. Because what I didn't recognize at the time I'm in was that there were no business development podcasts.

Like it's such a small niche market in the, in the realm of that world. And I had no clue. And yeah, it was probably a little bit of bad market research, but I didn't care. Cause at the time it was just for me. Right. But yeah, it's really cool because now if you, if you hop on any of your podcast platforms, and you just search business development, we're, we're the one that comes up because there's not a lot of other people in that space.

Most of them are trying to do other entrepreneurial aspects, right? Like finance, or they're very niche and specific, but if you take it to that business development space, it's really just us at the moment.

Amin Samji: Right on. Well, you're, you're the trailblazer. That's fantastic. It's pretty cool.

Kelly Kennedy: Right here in Edmonton.

I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Edmonton's amazing. And you know, like if you're not from here, you don't recognize it, but Edmonton is bustling. And in my opinion, the work that you guys are doing at the chamber is the best, like networking work I think I've ever seen. And hats off to you and Ken, because you guys are rock stars.

Amin Samji: You know Our objective really is is to bring our our business community community together. Not just not just networking is one aspect, but we want them to build their connections, build their relationships find resources from each other, support each other. And then, you know, we've got other plans that we, you know, we want to do with the tail end of this year and early next year is really where.

How do we take this to the next level? How do we take our networking sessions that we do monthly and create something that's really, really positive where people are benefiting? We're solving problems. We're tackling issues that that our city faces.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, and, and you can tell, like, I can tell that a lot of thought is put into all of the work that you guys are doing, all the events you set up.

They're well done. They're well organized. The interact, like the way, the way that it's set up, you guys have put immense planning into and it shows, it really does.

Amin Samji: Thanks. Thanks, man. I appreciate that.

Kelly Kennedy: So, I mean, take me back. You know, you've been with the chamber now coming up six years. Yeah. But, you know, like I said, you've had a, you've had a heck of a business career.

Take us back to the beginning. What what got your passion, you know, what started this passion for business?

Amin Samji: You know yeah, a little bit of background on, on me. I, I mean, my first gig, real professional gig was with a company called ITR, a Canadian success story based out of Toronto. But as an account manager there, but I learned a lot.

I learned a lot from a mentor manager that I had there. But in the back of my mind, I always wanted to do something that was my own. And, you know watching I've had family members who've owned businesses and it's just maybe it's in the DNA or it's in the blood or something that, they got me started, but yeah, my wife and I first started a manufacturing and wholesale distribution of confectionery learned a lot of painful lessons in that but, you know, I always, I always look at things that don't work out or.

Or fail, just because you, you fail at something or don't work out the way you planned it. It's an outcome. And for me, it's, it's a learning point, right? If you, you, I know it's not fun when you're going through it, but when you pull back a little bit and, and look at things to say, yeah, you know, I could have done this.

I could have done that. I should have done this. And then ask for advice and get help and get guidance. There's always people willing to help and support. I mean, you're a prime example. Our city is a prime example. There's so many organizations and associations there to. To help you, but for me personally, yeah, started with that that business ran it for a few years.

Then got work with ITR number of years. What, what did you know, when I first started, I think it was week one or week two, I called my wife and I said, I'm working for a company. That sells physical manual punch time clocks. Like, come on, right? Where is this going? Like, what, what's happening? But, you know, within, within a week or within a month or so, I'd learned that ITR had bigger plans and bigger goals and going to software at that time.

That was mid, early to mid nineties. And that's what, that's what really got me excited about, you know, the potential to just because you have something doesn't mean you stay with it. You, you expand, you grow with it and, and their vision really helped me to, to get into more of the software side of things and, and learn and grow and polish my skills as a an account manager and in biz dev.

Really learned a lot in terms of, you know, listening to, to clients and, and understanding their current needs and future needs and really honed my skills there.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. And I think like, you know, you talk to a lot of salespeople and, you know, I, everyone kind of looks at it. It's like now, you know, you're a business development expert.

Sure. But like. It took me years to get here. Believe me, I started out pretty crappy. And I'm not afraid. I am not afraid.

Amin Samji: We're always learning, right?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. I was 20, just turned 23 when I got into the business development world. And I was working with an inspection firm. dealing with some of the largest oil and gas clients in Alberta at that time.

And like, I'm going into meetings with like 65 year old senior executives, and I'm just this little punk. And I remember in the beginning, it was really, really tough. Because as you know, in business development, Being able to generate relationships is absolutely critical. It's truly the main aim of all the work we do.

And it's really hard to connect. Like what I found at that time was it was really hard to connect with people who could have been my grandfather.

Amin Samji: Yeah, it's funny you say that because I remember one of the first meetings at ITR that I had to do on my own with six executives of an organization. I was way out of my element, but something that a mentor had said to me is that You know what the reason they took that meeting with you is because you're the expert in your field.

They may know things that they know, but you know what you know. So go do what you know.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, it's so funny because I, you know, that was kind of how I felt at the time. And I remember like really struggling with it at first, but I'll tell you what, like some of those people became absolutely amazing clients.

You know, people that we went that I still to this day enjoy. Conversations with that. I still have built those friendships, you know, over that time, like people that were my very first clients have stayed friends and clients to this day in one level or another. And you know what I mean? You don't really see that in any other position in a company.

I really believe that business development is truly one of the best, the best positions in any company period. You know, like it's just, it's really great. Like your whole job is just to build amazing relationships with people that turn into, you know, prosperous, mutually beneficial situations.

Amin Samji: Right? I couldn't have said it better myself.

Yeah, I know. I remember one of my colleagues not too long ago, this was going back 10, 15 years ago. She was in, she was in the accounting department and I was leaving that firm and she said, you know, you, you do sales and I, I just couldn't never do sales. And, and, you know, she's. of an amazing person.

And I said, you know, you do sales because you've told me every Friday night when you watch Netflix with your boyfriend, you get to pick the movies you're selling him on.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah. That's it. Right. People don't realize almost everything in your life is a negotiation of some type.

Amin Samji: Yeah. I've had to negotiate a broccoli to my kids when they were growing up.

Kelly Kennedy: That, that sounds like a bit of a hard sell.

Yeah, no, totally, totally. So, so tell me like, you know, you did, you know, frankly, you've, you've done business development longer than I have. I mean what has, what has changed, you know, from the beginning, you don't mean, obviously there's a lot that's the same, but what if you noticed, you know, doing 20 years in that world, what, what, what did you notice changed the most?

Amin Samji: You know what? I think access to information. I mean, there's a lot of things that are the same way. You know, we both, both you and I and I think Ken will agree is the relationship is the best way to sell. You try anyways, for me, anyways, is creating that win win scenario. It's got to be mutually beneficial.

But the access to information sure speeds up. The ROI that you could put in front of a, a client to, to, to learn about them, their journey, what they, what they've done in the past. That wasn't there when I was first starting where you had to really do a lot more digging and investigating. You know, that I think is really cool.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. But for me too, you know, even in the start of my career, you know, where we had, we were still living off of business cards and Excel spreadsheets and like, My desk was an absolute mess. Like if you were to come in and look at my desk, I knew what was going on, but you would have been like, what the heck is going on here?

But it's like, that was the way that we did business development back then we had, you know, Rolodex is, we had gigantic books full of business cards. We had to sell spreadsheets out the wazoo. My gosh, I look back at that now and I'm like, how in the world did I manage any of that?

Amin Samji: Yeah, I remember that first gig we talked about with ITR.

I I had binders for every month of what calls I had to make in January, February, March, you know, it was like you described my desk was it was like that beautiful mind thing. Yeah. Yeah. Only I could understand.

Kelly Kennedy: And it's so funny because now, you know, I mean, on the show I advocate for CRMs. I use CRMs for all my clients.

We use CRMs internally for, you know, for Capital. And, but like I, I pushed back against CRMs when they first kind of started to become mainstream. Like, I don't want to do this. I like my Excel spreadsheets. I like my Rolodex, , how funny. But it's like, my gosh, how tech, you know what I mean? It's, it's just, And I feel like that's kind of the way it is with all adopting all new technology.

Right. It's like, yeah, now I have a much more open mind, but you know, when I was in my early twenties, kind of just cutting my teeth on this, I thought I knew it all.

Amin Samji: So right when you look back at, you know, when you think, Oh yeah, I, I was, I was the bomb.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. But now, you know what I mean?

Now I always say you're only an expert until yesterday because things are changing so quickly all around all of us. I don't care what aspect of business you're in, you know, the reality is if you're an expert in it. You were only an expert till yesterday because technology, you know, the landscape is changing so rapidly.

It's almost hard to keep up.

Amin Samji: Well put my friend. Yeah, no, definitely. You're right. You do have to keep up. And I think industry expects you to keep up. And, but it's, it's, it's a good thing. There's lots of good things about, about technology and how it can be used and harnessed.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. .Have have you guys implemented any new technology in the last six months?

Amin Samji: Have we implemented new technology at the Chamber? You know we've improved our efficiencies for sure just by going to a CRM that was designed more for chambers. The, the hard part is, and I don't, I'm assuming a lot of people struggle with this, but it is always. Try to make the most out of it because there's so much in a CRM that we're not fully utilizing it.

And sometimes it's, it's capacity. And sometimes what's, what's in front of us, we're just doing the things that need to get done. And you do have to take that time really to squeeze every ounce of, of the technology that you can, because it really helps you and it helps your clients.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. So did you guys have to develop that or was that something that you were able to kind of get out in the market?

Amin Samji: No, we actually found it out in the market. It wasn't recently implemented. It was in the last couple of years, but we were, we were using something that was custom designed and custom built. And you know, when, when nothing wrong with that, but when sometimes when you're building something for an organization and it's custom people change in the organization that built it for you.

And then you go back and ask for changes, and that's hard to implement because it's, it's built in a certain way. So we, we found somebody that was able to, well, that's their world. That's the world they live in with, with associations and chambers. So they thought of a lot of things. And so that's been good for us.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, one of the challenges that I see in a lot of the businesses that I work with is that you know, they've implemented ERP systems, which is awesome. I get it. All these businesses are finding ways to manage all this information much better, manage their customers, manage all their projects. And I get it.

Having an all encompassing system is great. One of the downsides that I've seen to just about every ERP system, The C R M function of the E R P was a total afterthought. It's just thrown together and thrown in and it's not built for efficiency or speed or frankly, the data you need half the time . So I, you know, you know, I hope it gets better in time, but I basically, everywhere I go, I pretty much recommend that they switch to a C R M that's focused on business development specifically and customer management.

Because, you know, like if you're in that world, you need things to go fast. You can't be dilly dallying, entering all this data in a, in a poor workflow. And yeah, I just have not found an ERP yet that does that.

Amin Samji: Yeah. You know you're right in, in you have, you really have to be forward thinking and strategic when you are.

Implementing technology like that. It is what what what could what is it that you want 5 years down the road 10 years in a row? Where do you want to be an industry leader? Then you do have to invest properly in in a product. And that whether it's CRM, your pieces from a piece of equipment that's going to help you do things better.

You have to think, you know how is this going to make you a leader in your. In your field, in your industry.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, 100%. Yeah, no, it is. And you know, like, for those of you that are listening to this that are kind of like, what are you talking about? CRM is a customer relationship management tool. It's frankly just this perfect place to put all of your customer data, to be able to track all of your business development efforts, to be able to track all your sales efforts.

You're marketing where people are at in certain areas. It basically combines, like I said, all of those business cards, all of that Excel data stuff that we used to have to track in our minds, which never worked. Right. And it's one easy to use space where all that data is there. All of your conversations are there.

The emails, the phone conversations, what was discussed. It's amazing. Like, frankly, I don't know how I ever lived without a CRM system.

Amin Samji: Right. And it helps with strategic planning too. If you, you know, you have to take the time to, to use the data, like you said, use the data and then, and then plan from it to say that, you know, I look at last year, what we did in terms of number of touch points, engagement, what are our members looking for?

What are the, the, the feedback that we're getting? And then Build on that to say, this helps me make good decisions for our community or for our members or for our organization.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. No, it is critical and data is more critical than ever. And kind of that's what these systems really do. They can provide, they can provide you insights reports, you know, they can, they can forecast for you, you know, in, in, in a men's description there, it does all sorts of things.

And if you don't have one, they're actually cost effective to, like, These are not crazy, you know, million dollar software programs. You can get one for probably about 20 bucks a month. Like they are 100% affordable. And if you don't have one, you need to be implementing one yesterday.

Amin Samji: Yeah. Yeah. Agreed.

Kelly Kennedy: So, Amin, I want to take us, take us to, obviously, you know, you spent, you spent an absolute long career doing business development, sales, account management.

How did that lead you to the Edmonton Chamber?

Amin Samji: Yeah, great question. Yeah, I had I had kind of an inside connection. I knew, I knew the director a little bit at that time, director of member services, and he was looking for somebody to come in and build build a team around membership historically, you know, membership, the chamber had always grown on.

The strength of its events and its advocacy work and membership just kind of followed along. But he wanted to bring in somebody who can help him just build some structure, build some, some, some strategy and then some, some while putting some milestones and targets and build the team. I'm like, yeah, let's, let's give that a go.

That that sounds like a, like a great gig. And so I came on board in in April of 2018. And, absolutely loved it. Like, I didn't know much about the chamber and what a chamber did. I think like a lot of people will, they find out once they're kind of involved, but so very limited knowledge. But the more I learned, I'm like.

Are you kidding me? A chamber does all this? So, I got, I got right into it. I loved, I loved my role. And and about a year in, he he said, you know, I've, I've got another opportunity. Why don't you take my role as a director? Of the member services and I, you know, I kind of hesitated and I said, not really.

I don't think it's for me. I really, really enjoy what I do here. But anyways, he said, think about it and, I think you'd be a good fit and give it some thought at the time. We had a president and CEO that also encouraged me to to do the same. Take on the role. You'll be surprised. And after after giving it some thought, I took on the role and honestly, Kelly it's been so I took that role on in August of 19.

So I was in the role for like a few months before COVID hit and. It has been the best decision I've made so far professionally. It is, it is such a cool gig. I, I, people are probably sick of me here is sick of me saying this, but I really have one of the coolest gigs in town.

Kelly Kennedy: You definitely do. I agree.

Amin Samji: To get to play the role that we do in the community to help our business community succeed, man, that I come home fulfilled all the time.

Kelly Kennedy: And I can't tell you, you know, like. There's so many outside the box ways that the Edmonton Chamber has helped me in my business and the clients that I work with to, you know, like, you guys have helped in ways I never thought could have even happened, frankly, you know, like, especially with making connections with with the City of Edmonton, things like that, trying to get to the right people, which, as you know, navigating any city is an absolute challenge.

It is not an easy thing to talk to the right people when you need to get ahold of them. And You know, in this case, the Edmonton Chamber has all of those connections and you guys have always been more than willing to set up those, those introductions and, and help out and, you know, they have not just helped me a Capital, but they have helped my clients.

They've helped all sorts of situations and that's a very outside the box thing. I want to kind of talk about, I know for a fact that when I joined the chamber. I did not have a good understanding. You know, I mean, you, you have an idea of what a chamber is, which is why I wanted to have this show with you.

Yeah. Because I really want to get into the meat and potatoes. I want to delve deep into what a chamber is, what it does, and really educate the listeners today why they need to join their local chamber.

Amin Samji: Yeah, and I would add also what a chamber could be. Because really we're, we're here, we exist because Of our business community.

So what is it? What is the chamber? And yeah, we put a lot of thought into the processes we've put into place in terms of. Bringing on new members and onboarding them and making sure that they fully understand and get engaged because really, at the end of the day, the last thing we want, it is a membership driven organization.

We're nonprofit, we keep the lights on through membership and and sponsorship. But for for the listeners that are listening in today, if you don't know, yeah, we are, we are nonprofit. We're self funded. We really play, I would say, 4 main roles in, in in what we do. There's 4 main categories. The 1st is around policy and advocacy.

And we have an internal team, a great team of policy and their role is really to stay connected with our members. In, in from small, medium to large from every aspect of every industry that we we serve and that's many. I think that's 30, 35 different industries that we represent, but their role is to really stay connected with with our.

Members and to find out what's happening in their industry. What are the trends? What are the challenges? What are the hurdles? What are they facing when they're trying to do their business and things are getting in the way? What can we help? Right? What can we advocate for? They also, they run 6 different committees.

The policy team does from health and life sciences to environment to hospitality. And those committees are made up of our members. And those members help us vet all that information that's coming in. And then we kind of take positions on what to kind of tackle, whether it's at the federal level, provincial level, or, or municipal level our role is really to, to talk to those, those 3 levels of our of government and make sure that when they're creating policies.

That they have the business lens or the business communities lens in mind. So that's that's our role from a policy perspective.

Kelly Kennedy: Do you mind, sorry, do you mind if I pause you there for a second? No problem. So how, how, what is that like? Do you find that the government or the city is receptive? I imagine that can be very challenging.

Amin Samji: Yeah, that's a great question. What's it like? There are some, sometimes we see results really quickly. And everybody's on the same page. Sometimes you know, we'll partner with other organizations on our ecosystem when we're watching down to city hall or working on trade missions to Ottawa or what have you.

It really depends on the subject. I mean, since I started there, I know the, this has been on their plate forever is the interprovincial trade barrier, right? Sometimes we have a way of getting in our own way. Or, you know with with just trade between provinces, and I know that our policy team works.

Continuously on on improving that and and getting our members involved in in helping helping us in that cause. So, is it challenging? Yes. Is it rewarding? Yes. Are there some some great benefits to the work that they do? Yes. I mean, thinking about, during the pandemic, I'll give you an example of something that got turned around really quick is just the patio licenses for restaurants, you know, cutting red tape in getting those patio licenses when restaurants were being shut down and you could only have so many people within a restaurant, but yet to get a patio license, it took months and months and months.

Well, that that got turned around to 24 to 48 hours. So there's some some immediate impact. So do people do listen in? You know, I think everybody has has good intentions in mind and policy sometimes gets in the way. But at the end of the day, what's good for our business community

Kelly Kennedy: wins. Yeah. Yeah. And like, obviously, it's always on behalf of the business community.

So it's not you guys stay very politically neutral, correct? 100%.

Amin Samji: 100%. It's it's what's our members drive our agenda. You know, if this is a challenge, this is what we need to to look at. Yeah, 100% we need. We have to be even when it comes time to 2 elections and whether it's provincial or federal or municipal we want to make sure that everybody's voice gets heard and then put that out there for our community to say, okay, here's everybody's platforms.

You just you make the final decision on what's best for you. But yes, yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: No, I agreed. And in my opinion is business needs to try to stay that way. I really believe that, like at the end of the day, your services are good for everybody. And, you know, I would never turn somebody down due to any nature either as long as I could support their business.

So, you know, I think I think that's a great that's a great model. And I think you're right. It has to be that way. Yeah.

Amin Samji: Yeah. So that's that's what the policy team kind of does day in day out. They're grinders, man. I tell, I've told people that there's a lot of heroes that we should be wearing capes add our policy team to that.

Honestly, I, I, I see what happens in, in in behind the scenes. Yeah. And I have a behind the curtains look. Yes. And my goodness Yeah, they do some

Kelly Kennedy: amazing work. No, I bet. I bet. So, you know, you touched on it briefly, COVID. What, my gosh, what kind of, what kind of challenges did that throw your way?

Amin Samji: Yeah, you know, I'll, I'll touch on that a bit.

I just want to wrap up if you don't mind the other things that we do. But COVID is a really interesting story for the Chamber and I'll, I'll circle back to that in a minute. But, but policies is one thing. The other thing we do also is... Is what you're kind of doing is how do we get business tools and business information and education into the toolkits of our members?

So what we try to do is bring in thought leaders who know about HR or. Or geofencing and marketing and, and, you know, how to network effectively. There's a ton of topics that are our community could could learn from. So we bring in those thought leaders, those, those experts, and, and try to fill a room regularly to say, okay, today we're going to talk about financial literacy.

Just because just because you have a successful business, you should know how to keep, you should know a little bit about your books. You shouldn't be just putting your receipts in a shoe box and handing them over to your accountant. You should know when, when to buy that new equipment, piece of equipment or how to read a financial statement.

So you can have those intelligent conversations with your accountant and make key decisions for your business. Because there is, there are a lot of folks. Who have successful businesses and but need guidance in so many different ways, just because you know how to make a widget doesn't mean you're the expert in marketing.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, yes. And you, you actually just hit the nail on the head, actually, for one of the challenges that I see. And, you know, I mean, we didn't, we'll touch on it later. But Edmonton is basically the tech hub of North America at the moment. We are the fastest growing tech sector in North America, if not the world.

At the moment, and you know, I talk about it a lot where we have a lot of these tech companies are actually marketing their own products that they've that they've created. It's very, it's a room full of very smart engineers and such who have built this amazing product. But you know, it's a completely different ballgame when it comes to market and do the business development for that product.

And sometimes our amazingly smart engineers are not necessarily the right people to be doing that.

Amin Samji: Yeah, yeah, you know, and everybody comes with their own skill set, right? And yeah, and I'll give you a COVID example. Actually pre COVID we had a lot of small businesses that didn't have e commerce. And when bricks and mortars were being shut down they had no idea that how to even create a website, let alone add e commerce to it.

So we partnered with with Shopify and we did three sessions, I think during COVID on just teaching. The folks that didn't have that, that e commerce platform or website how to put that together. But yeah, just because just like I said earlier, just because you know how to make this amazing widget and you've been selling this widget for 15 years successfully when you need to shift and pivot, you better have the right tools.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, and those tools come from the community. I think that's something else that's really important to understand from this is that. The relationships that you make through a chamber, right? They're long term relationships, and you know what I mean? It's like, I've met so many great people through the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, and do I necessarily need their services today?

No, but I know exactly where I'm going when I do. And that's the level of relationship and community that you guys facilitate and build, and I am incredibly thankful for that work.

Amin Samji: Well, I'm glad you said that. Yeah, that is for us, that's a huge checkbox. You know, we have those those monthly networking events.

The idea is not to not to sell your product or service there. But it's, how do I support people? How do I make those connections? Because one day I may know somebody who may know somebody who may need that service. So I know Frank or Nancy or Tim that I could recommend and I can, you know, help our community that way.

Kelly Kennedy: That's right. That's right. And not only that, it's so like, the Edmonton business community is just so flippin helpful, like just in general, you know, like, I can't tell you how many times I've just reached out to some people and just said, Hey, like, thinking about doing this, or can you give me some advice on this?

Or you like, I'm, you know, I'm really struggling in this area, what would you do? And, you know, What? They're so willing to help. And I want to reach out and let you guys know too, if that's you and you guys need business development help as well, you can reach out. I'm, I'm always more than willing to give some advice and help out because, you know, at the end of the day, if you're successful, I'm successful.

It's a, it's a community.

Amin Samji: That's a, that's a great Edmonton mentality, isn't it? Yeah, that is fantastic. Well, thank you for the offer, Kelly. I know you've expressed that a few times and we'll trust me, we'll knock on your door.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, and I will answer.

Amin Samji: Right on. Yeah. So, so going back to what we do when I was saying, there's really kind of the four main things.

So policy, kind of that professional development, education piece. The next one we've been talking about is really connecting our members together to each other. Thank you. And that's that's a few different ways. We do that. That's through the networking events that we hold, but it's also through branding and promoting and supporting their initiatives, their milestones, their store success stories.

And that's where that covid piece really comes into play. And I said, I'd circle back on that for for us at the chamber. Covid was was good, bad, but it was also really good. And what I mean by that bad, because, you know, at one point we were over 1, 900 members and we went during COVID. We went down to like 1, 600 and some change.

Wow. So membership went down, but what we found was engagement really went up because we really focused in on at the very early stages, the very first thing we did when COVID happened. And it was brilliant move on our CEO's part at that time was everybody from reception to CEO is going to pick up the phone and call each and every one of our members, find out what's happening on the ground level was because we didn't know at that time, if this thing was 2 weeks long, 2 months long, what is happening, right?

What services do you need? You've been shut down. People are working from home remotely. That was a brand new thing. So there was so much coming at us. That was brand new. But yeah, she at that time said, okay, let's, let's call everybody. Find out what's going on. It took us a good 2. 5 months to call everybody, get get feedback on what's happening in the ground level.

We were then taking that information. Feeding it to our policy team, who is then feeding it up the ladder to decision makers and policies were being created across the country based on feedback from organizations like ours. So that's where I think COVID really helped us. It's really helped us get an understanding of what our members challenges were, needs were at that time.

So then we Did kind of a hyper focus to say, okay, here's what we're hearing. Let's start telling the success stories. Let's start, start telling the stories of challenges of people just hanging on by the skin of their teeth and surviving and people thriving. There was a lot of industries that thrived. You know, in the tech world, there was a there was a lot of it companies that came in and.

People needed to get set up remotely. A lot of VPNs needed to get set up. So, so there was a lot of organizations that, that, that did thrive. But we wanted to celebrate the successes and share the challenges and really rally our community to say, Hey, Let let's support our our business community here that that really helped us refocus on how we should be running a chamber and what we should be doing once we came out of that.

So, connecting our business community is another part of what we do. And then the 4th and last piece is really partnering with folks in our ecosystem. And Kelly, you being part of that, right? We have so many organizations and individuals that support the business community. And we've made it a conscious effort.

To say, let's create some, some meaningful partnerships and relationships and work together rather than working in silos. Because sometimes, and I don't mean that in a negative way at all. Sometimes, you know, at the chamber, we get to work in the morning and before, you know, it's 5, 6 o'clock and it's time to go home.

We haven't put our heads up. But we really need to take a minute to say, Hey, I'm working on this initiative. I know that this other organization is doing the same. Can we work together and impact more, more people, more organizations, more businesses, take their expertise, take our expertise and bring it together.

So that we've, we've really focused in on that, and a small example I'll give you is just you know, in earlier this year in March, when the JUNO's came to town, we partnered with with Explore Edmonton to to run some of the events or do the events in town. And it was a strategic move on our part, because.

What happens when the JUNO's are in town? A lot of people come to our city, you know, and when people come to our city, that means hotels, cafes, bistros, bars, nightclubs, everything is being used. People are spending money. There's a trickle down effect to people who supply those industries. There's a big economic boost to our city and that made sense for us.

And those are the relationships and partnerships that we're kind of looking for. And and others like, like yourself, where there's educational content that we can say, Hey, we've got a partner here that would really benefit you. Right. Can we do something together?

Kelly Kennedy: Gotcha. Gotcha. How does, how does the Edmonton chamber work with say, like Edmonton unlimited or Alberta innovates?

How did those relationships work?

Amin Samji: That that's a great question. That's part of our ecosystem. And you know, we've, we've made some really good strides with, with those organizations, as well as folks like Edmonton global. With the entrepreneur center with entrepreneurs there's so many organizations that, that there's a overlap in services. So we, you know, there's things that we do that are really well and things that maybe Edmonton unlimited does. So we're actually mid September. We've got an ecosystem event coming up just to kind of get to know who's who in the zoo. And that way we can do referrals.

So, if I know Stacy and I know Kelly and I know Frank same thing with what we do with our networking events for our members. This is more for our ecosystem, right? To say, I don't provide this service, but I know somebody does. I can, I can, I can introduce you.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah, no, for sure. And sometimes it's actually, you know, like we were discussing at our lunch meeting that sometimes it's really hard to understand the purpose of each one in the ecosystem.

It is a bit challenging sometimes because there's, you know, especially being in Alberta, there's a few of them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which isn't a bad thing. It's just, you got to know how to navigate.

Amin Samji: Exactly. And can you imagine if it's if it's difficult for us who are part of the ecosystem, what's it like for the business owner who sometimes is wearing 10 hats?

Maybe that same day, right? And now has to navigate our ecosystem.

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely. Which, you know, which is why I'm trying to have, you know, leaders from each of these organizations come on the show and explain their role, their part, the sector that they're supporting so that there is more understanding for this business community.

Amin Samji: Yeah. And so simply put, I mean, if I were to take everything that's on our website and boil it down to one sentence for the chamber. It's how do we support the business community, right? And our work really is through that advocacy piece, through that professional development, through the connection and branding and promoting and, and, and partnering through our, with our ecosystem.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, for sure. How does how does the relationships between other chambers go? Like, do you guys have a relationship, for instance, with Calgary Chamber of Commerce or Parkland Chamber of Commerce? How does that kind of... Work together.

Amin Samji: Great. That's a great question. Because we do, we do get that a lot.

We have members that, you know, are in Slave Lake or in Fort Saskatchewan. And they said, well, usually the 1st question is, well, I belong my, my head offices in Slave Lake or in Vancouver, can I belong to your chamber? And our, our answer is really. You know, belong to as many organizations and associations where your clients are, where your customers are, where you want to grow.

But in terms of our relationship, yeah, there's, there's a good working relationship with, with a lot of the chambers. We all in Alberta belong to the Alberta chambers of commerce. There's regular, regular conversations that happen there. But in addition, For our policy team, especially working hand in hand with the Calgary chamber and their policy team, it's a huge benefit because we have the resources on the policy side.

The 2 chambers do when when we're trying to work on something that's provincially based or federally based, it's better to have that provincial voice rather than just an Edmonton voice or a Calgary voice. We have to go United. And in terms of. Thank you. When we're dealing with the province or the municipal municipal government, we do have what's called a an organization's called GERCC, Greater Edmonton Regional Chambers of Commerce that meets regularly and really their objective is, you know, how do we, again, how do we work together for the benefit of the region?

Not just St. Albert or Leduc or Fort Saskatchewan or Edmonton, but for the region.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, for sure. So, one of the questions that I have. is like, obviously we talk a lot about how can, how do you support business, right? But I think one of the, one of the questions that we need to ask is Edmonton business owners is how can we better support our chamber?

Amin Samji: What a great question. And we do get that time to time. And it's a very thoughtful question is the question comes from people who are good at recognizing that, you know, it takes a village kind of deal, right? Yes, I'm going to get something out of this relationship, but how do I give something back as well?

And really, how you can help is, it's just being more engaged an organization. So we have a lot of organizations that, you know, their senior leadership team, for example, which will sit on some of our policy committee's, their, their business people will come out to certain events. Their HR folks will come out to certain different events.

There's, there's resource sharing, you know, recently, I think we did an an event earlier this summer with CPA Alberta on the aging workforce, right? And it came from an idea that's just initial conversations. And how can we, we have this topic that we're working on. This is a topic. We know that you guys at the chamber are working on.

Can we collaborate? And how do we give back? So yeah, there's, there's lots of ways and lots of different levels within the organization that can get involved.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. No, that's awesome. Cause I know that that, you know, I know that there's a lot of businesses here that want to help more. They're just not really sure how, and you know, there's a lot of businesses like mine as well.

I'm in where we're just swamped. I wish I could do more. I really do. I, I want at some point in my career, I want to do more with you guys. I think one of the challenges is, especially as a smaller business is that. We're wearing many hats and we're probably working 16 hours every day, right? So it's like, while I would love to join a committee with you guys, while I would love to provide anything in ways of support, it can be challenging.

So, like, in some ways, this podcast is a way that I'm kind of giving back.

Amin Samji: Yeah, I was, I was waiting for you to kind of finish your thought, but this is what you're doing here. Yeah. It's a perfect example. Like you're a chamber ambassador through and through when you say that, so, you know, when we grow as a chamber, when we bring on new businesses and new new members, it benefits all of us because now you have maybe 50 100 new new members to talk to each each each quarter or each year, a few 100 new folks to to reach out to and to collaborate with and and to learn from so that's a strength of that community.

But what you're doing here, Kelly is I can't tell you how valuable it is to us.

Kelly Kennedy: I appreciate that. Yeah, I, I, I can't tell you how valuable the chamber relationship has been to me as well. So it really is that mutually beneficial relationship.

Amin Samji: You know, check checkbox, right?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, I want to ask you something, you know, as a chamber, and we're talking to a lot of new business owners with this show, you know, like the reality is probably hundreds of thousands over time.

I mean, there's going to be a lot of people listening to this episode. And what kind of advice would you give to these new businesses that are just getting started as a chamber? You know, how, what should they do? They're just getting launched. Maybe they just got off the ground. Maybe they just launched a website or whatever.

And they're hearing this show for the first time. What kind of advice would you give these new business owners?

Amin Samji: Yeah, that's what a great question, because there's so much coming at you. I've been in that place where, you know, you're, you're trying to stay afloat. You're, you're worried about cash flow.

You're worried about finding the next next client. You know, you've got sleepless nights. Sometimes I've, you know, I'm 3 months in, and I'm already, you know, so and so and so, but, the good thing about our community, we touched on it a little bit earlier that there are so many amazing resources for different sectors and sector specific and as a whole start asking and getting resources, start asking questions.

There's so many you've said it yourself, you know, I pick up the phone and people are willing to help. There is support for business out there. It takes time and effort because you, you, you got to lift your head up from what you're doing day to day, but there is support out there. A chamber is a great way to do it.

There's other organizations ATB Entrepreneur Center is a great organization. If you're in the tech world, there's some great tech, tech resources as well. It just depends on, what sector you belong to, there's something out there and people will point you in the right direction. If you pick up the phone and you make a call, you know.

What I found about Edmonton community, and you said it earlier, is people will help you, people will guide you.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, 100%, 100%. And like a little, I want to kind of touch on that as well. I, we're going to get into what are the upcoming events, but I just want to chat briefly. I understand as a business owner that you have no time.

Believe me, I completely understand this. And I'll tell you some of the ways that I mitigate this. So, in the case of Capital. If I can't attend an Edmonton Chamber event, I still buy a ticket for one of my employees. And I, and I say, please go, please make some connections, please represent Capital at this event.

Because, I get it, we're busy, right? But, most of us have a second hand. Most of us have a right hand that can help us out. And if you're struggling to grow, Understand that probably 90% of your problem is you're just unknown. So you need to go to these events. You 100% need to have some type of representation at these places to make these connections because these connections turn into clients over time.

And if your problem right now is I'm too busy, or the other side of it is, I don't have any clients or I don't have enough money. Your challenge right now is that you're unknown and you need somebody to be there representing explaining why your company solves problems and how they solve problems and why someone needs them.

And you can do that at these at these chamber events. And so even if you can't attend, they're not expensive. Send an employee, send an employee for an hour or two hours to meet some new people.

Amin Samji: Yeah, well put. I mean part of our role is to create that environment, that platform for for you to make those connections and for people to know who you are.

And a handshake and a smile and, and, and making connections go such a long way when people need to know what service you bring to the table. Hey, we're a new startup. We're doing this, this, and that. If people don't know you, they can't buy from you.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. And you know what? Like I've been in business development long enough to tell you that.

99% of any business's problem is they don't know who you are. And don't just assume because you're in Edmonton, the people in Calgary know who you are because they don't.

Amin Samji: Yeah. Just because you've put up a shingle doesn't mean people know who you are. You got it. You got to hustle. You got to get out there.

You got, you got your aggressive marketing soft marketing. You got to do it all.

Kelly Kennedy: You got to do it all right. You got to do it all. And I really want to touch on too. Like if we're talking to business owners who right now are really using a soft passive marketing strategy as their main strategy. I want you to flip it on its head, and I want you to turn that passive strategy into about 20% of what you do, and I want 80% of what you do to be active strategy, and you can learn how to do that by going back on this podcast, because I go over all of it, but if you're afraid to pick up the phone, we got to change that, because you got to start making real connections.

Amin Samji: Yeah, and you know, and learn from the chamber. We did that. We got into a habit of that pre pre pandemic. Where we were just churning out what we what we thought we we needed to turn out and then, like I said, the pandemic really kicked us in the in the behind and forced us to look at new ways to pivot new ways of doing thing news, new ways of delivering content and.

We had to get out there and kind of beat our chest to say, hey, here's all the good things that are happening. Here's all the resources that are available. Get engaged. And I kid you not, Kelly, we've seen six consecutive weeks of six, sorry, six consecutive quarters. Of growth since we've come out of the pandemic that is.

Kelly Kennedy: I was going to say, I don't think I go two days without seeing a new member pop up on the page.

Like, oh, and let's get into this. Hold on. If you want to be part of this rock star group, who is doing nothing but good for the community. You guys are hiring, aren't you?

Amin Samji: We are hiring. I mean, we've seen you. We've seen such good growth. And the last thing I want to do is not be able to manage that growth properly, not be able to make sure that the members that are coming on are not receiving the attention that they need.

So, yes, we are hiring. We're looking we're looking, we're looking for sponsorship. We're looking for his dev. We're looking for internal just to keep Thank you. Keep some some paperwork in order. So yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Well, this has been awesome. Thank you so much, Amin, for coming on the show and telling us the story, your story and the story of the chamber and kind of what's going on.

I think we've painted a picture that I think hasn't existed before this. Well, and I think it's going to reach a lot of people and I think it's going to impact a lot of people.

Amin Samji: Right on. Well, like, you know what Kelly, I can't thank you enough for, for championing and being the ambassador that you are for, for the chamber and the work that you do.

I know you, this is a, this is a side hustle for you, this podcast, but my goodness, does it does it ever bring value to our business community? So my hat's off to you, my friend.

Kelly Kennedy: I appreciate that. I appreciate that. If they want to get a hold of you, man, if people have, you know, been captivated by this episode and can't wait to join the Edmonton Chamber, which is, I truly hope, the outcome of this show, how do they reach you?

Amin Samji: Yeah, and I should mention that within All the hard work that we do, we do have a lot of fun as well. So we're a fun group. So please, please reach out. I mean, I'm easy to find on LinkedIn. And yeah, you can remember that you can send an email to membership at Edmonton chamber. com or send one to me personally at asamji@edmontonchamber.com.

Kelly Kennedy: This has been episode 60 of the business development podcast. And I can't think of a better guest to have for episode 60 than you. I mean, thank you so much for coming until next time. We'll catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the business development podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and.

Founded his own business development firm in 2020. His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your business development specialists. For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the business development podcast.