- [Narrator 1] Envista is pleased to support Working Capital.

Switch to empowered switch to Envista.

Learn more at envistacu.com - [Narrator 2] GO Topeka's Entrepreneurial and Minority Business Development is proud to support Working Capital.

We share the vision to assist local entrepreneurs with growing their business.

- [Man] Additional funding is provided by the Friends of KTWU.

- Well, hello there, and welcome back to another episode of Working Capital.

On this show, we introduce you to people ideas and management techniques that are helpful to you in running your business.

Today, we visit with the members of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce.

The Kansas Chamber is a statewide organization headquartered in Topeka.

They have a simple yet broad vision, and that is to make Kansas a top state in which to do business.

They are working to improve the economic climate for all of the citizens of Kansas.

Stay with us as we learn about the Kansas Chamber of Commerce.

It's all about business, and this is Working Capital.

(upbeat music) Hello there, and welcome to Working Capital.

I'm Eugene Williams, your host.

As a business owner, it's always nice to know that you have some organizations out there working on your behalf.

It is impossible to keep up with all of the legislative, economic, legal, and environmental issues while you are doing the day to day of running your business.

The Kansas chamber is your advocate.

They monitor public policy and keep you informed so that you can succeed at what you do best, run your business.

Let's take a look.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator 3] At the Kansas chamber, we understand business.

You've got products and services to sell, employees to manage, payroll to meet and taxes to pay.

Real world deadlines every day, not to mention trying to stay a step ahead of the competition.

While you work hard, we are here to be your ally, the Kansas Chamber has your back.

- Most people are pretty familiar with their local chambers of commerce and the things they do in their local community.

But many of you may not be as familiar with the mission and purpose of the Kansas chamber.

Alan Cobb, President and CEO, and Aaron Miller, Vice President of Investor Relations are here to fill us in on how the Kansas Chamber actually operates.

I really appreciate you guys being here.

- Our pleasure.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Thanks for everything you do in the community.

- You've been on my list for a long time and I'm finally getting around to doing the Kansas Chamber.

Let's talk about the history of the chamber.

Why don't you tell me a little bit about that if you can, Alan.

- It started in 1924.

So almost 100 years ago with business leaders literally from all over the state, all sizes of towns, all four corners that were concerned about the state's infrastructure, particularly roads.

If you think about 1924 that's when automobiles were becoming much more common than even the decade before, and needed infrastructure to transport goods and people throughout the state.

So it's been in continuous operation ever since.

- Yeah, well, I think the roads in Kansas are pretty good now.

So evidently, you guys have done a pretty good job.

- They are good.

(laughs) - Aaron, you got a really interesting title.

And when I was doing the research, and I looked at and I said, "Investor Relations," and I'm like okay, please explain that to me.

What is Investor Relations?

- Well, first of all, it means membership, but it sounds better so I go with Investor Relations.

But what we really think is we look at it as an investment and that's why hence the title investment relations but there's certainly a return on investment.

We have specific legislation that gets passed that has a fiscal note to that that actually says that I can put pencil to paper too and to show you that say, hey, look what we've done, this bill saved you X amount of dollars either on unemployment insurance, taxes, UI, all those kind of issues that we work on, we advocate for at the ... - That's really important to a business.

Now you guys represent businesses all throughout Kansas.

Talk a little bit about your mission and kind of how you came to that mission.

- Pretty simple, to support the free enterprise system in Kansas and make Kansas one of the best states in the country to do business.

It's pretty simple how that gets executed, gets a little more complicated.

- Yeah.

When you say make Kansas one of the best states in the country to do business, how do you measure that?

Give me an idea.

- Well, you look at business startups, you look income growth, private sector job growth.

So there's a lot of very specific data points that are easy to measure, there are some more qualitative measurements about the legal system, how difficult is it to start a business, what's the regulatory climate?

So there's a couple of things very specific measurements, as I mentioned jobs income, and then some more esoteric measurements.

But ultimately, do we have more businesses starting and are they adding employees?

- Yeah, we also do a annual competitive index.

Now we do it every other year.

But it basically measures...

It's an 85 different matrix that we compare our peer states with.

So Nebraska, Oklahoma, Missouri, Colorado, Iowa, that are similar in size, and we compare where we rank in those areas, and then gives us an idea what we need to work on.

- Okay, I'm gonna go way off base here.

So how do we compare to Nebraska, Oklahoma, 'cause that's a big thing I found in the Midwest.

- It depends on the metric.

The other thing you should mention just gross state product.

Do you have a national gross domestic product where you measure the size of an economy in each state?

It depends on the metric.

In many ways, in some metrics we're bottom 10, sometimes we're in the middle, we have been a slow growth state, which includes population and our goal is to get us into the top half.

And sometimes we're better than Nebraska, Missouri, sometimes we aren't.

Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, are competitive states.

North Carolina, actually because their business mix is a competitor, they lead great plains states our competitor.

So it depends on the metric.

At best, we are doing okay, and okay should not be good enough?

- Okay.

All right.

Well we'll accept that for the show right now today.

Let's talk a little bit about, your relationship with local chambers and how that actually works.

We've got about a minute left in this segment.

Tell me a little bit about how that operates.

What's different between you guys and a local chamber?

- Well, first of all, when I tell folks, what we do, we're an advocate organization where pretty much 100% of what we do is an advocacy or, quote unquote, a lobbyist.

So, that is something that most local chambers don't do.

I would say probably the maybe top five in the state, the Wichita's, Overland Parks, some of those have lobbyists Topeka contract lobbyists.

But typically, that's the difference.

They focus on economic development, their local area, and then where we really look, we focus on the legislative issues of the state.

- Okay.

I wanna dig into that a little bit more but right now it's time for us to take a break.

It's time for a break, stay with us as we learn more about your Kansas Chamber, we'll be right back, this is Working Capital.

(upbeat music) Welcome back.

We're talking with Alan Cobb and Aaron Miller, about the Kansas Chamber, its mission, purpose and how it works for you.

Let's talk about industries in Kansas.

What are some of the industries that are doing extremely well and what are some of the industries that we would like to possibly bring to Kansas?

Do you want to talk about that one Alan?

- Sure.

So most of the Kansas economy has fared pretty well during the pandemic.

Obviously, hospitality has not, but that's been all over the country.

Manufacturing in Kansas has done well, except for aviation.

Obviously, the pandemic had a big impact on aviation and that's a pretty good chunk.

Just aviation is a pretty good chunk of the Kansas economy.

Agribusiness has done fairly well, people still had to eat.

And still we are a fairly large food processing state, actually, pretty big state and pet food.

A lot of pets have got purchased or adopted during the pandemic, so all of those sections are doing fairly well.

As far as attracting business, I'd still like to, I wish that Kansas would focus a little bit more on growing our own.

However, attracting businesses, innovation and technology, those two areas are probably the future of the economy.

We're always gonna have agribusiness in biosciences and other area and we're always gonna have manufacturing and advanced manufacturing.

But some of the job growth that you see across the globe and across the country are small firms that are related to innovation and or technology.

Some of those firms then serve some of those other more legacy parts of the Kansas economy.

- Yeah.

When you start looking at innovation and technology and that type of stuff, and I'm glad you mentioned that about pets and everything, because there's that animal corridor that exists in this area of the state and everything.

But when you start talking about technology and innovation and things, where do you get that from?

Do you feel that you're competing with other countries, other nations?

Do you feel like you're competing with other states, do you feel like you're competing within the state of Kansas?

How does that work because that's kind of hard to get.

- It's global and state competition, but I think a lot of it comes from university R&D.

And we've got a lot of very good university's research oriented, three larger research oriented universities and then the smaller ones.

There's still some R&D that can come out of that, would be Emporia, Washburn here.

We're on Washburn's campus, Pittsburgh and Fort Hays state.

But a lot of it is university.

It springs out of university R&D, research and development.

And then what can the state take a look at is funding or supporting private R&D where that happens at individual companies.

- Yeah.

Aaron, let's talk about your partners, let's talk about your investors and stuff.

What are some of the programs and things that you put in place to help businesses?

- Sure.

Well, first, we have a couple programs, we have the Manufacturer Association, that we're the state association for manufacturers, we have the retail council, we're the retail council for the state as well, we have our leadership Kansas program, which is the second longest leadership program in the country where we take 40 current leaders and take them around the state and inform them kind of what issues...some people in the northeast Kansas get to Topeka and think they're in western Kansas.

Well there's a lot of difference past there, Salina Goodland and Garden City and show them what they're doing out there.

So a lot of those programs that we do, that helps business and helps our industry and our companies.

- You mentioned retail.

And I know you said a moment ago, Alan, that, of course, during the pandemic, everybody kind of suffered a little bit, but retail has been one of those kind of odd balls, for a number of years now.

And so when you develop programs and things for retailers in the state of Kansas, what are some of the issues that you're finding that may exist out there?

- You've got transport.

The other part of the Kansas economy doing well is transportation and warehousing logistics, which fits into retail because like bricks and mortar have some challenges because of internet purchasing, that's an opportunity for different part.

But you've got regulations, the big issues for retail, regulations, employee regulations, and cost of doing business.

And then the COVID.

During COVID, you had problems or challenges with local and state government shutdowns not allowing certain retail businesses to operate while others could.

So some of the pretty nuts and bolts issues, even outside of the pandemic that retailers deal with.

Now, the retail industry, of course, is changing 'cause people are buying more and more online but that's also created opportunities for small retailers that are here in Kansas, that have opened.

It's forced them to get online, well now they have customers from across the globe, where before, their customers were here in Shawnee County.

So it's been an opportunity but a challenge.

- Yeah, don't go, we're out of time again.

Gosh, I mean, there's so much stuff I wanna ask.

Alright, but we'll continue the conversation though.

It's time for another short break.

When we return, we'll talk more about how the Kansas Chamber is making Kansas a top state for doing business.

You're watching Working Capital.

(upbeat music) Welcome back.

Alan is now being joined by Sherriene Jones-Sontag, Vice President of Communications at the Kansas Chamber.

And before we get to you Sherriene, I wanna kind of go down a couple more lines of questioning with Alan real quick here.

And one of the things that I wanna talk about is I wanna talk about entrepreneurism, and innovation, because that's an important thing, not just in Kansas, but it's an important thing in this country, and definitely globally.

What are your thoughts and ideas about how Kansas is positioned in entrepreneurism and innovation?

- Like a lot of things we're okay.

We do have a great history of entrepreneurs.

Think about all the companies that have started in Kansas all over the state that are national or global companies, sometimes they get gobbled up and move out but whether it's Santa Fe Railroad here in Topeka, or Hill's Pet foods to good examples, our infrastructure is okay.

And I think we will need to continue to take a critical look about how do we increase our entrepreneurship infrastructure, whether it's university based, what are the policies, angel investor tax credits, are we connecting the investors with the folks with the bright ideas?

Do we have a statewide system to connect those folks that want to invest with those that are coming up with a brand new thing?

And whether it's a mousetrap or something much more complicated than that?

But, we're gonna continue to take a hard look, what else can the state be doing?

You have small business development centers at universities, that's certainly are part of it.

But we continue to be in the middle of the pack at best on business startups and patents.

So what can we do we?

There are no easy answers in this area.

But what can the state, when I say we, the state, not everything's in the Capitol Building, but what can business leaders and others do to promote entrepreneurs?

And at some point, either that entrepreneur is willing to take a risk or they're not.

And there's nothing we can buy to put it in the water to create more entrepreneurs, but can we do something that creates that landscape that's a little bit more robust than we have now?

- Yeah, I appreciate that answer.

Sherriene, let's talk a little bit about your job.

And then if you will talk about some of the events and things that the chamber is kind of involved in.

- Well, at the Kansas Chamber, I oversee our communications internally and externally as well as our events.

And coming up, we have a number of great events for business leaders and employees across the state.

After our annual event, dinner coming up here in a few weeks, we have our Kansas Minority Business Summit, and then the Kansas Workforce Development and Education Summit.

And those are two summits that we started just in the last year or two, that focus on particular segments of the business community in Kansas to provide them some resources, and the opportunities to get together, to network and to learn from each other.

Because I think getting back to Alan's point about entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs, really wanna know sometimes that they're not alone.

And these types of events, give them the opportunity to do some networking.

And then in the fall, we have our manufacturing summit, down at the Kansas Star Casino and Conference Center.

And then our Kansas Women In Business Conference, which are two very highly anticipated and attended events that we're very excited to be having again this year, with in person attendance, fingers crossed.

- Now, that's a real interesting one.

You said it's Kansas women in business?

So tell me a little bit more about that one, because, there are a lot of women who are very interested in being in business, we found that out by doing the show.

So talk about how you guys work with women in doing that?

- Well, we start from the top.

The Kansas Chamber team is has a number of highly motivated and fantastic women in leadership.

Then on our board, we have a number of business owners and entrepreneurs and company presidents that serve on our board.

And then the conference itself kind of came from those women wanting to do something for fellow business leaders and we have had the opportunity to start four years ago with a small event.

And this last year, we had about 150 women gather in Topeka and online.

And well, they come together to do some networking, to learn from each other.

And then we also bring in national speakers and trainers to help them key in on certain aspects of running a business of presenting themselves, of presenting their ideas, and their business systems so that they can grow and experience all that business leaders get to experience.

- See, that's fascinating.

Yeah, I really like that.

Now you guys called and I'm using the term members, but, Aaron, call them investors and stuff.

So it sounds to me like you guys have expanded your offering over the past few years to some of your investors.

Is that because they've asked for these things, or at least things that you guys have just naturally kind of gravitated to?

You got about 30 seconds.

- Alan?

- Little both.

Part of what we represent are our investors and what they want, but they also look to us to lead them.

And we felt that there was a need for these summit's and the events that are gonna be beneficial to Kansas, but beneficial to our investors.

- Thanks a whole bunch for that answer.

It's time for another short break.

But there's a lot more to come.

We'll be right back.

(upbeat music) Welcome back.

We have representatives with us from the Kansas Chamber, and we are talking about some of their programs, events and plans for the future.

Let's talk about plans for the future.

I know that you guys have worked on a vision 2025.

Is that right?

- Correct.

- Tell me about that.

- It's a plan to be a strategic plan for the state to be purposeful, about how do we address some of our economic challenges.

And we've got four primary areas.

It's talent supply, that's a big issue, quality and quantity of workforce.

Competitiveness, which we've already talked about cost of doing business in Kansas.

Entrepreneurship and Innovation, good though we have challenges there and then business infrastructure.

And business infrastructure isn't just roads and bridges, but it can be water quality and quantity of water, broadband, telecommunications, the infrastructure of entrepreneurship.

So there's a lot of crossover in those areas.

So taking a harder look spending some dollars on some research, what can Kansas be doing better or differently to address all those things that ultimately help the state grow?

- Yeah, let's just dig one question and a little bit deeper into one of those.

And that's the talent supply, because I know that local chambers, universities, small towns, everyone's trying to figure out how do we retain the talent that we have, and how do we attract more talent?

In your plan, give me just a quick idea of some of the things that you guys have talked about.

- We're aligning the educational infrastructure, the apparatus of the state, aligning it to meet needs of the employers.

And there's been some disconnects there.

And one thing I find encouraging is that the educational community acknowledges this.

And they haven't gotten defensive, oh, no, we know what we're doing, just leave us alone.

How do we look at high wage, high growth jobs?

What is the state doing to fulfill those jobs, whether it's K-12 certificates, technical colleges, community colleges, higher ed, masters, PhDs, et cetera.

Looking at the whole realm of what goes into a workforce and looking at it critically, are we doing what we need to do, which ultimately serves both the employers but maybe more importantly, the individuals so that they can fulfill what they'd like to do in their career in life?

- Yeah, that's a really big task.

- It is big task.

- Earlier we talked about, I tried to get you to do the comparison between us and Nebraska and all that type of stuff, Missouri.

So now I get to ask the question.

What's the coolest thing about Kansas?

I know you guys are working on some of that stuff.

- Well, lots of cool things about Kansas.

There's the Pacific chamber thing that Sherriene will mention.

- So this last year, we launched our coolest thing made in Kansas.

And the purpose of this contest is to help raise awareness about all the cool things that are made in our state.

We have aviation that everyone is aware of, we make tires, we make pies, we make dog food, we make cat food, we make chips, there's just lots of different things that are made in Kansas.

And starting up at the end of the summer, we'll launch the second coolest thing made in Kansas contest.

And you can nominate your favorite products, it has to be made in Kansas, although it can have other locations across the state and around the world.

And then these products will go head to head in a tournament style competition, where folks can vote on their favorite products.

And each round the ones with the top votes will advance to the next round.

And then we'll announce the coolest thing made in Kansas at the Kansas manufacturing summit in October.

- Man!

That's gonna be pretty nice.

- It's a lot of fun, and it really gives everyone the opportunity to learn about the things that are made here in Kansas.

- Yeah, let's talk about promotion.

Because that's kind of your area.

How do you promote the Kansas Chamber and do most Kansans really understand that they are living in a pretty cool place?

- Well, Kansas is a very cool place.

We have wonderful people, wonderful industries.

And part of the Kansas Chamber mantra I like to talk about is the opportunity that Kansas offers to those who want to try something new, to explore their talents, to gain a better education.

And for the Kansas Chamber promoting what we do, comes down to letting people understand that there are more things that impact a business than who's walking in the front door.

Things that are happening in Topeka, in DC, and for the Kansas Chamber, we're here to help the businesses across the state.

- Great, Alan, give your last word here.

All right, in 30 seconds or less, man, tell me why an investor should become an investor in the Kansas Chamber?

- Do you wanna be part of the solution on some of the challenges or do you just wanna stay on the sideline and hope that everything works out okay?

That usually never works.

So the collective wisdom and the collective force of all the Kansas employers that we have as members, make things happen and do you wanna be a part of that or not?

It's really, for some pretty simple sales pitch.

- I like it.

I like it a lot.

Well, that's great.

Okay, that's our show for now.

I'd like to thank all of our guests from the Kansas Chamber for being on the show.

I'd also like to thank you for watching.

I've learned a lot and I hope you have too.

If you would like to know more about how the Kansas Chamber is working for your business, please go to kansaschamber.org.

And as always, if you know of a unique business or unique management technique, we wanna hear from you, so give us a call or drop us an email.

We look forward to seeing you next time.

It's all about business and you've been watching Working Capital.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator 1] Envista is pleased to support Working Capital.

Switch to empowered, switch to Envista.

Learn more at envistacu.com - [Narrator 2] GO Topeka's Entrepreneurial and Minority Business Development is proud to support Working Capital.

We share the vision to assist local entrepreneurs with growing their business.

- [Man] Additional funding is provided by the Friends of KTWU.

(upbeat music)