November 18 will kick off the first Business Empowerment Summit in Cordova, hosted by the Cordova Chamber of Commerce at the Cordova Center. Over the course of two days, local business can learn ways to thrive in an ever-changing world.
“This summit aims to facilitate a gathering of Cordova business leaders and provide them with education and guidance to uplevel their organization on multiple fronts,” read an excerpt from the Cordova Chamber website. Ticket sales for the summit are available at the Visitor Center/Chamber offices and include a 2023 Cordova Chamber of Commerce membership. All classes will be offered in person and virtually, with recordings available, according to the chamber. There will be second session of the summit in April.
The Cordova Times talked with Cordova Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Cathy Renfeldt about the upcoming summit series.
“This is unique in that it is really focused on providing tangible, actionable tools and guidance to local business owners. That includes people who are currently in business and people who are thinking about starting a business,” said Renfeldt.
“It’s connected (a keystone element), of our new membership benefits structure. We sent out a membership satisfaction survey to our member business…We also asked them what they needed that they weren’t currently getting to help support and grow their business. From that, there were some really interesting responses that came out of it and made it clear that the way that we had our benefits structured was not as beneficial as it could be for the majority of our members,” said Renfeldt. The chamber team did some restructuring to make it more robust and instrumental for different businesses memberships to provide the best support.
“We open it up and say, all of these promotional avenues that we have are available to all, then you can supplement that with targeted and discounted advertising options through cooperative advertising to fit your ideal client and customer. And then, we are going to equip you to be able reach your own ideal customer even better,” said Renfeldt. The goal is giving people the businesses skills to “scale their business,” and catapult them to their highest potential and where they want to be. Cue the Business Empowerment Summit.
The Business Empowerment Summit is in-person, on Zoom, or you may watch the recording afterwards, shared Renfeldt. Over the two-day event, courses will be presented on a plethora of topics that include social media marketing (including how to create Instagram reels), finance classes, business taxes, business resiliency, business and financial projections and regenerative tourism. Presenters are both locally based and folks from out of town.
“The great thing to is through these classes, it will be a good jumping off point for someone to know, ‘yes, I can do this,’ or ‘maybe I need a little extra help.’ People are there willing and ready to help you,” said Renfeldt, touching on the power of networking.
For more information on memberships and the Business Empowerment Summit, visit:
- Cordova Business Empowerment Summit – https://www.cordovachamber.com/events/cordova-business-empowerment-summit/
- Cordova Chamber Membership Information – https://www.cordovachamber.com/membership-packages/
