005 Building Viable Businesses Through The Edison Project with Catawba County Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Lindsay Keisler
Show Notes
Lindsay Keisler joins me today to share her career journey, what led her to start working with the Catawba County Chamber of Commerce, and how the chamber is impacting the local business community. She explains the various programs available for new and veteran entrepreneurs as well as job seekers and military veterans including The Edison Project, the Talent Jam event, and the Tapping Into Talent Symposium as well as the Catawba Military Task Force and Welcome Home, Hickory Metro. I also spoke with Carmen to learn how The Edison Project has helped her take her magazine from a basic idea to creating an actionable business plan to successfully launching her business.
Something that chambers have traditionally always been good at is providing opportunities just to connect with other individuals that are either like-minded, potential customers, power players, and influencers within our community.
Lindsay Keisler
This week on the Supportedly Podcast:
- Lindsay’s career journey and how she began working with the Catawba County Community Chamber of Commerce.
- How she is breaking the chamber out of the “old and pale and stale and male” stereotype within the community.
- How Chambers of Commerce impact the business community and the areas she believes they should focus their attention the most.
- The biggest challenges that Catawba County Chamber of Commerce hopes to solve for businesses and entrepreneurs throughout the county.
- What is the Entrepreneur Consortium and how it helps connect and encourage local support for entrepreneurs to start, grow, and scale their businesses?
- The Edison Project entrepreneurial competitions and how they help entrepreneurs launch successful, viable businesses within the community.
- The type of entrepreneurs that The Edison Project is most suitable for.
- The chamber’s unique partnership with the Small Business Technology Development Center and how this partnership has helped entrepreneurs throughout the community.
- The Tapping Into Talent Symposium and how it helps businesses use unconventional strategies to find and hire talent.
- How the Talent Jam event helps connect job seekers with local opportunities.
- How the Catawba Military Task Force and Welcome Home Hickory Metro events help transitioning military members and their families re-enter the civilian workforce.
- What led Carmen to create Foothills Digest.
- What inspired her to focus the magazine’s topics on the Hickory Metro foothills.
- How she discovered The Edison Project and her first impression of the program.
- How participating in The Edison Project helped her “fill the gaps” of developing her business.
- The three parts of business development that The Edison Project helps entrepreneurs plan.
- Carmen’s advice to new entrepreneurs.
- The best mistake Carmen has made in her career.
- How local entrepreneurs can begin getting involved with the Catawba County Chamber of Commerce and their programs.
- Short-term and Long-term initiatives at Catawba County Chamber of Commerce.
- Lindsay’s advice for new entrepreneurs and startups.
- The importance of viewing mistakes and failures as opportunities to learn, grow and improve.
- What every entrepreneur should ask themselves before working with the Catawba County Chamber of Commerce.
The Catawba County Chamber of Commerce supports the business community by helping us support each other. I think that’s the most important thing.
Carmen Eckard
Free & Low-Cost Programs at the Catawba County Chamber of Commerce:
- The Edison Project
- Welcome Home, Hickory Metro
- Catawba County Chamber of Commerce Events Calendar
- Catawba County Chamber of Commerce Programs
Connect with Lindsay Keisler:
Connect with Carmen Eckard:
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Host: Stephanie Kissel
I utilize my background and expertise in project leadership to find creative operational solutions every day. I’m passionate about great ideas and inspired by the entrepreneurs who bring them to life (ever seen someone cry happy tears over your prototype?). I'm fortunate to work with people who share my passions and inspire me every day. Together, we're working non-stop to create cool things that empower entrepreneurs and business owners, like Supportedly.com, the place to find entrepreneurial support programs, events, and actionable content like The Supportedly Podcast. To all the providers and entrepreneurs they support, thanks for letting me tell your stories, and if you’re reading this, I hope we’ve helped make your entrepreneurial journey just a little be easier and maybe even more exciting!
Lindsay Keisler
Lindsay Keisler has held several roles during her tenure at the Catawba County Chamber of Commerce, but currently serves as the President/CEO and has been in that role since February 2017. She is passionate about Catawba County, specifically about executing critical economic and community development initiatives that lead the way for business competitiveness success, fostering the creation and filling of jobs, and developing community leaders.
During her time at the Chamber she has focused her efforts towards organizational excellence and overall innovation and relevance which has reaped measurable results including, an increased membership retention rate, overall profitability for the Chamber that they’ve invested back into their Program of Work each year for the past seven years. Most notably, they were recognized as the 2014 Outstanding Chamber of the Year in North & South Carolina and in 2016, were named “Chamber of the Year” by the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives, which is a national recognition.
Lindsay grew up in Conover and graduated from UNC Charlotte in 2009 with a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration, majoring in Marketing. In 2013, Keisler earned her IOM designation when she graduated from the US Chamber Institute for Organization Management at the University of Georgia. Lindsay graduated from Leadership Catawba in 2012, was named one of the Greater Hickory Metro’s Top 10 Under 40 in 2014, and in 2018 was recognized as a Woman of Distinction by the Girl Scout Peaks to Piedmont Council, representing fifty counties in NC, and one of the “2018 Trailblazers” by Business North Carolina Magazine.
Lindsay is currently the Treasurer for the Carolinas Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives, a Rotarian and has served on several local boards including, the YMCA of Catawba Valley, the Hickory-Conover Tourism Development Authority, the University City Commission and the Hickory Young Professionals. Lindsay resides in Conover, NC with her husband, Corey, & considers her most important role to be mother of her two sons, Jeb and McCoy.
Carmen Eckard
Carmen Eckard is the Editor-In-Chief of Foothills Digest, a new magazine dedicated to telling the story of the foothills, beautifully. She and her husband also manage their partner company Eckard Photographic and raise two boys, two dogs, two birds and two geckos.
