Jamie Church: Welcome, this is Jamie Church. I am the CEO and President of the Farmington Chamber of Commerce. I am so excited to welcome you to this podcast recording today to talk about something near and dear to my heart, and that is the local business community. I think we sometimes forget, because there's so much access now to online options and bigger stores, bigger box stores. We forget that the small local business community is really the heart of any healthy community.

And I want to talk just a little bit about that today. Our mission at the Farmington Chamber of Commerce, is to connect commerce to community.

And the reason that that is important is they are both so reliant on each other. Our community, both our nonprofit community, our quality of life, it is so dependent on the commerce having a healthy business community. And let's face that, if you go traveling to another community, you look and see what kind of stores, what are the unique restaurants, boutiques, businesses, opportunities that they have there in that community.

So while we all know about the online options and we all shop online, I do it too; we need to try to remember that these small local businesses, these mom and pop stores, they're the ones that are sponsoring the sports teams. They're the ones that are showing up at the local events. They're the reason that communities are healthy and they thrive.

So I just want to talk a little bit about that. So here at our Farmington Chamber, we have a number of opportunities every month where we connect and network with our local business community. And one of them is our Focus On Farmington Coffee. And this is something that's been going on for almost a decade now.

And it's a free community coffee every month that's held in a different location, a different small business. We've even actually had one at San Juan Regional Medical Center in their healing garden, and we were able to showcase their gift market, which is so important to the auxiliary and the proceeds from that do go to help support the auxiliary and San Juan Regional Medical Center.

But these coffees are a way to bring together businesses, business owners, community members to find out what's going on in our community. And so we have those every month in a different location. And we always try to focus on these local businesses. At the Farmington Chamber, we work on support, interaction, connection and advocacy for our local business community.

And in addition to the coffees, we also have Business After Hours. We have free business builder workshops, and these are all designed to connect our business owners and their staff and teams with our community. Because healthy community is built on these personal connections. And in a community like Farmington, which I don't think is that different from many other communities, it's all about meeting people face to face, having that conversation, finding out what they do and how we can support their local business, which in turn will then turn around and help to support our community. So I think we all think of things like restaurants and downtown stores and the local furniture store where you can go and look at different items for your home or you can go eat.

But think about how you can support those businesses throughout the year. So as we head into the holiday season, we were all focused on Shop Local, Shop Small. Well, how do you do that? How do you do that with the local IT provider or computer repair guy? Buying gift cards for people that you can give throughout the year.

That is a great way to support those small local businesses that aren't necessarily ones that you can walk into and purchase something from. So gift cards are a great way to do that. Invite them to come to one of our networking events. It's such a great way to meet people face to face.

We have a business to business expo that we do, and that's coming up, in a few weeks here, and we're going to be showcasing these different local businesses. It's a networking opportunity, but it also helps to show what do you have for your clients, your potential customers, and then how are you giving back to the community.

And we often think again about the boutiques, the restaurants. Well, what about local hardware stores? We do have here in Farmington, a couple of great locally owned hardware stores where you can go in and get those same items that you need, and you're supporting not only a chamber member, but a local business that is owned by local community members that you're going to run into at the grocery store, at an event, at church, you're going to see these people face to face and have those conversations.

And because the owners of these small local businesses know they're going to be running into you at the grocery store, at local events, at church, they're going above and beyond on their customer service because you're a face to face person with them. They have a relationship with you. This isn't just an online chat.

They really are going to see you at different events. And so it's just important to kind of step up their game a little bit. So, we work on building our business community because that helps to build our community. And like any community, we are wanting to build and grow and thrive. We want people to live here and play here and stay here and work and raise their families.

So having a healthy business community all adds to that. We want our children to grow here and maybe go away to college, but we want them to come back and maybe start a business. Maybe they're an entrepreneur. We want them to bring their skills and talents back to our community. And so we need to build our community.

And that's through having strong local businesses that are owned by local people in the region and here in Farmington. So our downtown, we are fortunate enough to have an amazing downtown. There are so many great opportunities in downtown Farmington, and then we have a wonderful retail community.

We are known as the retail hub of the Four Corners, and that is because of the number of restaurants and stores that we have that bring people into San Juan County and into our Farmington community every weekend as part of our retail hub. So, there's so many opportunities, everything from the gift market at San Juan Regional Medical Center, to the downtown shops, to our bigger stores that might be in our Animus Valley Mall, to our restaurants, to the new boutique that just opened that has an owner that is so excited that she finally has her small business up and going, to our new bookstore that just opened in downtown Farmington called Quill and Quest.

There are so many ways to support these businesses by shopping there, by sharing good experiences that you've had on social media. We're also used to seeing the bad experiences. Let's share the great experiences when we go into one of these stores. Let's share it. Let's spread the word. And then also, as I mentioned, gift cards, different ways that you can support these businesses throughout the year.

And it is very important. I have been the Chamber CEO now for going in seven years. But my dad was a small business owner. So I feel very passionate about this. These communities, our community, our hometown is reliant on the small businesses. And so that's why at the Farmington Chamber, that's why our mission is connecting commerce to community.

So thank you for listening today. Remember next time you need to go purchase that gift, look at the local businesses and say, how can I buy this gift or this service or this item I need for my home? How can I do that and support a local business? And if you're not sure, reach out to the Chamber of Commerce.

We have an online business directory, which is on our website, gofarmington.com, or just give us a call here at the Chamber. And we will give you a whole list of businesses that can help with that item you're needing or that service that you're looking for. So thank you very much for joining this Farmington Chamber Podcast this morning.

I'm Jamie Church. And, remember shop local.