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Budding chamber of commerce operates from a rented desk inside a travel agency

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Bob Older is the president of the Delaware Small Business Chamber.

By Kathy Canavan

When Bob Older didn’t like the direction that the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce was going in, he started his own. Chamber, that is.

It got off to an iffy start: “I was like, “˜Oh, no. This isn’t going to work,’ and my husband was like, “˜He’s crazy,'” said Amy Eschenbrenner, owner of the Blue Hen Bed and Breakfast in Newark and a member of both chambers.

Three years later, the Delaware Small Business Chamber has more than 250 members. It runs 72 events a year, including a scrapple cook-off sponsored by Rapa. It recently awarded its first educational scholarship for $2,500.

Its Business Caravan consisted of 10 cars, driving from Prices Corner to Possum Park with signs in the windows. “We drive through the shopping centers, and we beep our horns,” Older said.
“It takes about 40-45 minutes. My ultimate goal is to do it statewide-maybe even across the country. Remember Hands Across America?”

The chamber operates from one desk in Older’s own Creative Travel office in the partially vacant Astro Shopping Center. It pays $300 a month for desk rent. Lisa Ayers, who is the events and membership manager, is the sole employee. The total budget is under $2,500 a month. Annual memberships start at $295.

“We don’t want to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent or salaries. We try to do everything we can with volunteers,” Older said. “We understand small business. We’re not trying to nickel and dime our small business owners. We try to give them as much as we can.”

There’s no lobbyist: “There are too many lobbyists out there. We don’t lobby,” he said.

Lisa Ayers is the sole employee of the Delaware Small Business Chamber. She works from a rented desk inside the Creative Travel office in Astro Shopping Center.

Older’s target members are Delaware’s 18,381 one-person shops, small businesses, and large businesses like WSFS that use local small-business suppliers. He said he’s turned down businesses that don’t pay for a state business license, and he’s nixed the membership of a big bank that doesn’t contract with local small businesses. “We’re the only chamber probably in the country that turns down members,” he said.

If that all sounds corny the members would disagree, Vicki Lam, owner of Promo Victory, said she joined because of Older’s educational workshops and all the events. Eschenbrenner said she feels a comfort level when she’s around business owners who feel the same pain she does as a home-based business owner. “You talk to a banker,” said Eschenbrenner, “and their company pays for their dinner. I’m not going to be able to pay $75 for a dinner. I can’t go to these $35 lunches. No way.”

When Older heard businesspeople crab that people are always trying to sell them something at big events, but they never have an opportunity to get their own feet in other people’s doors, he created the Top Six event. Six members meet for coffee or lunch-often at a member’s restaurant-and they share ideas to help each other. Two examples: A floor refinisher and a power washer realized they could recommend each other to their clients. A hotelier bought print cartridges from a member who offered discounts.

Older always invites another professional association to join the chamber’s B-to-B mixers to provide more business opportunities for members. Next up: Associated Builders and Contractors.

The chamber holds almost half of its events downstate because 15 percent of the members are from Kent and Sussex counties. The meetings do double duty, introducing upstate diners to restaurants they might not have discovered on their own.

Mark Kleinschmidt, president of the New Castle County chamber, where Older was once an official ambassador welcoming new members said many members of the county chamber also belong to an additional chamber. “As in the marketplace for any product or service, from computer companies to cola to airlines, different chambers fit different customers better,” Kleinschmidt said.

“Bob is doing some good things, just trying to help these small businesses, because, a lot of times, we are not heard,”Eschenbrenner said.

She said she realized Older’s chamber would fly when the restaurants started joining. “I think he’s like this little boat, and we’re all getting on the boat, just trying to get people to recognize that a lot of people work out of their homes, and that doesn’t discount their worth or their value for the community,” she said.

Even the naysayers have done an about-face. “Now, my husband’s like, “˜Bob’s on the right track,'” Eschenbrenner said.

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