Elevate Springfield
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Elevate Springfield
Communities Grow Together on Elevate Springfield featuring Jeff Dillman
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Summary
The conversation covers the importance of community events and collaboration among local businesses. The dialogue emphasizes the need for effective communication and support within the community, as well as the significance of upcoming initiatives and opportunities for local businesses.
Takeaways
- Community events can foster engagement and support.
- Local businesses should collaborate for mutual benefit.
- Effective communication is key to successful events.
- Human trafficking awareness is crucial for community safety.
- Networking can lead to significant business opportunities.
- Community support can enhance local business growth.
- Planning and organization are essential for successful events.
- Future initiatives can create new opportunities for engagement.
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Welcome to Elevate Springfield, where we will dive into strategies and stories that help you rise to your full potential. Each episode, we'll talk about how you can take intentional steps to elevate your life and your business while making a meaningful impact on those around you. Along the way, we're gonna bring in the change makers from our community that are already elevating. We'll bring the actionable strategies, you bring the discipline and follow through, and together we can elevate Springfield. Alright, let's go, Springfield. Time to 10X your day, y'all. Time to level up, time to crush it. Hey, you are listening to the Elevate Springfield Podcast. Robert Farrell here, certified 10x co-speaker, and mentor. Here to bring you actionable strategies before you bring the discipline and follow through it together. We're gonna Elevate Springfield. Well, you are listening to another segment of Communities Grow Together on the Elevate Springfield podcast. As you know, we drop these segments each week. The Communities Grow Together segment will touch on all things nonprofit associations and how we as a community are working together so we can all grow together. This segment is brought to you by David Hilst, American Family Insurance Agency over on West Wabash. Whatever you need insurance-wise, whether that's a business, life, home, auto, or anything in between. Hey, David and his team can take care of you. Give them a shout or hey, stop by and visit them over on West Wabash. These segments are quick hits of actionable strategies and what's going on in our hair area to help you level up and grow together. Be right back after the break. Looking for personalized insurance with hometown care, David Hilst, American Family Insurance Agent is here to help you protect what matters most: your family, your home, and your dreams. Whether it's auto, home, life, business, David and his team are proud to serve the Springfield community with trusted advice and reliable coverage. Local service, real relationships, peace of mind. Call today or stop by their office. They can build your dream protection plan together. Call 217-726-6343. All right, and we are back, hey, for another edition of Communities Grow Together, brought to you by David Hilst, American Family Insurance Agency. Hey, anything you need insurance-wise, give David a shout or just stop by their office over on West Wabash. They will take phenomenal care of you. And speaking of people that take phenomenal care of people and their community, hey, let's welcome back, Mr. Jeff Dillman. How are we doing, sir?
SPEAKER_01I'm good, man. I've been here. You've been in Miami and I've been here, but I don't know, was it as hot here as it was in Miami? It was cooler in Miami than it was here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was absolutely gorgeous down there. I mean, it was like, you know, 92, 93, but it was absolutely gorgeous. Well, it looked good. Looked like it looked like you had a good time. It was nice. It was a it was a fun time. 10X events are always high energy, getting everybody going and a lot of great content. So fun time. I like it. Yeah. I like it. Well, right here at home, though, we've got a ton of stuff going on. You in particular, you've got a lot of events here recently. You got a lot of events coming up, and things just keep on rolling right here in Springfield, don't they?
SPEAKER_01Oh, and I had somebody text me yesterday and ask me, do I ever sleep? And I said nope. He goes, I believe that. Right. I'm not sure I do sleep. Actually, I don't sleep. But no, yeah, yeah. We've had a a busy past few weeks. Seems like you've been gone for weeks. Yeah, I know. We've been busy.
SPEAKER_00Uh you know how I am in the summer, going down to Florida and hitting those Miami things.
SPEAKER_01I know between you and Chris. Jeez.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that might be on the list.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there we go. There we go. Good. We'll have a place to stay. That's awesome. I like that. No, no, we had uh our bags and brews, uh our little fundraiser at Casserale over the weekend and uh a little shady in the morning that started raining, so we got a little concerned. And then it just turned ungodly humid. Not the turnout we really anticipated for. However, uh through the sponsorships and uh the the 50-50 we did on site, and we're thankful for our sponsors and everything, but uh we're we're gonna come out ahead on this. You know, we just didn't have the participants. There was a little bit of um communication, and I think as we know as the board president, I take that responsibility. Uh communication was lacking, and when communication lacks, what happens? Yeah, you assume. And when you assume, what happens? Right. The assumption was they were registering online, we thought they were handling it, and they thought we were handling it. So let's just say this. We didn't have as many throwers as we did, bag throwers as we did two years ago at Buzz Bomb. However, uh, you know, we had uh six or eight walk-ups, uh we had a walk-up donation, which was nice. We had two or three pearls play. Uh, but the bottom line is people had fun. Sponsors were happy, people had fun, Casserale was happy, had a little bit of hiccups there, but uh that's just the way it is. That's the communication thing, too. Uh but the venue was perfect. Uh but hey, we uh we made through it. We're gonna have a uh a recap planning meeting here uh second week of August to figure out uh what we do moving forward. Do we throw bags on our own? Do we have another outfit help? You know, uh capital city cornhole is usually fairly good to deal with, so we use them again. We'll see. So anyway, that's what we have to do. But the thing is what we can do is we cannot just let it go. We got to replace it with something. Exactly. Well, then uh we've got gosh, what local first? We got the deadline for the grant. Uh local first Springfield deadline for the grant is what the 31st coming up.
SPEAKER_00Days? Yeah. Just reminder for everybody on that. If you're a local first Springfield member, that's the one qualification you have to uh apply for this grant. $2,500 go into two separate businesses. That's $2,500 each, and you have to have your video in by the end of the day on Friday, the 31st. 60 seconds. Tell us your why, why you do what you do, and what you're gonna do with the money. That's so it's really quite simple.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you still have time to register for a local first spring fund. You still have time to do your video. Yeah. We have a little table talk in the office, and we're thinking maybe, maybe people don't realize local first businesses don't realize you don't have to be new. Right. Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you don't have to be a brand new business that, hey, $2,500 is gonna be your startup capital or anything like that. No, you can you don't have to be a six months and under business.
SPEAKER_01That's what Will and I were talking about yesterday. It's like maybe we just didn't get the message out enough to let people know that anybody can apply for this, you know. And and you know, as we always say with Sangham and Tree Service, what Chad said this $2,500 would could have done you know wonders for him. So still have time for that. Uh we've all blasted it out. We got the email yesterday, so we've all been blasting that back out. So that's coming up. Uh, we've got uh our live webinar this Thursday at O'Shea University. Thanks to Matt for allowing us to have that facility. That's with the FBI Springfield Citizens Academy Alumni Association, separate apart uh agency uh not tied to the FBI, but we support their values and mission. That's gonna be in human trafficking, and that will be an eye-opener from five to six. Everybody's welcome. FBI agents will be agent or agents will be on site to answer questions. Uh we're gonna do these webinars monthly, and us being a nonprofit agency that supports the FBI, we want to continue to engage the community on what's going on. Is that that's open to anybody? That's open to anyone. Anyone comes. You don't have to be alumni, you can be anyone. We've had a lot of people inquire about it because human trafficking, it's a big thing. And I think it's gonna be an eye-opener. So yeah, anyone can come to that. All local first members, anybody, SILSA, anybody, chamber members, it's wide open. We have plenty of seating. It's like you and I were talking earlier. If you just you just don't know who's gonna come. Right. But you got to do these things, right?
SPEAKER_00So do you want people to register if they can, or is it more of a show up?
SPEAKER_01I think at this point, it's just show up. Okay. Just show up. Uh if we get to a point where we'll we'll do registration, but you know how that is, not everybody registers, you know. Exactly. And so here we'll let's just uh we'll just do the surprise thing because generally when people register, half of them don't come.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01Right? But uh maybe uh maybe we'll change that moving down the line. But you know, so we're looking forward to that. That's coming up. And then uh there's just a lot of things going on. And with the FBI, they got the Teen Academy coming up, August 7th. That's uh 19 children, uh, you know, I should say high school children children are our kids being selected to just to see an insight one day of what the FBI does. And our 2026 FBI Citizens Academy class kicks off in Thursday the 13th, and that's going to be a few weeks of uh just intense training of education on what the FBI does. Man, there's just there's just a lot. We got our trivia night coming up for Family Service Center, September 26th, looking for sponsors for that. Thank you to David Hilst, the show sponsor here. David Hilst, America Family Insurance. David, we appreciate you. He's our title sponsor. So involved in the community, isn't it? I mean such a great so much for now. We just got to get David. If you're listening, we got to get you to trivia. You get a free table, we got to get you the trivia. But I'll be reaching out to him. Uh then we got another uh we you know, we always book ourselves in weird ways. On the 25th, we've got another dinner coming up with Amvets and Family Service Center. That's gonna be uh Friday, September 25th, Massacholi dinner, three ounce meatballs, and uh with garlic bread for $14. One of these times we'll see you there. I know.
SPEAKER_00I'll get there. I gotta get there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you gotta get there. Bring the family. Uh that'll be fun. So, but then again, we did back-to-back events there. Right. Uh man, there's just a whole host of things. You name it. I mean, we got local first, we've got our our False Soire. There we go.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, false soiree. That's where we're giving away that small business grant, both of them, on October 1st, 5 30 to 7 30. Tickets are available right now. $25 a piece. Uh, it gives you food, two drink tickets, live music, some great networking. Yeah, there's over $25. Can't beat that.
SPEAKER_01A lot going on. We got our networking. We we of course we got our board meeting, local first coming up in you know in August. We got our uh our next uh August networking meeting, which it is at Pole Barn Chic. Back to Pole Barn Chic. Everybody will go to Jane Hayes now, but it is at Pole Barn Chic. Want to say that one more time? Where are we going? Pull Barn Chic. There we go. So if you're listening, and if you're not, you need to be. Pull Barn Chic. So that there will feature Ryan McCrady. Ryan will take the first 20 minutes or so just explaining. Notice I said 20, not 30. The first 20 minutes just explain probably what's going on in Springfield, Sangaman County, probably the data center, you know, that people may want to hear and not hear, but I think it's very, it's very, we're excited to have Ryan showcase what Sangaman Growth Alliance is doing.
SPEAKER_00So that'll be a phenomenal 20 minutes, knowing Ryan. He always brings great information.
SPEAKER_01If I tell Ryan 20 minutes, uh, he'll get it down in 20 minutes, that's for sure. Because I want to I want to be able to have time to network and get back to the basics of what we do. So yeah, I mean, Illinois State Fair is coming up. I mean, there's just a lot in all August is packed.
SPEAKER_00No doubt about it. Well, you talk about back to the basics on Landa Lincoln, just crossed the six mil threshold about a week ago, right?
SPEAKER_01We did. We did. That was impressive. I was glad when you got the ticker updated and I had a chance to talk to a a new business that just came on with his tough shed. So that and Woodmaster, that's kind of cool. They got some pretty, pretty unique things. So he was just blown away from that. And it, you know, and we recognized uh Costa and Jelly, another show sponsor, by the way. Yeah. We we recognized them last month at our or this month at our networking meeting for just going over and beyond and understanding what the networking's all about. And really just uh if it's not daily, it's weekly, hearing from them saying, hey, I've engaged. I know we're all busy, but you know, that's what's going to keep this thing going, talking about the success. There's a lot of people this, you know, and probably a lot of, you know, there's people that have success at a local first springfield. We just don't talk about it enough.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01But uh, I think what I wanted to make us more unique was is that we showcase that and talk about it. Because when you look at that number, right, even the members that are partaking in small amounts because of their business and the width of what their business is. I use Kurt Deemer, for example. He's like, that's amazing. Yeah. You know, so and it is. I mean, I'm sure he'd like to have six of six million dollars. Right, get a little chunk, a little bigger chunk of that six million. But I think we also, even on the local First Springfield perspective, driving in today, that you know, you sit around a table and you look at people on the board and you just look at people in general. We really don't utilize each other more than we need to. Yeah. And that's what Landon Lincoln needs to continue to do as well. So both of our groups need to make sure that we're top of mind. Our members are top of mind, I should say, when we need something. Because when I look at Legends, for example, you know, you and I were talking about Legends, we're out there installing all the uh urinal screens, all the soap dispensers, all the towels, dispensers, all the toilet paper, everything. And you just look around at the businesses there, and uh, you know, ninety-five percent of those businesses don't use I can't say they don't use local because I don't know that, but they don't use a locally owned company like us. Right. And uh when you're walking around, it just really wakes you up to know, like for example, for MASCO, they don't know who we are. That's crazy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, as much as we're out, you know, and but I just yeah, but especially yeah, you guys are out a lot. You guys do nice job on your social. You're I mean, you're out everywhere, like a part of everything, a part of all the stuff.
SPEAKER_01You know, but still you would laugh at this. You speaking of being out, Andy and I are today. When Andy's Andy, everybody knows the family from Rochester, but Andy is where him and I are going to Bloomington and Peore today just to do some scouting. And and I said, you know what, we're gonna do let's do a uh a drive drive time with Andy and Jeff podcast. And he said, absolutely not. Uh, but I'm gonna get him to do it. We're just gonna drive and just talk about business in the car. Maybe I'll just record it and he won't know it. Let's do the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00I know he's absolutely it might be it might be drive time with Jeff and Andy listening in. Who knows?
SPEAKER_01I don't know maybe you just you just go off on something. But it's just thinking outside the box, doing the general manager weekly news and Will doing dirty demos with Will. Uh you you have to do that. You know, I hope they continue to carry that on, even if uh I get hit by a train or whatever happens to me. Yeah. I hope they do because I think that's important. I think all business owners, we need to do more of that, quite frankly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Now the between the working with each other, we talked a little bit about that when Chris and I gave a presentation at the Chatham chamber that brought up that uh topic was brought up in terms of when you're working with associations and things, how do you show your value? Well, that's a big way right there. Tell the stories of the people that are working together. And that's that's really what that $6.1 million shows. It shows the people working together, right? It showed it tells the story of, hey, this is how much folks are working together. So no matter what association you have, whether it's local first, Land of Lincoln, Silsa, the Chambers, whatever, you've got to be able to tell the story of, hey, we're making an impact through here. No association can legitimately say, hey, I made a hundred more people walk through your door. I can't say that. I just won't we'll never be able to say that. But we could say, hey, this business worked with that business, and that's a hundred thousand dollars worth of impact. I agree. Hey, this person worked with that person and did this, you know, collaborated this way.
SPEAKER_01Pretty impressive.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you can tell those stories, and that shows the impact of any association or organization, and that's what drives membership too, quite frankly.
SPEAKER_01And that's why that's one thing I wanted to do. You know, I wanted to do that just to say what can make us totally different, and it's making you know, making it trackable. Now we know that number's bigger, you know, we know it is, and that's okay. But you know, if someone asks, is that is that reality? That's reality. But it actually isn't. It isn't true because it's more. Right, right. It's a very, very conservative reality as well. It is, it is. But hey, you know, shout out to Acosta today and uh Cost Angely and Zach reached out to me today and he had some more business dealings done with the within the group. These are locally owned businesses using locally owned businesses.
SPEAKER_00Nothing.
SPEAKER_01Nothing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Still got a lot of great stuff this summer. We've got the Levit amp still going on. I don't know what maybe two more weeks of it, something like that, maybe two more. And then, yeah, like you said, state fair rolling in, and then all of a sudden we're into like football season and the whole thing. It's just crazy, right? It is crazy. It is, but then it might be time for me to go down to Miami again.
SPEAKER_01Who knows? Probably is. What's that? September, probably. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I need to take a vacation, but I don't see it happening.
SPEAKER_00So come on down to Miami with me. I'd definitely go in in October. So just come on down with us.
SPEAKER_01All right, we'll see where I'm at. Hit the flight with us and come on down. Do it. I can sleep on sleep on the couch or something, you know. I can do that. All right.
SPEAKER_00Well, you can help us look at condos. Yeah, we can do that. There we go. There we go.
SPEAKER_01That'd be a fun extra day, right? And I can use every once in a while. Yeah, that's a good idea. I'll make sure we I'll call in sick wherever I'm at.
SPEAKER_00It'll be under the elevate umbrella. We'll we'll buy a condo down there and then only rent out to Springfield folks that are going down there. There we go. That'd be fun. That works. That's right. We can we can deem it networking meeting or something. That's right. Yeah. We'll hold you to that now. Well, you know, when I set a target, I'm gonna get them. That's right. There we go. That's right. Think big, man. That's right. You know it. Well, Jeff, appreciate it as always. So much great stuff. Yeah, like all the impact you're doing in the community, man. So I appreciate you. Appreciate you. All right, we're gonna let Jeff get back to elevating Springfield. But for the rest of y'all, we'll be right back. Hey, Springfield, when it comes to reliable, high-quality roofing, you don't want to leave things to chance. That's why you should reach out to Acosta Angeli Ruffing, your local roofing expert serving Springfield and surrounding communities. From quick, dependable repairs to full replacement, from residential to commercial, they are your trusted pros. Call them today at 217-993-2748, or visit their website to book your free quote and inspection. Don't wait. A little leak now could lead to major damage later. Trust the local experts, protect your home, and get peace of mind with Acosta Angeli Roofing. Well, thank you for joining us today, everybody, on another segment of Communities Grow Together on the Elevate Springfield Podcast. Thank you again to David Hilst, American Family Insurance Agency, for partnering with us on this segment. A take what you learn today. You bring the discipline and follow through, and together, that's right, y'all, we're gonna Elevate Springfield. Be great. Looking for expert tree care with hometown integrity, look no further than Sangamon Tree Service. They're your trusted local pros, delivering quality workmanship, exceptional customer service, and fair, honest pricing. Every time. Whether it's trimming, removal, or storm cleanup, their team brings professionalism and care to every job, big or small. Call the name your neighbors trust, Sangman Tree Service, or visit them today at SangmanTreeService.com. Sangaman Tree Service, rooted in quality, built on trust.