Adam Torres and Juliana Onate discuss Mega Mix Expo.
Subscribe: iTunes / Spotify
Apply to be a guest on our podcast here
Show Notes:
Listen to Mega Mix Expo coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Juliana Onate, Executive Director at Monrovia Chamber of Commerce, explore the upcoming Megamix expo.
About Monrovia Chamber of Commerce
The Monrovia Chamber of Commerce is a volunteer based non-profit corporation comprised of the businesses in this community. The Chamber of Commerce harnesses the tremendous potential of the private enterprise system and enables its membership to accomplish collectively what no one could do individually.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, to set on over to mission matters.com and click on be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today I have Juliana Oone on the line, and she’s the executive director over at Monrovia Chamber of Commerce.
Juliana, welcome to the show. Hi. Thank you so much. It’s great to be here and to chat with you today. Alright, so for everybody that’s listening that has, is a newer listener, you may not know that I’ve been working on promotion for Megamix Expo. I’m look really looking forward to This’s. Gonna be March 12th and 13th in, in Arcadia, California.
It’s gonna be at the Santa Ana Santa Anita race track and we got a lot to cover today. First off Juliana, this is my first Megamix Expo. I understand you’ve been there before. Yes. Yes, that’s right. So this will be my third time at the Megamix Expo. Dang, how did Tony get you?
Like, three times? I mean, is this thing magic? He told me this event is magic, and I believe it because I’ve been doing the interviews, but what keeps you coming back? You know, he kept twisting my arm. No, just kidding. So fun, honestly, from the first one to now, it’s crazy to see how much it’s grown and just to see like how many more businesses are involved, how much more communities become involved.
So it’s something we can’t miss. It’s a really fun time. What do you think is the secret or key ingredient or , a lot of people throw events and no offense to anybody else’s event, like we’re happy to support and of course not judging anybody, but this thing just keeps on growing.
Like, he showed me the. Footprint, the amount of vendors versus last year, , like, they took on a whole nother space at the racetrack. How has this thing grown like this? Like what, what’s the secret to the success here? Well, I got to give Tony credit. I think having such a passionate person leading and honestly, just the passionate team that he has working with them.
Yeah, that’s it. That’s the secret recipe. Yeah, I see that. And I also see, I mean, one, thing that I’ve noticed is, there’s almost like this community that’s building around and maybe that, and maybe it’s not an almost, maybe there is a community building around. Like, how would you, even the fact that in this case, I’ll give a, I’ll give a shout out to the, various chamber of commerce is out there that will be participating.
Like even to see a number of chambers, a chamber of commerce is coming together to, you know, participate in this. Like, that’s doesn’t usually happen. Right. Okay. Yeah, it’s a little different than some other areas. We’re lucky. You know, the other local chambers, especially in the San Diego Valley area and surrounding LA city areas.
We like to actually try to get together, like, every month, if not every month, every other couple months. They connected, we realized, you know, we work better together. If we’re strong, they’re strong. If they’re strong, we’re strong. So we want to be here for our business community and just the actual community at large.
So yeah, it’s funny having us a platform to do that. It’s awesome. I love that. Give us a little bit of the background on the Monrovia Chamber of Commerce and maybe , how long, you got involved. Yeah, so I’m with it. I’m a little bit new with the chamber thing here about almost two and a half years now so it’s flown by, but it’s just the most active amazing community.
There’s so many organizations. We’re actually preparing for. Well, I won’t get ahead of myself, but we’re preparing to recognize that beautiful community we’ve got. So yeah. What do you mean you won’t get ahead of yourself? You were trying to break some news here and let something slip and you pulled back.
What? I’m trying to get in trouble. You already see it. Put her on a podcast. See, we get all the, all the news. Yeah, exactly. Huh? I said spilling the tea. Come on. No. Yeah, I know. I’m like, Oh, loose lips. Oh, my gosh. So give us a little bit about the history of the of the chamber and just the area demographic wise for people that are listening that maybe aren’t exactly familiar with the area and that may want to get involved.
Yeah so Monrovia was founded in 1886 and incorporated in 1887. Our chamber was incorporated in 1897, so it’s been around for quite a while. Did you say 1897? Yeah, yeah. Wow, so this Sorry, we were incorporated in 1939, but we were founded in 1897, so. I got you. Close enough. Wow, that’s quite a thing.
And what do you think makes the chamber such a communal place or a place that people want to be? Like, what are some of the, like, not putting, obviously we’re not putting down any other chamber, but what do you think makes it successful? Why do people want, why do people join? Why do they stay?
It’s a great question. I feel like we’ve just got. A really strong business community here. That was, you know, obviously the purpose of founding the chamber in the 1st place. And I think other local organizations really kind of try to help support that too. So it’s just all interconnected and just, like I said, it’s a really active community.
There’s really never downtime. There’s always something going on how do you support those businesses? Like, whether it’s through events or otherwise, like, how is that being done? Yeah, so, like, the simplest way, of course, is, you know, offering a referral networking service. So, being a member means you get to be, you know, linked on our directory, and you’d be surprised how often people will wander into town, come into our office, ask for referrals, get business cards that’s one aspect, but then, of course, there’s the fun stuff, like networking mixers, events, going to things like the Megamix Expo and then the other, which kind of surprises people sometimes, is volunteering for other people’s kind of like events and things.
So we try to support a lot of city events and other organizations and then we invite our members to kind of join us. Like that’s the best way to get the community to recognize you and know you by name and say, Oh, I know so and so, you know, you were at that fall festival and you helped me, you know, my kids color and some coloring books.
It’s just creates a more personal connection to everybody. Now, I don’t want to, this may sound like a silly question, but I’ll tee it up and let you know why I’m asking it. So when I was let me, this is one of my back in my day stories, Juliana, back in my day when you when I was in finance and I first, you know, when I would go to a new market or a new city or something, like when I first moved to Century City, California, for example I immediately joined the Century City Chamber of Commerce.
And that was just kind of a way to network, meet other people, other peers. So I was very accustomed to that culture of what a chamber of commerce even was and I’ve been, I’ve gone to, since I was young or rotary, things like that, like I knew like that’s a place you go to network, have business, things like that for the next generation that maybe even, let’s say, even if they maybe got out during COVID or they graduated or like the younger generation, let’s just say, and they, , maybe we weren’t even convening during those years, right.
In person, I mean. There’s different levels. They may not even know what a chamber of commerce is or what the point is, you know what I mean? Like they, network or do other things, but they don’t understand necessarily like how welcoming a chamber can be and how potentially good it can be for their business if they’re looking at even biz dev or they have a service or something to provide.
So can you speak from the standpoint of just like the chamber, like philosophy and thought process in general and why they matter. And again, this is specifically for those younger kids who believe it or not, may not even know what a chamber is. Yeah, no, I love that. That’s a question that kind of comes up a lot.
And it’s interesting. You see it kind of play out in real time when we’ve got kind of the younger gen actually coming to these mixes and kind of giving us a chance. They go, Oh, my gosh, like, I had no idea. Like, this is amazing, right? Yeah, they’re like, there’s opportunities happening that wouldn’t have happened to them if they hadn’t come out.
And like you said, it’s like, you kind of got to step outside of your comfort zone, to things in person, I know Zoom’s convenient, but, you know, being at those in person events, it’s like, you’re going to talk to people you weren’t planning to talk to. And then suddenly you have a new business partner and you have a collaboration.
And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen that happen. I’m you know, I actually got 1 of my board members hanging out with me here, and she’s definitely a perfect example of that. Her dog business fetch pet care is just, they have amazing partnerships with other local businesses, even like, apartments in town, apartment complexes.
It provides, like, a perk for people who live there to, like, have these dog businesses local. So, again, these are relationships and interactions that don’t happen when you’re not face to face. So, yeah. I love it. It’s a great example. And as we mentioned earlier, for everybody listening, like, the, Monrovia Chamber of Commerce is going to be out there.
Juliana is going to be out there. I believe you mentioned your board member. Can we, can we repeat her name one more time for me, please? Yeah, so you talked to Donna Baker earlier and then what was waiting with the business again? Yeah, so Donna Baker’s actually with John Hart real estate. So it’s her and Gina Amman.
Mm. They’re so amazing. Great team. Everybody knows them. Again, that’s that community spirit. They’re always at team events, they’re always volunteering. And I talked to Donna, so if she, when she hears the playback on this, I talked to her, she says she’s gonna be there. So I wanna, I got a hold it to that now.
Yeah. Yeah, I want everybody that’s listening, I mean, come by, I’m, , by the way, for everybody that’s listening, I’m gonna be at the, I’m gonna be on site at the event, I’ll be doing some live podcasting, and really, one of my goals in going is just to go out there and meet the community, meet the different chambers, say hi, you know, shake some hands, look some people in the eye, have some fun, have some laughs, have some great fun.
food and come out there and meet us. I’ve come by my booth, come by the chamber of commerce booth, come meet Donna and have some fun. Well, I’ll say Juliana, this has been a lot of fun having you on the show today and just getting to know a little bit more about the Monrovia chamber of commerce and your background and even heck a little bit of a primer of the point of even why it’s so important to support and join our chambers.
If somebody is listening or watching this and they want to follow up and they want to learn more and they want to connect how do they do that? Yeah, you can definitely obviously you can follow us on our socials or on Instagram at Monrovia chamber, but definitely check out our website. That’s www.
monroviacc. com. Again, that’s monroviacc. com. You can sign up for your membership there. You can reach out. And obviously, you can email me too. I’m happy to get my email address. That’s J. O. at Monrovia CC dot com. And yeah, let’s get connected. Let’s jump on a call. Let’s meet for coffee and we can talk about how we can try to support your business or.
Support you even have a community member. Wonderful. And for everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll definitely put the links in the show notes so you can just click on the link and head right over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way on your journey as well. So again, Hit that subscribe or follow button. And Juliana, I look forward to meeting you in person at Megamix Expo. Everybody go to the website, megamixexpo.
com and grab some tickets. Come out and meet us. And again, Juliana can’t wait to meet in person. Likewise. Thank you so much, Adam.