[caption id="attachment_74" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Registered Lobbyists for the Greenville Chamber/Upstate Chamber Coalition Mark Cothran and Elizabeth Edwards."][/caption] Did you know that the Greenville Chamber has two registered lobbyists on staff at the statehouse every day during the legislative session looking out for Upstate businesses? Business Advocacy is an integral benefit of being a Chamber member. Each September, we send out a legislative survey to get feedback on what issues are important to our members. We take the results and work with the Chamber’s Legislative Issues Committee and Board of Directors to form our annual Legislative Agenda. We then take the agenda to Columbia to let legislators know what is important to our business community. Our Business Advocacy team works closely during each legislative session with strong business alliances from other trade associations across South Carolina to advocate business conditions that will improve our quality of life and hopefully make our businesses more competitive and profitable. In 2013, the total Business Advocacy return on investment was $1.3 billion. Click here for a breakdown of this year’s return on investment.