Latest / Beyond the Ribbon Cut / Ep. 9 - Lance Allison (One Southern Indiana Chamber & Economic Development)

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Ep. 9 - Lance Allison (One Southern Indiana Chamber & Economic Development) · Beyond the Ribbon Cut

• speaker-0: For the chamber leader listening at home, getting started on this whole accreditation journey, where do they actually start? What's the smallest useful first step for that chamber? speaker-1: Okay, start with the checklist and then go to technology first. Take it little pieces at a time. Eat the elephant one bite at a time. Whatever cliche you want to throw in there to get your energy level up, do that. You may think it's an overwhelming process, but in reality it's not. it's worth going through. And it's worth going through a couple of anxiety modes together. speaker-0: Hi, I'm Ted, and I build software for Chambers of Commerce. For the past decade, chamber tools were all built the same way. One clunky system for every chamber. But if I've learned one thing, it's that no two chambers are alike. That's why on this show, we go beyond the ribbon cut with top chamber leaders to share the unique programs, processes, and what makes their chamber work. And to give you new ideas you can take back to your chamber. This is Beyond the Ribbon Cut. Welcome back to Beyond the Ribbon Cut, the podcast for chamber leaders. I'm your host, Ted Wind from Diagonal for Chambers, and my guest today is Lance Allison, C C E, IOM, and President and CEO of One Southern Indiana. Lance, thank you so much for coming on the show today. speaker-1: Thank you, Ted. I'm very happy to be here. speaker-0: Thank you so much. So before we get into the meat of the episode today, can you tell us a little bit more about One Southern Indiana and the business community that you guys serve? speaker-1: One Southern Indiana is both a Chamber of Commerce and an economic development organization. So we're the Chamber of Commerce for Clark and Floyd County. And then we're the economic development organizations for Clark and Floyd and Scott County. These are based in Southern Indiana, right across the river from Woolville. So that's geographically the easiest way to explain where we're at. speaker-0: Got it. And that's over a thousand members across those counties, right? So Yeah. speaker-1: We currently set around eleven fifty and plus or minus two or three on any given day. But we've been able to sustain that growth for quite some time. When I came in a little over two years ago, we were hovering around with ten fifty. So, you know, we've had a nice increase and had a nice retention rate going on. So we're holding steady right at that moment. speaker-0: Love that. And as far as that kind of membership mix breakdown, is that like a good mix of like mom and pops and big industries? Is it does one kind of sector kind of dominate? What does that look like? It's a speaker-1: fairly even. You know, we have our mom and pop small businesses retail all the way up to industrial manufacturing. So there's a wide range and wide variety of businesses. Probably forty percent small business, thirty percent kind of medium to large, and then the rest larger than that, but then fairly a very nice mixture. speaker-0: Got it, got it. And on today's episode we'll be th probably throwing a around a lot of acronyms. one of the first ones is that one southern Indiana goes by one SI as well. So just one more question on one SI. How big is the the team and the staff for the listeners at home? speaker-1: currently are sixteen team members. We've had two of our rock star get cherry picked in the last three weeks. So we are in the process we've done an offer accepted to one position a day and then we're gonna start air again for the next. But when we're full compliment speaker-0: Got it, got it. Awesome. And hey, that's a pretty big accomplishment. I mean, not the best, Tommy Slaver folks. You don't want you don't want your rock stars leaving, but clearly in a testament to the the folks you brought on to the chamber there. It's speaker-1: You know, in the chamber world that's just a part of the game. And you know, it's a compliment to us. A compliment to the people that work for us, that people think highly enough of them that they wanna rob me of of that talent. speaker-0: A hundred percent. Well, speaking of talent, you yourself, Lance, are quite the talented individual as well. Your road to the president's office of the chamber is really anything but typical. Family photography business in Murray, Kentucky. You got your masters from Murray State, bunch of chambers in Kentucky and Florida. I think a detour into engineering as well. Could you give us kind of the higher highlight reel there? I know I I cover a lot of bases there, but it's because you're Got a pretty pretty serious T V. speaker-1: My father began a photography studio. I was in sixth grade and I kinda fell in love with that business. Around seventh grade I decided that's what I want to do with a career. And so I was actually photographer, you know, or a professional photographer, I was doing a lot in high school. So did that for twenty years and actually bought the business from my dad. Now he's still remaining my boss telling me what to do. So I owned it in you know, in name only. eleven of that twenty years. And then I finished up that master's degree around two thousand seven. I had done classes on and off for over twelve years. And just kinda I wanted to do something different. I love photography. Small business, you know, and especially in that kind of sector. You eat what you kill. there are some months where you rally Peter to pay Paul. Every small business owner knows this. And so it just came a time like I I kinda wanna do something different. And at the time the Chamber of Commerce job in Mary opened up and it had a lot of things I was interested in. I'd been president of the Rotary Club, I've been chair of the United Way Board, I've been on city council for three terms, small business owner. So it had a lot of mixture of those types of things in it. So I that's one of the reasons that drew me to it. So I ended up getting that position. And then within about a year that really fell in love with the profession of Chamber of Commerce. And so As I started to kind of develop myself as a chamber professional and grow the chamber, for the first time in my life I thought, you know, maybe I might want to move out of my hometown. I like to make the joke I was so rooted I could barely lift my feet. But and so we had some success there in Murray. We went through the accreditation. I started that right before I left, but we'd won the ACC chamber of the year in two thousand twelve. I'd gotten some certifications. And so started looking around and was looking I was a finalist in North Carolina and Florida at the same time and ended up going with Bay Law City Beach, running the chamber down there and enjoyed that immensely. It's great place to live. It's not just a vacation area where you're living there. But life O. J. Curtis Balls and it I found myself back being closer to my kids in western Kentucky. And that's how the engineering job came up. One of my best friends from college owned the firm and called me out of the blue and said, Hey, we'd like somebody in business development, would you be interested? And at the time I needed to be closer to the kids, so took that on, knew nothing at all about engineering. But ended up doing business with only constant marketing for them. But I always knew I'd get back and change the world. I was gonna let the kids grow get older, get out of high school. And so the opportunity here kinda opens itself up and I thought, you know what, we need to see if I'm a viable candidate anywhere. And I've been out again for eight years and so I Put my hat in a ring here and ended up getting this position. speaker-0: That's incredible. And you talked about how, you know, you've always kind of had that love for chambers, even if you weren't necessarily working in a chamber role. Was there a moment that chamber work stopped being just another job and really became the career for you, Lance? A moment that's kind of like your why for being a chamberleader? speaker-1: I was a small business owner. And so when you're a small business owner, you are many times working in your business and not on your business. You don't have that opportunity. So I didn't have the opportunity for professional development or growth in my and my area because I didn't have the time. So when I started with the chamber, the programming was very geared to that small business person that didn't have the time or resources on their own to do it. So we provided corporate. resources for the members of small business programming seminars, that sort of thing. And so that's kind of when I really fell in love with doing it. But then also as I started to get more involved in Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Executive Association with the ACCE and having professional development for myself and understanding what it takes to be a chamber professional, but also for your chamber to be relevant to the community. That's kind of like this sort of double down on that excitement and passion for the business. speaker-0: I love that. And as you kind of alluded to in that wonderful bio, accreditation and those kinds of honors have kind of followed you around. You it seems like every chamber you worked, you've made really an effort to focus in on accreditation. And part of the reason you really came up on our radar for being on the pod was we saw your ACC session this summer that was titled Beyond the Plaque, Accreditation, Strong Teams. Bulletproof SOPs. And that title really names the skepticism I hear from chamber leaders all the time. Isn't accreditation just another plaque for the lobby? Do you make the case? What does accreditation actually change inside of a chamber? speaker-1: On its surface, they're not wrong. Haven't being an accredited chamber is an outward facing award and recognition that you want your community to see, and selfishly you want the entire North America to see that you're a high performing one of the top chambers of commerce. But the reality of it is behind the scenes, behind the plaque, is that it shows that you are meeting and exceeding benchmarks of what makes a high functioning organization. And I think the best way to put it is when I first joined the Murray Chamber as president CEO, I ran it like a small business owner. So I wasn't really necessarily interested in what my board thought or having organizational things in place. You know, I made the joke one time with one of my board members who's an engineer and he said, What are the matrices behind this program hanger down? And I made the joke that did not go over well. I said, well mean a movie with Neo in it? And so but as I started to grow, I started realizing that these things are important. The behind the scenes part of it is making sure that you have things in place. a lot of that has to do with SOPs, it has to do with organizational structure, governance, how you're governed. And so all of those elements going through the process of accreditation, it turns the organization inside out to make sure, am I meeting in the benchmark? If I'm not why? If not, what can I do to make sure I meet those benchmarks? Or is a validation if you are. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. And I you know, I think it's easy for smaller chambers maybe listening in, who hear this and, you know, are saying, yeah, like that accreditation sounds great, but we don't have the staff for all the paperwork that goes into that. What would you say to them? speaker-1: My first one was numero uno me. We had myself and we had Lisa who was full time and I had Cindy who was part time and I have four volunteers that man the box. So I went through the process of that application and did every single bit of the buy. So at the same time, you know, running all of the events and everything we need to do because the organization moves on, the programming moves on. So there's what free time we had was spent on that. And then even also in finding out, okay, I don't have that particular thing. I need to create that thing. So it's it feels overwhelming, but really it's not. It can be done in a small chamber. It can't be done by one to two pieces. The interesting thing about coming in and doing it another time with this chamber, I thought I could do that again. I was sadly mistaken. When the chamber is larger and things are bigger and more documents are needed, I learned quickly that it was not gonna be hand itself. So it took all team gear having part of that. But it can be done in a smaller chamber. speaker-0: A hundred percent. So let's dive into that a little bit more then. Like, could you talk a little bit more about one SI earning its fourth star? Walk us through what that process actually looked like start to finish. speaker-1: It starts upon opening up the document and looking at what's there. So they give you a checklist. And so you go through that checklist since during each section and you say, Okay, I have this, I have this, I have this, then you start to look at okay, what boxes I'm not checking. If you look into that, you find that, okay, I may have something like that, but not exactly where I need to create that. That's where you start to rely on your team in order to do so. Like when you look at the financial part of it, I have plenty on my CFO and her team. to help me find all the financial documents, not just audits and not just income statements, but financial policies. Things that we have if we have this money here, it has to go here. All of the different nuances that go in with the larger thing. So then when you look at membership, you know, it took the membership team looking through and saying, okay, is our latest environmental scan up to date? And if not what do we need to do to get it there. So it's just it really is a big team effort in doing that. 'Cause when you're looking at a eleven hundred members and you're looking at a two million dollar budget, there's just a lot more moving parts when you get into that bonus chain. speaker-0: A hundred percent. And you know, as you mentioned, the the checklist is a big part of that, that that self reviewal process. What did that kind of self review surface that surprised you? What was maybe broken that you didn't know was was broken in the chamber? speaker-1: For me the biggest surprise was not needing very much. We were meeting a lot of those benchmarks already. In most cases for us, there might have been one or two I planned on submitting the year before, backed out of that, push it off for a year so we could take care of a few of these things. But really for us, 'cause we had done accreditation back in two thousand ten, way before I got here, for us a lot of it was updated. We had some COVID policies still in place and different things like that. So and technologies have evolved. So we had to make some adjustments and language and technology. but I was pleasantly surprised that there wasn't a lot. When it got down to the the advocacy type government relations, that part was where we needed a little bit of work and thought put into it, particularly because there's some things that can get you that extra star or extra points that we just simply don't do like we don't have a pack. All right our board and members have no interest in that. They had no interest in candidate endorsement. I think the chamber about four or five years ago thought they would weigh in on candidate endorsement and it backfired big time. Some areas are good. I mean fine, it works great for For us, it's a no bell. So I make the joke, I'm like, if we don't get five stars because we don't do candid endorsements at PAC, we're good. We're five. speaker-0: Ha ha. speaker-1: And of course four was like my goal. I mean, I was like super stoked. That's what I wanted. And then when we got the four like, God, I really do wish we'd have that fire. Yeah. A few you know, a few of my chamber friends you're bragging about that five I go, come on now, we're I know we can get that five. But we kind of know those areas that that we can and here's another point. We will take that feedback from the committee. And then we'll see where can we go? How do we get to the five? And that's only gonna make us better trying to get to the five. Yeah. speaker-0: I think that's really important too is like taking a step back and looking at these the checklist for different different star awards for accreditation and being like being smart about it, right? And looking at like this is a great guide. And 95% of the things on here are almost certainly gonna make our chamber operate better and more efficiently. But having that lens as the CEO or executive director to just take a step back and be like, all right. I know my business community better than the US chamber does naturally, right? And making that decision for the benefit of your members, I think is I I don't think there's anything I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. You know, I think that's speaker-1: And I don't want it to get lost on accreditation period. You have a baseline accreditation, it's still top performing in the country. So I don't want anybody, especially in a smaller chamber, to say, man, all we got was accreditation. We didn't get the stars. No no no no. It is all about. And then the rest is just go. speaker-0: A hundred percent. And speaking of that value, like another piece of your talk at ACC was around these bulletproof standard operating procedures or SOPs. I think that's really valuable because it's a very stealable part for chamber listeners at home. Can you explain what a bulletproof SOP looks like in chamber life and maybe how accreditation kind of forced those into existence? speaker-1: Well, I think when you talk about SOP and it's interesting 'cause Ali came up with the title Bulletproof SOP. Pardon me like, well, wait a minute now, I don't want an SOP that locks me in with something I can't do. If you're gonna have an SOP on everything, you can't do anything. And so but the ones that you have, just making sure that they're tightened up so that they're aligning with one of your strategic plan is or aligning with whether or your revenue goals are or your membership goals. making sure that they're in lockstep with everything that you want to do while at the same time not hindering you from doing that job. So I think when you start looking at the accreditation process, as I mentioned about that mirror, you're looking at yourself, you're turning yourself inside out and you're poking holes in everything that you have. speaker-0: Could you share a a real one for us? An SOP that exists at one SI today that didn't before the whole accreditation process? Or maybe you built out because you knew it was it was gonna be important for the accreditation process? Probably. speaker-1: Probably one that come up would be along the lines of software and communication and tools that you use to make you better. And what is that process of determining what's the best use of the tool, where you're going to apply it, and making sure you have those things in place. speaker-0: That's that's definitely interesting. I think we can also, I mean, we can pivot over a little bit here over kind of this the second thing that you guys have been building and in addition to all of this accreditation work, and this is a really big one. a few weeks ago, or maybe about a month ago now, you launched the advantage one health with anthem. This is a statewide and hear me out, a statewide E W A. Which stands for a multiple employer well welfare agreement giving businesses yes, it is a mouth bill, giving businesses with two to fifty employees access to big group health coverage at up to around 40% savings versus a traditional ACA plan. Please tell the listeners how does a two-county chamber like one SI end up building a statewide health plan here? This is absolutely incredible. speaker-1: tell you the funny thing about that, you wording your question that way, which makes it a fun answer, is that everybody knows that relationships are important. And whatever industry that you're in, relationships matter. And it just so happens that this fell in our lap because of the relationship I had with Kelly Wolfe at Consola Flex, who used to work for the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce when I was a president of the Murray Chamber of Commerce. But then also worked there when I was working with BFW engineering and we were a member of Second Gender Commons. So that's how the conversation started because she knew me from my body of work. She knew that I had a passion for small business. And so that's how we got kind of connected. Anthem has in Consolics established these about nine different things, I believe. But now in Anthem has this plan That we currently have, they established it with the state chamber back in 2019. They established one in 2019 with the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce as well. And so what it is, is it is a plan to where a business from two to fifty employees, if you are a member of a chamber of commerce and you're domiciled in the state that it's in, you can access this self-funded insurance plane. So back last fall, the state chamber wanted to go a different direction. They have a program called Chamber Care. They wanted to use a different carrier. And so Anthem at the time, it was announced last fall, the conversations were probably earlier. I'm not privy to that much to that, but Anthem really wanted to stay in the state with the program. And so that's how the connection patelli and I approached me like Anthem's interested in keeping this program. Are you interested in being the lead chamber that established the trust in order to have it? And are you willing to share that with every chamber in the state? So that if you are a member of the one zone chamber up in Carmel and Vicious, you are able to just be a member of that chamber and be part of the program if they're participating chamber, which in this case they are, while I mentioned, you don't have to be a member of one SI. You can be a member of your local chamber. The benefit to that is is that as a small business, you're just being one membership. You're not having to join us in order to take advantage of this book. That process took a year and a quarter. Last September our board ratified creating the benefits trust. And then we started going with the Indiana Department of Insurance probably around October. And then finally in April, it went through all the Indiana Department of Insurance hoops and we were able to launch it technically in April, but it came out about a month ago. But it is gonna be a game changer for small business. We've got some stories already and it's it's kind of gonna build momentum because we started it basically mid plan year for most people. So we'll see in October the growth is there. But what the difference then is is it allows a business two to fifty employees to come in and get access to health insurance, but you're not graded on a median level. So in an ACA market plan, you're an average, so you got really healthy, you got really unhealthy, they set the rates to meet the needs of how that's gonna fluctuate. On this type of plan, it's the health profile of the business itself. So if you got a really healthy company, that's where that thirty to forty percent savings becomes. And if you don't, you could probably get the same rate, but it's an option for you there if you do have a healthy profile that you can afford to provide entrance for your employees, which is a big thing these days. So we're really excited about that and we're looking to see that go. speaker-0: Yeah. And a big part of that, as you mentioned, was now these businesses can get access to this with through any of the kind of chambers in the affiliated network here. speaker-1: And we have I mean they can join us but they can join us in somehow. But if there's not a participating chamber in their area, they they have joined up. But really our goal get health insurance into the hands of employees and not create roadblocks or financial robots of having to be a member of two different chambers. And it helps the chamber retain members, offer benefits, a win for the chamber, because in order to renew each year if you gotta approve it, you're a group of the chamber, so there's a retention strategy. And then if they're not a member already, you know, they just member growth strategy that helps out with the changes. Yeah. speaker-0: And is that kind of the route you took when you went about approaching some of these other chambers who maybe there might be some competition there, there might be some friendly competition, right? Like prioritizing the benefits and focusing on that. That's speaker-1: The benefits that we try to share because we also it first we were gonna be like you have to sign this with the our chamber. You can't have a competing program like a chamber care or a state chamber. We loosen that up a little bit 'cause there's revenue share opportunities depending on which route you go. But if they wanna offer chamber care, they can. If they wanna have because they're doing it for the members, I understand that. Offer both, you can't. It's what we're trying to do is expand that network. I expand that as they move. And that helps and and making sure that our local chambers understand this is a great program for you. And we do, we lead with retention and growth. well not cost it to them. And we got Ken that's signed on so far. We're looking to grow further north. I've got some members of my chamber now that are never gonna have a ribbon cutting away. You know, they're on the the banks with the lakes up there near Chicago. But I come to my five network. So if there's a chamber up there that they can belong to, more power to them. speaker-0: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And for the chamber leader listening at home who's maybe sold a little bit more on getting started on this whole accreditation journey, but they're staring at that blank application, where do they actually start? What's the smallest useful first step for that chamber? speaker-1: Okay, start with the checklist and then go to technology first. Which it's the small extension. It's one of the most important. Don't get me wrong, Tis. one of the most important. But here's the thing about it. It's in sections. So start with your checklist. See which one has. May you even look at it this way. And of the checklists, the section on governance, I've got nine out of ten boxes. Well then start there and fill that tenth box. Take it little pieces at a time. Don't look at that whole thing and get overwhelmed. Because you can get easily overwhelmed. And so if you just take the small parts and as Ali said during our presentation, you might say you're going for X dates to submit. Well, if you don't make it, don't worry about it. They're fine. You're not getting penalized for saying, Hey, I need three more months. But you know, just take your time. We had And this is a you know, we're an organization that has a lot of it already. We probably have six to eight months into it once we got everything in place of just getting everything there. And that's a large amount of information. So I mean, heck, if you're from six months to twelve months of getting this done, that's nothing to sneeze at. If you needed another six months, nothing to sneeze at. But if you try to knock it all out at once and you think you put a heart nevon on yourself, You're just gonna get frustrated enough. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. But get started. It's a long process, but the sooner, you know, the sooner you start, the the more you can start getting work on checking those boxes off for sure. speaker-1: So just do it. Eat the elephant one bite at a time. Whatever cliche you want to throw in there to get your energy level up, do that. You may think it's an overwhelming process, but in reality it's not. It it's worth going through. And it's worth going through a couple of anxiety lines together. speaker-0: Hundred percent, hundred percent. All right, lads. Final question on the show. Every guest gets this one on the way out. What's one last piece of advice you'd give to the other chamber leaders at home listening in? To change speaker-1: Chamber leaders continue to develop yourself professionally. There are people that work in a chamber profession, and then there are people that are chamber professions. And it's a big difference of the two. And the results of what your chamber is doing is a big difference too. So step number one get involved with your state association. It's invaluable. Number two is to get involved with ACCE on a national level, invaluable. look at Institute for Organization Management with the US Chamber of Commerce and some of the programs they have. Some of these things are just conferences and have some smaller costs. Some of them like the IOM designation have a pretty hefty financial price tag, but I can tell you I've got one going through now. I've actually put he'll be my third, not here, that I've put through Institute. And it's worth every penny because every week you're there, you probably earn a year's worth of experience and knowledge just from the people that are speaking and the the networking that you have going on. But the state and national associations are must. Those are minimums. So keep being a chamber professional, keep working on yourself, 'cause that will translate into the winds that you Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, a hundred percent. And I have really wise words there, Lance. I really appreciate you coming on to the show today. I think this is the conversation that I really hoped it would be. What sticks with me the most is this idea that the plaque was never, you know, it's fun, it's nice to have the plaque, but that's never really the point here. Accreditation in the first place, whether that's employees getting their, you know, their IOMs, their CCEs, whether that's the chamber getting Getting their stars or just getting accredited in the first place. It helps build an organization strong enough on the inside to then go out and build something as big and impressive as this massive statewide health plan on the outside. Like that is just incredible. And it's a testament that systems, you build the systems first, then the wins that members can feel come. And that's That's a tester to the show. That's value that really goes beyond the ribbon cut. So thank you so much again for coming on, Lance. If you want to learn more about Lance, his entire team, and the one Southern Indiana chamber, check out their links in the description below. And to everyone listening, thank you so much for tuning in to Beyond the Ribbon Cut. We'll catch you on the next episode.