What accreditation actually changes in your chamber

Ted Wind: 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?

Lance Allison: 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 moments together.

Ted Wind: 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, CCE, IOM, and president and CEO of One Southern Indiana. Lance, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Lance Allison: Thank you, Ted. I'm very happy to be here.

Ted Wind: 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?

Lance Allison: So, 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 Floyd and Scott County. These are based in southern Indiana right across the river from Louisville. So, that's geographically the easiest way to explain where we're at.

Ted Wind: Got it. And that's over a thousand members across those counties, right? So

Lance Allison: Yeah, we currently sit at around 1,150 and plus or minus 2 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 1,050. So, you know, we've had a nice increase and we've got a nice retention rate going on. So, we're holding steady right at that mark.

Ted Wind: 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?

Lance Allison: It's a 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 40% small business, 30% kind of medium to large, and then the rest larger than that, but then a very nice mixture.

Ted Wind: Got it. Got it. And on today's episode, we'll be probably throwing around a lot of acronyms. Uh, one of the first ones is that uh, One Southern Indiana goes by 1si as well. So, just one more question on 1si. How big is the the team and the staff for the listeners at home?

Lance Allison: We currently are 16 team members. We've had two of our rockstar get cherry picked in the last three weeks. So, we are in the process. We've got an offer accepted for one position today and then we're going to start again for the next. But when we're full complement 16.

Ted Wind: Got it. Got it. Awesome. And hey, that's a pretty big accomplishment. I mean, not the best obviously for folks. You don't want you don't want your rock stars leaving, but clearly a testament to the the folks you brought on to the chamber there.

Lance Allison: It's a you know, in the chamber world, that's just a part of the game. And uh 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 want to rob me of of that talent.

Ted Wind: 100%. 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 highlight reel there? I know I covered a lot of bases there, but it's because you got a pretty pretty serious CV.

Lance Allison: My father began a photography studio. I was in sixth grade and uh I kind of fell in love with that business around seventh grade. I decided that's what I wanted to do as a career and so I was actually photographer, you know, before I professional photographer. I was doing a lot. So did that for 20 years and actually bought the business from my dad. Now he still remained my boss told me what to do. So I owned it in, you know, in name only 11 of that 20 years.

And then I finished up that master's degree around 2007. I had done classes on and off for over 12 years. And just kind of 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. Uh there are some months where you rob Peter to pay Paul. Every small business owner knows this. And so it just came time like I kind of want to do something different.

And at the time the chamber of commerce job in Murray opened up and it had a lot of things I was interested in. I've 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 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 ACCE chamber of the year 2012. I'd got some certifications and so started looking around and the was looking I was the files in North Carolina and Florida at the same time and uh ended up going with Panama City Beach running the chamber down there and enjoying that immensely. It's a great place to live. It's not just a vacation area where you live in there.

The life OJ Curtis balls I found myself back being culturally 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 content marketing with them, but I always knew how to get back into chamber. I was going to let the kids go get older, get out of high school.

And so, the opportunity here kind of opened itself up. And I thought, you know what? We need to see if I'm a viable candidate anywhere. and I've been out for eight years. So, I put my hat in the ring here and ended up getting this position.

Ted Wind: 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 chamber leader?

Lance Allison: I was a small business owner and so when you are 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 in my area because I didn't have the time.

So when I started with the chamber the program 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 member stuff, 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 executives association with uh the ACCE and having professional develop for myself and understanding what it takes to be a chamber professional but also for your chamber to be relevant to the community that kind of like just sort of doubled down on that excitement and passion for the business.

Ted Wind: 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 made really an effort uh 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 ACCE 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? Can you make the case? What does accreditation actually change inside of a chamber?

Lance Allison: On its surface, they're not wrong. Having being 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 metrics behind this program?" And I made the joke that did not go over well. I said, "Well, you mean a movie with Neo in it?"

And so, but as I started to grow, I started realizing these things are important. The behind the scenes part of it is making sure that you have things in place. Uh, a lot of that has to do with SOP. 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 out to make sure am I meeting benchmark? If I'm not, why? If not, what can I do to make sure I meet those benchmarks? Or it's a validation that you are.

Ted Wind: Mhm. And you know, I think it's easy for smaller chambers maybe listening in who hear this and you know are saying, "Oh 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?

Lance Allison: 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 had four volunteers that man the pumps.

So I went through the process of that application and did every single bit of it. So at the same time you know running uh 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 be done by one to two people.

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 going to be by myself. So it took all year having hard but it can be done in a smaller chamber.

Ted Wind: 100%. So let's dive into that a little bit more then like could you talk a little bit more about 1si earning its fourth star. Walk us through what that process actually looked like start to finish.

Lance Allison: It starts by opening up the document looking at what's there. So they give you a checklist and so you go through that checklist and 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. You look into that you find out 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 Lenny 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 a 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 because when you're looking at 1,100 members and you're looking at a $2 million budget, there's just a lot more moving parts when you get into that chain.

Ted Wind: 100%. And you know, as you mentioned, the checklist is a big part of that that that self-review 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?

Lance Allison: 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, because we had done accreditation back in 2010, way before I got here, for us a lot of 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 in language and technology.

Uh, 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 PAC. Our 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 works great for them. For us it's a no. So I make the joke I'm like if we don't get five stars because we don't do candidate endorsements, PAC, we're good we're fine.

And of course four was like my goal. I mean I was like super stoked. That's what I wanted. And then uh when we got the four like, "Oh god, I really do wish we'd have that five." So yeah, a few you know a few of my chamber friends bragging about that five. I go, "Come on now. 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 top.

Ted Wind: Yeah, 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 going to 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 don't think there's anything I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. You know, I think that's

Lance Allison: And I don't want it to get lost on accreditation period. you have a baseline accreditation is still top performing in the country. So I don't want anybody especially in a smaller chamber to say oh man all we got was accreditation we didn't get stars. No no no it is all value and then the rest is just goals

Ted Wind: 100%. And speaking of that value, like another piece of your talk at ACCE 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?

Lance Allison: Well, I think when you talk about SOPs, and it's interesting because Ally came up with the title bulletproof SOPs, part of 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 going to 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 whatever your strategic plan is. They're aligning what or your revenue goal or your membership goal. making sure that they're in lock step 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 it again 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.

Ted Wind: Could you share a real one for us? An SOP that exists at 1si today that didn't before the whole accreditation process or maybe you built out because you knew it was uh was going to be important for the accreditation process.

Lance Allison: 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 are you going to apply it and making sure you have those things in place.

Ted Wind: 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 1 Health with Anthem. This is a statewide, and hear me out, a statewide MEWA, which stands for a multiple employer welfare agreement giving businesses, yes, it is a mouthful, though. Giving businesses with 2 to 50 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 1si end up building a statewide health plan here? This is absolutely incredible.

Lance Allison: Well, I will tell you the funny thing about that you wording your question that way which makes it a fun answer is that everybody know that relationships are important and whatever industry that you're in, relationships matter.

And it just so happened that this fell in our lap because of a relationship I had with Kelly Wolf at Consoliplex 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 uh working with BFW Engineering and we were a member of Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. So that 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 and Consoliplex established these about nine different states I believe but now and 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 50 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 plan.

So back last fall, the state chamber wanted to go a different direction. They have a program called ChamberCare. 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 of that. But Anthem really wanted to stay in the state with the program.

And so that's how the connection 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 OneZone Chamber up in Carmel and Fishers you are able to just be a member of that chamber and be a part of the program if they're participating ch which in this case they are why I mentioned you don't have to be a member of 1si you can be a member of your local chamber the benefit to that is is that as a small business you're seeing one membership you're not having to join at us in order to take advantage of this boat.

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 uh hoops and we were able to launch. It's technically in April but it came out about a month ago.

But it is going to be a game-changer for small business. We've got some stories already and it's it's kind of going to 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 in is is it allows a business 2 to 50 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 going to 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 30 to 40% savings could come. 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 insurance for your employees, which is a big thing these days.

So, we're really excited about that and we're looking to see that grow.

Ted Wind: 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

Lance Allison: 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 us

but really our goal get health insurance into the hands of employees and not create roadblocks or financial roadblocks of having to be a member of two different chambers and it helps the chamber retain members, offer benefit, a win for the chamber because in order to renew each year, you got to prove that you're a member of the chamber. So, there's your retention strategy and then if they're not a member already, you know, there's your member pro strategy that helps out chambers.

Ted Wind: Yeah. 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, you know, friendly competition, right? like prioritizing the benefits and focusing on that.

Lance Allison: That's the benefits that we try to share because we also and first we were going to be like you have to file with our chamber. You can't have a competing program like ChamberCare, the State Chamber.

We loosened that up a little bit because there's a revenue share opportunity depending on which route you go. But if they want to offer ChamberCare, they can.

if they want to have because they're doing it for their members. I understand that offer both if you can. It's what we're trying to do is expand that network and expand that and that help 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 when I'm talking to and we got Ken has signed on so far. We're looking to grow further north.

I've got some members of my chamber now that are never going to have a ribbon cutting with me. You know, all the the banks, the lakes up there near Chicago, they're not coming to my hot network. So, if there's a chamber up there that they can belong to, more power to them.

Ted Wind: 100%. 100%. 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?

Lance Allison: Okay, start with a checklist and then go to technology first. It's the small extension. It's one of the most important. Don't get your list the most important. But here's the thing about it. It's in section. So start with your checklist. See which one has maybe even look at it this way.

And of the checklists, the section on governance, I've got nine out of 10 boxes. Well, then start there and fill that 10th 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 Ally 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 have a lot of it already. We probably had 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 6 months to 12 months of getting this done, there's nothing wrong with that. If you need another six months, nothing's wrong with that.

But if you try to knock it all out at once and you think you put a hard deadline on yourself, you're just going to get frustrated.

Ted Wind: Mhm. But get started. It's a long process, but the sooner, you know, the sooner you start, the more you can start getting work on checking those boxes off, for sure.

Lance Allison: You know, 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 moments together.

Ted Wind: 100%. 100%. All right, Lance, 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?

Lance Allison: To chamber leaders, continue to develop yourself professionally. There are people that work in the chamber profession and then there are people that are chamber professionals and it's a big difference of the two. And the results of what your chamber's 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 the national level. Invaluable. Look at Institute for Organization Management with 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 designations 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 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 national associations are must. Those are minimals. So, keep being a chamber professional. Keep working on yourself because that will translate into the room is that you

Ted Wind: Yeah. Yeah. 100%. And 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 testament 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.