OneSpartanburg, Inc. 2021 ACCE Chamber of the Year Finalist with Allen Smith

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability and to correct obvious transcription errors while preserving the meaning of the original conversation.

Episode 136 — OneSpartanburg, Inc. 2021 Chamber of the Year Finalist with Allen Smith
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Allen Smith
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.83 Brandon Burton
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
00:14.082 Intro Voice
And now your host, he enjoys fishing as long as the fish are biting. He's my dad, Brandon.
00:18.894 Brandon Burton
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast, where it's my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Chamber Chat Podcast is sponsored by Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Is your chamber struggling to drive the revenue it needs to support your initiatives? It's a common problem, and one that our new title sponsor, Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions, knows a lot about. Doug and Bill Holman aren't just sales consultants, they're real life chamber guys with twenty plus years of chamber leadership experience. They know how to diagnose and solve member recruiting issues faster and better than anyone else, and they're ready to put that knowledge to work for you in your chamber. Call the Holman Brothers today at six one nine eight five two one three nine one or check them out at HolmanBros.com. That's H O L M A N B R O S dot com. Our guest for this episode is Allen Smith, representing OneSpartanburg Inc. as a 2021 Chamber of the Year finalist. We're excited to have Allen with us today on Chamber Chat Podcast. He was actually on the show back in February. And it's always fun for me to see some of the past guests that I've had on the on the podcast. pop up as a chamber of the year finalist, because that tells me that I'm picking the right guests for the for the podcast that are, you know, doing things right at their chamber to be selected as a finalist. But if you wanted to go back and check it out, it was episode 107 that Allen was on with us before. But Allen was born and raised in Greenville, North Carolina, after graduating from East Carolina University with a bachelor's in political science, Allen was appointed to serve as town clerk. For the town of Bethel, North Carolina. After working in local government for a couple years, Allen was hired as vice president of operations for the Greenville-Pitt County Chamber of Commerce. He was then promoted to senior vice president. In 2010, Allen was hired as the president and CEO of the Greater Greer Chamber of Commerce. On June 16, 2014, Allen was named as president and CEO of the Spartanburg Area Chamber of Commerce.
02:41.792 Brandon Burton
And then in September of twenty twenty, the Spartanburg Area Chamber of Commerce launched a rebrand to represent its collective as a strategic plan. Allen is now the president and CEO of OneSpartanburg Inc. OneSpartanburg Inc.'s mission is to build a vibrant Spartanburg through business, economic, and tourism development. Given Spartanburg's recent accolades as a statewide leader in education, healthcare, Culture and economic development. Allen and his wife Jenny and their two daughters are excited about what's to come and are incredibly proud to call Spartanburg home. Allen, welcome back to Chamber Chat Podcast. Take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions and like I like, I like to have you share something interesting about yourself. I think last time you you announced that you just joined the 40 club. So we'll see what else you have to to share with us.
03:36.62 Allen Smith
Well, Brandon, I really do appreciate the opportunity to come back. also appreciate you recognizing our our recent, I guess, recognition. We're incredibly flattered. You know, we we're the only people that do what we do in our communities. And, you know, we we measure our data, we look at our outputs, we look at our production, but sometimes when you get third party affirmation, it's just such a a good, feel good pat on the back. So we're we're absolutely humbled and honored. And I think. Interesting would be my life revolves around my four and one-year-old little girls, Eloise and Mary Barrett. Mary Barrett right now has an obsession with mustard. mustard everything, you know, more mustard please, more mustard, please. So we and it doesn't matter, it could be French's, it could be Dijon, but she just loves eating mustard. So we're we're rolling with the punches as far as that's concerned.
04:34.798 Brandon Burton
That's great. My youngest daughter, when she was probably two, she had an obsession with ketchup. So for her birthday one year, we actually got her a two-pack of ketchup and she couldn't have, you know, been happier with anything else.
04:49.986 Allen Smith
Well, we hear that more often because, you know, obviously ketchup's sweeter. Yeah. so I d I don't know what what's in store for us in terms of her personality and the path ahead with with mustard, but but either way, what what a blessing.
05:05.122 Brandon Burton
That's right. That's awesome. Well, share with us about OneSpartanburg Inc. I'd like to get some background and and give everyone a perspective as to your kind of size and location, budget, staff, that sort of thing, just to know where you're coming from as we get into our discussion and and highlighting some of those program synopsis on your Chamber of the Year application.
05:29.624 Allen Smith
Well, again, we appreciate the opportunity. It this is always a little kind of difficult for me because we don't we we don't necessarily we aren't big on just just you know, touting our organization and touting ourselves. We we just feel like if our community is winning, our economic development numbers are strong, our tourism development numbers are strong, you know, businesses are coming here and they're being successful, and that's that's really all the accolades we need. But you asked, so I'll answer. we really weathered COVID 19 remarkably well. I mean, I knew that we were positioned well from just just metrics like in the days of cash on hand and things like that, but I had no idea that we would weather it the way we did. no layoffs, no furloughs. in fact, I looked at I looked at some history and we had about in 2019, we had about six point one million dollars of cash on hand. this recent year in June 30, 2021, we had six point one million dollars of cash on hand. And what's remarkable about that is since twenty nineteen we spent two point one million dollars on a renovation. So, you know, it's it's pretty remarkable when you think about and that's internally financed, by the way. So we didn't we didn't borrow any money from the bank. There wasn't an influx of cash from from you know a loan. So it's pretty remarkable that that we've been able to remain flat and internally finance the $2.1 million renovation. As far as you know the organization in general is concerned, we are when we're fully staffed, we're at 21 with two contractors and a lobbying outside, which we added them last year and what a decision that was. And I'll tell you a little bit about that. I mentioned the renovation. We are I I set an aspirational goal to move in July 15th. That's not gonna happen. so we're gonna be, you know, later this summer we'll be we'll be moving in. But really a state-of-the-art facility. It's interesting. We we did a staff survey when with the architect, and we asked staff, you know, what do you want to see in the new building? They wanted technology.
07:50.862 Allen Smith
They wanted better H VAC. They wanted more meeting spaces and more toilets. And they got it all. so you know, maybe maybe one day we can come back on and share some images of the new building.
08:04.554 Brandon Burton
Yeah, those you know, certain things take priority. The H V A C and toilets definitely are right up there at the top.
08:11.95 Allen Smith
Absolutely.
08:14.222 Brandon Burton
Now I remember when we when when we had you on the podcast before, I remember there was the the construction background effects that we were hearing. So it it's good to hear that things are winding down and you guys are getting close to moving in. That's awesome. Well I'm I'm looking forward to hearing the you know more details about the the program synopsis that you guys submitted with your chamber of the year application and we'll
08:30.522 Allen Smith
Yeah, we're excited about it.
08:41.569 Brandon Burton
Dive into that discussion as soon as we get back from this quick break. Are you looking for a year-round affordable and timely shop local campaign for your chamber or CVB? Look no further. Build a custom Eat Shop Play mobile app with App My Community by visiting AppMyCommunity.com/chamberchat. App My Community mobile apps are not just simple membership directory listings, they provide many more capabilities to engage with your community. Provide your residents with a robust events calendar. Partner with a local fair, festival, or farmers market to provide a schedule, map, and other resources to promote the event. Run a small business Saturday campaign any time of the year using built-in scavenger hunts. Allow your membership to communicate directly to their customers via push notifications. Your App My Community Mobile app is will be a unique member benefit, allow you to generate nondues revenue with sponsorship opportunities, and best of all, provide a valuable resource to your community. Please visit AppMyCommunity.com/chamberchat now to receive 10% off your first year of an App My Community mobile app. All right, Allen, we're back. why don't you take a minute and just share with us what your two program synopsis were and then maybe we can dive in a little more detail on each of those.
10:11.918 Allen Smith
Sure. So the first one was the actual reimagining of our organization. you know, we were a consolidated organization where countywide economic development function, countywide tourism function, and the countywide chamber were all together, but we weren't acting that way. Very much siloed, very much free, different cultures, a lot of duplication. A lot of replication, a lot of you name it. we weren't recognizing that competitive advantage that we had. So we really started, and then quite honestly, I can't take any credit for this. I I actually had my senior staff do an evaluation of me. and I didn't even see their evaluations and turned them right over to my chair. And you know, my chair shared them with me, and senior staff said, Look, we've got we've got a gold mine at our feet in terms of having these three functions together, why don't we take advantage of it? So we really went on about a 16-month journey, a cultural improvement journey, uncovering efficiencies, uncovering synergies, changing mindsets throughout the organization, literally and ripping down silos, and but but also being respectful of what the independent functions of of our organization is and are as well. so we did that. And you know, a lot of people in the community at least talked about the name change that was rolled out in September of 2020 when we went public. We went from Spartanburg Area Chamber to OneSpartanburg Inc. But that really was probably 2.5% of the whole process. You know, the rest of the process was was getting things in place to be able to recognize synergies, being able to really take advantage of the model that we had.
12:11.074 Brandon Burton
That's I'm excited to have you dive in deeper on that and and tell us a little bit more about that you talked about the sixteen month journey and some of those things that you learned. But first let's just mention what your your second program synopsis was and we'll we'll circle back to that.
12:29.358 Allen Smith
So in April 2020, co-chaired by one of our county counselors and co-chaired by a small business owner, we launched Bring Back the Burg, a business recovery task force. We knew that there was going to be significant impact to the business community. and what better organization to lead the business community through COVID-19 than OneSpartanburg Inc. So we're at that time it was Spartanburg Area Chamber. so we convened a steering committee of 34 folks. And, you know, one of the first things that they did is we set up a data benchmark committee. Folks like the city manager, the county manager, folks in workforce development, so on and so forth. And we identified 19 big benchmarks because we didn't want this task force to go on. You know, the difference between a task force and a committee is a committee goes on forever. A task force has a beginning and an end. And this task force needed to have an end. in fact, we wanted to get to a point where we could wind it down. So the 19 benchmarks were set and we made a pact, basically, the committee that, you know, when we meet these benchmarks for a sustained period of time, we're gonna shut the task force down. I'm happy to report in June we shut the task force down. benchmarks like hospitality tax were met, RevPAR, occupancy rates, building permits, unemployment. And it wasn't just an activity of us just monitoring and watching the data. We were doing that and then responding. So, you know, we were we were doing things like our corporate catering program to drive hospitality tax. We were doing things major expenditures and and marketing. to to drive different both economic and and commercial traffic community. We we did not get as you know as as well not everybody knows, but counties in in South Carolina, the first round of relief money, the threshold was a 500,000 population threshold. There's only one county in South Carolina that met that threshold.
14:53.368 Allen Smith
So our county got no relief the first round. We're at about 340,000. So we took matters in our own hands and we raised 700 grand in the midst of a global pandemic to provide relief to the small business community. And we did that in the form of forgivable and unforgivable loans. that was met with great success. So again, the benchmarks, the data has been incredible. we peaked out at about 14.8% unemployment as of today. We're at Retail in 2020 was 105% of what it was in 2019. So people actually spent more money in 2020 than they did in 2019. Since January, we've averaged about 900 building permits per month. And this is a remarkable number, what I'm about to tell you. And that is since and it's historic. Since January. we've recruited 1.2 billion in new investment and 3,100 new jobs. Wow. So that's about 6.3 million dollars in new investment every single day since January 1st. so we've seen the remarkable and we we've we we felt like that was gonna happen because in 2020 there were a lot of folks that said, hey, we're committed to Spartanburg.
16:08.286 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
16:20.118 Allen Smith
you they'd been in our pipeline, we've been courting them a long time. And when the the when they could see the end of the pandemic around the bin, they started making some significant, significant investment decisions. So we're only we we track our investment and our new job totals on a calendar year basis. So we're six months in with 1.2 billion, leading South Carolina and still have 72 active projects in the pipeline. So Those those were some I go on and on, but those were some of the metrics that we looked at. And we officially wound down the task force last month. But what we wound up was the beginning of our 2022-2026 OneSpartanburg Vision Plan 2.0 planning process. So we actually used that last meeting of the Bring Back the Burg Business Recovery Task Force to be the first meeting. of the 2022-2026 development of the strategic plan. So we felt like that group was the best kind of first stakeholder group to start that process. So we'll we'll launch in 2022, January, either February, our next five year plan.
17:32.928 Brandon Burton
That's awesome. I love hearing those examples of those benchmarks that were met and and quite frankly, some of them really just blown out of the water.
17:43.842 Allen Smith
Yeah, you can go you can go to bringbacktheburg.com, track the benchmarks, and you'll see all kinds of charts and graphs around, you know, the the things that that we've been we've been following. So we met eighteen, like I said, we met 18 of the 19 benchmarks. The only benchmark we did not meet was Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport passenger traffic is still at about sixty percent of pre-COVID levels, our benchmarks for everything that was just about eighty percent. but you know, we didn't want to drag this thing on until GSP got to eighty percent. so we decided after eighteen and nineteen benchmarks we met, we shut it down and celebrated success.
18:25.462 Brandon Burton
That's awesome. And I'll I'll link to the you said it's bringbacktheburg.com or bringbackburg.com.
18:33.08 Allen Smith
Bringing Bring Back the Burg.com.
18:36.856 Brandon Burton
The bird.com. So I'll put that in the show notes for our episode. So if anybody wants to go in and see what those different benchmarks were. hopefully in your own communities, you have your own benchmarks that you're you're tracking and and hopefully exceeding. But maybe this will give you some ideas of of other things that are worth tracking and and taking note of. but Allen, let's let's circle back to the the reimagining of your entire organization. it kind of what brought that on. I know I mean we can probably talk about this for a couple hours with everything that that led up to it, but hit some of those highlights for us about kind of what spurred it on and and what that sixteen month journey was like.
19:27.374 Allen Smith
Well, we, know, the standalone the standalone chamber is, you know, obviously set up to set to serve the community, but but you know, also has a responsibility to serving members. And you know, we serve our members. we we serve our investors, they hold a priority with us, but but given our model, we really have a responsibility to serve the entire county. So with a name like Chamber, we felt like and you know. local surveys indicated it that that was an exclusive name. You know, w think about the term member in itself. I'm a member, you're not. and so as we're trying to grow the tent and and and be inclusive and and and try to serve, you know, all the people and all the businesses of of Spartanburg County, we took a long hard look at the organization and said, you know, are we set up to do that? You know, is our Is our welcome mat covered up up with dirt where no one can see welcome? does it need to be spruced up a little bit? And and you know, that's that's the conclusion that we are the main change. The other thing was when you looked at and this is this is not to throw shade on any other organization, but when you look at other communities that have a standalone economic development organization, standalone tourism, standalone chamber, the inefficiencies are just immense. I mean. Just just the fiscal obligations that that one has, you know, to support three buildings is tremendous. Yeah. you've got three three you know people that greet you when you come in the front door. You have marketing staff, you have finance staff, you have all those things. And and you know, we started looking at that and we we said, my goodness. You know, what what if we were to to recognize a substantial amount of savings and take those savings and make it more geared towards community impact? So we have a VP of finance, one person. she does the books for all three organizations, and our ancillary OneSpartanburg Vision Plan Fund, which is about a million dollars a year. That's an efficiency. we mentioned the renovation earlier. we're moving into a renovated building.
21:48.342 Allen Smith
One building. We have one building to support. you know, one deferred maintenance line item. so so we don't have three buildings, three campuses to support. We have and and let me say too, the the way we the way we measure all this, and this is gonna get get a little nerdy and people might tune out at this point, but we have we don't have an org chart, we call it an org circle. So you have business development. Economic development, tourism development, and then supporting all three of those core functions is mission support. So the marketing and communications team is in mission support. Finance is in mission support. We have one full-time events person that she handles the events for all three core functions. Our diversity, equity, and inclusion person is in mission support because we believe that that should permeate the work of the entire organization. so mission support, essentially we said, okay, now how much is it going to cost to support all these professionals? We arrived at a number and then we said, okay, business development, 15.7% of your budget, economic development, 15.7% of yours, tourism, 15.7% of yours, period. And mission supports funded. And if you look at the numbers, you know, the national average for overhead for our industry is about 20 to 25%. We're doing it at a 15.7. So, you know, five percent savings for a five million dollar budget is significant. And we're able to pour that back into the community. Not only that, just the macro nature of what we're doing right now, it makes sense. And tangible example. talent in this community, COVID isn't the number one issue anymore. Talent. Is the number one issue. We have 9,000 job openings, we have 7,000 people seeking work. We have way more jobs than we do people. you know, the other thing too is we could be the beneficiary of some COVID migration patterns. The data is indicating that people are more open-minded to smaller markets. And so we're doing some things to take advantage of that. But think about it, you know, how many times do you go visit somewhere as a tourist and say,
24:12.408 Allen Smith
my goodness. And I could see me plucking the family up and living somewhere like this. Well, you know, on the business and economic development side of the shop, talent's the number one issue. And then on the other side of the shop, we have tourism. So that's a that's a direct marriage. I mean, even little granular things like we're using tourism photography in our talent campaigns. And it sounds, it sounds like, well duh, no brainer. But I can tell you, and I know from direct experience, in other communities, that's just not happening. I mean, the the chamber person might not even have a relationship with the tourism person. The tourism person might be fighting the economic development per person over funds. And so we just don't have have that here. In fact, we have what we call required relationships, required relationships. So if you're gonna be the chief economic development officer, you literally have to share the coffee pot with the chief tourism development officer because we're all in the same building.
25:17.486 Brandon Burton
that's great. When you were talking about the the org circle, the organization circle that you have, I was picturing kind of like a Venn diagram where you have your different circles and kind of the overlap where you can see where somebody has different responsibilities for the different parts of the organization. And I you didn't explain it exactly that way, but in my mind, that's how my mind works and kind of see where those overlaps are and to be more efficient in the organization overall.
25:45.324 Allen Smith
Yeah, I'll tell you a funny story about the org the org circle. we we meet with our past chairs every six months. so going there's there's a guy actually, I think from 1982 that was a chair of the board that comes back and he and you know they they love it because you know they've been removed from the organization and they get an update. And so we put the org circle in front of them. And I'll never forget one of the past chairs said, Well, this is great. we can really get efficient. And I said, Well, I think this is pretty efficient. He said, Well, President CEO isn't on here, so we can just go ahead and do away with that and save some more money. I said,
26:34.126 Brandon Burton
Yeah, you gotta revisit that with a little more detail.
26:39.394 Allen Smith
Yeah, yeah, we'll have to add that back in the middle.
26:42.774 Brandon Burton
That's right.
26:46.082 Allen Smith
and that you know, that's something else too, that we joke about it. But really, you know, my role in this model is you know, we we do get a lot of public funding. we do have a very active lobbying advocacy focus. And and I'm I'm freed up to do all of that and keep my practitioners out of the fray, so to speak. So, you know, my our chief economic development officer. She's out there all day, every day, you know, recruiting, retaining, working expansions. Chief Tourism Development Officer is out there recruiting, you know, groups and conferences and sports tournaments, so on and so forth. Chief Business Affairs Officer, you know, setting businesses up for success in our community. And I'm able to kind of sometimes, you know, and and and the folks on this call, I think, will appreciate this. You know, the chamber president is is. a mile wide and an inch deep and scattered and all these different things. You know, that the economic development leader in a community is maybe dealing with the politics of county council because that's where his or her funding comes from. And so really with our model, I'm able to step forward and and deal with a lot of that and just allow them to practice the trade and in which they're experts.
28:08.15 Brandon Burton
You know, it in hearing you talk about this model that you guys have that you've reimagined there with OneSpartanburg Inc. It I don't know if you've read it yet or not, but I I've referenced several times on the podcast Dave Adkisson's new book, Horseshoes vs. Chess, where you've got all these different moving parts in a community from tourism to economic development, school district, you know, and they're all pieces to help move your community forward. So by bringing it all together. in that that new vision that you guys have there OneSpartanburg Inc., I think is genius. It's obviously is working for you guys. I know every community is different, but I've seen in some communities where you know there's some lack of attention in certain areas because certain areas suffer by not being able to have that coordinated effort to help that progress in your community. So kudos to you guys for for what you're doing there with OneSpartanburg Inc. As as we start to wrap up here, first of all, I wanted to make sure that there's nothing that I that we missed in highlighting these these two program synopsis. If there's anything that you wanted to to touch on before we wrap up, and and if not, just have you share one one tip or action item that a a chamber champion can take to help elevate their organization up to the next level.
29:32.032 Allen Smith
Well, I I would say, you know, you you called and you wanted us our organization. You can't really talk about organization unless you talk about this community. And you know, we've we've talked to four other communities about this model. They're they're looking at doing it. but but really Spartanburg it's it's it's not kind of what we do here. It's who we are. we're we're One of several examples of the quote, only collaborative model in South Carolina. For example, the Chapman Cultural Center in Spartanburg houses eight arts-based nonprofits, the only model of its kind, South Carolina. We are building right now. South Carolina's only city-county joint municipal complex. So the city and the county will come together under one roof. So there's example after example example of a collaborative spirit here. And and every community says, you know, we work well together, so on and so forth. You can look at our communities institutions and see how we're structured. So, you know, I appreciate, you know, the the kind remarks, but but it it's really kind of the DNA of this community to set up your organization like this in in order to be successful and effective. And as far as tips are concerned, I I loved I wish I could remember what I said the last time. But you know I think when you look at the Horizons initiative and a word that's been talked about in our industry for a really long time, and I think it it's still true. It's just it's just relevance. It it really is relevance. And you know, I've talked to a neighboring chamber CEO a few weeks ago, much smaller, much smaller organization, and just so enjoy hearing her talk about and her challenges are immense. But but loved hearing her talk about, you know, yes, we'll always do the ribbon cuttings and yes, we'll always do networking, but but Allen, I want to do something that that matters more. I want to do something that's relevant. And so, you know, the only tip I gave her was I said, look, you gotta you gotta find a way to to build a data based plan. You really do. you gotta find a way to figure out what your community's issues are and how you're unique, uniquely positioned to address them.
31:50.956 Allen Smith
And if you're able to do that, more often than not, you know, it'll sell. People invest in that work and that'll bring you that relevance that you need to really have a sustained, well-funded, well-respected organization in the long term.
32:07.042 Brandon Burton
So building a a data based plan, not a database plan, but a a data base. So making your plan based around the data, right, that you're receiving in your community.
32:17.208 Allen Smith
Get getting a new getting a new database wouldn't be relevant or or be considered an accomplishment. But yeah, yeah, you know, s so many, so many times it's just, you know, human nature. We say things like, Well, I feel this or I think this or the restaurant the other day and there were people standing outside. So, you know, the hospitality industry must be doing well. It's it's crazy.
32:23.861 Brandon Burton
That's a big.
32:45.943 Allen Smith
yeah, you gotta you gotta have a plan that's predicated on irrefutable data.
32:52.906 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. So along those lines of relevance, I know I asked you this question last time you were on as well, but as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future of chambers going forward?
33:06.776 Allen Smith
We know I think I think this last test, this COVID test, you know, may have maybe maybe it it was survival of the fittest, quite frankly. I mean those that were those that were well positioned from from a financial standpoint are still with us today, and unfortunately we've read about a lot that are not with us today. but but I think it also was a test of going back to what I said, relevance. There were a lot of it was remarkable to see organizations like ours really stepping up. You know, the way I explained it to our staff when we launched Bring Back the Burg Business Recovery Task Force was as people in the community were getting COVID and and hospitalizations were going up, you know, I you pray to God that that it didn't happen to anybody on our team, but if it did happen and you needed help, who'd you call? You know, you'd call the ambulance. The ambulance would come take you to the hospital. Well, if you're if you're a small business and you know 20 or 30% of your team is either they either have co COVID or they've been quarantined or so on and so forth, your customers can't come into your business, you're sick, you're ailing. Who are you gonna call? You know? And you know, I the communities that that have the relevant chambers, you know, they were calling their chambers and their chambers were responding in a major way. So coming out of this. I think people in the community were saying, you know what, I didn't really know what that organization was doing pre-COVID, but I get it today. And so I I think it could be COVID in a lot of ways may have created the perfect moment for our industry to to to get back some relevance and and and and really build back some real meaningful leadership in our communities.
34:57.274 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. I mean I saw that across the country, where the COVID really did test businesses and the chambers, you know, across the country, they needed to be that support, that backbone for these businesses to help them survive, to get them the information they needed. And those chambers that stepped up and did it, they're gonna have some very loyal members for a long time because they're gonna remember how the chamber helped heal them. when they were sick. So great, great point. well, Allen, I mentioned I'll I'll I'll put Bring Back the Burg on the show notes for this episode. Is is there any contact information that you would like to share with the listeners who might want to reach out and connect with you about anything that you've discussed today or just continue this discussion offline with you.
35:28.192 Allen Smith
I agree.
35:49.848 Allen Smith
Sure. I'm I'm happy to to chat with anybody. It's asmith@onespartanburginc.com. asmith@onespartanburginc.com. And that's one O-N-E.
36:04.13 Brandon Burton
All right. I will update that on our show notes, which will be found at ChamberChatPodcast.com/episode136. But Allen, it's been great to catch up with you again. I wish you all the the best of luck with your Chamber of the Year bid and look forward to talking to you again.
36:23.458 Allen Smith
Brandon, thank you for the opportunity and and thank you for doing this for our industry. It it really matters. Thank you.
36:29.686 Brandon Burton
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37:05.134 Brandon Burton
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