Jul 23, 2026 · 21 min · 9 segments
How do local Chambers move beyond striving for relevance and create lasting impact? That question became the foundation for a NEW book by Matt Appenzeller, CEO & President of the Southern Ohio…
early in the book you identify four critical challenges that are facing chambers today if you don't mind sharing what those are and and why you're so why they're so important
yeah so this goes back to the the same problems that we see over and over when we're working with you know suburban and rural chambers so I'll divide the the four critical challenges and into two groups The first two are generalized to every chamber in the United States.
And those two challenges are trying to keep up with technology and a lack of industry standard metrics.
Two problems, those two challenges impact every chamber in the United States, just trying to cope with them.
The other two critical challenges are only specific to some chambers because the other chambers have figured out the problem.
And hopefully your chamber, if you're listening today, is one of the chambers who have figured out those two challenges and addressed them.
But there are a lot of chambers and communities who have not addressed those and it has some real consequences for those chambers and their communities.
Let's dig into the idea of measuring your performance a little bit and probably goes hand in hand with technology too.
Could you talk about the fact that many chambers don't know what to measure and therefore, how do you know if you're making an impact if you're not measuring the right things? That's right.
So I happen to think that the lack of industry standard metrics for our profession is the number one problem in the entire industry.
You have to keep in mind that chambers of commerce on this continent have been around prior to the Revolutionary War.
And so despite that more than 250 year history of chambers of commerce in this country, we do not have a set of uniform standards for chambers of commerce to follow.
And so a lot of these local chambers, they struggle because they don't know what is good or bad performance.
No one has taken the time to say, this is what your market penetration rate needs to be in a community of your size, or this is what your retention rate needs to be in a community of your size or a chamber of your size.
Without that, we just sort of reinvent the wheel all the time or we get to a certain point and we experience problems and we call our neighbor and say, well, what are you guys doing? Well,
And so what I argue in the book is there needs to be some standardization for chambers of commerce so that they know what targets they can shoot for.
So Evelyn, let's just say your chamber a and I am chamber B and both of our boards of directors have, have, um, tasked us with increasing revenue by, uh, you know, let's just say by 20% this year.
early in the book you identify four critical challenges that are facing chambers today if you don't mind sharing what those are and and why you're so why they're so important
yeah so this goes back to the the same problems that we see over and over when we're working with you know suburban and rural chambers so I'll divide the the four critical challenges and into two groups The first two are generalized to every chamber in the United States.
And those two challenges are trying to keep up with technology and a lack of industry standard metrics.
Two problems, those two challenges impact every chamber in the United States, just trying to cope with them.
The other two critical challenges are only specific to some chambers because the other chambers have figured out the problem.
And hopefully your chamber, if you're listening today, is one of the chambers who have figured out those two challenges and addressed them.
But there are a lot of chambers and communities who have not addressed those and it has some real consequences for those chambers and their communities.
Let's dig into the idea of measuring your performance a little bit and probably goes hand in hand with technology too.
Could you talk about the fact that many chambers don't know what to measure and therefore, how do you know if you're making an impact if you're not measuring the right things? That's right.
So I happen to think that the lack of industry standard metrics for our profession is the number one problem in the entire industry.
You have to keep in mind that chambers of commerce on this continent have been around prior to the Revolutionary War.
And so despite that more than 250 year history of chambers of commerce in this country, we do not have a set of uniform standards for chambers of commerce to follow.
And so a lot of these local chambers, they struggle because they don't know what is good or bad performance.
No one has taken the time to say, this is what your market penetration rate needs to be in a community of your size, or this is what your retention rate needs to be in a community of your size or a chamber of your size.
Without that, we just sort of reinvent the wheel all the time or we get to a certain point and we experience problems and we call our neighbor and say, well, what are you guys doing? Well,
And so what I argue in the book is there needs to be some standardization for chambers of commerce so that they know what targets they can shoot for.
So Evelyn, let's just say your chamber a and I am chamber B and both of our boards of directors have, have, um, tasked us with increasing revenue by, uh, you know, let's just say by 20% this year.
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