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4 Fun, Interactive Event Ideas for Your Association

4 Fun, Interactive Event Ideas for Your Association

Consumer expectations are on the rise — and that includes what your members expect from you and your organization. Consider an outside-of-the-box live experience event for your association. People crave live experiences and human connection, and there are tons of different activities to choose from.

True there’s extra cost and effort involved with organizing a live experience activity, but it might be worth holding one occasionally. Doing so will certainly provide an opportunity for members to have fun, and deliver a memorable, team-bonding experience.

1. Topgolf

This franchise is becoming a fast favorite for get-togethers. Each Topgolf location offers fun and competitive golf games with climate-controlled playing “bays” similar to a bowling lane. Plus, there’s food and drink, TVs, and music to make it extra festive.

Topgolf locations by state

2. Escape Room

Escape Rooms are a sure way to get members engaged and working as a team. Typically, all participants are locked in a room and are given a set amount of time to find clues and solve puzzles to complete the challenge and “escape” the room.

Many corporate organizations take advantage of this type of activity since it’s a fun way to bond, problem solve together, and be successful together.

Google “escape room near me” for a list of Escape Rooms in your area.

3. Paint Nite

Here’s a fun twist on the usual social happy hour. With 2 hours of guided instruction, each person in your group creates a one-of-a-kind painting, while enjoying drinks and each other’s company. The bonus here is that each participant gets to keep their painting as memorabilia from their fun night.

More on Paint Nite Corporate Events

4. Plant Nite

An offshoot of Paint Nite. Instead of breaking out blank canvases and brushes, you build your own terrarium with others at a local restaurant or bar.

More on Plant Nite Corporate Events

123 … Takeaway!

This is only a small sample of what’s available. There are plenty of other live experience activities to choose from.

Start planning your live experience event today by getting your members input. In your post-event survey, include a drop-down, multiple-choice question that lists the events you’re considering. Ask members to rank them in order of preference. Include a multi-line text box too where members can enter their own suggestion for live experience events.

Not only will running a survey help gauge member interest, surveying shows members that you value their input and satisfaction with your organization.

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7 Ways Your Association Can Improve Its Renewal Dues Collection Process

7 Ways Your Association Can Improve Its Renewal Dues Collection Process

Sweating through his pale-yellow shirt, Todd reluctantly shuffles his way into the meeting room. He lo-o-o-a-a-thes this time of year. Dreads it. Would like to be doing anything but reminding members to pay.

Caty is late with her dues … again. Not a peep from Mark since the renewal period began. Amy said she’d bring her payment to tonight’s meeting — but she also said that 3 meetings ago.

No doubt collecting dues is about as much fun as getting a tooth pulled. The good news? There are ways to make the renewal process much more effective and efficient — and way less painful.

Having worked with so many professional and trade associations for nearly 20 years, we’ve seen many renewal campaigns. Some highly-effective. Others not so much.

One thing is certain: those that do work share common elements — and those tactics can be easily replicated.

Tip #1: Review past renewal performance

Take a look at your last renewal period. Run a list of members that were up for renewal, then note when members renewed.

Did most members renew after your first email notice was sent? After an announcement was made during a group meeting? After the second email notice, or the last?

Make adjustments to your communication plan based on what you find. For example, if most members renew after the last notice goes out, and you would like more upfront renewals, make improvements. Consider adding incentives and highlighting benefits in your other notices and communication channels.

Tip #2: Clear up ALL roadblocks

Be sure to look at the data in its entirety. Think back to the last campaign.

Why was Caty late with her payment, as she is every renewal period? Maybe Caty doesn’t check her email regularly. Maybe sending reminders through another channel, like text messaging, would be better for her.

Why did Amy keep forgetting to bring her payment to the meetings? Perhaps offering different ways to pay online would be more convenient for her versus remembering to bring in cash or a check.

All circumstances and scenarios should be factored into how you design your renewal campaign going forward.

Tip #3: Review payment methods

While there are organizations that accept check and cash, utilizing online methods to take payment should be used, or at the very least, considered.

Not only is taking payments online quicker and less work for your association or organization’s treasurer, it’s much more convenient for members.

Many of the associations we work with utilize the 123Signup online membership applications for taking credit card payments for renewals. These webpages can be styled to match your organization’s brand and integrated with your website for a seamless member experience.

Once you have the renewal webpage set up, you can include the link in your email reminders. Having an online payment method for your renewals gives members an easy way to renew and pay online whenever is most convenient for them.

Tip #4: Consider an incentive for renewals

To expedite renewals, consider adding an incentive such as a discount.

Through 123Signup, you can create membership promotion codes with a fixed discount (a flat amount) or a percentage discount  to be applied to the total. You can also control the total number of times a code can be used, which member types are eligible to use the code, and you can limit the dates the code can be used.

Tip #5: Develop a communication plan and stick to it

Don’t let this overwhelm you. A communication plan is simply a plan in writing of what communications you’ll send and when. It’s proven that the more the information about a renewal dues period is communicated — whether in person or online — the smoother and quicker the process.

Tip #6: Include the option to renew membership while signing up for an event

123Signup’s integrated registration and renewals functionality allows you to include a membership renewal option on your event signup forms — making it simple for members to register for an event, and at the same time, pay their dues.

Tip #7: Set up automated email renewal reminders

While you never want to annoy your members, it’s a fact that many simply forget to renew, or need an extra nudge beyond the meeting announcement, making it worth sending a series of email reminders.

Most associations we work with send 3-4 renewal reminders.

If you don’t have a good association management software that automates this task for you, it’s a good reason to investigate low-cost technology options that will enable you to set up a series without further work or intervention.

Through 123Signup Association Management software, you can set up a series of emails with specific messages to be sent at specific time periods of your choosing.

You can create as many templates as you’d like and further customize your messaging by creating templates for each member type. For example, your message to your student members may differ from your message to regular members.

We’ve found that organizations that combine in-person announcements with automated email renewal reminders to expiring members run the most effective membership renewal campaigns.

123… Takeaway!

It’s coming. A great big bear hug from your treasurer. (Fill in your treasurer’s name here) is much happier these days since improving the renewal dues collection process.

Whether you use one or all 7 of these tips, you’re bound to improve your renewal dues collection process — and make your treasurer, and members’ lives, a bit brighter.

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3 Quick & Simple Ways to Brighten Dull Networking Events

3 Quick & Simple Ways to Brighten Dull Networking Events

Kim just left her club’s spring networking event. Instead of feeling excited and alive, she feels flat.

What went wrong?,” she wonders. “The meeting room was cozy. The meeting itself well-organized. Food was great.

Then it hits her. Her cousin Theresa’s wedding last summer! Kim had the same feeling then.

At the wedding reception, Kim was seated with Theresa’s cousins, Josh and Tim, and their wives, from the other side of the family. It was a l-o-o-n-n-n-g, excruciating hour of vapid small talk. Even the delicious meal couldn’t make up for the incredibly awkward, meaningless chatter. Kim still winces when she thinks back to the reception that happened 9 months ago.

Yup, that’s it.” Kim realizes. That’s went wrong. All conversations at tonight’s event felt forced. The format a bit too formal, traditional. Kim spent 2 hours fighting through strained chit-chat, not making any real connections.

Sound familiar? As an event organizer, it’s important you take steps to make sure those in attendance are comfortable to mingle, comfortable to connect, and have fun doing so. The good thing is it doesn’t take too much effort to make a meaningful difference — and make the meeting memorable and effective.

Here are some simple ways to turn drab networking events into unforgettable fun.

A Twist on Ice Breakers

We’re all familiar with ice breakers — a way to get your attendees talking and learning about one another. I have yet, though, to meet a person that loves the traditional form of ice breakers. You know the one:You go around the room, introduce yourself, your role, and your goals. Why not revamp the old-school ice breaker to make it more fun, and less stressful?

Here are some ideas:

1. Badge Breakers

Before your networking meeting, pull your event registration data. Create sub-groups based on interests. Say you have a group of people that enjoy reading. Or a subset of attendees that enjoy rock climbing.

Color-code the badges with ribbons to denote which subgroup the attendees belong to. When attendees arrive, give them their badges. Once everyone is there and the meeting begins, explain the rules: pair up with like-colored badges and try to determine what you all have in common (besides being a part of your organization).

This activity gets your groups working together and discussing what they enjoy, rather than putting members through the obligatory, nerve-racking, and many times boring, usual ice breaker activity.

2. Scavenger Hunt

Not the kind you’re used to where you’re looking for objects or landmarks. This scavenger hunt involves the people in the meeting room.

Give your members a list of members’ names in a column along the left side of a sheet of paper and a column of interests that they need to match up on the right side of the paper. Example: Find the person that loves baseball. Find the person that loves hiking.

This exercise gets everyone in the room moving and talking to one another. The person that gets all the matches first wins a small prize. The prize for the others? They learn a little something about every member through a quick, fun, interactive exercise.

3. Whiteboard/Chalkboard Display

Have a white board or chalkboard in your meeting room? Use it! Get attendees to write down their name and a goal, or their name and their most favorite food, pastime activity, color, whatever. Members can gather around the display and talk about each other’s interests.

Don’t have a chalkboard or whiteboard? Bring an iPad or tablet and pass it around the room. Have people gather to review everyone’s answers. Your attendees are bound to connect on mutual interests and share stories with one another, which fosters communication and connection and can certainly facilitate member engagement and a sense of belonging.

123… Takeaway!

1. When is your next networking event? A month from now? Next week? Even if you’re short on time, you can easily add one of the ice breaker twists to your agenda. Pick one and do it!

2. Include a question about your new activity in your post-event survey or ask the open-ended question what attendees liked best about your event. There’s a good chance they’ll remember your fun new twist on ice breakers.

Have your own fun twist on ice breakers? Share it below.

Kristen Campbell is the Brand Manager at 123Signup. She is responsible for developing, implementing, and managing all marketing initiatives and programs for 123Signup.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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How to Create a Positive Survey Experience

How to Create a Positive Survey Experience

The response rate for web surveys is 8 to 12%. Why so low? One of the biggest reasons is poor design and execution.

So how do you increase participation?

  1. Pre-notify your members. Get in touch with them in advance to tell them why you’re conducting the research, and how you’re going to use it – whether it’s part of a strategic planning exercise, or you’re trying to improve the value you give them. Tell them who it’s going to be coming from, when it will launch, and how long they will have to complete it.
  1. Be honest about the survey length. Don’t say it’s going to be brief if it’s actually going to take 20-30 minutes to complete. Give them the ability to save and continue at a later date. It will help your participation rate in the long run.
  2. Be disciplined about the number of surveys you send out. It’s too easy to send surveys out on a whim. Think about who you’re sending to, and set up a limit on how many surveys your members receive on an annual or quarterly basis. Make your surveys targeted. If you’re interested in surveying millennials, don’t send it to your older members. Being more diligent about your prep will reduce the chances of your members experiencing survey fatigue.

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Serve Your Event Survey in Bite-Sized Pieces

Serve Your Event Survey in Bite-Sized Pieces
Post-event surveys are a must if you want to continue to grow attendance in future events. They can be simple and once you have a general template, you can adapt and reuse them to save time. Plus, if you’re using a good online event registration software, you probably have a built-in event survey feature that will enable you to quickly create and distribute it to participants.

The trick to getting good response rates is to keep your event survey short and accessible – and to make it obvious up front that participating will only take a few minutes.

If you want to collect more information than you can get from 10 questions or so, think about gathering feedback from attendees in chunks throughout the event, rather than through one long survey at the end. There are some natural times during your event when it makes sense to ask your participants what they think …

At the Time of Registration

Get some quick feedback at the time of registration just by adding a couple of questions at the end of your form, or including a link to a short survey in the registration confirmation that your participants receive. Include questions like:

While Your Event Is Happening

Take advantage of technology, and use a real-time mobile polling app like Zwoor or QuickTap to collect feedback from your attendees throughout your event. Not only will it give you a true picture of what they’re thinking right then and there, but it will also keep them engaged and remind them that you value their opinion. Here are a few ideas of what to ask while your event is actually taking place…

After Each Workshop, Session, or Activity (for Conferences and Conventions)

On the Last Day of the Event

If You Don’t Use Mobile Polling at Your Event

Be sure to put an event survey out as soon as you can after your event. By incorporating mini-surveys while the event is fresh in the minds of your participants, you’ll increase your response rate and get a more accurate picture of their opinions.

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Who’s Responsible for Strategy Development?

Who’s Responsible for Strategy Development?
Who’s responsible for strategy development? Is it the Board, the CEO, or the Receptionist?

The best strategy in the world isn’t a good strategy unless it can be communicated and executed. Although the CEO is responsible for leading the strategy development process, and the Board has ultimate fiduciary responsibility for determining strategic direction, an organization is missing an opportunity if it doesn’t engage the entire staff in the development of strategy.

Engaging the receptionist in the process is laying the seeds for strategic communication and strategy execution. But, this involvement does so much more by:

The bigger takeaway here is that when developing strategies, whether they are organizational strategies, issues management strategies or problem-solving strategies, significant strategic thought must be given to who we should have “on the bus” and at what stop they board.

Who do you engage in strategy development and what criteria do you use for selecting the strategy development team?

About the Author

Robert Nelson, a Certified Association Executive (CAE), brings over a quarter-century of successful executive leadership experience, working with Boards and high-powered CEOs in a not-for-profit setting. He is the founder of Nelson Strategic Consulting and brings hands-on experience guiding and facilitating the design of strategy development processes and think tanks. His focus on organizational strategies and strategic solutions to complex organizational and global grand challenges for national as well as international organizations.

Contact Robert through his website, or learn more about Nelson Strategic Consulting at www.nscstrategies.com.

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Speaker Coaching: The Key to Unlocking Top-Rated Conference Sessions

Speaker Coaching: The Key to Unlocking Top-Rated Conference Sessions

This week’s blog post on speaker coaching is re-posted with permission from Aaron D. Wolowiec,  founder and president of Event Garde, a professional development consulting firm based in Grand Rapids, Mich. Website: www.eventgarde.com.

When’s the last time your organization’s education committee was asked to identify the three to five greatest challenges currently inhibiting its industry speakers from reaching their fullest potential during the annual conference? I recently did this for a client and following were the responses that bubbled to the surface:

Do these sound familiar? What would comprise your organization’s “watch list”? Based upon these areas of focus, we then developed a one-page resource and shared it with all selected speakers, requesting they use this document in designing their conference presentation experiences. Specifically, we:

But this is just the first step.

Next year we intend to offer a training webinar (or a series of shorter training webinars) that helps illuminate these and other strategies and provide individualized coaching that allows for more robust reflection, planning, practice, and feedback.

Additional ideas for investing in conference speakers might include one or more of the following:

Growth in the delivery of conference presentations is an iterative process. Mastery does not occur overnight. Rather, repeat industry speakers should be provided ongoing learning guidance, opportunities to practice new knowledge and skills, meaningful feedback from seasoned colleagues and staff and job aids that enhance retention and transfer.

What strategies have you found most successful in mentoring your industry speakers in the design and delivery of top-rated conference sessions?

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Selecting and Coaching Speakers to Deliver Quality Digital Presentations

Selecting and Coaching Speakers to Deliver Quality Digital Presentations
This week’s blog post on association marketing is re-posted with permission from Aaron D. Wolowiec, founder and president of Event Garde, a professional development consulting firm based in Grand Rapids, Mich. Website: www.eventgarde.com.

In a traditional call for presentations, a general invitation is released to an organization’s key constituents to submit topic ideas for a program. This call provides detailed instructions for submission of papers for assessment and selection by a review committee. Ultimately, constituent submissions are returned to the committee for review, scoring, and selection.

In a content curation process, a committee comprised of a cross-section of the organization’s key constituents first identifies the topics of greatest interest or concern to the industry. In some instances, this committee may rely on a content outline such as the one created for the Certified Association Executive (CAE) exam.

If no outline is available, the committee will consider current trends, future trends (five to 10 years or more into the future) and other hot topics likely keeping the industry up at night. Once content is reviewed, ranked and confirmed, the result is a makeshift content outline the committee can use to disseminate speaker asks.

Ultimately, staff inherent speakers from one of these two methods. Via the call for presentations approach, speakers self-represent their content expertise and speaking prowess and are selected accordingly. Via the content curation approach, speaker asks may be more deliberate (e.g., based on credentials or demonstrated know-how); however, they are limited by the committee’s network.

Regardless of the method used, there really is no guarantee speakers will be successful. Your candidate may be an experienced and skilled face-to-face presenter, a 30-year industry veteran and a world-renowned practitioner, but still may not be ready to present utilizing a digital platform.

Before selecting a speaker for your next digital presentation, consider that individual’s digital presentation experience. Additionally, request evaluation data. Where possible, it’s best if the speaker has previously presented (successfully) using the same digital platform you intend to use. Remember, not all digital platforms are created equal.

And regardless of experience, speakers should be open to furthering their presentation skills. Following are 11 challenges and possible solutions you may use when coaching speakers in delivering quality digital presentations. Of course, practice is still the best strategy for mentoring speakers who have no previous digital presentation experience.

Challenge: Attendees seem disconnected from the speaker/learning experience.
Solution: Utilize a webcam to deliver the presentation; care should be taken to look directly into the camera throughout the program.

Challenge: With no facial expressions/body language to draw from, the speaker is uncertain attendees are “getting” the content.
Solution: Consider pausing the presentation periodically to ask an assessment question via the digital platform’s poll function.

Challenge: When joining remotely, participants are constantly distracted by email and other visual cues.
Solution: Set ground rules for participants early in the program and ask attendees to follow along in a pre-printed participant guide where they can complete assignments and take notes.

Challenge: Reflection activities cause a lot of dead space/air time during the program.
Solution: Convert the reflection activity into a pre- or post-program assignment.

Challenge: Practice activities facilitated during face-to-face programs don’t seem to translate into a digital environment.
Solution: Encourage multiple registrants from the same office or gather attendees at centralized locations to participate in the program together; arm them with a supplies list, directions and plenty of activity time.

Challenge: Four or more hours of content may be required to teach a particular skill.
Solution: Segment and sequence content into smaller modules. No more than 60 minutes is suggested, though even shorter is preferred.

Challenge: Learners want to share their experiences, but this is difficult to facilitate when all of the lines are muted for optimal sound quality.
Solution: Allow attendees to demonstrate their interest in speaking and then open up only their phone lines. Alternatively, gather attendee stories in advance of the program and have the moderator read them aloud.

Challenge: Participants are easily bored by digital presentations.
Solution: Incorporate different instructional strategies into the program beyond lecture (e.g., video, poll, chat).

Challenge: The chat function is difficult to moderate so it often goes unused/is turned off.
Solution: Participants crave interaction with their peers. They also learn a lot from these conversations. Utilize a separate chat moderator who can prompt discussion with attendees, respond to questions and pose trending questions to the speaker.

Challenge: The digital platform makes it difficult for the speaker to provide personalized attendee feedback.
Solution: Allow participants the opportunity within 30 days to follow-up with the speaker directly (e.g., ask a question, gain clarification).

Challenge: It’s challenging to ensure retention and job transfer post-program.
Solution: Encourage action planning to focus learner ideas and next steps; create a job aid to guide future performance; or schedule post-session touch points (e.g., 30, 60 and 90 days).

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Organizational Assessments For Associations: A Step-By-Step Guide

Organizational Assessments For Associations: A Step-By-Step Guide
Assessing your organization’s strengths and weaknesses along with the barriers to achieving your goals is an essential – yet often overlooked – step on the path to growing your membership. Be warned: you won’t like everything you see. That’s a good thing because it will help you identify where you need to improve.

First, start off by asking yourself questions like:

Resist the urge to jump to conclusions based on what you think you know about your association. Making assumptions can create disconnect between what you believe is valuable to members, and what actually is valuable.

Understanding how well your association is meeting the needs of its members and fulfilling its mission requires time, research, objectivity, and long-term commitment.


Assessing Your Organization: How to Perform a Thorough Evaluation of Your Business

 

1. Write out your mission statement.

This will remind you of your organization’s core purpose. Later, you will compare how your mission statement aligns with the benefits and programs you offer, and your members’ needs.

2. Make a list of all of your current services, programs, and benefits.

Rank the most valuable benefit as “#1” and continue from there. What is the unique selling point for each of them? What sets your organization apart from your competitors? Note the answers to these questions next to each benefit.

3. Audit your information management processes.

All the things that happen behind the scenes can have a huge impact on your customer service and overall performance.

For a week or two, every time you feel yourself getting frustrated by a time-consuming task or you’re having a hard time accessing needed information, write it down. Get all of your staff members to do the same. When you put all of the information together, you should be able to see some obvious aspects of your processes that need improvement.  Issues with finding information about your members quickly, or needing to update the same information in several different places could mean you may need to improve your membership management process.

4. Crunch your numbers.

Good data should be the foundation of your decision-making process. If you have decent member management software, you should be able to get the information you need fairly quickly. If not, you may need to estimate for the time being.

5. Analyze your Membership Stats.

Compare your membership statistics from the past two years. You could go back even further if you have access to significant historical information. Looking at trends over time can be very useful. For starters, record the following data segmented by membership type:

6. Research your competitors.

Go through this process as a prospective member would. Search online for other competing organizations as well as employers or companies that offer similar products or services for free or at a lower cost. Compare benefits individually and also consider how your packages stack up to your competitors.

TIP: Track and compare benefits and costs on a spreadsheet. Determine your 3 to 5 most valuable and unique products. If you discover that some of your products don’t seem as valuable as those offered by your competitors, make a note of how you can improve or enhance those products.

7. Define your business objectives.

Once you have a better understanding of your strengths and weaknesses and how you stack up to your competitors, you can define your goals and objectives. Are you looking to expand your market share? Expand into new markets? Increase your revenue? Increase participation and engagement?

Your objectives will ultimately guide the way you shape your membership structure, pricing, and marketing efforts. For this reason, carefully assessing your organization with your business objectives in mind is undoubtedly worth taking the time to do.

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Growing Membership by Working Smarter, Not Harder

Growing Membership by Working Smarter, Not Harder

Think about the old 80/20 rule – you get 80% of your results from 20% of your effort. As an association with limited resources, you can’t be all things to all people. So it makes sense to be strategic about where you’re investing your time, energy, and resources when working on growing membership.

If you survey your members and conduct ongoing research, you should be able to segment them by their perceived value of your organization, and then by how much they are investing on an annual basis. You’ll want to group them by:

Members who have low perceived value of their membership, but are making large investments in your organization.

This can be the attrition danger zone, and there are countless reasons why these members don’t value what you are offering. Unless you want to risk losing them, you’ll need to figure out where your organization is falling short and take action quickly.

Members who have high perceived value and are making large investments.

Look at your membership survey responses to identify the benefits that are most used by this group and determine if there are any shortcomings or areas of improvement that could enhance the benefits that matter most to them. The name of the game is keeping this group engaged. Making small changes and additions – and then communicating the improvements you’ve made – can go a long way to keeping these members engaged.

Members who have high perceived value, but are making small investments.

The key for this group is to identify value-ads that could generate additional revenue streams. These kinds of members have staying power, but you’ll want to be careful not to neglect them. As you have the resources available, adding and bundling products that appeal to lower-level members can help you retain, and even upgrade these members.

Members who have low perceived value, and are making small investments.

If this is a small group in comparison to your overall membership, you can focus on these members last. They may fall off eventually, but if that happens, you stand to lose a lot less from this group than you do from your higher income generators. If this category comprises a large portion of your membership, this could signal a big problem in your membership strategies.

If you’ve come to the conclusion that certain members just aren’t a match, that’s not necessarily a negative thingIt’s better to focus on keeping and attracting the right kind of members than to stretch your resources too thin in an effort to cater to everyone.

Now that you’ve classified your members into these groups, it’s time to dive a little deeper into figuring out what makes them tick and identifying the kinds of members that will help you build your organization.

Stay tuned for our next post on creating member profiles to determine your “perfect” members.

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The Power of Offering and Tracking CEUs

The Power of Offering and Tracking CEUs

For associations, continuing education has become increasingly important as a membership benefit. In a recent study from Pew Research Center, 73% of respondents identified themselves as lifelong learners.

That means that there’s a huge and growing opportunity for your association to engage with both members and non-members.

Most people are constantly looking to learn, but with the plethora of learning opportunities that exist out there, how do they choose what training they’ll undertake? Earning continuing education units (CEUs) is a big incentive. Tracking CEUs for your members is an important function of your association – and has come to be an expected benefit for members. (123Signup Association Management Software makes tracking CEUs a piece of cake).

If your membership growth is stunted and you’re having difficulty retaining the members you already have, revamping your continuing education programs and offering more courses that count for CEUs can do wonders to revitalize your organization.

Evaluating your existing programs and determining what needs to be changed, and what additional courses would add value for your members, requires research and thought. The best place to start is by asking your existing members what they think about your existing courses, where they feel they need to up-skill, and what knowledge and capabilities they feel they need to do their jobs better.

If you’re not already, you should be surveying every participant in every one of your courses. Start by looking back on the responses you’ve received regarding these courses in recent years.

You should also have a record of people who have attended any of your training programs in the past. Since they’ve already shown interest in continuing to learn, surveying just that segment of your membership is a great place to start.

Once you’ve gained some insights on what your members are looking for, you might even host a small focus group to brainstorm on potential future training topics and structures.

The next step? Create an action plan on how you will bring your ideas to fruition, and the people and resources that will be required.

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Assessing a Governance System

Assessing a Governance System
Before you begin to redesign your governance system, invest adequate time in analyzing your current system. After all, this is what Einstein would do!

Einstein has been quoted as having said “if I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes. In other words, he would spend significant time figuring out what the problem is.

If your current governance system isn’t performing up to par, it’s important to understand why not. Depending on what the “real” problems are, the solutions may lie in making actual structural changes (reformulating the committee structure or size of board, for example) or they may lie in changing the practices the board engages in (agenda design or meeting design, for example). Investing the time to adequately define and redefine the problem will:

Although a problem might be complex, the processes used to solve a problem are not complex. The first step is properly defining the problem and this begins with challenging assumptions and breaking the problem down to ensure you are focused on the root problem.

ROOT PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

Determining the root cause(s) of an underperforming or ill performing governance system is one of the first steps in governance system redesign. Often what is first identified is a symptom of the problem, not the root cause. As such, it is important to challenge one’s assumptions and not get “locked” into the first “problem” that is identified.

When analyzing a governance system, two methodologies are useful: Ishikawa Diagram and Toyoda’s 5 Whys.

Ishikawa Diagram

An Ishikawa Diagram takes a systems approach to problem identification. The diagram is used to identify all possible root cause categories, under which actual root causes are listed. This approach forces one to consider all of the different parts of the governance system as one analyzes the problem.

An Ishikawa Diagram looks like a fish skeleton, with the initial problem being the head and possible root cause categories represented by the rib bones, under which root causes are listed. The illustration below uses lack an underperforming board as the initial problem, and then identifies six possible root cause categories, which become the rib bones of the diagram. Actual potential root causes are then listed along each rib bone. A more comprehensive list of root categories for governance system analysis is provided further below.

Five Step Process

Governance Ishidawa Diagram

GOVERNANCE SYSTEM ROOT CAUSE CATEGORIES

As mentioned above, the Ishikawa process starts with brainstorming all of the potential root cause categories. These are comprised of all of the parts of the “system.” Following is a list of root cause categories for governance issues. All or some of these may apply to your organization. You can use this list as a starting place to identify additional root cause categories that are applicable in your situation as you build out your Ishikawa Diagram.

Toyoda’s 5 Whys

Toyoda’s 5 Whys is a very simple method to identify root causes. It can be used alone or in conjunction with the fishbone technique illustrated above. When a problem arises, ask why and for each response to the question ask why again until the why question has been asked at least five times.

Applying the 5 whys methodology to our problem of having a board that is a non-strategic thinking entity, the questions might look like this:

Q: Why doesn’t the Board think Strategically?

A: Because the are always digging into short-term tactics

Q: Why are they always discussing short-term tactics?

A: Because these issues are perceived to be important by the Board

Q: Why are these issues important to the Board?

A: Because they believe it is the role and responsibility of the Board to discuss and act on these issues

Q: Why does the Board believe this is their role and responsibility?

A: Because they don’t know another way

Q: Why doesn’t the Board know another way?

A: Because we don’t have a governance / Board development program

Using this example, we see the real problem is not that the Board isn’t thinking strategically, it is that we don’t have a formalized training / development program for our Board members. Of course, each group (or reader) will answer these questions differently; the point is to engage in the process to dig deeper into the actual root problem.

WHY AN INVESTMENT IN PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION MATTERS

Spending time to make sure that you have defined the problem(s) correctly is imperative to governance system redesign. On a very basic level, it ensures that you are focusing on the right problem and creates a high level of probability that the right solution(s) will be developed. Further, working on the problem identification process with a Governance Task Force builds consensus around the actual (root) problem(s). Finally, engaging in robust problem identification reveals information and knowledge that will inform the development of solutions and governance redesign.

Of course, it is also critical that you and your board have a thorough understanding of what good governance looks like as well as the appropriate roles and responsibilities of a high performing board. Likewise, it is helpful to create a vision of what a high performing board would look like for your organization so you can redesign toward that vision.

About the Author

Robert Nelson, a Certified Association Executive (CAE), brings over a quarter-century of successful executive leadership experience, working with Boards and high-powered CEOs in a not-for-profit setting. He is the founder of Nelson Strategic Consulting and brings hands-on experience guiding and facilitating the design of strategy development processes and think tanks. His focus on organizational strategies and strategic solutions to complex organizational and global grand challenges for national as well as international organizations.

Contact Robert through his website, or learn more about Nelson Strategic Consulting at www.nscstrategies.com.

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Keep The Spark Going! Using Auto Renewals to Enhance Member Retention

Keep The Spark Going! Using Auto Renewals to Enhance Member Retention
Contributed by Mary Byers, CAE

What do health clubs, iTunes, Dropbox, Xbox and Netflix have in common? All require members to participate in monthly billing or auto renewal programs. And all are benefiting as a result.

Author and association consultant Seth Kahan recently hosted a summit on “Private Sector Membership Models,” a growing trend in the corporate world. He notes that for-profit companies embrace the membership model for renewable relationships and income potential, also of interest to associations. Says Kahan, “It’s hard for me to imagine there would be any resistance to auto renewal because its sounds like it makes things easier for everybody.” Indeed it does.

Here’s why your association should offer auto renewals:

Member Convenience. Auto renewals allow members to enjoy uninterrupted service and avoid the hassle of manually cutting a check or entering credit card information online. Members receive a notice in advance of renewal so account information can be updated if necessary, and they can opt-out if they choose to not renew. Otherwise, no action is needed.

Automation. Think of the flurry of activity in the membership department around dues renewal time. Then think about how this same energy could be put to better use enhancing products, services and the overall member experience instead of processing renewals. Programmed renewals allow for automation of much (if not all) of the process.

Predictable Revenue Stream. Many associations enjoy an influx of dues around the beginning of the calendar year—only to be staring at nearly-empty coffers toward the end of it. Automatic billing for dues on the member join date, rather than on a calendar year, creates a smooth revenue stream throughout the year (and is a practice worth considering even if you don’t use automatic renewal). Or, consider monthly or quarterly billing to further even out revenue.

No Decision Points. Sending a dues statement once a year provides an annual decision point for members and invites scrutiny: “Did I get my money’s worth this year?” “What am I getting for my dues dollar?”

Robbie Baxter, author of the forthcoming book, The Membership Economy, notes, “Because payment and benefits are ongoing, there is no obvious moment when the member must re-evaluate options, and potentially choose to end the relationship.”

Companies such as health clubs, iTunes, Dropbox, Xbox and Netflix don’t provide annual decision points. You want to be a member? Provide your debit or credit card number and you’re a member until you cancel. It’s a simple concept that could result in higher retention rates and millions of dollars for your organization.

About Mary Byers

Author. Speaker. Facilitator. Consultant. Provocateur. All describe Mary Byers, CAE.

Through highly interactive programs, Mary uses compelling questions and thought-provoking techniques to encourage participation. Mary helps associations and other organizations remain competitive in an increasingly competitive environment. The author of Race for Relevance: 5 Radical Changes for Associations and Road to Relevance: 5 Strategies for Competitive Associations, she’s worked with a wide variety of associations (both individual membership and trade groups) and presents a compelling and insightful message designed to help volunteer leaders and staff alike create a viable and sustainable future. Visit www.marybyers.com to learn more.

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11 Ideas for Partnering with Local Venues

11 Ideas for Partnering with Local Venues

This week’s blog is re-posted with permission from Aaron D. Wolowiec, MSA, CAE, CMP, CTA. Aaron is the founder and president of Event Garde, a professional development consulting firm based in Grand Rapids, Mich. Website: www.eventgarde.com.

When’s the last time this happened to you? There’s a highly recommended, world-class speaker you’d like to feature at an upcoming program.

She’s perfect for your event in every way, except for the associated price tag. After much negotiation, you’re able to secure the “friends and family” discount; however, it’s still more than you’ve budgeted.

If your meeting comprises a qualified audience of planners or other decision-makers, you might consider an in-kind sponsorship with a local hotel or conference center. Following are 11 ideas for partnering with local venues:

What other ideas do you have for successful partnerships between venues and associations?

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Best Association Management Practice #1: Dream

Best Association Management Practice #1: Dream

There are a lot of association management practices and general management theories focused on advancing organizations, but, when it comes down to it, if you want to propel your organization to the next level: dare to dream. This thought was crystalized for me when, going around the room at the end of a board leadership development session I conducted, a board member said the most important thing he heard all day was “dare to dream.” Dream not about what is, but about what’s possible.

In order to dream effectively, one must be willing to challenge their own assumptions, be open to letting go of long held beliefs and practices, and have the courage to challenge the status quo. Of course, to ultimately lead change, one must also be willing to challenge the assumptions of others, in an appropriate manner, and embrace calculated risk taking.

Give yourself permission to dream about the possible. Let go of your fear and imagine what could be. Once you have formulated your vision, develop a strategy to get there and articulate the vision and strategy with clarity. In the end, it is not just about daring to dream, it is about daring to do things differently.

For even bigger dreams, create a board culture wherein the board as a whole dares to dream. Engaging your board in generative dialogue will add value to the organization and the board member’s experience, as well as build trust and free members to collectively create a dream that no one member may have envisioned alone.

BELIEVE AND SO SHALL IT BE

Dreams do come true. This is especially true if you believe in them. It’s time to dream of what could be if your organization is at a transformational moment. It is also time to dream if everything is running smoothly and you’re experiencing a high level of comfort with what is. Remember, comfort with what is can be the enemy and often holds us back from achieving what could be.

So, if you want to add member value, create relevancy, transform your governance system, create growth, or strengthen the CEO – Board partnership, dream about what could be and then dare to do things differently.

About the Author

Robert Nelson, a Certified Association Executive (CAE), brings over a quarter-century of successful executive leadership experience, working with Boards and high-powered CEOs in a not-for-profit setting. He is the founder of Nelson Strategic Consulting and brings hands-on experience guiding and facilitating the design of strategy development processes and think tanks. His focus on organizational strategies and strategic solutions to complex organizational and global grand challenges for national as well as international organizations.

Contact Robert through his website, or learn more about Nelson Strategic Consulting at www.nscstrategies.com.

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Does Your Board Dialogue?

Does Your Board Dialogue?
In today’s fast-paced world, does your board still take the time to dialogue? Yes, we engage in discussions and deliberate issues, but we rarely slow down and actual dialogue. Engaging in dialogue at board meetings can add value to an organization through the creation of new ideas, the formation of shared meaning, and the free flow of diverse perspective. Also, a practice of dialogue can contribute to strengthening trust and relationships between board members.

Dialogue is the free flow of meaning between members of a board. The goal isn’t to sell a point, idea or position; instead, it is to explore with honest curiosity and understand the meaning of what people are saying. It is exploring ideas with no endpoint in mind other than to understand. Dialogue concerns itself with truly understanding, in a non-judgmental way, what is being said. It doesn’t concern itself with what is right or wrong, or truth. In fact, it recognizes that what is said is not the whole truth, but simply part of a larger truth.

William Isaacs (1993) defines dialogue, “…as a sustained, collective inquiry, into the processes, assumptions, and certainties that compose everyday experience. Yet the experience is of a special kind–the experience of the meaning embodied in a community of people.” Dialogue is a divergent conversation where the participants suspend judgment, listen rather than react, and identify assumptions upon which they reflect for the purpose of gaining an understanding of the meaning of what is being said.

Dialogue is iterative in the sense that when something is spoken it is listened to and built on by someone else. Unlike a discussion, dialogue doesn’t seek to break down and examine the parts of what is communicated but rather seeks to understand and build upon what has been said. As those dialoguing seek to digest what others are saying and the meaning behind it and contribute to the dialogue, new thoughts and ideas surface. Shared meaning is developed as the dialogue freely floats among board members; it is a collaborative conversation where all involved come to understand the assumptions of others and recognize their own assumptions.

If your board members aren’t accustomed to engaging in dialogue, as described above, it is important that you clearly signal the beginning and end of a dialogue session. It is also imperative that the following fundamentals are reviewed with the board members at the beginning of the dialogue session.

SIX FUNDAMENTALS OF DIALOGUE:

  1. Sensitivity: Dialogue requires sensitivity on the part of the participants. They need to be sensitive to the process, to the way they respond and to the way others respond. It is important to recognize that one’s opinions and own assumptions can sometimes block the needed sensitivity. However, simply recognizing this possibility often enables the required sensitivity.
  1. Curiosity: A bona fide curious state of mind is required. Participants must internalize the curiosity and come to believe that their curiosity is driving them to explore ideas and seek an understanding of the meaning of what others contribute to the conversation.
  1. Listening: Listening without prejudice may be the most critical fundamental of all. It is imperative that participants listen to what is being said and reflect on it while trying to gain an understanding of the meaning behind what has been said. It is a matter of listening and reflecting as opposed to simply reacting. Listening, of course, won’t prevent misperceptions. In fact, it is ok if one misperceives the intent of another participant, as this allows for new meaning to being created in common on the spot. This, in part, is the flow of meaning that occurs in dialogue.
  1. Judgment Suspension: We have a tendency to judge what is said, based on our underlying assumptions or opinions. The objective is to recognize and acknowledge the judgments and then let the judgments go without acting on them. It isn’t about suppressing the judgments; it is about acknowledging that they exist and moving on in a non-judgmental manner. It is important to acknowledge and suspend one’s own judgments as well as the judgments of others.
  1. Commitment to not Defend: Dialogue is successful when no participants attempt to defend their point of view. It is important that people enter into dialogue with an open mind, recognizing that no point of view is right or wrong, including their own. It is important to internalize the fact that all viewpoints are part of a larger truth. As such, participants must understand that no attempt should be made to have their viewpoints prevail and be willing to let go of their ideas in search of a greater truth. In short, a dialogue is not a win-lose situation and there is no need to influence each other.

If you are interested in inserting dialogue into your next board meeting, there are two ways that you could approach it. Both require that you inform your board that you are going to engage in dialogue for a period of time and that the purpose is to dialogue, not deliberate or decide. Both options require a review of the fundamentals.

First, prior to the meeting you could identify a “big” strategic issue that confronts your organization. In this scenario, the objective would be to simply explore the issue. The advantage to this approach is that no decisions regarding the issue would be taken at the meeting. If interested in this approach, you might want to read about and engage in the generative mode of governance.

A second approach would be to identify an item on the agenda that requires action at the meeting. When taking this approach, you would engage in dialogue around the options that are being presented at the meeting. Of course, it is important that you clearly delineate between the dialogue period and the subsequent deliberation period.

As a result of the dialogue void that exists in the lives of most, your board members may be uncomfortable when they first engage in the practice of dialogue. However, this will dissipate over time. When introducing the concept, you may find it helpful to discuss how dialogue can raise your governance performance to the next level.

Keep in mind that what is important is to engage in relaxed dialogue with a curiosity to understand the meaning of what is said and the assumptions that are behind the meaning. Doing so and seeing things as clearly as possible without judgment will produce shared meaning, create new ideas, and strengthen board relationships, as a result of understanding and accepting the assumptions of others as part of a larger truth.

About the Author

Robert Nelson, a Certified Association Executive (CAE), brings over a quarter-century of successful executive leadership experience, working with Boards and high-powered CEOs in a not-for-profit setting. He is the founder of Nelson Strategic Consulting and brings hands-on experience guiding and facilitating the design of strategy development processes and think tanks. His focus on organizational strategies and strategic solutions to complex organizational and global grand challenges for national as well as international organizations.

Contact Robert through his website, or learn more about Nelson Strategic Consulting at www.nscstrategies.com.

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11 Tactics to Alleviate Board Micromanagement

11 Tactics to Alleviate Board Micromanagement
Do you struggle to get things done with a board that’s constantly looking over your shoulder? Your board might not be to blame. Robert Nelson at NSC Consulting tells us about the other side of the coin in this week’s post …

CEOs are not always innocent when it comes to boards engaging in micromanagement. In fact, CEOs are sometimes culpable in creating and sustaining such behavior and are most often in a position to refocus boards on true board level work and what really matters. If you are tired of your board’s micro management and you want create change, you must be willing to make undertaking such change a priority and be intentional about doing so.

In some cases, a dramatic change in culture is required. In other cases, it’s more a matter of changing the behavior of some individual board members. Of course, the first step is to determine why your board micro manages. In other words, the first step is defining the root problem(s) / cause(s). Once you have done this you can craft a strategy and a plan to transition your board’s culture or change the behavior of a few. Toyoda’s 5 Whys and an Ishikawa Diagram are two methods you can use to determine root causes.

As you consider root causes, also ask yourself: What am I doing, or not doing, that may be contributing to Board micro management? Be brutally honest in answering this question.

The next step it to create your change strategy. This begins with creating a vision of the future state you are seeking and identifying the barriers that will impede that change. Likewise, you will want to identify factors (driving forces) in the current environment that can be exploited to facilitate moving toward the future state. Craft your strategy in a manner that strengthens the driving forces and weakens the barriers.

Although your strategy and associated tactics will be dependent on the root causes you uncover, following are eleven tactics that are often engaged to diminish or eradicate board micro management:

If you have a board that micromanages and you are contemplating setting out on a journey to change your board’s culture or behavior, the road will be easier if you’ve cultivated a strong partnership with the Board chair. Likewise, it is always helpful to have 5 – 10 percent of your board on board as champions for change.

About the Author

Robert Nelson, a Certified Association Executive (CAE), brings over a quarter-century of successful executive leadership experience, working with Boards and high-powered CEOs in a not-for-profit setting. He is the founder of Nelson Strategic Consulting and brings hands-on experience guiding and facilitating the design of strategy development processes and think tanks. His focus on organizational strategies and strategic solutions to complex organizational and global grand challenges for national as well as international organizations.

Contact Robert through his website, or learn more about Nelson Strategic Consulting at www.nscstrategies.com.

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How Well Are You Managing Your Online Community?

How Well Are You Managing Your Online Community?

There’s a difference between “setting up” and “building” an online community – and the latter requires much more time, ongoing effort, and resources.

Private online communities have grown in popularity in the association world, and they can be a great tool for building engagement and connecting members.  But many resource-constrained membership organizations set them up only to find that it’s a lot harder to manage a community than they thought it would be.

A thriving online community requires a lot of time and attention. So before you launch, be sure you have the ingredients you need to make it successful!

A Purpose

What do you want to achieve? Most communities focus on information sharing, connecting members, staying in touch with members, and giving members a place where they can get answers to questions. Online communities thrive on content, but before you can determine what kind of content you want to distribute, you need to have some specific goals in mind.

A Strategy

It takes time to build a thriving community, so you need to think long term, rather than posting content on an ad hoc basis. Your strategy follows your purpose. Based on your goals, get something down on paper that provides some detail on what kind of content you’ll post, how often, how you’ll manage your community, and who will be responsible for managing it.

Exclusivity

With so much competition for your members’ attention on the web, you need to be sure you’re giving them relevant, timely information they can’t get anywhere else. Maybe it’s researching findings from studies you’ve conducted, quick tips from reputable experts within your organization, or videos that will teach your members something valuable.

Community Managers

Ideally, you’ll want to dedicate more than one person to creating and posting content, monitoring forums, and responding to questions. Choose people who know the industry really well, even if it means using a reliable volunteer. You want people who are up to speed on the latest industry trends so they can generate some discussion.

Content

Think varied and personal. Your content should touch upon the issues and challenges your members to encounter on a day-to-day basis so that they are compelled to read it, watch it, or listen to it. Use a mix of mediums, including written content, videos, and photos to keep things interesting for your members.

Contributors

Don’t do it alone. The most successful communities draw on the expertise of many contributors. This might mean including content from partner organizations, sponsors, board and staff members, and even enlisting some of your members to volunteer as contributors.

Patience

Your online community won’t grow overnight. Keep at it, monitor your progress, and re-assess your strategy from time to time. Be flexible – if something’s not working, acknowledge it and change your approach.

Put all these ingredients together, and over time your fledgling community will grow into a thriving, regularly visited hub for your members and prospective members.

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Association Management Software: 3 Questions to Ask Before Buying

am-software

If you’re looking for association management software, you likely have specific features on your wish list that you can’t do without – and some “nice-to-haves”.  Of course, it’s important that the product you choose offers the feature set you need, but there are some intangibles that are often overlooked in the process of shopping for an AMS.

If you’re looking for an AMS that’s going to be with you for the long haul, be sure to ask these three questions when researching association management software solutions …

Can we customize it?

There’s no other organization exactly like yours and no one-size-fits-all solution. So it’s important to find a software product that can be customized to work with your membership structure.

You also want to think long term. While a product may seem like the right fit initially, it may not be so perfect once you integrate it with your business processes. You may also find that your needs shift and change over time. Software that isn’t flexible and customizable can force you to create inefficient workarounds – leading to wasted time and a frustrated staff. Going for customizable association management software reduces the risk of encountering unexpected issues down the track.

Does it offer flexible payment processing?

There’s that word again … flexible. You never know when things will change for your organization, so it’s useful to have options when it comes to processing payments. Look for association management software that gives you the choice of using your own payment processing provider (if you have one), opening a merchant account, or using a gateway like Paypal or Authorize.net.

Does it include human technical support?

Online help centers aren’t really helpful if you can’t find the topic you’re looking for. When a question arises, you want to be able to pick up the phone, talk to a human being, and get a response quickly.

Getting up and running with a new AMS can take time, so don’t underestimate the value of having access to a good support team that can guide you through the process and help you get the software working exactly the way you want it to.

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Why Perfectionism is a Big Time Waster

Why Perfectionism is a Big Time Waster

There’s a rule known as the Pareto Principle. It teaches us that 20% of our efforts produce 80% of our results. The additional 80% of our efforts will only yield an additional 20% of results. The first thrust of effort then is the most productive use of our time. The latter thrust is very costly.

For example, let’s say you allocate 2 hours (which we’ll represent as 20% of your time) to clean a room, a basement, or a garage. Let’s say that will you will be able to get it to be 80% clean. It won’t be perfect, but it will be acceptable and a job well done. However, to squeeze out an additional 20% of results, to make it “perfectly clean,” will require an additional 80% of your time, or 8 hours. The additional results are sixteen times more costly than the initial results from 20% of the effort, not to mention that while you’re trying to squeeze out those additional results, you are kept from doing a lot of other more productive things.

Looking for ways to boost your productivity? 123Signup will save you tons of time managing your events and members.

This rule has a lot of application to you as a time manager. Ever notice if you’re in sales how 20% of your customers give you 80% of your sales and the other 80% of your customers give you the remaining 20% of your business? Where then should you be spending 80% of your time? With the 20% of the customers who are giving you 80% of your business.

Ever notice how 20% of your relatives give your 80% of your headaches?

It may not always work with exact mathematical precision, but, typically, the small chunk of input yields the biggest chunk of output or results.

Most of us benefit from this rule intuitively. When you and I approach a task (clean a room, prepare a term paper, write up a project, etc.) we decide to put in a reasonable amount of time and effort to achieve a reasonable result. The result may not be perfect but it will be acceptable and this will release us to devote our time to tackling other endeavors.

We put in a reasonable amount of time and produce a pretty decent report. It may not be perfect, but putting in a whole lot more time to make it a little better is not cost-effective and therefore not worth the effort.

Those who suffer from the Curse of Perfectionism do not understand this principle. Their goal is always perfection, which, realistically, is unattainable. For example, you cannot clean a room perfectly. As you clean it, it’s getting dirty as the dust settles. Any written report can be polished and improved upon with more time and effort. Striving for perfection is then always stressful and frustrating.

Their overall productivity suffers as they spend an inordinate amount of time on a few things, trying to make them perfect, rather than a lesser amount of time on a lot of things that will multiply their results.

The curse is cured when they abandon the need to do their tasks perfectly when they understand that excellence in performance is attaining a degree of perfection, not absolute perfection. This does not compromise one’s standard of excellence in performance. It enhances excellent performance with increased results.

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5 Simple Tips for Attracting New Members

5 Simple Tips for Attracting New Members

Attracting new members is challenging in an increasingly competitive marketplace.  If marketing has been on the back burner for your organization until now, are a few simple things you can do to start stepping it up:

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3 Attendance-Boosting Online Event Registration Tools

3 Attendance-Boosting Online Event Registration Tools

There are some powerful online event registration software products out there, packed with fancy features and tools that let you do far more than just accept registrations on the web.

Whether you realize it or not, it’s likely that your software can do more to help you increase your signups. So the question is: are you taking advantage of all the tools that are available to you?

Here are three things you should be doing with your event management system:

1) Tracking Abandoned Registrations

This is a big one because if you can track people who have started registering but haven’t finished, you have a great start to closing those extra registrations. People who take the time to click on the link and start the process have shown interest, so they’ll likely be your easiest targets.

Many systems will let you download a report that tells you who left your site without completing the process. Send those people a personal email reminding them that they haven’t yet completed their registration, and you’ll likely convert at least some of them to attendees.

2) Tracking Where Registrations Are Coming From

You likely promote your event through many different channels – partner websites, social media, and in advertisements. It’s important to understand where your registrants are hearing about your event so you can direct your marketing time and resources to the most productive channels.

How do you know where people are hearing about your event? A simple way is to “tag” your registration links. This simply means adding a unique label to the end of the link for each of your referring channels. It takes no time at all, and many online registration systems will allow you to download a report that shows you exactly where each registrant was referred from.

3) Using Promo Codes

The right promotion targeted to the right group of people can do amazing things for your registration numbers. The classic promotion for events is early bird registration, but there are so many other ways to discount tickets. You can set up promo codes to offer special rates to certain membership types, run a refer-a-friend promotion, or offer special pricing in advertisements.

If you aren’t already using discount promo codes, it can’t hurt to try them out. It’s easy to set them up if your system has the functionality in place, and the results might surprise you.

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Data Rules, Assumptions Drool: Keeping Your Email Marketing Relevant

Data Rules, Assumptions Drool: Keeping Your Email Marketing Relevant
Contributed by Mary Byers, CAE

Email marketing has long been the mainstay of an association’s marketing plan, but is it still effective? The popularity of smartphones and tablets has made email readily accessible but has also created some challenges. To be most effective you’ll need to do a little research to determine how and when your members read their email, and what type of content is most likely to engage them.

Lori Ely, Marketing Manager at Informz, Inc. says, “Behavior is huge and understanding what your individual members are doing in your emails, both on desktop and mobile, will help in creating the right strategy.” You can accomplish this fairly easily using analytics technology offered by most email marketing systems.

Ms. Ely offers the following tips for keeping your email campaigns relevant and effective:

Many associations are taking notice of Ms. Ely’s advice and revamping their email marketing to meet the needs of their members. Here are a few examples of associations that made significant changes to their email marketing strategy to become more effective:

Toy Industry Association, Inc. – revamped their weekly newsletter through testing, re-engagement strategy and design.

Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association – transformed their monthly newsletter into a mobile-friendly version based on utilizing data to identify those who read on a mobile device.

The American Political Science Association – improved their customization of messaging by utilizing behavioral marketing.

The success of any email marketing strategy begins with understanding your members’ preferences and how to best engage them. Tracking and analyzing your email campaigns and utilizing behavioral marketing concepts will help to achieve a better response rate and more effective communication with your members.

– See more at: http://www.marybyers.com/data-rules-assumptions-drool-keeping-your-email-marketing-relevant/#sthash.KKD4nmFT.dpuf

About Mary Byers

Author. Speaker. Facilitator. Consultant. Provocateur. All describe Mary Byers, CAE.

Mary Byers helps associations gain clarity and focus through leadership conference training and facilitating strategic planning retreats, assisting task forces and work groups, and helping association staff and volunteers talk through tough issues. Visit www.marybyers.com.

Blog Category: Industry Trends & News, Marketing, Technology

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Fighting Email Fatigue in Association Marketing

Fighting Email Fatigue in Association Marketing
This week’s blog post on association marketing is re-posted with permission from Aaron D. Wolowiec,  founder and president of Event Garde, a professional development consulting firm based in Grand Rapids, Mich. Website: www.eventgarde.com.

While I was out of the office recently tending to some personal affairs, my husband commented on the number of “dings” from my iPhone. He was shocked when I explained that said “dings” indicated yet another email.

When I returned, I had 400 emails. Really. After only three days.

I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir, but I can’t keep my inbox clean. I operate three accounts regularly and they’re all suffering from inbox overload.

So. Much. Email.

And…so much deleting.

But I have to admit even when I’m overwhelmed, I open the emails with the catchy subject lines.

Lesson here: People are suffering from email fatigue, so as an association marketer, your job is tough. How do you get people to open your emails, let alone read them?

It’s a delicate balance of testing, creativity and, most importantly, research, finds a new Informz report.

The “2015 Association Email Benchmarking Report” summarizes email marketing metrics from more than 1 billion emails associations sent in 2014. The four metrics measured in the report: delivery rate, open rate, click rate and unsubscribe rate.

Informz found email testing is on the rise. In 2014, there was increase of more than 26 percent in email subject line testing. But also, associations are testing layouts, timing and call-to-actions.

At the same time, the survey found 72 percent of email subscribers received five or fewer emails per month. But subscribers who received six to 10 emails per month had slightly higher open and click rates. And while all this is important, the single most important engagement factor is relevancy, Informz said.

Key findings from the report:

“The data shared will help you understand what metrics to analyze, what goals to set and how your email marketing program is performing in comparison to your peers,” Informz said. “Always keep in mind that these are averages from your peers.”

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Member Retention: The First Step Toward Growing Your Association

Member Retention: The First Step Toward Growing Your Association

The best way to grow memberships is often debated, and many believe that driving new sales is the way to go. However, keep in mind that “an association that adds 5,000 new members a year and maintains a 75% renewal rate will grow to 20,000 members. While an association that adds the same 5,000 new members but maintains an 85% renewal rate will grow to 33,000 members.” (T. Rossell, 2012)

Here are some member retention ideas for keeping your members, and keeping them happy:

Spread the News of Your Improvements.

Communication is one of the key pillars of retention. When you make improvements, achieve big milestones, or have new information that will be helpful to members, be sure to share it with the right people. Wherever possible, segment and personalize your communications so that your members get the information that really matters to them.

Turn Up Your Reminder Frequency.

You don’t want to annoy your members, but it’s a fact that a lot of people simply forget to renew their memberships. Experts are now suggesting that seven is the most effective number of renewal reminders. If you don’t have good membership management software this task can be difficult – a good reason to look into low-cost technology options that will enable you to automate your renewal reminders.

Offer Online Membership Payment Options.

If you haven’t started accepting online member payments, you should make this a priority. It is becoming the preferred method of payment for many people, and user-friendly processes are great for member retention. As a bonus, it will cut the time you spend manually processing payments down significantly.

Incentivize.

Offering a discount for early membership renewals can give your members a good reason to submit payments right away, instead of pushing the task to the bottom of their to-do list.

Use Multiple Marketing Channels.

Don’t rely on email or your website alone. Send your members news and information through your website, social media, postcards, newsletters, and even contact key members by phone to remind them of deadlines. To keep your members engaged, your marketing strategy should include multiple tactics.

Highlight Non-Member Prices.

On all of your products, events, and services, make it a point to remind your members of the value of their benefits by publishing non-member prices.

Partner Up.

Keep your eyes open for potential partnership opportunities with other organizations that will be mutually beneficial. Often, you can tee up arrangements that will bring added benefits to your members, and make them more likely to value their memberships.

Review Your Member Welcome/Orientation Program.

Inviting new members to free orientation events where they can meet their colleagues is a great way of building the sense of community that is necessary for member retention. If you don’t have the time or budget for that, send them a welcome pack or give them a personal welcome phone call at the very least.