Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch

Chambers have been talking about strategy and strategic planning for years.

Yes, it’s important but I buy into the title of this blog.

You can have all the ideas in the world, but if you don’t have a culture to implement those ideas, you’ll end up spinning your wheels.

What do I mean by culture?  Staff and volunteers have to trust each other. My take:

• Staff and volunteers working together
• Staying true to your mission
• Transparency
• The ability to try new things
• Trust

I talked about failing forward in a previous post HERE and it’s important to support the concept (the CEO and Board).

My final comment on this is the last bullet above.  If you don’t have trust you have nothing.

For an interesting blog on culture in the workplace go HERE or follow them on Twitter @WorkXO.

Chamber Loyalty: Do You Have It With Your Members?

There has been a lot written about this concept over the years.

Loyalty programs are programs that keep your members coming back.

Sounds like a golden handcuff to me!

For a previous blog post on golden handcuffs go HERE.

Think of the following loyalty programs:

• Costco
• Airline Programs
• Credit card rebates
• Dunkin Donuts

To build loyalty you need to have something your members can’t do without.  Have you identified what that is for our chamber?  Is it:

• A directory
• An advocacy program
• Access to government officials
• An affinity program (insurance, etc.)
• Other

I like to call it a core good that your members can’t do without.  What is your core good?  It is critical that you can answer that question.

If you can’t answer that question you’ll continue to struggle with who you are, who you want to serve, and I bet you’re struggling with growing membership.

People will continue to be loyal as long as you’re delivery value.

As a side bar, I’ve been a Canon camera guy for over 35 years now and I’ll never change as long as they continue to deliver the goods.

Don’t you want to be like Canon or Nikon?  These two companies have the loyalty equation down pat.

Just a thought!

Are You Solving Problems For Your Members?

If not, you should be.

There has been a lot of talk recently about delivery value to your members.

And by the way, a networking event is not solving a problem.

Solving a problem is helping with a regulation, complying with a new law or getting information so your business member can grow their business.

Do you have toolkits on how your small business members can:

• Write a business plan;
• Gain access to capital; or
• Learn effective marketing techniques.

Especially now with the Internet and social media as a free resource, it's time to step up and solve some problems!

For some of your members, you might want to teach them how to use social media to help them get their message out and grow their business.

If your members think of you as a problem solver, I'm suggesting that will be a happy and retained member.

Solving problems will grow your membership and your community will benefit from that growth.

I like that combination!

Membership Marketing Plan Toolkit

Do you have a membership marketing plan that sets your strategy for your upcoming year?

Don’t run a membership campaign without a plan and make sure you’re measuring your results.

All plans can be tweaked but they shouldn’t be thrown out.

If you’re thinking about throwing out your plan, you didn’t do your homework to start.

Here’s a few things to think about as you set a plan in motion:

• Who’s are target
• What’s the frequency for communicating
• What’s the offer
• What’s the timetable for this campaign
• How are we going to measure success

You will need to decide what constitutes success for your chamber, but a few things that would be on my lists:

• Revenue vs. costs
• Number of members recruited
• Time it took to run the campaign
• Diversity of members

It’s time to start your plan today!

A great resource on the subject is Marketing General Inc.'s annual survey.

Click HERE for a copy.

Mobile: What’s Your Plan?

Are you in the mobile space?

Are you thinking about the mobile space for your chamber?

Let’s start with a couple of statistics (provided by ComServe and SoMobile 2013):

• 42% of phones in the U.S. are smartphones
• More than 110 million smartphone users in the U.S. and Europe access social networks and blogs on their phones

Now let’s add your website to the mix.  Now it’s important to note that you can’t just put your website on a mobile device.

Many chambers are using mobile apps through third party companies or their CMS (content management system).

All the research I’ve read makes the same statement.  Your mobile application must be user friendly.  Chris Brogan recently said "if there’s more than two items on the smartphone screen it’s too many."

I’m not sure I buy into that theory, but you need to really think about what your mobile presence looks like.

One thing is for sure.  Your mobile look cannot be your website on a smaller screen.

In the old days we talked about how your website cannot be your brochure.  I remember those days.  Do you?

We’re transitioning to mobile like we transitioned to websites 10 years ago. Something to think about!

For a list of resources on the mobile web click HERE and for a list of FAQ's click HERE.

Advocate: What’s Your Chamber’s Role?

As described in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, advocate means…one that pleads the cause of another.

By definition the word advocacy means...the act or process of advocating or supporting a cause or proposal.

The Chamber should be upfront and center when it comes to advocating for its small business members.

That advocacy might be:

• Advocating at the state legislature;
• Advocating for a strong workforce;
• Advocating at the local planning and zoning committee; or
• Advocating the importance of networking.

Whatever it is you do for your members, you can put the word advocate in front of it and it should absolutely describe what you do.

If you don’t play the role of advocate for the small business community, who will?

You’ve heard the phrase before “if you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re on the menu for dinner.”

Your role as a chamber leader is to make sure your members always have a seat at the table and not be eaten!

Social Media Statistics

I was reading an article that was titled 52 Cool Social Media Facts.  For a copy of the entire article go HERE.

At the very least, the numbers are astounding.  A couple of things I took away from the piece were:

• People are embracing the use of social media;

• There is always a new tool around the corner to entice your participation;

• We are way beyond the days of just Facebook and Twitter; and

• We are still grappling with measuring ROI as it relates to making money on our programs through these marketing channels.

One constant that continues to ring true throughout everything I’ve read is that you need to identify what social media tools your members are using and focus on those tools as a way to communicate with them.

You can’t be everything to all people. Sound familiar?  It applies to social media too!

Do your research and find out where your members are spending their time in the online space, and participate, lead the discussions in that space.

Good luck!

For a blog post on social media metrics by buffersocial go HERE.