Chamber Leadership: August 2014

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.

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!