3 Tips To Increase Member Engagement

There's a lot of discussion on the blogosphere on member engagement and how that affects your retention rate.

In fact, I wrote a previous blog post (HERE) that goes into detail with that very subject.

In this post, I want to talk about engaging your members in your program of work.

As you may know, I personally believe chambers should mainly be in the business of advocacy and helping your members run a better business.

Use these 3 simple tips 1) Ask; 2) Follow-up; and 3) Give credit.

Ask - the first step in getting your members engaged is to ask them.  It's important that you have a specific task for them with clear expectations on what it is you want them to do.

Follow-up - now that you've asked them to do a specific task on behalf of the chamber it's important to give them feedback on how they are doing. Communication is key for both parties to be winners.

Give credit - make sure you give credit where credit is due.  Publish in your communication vehicles what your members (by name) are doing on behalf of the organization and thank them.

If you keep to these 3 simple tips you will get more buy-in from your membership at large and the more buy-in you get the higher retention rate you'll get at the end of the year.

That's a win/win for all involved.

If You're Creating a Start-up: Find Your Three Words

On a recent plane ride I read an article (title of this blog post) by Elaine Wherry, co-founder, Meebo, acquired by Google in 2012, and published in the June 12^th, 2014 Edition of the Wall Street Journal.

The article is about how a start-up should act and stay focused.

She goes on to say that if you can get your founders to agree on three words that describe your company, your marketing staff will love you forever.

Everyone in our industry is talking about reinventing your chamber for the future.  What better way to start that process by taking the advice of Elaine Wherry and put it to work for your organization, community or industry sector.

What are your three words for your chamber?  Can you get your Board to agree on those three words?

She gave the two following examples and stated that these three words should allow you to answer "1) who you are; 2) what you do; and 3) how you do it."

• Facebook - "fast, bold, open"
• Google - "data, big, visionary"

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation's Institute for Organization Management program uses, "Learn, Grow, Connect."  We've been using those three words in our marketing materials for 10 plus years.

It's also the theme I use in my graduation remarks.

Learn - you just completed 96 ours of non-profit management, if you've not already done so, I challenge each of you to obtain your professional certification, CCE for the Chamber exec and the CAE for the association exec.  Institute has prepared you well.

Grow - go back to your communities and your industry sectors and raise the bar from what you've learned at Institute from your peers and the faculty.

Connect - stay connected to your classmates, and stay connected to Institute.  Consider coming back as a class advisor, faculty member of a Board of Regent.

As chamber leaders it's important to remember that you are professionals - you work in the profession of nonprofit management.

I'm sure you've heard the bricklayer story (it's not mine, but tells a story worth repeating):

A community leader happens upon a construction site and she asks each bricklayer the same question - may I ask what you are doing?

• The first says I'm laying a brick;
• The second says I'm building a wall; and
• The third states I'm creating a cathedral.

Again, as professionals, build those cathedrals in your communities and industry sectors and start by identifying your three words with your board!

5 Must-Have Collateral Pieces in Your New Member Kits

We all know first impressions mean a lot!

Based on that premise, what are you doing with your new member kit, which will be the first impression your new member gets of your organization?

Is it professional?  Is it delivered in a timely fashion?

You should be able to answer yes to those two questions above and here are my list of 5 must-have collaterals in your new kit 1) Welcome Letter; 2) Membership Card 3) Decal or plaque; 4) Features of Membership; and 5) List of Upcoming Events.

Welcome Letter - this should come from your CEO.  Keep it short and sweet, thank them for joining, tell them what the chambers been working on, and tee-up what else is in the new member kit.

Membership Card - ideally this is attached to the letter (hint it will allow you to do a mail merge) and the end product is professional.  Make sure their member number is on the card and you instruct them to put it in their wallet.

Decal or Plaque - I think you know this one!  Ask them to prominently place their membership decal or plaque where others in the community can see it - the businesses front window or by the cash register.

Features of Membership - explain the features of membership and the benefit they will get from those features (i.e., educational program is the feature and the knowledge gained from that educational program is the benefit).

List of Upcoming Events - create a list of programs that are scheduled for the next quarter.  Put it in a form that they can post to a bulletin board or maybe put on their refrigerator that will be a constant reminder of your organizations upcoming events.

Get started on upgrading your new member kit today!

Retention or Recruitment: Which Is More Important?

Depends on who you ask!

From my prospective they're both equally important.  While it's imperative to take care of your current members you must continue to build and keep your eye on the future.

Your chamber will always have attrition (the amount of your members who drop their membership each year).

The key is keeping it to a minimum with great customer service and great programming and gaining more new members than the amount of members you lose each year through attrition.

The better question is whether you have a strategy in place for both of these important aspects of your membership activities.  Remember, we are membership organizations so without them we wouldn't be in business.

Retention plan

In addition to your initial new member kit, each chamber should have their own membership retention plan in place.  I’m not going to list everything you should do, or what may or may not work for you, but here’s a list of things a number of chambers have done with success:

• 90 day welcome call;
• Six month "check-in" email; and
• Three months prior to due date you reach out again and thank them for their membership.

Recruitment plan

Just as you have a retention plan you should also have a recruitment plan.  Again, what works for you may not work for all chambers, but you need to have a plan and stick with it.

• A good list;
• Repetition in "the ask;" and
• Follow-up.

Retention and recruitment, you need to be doing both!

A great resource for measuring your activities and results vs what others are doing around the country can be found in their annual Marketing General Inc. Membership survey.

You can get it HERE.

Conduct More Effective Meetings by Following These 4 Tips

There have been many articles written on the subject manner and my 4 tips are based on conducting hundreds of meetings over the past 20 years.

While I'm sure you have your favorite tips for conducting a successful meeting, I suggest following these 4 tips will get you started in the right direction that you can tweak as you see fit for your specific organization.

1.    Room set-up

2.    Agenda with appropriate background materials

3.    Start on time and stick to the agenda

4.    Robert’s Rules of Order

Room Set-up

Conference room style with name tents in front of all members is a great way to set-up your room.  The names should be on both sides of the name tent so it won’t matter what side of the table you’re on you’ll be able to see the persons name.

Agenda

Once you’ve decided on an agenda with your board chair, get it out to the board in advance of the meeting.  Keep it short and simple.

And always use the consent agenda to your advantage.

Start on Time and stick to the agenda

Do you create an annotated agenda for you and the board chair?  If not, I suggest you do and it should have times on every item.

This will go a long way of keeping your meeting on schedule and productive.  You don’t want any one board member to highjack the meeting with a subject matter that is not on the official agenda.

For a sample board agenda's and other materials from Bob Harris, Institute faculty member,  go HERE.  Or, go HERE for a great website on board agenda templates.

Robert’s Rules of Order (RRO)

If you stick to the process laid out in RRO I suggest you will find your meetings will run smoothly and on time.  It keeps an orderly fashion to your meeting.  And it’s very simple, motion to approve, do I have a second, discussion, all in favor, all appose?  That’s it!

One final thought, keep your meetings to two hours or less.  You need to be respectful to your volunteers and that they are spending time away from their businesses or organizations.  Think of how you like meetings to run when you’re on someone else’s board.

Good luck in conducting your next great meeting!

4 Ways for Local Chambers to Engage in Advocacy

There are many ways to engage in the advocacy arena.

It's important that you make the distinction between legislative activity and political activity.

The following 4 things are key in having a full on government affairs program for your chamber.

The first two fall under the legislative activity category and the last two are clearly political activities.

1.    Lobbying

2.    Grassroots

3.    PAC's

4.    Endorsements

Lobbying

I've talked about this before HERE and in a nutshell this is where you and your members are having direct contact with your legislative leaders. Preferrably a one-on-one meeting with the member or his or her staff.

Grassroots

This is where you may engage your entire membership in a letter writing campaign or a phone call campaign.  Don’t forget the letter-to-the-editor grassroots tactic.  It can be very productive.

PAC's

This is a separate entity and designated fund that your members can contribute personal money to, which in turn, allows you to can make direct contributions to candidates.

Endorsements

This is where you go on record and endorse a specific candidate for elected office.  While you may not make everybody happy when you make endorsements it's an effective tool in your government affairs toolbox.  It's important that you use a clear set of criteria to measure candidates so you can decide on endorsing pro-business candidates or incumbents in an open and transparent way.

Remember, the key to making the above four activities successful is having a strong government affairs committee that can vet the above and make recommendations to your full chamber board for consideration and action.

Good luck!

3 Tips for Creating an Online Content Plan

If you're like most chamber's you may have had a few sleepiness nights thinking about creating your chamber’s online content plan.

Not a problem!

I suggest if you focus on the following 3 tips you'll be well on your way to creating great content for your members and community.

1.    Strategy

2.    Discipline

3.    Adaptability

Strategy

Ask.  Listen.  Plan.  Don't jump without asking your members what they want, listen to their comments and plan accordingly.

Discipline

Stick to your strategy and don't get caught up in chasing the next big gadget or new platform.  Think members.  You don't want them having to learn a new way of communicating with you (platform) since most people don't like change.

Adaptability

It's imperative that you continue to review your strategy and be able to change as needed.  Let's face it, in the online space it seems like things are changing every other week or month.  Don't chase the beast!

Now once you've thought about the above 3 tips it's now time to spend the next 6-12 months in executing your plan and then take a step back and measure your efforts.

There are many measuring tools out there but many chambers are using Google Analytics and for good reason.

It's free and a very robust tool that will tell you much about your efforts over a period of time you choose to measure.  The new dashboard is very user friendly and you can find more info on the program at this BLOG.

The only mistake you can make in creating an online content plan is to do nothing.

Get started today in creating great content for your members!