An excerpt from  The End of Membership As We Know It

 

It’s hard to recall a more unstable, unpredictable, downright challenging time for an association to recruit members and entice them to attend conferences. Technology is providing networking at the click of a mouse. Younger generations don’t have the time or money to invest in membership. And the economy’s seemingly never-ending downward spiral has made dues an increasingly tough sell. 

In the face of these trials, can an association executive or meeting planner possibly survive? In The End of Membership As We Know It: Building the Fortune-Flipping, Must-Have Association of the Next Century, author and marketing professional Sarah Sladek answers yes—but only if you can demonstrate real, tangible worth.

"You have to be able to explain your value now more than ever," Sladek says. "We have generations now that are coming to the table, and they’re an instant-gratification generation. They don’t have a lot of time or money and want to know, ‘What’s the return on my investment, and how quickly will I see a return?’ That’s a real flip from what associations have done."

Sladek’s book outlines key ways to make the flip from what did work then to what will work now. The following excerpts provide some of her compelling insights.

Successful Membership Strategies

In talking about association membership, Sladek quotes Albert Einstein: "Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value." Too often, she writes, associations rely on outmoded membership models that don’t effectively entice members to join and stay in an organization. One such model is what she dubs the "milk association," which offers benefits—including meetings—at similar prices to nonmembers as to members.

"These associations have lost sight of what a membership means," Sladek writes. "Membership offers little exclusivity or access. It’s difficult to distinguish between the benefits of joining the association and just paying to attend the events or purchase services a la carte. In other words, why pay for the whole cow when you can pay for just the milk?" Here, Sladek shares advice on how to turn a milk association into a cash cow.

A few years ago, some association somewhere decided to start opening the doors to nonmembers. The idea was that if nonmembers had access to the same pricing or just slightly higher pricing as the members had for events, products, and services, the result would be more revenue. Nonmembers would preview the association, fall in love with it, and make the decision to join. And if they didn’t join, at least the association was getting their money.

This a la carte approach may have seemed like a genius idea for membership conversion, but for most associations the concept backfired. It backfired because most associations didn’t offer enough membership value to entice prospects to convert into members. Therefore, prospective members failed to see the value in purchasing a full membership when they could just as easily, and more affordably, access the few events or member benefits they wanted one at a time.

Milk Associations give too much away or offer too little membership value, so they struggle to get people to buy the cow (pay for a membership) because it’s easier for them to just buy the milk (programs, events, and other services a la carte).

I belonged to a business association for several years. The association hosted one event each month and the annual gala drew in great speakers and an audience of more than 600 people. Members paid to attend each of these monthly programs and the annual gala in addition to their annual dues.

A couple years into my membership, I suddenly realized that my membership didn’t pay for any benefits. Outside of the programming, the association didn’t offer any other member benefits. Not one! The association’s area of expertise had become event planning! Why pay for a membership when I could just pay to attend the events? I wasn’t the only one who noticed the lack of benefits and the association experienced a sharp decline in membership within an 18-month timeframe.

Even with people attending events, the association found itself struggling to get by without the dues revenue. The association needed dues to sustain operations and made a horrible mistake by cutting out or neglecting its membership benefits to focus exclusively on events.

If you’re a Milk Association, you are likely making the mistake of tracking program ROI (return on investment) instead of tracking member ROI. This means your association spends a great deal of time and resources on planning events and the association’s budget relies heavily on the income generated from those events from members and non-members alike. However, outside of programming there are few additional streams of revenue and few member benefits. As a result, you have a high percentage of people who attend the events or purchase services a la carte but do not join the association. It’s the equivalent of selling glasses of milk rather than selling cows.

There’s nothing wrong with this approach, but it is misleading when you are operating under the guise of a membership association because it doesn’t have a member-centric strategy and it doesn’t hold much promise for your association’s long-term success.

In contrast to programming ROI, membership ROI is a long-term investment strategy—a cash cow, if you will. People pay their membership dues and continue to invest in the association throughout the year because they see value in everything the association has to offer.

A membership ROI-driven association is completely focused on delivering value and attending to the needs of its members. Additional streams of revenue are built into the association, all of which are focused on addressing the needs and interests of the members. Also, members receive a return on their dues investment with access to valuable information, opportunities, and resources. A successful membership-focused association has a growing membership and high retention and participation rates.

Membership ROI means delivering a variety of meaningful member benefits. It also means that when you do offer programming and resources to non-members, you charge them a higher price. You don’t want to go to extremes and charge prices that make it impossible for prospects to engage. That’s not the point and it’s against Association Law, to boot. The point is to avoid being an a la carte association that gives everything away to focus on building in more value, opportunity, and access for your members. Membership must have its benefits. That’s the only way your association can successfully retain members and recruit members.

If your association is really struggling to recruit and retain members, you may need to shift your focus from delivering exceptional one-offs for just anyone to delivering exceptional, year-round value to your members.

As the old saying goes, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? In other words, membership must have its benefits or your association risks losing the farm.

So what does a successful membership model look like? Sladek singles out the success of the Senior Planners Industry Network (SPIN), which she writes "flipped the traditional association model upside down"—to great success.

SPIN is a network of 2,300 top-level meeting and event planners throughout the world, all with at least 10 years of experience. Started in 2008, the association grew quickly, averaging 75 new members per month.

Shawna Suckow, founder of the association, started the association when she realized there weren’t any associations targeting senior-level meeting planners. Also, she purposely wanted to create something substantially different than any other association. "I believe that today’s association model is outdated. It’s evident in the lagging membership numbers as well as in the imbalance between vendors and buyers. In our industry—the meeting industry—many of the major associations have memberships that are 70 percent vendors, which frustrates everyone. Events lose their focus; vendors don’t see the ROI when most of the crowd is their competition; and buyers don’t keep coming each month when their peers make up such a small percentage of the group," Suckow explains. "I also believe that associations charge way too much just for the privilege of membership without any real, tangible value. Then to be charged for each monthly meeting on top of that is too much to ask."

SPIN offers members access to a private on-line forum full of resources and webinars for educational purposes. Shortly after its founding, SPIN launched live networking and educational events held at locations throughout the United States.

"The membership determines what they want to discuss at our live events and which cities we visit. We try to ‘crowd source’ everything, meaning we constantly ask the membership what they want, and then we deliver it," Suckow says.

SPIN is free to join, but members must meet two strict criteria: Members must be planners with a minimum of 10 years experience. Vendors are prohibited from membership. This keeps the network focused strictly on planner needs and avoids the need to cater to other interests in educational programming. Vendor participation is permitted in the form of sponsorships at SPIN’s live events called Think Tanks, but participation is limited to only six companies per event.

"We believe keeping the focus on the planner is what has made us so successful in such a short time. It’s unique in our industry to be planner-centric, especially focused on senior-level planners. I believe these niche networks are the association model of the future," Suckow says. "Our association model is inadvertently putting pressure on the huge associations to adapt or continue to see their memberships decrease," Suckow says. "The old association model is dying and I don’t believe it can be revived, even when the economy recovers. I talk to buyers and vendors all the time, and both sides complain to me regularly about the major associations in our industry."

Suckow believes the intense focus on delivering value to a very specific niche and not trying to be everything to everyone has resulted in a more meaningful, ROI-driven association for SPIN’s members. SPIN is now traveling to multiple cities and selling out their sponsorships. Not surprising, Suckow has become an advocate for associations to experiment with new, innovative membership models.

"I believe in survival of the fittest. If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’re going to continue to bleed memberships and lose sponsorships," she says. "Associations have to adapt and make difficult choices to regain the support of lost membership and reinvigorate their groups."

 

Online Community Building

Sladek writes that it’s imperative associations build a strong online community to engage members before and after the meeting. Here are some of the tips she shares to make that a reality.

 

• Appoint a Leader.

Your association will fail miserably at implementing each of the following tips if it doesn’t first appoint someone to oversee your community-building efforts. You can’t build a great city without a mayor. You can’t build a beautiful building without a construction manager. And you can’t build an online community without someone directing the project and keeping it updated every day. Appoint at least one person on your staff or within your volunteer corps to assume the very important role of community manager.

An online community is no small undertaking. Ensure you have the capacity within your organization to deploy, market, and maintain the online community. Also be sure there is support from leadership to integrate the online community throughout all areas of your association.

• Give Up Control.

Equally as important as appointing a leader is the willingness to relinquish control. Just as you can’t control what people say about you behind your back, you can’t control the conversation online either. Sometimes people will sing your praises. Sometimes they won’t. Perhaps the people who are criticizing you have a point. Maybe it’s your fault. Maybe it’s not and you want to set the story straight. Either way, you have an opportunity to respond to your members and fix problems, which is a win-win situation. But you must be willing to give up control.

 

• Find an Expert.

I’m speaking from experience. I tried to launch an online community for my business a few years ago. It fell flat and I was out a huge chunk of change because I hired the wrong vendor. Do your homework. Research, interview, and ask for referrals. Make sure your selected vendor has experience and resources with social media and has an understanding of the unique needs of associations. For the best results, choose a creative vendor that produces engaging yet simple user-interface designs.

 

• Determine Your Mission.

Before implementing an online community, it’s important to understand how the tools will benefit the organization’s mission. Based on your analysis of how an online community could support your mission and what features your members would find valuable, you should be able to clearly identify what features you need. Many Web 2.0 features are available. Don’t choose tools based on novelty or industry buzz. Choose tools that will help your association achieve its purpose.

 

• Tell Your Story.

On any given day, there are hundreds of stories your association could tell. There are stories about your members, the latest bill on Capitol Hill that you’re lobbying against, your industry or region, and the latest member roundtable or convention. Online communities provide platforms for telling these stories and support the efforts of your association through Twitter feeds, Facebook, webinars, and blogs. Actively participate in the conversation. Tell your association’s story so members and nonmembers alike can build relationships with your association, embrace its mission, and spread the word.

 

• Be Timely.

When’s the last time your website was updated? Does the content change? Information on the main pages of the site that has not been updated in three years speaks volumes about an association. A browser sees an outdated site and jumps to negative conclusions about that association’s operations, customer service, and communications practices. Driving traffic to your site is important but not sustainable if the information you provide is irrelevant. Relevance is critical.

 

• Engage Your Audience.

While recently working on a project for an association, I interviewed several of its members. Every interview was the same. The member started out chatting up all the association’s offerings. The association did this and did that. Then I’d ask about value and it was all downhill from there.

Some associations really excel at serving their members—lobbying, providing information, hosting events, publishing newsletters, and so on. But few associations really excel at delivering value—actually making a member’s job easier or life better. When people are engaged, they are moved by their membership. They believe membership makes a substantial difference for them and they actively promote your association to others.

Find ways to use your online community to deliver more value to your members or at least to engage them in sharing their ideas about how to improve the membership experience.

For example:

• Poll your members to find out which hot topics they’d like to discuss, and then host regularly scheduled weekly or monthly chats about those topics.

• Host live chats with thought-leaders, authors, speakers and other experts, allowing your members to post questions and "chat" with them.

• Encourage the formation of member-driven niche discussion groups and organize informal local member meet-ups.

• Give members the opportunity to collaborate on or bid on projects.

An Interview with Sarah Sladek

Sarah Sladek is an experienced marketing and media professional who has been featured in Star Tribune, Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal, National Public Radio and Fast Company. In addition to writing The End of Membership As We Know It, she authored The New Recruit: What Your Association Needs to Know About X, Y, & Z (2007) and Rock Stars Incorporated: Hiring the High-Performance, High-Maintenance Hotshots Half Your Age (2008). Smart Meetings spoke with Sladek about common association mistakes and one of the book’s persistent themes—the importance of appealing to different generations.

 

Q: What is your background in studying

generational shifts?

A: I’m kind of a self-taught expert. Before I started my own business, I was a journalist, and then I worked for the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce as the director of media. I had a lot of opportunity to attend chamber conferences and events, and when I was attending those events, my journalistic instincts went off. I thought, ‘Why is it I’m in my late 20s going into these events and I’m really, really young relatively?’

I remember having a conversation about that aging epidemic with the chamber president, and she said, "That’s very interesting, but I don’t think that’ll affect us and it won’t be a problem." And I was fascinated by this trend.

I left to start my own company and have done a tremendous amount of research on the topic. It’s what I do every day all day, with focus groups, interviewing, looking at different types of organizations and seeing what it is that draws in certain age groups and what doesn’t. There are certain things that repel younger generations, and things that associations do and don’t even realize that are a distraction and a repellant.

 

Q: What are some examples of common repellants?

A: A few key things: Some organizations that are really established like to talk about their history more than their future and where they’re going. Right away, when a younger person goes to look online and research, if everything says, "Our organization has been around since 1910 and here are the things that we’ve done in our history," these are generations that say, "So what? Where are we going and how will you help me?" Organizations make a mistake when they become egocentric and historically focused.

In the corporate world, there’s corporate speak and jargon—talking in mission statements and vision statements. Associations [sometimes] do the same thing. They talk in this mission speak, saying things like, "This is what we represent: 180 manufacturing companies." And again we have generations that say, "So what? How are you going to make a difference in my life? Why should I care?"

 

Q: Tying this into meetings, you write in the book that Baby Boomers have traditionally valued meeting face-to-face, while younger generations haven’t. Why is this, and how can meeting planners bridge this generation gap?

A: There are a few things coming into play. First, as to the why, when you look back in history, boomers were raised to communicate face-to-face and in person, and that’s their primary way of communicating. They are completely comfortable with networking in very large groups and working a room, so going to an event with a thousand people is an exciting, thrilling idea. We’ve seen that throughout boomer childhoods—I like to refer to it as doing business on a handshake, wink and smile.

Then a shift took place when Gen X started coming of age, from conformity and being a part of large groups to individuality and wanting more personal relationships. Technology appeared, cable TV appeared, there was media saturation and households could afford more than one TV, so children could watch TV just for them and their age in a room separate from everyone else. We saw lots of divorce and latch-key children. Gen X was raised to be very self-sufficient. They became independent and started to trust their peers more than anyone else. So they’re much more comfortable networking in small groups, where they can delve in and learn key skills and gather critical information, as opposed to walking into a room full of people and listening to a speaker.

Then Gen Y is coming along literally wired for information, so they can access all kinds of information without interacting with a single person. I read an article about how they did these surveys and Gen Y valued the Internet more than dating. We’re breeding a generation of robots!

Also, Gen Y can be in large groups, but do also prefer things that are intimate settings, with more mentoring. They like to learn from people who’ve been there done that, and they also like teamwork and collaborative approaches to learning.

So when we look at the three learning and meeting styles, it can be absolutely overwhelming for a meeting planner. The most important thing to ask is, How do we apply these styles and infuse them into each of our meetings?

In simplest terms, most meetings have a function that boomers really love—a huge exhibit hall, a keynote speaker and a really large meeting hall where everyone is gathered. But you have to incorporate other things. Like how do you add some intimate roundtable discussions or bring a keynote into a small roundtable or breakout for an intimate one-on-one discussion? How do you bring in some technology to appease Gen Y, by introducing Twitter feeds?

When in doubt, ask someone in the younger age group, because chances are you’re already marketing to boomers because they’ve been in the driver’s seat for so long. So ask the younger people, "How can we make this more beneficial for you?"

 

Q: At one point in the book, you write, "Technology and demographic shifts are rendering associations irrelevant." Can associations stay relevant in the face of these challenges?

A: Definitely! But it does come back to utilizing technology, staying on top of the trends and being ahead of them. You have to be capable of proving your association’s value, and meeting’s value too, because the fight for people’s time and money is at a critical all-time high right now. An association or meeting planner has to be very cognizant of all the competition out there. There can’t just be a speaker at the podium. There has to be real take-aways. How are you benefiting someone’s life?

That’s a big call to action, but certainly possible. It just requires a different approach, and actually competition and pressure like this is good because it weeds out the mediocre from the best.

 

This is just a sampling of the examples and information in The End of Membership As We Know It: Building the Fortune-Flipping, Must-Have Association of the Next Century. For more, including a section on the process of building an association’s next membership model, go to asaecenter.org/bookstore.