When Decisions Get Made, Part 2

Last week, in When Decisions Get Made, I talked about when a member's decision to renew or not to renew their membership in an association gets made. Using a cautionary tale of my own experience as an association member, I confirmed that the timing of this decision typically occurs well in advance of the delivery of the association renewal invoice in the member's mailbox. In my own situation, I had made the decision not to renew about four months ahead of the dues invoice -- but, of course, the association in question didn't know that.

I didn't call the organization and tell them I had made this decision. As far as they knew, I was one of their most engaged new members. Look at my track record of participation! The fact that I hadn't found enough value was unknown to them. So, when the renewal notice came, and I did tell them I would be dropping my membership, they were understandably surprised.

I've been thinking more about this in the intervening week. I said that this same dynamic plays out in every association, so what should an association do about it?

Many associations, and hopefully most, track the number and type of programs and services their members engage in. Some associations have fully-integrated CRM systems that produce colorful dashboards with a click of the mouse, and some, like mine, have an Excel spreadsheet with numbers in certain columns representing member participation and totals calculating member participation scores. However an association does it, tracking participation like this is a powerful tool. It allows an association to see who is engaged and who isn't, and to intervene when a member is scoring low on the dashboard or on the spreadsheet.

Or does it?

From the point of view of the association that had me as a member, I was a very engaged member. As I described last week, I had participated in their webinars, I had spoken to their staff, I had attended their annual conference. I must have had a very high participation score in whatever system they used. Why then, did I drop my membership?

I dropped because I didn't find enough value in these activities. And there's no way for a traditional participation tracking system to capture that. Instead of measuring attendance, we should be measuring the value our programs deliver to our members.

I recently started calling each new member that joins my association. A kind of welcome message from the CEO. Hello. I'm glad you've joined. I'm the President/CEO. We offer a lot of programs and services, and I want to make sure that you plug into something valuable for you and your company. Please call me at any time if you ever have questions.

But now I'm realizing that this is not enough. If I don't want my association to be as clueless as the one I just quit, I should be calling each new member after they participate in their first activity and asking about the value, if any, that they found there.

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This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.

Image Source
https://www.bcashflowpositive.com.au/blog/get-on-top-of-ato-bills-with-invoice-factoring/