Blog
On Resolutions
It’s that time of year, when we all think about what happened last year and what we’d like to do differently in the next. Two observations: First, 17 years ago, I realized that “lose 10…
Read More →Partnership v. Membership: Selling the Board on Change
When you’ve realized it’s time to make a change to your dues amounts, member benefits, or overall membership structure, how do you convince your board of directors to support it? Particularly if there’s resistance? Let’s…
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Partnership v. Membership: ROI
Lewis’s latest post in our ongoing, irregular series addresses making sponsorship offerings more valuable to your corporate supporters: understand what’s motivating them, structure the relationship to address their specific business needs, and offer different levels…
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Membership Q&A: Call or Text?
Let’s say you’re over email and want to take your welcome, retention, and/or renewal communications to the next level. Should you call, or should you text? Well, who are your members? What generations are represented…
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Membership Q&A: Online Communities?
No, I’m not going to get into which white-label platform you should use – for that, we have ReviewMyCommunity. Take one step back: white-label or public? That is, the publicly-available, commercial platforms (LinkedIn, Facebook, and…
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Partnership v. Membership: Prospecting Dos and Don’ts
In Lewis’s last post in our ongoing series, he shared some great advice on prospecting for corporate partners. Lewis highlighted DO items, such as: Weed out “dead ends” Understand your potential partners’ business challenges and…
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Membership Q&A: How Long Should Our Grace Period Be?
Ah, the grace period, the bane of the membership profession’s experience. Should we have a grace period at all? How long should it be? I will admit to being a hard-ass about grace periods. My…
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Membership Q&A: Calendar v. Anniversary Renewals?
Which is more member-centric? In most cases, an anniversary renewal cycle – that is, I renew at same time as I joined (or renewed) last year – is going to make the most sense to…
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Partnership v. Membership: What Behavior Do You Want to Encourage?
That question is not rhetorical. Corporate membership can be complicated. To being with, there are at least two main types: Companies that are your core audience (i.e., trade associations’ typical members). Companies that are NOT…
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Partnership v. Membership: Is There a Membership Role for Suppliers?
In my previous post in this series, I concluded with the question: What role, if any, does supplier membership play in this ecosystem? Lewis responded with a strong statement that suppliers should NOT be association…
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