As I began writing this blog, I was about one hour into my 30-hour journey to speak at the Indian Association Congress in Mumbai, India. I already hated everyone around me, and that was not a good sign.
As I finish this blog, 25 hours into the return trip to Chicago (and 5 to go), let’s see if airline booze, time zone shifts, and spicy curry in numerous forms have helped generate any insights.
- pauses to order another glass of Gin 27, a fine Swiss gin from a flight attendant –
Recently, I’ve been traveling to client conventions, working on meeting value proposition work, and to industry conventions, chatting with friends and colleagues at places like ASAE in Cleveland.
A big topic was membership.
How do we provide better products or services for members? How do we configure meetings to be more successful? What kind of “stuff” do younger members want? How do we price it – Free? Tiered? Premium? Etc. Etc. and so on.
These travels have gotten me thinking about (and experiencing) the “community” of associations.
I think our obsession with things and dollars is blinding us to the real value associations offer.
The desire to join, congregate, or otherwise build relationships with peers.
To participate in a community.
Community is universal.
For a recent client, we conducted focus groups to investigate the decision to attend their conferences. One response was typical, ranging from students to experienced (#old) volunteers: I’m here to “network,” “meet people,” “the community,” etc.
We often think younger generations don’t want to join or belong. That simply isn’t true. They don’t want to join you – your organization.
They’ve never had more choices for community, so why yours?
Association Laboratory’s sector research, Looking Forward, identifies nine different sources of competition for associations. They range from other associations to employers or self-organizing groups on LinkedIn or other social media platforms.
That’s before you add other competitors for time and energy, such as family, hobbies, day drinking, etc.
Believe it or not, your events or membership activities are often substantially less compelling than day drinking. Don’t even get me started on night drinking.
To succeed in these endeavors, you need to think differently.
Community is unstoppable.
There are HUUUGE tailwinds behind strategies that leverage community.
Humans are social animals – you can’t stop us from congregating. Consider the following short list of communities.
- Concerts – Heard of the “Swifties” (ask your daughter)
- Sports fan clubs – even shitty sub-optimal teams (looking at you Chicago White Sox)
- Social media groups by industry, hobby, location, etc.
- User groups (ask your favorite tech nerd)
- Associations (that’s us)
- Online sports (#fantasyfootball)
- Churches, social service organizations, garden clubs, etc.
From barbershops to beauty parlors – we interact with each other.
“Okay, Mr. Smarty Dean”. I hear you ask, “If community is so natural, why are we struggling?”
Allow me to Deansplain it to you.
Membership is not the solution to every problem.
One of the most obvious forms of community is reflected in membership strategy. In our minds, we’re creating a common bond among people with a shared interest (by training, location, industry type, etc.).
We know membership strategy works. According to MGI’s Membership Benchmarking Survey, 49% of respondents indicated their membership had increased.
By increased, I don’t mean fatter. I mean more members.
However, the ubiquitous nature of membership strategy in associations results in a false binary: There are members and nonmembers.
Our volunteers always ask about members, and thusly, our reports highlight membership. As a result, we ignore all the other equally or potentially more meaningful relationships. In addition, we think about the relationship between the member and the association, seldom the relationship between members.
Your community’s spectrum has more nuance than just membership. At Association Laboratory, we refer to Engagement Strategy, with membership being a subset of this domain. Engagement strategy considers all potential relationships between you and a person of interest.
To succeed, you need to truly understand what gives meaning to your audience’s participation.
You can make this as easy or complex as you’d like, BTW, but understanding what makes peoples’ participation with you meaningful will help you more than the magical, mystical New Benefit – the mythical unicorn your Board believes exists.
Membership is not a transaction.
Sadly, many American associations (not yours, I’m sure) often treat membership as a bundled product purchase transaction. They ignore the human side and the very real human emotions behind the decision to join.
Seriously, do you think people are really joining for your quarterly newsletter? Calling a subscriber a member does not make them a member of your community. It’s not about terminology.
In addition, associations often believe it’s a contest between two things: how many products/services you can stuff into membership and what someone might pay for them.
When you think of serving members as a transactional relationship based on products, you don’t differentiate yourself from all the others attempting to establish the same transactional relationships (with products). You’re just some other biz trying to get their money.
When you compete with products, your products must be superior. If you can’t manage this, the result is called failure.
A famous philosopher probably once said, “Don’t compete where you are weak.” I think it was Mr. Mistoffelees or maybe Sir Mix-A-Lot. I can’t remember, and research is hard.
Community requires humanity.
I learned some additional lessons related to community from my most recent trip, both from and through travel and my Indian colleagues.
During my stay in Mumbai, I spent two days before the conference at the Taj Palace Hotel. This is a wonderful property. Now 120 years old, it is a world-famous hotel and one (if not the first) luxury hotel in India. As you can imagine, I was excited to even have a brief stay there.
Sadly, my advanced experience was underwhelming. The hotel’s user experience on the technology side was worse than many a [Insert Brand] Suites I’ve stayed in. Had I been duped by brochures?
When I arrived at the Mumbai Airport at 2 am, though, something entirely different happened.
My driver, along with an assistant, met me at the arrival hall.
During the 45-minute drive to the hotel, the driver noted important landmarks and developments he thought would interest me.
Upon arrival, I was whisked through hotel security (common in India), and every staff member near me (there were many) acknowledged me with simple polite gestures, smiles, and welcomes.
At registration, there was a short, traditional welcome ceremony. I was presented with a good luck charm, like guests have been welcomed for 120 years.
After being presented with my room key, I was escorted to the nicest room I was willing to pay for. 😊
Moments later, a person arrived with my bags arrived.
Another person arrived with a welcome cup of hot chai a moment later.
All at 2 am (and 30 hours after leaving home).
All in all, I directly interacted with eight people.
What changed? The human touch. The people, YES PEOPLE.
Did I remember or care about their technology? No.
People are what separate associations from Amazon, Netflix, and other subscribers. They create community.
You create community by taking advantage of the people who have volunteered their time, money, and energy to you. Let people use your association as a platform for their success; everything is possible.
There are many pathways to success.
I left Mumbai at 1 am (routine when flying via Europe), connecting through Zurich, Switzerland (city motto? “Come for the chocolate, stay for the banking).”
Everything was different.
There had been a riot of colors, noises, and smells in India. From the fanciest cars to the most rudimentary tuk-tuk. Tall buildings standing alongside tarp-covered shacks. Yet everything worked. Everyone living their lives, food delivered, kids to school, and people to jobs. People shouting, honking, laughing, gesturing (sorry, Ma’am, didn’t see you). It is as chaotic a place as you’ll ever see.
Zurich was the opposite of Mumbai.
If standing quietly in line to get into a posh restaurant were a city, it would be Zurich. Everywhere you looked, the city planners had placed neat mountains, buildings, and nicely dressed people. Every tree seemed manicured, every yard mowed, and every line freshly painted.
Despite the radical differences, both Mumbai and Zurich work.
Too often, we think of our choices as between good and bad. The reality is that there are many good choices and many pathways to success.
Last Call
Two final notes.
First, I hated people as I began a long trip because of the O’Hare security line. Due to circumstances entirely within my control, I had to go through security for commoners, not the super-secret special Global Thought Leader Security I usually use.
But as a person waived me forward and the cheerful TSA agent mocked me for not bending over and saying, “Ah,” like I was supposed to, I recognized the community.
A couple of hundred folks shared a common goal (the airport) and a common experience (the line), and just like that, a community had formed.
If the TSA can create a community in the security line, don’t you think you might be able to do so at your association?
Second, I was a stranger in a strange land when I arrived in India. Virtually everything was different, from the colors to the food to the simplest greeting. This was not my first visit, but India is not for beginners, and it can be overwhelming.
But the people welcomed me.
From my colleagues at the conference to the nice young man who helped me find the ATM when I came up 75 rupees short for the kabob I had just eaten, the people helped me fit in. To feel welcome.
It was not the hotel’s amenities, technology, room set, etc., that made my stay enjoyable and educational; it was the people. In the end, I and others found a common bond unrelated to the hotel, the program, or our jobs.
Stop worrying about the stuff and start thinking about the people you serve, and everything will get easier and funner.
Just some thoughts from My Seat at the Bar