Every chapter wants to grow, right? Growing is how you keep the doors open and how you fulfill your vision and mission, help your members succeed in business, and positively impact your industry.
But you don’t want to just grow. You want to grow smart. And—let’s be honest—you want it to be easy and straightforward. Don’t worry; I’ve got you. Let’s look at the five best ways to grow your chapter strategically.
Strategy #1: Believe that your chapter is the best.
Mindset is a powerful tool. It’s also highly underrated and misunderstood. I’m not talking about Pollyanna positivity here. When I say I want you to believe that your chapter is the best, I want you to really, truly believe it. Let me tell you why first; then we’ll talk about what to do if you don’t think your chapter rocks.
There are three reasons mindset is so important and can have an outsized, positive impact on growing your chapter:
- Your attitude influences your behavior. If you’re unenthused, you won’t bring a lot of energy to your work. Think about the most boring, unpleasant household chore you do—the one you put off over and over again, only to finally do it half-heartedly—and you’ll know what I mean.
- Negativity is contagious. If you’re down in the dumps about your chapter, others around you—board members, staff, committee chairs, members—are likely to start feeling pessimistic, too. In communities, two negatives do not make a positive; they make more negative. The other, good side of that coin is that positivity is also contagious.
- If you don’t believe, no one else will. In business, if you think the widget you’re trying to sell is a piece of junk, you’ll have a hard time convincing someone else to buy it. That’s true of chapter membership, too.
But what if you aren’t feeling the love for your chapter right now? That happens. Maybe you’ve recently lost the leader who kept everyone pumped up. Maybe the industry you represent is going through a tough time. Maybe you’re catching negativity from someone you’re having to work with.
First things first: It’s okay. It happens to everyone. Luckily, there are ways to reignite your excitement. Try these three things:
- Revisit your association’s vision and mission. The first part of the mission of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) is to protect the American Dream of housing opportunities for all. Wow! Sign me up! Who doesn’t want to protect the American Dream? NAHB’s mission also talks about achieving professional success for members, creating jobs and strengthening the economy. That’s something that would get me out of bed every morning. If your association doesn’t have a mission that inspires, stop everything and get your board to work on a vision and mission for your chapter.
- Draw on the excitement of others. Reach out to your board members and committee chairs and ask them Why did you join? What do you enjoy most about our chapter? What impact has it had on your business? Not only is this an opportunity to get to know your fellow leaders better, you’ll probably come away with some answers that will help with Strategy #3, below.
- Help your chapter become the chapter you need it to be. I often talk about how I grew a state BNI from 0 to 1,600 chapters in just six years. When I got started, I didn’t think my BNI was the best, but I was determined that it would be. That dedication gave me the mindset to make it happen.
Pro-Tip: Don’t go it alone. Find others who believe your chapter is the best, or who want to believe it. Band together and make it happen.
Strategy #2: Be strategic about growth.
Don’t grow just for growth’s sake. An executive officer of a chamber of commerce recently shared with me, “I’d rather have a smaller number of the right kind of members, than have a bunch of members I can’t deliver value to.”
I love that! If you’re stretching yourself—and your chapter—too thin, you may bring in money in the shortterm, but it won’t last. Value is what brings people in and, more importantly, what gets them to stay. So focus on growing the right way.
What that means is understanding who you can deliver the best value to right now. If you’re an AGC chapter, that might mean specialty contractors, or suppliers and service providers. When you understand, deep down, what a particular, targeted audience needs, you can develop programs that meet their needs. You can also design compelling messaging that persuades them that being a member will help solve their challenges.
Tap into your current members to help out with this. If you’re going after specialty contractors, ask your specialty contractors what they value most about the membership and whether they know other specialty contractors who could benefit from that.
Strategy #3: Give membership growth the attention it deserves.
There’s that old saying Put your money where your mouth is. If you want to grow membership, make sure you have the right people working on it. Depending on your chapter, that might mean establishing a membership committee or ambassador program, or hiring a membership director or business development person. Either way, make sure they have the tools they need to do their job.
Information is a key tool. Remember when we went to board members and committee chairs and asked Why did you join?, What do you enjoy most about our chapter? and What impact has it had on your business? You can ask those questions of your members, too. You can even dig a little deeper with questions like What is your biggest challenge in your business? and What are your goals and objectives for your business?
In another blog, The Secret to Retaining Members, I talked about how helping your members be successful in their business is the #1 thing they want. You can’t do that unless you—and your membership team—know the challenges your members face and the goals they’re working toward.
Another important tool your membership team needs is the ability to help members make the most of their membership. I once got involved in a chamber of commerce that had an amazing calendar of events. The problem was, many of the leaders didn’t go to the events themselves, so they didn’t know who attended them and what attendees got out of each. That meant they couldn’t make recommendations to prospective, new and even current members about what events would help them meet their goals. Members appreciate having help identifying events that will be the most high-value for them personally, especially if your chapter has a lot of great programming to choose from.
If you don’t have enough great programming, check out my blog Leveling Up Your Member Engagement.
Strategy #4: Invite for the sake of inviting.
Back when I was growing that state BNI, my mentor wrote an article about Founder Dave Thomas of Wendy’s, and how he could tell the financial health of a restaurant just by knowing the number of buns they used each day. From that one number, he knew how many sandwiches were sold, and which type; how many fries, Frostys, salads and drinks were sold; and even how many condiments were used. The idea is that every business has a number like that: a key indicator of how your business is doing.
I asked my mentor what my bun-count number was with BNI.
His answer: number of visitors. The more visitors you have, the more potential members you have.
How do you get visitors? By inviting them. A lot of them.
Earlier in this article, I cautioned against growing just to grow. Inviting is different; it is something you do just for the sake of doing it. What I mean is that invitations aren’t about asking someone to join; they’re about encouraging someone to come to a meeting or event because they’ll get something out of it. Invitations are about enlarging your pool of prospective members. Asking prospective members to join comes later, after you’ve proven you have something of value to offer them.
Encourage members to extend invitations to events and meetings to friends, colleagues, coworkers, referral partners, mentors and anyone else who might benefit.
By the way, part of delivering value is helping visitors feel welcome and engaged. This isn’t just the job of the person who made the invitation; it should be part of your chapter’s culture to make sure visitors are introduced around and start to truly feel a part of your community.
Strategy #5: Have a process to turn prospects into members.
Once you’ve proven your value to your visitors, it’s time to turn them into members. This step is an easy one to flub. Many businesses and chapters have the feeling that once they’ve shown how valuable they are, sales or membership should just fall into their lap. The truth is, people are busy; even if they want to join, they may not get around to it on their own. Taking these three steps helps them take their next step:
- Follow-up after an event. Drop your visitors a personal email—or even pick up the phone and call—to thank them for coming, ask if they have any questions and invite them to the next event.
- Make joining easy. Have a clear call to action in that follow-up email or call that asks them to join and provides a link to your easy-to-use online membership form.
- Continue to deliver value. One of the best things you can do for new members is having a formal orientation program that helps them get the most out of their membership. And, of course, keep providing the great programming that attracted them in the first place!
The blog I mentioned earlier, Leveling Up Your Member Engagement, has more on these topics.
Bringing It All Together to Grow Your Chapter Strategically
When you do a Google search about growing your chapter, you’ll find a lot of articles out there: 10+ Strategies for Growth. 11 Strategies to Boost Membership. 50 Tips: Increase Nonprofit and Association Memberships.
10+? 11? 50?! I don’t know about you, but that’s overwhelming. I’m sure those article have some great ideas, but in more than 20 years of working with associations at the national, regional and chapter level, I’ve found that these five are the ones you really need:
- Believe your chapter is the best. If that’s not true for you, make a plan to make it true.
- Be strategic about growth. Grow smart by understanding what types of members you can deliver the best value to.
- Give membership growth the attention it deserves. Have a person or team in charge of membership, and ensure they have the tools they need.
- Invite for the sake of inviting. Encourage members to extend invitations to anyone they know who might benefit from your meetings and events.
- Have a process to turn prospects into members. Follow up, and make it easy to join.
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