The New Association Hustle – Association Hustle Podcast Episode 242

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07/22/2020


It’s going to require incredible work ethic and hustle on everyone’s part to usher in the new era for associations. Here are JP’s thoughts on employee engagement, membership, sales, and meeting and their importance moving forward.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Hello and welcome to JP Moery’s Association Hustle Podcast. President of The Moery Company, JP’s mission is to arm today’s associations with insight and strategy to thrive and a progressively complex and competitive business landscape. 21st century associations must move forward with a little bit of hustle and revenue development at their core.
Here’s JP.
 
I’ve got some business observations for you and I’m fired up about them!
This week’s episode is going to be a little bit different. It’s not scripted and I’m going to riff on some things that I’m seeing in the association space that I wanted to convey to you right away.
I was thinking about all these items this morning… So, let’s get started.
 
Employees
I wonder if the value of the employee relationship is going to change. Here’s what I mean. Maybe part of the value – and the reason we hire people – is to control them. We had them come in to the office, look over their shoulder, and make sure that they were there from nine to five. We controlled them and then we paid them based on the control that we have. Now, in this environment that we’re currently in, people are working remotely and we may not see half of our employees on a daily basis. We’re participating in Zoom calls and that’s a lot of the way that we’re engaging with each other. Your employee – or the consultant – looks, frankly, very much the same. We’ve lost the in-person control and connectivity. I wonder if we’re going to be, as associations, much more open to outsourcing and hiring people on a part time basis to do the jobs that we really need because we’re also learning that we don’t have to control really good people that execute. We give them the goals and perspective and they take the ball and they run with it.
Membership
I’m also thinking about the way that we smooth out the membership experience for our member companies. We’ve got to make it easier. Think about the way we’ve been engaging with folks recently. Instead of going into a retail store and walking the aisles that we now order it online and the retail employee comes outside to deliver our order to us. They explain what they had to substitute or that our that they’ve delivered it to us on our porch.
Think about the association membership. Can we put the value proposition in a bag, explain it, and deliver it to individual member prospects? Membership engagement is going to be intense and we are going to have to bring member value to them. We’re going to have to figuratively meet them at their car and give them the information, the insights, and critical information that we have as part of our value proposition. It’s no longer going to be about a list of benefits that they have to get themselves. We’ll have to push it to them, engage them, bring the value of membership and the insights to the member company or the individuals that we represent.
The Death of Meetings
I know I just made a lot of people very nervous. What I mean by that is not necessarily meetings overall or forever but the death of a lot of events that I’ve been to over my career – boring, long, waste of time, passing of the gavel, sitting in a uncomfortable chair waiting for when it’s over so I can go meet the people that are really want to talk to you in the hallway and at the reception, and how fast can I get up into my room so I can check what’s going on in my business today? “Come and see me live” is no longer going to be the model. It’s going to be about providing specific information and pushing it out so that attendees can access it whenever they want. Can it help them make better business decisions? Can it help their company be more profitable? Can it make their business essential that their customers want? If we don’t have that information available to them when they want it and be able to deliver it to their car door or to their front porch, they’re not going to come see us put on a show live anymore.
Sales
Sales is changing fundamentally right now. It’s no longer about describing intangible services and what a member gets when they give us money. It’s now all about delivering information and expertise and the specialty network of people that they’re going to hear from and they can pull that information whenever they want it. That’s going to be the key moving forward.
 
Final Thoughts
It’s going to require the most incredible work ethic ever in the association game. And you and I both know it. Not a lot of people dying from overwork in the association space. Now’s the chance for the real hustlers to win and win in a big way. I’m excited for the folks who listen to this podcast because I know the type of mindset you have because I’ve spoken with you. You’re going to be more successful and valuable because you’ve embraced the idea of hustle. And, frankly, that’s what it’s going to take.
If this podcast has been helpful to you in any way, will you share it with a friend that might find value in it? I’m so grateful for your time. Thanks for listening.
 
We hope you enjoyed this edition of JP Moery’s Association Hustle Podcast. We’d love to connect with you. Check out our blog at moerycompany.com and subscribe to our weekly newsletter. You can also connect with JP on LinkedIn and Twitter at @JPMoery, as well as The Moery’s Company’s Instagram and Facebook page. To purchase a copy of JP’s book, Association Hustle: Top Strategies for Association Growth, go to JPMoery.com.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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