Friday, January 29, 2010

Ten Ways to be Mediocre and Keep Your Association Marketing Job: A Humorous Take, Part 2

This article is a continuation from the previous article and shows another 5 ways to use your wit to defend the status quo.

Help your CEO maintain their privacy. I mean if the CEO is too accessible, what is this going to do to his/her golf score? Your evaluation could hinge on keeping a low profile.

Show hostility to new ideas. I mean there are some really great ideas out there. But, wait, don’t get in a hurry to find them and remember the Hummer ain’t dead yet.

Re-cycle the same old speakers. How do you find new speakers with fresh ideas? You got speakers, why change? Simply have them change the title of their speeches and seminars. What’s the problem?

Keep your dues inflexible. Don’t go there. You are losing members as it is. Association money is short. Flexible dues? What a dumb idea.

Make your Web site as bloated as possible. I mean it is hard to prioritize, let alone customize according to what people need. Throw stuff in there and they will find it – if they want it badly enough.

Now you have the 10 ways to keep your job simple. Remember “Change is Pain!” But should you be an association executive who wants to hire people with a little different attitude, see www.WorkplaceAttitudes.com

Ten Ways to be Mediocre and Keep Your Association Job: A Humorous Take, Part I

Let’s face it, there is some pretty lousy assn marketing out there. You can always blame poor economic times and if the boss is happy and the board is not complaining, why change? Occasionally a committee chairperson gets ambitious and asks “Why can’t we grow?” This is when your wit should hit the sham. In other words, use your wit to defend the status quo. Here’s how.

Outsource is what you should be doing. Yep, there are some good outfits that will do mass marketing for you. Take a company like Churn’em and Burn’em Inc. They will mail thousands of letters about your assn and a 2% response is considered wildly successful. Never mind that you can do the same thing yourself, and that 98% of the prospects say “No” to you because the mass mailing did not say the right thing to them. As a bonus, when things don’t work out you can blame your outsource buddy.

Assume that all of your members are basically the same. After all, they all paid dues didn’t they? But what if your members are different and have different needs? You must figure out what they want. You’ve got enough to do without opening that “can of worms.”

Forget preferred channels of communications. People like to get their info in different ways. What a hassle. I mean there are some great e-mail churners who will do all your communications. If people don’t want info the way you want to send it, ignore them.

Take your time responding. Some people are excited when they first see what you offer, but there are only 8 hours in the day and they can wait.

Make your assn like junior high. We all fondly remember jr high when it was important to belong to the right “clique.” Let some of your more aggressive members run things. They will like you better and it means less work for you.

There you have it, 5 ways to keep your job simple and 5 more in the next article. Remember, “Change is Pain!” But if you want to hire people with a little different attitude, go to www.WorkplaceAttitudes.com