Ed Rigsbee, top speaker on Membership Growth

The Differential is the Valuable Feature of Membership (703 words)

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Price differential the real feature of membership.

It’s very interesting that a lot of association executives association volunteer leaders and others seem to think that the feature of membership or the benefit of membership is something like…the meeting or other things in which Members can participate.

 

Here’s the thing…if non-Members can participate also, then that activity truly is not a feature membership.

What is the feature of membership, it’s the differential and I think this is the thing that we really have to look at…the price differential in every product and service you offer.

 

Consider Anti-Trust Law

The United States Federal anti-trust law basically states that you cannot compel membership in the price of any product or service. What that effectively means is this…you cannot charge a non-member more for a product or service than is equal to or more than the cost of membership.

 

If your membership, as an example, is annually $500 and you charged $500 more, let’s say, for your meeting registration to a non-member than a member, technically you’d be compelling membership. This behavior would put your organization in a non-defensible situation should anybody bring litigation against you.

 

Now chances are, if you have this practice of charging a higher differential than is the cost of membership or, if you have this practice of rolling in a free membership with your meeting to pay that differential…there is a good chance you’ll never get hit with litigation against you. There is also good chance the Federal Government will never initiate litigation.

 

What Percentage Differential?

However, if a competitor did, or if a vendor did, or a sponsor did, or a disgruntled Member…you would most likely be in indefensible position. With this in mind, let’s talk about differential pricing and the way that should safely work for you. Basically, a safe differential it’s about 75% to 80% of the membership cost. The Federal Government doesn’t explicitly state an exact number, but association law lawyers say there’s indication that approximately 75% to 80% of the of the cost of membership is a fair differential.

 

This also means, for organizations where membership priced low, especially like professional societies, there is not as much differential to work with. If membership in your organization is $100…we are talking about a $75 or $80 differential maximum in the products and services you offer…that’s it.

 

I realize this can be frustrating but here is a beacon of hope, a ray of sunshine, a silver lining in this cloud…and that is…you can charge the differential on everything it’s not collective, it’s not cumulative, it’s for every product and every service.

 

You can have that differential of about 75% of the cost of membership on everything. You might be thinking that’s a lot of money for people to buy these things and not be a member. Absolutely, and the really important point here is that every time your member registers for a meeting, attends a webinar, buys a product or service from you, they will see that there is this 75% differential or savings between their member price and the non-member price. This will cause them to have a mental conversation with themselves about the value of their membership in the organization. This is an important part of the member value equation.

 

If you build the pricing differential with purpose and strategy, every member in your organization is going to see a substantial savings over non-member pricing. They will experience this valuable savings on everything. When this occurs, you’re going to be able to do qualitative research on the real-dollar value of membership. My book, The ROI of Membership goes deeply into the subject. It’s all about on how to prove the return on investment in actual dollar numbers to members.

 

Engaged Members

If you’ve got members that are engaged and they’re participating in quite a number of activities and in all of these for-fee activities they’re enjoying a 75% discount differential off the cost because of membership, they’re jumping for joy.

 

Focus of the total value proposition members receive and you’ll keep your members. And, you’ll also start noticing your current and satisfied members will be your prime source for new members…they will become your member recruitment evangelists.

Chris GrayEd Rigsbee

Ed Rigsbee’s Raw & Unedited with Dr. Chris Gray: Live to Virtual Success

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Dr. Chris Gray, CEO at Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Society shares his organization’s journey in converting their planned live annual conference into a virtual experience. Of the many recommendations, the idea of a live command center during the virtual event really made the difference in quickly resolving challenges as they arise.

Access Transcription: Chris Gray Interview

Executive Director,American Association of Naturopathic Physicians

Ed Rigsbee’s Raw & Unedited with Laura Farr: Create Warm Fuzzies & Family at Your Virtual Conference

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Laura Farr, Executive Director

American Association of Naturopathic Physicians

300 New Jersey Ave NW, Suite 900

Tips to Share

Key Markers

  • 93% fewer expenses
  • 79% less exhibitor income
  • 55% higher registrations
  • 7% higher registration income

Structure:

  • Usually a 3 day conference
  • Modified to Day 1 started at 4:00 – 7:00 Mountain
  • Day 2 & 3 were 10 – 6 Mountain
  • Day 4 Post-con was 10-1 Mountain
  • Usually have ~350-450 physician registrants + 40 speak

Speakers

  • Asked to waive their honorarium; gave them free conference registration (per usual). Almost 90% of speakers agreed. 

Pre-Engagement

  • Worked our butts off to get speakers, exhibitors, participants logged into the platform in the week before the event. 
  • Sent reminders daily to people who hadn’t claimed their profile yet
  • Had <20 “freakouts” on Day 1 of people who couldn’t login. 
  • Also meant that the week before was more frenetic than usual providing customer support.

Lectures

  • 1 keynote each day with 2 on last day
  • 4 concurrent breakouts after keynotes of 55 min each
  • Each agenda item was staffed by a staff facilitator (tech support) and a board member moderator. Both were needed. Board member welcomed everyone, made announcements, introduced speaker, moderated the chat room and asked questions from participants to the speaker. Facilitator prepped everyone in a green room before broadcast, launched and recorded broadcast, provided tech support to participants through the chat, and played video commercials from sponsors before or after the speaker. 
  • 37 speakers, all but 2 did their presentation live. Moderators/board MC were also live, reading live announcements that were modified in real time. Created a sense that this was really a live event, that there was active participation and response, not just watching a bunch of pre-recorded webinars. 

Engagement

  • Goodie Bag sent to first 400 participants with accurate addresses. Sponsored by an exhibitor who had previously wanted to sponsor an elevator cling. Corporate partners were able to include a brochure and/or sample. Cost ~$9 to ship. Also included props for the gala and “welcome to the convention” note from us. 
  • Morning kick off movement (African Dance, Yoga)
  • Tutorial at the beginning before keynote on how to use and navigate the platform (15 min)
  • Social Sessions during breaks – set up as mini zoom rooms
    • One movement or meditation
    • One roundtable discussion (What Keeps you up at night, Tech desk for tips on how to be successful at video conferencing 1:1 support)
    • Encouraged visits to exhibit hall
  • Country Pop-Ups
    • 10 minutes
    • Part tutorial on how to use your zoom controls of mute/unmute and scroll to see people
    • Part helping the community know we’re all together, we’re all at a conference together
    • Called on different demographics to unmute (with moderator’s help) when called on and say “Hi,” or “Congratulations,” or “Hooray,” etc and wave or clap. 
    • Called on all regions in the US; Alum from different schools, New Grads
  • Happy Hour speed dating the evening of Day 1
    • Welcomed as whole group
    • Split into breakouts of 10-12 people. We did 15 min, should be ~12-13 min.
    • Had ice breakers available if needed
    • People loved seeing friends, but newcomers were invited to introduce themselves and got to participate & meet people that they would normally not ever feel comfortable entering a group with these people
    • Came back to group, scrambled into different breakouts x3
  • Gala
    • Had ~ 85 out of the total of 280 who attended live participate  30%.
    • Hired DJ who broadcast from a studio with “lobby welcome jazz music,” 5 minute dance/music break in between major sections of program (recommend 3-4 minutes), and 15 minutes dance at end.
    • Modified (greatly shortened) version of awards – didn’t give awards to any individual but to “groups” – state chapter leaders, new graduates, Committee Chairs, etc. Unmuted everyone and asked them to cheer to recognize each group. This eliminated individual speeches.
    • Did a Founders video – 2 minutes – Was a lot to prepare (collecting pictures and quotes of founders) but really well received.
    • Fundraiser – 2 short speakers who laid out the problem, 1 member who does improv on the side did the fundraising pitch. Made it fun, called on people as challenges, people who pledged $1k or more were asked to text the MC who broadcast their name publicly and generated a little competition.
    • Almost 75% of those who attended the gala contributed. 

Exhibit Hall

  • 30 exhibitors, option to have an open zoom line all day so people could Enter Tradeshow Booth and speak to someone, although virtually no exhibitors opted to do this. 
  • Corporate partners got to include something in the goodie bag. 
  • Corporate partners got to do a 60 second “commercial” and got to choose which sessions they wanted them aired in. Exhibitors got a 30 second commercial that we placed where we wanted. 
  • Scavenger Hunt Trivia Quizzes – each exhibitor asked to provide us with 1-2 questions for the hunt, we set it up in Kahoot. Title of each quiz had the exhibitor names who were part of that quiz so people would have clues of where to go look for answers. People would earn points. Staff had gotten 15 prizes pledged from exhibitors. ~100 people participated in some way. 
  • Approximately 70% of people said they visited the exhibit hall. 
  • Found that exhibitors DID NOT KNOW how to manage their booth. The system can track who visits, how many visits, how many leads (who requests information). Some exhibitors told us they were on standby to have conversations, but nobody came by their booth. They didn’t look at their statistics to see that actually these 55 people clicked into their booth. Exhibitors need to be taught how to manage the analytics in real time, and then reach out to those people to offer to set up a meeting, remind them of show discounts, answer any questions. 
  • Also needed to encourage exhibitors to interact in the lectures and social sessions. One exhibitor came to the Happy Hour, said they got more face time during the breakout speed dating rounds to connect with doctors than at some shows and then sitting in the virtual exhibit hall. 

Things we’d do differently

  • Schedule longer exhibit / break times – we did 15 minute. If a session ran over, didn’t give people much time to get to next session.
  • Goodie bags…meh. If you go through the hassle of soliciting content, producing the bags, and shipping them, the content better be super wow. 

Troubleshooting tips:

  • Make sure you have the “magic keys” to quickly get speakers and participants into the system who can’t log in or, for speakers, who are running late. Our system had a direct zoom link that you could send 20 minutes before the agenda started that would let people bypass having to log into the platform. 
  • Train your speakers before hand – make sure they know how to use the equipment they will be speaking on!
  • Have clear instructions on how to help participants troubleshoot audio and visual. 
  • Train your exhibitors on how to be successful virtual exhibitors. DO  NOT RELY ON EMAILS OR PRE-RECORDED CONTENT. 1:1 walk throughs may be best
Tom Papas, Western States Roofing Contractors Association

Ed Rigsbee’s Raw & Unedited with Tom Papas (WSRCA): Going by the Book

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Tom Papas, Executive Director Western States Roofing Contractors Association shares his perspective on following bylaws, leader fiduciary responsibility and quality governance. He suggests association executives rely on the law, common sense and empirical knowledge to stay on course.

Dawn Tiura-double your meeting by going virtual

Ed Rigsbee’s Raw & Unedited with Dawn Tiura (SIG.org): Doubling Meeting Attendance by Going Virtual

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Convert your event from live to virtual and double meeting attendance in 6 weeks. Dawn Tiura, CEO & President at Sourcing Industry Group, a membership association of over 400 Global 1000 companies…representing an annual spend of $11 Trillion, shared her success in converting her live meeting to virtual in 6 weeks. With only 19 employees, the staff worked 80-90 hours a week over 6 weeks to make the conversion. This meeting exploded from 350 live attendees to 1151 virtual attendees. Learn about the platform, marketing, keeping sponsors, gamification, keynotes, breakouts, fireside chats, shipping swag/promo kits, and much more. https://www.sig.org/

Julie Adams on staff vs volunteer managed

Ed Rigsbee’s Raw & Unedited with Julie Adams: Converting Your Org from Volunteer to Staff Managed

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Ed Rigsbee interviews Julie Adams, Ph.D., CAE, Owner Agile Association Management Solutions on converting a volunteer managed organization to that of staff managed. What it was like 20 years ago when she first achieved the goal and today again.

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Tom Papas, Western States Roofing Contractors

Ed Rigsbee’s Raw & Unedited with Tom Papas: Member Recruitment at Your Expo

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Ed Rigsbee Interviews Tom Papas, Executive Director, Western States Roofing Contractors Association on how to grow your membership (10+%) with a “membership booth” on your expo floor.

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Don Phin explaining Covid-19 employee law

Ed Rigsbee’s Raw & Unedited with Don Phin: COVID-19 & Employee Law

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Association & Society executives are facing huge issues with cash flow and retain employees. April 1, 2020 changes much. Terminate or furlough? Employment law attorney, Don Phin, answers your questions. More answers at https://www.donphin.com/

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Richard Melancon and Ed Rigsbee

Ed Rigsbee’s Raw & Unedited with Richard Melancon: Reopening Businesses

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Ed Rigsbee, CAE interviews Richard Melancon, CPA about how to successfully reopen your business following the post Covid-19 pandemic shut-down. Richard states that the customer loyalty, customer service, and branding rules have drastically changed. Be armed with insightful knowledge for your successful strategy and tactics.