A question that every association professional needs to ask themselves is “Who am I to my members and who do I want to be?” Once you understand who you need to be to your members, you will gain a better understanding of the benefits and services to offer.
Take a moment to think about your membership package and all the services that are available to your members. Now take a look at the figure below. In which quadrant do you think your membership package and your membership support should be focused?
To start off, it’s impossible to be all things to all people. There is a reason you don’t manage a single association for people who do liver transplants, wound care, energy trading, neurology, professional organizing, duct cleaning and who pet sit and own alpacas in their spare time. You can’t be everything to everyone. If you try, your message becomes diluted and your value proposition loses its credibility.
In the same sense, it is also not possible to be some things to all people. Not everyone is a neurologist, and not everyone owns alpacas. Each association represents a particular group of people — a specific membership. You have to consider the particular group of people your membership is geared towards attracting and focus in on their needs.
But that brings up the third point — can you really be all things to your particular group? If you are a medical organization, can you cover the needs for both neurologists and wound care nurses? You want to market yourself as a haven for your membership and a provider for their needs, but you should not project your membership services as covering all the possible needs of that group. It sets you up for failure when there is a need that is not met or can never be met.
So that leaves one option, to utilize the reasonable strategy of aiming to be some things to some people.Membership benefits and services should be limited and aimed at your membership as defined by your mission statement. If you think about the benefits that your association now offers, you pour your time and efforts into making those services run smoothly and efficiently. If you take on too many endeavors, and try to be all things to your membership, the services and benefits that your membership truly values will suffer. However this doesn’t mean your scope of benefits has to be small. As Jay Karen and Ben Martin said in Membership Essentials, “Limited in scope doesn’t necessarily mean offering few things to your members. It just means identifying what you should do for your members doing only those things — at least until the day the association widens its scope or changes its views”
While in a perfect world, you would love to be everything to everyone, you should recognize your limitations. Trying to be everything would stretch your resources and set yourself up for failure. Cater your benefits to your specific membership group, and try to hone in on what your members need. By investing your efforts into services that follow your value proposition, and by clearly portraying what your association offers, you are able to meet expectations of members and set yourself up to exceed them.
Tracy Custis is the membership coordinator for the International Energy Credit Association and the Halloween Industry Association. After many years of customer service experience and brand representation, she found a place among the AH team. Tracy graduated with a Bachelor's degree. in communications from Penn State University and holds a certificate in Association Management from ASAE University. She currently resides in Maple Shade, New Jersey.
