Podcasts about jp moery

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If you are interested in Taylor Reimer racing partnerships, connect with JP Moery on LinkedIn. Taylor Reimer Racing Website If you like this podcast, could you review it on  Apple Podcasts? Signup for my LinkedIn Newsletter: Push to Pass Podcast Newsletter Follow JP Twitter: twitter.com/jpmoery. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jpmoery YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@jpmoeryenterprisesstudio4551/ LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jpmoery Order his book Association Hustle: https://jpmoery.com/    

    Top business advice and exit strategy for new business owners. .     Hello and welcome to JP Moery's Association Hustle Podcast. Founder 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. Here are a few things I learned from the acquisition of The Moery Company: Grow your business. 80% of your time early on should be on business development and sales. You need to have a few things in place to make that happen: Good data. If you don't know who to contact, who to call, who to send a solicitation marketing piece to, you are nowhere. Communication and content bent towards thought leadership. We produce a podcast and videos multiple times a week that helps expand our brand awareness. Contact prospects directly. "Hey, I thought you might be interested in this podcast I just did on membership development. Here's a link to it." You always want to be present and always around. This way, it's not always about you selling; you'll have good data, you'll be connecting with people, communicating regularly, providing value, and you'll be continuing to send direct messages to those individuals. This is how you grow a business. Don't hire your first employees until it's physically painful and you can't go any further. You're going to be responsible for them. You'll feel the responsibility of feeding them. Most of the time, you have another gear left, and you can go ahead and go to the next level regarding your work and activity. You must build infrastructure as you hire. It isn't easy to extricate those processes or shut those things down. So realize as you're growing and expanding, you're building more capacity, but you're also going to be responsible for more infrastructure, which takes brainpower and work. Frankly, a lot of that's going to come back on you. Increase your pricing by about 25%. I guarantee you, the services that you offer are underpriced. Many times, you'll be afraid early that you're not going to get the job, but you'll get the work.   Later you're going to be scared of going broke while you're doing the work. So go ahead and increase your pricing by about 25%. See what happens. I didn't do it that way, and then I had legacy clients that weren't paying enough for the services we provided. And it wasn't easy to bring them up. So think about where your floor will be and then increase 25%. Staffing and personnel relationships are two-way streets. It's all about the staff. The staff has leverage with their presence, and you have leverage with their salary. It's fair to be that way.   Let's talk about the exit strategy. Think about it early on because you got to be ready when the opportunity comes. When my exit strategy came up, and I had offers, I wasn't prepared. Run the numbers with your financial planner because there will be scenarios that determine what you're going to do after the exit. Make sure you know those numbers, and you're familiar with the scenarios before someone ever approaches you about selling the business to them. Some people who are very close to you will resent the fact that you sell the business. That's just the way it's going to be. It's unfortunate, but it's just human nature, so be ready for that. The company moves on very quickly without you after you sell it. Especially if you set up something that's genuinely scalable and a good business, they're not going to need you that much. They're going to move on fast.

    4 trends you should look out for as you head into a year of growth and success. .     Hello and welcome to JP Moery's Association Hustle Podcast. Founder 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. Here are four or five items that I expect to be trends as you head into a year of growth and success.   Member dues escalation and implementing cost of living increases will be more prevalent in 22. From all the client activity that I'm seeing right now, membership dues escalation and implementing cost of living will continue to become the norm. Another part of that is that associations are looking at new and adjacent membership groups or demographics they may not have served before. Once that starts to happen, we have more influence, more grassroots networks, and more capacity to reach folks that our benefits and services can serve. Eventually, they'll want to attend meetings and events.   Continued growth of micro-credentialing from associations. You're going to see these little areas of emphasis, expertise, small training classes, little micro-credentialing, and certifications. I think it's going to become the norm for not only this being offered by associations, but by all sorts of educational groups.   Increasing surge volunteerism. One of the things that we're starting to see from our younger demographics is they necessarily don't want to stay around for 20 years to be on our committee. They want to get involved in something that they're passionate or interested in, and then they want to move on. This is specifically going to be designed to connect younger members with our organization.     We will continue to see soft event participation from a live event perspective. Some organizations will see a surge in activity and high attendance rates, but I think we'll see soft attendance by large. Probably off maybe 10% of our previous 2019 levels. Membership development is an ongoing process, and that will be one of the themes of this year.   There's one thing that we know, membership segments, membership development, recruitment, retention, and engagement is going to become much more ingrained in association DNA.   Those are some of the items I look forward to seeing in 2022. I look forward to being with you on the journey. Talk soon.     We hope you enjoyed this edition of JP Moery's Association Hustle Podcast. We'd love to connect with you! Connect with The Moery Company on Instagram, LinkedIn,Twitter, and our Facebook page.  Subscribe to our Moery Company News Briefing.

    8 things CEOs should consider going into 2022. .     Hello and welcome to JP Moery's Association Hustle Podcast. Founder 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. Here are some goals that I think leaders could consider for 2022. Call every single customer. I learned this tactic from my mentor, Red Cavaney, who was the president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute. He had a set of 3x5 notecards that had the name and phone number of every single member of the organization. He would call them and then put them at the bottom of the deck.  Then he would call the next one and put them at the bottom of the deck. Whenever he had 10-15 minutes worth of time, he would work through that deck every single year. The value here is staying connected. C players. In terms of personnel, you have C players or mediocrity in every organization. If you give them one quarter to adapt, and change, but they don't improve, it's time they need to move on. Do you really understand the business model of your organization? What services, NOW - not five years ago, are generating the most revenue?  What clients are bringing the most to the table? Not because of the money, but because it is what is most valued by the market. The market doesn't care about you, and the things that are resonating in the market are the items that you should be replicating and scaling. Establish a goal of doubling down on your content generation. This is the golden age of thought leadership.  We probably have 12-24 months before we start seeing a decline, just like we saw on email open rates, the fax machine, etc.  It's your time to capture mindshare this year. This doesn't mean marketing, this means advice, counsel, thoughts, and observations. As a leader, people want to see this from you. The leaders that are skipping this part of their portfolio are making a big mistake. Go generate revenue on your own projects. CEOs and leaders should be involved in sales and business development because you'll learn about the things that resonate. If you're listening, the market will telling you what they value the most from your company or your association. Develop a “not to do list”. There are people clients and activities that are time suck and more than likely you know it. As a leader you can give this to someone else or eliminate the activity. Be self-aware. Pursue a merger or acquisition. There are a lot of chips on the table right now. Long term, you may want to take some off or you may want to put some on.  There's lots of liquidity going on right now, people are looking for deals.  Part of it is they recognize that they can't accomplish their mission or goals without dynamic change. Hire someone better than you are in a particular area. Hire somebody to take on some of your responsibilities, but make sure that they are better than you are. Go into some new areas that will invigorate and keep you sharp. Give back. Endorse someone on LinkedIn, write a thank you letter to someone that's helped you out, etc. It will make you grateful and make you happy. If you're grateful, happy, having a good time, you're going to be a better CEO than you were last year. I hope this was helpful to you. I really appreciate all your support. Talk next week on the Association Hustle.   We hope you enjoyed this edition of JP Moery's Association Hustle Podcast. We'd love to connect with you! Connect with The Moery Company on Instagram, LinkedIn,Twitter, and our Facebook page.  Subscribe to our Moery Company News Briefing.

    Insights from a previous staff member, association manager and entrepreneurial leader on what your boss really wants but might not say. .     Hello and welcome to JP Moery's Association Hustle Podcast. Founder 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. 1. As an individual team member, own your career. Ask yourself these questions from a professional development perspective.  Are you training yourself? Are you learning? Are you engaged? Are you participating in professional development opportunities?  You own your career, you own the professional development and learning aspect of it. 2. Show up. “Showing up” now with remote work is a bit more nuanced. Get there early, stay late, be engaged and be totally present. I guarantee you it's going to resonate with your leadership. 3. Meet the deadline. I don't expect perfection, it's never going to be perfect.  When it's late and not perfect, now we're really jammed up.  Meet the deadlines, discuss them and be clear about them. Your leaders and your team members are depending on you to deliver at a certain time. This also is something that bosses need to recognize. Don't be late in giving feedback to your team because it's going to jam them up. 4. Come to me with a problem and a solution. I realize that everything is not silver spoons, but also come to me with something that can be done to fix it and your role in fixing that issue. 5. I want feedback. We want feedback just like you do.  Clarity is the goal, but let's discuss how it is delivered. Weekly one on ones or weekly reports are a great opportunity to batch your feedback and batch your progress on certain items. 6. Transparency. I believe people primarily first quit the boss, then the job. Most research says that pay is not the main reason why people are dissatisfied, and I think that's the biggest myth in the association space.  Compensation leaks into every career discussion. Be confident that if you deserve compensation adjustments to bring that to the boss, but also be prepared if the answer is no. 7. Self-awareness and corporate awareness. Your number one priority should be your career, but I also want you to recognize I have to manage 12 to 15 desires, their career trajectory, and make the best call for everybody. The number one way to wear out your welcome is to be a high profile, me, me me attitude. 8. Can-do attitude and a smile. The best thing I can see from members of my team, what the boss really wants from you is a can-do attitude and a smile.  Just a great attitude and a smile. I'm not looking for perfection. I'm not looking for people to hit home runs every day, but effort, positivity and candor are going to take you far. I hope they're helpful for you as you continue to grow, improve and excel. Can't wait till next week on the Association Hustle. We hope you enjoyed this edition of JP Moery's Association Hustle Podcast. We'd love to connect with you! Connect with The Moery Company on Instagram, LinkedIn,Twitter, and our Facebook page.  Subscribe to our Moery Company News Briefing.

    Here are multiple ways to assess the state of the association industry for 2022.   .     Hello and welcome to JP Moery's Association Hustle Podcast. Founder 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. A prelude to the state of the industry.   First, attention to association work is going to increase over the next several years.    There is a lot of attention on the stories of organizations, what they do, and how they lead people, but sometimes we only get half the story. There's a lot of coverage of stories with members leaving trade associations. The attention is always on the folks that don't renew or quit.   If a large company chooses to leave, it's news. It's a reflection on the association's CEO's leadership and the direction of the association, but my point is, where is the reflection on the corporate CEOs leadership and the company's direction? They're the ones choosing to leave that great organization.   Let's keep our eye on the ball on who we should be asking the questions. Not only the association but more so on the company that's leaving.   Next, entrenched issues are now being addressed, that can't be avoided or ignored any longer.    Unprecedented adjustment in our governance models, to diversify our leadership, to address the market realities of better company representation, but most importantly finding the skills that our associations need within the executives to lead the board and manage the governance of that association. Too many times we are focused on the company and the executives within the company, and not the skills that we need to take the organization forward.   Membership growth and proactive membership development programs are being assessed by CEOs. Languishing membership programs drag down supplier relationships and partnerships, which is important to our top-line revenue, and our event and program attendance because we don't have engaged members.   Workforce. I see this oddly in our motor racing sponsorships that I'm working on. These companies are using the sport to engage employees, recruit new ones, be a part of the team, and showcase that company for people that may want to work for it. They're doing it at the track, they're doing it through social media, and they're even taking the car and the driver to plants to engage with employees.   Finally, a new leadership paradigm is emerging.   CEOs are going to be assessed in a lot of different ways. Do they have diversification on their staff? Do they have diversified views on that team? It's the end of looking over your shoulder leadership, in place we have remote teams. How are remote teams managed and led? The more flexible you can be, the more likely you're going to keep your best people.   Overall associations have been slow to change, but we have been through so much unprecedented change our staff and members don't seem like it's a big deal. They're going to apply that to their association relationship. Adapt, be self-aware and watch the market. It's your choice, you can decide whether to do that or continue to operate the way you used to.   I'm pulling for you! I can't wait to chat next week on the Association Hustle.   We hope you enjoyed this edition of JP Moery's Association Hustle Podcast. We'd love to connect with you! Connect with The Moery Company on Instagram, LinkedIn,Twitter, and our Facebook page.  Subscribe to our Moery Company News Briefing.

    Don't get caught going into 2022 flat footed.  Here are 3 tactics to lead you to success. .     Hello and welcome to JP Moery's Association Hustle Podcast. Founder 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. The first quarter is absolutely foundational to a good year.  How do you close out? How do you tee yourself up? I've got some ideas. First, close up your existing pipeline. Deals need to go up, they need to go out, and they need to get off your plate.  I want as few outstanding deals leaking into next year, because they take up time and they take up energy. Second, I want prospect my ass off through January the first. Prospecting Stages: keep in mind that every sale needs to go through several stages. Awareness: do they know who you are? Familiarity: are they familiar with what you do? What are the services and benefits that you provide? Consideration: are they considering working with you based on their awareness, the familiarity with what you have to offer? Offer: then they move into the offer? Are they going to look at an offer from this company Action/Decision: yes or no? Third, I want to mention planning.  Put together key portions of your 2022 plan.  Scheduled it. Where, when, what the key themes are, etc.  You want to be executing on January 4, not fixing to get ready. Prospect, plan, and close out the pipeline.  These are the best ways to succeed for next year, which are very much dependent on how you end this year. I wish you the very best. Thank you for listening. I can't wait to chat with you again next week on the Association Hustle.   We hope you enjoyed this edition of JP Moery's Association Hustle Podcast. We'd love to connect with you! Connect with The Moery Company on Instagram, LinkedIn,Twitter, and our Facebook page.  Subscribe to our Moery Company News Briefing.

    The most popular podcast episodes, clicked on stories, reposted blogs, and engaged content were about failure, not the things we did right.        Hello and welcome to JP Moery's Association Hustle Podcast. Founder 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. Posting failure content came across as vulnerable and authentic, but it wasn't just that. I wanted to give the people what they wanted. I wanted to fall on my sword, and share the trials and tribulations that I went through. But today I want to tell you about what I did right, I want to pass those along too.  Here are 10 things that were successful. First, I started a flexible workspace for my staff more than a decade ago, before it was in vogue or before we were forced into it.  Work was what you did, not where you were. Two, a healthy sales mentality where we were obligated to let the prospects know about the opportunity, and then we sorted people out that were not interested. That was healthy and was successful. We didn't get all wrapped around the axle about when we were told no, or when we received objections.  We're just sorting people out. Three, we developed a sales and business development platform that charged a retainer. Lots of people in the space will sell for free, and frankly, that is a cop out. It's easy for the salesperson to ignore if the value proposition is bad, they just won't sell it anymore.  It doesn't encourage the client to collaborate or invest in the relationship because they have no skin in the game. So, we had a different model, we're going to charge you a retainer for the work, plus commission.  I think that gave both people an obligation and commitment to the relationship. Four, we were willing to give away all the best tips through social media, webinars, speeches, and our entire thought leadership platform, because we had an abundance mindset.  If someone wants to take the idea and run with it, well good for them. Five, I recognized that people knew what they should do, but most often they won't.  We were pretty intensive about execution and did what many people thought was a good idea in the first place. That's how we were different. Six, accept that business is very personal.  That doesn't mean I don't have a healthy relationship with objection, I do. This keeps the word “no” from being crushing to you. But I also recognize that being successful in an entrepreneurial endeavor takes everything that you have, and that means your full being which is very personal. Seven, burn the boats. Over the last couple decades, I've run into great people who would be fantastic entrepreneurs, but they were not willing to commit 100%.  As a result, they had these little projects that were just a series of side hustle after side hustle. Eventually the main job became a side hustle, too.  As a result, they weren't really excellent at anything. Burn the boats, 100% commitment makes you much more focused. In healthy way it also makes you kind of desperate, realizing that if this doesn't work out, you don't have another option. Eight, transparency around the numbers of the business. I always showed our team the profit/loss every month, that way they would have had more understanding about the decision-making process, and they knew more about the business. Now, they didn't always agree with the decisions that I was going to make around the business, but they certainly could see the numbers and have context of why I made the calls that I did. Nine, I still considered myself, even in the last days before we sold the business, a big part of the sales operation. I think CEOs and leaders need to be on the front lines of their business operation and that means in...

    Listen to this podcast to discover what the 2 key factors are to any successful consulting project.       Hello and welcome to JP Moery's Association Hustle Podcast. Founder 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. When The Moery Company started up 10 plus years ago, almost 100% of our work was in business development and sales, but coming out of that, we start to get a lot of consulting projects. Questions we asked ourselves when The Moery Company started taking on consulting projects: is the value proposition right for our organization? Do we have the right dues structure? Does it need to be modernized? Does our governance fit with the organization needs for the future? Does our org chart have the right people in the right seats? That type of thing started to evolve and come out of the revenue development operation. I faced several decisions to make in consulting, I was worried that I wouldn't get enough projects. That was absolutely not the case. I had this bias that if I just had projects, and I had work, everything was going to be okay. I made the mistake of not being very thoughtful about my pricing structure that was fundamentally wrong. You can work your ass off and not make any money. I only negotiated downwards. I knew the floor, but I never tested the ceiling. My guess is you're unaware of the ceiling and you know the floor. Think about how you can move your pricing up and how you can escalate the service and deliver more and charge more because my guess is you have more altitude than you think. Now once we got the project, what did it look like? The more consulting I did, the more important I found a good process was imperative to having a successful project.  My colleague, Joe Bates, really helped me with this, he followed a couple of different items that I want to pass on to you now. We had a set agenda and a launch meeting that addressed all the different scope areas of the project. After that launch meeting, we established a timeline that we sent to the client, and they agreed to. We had biweekly meetings. Some projects require weekly meetings, but most of them are biweekly 30 minute recurring meetings, where we review the project, we review the timeline, and we address any gaps that might exist. I also like to drop in a little Friday written update very helpful. The projects that are least successful are those where there's a lack of communication between the client and the consulting firm. I want to address a couple of things regarding the end game and the end of the project. Be clear in the agreement that there's one final presentation of the work and have a final date for when that program is finished. A project can leak into more work scope, creep additional appearances, and that really takes a lot of time and time is money. Additional presentations need to be extra. In the early days, I was very nervous about telling that client about other projects that we could do for them that we discovered during the initial consulting project. Now I'm not concerned about that. Believe me, if you have good project, the client wants to keep working with you. Give them that opportunity. I hope this content was helpful for you today. I'm certainly pulling for you. And I can't wait to speak next week on the association hustle. I want to run up the score on downloads. So if you like this episode, would you share this on social media? Share it to your LinkedIn account! 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.

    Founder, JP Moery, talks about false metrics, or questions we ask of businesses that aren't relevant to their optimal performance and success.       Hello and welcome to JP Moery's Association Hustle Podcast. Founder 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 went through this during my incredible journey of growing a business and how people would assess us. I've pulled together false metrics that we had asked us. 1st False Metric: how many employees do you have?  What an antiquated system of evaluation. First, we're hiring fewer employees, we have more consultants and 1099 in all our organizations than ever before. There seems to be a risk involved with dealing with a small operation. We've lost some business because we were not as big as some of the competition, but I can guarantee you small and nimble can be much more effective and less bureaucratic. I can guarantee you that some of the smallest single entrepreneurs or solo entrepreneurs do the best work in the business. 2nd False Metric: where's your office? Many people in the association business have this infatuation with K Street or Washington DC. I watch associations all the time, I've worked with great ones, and I've worked with not so hot ones. Where they're located or what their addresses are has nothing to do with the value they bring to the organizations that they serve. 3rd False Metric: how much sales activity did you have?   I was a big fan of a lot of activity for a long time in terms of sales, but I changed my mind when I started looking at the data. If you don't hustle and stay engaged enough with prospects, you will lose them. That is a major problem and challenge for most companies and associations, they don't have enough activity. It's quality engagement, quality hustle, it's good reps that are most important, not how many actions you had this day or that week.   4th False Metric: how much money did you raise?  In the entrepreneurial world, it's a big quote, “we raise X amount of money in our series” or whatever it is. What people realize is that you've just given away a portion of your business, when you raise money or when you get funding. In fact, you're working for those people, you're working for them. Isn't that why you got into the entrepreneurial game in the first place, so you could work for yourself? So, if you want to work for someone else, don't become an entrepreneur, don't take funding. I'm a huge fan of bootstrap. Again, how much money did you make? Not a relevant question because it doesn't reflect your culture, the joy you get from working and collaborating with the teams and the clients. It's a less relevant measurement and metric than ever before. And believe me, I've been through both sides of that. It had nothing to do with the happiness and the joy I had on the job. The final thing I want to mention to you is to be thoughtful about what you want to measure, your core goals, your core values, etc.  The way you set up your team and what they think the measurements should be our most important. Then you have to see if that matches up to the marketplace. I hope this content was helpful to you. I love bringing it to you. I can't wait to chat with you next week on the association hustle. I want to run up the score on downloads. So if you like this episode, would you share this on social media? Share it to your LinkedIn account! 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 Face...

    Let's start a business together! I want to talk about some of the things that I went through as I started to launch The Moery Company.       Hello and welcome to JP Moery's Association Hustle Podcast. Founder 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. 1. Job Descriptions I wrote job descriptions for every single role in the company three years ahead. I projected three years down the road, what jobs were going to be needed in The Moery Company.  That was helpful because when I wrote out the jobs and the primary responsibilities, I signed my name to them.  I realized, in the very beginning, I was going to be responsible for all those functions, because it was just me. 2. Establish a strong sales operation Three steps that you should consider as you develop the sales operation. First, you have to have great data. I'm starting a new racing sponsorship effort right now, and it's still about who's the right person? What's the contact information? Is it an audience that makes sense for my business? If you don't have that critical information in place, you have nothing. Second, how are you going to track your sales and marketing information? I've used Salesforce in the past, and in fact I just bought a brand new Salesforce subscription today for myself.  I've got to keep track of who I'm talking to, and where is this deal in the sales process?  What stage might it be in? If I don't know those things, I'll lose track very quickly. Third, what is the script in the narrative? You built this infrastructure, so you have the right people to talk to. Now what if they decide to talk to you? How are you going to explain your value? I have talking points on the value proposition that I'm offering. It includes things like, why do other companies buy, or why do other companies join my association? What are specific examples that I have of their success when they did join? 3. Getting started and maximizing your value We're trying to eliminate fear and mistakes from the buyer. So many sales don't occur because we didn't eliminate enough risk.  We've got to do that in our pitch, then you're ready to go to market. 4. Hiring Process If you want to hire someone, here are some tips on hiring the first, second or third salesperson in your organization. I love to hire underdogs. Somebody that's got something to prove, a chip on their shoulder. Giving somebody a chance is a noble thing, and you start by giving them a substantial emotional deposit when you do hire them. If you're bootstrapping your business, it's going to be hard to compete or land the blue chippers. Sometimes you get value from folks that have been outcast by other organizations or just need a helping hand.   The people that have hit a rough spot is possibly because the average business didn't train, coach, or pay enough attention to them.  They didn't build a culture that you're going to build in your organization. So often, it's the company's fault, not the person. As you grow, you're going to learn that this hiring process is essential to your business. You're going to spend more time on personnel matters on HR. In fact, probably 75% of my time was spent on people matters. Making sure the culture was good, giving feedback, encouragement, etc.  You're going to be spending so much time with and on people, HR issues, why don't you get it right at the beginning. Thanks for listening. I get so much energy from your comments and feedback on the Association Hustle podcast. I can't wait to talk to you again next week. See you soon. Best wishes. I want to run up the score on downloads. So if you like this episode, would you share this on social media?

    Here are 6 association developments happening right now.         Hello and welcome to JP Moery's Association Hustle Podcast. Founder 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. 1: It's time to begin the process of output-based evaluation of our teams. Office flexibility and time flexibility are certainly happening in terms of us having less control over when people work with us. We've got to really be focused on outcomes at the risk of being uncomfortable with our staffs.  We still need to be very much in tune to output based measurement because we're not going to be watching how they work on a daily basis. 2: The need for participation focus from our organizations. We need to be looking at how we pull people toward us. Engagement is often a buzzword that we're seeing in the association space. Now that we are continuing, multi-channel engagement, virtual, hybrid, in person, lots of different ways that we're communicating, some of our members may have lost their bearings on how they can get value from us. So, I would schedule some regular onboarding programs or discussions or webinars about how you can be involved in the association because we can't assume that they know anymore, because so much has changed. 3: How to break down the walls between members and our staff. I'm amazed at how we have these firewalls between our industry and the association specialists that are meant to serve it. I see a lack of accessibility; not being able to see the staff and what they specialize in is a real mistake.   One of the most valuable things I see that association's send out is a listing of the staff and their areas of specialty or the issues that they cover.  The association team is an extension of the company staff.  Let's make them accessible. 4: Reemergence of strategic planning During the pandemic, there was so much going on we didn't have much opportunity to look ahead because we were focused on so many urgent things.  Association staffs and members are clearer than ever before about what is valuable and what is expected in the future. It's time to start developing those strategic plans. 5: The most intensive budget cycle in years is upon us. We've seen some examples of non-dues revenue being uncertain, we're not clear on how the meeting and event business model is going to move forward and how much we can rely on that. The thing that I've been noticing is how associations are really getting serious about their budget planning. 6: It's a great time to start listening to members and staff. They could bring you challenges, problems, opportunities to collaborate, but we really have to listen.  We are upon the great resignation era.  Let's not make that a thing that's happening in our association teams and in our association membership. One of the best ways to avoid the resignation era is to listen and to be closer to our staff members and our teams. If we do that we're going to be a destination for people that want to work with us or want to be a member of our institution.  We're about to see great separation from associations that are fantastic, and those that are kind of on inertia. The next 12 to 15 months are going to be absolutely critical in all these areas. I want to run up the score on downloads. So if you like this episode, would you share this on social media? Share it to your LinkedIn account! 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. 

    What founder, JP Moery, would have done differently if he could redo it all.         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. If I could do it all over again here are 10 things that I would change. 1: I would have hired slower, fired faster.   I always waited too long to hire somebody which put me into bind and forced me to make accommodations or settle.  Sometimes I didn't take the time to make sure they were the right person when I hired them, which ultimately put us in a bad situation.  Take the time to make sure they are a good fit. 2: I would have confronted performance issues much quicker. As a leader I valued being liked too much.  The employees and the company would have been better if I would have confronted things faster or been more intentional about it. 3: Be smart with family discounts. I had several friends in the association space and early on, I really appreciated the work. You work very hard on projects for friends or contacts in the industry. You want to build your brand, you want to build reputation, and you end up spending more time on them. However, I didn't price it the same. I worked harder on them, and I priced them lower for my friends. Looking back that was probably not the best business decision in the world. 4: Embrace thought leadership quicker for the association marketplace. Podcasting videos accelerated our business and our brand so fast.   I would have done that a lot faster. 5: Know when to say no. I took every job, every piece of work I could get, even if I knew it was a stinker. I always had this default that if we were busy things would be okay. The downside is I burdened my staff with association partners that weren't collaborative, and that was bad for us.  It probably affected our morale.  In hindsight, I knew some of these weren't good projects, but I sold them and I gave him to somebody else to do and that was wrong. 6: Stop treating associations as a homogenous group of businesses. I always said you've met one association, you've met one association. But in reality, I didn't always practice that. There are some businesses that aren't well run, not led effectively, and frankly, sometimes not even honest. They don't have integrity. Just like every other industry, we're not special. We're not special because we're nonprofit. I should have gotten out of the deals when I could. 7: I would have had more executive coaching or help. I would have relied on my advisory board, or I would have relied on friends in the association space. They could have given me advice on how to navigate different things. You don't have all the answers as a leader, but sometimes I think we're afraid to admit it. We always want to have the answer for our staff and our clients. 8: Listen more, talk less.   If I could have flipped the ratio of the times I spent talking and spin it to listening, we would have been a lot better. 9: I would have ramped up The Moery Company sales much faster. If you've listened to my journey, I was the lead salesperson for a number of years for the company, and it really just wasn't efficient or effective. I realized that once we brought our own sales team in, they were able to cover much more ground. They had more margin in their deals that they put together. 10: Be more intentional about diversity. We launched a business leadership diversity program with local high schools after the George Floyd tragedy. It was too late; I had a blind spot on this.  I regret not letting some different perspectives in place in our company and with our advisory board.

    Thank you for listening to the 300th episode of Association Hustle podcast, we are so grateful that you've been along for this journey! JP shares some exciting news about The Moery Company and its future.     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. The Moery Company has been acquired by the association consultancy, Advancea, which provides technology solutions, affinity programs, member benefits, sourcing, and consulting for associations.  When you think about what they're doing in terms of technology, affinity solutions, and cost savings for association members, and then combine it with the Big Red M's sales, marketing, strategy services, and growing research component, we've got a perfect complement of a dynamic association industry combination. Here's how it is rolling out: For our association clients: The same team is in place, all our people have been retained, they're hired in their current roles. The Moery Company Brand: The Moery Company brand will continue in the industry, and that meant a lot to me. You'll continue to see The Big Red M around the association industry, it's going to evolve into a new era. Personally: My Moery Company work continues. I'm still working on client association projects. I'm will also be running alongside this transition to make sure it's successful. Our firm began its professional practice in 2010 and its growth and reputation over the last 11 years has been built from association hustle, hard work and a great team and collaboration with many organizations. Opportunities: I could see associations client's needs were evolving and expanding into some new opportunities for us. I thought we needed a partner that can provide the company with an opportunity to become a larger organization and offer a wider array of services and more depth. Finding and retaining great people is a challenge right now, and an organization that has more capacity means my friends on the team can benefit from stronger growth and career opportunities in a new and expanding organization. What does this mean to the association hustle podcast? I'm going to continue to produce this podcast every week. I want to make it more candid and more authentic. Final thank you's… Kerry Doyle, thank you. Grace Lynch, thank you. Jackie Bessette, thank you. Amelia Mazza, thank you. Joe Bates, thank you. Matt Kerr, thank you. Bethany Murphy, thank you. Elizabeth Johnson, thank you. Mike Thomas, thank you. I want to thank you all for listening to the Association Hustle's 300th episode, and I want to thank the entire Moery Company team for being on my journey. See you next week.   I want to run up the score on downloads. So if you like this episode, would you share this on social media? Share it to your LinkedIn account! 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.  Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter.

    These are five frequent mistakes associations make that can easily be corrected to put you on the road to success.       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. Five mistakes associations and how they can be fixed right now. #1: Improve Operational Excellence We need an appetite for that. There aren't a lot of CEOs and organizations, there aren't a lot of folks that are really focused on process, procedure, and execution Execution is not a priority in many facets of the association management area right now. And that's what we need. Let's fix it #2: More Focused Internet 2.0 Commitment When I made a more substantial commitment, my business grew double digit percentages. Many times the associations that are active right now, are only promoting a conference or a show or an event, it should be about content delivery, showcasing your members and what they're doing, tips and tools on how to make members businesses grow, etc. It should be at least four to five times a day, not just once, and not just to promote the next webinar. #3: Have a Plan for Digital Events Next Year We're so focused on protecting the old legacy model and hoping that it will come back that we may have forgotten the literally thousands of people that we engage, including new and young professionals that are now on board with us. We're forgetting about how we are going to cultivate that digital platform next year, it's a big opportunity #4: Provide Micro Credentials Quick, short kind of credentials on breaking issues and things. Look at what LinkedIn is doing in terms of digital badges on expertise and certificates, etc. #5: Identify the Five Perspective Member Companies or New Sponsors that Would Make a Difference in Your Organization Five perspective members that would make a difference because they joined, that would give resources to the association, and that we could help them the most. Question to ask yourself: Who are the key accounts for the next year in both non dues revenue and in membership revenue? I want to run up the score on downloads. So if you like this episode, would you share this on social media? Share it to your LinkedIn account! 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.  Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter.

    As associations are holding in-person meetings, focus on the content of the meeting and learn how to best prepare for association presentations.       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.  In-Person Meetings Implement your COVID policies so folks can get the great content that you have to offer. Some associations are hiring a third party organization to help implement those COVID safety policies. Overall registration numbers seem to be down 25%, from what we had pre COVID. Some of that might be safety, hesitancy, and the ability to travel. Other reasons might be there's so much work to do, that folks just can't even take time away from the office right now. Tradeshow floors are bustling, and they're ready to do business. I'm really kind of enthused about the new era of meetings. I think meetings will continue to be a hybrid, you've got a virtual component, and you've got an in person component. This might actually help those meetings extend themselves in terms of their value to the association. You might be able to deliver that content instead of over a three day period for the entire year. Preparing for Presentations at Association Meetings  Know the audience, is this a committee that's never heard anything about the association topic? Or is it a task force that has been involved in the project, and they kind of know what's happening? I love to use a scene setter about association trends and how it relates to the topic. I found that context helps, and it builds credibility of the speaker. I present is qualitative information. What have people in the association told me about the topic, staff and members alike? What's the quantitative information? Do I have math and data that supports some of the components of what we're trying to address? Finally, what are my recommendations based on all this information? Don't forget to smile! I want to run up the score on downloads. So if you like this episode, would you share this on social media? Share it to your LinkedIn account! 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.  Get a complimentary copy of JP Moery's Association Hustle book. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter.

    The membership renewal process is much more than just billing or invoicing. Use the tools from this week's association hustle podcast to consistently retain members.       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. 47% of associations are declining in membership right now, and that's the highest percentage since 2010. Renewal rates, however, remained strong at about 90%. But almost 40% of all associations report, a decrease in their retention numbers as well. In the area of membership development, I think one of the things we can do is pay a lot of attention right now on renewals: #1: I think we need to utilize people. We need to utilize chairman, staff members, and members of our industry that might compel others to renew their membership early. Many organizations are quite limited in their renewal process. Networking! #2: Can you demonstrate a signature membership benefit or service? Either through a webinar, an infographic, your advocacy program, or send out some compelling research that you've just completed. #3: Take your renewal process that you have today, and examine the communication strategy It's really much more than a billing or an invoicing process. Can we make it a specific initiative that can get people fired up? #4: I'm encouraged seeing growth officers being named to associations and senior staff. This is a great time of the year to interview all your sponsors, and see what they want for next year. Change the sponsorship program if you need to meet their needs and help them achieve their business objectives. #5: Right now, members want more people to hire. They're looking for a diversified pool of not only entry level folks, but executives as well. They want tools so they can recruit better. 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.  Get a complimentary copy of JP Moery's Association Hustle book. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter.

    A tip from this week's podcast: do not underestimate the power of client referrals when searching for business. Listen for 4 more must-do's for any business or association.     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. #1: You have to sell the business and the value proposition. One of the biggest challenges I see in the association game, is they don't have a strategy for renewals or getting new business. #2: Brand the business like your life depends on it. Become a media company for your industry. The amount of content and information you have is not a problem. It is the cadence. It's the velocity. #3: Referrals. The referral essential in getting more prospects and leads. The very best associations are promoting members incessantly on their website and video content. #4: Talk about the problems you solve, not the features you provide. This directly applies to government relations. Talk about how you're fixing things for your members rather than features or weather reports. #5: Outsource your work! I use consultants and they are the backbone of our research and our consulting work. They have done all the communications activity for the last several years for us. They are a big part of our strategy and a competitive advantage, not a last resort for us. 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.  Get a complimentary copy of JP Moery's Association Hustle book. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter.

    Listen to this week's association hustle podcast to improve your growth as an individual, professional, and even a company. Identify your core mission and values, and you will find success by honing in on authenticity.       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 spent way too much time early in my career seeking approval from others, conforming, and maybe not even being my true self. I came from Washington, D.C. from Oklahoma. The fact that I didn't have the work experience made me feel inferior in the newenvironment. Some advice I give to my younger colleagues and people getting started in the space is this: it's your race. What's important is how valuable you become over your career, and that starts with how much you can help others. How I get energy for a big presentation, is by trying to be myself and offer the most help that I can. It's not that you have to be brilliant, or have the best ideas, but you're trying to help in the best way based on all the information and situations that you've been through. That becomes authentic. That's how you build brand, based on that legacy. Right now is a great time to think about how your association or organization got started. What's the mission and the options for growth, relevance, and influence? The folks that started your organization had a vision of what they wanted this to be, and it's a good time to use it. Balance your work to help achieve that mission. In your own personal career, your authenticity and what you're all about is more important than what other people think. I want to run up the score on downloads. So if you like this episode, would you share this on social media? Share it to your LinkedIn account! 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.  Get a complimentary copy of JP Moery's Association Hustle book. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter.

    The importance of business development is just one of the many things CEO JP Moery has learned from his association mentors. Discover more on this week's Association Hustle podcast.       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. What I have learned from my association mentors: #1: The importance of having resources, money in this case, to fulfill the mission of the association. Few leaders are willing to admit it. Business development should be a top priority. #2: The second thing I learned was that there's a very clear distinction between customers and members. If you give a lot of people the opportunity to be a part of your organization, with a strong business development core, you have the leverage then to limit access. #3: The other thing that I learned was the tenacious attention to government relations. If you're not a real player in that game, then you're just not going to be as valuable.Think about it. It's the reason why so many of our organizations are based where they are. #4: The lack of transparency or communications from the executive leadership team is crippling. Leaders are more powerful when they are constantly communicating with their team members, and have an open door policy. #5: Another thing I've learned from great leaders and mentors, is that they have bias toward action. I call this now a phone first mentality. I want to run up the score on downloads. So if you like this episode, would you share this on social media? Share it to your LinkedIn account! 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.  Get a complimentary copy of JP Moery's Association Hustle book. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter.

    Taking quick action is key to grow your organization daily and develop as a professional.       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. If you want to lead an organization, people, and be a thought leader in your space in an industry sector, I guarantee you, if you do it faster than others, there's going to be benefits to that. To use a sports adage, I don't have to be the fastest on my team, but I have to be the fastest at my position. Imperfect action is the key. You won't be perfect if you're performing more. I see too many organizations that wait to be perfect, and the opportunity passes them by. So what does a movement oriented professional look like? Every minute of the day is scheduled. The more specific their calendar is to a minute, the more you will get done. I have three revenue generation calls a day to make sure that our organization has some kind of revenue generation going on. I schedule it out every single day to make sure I stay sharp, and to make sure that I'm performing and have action in my calendar. This type of discipline is so powerful, Get five action items that you have to do every day to win the day. So many times, I see great organizations that are unclear on their priorities. As a result, everybody's doing a bunch of different things. There's not enough action because they're unclear about what the priorities are. Can you imagine the power and the speed of an organization that would move on its business objectives? I learned the value of speed firsthand. During the pandemic, some of our clients adapted quickly to virtual programs, government relations, clear goals and expectations of a remote workforce. And I saw the opposite. 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.  Get a complimentary copy of JP Moery's Association Hustle book. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter.

    Entrepreneurial, sales, networking, and personal advice that will accelerate your growth.     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. 3 most important characteristics to lead a business #1: Authenticity. Be authentic with your team and be honest with yourself. #2: Transparency. Be honest and candid with your team and reveal more about the business that you're running. I can guarantee you, you'll get their help and they'll understand why you're making decisions. They want to be a part of the team, you've hired them and you're making them a part of the entrepreneurial journey. #3: You have to be energetic. Don't wait to be motivated.I want you to be the most energetic person on the team, folks will tend to follow you when that happens. How have you made professional connections during the career? #1: My best personal connections came from doing the best job I could possibly do. You have credibility, when that happens, it will keep you getting paid for doing work. It builds the opportunity for reputation and referrals. Do good work, and then give them a referral for being a good collaborator with you. What is the best professional advice you've ever received? People are joining associations for two reasons. They want to make money, or they want to save money, and the associations that can demonstrate that, the more successful they'll be. As a sales person, take the role of a sorter. You're separating people that are interested from those that are not. It keeps you from taking sales personal. The ability to embrace silence. If you know me at all, that's really hard for me to do. Pose a question for the team and let them answer it. Best personal advice I've ever received: If you've met more than one asshole today, maybe it's you, huh? 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.  Get a complimentary copy of JP Moery's Association Hustle book. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter.

  Brand-building, accountability, and transparency are steps you can take to become an entrepreneurial leader your organization.         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. #1: Brand building or nothing. I'm amazed by the lack of communication and brand building directly within the association industry in particular. We post at least once a day on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. #2: I make at least 50 to 100 contacts weekly. I'm a big believer that CEOs should be a critical part of any fundraising operation #3: Transparency with staff around finances. I was very clear when I started this company that I was always going to share what the numbers were. Companies that I'd worked with before, no one understand why personnel moves were being made or different expense items were being cut. #4: Accountability. I think when you're sharing the numbers with your team members, everybody kind of gains some accountability. And that's difficult for an association. 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.  Get a complimentary copy of JP Moery's Association Hustle book. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter.

  Transparency and aligning external and internal sales goals is essential to having successful client relationships.         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. #1: The importance of transparency. Don't be hesitant to reveal your value proposition challenges to your sales partner. #2: Focus on the goal, not who gets the credit for meeting the goal. Make sure that the goals of the internal and external teams are aligned.If you hire business development partners, let them do the sales work. If the internal team has separate incentives, it could result in a lack of full collaboration. We had an experience like this, where the point of contact had similar incentives. They were actually keeping leads from us because they wanted to get the credit. It's not a sin, it's just not great collaboration. #3: Communicate at least weekly, if not daily, about sales momentum. And, make it a two way street. 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.  Get a complimentary copy of JP Moery's Association Hustle book. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter.

  Building a unique business brand will separate you from the competition. Here's how to do it:         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. Build brand in a unique and authentic way.  This week I dropped a picture of a new Moery Company car that raced in the NASCAR Xfinity race in Pocono, Pennsylvania, piloted by Santino Ferrucci. I get dozens of views when I post something about associations and sales. After posting the picture of the car, within 24 hours, I had nearly 1000 views. These are my followers and my association audience. The Moery Company corporate page views were up 90% over last week. Associations love their hierarchy. They like the head table, they like the car service, they like sitting at the right table at right Washington, D.C. restaurant. I get it. But if you're a little unique, a little authentic, do things that others are not doing. Here's some tactics that I've tried over the years: #1: Daily videos, that I post on my personal site. I just give observations of the day. #2: Daily podcast. #3: Bi-weekly newsletter. #4: We transcribe every video and podcast, and that becomes content that you can then put in written blog form that improves Search Engine Optimization (SEO). #5: Make your own content! #6: The most authentic and highest engagement content comes from talking about your mistakes. 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.  Get a complimentary copy of JP Moery's Association Hustle book. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter.

  How can state, local, and national affiliations work together to create a killer membership recruitment program? Find out on this week's Association Hustle podcast.         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. #1: Remember that every member company is unique, but segments have similar needs. We tend to treat our members like a homogenous group. Small businesses want to know about compliance. They're about business growth and sustainability. Large businesses seek influence that conveys into leadership and government relations issues at the federal level. #2: Identify how you are going to work with your state and local affiliates. Or if you're a state and local chapter, how are you going to work with the national chapter? We need to build a consistent value proposition locally and at the national level. Listen to the podcast to hear more about the importance of local, state, and national affiliates working together to create value for members... 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.  Get a complimentary copy of JP Moery's Association Hustle book. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter.

  Members offer feedback on how associations can be valuable. Here is what they are saying about a few important issues concerning education, workforce concerns, and supply chain issues.   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. Top Association Member Issues Right Now: #1: Regulation concerns. Members are seeing a growth of opportunity and work, but this could result in more regulation.  #2: Recruiting and retaining staff is one of the top issues that members are facing right now. Regardless of the industry, there are workforce concerns for members. #3: Supply chain issues. Members aren't getting equipment, they aren't able to buy it, and they aren't able to get the resources they need to make the things that they do. #4: There is so much value in state and regional associations. Members are talking about the value they get from them. #5: Talk to your members. What are the main strategy concerns they have? #6: Advocacy. How are we going to activate for our members around key issues for our industry? DISCUS sponsored a NASCAR in Austin, around a state issue. They had so much television, radio, and they reached a demographic of people that watched car racing. What are the barriers to success for associations? Positive awareness with non-members. Focus on the content to upgrade event experiences, whether virtual or in-person. Focus on education and certifications. Is it time for you to look at a merger with a professional society that has a more robust educational offering? 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.  Get a complimentary copy of JP Moery's Association Hustle book. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter.

  Has your association been committing these cardinal sales mistakes? Find out on this week's Association Hustle podcast.         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. #1: There is a sales process that is lacking in almost every association. #2: The utilization of a good customer relation management tool or a CRM. I'm amazed at how many organizations are still using excel to track their activity and pipelines. If you're not utilizing Salesforce, or some other CRM, why aren't you? #3: Not enough action. I used to think that it was all about the numbers and activity. It isn't. It's about the quality of action. #4: We're just not close enough to the customer. We don't understand the customer or its language to get closer to them. #5: Are you listening to the market surveys? Setting up an intentional renewal program for your members that involves speaking with them, recruitment, and learning about the reasons to join. What are they telling you? It's not about your list of features and services. It's about how they benefit from it. 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.  Get a complimentary copy of JP Moery's Association Hustle book. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter.

  How can you make your association event the best for your members and sponsors, whether in-person or digital?         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. In the association space, we've got to take 2020 and the learning from it, and start planning for 2023. Digital and Hybrid Meetings As we get into the Fall, more of our clients are going to be in person. Some are working on the hybrid or digital aspect of that meeting. The takeaway is that the digital aspects should be totally unique. Don't make the in-person meeting look and sound like a digital meeting and don't make the digital meeting look like an in-person meeting. Keep the digital component to your meetings and engagement in some way of delivering content. If we just go back to the same old meeting and golf tournament, you're gonna leave behind the younger members that you've been trying to reach. Expand into the digital offerings of in-person events: video your sessions, make it available to people not able to attend, and use more social media activation and mentions of sponsors. Sales and Marketing Email marketing working quite well. We've got more inventory and assets to utilize. We've got to find new ways of participating in this workforce development area. It's going to be the top issues that associations can and should face for the future. Sponsorships Thought leadership, thought leadership, thought leadership. We have sponsors that want sponsorship opportunities that include thought leadership. They all want it. Let me add another wrinkle to in person events: we should adjust our inventory because sponsors may not be able to attend meetings due to corporate travel rules. Don't make the sponsorship totally reliant on their presence. 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.  Get a complimentary copy of JP Moery's Association Hustle book. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter.

  Associations can promote new membership by tapping into their unique attributes regarding data, government relations, and the power to bring people together. Learn more in this week's podcast.         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. Associations have unique attributes that have been consistent over time and I'm going to talk to you about them today. #1 The power to convene We hosted a briefing for non-members regarding government relations and 60 non-members showed up. We've converted members from that call since then. We still have that power to bring people together and address a common issue or concern. #2 Government relations Develop your own advocacy program. People that are members of different industry groups understand who the real players are. You can take that content and pitch it to non-members #3 Industry data and research. The ability for us to tap into our membership base and develop trends and industry data from it is incredibly valuable. I've got one association that has a Consumer Confidence Index of their member businesses. Hey, when are you going to start traveling again? Are you going to go to the annual convention? What do you think about the prospect of business over the next several months? #4 Talking about the benefits of membership. Avoid a menu of items, and talk about how the member will actually benefit. They want to be on a committee, they want to be on the board, and they want company legitimacy through your association. 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.  Get a complimentary copy of JP Moery's Association Hustle book. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter

  JP shares his favorite audio content for sales managers and CEOs, and gives his own sales advice.       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. JP's content recommendations for CEOs and Sales Managers:  B2b Sales Magic on clubhouse (download the clubhouse app). You can listen to that three times a week at 8am ET. Also Sales Questions: Brutally Honest Answers podcast, hosted weekly by Brian burns Associations sell intangible things. You can learn from folks that are in, for example, software and enterprise sales. The importance of qualifying 'hard' as a key metric for sales: We do little to qualify or ask tough questions that we need answers to, and then we wonder why people don't close. When you decide business things like this? How does it work? How long does it take? Do you have the money in the budget for this membership this year? What is the process for developing a budget? What's the buying process? How does it work? How long? Who's involved in deciding? Should they be a part of the discussions moving forward? What if you didn't do anything this year on the topic? What would happen? Have you joined associations before? What was the experience? What did you like the most about them? What did you not like at all? Is there a reason that you would not be a fit for this association? Let's qualify harder and then we will close easier and avoid objections. You can smoke out the objections in those qualifying questions. 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.  Get a complimentary copy of JP Moery's Association Hustle book. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter

  CEOs and association leaders are making huge changes by having an entrepreneurial mindset, implementing robust sales operations, and attracting young professionals. How are you implementing these things in your association?       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. Association leadership that we need right now. Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurs have to have a real stomach to get up and be tested in the market every single day. They've got to change programs on an ongoing basis to stay relevant and viable. The association business failing over decades isn't abrupt enough to disrupt our old biases and programs. I've seen some great innovations, CEOs shaking it up with a live LinkedIn broadcast with thought-provoking podcasts or launching new certification programs, or image campaigns in the worst and most uncertain economic environment ever that we're coming out of. There is a CEO sponsoring a NASCAR with a state advocacy program, because they can reach millions in the demographic that they want to influence. CEOs are not just sending out an advocacy alert by email and expecting the world to shift to try new things. Sales Operations Every business needs a sales operation and CEOs are embracing that idea. I've been speaking about this for years. There will be a new membership effort that's going to be required to sustain our businesses. Association leaders are embracing the need for a real measured and robust business development platform. Game on I welcome it. Staff Changes Association leaders are also shaking up their staff and that's going to be uncomfortable. To attract and keep those innovative and invigorated people, they need to offer things like telecommuting and flexibility. Diversity and Inclusion CEOs are finally talking about diversity, inclusion, young professionals in a different way. I don't know how many times I was in meetings, where we wanted to engage young professionals, and there wasn't a young professional in the dining room. Now we have the opportunity to engage them and ask them what they want. 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.  Get a complimentary copy of JP Moery's Association Hustle book. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter.

  What is happening in the association market with meetings, association staffing, and  membership? Listen to JP's insights on this week's podcast.         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. The best thing we can do right now is listen to customers, prospective members, sponsors, and advertisers, because what we hear and what we might see from their action, could contradict some of the long held biases that we may have had before. Meetings Virtual and hybrid events are here to stay. Some big companies are not traveling. I know associations want to start those in-person meetings, and we're seeing a lot of those being planned for the third and fourth quarter. Associations are seeing the value of putting on these digital events, because they're getting so many more people participating. Associations are concerned about the expanse of putting on two different events because it's a substantial investment. Membership The return on investment of membership can't be vague or broad. One thing drives their participation in membership is marketing. This week, we had a 78% open rate on a marketing piece. Let me say that again. This week, we had a 78% open rate on a marketing piece. How'd that happen? We drove them into a new marketing channel around the theme, which delivers value in the area that they were interested in. This emphasizes the whole idea about recruiting on narrow issues. Association Staffing Staff responsibilities are quite more expansive than they may have been a year ago. The association staff member may be doing two jobs with one title because of cuts and new programs. There's unprecedented value in the work. If you don't report to your managers on your productivity and results, they're not going to see your influence. Every Friday with our client work, we send a weekly report with activity and the sales pipeline. 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.  Get a complimentary copy of JP Moery's Association Hustle book. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter

  Predictions for the rest of 2021 regarding membership, mergers, CEOs, and affinity programs.         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. End of q1 2021 predictions for the rest of the year: #1: Mergers and acquisitions in the association space are going to be at an unprecedented level in the next 12 months. #2: People are going to want to be hired and not launch their own business because of risk. They'll prefer to get hired by a bigger association service provider or an association for more consistency and security. #3: I see executives of color and women CEOs going to grow exponentially. #4: Association outsourcing is going to experience a credible growth. #5: There's going to be an intensive time of reorganizing staff. #6: Associations are going to reorganize their business. New membership categories. Raising the dues levels in some areas, and putting an emphasis on the types of companies that really align around the association mission. The advocacy message is going to be the way the associations are going to monetize and sustain their businesses for the long term. #7: Renewed emphasis on membership recruitment, retention, and engagement. #8: Putting more emphasis on personal and professional development in our organizations. Ah, this is really kind of a new one. But I got a hunch This is really going be a new era for affinity programs. 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. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter    

  Associations have strayed from using advocacy as a key part of their membership value proposition. Here's how to bring back advocacy to serve your members:   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. Associations were built to advocate. That's why we were developed in the first place. And that was, frankly, our sole purpose. Our business models reflected that focus. ASAE claims that in 1953 95% of all the association revenue came from dues to support government relations efforts. But now ASAE reports that only 52% of revenue comes from dues. We're more diversified in our programs and services. We have event people, education staff, certification, individuals, and public relations. Through all of that, associations have lost their way in terms of being able to talk about advocacy as a key part of the membership value proposition. We talk about advocacy as representing an industry instead of battling for our members and advocating for them. To advocate for your business at the highest levels of government, I need to know your concerns. If you don't have a voice within my organization, how could I even begin to say that I represent you? We should be talking about the implications of legislation, interpreting what it means for their business. Launch a key issues document to all the prospects and see who opens and clicks on that document. Next, send a key regulatory issue update from your government relations regulatory superstar. See who opens and clicks that and use that to make your phone calls about membership. In month six survey to identify what people think about the key issues. Are you talking about things that really matter to them? Then develop a webinar for non-members on key topics. 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. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter

  Your association or company can have its biggest month of the year. Here's how:         #1: We won this fight in April 2021. I had a three step crisis plan in place. That plan was developed early, so I could make a decision an unemotional state. #2: Our external and internal sales team buckled down to keep every client that we had. We never stopped fighting and we never stopped selling. #3:We eliminated limiting behavior within our organization. This enabled us to take on different clients and different projects than we thought was in our toolbox. #3: We got really close to our association clients and our customers. We were able to offer more services, and we became embedded in their organizations. #4: We increased social media and content development. Today our listenership of this podcast doubles every single month. #5: Know who your real players are-- both clients and employees. It's not always the most high profile clients or associations that help our organization. #6: Activity doesn't mean sales. 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.  

  The Moery Company marks its 14th anniversary. What has Founder and CEO JP Moery learned (the bad and the good) from the process? He touches on thought leadership, sales, and client management.   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. The Booms: #1: Thought leadership marketing. Videos, podcasts, and e-newsletters changed my business forever. It's inexpensive. It provides you content that you can forward to clients, and don't forget that everyone on your team can be a thought leader. #2: If you don't have sales, you don't have a business.The more business you get makes you better at delivering value and improving programs. #3: Diversification of revenue. Our core business has always been selling memberships, sponsorships, exhibits, and ads. Three years ago, we intentionally grew our consulting program based on what we had learned from selling. So now I've got two different businesses operating here, and that really helped us. #4: I did not rely on one client to make or break us. #5: Retainer for sales required. This saved us during the pandemic. #6: Virtual workplace and flexibility. #7: Only take full year 90-day out contracts for sales. The Busts: #8: For years, I sold the services of the company. When I hired somebody to focus on that, we became a better business for it. #9: Way too many responses to RFPs. I can't serve a client well if this is all going through a PDF document. #10: Speaking at ASAE and other events for free (and it's not their fault). I'd rather use my own platform or just charge someone. It saved me time. #11: Too many projects that weren't going well, and I could have saved time by ending them. #12: I respected the chain of command in the clients way too much. At the end of the day, you need to do all you can to be successful and perform for the client. #13: I didn't watch cash flow early on in the business. My recommendation is to get paid up front or at the beginning of the month, rather than billing at the end. #14: I needed the business or thought I needed the business so bad, I signed bad deals, and then my staff had to deal with the aftermath. 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. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter: https://www2.moerycompany.com/l/76152/2020-02-24/5m62v9  

    JP talks new developments in sponsorship renewals, the sales process, and longer negotiations while association staffs have less bandwidth.     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. #1: Sponsorship renewals. It is dangerous to assume that your former vendors are going to come back to you this year in the same way that they did in the past. It is taking longer to renew them, especially if there are unknowns regarding the inventory. My recommendation is to have some conversations regarding their buying process, and it may result in a custom offering. #2: There's much more negotiation and discussion. The buyer process is very important in membership recruiting and sponsorship sales right now. #3: Association staff bandwidth issues are more commonplace. Now we are seeing the impact of layoffs in the association sector. My recommendation then for you is to look at the sales process right now. #4: Intense financial pressure on the legacy revenue model at the association. I'm seeing a great deal of curiosity from association leadership to modernize and recalibrate membership segments. 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. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter: https://www2.moerycompany.com/l/76152/2020-02-24/5m62v9  

  Association problem-solving means that you may need analyze your business model. Are these industry biases prevalent in your association?       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 have five themes that I hear on a regular basis, that in some ways I think are industry legacy bias that we can address and maybe get some different results out of the issues. #1: "We want to keep it in house".  Get the best results and impact for your members over in house out of house. Take a look at the best possible option in solution, rather than an administrative bias. #2: "We need someone with industry knowledge to do membership sales". Why don't you get somebody that's good at membership sales, rather than the industry knowledge? My research shows that it takes somewhere around seven to eight contacts to actually close a member, so you need to find somebody that has the ability and the capacity to do that, rather than someone that has industry knowledge. #3: "We just get the same sponsors over and over again". It's usually a symptom of three things. If we do the same thing over and over again, then it's probably designed to get the same sponsors year after year. We're likely calling the same people over and over again to get the same scenario, and it's odd that we would expect something different happen. #4: "We haven't raised dues since the big eight conference was still around". The raising or decreasing of dues is not really an answer right out of the gate. Is your value proposition resonating? Should there be services that no longer are part of our portfolio? Compare your programs, dues levels, and other benefits with associations that your members might be joining and look at their business model #5: "Government relations is hard to sell as a part of membership".  Likely not a member or another entity can accomplish what we can in the area of advocacy, influence, and government affairs. I want to leverage that and I want to showcase it. 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. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter: https://www2.moerycompany.com/l/76152/2020-02-24/5m62v9  

  What gets you out of bed in the morning and makes you great at what you do? You have the ability to make an organization great.         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 asked each member of my team, "what's the characteristic that makes you successful?" I found these things are also the components of a great company. #1: Persistence and tenacity. It takes seven to ten times to really get the attention of a prospect, and the fact of the matter is, most people quit after two or three. #2: Helping others. #3: Attention to detail. It's really standard language for almost every job description you see out there, but have you really seen it in action?  The lack of attention to detail causes mistakes, unclear messages, poor data, all the things that are keeping us from optimizing our work and keeps us from achieving our mission. #4: Solution provider. When we do a lot of business analysis on associations, we see an emphasis on pricing, when the real issue is data or the value at the price point. #5: Project management. We have a pretty good process and it's rare that we're ever delayed on deliverables. We get it done. #6: Love of people. If you're in the service business like we are or your association is, and you don't truly enjoy the people that you're working with, it's not very good. I've seen the organizations where the people are absolutely passionate about the folks that they represent and work for. That's a great organization to be a part of. #7: Being coachable. #8: Work ethic. If your team is willing to outwork anyone, the likelihood of losing or failing goes way, way down. 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. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter: https://www2.moerycompany.com/l/76152/2020-02-24/5m62v9  

  Looking to increase your association's membership and sponsorship sales? Consider making theses changes.           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. Six changes I would make to improve association sales right now. #1: Connect with multiple people within the prospective member company that you are selling a membership to. We rely on an individual contact when we're selling way too much. #2: Learn what the vendors to your industry want from a relationship with your association. We are relying too much on the platform or the delivery system and not asking them the true thing that they are seeking from their association relationship. #3: Use a team approach to sales. Include an endorsement in your sales process before the prospect asks for it. #4: Integrate your government relations team and sales team. The CEOs of our associations must connect the government relations team to the most fundamental part of membership because it is what prospects view as valuable. #5: Increase the rigor on what is a true membership prospect using data. 60% of our closed memberships happen in the first 45 days. There's a myth out there that membership sales take a long time. #6: Have prospect awareness to see what they're going through right now. That is the biggest thing that affects the sales process, is what the prospects going through, not how bad you want it. 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. Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter: https://www2.moerycompany.com/l/76152/2020-02-24/5m62v9

Life and business advice that everyone needs to hear.           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. #1: Burn the boats. Don't give yourself an option of going back and doing what you're used to or applying for a job. #2: Know the numbers. I've learned how to read a balance sheet and understand cash flow. Financial literacy for the leader provides you the ability to look ahead and anticipate, and that's helped me tremendously during the pandemic. #3: The market doesn't care. The internet has democratized business and communication. The wonderful thing about the world now is that there are no gatekeepers. Customers decide if you are good or not. They don't owe you, no one does. It's the ultimate free market, and that's what it is at its best. That's what it is at its worst. Because if you don't make it, nobody cares. #4: Set up the organization five years ahead. I set up an organization for five years down the road. It had an accounting person, a marketing person, HR, and someone in charge of IT. I wasn't prepared or trained to do many of those things. It did help me learn and recognize the importance of those roles in the organization. When I saw things that I wasn't able to do, those were the first people I went out to hire. #5: Set up your sales organization first. If you don't have the sales operation, you'll go out of business. #6: Make the pitch and then shut up. The next guy that speaks loses. #7: Develop a value statement. In our company, our values are collaboration, ownership, honesty, dedication; an all-in attitude. We have proactively developed a culture that I think encompasses all those things. #8: Fire your clients. I've learned over time that sometimes our values don't align. Those are the clients that you should fire because it won't end up working out in the long term. #9: Work is what you do not where you are. When I adopted this idea, it enabled us to go into a virtual work environment early, and we never missed a day of work due to the pandemic. #10: If you've met more than one jerk today, maybe it's you. When everyone is busting your chops and you're doing a lot of pointing, maybe want to turn that finger around and look at yourself. 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.   Subscribe to The Moery Company's bi-weekly newsletter: https://www2.moerycompany.com/l/76152/2020-02-24/5m62v9

Lack of revenue is often a symptom of an association business model issue, not a sales problem. Here's how you can identify the real problem.           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. Why is this sales thing so difficult for associations? Lack of revenue is often a symptom of what is right underneath the associations nose. These are sources of the problem that we often see: #1: The data is not very good. The contact information is old. If you've been contacting the same people at a prospective member business, and they're still non-members, and you expect something different; well, you know what they call that. #2: The pricing and the dues levels are out of whack. You've got to make sure that the pricing structure is relevant. Often what I see is that the dues levels are too low.  The difficulty of selling a $200 membership compared to a $20,000 membership is not that much. It's about the same. #3: Must have the ability to ID your value proposition, your benefits, and then find the companies that are the best fit for that program. What do you have in place that will really move the needle for that company? What are the benefits? Who do we help the most? And what other companies would that be a fit for? #4: Very little processing or reporting. The leadership in the organization has no idea what the sales team is doing. There are no reports. There's very little feedback. How do we unpack the black box? Well, I've got some ideas. First, what is the clear benefit? What are the stories you have of delivering on that benefit for a specific company? Have them give me a testimonial about it and how you crushed it for them. Is the price right for the membership or the sponsorship program? And is it relevant? Get a list of the best companies that will be aided by this clear benefit that have the resources available to pay you to do that. Do I have the right point of contact? Finally, develop a sales process. How are we going to connect all these dots and clearly record every step of the way? 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.   Subscribe to our newsletter and never miss a beat on the latest association insights from JP Moery and The Moery Company:

From years of experience, JP debunks old views on associations that do not apply to the changing business times.             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. Here is some bad business advice and association myths that I've heard: #1: "You can't charge a retainer for sales work". We charge a retainer for sales plus commission for all the work we do, because we work hard. And sometimes we've got an inherent an uneven and not consistent value proposition, maybe a dues structure that's not that relevant to the industry that we're in, and maybe an advocacy program that does more reporting than advocating. But I'll tell you what; the model has been successful for us and in fact, during the pandemic, if we were a commission only sales entity, we'd probably be out of business today. #2: "You can't give it away for free". You can't give away too much content, or you're not going to be valuable anymore. Actually, it's the opposite. I give away the advice because that content helps to build your credibility and your thought leadership. However, I just don't implement it for free. #3: "You have to be in Washington, D.C. and close to customers to be successful in the association space". The further away that I moved from Washington D.C., the more business I get. #4: "Selling membership is a long sales cycle". Actually, the people that don't join are a long sales cycle. We make a couple 100,000 contacts a year selling memberships, sponsorships, ads, and exhibits for people. What I've learned from that is companies that do join, do so in less than 50 days. The challenge for the sales team is to move on and not keep selling folks that aren't going to do it. #5: "No one looks at emails". We deliver our own bi-weekly newsletter, send email campaigns out to prospects, and we have generated millions of dollars in revenue because of our ability to monitor what people open and click. So that's wrong. #6: "Chapters are dead for associations". One of the things that I've seen in this pandemic era is how chapters are actually delivering great value, connection and familiarity. The chapter model is thriving, and I think the organizations that can find the connection between national and chapters and really identify the role each one of them play, will be very successful. #7: "We don't allow vendors to speak at conferences because they're just going to give a sales pitch". That is terrible business advice for an association in particular. Why? Many of the vendors and suppliers in the space know much more about the industry than the core members do because they're working with multiple people in the ecosystem. They actually have more insights and in business intelligence that can be helpful and make content better for you. #8: "We don't want too many vendors in the membership, because it's going to water down the value". I see these vendors now as more business partners and we need more of them. #9: "Our dues are too high". We've done a lot of dues reviews over the years, and larger members tend to pay a lot less based on the scale of their business. A $500 membership for a $1 million business is much more expensive than a $5,000 membership for a $50 million company. #10: "We want to hire someone in-house for this job". Based on what? Do you want the job to be done better and more efficiently and is that what you're looking for? Because I'm willing to have that debate. My experience is contractors tend to be specialists, get better results, are focused, more efficient, and often cheaper. #11: "People call us to join". The number of inbounds that we get for a trade assoc...

Whether your association's events are in-person or digital, develop a robust and invaluable sponsorship program for sponsors.           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. How to sell more sponsorships in 2021: #1: Develop a simple digital or in-person meeting inventory for sponsorships side by side. Keep it fairly simple with similar price points, so you can go from digital to in-person fairly quickly if you need to, and I think sponsors will understand that. #2: Put a big emphasis on segmented audiences that you can reach through your association. Regardless of whether events are digital or in-person, you're still bringing the industry together and their customers in larger numbers than before. Make sure that you're talking about that segmented audience. #3: Tell sponsors about the enhanced data and information that they're going to receive. Some associations will never send a list of attendees and contact information for an in-person event. With a digital event, they're more than happy to do that. This can be really helpful for the sponsor, so let them know. #4: Be aware that smaller companies may not have all the resources to conduct a full session or optimize thought leadership opportunities. They may need smaller opportunities to be the panelist of a website or a program rather than doing an entire webinar on their own. #5: Examine the non-event inventory you have. Newsletters, online industry trend surveys, or sponsored social media posts are just a few ideas. What are we already doing that someone would want to support, get good data, and reach a segmented market because of it? #6: It's time to establish a year round sponsorship program with special benefits, including those not tied to events. Maybe it's a briefing for the board of directors, or maybe it's a focus group. #7: Find a new approach and sales methodology Some of your traditional sponsors don't want to do digital events. Companies that have never sponsored before want to sponsor digital events because they want the data and information that they can receive from it. So, you need to prospect and update your data list because there's been a lot of changes within companies. If you send me your address to JP@MoeryCompany.com, I will send you a complimentary copy of my first book Association Hustle. Here's how you pay me for it: zero dollars. Instead, please share this podcast on social media, with a friend, or your audiences. I would be grateful for it. 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.    Subscribe to our newsletter and never miss a beat on the latest association insights from JP Moery and The Moery Company:

How can associations can add value to their members and improve their member recruitment programs? Follow these tips.           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. Here's the five areas that I see as very important for associations in 2021: 1. Integration of government relations and business development If we're really paying attention to businesses and their behaviors, our sponsors, our members and small businesses, we have opportunities to serve them better. Integrate your government relations team with your business development work. We have more tangible government relations offerings if you don't just report what's happening, but you interpret new developments in government relations, regulations, and things that are going on in Washington, D.C. Your members are more sensitized than ever about what's happening and its direct effect on them. We developed a lot of goodwill when we were helping our members interpret rules and providing how-to's about how to navigate things. This needs to continue with regular digital updates. I'm amazed at how advocacy, a clear and distinct part of associations' value propositions, is so separate from our membership recruitment and retention program. A formative part of my association career was with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, so maybe I have a bias of connecting advocacy and business development. But I have to tell you, if we didn't have the government relations value well articulated, we didn't have membership value, and we didn't have members period, and we didn't have the resources we needed to win. So I think it's really important, probably always was, to connect these two in a very integrated way. The more connected they are, the more successful you'll be. 2. Embrace the efficiency of digital. At the highest levels of membership, we see improved participation. Board of Director engagement from companies that you used to have to beg to come on board or beg to come to the Board of Directors meeting, are now participating regularly. CEOs and executives from across the country are learning the efficiency they get from digital interaction. That doesn't mean you don't get together ever again, but certainly this should be a big component of how you bring chief executives together in the future. 3. Small group execution. I foresee that small, in-person meetings, which are regional geographically in nature, will come back first. Digital programs for small groups which deep-dive into details will also be very important. Those small groups might also be a good place to insert sponsors or suppliers that want to hear that type of industry dialogue. The associations that are able to facilitate these little small group interactions, whether it's in-person or whether it's digitally on different platforms, are going to be ahead of the game. Think about these as small focus groups. Also, it's great for the association staff to be able to facilitate and organize these events because it connects your staff to your members more. They will have the opportunity to hear how your members are thinking and when they hear that, they're going to be able to represent and be more valuable to your association. 4. Data information. You may succeed by spending some time by performing list hygiene on your organization's contact data. A lot of changes have occurred with existing member companies and there are different executives in place now. We are having sales success by prospecting our own companies for the association. We are going outside of the association's list and we're finding new companies within their industry sector. Why?

Qualities and skills that organizations should be looking for in potential talent to create an adaptable and dynamic team.             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. Things to leverage in the New Year First of all, I've got to stay closer to the customer because the inertia of being in an organization in Washington DC isn't happening right now. We're not going into town to do a meeting, have a business event, or have a networking reception. It's a much different way of staying connected such as Zoom calls or even a text. It might be just a phone call to say, "hey, I noticed these changes you've made on your website, and I think they're great. Keep up the fantastic work." I'm also very aware that there is more content being produced just to keep up because of the unbelievable amount of information that's being made available for everybody. The Importance of LinkedIn LinkedIn is the most important business network right now. I've got to make sure that I'm doubling down on my posting, thought leadership, and engaging people through the platform. How do I know it's the most important? Marketers are ruining the platform. People are spamming me on it now so that must mean that it works. Storytelling Storytelling needs to be a real component of connecting with potential customers. There is a skill around storytelling and humanizing the value proposition that you might be able to offer someone else. Give little examples of about how you benefited by using a product or service, and convey that to prospects. This helps us connect and humanize. It also makes pretty authentic thought leadership. Learning and Action In the last six months, I learned how to run Facebook ads and edit a podcast. Also, I'm using the phone better to sell our services, because I'm acting and learning. I'm texting prospects and keeping in touch with them. I'm adapting and I'm changing so I can be better at the job. Because things are happening so quickly, I can't do it the way that I used to, or we'd be out of business. Talent Trends I have learned that the best people rise to the top. They are demonstrating new different skills than they had before and maybe even skills and qualities they had no idea that existed within them. My top salesperson talked to me about this a couple days ago. You know, I'm looking at her numbers, and I go, "how are you hitting these numbers in the environment that we're in, and frankly, the rest of our team wasn't able to?" And it can't all be about having good accounts because every account had its challenges in this unique time that we're in. My top salesperson talked about the ways she adapted. One key was a positive attitude, no matter what. I asked her, "why?" and she goes, "what's the choice that I have?" If you let something bring you down, you don't know how long you're going to be in it. The second thing: she became very comfortable with change. And she had been very uncomfortable with change before. She usually stayed in her lane and was a great performer. But she said she had to change and adapt from in-person to virtual events and understand how to explain them. Multi-discipline staffs are going to be very important. Over the last decade we have been through an era of specialization. Before, people  developed deep skills in certain areas. Now we have a convergence of so many vertical activities in our organizations, that they're all integrated. Events are digital, which requires tech, event planning, content management, and marketing. All of these talents are necessary. Is your 25 year meeting planner that's been ordering coffee and danis...

In business, there is never a winner or loser. However, you can make sure you have this framework in place to evolve and improve with the times.           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. Great to be with you today. I look forward to this discussion. It's about the 10 business lessons from wins and losses that I've learned through the last 12 years. To give you context, we started The Moery Company about 12 years ago, an entrepreneurial endeavor, and I've learned a lot through the last decade plus about how to launch a business and how to maintain a business. I'm going to give you 10 tips or observations from that process. #1:Starting the business is likely to be about you, but keeping the business is about your team. A lot of the motivations we have of starting our own business are very, you know, self imposed. We think things like "wow, I can't work for this guy anymore", I could do this better, I see this opportunity, or I need the flexibility and freedom . All those things are usually self motivated. However, you'll learn very quickly that to scale the business and grow it, it becomes much more about everybody else. I think that's the framework that you need. Although I have these self and internal motivations that drive me to get started, it's actually going to be about everybody else. That is one of the biggest challenges for an entrepreneurial leader #2: Start with building a good sales operation first. You might think about the service, the offering, and the pricing if your business. Many businesses fail because they never get out of the gate. Why? Because they don't have a sales operation, a sales process, and a business development methodology at their core to start. Without any clients, you're not going to be able to be in the game very long. #3: Contract provisions. Don't be afraid to address the specifics, and don't be afraid if it costs you a sales deal early on. I'd rather negotiate provisions of the contract, than have a vague contract and a big argument later that might spoil or end the relationship. Be very clear about things. For example, in our business, we do a lot of sales work. We sell memberships, sponsorships, and ads and exhibits for our clients. The definition of what a sale constitutes is very important to us and the contractual. Here's my view: if are involved in any way, shape, or form in the development of that new membership, we get commission for it.  I don't want to have a negotiation, or referee the deal after it has already come in. No one usually argues about who gets the commission for a $1,000 membership. People do argue about who gets the commission from the $100,000 membership. I have seen this many times before. You want to be very clear about those things #4: Consider cash flow. You can have gross margin growth or net profits year after year, but you might still have cash flow problems. I'll tell you a story: we have great legacy clients that pay us at the end of each month. We start the work on the 1st and end on the 31st. We bill them for the work that month.If they're on a 30 day pay scale, that means I might be doing work for 60 days without ever getting paid for it. That can cause a cash flow problem. Instead, we should start the work on the 1st and bill them for the work that we're going to do from the 1st to the 31st beforehand. If they pay in 30 days, I'm paid during the month that I actually did the work. #5: Document. Prove the work with excellent reporting. This has been a differentiator for us. Weekly reports that we provide to the client proves the activity, the pipeline,

Here is a list of the best business, sales, and personal advice that myself and the Big Red M employees have ever received.           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. It is great to be with you today. The topic today is the best advice I have ever received. I had a great discussion with our team the other day, and I'm going to give you some of their thoughts. At the very end, I'll add some of my special spice to the topic. I'm going to break this down into two areas. One is sales and marketing advice that our team has received over the years. The second one is more about things like productivity and personal preparation. Sales and Marketing Advice The best way to listen is to take notes. Silences are okay. In fact, after you put the price out there and the big part of the value proposition shut up and be quiet. Oftentimes, the next guy that talks loses. It is also important to make sure to smile, especially when you're on the phone. A lot of us have gone through training where they recommend having a mirror for you to look into and smile as you speak on the phone. It's a great tactic. Although it may make you uncomfortable or seem corny, it's not a bad idea. During negotiations, identify what the most important thing is to the other party and what's the most important thing to you. Sometimes you can give things away or offer things in negotiation that aren't really that important to you. Establish a Meaningful Network I've seen this before, when I've looked to hire someone in sales for an example. I go on to their LinkedIn profile, and they have less than 100 connections. Why would I want to connect with someone that doesn't really care to know people? I'm not sure they would be a very good salesperson if they're not interested in other individuals. Address Problems Right Away Frankly, nothing gets better over time. Crises are often problems that were just delayed and delayed continuously. When a problem is formulating, phone first. Don't hide behind email. The true urgency intent is often lost during digital communications. It's All About the Prospect and Preparation When talking to prospects or costumers, discuss solutions rather than the services that you provide. So many times in the association space, for example, I see where it's all about the association and the committees and what they do. That does not really demonstrate how we help our members save money, make money, or save them time. Prepare and research calls in advance. Never wing it, especially in sales and interviews. This advice was actually offered by my college daughter who's going through the interview process. She always prepares for the interviews. One time, she listened to an interview that I was having with someone. Clearly this person was a professional and they'd been in this game for years, but they didn't know me from the man on the moon. That's not against me, that's more on them. You want me to help you, you want me to hire you. And clearly you don't even know what we do as a company. Written Communication and Proactivity Deliver the message in the first and second sentence and then support it through the rest of the document. Very important as people are reading things in mobile, and reading emails. If you get up and you let everybody take your time, your priorities are not going to be addressed. And often that's because you're not proactive and you haven't determined what your primary goals are. Progress Over Perfection Eat an elephant one bite at a time and perform one activity so you can keep moving forward. And remember, you probably had the experience,