[Ohio-talk] membership

[richard payne]

This was posted on the chapter presidents list but it applys to all.
   1. Gaining and Retaining Members: Limit High-Tech	and Increase
      High-Touch (kc4bqi)


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Message: 1
Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:59:33 -0500
From: "kc4bqi" <kc4bqi at hotmail.com>
Subject: [Chapter-presidents] Gaining and Retaining Members: Limit
	High-Tech	and Increase High-Touch
Gaining and Retaining Members: Limit High-Tech and Increase High-Touch

In sales, it is often easier to keep an existing customer than it is to find
new ones. For example, I once spoke to a manager at one of the big cell
phone companies who was interested in doing a better job of retaining
subscribers whose contracts were coming up for renewal. He talked about how
it can take several hundreds of dollars in advertising to find new
subscribers. On the other hand, it took less than a hundred dollars to keep
an existing client.

In sales, the best and most productive customers are existing ones. The same
idea is also true for building membership.

In sales, it is also a well known fact that people buy from people they
like. When it comes to your chapter members, Do people like you? 

If you want members to stay members, you must build a personal relationship
with them. One of the simplest ways is to talk to them regularly. When I say
?talk?, I don?t mean sending an email. I Mean picking up a phone and having
a conversation.

It is a very common misunderstanding that email is a replacement for a
person-to-person chat. Emails can be very effective if they are used
properly. An email is best at presenting brief bits of information quickly
to large numbers of people. It does not do a good job of conveying emotions.
It also lacks the extra dimension of meaning that can be gotten from
listening to the human voice.

If your chapter is not growing the way you like, I suggest that you examine
how you communicate with each of your members. Do you send emails that are
basically addressed: ?To Whom it May Concern??  Do your members feel shy
talking to you? Are there members that you have not spoken to yet? If any of
the above is true, take your hands off the keyboard and use them to dial a
phone. You will be pleasantly surprised how easy it is to turn disconnected
meeting attendees into fellow chapter builders.  

+++++++++++++++++
John C. Bailey
Membership Committee Chairman, NFB of Virginia
(703) 994-2040
John_bailey17 at hotmail.com


??????






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End of Chapter-presidents Digest, Vol 14, Issue 18
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Thanks Richard