Association Field Report (April 6, 2020)

 
Hi, it’s JP with another report from the field.
I’m actually going to report from the field 90 to 120 days from now. Associations are doing a great job at delivering critical information about variety of different things: whether it’s the CARES Act, whether it’s Covid19 processes, or whether it’s how regulations are affecting your companies and your member companies in certain states and certain cities. An incredible amount of work has been going into that. If anything, we’re showing more value than ever before.
However, my call-to-action today is to start thinking 90-120-150 days ahead. Whenever you think when things might start happening, even if they’re a little bit different, from now. When things feel “normal” again.
Think about how, when it comes to membership, you may have delayed some recruiting (I hope not) or you may have deferred payments on renewals or you may have not sent renewals out at all. All those things that now we need to start planning for, and in effect backfilling the preparations that we need, when things change in 90-120 days from now.
In terms of your events that you’ve delayed you’re working on rescheduling those; you’re implementing webinars and other similar pivots. What does that program or work look like? What about registration, what does that look like 120 days from now? How do you start preparing for the meetings that have been rescheduled? Are they smaller? What are the expectations? What’s the marketing plan? How are you going to engage all of your partners that had supported your virtual events during the pandemic with online webinars sponsorships and how are they going to engage with you now with smaller meetings? What’s the combination of the two? Maybe you’re going to do a little bit of both.
My key point is that things will start returning to a new normal with a new set of circumstances. Are you ready for that? And should you start preparing for that right now? I know it’s difficult to look that far out when you’re dealing with the day to day. However, as organizations start thinking about 120 days from now, it will serve you well and your association and also help your members out as they start to change and get back to business with the new circumstances that are ahead of us.
Best wishes to you talk soon. Bye bye.