April 27, 2022 • 40 mins
Do you want to make a difference at your association? Get members engaged and excited about all you have to offer? Listen to how Joe Delisle, Director of Council Relations at the American Medical Group Association (AMGA), makes this happen at his association. In this episode, he walks through examples of where he’s innovated with AMGA’s online community, events, membership benefits, and how it’s creating great results (to the tune of happier members, improved retention, higher NPS scores).
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Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
Welcome to the member engagementshow with Higher Logic,
the podcast for association professionalslooking to boost retention,
gain new membersand deepen member involvement.
Each episode I'll bring on some experts.
We'll talk shop about engagement
and you'll walk away with strategiesproven to transform your organization.
I'm Beth Everett, an association evangelist with over 25 years experience
(00:26):
in marketing and member engagementAnd I'm so happy you're here.
Now let's start the show
Hello, everyone.
Thanks for joining us again today.
We have Joe Delisle with us.
Joe, thanks for coming on the show.
Hey, that runs so much for having me.
Stephen,tell us a little bit about yourself.
Absolutely.
(00:47):
So as you mentioned,my name is Joe Delisle
and director of council relationswith AMGA
That is a medical trade associationthat works with medical groups,
health systems and other organizedsystems of care in a sort of a nutshell.
Basically, we work with the medical groupattached to some of the major names
a lot of people will recognize.
(01:08):
So you're you're your Cleveland Clinic,your permanent pays.
We work with those groups.
And I work specificallyon the community side.
And whenever I say council,you could just take that to be community
So really, what we do is in my position,I connect executives
so that they can share their challenges.
(01:30):
They can go over their innovationsthey can talk strategy.
They can essentially send a quick messageout to each other and learn
from the crowd.
They can crowd for solutionsto whatever issues they're dealing with.
Since we're a medical trade association,the group is the member,
and our communitiesare the way that we engage the leadership
at the individual medical group.
(01:52):
And our communities are two types.
We have our leadership council,which are based on a person's role.
So we have, for example,a CEO leadership council, a chief
medical officer, leadership council,and a bunch of other ones.
And the other group of councilsthat we have,
our special interest councilsand those are more based on a demographic.
(02:13):
So we have like a women in leadership,one in emerging leaders,
one and a couple otherbased on group demographic.
But in a nutshell, again,my role is focused on making sure that
the individuals that are participating inthis are getting value,
that the individuals in this
are getting solutions to some ofthe common challenges through all this.
So basically,it sounds like you guys do a lot.
(02:36):
We we do.
And it seemslike we're always doing more and more.
We just started doing executiverecruitment within the last couple.
That year we launched it.
So we have a consulting team that we justrecently launched in the last year.
We have a foundation that does differentcollaboratives, different campaigns
focused on different diseases.
(02:56):
We actually just launched our RiceImmunized campaign
that's focused on vaccinationsand immunizations throughout the country.
And of course, we do a ton of meetings,and it's nice that we're able to get back
to doing these
Face-To-Face instead of virtual,which we've been doing for so, so long.
Yeah,I think everybody is just really happy
(03:17):
to be ableto get back to face to face meetings.
There's something about ityou just can't quite replicate.
I think you touchedyou started to touch on a little bit,
but one of the reasonswhy we were keen to talk to you and why we
so excited about this is because you'retrying all kinds of cool new things.
So can you tell us a little bitabout how you tried
some new strategies there to keep thingsfresh and relevant?
(03:38):
Remembers? Absolutely.
So staying fresh and relevant,that's a constant theme that my time,
my team is really focused on.
We're always trying to figure outwhat can we keep tweaked,
what can we improve,how can we make the experience better?
These are all questionswe're just dealing with every single day.
Just trying to figure out how we can beeven just a little bit better.
(03:58):
Over the years, we've triedto be very targeted and very practical.
We're not just changing things on a whim.
There's always a logicthat's based on member feedback
and observed action We do tap intoquite a bit of behavioral science
to pull some of the different tacticsand approaches, but we're constantly
looking towards our specific membersto figure out what is it
(04:21):
that they want from the communities,what is it that they're looking to get?
What are they trying toto achieve through their their interaction
with their peersover the listserv, over the meetings?
And we've had some really great successas it relates to,
you know, changing our meeting formats.
We've launched a bunch of new communities,and we had some great learning
(04:43):
experiences, like when we tried outour mentorship program.
But I mean, outside of that,we do a lot of AB testing.
We sort of recognize that what works todaymight not work tomorrow.
So we're always reevaluating where we areand where something that worked in
the past might need to changeso that it works better in the future.
(05:04):
Well, I think you hit on somethingthat's really key to three things
is, is knowing what you're looking forand measuring,
which kind of leadsinto the next question.
And what's been really key to your successwhen it comes to innovating?
Two things I would say.
Number one is being in constant contactwith the members.
And to be clear, this is more than justsending out a survey monkeying
(05:24):
monkey, asking people to rate thingson some random
number scale I personally don't find thoseall that helpful.
I don't know the difference between alike a three and a four.
That doesn't necessarily mean something.
So we like to talk to members directly.
What has your experience been?
What is their expectation?
And while you're talking to them,you know what lights them up.
(05:45):
You're it's active listeningyou know what is.
Is it being mentioned?
We're trying to identify those twoaspects.
What lights them up?What aren't they talking about?
That can go a long way in helpingyou figure out where you need to adapt,
where things that have gone
well in the past might need to be tweakedto remain relevant and where
(06:05):
maybe somesome of the things that you thought
were a great idea, maybe they aren'tas valued as you expected.
Agreed.
And sometimes it can be hardto get support or buy in for new things
because people are uncertain about it
for some of the reasonsthat you just talked about.
So, you know, are there any waysthat you've used to earn that support
or to get by and to try new thingsYeah, great question.
(06:28):
For me, I think it's actually a largepart of it is
I think if you can be trustedwith the little things,
then you can get the cachet to playwith some of the big things.
And that's a weird way to sayif you can reply to your emails quickly,
if you're demonstrating
that you're focused on deliveringthe best member service possible.
(06:49):
If you are demonstrating that you arethere for your team, that you are offering
improvement ideas, even minor ones
that you are showingthat you are coachable, that you care.
I think that'show you can earn that trust.
And once you earn that trustin the little things you can start
to suggest more radical
isn't necessarily the right word,but but larger changes
(07:13):
that might cause some hesitation
and once you're able to do that,
and once you've done that first change,you made that first big change,
and you can come back in and say, okay,this is what we've learned based on that.
Even if it didn't work, thisis what we learned so that we can adapt.
Moving forward, there's a lot of value inand being able to demonstrate
(07:35):
that, that you are coming at it froman unbiased perspective, recognizing that
even if it doesn't turn out the wayI didn't want
or the way I wanted to do that,I still can get something
that is actionable out of itto help us create a better experience.
And really, I think part of this is
(07:56):
don't try to be smarter than you areor that the data will allow you
to be in our positionwhenever we're doing it.
Change is we're not trying to write a peerreviewed paper.
We're looking for directionally accuratedata that we can use.
We think through why things will workand think why things won't work.
We run the ideas by members,
(08:17):
and then we find the smallest, leastintrusive way to try out that change.
And it makes it much easier to to thengo to our super my supervisor, to
go higher up the food chain and say,this is what we're planning to do.
This is what we've sort of testedwith members already.
This is what they said.
This is how we think we can do it.
(08:38):
And this is what we're going to doafter the fact.
So it's doing these small experimentsthat are manageable
and again,recognizing that the data is only so good
that you're not going to be ableto do a perfect experiment.
You're not going to be ableto write that peer review paper.
I think there's a lot of valuein being able to go to your leadership
and say, listen,this is what we're trying to do.
(08:59):
It might not be perfect,but this is what we can learn from it,
and this is how it will help us after it,after the fact.
I know you did thisjust a little bit a moment ago,
but if you'd maybe walk us throughusing an example,
if you've got one process of sort ofhow you've pitched a new ideas to help
other people
think about trying something new, butmaybe they're not quite sure how to do it.
If you have an example,our communities used to be an add
(09:22):
on for NJ membership,so a group would join.
And then if individualswant to join the communities,
they would have to pay a separate,
the individuals would have to paya separate fee to join.
And those becameso valuable, so popular that
MJ decided, you know what, let's makethese included in the membership
so we won't make people pay for thefor the add on.
(09:45):
So before we made that change,the meetings
had this great small church feel to it.
And by that I mean everybody knew eachother during the face to face meetings.
Everyone was getting a chance to talk.
Everyone was being able to connectwith each other to learn from each other.
And it was really just a super experiencethat really made you
(10:06):
develop connections and bondswith your peers throughout the country.
So needless to say,once we made the membership as part
of the overall organizational membership,
we had a huge explosion of people
that wantedthat wanted to participate in the council.
So meetings that used to have 25 to
(10:28):
35 peoplegrew to 75 to 85 and a handful of them
now typically have over 100 registrationregistrants.
So we had to figure outhow can we bring back that
small church feel as we were doingthe meetings, as they were growing,
we would survey people and people saidThere's a lot of value in the meetings,
(10:49):
but we just wish that we had that fieldfrom the old ones.
So we actually we got off a planning callwith a bunch
with a few of the memberstrying to identify topics,
and that came up again, you know,how can we change the meaning?
And we are sitting around a tableand we are just chitchatting.
And one of the one of these sessionsthat we typically do
(11:10):
our meetings
is we have a big session where everybody,all the different councils
get to hear one speakerand then they break off
into their separate roomfor their private meetings.
And typically one of the councilsespecially would start their meeting
by just discussing, you know,what did you hear, what was the takeaways?
What was valuable fromfrom that big presentation And we thought,
(11:31):
you know, there are 50 people in the room,60 people in the room.
We can't necessarily do thatfor every single one.
Every single person.
We can't go and ask everysingle person what they said.
But we've got
roundtable, so we've got five peoplesitting at a table.
Well, what if what we did was we said,
Okay, talk about itwith the people at your table.
(11:52):
And we said, okay, that works.
That's a that's a good idea.
And then we are thinking,why wouldn't this work?
And we said, Well, okay,what happens if you get to a table
and people just don't knowhow to start off the conversation?
And we're like, Good point.
And we said, Well,this is how we can solve that.
We can have a couple of starter questionsjust easy to get the ball rolling.
We said, Okay, that problem solved.
(12:14):
Next problem is, what if you're at a tableand just people for whatever
reason, don't feel like sharing
Okay, so maybe we don't
want to have people sitting therefor 30 minutes or 35 minutes.
But what if what we did was
we did ten to 15 minuteconversation, table conversation,
(12:34):
and then when that ten, 15 minutes is up,we ring a bell
or find some way to let people knowand then everybody changes seats.
This wayyou're never stuck at one single table
and you're always meeting new people.
So you're sort of getting thatfeeling of when,
when the meeting was smalland you got to know everybody.
I'm like, Okay, well,let's try that for the next meeting.
(12:55):
We try it for the next meeting.
We got the email backand everybody loved it.
It was a complete hit.
So we start planning for the next meetingand we're like, Okay, well, let's now
add this to a presentationbecause we got some complaints
that the presentations were getting long.
So we said,Well, let's shorten the presentations
and let's addthese roundtable discussions.
So we did that and those became it.
(13:17):
And essentially it's at a pointnow where essentially our format,
our basic are the formatwe sort of used to start off with
is a presentationfollowed by roundtable discussion.
And throughout the day,people are getting up
and moving to new topic, new tablesafter each presentation.
So you're constantly on the move,you're constantly meeting new people,
(13:38):
you're constantly going toto learn from other groups.
And I love that.
It's such a great example of howsomething that works so well and why,
because you worked through allthe possibilities to find the right one.
So I think that's why it works so well.
And it's a great example,and it really helps to be able to sit down
with especially the people that ultimatelyget the data that yay or no, yay or nay,
(14:01):
be able to sit with them and work it outwith them to get their input,
to get their ideas on why things mayor may not work, especially recognizing
that they're looking at the overall,in my case,
meeting from a different perspectivethan I am they.
They've got a broader perspectivethan somebody
who's trying to fill the agendato create that good experience.
(14:23):
So getting a chance to work
with your leadership teamand ask them for their input
so that you can understand where they'recoming from and address their needs
maybe even before you do that experiment,that can be a great way to to get that.
Buy-In.
Yeah,I and that just making it a discussion
and not telling themthis is what we're going to do,
but discussing themand bringing in process
(14:45):
has a lot to do with getting Buy-Inin general across the board.
Absolutely. Yeah.
It sort of gets back to that, tellingpeople you're coachable that you're not
you don't think you're
the smartest person that you're opento, to others ideas and others feedback.
I love that.
I saw a great quote from SimonSinek this morning and said,
How do you put it?
An expert knowseveryone thinks they know everything.
(15:07):
A genius don't.
I love what it's like.
Fair enough.
So let's talk a bit about somethingthat maybe didn't work as well.
I think you'd mentioned that mentoringdidn't work quite as well as you had.
It hasn't worked yet.
So I almost
get the sense that the mentoringis almost the Holy Grail for associations.
(15:27):
It sort of seems like everybody'slooking for the right way to do it.
And I know there are groups that are doingit pretty well, but it doesn't seem that
somebody has gotthis is the perfect formula for
or mentoring program,but more direct to our experience.
When we launchedlaunched our Women in Leadership Council,
it was suggestedthat mentoring was a component of this.
(15:48):
So we talkedto the board and we came up with a plan
to create a mentoring programthat was essentially run by the members.
So in a nutshell, you basically providedthe platform in which people could connect
with one another and some some guidesto help the find the relationship.
But the actual connection with each other
was entirely left to the members,and it was dependent on them
(16:12):
asking each other, you know,will you be my mentor?
Or will you be my mentor or asking usto make the connection for them?
And really, because there was that barrier
of making the member connect to thethe other member,
it really didn'tget too far off the ground.
And so we essentially shelvedthe mentoring program
(16:35):
for for a long time, actually.
It still felt.
But I will say that before COVID started,we started to discuss
how we can relaunch this type of programsuccessfully.
And I do think that we have a frameworkthat is ready for some beta testing.
But, you know, ultimately,this is a challenge of staffing for
from my perspective
(16:55):
and based on a lot of conversationsI've had in presentations I've seen.
You really need someone to own this.
So unless you you're going to really limit
the program to a certain number of people,there's
you really need somebody to take ownershipof the mentoring program.
And because at that point in time,I was the only person on staff.
And so in addition to women leadership,I think we had
(17:18):
13 other councils at that time.
So I really couldn'tdevote the time necessary
to make those connect memberto member connections.
So ultimately it's it hasn't panned out.
But like I say,
I think we've got a good frameworkto make it successful moving forward.
That's it really.
This is a case of usgetting in front of the front of our skis
(17:41):
and looking back on it.
It's one of those cases where, you know,I wish I had spoken up and said, you know,
these are a couple of the challengesrather than, okay, let's say
this is a great idea. Let's make it work.
We probably got a two to head of ourselveson that one.
Well, if you do crack that one,I'd like you back here, please,
so that you could tell ushow you did that.
(18:01):
They've been amazing.
Yeah.
And I've got to be I've got to be honest,this isn't we we had somebody on staff
who she worked on the women in LeadershipCouncil for for the longest time.
And she developed sort of the framework
that I thinkwe're going to we're going to work with.
And there are a couple there,a few tweaks we're going to make.
But she really built the framework forthis, and I'm really optimistic about it.
(18:25):
Excellent.
I look forward to hearing about thatafter it works, because I'm sure it will.
Yeah.
If anybody can make it work,I think you can.
Thank you.
Well,I mean, just look at your track record
and how you've talkedabout how you walk through things.
I think, you know,
I think it's a pretty sure bet that ifanybody can make it work, it would be you.
So when you when you crack it,you're coming back, right?
(18:45):
Absolutely.
So let's come backlet's go back to meetings for a moment
and talk about pivoting to virtual.
How did you approach thatwith some innovation?
Yeah.
So obviously, COVID sort of knockedthe medical community down really quickly.
Really early on,being on the frontlines of it.
So, you know, March, this is headingI'm coming back from paternity
(19:07):
leave at the time and all of a suddenit's like,
okay, now we have to go virtual,something we haven't ever done.
And because we had it really donevirtual to the extent
we were going to,we really decided to keep it simple.
First we looked atwhat our members were doing and facing.
We recognize
that their press time, they're working,you know, 15, 18 hour shifts a day
(19:29):
and they need information fastbecause nobody knows what's going on.
So essentially what we did was we quicklyorganized some testing presentations and
I think we're talking ten to 15 minutesand we staggered them at various times.
And naturally we recorded everything.
And the reason we staggered at varioustimes was recognizing
(19:50):
that some people were available inthe morning, some people were available,
available in the afternoon,others were available in the evening.
And as it's evolvedyou know, the presentations
have gotten longer, more thorough.
But we still kept it really simple.
We are really looking for twomaybe I guess three things.
We want good audio and we want good video,first and foremost.
(20:14):
And then number three on the list is goodspeakers, because when you have good
audio good video, good speakers that can
that provide all the value that you need
without having the added expenseof some of the virtual meeting platforms.
Don't get me wrong,those platforms are great.
They serve their purpose.
But what people really are looking foris good.
(20:35):
Are you good video, good speakers.
And we're we're tryingin the middle of a pandemic.
We're trying to just get informationfast and distributed fast and wide.
We just kept it simple.
We went zoom and askedas we get out of the pandemic,
now we're working with the membersto continue that virtual offering.
And so we're working with our councils,working with our communities
(20:58):
to find a scheduleand focus that works for them.
And by that, I mean some of the councilsare going to our meeting
every month,some of our meeting every other month.
Others of them are meeting everonce a quarter.
And some of them arejust just want to meet on an ad hoc basis.
So essentially we go upto each one of our communities and we say,
what are the topicsthat you all are dealing with
(21:19):
on whichyou would like to have a Zoom meeting?
So we get them togetherand some of them, it's very specific.
We want to talk about compensation,we want to talk about physician burnout,
we want to talk about access,we want to talk about telehealth.
For others of them,we just want to get a chance
to talk to each otherand hear what everyone's doing.
So we'll hold the occasional hottopic calls
(21:41):
where we'll just say,Okay, we'll open it up.
What are the topicsthat you want to talk about?
And we'll start in one locationand we'll bounce to three or four
throughout the time.
And because these are each
made to fit
individual councils and individual roles,the times are different.
So some of them are 30 minutes,
some of them are 45 minutes,some of them are 60 minutes.
(22:02):
We've done a couple of 15 minute one,just so short and sweet,
but we're record them all
and then we distribute themall through our,
through our online communitiesso that anyone who can't make
it is able to still tune inand get that information after the fact,
which I mean, catering to your members
is the number one thing key to success.
(22:23):
So I think, yeah, I mean,and I think that's what you've done so
well in your members needs and then makingsure that you cater to them is
that's it. That,that's the key right there.
And I think especially as it seems
people are looking for informationthat is more and more personalized
or specific to their roleto what they're doing.
(22:44):
I think that those goes a long way.
And I think that's also
I think that's a big reasonwhy our our communities
have been as successful as they are.
I don't doubt that for a second.
You kind of touched on a little bit,actually, just there.
But in general, how is innovating
really paid off for your organizationand for you specifically?
So organizationally, are
(23:05):
the councils are our largestand highest rated member program.
It's been that way,that way for years now.
Your popularity in value has only grownover the course of the pandemic.
I'm blanking on the exact numbers,
but there's a 90 plus
percent retention rate for groups,for people in councils,
and when you look at our primary count,our primary contacts are involved
(23:29):
in councils and active.
You're looking at a 99% retention rate.
I can't actually think of a single timewhen we lost a member group,
when the primary contactwas actively involved in the community,
not just by active,I mean just not passively observing the,
the discussion list messages,but actually being an active participant.
(23:50):
We also use Net Promoter Score for ourorganization in our community members.
Our council members
always have a higher scorecompared to those not in the community. So
that from the organizational perspectiveand then you know me personally, it's
it's always great to hear from people
(24:11):
who are making a differencein the lives of countless patients
and being able to say,you know, because of this,
we were able to do this better.
We were able to make this changeso that we could provide care better,
so that we could provide care quicker,so that we could be more
more valuable to to our patients.
(24:32):
And some of the, quite frankly,some of the messages
that we got, especiallyduring the pandemic, where we're it's like
it was just amazing and very,very humbling to hear
you know, a CEO or a CMO saywe couldn't have gotten through without
we couldn't have gotten through all thiswithout the support of the community,
without the the Zoom sessions that you'reputting on, without the presentations,
(24:56):
without the connections that you were ableto help facilitate that.
That's just been hugely rewardingfrom a personal standpoint.
I love that.
I just get I get the warm and fuzzyjust hearing you talking about it.
So that's awesome.
It's so nice that, you know,considering all that they go through
and all that they're putting into it,A, to see the kind of support they get,
(25:17):
but B, see that they are so supportive
and appreciative of it is it's awesome.
Well, whenever you're doing somethingfor somebody else
and those people come back and say,you know, this is appreciated,
always it all, it always feels good,especially when when you're doing it
for people who are making the differencein life or death differences
(25:38):
in many cases for for,you know, countless numbers of people.
Yeah. Especiallyconsidering the last couple of years.
So that's I love that part of the story.
So what do you
think are the risks for associationsof remaining in the status quo?
I mean, the obvious risk
(25:59):
is someone's going to come along and offera better version of what you're doing.
The threat is that you're offeringbecomes stale.
It comes outdatedor it becomes predictable.
And I think that is somethingthat can be overlooked.
The predictability part, people you know,predictable is safe.
But, you know,people are looking for for fresh.
(26:22):
They're looking for new ideas
or looking for something newto latch on to your members.
Experiences and expectations are changingwith every new product out there.
You're your pet competition.
Isn't just associationfocused on the same members.
It's Amazon delivering one click checkout.
It's YouTube operating curated videosbased on what you've watched
(26:47):
whatever the newest Smart Home application
is, people are bringing that expectationto your your service, to your offering.
And so if you're not looking to continueto evolve, to continue make yourself
relevant to you, make yourself fresh,to continue to meet those changing needs.
You're just opening yourself upfor somebody else to come along
(27:10):
and okay, well,I'm going to take what they've done
and build a new version of itthat maybe just a little bit different,
but a little bit different can be allthat makes the difference
between somebody renewingand somebody going through something new.
And this is why we're constantlylooking at the next step
in the evolution of our community.
You know, our goal is to connectexecutives to solve problems.
(27:32):
So what's the best way?
Giventhe expectations given the technology,
given their time available to our members,you know,
how can we facilitatethat relationship building?
That's that's why we're constantly tryingto stay fresh, stay relevant.
I know we keep repeating that,but I can't stress how important that is.
Agreed.
And I think it's important for peopleto hear it repeat it because
(27:58):
had you
at the beginning of the pandemicsaid, oh, no, you know, we're doing fine.
We've been supporting you for a longtime. It's no, no big deal.
We don't need to change in a situationwhere the world was changing so rapidly,
where their situation was changing rapidlyand consistently.
The only thing consistentwas change on a daily basis.
(28:18):
I mean, there's that phrasehas been around for a long time.
The only thing consistent is change.
But usually that changes over,you know, month four years.
Not every single day.
There was felt a lot in the community.
It was felt a lot in the eventscommunity, too.
I've seen friends who work in that
have to strugglewith making sure that everyone was aware
of every single or like rule
(28:41):
change or regulationchange or law change in every single city
and county across,you know, the country or even the world.
It's exhausting.
And if you don't with it,people will remember who they'll remember
the extent, who was there for themwhen it was easy to be there.
But when you're there for themand you step up with the most difficult,
(29:04):
I mean, that'swhat creates members for life.
That creates customerswho are in the corporate world
and creates members in the decision worldwho are going to be telling everybody
how you are and who would come back
and tell you how much they appreciate it,which we talked about just a moment ago.
And like I say, because we offeredthese Zoom sessions during the pandemic,
(29:30):
we're that's one of the ways we've evolvedwe are now including those
as just a standardoperating procedure, essentially.
And in another year, there'll besomething else that we're doing
that will be the new thingthat is now part of it.
And I'm sure there'll besome things that we're doing
now that we aren't continuingbecause it's no longer needed.
(29:50):
It's no longer viewed as necessary.
Yeah.
And I think you just touched onsomething really important there.
You can't go back to the old statusquo either.
There's now that expectation.
Oh, well, you've been doing this.
What do you mean you're stopping?
It's easier now. Why are you stopping?
That's the that's the constantchallenge of associations.
It's you'realways trying to do something new,
(30:13):
but you also have what you used to do.
So we have for you,looking at this new program,
you want to bring this new program,you do this
new program, it gets successfulbut you have all these other programs
that you've been doing that people sort ofhave the expectation to do.
And this is getting waybroader, way bigger, way bigger than just
the community.
But that's that goes to the importanceof your organization holding strategic
(30:36):
planning to understandjust how important are to go back
and evaluate what you're doingand ask some of the value, the
the legacy programs, the legacy offerings,are those really valuable
and thatcan be a very difficult conversation.
We've held it at NJ.
We we took a look at our communitiesas part of strategic planning to say,
(30:59):
okay, what can we change about them?
How can we make them betterfrom an organizational standpoint?
But I think a challengethat is specific to associations
and to be clear, this is Joegetting on a soapbox right here
is the need to look at what you've done.
Look at the sacred cows and say Okay,this is not necessary anymore.
(31:23):
So we can let go of thisso we can do this other program
that people value, that people want to dothat is new, that is fresh,
so that you can have the you can freethe time and the resources to do that.
And most of the time, what you want to do
will better and take
either take, take the place of and bebetter than what you were doing before.
(31:45):
So it's okay to let go of the other thing.
And I don't think everybody getsthat it's it's misunderstanding
the difference betweenI'll see if I can correctly articulate
this letting go of something to embrace
something else versus just cutting to cut.
Yeah, you have there's onlyyou can only hold so many things.
(32:07):
You only have two handsand you know, okay, you've got some arms
and maybe you can pull your shirt upa little bit and hold it like a basket.
But you still only hold so many thingsat somewhat yell at something, go
to, as you put it,to embrace the other thing.
And it's all aboutwhat's really important now.
Not five years ago. Right.
And it seems like associations are always,you know,
(32:30):
I don't know of any associationthat is swimming in money, so.
Oh, are thinkingit's always trying to use the
you know what bubble gum and duct tapecan we use to hold this together.
And as you start to put more and morepicture staff starts to do more and more
the ability to do somethingnew, to do something fresh,
do something relevant,the ability to do that is just challenged.
(32:54):
And so you can either continueto let them struggle
and not be able to innovate
or you can free them from some of the oldresponsibilities that maybe aren't as
valuable to your members.
That way they can make the focuson the new new product,
the new offering, the new program.
Yeah.
And I think that some of the clingingto status quo
(33:16):
or clinging to what you did beforeis because at least
you don't have a lot of moneyand therefore you don't
have a lot of leeway to lose it.
And the idea of letting
go of something that you have an ideaof how much money it's going to bring in
can be pretty terrifyingto try something on.
But eventually you're goingto get diminishing returns
on that one thing, right?
(33:37):
The thethe paradox of management is people
rarely get fired for sayingno to something, but you have to say yes
to the new things so that you can stayrelevant, so you can stay,
so youcan offer something that's innovative.
So you need leadership that is open toto those changes that's open.
(33:58):
It's not afraid to say yes to something
that maybe isn't perfect,but there might be a gem in there.
It's okay sometimes to goin with the expectation that,
okay, you're going to stillhold onto the old thing
for this year while you try the new thing.
But if the new thing succeeds, you'reeither going to have to drop the old one
(34:19):
or you're going to have to investmore money for more staff for someone
to handle it,because people can't handle both long term
and there's inherent dangerin that of going well after a post-work,
you go, Well, okay, you did it this year,why can't just do it again?
And that is likelynot the case of long term,
but it's a method to try if all else failsin getting something approved,
(34:42):
I think it's a good way to approach itfor people who are listening and going,
Okay, Getting people to let something gois never going to work.
Then you might try that,but make it very clear.
Short term, you're trying it short term.
And I think also your examples aboutjust going
in, knowing exactlyhow you're going to measure success,
(35:02):
what tipsthe scales, things like that can be
it can make all the difference
in getting them to go afterif they don't let it go before.
And again, a big part of this is
you have to be open to
realizing that your
program, your great idea,maybe it's a failure.
And if it's a failure,you have to accept that and move on
(35:24):
to whatever learnings you can.
But it's not working.
Don't keep going back to itjust because it's yours.
Don't keep walking into the brick wall.
Just just walk away from it.
My last question,this is one that we ask everyone.
I think that the three ways are thatpeople really need to be engaging members
right now. Okay. So first,
(35:46):
about once a year, we reach outto all of our community members
and just askhow the council experience has been.
We asked them, What do you like?
What don't you like? Questions like that.
It's a great opportunity for us
to get specific quotes and storiesthat can be shared
(36:07):
not only internally, but also externallywith potential new members.
So I would say at least going outto your community and asking them
and bonus points if you can actually holda phone to a phone conversation with them
as opposed to resume conversationwith them as opposed to just an email.
But I think that is one of them.
(36:27):
Number two, quarterlythank you messages to everyone
who is being active, especially on thethe discussion with the list, the service.
In addition to that,I would add a handwritten thank you
to your presenterso this is something that we do that
I'm a big proponent of,and I can't stress how often I've heard
(36:53):
just how grateful people
are that they're getting this recognition.
And one of the things that we point out inthese messages
is we'll share specific quotes
anonymized from member saying, you know,
I get so much informationfrom the discussions over the listserv,
it's just been invaluable
we share that with the peoplewho are posting the messages
(37:15):
this way, that they know that their peersare explicitly valuing
their their their experiencesand their sharing.
I love that because I know a lot oforganizations will send a thank you
to speakers or they might we did speakergifts for a lot of our conferences.
The idea of that same level appreciationand thank you to the people
(37:39):
who are actually posting.
We think so much aboutautomating engagement
and really getting people to engage more
on the community by approachingthe people who aren't engaging
but actually thinking and encouragingthe ones who are.
That's fantastic. I love that.
And then the third one, I would sayis private face to face meetings.
(38:04):
I think especially givenwhere we are in the world right now,
we one of the lessons we've learned isthe importance of face to face connection.
You know, there is certainly a roleand a place for virtual,
but it almost seems like it's builtinto our DNA that we require
some degree of interpersonal connectionwith each other.
(38:26):
So being able to bring people togetherto discuss
challenges,to discuss solutions, those ideas,
and especially if those are focusedaround a particular role,
I think that's a great wayto get people engaged
and a great way to demonstrate value.
Agreed.
I don't want to take up all of your time.
(38:46):
I could sit here and ask youa few more questions, actually,
but I do want to
thank you so much for being here todayand for sharing all of your experiences.
I know that the listenersare going to get a lot out of it,
so I'm really excited for them to hearthis.
It's been my pleasure.
Always, always happy to help you,to help others out and answer questions.
So just let me know if you or anyone elsehas any questions.
(39:07):
I'll be more than happy to chitchat. Okay.
And I'm assuming it can people connectwith you on LinkedIn?
Absolutely.
Feel free to reach on me. LinkedIn.
That's probably the easiest way toto get a hold of me.
Yeah, absolutely. LinkedIn. Cool.
I'll see if I can get them to
maybe put a link to your LinkedIn accountin the notes, but it's not definitely
the spelling of your nameand that your information
(39:28):
that'll make it easy to findyou will be in the episode notes.
So thanks everybody else for joining inand listening.
Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast.
We're just about everywhere.You can find podcasts.
You'll find us, and if you have a momentand you want daily or weekly,
daily, weekly news in your inboxabout a marketing visit, association
(39:49):
marketing pros JD.com and subscribeto the Asia Marketing Pro newsletter
Welcome to the member engagementshow with Higher Logic,
the podcast for association professionalslooking to boost retention,
gain new membersand deepen member involvement.
Each episode I'll bring on some experts.
We'll talk shop about engagement
and you'll walk away with strategiesproven to transform your organization.
I'm Beth Everett, an association evangelist with over 25 years experience
(00:26):
in marketing and member engagementAnd I'm so happy you're here.
Now let's start the show
Hello, everyone.
Thanks for joining us again today.
We have Joe Delisle with us.
Joe, thanks for coming on the show.
Hey, that runs so much for having me.
Stephen,tell us a little bit about yourself.
Absolutely.
(00:47):
So as you mentioned,my name is Joe Delisle
and director of council relationswith AMGA
That is a medical trade associationthat works with medical groups,
health systems and other organizedsystems of care in a sort of a nutshell.
Basically, we work with the medical groupattached to some of the major names
a lot of people will recognize.
(01:08):
So you're you're your Cleveland Clinic,your permanent pays.
We work with those groups.
And I work specificallyon the community side.
And whenever I say council,you could just take that to be community
So really, what we do is in my position,I connect executives
so that they can share their challenges.
(01:30):
They can go over their innovationsthey can talk strategy.
They can essentially send a quick messageout to each other and learn
from the crowd.
They can crowd for solutionsto whatever issues they're dealing with.
Since we're a medical trade association,the group is the member,
and our communitiesare the way that we engage the leadership
at the individual medical group.
(01:52):
And our communities are two types.
We have our leadership council,which are based on a person's role.
So we have, for example,a CEO leadership council, a chief
medical officer, leadership council,and a bunch of other ones.
And the other group of councilsthat we have,
our special interest councilsand those are more based on a demographic.
(02:13):
So we have like a women in leadership,one in emerging leaders,
one and a couple otherbased on group demographic.
But in a nutshell, again,my role is focused on making sure that
the individuals that are participating inthis are getting value,
that the individuals in this
are getting solutions to some ofthe common challenges through all this.
So basically,it sounds like you guys do a lot.
(02:36):
We we do.
And it seemslike we're always doing more and more.
We just started doing executiverecruitment within the last couple.
That year we launched it.
So we have a consulting team that we justrecently launched in the last year.
We have a foundation that does differentcollaboratives, different campaigns
focused on different diseases.
(02:56):
We actually just launched our RiceImmunized campaign
that's focused on vaccinationsand immunizations throughout the country.
And of course, we do a ton of meetings,and it's nice that we're able to get back
to doing these
Face-To-Face instead of virtual,which we've been doing for so, so long.
Yeah,I think everybody is just really happy
(03:17):
to be ableto get back to face to face meetings.
There's something about ityou just can't quite replicate.
I think you touchedyou started to touch on a little bit,
but one of the reasonswhy we were keen to talk to you and why we
so excited about this is because you'retrying all kinds of cool new things.
So can you tell us a little bitabout how you tried
some new strategies there to keep thingsfresh and relevant?
(03:38):
Remembers? Absolutely.
So staying fresh and relevant,that's a constant theme that my time,
my team is really focused on.
We're always trying to figure outwhat can we keep tweaked,
what can we improve,how can we make the experience better?
These are all questionswe're just dealing with every single day.
Just trying to figure out how we can beeven just a little bit better.
(03:58):
Over the years, we've triedto be very targeted and very practical.
We're not just changing things on a whim.
There's always a logicthat's based on member feedback
and observed action We do tap intoquite a bit of behavioral science
to pull some of the different tacticsand approaches, but we're constantly
looking towards our specific membersto figure out what is it
(04:21):
that they want from the communities,what is it that they're looking to get?
What are they trying toto achieve through their their interaction
with their peersover the listserv, over the meetings?
And we've had some really great successas it relates to,
you know, changing our meeting formats.
We've launched a bunch of new communities,and we had some great learning
(04:43):
experiences, like when we tried outour mentorship program.
But I mean, outside of that,we do a lot of AB testing.
We sort of recognize that what works todaymight not work tomorrow.
So we're always reevaluating where we areand where something that worked in
the past might need to changeso that it works better in the future.
(05:04):
Well, I think you hit on somethingthat's really key to three things
is, is knowing what you're looking forand measuring,
which kind of leadsinto the next question.
And what's been really key to your successwhen it comes to innovating?
Two things I would say.
Number one is being in constant contactwith the members.
And to be clear, this is more than justsending out a survey monkeying
(05:24):
monkey, asking people to rate thingson some random
number scale I personally don't find thoseall that helpful.
I don't know the difference between alike a three and a four.
That doesn't necessarily mean something.
So we like to talk to members directly.
What has your experience been?
What is their expectation?
And while you're talking to them,you know what lights them up.
(05:45):
You're it's active listeningyou know what is.
Is it being mentioned?
We're trying to identify those twoaspects.
What lights them up?What aren't they talking about?
That can go a long way in helpingyou figure out where you need to adapt,
where things that have gone
well in the past might need to be tweakedto remain relevant and where
(06:05):
maybe somesome of the things that you thought
were a great idea, maybe they aren'tas valued as you expected.
Agreed.
And sometimes it can be hardto get support or buy in for new things
because people are uncertain about it
for some of the reasonsthat you just talked about.
So, you know, are there any waysthat you've used to earn that support
or to get by and to try new thingsYeah, great question.
(06:28):
For me, I think it's actually a largepart of it is
I think if you can be trustedwith the little things,
then you can get the cachet to playwith some of the big things.
And that's a weird way to sayif you can reply to your emails quickly,
if you're demonstrating
that you're focused on deliveringthe best member service possible.
(06:49):
If you are demonstrating that you arethere for your team, that you are offering
improvement ideas, even minor ones
that you are showingthat you are coachable, that you care.
I think that'show you can earn that trust.
And once you earn that trustin the little things you can start
to suggest more radical
isn't necessarily the right word,but but larger changes
(07:13):
that might cause some hesitation
and once you're able to do that,
and once you've done that first change,you made that first big change,
and you can come back in and say, okay,this is what we've learned based on that.
Even if it didn't work, thisis what we learned so that we can adapt.
Moving forward, there's a lot of value inand being able to demonstrate
(07:35):
that, that you are coming at it froman unbiased perspective, recognizing that
even if it doesn't turn out the wayI didn't want
or the way I wanted to do that,I still can get something
that is actionable out of itto help us create a better experience.
And really, I think part of this is
(07:56):
don't try to be smarter than you areor that the data will allow you
to be in our positionwhenever we're doing it.
Change is we're not trying to write a peerreviewed paper.
We're looking for directionally accuratedata that we can use.
We think through why things will workand think why things won't work.
We run the ideas by members,
(08:17):
and then we find the smallest, leastintrusive way to try out that change.
And it makes it much easier to to thengo to our super my supervisor, to
go higher up the food chain and say,this is what we're planning to do.
This is what we've sort of testedwith members already.
This is what they said.
This is how we think we can do it.
(08:38):
And this is what we're going to doafter the fact.
So it's doing these small experimentsthat are manageable
and again,recognizing that the data is only so good
that you're not going to be ableto do a perfect experiment.
You're not going to be ableto write that peer review paper.
I think there's a lot of valuein being able to go to your leadership
and say, listen,this is what we're trying to do.
(08:59):
It might not be perfect,but this is what we can learn from it,
and this is how it will help us after it,after the fact.
I know you did thisjust a little bit a moment ago,
but if you'd maybe walk us throughusing an example,
if you've got one process of sort ofhow you've pitched a new ideas to help
other people
think about trying something new, butmaybe they're not quite sure how to do it.
If you have an example,our communities used to be an add
(09:22):
on for NJ membership,so a group would join.
And then if individualswant to join the communities,
they would have to pay a separate,
the individuals would have to paya separate fee to join.
And those becameso valuable, so popular that
MJ decided, you know what, let's makethese included in the membership
so we won't make people pay for thefor the add on.
(09:45):
So before we made that change,the meetings
had this great small church feel to it.
And by that I mean everybody knew eachother during the face to face meetings.
Everyone was getting a chance to talk.
Everyone was being able to connectwith each other to learn from each other.
And it was really just a super experiencethat really made you
(10:06):
develop connections and bondswith your peers throughout the country.
So needless to say,once we made the membership as part
of the overall organizational membership,
we had a huge explosion of people
that wantedthat wanted to participate in the council.
So meetings that used to have 25 to
(10:28):
35 peoplegrew to 75 to 85 and a handful of them
now typically have over 100 registrationregistrants.
So we had to figure outhow can we bring back that
small church feel as we were doingthe meetings, as they were growing,
we would survey people and people saidThere's a lot of value in the meetings,
(10:49):
but we just wish that we had that fieldfrom the old ones.
So we actually we got off a planning callwith a bunch
with a few of the memberstrying to identify topics,
and that came up again, you know,how can we change the meaning?
And we are sitting around a tableand we are just chitchatting.
And one of the one of these sessionsthat we typically do
(11:10):
our meetings
is we have a big session where everybody,all the different councils
get to hear one speakerand then they break off
into their separate roomfor their private meetings.
And typically one of the councilsespecially would start their meeting
by just discussing, you know,what did you hear, what was the takeaways?
What was valuable fromfrom that big presentation And we thought,
(11:31):
you know, there are 50 people in the room,60 people in the room.
We can't necessarily do thatfor every single one.
Every single person.
We can't go and ask everysingle person what they said.
But we've got
roundtable, so we've got five peoplesitting at a table.
Well, what if what we did was we said,
Okay, talk about itwith the people at your table.
(11:52):
And we said, okay, that works.
That's a that's a good idea.
And then we are thinking,why wouldn't this work?
And we said, Well, okay,what happens if you get to a table
and people just don't knowhow to start off the conversation?
And we're like, Good point.
And we said, Well,this is how we can solve that.
We can have a couple of starter questionsjust easy to get the ball rolling.
We said, Okay, that problem solved.
(12:14):
Next problem is, what if you're at a tableand just people for whatever
reason, don't feel like sharing
Okay, so maybe we don't
want to have people sitting therefor 30 minutes or 35 minutes.
But what if what we did was
we did ten to 15 minuteconversation, table conversation,
(12:34):
and then when that ten, 15 minutes is up,we ring a bell
or find some way to let people knowand then everybody changes seats.
This wayyou're never stuck at one single table
and you're always meeting new people.
So you're sort of getting thatfeeling of when,
when the meeting was smalland you got to know everybody.
I'm like, Okay, well,let's try that for the next meeting.
(12:55):
We try it for the next meeting.
We got the email backand everybody loved it.
It was a complete hit.
So we start planning for the next meetingand we're like, Okay, well, let's now
add this to a presentationbecause we got some complaints
that the presentations were getting long.
So we said,Well, let's shorten the presentations
and let's addthese roundtable discussions.
So we did that and those became it.
(13:17):
And essentially it's at a pointnow where essentially our format,
our basic are the formatwe sort of used to start off with
is a presentationfollowed by roundtable discussion.
And throughout the day,people are getting up
and moving to new topic, new tablesafter each presentation.
So you're constantly on the move,you're constantly meeting new people,
(13:38):
you're constantly going toto learn from other groups.
And I love that.
It's such a great example of howsomething that works so well and why,
because you worked through allthe possibilities to find the right one.
So I think that's why it works so well.
And it's a great example,and it really helps to be able to sit down
with especially the people that ultimatelyget the data that yay or no, yay or nay,
(14:01):
be able to sit with them and work it outwith them to get their input,
to get their ideas on why things mayor may not work, especially recognizing
that they're looking at the overall,in my case,
meeting from a different perspectivethan I am they.
They've got a broader perspectivethan somebody
who's trying to fill the agendato create that good experience.
(14:23):
So getting a chance to work
with your leadership teamand ask them for their input
so that you can understand where they'recoming from and address their needs
maybe even before you do that experiment,that can be a great way to to get that.
Buy-In.
Yeah,I and that just making it a discussion
and not telling themthis is what we're going to do,
but discussing themand bringing in process
(14:45):
has a lot to do with getting Buy-Inin general across the board.
Absolutely. Yeah.
It sort of gets back to that, tellingpeople you're coachable that you're not
you don't think you're
the smartest person that you're opento, to others ideas and others feedback.
I love that.
I saw a great quote from SimonSinek this morning and said,
How do you put it?
An expert knowseveryone thinks they know everything.
(15:07):
A genius don't.
I love what it's like.
Fair enough.
So let's talk a bit about somethingthat maybe didn't work as well.
I think you'd mentioned that mentoringdidn't work quite as well as you had.
It hasn't worked yet.
So I almost
get the sense that the mentoringis almost the Holy Grail for associations.
(15:27):
It sort of seems like everybody'slooking for the right way to do it.
And I know there are groups that are doingit pretty well, but it doesn't seem that
somebody has gotthis is the perfect formula for
or mentoring program,but more direct to our experience.
When we launchedlaunched our Women in Leadership Council,
it was suggestedthat mentoring was a component of this.
(15:48):
So we talkedto the board and we came up with a plan
to create a mentoring programthat was essentially run by the members.
So in a nutshell, you basically providedthe platform in which people could connect
with one another and some some guidesto help the find the relationship.
But the actual connection with each other
was entirely left to the members,and it was dependent on them
(16:12):
asking each other, you know,will you be my mentor?
Or will you be my mentor or asking usto make the connection for them?
And really, because there was that barrier
of making the member connect to thethe other member,
it really didn'tget too far off the ground.
And so we essentially shelvedthe mentoring program
(16:35):
for for a long time, actually.
It still felt.
But I will say that before COVID started,we started to discuss
how we can relaunch this type of programsuccessfully.
And I do think that we have a frameworkthat is ready for some beta testing.
But, you know, ultimately,this is a challenge of staffing for
from my perspective
(16:55):
and based on a lot of conversationsI've had in presentations I've seen.
You really need someone to own this.
So unless you you're going to really limit
the program to a certain number of people,there's
you really need somebody to take ownershipof the mentoring program.
And because at that point in time,I was the only person on staff.
And so in addition to women leadership,I think we had
(17:18):
13 other councils at that time.
So I really couldn'tdevote the time necessary
to make those connect memberto member connections.
So ultimately it's it hasn't panned out.
But like I say,
I think we've got a good frameworkto make it successful moving forward.
That's it really.
This is a case of usgetting in front of the front of our skis
(17:41):
and looking back on it.
It's one of those cases where, you know,I wish I had spoken up and said, you know,
these are a couple of the challengesrather than, okay, let's say
this is a great idea. Let's make it work.
We probably got a two to head of ourselveson that one.
Well, if you do crack that one,I'd like you back here, please,
so that you could tell ushow you did that.
(18:01):
They've been amazing.
Yeah.
And I've got to be I've got to be honest,this isn't we we had somebody on staff
who she worked on the women in LeadershipCouncil for for the longest time.
And she developed sort of the framework
that I thinkwe're going to we're going to work with.
And there are a couple there,a few tweaks we're going to make.
But she really built the framework forthis, and I'm really optimistic about it.
(18:25):
Excellent.
I look forward to hearing about thatafter it works, because I'm sure it will.
Yeah.
If anybody can make it work,I think you can.
Thank you.
Well,I mean, just look at your track record
and how you've talkedabout how you walk through things.
I think, you know,
I think it's a pretty sure bet that ifanybody can make it work, it would be you.
So when you when you crack it,you're coming back, right?
(18:45):
Absolutely.
So let's come backlet's go back to meetings for a moment
and talk about pivoting to virtual.
How did you approach thatwith some innovation?
Yeah.
So obviously, COVID sort of knockedthe medical community down really quickly.
Really early on,being on the frontlines of it.
So, you know, March, this is headingI'm coming back from paternity
(19:07):
leave at the time and all of a suddenit's like,
okay, now we have to go virtual,something we haven't ever done.
And because we had it really donevirtual to the extent
we were going to,we really decided to keep it simple.
First we looked atwhat our members were doing and facing.
We recognize
that their press time, they're working,you know, 15, 18 hour shifts a day
(19:29):
and they need information fastbecause nobody knows what's going on.
So essentially what we did was we quicklyorganized some testing presentations and
I think we're talking ten to 15 minutesand we staggered them at various times.
And naturally we recorded everything.
And the reason we staggered at varioustimes was recognizing
(19:50):
that some people were available inthe morning, some people were available,
available in the afternoon,others were available in the evening.
And as it's evolvedyou know, the presentations
have gotten longer, more thorough.
But we still kept it really simple.
We are really looking for twomaybe I guess three things.
We want good audio and we want good video,first and foremost.
(20:14):
And then number three on the list is goodspeakers, because when you have good
audio good video, good speakers that can
that provide all the value that you need
without having the added expenseof some of the virtual meeting platforms.
Don't get me wrong,those platforms are great.
They serve their purpose.
But what people really are looking foris good.
(20:35):
Are you good video, good speakers.
And we're we're tryingin the middle of a pandemic.
We're trying to just get informationfast and distributed fast and wide.
We just kept it simple.
We went zoom and askedas we get out of the pandemic,
now we're working with the membersto continue that virtual offering.
And so we're working with our councils,working with our communities
(20:58):
to find a scheduleand focus that works for them.
And by that, I mean some of the councilsare going to our meeting
every month,some of our meeting every other month.
Others of them are meeting everonce a quarter.
And some of them arejust just want to meet on an ad hoc basis.
So essentially we go upto each one of our communities and we say,
what are the topicsthat you all are dealing with
(21:19):
on whichyou would like to have a Zoom meeting?
So we get them togetherand some of them, it's very specific.
We want to talk about compensation,we want to talk about physician burnout,
we want to talk about access,we want to talk about telehealth.
For others of them,we just want to get a chance
to talk to each otherand hear what everyone's doing.
So we'll hold the occasional hottopic calls
(21:41):
where we'll just say,Okay, we'll open it up.
What are the topicsthat you want to talk about?
And we'll start in one locationand we'll bounce to three or four
throughout the time.
And because these are each
made to fit
individual councils and individual roles,the times are different.
So some of them are 30 minutes,
some of them are 45 minutes,some of them are 60 minutes.
(22:02):
We've done a couple of 15 minute one,just so short and sweet,
but we're record them all
and then we distribute themall through our,
through our online communitiesso that anyone who can't make
it is able to still tune inand get that information after the fact,
which I mean, catering to your members
is the number one thing key to success.
(22:23):
So I think, yeah, I mean,and I think that's what you've done so
well in your members needs and then makingsure that you cater to them is
that's it. That,that's the key right there.
And I think especially as it seems
people are looking for informationthat is more and more personalized
or specific to their roleto what they're doing.
(22:44):
I think that those goes a long way.
And I think that's also
I think that's a big reasonwhy our our communities
have been as successful as they are.
I don't doubt that for a second.
You kind of touched on a little bit,actually, just there.
But in general, how is innovating
really paid off for your organizationand for you specifically?
So organizationally, are
(23:05):
the councils are our largestand highest rated member program.
It's been that way,that way for years now.
Your popularity in value has only grownover the course of the pandemic.
I'm blanking on the exact numbers,
but there's a 90 plus
percent retention rate for groups,for people in councils,
and when you look at our primary count,our primary contacts are involved
(23:29):
in councils and active.
You're looking at a 99% retention rate.
I can't actually think of a single timewhen we lost a member group,
when the primary contactwas actively involved in the community,
not just by active,I mean just not passively observing the,
the discussion list messages,but actually being an active participant.
(23:50):
We also use Net Promoter Score for ourorganization in our community members.
Our council members
always have a higher scorecompared to those not in the community. So
that from the organizational perspectiveand then you know me personally, it's
it's always great to hear from people
(24:11):
who are making a differencein the lives of countless patients
and being able to say,you know, because of this,
we were able to do this better.
We were able to make this changeso that we could provide care better,
so that we could provide care quicker,so that we could be more
more valuable to to our patients.
(24:32):
And some of the, quite frankly,some of the messages
that we got, especiallyduring the pandemic, where we're it's like
it was just amazing and very,very humbling to hear
you know, a CEO or a CMO saywe couldn't have gotten through without
we couldn't have gotten through all thiswithout the support of the community,
without the the Zoom sessions that you'reputting on, without the presentations,
(24:56):
without the connections that you were ableto help facilitate that.
That's just been hugely rewardingfrom a personal standpoint.
I love that.
I just get I get the warm and fuzzyjust hearing you talking about it.
So that's awesome.
It's so nice that, you know,considering all that they go through
and all that they're putting into it,A, to see the kind of support they get,
(25:17):
but B, see that they are so supportive
and appreciative of it is it's awesome.
Well, whenever you're doing somethingfor somebody else
and those people come back and say,you know, this is appreciated,
always it all, it always feels good,especially when when you're doing it
for people who are making the differencein life or death differences
(25:38):
in many cases for for,you know, countless numbers of people.
Yeah. Especiallyconsidering the last couple of years.
So that's I love that part of the story.
So what do you
think are the risks for associationsof remaining in the status quo?
I mean, the obvious risk
(25:59):
is someone's going to come along and offera better version of what you're doing.
The threat is that you're offeringbecomes stale.
It comes outdatedor it becomes predictable.
And I think that is somethingthat can be overlooked.
The predictability part, people you know,predictable is safe.
But, you know,people are looking for for fresh.
(26:22):
They're looking for new ideas
or looking for something newto latch on to your members.
Experiences and expectations are changingwith every new product out there.
You're your pet competition.
Isn't just associationfocused on the same members.
It's Amazon delivering one click checkout.
It's YouTube operating curated videosbased on what you've watched
(26:47):
whatever the newest Smart Home application
is, people are bringing that expectationto your your service, to your offering.
And so if you're not looking to continueto evolve, to continue make yourself
relevant to you, make yourself fresh,to continue to meet those changing needs.
You're just opening yourself upfor somebody else to come along
(27:10):
and okay, well,I'm going to take what they've done
and build a new version of itthat maybe just a little bit different,
but a little bit different can be allthat makes the difference
between somebody renewingand somebody going through something new.
And this is why we're constantlylooking at the next step
in the evolution of our community.
You know, our goal is to connectexecutives to solve problems.
(27:32):
So what's the best way?
Giventhe expectations given the technology,
given their time available to our members,you know,
how can we facilitatethat relationship building?
That's that's why we're constantly tryingto stay fresh, stay relevant.
I know we keep repeating that,but I can't stress how important that is.
Agreed.
And I think it's important for peopleto hear it repeat it because
(27:58):
had you
at the beginning of the pandemicsaid, oh, no, you know, we're doing fine.
We've been supporting you for a longtime. It's no, no big deal.
We don't need to change in a situationwhere the world was changing so rapidly,
where their situation was changing rapidlyand consistently.
The only thing consistentwas change on a daily basis.
(28:18):
I mean, there's that phrasehas been around for a long time.
The only thing consistent is change.
But usually that changes over,you know, month four years.
Not every single day.
There was felt a lot in the community.
It was felt a lot in the eventscommunity, too.
I've seen friends who work in that
have to strugglewith making sure that everyone was aware
of every single or like rule
(28:41):
change or regulationchange or law change in every single city
and county across,you know, the country or even the world.
It's exhausting.
And if you don't with it,people will remember who they'll remember
the extent, who was there for themwhen it was easy to be there.
But when you're there for themand you step up with the most difficult,
(29:04):
I mean, that'swhat creates members for life.
That creates customerswho are in the corporate world
and creates members in the decision worldwho are going to be telling everybody
how you are and who would come back
and tell you how much they appreciate it,which we talked about just a moment ago.
And like I say, because we offeredthese Zoom sessions during the pandemic,
(29:30):
we're that's one of the ways we've evolvedwe are now including those
as just a standardoperating procedure, essentially.
And in another year, there'll besomething else that we're doing
that will be the new thingthat is now part of it.
And I'm sure there'll besome things that we're doing
now that we aren't continuingbecause it's no longer needed.
(29:50):
It's no longer viewed as necessary.
Yeah.
And I think you just touched onsomething really important there.
You can't go back to the old statusquo either.
There's now that expectation.
Oh, well, you've been doing this.
What do you mean you're stopping?
It's easier now. Why are you stopping?
That's the that's the constantchallenge of associations.
It's you'realways trying to do something new,
(30:13):
but you also have what you used to do.
So we have for you,looking at this new program,
you want to bring this new program,you do this
new program, it gets successfulbut you have all these other programs
that you've been doing that people sort ofhave the expectation to do.
And this is getting waybroader, way bigger, way bigger than just
the community.
But that's that goes to the importanceof your organization holding strategic
(30:36):
planning to understandjust how important are to go back
and evaluate what you're doingand ask some of the value, the
the legacy programs, the legacy offerings,are those really valuable
and thatcan be a very difficult conversation.
We've held it at NJ.
We we took a look at our communitiesas part of strategic planning to say,
(30:59):
okay, what can we change about them?
How can we make them betterfrom an organizational standpoint?
But I think a challengethat is specific to associations
and to be clear, this is Joegetting on a soapbox right here
is the need to look at what you've done.
Look at the sacred cows and say Okay,this is not necessary anymore.
(31:23):
So we can let go of thisso we can do this other program
that people value, that people want to dothat is new, that is fresh,
so that you can have the you can freethe time and the resources to do that.
And most of the time, what you want to do
will better and take
either take, take the place of and bebetter than what you were doing before.
(31:45):
So it's okay to let go of the other thing.
And I don't think everybody getsthat it's it's misunderstanding
the difference betweenI'll see if I can correctly articulate
this letting go of something to embrace
something else versus just cutting to cut.
Yeah, you have there's onlyyou can only hold so many things.
(32:07):
You only have two handsand you know, okay, you've got some arms
and maybe you can pull your shirt upa little bit and hold it like a basket.
But you still only hold so many thingsat somewhat yell at something, go
to, as you put it,to embrace the other thing.
And it's all aboutwhat's really important now.
Not five years ago. Right.
And it seems like associations are always,you know,
(32:30):
I don't know of any associationthat is swimming in money, so.
Oh, are thinkingit's always trying to use the
you know what bubble gum and duct tapecan we use to hold this together.
And as you start to put more and morepicture staff starts to do more and more
the ability to do somethingnew, to do something fresh,
do something relevant,the ability to do that is just challenged.
(32:54):
And so you can either continueto let them struggle
and not be able to innovate
or you can free them from some of the oldresponsibilities that maybe aren't as
valuable to your members.
That way they can make the focuson the new new product,
the new offering, the new program.
Yeah.
And I think that some of the clingingto status quo
(33:16):
or clinging to what you did beforeis because at least
you don't have a lot of moneyand therefore you don't
have a lot of leeway to lose it.
And the idea of letting
go of something that you have an ideaof how much money it's going to bring in
can be pretty terrifyingto try something on.
But eventually you're goingto get diminishing returns
on that one thing, right?
(33:37):
The thethe paradox of management is people
rarely get fired for sayingno to something, but you have to say yes
to the new things so that you can stayrelevant, so you can stay,
so youcan offer something that's innovative.
So you need leadership that is open toto those changes that's open.
(33:58):
It's not afraid to say yes to something
that maybe isn't perfect,but there might be a gem in there.
It's okay sometimes to goin with the expectation that,
okay, you're going to stillhold onto the old thing
for this year while you try the new thing.
But if the new thing succeeds, you'reeither going to have to drop the old one
(34:19):
or you're going to have to investmore money for more staff for someone
to handle it,because people can't handle both long term
and there's inherent dangerin that of going well after a post-work,
you go, Well, okay, you did it this year,why can't just do it again?
And that is likelynot the case of long term,
but it's a method to try if all else failsin getting something approved,
(34:42):
I think it's a good way to approach itfor people who are listening and going,
Okay, Getting people to let something gois never going to work.
Then you might try that,but make it very clear.
Short term, you're trying it short term.
And I think also your examples aboutjust going
in, knowing exactlyhow you're going to measure success,
(35:02):
what tipsthe scales, things like that can be
it can make all the difference
in getting them to go afterif they don't let it go before.
And again, a big part of this is
you have to be open to
realizing that your
program, your great idea,maybe it's a failure.
And if it's a failure,you have to accept that and move on
(35:24):
to whatever learnings you can.
But it's not working.
Don't keep going back to itjust because it's yours.
Don't keep walking into the brick wall.
Just just walk away from it.
My last question,this is one that we ask everyone.
I think that the three ways are thatpeople really need to be engaging members
right now. Okay. So first,
(35:46):
about once a year, we reach outto all of our community members
and just askhow the council experience has been.
We asked them, What do you like?
What don't you like? Questions like that.
It's a great opportunity for us
to get specific quotes and storiesthat can be shared
(36:07):
not only internally, but also externallywith potential new members.
So I would say at least going outto your community and asking them
and bonus points if you can actually holda phone to a phone conversation with them
as opposed to resume conversationwith them as opposed to just an email.
But I think that is one of them.
(36:27):
Number two, quarterlythank you messages to everyone
who is being active, especially on thethe discussion with the list, the service.
In addition to that,I would add a handwritten thank you
to your presenterso this is something that we do that
I'm a big proponent of,and I can't stress how often I've heard
(36:53):
just how grateful people
are that they're getting this recognition.
And one of the things that we point out inthese messages
is we'll share specific quotes
anonymized from member saying, you know,
I get so much informationfrom the discussions over the listserv,
it's just been invaluable
we share that with the peoplewho are posting the messages
(37:15):
this way, that they know that their peersare explicitly valuing
their their their experiencesand their sharing.
I love that because I know a lot oforganizations will send a thank you
to speakers or they might we did speakergifts for a lot of our conferences.
The idea of that same level appreciationand thank you to the people
(37:39):
who are actually posting.
We think so much aboutautomating engagement
and really getting people to engage more
on the community by approachingthe people who aren't engaging
but actually thinking and encouragingthe ones who are.
That's fantastic. I love that.
And then the third one, I would sayis private face to face meetings.
(38:04):
I think especially givenwhere we are in the world right now,
we one of the lessons we've learned isthe importance of face to face connection.
You know, there is certainly a roleand a place for virtual,
but it almost seems like it's builtinto our DNA that we require
some degree of interpersonal connectionwith each other.
(38:26):
So being able to bring people togetherto discuss
challenges,to discuss solutions, those ideas,
and especially if those are focusedaround a particular role,
I think that's a great wayto get people engaged
and a great way to demonstrate value.
Agreed.
I don't want to take up all of your time.
(38:46):
I could sit here and ask youa few more questions, actually,
but I do want to
thank you so much for being here todayand for sharing all of your experiences.
I know that the listenersare going to get a lot out of it,
so I'm really excited for them to hearthis.
It's been my pleasure.
Always, always happy to help you,to help others out and answer questions.
So just let me know if you or anyone elsehas any questions.
(39:07):
I'll be more than happy to chitchat. Okay.
And I'm assuming it can people connectwith you on LinkedIn?
Absolutely.
Feel free to reach on me. LinkedIn.
That's probably the easiest way toto get a hold of me.
Yeah, absolutely. LinkedIn. Cool.
I'll see if I can get them to
maybe put a link to your LinkedIn accountin the notes, but it's not definitely
the spelling of your nameand that your information
(39:28):
that'll make it easy to findyou will be in the episode notes.
So thanks everybody else for joining inand listening.
Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast.
We're just about everywhere.You can find podcasts.
You'll find us, and if you have a momentand you want daily or weekly,
daily, weekly news in your inboxabout a marketing visit, association
(39:49):
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