The marketing approach means building a product or service that so perfectly meets the customer's needs that it sells itself. A strategic membership marketing audit is an essential prerequisite to the development of a membership marketing strategy that will take maximum advantage of the opportunities your association has to reach and to maintain its optimal growth potential. Mergers, like marriages, are often more complex than they appear when both parties are starry-eyed with love. And, like a marriage, the merger is more likely to be successful and lasting if there is a reasonable period of courtship. The care and feeding of unnecessary committees can devour both dollars and staff time that could be put to more productive use in delivering necessary services to members and other customers.
Many national associations are at war with their chapters and affiliates.
When resources are scarce, competition to sell goods and services to members can set affiliates and their national association at each other's throats. The struggle is to determine who will benefit from these revenues. The responsibility of the board is to make policy and define the outcomes they expect from staff. The responsibility of staff is to achieve those outcomes within the policies established by the board. Here are some principles to follow in the delegation of responsibilities to staff.