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Business Networking Strategies: Are Memberships and Dues Worth It?

Guest post by: Howard Shore

Article Overview: Many business owners and leaders spend a significant amount of money, time, and resources on memberships to various organizations and continually wonder if it’s worth it. This article is going to discuss ways to make sure you are investing your networking time and money wisely.

Business Networking Strategies: Are Memberships and Dues Worth It?

Many business owners and leaders spend a significant amount of money, time, and resources on memberships to various organizations and continually wonder if it’s worth it. This article is going to discuss ways to make sure you are investing your networking time and money wisely.

Join or Not to Join

The first question we need to answer as business owners and leaders is whether or not we should belong to any organizations and, if so, which ones. I believe the path toward good decision-making is asking the right questions. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it should get you thinking in the right direction:
- What are your organization’s long- and short-term goals, and what needs to happen for you to achieve them? How can memberships in outside organizations help achieve these goals?
- What are those things that, if accomplished this year, will make your financial targets possible? Review your business plan for the year. How many new customers are to be added? Are you expected to find strategic partners? Are you looking to find key talent? Will you be seeking acquisition candidates, etc.? How can memberships in outside organizations help achieve these goals?
- What could it do for your organization if you joined different types of organizations (e.g. local chamber, trade association) from those you traditionally have been a part of in the past? Which ones should you consider?
- What could it do for your organization if you joined more organizations?
- Are the organizations you are currently a member of sufficient to meet these goals?
- How many networking events can be feasibly attended in a given month? In a given week? How does this compare to the number of events that each organization hosts in a given month or week?
- How important are memberships and networking to the growth and development of your people?
- How important are memberships and networking to the growth and development of the brand image of your firm?
- Who else in your organization should be involved in networking and why?
- Based on answers to the key questions asked, how much money are you willing to spend on networking activities?
- Based on answers to the key questions asked, how important are you going to make networking activities for yourself and your team members?

Accountability and Responsibility

How are you going to make sure that the decision you have made to join an association or group of associations will yield the desired results? I can guarantee that you will achieve more goals more often if you make them specific and write them down. This is an area that is frequently skipped and is one of the most important. No one likes to be held accountable, particularly owners. Writing your goals down provides the following benefits:
- Clarifies decision-making
- Eliminates unconscious alteration through passage of time
- Keeps you on course
- Facilitates communication with others in your organization
- Increases motivation and confidence

Be very specific in your goal with a target date, and measure it. For example, I want each associate to add 1 new customer with an average sale of $5,000 per quarter through the memberships the company pays for annually. The goals should be known, and progress should be communicated. This lets everyone know that you are there to support their efforts, but you expect results. By measuring your results you monitor return on investment.

When you assign responsibility for the different actions that need to take place, do not underestimate all the activities involved in creating success. Your action plan needs to include: identifying associations or networking activities you want to be apprised of, signing up for appropriate activities, deciding who will attend, and so on. This appears simple on the surface, but takes discipline. If you are a busy executive, you should identify someone in your organization who will be responsible for keeping everyone apprised of upcoming events.

There are many benefits to having as many people in your organization as possible involved in networking. Too often we think of people’s stature/position in our organization when thinking about who should be networking. Even people who may not be in a position of authority or well-polished can play a significant role in your networking strategy. Here are some points to consider:
- You are developing relationships for the future – Your lower-level people and their lower-level people could be the future decision-makers.
- Not everyone has similar interests – By getting more people involved there are more chances of finding people who do have similar interests. It is amazing how much business can happen because we both like golf, sailing, Cub Scouts, or whatever the common bond is.
- Branding – Small firms can look very big when it appears they are everywhere.
- Retention – By having more relationships at different levels in organizations you have a better chance of retaining clients when you experience employee turnover.

There are a few cautions I would like to bring to your attention on accountability and responsibility:
- Not all results are tangible, so you need to consider the intangibles as well. Tangible goals are measurable (e.g. sales dollars, customer retention) as are the wants and needs that you can say definitely “yes you did it” or “no you didn’t.” Intangible goals are the “becoming” goals (e.g. I want to become a better manager, salesperson). We judge the quality of our progress on intangible goals based the quality and completion of our tangible action steps.
- If you did not get the results you wanted, do a root cause analysis (e.g. why did you not get the results you wanted?).
- Do not quit too soon. Many initiatives fail because organizations quit at the first sign of difficulty. It will usually take 6 months to a year to get traction in an organization that you have not been heavily involved in recently.

Memberships to organizations and dues are typically an essential part of a successful business strategy. By choosing the right organizations and deploying your people and time effectively you can find large returns on investment and outstanding growth for your business. I found too many businesses spend too much money and time in the wrong places. Remember it is not activity it is productivity!

Related Articles
  Make Your Contacts Count
  Pay My Dues ~ Build Credibility
  Networking
  NETWORKING ISNT SELLING OR IS IT
  Business Networking - Old vs New Paradigm

Article Tags: business networking, business owners, networking strategies, time and money



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