Blog
Is a Consultant Right for Me?
You know you need help with something, but you’re not sure if you should hire a consultant, a contractor, a vendor, or add a staff position. How can you decide? I recently had the opportunity…
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Think Like a Startup
“What would it look like if our associations acted like a startup?” I was honored to be featured on a recent Professionals for Association Revenue podcast with my client Chrissy Bagby, Chief Strategy Officer, American…
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She Tells Two Friends…And They Tell Two Friends…
Remember that old Faberge shampoo commercial, where the hook was that the shampoo was SO amazing that a woman told two friends about it, and then they each told two friends, etc., until the screen…
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Can I Trust You?
I was recently thinking about something my very smart friend Jamie Notter is fond of saying: Trust and risk are correlated. As trust goes up, risk goes up. In order to lower risk, we also…
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What’s “Normal” For You?
An association colleague recently called me because her membership director is “freaking out” about their association’s retention rate. The rate? 65%. Which, if you look at data like that from Marketing General’s 2024 Membership Marketing…
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Try Before You Buy
Free samples are a time-honored tradition at bakeries. You walk in and there, on the counter, are bite-sized samples of some of the wares available for sale. You might have come in for a loaf…
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So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
The title of the fourth book in Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “So long, and thanks for all the fish” is the message the intellectually-superior-to-humans dolphins leave as they depart Earth just…
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Truck Stuck! Now What?
I think we’re all familiar with the story of Truck Stuck by Sallie Wolfe. It’s a charming children’s book in which the kids are the heroes, figuring out a creative solution to get the truck…
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Do Your Incentives Make Sense?
I was recently chatting with a newly hired membership director. Their association offers both individual and group membership, and they were looking for ideas on ways to increase individual recruitment and retention. We had a…
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Resolve to Resolve Better
The “icebreaker” activity on every call I’ve joined in the past three weeks has been: “What’s your New Year’s resolution?” Responses have included things like: Productivity. Efficiency. Mindfulness. Pilates every day. No processed sugar this…
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