The Critical Role of Associations in a Rapidly Changing World With Bob Moore

Full Transcript

Bill Sheehan (00:00):

On this episode of Learning by Association,

Bob Moore (00:03):

Why do you think associations will never go away? Well, it’s the connective thread that brings people together. People like communities where they can reach out and connect with other individuals. I

Bill Sheehan (00:13):

Always used to tell the staff, our members joined for one reason. You just have to find out what that reason was and service that, and then let it expand beyond that. Welcome to Learning by Association, a podcast brought to you by D2L where we delve into the ever evolving world of associations and the challenges they face in navigating the currents of change. I’m Bill Sheen and I’m thrilled to be your host, join me and our guests as we explore the role learning plays in driving associations forward and how it can impact every part of your organization from recruiting to engagement and renewals to staff development, business strategy and more. So let’s dive in. So Bob, it’s great to see you again here in Toronto. We’re here at Fusion and D2L and we have associations and higher ed and K through 12.

(01:04):

So it’s nice we’re all learners here, so really it’s great seeing you again. Great seeing you too. Again, it’s interesting, I’ve been traveling quite a bit lately at state associations and some of the national trade associations and the association world is experiencing a lot of change quickly, and the COVID actually kind of was a catalyst for how associations have to adapt in today’s world because of what was happening in Covid. Other technology companies and other organizations came in trying to help those individuals who couldn’t go to work, utilize information and have networking over the internet and those type of things. And it kind of pushed associations away. And I’ve often said the associations are the original social network, right? Back in the day you didn’t have the internet, you had to go to meetings and you met like-minded individuals and you learned and the new technologies and there’s any policies that are affecting the industry. And you got together and that was great. Associations were flourishing, but now what the associations are experiencing is stagnant growth. Some are declining. And I’m just wondering from the medical side of things, are you seeing that same type of concerns in that sector of the industry?

Bob Moore (02:35):

Definitely. I mean we’re seeing that across the board though. I mean it always depends, right? Some groups are growing, but in generally general terms, I would say the concern about declining membership, especially as it relates to an aging membership that’s on the cusp of about retirement, but in the healthcare community, I’m always surprised at how long our members work. They love what they do. So trying to forecast out when certain groups are going to actually phase out in terms of being active members and moving into retirement, it’s really hard to do because they’re working in their seventies and eighties and it’s been really hard for us to forecast when our membership model might really see a drop off. We’re fairly consistent year after year. But the challenge as you’re getting to exists because we’re seeing newer generations in particular is the piece that I’m seeing organizations struggle with

Bill Sheehan (03:28):

Is

Bob Moore (03:28):

Getting them active and involved and just aware that we

Bill Sheehan (03:31):

Exist. That’s so true. And I think today more than ever, we’re an attention economy. We need to capture the attention of that younger generation and associations are facing a lot of competition for that share of attention and share of dollar. And so it’s interesting to see that younger generation, those coming out, the trade schools or the colleges and universities sometimes aren’t aware that associations even exist and they stumble upon it in some way, shape or form, maybe trying to get education or something like that. And I think it’s critical now that the younger generation is aware of an association and how it can help them advance their career through that. You seeing in your association, are you seeing kind of an influx or maybe an uptick with the younger generations, the younger generation joining the association? Are you seeing that

Bob Moore (04:29):

We have chapters that are associated with our colleges of osteopathic medicine and those continue to grow both in terms of number of them as more and more colleges come online, but also the number of students at them that are participating. Now, the challenge that we have is that to be belong to one of these student chapters, they might go into a totally different medical profession than family medicine because at that point they’re still trying to figure out things, but they’ll pick a lot of different clubs or chapters to belong to try and feel it out like is family medicine for me? Which is still a good sign that they’re at least interested and they’re signing up and they’re willing to learn. So we do have somewhat of a captive audience at the students and that continues to grow. So that’s a really positive sign for us. There’s an opportunity.

Bill Sheehan (05:13):

Yeah, that’s great. And I’ve seen that across other verticals too, not just in medical but in engineering, food service and some of the construction associations where they’re trying to get down to that local level in those chapters and to be able to, I guess, articulate the value of an association because I believe, this is my humble opinion, that associations are in a very unique position right now and in that they can become the single source of truth. And what I mean by that is this, the younger generations today are influenced by so much media and how do you really trust what you read? And I feel that associations are made up basically of subject matter experts where information that comes into the organization and the staff and the subject matter experts look at that information and validate that information and verify that information and then distribute that information so it can be seen as truth, right. That’s the thing. How do you think associations can begin to communicate better their value and relevancy, particularly in today’s world?

Bob Moore (06:29):

Yeah, I mean that’s music to my ears. I mean, that’s why I think associations exist to be that source, but I think we’re also seeing associations being microcosms of what we’re seeing play out in society in general where there’s a general distrust of information as we saw during the pandemic, a lot of distrust about vaccines vaccine hesitancy. So it’s not just that an association says something, we’re going to believe it to be true. I don’t think that we’re there yet just because of societal

(06:56):

Constraints that we’re facing. So we have to be aware of the fact that we’re trying to attract people who might actually be hesitant or skeptical of other sources of information and that they’re leaning toward celebrities or things that are on social media. So to your question, what we’re trying to do is just make ourselves more visible to these populations so that they know we exist. So the students I was talking about, sometimes they get to a point where they don’t even remember or know that they’re members of ACOFP because they signed up at a college career fair and they got on a list and our minds, they’re a member of our student chapter and their minds are like, I don’t remember doing that. So how do you continue to stay in front of them through your communications and outreach? And we’re just trying to get more creative with our marketing and we’re actually doing geofencing around colleges so that it comes up when they search for anything related to us, we’re trying to go beyond the traditional email because they’re not opening up emails the way other demographics have. So we’re using a lot more on social, a lot more just with other newer marketing techniques. And we’re seeing it more as a marketing approach, almost more than a traditional communications and engagement approach. And so we’re shifting the way we think about our outreach in terms of that. It’s

Bill Sheehan (08:12):

Interesting because I know there’s been talk that the younger generation doesn’t like to pay for anything, that everything should be free. And I don’t know if that’s necessarily the case, but there is that opinion out there I guess of that. And when I think about that, and I have been talking to other executives too about do you begin to rethink the association business model? And if we were to go back and think, okay, the old model used to be you join, you pay your member dues, you get some stuff for free. It might be education, it might be the magazine, it might be some white papers or what have you. And then you would pay for other things such as the events that you go to and other networking and some tests that you take and things like that. And that was the old model.

(09:04):

And I think that associations now that membership dues model, relying on that. I know a lot of associations say we like to have a nice balance of non-dues revenue versus membership dues, and that’s 70 30. Those are all nice. Well, but I think the way the public is today, and again, my opinion, it’s important I think for associations to explain what your member dues go for and what our mission is and why we were founded. And those dues go to pay salaries and pay the rent and keep the organization healthy so that you can utilize the intellectual capital to produce wonderful goods and services for your industry to help advance it. But that’s not free. Those should be expected where you can have a member price and a non-member price. And I always use the example of Disney. It costs a lot of money just to get to Disney. And then once you get in, you spend a whole bunch of other money, but you have a great time. Right. So are you hearing anything in the industry about associations kind, rethinking their business model where they might start charging more, maybe even God forbid, drop your dues a little bit, but then charge for other things? I mean, are you seeing any of that?

Bob Moore (10:23):

Yeah, it’s definitely conversation we’ve been having for quite some time. I think it’s just really scary for associations that are, as you’re referring to being so independent on membership dues and to, let’s say they were to go to a free membership model so you’re open access

Bill Sheehan (10:38):

And

Bob Moore (10:38):

Then you pay for what you want and then it’s your choice if you want to come to our events or what have you. But it’s just really more of an engagement strategy to get to as many people as possible. Others are doing a more tiered approach, kind of a lower price point entry. You get some things but not everything. And if you want these other benefits that in theory should have greater appeal, you’re willing to pay a little bit more money for that. And then those that are just staying the course and hoping that you can make the case and things change. And we’re probably somewhere even in the middle where we’re looking at it more from an organizational perspective. So we’re probably one or more of those. Traditional healthcare tends to be very traditional in its nature and very slow to change

(11:19):

Just in general. So we’re looking at things more from an organizational perspective and how do we bring in the full team and get to people who are influencers and can make a decision. So maybe the physicians are too busy, aren’t aware that we exist, but if we can talk to an office manager that could see benefit in connecting that office team in a way that provides resources to them to provide better care all there for their patients and make the case that way or through their organization, whether it be a university residency program or the like, and get all their faculty be a part of the program that they can get access to these resources that they might not have otherwise had. So we’re just going to be rolling this out this coming fall, so we’ll see how that goes. We tested the model and there was really positive feedback on that. So we’ll see.

Bill Sheehan (12:05):

And I think that can go across verticals, that methodology, that thinking. And I think it’s different too for the trade associations versus

Bob Moore (12:14):

The organizational

Bill Sheehan (12:15):

Versus the professional societies. And I think too for the trade side of things, particularly when companies are not joining something that is a huge impact on an organization, you lose one or two and acquisitions. And so I remember when I was in some of the associations I used to work for when you might have 200 members, company members, but then acquisitions start happening and all of a sudden you’re losing that and they’re only paying one member due now and it very struggling. And I think that’s why a lot of them were having the good trade shows to help generate that non-dues revenue, bring buyers and sellers together in a format. But I think on the society, the individual level, it is going to be, I think I like that model where they’re actually choosing to engage with the organization and they’re paying for what they see as being relevant and helpful to them.

(13:13):

Therefore, when it comes time to renew and they’re looking at that, they’re saying, huh, I did get value out of this, as opposed to the association saying, Hey, look at what all you did this year. And they’re sending that information out, but that’s not self-selected. And I think now in today’s world, I think a lot of the individuals want to say, I don’t want everything. I just want these four things. And if you can provide those to me on a consistent basis, then I see a lot of value and a return on my investment in the organization. And so I like your model of where lack of a better term, like a cafeteria approach where the membership due may be low or nothing and you charge ’em. But again, I think the critical role right now is for associations to get at that younger generation where they are and maybe getting on college campuses and speaking about that, do you do that? I know you do some stuff with student chapters, but do you get a chance to go out to universities and talk about the importance not only of the discipline but of the organization itself and why we’re important?

Bob Moore (14:19):

We do that vis-a-vis the student chapters. So they’re really our local network along with our state societies, state and regional societies.

(14:27):

So they’re really kind of more of the boots on the ground that gets to more of that than as national. When we do travel, we do try and make it a priority for our president to go and meet with those groups since they’re already there and make connections where possible. But some of the points we were talking about the size of your profession is going to make a big decision factor in terms of which direction you go because some of these specialties and just pick any profession can be so niche, your ability to pivot and try some of these can be really limited. If you only really have an N of 2000 people in this particular profession and it’s really a niche versus a group that has tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands that are in a profession, you’ve got a little bit more latitude to try some different models because the opportunities are great to scale up and maybe offer free membership because you’re getting to a larger audience. Because the membership model piece that we were talking about, newer generations are joining memberships because they’re doing Netflix, they’re doing Costco, they’re doing, they’re paying for memberships, but I think more associated with a service, A membership for service.

Bill Sheehan (15:31):

Yeah, well see. I think, so there’s two questions there. One of the things I was thinking about with when you’re talking about the college campuses in the student chapters and so forth, I think a lot of associations have the question, how do I find members trade association is kind of easy. You can look at SIC codes and find out what the companies produce, be it landscape or confections or what have you, that’s a little bit easier. But for those ones that even are in a niche, how do you find your universe on that? And I think that’s where some associations are struggling. They will go through the member, find a member, they’ll try to get some information maybe from colleges and universities, but do you ever find it difficult to get that information? Isn’t that information kind of sacred?

Bob Moore (16:28):

Yeah, so difficult that we actually applied for a grant and we received it. It’s one of my most exciting projects that I’ve done in my career, but I was talking to the staff and the leadership and I said, why do we think that we know how best to communicate to this audience? We’re not that age. We didn’t grow up the way they grew up. At what point do we just kind of throw our hands in the air and say, you tell us how do we best do it? We have some of them already as part of our membership and they’re active. So we received a grant to basically flip the script and work with medical students and say, how can we best communicate with you and your colleagues and peers and even high school students a step before you to make the case to choose osteopathic family medicine as your career pathway?

(17:07):

And we did some research with them. They did a lit review to say, where’s that research to be that credible source and where is it missing so that we can then encourage universities to do more research to help build the case. So it’s multi-pronged effort, but ultimately we ended with five student teams pitching to us like a shark tank and campaigns on how they think we should make the case. And we left this, I mean completely blown away by the work that they did. And we left with five campaigns that were developed really, really creative, very clever, and asking how can we use different channels and make that outreach and make that case. So TBD, we’re going to now use their words, their campaign strategies and then work to implement it to do this very thing. But we’re just trying to go back to what I said earlier, not do the traditional email or get member lists, but try and get more organic, just the social media.

(17:58):

And one offshoot of this initiative is to do a video series and we’re going to do Dana Life videos to show the breadth and depth of this as a profession. And they’re going to be two minutes, four minutes, six minutes. We’re going to segment them all different links because we know attention spans are all over the place and really just have a whole marketing strategy to get this out through social channels and have it reside there to get people talking about this as a really cool and interesting profession. And then we’re working with actually a video from here in Canada and we’re doing a video docuseries, and it’ll be six episodes that are 20 some minutes in length actually exploring six different facets of the profession that will be web-based that we’ll point to as well through some of our marketing efforts. So that’s what we’re trying, we’re just going to try something totally different. They’re driving the content and we’re going to implement it and see how it works.

Bill Sheehan (18:47):

That’s pretty cool. I mean, excuse me. I think a lot of associations could use that model. I know for example, I keep referring back to my old stomping grounds, national Confectioners Association. I see that they’ve been doing the day in the life videos of some of the candy companies around the country and around the world. And I think that generates a lot of interest, not only from other candy companies about how they can operate better, but I think for those who are contemplating getting into the confectionary industry and what a wonderful industry it can’t be. And I think similar to your members and your industry, they don’t like what they do, they love what they do, and it’s very similar in a lot of these associations. But I love the idea where you’re flipping the script saying, tell me how you want to be reached and we’ll do that. And you’re hearing it really from the horse’s mouth on that, and I will be very interested. So let’s stay in touch. Okay. I’ll be very interested on how that goes because I think a lot of other associations need those type of creative ideas because in today’s world, associations are strapped both financially and from an administrative standpoint, but what hasn’t changed is the member’s expectations are still very high. We want all this stuff. And so I think associations now are trying to be more creative, need to be more efficient and hopefully become more effective.

(20:12):

When you’re running your organization, do you ever have those meetings where you say, Hey, how is this marketing campaign doing? How are we doing from hr? I mean, are we finding the right people we need to become staff in a day in the life of Bob Moore? How are you measuring your initiatives for their success

Bob Moore (20:30):

If they’re

Bill Sheehan (20:31):

Being success?

Bob Moore (20:32):

Yeah, I mean the key piece is just making sure that you’re carving out the time and it’s easier said than done. I’ve had team members that have said it’s a priority, and then when I ask for the figures and are we actually looking at it, it didn’t happen. So I’d say the biggest piece of advice is making sure it’s a core part of how you operate and expectations both in terms of how teams are measured for success, whether a campaign was successful or not, neither here nor there more for me that you’re actually measuring it and we’re talking about it

(20:59):

And that are we spending time at the end of the year actually having those conversations? And not even at the end of the year, but just in terms of the annual review, looking back, have there been touch points throughout the year where we’ve met as a team, a small team, large team, to say what’s working and not and beyond just the traditional evaluations of how things went, but taking a look at, we’re doing this a lot with our marketing campaigns. I mean, we see the ROI of conversion of clickthroughs from our messages, and are we actually tying this to new revenue through conference registration or membership and are we going to stick with that campaign or not? So those are very real conversations that we have with each campaign that we do. That’s probably the best example of what you’re talking about, but it really can apply across the board.

(21:42):

One of the newer conversations that we’re having is we have a video library of 150 videos demonstrating medical techniques for our members, and it’s now a free member benefit. So kind of taking a Netflix, you’re a member, you have access to all these videos, it tells you not only how to do the procedure, but bill for it and make money. So we’re like, okay, this should be seen as a valuable service. The part that we haven’t really spent as much time focusing on that I think we need to is how do we stay in front of our members reminding them that that resource exists

(22:15):

And does the technology exists that we can remind people, those that have logged in, that there’s more come back and we’re finding some of the technology is not where we need it to be and it’s fairly labor intensive for the team, and we’re a fairly small staff team to somehow run reports and say, okay, these people have been in the last month, let’s create a custom email to remind them. It’s not like we can just push a button and say, you haven’t been here for a few days, log back in and check out X, Y, Z or learn in our learning management system, whatever the case may be. So being very intentional and not only in terms of running the reports and the metrics, but intentional in terms of using it.

Bill Sheehan (22:52):

And

Bob Moore (22:53):

Then how are you staying in touch with the customers?

Bill Sheehan (22:54):

Yeah, I think one of the things I think associations sometimes fall down on it’s not their fault because the association staffs are fully burdened, right? They’re very, very busy. But I think the one thing that’s missing is a successful onboarding PLA platform or methodology. When a member comes in, don’t just send them a member kit. Don’t just send ’em an email saying, Hey, thank you so much. We’re glad you’re part of the family. Now here’s a whole list of our stuff that we offer. I think onboarding’s really helpful for not only members, but I think for association staff too, so they understand their role. But from an onboarding, do you have an onboarding plan when someone joins and you reach out to them? What does your onboarding strategy look like for new members?

Bob Moore (23:50):

We do, and it’s not where it needs to be is the short answer to the question. So it’s another discussion that we’re having amongst our team, but it gets back at something I said earlier is about the scale we do really well when we can have one-on-one conversations or small group conversations. So that think tank that we talked about, we had a hundred people. I mean we have raging ambassadors now because of that and they want more of those. But when you have 25,000 members and that was a hundred, I mean, it’s such a small percentage and they happened to be at a geographic location that we were able to make that work. And we know that most of ’em can’t travel. So I think that’s a struggle and all my colleagues have is how do you scale that personal outreach and onboarding to your members outside of an email, especially if you’re in a larger profession and you have a ton of people that you’re having to do that with having a personal call or a webinar.

(24:41):

And I’m also chair of Association Forum, and to give you an example on that front, where I think we do a better job is we do membership calls and people can log in and they might be a member, they might not be a member and ask questions, learn what’s going on in the organization, ask questions through the chat. It’s all virtual so you don’t have to leave your office. And those are now set up on a regular basis, and that’s something that we’ve relatively new doing the last year or so. And I think that’s a really positive way to have more of that personal interaction that plays to the strength of associations, which is not just an email and very cold and impersonal, but a very personal approach. But it’s something that can lend a scale because we could have 50, a hundred people on that webinar joining and listening versus, but again, they have to learn about it some way, and that’s going to be either through an email or social or some mechanism that they are going to have to engage with to get to that point to be able to get more engaged.

Bill Sheehan (25:32):

And I think trying to create economies of scale for an association. Sure, your members are joining every day, right? I mean, do you have a rolling membership where they can join at? We

Bob Moore (25:40):

Have an annual membership cycle, so everyone comes in and we have them all synced up now they do technically come in at different times where we get everyone synced up on a calendar cycle.

Bill Sheehan (25:50):

And so I think it’s hard now when you have renewals, onboarding is always important, but not necessarily as important as a fresh new person coming into the organization. And I think what’s hard for associations right now is when they’re communicating with the new member, you don’t know if that language or those are resonating. You have no feedback. They just opened the email. You can see they opened the email. But I wonder, one of the things I think with technology, and you can even bring AI into it to a certain extent where you can begin to personalize the engagement. For example, bill, we know that you joined the confectioners association and you’re interested in public policy and regulations that might affect nutritional labeling and what have you. That’s all really that I always used to tell the staff, our members join for one reason. You just have to find out what that reason was and service that and then let it expand beyond that.

(26:47):

But I think with technologies today, with AI and with some even a learning management system, how that could really be utilized for onboarding because that content already exists, right? Companies like D2L can help create that and make it look pretty and put it into the system. And then I believe that you can kind of track say, thank you very much. Here’s a little five minutes a month for the first two or three months. We want you to spend some time learning about our association and you can begin tracking engagement. Do you think something like that might resonate with members? I know your members, for example, are busy all day long, but if you just get it down into snacks versus a meal, but just to come back and say, Hey Bob, you haven’t been through the second part of membership. Would you see something like that really onboarding at scale and then being able to personalize that? I mean, would that be something that you guys,

Bob Moore (27:42):

Yeah, I mean I think it all comes down to personalization. I love your question about why did you join? That’s actually a good question that even to do a spot question, just one question too, maybe they’ll have a better chance of responding to that

(27:53):

To ask that very question. One thing that, going back to the metrics that you were talking about, our director of finance and ed admin’s really great with business intelligence and looking at our renewal rates and after five years we’re at close to 90% renewal with that group. But in our zero to five after residency we’re most vulnerable and that’s where we’re going to have the biggest churn. We have a five year runway to hold on to keep people engaged. And then once we can hit that five year mark, we’ve got them for a long time, which is great, but we have to really be mindful of that first five years. Some of the things that you’re talking about specifically targeted to those newer members in that first five years and not even just within a year. I mean, I’m thinking for our purposes we would want to do that a solid five-year campaign. And I think a

Bill Sheehan (28:41):

Lot of associations, because yours is, let’s say, it might be a little bit different than say an engineering association for example, but getting, when you get those students who join for free, they get a free membership, sometimes they participate, sometimes they don’t. And then when you ask them when they’re out in the field and they’re making a living, you want to say, okay, that membership that was free, now you need to pay a hundred or 200, whatever that is. And I think you see a serious drop off there because they don’t see the impact. And that’s why I think yours is more of that a little bit longer, like five years where you really have their attention. You can develop great relationships with them by providing them the information. But my question for associations now is that first year is so critical and like you were saying, you’ll have your raving members, you have 20% of your membership is raving fans of the organization. It’s that other 80% you got to worry about. For those associations that are kind struggle like onboarding and we see churn, so our membership is flat, is there a different campaign that you have for new members versus do you ever do reboarding of the old members? Do you have two different types of ways to do that? Can you tell me a little bit about

Bob Moore (30:08):

That? Yeah, so the renewals, I mean we’re a little bit more succinct and to the point and just refresher and remind people of that. It’s more kind of the conversational tone, how we’re referring to things and not speaking down to them per se, but just here’s a reminder that these exist. And then as I was mentioning, we want to make sure that we’re doing a better job even with those that are coming back. For those that are new to just A CFP in general, we have to do a much better job and spend more time through our communications. And so we’re rolling out a new website actually later this month. And so what we’re trying to do through that is provide opportunities in our communication, have really succinct and short bite things, but our new website is going to be able to serve as a supplement to our messages and our campaigns so that you can go there for more information or video libraries. And so looking to point to other places that didn’t exist before in a way that’s a little bit more targeted and feels more personal. And we’re really working to have the site be much more conversational, less cold and organizational, but really more of a conversation what our culture is about.

(31:11):

So it’s really around knowing your values too. Who is your community? How do they like to be communicated with? How do they communicate with each other and how can you emulate that so you’re not this artificial

Bill Sheehan (31:25):

Thing? I agree. And I think it’s important that you track that information, right? Making sure you have a system in place that you can track those interactions so that you remember them. And from a personalization standpoint, I’m going to change the subject a little bit. I want to talk about non-dues revenue for a moment, which I think is McKinley Advisors did a research, I think a year or two ago. It was the number one concern of associations, not membership acquisition, non-dues revenue. Right behind that was strategic planning. And I think those could be combined. You need strategic planning in order to do non-use revenue, but I think there’s going to be a shift in the association arena around suppliers or vendors to the industry because when Covid happened, staffs were reduced, budgets fell right? Because a lot of things, the vendors and DTL being one in the learning industry, we back in the day always wanted our clients and our associations to be successful.

(32:33):

We want you to be successful, we’re here to help. Now we need ’em to be because if they go away, we go away. And so I think there’s got to be a bit of opening of arms to reach out to vendors to say, we need your help. I need your money and I need your time to help because we can’t do it on our own. Do you see that, I mean, I know there’s a bit of hands, arms length relationship between a vendor and associations, but suppliers and D2L being one, we would love to help an association put together an educational outreach or today’s learning management that is brought to you by the general support of these vendors to help offset the cost of an association. Do you see something like that happening in the industry now as far as opening arms to the vendors to say, help us be successful?

Bob Moore (33:28):

And I’ll answer this two ways. One where my forum hat, Association Forum hat, D2L is one of our strategic partners. So this is exactly that model where we’ve been trying to go out with organizations like yourself and say, let’s have a partnership where it’s just not Association Forum driving the content, but it’s actually a two-way street, and that’s not how it always was.

(33:46):

And we know that there is value in these partnerships, but we need to be open to that. On the A CFP side, our members are also very open to the corporate partnerships. When I first started, a lot of our members were asking me, we need pharma back. We’re missing pharma. And there’s a lot of reasons of why that was the case, but that’s been one of my goals over the last few years is to reengage the corporate medical community to see if there’s ways to engage them. And from a learning standpoint, they’re very much interested in the content they have. Now there’s things that we have to be mindful of and we can’t maybe offer continuing medical education credits and things like that due to different regulations. But that doesn’t mean that they’re still not going to come and learn from that content if it’s something that they’re facing in their practice and that information doesn’t exist elsewhere.

(34:31):

So we have really good engagement with the non CME accredited content from our corporate partners. And so we have also now created corporate partnerships like Forum has as well. And we have a forum that we’re building out in our new website, specifically a portal for this non CME content that you can access. So it is becoming part of the fabric of the way we’re trying to help our members learn and not just be this other thing over there if it even existed. So we’re really trying to make sure that it’s a available, but it’s also easy to find too, and that we continue to promote it because there’s benefits in all different types of knowledge. And it gets back at where we started being the association is to help curate the content. So it’s up to us to make sure that we’re picking and engaging with partners that have really good content and are credible, have something to add, and that’s a win-win. And those are conversations I have when we meet with corporate partners. It’s got to be a win-win. We can’t have this be one sided or the other. So we have to genuinely know that we’re approaching this on the same page and that you’re going to meet your goals, we’re going to meet our goals, and it’s going to be a win for our members.

Bill Sheehan (35:33):

And I think too right now, although we’re coming out of the covid thing, but right now, there was a time, and I don’t think this ever happened before in the association’s history. We’ve had economic downturns, but not all industries were affected by it. But when Covid happened, everyone was affected. And I think for the first time we were all kind of in the same boat at the same time with the same problems. And I think we really need to lean on each other. And I know associations and being a former association executive are very busy. I mean, there’s a lot, unless you’ve worked in an association, it’s very hard to tell people what you do. You have a million bosses because you’re members. But I think what’s happening now within associations is that I still think there’s just that fear of self-preservation, meaning I need to be able to tell my boss, Bob, that I can handle this all. And the fact is, you can’t reach out to your vendors, ask them, we’re interested in you sponsoring our organization, so the call’s about money, but tell us how would you like to reach this audience?

(36:48):

How can we help you bring buyers and sellers together? Then you truly become a true membership organization where you’re getting great content, right? Curated content. The association is providing what I believe to be an invaluable service of reaching a target audience, right? A captured target audience that believes in this organization, and companies like D2L and other vendors I know will pay for that, right? They’ll find money to generate that. I think the hard part for associations is finding the time and effort to do that because you always go back to the, well, you go back to those 20% of those vendors that are paying 80% of your non dues revenue. Those other 80% need help. Do you have in your association or other associations, do you have, there’s always a membership campaign, but is there a vendor campaign where you want to say, we just want to develop a better relationship with you, and once you do that, the money and time is going to flow so they can even help create parts of your website and provide the services you need and technology? Do you have a, when you’re looking at vendors and members,

Bob Moore (38:06):

Yeah, we didn’t, but that’s something that’s been a priority of mine over the last few years. So now we actually have a list we’re looking to add to that list. So an area that we’re vulnerable in in the sense of not having really strong partnerships is around tech. They’re more the tech community as it relates to AI and larger things that are going to impact the way our members practice medicine. Pharma is a no-brainer that there’s going to be obvious synergy there, and we’re having great inroads with our efforts there, but we’re having to make a lot more effort on the other side. And much like you probably feel in cultivating those relationships, we feel the same way. It takes a lot of time to build those relationships such that I’m having to look for people, colleagues that have been in the space that actually have those relationships to say, I don’t have the time to foster and build all these relationships, but if I can get meetings with them vis-a-vis you because you have a relationship and you know me and we’re hiring you for your services. So that’s something that we’re rolling out also later this year

(39:00):

To further expand. We’ve gotten to tier one, made great inroads, but we need to do more. So our outreach strategy, we needed other resources to help do that. And just again, being vulnerable, I had to wave my hand and say, I don’t have all those contacts. I don’t know all these organizations. I need help both in terms of time, but also just those relationships.

Bill Sheehan (39:19):

And I think that’s okay, right to say, I think it’s important for CEOs all the way down to the entire staff to understand and say, I don’t know how best to do this. Let me reach out. Just like you reached out to the members, the younger generation, how do you want to be reached? Associations have to also understand how best to reach the vendor because usually the old days, they reached out a few times during the year, trade show, sponsorship board dinner board meetings, those type of things. And there were always, whenever that phone rang, they’re asking for money. But I think that’s going to change a little bit to say to the vendors now, don’t try to create sponsor program. Reach out to them and let them tell you. And so to work a little smarter. And I think that’s when you’ll start to see money increase in non-dues revenue, which obviously takes a lot of pressure off of the dues, but I think now those vendors also become engaged in the organization and they’ll tell some of their, because their business folks are your members and they can also bring those in as well.

(40:31):

So I think that’s why I say I really think that the business model of associations is changing whether they want it to or not. Seems to me you’re kind of ahead of the curve, which is great. I think you’re doing wonderful things. If there was one thing you could say to associations, and I know I’m probably putting you on the spot here, but if you were to say across the board, why are associations important, what would your answer be to that? And I know that’s a tough question because I’ve often thought there’s three things any association does if it’s an HOA or to your organization. I think you protect, promote, and advance an industry. And I don’t think there’s anything better right now as that association being that single source of truth because it’s made up of the very subject matter. So I just think when you talk about the importance of associations today, what do you think? Why won’t associations go away? Lemme put it that way. Why do you think associations will never go away?

Bob Moore (41:43):

Well, it’s the connective thread that brings people together. People like communities where they can reach out and connect with other individuals. And that’s why I think we’re seeing corporations moving more toward membership models. I mean, so what’s interesting is in this conversation we talk about is membership staying or going, where is it? I think that there’s still really great value in it because we’re seeing corporate America expanding their models to include memberships of sorts, communities, they’ll call it different things,

(42:10):

But they see the power in connecting a group around X. It could be a profession, it could be around a product, it could be around, you name it, but the opportunity to both connect but also educate. And that was the other piece. You had a really good list that you answered your question really well. But I think the education piece, the development piece is another important one. So it’s going to depend on the niche, again, a product or profession or what have you, but being able to be there for them. So a support mechanism. And that can manifest in a lot of different forms, whether it’s more through traditional learning, your individual growth. And by doing that, I think at that core, that learning opportunity, a lot of the other things come from that you’re advocating for their profession

(42:52):

Because you’re boosting them up to be better. And then as a result, that’s kind of a secondary piece and protecting what they have. The one thing that I would say about protecting is that sometimes that can then create turf wars. And so in terms, that’s why I like focusing on learning and professional development is that if you have a sustained curiosity and a sustained willingness to experiment individually, organizationally, professionally, you open yourselves up to not just protecting the status quo, but advancing and evolving both a product, a profession, whatever is your focus area. And that’s probably one of the biggest struggles that I’m seeing associations face right now are more the traditionalists and the newer groups that are saying, let’s rock the boat. We can’t keep on, because you’ve said with ai, our worlds are going to be rocked more than we, I think even realize in the next five or 10 years with the advent of ai. And for those that are going to be ostriches and have their head in the sand and say, Nope, we think that this is the model we’re sticking with it. I have news for you, you’re going to be behind the ball.

Bill Sheehan (43:52):

I agree. And I think too that the boards are going to start saying, if you don’t believe that, we’re going to find someone who will and to lead us that. So from a self preservation point, I think you’re setting a wonderful

Bob Moore (44:05):

Example of how to move your association. And vice versa, though, the boards need to understand that they’re not going to have the staff teams at play if that’s the mental model, that their staff that they’re hiring are. We need to rock the boat. And if there’s not a true partnership between staff and the organizational leadership, and if they’re not reading the tea leaves to say, our staff are letting us know there’s Houston, we have maybe a problem here on the horizon, we need to take this seriously that you might lose your staff team too, because they’re going to go to an organization that gets that. Exactly and say, we’re going to invest into a future plan and then move away a little bit more from the protectionism piece into more one of growth and exploration.

Bill Sheehan (44:41):

Yeah, and that’s a whole nother topic too, is really how to build the best board. Because I’ve been on associations where you had a wide disparity between the board members and it was very, very difficult, but it eventually began to wean itself out, and you really develop a very proactive, engaged board, which is wonderful for associations. And so Bob, it has been a wonderful time. This time went by. Great talking with you as well. Now, I can’t thank you enough for taking time. I know you’re busy, and I always love chatting with you and learned so much.

Bob Moore (45:13):

Thanks for having me here. It’s exciting. It’s been

Bill Sheehan (45:14):

Great. You’ve been listening to Learning by Association, a podcast where we delve into the ever evolving world of associations and the challenges they face and navigating the currents of change. This episode was produced by D2L, a global learning innovation company, helping organizations reshape the future of education and work. To learn more about our solutions, please visit www.D2L.com and don’t forget to subscribe, so you can stay up to date with new episodes. Thanks for joining us, and we’ll see you next time.