MSAE Marketing & Sales Symposium Roundtable Conversation Takeaways

As part of MSAE's Marketing & Sales Symposium last week, members had "Conversations with Your Peers" - here are the top takeaways from the discussions (technology, membership, branding, mobile, contracts, conflict and more!):

Integrated Marketing: Social, Print, Web, Video

• Consistency
• Simplify messages
• Find time to lay out all types of communications you produce and analyze them for consistency, content, etc.

Responsive Web Design: What is it? Why does it matter to your organization?

• Design with responsive in mind
• Design form mobile first - then build to bigger devices
• Think about the three most important things a user would want to see on your homepage

Brand Management

• Consistency is key
• Defining standards
• Use style sheets

Member Replenishment

• Putting members on committees, board - give them a voice
• Photos - communicating "fun aspect" - ID them
• Cross pollination across associations

Contract Negotiations

• Cancellation by hotel clause in contracts
• Mutual respect between meeting planner and hotel
• Spell everything out in the contract, not vague

 Workplace Conflicts - Strategies for Handling Workplace Tensions

• Think through the first words that will come out of your mouth before you start the tense conversation - start with a positive intention, such as, "I want you to be successful here."
• Find the balance between silence and violence.
• Just because you feel comfortable enough to say something to someone, doesn't mean you should.

Tablets in the Workplace

• There's an app for anything
• Microsoft Office can be accessed on your tablet
• iBooks are coming!

Mobile Technology Decisions

• Make sure your devices are compatible with what you do
• Look at the company making your device to ensure they will be around

So What? How to Communicate Member Benefits - Part I

• Can you deliver what you're saying?
• Customized communications - your member will listen
• Benefits is generic - value is the full package, brings more meaning

So What? How to Communicate Member Benefits - Part II

• Segmentation
• Know how your members want to be communicated with
• Meet your member where they are

For handouts from the day, click here.  Hope to see you at next year's Marketing & Sales Symposium!

Networking Group Day

60 members joined MSAE for our first-ever Networking Group Day on 1/31. It was a great way to kick off 2013, showcase and participate in MSAE's six networking groups, connect with members and share ideas. Here are the top takeaways from each Networking Group discussion:

Allied Networking Group

Marketing Sales Techniques

• “Cold calling” / prospecting – utilize resources like LinkedIn, Google search and Facebook; rethinking preferred method – email; send subtle follow up.
• Concessions – comp stay “secret shopper” evaluations with video testimonials; making sure both parties are benefitting.
• Building the relationship / creating the experience.

Creative Approaches to Close the Sale

• My competition doesn’t have “me” – the relationship is the close.
• The authentic close – engaged and aware of their needs. Listen.
• Simple gestures go a long way and sometimes inexpensive gestures go further and mean more to the clients.

Communications Networking Group

Google Apps & the Cloud

• Utilize Google Alerts to have specific web content delivered to you via email on the regular basis you specify.
• Use the "trick" of searching a specific website right from Google's homepage by typing into the search bar: "search term" site:[website domain]. Example: "communications" site:msae.com
• Consider the potential issue of "Who owns the data?" when it comes to cloud applications.

2013 Communication Trends

• The idea that we are no longer in the "information age" - we are in the "attention age" - you must communicate to get people's attention and then keep it!
• Websites are the primary source of communication today and "responsive web design" is a trend to watch - part of the evolving conversation of what it means to "go mobile."
• Infographics are a new communications tactic that you can use to deliver information in a visually interesting, easily digestible way. Reconsider "stock" print collateral like membership brochures, annual reports and holiday cards to see if infographics could be employed to better deliver this content.

Financial & Accounting Networking Group

Budgets & Project Allocation

• Consider line item for reserve line item.
• Project allocation – consistency and look at big picture time allocation from software.
• Need detail to produce good reports and good association management software to provide accurate information.

Controls & Fraud

• Separation of duties, multiple people review purchases and statements.
• Credit card controls protect from unauthorized access.
• Financial audit is not fraud investigation. 

Meeting Management & Education Networking Group

Special Events

• Serve meal without dessert and auction off desserts.
• Incorporate community/charity outreach projects within events.
• Hold an event at a high-end car dealership.

Great Meeting Ideas

• Social Media Bar to train and increase social media presence.
• Ignite sessions – igniteshow.com.
• Experience – people want an experience at meetings/committee meetings.

Membership Networking Group

Increasing Dues and Revenue Streams

• Affinity programs / partnerships.
• Establish ROI – professionally and personally for members.
• Proprietary packaging brings in money.

Member Engagement

• To create an experience for everyone to take away.
• Engagement is about feelings; if you can create positive feelings in all events, communications, etc., you’ll be creating engaging experiences.
• Take join OFF your website; you’re not joining, you’re connecting.
• Have fun!

Young Professionals Networking Group

Generations in the Workplace

• Using a “mentor” to go to about advice / approaches with different generations can help in challenging situations.
• Important to find right communication styles between generations – will help working relationships.
• Build mutual respect is key.

Managing Relationships

• “It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you.”
• Follow up after initial contact with something light to maintain your relationship with the planner.
• Find a mentor.

For more information on MSAE's Networking Groups, visit www.msae.com.

yikes

watched it. the grammys. fake hair, fake boobs, fake nails, fake butts, fake teeth, tatoos, baggy pants.  I guess there's no butts to fill those pants. Idea.  Let's all be real.

As if we don't have enough to do

Remember, if the 1099 legislation is not changed - we will have to send 1099s to all companies to whom we've paid more than $600. Start collecting tax ID numbers. And here's a tip...include your tax id number on invoices that you send out, people won't have to call you.

Generations

Tips from the Meeting Management Education Council - 12.10

1. Be flexible in your communication style. A one-size-fits-all method of interaction no longer applies.

2. Recognize that generational discussions often pigeonhole people. Keep in mind that an individual’s generational context is only one piece of their profile (i.e. personality, family background, etc. also need to be considered).

3. When dealing with your board of director or committee groups you need to find a way to make the Baby Boomers feel that they are still necessary and important while creating opportunities for the younger generations to come in and make their mark.

Making the most of change

The MSAE Board of Directors, in preparation for the planning retreat, read "Managing Transitions" by William Bridges, PhD. Since change is inevitable, it's good to take time to remember that the psychological transitions that accompany change are stressful. Organizational transitions affect people, it is the people who have to embrace a new situation that will eventually lead to the change.  This book is an excellent managerial tool for navigating through these tumultuous, uncertain times. 

"Our moral responsibility is not to stop the future, but to shape it...to channel our destiny in humane directions and to ease the trauma of transition" (Alvin Toffler, Futurist)

A Simple Swipe on a Phone, and You're Paid

By DAVID POGUE - New York Times
The Square device snaps into an iPhone and allows you to become a credit card authorizing entrepreneur. No setup fees, no two-year contract - you're in business. Read more.

New membership coordinator at MSAE

New person started  today at MSAE.  It is amazing to try and teach someone everything they need to know to hit the ground running.  I think we forget how much we know, how many skills we have, and how we are experts in many areas.  Associations can be complicated places. 

Don't laugh - I was being frugal

I bought my home lap top in 1997. My home desk top in 2000. They have both been working, sort of. Just got a new lap top - took all the info from the other two, combined it, bought a new wireless router. Wow, what a difference. Fast, clean, organized, better. It took some time, cost some money - but I can be much more productive. I can use it, instead of fight with it. (Almost took a hammer to it the other day when I had to unplug from the modem for the 10th time that night.) My new I-photo even has face recognition software. I am amazed at what I can now accomplish.  Do yourself a favor.  When it's time to replace your systems, don't prolong the agony, bite the bullet and do it. You can't fight mother nature and you can't fight the technological advances that keep slamming into our lives. So enjoy.

Top Performers

Top Performers
Radically engage
Invite participation
Embrace innovation
Have goals

Carr Hagerman built on these points at the MSAE EXPO. Suggested that we all look at the boundaries we put up to change - and consider how our own prejudices affect what we do.

Change at the Speed of Lightning

Think about how fast things change. YouTubes first video uploaded 5 years ago today(from Mashable) Just have to wonder what the world will look like in another 5 years? Are you keeping up? http://bit.ly/c6dsrI I used some html code to post this. Never, never would I have ever imagined I would know some kind of computer code. What makes me think I could possibly imagine the world in 5 years. Long range planning is getting shorter and shorter.

The world is a different place

Yes, the world is a different place when you are out touring on a bike. The first few days of 'getting in shape' were deadly. I couldn't think about much except breathing, pumping the peddles, and staying upright. Once you get into the groove - it's a pleasant change; time to think and time to see the world from a different perspective. Gotta tell ya... everything - buildings, homes, gardens, and streets look different when you are on your bike instead of in your car. Besides that, you can see places you have not seen before. (Especially if you take a wrong turn and get lost in a maze of cul de sacs, and unknown roads. ) What I really thought about was this; if we look at what we do, and what our organizations do from a different perspective - how would that change our thinking, our view of the issues, and our problem solving? I think it would change a lot. From my bike ride I learned that there are some gardens and lawns that are even worse off than mine. Made me feel better. (I learned other things too. I will keep you posted.) Maybe we should change our views about what we do and how we do it when we are tackling the plans, the budgets, the problems, the time management. It just might make a difference.

Work

New word: "Weisure" . I saw it in the Star Trib last night on the editorial page, written by Jim Shea for the Hartford Courant. What is it? He explains that weisure time is fitting fun around work, rather that fitting work around fun. Good or bad? I guess we have to all make that decision for ourselves. I for one would like to think that I work to live, not live to work, but that's just me.