Hooray for Member Outreach

I spent the day yesterday in Washington, DC doing member visits. One of my core responsibilities is to organize and execute a campaign to visit our members in their offices all across the state -- and sometimes even across state boundaries, as we did on this day. A board member and I met with...

• two disgruntled long-time members who got a better perspective of what the association is doing for them;
• a brand new member who we identified as a high-performing volunteer (someone who actually follows through!); and
• a firm that I'm certain will increase their advertising, exhibit and sponsorship spending as a result of the meeting.

Usually when I do these visits, I'm satisfied to just make the contact -- to just make a friend. I know that in the long run, the outreach will pay off. It's just icing on the cake to get immediate and tangible results as well.