What Do Wine and Membership Have in Common?

What Do Wine and Membership Have in Common? – This is the question I answer in my most recent blog post for my company’s blog.

Navigating Chaos and Button Pushers without Tears

Read my latest blog post over at my company’s blog Partners Preceptors!

A Blog by Partners in Association Management

By: William Lessley

Recently, I had the opportunity to take a break from work and recharge my batteries by retreating to the woods for the Thanksgiving holiday break. Camping is one of the few times when I can really relax and leave all the work at the office where it belongs. Shortly before the holiday, my in-laws announced they had decided to join my wife and I for our five day, four night camping trip. Five days in the wilderness with my mother-in-law, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law? I started eyeing shovels in the hardware section while my wife, in a low soothing voice, promised me everything would be fine.

Tip:When your best laid plans are suddenly laid to waste, force yourself to physically smile. Think of something happy and relax your face into an open, friendly smile.

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Association Hunger Games: Victory or Defeat?

I can’t wait to attend an ASAE conference one day (maybe even next year!) Aaron’s post has given me a lot to think about. Please read!

Event Garde Blog with Aaron Wolowiec

I had the pleasure of presenting this year at the ASAE Annual Meeting and Exposition in Nashville. And, believe it or not, I didn’t talk about meetings or learning. Instead, the session was developed as a result of a conversation I overheard at last year’s conference describing the challenges associations often have implementing strategy they’ve either developed internally or in conjunction with a consultant.

The Case for Execution

According to a 2005 Harvard Business Review article, “Companies typically realize only about 60% of their strategy’s potential value because of defects and breakdowns in planning and execution.”

Here you can easily replace the word “companies” with any functional area or department within your organization. As a supplier, you might also think in terms of “sales” or “services.”

This execution gap suggests that what we plan to do doesn’t quite align with what actually gets done. The resulting gap represents lost opportunities and revenue. Imagine…

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Be the Mockingjay: What the Capitol Can Learn from Associations

BE THE MOCKINGJAY: WHAT THE CAPITOL CAN LEARN FROM ASSOCIATIONS

via Be the Mockingjay: What the Capitol Can Learn from Associations.

Creating a Membership Program Update Video for Recruitment & Retention – Part 3

Part 1 and Part 2 of this project.

This is the final part to this video project. In completing this project I felt disappointed. The final video is not exactly everything I wanted it to be. It also took me entirely too long to create the video, but I think that has to do with the fact that for so long I was stuck. Not having put together a video like this before, I wasn’t sure of what I was doing and I’m one of those people who has a tendency to push uncomfortable tasks away for a “later” date.

My coworkers really like the video – they even said things like “awesome” and “amazing”. Meanwhile, I’m not impressed. I’m probably being too hard on myself. The video does convey the information I wanted it to and it doesn’t look “bad”.

The last step in creating any video (or other content) is to have a marketing/distribution plan. Let’s take a look at that, shall we?