Transcript of the webinar
Why are Innkeepers are not joining local
and state associations?
Associations across the board
are having issues with member acquisition and member retention. Chambers of
Commerce, other business trade associations as well as lodging associations (not
just Bed and Breakfast associations) are seeing issues with this.
There are a myriad of reasons
behind this, the changing economy, the younger generation going into business
with different wanted and needs in order to be interested in joining an
association and a changing industry with innkeepers being asked to spend money
every which way. “Should I pay $225 plus a one time fee of $50 to my local
B&B association or $700 to Tripadvisor. And which will get me heads in beds
quicker?”
They didn’t know there was a local or
state association
If B&Bs are not aware of
your associations’ existence, that is a sure sign that your associations is not
reaching out to the local lodging community as well as it could.
Many new B&B owners may
not be aware there are associations to join in the first place. Many new
innkeepers are transplants and innkeeping is their second or third profession.
They may come from industries where belonging to a trade association was not
something that they either interacted with (depending on what positions they
came from) or in some cases there many not have been trade associations that
gave value to them in the past so they make not consider investigating ones in
a different industry.
No one invited them to join
Even if a Bed & Breakfast
is aware of a local or state association, it may not be on their radar the
benefits of why to join, or it may be on one of their numerous to-do lists to
investigate and join but not at the top or buried under more (to them)
important lists like call the plumber, get the fire inspector in for a
reinspection, etc.
The key is to invite them! They may know of your existence, but people
like to be invited. Make it a personal
invite, not a stock or form letter. Call
them or if you have a board member or current loyal member close to someone
that’s not a member, have them do some more personal in-person outreach and
explain what great benefits belong to your association offers. Make sure that
person has a script and some key pointers about benefits of the organization so
they can answer questions and present the organization in a knowledgeable and
helpful way.
As an incentive for getting
current members to do some in-person outreach, give them incentives to do so,
for every member you recruit you get a break in your dues for example or extra
marketing recognition on our website or publications.
No one responded to their e-mails/phone
calls for membership information.
If you personally contacted
your chapter to find out about membership, would someone return your phone call
or e-mail? Do you know that for a fact? And more importantly, even if a phone
call or email is returned, how long does it take? A few days? A week, more?
No one likes to be ignored,
think of it from the perspective of the potential member, I have the money, I
have the interest, if no or a delayed response, “well they don’t want me or my
money, so perhaps I will go elsewhere”. Time Lag is the number one killer of
member acquisition and retention.
Even if someone contacts
someone that is not the person they need to find out about members, i.e a board
member or another member, that initial point of contact still needs to be
followed up on to make sure it did happen, if it did terrific, that innkeeper
is going to be very happy that their original enquiry was revisited and feel
even better about joining, if it didn’t get followed up, you have a problem and
need to identify where the point of contact got broken down and fix it.
Make sure all of your board
members are aware of the importance of returning calls and e-mails from
potential and renewing members and it’s best practices when following up on a
potential new member that’s contacted the board, to BCC other board members on
the response so they are in the loop and send them a pre-email letting them
know they are BCCed so they don’t hit reply all.
They feel the association would not meet
their needs
What are your benefits really
and have you analyzed them to see what value they are really providing members?
A listing on an associations website may
have little value to an innkeeper if they have Googled, Bed and Breakfasts in
“your state” and your association’s website comes up extremely low in Google
rankings for example. Innkeepers may be viewing part of your fees as a
directory value.
Have you polled your current
members to find out what they have found for value for being association
members?
That data is key to
advertising your membership to potential members as well as asking potential
members directly, “what do you want to get out of an association?” Advocacy? A
directory listing? Support for questions and issues? Networking with other
innkeepers and industry experts?
Every Innkeeper is going to
have different perceived wants and needs but unless you ask them what they are
looking for and what space an association can fill for them you won’t know. Be
persistent and ask!
Instead of “We do this to
help innkeepers”, phrase it as “what can we do to help you?” Try to avoid
phrases like “You should” as in “You should be a member of our association
because” instead substitute phrases like, “Many of our state/local inns have
gotten value from our organization because”
Communication is key,
especially in that initial point of contact and letting them know ALL the
benefits an association offers including some that may not be listed on your
benefits sheet or website, i.e. an example being of a innkeeper that was having
trouble with her Bedandbreakfast.com listing and wasn’t having good luck
getting it resolved, went to your yearly conference and got to talk to them in
person and quickly resolved the issue.
Another example might be one
innkeeper uses Molton Brown amenities, loves them and doesn’t want to
switch but can not make the order minimums all the time, by networking with a
couple of the other association members that also use Molton Brown amenities,
she was able to continue using them by doing group ordering and all of them saved
money as they split the shipping costs.
Dues are too expensive for what the
association offers
It’s All About Value. When
members are deciding to join or rejoin an association they do a mental
calculation of the expected value of your association’s membership by comparing
the benefits they expect to receive to what they have to pay (i.e.dues, time
commitment, return on investment, etc).
To understand what drives a innkeeper’s
perception of value, or more specifically perceived value.
How much value do they get
from their association membership when compared to other alternatives that are
available to them? i.e directories, Tripadvisor listings, OTA listings, Pay Per
Click, Social Media.
People join for one basic
reason, to get their needs satisfied, some can satisfied from member benefits,
continuing education, the association’s website, a members forum and other needs
can be met being on committees and volunteering by having them work on the
group goals as a whole.
An innkeeper in NY may see
the big picture in that by helping to lobby for adjusted zoning in a town that
is not her own, by helping other inns in the association in that town she is
helping her industry as a whole in NY state.
By putting a pricetag on each
benefit it helps people to understand what their dues are going for and
towards.
A $225 a year membership goes
toward website maintenance, a brochure or rack card design and printing, a part
time Executive Director or administrator salary. A yearly advertising partnership
with a state radio state and 2 ads per year on NPR.
Breaking down even more
specifics, ie. The NPR ads cost $1200 a year each but the return is at least 5
bookings per year for each inn (proven) and the rack cards are getting
distributed to 17 state tourism centers with the potential of 12 million people
going through them.
Too many sales pitches by “vendors” at conferences
Some things you can’t
control, but some you can. If your having multiple innkeepers Too many sales
pitches by “vendors” at conferences then perhaps you need to look at both the
vendors your inviting as well as setting some guidelines for vendor attendees
and tell them upfront “why” you are providing them with guidelines and reports
of abusive of them will not get them invited back in the future.
The Association is too large or too geographically
diverse to get to know other members personally
While a state association may
be too geographically diverse to get to know people, there is online where an
association can start a Facebook, Linkedin or Google group for their members as
well as perhaps offering a internal forum on which members can exchange information.
I would recommend either Facebook or secondary Google as you can have private
groups with moderators and no one can see the posts unless they are members.
Not as many innkeepers participate on Linkedin so you may not see much use.
They feel they won’t have time to participate or get
involved
In many organizations, you
get out of it what you put into it, the feedback from someone, They feel they
won’t have time to participate or get involved may not be applicable to a state
or local organization because there may only be yearly event in person and if
an innkeeper doesn’t want to participate or volunteer for something it won’t
effect their marketing.
Too many choices of associations to join
Whether talking about state,
regional or national associations to join, realistically the comeback to that
there isn’t, at least not on the state or local level. On a bigger playing
field is the American Hotel & Lodging Association which Inns can join for a
very inexpensive fee. There is also PAII and AIHP, While PAII for example has
been around for many many years, the Association of Independent Hospitality
Professionals is a fairly new organization started earlier this year. Which is
better? There is no perfect answer to that, both organizations want to help
innkeepers, I personally think long term they will both fit different well
needed niches in the small lodging industry and innkeepers will have to decide
for themselves which niche fits their needs.
How do you sell advocacy as an
association member benefit?
Advocacy can be one of your
most valuable association benefits. (Advocacy is also referred to as
lobbying, governmental affairs, or public policy or simply by attendance at
lawmaking functions that need the voice of the innkeeping industry
contributing.
A great example of strong
association advocacy can be found in the recent Chicago B&B tax
classification Controversy
Innkeepers in Chicago , Ill. Cook
County
Chicago Bed and Breakfast
Association President Kapra Fleming urged the assessor's office to delay the
reclassification for an additional year. Fleming, who owns the House of Two
Urns in Chicago 's Wicker Park
Fleming and others attending
the meeting also took issue with the fact that county's licensed vacation
rentals and those renting rooms on websites like Airbnb.com would remain
unaffected by the tax reclassification.
A prospective member may come
back with, “I don’t need to join, you will still Lobby on my behalf and I’ll
still get the benefit of it.”
While this may be true, it’s
best to have some good comebacks ready to this such as:
“We would be even more effective if we could
prove that we represented a larger percentage of innkeepers from the industry”.
Or “We need members to join because if everyone had that philosophy we would
not exist to lobby for you at all. Every Voice matters.”
Best practices for responding to new
membership information requests?
How should you respond
to requests for your association’s membership information?
There are several ways to
approach this, all are dependent on how your association is set up, is it all
volunteer based, do you have full time or part time staff? Snail mail is always
an option but printing costs and postage may be an issue depending on the
association’s size and operating fund.
A phone call followed up by
an immediate email is recommended. To save time, have several copies of the
information needed to send out to a potential member saved in your drafts
folder for quick access.
Sending a PDF with key
benefits as well as history of the association, relevant association contact
information including board members and employees (if applicable) or an email
with links pertaining to all the information that hopefully is available on
your website for reference. I would actually suggest a combination of both. In
two separate emails, the one with the links referencing the PDF (also located
on your website). The PDF may be filtered out as an attachment by some people’s
spam filters.
Make sure any request for
membership information is followed up within 48 hours to find out if there are
any questions and to engage a potential member preferably on the phone.
Member Retention
One of the bigger issues
Associations are having is member attrition, so I saved it for last. It’s key
to get regular Feedback from Members on how things are going, be it surveys,
emails or phone calls
Give innkeepers the
opportunity to get involved (if they want to) and let them know about the
opportunities membership and marketing committees, they can be “brand”
ambassadors at local events, industry conferences or other venues where getting
the word out about your association and the innkeeping industry as whole is an
opportunity.
What happens often in an
association once a member has joined they feel forgotten about. I know
associations are aware they should be doing this but many don’t keep track of
touch points with members and it falls by the wayside.
Having a simple excel sheet
with members and just keeping dates and notes in it per touch point can be a
easy way to look at your membership as a whole and identify inns that may need
a phone call.
Creating a shareable Google
spreadsheet and being able to share it with your board will help keep eyes on
keys areas that need to be addressed.
After they have been members
for three months, have a committee member or board member call them to ask them
if they have questions or concerns and how can the association serve them
better.
Have a minimum of 3-4 additional
contacts with first year members. Introduce new members to the board.
Exploring new opportunities or
ideas, like instituting a mentoring program for new innkeepers and keeping your
membership informed about them is integral to rentention.
The final key to long term
member retention is benchmarking. Where is your association at currently, how
many members, where are they located geographically.
How many rooms, what’s their
average room rate, while you won’t be necessarily using this information to
answer questions for potential guests, as an association it’s good information
to have and review and be able to revisit and analyze changes in membership. In
2014, we had 52 members, 14 had under 4 bedrooms, in 2015 we raised our rates
and lost half of those under 4 bedroom properties.
And also to benchmark where
your association is marketing wise, Where is it coming up in Google, Bing and
other search engines, this should be looked at least every 6 months if not every
3 months. Are you utilizing social media, if not, why not, if yes, is it
working, yes or no and if no, why not.
What other venues are you
using to advertise your association? What has worked in the past, what has not,
what haven’t you tried.
You need to look at all of
this periodically and what your membership demographics are in order to project
and set goals for where you want your association to be in 5 years, and where
you want it to be next year.
Having this data is useful
because it can also be information that can used in member acquisition and
retention. And as I mentioned early, get
members involved, give them some incentive for recruiting or an incentive for
renewing early, this will especially appeal to the millennial generation as
they move into the innkeeping field.
And one final bit, if you
have members that have stepped up above and beyond just paying their membership
dues, say thank you and give recognition where you can, whether it be in a
newsletter, on a website, and on social media. Acknowledging peoples work and volunteerism
is integral and two fold to getting them to stay members and keep stepping up.
One of the biggest causes of members not renewing or not volunteering is
non-acknowledgement. A simple thank you can go a very very long way
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