Are you invisible to the vast majority of CEOs in your local community?
Why do Chairs struggle to find members?
I've spoken to a lot of chairs over the last few years through my Chair Group Program on How to Find Members, Chairs that are struggling to build their groups, Chairs that consistently have full groups, and Chairs that failed to meet Vistage/TEC expectations of group size. I've pulled together a lot of research on why chairs are either successful or unsuccessful when it comes to obtaining referrals for their group.
The title of this blog posting sums up in a few words my basic findings. Most Chairs are invisible in their local communities to CEOs, Presidents, or company owners/founders.
I find many chairs "defer" or consider "marketing to this CEO level community" to be getting a referral from an existing member and then trying to convince that person to agree to a "telling session".
OR some chairs want to rely on the brand recognition and awareness of Vistage/TEC to help them drive potential members into their lap.
Neither of these are going to work effectively by themselves if you want to have an abundance of great referrals, a pipeline full of great prospects, and a waiting list of people begging to get in your group.
Now - don't get me wrong. You have to work at getting referrals and then move those referrals through your pipeline. This process of working referrals and contacts is NOT marketing. We can call it a lot of different things and put euphemistic sounding phrases around it - in the end it's simple direct selling - not marketing. Marketing in my vocabulary is the process of building your reputation, personal brand, awareness, and driving potential members into your sales funnel/referral mechanisms. Marketing as a Chair is "softening" up potential prospects to be open to a referral.
I also think Vistage/TEC is a tremendous brand and carries great authority/recognition once people are aware of the organization. As many of you know -I'm tied to the hip with Vistage/TEC, having created the Chair Assessment Video Interview, developed a Chair Group Training Program for finding new members, and coaching quite a few chairs around on how to find more members. I love the Vistage/TEC organization.
However, depending primarily on Vistage/TEC to drive prospects to you and depending on your existing members to get you referrals is NOT going to be enough "marketing" to help you hit your group membership objectives on a consistent basis.
The Primary SECRET to being visible to CEOs
I'm going to suggest that the primary method by which you are going to achieve your membership objectives is to establish your personal BRAND in your local community - whether that be the Southbay in Southern California or the Raleigh area in North Carolina - you must be seen as the best solution for CEO coaching in a very crowded and competitive field. Everytime someone goes looking for CEO-level expertise, coaching assistance, coaching help, CEO-level content aimed at a Vistage/TEC size company - you're the in the top 3 of web searches, referrals, content, and information that pops onto their radar screen.
What's the one basic secret you can easily use to achieve this recognition of being one of the top resources for CEOs in your local community?
THE SECRET IS THAT YOU DO IT THROUGH CONTENT.
Content you already have at your disposal. You don't have to make up anything new. Depending how on large your group membership objectives are - you might spend a minimum of 3 hours a week up to 5 hours a week on Content Marketing - including both the creation and management of your content, and the distribution of your content.
Once you've got your content machine cranked up - you can then re-purpose and leverage that content for personal branding, reputation building, pr, establishing your authority and expertise as a CEO Coach. You can also reuse much of that material in your direct selling efforts once you've captured a referral.
The goal should be in your local community that over a 6 month to 24 month period, you've produced enough great content that you're the "go-to" person in your local community for CEO level coaching and advice.
This is not an earth-shattering approach. It's nothing new. For any personal service provider, such as a Vistage/TEC Chair, a Recruiter (like me), a lawyer, CPA, benefit consultant - it is the number one, quickest, most efficient, highest leverage marketing activity you could implement.
I'm curious why more Chairs have not taken advantage of this simple approach to marketing:
Is it a time investment issue - you don't want to spend 3-5 hours a week on marketing YOU
Is it knowledge issue - you're not sure where to start and no one has the content in one place to help you?
Announcement: VIRTUAL CHAIR COURSE ON FINDING MEMBERS
I'm going conduct a course or class for a small group of Vistage/TEC Chairs to PROVE this model of marketing is the most efficient and effective method in raising the number of great referrals you get for your group. I'm taking the first 25 Chairs that raise their hand to participate in this virtual class.
How will we prove it's successful? We're going to track the number of referrals you've generated in the last 6 months outside of your existing members and we're going to measure the number of referrals you generate in the next 6-18 months. I plan on using the success that the Chairs in this course/class generate and presenting it to the entire Chair community as a case-study in effective marketing.
The format will be a series of exercises you'll complete to begin content marketing, special tools you'll use to leverage your time, and an occasional phone conversation to discuss membership marketing issues. The course will be a 30-day crash course in rapid membership marketing and referral generation.
If you've already got plenty of referrals, you win awards and recognition for having full groups, and you don't have a problem consistently filling your pipeline with prospects - then obviously this course is not for you. Whatever you're doing - it's already working great - don't change it.
But if you're not getting enough referrals, you're not winning awards and recognition for group membership, and you're struggling to consistently fill your pipeline, this virtual course might just be the ticket to success in developing full groups.
By the way, there is no charge or fee for this course. The only thing I ask in return for you joining the course is a willingness to invest the time to do the exercises and follow the recommendations. You're probably going to spend anywhere from 5-10 hours a week for the next 4 weeks on this class. Once you've moved through the class your on-going time investment will probably be 3-5 hours a week.
If you would like to sign up for the virtual class/course on Marketing to Find Members, send me an email note either directly, through LinkedIn, or on Vistage Village, and we'll have a conversation to determine if this class/course would be a good investment of your time.
Barry
