January 23, 2008
We Are Who We Pretend to Be, So Be Careful Who You Pretend to Be
Posted by Kevin | Print This Article
In a comment to my last post, David Gammel writes:
“I would like to make the point … that an association could choose to have a particular product or service (or set of products/services) as the driving force for their strategy, addressing any market that values them. Their customers and members would change over time as they find new markets for their core product. The CFA Institute is a good example of what this might look like in practice.
“Driving your choice of markets by a particular set of products you produce is as valid a strategy as determining your products/services by the needs of a defined market. Each would lead to very different looking associations but that’s the whole point of strategy: picking a direction and putting it into action. [emphasis in original]“
David makes a good point, I am sure that there are organizations who can develop such a strategy around a very specific product — seeking out new markets — and do it quite successfully. However, I am not convinced that they are even a significant minority, let alone common.
Far more likely (and in my opinion, more dangerous) are associations that “fall into” offering certain products over time (as opposed to developing a specific strategy) and begin to act as though they are in the business of offering those products. They have a tradeshow; they have a magazine; they “do advocacy”; they publish a standard. And so they suddenly find themselves in the tradeshow business, the magazine business, the advocacy business, the standards business. (The larger an association grows, the more pronounced this tendency becomes, as each of these departments “silo” themselves off into their own specific products, operating down the chain in their own sphere of operation.)
I am not saying there is anything wrong with these particular products — far from it! I’m merely suggesting that it’s the “thought that counts.” An association that begins to think it is in the business of offering these products can find itself trapped in industries in which it is ill-suited to compete. (The reason that for-profits have “cherry-picked” so many associations, competing in particularly profitable segments, is that those for-profits typically focus only in one particularly profitable area whereas the association must defend on several fronts, while also carrying its various non-profit governance baggage.)
I wrote my post merely as a reminder to myself, and possibly others, that associations have a larger mission and a bigger picture. We may have a set of great products right now, and we should embrace them and exploit them as much as we can; but we must also always be developing what’s next and what’s new — what will both complement what we do, and perhaps replace it. To be successful over the long term, an association should offer a never-ending cycle of innovation based on meeting the needs of our members, whatever they are and whatever they may become.
P.S. Apologies to Kurt Vonnegut for quoting him somewhat out of context in the headline.
Kevin
I’d like to up the ante, building on your point that associations are a market, not a product line.
By starting with the premise that members are the association’s product, not its customers, marketing professionals can view the products they sell as the means to a larger end and tap into a more powerful emotional connection than their cherry-picking competitors. Associations can trump their so called competition in any product line, aligning member companies with their brand and charging for the privilege.
Cheers
Ann Oliveri
The Zen of Associations
Kevin -
It is frightening how you read my mind with some of this.
“The larger an association grows, the more pronounced this tendency becomes, as each of these departments “silo” themselves off into their own specific products, operating down the chain in their own sphere of operation.”
The real question then becomes, how do you break the silos?
Matt, it may be that you and I both work for trade associations and so have similar experiences.
As to how to break those silos once they’ve built up, that’s the question that needs exploring, and I wish I had a pat answer for it.
The short answer to breaking down silos is, as your post implies, strategic clarity. When you are clear about not only what IS driving success, but what WILL drive success, then it’s easier to talk about efforts that cut across functions. That and a senior management team that is comfortable with conflict. As you say, most organizations “fall in” to patterns–because they don’t get clear enough strategically, and they are afraid to confront their senior level peers on issues of strategy.
Jamie, that is an excellent point. It seems to me the only way to ensure such a “strategic clarity” is top-level commitment to it — from the CEO to senior management, and down through the ranks. It also seems to me that smaller organizations are better at this — usually. I once saw some state associations in the early 1990s get so wrapped up in big revenues they were getting from a specific kind of program that they began to treat it like something they were entitled to. When that product dried up and blew away, they suddenly found themselves with Titanic-sized holes in their budgets and forced to reevaluate their entire operations. It was that experience that first taught me to always assume that everything is liable to “go away” and that associations should be spending their time constantly creating new products (most importantly, new “revenue sources”) in order to succeed over the longer term. Since then, though, I’ve seen large national associations fall prey to the same seduction (and have to deal with the same difficult aftermath). It is human nature to feel that what we have now will be here next year; thinking with more “strategic clarity” takes a lot more effort.
Great post and comments! Our association is a small-staffed, national trade association, and we constantly battle the tendency to follow the “we always do it that way” (defaulting to “non-strategy”) approach, with a legacy that’s heavily silo-based. In other words, our current staff works hard to step out of our silos, to re-evaluate our services and programs (and drop or revise them as needed)… but limited time, resources, and budgets conspire against our best intentions.
Kudos for elevating the issue — one that affects not just the large associations, but those of us in smaller organizations as well.