Archive for September, 2008
September 26, 2008
Unspoken Truths for Association Leaders, #1
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Learn to tell the difference between “We have a problem! Can you help us with it?” and “We have a problem! Can we blame it on you?”
September 26, 2008
Working Long Hours for Low Pay Doesn’t Make You a Better Person
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While I can kind of see Cindy’s point here — hearing about benefits that you can’t afford to offer can be a little discouraging — I’m going to have to disagree with her a little as well.
I agree that the “top” perks can sometimes seem a little out of touch with many of us who work in smaller organizations, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a responsibility to stay competitive. (For determining your competitiveness, ASAE’s compensation and benefits surveys are more useful, if less interesting, than the report Cindy mentions, which is actually from CEO Update and not ASAE).
Cindy wrote, “As an association community we HAVE to figure out how to change the lack or minimal benefits in MANY associations and nonprofits …”
I don’t think that we “as an association community” need to do any such thing. I think associations who “lack” or have “minimal” benefits certainly need to figure out how to change that fact. But it’s their individual responsibility to do so, if they are going to compete (with other associations) for talent. Very small businesses, whatever their tax status, all have the same challenge.
I agree that there’s a LOT more to being a “great place to work” than the perks you provide. There’s freedom, there’s growth, there’s personal accomplishment, there’s managerial flexibility, there’s camaraderie and humor — in fact, while much harder to measure, I find those things to be much more important.
But I think it’s foolish to deny that benefits (and salary) play a significant role in getting good people to work for you, and keeping them there. Associations that “can’t afford” to stay competitive need to do some serious re-evaluation of their operations. If you can’t afford the right talent, then you can’t afford to provide first-class service to your membership, because that’s what talent does. And if you can’t afford to provide first-class service to your membership, then you’re either not charging enough or, frankly, you’re spending too much money on things you could do without.
The fact is: In any organization, priorities get funded.
September 23, 2008
Yup. (I Mean Nope.)
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Jamie Notter is starting to sound like a real association executive: “[T]he cumulative effect of acting strongly, clearly, and with intention should not be underestimated.”
September 23, 2008
The Most Important Question to Ask Any Vendor
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The most important question to ask any vendor is not, “How much do you charge?” It’s not, “How do you compare with your competitors?” It’s not, “How do you handle client relationships?” It’s not even, “What do you offer?”
Oh, those are all good questions, and they should be asked. But in my opinion the most important question to ask any vendor is:
“Are you profitable?”
I’m not talking about someone you buy one thing from or hire for some quick, short-term project. But to me, if I’m going to enter any sort of a long-term relationship, I need to feel comfortable that the vendor (no matter if it’s a big company or a one-man band) is making money and doing well and is not likely to vanish at 11:59pm tonight.
I wrote a couple years ago about how I can be a demanding customer, but I hope no one took that to mean that I’m a cheap customer. Quite the opposite. I’m perfectly willing to pay more for quality work and the comfort of knowing that a vendor is more likely than not to be here tomorrow.
There are never any guarantees, of course, and no one really knows what tomorrow will bring. (Imagine if you had a vendor you relied on that was based in downtown Houston and the impact that Ike would have had on that vendor, for example.) But it’s one thing to accept the random nature of our universe, and quite another to encourage it.
Many of the vendors we work with in the association community are private companies, and most of those don’t feel any great need to share the intricacies of their balance sheets. I don’t expect them to. (And of course, we’ve all learned by now that it’s difficult to gauge the soundness of big public companies, as well.) But while I understand the unwillingness of private firms to share their financial specifics (I would feel the same way), I hope they understand that providing some sense of their financial well-being (beyond a vague “we’re doing very well”) can be a way to secure a client who is more interested in long-term success than short-term savings.
I work with a few vendors that I worry about, because they do a fantastic job and I dread having to replace them. When I talk with them, I usually ask something like, “How’s business?” I’m not engaging in idle chitchat when I do; I want them to succeed. I want them to make money. I want them to be there tomorrow if at all possible.
Oh, and I would be very careful and very cautious before making a “big” vendor decision that involves a company that is still dependent on angel investing or that hasn’t quite yet figured out its business model. You can hire them, but assume that they could go away at any time. Like 11:59pm tonight. And be ready if they do.
September 17, 2008
Overheard at a Bar
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A woman speaking to a friend of mine about employees.
She said, “Oh, this early-twenties guy that had been working for me a couple of weeks, I asked him to make some copies. He sort of sniffed at me and said, ‘I don’t do Xeroxing.’
“Well, the first thing I thought was, ‘Who uses the term Xeroxing anymore?’
“But the first thing I said was, ‘We will no longer be requiring your services.’”
September 16, 2008
Business Models Changing Right Before Your Eyes
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A fascinating story: Traditional publishing grapples with the reality of its long-predicted freefall. The good news for associations? We’re not traditional publishers.