Calling All New Association Staff Directors! It's Time to Live Your Brand.

If you are a fair weather football fan, like me, you can appreciate the connection between coaching, playing, team dynamics, structure, process, hype, spirit, determination, coordination in football - and business. I love a competitive, well-matched game.

True football fans block out everything else and focus on the players, the coaches, the rivalry and the true grit that happens when 22 players get on the field on any given Sunday. Those like me try to learn something I can use on Monday.

So when Danny (my husband) showed me this inspiring article of a rookie who gives his heart to the team, it speaks to me that really amazing football players have their own personal brand. In my presentation on Creating Career Karma (your brand), I make the point that your brand is your internal promise, a reflection of your values, and the unique footprint that is only you. It’s the way you package and use what you have every day that makes you unique.

The second thing that competes for my attention during a football game is how one new person can change the dynamics of a team. So, new Communications Director, Marketing Director, GAD, Membership Director, CEO - what do you bring to your team that’s different, and makes the whole team perform better?

You are your story.
What is the unique feature
that distinguishes you
from all the others? 

If you want a great example of a solid personal brand and how it can change a team, click here to read a great article.

Calling All New Association Staff Directors! It's Time to Live Your Brand.

Communicate About the Latest National Housing News

Housing is front and center in the media this month: NBC nightly news on September 1st, home sales was the lead story, and now on the cover of time magazine. These are difficult times for your members who interact with consumers every day. Kudos to you if (1) your association’s lead (newsletter) story or (2) special email report addresses this timely topic.

This is a perfect time to help provide your members the answers to their - and their customers' worries. Below are five things you can do today to show empathy and relevance in light of this negative media :

- The news reports may or may not be consistent with your market. If you have current market reports for your area, publish them again.  Use e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, your website(s) and other means to clarify the negative reports. If this reaches consumers, it is all the better.

- Reinforce the reasons to own a home: build a home for their family, build community, and have privacy, and build equity throughout consistently paying down the principle of their loan. These are still the reasons to buy a home.

- Work with your AE and your MLS director to prepare simple, direct talking points about your market easy enough that a new member can understand.

- Offer someone to explain the reports - someone accessible at your office. Or schedule a webcast to review them as a group with members.

- Tell members NAR is working on a response to the recent reports.

Communications are critical now. Provide information that members can use today. This is a real life timely example of how to be relevant and deliver member value.

Communicate About the Latest National Housing News

Strategic Communications Plans

I am working with three associations who are in the process of writing a strategic communications plan.

This impressive group of three association executives began with defining a problem statement about their association’s communications back in May. They range from 200 to 800 to 4,000 members. I refer to them as Partners In Innovation. They are partnering with each other to figure out how to better communicate and get more of their members' attention.

As they look past Labor Day, each association is at a crucial step; they have all the information, conducted the research, and know the 8 elements of the plan they’ll create.

So now it’s time to write the plan. Their challenge is to block out the time, sit in a quiet empty room with all of their notes, survey results, matrices and thoughts, and prepare to make sense of it all. Their goal is to come out with something worthy to present to their board of directors.

It can seem overwhelming, but in getting to know these CEOs (and one communications director), I think they will create some great work.

For anyone who is undertaking writing a communications plan, I’d remind you, in Dave Ramsey words, “You can’t wander into a goal.” You’ll never get there without a plan. I know one thing: if this were easy, everyone would be doing it. And they are not.  Here are three reminders about constructing a usable plan:

•  Creating strategic communications ties your communications to your association’s strategy.

•  A Strategic communications plan is specific in the tactics, but first it aligns to the annual objectives of your association.

•  The plan begins with “why we’re doing it” and “what we need to change”; then it lays out the “how”.

This project began with three associations defining a specific problem with their communications.  The temptation is to document today’s communications, and justify why it still works. But we all know this is not the way to get different results. For Partners In Innovation, this is their chance to be bold, do something different, and hopefully change their minds about how they communicate.

Strategic Communications Plans