You want to grow our membership and revenue, but the problem is you're losing as many members as you're bringing in and it doesn't appear that you're gaining any ground.

In a membership organization, we know that members who stay for three years are the most likely to stay long-term. So that three-year mark is important to remember. But in the research for my book, Remembership, I found that most businesses are willing to give you one or two years to see if it's a good long-term fit. 

Here are three ways I find that chambers are hurting their own retention.

1. Transactional subscriptions. Join the chamber, get these things. Membership is subscription plus community and if they don't meet other people like them, they are likely to leave. Connect members with others who are like them so they know they have joined a community of their peers. 

2. Paying commissions only for new membership sales. In my two decades in membership, I've learned you GET what you INCENTIVIZE. So I...

Most days, you're reaching out to people by phone and email. The problem is that you're getting voicemails...  or your emails are going unanswered. So how do we convene leaders and influencers if we don't get a response. 

Here are some tips for improving your correspondence with member, leaders and influencers.

1. Be specific about the reason your correspondence is important. For example, "I'm calling you to see if you're interested in weighing in on the proposed city ordinance. 

2. Give only the information needed to respond. For example, when you send an invoice for membership, don't send anything else... If you put a survey or verification form in there, you're sure to slow the response time. 

3. Have a specific call to action and deadline. For example, "I'm meeting with the task force chair next Thursday so I will need your reply by Wednesday if you're interested in being heard on this issue." 

And take a look at what high performance expert Brendon...

Have you ever had a personality conflict with someone on your team? Maybe you've found yourself banging your head against the wall because of one little thing they do or don't do that drives you nuts? 

The problem is they don't see a conflict and they don't have the self-awareness to work through it... And maybe you don't either. 

Looking back on my chamber career, I can now see where I may have been frustrating some of my teammates because of my own lack of self awareness at the time. For example, when my CEO would ask me to lead a project, I had to work on it in my own time. I had no questions and I gave no updates and preferred to rely on no-one else to play a role. And before I started a big project I had to do a whole bunch of meaningless little projects before I could start the big one. Turns out, it's just how I'm wired. 

You can always tell when I'm about start something new because I clean out my email, I clean my house, I clean my garage and I start fixing...

There's an old saying that goes something like this: I know half of my marketing works, I just don't know which half! 

Lots of factors contribute to the marketability of your organization and it's offerings. The problem is that you just don't know which is the most important.

Is it the ratio of members to the number of businesses? Is it a great sales team? Great business advocacy or business climate? Could it be an approachable brand or a hip logo? 

Like many of the businesses you serve, the most important thing in marketing isn't any of these things. The most important thing is not a beautiful burger; it's a hungry market. 

But hungry for what? 

Here are three steps to finding out what your market is hungry for: 

1. Schedule a meeting with a business, member or not. Ask them to tell you about their business and what keeps them up at night.

2. Take good notes one what keeps them up at night. These are the...

We have a lot to do at the chamber. Events, programs, committees and boards and... how do we get it all done? Well, maybe the answer is in the question. The question is "how do we get it all done?" 

The problem is maybe it was done a while ago and you haven't published it, released it or shipped it because you're waiting for it to be perfect. 

Perfect is the enemy of done. You're not going to get it all done if you're waiting for perfect. Let's put it this way: if you were drowning, you'd be waiting for a yacht instead of a log or a life raft. It just doesn't make sense but that's happening a lot. 

Here are three ways I focus on done instead of perfect: 

1. Outsourcing. When you hire your team, you're outsourcing. But even your team can be outsourcing. Read the 4 hour work week and you'll be introduced to a million ways you can outsource and get more done. Do what you do best and outsource the rest. 

2. Put it on the calendar with other people besides just...

Networking opportunities are one of the core functions of a chamber of commerce. This is according to a study by the Western Association of Chamber Executives where they asked a thousand businesses from across the country what they expect of their local chamber. 

The problem is, lots of other networking organizations have popped up as alternatives to the chamber. 

The chamber that offers networking without also teaching members how and why to connect with other business leaders -- probably ISN'T working as well as it could. I believe chambers have a responsibility to teach good networking skills to their members. 

There are three keys to effective business networking and if you work for a chamber I hope you'll teach these to your members.

1. Be interested in others and how you can help them. 

2. Be and interesting person to talk to and develop your conversational skills so that others want to recommend you to their friends and colleagues. 

3. Accept that...

Leadership is the art of moving so swiftly in one direction that no one has time to stand around and notice their differences. To lead swiftly, we need to clearly define what our organization is for and what it is against. 

There are examples all around us. In the original star wars, Luke and Leia were for the Rebels and against the Dark Side. Simple right? 

Take a look at the TV commercials any Saturday during football season and you'll see the All State Insurance commercials. All State is for saving you money and against Mayhem that happens in everyday life. 

So what is your chamber against? Unnecessary business regulations? Job crushing policies? CAVE people? and I don't mean people who live in caves... I mean CAVE - citizens against virtually everything.

The problem is it's hard to choose just one thing to be against. But if you take a look at the Map to Remembership, you'll quickly be reminded that you're not a membership organization. You're running four...

Information is everywhere now so what's the value of the information you provide to your members? If information is content, the chamber filter is CONTEXT. 

Context is the timing of the right information from the right source for the right intention. If you have content AND context, you're not sharing information... you're sharing intelligence. 

The problem is you have to consider the circumstances of hundreds or even thousands of members in order to have the right context. What's intelligence for one member could be white noise for another. 

One of the simplest ways to do deliver intelligence is to segment your members by interest. And one of the easiest ways to do that is to ask them about their interest areas in an online survey that logs their responses in your member management system. 

This way, you're sure to never send information about your weekly meetup to the member who wants to partner with you but already told you that they aren't interested in your...

We need the attention of our chamber members in order to sell our ideas and initiatives to our members after they join. The problem is that attention is fleeting these days and there's lots of competition and noise out there. 

So the age old debate around my house is what's more valuable: Attention or money? Well it's kind of like the chicken and the egg... Leave it to the banking industry -- where they use attention to buy and sell money -- to conduct a study that helps the rest of us understand the connection between money and attention. The banking industry study I'm referring to tells us exactly how many emails we can send to a new customer or member before they tune your chamber OUT. 

And that magic number is somewhere between six and seven. So let's just call it seven emails. 

The next question becomes in what period of time does a member decide to renew? I used to think we had a year to convince a member to renew but boy was I wrong. Most members make their...

Young professionals programs can get a little unprofessional if it gets a reputation for being a place to drink or hook up! And that's not good! Or is it? 

Some of the top young professionals programs in the country -- like Milwaukee or Tulsa -- are constantly putting out content and events for those folks who are new to the workforce or new to the region. One of the more transient workers in your community is one without a spouse or a mortgage and they are most likely young-ish. Hence your Young Professionals Program. 

Your major employers are trying to hire talent as soon as they are out of college. The problem is once that talent arrives in your city, they need your help to keep them there. Let me remind you that the top ways to keep your talent local is marriage or mortgage. 

Your employers likely have a no-office-romance policy. So before the talent discovers the singles group at their new church, it's likely that some of your young professionals are looking for...