Feedback on Professional Associations as an Indivdual/Business

[BIC_BAWS]

Are you guys part of any professional associations? If you are a business owner or manager, is your organization part of any associations?

If so, is it worth it? If not, what changes would you like to see (benefits/events/etc)?

I'm interviewing for a role next week in member relations for a B2B professional association, so I want to come up with a few tactics to increase membership or suggest the creation of programs. I have some ideas already, but I wanted to fact check this on a wider scale.

[bcrdukes]

From personal experience, a big emphasis on "it depends."

It's worth trying out to gauge the landscape, but that also boils down to luck and opportunity. If you can network, help grow a business or at least get some leads, then yes, it's worth it. But if there's an economic downturn, or you know that key influencers never show up, then there really is no value. Sometimes, it can be a complete circle jerk, but on the other hand, these things can be a complete gold mine. Your job is to sell.

For example, if you have a group of PMP-certified project managers who meet regularly and their desire is to network and get new leads to jobs opportunities, but you have no companies involved and everyone is out of a job, there may be no value in the membership, so you have to create the value to them. You'll have a lot of new graduates who are keeners and think it's prestigious to be part of an exclusive club, if you will, so you can target these clowns easily.

On a personal level, I'm at a point in my career and life where I don't feel I need to be a part of any professional associations anymore, so I stopped renewing my membership and became a recluse. I didn't feel I got any value out of it early on in my career, but that was the market in Vancouver, and attitudes have changed over the past decade or so.

[Badhobz]

im on a bunch of these organizations and its all a waste of time. frankly they just hold events to spend money and promote their own farts.

yearly get-together to drink and discuss how self-important everyone is.

[bcrdukes]

Not everyone is a shipping mogul, okay? (But this is why Badhobz is rich, and the rest of us are poor.)

[yray]

my work is part of an association for the PNW...

the joke is it shows you're still in business as everyone knows each other already

[Traum]

My wife is in this sort of professional association -- 2 different ones serving different purposes actually.

One of them functions more like a union, and is the body that issues their licence to work. Since you can't work without a licence, everyone is in it. They are supposed to advocate for the rights of their members, but I feel like they actually have very little bargaining power with the government. In that sense, it is really unfortunate.

The other professional association is not mandatory, but is a very useful B2B type of thing. One of their primary functions is to act as an intermediate / negotiator between suppliers and the association members. In that role, the professional association can leverage their numbers to get some meaningful discounts on products for their members. They also provide resource and seminars to help with different aspects of business operations, so that's useful too.

p.s. Good for you to get on top of job hunting! Hopefully it'll get you a nice raise?

[Badhobz]

so one year we had this casino night for the Canadian Shipping Federation. They held it at the Pacific Rim Hotel, in this huge conference room and a large lavish feast full of seafood and unlimited drinks.

I was just sitting there thinking WTF, you know who pays for this shit? THE CUSTOMERs. Everyone here takes a cut per teu (twenty-foot equivalent unit). Everyone and anyone in the business was invited. You got freight forwards, railroad, carriers, etc. Everyone and anyone in the biz.

Of course they couldn't do real gambling so they hired this team of professional casino vendors to simulate the experience. Like a real roulette wheel, blackjack table and even brought in some slots but all played with these inhouse tokkens. The winner of the evening would win "prizes" like ipads, mac's, etc.

Well I had no intention of staying for long, I rather go home and sit with my chihuahuas while listening to smooth jazz. So I took my initial seed money of 50k and bet it all on 1 number in roulette (thinking that ill lose this shit, say I'm busted out and then I get to go home). OF COURSE I HIT THE FUCKING NUMBER. and now I'm up like 1.75 million dollars.

I had to sit there waiting for the rest of these jackasses to either bust or overtake me (none succeded) all the way till 2am in the god damn morning before they handed out prizes. Longest iPad wait of my life (I didn't want a mac at that time... is should have gotten the mac instead). Me being the cheap chinamen, I ain't going to leave a fucking iPad on the table that I won fair and square. But I had to talk to soooo many idiots that night, I wanted to die.

Does this sound fun to you? if so, then professional organizations are for you!!!! if not, don't bother joining these jackasses.

Often there are groups of old men who treat this like a frat and run around showing off their latest acquisitions. AH HERE's my 23 year old wife (he's 65). Ah look at this shinny new rolex I got last winter in Dubai. etc etc. Valet parking is so full of stupid exotics that they moved my camry so far off in the peasant lot that it took 20 minutes to get my car back

[pastarocket]

Wow, that's an epic story, Hobz.


As a federal government worker, I don't have a choice of not joining a association because I am part of a labor union.


Nothing ever exciting happens within a public sector labour union at the federal government level.


Hobz, at least you had the experience of playing at a "casino" and winning prizes.


Public sector labour union members don't get jack. It wouldn't be good optics for the federal public servants to have a big office party dinner or lunch thanks to tax payer funding.


You'll get the occasional ice cream or a Timmy Ho's muffin from the health and safety committee or mental health committee at work. It's about work/life balance.


National Public Service Week (NPSW) in June of every year is when federal public servants get some free time during each work day for one week to get some free pizza, breakfast bakery items, or ice cream. A celebration of work to serve Canadians.


The funding for NPSW is so little that federal employees have to be very creative with "fun" games for employees.


How little is the funding for NPSW? Six bloody dollars per person per day during that week for celebration events including food.

The "fun" event for one day during NPSW this year was a paper airplane contest hahaha.

Federal employees get to use some office paper to fold paper airplanes and fly them in an office area to win some gift cards hahaha.

[Badhobz]

yeah you guys get it bad. You're real government workers. we are only quasi-government as we are responsible for our profit/losses while the fed/prov only takes a portion of our income

Yikes. Ive heard that you cant even get coffee or tea covered.. cheap ass government bs.

[GLOW]

if you need it for a job, eg an architect stamping designs, then ya, you need your prof designation...

if not, then it's just letters behind your name in your emails to make yourself sound more credable or for ego. i was thinking of writing tests and getting several more letters behind my name, but didn't want to deal with membership dues, continuing education etc... at this point in my life/career, i'm long and grey in the tooth. i don't need to show off how much i know to ppl... they'll know when they start pissing me off.

i don't network, i'm old and crusty.

that being said, if you're looking to apply for jobs, then ya they could have requirements & nice to haves and that may separate you from being short listed...

[Gerbs]

Originally Posted by Badhobz

im on a bunch of these organizations and its all a waste of time. frankly they just hold events to spend money and promote their own farts.

yearly get-together to drink and discuss how self-important everyone is.

these orgs be charging everyone a $500-2k/year dues to pay for badhobz meal

[Badhobz]

I’m sure my company pays those dues too. I mean we got a seat at the royal yacht club and the Vancouver club(not so much here). You wanna see where snooty old white people go to get away from ze Asians ? Dems hiding out in their oak rooms with cigars and epstine like encounters.

[underscore]

Originally Posted by Traum

One of them functions more like a union, and is the body that issues their licence to work. Since you can't work without a licence, everyone is in it. They are supposed to advocate for the rights of their members, but I feel like they actually have very little bargaining power with the government. In that sense, it is really unfortunate.

I'm in something similar, it's not required to be able to work but supposedly you'll have a harder time finding a job without it. I don't think it ever comes up in interviews but the extra letters after my name probably don't hurt. Apart from that I don't think it does much for me. I look forward to when I retire and I no longer have to do any more continuing education nonsense just to keep my membership valid.

[Tapioca]

Larger ones can be valuable, particularly if they actually have the ear of government. That's the main value proposition for members - the associations are effective at lobbying for change that serves their industry.

I prefer participating in pan-business organizations, like chambers of commerce. I like to network and over the years, I've gotten some value from participating in these types of organizations, rather than industry specific associations.

[68style]

Originally Posted by pastarocket

Wow, that's an epic story, Hobz.


As a federal government worker, I don't have a choice of not joining a association because I am part of a labor union.


Nothing ever exciting happens within a public sector labour union at the federal government level.

I didn't know you were with the feds! I was too... 14 years RCMP and 7 DFO. Currently on LWOP lol

[PeanutButter]

I'm part of four professional associations. They are all mandatory in my health field, so I don't have a choice.

The insurance association is really good. What I like about them is they have this mini course once a year that if you complete it you save like $75 off your membership, it's pretty much you just watching a video. the course is actually pretty good too. They go through actual examples they get throughout the year. Insurance fraud, patient accused you of this, you didn't get consent, you missed this on your documentation. It's all practical things that could happen to you because you get complacent at your position.

For our national association, what they need to do is provide campaigns to increase revenue, simple. Awareness and education is great, but lets be real, I want to see objective growth in my business. It's all about the numbers. Can you give me SEO tips, are there marketing campaigns with materials you can provide me, what can you do to help get people in the door. All the association does right now is buy some radio ads, newspaper ads to promote the profession, but I feel like it would be a lot better for me if you provided us with actual campaigns to supplement the advertising we already do.

[Eff-1]

Originally Posted by BIC_BAWS

Are you guys part of any professional associations? If you are a business owner or manager, is your organization part of any associations?

If so, is it worth it? If not, what changes would you like to see (benefits/events/etc)?

I'm interviewing for a role next week in member relations for a B2B professional association, so I want to come up with a few tactics to increase membership or suggest the creation of programs. I have some ideas already, but I wanted to fact check this on a wider scale.

From my experience, member relations is essentially a sales role. The goal of every B2B business association, say from the Vancouver Board of Trade all the way down to the your local Crackerjacks Association, is to generate membership dues and maintain renewals.

Something to keep in mind that selling these memberships isn't easy. The dues can be high, and in a bad economy (like now) this is very much a discretionary business expense that is at the top of the list of something to cut (unless the business is paying the dues for politcal reasons, etc).

[Badhobz]

Originally Posted by PeanutButter

I'm part of four professional associations.

is one of them the association of interrogating your customers to spill personal information?

[PeanutButter]

Originally Posted by Badhobz

is one of them the association of interrogating your customers to spill personal information?

You know Badhobz, for $34.50 you can have full access to my online course. It's called, "Mastering the spill technique" =D

[Badhobz]

Rich dad. Broke dad. Interrogation dad.

[BIC_BAWS]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I'm hopeful that I can drive some meaningful change to this particular professional association after some tenure. It seems like a pretty small team and fully government funded. From my understanding, they don't create standards nut they advise on federal legislature (with industry feedback) so they have some political influence / lobbying.

I may have jumped the gun as they didn't really provide me with much information until I asked for roles and responsibilities, which they said that the meeting is primarily an intro meeting to see if our expectations align. I'm not sure how they would align if I know nothing about what this job entails but ok... guess I'll find out in 10 hours LOL

Originally Posted by Eff-1

From my experience, member relations is essentially a sales role. The goal of every B2B business association, say from the Vancouver Board of Trade all the way down to the your local Crackerjacks Association, is to generate membership dues and maintain renewals.

Something to keep in mind that selling these memberships isn't easy. The dues can be high, and in a bad economy (like now) this is very much a discretionary business expense that is at the top of the list of something to cut (unless the business is paying the dues for politcal reasons, etc).

The (rough - it's not a posted job and it looks like it's from their notes) roles are responsibilities are:

- onboard new members
- follow up with existing members
- familiarize yourself with the online member directory + assist in the development
- organize activities - sometimes online - between members and potential buyers, by identifying members or other relevant ecosystem players
- work to list universities active in [industry] and onboard their faculties, research Centers or research Chairs
- report to [company] management

I'm feeling relatively confident with this role.. as I have quite a bit of experience in making connections (ie. entrepreneur needs start up accounting, capital funding, marketing, I have made all of those connects). However this is a completely brand new industry to me so I foresee needing quite a bit of time to learn the industry.

In regards to the sales component of it, the ultimate goal is to convince other businesses to join this professional association for the global access to customers. Big fingers crossed as I'm excited to travel across Canada to various conferences (not necessarily in industry) to grow member value.

[Traum]

Good luck with the interview, Bic Baws.

If you do get the job, don't get your hopes up in the association's ability to have some political influence / lobbying. Whether the association has that sway heavily depends on how valuable the government views that sector as. In my wife's case, her sector was obviously deemed to be pretty unimportant as the provincial gov has not increased their fees for 10+ years. And when they finally did somewhat recently, it was something like an extra 25¢ per eligible client.

[bcrdukes]

PeanutButter sounds like a serial scammer.

[Badhobz]

thats how he's rich. he scams old ladies to give up their ATM pin's and add his name to their life insurance policy

[PeanutButter]

Originally Posted by bcrdukes

PeanutButter sounds like a serial scammer.

Yikes, that's offensive. I hope I don't convey that.

80% of the people I see are from referrals, so I hope I provide a level of service that warrants a personal referral.