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Peggy Hoffman: Excellent, so welcome. Welcome to communications conversation. Today, as you all know, we are recording the webinar. We will share the slide deck, the chat and the recording in the follow up. And if you are here with us today, you are earning one cae credit. So

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Peggy Hoffman: let's jump in. I always like to make sure. You know who's doing the talk in here. I'm Peggy Hoffman with mariner management, and this is brought to you by the awesome and incredible team of Bill Highway and mariner. Now, many of you may know us. Bill Highway is the tech solution for components. They're also part of pexium is part of their family of programs now. So

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Peggy Hoffman: they've got lots of technology solutions for you. And mariner, of course, is your partner in really building more resilient components and volunteers

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Peggy Hoffman: and absolutely absolutely love the opportunity to be able to talk with folks and see what their questions is. Now. it's really interesting, because when you

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Peggy Hoffman: when you pick a bill highway solution or a mariner solution, you think you're buying just that. But really, what you're also buying is a deep understanding of how important communications is

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Peggy Hoffman: because we understand the power of communications can either support or deep 6 initiatives. And that's the reason why we wanted to devote today's hour on this ideal dot conversation. Now, what's really cool is, we oftentimes reach out and tap people that we think are true gurus in this, and that's what brings us to share having sherry singer with us today. Sherry's waving right now. We're gonna give her a formal introduction in just a moment.

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Peggy Hoffman: But what I really love about our ability to bring in and tap into the the community writ large on these kinds of conversations is making sure. You all know that you're not alone. The Association community has lots and lots of resources. We like to believe Bill Highway and mariner key resources, and I can tell you without a question. So is Sherry singer of singer communication. So we'll get a chance to learn a little bit more about her now.

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Peggy Hoffman: I don't want to. We don't need to overstay what the problems are. We know that there are challenges in getting and keeping our chapter leaders attention and in their ability to get and keep their members attention.

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Peggy Hoffman: So many things have really changed since Covid, although many of those were changing Pre Covid, if we're going to be really honest. And now we have to absolutely address it. I think, though, that the real elephant in the room that we don't spend enough time talking about is this lack of trust?

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Peggy Hoffman: The biggest obstacle by large is the fact that you have got a situation where where we are trying to communicate in an area where we don't quite have the trust.

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Peggy Hoffman: As a matter of fact. let me throw up a poll and let's find out when we say the word trust. What's on your mind?

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Peggy Hoffman: Here we go. Which of these trust issues do you run? Into which of these trust issues do you run into? Is it this us versus them mentality? Maybe it's that kind of inherited mindset from the past leadership. And maybe it's mixed communications. One person says one thing, one says, another thing could be just some mixed responsiveness.

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Peggy Hoffman: Maybe. Do you just not have the chapter leaders perspective or maybe you do. But your communicators join your team, don't.

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Peggy Hoffman: and if there's something else, go ahead and do tell us in chat. Do tell us in chat. Oh, Lisa, I just saw your comment in chat, speaking of which, thank you. Love to hear that love to hear that

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Peggy Hoffman: great. And I'm glad to see, Pamela said. She's new to chapter communications and hoping to Learn some nuggets for her new job. Alright! So folks are answering very quickly. I love. How you all jump on. This is a huge part of how we help you answer. The questions that you bring is by doing these polls looks like I've got many of you connected. Give you just a few more moments here

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Peggy Hoffman: so far. I'll just mention sherry that the Us. Versus them. Mentality is the lead, of course. All right. Let me go ahead and end the poll for just a moment and share the results. So

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Peggy Hoffman: I think that I remember very specifically sherry saying at 1 point that one of the things that she hears consistently is the Us. Versus them mentality as as an issue, and she's gonna talk a little bit more about that when we bring her on. But

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Peggy Hoffman: I do think it's important for us to understand that the trust is tied to is tied to what our volunteer leaders are hearing, and from the people in their hometown. That's that inherited mindset, and it's worth us getting a little deeper, and understanding that

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Peggy Hoffman: so suggesting that we really sort of tackle those 2 things. So, as I sort of mentioned, you know, all of these things are important, but

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Peggy Hoffman: Sherry mentioned in a conversation we had, I think, the last 2 items, which I think are pretty interesting for us to spend some time chewing on, which is one is we're being a bit too selective. And what we share we're not being as transparent as we need to be. We may think it's because we're we're we're protecting, or we're we're not ready to talk about something, but that can be a real miss

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Peggy Hoffman: in terms of how it impacts the trust. And, secondly, is, sometimes we're just completely ghosting. We're so busy ourselves that we don't take the time to ask, what have we said or not said

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Peggy Hoffman: so? I think it's really important. That we do give ourselves the opportunity to think about those 2 obstacles within trust, and and how can we address them?

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Peggy Hoffman: So

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Peggy Hoffman: this is the time where I get to bring in the expert. Sherry opened her business back in 2,002. I'd like to say that 2,002 was a stellar year for the communicate, for excuse me for the Association community, because 2 awesome businesses open that same year, mariner and lovely singer communications. Now she's been partner with hundreds of associations, corporations, and government agencies, and

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Peggy Hoffman: picked up some awards along the way. Now, I'd love for you to kind of visit with her. Learn a bit more about the full plate of communications that she offers, because she certainly is a full service communications. Communications firm.

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Peggy Hoffman: However, I want you to listen specifically for what I think is Jermaine here, and that is work on developing a communication strategy. Because I want you to think

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Peggy Hoffman: what's my overall strategy for engaging chapters and communities. Right? The second thing is putting together communication campaigns, putting together ambassador programs. Basically. Think, how do I provide chapters with that kind of toolkit and training that allows us to move an issue or a message forward, right? And 3

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Peggy Hoffman: training. Think I gotta get my volunteers better at working with the media, or, better, about talking O about us, or better in any communication skills.

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Peggy Hoffman: So those are the 3 things that I think she offers lots of skills and sets. But I think that that may very well be one of the 3 that you want to talk with her about. But let me go ahead and douse this this!

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Peggy Hoffman: Oh, to my pause, my share! Here, let me go ahead and pause this, and bring sherry on sherry. Say hello to the crowd.

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Hi, everybody! Thanks so much for being here today.

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Peggy Hoffman: Excellent! I am super excited to have this conversation with you. And there's so many things I wanna ask but let me let me start with, maybe kind of a big one, which is.

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Peggy Hoffman: how do we

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Peggy Hoffman: really effectively measure our communication effectiveness and really identify areas for improvement. I know we walk around and we say our communications is effective or it isn't effective. But how do we know?

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Sheri Singer: So I'm in the chat. If you could just throw your answers, that would be great. How many of you do a membership survey every year every other year? Just throw it into the chat. That's a really good place

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Sheri Singer: to start finding out what your members think about your communications. I've done a lot of these audits specifically focus on communications. Where you're asking your members what communications, product or service do you find most valuable? Do you think that we communicate too much, not enough.

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Sheri Singer: Can you tell the difference between the Hq. The headquarters communication and the chapter communication? You know, associations have all have changed over the years. It's not just post Covid, which everybody's changed right? It's also Pre covid. And way back in the eighties and nineties, when a lot of associations move to the DC. Area. They did so because their members were telling them that advocacy was the most important thing.

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Sheri Singer: But today, when you do those same surveys, what members are saying is networking and connecting with others is the most important thing. And how do you network and connect with others through communication? So we can see this shift, and how communications is playing a very important role in that newer shift with why people are joining your association.

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Sheri Singer: So I think they're hard core measurements that you can do to measure your associations, communications, effectiveness, and what I'm talking about. There is things like a survey click rates.

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Sheri Singer: you know. And then there's softer things, and I wouldn't discount those softer things. It's feedback from your membership, you know. Are they saying they're happy? Do they feel like you know. Did you send out something or post something on Facebook and get a lot of negative feedback or positive feedback? Those are just as valid as your hardcore more harder, you know, kind of measurements that you might do

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Sheri Singer: so. Of course you mentioned communications audit, and and that obviously is one of the tools we can absolutely use. Can you just speak a little bit more to the communications audit? And maybe you've done so many of them. Maybe there's a a learning or 2 that you've gotten over the time. I'm just ready to do another one

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Sheri Singer: for a new client. I almost always do them in the engagement with the new client, because from a communications expert perspective, I need to know what the organization has to be able to fill in gaps of things that they may not have. And so that audit really helps. Tell that I will say that over the past 5 or 6 years, when I've done these audits. The number one thing that

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Sheri Singer: every association kinda fails with or needs improvement, I would say in the old report, card method of grading is that there's too many words that they put on their products and information and before Covid. And even this was even happening. Peggy, as you mentioned, this was even before Covid, right? But certainly, since Covid we used to write, I know one association, maybe 3 or 4

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Sheri Singer: years ago, would ask me to write a fundraising letter for them, and the fundraising letter, you know, listed all the things they've done and during the year, and then at the end ask the members to contribute or donate to their foundation. But now you can't do it that way. You've got to make the ask right in the front, even in the subject line, and then go on to build the case as to why the member needs to do that right.

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So I think we need to pay more attention to what we're asking members to do right at the front end of an email or at the front end of a con of a telephone conversation or zoom call and then follow it up with the data supporting what we need to say. Also, communications audits really need to look at no more than 20 of your

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Sheri Singer: once you start getting beyond that, I mean, I did a communications audit a number of years ago for a very large Association. It was chapters and and national

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Sheri Singer: and there we looked at 78 products, and it just becomes unwieldy to look at that many products. And of course my recommendation was collapse. Some who need 78 products. That was only a portion of what we looked at, and I was like collapsed, and they were like, oh, we don't like this. Communications audit cause it's telling us to do away with things. But you know, in essence you might be helping your members to get to the most important

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Sheri Singer: important information if you're not flooding them with all this additional information. So in an audit process, you look at these 20 materials, and you look at their effectiveness, and it's really helpful to have somebody outside look at it and to really get their perspective, because, like Peggy said, the experts have worked with a number of different associations across a number of different types of industry, and that perspective

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could be invaluable to you.

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Peggy Hoffman: So you know the communication audit concept. I wanna stay with it for just another moment or 2, because one of the things that I was just at a chapter leader program over the weekend in Detroit, and had a. It was a great conversation that we had but one of the things that they were that they were lamenting. And I hear this all around the country is

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Peggy Hoffman: that they can't get people to their events, and I always say to them. There's there's probably 2 things that are th th th it could be one of 2 things. One of them is, the event is just a mess in general. Right? You're just not. You're. You're not being creative or experience whatever. But the other thing is, the message might not be getting at. So my question is, is there, or what suggestion or thoughts would you have for a chapter in terms of doing its own communication audit.

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Peggy Hoffman: and or is it possible to do a communications audit for a national organization like like one of the crps brought you in, for example, and and and sort of address that at the chapter level thoughts.

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Sheri Singer: Yeah, I think, I think it's a really good idea to do to include chapters in an audit. As I mentioned, I have done that in the past.

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Sheri Singer: and I think that one of the things that I did with that audit, and it was a large audit taking place over like 6 months, because we were looking at 78 different pieces of material. And then, additionally, I did probably 50 individual interviews with Chapter the this organization was large enough to have chapters and staffs in chapters, you know, at various at their various organizations. So I talked with

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Sheri Singer: not only members at the various chapters, but also the staff that was staffing that particular chapter. I think sometimes it's difficult to do chapter by chapter, because by areas of the country chapters could be different also. By, you know, one chapter could have 50 members. Another chapter could have 200 members right and another one could have 2. And so those chapters are going to function differently.

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Sheri Singer: But the way they're communicating their information should be somewhat the same, and where, I think both national and chapters fail, in addition to have to having too many words, you know, like, I always put things down now and try to do a really good edit come back to it and do a really good edit is they're pushing information out.

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Sheri Singer: And they're not engaging members in a 2 way street of conversation. There's a really big difference when you're let's say, doing an annual meeting, and you push it out. And you say, like on your Facebook page, you know, join us for our annual meeting. Here's the registration link. Instead of saying, you know, Bob Brown is our keynote speaker, and this is a topic that they're gonna talk about. And we have these 3 sessions. Hope you can join

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Sheri Singer: join us right? And you're like teasing them with the information you're showing them. What's in it for them? I did it a chapter leadership, speaking engagement for another large association, and I called it 30 marketing ideas in 60 min, and I literally zipped through. It was really 42. What? 30 and 67 for the title.

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Sheri Singer: So I gave them more than they expected to get. But that's something that you should think about doing in your chapters, because just igniting that kind of passion and giving them a whole range of ideas, people get excited about that. And then they want to use the information.

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Peggy Hoffman: So that kind of that brings us to me a couple of questions. But you're you're dancing on this idea of

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Peggy Hoffman: how are we supporting chapters to be better communicators, and of course helping them do a chapter audit, or some kind of idea, giving them actually real life example, examples, tools and templates, kinds of things that talk for a moment if you can, about this idea of tools and templates and the fact that we can put stuff out there. But how do we train our chapter leaders to understand the power of using that tool or template a. Have you seen any any thoughts on that?

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Sheri Singer: Yeah. So I'm one of the things that I've done when I'm doing an awareness campaign? I believe that you also need to involve chapters because they're your really boots on the ground. And to that I've created a like a public education or communications toolkit. There's probably 15 different activities in the kit. Everything from just putting in your email signature. I'm a member of

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Sheri Singer: Xyz Association. Asked me how you could join. Very simple. Anyone could do that all the way up to speaking in front of Congress, testifying in front of Congress, or speaking, answering a meeting query from a top tier newspaper. And the interesting thing about leveraging your members to do this. And you know, leveraging your members through the chapters, is it? Sometimes we all think in our associations.

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Sheri Singer: We're sitting in our ivory towers right? And we think the only people who can do this kind of thing is the board. But that's not necessarily true. What I found with associations in walking them through, how to set up an ambassador program and then training spokespeople for that ambassador program. I found that you get emerging leaders. You get somebody who's not a committee chair, who's not a board member who

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Sheri Singer: who's really interested in being a representative for the industry, and that person then comes up in your industry as a rising leader.

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Peggy Hoffman: Alright. So let's let's stay on that ambassador from. So I was gonna ask you about that. Anyway, I'm really intrigued, because I believe you did a session for sae on on this whole idea of an ambassador program. And it does strike me that we are missing. Sometimes the training, the preparation, and really and really getting our chapter leaders and chapter members

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Sheri Singer: to be ambassadors for the organization. And it. That's part of the trust, too. We invest in them. They feel like we care about them, and they're more likely than to listen or share with us. Can you give us just a quick, A, a quick description of the ambassador program that you that you've been helping associations put together. So the Ambassador program, the way the easiest way to understand it. It's really the Speaker

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Sheri Singer: Bureau, but it's in a much broader kind of format. So what this is is. It's

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Sheri Singer: mit Ctl and identifying potential leaders and current leaders and then training them to deliver your associations messaging. We think often that if we line up all of our board members, of course they know how to describe the association. But I bet you if you lined up all your board members tomorrow without any training, without any message document, and you ask them, what is Xyz Association? If you have 10 board members, you might get 10 different answers.

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Sheri Singer: Your messaging is really your verbal you know, Logo, it's really your brand, and how people are expressing that verbally. We don't think anything of spending thousands of dollars on creating a new logo, a new name, or altering our name slightly, you know, going to letters instead of a whole full name changing our website, whatever. But we don't think about putting money into training our leadership and other members, so they can talk.

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Sheri Singer: Talk about our association in one voice. So we're not having 10 board members describe an association in different ways. And the nicest thing about the ambassador program is you never tell anyone? No, they can't be an ambassador. If it's somebody that you don't think will really carry the organization's message forward in a productive way. You can use those people to write a blog, or maybe post something on social media. It can be a really small thing, and in that way you can. You know, leverage

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Sheri Singer: everyone. And when I give this session on how to start an ambassador program or how to launch an ambassador program, one of my favorite slides. I have this slide, a woman, and she's like this. I think the biggest secret is you take everyone, and then you leverage the people who really are stepping up and stepping forward, and just like the communications toolkit, there is an ambassador toolkit with all the activities that they could possibly do for your organization.

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Peggy Hoffman: Well, it strikes me we spend a lot of time, and I bet I could if I asked him

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Peggy Hoffman: and let me go ahead and do this. Ask in what the the chat?

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Peggy Hoffman: Do you all run into a situation where your leaders are saying something at the local level different than your then then the message should be at the national level. Let's see, is anybody. Has anybody got that? Let's see anybody have that situation but

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Peggy Hoffman: see what comes up in the good. Yeah.

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Peggy Hoffman: So the reason why I like the ambassador program is because it's not reprimanding them or it. Yes, look at this. It's not reprimanding them or smacking them on the hand or anything. It's saying, being able to speak and tell the story and be connected

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Sheri Singer: to the larger picture. It elevates you in your own profession, and we're gonna train you for that. And and then like getting it right, I think that no, it's it's a member benefit. So it benefits the association. We can all see that really clearly. But it's also a member benefit. You're training future leaders on messaging, and it's shocking to me. And I would like to ask this question, too. I see, Peggy, you're getting a lot of yeses from Abigail and Jenny

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Sheri Singer: Wes and Samantha. But I'd also like to ask the question, how many of you have a messaging document for your association. Just throw your answers in the chat. And we can see, because 90% of the associations I start working with, they do not have a messaging document. There's no 3 or 4 overarching messages. There's no, you know, sub messages about, you know. Maybe advocacy, or your annual meeting, or even your publications. Right? You need to have that document. I

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Sheri Singer: as a very strong Asae volunteer. I've been asking for Asa, he to create that document for years. It's like, because you have 42,000 members and 1,000 leaders, and they're all describing the organization in a slightly different way in terms of their perception. So if you don't have a messaging document, you may need one and if you don't think you need one. It's also really good. Behind the scenes

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Sheri Singer: recruiting tool, right? Because we're all like experiencing this issue of membership where you know people are, you know, 56, either retiring. They're no longer members, active members, and we wanna get new blood into our into our into our chapters and our national organization. And one way to do this is to offer this program cause you're training these people on how to give a presentation, how to talk to the media

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Peggy Hoffman: regular jobs, not only in for your association, so it is a member benefit and a member proposition. So of course, in my little mind what's coming up, and I don't know folks in chat go ahead and say it is is

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Peggy Hoffman: that that could be a really cool workshop and a chapter of your conferences. Okay, I just put it out there because I constantly. And this community is constantly asking itself, what if you heard cool? You know, what kinds of training are you doing? And that would be sort of a a natural one. I did like that. I saw that a number of people said that they have pieces of this, but they don't have the whole thing, and Samantha mentions that they're working on communication documents right

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Peggy Hoffman: right now. So be interesting if anybody has any, and they would like to share to go ahead and share with the group here. I think it's useful for us to see what other, what what other folks are are doing along this process. But this idea of training, making it a member benefit

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Peggy Hoffman: and really empowering our folks. I think it has another positive thing sherry that I just wanna throw out there. The other positive thing is that sometimes crps, and you tell me and chat if you disagree, sometimes crps feel like we're islands right that that the rest of the staff don't get us.

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Sheri Singer: but that could elevate the importance of chapter leaders, and in doing that it could kind of like, get the best of the staff to go. Oh, you've got it. Yeah, I mean, I just feel like it. Would. It would help that relationship as as well. So I'm so glad that you that you mentioned that. And one thing I think that's important to do, and I've done it with a number of associations that I've worked with is I've actually been out

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Sheri Singer: consultant that's come in and talk to chapters about the toolkit and how to walk through it. The ambassador toolkit the communications toolkit and walk them through what they could do so that if they had any questions or anything that was kind of lingering, like, yeah, I got this great toolkit, but I don't know how to use it, and I have questions about it. I don't know what this means.

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Sheri Singer: and it's a really interesting process for me, cause I kinda have to go back to the start of my career and pretend like I don't know what any of this is right? Because I don't wanna. I don't want to say, Oh, create a media listener like, what's media list? So you kinda have to explain what the things are in the toolkit that you're asking them to create and chapter level.

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Peggy Hoffman: Let's stay for a moment on the training issue. Are there other skills or other examples of training that we might be wanting to look at.

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Peggy Hoffman: And I'm gonna I'm gonna throw, throw a little bit of a of a of a of a loop in here

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Peggy Hoffman: for either our chapter leaders or chapter staff, right? Or for ourselves? The crps, I mean, where do you think we? Where should we apply some training in terms of the whole system.

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Peggy Hoffman: What have you seen? And what are we? Chic?

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Sheri Singer: Yeah. So in terms of training, there's, I'm gonna get into the minutia level. And then I'll go up to the more global level.

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Sheri Singer: you can train as many people as you want. I was telling Peggy before we started that I actually trained, you know, over 100 people on a zoom call. That's so nice about video conferencing. You can use this medium to really train as many people as you want? And additionally, I feel that it's advantageous to everyone, this a little bit off topic. But I think that

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Sheri Singer: creating a situation where a dialogue can happen between the chapters and the national organization is really critical. So things like, ask me anything like a session. And do you really care if 5 people only show up to ask me anything. No, because what you're trying to illustrate at the ask me anything is you're open to questions to ask. You know, to anybody asking you anything, and you're building that trust

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Sheri Singer: that Peggy talked about at the beginning of the session with various chapters from the National Organization town halls, or another. Good, you know, you know, open Forum some town hall that you would speak at the beginning and then have an open forum afterwards. I think all of that is really really helpful to your members, just to know that you're there and you're willing to listen. The ultimate is to get as many people as

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Sheri Singer: you can to participate. But the real hidden gem is your ability to show chapters that it's not us in them. We're all together in this

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Sheri Singer: and that you're willing to listen to their concerns on a very granular level.

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Peggy Hoffman: So let me let me let me do a follow up question on that, because I think

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Peggy Hoffman: 2 things come to my mind. I'd love to get your advice on and as a side I just put in every folks. If you have a communications question you'd like Sherry to answer while we have her here, cause we have her for a few more minutes. Please please please throw that in chat. But let me ask this question. So I've had this open house and it's bit with virtual. And I get like 8 people. And I'm like, okay, 8 people.

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Peggy Hoffman: Recommendations for how I take what did happen with those 8 and maybe share it broader. That's number one and number 2 recommendations. For

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Peggy Hoffman: what do I do with the feedback I got? Because sometimes that feedback is stuff I just can't do anything about. And sometimes it's stuff that has a really long lead before I could actually see the impact of it. I know there's a 2 separate question. So the first one is, how do I? How do I take that 8 and get it out there? And the second one is.

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Peggy Hoffman: you know. W. What do I do with with the. Let me start with the first question, how do I get it out there? So if your association has a blog, that would be a great place to put it, if they don't go to Linkedin. And do you know, if you have a Linkedin page posted on Linkedin, you don't don't have to have an author's blog or a specific blog page.

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Sheri Singer: Social media is a good way to then get it out. Get that article out, hey? Did you miss this? Are you interested in learning more, link here? That would maybe have 10 tips, 2 or 5 tips to again? I'm trying to cut down on the wordiness. No one should have 10 tips. But anyway, so those kinds of things are, I think, a really good use your social media channels

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Sheri Singer: to draw people in and give them something valuable. So if there was a session, and you write an article, even an article on your website, or an article in your E. Newsletter. Make sure to push that out via social media so that people can link to it after the date. And sometimes it's worthwhile, you know, if you see that you had 8 people attending. But then you have 60 people who are interested in the article, maybe wait a couple of months, and

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Sheri Singer: you know, hey, have you done this, or have you? Are you interested in this, or hey? We got some questions about this National? Here's some of the answers for our chapter and and push that article out again. Because, remember, you can reuse that information. A lot of it's evergreen. Okay, great love, that.

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Peggy Hoffman: Let me. I get a follow-on question. To to that. I just got a question in a chat. Can you please discuss some of the most effective marketing and communications, relationships and models between national and chapters that you may have seen. So we're looking to build on the successes, maybe that that you've seen along that any thoughts on that sherry.

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Sheri Singer: Hi debra! Thank you for your question. any specific thoughts on it. But I will tell you that that chapter leadership kind of tour that I did with that one association where we were

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Sheri Singer: using the ambassador and the communications toolkit to like kind of walk them through. That was really invaluable for them, because not only did I walk them through the toolkit, but they had questions relevant to their specific chapter, and, believe me, the questions were different in New Jersey than they were in Texas. A lot of them were regional questions. And again, it depends on the size of the chapter, how many active leaders you have in some cases, when I was doing that

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Sheri Singer: chapter, leadership like, Ask me anything kind of thing, and toolkit Walkthrough. In some chapters there were 20 people on, and in other chapters there were 5. So you can see the difference. And I think that there's a little bit of a mistake when we're trying to kind of lump in what are the best communications

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Sheri Singer: recommendation between national and chapters, because all the chapters are so different in so many associations, it really almost needs to be customized for that particular chapter. The chapter with 60 people are looking, how do we connect national and chapter, right? But the chapter with 5 people, they're look, how do we get more members into our chapter? Right? So they have different issues. And I think that affects

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Sheri Singer: what communications and marketing tools that you would use. Overall. Though, Debra? My answer to that question would be in real state. It's location, location, location and in nationals and chapters to avoid that, us versus them. It's communication communication communication.

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Peggy Hoffman: And I like a couple of things that you said that I wanna lift up. So this idea of the chapters are all different. And so taking the time, then to speak with chapters individually is what is what I'm taking away from it is like the best. The best communication, relationship and model is the one that recognizes that we can't do with this one. To many. We do have to do this one to one.

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Peggy Hoffman: the one to many, to get the the, the the the straight away message out, but the one to one to build the relationship and make sure that you get the clarity that that you need. So II really appreciated you talking about that and and that tour. But the second thing I'm hearing is that the most effective associations that the the model is really working for national chapters most effectively, is the one that has a

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Peggy Hoffman: combination of. I'm sending stuff out. And I'm listening and asking for it back. So it's a it's a intentionality around creating that 2 way stream, and that the ask me anything, the forum having the the Presidents go ahead and visit other chapter chapters, events or activities. All of those things are are an opportunity to create the the feedback loop.

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Peggy Hoffman: Any anything else? You would add that you would highlight that you said, beyond those 2, I think those 2 are really powerful.

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Sheri Singer: Yeah, I mean, I think we, it goes back to creating trust. How do you create trust in any human relationship, not just national and chapters, but when you think of your own life, boss and employee, you know, spouse your children, you know, etc. Your friends, you know. How do you create trust? You have open lines of communication, and that builds a a framework of trust. So even when you have to deliver.

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Sheri Singer: Not so great news. You have that basis of trust, and they know that you're being as honest and forthright with them as possible. Someone just asked a really long question about the social media channel idea. And what advice do you have for those policies around social media posts when they're restricted. You know

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Sheri Singer: I have. I understand why people I work with a client and have worked with them for 10 years, and they are constantly dealing with crises in their industry. And at times they've actually even had so much going on. They've had to close their social media posting totally for 6 months or so, because it's so negative, and it's like one or 2 people, and whatever. And it really affects the industry in a negative way. However.

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Sheri Singer: I am of the mind that social media is an organic way of communicating, and this, you know, limiting policies and restricting

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Sheri Singer: kind of goes against the grain. I understand completely from my client that deals with prices all the time. Why, people are doing that. But II wonder if it's the best policy. What do you think about that, Peggy?

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Peggy Hoffman: It's it really should be organic. And yet not the crisis communicator and me understand that we have to put some some

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Peggy Hoffman: rails on it, if you will, some, some some guard rails on it. II feel like the the one of the ways I would I would deal with that if I was an environment where we were restricted and I couldn't get that give and take communications. Th. This person mentions this idea of of, you know using a sharepoint site or a place where there's a safe space for a safe but but control space for folks to have a conversation I would I would definitely be looking at.

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Peggy Hoffman: Is there a place where I can? I can have some ongoing conversation with my chapter leaders that's not out in the mainstream, and then I would spend some time helping them, helping my chapter leaders find that place and be welcomed when they get into that place. We work with. One organization was going through a massive chapter change. And we created a

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Peggy Hoffman: a literally a micro site within their within their program. Within their website. One was completely open for everybody to be able to see, and the other one was closed for leaders to see and we really spent a lot of time in conversations with the chapter leaders, telling them where that was, sharing that link and then validating when they when they posted there. So sometimes we do have to. If we're gonna have a conversation, I think, get, you know, sort of get out of the out of the public space.

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Peggy Hoffman: But I think the other thing, too, is, what is our protocol for responding when we get something in the social media place like. I know that that your communications team says before you can respond to that, you have to get it accepted. But is there a way of simply being able to post things like

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Peggy Hoffman: we hear you. Thank you. I mean, just there, there's a simple way of saying we hear you. And now let's take this offline, and I don't think we invest enough time in in getting sort of the tacit approval to at least be able to acknowledge, and and whatever the appropriate acknowledgment way would be.

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Sheri Singer: Yes, I definitely agree with that, and I also think this is, you know, the communicator in me has to bring this up. But sometimes when you can't put things in writing.

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Sheri Singer: you need to pick up that phone. You know the one that kinda looks like this.

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Sheri Singer: Remember the phone. We're also like, Oh, let's have a one on one conversation on Zoom. I'm like, why, there's the phone, you know. So I think sometimes phone calls are a good way to talk to somebody. I know you can't call every member that wants to post, but you know, in certain cases, if somebody's really insistent and kind of raising a raucous about the fact. They can't post on social media without it being approved. I think

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Sheri Singer: conversation one on one with them. And again, not an email. That's really an impersonal way of of commenting. But you know, the phone allows this 2 way conversation where they feel that they're being heard and that their Member Value proposition might really depend on that phone call with you and understanding the way you said, Peggy. Just thank you. We're looking into it, or whatever this acknowledgement

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that they're being heard

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Peggy Hoffman: right? So I think it's interesting. There's a great, a great question. I want to come to just a moment. But I also want to say that one of the things that I just saw recently in an email exchange that I had was someone in their signature line said,

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Peggy Hoffman: find time for us to talk, find time for us to zoom. And there were 2 separate links. And I what I loved about that was this idea that we don't always have to be zooming. Sometimes the the anonymity of not being on video allows us to say things or get deeper into a conversation, and maybe the eye contact

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Peggy Hoffman: would do but but but I love this question, and Lord knows we've seen this question many, many times, where is the idea? If you have someone? And this is what happens with volunteers? This is a volunteer issue, right? They're out of touch with the majority disrupted to the unity. Really don't do it, and they're upsetting people on both sides of of the coin there. And the question, though really, when you come all down to it, is there any bridge

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Peggy Hoffman: building tactics that we should consider? And

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Peggy Hoffman: how do we let people know what we're doing about this? Because I think that's the second part. So let's talk to leaders reach out to make sure we know that they're not in the camp. But do you have? Do you have any suggestions? Sherry on bridge building tactics?

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Sheri Singer: Well, I think if there's like a naysayer like, you know, there's always one in every organization, right? I kinda call them Debbie Downers have to be really careful not to call somebody Debbie to their face right? So you know, but talking to that person offline like the President, not the the CEO or the Ed. Of your association, but the President making a call. So it's member to member

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Sheri Singer: and saying, You know, we're really concerned about these issues we're raising. Here's what we're doing to solve them. Do you have any suggestions on how we could move, you know again showing them that their opinion matters, and that they're valuable to us, and that our president, their peer, their elective peer, is taking the time to really invest in what they have to say, and I find that a lot of times when you do that.

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Sheri Singer: But sometimes it is somebody kind of crying for attention, and when you give them that attention they kinda calm down. It's not that they're gonna go away. It's not that they're suddenly gonna be your biggest cheerleader. But at least some of the negativity gets a little bit tamped down, and that's really in essence what you want to do, and sometimes they say your comments are good comments. You know, they lead to change. So sometimes they're really good comments. So I think again, it just goes back to that communication, one on one.

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Peggy Hoffman: And I want to. And I and I just see that. Just see that Jessica also give us gonna do a plus one. On the comment of the that notion of

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Peggy Hoffman: E. It's when you get to a certain point, it's gotta be peer to peer right. It cannot be the communications team or the CEO that's paid. It does need to be. It does need to be peer to peer, and it won't solve it every time, but it's a very important go to, and anybody who's taken a cae exam and passed it knows that the answer is usually volunteer to volunteer staff to staff.

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Peggy Hoffman: So I think that's I think that's important. And I also think the one on one conversation is important. And I'm gonna add something to this.

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Peggy Hoffman: There are people who are do a drumbeat, and no matter what you say or do, they're gonna do that. I believe in the I believe in out shouting them. And what I mean by that is that I believe in making sure that the conversation that's counter to that gets as much air time

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Peggy Hoffman: and fact more airtime than the conversation. That's that you don't. That really isn't relevant or isn't accurate anymore. And that's kind of a weird, fuzzy thing to say, but I had that example back when I was back at the Trade Association, and we had a couple of voices that were really complaining. So I went around and called my ambassadors, and they came out with affirmations, for where they were

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Peggy Hoffman: organization was going, and those affirmations they made sure they made individually to key stakeholders like our sponsors, our exhibitors, which were very important, our key funders, our big members, right and they had individual and then collective conversation. So what we did was out. Shout, if you will, the negatives

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Peggy Hoffman: it it's it's it's a tightrope. I get it.

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Peggy Hoffman: But sometimes the best way, and you have the same thing when you're working with somebody who is very negative. If you you can only say so many times I hear you. I understand it really is awful. At some point you have to ask them, what makes you happy? What is working for you and change the conversation? And and I kinda rattled on. But II found that was, that's been a that's been that's been a success point for me. It's like on Google, when you have a negative review, just keep posting positive reviews. So that negative review goes on the second page. And who's gonna read it

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Peggy Hoffman: at that point. So yeah, yeah, excellent, excellent. We have covered so much ground. And I held you longer than expected. But I really think, having a conversation where we talk about communications and just kind of looking for this basis where we can do something different. And I just wanna, I wanna thank you for for your time today.

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Peggy Hoffman: and I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm I'm wrapping up to give you an example to. If there's anything else you wanna add but but before I before I do that, I want to lift up a couple of things that that you said and you know a large part of what I heard was this idea of making sure you take the time to figure out

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Peggy Hoffman: if you are being effective, whether it's the communication audit. Whether it's looking at the data, the clicks, whether it's the soft metrics of gathering the questions that you're getting, and then looking down at them and saying, Gee, this is the theme that we're seeing. But this idea of measuring effectiveness.

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giving yourself that that base, and then the the follow up thing is is that if you gotta do equal time of sending some stuff out and actually listening. So where are you building intentionally in the system for that? But then this really beautiful little kernel, this gift that you gave us about this idea of the Ambassador program, and how

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Peggy Hoffman: it can, we can really empower the volunteers through a training that helps them helps us. But then that helps with the messaging, it does so many things, and it's just a different approach than than just saying how to create a better email. And the last thing I heard was

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Sheri Singer: hands-on training, let's go ahead and train folks for for the skills. So I great, great advice from you, Sherry. What did I miss? What would you add? How would you close?

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Sheri Singer: I would add that, you know. There communications, you know, even though we're in like a new world of communications. Right? And we're talking about AI, and we're talking, you know, it's still good old fashioned communications, and your members are telling you that by the sense that they value networking as a way and a reason to belong to your association. And what is networking? It's connecting. And how do you?

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Sheri Singer: You connect through communication? So I think this idea of AI and all these tech tools, and you know they're all fabulous. But their distribution channels of what you of the content. And it's the content and the human connection. We all realize that during Covid, how much we needed that human connection. And so I would urge you all to go back

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to that really basic concept of connection cause. That's really what associations are all about.

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Peggy Hoffman: I love that. Thank you. Before you go and I'm gonna give one more poll, which I think we? Now we've talked about all of these different things. I would love to, and this may help. Sherri, I should tell everybody. Sherry has agreed to come on back next year. We're gonna be doing another webinar on communications, and it'd be really kind of nice, I think, for us to know what

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Peggy Hoffman: on your mind in terms of what you have around communications. And so I've got a pole. It's a long pole so scroll down.

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Peggy Hoffman: But just tell us which of these things you already have? And then in chat which of these things you'd like to hear more about? So go ahead. So I put in a bunch of things. You have a formal communication strategy around components, or maybe a communication schedule. Maybe you really do consider within the organization your components as a key stakeholder group. Great. But if not.

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Peggy Hoffman: maybe the Ambassador program isn't sort of an example of how we can help you do that offer communications training skills do dedicated communications channel, do you? Oh, do you offer those open forms or coffee chats?

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Peggy Hoffman: Do you offer easy call scheduling? I've seen a number of crps now, and their signature line. It says, Book time with me, and I love that often. And then we had somebody sherry tells a couple of webinars ago that she does. She has. I think it's one morning a week. She does what she calls open office hours, and she opens up a zoom.

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Peggy Hoffman: and anybody can check in at any time which I thought it was really really cool. And she's just open there so neat idea. So folks are coming in. If there's something else that you do, or something else you'd like to just go ahead and throw that into chat.

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Sheri Singer: We'll let this run, for I got about half of you participating so far, so go ahead and and and put Tiffany said she'd like to learn more about communication strategy with components. And what an ideal communication schedule, I guess part of a plan might look like in terms of tactics and scheduling tactics, and when

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Peggy Hoffman: that would be great, I just I think we sort of have pieces of it, but we don't put it all together, so that would be kind of neat, all right. I still, if folks are still coming in like every time I'm gonna say that I'm gonna pause. This, I see that 3 or 4 more pop in. So let me give you another couple of moments here. All of these things. By the way, folks, the poll is made up of of great tips and ideas

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Peggy Hoffman: that you are going to get in the full blog post the link will be sent with the follow up to all of this, and for all of this information. But Sherry did a wonderful conversation with our writer, and we've got

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Peggy Hoffman: some good tips and and other ideas happening. Also, when you get the slide deck folks there's a number of slides at the back of this that are going to give you some additional tips as well. So you will be getting that. I'm going to go ahead and end the poll. Looks like the popcorn has stopped. And I'm going to share the results. The the winner here is a formal communications plan for components. But that's only with 50% of the folks.

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Peggy Hoffman: So I think we've got we could offer lots of different opportunities. Next year in our follow up communications program. So lots of lots of good stuff for that. Thank you again, sherry really, really appreciate your time on and effort in in being a part of this. I'm gonna pop the the the screen back up again.

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Sheri Singer: Thanks for having me, Peggy. Really appreciate being here. And if anybody has any follow-up questions, feel free to to email me directly, always happy to chat with any of my association executive colleagues. Just, you know, 15 min or a half hour on. Ask me anything right.

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Peggy Hoffman: Oh, I love. I love the fact that you do exactly as you tell folks to do. That is excellent. That is excellent. Well, folks that have granted us on this call. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. To sherry. I think that one of my big takeaways is that communications are built on a really firm foundation. And to me that one foundation is our own individual communication skills. I love the fact that Sherry told us.

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Peggy Hoffman: and she has this in the in the article. Don't use 10 words when 5 will work. So we have to look at. How are we? How do we write, how do we communicate? Listen first, then respond and clarify, clarify, clarify, but the second framework for us, the second piece of the foundation. Excuse me, is the framework. And that is

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Peggy Hoffman: how are we assuring that we've created clarity around expectations, roles

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Peggy Hoffman: settings? This is your affiliation agreement. This is your job descriptions. It's gonna be hard for you to be successful in communications. If you don't take the time to really kind of work on your communication skill and make sure you have the framework in that you need it.

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Peggy Hoffman: A couple of quick other like just quick thoughts Sherry mentioned. I love the open dialogue idea super easy for us to corporate. So let's keep that in our mind. This idea of personal support. I love the fact that Sherry talked about earning the credibility as an ally, not as of them. And really, we've talked about all these different things, which I think are great.

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Peggy Hoffman: I paused here on this one, because this is super important for us to make sure that we have those notes, and then we extend our capabilities here

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Peggy Hoffman: awards, and recognition. We all, many of us have awards programs. But do we share the impact of those contributions? And do we appreciate individually and collectively? And do we have a clear ongoing strategy. Right?

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Peggy Hoffman: Training was excellent. Ii heard what she said, which is to use audience segmentation. Get the right message to the right people. Make sure you're tracking totally love that she talked about. You know it's a bigger picture thing, and consistency is key. And the schemability cause she did keep talking about. How can you get through those

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Peggy Hoffman: the last thing I just wanna mention before we close is this idea that she that sherry really honed in on this idea of making sure we have resources in there now. Folks, we have been talking about communications.

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Peggy Hoffman: and I am super excited to make sure. You know that we are continuing the Communications conversation next month, when the Fab USP joins us to talk about Chat Gpt. Now we've been talking about getting your communications firmer. We've been talking about making sure the message is clear. Well.

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Peggy Hoffman: Chat Gpt can help us with all of that. And Beth is. Gonna tell us a little bit more about it. Now you know that if you was usually wanna see Beth there, there is a there. Usually you have to find her. You have to go to event costs money. We're bringing her to you free. This is a great opportunity for you to bring all of your questions.

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Peggy Hoffman: Part of what we're going to really do. Here is also talk about Chat Gp. Gpt. As a tool chapters can use. So please stay tuned for that

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Peggy Hoffman: also. Da da da drum roll coming in 2024 cx. 2 point O, we have had a demand for us to make sure that we do something again in 2024 I got 2 quick polls for you to help us.

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On this, because we are super excited about the possibility, not the possibility. The planning is already underway. Let me ask you, are you interested in a day of learning and connections? And if so, we're looking at April or May and other. Just throw that in chat. We want to do the springtime so that we can give you resources and connections early in the year, right

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Peggy Hoffman: rather than you know, waiting till the end of the year. So let us know. Oh, I see. we've got. We've got somewhat of a preference for April. Excellent. So you know that you will earn cae credits for attending this. I think we got 5 last year. And the nice thing is, if you're getting ready to sit for the Ca exam, or you're going for renewal. Great way for you to to get that

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so really super excited. And before I close.

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Peggy Hoffman: give you another couple of seconds here, throw into chat. anything that you can do. Yeah, look at this. I'm loving. Seeing this.

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Peggy Hoffman: let's see. We've got so far coming in we have got. I'm gonna go ahead and end the poll to show you all that April is the winner. But I really love it looks like we've got quite a few people, and we will sell out. So please watch for that. The last one is your friend and me. Both of us are.

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Peggy Hoffman: This one is saying I'm getting. I'm having difficulty with this, let's okay. Well, I was gonna put another poll in here, but it looks like the topics it says that it will not launch. I was gonna ask you. So put it in chat, what topics do you want to see for 2024 in terms of

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Peggy Hoffman: webinars? We're putting together our webinar schedule. Are you looking for things on member engagement, on volunteer development, are you? Oh, I just launched it. Oh. Sarah, so cute! Thank you. Thank you, Sarah. Sometimes we need technology help. Am I? Right?

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Peggy Hoffman: Excellent. So we've got this coming in here. Excellent.

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Peggy Hoffman: This is important. We bring you these webinars free of charge. But they're only valuable if we're hitting the topics that you think are worthwhile. So do tell us what you think. Make sure you scroll because there's a number of comments there, and other is in chat. Other is in chat. So be make sure that you do that.

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Peggy Hoffman: Excellent. Keep keep pulling that in there, and while you do that

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Peggy Hoffman: I'm going to just remind you once again that Bill Highway and Mariner are here for you. We are always delighted to be to be your partners in in in having good ideas, good conversation, good connections, and just like sherry had said. And her email is in the chat and we will put her email in the follow up.

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Peggy Hoffman: feel free to connect with any of us. 15 min 15 to 30 min on the phone with us. We could just maybe generate some ideas for you. And please, by all means do do do do let us know if we can help you with anything, but even if it's just to pick our brains, we are happy to

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Peggy Hoffman: love that lasel. We'll definitely put that on the list streaming advocacy across components.

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Peggy Hoffman: So there's nothing left for me to do except that on behalf of Bill Highway and mariner to thank you for once again giving us an hour of your time. We're at the top of the hour. It has been our pleasure. And looks like we're gonna have lots of topics that we're gonna cover next year. But

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Peggy Hoffman: don't forget we've got one more this year November eighth. See you there to talk about Chat Gbt. Until until next time.

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Peggy Hoffman: Have a great day.