Welcome to Association Chat Podcast. I'm Kiki L'Italien your host. This is the podcast for the Association community and each episode is a little bit different, especially lately as I'm trying new things. Before we get started, I want to give a shout out to our visionary Voyager sponsor, Big Red M, your association growth partner. Big Red M offers consulting, sales, research, and publishing services for associations that want to grow.
If you would like to learn more about Big Red M, go to bigredm. com or reach out to me and I can connect you with the right people. Big Red M, Then stands for membership, growing money to support your mission. Okay. So on with the show, what a week, what a week. I mean, I'm telling you this week was fantastic. This week I recorded something promoting the association chat road trip to Cleveland, attending ASAE annual.
This is going to be amazing for association chat, but this road trip, I'm, I'm just really kind of geeking out about it and getting really getting really excited about it. I also had a fabulous chat on Thursday, during the weekly association chat recap chat. Those happen on Thursdays at 3 p. m. Eastern time. And, and if you haven't been a part of it, you should probably check it out sometime. They're not streamed, they're not recorded, but each week is a different, kickoff topic.
And it's just a group of people that get together that want to talk about associations and stuff. You can email me if you want to find out more information like the link and stuff. I do post the link directly in the, in the Facebook group, the private Facebook group. And we were talking about some good stuff this week. We were talking about, associations, where associations are missing the plot. somewhat why that's happening,, and ways that things can be helped along the way.
Now here I am today. And I've got some notes and I've got some questions that I'm going to answer. So, first let's tackle the work related question that I got this week. This is from Alex in Chicago, Illinois. Alex asks, what are some innovative ways to onboard new members? There's there's really several key points in a member's journey with your association.
And so some of the ways you can do this is by sending a personalized welcome package, which might be something with like branded merchandise, a welcome letter, some resources to get started. You can do like a smaller version of that, even if it's a welcome letter or a welcome letter along with an email. I do think that people like to receive something tangible, something that they can hold, something that they can look at.
So even if it's a, uh postcard that has a signature on it or some sort of contact that actually leads into the next idea, which is like mentorship programs, pairing new members with an experienced member who can guide them, , and answer their questions during the first few months.
Can you imagine if you had somebody who was like, Hey, yeah, Welcome to, the American Marketing Association and I am going to be your, I'm a volunteer and I'm going to tell you how to make the most out of your membership. Here's what I did. Here's who you need to know. Oh, you like this? This is how you get involved here. This is where you can volunteer and, and really meet the who's who within the, the organization. And I mean, I'm telling you that would, that would go so far for folks.
Thanks. And. Really, if,, your volunteer leaders could take that on as a project, that would be a great way to not just onboard a new member, but also potentially onboard some new volunteer leaders too. Then you've got your interactive onboarding webinars, right?
You can, Host a webinar where people can learn about the association its benefits how to get involved I think a lot of us talk about some of these things, but we don't always do it So I think every month you could have some kind of interactive Onboarding webinar and it could be for people who are new to the organization, but always open to,, people who just want to get a refresher about how to make the most out of their membership.
Another great way to on board Your new members is if you have any kind of special online community Tag them or bring attention to them welcome them officially In front of that community so that people have a chance to get to know each other One of the most powerful things you can do as an association Is to connect people member to member, right? Like is to connect people with other great people who they are interested in meeting.
So that would be a wonderful way to onboard a member and to help them to feel like they're already getting value from that membership. Now let's move on to the fun question. This one comes from Jamie. Jamie in Texas. I'm not sure where in Texas. Texas is a big state, Jamie. Okay, so Jamie asks, if you could have dinner with any historical figure, who would it be and why? I think that from this question, historical figure, somebody would think like Eleanor Roosevelt or something like that.
But I'm going to choose a dead celebrity and I'm going to choose Anthony Bourdain. And the reason why is because, the man was all about good music, good food, good writing, good film. Travel, experiencing different cultures, he was super funny, obviously had some, some challenges. The man had his demons, but I would love to have dinner with him. Wouldn't you? I mean, just, wouldn't that be absolutely amazing? So that's my answer to that. So thank you for sending that question.
I hope I didn't sidestep it by answering with a dead celebrity. I mean, he is an historical figure. It's just that, you know, it's not that far in our history. He was very recent. Before we wrap up, make sure to check out our longer episode next week. If you enjoyed this, please leave us a review and don't forget to sign up for the association chat newsletter. This is where I share my top five association podcast listens every week.
next week I'm going to be back with two episodes and one of those episodes will be an interview with Jeff De Cagna on the role of association boards today. Thanks for tuning in. Remember to stay curious and keep asking questions to learn every day. As Joseph Campbell once said, the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.