Virtual 1 - Fueling Membership Growth: Creating Systems for Success

[title card] Shriners International Education Foundation presents: Fueling Membership Growth: Creating Systems for Success

[title card] Noble Academy logo; Kurt Klingenmeyer, Membership Chairman | Tripoli Shriners; Shriners International Education Foundation logo

Alright, so best known, beats best, and what is a system? I want to dive into this a little bit. A system. A system is a duplicable process that is done the same way every single time. It's your cookbook, it's your recipe. Now, make sure that, now, a system is not something you have just memorized in your head. If you do that, that means we're now more personality-driven, not system-driven. You want to have a recipe that's written down, and if you can automate this as much as possible, now you don't have to do that going out the gate, automating things, okay? Right now all that I want you to do is make sure you're collecting these leads. Have some type, it's called a funnel. Have some type of funnel where you're collecting this stuff, and that you can text these people. Then, okay, now when I talk about recipes, this kind of hits home for me.

I used to work in a bakery as a high school and college job and made all sorts of breads and rolls and cringles and cookie dough and everything that a bakery makes. And we had a white book. It was the white cookbook where everything was just handwritten chicken scratch down where those were the recipes. So if I had to talk to my boss, Wayne, and say, 'Hey Wayne, how do I make those Kaiser rolls again?' He said, 'Look in the book, and it was your step-by-step process.' That's what you want to have because look, if you have the recipe for the world's best cake, follow the recipe. Because if you substitute baking soda for baking powder, look, that cake don't bake. So you've got to do it the same way every time. And that way, if you improve the process, the system, everything improves at the same time.

Okay? So get your stuff written down. It doesn't have to be very complicated with that, but it does need to be system-driven. So let's say we're talking about, oh, I backed up too many. There we go. Thank you. Alright, so going back to that off-site booth event, because again, those are great, because everybody there is already used to going to charity events. So, best known beats best if I grab the business card from somebody. Now, make sure you have business cards too. Now, if you are in one of these organizations, and let's face facts – nobody's heard of what a Potentate is or imperial of this or imperial of that. Keep it simple in the English language. What we are, if you're the membership guy, just have down, don't put down, Illustrious Sir. It's going to confuse people. You've got to have a little bit of humility with this.

You can have a set of business cards that are for the general public, but then have another set of business cards that are for shrine events or Masonic events. So please, you've got to keep it in layman's terms with people, okay? Don't make it look like Greek. So, give your business cards out to people, but you have to get some in return. Now, let's say I met another business owner, or let's call it a local politician or attorney. Whoever's at this event, I would text them back the next day, and look, I'm giving you the system, I'm giving you the recipe, I'm giving you the answers to the test. This is all you've got to do day one. That means like the day after. Okay? 'Hey John, this is Kurt, a triple shrine in Milwaukee. It was great meeting you at the Zoo Fundraiser event yesterday.'

And again, keep it short, don't write a thesis, okay? I would try to abbreviate this as much as possible. 'Here's a couple of free tickets to our upcoming gala on December 1st, I want to put you at one of our VIP tables before I run out of seats. Would you be able to make it?' If I don't hear back, then day two, I'm going to call them and personally invite them. Month two, repeat month three, repeat. Month four, repeat. And again, a pro-tip. Try to automate these texts as much as possible if you can. But hey, look, when we're starting on day one, it's just your little keyboard warrior, okay? Or with your thumbs, you're just texting these people and then calling these people, and of course, remind them. Give 'em a call to confirm and all that. But I do want to give you another pro tip that's not listed on here.

Now, you can use this for all of these text messages. You should use this for all of your emails. You should use this for all of your phone calls. And look, I'm giving you the reason why I'm giving you all the answers to the test is this. I have been to too many, I've been to 60-plus conventions about membership and recruiting and marketing, and I've spoken in over 20 of them, I think 25-ish or so. And it burns me when I go into an event or I go to event that I'm paying money for, and it's a big ooh-rah event, and everyone's really excited about it, and everyone's pumped up, and you leave. And what do I do now? Well, I don't know, but I'm really excited. That frustrates me as a consumer, as a buyer. I want to give you all of the answers to the tests. We're grabbing the low-hanging fruit right now so that way you can implement this system right out of the gate. Okay? So here's that pro tip. This is called the four steps of selling. I want you to write this down. Okay? Four steps of selling. Now, what that is, is in this text, number one, write this down. Reason number two: value and sell it. This is where I slow things down to make sure that we get this written down. Number three: call to action.

Number four is close. Let me say that one more time. Number one is reason, two, value and sell it, three is call to action and four is close. Now, in this text message that has everything, and you can base all your emails and phone calls, so it's not like I've sometimes tried to do this off the cuff and it just feels like I just word vomited at somebody. If I'm calling them up, I'm like, ah, that phone call went horrible. Write this stuff down. So right in there, it's, 'Hey, John, this has occurred at Triple Shrine. It was great being at the zoo fundraiser yesterday. Here's a couple of tickets for the upcoming gala.' That's my reason.

My value is I wanted to put you at our VIP table. My call to action is before I run out of seats. My close is, would you be able to make it? That's the fourth step of selling, and you can integrate these even within a sentence, but that helps you keep everything really clean, really concise. All of these leads we're bringing, look, I'm not asking you to work harder, we're working smarter. I'm not asking you to go on and do a bazillion different events, and what you're doing. Use the stuff you're using right now, collect the information, and we're putting this into a funnel, and this is all we're doing. The answers to the test. This is what you send out to people every single month.