5 Game-Changing Steps That Make Generating Non Dues Revenue Easy

The traditional approach to sales is transactional. It’s all about converting leads. Prospects (leads) enter the wide top of a marketing funnel and are pushed as quickly as possible to the narrow bottom of the funnel, where they’re converted to customers as sales are closed.

Carrie suggests teaching chapter volunteers a different approach. She looks at sales as a flywheel. It’s a circular experience, not a funnel.

 Sales should be a long consultative process, not a transaction. Carrie encourages associations and chapters to develop relationships with leads, turn leads into revenue partners, and partners into champions who become loyal word-of-mouth advocates.

Slow down and spend most of your time in the Awareness and Consideration stages of the customer journey. Attract prospects to the chapter website or get them on the phone or Zoom to discuss the mutual benefits of a relationship. Get to know them and make sure they understand the value of your sponsorship, advertising, or exhibition offerings.

Although the traditional transactional approach seems simpler and more efficient, it can actually result in more work for less revenue, as Carrie proved by outselling her entire team.

Sales coach Andy Paul said, “Sellers don’t lose deals because of product or price. Success in sales is all about the buying experience.”

Uh oh, what’s the sponsorship buying experience like at your chapters? Here’s one way to find out: see how many clicks it takes from a chapter home page to their landing page for sponsors, advertisers, and exhibitors.

That landing page is one of the first buying experiences for non-dues revenue prospects. If they can’t find the information they need, you can bet they feel like their support is taken for granted or they don’t really matter.

Every chapter needs an easy-to-find landing page with overview information for potential sponsors, exhibitors, and advertisers. This page must be one click away from the home page with a navigational link in the site’s header and footer.

A persuasive landing page explains:

• Who the chapter is and what they’re all about
• Why prospective revenue partners should invest in the chapter
• What types of engagement the chapter offers, for example, lead generation, branding, content, speaking, and thought leadership

Also include information that makes the case for sponsorship:

• Audience size
• Buying influence of audience
• Member survey data—more on that in strategy #5
• Sponsor, exhibitor, and advertiser testimonials

Link to pages that provide more detail, like pricing and product information.

Give your chapters a template for structuring this landing page along with sample copy so they know which essential elements to include and where to put them.

When chapters have an upcoming event, they typically send every vendor member the same message along with a prospectus or media kit. A member who has never purchased a sponsorship or exhibit table is not ready for a prospectus or media kit. No one has convinced them yet to pay attention to what the chapter is selling.

Here’s a hint for getting their attention:

“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.”

Prospects want to know you understand their pain point—their desire to hang a picture on the wall.

They aren’t wondering how you can help them sponsor an event. They want to know how you will help them get more leads, reach decision-makers, and get people in the market to recognize them as a trusted expert. Prospects don’t care yet about ads, booths, or sponsored snack breaks. How will you help them increase sales?

Chapters must change how they communicate with sponsorship prospects. Focus on what prospects are thinking about—their pain points and marketing goals—not what chapters are thinking about. Share testimonials with prospects that prove you’ve helped others in their position get the results they desire. Get a meeting scheduled so you can go into detail about how you deliver ROI.

The sales process used by Carrie makes a big difference. Chapters can’t just wing it. They have to know what to say and do—and when to say and do it.

Chapters can’t assume they know what each prospect needs. Instead, they must take time to meet and learn about each prospect so they can match them with the best solutions.

Start by sending them a brief overview of the different ways companies like theirs partnered with the chapter to achieve their marketing goals. Then, schedule a meeting.

Spend time listening, understanding, and building trust with the prospect. If they’re not interested in a meeting, move on, they’re just a tire kicker. You only want to spend time with good fits. Get to know these leads and figure out if they’re a potential champion—that’s the goal. Remember, this is not just a sale, this is the beginning of a relationship.

“People will forget what you said, they will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel,” said Maya Angelou. That’s a fitting mantra for association and chapter membership, events, and sales teams.

You want to make sponsors, exhibitors, and advertisers feel good about their experience and your relationship. The whole point is to earn their loyalty and create champions that will support the chapter for years to come.

Champions accelerate the relationship flywheel. They give you stories to tell and evangelize for you out in the marketplace. Don’t underestimate the power of word-of-mouth referrals.

Improve the sponsorship experience by collecting two kinds of feedback:

•         From existing sponsors, exhibitors, and advertisers about their experience
•         From members about their purchasing decisions

Use Carrie’s Feedback Tracker, a customizable template for gathering and organizing feedback with tips on collecting feedback.

When surveying sponsors about their experience, you want to hear it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Tell them you want honest feedback so you can improve the experience. You may also need to reset sponsor expectations. Useful testimonials will reveal themselves.

Gather sponsor feedback in informal discussions too. Ask a group of volunteers to divvy up a list of sponsors, exhibitors, and advertisers, and then elicit feedback on their experience. Capture anecdotes in a shared doc that everyone can access. These are the stories that convince a prospect to sign a deal.

Teach chapter volunteers how to listen to negative feedback without getting defensive. If the sponsor had a better experience elsewhere, find out what was different about it. Learn by asking questions. This approach helps people feel heard and feel like their opinions make a difference.

Our webinar host, Peggy Hoffman of Mariner Management, said these surveys and discussions help chapters figure out how to support revenue partners and create the conditions for champions to emerge. For example, chapters may discover the need to offer a training session on being a more effective exhibitor.

For the second type of feedback, conduct a member survey. How does their knowledge of and engagement with sponsors, exhibitors, and advertisers influence their purchasing decisions? Do they give more weight to a company that’s involved in and supporting the chapter than one that isn’t? This type of survey data is gold. It’s exactly the type of information prospective and existing sponsors want to hear.