Some of the comments I've heard when talking to people in membership based organizations are "We don't sign up as many members as we'd like"; "We get a lot of enquiries for membership but they don't seem to sign up"; "There's a lot of competition around, there's just too many choices for potential members" and "Potential members just don't understand why they should join us." In most cases, these organizations take a reactive rather than proactive approach to membership sales.
How would your organization answer these questions?
Do you have a defined process for handling membership enquiries and sales?
Have you appointed a membership co-coordinator that is dedicated to administering and selling memberships?
Do you provide sales and communication skills training to your staff?
Do you set budgets and targets for membership registrations?
Do you measure the performance of staff in terms of their conversion of enquiries to sales?
Do you have a process in place to follow up enquiries, for example, when providing membership information kits?
In my experience, many organizations answer no to most of these questions. Some have appointed a membership co-coordinator or allocate an administrative staff member the task of handling membership enquiries and administration. Generally this person has been given very little direction, clear instruction, processes or expectations with regard to their role and the importance they play in the growth of the organization. They often are order takers instead of sales makers. Due to a lack of skills, training and knowledge, up to tens of thousands of dollars in membership registrations are lost.
An association I worked with was averaging 40 membership enquires per week. They would convert about 6 of these enquires to memberships. Extending this result out over the course of a year with a membership fee of $395, this organization missed out on 1,768 membership opportunities or $698,360 in membership sales.
Here are some strategies that improve membership sales:
1.Clearly define the role of the membership co-coordinator. The primary objective for the co-coordinator is to handle membership enquiries professionally and to help prospective members with the decision to invest in joining the organization. This position is a sales role. It is important that the person in the role has sales experience and receives training in sales and communication skills.
2.Develop a sales process plan that details each step required to help a potential membership enquiry into a sale. By having a road map to follow when handling enquiries, it allows you to walk your prospect through the process and make it easier to convert. The best way to develop a sales process plan is to start at the end of a sale and work backwards to the beginning at the enquiry stage. This will highlight all the steps that must happen in generating a sale.
For example:
Step 6. Induct the member by explaining how they will receive notification of membership and the details of what to expect as a new member. You may need to articulate the induction process to them.
Step 5. The customer has agreed to join and gives you their details and credit card for processing.
Step 4. Explain the details of what is involved with the membership that they are interested in investing in.
Step 3. Share the benefits of joining. Answer questions that they may have. Give them reasons to join.
Step 2. Ask questions, get some details and find out more information about them and their interest in the organization.
Step 1. Answer the enquiry professionally.
Your sales plan may have a few more detailed steps through it so use the above steps as a guide. Once you've set out a plan of what must happen at each stage of the selling process, you're better equipped to guide your future prospects into a sale.
3.Start measuring the number of enquiries and the number of sales made. This will give you a conversion rate. What you measure you can manage; what you don't you can't. By measuring just your conversion rate, you'll see a percentage increase in sales purely because you are focusing on it.
4.Measuring goes hand in hand with setting targets and budgets. Sales targets should be set on both a weekly and quarterly basis. The saying "If you aim at nothing, you hit it with amazing accuracy" applies here. The reason for setting weekly and quarterly targets is to monitor your performance over a short period of time and make regular adjustments. If you find yourself hitting your targets comfortably over a 3-week period, then apart from celebrating, you should also increase your targets. I worked with an association that monitored their sales closely and in one quarter their membership increased by 28 %, compared to the previous year where they didn't monitor their results and achieved only an 11% increase for the entire year.
5.The key to increasing your conversion and the reason why up to 80% of membership sales are lost is because the prospect wasn't asked to buy.
By following the principle of gaining confirmation and commitment to action, your conversion rate will dramatically increase. The membership coordinator should incorporate questions such as "Does this make sense to you so far?" or "Is this what you had in mind in joining our organization?" By asking these questions at the end, you are making sure that everything is ok with the prospect and they are aware of what they are about to invest in. Once you receive confirmation, ask if they have any additional questions or concerns. If they say no, follow through with "Great! If you like what you've heard, is it ok if we go ahead and organize your membership?" You'll be amazed at the number of people that can't think of a good reason not to go ahead immediately.
So to recap:
1. Remember when handling membership enquiries, you are a sales person first and foremost so start asking questions and help people to join your organization.
2. Develop a sales process plan.
3. Start measuring your enquiry to sale conversion ratio.
4. Set targets and budgets; and
5. Ask for the sale every time by asking closing questions.
By taking action on any one of the areas you'll see your membership sales increase.
