Attack Challenges as the Subject Matter Expert that You Are

Being a member of JAMA (Jacksonville’s Chapter’s of American Marketing Association), GREAT!

Being on the Board of Directors of JAMA, AWESOME!

Being given the opportunity to attend the AMA South East Region Conference in Atlanta, free of charge, FABULOUS!

Being asked to speak, at said conference, for 52 minutes on the subject of Membership, ugh – SCARY!!!

Our chapter won an award on the subject of Membership and so it seems fitting that AMA would ask the two who are attending from our chapter to speak on the subject. However, that was not one of the areas I covered. I’m the VP of Web and Interactive. My focus is the website and monthly publication advertisements, not Membership. Not to mention, I haven’t done any public speaking since my class in high school. No, I kid. Of course there were college classes, and, every job involves some amount of public speaking. Whether, it’s putting on a class to train employees or speaking to EVPs in persuasive manner as an authority on a website redesign technology subject, I’ve done it all before. It’s the time in between, the practice I’m afraid I haven’t had lately that makes it all scary.  Along with no speak of “Membership” in any of my jobs…ever.

I think I’m going to attack this project by thinking of the subject of Membership as trying to attract and keep customers/clients/users and then I’ll have 16 years of experience in marketing to talk about. Now that’s less scary. I think I’ve got this.

Next, How to Attract and Keep Members!

Update: I skipped writing that post due to other priorities. Still, I hope you enjoy the next posts.