He Invaded My Space
Posted on April 30th, 2009 by Cynthia D'Amour
I totally rejected him.
Last night James was at a meeting.
- I got in my extreme comfy clothes.
- (Not for public viewing)
- And settled in to read a great book.
I saw the salesman approach.
- He tried to ring the doorbell.
- (It doesn’t work - on purpose.)
- He wouldn’t give up.
He looked in the window of our front room.
- Saw me immersed in my book.
- Walked back and opened our screen door.
- Pounded relentlessly on our door.
I was ticked.
- If I wanted to talk I would open my door.
- But he had seen me.
- And was even more determined.
I was NOT a happy camper.
- I gathered Raindrop the attack dog.
- Cracked the door open.
- Told him I wasn’t interested.
He was furious!
- How dare I not listen to his pitch?
- (His company was recently identified as a scam, why would I?)
- He threatened me he would return.
I wished him well.
- Shut the door firmly.
- Made a lot of noise flipping the locks.
- And watched him leave my yard.
Today I’m buying a “No Solicitation” sign.
Makes me think of chapter leaders…Do you know (and honor) how and when your volunteers want to hear from you?
Filed under: Adventures of Raindrop, Getting More Members Involved, Volunteers
I know for the couple of associations I belong to I would say that I get spammed by two out of the three. That’s not a good thing. I don’t need to hear from my association unless it something important and I think that’s what associations have a hard time figuring out, what are “need to know” communications. I don’t want to hear about EVERY program you have going on, I want a place where I can look that up. And by the simple fact that you have the need to send me an email about every program going on (though most of the time I end up deleting the email after a 1 second glance) you are making it less likely that I will visit the “event calendar” and find the programming that is relevant to me.
Associations sabotage themselves when they over promote themselves. Think about what resources can they offer that will attract people in, instead of doing the traditional push marketing.
I’m sure most people can guess one of the two associations I’m talking about with this. And though they’ve made “attempts” to listen, their fear and panic about the attendance of their events have over-ridden what I as a member want and therefore make them come off as desperate to have people attend (and therefore less likely that I will consider attending). The events I have attended I have received one or two communications on and I registered b/c of the quality of programming, or at least a couple of sessions that I did not want to miss. It’s a fine balance that people need to strike between promotion and over promotion of services and events.
Lynn, you raise some great points.
Do you think it’s realistic to expect associations to deliever customized messaging - what you want, when you want it and how you want it? How would they know the answers to those questions? Just curious. I don’t know the depth of major association databases.
What about local chapters run by volunteers? You may not be able to customize yet to the standards above, but you can do some. How are you offering your message in different ways?