Membership Recruitment Efforts Pay Off for SMCs
May brought stellar recruitment efforts by many SMCs who participated in NAHB’s National Membership Day. The results have been tallied and the four SMCs who won the contest for recruiting the most new members in the month of May are…

• Group 1: 10-49 Members
  HBA of Greater Southwest Illinois
• Group 2: 50-99 members 
  Gold Coast Builders Association
• Group 3: 100-249 members 
  HBA of Metro Orlando
• Group 4: 250+ members
  HBA of Greater Cincinnati

The SMCs win a $200 voucher for The NAHB University of Housing materials, recognition at the NSMC and IRM Board of Trustees meeting at Fall Board, and recognition in Sales + Marketing Ideas magazine.

Each SMC succeeded by different means, showing that SMCs should tailor their membership recruitment and retention to the local market, and match it with their volunteer capabilities.

The SMC of Greater Cincinnati encourages member involvement in the recruitment process, and has had great success with their membership campaign: “All Aboard the SMC,” explained SMC Staff Contact Leah Stephenson. They incorporated a multi-pronged strategy for recruiting new members — from the actual recruitment process to strengthening the perceived value of membership. One aspect was to solicit more sales managers to participate on the Steering Committee, which solidified the leadership on the committee and got more companies actively involved. Another approach was to schedule Real Estate office presentations to “inform the Realtor community of the council and all it has to offer,” said Stephenson. “Our Realtor membership has grown from 10% to 27%.” 

Finally, the SMC developed a list of the “Top 10 Reasons to be a Member,” which they distributed at New Member Orientations and to potential members. The final creative idea was to bring in national speaker Nikki Joy at the general membership meeting, and to give away prizes to any member who brought a non-member to the meeting that signed up that day.  “It was the collective effort of the committee and the activities they scheduled that made our membership drive the success it was this year,” said Stephenson.

For the second time in three years, the SMC of Greater Southwest Illinois has brought in the most new members for their SMC group size.  One of their keys to success was executing a three-hour phone blitz at a sports bar, complete with food and drink, and followed by a reception afterwards. In addition “the ace in the hole” for the SMC is “the personal involvement of an enthusiastic team of volunteers,” said Jerry Rombach, SMC Staff Contact and Executive Officer. Rombach boils their success down to these simple principles: “persistence, pleasant volunteers, and a schedule of worthwhile programs and events.”

The SMC of Metro Orlando credits several key pieces of their membership drive that made it so successful. One was to develop an education program that was free to anyone who joined the SMC by May 20, explained Shelley Klaproth, SMC Staff Contact. During a two-hour phone-a-thon the membership team called “key people in the industry and their own contacts to share the benefits of membership as well as the special education program,” said Klaproth. “They did a terrific job of focusing on sales managers and top-level people that would be able to make the decision to join multiple members of their staff.”

The SMC of Gold Coast Builders Association credits their success to the leaders on the Board of Trustees, “who created a vision, a mission, and followed through on their commitment to be the resource for sales and marketing professionals in the home building industry,” explained Judy Moyses Nichols, SMC Staff Contact.  Another driving force of their SMC is the strength of their education program, which promotes and encourages NAHB and IRM designations. Finally, “not to be forgotten, is also a terrific membership and education department that meets the needs of all our SMC members!” adds Nichols. 

While each SMC may use different programs and events to recruit and keep new members, each SMC reached their success with a team a volunteers and leaders who are committed to membership recruitment. Stay tuned to next month’s NSMC eNews when we tackle the difficult question of how to increase volunteer participation.