The Value of Membership

One of the benefits of being a member of the National Tractor Parts Dealer Association is our Scholarship Program. Since 1992 NTPDA has been awarding college scholarship funds to deserving students of our members. To date your association has delivered 510 scholarships with a value of $461,250.

Think of that for just a moment. We have been able to impact the lives of several hundred young people because the NTPDA Board has seen the value in sharing our good fortune with our member families. It's called a return on investment.

True, you can invest in a host of other groups but here, at the National Tractor Parts Dealer Association our mission is to provide our members with service, value and business training. It's what we do on a daily basis.

This year NTPDA has awarded nine scholarships at $1,000 each. NTPDA kicks in $750 per student and the sponsoring member adds $250 to hit the one-thousand dollar mark. Be looking for our Summer Bulletin for the names of our scholarship winners.

We're proud to be able to help train the next generation of business leaders and grateful that you and your business are part of our continuing effort to offer concrete reasons for membership.

Don't you think this is something we should share with others?

 

Doubling Our Membership

Over the weekend several of us were talking about membership, the life-blood of any organization including the National Tractor Parts Dealer Association. It came to us that there are three things any organization must do to recruit and retain members:

• Let Perspective Members Know You Exist
• Provide Value for Membership
• Ask 

Of the three NTPDA does a bang up job of providing members with value. Our website lists nearly two-dozen benefits. We also are pretty good at providing an opportunity to network, sell and learn during our Annual Conference and Trade Show. And, we're always here to help boost our members through our social media efforts.

Where we fall down a bit is in letting perspective members know we exist, sharing the benefits and making the ask. Sure we share information among our existing members through a wide variety of means from blogging to emails the quarterly NTPDA Bulletin. But, that is sort of like an echo chamber...we're talking among ourselves. For retention that is important but what about...growth?

The former Membership Committee had some ideas including outreach efforts, inviting potential members to our Annual Conference and reducing first year dues. Maybe it's time to ramp up the "Idea Machine" again...

Or what if each of us asked another supplier or a competitor to join our ranks. If we all committed to asking one additional person or company to join us and clearly laid out the case for value we could double our membership by January.

Perhaps it's something to ponder but more importantly just...do.

We'd love to hear your thoughts. Shoot us an email or comment here on the blog.

Thanks for reading and thank you for your membership!