How to Get Value From an Association in the First Year

Why this matters

The first year of an association membership decides whether there is a second. Most owners who drop out after a year did the same thing: paid the dues, went to the annual dinner, read some of the newsletters, and saw nothing come back. The association was not useless; the member never got past the outer layer, where the value is thinnest. The real return sits in committees and in the conversations between members who know each other, and both take a few months to reach on purpose.

This card is a year-one plan: five steps, roughly in calendar order, followed through one shop. Choosing which association to join is its own card (see related: Trade Associations: What Membership Buys), and the antitrust line that governs every conversation with fellow members is another.

The shop in the example

A 9-person electrical contracting shop doing residential service and remodel work joins its state electrical contractors' association in January. The owner sets a budget of about 4 hours a month, roughly 48 hours for the year, which is the common starting point for a shop this size (see related: The Shop as a Citizen of Its Trade). He logs his association hours in the same place the shop logs internal time. Continuing-education classes his licensed electricians take through the association are training time, not participation time, and are logged separately.

The state association's local chapter meets every other month, six times a year, for about 3 hours including the drive.

Step 1: Attend twice before you commit to anything

Go to the first two chapter meetings with one goal: learn who does the work. Notice who chairs the committees, who the staff are, who stays after the meal talking shop, and which members run businesses like yours. Introduce yourself to the chapter president and the association staff person and ask one question: "Which committee is doing the most right now?"

Why: committees in most associations are run by a few people, and the ones that are active are not always the ones with the most interesting names. Two meetings is enough to tell the difference.

What breaks if you skip it: owners who volunteer at the first meeting tend to land on whatever committee needs a warm body, often an events committee, and spend the year planning a golf outing.

In the example: January and March chapter meetings, 3 hours each, 6 hours. He learns the safety and training committee is rewriting the association's apprentice study program and that the government affairs committee is following the state's adoption of a newer NEC edition.

Step 2: Join one committee, and only one

Pick the committee whose work touches a problem your shop has right now. Tell the chair what you can offer and how much time you have. Then show up to every meeting for the rest of the year.

Why: the committee is where an association's actual output is made: the code comments, the training program, the position on a bill. It is also where members get to know each other well enough to answer each other's calls. A member who attends one committee reliably is known by name in six months; a member who attends three committees occasionally is not known at all.

What breaks if you skip it: without a committee, a member's only contact with the association is the chapter meeting, which is mostly a meal, a speaker and announcements.

In the example: he joins the safety and training committee in March. It meets five more times that year, in April, June, August, October and December, about 2 hours each by video plus about an hour of reading before each, so 15 hours.

Step 3: Bring one real problem

Within the first few months, bring the committee or the chapter one specific problem your shop is facing and ask how others handle it. Choose a problem that is about running the work, not about prices, pay or customers, because those are the topics an association meeting cannot discuss (see related: Antitrust Lines for Associations and Owner Groups).

Why: asking for help is how you find out who in the room actually knows things. It also gives other members a reason to talk to you between meetings.

What breaks if you skip it: members who only listen leave the year with what the speakers said, which they could have read.

In the example: at the May chapter meeting he raises the problem that matters most to him: the shop's apprentices keep failing the load-calculation section of the state journeyman exam. The year before, both of his apprentices who sat for it failed. Three members describe how they handle it, and one, who runs a shop of similar size, offers to share the weekly study schedule his shop uses. He follows up with two calls over the summer, about 4 hours in all. The shop starts a one-hour weekly study group for its three current apprentices in June.

Step 4: Share one answer of your own

Somewhere in the year, offer something your shop does well: a short talk at a chapter meeting, a document the committee can use, a field example for a code comment. It does not have to be polished. Ten minutes on a method that saves you callbacks is worth more to a room of peers than a professional speaker on leadership.

Why: an association runs on members who give as well as take, and the people who share answers get asked onto the work that matters, including the government affairs and code roles where a working contractor's evidence carries weight.

What breaks if you skip it: you remain a consumer of the association, and in year two you will still be outside the conversations where the useful information moves.

In the example: at the September chapter meeting he gives a 15-minute talk on how his shop photographs every panel and service job before closing the walls, and how that has settled disagreements with inspectors without a re-inspection. Preparation takes about 3 hours. The chief electrical inspector for the county, who is at the meeting as a guest, asks for his slides.

Step 5: Measure what came back, in its own units

In the last month of the year, write down what came back. Not as a single number. List each return in the unit it actually arrived in: an exam result, a rule change learned early, a contact, an hour saved, a problem solved. Then list what did not deliver. Then decide what to keep for year two.

Why: what you get from an association arrives in several different currencies, and an owner who tries to convert them all into one number, or to divide them by the hours spent, ends up with a figure that means nothing and a decision based on it.

What breaks if you skip it: the renewal notice arrives in December, and the owner renews or quits on a feeling.

In the example, the hours: chapter meetings 6 times at 3 hours, 18 hours (the two in Step 1 are part of these). Committee, 15 hours. Follow-up calls on the exam problem, 4 hours. Talk preparation, 3 hours. Total 18 plus 15 plus 4 plus 3, which is 40 hours, against a budget of about 48.

What came back:

• Exam results. Two of the shop's three apprentices sat for the journeyman exam in November and both passed, against none of two the year before. The third sits next spring. Two passes is not proof the study group did it, but it is the change the owner was looking for.
• Early notice of a code change. Through the government affairs committee's report at chapter meetings, he learned in May that the state's adoption of the newer NEC edition would take effect the following July, with one state amendment affecting residential work. Training is scheduled for March, four months before the effective date.
• A working relationship with the inspector. After the September talk, a disputed interpretation in October was settled by one email with the chief inspector instead of a re-inspection.
• Peers he can call. Two owners he now speaks with between meetings.

What did not deliver: the association's insurance program quoted no better than his own agent did, and the supplier rebate program covered little of what the shop buys. Neither is a reason to leave, but neither should be counted as a benefit next year.

The year-two decision: renew, stay on the safety and training committee, and ask the government affairs chair whether he can help with the association's comment on the state's next round of licensing rule changes. Keep the budget at about 48 hours.

What changes the plan

A smaller shop. A 3-person shop working within a 2- to 4-hour monthly budget can still do all five steps, but the committee may need to be the only meeting it attends after the first two. Skip chapter dinners before skipping the committee.

An association in a busy year. If the state is adopting a new code edition or the licensing board has rules open, the government affairs committee may be the better first choice than training, because the window to influence the rule closes on a fixed date and training does not.

The owner is not the right member. Some committees, especially training and technical ones, get more from a senior tech than from the owner, because the tech has the field evidence and the owner has a shop to run. Nothing in the five steps requires the owner. If a lead tech takes the seat, count those hours against the shop's budget as hours off the schedule, and have the tech do Step 5 with the owner, so the decision about year two is made by the person who signs the renewal.

An association that does not deliver. If, after the full year and all five steps, the committee did nothing, nobody returned your calls, and the association never took a position on anything that affected you, the problem is probably the association rather than the method. Try its neighbor at the state or cross-trade level.

References

• See related: Trade Associations: What Membership Buys
• See related: The Shop as a Citizen of Its Trade
• See related: Antitrust Lines for Associations and Owner Groups
• See related: How to Get Appointed to a Licensing Board or Code Committee