First Aid

1. First Aid?

In the introduction, you read about the 2009 recovery effort that grew the club from 6 to 20 members in the space of a few months. While we did undertake advertising efforts to find new members, there were a lot of fundamentals we had to get back to as well, which included:

• Making sure our member list matched what TI had, and getting applications and checks in where they hadn't been turned in earlier
• Fixing incorrect web site info
• Shoring up our guest follow up procedures

This section is all about getting you some quick wins and simple processes in place so you can work on tougher overhauls. You may be doing some of these already, but it doesn't hurt to review them. In this lesson, we'll cover in-club procedures. The Online Audit lesson will cover your digital presence.

2. Prospect & Guest Process

One of the sources of common gaps for clubs in trouble is their handling of prospects (people who have expressed interest in the club by say, calling, e-mailing, or joining your Meetup group) and guests (people that have visited your club). If you aren't handling them in a consistent way, you risk losing possible new members. 

What you ultimately want is an excellent "out of the box" experience for your prospects and guests. Here's a checklist for that process that will touch on some of the aspects of this.

• If prospects want to contact you ahead of time, can they find out how to do so? Does the contact method work?
• When prospects do reach out to you, are they answered within 48 hours (preferably, 24)?
• When prospects attend a meeting for the first time, do they receive a new guest packet they can take home?
• When new guests attend, do you collect their information (name, e-mail, phone) for follow up contact? (that is, do you have and use a guestbook or other info capture tool?)
• Do you have members sit next to guests to answer questions they may have?
• Do you add guests to a mailing list within 48 hours after a meeting (with their permission, of course)?
• After new guests attend, does someone follow up with them to invite them back and offer to answer their questions within two days?
• Do you have a former member (mailing) list?
• Are you contacting former members and guests 2-3 days before your meeting with a meeting reminder?
• Are you asking guests (especially repeat guests) to join the club?
• When guests do join, are their applications processed within a week?
• After applications are processed, are new members setup with a new member orientation within two weeks or less, either in person or otherwise?

3. Other First Aid Checks

Here's a few other items to make sure you have in working order.

• If your club is at 12 or fewer members, have your president contact the Area Director to request a club coach. Don't wait for the club coach to show up to make reforms, however. 
• If you do not have a sign up sheet for upcoming meeting roles passed around by the VPE, start doing so. Review Setting Up the RDG Meeting for more.
• Begin making plans to do more intensive audits (as found later in this course).