First Aid

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?