Our associations require an intentional business approach to fulfill our missions. But what does high-performing business actually look like? That’s what PAR set out to determine in the inaugural season of the Association RevUP podcast. Over 20 association and industry professionals shared their insights during the season, and we've compiled eight defining elements of association business as identified by our experts. 

1. Transform Your Culture to Drive Lasting Change Across Your Association.

“Culture is the collection of words, actions, thoughts, and ‘stuff’ that clarifies and reinforces what is truly valued inside an organization...Culture is a tangible business tool for driving growth. The reason why culture is so important for driving growth is culture drives behavior.”
Jamie Notter, Author, Consultant, and Culture Strategist PROPEL, and PAR RevUP 2024 main stage speaker

Jamie Notter

Author, Culture Change Made Easy
Episode 1: RevUP Culture

2. Top Sales Leaders Are Those Who Lead Experts and Drive Innovation. 

“This is one of the most important things to me. It is so important to have everyone on your team be able to come to work, be themselves, contribute, feel like they can be innovative, and they're not going to be judged.”
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Jodi Ashcraft

American Psychological Association (APA)
Episode 2: RevUP Sales Leadership

3. Sales Outcomes are Rooted in Relationships, Not Quotas.

“We ask questions, to open up the opportunity to deliver the value propositions. How do I know if you care about my members if I didn't ask? How do I know if you care about events and if that's part of your marketing program, if I didn't ask? How do I uncover their needs?”
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Brittany Shoul

MCI
Episode 3: RevUP Sales Skills

4. Approach Partnerships Through Mutually Beneficial Relationships, Not Prospectuses.

“When we think about the different sponsorship levels, often we hear about gold, silver, bronze, platinum, wood, paper, whatever it may be. We want to move away from looking at it through this lens, because that places us in a box. [Developing partnerships] is not about having the magic touch. It's about being smart, being intentional, and taking the right steps.”
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Lewis Flax

Flax Associates
Episode 4: RevUP Partnerships

5. Understand that Corporations Value Your Work and Can Help You Achieve Your Mission.

“You are mission driven organizations. They are looking for mission driven organizations to talk to. And to them, maybe you don't always think about yourself this way. But associations are authority, you show authority in bringing together an association of like-minded people…It is a long game in terms of bringing in true dollars to your association.”
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Lori Zoss Kraska

Growth Owl LLC
Episode 5: RevUP Corporate Connections

6. Make Data-Driven Decisions To Make Your Association Essential, Not Just Relevant.

“Are [your stakeholders] looking to have more or less personalized experiences in the future? Are they looking to have more or less tailored value benefits in the future? And if the answer that you believe, like I do, is that [they want] more tailored and more value added experiences, then all of a sudden you're going to realize that you have to come to rely on the data more.”
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Joe Colangelo

Bear Analytics
Episode 6: RevUP Data to Drive Business

7. Embrace Risk and Leverage Technology to Propel Your Strategic Goals Forward.

“I think associations have generally been very risk averse. But in the technology and digital space where I've lived for most of my career, we need to be willing and able to take risks, because there are always going to be unknowns, and there are always going be things, if we want to drive revenue, we're going have to try stuff. And sometimes we're going to fail.”
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Thad Lurie

American Geophysical Union
Episode 7: RevUP Digital Strategy

8. Conquer Resistance to Change With a Clear Vision, Actionable Plan and Awareness of Dissatisfaction.

“We have to be dissatisfied enough relative we're just not going to worry about it. We're gonna go, 'Yeah I don't know. The discomfort of my current situation is not as uncomfortable as the change is going to be, so I'm not going to worry about it. I'm rather I'd rather live with the discomfort that I'm in right now rather than go through the discomfort of change.' Until that discomfort is high enough of the current situation nothing's going to change.” 
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Skot Waldron

Author | Unlocked
Episode 8: RevUP Change Management

Association RevUP: The Podcast That Will Get Everyone Talking about Revenue Health!

Listen to the entire 8-episode series to learn how to approach business so that everyone in your association values its impact on your mission. Each episode is 25-minutes or less and features experts from the association and industry community.