Toastmasters in Austin

It seems like most clubs’ number one concern is building membership.

This post is going to focus specifically on getting more guests. If a club doesn’t have the systems in place to convert guests to members that’s another issue. In fact, if you have more than 25 members, you should probably be focusing more on club quality than quantity. Yes, get your 8 new members each year but see to it that as many of those new members get their CCs and CLs as possible.

Getting more guests is more or less the same as getting more customers to a business or more traffic to a website. The idea is to make sure that you’re offering a real value and people know you’re out there. With the Toastmasters brand, the value is mostly covered. The task then becomes communicating that value so that people will hear about you and pay attention.

The next step is to figure out how many guests you want. If you just want one or two, you’re probably okay passively waiting for people to find you through your website (you have one, right?). Or maybe you can promote a word of mouth membership campaign in your club.

If you’re a club less than charter strength (20), you ought to at least go for that. The reason one of the distinguished club goals (DCP) is to get 8 new members a year is that’s the average attrition for a charter strength club. So you’d probably want to go for 25 or more members so you don’t fall below charter strength again.

If you’re looking for more than a couple of guests, here are some strategies:

• Have a special meeting (open house, guest speaker, etc) and promote it outside the club
• Hold a Speechcraft (basically an intro to Toastmasters multi-week course for the public)
• Distribute Toastmasters magazines or club newsletters with your contact info on them
• Put out fliers at local establishments
• Go talk to HR people at nearby companies (or your own if you’re a corporate club)
• Promote contests or other events
• Attend networking/business events
• Send press releases or calender listings to local newspapers
• Start an ezine with helpful communication and leadership tips
• Look for ways to take advantage of social networking opportunities
• If parking is an issue, look for guests from companies within walking distance
• Brainstorm more ideas with your membership (there’s nothing like ownership to light a fire)

District and TI have a few resources to help too.

• If your club has less than 12 members, you’re eligible to get a club coach.
• TI has a manual How to Rebuild a Toastmasters Club.
• If you’re not familiar with any of the above programs, a district officer can help explain them.

At one of the officer trainings, Steve Lockwood presented a plan that was used by a club to go from 8 members to 24 in 6 months. It cites District 21 as having received it from a club in District 4. Here’s how that one went:

Scenario:

• The club had only 8 members. Four of them were new to TM.
• Club morale was low. Members were busy with no extra time for the club.
• Sound hopeless?

Solution:

• Club members committed to a Six Point Plan which involved every member in publicizing and promoting the club.
• The goal was to achieve maximum results with minimal resources.
• Six members committed to complete one project each.
• Each project involved two hours of work per month.
• The seventh member, VP Membership, oriented guests who came to the club.
• The eighth member coordinated the effort.

The Six Projects in the Six Point Plan:

1. One of the new members posts fliers once a month in the community.
2. Another new member submits calender listings once a month to local newspapers.
3. Another new member (halfway to their CC) organized a demonstration meeting 4 weeks in advance and personally invited every former member and guest.
4. An experienced member coordinated a Speechcraft over 4 weeks.
5. Another experienced member wrote a 5 part series on Toastmasters for a local health and fitness organization (Communication Skills, Self Expression, Building Self Confidence, Overcoming Fear, and Leadership).
6. Another experienced member did monthly presentations for 3-5 local companies on “How Toastmasters Can Benefit Your Business.”

The point here is that you can get results if you band together with your club members and execute a plan everyone is enthusiastic about.

Incidentally, I checked the DCP reports for the last 5 years for the club cited for that 6 point plan. They’ve been fluctuating between 14-17 members the whole time and are currently at 14. I guess they could use another plan.

My personal opinion is that if you’re down to 6-8 members with 2-5 attending and no one really cares anymore, it’s okay to close the club. Of course it hurts district stats but it can give Toastmasters a bad name to have clubs like that. Either decide to be a solid club or go find something more valuable to do with your time. Don’t get complacent in mediocrity.

If you have any other ideas on how to get guests (not necessarily on converting them to members per se), please leave a comment.