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The Art Of Getting People To Show Up
By Marsha Egan
Remember the good old days when you sent everyone a reminder letter, maybe stuck a note on a notice board and all your members showed up at your meetings? How about when you gave the date of the next meeting at the preceding meeting, everyone noted it in their diaries there and then, and that was it?
Why doesn't it happen like that any more? Are people too busy, working longer hours? Are there too many other commitments competing for their attention? Are people these days just plain less loyal or less willing to turn up? Whatever the reason, and it may be different for each person, organisations - whether it's a charity, church or religious group, work-related group, community organization or simply a hobby or social club, all now have to compete hard for peoples' attention, and it can be a tough contest. So, if you're part of a group and you're struggling to get your members to attend your meetings, you're not alone.
Besides, it's not the end. We can still get people through the door, but it takes a bit of effort and a fundamental change in the way we seek to attract people to come.
Here are three key factors in getting people to turn up consistently:
1. Have a Really Great Program
Sounds like a no-brainer, doesn't it? Unfortunately, many meetings simply fail miserably at this. We're not necessarily talking about having fantastic speakers all the time, it's all about making sure that, whatever you put on, your participants will enjoy, appreciate, and/or value it. Your aim is to make people glad they attended. If they aren't, you don't have a great program.
Part of getting this right is to know what your attendees want and need and, to do this; you need to know them. The more you know your audience, the better you can design great programs that will keep them coming back for more. That said; make sure you keep it varied. Here are a few ideas:
- Use icebreakers to get the participants warmed up.
- Create networking or get-to-know-each-other activities for the group
- Have a great speaker on a topic of interest to the group
- Facilitate group table discussions to keep it interactive
- Present a skit to the audience for variety
- Always end on time - it'll keep them coming back
2. Get Rid of the adminis-trivia
Man, I hate this! You know what I mean by administrivia - no one wants to listen to someone read out the minutes of the last meeting, or some dull, rambling committee report. Before you know it, you've filled a meeting with admin which the participants could read at their leisure. There are loads of alternatives to boring the proverbial pants off your audience - send your minutes out ahead of time, leave copies of announcements on the tables, and set time limits on committee reports if they really must be read out instead of taken away. The more adminis-trivia you have, the less time you can spend on things people are really interested in, and the less people will want to come to your meeting.
3. Market Your Meeting
People won' come to your meeting out of duty unless they absolutely have to. They're also unlikely to come purely out of habit these days. So, why will they come? You've got to make people WANT to come to your meeting, which means making it worth their while. Think of all the competing demands on your audience - they could be watching TV, at the gym, at the movies, or with their families. You've got to make them choose your group over their other options.
Here's where your sales skills come in, and also some preparation. You'll need some advance publicity, enticing meeting announcements, and some teasers on what they'll miss if they don't turn up. How many event advertisements have you seen where the dinner entree was advertised but not the program? Your audience can get better lasagna elsewhere, so tell them about the things that are exclusive to your meeting!
The meeting announcement should give at least three really great reasons why your audience should come to the meeting. These are an advertisement, so you need them to sell the person on coming to that meeting! Don't just announce who the speaker is; tell them why the audience will want to hear what the speaker has to say. The audience isn't interviewing the speaker for a job, so don't tell them their resume, tell them why they are such a good speaker about this subject, and why this is a great opportunity for them. Don't say there will be 'networking time' - you can get that on the subway or in the staff dining area! Get them excited about why this meeting is a particularly good place to make some excellent business contacts. The more you market your meetings, the better chance you have of people showing up.
Whenever anyone is promoting anything, whether it's a meeting or event, a piece of business news to a sale or special offer, I like to challenge them to answer the question: "Why should people care?" with at least three good, solid reasons. If you don't know why they should care, neither will they! When you know why your meeting will be great, then you'll be able to communicate that so much better to others which, in turn, will bring people to your fantastic meeting - and they'll thank you for it!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marsha Egan, CPCU, PCC is CEO of The Egan Group, Inc., a Reading, PA based professional coaching firm. She is a certified workplace productivity coach and professional speaker, specializing in leadership development and can be reached at marsha@marshaegan.com or visit www.InboxDetox.com.
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