Alumni Club Officers Group

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Comment by Scott Westerman on September 9, 2008 at 4:43pm

Building membership by building relationships:

Who is your best friend? We’ve all had at least one, that special person we could always count on to listen when we needed an ear, to help pick us up when we fell down, and to be there to add value at the most important moments in our lives.

It’s one of the laws of the universe that we love giving back to people who give selflessly to us. In Keith Ferrazzi’s classic guide to networking, “Never Eat Alone”, he states that you’ll get an exponential payback on your relationship investment if you give selflessly, without expecting anything in return.

At some point most alumni associations suffer from the perception that we’re all take and no give. Join us and you get the opportunity to spend money… on trips, credit cards and ultimately that big check to the development office. This is an especially big turn-off to recent grads who are struggling with career and cash-flow in a new town with a ton of new responsibilities.

So a key question we try to answer as a local alumni club is how to add enough value to earn the honor of their attention.

We’re facing this right now in New Mexico. Like every club, we have our spark plugs, the people who organize our athletic viewing parties, the folks who trail boss our adopt-a-block clean up projects and the folks who tirelessly raise money for our small scholarship program. But how do we expand our reach and build rewarding relationships with more of the Spartan faithful who live in our far flung environs?

Putting the Get Ahead of the Give:

We have a small committee who is reaching out to merchants in New Mexico to augment the national deals the Association has arranged. Show your MSU Alumni Association membership card in New Mexico and get a substantial discount on lift-tickets at our ski areas, save $200.00 off of your best deal at our participating auto dealers and get a free appetizer at the restaurant chain that hosts our Spartan sports parties. Get a 10% discount on the annual membership at our local health club (Albuquerque is the fittest city in America), or get added savings when you buy a new mountain bike at REI.

These are just a few of the arrangements we plan to have in place by the end of the year, along with a calculator on our nmspartans.com web page that shows exactly how much your annual membership dues can actually save you.

Adopting a Spartan

Relationships, at the core, are one-on-one. It’s about discovering a person’s dreams and helping them realize them. Most clubs have an eclectic enough group of active participants that there is almost always something a member will have in common with a new Spartan prospect. Train your group to do a subtle “needs assessment” with the individual and connect them with a member who fits their profile. This doesn’t need to be scientific, it happens all the time when you say, “you know, I know somebody you ought to meet.”

There’s a special window of opportunity when a new Spartan moves to town. When Colleen and I arrived in Albuquerque, one of our first contacts was with Tom LaMarre, our Land of Enchantment Chapter president. When we attended a gathering, the group was full of useful advice on neighborhoods, the best doctors and dentists, restaurants, even how to find the best airfares to get back to see our kids in Florida. Take time to help newcomers integrate into your community and your likely to gain an active club member in the process.

Like the Beach Boys say in Be True To Your School, “let your colors fly.” Spartan gear is a billboard that can work like a magnet. One of our faithful always wears Spartan apparel whenever he travels. He invariably finds a kindred spirit in the airport or a local event and many are pleased to know about our little gang.

My closest friends are the people I met at Michigan State and at there was a Spartan involved at every twist and turn of my life’s adventures. I’m reminded daily of how important these relationships are and am proud to be giving back a little of my time, talent and treasure to the institution that made it all possible.

Our goal as a local alumni club is to create more “best friends” who happen to have MSU as the common thread. If we can do it, we’ll blow by every membership goal and build a self perpetuating organization that truly makes the world a better place.