Association Station

Bill Bell is senior vice president of sales at Fox Associates, a team of integrated media sales specialists. Fox Associates represents membership associations on behalf of their advertising sales. Fox has been around for over 50 years, and Bill has been with Fox since 2001, successfully working with national accounts in all major cities and categories.

Before that, Bill held sales positions with the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, and Sunset Magazine.

Topics covered:

• How good sales teams represent associations and their publications and media.
• What the media landscape looks like today and how that affects sales.
• The differences and challenges when selling for associations, rather than B2B.
• How a sales funnel works.
• What content people should consider as they select and begin working with a sales team.
• Why reader surveys still matter.
• Where digital versus print ads stand today.
• Examples of products that associations can sell to earn non-dues revenue.
• The details of how one white paper was created by a company and promoted to members.

Resources:

Fox Associates

Bill's email address: [email protected]

Fox Tales newsletter

Today's guest is KiKi L'Italien, the owner of the consulting firm Amplified Growth; she trains association staff and speaks on a number of topics, particularly trust, community and membership. She helps organizations develop stronger ties between their mission and their members, honing her approach to communications and strategy for many organizations—nonprofits and corporate alike—including Optica, American Red Cross national headquarters, QVC and the American Institute of Architects.

KiKi is also a senior consultant with Tecker International and speaks regularly about management strategy, including digital strategy, and cultivating communities of trust.

She is also the creator and host of Association Chat, an online community, blog and podcast.

Kiki was featured in 2021 by Cvent as one of the 20 Event Professionals You Should be Following and in August 2021 as 30 Nonprofit IT Influencers to Follow in 2021 by BizTech magazine.

KiKi has served on the membership and component relations section councils for ASAE and was recognized in 2019 at IMEX as a Hall of Fame recipient for Organizational Leadership by the Association for Women in Events. Other awards include BizBash Top 1000 People in the U.S. Event Industry (2019) and SURGE Innovation Pioneer (2018).

She is the current president of the Woman's Club of Wenonah, New Jersey.

Topics covered:

• How she got started in associations.
• How the #AssnChat tweet chat and hashtag was created and how it has grown into a larger community.
• What associations need to be focusing on with their digital strategy. Hint: Figure out how important your legacy programs are and whether you should keep them around.
• Should you keep those programs you created during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic?
• Why cross-training staff and keeping up with staff training is critical right now, especially during the Great Resignation.
• Why you need to capture and write down the processes for various roles.
• The importance of trust in associations—with members, with staff leaders and co-workers, with your content.
• Distrust has become exacerbated in times of uncertainty, such as the #MeToo movement, Black Lives Matter and the COVID-19 pandemic.
• How to endeavor trust in member relations and content.
• How much trust do you have in yourself? Do you keep your promises to yourself?
• How the pandemic increased local and regional member participation.

Resources:

• AssociationChat.com
• Association Chat Knowledge Hub
• Association Chat YouTube videos
• Association Chat Facebook group
• Tecker International Blog
• Kiki on LinkedIn
• Kiki on Twitter

Today's guest is Sarah Black, a longtime association content creator and strategist who lives in New Jersey. Over the past 15 years, Sarah has honed a career focused on strategic content and publishing innovation.

In January 2022, she became the vice president of content and communications for the American Society of Plant Biologists, where she focuses on community engagement, publishing operations, and data and metrics analysis in content development.

Before that, she worked at an association management company, as director of content and creative. There, over about nine years, she worked with more than 20 associations to innovate their content game, strengthen their publications and drive strategic messaging.

I spoke with Sarah about how she thinks about the connection of content and membership and, more specifically, how an association's content plays an integral part in their membership strategy and goals.

Topics covered:

• Switching careers from content creation to publishing operations and strategy.
• Associations that have an entrepreneurial mindset and what that means.
• How content serves as both a member recruitment tool and member retention tool.
• Giving away a lot of content means you're focused on member recruitment and engagement, but it can challenging for retention.
• Locking down content—behind a paywall, for example—is more focused on member retention, but it makes it harder for potential members to get to know you, to want to join your association.
• Providing content to potential members through a "free membership" tier.
• Figuring out how to operationalize a successful new program among all the demands on staff time—and investing in those resources.
• Creating a committee of members that brainstorms an annual editorial/content calendar—and then brings in the content as a way of building their network.

Resources:

• Sarah on LinkedIn
• Sarah's email address: [email protected]

Randy Townsend, MPS, who lives in the DC area, has been director of publishing operations at the Public Library of Science (PLOS) since November 2021. Before that, he spent 16 years at the American Geophysical Union. Randy was also recently elected president-elect of the Society for Scholarly Publishing.

At PLOS, Randy translates organizational vision and mission into clear priorities and practical goals to ensure alignment and collaboration. He has been a leader in policy implementation and journal strategy.

In June 2022, Randy finished his term on the AM&P Network's Associations Council Advisory Board. He was also on the Executive Advisory Board of AM&P Network and chaired the organization's diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Randy is also the inaugural editor-in-chief of the GW Journal of Ethics in Publishing and is an associate professor of the MPS in Publishing program in the College of Professional Studies at George Washington University in DC.

Topics covered:

• What is scholarly publishing?
• Why Randy took the position at PLOS after 16 years at AGU.
• How Randy approaches scholarly publishing and aims to create a "happy path," or a smooth journal and peer-review process.
• What his recent election as president-elect of the Society for Scholarly Publishing will entail.
• Why Randy wanted to help college students launch George Washington University's Journal of Ethics in Publishing (he's the journal's first editor-in-chief).
• Tips on launching a journal, including pulling together a strong editorial board.
• Why diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work is important to Randy.
• How he started to get involved in DEI in the workplace when he and others encouraged discussions around harassment, bullying and discrimination.
• The positive DEI efforts associations are undertaking.
• The need to protect people who speak out on DEI issues.

Resources:

• Randy on LinkedIn
• Randy on Twitter
• Society for Scholarly Publishing
• GW Journal of Ethics in Publishing
• Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC)
• C4DISC's antiracism toolkits

Randy Ford, of Chicago, is the owner of First Story Strategies. He is a writer, storyteller, and communication coach. He creates content at the intersection of people, policy, and progress. His work is supported by his experience working on Capitol Hill for a congressional representative for 10 years.

Randy has been using the principles of story for more than 20 years as a writer, journalist, media strategist, and political aide. He started his career as a radio journalist in his home state of Tennessee and led award-winning team coverage on the impact of tax policy on individuals and families.

Then, he headed to Capitol Hill in DC, where for 10 years he was a senior aide to a member of Congress. Next, he joined LRG Public Affairs, heading up content, editorial, strategic communications, and event services for nonprofit, for-profit, and government clients.

Topics covered:

• Why Randy loves working with membership associations.
• How he approaches working with an association client.
• How to do a communications or content audit.
• How to build a successful relationship with a consultant or freelancer.
• Matching communications messaging and breaking down siloes.
• The silver lining of the pandemic: the growth in connecting worldwide, without requiring in-person meetings.
• Engaging in empower or affinity groups of larger organizations.
• Repurposing content, particularly from events and conferences.
• How to repurpose conference videos in multiple ways.
• The impact that member stories can have in state legislatures and Congress.

Resources:

• FirstStoryStrategies.com
• Randy's email address: [email protected]
• Randy on Twitter
• Association of Consultants to Nonprofits

Stacy Brooks Whatley is director of marketing and communications at the American Physiological Society (APS). As a director since 2019, she oversees media relations, social media, website content strategy, the award-winning I Spy Physiology blog, and overall communications outreach for APS. She is also editor-in-chief of the award-winning The Physiologist Magazine, APS' member-focused publication that relaunched in 2019.

Stacy devotes much of her time at work helping APS members—primarily biomedical researchers with PhDs—learn how to better communicate their research to the media, the general public and other researchers.

This podcast host, Melanie Padgett Powers, works with Stacy as managing editor of The Physiologist Magazine. The two have known each other since 2005 when they became communications co-workers—and fast friends—at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).

Stacy is also the new president of AM&P Network's Associations Council (formerly Association Media and Publishing or AM&P), as of June 21, 2022.

Topics covered:

• Engaging and featuring more than just the super volunteers in your content.
• Using a "Let us get to know you" form.
• Using member photos rather than stock photos.
• Sending birthday emails to members.
• Deciding what to cover and through which vehicle—while not getting distracted by the shiny object.
• Creating a web presence or content hub for a print-first magazine.
• The life-changing flexibility of working from home since the pandemic started.
• Creating "collective" work-life boundaries as a staff.
• Analyzing what would make your work life better.
• Lessons from Tonya Mosely: "rest as a radical concept for women of color."
• Lessons from trauma therapist Resmaa Menakem.
• Becoming AM&P Network's Associations Council new president in June 2022.
• The community, education and support Stacy has received from AM&P Network over the years.
• Associations Council's vibrant freelance community, including the sole proprietor membership category and Freelance Connections Committee.

Resources:

• www.physiology.org
• The Physiologist Magazine
• Podcast Truth Be Told with Tonya Mosely
• Resmaa Menakem
• AM&P Network's AMPLIFY Summit, June 22–23, 2022
• Stacy on LinkedIn
• Stacy's email address: [email protected]

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