Strategies for the VP Membership

As the VP Membership of the club, your one main goal is to follow up with the guests and coax them into becoming club members. It is as important for the club to get new members as it is to retain existing members. Constant addition of new members ensures the club’s survival in the long run and brings about new learning for the current members.

There are two golden rules that we followed in our club to push guest conversions.

1. Each guest received an email containing details of Toastmasters educational program, fee structure, club details and success stories from our club right after they attended the first meeting as a guest.
2. The VP Membership’s job would invite each guest to attend our meeting exactly three times. By the end of three follow ups, either the guest should convert into a member or the VP membership would give up on them. Each of us has limited time and it’s wise to invest them on potential members rather than spend on guests who wouldn’t.

As is apparent, it can become tough for the VP membership to keep track of the follow up status on multiple guests showing up at meetings or showing interest in general. There is a high risk of missing out on a couple of potential members simply due to lack of follow up.

To resolve this, we devised a brilliant Excel sheet that helped the VP Membership keep track of the current status of each guest at any moment. You will find the excel sheet attached at the bottom but below is a snapshot of the sheet.

Here are some notes to help you understand how to use the excel sheet

1. The first four columns are self explanatory
2. Column 5 is to record the date someone first shows up as a guest. This helps you have a time reference.
3. The 6^th column is to record if you have sent the guest mail discussed above to the guest. Check this column only if you have sent the mailer to ensure no guest is accidently left out.
4. The 7^th column is to record reference – essentially how did the guest landed to your club. It can be through your facebook page, website or through one of your club member. If the source was one of the club members, this info can be helpful in future to fill in the sponsor name or in coaxing him/her to become a member with a push from the reference.
5. The 8^th column is to record the date of first follow up with the guest while the 9^th column is to record if the guest attended the meet or not after the first follow up. Similarly the 10^th and 11^th column are for the second follow up while the 12^th and 13^th are for the third and last follow up.
6. The final column (14^th) is to record the final outcome. If the guest turned into a member or asked for some time to finish some personal commitments first in which case you can record a future follow up date or simply showed no interest in the club.

There is one another purpose the excel sheet serves. This excel sheet becomes a permanent record for future VP memberships of the club as well. At any point of time, future VP memberships can refer this sheet to have a look at the guests in the past, contact them if they are interested now or just find patterns / trends to decode.

Finally here is the excel sheet. Go ahead. Download it now. It’s free.

Do you think the excel sheet is helpful. Let us know.