I brought home a lot of ideas from Convention. I have discussed several at our recent Board meetings. I also promised to share that information on the blog for all of the leaders in our club (that includes everyone)! I hope you gain as much from the following as I did. (Please note: this is my interpretation of the “Charge Into the Future” training session from Convention, 2010. For more information please visit the website for Cynthia D’Amour, Leadership Strategist by clicking here.)

Be A Lazy Leader

I know some of you just gasped at reading that. What? A lazy leader? How will our club ever survive? Well it’s quite simple. Imagine having one person give 110% to Quota. They are busy taking care of all the details, overseeing many things at once, dipping their hands into everything that is going on within the club. Now picture one person who is only giving 60%. She is having fun, she is able to bring more people to the club because she has the time. Her friends and fellow club members see that she is getting things done and is delegating tasks. Each one of us has our own special talents. For instance: don’t ask me to take care of Treasurer’s Reports, that is NOT what I’m good at, but I can manage the blog. I digress, our 60% member has now brought in seven other people, each giving anywhere between 20-40%. Remember the Martyr Leader? She’s stressed out, burnt out and is headed toward a melt-down. She didn’t want to let Quota down and knew that if she didn’t do things, nothing would get done. Let’s look at those eight members whose total percent of “giving” equals 200% (estimated on the low side). See how more people are more effective at being lazy, than one person who is being a martyr?

Okay, now you know how to be lazy, the members will start pouring in right? They will if you know how to approach them. We have to paint a vivid picture of who Quota is. If you want someone to join Quota, do you tell them why you joined? That’s a great way to start the conversation, but even before you get to that point, you should start from the beginning. What are they looking for?

Hot Buttons

• Personal/Professional Development
• Contribution to a greater good
• Community

Let me start by explaining the Hot Buttons. When you’re talking to someone about Quota and you’re trying to get them as excited about it as you are, the best way to do that is to find their hot buttons. What are they interested in. What is important to them. If you are talking to them telling them how much you love Quota because it gives you the chance to serve others, but they are really looking for a social group, then you’ve not only missed their hot button, but you’ve lost their attention. If you start off by asking what they are interested in, then you can hit their hot button because Quota really does relate to all three. Let me explain how.

The first one in that list is Personal/Professional Development. Do you know some companies hold training sessions that cost their employees $200-$300/session? We offer the same development through our speaker’s for our one year’s dues. Did you ever think to look at it that way? I certainly had not. It can be one more persuasive tool when speaking to someone about Quota.

Next is Contribution to a greater good. In other words: Service. That’s what we do in Quota. We help those in need. We provide many service opportunities throughout the year.

Last is Community. Before each meeting we hold a social time. We catch up with each others latest news. We have fun, we laugh and we get together outside of Quota too. Perhaps the person you are talking to wants to meet more people or even network with other business women. That’s what we do and who we are!!!

Great! Now you can find out what the potential Quota member is looking for and tell her how Quota meets her needs. We need to remember to focus on what we are and who we are helping.

One good way to bring in outside people is through our service projects. We have a walk coming up. Have you asked everyone you know to join in a walk around the park? You don’t have to ask everyone for money, but if you ask them to walk then you’ve opened to door of Quota to them. By asking someone from the outside to join us for a service project, they’ll see how much fun we have and they’ll get to know Quota better.

I will leave you with this quote from Cynthia,

“If not you then who? If not now then when?

The Communications Team met on 8/5/10 and developed some nifty plans for publicizing our year’s activities.  We have developed a calendar and identified which activities will be highlighted each month.  Team members will interview the project leader to get specifics, and we will publish to the blog, Facebook, websites, and issue press releases to other media.  Click here for our Event Communications 2010-11 tool.

Ginny sent a card to the club thanking us for the flowers we sent. The card reads: (outside) “For A Special Friendship… (inside) To My Caring Friends I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate our friendship and I’m glad we have each other to always count on. -Thanks a million”

She included the following letter:

“I walked outside to feed my dog (Sandy) and there on the table on my porch was a gorgeous plant from Eastern Floral.

The big blue and white container held a plant with big green leaves and delicate white flowers called Cyclamen. Beautiful! You made me feel like the queen of the show. Quota friends really do care. Thank you and thank you again.

My agenda does not include losing my balance over nothing and injuring my hip again. See you soon and I hope with out a cane which I put down and can’t find most of the time.”

Ginny

Mark your calendars, Grand Rapids is hosting the 65th District 20 Conference! More information will be coming soon, but we have the dates verified as May 20th- 22nd,  2011.

Click here to see our video invitation.

Gov. Betty Weston wanted to make sure that we saw the following that was published in the Q.I. Leadership e-Alert, March 2010 (see the last bullet point):

TO:  Quota Leaders

RE:  Leadership e-Alert –10 March 2010

Welcome to a new issue of the LEADERSHIP e-ALERT, an e-newsletter created to support Quota club leaders worldwide. Members can receive this e-newsletter by joining the Friend of Quota Program. Contact Kristen Cowen at kristen@quota.org or (202) 331-9694 for details; in the South Pacific Area, contact Beris Pritchard at berisp@worldoptions.com.au.

3. COMMUNICATING IN QUOTA

• Connect with Quota International On-Line

Quota members around the world have more ways to communicate with each other via Quota’s new on-line features. Our new Facebook page allows members to keep up with Quota events and friends like never before. You also can find us on Twitter and LinkedIn. The Quota Express is another way to share news. It’s an on-line news board linked to www.quota.org where members can post articles and photos about happenings in their clubs, districts, and areas. Look for the link on the Quota Home Page and let us know what’s going on in your part of Quota’s World.

• U.S. District Creates Blog and Teaches “Facebooking”

District 12 established a blog in late 2009 to improve communications. The district includes the Quota clubs of Alameda-Oakland, Cupertino , Monterey Peninsula , Mountain View – Los Altos , and San José . Each club can update information on the site and use their own blog pages on the District site for club communications instead of creating separate web sites. Have a look at www.quotaD12.org.The district will hold workshops on “Facebooking” to help clubs improve their publicity efforts. The district and each club have already set up custom Facebook links. Check out http://www.facebook.com/QuotaMVLA and  http://www.facebook.com/QuotaD12

• Club Drops Newsletter Format for Blog

Many Quota clubs, districts, and areas now use the Internet to communicate, at least in part. QI of Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.A., now keeps in touch exclusively on-line. Years ago, the club turned their newsletter into an e-publication, sent electronically to members to eliminate printing costs. In December 2009, the club stopped the e-newsletter and began using a blog format that can be updated easily and more frequently. Check it out at www.quotagr.com/blog.

Way to go Q.I. Grand Rapids and our Communications Team!! And welcome to our visitors. Please give us your feedback.

TREASURE HUNT

In Fall, 2009, members were invited on a “Treasure Hunt“.  If you’ll recall, the invitation was to “join us in a Treasure Hunt that will take you to the far reaches of…….The Blog!”

Several members participated and scored points by commenting on existing posts, by creating their own new posts, and by entering tags and categories on the posts they created.

Fabulous treasures await the winners ………at the February 18, 2010 Quota meeting.

EVENTS

Our thanks to Joyce for taking photographs at the January membership event!  You can see some of the photos in the Membership update for February 2010.

Q-STAR

An email was sent to all Quotarians providing “Q-Star” Step by Step instructions for signing onto the blog.  Just as “On-Star” provides guidance to motorists, Q-Star can provide guidance in navigating our website.

OTHER

Committee chairs were provided a schedule of the dates to post their updates to the Blog:  each committee should post something between the 5th and the 11th of the month.  (Since we’re just getting started on this, the deadline for February has been extended to the 15th.)

The purpose of these committee updates is to make sure that we post all club and committee activities to the Blog so that members can stay up to date on what’s going on.   These updates take the place of our newsletter.  Chairs should mark at least 2 categories:  the “newsletter” category, and their committee name category.  Also mark others that apply.

We hope you’re having fun, and if it’s not fun, holler, and we can provide some coaching!

“Blog”ress to Date

As we convert our communications from newsletter to the blog, we are happy to report the following progress:

• Each member with a current email address is signed up as a “Contributor”.  This means you can log in and it makes it easy for you to write new posts or to leave comments.
• All of us are learning new vocabulary!  “Posts” are new entries on a particular topic, and responses to posts are called “Comments”.
• At least 8 members have successfully written posts, maybe even more by the time you read this!
• 12 of our members participated in “Treasure Hunt 2009″ in October and November, which took them to the far reaches of the new blog.  Treasure Hunt winners will be receiving their “fabulous prizes” at an upcoming meeting.
• And at least 14 members and 3 Shawnee Park friends have left comments.
• And we express the Club’s  grateful appreciation to Emily, who “Publishes” the blog.  She fights off Spam with her sword.  She reviews all posts and comments and publishes it for our information.

This is all so important in making the transition from the newsletter — we want this to be a useful communication tool for all members, and we need to hear from you how it’s going.  Use the tools, see how they work for you.

Comments are the way we measure who’s reading.  So leave us a trail of breadcrumbs, eh?

But in all, we think we’ve got a good start.  Let us know where the snags are, what’s useful, what’s easy, what’s still a puzzle.  Call or email Maureen for assistance, better yet, leave a comment if you’re reading this on the blog!!

Kim received this letter from Cleo (click on it to enlarge it).