All associations, and there are tens of thousands of them, operate under one member-driven requisite - MEANING MATTERS. Association management is a career path. AAPN isn't an association. We're a network. Marketing is a contact sport. We're a network of contacts who are going through the same pain as you. This is no time to hide.
We saw it when NAFTA passed in 1994. Back then, AAPN had 350 members, mostly Made in USA factories. Three years later we had 150. This proved there are three kinds of people - those who watch it happen, those who make it happen and those who do nothing and wonder what in the hell happened.
Fast forward to today - this is no time to wait or to watch. As extracts from the following article argue - double down on marketing now so you're first in line as volumes build WHICH they will.
If you want to market or know someone who should be - send them here to learn how we can help - https://www.aapnetwork.net/membership-benefits
Coming out of a crisis, the boldest companies win
FORTUNE: June 25, 2020
That’s because economic calamities—even tragic, once-a-century global pandemics—require business leaders to find opportunity in the chaos. It’s there to be found. Leaders who can seize it will mitigate the pain for employees, consumers, vendors, communities, and investors. The big lesson from past downturns is that the competitive order within industries will change far more now than it ever will in prosperous times. The big winners will be the bold companies that break from the mainstream, acting courageously and fast.
As economies reopen, the great challenge for business leaders in all industries is to look beyond their immediate operational issues, as critical as they are, and also think strategically about longer-term decisions they can make in this moment—positioning themselves to flourish in the good times ahead.
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The most timeworn maxim of tough times is “Cash is king,” and the first response to a downturn in many firms is to cut costs with a fervor and hoard cash desperately. Yet the results are surprisingly poor. In a massive study of 4,700 public companies during past recessions, researchers at the Harvard Business School found that the most energetic cost cutters “have the lowest probability—21%—of pulling ahead of the competition when times get better.”
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A favorite target of cost cutters is advertising because it’s so easy to turn up or down, but the most successful companies don’t cut even that. .... “Companies that injudiciously slash marketing spending often find that they later must spend far more than they saved in order to recover.”