January is a great time to create your goals for the year when it comes to your work and career. Here are the top ten ideas on how to manage your membership career effectively in 2019:
Look for opportunities in your current role
Think about your current role and the business plan for your organisation. What projects and activities are coming up this year that you could get involved with and add some useful skills or experience to your CV?
Read job descriptions for your next ‘perfect membership focused role’
Get hold of job descriptions for the role that you would like to have after your current role. This will give you an insight into the skills and experiences required so you can see how many need to be developed in your current role before you move on.
TIP: Take a look at MemberWise Jobs for a selection of member facing job descriptions to get you started – www.membershipjobs.com
Plan for your next annual appraisal
Hopefully you work for an employer that gives you an annual appraisal or performance review. Dig out the date and the KPIs that you agreed to work on and remember to make a note of your progress and successes throughout the year as you will forget them!
TIP: Make sure you save any thank you messages or outstanding performance mentions throughout the year!
Get mentoring
Mentoring is a great way to get advice from someone that is more experienced. Get yourself a mentor that is ahead of you in their membership career that DOESN’T work for your current employer. If you are experienced yourself, consider mentoring someone younger that is just starting out in their membership career.
TIP: The MemberWise Connect Community regularly features requests for Mentors and Mentees, so ensure you are registered and/or post a request today! https://connect.memberwise.org.uk/
Develop a coaching mindset
Mentoring is different from coaching. Mentoring is given with the benefit of experience whereas coaching is a way of framing questions to get someone to solve their own problems and challenges. Done correctly it is a very powerful way of developing yourself.
Do a course or qualification
Don’t forget that learning never ends. What courses and qualifications would be useful in developing skills that will benefit your career? Your employer may not pay towards these courses so you need to shop around to get good quality at a reasonable price.
TIP: If you feel you have a wealth of unrecognized membership focused experience consider applying for Fellowship of the Society of Association and Membership Professionals (SAMP) – http://samp.org.uk/fellowship
Network on MemberWise Connect and LinkedIn
Create a profile on MemberWise Connect/LinkedIn and keep it up to date whenever you change jobs. This is now a very popular way for recruitment agencies to head hunt individuals so you need to be in it to win it! It’s also useful to connect to other membership professionals to that you have a ready network of support and advice whenever you need it.
Attend key sector conferences and seminars to ensure you optimize your insight and knowledge
There is nothing better than gaining insight and hearing best practice direct. The opportunity to network with your peers is ‘priceless’ and will keep your thinking fresh.
TIP: Choose your events selectively and consider MemberWise Network events in the first instance. They are all targeted, educational in nature, provide clear learning objectives and rich in terms of practical insight. Our next national membership conference is Membership Excellence 2019 – See www.membershipexecellence.com
Become a membership focused subject expert in your own right
Your experiences, insight, challenges and solutions are worth talking about because your peers are almost certainly in a similar position. Perhaps you have taken a new or innovative approach that has delivered great results or you may wish to share an observation that you have recently made
TIP: Why not write a Guest Blog Article for the MemberWise Blog? You can showcase your expertise and share best practice all in one go! Contact info@memberwise.org.uk for further information.
Get some work life balance
As important as work is, it shouldn’t be your entire world. Health and family should come first so make sure you plan to keep yourself as healthy and happy as possible outside your working life. You may also want to use this time for some short CPD activities.