90p Admin

Next Board Meeting For this next Thursday's meeting agenda, I would like to discuss the fee structures for affiliates and the objectives. I had a discussion with Mike Gill at Summit, and he explained to me that the cost of MOTM was the #1 factor in his not participating - either as sponsor or the affiliate attendance fee. There have probably been others that have balked at this. The argument should not that we have lots of affiliates lined up prepared to pay the fees. What matters is we have affiliates that bring value to our members, which really is the primary reason to have them included. We should not have affiliates making this decision based on cost, especially one like Fusion that works in both the Sage and Acumatica community. I would rather see a larger volume of affiliates or perhaps 2 levels with the top level paying what they currently pay.

We have a limit to the number of affiliates for a reason. And thank you, I've already begun looking at fee structures.

Again @MoiraGoggin, what is the reason for limiting the number of affiliates??

A gentleman from AATRIX spoke to me on the same topic (cost vs. benefit) and I gave Moira his information. Altec sang the same song to me when I asked them why they no longer participated. Having MOTM 2018 at a different (and presumably larger) venue means we can offer more opportunities to the affiliates and membership. We are still growing the organisation so we need to stay ahead of the curve providing reasons why affiliates and members feel they **NEED** to belong. Wayne's fee structure provided great foundation (price high and let the market decide the participation). Now with Moira on board, perhaps we can explore ideas that involve affiliates year round and not just at the signature events.

We should probably reexamine how we want to structure the Membership Cmte. Affiliates and Sponsors are part of this, by any analysis. Might need some new thinking there.

@JerryNorman the entire Membership Committee are all fresh blood with the exception of me. It only formed in the last year. we've only tasked them with reviewing new member applications until now. The current fee structure was developed by the board.

Thanks for the clarification. No argument. This will, I think, be a tough area to completely address.

Yup

@JohnHoyt you're right. They shouldn't be making the decision based on the cost. They should be making it based on the value provided. Where are we not providing enough value to groups like Mike Gill's is the question I think we should really be asking? They have the opportunity to be in front of 180+ of the top Sage 100 consultants 365 days a year. Most don't take advantage of that. One thought I've had was that we may need a concierge type person to help them figure out how to utilize the opportunities that are put out there for them.

@RobertWood All good ideas on pointing out value. I identified 4 types of affiliates: 1 - Large Publishers - Sage and Acumatica - they are expected to participate. 2 - Multiple Competitive Products - Scanco and Scanforce - they must participate to compete. 3 - Single Representative of a function - FusionRMS - they are the only POS company, so are in a unique position. One issue for this is most of us don't have much need for POS, so the potential may be smaller. 4 - Relatively unknown software - they get the exposure they need - probably the greatest value of the 4. May be more, but the approach to each for value is different beyond the common value of the exposure.

Absolutely, @JohnHoyt. Although there are other POS solutions in the market. In fact, more often than not the POS solution that is sold by Harold Westover gets recommended over other POS solutions. Currently, we have IIG as a member and they have a POS solution. It's IIG and it's also not a good fit for a lot of places in the market but it's there. This could be an area where a focused, temporary task force could be asked to explore ways to increase the perceived value to those vendors who are not yet members.

These are all great ideas and I will add them to the agenda for a discussion. In February we did hire Moira to be the Executive director. I think as a board we need to give her direction and let her do what we hired her to do. My thought is some of these ideas might be better analyzed in a committee and if necessary get board approval. 90minds is definitely going through some growth which is truly very exciting. I know Moira is up for the task!!!

You may not see it but every day in every way that I work hard to promote our group, keep it a place of integrity for members and affiliates and hold true to our commitment and more importantly my commitment to the board of directors. I've been a part of the affiliate recruitment and management for 3 MOTM now and will be handling the 4th soon. I appreciate all you input and welcome it! Do know that I have begun the planning and pricing, looking at our affiliate mix and new recruits. Actually I started the 2018 program prior to MOTM 2017. @JohnHoyt we already run through all those steps in building the list but moreover I'll be adding several new ones this year including mixed members (affiliate and regular member), product audience, effectiveness of prior year presentation (if applicable) and a possible a new Diamond level sponsor. I've no idea about pricing yet, since we'll decide as a board, but look for great things to occur that come from a deep dedication to our common goals.