Inside Association Leadership: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities

Transcription – Inside Association Leadership: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities

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Welcome to the Proof Point Podcast where we decode digital success one click at a time. We share key takeaways fueled by data and insights that your team can implement today to drive growth. Now let’s get started.

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This is Stacie Porter Bilger, your host for the Proof Point podcast where I feature B2B and D2C businesses and thought leaders sharing marketing data tactics, sales strategies, and leadership insights that will kickstart your growth in this rapidly changing digital space. This episode is brought to you by Proof Digital. Proof Digital is a strategic and creative performance marketing agency.

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We partner with companies and organizations to create data fuels, marketing sales funnels, and overall growth strategies. Visit ProofDigital.com to learn more. Before I get started and introduce our guest, I want to give a shout out and a thank you to an old friend, Dave Ketterer.

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Dave is president of CD’s IT Consulting. Dave is really an IT authority. I mean, he takes technology and make it serve for his clients versus the other way around.

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He’s keeping ahead of the bad guys and working with companies and organizations to really say ahead of AI and all the complexities and how rapidly changing IT is moving forward. So, Dave, thank you for introducing me to our guest today and thank you for all your work over the years and our long-term friendship. Our guest today is Rachel Daeger.

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Rachel is the director in communication at Raybourn Group International. In 1985, she earned her degree in journalism from IU, yes, and started managing the member magazine at Columbia Club in Indianapolis. Forty years later, she’s still working in membership organizations and helping them achieve their communication goals.

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She’s got a certification in CAE, which is Certified Association Executive, as well as IOM, which is basically Nonprofit Management Expertise.Did I say that okay, Rachel? That is perfect, Institute of Organizational Management. Thank you.

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One, I want to really talk about your organization because it’s unique, the Raybourn Group, but give me a little bit of background, too, of what drew you to this career. Well, as most people would say, and thank you for having me, Stacie, and I know we’re going to talk about this, but Proof Digital is one of our, it’s a newer relationship, thanks to Dave for the introduction, but you’ve definitely, in a short period of time, become a very trusted, valuable partner. But most people don’t start out planning to end up in association management.

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I think a lot of times when we have interns on our staff and other new hires, they’re kind of amazed that this is actually a career path. So what I, so how I came to it is I had my journalism degree back in 1985, and back in the day, you either started working for a magazine or a newspaper, and I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. So I ended up at the Columbia Club doing a temporary position in the catering department.

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And it just so happens that a position opened up in their communications department at the time. And so while I was the, you know, during the nine years that I was there, I did the monthly Columbian Magazine, as well as, you know, media relations, of course, this is kind of free website stuff. Internet wasn’t really a big thing just yet.

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I remember our first computer being installed in the whole building. And, but what I found out that I loved most of all was working with the members. The club had about 3000 members at the time.

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And, you know, I just, I just loved getting to know the people. And, you know, I was there taking pictures of their families at the Easter breakfast and Mother’s Day. And so, for some reason or another, that connection with people and the friendships that you make through that type of a position, has just always kept me in membership organizations.

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So even in even when I did a stint as an entrepreneur and a partner, and I started and ran a printing company, we had associations as clients, and I continued to do association work, especially association publication work, and then just kept at it. So yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting in that, as my role at Raybourn, I use my journalism and communication expertise in such a wide range of clients. I personally work with the Monument Builders of North America, is they’re creating monuments for families.

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And I work with the National Council of Acoustical Consultants, who are speccing acoustic projects, whether that’s concert halls or warehouses or airports. I also work with paralegal associations, helping them with their publications. So it’s, it’s a fascinating day to day, believe me, no two days are the same, right.

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And, but through all of those client interactions, I’m just building friendships with, you know, hundreds of people that I get to interact with. And, you know, I definitely see even see the bridge between the Columbia Club, those who are in Indiana or Indianapolis, but, you know, we have clients all over the country, but it is a, it is a club in which businesses across the city and central Indiana come together. I mean, so deals are being made, partnerships are being created, innovative companies and nonprofits hang out there.

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And so the stories, if I was a fly on the wall in that building, man, the stories that could be had, right? Well, actually, I worked there when they hit their, I think it was our centennial. And so they wrote a book that said, if tables could talk and I, so here I was getting help helping to write a book project. And I’m just really grateful that I’m thankful throughout my career that I’ve been able to, you know, work on such a diverse number of projects while still staying true to my journalism communication, right? And that’s one thing I love about what we do.

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I mean, we work with all kinds of industries. And as you did too, I think the story is very, and it’s so fun. I mean, you talked about, you know, the acoustics, you talked, you talked about paralegals, and I know you look work like so many different associations.

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You learn so much. I mean, associations are a hub, just like the Columbia Club, to come together around a particular industry specifically, usually, but not always, but usually, and to bring not only organization and systems, but to share knowledge to grow. And so that’s, that’s, that’s fun.

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That’s very fun. And one of the things so in the past, when the roles that I’ve had, even when I was working at, let’s say, the Columbia Club or other organizations, I was probably the only person doing what I was doing at the Columbia Club. Nobody else worked on the magazine, that was my job.

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But when I came to the Raybourn Group, which has been 14 years ago now, our structure is such that each of us spend an incremental portion of time for a specific client. So if the client needs a monthly magazine, like the Monument Builders do, I can spend, you know, 25% of my time on that project, while also helping another client with a percentage of time. But that also means between the range of clients that we have, there’s probably eight other marketing professionals here alongside me doing work for their clients.

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So not only do I have a broad range of clients myself, but I have a broad range of colleagues in the communications field, along with other fields. But so the marketing team here gets together on a regular basis and just collaborates and shares knowledge across the client platforms. So it’s a lot of connections, and it energizes me every day.

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Well, you’re bringing talent together across multiple, I mean, multiple talents into associations that couldn’t afford that talent, if they just hired it on their own. Well, one person can’t be the meeting planner and the communications person. And yeah, right. And then try, but they’ll probably lose their mind. Right. And you are an entrepreneur.

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And one thing, you know, is really important is systems. And you build those systems across for these organizations. If they did it on their own, it would take them years, if not decades to build those systems.

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So you’re bringing best in class systems and best in class talent to these associations, which they wouldn’t have otherwise. Yeah. I mean, and you know, they are nonprofit associations.

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And so the resources and the margins are very thin and very valuable. So, you know, part of our job is not only is our time kind of incremental, but we search out the best tools, your company, for example, to help us. And just across the board, anything that we do, whether it’s social media management, website management, we have to find the best tool for the project.

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And cost is definitely a consideration. And yeah, it makes our work challenging, but also very rewarding when we can deliver an excellent solution for our clients in a cost effective manner that helps their organizations thrive and grow. Yeah.

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You have, I mean, the associations in which you serve have 60,000 plus members. Is that accurate or more? Am I off on that? Well, we haven’t counted them recently, which we should do. But yes, there’s more than 60,000 members.

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Our organizations range from some that are specific to our state. But then there’s also organizations that are global. So, yeah. You’re in 100 plus, 110 plus countries? Yeah, different countries. So, and yeah, the work that we do just goes across the globe. But again, we use fundamental best practices in each of our functional areas like communications or meeting planning, our membership to bring that expertise to our client.

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I don’t know much about acoustical consulting, but I’m learning. But that’s not the point. Like I work directly with the members who are the experts. And then I facilitate, you know, what I can do on my, what my expertise is partnered with their expertise. We make a great team. Right.

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The systems, the marketing, you know, those pieces and the things that they really should focus on what they do best, which is also understanding the, I need to check out that aside. I’m really, although Paul on our team would really love it. I don’t know if you know about Paul.

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He loves, he does a lot of acoustical things and musical things for even artists out there. But yeah, he would totally, I need to send him that. But you learn so much about these industries, but you bring them the systems. Right. And we are about two weeks away from a convention with the Monument Builders. OK, this is this is relatively new client for me.

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And so they’re going to be bringing literally thousands of pounds of stone to the Cleveland Convention Center so that we have a 50,000 square foot trade show that we’re putting together. And it’s going to be full size stone monuments in person. And I’m just so excited because in my head, I’m like, well, why can’t you just bring the little little chip off the block there? Why are you bringing? There’s some money to bring those those monuments and those monuments probably are for lots of different things.

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Right. I mean, they’re for us and carvings for public. A lot of them do like veterans memorials. And I mean, again, another industry that, you know, I’ve learned so much in the last year working with them and how they help families and cities and just even the importance of memorialization. We’re about to and you’re helping us with this project, relaunch a public facing website to help. There’s a lot of people buy monuments, maybe once, twice in their life.

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And they have lots of questions about, you know, costs and the process. And so we’re going to work on launching a new website to hopefully answer those questions and get them hooked up with a professional monument builder. So, yeah, that’s just an example of some of the fun projects that we get to work on.

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Yeah, that is that is awesome. Those and you probably do. I mean, we did and we talked about kind of. The tech piece, we talked about the communication piece, but you’re you’re organizing events. Oh, yeah, well, yes. Are most associations playing at least one large annual meeting? We’ve just had two teams come back from weeklong meetings in San Diego.

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So that’s another kind of aspect of the vibrancy of working at the Rayburn group is, you know, everyone’s clients are working on different projects, different schedules. I’m I could be unpacking from a conference and somebody else is packing up to leave. So just the fact that we share best practices, share what’s working, digital marketing, retargeting, because, for example, for a project like our convention, our members are an audience, but a lot of our conventions attract non-members.

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And so, you know, we need to extend our marketing messaging beyond just the normal, you know, member day to day type of communication. And I need so I need to pull in anyone who’s interested in monuments, whether or not they’re a member of MBNA, right there. They this is a kind of a once once a year.

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Well, actually, once every two years in this case, the opportunity for them to connect, see this stuff in person, grow, learn. Yeah. So, yeah, it’s now.

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Yeah. I mean, in addition, I mean, you’re you’re you’re also bringing efficiency use of volunteers at these things across the board within the organization, securing their financial controls to make sure you’re on budget on these types of events. Sponsorships for fulfilling the sponsorship commitments.

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Just yeah. I mean, are these small staff teams? I mean, some of us, some of these clients have less than a full time equivalent person. It could be made up of two or three small bits of individual different individuals.

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But, you know, that that’s their need. They don’t have the resources to staff even one full time person. But by working with the Rayburn group, they’re able to get exactly the percentage of time that they need in each of their key functions to be able to hold their events and education and everything else that they do.

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And you have an incredible track record of actually increasing the growth of these organizations memberships as well, which is which is the bottom line of survival of these organizations. (17:09) There’s been some interesting research done. So we work under what’s called an association management company, AMC model.

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So, you know, in most a lot of times, you know, decades ago, an association would have its own building, for example, and its own staff under. But, you know, as the resources became scarce, they’ve shifted to this management model where your staff team is built up of specific individuals.And then at RGI, the staff functions are assigned to a small team that stays together.

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In some AMCs models, like all the marketing goes to the marketing department or all the meetings goes to the meetings department. But the way we’re structured is that they actually the members actually works with a team of people that they know that become their staff. So for the monument builders, there’s five of us and we are their staff and they get to know us personally, which is what I want, what I enjoy about the work is working specifically with the individual members.

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So it’s it’s it’s a it’s an effective model. And, you know, we’ve just come through. Obviously, COVID seriously impacted a lot of clients.

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Client meetings were suspended. And, you know, we were able to flex a lot of things for our clients, negotiate them out of some, you know, hotel, you know, working with the hotel contracts and all of those things. And, you know, the expertise that RGI was able to bring to the clients helped a lot of them through some very difficult times recently.

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And we’re starting to see events like the monument builders event, you know, rebound and grow from years past. Yeah. We have a client in northeast Indiana and they they build the structures for events and they’re they’re seeing that the rapid growth of events coming back, which is fun.

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Us getting face to face is a good thing. It’s a good thing. Tell me a little bit about the history of the Rayburn group a little bit.

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We didn’t really hit on that at the beginning. You’ve asked me a good question at the right time. So Leslie and Tim Murphy are owners of the company. They actually, as of this week, were Rayburn’s owners for 16 years. Rayburn’s hitting a sweet 16. So actually they had bought the company from a previous owner.

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So the name is older than that. But they’re Leslie and Tim’s leadership of the company started 16 years ago. And Leslie is a fellow with well, there’s associations for associations.

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So I’m sure there are actually we have clients that are like the Indiana Society of Association Executives. So Leslie is a fellow with ASAE, which is the overarching organization. So she brings incredible experience and knowledge to all of our groups.

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But yeah, so it’s been 16 years that they’ve been and you said that. I guess I’ve been working with them, 14 of those 16. So quite a while. But we strategically bring on new clients. It’s a very thoughtful process. We actually just brought two new clients on at the start of 2025.

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So Rayburn does look at proposals for new business. But it’s definitely a situation where we want to be a good partner, a good fit, like it’s not just, you know, we’re going to sign you up and walk away. And I’m sure you I know that your business has that same model because I experienced it personally, like we want to get to know you.

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And we want to make sure that our what we do is going to benefit, you know, your organization as a client and because we’re in it for a long term. We’ve had clients that have been with Rayburn Group for over 20 years. And so those are valuable relationships.

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And that’s the that’s the that’s what we that’s what we’re here for. Now, yep, absolutely. And and like you, we’re looking for a partnership and we’re looking for, like you said, a relationship that we can have on a long term basis.

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And and you got to get to know those each other to do that. But it can’t be an antagonist. This kind of thing is how can we work together? How do we solve a problem together? What’s in and work through the goals of the organization, which makes it a lot more fun for everybody involved?Well, and Leslie, also Leslie and another staff person, Mark McSweeney, they do consulting services.

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Yeah. So maybe the fit isn’t for Rayburn to, you know, become your association management company. But they do strategic planning and board orientations and staff realignments.

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Just bringing that expertise that they have to a situation where governance. I’m sure it was governance. And we also think so.

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We also have some clients that are not what we call full service. Some clients are meetings only. And we’re going to do an events forum. Yeah, we’ve got a tremendous meetings team. And we’ll we’ll just we’ll do the annual conference part. And maybe that’s all that we do, because they’re amazing.

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And which is good, because meetings, I do not want to plan a meeting. A lot of diagnose and cross and tease when you’re putting on events, that’s for sure. I’ll do your signage and I’ll build your website.

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And I’ll put some digital marketing out there to get you some attendees. But don’t make me order food in AV, because that’s more than I can deal with. Yeah, no, but no, I mean, there’s a lot that goes into that.

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And that I mean, you need to come together. But those for those things to to really work and have the magic happen when you come together, it is dotting I’s and crossing T’s. So you can do those wrong pretty easily.

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Then. Yeah, so we so our work, we have a lot of templates and replicated processes for nearly everything that we do, which is, again, why one of the reasons we started working with you is, you know, we we need a solution that fits multiple clients because we don’t I mean, our time is valuable. Our members time is valuable.

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And managing multiple processes and our relationships, it works just so much easier when we can, you know, work with a vendor that we know can partner with us to solve to solve what problems we have, solutions we need. It’s all about systems, all about systems. Although sometimes we get to do some crazy fun things, too.

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So yeah, that’s true. Monument builders were doing a human slot machine. That’s all the rage on the Internet. OK, I need to understand this a little bit more. I can’t I can’t visualize this. So we’re human slot machine.

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So we do a booth and we’ve got members, volunteers that are going to sit in three positions behind the booth. And they have three. I should go grab it. They have three examples of fruit. And when there’s a button, so they push the button. It goes, ding, ding, ding, ding.

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And they’re supposed to do this with their hands. And then they pick up their fruit. And if all three matches, then the member wins.

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The member who’s playing wins a prize. OK. Wow. It’s going to be very silly and very fun. So and very engaging. Let’s talk about some of those other fun things, because we talked about we hit it on it earlier.

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Yes, systems are great. But I mean, you’re having a blast meeting all these types of different associations that are solving a problem, bringing people together, whether it’s industry specific, like you said, you know, acoustical, you know, or if it’s monument builders or if it’s realist, you know, commercial real estate. Various, you know, people who are professionals who need to come together to improve their profession, to improve their industry.

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It’s I mean, that’s that’s a lot of fun. It is a lot of fun. But, you know, a lot of times they’re also dealing with some serious issues. I mean, we do government affairs advocacy, you know, members who are experiencing restraint of trade. And, you know, it’s there’s I mean, it’s rewarding. I mean, there’s a lot of times where it is kind of silly fun.

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But I mean, really, day to day, it’s very rewarding. You know, when you can drive traffic from a website to a member’s business. Yeah. And when you can elevate their messaging to a national media platform, those are just all things that. Yeah, you walk away from the end of the day like we did good. Like we have portions of time to spend with each client.

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And we just put everything we have into those portions of time to make sure that they’re succeeding. Now, and you brought up some other thing. I mean, it’s just not I mean, you talked about events, but you also just talked about advocacy.

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That is that was a previous world of mine. Not it’s been a few decades, but every every state, every community, city, local, state level, federal, obviously. But there are policies that go into place that impact one industry and you might and those people working on those laws might not realize the impact on that industry by increasing this or changing that.

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That’s going to increase our, you know, whatever cost it is as a business or the or, you know, there’s public safety issues that they may not,  you know, a legislator may not fully understand. So what’s one of the benefits of reaching out to an association is to say, you know, give us the expertise on this issue, or it may be a situation where a lot of our clients have credentialing and certification programs. So, you know, instead of the government legislating, what expertise looks like in an industry, then the association steps up and says, we know what, you know, what someone needs to demonstrate to be a proficient professional in this industry.

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And then the association takes that on to certify that person and provide the education. So, yeah, I mean, association management is so multifaceted and it’s what keeps us going every day. It is.

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And it is so, you’re dealing with multiple industries, you’re dealing, you know, across the country in multiple countries. And so you’re bringing people together to solve problems, to be truthful, to solve problems and create solutions for those in which you serve. And that’s, that’s as fun. That’s, that’s, that’s being the change. I have that. That’s one of our values is being the change.

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And you guys are being the change across the world, which is always fun to work with organizations that do that. Yes, pretty much so. It’s never, never a dull moment. And that’s, we love that. Yeah. And so, you know, when we think about when, if folks out there who are looking for opportunities, you know, I got my first gig as an intern.

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I mean, I called and called and called because I wanted to get into public policy, right? I wanted to get into associations. I wanted to get into organizations that elevated. And so I finally got an internship and that was a few years ago. That was before the internet, by the way. So I’m old. But I mean, that got me experience.

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And so I know that’s something you all embrace. Do you not? I mean, let’s talk about some opportunities that you might even have. Oh, certainly. Yeah. We’ve had a very strong internship program for a number of years now. And we have at least, it’s usually at least two communications interns and two meetings interns at any given time.

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So year round paid internship positions. I think sometimes they can work up to, you know, 20 or 30 hours a week. And the interns actually work on projects. They’re not assigned to a particular client. They can take projects from any of our clients. And so we make sure that those interns walk away with a stacked portfolio because they will be very busy doing substantive work for the entire time that they’re here.

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And we, as I say, there’s on the raybourn.com R-A-Y-B-O-U-R-N, raybourn. There’s some information about the internship programs that someone can look at and apply pretty much at any time. We, you know, we’ve had people, you know, just entering, you know, their college years.

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There’s not really a requirement as far as, you know, where you’re at in your school. We even had some people who’ve graduated and decided to do an internship, even just, you know, for six months. To get a feel, maybe while, you know, they may be kind of planning their next steps, they’ll make a stop here.

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And we appreciate that expertise. And we enjoy the perspective that the interns bring. Some of us have been a little far out from that experience. And so, yeah, it’s a joy to have the interns with us. You know, they participate in the professional development that we do. Our marketing interns, for example, we offer them memberships in the American Marketing Association, the local indie chapter.

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So that’ll help, you know, build their networking. Yeah, we love our interns here. So shout out to anyone who’d like to join the team  just even for a short stint as an intern.

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And we recently had a meetings intern decide they wanted to come back and do a marketing internship. So we’ve lured them over to the marketing side. But actually, they are interested in a career in association management and want that expertise on both sides of meetings and marketing communication.

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So yeah, we love having our interns here. And they are a huge help to the organization. No, it’s a win-win. It really is a win-win. Like I told you about my personal experiences, how I got my first job. Also back in 99, this again, I’m old.

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I started a program called Indiana InternNet. It’s changed its name since then, but it was basically a matching system for interns. And the truth is, I mean, it is a great program for your organization.

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But for young people, I mean, the experience they’re going to get at your organization, the wealth across industry. And I know I’m a little biased, but if you know how to communicate and market, that skillset will take you far. So I like that you have that particular internship available to those young people.

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And there’s all different levels of professionals here. Like I’m on the more seasoned scale, but there’s some young people here too. I had my hat on covering up my gray, Rachel.

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So the interns get, we actually, each of us, I think usually blocks out at least one lunch period to sit down and meet the interns. And so, yeah, we love having the interns here. And I think we might have one open position at a membership coordinator level.

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I think sometimes when people are not familiar with association management or association work, if they’re not in this field, they may not understand how their skills in the job that they’re doing would translate. But people who are detail-oriented, who have a heart for working with people and working for the betterment of these organizations and their causes, yeah, it’s a great experience and a great place to work. That’s awesome.

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Thanks for sharing that all that. I wanted to make sure that we covered that because I saw that on your side. I was like, oh, those are great.

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That’s great. People need to know about that. Anything else that would be helpful about your organization or your own? Well, I mean, just the flexibility that, one, we have a lot of different projects and a lot of different clients,but also our working environment, is a flexible work schedule because some of us are working.

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I mean, we figured this out before the pandemic because some of us are working with clients around the globe. I mean, we were all very portable at the time. We just basically closed up our laptops and went back home and just kept, never missed a day because that’s the work that I do.

(35:35 – 35:59) 

I may see my members in person once a year, but I’ll see them online day in and day out. And so it’s a very flexible work environment. So some people like to come to the office here, close to the pyramids every day, but you’ll only find me here about once a week because I enjoy working from home and I’m grateful for that flexibility.

(36:02 – 36:23) 

Yeah, that’s where we live in now. That’s good. To be able to work like that. So shout out to Leslie and just the team of professionals here that it doesn’t matter where we are or what time it is in the world, we get the work done. Yeah. No, it’s a great organization and I haven’t met Leslie.

(36:25 – 36:40) 

I look forward to sometime soon to meet her. Running the organization for 16 years is a lot of grind there, a lot of work. And so I can appreciate her effort and congrats to her on those years.

(36:45 – 37:05) 

This is a Proof Point Podcast. Any final thoughts on observations, on marketing, on what you’re seeing with these organizations? And I know it’s close to your heart too. Yeah, I was going to say, we’re seeing success in digital retargeting, even for a niche industry like the monument builders.

(37:07 – 37:27) 

And then we’re having a lot of AI-related conversations among the staff. We do knowledge sharing kind of formally once a month, informally all day long. But especially in the communication side, what we’re seeing that we can accomplish with utilizing AI tools is phenomenal.

(37:31 – 37:40) 

It is insane, Rachel. I’m speaking in a couple of weeks about how businesses can leverage AI. We’ve been using it for years, but we’re building prompts and systems around AI on a daily basis.

(37:42 – 38:03) 

Yeah, it’s just phenomenal. Like if you had told me 40 years ago, I would have never imagined the things that we can do. But again, it’s learning from each other, thoughtful, taking a thoughtful approach and making sure that our clients, well, one, the first thing we did was write policy that our clients had policies and procedure.

(38:06 – 38:21) 

Don’t put social security numbers into AI. That’d be a bad idea. I mean, a few things that you don’t. Yeah, or yeah. I mean, that’s a given. But I mean, you have to have a system around it.

(38:24 – 39:00) 

Right. And so, yeah, it’s an exciting time and especially in communications to be helping our clients navigate it for themselves. And for example, we’re trying to figure out not so we’re generative AI can generate an image, but can it generate an image that can be sandblasted onto a monument? That’s our current research project is how helping the monument builders harness AI for the designs that they are.

(39:03 – 39:36) 

Yeah. So our designers are definitely working on that as well for various things in which we work on across the board. Yeah. So yeah, it’s an exciting time. And just the fact that, you know, our organizations and who our clients serve are so diverse that we’re getting to gain a lot of experiences in these different areas. And yeah, we will be relying on our partners because, you know, we need their expertise to come to the table, too, along with our expertise to get the work done.

(39:39 – 39:53)  

There’s more content from our standpoint on that topic. We are moving as fast as we can, but it’s 10xing, I mean, this year. I mean, you know, there is, there used to be a Moore’s law where you actually were internet and it’ll increase every couple of years.

(39:55 – 40:14) 

It is 10xing, it will 10x at minimum this year. I mean, it’s power and it’s speed. And you can’t not, I mean, you can put your head under the pillow and wish it not, but it’s here and it’s fun. I mean, you have to use it. We’re using it for data analytics. We’re using it for imagery.

(40:16 – 40:30) 

We’re using it obviously for content. We’re building prompts and systems around it. Prompts are really important. You have to understand prompting or, you know, systemized prompting across the board. It is amazing. It’s a different world.

(40:31 – 40:44) 

I volunteer, I was at my granddaughter’s school last, she’s in first grade. And one of their projects for the year is learning adaptability. Which is a really important, that’s a good thing in first grade, wow.

(40:49 – 41:11) 

They’re teaching the first graders that change is like a part of every day of your life. And I was like, oh my goodness, we have to train up the youngsters to expect a little change that we, that is just unprecedented. And as I was having a conversation with my son a couple of weeks ago, he just turned 19 and he’s in college and he’s getting his degree.

(41:13 – 41:22) 

He’s just like, mom, is this degree gonna be this? It’s like, I think these are some skills. He says, what skill sets do I need to be working on? Because I don’t, I’m concerned this degree is not. And I’m like, good thinking.

(41:23 – 41:43) 

Yeah, it’s fine, yeah. Yeah, so let’s have some more conversations around. But I think to your point right there, adaptability, ability to deal with change. Because, and telling it, I mean, one thing is, one thing AI is not, it’s not human. And so you still have to tell stories. You still have to, just like old school communication and marketing.

(41:47 – 41:59) 

So there’s that, that you’ll need to do. But you’ll have to be able to adapt to change quickly because it’s 10X in this year. Yeah, and as I was gonna say, and another kind of thank you to Leslie at the Raybourn group.

(42:01 – 42:28) 

We, so not only do our clients value certifications, but Raybourn does too. We’ve got people with lots of initials behind their names. Yes, you do. And that’s just, that professional development, continuous learning is a priority at our organization. And whether it’s project management or digital marketing or AI or anything, like we’re encouraged to do that learning. And that’s appreciated here.

(42:32 – 42:42) 

No, that’s a really good final. I mean, we can do another final thought after that. But you’re all’s organization, one, committing to elevate and build efficiencies across multiple different organizations across the world.

(42:46 – 42:58) 

But also bring to your last point, when you were talking about intern, bringing continual certifications and learning to those organizations because of your commitment to it. Yeah. That’s awesome.

(42:59 – 43:30) 

We’ve got to stay ahead of the curve. Yes, and you can do that because you have your team. It’s hard for anybody else to stay ahead. You’ve got it. You’re staying ahead, and you’re bringing those learnings and those expertise so that your members and those who you work with as well can benefit from that. That’s the goal.

(43:25 – 43:53) 

That’s awesome. Any other final point? No, thank you for the conversation today. I appreciate the time to talk. And again, I so valued the work that you’ve done and helped us with in the last, even just the last couple of months that we’ve been working together. And I’m looking forward to accomplish great things with some of the web technologies that we’re building now. Your team is amazing, and we are so grateful to have that relationship.

(43:56 – 44:16) 

Well, thank you. I appreciate the shout out to us too. I appreciate that. We enjoy partnering with your organization, and we especially love to work with companies and organizations who are elevating others, and that’s what you certainly do. So anyone who wants to find me has questions about association management or the Raybourn Group, my door is open. And I’d be happy to talk to you about that.

(44:19 – 44:38) 

That’s awesome. We’ll make sure that we share all that in the show notes and get the contact information and check out the Raybourn Group. And we’ll show those, actually we’ll add your domain to the show notes as well so that we drive those who could benefit from your expertise.

(44:39 – 44:51) 

So we’ve been talking to Rachel Daeger with the Ray Bourn Group. Thank you, Rachel. Thanks for listening to the Proof Point Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.