By Ian Ash
What do you know about Rotary? Have you heard of this organization and if so, do you know what it does?
I have been a member of our local Rotary Club for well over 13 years now and am proud of what our club and indeed the organisation as a whole has achieved.
For those that don’t know, Rotary’s motto is “Service Above Self” and it is all about doing good in the world, especially in the local community. I suspect that not many people will be aware that in conjunction with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rotary initiatives have all but eradicated polio worldwide (it still exists in limited numbers in Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan but nothing to the extent that it used to) and it supports organisations such as Interplast and has provided clean water, sanitation and vital services for many towns and villages in third world countries.
Locally, significant funds have been raised for Wheelchairs for Kids and the Rotary Club of Emerald and District runs the Kids Fun Run for Thomas day raising tens of thousands of dollars for hospitals and support organisations for children over the years.
Yet despite all this great work and opportunities to give back, Rotary membership is in decline. Why?
There are a number of possible reasons, but primarily I believe this is because the organization has an image problem.
For those that do know Rotary, the abiding image tends to be of elderly grey-haired gentlemen selling sausages to raise funds and while we may still do this occasionally, this stereotype misses the point and is certainly not reflective of what Rotarians typically do.
Rotary and businesses alike need to be able to provide a common and consistent representation of what they are about, what they stand for and what they actually provide.
To quote Simon Sinek, “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”, this is because the latter tends to engage hearts and minds more than the activity alone.
As I am passionate about seeing both local businesses and Rotary succeed, I have been meeting with a few Rotary Clubs over recent months and found that there is a lack of consistency in how people talk about the organization itself.
This is also true of many businesses as well. When asked what the business does or why does the business exists, many business owners find this a difficult question to answer.
It’s not that they don’t know, but they typically aren’t clear about how to articulate this effectively or consistently.
The same is exactly true of Rotary; people know why they join and what they get out of it but find it hard to express it effectively and consistently.
This is where having a great “elevator pitch” becomes essential (in case you have not heard this term before, this relates to the situation where you get into an elevator (or lift for us non-US nationals) and have just a few seconds to engage the other person in the lift who asks you the question “what do you do?”).
It is well known that today, people’s attention span is short, so if you are to maintain another’s interest, you need to have a well-crafted statement that will make the other person want to know more within the space of just a few seconds.
This is analgous to what is known as “the hook” in marketing terms, i.e. that brief picture, image or headline that will make people want to find out more.
However, while a great elevator pitch is clearly important, just as necessary is the need to ensure consistency in the messaging amongst everyone associated with the business or organization.
When people find the same, consistent message being provided through a variety of different mechanisms and/or consistently described by people associated with the business or organization, the latter becomes more authentic.
We as humans are wired to look for patterns and the more consistent the pattern, the more believable the message.
Clearly, we still have much work to do here.
