Selling political involvement to small business is a special kind of sale, but my experience at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the experience of my counterpart at the National Federation of Independent Business in the US, is that Boards never really understand or appreciate this reality. You need to sell memberships yourself to understand the special nature of this sale, and be in a position to provide leadership to others.
Creating a permanent voice for small business was done at first through the Canadian Council for Fair Taxation (CCFT), which was the vehicle I used to fight the Benson White Paper in 1970. Money was raised then through rallies and speaking engagements. When small businesses were fearful of their future, the money poured in. A speaking engagement to 50 would result in 40 cheques. But when I created a permanent CCFT and the fear was gone, speaking to 50 resulted in one or two cheques. That was a scary part of our history.
It was a volunteer that told me about the NFIB in the US that called once a year on its members. There was no invoicing or telemarketing at that time. I knew that was what I had to do and went down to see the President of the NFIB, Wilson Johnson. He said he would help me start a Canadian operation, but I would have to begin by learning the NFIB new business presentation and come back and work with him in the field for two days. He explained that if I did not do that, I would never appreciate how particular the process of recruiting, selecting, training and retraining salespeople had evolved over the years. It was Wilson who used the term, “a special kind of sale”.
That was what I did, and the first day Wilson made four presentations and two sales. I made two presentations and no sales. The next day I made six presentations and two sales. He said top performers made a sale for every two presentations, and the monthly bonus started at an extra ten percent if a DM averaged 13 per week, and a fifteen percent bonus if a DM averaged 17 per week.
Wilson, as president, had all 18 Division Managers reporting directly to him as well as the special assistant that wrote all the Mandate questions. He called the Division Managers the most important people in the organization, and the most dangerous, because they have so much power and influence.
In 1978, Wilson had 40 Division Managers reporting to six Regional Managers who reported directly to him.
Mature advocacy voluntary membership organizations experiencing slow growth have gone into crisis mode because their Boards act like business people, making radical changes to their sales function while ignoring the special nature of selling political involvement to small businesses. Changes to field operations should be made gradually and only after careful experimentation. The National Federation of Independent Business with 300,000 members in 2016, used to have 425,000 members in 1978. Their crisis was created by their Board. Similar disasters have occurred at advocacy organizations in France and Holland. Mixing commerce and politics is tricky because politics is about perception and emotion. And there is a massive political dimension in the sale of memberships at CFIB.