Build More Clubs?

Do you think your part of the world simply cannot support any more Toastmasters clubs, that there’s too many clubs already, and new clubs just take members away from existing clubs?

Well, if you live in Bahrain, New Zealand, Qatar, or Singapore, you might be right.  Anywhere else in the world, you can look to those four countries for an example of being able to build even more Toastmasters clubs.

Looking at just the 27 countries with at least 60 clubs (the minimum for a district), Bahrain has the most clubs per capita, with 74 clubs for 1.5 million people — a club for every 19,895 people.  New Zealand follows with a club for every 20,174 people, then Qatar at 23K, and Singapore at 25K.  (Smaller numbers mean higher density, more clubs for the population.)

At the other end, we have Indonesia, with 71 clubs for 276M people, or one club for every 3.9M people, followed by China at one club for every 2.3M people, and India at one club for every 1.4M people.  And no great surprise, this is where much of the growth is happening!

The United States, the home country of Toastmasters, has one club for every 48K people, and Canada has one for every 34K people.

If we look outside the countries with lots of clubs already, we have Sint Maarten (in the Caribbean) with 12 clubs for just 43K people — one club for every 3,616 people!  Many other Caribbean islands have almost as amazing numbers, with Montserrat at one club for every 4,992 people, Bonaire at 5,026, Curacao at 6,818, and more.

Zooming in to the U.S. state and Canadian province level (where 52% of the clubs are), the District of Columbia is in the lead for club density, with 97 clubs for 713K people, or one club for every 7,349 people.  (This may be in part due to people living outside the District, but working in and joining clubs in the District.)  The first actual state is Hawaii, with 68 clubs for 1.4M people, or one club for every 21K people, followed by Manitoba at 22K, British Columbia at 24K, and Minnesota at 27K.

The states and provinces with the lowest density (and biggest growth opportunity) are West Virigina with just 3 clubs for 1.8M people, or one club per 591K people, then Newfoundland with 2 clubs for 529K people or one club per 264K, Puerto Rico (15 clubs) at one club per 218K, and Kentucky at 156K.  If West Virigina had the same number of clubs for 1.8M people as is the national average, that would be 33 more clubs!

California has the most clubs (1,261 clubs), of course, with one club per 31K people, and Texas (593 clubs) has the next most, at one club per 49K people.  The Canadian province with the most clubs is Ontario (513 clubs), at one club per 30K people.

So, the next time someone tells you there’s no room for more clubs – consider the examples you can find in the rest of country, the rest of the world.  Grab a map of your locality, plot out where the existing community clubs are, and identify gaps between them where there are people who would benefit from a new Toastmasters club.

For more details on your country and state or province, see the attached spreadsheet.

Anyone can do a corporate visit!

How many district leaders have been involved in a corporate visit with an International Director (ID) or International Officer (like the International President)?  As a past ID, I made quite a few visits during my two years in office, and always enjoyed expounding on the value of Toastmasters to a new audience.

Sometimes I had as many as six visits in a day, and quite a few new clubs arose from those efforts.  But what concerned me is that on occasion, these visits apparently were planned months in advance!  In general, when a new club opportunity arises, you want to keep it moving as quickly as the organizational sponsors are comfortable with.

If it’s December and someone expresses an interest in building a new club at their company, you don’t want to tell them “Sure, we’ll have our local ID pop by and chat with you about it in April”!  Yet I heard that sort of approach more than once.

By months later, they’ll have forgotten all about this, moved on to other projects, or filled their need (however incompletely) some other way.  Don’t make them wait any more than a week or two, a month at the very most, for a meeting.

You don’t need an ID or the International President to do this!  Any district leader should be comfortable with doing this, but most especially the district new club chair, the Lt. Gov’r of Marketing, and the District Governor.  Since some districts are geographically large, Division and even Area Governors should be prepared to do this too.

With a goal of building lots of new clubs, you can’t be dependent on that once-or-twice-a-year visit by a dignitary.  Sure, the ID may be a great salesman and able to close the sale, but he or she won’t be able to get personally involved with all that club-building.  Remember, building a new club is a goal for every Area Governor (necessary to be a President’s Distinguished area).

What to focus on when telling a potential corporate sponsor about Toastmasters?  Remember WIIFM — What’s In It For ME!  (This means the sponsor, not you!)  There’s a great article on the TI web site focusing specifically on building a corporate club, but the most important part is the Features, Benefits, and Values chart.  You don’t necessarily want to just print this out and hand it to the prospect, but you should be familiar with what’s in it, and structure the critical part of your talk around it.

Be sure to research the company before you visit — understand their business and values, their strengths and weaknesses.  Are they more of an hourly assembly line shop, are they a professional services company, are they financial in nature? If it’s a large multi-location company, what kind of employees are at the location where the club will be located?

What are their corporate values, is education and employee training important to them?  Tie Toastmasters into those values.  Hopefully you can talk to someone who is an employee before the visit and get some inside background on the culture, too (maybe someone who is already in Toastmasters!).

Keep the discussion interactive, not a sales presentation.  Encourage the prospect to ask questions, stop and listen to them carefully, clarify if necessary, and then answer.  If you don’t know the answer, tell them honestly you don’t know, but you’ll find out and get back to them quickly (and then do so).

Conclude with a strong finish, be clear on what the next steps are.  If they’re expressing an interest, talk about scheduling a demo meeting.  If they need to talk to someone else, give them time to do so, it may require another meeting.  And maybe it’s just not a fit for this company at this time.  Keep in touch, they may change their mind later.

Yes, you too can do a corporate visit, and do so effectively, creating a desire to join thousands of other companies world-wide that already know about the value of Toastmasters.

New clubs need mentors!

Every new club should be assigned a mentor on the charter paperwork.  Yet I see a lot of new clubs never get a mentor!  And far too often, I see those mentor-less clubs close up a year or two later.

Clubs that lack mentors (there can be up to two) usually miss out on critical details of the Toastmasters program.  They’re floundering in the dark.  They don’t know about advanced manuals, they don’t use the leadership manual, they don’t understand the value of officer training, or the networking at district conferences.

Worst of all, they are probably viewing Toastmasters as work instead of fun!

Sure, a good Area Governor may be able to help out with some of these issues, and if the club is lucky enough to have some experienced Toastmasters as members, they may get by.  But this seems to be rare.  Many new clubs have all new members, and the Area Governor has several other clubs to support as well, they can’t be attending most meetings of the new club like a mentor should.

In a few cases, there might be no one near the new club to serve as a mentor, but that also is rare.  In my home district, which is a dense urban area (Chicagoland), distance is no excuse, since any club has another within a few miles.  If the new club is hundreds of miles away, perhaps a mentor can serve from a distance, by conference calls and frequent contact.

Perhaps the club charter paperwork should require naming a club mentor.  To allow for those rare circumstances when it simply is not possible, a brief statement from the District Governor explaining the omission might be allowed in lieu.

Mentors are crucial to the long-term success of a new club.  Make sure every new club has that experienced resource so they get everything they can out of the Toastmasters program!

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