Belonging

Many times, people will evaluate the groups they belong to at the end of a year (or the beginning) to determine if they will continue their membership with each group. I encourage that. There is nothing worse than wasting both time and money.

However, and you'll notice that I put that in large type, sometimes the wrong or incomplete criteria are used when doing the analysis.

First of all, what was the original goal for belonging to the group?

Was it to get more business, to develop referral relationships, to gain more knowledge or to give back to the community?


Second, are you doing all you can to achieve the above goals?
Are you an active member, do you go to the meetings and do you participate on committees?


Third, is the group what you thought is was going to be?

Does it meets its mission, fulfill its promises and deliver value for the members?


Fourth, does this group help you to deliver to others?

If you only go to groups to gain for yourself, you are going to become known as only a taker. But if you attend group meetings looking for connections for your other networking contacts, you are leveraging your networking capital. I'll write more about this tomorrow.

So as you review the groups you belong to, do you need to resign, step up your involvement or continue as is?