Solidarity Sunday: The Perfect Fit for Your Local
Happy Labor Day!
Let's say your job is to bring in guys for your local union, fill job calls, organize new members.
And let's say you could wave a magic wand and come up with the perfect fit, a target candidate who has all the right stuff to become a member.
- Good fit culturally
- Applicable skill set
- Great attitude
- Teamwork oriented
- Willing to get involved
- Lives in the jurisdiction
- Dependable transportation
- Reputable
- Clean record
- Good person of moral character
You could probably add to the list of characteristics for your ideal fit. But even if you could find everyone in your jurisdiction that fit this description, statistically speaking, only between 1.7-3.1% of them are in the market. Which means 97% are not in the market. People often use the terms "target" and "market" interchangeably, even referring to your "target market" as one term, but they are not the same thing. Your target is the person who best fits your ideal profile.Your market is the person who best fits your ideal profile, who is in the market right now.
No matter how ideal your target is, if he or she is getting what they need from their current situation or employer, if they don't feel like they need representation, you're not going to wrestle them away. No matter how many people you bring to "blitz", no matter how much you hot box them on the jobsite, at a restaurant, a gas station, wherever.
Unless of course, some event happens in their life to cause that satisfaction to become dissatisfaction…
- They or someone close them on the job gets unduly fired
- Someone gets hurt on the job
- They get passed over for a raise or a promotion
- Their girlfriend or wife gets pregnant
- They get a health diagnosis and realize their insurance and benefits are sub-par
The list of possible events is endless, but the point is this: People don't move into the market for products or services (or job/career opportunities) based on our needs. They move into the market based on things that happen in their own lives.
You must have a strategy to speak to the felt needs of your target long before that "something" happens in their lives. The goal is for them to think of you first, and like you best. When that event happens and they consider their options, you must be on their options-considered list.
Here's how to get on their options-considered list:
- Get your staff together, including organizers
- Create a list of characteristics of your ideal member
- Make a list of the "felt needs" of that ideal member
- Start by thinking about those things/events that happen in their lives
- Tie them to the solutions that local union can offer
- Develop stories that speak to those felt needs
- Run those stories in places where your target naturally spends lots of time
- Create a path of least resistance where it is easy for them to reach and talk with you (we can help with that)
- Schedule a Free 15 minute Consultation with Union Up