Does your meeting have 3 visitors each week?

20/6/10

There are many ways in which you can tell if your chapter is healthy or not, but the number of visitors your chapter has each week is an easy way of telling if your chapter is growing or in decline.

Over the long term three or more visitors each week mean the chapter is growing, whereas two or fewer visitors mean that the chapter is in decline.

Now you may be wondering why this should be the case and the answer is simple. On average all chapters lose one member per month. Now before you say ‘Not my chapter!’ remember I said on average. Some chapters don’t lose that number, but then others lose more. In fact, my own chapter has lost four members in the past month - it really does happen!

So, during the term of a Leadership team, your chapter could lose up to six members (maybe more). Therefore, just to remain a group of the same size, you need six new members. Now, again on average, one out of every five eligible visitors will join your chapter. However, we all get a lot of ‘other’ visitors as well, so the joining rate is actually more like one in every eight visitors.

This is where the maths comes in!

For your chapter to remain the same size you therefore need six new members, which means that with one in eight visitors joining you need 48 visitors in the six months of your Leadership Team. If we divide 48 by 26 (6 months) the result is 1.85 visitors per week. (Let’s call it two so there’s no blood).

And, it doesn’t matter what size your chapter is, the facts are the same. Under two visitors a week and your chapter size is in decline and this means less business for all.

But, here’s the best bit. On average, if you are in a chapter of 26 members, each member only has to bring one visitor every two months! How easy is that?

Why not work out the number of visitors a member needs to bring in a Leadership Team term for your own chapter and set that as a member target?