 trying to attract association business to your hotel or destination. It's great business but it can look a lot different than corporate or smurf business. Learn how the association market and their planners differ and start attracting more association business to your destination. Hey it's Leanne from LeanneColterwood.com and I love working with my association clients. They are by far my favorite kind of client. Not to say I don't enjoy working with my corporate clients. They are lovely as well but the association clients and planners, my skills and their skills just seem to meld so very well together. And I find that I get along really really well with associations and how they're managing their meetings because they do manage meetings differently. And I did a blog post not too long ago about how corporate planners work and operate and you can check out that video here as well as a video I did about working with site selection professionals and you can check out that video here as well. But association planners are different so we're going to look at how they differ and then of course how you can tailor your communications so you can attract more of that business to your hotel or destination. To start with it's important to recognize that association planners likely wear a lot of different hats in their role. First and foremost associations do tend to have planners that are solely focused on the meetings and conventions that they are hosting and that might be the only thing that they do. But then you'll find some association planners that also have a membership role or a communications role. This is all rolled up into their role as a meeting manager and they're juggling different priorities on any given day. You'll also find some associations lean on their executive director to manage the meetings and whether they outsource that later on is up to them but a lot of EDs have that on the plate of their role to especially when it comes to finding the hotel or choosing the destination for the program. Some associations do outsource the sourcing role and they look to their site selection specialist someone like me or maybe even their third party independent meeting planner to find the hotels and destinations. So you want to do some research to see if that association is in fact working with a site selection professional or with a third party because you'll want to touch base with those individuals as well because they're part of the decision-making process. That same executive director might also lean on a board of directors or a conference committee to help with these decisions in finding a hotel and finding a destination and this is where death by decision-making can sometimes cripple an association meeting's progress is there are so many people making decisions including the conference committee members but you have to get the information to all those committee members in order for them to make an informed decision. And finally some associations are managed by an association management company so there again they're part of the decision-making process and if your association is one of them then you want to get in touch with the AMC to make sure they have your information as well. It's a lot of decision-makers isn't it and they wear a bunch of different roles but again trust me there's value in finding association business once you identify all the players in the game. So working best with association meeting planners the first and most important thing to remember is there are a lot of decision-makers and a lot of people involved in the process. It doesn't mean it can't be done it just means we need to make sure that the information is disseminated correctly to all of those parties so that they can come together to make an informed decision. The other thing you'll need to do is think long-term associations rarely plan annual conventions in the year and for the year. They're looking two, three, five, seven years out to their conventions depending on the size of their programs so you need to budget that time accordingly as far as awareness of your hotel and destination through maybe potential fams and then the decision-making process could potentially take months before you get a signed contract. Like I mentioned being a thorough and being patient are really critical for association planners because they have the luxury of time they're going to spend that time being as thorough as possible or unfortunately procrastinating because they know they have that time and they don't have to make a decision tomorrow like some of their corporate planner counterparts so be thorough with your research and be patient with the planner as they're making going through the decision-making process. But like I mentioned the payoff is great these guys tend to have larger meetings so make sure that your hotel is a good fit for association business before you start pouring a bunch of resources into attracting that type of business. If you unfortunately only have a couple of breakout rooms that will limit the types of associations that you can attract to your venue because those association meetings tend to have a lot of different learning streams that require different breakout spaces in a hotel. So look at your hotel profile and then see what associations would be the best fit for your particular property. Budget is always a huge consideration for associations because their meetings tend to be a revenue generator for the association. So if they're looking to their meeting to make them a bunch of money they don't want to spend a bunch of money. Conversely they're delegates who now have to pay their own way as opposed to maybe some corporations that pay for all their corporate attendees to attend. The association attendee is on their own dime so they're looking to potentially save some dimes here and there. So being very budget conscious and putting your best foot forward in the proposal stage could mean you get the business or you lose the business. As I said association planners are incredible to work with. They're busy people but they're also very thoughtful and very strategic and if you can meet them in their playing field they're going to respond well and you're going to see more business land at your property. By taking the time to learn about their goals and objectives you can tailor your hotel proposal or your destination proposal to really fit the needs of their association. They love that stuff. If you have any tips on how to work better with association planners will you comment below would love to hear the tips and share it with the community as well. And if you like this video please click the like button. Steven and I are trying to increase our profile on YouTube and with more likes and more subscribers we can get our content out to more hotels and destinations just like you guys. To find more tips on how to attract a meeting planner to your destination hop on over to liankulderwood.com and download my handy worksheet. It gives you some tips on how to attract not only association planners but corporate and third-party planners as well. I hope you enjoyed this week's video and we'll see you next time. Bye for now.