I was reading an article at RealTown by Matthew Ferrara. It's a good read. Underneath his insights, though, is a nagging question about how much benefit there is to being a member of an association.
The percent of members who belong (versus those who do not) to a trade associations is a bit hard to track. In my home state, I can go to any local association and find out how many members they have. But the state does not publish how many licensees there are. We also know that most local associations have lost between 20% to 50% of their membership in the past 2 years. Did they get out of the business or just choose to not be a member of a trade association? I think the best guess might be that only 50% of agents are members of either their local, state or national associations. And it's not just non-productive agents who are not members!
I recently came across some numbers that seemed to indicate that the number of physicians who are members of the American Medical Association was about 30%. While I haven't been able to find any numbers on the American Bar Association, it is clear from information I've found online that they also are struggling with attracting and maintaining membership.
I rather suspect that the reason that agents have a higher percentage of membership in their association is because, in most cases, they don't have a choice to do otherwise. What would NAR's numbers look like if agents really had the choice to be a member or not? Does that average agent actually perceive enough value in membership to actually join?
Your thoughts?
(FYI: Buddy has been a Director for the State Association for the past two years and at present serves on 7 different state and local committees.)