Ed Rigsbee With Cigar PEG, Inc.

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:17] Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio, and this is going to be a fun one. Today on the show, we have Ed Rigsbee with Cigar PEG. Welcome, Ed.

Ed Rigsbee: [00:00:27] Thank you, Lee. Happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:29] Well, I’m excited to learn about your group. Tell us a little bit about Cigar Peg. How you serving, folks?

Ed Rigsbee: [00:00:35] Cigar Peg is a IRS 501 C three nonprofit charity, as opposed to many associations and societies, which are a 501 C six. We are loosely connected with the National Speakers Association. All of the members of my organism, not all, but most of the members of my organization are professional speakers or subject matter experts that use speaking or some kind of language to share their message. And we put on a very large fund raiser every year at the National Speakers Association meeting, and then we do some private events, cigar peg members only through the rest of the year. We have members, we have benefactor members and we have high roller members. So the people that are high roller members, they’ve spent, you know, over $10,000 at our auctions. Benefactor members pay a bit more to be a member and then there are members. So that’s pretty much the quick thumbnail of who we are, what we do.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:50] So what was the genesis of the idea? What got the organization off the ground?

Ed Rigsbee: [00:01:56] It actually was originally kind of a joke. Back in the 1990s. A lot of people used to jokingly refer to the National Speakers Association is the as the Southern Baptist Speakers Association, meaning there was maybe just a little bit too many extreme religious right people running the organization. And there didn’t seem to be quite as much room for just mainstream people that weren’t quite as not necessarily left, but not necessarily that far right and just kind of people in the middle. So I started a party, the association used to have activities every night. One year, I think was 1998. They stopped having an activity one of the nights chatting with some friends and hey, if we would have known about this, we would organize something. So the next year I, with the friend Grant Doyle out of Canada, organized something and it was it was kind of the start of a cigar party. And we gave all of the money that we made to the Speakers Association Foundation. And then the second year good friend of mine, Patricia Fripp, suggested to me, said, Ed, if you really want to make some, some real money to donate to the foundation, why don’t you auction off me for consulting? And it kind of took us down the road of putting out a big party, having an auction. We give probably about half our money to the Speakers Association Foundation and the other half to other medically related events that people care about. We’ve given out in our history a little over 850,000.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:57] But it was it was kind of just a group of people that had common interests getting together. But at some point you said, you know what, why don’t we formalize this and make this, you know?

Ed Rigsbee: [00:04:08] Yeah, it it. When you say group of people getting together, it started growing as a community, you know, again, a community within a larger community. And because of the way things were going, you know, doing auctions and giving money, Mike and I just was running it through my corporation and my accountant told me, says, Yeah, you need to not do it this way. This need to go. You need to go to IRS and get a, you know, get a nonprofit status. I was with a buddy of mine from high school, so friends all these years later and we’re buying some suits downtown LA and sitting in my favorite little greasy Mexican restaurant. And I was talking about my problem because, oh, man, I’ve done a bunch of these nonprofits. Give me a box of cigars, I’ll put it together for you. And I said, okay. And so as of February 2006, we received the determination from the IRS as a nonprofit public charity. So then that allowed me to go to the bank and open up a checking account and, you know, just do a lot of things. And we became a legitimate nonprofit, and the nonprofit pays me a very small stipend to run it. And the that allows me to be an ASI American Society of Association Executives, CEO member, which also allowed me to go after my C a certified associate certified association executive credential. So it’s, it’s, it’s, and it’s just been a fun thing that’s just kind of morphed over the years to now.

Ed Rigsbee: [00:05:59] We have a very, very strong community because when the pandemic hit, I just decided we’re going to start doing every Wednesday Zoom. And now the people are, you know, they’re hooked on it because it just it helps them stay connected to the to the community. And so we just keep doing things to create value. We we also just another kind of feather I got one day I thought, you know, we should start the virtual speaker’s hall of Fame. So the cigar bought the website Virtual Speakers of Fame. We started doing showcases and everybody that showcased was a nominee and last year was our first vote and all of the the showcases were live. So we invited other association executives to watch the showcase. The end of the year. We bought software, voting software and based on email. And so we put it out. All the association execs that watch the various showcases, they got to vote. So we had our our first voted in class Virtual Speakers Hall of Fame, five people in 2021, the website’s conveniently virtual speakers hall of Fame dot org long but easy to remember. And that’s launched us down a whole nother direction of creating value for our members. You don’t have to be a member to participate. It’s just a little less expensive if you’re a member. So we’re we’re having fun serving our members, doing fun things, making a difference in the marketplace in various ways. And just, you know, kind of I hate to say dumb, fat and happy.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:53] But in your career you’ve been involved in organizations now, obviously in all in all facets. Right now, this is starting an organization from scratch. You, I’m sure, have been members of organizations and associations. Is there any advice you can share for folks that are starting an association or an organization from scratch that you can maybe can help smooth out their learning curve a little?

Ed Rigsbee: [00:08:19] Yeah, let me just ask it before I go into it to maybe go a little bit deeper. Are we talking about starting a nonprofit or are we talking about starting a trade association or are we talking about starting a community? Kind of give me a what what you’re.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:35] Well, I mean, the show is geared towards association leaders, so let’s talk about associations.

Ed Rigsbee: [00:08:42] Okay. I authored a book that came out in 2014. The book is titled The Role of Membership Today’s Missing Link for Explosive Growth. And in that book, one of the things that I said, let me back up. I back around I think it was the year 2000. I just dumb stumbled into something. So I was doing a keynote presentation for the California Farm Association up in San Francisco and Jerry Leander, their executive director, you know, kind of squeezing me, going, hey, you know, can you can you can you throw in a an industry roundtable? Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. Happy to do it. So when I do those types of things, I’ll just ask the people in the group in the room, you know, what’s on your mind and put the things down on a piece of paper, what’s on the mind. We vote and whatever comes on the top, that’s what we talk about. So it was interesting. There was a bunch of board members in the room and they really wanted to talk more about the value of membership and their organization and just just start asking all kinds of questions and this and that and the other. And after the hour plus session, I’m looking at my the flip chart pages all around the room and I thought, holy cow, I think I created something here and took them all home with me. When I got back, I called Jerry, the executive director, said, Jerry, hey, you know, what we did is we worked on the value of membership and actually we did it in what are the actual real dollar numbers, and we did some really great work in that session.

Ed Rigsbee: [00:10:26] Would you like me to write an article for your magazine about it? Because Oh yeah, that’d be great. So, Lee, I just without knowing what qualitative research was, stumbled into qualitative research and developed a methodology, focus group methodology for determining an actual real dollar numbers what each feature of membership is worth. And so, and again, we have to remember, there’s, there’s there’s a lot of things that associations do that are not features of membership as an example of advocacy and legislative work. However, if they do, if they produce a legislative update and only give it to their members, then that legislative update is a feature of membership, which is, by the way, rated very, very high. So the advice I would give. Is what is in the book. If you want to grow your organization, if you want to start an organization, you’ve got to look at, you know, what are the benefits of membership and if you don’t. If we were to go to a dozen association websites and it would say benefits of membership and we look at it, it really isn’t benefits of membership, it’s features. And there’s a big difference. And I think most association people don’t really get it that there’s a difference between a feature and a benefit. A feature is something that’s built into the product or service. The benefit is how it makes that person’s life better. So what associations need to do is focus on talking to members or potential members about Here’s what’s in it for you. Here are the member. Only features the things that you don’t get unless you’re a member.

Ed Rigsbee: [00:12:18] And let me explain how it makes your life better and these these benefits or the features which create a benefit. You know, they go through the windows of profit to gain fear of loss, avoidance of pain, pride and prestige, so on. And. And so it’s. If you want to grow an organization. You’ve got to look at how are we creating value? The the old the old thing that I’m a baby boomer and I’m looking at your picture, Lee, and I’m not sure if you’re a baby boomer, but you’re getting maybe close. The old thing was, you know, joined because you should. That kind of disappeared with flair, slacks and bellbottom jeans. People, younger people, they don’t join because they should. They joined because I need to to better myself somehow. And a lot of associations have a big problem with when they’re trying to talk about why people should join. Usually on the board are more senior members, people that have been in the organization for a long time, and they forgot why they joined. They’re at a place in their life where they’re moving from being simply successful to wanting to be significant, which is wonderful. And the association helps them to do that. But they forget that the people that join when they’re younger, they want to grow their business, they want to grow their career, they want to grow their finances. So hence, any organization has to be able to prove to potential members it’s a good business decision, it’s good career decision, it’s a good financial decision. That’s the big disconnect that most people trying to create an organization do not.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:13] How do you how do you as an association leader and say, I’m buying everything you’re saying that I feel it’s imperative to demonstrate ROI in real green dollar way? Sure. How do I quantify the value of the things that I’m saying are the reasons you should join to network, to be mentored, to, you know, demonstrate leadership? How how do I translate that into dollars so that a prospective member can say, you know what membership costs x, I’m getting five X by joining.

Ed Rigsbee: [00:14:54] You know, Lee, that is the $64,000 question. And here’s the good news. I have the answer for you. So the qualitative research focus group sessions that I do, what we what I do is I get a cross-section of members, younger members, older members, male female, you know, as diverse a group, you know, based on the population of the association as possible. And we get them in a room, you know, try to get, you know, 30 ish people. And we I go through each feature of membership and and and I make sure and sometimes that I’ll I’ll have a little bit of challenge from the association staff. And it’s like, no, if it’s not a member only benefit, we’re not putting it up on the board. So because what we’re doing is we’re saying, okay, you pay, let’s just take your number $500 a year to be a member. We want to see how much they get for that $500. And so you go through each feature. And the idea and why why quantitative research doesn’t work so well is all the people that you’re researching, they don’t have the same context, so they can’t answer the question. When you do it qualitatively in a focus group methodology, you’ve got a facilitator in the room saying, okay, now this is how we’re going to do it, this is how we’re going to look at this. Here are several ways that you can determine how it’s valuable to you.

Ed Rigsbee: [00:16:34] You do it this way. You do it this way. You do it this way, you do it this way. And then the people in the room can go, Oh, I got it now today with having Zoom. I mean, it can be done on Zoom. And if you use like meta meter software where people can vote, I mean, you can, you can do it almost as good. But it’s the idea to let your members tell you. Now I’ll go to a number of ROI calculators on association websites. And generally, when I call the association, talk to them. It’s the staff that determined that’s wrong because because members and potential members don’t believe what the staff say. They believe what they say and they believe what their colleagues say. So what we have to do is say, okay, our members have said on average the value they get from this feature of membership. And I’ll just give you an example across the board. You know, I mean, I’ve been doing these sessions for over a decade. And what I mentioned earlier, a legislative update. Legislative update. Generally is valued by members and there’s a wide range, but generally from about 2000 a year to 5000 a year. And the way they find that is, is, is, is time saving because yeah, they could. They could hire a clerical person to go all do that work.

Ed Rigsbee: [00:18:02] But then that clerical person doesn’t maybe have the ability to create the summary and make it easy for the person to use access to headquarters staff. When people call them association and want answers to something in the industry, if the association people answer them, they’re kind of shooting themselves in the foot on value. What they need to say is, well, you know, that kind of information is proprietary to our members. We’d love to have you join our organization. Can I connect you with our membership people? So, you know, it’s it’s and this whole content marketing thing associations, so many of them are deluded into believing we just keep putting it out there, putting it out there and putting it out there. And people are joining. No, they will not put out the headlines. But make the content member only specific. There is there’s a ton of things that that we can go through. And, you know, when I over the years of doing these valuations, usually most associations in society have somewhere around 25 ish features of membership which are member only. And those 25 can be measured. And you know, it depends, but I see that the ROI as far as the multiplier. From about 10 to 50 times. So you know that that’s the common range. So if you spend $500 for membership. So ten would be 5000 to.

Ed Rigsbee: [00:19:59] 25. And and and I think that it’s it’s really much easier than people realize. But the challenge in doing in doing these sessions, a friend of mine who’s an association executive and I’ve worked with him in different associations that I’ve done work with, and he called me up and says, you know, I really want to do this facilitation myself. And his name is Matt. And I said, You know, Matt, I don’t recommend it, but we’re buddies, so I’ll teach you how to do it. Is it okay after he did the facilitation, you know, I call him. I said, Well, Matt, how did it go? And he goes, Well, you were right. And I said, What do you mean? He said, Well, you know, I found myself so I’m trying to to be. Their friend as as an employee of the association. And I found it very, very hard to push them to think a little bit harder than they normally would. And and I said, exactly. Bingo. That’s why you want an outsider. Because that way when the outsider comes in and the outsider pushes them a little bit, they can make all kinds of negative comments about the outsider. But the outsider disappears. But then the positive is the outsider pushed us and look what we have. So it’s it’s not hard. It’s easy to understand, but it’s actually hard to implement.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:31] But the key is to get the data from the actual members, not from kind of the board members in a in a conference room. Absolutely. Estimating you want to get the real data from the real people that are using it, not what you think the value is based on kind of the ivory tower folks telling.

Ed Rigsbee: [00:21:50] Yeah yeah. Board members will tend to to measure a little bit higher because they’re a little bit more engaged. But see, the thing is, and I teach associations, I’ve been doing this for years how to build a member recruitment brochure based on ROI and whether you do it paper or digital. I like paper because you can put it in your pocket and and you can sit down and and talk to somebody like at a Starbucks. And then, you know, you’ve got all this list of all these features and membership, and then the person goes, Well, I’m not going to use this one. Go. Oh, great. Let me take a magic marker. Draw a line through that. I’m not going to use that one. Okay. Draw the line through that. This. I’m not going to. Okay. So so everything else you think you’re going to use this is to the prospective member. And they would go, Yeah, these three, I’m not going to use OC. We line those out. Let’s re add OC instead of giving getting $22 back for every dollar you invest in membership, you’re going to get $17 back for every dollar you invest in membership. It still sounds like it’s a pretty good business decision, don’t you think?

Lee Kantor: [00:22:53] Right. And they’re coauthoring it with you.

Ed Rigsbee: [00:22:56] Yeah, but but the thing is, I’ve got to be able to say that, that if I’m a member of an association and I’m using this, or if I’m a staff person and I’m using this, I’ve got to be able to say our members have told us through research on average, you’ve got to be honest, you know, and on average this is the number. And sometimes when I do these facilitations, I mean, I have some member go, no, that’s worth $50,000. And I go, Yeah, you know, the number has to pass what I call the smell test. And, you know, maybe you’re right, but nobody’s going to believe it. So we got we got to dial back a little bit. But I find that it’s very common for trade associations and professional societies to deliver $20 back for every dollar invested. $40 back for every dollar invested. I see that frequently. And and it’s just understanding. And then the interesting thing here’s another thing like that. If it’s a trade association and the company is a member, well, then we got to change the calculation because now it’s well, what’s an average company and how many members, how many employees of that company might participate in the organization? Well, let’s they say, well, you know, on average, an average company, B, X, and they probably have five people from that company participate. Okay. So now all of these things that we we lay out that are features of membership, you got a multiple times five. Because because you’ve got five people in your organization. So that’s the value to the organization. So on on the professional society, which generally it’s only the member. You do it to the individual person, but if it’s a trade association and the company is the member, then you multiply it out and it’s even a larger number, quite frankly.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:03] So now getting back to Cigar Peg, what has been the most rewarding part of starting this organization and seeing it kind of grow over the years?

Ed Rigsbee: [00:25:15] Sure. Interesting question. You know, I think the most rewarding part is that at the end of every year. When I get to write the checks out to charities, I, I really like that. It it’s a very cool thing. The other. That’s that’s so very rewarding is. You know, when when I’ll put on an event at the National Speakers Association or I put on other events. We do one usually every year in Key West and we do one usually every year in Las Vegas. And, you know, just seeing all these people that come to this event, something that I’ve created and and they see the value of the community and getting together and and the events. I don’t charge much for them. I think associations right now and I’m going to probably get in trouble for saying this. I think associations are leaning too much on non-news revenue and charging too much for their conferences and trying to make too much off their conferences and non-news revenue. And there’s a lot in the marketplace of members pushing back against these egregious high prices to come to a conference and organizations are giving less and less at conferences. I think there’s going to be a day of reckoning on that. I run a. Every Tuesday I run an association CEO forum on Zoom and they pay to be part of this forum. And we were talking about that just a few weeks ago. And a number of them were saying, yeah, you know, we think that there’s going to be a day of reckoning if the prices keep getting too high. So it’s that’s why I keep the price is very low. I and I just really enjoy being with my colleagues, seeing that they’re there, getting value from the events and at the end of the year, getting to write up, getting to write those checks. Just really, really fun to do.

Lee Kantor: [00:27:16] And it sounds like at the heart of your work is just having real communication and conversations with your members in order to provide the services and value that they want and then just delivering it to them in an elegant way that they enjoy doing it.

Ed Rigsbee: [00:27:36] Mm hmm. You know, Lee, I think so many trade associations and professional societies don’t quite understand the value they create by providing community. And I think also they don’t understand how to run the chapters and how to create virtual satellite communities. And and, you know, we all want to learn from our colleagues, whether I’m a dentist or whether I’m a roofer. I mean, it doesn’t matter. And and in picking up the ideas and, you know, as I said earlier, there’s there’s several buying reasons to make the decision to join or call them buying reasons, decision to join reasons, whatever you want. And and and community is one of them. And so it’s I think that that’s an area that there’s a lot of room for a lot of organizations to to really expand what they’re doing and and do it in a way that creates more value. But here’s a challenge, and I see this all the time. A lot of organizations, whether it’s trade associations or professional societies, want to put on events where, like their vendors sponsor it. Well, now, now it’s a conflict of interest because the vendors are paying for it. So the vendors want a million people there or lots of people there. But if you let nonmembers come, then the value of membership is diminished. And so they’re cross purposes. And so a lot of associations or societies have to figure out, well, wait a minute, wait a moment, who are we serving here? Are we serving the vendors? And because they want as many people as possible at an event, or are we are we serving the members and making it member only? So that’s another feature of membership.

Ed Rigsbee: [00:29:39] It’s another value of membership. I mean, as a does a really great thing, they do a lot of various free webinars, this, that and the other. However, I have to go through their their shopping cart to register for the free event and it shows that that event should be let’s just take a number of $50. But because I’m a member, I’m getting it for free. So the subliminal that A is A is doing to me, right? They’re saying, Hey, yeah, we just gave you $50 as part of the value of your membership. You just say $50. And and I think that not enough organizations do that. And I think that they should, should, should take a note out of Asus’s playbook and and whatever we’re doing, you know, think about this for just a minute. Lee is one when an organization puts on a conference is the. Conference. A feature of membership or is the discount on registration that members get? That’s a feature of membership. Now, if you’re the cigar industry and you don’t let outsiders into your closed conference, well, then the conference is a feature of membership. But but I would say the majority of trade association, professional society meetings, non members can come. They just have to pay more. So we’ve got to become be careful. Remember, the conference is not the feature of membership. The discount is and we’ve got to make sure that we let people know, hey, because you’re a member, you just save 203 hundred and 500, whatever the discount is.

Lee Kantor: [00:31:23] Yeah, that’s a great reference for the great reminder for associations to remind people of the value that they’re providing. And it can be done in an elegant way that you just mentioned. Force them to sign up for the free event and let them know that you just signed up for free in this, you know, for regular people that have been 100 bucks. So in essence, you just saved 100 bucks. So they can do that in their their mental math as they’re calculating. Should I re-up for next year? Well, I’ve saved look, over the course of the year, thousands of dollars. It’s a no brainer to re-up.

Ed Rigsbee: [00:32:01] Yeah. You know, I think, you know, in my earlier life in the speaking world, I wrote three books on Strategic Alliance Development, and I used to do a lot of keynotes and workshops on Strategic Alliance development. And in one of the books, I, I really talked about my idea of relationship bank deposits and relationship bank withdrawals. And the idea is you don’t think about you can’t go to a bank and ask for money if you don’t have money there or if you don’t have a relationship or if you haven’t filled out a credit app. And so the thing that a lot of associations forget about through the year, you know, you’ve got to keep making relationship bank deposits with your members throughout the year. Then at the end of the year, when you ask them to renew, which is a relationship bank withdrawal, now they’re ready to say, sure, you know, same problem associations have when they on board new members. I’d like to use the Star Trek term assimilation and and instead of sending them the packet of stuff. Drip it out, send them sent and send the member something every month. Because if you send them at the beginning when they, when they become a member a packet of stuff, well that’s one relationship bank deposit. But if you drip stuff out through the year, that’s maybe 12 relationship bank deposits. And I know that it’s a very simplistic idea, but we do mentally keep track. We keep I hate to say keep score, but we kind of do. And and I think that that’s another area where a lot of membership organizations, they’re not. Making frequent relationship bank deposits.

Lee Kantor: [00:34:04] Right there, doing that one at the beginning, thinking, checking the box like, oh, we’ve given, we’ve told them everything and now it’s on them to kind of go through that thing where it gets filed away. They never opened it again. But if they would remind them, you know, once a month over the year and seeing all this new stuff that they’re now can get or remind them they’re going to get this, it just it just makes the person feel good year round rather than once.

Ed Rigsbee: [00:34:29] Absolutely. I mean and like I mean, with with my cigar pink charity every Wednesday, there’s a zoom call and that’s a relationship bank deposit every week. Now, not everybody comes on the call every week, but everybody gets an email reminding them and and and whether they do or not. And then we do a whole bunch of other things to where we’re making relationship bank deposits. But, but, you know, I think there’s a challenge just because you send the newsletter. Is it a relationship bank deposit or is it more noise? You know, and you’ve got to ask yourself, are you making your if you are sending a weekly newsletter, which is great. Are you making it really, really easy for them to access, digest and use the information? And the other question is, are you only sending it to members or which would then make it a feature of membership? Or are you sending out all around the industry thinking under delusion that it’s going to bring members in? So I think that these are some things that, you know, that are really worth having a discussion. And I realize there’s a lot of gray here. And, and and I don’t want to disk anybody for doing things a certain way. But I will say I think it’s worth having a discussion looking at everything we do as an organization.

Ed Rigsbee: [00:36:02] Is it a feature of membership or is it just something we’re doing for the industry? Is it a relationship bank deposit or is it not? And is this going to help us at the end of the year when the member tries to decide whether they’re going to renew or not? Because every year that member has a new buying decision. Unless, of course, you know, now I just got an email this morning from the National Speakers Association that says, general reminder, your membership is expires at the end of April and then it goes and you are on auto renew. It’s like awesome. Good. Send a note back. Thank you. Happy to be on auto renew. I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to make a decision. I could make a decision not to, but I think that that associations that aren’t getting their members on auto renewal, I think they could they could do well if they did. And I think that associations need to make sure that that when it’s time for renewal, that they’ve made enough relationship bank deposits, that when they want that withdrawal the member said, sure, happy to do it.

Lee Kantor: [00:37:17] Well, Ed, thank you so much for sharing your story today. For people who want to know more about Sagar Pegg or maybe your consultancy, can you share the website for both of those?

Ed Rigsbee: [00:37:27] Sure. If you want to know about the charity, if you want to go and donate to it, it’s Sagar Paycom c i g r. Just like the vineyard smoke cigar peg peg dot com. That’s the charity and you can look all the cool things we do. If you want to know more about me it’s my website is Rigsby Like Rigs and a bumblebee r i g sb e everybody wants to put a y, but that’s wrong. Tooheys Rigsby dot com just simple Rigsby dot com I got I got that URL very early when they’re putting URLs out there’s a lot of Rigsby out there that tried to get that, but I got it. Anyway, you can. I mean, I’ve got an article bank at my website and I’ve got them in different categories, whether it be articles on partnering, articles on member recruitment, articles on membership growth, articles on personal accountability, so on. So and, and there’s a good couple of hundred there. And at that Article Bank, when somebody goes to the article, there’s also written permission for reprinting. So any association exec that likes some of the stuff I talk about and wants to go snag some of my articles and use them, hey, help yourself. There’s even permission for reasonable edit. I’m not completely sure really what reasonable means, but the editors can figure that out for themselves. So lots of stuff there.

Lee Kantor: [00:39:02] Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Ed Rigsbee: [00:39:07] Thank you, Lee. I appreciate.

Lee Kantor: [00:39:08] That. All right. This is Lee Kantor SEO next time on Association Leadership Radio.