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Do Not Advertise to Attract Core Members
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If you really want to attract core members to your plan, club, or union, do not advertise. Do not let them find you easily online. Make your name hard to recognize, preferably using foreign words. It may prove helpful if your content is outdated. Do not hang signage. Lock the gate. Let your 80-pound Rottweiler puppy run wild in the yard. Create a lengthy eligibility form requiring personal references.
Actually, we have boasted each of these barriers to entry over the years at Ecole de Budo and Writers’ Dojo. I have learned that the difficulty level to join directly connects to the rate at which we attract serious, core members.
Core members are the ones who consume all your content, passionately share it and make it their own. They will show up with friends at all your events. You can count on them to purchase. They will follow when you change locations. What artist doesn’t want devoted fans or groupies? What organization or brand strategy doesn’t call for an army of true believers?
The more barriers to entry for membership, the more likely the member who emerges will be the sort who is your core target. It makes sense that the ones who jumped through all those hoops surely will stick around. But create too many barriers, and you risk not having enough pledges, or you may be deemed too exclusionary.
Selective policies can help those who are chosen to feel empowered. This is the psychology of the velvet rope outside a night club. In many organizational settings, core members prefer to feel chosen. This is a crucial part of their value assessment. They want to attain something of value for their commitment and participation. This is the case for the black belt classes in Ecole de Budo, and for masters poetry classes in the Writers’ Dojo. These are advanced classes with prerequisites.
When you start identifying and collecting core members in this fashion, I hope you remain humble and impressed by their dedication. They left messages, showed up, found us, climbed the gate, completed the forms. Find ways to keep these members on-board. Do not diminish or belittle the ones who jump through your fire hoops and remain. Those are the physics that encourage some fraternity recruits, for instance. After all, you will surely need these core members later on, when nobody else can find you.