I propose that, when we hit 10,000 members, we stop adding members and take the time/make the effort to strengthen the infrastructure to support and account for that many before taking on new members.
New members can be added when vacancies occur.
What do you think?
James,
I think that would be quite hard to do because NACHI is still a business with overhead and that grows yearly with marketing, paying people like myself to teach and doing shows and providing things like booths, table tops, the nice NACHI license plates, all the goodies NICK gives away and so on.
The infrastructure can be monitored but not at the cost of limiting growth or making a GOOD Ole’ Boys club with limited membership.
Running a Non-Profit is a hard business, because while the name implies it…you still need yearly, monthly and weekly income to sustain growth and offer new ideas and a on-going flow of capital is what keeps ideas coming up.
I also think volumes will help CONTROL the industry as it grows, the more working inspectors that are part of a association the association grows to meet those needs, money is spent on those members, venders can offer greater things at better prices and the whole industry grows.
Also it allows people to JUMP SHIP from other associations when they see that " Resistance is Futile " and while many flame nick for his marketing idea sometimes…the man is a genious at stirring the POT and I have never met the man…but it takes a Mover and a Shaker to stir it and it is being STIRRED right now…I say let it GROW…
Just my thoughts…remember they are my opinions only which you solicited…
No…
The market place should determine how many members are allowed
in NACHI. How is NACHI going to swallow the planet if we stop feeding
her. It would hurt Nicks feeling to deny him his desire for world
domination. I think he would make a wonderful world leader myself.
Can you imagine the nations of the world under the flag of the United
States of NACHI? It has a certain ring to it, does’nt it? Who needs the
United Nations, when you’ve got NACHI. Bill Clinton will not be allowed
a position in anything higher than the local dog catcher.
It would be such a blessing not to see Wal Mart anymore, but instead see
Wal NACHI… Of coarse Nick would buy from the USA only and drive
China out of business.
I plan on serving in the new Supreme Court. It’s already been reported
that some Realtors are planning their escape to Iceland.
I’m going to raise my prices too.
Smile.
Planet NACHI, resistance is futile. 
“We work for the govenment and we’re here to help you.”
Yeah…what Blaine said…No…
I would expect all other vendors to share your point of view, Paul. NACHI is a mouthwatering meal ticket for quite a few service providers and educational outlets. We love having you guys around competing for our attention, particiapation and dollars. It’s good for both sides - vendor and member, alike.
While recognizing your desire to have 100,000 people to attend your seminars instead of 10,000…there are several folks at the top who are overwhelmed in their attempts to keep up. Every good general (as Nick certainly is) recognizes the need not to extend himself beyond his supply lines.
Nick has been discussing this “cap” idea for about a year. !0,000 seems to be a good round number with which to implement it, in my opinion. Besides, putting a cap on membership at the same time the other folks (ASHI and NAHI) are struggling to recruit will certainly add a new flavor to the NACHI conversation.
So, in your reasoning Jim, once we get to 10k we should tell anyone who wants to join us, No. Then they can go join ASHI or NAHI, and build their numbers.
Makes sense to me.:roll:
If we’re overwhelmed at present, we’ll get over it.
Nope.
Let’s say that we agree, once we hit 10K, not to add new members beyond that number until we have fully implemented all of the programs that are now on the table. During this period, one new member can be added for every member who is not renewed, but the number 10K remains stable.
Once all of the pieces are in place, we open the doors again.
I still think this smacks of a marketing ploy (“Hurry! Join before we cap it!”) otherwise it would be posted under members only an d not in the general area.
To the point - if the argument is that management of the organization and its membership will become unwieldy without planning and development of the infrastructure, I wholeheartedly agree.
But that would be best accomplished through a formal strategic plan and organizational analysis, not a membership cap. I understand that for some reason formal planning is abhorred by NACHI leadership, but I cannot understand why.
A good plan allows for unforseen events and positions you to take advantage of immdedate opportunities by ensuring resources are not overtaxed. Key programs and initatives are consistently fed (not starved) and membership growth can be accounted for and accomodated.
Joe, you’ve been speaking of your strategic plan for the past couple of years.
Send me a copy of it, please. We can see how it differs from the current NACHI plan.
Astute! Bingo!
Actually, the only reason I posted it in this area was so that Nick (if he chose to) would have the opportunity to add his thoughts.
The poll is skewed, though, with non-members having a say I suppose. I would think that the majority of disagreement to this would come from those on the outside since the argument “Anyone can be a NACHI member”, which is already bogus for other reasons, would become totally obsolete.
My thinking is that NACHI’s membership seats would be like that of a country club or the NY Stock Exchange. When a member leaves NACHI for whatever reason (retires, dies, sells), his seat would be put up for auction with a premium (above and beyond the $289 membership dues) going to the departing member.
As demand for NACHI membership exceeds 10,000 (supply), the value of each member’s seat goes up.
BTW, we topped 9,150 N. American members yesterday.
Blaine, I have never developed one for NACHI as there has been no interest in it ( and often derision of it). I started to compose one by doing a SWOT analysis, however none of the key figures wanted to participate so there was little point in proceeding since items and resources viewed as crucial by some (like nick for instance) may not be known to all (like me).
I have developed plans for several organizations, non-profits, campaigns, companies, and one university. I offered (for free) to assist in organizing this effort within NACHI, but no one is interested.
In brief, the concept is this:
This should be the Prime Directive and when some one says “should we try X?” it should be viewed in terms of whether it is consistent with the Mission.
Break the org into its prime components (like maybe Membership, Staff, benefits, education, marketing, etc). Compose a brief thumbnail of the state of each component (size, growth, programs, etc) using the SWOT.
For each component, identify Goals (long range 3-5 years), Objectives (short range 0-2 years) and then create action items that will allow each goal and objective to be met. Each Goal or Objective should address one of the identified SWOT (to maintain a strength, improve or eliminate a weakness, take advantage of popportunity, or protect against a threat).
The real trick is that not all of the Goals and/or Objectives are of equal stature (some take precedence) and not all will be positive. For example, one objective might be to reduce the workload on NACHI staff and conserve resources by eliminating unpopular or costly programs and benefits iwhtin the next year (addressing the weakness of overtaxed staff/resources, for example). The corresponding action items could be: To perform a cost/benefit analysis of infrequently used benefits, to identify the most time consuming benefits for staff to administer, etc…
In the end, each action item is assigned to someone and followed up on regularly to ensure completion or progress.
With NACHI, it seems key to allow maximum flexibility to pursue opportunities so this should be accounted for by making operations more streamlined and efficient, and maximizing the use of all of our resources.
Finally, in order to succeed, a plan must have buy in, so it must be formulated by the people who will implement it: in this case, Nick, leadership, staff, volunteers, and membership (to a lesser extent).
That’s it in a nut shell. It is more in depth than that and takes a good deal fo debating and discussion, but I have seen several and only seen one plan fail to improve the opertaion of the org. That one did not have full buy in from the boss and was (of course) destined to fail).
850 to go…and counting…
So how many of these are:
real members
working home inspectors
vendors only
retired
complimentary guest memberships
etc.
???
They are each real members, home inspectors that joined NACHI through www.nachi.org/membership.htm over the years and have continually renewed.
NACHI does not keep track of whether they are retired from the inspection business or not, but they haven’t left NACHI. And some members who joined NACHI are also vendors on the side. I would think this is the case in any trade association though. We don’t have retired members, if a member retires from NACHI he is no longer a member. If he retires from the business but renews he is simply a member. We have no guest members, all members must fulfill NACHI’s membership requirements, annual requirements and renew to remain a member. Vendors who are also members but don’t do inspections are mostly invisible and there aren’t many of them.
9,154 now… and mind you… this is only the N. America count. We are already past 10,000 worldwide.
Thanks for the answer Nick.