Background
The National Association of Estate Agents, which has in the region of 10,000 members, is the leading - and by far the largest - professional body in estate agency and is represented through its members in more than 60 per cent of estate agency offices in the UK.

Like many membership organisations the NAEA recognised that it needed a long term strategy to ensure they reformed and developed its membership and moved away from its present 70% plus dependence on subscription revenue.

Approach
Following a one-day awareness course on strategy management, run by AHC on behalf of the Trade Association Forum for its members, AHC were asked to conduct a membership survey. Our proposal addressed this work but recommended that the results be fed into a series of strategy workshops to be held with the organisation’s management team and a selection of elected officers (members). Using AHC’s strategy framework the workshop agendas and tools used to facilitate thinking and decision making were tailored for NAEA.

Benefits
The three-year strategy developed has prompted an action to restructure the organisation to improve decision making and communicate and make the membership more involved. New forms of service are being developed which will be paid for on usage and significant changes to administration and web services were agreed.

In this latter category AHC have facilitated the choice of an administration (membership) system and the pre-go live implementation, and the replacement of a key web-based service Property Live, which will eventually produce up to 20% of non-subscription revenue.

Testimonial
“The NAEA was concerned at the lack of membership growth and identified AHC as the right external consultancy to work with the Association. Their previous experience in the field of Trade Association consultancy was undoubtedly important as they could identify with the issues.”

“Through their skills they were able to win acceptance of a plan which streamlined the Governance and Committee structures and re-focussed the communication strategy to provide a more responsive method of obtaining rank and file input to policy.”
Hugh Dunsmore-Hardy FRSA FNAEA.
Former NAEA Chief Executive