ASA Teams Take to the Road to Meet with Members

For years, ASA team members have traveled the nation to meet with members in what has been dubbed the “ASA Member Blitz.” 

The purpose of the blitz is to visit with members and their teams in their offices to explore the issues and challenges members are having, and then to bring those challenges back to the leadership to explore how the association might be able to help members face these challenges. 

The annual blitz took a hiatus due to the pandemic, but this year ASA staff members reengaged in member visits.

“No association that I know of does what we do as a staff,” ASA CEO Mike Adelizzi said.  “In fact, other association staff are shocked how we send teams out for days traveling from one city to the next meeting with members. However, as grueling an effort as it is, it is highly rewarding and gratifying that members open their doors to us and spend significant time talking to us about issues and solutions.”

This week, four staff teams are traveling through roughly 20 states over three days and will visit more than 50 members.

During visits earlier this week, members are saying they are still dealing with labor shortages and finding enough interested candidates to fill key roles, and hoping those new hires won’t be out of the company looking for something else before the ink is dried on their HR document. 

Product availability is also still an issue, as well as pricing, while others are thinking about how mergers and acquisitions will impact their ability to compete over time. 

At the association level, ASA is hearing that while it thinks it is over-communicating to members, the key information needed by each company is not getting deep into the company, which is challenging ASA to rethink how it delivers critical information beyond the owner. 

“We need to do a better job of communicating the value company-wide,” Adelizzi said.