I have a 14 year old son named Luke. He's my youngest of three. This week he had a writing assignment in school called "This I Believe." It's about focusing on a core belief and emphasizing it through story. His is all about learning a trick on his skateboard, the "Slappy Grind", which ultimately demonstrates that with enough persistence, you can do just about anything.
His story is really inspirational for me and it reminds me to keep working on my "Slappy Grind" every day. It got me thinking that this is a lot like a brand story.
Well, here's ours. If you have any interest where PropFuel came from:
Dave Will:
When I was 30 years old, after being laid off from my consulting job, I decided to set up a desk in my basement and start something of my own. That business turned into Peach New Media, and years later I had a team of 40 employees serving 100s of associations with our Freestone learning management system.
You learn a lot of lessons growing a business, but the one that stands out themost to me by far is the power of relationships. For me, that meant focusing almost all of my time and effort on building authentic relationships with our employees and our clients. All of the success that we had in that business was a result of the culture that we built, where our employees were part of the mission, and our clients felt like they were part of our family.
Cameron Aubuchon:
I joined Dave at Peach New Media after graduating college, eventually becoming CTO. I spent eight years designing, developing, and implementing software to help associations deliver learning content to their members.
While I was there, technology advanced and the space exploded with options. There are literally thousands of learning management systems out there. Sure, we thought we did some things better than anyone else, but at the end of the day we were selling a commodity. I saw the same thing happening to our association clients, they were no longer the only place for their members to get content. Every year more competitors popped up, more business models surfaced, and there were more options for their members to get their continuing education. The challenge associations were facing was not just getting their content out there, it was how to keep their members coming back.
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In 2015, fourteen years after Dave started selling online conferencing in his basement, we sold Peach New Media to Abila, now Community Brands. We each worked for Abila for a while, but eventually the entrepreneurial bug bit and a couple years later we got back together to create PropFuel.
We saw that the trend of commoditized information had only accelerated, and associations are struggling to differentiate themselves in a world where information is everywhere. It’s not just the learning management space that has seen an explosion of options, there are new technologies popping up every day that can help associations keep up in the information arms race.
However, we think there is something missing. Delivering personalized content to your members is good, but building an authentic connection to your members is ultimately what is going to keep them coming back.
PropFuel is here to help fuel a connection. A connection between you and your team, your members, your learners, your customers, your volunteers, your executive board. And it requires a two way dialog.
Most of us will agree, the relationship, the connection is the most important thing. So you have a choice. Push more stuff at them hoping it creates a connection, or fuel a connection by asking more questions.
We built PropFuel with the intent of helping teams feel more connected with each other and with their members and customers. It’s the human connection that fuels everything else.I'd love to show you how PropFuel can help you create more dynamic relationships by asking questions on a continuous basis, giving your constituents a voice, and therefore getting them more involved in the member experience. Set up a time to see a demo with me.
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