If Your Trade Organization Was Like This One,
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If Your Trade Organization Was Like This One, |
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The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) defines
themselves as follows:
“Our purpose is to provide trusted
leadership in addressing industry challenges and delivering programs and
services to meet the identified needs of our members by measurably advancing
participation in and understanding of the hunting and shooting sports”.
In reality this is one of the
toughest and strongest trade organizations when it come to the protection of
their members. And they have to be,
because with the only possible exception of the auto industry, no other industry
is under as much “Fire” (no pun intended) as this group is.
Now we are not going to be getting
into the “gun” issue with this article.
The focus of this article is very simple. If you want your trade organization to be there for it’s
membership, and to protect your industry, you could do a lot worse then modeling
it after the NSSF.
And to all you trade organizations
that are out there it would serve you well to take a look at how the NSSF
operates and look at how you can adopt some of it’s practices.
Just why is the NSSF so protective
of it’s members? It has to be.
Not only is it’s member’s livelihood under attack from every
politician looking for a hot button issue to campaign on, but there are no
shortages of “others” looking to make a name or a buck off of attacking the
“Industry” in part or as a whole.
Why is this industry under such
constant attack! To me most of the
attacks are based in a bunch of Political B.S. (O.K., So I’m getting a little
“Editorial” here), but when you hear of a shooting related incident,
suddenly everyone wants to ban guns, ammo, magazines and so on.
But when you hear of a person driving their car though a farmers market
and killing lots of folks. Or
Driving their car into a bunch of little kids, you hear nothing about banning
cars, or restricting driving rights. Why?
Because on would be political suicide and the other one is not.
Sorry to me that is a bunch of B.S., and before I shut up and get back to
the topic at hand, incase you think I do not know about “How People Kill Each
Other” I was a reserve Coroners Investigator and I have a background in
accident reconstruction. So, I have seen it and studded it first hand.
Guns don’t kill people. People
kill people. So if you want to save
lives, start with working to educate people and teach kids self respect and
conflict resolution etc. Sorry… I
did get more political then I planed. But
the point is clear. This industry
is attacked more then almost any other industry because every one has very
strong feelings about it.
To get back to what this article is
about, and that is an effective trade organization. If you want your organization to be effective, it couldn’t
hurt to use the NSSF as a model of how to protect and serve your membership.
For more on NSSF
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Last modified: January 03, 2005