The Most Valuable 5 Minutes of Your Week

Recently, we received many complaints from suspended members indicating they received no notice that their services were going to be suspended for non-payment of dues. My senior accounting staff member kindly asked if a member who was at the OKCMAR Accounting office if she read the weekly e-newsletter we send (aware that we have had had the cut off reminder as a lead item for about 6 weeks in addition to several postal mailed notices). The response was "No, reading the newsletter is a waste of my time."

I wonder if physically driving down to the board office to pay and being unable to service one's clients until one does is an effective use of time? Have you read an e-blast newsletter lately? I urge you all to do so. Revamping the eblasts was one of the first items on my to do list when I arrived at OKCMAR.

Our promise to you? It won't take more than 5 minutes to read, it will only have pertinent information, we will only send it once a week, the day of the week will always be Wednesday, the sender will always display as OKCMAR. If we do have in-depth information to share we link to it so that if you are not interested in the item you don't have to read it. We make sure that all the news items start with a benefit statement- a "What's in it for you?" short description.

The newsblasts will tell you when payments are due, cut-off periods, updates from MLS, upcoming classes and networking opportunities, special programming, meetings, legislative updates, OAR and NAR updates and links to reports and always a featured R-Store item usually at a discounted price or with a coupon.

If each member invested 5 minutes per week reading the newsblasts they will always be informed and should gain significant time in efficiencies as they will be aware of any changes or opportunities before they happen. I realize that we are repetitive - studies state that a member must read something 6 times before it becomes knowledge or there is awareness. This is part of why the items are bolded & underlined so you can skim past items of no interest to you or that you are already aware of.

The OKCMAR editorial staff is always interested in continued improvement so any suggestions that you would like to see implemented in the blasts should be emailed to Kelli McNeal at kmcneal@okcmar.org.

Happy Reading everyone!