Rick Harris, CEO of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP), honed his competitive and creative streaks during 13 years as a disc jockey in Florida early in his career. Like DJs, association CEOs can’t play yesterday’s hits indefinitely. 

“When you’re part of an association, it used to be rinse and repeat,” Harris told CEO Update. “If you do that now, you will fall behind so fast. If you’re not changing every two or three years, you’re dead.” 

To that end, Harris has innovated frequently at the Washington, D.C.-based APMP during his 12 years calling the tune. His earlier association experience includes stints at the National Association of Home Builders and the audiovisual association now known as AVIXA. 

APMP, a professional society of individuals who try to drum up business for their organizations by responding to requests for proposals, had about 3,100 members when Harris started. It now has nearly 13,000, he said.  

Revenue has more than doubled, from $1.1 million in 2011 to $2.5 million in 2021, based on the latest available tax disclosure. From a staff of two, including himself, APMP now employs 12 people.  

New sponsorship model 

A major factor in increasing revenue has been a new approach to selling sponsorships: dynamic pricing, which Harris calls the “pent-up demand” model. (He shies away from the term “surge pricing,” which has become synonymous with Uber and Lyft services.) 

“When we release a new program or a new sponsorship, we let every sponsor know, ‘On this date at this time, look for your email. There’s going to be a sponsorship that’s going to be released that we think you would be interested in,’” Harris said. 

“And what happens, the nature of the sponsors is that they are competitive. People are responding within seconds online to have that new opportunity. So, it’s that pent-up demand. It’s, ‘Listen, you’re all part of the APMP family. We know you’re competitors. Here’s your opportunity, if you’re big, medium or small, to be on the same wavelength.’” 

APMP finds it useful to provide prospective sponsors with a list of opportunities. 

“A lot of associations do gold and silver sponsorships,” Harris said. “We just put out all the sponsorships that are available to our corporate members and to event sponsors, and say, ‘You build the sponsorship you want. Tell us how much you’re willing to pay.’ There’s no pressure selling.  

“We’ve got sponsors participating in things that we never dreamed that they would be interested in because they have the full list. That’s the innovative change: Show them everything, and they see what they want,” he said. 

As a result, sponsorship revenue has increased 41%, Harris said. 

“Our sponsorships are sold out. Also, we do a system in which we sell out an initial tranche and then we start telling sponsors what’s left and that (the opportunities are) going to go away,” he said. 

Key to the membership growth: a corporate membership tier. 

“When I came in, we were an individual association with hardly any corporate members,” he said. “Now we’re 50% corporate members.” 

That means employers buy memberships for their RFP staff and others. 

Fast action 

Harris prides himself on moving quickly. He said he often asks himself, “What’s happening today that you can immediately implement to help you grow and elevate not only the profession but the association as well?” 

A recent example: APMP’s response to a renewed focus on women’s rights in the workplace following the Supreme Court decision last year overturning Roe v. Wade. Seventy percent of APMP members are women. 

Within six weeks of the ruling, APMP launched a Women’s Virtual Summit. Last August, in the summit’s second year, there were 421 attendees discussing issues like pay equity and career advancement. The association has secured a corporate sponsor for the event for the next 10 years. 

“We keep our ears close to the ground and anything that we hear that turns out to be hot and buzzy, we create an event for it,” Harris said. 

To help boost revenue from sources other than dues, APMP launched an education and networking program called the Leadership Academy, which kicked off in September, with the inaugural APMP Leadership Conference. 

“We know a lot of our members want to be trained or educated on how to step up out of middle management and go to that next level,” he said. “So, we’ve created an academy, which is fully sponsored.”