Challenge: Strong industry relationships going unactivated; no structured membership recruitment process; CRM sitting unused
Outcome: Recruited six new member companies in twelve months against a goal of two
The Situation
Trade associations in the pharmaceutical industry operate in one of the most demanding environments in Washington. Their members are among the most scrutinized companies in the country, their policy agenda is perpetually contested, and the value of belonging — access, advocacy, collective voice — is genuinely high. For a well-established association in this space, membership should practically sell itself.
And yet this association was struggling to grow.
It wasn’t a resources problem. The association had experienced leadership, strong existing relationships across its industry, and a CRM system — HubSpot — already in place. It had a clear sense of which companies it wanted to recruit. Leadership had set a goal of adding two new member companies over the coming year, which felt ambitious given recent history.
When they engaged Sequence Consulting, the problem wasn’t immediately obvious from the outside. But it became clear quickly: almost everything required to recruit new members was already present. What was missing was the process to connect it.
What We Found
Sequence began by mapping the full recruitment picture — who the target companies were, what relationships the association already had with them, what touchpoints existed, and how the association was currently managing outreach.
The diagnosis was straightforward, and familiar.
The relationships existed — they just weren’t being activated. Board members, senior staff, and existing member executives had direct relationships with decision-makers at every target company. These were genuine connections, built over years of industry engagement. But they were sitting in people’s heads, not in any system, and no one owned the process of turning them into recruitment conversations. Outreach happened informally, when someone remembered to do it, rather than as a managed and tracked effort.
HubSpot was installed but not functional as a recruitment tool. The association had made the investment in a capable CRM. But the system hadn’t been configured for membership recruitment workflows, contact records were incomplete, and staff hadn’t been trained to use it as a prospecting and outreach tool. It was functioning as a contact database at best — not as the recruitment engine it could be.
There was no clear owner of the end-to-end recruitment process. Membership recruitment in many associations is everyone’s responsibility in theory and no one’s in practice. Without a defined process, assigned ownership, and a way to track pipeline, even strong relationships and genuine prospect interest fail to convert. Prospects fall through the gaps not because they weren’t interested, but because no one followed through systematically.
The core insight: this wasn’t a strategy problem or a value proposition problem. It was an execution problem. The association had what it needed to grow. It needed a system to put it to work.
The Approach
Sequence’s engagement focused on three things: designing the relationship strategy, building it into the CRM, and training the team to run it independently.
1. Relationship mapping and prioritization. Working with association leadership, Sequence conducted a structured mapping of every meaningful relationship the association — through its board, staff, and member executives — held with target companies. This went beyond a list of names. For each prospect, the team identified who in the association knew whom at the target company, the nature and strength of that relationship, and the most credible path to a recruitment conversation. Prospects were tiered by likelihood and prioritized for outreach sequencing.
2. Building the recruitment workflow into HubSpot. Sequence designed and configured a recruitment pipeline inside HubSpot tailored to the association’s specific process — from initial outreach through proposal, negotiation, and close. Contact records were enriched, relationship ownership was assigned, and pipeline stages were defined so leadership could see at a glance where every prospect stood and what the next action was. The system moved from contact database to active recruitment tool.
3. Training and handoff. Once the system was built and the initial pipeline populated, Sequence trained the membership team to run it. The goal from the beginning was a clean handoff — Sequence designed and stood up the capability, and the association owned the execution. Within a defined period, the team was running the process independently, with the CRM providing the structure and accountability that informal outreach never had.
The Result
The association set out to recruit two new member companies. It recruited six.
That result — three times the original goal — came not from a new strategy, a repositioned value proposition, or a major investment in marketing. It came from activating relationships the association already had, through a process disciplined enough to actually see them through to close.
The six new members represented a meaningful increase in both dues revenue and the association’s collective industry voice. Equally important, the association now had a repeatable recruitment system it owned and operated — one that would continue generating results long after the Sequence engagement ended.
What This Means for Your Association
Most association membership teams are good at relationships. Very few have a disciplined, tracked, managed recruitment process that treats prospective members the way a sales organization treats prospects. The gap between those two things is where growth gets lost.
The questions worth asking about your own association:
Do you know every meaningful relationship your board and staff have with your top prospective members — and is anyone actively managing those relationships toward a recruitment outcome?
Is your CRM configured to support recruitment as a managed process, or is it functioning primarily as a contact list?
If you set a membership recruitment goal for the next twelve months, does a clear process exist to achieve it — or does success depend on informal outreach and individual initiative?
For most associations, the honest answer to at least one of those questions is uncomfortable. The good news is that the fix is usually less complicated than it appears. The assets are often already there.
About Sequence Consulting Sequence Consulting works exclusively with professional and trade associations to grow membership, strengthen revenue, and clarify strategy. Founded in 2001 by Chris Vaughan, PhD and Lisa Vaughan, Sequence brings the rigor of Big Strategy consulting to mission-driven organizations. Trusted by 12 of the top 20 U.S. associations.
