Building Something New
About a month into this journey we are assembling the various parts and sharing the plan with others from all walks, from Mobile Vendors as potential members to fans and customers of theirs to hosts and organizers to government agencies and potential commercial partners. As a colleague reminded a room full of people at their board meeting recently, the Empire State Building in Manhattan was built in 14 months, so we have our pace set.
Remember: if you can see the Empire State Building, The Empire State Building can see you. ― Robert Polito
The first misconception we’ve had to dissuade in these early days concerns what the Nevada Mobile Vendors Association is NOT. Despite having formed a nonprofit business league, we are often taken to be another commercial booking entity, so that first contact is sometimes mistakenly seen as solicitation for event bookings. There has not to date been an owners association for Mobile Vendors in Nevada (that we know of), so on the one hand we are taking a slightly different or perhaps modern approach to executing our mission, on the other we are building this nonprofit business league which is something new again where individual Mobile Vendors were otherwise individual businesses working for or with or through a variety of third parties.
In order to reach the Ah-Ha or Lean-In moment without overwhelming with detail, our first pass is an Ignite-format slide presentation with a voice-over narrative, 20 slides at 15 seconds per slide. It’s pretty close, though certainly the goal was to inform gently rather than fit in every syllable possible within the Ignite format (and no, this is not intended to pass any kind of Ignite validation check, it’s close enough). Here is that presentation:
It is likely that that presentation will get an update as will fill in some Director seats and adjust other elements according to incoming questions and other feedback. At the moment this format does encapsulate the basic idea in a brief format, which is the goal of such a presentation anyway. This is also a part of the overall strategy we need to employ in general, which is an answer to another question we get now and then (and should get more frequently, to be honest).
What is the difference between You and…
The obvious ending of that question is “an event booking company” or something similar, and it is entirely possible that there will be some confusion when there are NevadaMVA fund-raising and marketplace-education events as part of our ongoing outreach efforts. That the business league aims to enable business connections as part of a marketplace-additive strategy, rather than attempting to compete in the marketplace (which might be viewed as subtractive) is not always immediately clear, but as we advance the cause we anticipate more “Ah, okay” interactions.
Another ending that is coming along more frequently, especially from our future members, is “the mobile apps that are already available?” The simple answer is, “A lot.” The nature of the Creative Commons licensing scheme, the notion that our organization wants to share our member information (especially how to contact them and where to find them today, tomorrow, next week…), and the fact that we are a nonprofit membership company can all muddy the waters a bit. Any application developer, news outlet, blogger, or anyone else who would like to build a platform, publicize and event, or just talk about Mobile Vendors is welcome to and in fact invited to work with our organization to make those efforts easy, accurate, and prevalent.
Less often is a direct comparison with other similar efforts around the United States, which often focus more on Food Trucks, but which have similar goals. Here the answer is more straightforward, since we are including some of the same individual goals as part of our overall purpose. Advocacy, Elevation, Engagement are common themes, we’re simply including a larger number of Mobile Vendors in our tent, so to speak.
What can you do for Me?
A more specific and certainly reasonable version of “Why are you doing this?” and the specific answer will vary based on who asks, but the simplest first pass at a universal answer is, “A single point of contact for Mobile Vendors which is always acting in their interest, because it is theirs.”
Most of the time, the Nevada Mobile Vendors Association is a resource. A vendor database with current contact information, an assistant when it comes to organizing a single or recurring event, a partner when it comes to community outreach and engagement with fans and customers of Mobile Vendors as they operate in various locations. One way to view the role of this organization is as that resource that can fill in some of the blanks, or provide some of the missing pieces in order to elevate the marketplace with more business, more positive outcomes, more customer satisfaction… perhaps that is the one-word answer, “More.”
Obviously there will be some ongoing efforts that aren’t immediately obvious, including the always-on marketing efforts (any interviews, any press mentions, any outreach and engagement, we’re always talking to everybody everybody all the time on behalf of the members and membership, that’s part of the fun), advocacy efforts as legislation and regulation issues are changing or need change, and marketplace analysis based on various pieces of data that we can then provide to our members or sometimes to others as part of an informed decision-making process.
So 13 more months?!?
Not quite, though are are moving along at a similar pace given how challenging it can be to share a clear message to a diverse population of members and potential members, and also to non-vendors, and anyone else, while going down a checklist of important items as part of the creation of a nonprofit business league. As a professional organization for professional members, we will operate transparently and in such a way as anyone from you reading this to government agencies to charitable organizations to local businesses to, well, anyone, will know what we stand for, why we are doing this, and perhaps most importantly, why it is beneficial to work with this organization. This could take a few more days in some cases, and will be an ongoing effort for all time in other cases.
Creating and publishing a Purpose Statement was a small part, but as part of the filing of our Articles of Incorporation and by defining this organization as inclusive across all Mobile Vendors in Nevada, we have made a non-trivial first step toward accomplishing our various goals. A membership agreement that spells out what our members are becoming a part of is another important step, filing with the IRS to obtain our 501(c)(6) determination is another, building software tools for some of our goals is another, social media engagement is another, and so on. Many goals, many moving parts, many members, many days ahead.
As more and more of our infrastructure falls into place, as we build on more and more of our initial and future relationships, and as our membership rolls grow is number and geographical diversity, we will have more and more anecdotal examples of accomplishment and success to point to. It is almost always easier to point to what we’ve done to describe what we’re doing, and that is where we are headed. Surely pointing to the top of the Empire State Building was more exciting after it was built, compared to pointing to a point in space where it would be a mere 14 months later.
Now stop reading and go patronize a Mobile Vendor, somewhere in Nevada or wherever you may be.
