In Cincinnati, they ‘reinvented’ recruiting

Jim Akers is chairman of the board of Akers Packaging Service Group in Middletown, OH, and is a member of Legatus’ Cincinnati Chapter. He was the recipient of the 2021 National Membership Chair Award. Jim joined the chapter in 2019 and became membership chair in January 2021; in the 13 months that followed, the chapter added 11 new members.

Jim grew up in Middletown, where he has lived most of his life. He was part of a Catholic family and attended Catholic schools, then went on to attend Duke University. There he met his wife, Jody, with whom he has six children and 13 grandchildren. He has worked in a variety of positions in the family business since age 16 and became CEO in 2002.

Tell me about the Cincinnati Chapter.

It is a vibrant, healthy, energetic, growing chapter with 36 members. We celebrated our 25th anniversary as a chapter last year with a gala event; we enjoyed an outstanding education year with two “sold out” chapter meeting events. We have four member forums, a lunch, and golf day in the summer months, as well as a monthly small group spouses’ lunch. Members also attend summits and pilgrimages.

How did you grow your chapter as membership chair in 2021?

We had our work cut out for us. My predecessor, Tom Binzer, succumbed to cancer after a lengthy fight, so we didn’t have a smooth transition of duties. But we had a database of 126 candidates that our previous membership committee had developed. Our chapter administrator, Claudia Kimura, taught me how to navigate the Legatus HubSpot CRM system to rework our prospect list.

We did not have any documentation on the membership recruiting process. Our returning membership committee members, Denise Kuprionis and Tillie Hidalgo Lima, helped immensely by filling in the blanks, and we whittled the candidate list to our 20 to 30 most likely candidates and focused on them. We reinvented and documented our membership recruitment process.

We advertised on Sacred Heart Radio, which also did monthly interviews with the speakers for our chapter meetings. This exposure helped our marketing effort to build our brand awareness. The Cincinnati Archdiocese helped us by sending bulletin informational pieces about Legatus to its parishes. Legatus National hired a firm to mine the LinkedIn database for leads. This firm identified and contacted likely candidates. Legatus national president Stephen Henley and our Great Lakes Region vice president/director Nick Wine were fabulous responding to any leads that were generated or forwarding them to us for engagement.

Where did the process go from there?

Success at membership recruiting requires an enthusiastic, energetic, committed team effort. We were very successful mobilizing our members to recruit new members – either by one-to- one solicitation or by making referrals to our membership committee to “work the candidate.” We submitted candidates upfront to Nate Wine to “pre-approve” anyone we were recruiting in order to avoid a potentially embarrassing situation in case we were to actively recruit a candidate only to have his or her application rejected because he or she didn’t qualify.

We kept membership recruiting on the center of our radar screen, discussed it at every chapter officer meeting, and had a piece in the monthly chapter newsletter. For renewals, we made personal phone calls to the members who changed to alumni status over the past three years, inviting them back as active members. We continually encouraged members to reach out to candidates who were guests at our meetings and make them feel welcome.

It took a team effort of our chapter leadership, membership committee, members, and chapter administrator along with support and encouragement from Stephen Henley and Nate Wine. At the end of the day, a one-to-one, member-to-prospect outreach was the most successful tactic.