When your old strategy just isn’t working, making the big changes necessary isn’t easy. That’s OK; sometimes the small ones work, too. Today’s Lunchtime Links offers some advice to get members renewing again:

Keep members coming back: When membership begins to wane at your association, it’s time to assess what aspects of your renewal plan are slipping through the cracks. On his Membership Marketing Blog, Tony Rossell, the senior vice president of Marketing General, Inc., mentions that making small improvements to renewal programs can have a dramatic effect. One tip he offers to help associations reel in skeptical members is focusing on consistent contact. “For almost any group, usage of the website, opening emails, and product and service purchases are a positive predictor of renewal,” he writes. “Non-usage by a member may require an intervention even before the renewal program begins to help communicate the value of membership.”

Won’t you be my neighbor: Everyone wants to get to the top—but it doesn’t hurt to lend a helping hand sometimes to get there. For smaller organizations, a little collaboration with perceived competitors can help generate collective growth and success. Call it the “neighbor principle.” Business News Daily staff writer Nicole Fallon explains the concept, a phrase coined by B2B social networking platform Win Win’s CEO Jay Bernstein. It likens collaboration to borrowing milk from a neighbor who you later offer use of your snow blower during a winter storm. “[C]ompanies can leverage each other’s strengths at little or no cost to grow both of their businesses,” Fallon elaborates. Can you see any opportunities like that for your own association?

Entrepreneurial exercises: Becoming a stronger leader takes years of experience, dedication, or in Val Wright’s case, perspiration. In an recent interview with Burt Helm of Inc.com, the entrepreneur and consultant shares how blurring the lines between leadership and the CrossFit workout plan helped her take charge … like a boss. Wright explains to Helm why employers should call “No rep!” for workers who fall short—just as a trainer would if they underperformed a pull-up or a squat in a workout—to effectively communicate their need for improvement. “Leaders are often delusional that underperformers will recognize it in themselves,” she states. Her advice to help solve the problem: “Identify clear performance standards, let people know when they fall short, and frame it in a way that’s geared toward getting the next rep—be it the sales target or a deadline—right the next time.” (By the way, it’s worth noting that Wright is taking part in this year’s CrossFit Open, so she knows a thing or two about CrossFit.)

If you have an innovative idea about how to improve leadership, share in the comment section below.

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