When the economy is challenging, every penny that is spent needs to be justified as delivering a return. People look at cost savings as one way of maintaining business performance.

Joining a trade association is often seen as a cost and it is true that budget needs to be allocated to it. But, investing in Association membership helps to save money in the long term and provides access to resources which help to improve competitiveness.

Some of the benefits of trade association membership as identified by the Trade Association Forum (www.taforum.org) include:

• Getting people together to talk about issues of the day in a constructive format.
• Generating and sharing ideas of best practice, learning from each other
• Being stimulated to take action today not tomorrow.
• Speaking coherently on topical issues of common interest with one voice.
• Benchmarking good practice and disseminating information.
• Comparing initiatives and activities, successes and failures.

Membership of the BDTA keeps you up to date with the latest dental news, regulatory information and statistics worth more than £50,000, helping you to plan more accurately, develop appropriate new products and services. The BDTA continues to encourage members of the dental team to buy from you rather than non-BDTA member companies, thus giving you extra publicity and competitive advantage. Members have the opportunity to grow their business through the development of business contacts at a range of heavily subsidised networking events. The BDTA has improved its lobbying capability so the issues pertinent to members can be communicated through the relevant channels and continued to support members with new staff inductions and development through the BDTA’s training package.

For more information on BDTA member benefits contact darranlacey@bdta.org.uk.