I talk with people. That's what I do. That's my job. It's been my job for my entire professional life. Note that I said, WITH and not "TO".
I had the pleasure of meeting with Jonathan Grapsas recently. We discussed Pareto Fundraising's "data driven" direct response methods and I see some very valuable applications for this approach to direct response and for filtering your major and planned giving visits. However, I worry that when we rely too heavily on surveys and filtering out who we visit with data segmentation, we're missing a lot.
Boots on the ground!
In my old career, my manager had a mantra that she would repeat often: "This isn't rocket science, get out there and talk with people; boots on the ground people!" She was right. The more we got out and saw people, visited schools, communicated - the better we performed. Of course we prioritized where relevant and important, but we also spent time visiting people and schools where we didn't know or weren't sure of what we'd find.
We didn't have high expectations of visits to small accounts or with schools/teachers who had no history with us at all, but we went and we talked WITH them. We got to know what they do, why they do it, how they do it, what their goals were etc. etc. It didn't always result in new business or more business, but we became informed about what our customers (or people we hoped would become customers) thought of us.
What is a successful ROI?
Now - every person we visited didn't end up doubling their sales with us, but the vast majority of existing customers did increase their business. A 5K account, became an 8K account. The 10K account became 15K. Those who weren't customers had a lower "acquisition" rate, BUT, what we learned from these visits allowed us to become better at both acquisition and increasing existing business with others. That's important because obviously we want to increase revenues and/or donations. But those kinds of black and white numbers don't tell the whole story.
I had the pleasure of working in the same territory for 5 years. The "boots on the ground" work that I did in year 1 and 2 was enormously informative. Although it did produce results in the current year/s, it also did something more important. It allowed me to learn how people perceived my organization and to help shape their future perceptions of my organization. I learned what mattered to them and how to talk with them - not at them or to them. They referred me to other people. They talked about me to other people. And like those fabulous domino paths that people build, everything began to fall into place.
Domino's & Breck Commercials
In this economy, we need to talk to everyone possible. We want them to know we care about what they think. We want them to know what we're doing. We want them to tell us what they think of what we're doing and what they'd like to see us doing. We need to build relationships. We need to be the initial nudge that allows everything to fall into place.
If you're my age or older, you'll remember the old Breck Girl commercials. These commercials talked about word of mouth - they encouraged you to try their product and tell 2 people. Then they'd tell two people who tell 2 more people "and so on and so on and so on". That's what talking with people does. It's like compounding interest. You can't ask for a better way to move your organization forward.
Efficiency vs. Effectiveness
Every visit need not result in a donation from that person to be an effective use of your time. There are so many things you can learn and accomplish by simply talking with people. The information you acquire, the relationship you develop, the opportunity to steward, cultivate, acquire, market, advocate, research, and so much more.
Oh and by the way - it's FUN! Typically people are quite delightful.
Some may argue that these visits aren't an efficient use of your time. If we accept that argument (and I'm not sure I do), then I'd direct you to look at the effectiveness of your efforts. I'd argue that it's a highly effective approach to achieving the many goals of your organization.
What's Efficient?
If we determine that our only goal is to have a very strict ratio of visits to dollars per person, then perhaps this isn't the most efficient use of a fundraisers time. However, I'd argue that you ought not isolate your goals in such a narrowly defined manner.
I'd look at how much you're spending on stewardship, advocacy, cultivation events, acquisition, donor research, and everything else you do. Add it all up - every single penny and then compare. I'm willing to bet that you will find that these visits are indeed highly efficient.
Certainly this won't apply for all charities and/or all regions. National charities will have to rely upon other means of connecting with people across the country. But, where and when ever possible remember the wise words of my old manager...
"This isn't rocket science - get out there! Boots on the ground people!"
In my not so humble opinion - the organizations who do this today, will be the organizations who meet their goals in spite of the economy and who surpass their goals as it rebounds tomorrow.
I challenge anyone reading this, regardless of their industry - to make a point of getting OUT of their office for 5 "talking with people" visits this week. I bet you'll be happy you did.
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