In our last post, Fundraising in the Dip, we exlpored Seth Godin’s thoughts on “dips” and “cul-de-sacs” from his latest book, The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick). Today, let’s look at the 3 questions Seth recommends we ask before we quit. 1. Am I Panicking? “Quitting [...]

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Many of us experienced the end of the fiscal year on June 30th. Before taking a well deserved vacation, this is a great time for catching our breath and re-assessing our position. Some of what I’m currently reading, Seth Godin’s new book, The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When [...]

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I don’t talk much about the use of the telephone. I guess I’ve been scarred by too many phonathons. But the phone is an incredibly important tool in the R.E.A.L. process of asking for money. Especially in getting a solicitation visit. In his terrific book Asking: A 59-Minute Guide, Jerry Panas claims that getting the visit is 85% of [...]

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Here in the US, we’re about a week away from Thanksgiving. Have you mentally checked out of work or are you preparing for the biggest time of giving in the calendar year? Before you put your work on hold, consider implementing this tip from Jeffrey Fox’s book How to be a Rainmaker. (It’s the reason I [...]

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It’s easy to “keep score” in our field. We can track dollars raised, new donors acquired, donors retained, etc. But all of these are sort of rearview mirror, views of how you did in the past. Have you ever wondered where the windshield is? In Jeffrey Fox’s idea in How To Be a Rainmaker of [...]

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No, I’m not going to talk about how much donor relations is like baby sitting–despite how similar they may feel at times! *grin* In reading Jeffrey Fox’s How To Become a Rainmaker, he devotes a short chapter to advice given to a babysitter. I found it to be helpful as a one-person development office for our [...]

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Another great tidbit in Jeffrey Fox’s “How to Become a Rainmaker”: The Rainmaker always turns a customer objection into a mutual–customer/Rainmaker–objective. Let’s say a donor says, “Gee, I’d love to make a $25,000 gift to the campaign but both my kids are in college right now.” A rainmaking fundraiser would restate that as, “So our [...]

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Last time, we looked at a concept in the book How To Become A Rainmaker by Jefferey Fox. In that book, he say’s the “Killer Sales Question #1″ is Do you have your appointment calendar handy? What a great question. According to Fox, this results in an appointment more than 90% of the time! If [...]

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We’ve spent the last few issues of Extreme Fundraising looking at the importance of story. While reading Jeffrey Fox’s “How to Become a Rainmaker” I recently read a question that will help you tell your story. Right at the beginning of the book he says: Always Answer the Question, “Why Should This Customer Do Business [...]

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Thank you to everyone who’s responded to my Would you help me name my book? post! The response is so good, I’m having a challenge quantifying it. So I set up a survey at SurveyMonkey.com. At the risk of being a pain, would you vote again? This time at the survey? I have kept the [...]

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