We’ve spent the last couple of issues of Extreme Fundraising looking at objections. Before we go further, let’s use what we’ve learned. After reading this, see if you can use it this week.
Those of you who’ve been subscribed for any length of time know that I err on the side of raising serious money by asking for major gifts. (I tend to define that as gifts of at least $1000 a year.)
Think of the brainstorming exercise I talked about a couple of posts ago.
- You and your team (paid or volunteer) make a game out of trying to find every single reason people won’t give to your cause.
- Then you narrow it down to that most common 5 or 6.
- Finally, you develop stories that you can use to answer these objections before you even ask the person for money.
Can you see how this could help you in the mundane things as direct mail or (heaven forbid!) phonathons? If you know the most common objections, you can develop copy and scripts that attempt to answer them.
Then you can have fun tweaking the copy and scripts. Each story won’t have equal success. Some will be totally ineffective. So keep monitoring their effectiveness. Dump the ones that don’t work and keep the ones that do.
