January 15, 2008 | Nick Fellers
Be In A Position To Advance The Ball
You’re a development (our word ’sales’) professional in the relationship business. As professionals, it’s our responsibility to turn ‘pendings’ into ‘commits’. With that in mind, we need to avoid giving these kind of reports:
- “I haven’t heard back from [prospect] yet.”
- “I left a message.”
- “They said they would call us.”
Whether it be fundraising (sales), negotiations or life we need to take responsibility for ‘advancing the ball’. This begins by putting ourselves in the position to advance the ball.
At the end of a great presentation we get so excited. The prospect says something like, “Great, let me think it over and get back to you.” We say, “GREAT!” And then what?
My point is about attitude and less about tactics. You know how to handle a relationship. If you remember that it’s your responsibility to advance the ball then your will find yourself leaving voicemails like, “It’s Nick Fellers calling, I’m sorry I missed you. I can be reached at 614-352-2505 or I will try you again tomorrow.”
Two additional thoughts:
- You can also use Action Forcing Events to help you ‘advance the ball’.
- Embrace this term (’advancing the ball’) in your office as a way for your team to talk strategy. Eg. “What can you do to ‘advance the ball with Ms. Jones?”
Email This Nugget
| Comments 
|
January 14, 2008 | Nick Fellers
If Effective Then Plenty of Money Available
BusinessWeek featured a story about the world’s top philanthropists in November. The most striking line of the story:
“Most philanthropists, even experienced ones, say that it’s harder to give money away effectively than it is to make it.”
– Beth Cohen, Director of the Global Philanthropists Circle (GPG)
(An organization created by David Rockefeller’s great granddaughter.)
A few thoughts on that point:
- You should be asking whether or not your org is an effective use of funds.
The answer is yes or no.- If NO – then you don’t deserve the money (pretty simple).
- If YES – then the issue is that you’re not able to communicate your effectiveness.
- Think much bigger about your Impact and Income Tom always shares a great line from his sales mentor who came from the life insurance business, “It’s easier to sell a million dollar policy to a qualified prospect than it is to sell a $10,000 policy to a family member.” Thing big about your qualified prospects. The greater the capacity and philanthropic interest the more difficult it is for that person to be effective (evidence in the BusinessWeek article).
I recall another BuisnessWeek article from two years (Bill Gates Gets Schooled) ago in which the Gateses communicated thier challenges in giving away money effectively. Specifically, Bill and Melinda were talking about schools and how the Gates Foundation continues to face a lot of challenges in dealing with the ‘education issue’. For the Gateses (and many others),
money is not the issue… thesolution is.This means there is an entire network of investors out there looking for you (if you are an effective investment).
This is also encouraging.
- Trust me, most organizations are not out communicating their impact.
- Get a visit with a qualified prospects
- Share the story around your impact (communicating your effectiveness)
- Present the opportunity to make an investment that will change lives, save lives or transform lives
- Most people don’t go visit with the prospect; they send a letter, don’t hear back, call it a rejection and chalk it up to the idea that he prospect is “getting hit up by everybody.” Or, “It’s a competitive environment.”
- When they do visit, they ‘ask for money’ (instead of ‘presenting the opportunity’). They don’t communicate the impact. What the prospect hears is, “We want your money.” Instead of, “This is how the investment will change lives, save lives or impact lives.”
- Or, worse yet, they visit, talk about the NEED for money, share no impact and make no real ask.
This goes back to one of our principle message points: Impact drives Income.
I think this is encouraging.
So don’t base your assumptions about prospects (people, foundations or corporations) based on what you’ve heard on the street.
While we all know there are plenty of people that have ’short arms and deep pockets’, I have a tough time accepting that judgment about somebody before going to see them — primarily because
Try this.
It makes all the difference in the world. You will be successful and the word on the street will be that you walk on water.
Email This Nugget
| Comments |
January 11, 2008 | Nick Fellers
Want Inspiring, Creative and Big Ideas?
Over the holiday break I was turned on to Ted.com and tedtalks video podcasting through iTunes (same content different channels).
TED is an annual and exclusive conference held annually in Monterey , California . It brings together brilliant thinkers in the areas of technology, entertainment and design. Some are well-known, others are not but they’re all amazing. Each presenter gets a limited timeframe – 18 mins, for example – in which to share an idea.
This content ranks among the best I’ve found on iTunes or the web – hands down.
I’ve been downloading the videos to my iPod for some ‘thinking’ while I run. This morning I listened to Ken Robinson, ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity?’. He communicated the importance of creativity as a discipline in our schools. He was phenomenal in this thinking and communication – as are most presenters at TED.
Email This Nugget
| Comments |
January 11, 2008 | Nick Fellers
I’ve been a part of dozens of board retreats (leader/observer/participant), meetings and planning sessions in the lasts few years. A traditional strategic planning session lays out goals and actions but often fails to ask some really big driving questions.
What if we asked these questions?
- What is our purpose or raison d’etre? This is different from mission – which should be the same thing but usually ends up being more about ‘place in the world’ vs. purpose. Raison d’etre literally means REASON FOR EXISTENCE. It’s the WHY question. If you can’t answer WHY then WHAT and HOW are irrelevant.
- How can we (intentionally) go out of business? As this for the short term (1000 days) or long term (50+ years). You exist to change lives, save lives or transform lives. How often do we re-examine our activities and ask, “Can we find a SOLUTION?”I started to qualify this question – to say that it might not apply to some organizations such as schools. Then, I withdrew my qualification. Ask it anyway; see where the conversation takes you. Education is changing.
- What would you do with $100M? Or pick a number that is a factor of 10x higher than anything you’re thinking about now. I attended a board retreat last weekend as a board member for Road of Life Cancer Prevention for Kids. With $100M one board member said she would get laws changed to make health education mandatory at an earlier age and another said we should invest in longitudinal studies to understand how health prevention impacts kids. Those are two VERY DIFFERENT priorities and we aren’t doing either right now. Ultimately, the question helped to build consensus around focusing on EDUCATION.Until the question was asked, every debate was about incremental tactics, not vision or even, I would argue, strategy.
- What strategic partnerships can we pursue? You have finance committees, development committees, marketing committees, campaign committees. If anything, I would like to see a partnership committee. Better yet, just a commitment to partnerships as a core priority (DNA) of the organization.I haven’t seen the numbers in a while but we’re somewhere in excess of 2million nonprofits and many more socially focused businesses (all For Impact). Current structures and strategic planning questions focus on bloat, not partnerships. We’re all trying to make a difference so let’s make a commitment (financial resources) to exploring this full time.
- How can we maximize our impact? Simple and open-ended… but not asked enough.
- What are we best in the world at? Jim Collins has made this conversation prevalent in the last few years (revisiting the Hedgehog Concept). It’s ultimately a question of priorities and focus. Consider finding the one thing you do very well and FOCUS on that.I can’t tell you how important this discussion is for your staff. It helps them make decisions about grants, programs, staffing, etc. Equally important is identifying those things that you’re not good at.Side note: I am a big Marcus Buckingham
believer. He tells you to focus on your strengths. Our strength at For Impact is in-person training, facilitating and coaching. We’re focusing on ways to do more of that in 2008 (live, via web and on-demand).
- Should we grow ‘wider’ or ‘deeper’? It’s a scope of services question. Ultimately a lot of ’strategic planning’ comes down to this question. Do we add more depth to our current programs (make them longer, more available, etc)? Or, do we expand our scope of services (diverse offerings, expanded continuum, etc.)? Refer back to question six to help you frame this debate.
- How much money do we need to achieve our vision? What usually happens: we spend time tweaking funding goals based on last year’s results. It would be of huge value [to everyone] if we knew how much money we really needed to accomplish our vision (annually or over time via a campaign initiative).Reflecting on this, I would say that this question is often asked in preparation for a campaign but it is not asked in relation to our operation (annual). Why not? Instead, we set a number and then allocate it (budget)… every year.
- What is our business model? Or, what business are we in?
I think this goes along with several other questions and relates to strengths, focus and priorities. It also adds clarity and could even become part of your message.
I think these questions would also SOLVE a lot of the problems I hear about every day:
- Board engagement / Staff communication: Iit works both ways.
- Board meetings: If we’re on board about the big stuff it raises the level of the conversation. I think a lot of the comments I hear about board members being too detail focused or staff members seeming unfocused is resolved when we can communicate about and focus on the big picture.
- The proverbial rat race: Incremental thinking gets incremental results (some times).
Email This Nugget
| 3 Comments |
January 10, 2008 | Tom Suddes
I ended 2007 with encouragement to make 2008 your year of ‘PRACTICE’ .
One great way to understand this idea is captured in a terrific book Serious Play
If you’re truly interested in the idea of PRACTICE and the idea of INNOVATION … you need to grab this book.
By simple summary: Schrage urges us to ‘PLAY’ with PROTOTYPES and MODELS and SIMULATIONS. From this (SERIOUS) ‘PLAY’ comes great innovations and processes and products and services.
How is this related to my strong encouragement to PRACTICE ?
Treat every VISIT… every DISCOVERY… every PRESENTATION as ‘ PRACTICE ‘. A MODEL. A PROTOTYPE. A TEST.
Since you’re just “PRACTICING ” … there’s no risk . No downside . No excuse . (For not getting out there and visiting/asking.)
Keep up your “PRACTICE”!!!
Email This Nugget
| Comments |
January 7, 2008 | Tom Suddes
(Almost) everything I read over the holidays was talking about ‘AUTHENTICITY’ as the buzz word/watch word of 2008.
- In politics . Many op-ed pieces and articles were referring to 2007 as a year of “cynicism”… and that the key to voter connection in 2008 was going to be AUTHENTICITY . (I know. ‘Authenticity’ and politics is an oxy and a moron. But wouldn’t it be great to have our politicians be authentic, sincere, real, etc.?)
- In business . Management gurus, authors and business leaders are all touting the value of being AUTHENTIC .Jim Gilmore and Joe Pine (authors of one of my favorite books The Experience Economy
- In life . I read some fascinating books over the holidays on entrepreneurism and the entrepreneur’s life. One of my favorites is LIVE WHAT YOU LOVE: Notes from An Unusual Life
Soooooooooo………. make 2008 your year of AUTHENTICITY in your Organization. In your Development/Investor Presentations. And in your Life.
Email This Nugget
| Comments |
January 7, 2008 | Tom Suddes
AUTHENTICITY is one of the centerpieces of our FRAMEWORK for PRESENTATIONS.
As Nick is always telling our workshop and training participants, “You just can’t go wrong if you are AUTHENTIC (REAL).”
AUTHENTICITY means being REAL . HONEST. CANDID .
Simply put, it’s being SINCERE !
The people you’re with know right away whether you’re “selling snake oil” or SINCERELY PRESENTING AN OPPORTUNITY that has VALUE to both the GIVER and the RECEIVER!
I read somewhere 25 years ago (I think it might have been Dennis Waitley) that the word SINCERE means ” without wax” ( Latin sine = “without”, cera = “wax”) . It had something to do with marble and sculptors and the way they would “fix” any flaws or mistakes that they made by filling in the mistake with wax.
Email This Nugget
| Comments |
January 7, 2008 | Tom Suddes
I just read there are 303 million people in the U.S. at the start of this year.
• A lot of these people NEED HELP.
• A lot of these people WANT to HELP.
Your mission (and it’s not IMPOSSIBLE!) is to MATCH the people who WANT to HELP ( THE SOLUTION ) with the people who NEED HELP ( THE PROBLEM ).
If you are in Development… you need to be both a MATCHMAKER and an OPPORTUNITY PRESENTER.
If you’re a Volunteer Leader, you need to both encourage and help the staff with this MATCH.
If you’re SENIOR STAFF (Executive Directors, Presidents, VP’s, etc.), you need to motivate and support your Development Team and your Volunteer Leaders to make this MATCH.
IMPACT drives INCOME .
MATCH INVESTORS ( THE INCOME ) with those in NEED ( THE IMPACT) … and you can change the world.
Email This Nugget
| Comments |
January 4, 2008 | Nick Fellers
Harvest is over and we’re sitting at $2.0 million with $2.0 million more right outside the door. Within the next 2 weeks I think they’ll be in in a big way. Many others are watching. The momentum that will be created by $3.5 to 4.0 million will be huge. Thanks for all your training and guidance!
Tim McGree, President
La Salle High School – Yakima, WA
Email This Nugget
| Comments |
December 27, 2007 | Tom Suddes
I had an opportunity to catch the replay of Jim Valvano’s famous ESPY Awards speech from 1993. (I caught it when I was working out while watching a little bit of a Notre Dame’s basketball game at the Jimmy V Classic.)
He began this incredible 10-minute presentation by stating that he “didn’t know how much time was left…” because he was fighting cancer. He went on to say that he’s a very “passionate and emotional man” and he wanted to share some things…
And, the ‘3 THINGS’ he shared all had ‘3 THINGS’!!!
*Just so you know, I love the RULE OF 3. It’s used in media, broadcasting, sales, presentations and so much more. All Jim Valvano did was reinforce this for me… in a very emotional and positive way.
- The 3 THINGS we should do every day:
- LAUGH
- THINK
- MOVED TO TEARS (EMOTION)
Jimmy V. said “THAT’S A FULL DAY!”
- (Another) 3 THINGS we should think about every day:
- WHERE You Started…
- WHERE You Are…
- WHERE You’re Going To Be…
- The Lombardi/Valvano Locker Room Presentation around “THESE 3 THINGS”:He talks about his first pre-game speech as a ‘head’ coach with Rutgers Freshman Team. He ‘practiced’ his talk which he had ‘borrowed’ from Vince Lombardi. It went like this:
“All eyes on me.
We’ll be successful this year if we can focus on These 3 Things:
- Your FAMILY
- Your RELIGION
- And the GREEN BAY PACKERS!!!”
Jimmy V’s closing is a great way to end ‘07 and begin ‘08.
“DON’T GIVE UP. DON’T EVER GIVE UP.”
Email This Nugget
| Comments |
-
About For Impact
We help "nonprofits" fund their visions through training, coaching and consulting based on 25+ years of experience and $1Billion+ raised directly and $1Billion via coaching/training. For Impact is also our message, our commitment and a movement.
