Prospect and qualify in Canada

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[Music] welcome to another edition of around with randall your weekly podcast making your non-profit more effective for your community and here is your host the ceo and founder of hallett philanthropy randall hallett thank you so much for joining me here on a round with randall we're going to try something new this is the first of a four-part series on the different aspects in non-profit work for a gift officer in the donor cycle and we're going to break them up into the overall qualification part which we'll talk about today next time we'll talk about the idea of cultivation third will be solicitation and finally will be after that solicitation the idea of stewardship when we talk about qualification just as a very high level we're talking about does a potential donor or prospect want have the ability to give to our organization and in all the years i've been doing this this tends to be the most challenging of all the aspects there are lots of studies out there that actually say that asking for money is one of the great fears kind of like publicly speaking for the general population inside of that i have found that the idea of meeting calling and building new relationships is actually the most challenging internal part of asking somebody for money and i think that it comes down to some pretty basic concepts i think that there is such a fear of rejection particularly in younger gift officers that they tend not to want to make qualification calls or identification calls or introduction calls or all the same type of call because they're going to take it personally this there's this eye of thought of rejection and if we look at the science behind rejection there's reason to understand why this is probably true so let's just talk about some of the statistics rejection actually piggybacks on this idea of pain equivalency of physical pain that when they've done functional magnetic resonance imaging f m r f m r i's it shows that the areas of the brain are activated in the same way between emotional and physical pain it hurts it's not imaginary and there's actually a drug they've actually been able to find think about this that reduces this idea of the social or emotional pain it's tylenol it dulls that part of the brain where pain is felt and known i am not here to say that gift officers making phone calls should be taking tylenol before they do it but i just think it's interesting that this is actually a medical condition and there are answers of how to overcome it which we're going to talk about here in a few minutes we actually relive social or emotional pain more vividly than we do physical pain memories of where things didn't go well or maybe embarrassment or just outnut rejection live forever because it destroys our need to belong as social animals we naturally are wanting to belong to a larger group rejection makes that more challenging and it makes because of that it surges on things like anger and aggression it affects our self-esteem rejection if not seen correctly makes us believe less than ourselves probably the one i find most interesting of all is rejection also is about the idea it lowers your iq temporarily your ability to think and the last piece is rejection isn't based on reason which is the direct tie to this idea of what we can do about it the problem that we have is qualification building relationships is the most important part of major gif work it's the everything and yet i find gift officers are feel fearful of that rejection constantly and so what is it that you can do to get past that we're back to the qualification and i break qualification down to kind of two major things making calls and going to see people and in either case the key is a simple concept which probably isn't talked about enough we can reduce our stress reduce our fear if we understand how to build rapport and yes we're going to get to the technical so we'll call this piece the semi-technical how do you build rapport with someone you really don't know so what is building rapport it's just building connection building a relationship getting to understand them creating i think someone once said a state of harmonious balance in a relationship and it's a process it it takes time to build that connection this is why when studies have shown this constantly this is why we see small talk being so important tactical tip tip of the day if you're a gift officer you need to be what i call wide but not necessarily deep and that's your knowledge base because the people you meet you need to build rapport with them at their level so you need to be reading and and learning about things you don't think might be applicable one of my all-time favorites is a requirement in my undergrad studies was to take music classes and even though i married a classically trained musician i know nothing about music nothing barely can spell the five letter word but i had to take some basic music classes and a number of times in odd scenarios there have been situations where i'm trying to build rapport and all of a sudden they want to talk about music and either i have my wife to fall back on and talk about her experiences or these classes that i didn't think had any value in my life at ages 20 21 and 22. so if you don't like finance you should read a financial publication every once in a while if you don't like basic literature you should probably should read at least the cliff notes if you don't like sports you probably should know some basics because your responsibility in that breaking of the ice is to build rapport so one thing to do tactically is to become well-read watch lots of different things don't just find yourself in a very narrow band of information learning remember there are safe subjects we live in a world today where there's polarization my goal is is that i want my donors or i wanted my donors to never know my political affiliation my wife would comment on many many many trips many many many dinners she would laugh and she would say they have no idea if you're a democrat or republican that's the point it's not relevant my job is to be genuine and be interested in them try to use humor to your advantage i love self-deprecation it reduces the stress in the moment people who are appropriately self-deprecating are easier to get to know they're less intimidating they also show the willingness to expose weakness which can be very endearing to someone who's getting to know you remember your body language you want to lean in about 60 of the time look at people in the eye but not stare at them and hand gestures and movements are good but they can't be ginormous they have to be appropriate and show empathy show that you care for them as a person if you do those things you'll find rapport so that's kind of the semi tactical what is the actual tactical pieces so don't forget that qualification in a call or a visit we're going to talk about each here in a moment is all about identifying two things number one is likelihood number two is capacity i do not think they are equal likelihood is eighty to ninety percent of the equation are they likely to want to do something in support of the organization you represent i once spoke to a very large university to the entire fundraising advancement division and asked the question would you rather have capacity or likelihood and almost everybody answered capacity and i said give me 10 minutes and show you some data and then let's ask the question again we are more likely to be successful to have less rejection and more success that we can embrace and feel great about if we worried more about the people that want to engage with us than just who are the richest people and i've talked about it on previous podcasts we are addicted to well screening find a way to do likelihood screening who are the people who are the most likely but you still have to have both depending on your place in the organization if you're a principal gift officer do they have the capacity to make a 500 000 or million dollar gift if you're a major gift officer can they make a gift of five or ten thousand or more if you're an annual gift officer can they make a gift of 100 250 500 but most importantly think about that likelihood and then worry about the capacity so the ultra tactical if you're going to make phone calls have a thick skin realize this isn't about you most people who choose not to engage has nothing absolutely zero to do with the person calling either the experience didn't meet up to their expectations the connection isn't good or simply they're just having a bad day that's thick skin mentality of really embracing the idea that i'm gonna do this because it's important to my future and i'm not gonna take it personally can be literally a 70 of the equation in winning this battle create the right environment mentally physically can you lock yourself down so there's not a lot of distractions because most likely gift officers will want to do something else can you schedule time to ensure that you're going to block time to do this right now and lastly even when you're on the phone smile your voice changes when you smile you become more likeable if your qualification process involves a personal visit or in a coveted world a zoom visit or on virtual visit keep them short for capacity you might look around and see where they spend their disposable income pictures are a great indicator i remember in california in santa barbara and excuse me in santa monica i was working with a client there and i worked with gift officers to realize that in santa monica there a lot of people have boats and boats are expensive that's an indicator of capacity it's not how big their house is because you can't unless you're doing plan giving you're not going to get a cash gift from the house disposable income is what's going to be able to be leveraged for a cash gift or some type of pledge so disposable income is spent on things that are fun and interesting not that are based on a house payment or the size of the actual house remember in the conversation it's always about what's next what is it you want the next step to be so they fully understand where you're headed the last tactical piece of advice of advice excuse me is what are the questions to ask to figure out likelihood on the phone in person and let me give you a couple is this something you would be interested in after you talk about why the organization is doing what it is ask the question is this something you might be interested in could you see yourself supporting this could this be a top giving priority for you the similarity in all three questions is that there's a yes no answer and you need that yes no answer because likelihood needs to be identified in an affirmative or a negative so you know what to do next if it's a negative move on to the next person if it's an affirmative what's the next step can i bring you more information and that will lead us into this idea of cultivation don't forget if they say no might as well ask them for a gift anyway so if you're qualifying them for ten thousand dollars they're not going to show interest at that level gosh would you consider a 500 gift in support of the organization what's the worst thing they can say no build rapport put yourself in a mental physical state to be able to do this and realize it's not personal and then take some of the tactical tips and apply them as most appropriate next time we'll talk about cultivation and some of the things that go along with that to get someone to the point where you can ask them particularly if it's a larger gift i want to remind you the website .hallettphilanthropy.com that's 2ls and 2ts and hallett philanthropy you can check out the blogs there the podcast please subscribe and share it with a friend or two if you find this helpful or think someone else might be helpful and lastly if you want to email me you think this stinks or there's a problem my homage to clark howard reeks r e k s hallett philanthropy dot com or you have a recommendation for the podcast that's podcast philanthropy.com it's a noble profession i end every time because i really truly believe it i get up every morning thinking how lucky am i to do what i do i hope you feel the same way you are making a difference for people who are in struggle in life right now or have a small part of their life that's a struggle non-profits fill holes in communities to make it better and i believe that that is so important in our world today don't forget my all-time favorite saying some people make things happen some people watch things happen then there are those who wondered what happened i think that in the world we live in one of those three places every moment we're breathing and the great thing about philanthropy is it's people as a staff in you or a philanthropist who's giving people who want to make things happen for people who are just wondering what happened in their life and that's a vocational call and i hope you feel good about what you did today what you do tomorrow the day after because it is a difference maker i appreciate your time here and we'll look forward to seeing you next time with cultivation on the next podcast on around with randall and don't forget make it a great day