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What makes for great rapport building? Plus, a list of rapport building questions

3/14/2017

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Connecting with a donor or potential donor is so vital before you ask for a gift. It's like removing many of the roadblocks between you and that "YES!" response you want.

People want to give to people they like. It's not much of a secret. Ultimately, as a fundraiser you are a conduit for the relationship between that donor and the institution (not with you personally) but they must enjoy speaking with you to want to continue a relationship with the institution.

This is an important skill for any fundraiser to develop, from phonathon callers on up to executive directors, deans and development officers.

I have been to MANY call centers where they use the same tired rapport-building questions year after year after year. We cannot let this happen. No one wants to spend their precious time telling a new person why they haven't been back to campus lately just like they did last year.

Bad rapport-building has the opposite effect on the donor than that which we wish to cultivate.

The first rule of building rapport is it must be DIALOG not MONOLOGUE. You must ask questions that will solicit meaningful conversation and back and forth. You (no matter if you are a student caller or the Vice President of Advancement) must not deliver a litany of great-stuff-happening-at-our-institution without stopping for breath.

So, following this rule, we must construct meaningful rapport building questions.

The second rule about rapport building is that these questions get stale. Every year (at least) new rapport builders should be generated and put into rotation.

Here is some guiding criteria for generating these questions. Rapport building questions should:
  • Extract meaningful information (like employment and campus affinities).
  • Make the prospect like the caller/staffer as quickly as possible.
  • Be delivered in a genuine way.
  • Not be able to be answered with “Yes” or “No”.
  • Not merely deliver talking points about the college or university.
  • Provide opportunities for smooth transitions to the first ask.
  • Collect new demographic information about prospects and verify current info (but not in a “canned” or perfunctory way).

What are some examples of strong rapport-building questions?
  • Were you close to any faculty members while you earned your degree?
  • Are working in the same field in which you earned your degree?
  • Did you know that the <> recently <>? Isn't that great?
  • I thought you might like to know that we've had a lot of success in <>. What do think about that?
  • I see that you attended our recent <>. Do you have any feedback for <> about that event that I could pass along?
  • You know, I am not sure about the answer to that question. But I can get back to you if I could get your cell phone number or email. I'll research that and contact you.
  • Why did you make your first gift to <>? What keeps you giving?
  • What are you most passionate about here at <>?
  • I see you are <> as I was/am. That's wonderful to know. Do you know <>?

Does your rapport building need a refresh? Do you have some favorite rapport-building questions that I forgot to mention on my list? Comments and questions are, as always, welcomed and encouraged!

Cheers,
​
Jessica Cloud

PS - If you liked this post, you might also like these:
  • 5 Ideas to Improve Mock Calling
  • Annual Fund versus Annual Giving: What's the difference?
  • The 30 Minute Fundraiser

PPS - If you found this article helpful, please comment and let me know. Also subscribe to Real Deal Fundraising so you don't miss a post! You'll get my guide to Call Center Games for Free!​​
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10 Traits ALL Former Phonathon Callers Share

2/16/2017

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  • A near-pathological imperviousness to being told “No.”
I’ve said many times that every new major gift officer should be required to work at the phonathon for a week so that they can be told “no” hundreds and thousands of times. It’s de-sensitizes you to the fear of rejection.

Once you’ve been told never to call back, been hung up on countless times, and told “no” in so many variations ranging from “I’d love to, but I can’t afford it” to an expletive-filled, irrational rant, you just don’t worry about it anymore.
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Callers carry this confidence into their working life whether they remain in fundraising or not. It’s like a secret superpower from working in the call center.

  • Smile When You Dial!
“Smile When You Dial” becomes more of a life philosophy than a cheery fundraising maxim after you’ve worked in the call center for a while.

Not only do former phonathon callers have mad phone skills (friendly, engaging, polite, etc.) they have a rocking perspective on how to approach difficult situations.

Smile and you will change your chances of getting what you want. Believe you can do it and you can.

  • The need for quiet, alone time
This is the flip-side of being in the conversation business. After 3-4 hours on the phone with alumni, you just need a break.

I still talk on the phone for hours a day as part of my job. Even though I’m an extravert, after I’m done with work, I’d rather have my nails pulled out than talk on the phone for “fun”. This pattern plays out amongst my friends who worked in call centers too.

  • Competitiveness
​Phonathon might not create hyper-competitiveness among former callers. It might be correlational. What I mean is I think the position attracts competitive people and those are often the ones who stay working at the phone center for longer than a couple of weeks.

Either way, though, call center work can take a naturally competitive person and turn them into an Olympic champion of smack-talk.

If you were a caller, you wouldn’t think twice about kicking your friends off the island if it meant they stood between you and a $25 Red Lobster gift card. Former phonathon callers exhibit this good-natured ruthlessness well beyond college and employ this trait in many different fields of endeavor.

  • Ability to tune out distractions
Holding a complex conversation leading to a $1,000 donation on a credit card while your esteemed colleagues play wastepaper basketball behind you is no problem for a phonathon caller.

Doing all of this when you know that your supervisor is listening in and you’re being evaluated, also no sweat. Phonathon callers can get it all done flawlessly.

  • Sense of humor
Once you’ve muddled up a prospect’s name so badly that it becomes a call center legend, it’s easy to laugh at your own mistakes.

Everyone who has been a caller has selected the wrong script, got lost in the middle of a sentence, drawn a blank on the name of the institution they are calling for, or called the prospect by the wrong name.

If you take yourself too seriously, you just won’t survive in phonathon. A sense of humor is a must.

  • Coachability
Phonathon callers want the constructive feedback. The thing about fundraising is that you know when you aren’t successful. It’s not subjective.

Student supervisors and call center managers give callers tips on everything from overcoming objections to how many times you say “umm” in a sentence to the quality of your voice itself.

You can spot a former phonathon caller anywhere because they come to crave the kind of pointed and applicable feedback they got in the call center. They crave it because when implemented it immediately impacted results in a positive way.

  • Multitasking successfully
Related to tuning out distractions, former phonathon callers are masters at multitasking.

Many great callers learned to read or complete homework assignments while the phone was dialing. You also learn to prep your script, ask your supervisor a question on mute, and place a bookmark in your chemistry book all while your prospect tells you about the Homecoming court of 1954.

When you’re done with all that, you seamlessly transition back into the conversation with a “How wonderful! Mrs. Smith, I don’t want to take up too much more of your time tonight. Let me tell you why I’m calling…”

  • A fondness for elementary-school style posters and goofy clip art
Most of the former phonathon callers I know love a visual aid for reaching goals.

In the call center, we become emotionally dependent upon thermometers, countdowns, and other displays of our progress and performance. For me, it manifests in the use of my bullet journal with lots of colors and goal charts.

Likewise, I love old school, goofy clip art with simple cartoonish lines. I like to use them in presentations to make folks laugh but also it brings me back to my call center days when results were often tied to being as goofy as possible to get the attention of the group.

  • No fear of negotiating or talking about money
Callers learn that those who get comfortable with talking about money fast will enjoy rewards.

This benefits these individuals later in their life because they aren’t afraid to negotiate for a raise, ask a spouse about preparing a will or be persistent to get a sale.

I hope you had as much fun reading this post as I did putting it together. What other traits do you think come from working in a call center or in fundraising in general? If you were a phonathon caller, do these seem true for you? Comments and questions are, as always, welcomed and encouraged!

Cheers, 

Jessica Cloud  

PS - If you liked this post, you might also like these: 
  • People give because they are asked
  • Branding your phonathon
  • Quiz: Assess Your Phonathon Scripts
  • How to Staff Your Phonathon Superfast: Seven Secrets to Fill the Seats
  • Is Phonathon Really Dead?
​
PPS - If you found this article helpful, please comment and let me know. Also subscribe to Real Deal Fundraising so you don't miss a post! You'll get my  guide to Call Center Games for Free!
 

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Thoughts for Thursday: Launching a Phonathon Program (Interview with Markus Jones)

10/13/2016

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This week's Thursday feature is an interview with Markus Jones, Senior Vice President for Development of the Sigma Nu Educational Foundation. His organization launched their first ever phonathon last year and I asked him some questions about the process and what the results have been for his organization.

  • Why did you feel it was important for Sigma Nu to start a phonathon program? 
 Our foundation employs a small staff and operates on a very limited budget (I’m sure that sounds familiar). We are always trying to maximize the return on our various development efforts. Additionally, we are an organization with a widely diverse donor base that extends across the nation - reaching new donors and cultivating those relationships is extremely costly for such a small shop.
 
Phonathon fundraising represented a method of communication that I felt our organization had not fully explored in the past. Likewise, it offered a unique opportunity to reach non-donors, friends and parents of our members, whom we had never previously contacted.
 
As a major gift fundraiser, I also saw the Phonathon as a means of prospect generation for future campaign efforts. We needed to resupply the pipeline for our mid-range and major gift officers to cultivate in the very near future. We have been very carefully referring outliers from this effort to those gift officers.


  • Did you face any concerns or resistance to starting fundraising calls? How did you handle those?  
At first, I faced heavy resistance from our own staff, which was unexpected. Various members of our staff seemed to project their negative past experiences with phonathon solicitations onto our own phonathon plans. I addressed each individually during the planning phase and invited them to assist with certain aspects of the planning process. For instance, one staff member was very vocal about the “pushy attitudes” he experienced from callers in the past. I invited him to help write certain sections of the call script.
 
Additionally, we were met with similar concerns from other members of the staff who are not directly involved with the fundraising operations. I worked with our communications team and other fundraising staff to develop internal communications that addressed their concerns in advance of launching the campaign. We shared FAQs, details about database segments, call schedules, and sample call scripts with everyone on staff prior to making calls. We also invited them to actively engage with donors who may have questions or concerns along the way. After the first week of calling, we distributed “canned responses” to commonly heard objections to the staff assigned to the front desk at the Fraternity Headquarters.
 
We also created a page on our website dedicated to the Phonathon which carefully identified the company we contracted to conduct the calls, constituents who would receive the calls, why we were calling, and the timeframe in which calls would be made. This also helped to mitigate some push-back we received from outside constituents and, I believe, added some validity to the callers’ efforts.
 
  • What sort of results did you have from this first round of calling? Will you be doing it again?  
We contacted roughly 64,000 individual records in our database as a test. Our callers used the same ask across all segments and we raised roughly $14,000 in hard cash almost immediately, with $85,000+ in 3-year pledged gifts. These were extremely profitable numbers for us and we have now incorporated phonathon solicitation in to our full annual fund plan for the year. We are now only contacting certain segments by phone since they performed better than others during our test.
 
  • Did the concerns turn out to be valid? Were there challenges in implementing the calls?  
In the end, the major concerns of our staff were not valid. We did not receive any hate-mail or experience widespread donor revolt. We received maybe 10 total valid complaints from donors that could all be traced back to inaccurate data provided to the callers from our records or individual caller error. I provided the call center manager with approved responses to common objections based on feedback from the callers which seemed to make the calls run more smoothly at the onset of the campaign. Anything additional objections were forwarded directly to me and I handled each personally. There were very few.
 
Side note: Our vendor employs a very diverse group of callers and actually worked with us to recruit collegiate members from one of our Sigma Nu chapters near the call center. The feedback from the callers was also really great. They all enjoyed working on the campaign and speaking with our alumni on the phone. This was very encouraging for future partnerships.
 
  • Long term, what are your hopes for the Sigma Nu phonathon?​ 
We have now included phonathon into our full annual fund schedule. We are now using nearly every type of communication and solicitation tactic when reaching our donors. We have reserved the phonathon for only two segments of our database: parents of our members and non-donors – the segments that tested best during our initial phonathon test earlier this year. 

More about Markus Jones: Prior to joining the staff of the Sigma Nu Educational Foundation, Markus served as a Development Officer at the University of Southern Mississippi Foundation. He began his career in nonprofit development and volunteer management following Hurricane Katrina as the Director of Marketing and Resource Development for the United Way of South Mississippi in Gulfport, MS. Markus has worked in the nonprofit development field for his entire professional career and strives to continue this path in the future. He holds a bachelor's degree in Advertising from The University of Southern Mississippi and in his spare time Markus enjoys books, the outdoors, volunteering and traveling.



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In-Depth: Is Phonathon Really Dead?

9/21/2016

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If you haven’t heard, Stanford University ruffled some feathers last week by announcing that is doing away with its phonathon. Here's the announcement from Stanford. Donor Relations Guru and Annual Giving Network wrote about it.

Here’s my take. Stanford is not the first to get rid of their phonathon and they won’t be the last. Does that mean that phonathon is dead? No way!

One friend of mine said “So It Begins” on Facebook about this because with such a high profile university ditching their phonathon, annual giving specialists all over the country will have to go into a new cycle of justifying their programs to administrators who think that their universities are also Stanford.

The truth is that Stanford could afford to stop fundraising full stop and they wouldn’t lose any market share for years. Eventually revenues might drop, but it would take a while. The loss of new fundraising revenue wouldn’t seriously impact their rankings or ability to recruit students for decades probably.

Stanford has two very powerful things that your university probably doesn’t have that make it possible for them to say to donors: “You meet us on our terms. We don’t feel like calling you anymore.” Or as they put it in their paperwork. “Give online. It’s the modern way to give!”

  • Brand recognition
They are #5 in the nation. They are in the company of Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia and The University of Chicago. They completed a $6 Billion (with a B) campaign in 2012, which means they raised all that money during the economic downturn. If we looked honestly at the brands of our institutions, most of us are regional or national institutions at best. Stanford is a global brand. The simply don't need phonathon to communicate and shore up their brand.

  • Endowment
Stanford’s endowment is $22.2 Billion. At a 4% spending allocation per year, that would provide $888 Million annually. The annual operating budget for my alma mater (The University of Southern Mississippi) is approximately $278 Million. And Southern Miss is lucky enough to use unrestricted giving as a value-add and not require those funds to meet that operating budget. Many colleges and universities NEED that unrestricted income and they need to continue to educate their constituents about their needs. Stanford could fund THREE mid-size universities every year with just 4% of their endowment revenue (without touching their corpus).

Donor Relations Guru makes the point that we should be multichannel and of course we should. Giving donors options and honoring their choices should be part of your plan. But if you aren’t Stanford and you don’t have a long game plan to replace the things that phonathon brings you (up-to-date data, donors, positive public relations, dollars, and donor education) proceed with caution. Don’t get rid of any medium that you can afford that gives your donors another way to give. I work for an institution that stopped communicating with donors via phone a while back and now we have to rebuild and repair those relationships. 

Phone calls have significant advantages that haven’t changed:
  • It’s personal (much more than a mailing or a Facebook post)
  • Dialog not monologue (Phonathon is not passive. It’s active. It’s asking.)
  • Cost effective and scale-able (Compared to major donor visits)

Imagine if we just gave up trying to visit major donors and just decided to tell them all to give online. I don’t think we would clutch our pearls. We would laugh and wish that institution the best in their experiment. (I guarantee that political candidates aren't even considering giving up their "Get Out the Vote" phonathons!) Personal interaction works best. We know this because fundraising is about relationships. But it is also about asking. Phonathon allows us to do both and reach a large amount of people at the same time. No other medium does this.

If your phonathon isn’t working, it probably isn’t because the medium is dying. It’s more likely that the problem originates from poor caller training/management, you have poor contact rates or ironically, you aren’t calling enough to make your fixed costs worthwhile. There are solutions to all of these issues. 
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In Depth: Call Center Motivation Primer

9/7/2016

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Motivation goes far beyond call center games. Games are one of the most visible manifestations of external motivation in the call center but I have seen too many well-meaning managers become over-fixated on games. It is important to have other things undergirding your motivational strategy so that the games become only the icing on the cake.
 
Make sure your call center has:
  • Thermometers and other visual representations of fundraising achievement prominently posted.
  • Nightly goal cards that are based on scientific data analysis and projections based on the segments the caller is assigned to call.
  • A wall-of-fame highlighting callers’ lifetime dollars raised.
  • Leaderboard (updated regularly) where callers can see how they stack up against their peers. Be sure to highlight not only dollars but also consider average gift, participation, credit cards, matching gifts, and upgrades.
  • A clearly articulated discipline system which is activated through regular coaching and pledge verification to hold callers accountable.
  • Visits from deans, administrators, and most importantly, scholarship recipients so that callers understand the importance of their job.
  • Continuing education so that your callers feel like they are progressing and mastering their craft.
 
All of these things come before the nightly games. It is also important that games not detract from the purpose of the calling shift, which is to raise money efficiently. Games should never take time away from calling or create a situation where callers are disturbed or distracted when talking with prospects.

That said, call center games are a cornerstone of what makes having a such a hard job FUN! You can get some great ideas for new call center games (and new twists on old favorites) by subscribing to Real Deal Fundraising. My "15 Best Call Center Games" guide is my gift to you for subscribing to this blog. Click here or the button below to sign up for updates today.
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In-Depth: Rethinking how we train phonathon callers

8/24/2016

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​Now is the time to be thinking about how you are going to train your new callers. But, the truth is you aren’t just training phonathon callers.

You are training young fundraisers.

If you do it right, every caller in your center will have a knowledge of fundraising that rivals most experienced development officers. The techniques that your young fundraisers learn can be applied in nearly any area of business that they choose to pursue. If your system reinforces these lessons, they will be incredible young fundraisers.  They will raise serious money for your institution and have an impact on many students, faculty, and staff. From the time he or she is hired, you are a part of that student fundraiser’s education. He or she will also be an integral part of the life of your educational community.

A Holisitic Approach to Training

If staffing is about quantity, training is about quality. Of course, you want staffing to be about quality too but speed takes precedence. In training, you should still be as efficient as possible but that isn’t as important as being effective. You want to take all of these students you hired and make them into incredible young fundraisers.

When someone says phonathon training, generally “new hire training” is the first association we make, as if that’s the only kind of training there is in a call center. Training is necessary throughout the entire time that a caller works with your phonathon. If we take a more holistic approach like this, quality and quantity begin to work together. Believe it or not, you can get more done in less time and it works to the benefit of both the callers and the program.

Here’s my proposal: what if we presume that for the first couple of weeks new callers will be calling only future donors (my optimistic phrase for a non-donor)? Suddenly, there a ton of things we just wouldn’t need to cover in new hire training. Upgrades, special giving societies, leadership levels, extra objection responses and fresh ways to build rapport could wait a couple of weeks or a month.

Now this change of perspective on new hire training as outlined above does three amazing things:
  1. The new caller feels less overwhelmed during their first few calls and has more early success, making them a better fundraiser and making them more likely to stick around.
  2. For the callers who don’t hang around for two weeks or a month, the program saves the time they would have spent on that extra initial training.
  3. Callers who have been calling for two weeks to a month are better prepared to absorb the information about donor calling because they now feel more proficient at the basics. The donor caller training also provides a nice place to address lingering questions. When callers “graduate” to calling donors, they get a boost of confidence that turbo-charges their fundraising.

Training doesn’t only happen on the front end. Training actually starts in the interview process, as that shapes how the employee views the expectations and responsibilities. And training continues every single night in team meetings, coaching, and formal continuing education sessions. Training continues as new hires become donor callers, donor callers become new hire mentors, and lead callers become student supervisors.

Once you switch your perspective, you don’t feel the pressure to squeeze everything in during new hire training. You can then consciously design a holistic growth and education program that will teach each student fundraiser what they need to know when they are ready to learn it.

Oh, by the way, this kind of "life-cycle" training that I recommend will have the end result that you “grow your own” call center leaders. If you put these strategies into play, you will have many productive callers, but also many mentors and leaders in your call center. When you get promoted, and you will, you will have graduating seniors ready for a chance to make their mark on your institution. Talk about succession planning!

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    Jessica Cloud, CFRE

    I've been called the Tasmanian Devil of fundraising and I'm here to talk shop with you. 

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What Folks Are Saying

 Jessica has been a wonderful colleague and mentor over the years.  In the beginning of my annual giving career, I found her expertise, experience and willingness to help, invaluable.  Her advice and custom phonathon spreadsheets had a direct impact on our phonathon’s success and my ultimate promotion.  As I progress in my career, I continue to value her insight and professionalism." 

​- Ross Imbler, Director of Annual Giving, Lewis and Clark Law School
 Ross Imbler

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