If sales were a brand, it would have a negative brand association for many people. This is because the barrier to entry to sales is low, and there are a lot of bad sales people.
However, study the very best sales people and sales teams anywhere, in any sector, and you will find:
- The greatest sales people care about creating value (or maximizing impact).
- The greatest sales people are about relationships, not transactions.
- The greatest sales teams take their craft seriously. They practice.
- The greatest sales teams have a process, and they work the process with ever-increasing effectiveness and efficiency.
“Selling, at its core, is not a business transaction. It is first and foremost the forging of a human connection.” – Bob Burg
At For Impact®, we use the term ‘sales’ to refer to the systemic, focused, professionalized process and function of building and maximizing relationships through 1-on-1 visits and asks. This focused process and function creates the highest return-on-investment and return-on-energy for organizations.
Why the word ‘sales’? It’s all-inclusive of the 1-on-1 with individuals, corporations, and foundations (and the individual conversations that comprise bilateral/multilateral funding processes). It also functionally unifies other ways we often categorize giving such as major giving, planned giving, transformational giving, and the ‘high-ROI-work’ to land grants. An organization risks building silos around any of these, but it can integrate at a higher level around the one concept (of sales).
Our encouragement for any organization that has any element of 1-on-1 fundraising is to COMMIT TO SALES. Here is what that means:
- Focus. Great fundraising isn’t something an organization can do part-time or as an afterthought. In the same way that you have a focus and cadence around programming or operations, the practice of bringing in funds needs to be an organizational function.
- Focus on 1-on-1. The specific focus should be on making more visits and more asks across all funding sources – foundations, corporations, and individuals. To be building and maximizing relationships at this given moment.
Important reminder: Engagement is 10x higher from the 1-on-1 outreach than what we call 1-to-many (or 1-to-1 asynchronous, e.g. email/text). - Strategically align other aspects of communications and outreach in support of this focus. Think about how to use events and communications to:
- Identify new relationships.
- Predispose for 1-on-1 follow-up.
- Showcase impact to/for current funders.
- Share the Story and Present the Opportunity. This is the For Impact mindset applied to sales to create a very simple sales process. It is not our job to make decisions for the prospects (e.g. that it’s not the right time). It’s our job to share the story around the impact and then present the opportunity to others to change, save, and impact lives.
Here are some notes on what ‘sales’ means at the team level:
- ‘Sales’ contextualizes the role of the board in fundraising. No organization would entrust sales to volunteers. However, the board has an essential role to play in the team-selling process by helping to identify, invite, and support predisposition/follow-up during the process.
- Consider hiring sales people. We’ve had a lot of success hiring trained sales people into fundraising roles. They can quickly adapt to the nonprofit jargon.
- Sales people are dedicated relationship managers. Every prospect is a project and every project needs one dedicated project manager (in sales, we call this a relationship manager or RM).
- Your team’s routines and processes should include:
- Regular prioritizing of prospects and opportunities.
- Regular sales team meetings
- A system to goal set, measure and monitor progress in terms of visits/asks/commitments.
Finally, identification of a fundraiser as someone who is ‘in sales’ is instructive. They start to invest in their own learning and growth by reading sales books and following sales wisdom in newsletters and social media. Sales and the sciences of engagement, discipline, prioritizing, and mental preparation are not new. Tap into them.
