Altruistic Cold Calling

Like most business owners, I am always at work. I have a Bluetooth surgically implanted in my ear. Before there was Bluetooth, I used duct tape. When I overhear people saying, I wish I had eight hands to get all of this done…I think to myself, I believe that I may have eight hands. All eight might have carpal tunnel too, beat that.

When my wife told me she was going to be helping the auction committee at my kids’ school, I thought - good for her. I have no time for these sorts of selfless deeds, and somebody has to pick up the slack. Nightmare images of school fundraising events swirled in my head. Visions of cake walks, dunking booths, and snowman decorated tins of cheap fudge that you can’t stop eating while watching Letterman clouded my already consumed mind. Are you picking up what I am putting down?

My two boys attend a public charter school. This annual event raises money that allows for smaller class sizes as well as funds their art and science programs. My better half gave me the rundown on the auction. She was being asked to help solicit goods and services from local businesses to be auctioned off. Apparently, the attendance rate of the event was suffering as well so she was also going to call all the parents as well.

I am a salesperson. My company trains salespeople and places these certified sales professionals with companies all over the country. In addition to our Sales Program, we provide outsourced demand creation prospecting services – essentially high-end, business-to-business telemarketing.

At this point, you are most likely concluding that if I can’t figure out how to use my resources to help my kids’ school, I must be a jerk. I concur.

The wheels spun, the smoke swirled, and my surgically implanted Bluetooth melted ever so slightly.

So then it began. 3VLSI donated a sales team, made of the graduates from our training program, to call local area businesses and solicit donations. Being the obsessive-compulsive sales professionals we are, we decided we would go big. Instead of simply calling businesses to see what they felt like giving, we started with a list of 200 goods and services we wanted to have at the auction. Then we got our hands on the auction guides from other schools (our prospect list) and called businesses we knew had donated before. Now this is where the magic began. We urged businesses, ever so cleverly, to top the amount that they had donated before. “We see that you contributed a $75 gift certificate to another school. Forget that noise, we want $200.”

After securing more than $30,000 in donations in just under four weeks, we proceeded to call every single family urging them to attend as well as reminding them to request a line increase on their favorite credit card.

The results were awesome. The school raised 50% more than the past year’s auction. Enough said. Success criteria met.

Overall the experience was great. The only challenge was dealing with the world of school committees (PTA and what have you.) As an entrepreneur, prolonged consensus building is not my strong suit. I tend to be of the, “ask for forgiveness rather than permission” mindset and this approach is not always well received…but I did it anyway. I also asked for forgiveness later…really I did.

As it turns out, I can add value to society once in a while. There was a way to apply what my company did to help others. It seems that there always is. In this case I was able to combine my two favorite things: making money and helping people, (not necessarily in that order.) Maybe I will use one of my eight hands to try this again some day.