10 Soft Skills to Nail the Ask

This blog post originally appeared on npENGAGE on September 23, 2013 Does the thought of making a six figure ask make your palms sweat? Take heart fellow fundraiser, practice makes perfect. Or, to put it another way, confidence breeds competence.

Asking is part art and part science. A face-to-face solicitation comes at the culmination of you gradually deepening your relationship with your donor to understand his or her passions and interests. Armed with the knowledge of what they truly care about and a program that fulfills their interests, you are ready for the ask!

One of the most challenging things in an ask is managing your own composure and delivery while simultaneously listening for verbal and nonverbal cues from your donor. That is a lot happening at once! Jerry Panas recommends your visit should be 25% talking and 75% listening. I recommend having your script down pat so you can focus your attention on your donor.

The best way to practice an ask is to videotape yourself performing a mock ask. Only 7% of communication is verbal – a whopping 55% is your body language and eye contact! Strong and effective body language can help establish an immediate rapport with your audience and signal confidence in your message. We know our donors want to feel special. Making and sustaining eye contact with them makes them feel as though you are speaking directly to them and that they are the most important person in the room during your conversation. Break eye contact with them and you’ve instantly broken that connection. Avoid eye contact and you give the impression of being untrustworthy.

Body language can betray you. You may be slouching because you’re tired, but people can read it as a sign you’re not interested. The great news is you can use your body language to intentionally project confidence. Yes, you truly can “fake it until you make it” and Amy Cuddy’s Ted talk will show you how.

Practice truly makes perfect. While you are practicing, try these 10 tips: 1.Smile early and often. This helps you exude positive energy and confidence. 2.Quiet your mind to become more present, sensitive and in the moment. Try to become as conscious of the world around you as you are of yourself. 3.Stand or sit tall. Having bad posture will make you look like you lack confidence. 4.Sit towards the front of your chair and lean in for the ask. 5.Be physically accessible. Don’t cross your arms. That tells people you are unapproachable. 6.Mind your voice inflections, speed of your speech, volume and tone. If your voice inflects to a higher pitch at the end of your sentences like you are asking a question you will not sound confident or credible. 7.Freely express your gratitude. Thank you donor for taking your visit, for their prior giving and for responding to your ask when you make your ask, even if they say no! 8.Be curious. What books are in your donor’s bookshelf? Pretend you are a cultural archaeologist. Everything in your donor’s space reveals something about them. 9.Make intentional small talk expressing an authentic interest in your donor. Chat with them about their kids, vacations, or work projects. Learning these details about their likes, lifestyle and hobbies help you deepen your relationship. 10.Give sincere compliments.

Good luck!

How to get a meeting with anyone

My colleague Jeff Schreifels wrote a great blog post called "You Need a Friend" on how important it is for development professionals to have mentors. This is great advice. We all need friends and especially peers in our industry we can go to for advice. Mentors inspire us and help us build our expertise. I used to get emails and phone calls from students wanting an interview for a class or advice on moving to a nonprofit career. Most of them were college students and if they had a deadline it was that week. Real agendas were not made clear until I was sitting across from them. After a few years of this I grew wary of these requests until one day I got an email from a graduate student at the Acton MBA program in entrepreneurship.

It was an unforgettable breath of fresh air. She asked for precisely 30 minutes of my time, told me exactly what she wanted to cover, promised she would only ask me questions not answered by my press or blog, and in exchange would donate 10 hours of her time to my favorite charity. Three years later I'm still raving about her!

Susie Hall, Director of Admission at Acton was kind enough to share her technique with me, it's called Naive Networking. It is the most honest and realistic guide to networking I've ever read and a must read for any student or professional wanting to get ahead. Frankly, I wish they taught this in high school! Here are my favorite Naive Networking tips:

1) Do your personal soul searching and industry homework first. 2) Be specific about what you need. Make sure the other person understands how a little effort on their part can make a big difference in your life. 3) Don't pester 4) Show up prepared 5) Send your questions in advance 6) Ask questions. My favorite? "What's your favorite mistake?" 7) Give something unexpected in return. In my case it was 10 hours to my favorite charity. 8) Be nice to the gatekeepers. 9) Follow up. 10) And as my colleague Jeff would resoundingly agree with me: be gracious and be grateful.

Stay classy, Rachel

True confessions in online marketing

Most of my career I have spent as an entrepreneur and fundraiser.  Setting out to change the world for girls to empower them in science, engineering, math, and technology has proved immensely rewarding.    I owe part of my success to my love of marketing.  Since the Carter administration I’ve been contemplating how to get on TV and share my bigger message.  I remember feeling disillusioned as a small child that the only people that seemed to make the news had done do because they died in tragic accidents.  Never to be discouraged, I took matters into my own hands and by the 6^th grade when my friend Kim Overton, a serial entrepreneur, and I orchestrated an impromptu carnival at the university housing projects I was embolden enough to pick up Kim’s moms rotary phone and dial the Austin American Statesman directly, insisting that they “Send a photographer and reporter right away!” This Eloise approach to public relations worked for me as an 11 year old.  We secured our first media placement, a fabulous shot of Kim on the cover of the metro state that I wish I had today.

As so began my complete fascination with marketing, especially good marketing.  After spending my middle school years playing “ad agency” in my (working single) mom’s conference room at work I set my sights on the McCombs school of business and a degree in marketing.  My 3.7 GPA paid off and I was the first person in my family to be accepted into business school.  My dad was so proud he almost couldn’t stand it, this from a man had spent his life generously exaggerating the mere half successes of my youth: “Rachel was first chair violinist in the orchestra!”  In reality I was 9^th chair and I only sat next to 1^st chair because the chairs were arranged in two rows.  My dad would probably dispute this.   

I often wonder where I would be today had I actually earned that degree in marketing but we will never know since I was derailed by a poor grade in business calculus.  Having internalized the message since 6^th grade that I was “bad” at math and subsequently be forced to kiss my childhood dream of a marketing degree goodbye, I set out to change the world for girls and ensure they found math, science, engineering and technology as empowering as they are fun.

After a successful and rewarding career launching and running an organization empowering girls in math  I have spent the past two years of my life somewhat undercover as an online marketer, steeped in best practices for non-profits doing online marketing and online fundraising.   For me, it has been like getting that marketing degree only more fun and rewarding because it was in practice, not theory and through my efforts hundreds of nonprofits have doubled their fundraising results or more, raising on average 83% more money and getting a 300% return on their investment.  I could have never done that in a class in college.   

Last week I heard Dr Peter Bishop, futurist from the University of Texas at Houston speak at the Texas Nonprofit Summit.  What jobs will there be in the future? They don’t exist yet.  They will be determined largely by innovation and the efforts of the creative class – coined by Richard Florida as a profound new force in the economy and life of America - a fast-growing, highly educated, and well-paid segment of the workforce on whose efforts corporate profits and economic growth increasingly depend. Members of the creative class do a wide variety of work in a wide variety of industries---from technology to entertainment, journalism to finance, high-end manufacturing to the arts. While they may not consciously think of themselves as a class, they share a common ethos that values creativity, individuality, difference, and merit. Places that succeed in attracting and retaining creative class people prosper; those that fail don't.

Who doesn’t want to work in workplace culture of creativity, individuality, difference, and merit?  I’m proud my hometown of Austin, Texas ranks at the top of the list for the creative class and thankful to be a part of it, self-earned marketing degree and all.

Opportunity is everywhere and life is what you make of it!   

Stay classy,

Rachel