Asking in the Age of the Answering Machine

Jan 01, 1998

First, you have to decide whom to call, and what to ask for. Depending on the size of your donor base and the number of people available to make these calls, I recommend calling people who have given at least $100, and whom you want to ask for more money. You may also call people who have given $100 or more simply to ask them to renew at the same amount, if you believe the person has reached their capacity or if they have recently increased the size of their gift.

However, it takes so much energy to call that, unless your information indicates otherwise, it is best to use the call to ask for more money. Of course, you can also use phone calls to ask donors to host a houseparty or to recommend other people who might become donors.

Your data base needs to be able to list people who have given frequently over a long period of time (three or more years); people who have given significantly (the exact size of "significant" varies from group to group) at least once; and people whose giving is increasing without being asked. These are the people to concentrate on. Another group not to be overlooked is people who have given a major gift then decreased their giving. You need to find out if their decrease has anything to do with you.

Now, to the phone. You take out your 3-by-5 card or computer-generated form with the information about the person that you are calling. You review his or her giving history and the gift you are to seek. You recall what you know about this person-is she garrulous or brusque? Is he likely to be receptive to your call or will he resist? You review what you are trying to do with the phone call-get a meeting, get the money on the phone, set up another phone date, etc. If you are like me, you make some notes about what you want to say and you review how to answer objections that may be raised. You take a deep breath, wish yourself luck and call.

Ring, ring. Until the last ten years or so, if you were calling someone at home, you either reached a person or the phone kept ringing. If you called the person at work, you might have encountered a secretary or receptionist of varying degrees of friendliness. In that case, you had to decide what kind of message to leave, particularly in response to the slightly hostile question, "Will she know what this is regarding?" or the even more haughty, "Will she know who you are?" As you left your name and tried to summarize in 10 words what you wanted, you kicked yourself for not preparing more thoroughly for such an encounter.

For the last decade or more, you would have prepared yourself not only to speak to the prospect, but also to leave a message on an answering machine if the prospect wasn't home. In leaving the message, you would have had to decide how reliable the machine sounded. Did it have that underwater quality that indicated your voice would be too distorted to be understood? Did the tape run out without warning mid-message, leaving you feeling really foolish? Did it make weird clicking and blipping noises that caused you to keep stumbling over your words, unsure which were being recorded? Veterans of calling got used to all that.

But in the last two years, message machines have gotten more complicated. Now you may be confronted by a menu of choices that requires pen and paper just to keep track of, let alone select from. "Hello, you have reached the Smith family. We are either on the phone or not available to take your call right now. If you know whom you want to talk to, you may press the number at any time. For Kevin, press one, for Moira, 2, for Shelley, 3, for Alfred 4." Beep. Now, your dilemma, which must be resolved in one nano-second: you want a meeting with Kevin and Moira, which box do you leave that in?

Or, you call the prospect at work. First you are routed electronically to a staff directory. You can enter the first three letters of their last name. Someone else has the first three letters of your prospect's last name, and you are put into the wrong box. You call back and press zero for an operator. There is no operator, but you can get to another directory that gives everyone's name at the office, along with the code you must use to reach them. "For Mary Jones, press 157 followed by the pound sign." Everyone, we hope, knows which is the pound sign by now.

If a live person answers the phone, his or her job is mostly to put you through to voice mail. Forget getting anyone who can tell you whether the person you want to reach is out to lunch or on sabbatical! At the voice mailbox, some people are very nice about leaving an outgoing message that describes their whereabouts; "I'll be out of my office today, and back tomorrow," which would help except you don't know which day is "today" and which "tomorrow."

To be sure, what I have just said applies to a particular demographic profile of donor: people ages 25-60 who have jobs. Organizations that have a high number of retired people among their donors will not have the experiences I am describing. Similarly, what I am describing is more true in urban areas than in rural ones and in big cities than small towns. But for many groups, the majority of their donors match this demographic profile.

Now another complication has arisen: an increasing number of people prefer to be reached by e-mail or fax. Although they are not unwilling to engage in a conversation, you may never have one with them. A friend of mine recently concluded a $5,000 request successfully all by e-mail. It took three days and 6 messages, but she says it actually took very little time.

So, for the phone call you make today, your chances of actually getting your prospect on the phone the first time you call are down to almost zero, and your chances of ever speaking to them in person at all (unless they are also a good friend) are down to about 20%!

EVERYONE IS ON THE PHONE A second and related problem is the degree to which raising money by phone has become seemingly universal. Whether it is commercial telemarketers making "cold" calls to sell everything from long distance phone service to credit cards to mortgages, or nonprofits promoting a cause that will save, prevent, promote, stop something bad or start something good, the phone is suddenly the chosen first method of contact. The fax machine is not far behind, and unsolicited advertising over e-mail is already beginning.

Even though people find phone solicitation annoying, it does work, as attested to by the income generated. A study commissioned by the Direct Marketing Association showed that some $65 billion was raised last year by nonprofits through telemarketing. Compare that to giving by foundations of $11.8 billion and you have an idea of the impact of the strategy. Telemarketing is not likely to go away any time soon.

It's no wonder that many people are choosing to surround themselves with gatekeepers: machines that screen messages and allow many calls to go unanswered. I call this the "electronic moat." So, from now on and as far into the future as we can see, it is clear that as fundraisers we need to spend less time psyching ourselves up to talk to the prospect and more time preparing to talk to the various electronic voices that inform the prospect what is wanted of them.

THE PERSONAL TOUCH Along with total strangers calling asking you to join groups you do not currently belong to, many nonprofit groups are trying harder to approach current donors more personally. I endorse this, and many articles in the Journal have talked about how to do this. However, this strategy is losing effectiveness because it is being overused.

In my own experience, in 1997 I got dozens of personal notes attached to letters asking me for money. While many of these notes were from people I had met briefly, they were often from people I did not know. Many of these personal notes were followed up with phone calls-very nice messages asking me to give again or give more. In talking with friends, I learned this personalizing was extremely common. The problem with it is that as it becomes more common, it becomes less effective.

So, what are some solutions? First, I reaffirm that any personal note or phone call is more effective than none. That it is less effective than it used to be does not for a minute mean it is not way more effective than an impersonal letter with no follow-up message.

However, many people engaged in personal solicitation have lost sight of the meaning of the word "Personal." As Funk and Wagnalls reminds us, personal means "pertaining to or concerning a particular person, not general or public." The key word here is "particular" person. We need to be increasingly conscious of trying to match solicitors with prospects whom they know personally.

For many years, the connection between prospect and solicitor could be simply that they were both donors to the same group. Many of us have made successful calls to people by introducing ourselves as Board members or volunteers and saying, "We don't know each other, but we both give to Verygood Group, and I'm hoping I could talk with you about renewing your gift." While this can still work, it doesn't fly as well as "Hi, George, this is Mary. Will you call me when you have a chance? I want to talk with you about giving to Verygood Group. It was great to see you and Terry at New Year's. 555-8765. Thanks."

When deciding who will ask whom, make every effort to put people together who know each other socially or professionally. For many organizations, this means a larger pool of volunteers will be involved in asking for money. The development director's job more and more involves getting as many people as possible out there asking, and maximizing the opportunity for people to ask particular people that they know.

WILL THEY OPEN THE ENVELOPE? That being said, there will still be many instances in which the relationship between prospect and solicitor is not close and true personal contact is not possible. In those cases, solicitors must think through how to leave short, interesting messages that are to the point.

Start by recalling that a person's attention span is 15 seconds at most. As someone sits at their desk or stands by their answering machine at home taking down messages, they listen to very little of what is said. "Who is it and what do they want?" is all they want to know. A person taking down messages wants to know your name, your number and briefly what the call is about. Thus, the message you leave on voice mail or a machine is comparable to the carrier envelope in direct mail. If the prospect doesn't open the envelope, he or she will not be responding to your mail appeal. If the prospect cannot be bothered to listen all the way through your rambling message, you probably won't get any further with this solicitation.

Here's a good message: "Hi, this is Con Cise. I'm on the board of the Food Bank, and I'm following up a letter I sent last week. I'd like to talk with you about the possibility of you increasing your already generous gift because we have a lot more people needing us, as you can imagine. If you have time to meet in person, that would be great. My number is (510) 543-1234 and I will be in my office all day Tuesday and Friday. I'll also try you later this week. Thanks."

Contrast: "Hi, this is Beata Roundthebush. Hope you are doing well and that you got my letter about the Food Bank. You probably don't remember meeting me, but I think I met you at our Open House. You know, there are a lot more hungry people this year than last. And we have to raise a lot more money this year. I would like to talk with you about that. Maybe we could meet for lunch and I could bring you up to date on all that has been happening. I'll keep trying you, or you feel like it, you can call me. My numbers are 876-9887 and 989-4432. OK, well that's it. I look forward to speaking with you soon. Take care, and I hope you are not snowed in."

Beata's message is definitely friendlier, but on an answering machine, friendly quickly becomes annoying. Con's message is terse, but if delivered in a friendly warm voice, would seem no less friendly than Beata's and would also seem more respectful of the prospect's time.

TO MEET OR NOT TO MEET? Having figured out how to get the prospect's attention in your message, you have to decide what you're asking for. In the old days, a few years ago, the phone call was the way to set up a meeting to ask for the gift. Now, many people are asking the prospect to make a phone date rather than to meet in person. For many busy people, a personal meeting just feels like it will take too much time, and in fact it is bound to take more time than a phone call. So the purpose of the initial phone call may become to set up another phone call, one in which you'll actually talk with the prospect and make the ask. This is particularly useful for donors in the $100-$500 range, who are as likely to agree to increase their gift over the phone as in person.

Here the message you leave goes like this: "Hi, this is Con Cise. I'd like to talk with you about your gift to the Food Bank this year. Could we set a phone date to do that? Tuesdays and Thursdays are good for me, as well as any evening or weekend. My number is 445-8897. I'll also try you later this week. Thanks."

MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU Another somewhat effective solution to the electronic moat is to use it to your advantage. Tell the prospect that you have a phone-answering machine and he or she is welcome to leave messages anytime. Sometimes prospects will call when they are certain you are not there, and leave their response to your message. "Hi, Con. Thanks for calling. I'm not sure what else I can do for the Food Bank this year, but I will give what I gave last year." Then Con can leave a message saying, "Thanks so much for your message. That's very generous. I'll put you down for a renewal and send you a return envelope. Hope we will be able to talk in person one of these days." It is not unusual for gifts to be solicited and confirmed via machine. This same tactic can be used with donors who give you their e-mail address.

The biggest drawback to this reciprocal use of machinery is that it gives the solicitor little chance to persuade the prospect about the necessity and value of increasing their gift. On the other hand, I have heard of people negotiating an upgrade with prospects through a series of phone or e-mail messages. Again, if there is some familiarity between the solicitor and prospect, the chances of upgrading the gift, even without in-person communication, increase. For the most part, however, this strategy will result in a renewal rather than an increase in the gift.

I STILL LOVE YOU Solicitors often make the mistake of thinking that because a prospect doesn't want to talk with them, the prospect doesn't like them or their group. This is rarely the case-far more often, the prospect simply feels jammed for time. Perhaps they don't have any questions about your work. If the Food Bank is still feeding people, that's great. That there are many more people to be fed can be discerned by walking down the street or reading the paper. If your group actually has a complicated or controversial issue, then the prospect may wish to talk with you because he or she can learn something. Even then, the prospect may request (by message of course) something in writing.

THE PERSONAL THANK YOU The one type of personal contact there is still not enough of is thank yous. While many organizations use thoughtful, personal appeals to solicit money, whether in letters or phone calls, their thank you often comes in a form letter, without even an extra note attached. This does not make for prospects who want to meet and talk in the future. They feel they are appreciated up until the time they give their money, and then not until they are asked again. Do not neglect that thank you-by phone and by mail-and make it personal!

Time is our most precious non-renewable resource. With few exceptions, people feel as if they have too little of it and they must be very careful about giving it away. Working with that understanding allows you to work with the electronic voices, instead of resenting them.

By Kim Klein

Reprinted from the Grassroots Fundraising Journal, Vol. 17, No. 3, © Chardon Press, 1998. www.chardonpress.com.