Ep 284 | Go for the Nos

Making a call to a donor, or walking into a room knowing I'm about to make an ask, always gave me a pit in my stomach, and I really had to work through how I was going to handle the situation so I could walk in with an abundant mindset, walk in feeling like no matter what the outcome of the conversation, it's going to be a positive one, because I have things in place to kind of keep things moving, no matter if it's a yes or a no. And so today I'm going to share some mindset stuff with you,

just on things to think about when it comes to walking into those rooms confidently and without worrying about what the outcome is. And it's all about going for the No. It's all about walking in knowing that a no is a not right now, a no is a step towards the Yes, and having options and things in place to be able to feel good about that no so it doesn't defeat you. It

doesn't bring you down, it doesn't make you upset. So that's what we're going to talk about today, how to go for no confidently so that you can reach your fundraising goals. Now, before we get into this episode, it is brought to you by our freebie for December. It's all about mindset and self care. That's why we're talking about going for no to kind of help the

burnout, help the stress. And this guide is 50 ideas that you can do for self care in your office, at work in the little pockets of day, of time in your day, and also kind of how to build culture around self care within your team, so that you can avoid burnout in your team and help kind of build that strength and that resilience and that you can all work together and kind of take Breaks breathe and do what you need to do to reduce your stress so you can get that at

thefirstclick.net/resources, it's again, 50 ideas and ways to kind of get self care done in the minutes you have in your day and keep things moving forward so you can avoid that burnout. I hope you'll check it out. Let's get into the episode. You're listening to the digital marketing therapy podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell Mulhern, each month, we dive deep into a digital marketing or fundraising strategy that you can implement

in your organization. Each week, you'll hear from guest experts nonprofits and myself on best practices, tips and resources to help you raise more money online and reach your organizational goals. Okay, so go for no sounds super wrong. Sounds like it's not something that we would want to do. But here's the reason why going for no is great when you know that a no is okay. You can walk in just ready to have the conversation. You can pick up

the phone just ready to have the conversation. Doesn't matter what the outcome is, because you know what you're going to do to follow up with that person. You know that this isn't just a hey, I'm going to show up, make an ask, and we're going to move on. You know what resources and things that you can also provide to keep that person engaged and involved in your organization?

You also know your numbers. You know kind of what it is that how many calls you have to have, how many phone conversations you need to have with individuals, but just in general, how many in person meetings you need to have, all of those things. We're going to talk through some of those specific data points. But just from a mindset perspective, you know that walking in a no is not a no, it's just a not right now, and you can continue to move forward with the conversation, and it's not going

to derail you, and it's not going to ruin your day. Okay? So we're going to start by really, this is just kind of a generic sales funnel. We're going to start with really understanding our numbers, really understanding how we work and what our successes are.

So for example, let's say we have a goal of raising $100,000 and we know that in order to hit that number based off history, we need to have 50 donors that participate at that at a certain level, whatever it might be. And in order to get those 50 people to say yes, we need to have 100 conversations. And in order to do that, we break so you kind of back it up, so you start to build your conversion rates. So I know, okay, if I have seven

conversations a week, one of them is going to say yes. So now those nos are not nos. They're just setting me up. Okay, yep, yep, yep, I know how many conversations I need to have to be successful. Got them booked on my calendar, and you can feel better knowing that you've got the systems in place to be able to get you to those yeses. It could be your email list. I know when I send out an email to my 1000 subscribers, 50 of them are

going to take the action that I need them to take. Now I have my conversion rate, so now I know, okay, well, if I can double my email list, then I can get double the people that are saying yes, which is going to help me get to this number. It helps you decide kind of the activities that you take and where you spend your time. Because sometimes, when you have one on one meetings, or you're picking up the phone and you're

making phone calls, it feels a little bit. Wasted time when you're getting those notes, it feels uncomfortable, it feels icky. It's like, okay, well, could have been doing this. I could have been doing that. And there's a lot of different ways that you can raise the funds. So figure out what works for you and figure out what's working well for your organization based off the data. Because we can all sit here and give you

strategies. There's tons of them that are out there, but you know what's working well for you and your team, and you know what is bringing in the dollars. So double down on that, but do it with intention. So we want to go for the nose. So let's say that we know that phone calls seem to work really well for us, especially at this time of year. And we look at last year's numbers, and we can see that our team made 25 phone calls and we got seven or 10. We got 10 donations from that.

Okay, well, now we've increased our financial goal for this period, and so now we know that our team needs to make 150 phone calls in order to get those numbers. It frees your team up to make those calls and feel successful even when they get those no's because if we're looking at that conversion rate, as opposed to each individual conversation, so what's the conversion rate that we need to have? And as long as we're maintaining that baseline, then we know that we're good. So we

know, based off history, we have a 25% conversion rate. I'm not these are not real numbers. I'm just throwing things out there. So don't take the numbers that I'm sharing with you and assume that I did the math correctly, because I did that. But let's say we know we have a 25% conversion rate of yeses when we pick up the phone and have phone calls, and so as long as we know, hey, our team is making all these phone calls and we're still at or beating that conversion rate, we know we're

good. We know we're solid. If, for some reason, that conversion rate is starting to go down, and I'll said it's five or 10% okay, something's wrong. We need to reconvene. Maybe it's not phone calls this year. We need to try something else. Maybe our messaging isn't landing. But now we're not making decisions based off emotion. We're not feeling bad about ourselves. We're really tracking the data to make sure that we're in alignment with what our goals are and what we're trying to achieve.

Now, I know this this month is all about mindset and data and stuff. Doesn't seem to kind of work directly with that, but really what we're trying to do is help us get out of our way, get out of our own way and really focus on the task at hand and have backup if, for some reason I don't hit my goal, I want to have the backup to be like, Okay, well, here's what we did, here's what our plan was, here's how it worked last year.

Here's the differences in what didn't work this year or what went really well, so that we can try to do it again in the following year. It just helps you to kind of feel good about what you're doing and feel good about the changes, the shifts that you make as you go now, you might want to take it a next step and have a difference of tracking for returning donors versus new donors. So new donors being new people that you're

going after that have never donated to you. Obviously that's a longer timeline than the people that exist already that you're asking for a repeat gift, especially at year end. But think about this through the whole year, your conversion numbers are going to be a little bit different. And so when you think about your new donors, I really want to challenge you to not just track, okay, well, 15 conversations leads to three donations. Um, instead, really even track okay? I talked to so

and so I had to email them. I had to have a phone call with them. I had two coffee dates like, how many times are you touching those people before they become new donors? Now, if you have a CRM that you can do this in, that's fantastic, if not great spreadsheet. Um, is super helpful as well. However, you can get the data down, but pay attention to not just how many different people you have to talk to, but how many times you have to talk to them before they

say yes. Because, again, this is just arming you with the information that you need to really feel more comfortable when you step into those conversations. Now, when I step into that coffee date. I know this is only touch three, and typically we have to have seven touches before they make a decision. So I'm going to step in and ease not feeling like I need to make an ask, just getting to know them better,

having conversation, right? It's easier for you to track how you're spending your time, to feel good about how you're tracking and spending your time and and the end results that are going to come from them easier for you to talk to your department, your team, for you to talk to your volunteers, for you to really gage how we want to spend our time in order to hit those financial goals. Okay, so that's where we're going to start. We're going to start with really going for no and knowing

that those nos are great. We have to have a lot of nos to get those yeses and those yeses are going to be much more valuable to us if we're taking the time to really make sure they're the right match. We want those yeses, if we're going to invest the time that are going to become repeat yeses. So really, just think about that. How are we really nurturing and finding the people that we're connecting with to make sure we're in

alignment and our values and what we want? Need out of it is consistent and similar.

Now, when we get those no's, the other thing that's really helpful and can make a big impact in how you handle it and how you recover from it is having some follow up questions. Hey, okay, totally get it not right now is great. No worries. Could we still keep you on our newsletter list. We'd love to keep updating you on what we're up to, or it might be awesome. Totally get it. We have this great event coming up in a few

months. I would love to at least reach out and share it with you, because I think it's going to be really fun and you can get to know us a little bit better. Great. Hey. Okay, no, no worries. Would you be interested in volunteering? We have great corporate operation or options for you and your team to come and engage with us. That doesn't require a donation, but could be really great team building for your organization, or it might

be, yep, no worries, when can I follow up with you again? Would six months be great for me to just reach out and give you an impact update and see if anything's changed, be specific and have them all written out. So remember, as you're getting to know people, as you're having conversations, as you understand their motivations and their desires for giving you can pick one of those things from your list that you know is going to be most aligned with who that person is. Now you're giving

them thought. You're still allowing them to be a hero in

the community that you serve. It could even be Hey understood. Is there anybody in your network that might be a good fit for us, or might be interested in the work that we're doing, that you could introduce us to, giving them a way to participate still and keeping them engaged is going to allow you to have more conversations with them in the future and see what might happen, see who they might be able to connect you with, and what that networking could be for you.

So understanding how you can turn that no into a maybe or a still an engagement can be really impactful and make you feel better about how you're spending your time when you're having these conversations with folks. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to start working on your conversion rates. I want you to start figuring out the actions that you're doing and what's leading to the donations. Now, it's not

always a straight line. A lot of times it's a mix of things where they you had a conversation, they weren't ready to donate, and then they were on the email newsletter, and they were on social media, and then all of a sudden they donated. I get that it's not always a straight line, but as much as you can really think about how many times you have to meet with people, how many conversations do you have to have before people to get people to say, yes? How many different conversations do you

have to have for conversion? And as a team, really come together and figure out what makes the most sense for you, activity wise, action wise, to be participating in. In order to hit the numbers you need to hit, and it's going to look different for your event fundraising, it's going to look different for your year end giving. It's going to look different for your monthly giving campaign. It's going to look different for your general fundraising. Gonna look different for grants and

foundations. So start with one work it, and then do the next segment. Do the next segment just like you would do with any of your additional marketing activities. Hope this was helpful, and if you did find it helpful, I would really appreciate you hitting the subscribe button wherever you listen so you don't miss out on a single episode. We are so

excited about our 2025 content that we have coming your way. So we don't want you to miss the digital marketing therapy podcast and share it with somebody who you think could appreciate this message. Again, I know it's a crazy time of year for you, and it just can feel overwhelming. And so I really hope that some of these concepts will help you really figure out how to move through these conversations, feel good about

them and get the thing done. You can find additional resources and show notes for this episode at thefirstclick.net/284, and again. Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a great holiday season. Grab the free resources at thefirstclick.net/resources, I'll see you in the next one.