Ep. 93: Sneak Peek: The Profitable Partnerships Challenge
EPISODE 93
Sneak Peek: The Profitable Partnerships Challenge
About the Episode:
Recently I hosted a 3-day challenge called The Profitable Partnerships Challenge and it was pretty epic. So, what we're doing today for the podcast is pulling out some of the juiciest parts of the challenge for you, and a highlight on today’s episode. It's the first time that I've posted anything like this before, but I think you’ll still find a lot of value in it. This episode (and challenge) is for you if you want to land more donors, funders, partners, influencers or ambassadors for your nonprofit – it's where the inner work meets the outer work of the profit, the revenue generating actions. So if you want to actually listen to and watch the full 3-day challenge, go to splendidcourses.com/waitlist and I will send you a note the next time we open up the free challenge again, but in the meantime, enjoy this motivation boost and go take some action!
Topics:
The one skill you need to build confidence in your outreach to cold and warm prospects
Finding and ask and follow up system that works for you because there is not one way to do it
Centering service in every money-making action you take for your business
How to feel comfortable with the heaviness that comes with asking for more funding
The Do, Think, Feel Cycle and how this relates to fundraising (and feeling the feeling first)
Think you’ve reached out to “everyone” in your network? Out of ideas to get noticed and get funded? Generate leads for your nonprofit or social impact business: https://www.splendidcourses.com/prospect
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“This may be a little sticky, it may make me feel a little nervous, and that’s okay.”
“Imperfect will make you a lot of money. Imperfect will get you a lot of donors.”
“When you realize why you’re doing what you’re doing, it makes it easier to get over the hump and take action.”
“When you can get into the zone of service, it makes cold calling much easier.”
Episode Resources:
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
-
*Links may be affiliate links which means I may earn a commission at no cost to you.
Christina Edwards 00:05
Welcome to the purpose and profit club podcast for nonprofit leaders, mission driven creatives and social entrepreneurs get ready to stop dreaming and start doing here. ideas become action, we prioritize purpose and profit. You ready? Let's go. Recently I hosted a three day challenge called the profitable partnerships challenge and it was pretty epic. It's the first time that I've hosted anything like this before. And what we're doing today is we're pulling out some of the like the juiciest parts of the three day challenge for you. And a highlight for the podcast. This is for you. If you want to land more donors, funders, partners, influencers or ambassadors for your nonprofit, it's where the inner work meets the outer work, the profit, the revenue generating action, okay. So if you want to actually listen to and watch the full three day challenge, go to splendid courses.com, forward slash waitlist. And I will send you a note the next time we open up the free challenge again, but in the meantime, enjoy this motivation boost, and go take some action. Let's see. So I want to build confidence in the outreach cold and warm. Yep. And specifically and asking for people to invest. My follow up has been scarce Am I asking? It's very awkward and non existent. Okay. I'm so glad you shared that. So you said I want to build confidence in the outreach. Here's what I'm going to say. You only need the skill of courage. You only need to lean on the skill of court courage, not confidence. Confidence comes after doing something a lot, right? A lot, a lot a lot riding a bike. The first I don't know, a dozen times. It's not a confident feeling going into those things. I can tell you the first time I hosted a zoom webinar, not confident. The 100th time I did it, it's fine. I'm confident right. So what did I have to lean on? I did not wait for feeling confident in it. I had to lean on courage. I had to just be like, You know what, this may be a little sticky. This may feel very nervous. And that's okay. I'm going to try this, I might fall off this bike. And that's okay. I have a soft place to land. I'm gonna bike on the grass, right? So you want to think about that. Okay, you want to think about how can I instead lean on courage and the confidence will come? Yeah. The other thing that you said is my follow up has been scarce. My asking is very awkward and non existent. Okay. There is not one way to ask. Okay, so when you say my asking has been awkward, there's a little bit of judgment there, which is like the I'm supposed to sound better, faster different than I sound in my asking. Instead of this is how our cause bros. This is it. All I have to do is talk about our organization, all I have to do is ask, I can let it be awkward. Okay. Or I can let it be imperfect. Imperfect will make you a lot of money. Imperfect will get you a lot of donors, okay. When we're at waiting for it to be confident and perfect and not even perfect or just like better, more advanced. You never give yourself the space to actually get better at it. USB, give me a one in the chat, if that makes sense. Okay, we will go through this more. Okay. All right. Some other ones I tend to put off prospecting and outreach, let it fall to the bottom mind bliss 100%. Why because it's the most daring piece. It's the place where you actually can get rejected, it's very hard to get rejected when you're writing a blog post. It's hard, right? It's very hard to get rejected when you're rereading the draft of the email you haven't sent. Okay, I know all of this because I'm my first best customer guinea pig, right? I know what it's like to stay in like draft mode, just get into perfectionist and to avoid outreach. Okay, when you realize why you're doing what you're doing, it makes it easier to get over the hump and take the action. Okay. Let's see here. cold email. I need to do more warm. I'm not good at this. Follow up not good either. Okay. So what would make you good or better at following up with people and with your warm prospects, the act of doing it? That's it. That's it. It's just practice. It's just practice I really want to offer there's not one way to do it. Because don't forget there are certain people that are that preferred bottom line me and a Nene. Just tell me what you want. There are certain people that want more of a long cultivation and they wanted more relationship building and when you let yourself just be how you are ask great questions. Go into the meeting and give yourself the space and the freedom for it to like flow. It's easier. So i i It's just Well, there's a story I want to tell but I'll wait and we'll keep going. Okay, awesome. All right. Can I like a confession a confession I also tend to have a great initial meeting and then just not follow up and lose one mentum an interest from the sponsor a donor. Yes. So normal. So what happened? You had a great initial meeting, it felt great. And that high, you know that high that comes from the great meeting where you're like, they get it, they're with me totally, that high went away. And then you were like, I guess they would have donated if they wanted to, I guess they would have followed up if they really wanted to get involved, like, you've come up with all of these reasons why they didn't. And so you don't. And that cycle continues. So we'll get into that. So I know what cold calling feels like. And I know what it feels like when it feels awful. I know what it feels like what to get hung up on, when you can get in the zone of service. And it's not for me. It makes it much easier when you can just like for example, and that in both of those cases, I want to help sell your house, we both have a shared intention in me calling you. And if there are no I just kept going I had a list, right? I didn't make it mean anything. Okay. Now I wrote my little post it note here to remind me this, one of the best groups of people that handle failure, or children. If you have a child or know a child who's under the age of like, 10, give me a one in the chat. We all know a child under the age of 10. Children handle their feelings really, really well. And I think it's because they haven't yet been socialized to like compartmentalize and gulp it down and carry everything so tightly. So for example, my child is almost nine, and he's really into baseball. So he's in little league. And he has a team. He's been on several teams that are total underdogs. And it's hard, right? So they lose a lot. And this has happened a couple of seasons, his first his first season, he was on one of those just winning teams. And it was really interesting, because then since then, he's just been on three air quotes, losing teams, and game after game and watching what's going on. And some day some games they just get hosed. Like it's just, it's, it's a loss, right? And without fail, do you know who's most upset about the losses? Does anyone want to guess in the chat like this happens? Every single game we lose? Who's the most upset about the ah, what's right, it's the parents. They are missed. My husband, he gets very riled up about it. They're like, we should have done this. We should have done that. Why didn't we do this? Why did change, right? We're in our heads. And I look at my son, and I'm like, hey, great game. And he goes, Yeah. And this is a kid who profoundly loves baseball. This isn't this is his chosen sport. He loves it. And he isn't carry that loss hard. Now, that's interesting to me. He's just doing something that he loves. And sometimes he wants and sometimes he loses. And I also want to share more extreme example, there are kids on his team, who are more emotional about it. And when they lose, I watch them. They burst into tears. They go into the dugout, somebody Pat's him on the back, and about four seconds later, they go get a snack, and they're fine. That's the trick. Even the kids who have the big emotion or the big heaviness of like, I'm honored to win, they feel the feeling and they move through it. They move through it. That's really really important. Okay? Because that's what allows you to keep going and not feel burnt out in this profession. It is very easy to feel burnt out cold calling when you take every no so heavy and you make it mean something about you. Watch this kid just two days ago, he went in, he burst into tears in the dugout, he got a tap on the shoulder. He cried for a second and then he forgot about it's gone was done was over. He went through it. Okay, if that's resonate with you give me a yes. In the chat. Okay, yes. All right. So we're gonna do an experiment, the $10,000 experiment. Okay. If you had to create $10,000 today for your organization. And if you did it, or this week, we'll say this week, if that's easier, $10,000 this week for your organization. Otherwise, you would lose your nonprofit status, your 501 C three status, what would you do? And just start ideating in the chat, just tell me everything you would do anything that comes to mind? There's no wrong answers. Who would you call? And don't say I don't know. Just any anything. How would you make the 10 Dots? footballers? Everyone I call everyone. Yeah. Everyone, how would you feel if you had to call everyone sending emails posting your social media accounts? How would you feel having to that's like all hands on deck, right? We got to make it or break it. It's go time. Everyone. I would feel desperate. Okay. Reaching out to my network. What else would you do? Who would you call I'll let our board know we have a good relationship. And I know she would call a couple have a couple people to call. Yeah. So friends or friends working your network? Yeah. How would that feel to have to do that? To choose to do that? See, I'm catching myself, that would be a choice. How would it feel to choose to do that? Heavy? Why would it feel heavy? Megan? Tell us the chat. Why would it feel heavy? And anyone else can share? How would they feel? And I want to offer if this number is too big, make it $1,000? If it's too small, if you're a larger organization, make it $100,000. Okay. Working in the network feels scary, stressful. Yeah. Okay. Next question. Would it be worth it? If you did it? Would it be worth it? Would it be worth it to feel stressed or heavy are overwhelmed? Or what were some of the other? desperate? Would it be worth it? Absolutely. Yes. Okay, well, you guys all say like, of course, it would be worth it. So that's interesting. So maybe the link here is how do I get comfortable? With it feeling? A little heavy, a little stressful? Or maybe how do I prove to myself that it's not desperate, it's not heavy, and it's not stressful? There's a couple of ways you can go about doing it. Okay. I do this thought experiment on purpose, because many organizations, if not all of them come to me and they say we need more funding, right? That's what you're here. We need more funding. Okay. There is funding sitting in your current network, none of you said I would go out on the so on the main road closest to town and say, Stop, we need $10,000. Like, none of you would go to cold traffic, you would work your network, you would work your database, you would work your friends of friends, your board members, right? And you go come on people. Okay. But that exists. This exists this $10,000 or more exists for your organization today. But the reason why you're not doing it is because it feels really uncomfortable. Okay. So my offer to you is twofold. One, maybe it is a little uncomfortable. So let's just get cozy and comfortable with being uncomfortable. That's part of the deal. You probably are uncomfortable in something else you do in your life, and you do it anyway. Right? My favorite example of this is I hate going to the dentist. I hate it. I hate it. I laughed because I got a mailer yesterday, and it was like, look at it was like scan to learn about our anxiety solutions at the dentist and I was like, they that's me. So what do I do? I go every six months. I don't like going and I go every six months because what I don't like more is getting fillings. Right? So I'm like, Alright, whatever it takes to make it go there less. Right? I am comfortable with being uncomfortable. Everybody there knows that I'm stressed out there, right. I've done what I can to find a hygienist who is she's like a human Xanax. She's great. She's so calm. She's so affirming. She's still warm. That's the best I've got. I go with my dentist is really nice. I like him. Right. And I still hate going and that's okay. So it's like how, where are some other places? And you can type in the chat of like, what are some other places if spaces, things you do in your life that you're kind of uncomfortable with, but you still do them? Right? I think doctors are one of those things for sure. But there's lots of things if you've ever joined a community group and had to speak on stage or things like that, it's like yeah, oh my gosh, mammograms, yes, have we just have we collectively decided that that machine was invented by a man because it must have been. Alright, day three, commitment and lasting impact. I'm gonna try to bring this a little bit closer, but I'll just go over it a little bit as well. So this is that think feel do cycle that we already went over before. So depending on how you're thinking or feeling or doing, you're gonna have either a positive or a negative outcome. One thing that I wanted to highlight with this is sometimes I don't think our brain has a thought. And then we have a feeling and then we take an action. Sometimes I think we have a feeling. And then we the cycle starts here. And so a perfect example of that is if you're ever home alone, and you're watching a movie, and you hear a rustle at the door, or what you think is the rustle at the door, your brain isn't like there's an intruder, at least mine isn't mine is it's in my body first. And I go What's that? You know? And I'm looking to see if anyone out the door right? So my body is feeling a feeling first. It go kind of goes upstream to my brain and my brain is like Somebody's at the door. Right? So that's an example of that cycle. And I just want to offer that because I think as it pertains to fundraising, we kind of feel the feeling first that heavy heart beat A sweaty kind of tightness. That's all in the feeling that's in the body. And sometimes we kind of have to go back and go, Okay, what are the thoughts that I'm thinking? What are the beliefs that I have? What is that internal little monologue? Everyone has an internal monologue whether or not you're kind of aware of it or not, it's there, and then you can go okay, and then how am I acting? Okay, I'm jumping out of my skin and turns out the wind blew and there was nothing there right? Oh, okay. And then we're calming our nervous system down by literally talking through that okay? Hey, hi achiever. I know your sights are set on ambitious world changing goals. In the purpose and profit club group coaching program, you can get the support, motivation and strategy to accelerate your impact. I like to say it's where the inner work meets a big impact and big funding, go to splendid courses.com forward slash waitlist and you will be first to be notified when we open up doors and you'll get special bonuses when you join our waitlist. See Inside