Name: Exactly What to Say® in the Ask
Uploaded: 2026-02-26T20:32:22.672Z
Duration: 55 min 44 s
Description: Exactly What to Say® in the Ask

Transcript for "Exactly What to Say® in the Ask": Welcome, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today for our fundraising masterclass session, Exactly What to Say in the Ask, presented by our expert, Mark Pittman. Before we kick it off, I just wanna go ahead and introduce my colleague, Ali Bettenhausen. She's our Blackbaud representative who's on the line. If you have any questions about how Blackbaud can help you raise more money and transform your mission's impact. You will receive a link to the recording, and I'll be sure to include the links to those resources that I mentioned in the doc section. And please feel free to enter your questions as you think of them throughout this session into that Q and A, which you'll find to the right of the chat. So without further ado, I'm gonna go ahead and pass it over to Mark to go ahead and dive on in. Cool. Thank you so much. I am thrilled to be here, and I'm super excited about this session because this is where the magic happens. We we are building on what we did last section, session. So we are they'll give you a quick overview, and then we'll go right into what makes a good ask. What are the words to say with the ask? How do you how do you set in ask up well before you even get to the to the appointment? And then we'll, as as before, please feel free to drop, questions in the chat. I've given Abby full full permission to interrupt me, and I also tend to be able to see those as well. So to help you with that, I know we're having an issue with some people seeing the docs up up near where the chat is. Could you go to the chat, warm up your fingers, and tell me where you're where you're joining in from? And if you're with me before, you know I do call you out, not as a person, but as a group. Look at this all over. Holy cow. Even Demeriscotta. Yay. Alright. I'm a Mainer. I was just on a on a podcast and I said, I'm from Maine, but I'm I'm calling from Greenville, South Carolina because that's where I'm living right now. That is wonderful. Great. Abby, is there any way to make it so that you I mean, Ali, is there any way to make it so that your, your chat doesn't stick there, or do you need it to stick there? Thank you. That way we can see the flow. I appreciate that. Awesome. Okay. We good, Abby? We're good? All good? Okay. Great. Super. So we covered last time that asking and fundraising is an incredible privilege. We have one of the best gigs in the world. We get to see amazingly cool things happen, changes in our community that didn't weren't happening before that we are getting to be a a vital part of, and we're getting to introduce people to how their funding can help make that happen. We're getting to break down systemic inequities. We're getting to make the world a better place, and donors love that. We they love being invited into things that reinforce their values. We also looked at how we're not manipulating. We're not demanding. We're not begging or throwing tantrums. We're in Eric Burns' transactional analysis theory. We're talking from our adult ego state to their adult ego state. We have an important cause, and we're asking them if they wanna be part of the solution to that that problem. So that's where we're coming from. And if you missed that, go back and watch the replay from last time, because we I really wanna focus on some key things that we tend to forget when we know these things as humans, but we tend to forget them when we're starting to talk about money. The overview of the, asking process is this get real process, and this is where we covered all of this last time. We will only cover the ask this time, setting up the appointment and then exactly what to say while you're in the appointment. So, again, if you wanna go back, you could get ask without fear of book or go back to the first session, and we covered all four four parts of that. For this session, part of the reason I use the exactly what to say framework is my friend Phil Jones wrote a book called exactly what to say. I'm a certified guide of his. I love the intentionality of the conversations that he has. He he gives 20 to 30 magic phrases and gives the background on those. But the cornerstones behind those those phrases are what's important for our conversation today. And the there are four cornerstones for conversational excellence, which will really undergird all that we're saying. And these are the things that we oftentimes forget because we either get scared about asking for money, or we're so immersed in our need that we forget to even try to talk the dialect of the donor. So the first the first cornerstone is that the worst time to think of anything is your is in the moment you're saying it. You don't want to just be making this up as you go. You would need to do some planning, and so we'll talk about how you do that planning for the ask. The second is that curiosity is the fuel for great conversations. Too often in asking, we think we need to know a pitch. We need to have a a a spiel. We need to have all the scripting and the power words and the whatever. And, really, what we need to have is interest in the other human being. We need to have intent and focus and some, some intentionality and planning, but sincere interest in the other person is gonna be what's most compelling in any conversation, including a fundraising ask. The third cornerstone is that the person who asked the questions controls the conversations. This is gonna transform your asking because most of the time, what we try to do is have answers to all the questions. At least if you're a bit like me, when I started fundraising thirty years ago, I studied the objections. I wanted to know what the what what are the possible all the possible questions that people could ask, and I wanted to have all the answers. I had been a debater in high school, and I knew that if you answered the questions, you defeated the foe, which was the other team. That doesn't really work well when you're asking. When you start seeing the donor as the adversary, that doesn't necessarily build that continual relationship that you want working towards your mission. So what will you we'll show you is a a format that Andrea Kilstadt popularized who said, who shows how five questions or five points of questions that you control can steer the conversation of the ask. And it allows you to it frees you up to not have to know all the words. It just it frees you up to be able to listen to the other person and find out what they value because the fourth cornerstone conversational excellence is that people don't do things because you want them to. People do things for their own reasons, not yours. I've taught this around the around the world, and I've had CEOs of, global companies completely and thank me for this last one. Just reminding me that they that they I was able to remind them that they're even their direct reports aren't doing things because they, the CEO, wants them to. Their direct reports have personal reasons that they're doing the things that they're that they're taking part in. So with these four conversational cornerstones, let's look at how this applies to the actual asking appointment. We know when to ask because as we showed in the last time that there there is a you're on your donor dashboard, and you have figured out that all the different activities that you can do, the ask is planned. It's not just made up. You've already gone through your your portfolio of donors. You figured out what you wanna ask them, how much you wanna ask them for, when you wanna ask them. And then you set the month aside beforehand to secure the solicitation appointment. And then so if we're you have the month before, you're gonna do the kind of scheduling, and we'll show you why that's important to set the whole month before. But you know when it's time to ask because you've decided this is the right time to ask the donor. Either you've looked at their habits and patterns and seen that they tend to give in March or they tend to give in April or they tend to give at year end, or you've looked at your schedule and you realized, I there's no way I could possibly ask everybody in December. So you started to spread it out yourself. There's a number of variables when it comes to this, but this is this is how you know when it's time to ask because you've made a decision that it is. Couple of the things to remember about the about asking as well is that it is not a a transaction. You're not selling something. The the asking transact like, most times when we have money, when we well, I was just at Starbucks. I gave money, and I got a coffee back. And so asking can feel weird because people are gonna give us money ideally, and we don't have anything tangible to give them. And and we can get lost in trying to give t shirts and tchotchke and all this other stuff that really is a distraction. And apologies to any public radio or public TV, people in the audience right now. But, those those mugs and things are just are often distractions and cause people to move out of the generosity mindset of I wanna give and support this cause to the shopping transactional mindset. How much do I wanna give? Which which item do I really wanna buy? And that's not what we're trying to do here. We know from research that people that are generous with their money are have higher quality of life, have better relationships. They're they're out they're they're they're they're very tangible benefits to being generous. We're not gonna say that to them because that sounds manipulative, and we don't need to manipulate. But we just need to be aware of the fact that it feels weird to receive money and not be able to give them a box of something. In ask without fear, I talk about a software manufacturer who said, you have the hardest job in the world. I sell code, but I still give people a box. There's still something tangible that they purchase when I when they pay lots of money to me. And when and, you know, they get something tangible. You don't. You get the you hope that they have a warm feeling, for forgiving, and that is the case. And it turns out, as we discussed last time, there are after you've done enough asks, you'll see that there are donors that get incredible joy from giving, and you'll start believing that that could be every single asking conversation could spark that joy. The other thing that we just need to remind ourselves of with ask the ask conversation is that it's not educating the donor. That takes place beforehand. That takes place in the engage, and that takes place in the the stewarding, the love step. The education is is where we're sharing who they who we are to them, and getting them to know the bigger picture. The last time I talked about how our nonprofit's a gem, and our tendency is to force the gem down the donor's throat, trying to make them understand every single thing about what we do, all the right vocabulary, all the right statistics, all the right perspectives. Where effective fundraising is really taking that gem and seeing which facet glints with to the donor's eye. What's more interesting to them about our cause? That's within our mission. We're never gonna change our mission because of a donor. That's not what we don't exist to serve donors. We exist to serve a mission. We partner with donors. We steward donor relationships and all, but they don't steer our mission. That that should never be the thing. That's that's a systemic inequity in our in our sector that needs to be continually addressed. But what we can do is look at the some aspect, and if they're more interested in the particular aspect of what we're doing, more more interested in scholarships or more interested in, cats than dogs or preserving spaces than preserving documents. That's what we'll talk to them about. And then in the thank you part, we can start showing, you may not know this. You preserve these documents. You also preserve the spaces and you you allow these kids to get to know our community better. That's where you can do the education. What we wanna do Katya Andreessen wrote a great book called Robinhood, Marketing back many years ago now. And she said, you know you're making a good ask if you can take a picture of what you're at what you want the donor to do. I would like you to put your credit card give your credit card number on this donation form and give this much a specific dollar amount or specific level amount to this cause. You need that kinda you need to go into the ask with I would recommend with three different very three different offers, three different levels of asks, the one that you want, the one that would be really great if they give, and then the one that you'd be willing to say, especially for major donors, you'd be willing to say, this is we are clearly in different playing fields right now. Why don't we, put off this ask? One one one early training I had was I was told this is the YMCA technique. I've spoken to YMCA fundraisers. They don't know why it was called that. But it was, the if you make an ask and the donor says yes right away, tell me in the chat, what does that indicate about about your the dollar amount you asked for? Too low. Exactly. Very good. Way to go, Elizabeth. And, yeah, a lot of you too low. It could mean that you did really good research. You have a good relationship with the person, and you already know, obviously. But the trainer said, if you ask for $10,000 and they whip out their checkbook and start writing out the checks, oh, that'd be great. You you as calmly and as confidently as you can, you say a year for the next three years. So you can have fun with this. You need to know what you're gonna ask for and be able to adjust on the fly, but this is where the camera comes in is. I'm gonna go to see this donor. I'm gonna ask them for this amount of money, and I think it's gonna be to this cause. That's some of the work before the work. Now when it comes to setting up the appointment and we're talking the last time we talked about direct mail as well as major donor asks, this time we're gonna just talk about major donor asks. And the ultimate way to do a major donor ask is a face to face meeting. We can use Zoom. We can use whatever this is, Overcast or Qualcast or Goldcast, or we can use different network video networking if we want to. But sitting face to face is the ideal. And so that's where I'll teach you that so that you can then figure out what's the real for you. The phone is the best to still to connect with people. Some people prefer texting. Some people prefer email. Some people prefer WhatsApp. So know that those are those are all tools at your disposal. And you should know your donor, or you'll get to know your donor based on what they respond to. I had one person who'd only respond to Google chat messages. I had forgotten that in Gmail, had a chat function. If I ever wanted to get in touch with her, though, all I had to do is chat through there. She was the only person I chatted did Google chat with, but that was the only way to get in touch with her. And she was important enough in the mix of what we were doing that I needed to do that. Picking up the phone though I love because people can hear your voice. They can they can get the emotions to your voice. It's very hard to read emotions in a text or WhatsApp message. It's very annoying for many some of us would find it annoying to get voice notes on WhatsApp. Now that they transcribe them, it's better. But picking up the phone allows you to to convey emotion and and also to connect with the other person. You'll be surprised when you do connect with the other person how quickly you might get into a wonderfully deep conversation on the phone. Sure. There's caller ID. Sure. There's people don't want to pick up the phone. Sometimes I had a problem yesterday with my phone. It automatically sends unknown, numbers to voice mail. So you're gonna run into those issues, and that's why it's really good to mix it up. But I'd always start with the phone and then email or text or something to and say, I'm following up the phone call as promised in my voicemail. I'm following up the phone call I met. What you wanna say on that phone call is you're really you're not just wanting to have a cup of coffee. You're not just wanting to get together. You're not just wanting to. You're you wanna say enough of a leave enough of a intention that they know that you're gonna talk about this there's a goal to this meeting. I tend to not say, I would like to talk to you about removing your wallet and pulling out some bills from your from your wallet while we're together. That seems a little invasive, but I found word phrases like, hey. You know? Hey, Bob. I'd like to get together with you. We'd like to talk about your support of the project this year. You'd say you could say annual giving based on your relationship with them. If it's a a capital project, you could say, I'd like to talk to you about the the support of the the ongoing building that we're doing. But enough of this something so that even if you get scared in the ask itself and you forget to ask them, they'll be able to say, hey, Mark. Weren't you coming here to talk to me about the annual fund or about the scholarship or about endowments? Weren't you here to talk to me about that? I mean, can we get back to that? And you'll feel a lot of confidence in being able to redirect the conversation back to where you intentionally wanted to go. How many of you just out of curiosity, how many of you have gotten scared and then ask and and decided that now isn't the right time? That was the lie I told myself. Of course. Okay. Yeah. The thank you, Heather. And I'm sure there's a lot of other people there thinking that as well. The the only reason, the only way we'll know if the ask is not the right time is when the donor tells us. One of the biggest problems we make as fundraisers is we start making up the mind of the donors for them. We take silence as a no. We take a lack of response as a no. We and we just decide, well, they're not interested. The donor hasn't told us they're not interested, so it's our job to assume that they are interested until they tell us they're not. So any getting back to setting up the appointment. Be clear. Hey. I'd like to ask you about your support of this project. I'd to talk to you about your giving this year. I'd like to talk to you about scholarships. I'd like to talk to you about whatever the program is. If you can help it, don't get into the ask on the phone because this is you would still wanna be face to face. And you could say things like, well, I've got something I wanna show you. There's a in a handout I'd like to show you, or there's a brochure I'd like to walk through with you if you really have that. Try to come up with a reason why it's important, or is there something, you know, I'd like to introduce you to the executive director. I'd like to introduce you to one of the recipients. There, you know, there may be another person that you you're able to meet with as well. Best practice is to go in pairs. The reason that's best practice to go in pairs is, first of all, you won't chicken out as easily. If you both know you're there to ask for money, you'll be less likely to feel like this isn't the right time. The other reason is you'll see different things, and you'll catch different cues. And so that can be really helpful for body language or other things that could be just good data as you're building a relationship with the donor. But I wouldn't get hung up on going in pairs because fundraisers are there to raise funds. They're not there you're not you're not there to you know, donors don't need new friends or more friends. Most donors have an adequate amount of friends for themselves. And you have your organization doesn't have the funds to be able to just let you be fundraisers. Your organization has hired you as a fundraiser or an executive director because your part part of what you're doing is providing revenue or generating revenue for the mission that's being accomplished. So what tends to happen when we make these calls? We're leaving a voice mail. And this is part of the hard part of staying in the game because so much of fundraising it's wonderful to get the donations. It's wonderful to see things happen, but most of fundraising is boring blocking and tackling, just following up. How many times do you think it's taking people, or have you have you found it your experience, takes to actually connect with a person on the phone or even an email. Okay. Rebecca's saying three, five plus, five to seven, five. Okay. You guys are having better attempts than we are seeing in the different countries we work in. We're finding it's taking six to 12 attempts to reach people. More to the side of 12. There's a lot of confusion going on, a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace now, and donors are just busy. As my friend Steven Screen says, they're generous, but they're really busy. And part of our job is to be consistent enough so that we can connect with them because they really do wanna give or or or at least hear about the hear about the ask, but they have a lot of other things that they're doing right now. Unfortunately, what we tend to do with the, the calls is we call once and then we maybe, leave a voice mail and, or send an email, and then we don't hear from them. So we figure, okay. They're not interested. This is not the case. They haven't told us they're not interested. You've only done two attempts. So at best, you're only a third of the way there, maybe a sixth of the way there. And if you Google Pittman's persistent follow-up formula, you'll see on another one of my websites. Last month, I did, like, what would 12 follow ups look like? It's not rocket science. It's not it's even it's even embarrassing to put it out in those steps because it's just like you make a call and you send an email then right after the call. And then the next day or two days later, you send another email or maybe you text them if you have their text. And I love the term following following up and checking in. Those are the two terms I love a lot. Other people don't like them at all. So it's finding out what words you feel comfortable with, but it's, hey. I'm just, you know, just calling to about, you know, following up on that voice mail I left about getting together. Really would love to talk to you. We have some great things going on here. I'd love to see how you'd like to be part of them. That's and that's Sydney. If you Google Pittman's persistent pleasantly persistent follow-up formula, you'll see how many how often we're supposed to wait between follow ups. I think all 12 of them get done in about two months. I tend to not wait more than a week, and I tend to it still feels like I'm being annoying. Here's the good news. I had one person that I was following up with weekly for six months. Six months. Finally got him on the phone. What is you know what his first words were? Mark, I am so sorry. Thank you. Thank you for continuing to to reach out to me. I love the cause. I wanna be part of it, and I'm I've been so rude to you, which is great because there are so many somebody sort of felt like I'm just I I enough is enough. I should stop. But he said, thank you. I'm sorry. And then he said words that made my heart sing. Because I was sitting in Boston, and I thought he was too. And he said, I'm outside of my house, my chateau in France. The only place I could get cell reception. May I call you when I get back to Boston? Of course. We had no idea he had chateau in France, and so that also helped us have more data that the, ask that we were considering for him was the right ask. So, Heather says, what's the Pittman follow-up formula? I just I I've said a couple of times. I know I speak quickly. I've been told I speak of gusts of, up to 600 words a minute. The pleasantly persistent Pittman follow-up formula, it it would be enough. If you search that, you'll go to you'll find the blog post that I wrote it in. It's in the Concord Leadership Group blog, which is one of my companies. And we can also make it put it in the email. I'll make sure that, Abby has it so that we can share that with you all. Now the last thing on preparation before you're sitting with the person is getting ready. First, it's important to make your own gift first. You may not be making your own gift at the same level as as these peep the people you're asking, but even as an if you're an employee, you should already have contributed to the to the cause. Oh, great. Abby's put a put a blog formula right in there too. Thank you. The the, making your own it's so much easier to when you're asking someone to join you in giving or join you in supporting this cause than it is to ask them to do something you haven't done yet. If you're a volunteer and a or board member, thank you. Thank you for being on this training. It's even more important that you make your own gift first. People have internal BSometers. They they know when you're blowing smoke. They know when you haven't done what you're asking them to do. And, so it one of the easiest ways to remove that obstacle is to make your own gift first. The other one is to practice phrases, and we'll talk about some other phrases to practice later in this session. But one of the phrases is I can appreciate that. Often, what we're doing in the ask is putting the donor on the spot and asking them to take action, and it can be something that doesn't normally happen with them. It's often talking together, getting to know each other. So when we're asking them to take action, they can come up with rational explanations on why they may not be able to do things. There may may be a bad time. It may be not enough money. Maybe whatever, overextended. They don't know what what the economy is gonna be like. The phrase I can appreciate that is one of the first ones I learned from a consultant when I was starting and has served me really well and served the people I work with. The reason there this phrase is powerful is that you're telling the other person is I see you. And and it's true. If you're in their shoes and seeing things as they do, you'd probably think the same things that they are. You're gonna work to help them overcome those obstacles, But I can appreciate that. Yeah. I can it seems like the economy I know the economy is good for some people, but it does seem like it's pretty uncertain. What are you seeing? And then turning it into a question. You know, the stock market seems to be you know, you think your your portfolio, you're not sure what it's doing. Well, I can appreciate that. How, how would that impact you're giving? Would it be and you the reason to practice this is that you don't want it to sound defensive. You don't want it you want it to be curious, not shining a bright light on the donor. Where were you? You're not interrogating them. You're helping them process how to make the gift. Ah, good. Katie's found the more for the the the one on conquer leadership group too. Thanks, Katie. So good good if you're watching this in record, as a recording. The people that are live are getting, blog post links right into the chat. So, you might wanna come to subsequent ones live as if you can, if your schedule allows it. The other thing to think about in preparation for the meeting is prompts. What are things that you could bring that would support your cause? Often, those are renderings. They can be a for a picture of a new project or a new space. They can also be the gift range calculator we talked about last time. This could be in a perfectly legitimate thing to print out and have show them, hey. This this is what we're thinking for our cause to raise there are a $100,000, and we're wondering if you'd give in this level over here. That can be really helpful. And so you're not having to look at them. You can look at the paper. It also helps them to see you're not asking me to fund the whole thing. You're asking me to be part of this. The big part I would say is if you're preparing is to keep trying to be curious and leave the pitches for baseball. One of the reasons we like to have a script that we wanna go through or have slides and pitches that we're trying to do or pitch decks is that we get to control. We think we're controlling the conversation. We're not. We're just monologuing and we're often boring the donor. So let's show let me show you how to do the conversation in a way that isn't as boring and is actually more empowering to you as an asker. You'll have more confidence in asking if you do this type of asking. This is a a format that was created by Andrea Kelstad Kelstadt, who talked, came up with it when she realized that she wanted to ask her husband to take her out for dinner. They both got home from work. They're tired. And she realized, this is how I do capital campaign fundraising too. It's the same structure of the ask. She said, well, first, settle. Hey. How are doing? You know, good day. Rough day. Right? And then then she confirmed. We still wanna eat. Right? And then then they explore. Well, what what are you feeling like? Is it Indian? Is it Italian? Is it Chinese? Is it do we have the stuff to make it? And then they ask, you know, I'm really tired. I don't wanna make dinner. I don't wanna do the dishes. Why don't we go out? And then figuring out what are the objections to that ask or what are the the details? Is it get do we have to get a reservation? Is it cost? Should we have to find a more economical place? And then confirming. So we're gonna have reservations at 06:30 at the Italian place if we can. And this is the exact same stages that we use in asking for money. So we we settle first. When we get to the appointment, we say to them, hey. How's it going? Great weather, bad weather. How is traffic? Whatever. We just kinda bring ourselves into the space and allow them to bring themselves into the space as well. And then we confirm. And and the, $50.50 is that it's both people doing the conversation. You and they are just are sharing the conversation together. The ninety ten on the confirmed step is it's mostly you doing the talking. Your confirmation is, hey, is now still a good time to talk to you about the annual fund? Or is now a good time to still talk to you about the the the school? And that would be enough for them. This is the thing I wouldn't do in my early years because I didn't want them to say no. If they said no, I can't make the ask. But what I found and what is really kind to our donors is it may not be a good time. There may have just been a death in the family. There may have been just some sort of major crisis that they have to deal with, and you won't if you persist in the ask, you won't really have their attention at all anyway. Many donors will be most donors will say, yep. This is great. I'm really glad we're together. But the ones that would say no, hey. Actually, this just came up. Could we reschedule? We'll be so grateful for you doing that and your flexibility. That'll set you up really well for the next next time you get together. Then the the explorer stage and the ask, instead of launching into a pitch or pulling out a portfolio or slides on your iPad where you're flipping through and controlling the conversation, you're asking people to what do you so what do you like? Like, if you don't know the story and you and it's okay that you don't know, you can say, how did you first start giving to this to us? Or what do you like most? What key you know, what keeps you giving? What what when you gave last year, what did you what struck you about all the different things that were done with the donations you and people like you gave? You ask these questions and you're only doing a quarter of the speaking. 25%, they're doing 75%. They're telling you, hey, you know, what I love about this organization is this and that, and they're sharing their values with you. They're sharing what their what the impact that they find is most helpful. Why that is great is that it gives you the confidence to go into the ask for two reasons. One, you're feeling good because you're on the same page. I had a had a rabbi in Connecticut who is doing a $24,000,000 campaign in the pandemic, and he said this format transformed his asking because he was having to ask for multimillion dollar campaign pledges on Zoom. But hearing the donors say how much they were appreciated the work of the organization made it so that he didn't he realized he wasn't necessarily way off base. He was talking to the right people. Mike asked if they say no during the confirmed step, how do you progress to close out meeting? Well, if it's not a good time, you could either say, great. When would be a good time? Or totally get that as because you don't wanna be like, I don't know if you all remember the movie Groundhog Day. Needle nose, Ned, the the life insurance salesman. We don't wanna be pushy like that. But we could just say, great. Can we you wanna reschedule now, or would would it be better if I followed up with you in a week or ten days, or follow-up with you tomorrow? You you're right. You don't wanna be too abrupt, but you also if it tends to be an emergency, it's better to remove yourself at that place. That doesn't happen much. But a good question, Mike. I appreciate that. So you've explored some. You've asked them, you know, what was it what you with the last owner report, maybe that's what you bring with you. What did you you know, when you got this, what stuck out to you? Did you know that this was happening? What how have you how have you enjoyed? What what are the best parts that you've done this? Are you been giving to us for fifty years? What keeps you connected? Like, what what have you seen over the years that just continues to reinforce your your joy in this? From a place of curiosity. Remember, the person that asked the questions controls the conversation, and being curious in them, sincerely curious in them, is is really appealing, and people would love to give you the answers to that question. Then you get to the ask, and you know you can get to the ask, and this is a 100% you do in the talking. The way you know you get to the ask is you can say you because you'll be able to say the phrase, well, you know, because you've said that, I'm wondering if you'd consider a gift of 25,000 to the annual fund this year. Or I'm wondering if you'll consider a gift of $1,800 to the fund for character development this year. Or I'm wondering if you'll consider the the lead naming opportunity of $2,000,000 to the cause. If you can say because you said, that means you've listened enough to them either in previous times or in that meeting, and you're able to then make that ask. And it's all based on what their interests are and what their reasons are because people do things for their reasons, not yours. In a lot of fundraising, this is where we'd end. If we'd say the ask, it would be, what are the three responses that people can give? We talked about them last time. Put them in the chat. And while you're doing that, I would I normally thought that this is the end of the conversation. There was an ask, they'd give an answer, and then I'd leave. Nobody's putting it in the chat. Okay. I know you all know where the chat is. So remember the chat part? What are the three answers that if you ask for somebody for money, what could they say? Okay. Thank you, Molly. And that can great. Alright. We're going. Yes. No. It may be. Yes. No. It may be. Awesome. That is really, really good. The so for the ask, you make the ask because you've said this, I'd like to ask you, and it's a specific dollar amount. It's not a vague, will you support? We can't take a picture of supporting. It may if if you took a picture of supporting the organization, it may be of a donor pushing the walls and supporting the walls. Now would you make a gift of and it's either joining a club that's at a certain dollar level, the president's society, which is a $10,000 gift, or asking for a specific dollar amount. And then they'll say yes, no, or maybe, and that's where you get to explore more. This is where even more of the conversation happens because you get to talk to them about, is it, you know, yes? Great. How would you like to do that? Would you like to do that in one one payment right now? Would you like us to, send you a pledge reminder later? There are some details that you need to figure out. If it's a no, you could say, well, that's surprising to me. How what there's usually only three reasons for a no. It's the wrong project, the wrong time, or the wrong amount. And so you could just say, so is it was it were you not interested in the the fund for character development? Did I miss that somehow? And this is again, we're being sincerely curious as opposed to accusatory or defensive. You're not debating. You're you're engaging, and you're trying to help the person invest in the valid things that they value. So if it's the wrong projects, you could then say, well, would the would the other thing that we're doing over here, would that be something that would interest If it's the wrong amount or the timing, those are usually tied together and you're able to say, well, would it be helpful to do that on a quarterly basis? I could do that? I didn't I had no idea. I had one donor who was had her own family foundation. I asked her for a campaign gift for the hospital I was running fundraising for. She, had never thought of a a multiyear commitment. She was just thinking of one year, and I said, well, what if you did this the same for next year as well? And she ended up getting a naming level opportunity that really pleased her, and she just didn't think annually. Even though my world was all about I have to raise this this money every year. So the explore step is great. You can find out so much more and you can you go from putting the person on the spot to now going on the same side of the table and trying to help them overcome or overcome whatever objections they're seeing. And then the last step is the step that, 90% of the people that I coach forget and even after I tell them to do, it's the confirmation step. This is where you really, really, really wanna focus on. This is where you before you leave, you say two things. One, you recap. Okay. So you need to talk to your, your spouse or your partner. Okay. Great. Or you'd like to do this commitment and, you're you wanna do it in a monthly commit monthly payments on a credit card, and the credit card number is this if you have your form right there. Or, you know, you still need to think of this through. This is whatever the confirmation is, you're confirming what your discussion said, and then you're saying the magic words of, if I haven't heard from you in the next week or so, is it cool if I follow-up? This to me as as important as the clear dollar amount in the money ask of money in the ask because most of us have that have been doing this for a while have also know know that the worst part of the asking conversation is the time after. They say, oh, I love this. I'm so interested. I really wanna do this. Just need to check with my financial adviser, my business partner, my partner, you know, whatever. Like, they have to check with someone. And then it takes forever because donors are generous, but they're super busy and we're not the center of their world. So I hated the follow-up after that. The the feeling like I was being a pain in the neck, feeling like I was having getting in the way, because I was calling them. That conversation we had? Remember that $15,000 you were gonna give? I really wanna, you know, bring that home. It sounded like it was all about me. It wasn't about serving the donor at all. When I changed to the confirm step to using the words, hey. Look. If I don't hear from you in the next, like, seven to ten days, is it cool if I follow-up with you? All of my follow-up after that became being a person of integrity. I was I was being true to my word. And all of my follow-up could start with things like, as promised, I'm just checking in about our conversation we had last week. You know, it has you or or you ask me because sometimes they will ask me, yeah, that would be great. Could you could you do that? Hey. You asked me to follow-up with you to see are we ready to move forward on the on the gift? So that confirmed step, I I can't accentuate more. You know, this is so important. They ask because you've said this or because you said that, would you consider a gift of specific dollar amount to specific cause or to the organization? And the confirmed step. Hey. If I don't hear for that back from you in the next week or ten days, is it cool if I follow-up? Use your words. I cool is a word that I use a lot, but the I will push this. This is one of the areas where I'll push. Sometimes there will be like, Mark, you don't have to do that. I love this. I know you're busy. You got a lot going on. I will get back to you. They said, yeah. I'm so honored about that. That's really great. If I don't hear from you in, a couple of weeks, is there any reason why I shouldn't get in touch with you? Try to turn it to a negative. And I something I've only had to push it three or four times, but I do get pushy on this one because I don't like following up when I feel like I'm being a bother or I'm interrupting them. I prefer to follow-up when I know that I'm serving them or being a person of integrity. So, I the the clients that have done that confirmed step that way tell me it transforms their follow-up. And follow-up is really the name of the game when it comes to this. So you make the ask. You ask for that specific dollar amount like I was telling you about. I like the complete dollar amount. Some people like to do it segmented. I'd rather say a thousand dollars a month and get them to think about the dollar amount. Some people like giving them a mathematical equation. 84 would you consider a gift of $84 a month for the next year? That's a thousand dollars. It works either way. Whatever works for you is good, but make sure it's kindness to the donor to be specific with the the amount of the amount that you're asking for. And here are the phrase some phrases instead of just the because of, would you consider a gift of? I like that because it doesn't seem like would you give seems a little abrasive to me, but hey, would you consider a gift of $10,000 towards this? And the one that I love the most is I have no idea if this is even in the ballpark, but would a gift of would you consider a gift of a $100,000? That disarms the entire conversation from being confrontational to being conversational. I don't know what you're I've had donors say, I don't know what you're looking at, Mark, but a $100,000, I'm not even sure how I would do that. And that's where you can start to processing. Is it timing? Is it the is it the amount? Is it the timing? It's usually the timing if they're already good with the project. You know, would it help to do it in payments? Would it help to do it over two years? If if your organization will allow for that, you can offer that as a solution too. But what's the big thing? We're coming to coming to a close here. We're running the running the the end of this training. So what is the big thing you do when you ask for the dollar amount? Thank you, Megan. Yeah. Exactly. Shut up, fool. I'm a verbal extrovert, so I need to have mister t in my face saying, shut up. Pity the fool speaks next. Sales trainings will tell you that he who speaks next loses. Yeah. Thank you, Kathy. You got the pity of the fool. Oh, and there's gifts and stuff too. Wow. We're we're getting a good chat in this one. This is great. Sales trainings will tell you that the person who speaks next loses, and it's not win lose in nonprofit. What we're doing is actually giving the prospect respect. They need to process, and we don't know if they're a fast processor or a reserve processor until they speak first. They need to think about who how am I gonna pay for this? Do I have it in the bank account? We'll have to use stocks. Do I cash the stocks, or do I give them the stocks? Do I have to talk to my business partner about that? What will my my life partner think? All sorts of things that they're going through. And some people will be able to speak process it really quickly, and some people just take a little bit more time. You are not being a jerk by being quiet. You're being kind. And this is where if you have a glass of water or something, it can be really helpful. This is also why I highly recommend not having solicitation meetings at restaurants. If you're at a restaurant and the conversation stops, that's when the server comes over and tries to do their work because they feel like there's a break in the conversation. You don't want a wait your waiter or waitress, a server coming at this part because you want the donor to be thinking about the ask, not about dessert or more water or coffee. So this is where I tend I don't like I have learned to to try to find other places other than restaurants to do solicitations because the server's goals and my goals are different. And I want to be quiet and let the donor think. If you're competitive, you could, you know, you can make this a game, but for a lot of it, if you just of us, if we just think of serving the donor and letting them think, that's great. That that you'll know that they're done thinking because she'll be the first to speak. And that's when the electricity comes in. That's when the power goes on. That's when the often the if you do this enough, you'll see donors light up with joy with, I could be part of this at that level. That's so exciting because as we said in the last session, which there is a link in the chat to the last session, people have values and as they go through life, they get sometimes drift away from them because they have work and obligations and mortgages and other things that they have to to to take care of. And what we get to do is bring them back to their values with their donation and add a whole bunch of value to the things that they're doing forty, sixty, eighty hours a week and and making the money. We're giving that value too because now they know that their their work there is actively supporting something that they care about. So that's the how to exactly what to say in the ask. I would tell you that I'd love to open it up for some questions. I would tell you that talking to your steering wheel can be really helpful. I have found one of the most, confidence building things is to think about the donor I'm going to be asking and then practice the ask over and over. Hey. I'd like to yeah. You know, would would a thousand dollar would you consider a thousand dollars this year? Would you consider a thousand dollars to this? We I don't have any idea if this is even in the ballpark. Was a thousand dollars something that you would be, you know, consider supporting with? $84 a month. As you're thinking about that person specifically, you're doing two things. One, you're figuring out what's the right wording for you with that person. And it may may not be logical. You may find yourself asking in a different way than normal. That's fine. That's helpful to get out before you get there. It also removes your nervousness when you're there. When you're at the ask, you're able to say it much more clearly and allow the donor to hear you much more logically because you've practiced the words, and it just flows from you as opposed to stumbling over you or getting wrapped up in in, in emotions or nervousness. Alright. So we've got some good questions. So Jade says this also, reminds me of when you ask a question to a group, don't fill the quiet space. Wait for the someone else to answer. Oh, and there's a seven second rule. Count to seven before helping the group answer the question. Nice. As a coach, I firmly believe that. And many of my if if you ever were to see my hands when I'm talking to people or from stage, I try to do it subtly, but I usually touch each of my fingers. You know, I count to five slow a slow count because, part of my processing speed is super fast, and that isn't kind to most people that have more normal processing speeds. So I found if I do count and so I like the kind of seven as well too. Emily says I have a lot of conversations with myself in the car. Yeah. I think it was last time I talked about, when I was doing this in the in Maine, twenty five years ago, it looked weird because we didn't have Bluetooth. Now everybody just thinks you're talking to a Bluetooth phone or something. But I remember having some people looking around when I was doing this. So what questions do you have? Abby, have you seen any questions? Feel free to put it in the chat, and we can make sure we get those taken care of. Alright. What I will do then is I want to give you a little bonus. Okay. Heather says she needs to watch the first one. Yeah. Here's here's the handling objections could be really important. What are some of the biggest reasons people say they don't that they they don't say yes to your your task? Just put in the chat. What are some of the things that come up for when you're you've asked them for a certain amount of money, and they don't say yes. I need to talk to my partner. Okay. Wrong area of interest. Wow. Okay. It might be good to review the first one, but that's interesting. That's good. Wrong time. It's not a good time. Now is not a good time. Okay. Super. Incorrect time. Amount program. Okay. Yeah. This is Michael Wall. Nice. It's it's a tie project time. Alright. I could see what you're doing there. That's good. Wanna know others who are supporting. Interesting. Okay. Something happened in our family. We can't do that this year. Okay. Other people are asking too. Heidi, that's my favorite one. Other people are asking or what I like to do with with organizations when I come in and do a training, particularly with boards. This is so amazing for boards to do is have them have a Post it note, Post it paper, and, write one scary objection. I said, what's the scariest thing that your friend could say to you after you ask them for money? One per Post it note. Then we put them all up on the wall, and we start grouping them together. Turns out there's usually only seven to 11 themes. Seven to 10 themes, some, academic organizations get 11 themes. The eleventh theme from one organization was, the the well, I well, anyway, it we don't know the organization, but there was a person that was incarcerated for embezzling funds right when they're starting the the capital campaign. That you know, the CFO was it was or being accused of embezzling funds. That was a huge objection, and so that was, like, the eleventh. That wasn't a standard objection, but it was a timely one for that organization. Why we can do this is we can then have everybody in the room create answers to these objections. When you see your peers start saying, well, that's not as big an objection as I you know, oh, that's not a problem. I heard I was talking to another donor, and this is what we can say if somebody says, have kids in college now. And when board members start hearing their peers answering the objections, all of a sudden, first of all, you don't have to know a million different answers to a million different questions. You need to know about seven answers. There's about seven things that people might say, seven to 10. And you have the confidence of seeing your your peers and your other people very, very matter of factly giving an answer to those or showing a way that those can be not as scary as you thought they were. Due to budget constraints we're unable to financial adviser. Okay. Check out this. If they don't have the money, what's a good question that you might ask them? Keisha says if it's not a good time, would you feel comfortable with a pledge for later? That's great. I like that one a lot. Yep. If you don't have the money in monthly payments yep. I know you wanna do this. How about next quarter? Exactly. Well, good good, Kathy. When when would be a good time? You know, I don't have the money right now. When might you? I had a horse vet tell me his entire cash flow for the season. And in Northern New England, it was to come to him in August because he had all the horses had been hurt and and healed, and he was out of his credit line. He told me his entire entire cash flow. It was it was weird. I've had other people tell me, well, we actually make our allocations in our budget in March, so you need to come to me in February so I can get it into the budget. Another question could be when when when would be a good time for me to come back and have this conversation with you? And as you have seen said in this, giving elsewhere is my favorite, objection because that's exactly why we're talking to people like you, because you're generous. And out of curiosity, how could we get to be in your top 10 giving priorities? We're so good at what we do. I'm sure we'll rise to your the top three, but how do we get a seat at your table? So with that, we great play. Thank you all for using the chat so well. I wanna make sure that Abby has some opportunity to talk more about this series and to wrap us up with any any other comments. Thank you so much, Mark, and thank you everyone for your time today. I know this was just such an impactful blueprint, and I will be sure for everyone on the line to include the link to Mark's previous session. It's definitely worth a watch. So definitely check that out. And I'll also include all of the links, including our new CRM evaluation toolkit, a great major giving, making sure you're spending enough time with your major donors quiz. So I'll throw all of that in that follow-up email that you'll get tomorrow. And then, you know, just to wrap up today's session on mastering what exactly to say in the ask, we wanna ensure that you always have the right partner to turn these techniques into right results. And that's where we come in with Blackbaud Razor's Edge NXT, which, in case you're not familiar, is the world's most powerful fundraising platform. It's purpose built to help you lead fearlessly into your mission's next chapter. So while today's session focused on what to say when making the ask, Raises. GenXT provides the intelligence and the automation to sustain that momentum so that you can raise even more. It's powered by AI, and you can constantly surface hidden major gift potential and prescribe the best cultivation strategies. I know that I would love something like that in my job. Our chat for Blackbaud AI makes your life a lot easier by summarizing donor activity and recommending next steps, freeing you up to focus on the high touch relationship building that we discussed today. And by we, I obviously mean Mark. And if you'd like to learn more, you can go ahead and answer the poll, that I will open up, and then, you can also send us a message or, connect with Ali. Ali, if you wanna just go ahead and throw your, meeting link in the chat there, we'll be sure to follow-up with you. And then, don't forget to join us for our next fundraising master class session, which is how digitally mature organizations engage and convert their donors year round, and that is with Paul St. Anj from Doing Good Digital. So that's March 4. We hope to see you there, and we have two additional sessions in March, and so excited for all this engagement. And that session with Mark, you'll be able to learn to assess your current digital maturity and then really get a very, very practical roadmap just to enhance your engagement over the next twenty four months. So thank you again, Mark, and thank you everyone for your time. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day, and enjoy the upcoming weekend. All right, thanks, y'all.