Episode 245: No Established Portfolio: How Many Calls Do I Have to Make?
Welcome to another edition of Around with Randall, your weekly podcast for making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.
I'm honored that you would take a few minutes of your day to join me, Randall, on this edition of Around with Randall. I want to jump in to an interesting, maybe micro or mini area of interest, hopefully to most of us. And that's about calling. And when you are it, maybe a new gift officer or you don't have a full portfolio.
What it takes. What are the metrics behind the number of calls you need to make to build out that portfolio? And in doing so, I'm hoping will give some bandwidth toward understanding the commitment that it takes and that it's going to be a lot of work. There have been a number of podcasts that I've done in around with Randall around the qualification calling process.
Get your pen out and a piece of paper, because I'm going to highlight some of those as we go through here and to kind of lead us off. But I'm not going to spend a great deal of time in the calling scripts or in getting over fear or dealing with the adversity of this, the mindset that's needed. Those are covered in other podcasts.
I want to talk about pure metrics today, because more and more people I run into, and particularly one this last week, is asking the question I came in, I'm a new gift officer. There's no established portfolio of any kind, and I'm just making phone calls. How many do I need to be making to make this work? And I thought it was a great question.
So let's start with kind of some connections. Number one, if you're looking for what is the qualification process, what are those calls to podcaster direct to direct you toward number 21. And which was the basics of what a qualification process sounds like. Number one, 79 are the questions you should be asking yourself as you go through the calls in the qualification process.
Let's start at the very top. There are often times, as our organizations are trying to figure out how to increase philanthropy. The gift officers come in and there's simply just no portfolio. And what you're dealing with is a numbers game. I hope I've done this in a couple of instances. I've got two clients that are dealing with this where they asked me to help kind of craft the job description, as well as some of the outcome metrics and how this would work.
Part of what I've told them and they've listened, which I appreciate, is that the honesty that's required in pushing out a job opportunity and where it's at is the importance of being honest around. Look, there's no established portfolio. You're going to be making a ton of phone calls. I'm assuming that that happens as people come into this job.
I would also be remiss if I didn't say that maybe you were given a portfolio of 20 or 30, but you need a portfolio of 40 to 50. And so you've got to build that up. The same conversation we're going to have today applies. So it's either in totality or in in part. Really what we're talking about is a funnel is where are the names coming from.
I dearly hope and I, I hope safely assume that you're not getting a phone book. What we want to do is start the from the premise that the calls that you'll be making are to people that are connected in some way, shape or form. They're not just random. If you're a university and or an educational, institution, i.e. an independent school, whatever you're going to be dealing with, probably mostly alums or former donors from long ago.
If you're a hospital, it's going to be related to some form of grateful patient or families that have been affected and been treated by the organization. If you're social service, it could be people that in the community are connected in some way, shape or form. All of these groups are without the premise that you have a referral, that you don't have someone making the introduction.
If you're looking for more information about why the referral is so important, which is kind of the other side of this particular podcast, we're not going to talk about, it's looking at episode 140 and why and how our referral process is so important. If you don't want to make so many term cold calls, then you need a referral base from somewhere and we talk in episode 140 about how to do that.
These are still called opportunities, but they are at least hopefully somewhat connected in some way, shape or form. There are a lot of sales figures out there in terms of metrics about how many calls it takes. Most of them indicate that it takes anywhere from 30 to 50 calls to get one appointment. And I would generally agree with that principle, but that's calling from a phone book, i.e. you literally are handed a list of people in their phone numbers, and nobody has any clue if these people have any interest or any connection to who you are as an organization.
Usually financial services, banking, investment, things of that nature. In this case, what we're dealing with hopefully, are people that at least know the name of the nonprofit they have a connection to. As we've mentioned, student patient. You know, somebody in the community who's given before one of those or maybe multiples. So this gets us into talking about conversion rates in the nonprofit world and all the data that I've collected from clients and working and training with, with the gift officers, I've had the privilege of working with, giving them the scripts and the things that come from all of this is, is that we are much more efficient than what I would call a true cold
call sales perspective. What I have found is, is that if you make five good calls, five follow ups, and we'll talk about that here in a minute. You're going to get one conversation. Now, I don't know if that conversation is going to lead to a meeting. We're going to talk about that in a moment. What this is telling me is, is that about five people or opportunities are going to lead to a conversation.
The question becomes can that conversation convert conversion rate into a meeting? In looking at all the gift officers, I've had the privilege of, of serving and teaching. I've also realized it probably takes about 2 to 3 meaningful conversations to get to one call or one visit. Excuse me. So if we do some simple math, five calls for one conversation, 2 to 3 meaningful conversations leads to a visit.
What that's telling me, if we do some simple math, is that it takes about 15 calls for one meeting. Let's take apart the idea of calls if you're concerned or have trepidation, which most of us have around issues, including you're making calls to people we don't know. I would be one of those. You can go back and look at two episodes of Around with Randall episode 133 and episode 238.
That deal with overcoming fear. Recently, I had someone use a term which I just loved. I haven't quite figured out how to use it real well, but the 20s of confidence 20s of overcoming fear, that's what it is. I got to pick up the phone and call somebody I don't know. And again, we're always in this particular episode talking about without a referral.
So what's important here is utilizing various techniques to get Ahold of people. I still believe that a phone call is the most important, but the phone call is supported by other means of communication. One of them is email. Another is text. Another could be LinkedIn.
What I know is, is that as the world changes, the perspective that I started my career with is also changing. It's okay to send an email, follow up, or a text follow up after a call. In fact, I encourage it. It may take as many as 5 to 7 outreaches to get one meaningful call conversation. So the rhythm of this particular process may sound like I'm making a call.
I'm going to follow up with an email that says, I'm sorry I missed you. You can respond this way. Then you, me in a couple days, use a tax and say, hey, I sent an email. I'm sorry I missed you, but we could communicate this way. I'm going to make another phone call. I'm going to do another email and I may do another text.
I mentioned LinkedIn, I've got a couple gift officers that I've learned from because I think consulting is if you're doing this well, you learn as much as you teach. What they're doing is they're connecting to their possible prospects via LinkedIn, and they're getting higher response rates than average. 20 years ago, I would have said even a decade ago, I would have said sending a text message to someone you don't know is invasion of privacy.
I'm wrong. It's the way people communicate in today's world. And so if you're able to have a cell phone number to send a text, an email address, to send an email that support the call. That's what's really important. Think about it in terms of the lowest barrier of entry, the ability for you to find a message or a mechanism where you can begin a discussion.
The other part of this is being able to track all of this. If you're doing all the things that we've talked about, this is the mentality of why CRM were built. CRM were built to help you plan. But in this case, they become your great protector if done correctly. How many calls are you making? How many outreaches? How are you doing it?
Are you using the email? If you're using certain platforms, almost all of them do it now that you can. You just click on the email address in the CRM and it opens outlook or whatever Gmail or whatever you use as an institution. And when you close it, it saves it. What is it that your CRM can do to support the work you're doing?
You want to track all of this, every outreach counts. So back to our initial numbers. You're trying to get one meaningful call to get one meaningful meaning. And it turns out if we do the ratios, it's actually three meaningful conversations for one. More likely than not, visit introductory conversation qualification visit.
And it takes five calls for one meaningful conversation. So you're should be making about 15 calls for one meeting. And that's just to get in front of them. That's just to see. Are there any interest in them having a conversation about what they're passionate, what they're interested in, what they experienced, what they know about us. All the things you can find.
And episodes again, 121 and 179 around what it is we should be doing in these qualification conversations. So let's spin this out a little bit. We just talked about kind of a very nuanced how do I get a meeting 15 calls. Well, if we then push this out, how many calls should you be making a week? If you need a fully new portfolio, nobody's giving you people from other portfolios.
Nobody's helping you with referrals in terms of a physician referral and opening the door, a board referral, opening the door, a previous donor that a gift officer never could get to so they're more willing to have a conversation. You can start on a stewardship perspective. These are all new. That means you're probably making 50 to 75 calls per week, most of which aren't going to be a discussion.
You're leaving a voicemail, and then you're going to be pushing out an email and a text behind that. All of this gives you context about what is necessary to build out a portfolio from nothing. Persistence and timing matters. So you might remember in one of the trainings that we did when we talked about qualification episode 21, we talked about the best times to call Tuesday or excuse me, Wednesdays and Thursdays in the late afternoon, 4 to 6.
This gets into when you should be calling to make all of these calls and the answer maybe all the time. But if you can prioritize those particular times, what you find is you'll get more conversations, which then narrows the conversion rates. If you're looking for information about how to control your calendar, look at episode 116, because that's one where we take apart the value of controlling your calendar, which I do.
Color coding, where things go. How you block time out to plan your week in advance, including these kind of calls. And in this process, you build out that portfolio. Persistence and timing matters. Most. Prospects aren't going to respond on the first call. And that's why. And I'm finding myself doing this and I'm the dinosaur. It's just easier sometimes.
Answer via email or text. I'm swamped with calls and travel. My clients I love working on my clients, but if someone outside of that spans trying to get Ahold of me other than my wife or mom or kids, it's tough to get me during the day. It's just easier for me to respond via text. And I'm the guy who didn't like it.
Still, maybe doesn't like it. Which means these other methods are critical. What you'll find when you begin to track this is you'll start seeing trends, and it's important to realize two things. Number one is, is that as you build out a portfolio, rejection and silence are the norm at times. Once you make those four five, six, seven outreaches, bless and release them, put them back into somebody else's world and you'll fund mailing or whatever, and you're going to move on to the next series of names.
The other side is you should celebrate wins. And they're not wins of gifts. They're wins. What I would call small wins of callbacks, referrals, which we'll talk about here to end and even short conversations. Remember when we talk about the decision tree with the calls, it's I'd love to spend a little time here about what you know about us.
Talk to you about what we're trying to do. Feed that into if they say no. Well, could I ask you the questions now? Into. Well, gosh, we'd love to stay in touch. They're incredible things that we do. Could we keep in touch the email circle back within six months to the blessing release? So it's a stair step decision tree process.
Celebrate those wins. Have great conversations. Remember that the goal is eventually to get in front of them, try to qualify them.
This takes time. It takes effort to build momentum. It's not going to be sudden in most cases. And what we know is, is that the work that you put in now will compound. It's kind of like investing early compounding interest compound. All of a sudden success has become more and more and more. If you do the work on the front side.
All of this says is that the idea of the expectation and mindset? It's not to expect failure, but to realize that we are ducks or swans. Water off the back. We're not going to let it affect us. We're going to do little things to get ourselves on the phone so that we can talk with and deal with ourselves and the rejection or the lack of response so that we continue doing what we have to do, which is make calls.
All too often, particularly with younger people, younger people in our profession. I think there's a misunderstanding of how much work this is. I look back almost 30 years in this profession. This is how I started now. It was with alumni that were incredibly dedicated to the institution. I worked throw a lot of cold calls. I didn't know these people just kind of called.
I don't know what about it. I'm not sure I enjoyed it, but what about it made it easier for me? I just did it, and I did it in every job that I went to. Hi, I'm new love chat. Be surprised how many people want to chat with you. I'd be remiss if I didn't spend just a moment chatting about talking about reminding us that we're in ROI business.
Return on investment. Episode 17 deals specifically with new major gift officers, and how they have to view this from a mentality standpoint about realization. You're an ROI now. You don't. And I hope you don't have an ROI like 3 to 1 in year one. But the expectation should be more tactical about calls, visits and qualifications. Without a full portfolio than it's ever about money.
Yeah, you should raise maybe your salary plus some benefits, but that should be the kind of the bigger picture of what you should accomplish. Normally the first year. I hope it's more, but it takes time to develop this. And so if we go all the way back to where we started, what are the metrics for a new major gift ops for a lot of tactical today is that five calls leads to usually in that call requires email and text follow up, five outreaches or series of outreaches to a person.
Five of those result in one conversation. One conversation doesn't get you a visit every time. It's usually 2 to 3 visits, which means it's 10 to 15 calls and supporting text and emails to get one meaningful meeting. And that's when you begin the relationship building qualification process, which means you're making 40, 50, 60, 70 calls per week. That means you're making 10 to 15, 20 a day.
It just becomes part of your life. And as I mentioned before, my hope is, is that if you have that scenario in a full new portfolio or you got to develop half a new portfolio, that giving you a few names, that you end up realizing that before you take the job, there was an honest conversation about the job and what it really was.
I'll conclude with this. This is hard. And this is why I yell, scream, preach, teach, present, cajole, beg referrals as soon as an introduction is included. A physician or caregiver introducing a grateful patient to a gift officer a faculty member introducing a former student to the gift officer. A board member bringing that gift officer into a conversation with the circle of a friends that they have not maybe to ask just to be introduced to have that first conversation.
All these ratios change and you got to do a whole lot less calling if you're not asking, how do we make this simpler, better, more effective, more engaging, where referrals a part, at least partially a part of what I'm trying to accomplish, then you're going to take the long road, which is a lot of calls still may be calls, but I would be remiss if I didn't end with refer girls are better ask questions.
How do we kind of partner with a board member? Can I partner with a physician? Can I partner with a couple of faculty members? Are there other? How do we get more of a connection? Today's was just about metrics, not about the what was said or any of those things inside the call. Because this happens. It's part of the job, and we have to become more accepting of this principle if we're going to be the types of gift officers to support the missions that are necessary in our community, dig in, pick up the phone, send those emails, send those texts.
That's how you're going to be successful. Don't forget to check out the blogs and how it's going to be two per week on various things that I see your experience, both in the nonprofit world as well as personally, and how they affect leadership and philanthropy and other things. And if you'd like to reach out to me, it's podcast at Hallettphilanthropy.com.
The world is not uneven, but moving a little bit underneath our feet at times, which makes the value of the nonprofit work and philanthropy that's a part of that so important. It makes what you do so important. Board member, CEO, president, gift officer, infrastructure prospect management doesn't make any difference. You're adding value. What I'd ask you to do is to consider how important that value is, not just to you, but to the community and the people in it in which your nonprofit serves.
Remember my favorite saying some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. Then there are those who wondered what happened. At the end of the day, we are people who make things happen. We challenge ourselves to find others like us, philanthropists, who want to do so in meaningful ways to support the mission that we believe in. That's making a difference.
For those people who are wondering what happened. What a cool way to spend a career to help change lives, change organizations, change a community. That's what I hope most you realize at least once every day. And maybe if you make a couple extra calls, do it in the right way. You'll hear that voice on the other end said, I'd love to chat with you, which makes you someone making it happen not only for you, but for them, for the nonprofits you serve.
I'll look forward to seeing you the next time right back here on the next edition of Around with Randall.
Don't forget. Make it a great day.