I knew that it was coming….
Last week, Michael’s school sent home the first (of two for the year) Big Apple Fundraising, Inc. “Fundraising Drive” packet. We’re supposed to take orders from friends, relatives and co-workers. The only problem…I really don’t like selling to friends, relatives and co-workers!
I’m just not a salesperson. Previous attempts at direct sales came to mind: Mary Kay – I ended up having facial parties for my friends, but I didn’t really try to sell them anything. Then, there was Discovery Toys – oh well, Michael got some great toys out of that venture…
Anyway, I needed to come up with a game plan. So, here’s what I came up with:
-No sell/no buy policy: This will apply to all of my friends and family with school-aged kids (who will be having their own fundraisers). I won’t ask them to buy from Michael and hope that they will reciprocate by not asking me to buy items from their kids’ fundraisers. (Although I hate selling, I’m a “softie” when it comes to buying/supporting other people’s sales efforts!) Does that sound fair?
-Ask family and close friends only: I made a list of who we’d let Michael ask…our family and a few close friends (who don’t have kids – kids are expensive!). Michael (really I!) started off with the easiest person – his great aunt. She ordered 8 different items, so that was an encouraging start!
All in all, I decided to not go all “Type A” with this fundraiser. You see, kids get to pick a prize based on the number of items that they sell. By nature, I would normally aim for the top prize – sell 200+ items. I thought about the following things though.
1. Michael has (or has the capacity to get from generous family & friends) practically every prize that he could “win”.
2. At this age, Michael really isn’t doing the work (I am!).
and
3. The holiday season is rapidly approaching and already (as it is with everything going on in our economy) many people are having a hard time making financial ends meet. There are a few great deals in the sales catalog (which I’ve made a mental note of), but overall, I just don’t feel great about asking a lot of people to buy overpriced candy, cards, wrapping paper, etc. It’s just not my cup of tea…
So, that’s how I’ve decided to “tackle” this fundraising drive. How do you deal with such things?
(To see what other moms around the web are “tackling” today visit Tackle it Tuesday).