Getting School Fundraising Clients Seems Impossible – Time for a Change

Time to get in shape – change how I do sales prospecting.

I’m finding it far too easy to think no one wants anything to do with Edvocator.

I tried sending emails – no reply. I tried sending some direct mailings – no reply (no one even visited the URLs in the direct emails — I can tell from Google Analytics). So, Continue reading “Getting School Fundraising Clients Seems Impossible – Time for a Change”

Staying Motivated to Develop Your Business – Overcoming Doubts is a Constant Challenge

It didn’t take long to start struggling with the doubts. Doubts are sly—a strongly disciplined and well-trained covert operations team with a single mission: get you to quit! Last week they nearly succeeded.

When Doubt Hits

After sending the first round of direct mailings I got no response – none! This nudged, heck no – shoved – my mind into Continue reading “Staying Motivated to Develop Your Business – Overcoming Doubts is a Constant Challenge”

Edvocator Superhero Direct Mail Marketing Campaign: Phase 1

Edvocator Superhero Direct Mail Marketing Campaign: Phase 1

I’m an Edvocator superhero. They call me “Click”

Cold emailing doesn’t seem to work very well for a variety of reasons. First, email inboxes are swamped with real and SPAM emails. I find that it’s difficult to come up with a catchy enough subject to get anyone to reply to my email. Second, SPAM rules can be a bugger if you’re (which I am) sending emails from a lead record within a customer relationship manager (CRM) which am. After attempting to send a variety of different emails to potential schools and clubs, I decided it was time to use the direct mail approach.

The direct mail approach (I’m hoping) in today’s electronically-flooded email inboxes Continue reading “Edvocator Superhero Direct Mail Marketing Campaign: Phase 1”

Edvocator Journey: Sucking at Sales Sucks!

Sucking at sales sucks

Edvocator is a good concept; I truly believe it. In fact whenever I buy motorcycle related stuff, I go to the Edvocator demo school fundraising site and click on the Revzilla store link then buy my stuff. That single click earns me 3% of whatever I buy. If I buy a new $200 helmet and a $300 jacket and I earn $15.00. If this were a real Edvocator school site the school would get the lion’s share of that – between 70% and 90% ($10.50 – $13.50). Continue reading “Edvocator Journey: Sucking at Sales Sucks!”

Edvocator – the Birth of an Idea and the Story Behind Its Creator

The idea pushed its way to the front of my mind last week.

Here I am. Trying to get Edvocator to be successful for two reasons: (1) it will help schools and (2) I’d like it to be my retirement income.

You see I was brainstorming ways to get people in my target market – elementary school PTOs and high school booster clubs – to sign up for Edvocator. I thought it would be effective to merely document my efforts to take Edvocator from a very cool concept for easy school fundraising to a robust business that could eventually provide me with retirement income. I wondered – skeptically – who the heck would want to read about my story? And, I worried that someone would steal the concept and be better at bringing it to a higher level of success than I could. Then something – something quite serendipitous – happened.

While perusing my Facebook stream I came across a man who I’d not heard of before today (when you read to whom I’m referring you won’t believe me). I saw an interview with Gary Vaynerchuk. His no-nonsense and foul-mouthed candor caught my attention. Continue reading “Edvocator – the Birth of an Idea and the Story Behind Its Creator”