Sell it with your heart - how professional presentations can help your charitable cause


Most of my professional career has been in selling; promoting goods or services to potential customers in the hope of getting a positive decision leading to a lucrative contract.

So, is selling relevant to a charity? Or can the third sector rely on goodwill alone to get those essential funds rolling in?

I believe that when applied professionally and used empathetically within your target market, good sales techniques can be extremely beneficial. Intelligent sales methods can help you to win new supporters, gain supportive philanthropists and cement valuable relationships with others who can assist with achieving your charity mission and goals.

So, let’s look at the example of a PowerPoint presentation, the natural weapon in your armoury that you bring out to get the best of an invitation to “tell us what you do”.

Naturally, you want to start with who you are –the name of your charity or cause, a bit about the history and how you came up with your name, a picture of your offices, or some potted biographies about your CEO and trustees. Does this sound familiar?

Well, that’s because EVERYONE is doing that – which is fine if your plan is to send people off to the land of nod while looking at their watches and thinking about the weekend ahead.

Why not take a different approach? Consider the people you help (you are a charity after all) – paint a picture of one of the people whose life you have changed for the better. Use words like “just imagine, what do you think it would be like to …. “ or “there’s somebody I met recently …..”

If you can get your audience to mentally join you, by using powerful, moving, real, human stories, then you’re much more likely to get them to listen to what you have to say when you get to the “will you support us” part of your presentation.

There is a great deal that the third sector can learn from the commercial world. Let’s have a chat and work together to discover how well thought out sales and presentation techniques can make a real difference to people in need.   Roger@nexgenmarketing.co.uk   #charity #cause #socialenterprise


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