Today, I was reading Bnet, a blog presented by the CBS Interactive Business Network, because I’m always searching for trends that could impact the nonprofit field. This particular blog addresses the sales process through the use of a series of questions directed to business leaders. By analyzing the answers, the author is able to determine how much someone knows about the sales process and ultimately how successful the salesperson will be in generating revenue.
After taking the quiz, I realized that this process could be adapted by major donor officers. You may say to yourself: “We don’t sell anything; we are mission-driven.”
True, but your mission is the product and major donor officers are selling why it is important for a donor to want to “buy into” that mission and write a check to support it.
Major donor officers are the “outside sales persons” for a nonprofit. But, many of these individuals are not successful in bringing in significant monies needed to support that organization’s mission, because they are not using the right skills for the goal of generating funds.
You might want try taking this simple quiz. It’ll only you a few minutes! But, it may help you better understand the skills that are needed to be a good major gifts officer. When you’re hiring a development officer, looking for individuals who score high on this quiz may help you find the person who understands what works and does not work when in the sales process. Click on this link and have fun. Myth or Fact? Test Your Sales Career IQ!
As proof of the power of this quiz, a major gifts officer that I’ve worked with scored in the top 90%. By the way, he also brought in a $15,000,000 gift to the organization.
-Gail
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