One aspect of being a lifelong learner is always being on the lookout for good ideas to advance your personal and professional goals, and the mission of organizations you are involved with (especially if you are in a leadership role). Recently, my friend and professional colleague Abra Annes, the incomparable charity auctioneer, recommended that I get serious about my YouTube channel.
She explained how she began working on her channel five years ago and how it has helped her business a great deal. One surprising thing she said was that the more content she gave away via free videos on her YouTube channel, the more people hired her !
I was a bit overwhelmed with all she had to tell me, and Abra picked up that. So she generously agreed to brief my summer intern Meg Lanthier once she came on board. (Meg, being a go-getter, scheduled a session with Abra on her first day on the job.)
Fast forward a few weeks. I created a 5 ½ minute video on how to approach a first meeting with a major donor prospect. It is produced much more effectively (by Meg, of course) compared to the ones I did myself earlier in the spring. Substantively, it explains techniques that I have found to be highly effective (though not widely practiced) when interacting with a major donor prospect in person for the first time.
I then released a video about how to build on such a meeting by cultivating a prospect after a successful first meeting. It is about a minute longer than the video mentioned above. Most recently, I published two about soliciting major donors – i.e., “the ask.” The first deals with how to ask, and the second about what to ask for. Both are about 5 minutes long.
Let me know what you think, including any suggestions you have about future topics to cover. And please, consider subscribing to my YouTube channel right now !