Ask for the Lens
9 Things Successful Charities Do on Squidoo
#2: Ask for the lens
People, as a rule, don’t have a lot of time. Their lives are bombarded with personal, family, professional, and volunteer commitments. They don’t want to guess what you’re asking them to do to support your organization. That’s why in order to get what you want, it’s important to be very clear when you are asking them to build something new to support your organization.
“Please create a new lens to support us.”
“Please set a lens to donate its earnings to us.”
“Please add to our TWTTRSTRM and promote it to your Twitter followers.”
These are clear statements that encourage action and tell your prospective donors exactly what you’re asking of them. Donors can see what these requests mean, and put a time-frame and value on them.
You can even help donors by putting together your own lens on the best resources for starting a new lens. Here are my favs:
http://www.squidoo.com/firstlensmentor
http://www.squidoo.com/theanswerdeck/hq
http://www.squidu.com/forum
While you’ll always have a small percentage of people who say “no” to any type of request, the fail rate is nearly 100% if you’re not clear about what you’re asking. Helping donors say “yes” is your best chance for finding follow through.