March 4, 2025 • 40 mins
Sami Bedell-Mulhern and Ron Robinson discuss the importance of fundraising and marketing for nonprofits. Ron emphasizes the need for consistent communication and tracking efforts to maximize donations. He advises nonprofits to focus on simple, authentic messaging and to ask for specific needs, such as money for operational costs or specific items like coats. Ron suggests using tools like HubSpot to track conversations and improve outreach. He also highlights the importance of staying top of mind with donors through regular communication. Ron offers his expertise and resources to help nonprofits achieve their goals.
What you'll learn:
→ The importance of viewing fundraising and marketing as a numbers game
→ How to have authentic, non-salesy conversations with potential donors
→ Strategies for quantifying the benefits of your organization to make donors feel good
→ Tips for staying top of mind with your audience through regular communication
→ The value of tracking your conversations and measuring what's working (and what's not)
Want to skip ahead? Here are key takeaways:
[06:54] Quantify the benefits to potential donors to make them feel good about contributing.
[09:36] Use simple, authentic analogies (like giving away jackets) to illustrate your fundraising approach.
[18:15] Stay top of mind with donors through regular communication, even if not every conversation leads to an immediate result.
[32:36] Have someone else review your messaging and approach to identify areas for improvement.
Ron Robinson
Ron Robinson is the visionary Founder and CEO of MPFR Media, a transformative force defining how small businesses approach marketing and the customer experience. With over two decades of experience in leadership and innovation, Ron combines a deep understanding of operational excellence with a passion for driving engagement and fostering brand loyalty.
Ron’s professional journey began in the transportation industry, where he built a distinguished career spanning 20 years. Starting as a conductor, he rose through the ranks to become Superintendent of Train Operations at one of the largest mass transit agencies in the United States. His tenure in transportation was marked by a steadfast commitment to efficiency, leadership, and a people-first approach.
In 2011, Ron channeled his entrepreneurial spirit into founding Sorfs Inc, inspired by a news segment on remote work. What began as a company focused on call center and customer experience solutions has since evolved into MPFR Media a comprehensive marketing and media powerhouse. Today, MPFR Media provides innovative solutions ranging from marketing strategy and media production to customer management and cutting-edge data security protocols, serving both startups and Fortune 500 enterprises.
A military veteran, Ron brings a deep sense of community and service to everything he does. Beyond the boardroom, he is an accomplished commercial photographer, sharing his artistic vision and creativity with veterans and the wider community. His ability to foster meaningful connections and build lasting relationships has been a hallmark of his success, both in his transportation career and as the leader of MPFR Media.
Ron’s dedication to integrating sales, marketing, customer experience tactics, and imagery ensures that his company delivers high-performance media and strategies that captivate audiences, drive measurable ROI, and transform customers into lifelong brand advocates. Through his leadership, MPFR Media has become a trusted partner for businesses looking to elevate their marketing.
Learn more at https://mpfrmedia.com
https://linqapp.com/mpfrmarketing?r=link
Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-first-click
Learn more about The First Click: https://thefirstclick.net
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (00:00):
What we know about fundraising is it's a
numbers game. The more peopleyou talk to, the more likely you
will raise more money. Andmarketing is very similar, and
the two work hand in hand inreally supporting your
organization, in having as manyconversations with people and
staying present in front ofthose people as possible, at
scale. So whether you're juststarting out, or you're trying
(00:24):
to expand and grow and maybe addsome more members to your team,
today, we're going to talk aboutthe reasons and ways that you
can have great conversations, orhow to understand what you might
need to tweak if thoseconversations aren't becoming
fruitful. We're talking aboutthe messaging. We're talking
about, the activity, there'sjust a lot of great things that
(00:44):
we are going to discuss in thisepisode. My guest today is Ron
Robinson. Ron is the visionaryfounder and CEO of MPFR media, a
transformative force defininghow small businesses approach
marketing and the customerexperience. With over two
decades of experience inleadership and innovation, Ron
(01:05):
combined a deep understanding ofoperational excellence with a
passion for driving engagementand fostering brand loyalty.
Ron's professional journey beganin the transportation industry,
where he built a distinguishedcareer spanning 20 years,
starting as a conductor, he rosethrough the ranks to become
Superintendent of trainoperations at one of the largest
mass transit agencies in the US,his tenure in transportation was
(01:28):
marked by a steadfast commitmentto efficiency, leadership and a
people first approach in 2011Ron channeled his
entrepreneurial spirit intofounding source Inc, inspired by
A new segment on remote work.
What began as a company focusedon call center and customer
experience Solutions has sinceevolved into mpfr media, a
(01:50):
comprehensive marketing andmedia powerhouse today. Mpfr
media provides innovativesolutions ranging from marketing
strategy and media production tocustomer management and cutting
edge data security protocolsserving both startups and
fortune 500 enterprises, amilitary veteran. Ron brings a
deep sense of community andservice to everything he does
(02:10):
beyond the boardroom. He is anaccomplished commercial
photographer, sharing hisartistic vision and creativity
with veterans and the widercommunity. His ability to foster
meaningful connections and buildlasting relationships has been a
hallmark of his success, both inhis transfer transportation
career, excuse me, and as aleader of mpfr, Ron's dedication
to integration, integratingsales marketing and customer
(02:31):
experience tactics and imageryensures that his company
delivers high performance mediaand strategies that captivate
audiences, that Drive measurableROI and transform customers into
lifelong brand advocates.Through his leadership, mpfr
media has become a trustedpartner for businesses looking
to elevate their marketing, andthat's why I'm so in love with
(02:53):
this conversation, becauseyou're going to hear that people
centered, that people firstapproach, really married,
married, next to the datadriven, the messaging, the kind
of analytical approach, and it'ssuch a great way and opportunity
for you to think about youroffline and online
conversations, your strategies,and how you're kind of building
(03:16):
out your plan and what youcontinue to focus on So you can
raise more money online and inperson. So with that being said,
before we jump into thisepisode, it is brought to you by
our free resources. We have somany free resources for you at
(03:39):
the first click, and you canfind those at the first
click.net/resources, there'sfreebies around understanding
what tech you should be using,mindset, also your website,
email, social media. There's somany great things in there for
you to check out. So I wouldlove for you to go and grab the
resource that's going to be mosthelpful for you. Again, you can
find those all atthefirstclick.net/resources.
Let's get into the episode.
You're listening to the digitalmarketing therapy podcast, I'm
(04:02):
your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern,each month, we dive deep into a
digital marketing or fundraisingstrategy that you can implement
in your organization. Each week,you'll hear from guest experts,
nonprofits and myself on bestpractices, tips and resources to
help you raise more money onlineand reach your organizational
goals.
(04:22):
Hey, friends, please join me inwelcoming Ron Robinson to the
podcast. Ron, thank you so muchfor being here.
Ron Robinson (04:29):
Hey, thank you for having me. I really appreciate
the opportunity to, you know,speak with you and your
audience. You know, I'm lookingto have a great time with you
guys today.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (04:38):
Yeah, we already had such a great
conversation. I had to like, youknow, quiet wrong, because it
was giving me so much goodness.I'm like, we gotta, we gotta
wait, we gotta hit record. Wedon't want people to miss out on
all this amazing stuff. So Ilove when we have people on the
podcast that are so valuealigned and strategy aligned. So
I know this is gonna be anawesome conversation, and we're
talking marketing, but in a.Little bit of a different way,
(05:02):
and so I would just kind of lovefor you to share a little bit
about why kind of marketing andconversations and meeting people
and nonprofits is something thatyou're passionate about before
we kind of jump into somestrategies.
Ron Robinson (05:15):
All right. Well, for myself, like I love helping
folks. I love helping people youknow reach their goal, reach
their potential. Sharing myknowledge, you know, I hate
seeing someone you know struggleor try to figure something out,
and I'm right next to you, and Ihave that answer, you know. So I
(05:35):
just love to share. I love tohelp other folks succeed. You
know, do pretty well. I'm in anice position. So want to see
others, not just other peoplearound me, but people that I
see. You know, having a hardtime or just lacking some
knowledge, or just like to knowsomething. So I you know, I love
doing it. I love sharing love.Definitely have a soft spot for
(05:56):
nonprofits. Love helpingnonprofits achieve their goals
and helping them, you know,whether it be fundraise or event
plan or whatever that may looklike, so
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (06:07):
well, and that is precisely why I'm so
excited for this conversation,because I think you know, the
heart and the love thatnonprofits have for their
community sometimes doesn'tallow them to do the strategic
things that they know they needto do, because they might think
it feels inauthentic or it's toosalesy. But really, at the end
(06:28):
of the day, whether it's offlineor online conversations, the
more conversations, the morepeople you meet, the more money
you're going to raise, period,right? So how do we kind of
start to think about ourmarketing efforts, our
fundraising efforts, in ways ofkind of a numbers game, while
still feeling like we're notbeing that car salesman down the
(06:51):
road that we, you know, that wedon't want to become, right?
Ron Robinson (06:55):
Well, you know, just kind of like we were
discussing a bit earlier. It's,you know quantifying. You know
how you benefit people to peoplethat want to help. So keep in
mind, people want to help. Theywant to be involved. They want
to donate money, they want todonate time, they want to donate
any articles of anything thatthey may have to help you reach
(07:17):
other people and people. Peoplewant to do that right? So in
today's climate, they just needto understand, hey, what are you
doing? Maybe, if it aligns withwhat I'm doing. You know,
sometimes people have to feelgood and like certain things, so
you have to quantify what you dofor them, so they can help you
right? For nonprofits to feelcomfortable and not feel salesy,
(07:39):
just have to think about it.You, you know, you, you want to
give away this jacket. So I'lluse the jacket thing again from
earlier. You know you want togive away the jacket. I have
this jacket. I need to give itto somebody. You start talking
to people, right? And it's notanything salesy. It's really
authentic. You have the jacket.You want to give it away. Who
can I give it to? We do that allthe time. Hey, I have this
(08:00):
product, or I have this thing,who can I give this away to? And
you start talking to folks,because you've really want to
give it away. You know, you'renot even thinking about it.
Somebody tells you, Bob needs ajacket. Take it around the
corner, give it to Bob. Allright. Well, you take it around
the corner. You start talking tomore people, trying to find Bob.
But you find out clearance needsa jacket. So okay, well, you
give the jacket the clearance,you go back, you get another
(08:21):
jacket for Bob. Because you'relike, Okay, Bob needs his
jacket. I'm going to give Bobthis jacket. So you go get
another jacket for Bob, right?You find Bob, but now you're
like, man, there's so manypeople you ran into, so many
people that need jackets. So nowyou're going back, getting all
the jackets you have. Maybe youdon't fit anymore, or whatever,
and then you're just giving themaway. You feel so good, you want
to go back buy more jackets togive away. But now, and it's
(08:41):
like, All right, well, I can'tbuy any more jackets, so I need
help. I need other people togive me jackets. I need the
other people to buy, buy mejackets. So now you have to
approach folks, ask them fortheir jackets, or ask people,
Hey, can you give me a coupledollars so I can go buy this
jacket, so I can give it tosomebody else. So, you know, you
have to feel the same way aboutasking for that money to go buy
(09:05):
jack to give somebody else, thesame way you feel about giving
it to somebody, because itequates to your mission. It
equates to you being to helpsomebody benefit from what
you're trying to do for them. Soit's it's very important to to
just wrap that asking or to wrapany fundraising efforts and to
make it, you know, quantify thatfor somebody to so they can see
(09:28):
how you're benefiting it. Youknow that you're in, you know
you're in goal, your end user.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (09:36):
Well, I love this example for a lot of
reasons, and in some ways,people might think, Well, that's
an oversimplification. Like,what the work that I do is so
much more complex than that.Like, we're trying to help
homeless people or on thestreet, and it's like this whole
trickle down, you know, we getin our own heads about, like,
the big picture of what we'retrying to do. But I love that
(09:56):
example so much, because itreally can be that simple when
we're talking. Donors. We don'thave to tell them all of the
history and the reason why we'redoing this, it could literally
be as simple as, like, I'm inMinneapolis today as we're
recording this, it is current,like, the temperature is
currently negative two degrees,right? It's cold. And so it
(10:16):
could literally be as simple ascalling donors on a day like
today and saying, Hey guys, it'snegative two degrees outside. We
know there's, you know, 1000people on the streets homeless
in Minneapolis. I'm making thisup. Uh, could you help us get 10
coats to help some people on thestreet today? Because it's, it
can be over simplified likethat. We don't need to overdo
(10:37):
it.
Ron Robinson (10:38):
Yeah, definitely. And it goes back to, you know,
if it is just you, right? You'rejust you're just one person.
You're like, I'm going to getjackets for people and just give
them out to people that needjackets, right? Somebody says,
Hey, call, call Bob's grocerystore down the street because
they love stuff like this. Itreally is just that simple. You
(10:58):
call a grocery store becausehe's into it. You're going to
tell him, Hey, I'm giving outjackets to people. I need more
jackets. I'm you know, we'rerunning out. We're running thin.
We're having a hard time comingacross jackets. Somebody said,
you can help us. Can you helpus? Bible, say yay, nay. Like he
loves what it is. He loveswhat's happening. He's
interested in helping. Chancesare, Bob is not going to go into
(11:19):
well, what's your history,what's your what's your track
record, you know, how manypeople have you guys, you know,
helped so far? Like, if you canmake Bob feel good about
donating jackets or paying forjackets to get donated, chances
are Bob is going to be on board.So it's, it's really, it like,
it really is that simple, youknow? And I think one of the
(11:41):
things is, is that founders feellike they get away from their
purpose once you start addingon, because you now you have
volunteers helping you rightnow, you may have a place or
facility right now you need anaccountant and bookkeeper to
come on board to keep track ofall this money that's coming in
(12:02):
for you to achieve the mission,you know. Okay, now we're
getting so much stuff. Okay, nowwe need a van. We need a truck,
you know. So we add these thingsthat it doesn't complicate, but
they're tools, because you wantyour mission to grow. You want
it to get bigger. Now, not onlydo you want to give out jackets
in Minneapolis, but now maybeyou might want to go to, you
know, some other town, you know,around the corner, down the
(12:24):
street, or something like that,to give out more jackets. How
are they going to get there? Youcan't be in two places at once.
Who's going to give them out foryou? So, you know, our mission
becomes more complicated as weadd pieces on. So it seems like
it gets complicated, as far asyou know, asking for what we
need. But it's really about thesame thing, you know, you can
(12:47):
start getting into some thingsrequirements. Now, if you, if
you're dealing with, like, afortune 500 company, like, okay,
yeah, go. You know, Verizon,they love this type of stuff,
you should pitch something tothem. Well, you just can't call
a rising up on the telephonesay, Hey guys, I'm giving away,
you know, like they don'toperate like that. So that's
(13:08):
where the complication comes in.You know, you have to figure out
how they like to be pitched. Youhave to create that pitch. You
have to pitch it over to them.It has to go through, you know,
five people. It goes beforewhoever boards in charge of how
they give out money, and theylook at it, and then somewhere
down the line, in a couplemonths, you'll probably get an
(13:30):
answer, right? So, yeah, youknow, that's how these things
grow. But on the on the simpleside of it, it's really, it
really is just that simple, youknow, I think, well, I love
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (13:42):
what you're saying, Yeah, because I think as
we grow, it's like theoperational expense side is what
I think a lot of organizationsget hung up on. Like, it's easy
to ask somebody, you give me $10I can give a coat to this
person. Like, that's easy, butwe've, we get hung up on this,
okay, but if I'm also askingfor, like, we need to pay for
the electricity bill to keep ourfacility running, or the gas to
(14:03):
keep our trucks going. Likethat's not as sexy or fun we get
in our own heads about that, butto your point, it still is. If
you give us this money, we cangive the coats away, because
that's ultimately what you'retrying to do. And so what I love
about this, the kind of arcyou've taken us on, is at the
beginning, it's very muchgrassroots. It's who do you
know? Who can help? Blah, blah,blah. As we grow, how do we
(14:25):
continue to ensure like, if I'mgoing to spend half of my day
making outreach calls and havingconversations with people like
or I'm going to we're going tobring some people in to help
with marketing, and they'regoing to do some social media
content and some blog whateverit might be, we have to update
our website. How do we ensurethat we are still talking to the
right people, so that we can getthose volume of conversations in
(14:49):
but they're not wasted? Like Ithink that's something that we
struggle with. We can't justtalk to everybody, so how do we
kind of make sure we're talkingto the right people?
Ron Robinson (14:58):
Yeah, that is. True. Definitely can't talk to
everybody. And, you know, Iguess I kind of want to feel
like that you're not really evertalking to the wrong person,
right? Any anything come backaround. The reason why we
network, and the reason why wetalk to people is to plant a
seed nine times out of 10. Like,if I want to take something and
(15:23):
just give it to somebody, ninetimes out of 10, that first
person that I talked to isprobably not going to be the
recipient, but next week, theymay run into somebody that could
be the recipient, you know. Sounless I already know already
I'd see something on the tablelike, oh, you know what Jill
needed to staple. I rememberthat. I think I would just give
this to her. You know that couldhappen. But if you're like, Oh,
(15:45):
I'm just looking at the stapler.I just want to give it away. I
don't need it anymore. I don'tknow who needs it or not. I have
to find out, that's themarketing piece. You have to
find out marketing is just aboutgetting your message to the
person that needs it at the timethey need it. That's it. That's
all it is, very simple, right?And so all these other tactics
(16:08):
and spending money is where youcome in at to get that message
to the person that needs it atthe time they need it. That's
where you spend the money at.That's where analytics come into
play. That's where you know AInow is coming into play. That's
why, you know cookies are, youknow, giving you ads and
everything like that, becauseit's all about getting you the
(16:29):
message at that right time whenyou when you need it. That
that's what it's about. So onthe simpler side of things, if
you're just talking to peoplemost of the time you're not
talking to people at the timethey need the message, or at the
time they're ready to buy or atthe time they're ready to give
something. Most of the time youdon't reach people at that
stage, unless you create moreopportunity talking to a whole
(16:56):
lot of people, you know, andthat's the other aspect of it.
That's another place where youspend money and you grow
marketing, because it is alsoabout talking to as many people,
or getting your message in frontof as many people as you can,
right? Yeah, combination of asmany people as you can and as
many people as you think thatmessage will resonate with. You
(17:19):
know, if you can find 100 peoplethat resonate with your message,
you know your close rate will bevery, very high if you just
generally put 100 people infront of your message. Of
course, your close rate is goingto be lower because it's not
going to resonate with them thesame because they're not on the
same page. They're not thinkingabout it. It's not something
(17:40):
they need right now, you know.So it, you know, it's going to
hit a little bit differently. Soit's just those are really,
really simple terms andeverything else just kind of
really convolutes that the way,that simplification of what this
is all about, all the othertactics and spending money and
spending time in social mediaand email marketing and cold
(18:03):
calling, that stuff just helpsyou, you know, get to getting
your message in front of a lotof people. You know, if you do
social media, you put yourmessage in front of millions of
people.
90% of those people are not theright people. They're not but
your message going in front ofmillions of people
astronomically blows up yourclose rate, you know, if I can,
I don't care who's if I can getin front of a million people at
(18:30):
a time every day, I'm going todo just fine, you know? And it
literally just equates to that.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (18:38):
I think it's a top of mind piece, and I
think that's why we always talkto clients about Do One Thing
excellently, and then add on tothat, and then add on to that
and add on to that, because ifyou try to do everything all at
once, you're going to driveyourself bonkers. But that that
staying top of mind piece isreally critical to your point
of, okay, well, when they areready, they won't be like, wait.
(18:58):
I remember seeing somethingabout this organization that was
doing something I really thoughtwas cool, but I can't remember.
But I can't remember what theirname is, and now I can't find
them, like you've lost them, andlike we have examples of clients
we've run email campaigns forwhere, because we send out
communication every two weeks,all of a sudden, they saw an
expansion in a program that wewere doing whereas they'd never
(19:22):
given before, but they wereengaged with us, and all of a
sudden that new expansion hitthem, and they were like, This
is really cool. It is importantto me. And all of a sudden, we
got a gift from them that wewould have never gotten before
had we not been communicatingwith them on a regular basis,
because they would not know thatwe had done something new. And
(19:42):
so I think you know what you'rewhat you're speaking to, is
really just staying top of mind,staying present. Because I think
I always, I always hear rightmessage, right time, and it's
overwhelming, because I'm like,Well, how am I supposed to know
when it's the right time? And toyour point. Right, you don't
right you but yourresponsibility is making sure
(20:03):
that you're sharing as muchabout your organization as often
as possible, so that don't haveto worry about when the right
time is
Ron Robinson (20:11):
right. Right exactly. You want to always talk
about what you have and what youneed, because if you don't tell
people what you have and whatyou need, you're not going to
get what you need and you're notgoing to give away or sell what
you have. If I'm selling watersand I let five people walk by
(20:31):
and don't tell them, hey, I'mover here, I have water, you're
not going to sell any. But if Itell those five people I have
water, maybe one of them mightbuy maybe I can tell the next
five and the next fiveeventually somebody's going to
buy a order, you know. So, yeah,it's about, you know, telling
people what you have and whatyou need. And you have to
constantly, constantly,constantly, constantly, do that
(20:56):
all the time, you know. And thenyou can do things in ways you
know you want to, you wantpeople to know what you have,
and you want people to know whatyou need. But you also don't
want, sometimes you don't wantto overshadow people as well,
right? So this is where you kindof get into, well, how do you
network, and how do you market,and how do you do, like a sales
(21:21):
presentation, or how do you talkto somebody about what you need?
That's where you start gettinginto all these little other
intricacies, right? Of you know,like you said, don't want to
come off salesy, right? I haveto tell this person what I need.
I have to tell this person whatI do. Like you have to, you have
to do it. So it's just thinkingof a way to like when I first
(21:45):
started, the side, side piecefor a minute, when I first
started, I just had thismentality of just do it. I did a
lot of stuff that I wasn'tcomfortable with, but it's just
like, just just do it. Just Justdo it. Just talk to that person.
Just call these people. Justapproach whoever like. Just Just
do it. If I thought somethingwas a good idea and it could
(22:06):
help me achieve whatever thegoal is going to be, whatever
the mission was, just do it.Don't think about it. Just Just,
just go ahead and just do that.Whatever needs to be done. Just
do it. And mainly talking topeople, yeah, had to do it just
like, walk up, Hey, my name isand let it
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (22:27):
go. Worse that can happen, they say, You
know what, this isn't the rightfit for us. And if the worst, if
the worst thing out of thatconversation is a no, you're not
the right fit. But you can havethe opportunity to say, you
know, I really enjoyed thisconversation. Is there somebody
else that you might know thatmight this might be a better fit
for? Because, to your point,people want to help out. They
want to participate. Doesn'tmean that everything is going to
(22:49):
be a yes, but you never knowwhat's going to come out of a
conversation. But you knowwhat's going to not come out of
a conversation like you don'thave the just like your water
example, if you don't have theconversation, you know nothing
is going to happen, right?
Ron Robinson (23:00):
Exactly, exactly. So definitely important to just
to just do it, have thatconversation. Make sure you tell
people what you need and youtell people what you have. That
is probably the most importanttakeaway. People have to know
what you have, and you have toknow what you need that is like,
(23:22):
so important. Well, I
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (23:24):
want to double down on that really quick
and ask you, when we are talkingto people about what we need,
that it shouldn't be like comingout of a fire hose. Like, well,
we need 15 different things,right? Like, how do we kind of
prioritize what we need to, youknow, encourage that conversion,
(23:44):
but also to just not overwhelmthe people we're having a
conversation with.
Ron Robinson (23:50):
That's, that's a, that's a good one. I'm kind of
one that likes to focus in,like, okay, you know, this is,
this is what we have. This iswhat we're selling, you know, it
should, it should be very, veryfocused, very laser, right?
Shouldn't be a whole lot offluff involved in it. You know,
because people get distractedwith fluff, you want to stay
(24:12):
very granular. So, yeah,sometimes you just have to, you
just have to pick that thing. Imean, you need jackets, right?
You need money for jackets. Youneed money for trucks. You need
money for electricity. Like youwere saying, You need money for
building. Do you ask forjackets? Do you ask for money?
Do you tell people you needmoney for operational costs?
(24:33):
Like, you know, what are wedoing? Right?
Ask for the money. Put yourmission out there, and I have to
tell people, necessarily, I needmoney to pay, you know, Susie
over in payroll, or, you know,we got to put gas in the truck,
or something like that. Don'treally, I mean, don't get me
wrong, you will run into somepeople that's going to ask about
(24:54):
the fine details. Definitelywill, right, but you don't have
to worry about the fine details.Necessarily, if people are not
asking about the fine details,you can worry about the fine
details if somebody asks you foror if you make a pitch, or if
you put in for a grant, orsomething that asks about fine
details, then at that point it'sfine. But you know, going into
(25:15):
all those fine details is veryoverwhelming. You know, lot of
people don't really have a graspon how nonprofit, you know,
especially you know, somethinglike a food pantry or something
like that. And let's say theydon't deliver, let's say people
just come to them theintricacies even involved in an
operation like that, and theexpenses that they see, people
(25:37):
have no grasp of that, right?Yeah. And honestly, people, a
lot of people, don't care, youknow, a lot of them, a lot of
them don't care. So just keepit, you know, just keep it what
you need in what you know, whatyou have, you have jackets. You
need money for jackets. That'sthe mission. Yep, you know, put
(25:59):
it together.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (26:02):
No, I love that. And I think what you're
saying is be ready. Like, youknow, we're not saying don't be
transparent or don't be afraidto be transparent about your
financials. Be ready to answerthose because I think nonprofits
have to do a lot more work tobuild trust with with folks.
Definitely be ready. Because,especially those repeat donors,
you get that phone call with theCEO of Verizon, and you know,
like, you know you need to beready with some of those, those
(26:24):
questions, but I agree with you100% like, people are going to
buy into the mission and thework that you're doing and the
impact that they know they'regoing to be able to support. And
in reality, if you say $20 isgoing to help me deliver three
coats when you're putting thosenumbers together, right? We
should be building in, okay,well, but for me to deliver that
coat, I actually have to drive.I have, like, the cost of the
(26:46):
car and the gas and the driverand the volunteer coordinate
like that is built into the costof getting that coat to be able
to give to a person. So I thinkwe need to think about how we're
managing those not managing howwe're communicating what it
costs us to actually deliver themission and put that into those
impact statements, because thatjust helps us all around,
(27:09):
definitely, definitely.
Ron Robinson (27:10):
And you know, looking at that as a whole, you
know, definitely helps and that,that fine tuning of where every
nickel every dollar goes onceagain, you know you're not going
to have to deal with that toooften, unless you're dealing
with, you know, a foundation,large sums of money, you know,
fortune, 500 companies, youknow, stuff like that. You're
(27:31):
not going to have to deal withthose fine, fine details too
often, unless you're justconstantly going after that type
of money. You know, then, yeah,those people, they want fine
details. They want history. Theywant. You know how they want
numbers they want. You know,they want a whole lot of stuff.
So, yeah, but on that level, youknow, you're dealing with Bob
grocery store down the street.You know your individual donors.
(27:56):
A lot of times you tell themwhat you're doing, you know,
yeah, tell them to come out andmaybe see or help or volunteer
or something like that and that.That's usually all it takes.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (28:07):
Yeah, for sure. Okay, so the last thing I
kind of want to touch on beforewe wrap this up is, you know, we
we mentioned you need to be infront of your audience all the
time. You need to be sharing. Itcan be overwhelming if we think
about all of the differentthings that we need to be doing
in a day, plus having the one onone conversations with people,
and now you're saying we'll haveas many conversations with as
many people as possible.Overwhelming, right? So how do
(28:29):
we start to track what's workingfor us and what we want to
double down on? Becausedifferent organizations are
different. If you're local, ifyou're national, you might have
better success with one on oneconversations. You might have
better success with your email.Like, what kind of where should
we start with processing all ofthese activities that we're
doing and figuring out what isactually supporting our
(28:52):
fundraising efforts?
Ron Robinson (28:53):
The best track everything. Yeah, track
everything. You can write stuffdown on paper. You can use an
Excel spreadsheet. You can havesomething as complicated as
Salesforce, you know, but somekind of way you want to figure
out how to track everything youknow you want to. And now I
(29:18):
simplify a lot of stuff, butthis, I will not simplify. It is
as complicated as it's going tosound track everything, you
know, people like, oh, well, howcan you detail all these
conversations? Like, I have aconversation, I'll try to, you
know, write some notes down, orwhatever. AI is now making a
(29:39):
little bit easier so you can getsummarized notes in your
conversations, and you can putthat you know, so I use HubSpot
CRO I have a conversation,summarize that conversation,
drop it in HubSpot, Date Time,how it went, any expectation,
promises, whatever, right? Andthen I can always reference.
(29:59):
That back, because me and youhave a conversation like this
now, and we may not talk againfor a year. I'm not going to
remember what we talked about.I'm not going to remember if I
made a promise, if you made apromise to me like I'm not going
to remember, you know, so if Ihave that somewhere that's
easily referenced. So this isthe problem with using like pen
and paper using notebooks, isyou can't reference that
(30:21):
information fast enough. It'sgreat that you have it. And, I
mean, if that's what you got todo, that's what you got to do,
but it's hard to reference thatstuff fast enough. You know, for
women, I
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (30:32):
have to, I have to just laugh at this
really quickly, and then I'lllet you continue on. But I can't
tell you how many times I'mlike, connected to somebody who
connects me to somebody whoconnects me to somebody and then
it's like, we can't get in.Can't get a meeting on the
calendar for like, three or fourweeks, and then it pops up, and
I'm planning for my week, andI'm like, Who is this person,
and what are we even talkingabout, and why, where? And I'm
searching my email and all theplaces like, where did this
(30:55):
person come from? And then weboth show up on the call, like,
why are why are we here? Sorry.So I love that, because it's so
spot on. And I know that thishappens all the time for
everybody, tracking everything,
Ron Robinson (31:09):
definitely. Yeah, so Track, track everything, you
know, if you can, if you keep,if you keep that in mind, you
know, like, you know, I mess upsometimes, or I don't log
something, or it happens, youknow, but you know, just try to
keep that discipline of trackingeverything, track your
conversations, track who givesyou, what would you give away?
(31:32):
You know, what people are doing.Like, it's really like that
intense, like, track everything,and it makes conversations
easier as well. So with trackingeverything, getting into how you
know what's working and what'snot working. If you're like,
Man, I had 10 conversations andthey just didn't, didn't go too
(31:54):
well, right? If you have thatsummary, or, even better, if you
have that word for word, of howthe conversation flow, you can
look at that and say, Yeah, youknow what I did, this the past
10 times it didn't work out. Letme look at the past 10
conversations. From there, youlook at, oh, these went a lot
better. Let me get back to thisflow over here versus that flow,
you know? So you start gagingthat. You look at what went
(32:16):
well, what didn't go well, andincorporate what went well. That
part is very simple. Look atwhat didn't go well, what went
well. Get rid of what didn't gowell. Incorporate what did that
part is very simple, but ifyou're not tracking everything,
it's hard for you to go back andlook at what went well and what
didn't go well.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (32:36):
See those trends. I love that because I
think any person I don't do themarketing for my own business
because I'm too in it. Like, Ineed a third person, a third
party, to, like, help me processand like, work on my sales flows
and like, all like, it's I can'tand so when you're talking and
pitching to donors all the time,you know there's a lot in the
(32:58):
messaging, the jargon, the wordsthat we use, the way we talk
about the problem that we'resolving that's so different for
us in the day to day versus theperson who just wants to give
you a coat. Like there can be somany things that we over
complicate and that we aren'tbeing clear about, because, you
know, we're 10 steps above inthe knowledge area from the
(33:18):
person that we're talking to.And for a lot of us that are in
super complex types oforganizations, you know, if it's
a research based thing, we itcan get out of hand real
quickly. So I think that'sreally, really good too, to pay
attention to those conversationsand maybe have somebody else go
through them with you so thatthey can pick out the things
(33:39):
more quickly that, you know,even just changing words, we had
somebody, I just recorded apodcast episode last week on
like SEO and keyword research.And it was, he was sharing
something as simple as acompany. He was marketing for
hot sauce. Well, hot saucedoesn't land with people, but
chili sauce did. He was in theUK. And, you know, just like,
(34:01):
little tweaks like that can makea huge difference.
Ron Robinson (34:04):
Definitely, definitely, and that just that
that speaks to like, you know,spending money, spending time,
um, more money you spend, lesstime you spend right? So time
somebody help you. That'ssomebody else's time. Now, are
you paying that person, or arethey just helping you because
(34:25):
they're your friend or somethinglike that? All right? You know
that it's still time, stillsomebody else's time, whether
you paid for it or not, right?So if you personally want to
spend less time, you usuallyhave to pay more. And if you
don't want to pay more than, youusually have to spend more time.
So the time it takes for you togo through, you know, 100
(34:46):
conversations and figure out thetone and what happened, why it
went well or why it didn't gowell, that takes a lot of time,
you know, versus paying $100 amonth for some software where
you can just plug that in and itcan kind of some. Out what's
going on, or having somebody onyour team that can look at that,
or coach, or something thatsays, hey, why don't we try
doing it like this? So, youknow, tell people sometimes
(35:11):
you're going to have to investinto what you're doing because
you just don't have the time.Like it's impossible, and that,
you know, that's another step onthe marketing chain, is you get
to a point. So we're growingthis operation now. We have a
facility. We got people, we gottrucks, we got this. We got that
you talking to 150 people a dayis not going to cut it. Number
(35:36):
one, you don't even have thetime to talk to 150 people a
day, and you need to talk to1000s of people. Your messages
need to hit 1000s of people aday in order for you to maintain
that operation. So you have toinvest in that.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (35:51):
Yep, for sure. I feel like we could talk
all day. So much good stuff inthis episode, from like, when
you're just getting started, ifyou are to like as you're
starting to grow and scale. So Ireally thank you, Ron for
sharing your wisdom and yourinsights. Is there kind of a
last key takeaway, maybesomething I didn't ask you
(36:12):
about, or something that youwant to share? And also, how do
people connect with you andlearn more about you and the
work that you do?
Ron Robinson (36:22):
Let me let me see, I think I pretty much hit on
everything I wanted to hit on alot basically, you know. So
basically, you know, justsimplifying the marketing piece,
you know, people get intimidatedwith marketing, and I don't want
them to get overwhelmed orintimidated. Usually, like small
business owners, people don'treally have a lot of money to
invest. It's just like, look,just talk to people. Just, just
(36:44):
talk to people. You know, I knowI said document everything. But
you can't sit around and waitfor things you know. You have to
just do you have to make ithappen. So where you're at right
now, that's all you can do, istalk to people, talk to people,
talk to people, talk to people,talk to people. Do that, you
know, tell people HubSpot isfree. HubSpot has a free thing.
(37:05):
You can just get it, use it,document things, keep track of
folks. So there's no excusethere. So download, you know,
GitHub, spot, it's free. Ofcourse, you can pay for things.
If you start getting bigger,they have marketing, sales, all
kinds of stuff. But on thesurface, it's free. They let you
use it as a CRM, keep track ofyour people. Keep track of
what's going on with them. Um,so, yeah, that's about it. And
(37:29):
just time and money. You know,you spend more time if you spend
less money, you spend less timeif you spend more money, you
know, just understand that thatcorrelation to where you're
getting places, because that'llhelp you understand why your
growth is getting stung. Youknow, if you you can only do but
so much you are in the way ofyour growth. No, you have to get
(37:49):
out the way and start leadingwith your pocket a little bit. I
mean, unfortunately, that's justthe way things work.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (37:55):
Yep, that's so good. And how do people
connect with you? Ron, um,
Ron Robinson (37:59):
LinkedIn is probably a good spot. Ron R
mpfr, is my thing on LinkedIn,Instagram, pretty much most of
social media, it'll be Ron RMPFR. Instagram, pretty much
most of the social media, it'llbe Ron R mpfr, in fact contact
and drop me a line in there aswell. And Ron@mpfrmedia.com, if
(38:26):
you want to reach out advice,I'm always willing to just talk
to somebody. Give you someadvice, you know, if you're in a
spot of pickle, you know, giveyou, give you some advice. Help
you out on the
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (38:35):
spot. Love it. Well, we'll have all of
those linked up in the shownotes at thefirstclick.net/291,
Ron, thank you so much again forsharing all of your insights
with us. No
Ron Robinson (38:47):
problem. Thanks you guys for having me. I
appreciate the opportunity.Appreciate the time so big.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (38:53):
Thank you again to Ron for joining us
today. What a greatconversation. We could have
probably talked for another houror so, but I know your time is
valuable. So if you want toconnect with Ron, learn more,
dive deeper into some of thetopics that he talked about
today. You can do that bygrabbing all of his links at
thefirstclick.net/291 can youbelieve we are almost getting to
(39:14):
episode 300 which is crazy, butthank you so much for listening
while you're here, smash thatsubscribe button. Make sure you
are following us and have thosenotifications on so you can get
notified when a new episodedrops. We have some amazing
topics coming up this yearstill. If you want a little bit
of a sneak peek, we are talkingabout some Google ads. We've
(39:40):
talked about some Google Adstuff, we've talked about
curiosity. We're also going tobe talking about how to stay
passionate and creative, even ifyou're a long term development
director, how you can kind ofkeep that energy. We've got some
podcast conversations. We've gotsocial media conversations.
Coming up. We've got AI and chatGPT conversations coming up, so
(40:04):
lots of good stuff coming onyour way, and I don't want you
to miss it. So make sure you getnotified when we have new
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podcast, make sure you leave usa review. Also, we'd love to
hear from you. So thank you somuch for being here again, you
can find the show notes atthefirstclick.net/291, and I
(40:24):
will see you in the next one.
What we know about fundraising is it's a
numbers game. The more peopleyou talk to, the more likely you
will raise more money. Andmarketing is very similar, and
the two work hand in hand inreally supporting your
organization, in having as manyconversations with people and
staying present in front ofthose people as possible, at
scale. So whether you're juststarting out, or you're trying
(00:24):
to expand and grow and maybe addsome more members to your team,
today, we're going to talk aboutthe reasons and ways that you
can have great conversations, orhow to understand what you might
need to tweak if thoseconversations aren't becoming
fruitful. We're talking aboutthe messaging. We're talking
about, the activity, there'sjust a lot of great things that
(00:44):
we are going to discuss in thisepisode. My guest today is Ron
Robinson. Ron is the visionaryfounder and CEO of MPFR media, a
transformative force defininghow small businesses approach
marketing and the customerexperience. With over two
decades of experience inleadership and innovation, Ron
(01:05):
combined a deep understanding ofoperational excellence with a
passion for driving engagementand fostering brand loyalty.
Ron's professional journey beganin the transportation industry,
where he built a distinguishedcareer spanning 20 years,
starting as a conductor, he rosethrough the ranks to become
Superintendent of trainoperations at one of the largest
mass transit agencies in the US,his tenure in transportation was
(01:28):
marked by a steadfast commitmentto efficiency, leadership and a
people first approach in 2011Ron channeled his
entrepreneurial spirit intofounding source Inc, inspired by
A new segment on remote work.
What began as a company focusedon call center and customer
experience Solutions has sinceevolved into mpfr media, a
(01:50):
comprehensive marketing andmedia powerhouse today. Mpfr
media provides innovativesolutions ranging from marketing
strategy and media production tocustomer management and cutting
edge data security protocolsserving both startups and
fortune 500 enterprises, amilitary veteran. Ron brings a
deep sense of community andservice to everything he does
(02:10):
beyond the boardroom. He is anaccomplished commercial
photographer, sharing hisartistic vision and creativity
with veterans and the widercommunity. His ability to foster
meaningful connections and buildlasting relationships has been a
hallmark of his success, both inhis transfer transportation
career, excuse me, and as aleader of mpfr, Ron's dedication
to integration, integratingsales marketing and customer
(02:31):
experience tactics and imageryensures that his company
delivers high performance mediaand strategies that captivate
audiences, that Drive measurableROI and transform customers into
lifelong brand advocates.Through his leadership, mpfr
media has become a trustedpartner for businesses looking
to elevate their marketing, andthat's why I'm so in love with
(02:53):
this conversation, becauseyou're going to hear that people
centered, that people firstapproach, really married,
married, next to the datadriven, the messaging, the kind
of analytical approach, and it'ssuch a great way and opportunity
for you to think about youroffline and online
conversations, your strategies,and how you're kind of building
(03:16):
out your plan and what youcontinue to focus on So you can
raise more money online and inperson. So with that being said,
before we jump into thisepisode, it is brought to you by
our free resources. We have somany free resources for you at
(03:39):
the first click, and you canfind those at the first
click.net/resources, there'sfreebies around understanding
what tech you should be using,mindset, also your website,
email, social media. There's somany great things in there for
you to check out. So I wouldlove for you to go and grab the
resource that's going to be mosthelpful for you. Again, you can
find those all atthefirstclick.net/resources.
Let's get into the episode.
You're listening to the digitalmarketing therapy podcast, I'm
(04:02):
your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern,each month, we dive deep into a
digital marketing or fundraisingstrategy that you can implement
in your organization. Each week,you'll hear from guest experts,
nonprofits and myself on bestpractices, tips and resources to
help you raise more money onlineand reach your organizational
goals.
(04:22):
Hey, friends, please join me inwelcoming Ron Robinson to the
podcast. Ron, thank you so muchfor being here.
Ron Robinson (04:29):
Hey, thank you for having me. I really appreciate
the opportunity to, you know,speak with you and your
audience. You know, I'm lookingto have a great time with you
guys today.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (04:38):
Yeah, we already had such a great
conversation. I had to like, youknow, quiet wrong, because it
was giving me so much goodness.I'm like, we gotta, we gotta
wait, we gotta hit record. Wedon't want people to miss out on
all this amazing stuff. So Ilove when we have people on the
podcast that are so valuealigned and strategy aligned. So
I know this is gonna be anawesome conversation, and we're
talking marketing, but in a.Little bit of a different way,
(05:02):
and so I would just kind of lovefor you to share a little bit
about why kind of marketing andconversations and meeting people
and nonprofits is something thatyou're passionate about before
we kind of jump into somestrategies.
Ron Robinson (05:15):
All right. Well, for myself, like I love helping
folks. I love helping people youknow reach their goal, reach
their potential. Sharing myknowledge, you know, I hate
seeing someone you know struggleor try to figure something out,
and I'm right next to you, and Ihave that answer, you know. So I
(05:35):
just love to share. I love tohelp other folks succeed. You
know, do pretty well. I'm in anice position. So want to see
others, not just other peoplearound me, but people that I
see. You know, having a hardtime or just lacking some
knowledge, or just like to knowsomething. So I you know, I love
doing it. I love sharing love.Definitely have a soft spot for
(05:56):
nonprofits. Love helpingnonprofits achieve their goals
and helping them, you know,whether it be fundraise or event
plan or whatever that may looklike, so
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (06:07):
well, and that is precisely why I'm so
excited for this conversation,because I think you know, the
heart and the love thatnonprofits have for their
community sometimes doesn'tallow them to do the strategic
things that they know they needto do, because they might think
it feels inauthentic or it's toosalesy. But really, at the end
(06:28):
of the day, whether it's offlineor online conversations, the
more conversations, the morepeople you meet, the more money
you're going to raise, period,right? So how do we kind of
start to think about ourmarketing efforts, our
fundraising efforts, in ways ofkind of a numbers game, while
still feeling like we're notbeing that car salesman down the
(06:51):
road that we, you know, that wedon't want to become, right?
Ron Robinson (06:55):
Well, you know, just kind of like we were
discussing a bit earlier. It's,you know quantifying. You know
how you benefit people to peoplethat want to help. So keep in
mind, people want to help. Theywant to be involved. They want
to donate money, they want todonate time, they want to donate
any articles of anything thatthey may have to help you reach
(07:17):
other people and people. Peoplewant to do that right? So in
today's climate, they just needto understand, hey, what are you
doing? Maybe, if it aligns withwhat I'm doing. You know,
sometimes people have to feelgood and like certain things, so
you have to quantify what you dofor them, so they can help you
right? For nonprofits to feelcomfortable and not feel salesy,
(07:39):
just have to think about it.You, you know, you, you want to
give away this jacket. So I'lluse the jacket thing again from
earlier. You know you want togive away the jacket. I have
this jacket. I need to give itto somebody. You start talking
to people, right? And it's notanything salesy. It's really
authentic. You have the jacket.You want to give it away. Who
can I give it to? We do that allthe time. Hey, I have this
(08:00):
product, or I have this thing,who can I give this away to? And
you start talking to folks,because you've really want to
give it away. You know, you'renot even thinking about it.
Somebody tells you, Bob needs ajacket. Take it around the
corner, give it to Bob. Allright. Well, you take it around
the corner. You start talking tomore people, trying to find Bob.
But you find out clearance needsa jacket. So okay, well, you
give the jacket the clearance,you go back, you get another
(08:21):
jacket for Bob. Because you'relike, Okay, Bob needs his
jacket. I'm going to give Bobthis jacket. So you go get
another jacket for Bob, right?You find Bob, but now you're
like, man, there's so manypeople you ran into, so many
people that need jackets. So nowyou're going back, getting all
the jackets you have. Maybe youdon't fit anymore, or whatever,
and then you're just giving themaway. You feel so good, you want
to go back buy more jackets togive away. But now, and it's
(08:41):
like, All right, well, I can'tbuy any more jackets, so I need
help. I need other people togive me jackets. I need the
other people to buy, buy mejackets. So now you have to
approach folks, ask them fortheir jackets, or ask people,
Hey, can you give me a coupledollars so I can go buy this
jacket, so I can give it tosomebody else. So, you know, you
have to feel the same way aboutasking for that money to go buy
(09:05):
jack to give somebody else, thesame way you feel about giving
it to somebody, because itequates to your mission. It
equates to you being to helpsomebody benefit from what
you're trying to do for them. Soit's it's very important to to
just wrap that asking or to wrapany fundraising efforts and to
make it, you know, quantify thatfor somebody to so they can see
(09:28):
how you're benefiting it. Youknow that you're in, you know
you're in goal, your end user.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (09:36):
Well, I love this example for a lot of
reasons, and in some ways,people might think, Well, that's
an oversimplification. Like,what the work that I do is so
much more complex than that.Like, we're trying to help
homeless people or on thestreet, and it's like this whole
trickle down, you know, we getin our own heads about, like,
the big picture of what we'retrying to do. But I love that
(09:56):
example so much, because itreally can be that simple when
we're talking. Donors. We don'thave to tell them all of the
history and the reason why we'redoing this, it could literally
be as simple as, like, I'm inMinneapolis today as we're
recording this, it is current,like, the temperature is
currently negative two degrees,right? It's cold. And so it
(10:16):
could literally be as simple ascalling donors on a day like
today and saying, Hey guys, it'snegative two degrees outside. We
know there's, you know, 1000people on the streets homeless
in Minneapolis. I'm making thisup. Uh, could you help us get 10
coats to help some people on thestreet today? Because it's, it
can be over simplified likethat. We don't need to overdo
(10:37):
it.
Ron Robinson (10:38):
Yeah, definitely. And it goes back to, you know,
if it is just you, right? You'rejust you're just one person.
You're like, I'm going to getjackets for people and just give
them out to people that needjackets, right? Somebody says,
Hey, call, call Bob's grocerystore down the street because
they love stuff like this. Itreally is just that simple. You
(10:58):
call a grocery store becausehe's into it. You're going to
tell him, Hey, I'm giving outjackets to people. I need more
jackets. I'm you know, we'rerunning out. We're running thin.
We're having a hard time comingacross jackets. Somebody said,
you can help us. Can you helpus? Bible, say yay, nay. Like he
loves what it is. He loveswhat's happening. He's
interested in helping. Chancesare, Bob is not going to go into
(11:19):
well, what's your history,what's your what's your track
record, you know, how manypeople have you guys, you know,
helped so far? Like, if you canmake Bob feel good about
donating jackets or paying forjackets to get donated, chances
are Bob is going to be on board.So it's, it's really, it like,
it really is that simple, youknow? And I think one of the
(11:41):
things is, is that founders feellike they get away from their
purpose once you start addingon, because you now you have
volunteers helping you rightnow, you may have a place or
facility right now you need anaccountant and bookkeeper to
come on board to keep track ofall this money that's coming in
(12:02):
for you to achieve the mission,you know. Okay, now we're
getting so much stuff. Okay, nowwe need a van. We need a truck,
you know. So we add these thingsthat it doesn't complicate, but
they're tools, because you wantyour mission to grow. You want
it to get bigger. Now, not onlydo you want to give out jackets
in Minneapolis, but now maybeyou might want to go to, you
know, some other town, you know,around the corner, down the
(12:24):
street, or something like that,to give out more jackets. How
are they going to get there? Youcan't be in two places at once.
Who's going to give them out foryou? So, you know, our mission
becomes more complicated as weadd pieces on. So it seems like
it gets complicated, as far asyou know, asking for what we
need. But it's really about thesame thing, you know, you can
(12:47):
start getting into some thingsrequirements. Now, if you, if
you're dealing with, like, afortune 500 company, like, okay,
yeah, go. You know, Verizon,they love this type of stuff,
you should pitch something tothem. Well, you just can't call
a rising up on the telephonesay, Hey guys, I'm giving away,
you know, like they don'toperate like that. So that's
(13:08):
where the complication comes in.You know, you have to figure out
how they like to be pitched. Youhave to create that pitch. You
have to pitch it over to them.It has to go through, you know,
five people. It goes beforewhoever boards in charge of how
they give out money, and theylook at it, and then somewhere
down the line, in a couplemonths, you'll probably get an
(13:30):
answer, right? So, yeah, youknow, that's how these things
grow. But on the on the simpleside of it, it's really, it
really is just that simple, youknow, I think, well, I love
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (13:42):
what you're saying, Yeah, because I think as
we grow, it's like theoperational expense side is what
I think a lot of organizationsget hung up on. Like, it's easy
to ask somebody, you give me $10I can give a coat to this
person. Like, that's easy, butwe've, we get hung up on this,
okay, but if I'm also askingfor, like, we need to pay for
the electricity bill to keep ourfacility running, or the gas to
(14:03):
keep our trucks going. Likethat's not as sexy or fun we get
in our own heads about that, butto your point, it still is. If
you give us this money, we cangive the coats away, because
that's ultimately what you'retrying to do. And so what I love
about this, the kind of arcyou've taken us on, is at the
beginning, it's very muchgrassroots. It's who do you
know? Who can help? Blah, blah,blah. As we grow, how do we
(14:25):
continue to ensure like, if I'mgoing to spend half of my day
making outreach calls and havingconversations with people like
or I'm going to we're going tobring some people in to help
with marketing, and they'regoing to do some social media
content and some blog whateverit might be, we have to update
our website. How do we ensurethat we are still talking to the
right people, so that we can getthose volume of conversations in
(14:49):
but they're not wasted? Like Ithink that's something that we
struggle with. We can't justtalk to everybody, so how do we
kind of make sure we're talkingto the right people?
Ron Robinson (14:58):
Yeah, that is. True. Definitely can't talk to
everybody. And, you know, Iguess I kind of want to feel
like that you're not really evertalking to the wrong person,
right? Any anything come backaround. The reason why we
network, and the reason why wetalk to people is to plant a
seed nine times out of 10. Like,if I want to take something and
(15:23):
just give it to somebody, ninetimes out of 10, that first
person that I talked to isprobably not going to be the
recipient, but next week, theymay run into somebody that could
be the recipient, you know. Sounless I already know already
I'd see something on the tablelike, oh, you know what Jill
needed to staple. I rememberthat. I think I would just give
this to her. You know that couldhappen. But if you're like, Oh,
(15:45):
I'm just looking at the stapler.I just want to give it away. I
don't need it anymore. I don'tknow who needs it or not. I have
to find out, that's themarketing piece. You have to
find out marketing is just aboutgetting your message to the
person that needs it at the timethey need it. That's it. That's
all it is, very simple, right?And so all these other tactics
(16:08):
and spending money is where youcome in at to get that message
to the person that needs it atthe time they need it. That's
where you spend the money at.That's where analytics come into
play. That's where you know AInow is coming into play. That's
why, you know cookies are, youknow, giving you ads and
everything like that, becauseit's all about getting you the
(16:29):
message at that right time whenyou when you need it. That
that's what it's about. So onthe simpler side of things, if
you're just talking to peoplemost of the time you're not
talking to people at the timethey need the message, or at the
time they're ready to buy or atthe time they're ready to give
something. Most of the time youdon't reach people at that
stage, unless you create moreopportunity talking to a whole
(16:56):
lot of people, you know, andthat's the other aspect of it.
That's another place where youspend money and you grow
marketing, because it is alsoabout talking to as many people,
or getting your message in frontof as many people as you can,
right? Yeah, combination of asmany people as you can and as
many people as you think thatmessage will resonate with. You
(17:19):
know, if you can find 100 peoplethat resonate with your message,
you know your close rate will bevery, very high if you just
generally put 100 people infront of your message. Of
course, your close rate is goingto be lower because it's not
going to resonate with them thesame because they're not on the
same page. They're not thinkingabout it. It's not something
(17:40):
they need right now, you know.So it, you know, it's going to
hit a little bit differently. Soit's just those are really,
really simple terms andeverything else just kind of
really convolutes that the way,that simplification of what this
is all about, all the othertactics and spending money and
spending time in social mediaand email marketing and cold
(18:03):
calling, that stuff just helpsyou, you know, get to getting
your message in front of a lotof people. You know, if you do
social media, you put yourmessage in front of millions of
people.
90% of those people are not theright people. They're not but
your message going in front ofmillions of people
astronomically blows up yourclose rate, you know, if I can,
I don't care who's if I can getin front of a million people at
(18:30):
a time every day, I'm going todo just fine, you know? And it
literally just equates to that.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (18:38):
I think it's a top of mind piece, and I
think that's why we always talkto clients about Do One Thing
excellently, and then add on tothat, and then add on to that
and add on to that, because ifyou try to do everything all at
once, you're going to driveyourself bonkers. But that that
staying top of mind piece isreally critical to your point
of, okay, well, when they areready, they won't be like, wait.
(18:58):
I remember seeing somethingabout this organization that was
doing something I really thoughtwas cool, but I can't remember.
But I can't remember what theirname is, and now I can't find
them, like you've lost them, andlike we have examples of clients
we've run email campaigns forwhere, because we send out
communication every two weeks,all of a sudden, they saw an
expansion in a program that wewere doing whereas they'd never
(19:22):
given before, but they wereengaged with us, and all of a
sudden that new expansion hitthem, and they were like, This
is really cool. It is importantto me. And all of a sudden, we
got a gift from them that wewould have never gotten before
had we not been communicatingwith them on a regular basis,
because they would not know thatwe had done something new. And
(19:42):
so I think you know what you'rewhat you're speaking to, is
really just staying top of mind,staying present. Because I think
I always, I always hear rightmessage, right time, and it's
overwhelming, because I'm like,Well, how am I supposed to know
when it's the right time? And toyour point. Right, you don't
right you but yourresponsibility is making sure
(20:03):
that you're sharing as muchabout your organization as often
as possible, so that don't haveto worry about when the right
time is
Ron Robinson (20:11):
right. Right exactly. You want to always talk
about what you have and what youneed, because if you don't tell
people what you have and whatyou need, you're not going to
get what you need and you're notgoing to give away or sell what
you have. If I'm selling watersand I let five people walk by
(20:31):
and don't tell them, hey, I'mover here, I have water, you're
not going to sell any. But if Itell those five people I have
water, maybe one of them mightbuy maybe I can tell the next
five and the next fiveeventually somebody's going to
buy a order, you know. So, yeah,it's about, you know, telling
people what you have and whatyou need. And you have to
constantly, constantly,constantly, constantly, do that
(20:56):
all the time, you know. And thenyou can do things in ways you
know you want to, you wantpeople to know what you have,
and you want people to know whatyou need. But you also don't
want, sometimes you don't wantto overshadow people as well,
right? So this is where you kindof get into, well, how do you
network, and how do you market,and how do you do, like a sales
(21:21):
presentation, or how do you talkto somebody about what you need?
That's where you start gettinginto all these little other
intricacies, right? Of you know,like you said, don't want to
come off salesy, right? I haveto tell this person what I need.
I have to tell this person whatI do. Like you have to, you have
to do it. So it's just thinkingof a way to like when I first
(21:45):
started, the side, side piecefor a minute, when I first
started, I just had thismentality of just do it. I did a
lot of stuff that I wasn'tcomfortable with, but it's just
like, just just do it. Just Justdo it. Just talk to that person.
Just call these people. Justapproach whoever like. Just Just
do it. If I thought somethingwas a good idea and it could
(22:06):
help me achieve whatever thegoal is going to be, whatever
the mission was, just do it.Don't think about it. Just Just,
just go ahead and just do that.Whatever needs to be done. Just
do it. And mainly talking topeople, yeah, had to do it just
like, walk up, Hey, my name isand let it
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (22:27):
go. Worse that can happen, they say, You
know what, this isn't the rightfit for us. And if the worst, if
the worst thing out of thatconversation is a no, you're not
the right fit. But you can havethe opportunity to say, you
know, I really enjoyed thisconversation. Is there somebody
else that you might know thatmight this might be a better fit
for? Because, to your point,people want to help out. They
want to participate. Doesn'tmean that everything is going to
(22:49):
be a yes, but you never knowwhat's going to come out of a
conversation. But you knowwhat's going to not come out of
a conversation like you don'thave the just like your water
example, if you don't have theconversation, you know nothing
is going to happen, right?
Ron Robinson (23:00):
Exactly, exactly. So definitely important to just
to just do it, have thatconversation. Make sure you tell
people what you need and youtell people what you have. That
is probably the most importanttakeaway. People have to know
what you have, and you have toknow what you need that is like,
(23:22):
so important. Well, I
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (23:24):
want to double down on that really quick
and ask you, when we are talkingto people about what we need,
that it shouldn't be like comingout of a fire hose. Like, well,
we need 15 different things,right? Like, how do we kind of
prioritize what we need to, youknow, encourage that conversion,
(23:44):
but also to just not overwhelmthe people we're having a
conversation with.
Ron Robinson (23:50):
That's, that's a, that's a good one. I'm kind of
one that likes to focus in,like, okay, you know, this is,
this is what we have. This iswhat we're selling, you know, it
should, it should be very, veryfocused, very laser, right?
Shouldn't be a whole lot offluff involved in it. You know,
because people get distractedwith fluff, you want to stay
(24:12):
very granular. So, yeah,sometimes you just have to, you
just have to pick that thing. Imean, you need jackets, right?
You need money for jackets. Youneed money for trucks. You need
money for electricity. Like youwere saying, You need money for
building. Do you ask forjackets? Do you ask for money?
Do you tell people you needmoney for operational costs?
(24:33):
Like, you know, what are wedoing? Right?
Ask for the money. Put yourmission out there, and I have to
tell people, necessarily, I needmoney to pay, you know, Susie
over in payroll, or, you know,we got to put gas in the truck,
or something like that. Don'treally, I mean, don't get me
wrong, you will run into somepeople that's going to ask about
(24:54):
the fine details. Definitelywill, right, but you don't have
to worry about the fine details.Necessarily, if people are not
asking about the fine details,you can worry about the fine
details if somebody asks you foror if you make a pitch, or if
you put in for a grant, orsomething that asks about fine
details, then at that point it'sfine. But you know, going into
(25:15):
all those fine details is veryoverwhelming. You know, lot of
people don't really have a graspon how nonprofit, you know,
especially you know, somethinglike a food pantry or something
like that. And let's say theydon't deliver, let's say people
just come to them theintricacies even involved in an
operation like that, and theexpenses that they see, people
(25:37):
have no grasp of that, right?Yeah. And honestly, people, a
lot of people, don't care, youknow, a lot of them, a lot of
them don't care. So just keepit, you know, just keep it what
you need in what you know, whatyou have, you have jackets. You
need money for jackets. That'sthe mission. Yep, you know, put
(25:59):
it together.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (26:02):
No, I love that. And I think what you're
saying is be ready. Like, youknow, we're not saying don't be
transparent or don't be afraidto be transparent about your
financials. Be ready to answerthose because I think nonprofits
have to do a lot more work tobuild trust with with folks.
Definitely be ready. Because,especially those repeat donors,
you get that phone call with theCEO of Verizon, and you know,
like, you know you need to beready with some of those, those
(26:24):
questions, but I agree with you100% like, people are going to
buy into the mission and thework that you're doing and the
impact that they know they'regoing to be able to support. And
in reality, if you say $20 isgoing to help me deliver three
coats when you're putting thosenumbers together, right? We
should be building in, okay,well, but for me to deliver that
coat, I actually have to drive.I have, like, the cost of the
(26:46):
car and the gas and the driverand the volunteer coordinate
like that is built into the costof getting that coat to be able
to give to a person. So I thinkwe need to think about how we're
managing those not managing howwe're communicating what it
costs us to actually deliver themission and put that into those
impact statements, because thatjust helps us all around,
(27:09):
definitely, definitely.
Ron Robinson (27:10):
And you know, looking at that as a whole, you
know, definitely helps and that,that fine tuning of where every
nickel every dollar goes onceagain, you know you're not going
to have to deal with that toooften, unless you're dealing
with, you know, a foundation,large sums of money, you know,
fortune, 500 companies, youknow, stuff like that. You're
(27:31):
not going to have to deal withthose fine, fine details too
often, unless you're justconstantly going after that type
of money. You know, then, yeah,those people, they want fine
details. They want history. Theywant. You know how they want
numbers they want. You know,they want a whole lot of stuff.
So, yeah, but on that level, youknow, you're dealing with Bob
grocery store down the street.You know your individual donors.
(27:56):
A lot of times you tell themwhat you're doing, you know,
yeah, tell them to come out andmaybe see or help or volunteer
or something like that and that.That's usually all it takes.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (28:07):
Yeah, for sure. Okay, so the last thing I
kind of want to touch on beforewe wrap this up is, you know, we
we mentioned you need to be infront of your audience all the
time. You need to be sharing. Itcan be overwhelming if we think
about all of the differentthings that we need to be doing
in a day, plus having the one onone conversations with people,
and now you're saying we'll haveas many conversations with as
many people as possible.Overwhelming, right? So how do
(28:29):
we start to track what's workingfor us and what we want to
double down on? Becausedifferent organizations are
different. If you're local, ifyou're national, you might have
better success with one on oneconversations. You might have
better success with your email.Like, what kind of where should
we start with processing all ofthese activities that we're
doing and figuring out what isactually supporting our
(28:52):
fundraising efforts?
Ron Robinson (28:53):
The best track everything. Yeah, track
everything. You can write stuffdown on paper. You can use an
Excel spreadsheet. You can havesomething as complicated as
Salesforce, you know, but somekind of way you want to figure
out how to track everything youknow you want to. And now I
(29:18):
simplify a lot of stuff, butthis, I will not simplify. It is
as complicated as it's going tosound track everything, you
know, people like, oh, well, howcan you detail all these
conversations? Like, I have aconversation, I'll try to, you
know, write some notes down, orwhatever. AI is now making a
(29:39):
little bit easier so you can getsummarized notes in your
conversations, and you can putthat you know, so I use HubSpot
CRO I have a conversation,summarize that conversation,
drop it in HubSpot, Date Time,how it went, any expectation,
promises, whatever, right? Andthen I can always reference.
(29:59):
That back, because me and youhave a conversation like this
now, and we may not talk againfor a year. I'm not going to
remember what we talked about.I'm not going to remember if I
made a promise, if you made apromise to me like I'm not going
to remember, you know, so if Ihave that somewhere that's
easily referenced. So this isthe problem with using like pen
and paper using notebooks, isyou can't reference that
(30:21):
information fast enough. It'sgreat that you have it. And, I
mean, if that's what you got todo, that's what you got to do,
but it's hard to reference thatstuff fast enough. You know, for
women, I
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (30:32):
have to, I have to just laugh at this
really quickly, and then I'lllet you continue on. But I can't
tell you how many times I'mlike, connected to somebody who
connects me to somebody whoconnects me to somebody and then
it's like, we can't get in.Can't get a meeting on the
calendar for like, three or fourweeks, and then it pops up, and
I'm planning for my week, andI'm like, Who is this person,
and what are we even talkingabout, and why, where? And I'm
searching my email and all theplaces like, where did this
(30:55):
person come from? And then weboth show up on the call, like,
why are why are we here? Sorry.So I love that, because it's so
spot on. And I know that thishappens all the time for
everybody, tracking everything,
Ron Robinson (31:09):
definitely. Yeah, so Track, track everything, you
know, if you can, if you keep,if you keep that in mind, you
know, like, you know, I mess upsometimes, or I don't log
something, or it happens, youknow, but you know, just try to
keep that discipline of trackingeverything, track your
conversations, track who givesyou, what would you give away?
(31:32):
You know, what people are doing.Like, it's really like that
intense, like, track everything,and it makes conversations
easier as well. So with trackingeverything, getting into how you
know what's working and what'snot working. If you're like,
Man, I had 10 conversations andthey just didn't, didn't go too
(31:54):
well, right? If you have thatsummary, or, even better, if you
have that word for word, of howthe conversation flow, you can
look at that and say, Yeah, youknow what I did, this the past
10 times it didn't work out. Letme look at the past 10
conversations. From there, youlook at, oh, these went a lot
better. Let me get back to thisflow over here versus that flow,
you know? So you start gagingthat. You look at what went
(32:16):
well, what didn't go well, andincorporate what went well. That
part is very simple. Look atwhat didn't go well, what went
well. Get rid of what didn't gowell. Incorporate what did that
part is very simple, but ifyou're not tracking everything,
it's hard for you to go back andlook at what went well and what
didn't go well.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (32:36):
See those trends. I love that because I
think any person I don't do themarketing for my own business
because I'm too in it. Like, Ineed a third person, a third
party, to, like, help me processand like, work on my sales flows
and like, all like, it's I can'tand so when you're talking and
pitching to donors all the time,you know there's a lot in the
(32:58):
messaging, the jargon, the wordsthat we use, the way we talk
about the problem that we'resolving that's so different for
us in the day to day versus theperson who just wants to give
you a coat. Like there can be somany things that we over
complicate and that we aren'tbeing clear about, because, you
know, we're 10 steps above inthe knowledge area from the
(33:18):
person that we're talking to.And for a lot of us that are in
super complex types oforganizations, you know, if it's
a research based thing, we itcan get out of hand real
quickly. So I think that'sreally, really good too, to pay
attention to those conversationsand maybe have somebody else go
through them with you so thatthey can pick out the things
(33:39):
more quickly that, you know,even just changing words, we had
somebody, I just recorded apodcast episode last week on
like SEO and keyword research.And it was, he was sharing
something as simple as acompany. He was marketing for
hot sauce. Well, hot saucedoesn't land with people, but
chili sauce did. He was in theUK. And, you know, just like,
(34:01):
little tweaks like that can makea huge difference.
Ron Robinson (34:04):
Definitely, definitely, and that just that
that speaks to like, you know,spending money, spending time,
um, more money you spend, lesstime you spend right? So time
somebody help you. That'ssomebody else's time. Now, are
you paying that person, or arethey just helping you because
(34:25):
they're your friend or somethinglike that? All right? You know
that it's still time, stillsomebody else's time, whether
you paid for it or not, right?So if you personally want to
spend less time, you usuallyhave to pay more. And if you
don't want to pay more than, youusually have to spend more time.
So the time it takes for you togo through, you know, 100
(34:46):
conversations and figure out thetone and what happened, why it
went well or why it didn't gowell, that takes a lot of time,
you know, versus paying $100 amonth for some software where
you can just plug that in and itcan kind of some. Out what's
going on, or having somebody onyour team that can look at that,
or coach, or something thatsays, hey, why don't we try
doing it like this? So, youknow, tell people sometimes
(35:11):
you're going to have to investinto what you're doing because
you just don't have the time.Like it's impossible, and that,
you know, that's another step onthe marketing chain, is you get
to a point. So we're growingthis operation now. We have a
facility. We got people, we gottrucks, we got this. We got that
you talking to 150 people a dayis not going to cut it. Number
(35:36):
one, you don't even have thetime to talk to 150 people a
day, and you need to talk to1000s of people. Your messages
need to hit 1000s of people aday in order for you to maintain
that operation. So you have toinvest in that.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (35:51):
Yep, for sure. I feel like we could talk
all day. So much good stuff inthis episode, from like, when
you're just getting started, ifyou are to like as you're
starting to grow and scale. So Ireally thank you, Ron for
sharing your wisdom and yourinsights. Is there kind of a
last key takeaway, maybesomething I didn't ask you
(36:12):
about, or something that youwant to share? And also, how do
people connect with you andlearn more about you and the
work that you do?
Ron Robinson (36:22):
Let me let me see, I think I pretty much hit on
everything I wanted to hit on alot basically, you know. So
basically, you know, justsimplifying the marketing piece,
you know, people get intimidatedwith marketing, and I don't want
them to get overwhelmed orintimidated. Usually, like small
business owners, people don'treally have a lot of money to
invest. It's just like, look,just talk to people. Just, just
(36:44):
talk to people. You know, I knowI said document everything. But
you can't sit around and waitfor things you know. You have to
just do you have to make ithappen. So where you're at right
now, that's all you can do, istalk to people, talk to people,
talk to people, talk to people,talk to people. Do that, you
know, tell people HubSpot isfree. HubSpot has a free thing.
(37:05):
You can just get it, use it,document things, keep track of
folks. So there's no excusethere. So download, you know,
GitHub, spot, it's free. Ofcourse, you can pay for things.
If you start getting bigger,they have marketing, sales, all
kinds of stuff. But on thesurface, it's free. They let you
use it as a CRM, keep track ofyour people. Keep track of
what's going on with them. Um,so, yeah, that's about it. And
(37:29):
just time and money. You know,you spend more time if you spend
less money, you spend less timeif you spend more money, you
know, just understand that thatcorrelation to where you're
getting places, because that'llhelp you understand why your
growth is getting stung. Youknow, if you you can only do but
so much you are in the way ofyour growth. No, you have to get
(37:49):
out the way and start leadingwith your pocket a little bit. I
mean, unfortunately, that's justthe way things work.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (37:55):
Yep, that's so good. And how do people
connect with you? Ron, um,
Ron Robinson (37:59):
LinkedIn is probably a good spot. Ron R
mpfr, is my thing on LinkedIn,Instagram, pretty much most of
social media, it'll be Ron RMPFR. Instagram, pretty much
most of the social media, it'llbe Ron R mpfr, in fact contact
and drop me a line in there aswell. And Ron@mpfrmedia.com, if
(38:26):
you want to reach out advice,I'm always willing to just talk
to somebody. Give you someadvice, you know, if you're in a
spot of pickle, you know, giveyou, give you some advice. Help
you out on the
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (38:35):
spot. Love it. Well, we'll have all of
those linked up in the shownotes at thefirstclick.net/291,
Ron, thank you so much again forsharing all of your insights
with us. No
Ron Robinson (38:47):
problem. Thanks you guys for having me. I
appreciate the opportunity.Appreciate the time so big.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (38:53):
Thank you again to Ron for joining us
today. What a greatconversation. We could have
probably talked for another houror so, but I know your time is
valuable. So if you want toconnect with Ron, learn more,
dive deeper into some of thetopics that he talked about
today. You can do that bygrabbing all of his links at
thefirstclick.net/291 can youbelieve we are almost getting to
(39:14):
episode 300 which is crazy, butthank you so much for listening
while you're here, smash thatsubscribe button. Make sure you
are following us and have thosenotifications on so you can get
notified when a new episodedrops. We have some amazing
topics coming up this yearstill. If you want a little bit
of a sneak peek, we are talkingabout some Google ads. We've
(39:40):
talked about some Google Adstuff, we've talked about
curiosity. We're also going tobe talking about how to stay
passionate and creative, even ifyou're a long term development
director, how you can kind ofkeep that energy. We've got some
podcast conversations. We've gotsocial media conversations.
Coming up. We've got AI and chatGPT conversations coming up, so
(40:04):
lots of good stuff coming onyour way, and I don't want you
to miss it. So make sure you getnotified when we have new
episodes dropping. And if you'reon YouTube or you're on Apple
podcast, make sure you leave usa review. Also, we'd love to
hear from you. So thank you somuch for being here again, you
can find the show notes atthefirstclick.net/291, and I
(40:24):
will see you in the next one.
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