May 9, 2025 • 26 mins
What if the most powerful tool for strengthening donor relationships isn't your messaging strategy, but your ability to listen? In this illuminating conversation with Chris Barlow, Customer Happiness Director at Your Beeline, we explore how nonprofits can transform their digital communications from one-way broadcasts into meaningful two-way conversations. We often view our websites, social media accounts, and email campaigns as channels for pushing out information rather than opportunities for genuine engagement. Chris challenges this mindset by showing how active listening principles can be applied across all your digital touchpoints to deepen connection with supporters and dramatically improve results. Discover practical strategies that any organization can implement immediately: from adding simple surveys to your website's thank you pages. Perhaps most powerfully, you'll learn how asking donors about their vision for your mission can uncover hidden major gift prospects while honoring their role as stakeholders in your work.
As Founder and Customer Happiness Director, Chris Barlow is grateful to help nonprofits use digital marketing to multiply the reach of their mission and the growth of their donors. Most of all, he’s grateful to be the dad to seven kids, and to try to teach them how to live in a way that multiplies good in others.
Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Drowning in spreadsheets and manual
processes.
Bonterra Apricot is the smarter, faster way for nonprofits to
manage programs, track outcomesand actually show your impact.
Find out how, atBonterraTechcom, slash Nonprofit
Hub.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub podcast.
I'm your host, megan Spear, andalong with me today is Chris
Barlow from your Beeline.
And, chris, I'm excited to haveyou here for lots of reasons.
I think it's going to be areally good conversation.
I've had a lot of folks on thepodcast.
I don't know that any of themhave had the title of customer
happiness director.
So, as the customer happinessdirector of your Beeline, I am
(00:40):
really excited to like dig intomaybe a little bit of that and
your background and theconversation that we have coming
up today.
So welcome in.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Thank you very much.
Yeah, well, I can answer theunstated question.
One of my strengths is that I'ma people pleaser, and one of my
weaknesses is that I'm a peoplepleaser.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Oh, I feel that yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
So that's why I'm always like so, so concerned
about making sure that myclients and my partners anyone
I'm working with is really happyand that I do a good job, and
sometimes focusing on someone'shappiness isn't actually the
right thing to do.
So, yeah, there's a balancethere.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah.
So, by way of introduction,tell the audience a little bit
about yourself and maybe alittle bit about your journey
within the nonprofit space.
What got you to where you aretoday?
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Awesome.
Okay, well, I'm Chris, mycompany is Beeline and I started
Beeline in 2015.
But my journey with nonprofitsthe seeds were planted when I
was a teenager or younger.
I always watched my dad work incorporate America and and he
had a job he really didn't like,was getting burned out from.
It wasn't really a good fit forhim, and so I just imagined
(01:52):
that that would be the case forme, and so I was not interested
in corporate America,traditional business job or
whatever, and I just thoughtI'll do over, I'll do work
overseas, I'll do some kind ofministry or something people
related serving in some way.
I didn't have the concept ofnonprofit in my head at the time
, but you know, that was kind ofthe direction.
But then after college, I gotmarried in my senior year.
(02:14):
My wife had already graduatedand was was working.
I graduated and I was like, ohmy God, I need to get a job and
I interviewed with a companythat came to the campus career
(02:34):
fair and I got ajob and I was doing cold calling
in sales and I actually lovedit.
I believed in what we weredoing and I guess I just liked
sales and I didn't realize it.
And so I did that for a longtime, but I didn't expect to
retire in it or to be mylong-term career.
I just, you know, I fell intoit and so this idea of doing
(02:55):
something more with more purposestill never left.
And so in 2015, I'd been at thejob for like eight years.
At the time, I started Beelineas a side business and I took a
course on Google ads and Ireached out to a local nonprofit
and I just asked them hey, canI just run your guys' Google ad
grant to get some experienceunder my belt?
I'll just volunteer.
(03:16):
Yeah, Help me roll in the ropeson a real account with a real
you know, with you.
And they were like, yeah,that'd be great.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
And every development director's dream call yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yeah, yeah.
And after a while thatdeveloped into them saying like,
maybe a year later they're likeChris, we want to pay you to do
this because we want to do alot more than what you're doing.
We want to do some paid ads too.
And they started referring meto other nonprofits and I found
some more myself and it justkind of organically grew from
there and I I come back fullcircle to that desire to do
something meaningful andpurposeful with my work.
So yeah, I'm very thankful tobe in this industry.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Okay, so we're digging in todayto a topic I don't think we've
discussed on the show before,and that is around the idea of
active listening, and I feellike that's something that you
know.
We teach kids how to listen.
It's a phrase that some of myteacher friends really love to
use in their classroom.
(04:09):
But talk to me a little bitfrom your perspective.
What does active listening mean?
What is it?
And then let's dig into whyit's so important in the context
of nonprofit communication.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Okay, well, I pulled out a definition.
I've written a little bit aboutthis, maybe a couple of years
ago, on my blog, yeah, so Ipulled out a definition from the
American Psychology Association.
So this definition is appliedto like a therapist-client
relationship.
But really we get it.
It's when a therapist listensclosely, asks questions to
understand both the content andthe depth of the client's
(04:40):
emotion.
So it's active listening, isasking questions.
Sometimes it's like rephrasingwhat the person said to ensure
that this is what I'm hearingyou say.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
So, and you know we we can use that in natural ways
in our own relationships.
So the reason I think this is soimportant is it goes back to
really like there are so manythings changing for nonprofit I
mean for everyone all the time.
Like technology and platforms,ai, like it's it changes so fast
(05:12):
.
It's hard even like for someonelike me who's in does digital
marketing and that's like whatwe are specialized in and always
looking at it's hard for us tokeep up with all the changes,
and so even more so for you as anonprofit.
And so how can we like anchorourselves in things that don't
change so that we know how toadapt and aren't afraid of
(05:35):
adapting?
And to me, like there's a lotof principles, deeper principles
that never change, that arealways helpful, and active
listening is just one of them,and I think it's really helpful
and applicable in marketing andcommunication.
So that's one reason I broughtit up, or think about it a lot,
and so like, yeah, there's somany different ways we can apply
this in our marketing.
But like listening closely,asking questions, restating and
(06:00):
being donor centered that's kindof the high level.
And then there's like, yeah,there's a lot of ways we can
apply this.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, that's.
It's an interesting theorybecause I feel, like most
marketers, we get stuck in the,the pushing out of messages,
right, we almost look at it as aone-way communication channel.
Here's my website.
I'm just giving you a bunch ofinformation.
Here's their social media.
I'm giving you a bunch ofinformation.
And I don't know that wenecessarily think about those
channels as ways that we canlisten back as well, right, or
(06:29):
we don't.
We don't maybe even open thedoor for some of those channels,
so let's talk about each ofthem.
What does it look like to useyour website in that way?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Yeah, well, and as you say, we get stuck in
thinking of it as one waychannel.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I'm just way to continue to push this
information out to you.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Totally, yeah, yeah, and we forget, like we forget
that there's like real people onthe other end and we, I think,
when we look at data, it's justnumbers often, and so then we
just we forget that those arereal people's actual behavior,
which is just a sign of bodylanguage, digital body language,
right, and we can listen tothat and remember like these are
(07:08):
real people, this is theirexperience with us, whether it's
on our website or email orsocial media.
What are they doing?
Are they clicking, are theygoing to this page and learning
to listen to that as a form ofthis person is communicating
with me and then, yeah, on ourwebsite.
There's a lot of things we cando.
One thing I love to do is andthere's a number of different
tools that you can use for thisbut to have a little mini survey
(07:32):
that will pop up on the page,not like the big pop-ups that
are on your Facebook, just likein the corner that says, hey,
are you finding everythingyou're looking for, or do you
understand our mission, or orwhat questions do you have, and
making that like a non-opt-in.
You can give people the optionto give their email if they want
to follow up or provide moreinformation to you, but
(07:53):
basically just like askingpeople questions that they can
give you a little type in, alittle response, to get feedback
on a page or feedback on thesite.
And even more than just likequote, unquote their digital
body language.
It's like, okay, they bouncefrom the page.
Why, well, if they write well,no, I don't understand or no,
(08:14):
I'm looking for this you can getthat real time feedback and
start to gather that directlyfrom your site.
So that's definitely one of thebest ways.
Another way that I love is toyou know, we all have a form
where someone can contact us,when someone can opt into our
email list or, of course, whensomeone can donate, and then we
usually will send people to apage that says thanks, thanks
for contacting us, thanks forsigning up, thanks for donating,
(08:34):
and watch for a receipt orwhatever.
Using that page thatconfirmation thank you page, as
another opportunity to ask aquestion so why did you choose
to donate today?
Question, so why did you chooseto donate today, or why did you
choose to download thisresource?
Or asking the follow-upquestions while they're still
thinking about it in that verymoment is so powerful because it
(08:54):
allows you to uncover what'sgoing on and allows them to
share more, and you can use whatthey share to then refine, like
, for example, if you ask themwhy did you choose to give today
?
Use that to refine yourdonation page, like you get
enough people answering thatquestion.
Now you have the language andthe words and the emotions and
the most important things thatyour donors are saying are
(09:16):
important to them, so that'swhat you should be putting on
your page.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
That's so interesting .
I actually was just in aconversation this week with an
organization that had beenhelping do some work around
digital strategy and fundraisingstrategy.
One of the gentlemen in theroom was trying to say that the
Facebook ad campaign that we hadbeen running wasn't working
because they weren't seeingconversions on those things.
And I'm realizing now that wehad data that could have been
(09:45):
speaking that we didn't payattention to in that
conversation, right, which waswe were getting the
click-throughs to the site.
People just weren't actuallygiving once they got there.
So what was that barrier, right?
What was the thing that wascausing them some sort of issue?
Or was the page not working, orwas it hard to navigate,
whatever the case may be?
Or was the page not working orwas it hard to navigate,
whatever the case may be?
So the campaign itself wasdoing its job to drive traffic,
(10:08):
but the page wasn't doing it,and so now it's interesting to
kind of reframe that questionafter the fact, like, okay, well
, what other data could we havecaptured?
What do we have to hear fromthe data where people are not
converting?
So what's wrong with the pageand digging into it from that
side?
And I would never, until thismoment have thought of that as
(10:29):
active listening, so that's areally interesting concept.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah, and I think it can also make like this idea,
like using this, using thistitle, data analyst, like that's
a real thing, there's a realskill, there's a real skill
behind it.
But for the nonprofit thatdoesn't have a inter house data
analyst or can't afford one,Just thinking of like, all right
, how can I?
If I see myself as just tryingto actively listen to people, it
(10:58):
suddenly becomes a little lessscary and you might not know
exactly what to do, but youcould figure out like, okay,
well, people are clicking on thead.
It wasn't like no one wasclicking.
Our click-through rate waspretty good or seems good.
It wasn't super expensive toget those clicks.
We're getting a lot of people,but they weren't converting.
Okay, yeah, so maybe the ad isdoing its job, but the page
(11:24):
isn't okay.
So what could we do?
And you know there's multipleways you can go about then
listening Like one great way isjust to do what everyone is very
familiar with, just AB test.
And the reason you do an ABtest is in part because you
can't ask every individualvisitor what would you like to
see, what's going to helpcommunicate with you, but you
can just say what would you liketo see what's going to help
communicate with you, but youcan just say okay, what does the
consensus see?
Do people really respondbecause there's a video or
(11:45):
because I wrote in severalparagraphs why they should give
and see which one works better?
And so there's ways to like,enable your visitors essentially
to vote with their actions whatis speaking to them better.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
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(12:26):
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Speaker 2 (12:29):
You can meet us at bonterratechcom slash nonprofit
hub today a soapbox that I havelived on like I've never I've
literally never stepped off ofthis soapbox.
I stepped on it a decade agoand I've never stopped.
(12:49):
Um is that social media ismeant to be social right?
It's literally in the title,but we still going back to the
point.
We still view it as a one waycommunication channel.
I'm just going to keep using itto broadcast out my messages.
What does it look like to beactively engaged in listening to
your audience and yourconstituents on social platforms
(13:11):
instead?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
I love that you brought that up, because you're
right.
Like again, we get the stuck inthis marketing mindset yes, got
to get this message out.
And instead of like wait, thisis like a place where I can
actually maybe not deeply, butinitiate real connection with
people.
And so the first thing I wouldsay is follow what people are
(13:36):
saying online, like go torelevant hashtags, look at other
organizations that do what youdo, look at what your donors are
interested in, like, listen towhat they're talking about, what
they're saying.
So, instead of like justposting and seeing what response
you get, actually comment andshare and reply to other people
or the organizations, tospecific topics and to specific
(13:56):
people, so you be engaged andrespond to the other people and
listen to them and get involvedin their conversations.
And then the other thing liketo me is, like, before you
create a post, like, what isyour goal like?
Is your goal like just likes oris it replies?
Yeah, and so can you post insuch a way that is like real and
(14:19):
human and invites real replies?
And, of course, not every posteveryone's going to like want to
take the time to reply to, butthere's posts that are designed
to like get likes.
And then there's posts that arelike real, that invite real
conversation, and I think wejust in valuing that more, like
real responses, realconversations that get started.
And then also like invitingpeople to send you messages in
(14:44):
your posts, like send us amessage.
We love to talk through aboutthis more.
We'd love your feedback on this.
What do you think about this?
Yeah, one of the ads we ran fora little while was we are
coming to year end and we'vewe've had a larger shortfall
than usual and the team wouldlove to hear your stories about
how you've been impacted, justfor some encouragement right now
(15:05):
.
And so many people respondedwith how they've been impacted
and encouraged.
Yeah, and of course, we engagewith those.
And so, yeah, just like, whatis your goal before you post?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, I love that.
I'm going to pick up on the oneword that you used in there, and
that is human.
Right, because we are I mean,the people who work in your
organization, yes, are humans,but you're also talking to them,
and so we have to expect themto behave like humans.
And one of my biggest pet peeveswhen it comes to how we behave
(15:39):
on social is like you wouldnever go to a cocktail party or
a networking meeting or whateverand walk in and just toss a
fact or a like a statement onthe thing, and as people start
to respond back to you, youwould never just like stare at
them and not say anything.
Do you know what I mean?
(15:59):
We conversations are two ways,and so I think one of my biggest
pet peeves in that concept iswe put out a post, we ask people
to leave a message in thecomments, we ask them to you
know whatever, and they do it,and then we do nothing, right,
we don't even bother to like thecomment that they've left, let
(16:24):
alone respond to it in normalhuman behavior.
It irks my soul when I watchorganizations do this when
people are commenting or they'releaving messages and nobody
responds to them.
Oh, it is one of my biggest petpeeves.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Yeah, we know what to do generally, even if we're
nervous or we're like not asuper outgoing person.
We know what to do in socialsituations.
We reply to people.
We respond, you know, and somepeople are more gifted at it
than others.
But the point is we have asense of what to do and I think
when we get into the digitalrealm we sometimes forget that,
(17:04):
especially in professional andum and just taking off some of
that professional fake burden.
That's not real and that's notreally part of what it means to,
to engage with people and to beyour organization and just be
yourselves and and and respondto people and maybe you don't
have a lot to say to someone'sparticular comment.
I know I've had that situation.
I'm like, what do I say?
And sometimes it just means youneed to take a little more time
(17:26):
to think about your responseand not just like respond
quickly, like, come back to that, save that, come back to it,
reply, do respond, like like itand then come back and respond.
But yeah, again taking thatseriously, like, yeah, these are
real people.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
These are real people .
Conversations happen inmultiple layers of multiple
responses, so help us visualizekind of the, because it's easy
to say this is what you shoulddo, right, help me figure out,
or help me Maybe you have anexample that you can share of an
(17:59):
organization that you've seendo this really well and what
some results were for it, like amore practical application for
why this is important cool.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
I'll share two.
The first one I will share isprobably the easiest to
implement.
So again, we do the same thingthat have the same kind of
blockage in our mind about emailmarketing.
We send emails one way and wemeasure email success based on
opens and clicks, like did theyclick to go to the donation page
?
Did they click to go to the andwatch the video?
(18:28):
And instead, what if we aimedfor replies?
And what if we wrote our emailsin a way that invited people
and say, please hit reply, likeJim will respond to you.
And what if we wrote our emailsin a way that invited people
and say, please hit reply LikeJim will respond to you, like he
reads these emails and heactually really, really responds
.
(18:49):
And you know you, you might havea large email list and be
afraid of asking people to reply, but I'm telling you, if you
get a hundred replies, you havea good problem on your hands.
That's exactly the problem youwant to have.
You, you create so much moreconnection with people when you
invite a reply, they reply andyou respond to them Like now
you're actually talking tosomeone.
Making that as a goal in youremail.
I'd say that's, that's a reallyquick and easy thing to do
instead of like okay, with ournewsletter we can share all
(19:12):
these different things and allthese different links and all
these, you know, kind ofoverwhelm everyone with all the
information.
What if we just wrote about oneof these topics and invited
people to reply and give theirfeedback and thoughts on it?
Suddenly your marketing emailthat did go out to your entire
list feels very personal andone-to-one and creates
relationship and cultivates thatway more than just the generic
(19:35):
information which might be allgood information.
So that'd be the first thing.
A specific client of ours.
They added a two questionsurvey to the thank you page of
every ebook download.
They offer a bunch of differentcontent to their audience.
So after downloading one oftheir eBooks, the survey would
(19:55):
ask which book did you downloadand then why did you download
that?
And we gathered responses overthe course of maybe one or two
months, took all of the languagethat their users were sharing
about what they were dealingwith, what they were feeling,
and we wrote, rewrote theiroriginal landing page that was
offering that book and basicallythe original page converted
(20:19):
around 7.88% and the new pageconverted at 10%, which was an
increase of about 30% Just bychanging the language based on
what users were saying.
And yeah, again, that's justactive listening.
So I would say the other placeI would put it is on your
donation page.
Ask people why they chose togive.
That to me is the most powerfulway to start listening to your
(20:41):
donors, understanding theirthought process, and you can ask
more than that, I mean.
Another great question is likewhat's your vision for this
mission or how can we improve?
Like, if someone just gave, askme for their feedback and how
you can improve what they seelong-term.
I mean you might open the doorto someone who's like well, I
just gave you a $50 gift becauseI don't know you very well or
(21:05):
I'm only getting to know you alittle bit, but I have this
vision for your, for yourmission, for your organization,
and invite a conversation.
Would you like to talk tosomeone on our fundraising team
about your vision or how we canimprove?
Like you might discover somemid-level major donors by asking
those kinds of questions andgoing deeper on people who just
gave to you.
So those are the two places Iwould say to start with your
(21:27):
active listening.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
That's so important and I think, too, it's
interesting because I my initialreaction when I was listening
to you share that of like,invite people to give you their
feedback on the vision, right?
My initial feedback was like,oh, that feels really scary,
right?
Oh, like I was instantlycringing.
So if you are listening andyou're in that position, I get
(21:52):
you, I hear you, but it's soimportant to really understand
what your community is thinking.
Like I guess, maybe mystatement would be I need, I
would need to get over myself inthat instance, right?
Or maybe we all need to getover ourselves, because feedback
is not as scary as it mightfeel in this particular moment.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Yeah, and the person just gave to you, so they're not
interested in tearing you up,they're invested.
That, to me, leads to anotherlike principle, the principle of
stewardship, and justremembering, like actually the
owners of our mission are ourdonors.
We are just stewards of thatmission and if they are the
owners, then obviously, likewe're not going to cater to one
(22:35):
individual donor to like shapeeverything, but what our donors
say matters and those who arewilling to not only give but
then take the time to talk, toshare, get on the phone with our
team or write us their feedback.
Those are people who are reallyreally engaged, like they're
thinking and following andtaking the time.
Like we want that feedback.
We want to make sure that theyknow that this, the money
(22:56):
they're giving, is doing what itsays, where it's going to do
what we say it's going to do,and that that we are taking in
that feedback so that we cancontinue to grow, improve and
maybe they cast a vision wehadn't even considered.
That's actually really really ahuge boost for us.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Okay, so I'm going to set the example and set the
standard.
Are you ready?
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Here we go.
If you were listening to thispodcast right now, I would love
to hear from you.
How about that?
We'll just we'll start small.
If you're listening to thispodcast, go ahead and email us,
it's just super easy.
Info at nonprofit huborg.
Let us know what you think ofthis episode of the podcast.
In general.
I'm going to put Chris Barlow'ssteps into practice and request
(23:42):
that feedback.
How does that, does that workfor you?
Speaker 3 (23:45):
That's awesome, that's great.
Please do, please, please,respond to Megan.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yes, respond back.
Let me know what you'rethinking, how you're enjoying
the show, or if it's not helpfulor whatever the case may be.
Info at nonprofit huborg.
We'd love to hear from youabout your thoughts on the
podcast.
Very cool, um, chris.
If somebody wanted to connectwith you or learn more about
beeline, what's the best way tofind you?
Speaker 3 (24:11):
You can email me, chris, at yourbeelinecom.
You can go to our website,yourbeelinecom and, if you are
like I, need some more ideas onhow to apply active listening or
is there some other marketingideas for digital fundraising?
I have a little tool that isbuilt to actively listen and
create a custom resource for you.
(24:31):
It is a little B in the bottomright corner of my homepage and
it will say what is the biggestmarketing challenge you're
facing right now.
What is the question you have?
It is built on all of ourcontent and thought leadership
and it will create somethingcustom for you.
You can refine it and then youcan email it to yourself.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
I love it Very, very cool.
Okay, as we wrap up today, ifyou were going to, you know,
understanding that our audienceis primarily folks who are maybe
the executive director, chiefdevelopment officer, chief
marketing officer or working inone of those marketing,
communication, fundraisingdepartments within nonprofits.
If you were talking to thosefolks today, what is the one
(25:10):
piece of advice that you wouldgive them around this topic,
like, what's the one key pieceof wisdom that you would want to
make sure they take away fromthis episode?
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Yeah, I would say, when you're starting to feel
overwhelmed by all the thingsthat, like the society and
technology, is like throwing atyou and trying to feel like you
have to keep up with everything,just remember, like your donors
are people just like you andthey value real human connection
just like you.
And if you just listen topeople and value them as people
(25:45):
and then figure out how can Iapply that to anything we're
doing, you will be effective, nomatter what you will, if you
are coming from that approach.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
I love it, chris.
Thank you so much.
This has all been veryinteresting and, like I said, a
topic that we haven't reallydelved into on the podcast yet,
which is really always super funfor me.
So thanks for joining usAwesome.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yeah, thank you, megan, good to be here.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Absolutely.
Again.
My guest has been Chris Barlow,who is the customer happiness
director at Beeline.
Thanks again, Chris, forjoining us.
My name is Megan Spear andwe'll see you next time.
Drowning in spreadsheets and manual
processes.
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manage programs, track outcomesand actually show your impact.
Find out how, atBonterraTechcom, slash Nonprofit
Hub.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub podcast.
I'm your host, megan Spear, andalong with me today is Chris
Barlow from your Beeline.
And, chris, I'm excited to haveyou here for lots of reasons.
I think it's going to be areally good conversation.
I've had a lot of folks on thepodcast.
I don't know that any of themhave had the title of customer
happiness director.
So, as the customer happinessdirector of your Beeline, I am
(00:40):
really excited to like dig intomaybe a little bit of that and
your background and theconversation that we have coming
up today.
So welcome in.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Thank you very much.
Yeah, well, I can answer theunstated question.
One of my strengths is that I'ma people pleaser, and one of my
weaknesses is that I'm a peoplepleaser.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Oh, I feel that yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
So that's why I'm always like so, so concerned
about making sure that myclients and my partners anyone
I'm working with is really happyand that I do a good job, and
sometimes focusing on someone'shappiness isn't actually the
right thing to do.
So, yeah, there's a balancethere.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah.
So, by way of introduction,tell the audience a little bit
about yourself and maybe alittle bit about your journey
within the nonprofit space.
What got you to where you aretoday?
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Awesome.
Okay, well, I'm Chris, mycompany is Beeline and I started
Beeline in 2015.
But my journey with nonprofitsthe seeds were planted when I
was a teenager or younger.
I always watched my dad work incorporate America and and he
had a job he really didn't like,was getting burned out from.
It wasn't really a good fit forhim, and so I just imagined
(01:52):
that that would be the case forme, and so I was not interested
in corporate America,traditional business job or
whatever, and I just thoughtI'll do over, I'll do work
overseas, I'll do some kind ofministry or something people
related serving in some way.
I didn't have the concept ofnonprofit in my head at the time
, but you know, that was kind ofthe direction.
But then after college, I gotmarried in my senior year.
(02:14):
My wife had already graduatedand was was working.
I graduated and I was like, ohmy God, I need to get a job and
I interviewed with a companythat came to the campus career
(02:34):
fair and I got ajob and I was doing cold calling
in sales and I actually lovedit.
I believed in what we weredoing and I guess I just liked
sales and I didn't realize it.
And so I did that for a longtime, but I didn't expect to
retire in it or to be mylong-term career.
I just, you know, I fell intoit and so this idea of doing
(02:55):
something more with more purposestill never left.
And so in 2015, I'd been at thejob for like eight years.
At the time, I started Beelineas a side business and I took a
course on Google ads and Ireached out to a local nonprofit
and I just asked them hey, canI just run your guys' Google ad
grant to get some experienceunder my belt?
I'll just volunteer.
(03:16):
Yeah, Help me roll in the ropeson a real account with a real
you know, with you.
And they were like, yeah,that'd be great.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
And every development director's dream call yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yeah, yeah.
And after a while thatdeveloped into them saying like,
maybe a year later they're likeChris, we want to pay you to do
this because we want to do alot more than what you're doing.
We want to do some paid ads too.
And they started referring meto other nonprofits and I found
some more myself and it justkind of organically grew from
there and I I come back fullcircle to that desire to do
something meaningful andpurposeful with my work.
So yeah, I'm very thankful tobe in this industry.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Okay, so we're digging in todayto a topic I don't think we've
discussed on the show before,and that is around the idea of
active listening, and I feellike that's something that you
know.
We teach kids how to listen.
It's a phrase that some of myteacher friends really love to
use in their classroom.
(04:09):
But talk to me a little bitfrom your perspective.
What does active listening mean?
What is it?
And then let's dig into whyit's so important in the context
of nonprofit communication.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Okay, well, I pulled out a definition.
I've written a little bit aboutthis, maybe a couple of years
ago, on my blog, yeah, so Ipulled out a definition from the
American Psychology Association.
So this definition is appliedto like a therapist-client
relationship.
But really we get it.
It's when a therapist listensclosely, asks questions to
understand both the content andthe depth of the client's
(04:40):
emotion.
So it's active listening, isasking questions.
Sometimes it's like rephrasingwhat the person said to ensure
that this is what I'm hearingyou say.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
So, and you know we we can use that in natural ways
in our own relationships.
So the reason I think this is soimportant is it goes back to
really like there are so manythings changing for nonprofit I
mean for everyone all the time.
Like technology and platforms,ai, like it's it changes so fast
(05:12):
.
It's hard even like for someonelike me who's in does digital
marketing and that's like whatwe are specialized in and always
looking at it's hard for us tokeep up with all the changes,
and so even more so for you as anonprofit.
And so how can we like anchorourselves in things that don't
change so that we know how toadapt and aren't afraid of
(05:35):
adapting?
And to me, like there's a lotof principles, deeper principles
that never change, that arealways helpful, and active
listening is just one of them,and I think it's really helpful
and applicable in marketing andcommunication.
So that's one reason I broughtit up, or think about it a lot,
and so like, yeah, there's somany different ways we can apply
this in our marketing.
But like listening closely,asking questions, restating and
(06:00):
being donor centered that's kindof the high level.
And then there's like, yeah,there's a lot of ways we can
apply this.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, that's.
It's an interesting theorybecause I feel, like most
marketers, we get stuck in the,the pushing out of messages,
right, we almost look at it as aone-way communication channel.
Here's my website.
I'm just giving you a bunch ofinformation.
Here's their social media.
I'm giving you a bunch ofinformation.
And I don't know that wenecessarily think about those
channels as ways that we canlisten back as well, right, or
(06:29):
we don't.
We don't maybe even open thedoor for some of those channels,
so let's talk about each ofthem.
What does it look like to useyour website in that way?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Yeah, well, and as you say, we get stuck in
thinking of it as one waychannel.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I'm just way to continue to push this
information out to you.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Totally, yeah, yeah, and we forget, like we forget
that there's like real people onthe other end and we, I think,
when we look at data, it's justnumbers often, and so then we
just we forget that those arereal people's actual behavior,
which is just a sign of bodylanguage, digital body language,
right, and we can listen tothat and remember like these are
(07:08):
real people, this is theirexperience with us, whether it's
on our website or email orsocial media.
What are they doing?
Are they clicking, are theygoing to this page and learning
to listen to that as a form ofthis person is communicating
with me and then, yeah, on ourwebsite.
There's a lot of things we cando.
One thing I love to do is andthere's a number of different
tools that you can use for thisbut to have a little mini survey
(07:32):
that will pop up on the page,not like the big pop-ups that
are on your Facebook, just likein the corner that says, hey,
are you finding everythingyou're looking for, or do you
understand our mission, or orwhat questions do you have, and
making that like a non-opt-in.
You can give people the optionto give their email if they want
to follow up or provide moreinformation to you, but
(07:53):
basically just like askingpeople questions that they can
give you a little type in, alittle response, to get feedback
on a page or feedback on thesite.
And even more than just likequote, unquote their digital
body language.
It's like, okay, they bouncefrom the page.
Why, well, if they write well,no, I don't understand or no,
(08:14):
I'm looking for this you can getthat real time feedback and
start to gather that directlyfrom your site.
So that's definitely one of thebest ways.
Another way that I love is toyou know, we all have a form
where someone can contact us,when someone can opt into our
email list or, of course, whensomeone can donate, and then we
usually will send people to apage that says thanks, thanks
for contacting us, thanks forsigning up, thanks for donating,
(08:34):
and watch for a receipt orwhatever.
Using that page thatconfirmation thank you page, as
another opportunity to ask aquestion so why did you choose
to donate today?
Question, so why did you chooseto donate today, or why did you
choose to download thisresource?
Or asking the follow-upquestions while they're still
thinking about it in that verymoment is so powerful because it
(08:54):
allows you to uncover what'sgoing on and allows them to
share more, and you can use whatthey share to then refine, like
, for example, if you ask themwhy did you choose to give today
?
Use that to refine yourdonation page, like you get
enough people answering thatquestion.
Now you have the language andthe words and the emotions and
the most important things thatyour donors are saying are
(09:16):
important to them, so that'swhat you should be putting on
your page.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
That's so interesting .
I actually was just in aconversation this week with an
organization that had beenhelping do some work around
digital strategy and fundraisingstrategy.
One of the gentlemen in theroom was trying to say that the
Facebook ad campaign that we hadbeen running wasn't working
because they weren't seeingconversions on those things.
And I'm realizing now that wehad data that could have been
(09:45):
speaking that we didn't payattention to in that
conversation, right, which waswe were getting the
click-throughs to the site.
People just weren't actuallygiving once they got there.
So what was that barrier, right?
What was the thing that wascausing them some sort of issue?
Or was the page not working, orwas it hard to navigate,
whatever the case may be?
Or was the page not working orwas it hard to navigate,
whatever the case may be?
So the campaign itself wasdoing its job to drive traffic,
(10:08):
but the page wasn't doing it,and so now it's interesting to
kind of reframe that questionafter the fact, like, okay, well
, what other data could we havecaptured?
What do we have to hear fromthe data where people are not
converting?
So what's wrong with the pageand digging into it from that
side?
And I would never, until thismoment have thought of that as
(10:29):
active listening, so that's areally interesting concept.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah, and I think it can also make like this idea,
like using this, using thistitle, data analyst, like that's
a real thing, there's a realskill, there's a real skill
behind it.
But for the nonprofit thatdoesn't have a inter house data
analyst or can't afford one,Just thinking of like, all right
, how can I?
If I see myself as just tryingto actively listen to people, it
(10:58):
suddenly becomes a little lessscary and you might not know
exactly what to do, but youcould figure out like, okay,
well, people are clicking on thead.
It wasn't like no one wasclicking.
Our click-through rate waspretty good or seems good.
It wasn't super expensive toget those clicks.
We're getting a lot of people,but they weren't converting.
Okay, yeah, so maybe the ad isdoing its job, but the page
(11:24):
isn't okay.
So what could we do?
And you know there's multipleways you can go about then
listening Like one great way isjust to do what everyone is very
familiar with, just AB test.
And the reason you do an ABtest is in part because you
can't ask every individualvisitor what would you like to
see, what's going to helpcommunicate with you, but you
can just say what would you liketo see what's going to help
communicate with you, but youcan just say okay, what does the
consensus see?
Do people really respondbecause there's a video or
(11:45):
because I wrote in severalparagraphs why they should give
and see which one works better?
And so there's ways to like,enable your visitors essentially
to vote with their actions whatis speaking to them better.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
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(12:26):
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Speaker 2 (12:29):
You can meet us at bonterratechcom slash nonprofit
hub today a soapbox that I havelived on like I've never I've
literally never stepped off ofthis soapbox.
I stepped on it a decade agoand I've never stopped.
(12:49):
Um is that social media ismeant to be social right?
It's literally in the title,but we still going back to the
point.
We still view it as a one waycommunication channel.
I'm just going to keep using itto broadcast out my messages.
What does it look like to beactively engaged in listening to
your audience and yourconstituents on social platforms
(13:11):
instead?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
I love that you brought that up, because you're
right.
Like again, we get the stuck inthis marketing mindset yes, got
to get this message out.
And instead of like wait, thisis like a place where I can
actually maybe not deeply, butinitiate real connection with
people.
And so the first thing I wouldsay is follow what people are
(13:36):
saying online, like go torelevant hashtags, look at other
organizations that do what youdo, look at what your donors are
interested in, like, listen towhat they're talking about, what
they're saying.
So, instead of like justposting and seeing what response
you get, actually comment andshare and reply to other people
or the organizations, tospecific topics and to specific
(13:56):
people, so you be engaged andrespond to the other people and
listen to them and get involvedin their conversations.
And then the other thing liketo me is, like, before you
create a post, like, what isyour goal like?
Is your goal like just likes oris it replies?
Yeah, and so can you post insuch a way that is like real and
(14:19):
human and invites real replies?
And, of course, not every posteveryone's going to like want to
take the time to reply to, butthere's posts that are designed
to like get likes.
And then there's posts that arelike real, that invite real
conversation, and I think wejust in valuing that more, like
real responses, realconversations that get started.
And then also like invitingpeople to send you messages in
(14:44):
your posts, like send us amessage.
We love to talk through aboutthis more.
We'd love your feedback on this.
What do you think about this?
Yeah, one of the ads we ran fora little while was we are
coming to year end and we'vewe've had a larger shortfall
than usual and the team wouldlove to hear your stories about
how you've been impacted, justfor some encouragement right now
(15:05):
.
And so many people respondedwith how they've been impacted
and encouraged.
Yeah, and of course, we engagewith those.
And so, yeah, just like, whatis your goal before you post?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, I love that.
I'm going to pick up on the oneword that you used in there, and
that is human.
Right, because we are I mean,the people who work in your
organization, yes, are humans,but you're also talking to them,
and so we have to expect themto behave like humans.
And one of my biggest pet peeveswhen it comes to how we behave
(15:39):
on social is like you wouldnever go to a cocktail party or
a networking meeting or whateverand walk in and just toss a
fact or a like a statement onthe thing, and as people start
to respond back to you, youwould never just like stare at
them and not say anything.
Do you know what I mean?
(15:59):
We conversations are two ways,and so I think one of my biggest
pet peeves in that concept iswe put out a post, we ask people
to leave a message in thecomments, we ask them to you
know whatever, and they do it,and then we do nothing, right,
we don't even bother to like thecomment that they've left, let
(16:24):
alone respond to it in normalhuman behavior.
It irks my soul when I watchorganizations do this when
people are commenting or they'releaving messages and nobody
responds to them.
Oh, it is one of my biggest petpeeves.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Yeah, we know what to do generally, even if we're
nervous or we're like not asuper outgoing person.
We know what to do in socialsituations.
We reply to people.
We respond, you know, and somepeople are more gifted at it
than others.
But the point is we have asense of what to do and I think
when we get into the digitalrealm we sometimes forget that,
(17:04):
especially in professional andum and just taking off some of
that professional fake burden.
That's not real and that's notreally part of what it means to,
to engage with people and to beyour organization and just be
yourselves and and and respondto people and maybe you don't
have a lot to say to someone'sparticular comment.
I know I've had that situation.
I'm like, what do I say?
And sometimes it just means youneed to take a little more time
(17:26):
to think about your responseand not just like respond
quickly, like, come back to that, save that, come back to it,
reply, do respond, like like itand then come back and respond.
But yeah, again taking thatseriously, like, yeah, these are
real people.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
These are real people .
Conversations happen inmultiple layers of multiple
responses, so help us visualizekind of the, because it's easy
to say this is what you shoulddo, right, help me figure out,
or help me Maybe you have anexample that you can share of an
(17:59):
organization that you've seendo this really well and what
some results were for it, like amore practical application for
why this is important cool.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
I'll share two.
The first one I will share isprobably the easiest to
implement.
So again, we do the same thingthat have the same kind of
blockage in our mind about emailmarketing.
We send emails one way and wemeasure email success based on
opens and clicks, like did theyclick to go to the donation page
?
Did they click to go to the andwatch the video?
(18:28):
And instead, what if we aimedfor replies?
And what if we wrote our emailsin a way that invited people
and say, please hit reply, likeJim will respond to you.
And what if we wrote our emailsin a way that invited people
and say, please hit reply LikeJim will respond to you, like he
reads these emails and heactually really, really responds
.
(18:49):
And you know you, you might havea large email list and be
afraid of asking people to reply, but I'm telling you, if you
get a hundred replies, you havea good problem on your hands.
That's exactly the problem youwant to have.
You, you create so much moreconnection with people when you
invite a reply, they reply andyou respond to them Like now
you're actually talking tosomeone.
Making that as a goal in youremail.
I'd say that's, that's a reallyquick and easy thing to do
instead of like okay, with ournewsletter we can share all
(19:12):
these different things and allthese different links and all
these, you know, kind ofoverwhelm everyone with all the
information.
What if we just wrote about oneof these topics and invited
people to reply and give theirfeedback and thoughts on it?
Suddenly your marketing emailthat did go out to your entire
list feels very personal andone-to-one and creates
relationship and cultivates thatway more than just the generic
(19:35):
information which might be allgood information.
So that'd be the first thing.
A specific client of ours.
They added a two questionsurvey to the thank you page of
every ebook download.
They offer a bunch of differentcontent to their audience.
So after downloading one oftheir eBooks, the survey would
(19:55):
ask which book did you downloadand then why did you download
that?
And we gathered responses overthe course of maybe one or two
months, took all of the languagethat their users were sharing
about what they were dealingwith, what they were feeling,
and we wrote, rewrote theiroriginal landing page that was
offering that book and basicallythe original page converted
(20:19):
around 7.88% and the new pageconverted at 10%, which was an
increase of about 30% Just bychanging the language based on
what users were saying.
And yeah, again, that's justactive listening.
So I would say the other placeI would put it is on your
donation page.
Ask people why they chose togive.
That to me is the most powerfulway to start listening to your
(20:41):
donors, understanding theirthought process, and you can ask
more than that, I mean.
Another great question is likewhat's your vision for this
mission or how can we improve?
Like, if someone just gave, askme for their feedback and how
you can improve what they seelong-term.
I mean you might open the doorto someone who's like well, I
just gave you a $50 gift becauseI don't know you very well or
(21:05):
I'm only getting to know you alittle bit, but I have this
vision for your, for yourmission, for your organization,
and invite a conversation.
Would you like to talk tosomeone on our fundraising team
about your vision or how we canimprove?
Like you might discover somemid-level major donors by asking
those kinds of questions andgoing deeper on people who just
gave to you.
So those are the two places Iwould say to start with your
(21:27):
active listening.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
That's so important and I think, too, it's
interesting because I my initialreaction when I was listening
to you share that of like,invite people to give you their
feedback on the vision, right?
My initial feedback was like,oh, that feels really scary,
right?
Oh, like I was instantlycringing.
So if you are listening andyou're in that position, I get
(21:52):
you, I hear you, but it's soimportant to really understand
what your community is thinking.
Like I guess, maybe mystatement would be I need, I
would need to get over myself inthat instance, right?
Or maybe we all need to getover ourselves, because feedback
is not as scary as it mightfeel in this particular moment.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Yeah, and the person just gave to you, so they're not
interested in tearing you up,they're invested.
That, to me, leads to anotherlike principle, the principle of
stewardship, and justremembering, like actually the
owners of our mission are ourdonors.
We are just stewards of thatmission and if they are the
owners, then obviously, likewe're not going to cater to one
(22:35):
individual donor to like shapeeverything, but what our donors
say matters and those who arewilling to not only give but
then take the time to talk, toshare, get on the phone with our
team or write us their feedback.
Those are people who are reallyreally engaged, like they're
thinking and following andtaking the time.
Like we want that feedback.
We want to make sure that theyknow that this, the money
(22:56):
they're giving, is doing what itsays, where it's going to do
what we say it's going to do,and that that we are taking in
that feedback so that we cancontinue to grow, improve and
maybe they cast a vision wehadn't even considered.
That's actually really really ahuge boost for us.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Okay, so I'm going to set the example and set the
standard.
Are you ready?
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Here we go.
If you were listening to thispodcast right now, I would love
to hear from you.
How about that?
We'll just we'll start small.
If you're listening to thispodcast, go ahead and email us,
it's just super easy.
Info at nonprofit huborg.
Let us know what you think ofthis episode of the podcast.
In general.
I'm going to put Chris Barlow'ssteps into practice and request
(23:42):
that feedback.
How does that, does that workfor you?
Speaker 3 (23:45):
That's awesome, that's great.
Please do, please, please,respond to Megan.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yes, respond back.
Let me know what you'rethinking, how you're enjoying
the show, or if it's not helpfulor whatever the case may be.
Info at nonprofit huborg.
We'd love to hear from youabout your thoughts on the
podcast.
Very cool, um, chris.
If somebody wanted to connectwith you or learn more about
beeline, what's the best way tofind you?
Speaker 3 (24:11):
You can email me, chris, at yourbeelinecom.
You can go to our website,yourbeelinecom and, if you are
like I, need some more ideas onhow to apply active listening or
is there some other marketingideas for digital fundraising?
I have a little tool that isbuilt to actively listen and
create a custom resource for you.
(24:31):
It is a little B in the bottomright corner of my homepage and
it will say what is the biggestmarketing challenge you're
facing right now.
What is the question you have?
It is built on all of ourcontent and thought leadership
and it will create somethingcustom for you.
You can refine it and then youcan email it to yourself.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
I love it Very, very cool.
Okay, as we wrap up today, ifyou were going to, you know,
understanding that our audienceis primarily folks who are maybe
the executive director, chiefdevelopment officer, chief
marketing officer or working inone of those marketing,
communication, fundraisingdepartments within nonprofits.
If you were talking to thosefolks today, what is the one
(25:10):
piece of advice that you wouldgive them around this topic,
like, what's the one key pieceof wisdom that you would want to
make sure they take away fromthis episode?
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Yeah, I would say, when you're starting to feel
overwhelmed by all the thingsthat, like the society and
technology, is like throwing atyou and trying to feel like you
have to keep up with everything,just remember, like your donors
are people just like you andthey value real human connection
just like you.
And if you just listen topeople and value them as people
(25:45):
and then figure out how can Iapply that to anything we're
doing, you will be effective, nomatter what you will, if you
are coming from that approach.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
I love it, chris.
Thank you so much.
This has all been veryinteresting and, like I said, a
topic that we haven't reallydelved into on the podcast yet,
which is really always super funfor me.
So thanks for joining usAwesome.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yeah, thank you, megan, good to be here.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Absolutely.
Again.
My guest has been Chris Barlow,who is the customer happiness
director at Beeline.
Thanks again, Chris, forjoining us.
My name is Megan Spear andwe'll see you next time.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.