Sell More Tickets for Your Charity Auction Raffle with These Super-Sellers
If you're including a raffle as part of your charity auction, consider hiring experts of the cold-call and the hard-sell to promote your tickets: kiosk workers from shopping malls. After watching my professional sales team and volunteers sell thousands of raffle tickets at hundreds of auction galas, I'm convinced that hiring aggressive (but fun) sellers is the best way to maximize your raffle.
First, let's identify what a "kiosk" is.
Your local shopping mall likely has kiosks. They are those mini-stores within the mall. They are often selling products from movable carts which never appear to move. Kiosk workers hawk everything from software to bejeweled faux hair clip ponytails ... from language CDs to ceramic hair straighteners.
To be really good in a kiosk sales job, you've got to possess excellent sales skills. This is cold-calling at its worst… or best, depending on how you feel about direct, hard-core sales.
Here's the reality: Working at a kiosk isn't that much different than selling raffle tickets at a benefit auction. The top-sellers of kiosks need direct sales skills. The sellers of your raffle also need direct sales skills.
Too often I watch volunteer raffle ticket sellers (especially those at non-profit events) "float" about the room, hoping someone will stop and ask them about the raffle. These volunteers seem afraid to politely interrupt guests to tell them about the raffle and offer them an opportunity to buy.
At school auctions, the opposite is true. We'll watch the volunteer seller chat with guests for long periods of time before they get around to selling them a ticket! The school auction is not the time for the volunteer ticket seller to get up-to-speed on everyone's life. At the auction, it's about fulfilling a job – selling those tickets.
To help Auction Chairs identify the best volunteers to sell raffle tickets, here's a kiosk seller-inspired job description to use. Your best raffle ticket sellers are those who can:
- Quickly assess likely buyers in a crowd.
- Approach the target (the auction guest) in a non-threatening way.
- Be creative in using catchy lines to get his or her attention.
- Engage the target in conversation about wants and needs relative to product.
- Convince target that it is in her best interest to invest in this "thing"
- Get target to "sign on dotted line."
- Be tenacious enough to try and try again. Many guests will ignore these sellers as they push past to seek more interesting things. Sellers must have a thick skin and be tenacious.
Find yourself some people with strong sales skills, and you'll blow through those raffle tickets and maximize the money you can make for your charity.
First, let's identify what a "kiosk" is.
Your local shopping mall likely has kiosks. They are those mini-stores within the mall. They are often selling products from movable carts which never appear to move. Kiosk workers hawk everything from software to bejeweled faux hair clip ponytails ... from language CDs to ceramic hair straighteners.
To be really good in a kiosk sales job, you've got to possess excellent sales skills. This is cold-calling at its worst… or best, depending on how you feel about direct, hard-core sales.
Here's the reality: Working at a kiosk isn't that much different than selling raffle tickets at a benefit auction. The top-sellers of kiosks need direct sales skills. The sellers of your raffle also need direct sales skills.
Too often I watch volunteer raffle ticket sellers (especially those at non-profit events) "float" about the room, hoping someone will stop and ask them about the raffle. These volunteers seem afraid to politely interrupt guests to tell them about the raffle and offer them an opportunity to buy.
At school auctions, the opposite is true. We'll watch the volunteer seller chat with guests for long periods of time before they get around to selling them a ticket! The school auction is not the time for the volunteer ticket seller to get up-to-speed on everyone's life. At the auction, it's about fulfilling a job – selling those tickets.
To help Auction Chairs identify the best volunteers to sell raffle tickets, here's a kiosk seller-inspired job description to use. Your best raffle ticket sellers are those who can:
- Quickly assess likely buyers in a crowd.
- Approach the target (the auction guest) in a non-threatening way.
- Be creative in using catchy lines to get his or her attention.
- Engage the target in conversation about wants and needs relative to product.
- Convince target that it is in her best interest to invest in this "thing"
- Get target to "sign on dotted line."
- Be tenacious enough to try and try again. Many guests will ignore these sellers as they push past to seek more interesting things. Sellers must have a thick skin and be tenacious.
Find yourself some people with strong sales skills, and you'll blow through those raffle tickets and maximize the money you can make for your charity.
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