Improve School Fundraising Results Seller by Seller

Boost overall sales by improving student performance.

Most of the time, schools focus on ways to increase sales at the macro level. In other words, how can we get our school to perform better? However, few have considered strategies that improve selling at the micro level. So what about individual seller performance?

Understanding how school fundraising works at both macro and micro levels can significantly impact your results. To take your sale to the next level, you need to think about ways to get your group as a whole and each student to sell more items.

So how should you consider increasing school fundraiser sales at the individual student level? First, it is essential to get your students thinking about their personal sales goals as quickly as possible. Do they want to be the top seller or reach your individual seller goal? After reviewing the prize brochure, you should advise them to discuss their goal with their parents.

They can set their goal based on which prize they want to win and are willing to work for. Many students may not reach their goal; however, they will probably sell more than they would have, even if they fall short. Remind them during your daily announcements about their personal goals so they can remain focused on them. Here are still more ways that you can increase seller productivity:

Break the Sale Down into Smaller Short-Term Sales Goals

Let's say a student selects a prize requiring them to sell 60 items. On the surface, that number can seem overwhelming at first. However, if they can break that number down into smaller daily goals, 60 items become very obtainable. Since most school fundraisers last for two weeks, if they can commit to selling at least 4-5 items a day, they would reach and even exceed their 60-item end goal.

Have Students Ask Family Members to Get Involved

The more successful sellers can recruit other people to help them sell. At your kickoff, you'll want to ask for a show of hands from those who plan to go home tonight and talk to Mom and Dad about taking their brochure to work. By raising their hands, they are making a personal pledge to attempt to get other family members involved. Students can also ask aunts, uncles, grandparents, and older siblings to help. Perhaps Mom could take the brochure one day, Dad the next, and Grandma afterward. This way, the work is being shared.

Offer Additional Fundraiser Incentives

Rewarding sellers with prizes for selling after the sale is one thing. In this case, nothing can be done to increase fundraising sales after the fact further. However, what if you rewarded sellers during the sale for meeting short-term sales goals? This is where the use of additional incentives comes in. For instance, you can use prize drawing coupons to announce multiple winners daily. This will inspire more students to continue to work harder as they see others winning prizes.

We also encourage schools to review their sales reports year over year to see how their strategies affect student performance. For more information, see How School Fundraiser Analytics Improves Sales.

What other ideas have you found that increase individual student sales?

Author Bio

Clay Boggess has been designing fundraising programs for schools and various nonprofit organizations throughout the US since 1999. He’s helped administrators, teachers, and outside support entities such as PTAs and PTOs raise millions of dollars. Clay is an owner and partner at Big Fundraising Ideas.