How Do You Manage Volunteering and Your Home Care Marketing? This is something I’ve done over the last few years w/ great success. It is a great technique because it accomplishes these 2 things…
1. Helps a great cause raise funds and have support needed to survive
2. Helps get referrals I wouldn’t have been able to touch otherwise
I love volunteering. Every single time I see one of those commercials where they’re talking about the dogs and the cats looking for home, or St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, and the poor kids that have leukemia and cancer, or I see the commercial for the children in Africa. It always hits home. And it always resonates with me about what I can do to help other people.
When I was working at CareChoice, I got involved with an organization called the Society on Aging of New Jersey. And it was very difficult at first to figure out how to leverage volunteering for that organization, and working for a company at the same time because there was a certain time requirement that was placed upon me by responsibilities. You’ll see the different steps that I’ve developed over the years to be able to do both at the same time, and I want to cover some of those steps with you right now.
1. Passionate
The first thing about volunteering is you want to do something that you’re very passionate about, all right? This could be something like seniors, animals, children, anything that hits home with you that resonates with you.
For me it made sense to work with seniors because I was working with seniors. I love taking care of the elderly and helping other people out. And the response I got from the children, the adult children was just overwhelming. So it made sense to do work in that industry.
A great example like I think is my friend Danielle, her grandmother passed away having Alzheimer’s disease. So she did a lot of work for the Alzheimer’s Association, as a result raising 10s of thousands of dollars for them to go into research and development to help find a cure for that disease. And she’s very passionate about it because it was close to home. So always choose something that you’re very passionate about. It also adds too many interests. And it makes it interesting when you’re talking to your referral sources about it.
2. Learn To Wear Two Hats
The next thing is the hardest part, is learn to wear two hats. What does this mean? This means you’re representing both the company that pays the bills, that pays you. And you’re also representing the organization that you’re volunteering for and whatever your cause is.
When I would go places and networking functions at different events and meetings that I would attend over the years, I always said, I am Steve Weiss, the Vice President of CareChoice and Steve Weiss, the president of the Society on Aging of New Jersey. Those were the two hats that I wore. People came up to me at the end of every meeting and asked me about one or the other, and I represented both equally.
3. Get Sponsors
The next thing is when you work for an organization or volunteer for an organization, rather, you know those organizations need funds. So you want to be able to go out and get sponsors. Now, who do you want to ask for sponsors?
If you’re on company time, and you are looking for professional referrals from a referral source, then the people you wanna ask are your referral sources. You want to ask the people who work there. When you’re in there, you’re talking about what you do in your free time. You are talking about the volunteer organization, you’re talking about all the great things about this club and this organization and all that you do. Ask them for sponsorship. It creates a need. It shows that you’re a good person and you’re trying to do good. And people like to support that.
It also makes them think about you for another reason. So when the time comes for a referral, you’re already on their mind, is like, I just gave $20 to Steve for his organization on saving the elderly or whatever. So that’s a great thing to do is ask them for sponsorships.
4. Promote The Event
The next thing you want to talk about is promoting the event. I’ll go back to the Alzheimer’s Association with this one. In 2006, we had our own team for the Alzheimer’s Walk. Now the Alzheimer’s Association does two things with the money that they get. They do clinical research and trying to find a cure for Alzheimer’s. And then they also give money to families that are less fortunate that can’t afford to get help and support for those who have Alzheimer’s disease. And so that’s where the funds will go to. They only do one annual fundraiser and it’s called the Alzheimer’s Walk.
So every single year they get a bunch of teams together. The teams would go to a different location all throughout the country and they would walk for 5K which is like 3.1 miles and they would get sponsors that would pay for them to do that walk. We ended up raising like 3,500 dollars for the team that year. When I was about, everywhere I went, I talked about the Alzheimer’s Walk, the Alzheimer’s Walk, the Alzheimer’s Walk, the Alzheimer’s Walk. Are you going? Are you going? Are you going? Are you going?
I ended up convincing about a dozen of the referral sources and other referral sources. But the actual contacts in the referral sources, the social workers, the people who are referring me business, I convinced them to come to that walk. This way, I got a chance to meet their spouse. I got to meet their children. I got to meet other people who are influencers in their life. They didn’t just view me as somebody coming in and asking for business. They viewed me as a person. They got a chance to meet my spouse and all of my family and my Friends and the other people in my organization.
I started to build a real relationship with this person so that when they went back to work on monday, and they had a chance for referral, who do you think they referred? They referred me because I’m the person who just made a new friendship with them. A new connection with them outside of work. So you always want to invite your referral sources to the events. So promote those events.
5. Accept The Leadership Role
And then the last thing with the volunteer is you want to accept the leadership role. When I was with the Society on Aging of New Jersey, I started out as a member, then I got involved with increasing membership. And then in 2010, I had the opportunity to become the president. In 2010 and 2011, I went all over the state of New Jersey representing SAGE and representing CareChoice. When I would walk into places that wouldn’t allow Steve Weiss, the Vice President of CareChoice in, I would go into Steve Weiss, the president of the Society on Aging of New Jersey.
I’d meet with the top people, like the administrator, the executive director, with a marketing representative. I sit down, I talk about my course, my organization, the society on aging, go over everything at the society on aging does, what we can do for the businesses that are our sponsors. And then what it costs to be a sponsor, which happened to be $500.
So by the time I spent a good half an hour, 45 minutes talking about the society, then they would either give me a cheque or get a cheque request going. And then they would ask me at the end, Steve, this is great about the society. But what do you do for a living? Oh, my company CareChoice. Let me tell you all about it. We’ve been here for an hour. Let me set up a time to come back. I’ll bring in lunch. I’ll tell you and all your staff. Can we set that up right now? Boom, now I have a lunch and learn. Now I have a reason to come back. And I’m gonna talk about my company.
So again, Steve, the president for the Society on Aging of New Jersey could go into places where Steve the Vice President of CareChoice could not go into. That’s how I was able to get into all these different accounts, these hospitals, these subacute rehab. Assisted livings in the like to get business because I went in under my different hat. Now, the best part about volunteering and leveraging everything for business is you do good. You’re doing a good cause. When I was the president of the Society on Aging, I spoke to over 8000 seniors through the course of 80 different events over that two year time. All the way up from Bergen town to far south at Cape May County in New Jersey. I loved it.
We talked about all the different options of services that are available to them. Where to go if there’s a crisis, if one of their friends are in the hospital and they need help now, who should they call? Where can they get the resources from? We educated those people. At the end of every single event that I ran, there was at least four or five old ladies or old men who came up to me and said, “young man, thank you so much for this information.”
And I felt like a great person because I knew I helped people out. I knew I put people in touch with good professionals who could help them in their time of need. That was my cause. That was what I wanted to do. At the same time, my company CareChoice, rose to the top and was on the forefront of every person’s mind because I wore the two hats and I leverage the time together.
So again, at Hurricane Marketing Bootcamp, we’re gonna go over this in greater detail and teach people how to do this, and how they can get business from it and get into those places that are currently close to them. So if you haven’t registered for that, I suggest you do.
Also, we love comments. We love them people participate. So if you have any comments, or an example of this or anything you want to add to the discussion, comment below, share with us. This is how we all grow together as professionals. So have a wonderful day. God bless. And I’ll see you next week when we talk about a new topic. Take care.
