Candy fundraising is incredibly popular with youth sports groups, school clubs, and church youth activities. What most groups need a little help with is how to maximize their profits.
Candy fundraisers are great, but because it's a small dollar item, you need to have a well thought out plan to boost your results. The basics are simple - buy your candy at the best possible price, properly prepare your sales team, and execute a winning strategy.
Candy fundraising has three basic profit boosters:
Buying your fundraising candy at the best price
Properly preparing and equipping your sales force
Executing your candy fundraiser sales strategy
Buy at the best price
Many groups overlook these fundamentals:
Locate the lowest cost candy suppliers that support fundraisers
Use our recommended candy fundraiser
Select the type of candy you'll be selling
Prepare a one-page RFQ (Request For Quotation) and get faxed quotes
Call back the top three companies for 'best and final' pricing
Ask this question: 'Is that the best you can do?'
Remember to seek a cash discount for prepayment. You'll need to pay by check or money order because using
credit cards adds 3% of the total amount in processing charges.
You should be able to save 5% to 10% off the regular quoted price by shopping around. That discount will be a big boost to your bottom line.
Prepare your sales force
To maximize your profits, your sales force needs to know what to say. They should always have a sales flyer and their candy merchandise in hand.
Here's what they need to do to prepare:
Make a sales volume commitment in front of their peer group.
Make a prospect list of family, friends, and neighbors to call on.
Rehearse their sales pitch: a short, two-sentence value proposition
Here's what they need to do to sell more:
Smile, use their name in greeting, and introduce yourself
Use the power of 'because'
Ask for their help (ask for the order) while making eye contact and suggest an amount
Example sales pitch: (Keep it short & sweet)
Hi, Mrs. Johnson! (Smile and make eye contact)
I'm Jimmy Roberts from down the street. (Hand over sales flyer with large bold print)
Our sports team is doing a candy fundraiser because we need new uniforms.
Can you help us out with a $5 contribution? That gets you three of our big $2 candy bars!
(Pause and wait for response)
The important points are to smile, use a sales flyer, use the word because, ask for their help, and suggest an order size, then wait for a response.
Each prospect has a potential dollar value to your organization. Don't waste prospects by not being prepared. Make sure all your sellers know what to say and how to say it.
Execute your sales strategy
To double or triple your results, you'll need to do more than buy right and have a well-prepared, committed sales force calling on family, friends, and neighbors.
You'll need to do two more things:
Leverage the power of selling to complete strangers.
Offer a higher-priced, higher profit option - a discount card.
Arrange to sell your candy at several high-traffic spots such as outside grocery stores, mass merchants, home improvement stores, etc. You can easily raise $1,500 in one Saturday at one good location. With the right additional product line, you can easily double that.
Include a separate offering for a $10 discount card. They only cost $1 to $2, so selling one is a huge profit boost. They are available for pizza chains, fast food burgers, Subway, etc.
Kimberly Reynolds writes about
candy fundraisers on her website. Find hundreds of fundraising ideas on her website at www.fundraiserhelp.com
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