Marketing To Non-Profit Groups

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Marketing To Non-Profit Groups

Background

A "Non-Profit Group" is probably not the same as an "Affinity Group". Where an Affinity Group may be a "for-profit" organization, a Non-Profit Group is, as the name implies, a group that is pursuing a mission or goal and is, well, not designed to generate profits for the organization. A non-profit group could be a nation-wide organization such as Toys For Tots, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and countless others, and can also be a "local" organization.

Examples of local non-porofit groups are endless, and would include such groups as the local Lion's Club, the local Toastmasters organization, a Boy Scout troop, a church youth group, etc. And don't forget the virtually endless list of groups and organizations within schools, such as the football team, the marching band, choir, French club, Project Graduation, soccer team, etc.

Particularly in the school groups, there is usually some type of "parents advisory board" that watches over the activities and required expenditures of the group; i.e., Football Boosters Club, Band Parents Association, Soccer Parents Boosters, etc.

Each of these groups has at least one thing in common: they all perform some type of fund raising activity on a regular basis. This provides money to keep the organization going, such as meeting rooms, bus transportation for the football team, the church youth's summer retreat, a new tenor whatchacallit for the marching band, achievement badges for the Scouts, etc. The traditional method of fund raising for these types of groups is candy sales, car washes, bake sales, auctions and the like.

What each of these groups also has, and has in abundance, is energy, dedication, and commitment to the goals and mission of their respective groups. But what each of these groups do not have, almost without exception, is a steady stream of income to provide for the ongoing needs of the group. Likewise, they rarely have money to invest into fund raising programs, and the vast majority of those fund raising programs require money up front, require the group to store inventory, and/or require a commitment from the group for a certain level of sales volume. All of these factors are definite negatives to the non-profit group.

What Can You Offer Them?

Now with that brief background information, you may already be seeing the incredible opportunity that this represents for you as a Cognigen agent. In other words, approach the parents board, youth director, or group management about having the group become a Cognigen agent! Let's look at what you can offer them:

Zero startup cost (a tremendous plus).
No quotas, inventory, delivery, collection, or self-consumption requirements (all tremendous headaches for traditional fund raisers).
The products and services are very competitively priced, designed to allow people to save money on things that they already use. Think about it, who really needs a $2 candy bar or a $5 car wash?
Residual income. This is a biggie. The group continues to gather customers and get commissions, month after month, without having to go out and sell to the same customers again every month. With a bake sale or car wash, the income stops as soon as the cookies are gone and the hose is turned off.

One of the keys is to help the group or group leaders understand the aspect of residual income. With car washes and bake sales, the income they receive is "one time", and if they want more income, then they need to have yet another bake sale or car wash. But as a Cognigen agent, when they sell any of the residual products like long distance, the group makes the sale once, and then they keep getting commissions on those customers, month after month and year after year, for as long as those customers continue with the service.

What is involved with having a group get started? It's as easy as when you yourself signed up to become a Cognigen agent! The group leader would go to your Cognigen website at:

http://cognigen.net/bizop/?<youragentID>

and sign up as a Cognigen agent with their unique agent ID. For example, if the Anytown High School Marching Band wanted to implement this program, they might select the agent ID "AHSMB". Within seconds after signing up, they can start referring customers to their website at:

http://Ld.net/ahsmb

In my experience, one of the things that really helps is to offer them a customized web page which explains their mission and goal, as well as having links for the products and services. This doesn't have to be elaborate, and you should be able to find someone who can help you with it.

What I do is to offer the group the customized web page, free, and I also provide the first year of web page hosting, free. My cost for doing that is very minimal, especially considering that I can put about 50 different group's customized web pages on a single web host, since the pages consume very little disk space. Each link to products and services from this customized web page points to the same place as the link on the group's LD.NET web site. Two example web pages that I use in marketing this are, for a high school marching band and a church youth group, respectively:

http://www.lowestrateservices.com/fundraise/band.html

and

http://www.lowestrateservices.com/fundraise/church.html

Notice that this is only a one-page website, and that all links are live, pointing to the same place that the user would be taken to if they had clicked on the same product or service link from the group's LD.NET website. But the information at the top of the form tells their supporters what the commissions will be used for as well as some other basic information and pictures of the group. This is only an example -- the variations to this are virtually endless.

If the group already has a website, the new customized website could easily be integrated into that with a new link to their "fund raising website". Or their existing website could discuss the missions and goals of the group, with a simple link to their free LD.NET website, where a custom website may not even be necessary.

Tax Considerations

Some groups may have a concern about losing their non-profit status if they start making too much money with Cognigen. (A nice "problem" to have, actually!) If that's a concern, the group can elect a specific individual (which may change from year to year, as with school parent booster clubs) who receives the commission checks, and then makes a tax deductible donation to the group every month in the full amount of the commission check. But make sure that the group understands that in this case, that individual is going to get a 1099 form from Cognigen (if the amount received is over $600), and that person will have tax liabilities on the year's total commissions. Yes, the individual can write-off his monthly donations to the group, but even so, that's probably not a dollar-for-dollar write-off. However, that individual may be more than willing to absorb the minor tax liability and consider it as a "contribution" to the group, in lieu of having to staff bake sales, supervise car washes, etc.

If the group is concerned about losing its "non-profit status", Cognigen would also be willing to create a contract between Cognigen and the non-profit group, stating that Cognigen would give a monthly "donation" to the non-profit group, commensurate with the amount of customer usage, and where the word "commission" would not even be used!

Cautions

Be very careful when talking with these organizations, since the topic of "how much money can our group make" will almost inevitably come up. In network marketing, it is very much against the law to insinuate, forecast, state, or in any way hint about how much money will be made. The best way to answer this question is to say that it depends entirely on how many customers the group gets, which products and services are sold, and the volume of usage from those customers. You can use examples to show how the commission works on residual products and the bonus payments on select services, but be extremely careful to let them know that you are using these as an example, and not as a forecast of future income for the group.

Also, as an additional selling point, if the non-profit group can produce "proof" that they are indeed a non-profit group, their commission percentage can be greater than the standard 6%. The commission percentage can be 7%, 8%, even as high as 10%. This "proof" can be in the form of an official document from the state or local government, or for a school group can be as simple as a letter from the school district stating that the group is non-profit. It is important to note that this must be an official document, sent via postal mail, not emailed or faxed.

One additional area to steer away from in your discussions with these groups is the area of recruiting new agents. To the "uninitiated", the terms "recruit" and "downline" can easily be viewed as synonymous with "Amway", and can send your potential new agent running for the hills. If the topic comes up at all, be sure to emphasize that recruiting new agents (i.e., their sister church's youth group in the next city, another high school marching band in a neighboring state, etc) is absolutely not a requirement of being a Cognigen agent. You'll have to play this topic by ear; if they are comfortable with the aspect of "recruiting" and "downline", then you can also explain to them how that represents yet another stream of income from the customers of their downline agents.

Bottom Line

Like any other strategy for gathering new agents, don't focus exclusively on any one strategy. But at the same time, I think this aspect is too valuable to ignore, especially if you have some contacts at any of these organizations, or are a part of the organization yourself. Think about it: if you recruit a new agent, then you have one person who is gathering customers and in return for you teaching that new agent how to effectively work this business, you are rewarded with commissions from his customers. But if you have a new agent in the form of one of these organizations, say a high school marching band, now you have 150 to 200 "agents" in the form of that one "agent" who are all gathering customers. And in many of these organizations, these groups can be real lean, mean, customer-gathering machines, all working towards the goal of gathering customers to receive commissions to support the mission and goals of the group.

This is a true three-way-win scenario. The non-profit group wins because they are receiving commissions to fund their goals, missions, and activities with an income stream that they didn't have before. The group's customers win because they're saving money on products and services that they already use, and are also helping the group by purchasing from the group's Cognigen web site. And of course, YOU win because you're receiving commissions from motivated "customer gathering machines", as well as providing a viable and effective method of fund raising for worthwhile organizations.