How to Get a Donor Meeting Back on Track

Jeff Schreifels 

Have you ever been in a meeting with a donor where the conversation gets so off track? If you have a donor or a team member who’s been dominating the conversation, it can create a lot of stress for you as a fundraiser if you don’t have some go-to strategies to help you get everyone moving in the same direction. So for today’s episode, I’ve asked Karen and Diana to share some tips for what you can do when a conversation just totally goes off the rails so that you’re prepared and can seamlessly get things back on track.

Recorded 

Welcome to the Nothing But Major Gifts podcast from Veritus Group featuring Richard Perry and Jeff Schreifels. Twice a month, we bring you the latest and best thinking about major gift fundraising, so you can develop authentic relationships with your major donors. Here are your hosts, Richard and Jeff.

Karen Kendrick 

Welcome to the podcast today. I’m Karen Kendrick and my colleague Diana and I are hosting the podcast today to talk to you about something we have all dealt with: a meeting that is going off track. Now there are a lot of reasons this can happen. And it takes practice to know how to handle this in a way that helps you stay calm and present and honor the other people in the meeting. So Diana, let’s start by talking about where this problem can start. Because it’s often it often begins with how we prepare for the meeting, right?

Diana Frazier 

Really, that’s it, and Karen, if we’re really honest with ourselves, that’s it. We don’t actually put the preparation in for meetings like we should, we don’t like to think that we need it because we’ve done meetings, and we’ve been doing this X number of years, and I should be able to do it. So the first thing to do is think back on maybe some meetings that went sideways on you and reflect on what took place, you know, where your your pain points are, so to speak. Did you start the meeting off setting expectations for what it was going to be about? Did you confirm the time, the agenda, the amount of time you’re going to spend together? Did you go over the role that you play as a facilitator and a partner in the conversation? So basically, were you’re prepared? And you have to start there or you will not be set up for success. It’s the building blocks or the framework or the foundation or whatever metaphor works for you. That’s what you need to do to have a structure to keep the conversation moving in a meaningful way.

Karen Kendrick 

And I love, everything you’re talking about Diana is what we teach in our Permission-Based Asking model. So the model doesn’t just tell you how to ask for a gift of money, it tells you how to have all your communications with donors. Because you’re always asking something, right? Do they want a meeting? Do they want to talk about a big idea? Do they want to join you at an event? What communication preference do they have? So you are asking, right? But it’s, but it also gives you the framework for building trust and building a relationship that has great communication. So in the model, it gives you that framework of how to say, for example, after you’ve had lunch, chit chat, are you ready to get started? So you know, you know how to transition from piece to piece. And then a couple of things before we start, like you mentioned, you talk about the objective for the meeting, if they’re still good with that, because you’ve already communicated it, the time they have, checking in on that. And then you say, a couple roles I want to play today and I’ll always be playing is one is a facilitator because I respect your time. And we came here with a purpose and do I have your permission to keep us moving through our meeting? And two, as your partner. So as a partner, it’s important to me that you tell me what you’re not getting, what you don’t agree with, what you have questions about that you’re really not just here passively. But you’re partnering with me. And we’re learning together about what’s going to be exciting to you and your passion for the organization. So speak up, you know, we’re in this together. So you set the framework for expectation so that when things go sideways, you’ve already talked about how it’s going to work. Right? Right.

Diana Frazier 

Yeah, you sort of like you expect the referee to step in and call an audible or whatever you need to do, right? Because you said you were gonna do that.

Karen Kendrick 

I want to jump in on one thing really quickly. You mentioned earlier that we think we don’t need practice. And I loved what, I really enjoyed interviewing this one guy who took our Permission-Based Asking course and he was like, man, I really realized because I’m an extrovert and I’m really good at talking to people that I winged it all the time and how much that was ego and how much that was just about me. But, and on the other side, if we over-prepare and we’re freaked out and we’re always fearful and we don’t know if we’re ready for it, that’s also about us, right? Either end of the spectrum. It’s still ego, you know, so I think the main thing is to prepare whilst we can and start to build our skill set as we go along so that we really are coming with a clear intention. And I’ve been, I’ve done many donor meetings where I’m sitting there in the meeting thinking, I’m not clear why I’m here. I know, they wonder why they’re here. I know they’re feeling like this is a waste of their time. And I felt badly. So, been there done that.

Diana Frazier 

Yeah, it’s good place to start: it’s not about me. With so many things in life, this could be general counseling, as well as how to have a good meeting. You know, if you think about, there’s a couple scenarios that come up pretty regularly in any fundraiser’s life, or any person who has meetings. Like one is the chatty person, and there can be two chatty people, there can be the donor who’s chatty and getting off track, or it could be you. And I’m not saying that it’s me. But it has been me. So truth be told. So say you have, you’ve done your preparation. And you’re coming into this and you’ve just, you have a lot you need to cover, there’s not as much time and the donor gets talking and you’re at the very beginning, even the intro, you haven’t even really gotten down to the meat of things, and your donor is just going to town on their last vacation or whatever it is, I think it’s really helpful to have a few phrases ready already ready already like that. To, to come back to the purpose to reflect and pull back. And, you know, you might say something like you have a lot going on. I know we have a limited time now. Is it okay if I jump in about… and whatever it is you did. That’s okay to say to somebody, they’re gonna be okay with that. Right?

Karen Kendrick 

I’m probably gonna say, I love hearing about all this cool stuff that you’re doing. And I’m also aware of time. So would you would you want to keep moving into the next section? Would that work for you? So I’d probably being my personality, I’d give them some affirmation for how cool they are.

Diana Frazier 

Be like, be like, Karen, she’s a lot nicer than I am. Be like Karen. But what if you’re the chatty one? And you suddenly realize, oh, my gosh, and I, speed is an issue. Born in Montana, but I talk like a northeasterner because I’ve been here most of my life. You know what I would say? Own it. “Karen, I’m so sorry. I get very excited about this. And I know I need to dial it back. Is that okay? Just, let me slow down and make sure I’m covering what you want to hear.” Right? So you’re being vulnerable, you’re being truthful, maybe they’ll bring a little bit of humor into the conversation, they might chuckle a little bit, you can laugh at yourself, and you can move on, it’s really authentic to do that. But you have to be aware of your signs, if you suddenly get the picture in your head, whoa, I need to dial it down, go ahead and say it. You don’t have to say it in my way, but find a way to own the process so that the donor can enter back into you and you’re back into the same emotional space, speed that they’re in, and you can hone in on what’s important to the donor. So you can ask those kinds of questions. And look, you’ve been in that situation, Karen, I knew you’d have to do it with me.

Karen Kendrick 

Yeah, I guess I was thinking about how, even if I have a donor, I know is really chatty, I may ask for a longer meeting, like, “You know, I know that you really love to dive into things and really discuss them. Would you have an hour and a half?” I mean, if you have a big thing to process, maybe you ask for more time. Because maybe that’s just what they need. Now, if they go down some track, let’s say into a detail into the weeds, we’d say… A great question would be like, “I know we’re going down into this topic in detail. Is this an area you need to explore first before we talk about the whole thing? Because we can take the time today just to spend there. Or would you like to come back to that in the future?” So it’s just giving them options right? So then they realize, oh, yeah, yeah, I’m in the weeds. Yeah, cool. Let’s keep it going. Probably most of the time. Or maybe they really need to dive in there first. And it would be sad to just, because I think in the past, we didn’t ask permission, we just interrupted and kept moving, which cut them off, which I’m sure, then they’re just kind of shut down. Like, okay, well, I needed to talk about that. And she’s not interested. So yeah, I can’t wait for this meeting to be over.

Diana Frazier 

It goes back to this isn’t about you, like so much of this goes back to it’s not about you. Maybe there is something they want to dive in deeper than you planned, then you can pivot with that. They might be venting about something that’s got nothing to do with your topic at hand. And you might even say, “It sounds like this is a really important thing for you to talk about. Is that what you want to spend time on today?” Even if it is not about the topic you agreed, it’s not the weeds, but it’s just something completely different. It’s okay to ask that question. They may say, oh, no, no, I didn’t mean to do that. Let’s get back on. Or they may say yeah, this is really bugging me right now. And you can spend the time on it. And you can go away from that meeting with two things. You can go away saying, Wow, I really blew it. I didn’t stay on topic, I can’t go to step two or step three in my list of things I want to accomplish. Or you can go away from that saying, I really heard my donor and this was important to them. And they actually did learn some things and I can still go forward with them on the proposal or whatever you want to talk about another time.

Karen Kendrick 

You know what’s cool is with the Permission-Based Asking, you always go back to Align. So even if they say I just want to keep chatting about whatever I’m passionate about in the moment, you can say, “Well, before we close out, can I just touch base on a couple of things? And then, you know, we spent today talking about XYZ. I love it. It’s been valuable. I’m really glad we had that time. Are you okay with us to set up another meeting to go back to what we were originally going to meet about? And how soon would you like to set that up?” So, because I’ve walked away, because they went off the rails, and had no next step agreement, and then I had to chase them down for forever, again, to try to get in the door. And so it just, it saves so much time, and it’s so respectful to do that.

Diana Frazier 

And that’s why we’re pracitcing those kinds of phrases so that you’re comfortable with them, and you can interject them. So it’s part of your repertoire, if you will, of things that you naturally say, it’ll come in, you’ll be more, it’ll be more easy for you to do that as you go through it. Another thing that can kind of get a meeting going off track is emotions, whether it’s the donor’s emotions, or your own emotions, right. So maybe there’s a story you’re telling that’s bringing out sadness, or tears or discomfort, or maybe even feelings of anger or righteous indignation. Many of you are working in non-profits that are dealing with very, very difficult things. And the donor might be responding to that. So you want to think in advance, how would I handle that sort of thing? And I think, again, it’s sort of, own it. “It seems like this is bringing up some emotions for you right now. Do you want to pause for a minute, do you want to take a break?” Something like that. You can do a physical signal, if you have water, or coffee or tea or whatever. Just by you picking up your glass of water kind of gives them a little bit of a break too. And that might help them compose themselves, because they might, they can pick up the glass of water and take a sip. So think through some physicality. But what if it’s you that’s getting emotional? What if you’re the one who’s starting to feel teary or a little angry, and you’re becoming aware of in your body language, and everything in your speech is rapid or really slow, whatever it is. You do have to get present with yourself, do the things that we talked about frequently, in Veritus, get in touch with your body. Put your shoulders back a little bit, get your breathing under control. But one of the best things you can do is again, own it. And also, I say this a lot, one of the best things you can just say is, “I see this topic is bringing up my own emotions.” Right? Why does that matter? Does it make you vulnerable? Yes, but you don’t want this meeting to be about the donor feeling like they have to navigate your feelings. So say it. You both have permission to move past it now. Because otherwise, they’re just gonna be looking at you, if the tears are coming to your eyes, or you know, they’re just, they’re going to start worrying about you, you don’t want that either. But just say it, you know? “This is making, this is bringing up emotions. This is a tough thing that our organization works on,” or, “This touched on a personal experience for myself,” you know, and then again, that quick drink of water or something to physically move. So you get back into yourself. And now Karen I know you talk about that a lot.

Karen Kendrick 

Yeah, I guess I was thinking about one thing I learned in one of my coaching sessions years ago, which was interesting is: don’t hand someone a tissue. If they’re, in the sense that, you don’t want to act as though you’re uncomfortable with their emotion, so you’re trying to cut it off, right? A tissue is like, oh, can we stop those tears? Which is like, you think you’re being helpful, but so it’s interesting to give some people some space and just be. All you’ve got to do is breathe, just sit there and breathe and let them work through it. I think we all have emotions we’re more and less comfortable with. So maybe we’re not comfortable with sadness or we’re not comfortable with anger. And I think, I think just being, things coming up for me is not just not to identify the emotion for them, like, “Oh, it seems like you’re really angry.” Right? Because what if they’re, they may not be okay with that. So I think I would be cautious around identifying it for them. But maybe something like, you know, we all feel really passionate about, you know, the mission and what we’re doing and what we’re about. And I so appreciate you sharing and being with that whatever it is, and I’m here for it.

Diana Frazier 

Yeah I, mean, you can say, “It looks, it looks like you’re passionate about this.” Or, “It looks like this is bringing up emotion,” but then you’re right. Don’t name, don’t label it. Labels lead to judgment. And that is not your intention. Your intention is to be accepting of them. But also give them a moment to compose if that’s what they want to do.

Karen Kendrick 

Yeah, yes, I agree. Because emotionsare just, from what I’ve learned, emotions are just information and energy for change, right? Anger is about boundaries, something you want to change, something you’re not okay with, you know. With grief, it’s something you want to release. So.

Diana Frazier 

Yeah, nothing wrong with some emotions, right? So that means you have to get that internally and own that and believe that and if you really can get that in your head and your heart, then you’re much more accepting and open of what this conversation is bringing up.

Karen Kendrick 

And if you’re accepting and open up your own emotions, then you’ll feel more comfortable with others.

Diana Frazier 

Yeah. Back to counseling! Another thing that comes up is the multiple people in the meeting, right. And this can happen a couple of ways. Maybe somebody joins a meeting that you were not expecting. You thought you were meeting with a husband and wife and a financial advisor comes. Or you’re meeting with a woman and her son comes, or you’re, whatever the scenario is, that can bring up anxiety in yourself because you weren’t prepared for that. Right? Now what do I do, who is this person? What do they want? Well, you know, you actually can say something like, “I’m so glad you could join us. What are you hoping to get out of our meeting?” Which draws that person in, it helps you understand what their role is, and helps you be able to include them as you’re going through? Because you can answer questions as it relates to their role. Sometimes they might just say, “Hey, I’m just here with my mom, because she wanted me to be.” Or it could be, you know, “I’m helping my mother make or my father make financial decisions,” or whatever it is. But now, you know, you don’t, it doesn’t have to be a mystery. But you don’t want it to be a mystery. It’s not helpful to you. It’s not helpful for them. So just think through a question that’s open and warm and engaging, and including that person in, that gives you some clarity.

Karen Kendrick 

So I know I’ve not asked that before and felt so awkward. And then I was weird. I’ll have this whole thing prepared, but then this whole other element came. So that’s really helpful.

Diana Frazier 

Particularly when you’re talking about finances, that can feel very uncomfortable. And so that helps you get that on the table. Another thign that happens: you might have team members from you know, internally, from your own organization joining you, maybe it’s the executive director, or the CEO, or your vice president, or subject matter expert. If you’ve listened to anything Veritus has ever taught, you know, we again, we talked about being prepared. Talk in advance with the people participating with you, roleplay, if they’re open to it, but at least be clear on who’s doing what. I did just talk with a group recently, and their executive director, when that person joins them in a meeting, he just sort of launches in. And he’s got a lot of great things to say. But a 15-minute monologue is not really helpful. So we talked about either just having an open and honest question, a conversation with that person to say, “This is what I’m observing, and this is the effect I think it’s having as I’m observing. Are you open to my being able to just remind you from time to time, either with a phrase, or a movement to just kind of catch your breath so that you can be back in touch with the donor? And let them ask a question and let them lead a little bit.” I know that’s not an easy conversation to have. But neither is being in that environment where you’re feeling stressed, the donor might be feeling stressed, your CEO or Executive Director might be feeling stressed. So talking about that in advance and then having some cues in the conversation could really help with that. I don’t know if you have anything more than that that you were thinking?

Karen Kendrick 

Yeah, I’m just thinking about, and you can use this as an excuse, “I’ve been learning about this communication while from Veritus and and this is what they advise to do with your leadership, with everybody who’s going to be in the meeting. We get really clear about our roles and we don’t want to do any monologues for more than five minutes, even that you know, and so here’s some questions that I’m going to give you that you could ask. That’d be really cool because they feel really honored that the CEO’s asking them and if you can work on keeping what you’re sharing to shorter chunks, and are you okay with me reminding you?” I think getting that permission and I think for those of us who feel like they need to tell every single detail of the story to make the story makes sense probably need to ask us some colleagues, how well do I tell stories? Someone you trust or friend or you know person close to you and if they say well you really like to dive into all the details, then it would be good to record yourself and start thinking about working on, how do I truncate that you know, what details can I remove? And it is a relearning how your brain works and you think. But it’d be worth the effort because you are going to be losing people and be less effective so just you know it is a skill set to develop. And just storytelling period. I need to develop my how to tell a story and I’m passionate, I mean, sometimes I take out too many details so.

Diana Frazier 

Right. I mean that’s, and you brought up the recording — I really believe in this as a way to improve our communication overall. Even preparing for today, I actually recorded myself earlier this morning so I could see what flows for me, what do I stumble on, that kind of a thing? What would make this come alive a little bit more? Did I do everything I said I would do? No because you know I’m a normal human being like you are, but I did go back and listen into it. And I took some notes on what I said and didn’t say, and then I went back and thought, Okay, let me think that through a little better. You can tell a story, record it in Zoom or wherever you want to record things. Go back and listen to yourself and think through, “That’s a really important point. Oh, boy, did I get in the weeds there.” And discipline yourself to what matters in the story. It’s hard work. It’s why it’s a job.

Karen Kendrick 

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is great, Diana. Now I know, we have a few other strategies to help our listeners out and keep meetings on track. So let’s finish up. What are those?

Diana Frazier 

Two key things. And I’ll say them quickly, and I’ll come back to them. One is managing your environment. And the other is, again, I’ll talk about practicing in advance. But let me go back to managing your environment. If you’re going to be meeting in a restaurant, or some kind of a public, particularly a restaurant, you can say to the server after you’ve been seated, “By the way, we’re going to be having a detailed conversation. We’ll let you know if we want you to assist us again.” You might want to wait until you’ve placed your order, you might get started and then place the order and then let them know that. But you can let the the waitstaff know your intention so that they can respect your what you’re trying to accomplish there. That’s one thing you do. The other is think about the location. If the donor chose location, and you don’t know what the environment is like, call the restaurant and ask so you’re prepared. And you can ask for a quiet table or something like that, if it’s a restaurant where some some places are quieter than others. If there’s really loud music, you might even call your donor and say you know, I checked in the restaurant to make sure things would work there. And they did tell me it’s a pretty busy loud place, are you open to something else? Particularly if your donor is maybe a little older, or hearing is an issue or you have a lot of detail you want to communicate. You want to control that as best as you can. And then for yourself, if you’re choosing location, think through those things. Like you know, I know a lot of first meetings with donors can be in coffee shops. Try not to do that in rush hour when there’s so much going on that you can’t pay attention to each other because people are jostling your elbow or whatever, especially you can control that. Think through what location, what you’re doing. If you’re at a hotel, and it’s a quiet meeting room, that’s fine. But if you’re in the hotel lobby, and you’re meeting in the lobby, go in advance and notice what it’s like in the lobby, and where’s the quiet corner versus where isn’t a quiet corner.

Karen Kendrick 

I’ve heard many donors say that that’s there’s times that they’ve met with people and they can’t hear half of what they said.

Diana Frazier 

Yeah. And if you’re meeting a donor in the home, you can ask them that too, you know? “I’d love to meet in your home. Do you want to meet in your den or living room or around your kitchen table?” So that you’re understanding what your environment, you can ask those kinds of questions too. The other thing, just coming back to practicing in advance, I know I say this a lot, maybe too much. But for some reason, we really don’t think we need to do it, right. But think about it what professional athlete, musician, actor, or court attorney doesn’t keep practicing. Because every game, every concert, every play, every case is different. And you need to be prepared and go over the basics and be ready so you can be present with the donor. At the end of the day, that’s your objective, that you’re present. And you’re able to have a conversation that’s meaningful to the donor, and you can move forward to what the donor wants to do. And that takes work. It just does.

Karen Kendrick 

It reminds me of the blog I just wrote about, “Do One Small Thing With Love,” with Mother Teresa’s quote. So it will be really cool to like, from this podcast, pick one thing you want to work on first around meetings with donors, whether that’s your transition language, or describing your roles, whatever it is, and then practice it and do that with love. Love for yourself, love for the donor, not from like, you know, I’m not good at this. But from a place of like, you know, this is going to be fun. I’m going to go on an adventure and see how I can improve. And I love that analogy, Diana because you know, we’re not finished. It’s always a growth and learning opportunity. And it’s gonna get boring if we don’t keep growing, right?

Diana Frazier 

Yep. Yep. That’s good. Good stuff.

Karen Kendrick 

Good stuff. So thank you all for joining me and Diana today for this episode. And I hope that you got some good valuable takeaways that will help you get your donor meetings back on track when those situations come up. If you’d like to learn more about how to make meaningful and impactful donor meetings, I’ll encourage you to check out our Certification Course for major gifts and mid-level, which will give you the system and structure you need to create strong partnerships with your donors, which will result in better meetings as well. You can head to the show notes on our website under Trainings to learn more about these courses. Thank you Diana. This was really fun and everyone have a great day and take care.

Recorded 

Thank you for joining us for the Nothing But Major Gifts podcast from Veritus Group. Richard and Jeff also write an ongoing blog that you can subscribe to for free at veritusgroup.net. Please join us again next time.