Tag Archives: 5 Questions to Ask Before Spending More Marketing $$

Nonprofit Radio for February 22, 2021: Listen Closely

My Guest:

Emily Taylor: Listen Closely

If you want to know what folks are thinking, interested in and motivated by, you need to listen to your donors, volunteers, advocates, employees. How do you get to the answers to listen to? Emily Taylor talks. We listen. She’s principal of teenyBIG.

Emily has a free paper for you, “5 Questions to Ask Before Spending More Marketing $$.” It’s here.

 

 

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[00:01:45.84] spk_1:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer with hereditary angio oedema if you swelled me up with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Listen closely. If you want to know what folks are thinking interested in and motivated by, you need to listen to your donors, volunteers, advocates, employees. How do you get to the answers to listen to Emily Taylor talks. We listen. She’s principle of teeny Big Antonis. Take two a webinar or two were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo and by dot drives Prospect to donor Simplified. It’s my pleasure to welcome Emily Taylor to non profit radio. She is principal of teeny big coaching nonprofits to meaningful e engage their audiences through human centered design. Her prior experience is in nonprofit management and industrial design. The company is that teeny big dot com and you’ll find Emily on LinkedIn prominently. Emily Taylor. Welcome to the show.

[00:01:47.64] spk_0:
Thank you, tony. Happy to be here.

[00:01:49.53] spk_1:
I’m glad. Let me ask you a question and I’ll bet nobody’s ever asked you. Did I pronounce your name correctly?

[00:01:54.24] spk_0:
Yes, yes, I’ve definitely lucked out with the easily pronounceable name.

[00:01:58.94] spk_1:
Excellent with martignetti. You know, uh, nobody ever asks, and they always mispronounced, but I’m always careful. But of course I

[00:02:05.24] spk_0:
Yeah, I’m married into a more common name. So it made things easy for me. Yeah,

[00:02:20.84] spk_1:
it’s easier to spell. Easier to say now. Industrial design is always interesting to me that I always think of like commercial design, like Cheerios boxes. But But that’s not That’s not strict. That’s not industrial design, really, is it?

[00:02:44.44] spk_0:
It actually is. It’s not the greatest name for a career path, but but it’s designing of products, you know. It’s the people who decide. You know what your cereal box might look like, but also your phone and your car on and, uh, you know, pens and pencils, just everything.

[00:02:46.46] spk_1:
Everything around us has design features to it. And of course, someone else was

[00:03:00.14] spk_0:
inside. You know, someone who decides how they make it, and that’s the engineer. But industrial designer really decides what it looks like what it communicates and how people connect with

[00:03:02.83] spk_1:
it. Okay, well, that I mean, there’s different principles around bookshelves than around iPhones. IPhones A little more complicated, little more complex. What? What did you industrially design?

[00:03:39.14] spk_0:
Most of my career was spent in packaging. So packaging really? And you know it Tze telling you what’s inside of something and you know why you want to pick it up and buy it on DSO Really? I like to think of packaging is an analogy for a lot of stuff. You know how we present ourselves to people have nonprofits present themselves to each other. It’s all a package that someone could gets a sense of before you dive in. Further,

[00:03:43.84] spk_1:
My favorite package packaging comes from Apple computers.

[00:03:48.05] spk_0:
I thought you were going to say that

[00:04:07.74] spk_1:
they’re so elegantly, uh, like the phone. You bet. It’s like on a pillow. I mean, it’s a piece of some material, which is not exactly cardboard, but it looks to me like it’s on a pillow and it’s wrapped in a gentle little plastic sheath. And the the power cable is is perfectly coiled, with a little little tie holding it. I mean, it’s incredible.

[00:04:38.44] spk_0:
Yeah, it is what we call the packaging experience on. And that’s really you know, if you imagine opening that up and having all the pieces jumbled out, you’d be really confused of what to do. And so, um, you know what I’ve been trained to do is think of things as a process. And how do you present information in a staged way So that someone gets it? Someone’s excited about it. Yeah, they can, you know, enjoy the joy. What’s inside?

[00:05:01.94] spk_1:
Okay, excellent. And you’re you’re you’re making a segue. Thio listening. We’ll get there, we’ll get there. Um, but yeah, you You wanna, you know that it’s your first impression. It’s the way the box looks before you even open it before you see just seeing it on a shelf, whatever it is. But then but then you I mean, you’re doing packaging, so there’s also security like you gotta hold the thing together. You don’t want it shaking in the box or whatever it was that you were packaging.

[00:05:16.34] spk_0:
Yeah, you don’t want people stealing it. You don’t want to toe fallout, get too hot while it’s shipping, there’s there’s a lot of different elements thio crunch into that beautiful package. Okay, cool.

[00:05:22.80] spk_1:
And then you move Thio Nonprofits?

[00:05:46.24] spk_0:
Yeah. So I was able to make a lateral shift where I moved, um, took my industrial design knowledge and ran a nonprofit called Design House where we worked in revitalizing local manufacturing, using design, and so we would run workshops on dhe. That was really my first forefront until, like, living in a non profit space versus just volunteering.

[00:05:58.74] spk_1:
Okay. And where’s the interesting listening and engaging with audiences on on that kind of level? Where did that come from? How did you get interested in listening?

[00:06:02.42] spk_0:
You know, I

[00:06:03.81] spk_1:
have developed interest in listening, right? I

[00:06:06.04] spk_0:
mean,

[00:06:07.14] spk_1:
what little But let’s problem where six minutes in. Let’s look what?

[00:07:16.94] spk_0:
Let’s stop listening. Um, well, I I grew up is a very kind of shy and awkward child, and and so I found, but I was really interested in people. And so I found that listening to what other people were saying and figuring out how to connect what I wanted to say and due to that really helped me. Um, you know, figure out how I could connect with people. I almost had you know, analyze it versus it, coming naturally, and so that that has allowed me to really listen in a way that I think not everybody does is I’m really looking for the words people are saying and asking them why they think that way s so that I can understand the context of where they’re coming from. And you know, whether it’s a cultural difference or or just, you know, a difference in in personality. It allows me to like bridge that gap and see where people are coming from so that I can then communicate what I want to to them.

[00:07:19.04] spk_1:
Interesting. All right. It’s very It’s very personal for you, too.

[00:07:41.64] spk_0:
Yeah, yeah, it’s It took me a while to really, like, make that connection back to That’s where it came from. Um, but it’s fun. I always love just, you know, connecting with people well, in the past, in cabs. Or, you know, at the train station you just start up a conversation and and here where people are coming from, because it’s always a totally different place,

[00:07:49.84] spk_1:
we’ll be in cabs again. We’ll be in. Captain, it’s coming. It’s coming. Where you coming from, where you taking. Used to take cabs and trains. Where are you?

[00:07:59.54] spk_0:
I’m in Chicago. So we’re about 2 ft of snow in. Yeah, Okay,

[00:08:13.74] spk_1:
so let’s Tze talk about listening. So we were kind of already kind of touched about it, but, you know, like, why it’s important. But, you know, we’re talking about user research. Why should we? Why should we spend time on this?

[00:08:49.64] spk_0:
Yeah, it’s it’s really important. Tons of for profit companies are doing this, you know, everything that comes out of Starbucks And we mentioned cabs with uber like they’re constantly listening to people and getting ideas in front of people and and hearing the reactions to them. And people are just getting used to having these very customized experiences. And it it connects to nonprofits to people have, once you have those expectations, you have those with everything you do. So

[00:08:50.53] spk_1:
s So how are companies doing this give give a couple of examples?

[00:09:30.24] spk_0:
Um, they’re doing focus groups. They’re they’re interviewing people. They’re putting out surveys. They’re also running, testing, you know, they’re getting prototypes out in front of people. Um, they’re having, you know, influencers work with them to design products. It’s all things that concerned a little overwhelming and expensive on DSO. That’s where I think, trying to bring those the most important elements of those two non profit. So it’s not not a huge cost barrier on, you know, and finding ways to listen in the way you can.

[00:09:32.67] spk_1:
Okay, But I interrupted you when you were describing why this is important.

[00:10:52.84] spk_0:
Oh, yeah, well, you know, it’s it’s important because people are are used to having. Like I said, having these, um, being more targeted and not just following whatever a leader says eso it’s is part of human to human centered design. This is part of the experience of being let’s top down, um, or bottom up, how can we, rather than having a leader that has a vision and everyone follows it to be thinking about, um, yeah, gathering the pulse of the people that were working with and using that to ladder up to the decision making. It’s not to say this is a you know, everyone needs toe to make a decision for all but toe have that input. And I think it’s really important this year because I cannot remember a year where it is so unpredictable what people are thinking, Um, you know, how comfortable are they going out? When are they going to get vaccinated? You know, what is their? How their perceptions of organizations changed over the last year based on who connected with them and who didn’t and you know, stories. They read that it just seems even mawr important to see where people stand because this is like a There’s no apples to apples Comparison.

[00:11:43.04] spk_1:
It’s time for a break turn to communications. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CBS Market Watch, The Chronicle of Philanthropy You wanna be in papers and outlets like that? Turn two has the relationships to get you on those outlets so that when these places air looking for experts on charitable giving, non profit trends or philanthropy, they call turn to turn two calls you because you’re their client. Turn hyphen two dot ceo Now back to listen closely. So we’re interested in how folks are, uh, interacting with our organization or interested in interacting with it. What what, like what’s motivating them? Those kinds of things.

[00:12:23.34] spk_0:
Yeah, I think motivating And then also you know what will fit into people’s lives like you no longer have the, you know, the consistent after school programs or the favorite, uh, you know, venues someone attended to like I remember. You know, it used to be you couldn’t plan things less than a few weeks out on a Friday Saturday night, and now you know, people are home. And so So how do you kind of get a sense of like where, you know, as a non profit where you could now fit into people’s habits as they bring some of those you know, we’re out of home experiences and to their lives.

[00:12:40.94] spk_1:
So when I was introducing the show, I ticked off listening to donors, volunteers, employees Are there other constituencies that we should be listening to?

[00:12:43.04] spk_0:
Let’s see, You said that donors,

[00:12:45.32] spk_1:
donors, volunteers, employees.

[00:13:04.64] spk_0:
Yeah. I mean, I tend to look broadly at, and, um and I call audience, you know, basically people who are following you because a lot of those people could become a donor. They could become a volunteer, and they don’t really see themselves as such. Um, eso

[00:13:06.78] spk_1:
it could include, like your social Social Channel followers,

[00:13:10.58] spk_0:
could it? Yeah.

[00:13:11.85] spk_1:
Okay. Yeah. All right.

[00:13:27.84] spk_0:
Yeah. Um, you know, listening, trying to figure out how do you get them to the next stage? How do you turn them into, you know, one of the other categories? Um and, you know, but there’s really no end to who you could listen, Thio. I think that’s just where I focus is general audience

[00:13:50.24] spk_1:
folks who are benefiting from your programs to if you’re if you’re doing any kind of human service work or it could be customers if you’re a museum or a theater, it could be patrons that way. May not be donors, but maybe patrons to your museum Visitors.

[00:14:02.34] spk_0:
Yeah, and I’m going to make it sound too broad. But the real trick is to figure out who you want to listen to so that you can define it for yourself.

[00:14:11.44] spk_1:
Okay? Okay. But But all these folks, I mean, if they’re if they’re interacting with you in a meaningful way, don’t they? Don’t they deserve a voice in your You’re listening campaign?

[00:14:55.54] spk_0:
Definitely. I think where I’m going with is you know, the people who maybe are following you on social media will have different things to say. You know, if this is a museum, um, I have different things to say that people who are coming in to the museum or people who have donated to the museum for a long time. And so it’s helpful when you’re listening to kind of focus who were listening to so we don’t mix up Well, somebody said this and the other you know, these long term donors think this other thing and and you’re mixing up the messaging when, really, um, you know you need to be separating. People are gonna have a different perspective, depending on how well they know your organization.

[00:15:14.84] spk_1:
Yeah, for sure. And how they interact. So that’s what we’re here to talk about it. So we wanna we wanna avoid this. Yeah, You don’t want All the messages are like all the feedback coming a LH coalesced together and aggregated. I mean, maybe for some purposes, you aggregated. But you want to know what your distinct audiences are are saying back to you?

[00:15:18.25] spk_0:
Yeah, it’s about targeting and segmenting eso that. Yeah, when you listen, it doesn’t get confusing.

[00:15:31.74] spk_1:
Yeah, okay, so let’s let’s let’s talk about how to do this for for different audiences. How do you go about thes listening campaigns? I’m calling them listening campaigns. Is that

[00:15:35.37] spk_0:
okay?

[00:15:36.29] spk_1:
Can you put your imprimatur on that? Is that all right?

[00:15:38.87] spk_0:
No, I love it.

[00:15:44.34] spk_1:
Listening campaigns. Okay, so if you have different listening campaigns for different audiences, let’s talk about some method methods.

[00:16:43.44] spk_0:
Sure, Sure. And, you know, I always wish there was one that could really kind of all encompass get the right information. But there’s different tactics that kind of our good and bad in various ways. Um, but the one I love the most is to just straight up interview people just talk to them and this, you know, that could be done. You know, obviously, if you have very passionate followers that you can have conversations with them at any time and really talk to them about you know why they’re part of your organization. But you can also just go on toe Facebook or Twitter and just say, Hey, you know someone who comments, would you have 15 minutes to chat with me and get them on the phone? Just do that. You know, a couple people a week, and all of a sudden you’re starting to get a broader sense of what people who aren’t connected to your organization are just lightly connected. Think about you.

[00:17:19.74] spk_1:
Yeah. Excellent. Okay, So I like I like that you say, You know, just comment back to somebody on Facebook. I see you know your comment a lot. Would you like to spend 15 minutes talking to me talking to us about our organ? That you you seem to be very interested in? Um, you know, non profit radio is action steps. So, like, what can we dio eso? Um how about I mean, could you just approach? I guess you could just approach volunteers the same way or, you know, you’re you’re devoting 10 hours a week to our work or whatever it is 10 hours a month. Could you could you sit with us for a phone call and talk about the organ?

[00:18:18.14] spk_0:
Any any interaction is ah, opportunity. I mean, you could even if you have a cocktail hour, just go around and ask the same question Teoh a few different people and and take note of what they say it Z. It’s more of a qualitative kind of feedback. But you get some really great answers. Although I would take a step back and just say it’s good to know what you want to learn. I actually had a a little hosted a conversation earlier this morning about listening to your audience, and it was interesting. I asked the group if you could just reach into your audiences brain and find out anything, you know, what would you want to know? And the question really stumped people. Mhm. Uh huh. And so, you know, it made me realize that, like, as you listen, you also need to know what what you’re looking for.

[00:18:19.37] spk_1:
Yeah, that’s like your goal setting for your listening campaign. Every campaign has to have a goal. This is not a volunteer campaign or fundraising campaign. This is listening campaign. So what would you like to learn?

[00:18:39.74] spk_0:
Yeah, you know, it’s so obvious. But sometimes when we just talked to people were used to having a conversation, not, uh, really digging for information.

[00:18:56.24] spk_1:
So when you’re at that cocktail party, if you’re if you wanna engage folks in your listening campaign surreptitiously, you’re not going to say, you know, let’s have a can of pay. Would you join my listening campaign? You’re just gonna say these kind of pays a good I like the I like the little like the little shrimp tails. So what s all right? So what you want to know is gonna inform what question you’re gonna ask or what questions you’re gonna ask.

[00:19:19.64] spk_0:
Yeah, but it might be, you know, how did you find out about this event? This organization? What? What drew you to To come here, kid. Um, you know, those those kind of questions.

[00:19:27.64] spk_1:
What moves you about our work? What do you know about our work, or what’s your favorite thing that you know about our work or Okay,

[00:19:46.64] spk_0:
Yeah. And sometimes it’s a really great time to ask about. You know what you think of certain words. I’ve you know, it’s kind of taking some notes on some clients that I’m working with that are having issues. And I work with this, uh, organization that’s doing contemporary classical music. And they they

[00:19:46.91] spk_1:
have a really classical what? That’s

[00:20:04.04] spk_0:
modern, modern modern composers doing classical music and they always run into Probably What you’re thinking in your head is like people associate classical music with the big, you know, white wigs and Beethoven

[00:20:06.84] spk_1:
Strauss and right. Yeah.

[00:20:23.94] spk_0:
And so I’m really pushing them to start asking people what does classical mean to them so that they can start to really here where people are coming from and what they need to say. Toe to bridge that gap. Okay.

[00:20:25.44] spk_1:
Okay. How about some other methods? So we got the cocktail party casual. We got the, like, the ocean social listening. What else? What’s more form?

[00:21:57.84] spk_0:
Yeah, you know more. Traditionally, there’s there’s surveys which can be big and laborious, so they could be quick. Just three, You know, two or three questions surveys that you pop into your email. Um, and the thing with surveys is, uh I think really making sure they, um they don’t just They asked the right questions. So, you know, again going back to your goals. You really need to look at that. Um, but a lot of times of surveys, um, they’re not great at predicting people’s behaviors. And so, you know, a survey I’ve run into a lot of nonprofits who will say, you know, we did a survey, and everyone thought, you know, Tuesday at seven was a great time for an event, but no one showed up. Yeah, and and you know, I think the thing there is like, it’s really hard for people to predict. You know how they’re gonna feel on a Tuesday night. You know that it tze different people have, like, a mode for answering surveys. And so really, it’s great to get ideas out in front of people for those surveys. You know, maybe, What do you think? Between these three things, Um, you know, these three messaging campaigns, these three event ideas or even just, um, you know what? Sorry, I just lost my train of thought. My cat came into the room. Um,

[00:21:58.63] spk_1:
okay, we’re very We’re very family friendly. Wonderful. It could be a child in animal. Not only family friendly, family embracing, family embracing. You’re welcome to bring your cat onto this. Excellent.

[00:22:35.24] spk_0:
She might she might just join anyways. Okay, um but having what was going to say is having open ended questions so that you can here some of the things that you might not expect, so a lot of times with surveys will we might make assumptions about things. And when you leave some open ended questions that allows people thio, you know, one participate and feel like they’re engaged, but also opens you up to things you might not have thought to ask about.

[00:22:43.94] spk_1:
Do you have a favorite survey tool? Um, Surveymonkey. Everybody knows story. Monkey. Yeah. You have a favorite monkeys.

[00:22:47.95] spk_0:
Great. I’ve just started thio use type form.

[00:22:51.44] spk_1:
I’m, like form.

[00:23:30.64] spk_0:
Yeah, and and that’s been nice. It’s a little You can actually do some assessments. Uh, but it’s a really It’s more like visually engaging software. Um, so I’ve enjoyed that, and I think things where you can just when you talk about tips like putting things in emails So being able to put the first question of a survey into an email blast so people can just click on that kind of get a sense with the surveys about and that just takes, um, shoots him right into the survey versus click on this link to take the survey and then just sort of like one extra step. Okay,

[00:23:34.04] spk_1:
Do you have ah preferred length? You said they could be super long or it could be very short. I mean, I’ve I’ve had folks on saying, you know, no more than five questions or people start to fade out after so many questions. What’s your advice?

[00:24:16.44] spk_0:
Well, I I the big lengthy ones. Those are like like marketing surveys that some organizations do every couple of years. That’s that’s really not by focus. I like, Yeah, I mean, it’s especially right now. People are changing their mindsets month, a month, the quarter to quarter. And so the more the shorter you could make things and the more focused the better. So I’d rather see people you know asked 3 to 5 questions a month or every other month than 25 question survey each year,

[00:25:30.14] spk_1:
it’s time for Tony’s Take two. I’ve Got a webinar for you. Five Planned giving websites that set the standard. It’s on February 25th, 3 p.m. Eastern time. It’s a romp. It’s a quick shot. I’m gonna take a romp through five plan giving websites in 45 minutes. Show you what I love about them. Show you what not to do that I don’t think is so good on them. And take your questions. Of course. Always time Q. And a quick shot 45 minutes, February 25th at 3 p.m. Eastern time, and you register for this esteemed webinar at PG Websites PG websites that is Tony’s take two. Let us return to listen closely with Emily Taylor. Do you have? Ah, this is different. Unrelated. But where my mind is thinking. So I’m gonna ask you Do you have opinion? An opinion on political polling? Like the accuracy of polling. Do you consider that within your I know you don’t do that work.

[00:25:33.37] spk_0:
Obviously you

[00:25:34.49] spk_1:
consider that within your belly. Wick toe comment on.

[00:26:36.04] spk_0:
I’ve been really fascinated by this. And this is where I go back to, like, whatever you do a survey you always have toe question what people really are, You know, the action versus what they’re predicting. Ah, nde. We’ve seen that with the last two elections of poll numbers just being way off. And so that’s that’s the sense that I get is, um that is a result of, you know, asking people toe fill in boxes versus trying to get to what they how they really feel about things. Um, you know, there’s there’s definitely a I think with surveys we can put on a we don’t want to be mean to this non profit hat or, you know, with political things like we don’t I don’t You know, I don’t quite understand. Can’t quite articulate how I feel. But I I’m just gonna answer this because this feels like the safe thing to Dio. And so those kind of answers don’t help us. Yeah, right.

[00:26:45.54] spk_1:
They’re misleading. Uh, maybe. Maybe not intentionally Or maybe in time, But anyway, they’re not helpful. Leaving your right. Leave it leave. It is not helpful. E want to attribute bad motivations to folks. I don’t want to do that.

[00:26:50.04] spk_0:
No. Like I said, sometimes it’s It’s because you know you don’t wanna be means it’s a It’s a good thing, but it doesn’t help.

[00:26:57.34] spk_1:
How about focus groups? Are there are people doing those online? I mean, it’s certainly eminently doable, are they? Are they valuable? Our folks are people participating.

[00:27:17.04] spk_0:
Yeah, I’ve definitely There’s been focus groups happening over the last year. I find them. You know, there’s a lot to be careful with with focus groups because there are group dynamics that you need to be aware of. You need to be

[00:27:28.44] spk_1:
a pro at facilitating those, right? Yes. Yeah. You don’t wanna go off as an amateur trying it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Because you’re asking for people’s honest opinions and

[00:27:40.64] spk_0:
yeah, and it’s very hard for people. You don’t want to talk about some of those being nice elements. That is amplified when you have a few strangers in a room.

[00:27:48.14] spk_1:
Yeah, right. Yeah. I don’t want to say anything controversial. I don’t want anybody feeling. Yeah, but then you’re not getting truthful answers, right? So you need all right, You need a pro if you’re gonna do the actual focus groups, right? Okay. Do you facilitate those? Do you facilitate focus groups?

[00:28:04.84] spk_0:
Um, I do not. Usually there’s a few people I work with that that have done them, or, um, but, like I said, you know, prefer being able Thio digging a little deeper with people

[00:28:16.34] spk_1:
you don’t have that lions lions, then of focus groups. And yeah,

[00:28:40.34] spk_0:
well, I’ve definitely done them in. You know, in the past industrial design world, I’ve watched a lot of focus groups, so e think I I understand how complicated they are. And it’s when you get into, um, nonprofits that air so emotionally entangled in our heads that I don’t find them as is practical.

[00:28:43.24] spk_1:
Okay. All right. So don’t try this at home. Or maybe you don’t need it.

[00:28:47.52] spk_0:
Just just have a good Yeah.

[00:28:49.25] spk_1:
Alright. Another You got another method?

[00:29:20.34] spk_0:
Um, well, another, you know, we can also get into more data driven methods, which is like, a b testing or doing, you know, sending out several different options. And and so this is not listening in the sense that you people are voicing things back, but you’re seeing what decisions they make your observing their behavior. And so I find observing as another type of listening, like,

[00:29:21.18] spk_1:
what are some examples of things you might A B test?

[00:30:13.34] spk_0:
Um, you could a b test a new message you wanted to use to promote a program or or to encourage people to donate. Um, you know, the trick is to always have an action that you want people to take eso You could talk about an event in two different ways. Send that out and see you know what? What? Got people to, you know, come to the event or click for more information? Um, whatever it might be. But that’s those air. Really. They’re harder because again, you don’t get that. Why? But you do. You do get the behavior, which, as I mentioned before in the survey’s can sometimes, um, not come through because, yeah, it’s not someone’s riel reaction. Where reaction.

[00:30:19.54] spk_1:
You’re getting reaction you’re getting You’re getting data. Um, Anything else? Quantitative. You like to quantitative?

[00:30:22.97] spk_0:
Yeah. I, uh I mentioned observing Don’t

[00:30:26.54] spk_1:
hold out on non profit radio listeners. Now, keep anything into my

[00:30:30.51] spk_0:
bag of listening trip.

[00:30:31.84] spk_1:
Nothing. Nothing at the bottom of the bag.

[00:30:57.34] spk_0:
Well, this one is so observing, I think can also happen. Um, it’s a little harder right now, since a lot of people are socially distanced, but observing people’s behaviors, Um, and this could be, you know, watching people and an event. How many people like, if you have different tables where they’re going, you know, keeping track of of some of those things. Are they paying attention to different speakers

[00:31:01.91] spk_1:
when you’re CEO gets up? Does everyone go to the bar or the bathroom? That’s a bad sign.

[00:31:08.04] spk_0:
Yeah, You just don’t know what it means. You know, I always think

[00:31:13.59] spk_1:
they don’t wanna listen. Uh, going to the bar to drink. When? When? The CEO of the bathroom. They probably don’t wanna hear the CEO. So that’s bad.

[00:31:41.14] spk_0:
Well, I always think of the example of, you know, and a friend to other friend gave a speech at an event and came up to her afterwards and was like, What? Why did you hate my speech? What was wrong? And she really She had some sour candy in her mouth the whole time. And so she was kind of like like making these

[00:31:42.47] spk_1:
grimacing, disapproving

[00:31:46.94] spk_0:
faces unintentionally. And so this is where you don’t want to make those assumptions eso we can observe, and that will help

[00:31:53.82] spk_1:
us. I mean, there might be an alternative. Might be an alternative explanation for everybody going to the bathroom when you maybe you had too much

[00:31:59.82] spk_0:
punch. Maybe what? Maybe you serve too much punch.

[00:32:13.74] spk_1:
Punch, punch. All right, All right. So maybe it’s the timing. Okay. Um Alright, so that’s interesting. Yes. Observing dynamics in a room where people where people huddling. What? What? What might you learn from things like from that? Those kinds of observations when we get back to in life are really ever personal. Presidents? What might you What might you pick up or what have you seen? That’s interesting. Um

[00:32:58.54] spk_0:
uh, let’s see. I mean, you can learn like I think of an example like at a museum. You know, where are people stopping and taking the most pictures might learn. Like what is, um, what? Elements of a space are engaging to people and that could then lead you to ask more questions about why that seem more interesting to people. So So sometimes observation helps us come up with more questions than answers, but very, very helpful ones.

[00:33:01.64] spk_1:
Yeah, because those questions then could become goals for your the next phase of your listening campaign.

[00:33:25.14] spk_0:
Yeah, well, and I think, you know, to the museum example, someone might not realize they were, you know, idling in a in a certain room and taking more pictures if you would ask them in a survey or even in an interview. But if you observe them doing that, then they have to kind of think a little bit more about why they why that appealed to them?

[00:33:42.14] spk_1:
Well, that’s it. Like they’re hanging out in the French nudes room. Of course, they’re all going to say, Well, I didn’t realize I didn’t I didn’t know I was there, that really 25 minutes. I don’t make any assumptions about that Yeah, I thought I breezed right through that. The newsroom. Alright. Yeah, e

[00:35:09.14] spk_0:
Just saying Oh, yeah, Are sometimes our minds remember different behaviors than than what we actually did. Yeah, sure. Let’s see if I could think of other ones. Um, I think that that kind of covers I was I was gonna add toe observation is, um and this is less like little observation, but seeing what? What else? People do. Um, and so this could be understanding. Knew where? Where do your where’s your audience shop? What what other things are they doing with their time? Um and so this It’s not really a different method. You might still need to do a survey or interview around this, but but to understand, um, you know those air behaviors that we can then use to work with our programs on dso understanding that people, you know, maybe are more organic or vegan shoppers might then lead us to think more about the food we serve at an event, um, or or how you’re appealing your, um, your mission to people. Especially like a newer There were people. There might be some connection you can make with other habits and behaviors that they have

[00:35:11.05] spk_1:
or knowing maybe what other causes folks give to

[00:35:32.44] spk_0:
exactly. Yeah, um, you know, And knowing that someone shops set eco friendly stores might than, you know, make them more connected to a sustainable part of your organization. And, you know, knowing that you you have sustainable practices could be more appealing to them.

[00:36:28.63] spk_1:
Right? Right. You want to share that? Okay, time for our last break. Quote. There’s nothing as simple as dot drives. Our executive team meets once per week to sit down and go through our dot drives pipelines. It’s fun to watch them have a healthy dialogue and to see them get excited about their numbers rising toward their goals. DOT drives has allowed us to take those key relationships and bring them to a deeper level. End quote. That’s Wendy Adams, director of donor engagement at Patrick Henry. Family Service is prospect to donor simplified. Get the free demo for listeners. Also a free month. It’s all on the listener landing page at we’ve got but loads more time for Listen closely, and I hope that’s what you’re doing. How did you get the company named teeny big?

[00:37:00.93] spk_0:
I gave myself a small window. Thio come up with a name and, um and what I really liked about it is I love zooming in and out on things. And so the big picture is very fascinating to me, but then to zoom in on these little details that we might observe on doing back out to see what we can broadly learn from those, Um, that was that really drew me to to the name.

[00:37:10.63] spk_1:
Okay, Now what? I’m this interesting s So why did you give yourself a time frame for choosing a name? Did you feel like you could go on forever if you didn’t? Yeah.

[00:37:27.83] spk_0:
Yeah. Coming from the design world, I knew I could spend endless amounts of time. And so, yeah, that was an entrepreneur practice I learned of. Give yourself 45 minutes for an idea and just come up with as much as you can. Then, uh, is that

[00:37:31.43] spk_1:
one? You got a company name in 45 minutes? Mhm.

[00:37:33.13] spk_0:
That’s all right. And then 14 minutes for the logo. Yeah. Kept it moving.

[00:37:41.63] spk_1:
Yeah, for a clever name. Okay. Interesting. Very. That was a very productive 45 minutes. Give.

[00:37:43.74] spk_0:
Yeah, it’s interesting. When you give yourself constraints, sometimes you can get a little more creative.

[00:38:13.32] spk_1:
Yeah, that’s for the those of us who work in the last minute. You feel that pressure now? I’m not saying, you know, last but it. But it’s time pressure. You know, your do other things until you know that you’re at the point where you absolutely have to focus on something else. And then you do. I mean, it’s amazing. You know how I can squander three hours and it’s amazing what I could do in 25 minutes. Uh

[00:38:20.72] spk_0:
huh. Yeah, that’s a part of the brain I’ve not quite understood, but it’s It definitely forces some focus. That helps. Yeah,

[00:38:34.72] spk_1:
it’s valuable. It helps. May not that I’m squandering 7/8 of my day, and then I’m only working half hour a day. But but the time pressure of ah, of an imminent deadline helps me.

[00:38:41.72] spk_0:
Yeah, sometimes you have to force it in yourself. I’d like to think about really didn’t like the names. I could just give myself another 45 minutes. But all right,

[00:38:42.21] spk_1:
you’re cheating. Then you’re gonna cheat yourself. I know, I know. Not setting the boundaries. You’re not supposed to abandon your boundaries. Emily, you’re supposed to stay. It was there was

[00:38:51.38] spk_0:
this part of my brain was telling myself that. And then the other part was like, Wait,

[00:38:57.92] spk_1:
maybe if I need more time. All right. Um, what else? Where else do radio? Where else do we go from here? Where do you wanna talk about?

[00:41:06.01] spk_0:
Let’s see, One of the things I love to talk about that I think is not happening very much in the nonprofit world is prototyping and testing on dso. I mentioned this a little bit in the ways toe. Listen, um and this kind of gets into again, like a lot of listening, and it’s a, you know, professional listening, not just conversation is trying Thio get answers to these questions that people aren’t always able to articulate. And so when we can get ideas in front of people that allows them to react. So, you know, you could you might be able to say, Oh, what would get you to come to this next event? You want pizza or free wine or, you know, you might be ableto like Sorry. I phrase it the wrong way. You might ask somebody that and they might say The obvious answer is like pizza and wine or or a discount. Um, I feel like that’s sort of the ultimate, um, answer to a lot of non profit questions when when they do surveys is people like Oh, yeah, I would come if I just had a discount or if there’s a free ticket and and yeah, I like the amount of non profits I hear that. Say, they gave them the discount and they didn’t come, Um, And so if instead we get ideas in front of people and say, You know, what if we had a Q and A at the end, or what if we, um, you know, told you some really interesting stories about this artist or composer? Um, you know, and maybe share some of those tidbits so they would understand what that actually meant. Um, you can start to paint a picture that they could get excited about, and so maybe it isn’t about the discount or the free thing, but it’s about the the interesting value that they would get out of it. Um, and they’re able to react to that rather than having to come up with the idea of themselves

[00:41:08.19] spk_1:
can give another example. It feels like we’re talking in the you’re talking in the abstract. Can we?

[00:41:13.05] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:41:14.51] spk_1:
Can come An example for us. Toe ground. This?

[00:41:36.41] spk_0:
Yeah, yeah, let me think of a good one. So let’s see, with, uh, there was an organization that they were really having our arts organization, that they discovered that people were viewing them mawr as a entertainment venue. So people were coming and supporting them through ticket sales, but they weren’t moving towards donations And really seeing this organization

[00:41:45.71] spk_1:
as Yeah,

[00:43:11.70] spk_0:
yeah, and so they’re kind of struggling in this barrier. And so what we did is we actually prototypes, um, three statements that they could say ahead of their programming to remind people about the broader work that they were doing what happens, you know, when they left the building and on DWI could hit different, you know, emotional touch points. You know, one was really about the big picture of how this organization fit into the world. One gave us a practical numbers around the impact they were making. I think one told a good story about the history of the organization and So those were prototypes. Those were three different ways they could talk to people about why their organization is more than just entertainment on DSO. Then they could take those those concepts and whether it was in a survey and have people kind of choose which motivated the most. Or through an interview where they can literally just get, you know, ask people what they thought about those different. You know, those different statements and use that to then build a really powerful statement that when they did actually go, so have the next event. They had the confidence that that would make an impact. Okay,

[00:43:33.50] spk_1:
Okay. Helpful. Thank you. All right. Um, any anything we should be cautious of when we’re having doing this work? Maybe whether it’s casual at the over the counter pay table at an event or whether it’s more formal. Any lessons learned that we should avoid?

[00:44:00.29] spk_0:
Yeah, I’ve been going back thio some of things I’ve said before about people don’t always know what will motivate them. Um, and you know, they don’t always know what they’re the kind of predict their behaviors in a certain situation. And so I’ve definitely learned to live with a certain sense of, uh, uncertainty,

[00:44:01.45] spk_1:
A certain sense of uncertainty, a

[00:45:23.19] spk_0:
certain sense of yeah, helpful. Um, you know, listening is a process, and so it’s not as concrete as, um, you know, maybe some some more quantitative data points, but it is. It’s something you should always be doing. But always questioning on dhe. This kind of goes back to making, making assumptions about people you want to make sure that we’re not taking people literally, um, that that were, you know, uh, that we’re trying to figure out the motivations behind them. The, um you know, not just the functional touchpoints. So maybe, are they attending an event? Um, would they want to attend event, But also the why behind it? You know what really draws them to your organization? What caught their eye about that event? Um, and using that to then, you know, kind of taking those bits and pieces and building a story about them slowly so that we’re not. So I feel like I’m kind of getting in a little bit of a word. Jumble. Right. Okay.

[00:45:32.19] spk_1:
Well, you first of all, for functional touchpoints almost put you in jargon jail. I

[00:45:32.30] spk_0:
know. I

[00:45:32.73] spk_1:
know. Okay? Yeah.

[00:45:52.49] spk_0:
Yeah. Tony and I were just talking about jargon on LinkedIn. So, Z, uh, my watch out is to toe always sort of live in this hypothesis with listening on dso I think of. I think of it as, like a scientist.

[00:45:56.65] spk_1:
Okay, what’s the What’s the hypothesis? Oh, that you have a hypothesis going in.

[00:46:50.38] spk_0:
Well, that’s so a scientist is, um, you know, studying rocks, and they might find certain information about those rocks, but they always always have to keep questioning. Is that true? Is that true? Is that you know, is that really, um, the truth? And so I think with listening, it’s the same thing. People are complicated and so we can keep listening and gathering mawr information. Um, but we also have to know that it’s not solid ground that we’re standing on it. Z, it’s something that my ebb and flow throughout. Okay, you know, a ZX time moves on, and so it’s You have to live with some uncertainty. I e I guess what I’m saying is that if you you know, you don’t just do a survey and wipe your hands and think you have all the answers.

[00:47:06.08] spk_1:
Understand? Okay, right. You may need to have You may very well need to probe further. Asked what? Little asking One more question. Ah, dive deeper Thio to get to the rial. Yeah, Motivations person people really motivations what really moves them?

[00:47:25.78] spk_0:
Yeah. And you know, like this year as a ZX vaccinations happened, Those the ideas that people said in March might not be the same as in September. Eso you just have to live with some of that that uncertainty,

[00:47:27.28] spk_1:
okay, but it’s still worth proving its worth. Oh, yeah. You’re listening campaigns, Of course.

[00:47:35.98] spk_0:
Yeah. I mean, it’s better than saying the wrong the wrong thing. All

[00:47:36.78] spk_1:
right, we’re gonna leave it there. Okay?

[00:47:38.78] spk_0:
Okay. All right.

[00:47:51.38] spk_1:
Emily Taylor. Principle of teeny big at teeny big dot com, which was derived in 45 minutes or or less. Um, thank you very much, Emily. Thanks for sharing.

[00:47:53.98] spk_0:
Thank you, tony. Thanks for having me.

[00:48:00.37] spk_1:
I did pronounce your name. Right? Right. Emily, You okay? Okay. No more shy and awkward either. Well, you’re over that. Your china smart assed, uh, non profit radio. You are. Thank you very much.

[00:48:07.77] spk_0:
Thank you.

[00:48:57.67] spk_1:
Next week, strategic execution you know, strategic planning Now what if you missed any part of this week’s show? I beseech you, Find it at tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot c o and by dot drives prospect to donor Simplified tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff Shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez Mark Silverman is our Web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty, with me next week for non profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.