QDP Corporation Runtime Archive

Runtime - September 1997

Hold the phone!

HOW you get on the web is as important THAT you get there. There’s a lot of hype out there right now about getting your fundraising business on the web. It is factual to say that most schools will have Internet access soon. And it is a fair assumption to think that a respectable percentage of them will use the Internet to do research on fundraising.

But JUST getting there doesn’t cut it. Using some of the most popular search engines on the Internet, searching for ‘fundraising’, ‘fund raising’ and ‘fund-raising’ reveals the following results (on my computer 7/30/97).

Search Engine	Fundraising	Fund raising	Fund-raising
Yahoo	251	210	210
Ecite	44,126	30,120	30,120
Infoseek	32,203	37,997	37,997

So, the problem is… how do you get yourself on the Internet in such a way that people will find you? Will they go through that many references to get to YOUR web page? Does your technology advisor know how to get you listed toward the top of the lists? Did you know that thousands of submissions to search engines are discarded daily when there is a back log – and that they will not let you know that your request to be in their data base is being ignored?

QDP is researching alternative approach to listing everybody in a ‘fundraising mall’ or ‘directory’.

What is a fundraising mall / and do YOU want to be in one? In theory, a fundraising mall could be very successful if there were an easy way for the schools to get to it. We’d all be together, right? But, is that good?

Most successful malls on the Internet offer a variety of stores in one location, like a real mall. Would YOU go to a mall of only hardware stores, or only shoe stores? What if you were one of the specialty shops close to a heavily visited site in a large variety mall?

If you were to get rich enough from those 55% fundraising drives to have enough cash to build a retail mall, you would look first for an anchor store such as J.C. Penney’s. THEN, all the specialty shops try to get close to the anchor store so you’ll stop and look.

If you’re really attracted to the mall, consider the mall manager (webmaster). Is there an extra relationship to the local store (another distributor) in the mall that might prevent yours from getting primary consideration?

Or, will all storefronts look alike as designed by the same person? As a former marching band drill designer, my shows tended to have a personality and when I had several bands at the same contest, it was obvious that their shows were written by the same person. So it is with web page design.

Will the mall’s setup restrict what you can show? Some offer ‘exclusive’ rights to a certain product line, but what about all your other offerings that you cannot show?

Before you join the frenzy to get webbed and malled (or should I say, mauled), consider who and how you want to do the work. Stay tuned and subscribed to learn more.

Editorial

Should an AFRDS supplier member design the AFRDS web site and host individual distributors and vendors who want to be ‘on the web’? I say NO! Loudly! Especially if that vendor has competition in the association.

I have and will strongly oppose any proposal to our Board of Directors that encourages them to allow one vendor to have such a powerful association endorsement.

What would the other importers say if Giftco were selected to educate us all on how to import product and was the AFRDS-endorsed place to go to import? Would Springwater sit quietly while Darlington was endorsed as the place for brochure design? Can you imagine Pine River’s response to a Scott’s person conducting a seminar on how to select a cheese supplier?

Just as AFRDS should NOT endorse QDP as the place to go for order tally services, it should not encourage all distributors to have another technology-focused supplier design and host web sites.

Any eventual AFRDS web site should be constructed by a neutral professional. Members (both suppliers and distributors) should then have access to links to and from that site, thus giving us a strong advantage of membership.

My partner, who is close to completing the requirements to practice Law put it this way. “That would be like me representing the association. Because of my relationship to you (QDP), that would represent a significant conflict of interest which AFRDS should avoid”.

Having said that, let me say that IF that is going to be the case, QDP will have a strong response. So, don’t jump on anybody’s bandwagon thinking that it is the only show out there. It is not.

I did it again!

Last month’s RUNTIME dropped another bombshell: There are Manufacturers selling to schools.

Here’s what you said:

We need a distributors only organization.

Tell us who they are so we can stop buying from them.

They should be black listed.

Also, I received an interesting variety of phone calls and even some personal encounters. Here are a few of my favorites:

Here’s the most popular.

“Is it xxxx?” I elected not to publish the name of the vendor in RUNTIME, but did in the July issue of PRIORITY. I will not be sending any more copies of those special pages that were inserted into that month’s PRIORITY News, but the rest of the ‘Here’s What You Said’ might make your subscription worth the $49 investment.

Here’s my favorite.

“Is it us?” My response: Is it you? Why would a supplier ask me that? And, no, I won’t expose that confidential conversation.

I stand corrected?

Someone connected to one of the vendors I talked about last month (61% profit) had a friendly, personal conversation with me recently and told me that I did not accurately present the offer listed on the vendor’s direct mail piece.

According to my corrector, no one customer can take advantage of all the discounts at a time, and could never, therefore, get the full 61% profit I listed. I would never want to mis-represent something like that, so the following is an exact quote from that information sheet. The following are quoted:

50% Profit on all items sold!
2% New Customer Sign Up Bonus & introductory product samples.
FREE Prizes to Every Seller or 3% Additional Profit
1% Early Payment Bonus
5% Customer Referral Bonus
Prepaid mail envelope supplied for submitting orders
Fast turn-around time - only 7 to 10 days…
NEW! Frequent Buyer Reorder Program
FREE Shipping with Inside Delivery
FREE Boxed Order Packing … (no bagged orders)
FREE Sales Materials

Send me proof of suppliers going direct and I’ll take the heat as the whistle-blower, because if the suppliers can do better going direct, they won’t need distributors, right?

Borrowing an idea from another newsletter

There used to be a promotional newsletter that I received periodically from a national vendor. There was a feature in the letter that I always looked forward to reading. I hope to encourage YOU to send me notes or news from the field that I can list. Weddings, new facilities, family members joining the business, etc.

Since I didn’t request permission to publish the following, I have listed initials. When you send me your stuff, let me know if I can use your name.

And be sure to tell me what you think. Feedback is great – especially if it is great feedback.

Joe N. is back on his feet after a hip replacement.
Donna J. is recovering from ankle surgery. Ouch! She’s out of the hospital and still in pain, but doing better. (Would the distributor who saw fit to read Johnny my last newsletter please pass along my best wishes for his wife’s recovery? Thanks!)
Bill C. is recovering from an encounter with a bull.
Frank S. is recovering slowly, but surely, from a couple lengthy stays in hospitals this summer.
Kay P. and Tim N. are in new facilities. I know there are more, but I didn’t write them down.
Michael L. in CA – we found you. It would sure be nice and professional if you would pay that tally service bill from 1995. After you ripped us off, shut the doors and skipped town, we lost track of you. But we found you on an interesting list and now know your new company name and location. As far as we can tell, you’re not an AFRDS member. I tried to find a way to uniquely identify this guy and we only have one Michael L. in CA, If there are any innocent Michael L’s in CA, call in and I’ll publicly apologize.
Max Garwood, of QDP Corporation, just took his Indiana BAR exam. Soon (there is really no doubt in my mind that he passed) we’ll have our own in house attorney. He’ll be a lawyer looking for work. If you owe us money, now would be a good time to pay.

AFRDS Seminar

I was privileged to participate in a panel discussion on technology at the recent AFRDS seminar recently in Chantilly, VA. The technology session, in which I was one of the presenter panelists, received the highest of the session ratings by the participants. PRIORITY News subscribers will receive a copy of my PowerPoint Presentation notes, complete with script from the presentation – your next best thing to being there.

An example of Service

Do you want to know one of the things I really dislike about the nicer hotels? Valet parking = expected tip. Luggage assistance = expected tip. Room Service = expected tip.

I missed the sign when I first pulled up to the lobby. I had several boxes to take in and was not surprised that a guy came out with a cart to help me unload. Oops. No small bills. I turned down his offer to take the cart in for me, but my intention was to go into the lobby, get some change and give him his expected tip. I got my change and went to look for him, couldn’t find him. Normally they make it apparent that a tip should be forthcoming. Then there was a different fellow who went to drive my car away, but he drove it away without presenting himself as a qualified tip recipient. It was only after the next time I drove into the complex that I noticed the “complimentary” valet parking sign. Wow. Someone must have asked patrons if they liked valet parking and reacted to the same negative feelings I had about it.

After settling into my room at about 9:40pm, I called the restaurant to find out how late they were open. 10:00. Yuck. I would be making them stay past closing if I went. But the person on the phone made it clear that I should come on down. I elected to order a sandwich via room service. I was promised my sandwich in 30 minutes or less (I bet patrons said they wanted fast service) and it was delivered by a friendly, smiling staffer who never waited for a tip. My sandwich was typically room-service expensive, but the portion of fries I received with it were more than I could eat.

After I ate, I went to the lobby to make sure I knew when and where to be for the first seminar function the next morning. The girl’s first response was that all activities, times and locations were posted on the TV bulletin board. As I thanked her and started back to my room to watch the TV bulletin board, she ask me to wait until she personally looked it up and could tell me. She pointed me in the direction and offered to show me the meeting room.

In our meeting rooms were padded roller chairs and on the tables were water, mints, pen, and letter sized note pads.

On Saturday morning, I went to the meeting room early to ensure the proper equipment was set up for my PowerPoint slide presentation. It was ready 1.5 hrs before the meeting. As I was hooking up my computer, several staffers were bringing various things into the room to be ready for the breakfast line. Each of them asked if I had everything I needed. The AV technician was especially helpful as he explained their VGA video projector and how to use it.

Politically Speaking

On September 2, 1987, President Ronald Reagan signed Executive Order # 12606 that had been carefully designed to protect families from bureaucrats and politicians. The order prohibited government from taking any action until it had answered seven specific questions, as follows:

Does this action by government strengthen or erode the stability of the family and, particularly, the marital commitment?
Does this action strengthen or erode the authority and rights of parents in the education, nurture and supervision of their children?
Does this action help the family perform its functions, or does it substitute governmental activity for the function.
Does this action by government increase or decrease family earnings? Do the proposed benefits of this action justify the impact on the family budget?
Can this action be carried out by a lower level of government or by the family itself?
What message, intended or otherwise, does this program send to the public concerning the status of the family?
What message does it send to young people concerning the relationship between their behavior, their personal responsibility and the norms of our society?

On May 30, The Washington Times reported that President Clinton signed an executive order dealing with children’s safety and environmental health. Stuck at the end of that document was this unexplained statement, “Executive Order #12606 of September 2, 1987, is revoked.”

Oops and Double Oops

Last month, Raddatz Marketing paid us to include Pennies to Dollars information. It has come to our attention that a significant number of the accompanying information sheets were only printed on one side.

We are re-mailing that info sheet along with another Pennies to Dollars card. Unfortunately, the box of cards UPS’d took 3 weeks to arrive, had been misrouted by UPS, had been opened (strike memo found inside) and the contents damaged. Neither Raddatz Marketing nor QDP was responsible of the damage.