About the Book
We’ve all been there.
An important project is needed for your organization.
How do we get started?
What steps do we take to make the right decision?
How can we be sure we have the right information?
When can we be done buying so we can begin doing?
This book is something that I had been wanting to do for a long time. Since I started in sales with nonprofit organizations, over ten years ago, I have been in the position to help other sales reps who didn’t have the nonprofit experience I have had in my life understand how to work with the unique nature that is the nonprofit sector. The reps that would come from the for-profit world wouldn’t be able to figure out why their standard sales training didn’t quite apply anymore. I kept trying to explain that it’s a whole new world. A better world, that’s for sure, but they would have to un-learn some things and re-learn other lessons.
Seeing the vendor world from the inside for so many years puts me, I believe, in a unique position to help the nonprofit sector that I care about deeply to begin the process of balancing the vendor and nonprofit relationship. It is safe to say that the vendors put more training in learning how to sell to a nonprofit than a nonprofit puts into learning how to buy. No judgement intended in that statement. It is just a fact.
With a little bit of extra knowledge on your side I believe that your organization can be better steward of your donor dollars and a great impact on the mission in your buying decisions. There are many great vendors out there to help your organization fulfill its’ mission. I hope, through this book, that I can help make the process of bringing you and a vendor together a more balanced and less painful process that is better for all involved.
I know that this book will help your organization become better buyers. In it you will learn the Nonprofit Buyer Model of Control. You will have a methodology to alleviate the stress of these processes and make sure everyone, vendor and staff alike, are focused on the Return on Mission, the impact a purchase will have on the mission itself, and not just on a Return on Investment.
After all, your mission is what it is all about.
