Just Start

“I thought a real writer had something to say, something important, and serious; I didn’t know anything that mattered. Worse, I couldn’t make a story come together in my head. Where to start? How to finish? My problem was I was trying too hard and giving up too quickly. My problem was I thought you had to know what you were doing. Nonsense. You just have to start.”

When I read these words by Abigail Thomas in her book, Still Life at Eighty: The Next Interesting Thing it brought an “oh yeah” to my lips.

  I always wanted to be a writer, but, like Thomas, I didn’t know how to start or how to finish. So I went into sales.  After all, sales is a lot like storytelling.  Then, when I fell into fundraising, I fell out of commission sales, but I never forgot the lessons I learned.

Starting was important.  Every day, I dialed the  phone 100 times and asked if I could talk to the person who handled the company’s life, health, or disability insurance.  And every day, I got told no at least 99 times.  And the nos weren’t always nice.

But also over time, I would get to speak to 7 of the right people.  Three of them would agree to meet with me.  And one would become a client.

That one was really important.  I had to do my best so they would become more than a one-time client.  And so they would refer me to others.  With referrals, one out of three would also become a client.

But I also had to keep in touch with the other two who had agreed to meet me, and with any of the four who had refused but seemed like they were great prospects.

Not only did I have to start, I really had to stop—to close the deal and get the potential client to become a real client.

When I became a fundraiser, I found the lessons I learned as a commission salesperson were  important.  I started in corporate relations.  While it wasn’t hard to find companies who would sponsor a nonprofit event, that was not my charge.  I was supposed to find the big gifts.  And that meant that I had to find the guy (and yes, it was always a guy) with the deep pockets.  And that was usually the CEO.

Unlike when I was selling insurance, I couldn’t just ask to speak with whoever handled….But what was I supposed to say that would be appealing?  I procrastinated, prevaricated, thought that only when I knew the right words, could I call.  But then, that could take years.  And by then I’d be long out of my fundraising job.  So I simply started, and stuttered, and stumbled my way through.  And no, the first person I called didn’t agree to see me.  In fact, the first person I called, simply hung up.  But I had started, and that gave me courage to try again