National Volunteer Month

What are you doing to contribute or celebrate National Volunteer month? Something great I hope and I’d really like to hear about it. I’d want to write about you and whoop it up about how great you are, as you whoop it up about someone else. That’s how it works, you help someone and someone helps you and we all move forward together.

If you’ve not yet planned what you’re going to do this month, there’s still time and you should really do something.

Here’s the deal, every day the nature of business says that you ask for the sale. You ask and ask and if you’re good, you get the sale, you may even get the sale if you’re not good.

This month, a part of getting the sale is in giving to others instead of asking anything from them. How do you get the sale? Because you show up for someone else in a meaningful way and in this case, the sale is the relationships that you get to build. Think about it, this month is wide open for you to go out, do good and be remembered for it. You can shamelessly tell them who you are and what you do and ask how you can help them. It’s brilliant for our world and for your business.

Make something great happen this month. Make some noise, do it loudly and make a difference in your industry. You can just skip right over your competitors and out shine them (or maybe inspire the) just by helping someone else shine.

Here’s something you can do:

Become a collection site for people to drop off their old or no longer needed glasses, and then you send those glasses to New Eyes for the Needy. Of course, you want your community to know you’re sharing your volunteer love this way, so you call your local paper and ask them who you can speak to about your Volunteer Month contribution.

Tell them that you’re collecting glasses and ask them to run the story so that your community can donate as many pairs of glasses as possible.

Then you ask the newspaper staff if they will go home and gather their old glasses and send them to you. Don’t stop there; go to a service like PRWeb and use them to send your press release out to the world. If you don’t know how to write a press release they will help you via their tips and other resources. There’s also a fee that you can pay to have it done for you, it’s worth it. Send the release out and then get to work rounding up those glasses.

This is the month to win by making it about “them”. You get to pick your “them” and then make something meaningful happen. It’s unmarketing at its finest.

Make something brilliant happen this month and write in about how your company changed the world during National Volunteer month. It’s stories like these that go viral on and off line. Collecting glasses is not a new concept but if it’s new for you that’s all that matters. So get your program set up let me know about it and I’ll send you a pair of glasses!

P.S. Take a bunch of pictures of people bringing in their old glasses, make a quick video and post it on YouTube.