I like to think of myself as an early adopter. I got into the internet game in the very early days. I was on the original team at AltaVista when it was the hottest search engine online in 1997. Those were the heady days of the first internet bubble. Since that time, I’ve seen many new sites come and go. I was an early member of Facebook, I Tweet, I use LinkedIn quite religiously, and the list goes on. But Pinterest… Wow. This site has taken off like wildfire and I know why.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well take one look at Pinterest and you’ll see the power of pictures as a sharing tool. Here’s the concept: Pinterest is a site where you can collect images of things that interest you and share them with your network of friends and connections. You create “boards” by topic and invite the community to look at your boards, comment on them, “re-pin” your images, and share them.
So my boards include “Celebrating Nonprofits,” “Places and Spaces,” “Delicious Food Ideas,” “Infographics- Marketing,” “Books Worth Reading,” and “Burning Man Baby” - I’ll tell you about that one some other time. You can create boards on any topic that you are passionate about.
Why should you care? Well some of the most popular topic categories actually mirror the item categories on BiddingForGood. Fashion, home decor, sports, travel destinations, entertainment, and more. There are already hundreds of images on Pinterest that have been “pinned” from the BiddingForGood site. They've basically been cut and pasted from the BiddingForGood site onto Pinterest. And we're working on a BiddingForGood Pinterest page, which you can follow as well. We’re just getting started so help us fill up our page with your pins.
But now, let's think about this from the point of view of an auction committee that is getting ready to share their auction and get more bids and bidders. Many of you already share items and your auction link on Facebook and Twitter. What you are doing is merchandising the items in your auction, promoting them to the people who may want to bid on them. Now you can “pin” your items on Pinterest. Oh, and did I mention that the site already has 12 million users and the numbers are growing like crazy? It is incredibly addictive and “fun” - two great features of a winning website. So jump in. Try it out.
Want to see what I’m passionate about? Click here and take a look: www.pinterest.com/perryallison
Happy Pinning and Happy Fundraising!
Eric Reddy mentioned a wonderful quotation by Goethe in his post earlier this week. I’ve always loved a great quotation myself. I keep many posted in my cubicle at work and at home. One of my favorites is by Van Gogh: “What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” I try to keep it in mind when there’s something I truly want to do, but I’m afraid it won’t work out or that I’ll fail.
I don’t doubt that many of you may have that feeling when you’re about to run your first online auction. There’s often a lot at stake and it can be daunting to try to figure out where to start. Luckily, BiddingForGood is here to help you. We have a number of tools available to help you plan, build, promote, and run your online auction.
It is important to remember why you’re doing this and all the possibilities that lay before you. With BiddingForGood, you will have many avenues for success.
- The opportunity for a whole new group of supporters to learn about your organization and help you raise money for your cause. You'll get their email addresses and contact information when they register to bid, so you can keep communicating with them. They may continue to bid on your future auctions and give to your organization year round. They may even remain supporters for years to come!
- The chance to create a new buzz among your community. New endeavors are exciting! The thought of sitting at home and bidding in your pajamas will appeal to just about anyone. Your supporters will have a shot at winning that fabulous trip to Italy even if they can’t make it to the gala this year. They can also bid anonymously and try out new bidding strategies online.
- Most important, your online auction is the beginning of a new and innovative way to raise more money. Not only that, but your supporters will have fun helping you do it! Your bidders can bid with comfort and ease. They can bid anywhere and anytime. You’ve made it that much easier for them to give.
Another of my favorite quotations is by Helen Keller: “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” Sometimes it’s important to remember that your online auction is its own adventure! Take this opportunity to take a chance at creating a new beginning for your organization. Just imagine the possibilities…
Posted by
Eric Reddy on Wed, Feb 15, 2012 @ 01:19 PM
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"What is not started today is never finished tomorrow” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Mr. Goethe was a pretty smart dude. He was a literary genius and avid scientist who understood that it takes effort to achieve anything in this world. He knew that it was more important to focus on the end results of his goals than it was to fret over the steps to get there.
Too often, when thinking about taking on new challenges, like setting up and running an online auction, we are focused on the layers of work that must be put in as opposed to the end result. Often we are handicapped by these thoughts, when in fact, most of the time, we are completely capable of reaching new heights. In a personal example of this, I live only three hours from my best friend Scooter, but see him just a handful of times a year. We each dread that 180 minutes in the car. Whenever Scooter and I get together, we have a great time and wonder why we don’t connect more. We forget in those moments about what keeps us from having more experiences like these - simply our own perceptions of what is easy vs. what is difficult. When your online auction is ultimately up and running, and your organization is seeing the direct benefits from your labor, I’m sure you will quickly forget about all those hours you put into the project.
We as individuals are capable of amazing feats if we focus on the end goal instead of the preparation that goes into reaching new heights. Here are just a few examples…
- Cuban high jumper Javier Sotomayer once cleared 8 feet in 1993… that is as high as the average ceiling in a U.S. living room
- In 1937, Professor Jean Broadhurst identified the measles virus, which became the first step in treating this deadly disease
- Benoît Lecomte swan from Hyannis, MA to his native France in 1998, covering 3,716 miles in the process
- At age 79 in 2004, Dorothy Simpson participated in a zero-gravity flight near Moscow, Russia
Life can be complicated, with work, kids, bills and everything else that makes up our day, but you have to have confidence in yourself that you can do anything you are willing to commit yourself to. And to paraphrase what our friend Johann said at the beginning of this piece, you are one day closer to completing your goal if you get started on it today. You can do it… we believe in you!
At BiddingForGood, we know that not everyone celebrates Valentine's Day in the same manner. Some may exchange gifts, flowers, cards or kind words, while others may bash the day's pure existence. However you celebrate or don't celebrate, we thought you would get a kick out of what we did for the holiday.
According to Wikipedia, by the 15th century, Valentine's Day had evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards. We don't have any of the above mentioned gifts to share with you, but we do have is a video, made just for you.
Here at BiddingForGood, we love our clients and always go the extra mile to make sure they raise more money and pass a smile along the way. Thanks for being with us and hope your Valentine's Day was great - however you celebrated it.
Enjoy the video!
Join BiddingForGood on Wednesday, 2/15/12 at 2:00PM Eastern/11:00AM Pacific for a FREE webinar titled:
School Auctions Smarten Up: Challenging the Silent Auction Model
We’re proud to partner with School Specialty to bring you this webinar. School Specialty is the leading provider of educational resources that help educators and their students succeed, with a dedicated focus on finding new ways to help educators’ budgets go further while providing a complete range of innovative educational products, programs, and services.
With over $50 million raised by schools on our platform, BiddingForGood has a proven track record in the school fundraising auction market. In-room Mobile Bidding, the latest innovation to our Smart Auction Platform, urges school fundraisers to rethink the silent auction event. The journey to the creation of an end-to-end auction solution has brought with it many valuable lessons. During this webinar we will discuss:
- The inherent barriers to success that the traditional silent auction model presents.
- How and why schools have integrated an online auction component with great success.
- An introduction to the world of mobile technology and what it means for school fundraisers.
- Rethinking and reinventing the school-based silent auction event.
Thanks to School Specialty, all webinar attendees will receive a promotional code entitling you to FREE SHIPPING and 10% off any order at LearningOutlet.com. We will also be offering a copy of our eBook: School Fundraising Challenges, Opportunities, and Tools for Success.
Join BiddingForGood's VP of Marketing, Perry Allison, and School Specialty's CTO, Michael Healey, for this exciting opportunity to hear from two of the leaders in school fundraising innovation! REGISTER NOW.
PLEASE NOTE times are published in Eastern Standard Time. Please schedule accordingly.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
2:00PM Eastern/11:00AM Pacific
BiddingForGood hit the road over the last few months, visiting 12 cities around the country to meet with fundraisers and talk about new innovations in online auctions and In-room Mobile Bidding. At every stop, there were overflowing crowds from schools and nonprofits, who were eager to hear about our Smart Auction platform and learn about how we are reinventing the silent auction.
It was a pleasure to meet so many clients, who shared their experiences using our platform. And, we loved meeting other folks not yet in the BiddingForGood family, who are thinking about how they can take their fundraising to the next level. Many clients told us that they came hoping to meet their favorite Auction Expert, who invests so much time helping them be successful with their fundraising efforts. Several organizations brought entire committees to the seminar, so that they could learn together and consider as a team how to bring new excitement to their events.
There was no shortage of questions and opinions raised by attendees. In some cities, BiddingForGood clients were a tremendous help, answering questions from the audience based on their own experiences. You can view a short video clip from the presentation – click here.
While traveling the country and meeting so many of you, we were really struck by the power of the community and how much fundraisers can learn from each other. We talk a lot about choices. There are many ways to run a successful fundraising event, and bringing people together from different kinds of organizations enabled lots of sharing of ideas and strategies.
If you would like us to visit your city later this year to talk about Smart Auctions, let us know – click here. We will consider your suggestions when we plan our next road show.
In my last post, The Not-So-Silent Auction, I presented the idea of re-inventing the silent auction with Smart Auction Technology. If you’re looking for a little transformation for your auction, you’ve come to the right place. As you’re planning and executing a “Not-So-Silent Auction,” there are several new ideas on the table. While these ideas didn’t really apply to the traditional silent auction, now the stars (and technology) are aligned, so they can have a huge impact on your fundraising success.
We believe that the most successful auctions result from the best catalog of auction items. Our Auction Experts are a wellspring of ideas for how to build a successful auction catalog, and you can read some of their blog posts on that very topic here.
Here’s the catch: your auction items are not jumping off the tables to sell themselves. Even with the perfectly-crafted catalog, bidder engagement is KEY. Because of that, there is one subset of people in the room that I want to focus on: the “bidder buddies,” or those volunteers who are tasked with helping bidders navigate your new (and improved) silent auction.
At the most basic level, bidder buddies are there to help event attendees bid on your auction items. And, if your auction includes In-room Mobile Bidding, their job is to help attendees with a quick lesson on how to bid from their mobile devices, what we like to call a “one-bid learning curve.” However, bidder buddies’ real strength is in how they can affect the competitive dynamic at your silent auction, by using a borrowed (and slightly modified) technique from the worlds of retail and hospitality – the fine art of “upselling.”
So, what makes an ideal bidder buddy? First, you want to look for volunteers who aren’t afraid to be social and outgoing. The best schmoozer you know should be on your list. If you have a volunteer who is shy and reserved, find them a different job. Your bidder buddies are going to be proactive, not reactive. It’s a whole different ballgame now…
Ready to serve. When your attendees walk in the room, is that bidder buddy looking for a way to connect with them? Smiling, saying hello, asking if the attendee needs any assistance – these are things the bidder buddy can start with. You can help your volunteers get ready for this with some simple training. Get your group together for pizza or coffee, and do some role-playing.
Ready to connect. The best bidder buddies are eager to connect with people. Encourage volunteers to get to know attendees a little better. Asking a couple of questions and showing genuine interest will go a long way toward understanding what bidders like and want. Ultimately, you want bidder buddies and bidders to form a partnership. If a bidder buddy takes note of the items someone is interested in and can gauge how much they want to spend, they can provide a valuable service, to both that bidder and your organization.
Able to turn up the heat. Bidder buddies can help ignite your attendees’ psychological instincts to win, and this competitive drive helps you get more bids and raise more money. Live auctioneers are masters at creating this environment during the live auction, and now your bidder buddies can bring that spark to the silent auction. The goal is to help more people get more competitive earlier in the night. Checking back in with bidders, suggesting other items they might be interested in, sharing tidbits about those who are placing the highest bids or how much money the auction has raised at strategic points are all ways that you can keep bidders engaged and coming back to bid again. Brainstorm with your team about how your bidder buddies might be able to turn up the competitive heat as they work the room.
Show your bidder buddies some love. Consider incenting your bidder buddies by rewarding them for their efforts based on bids placed or dollars raised. Set goals for each bidder buddy and gather the team to recap, again over pizza or coffee (food always makes people happy). See how many bids each person helped to get in the system and estimate how much money that represents. The numbers don’t have to be exact, but showcasing the value of the team’s efforts will make everyone feel good. Also, gather ideas from your team to put towards the next event. What worked? What didn’t? Were there missed opportunities, and if so, how might you overcome those obstacles next time?
Starting this Friday, February 10th, Client Services will be starting their new webinar series called “Basic Training Auction Boot Camp with Jenny!” This webinar will be conducted by our very own Jenny Fox, who joined the Client Services team in September 2011. As another new member of the team and the unofficial Webinar Drill Sergeant, I thought it would be fun to interview Jenny so we could all learn a little more about her and, of course, the webinar!
Valeria (VA): Tell us a little bit yourself and what you do at BiddingForGood.
Jenny (JF): I work in the Client Services department, helping clients with their technical questions and general bidder inquiries. I’ve also been helping out with our mobile launch partners, creating presentations and printable catalogs for their live events.
I went to Simmons College and majored in Communications with a concentration in PR and Marketing. I like the concept of BiddingForGood and it’s a fun environment to be a part of. It’s a lot different from other places I worked at before!
VA: Outside of work, what do you like to do for fun?
JF: I like to go out with friends. I shop a lot… and that might be a problem. I live in the North End in Boston and I love it there! But, I’m pretty boring.
VA: Any North End recommendations?
JF: Bova’s bakery! It’s open 24 hours a day and it is AMAZING! Lisa B. says I should be their official spokesperson. And for food that’s not pastry, I like Hot Tomatoes.
VA: You mentioned earlier that you’re working on our upcoming webinar series for current clients. What are these webinars about?
JF: These webinars are for new and returning clients looking to learn the basics of our Auction Manager platform. It’s an overview to help them get started, learn about the tools and resources, and build their auction. There will also be some time at the end to ask questions.
VA: I know it will be after the Super Bowl when this gets posted, but who are you rooting for?
JF: The Patriots!
VA: Boo! (I’m a Giants fan, folks!). Well, thanks so much for your time Jenny! I’m sure our clients are looking forward to the webinars!
If you are a current client and would like to learn the basics of our Auction Manager platform, please join Jenny starting this Friday, February 10th at 2pm Eastern/11am Pacific for “Basic Training Auction Boot Camp with Jenny!”. If you can’t make it on the 10th, you can also register for future webinars by clicking on the link.
Posted by
Eric Reddy on Fri, Feb 03, 2012 @ 12:33 PM
Two BiddingForGood Employees Make Their Cases and Predictions for Their Favorite Teams
The following is transcribed from a heated exchange leading up to Super Bowl XLVI, which took place in the BiddingForGood offices. This weekend’s Big Game matches the New York Giants against the New England Patriots, in a rematch of Super Bowl XLII. BiddingForGood colleagues and bloggers Brian D’Angelo (5’10”, 180 lbs., Aries, a true-blue Giants fan) and Thomas Nolan (6’3”, 195 lbs., Boston College alum, die-hard Patriots fan), who collectively have zero years' experience playing professional football, sat down to talk about their memories of their favorite teams, talk a little trash, and offer up predictions for this Sunday’s Super Bowl.
Q: What is your earliest memory of your favorite team?
Thomas: My favorite moment is a mix of a lot of moments. My dad is a big Patriots fan as well and I always remember us gathering around the TV to spend some quality time watching games together.
Brian: I think it’s actually a tie between the Scott Norwood kick (Norwood was a kicker for the Buffalo Bills who missed a short field goal in Super Bowl XXV, giving the Giants the victory instead of the Bills), or being at Phil Simms and Lawrence Taylor’s last home game as Giants. That day, as a young boy, I cried just like Thomas is going to when the Pats lose on Sunday.
Q: What is your favorite Super Bowl memory involving your team?
Thomas: I think winning it all in 2002 on Adam Vinatieri’s game-winning field goal is mine.
Brian: David Tyree’s catch against the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. No doubt… without that, they don’t win that game over the Pats.
Q: Why do you think your team will win on Sunday?
Thomas: Actually, I think the Patriots defense is key to their winning. They have been playing great of late, and you can never discount Rob Gronkowski, the best tight end in football.
Brian: No way can the Pats cover Hakeem Nicks, Victor Cruz, and Mario Manningham (Giants wide receivers) at the same time. And Eli Manning isn’t that bad either…
Q: Who is your favorite player on your respective favorite team?
Brian: Jason Pierre-Paul… he’s a freak!
Thomas: Vince Wilfork… he’s the man! I would love to hang out with him for one day; he seems like he is always having fun.
Q: Who is your favorite player on the team you are not rooting for?
Thomas: I think it’s Mark Herzlich (Giants linebacker who overcame a bout with cancer while in college). I knew him a little at Boston College, and his story is great. He is the only Giant I like.
Brian: I like Wes Welker (Patriots wide receiver). He’s gritty and goes across the middle of the field... tough player.
Q: What form of clam chowder do you each prefer, New England or Manhattan?
Both: New England
Q: Where will each of you be watching the Big Game?
Thomas: At my apartment with friends.
Brian: At a friend’s party, where I will be the only Giants fan in attendance.
Q: How does the Super Bowl relate to online auctions?
Thomas: The items in an auction are like players on a football team. You need to have big-time players in order to reach the Super Bowl, and you need to have some big-time items in order to raise high dollars.
Brian: Marketing… the Super Bowl wouldn’t be as popular as it is if it had not been marketed correctly as it grew. Just like an online auction, if you need to market to as many people as you can, for the auction to be successful.
Predictions:
Brian: Giants 27-24
Thomas: Patriots 21-17
This week we are traveling around the country talking about the value of online auctions. We are also introducing participants at our events to a powerful new innovation that we are offering: In-room Mobile Bidding. While on tour, we thought it would be nice to give a shout-out to some of the wonderful charities and non-profits in the states we are visiting that are hosting auctions with us right now.
New York
Samaritans of New York has some great items up for bid, including vacations to Mexico, Florida, and the Big Apple. Samaritans is a non-profit, volunteer organization whose sole purpose is to provide support to those individuals and groups who are in crisis, have lost someone to suicide and/or are feeling suicidal. Help them continue their life-saving mission by making a bid.
Florida
Looking to get fit in 2012? Or maybe you want to find a piece of memorabilia for that sports junkie in your house? Look no further than the auction being run by the Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce. This auction goes to benefit the programs offered by the chamber to help businesses in their area thrive and expand.
Virginia
As part of their annual gala, the Saint Ambrose School has launched an online auction with us. The school provides a faith-based education in a safe, warm environment for children in kindergarten through eighth grade. If you want to support them in their efforts, you can bid on spa treatments, designer handbags and even luxury vacations right on our site.
Happy shopping!