MY DATE WITH DREW

I need to do some recruiting for agencies serving youths, volunteers to lead those youths on hikes and additional administrative help. I could just start cold calling people. But, I'm an outside salesperson by trade, and I've learned that a referral increases one's success in "the ask".

The best place I've found to learn how to get referrals is a movie titled, "My Date With Drew". It's a fun and funny documentary. Learning is ALWAYS more fun when it's entertaining! The story is about an unemployed guy who decides he needs a goal. So he decides his goal will be to get a date with Drew Barrymore. And, since he was in the entertainment industry, he decides to make a movie about his goal. It's a valuable watch if you need someone you don't know to help you accomplish a task.

Most of the movie involves the six degrees of separation theory. Everyone is only 6 people removed from anyone else in the world. The most instructional scenes are where he is brainstorming with his friends. They are making a list of people they know, who may know someone who may know someone who knows Drew Barrymore. So, that's what I did when trying to find an agency.

I have friends at the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, friends who are teaching at public schools in economically depressed areas, and friends who are social workers. Some I hadn't talked to in years. But I emailed them all and everyone of them responded. Two not only gave me the agency name, but also a contact, phone number and permission to use them as a reference. So what once would have been a "cold call," was now a "warm call". In fact, when I arrived at one agency the person I was meeting with said, "one of our board members said we should meet with you, but didn't tell us why". Good thing I had my elevator speech ready. At another meeting, it turned out that one of the program coordinators had been a research assistant in the sociology department at a local university. So when I shared my plan to recruit sociology students from local universities to lead the hikes, he offered to connect me to the dean! BONUS!

Now on to getting some additional administrative help. Time to write some "Help Wanted" ads.