Should We Allow ‘Non-Qualifiers’ to Attend Our Show?

Since the shows are designed to be both entertaining as well as educational, it is easy to see why everyone will benefit. In a perfect world, everyone in your organization will sell 5 or more items. Unfortunately, in the real world that may not happen. Everyone knows from the beginning that in order to be able to attend your show they have to sell 5 items or more. This is their ‘price of admission’ into the event. Enforcing this requirement helps to generate sales. Obviously the more sellers that you can get to sell 5 or more items the more money you will make. This is done through continual promotion of the sale from start to finish.

Ultimately it is your decision, but if you are considering the idea of allowing those who don’t reach 5 items to attend your show you may want to rethink this idea. Please keep in mind that you may have to deal with the following issues:

1. Your parents who did work to sell 5 or more items may not be happy once they find out that those who didn’t sell 5 items got to go as well. They may not push it as hard next year as a result.

2. If you let those who didn’t sell 5 items attend, sellers will quickly realize that they don’t have to sell in order to attend the event the next time. You next sale may thus experience a decrease in sales instead of an increase.

You may want to consider charging an admission fee for those who sold less than 5 items. This will make you a little additional money while at the same time giving those who didn’t reach the goal another opportunity to go. However, in this scenario you still face the possibility that you may compromise next year’s fundraiser since many sellers may realize that they only have to pay the admission fee in order to attend the event the next time.

Still another possible option would be to allow those who didn’t reach the 5 item sales goal to sit behind those who did at the show. Again in this scenario you are dealing with your next fundraiser. You may not be able to enforce the 5 item goal as easily next time.

Our goal is to continue to increase you sales year after year. This is done by drawing in those sellers the next time who didn’t reach the 5 item goal the previous time. They will hear from their peers about how much fun the event was and thus they will not want to miss out on it again. ‘Word of mouth’ is a powerful motivator.

Our recommendation is to stay consistent with what was promoted to the sellers and their parents from the beginning and stick to the 5 item minimum requirement to get into your event. This will reinforce your program’s credibility while at the same time encourage even more participation the next time. Remember, it’s a fundraiser first and our primary purpose is to help you raise as much money for your organization as possible, both for this fundraiser as well as for future fundraisers.