Thursday 5th April (Day 35)
Today was the
day I was going to be trained up in the art of street fundraising (for the
second time). I arrived at the office on
time; the office was a lot quieter today.
There were no crazy games or award ceremonies this morning. I think they are only done every Tuesday
morning, doing something like that every morning would just be insane.
The setup for
the training day was similar to the interview day with everyone sitting around
in a circle. The main difference being
the poorly whiteboard that was being sold to me last time was now joining us as
part of the circle.
Ben was taking
a more informative approach this time; talking us through the process of
approaching people, building rapport, rapping people (going through the script)
and filling out the signup form. He was
using the whiteboard and writing stuff down for all of this.
One of the main
parts of talking to someone about the charity (rapping) is something called the
“emotional rollercoaster”. The script we
are given is divided into different parts and each has a different emotion. For example the part where we talk about the
number of children dyeing the tone is sad and sombre but when we start talking
about the charity and the work we do the tone changes dramatically from sad to
super happy.
Taking the
person we are talking to through the emotional rollercoaster is vital to
signing people up. Ben gave us some
examples of previous fundraiser who had messed up the rollercoaster. He said that one guy was talking about how
young African boys are given AK-47s and made to shoot their families; however
he was saying this not in a sad and mournful voice but in a happy and upbeat voice
with a big cheesy grin on his face. As a
consequence he was confusing people and therefore wasn’t signing many people
up.
After talking
about rapping we started to learn more about the actual charity we were going
to represent. Ben got each of us to read
a paragraph from a booklet we were all given about the charity we were
representing.
Can I tell you which charity I was
representing? I have always been unsure
what I can and can’t say in this blog without risking infringement. Well let’s just say the charity I was going
to represent are very much focused on saving the children.
I hate
reading text aloud; I have always been terrible at it. I remember back in school in my English class
whenever I was attempting to read aloud I would always know when I made a
mistake because people who were following the same paragraph I was reading
would suddenly raise their head and look at me in confusion. When I read aloud I have a habit of mixing up
words in sentences and sometimes I leave out whole words. This can make the sentence take on a whole
new meaning. It makes reading book quite
interesting; I usually end up reading a completely different story than the
story that is actually printed on the pages.
Anyway if I
concentrate hard whilst reading aloud I can usually stop this from happening
and I managed to make it through my paragraph about the charity without too
many people raising their heads.
During the
whole interview my eyes kept meeting with some girls eyes who was sat across
the circle from me. At one part Ben was
talking about the subject of fundraisers and personal information and used me
as an example. He was talking about what
I should do if a random girl was to ask me out on a date in the street whilst I
was fundraising. When he said this I saw
the girl smile in a shy way. Did she
smile because she liked my name and the word date in the same sentence?
The final
part of the training was all paperwork related.
We had to fill out 2 identical forms (employee and employer
copies). The girl who was smiling at me
finished her paperwork before me and headed to the door to leave. I was still half way through the paperwork;
some of the sentences I was reading didn’t make sense. I thought to myself “should I go after her
and ask her for her phone number?”
I decided yes
and I casually walked towards the door however when I got to the hallway she
had already gone. The lift must have
already been at our floor. Oh well, I
will most likely see her soon.
After
finishing off the paperwork and handing it to Ben I headed off home. I started the day feeling confident about
this job. I thought “the first time was
just a trial, this is the real thing!” but after the training I wasn’t feeling
so confident. We had been told so much
during the day! There was just so much
to take in and only a few days to do it in.
The script alone is a good full page of size 8 font and not only do you
have to know it all but you also have to nail the emotional rollercoaster.
There was
also a subject that was on my mind. It
is called Rebuttal or Objection Handling.
I was told not to worry about it until the second day but I was worrying
about it now. It is like twisting
peoples arm into signing up and I hated it before. I really sucked at it and I know that if I
want to stay in this job I would have to get good at it
How am I
going to take this all in? It is just so
much...
 |
It is a lot to take in, especially for a job where
you must hit the ground running |
