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Donations becoming a major problem...

Stacey K

Stacey K

I like making signs
I answered my own question in preparation to make this post - but I'm posting it anyway LOL

I got a problem now with a pissed off customer. He basically threatened me in Spring to be a sponsor of his Walleye tournament or he would take his business elsewhere. I had my name on the shirts, I donated my labor for the shirts, ordered bags at cost, gave a couple Carhartts, made a banner. To his credit, he did a great job advertising the sponsors - but who cares? I'm busy and can't keep up so not really in need of an advertising campaign. He came in Thursday and not only did he assume I was going to sponsor again, he said another shirt shop wants to go in on the shirts. I said, no thanks, she can just do the shirts and have her name only on them. He did NOT like that. Then he comes at me with "I'm a coach at S.H. baseball diamond, I'm going to start selling the 4x8 signs for $1200 on the baseball fence. If you give us $1200 of free labor and materials I'll put a sign up for you for free." (so basically, $2400) - I laughed and said my son played there and I spent 15 years donating, so I'm not interested. Then he said, "Looks like you're all caught up here, I was just by Sara's shop and she's swamped. Do you know if the other sign shop in S.N. does those signs?" - Friends - I almost lost my SH*T. Then he went on bragging about how he donates roofs, bleachers, all this crap - good for you - you own a roofing company and have 30 employees - you are running a muti-million-dollar company!

Bottom line - he's 6% of my business with most of that in 2023 - minus the sponsorship - so not a huge loss after I sat down and did the math. He sent 2 other fishermen to me to do $520 of boat decals and they BOTH asked me to donate to their stupid tournaments too!

I'm here to make money. I'm not here to save the world. My donations thus far have revolved around my kids activities and some cancer benefit type stuff, churches and Veterans often get a discount or some freebies. I'm a single woman with a part time employee - you can all make an educated guess on how much I make per year. I'm not raking in millions.

The answer to my question is I'm going to tell him to pound sand. If the other sign shops want to get involved with all this donating to HIS favorite benefits - they can have his business! Am I wrong????
 
C

CanuckSigns

Active Member
I think we've all been there before, I have a handful of customers who hit me up every year for their golf tournaments etc. I too have a difficult time saying no and potentially loosing them as a client, but at the end of the day you have to weigh it up. We have one customer who spends around $500/year with us, all just little engraved plaques etc, every year they hit us up to sponsor their charity golf tournament for $300, I've finally told them that I can't (their annual revenue makes mine look like petty cash)

What I've done is I made a google form for sponsorship and donation requests, anyone who asks is sent a link to the form, on the form there are very clear stipulations, such as:
- all requests must be made a minimum of 6 weeks before the event
- only requests submitted with this form will be considered
- you must be a registered charity, with a charity number (no personal requests)
-priority will be given to charities benefiting x and y as those are causes near to our hearts.
- Do not contact us about your application, we will contact you if we choose to proceed with your donation.

I also ask they to give a short explnation of their even and how it has/will help the cause, and also how my donation will be used and how it will be mutually beneficial to our company and them.

I set aside a certain amount of $ per quarter for these requests, once it's gone, too bad, should have gotten your request in sooner. I have found that people's laziness works in my favour, just asking them to fill out the form (which is less than 10 questions) is enough to weed out at least 60% of the requests. When the form is filled out, I get an email with their application and I can make a decision then. I highly recommend setting something like this up it has cut down on the number of requests by a lot, not that I wouldn't love to donate to everyone that asks, but I would be begging for money myself in a few months if I did.
 
N

netsol

Premium Subscriber
we do IT for a couple major charities in our area.
they put the arm on me once in a while, (sponsor for the golf outing <I HATE GOLF, I USED TO SEND MY FATHER-IN-LAW>, be a sponsor for this or that event.
i always "forget" to send my logo. someone asked me once, why i do that, i would really hate to send up doing business with their board members....

the sponsor thing is a pain in the ass, ALTHOUGH you might have a better sample group than i do and might be surprised

myself, I OPT OUT as much as possible
 
Texas_Signmaker

Texas_Signmaker

Very Active Signmaker
I only give to one charity and it's one that another sign shop runs. They offer to add my name to the roster and I decline.

I give in many ways, at a time and place when God tells me to.. 99% of the time, that does not include people asking for fund raisers.
 
C

CanuckSigns

Active Member
Texas_Signmaker said:
I only give to one charity and it's one that another sign shop runs. They offer to add my name to the roster and I decline.

I give in many ways, at a time and place when God tells me to.. 99% of the time, that does not include people asking for fund raisers.
Click to expand...
I should also adapt your strategy of donating when God tells me to, as an atheist I would save a fortune!
 
Elwood "Woody" Smith

Elwood "Woody" Smith

New Member
6% is a easily replaceable number. The time and energy spent on people like this is never worth it. They are not interested in business relationships and want to be the bully. Life is to short. Pound sand is the right response. Move on. If he ever comes back add a BS fee of you choosing to any quote. :)
 
Farmboy

Farmboy

New Member
Hard pass. I give discounts or donate to folks who don't ask. The only one's who ask are people that do no business here.
 
R

Rmurray321

New Member
Farmboy said:
Hard pass. I give discounts or donate to folks who don't ask. The only one's who ask are people that do no business here.
Click to expand...
This is exactly what I do.

My standard fare is,

“where do you get your event signage and banners printed”.

Oh we get them on vista print!

“So lemme get this right, you’re asking for local money, but spending money out of state’

Oh.

“Here’s our print pricing”

I’ve converted maybe 80% of them and created some good community relations and met people who actually spend money.
 
Gino

Gino

Premium Subscriber
I donate to whom I wish to donate to. I pick them. I've had many over the years and in my mind, they all paid off...... not in business, but with me & God.

I never put my name on banners, shirts or cars about donating or everyone will be coming to me for freebie sh!t. I know what I did, the person I donated to does and most of all.... so does God.
 
Lux

Lux

New Member
Every year I get asked to donate to school fund raiser auctions to benefit private schools that my family could never afford and I could not afford if I had kids. Typically it is client that might have once spent a few hundred dollars here. I learned to say no. I will do charitable or discount work, but I always look online to see if it really is a 501c3 nonprofit. The IRS has a lookup database for this.
 
C

CanuckSigns

Active Member
We have a few non profit groups around here that come to us, but not for all their Signage, they might get a banner from us, but yard signs from another local shop, and postcards from another, they spread their spending around, and the reason they do this is they now have a larger vendor pool that they can solicit donations from.
 
M

mt59864

New Member
Stacey K said:
I answered my own question in preparation to make this post - but I'm posting it anyway LOL

I got a problem now with a pissed off customer. He basically threatened me in Spring to be a sponsor of his Walleye tournament or he would take his business elsewhere. I had my name on the shirts, I donated my labor for the shirts, ordered bags at cost, gave a couple Carhartts, made a banner. To his credit, he did a great job advertising the sponsors - but who cares? I'm busy and can't keep up so not really in need of an advertising campaign. He came in Thursday and not only did he assume I was going to sponsor again, he said another shirt shop wants to go in on the shirts. I said, no thanks, she can just do the shirts and have her name only on them. He did NOT like that. Then he comes at me with "I'm a coach at S.H. baseball diamond, I'm going to start selling the 4x8 signs for $1200 on the baseball fence. If you give us $1200 of free labor and materials I'll put a sign up for you for free." (so basically, $2400) - I laughed and said my son played there and I spent 15 years donating, so I'm not interested. Then he said, "Looks like you're all caught up here, I was just by Sara's shop and she's swamped. Do you know if the other sign shop in S.N. does those signs?" - Friends - I almost lost my SH*T. Then he went on bragging about how he donates roofs, bleachers, all this crap - good for you - you own a roofing company and have 30 employees - you are running a muti-million-dollar company!

Bottom line - he's 6% of my business with most of that in 2023 - minus the sponsorship - so not a huge loss after I sat down and did the math. He sent 2 other fishermen to me to do $520 of boat decals and they BOTH asked me to donate to their stupid tournaments too!

I'm here to make money. I'm not here to save the world. My donations thus far have revolved around my kids activities and some cancer benefit type stuff, churches and Veterans often get a discount or some freebies. I'm a single woman with a part time employee - you can all make an educated guess on how much I make per year. I'm not raking in millions.

The answer to my question is I'm going to tell him to pound sand. If the other sign shops want to get involved with all this donating to HIS favorite benefits - they can have his business! Am I wrong????
Click to expand...
I've found that free stuff just gets you calls for more free stuff..go with your gut and give to those that really need help
 
Scootershooter

Scootershooter

New Member
Stacey K said:
I answered my own question in preparation to make this post - but I'm posting it anyway LOL

I got a problem now with a pissed off customer. He basically threatened me in Spring to be a sponsor of his Walleye tournament or he would take his business elsewhere. I had my name on the shirts, I donated my labor for the shirts, ordered bags at cost, gave a couple Carhartts, made a banner. To his credit, he did a great job advertising the sponsors - but who cares? I'm busy and can't keep up so not really in need of an advertising campaign. He came in Thursday and not only did he assume I was going to sponsor again, he said another shirt shop wants to go in on the shirts. I said, no thanks, she can just do the shirts and have her name only on them. He did NOT like that. Then he comes at me with "I'm a coach at S.H. baseball diamond, I'm going to start selling the 4x8 signs for $1200 on the baseball fence. If you give us $1200 of free labor and materials I'll put a sign up for you for free." (so basically, $2400) - I laughed and said my son played there and I spent 15 years donating, so I'm not interested. Then he said, "Looks like you're all caught up here, I was just by Sara's shop and she's swamped. Do you know if the other sign shop in S.N. does those signs?" - Friends - I almost lost my SH*T. Then he went on bragging about how he donates roofs, bleachers, all this crap - good for you - you own a roofing company and have 30 employees - you are running a muti-million-dollar company!

Bottom line - he's 6% of my business with most of that in 2023 - minus the sponsorship - so not a huge loss after I sat down and did the math. He sent 2 other fishermen to me to do $520 of boat decals and they BOTH asked me to donate to their stupid tournaments too!

I'm here to make money. I'm not here to save the world. My donations thus far have revolved around my kids activities and some cancer benefit type stuff, churches and Veterans often get a discount or some freebies. I'm a single woman with a part time employee - you can all make an educated guess on how much I make per year. I'm not raking in millions.

The answer to my question is I'm going to tell him to pound sand. If the other sign shops want to get involved with all this donating to HIS favorite benefits - they can have his business! Am I wrong????
Click to expand...
I'm not partial to blackmailers...
 
Gino

Gino

Premium Subscriber
I said no to all the race cars we ever did, except one. This guy came by and asked how much would it cost to do my son's car ?? I told him how much..... and he said thanks, but I was hoping for something a little better. Wait a minute, why ?? He said, my son's been a problem and after getting him interested in this racing stuff, he's starting to turn around. He's doing better in school and doesn't go around looking for fights. We even get along better. So, I gave him another price and he said you bet. We'll go for that. The kid won his division or whatever it is when you're 11 years old. His old man came back the next year and had a beautiful body and was doing all the motor work himself, so I said I'll sponsor him, but I don't want my name on it or you to tell anyone I did it for free. The kid won everything and I didn't have too much patchwork. He was real good. I did that for him til he got out of it and I always felt I had a hand in helping turn his life around at such an early age.
 
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