Had a conversation today with a guy named Scott Merrin. He's got a great story - for years he was The Guy at American Airlines who got all of the letters from auction chairs, asking for donated tickets. He made the decision who got a donation, and who didn't. And he saw a whole lot of mediocre letters, from chairs who had no real understanding of why he would choose one request over another. Plus a few really good ones, from savvy chairs who did.
He doesn't do that job anymore. He's an entrepreneur now, running a company called Silent Partners. He has a huge database of people in the kind of job he used to have. And he knows what makes a great procurement letter. And (for a fee) he will send letters on our letterhead, over my name, to his database.
Interesting...
Thanks for this blog...
ReplyDeleteAnd for the link... A true turn-key solution. Sounds like he'd have a robust list of big ticket items, but how can he have local merchants in every metro area? Are his "local" merchants chains like GAP and Chevvy's?
On a related note, I see Auction providers as having to differentiate themselves by offering more tools and even more of the kinds of service that Silent Partners describes. I'm talking about brokering deals with hotels and tours and chains. ReadySetAuction claims to give their clients some of this already.
I listened to his call with Red Apple Auctions, and he does claim to have developed local merchant lists in many cities - not all, but most of the "major markets".
ReplyDeleteAnd as for your second comment, many of the software companies (mine included) do have partnership deals with one or more of the "risk-free" consignment vendors - Winspire is the most common. But those are not quite the same thing - Silent Partners claims to get your team straight donations, rather than consignment items. Both can be useful, both can be good, but they aren't the same thing.
Glad you're enjoying the blog!