Have you ever thought of hosting a classic car show in your town? Did you know it can be an excellent fundraiser in a way to raise money for your nonprofit group? It's true, but what you'll need is a very big parking lot, one that's well maintained, and one where you can rope off a rather large section. You will also need lots of parking for all the people who come to visit, and wish to take pictures with their digital cameras, smart phones, and iPhones.
The other day, I was talking to a lady who used to put on classic car shows for a living. She and her husband had hosted some local car shows which were annual events and fundraisers for various nonprofit groups in our town. Although she was retired, and no longer does this, she had hosted a number of very large car shows not only here, but even in other states. As we got to talking, she reminded me of all the car shows I've been to in my life.
You see, before retirement one of my companies had franchised mobile detailing trailers in many states, and we had contracts with major car dealerships to do all of their used cars and new car detailing. One way we used to market was to go to car shows and hand out flyers. We would even give money to the nonprofit group to allow us to come to their car show in our khaki shorts and collard logoed shirts. In fact, we had even helped car clubs find locations to have their classic car shows, just so we could also use it as a way to do our marketing.
After a while we got very good at convincing managers of big box stores to allow us to host a classic car show in their parking lot. Most of them were not too keen on the idea, due to the insurance issues, liability, and the issues of cleaning up all the trash when it was done. What we found out was that we could put together a quick sales letter, and schedule a meeting to talk with the big box store manager ensuring them that we would pick up all the trash, and give them a certificate of insurance for the event, with their company as additional insured.
Interestingly enough, those managers generally had a form for us to fill out, and take to our local insurance agent, to make it all official and have it faxed back. What we also found out is as we got closer to the event, the big box store manager would even help us with publicity, such as putting an insert in the newspaper because it also served his company.
Remember, a big box store manager wants things to run smoothly, and they want to be satisfied there won't be any liability issues, or debris in the parking lot that they have to pay to clean up later. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.
Lance Winslow is the Founder of the Online Think Tank, a diverse group of achievers, experts, innovators, entrepreneurs, thinkers, futurists, academics, dreamers, leaders, and general all around brilliant minds. Lance Winslow hopes you've enjoyed today's discussion and topic. http://www.worldthinktank.net/ - Have an important subject to discuss, contact Lance Winslow.
No comments:
Post a Comment