Melissa Karcher's $34,704.25 Fundraiser Success | Bovee Team Congratulates!

[aried]

Just got an email from my upper line director:

Congratulations to Melissa Karcher on your fundraiser of $34,704.25. It's hard to find the right words to tell you how AMAZING and INCREDIBLE your sales are Melissa!!! I'm sure the elementary school feels the same way!!! That is the most successful Fundraiser that I have ever heard of and on behalf of the whole team....Terrific job Melissa and we are proud to have you as part of the Bovee Team!!!! WAHOO

Don't know if Melissa is on chef success-but congratulations and I hope she will be sharing how she did it.

Can you imagine sorting and packing all those orders?

 

[gaddischef]

All I can say is "WOW!"

 

[Gina M]

How many Fed Ex trucks were needed to ship that show? That is incredible!!

 

[Chef Kearns]

That's simply amazing!! The commission on that will knock her socks off! Melissa, if you are on CS...CONGRATULATIONS!!!

 

[pattikake]

Oh I would love to hear how she did this!!

 

[Melissa78]

I just did one that now feels like a meesily $7k (compared to hers) and it was 22cases....yes I do beleive she will have the Fed Ex Tractor Trailer arriving...

Congrats to her!!!

 

[thehaleykitchen]

WoW! That is huge!!!! I would love to be at her door when FedEx arrives ~ the driver will get a workout hauling all those boxes to her door!Karen

 

[Teresa LM]

Wow is right! That's awesome!

 

[Brenda.the.chef]

She's is on my team and this is the 2nd year she has done the fundraiser for her local school. Last year it was over $36,000! It's a lot of work and communication with the home office according to her.. but that $6-7,000 commission kinda makes it all worth while! It took one Federal Express truck and a lot of parents to help sort the items out in the school gym. I'm not sure if she's on CS either, but she is on Facebook. I'll send her a note and see.

 

[valsped]

What area (or state) are you in? I honestly think that is where my Grandma lives, that name sounds familiar. I did my 2nd show there and only 2 people showed up and had small orders. The guests said they had just finished a fundraiser for the school and the whole town had already gotten what they 'needed' from pampered chef! It is SO awesome that the whole town came together like that to support the school! Here they are lucky if the school makes $1000 on a more traditional fundraiser!

 

[chefsteph07]

I just did one that now feels like a meesily $7k (compared to hers) and it was 22cases....yes I do beleive she will have the Fed Ex Tractor Trailer arriving...

Congrats to her!!!

Melissa! That's great! What organization did you do it for and how did you achieve that much in sales??

 

[Brenda.the.chef]

she did her fundraiser in McLeansboro, Illinois

 

[valsped]

That's what I thought!! That is such a little town that I KNEW when I saw the name!

 

[Teresa LM]

I had just 6 kids bring in $2000 this week. I thought that was pretty good! If they would have all put in the effort, they really could have done well. I don't think I will ever want to do another of these though. What a pain this one has turned out to be.

 

[Brenda.the.chef]

I sent Melissa a FB message and she just registered for CS just moments ago... how long is it before she can read and/or post comments to the website? She is having difficulty.

 

[ChefKarcher08]

Okay, so I am new to Chef Success, so bare with me!
First of all...THANK YOU everyone for the congratulations on my fundraiser!
You all have the potential to achieve this success!! It takes ALOT of organization and attention, but it IS worth it in the end. This is the second year that I have done this fundraising project with the Preschool and Elementary school in McLeansboro, IL. And I am VERY proud of the PTA and the students for their hard work and effort!
I will be more than happy to answer any questions that all of you might have.

PS. It took 4 "regular" FedEx trucks this year, last year it took 1 "small semi" FedEx truck to ship, and it shipped to the school thank goodness, because there were 85 boxes

 

[ChefKarcher08]

I've gotten to know my FedEx driver pretty well, when the catalogs for the fundraiser were delivered this year...his comment to me "Oh no...are we fundraising again this year?!?"

 

[thehaleykitchen]

So, how many catalogs did it take? How many orders were there? Just more wondering about the work behind it.... you can email me directly at [email protected]Thanks!Karen

 

[Dina Atnip]

That is great and congrats to you Melissa.

 

[Teresa LM]

NO emailing direct. Inquiring minds need to know!

 

[cincychef]

I would love to hear more, if you have time to share! How did you start doing this fundraiser? [email protected]
Thanks!

 

[Shelly Flanagan]

God bless you for helping the school raise that money. I know a small fundraiser is an enormous feat let alone a $37k fundraiser. You deserve all the kudos you can get. And God bless that town for doing all they can to ensure the kids earn as much as possible.

 

[vtolin]

Congrats!!! How awesome for you and the school!!!! (And PC!)

 

[cookingwithlove]

I will be more than happy to answer any questions that all of you might have.QUOTE]

congratulations on the fundraiser. I just volunteered myself to do a fundraiser with the school next year. I would love to hear you details and how you acheived your success. I think there are many people here interested in hearing your details, so if you can post the details here I think everyone would be greatly appreciated!

 

[byrd1956]

I am also looking forward to hearing how this fantastic fundraiser was accomplished. The highest any fundraiser has gone for me is about $600 and most of it was me contacting people....

 

[ChefKarcher08]

I had just 6 kids bring in $2000 this week. I thought that was pretty good! If they would have all put in the effort, they really could have done well. I don't think I will ever want to do another of these though. What a pain this one has turned out to be.

Teresa...
The power of a positive attitude girl! 6 kids and 2k...thats seriously AMAZING!! I'll agree it is alot of work, but to know that you helped fund any project for a group of kids, a community or an organization...you made a difference...for me, in the end, makes it all worthwhile!

 

[ChefKarcher08]

So to explain how I pulled this off isn't exactly simple...I'll try to answer the questions I've seen on here as I go along.
Who/what organization did I do this for:
"The local school PTA is the organization; a grade school (k-6) of 493 students and preschool (18 months-4 yrs) of 95 students."
How did I propose the fundraiser:
"The PTA President is a good friend and past and future host of mine, I proposed it to her June of 2009 as we were closing a cooking show she'd had for me. She was looking for a "fresh" fundraising idea for the PTA, too many parents were complaining about selling "chocolates and wrapping paper or sausage and cheese". She took it to the PTA and they asked me to create a presentation, so I created a small presentation and prepared myself for questions."
This is where I'll stop and say these things are CRUCIAL...
DO NOT USE THE TERM "YOU MAKE 15%" and BE EXCITED AND MORE POSITIVE THAN POSITIVE regardless or the organizations attitude...you WILL ALWAYS have your "skepticals and doubters"
I put a lot of thought into how to propose this because I know that they only make 15% of sales with PC and with the "other companies" they make as much as 35-50%...I knew if I said 15% they'd most likely be turned off. So my thought was this...take the # of students 588 and multiply it by my average show order 40 dollars, this equals almost 26k...round up to account for the go-getters to 30k and multiply it by the 15% you get a profit of $4500 and I volunteered to give them half of my commission the first year, so 3k...thats a profit of $7500! And I pitched it to them like so "If each student sells atleast 40 dollars worth your profit will be roughly $4500 and I'm willing to donate half of my commission which is roughly $3000, making your profit somewhere around $7500!"
Of course you can't make any guarantees, but they were bound to make a fair profit if they sold atleast 10k and I gave them half of my commission. I never used the 15% until after all of the orders were collected and turned in...and then I told only the school principal and PTA president, by then it didn't matter...they knew they were making almost triple what they'd made in their last 2 years fundraisers.

 

[ChefBevShu]

With such a huge amount in sales, did you have any trouble with checks bouncing? Also, how many catalogs did you have to order?

 

[Teresa LM]

I am amazed! Sorry if I sounded negative. That was totally awesome! The thing that gets me is, the director wasn't for it, the person that I originally had set it up for didn't sell a thing, the other 2 people that said, "Yes! Absolutely! Let's do this, didn't sell anything either. But, the people that did sell the most were so good about it!

I had 6 "secret shoppers" that I had picked in the community and they did find 2 of them. Of course, those 2 were the easy ones but still, asking the band director and the school secretary proves that they were trying, especially thinking that there was no way they could beat all the others and that person (right under their nose) could be a secret shopper.

Our choir is heading to Europe and some of them will have a bit more money to help them with the trip. The rest, they missed out on a really good opportunity.

I'm really proud of the ones that put in the effort and they will be rewarded! I might not make much on it but I just wanted to help the kids.

I am glad that I set it up with individual accounts. I would feel horrible knowing that the slackers got the same cut as those that worked for it. It's more work for me but on this fund raiser, I am glad!

I had people tell me they were too busy. OK. I understand that. But, I am trying to juggle graduation, the fund raiser, the garden, the lawn mowing, the emails for when the director gets orders and he wants nothing to do with this....NO, sorry, I should not be so negative! Sorry again but it really does tick me off!

For the most part, it was great! I would change a few things and I am really anxious to hear how the 2 huge shows were done. I can't imagine. Well done! You are AWESOME!

 

[ChefKarcher08]

How many catalogs did it take?
"I ordered 800 catalogs the first year - 600 for the fundraiser, 200 for shows and any request for extra catalogs."
I made packets for each student...these packets were made with the following (1 large manila envelope, 1 small address label, 1 shipping label [the size used for the invite using mini catalogs], 1 catalog, 3 outside order forms, 1 guest host special flyer, 1 explanation letter to parents and 1 printable postcard [I printed on both sides one side with benefits of booking a show and 1 side with common facts about PC products]
Each student got a packet and parents were instructed if they needed more order forms they could be picked up from the school office. On each packet...the shipping label I made myself in Microsoft Word...it had a line for the students name, for the teachers name and the students goal for orders. Address label just had the packet return date on it. I made sure that the students name were on each of the order forms also, along with a code I'd made up for the grade and teacher (ie. grade was Kindergarten, teachers name was Clark, code = Students Name -KC)...this helps later for the sorting process when product is delivered.

For those of you wondering by now...my thought process going into this (from my business standpoint) all along was simply this - "If you want to make a little money, you have to spend a little money." I had around 1800 dollars both years invested in this fundraiser, between supplies for packets and prizes for the go getters

The prizes worked like this:
Top Seller Over All - Choice between $200 cash or IPOD touch
Top Seller Each Grade Level - $25 Cash
Top Selling Classroom - Sweet Treat Party/Popcorn & Soda Party
And then a drawing for each student that collected at least 3 orders their name went into a drawing twice for a Dell Netbook.
**Please note all of these items I bargain shopped for, the IPOD and Netbook anyway, the "Sweet Treat Party" was donated by local Dairy Queen and I received anonomyous donations for the cash up to $150.

You have to give the students something to work for...and even a little, the parents Trust me...they'll sell for a free Netbook.