Candy Bar Fundraising

Sales Tips For Candy Bar Fundraisers

Candy bar fundraising is a direct sale of specially packaged candy bars, usually in convenient $1 or $2 sizes. Candy bar fundraisers are an easy moneymaker and is a favorite of youth sports teams in baseball, football, soccer, basketball, cheerleading and more.

Many fundraising companies offer popular types of brand name candy bars including Hershey, Nestle, Mars, M&M's, and Worlds Finest Chocolate. These are packaged in sturdy carrying cases holding several dozen bars, so each seller can make immediate sales.

Because of intense competition with discounts exceeding 50%, it pays to shop suppliers. Some offer free freight deals while others offer additional incentives that encourage customers to buy or sellers to make more sales.

One example is including a valuable coupon on the back of each candy wrapper for discounts on pizza or sub sandwiches. Another example is offering prizes for top sellers or free offers for each seller. Both increase your candy fund raisers sales.

Sometimes it seems like you need a spreadsheet to keep track of all the various competing supplier deals, but if it helps, here's a link to eFundraising, our preferred candy bar supplier, which is a division of Readers Digest.

Sales tips
The success of your candy fundraiser depends on each seller maximizing their sales. The best way to do that is to teach them a few sales tips.

Here's what they need to know:

1 - Smile and look each prospect in the eye while introducing yourself. Example: Hi, I'm Jimmy Jones...

2 - In one sentence, explain who you are and what you're doing. Example: "Hi, I'm Jimmy Jones and our baseball team is doing a candy fundraiser to pay for new uniforms."

3 - Ask for their help and use the word "because" in the same sentence. Example: "Can you help us out because our old uniforms are getting pretty worn out?"

Why use help and because?
Research has shown that people make decisions emotionally and then use logic to justify them. By asking for help, you position yourself emotionally as someone "in need" of their support.

The word "because" is a subconscious psychological trigger word. Research has shown that just using the word because without even a valid explanation attached to it will boost positive answers to a request by more than 50%.

When you use the word because with a truly valid reason for granting what you are requesting, research shows positive answers increase by more than 93%.

On famous experiment involved asking to cut in front of people waiting in line. Most would agree that people who have already waited fifteen minutes are predisposed to say no to line cutting requests and the baseline results reflect that with 78% answering no.

When someone asked if they could help them because they needed to cut in line, the no answers dropped below 40%. Since their supposed reason for cutting in line was that they needed to cut in line, you would think the results wouldn't have improved at all.

When researchers used valid excuses such as needing to cut in line because otherwise they would be late for a class or meeting, the no answers dropped below 20%, and in some cases, as low as 7%.

So, that's why you need to teach your candy bar sellers to ask for their help and to use the word because!

Summary
Candy bar sales are an easy fundraiser for youth sports teams. The two key areas for maximizing your results are picking the right supplier and teaching the kids how to sell.

Put some effort into each and you'll be surprised at how successful candy bar fundraising can be!