Student Telemarketing Strategy

Sam Parr shares a story about working as a teenage telemarketer for his high school's fundraising efforts.

"At my high school, if you needed money, the best job was to be a telemarketer. We got paid $10 an hour plus commission and pizza. I worked that job for a year, 3 nights a week from 3 PM to 8 PM.

When you'd sit down at your desk, you'd have a phone and a box of note cards. The cards showed how much the person previously donated, their resume, where they worked, and their age. The trick was to find the oldest person with the best career or who donated the most money, line those up, and start calling them.

I'd say 'Hey Mr. Smith, this is Sam at SLU, your alma mater. I know you graduated here in 1956. Things are going great here, but we need money to build this thing or that thing. Can I count you down for a $5,000 donation? You did $3,000 two years ago, but times have changed. We gotta step it up - you wanna be a man for others or not?'

We had these scripts to sell these guys on giving us money. I would bring in tens of thousands of dollars a month in donations. We'd do maybe 100 calls a night. If you brought in $5,000, you got a $100 bonus. The history teacher ran it as his side hustle - he was like the Jordan Belfort of our school."