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In this issue...
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Where Are All the Clients?
By Rita Williams
I was recently hired as a temporary consultant at the Crisis Pregnancy Center in Reno, Nevada. Steve Wren, Executive Director, thought it would be a good idea to put together a marketing plan to reach our community. Steve felt that although many people knew there is a crisis pregnancy center in Reno, he wasn't sure they knew about all of the services we have to offer.
As we sat together brainstorming, Steve came up with the idea of an in-service for our medical community. He handed me a list of OBGYNs and clinics that we could call and request them to allow us to do an in-service for them. "Take them lunch. Pharmaceutical companies do it all the time." After a long prayer and working on my confidence script, I made my first call, "Hi, this is Rita Williams from the Crisis Pregnancy Center in Reno. Could I talk to the clinic director regarding bringing in lunch and having an in-service?" "Could you hold for one moment?" asked the voice on the line. I got through the first hurdle and breathed a silent prayer. The director picked up the phone, "What are you going to bring us?" she asked with a giggle. I suggested, "How about chicken, homemade potato salad, ice tea, and cheesecake?" Well with a menu like that, lunch was set up for 36 people.
THEY WERE THRILLED
TO RECEIVE THE
INFORMATION (AND
THE HOMEMADE
POTATO SALAD).
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I told Steve how easy that it was, and we discussed how much this would cost if everyone said yes. We decided on deli chicken for about $27.00 for 50 people, a large potato salad for $6.00, cheesecake (Jell-O, no bake cup cakes) for $8.00, and ice tea and ice at $2.00, which came to about $1.20 a plate. With Steve's blessing, I was on a mission. Twelve phone calls and twelve positive responses later, I started shopping. I always made the food the night before the in-service for freshness and picked up the preordered chicken right before the meeting. Knowing that these clinics I planned to visit were less concerned with the medical and more concerned with the counseling and education part of our business, I concentrated on option counseling, pre- and post-abortion counseling, parenting education, and adoption resources. I was pleased with how impressed the clinic's staff was with the services that the CPC offers. After a question and answer period, the comments would be, "This is a wonderful service to our community." "How long has your center been doing this?" "How long does it take your center to see a client?" "What adoption agencies do you use?" "How can we help?" ... and more. They were thrilled to receive the information (and the homemade potato salad).
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HER DOCTOR
TOLD HER TO
COME TO US FOR
POST-ABORTION
COUNSELING.
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As fun as that was, imagine how great it was when two days after my first in-service a woman entered our center and said she wanted to have post-abortion counseling. She shared that her doctor told her to come see us after someone had given him this information in an in-service. Then more and more phone calls came in regarding information on pregnancy tests and abortion. We saw the referrals from these in-service lunches increase immediately.
Two more interesting things happened. We started receiving phone calls from other agencies asking us if we could do an in-service for their staff, and we started having phone calls from agencies asking if they could come and visit our center.
"WE HAVE 14 OTHER
NURSES HERE WHO
NEED TO HEAR ABOUT
YOUR SERVICES."
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Two nurses came to my office from a particular agency that I didn't think of calling. They asked if they could talk to me about our services. After a tour, I offered them lunch, and we met at the local Wendy's. I had plenty of information but I could tell something wasn't quite right. One of the nurses began to pressure me on information that we didn't give on abortion and contraception. I realized she was pro-choice and wanted a debate. I was not going to press an agenda or engage in a debate. I continued to stay calm and shared all of the free services we had to offer. After lunch, I felt that these two nurses really didn't like what we did, and they didn't have any use for our services. Two days later, I saw a message from one of the nurses and reluctantly returned her call. After a brief hold, she answered the phone and said, "Rita, we have 14 other nurses here that need to hear about your services. I heard that you bring lunch. Can you make it breakfast?" My immediate response, "You bet. How do breakfast burritos sound?"
| Rita Williams is the former Executive Director of PRC of Lodi, California, and consultant for CPC of Reno, Nevada, and Community Pregnancy Center of Carson City, Nevada. She can be contacted at williams3290@sbcglobal.net. |
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