FUND-RAISER: I’m calling from the XYZ Committee,
and I wanted to ask you a few important questions
about your views on our economy today. Do you
believe that gas prices are currently too high?
MR. SMITH: Yes, gas prices are much too high and
hurting my family.
FUND-RAISER: Do you believe that the Democrats are
part of the problem when it comes to high gas
prices?
MR. SMITH: Yes, President Obama is a bad person
FUND-RAISER: Do you think we need change in
November?
MR. SMITH: Yes, I do.
FUND-RAISER: Can you give me your credit card
number so you can be a part of that change?In theory at least, the “Yes” answers built up a reservoir
of positivity that exploded into donations when requested at
the end of the script. The problem, in reality, was that the
“Yes pattern” scripts had been giving poor rates of return
for years. All the steps were “Yes,” but the final answer was
invariably “No.”
Then Ben read Jim Camp’s book Start with NO in my
class and began to wonder if “No” could be a tool to boost
donations. Ben knew that giving the potential donors a no-
hard-feelings way to get off the call was going to be a tough
sell to his grassroots fund-raisers, because it goes against
everything they had been trained to do. But Ben’s a smart
guy, so instead of totally swapping scripts he had a small