Phonebanking
This training should take no more than 15 minutes. Move quickly, so that students can just get on the phone and learn by doing.
1) Review campaigns and goals for the quarter (2 minutes)
2) Review recruitment drive (2 minutes)
A. What the recruitment drive is and why it is important
B. What our recruitment goals are:
Launch our campaigns.
Get XXX new people involved in the campaigns.
Educate the campus about what we’re working on.
C. How phone calling helps us hit our goals:
Over XXX people have expressed interested in getting involved, which is great!
People are much more likely to actually get involved when they get a call within 1-3 days of filling out a card.
So we call people every night who have filled out a card to get them involved in stuff.
3) Review the event we’re calling people for and our goals (2 minutes)
A. Be sure to context thoroughly:
what the campaign is.
the main tactic (postcards, call-in, etc).
how this will help win the campaign.
what our goals are, what the goals are for tomorrow.
B. Therefore, we need to sign up XXX people tonight for at least an hour of help tomorrow.
C. We can do that if everyone calls for at least an hour, contacts about 10 people and gets about 5 people to sign up to help tomorrow.
4) Tips on Phone Calling (3 minutes)
A. Use the rap – show them the rap, walk through the structure, etc.
B. In an hour, you should contact 10 people, 5 will sign up.
C. Keep really good notes – show how to take good notes on back of the card.
D. Be really friendly, and listen to what they say, ask them questions, etc. Remember that a lot of these folks will be regular volunteers.
E. Speak loudly, slowly and clearly.
F. Use your time as efficiently as possible. Keep the receiver to your ear the entire time, and dial through the cards quickly. It will feel like people aren’t home – this is somewhat true, since we’ll reach only 1/2 of the people, and this is okay!
5) Practice (3 minutes)
A. You demonstrate first.
B. They practice once with you.
C. Show them how to keep good records:
1. Date every card and write down the conversation (sample on pg. 102)
2. Separate cards into 3 piles, yes, no/maybe, not home
3. Fill out the tick sheet thoroughly
4. Remind them not to leave messages.
6) Hit the phones. When calling is in full swing, try to strike a balance between the following:
A. Doing a good deal of calling yourself, to both help reach your goals and to set the pace and lead by example for everyone else. Ideally try to call yourself with other people in a room with multiple phones.
B. Float around and listen to volunteers, give props for a good call (either good sounding call, or they signed someone up), and give simple feedback (talk louder, move quicker). Also make sure people are marking cards thoroughly and using the tick sheets.
C. Every hour, do “the accordion” to build momentum – huddle everyone, update them on the group’s progress, celebrate, give some tips, reset the goal for the next hour, then get back on the phones.
7) Debrief
A. When student is done with activity, ask how it went.
B. Ask student to coordinate or simply help do more calling tomorrow. If the student agrees to be an hourly coordinator, then schedule her for a training at 5:15 the evening she will be helping.
