Don’t be afraid of your shell

Work
Because my kids are 4 and 6 the literature I’m most familiar with is the stuff with pictures on every page and only a few words. One of my favourite books is the Franklin the Turtle book, called ‘Franklin in the Dark.’ It’s a story about how Franklin is afraid of the dark and doesn’t want to go into his shell at night. Over the course of the book he meets a bird that is afraid of heights, a lion afraid of loud noises and a polar bear that is afraid of the cold. I’ve met salespeople that are afraid to sell. They can tell the story but asking for the sale is just too much.
Just like Franklin the Turtle, in the fundraising work we do we run across a lot of organizations that want to raise more money, they want to see their Direct Mail do better, but they do not want to sound at all aggressive or desperate. Their mail pieces are beautiful, the writing is often quite good, they create lots of warm feelings but they fail to ask for money in a compelling way.
Unfortunately, it can't be both ways. People don’t voluntarily reach into their pockets and pull out cash, you have to pry it away. You have to ask. Organizations seeking to sell or fundraise through the mail need to identify their objectives: if they are sending the piece to raise money it needs to clearly, succinctly, and compellingly present a case for giving. Nobody is going to sit with your mail piece and spend time mulling over it, you’ve got 10 seconds—tell them what you want.
If the piece is intended to raise money, then you’ve gotta ask for it.

Ahh the hamburger
I think my favourite thing about summer is hamburgers. I know you can eat them in the winter too, but they just don’t taste the same. Over the last few years I’ve gone from loading them up with just about everything in the fridge to creating far more selective, themed burgers.
Last summer was the summer of Thai burgers—a little cilantro and hoisin sauce in the burger and grilled red peppers on top - yum. This year has been more about Greek so far— ground lamb with black olives mixed in, stuffed with a feta/thyme mixture and topped with a little garlic mayo and red onion.
I’ve got no funny hamburger stories, in fact I don’t really have anything all that exciting to say about hamburgers, I just felt the need to create this little ode to the burger.
I’m feeling emotional and need to break into poem:

The Hamburger

Meat
Bun
Other stuff
Yum.

Please let me know if you’ve got a recipe that’s going to make me forget about Greek burgers.