The meeting with the bread company was rescheduled at their office. In that meeting I learned they were about to introduce a new bread. My antennae went up.
“How about a promotion in which we share the information about your new bread with our supporters?” I asked.
The president was intrigued. After several meetings, the bread company agreed to donate five cents a loaf from sales of the new bread during a one-month promotion in their region.
It was a very generous offer and I told the president so.
“We are a new non-profit start-up and our supporters are not that many,” I said. “The expected revenue will help launch our cash-strapped cause.”
“Your promotion will help identify our bread with a good cause,” he said.
Soon after the arrangement was finalized, the president, along with his vice president, came to our office to check us out.
“To kick the tires,” the president said. They knew very little about us.
Until their visit, I had met them at their office. It was late in the afternoon. I was there with David Kimble, who had just joined us as a volunteer.
They walked up the flight of stairs to our one-room office in the church building, where a solitary old manual typewriter sat on a folding table. There was nothing else. They looked around.
“Do you have a copying machine?” the vice-president asked.
It was a peculiar first question, I thought. Yet, with that question, I knew he could not only get to the bottom line immediately, he could convey a much larger message in one line. My respect for him went up a few notches.
“No,” I answered.
“Then how do you expect to run a large promotion like this?” He went right to the point.
“Wait here. I will be right back,” I said. I walked down the stairs and out of the building without realizing what I was doing. A sudden dark fog had enveloped me.
I got in my car not knowing where I was headed. At an intersection not far from the church, I noticed a business machine sales office. I stopped the car and went inside. I was somewhat out of breath and started to explain to the man on the floor that we were a new not-for-profit organization and needed a donation of a copying machine for the duration of a promotion.
Before I could finish my fourth sentence, he motioned me to stop.
“The machine is yours. It will be there in the morning,” he said. The gleam in his eyes baffled me.
“Do you remember me?” he asked. I did not. He told me that several years before, when he had just joined the business as a salesman, I had purchased the first copying machine he had sold.
“You and your wife were such nice people. Glad to help,” he said. He was the owner of this business.
“Thank you very much,” I said and immediately got back in my car.
The two men were waiting, wondering where I had gone. Maybe 20 minutes had elapsed by the time I got back to the office, but for David that seemed like forever because the two guests were confirming to each other their doubts about this deal.
“We have a copy machine,” I boldly announced as I walked into the room.
They wanted to know what happened and how I got the copy machine. They were so impressed by the story, they agreed to broaden the campaign by also enrolling their sister bread company in the adjoining region.
The bread company suggested we provide each buyer of the bread with some information about Trees for Life. They suggested half a million brochures. An advertising agency donated its services to design a brochure. However, we didn’t have any money to pay for printing.
I went to one of Wichita’s largest printing companies, asking it to donate 500,000 brochures. The man I met with laughed, literally. He cupped his hand behind his ear and asked, mockingly, “How many?”
He was not alone in telling me he had never heard of Trees for Life. Not too many people had. Naturally, I got the run-around and was told to see one person after another. I went to that printing company seven times, knowing well the odds I was facing. Finally, the president agreed to see me.
The president had been briefed ahead of my appointment. He was there with the manager I had first met.
“We are asked by many people for donations of printing,” the president said to me. “We have to turn them all down because if we did such a favor for one of them, we would not be able to turn the others down. We would have a serious problem on our hands. What is so special about your organization that we should help you?”
As I started to reply, I realized someone other than me was giving the answer. I felt a current go through me and instantly saw a spark light up in their eyes. Their faces changed. I knew they had agreed to make the donation.
Afterward, I racked my brain trying to recollect what words came out of my mouth, but to no avail. Years later, I ran into the former manager.
“What did you say to us that convinced us to give you that many brochures?” he asked, still incredulous after all those years. “We had never done that before.”
To keep our part of the bargain in the promotion, we talked to all the grocery chains in town. They all agreed to share the information about the bread promotion through their stores. The president of the largest chain with 100 stores complained that we should have done this promotion with his company’s bread instead. An outdoor billboard company gave us space on 75 billboards, at a cost of $35 for the printing and posting of each poster. I contacted all my friends and had the posters paid for by sponsors. Another company that printed bags offered to print 20,000 posters for our campaign. All the radio and television stations agreed to run public service announcements.
The bread company was very pleased with the results of the promotion and gave us $23,000 as our share. Their sister company in the adjoining region sent us another $20,000. At that time, those were the largest donations we had ever received.
We were on our way. After that, I seldom heard anyone in the state say they didn’t know about Trees for Life.
And the grocery chain whose president complained we should have done the bread promotion with his stores later collaborated with us on promoting another product. That promotion netted us more than $500,000 in donations over several years.
The bread company’s president, an elderly gentleman, had prophesied, “The stars are aligned in your favor.”
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