Running out of time!

A few weeks back, I saw that Billy was selling advertising, pulling a banner behind his plane, inland beach style. I loved the idea. He even had a banner made with his own URL on it so that he could get a feel for the impact it had, and how much response there was. Seems his stats exploded after driving around a day or 2 with his URL on that banner, and so I thought, "hey, Greensboro would love to donate to Team Nova via the AHA!" Billy explained how it all worked, and offered me a crazy discount on his advertisement rates, and I went about finding a place to make the banner. As great an idea as it may be, as great an increase in donations it might have triggered, I just couldn't afford it, and, greatly disappointed, emailed him to tell him so.

Billy's response? "Send me a wad of your fliers, and I'll pass them out in my travels around Greensboro! Free of charge." Because that's the sort of person Billy is, and if I lived in Greensboro or thereabouts, I'd visit him at least once a week, if only to take his garbage to the curb for him! (Yeah, most of you have no idea why I'd say that, which means you aren't reading Billy's blog, which means you're missing out!)

So anyway, back to the fliers. I ran out. I ran out of ink, and I ran out of money for new ink cartridges, and I definitely ran out of Kinkos-Kash. (Is there such a thing?) Meaning of course, I haven't sent him any fliers at all, and Greensboro is a huge AHA fundraising source going untapped (or, at least it's being untapped by Team Nova anyway.)

This being said, I realized today that there is less than a month before the deadline for turning in the donations, as all donations have to be turned in by the 11th of September. The date fast approacheth, and I've got 'miles to go before I sleep."

The deadline for ordering our shirts approacheth even faster, what with shipping time and the possibility of printing screw ups... and yes, I'm mostly out of Cafe-cash too, though I have $5 pending in actual Cafe-cash, I can't use it until the day before the Heart Walk!

Trish, my best-friend-sister, suggested I sell sponsorship space on the Team shirts to help with the expense there (nearly $100 to get one for each member of the team in the correct sizes, although I can do it for $70 if Terra, Bren, and Kassi all wear adult smalls.) Excellent idea in theory except that I suck as a salesman. She called me yesterday and tells me she may have found my first sponsor. I mean, wow, already!? Before I'd had a chance to even fully consider it, she's off and running! Gooooo Trish!

So I had to work out a price list and offer different size ads for different prices and explain the plans I had for the money and blah blah, and I did that last night. I still suck as a salesman, but if her contact buys a spot, and one other I've "talked to" (actually, my sister's boss, that she's talking to for me today) also buys a spot, hell, it's a start right? And I figure that the shirt would actually be a fairly effective ad, I mean, thousands of locals will be at the walk, plus the large group of people we'll (6 Team members) be talking with at the CHD tent, plus we'll be wearing them when the newspaper takes photos, plus whatever else comes up between now and then (remember the AHA is 'selling' us to other media outlets...) Not a bad amount of coverage for a small amount of money (considering the cost of advertising I mean) AND, we'll wear the shirts long after the walk, plus the money could be written off as a business expense, right?


But there's so little time left to get all of this done! And I've still got to raise over $800! Ok, actually, I have $160-ish pending here and there (The Yarn Raffle, Ryan's Blanket and money that my sister is raising from her customers.) But man, to all those who thought I could hit $10,000: I sure am glad I didn't believe you! I'd be crushed by the thought of having $7800 dollars left to raise with 4 weeks to go! Plus the shirts, and hopefully some awareness pins to hand out at the Walk, but I don't see them materializing unless several more sponsors buy t-shirt spots...

And, I'm not feeling motivated today to do what I need to be doing. So much to do in so little time, I just feel overwhelmed and want to sit on my couch with my coffee and my blankee watching cartoons and listening to the rain. Yeah, it's cold today. I mean 75 degrees is cold when you've been dealing with 105 degree heat indexes the last couple of weeks!