This is for all future racers and current ones who are fundraising.
These are my takeaways from the yard sale I did to raise support!
- Plug in to a church that wants to not only support you financially, but will donate time, space, tables, chairs, technology, etc. to help you succeed. Thank you, Hope Community Church
- Find yourself some good friend that will volunteer early on a Saturday morning to help you set up and sell items.
- Ask people to donate items
- Clean out your own closet
- Put an AD in the newspaper
- Put up flyers
- Make announcements at churches
- Find someone like Matt C. who will help you figure out all the little details because he has done it before and can offer a lot of wisdom, and if you are anything like me you have no idea what you are doing.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for advice. I had no idea what I was doing or what to price items at so I asked people and they helped me out
- Your best friend will be the statement “make me an offer”
- SELL EVERYTHING people donate to you, do not turn anything down
- Negotiating is not what you think it is. Basically, you say a price and they say way less and you say, “yes that is perfect”, even though it was way less than you wanted. BUT…
- Remember you want to sell everything so getting some money is better than getting nothing at all
- Get the Salvation Army or Crossroads to come and pick up all your left-over stuff…they bag it up and put it in a truck and drive away with it all. You just have to help clean it up. It’s great.
- Don’t price anything because no one looks at that anyway. They will all come up and ask you even though there is a sign or a sticker
- Don’t price clothing…If you have a lot, buy some bags and do a “fill a bag of clothing for only 5 dollars”. It’s a huge hit and you won’t have that much left over. Great idea.
- Put a sign up that says why you are doing the sale
- Tell people about your trip
- Buy your friends coffee and doughnuts to thank them from helping. People like food. It can also be used as incentive to wake up early.
- Do it in April or May. That’s perfect time for yard sales and people are doing spring cleaning anyway so a lot of people will have items to sell
- Start 2 months ahead of time. Get the word out and offer to pick up items as the weeks get closer for convince
I hope this was helpful to you and you enjoyed reading!
My last piece of advice is this… Don’t stress. The Lord has got a plan for you and your financial journey and He knows what you need before you do. Give it all to Him. He has you in the palm of His hand. 🙂 Good Luck!
~Kenzie
