Tara and I recently presented some cool data at the annual meeting of the California Blood Bank Society.

At the average 100 unit blood drive, 12 to 16 donors will be temporarily deferred. Of temporary deferrals, 60-70% are for one reason–low iron. And most of those donors are women in their child-bearing years.

We asked blood center executives and medical directors a pointed question–how many of those donors will return, to try again within the next two months?

Not a single attendee could even guess at an answer to that question!

Or next query was most telling. We asked each CBBS attendee to describe the process their blood center employs to coach temporarily deferred donors back into the blood program, on terms which ensure they’ll qualify.

That query only ended in blank stares and scratched heads! Not a single blood center executive or medical director could relate an established, detailed process!

Which begs the question–which major manufacturer would be satisfied with preventable productivity leakage of 12 to 16%? And what for-profit manufacturer wouldn’t have a plan in place to recapture these “lost resources” once they were again eligible to qualify?

With the right coaching, most temporarily deferred donors will give again. According to our pilot programs and research, however, the unintended last message temporary deferrals at busy blood drives feel they most often receive from your staff are the Three Unacceptable Un-words–deferred donors leave feeling not only Unhealthy and Unqualified, but also Unwanted!

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As you may know, our parent company also works with Pepsi.

Just yesterday, I spent the morning in Cuppy, the Pepsi Cup Costume, at a Pepsi Beverages Company call center. Cuppy met over 400 Pepsi employees!

We experienced the same thing we’ve experienced when we have taken blood drop costumes to community events and high school blood drives–social media savvy fans often want a cell-phone photo snapped of them with an inflatable mascot!

That’s why we recommend having a Facebook fan page for your blood center mascot! When Pepsi mascots make public appearances, their handlers often hand out collateral items that say–ADD FIZZY ON FACEBOOK – www.SodaGear.com/fizzy

If someone captured a picture to show their family, would you be OK with that? If someone told their friends about what an awesome time they had at your blood drive, would you be OK with that? If a child remembered his/her parents donating blood because something stood out to them , would you be OK with that?

If your answers are yes, then mascots will do all three things and so much more! It’s proven time and time again, that with mascots at your blood drive, rather it be our seated inflatable, our sky high mascot or our costume mascot, that people remember and talk about the fun they had while donating. They might post the picture to Facebook, they might send the picture to their spouse to show the kids or they might just take a picture because they want to remember the experience.

Mascots have been in the business a long time as you know, but some remember their mascots as hot, bulky, dirty or just plain old! Our inflatable mascots are easy to use, great for hot summer days, and they don’t take up an entire corner in your office when you store them. We have sold a lot of mascots, but we have given away even more FREE mascots. The way to get your next mascot FREE is easy. You are buying t-shirts, stress balls, water bottles, or whatever your chosen donor incentive is anyways, why not try to plan ahead and buy in bulk to receive a FREE mascot? It’s just that simple. Try our standard blood drop, or learn how we can help you design a new mascot for your blood center!

“You either soar with the eagles, or you roost with the turkeys.” – Doctor Phil

What makes winning recruiters winners? From my work with over 300 blood centers in 11 countries, I have some observations.

1. Winners Emulate Success. If you want to be better at anything, find those who are the best at it and model their behaviors. Follow first, ask questions later. There is synergy to be found among performers, whereas there is negative energy to be found among those who don’t perform.

2. Winners have PMA. Nothing distinguishes winners like a Positive Mental Attitude. Regardless of the obstacles before them, they innately know they will win and everything will turn out alright. Given lemons,

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My team and I help blood centers improve their product yield and bolster their bottom line with highly creative, out-of-the-box approaches that refine the way they see donors. Many downstream strategies go awry because of flaws in how we view donors and then categorize them.

SmartSeating^TM is a strategy that defines when, where, how and what donors give based on hospital needs, or availability-not on blood center conveniences, donor choice or traditional blood center territorialism. Continue Reading »

Participants in our student donor focus groups have a message for blood centers: we can’t hear you!

At least not when you plaster bulletin boards with posters.  Or have the school nurse march around campus, seeking sign ups. If you really want to penetrate the noise of adolescence, you’re going to have to do more to get their attention.

And at high schools, more exposure = more donations!

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