EP 30: Add Value to Your Charity Auction with Consignment Items

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Jeff: Welcome to the Elevate Your Event podcast, where we talk about all the ways you can make your next fundraising event better. We've got a really cool group here to talk about consignment items. So I want to introduce, first in the studio, Justin Bear.

Justin: Hey, Justin Bear here. Auctioneer and absolutely awesome Handbid employee as well.

Jeff: But we have a very special guest. We're excited to introduce you guys to Jason Champion. Jason, go ahead and tell them your title, your role, and the company that you work for.

Jason: Hey, everybody. Good to be here. Thanks for having me today. This is going to be a lot of fun. My name's Jason Champion. I'm the VP of Business Development at Winspire. And Winspire is the largest provider of unique bucket-list travel experiences to nonprofits to use in their fundraising. It's all about consignment, which is what we're going to talk about.

Jeff: Yes. And bucket list is absolutely correct, because still on my bucket list, to your point earlier, is the Waste Management Open.

Jason: That has turned into more of a party than a golf tournament. It's great. We have really nice success with that package. It's a lot of fun, but it is definitely not the Masters. It is going and having a good couple of days.

Jeff: Fair enough. Yes, and we just did a podcast recently on fraud and sports memorabilia, and you brought up the Masters. We're not going to dive into consignment just yet, but just to tell the Masters story: there's a lot of fraud with those tickets. And so one of the things that you have to do when you're looking for these types of trips or experiences -- it's worth making sure you're buying from a reputable company. Winspire is one of those reputable companies, so you can absolutely feel safe that you're buying a legitimate set of tickets. My daughter just went to Taylor Swift. That is kind of not my thing, but it is her thing. And I was so nervous for her. I'll tell you why, for the same reason with fraud. She bought her tickets from Ticketmaster and Taylor Swift, so I was feeling somewhat confident. But as soon as she was offered $6,000 apiece for her tickets, which, by the way, crazy as it may seem, she turned down, I was really nervous she wasn't going to get in. And I thought that way because some of our folks that have bought Masters packages at Handbid events -- not from Handbid, but from the charities that hired some company -- we heard stories about those people showing up and finding out that those tickets were fake. So since we're talking about the Masters, I would like to discuss that for a second.

Jason: We are the only true provider of Masters passes to nonprofit auctions. We're able to use their collateral and marketing materials. We have a true partnership with them, which is why we're able to offer the Masters package. So when somebody else says they have Masters tickets, if they don't use the correct terminology -- because there are not tickets, they are passes -- passes must come through a member or a certain organization, and we're able to have access to those. That's just a way to quickly understand what's happening and combat fraud.

Jeff: That's important to know. And you heard it here on the Elevate Your Event podcast. We will extract that comment out and make sure that it's in the show notes because that is valuable information for people to know.

Jason: There you go.

Jeff: But it leads into what we're talking about. You're running a fundraising event. We already know it's hard enough to get items. And we also know that Uncle Johnny's cabin in Breckenridge is getting a little tired at your event. I'm sure Uncle Johnny's cabin is nice, but you've sold it for 10 years in a row. You're trying to mix things up, and it's hard. But you go to these other auctions and you see Broadway musical packages or Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or the Masters, or even just any sort of PGA tournament or professional sports event. And you're thinking to yourself, how do I get that? So, Jason, talk a little bit about the concept of consignment, how it works, how you help organizations find the type of items that are going to fit for them, whether it's destination or budget or whatever, and then where the process goes from there.

Jason: We always try first to educate our customers in the best way possible about using consignment items, because there is too much and there's sometimes not enough. So it's best to have a great variety across the board. One of the reasons to use consignment items first of all in your auction is that it increases variety. You have much more options that are out there on the market. And like you said, Brenda's beach house and Teddy's cabin, all great things and they've been wonderful in the event, but those also do grow tired after a while. It's a wonderful donation, yes. But with being able to use consignment, you increase your variety of items that are out there. It gives you more unique and exclusive items, because while we all have those amazing board members that say at the start of that meeting for that event, "We're going to be able to get us free Broadway tickets and tickets to a hotel at the Plaza, and I will get you dinner with Tom Colicchio, and it's going to be amazing." And then two weeks before, Susan was unable to deliver that. So that's where being able to lock down somebody that can do these items truly at the start is a great way to fill in when you have those kind of over-promises and under-deliveries.

Jason: It also gives you a higher perceived value. Consignment items are positioned around high-value, curated experiences. You're going to raise much more off of a trip to Brazil than a $40 gift certificate to Outback. With us, part of my job is to have some expert curation on these items because it shows our experience within the hospitality industry. Being able to provide that hospitality back to your donors when they're on those experiences is really what it's all about. It's not about us as Winspire, the brand. It's about taking what you've done at that event -- getting those people in the seats, raising that amount of money -- and having that experience continue all the way through. Whether they got tickets to go to an event or even bought a golf package in the auction, the experience after that is really where we come into play with great consignment items.

Jason: It also minimizes risk. For those that don't know what consignment is, we're providing items to the nonprofits at no upfront cost. The only cost associated is when they sell that item. We provide everything at a flat cost. We do not take percentages. We provide every piece of marketing material to promote it. So if a package costs $1,000 and you sell it for $2,000, you pay your invoice for $1,000 and keep $1,000. If it does not sell, no harm, no foul. You keep on moving. We also do a lot of education around the fact that consignment items can serve as a tent-pole item that drives attention to other things in the auction. Somebody may have been browsing through Handbid and not found anything they liked, and then they see a travel package and think, "That's kind of fun." It helps them go deeper into the auction. So consignment can add value to your nonprofit auction by offering a wide range of experiences, memorabilia, jewelry, art -- and it really helps elevate the perceived value of what you're offering.

Jeff: That's good. And I've used them in mine, and I agree with you. It does -- I feel like it does take, especially your live auction, it takes it to a new level. It really does elevate -- no pun intended for our podcast -- it really does elevate your event. So let's talk about how you help your clients determine what to get. I've seen your catalog. It's extensive.

Jason: We have 275 live products that have at least three to four offerings within each product set. Side note, we're undergoing a major overhaul right now at Winspire on the back end of our technology, so I know exactly how many packages we have. I know exactly where they go, what they do, because I have my hands on every one of them on a daily basis. We offer a very wide variety for sure.

Jeff: So when charities reach out to you, do they already have a selection in mind, or are they saying, "What sells the best?" or "What do you recommend?" How does your staff help them with that?

Jason: I want to start with a pro tip on this. One approach that works well is taking your attendee list from the previous year, sending them an email, and asking: if you had travel, art, jewelry, whatever it is, list five to ten trips that you think may work out of our catalog. Send out that survey, get them to fill it out, because when you get 75 answers back saying they want Cancun, guess what you should pick? Cancun.

Jason: Now, nonprofits do come to the table with some set ideas of what they're looking for, what they're trying to do, maybe based on what they've sold in the past or what a donor mentioned they were looking for. It just depends. But when we get a customer in the door, our team spends a considerable amount of time making sure they're educated in the proper ways to use consignment and how to properly promote it. We walk away from that first meeting having told them Winspire's top five things to do to make sure this is successful, to make sure you're going to drive the revenue you're looking for. If you're able to take those and implement them into your strategies, it works well. A great product display, depending on the size of your auction, is what I always call a beach, a city, a mountain, and something international. Unless you have something in mind like a pro sporting event or something specific around Broadway, general categories in those areas really open the door for a great offering.

Jeff: That's good. And I'll give some of my own personal experience trying to figure out how to do this. For years, we actually auctioned off our own cabin in the mountains. And I think to your point, it was nice, but people were getting tired of bidding on that. So we went looking for new items. My experience working with Winspire was good. We sat down and it was a collaboration. We tried to figure out: our auction is in Denver, Colorado, so what are people going to want to do, where are they going to want to travel, what's easy, what's more extensive? We tried a bunch of things. We tried a trip to Thailand, which did sell, but the feedback was, "We had an amazing time, but it took 20 hours to get there." So we said, okay, we want to make it convenient and reasonable. If you're going on a seven-day trip, I don't want you to have to take a 14-day vacation. Is it easy to get to? Is it easy to get back? Colorado is usually reasonably moderate climate-wise -- not this last year though. I felt like I lived in Iowa. That winter was brutal. So the thinking became, we want to go somewhere warm. That started to inform the direction: let's look at Mexico, let's look at the Caribbean, places that are reasonably easy to get to and warm in the winter. We saw a lot of success with that. And I really do want to say thanks to the Winspire team because they were helpful in saying, "Based on that criteria, here are some packages that sell well from your area of the country in this particular environment."

Jeff: I love your idea about surveys. And ironically, I don't even think you have to wait a year. Wait six months. We just did a podcast recently on AI, and what you're going to be able to do by feeding a past bidder list or guest list into an AI engine and having it recommend Winspire packages -- it's not far off.

Jason: I love that. That's great.

Jeff: I want to comment on one of the things that you said. You said you auction off, and it goes back to the beach house, the lake house, cabin, all that stuff that board members donate and they auction off. So this is one of the services that a lot of people don't think about when it comes to consignment. Who played the travel agent in that part?

Jeff: The donor did, and it was brutal.

Jason: So you just said that as a donor. So your experience with that was difficult to say. The other part was probably you having to coordinate with the nonprofit to get connected with the winning bidder to do that whole loop back around, checking dates, all that kind of stuff back and forth. That is the things that people don't take into consideration.

Jeff: "Well, it was donated to us. It was free."

Jason: Yeah, but who's going to call at three in the morning when the water heater shoots through the roof of that place? Who is that donor going to call? Are they calling you or the homeowner? How does that work? That's why we have our services provided from start to finish. We have 24-hour contacts with all of our travelers that at any moment, something could go wrong, we're there to fix. We're there to jump in. We're making sure the flight works. "Hey, the flight's delayed. We're fixing that. Hey, we're putting you on another flight to do this." That is how in touch and detailed what we're doing is, because we have to remember: we're working with people that came to the table through a philanthropic effort and spent a lot of money on these. So their expectations are quite high. And most of the time, those donors and those travelers are well-traveled. Their second, third incomes, homes, educations, everything to go along with that. So there's a high level of customer service that goes into play to keeping that experience going from that moment of raising the hand and buying that package until the time they get off that plane and get back in their car and get home. There's a lot of expectation.

Jeff: So we need to dwell on this for a little bit because what you're saying is so critically important that our listeners really do need to understand the nuances here and how important they are. And I'm going to tell you from our own experience. So the thing is, what you're describing is a situation where a consignment company or a travel company like yours has to understand what these people bought and at what level they bought it at. So for example, I'm making this up, but say you have an amazing travel package for four and it costs $3,000 to the charity, but it goes for $9,000 in the auction. Now, there's companies out there -- and I've worked with them -- who view you as a $3,000 customer. Not a $9,000 customer or a $10,000, whatever it might be. But that person views themselves as somebody who just spent $9,000 on this, and so they're expecting a phone number to call when the water heater blows. And it goes beyond that, it goes to all the little side elements that kind of create a successful trip.

Jeff: I'd mentioned this before, but this is the past. It's definitely not the present, and it certainly won't be the future. We're going to rely on and partner with Winspire. But we started selling these types of packages. We thought, "This looks great to offer at our Handbid events. We're going to start reselling these packages." The problem was our partner was still supposed to be the travel agent, but a lot of the partners we worked with viewed these customers as $1,500 or $2,000 customers, not $8,000 or $9,000 customers. They didn't have all the side services. So we're getting phone calls -- and normally these come in 18 months to two years after the person bought the package. Handbid has mentally moved on. The day after the event, the reports were run, we've shaken hands and said our thing. The trip has been passed over to the fulfillment company. Then 18 months later, I'm getting a complaint from some guy who bought this thing for $8,000 saying, "How do I get from the airport to this villa I bought?" And the charity told him to call us. That's what happened. So we're in arguments with these companies saying, I need the full package. If you're going to build a package that appropriately meets the needs of people buying it, you've got to do all the pre-trip planning. You have to be their concierge. You've got to give them advice on excursions. You've got to pick them up at the airport, or at least have contracted with somebody to do it and take them back. These are all the little things you have to think about.

Jeff: Because look, we get it. Like, you as an organization, as a nonprofit, you're trying to maximize revenue, so you're looking at how can I reduce costs in certain areas. This is not one of them, you guys. This is one where you've got probably some of your best donors in the room contributing money. They're using their discretionary income, and what that means -- and so this is something that I think a lot of people miss. There's two parts of people's wallets that come out at events. There's the charitable wallet. And that has averaged about 2% of people's adjusted gross income for not centuries, but for a long time. It doesn't really vary that much. Americans, on average, give about 2% of their adjusted gross income to charities. That's your paddle raise. The rest is discretionary. This is their stuff. It's their vacation. It's their snowblower. It's their Traeger Grill. It's the other stuff that, after they've covered all the essentials, they want to spend their money on -- entertainment, food. So that is where these consignment items are going to come out of. So you have somebody who might have donated $10,000 in your paddle raise and is turning around and is going to spend $10,000 on a trip. This isn't the guy you want to anger or frustrate. Right? You agree?

Jason: Yeah, I'm with you. I mean, there's a couple of things to unpack under that. So I'll get into all those. I think it leads into making sure that you're working with a trusted partner. I mean, when you're vetting any kind of consignment company -- us, anybody else -- if you're vetting any technology company, go look at the reputation and the track record. Research the vendor's reputation in the industry, look for reviews, testimonials, all that kind of good stuff. Look at the quality of their items. Examine the quality of the items, make sure that it's truly something that is unattainable, behind the scenes, backdoor, however you can get something really unique from it. Look at the variety and the range of the products offered, because that shows you how deep that company is in with multiple companies and chains around the world to pull off some of these experiences and the level at which they're selling those. It's worth having the proper contractual agreements in place with anyone. Review the terms and conditions, make sure that you have insurance if you need to, what happens to unsold items, clarify any of those questions and concerns you may have. And then look for a partner that can provide you with the marketing and promotional support that's needed. Inquiring about the vendor's marketing and promotion support of the consignment items -- that's one of the things that people totally forget about. They're like, "Oh, it's just a great picture. Let me just put this picture out there and that's it." Where you guys in the technology space have come is you're able to use video and more photos and things like that to make it much more interactive. So people can see what they're looking at. So work with somebody that has video footage of what that trip is. Make sure that you work with people that can provide you with descriptions, not only in a beautiful PDF that their donors can read standing there, but also in Word docs that they can cut up and use in their promotion. Make sure that they provide you with raw images so if they do want to build their own collateral, they can build it. It still needs to be on brand with what's being offered and it needs to be translated all the way through.

Jason: But key, key is customer service and support. We talked about this previously, about the level of detail that we work with customers. That is just huge. You've got to make sure that someone is going to be taking care of them all the way across the board. Things to avoid when you're looking at vetting these kind of companies: one, look at the inflating prices. See if you can figure out what they have and put it on a website, make sure that you can see that it's out there. If it's not out there, where are these prices coming from? Because you're going to be able to judge. Obviously, people know our prices are well below retail because of the deals that me and my partner do to build these contracts, to work with these vendors that we have long-term relationships with, because I send them thousands of room nights a year. So I have access and buying power that I'm able to lock down all of that. And that's why we're able to keep true, consistent pricing without adding your percentage when somebody sells something or, "Hey, this changed after you bought it," things like that. We don't do that. Make sure that there's good communication, because poor communication and the reliability from them getting back to you is going to show how your donors are going to be treated. Lack of flexibility -- if they don't have the ability to work with people, that's a concern. Obviously, if it's the Super Bowl, they're not going to change the date for you. But if it's a trip, a good company will work with them.

Jason: When winning bidders come into our system, we talk to them, find out their interests, and build a relationship. To start the booking process, we ask them for three or four dates that would work. Then we go back to our vendors, plug in those dates to see what works, and build the trip from there. We go back to the traveler and say, "Here's one of your first options. Here's your trip. This is what we can do." And then it starts to build an even deeper relationship with those folks.

Jason: On the pricing topic, it's easy to fall into the trap of shopping with your pocketbook. We're not going to Fiji. We love working in the nonprofit industry. We're all overworked, underpaid, short-staffed. That's just part of the game. But there's a temptation to try to best-buy everything and get the cheapest option, when your donors are going to pay $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 for it. When you've gone cheap, they're going to know it. When it comes to detailed descriptions, there are companies out there that are ambiguous in what they write. They say, "Oh, it's a five-star hotel." Which one? Or, "It's a trip through the day going to two wineries." What wineries? The difference with us is our itineraries are so detailed that they don't leave room for questions. And going back to what you said about ground transportation -- that's always included because when people arrive, they need to be welcomed, they need to know what's happening, and they need to be taken to their destination. That's what we do every time.

Justin: And guests are catching on. As an auctioneer, when the item or package is being sold, they're asking: how many nights, how many people, what are the blackout dates? Those exact details matter. They might not bid on it if it's not descriptive enough.

Jeff: Right. But no, it's a good point. But I also -- look, I want to rebalance this conversation a little bit because we are kind of beating up on some of these consignment companies a little, rightfully so. But we also have to make sure that bidders meet their side of the bargain too. And so we've seen it -- somebody's maybe their judgment's been a little bit impaired by the libations that you've served at your event and they decide that they're going to buy this trip for six to Tuscany and they're going to find all their friends to go with them. And they spend $10,000 on this thing and then they sober up the next day and then they call into the consignment company and they're like, "We have to go the week between Christmas and New Year's this year." Well, I'm sorry, sir, that's not available. "Okay, then we want out," right? And so as a charity, it helps to have identified in your terms and conditions that they have to be willing to work with companies also. Because it is a two-way street, and they're committing to do this. Most organizations find it best not to let them out of this commitment to buy this trip. You just need to be making sure that you work with companies like Winspire or whoever that are going to allow them to be flexible with that. But there is a level of unreasonableness that you just also have, and I have to caution people about that.

Jason: There's buyer's remorse for sure, sometimes. Somebody spends $20,000 and it was a Ferrari trip through Italy. They were getting egotistical and the libations were rolling at that time. And so there are those. And we work with the nonprofits on that. We would refund them any kind of money that is attached to that. We try to help them not refund the money to the winning bidder. And like you said, having documentation in place -- when you walk out, it's done. We charge your credit card. Thank you very much. And if you don't want the trip, then we'll just turn this into a donation. I mean, that's just how you got to handle it.

Jeff: But you have 275 items. Look, I might be going out on a ledge because I haven't asked you this before the podcast, but I'd imagine if somebody said, "I don't want the Ferrari trip," could you work them into a different Winspire experience instead?

Jason: Of course. And that goes along to what I was saying earlier about flexibility -- having flexibility to work with these donors. Because again, you have to remember the people that we're working with. High level of income, second educations, third homes, all that kind of stuff. They may need flexibility. And that's why we give them two years to book this trip. Obviously, when it gets closer to the end and if it's closer to the end of the two years, they've already booked and something changes, we're going to continue to work with them. They're very upfront with what their feelings are and say, "Look, hey, I got pulled into doing this or that." And we have to work and accommodate around those, because these people, they're buying this, they have busy lives. And that's why we offer them five, six dates to get it done. We give them two years to book and travel. Obviously with COVID, when everybody had plenty of time to sit and think about what was going on, we had plenty of time to think through all of our customer service levels that we needed. And that's where we came out on the other side with a solid foundation of what we walked into COVID, but even stronger when we walked out. We made sure that we knew exactly who was traveling, what the details were, the information that we needed from them, and to really build all of ourselves nice profiles that we know what these people are, that we can now provide back to a nonprofit and say, "This is what we worked with. These are these people. Are you taking them out for coffee? Are you seeing them at the gala? Or are you having some serious conversations? Because this is the magnitude of what this donor could be for you."

Jason: And that's really cool -- the fact that consignment also can help you attract new donors you may have never had before. People may raise their hand on products that they had never done anything with at that organization before. They may have only had a ticket or just showed up with friends or whatever. And this could have brought in a whole new donor base into the room.

Jeff: That's a great segue into talking about the auction in general because you're absolutely right. We talk about this largely on the silent auction side, but it applies to live auctions as well. Auctions are a great way to connect new donors. People who may not be ready to donate even $100 to your event because they don't know your charity very well yet -- but they're going to buy something in your auction. So let's talk about that for a second. We teach this, and I actually gave a session at the Worldwide College of Auctioneering about it. This came up with a lot of live auctioneers in the room: what's the difference between silent and live, and what items should go where? What we talked about was it's kind of the difference between Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack. And actually, I think in New York they're next door to each other. These things can be in proximity. Your silent auction folks tend to be, not always, but tend to be your bargain buyers. Your live auction bidders -- what did you say earlier? About 10% of the room actually participates in the live auction?

Jason: Yeah.

Jeff: So 10% of them are ego buyers. You have the folks who really want that Travis Mathew golf shirt and they're heading to Nordstrom Rack to see if they can get a deal. They're going to buy it for 40 bucks. Versus the person who says, "I want the Travis Mathew golf shirt. I don't want to look through racks for my size. I want to be greeted at the door, escorted to the Travis Mathew section, and I'm going to pay $120 for the same shirt." And everybody's going to see them buying it. So we always talk about the live auction being the place where some of these types of trips are going to excel. But give us your wisdom there. Is it typically only live auction, or do you see a place in the silent auction for consignment items?

Jason: It goes back to educating the customer. What is the highest dollar item you've ever sold in your live auction? And what is the highest dollar you've ever sold in your silent auction? Figure out accordingly from there how to place items that draw attention, make impact, and drive revenue. Those are the three things you're always thinking about. For silent auctions, have a variety. Don't have all travel, all art, all gift cards. Do a mix. We try to limit people to two to three consignment packages, depending on the number of items they have in their silent auction. Then have one fantastic live auction item that could be really impactful -- a tent pole that could draw multiple bids, possibly sell multiple times. And then if you had something for what auctioneers call the runaround, travel always works in that situation too. The fundraisers should know their audience and be able to make determinations on price points along with analyzing and researching what people are looking for. That's how they can have a successful silent or live auction with our products.

Jeff: And one thing you just brought up is a fantastic idea. For people who don't understand the concept of a runaround: for mobile bidding companies, if you like to drive mobile bidding companies crazy, do a runaround, because those things can go on forever and the mobile bidding company has to enter everything.

Justin: Jeff, I thought you guys were tech savvy and it was super easy to use technology platforms. I'm sure it's super smooth. You've got this worked out.

Jeff: We have it worked out. It's funny though, because the way it works is you usually start at a low dollar donation and whoever is the last person standing wins the prize. Last man standing -- the runaround. And to your point, here's the key thing: the prize has to be good. It can't be a $100 gift card to Chipotle. I'm not donating $100 for that. The prize has to be meaningfully good. And I think a consignment item from Winspire makes absolutely perfect sense. Make that prize worth $1,500 to $2,000 and watch what happens in this runaround, because people are going to want that. They're going to donate $100, and someone else is going to donate $100, and the auctioneer is going to say, "Going once, going twice," and another hand goes up for $100. I did an event recently where one person donated 13 times.

Jason: Wow. That's awesome.

Jeff: That's 13 donations. They pay for the item. Now everything is profit on top of that. So I love that idea. For charities out there thinking about it, ask your auctioneer if they've never done a runaround before. It's another tool to drive revenue.

Justin: Boom. Just another way of doing it. I'm not out there telling you to go get an auctioneer, but let's go back to the live.

Jeff: The other thing you said that I think is important is: have that one amazing tent-pole, significant item. I love that because I've seen maybe five mediocre trips, and I would probably rather replace those with one, maybe two, really cool bucket-list experiences. People can book their own vacation, but with Winspire or a consignment company, they can curate the whole trip from start to finish. That's a bucket-list trip that most people don't have the experience planning, and a consignment company can do that for you.

Jason: I'll flex a little on this one. That tent-pole item -- reach out to us. We can build anything. If it's something you want to build mission-centric, or if it's something custom for a donor you know is going to give a $30,000 donation, let's build it specific to them. I work with organizations all over this country. And we sit down sometimes and say, "What can we come up with that's going to be custom, that maybe we've heard from our donors about, or that's going to be something where they remember why they bought this and what their mission is."

Jason: I'll use an example. Big Brothers Big Sisters -- we sell a package in Dallas, Texas. Nothing to do with Big Brothers Big Sisters, except on that Saturday morning, we worked with their Big Brothers Big Sisters chapter in Manhattan to make sure those donors could show up at that organization for about an hour to do some volunteer work and walk around and check it out. Super cool, right? And then I work with organizations like the NAACP. We built an entire Southern Heritage Tour going to Memphis and then to Montgomery to make sure they could see some of the civil rights museums. It spoke to their audience. They sold it 13 times. It was incredible.

Jason: So when nonprofits come to us and say, "I'm stuck, I don't know what to do," we'll get creative. We'll come up with something fun that will help drive that revenue, like in a runaround or last-man-standing package that's going to bring in $30,000, $50,000. We just did this for a children's healthcare organization down in Palm Beach. They reached out wanting Taylor Swift tickets. We were able to get front-row tickets at SoFi Stadium coming up in LA. We had first-class flights from Boca Raton directly to LAX on JetBlue's new Mint plane that's all first class. It was a great package. They planned on selling it twice. They sold it four times. Having all those tools we can provide is really what makes a difference in how deep we go with our customers and our donors while they're traveling.

Jeff: I love it. I think that's a great way to wrap up this podcast -- talking about how you have your 275 packages, but that's not the end of the list. Get on the phone with these guys and brainstorm. Maybe you do know your guests well and you're like, "This is the package I feel like we need, and I just can't find it."

Jeff: We've had this conversation before. I felt the same way when we were selling wine packages. I know my donor base likes wine. I know they'll spend money on it, whether it's physically at the event or some sort of experience. But, and no offense to Napa Valley, I am done selling Napa Valley wine trips. Everybody's been. So it's like, "Hey, Winspire, can we do a Dry Creek Valley wine experience? Can we do a Russian River Valley one? Or can we take them to the Willamette Valley and do something cool in Oregon, or Washington State?" That to me is where it's helpful because I don't have those connections.

Jason: Absolutely. And that's the beautiful thing of the buying power and the resources we have. And for the longevity, I mean, we've been in business since 2009. Look, we survived and started in the recession. We made it through COVID as an event travel company. We pivoted. We made that work, to where we are now. And like I said, we're stronger than ever. Our relationships deepened over COVID. There was not a day that I was not on the phone with a hotel in South America or a wine tasting in Tuscany or backstage Broadway, trying to figure out how to go virtual to make sure that those packages could still be delivered. So our relationships only strengthened in those times. While our customer base shrank drastically, we were still able to continue to move forward and build deep, long-lasting relationships that are the benefit of what nonprofits are getting to reap right now.

Jeff: That's awesome. All right. Well, get ready. Call Elon up. I want to be on a spaceship trip to Mars.

Jason: I don't know if I want to go on anything right now that leaves the ground.

Justin: Or goes to the bottom of the ocean.

Jason: I was going to say that, but I think that may be a little too soon. But the same thing -- I don't know if I want to do that right now after what just happened.

Jeff: Make that your new company: Winspire Extreme. That can be a whole other venture. Mental note right there. We're done. All right. Well, thank you, Jason, for your time. This has been a fantastic episode talking about consignment. Again, I encourage everybody, reach out, ask questions. If you love this podcast, leave us a five-star review. Talk about it. Share it, please. Spotify, Apple, Google, wherever you tend to listen to or watch your podcasts, because we're on YouTube as well. Please let people know about it. This has been a great episode. I think it's been educational. Thank you guys so much. Thanks for attending. We're going to wrap up this episode of the Elevate Your Event podcast. And again, elevate your event next time with a consignment item.