Chris Baylis is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Sponsorship Collective.
After spending several years in the field as a sponsorship professional and consultant, Chris now spends his time working with clients to help them understand their audiences, build activations that sponsors want, apply market values to their assets and build strategies that drive sales.
Chris studied at Trent University and Mohawk College before he began his sales career in high tech and insurance. After several years in the sales industry, Chris decided to make the move to sponsorship.
The reason for Chris was simple:
“Sponsorship means you have to be an expert in sales, marketing, experiential, lead generation, account management and strategy. This challenging blend of skills is what makes sponsorship so fascinating but also incredibly complicated.”
Chris has been active in the sponsorship industry since 2007 selling sponsorship for a variety of organisations and every type of sponsorship opportunity as an employee, department leader, board member, consultant and volunteer.
After five years as a consultant with international consulting firm IFC out of London, England Chris decided to launch what is now The Sponsorship Collective. And the rest is history.
And it all began with a blog.
The problem, according to Chris, is that there was simply no information about best practice sponsorship when he began in the industry. Everyone was guarding their secrets and there was nothing by way of blogs, publications, or networking groups. And this is exactly what Chris decided to change.
When it was first launched, the goal of the blog was simple: to share sponsorship best practice with the world. Today, The Sponsorship Collective has been featured in countless publications, podcasts, websites, blogs, magazines, webinars and books. The Sponsorship Collective has also produced hundreds of YouTube videos, webinars and hundreds of thousands of words on the blog (at last count, enough to fill five business books on the topic).
In addition to speaking at conferences and stages across North America, a sample of publications featuring Chris Baylis include in Hopin, Blackbaud, several articles and references in Eventbrite, Inside Sponsorship, Cause Talk Radio, CSAE, The Partnership Conference and The Selling Show to name only a few.
Sponsorship is, at its heart, a marketing practice and marketing is nothing without audience experience as the main focus.
This is exactly how Chris thinks of sponsorship.
“Everything has to start with audience data and experiences focused on creating value for audiences. Most people think of sponsorship as simple logo placement, which could not be further from the truth” says Chris.
Because of Chris’ focus, The Sponsorship Collective takes an “audience first” approach to sponsorship. Starting with audience data, then moving to creating engaging activations before moving to valuation, sales material and then a “discovery based” approach to sales.
Here is a sample of the most recent articles written by Chris:
Before you dive in, if you are interested in charity sponsorship, check out these titles in our “sponsorship for charities” series: Resource Page for Charity Sponsorship 7 More Sponsorship Mistakes Charities Should Avoid Case Study: Charity Sponsorship Best Practices...
It’s a term you haven’t been able to escape if you’ve followed sponsorship trends for 2023. I’m talking about omnichannel sponsorship, of course. If you by chance haven’t heard this term thrown around yet, trust me when I say that it’s only a matter of time. The...
7 Things You Should Never Include in a Sponsorship Proposal The single biggest stumbling block any sponsorship seeker faces is the sponsorship proposal, and not only what to put in there but when to send it. Today, I want to focus on the contents of the proposal....
Sponsorship seekers tend to think of sponsors as these mighty companies with all their ducks in a row. To a first-time sponsorship seeker especially, they imagine these companies conduct business each day with nary a problem. I can understand where that perception...
Isn’t evolution fascinating? All you have to do is look at plant or insect species that have existed since the time of the dinosaurs to appreciate how adaptable living things are. We change as the conditions around us change to ensure our survival. When it comes to...
Albert Einstein once said: “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” Yet there’s also the saying that curiosity killed the cat, which is supposed to dissuade us from being inquisitive. Exploring your curiosity to the...
Donuts. They sure are delicious, right? From Krispy Kreme to Dunkin’, a tasty donut can be a great way to start the morning or a nice little pick-me-up in the middle of a long workday. You’re probably wondering why I’m talking about donuts, right? Maybe I’m just...
Follow the leader is not just a children’s game, but a psychological phenomenon that occurs all the time. According to a Harvard Business Review article, what happens when you follow someone else’s lead is known as transference. Leaders are viewed as put-together,...
There are so many mistakes you can make with your sponsorship package, such as bringing it with you to the discovery session or attaching it in a cold email to every sponsorship prospect on your list. Some sponsorship package mistakes start before you even finish...
You might have read so many sponsorship articles and even books that you can recite entire passages in your sleep. Yet the problem you run into time and again is that your sponsorship properties are unique enough that generalized advice doesn’t apply to you. In this...