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:
We all only have 24 hours in a day, but for many of us, it feels more like 16 hours or even 10 or 12 hours, right? You try to be as productive as you can, but between juggling your full-time job, personal obligations like kids and family, life responsibilities like...
Do me a favor and check your email outbox right now. How many emails have you sent to sponsors in the last week? Last month? Count them, please. Now, how many of those emails have you gotten replies to? The answer is probably zero, right? If not zero, then very close...
If you know me from this blog, then you know that the bane of my existence as someone who assists sponsorship seekers is the old gold, silver, and bronze sponsorship package. It’s just not helpful. Yet so many more times–more than I can count, really–I’ve gotten the...
Motorsport Marketing: 10 Ways to Promote Your Race Team Before you dive in, if you are interested in motorsport sponsorship, check out these titles in our “sponsorship for motorsport” series: Resource Page for Motorsport Sponsorship Companies Who Sponsor Motorsport:...
Here on the Sponsorship Collective blog, I mostly talk about offering sponsorship services in exchange for cash. There’s yet a different type of sponsorship that I don’t cover nearly as often. I’m talking about in-kind or contra sponsorship. If you’re interested in...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhtD2Tn6wSw Although you might be new to sponsorship if you’re reading this, I’m anything but. At this stage in my career, I’ve probably gone over more than 2,000 sponsorship packages, which is no small feat. These packages have been...
Before you dive in, if you are an athlete looking for sponsorship, check out these titles in our “sponsorship for athletes" series: Resource Page for Sport and Athlete Sponsorship How to Write a Sports Sponsorship Proposal Sponsorship for Athletes: Everything You Need...
Are you about to have your first sponsorship sales meeting but you feel apprehensive about how to approach it? You want the meeting to go smoothly, but you’re not sure if you should bring your sponsorship proposal or be ready to negotiate so soon. The first...
Before you dive in, if you are interested in podcast sponsorship, check out these titles in our “sponsorship for podcasters” series: Resource Page for Podcast and Influencer Sponsorship The Complete Guide to Podcast Sponsorship How to Get Sponsorships for Podcasts: 6...
Have you ever gotten to the point in your sponsorship program where you have a discovery session as well as a few good follow-up meetings (or so you thought they were good) only to be told once you start talking sales that the prospect doesn’t want to go through with...