Blog
Modern Obstacles to Sponsorship Sales (And How to Overcome Them)
The landscape for sponsorship sales and marketing has changed a lot in recent years. Previous generations of business owners clamored at the opportunity to connect their brand to an outside team, venue, or property. Sponsoring even a single sport, cause, celebrity, or...
Sponsorship Recruiting, The Cowboy Way
I know what you’re thinking: “Why do I need tips to grow my network? I love cold calling!” I’ve heard it thousands of times, sponsorship professionals and fundraisers want to spend all of their time cold calling giant companies and asking them for silent auction items or a CSR grant. Well, I hate bursting bubbles […]
The Sponsorship Package is an Outcome, Not the Starting Point
Most organizations start their sponsorship journey by creating a sponsorship package. They create beautifully designed proposals, edited by multiple levels internally, voted on by the board and written (and rewritten) with every single eventuality in mind. “If we create a sponsorship deck that covers absolutely every option for a sponsor, then every company we approach […]
Seven More Deadly Sins of Sponsorship
In this post, I talked about the Seven Deadly Sins of Sponsorship. I got a lot of great feedback on the post, as many sponsorship seekers felt like they learned a lot. Well, guess what? I’m back with seven more sponsorship sins you don’t want to be guilty of doing, so...
“Just Send me a Proposal” The Five Words you Never Want to Hear in Sponsorship
Telling people “no” is an uncomfortable experience and people try to avoid it at all costs and so our prospects have come up with an ingenious way to say no without having to say no, and it sounds like this: “Just send me a proposal” Which is code for “no thanks.” The reason it works […]
Sponsorship Surveys Don’t Work (and other lies we tell ourselves)
Surveys are a very important part of your sponsorship program. Every organization should be surveying their attendees and their database if they want to grow (or maintain) their sponsorship program. I talk a lot about the power of audience data and cover the importance of surveys in all of my in person and online training […]
The Sponsorship Proposal and…Shark Attacks?
Because it rarely happens that we receive a sponsorship investment without submitting a sponsorship proposal it is too easy to assume that the sponsorship proposal causes the sponsorship dollars. This belief pervades all aspects of sponsorship sales but actually the sponsorship proposal is not where we should be putting our efforts.
27 Things You Can Do to Bring in More Sponsorship Dollars Right Now (Without a Sponsorship Package)
Our sector has an outright obsession with the sponsorship package! Of course, sponsorship packages have their place and play a role in sponsorship sales, and I’ve written about the subject extensively here. If you find yourself focused on building the perfect sponsorship deck before you start talking to sponsors, you’re in big trouble. Here are […]
April 2024’s Awesome Sponsorship Activations
Welcome! If you’re reading this, it’s officially May, which means we’re nearly midway through the year already. The sponsorship activations are heating up, which leaves me with the itch to share some of the most inspiring examples that occurred throughout April. After...