I also talked about how on your side of the sponsorship table, you have a lot more control and agency than you might think.
Here’s how it looks in practice.
One of my clients was Cathy Warner who during our work became interim Executive Officer (EO) for a small homebuilding membership organization.
Her boss, the previous EO, brought me in when the organization had a spectacular sponsorship #FAIL.
They were about to kick-off a big, year-long anniversary and counted on sponsorship revenue to fund all their ideas.
Their best prospect was a bank whose president knew the organization’s Board Chair.
They had just made their absolute best offer to the banker. And…
He declined. 😩
Complicating everything was faulty thinking.
The EO believed that no corporation would ever invest more than $5000 in their sponsorship.
“We brought Gail in right as we were working on our largest event, our Home Show,” said Cathy. “We were failing miserably with sponsorships because we were trying to push the old ‘slap the logo on every flat surface’ sponsorships.”
After our first day together of training and coaching, Cathy and the board president revisited the banker.
They went back!
Think about that. They actually went back to see a prospect—their best prospect—who had told them, “NO!” In no uncertain terms.
Here’s Cathy's story:
“Let me tell you, it was text book.
“This time instead of coming in with a proposal first, we simply listened. We asked questions to draw them out but let them do most of the talking.”
After their meeting, Cathy and I brainstormed ideas.
I told her exactly how to write and structure the proposal. She followed my recommendations, and then hit send. Out it went to the banker.
A week later Cathy called me breathless.
The bank accepted her best offer. Well, let’s let Cathy tell the story.
“We sold a $50,000, two-year sponsorship package after only one training session. I know. it sounds like one of those infomercial claims, but it’s true.
“We had an extremely positive experience with Gail.” --Cathy Warner, Interim EO
I encouraged Cathy to keep going. Six weeks later, she landed another sponsor, this time a $31,000, two-year deal.
Within 3 months of our work together, Cathy’s organization generated more than $80,000 from two sponsors.
And if you consider the previous EO’s beliefs that no sponsor would pay more than $5000, that’s 8 times what they thought was possible.
Cathy told me that she experienced other benefits. Of course now they had more revenue. Also:
- She said, “selling sponsorship is more fun.”
- She saw “greater engagement.”
- Now sponsors were calling Cathy.
- And the organizations was able to create “New and better events for their members.”
Now many factors contributed to Cathy’s success, including her hard work.
The two biggest reasons?
- Sales process
- Sponsorship proposal
Afterall, the only thing that changed from the first meeting with the banker to the second is that Cathy learned a better way to do things.
Now if you’ve read this far, you’re obviously interested in ways you can improve your sponsorship results.
You want to gain a competitive advantage.
And you want to offer sponsorship in a way that aligns with your values.
Trusting relationships. Integrity. Long-term relationships. High quality. High value.
Your next step is to learn a better way to approach sponsorship and develop your sponsorship proposals.
And that’s what you’ll learn in my upcoming half-day Sponsorship Proposal Workshop, on February 4, 2021, noon to 4:30 p.m. EST. Register here.
Here’s what you can expect: I’ll:
- Walk you through a better sponsorship sales process.
- Teach you how to write a more compelling, persuasive sponsorship proposal.
- Show you how to structure the proposal to increase the odds of “YES” responses.
- Share done-for-you templates you’ll personalize and fill-in-the-blank handouts.
- Personally review your sponsorship proposal and share feedback to make it even stronger.
To learn more and register, click here.