Sponsors expect more from sponsorship and their partners every year- more sophistication, more creativity, more meaning, and better results. If you understand and can deliver against what they want, you’ll secure more sponsorship from better, more engaged sponsors. If not, sponsorship is going to be more and more difficult to sell.
This two-day workshop for rightsholders is the gold standard for sponsorship training. Kim Skildum-Reid works primarily on the sponsors’ side, and knows what they expect, what you’re competing against, and what it takes to get them to “yes”.
This workshop is highly interactive and incorporates group, small group, and individual exercises, many case studies and examples, as well as ample opportunity for addressing your questions.
This workshop hasn't been presented publicly since 2019, and has been fully updated, with new strategies, angles, and case studies.
Rightsholders learn to...
- Structure your offers so they are worth far more money
- Create a proposal that makes it easy for a sponsor to say “yes”
- Target new potential sponsors and sponsor categories
- Identify high-value benefits that are easy and cheap to deliver
- Significantly upsell current sponsors
- Sell sponsorship on a short lead-time
- Navigate sponsor politics to your advantage
Workshop outline
- Disruptive sponsorship for rightsholders
- The new drivers of sponsorship decisions
- The key differences between successful sponsees and those who are struggling
- Trends and tech to embrace, and the ones to ignore
- Redefining your job (hint: it’s not “sales”)
- Three things you must do before you start seeking sponsorship
- Targeting sponsors
- Creating the best possible hit list with minimum effort
- Pinpointing new sponsors and emerging categories of sponsorship
- The categories of sponsorship you should pursue first
- Developing your offer
- The differences between a great offer and a crap one
- What makes a best practice offer worth so much more than the equivalent old-school offer?
- Finding and hitting a sponsor’s hot buttons
- The 100% most important component of any sponsorship offer, three simple ways to create it, and one giant shortcut
- Ensuring the offer benefits your organisation beyond just cash
- Working the angles (and making yourself look like a genius)
- Disruptive angles and hot buttons that will sell more sponsorship
- Other little-used angles that sponsors love
- Identifying opportunities few others will notice
- Accessing additional, non-marketing funding
- Getting the proposal right
- The real role of the proposal
- How to build the business case for “yes”
- What a strong proposal looks like
- Pricing, contra, and fee structure strategies
- Offer killers – what not to do
- Sponsorship sales challenges
- Short lead time
- Relatively small audience
- How to target national sponsors if you’re a local/regional property
- Budget shortfall
- Replacing a long-term sponsor
- Sponsorship planning and management when change is out of your control
- Economic uncertainty
- Event cancellations and/or diminished attendee numbers
- Travel restrictions
- Keeping your sponsors happy
- Your obligations vs your best interest
- Five must-do strategies to keep sponsors engaged and ensure they get the best possible result
- The rules of flexibility
- Reporting that sponsors will love (and won’t make you crazy)
- Sponsor management issues
- Low level or disengaged sponsor taking up space where a much better sponsor could be
- Your portfolio is full of rats and mice
- You’ve got a sponzilla
- It’s all about the renewal
- Create a legitimate case for upselling
- Reinventing a stale sponsorship
- Reinventing a less-than-perfect sponsor relationship
- Making this work
- Three things to change right now
- Recommended forward plans
About Kim
Kim Skildum-Reid is unquestionably one of the sponsorship industry’s most influential thought leaders. She has over 30 years’ experience in corporate sponsorship and is one of very few professionals credited with defining and setting the best practice benchmark for the sponsorship industry. Her inspired, yet practical, approach and refreshing, irreverent style have won her legions of fans.
Kim is co-author of #1 industry bestseller, The Sponsorship Seeker’s Toolkit, and author of The Corporate Sponsorship Toolkit and The Ambush Marketing Toolkit. Kim provides content and commentary to business and industry media around the world, including Harvard Business Review, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg, Marketing News (US), Marketing Africa, Marketing Russia, Sponsor Magazine (Netherlands), Successful Meetings (US), Brand Republic (UK), National Business Review (New Zealand), Adnews (Australia), Marketing (Australia), South China Morning Post, China Business Review, Australian Financial Review, and far too many more to list.
In addition to training, Kim provides strategic advice, portfolio audits, strategy sessions, and coaching for clients around the world. To find out more, see www.powersponsorship.com.
Complementary books and coaching
Every registered participant will receive one complimentary, formal coaching session with Kim Skildum-Reid, to be used within twelve months after your workshop. This is an US $770 value. Put Kim to work on your toughest challenges!
Just have a quick question? Workshop participants are always welcome to drop Kim a line for a quick chat and some off-the-cuff advice.
Participants in Getting to “Yes” will receive a copy of the fourth edition of industry bestseller, The Sponsorship Seeker’s Toolkit. All participants will receive additional follow-up materials and recommended reading.
