If you ever visit Philadelphia, here’s a little tip. Look for its secret streets and alleyways, hidden parks and gardens that captivate even lifelong residents.
Last spring I stumbled on this beautiful little garden. Now I’ve been walking through this space for decades, but since a gardener changed the flowers and trees, unbeknownst to me, I gasped when I saw this ethereal, ephemeral bloom.
And it reminded me of the way that some organizations’ sponsorship operations are run.
You see, I happened to stumble on the garden in full bloom. But just two weeks later, the magical white tulips are nearly gone and the tree's flowers have fallen away.
Organizations without solid sales strategies and processes stumble on their success.
Of course, having success is wonderful. That is what you’re after.
But knowing how to generate success repeatedly is even better. Having a strategy and process provides:
- the appropriate performance expectations,
- the confidence to repeat that success,
- the ability to evaluate what you did right and how you came to that success, and
- a standard by which to identify how you can improve when the results you wanted didn’t happen.
Don’t let your sponsorship operation let you feel like you just got lucky.
Plant the right behaviors, the right strategy, the right steps, the right intentions, the right guidelines so that it blooms when expected.
