Sponsorship Strategist

Don’t sell green bananas.

I see lots of organizations selling green bananas. Unripened sponsorship programs that are undifferentiated, commoditized, and seller-focused. Read more →

Stop before you call

Have you ever instructed your staff member who has no sponsorship skills to go call some random company about sponsorship? You might be tossing your team into the sponsorship abyss. Read more →

17 Corporate Sponsorship Dos and Don'ts

Here are 17 hot tips to fire up your sponsorship development engine. Read more →

Should your sponsor be your conference speaker?

Recently I’ve noticed lots of conferences, large and small, providing sponsors with the right to be a speaker. Here’s why this move can be problematic. Read more →

3 Giant corporate sponsorship mistakes nonprofit organizations and associations make

During the season of New Year’s resolutions, beware of very bad habits your organization may have picked up by osmosis in the marketplace. These habits could be costing you a lot of money in both liability and money on the table. Keep reading to learn more about 3 pretty big mistakes organizations make. Read more →

Corporate sponsorship and effective marketing for professional services firms

If professional services companies — law firms, accounting practices, marketing and ad agencies — are on your sponsorship prospect list, you’re going to have to use more persuasion to educate and acquire them. Recently, the presenters of a webinar aimed at professional services providers highlighted their research on the types of marketing tactics that these firms use. They also revealed which work and which don't. Read more →

What’s Your Mindset?

Developing your sponsorship fee strategy is no place for the faint of heart. Indeed, setting fees with an abundance mindset — by valuing what you truly have to offer — must be the mindset that prevails. That often means uprooting and dislodging mindsets based on lack. How's your mindset? Read more →

What Wells Fargo support could be saying about your organization

Is your organization sponsored by or receiving funding from Wells Fargo? As the news about Wells Fargo employees sales tactics plays out and repercussions before the Senate Banking Committee and in the media unfold, you have a decision to make. Will you keep those dollars or return them? Read more →

Don’t Fear a Sponsorship Apocalypse

If you follow news about corporate sponsorship, you might think we’re preparing for an apocalypse. Do a search and if there are stories about corporate sponsorship and certain areas of our culture — particularly municipalities, education, and parks, nature, and the environment — there will be handwringing, anxieties, and panic among the citizenry that the world is coming to an end. That world is black and white, on or off. No gray, no dimmer switch, no continuum. Fueling the anxieties are some reporters who imagine sponsorship in worst-case scenario terms. Take, for instance, a recent story in The Washington Post... Read more →

The beauty of repeatable sponsorship success

Do you know what you've done well in your sponsorship success? Can you repeat it? Can you evaluate what went wrong? Don't let your operation have ephemeral success. Read more →