What Sponsorship IS, and ISN'T

Sponsorship ISN'T a "money grab." Nobody worth their salt is going to do you a favor here and hand you a whomping check for the right to hang a banner up in the front of your meeting room. That’s not going to happen, so get any "get rich quick" notions out of your head right now.

Sponsoring you - or not sponsoring you - is strictly a business decision, nothing more. It's a company (or companies) looking at the assets you bring to the table and deciding if they can derive some business from tapping into those assets.

Sponsorship IS a relationship business. If you're going to be any good at this, it'll be because you quickly realize that you’re going to need to start to care as much about your sponsors as you do about your existing customers.

(In fact, do this right and your sponsors will become your BIGGEST customers!) Perhaps a little bit differently than the folks sitting out there in your audience, but customers nonetheless. And like anything worth pursuing, your sponsors are worth keeping. Let's face it, it's not going to do you a whole lot of good if you bust your tail to get a handful of sponsors on board if they keep bailing out at the end of your contract!

Ron Seaver, president of Seaver Marketing Group and The National Sports Forum, and author of "Brought to you By... - The Ultimate Sponsorship Sales System" has over twenty-five years of experience in the field of marketing and sponsorship. View all of Ron's posts here