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Fix Your Pitch
4/3/06: Justine Fedak, vice president, corporate sponsorships for BMO Financial Group, shares key recommendations for avoiding the most common sponsorship sales mistakes:
Don’t send a proposal to multiple people within the same organization. We once had a property approach five different areas of our company. It received funding from each group, unbeknown to others in the organization.
When we saw that we had five separate low-level sponsorships with this organization instead of it offering us a higher level association that would have actually reflected the company’s commitment, it left a bad taste in our mouths. Although it was a worthwhile organization and probably would have received funding again under other circumstances, we felt betrayed by the property and chose not to work with it again.
Make suggestions, but be careful about making too many assumptions. Unless you feel very confident in your knowledge of the industry that you’re pitching, don’t make too many assumptions about the business. Instead, try to engage in a conversation where you can learn and then give points of view.
If you have done research and know what you are talking about, then you can make a meaningful suggestion, but don’t feel you have to say you know the industry if you really don’t.
There’s nothing wrong with saying, “I don’t know much about your industry, but I know everything about this property. I’m going to pitch it to you and I’d like you to tell me about your business.” That’s better than pretending.
Visit prospects’ currently sponsored properties. You can get a lot of great ideas by attending some of the events that a potential sponsor is already involved in and it gives you something to talk about that is relevant to the company.
You can get a feel for what a sponsor does on site and see whether your property could leverage something the company is already doing.
In addition to learning a prospect’s approach to activation, you might also be able to tell them that you didn’t see any evidence of theirsponsorship and make suggestions on what they could do differently or about how that situation would be avoided with your property.
If you are given an hour for a meeting, don’t use the whole time. Sponsors want time to have an internal conversation to follow up on what they just heard, but if they have something else scheduled immediately afterward, that dialogue may not take place. That is not in the property’s best interest, so sellers should ensure it can happen by ending early.
Properties also should not use their entire time to walk through a deck that we can read afterward as a leave-behind. Be sure to leave time for a dialogue between us. You might even want to start the meeting with the dialogue and then present your information.
Make sure the right people are coming to your meeting. Don’t be afraid to ask who will be attending. Sometimes the sponsor doesn’t give enough thought to pulling all of the people who should be there together, so the property should prompt its contact to gather the right people.
Sources
BMO Financial Group, Tel: 416/867-5000