3 Quick Ways to Leverage Sponsors to Grow Your Business

The sky is the limit when it comes to ways that you can leverage your business. I love the idea of leverage and with most everything I do, I find a way to leverage one thing for another. While I am clear that most don’t fully understand leverage, I am quite certain that you will after reading this.

Think of the term If…then… In other words, the full sentence might look like this, "If I can help you bring a high quality group of business leaders from our community into your establishment, would you be willing to sponsor some events for me?" Now take a very high end Boca Raton restaurant, who after doing a little research, I find out would like a younger, business clientele. I know based on my demographics, my clients are their ideal demographic also. Basically I am making a bold statement that I can fill a marketing need that they have simply by trading exposure or access to my clientele for their sponsorship of my event. Keep in mind that very seldom is money is changing hands. Certainly that restaurant can spend their marketing budget on print ads however that would not be an effective use of their dollars as it is next to impossible to track the return on investment with a print ad.

That is where I (and you) come in. In today’s market, it is more important than ever to find ways to fund your business without using your own money. The same goes for your clients and your potential partners or sponsors. By getting clear about the demographic you serve and the needs of the market - you can structure win-win joint ventures with other businesses that are looking to gain access to your demographic and everyone wins! There are hundreds of ways to accomplish this but here are a few to start:

1. Survey your list to find out some more specific details about your customer demographics and buying trends. You can use www.surveymonkey.com to begin the process. Ask for info like, age, years in business and annual revenue. In my case using the example above, I may ask how often my clients do their business meetings in a restaurant, how much do they typically spend on food and drinks for a business meeting and do they typically do lunches or after hours, etc.

2. Get clear on the deliverables that you can offer on your end to create a win-win. In other words, what value does your company bring to the table in terms of services or exposure? Do you have a large list that you can give them access to through advertising, do you have monthly gatherings that you can move to their place or perhaps can you offer your services in exchange for theirs? Often times, sponsorship is as simple as putting someone’s logo somewhere on your material or website and often times can result in new revenue for you. But remember, money does not have to change hands for this to work.

3. Use proposals in helping to secure your potential deal. On the top of your proposal you will state something like – Women that Win will provide the following: Then you will list one by one the deliverables you are offering and their value. Next you will list what you are looking for in return. Such as, Women that Win would like the following: Here you will list all of the things you are looking for in return (you may or may not choose to list values.) Once both parties agree, have your contract ready for them to sign.

In every business conversation you have, you should carefully plan in advance how you might create a win-win deal without money changing hands. I have spent most of my business career doing this and have never had to go into de.bt, use credit cards and best of all, not go out of pocket for most of the resources I have needed to grow my companies. There are hundreds of ways to create these kind of deals but you first have to start with the mindset of how you can serve that person or business in a way that will help them to grow.

If you like what you read today, you will want to consider taking my How to Acquire Sponsors and Leverage Your Business C.ash and D.ebt FRE.E class coming up next month where I will give you loads of ideas and how you can apply this to your own business as well as all of the scripts, proposals and contracts you will need to create your own fabulous deals! Stay tuned for dates and times.

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