SpeakerMatch Radio with guest Linda HollanderA9rac:ng Corporate Sponsorships
[0:00:00]Bryan: Good a+ernoon everybody this is Bryan Caplovitz. If you didn’t know it
already, you are on SpeakerMatch radio, our teleseminar series and today we’re going to be talking about the top five ways to aEract corporate sponsors.
Corporate sponsorship is a very hot topic right now because a lot of media planners don’t have the money they used to pay for a speaker but sponsorship is a great way for you as speaker to be able to make some money anyway and be able to provide the media planner with the kind of performance they’re looking for.
Today’s guest is really one of our most highly anGcipated interviews of the year and it is every Gme we have this interview, we do it on an annual basis and Linda Hollander is really the expert in this field. I personally worked with her and I can tell you without a doubt that her membership resulted in a sponsorship offer for a hundred thousand dollars on our very first aEempt. It was preEy amazing; just for the asking she’s gonna tell you how you can go about asking for money and get it.
This is an ideal topic for emerging and professional speakers to explore as you grow your speaking business and I am just delighted to introduce Linda to many of our new listeners and welcome her back for those who have heard Linda on our calls before.
Linda. It’s very good to have you with us. Thanks for joining us.
Linda: Oh Bryan great to be here.
Bryan: I think that some people may have read that you are known as the Wealthy Bag Lady and you’re the founder of the Women’s Small Business Expo. You have a lot of experience geRng sponsors yourself and it’s a really neat story that you have about how you came to geRng some really big named sponsors and how you became an expert in this field. Can you tell everybody a liEle bit about your background?
Linda: I sure will but first of all I wanna tell everybody to please get out a pen and paper because everybody who’s heard me before knows that I give a lot of content, a lot of notes, I talk very fast when I get excited. I’m gonna give you a lot of stuff. Hopefully, I’ll give you some goodies on top of the top 5 ways to get corporate sponsors so please take that out right now
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and I want to also be open to this informaGon and to be present because I know there’s a temptaGon to listen to teleclasses, radio shows and mulGtask but this is really important stuff.
Some of the things I say may make you uncomfortable. That’s okay because I’m gonna have you think bigger, go higher in this Gme that we have together and you’re gonna get out of your corporate zone and your comfort zone so approach the informaGon with a wide eyed innocence of a child because we don’t want any small thinkers here. I’m gonna tell you about things that are new to you but just go with it. I’m gonna give you a whole lot of informaGon and then at the end I’m gonna give you some more resources if you want to go further into corporate sponsorship.
But Bryan you asked me about my background…
Bryan: Before you go into that, you had a link with a hand out?
Linda: Let’s do the hand out link. Yes. I have prepared a really nice hand out for you guys and you can get the hand out at my web page at wealthybaglady.com/handout and it’s a pdf, you download it. You just give your name and your email and you’re taken to another page where you can download it and a lot of you guys have downloaded already. We’re gonna be going into that. There’s a place to taking notes on that hand out too.
Let me tell you my story. I have consulted with large and small businesses to help them profit from the awesome power of corporate sponsors. I have 20 years of experience in business. My new sponsors are Wells Fargo, Epson the printer company. I’ve worked with CiGBank, FedEx, Health Net, Bank of America, Staples, Wal Mart, IBM. I’d helped my clients get Coca Cola, NovarGs the drug company, Ocean Spray, Enterprise rental car and it’s been absolutely phenomenal. You’ll hear how I got into corporate sponsorships.
But I wanna tell you guys that you know what? I’m a real person.
[0:05:00]Linda: I know what it’s like to struggle because before I got into business and
entrepreneurship, I was in a dead end job. I was in a really bad place. I was also in a lot of debt. I actually worse than broke because I was living in a liEle rent controlled apartment, I would go down to the mailbox. I would open it up. Oh my god. My hand would shake when I would open that liEle mailbox and there were bills there. I could never ever afford to pay. It was really a constant reminder of my financial failures when I went down to that mailbox and I knew that with the job I had, there was just
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no way that I could ever get out of debt and create any kind of wealth for my self.
On a personal level, I was in an abusive relaGonship with a man and what lead me down the path of that relaGonship was that I just had no confidence but fortunately, one day I had an epiphany and I said I am not gonna be part of somebody else’s plan anymore. This is my Gme to strike out on my own and most importantly, I wanted my life to count for something.
So I quit the job. I dumped the abusive boyfriend and three and a half weeks later, I met my husband who is the kindest, most gentle person in the world, a constant source of love and support. The reason that I talk about this is because when I talk to audiences, a lot of men and women come up to me and say “Wow. That was my story too.”
I started a business with my best friend and we produced custom printed shopping bags which is why I’ve got the moniker of wealthy bag lady because I was a bag lady and we grew the business into a mulG million dollar enterprise and our clients included Nissan and Sears and Disney and [Phone'c] [00:06:51] and it was a great business.
But in that business, I really got into the consulGng business too because clients and especially women clients would say “How do I do sales? How do I do markeGng?” So I started my consulGng business. Then everybody said “Oh. Wow. You should write a book.” So I wrote Bags to Riches: 7 Success Secrets for Women in Business and that is really when I got into speaking cuz I had to speak to promote my book.
I loved speaking. Just fell in love with it a+er being terrified for years to get on a pladorm. I think a lot of people can relate to me. Once I started doing it, I said “This is kind of fun. I really love this.” Then what I did was I wanted to create an empowerment event because when I went on my speaking tour, a lot of women came up to me and they said “Linda. We love your book but we want this empowerment forum with all the people you interviewed.” Cuz I interviewed the top business leaders, the mulGmillionaires to get their gems of advice.
I want the men on the call to know I’m talking about women just because I’ve been in the women’s market for a long Gme but the strategies that I’m gonna give you about geRng corporate sponsors are universal to everybody so please stay with me.
[Laughter]
The women is just my experience.
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So I created the Women’s Small Business Expo and I said “Uhuh. I goEa pay for this.” If you want to speak, create your own event because then you know that you’ll speak. What are you gonna do? Fire yourself?
I had to pay for it. I had to rent a ballroom. I had to hire speakers. I had to provide lunch and breakfast and entertainment. So that’s when I thought about geRng corporate sponsors and my first corporate sponsors that I got, never having done an event in my enGre life were Bank of America, Wal Mart and IBS.
[Laughter]
Not bad right?
Bryan: Not bad. So you just went through this whole string of things that you did knowing absolutely nothing about how to do it. You started a speaking business…
Linda: I knew nothing.
Bryan: You started a…
[Laughter]
Well did you know anything about the bag business when you started that?
Linda: No.
[Laughter]
Bryan: Did you know about this seminar business?
Linda: I guess it’ kind of uh…
Bryan: Yeah?
Linda: I guess it’s kind of a paEern but hey, I know a lot about it now but you goEa start somewhere.
[Laughter]
Bryan: It’s a great story for somebody because there are a lot of people that are wondering how do they get started without any experience. Who’s gonna wanna hire them? Who’s gonna wanna give them money if they don’t
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have experience and you’ve just gone through creaGng your own business, [Laughter] geRng people to buy the bags, you’ve done the speaking, you’ve done the seminars, you’ve goEen people to give you money for sponsorships, you’re talking to people who can really use this informaGon. I think that makes a lot of sense.
Linda: You know what Bryan, there are two kinds of people in the world. There are seekers and there are nonseekers and fortunately, the people listening to us on this radio show and teleclass are seekers. They don’t let it stop them that they don’t know how to do something. Most people let it stop them. They say “Well I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to get up and speak. I don't know how to get sponsors.” So they just stop.
[0:10:00]Linda: But the people who are listening to us say “Well I don't know how to do it
but I’m gonna learn how to do it. I’m gonna join SpeakerMatch and I’m gonna learn how to get corporate sponsors.
Bryan: Right. I’m sure that people wanna hear a lot more about this. So how did you go about starGng to get the corporate sponsors? Let’s talk a liEle bit about that.
Linda: Okay. Well great. Let’s talk about that because I’m gonna give you some vocabulary and this is where you’ll want that hand out. I’ll just repeat the web page one more Gme. The web page where you get the hand out we’re gonna be working with is wealthybaglady.com/handout and I’m gonna go into the definiGon of sponsorship. There’s a method to the madness cuz I will answer your quesGon about how I went about it and how you can go about it.
The definiGon of sponsorship is a cash or an in kind fee paid to a property in return for access to the commercial potenGal associated with that property. So the words commercial potenGal goes in the blank that’s in the hand out.
I’m gonna break this definiGon down because this is really important and I’m not gonna go into a whole lot of new vocabulary but you do need this piece to understand the sponsor world and understand how to get companies to open up their check books for you so you can go out and speak and do what you love and change lives and have a company foot the bill for it.
So sponsorship is a cash or an in kind fee. Let’s go into that. Of course, you want cash and stay tuned because I’m gonna tell you how much money you can make. But there’s also in kind and in kind is also called
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trade sponsorships and it’s basically what it sounds like. It’s a trading of benefits and of services. One of my clients got Ocean Spray and they got Ocean Spray to sponsor all the food and beverage for their event. They’ve saved thousands of dollars. It’s budget relieving. There’s a lot of value in trade sponsorships and the big one is media. You can get a lot of media and not pay a dime.
Now we goEa have commercial potenGal associated with our property. That means that you have to connect a company with people who buy things. I think most of us qualify in that parGcular arena. Most of us know people who buy things, we speak to people who buy things, we do presentaGons for people who buy things and I had a lady call me once and she said “Oh. I want to hand books to prisoners.” And I said “Well I can’t help you because they don’t buy things. They’re not really consumers.” I couldn’t help her with sponsorships.
Now let’s talk about the word property. What you have right now is considered a property so please make sure to write that word or underline it on the handout. You’re speaking and media tour now is a property. Rachel Ray is a property. A lot of people out there geRng sponsors are properGes. UnGl recently there was a very well known golfer who was the hoEest property out there and I think you all know who I’m talking about.
Bryan: I do.
[Laughter]
Linda: So back to your quesGon Bryan. You said how did I go about it and how can everybody here go about it. You look at similar properGes to what you’re doing. If you speak to the youth market, in a college market, look at who’s sponsoring other events for college students, for high school students. If you want urban youth, you look at things that are sponsoring that. If you speak to the mom market, you look at things that are appealing to the mom market. That may be even mundane things like paper towels cuz moms are always cleaning up milk spills with paper towels.
So you look at those things. If you’re speaking to the baby boomers, you look at what companies are trying to court that business from the baby boomers. It’s cruise lines, it’s financial planning, it’s travel companies. So look at what similar properGes are doing cuz I was talking to a client yesterday and she says “Oh I want State Farm Insurance but I see they’re sponsoring this other property.”
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I said “That is good.” If State Farm is also sponsoring a similar property to what you’re doing and she is going a+er the college market, they will be more likely to sponsor you because you don’t have to educate them about the value of sponsorships. They already know the value of sponsorship. They’re out there doing it. That’s really how you get started.
Bryan: And what did you do first when you were looking for sponsors for your parGcular events.
[Cross-‐talk]
Linda: We are so lucky we are in this informaGon age and in the transformaGonal economy because what I did was I looked at the internet at other women’s business conferences. Fortunately there are a lot of women’s business conferences out there and I saw who they sponsor for and the name IBM came up, and the name Wal Mart came up and Bank of America came up and write this down.
Everybody should have a bank sponsor. I’ve always had a bank sponsor. It’s a great great category because even in this economy, banks are sGll where the money is.
[0:15:00]Linda: So that’s really how I decided who to go a+er and one of the first things
that you want to do in geRng your corporate sponsors is to write down your wish list. I call it the wish list. Start a list going and now a+er you’ve heard the informaGon that I’m presenGng today, you’re gonna really have your percepGon increased and your gonna hear something on the radio or you’ll see it commercially. You’ll see a billboard that say “Hey. Maybe that company would want to sponsor me.”
Write it down because the commonality of everybody that I have helped that get corporate sponsors is key. They had a thought and then the thought turn into a vision and the vision turned into acGon.
Bryan: Sponsorship is a liEle bit different than adverGsing. I don't know if we want to talk about this now, but are there different places to look for adverGsers versus sponsors when people are idenGfying their potenGal sponsors?
Linda: AdverGsing is part of sponsorships but sponsorship is so much bigger because let’s say you have a radio show. You can maybe get a few hundred dollars from an adverGser on your radio show, maybe a few thousand. With corporate sponsors, I teach people… I told you I would tell you later but I’m gonna tell you now so listen up. This is a writer downer.
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What I teach people to get is between ten thousand and a hundred thousand dollars from each sponsor per year and Bryan said he got a hundred thousand dollar offer so when you get a sponsor, a lot of Gmes you’ll include a certain amount of adverGsing in that sponsorship package. So it’s either adverGsing on your website, if you have a radio show on your radio show, if you got a teleclass like this someGmes you can put the sponsor on for a few minutes. There’s just so much you can do.
I wanna talk for a minute about the economy because I get asked about this all the Gme cuz people say “Oh God. In this economy, are companies sGll sponsoring?” Absolutely. They are sGll sponsoring.
In a recent survey, 66% of the companies said they’re spending more or the same as last year on their sponsorships and they are cuRng back on the mulGmedia tradiGonal kinds of adverGsing because sponsorship is very targeted as you’re gonna hear and it’s a great return on investment. So I think that’s really posiGve. I wanna give a lot of posiGve informaGon in the Gme we have together.
Let me just give you a couple of more.
Let’s see sponsorship has gone up 50% since the year 2004. It’s gone up 100% since the year 2000. Here’s another one to write down. Companies are going to spend over $17 billion on sponsorships so if we could get just a liEle bit of the 17 billion, I just want people to know that there’s plenty of money out there.
Bryan: Wow. So people can go online, look for sponsors, look at other events and what they have. When they’re looking for sponsors, should they be thinking about what the potenGal sponsors are looking for?
Linda: Absolutely.
Bryan: Well what are sponsors looking for?
Linda: Let me tell you what sponsors give you. Number your page from one to four. This is not on the hand out. I’m gonna give you a liEle bonus here and I will get to the top 5 ways and I’ll tell you what sponsors can give you and what they’re looking for.
Sponsors give you four things.
Number one, we already sort of touched on it a liEle bit, it’s free products and services. Free stuff: food, prinGng, consulGng, services, etc.
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Number two is media and I had a radio staGon give me $25,000 worth of free publicity on their radio show. This is one of the biggest kept secrets out there that a lot of what you hear in the media is done in trade. It was not paid for out of somebody reaching into their wallets. Money. Sponsors will give you money and we’ve already talked about how much you can make. I usually go between ten and a hundred thousand. SomeGmes we go up to 250, half a million even a million dollars depending on my clients.
The last thing sponsors give you is credibility because if you say sponsored by, in my case Wells Fargo, CiGBank, Epson, FedEx, American Airlines, like people know you are playing at a higher level so you will get more clients and one sponsor leads to another sponsor so that’s the cool thing.
Now you ask me what sponsors are looking for. Sponsors are looking for you to connect them with their core consumers. What I want you to do is really look at who you talk to because when I work with speakers, speakers have been taught that their message is the most important thing and I say “Yeah.”
[0:20:00]Linda: The message is important. It’s extremely important but in the world of
sponsorships, the target market is really important. So you really got to do some research on your target market because that is really the key to geRng corporate sponsors.
Bryan: So if somebody’s gonna look for a sponsor to give them a lot of money they wanna make sure they’re not making any big mistakes in leRng a hundred thousand dollars slip through their fingers by doing the wrong things. Are there some common mistakes that you see people making when they’re looking for sponsorships?
Linda: Oh yes. There are. Why don’t we do this? We fill out the top five ways cuz in the top five I’m gonna talk about the common mistakes.
Bryan: Absolutely and I need to remind people before we go on that if they’re listening online or if they are on the phone right now and are in front of a computer, you can go to speakermatch.com/radio and there is a form online where you can submit any quesGons that you might have for Linda.
Also if we have Gme at the end, we will allow you to ask quesGons and so I want you to be prepared for that. If you’ve dialed in, you’ll be able to ask a quesGon directly so think about what kind of quesGon you might have and keep that wriEen down so that when I open up the line if I do open up the line, you’ll be ready for us.
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Linda: [Laughter]
I really want to talk to you cuz I love the interacGve format that we have here.
Bryan: All right let’s do the top five ways.
Linda: Let’s do the top five.
Okay number one is to be clear about your demographics. So please fill out the word demographics in that blank and we we’re kind of just talking about that in that you have to be really on top of the demographics. I’ll tell you my demographics. My demographics are women business owners, 25 to 54 years old. The median household income is $72,000. They are college educated. They are usually married. They’re usually in business for 5 years or less because in the first 5 years of business, that is the growth phase so they really are hungry for informaGon so they’ll go out to conferences and they’ll go out and they’ll hear people speak.
So do you see how specific that is? Now you have the be that specific about your demographic because that is what the sponsor is paying you for. They’re paying you to connect them with their demographic, with their target market or core consumer. That’s where it is kind of like adverGsing. Let’s go old school tradiGonal, if you buy an in a magazine or a newspaper, you ought to know who’s reading it and are the right people reading this ad. Is it gonna be worth my money?
Now I’ll tell you how to do research on your demographics, the thing we all know and love Google. You can get so much informaGon in under an hour on Google. You Google staGsGcs and put in whatever your target market is.
Another way to get some research on your target market is to look at the publicaGons that you’re target market reads and get their media kit.
One of the really big target market that’s emerged in the past few years is the cultural creaGves. The cultural creaGves are the people who watched the Secret movie, they shop at the whole foods market, they spear headed the green movement, they’re very into personal development and health and wellness and I know a lot of you speak to this parGcular group.
If I were doing the cultural creaGves, I would Google it and then I would look at maybe Yoga Journal, Whole Life Time, the things that those people read and get what’s known as the media kit cuz the media kit will
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tell you such amazing informaGon about your target markeGng, your demographics. It will make your head spin. I see media kits that tell me how o+en people buy computers, how o+en they buy a new car, the median income, the educaGon level, the diversity component.
So that is number one. Be clear about your demographics.
Bryan: Also Linda Paul is sending me a message here. Paul is in my office. He has another great Gp for people. A lot of our listeners have really big fan bases on Facebook and Facebook has a tool called Facebook insights, kind of is on the le+ side of the fan page and that would give you demographics about your fan base say age ranges, male versus female, things like that.
Linda: I’m gonna add that to my toolbox. Facebook insights. Yes and everybody that is available on your fan page so another thing to do if you are acGve in Facebook or just geRng into Facebook is to send people to your fan page because on Facebook, I maxed out on my friends and I had to direct the people who requested to be my friend to the fan page.
At first I thought “Well. Why am I creaGng this fan page?”
[0:25:00]Linda: But then I found out “Oohh. You can get all these insights and all that
juicy demographic informaGon which I just ate up with a spoon.
Bryan: [Laughter]
I bet you did. Well thank you Paul.
Linda: Thank you Paul. Okay. You wanna go on to number two?
Bryan: Let’s do it.
Linda: Okay. Number two is have a great sponsorship proposal without it don’t even bother. The proposal is the most important but least understood document out there in the sponsor game and this is a game. You goEa know the rules. That’s what I’m teaching you here. It’s also called a perspecGve. It’s also called a sponsorship deck but in our discussion today I’m gonna call it the sponsor proposal and the sponsor proposal is all that they say about you. They don’t get to know you like your friends and your colleagues have and your family. They’re just gonna see that document so it has to be industry standard and it has to be compelling.
Let me tell you what goes into that sponsorship proposal and I teach people to do the sponsorship proposal in a way that nobody else does.
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Bryan: You’re giving away all kinds of great informaGon.
Linda: I don’t hold back. Do you want me not to give so much?
Bryan: No. It’s just great. This is great.
Linda: That’s why I love this. I’ll answer any quesGon anybody has. This is why I have to talk fast. I goEa get all these stuff out.
So in the sponsorship proposal, you start with your story, either your story or the story of somebody that you have helped because we’re all in different businesses here but we are all in the life changing business. It could be the story of you, your speaking, your media, your book, your business, your charity or somebody that you helped through the work that you do.
It’s goEa be compelling and you’ve got to make a human connecGon. I’ve never had a company decide to sponsor me. I had a human being in that company decide to sponsor me because there was some kind of an emoGonal connecGon and they saw my humanity cuz a lot of people think “Wow. I’m sending this proposal to a big corporaGon. It’s gonna be dry and full of figures and I want to make it professional.”
That is not the way to go. We put humor into the proposal. SomeGmes we put cartoons in the proposal. We put graphics in the proposal. We make it really human.
Okay. So you put your story, you put your mission statement, you put the sponsor benefits, you put your strategic alliances and then you put of course your demographics and then at the end you put the money. You ask for the different levels of money that you can get from a corporate sponsor. I’d have to talk to you individually to determine that but like I said, the ballpark is ten to a hundred thousand dollars. Usually the levels are $10,000, $25,000, $50,000 and $100,000 and those are yearly fees and they are renewable.
So that’s what goes into the proposal and like I said it’s a really really important document cuz you and I’ve worked together.
Okay. No quesGons? All right.
Bryan: Sorry. I had the mute buEon pushed.
Linda: [Laughter]
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Okay.
Bryan: You’re absolutely right. It’s so important and it’s so easy if they just follow your formula for puRng one together. It makes it real simple.
Linda: Yeah. I have a template that I give people because when I was doing my sponsor proposal, I spent six months and $75,000. Now I thought “Well. This is crazy.”
First of all most entrepreneurs are not gonna be able to do that and speakers and I said “Nobody should have to go through this.” So I preEy much stream lined the process, created a very proprietary template but we could talk about that a liEle bit later but know that exist if you would like to go further with my resources.
Number three is promise deliverables. Bryan you asked me about common mistakes that people make.
Bryan: Right.
Linda: Here is a mistake that I’m gonna talk about because most people, they say “Oh. Here’s what we’re gonna give you. We’re gonna give you media through the property. We’re gonna give you exposure on the pladorm.” Cuz a lot of speakers, you’re in a great posiGon cuz companies really don’t have people who write books. Companies don’t have people who can get up on the pladorm and have been trained to speak in the way that Bryan trains you and offers you resources.
Let’s say you promised somebody to let them introduce you on stage, one of your sponsors. So you goEa be specific about it. You goEa say “Oh. Okay. I speak to this group. Here’s what my speaking is. Here’s how I can connect you. Here’s the benefit. You’re gonna get signage. You’re gonna get recogniGon from the pladorm. You’re gonna get a table at the event.”
[0:30:00]Linda: You don’t just say “Oh I’ll give you media.” You say “Oh our media partner
is the Home Town Business Journal which has 60,000 subscribers making over $100,000 a year.” Who would you rather go with, the one who’s vague or the one who gets really really specific? So that’s what you goEa do.
Number three is promise deliverables.
Okay. Number four is my favorite and this is also a big rookie mistake. Don’t sell your self short. Write that in the blank. Because I get called all day long from people and I get a lot of proposals coming across my desk
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and basically they want to ask for $500 or $1000 for sponsorships fees. Come on.
First of all, you are establishing that you are not worth very much at the outset. You are not seRng up a good relaGonship with that sponsor.
But they say “Oh Linda well I just want to charge this, I wanna form the relaGonship and then I’ll double it, triple it next Gme.” You can’t really do that. You’re seRng the bar.
Secondly, you are dealing with a corporate execuGve and this corporate execuGve, we’ll call her Susan. Susan is looking at her desk and then looking you over at the other desk in her office that are empty and she’s doing the work of maybe two or three of her colleagues that aren’t at that company anymore with the downsizing that’s happened in corporate America.
So it’s not really worth her Gme if you’re asking for $500 or $1000. If you’re asking for a substanGal amount of money, it is worth her Gme. She does take you seriously. She does present you to her colleagues.
So please don’t sell yourself short. A lot of people think “Well I don’t have $10,000 worth of benefits.” I bet you do. I bet if I was to talk to you by the Gme I got done with you, you’d say “Wow. I should be charging at least this much. I have no qualms about charging this much money in sponsor fees.” I guess I’ve driven that point home.
[Laughter]
Number four is don’t sell yourself short.
Number five is whenever possible, make appointments then listen. When people get to the stage that they’ve completed their proposal and their pitch and everything they need then you goEa start calling your sponsors and the best way to contact the sponsor is the old fashion tool of the telephone. That is the best way because sponsorship is a relaGonship business and I believe that having conversaGons has become a lost art but that’s the best way to create a relaGonship with your potenGal sponsor. Also social media has become big in sponsorships and other things but I sGll think the best way is the telephone.
So you get the potenGal sponsor on the line and lot of people get really anxious and really nervous cuz they don’t know what to say, they don’t know the vocabulary, they don’t know that whole world of corporate sponsorships but you don’t have to be nervous because all you have to do is listen to your potenGal sponsor.
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Say “You know what? What are your goals? What are your visions for the company? What upcoming ad campaigns are you doing? Then a+er they tell you then say “Okay. Well here’s how I can help you accomplish those goals.” And they will know that you have listened to them.
For instance when I was working with FedEx, I assumed “Oh. Okay. FedEx will want an exhibitor opportunity.” They said “No. We don’t want an exhibitor opportunity. We don’t care about a table. We don’t care about signage because they said when they exhibit, all people do is they come and they take the [Phone'c] [0:34:08]. Hopefully everybody knows what that means. I’m Jewish. I could talk this way.
[Laughter]
But the [Phone'c] [0:34:10], if you don’t know that term [Laughter], is the liEle gi+s, the liEle promoGonal items, the leEer openers and the pens and the notepads and all those liEle freebies that they give out at the booth. But they won’t even ask about FedEx because they think everybody knows the company. Well what FedEx wanted to do and I listened and they told me is they wanted the women business owners, that’s my core demographic, to know that they are just as inexpensive and they provide just as much value as their compeGGon which is the guys in the brown shirts because everybody thinks “Oh FedEx is the white glove execuGve service.”
They’re not. They offer a lot of services for businesses and home business that nobody knows about. They wanted a liEle speaking Gme to tell people that and to rebrand themselves so that’s what we gave them but see we listened and we worked with them for quite a few years because we had a great relaGonship.
[0:35:00]Bryan: Okay. If you’re listening right now and Linda’s going a liEle bit fast
[Laughter] this will be available as a replay for download. You can listen to it on your iPod. It’s also available on iTunes shortly a+er we’re done here. Just go to SpeakerMatch.com/radio for more informaGon about that.
But Linda there is one thing. I’m geRng a lot of quesGons from people asking for you to repeat the five things that go into a proposal so if you could go through that just one more Gme, a liEle bit more slowly.
Linda: Okay. We’ll give a recap. I’ll talk a liEle bit slower.
The first thing that goes into your sponsor proposal is your story. The story is the first thing that goes in there.
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The second thing is your mission statement. Why do you do what you do? What gets you up in the morning? What makes your heart sing? I know this sounds like wuwu stuff but it is really important because this is going to make your proposal stand out from 99% of what they are going to see.
The third thing that you’re going to put in your proposal is all the benefits that you can offer that parGcular sponsor.
Then you’re gonna put a descripGon of your demographics and make this compelling, make this detailed and whenever you right something in the proposal, don’t just tell the company, your prospecGve sponsor what you do. Always relate it back to how it’s gonna benefit them. If they don’t see benefits, they are not gonna open up that check book and give you money. They’re not gonna make it possible for you to do what you love and get money and get resources from that company so you can make your dreams come true with corporate sponsorships.
A+er the benefits secGon, you put down your alliances. If you have people in your management team and your strategic alliances, your board is basically everybody’s familiar with the mastermind concept, it’s the people who are in your mastermind groups, the people who support you. You could put your brother-‐in-‐law in there but ideally, you’ll want to put people who are influenGal in the business community, in poliGcs and in the local community. A lot of you people know influenGal people and you’ve met influenGal people. So put them down cuz this is important. A lot of people come to me and they say “Well. I don’t have experience.” Well so what? Somebody else does. I help teenagers get sponsors. They don’t have life experience but they know people with a lot of life experience.
Not this is opGonal but I suggest it and I didn’t say this at first so write this down, your charitable partner. If you have a charity or if you want to choose a charity to be a partner, it’s a great thing because if you donate part of your proceeds to a charity, you’re gonna get more money from sponsors, you’re gonna get more people coming to your events, people are gonna pay more because a cause related markeGng is really hot right now and people want to give money to people who speak and people who run businesses with social responsibility that give back to the community. So put down your charitable partner if you have one, mine’s Junior Achievement by the way and part of everything I do, my speaking, my books, everything goes to Junior Achievement.
Then the last thing is the money, dinero. You are going to be bold and ask for the money. If you don’t ask, you don’t get so you’re gonna li+ the different levels of sponsorship and what they get at each level.
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That is what goes into the proposal.
Bryan: Okay. Let’s move on to the next thing and talk a liEle bit about other types of sponsorships you can get. I know one of the things that you’re really big on is nonprofit partners.
Linda: Okay let’s talk about nonprofit partners and if any of the people on the call are running a nonprofit, what I said about cause related markeGng really research that because right now the reason that companies like Target give part of the proceeds to schools, the reason why Pedigree dog food gives part of the money that they make to help dogs finding loving homes is because that’s what makes people buy. People want to buy from companies that are doing good, that are giving back to the community.
If you have a nonprofit this is how you can get corporate sponsorships and look at what happened to Susan G. Komen and all the breast cancer research organizaGons, companies are falling all over themselves to be associated with that because they get what’s known as the halo effect from that. People think “Oh. They’re supporGng this. They’re a good company. They’re not just concerned about boEom lines and I feel good buying for this parGcular company.”
[0:40:00]Linda: Not to say that’s the only reason why they do it but it is a benefit and it’s
called cause related markeGng.
That’s where it helps you in your quest for corporate sponsors because number one they can get the cause markeGng benefits and number two someGmes they can get a write off and corporate America, they like write offs so those are two reasons to have a nonprofit charity.
Oh and there’s a third bonus reason to have a nonprofit is because in your relaGonship with a nonprofit, you promote them and they promote you. SomeGmes this is great for speakers because someGmes they even have you speak at their events and you’re not gonna get paid for speaking at an event.
I don’t get paid when I speak at Junior Achievement but they are the most influenGal heavy hiEers. They’re in the audience and on the board of Junior Achievement. Whenever I speak there, I get invited to speak at [Phone'c] [0:40:59] or I get some kind of an opportunity it’s even lead me to sponsors because Pepsi’s that’s on the board someGmes of the nonprofits. It’s really influenGal people.
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It just puts you in a whole new arena and helps to build your business.
You there Bryan?
Bryan: I did it again. I apologize.
[Laughter]
Linda: I want you with me.
[Laughter]
Bryan: I just didn’t want you to hear me with my heavy breathing.
[Laughter]
But I don’t think you’ve talked anything about media partners. Can you elaborate on that a liEle bit?
Linda: Oh sure cuz a lot of people really wanna understand media partners. Now the strategy that I teach people is to get your media partners first and then to leverage those media partners into cash sponsors and here’s the way it works.
You get a media partner in the same way that you get a corporate sponsor, you show them your proposal and you say “Look. Here’s my $25,000 package. I’ll trade it for your $25,000 package.” In the example I gave, that’s what I did. I approached a radio staGon. I said “Look. I’ll give you a table.” Radio staGons like to have tables and love to give out stuff and be in the community. “I would like your package.”
So what they did was they gave me 60 seconds spots. They gave me 30 seconds spots with a live read. Since I do a Women’s Small Business Expo, I want one of your top female talents to do the read so they take their really popular female on air talent and she read it and they put me on their website, they did what’s known as a sponsor spotlight which is having me on for a few interviews, replaying those interviews. I was even driving once and I heard one of my commercials, almost crashed my car.
But like I said this is one of the biggest secrets out there is that you can get tons of media on trade and those are your media partners. So here’s how it works because a lot of you… I had this monster database of 20,000 people but some of you may only have a few hundred people on your database, some of you may only have a couple of people. I started out with my cat and my brother-‐in-‐law in my newsleEer list.
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If you don’t have a big database, this is the way to get it because even with the old school, the tradiGonal media, with one print media, the newspaper, magazine, radio staGons with one maybe internet tv show, internet, blog talk radio, you can get like 10,000, 25,000, 65,000 people with one of these media sponsors. So then instead of saying “Well. I have 20 people on my database on my database and on my list.” Then you say “I have an extended reach to 60,000 people because I have this media sponsor.
Bryan: Wow.
Linda: So that’s a lot more impressive to a corporaGon than saying you reached 10 people or 50 people.
Bryan: Right. That’s a great Gp. One of the things that we were talking a liEle about before was the benefits for the sponsor and being able to come up with the right things that make your property aEracGve. What are some of the benefits that you found to be very effecGve and something that a speaker can use to add value to their package?
Linda: Oh my God. Okay. I’ll go through a few of them. Most people on the line have a web page. If you don’t have your own website, you got your social media websites, something everybody can do is put the sponsor logo on your website. If you do an email blast, you can put something about the sponsor on your email blast. When you speak, you can put signage up on the pladorm that has the sponsor name on it. You can give them a table and I want to go over this with speakers because if you speak at somebody else’s event or if you organize your own event, that is considered a live event.
[0:45:00]Linda: So when you’re talking to sponsors instead of saying “Oh. I’m gonna give
a presentaGon…” Say “I’m going to do a live event…” I just want you to change the languaging a liEle bit because sponsors love live events. What I do when I’m doing a live event is I ask the organizer “Can I bring my sponsor?”
They come and set up a table. I don’t think I ever had a no because they want to network with that sponsor. They want to forge a relaGonship with that sponsor. I’ve never had anybody turn me down for that. So the sponsor sets up a table whenever you speak. You can hand out their materials with your materials when you speak if you do handouts.
Of course, I’m a big fan of handouts. I think you should all do handouts because then they have something to keep with your contact informaGon
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on it. You can recognize them from the pladorm and in your slides . A lot of you are thinking “Oh God. Do I really have to really be obnoxious with a sponsor? This sounds like too much.”
No you don’t have to wear the shirt. You don’t have to wear it when you sleep. Sponsors don’t wanna be obnoxious. This is very elegant. It’s not obnoxious. Sponsors want to be subtle and in the background. They don’t wanna be loud and they don’t wanna turn people off. It’s not a big overt promoGon of that parGcular company.
Let’s see. So if you write books, you can include the sponsor in your book. You can put a liEle bookmark, a liEle sGcker in the book that promotes the sponsor.
There’s just so many ways that speakers can get corporate sponsors and a lot of the clients I work with are speakers because speakers are very unusual because they have something to say and they have a pladorm and they have an extended reach so it’s a natural thing.
Bryan: You’re just saying that you never had anybody decline you bringing your sponsor with you but if you have a bank as a sponsor, you have Bank of America sponsoring you and you go to speak for CiGBank obviously there would be a conflict of interest. They may not want you there.
Linda: [Laughter]
Well I guess that’s why I never had any say no cuz I know if that’s the case. It could’ve happened.
Bryan: It’s not gonna happen.
Linda: Sponsors are paying you not to have a compeGtor around. That’s part of what they’re paying you for. If I have one bank and I’m going to speak at another I would know not to ask them.
Bryan: Oh that was the quesGon I was going to ask for. So if Bank of America is a sponsor, do they have anything in their closets, in their contract with you that says you can’t speak at other banks?
Linda: Here’s another thing for the people to write down and that is the word exclusivity because usually when you’re asking for the big bucks, anything over 5 figures over $10,000, a lot of companies will want what’s known as exclusivity which means category exclusivity.
So what we were just talking about is Bank of America and Wells Fargo. So if you get Bank of America, they’re not gonna want you to have Wells
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Fargo as a sponsor. They’re paying you not to have compeGtor in their category.
At the lower levels of sponsorship, it doesn’t really come up but if they’re paying you good amounts of money, that’s part of what they’re paying you for.
But this doesn’t really hamper your ability to get sponsors cuz there are so many categories that you can go for and the one excepGon to exclusivity is media because you obviously want to get as much media as possible. If you’re speaking, if you’re doing a book signing, whatever you’re doing, you can have a million radio sponsors and tv and print sponsors and internet media sponsors, that doesn’t maEer. The media will not even ask for exclusivity.
Bryan: Okay. That helps a lot just to know how people can approach it. How do you know how much money to ask for?
Linda: [Laughter]
That is such an individual thing, knowing how much money to ask for. There are different levels of benefits. There are different levels of extended reach in what people do, that I’m gonna have to take on an individual basis but I’m gonna go back to those four levels cuz those usually work for a lot of my clients and my students is $10,000 those are what’s called visibility benefits.
Then you have what’s known as your connecGon benefits, that’s the $25,000 level. That is where the sponsor could actually interface and engage and talk to their core consumers.
Then at $50,000 you have some media benefits on top of that.
Then usually at the $100,000 level, it’s naming rights. We’ve all seen Stars on Ice. I love Stars on Ice cuz they’re very successful property in the sponsor world.
[0:50:00]Linda: It’ll say Stars on Ice presented by Smucker’s. They got Smucker’s as their
presenGng sponsor. The American Idol Tour presented by Pop Tarts. That way if they have naming rights, the sponsors get their name on everything and you could do naming rights too as a speaker.
I’m talking about big companies and you’re thinking “Oh well I’m just a speaker.” Hey you can use the strategies that the big guys use for what you do and they work perfectly.
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Bryan: Okay. You have so much informaGon to share with people and I really want to let people know again that we used Linda as a consultant to at SpeakerMatch. I actually went through her seminar and got some great informaGon. She just provides you with the templates that you need to make everything really easy and she can criGque everything for you and just make the whole process painless and I highly recommend that you look further into using Linda as a consultant if you are interested in geRng a sponsor for your events.
So Linda I wanna give people an opportunity to find out how to get in touch with you and I think we put a link together for you. Speakermatch.com/sponsorclass if that’s okay. I’ll just send people there. That’ll take you to Linda’s site so you can find out more about what she has to offer.
But real quick Linda can you tell people about the services that you offer and the class that you have coming up.
Linda: Absolutely. I have a teleclass coming up called AEracGng Corporate Sponsors because even though I’ve tried to give you as much informaGon in the Gme that we have together and I gave you all the elements of the sponsor proposal. A lot of you are thinking “Oh God. I don't know if I could write this sponsor proposal. I don't know what to do here.”
So in the AEracGng Corporate Sponsors teleclass, by the way it starts on Wednesday, February 23rd and goes for four weeks so it’s four Wednesdays, the last class is March 23, 2011. Also write this down, it’s from 5 to 6 Pacific Gme and if you can’t make each class, we do have a recording and a replay service available for you.
But in the AEracGng Corporate Sponsors class, we give you all the tools that you need to write a proposal, to approach sponsors, you get what Bryan menGoned earlier, you get the proprietary proposal template which I’ve designed. You can only get it from me and basically, this is a fill in the blanks document. You fill in the blanks, you’ve got the proposal. You get the proposal that I spent the big bucks on. Remember I said I spent $75,000 on a proposal. This is what’s goEen me: IBM, Wal Mart, Staples, Hanson’s Beverage, Marriot VacaGon Club, etc. You get the Gps card, you get the pitch leEer, we have special guest experts. Staples will come on and tell you how to work with them. They’re one of my guest experts.
You get acGon plans. You get phone scripts so basically you get all the tools that you need to get corporate sponsors. We do it in a teleclass format and obviously you understand what that’s all about because it’s all about convenience. I don’t make people fly to a hotel room and disrupt
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their lives and their family. You can do this either live or you could listen to the replays and you get all the home study stuff.
Then the last thing that I wanna tell you about is I give you a p e r s o n a l sponsor proposal criGque. Not only will you write your sponsor proposal and get all the tools and the home study guides, I will criGque it for you so I get real personal in this parGcular teleclass training. I limit it to 40 students. I think I’m about half full at this Gme and I wanna give you the informaGon once again and the Gme.
It’s for Wednesdays. It starts February 23rd, the last class is March 23rd from 5 to 6 Pacific Gme. You could listen live, you could listen to the replays. I don't know if I’m gonna do any more classes this year by the way because I’m really busy with my agency. I have a new agency which is full service and clients pay us like $10,000 to do their sponsor proposals and approach the sponsors for them.
So this is my most affordable training. It is $697 and I told Bryan that I would offer SpeakerMatch members cuz I have been a proud SpeakerMatch member, oh God, I lost track. It’s been a lot of years but anyways I’ve enjoyed SpeakerMatch so much that I’m offering you guys $100 discount. So if you want to take advantage of the $100 discount, put in the coupon code SpeakerMatch at checkout and instead of $697 it’s only $597 and remember that what we teach you is how to get $10,000 to $100,000 from each sponsors.
[0:55:00]Linda: If you have any quesGons just go to that web page. Bryan will give it to
you again and contact me and I’ll answer any quesGons you may have.
Bryan: Okay that link again is speakermatch.com/sponsorclass and Paul is telling me that we’re being overwhelmed with the links. I’m gonna go there right now. If it doesn’t go through just refresh your page and try again.
Linda: Okay. Yeah and thank you for signing up. I see some people are signing up here so thank you very much. I enjoyed meeGng you. I get to know each one of you personally in this parGcular teleclass training that’s why I keep it to only a few students.
Bryan: That’s great. Well Linda would you mind staying on for just a couple more minutes and see if we can take some live quesGons?
Linda: I would love it.
Bryan: Okay. Great. If you are on the phone listening right now you can dial *2 to raise your hand and let me know that you have a quesGon and I will bring
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you in on to the call. Looks like we have our first quesGon from Catherine. Catherine you’re on the line. Go ahead.
Catherine: Hi. How are you?
Linda: Fine. Great.
Catherine: Great informaGon. I’m ecstaGc.
[Laughter]
I am about to start a radio show at the Peeping talk staGon here on AusGn and it happens to be ChrisGan and I am on the process of trying to get sponsorships. It’s really been difficult and I wonder if taking your class would be beneficial for me to get sponsorship because I can’t get on air unGl I really have the sponsorship because I can’t afford it. They don’t pay me and I have to get my own sponsorship. So I’m wondering if this class that you’re offering would be something that would benefit me personally.
Linda: Well I work with a lot of radio hosts because a lot of radio hosts are doing what you do. They pay for the show and then you have to not only recoup your investment but you want to make some money.
Catherine: Exactly.
Linda: Look. We’re in a speaking business. A lot of people don’t take their speaking and their shows and their media as businesses. You want to make money and you don’t have to apologize for that.
Catherine: I don’t feel like I need to either. I agree with you.
Linda: Yes. Exactly. So I do work with a lot of radio hosts. I help them get sponsors for their show and there are ways to do that, to appeal to the possible sponsors that might want to be involved in your radio show.
Catherine: Okay.
Bryan: Okay. It looks like Robert is back with us with a quesGon now. This is from Williamstown, New Jersey. Go ahead Robert.
Rick: Hi. This is actually Rick. I’m sorry.
Bryan: Oh sorry Rick.
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Rick: No problem. Great program. I just had a quesGon. My speaking has evolved over the years. I started for years doing a lot of just free engagements. In the last two or three years, started picking up a lot of paid engagements. Not big dollars $1,000 here, $1,000 there and just recently picked up a bank as a sponsor. However, it’s been kind of as a freebie. It’s been the first sponsor I ever had. We did an event about two weeks ago. We had another one scheduled for today but because of the big snow in the Philadelphia, we got postponed unGl next month and now we’re talking about a third engagement and we have never talked about all the things that you’ve talked about today about the signage and all the benefits the sponsor gets. How can approach these guys now and say “Okay. We’re talking about third one, maybe we need to ramp up the discussion.”
Linda: Once again Rick, I would go back to that bank and this is how I’ve kept my banks for so long. I would go back to them and say “What do you wanna accomplish here? What do you want to happen from this sponsorship? What are your iniGaGves? What are your upcoming campaigns? What do you want to do?” Get their goals, get their visions and you’re part in it is knowing what benefits you can give them and hopefully I’ve given you enough and if not you can contact me and do one of my trainings.
But I would go back to them and say “Look. I really want this sponsorship to work. I really want to promote this bank and I really want it to be a real win win win situaGon so how can we just up level this and make this really really good for everybody.” They’re gonna tell you some things. You’ve been in this teleclass, you’ll know some things like you said that you didn’t know at the beginning.
So I want to also talk about something else and this is what I get asked about all the Gme.
[1:00:00]Linda: Because Rick is saying he gets paid and he has the sponsor. You can get
paid and have a sponsor at the same Gme. In other words, you can do an event and you can get paid from the organizer, the meeGng planner of that event and you can get paid by your sponsor. A lot of people think it’s an either or situaGon.
Plus having a sponsor as a speaker makes you more valuable to that meeGng organizer. They will hire somebody with a sponsor before they’ll hire somebody that has no sponsor. It’s just the way it goes in the speaking industry.
Rick: I actually have a couple of conferences I’ve spoken at and I sent a proposal and got invited to parGcipate to what I just say to them “Hey. I
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already got a sponsor.” and that would like you said aEract them even more.
Linda: That aEracts them even more. Absolutely.
Bryan: Okay. Thank you Rick. Linda we’ve just got a couple more here for you.
Linda: Okay. I love it.
Bryan: All right. Donald from Wilmington, Delaware. Donald you are on the line.
Donald: Hello.
Bryan: Hello.
Linda: Hi.
Donald: How you doing?
Linda: Great.
Donald: Great. I love your teleseminar. I got a lot of informaGon from it. I just wanted to give you… what I’m doing. I am working in schools right now on obesity, diabetes and bullying and my quesGon is to get corporate sponsors would going to drug companies would that benefit me or not?
Linda: Yeah. Big pharma has always been really really good for sponsorships and I’ve worked with NovarGs and a couple of the other big pharma companies and the drug companies so they’ve got a lot of money. They spent it on sponsorship so I would say absolutely. Approach the drug companies.
Now, it’s a liEle different than it used to be cuz there are some restricGons now on how drug companies can adverGse and do things but I think that’s an amazing amazing category of company to approach and I would definitely put them on your wish list and the way you do the wish list Donald is you just blue sky it. You say “Okay. Let’s look at all the drug companies. Let’s search out all the drug companies.” And start making your wish list and remember to do the top Ger and the second Ger. Do the big companies that are top of mine and the smaller up and coming companies too.
Bryan: All right Linda. What do you say? One, two more?
Linda: [Laughter]
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Yeah but I want to tell the people, I forgot to tell them something about the class. Can I tell them real quickly?
Bryan: Sure.
Linda: Okay. If it helps people, I have set up a payments plan if they want to take the class. I’m gonna give them the link for the payments plan. Instead of paying the enGre price at one Gme with the $100 discount, it’s only $597 but I’ve put it also into three payments of only $209 so if you want to take the paid training which gives you all the tools and the home study and then my personal criGque with you and my comments and my feedback on what you’re doing, go to this website please. Go to wealthybaglady.com/sponsorpayments and all you have to do is give me a deposit of $209 to take the class. So I forgot to tell people about that before.
Bryan: Okay. Great. I’m sure that will help some people to make a decision. All right this call is from Lem in Cleveland, Ohio. Go ahead Lem.
Gwen: Hi. My name is Gwen.
Bryan: Oh Gwen.
Gwen: I am called to teach financial literacy around the country and the hard part is individuals don’t come to these courses so I’ve targeted businesses with 100 employees or more because it can be an employee benefit that the company can provide for their employees. The quesGon is who do you see as target sponsors for reaching that market and would that make it easier to fill? I have staGsGcs that show that financial literacy in the workplace actually has a three to one return on investment.
Linda: Oh that’s great. Okay. So your market is working professionals. The same one that the other gentleman had I believe his name was Rick. So these are working professionals in the peak earning years.
[1:05:00]Linda: The best way Gwen is to really target your sponsors is number one is see
who else is teaching financial literacy, see what companies are partnering with that individual and number two is think of your core market, think of your demographic, think of that person who’s gonna aEend one of your seminars and what do they do? They get up in the morning, they brush their teeth hopefully, they wash their hair. Okay toothpaste, shampoo. I’m telling you. Go mainstream. Don’t just think about banks and financial planning companies here cuz that’s what a lot of people do when they start approaching corporate sponsors. They just stay within a certain category.
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I want you to go mainstream. I want you to go to consumerable companies. Kodak might even sponsor you, the film company. I want you to go to beverages. Beverage is a huge category in corporate sponsorships so go to boEled water companies, go to juice companies. Even coffee, oh my God, think about these execuGves. Do they drink a lot of coffee during the day?
Gwen: I bet they do.
Linda: Yeah. You can go to those companies so think of your target market and what their lifestyle is about. They drive cars. They have credit cards. That’s how you’re gonna start really blue skying and really coming up with some great sponsors to approach.
Gwen: Okay.
Linda: I think Bryan muted himself again.
Bryan: Sorry I keep doing that.
[Laughter]
It doesn’t have a liEle light that flashes for me. Okay. We have two more calls and then we’ll have our list cleared off and I’ll let you get on with your day. How about that?
Linda: Okay. I love it.
Bryan: This is from Cleveland, Ohio. Another one. Go ahead you’re on the line.
Bob: Hi. This is Bob Ornosh and I spoke to you the other day.
Linda: Hi Bob. How are you?
Bob: Good. Great show.
Linda: Thank you.
Bob: I really appreciate you and the wealth of knowledge you share. There’s a lot that goes in the proposal is there a maximum length for each secGon of the proposal you recommend cuz for example my story could be quite long but I realized that the average reader of these proposals probably get a slew of them and I just wondering if you could comment regarding the length of each secGon.
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Linda: Usually the enGre proposal should be about 10 pages and you really need it make it so that the person reading it could skim it cuz remember what I said how busy people in corporate America are, they need to get what you’re doing immediately. It needs to be at a glance markeGng.
So your story should be about one page. No longer than one page and I know what you mean. I work with a lot of clients and they have such compelling stories. That’s why we go into the speaking business. We want people to know our story and benefit from our story and our experience but I think the story should be about a page.
Bob: Okay. Thank you.
Bryan: All right well thank you. Our last caller is from Salt Lake City. Go ahead.
Gina: Yeah. Hi. My name is Gina. Thanks for everything. I’ve learned a lot today. You’ve made a lot of menGons about an event. This event we’re gonna host… I work with schools. Technically I can go [Inaudible] [1:08:38]. We do a social and emoGonal well group wellness program for students kindergarten to 12th grade. You can come in and do moGvaGonal conferences with the students. You can work with the teachers.
[Audio gets really bad.]
My real focus is [Inaudible] [1:09:00] workbooks in the hands of students within schools so you can actually create events but that’s not my main focus. My main focus is the benefit that the students are gonna reach for me to be able to get these books in their hands and that’s why I’m looking to sponsorships to help these kids get their hands for schools who can’t afford so many things right now. How does that work in terms of not necessarily focusing on an event?
Linda: Okay. Well I talk a lot about events because I’m talking to a group of speakers. Like I said every Gme you are asked to speak whether you organized the event or somebody else has invited you to speak that is considered a live event and sponsors do like events but I have also worked with clients who don’t events, who wanted to just do their own website and not travel and not really get into that kind of life who wanna stay home, who wanna be with their family.
So you can do it if you have a website, if you just have ways of connecGng with people and puRng the books in the hands of students.
[1:10:00]Linda: Sponsors is a great way to do that because sponsors give you the
resources to print the books and give them to the schools, promote the
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company and remember when I talked about the cause markeGng. What you’re gonna promote to sponsors is that they can get great cause related markeGng benefits because they’re giving students this book that’s going to make them in the future good ciGzens, that’s gonna make them beEer people, that’s gonna make their lives incredibly beEer. So that’s a wonderful cause markeGng benefit that you can promote to a sponsor. I think what you’re doing is great and I work with a lot of clients who do what you do, who want to give things to the schools because they know that the students need it but the schools can’t afford it.
Gina: Great. Okay. Thank you so much.
Linda: Thank you.
Bryan: And thank you Linda. Did you have any final closing words before I let you go?
Linda: [Laughter]
Yeah. I have enjoyed this so much Bryan. I love talking to speakers. I love really sharing this informaGon with people who have a message and really want that message out into the world because you’re wriGng books, you’re going out, you’re speaking and it’s just a shame to have your story not told because my story has helped so many people and I have just been so blessed with corporate sponsors because they’ve let me go out there, do what I love, foot the bill for it, and change so many lives and that’s what it’s all about here. It’s not about the money. It’s about the resources. It’s about really geRng the tools to go out there, share your message, change people’s lives and really really step into your greatness and have your life make a difference so if I can help you do that, if I can help you accomplish what you’re meant to accomplish on this planet then I can’t ask for anything more and that is my mission and that’s why I love doing things like this.
So please fell free to contact me. Go to the special links that Bryan has set up if you can see. I’d love to talk to you.
[Laughter]
I’ll give you lot of informaGon. I don’t hold anything back and it is just been such a pleasure. I’ve so enjoyed talking to you.
Bryan: Well. Thank you so much for joining us today Linda. As always it’s just been great informaGon. I know that you’ve helped a lot of people and hopefully you’ll have a lot of people that will be geRng in touch with you real soon.
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Once again if you need to get in touch with Linda, as she said wealthybaglady.com or you can follow the link to her class at speakermatch.com/sponsorclass. This is Bryan Caplovitz. Thank you for joining us today and we’ll be in touch again next Gme.
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Bryan: Thanks for listening to this installment of the SpeakerMatch radio series, Success Strategies for Speakers from the Pros. SpeakerMatch is the leading provider of tools and services for emerging professional speakers. You can find more in fo rmaGon about SpeakerMatch at www.SpeakerMatch.com. Out toll free number, if you prefer to reach us by phone is 1-‐866-‐372-‐8768. InternaGonal callers can reach us at area code 512-‐372-‐8768. Thank you again for listening and we wish you the best in your speaking career.
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[1:14:01] End of Audio
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