How I Landed a Sponsorship without Packages or Pitching
When I shared my takeaways from the last summit I hosted last month, I wasn't expecting to have this extra update to add on from this event - especially after deciding that I wasn't going to have any sponsors! Today we've got a fun episode that I totally didn’t expect to record, but I ended up with a sponsor for my summit without any packages or pitching, and I just had to share about it! There was literally no work required ahead of time to make this sponsorship happen.
So often we think of sponsorships as a big, daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be!
If you think sponsorships have to involve sending cold pitches to a bunch of companies and spending hours on follow-up, think again!
Keep reading for my breakdown of why I had written off sponsorships for Membership Momentum and how I got one anyway, even without packages or pitching.
Listen to the episode
I didn’t actually DO anything
I cannot give you "3 steps to land a sponsorship" because I didn't actually DO anything.
I had actually made the decision that I wasn't going to pursue sponsorship for this summit. I didn't think it was worth my time, and I didn't want to do it. I knew I'd make a good amount of money with my offers, and I didn't want the extra work that a sponsorship could bring.
I'd already partnered with Mike Morrison from Membership Geeks, but it wasn't a sponsorship. He didn't pay me, I didn't pay him. That was a mutually beneficial summit. I was hosting a summit about memberships, but I didn't even have one! I needed someone to feature as the go-to membership expert.
How it happened
We were already promoting Membership Momentum and it was open for registration. I'd gotten an email from a company showing interest in sponsorship, and I didn't feel like I had time to deal with it, so I ignored it for a while. But, that bothered me, so I let him know I didn't have time for a call, but he could send me a message on Voxer if he wanted. They said they didn’t have Voxer so I just left the email there - I usually don’t do this, but I was busy!
But then... they reached out on Instagram a few days later. I gave a little pushback to make sure it was actually going to benefit them. I let them know who our audience was and what we were seeing because I didn't want to bother with sponsorship if it wasn't a perfect fit for them. But after 2 back-and-forth messages, they were in!
I threw together the simplest, but also highest-value package I could think of and presented it in 2 minutes' worth of voice messages.
They said yes and we were off to the races!
Why it happened this way
There are 4 key pieces that made this whole sponsorship happen the way that it did.
The event was positioned incredibly well.
Even though I'm the "summit expert", I pull in a positioning expert for my summits. I have Elli on my team and I pulled in Nadine from Can Do! Content and we did an incredible audience survey, and together the 3 of us came up with the incredible positioning for this summit. The spot-on positioning appealed to this company because we had the audience they wanted to be in front of.
The event looked professional.
Everything from the copy, design, and everything about how it was presented looked very professional. You could tell we knew what we were doing. It was set up to succeed.
We had a mutual connection.
He knew Mike from Membership Geeks and I even reached out to Mike to ask if they were a company I should be highlighting in this event. I don't think it would have happened without that connection point.
I spoke incredibly confidently about the event.
There was no self-doubt, no questioning the worth, I was very confident in what we had created. I didn't create more questions for them, I knew exactly what they were going to get by being in front of my audience.
Key takeaways
I know I didn't give you any specific strategies for you, or "3 steps to get a sponsorship", but I hope this was encouraging to give you direction on the high-level strategy that got us to a place where we could get an easy sponsorship.
I'll wrap up with my 4 key takeaways from this experience:
- Positioning and presentation are important!
- Sponsorships can feel good and be easy!
- OWN the awesome thing you’ve created!
- Work with us in the Launch with a Summit Accelerator to make it happen!
Resources
- Membership Momentum
- Membership Geeks
- Episode 233: A 4-Step Process for Positioning Your Summit for Success with Elli Runkles
- Summit Host Hangout: All About Summit Sponsors
- Summit Host Hangout Facebook group
- Launch with a Summit Accelerator
- 6-Figure Summits Workshop Bundle
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