I’m asked about how much sponsorship consulting costs all the time, often in a one-line email asking how much it costs to hire me. But like any good consultant in any field, the cost depends on a lot of factors. Some of those have to do with the consulting project,… Read More
This article started out as a “what we learned from COVID” piece, but these strategies have now become so important to doing sponsorship well that it has well and truly outgrown the pandemic framing. These are the strategies truly great sponsors have been doing for a decade or more. These… Read More
This article has been adapted from one I wrote in the aftermath of COVID. But to this day, it’s the blog I refer more rightsholders to than any other, as it spells out some of the most crucial skills rightsholders must have in order to maximise revenues and be seen… Read More
As a consultant and speaker with over three decades of experience, I often tell people that I’ve made all the mistakes there are to make in sponsorship, so they don’t have to. From terrible search-and-replace proposals with gold-silver-bronze levels to “measuring” sponsorship results in media equivalencies and “good corporate citizenship”… Read More
I’ve spent the last week devastated, angry, and proud. Why? I’m a Sydney Swans fan. But I’m not here to whinge. I’m here to use this as an illustration of why the fan response to the past week should serve as a wakeup call to sponsors. Anyone who knows me… Read More
I recently worked on a big project that involved what amounts to a monopoly rightsholder. (Not my client.) As part of the job, I had to go through literally dozens of sponsorship contracts, and boy howdy, what a ride that was! Equal parts illuminating and depressing, it was difficult to… Read More
Like most people, I’ve been working with AI across a lot of functions. I’m working out effective ways to use AI with sponsorship, and figuring out what doesn’t work… yet. With this blog, though, I’ve gone a different direction. I created a comprehensive prompt, and with a bit of trial… Read More
I’ve created many dozens of blogs, white papers, tutorials, and more all about how to do best practice sponsorship, as well as the functional benefits of doing sponsorship well – more revenue, easier renewals, more engaged sponsors. This blog is not about that. Instead, I want to acknowledge how difficult,… Read More
When I talk to rightsholders about adding value to their sponsors – AKA sponsorship servicing – some rightsholders have no idea what I’m talking about, thinking that their only job after a sponsorship is sold is to deliver the contracted benefits. Sorry, it’s just not that simple. Servicing is a… Read More
Over the years, I’ve had so many people ask whether it’s better to have a diversified or focused (non-diversified) sponsorship portfolio that I figured I should address it head-on. The short answer is that it depends on a lot of factors, including objectives, target markets, human and other resources, and… Read More
The sponsorship industry is staring down the possibility of serious economic crisis. Many economists are predicting a global recession, while some countries are already struggling. The cost of almost everything is rising dramatically, so even if economic indicators aren’t flashing red for recession yet, there is a lot of belt-tightening… Read More
This blog was originally written in January 2020, before COVID-19 brought recession down on the world. Since then, the economy has been vascillating wildly between almost certain recession and tentative recovery. Recent events, however, have rendered the outlook gloomier, hence this updated version of this blog. We’ve all seen the… Read More