The State of Sponsorship: One Week in My Inbox

I don’t know how many of you write blogs and/or make your direct email address available to the masses. I do both, and there is something about the combination of providing a lot of readily available advice and being readily available myself that makes me a magnet for emails from strangers.

I decided to catalogue these emails for a week. I thought it might provide an interesting glimpse into our industry, and I reckon I’m right. Keeping in mind that these are only the emails I received from people I hadn’t heard from before, and there is some overlap, this is the breakdown:

78 emails seeking sponsorship that were addressed “Dear Sir/Madam” or “To Whom it May Concern”.
16 emails asking for my assistance in text-speak: “Wud u giv sum sponsorship advice 2 me?” (Answer: No.)
108 unsolicited sponsorship proposals.
51 unsolicited sponsorship proposals with 5mb or more of attachments.
44 people asking me to forward their unsolicited proposals to my clients and/or network.
54 people asking my company to sponsor them. (Umm… I’m not a sponsor.)
17 unsolicited sponsorship proposals for events taking place within one month (and a few for tours or seasons that had already started).
One misguided fellow who told me that the fact I wouldn’t distribute his crap proposal to my clients on his behalf was a reflection on my professionalism. (It certainly is.)
70 people who are looking for a broker. (I’m not a broker, but I refer them to my list of brokers.)
7 people who want me to fly economy for over 18 hours to speak at a conference for free because it would “raise my profile”.
9 people who want me to consult for free because they are a good cause.
11 corporate sponsors and 21 properties/agencies requesting proposals.
55 people who took the time to thank me for all of the content on my website.
24 people who asked really good questions (and inspired a few blogs).

And my favourite emails of all…

23 success stories from people who had read my book or blog and changed the way they did sponsorship, netting them much better results.

I treat a lot of these as spam and just don’t answer. I do answer all of the thank yous, the good questions, and the ones that give any indication that they’ve done even some basic homework before contacting me. And for my favourites – the success stories – I do a little dance around my office before congratulating them on their hard work.

Despite all of the depressingly old-school or plain, flat lazy contacts I still get, my inbox is changing. I get more and more of the positive emails – the ones that indicate a move toward best practice, and every time I get one of those, it feels like a win for the good guys .

So, keep the emails coming – I promise I read every one of them! The email is admin@powersponsorship.com.

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