The What, Why Who and How-To's You Need to Know to Land Sponsors and Partners for Your Coworking Space!

1. Coworking University:
Sponsorship 101
TheWhat,Why,Who and How-To’s You Need to Know to
Land Sponsors and Partners forYour Coworking Space
Mike LaRosa
@liveventi

2. What is Sponsorship?
A type of advertising or marketing campaign where an organization pays to be
associated with a specific property.They do so to be viewed positively as a
participating member of that demographic/community.
Recent evolution of advertising has resulted in more focus on Experiential Marketing
– a form of sponsorship.
A property can be a sporting team, festivals, shopping centers or even a coworking
space.

3. Four Criteria for a Successful Sponsorship
• Relevance:The sponsor should have some degree of relevance to the
services or products you provide.
• Brand Fit:The brand should fit with the audience in question.
• Mission Alignment:The interests of the property looking for sponsorship
must be in alignment with the prospective sponsor.
• Business Result:The sponsor should have a reasonable basis to believe that
the sponsorship will create tangible business results.

4. Why Sponsorship?Why Now?

5. Why Sponsorship?Why Now?

6. Why Sponsorship?Why Now?

7. Why Sponsorship?Why Now?

11. TheTop 5 Challenges in Securing Sponsorship
• The Gatekeepers
• It’s not you – sponsors make it hard for you to connect with them. Imagine 100+
unsolicited phone calls, emails and proposals every day
• If you don’t have a relationship, 99.99% of the time you won’t get a response
• Everyone is a Stakeholder
• The Sponsorship Manager,CEO, CFO, PR, Marketing Manager all have their fingers in
the pie
• Each of them have their own conflicting and competing objectives for funding

12. TheTop 5 Challenges in Securing Sponsorship
• Turnover
• Just keeping track of where your contacts are working and what they are working on is a full
time job
• More often than not if you get contacts that were not your own, more than half of them will
already be obsolete
• All About the Widgets
• Do you know enough about their business to offer an irresistible value proposition?
• More than that, do they?
• Lack of Proof
• Anyone can say their sponsorships are winners. It’s proving it that is difficult

13. TheTwo Fundamental Questions to Ask
Yourself
• Does this offer added value to my members?
• Will they care?
• Will they be offended/annoyed?
• Does this offer a measurable ROI for my sponsor?
• Do your sponsors know what they want?
• Do they have a way of defining success?

14. TheTwo Fundamental Questions to Ask a
Prospective Sponsor
• What does success look like for you?
• How can I/we help you be successful?

15. SetYourself Up For Success
• It’s Not AboutYou
• Too many properties spend all their time talking about themselves
• Mass sending identical proposals to a generic and broad list of contacts
• The proposal is about them – needs to be relevant to the prospect, their company’s
goals and their current situation

16. SetYourself Up For Success
• Know the Competition
• You are selling against anything and everything else that can improve their business
• How are you different?

17. SetYourself Up For Success
• Track Everything
• Step One? Get a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) program
• StepTwo? USETHE CRM!
• Track your emails, web visitors, social followers/likes

18. SetYourself Up For Success
• Don’t be a Salesperson
• Become a trusted advisor and prove you have their best interest in mind
• Don’t be the person who only says hello when you have something to sell
• Position yourself as a problem solver

19. SetYourself Up For Success
• DoYour Research
• Utilize resources, directories and marketing conferences
• Master LinkedIn

20. The Sponsorship Deck

21. The Proposal

22. The Exit Report