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I don't know if this is the right forum in which to post this question but I figured I'd give it a shot. My wife and I are musical performers and we have had some shows sponsored before, by businesses. We haven't arranged the sponsorships but the fact remains that they're out there. We want to make more money doing what we're doing, and in order to pull that off, one of the things we'd like to get is corporate sponsorships.
I look at people such as missionaries who "support-raise" through churches, or NASCAR drivers who have corporate logos plastered all over their cars, and I think "obviously they are sponsored because they wouldn't be able to afford doing what they do without those sponsorships".
The simple question is - HOW do we go about doing that?!
I mean, should we really just call and say "hey, we'd like you to sponsor us"? Wouldn't that sound like just so much annoying telemarketing?
And we do sponsor the ball teams for our local youths.
We have been asked to sponsor truck in mud boggling and a few other things.
If you call businesses.....be sure and have a few levels of sponsorship..........and what the business would get at each level.
When someone just asks for "anything" we can give...........I know they are not really interested......and I would just be handing them money.
I also want advertising from this..........let the business know who will see their name and how.
I can rock with that.
How would you feel if someone called you asking for a sponsorship and asked YOU what you would want in return for your money?
(To elaborate: Since I know nothing about this, I don't know what is considered "industry standard". If I were to say "sponsor us for a one-time amount of $xxx and we'll put your logo on a banner sign that we display at the performance", I wouldn't know if I'm overquoting or underquoting. So right now I'm tempted to say something like "if you sponsored us for $xxx, what kind of advertising would you want or expect in return for that?" However, that makes me sound inexperienced with sponsorships. I AM inexperienced with sponsorships but I'd prefer not to sound that way.)
How would you feel if someone called you asking for a sponsorship and asked YOU what you would want in return for your money?
(To elaborate: Since I know nothing about this, I don't know what is considered "industry standard". If I were to say "sponsor us for a one-time amount of $xxx and we'll put your logo on a banner sign that we display at the performance", I wouldn't know if I'm overquoting or underquoting. So right now I'm tempted to say something like "if you sponsored us for $xxx, what kind of advertising would you want or expect in return for that?" However, that makes me sound inexperienced with sponsorships. I AM inexperienced with sponsorships but I'd prefer not to sound that way.)
I would just say no.
I am busy..........when you call me.......have a plan......make me an offer.
I have no idea about you.........sell yourself to me.
I am busy..........when you call me.......have a plan......make me an offer.
I have no idea about you.........sell yourself to me.
This is good advice.
Do not expect people to sponsor you out of a sense of largesse. There has to be an absolute benefit to doing so. That means you need to explain how you will market your performances, how many people attend, the demographics of those attending, what opportunities you provide to make their company visible and the whatnot. Finally, demonstrate that you're a going concern.
I am busy..........when you call me.......have a plan......make me an offer.
I have no idea about you.........sell yourself to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223
This is good advice.
Do not expect people to sponsor you out of a sense of largesse. There has to be an absolute benefit to doing so. That means you need to explain how you will market your performances, how many people attend, the demographics of those attending, what opportunities you provide to make their company visible and the whatnot. Finally, demonstrate that you're a going concern.
I guess I should have included the assumption that I would do these things. I wouldn't just ask for money without linking the request to how it would potentially benefit the donating business. My wife and I have been doing what we're doing for long enough now that we qualify as professionals and I could make a good case for the effects and outcome of what we do.
So let's change the scenario here. Assume that I do make a good case for our situation. When you say "make me an offer", I feel like I'd be making a salesman an offer on a particular type of car without knowing the first thing about what that car normally sells for. I wouldn't want to make a potential sponsor laugh. If I were to quote too high out of sheer ignorance of what the market will bear, how likely is it that I would immediately turn off the person on the other end of the line without getting a counteroffer?
When we sponsor the youth ball teams......that is a "donation".
What you want to sell is advertising........maybe you could ask others in your same field and area.
It is hard for me to know your value.
I will tell you this........we sponsor a "mud bogging" truck......they met six times a year.......our business name is on the truck........we pay $1500.
When we sponsor the youth ball teams......that is a "donation".
What you want to sell is advertising........maybe you could ask others in your same field and area.
It is hard for me to know your value.
I will tell you this........we sponsor a "mud bogging" truck......they met six times a year.......our business name is on the truck........we pay $1500.
I can tell you that we had a show sponsored one time, where the sponsor put up a banner of approximately 4 square feet behind us, and they paid $100 for that. They didn't even require me to talk about the business (or at least I was never told that I had to), though I did anyway... I learned a few things about the business and then talked about how the business would benefit the people in attendance. But as things sat when we showed up, they paid $100 to sponsor us for one show and all they appeared to get out of it was a banner behind us.
We also got a $125 sponsorship once, and the business set up a glorified "merchandise table" outside the room where we played so that people could get information about the business and ask questions. Again nothing was said about how we should talk about the business but we did anyway.
That's the extent of what I know right now about sponsorships in this field. And as for talking with other people in my same field and area - first of all, there are extremely few such people. Oh, plenty of people entertain the elderly but we're the only ones we know who do it for a living. I only know one other group that does this as their livelihood but they are 60 years old and had built up income off of which they could live, earlier in their lives... so I don't know if they'd be able to live on what they do if they hadn't already built up some bank. I have looked online to find people who do what we do and I can say in all honesty that I have never found anyone even close to us. Usually they're older, or they're solo acts (meaning perhaps the spouse makes money too, to cover down in case the performer doesn't make much), or they live far away.
Furthermore, I wouldn't want to put the bug in anyone's ear. It was bad enough when I talked with another entertainer about how much we make... that is a mistake I will not make twice. His face lit up and he said "heck, I've just been volunteering, if I could make money doing this, that'd be awesome!" - you know that means he's going to try, and since we had encountered him personally, he performs in at least one of the same areas where we perform. This means he's now going to be competing for a slice of a pie that's already small enough. Now, his show was nowhere near the quality of ours, so the chances that he will be able to command what we command on a regular basis are very slim, but it's the principle of the matter even if we never suffer due to my blunder. I definitely won't make that mistake again... and that's why I don't want to talk with others in this field about sponsorship.
Maybe I'm not understanding... I'm not sure why someone would sponsor you. You appear to be a self-interested business.
That said, why don't you call companies and ask to perform at their picnics, Christmas parties, etc. Make up some business cards with your services and have them available and visible in case anyone is interested in having you perform at a wedding or something.
Maybe I'm not understanding... I'm not sure why someone would sponsor you. You appear to be a self-interested business.
That said, why don't you call companies and ask to perform at their picnics, Christmas parties, etc. Make up some business cards with your services and have them available and visible in case anyone is interested in having you perform at a wedding or something.
We're a "self-interested business" right now, to an extent at least. We perform music at elder care facilities and we subsist on what they can pay us out of their activities budgets. This means we can only play at the deep-pocketed facilities, which automatically eliminates over 3/4 of them, and even when we get as much as we can get from the facilities with comparatively large activities budgets, we don't make enough money. (For example, we qualified for Medicaid when we tried to sign up for health insurance.) I think we could make more money and impact more people if we got sponsored and became able to perform just about anywhere.
But as for us being self-interested, would you say the same for missionaries? We all have to be self-interested to an extent, lest we starve to death and/or go bankrupt.
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