So back to the Corporate sponsorship.

Starting in March 0f 210 I started on my drive to seek sponsorship for an initiative that I thought would be an instant hit. I thought I’d have sponsors beating down the door to become involved. Looking back now I reckon that everyone else out there seeking sponsorship has a similar feeling to mine-well hopefully they do otherwise they’re going to be deterred quite quickly- and here’s why.

Over a 5 month period  I trawled websites, sought out and contacted approximately 100 prospects who I felt might be interested. Besides calls and emails to friends who  I thought might have been able to assist with advice;

• I called each potential sponsor at least twice and some 5-6 times. I say at least  twice, as many companies- I’ve now come to realise- aren’t that good at returning calls. (Lucky for them I wasn’t actually a customer seeking one of their products)

• I emailed each one at least 4 times, introducing myself, submitting my proposal, introducing and sending my proposal again to a new contact within the company, emailing any relevant correspondence pertaining to questions asked and sending through updated ideas related to the proposal.

• I was rejected by 35 of those companies due to lack of finances on their behalf, initiatives already fulfilled for the year, my proposal not fitting in with their sponsorship policies  or me not being an NGO or NPO-even though my initiative falls well within the section 21 category.

In the world of sales the stats-which have been  previously posted  on this blog site- favour those with persistence. I made a decision that I would continue to contact my prospects until they either agreed to sponsor my initiative or they said no. If they didn’t get back to me or palmed me off onto someone else I decided I’d continue to  contact them until I received either of the two responses. Being persistent is different from being irritating and every time I made contact it was done respectively and courteously.

From all the time spent on calling, typing,  sending and then re-sending emails to 100 prospects or more, I was granted one meeting with one potential sponsor.

You know you’re  making headway when you have a return on those kind of odds…:)