What Brands Need versus Want

What Brands Need versus Want

Last week, I referenced that sometimes there is a difference between what a sponsor wants in a sponsorship and what they need. Several weeks ago, I differentiated between a “salesperson” and a “solution provider.” At the Partnership Group – Sponsorship Specialists®, we develop solution providers not Herb Tarlick salespeople.

A good solution provider learns what the prospect’s needs are before presenting a proposal. This may take several meetings. In the first few meetings, I often hear the sponsor saying what they “want to buy,” such as title sponsorship, gold level sponsorship, naming rights, a rink board, and such. They are telling you what they think they want, because that is what they have always had. When solution providers listen to this, they listen carefully, then ask a series of questions to determine the underlying needs.

Once the needs have been determined, it may be decided that things (assets) that the sponsor wants may fit the bill. But often they don’t! That is when the solution provider shows the prospect how they can better achieve their goals by acquiring different assets than they traditionally get and how they can measure ROI. That is how the “sale” is made that will work for the sponsor, get them the results they need, and deliver you a renewal!

Let me give a great example. A hockey club salesperson sold a local restaurant a $50,000 a year rink board at the arena. The restaurant owner told the sales person that is what he wanted. So that was what he sold him. At the end of the season, the restaurant did not renew. It saw no real increase in business. The hockey club got $50,000 once.

If the salesperson had been a solution provider, it would have been determined that the restaurant wanted no additional dinner business on Friday and Saturdays, but did in the early week. Also, it wanted late night bar business after weekend games. Finally, it had unique product, and did catering and wanted to get out that message. The solution provider (versus salesperson) would have come back with a proposal that said, “This is what we can do for $25,000 a year…”

  • No rink board!
  • Allow you to set up a booth at no charge at our two community events per year to sample your catering food and promote the catering business.
  • Send out your catering information to all our corporate suite owners twice a year.
  • Showcase you at our corporate suite holder’s reception.
  • To drive late night bar business after each Friday or Saturday night game, we will allow you to print up bounce back coupons that make a late night offer good for that night only and our staff will hand them out as people leave the game. (This could also be done on social media as an option)
  • On five early week games, we will do the same sort of bounce back coupons where you make an early week offer and those coupons will be good for two weeks.
  • We will also include a coupon with delivery of all our season ticket holder tickets.
  • Finally, we will run a Twitter and a Facebook campaign with you to drive traffic to the restaurant.

Wow! That seems like a program that will deliver better results for half the money. But in the long run, that restaurant will be there for five or more years, and instead of the one-time hit, more than double the long-term revenue for the hockey club.

Often, sponsors don’t know what they need… just what they think they want! The solution provider helps them to understand what is right for their business and why!

These are just one person’s thoughts, yours are welcome as well.   Please leave your thoughts or comments below.  Thank you for reading and your feedback.

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1 Comment

  1. Love it, Brent!
    So many sponsorship careers as well as “sponsorship breakthrough ideas” start with amateur and semi-pro sports.
    But let’s add some other new media relevance to the that example offering….
    Add text2vote for Player of the Game voting to engage fans and award a prize of dinner for 2 at the restaurant.
    Offer text2win text messaging at games and randomly award free wings or some other prize redeemable at the restaurant.
    Offer a coupon via text back so we eliminate the printing of offers.
    And while we’re at it, why not get the Sports Team to create their own Text Message subscription club to remind fans of special game nights, special promotional offers, invite them to Community appreciation events and to maybe even sell off some tickets last minute!
    All in conjunction with Sponsors of course!
    Cheers,
    Rick

    Reply

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