Article Information

• ARTICLE_POSTED_BY: Haiti Place
• ARTICLE_POSTED_ON: Nov 17, 2014
• Views : 756
• Category : Other
• Description :

  Finding sponsors may be challenging, but if you want to develop a continuous collaboration so they return every year, building solid relationships with them and living up to their expectations is vital.

  Heather McGough is The Lean Startup Conference Executive Producer who manages partnerships and sponsorships. She shares her best practices about delivering to your sponsors' expectations.

Overview

• Heather McGough, Executive Producer
  The Lean Startup Conference

  Finding sponsors may be challenging, but if you want to develop a continuous collaboration so they return every year, building solid relationships with them and living up to their expectations is vital.

  Heather McGough is The Lean Startup Conference Executive Producer who manages partnerships and sponsorships. She shares her best practices about delivering to your sponsors' expectations.

  1. Know your audience

  You can’t honestly sell someone the opportunity to engage with your audience, unless you yourself are very, very clear on who your audience is.

  For example, we host both startup and enterprise attendees. They come from varying sectors, including technology, government, education, non-profit, hardware, media and more.

  I also know what our attendees like and don't like. Our attendees enjoy a hype-free zone. So you're not going to see any product pitches or sponsored workshops. Our attendees also don't like on-site trade show-type badge scanning, or being spammed by sponsor emails. This doesn't make my job any easier, but it means I get to work closely with sponsors to provide a more meaningful experience that involves both happy attendees and sponsors.

  2. Listen

  Ask yourself the following questions:

  • What are your potential sponsors' goals and initiatives?
  • Do they fit with your audience? Do they provide value to your attendees?
  • Do we provide value to them? In other words, by reaching our attendees in-person or via livestream, will they walk away happy?
  • Do they fit with our values?
  • Do they support our learnings/principles?
  • Does their company have a history of supporting women and people of color?
  • Do they understand or have a desire to understand the needs of our audience?

  Sponsors should fit with the audience because attendees are at the center of the experience.

  I'm in the position of being able to select partners and sponsors who are a good fit for our community. This means that they not only have a product or service that would be of value to our attendees, but they fit our values. You can read more about that in this Harvard Business Review blog post.

  Full Article >