The Ten Commandments of Successful Event & Festival Sponsorships and PartnershipS

By Alex Zelinski

The last two years have been a wild ride for the good folks creating, selling, and executing event and festival sponsorships and partnerships. We had to get creative, defer or cancel things, and put some opportunities on the backburner. The festivals and events landscape still looks different and some things have permanently changed, but the fundamentals remain the same. There are a number of factors that contribute to successful sponsorships and partnerships. A good combination of soft skills and hard skills is required. Although these commandments are simple and obvious on the surface, it is sometimes difficult to put them into practice and it is always nice to be reminded of such things. I do my best to live by the following ten commandments (and the bonus one!) when working on a successful sponsorship and partnership:

I. Empathy. We must have empathy in order to create a successful sponsorship or partnership. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. When you are selling to someone, it is imperative that you consider the opportunity and the value from their point of view. It is sometimes difficult I know. It is human and natural to think what we can gain from a situation or opportunity, but to truly sell, we must practice empathy. When I first began selling partnerships and sponsorships, I was really focused on what I had to gain, not what the client or prospective client was looking to gain or achieve. I should have been more focused on: what the client or potential client was trying to achieve or what value they would receive; what their objectives were – I knew mine – but theirs were equally important; being hyper focused on what the client valued most in a partnership or sponsorship. When we practice empathy, we can better understand the client or prospective client’s objectives, goals, needs, and vision. Once we have clarity, we can offer more value or revise the value proposition and thus increase our chances of a successful sale. If we only view the sale from our perspective, we won’t be as successful. Empathy is an extremely valuable and underrated soft skill. We will be better humans and better salespeople if we practice empathy.

II. Trust and Honesty. These two go hand-in-hand. Long term sponsorships and partnerships are built on trust and honesty. All parties involved must be honest with each other and must be able to trust each other, but especially us as salespeople. Our reputation is on the line – plus, being honest and truthful is always the right thing to do. It is fundamental to any healthy relationship and it applies in our business as well. Growing up we heard our parents say, “honesty is the best policy.” It is extremely important when selling and executing sponsorships and creating long term partnerships. It is good practice to under promise and over deliver. Do not fall into the trap of selling and promising something that you cannot deliver. No one wants to work with someone who simply provides lip service – our actions speak much louder. Before we send a proposal or tell someone yes, make sure the value that is promised can be delivered. In a perfect world, we would deliver more value than we promised, which usually makes the renewal process better. Who knows, you might just upsell, too! Developing a relationship with clients takes time and actions speak louder than words – it is always best to be truthful and honest. As salespeople we sometimes need to have a difficult conversation in which we may have to deliver bad news to the client – don’t lie about anything. Or maybe we have to discuss increasing the sponsorship investment – we must be honest. Often times we have to redirect their ideas to something else, which can be tough if they are really excited about their original idea. Sometimes we have to temper and set expectations, which might make the sale smaller than we want. We cannot go wrong being truthful and honest. On one occasion we had a long term, successful sponsor who was up for contract renewal. At the same time, we had another prospective, local company in the same industry that wanted to sponsor the event. We decided to do a RFP (request for proposal). The prospective, local company had a better proposal, which we accepted. I had to have a truthful and honest (and tough) conversation with the existing sponsor in which I told them we weren’t accepting their proposal. I told them thank you, let’s stay connected, and if there is ever anything that I can do to help please let me know.

III. Flexibility and Adaptability. Change is the only constant, right? As much as one plans, there is almost always something that arises that is unplanned and could affect or impact the sponsorship execution and agreement. Sometimes things work out better than we had planned or anticipated. Sometimes things don’t work out the way we had hoped. When things don’t go as planned it is wise to be flexible and adapt. Fortunately, most people are still kind and understanding (despite what the media says). Last year was extremely tough on festivals and events, but there was a sense of unity, and in my experience, everyone was kind, patient, and understanding. Throughout this COVID-19 pandemic, I have been lucky enough to work with truly amazing partners and sponsors. They have demonstrated flexibility and adaptability. We shifted Sam’s Club, one of our National Cherry Festival air show sponsors to our new virtual run series, Michigan Harvest Challenge, which was extremely popular and successful in 2020, but we decided to discontinue after 2021. Sam’s Club made the change fun and easy while also experiencing benefits of the new collaboration effort.

IV. Innovation and Creativity. Many of us are fortunate to retain legacy sponsors, which means, year after year, we do the same thing. Doing the same thing year after year is easy and common, but if we don’t continually innovate and get creative, over time the value of the sponsorship decreases. In order to stay relevant, we must do our best to creatively evolve, adapt and innovate so that we can continually increase the value to the sponsor and also to the festival attendee or event guest. The global pandemic of the last 20 months has really given us the opportunity to exercise our creative and innovative muscles. Our partners and sponsors were always willing to hear us out and in a number of cases they brought some neat ideas to the table. We created a new podcast, National Cherry Festival Radio, with our partner Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, and the last two years we have had a Porch Parade, which our dear friends at Consumers Energy sponsored.

V. Punctuality and Follow Up. This commandment is critical for any sales position. It is useful to use technology for this commandment. Whether it is your Outlook calendar, Slack, Teams, or SalesForce, make sure you use your tools to follow up and stay on track. We have found it useful to use the Task feature in Teams or even the Outlook calendar. It doesn’t matter if we are working on a sale via phone or email, we always make sure we immediately set a reminder to follow up. Or we immediately put in our calendar, the next meeting or phone call. As salespeople, punctuality and follow are two crucial factors for success. Follow up is key to sales. It isn’t often that sales simply come to us – and I hate to admit it – we are not always on our clients’ minds. Luckily, we have a number of tools that allow us to schedule follow ups and quickly communicate. Scheduling follow up calls, emails, letters, texts, whatever it is, on the calendar is a proven strategy. Humans are visual creatures. If we put something on our calendar with an alert, we will be more successful with our partnerships and sponsorships.

Communication. Often and clearly is our motto. Whether it is calling, emailing, texting, or snail mail, there are many methods of communication, and each send a different signal. We are almost always connected on some level. We have seen a shift to more people using social media to communicate. Communication is critical to a successful partnership and sponsorship. The three channels of communication that I have found to be most effective currently are: text, email, phone call – in that order. My team has half-jokingly said they were going to trademark “the Zelinski Method.” I took that as a compliment.

VI. Appreciation and Gratitude. We live in a hypercompetitive world. One in which we as sponsorship sales people are constantly competing for a limited and scarce pool of marketing/sponsorship dollars. Showing appreciation and gratitude goes a long way. Mail your clients hand written thank you cards. Send them a wreath at Christmas. Text them congratulations if you know something good has happened to them or their family. After each event, I hand write thank you cards and mail them to our partners letting them know how much we are grateful for them and appreciate their partnership. Some partners are excited to let me know that they received the card and loved it.

VII. Organization. Creating a system that works for you is crucial to success. The good news is that there is an array of cost effective (sometimes free) tools that we can utilize to keep us organized and focused. Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Google are three different platforms that offer various tools. Any of these three are cost effective, intuitive, and extremely helpful in keeping one organized. Sales people like us, work with a large number of people inside and outside our firms. It is imperative that we stay organized. Use your resources. It takes time to find and create your own processes, best practices, and systems. Each morning I pray to the Microsoft and Apple gods. I am grateful to have access to wonderful technological tools that offer many organizational benefits. Using Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and Excel, my incredible team and I can easily and quickly stay organized and execute.

VIII. Zen. Oommmm. Deep belly breath in. Hold it. Slow breath out. Working in our industry is often times fun and exciting. But it can sometimes be a double edged sword. Often times we are planning an event that is a year into the future (sometimes even further into the future). That sort of timeframe gives us many chances to overthink and over analyze. Focus on what you can do today. Live in the present. Be calm and cool. Show your inner equanimity. We all know that things don’t always go according to plan. Stay cool. We adapt creatively to life’s fun surprises and mishaps. Murphy’s Law states that, “everything that can go wrong, will.” This will sometimes present itself in our event or festival. We don’t have to search far or wide for an example. The COVID-19 global pandemic has given us all the chance to practice our zen. It is challenging to always remain calm, collected, and cool during these turbulent times. It is wise to realize that most of the things in our life are out of our control. Once we accept that, we can breathe deep, smile and move forward.

IX. Fun! This one might be the most crucial of all. Most of us are in the business to create fun memories and experiences. I often times forget to have fun, although I am getting better. We must not lose sight of the fact that we need to have fun so that those we work with have fun. There is a time and place to be serious. There is also a time and place to have fun and after the last 18 months, having fun should be a top priority for us as salespeople, but also for those with whom we work. Smile. Laugh. Ask your clients questions that do not pertain to the sponsorship or partnership. Grab a beer and chat. Our jobs can be high stress. We need to remember to have fun. If we are having fun, there is a good chance those around us will have more fun. When I first began selling sponsorships and partnerships, I took myself and my job way too seriously. Yes, we need to be serious. But we also need to have fun. One of our partners would remind me that it is just a festival, loosen up! It was much needed advice, especially coming from a client.

X. BONUS! Continuous Learning and Continuous Improvement. We must always do our best to remain relevant and competitive. In order to do these two things, we must remember to keep learning and keep improving. It is common to get complacent. I do it. We all do from time to time because we are human. We must do our best to continuously learn and improve. I use Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace to create standard operating procedures, to track items, and to take notes before, during, and after the event or meeting. This increases the probability that I will learn and improve. During my time as a partnership and sponsorship salesperson, I have created some basic standard operating procedures. Along the way I make revisions, updates, and changes so that I can do my best to keep learning and improving. Using tools such as this, is a great way to stay focused and organized while at the same time learning and improving.

When it comes to selling, creating, and executing successful event and festival partnerships and sponsorships, there is no silver bullet or formula that works for every situation. We must employ soft and hard skills. I have found that when I follow the above ten commandments (plus the bonus one!) I set myself up for success. Truly the foundation of any successful sponsorship or partnership is having a solid working relationship with the client. Success stems and flows from our relationships with our clients. I realize in today’s world, a lot of business is transacted digitally or virtually, and that is fine, but at the very least we still need to have a good working relationship with our point of contact.

Born and raised in beautiful Traverse City, MI. Alex Zelinski has been fortunate to have already spent five wonderful years working full time creating and executing sponsorships and partnerships in the events and festivals world with Festival Foundation (shout out to the amazing team: Jess, Bailey, Alexis, Kay, and Kat!). Alex enjoys running, reading, biking, sampling craft beers and spirits, and spending time with family and friends.

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