How to Increase Your Sponsorship Ask — A Resource For Student Groups

What to do when you feel like no matter how many sponsors you get, you’re still below your objective.

The value that student groups (SGs) bring to their schools and the economy is larger than most people understand. In fact, it has never been calculated, but I’m working on that.

From workshops to networking cocktails to conferences and more, SGs provide their student-bodies with the opportunities to apply what they’ve learned in class, validate if that’s the direction they want to go in, learn from individuals that are already in the field and to get a job.

So if SGs are providing so much value to students, then why are many struggling to reach their sponsorship objectives?

One reason I’m willing to bet on is that they are not asking for enough.

People pay others to reduce their costs or generate revenue

Planning an event is hard. Planning a great event is even harder. If the company had to do that themselves it would cost them time (the employees that have to plan the event could be doing other tasks) and money (if the people in charge of hiring now have to plan events, they are most likely going to ask for a raise). Furthermore, if the event is bad it would cost them their reputation.

Therefore, if an SG hosts the event, the liability falls on the SG to organize it, promote it, and ensure everything goes smoothly. The only thing sponsors have to do is enjoy themselves and meet people.

Don’t price the deliverables, price the outcome

Think about what your sponsors are getting for their money.

Are they getting 2 tickets to attend the event? No, they are getting much more than that! They are getting the opportunity to network with [number of attendees] under 1 roof. If they had to put on this event themselves it would cost them time and money (refer to point 1) and if the event didn’t exist they would lose out on potential hires.

Are they getting a resume bank? No, they are getting the luxury of pressing CTRL+F, entering the names of the people they met at the event that thought should get an interview, and reaching out to them. If they hadn’t met them at the event, they would have had to read through an entire pile of resumes and even then, there’s a chance they would miss great candidates.

Make them an offer they can’t refuse

You have to know what they need in order to offer them something they will be willing to pay for. The simplest way of finding out what they want is by asking.

Some example questions include:

• What would you need in order to support our event?
• Have you sponsored other events like this? If yes, why did you support them and what was the value you got from it?
• What are some problems you are facing and how much are you willing to spend if I can help you solve it? You need to be talking to a decision-maker to ask this one and get a good answer.

If in your offer, you’re able to demonstrate that you can contribute to solving their problem and provide value, it becomes much easier to justify spending whatever amount you ask.

Originally published at https://medium.com on September 10, 2019.