🔑 Summary
– [00:39] Overview of the process to secure five-figure corporate sponsorships in 90 days or less, applicable for both five and six-figure partnerships.
– [02:42] There are over 5.7 million organizations in the U.S. alone available for potential partnerships, including businesses and non-profits.
– [06:04] Emphasizing the possibility of closing high-value sponsorship deals, with examples of clients who increased their sponsorship revenue significantly within a year.
– [10:21] Participants will learn how to gain attention from major brands, communicate value through proposals, and create repeat sponsorship revenue using a structured sales framework.
– [26:44] Addressing misconceptions that large followings are necessary for sponsorship success; focusing on providing value to brands is more important than audience size.
– [32:57] Importance of thorough research and alignment with potential sponsors’ values to craft effective partnership proposals.
– [38:05] The critical role of follow-ups in securing sponsorships, with data showing that many sales require multiple attempts before successful closure.
– [59:25] Customization of proposals is crucial; generic gold, silver, and bronze packages are outdated and ineffective as brands prefer tailored offers.
– [73:12] Continuous communication of value and impact is essential for renewal contracts after initial sponsorships, including detailed fulfillment reports.
– [84:05] Introducing the “Sponsored and Secured” program, an eight-week course designed to help beginners and experienced individuals alike to secure corporate sponsors effectively.
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[00:01] Let me make sure you guys can see my screen. Can you see my screen okay? Perfect, perfect, perfect! Awesome, awesome, awesome! We’re going to go ahead and get started.
[00:34] Everything we’re going to talk about this evening is how to secure five-figure corporate sponsorships in 90 days or less. Now, of course, this doesn’t mean that it’s only five figures; the strategy can also work for six-figure partnerships. If you’re looking to reach the six-figure mark, this is definitely a process and a strategy that can work for you as well.
[01:04] Before we get started, please make sure to put away all distractions. We’ll be together for about 60 minutes, possibly more, depending on your questions. So, stay until the end so I can get your questions answered and give you a chance to learn how you can work with me one-on-one.
[01:36] I want you to take a moment to think about this: What would it mean to you if you could make an extra $50,000 a year to impact your vision and create the events and programs of your dreams? Please share that with me in the chat. Let me know what that would mean to you. Write your answer down in the chat. Think about it—if you had an extra $50,000 a year, I’m assuming you joined this evening because you want to learn how to generate additional sponsorship revenue.
[02:10] If that’s you, or maybe you’re an influencer trying to figure out how to partner with brands and make the most of your gifts and talents to get paid for it, I want you to tell me in the chat what you would do with that $50,000 and how it would impact your vision to create the events and programs of your dreams. Share that in the chat now.
[02:42] As you’re thinking about that and placing your thoughts in the chat, I want you to also consider the opportunities available to you. There are over 3.69 million businesses with five or more employees, 1.5 million non-profits, over 500,000 conferences and trade shows, and 4,000 colleges and universities. In total, there are over 5.7 million organizations just in the United States alone that you could potentially partner with.
[03:14] So, if you’re looking to host events, you have over 5.7 million organizations to partner with. If you’re a non-profit founder, there are organizations you can collaborate with. If you’re a speaker looking to present at different conferences or trade shows, you have 500,000 options to choose from. If you want to sell your services or be an expert for some of these brands, you now have 5.7 million different opportunities to partner with them.
[03:47] Now, let’s take it even further. Think about partnering with at least 10 brands at $5,000 each. If you partnered with 10 brands at $5,000, that would place you at $50,000 for the year. That’s not bad! It’s actually very achievable and doable. For those of you who just joined, thank you for tuning in. We’ve already gotten started, but I want you to think about what $50,000 would do for you, your brand, your vision, and how you truly desire to make an impact.
[04:21] I want to take a moment to look at some of your responses. Davida, you said, “I would feel confident in executing my vision for my non-profit to spread awareness for my organization. I would also be able to finally hire others.” Good! Nikki, you said, “I would be able to invest the money into recruiting additional staff members for my advertising and yearly conferences.” Great! Gabrielle, you asked, “Is it unrealistic to think about $1,000 a month for 20 sponsors?” Absolutely not! It is realistic; it most certainly is realistic.
[05:21] Let’s continue. Now, let’s take it even further. Let’s say you have 20 partnerships at $5,000 each for the year. That’s $100,000. If you have 20 partnerships at $10,000, that’s $200,000. If you have 20 partnerships at $20,000, that’s $400,000. Or, if you have 20 partnerships at $50,000, that’s over a million dollars. The reason I’m painting this picture for you is that I want you to understand that this is a reality for some people. If it’s a reality for them, it can certainly be a reality for you.
[06:23] Imagine closing a five- or six-figure deal with one brand. This is exactly what happened with one of my clients, Maya Elias. I absolutely love her, and I’m sure some of you are familiar with her and her brand. When Maya and I first connected, she informed me that in 2020, she had only done $1,000 in sponsorships. By the time we prepared for her 2021 Built to Impact event, we secured $20,000 in paid sponsorships and over $26,000 in in-kind sponsorships.
[06:57] Some of you might be wondering, “Well, $20,000 doesn’t seem like a lot of money,” but when you consider hosting an in-person event during a global pandemic, where many brands were hesitant to participate in in-person events, that was actually a really good number. We helped her increase to $45,000 from the previous year. Now, as we prepare for the 2022 Impact Weekend, we’ve already landed $75,000 from two brands combined, and we still have more to come because we’re about eight or nine months out from this event.
[07:29] I want you to know that it’s possible. Let’s talk about someone else who secured $7,500 in three weeks. Melissa is part of my Sponsored and Secured course. When students are part of my course, I take their success to heart. She had an amazing event called LA Homecoming 2020. I noticed that Cricket Wireless had a lot of good alignment with her event, and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity for her. On January 12th, I reached out to her, and she responded back on the 14th. I told her on Instagram that this would be a perfect opportunity, and by March, she had received a yes from this brand.
[08:30] It didn’t take long! Here I am saying imagine securing $1,000 or $5,000 with a brand, and we’re seeing people get $7,500 in three weeks or $50,000 within two months. Yes, Gabrielle, it is very much possible!
[09:01] You might be wondering, “Is it really possible for me to secure corporate sponsors?” My response is absolutely yes! Some of you might be asking, “How quickly can I start collecting these checks?” I like to say give yourself time to reach out and build relationships with these brands, but 90 days is a really good place to start if you have everything you need and follow the process I’m going to teach you this evening.
[09:31] What does it take to get started? You’re probably wondering that, and we’re going to cover those things. If you’re here and you’ve tried to reach out to brands but feel like you’re not getting anywhere, you might be wondering, “What am I doing wrong?” and “Is this a waste of time?” Now, I see your…
[10:01] questions that are coming in the Q&A box. I’m going to make sure to answer those questions by the time we get to the end of the training, okay? But feel free, if you want to write your questions down or type them inside of the Q&A box, please feel free to go ahead.
So here are some of the secrets that are going to be revealed this evening in this training. First, I’m going to teach you and show you how to gain the attention of major brands and land high-dollar partnerships. I’m also going to teach you how to use a two-page proposal to communicate your value advantage to potential sponsors. Additionally, I will show you how to use LinkedIn and other social platforms to organically connect with corporate clients. Lastly, I will demonstrate how to create repeat sponsorship revenue using a five-phase sponsorship sales framework.
Now, why is this important for you? This is really important because obviously you popped into this training because you might be stuck on what should be included in your sponsorship proposal, or you might be unsure about how to even get started. You could be the person reaching out to brands; you have the sponsorship proposal, maybe you’ve been sponsored, but you’re not getting a response, and you’re trying to figure out your next steps. You may feel like you need guidance on how to improve, or perhaps you have big goals to secure $50,000 contracts or $75,000 contracts. For others, it may just be about getting a thousand dollars, but you really have this big goal of making a greater impact. You want to host 100 sponsored events, use your influence and expertise to partner with brands, and you need help to secure funding to make that impact and reach.
I want to let you know that you are worth it. Your ideas, your vision, everything—it all matters. You’re an expert at what you do; you probably have case studies to back up the impact you’ve made over the years. And even if you don’t have those case studies, you know your vision will create a great impact; you’re just not sure how to get started.
Now think about this: by the time you finish watching this training, I want you to know and believe in your heart, without a doubt, that it is truly possible.
Imagine if you could make a thousand dollars in 90 days or less. Let’s just use a thousand dollars; I don’t even want you to think beyond that. If you have bigger goals, that’s cool, but let’s start with a thousand dollars in 90 days or less, partnering with a brand that you love. Now take it a little further: imagine if you were consistently partnering with the brands you love and transforming those relationships into long-term, repeat contracts. You could end up getting so many repeat contracts and brand partnerships that eventually this equates to a full-time salary.
Let’s take it even further: everything you do is 100% sponsored, and you never have to spend any of your own money to fund the events of your dreams or to partner with brands. You have companies handing you checks for your wonderful area of expertise.
I want you to imagine that this is definitely possible. I know this is possible because this is exactly how it happened for me. In 2014, I hosted the very first Woman of Purpose conference, which is a non-profit, faith-based organization. I was able to secure funding and have hosted over four sold-out sponsored conferences. Of course, when I first started, I used money from my own bank account and even hit negative zero to make it happen. But I believed so much in my vision, and other people believed in me and supported me in getting the funding I needed. I went through a lot of Googling, a lot of research, and connected with different people to help me get these events sponsored. Eventually, it happened, and I was able to land over six figures in sponsorships to fund these amazing events.
Let me tell you, I’ve worked with celebrities. As you can see, there’s Yvonne Orji right there. We had to pay our money, and how was I able to afford that? How was an organization able to do something like that, a non-profit? It’s because we secured sponsors, which is the same thing I’m going to help you do. I’ve been sponsored by companies like Curls, and as you can see in this sponsorship right here, they paid $3,000 just for gift bag advertising at my conference. I’ve also worked with other non-profit organizations because some people have this doubt or misconception that non-profits don’t give sponsorships, but they do. We’ve secured sponsorships with Faith Life, Compassion International, and worked with brands like Walmart, Reebok, H&R Block, Brinker International, and many more—that’s just a few.
I’ve had a lot of great features, but here’s how everything really got started for me. Some of you may not know my history and background, and I think it’s important to understand that this has all been a journey. I didn’t just wake up one day and say, “Oh, I want to teach people about sponsorships.” I didn’t just start doing this and get lucky or get connected to the right people. In fact, I had zero connections when I got started. I thought I was going to be an entertainment attorney. This is a picture of me in a law school program; I attended law school for a summer. It was a program to help students figure out if law school was really for them or not, and thankfully I did that because I quickly discovered that law school wasn’t for me.
I had a really good friend who reached out to me and said, “Hey Jess, I would love for you to help me plan my Nigerian Independence Day party.” As you see in the picture over here, that was in 2009 when it happened. I have no idea why he believed in me to do it, but I took on the challenge to help plan this Nigerian Independence Day party. It was so well received that two gentlemen who attended that event said, “Oh man, we need you to help us plan our events.” So I did. I started doing tours for African artists and worked on awesome events like NBA All-Star Weekend and Super Bowl Weekend.
Let me tell you, that’s me over there during NBA All-Star Weekend, hosting an event. This is me with one of the biggest African groups in Nigeria at the time. They had a U.S. tour, and I helped plan that. In another picture, you see me hosting a charity fashion show where we raised over $75,000 for Children’s Miracle Network. All wonderful things, using my gifts and talents in great ways.
But here’s the thing: none of it was profitable. I was doing great things; I looked good when people saw me on the internet, but I wasn’t making real money. Honestly, I truly wasn’t making the greatest impact or using my gifts in the best way possible. In 2010, I received a very clear vision. That vision was, “Look, Jessica, you’ve got great gifts, and you have so many other places you could go and so many other things you could do with your gifts.” I’m sure some of you can relate to that. I started to feel like everything I was doing wasn’t really giving people’s lives meaning.
After I got this vision, I realized I needed to do more because what I was doing wasn’t enough for me. The club events, the charity events—just looking good on the internet—wasn’t enough. So I started hosting these Christian open mic nights, which were so powerful, but again, I wasn’t making money; I was just giving people’s lives meaning. I had to find a way to make money. Eventually, I got into wedding planning, which I absolutely hated. That’s me and my friends who were working with me. But let me tell you, I was broke because I didn’t fully understand how to run a business.
So, I had to go back into corporate America. I worked as an event manager for major hotel properties like the Gaylord Texan and the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Dallas. Through all of this experience—the corporate experience plus everything I had been doing as a club promoter—don’t get me wrong, even though I wasn’t making money, the skill set was great. It helped me discover the right way to host events and gave me the confidence I needed to start hosting my own events.
When you’re working in hotels, you learn to work with meeting planners and sponsors. You’re learning how to manage multi-million dollar budgets for events, so you get connected with a lot of people. The experience of working in corporate America was everything I needed and more. It gave me the confidence to start hosting Woman of Purpose conferences. My first conference had over 500 attendees, and I used $10,000 to make it happen, using student loan money. I took out a loan that year, my last year of college, to…
[20:06] Make this conference happen, and let me tell you, I had my bank account in negative zero, as I mentioned before. But I was willing to make it happen because I truly believed in this vision—the vision that really opened up so many doors. Now, I want you to think about this for a moment, okay? Because I didn’t have sponsors for my very first conference, and there are some people—some of you who may be listening to this training or watching this training—and you may be in a place where there are so many wonderful things that you want to do, but you’re like, “I can’t do this because I don’t have the funds to do it.”
[20:38] So, is there something that you have really wanted to do in your life, but you stopped yourself from doing it because you didn’t have the funds? I want you to tell me in the chat box if that sounds like you. If that is you, tell me in the chat box if there’s something that you really wanted to do, if there’s an event that you’ve wanted to host, if there’s this really big idea that you may have, or maybe there’s a brand that you want to partner with, or you have an opportunity, but you just can’t do it because you don’t have the funds. Let me know in the chat box.
[21:08] Here’s the thing: I didn’t allow that to stop me from hosting this conference and continuing with it. I feel like I was really blessed to get divinely connected with someone who attended my very first conference. When she attended that first conference, she shared all of her secrets with me because she was like, “Girl, who are your sponsors?” She thought that I had a sponsored event, and I was like, “No, I did this with student loan money. It was me, God, student loan money, and making my bank account go into the negative.”
[21:41] She said, “You know what? I’m gonna help you because I think that you have something really good.” That was another big moment in my life—a pivotal moment in my life and for my brand and for everything that I did with Woman of Purpose. She shared all of her secrets on how to get these events sponsored. So, I used the knowledge that I learned as a wedding planner, the club promoter, the corporate meeting planner, and working as a meeting manager, plus everything that she shared with me. All of that experience helped me to secure over six figures in sponsorships and corporate sponsorships to host the next set of Woman of Purpose conferences.
[22:13] Now, every single thing that I do is 100% sponsored. Now, people always ask, “Jessica, why aren’t you hosting your conferences anymore? What’s going on?” Well, I took a pause from hosting my conferences because something major in life happened: I had a baby. My husband and I became a family of three, and so I chose to take a step back from hosting my conferences to really focus on influencer work. There was a lot of pitching myself to brands, and great things happened. But a lot of people kept reaching out to me about when I was going to host my conference again, when I was going to do this, or they wanted to have lunch meetings and were wondering, “Girl, can I know what you do? How did you do this? How are you getting this money? How are you collecting these checks?”
[23:18] So, I decided to develop a beginner’s guide to help others win at securing corporate sponsorships. I remember when I hosted this; people absolutely loved it. I did an Instagram Live, and people bought this guide. I mean, I really did not think that this many people would buy or purchase a guide on sponsorships. I didn’t really see it as a need, but it was this huge thing that I just felt like divinely happened, where hosting this conference opened up doors for me to teach people and train people how to do exactly what I did. Because at this time, the knowledge or the information just wasn’t out there, and people weren’t willing to share it.
[23:48] It was so well received that I took on a few major clients and was able to secure a six-figure contract for one of them. This is Jonathan Traylor; he’s a Motown gospel recording artist. Now, here’s the thing: some people might say, “Oh, well, he’s like a celebrity, or he’s a Motown gospel recording artist.” If you’ve ever attended the Woman of Purpose conference—any of you who are familiar with it—or if you go back on my YouTube channel and you watch the conferences, you will see that Jonathan was always the person who was the worship artist or who led the worship for the conference. So, I knew Jonathan and was working with him as a booking manager years—like 10 years—before he even became a signed artist.
[24:18] So, the sponsorships that I was able to help him secure—all of those things happened before he became a major Motown gospel recording artist. Before you start thinking, “Oh my God, you did it for him because he’s a celebrity,” no, we did all of these things, and I helped get him funding before he became a signed artist. People started to see everything that I was posting on Instagram and all these things, and they started inviting me to speak at conferences. So, at one of the conferences that I just spoke at, I was like, “You know what? I’m just gonna make an offer and see how people will respond. I’m gonna tell them about a course that I’m gonna create and see if this is something that they would love.”
[25:25] Obviously, you know, I told people about a sponsorships guide or an eBook. People loved it. Let’s see how people would respond to a course. I was so overwhelmed at the number of people who said, “Yes, I want to be a part of your course. I want to get this training.” I offered people to do a free 45-minute call with me. I’d never do that again because over 129 people booked calls with me, and then I got over 30 new clients or 30-plus people who signed up for my course just from speaking at one conference about sponsorships.
[25:58] Now, here I am. You see on my Instagram page, these are brands that I pitch—brands that I love. I got the opportunity to work with Pottery Barn, The Container Store, Stella Rosa, and so many other brands—again, brands that I pitch and brands that I love. I’ve been able to honestly create a full-time job out of this, and I absolutely love what I do. So, I want to help others do the same, whether that be through influencer work, you as a speaker setting yourself up as the expert to partner with brands, or you working on events and getting brands to sponsor your events.
[26:32] So, the purpose of this training is to share why corporate sponsorship is a great revenue stream for your brand, of course, reveal secrets to help you get started, and also share how you can work alongside me and learn to secure sponsors. That’s really going to change your life because learning how to secure corporate sponsorships has completely changed my life. Before I started pitching myself as an influencer, I started with the foundation and the fundamental pieces of corporate sponsorships—getting my events sponsored long before being an influencer was a thing or brand partnerships and corporate contracts were a thing. I started with corporate sponsorships, so this is the foundation of everything that I do and everything that I teach.
[27:03] Now, this workshop is for you if you’re a sponsorship seeker or influencer with some time, you’re no prospects, you want consistent sponsorship opportunities so you can increase revenue in your business or non-profit and support your dreams. You want access to major brands and to get connected with decision-makers, and you want to secure sponsors, but you fear you’ll hear “no” because you’ve really never done this before. Again, I’m going to continue to keep saying this: it’s very much possible for you.
[27:35] Now, this is the foundation of everything that you’re going to learn this evening. Some of you may have seen this before because I talk about this all the time. It is the sponsorship sales framework, which is the five-phase sales process that I use for everything when it comes to pitching to brands. Okay? Now, if you’re looking to secure corporate sponsorships, I usually say it’s a 12 to 18-month process. You can do it in less time, but I really like to build relationships with these brands, and so I give myself time, and I want you to give yourself time. If you’re looking to secure brand campaigns, it takes 30 to 90 days to secure those brand campaigns as an influencer.
[28:08] So, we’ve got phase one, where we’re doing a lot of research, developing benefits, and establishing value. Phase two is prospecting your potential sponsors. Phase three is like scheduling your meetings, building your relationships, asking the right questions, and creating your intro pitch. Then you go into phase four, which is your custom proposal phase, and then phase five, where you’re activating the campaign. You got the contract, and then you’re going to go after a renewal contract.
[28:42] Now, here’s the number one misconception—or one misconception, I should say—that people always say, and everybody thinks this. I think in every training that I’ve done, anytime I host a Q&A, people always ask this question: “Do I need to have thousands of followers, or what if I don’t have a large enough audience? Are people going to really want to sponsor me?” So, people say you need to have thousands of followers to get sponsored. Let me tell you, you do not need thousands of
[30:15] All right, so if you’ve ever felt that way, I just want to tell you now: let that go. That is a myth that brands won’t sponsor you unless you have a following. Don’t make the mistake of waiting until you have a large audience. Here’s the truth: don’t focus on following; focus on solving problems. An audience size is great, but your impact and the transformation that you bring to your audience—that is what holds more value. So focus on solving problems and the impact that you make, because that is what’s most valuable to these brands.
[30:50] Now, I want to refer to Jonathan because I mentioned earlier today, or earlier in the training, that when I worked with Jonathan, he was still just getting started. I worked with him and I’ve seen his journey and his growth. I worked with him years before he ever got signed. So this is an actual sponsorship proposal that we sent out to a brand called Compassion.
[31:21] On the cover page of the proposal, as soon as that brand opened it up, there were two things that we highlighted: “32,000 people” and “900 sponsorships.” Now, you’re probably wondering, “32,000 people, 900 sponsorships—what does that even mean?” Well, it’s important to do your research and figure out what a successful partnership looks like to the brand you want to partner with. So we had to do some digging and figure out what their partnership process is like and what they look for in terms of ROI. Because they’re a company or a non-profit that sponsors children, what they’re looking for is for artists or influencers to use their platform to get other people to sponsor a child. That is what this brand is all about. Our whole pitch was that if you partner with Jonathan, we’re going to be able to reach 32,000 people and get 900 sponsorships.
[32:27] Now, you’re probably wondering, “How is he going to reach 32,000 people when he only has 20.4 thousand followers on Instagram and a reach of 25.5K?” I’m sharing this example for a very clear reason. If you look at many of the artists that this type of organization works with, they often have a very small audience and a very small following compared to the big artists that this brand normally works with. But we were able to clearly communicate, even though we had never done this before, and we got this brand to say yes. We had done our research, understood how their partnership process works, and how they partner with influencers and artists, and the impact they would like to see made. We were able to articulate that clearly in the sponsorship proposal.
[33:01] So even as an artist who was just getting started and, at the time, wasn’t signed, when this brand said yes to us, we communicated the impact that was going to be made. Mind you, again, we had never done this before, but we clearly communicated. If you can clearly communicate based on the research and how this brand engages in partnerships, you are most likely going to see a win.
[33:32] Stacy Ike—someone here just said, “Oh my God, I know her!”—secured $5,000 with Asana using the process that I shared with her. I remember when she came to my house; we were sitting in my closet going over everything about what she should do and how she should do it.
[34:04] Now, there are some people out there who think that in order to get sponsorships or secure sponsors with brands, they need to have thousands of followers. Trust me, I was there; I had that same misconception too. This was for a digital experience; you see it on Zoom, and she only had 50 attendees. But she provided value that aligned with the brand Asana’s values. Because she was able to communicate that in her proposal and connect with the brand that saw value in what she was doing, it was very easy for her to secure that $5,000.
[34:38] It’s just always so mind-blowing to me when I see people with partnership proposals who have thousands of followers, and they have their gold, silver, and bronze packages, saying, “Oh, $1,000 for this level.” But here’s someone who only had 50 attendees at her event and secured $5,000. Again, for some people, you may feel like, “Well, that’s not really a lot of money.” But for someone who has a small following or who had the mindset that if they have a small, intimate event, nobody’s going to want to sponsor them, that can no longer be your excuse.
[35:08] A lot of the things that you see, like when I talk about these partnership proposals, are about how they are doing it and what they are placing inside of their proposals. It’s about thinking about what your value advantage is. That advantage is basically your benefits—your activations. How are you truly going to make this a successful campaign, not just for you but for the brand? What is that advantage? What are you offering them?
[35:38] Things that you can offer them include conferences, retreats, webinars, training, workshops, digital campaigns, and coaching. The reason why I’m mentioning coaching or research is social impact and community engagement. Let’s say you are someone who doesn’t really host events, or maybe you host workshops, and you’re looking to partner with a brand where their employees could benefit from your training or workshop. You can sell that training to them, and they can offer it to their employees. That’s a partnership. Or maybe one of their employees comes to speak at your workshop or webinar. Because of the exposure they get from speaking in front of your audience, that is again a partnership, and you can be paid for that opportunity.
[36:08] There are lots of ways in which you can add value to a brand, so you have to take time to think about your advantage. I want you to tell me in the chat: What is your value advantage? How do you make an impact? What is the transformation that you bring, and what is your advantage through your offerings? Put that in the chat because when I get to the questions, I want to talk about those. Tell me in the chat because a lot of times, I don’t want you to be generic. I want you to really think about the value that you bring to the table.
[37:10] A lot of times in people’s sponsorship proposals, they’re putting things like, “Oh, you can get VIP tickets; we’re going to put you on a step and repeat.” Those things honestly should be givens. That’s not really your true value advantage. Really talk about how you can truly, if you wanted to partner with Asana, make that brand successful or highlight that brand successfully in front of your audience, so people will say, “Wow, this is truly a successful partnership,” or for the brand to say that.
[37:40] Let’s talk about secret number one: the reason why every single example that I’ve shown you—Maya, Stacy, Jonathan, Melissa—all of their successful partnerships were partly successful because before they even reached out to those brands, research was done. They found good contacts, studied previous activations or campaigns that that brand has done with other people, and found that there was alignment. So yes, there’s some success here. If you see that a brand you would love to work with has done something very similar to what you’re hoping to achieve, that means there is some alignment. You probably share the same values and have a target audience that they are trying to reach.
[38:11] It’s clearly visible whether you find that on LinkedIn or Instagram or however you find that information. You are able to clearly identify that there is alignment. Now, if you see that there’s a brand on your wish list that you would love to work with but there’s no alignment, don’t waste your time and energy. Not all brands are worth your time, so focus on the brands that you can prove the most value to and your advantage.
[39:14] Questions that you should be asking yourself are: Is there alignment? Are they already spending money on this type of campaign? Can you provide ROI to the brand? And let me tell you, figuring out if you can truly provide ROI to that brand is simply a matter of researching that brand and seeing how they engage in partnerships. If you understand how they engage in partnerships with people or individuals like yourself, then you’re going to be able to clearly communicate that and show that in your partnership proposal.
[39:46] Also, if you have any case studies, do you have visible results to prove your worth? If there’s something that you’ve done in the past, have you included this in your proposal? That should be readily available for them to see.
Now, let’s talk about misconception number two: If you pitch big brands and no one responds, then it’s a waste of time to pitch other companies. Oh man, I hear this one all the time. So I want to know—tell me in the chat—have you ever pitched one company and not reached out to others because…
[40:17] You didn’t get a response? Let me take that even further: you didn’t follow up because you didn’t get a response. Tell me in the chat. I know I hear this every day. I get people reaching out to me all the time, and they’re just like, “Oh, Jessica, I pitched a brand, and I never heard back from them, so I don’t know. I just never followed up.” I see it time and time again.
Here’s a myth: big brands like Coca-Cola and Target are the brands with large sponsorship budgets, so those are the best brands to pitch.
[40:47] I cannot tell you the number of times I have spoken with individuals, and when I ask them what brands they want to partner with, they say Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Target, Walmart. Those are always the first brands that come to mind. I usually try to encourage people to think about what they use on a daily basis. How do you operate in your business when you think about your event overall and the sponsors that you should get? Your target audience or the audience that you serve—what do they like? What are the things they’re spending their money on? What’s the music they listen to? What platforms are they using? Those are the types of sponsors you should be going after, not just Coca-Cola, Target, and Walmart just because you see their commercials all the time. It’s the first brand that you can think of; maybe that’s what you drink. But I want you to think deeper—dig a little bit deeper.
The truth is, you really need a healthy prospect list of businesses. Whether that company is small, mid-sized, or large—Fortune 500, Fortune 100, Fortune 1000—reach out to all sizes of companies. As I mentioned when I showed you that list of the number of organizations that are just in the United States alone, we were looking at companies that have five or more people. Trust me, there are brands out there that have maybe five to ten employees that have sponsorship budgets.
[41:49] When I first partnered with Curls, Curls wasn’t a company that had over 30 employees. Okay? So I want you to think about that. But they had sponsorship budgets, and I know someone who got $25,000 from that brand to host her events, and at that time, they did not have up to 25 or 30 employees. So don’t limit yourself to just these big mega-sized brands.
Let me give you an example. I love giving real-life examples. This is someone who is inside of the Sponsored and Secured course: Dr. Sujay Price. First off, she only has 2,000 followers. Dr. Sujay approached me and said, “Hey, I have a really good idea. I really would love to approach this brand, but I’m also thinking I don’t know if they’ll have a budget. But I see that they’re really in support of Black female entrepreneurs.” So she told me her idea, and I was like, “I think this is perfect.” She was thinking of pitching a brand like Intuit, which is a significantly larger brand than Bench. I said, “Hey, you can pitch both, but don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
[43:24] Don’t just reach out to Intuit because they’re a much larger brand, and you know for sure that they’re going to have a budget because you probably have thousands of people reaching out to them—maybe not thousands, but hundreds. So she took the opportunity because she saw that this company, Bench, was already doing something that she truly believes in. She’s a Black woman; she uses and utilizes their service. She became an affiliate of their services or of their program, and she really was like, “I think that I can make this work.”
Now, let me tell you, when she reached out to this brand, they had actually never partnered with a creator the way they partnered with her. First, they normally just do their affiliate partnerships where you promote their service, and they give you a kickback if you get people to sign up. But she was able to use the templates that I provided to her, and with my guidance, we were able to communicate to them the impact that would be made and everything that we were going to do. You can go and look at her page and see. She was able to land a $5,000 contract, and I know when she worked on it, she was able to pull that off in about three or four weeks. It was right at about $5,500; I think they had to increase it a little bit more.
[44:59] This is what she shared in the Facebook group when they first got on the call and agreed to it, but they actually asked for additional deliverables. Mind you, again, she only has 2,000 followers, working with a mid-sized brand. I would even consider Bench to be small to mid-sized because they don’t have a ton of employees. But let’s say mid-sized or small to mid-sized brand, and she was able to lock in this partnership.
So again, I want you to understand that following isn’t everything. I also want you to understand that you shouldn’t just think about the big dogs out there, the ones that we all assume have the big budget. Go after those brands that everyone is not reaching out to.
Now let’s go into secret number two. Secret number two—and if you guys have questions, because I know you have stuff going on in the chat—please just post them in the chat box, and I’m going to be sure to answer them at the end.
Now, secret number two: this is where we get into phase two—developing your prospect list. Okay? As I’m talking about these big brands, your prospect list—a healthy prospect list of small, mid-sized, and large businesses—this is going to help you because of the research that you’ve done to not shoot your shot at everyone.
[46:00] When you think about your wish list, I want you to split it up into a couple of sections. I want you to have your top tier, second tier, and your loyalty brands. Okay? So when you think about top tier, these are the premium brands like the Targets, the Walmarts, the Coca-Colas. I want you to have all of those there. These are brands that definitely, for sure, are going to have major budgets. But the only problem with some of these big top-tier brands is you’ve got hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people reaching out to them. So you also want to ensure that you have their competitors or smaller brands that also have budgets that a lot of people aren’t thinking about or reaching out to.
When I sent something over to Melissa, nobody would ever think of Cricket Wireless. Why? Because when people think of partnering with a mobile provider, they always think of T-Mobile or Verizon first. But somebody like Cricket Wireless—who would have thought that they would have funding available or to partner with them? There’s opportunity, so don’t leave out those smaller brands.
And of course, think about your loyalty brands—the brands that you absolutely love. You always want to include them on your healthy prospect list. A list of brands that, even if they don’t have a budget to pay you, maybe when you work with them the first time around, it could be for in-kind products. They’ll give you products to give to your audience, or maybe they will give you products to promote to your audience. However you want to do that, but it gives you—when you take in-kind sponsorships—what that now does for you is it gives you an opportunity to prove a case study or to create a case study.
[47:40] All right, so that healthy prospect list: develop your wish list and make sure it’s healthy and you have some options there of brands that truly align with everything that you do. Now, this is one of my favorite misconceptions: number three—you shouldn’t send cold emails.
Now, there are a lot of debates about this. There’s a lot of back and forth on whether cold emails actually work. I want to tell you now: every single case study that I’ve shared with you, every student that has been a part of my course—Maya, the $75,000 that we’ve secured—let me tell you, these were all cold leads. These were cold emails. We sent every single one of those people cold emails, and they were able to land partnerships.
[48:11] All right, so have you ever shot a cold email and felt rejected after not getting a response, so you didn’t follow up? Okay? Or maybe you just didn’t have the contact, so you were just like, “I’m not going to send it at all.” Or maybe you just shot a LinkedIn message and didn’t even try or attempt. And I’m sure—actually, let me see what’s going on in the chat because I feel like there are probably questions.
Oh, these questions—hold on. Always follow up, you said. Let me see. Some of y’all are saying, “Up at ABC,” you said diversity and inclusion. You’re talking about what you’re offering. Ashley, you said, “That’s my story for sure.” Let’s see—helping students graduate college debt-free. Understand why they are attending college. Love that transformation! We’ve talked about that before. You said, “Helping employers and employees improve their workplace dynamics.” Great!
Tosin, you mentioned that you didn’t follow up. Nikki, you said in the past, but ever since your last training, you always follow up. Fantastic! I’m so happy to hear that you follow up. Gabriel
[50:20] For marketers and salespeople who do cold emails the right way, I have seen response rates as high as 15 to 20 percent. This is just personally what I’ve observed. Plus, look at all of the results that I’ve just shown you from people who have secured brand partnerships or sponsorships by pitching cold. Here’s the thing: you really need to have a follow-through process. You need to personalize everything you do and make sure that it’s a good fit.
[50:51] Before you even send that email, you must evaluate: is this truly a good fit? You always have to assess that. You also need to determine if it’s best to send an email, and when you send that email, should you create a video? Do you need to include pictures? A lot of people send cold emails that are very long and have absolutely nothing to do with the recipient; they don’t communicate any value whatsoever and are not customized to the brand.
[51:26] You have to remember, when you’re sending out these emails, are you communicating value? Are you truly showing this brand that you are bringing value to them? You shouldn’t just focus on yourself; instead, make it about a partnership and demonstrate that you’ve done your research. Now, I want to give you a real-life email example. I love getting examples! Mind you, this is something that turned into a partnership, but I want to show you what works.
[51:56] In this email, I reached out to Asana. It says, “Hi Ashley, my name is Jessica, and I am reaching out to you on behalf of Maya Elias.” Now, you probably… well, you can read the rest. But inside the body of this email, I included a picture. One of the reasons I used this picture is that it helps connect the dots. It shows that I’ve worked with Thinkific before, which has collaborated with Asana. So, automatically, in their mind, they’re probably thinking, “This is worth checking out or having a phone call because we’ve worked with Thinkific before. Maybe we should work with her too.”
[52:31] Then I said, “Hey, I have a few ideas to position Asana successfully in front of her audience. Are you available?” I’m asking for a date and time. There’s no pitch deck in here, no attachments—none of that. I’m excited to hear from you! I didn’t just say hello; I didn’t give a ton of stats. I just included a link if they wanted to find out more information about the event. My biggest key point was to make a connection and show that if a brand you partner with has worked with this person, then they should also work with this person.
[53:04] Now, I have an arrow pointing to that date, December 11, 2024. Let me tell you when I got a response. I didn’t receive a response until January 20th, which is basically a month and a half later. Okay, a month and a half after I sent this email. We were already two weeks away from the event when I got a response, and I was hoping we could make things work. She said, “I would love to partner.” She didn’t answer anything about hopping on a call; she just asked if I could send her a proposal. Normally, I don’t send the proposal; I want to hop on a call first. But in this case, because we were two weeks away from the event, I thought, “You know what? Let me just go ahead and send it over to her.”
[54:05] So, on January 20th, she sent me that, and I responded back to her on the same day. I told her, “Hey,” after I sent her all the information, I still hadn’t heard back from her after I sent over the proposal. Five days later, I followed up. I know it’s been five days, and I’m trying to close one more deal before this event. I would really love for you to be included. Guess what they said on January 26th? “We would really like to do this, but unfortunately, we can’t do it right now.” She actually provided a reason why.
[55:08] The reason I’m showing you this real-life example is that I want you to see the amount of time it took for the brand to respond. Sometimes these people aren’t responding because they’re busy. Maybe they’re not good at managing their inbox. It could just be that they’re wrapping up their fiscal year and are in the middle of budget planning, which is actually good because it means I reached out to them at the perfect time. They couldn’t do it because it was too last minute, but she did say, “We would be interested in partnering in the future.”
[55:38] So, understand this: a “no” is not a “no” until they actually tell you “no.” Keep following up! I’m sharing this email process because it’s important for you to see that brands aren’t always going to respond back to you right away. Follow up, because if you do, eventually you’re going to get the response you want—whether that’s, “Hey, let’s hop on a call,” “Hey, send me your proposal,” or “No, we can’t do it at this time.” If they tell you “no,” make sure to ask why, when is a good time to reach out, when does your fiscal year start, and when do you guys start budget planning? That way, you can ensure you get in the door.
[56:13] Now, here we are on Thursday, April 8th, and guess what? As you can see, “Hey, here’s our partnership agreement.” So, from December all the way up until April, that’s the process. So, how many months is that? December, January, February, March, April—four months. Four months of building a relationship to get us to a contract. Think about that when you are figuring out your sponsorship process. In this process, follow-through is everything; customization is everything.
[56:48] So, secret number three is your email outreach. Be very clear in your email outreach. As you noticed in that email I sent out, it was not long; it didn’t provide a bunch of stats and facts. It was very brief and straight to the point. I provide a lot of email templates—lots of options all the way up until, I think, email attempt number six. I’m always testing out things because you have to test out what subject lines work and what works in the body of the email. You are becoming a sponsorship sales expert whenever you are pitching yourself for opportunities.
[57:21] One of the things I want to show you is an email that we sent out. This was actually from one of my students. She reached out to Microsoft using this template right here and got a response within five minutes after sending out this email. Notice these are very short, brief emails; they’re not super long. I also recommend that you have at least three to five contacts within a brand whenever you’re reaching out to them. Why? Because there are multiple decision-makers within a brand. I see too many people who reach out to one person within a brand, send one email, and then think, “Oh my God, they’re not interested.”
[57:52] I’m like, “No! As a sponsorship salesperson, these opportunities—there are over 5.7 million businesses out there. There are multiple decision-makers. Do not give up after one person doesn’t respond!”
[58:23] Now, also, whenever you’re sending out those emails, as you saw from that real-life example I just gave you, we did not include a pitch deck. In fact, when we closed the deal, we had a two-page pitch deck. But we had a phone call, and during that very first call, I asked questions. One of the questions I asked was, “How do you guys normally engage in sponsorship?” I also asked, “What are Asana’s goals?” One of their goals was, “We really want to support Black creators.” That was great for us.
[58:55] I also asked them, “You’ve already communicated when your fiscal year begins. Tell me, what’s the timeline for this?” They went through the entire timeline process. You can ask a lot of really good questions, and those strategic questions will help you create a custom proposal. We were able to do exactly that for Asana and all of the other brands I worked with. They basically told me what they wanted, and I just included everything they wanted inside that proposal. They did the work for me because of the strategic questions I asked, and that’s the exact same thing you should be doing and incorporating into your sponsorship strategy.
[59:25] Now, also, I want you to think about this: 80 percent of sales require five follow-ups after the initial contact, but only 44 percent of salespeople give up after one. I want you to be part of the 8 percent that follows up at least five times. You want to be part of that 8 percent.
[59:57] Now, I love how there’s always the one percent; it’s good to be part of the least percentage because most people aren’t going to follow up. The people who do continue—the 8 percent—are the ones that are landing those five, six, and even seven-figure partnerships because they do this. Now, one of the questions that just came up—I know a lot of you have questions, and I see them—how do you even get the contacts? Because a lot of you aren’t pitching because
[01:00:27] Emails, or they just don’t even know where to begin, or they’re Googling and all those things. That’s cool, but I think there’s a very easy, free way of figuring out who a brand is, where they’re located, and who the specific person is, and really start to develop a rapport with them. So here’s LinkedIn. Alright, so on LinkedIn, right here, if you type in the search bar—this is exactly what I did to partner with Pottery Barn Kids—inside of that search bar, using your free LinkedIn account, there’s
[01:00:59] also great tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and I teach people how to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator inside of my course. But with the free version of LinkedIn, I just typed in “Pottery Barn Kids.” After I typed that in, it took me to the company profile, and I went to the people section. Once I clicked on the people tab, there’s a search bar that tells me the number of employees they have and where the company is located. I can search employees by title, keyword, or school. I wanted to type in “influencer”
[01:01:33] because for this particular opportunity, when I searched, when I was pitching to them, or when I did pitch to them, it was more so for an influencer opportunity. So when I searched “influencer,” two employees came up. The first person that came up was Rachel Sunday, who is the person that I work with at Pottery Barn Kids. She is the senior social media manager, so she has been my primary contact. There was another person that I worked with, but unfortunately, she’s no longer with the brand. Then you’ve got Michaela, and obviously, we can see here that Michaela
[01:02:04] is a buyer, so she’s probably not going to be the best person for me to connect with. So right there, Rachel Sunday is a way for you to connect with her on LinkedIn, or at least follow her on LinkedIn, or even just research her on LinkedIn. And then, of course, there are other ways in which you can get email addresses. But right here, just write your loan. Even if you wanted to keep the communication just on LinkedIn, you’ve got the person that you need. It’s an easy, simple way to beef up that LinkedIn page. Make sure you’re looking good on your LinkedIn; make sure you’re active on
[01:02:39] LinkedIn and connect with these people. It’s a great platform to actually engage and connect with decision-makers. I always say that LinkedIn is for the people who cut the checks. That is for the people who cut the checks. Instagram, Facebook, and all those other platforms are for people who just like collecting checks. Collecting checks is good, but you want to be in cahoots with the people who are writing the checks and the decision-makers who cut them. So let’s get to misconception number four: you need gold,
[01:03:09] silver, and bronze sponsorship packages. Let me just tell you right now, if you are doing that, stop doing it now. Gold, silver, and bronze sponsorship packages are such an old-school approach, and it just doesn’t work anymore. So I want you to tell me right now in the chat group if this is you. Have you ever created a sponsorship package and sent the proposal in your initial email to a brand? So let’s say you reached out to a brand, you had your media kit in there, you had
[01:03:41] your sponsorship kit in there, and it also included packages. Let me know if that’s you. I’m pretty sure that maybe some of you—let me see, I got to go in the chat for this. Let me see, let me see, let me see. Hold up. Nikki, you said you did. Gabriel, you said, “I always say gold, silver, and bronze for the eye shadows.” Yes, yes, yes. Um, okay, you said, “Please share the replay.” Yes, I will be sharing the replay, but I don’t know when that replay is going to come out. It might take a long time because, you know, this is a long session, and I’m trying to speed it up
[01:04:12] as quickly as possible. But, oh my God, let’s say, okay, yeah, yeah. Oh, Gabriel, you said you work in beauty. Let me tell you, I see people do this all the time, and it’s really, really annoying. So let me just tell you the truth: you increase the value of your sponsorship proposal by offering opportunities that really help a company meet a desired goal, and it’s really impossible to do that with a gold, silver, and bronze sponsorship proposal. It just doesn’t work.
[01:04:44] Um, it used to work back in the day; unfortunately, it just doesn’t work like that anymore. Okay, you need to take a custom approach with each sponsorship proposal, and it’s actually really easy to do. So, real-life examples: here is a—I’m going to just tell y’all now—these days, I no longer create like 12-page sponsorship decks, especially when you start building relationships with brands. If you are able to articulate what you want to do
[01:05:14] when you ask the right questions with a brand, or right questions with these brands, they’ll tell you exactly what they’re looking for, exactly what they’re needing. So this is literally the proposal that I sent over to a brand: two pages—that’s it—just two pages. The brand was like, “This is great! This is perfect! Like, we talked about everything that we needed.” Here are the bullet points of what we needed. So you can literally just take a screenshot of this and see. Now, the only thing that I left out was just the investment level, but there are no packages. I literally had one investment level and said, “Look, this
[01:05:49] is what it is, and if you guys can’t work with that, let’s negotiate. Let’s figure it out.” It works every single time. It has worked so much better than me actually creating a 12-page proposal with multiple packages in it, and this is custom to this brand. Everything that I am giving them is custom to what exactly they said they wanted and desired. So if you look at this two-page proposal, which is what I’m sending out to most of the brands—like, when I tell you with Asana, the one that I did for Maya, that was a two-page proposal. Okay, it seems like what’s happening now
[01:06:23] is that the more I increase the dollar amount of the proposals, the smaller the sponsorship packages get. And it’s really just because it also depends on what’s included. What really matters to a lot of the brands is the contractual phase, so what’s included in the contract. The sponsorship proposal is really just a small piece. So I’ve got demographics; I tell you exactly what work university is, I give you her social reach, and then what is the opportunity. You don’t need 30 gazillion pages to talk about the opportunity. You need
[01:06:58] to focus on the value that you provide, and that value is not listing out a whole bunch of benefits. A lot of times in those gold, silver, and bronze packages, people are listing out the same things over and over again, but it’s just like, “Okay, but in this package, you’re going to get this over here,” and I’m like, “But it’s so redundant! You’re just wasting space at this point.” And at this point in time, you’re also wasting the person who’s viewing the proposal their time too, because these people are busy. That’s the reason why they responded to all your emails. So
[01:07:33] here’s this example. Like I said, screenshot it. I wanted to make sure you guys saw that so you can see other ways in which you can communicate the value and how you can take a custom approach. Alright, so secret number four, like I mentioned before: create a custom proposal. Most of these deals that I am showing you are giving you examples of—many of these deals, in the first phone call, we were able to get a yes. We were able to get in writing enough after that very first meeting that yes, we want to work with you. After that, it was just a matter—I mean, look at Asana and that email example
[01:08:08] that I showed you guys. They were like, “We want to partner with you. We ain’t even really—we saw your sponsorship proposal; we just can’t do it right now.” So you get the yes in that first meeting. The next point is really just, “Okay, let’s figure out a number that’s going to work.” Sometimes it’s just a matter of asking, like, “Hey, what is your budget?” I remember being on a call with a brand, and I said, “Hey, so, um, how does thirty thousand dollars sound? Does that work?” And they were like, “Yeah, actually, that does work.” In my mind, I was like, “Well, if thirty thousand dollars works,” because I sent that in the last proposal and y’all couldn’t partner at that time,
[01:08:42] that means that I’m going to send a proposal with two investment levels: one is going to be for a hundred thousand, and the other one is going to be for sixty thousand. Because I never want to go in there with fifty. I see people take this approach: fifteen hundred, five thousand, ten thousand, and you haven’t even taken the time to ask a
[01:10:31] A lady told me, yes, that she wanted to work with us verbally on a phone call and also in an email. Now, I haven’t heard from this lady in almost a month. What is going on? I responded to her; I shot her three emails, and I used a mail tracker to see if people are responding, if they’re opening, and if they’re clicking on things. So, I checked the email, and I was like, she still hasn’t opened it. Then I saw in her email signature that, oh wait a minute, she has her cell phone number listed. You know what I did? I called her. It went to voicemail, so I left her a voicemail. Then I shot her a text and told her who I was. I said, “Hey, I just want to know if you’re still interested in this opportunity because we actually have another brand who’s interested in this opportunity, and they’re one of your competitors.” She responded back immediately. We were on a phone call ten minutes later, and she said, “I just want to let you know you’re really good at your job.” She said, “Because we are interested; it’s just been a really busy time for me.” This is why it’s important for you to follow up. Too many people are leaving money on the table and missing out on opportunities because they’re not following up.
[01:11:38] So, let’s get to the last misconception: that once you get sponsored by a brand, they’re going to continue to work with you. I think people assume this all the time. Have you ever received an in-kind sponsorship or a paid sponsorship from a brand, and you assumed that they would work with you again just because they sponsored you the first year? They gave you products, and you thought, “Oh, because they gave me these products, they’re going to give me money next year.” I see a lot of people who do that, but here’s the myth: the myth is that a partnership with the brand guarantees you they’ll always work with you.
[01:12:11] Here’s the truth: in order for that to happen, you need to continuously show value. Continuously showing value is what’s going to keep companies working with you as long as their goals and budgets have not shifted. So, you need to report how you fulfilled your end of the sponsorship agreement. I am really big on fulfillment reports. Now, these are real-life example recap reports. I think a lot of you, if you go on my Instagram page, you’ll see I love Stella Rosa; I love drinking their wines. One of the reasons why the campaign was so successful and why I was able to get a renewal contract is because I documented everything. I tracked everything, and I was able to clearly show them that, look, if you work with me again, here are the results that you’re going to get. Here is the impact that was made or that is being made, and that we’re going to continue to make.
[01:13:14] One of the things that we did here is, this was a recap report that we created for Cream of Nature. For every brand, I create a recap report, and I recommend you do this for every brand. Again, if you’re creating custom proposals, the deliverables are going to be different for each brand that you work with. So, you always want to communicate and share with them the results and the impact that was made. Together, we were able to achieve this; your sponsorship dollars helped us do this.
[01:13:49] You can even talk about what your goals are and what your hopes are for the following year. This is what we plan to do next year and how we are going to do that next year with your help because we’re looking to reach more people or make this much more impact. We’re going to need more dollars, and that’s how you get that renewal contract. Communicate the results, track everything that you do, how you were able to fulfill your end of the deal, and show them the impact that was made. I have a client who absolutely creates a recap of everything that she does, and I had one brand say yes simply because she had that clearly communicated on her website.
[01:14:22] Everything that you’ve done always baffles me when people host events and they never post the reports or the case studies of what they’ve done in the past on their website. I’m like, so if you communicate to a brand, you mean to tell me that anytime that brand wants to know about all of the events that you’ve done in the past, there’s nothing like that that lives on your website? We had a brand that said yes simply because she had this one recap on her website that was so clear that the lady said, “This is so helpful. All I need to do is show my team this, and I guarantee that they’re going to come back and say yes.” And sure enough, that’s what happened.
[01:14:57] You always need to be able to clearly communicate it, not just in your fulfillment report but everywhere on your real estate. This is your brand; this is how you make an impact; this is your vision; this is your baby; this is your value, and this is how you increase value and get more brands to have eyes on you. So, place this kind of information not only in a fulfillment report but also take time to place this on your website. Everything that you’ve done—if you hosted a workshop, how many workshops have you hosted? What audience do you serve? What brands are represented in the audience that you serve? What companies do they work for? Take it to the next level; do that. Share that.
[01:15:27] This was just one slide where we said 1.3 million. This is how much was generated with our top six women who were in our program. This was just with six women, but best believe when you went to the website, it went further and even deeper on the total amounts of how she was able to help people and the results she was able to help these women achieve. So, all I’m saying is secret number five: activate that campaign, submit a fulfillment report so that way you can get a renewal contract. In that renewal contract, you always want to make sure to have a feedback meeting. Schedule a meeting 7 to 14 days after your event or after the deliverables have been delivered.
[01:16:32] Get on a call and say, “Hey, I’d love to get your feedback,” plus use that as an opportunity to talk about how you guys can partner again. Ensure you’ve already got a proposal ready for the next project, whether it’s next year or next quarter, so that way you guys can discuss that on the call. And of course, thank them. Send them a gift card; send them a thank you note; get their address. Do those things because these people invested in you. They invested dollars in your vision; they came alongside you to help you in partnership and help you to fund your dreams. Do the things that you love. Don’t just treat them like, “Oh, they gave me a check; I’m good; I secured the bag.” It’s more than just securing the bag. This is all about relationship building.
[01:17:07] Okay, so we’ve got the five sponsorship secrets. Secret number one: solve problems and make transformational impact to secure sponsors instead of focusing on followers. This is not about how many followers you have; it’s all about solving problems and making transformational impact. Secret number two: develop a healthy prospect list of small, mid-size, and large brands to pitch. No matter the size of the brand or the company, go for the pitch. Secret number three: evaluate if it’s a good fit before you submit a cold email, and then make sure you personalize the email. Personalizing that email could be sending a video or including a picture in there. I’m connecting the dots for it to make sense for them to hop on a call with me.
[01:18:09] Secret number four: go custom all the way. Create and submit a custom sponsorship proposal. Secret number five: send a fulfillment report to show the proof of your results, the impact being made, and also obtain a renewal contract. Okay, all right, so we’re moving along now. Think about this. I want you to think about things. Okay, I’m going somewhere with this. What if you created a prospect list, and you created that prospect list and it helped you to set up a master plan to solve your problem, make an impact? You can partner with brands that align with your vision, build real, genuine relationships with decision-makers, and organically send them a custom proposal and have those companies write you checks to do what you love. That’s what should be going on in your mind right now.
[01:19:17] Okay, the what-ifs. Just think if it simply started with your vision, your master plan, and your prospect list of brands that align. You start connecting with people organically on LinkedIn or other platforms. Now, what if you created that prospect list and you said a part of my plan is going to have a goal? Somebody mentioned a thousand dollars in the chat group. Let’s just start with a thousand dollars. I don’t want you to think higher; if you really want to think higher, go ahead. But I just want you to think about a thousand dollars in 90 days or less. That means you would secure one sponsor per month—12 sponsors at a thousand dollars each—and that would be an additional twelve thousand dollars per year in sponsorship revenue for you to host the events of your dreams.
[01:19:51] Now, some of you are hosting programs that don’t even fully understand how much you need. You don’t have a budget; you’re just saying, “I need a thousand dollars,” when really you probably need about twenty
[01:20:32] And I’m sure there are some of you who are thinking, “Well dang, I got a thousand followers.” Because it’s not about following; it’s about impact and the transformation that you bring and the problems that you solve. What if I told you that I could actually help you do this the same way I’ve helped all the other people that I just shared with you? I love helping people just like you. Here I am helping an artist, Jonathan. He always tells me, “I cannot believe the amount of money that Jessica has been able to help me secure in such a short period of time.”
[01:21:02] She, you know, us going after brands that he didn’t even think were possible, but we did it—not thinking about, “I don’t think I’m enough,” but saying, “Yes, you are worth it, and you can bring loads of value to these brands.” We did it. We did it, and he did it with my help. I’m also helping business coaches and non-profits. This is someone texting me saying, “Girl, I just want to have access to your database. I really want to do more five-figure contracts because I’m so sick and tired of working with these small-time brands. You know they’re not giving me the money.” And also, again, like I said, helping non-profits. I really enjoy helping people like you. Here are some other ladies that I’ve worked with, and one of the things that they shared is, “Jessica has given me the opportunity to really learn how I can get sponsors for her Creative Cravings podcast that she does with her sister.”
[01:22:05] They didn’t think that it was possible to get sponsors, and now they’re using the strategies that I’ve shared with them and taught them on how to get sponsors not only for their podcast but also for influencer partnerships. Here’s someone else; she’s actually going out and getting venture capital, but she really knows that partnerships are going to be a huge part of how she establishes her brand. So she’s like, “Man, Jessica truly is the queen of sponsorships.” But I love helping people. I’m really a helper and a teacher, and I’m a strong believer in helping you get to the place that I am now, which is everything 100% funded and also at a place where there’s this strategy where you’re becoming a sponsorship sales expert. It can eventually lead you to leave your full-time gig because you’re making so much money in partnerships. It’s possible, trust me. Lots of people are out here doing it, and you can do the exact same, like Melissa. We talked about her already—1,700 followers, $7,500 in three weeks. This could most certainly be you.
[01:23:10] So here’s how we can work together. I have a six-step Sponsored and Secured method that teaches you exactly how to start landing corporate sponsors right now. I gave you those five secrets; we talked about that five-phase sales process, but we go further in-depth into this program—further in-depth into the strategies, processes, and tools and resources that you can use to make that happen. I want to be able to work with you and help you get there and achieve that success.
[01:23:43] So here’s what Sponsored and Secured is all about: it’s helping the beginner sponsorship seeker really develop a valuable sponsorship sales process and learn the basics of getting started. So if you are a beginner and you’ve never done this before, a lot of the course in the beginning takes you through the foundational pieces of getting sponsorships. Okay? If you are someone who’s more like, “I’ve done this before; I’ve been trying to get sponsored; I’ve landed sponsorships in the past, whether that was paid or in-kind,” but you really need a more strategic process and you also want to increase the dollar amount of your sponsorships closer to the five- and six-figure mark. Some of you might already be at six figures, and if you are, you’re more on the advanced level, but you’re just like, “Hey, I really just need a more solid strategy.” If you need that more solid strategy, then definitely Sponsored and Secured is for you.
[01:24:55] If you are an expert—like you’re an expert sponsorship seeker—and you’re really just looking to create a complete partnership plan, get repeat contracts, and eventually an exit strategy where it’s like, “I want to get sponsorships so that I no longer have to use money out of my own pocket,” which is really all of you, but I also want to get partnerships that can match my full-time salary and more, then this is definitely an opportunity for you. Because I go in and I teach you how to create a repeat process, because you want a repeat process when you are doing this. Okay? And I’m going to show you all of this insider Sponsored and Secured without losing your mind, time, or money.
[01:25:27] A lot of people who invest inside of this program are usually able to see results if they put in the work within 90 days or less. So Sponsored and Secured is basically my eight-week program that’s designed to show you how to effortlessly find sponsors for your next virtual or in-person experience in 90 days or less. But it’s also a program that’s helping you get the partnerships if you’re a speaker, if you’re hosting workshops, or if you’re an influencer. Remember in the beginning of the training, I said that my foundation, before I even started doing influencer work, the solid foundation started for me as someone that was pitching her non-profit faith-based conference. And that’s really a challenge when you’re a non-profit and faith-based. That’s a challenge. But then imagine being able to transition that to no longer really promoting a faith-based event and not really trying to get partnerships.
[01:26:34] Actually, a lot of the people that I’ve shown you in this—many of the people that I’ve shown you inside of the training tonight, all of them are for-profit founders. So none of their organizations are non-profits. I love showing you for-profit entities because many people think that in order to secure a lot of money in sponsorships, you need to be a non-profit, and that just is another misconception that is so not true. There’s lots of money out there for for-profit founders. Nothing is held back from you inside of this program because, again, I’m a helper and a teacher first. All you have to do is follow the step-by-step process that I give to you inside of this program. You use the tools and resources that I provide to you.
[01:27:06] So what you’re getting inside of Sponsored and Secured is part one, the course. You’ve got step-by-step videos to help you build your proposals, pitch emails, and secure sponsors again in 90 days or less. You also have the community—24/7 support in our private Facebook group—and all these people across the globe that are looking to achieve the same things that you’re looking to achieve. And then there’s also the group coaching. So when you’re inside of the course, everything is pre-recorded, but there are also live coaching calls. Once you sign up, you get immediate access to all of the content and the curriculum that’s inside of the course that’s designed for you.
[01:28:12] Now again, I’m going to answer your questions at the end. I see your questions; I see your hands. I’m going to get in there because I want to make sure I answer those questions, and I appreciate you guys sticking with me this far because I am going to get to your questions. But also, you get the modules now inside of the course. Now, I promise you I’m not going to charge you ten thousand dollars, or it doesn’t cost ten thousand dollars to be a part of the program. But when you look at the value, I’ve had other experts come in and look inside of the course, and they look at the material and they all go, “Jessica, you should be charging so much more for this.”
[01:28:42] But inside of the course, you’re going to get an introduction to corporate sponsorships, also an introduction on how to use audience data because so many people are leaving audience data out of their proposals. Also, the benefits and the budget—how do you actually get to what your value should be in your proposal? Because, like I said, some of y’all are here charging a thousand dollars for something that’s worth forty thousand dollars, and I’m like, “Where did you get this from? Where are you getting these numbers from?” So I’m really helping you to understand those ads, those advantages, and your value assets so that way you can truly get the money that you deserve.
[01:29:12] Also, how to build your proposal. So yes, we talked about the two-page pitch; I shared that with you. But do you also still need to have some of those longer proposals for those brands that do want it, that may not be going for the two-page pitch, or maybe you need a lot more room to communicate the value of your pitch? I show you both the two-page pitch and how to create the intro pitch, also a very thorough process. I’m even bringing in a LinkedIn expert that shows you everything that you can do with LinkedIn—how do you discover and connect with those strategic partners? And then also activate, fulfill, and renew. You get templates; you also get what you should talk about in the meeting, what questions to ask in the meeting, and then the entire process of what you should be doing.
[01:30:18] Okay? So you get a lot of things inside of the course. There’s also the community—24/7 support. I’m always in there; I love our community. But what’s even better about the community is that people are
[01:30:37] Plus Culture Organization today, 21621. She did it in three weeks. Three weeks into the course, she was someone who wanted to fast track because she was like, “We need to get this money.” So she was on a roll, going through the content quickly, participating in the coaching calls, doing everything. She simply followed the instructions, the homework assignments, and everything that had been mapped out and laid out for her inside of the course. There’s lots of support and community, not just from me but from the other people who are pitching to brands.
[01:31:09] I provide coaching to you. I do this every Tuesday at 7:00 PM Central Standard Time. I am on these calls. I told y’all we were going to be on here for 60 minutes, but clearly, I’ve been on here much longer in this training. It’s important to me that you are successful on this journey. Okay, so here are some of the things that happened during those coaching calls: I bring the brands to you. If you tell me, “Jessica, I really would love to get some feedback on a proposal,” or “I want to hear what it’s like to work with the brand,” I’ve brought in brands like Ernst & Young, Google, Toyota, and McAfee. If you say there’s a brand that you would love to see inside of the course, I’m bringing them in. I’m pitching to them to just come and share information with you, and then I’m connecting you directly to the brand.
[01:31:44] Then there are the bonuses: all of the sponsorship templates, everything—email templates, editable sponsorship templates, survey templates—everything that you need to be a success, which is valued at $5,000. But of course, I’m not going to charge you that. If you pay in full for Sponsored and Secured, I give you 15 brand contacts of your choice and a live one-on-one coaching session with me. I stopped doing one-on-one sessions unless you do a VIP sponsorship strategy session with me, which is basically a four-hour intensive. I no longer offer 60-minute sessions unless you’re someone inside of the course because it’s very time-consuming, and we can’t achieve a lot within 60 minutes. So I stopped doing them, but I’m only going to offer that to people who pay in full and sign up for the course.
[01:32:51] So I want to give you a comparison: There’s no degree in this. You can’t go to a university and learn this, but people pay $80,000 to go to school, get a degree, and still aren’t making the money that they want to make. There are people who go to trade schools; they pay $30,000 for that and maybe they make the money that they want to make. Okay, but the point that I’m trying to make is this course is valued at $15,000 plus, and I’m only giving it for $1,997, which is extremely affordable. I’ve been able to create a full-time salary out of this. Other people are able to create side hustles out of this, getting sponsorships and pursuing their passions and dreams without having to spend money out of pocket. So it’s not a lot to spend when you think about the return. As I’ve shown you, somebody just said $5,000 in three weeks. She easily made her money back in three weeks. The other person who did $5,400 easily got that back. Melissa made $7,500 in three weeks from Cricket Wireless and easily got that back. So people, when you do the work, you easily make the money back in the partnerships that you’re pitching to.
[01:33:25] So what do you do now? Where are you at right now? You get the course for $1,997. You get the course, the community, and the coaching for $1,997. You get the templates, even with what they’re valued at—all of those things are thrown in, still $1,997. Plus, if you pay in full, you get those 15 brand contacts of your choice, plus that live one-on-one session with me. It’s still $1,997. So if you invest today and you pay in full, you get the one-on-one session with me, the 15 brand contacts of your choice, which is a $3,500 value. But that live session—some of you might be asking, “Well, what does that live session with you include? How long is it?” It’s a 60-minute session doing an overview of the course, any material that you want to go over, and any questions you have. It’s a custom “where to start” strategy session, so it’s custom and tailored to you. We discuss strategies that are most important to you, and we talk about the best-fit sponsors for you. So it is a one-on-one session that’s all about you. It is not a group session; this is just me and you. Okay? Basically, I’m just giving that away at that $1,997 price if you pay in full and invest today.
[01:34:57] So your price, when you think about everything, the total value of the course, is right at about $20,000—specifically, $19,385. But you’re getting that at $1,997. Okay, so what you’re getting today if you pay in full is the Sponsored and Secured course, those editable templates, the done-for-you templates, the editable intro deck templates, the 15 brand contacts of your choice, and the live one-on-one session with me on a date that you select at a time that is more convenient for you. And there you go. All you need to do—I know some of you are probably wondering, “What’s the link?”—all you have to do is go to thesponsorshiplady.com/ training. Okay? So if you pay in full, again, this is what you’re getting: everything there, and you get immediate access to the course. So thesponsorshiplady.com/course. I’ll put that in the chat, but once you sign up, you get immediate access to the course. All of the videos and modules are already up there inside of the class. You can start doing the homework. Once a quarter, I hold a series of live group coaching calls. The next one actually starts next week, so you’re going to be coming in at the right time. It’s the perfect time for you to join. But we have a lot of fun, and again, I want to teach you, and I want to help you. So go ahead and join now. I am going to start answering questions. This has been so much fun, and I appreciate you guys rocking with me and staying on until the very end. But let me go ahead and stop sharing my screen, and I will put this inside of—let me put this inside of the chat group. Give me just one moment, and I see your questions. Oops, and I’m sorry, it’s thesponsorshiplady.com/course. So thesponsorshiplady.com/course. Let me start answering these questions.
[01:37:05] All right, so someone said, “Yes, you work in beauty.” Okay, okay, okay. So let’s see, do you have beauty brand contacts? Yes, we do. Yes, we do. So happy that you guys are enjoying the info. Let me get to the questions. Someone said, “Do you have to be a structured non-profit organization in order to get brand partnerships?” Nope, you do not. As I mentioned before, a lot of the brands that I mentioned here this evening, none of them are non-profits; all of them are for-profit entities. They are not 501(c)(3). So that’s a big misconception that you have to be a non-profit in order to get funding.
[01:38:07] Tosin, you said, “Who do you contact for these corporate sponsorships?” HR could be someone that you reach out to for sponsorships. I think the main thing is understanding what you’re offering. So if, let’s say, you are coming in and you’re providing a training or resource or some type of workshop for employees, HR might be a good department to reach out to. If you’re someone who’s an influencer, you might be reaching out to the influencer marketing department. If you are reaching out and doing a social impact or community impact, you might be reaching out to the diversity and inclusion department. Sometimes that might fall under HR, but it really just depends on what impact you are making and the solution that you are providing, and that’s going to help you determine which department you should be reaching out to. So thank you for that question, Tosin.
[01:39:10] All right, so Sarita, you said, “How do you gain the email of a larger brand when it’s not listed on their website?” A lot of times, you’re not going to find that these brands’ email addresses are listed on their website. So what you want to do is take time to use websites like Hunter (hunter.io), which is a platform where if you just put the person’s name and the company domain or the company website, it might be able to provide you with an email address. So that’s one way in which you could do it. It’s called hunter.io, or there’s also RocketReach. I don’t really like RocketReach too much because the email addresses are not always accurate, but I have seen some success with using hunter.io. Another thing that you could do is Google press releases; that’s something else that you could do to get contact information. But again, I’ve seen hunter.io be more accurate for me.
[01:40:16] Advice on cold emails: like I said, personalize it. Make sure that it’s a good fit. You want to ensure that it’s a good fit for the brand, and there’s
[01:40:43] In your emails, don’t try to pitch right away. Also, don’t send a whole bunch of information in one email. Get a call scheduled and be very strategic in that pitch email. Identify who the decision-makers are for corporate companies and who you should email. As I shared while we were going through LinkedIn, it really depends on the department, but some titles you can look for include Partnerships Manager, Director of Marketing, Diversity and Inclusion Specialist, or Director of Diversity and Inclusion. It might also be a Director of HR. I usually start my searches on LinkedIn with “influencer” if it’s an influencer opportunity, or I might put in “partnerships” if it’s a partnership opportunity. A lot of times, you will see Partnership Specialists come up, depending on the department you’re trying to reach out to and the impact you’re making or the problem you’re solving.
[01:41:18] Gabrielle, you asked if it’s best to reach out for income first to build the relationship and then ask for dollars. I don’t think you always have to ask for income first. Even if you ask for the money, like the examples I shared in the training, a lot of times we actually just asked for the dollars first, but we did that after getting on a phone call to ensure that it was a good fit. You never want to just straight-up ask for dollars in an email; you want to discuss more like, “Hey, we have opportunities and want to see if it’s a good fit first.” Hop on that discovery call, and if during the call they say, “Hey, we really don’t engage in sponsorship; we only do affiliate marketing,” I’ve had that happen. However, by communicating that this doesn’t really work for us, we were able to ask for an actual paid partnership beyond just affiliate marketing. We converted that into a paid sponsorship or partnership based on how well the proposal was put together, how well our ask was articulated, and what value they were getting. That’s something you’re not going to get through affiliate marketing.
[01:42:50] So, if you know it’s a brand that does not have a budget, you have to ask yourself if you’re willing to just accept in-kind support and hopefully transform this into a paid partnership while still getting their products in the future.
[01:43:25] Then someone asked how to actually make the first point of contact when reaching out. Are we reaching out to marketing or sponsorship? How do we actually get the right contact, the “yes” person, the one in charge of making decisions? Just like I walked you through in the training, a lot of the people I reached out to, I took the time to see who they were. I actually read their job descriptions, studied their LinkedIn pages, did additional research on the website, googled some information, and tried to find press releases—anything I could find on the individual to ensure that this was my go-to person. I also looked to see if there were other people with the same or similar job descriptions within that company to determine if I should reach out to this person or if someone else would be a better contact.
[01:44:27] I think the best thing you can do is research multiple contacts within a brand that have similar roles and see who has the highest position. Sometimes, you can get through to some of the lower positions, and they will advocate for you if you build a good relationship with them.
[01:44:58] Someone asked what role titles we should look for on LinkedIn when it comes to decision-makers. We pretty much already answered that question. Again, it really depends. I start with “partnerships,” and when you hit search for partnerships on a company’s profile page, it will show you the different titles. I’ve noticed that with all companies, a lot of the titles are different. It might be Partnerships Manager, Partnership Specialist, Diversity and Inclusion, and many other titles. It’s more focused on partnerships, where they have that in their title and their focus. It may not even be partnerships; I’ve seen titles like Sponsorship Manager. There are a variety of different titles, but I would recommend putting in “partnerships.” Once you do that, it will show you the people you should contact.
[01:46:00] I also recommend searching for “sponsorship,” “PR,” or “public relations.” That’s another department that may handle partnerships and sponsorships at times, which still falls under marketing or communications.
[01:46:31] Really good questions! Nikki said, “Thank you so much for the gems.” She asked if I have any advice on how to start the conversation on LinkedIn with decision-makers and get them to share their email addresses. Again, I think it’s about organically connecting with them. If you’ve never engaged with them in the past—maybe you’ve never liked or commented on anything on their LinkedIn page, or read an article, or even just said, “Oh my God, how are you?”—then I think you shouldn’t go for the email address right away. Connect with them first and engage with them. If there’s something interesting in their activity, mention that.
[01:47:05] Aim for three to five points of engagement organically before reaching out. After that, I think it’s okay to reach out after a second or third communication without making an ask. You could say, “Hey, I’d love to get your feedback on something. I noticed this is your role, and I’d love to know what the process is for working with Company XYZ. Would it be okay if we hopped on a quick call, or I emailed something over to you? I’d love to get your feedback.” I think simply asking for feedback first on how to engage with the brand and sponsorship is the best approach to take to get an email address, rather than immediately asking, “Hey, let’s hop on a call.”
[01:47:35] Think feedback first. You could say, “Could I send you something to take a look at and get your feedback on it?” This way, you’re not saying, “I want to partner with you,” or “I’ve got a partnership opportunity,” which you do have. Instead, it’s, “Let me just send it to you first. I want your feedback. I want to get an idea if this is even a good idea.” I think that’s the best approach to take, so I hope that was helpful.
[01:48:11] I’m really excited! Serena, yes, thank you. Does anyone have any questions about the course? Thank you so much, ABC, for putting that in the chat group. Yes, thesponsorshiplady.com/forward/courses. I’m really excited to see all of you in there, and I hope that all of you will join me. But does anyone have any final questions before we hop off? Take advantage of the opportunity! I feel like we’ve been on here for about an hour and 45 minutes. I did not think we were going to go this long, but we did.
[01:48:42] You’re so welcome, Ashley! I’m so happy that this was helpful for you. Please let me know if you have any additional questions. I’m always happy to serve and help. I love doing this; I’m a teacher first and a helper always. Yes, Adabisi, can’t wait to see you there!
[01:49:14] If there are no more questions, I will see all of you later. Thank you so much for joining in, and I hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful night. Take care, everyone! See you later.
