A BIG shoutout to Charmaine Hammond, sponsorship guru
Thank you Charmaine for inspiring me to ASK and be creative with how I get things for my business.
A reminder to ASK for what you want/need. And a BIG shoutout to Charmaine Hammond, sponsorship guru, for showing how to creatively use sponsorship.
I’m holding my first public event on Saturday for which I need all kinds of things from pens to food to sound equipment. I’ve had the advice Charmaine provided in our chapter session on sponsorship the whole time and I’ve managed to get the following things at a discount or for free:
- FREE office space for myself for a year and another person for a year as a prize, from a local WorkSpace franchise who is our title sponsor
- Most excited about this because there are days when you need to be around other people. The office is great. Comes with support, and would have cost me $1500+ for the year.
- Drinks for my VIP reception (Free from a local juice company)
- Food (discounted by a new caterer looking for exposure to this market)
- Tables of tickets sold to past corporate clients in exchange for recognizing them in our program and Facebook page
- Pens for attendees to take notes
- And my favourite just happened...
- I wanted a red carpet for a “red carpet photo” as people enter. No idea where to find one and didn’t want to buy one and have to store it. So I asked on Facebook. Someone suggested “what about a car dealership?” so I reached out to our local Mercedes dealer. He wrote right back: “If I get you a red carpet could I park a car in front of your event for the night?” Um... can you park a new Mercedes in front of my event entrance? I guess so 😉
So thank you Charmaine for inspiring me to ASK and be creative with how I get things for my business.
Now for you reading this the question is... how can you leverage what you do, to create win-win exchanges between you and suppliers of things you need.