How to Attract and Retain Sponsors and Partners
2022 Workshops
The next workshop will take place later in 2022
There’s a process for attracting the right sponsors and corporate partners – and to ensure your relationships are robust, so that you retain them year after year. If your methods of attracting and retaining sponsors are not getting you the results you need, then join Richard Woodward at this highly practical two-day workshop that will enable you to secure long-term revenue for your organisation through sponsorships and corporate partners.
Not only will you practice the key skills, learn the essential knowledge and adopt the invaluable attitudes necessary to attract and retain corporate partners, but you’ll also leave with business development techniques that you can use for many years to come.
Gain insights from Richard’s experience on
both sides of partnerships
Richard Woodward is uniquely qualified to teach this workshop having worked on both sides of sponsorship and as a business development trainer.
As author of the book How to Attract and Retain Sponsors and Partners, Richard shares a wealth of real-world business experience. This is a unique opportunity to delve into this specialised area with a highly skilled and qualified trainer who has trod the path before you and assisted many people like you.
What this workshop covers
In a small group setting of around 16 participants, the attracting and retaining corporate partners and sponsors workshop takes you through the key stages of the sales and retention process.
What makes an effective sponsorship seeker
Understand the essential attitude, skills and knowledge of effective sponsorship seekers so that you can practice and embody these. Uncover the key questions you need to address in your sponsorship strategy so that you can confidently develop and present your strategy to your board. Richard will reveal the nine bonuses that sponsors can give you, besides dollars, that bring huge value to your organisation. Learn the ten reasons why most organisations fail to attract and retain sponsors and corporate partners – so that you can avoid these.
Understanding the sponsorship market
Knowing why companies undertake to sponsor organisations is crucial to success. We look at why sponsorship is such a powerful marketing and business development tool and what particular business objectives can be achieved through sponsorship.
Developing your proposition
Examining exactly what we have to offer our potential partners will turbocharge our success rate – we run through how to successfully determine what your organisation has to offer. We look at what a proposition is (and what it’s not) and how this is critical to your success in attracting and retaining partners. You’ll discover how to craft a compelling proposition while avoiding the crucial mistake that unsuccessful seekers make in their proposition development. You’ll know exactly what essential information you must provide corporates on your audiences and communication channels, as well as the different types of sponsorship properties and how to determine which to concentrate on.
Quick and effective valuation and pricing
Take the heartache out of valuing and pricing your sponsorship with Richard’s six-step approach for determining your sponsorships value and seven considerations on how and when to present your price.
Finding the right prospects
Cut down your time by honing your focus on the right prospects to approach – those who are best qualified to be attracted to your sponsorship proposition. Together, we’ll get started on your business development activity plan so that you can enjoy a constant flow of qualified sponsorship prospects to approach.
Refining prospects
Identifying high value prospects to focus your time and energy on is critical to success. We examine the right amount of research to invest to enjoy a significant uptake in your successful approaches including three questions that must be answered before approaching any prospect.
Approaching prospects
Confidence is crucial, but it’s hard to stay motivated when your efforts don’t yield the desired results. We uncover the five different ways to approach a prospect, the language to use to woo and impress and exactly how to structure a phone call or emails with prospects so that they’re eager to meet you. Plus, we look at how to give a compelling summary of your partnership opportunity in just one powerful page.
Attracting prospects so that they approach you
Make yourself and your organisation highly desirable to key players in your field with attraction marketing techniques that put you in front of prospects.
Meeting prospects
The all-important first meeting can soar – or sink. Together, we cover exactly how to prepare for your first meeting with prospects to leave them wanting more.
Building rapport and enduring relationships
Building rapport is essential to building relationships – it powerfully increases your influence to bring about the desired effect. Learn how to systematically build rapport and see how this naturally translates into new sponsors, partnership retention and recurring revenue.
Uncovering your prospects’ needs through asking better questions
Learning how to ask better questions to uncover the underlying, deeper needs of your prospects will bring about a dramatic increase in your conversion rates. Practice Richard’s widely renowned questioning and listening process as we explore the exact questions to ask that will enable you to better sell to your prospects.
Solutions that sell through collaboration
Discover a highly effective questioning technique that explores solutions, together with your prospect, so that you can present a proposal that really hits the mark.
Presenting compelling proposals to ‘yes!’
Your proposal needs to speak to your prospect’s needs, leading to an inevitable “yes, where do we sign?” Together, we go through the structure and presentation of a winning proposal, five visual aids to use when selling, and the difference between key facts documents, opportunity documents and proposals. The invaluable easy-to-use checklists mean that you can easily replicate effective proposals and presentations to win new partners for years to come.
Closing the sale
No sale – or rejection – should ever be a surprise after we uncover how to build commitment throughout your prospect relationship and how to read buying signals so that you can quickly recalibrate your approach and respond accordingly. We look at five techniques for provoking action and a five step approach for overcoming classic objections such as “we don’t have the budget”.
Retaining sponsors and corporate partners
When you’re better able to retain sponsors and corporate partners, you’re working smarter, not harder. We explore the mindset, tools and techniques for effectively managing and servicing sponsor relationships, including how to develop a Partnership Implementation Plan and run a Corporate Partners' Workshop to help your partners maximise their investment. This is the retention strategy Richard has facilitated for organisations such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Queensland Ballet, West Australian Ballet, Learning Links, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Landcare Australia, Royal Botanic Gardens, Cerebral Palsy Alliance, Screen Producers Australia.
Maximising your personal performance
Seeking sponsorships and corporate partners is a long sales cycle. Learn seven techniques for maintaining a positive attitude throughout your process and practical ways to boost your team’s performance.
Workshop outcomes:
The right sponsorship relationship is more than the sum of its parts, not only delivering essential revenue to an organisation, but bringing countless mutually beneficial results for many years.
FAQs
Who is this workshop best suited for?
This workshop is especially suited to corporate partnership managers, sponsorship managers, business development managers as well as development managers working in arts, culture, sports, charity, health, environment, education, association and events sectors tasked with securing corporate partners and sponsors and managing those relationships.
Most importantly, it’s for people who are ready and wanting to improve their personal performance in attracting and retaining sponsors so that their organisation can achieve better results.
This workshop is a fantastic opportunity to meet and network with people in similar roles in different organisations across a variety of sectors.
Who is this workshop NOT suitable for?
This workshop is not relevant for people who are satisfied with their performance and results. This workshop is for motivated individuals who are willing to invest their time to implement the workshop materials so that they can experience greater results and measure their improvements.
How advanced is this workshop?
This workshop caters to a broad range of skill-sets and experiences from a wide variety of sectors and industries.
Will Richard himself be delivering this workshop?
Absolutely. Richard delivers all public workshops marketed under the Richard Woodward & Associates brand. Richard has personally delivered public workshops over the last 18 years across all major Australian capital cities and New Zealand.
How many workshop participants will there be?
Workshop numbers are limited to around 16 participants to make this as interactive and valuable as possible. As numbers are deliberately kept low and due to the highly interpersonal nature of the workshop, this is NOT the kind of training where you can catch up on work. You’ll be drawn on to share your experiences, apply the learning on the spot, give feedback to other participants and reflect on what you’ve learnt.
What system or methods will be covered in this workshop?
Drawing on his 34 years experience, Richard uses training and facilitation methodologies to apply a business development process to the world of sponsorship and partnership sales and retention.
What materials will participants receive?
All workshop participants receive a copy of Richard’s book, How to Attract and Retain Sponsors and Partners as part of the ticket price. The course is fully catered and includes morning tea, afternoon tea and lunch over the two days.
In How to Attract and Retain Sponsors and Partners, Richard has solidified his experience and expertise into a highly valuable resource with plenty of detailed information, resources, templates and case studies. This book is invaluable to refer to when developing your sponsorship strategy, making sales calls, preparing for meetings and development proposals.
Who is Richard Woodward and what makes him qualified to lead this workshop?
Richard Woodward is particularly qualified to train people in attracting and retaining corporate partners and sponsors having worked on both sides of sponsorship over many years. His first experience in sponsorship was in 1987 when he managed a lawn bowls sponsorship while working as a Marketing Executive for a construction company in the UK.
Since then, Richard has had senior roles on both sides of sponsorship for leading organisations. He was National Sponsorship Manager at the Commonwealth Bank and Marketing Manager at KPMG and, alternately, was Sponsorship Manager at Sydney Opera House and Marketing Manager at Stadium Australia. In these roles, Richard managed sponsorships ranging from cricket and netball to ballet, festivals and community days
Over the last 18 years, Richard has developed strategies and provided training and coaching to countless sectors seeking sponsorship. He has worked with leading players in the worlds of arts, culture, sports, charities, events, music, environment, health and education as well as corporations.
Richard is a frequent speaker on sponsorship and partnerships at industry conferences, presenting at Australian Sponsorship Marketing Association/Sponsorship Australasia conference on seven occasions, the Fundraising Institute of Australia (FIA) Conference five times, the Big 4 Fundraising & Philanthropy Conference four times, Fundraising Institute of New Zealand (FINZ) Conference on three occasions, plus the Culture Business Conference in Sydney and Melbourne, Communicating the Museum in Paris, Audi Marketing & Corporate Communications Conference, Sponsorship News Conference, The Business of Events Conference, Regional Events Conference, Associations Forum National Conference, International Not for Profit Convention & Exhibition (INCE), Professional Conference Organisers Association Conference, Asia Pacific Association Executives Congress (APAEC), Australian Business Events Expo (ABEE), Australian Events Symposium, Meetings & Events Australia (MEA) National Conference, Exhibitions and Events Association (EEA) Annual Conference and Events Queensland Regional Events Conference.
This is not a workshop run by a consultant with limited business experience. Richard is a highly experienced, qualified trainer with the exact business experience on which he teaches. This is an invaluable opportunity to learn from someone who has trod the path before you and assisted many others like you.
ESSENTIAL INFORMATION
Workshop dates: Late 2022, dates TBC
Location: Sydney CBD, Venue TBC
Times: Day 1: 9am - 5pm; Day 2: 9am - 4pm.
Investment: $1450 per person (ex GST).
Includes: Coffee on arrival, lunch, morning and afternoon tea, plus a copy of Richard’s book How to Attract and Retain Sponsors and Partners.
Each workshop participant receives a copy of Richard's book How to Attract and Retain Sponsors and Partners.
Course bookings terms & conditions
Subject to availability, a place will be reserved for you at the workshop for 14 days and a tax invoice will be sent to you via email. In the event that the workshop is over-subscribed, you’ll have the opportunity to be wait listed.
Confirmations: On receipt of full payment within 14 days, your registration will be confirmed via email. Payments received after 14 days cannot be guaranteed registration. Payment must be received prior to workshop attendance.
Refunds: Full refunds will be paid where a cancellation of registration is received in writing at least 21 days before the workshop. Within 21 days of the workshop, no refunds will be permitted.
Substitution: Substitute delegates will be permitted subject to prior arrangement.
Note: Richard Woodward & Associates reserves the right not to accept a registration. It may be necessary for reasons beyond the control of Richard Woodward & Associates to change the date or venue. In the unlikely event of the workshop being cancelled, a full refund will be paid.
Note: Richard may record parts of his presentations for use on his social media and website. As a participant, you may appear briefly in view.
Register now
Workshop numbers are strictly limited to around 16 people and are often over-subscribed.