In Concert

In Concert Building positive working relationships between education and your local business community.

Inspiring tomorrow’s musicians today! GSM

2010 www.geoffsecombmusic.com.au

Imagine I came to your front door asking you to donate your hard earned money to a wonderful organisation that wanted to provide a new service to children. It’s 9pm on a Friday evening and I thought I’d drop in on you after my football training. I’m wearing my sweats and smell like an old shoe but I’m full of enthusiasm. Unfortunately I don’t have any written information to give you to read later so I insist that you hear it personally from me right now! How likely is it that you’re going to be your usual generous self? Ok, so the example is extreme but unfortunately, that’s exactly what many small businesses feel when approached for money by local organisations. The approach is usually done during busy business hours, without an appointment and with little or no written information that can be left with them to consider. Few successful business people are going to make a positive decision under these circumstances. Of course, this means that small business develops the reputation of being difficult to deal with and less than generous in their financial assistance – not a fair assessment. What sort of impact do you think you would have if you stood out from the crowd and did things completely differently? The information in this document has been developed through many years of working within the education and small business sectors. Please use this document as a guide. This guide does not offer legal advice or replace your school’s procedures. What it does do is highlight the challenges both parties face when seeking to establish a mutually beneficial working relationship.



Walk and talk like a business person. Ok, so you did your degree in education, not business. Why do you have to walk and talk like a business person? I have to share a truth with you here – you are asking them to hand over their hard earned cash in difficult economic times. If it is evident that you respect this point you will find that your local business community is far more open to hearing your proposal. Your respect will be evident in how and when you approach business managers. Making an appointment to present a professional looking proposal will win you many brownie points. It’s the little things that count. For instance, perhaps your initial meeting can be at a local cafe (where you buy the coffee) or, if the business person can’t leave their premises, find out what they drink and take a coffee to them. Respect is shown in little things. Now, all this wonderful schmoozing will get you nowhere if you sit down with your prospective business sponsor and hand him/her a post-it note containing a dollar amount and your phone number. So, let’s take a look at how you can continue your professional approach through a written proposal.

What does a sponsorship proposal look like? The amount of detail you put into your sponsorship proposal really depends on the amount of money you’re looking for and the size of the organisation you are approaching. $100 from your local newsagent may only require a letter from you and their logo acknowledged in the school newsletter for a few weeks. However $1000 will require more consideration and preparation on your part.

IMPORTANT: The most important element of a successful sponsorship approach is “getting inside the head of the business owner”. You have to approach this from his/her

perspective. In marketing, it is considered the holy grail of “knowing thy market!” Remember, business people don’t think like educators – they think like business people!

Let’s get started ...



1. Introduce yourself to the business Without writing a book tell the prospective sponsor about your school, a little history, what you’ve achieved and what you hope to do in the future. Then give them a low down on your music program, what it’s achieving, and testimonials from students and parents, how many students participate, the school bands and any community performances they’ve done, that sort of thing. Tell them about the reason you are seeking sponsorship and what it will do for the students/program. Perhaps you are producing a school musical that will allow a wide cross section of the school to gain valuable public performance skills such as confidence. It’s important that you give the potential sponsor the opportunity to get to know your program. Help them to bond emotionally by including stories from students about how the music program has helped them gain confidence, for example. This helps the potential sponsor to make their decision. Even better is if you can find connections between your school and the business. Do a little research and learn something about the business you want to approach. You’ll have a better chance of standing out from the crowd of sponsorship seekers if you show you know something about the way they work and who they are. Provide contact details of the person/school contact who will manage this relationship. Business owners are busy, just like you, and appreciate being able to communicate with the same person each time. The more detail you provide the more trust you will generate.

If you are posting your proposal to a number of different businesses, make sure you find out the name of the person you should address the proposal to. Never send a proposal to “The Manager”. It’s all about relationship building.



2. What’s in it for me? It may sound crass but this whole process is about you asking for someone else’s money. Therefore you should always be thinking about what they will get out of the project. You’ve got to come up with low cost promotional benefits with “kick”. How much you offer the sponsor in benefits depends on the amount of money they are providing.

• List all the benefits and promotional opportunities available to the business. The business wants to help but they have to know what’s in it for them.

• Details of the numbers and types of people likely to attend the school musical, for example, where the business’s logo and promotional material could be used and how often.

Some obvious benefits for sponsors are:

• Put the sponsors logo on every publication produced for the project. • Include the sponsor’s logo in all advertising and mention them in any

media coverage. • Add the sponsor’s logo to your school website with a direct link back to

their website (if they have one). • If your project is an event, perhaps the sponsor would

like to include some promotional material, such as a retractable banner. This promotional material and banner is at the sponsors expense (businesses often have printed material and banners on hand anyway).

• Look after your sponsors and give them free tickets to your event or special band performances. Be sure to acknowledge their presence to the audience.

• For larger sponsorship deals, naming rights of the event can be attractive.



If your sponsorship is for a specific event, such as a school musical, the prospective sponsor will find what, where, when, who, why and how information useful.

• What is the event. • Where will it be held. • When will it be held. • Who will attend (Specify any VIPs, politicians, etc). • Why is the event being held. • How many people are expected to attend the event.



3. Keep your promises! One of the areas where sponsorship relationships fall down is follow through. You may have looked good on paper in the beginning but if you aren’t organised and don’t ensure the sponsor receives the promised benefits you can kiss any future sponsorship opportunities with that business goodbye.

The K.I.S.S. Principal Keep a simple list, delegate and have a process for accountability. If you do forget something, be sure to communicate with the business as soon as possible and negotiate an alternative benefit. Remember – build the relationship! Create a file containing copies of items that mention your sponsor and the project, such as newspaper editorials, programs, and notes to parents with the sponsor’s logo on it, advertisements – absolutely everything. When the sponsorship period has ended, compile this material in an attractive way and meet with the business owner to hand it over. Even better! Buy him or her a coffee. You may like to prepare a final report, especially for larger sponsorship deals. If the sponsorship deal is an ongoing one, for example sponsorship of your concert program, meet or communicate with your sponsor regularly to make sure they are happy. A well maintained sponsorship relationship has the potential to be long lasting and fruitful for both parties.

A NOTE TO THE WISE – if you know you don’t delegate well – LEARN TO! If you try to do this entire task on your own, you’ll end up in a corner sucking your thumb before the end of first semester. There

are many small tasks that can be delegated to an enthusiastic parent or another staff member. Remember to maintain your simple “follow through” list and record everything. It will make this whole process much more productive and certainly save your sanity.



4. Show me the money.

Again, it sounds crass, but monetary support is why you’re doing all this, right? You’re now at the stage in your proposal where you let the potential sponsor know exactly what it is you’d like. Be straightforward, make suggestions and be prepared to negotiate.

For example, if you are seeking monetary sponsorship for a school play, provide information about your costs and the total amount you require. If the total value is $2000, you could break it down into “packages” to give sponsors other options besides the word “no”. For example, Gold $1000, Silver $500 and Bronze $250 with graduating levels of promotional benefits within each package.

Develop your “packages” to reflect your event and marketing resources. Electronic marketing provides enormous opportunities for promotion.

Gold Sponsorship ($1000) Benefits: Sponsors logo on all music program printed material for the year; inclusion of the sponsors logo on the school website for the year (with a reciprocal link); inclusion of the sponsors logo in the school newsletter for the year; Public acknowledgement in the school newsletter of the sponsor in an article written by the head of music; opportunity for the sponsor to personally hand over the cheque on school assembly; place to display a retractable banner (or printed promotional material) at all music performances and concerts for the year (excluding offsite performances with restrictions on signage, such as music festivals).

Silver Sponsorship ($500) Benefits: Sponsors logo on all music program printed material for six months; inclusion of the sponsors logo on the school website for six months (with a reciprocal link); inclusion of the sponsors logo in the school newsletter for six months; Public acknowledgement in the school newsletter of the sponsor in an article written by the head of music; opportunity for the sponsor to personally hand over the cheque on school assembly; place to display a retractable banner (or printed promotional material) at all music performances and concerts for six months (excluding offsite performances with restrictions on signage, such as music festivals).



Bronze Sponsorship ($250) Benefits: Sponsors logo on all music program printed material for six months; inclusion of the sponsors logo on the school website for six months (with a reciprocal link); inclusion of the sponsors logo in the school newsletter for six months; Public acknowledgement in the school newsletter of the sponsor in an article written by the head of music; opportunity for the sponsor to personally hand over the cheque on school assembly.



5. Sponsorship Agreements In small scale sponsorship deals, the sponsorship agreement may come down to a handshake, but if the deal is more significant or your sponsor requests one, it may be necessary to draft a formal agreement for both parties to sign. The agreement would list what money or goods the sponsor will provide and the promotional services being provided by your school in exchange. This document should be developed in conjunction with school leadership to ensure it is satisfies all formal legal requirements. When you think you’ve finished with everything, go back to No. 3 and check that you have followed through with all your sponsors. Ask them to give you feedback on their experience, with the purpose of improving your sponsorship approach. And remember to tell them that you would love to work with them again.

Never assume people know what you want. Be bold and ask. You never know what you might get.

We trust this document will encourage you to see your local business community as people who desire to give back to their community. Together you can inspire tomorrow’s musicians today! This eGuide is the copyright property of Geoff Secomb Music, Brisbane, Australia [07 3893 0983]. Please copy it for your own use but we encourage you to be mindful of your paper usage, and recommend our website to others so they can make their own copy. This eGuide is free to you but please don’t alter it in any way; and selling it is definitely out of the question.

In Concert

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