Sponsorship for Athletes

By Vickie Saunders

Sponsorship for Athletes removes the mystery about sponsorship and reveals exactly how you can engage valuable, lasting sponsor relationships to help you fulfil your sporting ambitions.
Within these pages you’ll find what you need to know to obtain, maintain and retain sponsors: How sponsorship works and the incredible benefits it offers you. Connecting with the right sponsors in the right way! How to plan, strategise and create winning proposals! Engaging in effective communication with sponsors - and create mutually beneficial relationships!

• Language: English
• Publisher: VIckie Saunders
• Release date: Apr 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9780992441227

Book preview

Sponsorship for Athletes

SPONSORSHIP

FOR ATHLETES

of all levels in all types of sport!

How to obtain, maintain and

retain valuable sponsorship.

Vickie Saunders

Copyright © 2014, Vickie Saunders

Sponsorship for Athletes

First published in 2014

The Sponsorship Consultants Melbourne, Australia

This book is not intended to provide personalised legal, financial, or investment advice. The author specifically disclaims any liability, loss or risk which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any contents of this work.

ISBN 978-0-9924412-2-7

Book & Cover Design: Integral Graphics P/L Print: Minuteman Press, Prahran  [phone] Editor: William Morgan  [e-mail] Copyright © 2014 Vickie Saunders

The right of Vickie Saunders to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright holder except in accordance with the provisions of the copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright holders written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the author.

Heartfelt Thank You’s to…

Jonathan Saunders (my Dad who tried to retire from graphic design! Sorry), Integral Graphics.

Mum, because she will never forgive me if I don’t thank her. Thank you for everything (particularly spellchecking and proofreading this book!) xx.

Richard, my incredible partner who has shown me what it means to go beyond your limits and keep smiling.

Will, my editor and long time friend. My family.

Daniel Priestley for writing the Key Person of influence book,

and David M Hobson for sending it to me (the day I started reading it was the day I started writing this book).

To Matt Church and Peter Cook, Thought Leaders Business School is changing my life and my business in ways I have only ever dreamed of (and more).

To all my friends, I want to thank YOU for being awesome. You know who you are, and I will personally thank you next time I see you….which I hope will be soon.

Here’s what athletes are saying……

My new favourite book!

John Dutton Marathon runner

This book is an awesome read , easy to understand and follow, gets you thinking a lot about your potential

Jup Brown ultra runner

One of Vickie’s key recommendations was to ‘take action’. I have taken action and it has already started opening doors!

Donna Urquhart athlete

Knowledge is power and The Sponsorship Consultants offer all the sponsorship knowledge you need!

Oska Inkster-Baynes distance runner

Easy to read and straight to the point. I definitely thought you had to be a high performer to have a sponsor!

Tom Giles triathlete

PURPOSE

‘Sponsorship for Athletes’ is based on the Complete Sponsorship Programme which gives athletes the skills, knowledge and resources to engage valuable and long lasting sponsorships.

This book is an introduction to our proven approach of obtaining, maintaining and retaining valuable sponsorship agreements from companies. After reading this book you will understand the fundamentals of how you can become a sponsored athlete by successfully engaging the right sponsors for you.

Some books on sponsorship take you into very complex, analytical and to be honest, quite confusing levels of detail that for individual athletes are simply irrelevant. They provide the kind of detail that large organisations may use during their negotiations with a national sports league such as the AFL, where sponsorships are multi-million dollar contracts.

This book keeps it simple, factual, informative and helps you to understand how using a simple yet effective approach can result in you achieving your sponsorship goals.

INTRODUCTION

The Sponsorship Consultants have years of experience in obtaining, maintaining and retaining valuable relationships with sponsors. We understand how it works and how to make it work for you as an athlete. In this book I’m going to shed light on the mystery of sponsorship – what it is, what it isn’t and who can get it. As you read this book, it will make sense to you too. It’s exciting stuff!

The most exciting thing I want to share with you is that almost any athlete can get sponsored and I definitely do not just mean I can help you get a free t-shirt. There is much more on offer. There are opportunities for you to engage in valuable and ongoing sponsorships that will not only change your life in sport but have the capacity to change your life for the better in so many ways.

How you look at sponsorship must be more than just trying to get something for free. You will need to take the right approach to engage, maintain and retain sponsorship and as you read this book you will learn how this is done.

There are simple steps you can take to identify what your sponsorship needs are, who you can obtain sponsorship from and what you have to offer them in return which makes it a great opportunity for companies to jump on board and sponsor you.

I believe that sponsorship is not just for elite athletes as there is so much more involved than simply proving your prowess on the sporting field. It’s about your ability to engage in professional relationships with your sponsors and provide them with valuable return on their investments, which at the end of the day has a positive impact on their bottom line, either directly or indirectly.

This book provides you with an insight and understanding of how successful sponsorships work, how they are identified, engaged, maintained and retained. The most important thing for you to remember is that you are unique and that your sponsors are unique therefore there is not a ‘one size fits all’ outcome but there is a proven series of steps to take to develop these valuable relationships.

You will gain a clear understanding of what to do, what not to do, what to look for and what to offer when engaging sponsors.

After reading this book you will have the confidence and knowledge to commence your own sponsorship journey or improve on the one you have already started. Get excited, get ready to take a great big step in the right direction and engage the sponsorship that will allow you to achieve your sporting dreams.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vickie Saunders is the founder of The Sponsorship Consultants, and is fast becoming one of Australia's most recognised thought leaders on athlete sponsorship.

Her combined passion for athlete sponsorship and identifying opportunities within and between existing networks led her to start The Sponsorship Consultants, with a clear focus on empowering athletes and sponsors with the knowledge, skills and strategies to create and manage commercially effective sponsorship.

Vickie has developed a practical, relevant methodology for athletes and businesses to engage, maintain and retain valuable and effective sponsorships. Her sponsorship work focuses on the relationships already in place as well as the creation of new partnerships, and facilitating the process of their development over time through empowering her clients with skills, tools and knowledge.

Vickie is a powerful speaker, trainer and coach.  She splits her time between delivering seminars, workshops, and sponsorship programmes.

Her book ‘Sponsorship for Athletes’ has inspired and empowered hundreds of athletes, and is soon to be followed with her business book ‘How to Sponsor Athletes’.

PROLOGUE

On Christmas day 2010 at my Dad’s house in Melbourne, all the family were sitting around talking about their plans for future. We decided to set some goals, not resolutions but one thing that we would do in the next year, big or small.

The ideas ranged from going on an overseas trip to learning how to knit, then my partner Richard announced to my family (and me!) that he wanted to be the first person to run the world’s longest trail: the 5,330km Bicentennial National Trail (BNT) that runs from Healesville in Victoria to Cooktown in Queensland.

We were all a little stunned, I started grinning, he turned his head towards me with a slightly raised eyebrows and asked What do you reckon? Me being me, I said, Let’s do it! The idea that my boyfriend was brave (or insane) enough to want to take on such a huge and never achieved before challenge just blew my mind, there was no way I wanted to miss out.

After we got home that night, I was lying in bed, alive with questions. Do you really think you can run all that way? How far will you run each day? How will I support you? Who will teach us how to read maps? What about snakes? How are we going to afford it? What about my job? It was then I got a tiny glimpse of just