What we do in the sponsorship industry is not rocket science or open-heart surgery. Whether we are buying, selling, managing, advising, or fulfilling on sponsorships, it isn’t that complicated—and no one will die if we make a small error. But sometimes we make things so complicated.
When I was on the street selling, I often concocted amazing custom-designed packages with cool activations and tons of labour required to make them happen. Today, I watch clients do the same. They either overcomplicate (as I did) or fail to fully develop an idea through collaboration.
Activation, as I always say, is the key ingredient to making a sponsorship work, but it does not have to be complicated or convoluted. KISS—keep it simple stupid! Figure out what the goal is and then build a plan to achieve it. Don’t overthink or complicate it. Get help from your partner, from other members of your team, and their team. Work through several ideas and renditions of ideas, and build a simple and effective plan.
During an interview, Steve Jobs once said, “When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can sometimes arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions.”
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