How to Build a Brand that Attracts Sponsors

Many entrepreneurs and content creators would love to land sponsorship deals for the work they create, whether it’s a podcast, video series, or even underwriting a book or series of articles. But how can you do it? 

In my book Entrepreneurial You., I interviewed Michael Parrish DuDell, who is an international keynote speaker, entrepreneur, bestselling author, and commentator featured regularly on CNN, CNBC, Fox Business News, and NBC News. He has a robust platform today - but of course he didn’t start out that way. He had to build his credibility and his public presence from scratch. 

By the way, if you’ve been considering a new business venture, starting a blog for your business, or adding additional streams of revenue to your career portfolio, check out my Entrepreneurial You self-assessment questionnaire here to start building the career you want.

Here are three scrappy tips from Michael on how you can establish your expertise and perhaps even attract the attention of outside sponsors. 

Start by creating your own work. Many professionals have the process backwards: they wish and hope for a talent agent or speaking agent or literary agent to represent them, and assume that person will help them land gigs. Actually, the reverse is true: you have to make your own opportunities and that will help you land an agent. Michael garnered initial attention by creating his own web series well before he had any credits on major networks. “My goal was to just do something that was well produced,” he says. “I'm all about good production value. As it turns out, Forbes came on as a media partner and I got Citrix to be our financial sponsor. My only goal in doing it was so that I had a body of work that I could point to so that when somebody said, ‘Hey, we want to put this guy on camera, but he doesn't have anything,’ I could say, ‘Wait a second, I have this whole series. This will give you an example.’”

Leverage the power of potential. Before Michael landed sponsors for his web series, he was taking meetings pitching his show. As he recalls, “On one of my last meetings they said,’You know, listen. If you produce something, and you create it, and you bring it to us, we might come on board at the end, but we'd have to see it first.’” Michael shot his series and planned to launch without any sponsor or distribution partner and then attempt to sell the second season. But Seth Godin, who has been a great mentor to both Michael and me, gave him a valuable piece of advice: “Sometimes it is easier to sell something before you take it out of the box than it is to sell something once it's already taken out of the box. Once you take it out of the box, you can sort of see it, and you can measure it, and you can compare it. If it hasn't been released yet, selling that specialness is in fact a lot easier.” Michael pushed back the series launch almost an entire quarter, and was able to get both Forbes and Citrix to sign onto the project by creating an appealing trailer. 

Don’t underestimate the value of competition. Michael originally took a straightforward approach with his pitch to potential sponsors. “I was selling the potential of the project,” he recalls. “I was selling the potential of the guests. I was selling the opportunity, for a relatively low cost, to associate yourself with something that was important, and that was viewed positively in the eyes of the audience, or your desired audience, and no one was biting.” Once again, Seth Godin came through with a powerful insight. As Michael recalls, “Seth said, ‘People buy sponsorship for one of two reasons. They buy them because they have budget, and they're senior leader, and they trust the person selling it, and that's the best way, or they buy it because they don't want their competitor to get it.’” Michael switched his strategy, emphasizing that sponsoring his show meant that competitors couldn’t, and was able to land a great deal.

If you’re interested in learning more about landing corporate sponsorships, check out my previous newsletter article on - wait for it! - “How to Land Corporate Sponsorships.”

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All the best,

Dorie