Sponsorship: Lesson in being flexible

One big theme in my career of sponsorship sales has been the ability to be flexible. Whether it’s during a negotiation, post sale or actually activating the sponsorship. Things will not always go down exactly as they should on paper. Here’s a recent example where flexibility paid off.

This past weekend I was in Los Angeles with Olympic fencer Alex Massialas for his Massialas Fencing Tour powered by Panda Express. The event was awesome. But we did have a slight hiccup with the apparel for the attendees when it came to correct sizes and quantities.

There was definitely a moment of stress and anxiety. But from that, we quickly came up with a new idea. During the middle of the event, we went to a nearby UPS Store and printed off several dozen copies of cardstock high gloss 8.5 x 11-inch autograph cards for the kids. The finished product came out super clean and looked even better than we had imagined!

We gave these out to each of the kids to have as a souvenir for Alex to sign. There were even parents asking for extra copies to give to family or put up in their home office. Ha!

It was a great example of how to turn an unexpected hiccup into a memorable moment for the sponsorship.