What Every CEO Would Tell A Sports Marketer (If They Would Listen)

What Every CEO Would Tell A Sports Marketer (If They Would Listen)

First, understand MY world.  I am in charge of an entire enterprise – and marketing typically makes up about 10% of my entire expense budget.  Sponsorships typically make up 10% of that 10% budget – or 1% of my entire budget.  I’ve got much bigger fish to fry before I get to my 1% sponsorship budget line item – people costs, facilities cost, raw materials, finished goods, etc., to name a few of the biggies.  While sponsorships are high profile – in some cases too high for my comfort – I would prefer that they were like great children – seen and not heard!

So given that you’re 1% of my budget and probably a fraction of my management headaches given my prime responsibility to increase shareholder wealth, I would offer you the following advice:

1.     Stay out of the press – period.  I’m not talking about leveraging our big investments in the sponsorships we have or are considering – that’s one of the main goals from what I can tell.  Let the sponsored properties talk for us with our concurrence and guidance.  But please don’t put us in the spotlight – it will only lead to more tough questions for me regarding how we are spending our hard-earned money!

2.     Please figure out how to measure what we are getting out of these relationships.  While you’re just 1% of my budget, you can become 100% of my time if a board member or press article brings an investment under scrutiny.  When that happens, and it will happen, give me the ammunition to defend what a great investment these sponsorships have been for us.  Do not wait until I need the data to go try and find it – or even worse, invent it.  You should be the manager and have this knowledge on the tip of your tongue at all times.

3.     Find a way to make these investments valuable to every part of our business.  Please don’t make it only about signage or seats at some venue.  We have a diversified business with business-to-consumer needs and business-to-business needs.  We have to squeeze out every bit of value for all of our businesses – not just our consumer-facing businesses or just our client/partner business.  As you add value, track and report it (see number 2 above!).

4.     Make our investments relevant and important to our employees/associates.  Make out people proud of our investments by involving them and rewarding them for working so hard for us. If this is perceived as the exclusive domain of our senior managers, it will only create divisiveness and dissention.

5.     Open new doors for us with the other sponsors. We have a common point of interest, and probably share at least some brand values. Make introductions for our sales team, and track where it goes, using numbers that matter to me. I’m not talking cocktail parties, I’m talking business meetings (see number 2 above, again!).

6.     Please tell me that our social media team is all over this sponsorship, as a vehicle for driving consumer (and employee) engagement. I may not understand the value of social media to us quite yet, but I want to make sure we are playing in this space as a hedge against future value.

7.     Improve the performance of our sponsorships every year. Any program, no matter how good, can get stale over time. Pare the under-performing components, and use those savings to try something new that can be readily measured. Then shift resources for the best returns. This is smart management. You won’t regret taking reasonable risks if there is solid business rationale behind them.

8.     Challenge our sacred cows. Don’t be afraid to tell me that our biggest sponsorship investment has stopped delivering results or is on a downward trajectory. This just might be the perfect time for a major shift in sponsorship strategy. If not, we need to find a way to get our current relationships back on track. These are big decisions and can’t be made overnight. I need an early heads-up.

9.     Keep an up-to-date risk assessment of all of our relationships. If one of them begins to cross from “green” to “yellow,” I want to know well before we see “red.”

10. Always deliver to me any “cut roses!”  Once the roses are cut, they will bloom very quickly and then start to die.  This my way of saying let me know when you have bad news – it will not get better with time – it never does – just like cut roses.  Just tell me you have some roses for me – I will understand and appreciate the difficulty in conjuring up the courage to deliver the flowers.

There you have it.  Simple rules about how I would like to work with you on a daily, weekly, quarterly and yearly basis.  This is not difficult – but please, please try to see the world through my goggles – they are quite a different color than yours – I would really appreciate it.

Thanks, your CEO