How to land a corporate sponsor (even in a bad economy)

The never-ending dream of many authors, speakers, business owners and entrepreneurs is to have a giant corporation pluck them out of the mass of working stiffs and whisk them away to a life of luxury.

They see themselves representing those big companies onstage at giant speaking events,  at book signings that draw hundreds of readers at book stores across the planet, and at corporate events where they’re the guest of honor.

It doesn’t quite work that way. But if you’re lucky enough to land a corporate sponsorship, life can still be very good, thank you.

Truth is, luck has little to do with it. Neither does a bad economy.

If poor corporate earnings have kept you from pursuing a corporate sponsorship, please reconsider. Companies and nonprofits are often putting pricey ad campaigns on the chopping block before anything else. Compared to other marketing expenses, it’s much easier—and much cheaper—for them to sponsor the promotion of a book, author, speaker, product or service.

Brendon Burchard, an author and speaker, has figured out some really ingenious ways to land corporate and nonprofit promotional sponsorships and use them to fund his marketing efforts.  

• He quickly built a mailing list of more than 30,000 people after Sony featured his company on a website with more than 5 million visitors—for free!
     
• His corporate sponsorships have been responsible for the publicity he has gotten on ABC World News, Oprah & Friends, National Public Radio and 63 major radio stations.  (The company pays its PR firm or uses internal PR staff to get him media exposure.)
      
• Corporate sponsors have made it possible for him to receive $500,000 in advances for his second book.
      
• He has figured out how to get major companies like Wachovia, Coke and Toyota to promote and sponsor his books, publicity and speaking tours.

In other words, he’s using somebody else’s influence, somebody else’s contacts and somebody else’s money.

But Burchard says the process most people use to do what he does is hit and miss, at best.  They don’t know the right people to approach within a company or nonprofit.

Curious about how he does it?

Listen to him explain during a free 90-minute teleseminar on Thursday, Aug. 6, with Steve Harrison.  You can choose from two times: 2 p.m. Eastern or 7 p.m. Eastern.

Sign up here and Steve will send you the details for the call. If you can’t attend, recruit somebody to listen for you and take notes.