IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2008 - 48

Rule 1: Think About
What You Have to Offer

A Commonsense Guide
to Promoting IEEE Events
An event needs sponsors
and good attendance for success.
Here's how to get both.

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Many books have been written about securing sponsorship for events and promoting
and marketing them, but you don't really
need a book or a course to learn the basics.
I learned these skills through "on-the-job"
experience while organizing activities as a
university student.
Sponsorship can take two different
forms: "in-kind" and monetary. In-kind
sponsorship can be in terms of goods (for
example, food and drinks to be consumed during an event you organize),
services (for example, photocopying), or
discounts (to the event-organizing committee or to members).
Of course, monetary sponsorship is
better because you are in control of how
the money can be used to purchase goods
or services, but in-kind sponsorship is
just as important, and perhaps easier to
get in some cases. In fact, my mentor in
the art of sponsorship hunting when I
was in a student club told me "Never pay
for something if you can help it."
Here are four basic rules that can guide
you through a successful sponsor hunt.

Although you are relying on the goodness of
people's hearts, it is still important to create
"value" and offer them something in return.
For example, some charities in Australia
actually send a sheet of personalized address
labels with their sponsorship request.
So what can you offer a sponsor?
Here are some ideas:
◗ various levels of sponsorship
(bronze, silver, gold, or platinum if
you wish-the more sponsors provide, the more they get)
◗ a "good corporate citizen" image
for helping out
◗ general publicity (sponsors' logos
on posters, e-mails, and so forth)
◗ opportunity to promote the sponsoring company and its products to
members
◗ other ways to access members (for
example, sending out job advertisements on a sponsor's behalf )
◗ certificates of appreciation-they
don't cost too much to print and
sponsors appreciate them!

Rule 2: Establish Rapport
and Gain Trust
It is very important to always keep your
eyes open for potential sponsors, because
normal networking "soft-selling" is always
more effective than "cold-calling." In fact,

Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional
Intelligence (Bantam Books, 1997) mentions a study in which the "star performers" among all the engineers in a large
company were found to be more effective
and efficient not because they were
smarter, but because they had established
a network of experts who can help them
before they even need them, so in times of
crisis they rarely wasted valuable time on
unanswered e-mails or phone calls.
But if you have to cold-call, there are
a few tricks to establish rapport:
◗ Use some small talk to open ("How
are you today," for example).
◗ Ask open-end questions instead of
straightforward yes/no questions.
Let people talk about themselves
(most people generally like the
attention), their products, or their
company. Showing interest usually
leaves a positive impression
◗ The answers to your questions also
give you valuable information on
what the potential sponsor would
want that you might offer. For example, the sponsor may be in desperate
need of a good story for the "community" section of the annual report.
You could help make that possible.
Always remember to act and look professional, because, quite literally, you
need to convince sponsors to trust you
with their money!

Rule 3: Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk
APPROACHES TO GATHERING DATA AND MAKING DECISIONS
Detail Oriented
◗ Approach things rationally
◗ Dislike emotional terms and vague
language
◗ Needs lots of detail and facts, formulas,
procedures
◗ Suggested words to use: experience,
factual, proven, principles

Pragmatic
◗ Results-oriented
◗ May be impatient with lengthy or detailed
material
◗ Use executive summary, "bottom line,"
bullet point-style writing
◗ Suggested words to use: planned,
completed, mission, objective, return on
investment, competitive advantage

Consensus Oriented
◗ Sincerely want to understand and to feel
certain that everyone involved in a
decision is comfortable
◗ Open to you as a writer and to the
message you are conveying
◗ Sensitive, may pick up inconsistencies
between your message and your intent
◗ Suggested words to use: consensus,
flexible, adaptable, reliable, dependable

Visionary
◗ Rely on instinct and intuition
◗ Rise to excitement and challenge
◗ Easily bored
◗ Tend to jump over technical detail and
facts to get to the action
◗ Suggested words to use: hunches,
possible, innovative, ingenious, creative

Orientation
toward passive
reflection

48

IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE

Orientation
toward
action

SUMMER 2008

Orientation
toward
thought/logic

Orientation
towards
emotion

Understanding how typical workplaces
operate (this is especially important for
students and academics), the pecking
order, who calls the shots, and so forth
will help you get to the right people.
Generic faxes and "info@company.
com" e-mails are less likely to get you
very far than those addressed to a real person. And addressing a letter to a
person/name is always better than to a
position. So you should do some research
before making a formal approach to the
sponsor. Call and ask the receptionist to
tell you to whom your solicitation should
be addressed.
Sending e-mails from your ieee.org
alias may in some cases look more professional than those sent from, for example, your Hotmail account.
http://www.ieee.org
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2008
