Speaker 1: Welcome back genius. I know you've seen celebrities and influencers sporting Fashion Nova, drinking tummy tea, eating sugar bear, hair vitamins. Maybe yes you attend industry conferences like I do and you see major brands plaster their names across every available public space. Maybe you watch my gift bag unboxing video and you're like Vivian I want sponsorship. I want a major brand to pay me to highlight their stuff. I want my event to be bigger and badder with that sweet brand money. My name is Vivian Oleden. I'm an author and an entrepreneur. I wrote the book Stumbling Through Adulthood. This video is about how to pitch your brand to sponsors. If that sounds like something that's interesting to you, subscribe and keep watching. Here are seven steps to getting brand deals according to Evan Carmichael. I'm sure his video shows up next to mine and the way he structured it, it's pretty great. So I'm going to use his structure but my experience and my opinion. Focus on the work, have clear intentions. When we started the Flourish Media Conference years ago, we originally thought that it would be a franchise of Blogging While Brown, which is an existing conference that's held for bloggers, social media managers, people who work in the online space. But when we talked to the coordinator, the person who created that event, she had talked to us about ego, about how important it is to really be intentional about what you want to give to your people. When it comes to the Flourish Media Conference, the number one thing that we focus on is funding, branding, visibility and we don't stray from that. We look for speakers who can give that information and we look for partners who care about those three things. If those partners or speakers don't care about branding, visibility or funding, they don't have anything to bring to the table to talk about branding, visibility or funding. If they can't help the attendees with branding, visibility or funding, then we don't look for it. And we started years ago keeping things very focused on that intention. That means we didn't get bogged down with gift bags or flyers or handouts or crazy decorations or anything like that. We started with those three intentional focus points. So when it comes to your brand, think about the intention. Don't let ego get in the way and focus on what is the value that you're giving to your people. Clear mission and message. So one of the partnerships that I've had this year is with FedEx. The reason why I was able to partner with FedEx is because they have a small business grant. I talk to small business owners all the time, female small business owners to be exact, and I don't stray from them. Almost all of the content that you'll find from me, even from a random post on Instagram to Facebook to the just history that I've had, it's been all about female entrepreneurship and helping them to grow and thrive. I've been doing that for 18 years, talking about marketing businesses and helping women to grow. So when it comes to being able to share your message, make sure that it's clear so that your partners know exactly what it is that they're going to get and what community they're going to be talking to when they partner with you. Start small and grow. Minority business owners are pretty much the core of who I work with. So I work with business owners, women business owners from all around the world, but I also work with minority business owners. I always joke that I am women focused but men friendly. I definitely have male clients and have had male clients and large organizations over the years. But what I want to tell you is that you need to know your audience. Years ago when we started the Flourish Media Conference, the tagline right now is the Flourish Media Conference Where Women Do Business. And originally because we franchised the conference from Blogging While Brown, we thought it made sense to have the tagline Where Brown Women Do Business. The deal is to make sure that our audience knew exactly who we were trying to reach and who we were speaking for. So you want to be clear about that when you're looking at your demographic. Growth happens in collaboration. Don't work alone. Stop the superiority complex and stop trying to be a superwoman. Ask for help. One of the most important things I did in my business was volunteer to work with another brand. And I did that for just over a year working with an organization called EOIM, Eyes on Your Mission. It's a film development program for adolescents to learn how to make professional film and cinema. Inside of that program I was able to see how partnerships work. And one of the major lessons that I learned because we were able to raise just over $280,000 for that nonprofit was how important it was for them to have partners. Number one thing about that is that when you're looking for partnerships, when you're looking for sponsorship, that sponsor needs to know that you know how to work nice with others, right? That you can play nice with others, that you have the capability to collaborate. Because if you're always doing everything on your own that's great for you, you know? If you want to get somewhere fast you go by yourself, but if you want to go far you need a team. And being able to collaborate and showing a history of collaboration proves that you are someone that's worthy of working with. And it also shows those brands what caliber of people you're used to working with as well. Because if a brand, a major company, a global brand, a national brand, if they're going to take time to partner with you they're going to have certain expectations and they want to know that you're going to be able to meet them. Be a customer of the people that you're asking something from. Your endorsement, your recommendation, or highlighting within your event, your program, whatever it may be, has more weight when there's proof that you actually use this thing. Start by looking at who and what you use already. Be easy to contact. I started this whole journey on the corporate side of things and when I was looking for influencers if it took too long to find their contact information I just moved on to the next person. And that's a shame because I didn't not contact them because their work wasn't good, because they weren't exactly what I was looking for, it was simply because they were too hard to contact. Corporate people are not DMing you and sending you money via cash app, boo. Get a website and answer your emails. Don't try and convince them. If you try and please everyone you're going to fail. Stick to what you care about and stick to the audiences, the messages, and the intentions that mean something to you. Because you want to show that consistency over time. Don't flip-flop between the things that are important to you because that brand that you're trying to find a sponsorship from, they need to see consistency from you. Especially because brands love longevity. They like to see data and statistics over time. There's two major benefits here. Number one is if you're consistent, brands will be attracted to you. They're going to come and find you because you're talking to the audiences that mean something to them. You're talking about the messaging that means something to them. Or you're able to show statistics about those people that you're trying to connect with. The other side of it is when you're pitching, when you're reaching out to these brands, you can show that consistency as well. You have so much social proof to back you up. That's it for now. Like always, if you want more information about anything that I shared in this video, you can find me on social media. I am at Vivian Olo on all of the platforms. Or you can comment below and I'll be sure to look at what you're sharing. It'll be really exciting for me. Now being a marketing advisor is my full-time gig. It's what I do every day. So if you are looking at trying to go after sponsorship for your event or for your brand and you want my critical eye on your project, I put a link below for a one-time advisory call where we can connect and I'll look at your project. You'll have my full attention. I have some free goodies down in the description box for you. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you found this information useful. And if you'd like to see the deck for the Flourish Media Conference and the website for the big event that my nonprofit hosts every year, then you can click in the description box. The link is there for you. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you next time. Are you still here? Thank you so much for watching and I wish you the best of luck on that sponsorship that you're trying to go after. You are going to get it. And if you like this video, you may like these others, remember to like, subscribe, and turn on your notifications. Go ahead, click it.