In a normal resale housing market, the purchaser holds the upper hand. Supply outstrips demand and vendors present an asking price they know no purchaser will pay. The expectation among both parties is that the price will be negotiated downward.
In that market, the vendor is disadvantaged not only because of the relative weakness of demand versus supply, but also because he’s selling a generic house to an undifferentiated market. He may have given the rooms a fresh coat of paint, the appliances may be gleaming and the hedges tightly trimmed, but it’s still a three-bedroom backsplit a bit too far from schools and grocery stores, and there’s nothing he can do about it.
The vendor is also motivated to sell. That’s the only reason the house is on the market. The pressure to sell will vary from one property to the next. Maybe he has an offer on another property with a short closing date. Maybe his family has outgrown the house. Maybe he has taken a new job in another city. For reasons big and small, the house has got to go.
The purchaser looks at it much differently. She, too, is motivated to purchase, of course. But time is on her side. Even if she is facing the imminent loss of her current home for whatever reason, she has options – hotels, short-term rentals, friends, family.
At her leisure, she may study hundreds of listings, spending many an afternoon with her agent, shuttling from one showing to the next.
She needs time because she knows exactly what she wants. She has analyzed the market and she knows the range in which she is operating. From the number of bedrooms to the size of the lot, from the heating system to the way the way the kitchen window catches the morning light, she has sketched out the house that, should she find it, will earn her top dollar.
In that market, the vendor goes out with an ask, and the purchaser replies with an offer.
This is also the vocabulary of sponsorship, particularly in the not-for-profit sector, and it should be turned on its head.
Because virtually all nonprofits that solicit sponsorship cut their teeth on donations and continue to rely upon them as a revenue stream, “ask” is a familiar noun. But when applied to sponsorship, it colours the nature of the relationship and unnecessarily weakens the position of the vendor. It’s not just about vocabulary. It’s also about mindset. When you ask, you are a supplicant. When you offer, you are a solution to a problem.
In real estate, vendors enter the market with an ask because the market is undifferentiated. The vendor broadcasts his offering to the entire market of house buyers. It is up to the right buyers to find him. Each person who views the house is a stranger to the vendor, a deep pocket of whom he knows nothing. Before each potential purchaser the vendor is weak. He is a supplicant. It’s an occasion that calls for a sheepish ask.
But what if the vendor could know the purchaser’s mind? What if MLS listings held not a catalogue of available properties, but ever-deepening insights into the wants and needs of purchasers? What level of insight would a vendor need to turn the Ask/Offer equation around, to offer a specific purchaser an opportunity to purchase her dream home?
The sponsorship market is finely differentiated. An automotive company is not a bank. An automotive company is not a dealership, and a bank is not a credit card company. Each has its own distinctive matrix of challenges. The sponsorship market’s raison d’être is to provide solutions to pressing business challenges. It is structured to receive offers, and it warmly embraces those that address those pressing challenges.
Why do properties persist with asks instead of offers? Partly, because it’s familiar, and partly because it’s relatively easy. Preparing an offer takes a great deal of work, and often requires that properties wander far afield from the charitable purposes that consumer most of their working day. It requires the acquisition of a different skill set and a different mindset. An ask will focus heavily on the transformational change a charity will make on the community it serves. An offer will focus on the solution the charity will provide that addresses a pressing need of the sponsoring brand. The ask will require the property to look inward at the comfortable and familiar ground on which it operates. The offer will require that it look outward, perhaps at trends in brand loyalty, tensions between trial and usage, online vs onsite sales.
The payoff comes when offer is met with acceptance. Properties are more likely to access a sponsors’s hefty marketing budget and relationships tend to last because the property becomes a business partner and a potential source of solutions to new marketing challenges.
Sponsorship Week is a great place to acquire and hone your sponsorship offer skills. It’s four days of conferences and workshops aimed at the needs of sponsorship seekers. The centrepiece, Sponsorship Toronto (October 25 and 26), brings together leading Canadian international voices in sponsorship marketing for two days of intimate learning. Sponsorship Week is bookended by two powerful workshops for organizations seeking sponsorships: The Sponsorship Boot Camp (October 24) is an intensive day-long session on sponsorship program development and sales. The Deep Dive: What Sponsors Really Want (October 27) will provide you with a solid understanding of sponsorship objectives and equip you with the techniques you need to uncover them.
Attend Sponsorship Week for Free
Hilborn eNEWS, in partnership with Sponsorship Week, offers you a chance to attend Sponsorship Week for free. Five deserving Canadian registered charities will receive bursaries offering complimentary admission to Sponsorship Week (worth in excess of $1,500). Bursary recipients from outside the GTA will receive complimentary airfare courtesy of WestJet. It’s an opportunity you can’t afford to miss.
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