We craft comprehensive marketing and business plans each year to foster growth and engagement. While various strategies such as travel nights, travel shows, advertising, direct mail, email campaigns, and Facebook ads have traditionally constituted the marketing arsenal, there's an often underutilized weapon in the marketing plan - sponsorships. If you haven't considered incorporating sponsorships into your marketing strategy, you should, and here's why.

Sponsoring events used to seem like a high-risk venture, demanding hefty financial commitments for uncertain returns. But let's consider a different perspective. Think back to my initial sponsorship experience—a local wine and beer festival. The organizers proposed that I become the "presenting sponsor," requiring a $5,000 “investment.” Unable to write that check, I proposed a creative alternative. In exchange for my sponsorship, I…

Just 11 more weeks and 2024 is here. I like both endings and beginnings, the opportunity to evaluate how the year has gone and the opportunity to plan for the next. I'm hoping you have begun to work on a business plan for next year. A business plan has the following two goals:

My dad was a salesman. He regularly left home on two-week missions to sell more of his “electronic gizmos” in order to pay the mortgage for a home large enough to house my mother and their seven children. I was #2 and I remember those days like it was yesterday. “Mike,” you say, “who cares?” Stay tuned… I am talking to you. My dad loved to fly and he loved his work. Based on our comfortable living conditions while growing up in a big house that was open 24/7 to all shape and size kids, and their friends, he was a successful salesman. Back then, flying used to be an exciting proposition. I suspect that another reason he enjoyed traveling so much had something to…