Olympic Gold medallists Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie share their wisdom

11th July 2013

Olympic Gold medallists Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie share their wisdom 
Yachting gold medallists Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie shared insights into their lives as high performance athletes when they spoke recently at a breakfast for carded athletes organised by the HPSNZ team in Christchurch at the Apollo Projects Centre. 

Developing partnerships and sponsorship opportunities

15th May 2013

Developing partnerships and sponsorship opportunities 

The Athlete Life team at High Performance Sport New Zealand works with athletes across a number of areas and one area athletes often raise is how to develop partnerships and sponsorship opportunities.

Workshops in Auckland and Wellington have been held recently to help athletes develop these skills further.

The sponsorship and partnerships workshop 101 was held in Auckland last year, giving athletes an insight into how an organisation perceives partnerships and sponsorships. Recently, it was Wellington’s turn to offer this workshop to athletes and we had a wealth of local experts come in and offer their point of view, including: Steve Walters, General Manager IRB International Sevens series, Brad Monaghan, General Manager of Travel Bug in Trade Me and Shoe Clinic director Hamish French.

The panel’s insights into who and what athletes should be targeting focused on doing research, alignment of values and the need to believe in the product you are looking to gain sponsorship with.

When looking for sponsorship or partnerships there has to be an understanding of what that organisation is trying to achieve, and how an athlete can add value.  Using networks to gain leverage is powerful. “It was really interesting to understand and see where the athletes are at; being able to bounce ideas off others can be beneficial to all,” Brad Monaghan says.


Paralympian Mary Fisher enjoyed being able to bounce ideas off other athletes: “It was helpful to be able to compare and contrast sponsorship ideas with business professionals.” 

“It’s always inspiring to hear successful people speak of how they got to where they are now, and what we can take away from those experiences,” mountain biker Samara Sheppard says.

Auckland athletes have been offered a second workshop, which followed on from the content delivered in the first session.  At this workshop we trialled a livestream video, which meant athletes could be part of the workshop remotely.  A number of rowers, who have been working with Athlete Life Advisor Nathan Twaddle on sponsorship, joined in which meant they could benefit from this professional development opportunity without losing valuable recovery or study time driving to Auckland from Karapiro.

The level two workshop focuses on three key areas:

Elevator Pitch
Key messages you want to portray
Current, potential or possible future partnerships

Most athletes have an idea of what their sponsorship need is (ie $5,000 for airfares, equipment, assistance with campaign costs, etc), and many have ideas around who they would like to approach to see if they can drum up support. 

However, many athletes struggle to have a succinct ‘elevator pitch’ – that short summary that they can give verbally to summarise what they are all about, that is interesting enough to make the listener (ie potential sponsor/partner) want to continue the conversation later.

An elevator pitch usually answers these questions: 
-       What do you want the listener to remember most about you?
-       How could you add value to the listener?
-       What makes you different to someone else?
-       What’s your goal, what are you asking of the listener? (ie coffee meeting later, follow up, etc)

Once athletes have a confident pitch, they can then use this across a number of different mediums to build their opportunities (ie through a written proposal, on their social media sites).  This then helps identify possible new partners because their alignment to your own values and story is more easily recognised.  Many athletes find that this helps further develop their relationships with their current partners, while others identify new partners with potential benefits for both. Timing plays a big part, as developing a new partnership or relationship takes time and athletes need to ensure they allow enough time before needing to secure that valuable support.

After the workshops, athletes were offered a one on one follow up with the Athlete Life Advisors who are specialists in this area so they could further develop their strategies and implementation plans for the work they started in the workshop.

Athletes that attended the workshop were across a range of sports and included gold medallists, Olympians, and up and coming athletes. 

Any carded athlete interested in developing their skills in this area, can contact their Athlete Life Advisor for more information about the support and expertise available.

Upcoming sponsorship workshop

Upcoming sponsorship level 2 workshop

Thursday 4th April from 6.30pm - 8.30pm

If you are a carded athlete and you have registered for this workshop please note some detailed information below.

1. Make sure you have completed the following worksheets before you come to the workshop
   Personal vision
   Your current sponsors
   Your story
   
   These were areas we worked with athletes on during the level 1 workshop.  If you did not attend the level 1 workshop, please take some time to watch the video of the sponsorship level 1 workshop here
2. Outcomes we hope to work with you on during the workshop include:
   
   A. Be able to have a really succinct 30 second elevator pitch
   B. Have 8 key defined messages you want to include in your communications strategy
   C. Identify 5 untapped potential new partners to my campaign
   D. Have a draft sponsorship strategy in place
3. At the conclusion of the workshop you will have the opportunity to spend one on one time with an Advisor specialising in this area to follow up the above actions
4. We will invite you to return to a level 3 workshop following this one to take your sponsorship and partnerships strategy to another level.
    
5. Any further questions email Helene Wilson

Creating opportunities

12th March 2013

Creating Opportunities for Sponsorship and relationships

Over the years we have found that nearly all athletes would like to increase their opportunities to generate more income through their sport (ie sponsorship).

Whether you are simply needing additional income to cover living expenses, or it could be campaign costs are in excess of what your Sport or High Performance Sport NZ funding might cover.  

There are many opportunities out there for you - with the right strategy, approach and supporting material (ie proposals, social media, website etc) you greatly increase your chances to benefit from these opportunities.


We think some of the key areas in sponsorship and creating opportunities you need to have as an athlete include the ability to:

1. Share/sell your message in less than 90 seconds for why someone should support your campaign (elevator pitch)It could be you are sitting next to someone on a plane that just might be interested in being involved or it might be that someone comes up to you on the beach while you are getting ready for a training session.  You never know when an opportunity might crop up that you can take advantage of.  Practicing and getting a great message across can make all the difference.
2. Be clear on your top 8 key messages that you should get across in your proposal/pitchIf you are giving someone a proposal or more information about what you do, it needs to be to the point, concise, eye catching and something that the reader wants to read.

3. Be able to identify 5-6 people that you want to contact regarding a possible partnership and have a how strategy in place for how to approach the contact 
Think about your existing sponsorships, partnerships or where your support comes from.  How often is it that it is someone you know or someone who knows someone who knows someone?

Athlete Life has put together a session that includes a panel of athletes who have been successful with sponsorship, and practical components to help you achieve the above objectives.  On top of this we can offer carded athletes a 1 on 1 follow up to go through each of these areas and get them ready to put into practice and any follow up support you might want. 

To register your interest email helene.wilson@hpsnz.org.nz