Ask the Expert: Podcast Sponsorship Ideas Beyond Ads with Charmaine Hammond

Michelle Abraham: 00:00:03

This is amplify you the podcast about you discovering your message and broadcasting it to the world. If you're a coach, author or speaker, you'll want to tune in. If you're looking for the best return on your time investment to get your message out to the world in a bigger weight. We're giving you full access behind the scenes look of how we're running our podcasts, how our clients have found success, and what you can do to launch your podcast today. The world needs your message. I'm Michelle Abraham, the host join my family as we unleash your unique genius and find the connections you need to launch your adventure today. Join us and let's get amplify. Hello, hello amplify you Michelle Abraham your hosts here today and I'm so excited to bring you a really special guest for our Ask the Expert interview. So today has Charmaine Hammond with me and I want to say hi to strimming first before I tell you any more about her So hi, Charlene.

Charmaine Hammond: 00:01:00

I thank you Good to be here and I'm doing great. How about you?

Michelle Abraham: 00:01:04

I'm doing fantastic. And I'm really excited about the topic we're going to talk about today. So we're gonna dive into sponsorships. And let me just tell you a little bit more about Charmaine and why she is the expert when it comes to sponsorships. So Charmaine is a certified speaking professional. He's now 11 Times bestselling author and executive producer of an award winning movie back home again. She's an expert in funding projects and launching projects through collaboration influence our champions and sponsorships. So, Charmaine, you are the expert when it comes to all things collaborations and sponsorships. And I just like your background is so fascinating to me. So can you share with me? How did this start in your journey? Like becoming a thing that now that's what you do?

Unknown: 00:01:50

I love that question. Because sometimes honestly, I shake my head wonder how did that happen? Because my first career was in jail, I was a correctional officer and did that for 10 years, which inspired me it was. So after leaving after leaving the correctional officer role, I found myself really missing working in the area of conflict, which a lot of what you deal with in Corrections is conflict. So went back to school got trained, certified as a mediator and opened up a mediation practice. And in between all that I was also doing a lot of contracts around mental health, I was working for mental health, doing a lot of projects. And then I went back to school, got a master's degree in conflict analysis and management and started teaching people how to deal with conflict. The one thread that was through my whole career as an employee right through to owning started my first business 25 years ago, the thread was relationships. And that has been woven through everything I do. When I worked in a nonprofit organization in the mental health sector, as the executive director, my role was to get money for the organization. So that is where I began learning about sponsorship and how to do sponsorship and made every mistake in the book. And then from there, I worked for government on the other side of the table as a funder. So my job was to give money away to organizations to support their projects. And when I combined the two roles, it was like, there's the sweet spot, I now have, you know, the different sides of the table. And I've been building in sponsorship to my business since 1997. It's a big part of what I do, and how I run my business.

Michelle Abraham: 00:03:35

Wow, that's amazing. I love that you've been on both sides of it, because that gives you an advantage that's different than any other advantages, like as booking people on podcast because we work with the host, we kind of have the inside advantage of both sides of

Unknown: 00:03:50

Yeah, right. Well, I kind of wish that I had a reverse the roles and it had done the government job first. And then the nonprofit because boy Oh, boy

Michelle Abraham: 00:04:00

today to secure a little bit more funding,

Unknown: 00:04:03

and not make the painful mistakes. Exactly. That's

Michelle Abraham: 00:04:06

awesome. So now when I think about funding, and I know we've had previous conversations about this, it's like, I think that's something that's not it's not for entrepreneurs or it's not for podcasters or people who want to have a platform like an author or coach or speaker, like a lot of our audience. So at tell us tell us that I'm wrong. Here. You are.

Unknown: 00:04:29

Yeah, it's your very right, Michelle, that we make assumptions that sponsorship is for either nonprofit organizations and charities, or it's not for us and I can tell you I am very much a for profit company. I have two businesses both for profit and sponsorship is built into our business model. So for those of you listening that our coaches or authors or speakers or info printers, sponsors or podcasters sponsorship is a great way to actually raise your dream fund your dreams. And I would say, Michelle, it's probably the it's like the hidden revenue stream that most entrepreneurs have not thought of yet. Believe you me after the conversation we have today, they will be thinking about it, because it is available because sponsorship. Now when you think about sponsorship for charities that generally comes out of a budget from a company from their philanthropy side, that's not what we're talking about right here where you as a podcaster, where someone is an author is going to get sponsorship, it's coming out of a company's marketing budget. So any company whether it's the local gas station, the coffee shop down the street, or you know, a big brand, like Staples, or a bank or an insurance company, they have marketing funds set aside, and they can choose to spend those dollars on traditional media, they can choose to spend those dollars on podcasts going to trade shows doing. What do you call it direct mail campaigns? Swag, is sponsoring events and the list goes on. And sponsorship is one of those items in the list.

Michelle Abraham: 00:06:07

Hmm, that's awesome. You know, it's good to kind of like broaden our, our mindset around sponsorship. And so traditionally, in the podcasting space, we think of sponsorship as like, you know, an ad in the middle of our show. And like, you know, the type of the type of shows we do we really recommend our clients have their own programs and services in those ads. So can you give us some other examples or other ways that we could use sponsorship? Because I think this is so fascinating.

Unknown: 00:06:35

Yeah, well, one of the things I love about it, when we think about podcasters, you're right, a lot of podcasters will look at it as almost a pure marketing spend like an advertisements, then where there's opportunity to secure partners in terms of sponsorship is to look at, first of all some of the inkind needs that you might like need, like the graphic design, like the pre written marketing, copy, somebody to support the social media. So you might be able to collaborate and get sponsorship for some of the elements of running a podcast. But there's other ways to do marketing. So like you said, when a host is doing a podcast, it's really important, they promote their own services, because that's part of what your podcast is probably trying to do is bring people back to you. And where podcast where podcast sponsorship could fit in, in addition to helping with some of the needs that you have, it could also be done very differently than a traditional sort of commercial, I'll call it in the middle of a podcast. So what if you had a sponsor who worked for a particular company, and somewhere in that podcast, you would share a tip, and it's not as an infomercial? It's just, you know, Bob, from ABC Sports has a great way of looking at mental health. Here's what he said, How do you think about mental health? So you you've actually woven them in to your podcast as content, not as a standalone commercial, that's actually really valuable. And I and I've done this with sponsors before, even in my speaking presentations, it's the same thing when you're a speaker at an event. Most people don't listen intently when you say I'd like to thank my sponsors. And then you run through the bulleted list, people zone out, they look at their phone. But when you are speaking, and you say let me share a story about a business that I really love. So Mary, who works for this business has a great way of looking at customer service. So you've actually woven them into your content, versus kind of given them this showcase where they kind of stand out, but it's not enough time to really stand out if that makes any sense.

Michelle Abraham: 00:08:41

Absolutely. You know, I love like, because it's like an endorsement. So it's, you know, in the show hosts is endorsing the product. And it's your story, which I love, because then as I interruption, and it's heard, it's it's heard because it's a story because it's, you know, some it's not, it's not an ad. Yeah, no, I love that. Where do we start looking for these kinds of opportunities?

Unknown: 00:09:06

That is a great question. Where do we start looking for those opportunities is with who you know, close to home and where you do business. So what I mean by that is a great exercise for everybody listening is go fill out your last six months of visa or credit card receipts, see where you spend your money because this will show you where you spend money and the types of products that you use. For example, if you were interested in having a telecommunications a cell phone company, a lot of times people will start researching every cell cell phone company on the face of the earth. Well, if you have a cell phone, you have a contract. You are in a relationship with a cell phone company. So for myself I work with tell or tell us is my cell phone provider. I'm in a relationship with them do I know Mr. cellist or the owner of TELUS? I do not, but I'm in a contract with them. And so when I go to tell and talk with him about the projects that I'm working on. I'm able to say I've been a longtime client 25 years, I've had cell phones and office phones. So there's a relationship there, you're starting from the relationship. And same thing with banks and insurance companies and gyms, places that you buy your clothes. So you always start close to home with products that you love. Because you said something really important to show a moment ago, when you're talking about a product, obviously, you only want to talk about products and services that you believe in, that you trust, and that you could endorse. And so that's why you start with what you love, where you shop, and where you spend money closer to home.

Michelle Abraham: 00:10:37

Wouldn't that be nice if you can reduce some of those charges on your visa to by creating these relationships?

Unknown: 00:10:45

Well, I'll give you an example about collectively what that can look like. So when I launched my first book, on Toby's terms, in 2010, so going into almost 12 years ago, as I was planning the launch, and you know, this, Michelle, from working with so many authors, the launch costs quickly increase in terms, the bigger the idea, the more expensive it is. So this launch plan was starting to cost a lot of money. And I thought, Where do I bring collaboration into this? So I started looking at, so my one of my first sponsors was my hairstyles, the place I got my haircut. Then I went to my clothing store, and she sponsored all of my clothing for the year fancy clothes, you know, clothes, the dog park clothes that I you know, casual business. And then I had a healthcare provider, even like, even my eye doctor became a sponsor. So these were all people, most of them were not cash sponsors, by the way, they were inclined, and collectively, their contributions in sponsorship came to $39,000 a year that was not coming off the Visa card or out of the bank account. That's significant, right?

Michelle Abraham: 00:11:52

Absolutely. Can we back it up just for a second in case? If our listeners aren't sure what inkind means? Can you share what that means? Yeah, I love

Unknown: 00:12:00

that you've asked that. So when we think of sponsorship, it is this marketing relationship. And there's generally two ways to think about it. Cash, which we all understand where a company gives you dollars towards projects, events, your podcast, whatever it is that you're looking for sponsorship support from, then there's inkind, as Michel de Sasson inkind, is where you might have a company providing you with inkind services, or products, or a combination of those. So in kind, for example, my clothing store that I shopped at for years provided all of my clothing, so I didn't pay for that. All of my clothing was given to me. And she actually did my personal shopping too, which because I don't actually like shopping. So that was really cool. My hairstylist supported all of my hair, all of my makeup for when I was going on media, all of my hair, meaning my styles, I should say, and then also sponsored some events. So I mean, it just grew and grew and grew.

Michelle Abraham: 00:12:59

Awesome. Yeah, just I hope our listeners right now are getting their the wheels turning in their mind like minor thinking, Oh, wow, there's so many things that you can really look for. You don't have to go to a government website to find out where the grant is to apply for grant. Right. Yeah,

Unknown: 00:13:16

yeah, my experience with grants. If you're not a good grant writer, it's it. For me, it takes a lot of energy, a lot of time, I've reviewed hundreds and hundreds of grant proposals when I worked as a government contract negotiation specialist. And, you know, it's a lot of what you put into the grant shapes, whether you get the money or not. So a lot of times we spend exorbitant amounts of time writing grant proposals and, and then there's generally a lot of requirements that you need to meet as well. And I love sponsorship, because it allows you to co create something with that sponsor. So there's a mutually beneficial outcome. They are sort of winners in partnering with you, your winner and partner with you and your end users. So Michelle, and a podcast, your listeners benefit from

Michelle Abraham: 00:14:08

it. Right? Yeah. And I love that because it's not just something that, you know, like, oh, just thinking of there's so many things in our business that we teach our clients to use, that could easily become sponsorships of ours. Just off the top of my head. I think that there's so many different tools and programs and online, you know, things that we need to use or microphones or things like that, right? There's lots of opportunity. Yeah, that's awesome. So now, you know, just teach about this. You actually do this in your in your business. And in fact, your award winning movie back at home again, was completely funded by sponsorship. So share with us a little bit about the movie itself and the mission behind it. But then also, how you How did you come up with this idea and then get it completely funded?

Unknown: 00:14:53

Sure. Well, back home again, is an animated movie 30 minutes short, written by screenwriter Michael Man, Koski and exquisite writer, and producer and Michael was from was born and raised in Fort McMurray, Alberta. And in 2016, they had devastating wildfires, which many people around the world knew about and followed on the media. So Michael went through this evacuation. He's a screenwriter he produced, he's a producer. So when he came back, he was brought into the community quite early in the recovery and return process by Red Cross. And he was filming all kinds of interviews and testimonials with people about their experience being evacuated for weeks and weeks. And some people, months and months. In fact, there's people who haven't yet returned. And so as he's filming all these stories, he thought there is a lot of there is so much here that the world needs to hear. And what Michael was envisioning was a movie that would help people heal a movie that would help people talk about mental health and community. And so that's where back home again, was born, I got involved in the project almost five years ago. So the working closely with Michael. And of course, anytime you do a movie or production, it needs to get funded. And we knew that we wanted to do a different model, not an investment model. Because we wanted to make the movie available wherever possible, free for people to watch, so that schools could watch his family's can watch this. So sponsorship was a significant part of the way that we generated revenue for the for the movie, we had a couple of grants, we did some private fundraising. And so sponsorship is a really big part of it. But we also have created this community of what we call our champions are our champion partners. These are social influencers, people with big reach on social media, who are lending their audience to us to help get the message out. So what is that thread, just like I said earlier, the thread through my whole careers, the relationships, the thread in this movie is also relationships and collaboration. Everything we've done is about a group of people coming together and playing different roles to get this movie off the ground.

Michelle Abraham: 00:17:03

Wow, that's awesome. And right now, it is in some film festivals. Yeah. And so it's not yet available to the public. So when can we expect to

Unknown: 00:17:11

be able to watch in 2022. And the best in the best way to find out about is follow our socials back home again, movie or the website is back home again. movie.com. And we'll be releasing kind of where it's appearing, how people can access it right now we're looking at scheduling a whole bunch of in person, hopefully events where people can come and watch the movie and have a conversation after where we have a panel conversation. We're working with organizations to help us get then again, this is where collaboration comes in. So working with organizations to help us get the movie into schools, nonprofit organizations, even workplaces who want to use this as kind of a lunch and learn to start conversations with their employees about mental health. And so there's been so many creative ways that this movie has been brought to life.

Michelle Abraham: 00:18:01

I love that. So just going back for a second to when you're looking for sponsorship. And you're still looking, you're mentioning that it's sometimes it's within the marketing budget. So is it the person we're looking to connect with in the marketing department then? Or is it in a different space?