With the first ESA Sales Certificate graduates now fully up to speed with the intricacies of modern sponsorship selling, we took some time to speak to Course Director, Cat Hawkins, about how the course was received and what key elements the students took away.
What were the highlights of this inaugural course?
The students that attended the first course came from a very diverse background. This cross section of skills, disciplines and experiences allowed for a really broad cross sharing of ideas. On the one hand, there were representatives from a huge European football competition that we were talking about, and they would be sitting next to someone who was representing the RNLI with a massively different proposition, much more CSR led and very new to market. But I think they got as much from each other as they possibly could. Even though there were differences between the rights they were representing, there were also a lot of similarities in terms of market conditions and challenges, so it was holistic to have everyone sharing content and ideas. And, being able to do that, together with having the course materials, lectures and discussions week to week, made it very powerful.
Another highlight for me was seeing the progression from week one to the end of the course. There were challenges that everyone put on the table during that first week that they wanted to get a grasp of, or feel more empowered about. By the time we revisited those in the final session there was a clear and real progression in how people were able to think about the work they were doing and the challenges they were facing.
How did the students feel, and what was their response to the learning modules?
As the Course Director, I was really pleased by how well the course was received. It’s great when people say that the framework of the course took them through a systematic process; from evaluating what I’m doing and why I’m doing it, through to how I may do it differently. A lot of people who come into the course may have a number of years’ experience of selling, but haven’t necessarily had the experience of being able to step back and think about how they systematically build up their proposition so that it’s both strategically sound and resonates in the marketplace.
That was a real highlight of the course, in being able to benchmark their own skill set against their peers, and also to think through what best practice is in terms of sponsorship sales.
The other thing that resonated very well with our students was the specialist speakers introduced to the group in the third week. They focused on data management, which is an area that is becoming ever more significant within sponsorship negotiations and sales. And, with upcoming legislation changes in 2018 on data protection, I think having a legal representative present to the group, someone who was able to guide sellers on key processes while there’s still time to do something about it, was brilliant.
Finally, getting the group thinking about the significance of accurate data and demographic profiling in the selection process, and the selection of opportunities by potential sponsors, was really important. Sandra Greer, a guest speaker from MKTG, helped the attendees understand just how significant robust intelligence is in terms of the decision making process, and why it’s so important to get your ducks in a row and understand as much as you can about the audience that you’re representing: both the tangible physical audience that might come and see what you’re doing, and also the wider audience that you’re dealing with through social, digital etc.
Giving that level of specialism in understanding what you need to do to future proof yourself gives you a leg up and differentiates you from your peers with regards to expertise.
What’s next? Bigger? Better?
We will absolutely look to improve on things for the next course. Every time you do a learning programme you look to evaluate and make things better. And having this highly engaged group was really helpful. It enabled us to gain their feedback after each session so that we could fine tune in order to ensure that it’s hitting the mark in terms of delivering against current sales professionals and their objectives. I’m very much looking forward to the next course and what we can deliver to our next intake of students.