Ba wo ni, ?

Last week, I shared one of the profound things I learned from hosting the Tourism Women Luncheon 2.0, which is how powerful your community is.

When you serve your community, your community will serve you.

If you haven't read it, do check your inbox for it, the lessons there are profound *smiles*

The second lesson is this...

Learn how to play with the 'big boys'.

Last year, I decided to start playing a 'bigger game than I have ever played before'

Thanks to Sensei Victor Ekpo Bassey for always ringing this phrase in his newsletters *laughs*

This year, I decided to reach out to bigger brands to support my 2022 projects.

One of the organizations I targeted for TWL 2.0 was Sterling Bank. Why?

Since 2020, Sterling Bank has been positioning itself as one of the top Tourism Banks in Nigeria.

And since I wanted to host a Tourism related event, why not reach out to them?

After a lot of back and forth, and even at a point informing me they wouldn't be able to sponsor, alas, they finally came on board as our official partner.

Let me share three (3) ways you can play with the 'Big Boys' *wears dark shades*

#1. Have Track Records: Now let us get this straight, no big brand will sponsor you if you do not have track records, . None - unless they are owned by a very close relative or friend *shines teeth*. So you have to keep records of all the projects you do, no matter how small. They want to see that you are making progress with your brand before they will commit to any partnership with you. I have both written, photos and audio + some video records of every event I do. Be it on my blog or website, my social media, and in my inbox! Have something to show these 'big boys' that you can play the game with them.

#2. Have Your Community: Big brands want to know that your brand has real people who will patronize them due to their partnership with you. They want to know you have a community that listens to you. It is all about the quality of followers than the quantity - trust me. When you can prove to these 'big boys' that you are an authority - an influencer - in your community, then they will consider working with you.

#3. Build Authentic Relationships: People partner with people. Organizations are managed by people. Look for the people in these organizations that you can build authentic relationships with. See how I highlighted the word 'authentic' because people can tell when you just want to use them. Please do not do that. Because the truth is that these people will move to other organizations or platforms that may serve you in the future. You don't want to tarnish your relationship with them by using them. Like I mentioned in our previous newsletter, genuinely check up on them, patronize them, share information with them - just be of service to them. And mark my words they will be the ones pulling strings for you when the need arises, .

There are plenty of ways to play with the 'big boys', however, these are some of the things I have been doing to get me in their good books.

ADVISE: Please note that you may not get positive feedback from the 'big boys' after doing all these things mentioned above. However, do not relent nor close the doors.

Why? Because eventually, they may end up working with you one day.

Or who knows, that person you have been building a relationship with might move to another organization and recommend you there, and boom - you get that sponsorship opportunity *wink*

I must genuinely add that I didn't learn some of these tactics without assistance. To learn more about how to partner with big brands, I highly recommend Afua Osei. Find out more about her HERE.

Next week, I will be sharing how I got brands to partner with us for TWL 2.0.

What can you give to these brands that will make them either support you for 'free' or give you reasonable discounts on their products and/or services?

I will be sharing my tactics next week. So look out for it *wink*

Remember...

Life is short, live it to the fullest, *smiles*

Odaro *waves*

Your Wanderluster,

Ajala Nene

P/S: I recently cleaned and updated my email list. If you do not want to be getting newsletters from me, please do feel free to unsubscribe below. Honestly, no hard feelings *hugs*