How to Know if Accepting a Sponsorship Will Change the Tone of Your Message

A good coach doesn't run the miles for you; the value of a great coach is in telling you which miles are important to run. Can accepting a sponsorship muddy the relationship between a coach and their client?

Imagine that you have overcome an obstacle or addiction that has tormented you for most of your life. An obstacle so seemingly insurmountable, it has caused you to struggle in both your business and personal life… At times threatening your health. You’ve done the work to identify the obstacle. Then you've modified areas of your life to eliminate the behavior causing the issue, and enable behaviors that result in desired outcomes.

This is an extreme oversimplification of the scenario two colleagues described to me recently. Consistent posting of the results they were helping others achieve saw their subscriber base grow to tens of thousands over the course of several months. They wanted to scale their efforts and serve more people, and maintaining the integrity of their message was of paramount importance.

"Our concern is that as soon as we take on a sponsor or an advertiser, we are no longer in the business of spreading the message of our organization. Our fear is that the primary responsibility at that point is to deliver the attention of our readership to the sponsor or advertiser."

Recently, they've been approached by media outlets looking for interviews and by corporations offering sponsorships. They have put in a tremendous amount of life-changing work, and are at a critical business juncture as well. The promise of media exposure and sponsorships could be just what they need to get a stable financial footing and expand the transformational work they are doing.

In this video, I explain why taking sponsorships can be a double-edged sword given the nature of the transformations they are helping others to achieve. We also briefly discuss the alternatives to sponsorships.

So... which route would your organization's message benefit from most... Sponsorship or Partnership?