Talk to your sponsors now, not in February

Second week of August. Everyone’s cooked.

Maybe your club’s still in it and the next few weeks are the best part of the year. Maybe you’ve had a season you’d rather forget and you’re counting down to the presentation night. Either way, the committee’s running on fumes and nobody wants another job.

Here’s the one I wish I’d taken more seriously, and it’s the one that’s easiest to put off until February.

Go and talk to your sponsors. Now. While there’s still football on.

Not to ask for anything. Just to find out where you actually stand.

Then eleven months pass.

The owner meant to get to a few games and got busy. They saw a social post they weren’t in when they thought they would be. The sign went up late. Nobody rang. None of it is dramatic and none of it makes them angry — it just quietly stops feeling like something they’re part of.

They’re not unhappy. They’re on autopilot.

You find out in February, standing in their shop with next season’s proposal, when they say they might sit this one out. And by then you’ve got about six weeks before Round 1 and no time to fix whatever it was.

In August you have time. If the sign never went up, you can put it up. If they’ve had nothing from you all year, you can invite them to a home game before the season’s done. If they’re genuinely finished, you know now — and you’ve got six months to replace them instead of six weeks.

That’s the whole argument. A no in August is a problem you can solve. A no in February is a hole in your budget.

Here’s the harder part, and it took me too long to see it: sponsors drift because most clubs only contact them twice — when we want money, and when we’re winning. Nothing in between. Everyone can feel that, including the sponsor. You don’t need a marketing plan to fix it. You need to be in touch when there’s nothing you want.

Then shut up and write down what they say.

That last question is the one that does the work. Half of them will name something small and cheap that never occurred to you. The other half will tell you they haven’t thought about it — which is its own answer, and it tells you exactly who to spend December on.

If you get through five, you’ll know more about next year’s budget than most clubs know in March.

That’s the format. One thing worth doing, explained properly, every week.

I was president of the Oakey Bears for two seasons and spent most of it learning things I wish someone had told me earlier. This is me telling you earlier.

Full disclosure: Club Funding builds fundraising tools for clubs, and that’s how I pay for this. But this email isn’t the pitch. It’s the stuff I’d tell you at the bar regardless.

To go with it, I’ve put together the Club Funding Sponsorship Playbook — the full system for finding, winning and keeping sponsors. It’s free, and it’s yours here:

Jason Shannon — Former President, Oakey Senior Rugby League Football Club.