Getting Vendors to donate snacks...

[Alycia Benjamin-Peebles]

Hey has anyone been successful with getting local and mainstream vendors to send free snacks to your coworking space?

[Alex Hillman]

I've experimented a LOT with in-kind and cash sponsorships of all kinds. Here's a handful of lessons from what's worked and what hasn't:

- in-kind (product or service) sponsorships are MUCH easier to get than cash sponsorships, especially for smaller/local businesses. 

- one-time sponsorships (for events, for example) are MUCH easier to get than ongoing, open ended sponsorships to keep a vending machine or snack tray stocked. 

- sponsorship is a relationship, like any other it needs ongoing care and maintenance. you want your sponsors to feel like they're getting 10x return on their contribution. if you can't come up with a creative way to offer/keep that up, expect that sponsorship to be short-lived. 

- discounted/wholesale prices are MUCH easier than asking for things to be totally free.

- assume any sponsor you approach is getting hit up often. what makes you and your community uniquely valuable to them?

- provide them with an easy, obvious upside they can say "yes" to, but also invite a sponsor to define their terms. "we'd love to do XYZ and here's how it'd work for both of us, but if there's something that would be more valuable to you AND mutually beneficial to our community, let's talk!"

- encourage active participation. rather than "hey, send us free stuff and we'll tweet about it", I've had the MOST success giving them a platform to meet our community and make a real connection. Make our members love you even if you WEREN'T giving out stuff for free. Come to our Show & Tell, but instead of a sales pitch, teach us something about your business. 

To look at this in another light - I've been asked to sponsor countless events and such, and 99% of the sponsorship pitches I get are absolutely horrible. Nobody ever opens with the upside for me, the business owner. It's always about them and what they need.

So...it's really easy to stand out from the crowd by doing just a LITTLE bit of research about what the sponsor would want/care about in return for their contribution. :)

-Alex

On Saturday, May 9, 2015, Alycia Benjamin-Peebles <aly...@quotidianventures.com> wrote:

Hey has anyone been successful with getting local and mainstream vendors to send free snacks to your coworking space?

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[Alycia Benjamin-Peebles]

Thanks Alex! This info is so on point with what I gathered from the GCUC conference I just attended in Berkeley. I never thought of putting the two together "free snacks vs. sponsorship" and them having the same developing relationship statics!

Alycia Benjamin-Peebles

Office Manager | qLabs
a...@quotidian.co | 917-979-3749

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[Alex Hillman]

Ain't nothin' in business and life that doesn't work better with real, honest relationships. :)

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The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.

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[Will Bennis, Locus Workspace]

Thanks, Alex. Great tips as always and very relevant right this minute. :)

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[Craig Baute - Creative Density Coworking]

We went a different route and had members contribute.

 We do have a CoBakery sign up where individuals bring in baked goods once a week. It gets the momentum going where people get use to having baked goods around and they want to contribute and share their favorite recipes. We have snacks and baked goods around about two days a week. 

In fact, tonight we have a board game night that is potluck style where people bring in food. The menu is looking pretty enticing and this is all got started from us use to sharing food.

[Alex Hillman]

Oh yes - big +1 to pot-luck style!!

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The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.

Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com

Listen to the podcast: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/podcast

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