The question comes in many forms. What’s going on out there? Is anybody spending money? How are things? What impact have you felt?

Over and over, we hear the question.

I spent a lot of time dealing with this train of dialogue a few months ago. Dealing with the economy, how to face the recession, banding together as an industry. Being the eternal optimist I am, I had hoped that by now this whole schmozel would have evaporated as quickly as it appeared.

Guess I was wrong.

While the troubled times haven’t disappeared entirely, they are also not nearly as deep as many panicked minds anticipated. Still, organization after organization is facing unprecedented challenges. In the past two weeks I have made presentations at major conferences, held fireside chats with some of the leading charities in Canada, attended a CEO-level cultivation event for a national sports property, and heard frontline feedback from development managers and agency staff. There seems to be some common themes.

Budget cutbacks have been less prevalent than expected, but are still very significant. More significant has been the anticipated, yet dramatic, shift of funds into sales generating tactics. As one marketer said to me this week, “Our couponing program is doing really well.”

Certain types of media seem to be getting pounded every day. The last time you reached for your favourite magazine, did you notice its weight? Has it been Jenny Craiged in a big way, by the withdrawal of advertisers? Has this money been sucked out of the market or redirected?

Budget freezes seem to be more and more common. Clients are claiming they have the money, but they just aren’t allowed to spend it. Okay, I’m not the brightest bald guy in the room…but what the hell is the difference? Well I guess there is one, because as one agency President told me this week… the number of unbelievably late project approvals he has been receiving is mind-boggling. Clients are sitting on the fence, waiting for some mysterious crash to come. Realizing it’s not coming, and that their competitors are stealing their lunch, they are racing back into marketing mode, with zero lead time but with the same expectations as before.

What are the implications for sponsorship properties, sales agents, and agencies? (And quite frankly, clients who perform a sponsorship role). I would suggest they will be dramatic.

Dollars are out there, but they are scarcer. Those dollars that do exist are being concealed until the last possible moment. And when they are ready to be spent, everybody expects a deal…a big big deal.

So what do you do? Well for one, get out of the sponsorship game. Yes, you heard me correctly. Do not adjust your sets, your satellite dish is working just fine. Get out of the sponsorship game.

It’s time for some game changing strategies. One of the biggest is to abandon a dying industry and head for a new one. Which one?

Well I think we can keep the name sponsorship, despite my comments of a few sentences ago. But I think we need to start thinking about the Business of Sponsorship, as opposed to Corporate Sponsorship.

The Business of Sponsorship provides a lens to examine your activities  from a new perspective. It encourages you to stop thinking of your property as an event or a cause, and to consider it a business. As a business your property could be much more than an awareness builder or an experience deliverer. It could become a distribution channel, an employee trainer, a customer, a reseller, a promotional outlet, a media outlet, a recruiter, a consultant, or a solution provider.

Yet it will take a whole new approach to business. It will require you to drop the clichés like “fewer things better”. What a dumb statement. If you’re incompetent you can do a few things. But you’ll do them poorly. In fact, they will be just as bad, as if you did many things. If you’re talented you can do tons of things well. As a business, you’re going to need to do a lot more things. And you are going to need to do them well. Expand your horizon.

Similarly you can shelve the old adage about it being easier to do three big dollar deals than thirty small dollar deals. Not anymore folks! If you want sales growth you’re going to need to be able to retrofit your property to make it work. The big deals are harder to find, harder to close, and harder to service. The small deals will be focused on a few deliverables, easier to secure, and easier to service. Plus, the loss of one or two small deals will have far less negative impact than a biggie.

So develop new products and opportunities for the new reality. Develop products you can mass market and you mass harvest. Develop products that can be pitched, sold, and serviced all in the same day.

Exclusivity is mandatory. Not anymore people! Refer back to my comment that everybody wants a deal. That’s fine, give them a deal. But don’t give them the farm. In this market you need a wide base of customers. Some will be from the same category. Sure exclusivity made sense when you wanted a Corporate Sponsor (nee donor). But now you are engaging in the Business of Sponsorship. Your business has products to sell. So sell!  Don’t spend time worrying about exclusivity for small customers. Spend time worrying about how many customers you can sell your new products to.

Here is a simple example of what I mean. One property I know has tens of thousands of participants, and only a dozen or so sponsors. That means there are 488 companies in the FP500 they don’t do business with. Can they sell those others a sampling package, couponing program, contesting opportunity? The property has the critical mass. They have a targeted audience. They have products waiting to be exploited!

It’s time to stop selling branding and emotion. It’s time to start selling customer penetration and revenue generation.