This is an awesome story about how some creative thinking, a small investment and a desire to make things happen rather than sit back and wait for them is creating a huge windfall of success.
I have no doubt opportunities like this exist all over the place if you look for them and are ready to take action. There surely is someone who is going to do it. Will it be you and if not, why not?
It’s true. I’m not making it up.
Just last week I turned 2 meetings into $500,000 additional revenue for our restaurant (over a six month period) with a total investment of around $6000 and some time.
Let me rewind a little to give you an idea of how it all transpired.
Recently a hockey tournament was being held at the arena a few blocks away from our restaurant, and I was about to miss out on the wave of business this could bring in. I know, I know…how could we not know ahead of time and get in on that action right!? We dropped the ball…huge.
So as a last ditch effort, I went over to the arena on registration day for the tournament and spoke with the organizer. I knew it was too late to be a major sponsor so while scrambling to figure out something that would work, I decided to give every team in the tournament an all you can eat party for the players….FREE!!!
You see where I’m going with this don’t you!?
The whole tournament was kids aged 4-10 and there were 2000 kids playing!
I knew it would cost me a bundle if not handled right, but think about it. 2000 players means 2000 families. If one kid eats free, big deal!
We didn’t get a lot of response because it was such last minute, but we were still way busier than we would’ve been without it. That move brought our restaurant in an additional $18K in sales that week. Not bad for a last minute deal, but the big business came after.
Because of that ballsy move, the organizer of the tournament asked if I could spare some time to talk about sponsorship. You see, he happened to be the Chairman of the Board for one of the local hockey leagues.
We met once for coffee where I asked what their needs were and how he hoped we could help. After an hour with him I felt like I had a pretty good understanding of what he was after. He needed financial support for some of the programs they offer by way of sponsorship.
The next time we met, I laid out a proposal that resulted in sponsoring 55 house league teams, 8 select teams, an end of year banquet and (my favorite) a financial assistance program keeping under privileged kids playing hockey. All for an out of pocket expense of under $6000, that we don’t even pay until next year.
The resulting agreement involves a lot of partnered events that will ultimately bring in no less than $500,000 in sales in about a six month period.
Not bad for 2 coffees.
Quoted Article Source Link: FobBoh
