Susan Friedmann [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters. Every week, I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books.
Today, my special guest is Charmaine Hammond. Charmaine is the co-founder of Raise a Dream. She's an 11-time best-selling author as well as a certified speaking professional. She knows sponsorship from every angle, having worked with over 40 sponsors and helped many clients do the same. Her Million Acts of Kindness tour covered 14,000 kilometers in a 32-foot sponsored motorhome, with more than 40 businesses and stores raising funds to support her cause. All the way from Toronto, Canada, Charmaine, what an absolute pleasure it is to welcome you back to the show. Always love having my guest come back, and thank you for being this week's guest expert and mentor.
Charmaine Hammond [00:01:10]:
Aw, thank you. I'm so excited about today's conversation. I've learned that it's always a good one with you.
Susan Friedmann [00:01:18]:
Well, that's a good way to start. I love that. Charmaine, we're going to be talking about sponsorship in as much depth as we can in the short time that we do have together. So that everybody knows exactly what we're talking about, let's start that grassroots level and say, what exactly is sponsorship?
Charmaine Hammond [00:01:40]:
It's a great place to start. And sponsorship, the best way to think of it is that it's a marketing relationship. It's not a handout. It's not a donation to you. It is a marketing relationship where a local business, for example, it could be a coffee shop. My first sponsor was my hairstylist. So a business gets behind your book, your project, because you have an audience that's appealing to them. You have an audience of readers that is attractive to them or one that they want to get in front of.
Charmaine Hammond [00:02:16]:
And your book, your book related events provide the opportunity to help market or showcase or get that sponsor, that company in front of your audience. So it really is a marketing relationship where that local business, for example, is looking to get it in front of an audience that you have. And as part of that relationship, you are helping them solve some of their marketing or promotional needs.
Susan Friedmann [00:02:46]:
It is a synergistic relationship here because they're marketing you and you're marketing them that, as you say, it is that relationship that you're building up. Correct?
Charmaine Hammond [00:02:58]:
Absolutely. And I loved what you said, Susan, when you said you're marketing them and they're marketing you. That's exactly where that power of synergy comes together and where I think authors start to feel more confident about the possibilities with sponsorship, because it is that relationship where you're working together. You're working in tandem. They're helping you, you're helping them.
Susan Friedmann [00:03:25]:
So I can imagine that our listeners are saying, okay. How do we go about this, and what are some easy ways in which we can get started? So let's get started with some easy ways first, and then, have you tell us how we can go about even getting some of those sponsorships.
Charmaine Hammond [00:03:43]:
Wonderful. One of the easy ways to start thinking about sponsorship for your book is to think about bulk sales. And this is how you can use bulk sales and sponsorship in tandem together because I've never met an author who doesn't want to sell their books in bulk. So I'm gonna assume all of you want to do that. One of the best ways that I've done that over and over and over again is working with service clubs. And I know, Susan, you and I have talked about the power of service clubs, whether it be Rotary International or the Lions Club, the Optimist Club, the Kiwanis Club, the Soroptimist Club. Service clubs exist in communities and do such incredible work for organizations in the communities. Now I have a book, actually, a memoir that I wrote and two children's books.
Charmaine Hammond [00:04:41]:
Third one's coming out shortly, and they're all based on my dog, Toby. So an example of these service clubs is I started to reach out to rotary clubs with my children's books to talk about a collaborative relationship where they could sponsor bulk copies of my books for their local libraries, their local schools, their local kids' organizations, such as boys and girls' club. And that's where it started, Susan, working collaboratively with service clubs for them to purchase copies of my books in bulk. And they sponsored those books to go into the hands of kids in organizations and schools. And I think that's a great way to start. And with I'll use rotary club, which is the first service club that I did this with, it was wonderful because they were behind the book. They were talking about the book. And in some communities, they even delivered the sponsored books to the classroom and read my book to the kids.
Charmaine Hammond [00:05:44]:
I'm just beaming right now if you could see my face. Just that gave me tremendous joy, and I got to promote the Rotary Club and the important work that they do in the community on many different fronts, not only about my book.
Susan Friedmann [00:06:00]:
Yeah. And I love that idea. And even the idea of in bulk, which obviously is my language, as you know, because that's what I really am pushing is how authors can sell books in bulk. Mhmm. Bulk might be 50 books. It might be 20 books. It's just more than one book. And I think this is something that authors can think about.
Susan Friedmann [00:06:24]:
And as you rightly said, in every community, there's a Rotary Club. I mean, it's all around the world. I'm very involved in our Rotary Club here in Lake Placid. In fact, we had an event yesterday, a trivia night, where we were raising funds for education for the schools in order to help them buy equipment or something that wouldn't be covered by their budget, which is, again, what this is doing. Your books wouldn't necessarily be in a school's budget, but outside companies might be interested in helping as well. So I love that idea. Let's think about the book's topic or even the audience size when it comes to getting sponsored. How important is that? Because let's say an author doesn't have a very large email list and maybe not even a strong following on social media.
Susan Friedmann [00:07:25]:
How important is all of that?
Charmaine Hammond [00:07:27]:
That's such an important question you've raised because there's a myth, I believe, that authors always think, well, my list isn't big enough. I don't have a big enough social media platform. I haven't been on media. And what I have seen is that's not necessarily all that important. It is important as you continue to build that, but there's a myth. I think that people have to be Uber ready. And what I found is when I started out with my kids' books, actually, even my memoir, let's start there. My list, my following, my social media following, that was all related to my corporate organization.
Charmaine Hammond [00:08:19]:
So my Tobi platform, if we call it that, the dog platform was brand new. Pretty much my whole following was my friends and family and a few clients that came on. I was in that process of building that new brand, that new following. And I didn't have a big following, but I had a lot of passion. I had a great strategy, and I had relationships that I could draw on. And that's where I think it's important for authors listening today to recognize you don't have to have thousands of followers. What you do need to have is a bit of a strategy or a plan on how you're going to build that. And some good news here is sponsorship can help you build your platform.
Susan Friedmann [00:09:05]:
A couple of words that you said there. I mean, the word passion.
Charmaine Hammond [00:09:08]:
Mhmm.
Susan Friedmann [00:09:09]:
You've gotta love your book. You've gotta love everything about it, the value that it carries. That comes over when you start talking about it. Yes. You know, it's more than just, Oh, well, I wrote a book. But what's the value? What's in it for me? What are the benefits that people are going to get from your book? That's definitely going to always help. And that relationship building, I talk about the fact that I sold 500,000 copies of my first book. And that was not a sexy title, How to Exhibit at Trade Shows, Tips and Techniques for Success.
Susan Friedmann [00:09:45]:
But it was the relationship that I built with different companies that allowed me to do that. That relationship building is so important. One of the things that you said, you've got this two sides. You've got your corporate work that you do your training, and then you've got the sponsorship side where you're raising money for your acts of kindness. What about companies sponsoring you to speak as well as purchasing books for the audience? Talk to us about that.
Charmaine Hammond [00:10:21]:
Yes. I love that strategy. And a lot of times, authors say things like, I'm not a speaker. You don't necessarily need to be a speaker that travels the world and you're on big stages. A lot of times, the speaking is about talking about your book, that passion that you just mentioned, Susan. I'm just going to give an example of, I was speaking for a corporation on a very corporate topic, which was communication and conflict resolution. And I thought to myself, I have to find a way to bring my book in here other than just mention it in my bio. I talked about all the lessons that I had learned from my dog, Toby, about communication and how I applied them in my human world.
Charmaine Hammond [00:11:07]:
That client came back to me and asked to buy a copy of on Toby's terms for every staff in their department. Well, that was a nice big bulk buy, but then what was really cool? I don't know if I've shared this story with you, Susan, it was getting close to Christmas time. And this company had told some government department about they had me in speaking in the books. Well, that government department said, we're in a panic. We haven't purchased our Christmas gifts yet for our employees and the volunteers that volunteer on our projects. Could we buy some? Of course, the answer was yes. Another department heard that. Can we have you speak and provide the book? So at the end of the day, that one speaking engagement translated into over 350 book sales and a couple of more speaking engagements.
Charmaine Hammond [00:11:59]:
So you can absolutely combine speaking and sponsorship books sponsored books or speaking and bulk sales. Another way you can do this is through your book signings. If you are going to a bookstore and by the way, signings don't all need to happen at bookstores. Some of my best signings were at the store where I buy my clothing. They did a I gotta say this slowly. Sip, shop, and share. So I shared my message while people sipped wine, and they shopped and bought my book and clothing. You can be very nontraditional.
Charmaine Hammond [00:12:37]:
At a book signing, at a bookstore, you can encourage people through a short presentation that you do about your book to buy two copies of your book, one that you will give to that people will take home and the second book that they purchase at the same price. I didn't discount them at the same price. You're going to contribute those books to a local organization in the community, such as in my case, it was often an animal rescue or a pet therapy association. That's my long winded way of saying speaking is an important part of selling your book. It's an important part of sponsorship, and all of that can be combined.
Susan Friedmann [00:13:19]:
Oh, that's beautiful. And I know that you said your hairstylist also bought copies of your book. I mean, that almost seems like incongruent that why should a hairstylist buy your books? Talk to us quickly about that one.
Charmaine Hammond [00:13:34]:
Yes. Because while she cut human hair, she did not cut canine hair. And my hairstylist found that my book was a wonderful way. She used to exhibit at a lot of conferences for women, and so would often have a trade show. And one day she said, I'm having a problem getting people to the booth, and I thought your book could help me do that. I had no idea, honestly, what she meant. She said, I wanna buy a box of books, and there's always a lineup for this event. So we're gonna have our team go and provide ever.
Charmaine Hammond [00:14:05]:
We're gonna put your books on a silver platter as if we were a waiter in a dancing restaurant, and we're going to gift people with a copy of your book and a postcard and stuff to come to our booth, come to our hairstyling booth, which they did. I ended up selling more books. She got a lot of people to her booth. The beautiful part about sponsorship is and that I learned this not as soon as I wished I did, but I learned this early in the days that often the people that you're approaching, for example, my hairstylist, the clothing store, a rotary club, the people that you're approaching have the ideas about what this collaboration or what you called it earlier, Susan's synergy, what this could look like. And I learned to stop talking when I say, what could we do to collaborate together? And then I'd stop talking because they often had the idea. I would never in a million years have thought of my hairstylist having my books on a silver platter and handing them out to a people in a lineup to bring them to a conference booth.
Susan Friedmann [00:15:15]:
Yeah. And I've mentioned this many times to my authors that books make a great giveaway at a trade show. And as you said, then they buy them in bulk. Mhmm. And it doesn't have to be for everybody that they're going to, but maybe special VIP clients that they could offer the book. There are many different ways to skin this cat, so to speak. Excuse me. I know you're into animals.
Susan Friedmann [00:15:43]:
Don't mean that's derogatory. However, you said to ask them about ideas for collaboration. And often people don't have those ideas. So it would also be good to have some ideas and suggestions that they could even be thinking about because this might be a million miles away from anything they might be thinking about. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that?
Charmaine Hammond [00:16:10]:
Well, that's very true. Just with the example of the hairstylist, another way that this conversation started, I was talking to her one day when I was there and I said, you know, I've got these books coming out and, you know, I'm really looking for ways to partner with businesses that I love. That was the language I use, like your business. And she said, oh, I don't know what that could look like. And then she came back and she said, are you gonna be doing media and events and things like that? And I said, I am. And then she said, well, what about if we sponsored all of your hairstyles? And at those days I used to color my hair. I had a really funky hairdo, so it was a lot of coloring. She said, what about if we sponsored all your hairstyles, all your coloring? We did all your makeup ahead of time of going on media, if we're open at that time.
Charmaine Hammond [00:16:57]:
And she said, what about if we, you know, you're going to be on the travel on the road traveling and so forth. What about if in our massage studio, we gave you a couple of sponsored massages a month. That's how it all started. And they became my sponsor that way. Then that turned into the silver platter books, the buying them to give to Christmas gifts. They even sponsored. The funny story is my hairstylist also in the summer had an ice cream booth in their parking lot. And so they sponsored a Toby Cone.
Charmaine Hammond [00:17:28]:
When kids would come up with their family, they would get the Toby Cone, a special flavor, and a copy of my book.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:35]:
Oh, that's wonderful when you deal with creative people who help you come up with these ideas. Now you got hair and massage done. Now that's an in kind sponsorship. Is that correct? That's what you there's no money that is actually exchanged in that.
Charmaine Hammond [00:17:54]:
Right.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:54]:
But it's an in kind. And that's worth starting because, like, you found out that that in kind led to bulk sales where money was exchanged. Correct?
Charmaine Hammond [00:18:08]:
Exactly. And then she recommended me for some conferences where she exhibited. She said Charmaine would be a great speaker that led to speaking engagement. So you're absolutely right, Susan, that I love in kind sponsorship because we're all starting somewhere and the in kind sponsorship does a couple of things. It allows you to start to experience the working together with a sponsor, with a company, with a small business in your community. It builds that confidence. It also, though, allows you to start building your brand and how appealing you are to bigger sponsors. So you're having these in kind sponsor relationships and being allowed to use their logos on the website and in some of your marketing materials.
Charmaine Hammond [00:18:58]:
So what that does for perhaps some bigger sponsorships that might be cash sponsorships is that they're seeing that you are already working with companies in a sponsoring relationship. So it starts to build their confidence in you and the ability of what you could do together if they were your sponsor.
Susan Friedmann [00:19:19]:
There's some easy steps that you teach on how to even just get started. I know we've been throwing around lots of different ideas and some simple ones that people could get started. But are there some specific one, two, three formula that you could share with our audience?
Charmaine Hammond [00:19:38]:
There sure are some simple, easy steps that people could actually start immediately after listening to your podcast, Susan. So one of the things is I always talk about doing your own personal sponsorship audit. The first forty sponsors I had were all people I knew or businesses that I dealt with, and none of them were strangers to me. And that's where we wanna start. So do an audit. Walk around your house. If you have an office, walk around your office, dig through your purse or wallet, and look at your bank statements and Visa cards, your credit cards to think about, where do I spend money? Where do I go? Where do I hang out? Who is my circle? Where do I spend money? Because my first sponsors were the place that I bought my pet food from the place that I bought all our pet supplies from my veterinarian, my eye doctor, my hairstylist, the place I bought my clothes, where I pumped up my gas, the grocery store I spent money in. These all became my first in kind sponsors that many of them led to cash or bulk sales or other bigger in kind sponsorships.
Charmaine Hammond [00:20:52]:
That audit is a really good place to start. And you know what? It feels comfortable, Susan, when you can just phone up some place that you've dealt with before, whether it's your eye doctor, whether it's my financial advisor, that was another sponsor that became a cash sponsor. Just having a conversation with them around, I've got this book. My goal is to get it to these types of places, organizations, communities. You kinda list off that dream for your book and just have a conversation about, I'm looking for partners to collaborate with, and I wanted to start close to home and with people I know and trust first. What do you think about that?
Susan Friedmann [00:21:35]:
That's easy.
Charmaine Hammond [00:21:35]:
Open the question. It's easy. Right, Susan?
Susan Friedmann [00:21:39]:
Yeah. It's a
Charmaine Hammond [00:21:40]:
lot less intimidating.
Susan Friedmann [00:21:41]:
Yes. Because building a relationship from the beginning is it's scary.
Charmaine Hammond [00:21:48]:
Yeah. That's so exciting.
Susan Friedmann [00:21:49]:
Because it's like it's a cold call. It's Yeah.
Charmaine Hammond [00:21:52]:
How do
Susan Friedmann [00:21:52]:
you make that initial contact? But if you've already got relationships with, as you say, people who you do business with on a local level, people love to help. You just use the word help.
Charmaine Hammond [00:22:06]:
Yes.
Susan Friedmann [00:22:07]:
And they're like, oh, yeah. Let me see how I can help you. It's a fabulous word.
Charmaine Hammond [00:22:12]:
Fabulous word. And I love that you've brought that up, Susan, because a lot of times where these conversations will go is because people often get so buzzed in a good way by being able to help you. They might be thinking, you know what? I have a friend who works for such and such. I have a brother-in-law who owns this company. So people start to think about who they know, and they might be able to phone that person. I've had this happen so many times where they say, you know what? Send me an email that I can introduce you, or let me just phone them or text them. And so I've had so many times where those people in my world will then text, email, or call people in their world and say, I've got this friend, Charmaine. She's got these amazing books.
Charmaine Hammond [00:23:02]:
Here's what they're about. She really wants to get into these types of places. That's how I ended up working with a very big national pet supply store was through somebody connecting me in that way.
Susan Friedmann [00:23:14]:
I love it that they're doing the selling for you.
Charmaine Hammond [00:23:17]:
Yes. Yes. And then you get to come on a call, and that it's like the bridge has already been built. So you're not starting at the beginning. You're starting partway through, and it just feels so much more comfortable. You've got this champion on your side, as you said, Susan, doing that kind of selling for you.
Susan Friedmann [00:23:39]:
Yes. And people have other contacts. I think on average, the average person has at least 250 people that they know. I know that could be the all the people in their family, you know, if you come from a large family. But outside of the family, you know, if you think of your church, your synagogue, temple, community organizations, networking organizations, as I say, the rotary clubs, all all those service clubs that you've got, There's so much in those local people who you're doing business with. You're giving them your business, and they know you, and they trust you. That sort of carries through that knowing and trusting.
Charmaine Hammond [00:24:25]:
It absolutely does. And it's almost like when you have other people helping you in that way, it's like you've been vetted. It makes it easier for that person, your colleague or family member is approaching, to kinda get on a call with you because they feel like, obviously, that author must be a good person because this person recommended I speak with you. The other thing was we brought up family, and one of the big ahas, I'm chuckling myself because at the time of my kids' books, my mom was actually just retired from being a teacher's assistant. And you know what's funny? We have people in our world that we only think of them as being in the role that we know them. So my mom is my mom. I never even thought to say, hey, mom. How do I get my book in the hands of libraries and teacher assistants? And one day my mom said, do you want some ideas? I've got some thoughts, and it was sort of like I hit myself upside my head and thought, how did I not think of that sooner? This is really an important learning for all of us says that we have people in our lives that our relationship is one way, and we forget how connected they are because of who they are and what they did before retirement or what they do right now if they're still working.
Susan Friedmann [00:25:46]:
Yeah. How about a common mistake that you see authors make when they're asking for sponsorship and how can they avoid it?
Charmaine Hammond [00:25:56]:
I would say one of the common mistakes is that when authors start to learn about sponsorship, sometimes they wanna shortcut the process. And maybe sometimes that comes from doing what feels comfortable versus a little uncomfortable. I often see authors who generally, it'll be on a weekend and they'll create some kind of a great letter or a proposal, and they will spend the entire weekend emailing that proposal or letter to all kinds of businesses that they've never met where there is no relationship, and they will generally be extremely disappointed because out of the hundred letters that they emailed, they will get zero response. And if they do get a response, it's generally a thanks, but no thanks response. They spend all this time writing a letter, researching the contacts, sending it out, and they missed the important step. They pitched before having any kind of a relationship. That time could have been spent picking up the phone, calling three people, you know, saying, hey. My dream is to get this book in front of these audiences, these types of groups, these types of businesses.
Charmaine Hammond [00:27:14]:
I'd like to partner with different businesses. Who do you think I should be talking to? That would have been a much better use of time. So the big mistake is don't do a generic letter or proposal to people that you don't know without having had a conversation with them because it will generally always result in a no. Sponsorship, as you said and we've talked about, comes from the relationship. It's the relationship that allows those ideas to bring forward, so always build the relationship or at least have a connection before you start pitching people. Otherwise, it feels like those calls we've all gotten at dinner time where somebody phones you and said, I've got this, I've got the best this, I've got a sports team. Will you give us money? It feels off putting and we mostly say no.
Susan Friedmann [00:28:09]:
And relationships do take time. This isn't press the easy button.
Charmaine Hammond [00:28:14]:
That's correct.
Susan Friedmann [00:28:15]:
Yeah. And marketing is a marathon. You're in it for the long run. And just start building those relationships. And if our listeners want to start building a relationship with you, Charmaine, how can they do that?
Charmaine Hammond [00:28:30]:
The best place to do that is go to our website, raiseadream.com. Raiseadream.com. And I will be the person that responds to you. Let me know if you heard me on Susan's podcast. If you heard me here, let me know that. The other place you can find me is through social media. Email, social media, our website, you will find me. I will respond to you, and there's a lot of free resources on our website for authors just like you.
Susan Friedmann [00:29:00]:
Perfect. And there's a great one on sponsorship, an ebook on sponsorship. Yes. So listeners download that, and you'll get a lot of great information, as you can tell. Charmaine didn't hold back. She's an open book, so I love it. Thank you, Charmaine. And as you know, our guests, because you've done this before, leave our listeners with a golden nugget. What's yours?
Charmaine Hammond [00:29:27]:
My golden nugget will be take one baby step today, right after listening to this one baby step. It could be writing a list of five people you know that you could talk about. It could be doing that little audit of where you have your relationships. But every day that you wait to get started on sponsorship is a day behind building that relationship and getting those yeses.
Susan Friedmann [00:29:53]:
Beautiful. So true. Listeners, start that audit. Write down five people you know in your community who you could approach and just ask for help and say, Hey, who do you know? And it's amazing what doors will open as you can hear what- from Charmaine's experience. So thank you so much again for sharing your wisdom. You're so generous with it, and I love it. Thank you.
By the way, listeners, if your book isn't selling the way you want it or expect it to, let's jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways to ramp up those sales.
Because you've invested a whole lot of time, money, and energy, and it's time you got the return you were hoping for. Go to BookMarketingMentors.com to schedule your free call. In the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books. Until next week, here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.
Here's how to connect with Charmaine: