Getting Sponsors During a Tough Economy

During a tough economy everyone has a hard time lining up sponsors. It takes more than a letter and a positive attitude to sell an ad page or sign-up a sponsor. Join Valerie as she talks with Erika Lafata, Director of the Mrs. Texas United States Pageant and Founder and President of Full Circle Marketing , about the correct way to approach sponsors and generate interest in your pageant competition. Erika will walk you through, step by step, a realistic action plan that will help you to identify potential sponsors, highlight the benefits of being a sponsor, and how to follow-up with sponsors and close the deal. Erikas well-known pageant experience and extensive background in marketing enables her to answer all your questions about getting a sponsor for your next pageant!

Episode Segments:

Erika Lafata Part One Erika tells Valerie all about her extensive pageant background, how she made the transition to Pageant Director, and talks about her Marketing Company. She also shares advice on how to approach potential sponsors, and where you should start your search when first looking for sponsors.
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Erika Lafata Part Two Erika discusses how you can use your pageant skills, interview skills in particular, when approaching a potential sponsor. She also discusses how you can approach sponsors in this economy and still be successful, how to put a value on the services you can provide for a sponsor, and shares advice for new contestants approaching sponsors for the first time.
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Ask Valerie! Valerie has some advice for dealing with those unexpected things that come up in preparation for any pageant. She also answers listener questions on having one of your former competitors on the judging panel, and preparing for a pageant on your own.
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Guest(s) Appearing on this Episode

Erika Lafata Erika Lafata has had a 20 year diverse career in the media, starting as a feature writer/photographer of a tri-county newspaper in southeast Texas. Her vast successful experience includes being an on-air radio personality, including the Houston market; working as voice and on-camera talent; casting, writing and producing radio and television commercials; being honored in the radio and cable TV industries in the Dallas-Forth Worth market for her outstanding sales achievements in both industries; and her deep community involvement, especially Lions Clubs International’s humanitarian causes. Additionally, in her 24 years of pageantry, Erika and her business partner Melissa King were local directors for Miss Texas USA/Miss Texas Teen USA where they had the distinct honor of having two young ladies (Katherine Perello and Brittany Tiner) win the Miss Texas Teen USA titles back-to-back in 2001 and 2002 --on their first attempt-- as Miss Rice Belt Teen USA. A former Mrs. Texas United States 2000, Erika has lived in Frisco, Texas 7 years and has produced the pageant since 2005. She is married to her husband, Matt, a former 2-term Frisco City Council member, and they share 6 children, ages 16-5. She and her husband produce an 8 year-old popular weekly Frisco e-newsletter designed to keep Frisco residents in touch with city happenings and reached 41,000 people every week. Erika is the founder of Full Circle Marketing, a firm that specializes in getting marketing results for small to mid sized businesses in the North Dallas/Frisco area. Click here to visit Erika’s website. Or click here to visit the Mrs. Texas United States website.