When I launched Sponsor Games last year, I wanted to do everything differently.

No allocart pricing menus. No lanyard sponsorships. No letting brands sponsor the swag bags or the drink tickets. That stuff felt cheesy. Transactional. Like a race to the bottom.

I was going to be different. Innovative. The brand would be so blown away by my creative approach that they'd throw money at me.

Except... that's not what happened.

And you know what? I've actually come around. Today we're talking about why I've evolved in my thinking—and why sometimes you don't need to reinvent the wheel.

The McDonald's Theory of Event Sponsorships

My friend Chris Lema has this great analogy. He says when he goes to a country he's never been to, most people look for local cuisine—find that restaurant serving the delicacy they've never tried.

Not Chris. He looks for a McDonald's.

Why? Because he knows exactly what he's getting from McDonald's. Zero surprises.

Events feel the same way for brands.

Joe pointed out something I hadn't fully considered: Most events are historically bad for ROI. You're sending a team, paying for travel, setting up booths. The actual measurable return? Often pretty weak.

But the optics? Supporting the community. Getting your logo in front of people. That's what brands understand about events.

When a brand knows what to expect, it's an easier sell.

They've sponsored events before. They know how the booth works, how the signage plays out, what sponsoring the welcome dinner looks like. You trying to pitch them some wildly creative, never-been-done-before activation? That's risky. They don't have a mental model for it.

What Sponsors Actually Value (And It's Not What You Think)

I just had a call with one of our Sponsor Games sponsors about coming back for next year. I straight-up asked them: "What did you value most? The tableabling where you had signage and swag? The logo placement?"

Their answer surprised me.

"I don't really care about that," they said. "What I valued most was that you were so kind to shout us out from the stage."

That wasn't even planned. It wasn't in the contract—"Here's where Justin's going to be on stage talking about how awesome Sponsor XYZ is." It was just authentic. I genuinely wanted to thank them because the event wouldn't have happened without them.

But that's what they said mattered most. "We've sponsored other events and that doesn't always happen. You get put on emails, your logo's on the signage, but no one actually says thank you from stage."

The second thing they valued? Actually interacting with attendees.

At most conferences, there's this weird wall. The sponsors are in the booth area. Maybe people mill around during breaks. But is the sponsor going out to dinner with attendees? Having meaningful conversations? Hit or miss.

We were intentional about including sponsors in everything. And we're trying to be even more intentional next year—potentially integrating speed-dating style sessions into the programming. "Okay, groups red and yellow, go talk with this sponsor. Blue and green, you're over here."

We've even toyed with asking sponsors to allocate budget to sponsor creators at the event. Like, "We're going to guarantee to sponsor at least $5K worth of deals with people we meet." Maybe facilitate live on-stage negotiations.

The goal? Really integrate sponsors into the event instead of treating them like ATMs who get a booth in the corner.

Why Booths Create Weird Dynamics

Joe and I talked about this strange dynamic with traditional conference booths. You've got a 10x10 cube. Usually there's a table blocking off the entire booth from attendees.

So the attendee sheepishly shuffles over. The sponsor rep comes over. They have this very superficial conversation about "What do you guys do?" Or the attendee pitches really hard—"I want to collaborate with you, here's my card, let's talk."

It's just... weird.

Joe nailed it: If we were being honest about the unspoken conversation, it would be "Hey, I know you're going to sell me something and I'm just here for the free stuff. Can you give me the free thing and I'll give you an email address I'm never going to check?"

But they've got to do the awkward dance.

What if instead, you removed those physical and psychological barriers? What if sponsors and attendees could actually have real conversations about goals, challenges, and how they might help each other?

Especially in the age of post-COVID and AI, in-person connection matters more than ever. Brands are going to start investing more dollars into this.

How to Actually Approach Event Sponsors (And Get Deals)

Joe shared something brilliant: His biggest podcast sponsors came from talking to event sponsors.

Pre-COVID, at non-meta conferences, he'd walk up to brands sponsoring the event and say: "You're spending $50K to be here. For $10K, you can sponsor my podcast for six months."

He knew their goal was supporting the community. He was a voice in that community. The math was simple.

Here's what he didn't do: Walk up and say "Hey, I see you're sponsoring this event. Do you want to sponsor my content?"

Instead, he asked: "What's going on in your world? What are you working on?"

I actually recorded myself doing this at Podcast Movement Evolutions a few years back. I went up to the Riverside booth (the tool we use for this podcast) and started by asking Stephen what they were launching, what they were excited about.

He mentioned their new Spotify partnership. I asked if they were looking to spread the word about it. Then I mentioned I have 33,000 creators on my newsletter and handed him my card.

No immediate deal. But Stephen DM'd me later saying he shared the video with everyone on Slack because they thought it was hilarious (I'd tagged them in the post).

The Confidence Framework

Joe made a great point about how to find the confidence to approach brands at events: Think about people who offer unsolicited advice. They're very confident they can help you.

When you approach a brand, if you view it as "This brand is just going to think I'm hitting them up for money," you won't have confidence. Nobody likes explicitly asking for money.

But if you approach it from "Hey, I can help you"—you obviously want to reach these people, I can help you reach them for more than just a day or a weekend—now you're sowing the seeds of a relationship and partnership.

It's not transactional. It's consultative.

The Brutal Truth About Follower Counts

I was doing a dry run of Sponsor Games before the event—about 30 creators participated virtually. One person had close to 10 million followers and was frustrated that brands weren't responding when they reached out.

"I've got all these followers. Why aren't brands responding?"

I had to give them the toughest piece of advice: The brand doesn't care that you have 9 million followers.

They were shell-shocked. That was their identity. "I have millions of followers" is what they led with because pretty much everyone else in their life is impressed by that. Friends, family, other creators—"Oh wow, millions of followers, that's impressive."

But brands? They really don't care. They don't know who you are.

In their mind, they might be thinking about that AdWeek article where some brand sponsored a mega-influencer and generated zero sales. So they have this image of "I don't want to work with a giant influencer because it might not work out."

You can't lead with follower count. The brand doesn't care.

It's a huge win if you can convince them you can help them accomplish a business objective. But millions of views? That helps with pay-per-click ads maybe. It lends credibility for speaking at conferences. But it doesn't automatically translate to sponsorship value.

The Flip Side: You Don't Need Big Numbers

Here's the beautiful thing Joe pointed out: You don't need a lot of followers to get sponsors.

His podcast was sponsored pre-launch. Zero views. Zero downloads. Sponsor on day one.

Why? Because he could reach their audience. Their goal was to promote something. It was affordable. They didn't ask "What's your CPM? What's your CPV?" They just said "Yes, we want to support you and you talk to the people we're trying to talk to."

I got a DM on LinkedIn yesterday that hammers this home. Someone in Uzbekistan—not historically a place where advertisers spend a lot of money—grabbed my Sponsor Magnet ebook for $9.

They wrote: "I followed your exact pitch, pricing, and negotiation strategies, and I landed four figures in brand deals. My channel just crossed 1K subs. Before this, I hadn't made a single dollar."

1,000 subscribers. Four-figure deals. From Uzbekistan.

It's not about where you live. It's not about how many followers you have. It's about framing it in a way where brands realize they can accomplish their goals by sponsoring you.

The Real Goal: Make It About Them

The last thing Joe emphasized: Understanding the brand's goal is really important.

A brand told a creator their goal was repurposing content. Then the brand came back with "You don't really have a lot of views on your channel."

But if their goal is repurposing, views shouldn't matter.

You could literally have zero views. All you need to do is make a really good reel or short clip for the brand to use in their ads or on their own properties.

This is where conversation with the brand matters. Don't assume you know what they want. Ask. Dig in. Get specific.

Then position yourself as the solution to that specific problem.

What I'm Doing Differently This Year

So here's where I've landed for Sponsor Games 2026:

I'm embracing some traditional elements. If a brand wants to sponsor the welcome dinner? Great. The coffee cart? Absolutely. (In fact, one sponsor wants to be the exclusive foam sponsor—their logo on the latte foam. Genius.)

But I'm not creating an allocart menu. I'm not giving them a list of options with corresponding pricing. That becomes a race to the bottom where brands just pick and choose based on cost.

Instead, I'm having conversations. What do you want to accomplish? What would make this valuable for you? Then I'm customizing packages based on those goals.

And I'm integrating sponsors into the experience in ways that create real connection—not just logo placement.

Sometimes you don't need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to make the wheel roll better.

Want to learn how to approach event sponsors (or any sponsors) with confidence and close deals? Join us inside Wizard's Guild, where we teach creators how to have these conversations, position themselves as partners (not vendors), and build sponsorships that actually matter.