Commercial Manager

[andy]

Really good to see BOF pushing boundaries and getting some professional help in to source more funds. Salary is good too, so hopefully will find someone who is going to excel in the role.

http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/
http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/i ... 20Role.pdf

[andypat]

Agreed - someone has put a lot of work into this.

[Gross]

He / She will need to move fast.... sponsorship budgets for 2015 will be allocated sooner than later.......

Hope the salary figure ends up way past the 30K on offer

[graeme]

Interesting that the 5-page Job Description, while covering details such as ticketing , doesn't actually use the word "orienteering" anywhere, except as part of name of the employer "British Orienteering". The job is "Generating commercial income for the organisation" (i.e. "British Orienteering") and not for the sport. So don't expect help with finding sponsors for your club's event...

[Oldman]

The job is "Generating commercial income for the organisation" (i.e. "British Orienteering") and not for the sport. So don't expect help with finding sponsors for your club's event...

I think there are few (if any) club events that would likely attract sponsorship that could justify paying a professional person to seek it.

The most likely sponsorship sources IMHO are the new Sport England supported initiatives and WOC 2015 and the team at it.

[SeanC]

London City Race?

[Gross]

What's the odds on this super-saleman knowing nothing about orienteering ?????

[graeme]

Race the Castles is currently bringing in sponsorship at a rate well ahead of the time-cost of seeking it. WOC2015 have asked us to sponsor them

I think there are few (if any) club events that would likely attract sponsorship that could justify paying a professional person to seek it.

I think you are completely wrong. Many club events could benefit from a small amount of sponsorship, a good example being the national agreements with BUFF. andypat has brought in sponsorship for SOL and SOUL at appropriate levels. An experienced professional with good contacts should be able to leverage in-kind sponsorship at the level of a few hundred quid in next to no time. Instead each club has to find someone willing to do it, that person has to learn what to do, then try to build contacts, all for a one-off event. It's woefully inefficient, which is why a sensible sport would appoint a central person to help with it, and this should be a part of the commercial manager's job description.

[Red Adder]

I gather Lord Shuggah has released a few potential apprentices back in to the job market so there are several high skilled people with A1 interpersonal skills just looking for the right opportunity just now.

[Oldman]

An experienced professional with good contacts should be able to leverage in-kind sponsorship at the level of a few hundred quid in next to no time.

If a salesperson is paid £30K pa, then with overheads such as NI, pension costs and travel and other expenses, it's unlikely to cost less than £40k pa which is about £850 per non-holiday week. That also ignores any commission. That means of course that a minimum of £850 per week in new sponsorship must be obtained, and if in-kind, who pays? I still think that's a very tall order, even for a gifted, connected professional.
And what does the prospective sponsor get for their money?

I accept the London City race might be an exception if building it can continue.

I do recognise however that this is a matter of opinion.

[andypat]

http://www.scottish-orienteering.org/soa/page/apache-support-scotjos

I do recognise however that this is a matter of opinion.

Or possibly a matter of perspective?

[Becks]

I gather Lord Shuggah has released a few potential apprentices back in to the job market so there are several high skilled people with A1 interpersonal skills just looking for the right opportunity just now.

I can personally vouch for Jason Leech (being a total spoon).

[graeme]

I do recognise however that this is a matter of opinion.

I'm not sure what point you're making. Do you think the whole idea of a Commercial Manager is a mistake?

Ultimately, it's not completely matter of opinion because (as you rightly say), you can easily do the sums of income vs cost and £1k per week is about right for breakeven. For my time on marketing RTC I'm currently ahead of that. I accept that I do have an exceptionally good product to sell and am grabbing the low-hanging fruit, but it clearly is possible.

I also persuaded myself to do it for free - as did the people who brought in the apache sponsorship - but that should be irrelevant to this discussion.

[Mrs H]

Also it depends what you term sponsorship - if it's just getting money then even I managed to get in about £8000 worth of funding for my Malvern Initiative and it certainly didn't take me eight weeks to get it.

[SeanC]

I think Graeme's analysis is spot on. I think my local club could get a small sum from say local running shops for sponsorship as a way for them to advertise to us. The real value might be in them helping us make our events more appealing to the general public. But no-one has the time/inclination or have too many other jobs to do.

And that's right about grants and the like Mrs. H. At club level that's the major untapped source of income. But it's the same problem that Graeme describes. A few years ago we had a club member who's paid job was sports development. He helped to get us a couple of significant sized grants. He knew just what to say and who to ask. With him gone there's no-one with the time/inclination/experience to apply for more.