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The Call

Your goal with the phone call is to understand their goals, and then to figure out together whether CodeDay is a fit for those goals.

Pre-Call Preparation

Before getting on the phone with a company, you should collect some basic facts about their company:

  • *Location. **Do they have multiple offices? If so, which cities are they in, and is CodeDay in any other cities? How far is this office from where CodeDay is going to be held?
  • *Size. **How many employees do they have? If they have multiple cities, how many employees are in this one?
  • *News. **Have they been in the news recently? Positive or negative?
  • Contact. Who are you talking with? What are their goals likely to be? How long have they been with the company (LinkedIn is a valuable tool for this)?
  • History. Have the sponsored similar events before?

You might not be able to get information in all these areas before the phone call. Pre-call information is useful for knowing what to expect and being generally prepared, but you'll usually want to ask some questions at the start of the call to learn more about the company.

Write all the information you find down so you'll have easy access to it during the call. You should also write down a general overview of how you expect the call to go. Here's our recommended flow:

Find Out About the Company

  1. "What are your goals in [reaching developers/engaging with the community/recruiting interns/etc]?" (Personalize this question to their specific role.)
  2. "Have you sponsored any events before? How did it go?"

Help Them Understand CodeDay

  1. "Do you know anything about CodeDay?" (Have a few bullet points prepared. You should customize your description of the event to their role, e.g. up-play the workshop component for a company which sells an API, or the community benefit for someone doing developer relations.)
  2. "What questions do you have about CodeDay?"

Make An Ask

  1. From your conversation earlier, figure out what the benefit of CodeDay would be to them, and explain how it could provide that benefit.
  2. Make a specific ask: "would [company] be able to support CodeDay with a $[amount] sponsorship?"
  3. If the answer is "maybe," ask what the next steps are? Make sure they're specific! For example, if they need to discuss it, ask when you should follow up, and if there's anything you can provide them for their discussion.

Following Up and Closing

Once you've made an ask, the next steps will usually be clear.

If they gave you a "yes," you can introduce them to us for invoicing.

If it's a "maybe", send a "thanks" email after the call, and offer again to provide any additional information which would be helpful. Then, make sure to follow up with them when they said they'd have a decision.

If they said "no," either in the call or after following up, make sure to note why in your pipeline, and decide whether it's likely to stay no, or they might be more willing to sponsor in the future.