Sponsorships That Deliver Real Value

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents: Industry Partner Edition, guest host Sharon Pare of HighRoad Solutions welcomes Brandt Krueger, director of industry relations and partnerships at EventMobi, to discuss the evolving world of event sponsorships and association partnerships. Brandt shares why many sponsorship models have remained unchanged for years and offers practical strategies for creating more meaningful, results-driven opportunities. The conversation explores the importance of understanding sponsor goals, moving beyond traditional sponsorship tiers, embracing thoughtful innovation, and designing event experiences that deliver greater value for both associations and their partners. Check out the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/NgdE7JR8lOc   Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.   Transcript Sharon Pare: Welcome to this episode of Association NOW Presents: Industry Partners Series, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Sharon Pare, partnerships director of High Road, a HubSpot agency, co-host of Rethink Association, and your host of this series throughout the year. This episode is sponsored by EventMobi. Today, I'm joined by Brandt Krueger, and before we dig into sponsorships and partnerships, I know it wasn't exactly a straight line getting into associations for you. And what I would like to know first, and how I wanna get started is, I think you started in theater, and I wanna find out how you stumbled into the association space, and then we'll dig into all the other important stuff we wanna talk about today. Brandt Krueger: We could probably do a whole podcast on just that, but it's 'cause like so many of us, nobody comes in a straight line, right? It's always falling in, falling out. So yeah, came out of college with a theater degree in technical light; so lighting, so technical theater, so lighting, audio, building sets and props, and things like that. And was working for a theatrical lighting house, and was asked to resign at some point due to things we don't need to get into. But I took one name out of the Rolodex, and he was this kind of crazy, old hippie guy with long hair who did audio for these events. So I guess there's these events that people need audio and video for, and wound up working with him doing small events, and then got hoovered up by one of his major clients, who is one of the largest meeting and event production companies here in Minneapolis. So I wound up working for them for about 18 years doing lights and sound, and mostly audiovisual and production technology. But a sizable portion of their clients were associations. So already starting to get to know them in that context, in that space. Left them, went out on my own, did about 10 years of event technology consulting for a company I created called Event Technology Consulting, because I'm not very creative. So that consisted of a lot of trying to get people the right technology for them, a lot of asking questions, "What are you trying to actually do with it?" And then have worked my way around back into production again, working for another production company here. And then now, most recently, have worked my way into being the director of industry relations and partnerships for EventMobi. EventMobi is on the software side, so we're providing the mobile event app and the event management software that comes around it. But it all links together, right? This association through working with different types, different sizes of organizations, and then culminating in this new position with EventMobi where, when you and I were talking in the pre-show, I was saying I think 40% of our customer base is associations. And since then, I actually looked it up, and it's al- it's almost 50% of our business is actually with associations. So definitely have been stewing in this association world for quite some time.  Sharon Pare: You absolutely have, and it sounds like you've worked in production, AV, event technology, your own consulting thing. Now you're on the partnership side and industry relations, too. So just given your experience and working with a lot of these type of member orgs o- over all this time, what has changed the most since you've started?  Brandt Krueger: That's the funny thing about this industry, right, is it's a lot of the more things change, the more things stay the same. And so looking back over that career, obviously it's a very different environment, and we're doing things very differently, but it's always been very incremental. And it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just the nature of this beast that you only get one shot at it. Other than the very lucky folks who are doing a road show or something like