Corporate Onion Syndrome
May 7, 2007 | by brett | Permalink
I have been overcome by corporate onion syndrome. Layer after layer I have picked away at these corporate onion structures in our sponsorship proposal process, and although no tears have been shed in peeling away these layers, it still stinks.
We all know that Corporate America moves at a snail pace. I have submitted ten proposals to corporations. The process goes something like this:
1) Submit proposal to contact who knows someone at the prospective corporate sponsor.
2) Your contact may or may not forward on to their corporate contact, and if they do we have successfully peeled away one layer.
3) Once the proposal is in the corporate level, this is where the fun begins. The proposal is submitted to the contact, who can range from the associate level to top dog. Regardless of the position, more often than not the proposal will move onto the next level of the onion because sponsorship is not part of the contact’s duties.
4) Now the proposal moves on to the sponsorship committee or the marketing department, that is if the contact deems it worthy of consideration. The committee meets once a month, or bi-weekly, which means that your proposal may sit for over a month after submittal. And when you follow up, it’s always in the process of being evaluated.
5) In this evaluation process, it may be determined that the proposal is more suitable for the national level, and again the proposal is forwarded on to the next level of the onion. Once at the national level, it could be lost, forgotten about, the dog could eat it, or be looked at.
This is where I am at on the corporate onion model. Out of these proposals, I have been told by many that they are being evaluated at the national level. Other proposals have never had the opportunity to reach this consideration stage because they were lost in the “forwarding on” process. Hopefully, we’ll have a few more layers to peel in this slow, patient, onion layer-like process.
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