Sponsors are influential people in your organization or your industry. Sponsors know you well enough to advocate for you and recommend you for new opportunities. With their organizational clout, they can open doors you never knew existed. They could be the key to your career advancement.
I’ve published a free booklet with practical ideas for you to consider as you think about engaging with sponsors. I collected these tips from workshops and discussions I’ve led about sponsorship; they’ve helped others and I bet they’ll help you.
Do you have additional thoughts about engaging and thanking sponsors? Please leave a reply below. I’d like to hear from you!
Interested in more career tips? I offer a series of free publications, each of which is filled with practical ideas for growing your career and clear action items for planning your next steps.
–Karen
© 2014 by Karen Catlin. All rights reserved.
Karen Catlin 
These are such great tips Karen! I am curious how you would modify these tips for an entrepreneur. Within an established company you have the benefit of your work being seen more easily by people who could be sponsors. As an entrepreneur, particularly pre-launch, your work has much less visibility.
Hi Jen – good question! Entrepreneurs can (and should) apply the same tips to respected members of their industry or to investors they hope to work with. Just like senior managers within an organization, industry leaders also like to be associated with up-and-coming talent. Seek them out, ask them for advice or introductions, keep them informed, and make them proud. If the right people know what you’re working on and believe in what you’re doing, they will open doors, just like sponsors will do for employees in their companies.
Best wishes! –Karen