[Top Agency Series] Unlocking the Potential of Sponsorship Marketing With Bonnie Hillman of A&C

Bonnie Hillman is the President and Owner of A&C, a full-service communications and sponsorship agency with roots in arts and culture. With a career spanning decades, she acquired the 40-year-old agency in 2004 and significantly expanded its services to include public relations and digital marketing. Bonnie is a seasoned expert in high-level negotiations for sponsorship deals and naming rights, clinching prominent partnerships with brands like TD Bank and Johnny Walker. Beyond her role at A&C, she’s a board member of the Sponsorship Marketing Council of Canada and has a flair for creative solutions in client acquisition and sponsorship campaigns. 

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [03:39] How A&C evolved beyond its arts and culture origins into diverse sponsorship and communications
• [04:25] Bonnie Hillman shares her organic decision-making process to buy A&C and transition into agency ownership
• [08:36] Structuring a successful acquisition and maintaining business operations amidst the transition
• [11:15] Valuing a business and negotiating a fair deal during a buyout
• [16:11] How to come up with a shotgun clause in partnerships
• [21:33] How to assemble a high-performing team and identify crucial roles that drive growth in an agency setting
• [26:48] Bonnie discusses the shifts in the sponsorship landscape and how A&C adapted to remain relevant
• [35:52] An inside look at negotiating with large brands and securing exclusive sponsorship agreements
• [39:02] A&C’s creative approach to sponsorship that leveraged municipality assets
• [44:19] Bonnie reveals key negotiation tactics and how to present a compelling value proposition
• [50:51] The innovative in-person Johnny Walker tasting campaign that revolutionized brand interaction

In this episode…

Have you ever wondered what it takes to negotiate million-dollar deals and make a name for yourself in the competitive world of marketing sponsorships? What about acquiring an established agency and navigating the tricky waters of ownership transfer and business growth? How does one even begin to approach such mammoth tasks?

Public relations and communications expert Bonnie Hillman delves into her remarkable journey of acquiring the agency A&C and the strategic maneuvers she employed to drive the company’s success in sponsorship and communications. She shares valuable insights from negotiating the agency purchase to structuring deals to increase brand visibility and create immersive experiences for clients. Bonnie also discusses the evolution of A&C from an arts-focused agency to a wide-ranging powerhouse in the publicity sector, emphasizing the importance of establishing strong and clear values in high-stake negotiations.

In this episode of Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Bonnie Hillman, President and Owner of A&C, about the intricacies of business acquisitions and sponsorship marketing. Bonnie talks about A&C and what it does, the keys to structuring a successful acquisition and maintaining business operations amidst the transition, recent shifts in the sponsorship landscape, and key negotiation tactics.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Bonnie Hillman on LinkedIn
• A&C

Special Mention(s):

• TD Bank
• Calgary Transit

Related episode(s):

• “[Top Agency Series] Navigating a Merger and Becoming an End-to-End Digital Partner With Kevin Hourigan of Spinutech” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Giver Series] The Power of Video Storytelling to Transform Your Business with Ian Garlic of StoryCrews” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “How to Set and Achieve Goals With Ian Garlic, Founder of Video Case Story” on the Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable Moments:

• “The valuation is like a good real estate agent assessing your home — it’s grounded in the actual value of assets.”
• “Everyone loves a deal, and part of negotiation is leaving room for that perception.”
• “Every CEO always feels like they contribute more to the business, but it’s about seeking a relationship that works.”
• “Ownership of assets is key to control and value in sponsorship deals.”
• “Innovative strategies like in-home tastings can redefine consumer behavior.”

Action Steps:

1. Conduct in-depth valuations to establish realistic marketing and sponsorship goals: Doing proper valuation sets a strong foundation for negotiations and aligns expectations on both sides of the deal.
2. Leverage your personal and professional network to find strategic hires and opportunities: Networking allows you to tap into a wider pool of talent and potential clients, fostering growth and innovation.
3. Be willing to expand your service offerings to meet client needs and market demands: Adaptation is crucial for staying relevant and providing comprehensive solutions that keep clients engaged.
4. Cultivate a nimble and creative team that thinks beyond traditional trajectories: A team with a flexible mindset can generate innovative ideas that push the boundaries of conventional marketing strategies.
5. Embrace the role of a trusted broker in negotiations to facilitate fair and successful deals: Establishing trust as an intermediary can lead to more open discussions and mutually beneficial agreements.

Episode Transcript

Intro  0:01 

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz  0:22 

Dr Jeremy Weisz here, founder of inspiredinsider.com, where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today, is no different. I have Bonnie Hillman, who is the owner, CEO of A&C. You can check them out at acteam.ca. Bonnie, before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes, people should check out the podcast. Since this is part of the top agency series I had Kevin Hourigan on. Since you actually bought a 40-year-old agency, which we’ll talk about in 2004 actually, Kevin Hourigan from Spinutech, started his agency in 1995 so he’s been doing this for a little while, and he talked about the landscape of agency business, and we’re going to talk about some of that too, which is what changes have happened? Changes happen in just a year, let alone decade. So it’s really amazing to hear that story, and we’ll touch on that today.

Another one was Ian Garlic. Ian Garlic helps companies with their case stories. So he’ll interview the clients. And he’s kind of done for you service for people to capture client stories of videocasery.com he talked about, grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, and his dad actually had a restaurant, and they had live dolphins in that restaurant, which is strange, I think, he’s in Orlando, but the restaurant was actually in Wisconsin, which makes it even crazier. So just some cool, fun stories that gets the creative juices flowing. Check those episodes out and more. This episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. How do we do that? We do that by helping you run your podcast. We’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast. We do the strategy, the accountability and the full execution.

So Bonnie, we call ourselves kind of the magic elves that run the background and make it look easy for the host so they can create amazing relationships, create amazing content, and most importantly, run their business. For me, the number one thing in my life is relationships. I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships, and I found no better way, over the past decade, to profile the people and companies I most admire and share with the world what they’re working on. So if you’ve thought about podcasting, you should if you have questions, go to rise25.com or email us at [email protected].

I am really excited to introduce Bonnie Hillman. She’s president, owner of A&C, acteam.ca, she runs a 40-year-old agency that I mentioned that she purchased in 2004. They provide communications, public relations and digital marketing strategy, as well as sponsorships and brand partnerships for companies. We’ll talk through some really interesting examples of that. She’s also been a board member of the Sponsorship Marketing Council of Canada for think over the past decade. Past clients include Yellowstone Bourbon, Union Station in Toronto, Ontario Sports Network, and many, many more over the past many decades. Bonnie, thanks for joining me.

Bonnie Hillman  3:24 

It’s a pleasure to be here, Jeremy, thanks for having me.

Jeremy Weisz  3:26 

Let’s start off and just give people a sense of A&C and what you do. And if you’re listening to the audio, there is a video we’re gonna pull up the site and we’ll poke around a little bit, talk about A&C.

Bonnie Hillman  3:39 

So we are a full-service communications and sponsorship agency. Our roots are in arts and culture. The A stands for arts and the C is communications. Arts and Communications is actually our official name. We still work in arts and culture. We really started with this vision of how business and arts have things in common, in ways that they can both benefit from partnering with each other. We’ve grown a lot since then. We still do that. We still have clients that are based in arts and culture. We still have brands who are interested in partnering with that, but we also do a lot of other things.

Jeremy Weisz  4:21 

Take me back to the decision to buy A&C.

Bonnie Hillman  4:25 

Well, like some things, it was very organic, and it didn’t ever feel like a real decision. I was working there. I was hired by the founder and the owner at the time, who was a very one-of-a-kind, kind of person. She was forward-thinking. She was her own person, and very challenging to work with sometimes brilliant, brilliant, curious, think Meryl Streep, character in The Devil Wears Prada a little bit and she hired me into the year 2000 I worked there with another woman who was around my contemporary, and we overheard a conversation that the founder was planning on selling.

And frankly, this other woman, it was her impetus. And came in and said, Bonnie, let’s buy the company we love working on the things we love working on, and it would be fun. And so we did, and it was not some, I didn’t grow up thinking, oh, I want to own an agency. I’ve worked in lots of them, but it was really a way to keep working on the projects that we liked. And also, honestly, Jeremy, it was a lifestyle business for me. In those days my kids were little, I figured I’d have more freedom owning an agency than working for someone else. I could scale it up or down, depending on my life and my decisions. And the other woman was in a similar place. And so we bought it really. We had a couple of core clients. It was paired. It was a very small, I think there was a team of four people, and that was the beginning. And so we didn’t, quite honestly, really have a vision, except to keep doing what we enjoyed and working with the clients that we found the most interesting.

And then over the years, it’s evolved. The woman I initially bought it with exited, probably after about a year, it really wasn’t her thing, and then I was the sole proprietor, and carried on and initially, as I said, the first probably five years, really was just a couple of projects. It was small. And at that time, our focus really was in arts and culture and mostly sponsorship. Basically, we’d be hired. We work with every big museum, small museum, performing arts organizations across Canada and some in the US. We work with SIP de Soleil selling sponsorship in the States, and then we won a piece of business, Gray Goose Vodka, they were launching in Canada, and they wanted to align with an agency that was connected to arts and culture. So they brought us in. And then as they grew in Canada, we grew with them, and they said, hey, can you do public relations or other communications work?

And like anyone, I thought, why not? I knew a lot of people in the business. I hired a cracker jack PR person, and that’s where we began the communication side of our business, which, frankly, is bigger now than the sponsorship side. But I grew up in advertising, sponsorship, marketing communications in general, but not specifically media relations. And I’d hire really smart people to do that work, and I still do.

Jeremy Weisz  7:59 

It’s fascinating to hear this. I want to unravel a few of these pieces. Good thing the person overheard for one, right? Because then you would have known they would have just sold and came in. So it was really kind of interesting there. How did you approach the owner at that point? And then how did you decide, because you weren’t like, okay, you weren’t looking to buy a business at that point, no. How did you and your partner structure the deal, and how do you actually put it together?

Bonnie Hillman  8:36 

Okay, great question. So I was the senior person on the team, and the owner at the time, spent six months in Florida. She really had distanced herself a bit. I had been working there three and a half years, and so I really had a handle on I hire the staff. I mean, it was ultimately her business, and she paid me salary, and she liked me better than she liked the other woman, and the other woman was newer. She’d only been there about a year, I think. So we structured the deal. So we approached her. She was very keen. I don’t think she had many other buyers.

Jeremy Weisz  9:18 

It seems like a perfect thing because she stuck out of the business. You were actually running the business already. So it seems like an obvious choice. I’m actually a little surprised she didn’t just come to you in the beginning and be like, hey, I’m thinking of selling. But maybe she’s thinking, well, the staff doesn’t want to do it.

Bonnie Hillman  9:35 

Or doesn’t have enough money, or, I mean, it was relatively I was younger, so and I think, I mean, and she was still the Rainmaker in the business, mind you like, she was really still the one with all the connections. She was a superstar, really, in the Toronto market in Canada, very, very well-known and respected. And so I didn’t have that. I had moved to, I mean, I had been living in Canada for, at that point, for 10 years, but I didn’t have the connections that she has had. So we approached her, and then we structured the deal the way any deal gets structured, very specific to the company. We paid her a nominal amount for the company itself, and then there was a shareholder loan that we covered, and then we paid her out over I think she stayed on salary for two years, and that included her driver also. And we made it work.

And then my business partner and I were 50/50, we had a shareholder agreement and a shotgun clause that was part of it, just from a structural standpoint. And I always said that, if you met the three of us, I seem to be the least aggressive person, but it sounded like I bought the company, and then I bought the other one out and the company. And if you met the three of us, it would not seem that way. So that’s how we structure the deal.

Jeremy Weisz  11:12 

How’d you come up with the valuation at that point?

Bonnie Hillman  11:15 

So we had lawyers who did that, and naturally, the seller had a fairly inflated, from our point of view, price, and the company had really lost money in the last couple of years, but we could see through like how, I mean, we saw the revenue, the revenue had been going down, but there were still a couple of key retainer clients that were valuable that, frankly, we worked on, that we had the relationship we did the work.

There were a couple of naming rights deals, and they were fairly lucrative and sizable. And so we came up with really a goodwill number for the business, because it actually was so small that it really it didn’t even make sense to do the math. It was just okay, we’re going to pay you X for the goodwill and the fact that the company had been around for at that point, 20 years, and it’s older than 40 years, the articles of incorporation or 40 years. But the company started actually in New York City, and then when the founder moved to Toronto, she created this company, and was still probably working as a subsidiary, but the official so it’s probably closer to 50 years old, but so she’d been working in the market a long time.

Jeremy Weisz  12:35 

Yeah, it’s interesting, because obviously, it depends on the industry, but I think in the agency industry, people will do evaluation based on the EBITDA, right? And so since you’re like, well, there was really no EBITDA to multiply by, you kind of factored in. There were retainer clients and then goodwill. And so you just had like, an outside, like, lawyer team kind of assess what that would be like third-party. So I was as emotional for that person who’s like, this is, I’ve been working for 50 years on this, and you’re telling me it’s worth that.

Bonnie Hillman  12:36 

Yeah, yes. And that was a tough negotiation, also, because she was our boss. So you’re negotiating, you’re playing hardball with somebody who could fire you, essentially.

Jeremy Weisz  13:29 

How did you end up coming to I mean, this is kind of what you do, I assume, when you’re doing negotiation, because that’s one of the things I want to talk to you about, is negotiation, because you’re doing this with large sponsor, like, when we’re talking sponsoring Union Station, they’re paying a lot of money, or a big theater or a stadium or something like that. At this point, how did you come to because it sounds like okay, there’s an inflated view of what it’s worth. How did you end up having those conversations and getting it to something you agreed on?

Bonnie Hillman  14:04 

Well, we had good lawyers, and her lawyer was a reasonable person, so we really left it to the lawyers to do the tough conversations, and then, because also she wasn’t coming into — she wasn’t in Toronto, she was in Florida. I seem to remember at that time, so it wasn’t like we were coming into work every day and having to see each other, which so it ended up working out. I mean, also, it’s a while ago, 20 years ago, so I don’t remember all of the details, but I don’t remember it being uncomfortable for a long period of time when we actually sat down with our lawyers to kind of really do the deal.

Was uncomfortable because I don’t know that she had realized how little the bucket of the actual buying the business was. She liked the whole package was other things, but what she was going to get upfront was a lot smaller than I think she realized, and so that got uncomfortable and she was not somebody who, I’d say contained herself for her emotions particularly.

Jeremy Weisz  15:18 

But that helps, you had third parties involved that were evaluating it and then talking to each other through some separation there. So, like, it separated the emotion. And when you came to the table, the terms were more like, okay, you’re getting a chunk up front. We’re going to pay you over time. Also, you’re getting a salary for a number of years, which was included in that as well. So there were several things in there, but maybe it was like a little bit of a sticker shock, a reverse sticker shock, when you’re like, here’s what we’re giving you up front for the business, exactly, an earn-out situation.

Yeah, for sure. Really interesting. And then you probably weren’t expecting the partner to leave after a year. So at that point, do you initiate a shotgun for people who don’t know what that is? Maybe? How did that conversation go?

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