Sales and Sponsorship Executive (up to £29,000 per annum)
We are looking for a highly organised, enthusiastic, and resilient Sales & Sponsorship Executive who enjoys building relationships, generating new business, and working closely with clients to deliver a high standard of customer service.
About the role
You will be part of the team working across the Craft portfolio, which includes five market leading events: The Festival of Quilts (Birmingham), Knit + Stitch (London / Harrogate / Northern Ireland) and The Stitch Festival London. You will report to the Head of Sponsorship and Sales Manager and work closely with sales, sponsorship, marketing and operations teams to support revenue generation and client delivery.
Key Responsibilities
- Sell stand space and digital products across the events, working to achieve revenue targets and meeting KPIs and yield expectations.
- Make high-volume outbound calls (approx. 50 per week), with a strong focus on new business development.
- Communicate clearly and professionally with clients via email and phone.
- Attend competitor and industry events (as agreed) to generate leads and insights.
Client Management
- Manage client relationships from initial contact through to event delivery, attending meetings when required.
- Develop a strong understanding of exhibitor needs through ongoing communication.
- Work closely with key clients to ensure sponsorship agreements are delivered to a high standard.
- Be active in lead generation for the sponsorship team and come up with creative ideas for new partnerships with relevant clients.
- Build and manage your own pipeline with accuracy and accountability.
- Maintain accurate forecasting and communicate pipeline progress to your manager.
- Use Salesforce to record all client interactions and maintain accurate data.
- Track performance against KPIs and report on sales activity and achievements.
- Maintain strong organisation across all aspects of your workload.
- Ensure floorplans are accurate and support the team to ensure they align with Salesforce data.
- Take responsibility for key admin tasks such as creation of the list of nameboards, maintaining sponsorship decks and proposals, creation of Welcome Packs and other onsite paperwork, ordering of required stationery etc.
- Ensure the Exhibitor Manual is distributed to all exhibitors and work closely with the marketing team to ensure all digital benefits of participation are delivered.
- Use project management tools and processes to ensure workflows are managed in a timely manner and deadlines are met across multiple projects.
- Create debrief documents for each sponsor at the end of each campaign and subsequently be part of the debrief meetings with clients to deliver post show debriefs.
Collaboration & Internal Working
- Attend and actively participate in weekly sales/sponsorship & team meetings.
- Collaborate with marketing to understand campaigns and enhance sales messaging and sponsorship proposition.
- Work closely with multiple teams across Immediate Live including the sales, marketing, editorial and operations teams, to help ensure sponsorship agreements are delivered to a high standard.
Event Delivery & Onsite Activity
- Support onsite event delivery, including rebook campaigns to secure future revenue.
- Sell stands and sponsorship face‑to‑face – this will include rebooking and cross selling into other events.
- Personally manage around 30‑40 clients onsite.
- Attend agreed events, which may require travel and overnight stays.
- Work closely with the operations team to deliver a seamless exhibitor/client experience and ensure successful event execution and that onsite deliverables are fulfilled.
- Use the time onsite to support relationship building and offer excellent customer service to all clients.
Requirements
- Demonstrable success in or understanding of a sales or target‑driven role.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Confident communicator with strong interpersonal and listening skills.
- Effective negotiation and objection‑handling abilities.
- Highly organised with excellent time management.
- Comfortable with high‑volume outreach and proactive sales activity.
- Self‑motivated, resilient, and results‑driven.
- Natural relationship builder and networker.
- Experience in consumer events, exhibitions, or media sales.
- Market and industry knowledge relevant to live events.
- Previous experience in a sales environment.
- 25 days holiday plus a day for your birthday; offices closed between Christmas and New Year’s in addition to annual entitlement.
- Competitive pension plans and Life Assurance.
- Tailored training and development through the Love Learning platform.
- Flexible/hybrid working plus early finish Fridays.
- Cycle to work scheme.
- Enhanced family policies including paternity, adoption and surrogacy leave; also pregnancy loss, fertility, and carers policy.
People are at the heart of our business and creating a diverse and inclusive working environment is important to us. Immediate is an equal opportunities employer. We’ll never treat anyone less favourably because of their sex, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, marital/civil partnerships, sexual orientation, race, nationality, ethnic origin, age, religion or belief or disability. We’re also committed to supporting applications from those who are returning to work following a career break, maternity leave or caring responsibilities.
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