Sponsorship - the Difficult Concept of "You are Worth It"

Today my students at Magee made their final presentation to us, modelled on the idea that they were an arts organisation pitching for sponsorship to a major company with a Northern Ireland profile.  In many ways they got it pretty much right.  Well-dressed, they presented themselves with clear missions and aims for their new companies, an understanding of why sponsors might want good PR, a broad sense of who their target market was, the beginnings of clarity on sponsorship as a meeting of equals, where one company proposes a brand alliance to another for mutual benefit.  The place where they fell down however, was the place that most artists seem to founder: The Ask.  They just couldn't ask.  They couldn't say "this is an excellent package, we believe it meets your needs, it is worth x".  And what is more they couldn't price all the things they were offering the sponsor and then ADD yet more to the price of the sponsorship for the sheer naked opportunity to access their precious audience. Even though we have talked about it. They understand that a sponsorship agreement is a meeting of (different) equals but in their bones, they don't feel equal.

 What is it that makes artists, and theatre companies feel this way about their work?  That it isn't worth as much as other professions?