In sponsorship, what I should be after is the supplied, i.e. what is channelled through the sponsor.
It should not be the fact of the sponsor, the character of the sponsor, or what the sponsor personally brings to the table.
Principles before personalities!
Sometimes a sponsee rejects the content of the sponsorship but then resists the sponsor's suggestion that perhaps the relationship is not fruitful. Immediately, there is compliance with the content ('the supplied') to retain access to the supplier.
The Step work is just the pretext: it's the person they're after, or, more probably, what the person represents.
This is where a relationship becomes unhealthy.
As every good sponsor I've ever had said: business is business.