Sponsorship-how to get it?

[Lee Yue Yang]

Hi all.I've been trying to get sponsorship for a long time now but have not gotten anything.Are any of you guys succesful in getting sponsored?I need some advice,tips or anything on getting sponsorship.Thanks.

[Lee Yue Yang]

Hi all.Can someone please reply to this topic?I really need help....Thanks.

[Peter Mallett]

Only thing I can tell you is to speak to local businessmen in your area. As that is Singapore I guess you'll be looking at big companies. In which case good luck.

[MaxxUK]

From what I've heard recently it's either by approaching some individual or company that you know/have dealings with, or approaching a company who have links with your particular car (i.e. if you race BMW, contact the local BMW dealership or get yourself a management company.

In all but the later case you really need to research the values and benefits of Motorsport Sponsorship to a company and have a well researched and presented opening letter (if writing)/script (if calling) and a full presentation prepared.

If you have this you could also look at New Companies starting up in your particular area (the area you race in).

What have you done so far?

[DAVID PATERSON]

If you own/run a business, your suppliers should be the first people you consider, they've got more incentive than anyone else to make you happy.

[Lee Yue Yang]

Thanks for the advice guys and MaxxUK,I've contacted many companies with letters and phone calls but I always get rejected.I've been trying for almost a year now but I've not even gotten a single positive reply.Maybe it's because I do not know what are the right things to say.

[Motorsport Sponsorship]

A friend of mine who happens to be F1 driver Jerome d'Ambrassio's personal coach, is developping an e-book that tackles step-by-step "how to gain sponsorship in motorsport" (which happens to be the title of the book). If you'd like, I would be more than happy to send you the pre-release copy which we just got back from the editors today. Like our facebook page [Link not working] to find out more.

[johngee]

Having got modest sponsorship in the distant past (with absolutely no talent or results to speak of), threads like this make me laugh and are doomed to failure.
Why? Because they start off with the wrong premise. I'll now give you a hint free, gratis and for nothing. Approach potential sponsors with just one 'strap line'....... "This is what I can do for you"..........Think about it!

[NewYankee01]

with due respect this might be already covered even though the guy doing it has half decent cv obviously, well done for finding the appropriate thread, always something that has been well written up for newbie racers, or experienced racers who suddenly need more money! its probably better hearing it from grassroots racers all their lives who have only experienced the path to sponspor being more troublesome, harder and less fruitful, bad advice you may think, because that's what youll experience and learn to avoid, otherwise youll soon be racing against d'ambrosio in f1!...

my advice for all new people is... (prepare yourself for this!) there's load of bs and decent stuff on google if you search long enough the majority of tried and tested stuff you need to start to know will be on there (or if this is your last resort), is it really worth getting sponsorship, i hope youve asked yourself all the key questions (as boring as it may seem) before diving in like all people hungry to have all the top companies on the side of their car barely visible to see! im not even going to try and explain my experience though for reasons i wont disclose!

it may be worth just getting 1 sponsor who you know of you have it plastered on everything you carry to a race meeting of a local company, that way the figure you can expect of any company that has a relative high turnover of say 200000-1000000 basically someone who can afford it through tax may give you £1000-3000 or more but you would have to start really going above the call of duty. you might get less helpful stuff like freebies/tools but be thankful for it the most you may have to do is mention them or at best wash and polish your car to keep them happy. brave to give figures out, dont rely on them situations may have changed thats why theyre quite wide, some people may be more generous or tight than others.

pick something you want the sponsorship to pay for like tyres for the season or total entrance fees if youre really good. i dont know what people in your neck of the woods prefer but a single big sponsor may be better than lots of small ones. its such of big topic of discussion that hasnt suprisingly been discussed on here much, racers have heard it all before, a lot of paper books have been written on the subject by people who have "done it all before" but its not an exact science, if youre just tackling this subject you will get this feeling all the time, its all what suits you, you may never get a definative correct answer though, so whatever you do dont get too bogged down!...

[matlockscot]

I 'blogged' on my website (www.asgmotorsport.com) on this subject. Since then I have had a modicum of success in attracting a few sponsors to my season's racing. And as already said, everything hinges on the 'what can I do for you', or more succintly, what return can I expect for my money. Here's the blog ...

I have been browsing a few of the motoring & racing-content websites and I never cease to be amazed by the number of “Sponsor me!” posts and adverts. Smart-thinking you may say, using technology to reach out to a wider audience of potential benefactors. Well yes, up to a point. You see, it doesn’t matter how you get your message out, it’s what's in that message that I think counts. And what I have seen to date I just don’t think offers anything that I, if I were sitting on a few quid, wondering what to do with it, would be tempted to start signing the cheques against. “I’ll give you plenty space on the car” just doesn’t cut it.

Now, if you were offering the glamour of the F1 circus, wonderful hospitality in exotic locations and a TV viewership in the multi-millions then, yes, I think offering a logo on the side of a car to build brand awareness might be an attractive proposition (if a very expensive one). Now let’s look at what the average club racer might offer.

Exotic locations? Ever been to Cadwell Park on a cold, wet April afternoon? Monaco it is not (though the steak pie is very good).

Thousands of potential widget-buyers in the crowds, just dying to open their wallets at the first opportunity to buy the thingy they saw advertised on the side of a Saxo at Castle Combe? Hardly. With the exception of a few of the bigger meetings (Britcar, Formula Ford Festival and Superleague), the attendance at most UK club meetings is more likely to run into the hundreds at best.

TV? You might get lucky and appear at 11pm on a Tuesday night on Motors TV but generally, you’re not going to be reaching the masses.

So what is there to offer?

Well let’s be honest, most club racers in the UK are either self or family-funded. If you don’t have access to the funds yourself to get on track, it’s unlikely that someone else is going to be happy to fund your hobby. For most, any sponsorship funds are best used to garnish the pot and allow you to do things just that little bit better. An extra set of tyres, more testing, a nice paint-job or access to a professional to bolt things together over the winter. So with that in mind what can you give back to the potential sponsor?

The biggest challenge for most businesses in these times of austerity is to drive footfall, either literally into their premises, or via traffic to websites – this being the new media age and all. What better attraction parked at or outside a retail premise than a fully-fledged racing machine? Nearly everyone that sees is wants to know how fast it goes, what engine it has or will it out-drag their Subaru WRX. Offer the chance to sit in it and apoplexy is not far away. And what about online? Well sponsoring a race car is certainly news-worthy. As I am finding out running this small internet venture, you can never have enough material. And as I have also found out, the web is a mass of interconnectivity (just like a web, fancy that). Start browsing one site and you can easily get lost for hours in a maze of links, discussions, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. This little site you are on now is attracting over 750 visitors a month and the racing season hasn’t even started (post script - now well over 1,000 a month!). Now imagine directing just a few of those visitors to sponsor’s own site and you start to see where the potential lies. Support your sponsors in other blogs, webites and discussions by recommending their services and you begin to deliver greater awareness and most importantly interaction with thousands of potential buyers of goods and services. A case in point – I am pursuing a deal with company A, who amongst other things, offer motorhome rental services. I was reading a discussion about our upcoming race in Spa, Belgium, when one of my fellow competitors mentioned that he was tired of camping and wanted to treat the family to a few more creature comforts. “Howabout a motorhome?” I ventured..... Anyway, you see the point. You have to offer more than just a logo.

My own sponsorship campaign offers logos, website links, the car at events, passenger-rides, tickets, and, of debatable value, my time. All for the price of your average local leaflet drop. What a bargain!

[midgetman]

Very thoughtful post MS, some good ideas.

As you can guess I get loads of people emailing me asking for racewear for their new season. I try to reply to the more sensible (read literate, if you're asking for money the least you can do is spellcheck and grammar check your work) and offer them 25% discount on anything they sell, so that if they sell 4 racing overalls theirs is free. I've only had one person take me up on the kind offer! But if, as they imply, putting a sticker on their car will send hordes of racers to my shop desperate to buy my wares, they could do the selling for me and bag a useful contribution to their racing budget.

The ones I hate are the whingers who write "if I don't get sponsorship I'll have to give up on my dream". Well sorry peeps, but I had to give up on my dream of being a porn star when I realised I wasn't suitably endowed, life really sucks sometimes (oops, sorry, poor use of idiom there!).

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by midgetman

Well sorry peeps, but I had to give up on my dream of being a porn star when I realised I wasn't suitably endowed, life really sucks sometimes (oops, sorry, poor use of idiom there!).

On a more serious note having been in racing of various types since the late 60s I found the only way that I got any money or parts was off of people that I have known for years.
I got a fair bit of money from a magazine probably because the owner lived opposite my workshop, I also rescued his house from a big disaster when he was away !
However I did find it easier when I was in a "high profile" series and was approached by various people that all contributed a small amount each,
It's who you know in the end IMHO !

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by johngee

Having got modest sponsorship in the distant past (with absolutely no talent or results to speak of), threads like this make me laugh and are doomed to failure.
Why? Because they start off with the wrong premise. I'll now give you a hint free, gratis and for nothing. Approach potential sponsors with just one 'strap line'....... "This is what I can do for you"..........Think about it!

You better believe it. Since I am an independent contractor that is how I phrase my approach when I talk to new clients. Works great.

I have a friend right now that runs in an obscure series and he has actually done well with local sponsorship kicking in a couple of hundred bucks here and there, along with some small contingency money from a manufacturer.

He has decided to up his game and wants tens of thousands of dollars now. He has a business and has suppliers for his business. He decided to hit them up for the money. Essentially it resembles a shakedown rather than sponsorship, including pretty gruff about it with them. What he wants is 30% of the sales they do with him. So say if they sell him $100K worth of stuff in a year, he wants a check for $30000 back.

I don't think it's going to work out too well for him. What do they get for that money? He hasn't presented any plan in terms of what benefits they get for rebating 30% of their sales back to him. No hospitality or any other real marketing benefit to increase their B2B sales. He has demanded an answer by today.

[terence]

Ultimately,you do need to have some kind of track record,I agree with Johngee on his pointer. If you're not at the front,most company's will ignore you unless its a friend of a friend.Try getting a better paid job?

[Casper]

Story and an illustration of what can happen. My son has raced karts for many years and is now in superkarts. There is very little sponsorship possibility with a kart as they are too small and to damned fast to read anything on the body.

Son gets a paid job twiddling spanners on a race team (he is a mechanic in his day job) and gets to know a few people in a very popular form of racing in which the promoters help people get sponsorship because they know how it is done, the average driver wouldn't have a clue. The first year budget is $250,000 and when he expressed an interest in racing in the class and suggested a sponsor the class did not already have the promoters said leave it to them and they would get the dollars from the sponsor.

What that says to me is if you have someone in mind or a business plan to go racing get someone in who specialises in promotion and sponsorship. Find out what you need to do and learn from them. A business plan is a must and something that companies understand, you just can't go in and ask for money with no plan on how that money will be spent, won't happen. Would you give someone money who fronted up and did not have a plan, buggered if I would.

In essence the driver does not have a clue which is why so many ask the question. Sometimes it occurs to a driver that he may have to invest money in management/agent fees to get a result. he won't get a result driving a banger around as the average sponsor wants to see a quality result for his money. BTW this does not necessarily mean race results though it obviously helps. What the sponsor wants is something that gets noticed, PRESENTATION.

Most of us put the cart before the horse as I have begun to realise watching what is happening with my son. We go racing at a budget we can afford and struggle to keep it all together. We then try and recruit sponsorship and the sponsor looks at what you are doing and decides that there is nothing in it for him, club class no audience etc. What we should do is decide what we want to race (it should have be a popular class and a bit upmarket) and then recruit the help to find the sponsor presenting them with the possibilities, TV etc.

What we fail to see as a general rule is all professional racing is a bottom line business and unless we think that way and present that way sponsorship is hard to get. Of course you won't be running a full time race team but you should be using the same strategies and financial methods as they do. Making a loss and money coming out of your pocket to bridge the gap is a stupid idea at the best of times. Wayne Gardner said it best, never use your own money to go racing.

There is also a history of sponsors getting ripped off in this sport, be honest and up front if you want a continuing relationship. If they see you living and racing within the budget set they are more likely than not going to continue helping you. This all comes back to planning and showing that you know how to spend their money with that plan.

[JohnD]

"Never use your own money to go racing"

What!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If that were followed, there would be no club racing, none at all, no rallying, no karting, no drag races, nothing. And then where would new drirvers and teams come from?

IMHO, in the enviable position of never being sponsored in my life, so completely unbiased, you have to spend your own money first. If you can do well and prove that you can get consistent high places THEN you might be able to interest a sponsor. But it is clearly a hard and rocky road. You have to start with money (eg Senna or Moss) or work incredibly hard, and be preaperd to be very short of money for your life. Read "Flat out - Flat Broke" by Perry McCarthy, Top Gear's first Stig, or Nigel Mansell's story - at one point he re-mortgaged his home for funds!
John

[Casper]

He said it not me and he achieved it. Do you always want to be spending your own money? If you say no do you know how to go about getting effective sponsorship. No? get some help.