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Free Advice: How to Make Your Race Team More
Attractive to Sponsors
(This free advice represents one section of the booklet How to Find a Sponsor
by Robert Villegas)
Before you begin your search you must take inventory of your team and look at every aspect from a marketing and sales perspective. Look at your business, your web site, shop, your employees, yourself, your driver/s, your friends and your
existing sponsors and ask some basic questions.
Before you can borrow money at a bank or satisfy sponsors that you are a legitimate racing threat you have to convince them that you are a legitimate business. You may have started your team because people kept coming to you to help them
with their race cars. You may have bought someone’s race car and decided to see how well you could do. This led to some success and the desire to get better equipment or move to the next level. No matter how your team started, you should go back to the basics and make your team
into a true business. This starts with a business plan.
A business plan will ensure that you have thought about all the essentials of running your team and that you are serious about your racing intentions. It will also help you organize in your mind the various components of the business and
how to prioritize the various processes that go into your every day operation, even your race strategy. A business plan consists of your company description, company history, operating plan, management profiles, marketing plan and company goals. These vital issues, if they are
thought out correctly will establish you in the business world and position you so that you can take advantage of a host of other business opportunities.
Your shop is the window into your team. If you’ve ever visited a top race team shop you will see that their model is a hospital room. Policies and procedures in these shops require strict adherence to the principle that a clean,
disinfected and well organized shop is the key to impressing visitors and achieving professionalism on the track. At your facility, you have the opportunity to put up as much signage as you’d like. Ensure that the shop has an attractive sign announcing your team, driver/s and
sponsors. Use the walls for pictures of your team and sponsor logos, checkered flag finishes, magazine and newspaper articles and your glorious trophies – anything that enables you to promote your team.
Your team web site is your showcase to the world. It should be attractive and well done. When I say attractive, make sure that it is done by a professional. Unless you are a web designer by profession, it is not likely that you will be
able to produce a site that is up to the standards of your biggest competitors. Give the web designer one major assignment: “Make me look better than my competitors on the web.” On your web site, have plenty of information, your team accomplishments, driver and team profiles,
information about sponsorship opportunities, and lots of action shots. Make sure that visitors have the ability to contact you should they want to email you directly. And finally, don’t forget the fans. A sponsor will notice that you care about the fans and give you points for
it. A great touch is to have links to your sponsors’ web sites also; again, you get points for that.
Make sure your website url (address) and email address are on all your literature, letterheads, business cards, etc. And finally, don’t just put up a site and think that you will get lots of visitors. Hire someone to promote the site so it
can be found. Have this person develop a linking strategy and programs that get you listed toward the top of the search engines. Your web site will do you little good if no one can find it.
Your employees are also a window into the team. Do they wear clean uniforms every day? Are they the kind of employees that will not only do an outstanding job on your cars but also look professional on the track? Are they trained by you
about looking and acting like professionals that represent your team and sponsors? Do they understand the value and importance of the sponsors and do they contribute to the overall good impression you want to give to sponsors and the public?
As the team manager, driver and/or overall leader of the team, you must ask the same questions about yourself. Are you ready to present yourself to a potential sponsor and win in the PR wars? How about presenting yourself to the public?
Are you a proven leader? A good speaker? What do you have to do to be more professional and well liked by fans and especially business professionals that watch you on the track and in the pits? How do you carry yourself and what do you do when adversity strikes? Do you respond
professionally, coolly and with forethought? Are you always thinking of ways to be a partner to your sponsor or do you think their job is to keep you on the track in return for logo placement on the car? Do you understand the importance of logo impressions and hospitality?
Your driver/s are the heroes that the fans will watch and cheer. The questions you ask about your employees and yourself should also be asked about the driver/s. Are they comfortable both on the track and in the boardroom? Are they
presentable and affable? Or are they angry and egocentric? Are they willing to go the extra mile for a sponsor and think in terms of what they have to do to win on the track and with the sponsors and fans? It would help if they had college degrees of some sort, either in
marketing, engineering or something that indicates their level of intelligence and willingness to work toward a long-range goal. Even if they just take a few classes and are willing to learn would be a plus.
You need lots of friends. Friends look out for you, try to help you, always talk about you and send opportunities your way. Ask the same questions about your personal friends that you asked about employees, yourself and your driver/s. If
you don’t have any friends like this, get as many as you can. Be open, accepting and affable to your friends and they will give you a major pay back.
Your best friends are your fans and they deserve to be coddled and schmoozed. You’d be surprised how hard working they can be if they know that can get involved and contribute to the team. Find ways to do this and you may just land that big
sponsor with the help of a fan.
There is an art to matching different sponsors on your team. Take a look at your existing sponsors and ensure you don’t step on their toes when talking to competitors. Do you have a good relationship with them? After all, they are your
references. What would they tell a potential sponsor about you? What can you do to improve these relationships and how can they help you find additional funding? Your sponsors employ many of your fans and they need to be coddled and schmoozed too.
Copyright 2004 New Century Marketing Concepts
How to Write a Sponsorship Proposal
How to Find a Sponsor
How to Become a Racing Sponsor 
Baja Bob/NCMC Sports Promotional Program
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