The Business of Being a Race Driver for May 3, 2022

This week in The Business of Being a Race Driver I have a number of great tips and resources to assist you in your sponsorship acquisition efforts as well as a few available drives. Enzo Mucci discusses 5 sponsorship mistakes, Kim Skildum-Reid talks about what you need in your sponsorship proposal, advice on what to do with your sponsors if you are not winning, thinking outside the sponsorship box and much more.

The Business of Racing

• In the video above, Enzo Mucci talks about the most common mistakes that drivers make when hunting for motorsport sponsorship. Avoid these at all costs! Finding sponsorship for any sport is tough as it is so do not make it more difficult by making these mistakes.

• Over at Power Sponsorship, Kim Skildum-Reid talks about The Number One Job of a Sponsorship Proposal (and It’s Not What You Think). “The very most important part of your proposal is the section outlining leveraging ideas. When you brainstorm those ideas, be sure to provide ideas that work across business units. Include ideas for sales, social media, HR, customer retention, intermediary markets, VIPs, and whatever other divisions who could benefit. This gives your contact the hooks to get those internal stakeholders interested – to create vision for them.”

• Do you have not had the greatest season and the bottom line is that you are not winning. How will this affect your sponsors? Can their sponsorship of you still be effective for them and their businesses? Have a look at Does My Team Need to Win to Build Sponsorship ROI? by Sport Dimensions. It is written from the perspective of the sponsor and it is important because it will enable you to anticipate objections and propose solutions.

• Part of the challenge of finding sponsorship is to stand out from others while presenting the potential sponsor with an opportunity that will increase their business directly. That is exactly what Danish driver Holger Wilcks did with one of his sponsors. I will let him explain how it works:
  • I’ve been helping a Danish TCR driver with sponsorships, and we recently closed a somewhat complex deal with a small telecom company. What I did was to set-up an affiliate marketing agreement between the telco and the Danish motorsports organization. In exchange for marketing discounted mobile plans to association members, the association will get a commission per sale. As an entry fee, the telco had to sponsor the TCR driver. And, in order to pay for my work, they signed a minor sponsorship deal with my own one-man racing team. Everybody wins. Association members save money on their phone bill, the association gets an income stream, the telco gets new customers, and we are two very happy racecar drivers with nice sponsorship deals.

• By the way, Holger posted his sponsorship win in the Racing Mentor Sponsorship Community Facebook group. It is a great resource and a perfect way to interact with other drivers discussing all things sponsorship.

• Social Media can be tough as coming up with content on a regular basis can be a challenge. The key is to focus on quality content. As Tucker Wulff explains “to create quality content you must first experiment to find out what your followers like to see, then develop a strategy that utilizes what you’ve learned from your experiments, and then implement that strategy in a way that is both realistic and promising.” Make sure to read the whole article to get the full picture of the importance of quality social media content.

• Speaking of social media, Megan Meyer Lingner explains How You Know It’s Time to Take a Break from Social Media While Racing. “Your mental health is more important than any micro increase in followers or engagement. Taking a step back from social media is something I definitely recommend doing between races, and you can do it without totally abandoning your audience or your momentum.” Read the full article for her tips on how to take a break without stalling your social media momentum.

Available Drives

The P1 Groupe has a number of drives available:

• We have a Bronze rated driver opening in IMSA Prototype Challenge in LMP3 for balance of 2022 season with Silver co-driver.
• Also, there is an option available for fast Silver rated driver, heavily discounted, with quick Bronze co-driver, for balance of the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge in the GS class in win-capable GT4. Testing options are available with season coming. Starts at Mid-Ohio and runs through end of the season.

Contact the P1 Groupe for more details.