Sponsorship

We often discuss how to get sponsorship on this forum. I'd like to give this guy props for at least being able to spell the word ("sponser" is the Camero of begging letters) - but I would recommend giving a slightly stronger case for what you have to offer.

Hello, My name is -------, and I am a 16 year old who currently owns a 92’ miata. I got my license 6 months ago and absolutely love driving. I have had my car for 18 months and am ready for some modifications to the car. It is currently stock minus a magnaflow cat-back exhaust. I absolutely love your 6UL wheels in tungsten finish. They look spectacular. My parents unfortunately make me pay for all of my insurance and that takes up all of my income from my work. So, naturally because I want to drive, I put my money towards being able to drive and not towards modifications. I am asking that you would sponsor me and send me a set of 6ULs that I can put on my car. I would recommend you to every other person I know whether they own a miata or not. I have wanted to do modifications to my car for the longest time but just don’t have the money to do it.  I would love to also get coilovers, new clutch and flywheel, sway bars, a hardtop, a roll bar, ecu, and eventually a turbo in the future. Please consider.

At least the guy asked, instead of demanding.  At 16, driving a sports car, holding a job, and paying his own way, hes got a lot going for him to become a responsible adult. 

Kinda neat, really. And gives me a little hope for the next generation. 

I'll put an FM tattoo on the back of my head for a turbo kit...

I do have to hand it to him for at least asking though. I can't say I ever would have thought of that at 16, and sometimes people really will give you stuff for having the nerve to ask. 

I do applaud his parents. It shouldn't be unusual for a kid to have to pay for his own car at 16, but it probably is. I wouldn't know, I didn't have a car until I was 20. And I paid for it along with all the bills. 

Our marketing budget does not cover free wheels for people who cannot afford to buy any themselves, unfortunately. Having the nerve to ask is not a good enough justification for over $600 worth of wheels. You know what would have happened if we'd said yes, of course. We'd get letters asking for "coilovers, new clutch and flywheel, sway bars, a hardtop, a roll bar, ecu, and eventually a turbo in the future."

So I'm not getting those wheels? 

Andy Neuman said:

So I'm not getting those wheels? 

Better luck next time.

It might be polite to redact the senders name when posting the contents of their email publicly online without their knowledge or consent...Unless, of course, you did so with their knowledge and consent.

That being said, he generally sounds like a good kid, with semingly good parents...Who is learning some life lessons the way they were meant to be learned.

After thinking about this more, maybe ask this kid to bring himself and his Miata to the challenge and I'm sure we can come up with a set of wheels for him. Probably not new, and maybe not 6ULs, but I'm sure someone has something cheap, and we can help him do a rattle-can tungsten finish.

As for sponsorship, Keith Tanner can sign his passenger-side dashboard.

In reply to Robbie :

The amount of miata knowledge and parts at any given challenge would be well worth the trip. If we all brought parts we could probably build a car in the parking lot. 

Andy Neuman said:

In reply to Robbie :

The amount of miata knowledge and parts at any given challenge would be well worth the trip. If we all brought parts we could probably build a car in the parking lot. 

 

That actually sounds really neat, it's like pimp my ride but it's autocross style. Keith, perhaps you could tell him to learn more about cars and One day be offered a job at the company. After all, if this kid has THAT kinda determination after graduating high school, I want that kinda person working for me. 

On on the flip side of this, I remember when I was 15-16. I would make skate videos and send them to companies. I never got sponsored. The thing is, if you have to ask for sponsorship, you aren't good enough (usually). Most often it's just like any sports player, his talent gets the attention of the money. 

Trackmouse said:

The thing is, if you have to ask for sponsorship, you aren't good enough (usually). Most often it's just like any sports player, his talent gets the attention of the money. 

ooooooh. I disagree.

Getting sponsored is like making a sale. Your goal is to convince the sponsor how much value they are getting, and then show that what they are paying you with is less than that value (and therefore a good business decision for them).

I have asked for exactly one sponsorship, and I got it. It was simple really, I approached a company that I had great success with their product. I told them exactly what I would do for them (car decals, team t-shirts, hats), at what venue (including the probable demographic of those in attendance), with how many people likely to see the brand (and how many times), how many people likely to hear about the brand from us (we did have a good story, so that helped). I even filmed a short video with my smartphone for them to post on youtube - but I'm unsure if they ever did.

Once they saw the advertising value I was offering, it was easy for them to print and ship decals, send tshirts, hats, and some of their actual products, and cut a small check to me.

I think there are a lot of really bad skaters who could get sponsored if they proved they were providing value to the sponsoring company (good skateboarding is providing one type of value, but not the only type).

I'll agree with that. You do have to "brand" yourself. Ken block did a fine job of that. Of course, he had the help of his own company he created.

Robbie said:

After thinking about this more, maybe ask this kid to bring himself and his Miata to the challenge and I'm sure we can come up with a set of wheels for him. Probably not new, and maybe not 6ULs, but I'm sure someone has something cheap, and we can help him do a rattle-can tungsten finish.

As for sponsorship, Keith Tanner can sign his passenger-side dashboard.

I'd let Keith sign my Miata right across the hood. For a set of 6ULs

I had an applicant ask for $15,000 to sponsor his stock car.  It wasn't a brand I sold, and wasn't run in my market area.  He would put my business name on the car.  If I wanted to use his car as a display, it would be an extra charge.  He would, however, make sure I received a couple of $5 pit passes at the track the car ran.  They needed $15,000 for the engine, or else they couldn't run.  When I asked, "What happens if this engine blows?", I received a pained look, and an explanation as if I was a moron, that I would of course have to come up with another $15,000.  I declined.  The best part was I had taken the person making the pitch to court for money he already owed me, and still hadn't paid.  I never got my money, they never got my money.  I did sponsor myself, however.

In reply to Trackmouse :

We had to go and give a convincing sales pitch for almost every sponsor on our stock car. Our driver was young, good looking and fast like everyone else we ran against.  The difference was how they felt we could promote their business. 

If you give me an ls3 for the datsun's post challenge life i'll spray paint Flyin Miata in really big pink letters with a purple hairdryer and some barrettes and a comb on the side of the racecar trailer

Driven5 said:

It might be polite to redact the senders name when posting the contents of their email publicly online without their knowledge or consent...Unless, of course, you did so with their knowledge and consent.

My bad, I pulled the name off the end and missed the fact that he introduced himself. Fixed.

You guys all read this letter differently than I did. Sending an email asking for free stuff isn't determination. It's pretty much minimum effort. That's not determination, it's want. Determination is working hard enough to afford the shiny toys you want as well as your insurance, or bringing a car back from the dead with your bare hands. Maybe our letter writer did the latter, but he didn't tell us. Now that's something we'd want to be a part of - and we have been in the past.

I've always viewed asking for sponsorship as being like asking for a job. Even better, like asking a company to create a job for you. I've done that :) I've also convinced a multinational to take part in a race they hadn't considered - until the lawyers freaked out, anyhow. You have to give very good reasons as to why the company would benefit. Simply having reasonable spelling and desire is not quite reaching the bar.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Yeah, I think we all get that side of it too. However were also still talking about glorified child here, who obviously has no family experience of note with motorsports or sponsorships. Hell, how many adults 2x or more his age that ARE in Motorsports still think that's pretty much how sponsorships work? I'm more than willing to overlook his youthful exuberance on that account.

If you think that's a "pretty much minimum effort" for a teen, I'm going to guess you haven't spent much time around average teens recently. He's actually showing a passion for something (that just so happens to be shared with the rest of us), getting out of the house and away from a screen to enjoy it at even a basic level, working to support it as best he knows how, and is actually taking the initiative to reach out and face the potential rejection...Or worse yet, public judgement and criticism...from those he very obviously looks up to. 

As enthusiasts, and businesses exclusively supported by enthusiasts, our collective best interest would probably be better served through classiness and positivity rather than prettiness and negativity towards under informed newcomers. Preferably by doing our part to welcome him into the hobby, nurture his passion, and hopefully helping educate him in a more positive way.

I bet even just a minimal amount of basic FM swag (a sticker?) and a sincerely encouraging personal response would have gone a long way with him as both a budding enthusiast and potential future customer.

Oh, he got a supportive and personal response. But there were no wheels in it.

I just realized I was doing this job when he was born. Ugh, I need to do something else.

First of all, don't use the word "sponsor."  That word implies that you are getting something for nothing.

A better term is partnership, because it implies that you are working together.  A good partnership benefits both parties.  In this case, the racer gets parts he needs to be competitive, and the business gets exposure and advertisement.

My car is a project car for a magazine, and we do not have sponsors--we have advertising partners.

Hey Keith,

I do not own  a Miata, I have not been racing in a while. I am a freelance photographer though and I take some really cool photos. I have been Published in a well known magazine that I know you read. I have also had my work on a Race track webpage along with a racing group that runs events along with a picture hanging In a hall of fame. I was was wondering if you would be willing to be a partner in some type of event and be willing to send a copy of a signed copy of your mug. I would be willing to make sure it gets posted to the forums and my Facebook pages.

Sorry, just had to do this.

Jason

I hate that kind of letter. I worked my you know what off to get what I needed. The fact that the younger generation actually thinks it is ok to just ask for free stuff from others is a statement about the younger generation.  I would tell him that he needs to sell x number of wheels to other people and then he would get a discount the set he wants. Make him earn it.  

Better yet. Park his Miata focus on school. This entitlement to instant gratification with out actually earning it really annoys me. 

First rule of entrepreneurship...If you don't ask, its a quaranteed you will never get. So the kid is hard working, and he took a first step. 

I would have wrote backs and told the kid that sponsorship ( investment) requires that he spell out the value proposition for my investment.

Had the balls to try. Hopefully, he goes and progress from here. And he used commas better than me. LoL

I don't know why everyone thinks the teenage generation we have now are terrible. I've learned from my little brother who is 18, no their values aren't 100% the same as you old guys but they have the same goals and faster, smarter, and more efficient than us. Don't let the drooling, entitled, lazy teens you see paint the picture for the whole group. Besides, the same tards are in every generation. Must be an old man thing. 

I was a clueless budding car guy at 16. One of my biggest errors was thinking (like this young man) that if I wanted car stuff it needed to come brand new out of a catalog. I had no idea how to score second hand parts for cheap, so i never had much of anything. He needs to learn how to scour swap meets, forums, and CL. When i did it changed the whole hobby for me. 

Keith, i totally get where youre coming from on this, that isnt how sponsorships work, but remember, five or ten years from now he may still be a miata nut and be trying to decide which company he should max his credit card out for.