The Birds and the Bees of Sponsorship

by Brian C. Mackey

Gestation. It takes 9 months for "Mother Nature" to deliver a baby. Why, that’s nothing! It takes a whole lot more to deliver a sponsorship!

One of the most commonly asked questions is how long does it take to find a sponsor. There is not one answer, but more often than not, it takes far longer than most people expect or even endure! It is not uncommon for a sponsorship success story to take more than a year!

There are two important elements to take away from this article. One, be prepared to work on your sponsorship efforts from now until a year or more from now! Two, because of number one, you better get started!

Sponsorship takes a long time to fully develop. There are several phases to the process. The first part takes the longest, and it is the most frustrating part of the ordeal. That is to find a company that is interested in your racing program. Over that hurdle, and you have greatly shortened the "gestation" for finding sponsors. As you embark on your sponsorship venture, you will find literally countless companies that are not interested. If they are big companies that are active within the event marketing industry, they have been pitched before. Probably by me (!) and others like me who are in this business! Generally speaking the Valvolines and the Targets of the world have been pitched hundreds of times. If you are searching for cash sponsorship, you probably should not rely on these companies as a potential source for your sponsorship. Unless you have a totally unique concept, (more than a different paint scheme), these companies will most likely not be a sponsor of your program. They are already in the game, and if not, have purposely decided not to play. Move on.

After exhausting all your own personal contacts for sponsorship, you commence the real process of finding sponsors. The best way is to keep your eyes open. Read articles about what is going on in your community. Subscribe to local business magazines, newspapers, newsletters, etc. Get on the web. For hours! Find companies that are on the rise, doing new things, aggressively carving out a marketing niche for themselves. It takes time to find just one of these kinds of companies, multiply that amount of time by the tens or hundreds, and you begin to comprehend how much time and research is involved. There is a good chance that these companies have not been drowned in proposals by countless race teams, agencies (there I am again!) and drivers searching for sponsorship funding. Don’t forget that racing is not the only sport supported by sponsor dollars. Multitudes of other entities are now in the sponsor game, so expect lots of competition for the marketing dollars.

The more you understand the process, the more you understand that this is a difficult challenge. It is up to you to determine how much effort you can expend on this process. The only ones that are going to get sponsored beyond friends and family are the ones willing to put the time into finding a sponsor. Mother Nature can make a baby in less time that you can find a sponsor! Don’t expect to find one in less time than that experienced by the others who have come this way before you. Time alone won’t do it. Extensive effort, research, phone calls, marketing, pitches are all ahead of you. So get started. Develop your plan. Initiate action. And with a little luck and lots of sweat, a year from now, you may find yourself giving birth to your new baby – a sponsorship!