Sponsor-Seeking Racers, listen-up!

Is that your complete point?

How about this from your original post:

Do you think that you didn't get any return from your arrangement with this racer? The exposure was pretty good I'd say. Before you post "keep in mind that businesses require a return on their investment"... which is certainly true... what were your expectations when you came to this arrangement? Were they "This racer will wear my advertising on the leathers that I give him and hopefully he'll win and lots of people will see my advertising?" Probably so. Didn't he meet and exceed that expectation? How did you plan on quantifying the return? You really can't. But I bet it didn't hurt your business.

 

I would Guess the poster of this has damaged his shops rep all on his own by posting the details up on here on a PUBLIC web site, what he has said is, if we do NOT agree on things, I will POST up on a web site about you

 

Possibly. I'm sure the op is a great guy, who knows, maybe I've met him. It's a tight-knit community down here in Florida. But the racer who he's alluding to is certain doing a fantastic effort at exposure not only for himself but also for whoever is sponsoring him or helping him out. I've certainly taken note of this racer and I'm quite impressed. He's a class act.

 

Pretty much it is. Providing value can take on many forms, but is usually only one for a business; revenue. We can see a direct relation in our sales to marketing activities, and even break them down by source. I was content with what we were doing, but when I got hung-up on because I wouldn't buy another suit, the value quickly diminished.

Soft marketing like sponsorships take a long time to pay-off. After a month, there is no way it paid off. To recoup an 1800 dollar suit, the marketing agreement needs to generate 36000 in sales to break even on a 5% profit retention. So you ask if it hurt me, I don't know if I would go that far but I won't say our short relationship made a positive impact.

I sponsored Ralph Ferrer last year and it worked-out fabulously! He referred people to us, maintained his end of the agreement, and we all went home happy. It's a shame that he decided to stop racing.

A couple years ago, I began Superbike Toy Store's Partner Program to help racers who help us. It is working OK, but I wanted to help this guy a little more; I'll never do it again. We are now back to the Partner Program only.

 

I'm sorry you feel that way. You may take note that I haven't mentioned who he is, or even that he isn't a nice guy. Quite the opposite, really. If you read through it all you will notice that I exclude him from the conversation and mention he is a nice guy. The purpose of my post is not to disparage any particular individual; This problem is really widespread.

 

But you did Clearly indicate how to search WHO this rider is

 

I don't think it's a large mystery who you're talking about given your audience on the bbs. If it wasn't working out, then fine, it wasn't working out. That's your business decision. However, you've decided to broadcast your business decision and your reasoning for it here. This is as public as you can probably get within this community. I don't think he deserves it.

I can imagine that this type of "soft marketing" does take some time to pay off. I hope you're not kicking yourself in a few years saying, "...I wish I just gave that guy another suit."

 

This discussion started because of this racer, but is certainly NOT about him. Hey, nobody know what the future will hold. I hope this guy the best.

 

Hey man. I'll rock some Toy Store decals and I dont even want a sponsorship or a discount...

 

Ummm, ok.




:down:

 

OK, our discussion here is getting off-point. As I have already stated, I think this rider is a nice guy. If you know who he is you'll agree. Thanks for all the input guys (and girl); Toy Store out.

 

Is this some weak attempt at knocking her riding skills?

 

I spokewith Melissa during this past weeks GP weekend. She sure is classy - and her hubby is a real cool dude too!

 

Yeah, I meat here at PBIR last year; very nice woman. I didn't meet Josh, but I hear he's a cool kid himself. It's nice to see people like that together.

 

Met Josh at the dealer's show a few years ago (when he was still a privateer), he was so cool, talked to us for 20 minutes about racing Macau. All the while, Yates sat on his stool sulking he even had to be there... it was a helmet or leathers booth I think.

 

We (Sportbike Track Time) have also tried very hard with the racer sponsorship thing with very mixed results. We have gone as far as getting a factory involved with us, supplying a free bike to a racer with lots of free goodies thru our sister company STG only to be shit on by the racer. Thus now we are very selective with any sponsoring we do now. Like the OP said, word of mouth is very important as far as "return on our investment".

We are currently working with a young and up coming racer, Jake Lewis from KY and he and his crew have been a great group to sponsor, They really appreciate the help we are giving them and they let others know about us. We can't ask for much more.

So there are some good racers that do indeed appreciate their "sponsors", you just have to be very picky and do lots of qualifying with them first before handing them the keys to the shop. It CAN'T be just about the free stuff......

 

Theres always a few who ruin things for the rest. We dont Sponsor anyone per say but we help a bunch of racers out. Had a guy ask me how much to paint his bike a couple weeks ago, I told him the price and he then asked if I would do it for free if I put my logo on it. I said I couldnt afford to and next thing he's bashing us on another board. Makes you not want to help anyone for fear that they will rip you as soon as the deal is over. We decided to give all racers the same pricing to avoid the problem.

I do like the MX guys though. You can go find a guy who is consistently 4th or 5th and throw a couple of goodies on his bike and put him on the box. Then everyone wants to know what he's got that they dont. Am. MX guys arent quite as product/tech savy as Am. roadracers as a whole so it's way easier to make them faster.

 

Anyone that's been in business more than a few years and has sponsored any team or racer learns this stuff tha hard way.

As a racer, I have always felt I gave at least as much as I recieved from any sponsor. I've been around this sport for a long time and I've seen almost every sponsor that came into the sport leave a few years later due to lack of return on their investment.

And, as a sponsor myself, I have helped guys who I thought deserved some, and been completely disappointed at least 50% of the time. All you can do is attempt to get to know the people you're going to help and let them know what you expect from them to make it work for both of you. If that's clear, there shouldn't be a problem unless one of the parties doesn't go through with their obligations.

 

well i have heard him reccomending your place to fans on several occasions (ama fan walk, and pit area, facebook etc..) and i also hear him say superbike toy store from the podium interviews, your decals are on his bike and patches on the leathers, he also reccomends all his sponsors to people, i know him pretty well and was very suprised to see a thread like this

 

he gets them repaired by alexa