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Hi, I'm Belinda Risley, founder of Motivate Training and the Motorsport Sponsorship Club. This podcast is for grassroot motorsport athletes and parents who want to build successful careers, both on and off the track. Each episode, I'll share practical strategies, sponsorship insights, and real-world advice to help build your brand, attract sponsors, and create more opportunities in the world of motorsports. Because racing careers aren't built on the racetrack alone. Let's get started in today's episode. Hello, team, and welcome to another episode of the Motorsport Sponsorship Podcast. I am your host Belinda Risley, and today, team, we are talking about how sponsor ready are you. But before we do, if you missed last week's episode, we were talking about what is and what is not sponsorship. So if you are new to the world of a sponsorship or to motorsport marketing, as I like to say, please race back to your preferred platform or wherever you're listening today, and check out that episode to learn more about exactly what is sponsorship. Back to today's episode, I want to ask you a question, team. If a business was to call you this afternoon and said, "Hey, we'd love to discuss sponsoring you, would you actually be ready? Most athletes immediately say yes, yes, yes. Of course we are. We need money, yes, until they stop and seriously assess where they are today. In this episode, it isn't about how to find sponsor. It's about making sure you're ready when an opportunity arrives. Two episodes ago, we talked about laying the tracks, laying the foundations of seeking sponsorship. So again, if you missed that out, I would list that in today's show notes, so you can check out laying the tracks, the foundation of everything you need to get started with sponsorship. But here, what does sponsor ready actually means? What does it mean to you? Meaning to me, being to me means being sponsor ready has very little to do with how fast you are. Sponsorship doesn't mean getting the best race results. I can't say that enough. It's about having the foundations in place before you approach a business. Again, what tracks do you have laid down? But being sponsor ready means you can confidently present yourself as someone worth partnering with. It means your story is clear, your brand is consistent, your communication is professional, your online presence reflects who you are. You have systems in place to build and maintain relationships. Most athletes spend months preparing their race car. However, very few spend time preparing themselves. So, my question: How do you prepare for sponsorship? Now, there are five pillars of sponsor readiness, and when I work with athletes, I assess these five key areas. Number one is your personal brand. Team, can someone quickly understand who you are, what you stand for, and why they should support you? Do you have a consistent story and image? So, if I was to go to your social media, to race to your website, even possibly come and see you at that racetrack, would your branding, would your image be consistent across all those platforms? Yes or no. Number two, team communication. Can you confidently introduce yourself? Clearly, I can't talk right now. However, what about yourself? Can you write a professional email? This is why I don't do video scenes. This is why I stay behind. Can I write? Yes. Can I talk? Can I present? No. I can talk professionally about mobile sponsorship. Just not. podcast, and this is why why I don't do live YouTube videos. Anyway, back to you. Can you completely introduce yourself? Can you write a professional email? How about can you follow up after meetings, keeping sponsors updated throughout the season? How do you do that? So, how do you communicate currently with your sponsors? And again, we touched base last week that once you actually get sponsors, that is when that process really gets hard. Not prior. Well, it is hard prior, but it's harder as well after. And I just touched base about social media and online presence. So, if a sponsor searched your name today, what would they find? Do you have two social media accounts? You should one for your racing and one for your personal account that's locked. And just remember, team, if you've got a partner and they love social media, and you're trying.
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To build a professional brand, either a ask them not to tag you into photos, or b ask them to tag your personal account that is private. Because again, when sponsors are looking to sponsor you, they will be researching into you, and they don't want to find I don't know drunken photos or hooning videos or something that is going to tarnish your brand. So think again about your professionalism. Again, the question: Would your social media build confidence or create questions? And hey, maybe hooning is the right fit for the brand that you're trying to attract, and maybe you're a drifter and say it's all aligned. But think about your race category. Think about your brand, and think about the category, the sponsors that you want to work with. Because remember, unfortunately, online presence is often the first impressions that sponsors are going to have of you, which I don't really agree with, but it is the case. I think people should meet people first of all before researching into your website, into your social media, because again, not everything is true what you put on social media. And I think the world is changing. I think society is changing, and we're not depending on social media more and more. And I think thanks to all, yeah, to AI that people aren't trusting everything that they're reading now and seeing on social media. So therefore, it's a good opportunity to build your brand offline, but it is still a component right now. Tim, I want to ask you: Do you have a system for meeting people? How do you network? How do you meet prospects? Because I can assure you, people aren't going to walk up to your race car. They may very not very often though, and go, "Hey, I'd love to sponsor you. So, how are you meeting new people? Are you attending networking events, small business chamber of Commerce events. Are you going to local, like footy and local businesses when they are doing fundraisers and other kind of activations? How are you keeping in touch, even once a sponsor says no? How are you keeping in touch with them? Because a no might might be no right now, but it might not be a no in the future. How are you building relationships before asking the sponsorship? So again, you need to basically the analogy of caught someone. You need to go date someone. You need to go date a prospect before you get married to them. So how are you nurturing them into that process? How are you getting in front of them to say, "Hey, this is the marketing opportunity I have for you, and then how are you getting them across the line? What is your sales process? And just remember that networking isn't about collecting business cards. And in today's show notes, I actually do have a freebie about I think there's 14 or 16 different ways to network. And then when whilst you are networking, what you can do to get contact names and numbers. So I'll pop that in today's show notes. So if you're interested, it's a free download. Just go in, enter your details, and you can download 14 ways of networking. Maybe 16. I can't remember. Eight or 18. When it comes to networking, just remember it's about creating genuine connections. So, in order to do that, you need to be confident in your brand of who you are, what you are. Going back to question number one, and your professionalism, which leads me on to my next point. Very nice. So, team, how do you show your professionalism? This is everything behind the scenes. So, this is your organization. So, your small business, your processes, your systems. This is your reliability. This is your preparation. So you prepare you probably your body and your mind to go racing, but how you're preparing your systems and processes for gaining sponsors and fans. This is not just about sponsorship. Your ability to deliver on your promises, and I keep harping like a good mum, saying that you need to put as much time to your off-track performances as you do to your on-track performances.
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If you look at any top-line driver, Formula One, NASCAR, Sprint cars, whatever category, rally cars that you follow, I can guarantee you that if you contact those, if you DM those top line drivers, they will be saying that a good percentage, a high percentage of their workload is sponsorship activations, and networking, and keeping sponsors happy. But team. Professionalism is often what separates athletes with similar levels of talent. So just remember, when businesses are getting asked for sponsorship, it's not just in motorsports. They might be getting other proposals from netball. I was going to say networking, netball, swimming, footy clubs. Businesses are always getting proposals for sponsorship. So, what's going to make you stand out? And professionalism is one of those things. But with come professionalism comes preparation, and that creates confidence. And then, confidence team doesn't come from hoping; it comes from preparing, from preparation. And when you're organized, when your content is ready, when it's on hand, ready to pull, when they ask a question, like a sponsor might say, "Hey, do you have that photo of us from last weekend? and you'll be like, "Yes, that is in the motivate file. I can just pull that out straight away because after the event on Sunday or Monday, I downloaded all my photos and I put them in either a race weekend content or I put them in a sponsor folder or I put it in in a prospect folder. But what folders are you using? Approaching businesses become much less intimidating when you have all your processes, your organization put into place, because preparation removes uncertainty, and sponsors notice confidence. They notice how quickly you're responding to things. When it again is a local request for a media kit, maybe they've got a a new a prospect for you, and they're like, "Hey, my mate Jimmy's interested in sponsoring you because he's seeing everything you've done for me. Can you send him over some information? And you'd be like, "Yes, I can. Here's my media kit because it's sitting there. It's prepared. It's all ready to go. How professional does that sound? And look, it looks great for the referral, and it looks great for you that you're on top of it, but team the biggest gaps I see when athletes complete the sponsor readiness index, which is a free sponsor ready quiz that I have available. The same errors appear again and again. They haven't clearly defined their personal brand. Their social media lacks consistencies. They don't have a sponsorship system. There's photos and videos are scattered everywhere between Canva and Dropbox and iPhones and Google Drives and everywhere else. They don't know how to follow up after speaking with businesses because they haven't taken time to develop their sales process. Good news is team. None of these are permanent problems. They are simply areas to improve, and the first step is recognizing where those gaps exist. But you can't improve what you don't measure, and one of my favorite sayings is, "You can't improve what you don't measure. I just said that. I need to delete that. But that's Team Y. I've created the sponsors readiness quiz. It's not about passing or failing. It's about understanding your current starting point. So once you know where you are today, you can create a plan to improve for tomorrow. Small improvements across multiple areas can add up over time, and sponsor ready athletes aren't built overnight; they're built through consistent action, just like your race results. Doing lap after lap after lap after lap improves your race results. So this week, team, your action step is to complete your own sponsor readiness self-assessment. Score yourself honestly across the five pillars.
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Being again personal brand communication your online presence social media networking and professionalism and then ask yourself one simple question which area needs the most attention over the next 30 days don't try to improve everything at once just choose one area focus on it and build momentum because every improvement you make increases your value to potential sponsor, and if you're not sure where to start, and that's exactly what we're working through inside the MotiV Selt sponsorship club, the sponsor readiness quiz is one of the first tools our members complete because it gives them a clear picture of where they are now and a roadmap for where they need to go, and remember, you don't have to be perfect to attract sponsors, but you do need to be prepared. And becoming sponsor ready is one of the best investments you can make in your sponsorship journey. So race over to today's show notes, or over to our website motivatetraining.com.au, and you'll see on our homepage there is a free quiz that you can do to see where you are currently at inside of the Motorsport Sponsorship Club. There's a more in-depth one. It's it's a long process. It takes about 10 to 12 minutes. This one team is just a simple two to three minute quiz where you can answer the questions and find out. Where you currently are, you get a report back based on your answers, and it'll give you a base idea of where to start going forward. And then, of course, it'll give you an opportunity to book in for a free 15-minute consult that we can discuss that further, especially if you're new into the world of sponsorship. So, team, my question, apart from the other 15 that I've already asked today, is how sponsor ready are you? So I hope you do go and take that quiz. And again, let me know. You can email me [email protected]. I hope you enjoyed today's episode, and it's given you a little bit more insight into the world of sponsorship. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out. And of course, if you enjoy today's episode, I love you to share it with another racing family and friends. Write a review, good or bad, you can learn. And of course, if you have any sponsorship questions you'd love me to answer on the podcast, please contact me again at [email protected]. Until next week, team. I can't remember what our episode next week is going to be, but I'm sure it would be great, and I'm sure you'll get lots of value out of it. Until then, and bye. Thanks for joining me for another episode of the Motorsport Sponsorship Podcast. If today's episode helped you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with another motorsport family. And if you're ready to take your off-track development seriously, find out more about the Motorsport Sponsorship Club using the link in the show notes. Until next time, keep building your brand, keep building relationships, and remember, the work you do off the track can be just as important as the laps you complete on
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