Making it Schtick: How to Attract and Keep Sponsors

If there were ever a journeyman, veteran and expert in marketing to the high performance and racing industry, all rolled into one person, it’s Mike DeFord.

DeFord started out in the 1990s at the Pro Prep Speed Shop in San Bernardino, Calif., at age 19, sweeping floors and loading tires and anything else that needed to be done. He went from being a shop rat to being a business and marketing specialist and helping the shop capitalize on the import performance scene that was beginning to get hot at that time.

He has worked in the industry ever since. DeFord worked with NASA Mid-Atlantic Regional Director Chris Cobetto to create HyperFest and the U.S. Drift series, and in the late 1990s he started Street Racer magazine to give import enthusiasts a look at the club racing rather than just drag racing.

“I was doing stories about Rim of the World rally and I was covering NASA weekends and how to prep a car for NASA weekends, all those sorts of things,” DeFord said. “We would turn anything we could that was racing-related into a story to hopefully get the young enthusiasts thinking toward road-race type stuff.”

This was about the time the Gran Turismo video game debuted and suddenly there was a much bigger interest in road racing. He sold the magazine to a larger publishing company and went to work for Chris Cobetto and for the Carlisle Productions car show company.

“The whole HyperFest thing was 100 percent — and Chris will tell you this, too — a way to show the young enthusiasts road racing up close and personal, and how easy it is to get on track,” DeFord said. “And Chris does that. It’s still great to this day with the HyperFest events.”

DeFord went  on to become marketing director for Hawk Performance, Bully Dog Technologies, a tuning company for truck and diesel applications. He has worked for agencies, and still does, that cater to the racing market. Throughout his career in marketing and motorsports, DeFord has seen thousands of sponsorship proposals in his 30-plus years in the racing industry. He has denied more than he has granted, obviously, and it is safe to say he knows what a successful sponsorship proposal looks like.

“The problem is that there’s a lot of club guys, and when I say club, I’m not just talking road racing, whatever it may be, it’s local circle track guys, drag race guys, whatever it may be, an amateur racer and the way that they perceive sponsorship to be,” DeFord said. “And so right now I field all sponsorship requests for almost a dozen companies. Anything that goes to their inbox is forwarded to me when it’s someone looking for sponsorship or support of any type. And 95 percent of those emails are, “My name’s Joe, I race this here, it costs me $25,000 to race a year. I’d like you to sponsor me for that amount.” And that’s, honestly, that’s a good email compared to a lot of them. I open every email I get, but those immediately get closed and they get thrown in the trash because that is not how people should go about looking for sponsorship.”

We have published stories on sponsorship in Speed News before, but given DeFord’s extensive background in the industry and the expertise he has built over the years, particularly with regard to marketing proposals from all levels of racing, we thought it would be time to do more on the topic. We caught up with DeFord between him doing his agency work and running his racing sim shop in Idaho Falls, Idaho, Yellowstone Grand Prix.

Q: OK, let’s start with what not to do. What are some things that people should most definitely not do or include in a sponsorship proposal?

A:  There are four things that are done over and over. Each of them is an immediate red flag and will result in being dismissed.

Do not send a generic email to a company asking for sponsorship without first talking to a live person. Do not tell a potential sponsor what it costs you to go racing and you want that much money. A sponsor does not care what it costs you. All they care about is the return and the value they can get from your program.

I recently saw a local racer post on Facebook with this approach. It was comical. He said he spent $25,000 autocrossing in 2024, and he was asking for a sponsor to cover that cost next year. What he doesn’t understand is that for a sponsor to invest $25,000, they need to see a value of at least $350,000 for it to make business sense and break even. Rarely if ever do the guys racing autocross nationally produce that kind of value. I have taken a screenshot that post, and I share it with people all the time as an example of what not to do.

Do not oversell yourself! Be realistic when you are talking to a sponsor, do not make statements of promises that you know you cannot fulfill.

Be humble. Companies see thousands of sponsorship requests, and I guarantee you that they have seen a request better than yours in the last week, maybe the last day. There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance.

Last, stop telling companies that you want to be sponsored and will put stickers on your car in return! That worked in the old days. It will not work today, it is an immediate red flag.

Q: What are some of the more horrendous examples you’ve seen?

A: I could write a book with the number of horrible requests, but there are a few that really stand out.

I actually framed a letter and put it on my office wall 20-plus years ago from a guy. On notebook paper, the racer had written in Sharpie “I need a sponsor and I’m fast” That was all that was in the envelope.

The number of “My name is Joe. I race a {insert car name here} and I am pretty fast. It costs me $X amount to go racing. I would like you to sponsor me for that much and give me free product” emails are baffling to me. A sponsor does not care! Many racers do not understand their worth or lack thereof.

I get approached at the track quite often by guys looking for sponsorship. I will hand them a business card and tell them to email me their proposal. More often than not, they tell me they don’t have a proposal.

I quickly outline what should be included in a proposal and tell them that Google is their friend. They can find countless examples there. A week or two later I will get an email from them saying that putting a proposal together is too much work and then ask if I can just sponsor them. The proposal is the easiest part of sponsorship, if you can’t pull it off, there is little doubt that you can’t handle sponsorship.

Also, do not tell a potential sponsor that you’ve been sponsored by Brand X by just filling out a form on its website, so you don’t need to do a proposal. I am sorry to be blunt, but you are not truly sponsored in that case. Those programs are simply sales techniques, everyone that completes those forms gets approved and gets the same 20 percent “team” deal that you did.

Also do not question why a proposal is needed. Every company and marketing director has his or her own process. On average, I place $3.5 million a year in sponsorship. In 33 years, there is only one racer that I didn’t require a proposal from.

It was a racer named Pistol Pete, who raced Baja. I had known Pete for at least 10 years. We were close, but never worked together. I knew his program inside and out because we spent so much time together. One year at SEMA he told me he needed a bit of funding for the Baja 1000. We talked for 10 minutes, and the deal was done. It was solely done based on the relationship. Relationships are key in the world of sponsorship.

Q: Do you think it’s just a matter of people not knowing what they don’t know, and their proposals reflect that dearth of knowledge?

A: Marketing is complicated and ever-changing. Over the years, I have heard it referred to as a black art, or witchcraft, which is funny, but kind of accurate. In the end, racers/teams need to truly understand at least the basics of marketing or find someone who does. The fact is that most don’t have a proposal of any sort and when they are asked to provide one they have no idea what to do or include.

Q: We all know from speech classes in high school, that you tailor the message to the audience. How do we do that in a sponsorship proposal?

A: Talk to the sponsor first! Form a relationship! Companies get hundreds of sponsorship requests each month, and a request coming from someone they have a basic relationship with will go much further. Ask them what their goals are and then put a plan together that showcases how you can help them achieve their goals. A generic proposal that is sent to every sponsor might look good, but to stand out and show that you are invested and are taking it seriously, personalize the proposal to the company, its needs and its goals.

Now, here is the hard truth! You could have an amazing program, but it does not meet their needs. You need to be honest with yourself. Once you have talked to the potential sponsor, you have to determine if you can truly help them. If you can’t, then do not send a proposal, but stay in contact. Just because your program today may not meet a sponsor’s needs, your program or its needs can and will change over time.

Q: How do you figure out where to send the proposal? How do you know who is the right contact?

 A: Call the company, do not email them. Ask to speak to the marketing department. Once you reach the marketing department, ask to speak to the person responsible for racing sponsorships. In some companies it will be the marketing manager/director. Some companies will have someone specifically for that and then others will have an agency like mine to handle those things.

Q: What are some of the things that companies are looking for in a sponsorship proposal. They can’t all be the same, right?

A: The most important thing is an ROI (return on investment). Different companies have different formulas to determine their ROI, but as an example lets say it is 10 to 1, meaning that for every dollar they provide you in sponsorship, they need to see 10 dollars in return. A $2,500 sponsorship fee needs to yield a return of $25,000 in value.

There are a couple of key components. Include an introduction of who you are, your background and history. Make it personal. Then introduce your racing program and transition to how your racing program can benefit the company. Speak to the goals that the company has shared with you.

Q: Are there organizations, website or companies that can help people find sponsorships? Are they effective?

A: Yes, there are agencies like mine and individuals who will build your proposal, chase sponsors for you and essentially manage your marketing/sponsorship programs. There are endless websites that offer help, too. Google is your friend, here, too.

If you decide to seek help, I suggest talking to a live person and like anything be careful. Since the explosion of F1 and the growth of motorsports in the last few years, suddenly there are dozens and dozens of websites and people promising to get you sponsored. Many are scams or provide very generic work.

Essentially, anyone helping you should be seen as part of your team. Just like hiring a mechanic, you should interview people and get references. It is important to understand that it is a two-way street. Anyone building you a proposal or representing you to sponsors will need information and images from you. You need to be prepared to be involved for them to do a good job for you.

There is a new website named trackbandit.com it is a motorsports services listing site, you can find everything from marketing people to photographers and mechanics there. I recently listed my services there. They are still tweaking the site, but so far it has been valuable. They have a review and rating system, which helps users find the right person.

Like with everything in life, do your due diligence. Get references, ask for examples of previous work and trust your gut.

Additionally, there are a couple of things to watch out for. If any agency or person requires you to spend substantial money up front for marketing, it is usually a scam. It has become common in recent years for some of these scam types to tell you up front they can guarantee you that they can get you sponsored. Turn around and run! There is no guarantee.

A legitimate agency that can get you sponsored does not ask for much money, most will charge a small start-up fee to cover the time put into building your proposal and evaluating your program. Beyond that, they don’t get paid unless they get you a sponsor and then at that time it is a percentage — 5 to 12 percent is common — of what you receive.

Q: Is it all about the cash register or is it about brand awareness or social media presence or being an influencer? What do companies want?

 A: This is where understanding of marketing is essential. There is no single answer. Every company is different. That is why it’s important to build a relationship with a company, so you know what is important to them. This is where you have to be honest with yourself. If a potential sponsor tells you that social media is important to them, do you have 10,000-plus followers/friends and have high engagement?

Accounts with less than that are virtually impossible to provide an ROI via social media. If a company wants a minimum of 20 high quality images from every race weekend, do you have a way of making that happen? If a company wants you winning or at least on the podium regularly, is that possible for your program?

Q: Since we are talking to primarily an amateur racing audience with NASA, what are some of the things that amateur racers can offer to companies, if anything at all?

 A: Again, it depends on the company but there are a few things that every company needs more of.

Quality, high-end content — photos and video — is important to every company. I have two amateur racers that are clients, and for a couple of their sponsors, all they do is provide content following every race weekend. And not just a few photos, they send dozens of images and videos with the sponsors logos clearly visible.

In-car GoPro video is of great value providing that the sponsor’s logo is on the dash or somewhere that is clearly visible. As racers, we don’t like to showcase our accidents or close calls, but those types of videos always create huge engagement online. While it is embarrassing, accidents are very valuable. Twenty years ago, I sponsored a driver in a series that was televised, the first season his car was upside down four times. For season two, I required that our logo be large on the bottom of the car. He took great offense to it until I showed him the amount of TV time his upside down car received.

Many companies use racers as product developers, who are able to provide true and honest feedback to a sponsor on a product being used on track. It is very important. We all beat on their product and use it to its fullest capabilities. Giving them input, positive or negative, is invaluable as long as you do it in a clear and concise way.

Q: Because there are no spectators at NASA events, what can amateur racers do to create the sense of value that might get a company to say yes to a proposal?

A: Create value in yourself! Amateur racers can be very important to a sponsor because of their peers. As racers, we all have fellow racers, car guys and family/friends that ask us for car advice.  Leverage that.

The content — photos and videos — and product feedback that I mentioned previously are important.

Provide sponsors with race weekend recaps. Sponsors always need content. Many companies use recaps for social media posts and press releases.

Every company is different. As you build a relationship, you can find things that are traditional or non-traditional. I have a corporate client that makes candy. It sponsors an amateur racer. The sponsorship came together when we learned that he, the racer, is a foodie. As part of his sponsorship, he provides pictures of food, like a steak burrito that he puts their candy in. Over the past couple of years, he has mixed racing into those pictures like a sandwich sitting on his race car, having a Hot Wheels car on the table or with the TV in the background having racing on. He has become one of their primary ambassadors.

Every driver is unique. Each has ways to provide value to almost any sponsor!

Q: What are realistic expectations for a NASA driver looking for sponsorship?

 A: Being realistic is key! Racers hear of other racers getting $X in sponsorship and think they could/should get that amount, too. But the reality is every sponsorship program is different.

Once you get sponsored, racing becomes a job. You essentially become a business owner. Be ready to work hard and put effort into it.

In terms of funding, every NASA driver running at least four race weekends should easily be able to raise $2,500 — in cash, product or both — a year in support. From there, the sky is the limit, depending on the driver’s program and what the sponsor is looking for.

There is an amateur team out of Oregon with two cars. They raced eight weekends in 2024. Between three clients, I have $17,000 invested in them in addition to parts. Meeting with one of those sponsors at the recent SEMA Show, they want to double down with the team. They want to send them to Germany to drive a car owned by another one of their sponsored teams at the Nürburgring for them next year.

A driver’s/team’s realistic expectations are only limited to what they are willing to put into it and how committed they are to their dreams.

Q: What are some of the parameters companies would use to consider it a successful partnership?

A: ROI/Return on Investment is all that matters to a sponsor! You can be a driver that wins every race, but if you can’t provide value to a sponsor beyond a win, it will be hard to get and keep sponsors.

The old days of putting a sticker on a car and getting free parts or being paid for it are long gone. If you are lucky you can get a discount on parts for a sticker.

The ROI can be calculated in many ways and can be based on many things. One of the very best drivers I have worked with races dirt circle track in the Midwest. He races more than 25 nights a year, and in eight years working with him, he’s only has seven wins. Yet he has maintained large corporate sponsors year after year. He does this by having a strong relationship with each of them. He understands what each wants and is looking for.

For one thing, he creates content using their product to service his tow rig and racecar. For another he visits their location closest to the track on the morning of the races and then invites store managers and customers out to the races and gives them free tickets. He has catered his program to be exactly what each of his sponsors wants and needs.

I keep saying it, but that is the key, a personal relationship and catering the sponsorship program to the sponsors needs.

Q: Some of the people I have known who have been sponsored have worked as hard on their partnership or partnerships as they do on their race craft. Is that a fair assessment of what it takes to fulfill sponsorship requirements?

 A: Yes! I talk to each of the drivers that I work with or that I sponsor for clients at least once a week, many of them are once or twice a day plus countless text messages and emails.

Everyone wants to be sponsored, but many don’t understand what comes with it. As soon as you are sponsored at any level it becomes a job. It requires commitment and constant management. If you let one thing slide there will usually be consequences. When you get sponsored, you will sign a contract/agreement, if you do not meet the requirements of that contract you are then liable. Nobody likes to talk about this, but racers/teams get sued all the time for not fulfilling contracts. In my 33-year career, I have had to do it a number of times, and it is never pretty.

Additionally, this is a very small industry. On the marketing side, most all of us know one another on some level. We talk, we share experiences and stories, and that includes negative sponsorships and drivers to stay away from. Once you have a bad name with one sponsor, it will follow you to many potential sponsors. You must take sponsorship seriously and manage it.

Q: What kind of companies might be interested in sponsoring amateur racers?

 A: I rolled the answer to this into the question below.

Q: Which kind of companies offer the best chance for accepting a sponsorship proposal, provided it is well done?

A: The obvious are auto parts companies, be it retailers or manufacturers, but really there isn’t a limit to the types of companies that can be interested. If a company is selling product or services to retail customers, there is a potential that they could be interested. With the popularity growth in racing, we are seeing all sorts of companies getting involved. We are seeing skateboard brands getting heavily involved and doing collaborations with race teams and drivers. I have a franchised restaurant chain as a client that loves racing. They do not make large cash investments, but they do free food vouchers, which in turn enables drivers/teams to drastically reduce if not completely offset food costs during race weekends.

There truly is no limit, but to make it easy, look at who is already involved in racing and not just club racing. Check out amateur circle track and drag racing. Pay attention to what companies are advertising on race- and car-related websites. Those are the companies that are clearly interested in racing.

I would advise staying away from approaching friends and family that own businesses. There is an old saying about not doing business with friends and family. Sponsorship is business! I have seen it lead to many issues because a close relationship leads to additional expectations by one or both parties.

Q: We know what work a résumé should contain. What are the essential elements of a sponsorship proposal?

A: Fundamentally, they are the same thing, but the proposal has a lot of visual content and data. Just like a résumé, a proposal needs to showcase who you are, what you have done, your achievements, your aspirations for the future and what you can provide for them. The data that I mentioned is stuff like the reach and exposure of the series you run in, which is available from any sanctioning body, the reach and exposure of your social media and website, if relevant.

I cannot emphasize enough about how important it is to make your proposal personal and catered to each specific sponsor.

Q: Racing is kind of a niche industry and some of the sponsorship proposals I’ve seen that have worked involve connecting companies with companies. Can you speak to that?

A: Yes, it is common, though many racers hide the fact because they want their sponsorship to be perceived by other racers as being on the merits of their racing. It all comes back to the relationship with a sponsor, understanding who they are and what their needs are and then leveraging what you can do for them.

Sponsorship is solely about providing value to the sponsor. Be it odd food photos for a candy company, or maybe you own/work in the construction industry. There are hundreds if not thousands of potential companies products that you use for your work. Partnering with one of them as a race sponsor and then exclusively using their products in your work. Or if you own an automotive repair shop, you could agree to only use oil brand X in your repair shop as part of your sponsorship. The possibilities are really endless and is only limited to your creativity.

Q: Since you worked so closely with Chris Cobetto on HyperFest, what kinds of lessons did you learn about sponsorships from that experience? What were those companies looking for?

 A: I had worked on the idea for a couple of years. When I approached Chris with it, he was immediately interested. We both shared the same passion. To get young enthusiasts on track, Hyperfest and US Drift was the way to do it. Chris and I developed the events before any of the current festivals existed. Drifting was in its infancy, and getting support was one of the hardest things I have done in my career. Import drag racing was big, but there was very little in the way of club type racing happening within the market, and drifting was even smaller. It took what I have preached a lot about here. It took strong relationships.

What we were doing scared companies, not just from a success standpoint, but also a liability standpoint. Nick Fousekis had just started with Falken. I knew Nick casually through passing at events like Hot Import Nights because he always had killer cars. Falken was our first sponsor. Nick knew that drifting was going to be big, but it took months to make it happen. All sponsorships do.

Q: What were some of the more lasting and important lessons you learned while you were with Hawk Performance?

 A: Honestly, Hawk was challenging. They had a long history and made a great product. Hawk offers a pad for virtually every type of use. The challenge comes to educating the consumer as to what kind of pad they need. People see the race pads and then put them on a daily driven HPDE car, which is dangerous and can be noisy. What we did is used racers and street car owners in virtually every type of discipline to showcase what pads they used. This was well before brand ambassadors was a thing, but it is what my program did. We featured normal guys in our marketing. We used their cars on T-shirts. We made them heroes. In doing so, it made them loyal to the brand, each of them became a valuable marketing asset.

Q: What are some of the best ways to leverage social media and or the Internet in attracting sponsors?

A: Today, social media is important. It has largely become part of who we are. Before you ever start approaching sponsors you need to evaluate your social media because companies will look at all your profiles. If you have questionable content, remove it! Here is the thing: Your social media presence is your public appearance. Put yourself in the potential sponsors shoes. If you have sexual, overly political, religious, partying, drinking/drug, negative, derogatory content remove it, all of it! It can all be a liability to a sponsor.

Even if your account is private, most sponsors are going to send you a friend request, you have to accept it and then they will see it. The other option is to start a second account for your racing, if you do that, share those links with a potential sponsor before they ask for it or have time to look for you online.

Now, with that out of the way, a strong social media presence is important to many companies. The more exposure you can provide them the better, because it makes you more valuable. But if you don’t have a large presence online, do not let that discourage you. It is not important to all companies.

Q: How important is a social media audience to a company? For example, what value is it if 10,000 people click like, but never buy anything?

 A: This goes back to the black art of marketing. 10,000 likes on Facebook are more valuable than Instagram, and a like on YouTube is worth more than either. But that value is always changing and is dependent upon the content and the quality of those accounts liking the post. It’s like the stock market, you have to always be watching to get a true value. But, to give an example, if those 10,000 likes are combined across all three of those platforms, they are worth about $850.

You will notice that I did not mention X/Twitter and TikTok. There is value on those platforms, but the quality of “likes” is very unstable due to the ease and ability to sway those.

Q: Let’s say we’re talking about a young driver who wants to grow up and into a career and professional racing. Is there any formula or a progression of steps here or she should take?

A: There is no such thing as too much seat time. Racers that have been behind the wheel for 30 years are still learning every time they are on track.

It used to be karting was the fast track, but now sim racing has replaced karting. There are hundreds if not thousands of drivers who got their start because of sim racing. The “Gran Turismo” movie that came out last year was based on a true story, and it’s a story that keeps repeating itself. Just like with HyperFest, when I opened Yellowstone Grand Prix, our number one goal was to use it to get people racing in real life. In 19 months, we have 17 people, who, before we opened, had never raced anything and are now racing in the real world.

With real cars, it is obvious that NASA and club racing is the first step.
Just like with sponsors, relationships are key. Network with anyone and everyone that you can at every race weekend. The more people you know, the more doors that can be opened.

Elevating a driving career can be fast-tracked through sponsors too. The longer you are with a sponsor and the more that you impress them, they can help open doors for you by putting you in the seat of another team that they sponsor.

Q: Do you have any lessons you learned from some of the professional road racing organizations or teams in SRO or IMSA?

 A: While it is essentially the same racing, professional racing requires total commitment. There is no time or weekend off at the pro level. However, do not take that as you can make your living racing. Many pro drivers have a real job of some sort, most of which would be considered side hustles. Drivers work as instructors and coaches, race industry reporters, make racing products, clothing or art, and many work for sponsors that support them on track.

Q: How useful is to try to partner with nonprofits, such as charities and the like? Can you leverage those to attract other more lucrative sponsorships?

A: Some have great success with it while others struggle. There are two ways of doing it, you can obtain paying sponsorship, but this is only applicable at big time pro racing. The other way is to represent a cause that means something to you personally and not charge them. Either way, it does make other sponsors take notice and often see you in a different and positive light.

For those contemplating going in this direction, please be aware that you have to really immerse yourself in to what the charity does because you will get questioned about it regularly. Another thing to be aware of is that it does require some additional bookkeeping.

Q: Do you have any closing thoughts? Is there anything that we should have asked but did not? Have we explored this topic as completely as possible?

A:  I would just like to emphasize a few things again.  I have already done it a few times, but understanding marketing or having someone who does is essential as is forming a relationship with any potential sponsor.

Thank you for including me in this Q&A. This is work for me, but I am very passionate about it.