The Ambassador Never Clocks Out: Representing Sponsors Off the Track

A race weekend gives a sponsor a few hours of track time. The rest of the week, you're still wearing their name: at the parts counter, in the restaurant parking lot, in your feed, and in every conversation where someone asks what you run. The marketing people who spoke at my Sponsorship Summits were clear that this is where a lot of the value is, and where a lot of racers leave it on the table.

Brands care about the other six days

Brian Henderson, chief strategy officer at Wheel Pros, said it plainly on the Motorsports Sponsorship Summit's tire and wheel panel. "Honestly, I'm more concerned about what the racer is doing off the track than on the track," he said. "Yes, podiums are important." But "what brands like ours are looking for is really what you're doing off of the track. How are you cultivating the lifestyle? How are you being a good role model?"

His reasoning: Wheel Pros wants to grow the whole custom wheel market, and that happens one conversation at a time. "If we sponsor you, you better have our wheels on your personal vehicle that you drive every day," Henderson said. "When you go to dinner somewhere nice and you park at valet, talk to the valet about the wheels you have and how you like them, and speak to people authentically and be genuine about it." He wants racers to talk about the products and businesses that support them, "but not like a paid promo." ▶ Watch Brian Henderson explain this

That's a useful test for any racer. If your sponsor's product is only on the race car and never on your own truck, in your own garage or in your own conversations, you're giving them a fraction of what you could.

You're an influencer whether you like it or not

Plenty of racers resist the word "influencer." John Viscardo, who sells sponsorships for Hoonigan, says that doesn't matter. "You are an influencer even if you have 500 followers and they're just your fan, family and friends. People are gonna see what parts you're using and what wax you're using, what oil you're using," he said on Meet the Sponsors. "... So you are an influencer whether you like it or not, and I think you need to use that to your advantage to get more sponsorships." ▶ Watch John Viscardo on this

The people around you at the track, at work and at the shop already treat you as the car person. Every recommendation you make for a sponsor's product carries more weight than a stranger's ad.

Be a vessel of communication

Heath Cofran, who handles media and company communications at Alpinestars, told the Off-Road Sponsorship Summit that sponsorship, for his company, is about influence. He was direct about what that means for the driver's behavior. "If, Alex, you're an Alpinestars driver, everywhere you go you're an Alpinestars driver," he said. "And if you're out drinking beers before you're pulling in the car, you're not representing the brand in a way that we would like it to be."

Speed doesn't cover for it. "If you're a fast driver and you have a bad attitude, or you're a fast driver and you get in fights, or you're a fast driver and no one wants to work with you, kind of says right there what value do you bring to a brand," Cofran said.

Then he described the athlete Alpinestars does want: someone who will be "a vessel of communication." When a fan asks about the suit, the wrong answer is that it was free. The right answer sounds like this, in Cofran's words: "Oh, this is the new GP Tech suit, I really love it, it's super lightweight. This one doesn't have the belt, but this one has pockets." Those are the athletes the brand values, he said, "because you're driving people to go buy the product, not just, yeah, cool, I look good... I'm on the podium, sweet, I'm awesome." ▶ Watch Heath Cofran explain this

Learn your sponsors' products well enough to talk about them the way their own salespeople would. That one habit separates an ambassador from a billboard.

Be at home in the pits and the boardroom

Representing a sponsor off the track also means fitting in wherever the sponsor needs you. Joe Parsons of Monster Energy singled out off-road racer Casey Currie for exactly that. "He represents himself well," Parsons said. "You could say he's somewhat of a chameleon. He can hang out with the rock crawlers and have a big old hoot and good time, but yet he can also go up to the corporate offices and get a deal done, and everyone's happy about it." ▶ Watch Joe Parsons on Casey Currie

Parsons also explained why Monster prefers to back athletes early and stay with them. "Anybody can slap a logo on a champion," he said. "But to be a part of the story is... much better." ▶ Watch the clip The story is what you do between the races: who you meet, how you treat people, and how you talk about the brands that came along before you were winning.

Do what you said you would do

Holly Fowler built a following traveling the country off-roading under the motto "seat time over everything," and has since rebranded as Seat Time Syndicate as she moves into Ultra4 racing. At the Off-Road Sponsorship Summit's personal branding session, she named two things that build a brand. The first is consistency. The second is simpler and rarer: "If you say you're going to do something or be somewhere, follow through with it."

The cost of skipping that is real. If you don't turn up to one or two of the events you said you'd be at, she said, "your name kind of gets muddled in with everyone else."

Fowler also only represents products she actually believes in. "I really don't work with anyone who I don't back or I don't believe in, and it's always customer service for me first. I'm always a customer of the company first," she said. When a company offers to give her a product, her answer is: "It's okay. I'll buy it first. Let me see what I think of it."

When she approaches a brand, she looks for a three- to five-year contract rather than a single season. "You can only do so much in a year. You can make a little noise in a year, but you can move mountains within between two and five years." ▶ Watch Holly Fowler in the Personal Branding session

The takeaway

• Run your sponsors' products in your daily life: on your street vehicle, in your shop, in your hands. Talk about them when people ask, honestly and without a sales pitch.
• Learn each product well enough to explain it in a sentence or two, the way Cofran described the GP Tech suit.
• Assume you're on the clock whenever you're wearing or driving a sponsor's name, and never drink, fight or blow up in public while you are.
• Practice fitting in at both ends of the business: the fans in the pits and the executives at headquarters.
• Keep every commitment. If you say you'll be at an event, a store or a signing, be there.