Personal Branding: Decide Who You Are Before a Sponsor Decides for You

Every racer already has a personal brand. It's the sum of what a marketing manager finds when they type your name into a search bar, scroll your feed, and ask around the pits. The only question is whether you built it on purpose or let it happen by accident. The people who hand out sponsorships at my Sponsorship Summits and on Meet the Sponsors keep giving the same advice: decide what your brand is first, then go find the companies that fit it.

Schedule time to think about your brand

John Viscardo sells sponsorships for Hoonigan, and before that he was brand manager at Car Craft and Circle Track. Early in that job, a mentor gave him an assignment he didn't understand at first. "He said, John, I want you to think about your brand one hour a month," Viscardo recalled. "He's like, just, what is your brand doing? The John Viscardo brand? ... Where do you want it to go?"

He turned that into a habit he recommends to every racer. "When you have a rain delay at the track or you're not doing anything other than scrolling through your phone looking at your friend's car pictures, stop for a minute and think about your brand for one hour a month."

And he wants you thinking beyond this season: "What do you want your brand to be in six months, in a year and three years, in five years? And just think about that. ... Imagine what it's gonna look like, and then make it happen." ▶ Watch John Viscardo explain this

Nobody starts out famous

If that sounds like something only stars need to worry about, Viscardo's answer is that the stars started exactly where you are. "Richard Petty's a kid from Level Cross, North Carolina. Ken Block's a kid from Long Beach, California. Travis Pastrana is a kid from Annapolis, Maryland," he said. "They didn't know they were Travis Pastrana or Ken Block when they were born. ... They developed their brand, they built themselves into something, and they kind of built it from scratch." ▶ See the full interview

Matt Martelli, CEO of the Mint 400, worked with Ken Block in the early days and has watched that brand-building up close. His version is blunt: "As a driver, you have to treat yourself like a brand. What would a brand do? How would a brand invest in its own content?"

Martelli argues that this is what sets a racer's market value. "Wins are important, but they're not everything," he said. "You compare Ken Block to some guys who win every weekend, and he's far, far beyond the value of those particular racers, because from day one he's invested into his own brand and to himself." Block didn't wait for a sponsor to pay for it, either: "He took his own money and invested into content that we were doing for him at the time, until we could get other sponsors and partners to get involved." ▶ Watch Matt Martelli on this

Most racers can't fund Gymkhana-level video. That isn't the lesson. The lesson is that Block treated his own name as something worth investing in before anyone else did.

Start with an honest audit

So where does a grassroots racer begin? Gary Reyes, a drifter and founder of Sponsored Adrenaline who helped me organize the Drift Sponsorship Summit, says the first step costs nothing. "It's super easy to do a personal assessment of your brand. I mean, what does your digital footprint say about you?" he said. Go through your social media, look at what you post and the quality of it, "because remember, social media goes both ways." You can research brands online, and when you approach them, "they can look you up, they can see what you do."

The good news, Reyes said, is that "there's no wrong answer, because different brands want different things." The one constant is authenticity, and the fact that you will be checked. "Like they say, you are what they Google." ▶ Watch Gary Reyes on personal branding

The founder of Kansei Wheels, on the same panel, confirmed that he Googles the drivers who approach him every time. He also made a useful point about fit: brands have personalities too. Asked whether Kansei wants the good guy or the renegade, he described his company as "a little more edgy, a little more on the Renegade side," a young brand that likes drivers who beat on its wheels and that takes an approach "more individualistic, more stylized" than big companies chasing a polished image. A clean-cut racer and a rowdy one can both get sponsored. They just get sponsored by different companies. ▶ Watch the Kansei Wheels founder on brand fit

Know who you are, then pick your partners

The Kansei founder's closing advice is the best summary of this whole topic I've heard. "You should know who you are. Know what you're trying to build, know the brand that you are yourself personally and the brand you put into your motorsport," he said. "You got to think of yourself as your own little company. And cool companies know who they are, and you should know who you are too, and not just make it up."

He pointed out that you already do this as a consumer. "I'm not into Adidas stuff, I don't live that lifestyle. I'm a Nike person. ... These brands are in your life already. You're already making decisions and curating yourself." Knowing that about yourself, he said, shapes how you approach sponsors and "where you go with the branding of your wrap and your merch and even your media." ▶ Watch the clip

Viscardo uses the same logic to build his own prospect list at Hoonigan, and he tells racers to do likewise: "Figure out what your brand is, and then go find partners, brand partners, that align with that." ▶ Watch John Viscardo on target lists

Personality can be learned

Some racers hear "personal brand" and assume it means being loud on camera. Jim Beaver, a former pro racer who hosts The Jim Beaver Show, told the Off-Road Sponsorship Summit's media panel that winning alone won't make you stand out. "I tell people develop a personality," he said.

Then he offered a surprise. "I'm very introverted. People don't realize that Ken Block, he was very introverted. People like Leah Pruett, these are some of the biggest names in motorsports. They're all introverted people, but they've learned how to flip a switch, become a larger than life personality when they need to." ▶ Watch Jim Beaver explain this

Your brand doesn't have to be a character you play all weekend. It has to be a clear, consistent version of yourself that you can switch on when the camera, the fan, or the marketing manager shows up.

The takeaway

• Block out one hour a month to ask Viscardo's questions: what is my brand doing, and where do I want it in six months, a year, three years and five years?
• Google yourself and scroll your own feeds the way a marketing manager will. Delete or fix anything you wouldn't want a sponsor to see.
• Write down your brand's personality in a sentence, polished or edgy, technical or fun, and make sure your wrap, merch and posts all match it.
• Build your prospect list from that sentence. Go after companies whose personality fits yours, not just the ones you've heard give away product.
• Practice switching on. If you're naturally quiet, rehearse your interview and podium moments until the bigger version of you comes easily.