The First Season: Turning a Signed Deal Into a Renewal

Most racers treat the signature as the checkered flag. It's the green flag. Everything that happens in the first season, from the way you announce the deal to the way you handle the first missed deliverable, becomes the file the marketing director opens when it's time to decide on year two. The people who run long sponsorships on both sides of the table agree on how that first season should go, and it starts the day the ink dries.

Don't announce it and disappear

Megan Meyer, the two-time NHRA world champion who now coaches racers on social media, sees the same pattern over and over. "They do all this hard work to get the relationship, to actually get the sponsorship. They finally got it done, got contract signed, check in hand, and then all they do is put the logo on the car, logo on their suits, and then they do a post on social media that says, you know, announcing new partnership, tags that company and says check them out. And then you never hear anything again about them online. So that drives me nuts." ▶ Watch Megan Meyer explain this

The announcement post isn't the problem. Stopping there is. "That's okay to do that, to announce your sponsorship, but you need to continue with that content and keep pushing it out there," Meyer said. "Don't just do one post saying check them out. You need to be more specific with your call to action." Does the brand sell through a retailer or distributor? Then send people there. Does it sell online? Ask for an affiliate link. A sponsor wants buyers, and the first season is when you prove you can point people to the register.

Agree on the deliverables before you start delivering

Travis Clarke, executive vice president of action sports and Olympics at Wasserman, manages programs where several big brands share one team, each with its own story to tell. He said it only works when the expectations are set at the very beginning. "It really starts with how you are selling in a program, and understanding what's the objective of that sponsor, why are they sponsoring this team," Clarke said. Get in line with that objective from day one, he explained, set the tone for the year's deliverables, and "then it becomes a little bit of a game of executing and also managing and making sure you follow through."

On the factory team he was asked about, that follow-through runs on a calendar the sponsors can see. "We send out a content calendar two weeks preceding the following month, so that all of our sponsors know what day they're getting the post, what that post is going to be. They see the other content we're posting for the other sponsors and the non-sponsored content, so they can then plan their content calendar around it." ▶ Watch Travis Clarke on this

You don't need an agency to copy that. A one-page monthly plan emailed to each sponsor before the month starts tells them you're organized, gives their social team time to share your posts, and turns "we'll post about you" into something they can check.

Make sure they never have to police you

Nate Hunt of Jackson Motorsports Group, the agency that manages BFGoodrich's partnership with Rob MacCachren, explained why that relationship has run for more than 30 years. Part of it is realistic expectations on both sides from the start. Most of it is that the brand never has to check up on its driver.

"He shows up at the track. I don't have to worry about whether Rob has the decals on the truck, or if he has the right logo on his shirt, or if he has something on his hat, or if he says BFGoodrich on the podium, or if he tags BFG in social media. He does it. It's a given. It's not something we have to police," Hunt said. "Rather than policing, let's promote."

That's the trade every first-year racer should understand. Every hour a marketing person spends chasing your logo placement or a missing tag is an hour they're not spending promoting you. Get the basics right without being asked and the brand's time goes into making you look good. ▶ See Nate Hunt's full answer

Andre Jackson, a marketing consultant for Toyota, passed along a rule he learned from a now-retired Toyota vice president: "He once said... once a contract is signed, if we ever have to pull that back out again, then that means we don't have a relationship." ▶ Watch Andre Jackson on this

If your sponsor has to reread the contract to get what they paid for in year one, there probably won't be a year two.

Over-deliver early, and keep doing it

Hunt described a partnership where both sides try to beat the deal. "Rob tries to overdeliver what's expected of him realistically, and we should be doing the same thing on the BFGoodrich side." ▶ Watch the clip

MacCachren's own advice for anyone who wants a long partnership is short: "Treat them well, to always be professional, to be on time, to give back more than you give, overdeliver." He and his son Kaden go to shows nobody asked them to attend, because word gets back to the brand. "Whether your brands that are supporting you want you to be there or not, when they hear about it later, that's more insurance to them, if you want to say it, that, hey, investing in this guy, he's doing more than just going to the races. He's doing more than we just require."

Kaden MacCachren calls it extra credit, and he explained why the minimum isn't enough. "You could do the bare minimum and you might keep somebody around for a couple years, but when you go above and beyond, not just once but every day, you're going to make these people happy with you and want to keep you around." He added one more habit worth copying in year one: don't only call when you need something. "Not just calling them when you need something, but building a relationship with these people." ▶ Watch Rob and Kaden MacCachren

The first season is the audition for the second

A new sponsor is watching for three things in year one. Did you do what the proposal said? Did they have to chase you? Did you do anything they didn't expect? A racer who answers yes, no and yes has already written most of the renewal pitch. The racer who posted once and went quiet has handed the next budget meeting a reason to try someone else.

The takeaway

• Within the first week, ask your contact to confirm the year's deliverables and what the brand most wants out of the program.
• Keep posting about the sponsor after the announcement, with a specific call to action: a retailer, a link, a code.
• Send each sponsor a simple content and event calendar before every month begins.
• Get logos, tags and podium mentions right every time, so nobody at the brand has to police you.
• Do at least one thing each quarter that isn't in the contract, and make sure your contact hears about it.