Sponsors,
the good and the bad.
by Ken Nance.
Of all
relationships you will encounter while trying to pursue a career as a
professional tournament angler, sponsors and potential sponsors are quite
possibly the most important. I have been blessed with some of the best sponsors
in the sport. These sponsors didn’t come easy and they didn’t seek me out
and beg me to represent them. I did a lot of hard work, hard “FREE” work for
them to prove myself. My father taught me about saving money and said when you
save money it would begin to “snowball”. Sponsors will do this as well. What
I want to discuss is some sure fire ways to get sponsors, keep them, and make
yourself an integral part of their team.
The first thing you need to realize is that there are 2 distinct sides to
the fishing industry. The fishing side, and the business side. The sooner a
tournament angler realizes this the better off he will be. Both sides are
equally important and both work together, with good time management and
organizational skills, they both can exist together in harmony for the
competitive tournament angler. This is a huge industry with literally thousands
of potential professional anglers willing to work for these companies for free.
Lets talk about how to obtain that first sponsor. I suggest you spend some time
looking in your boat at your tackle. Look at what products you buy the most of
and what you feel your confidence baits are. For an example we will use Sliding
Weight Crawfish baits. I love the Sliding Weight Crawfish and use it quite a
bit. I am confident it is a bait that the fish have not seen and its life like
in its action. I am currently sponsored by this company so for the sake of an
example we will assume that I am not. The first thing to do would be to look for
a local tackle dealer that does not stock the baits. Approach the dealer and
sell him on the bait and once he agrees to order tell him you will try to
contact the company and do the legwork for him. Now you have an order for the
baits in your pocket and some proof that you can sell the bait. Now you need to
contact Sliding Weight and ask to speak with whomever is in charge of their
marketing and pro-staff. When you get this person on the phone introduce
yourself and ask for a moment of their time and if this is a good time for you
to call. If not make an appointment to contact them and make sure you call them
back promptly on the agreed time. Once you are on the phone with the correct
person, explain to them what your plans, goals, and accomplishments are. Explain
to them that you use their baits and have confidence in them, which will allow
you to aggressively and confidently sell the products. Now is when you lay your
cards out on the table. Tell him you wish to prove yourself to them and that you
already have a tackle store set up that you have sold their product to. Even if
the company has no pro-staff positions available you can still give them the
order and ask them to notify you when they have an open position. For your
efforts you have set up a local tackle dealer with a product you use and have
proven to yourself that you can do this. Continuing with our example lets
imagine that Sliding Weight is impressed with what you have done and agrees to
offer you a sponsorship. Most of the time they will offer a large discount on
their products and possibly free product. Free product is tough to get sometimes
as most companies have been “ripped off” by so many pro-staffers who take
all the free product and do nothing in return for the company. Once you have
your foot in the door here is where the real work begins. You need to realize
that this is quite possibly the most important sponsor you will ever have. You
have just begun to form your reputation as a professional angler and the image
you present will stick with you for a long time. You need to really work hard at
setting up stores for this company and promoting them as much as possible.
Tournament shirts, stickers, patches, and tow-vehicle stickers are advertising
tools that allow you to promote your sponsors product, if they don’t offer
them ask for their digitized logo and spend the 50 dollars and make them
yourself.
Now that you have your first sponsor lets fast forward your tournament
career some. Its now 6 months or a year later and you have set up 14 stores for
your sponsor and sold a lot of product to individual fisherman. Sliding Weight
has sent you a couple of tournament shirts with your name embroidered on the
pocket right above “Pro-Staff”, you have hats, stickers, and are receiving
free product. Life is good. Now you realize that you want to help promote
another product and decide to contact another company. When you contact this
company things will be a little different. You have a proven track record with
Sliding Weight and Sliding Weight will give you a positive reference for your
potential new sponsor. You contact this company and follow the same steps, they
contact Sliding Weight and POOF, you now have another sponsor. When you contact
the dealers that you set up with Sliding Weight to check on how much product
they need you can tell them about this new product you have to offer. Another
great thing companies do is offer their pro-staffers the ability to set up
dealers with their products at a cheaper price than they can get from a middle
man. Basically you can set up a dealer with a wholesale, factory direct price,
without them having to go through a middleman which means more profit for the
dealer. Do you see the snowball effect here we talked about earlier? The next
product you want to promote will have 2 positive references and so on and so on.
Eventually your reputation will get out and your sponsors will start
recommending you for other sponsorships.
One thing a person being sponsored by a company needs to realize is that
they don’t only represent the company and its product. As someone who is
sponsored by a company you represent the company, product, that companies
employees, their families, and everything that company stands for. You need to
remember this when you are dealing with the public and remain the professional
you are. Avoid confrontations and putting yourself in less than ideal
environments. Once you have proven yourself to these companies you can expect to
do more things with these companies and actually become an integral part of that
company. They will contact you and ask your advice on company related topics,
new product development, field testing, as well as ask you to do seminars and
promotional events for them. This is where the sponsorship really starts to pay
off. When you do promotional events for them, either by going to shows or doing
videos etc., you will be gaining exposure for yourself. This is the level where
the company that is sponsoring you realizes what an asset you are to them and
will begin to help you with tournament expenses and entry fees. It’s a give
give situation and you have to give first.
Once you get to this level you may wish to start looking for a boat
sponsor. Boat sponsors are totally different from tackle sponsors. The stakes
are much higher and the sponsorships are much more difficult to get and keep.
You need a proven tournament record as well as a proven sponsor record most of
the time to get a boat sponsorship. Don’t plan on getting a free boat. Unless
your name is Kevin Van Dam, Rick Clunn, or Bill Chapman (my friend that fishes
FLW gets a free boat every year), you will be buying a new boat as your first
sponsorship. Don’t get me wrong, the deal is still phenomenal. There are
several forms of boat sponsorships which include, memo boats, demonstrators,
factory level sponsorships, and dealer level sponsorships. There may be some
additional types but these are the ones I am familiar with. The most common deal
that is offered is the dealer level sponsorship. With a dealer level sponsorship
you get a large discount on the boat, motor and trailer, dealer support, and
free tournament clothes. This is the foot in the door to the next level and
again one that needs your full attention. Offer to go to boat shows and watch
how the boat dealership’s sales people sell boats and learn from watching
them. When you are ready to sell boats ask your dealer to instruct you how he
wants you to sell the boats and then go at it. Selling a boat you believe in is
easy. Be knowledgeable and truthful about the boat. Study how the boat is built
and manufactured. Know the warranty and how to break in the boat. More times
than not the customer you are talking to about the boat knows just as much if
not more about the boat than you do. The most common misconception I see boat
salesman do is misrepresent the speed of the boat.
If the boat will run 65mph gps then tell them the gps speed. Remember,
your reputation is everything and you don’t want customers walking around
telling other customers and salesmen at other boat dealerships that your 18-foot
boat will run 90 mph. Memo boats are deals that are also common. Some people may
call memo boats by a different name other than what I do but this is how I
interpret them. Once you have been sponsored by a boat dealer he turns in a
credit application to the boat manufacturer. The boat company many have their
own finance company or use a financial company they work close with to finance
their team members. The large discount on the boat puts you well below dealer
cost of the boat. Once the finance company approves your loan you will sign a
1-year contract with payments of $0.00. You use the boat, insure the boat, and
maintain it. When the year is getting close to being up you sell the boat for
about what you paid for it and then order a new one. The down side to this is if
you don’t sell the boat, the interest rate is higher than a normal loan, which
is a bad thing. What most guys do is finance the boat at a lower interest rate
for 15 years, which also gives the a really low monthly payment, and then sell
the boat leisurely. With the deal that you receive on the boat it is usually
fairly easy to sell the boat. The third form of sponsorship is a demonstrator.
This is actually a rare occurrence as the dealer assumes liability for the boat
and its occupants. They carry the insurance thru the dealer on the pro-staff
and insure them on the events they fish. With today’s society of sue happy
people this deal is about extinct. The last and possibly most rare form of boat
sponsorship is the factory level sponsorship. This is when you get a free boat
from the factory. It doesn’t cost you a penny and if you tear it up they fix
it free or give you another boat. Like I stated earlier, these deals are usually
reserved for the elite top names of the sport. There is another sponsorship out
there that is quite a bit better than a factory level sponsorship. This is a
marketing sponsorship. The deal is phenomenal and I know several guys on this
plan. This plan is possibly the best deal going but it is tough to get and even
harder to keep. You have to be a proven producer and a people person. This plan
requires you to do out of town promotions for several weeks a year. You receive
a boat, tow vehicle, salary, expense account, and a few bonuses like having your
entry fees paid. You have events that are mandatory to attend, sales routes for
you to do publicity stunts on, product promotions, and pretty much anything else
they want you to do. They make provisions for you to be able to pre-fish your
tournament and have plenty of family time but you may be gone for long periods
of time when you are working. I am currently working on a deal like this and
hope to hear something back from the firm soon.
An angler can make himself more desirable to a sponsor when competing for
a pro-staff position by covering all the bases of the sport. He can be a public
speaker, free-lance outdoor writer, and do things that other potential sponsors
don’t do like put on charity tournaments, scuba dive, and teach safety courses
etc. Anything an angler can do to make himself stand out in a crowd is a good
thing.
There are some down sides and warnings that one must heed when dealing
with sponsors also. One of them being to make sure you don’t over-sponsor
yourself. If you have too many sponsors with similar products you are not doing
yourself or your sponsor justice. It is ok to have several different soft
plastic sponsors as long as they are different products. If one sponsor has a
crawfish bait, one has a tube bait, one has finesse and hand pour baits, the
difference between the products is different and there shouldn’t be a
conflict. The last thing you want is to have 4 sponsors that all sell the same
thing. One last bit of advice is you need to keep an eye on your sponsor. I call
this checking the sponsors pulse. If you feel that they are neglecting
customers, pro-staffers, or advertising then this may be the first sign of
problems. You need to talk to the company and discuss how you can help to make
things better. You have to remember that a lot of good companies just go out of
business and there is nothing you can do about it. Keep in contact with your
sponsors on at least a monthly basis. If the time comes that you feel it
benefits both you and your sponsor to go separate ways then do it in a
professional way and don’t burn your bridges. Ship back any un-used product
that you can so they may pass it to other pro-staffers or customers as sample
packs. All in all if you are honest, hard working, and motivated you can make it
far in the world of professional tournament angling. Feel free to contact me at
anytime with questions or comments. Tight lines, Ken Nance.
Ken Nance is sponsored by Triton Boats, Mason Dixon
Marine and Polaris, Sliding Weight Company, Kick'n Bass® Fish Attractants,
Silverbuddy, Eat-em-up Bait Company, J.R.s Custom Rods, Caps Tackle, Susky
Bugs, Bonzai Bait Company, Cabin Creek Bait Company and Nichols Bait Company.
All
articles are re-printed with permission from Ken Nance