Latest / The Racer on Demand Show / Episode 12 | Listener Q&A

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Episode 12 | Listener Q&A · The Racer on Demand Show

• Megan: All right, welcome back to the Racer On Demand show or if you are new here, thank you for tuning in. I am your co-host, Megan, with my good friend, Amanda Van Den Elzen, and we are the Racer On Demand show. So we are going to do a little bit of a different topic today where we are answering questions that our viewers and listeners have to Amanda and I through social media and through I guess just through social media. So, but first, I mean, I want to know, cause you guys just picked up Chris's brand new truck. So how did that go? It's so cool to see, you know, the little sneak peeks that we got on your stories and all that. But it's, it's awesome that you guys have a brand new truck this year. Cause wasn't the truck that Chris had, wasn't it like 17 years old, I heard or something like that. Amanda Van Den Elzen: that old, but it was 12. It was 12 years old and it had been rebuilt a couple times from smashing into things. prior to us even getting it. So yeah, I this trip was wild. First off, let me just tell you that living in an RV for 31 days is not for the faint of heart. We did like a little vacation on the front end of it knowing that once we Megan: Okay, not that old. Okay, 12 years old. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: you know, got into this, it was just gonna be a lot of work and straight through race season, we weren't gonna have much time to enjoy ourselves. So we went down to Louisiana, we saw the Tabasco factory, which was really cool. And then we just kind of worked our way across like highway 10 and four hours a day, we just drove and found somewhere cool to stop and. Megan: Nice. Amanda Van Den Elzen: We found cool caves to stay at and we saw like mountains. Chris loves mountain biking. So we stayed a couple days in El Paso and did some hiking and mountain biking there. And then a couple days in Tucson and the same thing there. The mountains there were so cool. And Mount Lemon is like world renowned for mountain biking. And he was so excited. He got to do, they call it the lemon drop. Megan: Hmm. Yeah. Nice. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes, so he got to ride that trail and I got to hike up and down. I don't mountain bike. I prefer to live, but. ⁓ Megan: Yeah, I'm not very good on two wheels either. Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: No, you know what? I had a motorcycle for a couple of years and I was like, you know what? I think I'll go back to four wheels sounds great. But yeah, so we did, you know, a fun trip going out and then we got out there. ⁓ We didn't really know how long it was going to take to finish the truck and the trip we were expecting it to be somewhere around like 20 ish days long ⁓ ⁓ Megan: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: 31 days later we got home. ⁓ we thankfully had really gracious hosts. The Mamers are just an amazing family. ⁓ went to the fair with them ⁓ we hung out with their family ⁓ ⁓ dinners. We were there with them. was just, we were surrogate Mamers for a couple of weeks. ⁓ Megan: Cool. Yeah Amanda Van Den Elzen: you know, ⁓ guys, finished up the truck ⁓ we got to take it out to an abandoned airstrip out there in Holtville, California. It was 102 degrees or something while we were out there. And, it was so fun just seeing Chris, like the first time he's in it, he's 80 plus miles per hour sideways on concrete, you know? ⁓ And, I know who was more excited, Chris or Cole, you know, in seeing that. Megan: Yeah. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: the first time, but it was really cool. And then we got to take it out to Glen Helen and really shake it down. it's crazy how different it handles. Like, obviously I didn't drive it, but just you can see how different it handles just from being, I say lower to the ground. The chassis itself is actually, like the ride height is taller by about a half an inch than the old one. Megan: Mmm. ⁓ okay. Amanda Van Den Elzen: But everything else is so low. The center of gravity is so low. Like the top of Chris's old truck is six inches higher than the top of this truck. So it's wild. It was a cool trip though. It was really cool. I don't know if I'm ready to be home. We missed the blizzard. We actually prolonged our stay a little bit because we knew we wouldn't be able to get home because there was a blizzard at home. Megan: Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Mm. Yeah, for real. Yeah. Yeah. Well, cool. Well, that's so exciting. Yeah. I can't wait to see them out there. So are you guys going to do a really cool rap on it? Do you have that planned yet? OK. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah, it was awesome. We don't have it planned yet. We have a call tonight with a prospective partner and I think some of it's gonna hinge on how that goes because ⁓ you know we've put some renderings together for them being pretty big on the truck so we'll see how that goes if they're gonna bite on what we have to offer them outside the racetrack but I feel kind of good about it so hopefully but Megan: Mm-hmm. Okay. Good. Amanda Van Den Elzen: You know, we'll see, we'll see. I think it's gonna be a little different than it has been in the past. know, purple is really our color and I think we're gonna lean harder into purple this year. And I can tell you almost certainty that it's going to be almost entirely purple this year. Megan: Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay, I love it. I love it. Well, I guess that's a good segue. So I'm gonna ask you our first question. So this, don't know who these were sent in because we didn't write it down. But, also with the question box, it can be kind of anonymous. So first question, that kind of goes along with what you just said. How do I get myself seen by potential sponsors? ⁓ Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, okay, so I saw a couple of questions come in like this, and some of them were asking specifically about online, and I suspect that's just because I've been doing this Instagram series and talking about how people show up online and how that affects sponsors looking at their profiles, right? And ⁓ the first thing that I really wanna say is that you will never just be discovered by a sponsor because you have a cool profile on Instagram. So... I know the question is how do I do this, but I'm just going to throw it out there and say, that's not it. Yeah. It's, it's important to have a really cool profile with a strong following. Like that is an asset to have, but to be seen by a partner to be found or discovered is really, you have to put in the legwork on the backend to start building connections towards that. And Megan: Yeah, no good point. Amanda Van Den Elzen: You know, Megan, you're probably going to have a different point of view on this than I do, because I feel like every program is built a little bit differently. But for us, it's been a lot of networking. And when they say it's not what you know, it's who you know, they mean it. For us, you know, we, got lucky enough that we had somebody take a chance on us, you know, next entire, we kind of networked in and found somebody who knew somebody and, know, the marketing person said, yeah, you know what, let's. Megan: Mm-hmm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: let's give you tires this year and see how it goes. And you're probably going to have somebody who gives you a product discount or gives you a free product to see how it goes. And that's a great place to start those really meaningful connections. But once you start having those and start showing value to them, start asking them, hey, do you have a connection at this place or with this kind of a company? Because I think it would really resonate with my demographic too. Or, I have this idea for this collaborative content. I know that you guys, like for example, Nexen Tire, ⁓ our team really wants to partner with the right OE brand. We're looking at a couple of car manufacturers and saying, hey, we don't have direct connections at those places yet, but Nexen Tire is an OE tire for the Stellantis group. And I know that they work with Chrysler and Dodge a lot. And I know that RAM is starting to show interest in off-road. Hey, Nexon, do you have a contact at RAM that we could talk to? That's really how you make those connections. ⁓ that's an example of how that could work in the networking space is somebody trusts you, you lean on that trust to make a connection. Megan: Yeah, I think that's what when we we had our conversation with Josh, I think he kind of had mentioned that to like, yeah, it's, ⁓ you know, your connection with someone else. But I was going to kind of say the same thing, like, as far as networking goes, like to get seen or like be heard by potential sponsors, I feel like it is kind of based on those referrals. And who could give a recommendation to come and work? with you. So if you are kind of expecting someone to find you, which I mean, like you said, like that rarely happens. But if you're if you're not going to the trade shows and if you're not at, you know, the big races where a lot of the vendors are at and you're not meeting new people and getting your name out there, then it's going to be really hard for someone to come and find you if you're just staying at home. Right. So yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you know what I just thought of too is because people said like, can I be found online? I think you can make those initial connections online. Like it is possible. think LinkedIn is a great place for that where you don't reach out and say like, hey, I was wondering if you wanted to partner. You reach out and say, hey, I really like your product. You know, I. Megan: Yeah, for sure. Yes. Amanda Van Den Elzen: I use your stuff all the time. I'd love to stay connected and I'd love to learn a little bit more about how you're marketing this product. Those are how you start those conversations. And you can do the same thing on Instagram, Facebook, interact with their social media. ⁓ I use this product all the time. I really like it. They're going to notice that, and especially if you're in those marketing avenues, you're already catching the attention of the marketing people. But don't do it in a salesy way. Megan: Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm Yeah, for sure. Well, and I've actually like doing that exact thing. like I have my eye on a brand because it is one that I do know, like and trust, like what we talked about on our last solo episode. But yeah, kind of framing the messaging as like, hey, like I love your products. It's helped me do X, Y, Z would just love to learn more. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: about your business and how are you guys going through sales? Do you do it direct to consumer? Do you work through a retailer or wholesaler or whatever? And just by showing a little bit of interest and then I'll even be able to get free product from them because they'll just be like, ⁓ my gosh, thank you for reaching out. Thank you for sharing your testimonial, for being a customer. ⁓ we would love to give you some product for free. And it's like, that's not at all what my intentions were, but kind of just, is, I didn't go into the messaging and making a first impression of like, hey, I just want free product or I just want you to fund my race program. It was a true, genuine, hey, I do love your products. I'm a paying customer. And then they'll be like, ⁓ that's awesome. know what? It is. pretty easy, just in my experience, for companies to give away products. And so if you are a loyal customer already, it's pretty easy for them to just be like, ⁓ thank you for helping us out. Here's a gift for you. And then it can lead to more. But yeah, I love what you said about using LinkedIn, because that's what I use. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Megan: it's super helpful for making those connections or at least just doing your research to find out who could be the correct person to reach out to. Cause I would say like 75 % of the time that's not the person doing their social media. So if you just, if you just reach out on the brand's Instagram and your first message is, Hey, I have a race car and I need a sponsorship. It's usually Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Yeah. Megan: maybe even a high school or college kid that's doing their social media so they're not going to know or have any say in who they can sponsor. So yeah, so just trying to find who the correct person would be. Don't come across as salesy and yeah, just kind of ⁓ your network. Maybe you can see on LinkedIn that you have a mutual connection and that person could be the referral that you need to get in the door. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Yes. OK, you saying like the person on social media is not the person who would make that decision, right? It made me think of I saw a post. This is so. It sounds unrelated. I promise we will get back to the story here, but ⁓ the post was a guy he was on a cruise ship and he wanted to blow the horn. And he was just like a passenger who was like, I'm determined to figure out like how I can blow the horn on this ship. Megan: Okay? Okay. Amanda Van Den Elzen: And he walked up to some lady who was like doing like towels or something by the pool and was like, Hey, do you think I'd be able to like blow the horn at the next port or whatever? And she told him no. And then the next day he went to the concierge and the concierge talked to the captain. The captain said, yeah, be here at this time. Like, I'll let you press the button. Right. And at the end, he said, never accept no from somebody who doesn't have the authority to give you a yes. Megan: you Amanda Van Den Elzen: ⁓ at the end, he said, never accept no from somebody who doesn't have the authority to give you a yes. Megan: Yeah, it's a story. Amanda Van Den Elzen: And that really resonated, especially with like the social media stuff, right? Like they're going to tell you no, but don't take that as a solid no, because they couldn't tell you yes. Megan: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Okay, so we are talking about approaching these brands and how do you get seen and stuff, but one of the questions that came through that I thought would line up really well with this is this person wanted to know how to figure out what brands to approach for sponsorship and what they can offer them. What do you think on that one? Megan: Okay, it's pretty broad. I feel like, yeah, I mean, what brands to approach and what you can offer. I feel like if you're not already using the product, then. then you shouldn't reach out to them, right? Cause I feel like that's going to be one of the first questions that they ask you is, well, do you like our products or have you used them before? What do you think of them? And yeah, if you can't answer that, then they're probably just going to be like, okay, well, you're just here asking for a handout. And so I feel like that should be the first thing to qualify who you want to reach out to. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Megan: kind of like the next step that I would kind of go through is figuring out, like making sure you are on the same page when it comes to your values, know, target market, what audience you have, are those potential customers of theirs? can you, ⁓ know, if you actually promoted this, would people actually try to buy it from you? And then, from there, try to figure out, like I do some research to see are they currently sponsoring anyone first like in your specific area? like look in your series, are they sponsoring anyone in there or do they sponsor anyone in any type of motor sports? And then kind of broad would be like, do they sponsor any athletes or any people at all? And if they don't, then I would say my it might be really hard to get them to want to sponsor you because they probably have zero experience with sponsoring someone or doing kind of like a influencer program. if they, yeah, yeah, yeah. If they're just like brand new, yeah, they probably, won't even know what budget, what like return on investment they could get from that. So there would be some education that you would have to do once you are talking to the correct person with that. Amanda Van Den Elzen: and probably no budget set aside for that either. Megan: But if they are very familiar, like if they are an endemic racing sponsor, like a tire company, then would be easier that point because they would be familiar with your sport ⁓ and product would be the best one for you. They might be familiar with who the fan base is and all that. ⁓ But at the same time, I feel like on the other side of the coin is if it is a company like a tire brand, they might be really limited on, yeah, like with their budget of what they allocate out and they might just default to a discount program ⁓ or maybe a product program. so those, you know, those are great first steps, but yeah, so. I would say you need to qualify who you reach out to and not just reach out to every brand out there. ⁓ making sure that like where you race ⁓ ⁓ you use actually fits with that company, if that makes sense. ⁓ Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Yes. Yeah. I think too, you know, the second piece of that question was like, how do you know what to offer them? And when I'm thinking about like who I would reach out to, I think the first thing I'm thinking about is what do I have to offer? Because how, when I'm reaching out to a sponsor, I'm essentially asking somebody to buy my product or my service and my product and my service is what I can offer to a sponsor. So I have to know who my target audience is for the product that I'm selling. And so if I don't know what I have to offer, then how would I know who I need to sell it to? And so like for our race team, you know, we've got a couple of different strategic assets on our race team. have our motor motor sports program itself. So that is advertising on the vehicles, activation in the pits. We can go to different events and represent partners at their events. We have kind of an experiential package where we can do VIP at the track during an event, right? And that's all our motorsports package. Or we have our two-seater truck that we can do collaborative content. We can do experiential like days or. ⁓ events that are specific to the company that we're working with where people can ride along, you know, and we have this all kind of sectioned out like this is a product we offer, this is a product we offer, this is a product we offer. Then we need to think like, who has a problem that we can solve with that product? And so one of the examples is right now we're trying to put together ⁓ experiential giveaway packages for companies and ⁓ Megan: Mm, yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: We know that it's going to cost X number of dollars. Like this is what we want to sell it for is X thousand dollars, right? I'm going to clarify that it is multiple thousands of dollars because that's important to know who can spend that much. Right. So, you know, we are thinking about, okay, if we bring the two seater to a business and we put it out front and we say, ⁓ you know, come enter a giveaway for some tickets to the race. And if you make a purchase from this facility today, then you can also get a ride along in the two seater on a date in the future, right? And so we have a price tag set aside for that, but we need to know that A, our customer has a problem of drawing people to their business and making a purchase. That's their pain point that we're solving. And that B, the thousands of dollars that we're asking, in exchange for this is something that isn't outweighing the benefit of attracting those customers and having them make a purchase, which means they need to be big ticket items. So we're thinking about who are the companies that rely on leads and foot traffic that make big ticket purchases. So we're targeting places like car dealerships, RV dealerships, boats, you know, those big ticket items where people need to be in the sales room to make frankly, an emotional purchase. And I think that if we think about that, what are the offers that I have? What are the companies that have a pain point that these offers can solve? Then I know exactly who I'm going to reach out to. And it solves that conundrum itself. Megan: Mm-hmm. I love how you just fed that because that that's very like business minded and You said it's so beautiful. I love that and I love like, okay like because it is like multiple thousands of dollars that like you're asking for and in order to give them a return on investment like they do need to have like that big ticket item, so Something yeah, like a truck or a motorhome or a boat versus something smaller like an energy drink. know, like they'll have to sell 20,000 energy drinks to get a return on their investment. And it would essentially be easier to sell one boat, right? And if you did like a, like an open house event or something like at the dealership and where they could invite, you know, all their Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Megan: potential customers out and be like, okay, here's an incentive for you to come and buy from us. But like it's today only. And ⁓ yeah, I love that. I love that example. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Yeah. And they only just need a couple of sales. And you know, if that's not the right fit, then adjust the offer. Well, maybe we're not putting somebody in a two seater truck because that involves us renting a track and having a full day set aside and whatnot. The price tag goes up with that. But maybe we're just sitting there like the radio stations do, right? Radio stations come out to like dealerships and gas stations and stuff, and they just sit there and they hang out and they attract people and they maybe do a ticket giveaway. Megan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: you know, let's get a smaller price tag so the customer can have a different product. Megan: Yeah, what you need, you need a bounce house to go with that because that is how you're going to get the parents to come out. Because if I, if I see a place with a bounce house and I drive by, Henry is going to ask to go there and we will go there just to get an hour of entertainment. So you guys need to get a bounce house and take it with you. Yes. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes! That's on the list now. A purple truck-shaped bounce house. I love it. Megan: Purple truck, yep, that would be awesome. I bet you can find like a purple dinosaur bounce house. Like not like a Barney one, but like. ⁓ No, not like a Barney one, but like, I don't know. I feel like. Amanda Van Den Elzen: You're probably right. I was gonna say like Barney. Is that really our brand? I I do end every episode with I love you, but it's not the same. Megan: I don't know. feel like... kids stuff is always about dinosaurs, so. Amanda Van Den Elzen: That's true. My nephew is literally obsessed with dinosaurs. He knows the names, like the names that I can't pronounce of like literally every single dinosaur. I bought him a set of like dinosaur things. I was like, which dinosaurs are these? And he's like, well, this one's this one, this one, this one. This one's not real, Auntie Amanda. This is a fake dinosaur. Megan: Yeah ⁓ Nice. Yeah, Henry picked him up pretty quick too. And it's funny, he was obsessed with this show called Dino Dana for a little bit. And ⁓ he goes through phases. So he'll watch his show and like he only wants that show and he'll watch like every single episode three times and then once he finds something else and like he never wants to watch it again, but he went through a really big dinosaur phase. And yeah, he could name he could spit off all these random facts about dinosaurs and if they're an herbivore or an omnivore and ⁓ like all these and like I didn't know anything about dinosaurs. And so he's he's taught me quite a bit. Amanda Van Den Elzen: you Ha That's fantastic. But yeah. Megan: But yeah, he is back into Hot Wheels now. So we're back on a racing phase, which is good going into a new race season. Amanda Van Den Elzen: OK. Yes, and I saw him setting up his room with all the hero cards. Megan: Yes. ⁓ my gosh, that was okay. That was 100 % his own what he wanted to do. It was so cute. So we had a stack from Crandon when we did the parade and they've just been sitting on his dresser. Like it didn't really do much with them. ⁓ we do have the champ one that we got from Wheatland last year that just had like you know, just like the banner with like some of the driver headshots and then like just all the races. So that's been hanging up in his room all year, but we don't have anything else. ⁓ I think what started it was because I have a bulletin board in my office with some of his colorings and he he's been like learning to write his name. And so I hung one up where he wrote his name and he drew like a picture of himself. And it's like it's so cute because it's the most like, you know, abstract. ⁓ Amanda Van Den Elzen: ⁓ sure. Yeah. Megan: picture ever. And he always does his ends backwards, which is so cute. ⁓ But so he saw where I had like my thumbtacks. And he watched me hang it up. And I think that inspired him because it was like the next day. And I like, I wasn't really paying attention. Like I was like working on the computer, but I could hear him in his room. He had his door shut, which I know if his door is shut, he knows he's doing something that he's not supposed to do. And I like, but I could hear him like banging on his wall and he's just got a plastic hammer. And didn't really like think much of it. Cause I thought he was like playing with his, you know, like workshop set or whatever. And like, go in there and I'm like, what are you doing? And he had like half of them hung up and it's so cute because he had them like kind of straight and like in order, but he, he wanted like just a couple on like each wall. So it's like all over his room and it's the cutest thing ever. Amanda Van Den Elzen: you Megan: ⁓ Yeah, like he's never really like shown much interest in like the hero cards until then and it's like, okay, so we'll you know, we'll start collecting more so you can add to add to your walls. But yeah, it's so cute. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. ⁓ that just made me realize we have to make new ones for this year. Megan: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That is always on the last, last thing on my to-do list. And actually this past weekend, my sister had her first race and we had a new wrap on the car, new sponsors, new everything. So we had no pictures, like no content of it. So our guy, John was at, ⁓ my dad's first race, which was two weeks before my sister's race and, ⁓ So I told him, it's like, hey, on Monday when the race is over, I need content. And the sponsor was asking for videos because they wanted to include them in a commercial that they were doing. And so it's like, hey, John, like I like we need to have the guys switch the bodies and you have to switch both the front and back wings so they match. And I need you to get like all these shots of the car. So he did that. And then. I was like, oh, shoot, like we don't have hero cards for Rachel. So like I made something really quick and shipped it. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah Megan: to her track and they still hadn't even arrived. So she went all weekend without hero cards. And then like UPS, it still doesn't say like a delivery date and the guys are leaving to go to the next race, which they were in North Carolina. They're going to Virginia. So I'm going to have to see if I can reroute them to the next track that they're going to. So yeah, that's all, all part of it. So. Amanda Van Den Elzen: ⁓ no. ⁓ no. ⁓ man. Yeah, I really like the company we go through. We actually we sell hero cards on Racer on Demand too for a decent price. I'm going to just shamelessly plug that. the company that we go through, they used to be based ⁓ out of Canada and they were just over the border ⁓ New York there. And so it used to be like, I don't know, like five to seven ish business days to get them with the standard shipping and I'd normally get them a little bit sooner and I was like, ⁓ this isn't bad for coming through customs and everything, but they just opened a US based plant in the last couple of months and I've ordered a couple of times since then and it is like freaky fast now. I mean, for them to like print, cut and ship, you get them within a week, it's insane. Megan: Nice. Yeah, okay. Well, I might have to consider switching. Because yeah, we just do our local printer here, which is one that lot my classmates ⁓ worked So I just kind of went through my friends. But yeah, maybe if we have to ship them, it might make ⁓ more Okay, anyways, let ⁓ me another question. Amanda Van Den Elzen: ⁓ yeah. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yes, let's get back to questions. Megan: Okay, so next question. Is it a waste of a racer's time to approach sponsors if they can only attend two to three races per season? Amanda Van Den Elzen: Okay, I think I'm going to have a caveat on this one. So I'm going to say no, it is not a waste of your time. But it is if all you're selling them is at the track stuff. So what I mean by that is if you're just saying I'm going to put my sticker on my car with your name on it, you're going to hit some eyeballs and that's the return you're getting, like don't even bother. Megan: Mm. Yes. Amanda Van Den Elzen: If that is the return they're looking for, they're going to go with somebody who's running a full season. That being said, I think there are huge opportunities to get a smaller budget from a smaller company for a single weekend if you do it well. And what I mean by that is like, let's say you've got an event, like, okay, let's say we're racing here in Seymour, Wisconsin, right? We've got a circle track here. Megan: Mm-hmm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: And let's say that you have a local sponsor that really can't afford to sponsor you for the whole year. But you're going to be racing in Seymour for this one event and they're in Seymour and you say, Hey, I've got this idea instead of, you know, sponsoring us for the whole year for $20,000. What if we just do a $2,000 weekend and let's say it's a restaurant, right? And we say, What if you came to the track and we gave away samples of your food at the track with coupons that say, you know, good for 10 % off your bill at this restaurant that's down the street. Like that $2,000 expenditure for that one weekend might kick back a lot more business than if they were to try and spend $20,000 following you all over the state of Wisconsin where their business doesn't really resonate, right? So I think that Megan: Mm-hmm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: You can provide value in more localized buckets, especially as a grassroots racer, but it can't just be slapping a sticker on a car and saying like, ⁓ yeah, I'm just going to advertise at a couple of events for you. You know, that's kind of what I'm thinking about on that. Also flip side is the benefit that you offer off the track. If you have a huge social media following and you can influence people at a high level without even ever being at a racetrack, that's really valuable. Megan: Mm-hmm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: or like I mentioned with our two seater program, right? That has nothing to do with how many races we're doing. So there are some creative ways that you can drive value through your program. Megan: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, well said. Yeah. I don't know if I have really much to add on to it, but that's like, so Alex Dreiler, like he's been a big mentor for me. And that's the last, I would say like two, three years he's been saying that like, it's, it's not about your results or how many races you can go to. It's how else can you be an extension of their marketing team? So maybe it's not going to races, maybe you can go to trade shows where they want to go to or yeah, like different types of events where they would like to have a presence at. Maybe you can go to those or conferences or shows ⁓ it's not really ⁓ you know, costing you much money because you're not racing. So you're not risking breaking parts and you know, all of that stuff and running your race gas and tires, but you would still use the, your car or your, your truck or vehicle as the display to attract the people. And, you know, maybe you're the one that's setting up a booth instead of the company, but you're there to represent them. And that's a way how you can use that as an asset outside of the racetrack. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Mm Yeah. I'm looking through the questions here. think that also kind of hits on somebody asked, how do I approach sponsorship without a deal to drive lined up? And I think that that's really similar, right? You don't you don't have to be racing to provide value. Megan: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, just think about it. Like there's so many, because like, so because I'm a mom, like I get a lot of mom content in my algorithm and they're just stay at home influencers, right? And so if, if they can get a paying sponsorship and they don't even have a race car, like you can too, you just need to change the way how you're thinking about it. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: Again, like what you're saying, like what are the assets that you could then provide that is going to solve a problem? sometimes it is social media. Sometimes it's more foot traffic or generating leads, but yeah, each company is different in what they're trying to accomplish and how they want to move products. So, ⁓ so yeah, so don't limit yourself to just being like, ⁓ well, it's, have to be at the racetrack or I have to put the sticker on the side of my car. ⁓ Yeah, that's the old school way. You don't need to do that anymore. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes, yes. Okay, I found another question. This one was asked a couple different ways and when I posted it, I had multiple people message me and go, but seriously, like how do we do this? So I know that this is one that people really wanted to hear about. And I think it fits what we're talking about. ⁓ It says, big content creators say sponsors only care about an audience on social media. Is that true? And somebody else said, Megan: Okay. Yeah, it's a juicy one. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Why do sponsors only care about clout and followers and not race results, which I think kind of goes hand in hand. Megan: I think the old saying of the win on Sunday, sell on Monday. I don't know if that really works. anymore because if you were the one to win a race back in the day, like you would get a ton of media coverage and that was kind of before there was social media. So you couldn't publish, you know, your own results. You had to rely on the media to do it for you. And, but now because there is social media and there is podcasts out there and there's ways how you can promote yourself and you don't need to rely on. media that's there. You don't need to rely on the series to promote yourself. mean, like, for example, with us racing in NHRA, ⁓ like they do a broadcast for our class, but it doesn't air until a week later, Thursday night, and it's usually at like 11pm. So like no one's gonna watch it. And like, yeah, it's cool. Like we get TV time. And like, I'll ask for the stats of like, okay, how many people watched it? Amanda Van Den Elzen: you Megan: And they do a live stream too. So I'll be like, okay, how many people tuned into the live stream? just by looking at the numbers on YouTube and it's like, okay, that's cool and all, but can do the same thing or get better results just by posting on our social channels about it. So ⁓ feel like that that's one of the reasons why, like I lean so heavily on social media and why I'm always trying to grow that and have that as like our biggest asset to companies. ⁓ So but also to go along with that, like, you don't have to have hundreds and thousands of followers. And also, like, there's so much spam and like, bot accounts out there that they decrease your engagement. So it is actually better to have Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Yes. Megan: 5,000 ⁓ to 15,000 followers and they're like actually real people that engage with your post versus having a hundred thousand followers and you get less than a 1 % engagement rate. So the big clout and big followers, it's not as glamorous as it seems like it's cool to say like, ⁓ yeah, I've got this big following, but if it's just a bunch of fake. Amanda Van Den Elzen: No. Megan: people or like not even people just fake accounts like then it really decreases that value. So you do need to qualify your audience there as well. I don't know, like doing social media, it can be a really good asset if you do it properly, but it's just like anything else. It's gonna take a lot of time and effort to grow it and cultivate it to really be your brand and not just blend in with everybody else. So yeah, I feel like. Amanda Van Den Elzen: You Mm-hmm. Megan: I don't know. There's two sides to everything. So if that is something that you're comfortable with, then go all in. But if not, that's okay too, because there are companies out there that don't care about the social media. They would rather have foot traffic into a store or lead generation or something else. What do you think? Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Yes, yep, exactly. You know, I thought this was going to be a really interesting question because of how differently you and Chris approach your programs, right? Like, you really do have a very large social media following in comparison to us. Like, we've got, I don't know, 6,000 Instagram followers for our VD Racing page. But those followers are very engaged, and that's something Megan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: that our sponsors recognize is that we don't have even tens of thousands of followers, but the people who are following us, they really value our influence. And we were able to measure that this year by at the track. We did a questionnaire and did a giveaway and everybody who signed up for the giveaway answered the question, how likely are you to support a brand that partners with BD Racing and 80 % of our followers or our fans said that they were more likely to support a brand that partners with us than one that doesn't. And for us to turn around and give that data then to a partner and say, yeah, we've only got 6,000 followers, but they're 80 % more likely to buy your stuff if you partner with us says a lot more than I have a million followers, but I have a 0.1 % engagement rate. Megan: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: of those people who are engaging with my posts, maybe another 1 % of those are going to buy something. Again, we're looking at what business problem are we solving with the product that we're offering. some companies are looking for, need that big following because I'm trying to reach as many people as I can and just get my name known. That's important. If somebody is looking for brand recognition, Megan: Mm Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: A big following is huge, but if they're looking to actually make sales, maybe their brand's already pretty well known, then a small following with a big buying intent is really powerful too. And just like we talked, and you alluded to too, there's lots of ways to sell your program that don't include social media. Megan: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. Well, and I just want to add on to it. Having that survey is, I feel like that's one of the most underrated things that racers can do because they don't realize that data and just being able to express the results of that data and framing it in a way of You know, like what you just said, like our 80 % of our audience is, would be interested in buying your products because of our team and our brand. And that's like one of the questions, like we always include in our survey. So we do a survey just once a year, which I do want to do more, but just being able to get like, not just their demographics, but their interests, their lifestyle. ⁓ because yes, like we obviously know they're a fan of motor sports, but Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Megan: what else are they interested in or ⁓ what future buying decisions are they going to be making? So if we are, let's say we want to work with a car dealership and an easy way for us to our foot in the door is if we do a survey and we ask our fans very specifically in the next six months, Are you going to be purchasing a car? What type of vehicle are you interested in? What qualities do you look for when you go to a dealership? And so you can get very granular with your answers. And then you would just take that to the marketing director and show, our audience is, let's say 50 % of them in the next six months are planning to buy a car. This is what they're looking for. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Megan: These are potential customers and leads that we could bring to your store. ⁓ so let's work a deal. Right. And so it just, but not doing a survey, you never know those results or you never know what, what else are they interested in? What could they be in the market for? ⁓ that's where you could reach out to companies that could be local or that have nothing to do with racing and motor sports. And I think, I think maybe racers are like, Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: ⁓ well, if they're not in motor sports, then I can't work with them. ⁓ but really it could be anything. could be insurance. It could be a vet's like, like you just gotta be able to create the survey to ask them and get those results. And then also, but maybe you could find out, well, our audience is not interested in buying a car. then maybe we, you know, maybe next year we'll try that route again with the dealership, but. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Megan: Yeah, I love doing surveys. So I love that you brought that up. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes, and they're not difficult to do. I think people are really intimidated by it, but you think about like when you go to any kind of event where there's activation, where brands are participating with booths and stuff and they've got like the spin wheels and then you win like a key chain or something, right? A lot of racers are already giving stuff away at the track for free. All you have to do is put a sign up wall in front of that and say, Megan: No. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: You know, do you want a Can Cousy? Well, if you fill out our survey, you can get one for free. You know, it's like, we were already going to give it away for free, but now you're getting value back out of it. Megan: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so question for you. What is an appropriate amount of money to ask for in a sponsorship? Amanda Van Den Elzen: So I think this is something that most racers really struggle with. And I know why, because for us, money feels probably more valuable than it feels for a lot of our partners, right? Like we're like, oh, I have to spend $300 this week, and that's a decent amount of money. Whereas if we go to a partner and we ask for something for $300, it's like. they spend more than that on a meal for two people that they're expensing, right? And so we need to kind of set aside the value of money and the emotion behind money and start thinking logically about what our company's spending to get the same kind of impact as we're about to provide. And so I think AutoFluencer, I'm sure you'll talk to this point, ⁓ is a huge way to measure like the impact that you're having online. but behind the scenes, all these other ways that we talked about that are not social media to provide value, think about, okay, if somebody was going to hire a company to come out, put on an event with a two seat racetrack, right? What would they have to pay somebody to do that? Right, if they hired somebody that's not me, what would it take for them to provide that kind of impact? What is the output that's coming out from that? Well, Maybe they're trying to incentivize their salespeople and their salespeople have the potential to each sell $2 million worth of product. Or maybe the salespeople are doing a giveaway. Whoever sells the most is going to get a ride along. And their profits are expected to go from this to this because of this event that you're putting on. Right, okay, well what percentage of that would be fair to take? You know, maybe you're like, well, I'll take 10 % of the expected profit because that's the impact that I'm making. And so that is going to be the charge that I will take because in the grand scheme of things, they're not losing that 10%, they're making 90 % more than they would have. Right, so the emotion behind the money needs to be set aside and instead we need to ask ourselves, what would it? Megan: Mm-hmm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: cost them to do this if they hired somebody else? Or what is the impact that this is going to create and what's the appropriate percentage to take off of that? Megan: Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, that's a good way to do it. So I've kind of done it more mathematically just because the way how I kind of learned to do it is... So I have a spreadsheet and I've gone through like other sponsorship programs where like they have a calculator and because you want to be able to provide them a three to one return on investment. whatever. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Megan: you it's going to cost you, you need to give them three times or four or five times that much back for them to say, yes, this was successful and yes, we want to do it again because if it is negative, unfortunately, they lost money then yeah, then it's something where they won't want to renew with you unless something changes. So I kind of made my own version of like these calculators out there. and just put it into a spreadsheet. But it's kind of just like, okay, like I have a list of what are all my expenses because I know that's like my bare minimum like baseline, I need to meet that. But that is not the number that I'm pitching, right? So that's just what like I just have that in my head just so I know, hey, I need to bring in at least this much. then on top of that, you know, like I need some income as well. So Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Megan: So adding that into it, but I will go through and like using audit once or ⁓ Any type of media coverage that we get like I'll see You know asking the media for their rate cards. So how much is it that they charge for ads? ⁓ What is their viewership like and all that type of stuff and so? So I'll get a number of like, here's the potential eyeballs and potential traffic that we could bring. And then there's like this formula that I created, and honestly, I even remember exactly how I made this formula. But anyways, it's like, okay, it's based on if I can put their name in front of this many eyeballs, and it's not just like, oh, hey, you we get. we get 70,000 people that attend an NHRA race. I know not all 70,000 people are gonna see our car. So I divide that. And so maybe it's only 15,000 people during the weekend will actually see our car ⁓ based on how many people do I know come up to our trailer to get a hero card or to get a part that we're giving away or anything like that. So I'll try to qualify it. ⁓ Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Megan: And then, then all, yeah, just plug it into my spreadsheet and it's like, okay, so I know I need to this many ⁓ media posts in order to reach this number that would then be that three to one return on investment or something like that. So I know that I'm not explaining this very well, ⁓ I kinda like, ⁓ like to look at it more like mathematically and kind of like what you were doing. Like you have that end. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: number and then working backwards from there. ⁓ But yeah, you brought up auto-fluencer. So that's been something that has been really helpful for us the last two, three years that we've been using it because it just simplifies everything. I don't have to look at every single post analytics and be like, okay, I tagged gunk in this post and these are the engagements and views that it got. then Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Megan: The next one, was about oil. So this post was, tagged Maxima in it, but then this one's about spark plugs. So I tagged NGK. so Auto-Influence are just, it does all the simplifying for you and categorizing those posts. And then yeah, it puts that dollar value based on what a company would have had to pay in ads in order to get those same results for the content that you created. So. It's really cool because we're coming up on the end of Q1 right now. And so I've been monitoring it the last few weeks because I have a goal of I want to reach 500,000 in earned media value for our sponsors. So that's my goal at the end of the year. So I need to break that up into each quarter. And so, you know, I have that number of like, okay, this quarter I need to reach this number in earned media value. And it's like, okay, beginning of March, all right, we're not there yet. So I need to make sure I do some more posts for each of our sponsors, but I want them to be good posts, right? I'm not just going to throw out some random clip I have in my camera roll and tag them in it. Or maybe it's like, ⁓ because you can just see, you know, like the logo on the car. Like that, that's not, that doesn't count. Like we need to actually like be showing the product and making it more of a exclusive post than like. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Megan: You know, like the sponsor brick ones where you see people under their caption, they have 50 companies that they they at mention like that doesn't count. so yeah, so it's like, OK, I've got this this number like, OK, here's my target by March 31st. I need to this number. And so that's I like to use audit influencer as a tool like that. And then, ⁓ yeah, honestly, I'll just screenshot the dashboard where it shows, hey, this was our results. I'll send that off to the sponsors and they're usually like. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Megan: Okay, good. Keep it up. Like, okay, now I got to start over for Q2. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yay! One of the things that I really liked that you mentioned is, you know, my sponsors expect a three times return or this sponsor expects a five times return. Like, I think it's so important that you ask what does success actually look like before you start because, you know, if you're trying to figure out what to charge, but you're going to like... I don't know, maybe something that you're offering is $20,000, but they're expecting a five times return. Like you have to be able to deliver $100,000 worth of value and you have to be able to measure that and describe that to them that they have, you know, gotten that return back. So it's not just what do you charge, but it's also like, how do you multiply that and how do you communicate the value that you've done created? And I think all pieces of that are equally important. Megan: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, that's like, I have learned as like one of the first questions, like once we're actually in, you know, the phase of sponsorship talk, one of the first questions I'll ask is that how do you measure your success and that that could be social media or that could be generating leads or Maybe it's more like research and development, like, but we need to know like, how are they measuring it? Because I've literally worked with brands that have a report card, like you're in high school and at the end of the year, if you don't get a good grade on your report card, then they are not going to renew with you. But as racers, we need to ask them like, what is your report card or how do you measure it? And sometimes they don't measure it. And so it's like, Okay, so now we need to get on the same page of what would be an easy way to be able to measure this so that way we know it was a success and that way we can renew when it's the end of the year. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes, and okay, you know, some brands might have an actual report card, but all brands have a report card. All of them do. They're just either not showing it to you or they don't even know that it's there, but they're going off of feelings, right? It's like, but you still need to know what's on that report card, whether you're actually getting one or not. Yes. Megan: Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Amanda Van Den Elzen: I know we don't have a ton of time left, but one of these I think is really important that we hit on. ⁓ somebody asked, what is your story? Megan: Like my whole racing story, like how we got into racing. Okay. I'll try to keep this quick. Yeah. Okay. So I started racing when I was 10 years old with Junior Dragster. Amanda Van Den Elzen: I think, you know, yeah, just the story you've got. Megan: grew up in a family of drag racers. My dad started when he was like 18 or 19 years old. ⁓ and he's going on almost 50 years now. So I've been around dragsters, drag racing my entire life. And, ⁓ I had older cousins that race. And so we got to watch them race the junior dragsters. And that's how I really learned about it. ⁓ my little sister who's two years younger than me, Rachel. So I was 10. She was eight when we started. absolutely loved it. If I could go back and do any type of racing ever again, it would be the Junior Dragsters because it was just so fun and we had such a great local community at the Kansas City Drag Strip and just everybody got along. There was no friction or clicks with the kids. Even as we became teenagers and got into high school, we were all there because we just loved racing. So I love that group. Unfortunately, the track closed down, so not able to race there anymore, but we do stay tight like on Facebook. And some of the kids have moved on to other classes, other roles, like my sister and I, but because our dad raced, we knew there was a possibility for us to continue to climb up the ranks, but my dad is not one to give it to us because he was off doing his own thing. And so like as soon as I was 16, he was like, Okay, here's the keys to the dually. Like if you want to race, you can drive the truck and trailer now. So he's like, okay, see, I'm going to the NHRA races. ⁓ so we really had to learn like on our own how to work on the cars, ⁓ to work together, which we are very competitive and we do not work along together very well, like ⁓ all. But Amanda Van Den Elzen: Thank Megan: Um, it really like made us have that passion. It's like, okay, if this is something we want to do, like we've got to actually do it and like show up and like take care of our cars so they can run good. Um, so yeah, had quite a bit of success. My, my last couple of years with the junior dragster moved on to what's called a super comp, which is a bigger dragster. Um, and so I did that when I was, uh, 16 started racing that all through college. I raced that and that was something where you race on a bracket sometimes you can race, you can race heads up, which is full out, just like first one to the finish line. But because in some of those races you race in a bracket, so you have to slow yourself down. My dad hated it. And my dad literally, I think I can count on one hand the amount of times my dad actually came to watch my sister and I race. And so he was just like, hands off. He's like, I want nothing to do with this because he's like, I don't understand this. I don't know why you would slow down to try to win a race. so but we as it's all ⁓ a driver's game. And so it's very like you have to be so mentally sharp, like the competition is so tight. So if you are not a good driver, you have zero chances of winning a race. So like you learn a lot racing those and then Amanda Van Den Elzen: Ha ha ha ha. Yeah. Megan: So did that all through college and I sucked like like I made it I got a second place One time like that's how hard it is. And so it's very humbling But after I graduated college, then I moved on to top alcohol dragster, which is what my dad was racing at the time what we still do now and That like the moment I started doing that which was 2015 that was when we started being very successful with our team because that was also Amanda Van Den Elzen: Ha ha! Megan: the time when my dad stepped away from driving and not that he was a bad driver, but he was just, he had too much on his plate and things would fall through the cracks. And like he, he was always, you know, like the brights made, like he never won a championship, but he was always second or third, like every single year. But he just, he could never give it a hundred percent because he had other businesses. He was trying to. get a second car set up at that time. And, ⁓ you know, was just a lot. So when he stepped away, was really when he could focus 100 % on tuning the cars and he always says, like, you're only as strong as your weakest link. So he would just like every off season, he'd tear everything apart and he's like, fine, okay, where is our weakest link? And how can we be more efficient? How can we be stronger and faster and better? And so I was able to ride that wave. ⁓ And I was, I mean, I was a pretty good driver, very consistent with how I drove, which is very important in drag racing, because if the driver does the exact same thing every single time, then you can adjust the car to the way how the driver drives. ⁓ so that's like one of the biggest things like, so now we do a lot of driver training and coaching. We get people that maybe they only do one race with us and then move on to something else or someone who's like eight years with us before they move on. So we always try to teach them like, you need to do the exact same thing. Your procedure has to be the exact same every single run. And then that way we can make the car better and faster based on that. yeah, so I had a lot of success. I won two championships in 19 and 20. set the new world record for our class, which was 5.09 seconds at 285 miles an hour. yeah, we just, we, everything clicked. Like I was doing my job on the marketing side. My dad was doing his job on the tuning side. We had two full-time crew guys at that time. And so they were able to take care a lot of stuff on the cars and they were both experienced from other teams. So we a hundred percent trusted them and everything was just. Good. Everything was great. I stepped away at the end of 2020 because we got married and got pregnant. And then ⁓ that's when my sister then drove in 21. So she hopped into my car and just picked up where I left off. She won seven out of 16 races, won the championship, but then she repeated, got married, got pregnant. So this year is actually her first year back into competition. She's doing IHRA now. ⁓ so I've just kind of dabbled done two or three races a year since then. ⁓ yeah, but that's my story. And, ⁓ and also like then because of you and Chris, I've gotten into off road and I just, I am obsessed with short course. love it. Like every person I talk to, I'm like, you need to look at short course cause it's so much fun. And, ⁓ so yeah, so this last year we only did half the season. and yeah, so this year we're going to do quite a bit of short course and then Adam's doing ultra four. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Megan: And, ⁓ and yeah, so we finally got the cars are almost all put together. So it's exciting because, ⁓ he's been spending all his time working on them. I'd like to say, ⁓ I help, but I don't really know much about side-by-sides. So I'm learning a ton. Like I've had to learn like, ⁓ because our front diff broke. And so it's like, we don't have front discs and drag racing. So like, I don't know what this is, but yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Yes, yes. ⁓ It is very different. So I am not a race car driver, except for once a year I go out and make a fool of myself. my background, honestly, I come from the corporate world. I worked in corporate learning and development. ⁓ Megan: Yeah. What is, what is your story, Amanda? Amanda Van Den Elzen: since 2020. Before that, I came from automotive repair and selling parts and tires. So I knew the automotive space, which is probably how I met my husband is just he and I were both kind of kind of in the same worlds. He was already doing race car things and I liked race car things. you know, I met him back in 2014. And he was doing competitive drifting, rally racing. you name it, he was probably trying to drive it. But it was all grassroots level. And when I moved into the corporate world, we had a little bit more money. he was like, think I'm gonna sell my drift car. And at this point, he was racing Formula Drift Pro-Am. He was in MDU before it collapsed. he had a 450 horsepower Subaru SVX that had like a big block Chevy motor in it. ⁓ and it was a beast. Like it was an absolute beast. He goes, think I'm going to sell my drift car and I'm going to get a light buggy, which is a 50 horsepower Volkswagen powered beetle based like off road car with like zero suspension, zero power. And I was like, are you insane? ⁓ but also like what is off road racing? I had no idea what it was even. So, ⁓ Megan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, same. Amanda Van Den Elzen: But he was raised on it and his dad raced while he was growing up and got out when he started raising kids, similar to you, right? Like got out because he had kids and wanted to spend time with the kids. But, and he always told Chris, don't get into off-road racing. It's dirty and it's expensive, which both of those are true. We are learning. So that was 2016. He bought a light buggy and showed me what the off-road world was and You we fell in love with the sport. It's really, I mean, you said, right? It's an amazing sport. The people are phenomenal. The head-to-head racing, there's nothing better for a spectator either. And you know, the first, I think, year or two, I just sat on the sidelines as the racewife, and I don't do that very well. I'm not a sidelines racewife. So. Megan: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: After the first, I think it was after the first year, I started doing spotting for him and I didn't know what I was doing, but you I learned and I love learning. Like I said, corporate learning and development is my professional background and it comes naturally. I love to learn. So I was like, how can I be a better spotter? And so I shadowed people. I'd take their radios, I'd listen to them spot for other classes. I spotted for almost every single class in our series at this point and Megan: Nice. Amanda Van Den Elzen: ⁓ you know, when Chris moved into a professional class, I was already kind of set up, you know, as a professional spotter. won't say I'm the best one out there, but I think I'm all right. And, you know, we won, ⁓ we won a world championship together. And, ⁓ I said, you know, how can I be a better spotter even yet? And the answer was get on the track. And, ⁓ I'm not good at it, but I bought a class 11 Volkswagen Beetle. I've. Megan: Mmm, yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: gone out there and rolled it twice. I race it once a year. This year will be twice a year because ⁓ Bark River is also racing the Beatles. But you know, I went out there because I wanted to learn, not because I wanted to win. And I know that I'll never win a race because I have that mentality. But for me, it's not about the racing. It's about the learning. And it's about how do I share that with other people. And that's really where racer on demand came from too. A couple years back, I said, Chris, you know, ⁓ we had this big shake up in our sport with Jason Robinette came out and said he was going to start a new series and it was going to provide a lot of racer resources and some of it was media but a lot of it was how to talk to partners and like you know that that was a big piece and I was like wow this is something we really need and when that series disappeared so did those resources and I said Megan: yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Well, it's on us now, you know, we're going to do this. And that's where racer on demand came from is, you know, we don't know everything, but we've grown from that 50 horsepower light buggy, ⁓ to, think it was five or six years later, we were in a professional class. by six to eight years later, it was fully sponsor funded and you know, we did everything we could to learn. ⁓ but so many, so many people keep that behind closed gates and we're not going to do that. We're going to help other racers grow with us. So, you know, that's, that's kind of my story and, why I'm doing what I'm doing and where I came from. ⁓ cause I'm basically it all comes down to, because I'm not a very good sidelines race wife. So. Megan: Mm-hmm. You don't wear the fancy outfits and heels and all that like the NASCAR wives. Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Nope. That's not me. No makeup. I'm out there doing my own thing. know, selling merch, I'm activating products. I'm interviewing racers in our booth because I've got my whole racer on demand set up at the race every time. you know, I'm just as busy as Chris is and I most of the time I'm not touching a race car. So, but I'd have it no other way. yeah. Megan: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah, I love that. Well, and I just want to touch on like how you said, ⁓ like, we're not here to gatekeep because I feel like, yeah, like a lot of racers do kind of gatekeep. But I think like, because of like, they're afraid that like, someone's going to take their sponsor away from them. And it shouldn't be that like, we shouldn't all be trying to take a slice out of the same pie. Like, we should Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Megan: learn the methods and you know, how to have those conversations, how to pitch yourself, but then we can take those skills to any company out there, right? We don't always have to be fighting for the same, the same sponsor, right? We can bring on, we can bring new companies into the sport. And so yeah, that's what I think we're on the same page of like, we need to share this with other racers because Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Megan: because yeah, like, like I really had no like, I didn't know anything about like sponsorships when I first started and my dad, like, he's he's great at what he does, but he is not. He knows nothing about marketing and sponsorships. Like, I actually still have some of his like, decks, what you would call and it's like, these this nice like, binded folder, it's all written up like from a typewriter. Amanda Van Den Elzen: you Megan: And it's just like package one, like logo on the car, you know, like here, here, here. it's like, you know, the, the gold silver bronze packages. I just like, I like, my, but my dad never got sponsors. It was all just his own money. And, ⁓ like he would, he would build cars and sell cars on the side to other people. And that's how he made his money to go racing. And so when I started getting into it, like, Amanda Van Den Elzen: ⁓ god, yeah. Megan: he couldn't teach me anything because he had no success. He didn't know what he was doing. And so that's when I was like, okay, well, this way isn't working. So there was probably a different way to go about it. So yeah, I just kind of learned on my own and then, ⁓ and yeah, just kind of, I had some success and it's like, okay, gonna run with it because this way works. So yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Yes, yes. And you know what? I mean, that's how you and I came together is because, you know, Chris and I were trying to figure out how the heck do we make money racing and you were out there telling people, you know, this is how I do it on social media. And between you and Alex Streiler was another big one with his sponsorship summits, you know, and the book. Megan: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: right up here, you know? That's really what transformed our thinking. And then the foundation that we were able to build from what we learned from you and from Alex really set the ground for what we could go learn on our own through trial and error. now I feel like you and I were learning from each other every day because we have built our programs so differently, but like. Megan: Yes! Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: in such different ways that we're able to come together and share that with each other. But then when you reached out to me saying like, hey, we should do a podcast. Like now we get to share that with the world and we get to share those two different perspectives that we have with everybody else. hopefully, you know, we can drive a change in motor sports. Like that's my ultimate goal is like our program can be bigger because there's more money coming into motor sports. And Megan: Mm-hmm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Your program can be bigger because everybody knows better how to market their programs and their series and everything ends up more well funded. Megan: Yeah. Well, and I think, I think it like, it's not just for the racers too. Like it's also the brand side too. Like they, some of them might be stuck in the old ways and like they need the education too of like, Hey, this is the, this would be a more efficient way to do your programs and, ⁓ you know, kind of maybe change their expectations and stuff. So yeah. So I feel like, like I, I started out doing courses and courses are great, but Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Yes. Megan: There are a lot of upkeep. It's a lot to try to sell them and nobody finishes a course. So that's when like last year I was like, Hey, I like, I'm done doing the courses. Like racers will buy it, but then they won't actually see the results because they're not, you know, they're not going all the way through it. And I totally get it because I buy. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. you Megan: courses and programs from other people. And like I'll get about 75, 80 % of the way through and then I'll, know, something will come up and it's like, okay, I don't, it'll be maybe six months later by the time I get back to it. that's when I was like, okay, a podcast would be a great way for us to reach a lot of people. It's, you know, we can give away free information and yeah, just hopefully try to change the industry as a whole and make everything better for everybody. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Yes, I agree. And on that note, I feel like it's the Barney thing because I'm about to tell everybody how much I love them. Megan: And we all just are one big happy family. Yeah, well, we've still got quite a bit of questions left, so we can definitely do ⁓ another Q &A for our next solo episode. yeah, I guess the viewers or the listeners, if you've got questions ⁓ that something that we didn't touch on today, reach out to us on socials and ask away and we can either answer them or save it for the podcast or both. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. We've got another guest on ⁓ our next episode in two weeks. We've got another fun guest. And then two weeks after that, it'll be Megan and I again answering your questions. So in the meantime, like Megan said, you can also put them in the comments on our podcast too, because we see those too. So anywhere you're listening, throw a question in the comments if you want to see that. ⁓ We will see you in two more weeks and until then, we love you. Bye. Megan: Bye.