Ride Earth

This page is a work-in-progress, last updated 17/08/07

Before deciding whether or not to pursue sponsorship for your trip, you need to decide whether your time would be better spent working in a full-time job to earn the equivalent amount of money.  Seeking sponsorship is an intensely time-consuming, frustrating and regularly disappointing process, for which you will need skin like old boot leather, the persistence of black shower mould and absolutely no hobbies or significant others to attend to.

Of course, this is our personal experience, but the majority would seem to concur.

So, without further ado - the Absolute Key Ingredients to make this work:

• You need at least one Unique Selling Point.
• You need to be able to prove that you can follow through with your plan, or at least be very convincing.
• Sending thousands of emails might get you a couple of random accessories from smaller manufacturers, but it won’t get you a brand new fleet of top-of-the-range bikes.
• Going to trade shows, talking to real human beings, going to the pub with them, and then following each and every lead from there on will yield more fruit.
• Cheek and luck are major contributing factors to your success.  As is persistence.

There is also a certain inertia to the process - once one major sponsor is on board, others will follow.

The most essential thing is building relationships on a personal level.  Just talking to people about our ideas led to pretty much all of our sponsorship, directly or indirectly.  In contrast, the endless hours - days - of sending emails were pretty fruitless.  It is also far more rewarding to be in contact with a company on a human level, and it leads to far more reciprocal benefits on both sides.

Some companies care about cycling, or outdoor expeditions, or whatever their field of business is.  Others care more about money, budgets and profit margins.  You will quickly learn which category a company falls into.

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