Not necessarily. The majority of these races revolve around families. Mom, Dad & the kids go to the races, have fun and go home. I can`t say for certain, but I`m also willing to bet that only about 1-2% of the people in the stands own businesses. Again, I have no proof or data to back that up, that`s just from personal experience.

Sure I do. The people who want to pay me gobbles and gobbles of money. That`s the industry I want to work for.

For this guys website, right now I`m guessing around 35-40 hours of work. I`ll certainly have to cut back on some things to make sure everything comes out even.

Oh, most definitely. At most, I would only keep him on contract for 6 months. And then we would rehash the entire thing after I see how things are working. That is - if I do this........

I agree with you about not getting your value out of some clients for your work.

Most people know, but won`t acknowledge, what you had to go through and the number of years it took to get where you are and that on-going education is absolutely critical to what you have to offer.

I, for one, didn`t just get to be a bookkeeper the day I fell off the turnip truck. 

And, just like you, I`d prefer to choose the clients that actually know the value and can afford to pay for a job well done. 

I do bookkeeping for a few clients that`s darn near pro-bono.  But, on the flip side, those clients have referred me to others that bring more money into my business.

What I do is very rewarding to me and I have some very good clients but it IS the money that pays the bills so I know exactly where you`re coming from.

 

I`m a race car driver and a marketing/advertising guy.

Trades are very very common in advertising and racers always want money (or services).

The vast majority of racing in the U.S. has very little, to no audience except the friends and family of the drivers. Unless your driver is racing in one of the NASCAR series, CART, Champ Car, ALMS or Grand Am you will probably get NO tangible return from your sponsorship (even if he is).

Most big sponsors in these series use sponsorships as an opportunity to take their clients to the races for some schmoozing. Everyone gets to cheer for thier `team` car.

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The Virtual Company Blog ●●●●● 2002 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year ●●●●● 2004 Inc. 500 ●●●●● Spare Bedroom to NASDAQ in Five Years ●●●●●

Oh wow, this is great. Actual feedback from someone who can relate to both sides.

Your information is probably 100% dead on and it`s making me lean more towards not doing it. He`s not in any of the major national circuits, but "supposedly" might be catching a ride with one of Tony Stewart`s (or is it Stuart?) sprint car teams. Again, this is "supposed" and nothing is set in stone.

So when you approach someone for advertising, how do you convince them that it`s worthwhile and secondly - do you approach advertisers that aren`t related to the racing/auto industry?

NASCAR is the exception to these comments as it is the ONLY series in the US that has real money behind the sponsorships.

Everyone else (including me) is self funding one way or another. Either they have money or own a business that sponsors them. Or they`ve got some kind of back end deal.

For example, there is a three car team in Grand Am (sports car road racing) that is sponsored by Playboy. The guy that owns the team, and drives on the team, works at Playboy in some management position in the ad sales department.

He convinced Playboy to give him four pages of space in each issue that he could sell to new advertisers. That money in turn pays for the team and Playboy gets the exposure in the races.

Even at very high levels like the Indy 500 many of the drivers are bringing money to the table to get their `ride`. Outside of nascar their are very very few drivers in the US that have a free ride, almost everyone brings money with them.

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The Virtual Company Blog ●●●●● 2002 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year ●●●●● 2004 Inc. 500 ●●●●● Spare Bedroom to NASDAQ in Five Years ●●●●●

Okay, so on the smaller levels what is the incentive of someone sponsoring a car then? Just exposure? In a round-about way, free advertising? Maybe the business sponsoring/advertising serves the market that attends these races?

There really isn`t an incentive.

There is a thing called contingency programs. This is when a vendor, say a brake pad manufacturer, puts up money and says to all of the drivers, “if you use our brake pads and put a sticker on your car and you finish on the podium we will pay you X”. Very common.

Another way to get money at the amateur level – say you own a business and you buy $100,000 per year of widgets from a supplier. You go to the supplier and say, “if you want my business next year you need to be a sponsor on my car.” Or even sometimes drivers say charge me $110,000 next year and sponsor my race car for $10k. This way you’re writing off racing as a business expense. Not legal with the IRS, but it happens all the time.

The bottom line is – racing is very expensive and there are tens of thousands of drivers (some very very talented) in the U.S. who want to get funding, but it just doesn’t happen much. The vast majority of racers I know have built businesses and can afford to pay their own way.

 

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The Virtual Company Blog ●●●●● 2002 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year ●●●●● 2004 Inc. 500 ●●●●● Spare Bedroom to NASDAQ in Five Years ●●●●●

That is incorrect. The real reason why many designers have a hard time receiving fair compensation is, aside from the reason that there are low barriers to entry, is that most designers can`t articulate their value add to the client...ie; how can you help this guy make money?

And that is the case here.Gonick-- take this as humble advice from one colleague to another. Don`t even bother with this thread anymore. I can`t even follow this entire thread because the answer is so simple and doesn`t need to be complicated with all of these equations.

Don`t bother with the barter at all. Ask yourself, "When was the last time that I bought a product because I saw it on a promo?" Exactly my point. Go find some people who will pay you fair compensation for the website.

I`ve seen designers try to barter and most of the time, it ends up in a nightmare. The fact of the matter is that most designers can`t stomach doing it for free especially when the client decides to pile on more design elements which causes the project to go on into perpetuity.

Believe me, man. It`s not worth it.

Dean

We did this for a family member and it did not pay off in the long run, they
got a free website and it generated us zero business in return.