Late to Grid - Grassroots Racing

The Art of the Sponsorship: Bridging the Gap Between Racing and ROI with JP Moery

• Bill Snow • Season 6 • Episode 1

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Think you know sponsorships? Think again. In this episode, Bill Snow welcomes JP Moery to the Atomic Auto Sports Studio to peel back the curtain on high-level motorsports partnerships. From his roots in the Washington D.C. business community to managing sponsorships at the IndyCar level with A.J. Foyt Racing, JP shares why true "activation" is about more than just slapping a decal on a quarter panel.

JP explains how to shift your mindset from "asking for money" to "solving business problems," the power of viral moments (like Santino Ferrucci’s legendary podium beer chug), and why your closest circle of influence is your best prospecting ground. Whether you are a grassroots racer or aiming for the pros, this episode is a masterclass in business development, professional networking, and maintaining the positive mindset needed to stay on the gas.

The season might be over, but the work is just beginning. Don't let your track, autocross or racecar sit idle this off season. Now is the perfect time to tackle those projects that get you one step closer to the podium. For upgrades, maintenance, or that big performance project, there's only one name. Atomic Autosports. Get ready to dominate next season. Find us at AtomicAutoSports.com and book a call with Bill to review your project and goals.

Ready to get more from your track days? Want to move to the front of the line for your track day prep? Then you need the Atomic Autosports Apex Club. From a merch pack and exclusive events to priority booking for your track prep essentials. The Atomic Auto Apex Club helps you get on the podium. Stop chasing lap times alone. Join the Apex Club to maximize your performance and share your passion. Sign up at Atomic Autosports.com

Atomic Autosports has some pretty big news! Track first now has a physical presence right inside Atomic Autosports. That means you can get your car Atomic prepped and grab essential safety gear, helmets, shoes, gloves, and more all in one spot. We can also have your purchases shipped right to our shop in Wickliffe, saving you on shipping. Stop by and check out the expanded selection.

Thanks for listening and taking an interest in growing grassroots racing. The Late To Grid podcast shares the stories and inspiration that help listeners along their motorsports journey.

Find all episodes on the Atomic Autosports website.

You think you know sponsorships? You don't. But my next guest, JP Murray, will explain what sponsorships are all about and what you should be doing. Let's throw the green flag on this episode. Well, as I mentioned, we have JP Murray in the Atomic Auto Sports Studio for another episode here. JP, it's great to have you on the podcast. Bill, it's great to be with you. I listen to the podcast and now to be a guest man. I've just had a new threshold and, super, super pleased to be with you. And thanks for doing it. Oh, absolutely. It's great to have you on. Folks, I'm going to tell you in a second how JP and I met, but I want to tell you if you want, if you're podcast listener, you got to hit his Push to Push podcast ten minutes or less episodes. He hits on something racing business related. It's a it's a great way to, fill up ten minutes of your day or less and walk away with something awesome. We're going to touch on his career a little bit as well as it relates to, his background, but also motorsports. But if you're listening to show, you know, that we talk about networking, we talk about building relationships. And that's exactly how JP and I met. A neighbor of mine who moved away. But I still keep in touch with, he and I were texting back and forth one day, and he says, you know, I think you need to meet this JP guy. You two both like racing. You know, he's in the, sponsorships at the IndyCar level. I'm thinking, why is this guy want to talk to me, Chuck? But, yeah, let's let's get it connected. And JP and I had a we had a great call as I remember it was around the holidays. JP maybe last year, earlier this year, some holiday. You were traveling back home. Spend some time, where you grew up, I think. But, I'm so glad that I said yes to Chuck's invitation and that you and I connected, and we've stayed in touch. Oh, yeah. Me, too. We, learned a lot from you and. And, Yeah. I'm super. And I love to share, experiences because that's that's kind of the way that I learn is having stories and just chatting with people. That was. That's been the easiest way for me to learn about business and, professional development and personal development as well. So I'm glad we connected as well, for sure. So I'm gonna let the listener know this episode's going to be a little different than previous episodes. JP isn't going to share any driving advice. He's not going to talk about his first autocross or how he grew up racing go karts, because he never did those things. But he's very involved in our sport of racing. And, I want to take the listeners back to JP. You had a successful business, you know, you worked with, I think, the US Chamber of Commerce, you started your own consultancy, helping organizations navigate things in DC and become the best association they can. And then you sold that business and now you're in automotive or, I'm sorry, racing sponsorships at a at the highest level, the sport right. Yeah. How did that happen. Right. That's right. Every everybody has that kind of yeah. That path right. It's such a com and it's just such a common path. Everybody knows that. Yeah I got started I was first I was always passionate and enjoyed motorsports. I used to listen to Indy 500 on the radio, you know, when it was still on tape delay and stuff. So I had a real passion for it. My family enjoyed motorsports in the Indy 500 and open wheel in particular, so I had a background in that, and one day I had a call and I thought it was a prank that the Indy car owner and driver, Jimmy Vasser, called me on the phone and he had run into networking a contact of mine from Oklahoma that he knew very well and said, hey, we're starting an IndyCar team, and we'd like for you to be a part of it. And I kind of turned around and I was like, man, that's I'd heard about the budgets and things like that. I'm not sure that's a fit for me. Says, no, we want you to be involved because you're connected with the Washington, DC business community. So I started to sponsor an Indy car first with my own company and to me, I'll talk about this a lot. Even on our podcast. It was the differentiation because no one in their right mind that had a Washington DC Association consultancy was on an Indy car. Nor have they been since, but for us it increased our visibility, our brand. People go, what's that crazy I do? And and it differentiated us, I think. And I became so enamored with it and it was so successful for my brand. Once I sold my company and I could see the gap between sponsors and race teams at every level, and could I help them kind of bridge that gap a little bit? And that's how I got involved into helping race teams. Specifically in the sponsorship area. Yeah. Your background pre sponsorship, what you're doing now, what from your previous business background, whether it was, you know, being an individual contributor or manager or even a business owner helps you today in growing your sponsorship business. Yeah. Thank you I it's a great question. I, I do believe that in some ways, I don't know if you've ever read the book, about selling, but, the art of the sale, I think it is it the basically the explanation was this everybody's in sales and influence in some type, right? Yeah. They're trying to get your wife to go to the restaurant that you want to go to, or get your kids to go to bed or to close a business deal. We're in some kind of influence in a lot of our just regular stages of life. So the thing that I learned and was always involved, it is in the business development and in the growth area, so that every, every business, whether it's motor sports or an association or the bakery down the street, they're all, I think, interested in growth and sales and expanding their their market share. So that's what I learned in Washington DC that very much translate into motor sports sponsorship pretty easily because as everybody probably on this podcast knows, you'll run out of money before you run out of talent some of the time. So I knew that it was a space that needed or wanted, or was a place that I could help them navigate that business development and growth area and sponsorship sales. So that was the transition. Yeah. One of the things you and I, we had a quick call yesterday. One of the things you mentioned to me was you really liked seeing the activation. From the business into the sponsorship part. So for the listener, what does that mean? Activation, when we're talking about sponsorship? Yeah. You know, I think it's very important an opportunity is to really identify how you could help that partner grow or that sponsor grow. So in the activation area, I've seen motorsports super good at having more tied multifaceted areas that you could pull the lever on. Is it a business to business? Discussion around business partnerships. I remember at Milwaukee last year we had eight business appointments in the paddock, like real ones. Hey, this is the CEO of this company. This is the director of marketing for this one. You all need to meet and talk to each other. So that's why social media got this young lady that I work with, Taylor Reimer. That's in the Arca menards series now. I started working with her when she was in Usec and Power II midgets. She did a social media post for her brand with the midget that had over a million views. So you can have person to person, you can do social media. And then you look at the car branding where I I'm starting to see millions of dollars of our IndyCar sponsors getting millions of dollars of ad generated value. If you ran an ad on television, you would get in the millions of dollars of of ad value by sponsoring our Indy car team. So that's what companies want. They can use all of those different levers if they want to, and if it helps them achieve their goals. So that's what I mean by activation. And it could be different based on the goals of that sponsor. Yep. So folks listening JP just dropped some gold nuggets there. It's the goal of the sponsor that makes us all work. Because just because you need $500 for this weekend, you're going to slap a decal on your quarter panel. That doesn't resonate. It's that business's goal, isn't it, JP. It if I know it's the most one of the most difficult parts and sometimes when I've, you know, I'm on a cold streak and I haven't had a sponsor come in for a while. I'm thinking about me all the time. Right, Bill. But the quicker and the more consistent that you can be about, hey maybe it's an auto shop down the street, maybe it's a franchise. What's the, what's the goal of yours. Is it to get more franchisees. Well if it's more franchisees maybe we want to do some one on one type of business meetings at the track and invite people to see the experience that you have to offer. Some folks, it's just a business to consumer. They want more people to buy. So what's your how do you amplify their brand? You know, not many of the drivers. Now if you at the and if you really start to grow your social media presence on LinkedIn, Facebook, Insta, whatever it might be, you a simple posting from you may outsize everything they could do from their company, but you need to know what moves the needle for them and approach it that way first. So it's an outside an approach that I always try to embrace as much as I can. Yeah. So you're gonna love what I'm share with you right now. JP, my role with Ryder Complete Car Care. I handle the marketing and franchise development, and anytime there's a race happening, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, I will get decks sent to me unsolicited saying, hey, we're going to be in your market. First off, they're not necessarily in my market. And hey, here's what it looks like. We got $5,000 option, $10,000 option,$15,000 option. Which one looks good to you without even asking me what the goal is? Or asking me if I have the budget. Asking me if I like racing this. These decks just show up unsolicited. Probably a bad. Approach. Well, or think about how different you might look by approaching it this way. Bill, I've noticed that your friend and the Red air franchises are kind of in the the Mac conference area. You know, if in Ohio up or around the Cleveland area, are you looking to expand and to get more franchises like asking those question rather than, I'm not a fit for everyone, but if I can position it by asking more questions about their business, everybody's more likely and more willing to talk about themselves anyway. So why talk about myself rather than learning and hearing from them first? That's probably the biggest advantage that my experiences in sales helps our race teams. Oh yeah, because I'm used to doing it that way. It's all first. It's all about the questions. Yeah, it really is. Let's talk about some fun stories from what you're doing now. So you're on the road all the time. You're you're following around your IndyCar team. You work really closely with A.J. Foyt Racing and Santino Ferrucci. What's it like being on the road all the time? Race to race, meeting the meeting, all that other stuff. Are you loving it? Does it get stressful at times? What are the highlights? Oh, I tell you what. What was the year? Was it three years ago? And Santino took the lead with about 20 laps to go with the Indy 500. Almost had a stroke. Yeah. I mean, like I was watching myself. Have you ever, you know, I was like, I could, I thought I died, and I was watching myself. Right? It was so stressful. Here's the thing that I did that has changed a little bit, Dale. And that is I'm so focused on their success and our sponsor success, I become I'm less of a as a racing fan than I used to be. And or it's it's it's evolved. The relationship with the sport is evolved. Like as soon as you know, A.J. Foyt Racing and I'm all focused on them and how Santino and this year Kyle Collette will do. And after that's done, then I don't really pay attention sometimes did who won the race? I'm not even sure. Like I don't pay attention to the overall as much as I'm focused on our stuff. That's changed a lot. When I got into it, I was just about the whole experience. But now the focus is a lot different. I think that's, that's that's changed quite a bit. Yeah. All right. I got to tell you, one of my great memories, of this year's IndyCar season is I was watching the Road America race, hot race, fuel strategy, race. And, yes, Santino finishes the race, I think. Runs out of fuel, hops out of the car, runs, and someone throws him a beer. Tell me about that. That classic. Yeah. Hey, the good thing was, So, yes, he finished on the podium that day, finished third. And it was actually we were running a special livery because Marlene Sexton, our long term partner, had passed away between, you know, between between that race and the previous one. So it was a very emotional week for the Foyt family in the 14 and and the team. So Santino finishes third on the podium, runs out of gas. They throw him a beer. Thankfully, it was the beer that is also the official beer of IndyCar. So thanks for the product placement there. And it just exploded virally. Oh yeah. So what we yeah. So what we wanted to do is and it's a cool don't go look it up on YouTube. And so Santino chugs the beer. But the good thing about it was it gave us attention that I could then capture and then send it to our other partners and perspective partners and saying, see, you always have. There's always a possibility of some unknown thing going super well for you. And that's the unknown aspect of motorsports and sports marketing overall. I think that makes it more exciting than just going to the trade show, right? Oh yeah. Is that something could explode or you could win the race, or you could be on the podium at the Indy 500. That that's the excitement of it that I really that I really enjoyed especially it also captured Santino in his, you know, love of the fans and just kind of his persona, I think, was reinforced there in a good way because I think everybody enjoyed it. Oh, yeah. Certainly, like you said, a viral moment. It was so fun to watch that happen. And, were you able to, move that into any drink sponsorships? Yeah. Well, we worked. We. Well, I was glad that we were able to support the existing sponsor. Indy car. And it was Miller. Right. So, it was an it was a it was a great showcase there. So we didn't we weren't able to leverage it that way, but at least we were able to activate and support an existing, sponsor in the series, which I think was a good day. Oh, and Miller coolers. Miller coolers. Yeah. Exactly. What other fun stories do you have from the, you know, being trackside paddock pits, as part of this part of your, career journey? I think one of the most enjoyable parts of it, of the of racing overall, regardless of the series, is actually and the value that your partners can get by actually being in the paddock and embedding them into the race team for the weekend. The biggest charge that I get, I like to take our sponsors into the pits during practice, and in particular when they're practicing pit stops. Oh yeah, and they're coming in and they're on most many of the times. Most of the time we have a partner in there. There will be people that have never been to an auto motorsports event in their life. And the look, I always look out of the corner of my eye and watch their face when they see it for the first time, you know, they're burning in a second pit stop peeling out and they're just going, oh wow, wow. And here's the thing that that I want to tell every or that I'd like to share with everyone. When you connect with someone and change their life or you, they have an experience that they might never forget and your brand and your company is with them in that moment, let me tell you, they're going to return your call from now on because you right that that's the thing that the and I think therefore really important is even as you're working on a sponsor prospect, can you get them to the track. Because if you get that kind of emotional, sensual reaction, you've got you've got an opportunity there. And so that's what that's probably my favorite part about the sponsorship game right now is seeing the look on their faces when that happens. Oh yeah. It's about how you make them feel right now what you said. Yeah. Oh that's great. Exactly. So I'm sure you're doing a lot of dialing for dollars, a lot of network now networking online and things like that. During this quote unquote off. It's actually the busy season, right? It is. Yeah. But yeah. Other than, you know, reaching out to prospective folks, you know, are you working with your drivers? You're working with, the companies that are already on board? What? You know, what is that part of your day look like? Yeah. So. So right now, I think you you're right. You get a cadence of, upgrading and enhancing your current. Right. So you always here's one thing I think we can assume at times is the reason why they bought the sponsorship, or they partnered with you the first time in a grassroots way. It may be, hey, it's the, auto supply distributor that you've worked with for years and years, and they just wanted to help you out. Right. Well, there might be that time frame where they just want to help you out. That shelf life expires. So you've got to continually talk to them about that help. Hey, thanks for coming on board. But now how do I grow your business this year? How do we expand the program this year to help you achieve your business goals? So there's a certain amount of that, right. And then and then at least 20% of my time is prospecting new, looking for new companies. And that is my intent. I look at my schedule at the end of the week and said, did I? 20% of my time was spent on finding new companies and new people that I've never connected with or talked to? So that's that's how I'm kind of balancing growth and then prospecting growth and then prospecting. And always as you and I've discussed before, Bill, it's so easy to network and expand your reach. If you're on LinkedIn in particular or other platforms, spending some intentional time connecting to people, because it's easier than ever before to do that by using those platforms that are free. Oh yeah. That's great. Very good. A theme that comes up, in my podcasts is when individuals say they said yes and figured it out later or were in the right time at the right place. So several years ago, Santino Ferrucci said to you, I want to go run the Chili Bowl. What do we oh, yeah, what do we do? What did you tell them? I said yes. And then. What? Yeah. And then he said, hey, you're from Oklahoma, right? I'm see, I grew up there. He says, well, do you think we can showcase some Oklahoma companies? I said, I don't know, let's go find out. That's the other thing. That's the thing that Santino brought. I think to our relationship. And now a friendship is our willingness to try things. You know? I mean, not every IndyCar driver, but in this day and age is willing to get into a midget and drive. Actually, in a way, that's the opposite, in terms of race technique than an Indy car. I mean, you don't want the back end stepping out. You don't drive with the throttle as much as you do an Indy car. Right? So it's kind of the opposite. And Santino says, I've got to learn, unlearn everything for a week, you know? But our willingness to try new things and kind of be vulnerable has openness to new people and new sponsors that we would have never met in Indy car Webb Co tubing ad Tulsa, Oklahoma would have never connected with us if we had not reached out to them about the Chili Bowl and now been working with them for five years now. Awesome. You know, so I think that's, you know, I think the willingness to try something, is, is it makes you vulnerable. You're going to get no get no 99 times. Yes. Once maybe. So the willingness to try that and your ability to, be willing to suffer as you try those new things, I think is super important to anybody in motorsports. Yeah. So, listeners, you're right there. Sometimes you got to say yes and figure it out. Sometimes you got to know if you can do it or not, but you'll never know unless you try. And sometimes you might not succeed. Yeah, exactly. So, JP, let's, you know, you're working at the upper levels of motorsports. You got, the young lady involved in Arca, Santino. Oh, and, A.J. Foyt Racing. Let's say there's a listener here saying, I want to get some help. I want to get better. I've got some budget to hire someone to do this. Are you taking on more clients for that now? We we've been talking about. Yes. Right. Yeah. No, but I tell you. But I'll bet I'll say I'll say this. Anybody that's listening to this podcast, I'd be more than happy to, you know, do, a quick call with them about where they're at and what they might try. And I'll even do it at scale right now. Here's the first thing I would do. Realize your most the partners that are most likely right now are probably people that you know. And their business owners that want to support you. I find a lot of times from the initial conversations with drivers at every level is they want to do that Hail Mary pass to the big blue whale company that they don't know or they're not connected with in any way. The likelihood of that is almost zero. The people that will build your motorsports program right now are the people that you currently work with, maybe your current employer, if it's a part time gig for you, the folks that they know, it's that circle of influence that's pretty close, but we tend to not want to ask them. But they're the most they're the most likely people to support you. So I would start there. But I would say this for any listener of this podcast, I'd be happy to jump on the phone or look at their deck and give them some quick feedback, because I want everybody to succeed in this area. I want you to keep driving and enjoying your passion. That's awesome. Thanks for that. We'll put some information in the show notes to your website how people can reach out to you as you research what you do and as you research motorsports. What are some of your go to places to stay up to date on, news and trends, on marketing, on sponsorships? Oh, wow. Well, yeah, I'll tell you something. Instead of going, you know, there's I, I follow a PR, and what's happening and with the Performance Racing Industry Association, I follow racer. So I kind of enjoy I kind of enjoy speech, sport, news, etc. but you know what? I'm doing more than ever. I'm letting somebody else do that for me. Whether it's ChatGPT perplexity, Claude, like I'm saying, hey, if I was, you know, Marshall Pruitt and I was looking for sources and information and news about the motorsports industry so I could be a better journalist about the space. What are the things that I what's the news that I need to know from the last week? Boom. And let that do it for me, instead of finding it a particular source any longer? I like that. That's great. Make it work for you. Yeah. I want to give another plug for your podcast, Push to Pass. Tell the listeners what that is and what you talk about and how to follow you. Well thanks, Bill. Yeah, the Push to Pass podcast is on Spotify, Apple, all the platforms. Yeah. And typically what I do is a 5 to 8 minute podcast about really what the experiences are that I'm going through every day, like I had one, actually. Here's what you'll find if you are interested in content creation, talk about the things that you screwed up, because people love to read that and listen to those stories. I see a spike. I see a spike. I had a podcast a couple of weeks ago that was like, here's what happened when the prospect that hung up on me, you know, and so I just kind of tell stories about the sponsorship game and I'll either I'll get into some tactic, but I'll talk about mindset a lot and just the things that I'm going through trying to pitch, great companies about the opportunities with race teams. So that's kind of the content. Yeah. So as you mentioned, you can find it in all podcast, listening apps. And if, listeners, if you are on LinkedIn, follow JP on, on LinkedIn, reach out to him there because he's also putting up great information, sharing what he's up to and giving some sage advice. JP is there anything we didn't talk about that you wanted to cover? Oh, you know what, we talked about this the other day. And Bill, I think you exude this and all the things that you do and how you help, help folks in this space and I we're talking about a positive mindset. Right. So I learned, I think a long, long time ago, I played, you know, I was kind of a stick and ball guy. So is best at this when there were seasons. Yeah. So football, basketball, baseball. Small town in Oklahoma always I was almost always the smallest person on the field, on the court or in the lineup. So I felt like that I learned early that, the mindset that I would have and the willingness to maybe put my body in harm's way or just have a different mindset and try other things that maybe the the bigger, faster player would do would enable me to continue and to compete. And I think when we're in business, the same applies. So can you have a mindset that is so positive and that you're continually putting those things into your head that you can sustain and keep moving forward? If that's that would be a final thought that I would leave, put the positive things into your head, because we have enough roadblocks and, and, and turns that are going to go, not go our way, that we can sustain ourselves and keep moving forward. That would be a final thought that I would have for you as we go into the holiday season. Right. Think about the good things that can happen. I love that. What a great way to to wrap up a great episode here. Think about the positivity, think about the outcomes. Have that mindset. JP, thanks so much for being on the podcast. Thanks, Bill. Great to be with everyone.