Senario Paintball's Anarchy

Team Photo

What is something that every paintball team wants, and few have? Sponsors. Sponsorship is the Holy Grail of paintball. If you have sponsors, you are considered to be in another class among paintball teams.

Anybody can find a sponsor for his or her paintball team. The one thing we try to keep in mind is that the potential sponsor only cares about one thing, selling more products. Sponsors need to be convinced that investing in our team makes good business sense. Ideally, the company’s name will be “marketed” to a segment of potential customers in a positive manner, which will result in more exposure and sales. Welcome to the cold, harsh, economically-driven “real” world. It’s all about the bottom line, and most sponsors need to see dollar signs.

Since “sponsorship hunting” can be as competitive as a Tournament final, we try to know our strengths and weaknesses in order to devise our “pre-game” strategy.

 Before we take the field in our quest for a sponsorship flag, we need to ask ourselfs some questions. What makes our team different or special? If we were a business owner, what would we want and expect from a team we are sponsoring?

We need to find (or establish) some unique traits about our paintball team. If our team doesn’t stand out from the crowd, we are going to find it difficult to attract and maintain sponsors. Ultimately, how can our team benefit a potential sponsor? If we can answer this question, we will have a much better chance of finding sponsors. 

 

To avoid being eliminated on the break – so to speak – our first impression (and reputation) must be positive. It’s essential for us to have an information package for potential sponsors that is professional, concise, and clearly identifies the benefits we offer. The package should contain “hard copy” documents and pictures that we can physically hand to business owners and company reps:

 

 

Scenario Paintball's Anarchy

Team Photo

This seems like a lot of information but if we don't prove to the sponsor that we are serious, we won’t be taken seriously. We need to put a package together and present it to the owner of our home field. Our home field owner is the most natural sponsorship candidate, and best audience for our first presentation. Hopefully we’ll dazzle him with our brilliance and he’ll sign on the dotted line. Then, we will start pursuing other business owners by presenting a package to anyone who can contribute to our team, no matter how small the contribution.

Be prepared to be turned down over and over again. Securing sponsors is like securing a place on the podium at a tournament – but never give up. The reason that most people are unsuccessful in signing sponsors is because they are focused only on what the sponsor can do for them. Wrong! If we want sponsors, ask not what the sponsor can do for us; ask what we can do for our sponsor.