Starting a cycling team - tips n tricks?

[echelon_john]

Very well put. "Whippersnappers Junior Development Cycling Team p/b Joe's Roofing"

Originally Posted by Climb01742

I see two ways you could go:

1. Joe's Roofing Cycling Team

2. 'Fill-in-the-Cause' Cycling Team Sponsored by Joe's Roofing

If you ever hope to recoup your investment by having goodwill lead to some roofing contracts, I'd suggest way #2. Way #1 has little inspiration, memorability, or evocativeness. But way #2 if it was tied to either junior or women's racing could have a much stronger halo effect for your business.

Sponsoring a team vs supporting a cause -- a cause as 'simple' as getting more young people on bikes, or supporting greater access or equality in women's racing -- is a huge difference in public awareness and how folks would view your and your team. To be clear, when I say 'cause' I don't mean it has to be 'big' like fighting a disease or stopping violence against women, though it could be if you wanted to go that route. Instead, a cause could be just a small corner of the world you want to make a little better, like juniors racing as a healthy, positive things for kids to do, or making it possible for a few more women to pursue their athletic dreams.

I'd just give your team a slightly larger mission, do some genuine if small good in your part of the world, as a way to make your team a bit more memorable and give people a reason to root for it/you. A straight up sponsorship can seem a bit self-serving. But if you try to do a little extra good, I think it's easier for folks to care...and ultimately maybe bounce some business your way.

As an example, because of Patagonia's environmental good works, I_always_buy their stuff when I need outdoor clothing, even though I know based purely on function there are other companies making stuff just as good. But when I buy Patagonia I'm supporting something bigger.

Even at the level you're thinking about, you can support something good at very little additional expense. It may take extra effort to think about it and figure it out, and hone the idea you want to get behind, but long-term some good benefits could accrue to you and the idea you support. As others have said, I'd focus on juniors or women and find a 'cause' linked to one of them that you can get behind. Every dollar you spend could do you and others good.

[carpediemracing]

Some additional thoughts on the whole thing, now that I can get back on the computer.

First, the Junior/women thing. Unless you're looking to make a super long term commitment to the team (10 years? 20 years) or you're going to stop working and do the team full time, running and organizing your own Junior/Women's team will be an exercise in frustration. Generally speaking it's very difficult to even find a few Juniors or Women, forget about inspiring them to join the same team. Around here, where it's reasonable for women's racing, it's unusual to see a 30 or 40 women field, P1234 (meaning open). Junior racing, similar. Maybe not for cross, and I'm not in cross, but definitely for crits and road races. A field of 20 Juniors is spectacular, and that's combining riders from a 3 or 4 hour driving radius. Ditto Women.

Next, adding a team dilutes the culture, if you will. It takes a certain amount of people hours to do stuff, like put on a race or whatever. Typically teams have one or three people that actually commit significant time to doing such things. When you create another team you'll naturally want such people, but that dilutes things. If you wonder who puts on races it's regular people that have a team around them to help out. You start pulling apart that support structure (by syphoning off the do-ers) and you start disabling the infrastructure that you depend on for races. This has been going on for years now. Based on the number of teams around you'd think there'd be a zillion races, but many teams no longer have anyone capable of holding a race ("capable" can relate to time, energy, knowledge, responsibility, etc).

I belong to a team of "do-ers". There are three separate races (2 series, 1 one day event) the team promotes, plus some charity ride stuff (hole in the wall gang = 3 rides). There are different people working on the different events. Of the maybe 50 or 60 members in the team, for certain events we can rely on a solid 40 or 50 members to show up to help. We can also count on maybe 10-12 to do a lot of background work. That's amazing for one team.

I promote races but I've always tried to be independent of a bike shop (other than mine, when I had one) so inevitably I end up doing much of the work myself. I hired staff (W2s, etc) instead of relying on teams (most are too unreliable).

In terms of sponsoring, do you actually want to make money? If so then you can tie in sponsorship directly to referred jobs, like a commission. This would get the team possibly marketing for you. "Oh, you're getting a roof? You should talk to the guy I race with, he's a good guy." $1000 per roofing job, or something like that.

When I look at sponsorship money (meaning I receive it) my goal is to make the sponsor the money that they gave me. In other words if I get $1000 from someone I want them to be able to tie $1000 gross profit from me. If it means a bike shop sells one $4000 bike because the shop sponsored me, then great. If it means they sell 4000 packs of drink mix, great. I've had a few sponsors tell me that's not an issue, but then I feel a bit bad about the money.

^ my sponsorship approach means I don't really ask for money because it's a lot of work to make that money for the sponsor. Realistically they're better off sending out $1000 worth of direct mail flyers for tune ups, for example.

[bewheels]

I might as well chime in...I started and ran a team for 10 years (1993-2003). The team is still going strong to this day.

There have been many great bits of advice and I will ultimately end up repeating some of it.

As many have mentioned, it is of the utmost importance that you have an idea of what you are trying put together: a marketing engine, a development/feeder team, a competitive regional team, a fun group of people that race together, etc, etc. The reason this is so important is that it should drive the decisions you make. If you have someone that is a bit of an asshat but crushes races week after week - that may do well for a strong regional team but not so great for a marketing engine and/or a team of fun people.

Another way to think about it is, what do you want the reputation of your team to be?

I will assume that you are in this position because your business is doing well. Your successful business did not happen by accident.
It has a reputation. Your prices, how do you respond to customer issues, how your employees interact with your customers, etc.
You have had to hire/fire people. What do you look for when you hire? How does that align with your overall business goal and philosophy?
Do you recruit? If so, how? If you don't why not (people come to you, you hand pick people, etc)?

All of this is directly applicable to creating a team.
Once you figure out what type of team you want, how are you going to get people on it? This was mentioned before...are you going to hand pick people? If so, they are likely already riding for someone else now. Why would they switch? Will this create animosity between your new team and this other team? This is all just like hiring for your company.

How big a team (as was mentioned before)? Do you want different levels of ability? Do you want to provide different level of support? If you are providing different levels of support, how is this determined?

Ok enough of the questions...
Here is my .02cents of what to do.

Start really really small (3-4 people). You may be surprised to find out how much time you spend on this. So keep it manageable for the first year. You will uncover time/money black hole you did not expect.
These 3-4 people should be people you already know and like.
Keep it fun. This is one of those 'first impression' things. If you immediately get a rep of being the group that wins at any cost, you will never live that down.
Have a goal bigger then any individual on the team (as someone else mentioned). There are a number of ways to do this. This simplest is that any prize money won is given to a predetermined non-profit. This does a couple of things: 1) It establishes your rep in and out of the racing scene. 2) Everyone on the team knows that working together allows them to donate money. It makes team work that much more important. Given that you are in construction I am sure you could do something like Habitat for Humanity or some other construction based good cause.
Do not expect to get any new business because of this endeavor. If you do, great. But keep your expectations in check. As someone else mentioned, you can tie some type of finders fee to new business brought in by a rider. But overall just get through a year expecting no new business from it.

Someone mentioned Richard Sachs's team. He is a member of this forum so he may chime in on his philosophy. But applying his philosophy will work best if you are Richard Sachs...to say he has deep roots in the cycling world is an understatement. He does have a very strong philosophy behind how he runs his team. I sure some time spent with Google you will find it.

There are other teams out there that have done a great job establishing their philosophy. One to call attention to is Tim O'Donnell's Shamrock Cycles cyclocross team. I had the pleasure of talking to Tim last year. He is a very strict "have fun" and "share the fun" team attitude. My understanding is that any rider that loses sight of this can/will lose their spot.

He (and others) also have things in place like:
- Arrive early and stay all day, don't just show up for your race and leave.
- Support everyone on the team not just those in your class.
- Support any/all racers at an event. Not just people on your team.
- Be grateful that someone has stepped up and provided sponsorship.
- Chip in and help...setting up a team tent, getting water, bringing extra food, etc.
- Don't be a dink.
- Don't forget who's name is on your kit. Any behavior you exhibit reflect on you and me (sponsor).

Establishing a team can be rewarding because you know you stepped up and are giving to the sport. But sorting out how you want to go about it does take some planning.

[shovelhd]

Very well put, bewheels.

[bewheels]

Oh...one thing you will encounter in spades (old spud referred to it...).

For whatever reason racers think that sponsors owe them something because they ride a bike and enter competitions. I encountered all levels with this attitude - from juniors that have never raced ("but I ride a lot") to Cat 2 ("because I am a Cat 2").

In one particular weak moment of mine when someone came at me with this attitude and I responded with "...well, you eat food too. How about if you go to your local super market and tell them that you want free food because, well... you eat food. See how far that gets you.".

Just like hiring people, the rider's perspective should be based what they can bring to the group/team. Just like hiring, a person is compensated for adding value to the effort. So what value is the rider (employee) bringing to the effort? Not the other way around.