How to Get Sponsored by Titan Fuel Tanks

Titan Fuel Tanks makes auxiliary fuel tanks for pickup trucks, and its customers are the people towing race cars to the track every weekend. Mike DeFord has handled Titan's racing sponsorships for years, after a long run as marketing director at Bully Dog, and he also runs a side marketing agency that works in motorsports. He has been sponsoring racers for about 30 years. When he joined my Meet the Sponsors webinar, he was as direct as anyone I've had on.

Never start with an email

Asked what racers do that he hates, DeFord didn't hesitate. "Never start with an email. Never. I don't care who you are," he said. "If I get just a generic email, I do this, I want to be sponsored, whether it's cash or product, 99% of the time, I won't even dig into it." ▶ Watch Mike DeFord explain

His reason is trust. "Sponsorships are all about relationships, first and foremost," he said. "There's nothing more important than the relationship, because with any sponsor, it's about trust." His instruction: "Always make a phone call, no matter how awkward it is, no matter how much you hate talking on the phone." ▶ Watch the clip

He gets about 50 requests a week, and "of those, I'll say five are everything they need to be." ▶ Watch DeFord on how he picks teams

Understand what Titan needs

DeFord said more than once that a racer has to learn the sponsor's business before asking for anything. "You need to understand what my needs are as a sponsor in order to get the sponsorship from us and the support," he said. "And that is only gonna happen with a relationship." He added, "There's no cookie cutter way of doing motorsports marketing." ▶ Watch the full webinar

Titan doesn't sell racing parts, so it doesn't need you on the podium. DeFord said Titan's needs are "about exposure and content, because content now anymore is as valuable as anything else." That's why he singled out Reimers: "Cam is probably the best guy at providing content. And he tags everyone correctly, all of that sort of stuff." ▶ Watch the full webinar

The type of racing matters too. DeFord loves desert racing personally, but "off-road has not always produced a return on investment for me very well," and he was blunter later: "Desert provides zero ROI. I don't care who you are." Meanwhile, he said, Titan was doing more and more in circle track and drag racing. ▶ Watch the full webinar

Do the math for him

Once you have the relationship, bring a real proposal. DeFord has no patience for racers who won't write one: "If you can't put a proposal together, which is really not hard, Google can teach you how to do it in about 30 minutes." He doesn't believe in sponsorship application forms either. ▶ Watch the full webinar

The proposal has to do the research for him. "A racer needs to make it easy for the sponsor to evaluate how valuable they are," he said, because his own formula is strict: "For every dollar I spend, I need to make eight and a half dollars back on that single dollar." If he doesn't see that in his evaluation, "you're not going to get picked up." On the webinar he added that if Titan does pick you up and doesn't get that return, you won't be picked up for year two. ▶ Watch DeFord on ROI

He spelled out what's missing in most proposals. "I'm not gonna go research a race series or a track or look you up on social media," he said. Your proposal "needs to have all of that information from a credible third party source," such as analytics showing your followers and how engaged they are. "If I have to do the homework... the next proposal will have that information in it for me already." ▶ Watch the full webinar

Be professional at every level

"I don't care if you are the biggest professional racer or you're racing eighth-mile drag strip at your local drag strip," DeFord said. "If you're asking for something for free or you're asking for money, you have to be a professional." He still has a reminder of what not to do. One well-known racer "sent me a proposal, handwritten with magic marker on a single sheet of notebook paper. I actually have it framed in my office." ▶ Watch the full webinar

His closing advice was the same rule every good sponsor gives: "Don't overpromise anything, because no matter what, you're going to get called out on it. So sell yourself short and deliver way more than you ever intended to." ▶ Watch the full webinar

How Cam Reimers landed Titan

Reimers' deal is the model DeFord described. It started with a chase at SEMA. "Cam chased me down one year at SEMA. The first time we ever met was at SEMA," DeFord said. Reimers kept coming back during a busy show week, and "it took that sort of hustle. And because of that is how things progressed." Reimers remembered the moment: "I thought, man, I gotta meet this guy." ▶ Watch the full webinar

Then came the long build. Reimers raced off-road at first, which didn't fit Titan's goals. When he switched to IMCA dirt track racing, it did. "I don't even know, Cam, how many times we talked, at least 10 probably, over the phone and stuff, and a couple of times in person before we ever got close to making a deal happen," DeFord said. ▶ Watch the full webinar

Reimers made the pitch fit Titan's customer. Dirt track racing has huge fields, he said, with "Titan Fuel Tanks on the big diesel trucks, pulling these things." At his events, "Mike's needs are to get the word out with all the racers. Our events have 150 to 200 racers at them at every one." His advice to other racers: "You gotta be persistent. And you gotta be honest with yourself on what you can provide." He also said he'll "spend a half a day on particular decks or proposals that make sense to them." ▶ Watch the full webinar

It paid off. After Reimers' first season with Titan, DeFord told him he wanted to expand the program. ▶ Watch the full webinar

Your checklist for Titan Fuel Tanks

• Call or meet DeFord in person before you ever send an email. Trade shows like SEMA are fair game.
• Build the relationship over several conversations before you ask for a deal.
• Show how you put Titan in front of truck owners, especially the racers and tow rigs in your pits.
• Write a complete proposal with third-party data on your series, your track and your audience.
• Show how Titan gets back many times what it spends with you.
• Post content regularly and tag Titan correctly every time.
• Promise less than you can deliver, then over-deliver.