Should I get sponsorship?
"Getting sponsorship" is like getting a job.
If one has the skill to fix cars, one gets a job as a mechanic.
If one has the skill to manage ledgers, one gets a job as an accountant.
If one has the still to make all sorts of food, one gets a job as a cook.
In seeking sponsorship, you are saying "I have the skill and ability to promote your company. You should pay me to advertise your company."
Consider several things:
* This will be a lot of work. After landing the sponsorship, you will do a LOT of work performing the duties of sponsorship.
* Like any other job, you're generally compensated at a level that matches your ability to perform. If you're an awesome banker, you're making $150,00 with a corner office, if you're not awesome, you're making $38,000 as a teller. If you're not ALREADY an awesome advertising guy, expect your compensation to be in line with your skill level.
* Your ability to produce results may be too small for a particular company to even deal with you. For example, if a person wants "only $500" from a massive company like Ford, they are not interested because the money amount is too small. They would spend three times that on internal costs just to get the paperwork done. It's not that Ford couldn't afford the money, they can't afford the time from their employees. Those people need to be working on closing the $50,000 deals, the five million dollar deals.
With all these combined, you're looking at:
1) You need to spend time learning a new skill set. ("How do I find sponsors?")
2) You need to spend time using those new skills. (Putting together marketing materials, identifying potential sponsors, meeting them, following up, putting together additional research information that was asked for...)
3) Your chance of success is not 100%.
Given all that... I would seriously ask yourself "Is there something ELSE I'm already good at that can get me the money I need to go racing?"
Option A) 10 hours a week for 12 weeks chasing sponsorship. 30% chance of getting $1000 which required 20 hours of work afterward to appear at car dealerships or whatever. That's a 30% chance of making $7.14 an hour and %70 chance of making zero.
Option B) 10 hours a week for 14 weeks making $17 an hour as a car mechanic. That's a 100% chance of $2040, for the same amount of time invested.
Now, the "30%" might be 50%, or it might be 2%, but the point is it's not 100%. And "$17/hour as a bike mechanic" could be twice that, or not, or maybe you can weld, or maybe you're a heart surgeon. The point is that you may already have some other skill who's current market value is much higher, and where payment is much more reliable, than the market value of your skill in the field of sponsorship.
For almost all racers... taking a second job delivering pizza would net them far more cash for actual racing than investing that time in trying to find sponsorship.