[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: You're listening to the Motorsport Prospects Podcast.
Hey, it's Mark from Motorsport Prospects and welcome to the Motorsport Prospects podcast. This is where we dive into the world of motorsport with the people who live and breathe it. From driver coaches and sponsorship experts to team owners, pro drivers and more. You'll hear real stories, practical advice and insights you can actually use, whether you're just starting out or already chasing success on the track.
Now, if you're a longtime listener of the podcast, you know why I started Motorsport Prospects and it all revolves around trust. But if you're new to the podcast and to Motorsport Prospects, the reason I started Motorsport Prospects is so, so many drivers, aspiring drivers, their families and advisors, independent drivers, they constantly ask the same question, who can I trust?
So many of these drivers have struggled to find reliable guidance. So what I did is I created Motorsport Prospects to help them make informed decisions.
The professionals I feature on this podcast represent that trust. These are true motorsport professionals. If you are a motorsport professional and you work with drivers or racing teams, you must understand that building trust is one of the most important things you can do. Over the years I found that being clear about what you offer, following through on your promises, and genuinely caring about what your clients goals are makes all the difference. So what I've done is I put some practical advice together in a free white paper called the Three Essentials for Motorsport Business Owners, which share simple ways to strengthen relationships, attract the right clients and grow your motorsport business. Naturally, you'll find it in the show notes of this podcast or
[email protected] that being said, let's get started with this week's guest.
My guest today is Will Maratti, a lifelong motorsports enthusiast who listened to his first Indianapolis 500 in 1969 and he also runs Marathi's the Pits Are Open, which I actually have been a guest on it. So not for that reason in particular, but I highly recommend that you listen to the Pits Are opens also on YouTube. He's also a founding pastor of the New Life Church.
He's Will has turned a decades long dream into reality by helping field an entry in the historic 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 and now combines faith, media, business and racing to create innovative opportunities for fans, sponsors and emerging motorsports ventures.
Welcome to the podcast, Will. Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Hey Mark, thanks for, thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. I've been looking forward to this, very excited to be with you, so thank you.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: Oh it's, it's, it's great to hear.
And I. And I am serious. I really enjoyed being on.
On the pits are open, which was. That was a great experience.
So you have extensive experience, as I mentioned. Based on this experience and expertise, what would be the one most important piece of advice you could offer a current or aspiring race driver?
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Wow.
I would say the most important thing I would offer is the concept of. Of.
Don't just think of yourself, particularly if you're new. Don't just think of yourself as a race driver. Think of yourself as a business. Think of yourself as a brand. Think of yourself as a company.
Because a lot of times drivers get focused on the sport, the art of driving, the skill of driving, which is important.
But you've got to be able to fund it. You've got to be able to make it happen. Because unlike other sports, baseball, football, hockey, basketball, your talent will make room for you somewhere. If you're the best pitcher, you'll rise, you'll get a position. If you're the best goalie, you'll rise, you'll get a position. Motorsports isn't that way. Motorsports is not a meritocracy. It's a capital sport. And you could be the best driver in your area, in your region, and not make it because you don't have the funding. And so I would say start from day one, and I'm speaking now to people driving in carts, particularly the parents, the families of people who are funding those little cute cart drivers. There's going to come a time when you're going to run out of money. And when you hit that glass ceiling, that's the end of your son or daughter's career. And I don't want that to happen. So I kind of look at myself. There was a movie years ago I was just thinking of called Moneyball.
And it was how this general manager, Billy Bean and a graduate from Yale, tried to do an entirely different system.
And it worked. It worked. They set the record for most consecutive wins ever in a baseball season. So I kind of like the. I want to be the Billy Bean of motorsports. I want to come up and do. I would advise a new model, a different approach.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: Now, that's very interesting and we're going to get into that, but I think you are the.
You succinctly explained the difference between motorsport and, you know, stick and ball sports, as they call them. And, you know, I think it's important for people listening to get over the whole idea that it is a true meritocracy, because unfortunately, it is not. And you waste and I'm a big believer in energy.
And you waste a lot of energy, you know, kind of arguing with yourself and with people that, you know, it shouldn't be like that. The reality is, is this is the reality.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: And that's something that you're going to have to deal with if you want to be a professional race driver. So with that being said, you have been working on a different approach to sponsorship in motorsport. So please explain to me what exactly it's called and what exactly it does.
[00:06:17] Speaker A: Well, the parent of it is called Speedway Venture Studio, and Venture Studios have been around for a while. They're not new, but they are capital vehicles that raise capital and deploy that capital into other businesses, either startups or businesses that you're strengthening that then contribute to a common ecosystem. In this case, it's motorsports.
That's the overall model. That's the purpose of what we're doing. But to get there, there's a lot of steps. And I want to get started with a story that I'm working on right now, story that actually happened. I got a phone call from a driver about two and a half months ago. The driver said to me, I didn't know who else to call, so I'm wondering if you can help. I said, what's your problem? Problem is my primary spot. And this is a winning driver. This is a winning driver, a driver with a good record, a smart driver, a driver who has a law degree. To your point, the driver said, my primary sponsor just pulled 75% of my funding. Wow. And now I am dead stick. I cannot move forward. I can't complete my season. I can barely get started. Can you help me? Well, that's a story that I've heard repeated many, many times over the years. And it's something that is common that you have a change in management in a company. You have a different CEO, a different cmo, a different cfo. They don't like racing. Well, we're going to head a different direction. It may not be that abrupt. You may get at least a season of morning before it stops, but so many times. And the reason for that. And Racer talks about this at length in, in several articles. The reason for that is because most teams, and I'm not talking about Ganassi's, Penske's, Joe Gibbs 23:11, but everybody under that, that comprises 98 of the race cars and race drivers in the team and racers in the country.
Most of those feel are are 80 to 70 to 80%. They're counting on sponsors to fund their Budget.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: Right.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: Wouldn't it be great if we had a system that didn't count on that? What would be great if we had a system that only counted on 45% of sponsor money being the budget. This driver that I was speaking to, they would at least have been able to get started if they didn't have such a dependency. And I think it's kind of an addiction. I think we're addicted to sponsorship. The reality is it's a dwindling pool. Less than 1% of all the companies in the US and I'm not sure about Canada, but I'm going to say it's probably the same number. Less than 1% of the companies in the United States that could sponsor motorsports. Sponsor motorsports. So it's a very small pool to begin with. We've all made hundreds of phone calls, sent hundreds of emails to try to get the attention of sponsors. And my point is, and the whole purpose of Speedway Venture Studio is to be able to take the assets that you already have and create revenue streams that lessen the dependency you have on sponsorship. We're never going to be able to eliminate sponsorship. We're not trying to. We're just saying let's cut our dependency, dependency on sponsorship by generating other revenues that we're capable of generating.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: Now, I don't want you to dip into the secret sauce so much about how, how this is done, but overall, when you talk about revenue streams, what, what would be some examples that you would give that would be. That would be a revenue stream.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: Okay. And, and this, this is a lot of what we offer.
The portal, which is going into Speedway Venture Studio, and the portal is a separate website, svsinsiders.com but a lot of this we're sharing, we're teaching this, we're offering it to drivers and to team managers right off the bat. I would say there's three things I could say that anybody could use to generate income. And the first would perhaps look at social media. So let's say you have a thousand, five thousand, ten thousand social media followers, okay? You don't own that audience. You rent that audience. You rent it from Instagram, from TikTok, from Facebook, from whomever, right? And that audience is, is vulnerable to their calculations. So if the algorithm changes or something changes overnight. I remember when X came out, I had more than 2500 followers on X.
And overnight, in one day, I lost 400 followers because X changed something. That, that happens a lot more often than you would imagine. So this is not an audience that you have control over. This is an audience that. And social media is great for exposure. It's just not good for control.
So we say, let's take that audience that you have on whatever social media platform you have and let's turn them into your audience. And the first step of that is to create a newsletter.
Now, I'm not saying it has to be a complicated newsletter. I'm not saying it has to be a multiple page, it could be a single page newsletter. But start translating of those followers, people that are following because they like you, because they're your fan, they care about what you're doing. Let's translate them into free subscribers to your newsletter. Now we're at, we're at a point with just over a year. We started a newsletter when we started the show. Show's a little over a year old. We have now 5,000 subscribers to our newsletter. We have 5,000 subscribers and a 40% open rate, which is above industry standard, and about a 15% click rate, which is also above industry standard. So why do you have the newsletter? Because now that's your audience.
You can reach out to them, you can communicate to them on your time schedule when you want to. They're there because of you. They're there because they like what you do and they believe in what you're doing. They like your team, they like your car, they like your, your paint scheme, they like you as a driver. Whatever reason, they're there for you. That's now your audience. You can take that newsletter and now the newsletter is valuable and you can start selling sponsorships for the newsletter. And we do.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: And I talked to a sponsor not too long ago, potential sponsor, about two weeks ago, and they said this to me. They said, you know, everybody in their deck puts how many social media followers they have. Oh, we have a hundred thousand. We have this, that the sponsors of this. He goes, that's wonderful. But if you came to me and said, I have 20,000 newsletter subscribers with a, with a 35% open rate, that is more valuable to us than you having a hundred thousand on Instagram. Because when you're, it's kind of like when you're on social media, you're hoping that they see what you're talking about. You're hoping that they respond. The newsletter is entirely trackable and you can tailor it specifically for your audience or for a specific group. For instance, if you have a group out of 5,000, let's say you have 800 that are your most engaged followers, which all newsletters will give you that, right? Those are People that you can target specifically.
Those are the folks who are going to respond. I recently sent an email to Most Engaged and it was a list of, I think 740 people of our newsletters. Most Engaged. They open, they click, they, they're, you know, they open every newsletter. Do you know I had an 85% open rate from that group? Wow, these are loyal people. These like, these people like you. They want to be there because they like you and they appreciate what you're doing. So the first thing is the newsletter. So now you've got the newsletter where you're able to communicate to your audience. Not renting an audience from Instagram, but they're your audience for whatever, whatever concern you have. Now, the next thing I would do is I would sell sponsorship from the newsletter, which we do. The next thing I would do is I would set up a private membership group because people love to belong to something special. They want inclusion, they want to be part of something. They want to be on the inside. I always say to people, I joke with people. The difference between me now and years ago, years ago, I used to be on that side of the stanchion. Now I'm on this side of the stanchion, and I like this side a lot better. Right.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:56] Speaker A: So that's what you do and do the membership group. Now, let's say again, just tossing numbers out. Let's say you had 5,000 followers, 5,000 subscribers in your newsletter, and you can convert, I don't know, 5% into a membership group at 10 bucks a month.
Well, that's $2,500 a month.
Now, what could you do with that money, $2,500 that you otherwise don't have coming in. So you're, you're collecting sponsorship from your newsletter, you're collecting membership fees from your group that, that could, that could add up to over a year, 30 or $40,000.
And, and there's. There are some newsletters that are literally making hundreds of thousands of dollars using the same principles.
We've got a small newsletter. We don't have a big 5,000. That's our subscription rate right now. All not paid, all, all volunteer. Right. So you take those numbers then. So you've got your newsletter that's generating income. You've started a private membership group that's starting that'.
What else could you do? Well, people get asked you to speak, and I always tell people, I do a lot of speaking. I get a lot of invitations. The first question I ask, what's your budget?
Because a lot of times People think that, oh, they won't pay for me, I'm going to go for it. No, no, they'll pay for you. They're asking for a reason. They want you there.
Who knows how much. Maybe it's a hundred dollars, $200, maybe it's $1,000. You don't know. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. So now you're, now you're starting to pull resources. What does this do for you? Well, I'll tell you one thing it does. It makes you that the sponsors, because all of us who have been pursuing and chasing sponsors will at one point in time, if not multiple points of time, be asked this question, who else is involved in this?
The reason for that question is sponsors don't want to be the first one in and they don't want to be the only one in.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: But if you can actually show a portfolio of your career, of your team, of your driver's career, and you are, you're already generating your own income. All right, Maybe it's only 30 or 40,000 a year, but depending on what type of style you're racing in, that could be half the season. And now the sponsor doesn't have to come in for the whole thing. The sponsor has. So it makes you more attractive to sponsors that you are speaking to. If you already have value enterprise happening in your career or around your team, I hope that makes.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: Yeah, and you know what? And this. I just was reading an article about this, essentially building community, which is what newsletters and memberships are the other really key part of that, and this is actually what I'm working on with motorsport prospects.
There is so much, what they call AI slop out there that people are getting so frustrated with. I think the 20% of all YouTube videos are AI generated, that they want real engagement, they want to deal with real people and have, you know, this doesn't mean you can't use AI to help you doing things, but AI should not be replacing the human factor. And building a community is all about the human factor because it's a community.
So I think that's critical to understand and that boil. And that also applies to social media.
You know how much of it is automated and you know how many times where if somebody might be following you and the algorithm brings up more stuff related to you and racing, and then for whatever reason, they start reading up on manga and for. For whatever reason, over the next couple of days, the algorithm starts pumping out more stuff related to manga and less stuff relating to you. So I think that's absolutely critical, an important way to look at things.
And because so. So you have this program. Yeah. The obvious next question is if somebody who's listening wants to find out more about it, where do they go?
[00:18:03] Speaker A: Okay, so we have a. We have a landing page set up and it is at this address, svs. In all one word, svs insiders dot com.
When they go to that landing page, it's going to bring up a number of things about what the page is about. It's going to discuss what, what is available, what they get. Like for instance, there's a weekly founder update video. I do an update every week. Monthly, there's a live zoom meeting that anybody in the team can come to. We're going to talk about what we're doing, talk about deals that have been made, deals that we're trying to make.
There's going to be some voting. I mean, this isn't a democracy, but there's going to be some voting involved about, about things that, you know, people would love to have a voice in. But again, it's a community of drivers, sim racers. We've got parents of drivers here. We've got some industry leaders here. I have a defending world champion NHRA or I'm sorry, IHRA pro comp driver. I've got other race drivers. This is a community of people that are in the industry. You're not going to get this anywhere else.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: Right.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: You're not going to find us. You're not going to get in the room and be in that conversation.
It's a very difficult group to encounter. As you know, it's hard to break into.
So we're saying this is an exclusive opportunity for people that really want to build a career, really want to get their team off the ground and again, be sustainable, not be so addicted to the sponsorship cycle, which for a lot of teams is every year rinse and repeat, hope the sponsor is happy, hope the sponsor resigns, hope they send the check. And what if they don't? Then where do you ago? And we invest so much time chasing sponsors, we should at least take some of that time and invest it in our own, our own enterprise value in our own investability as a company. Whether you're a single driver or your team.
[00:19:53] Speaker B: No, absolutely. And I will include all the links in the show notes so that, you know, if you forgot what that, that address was, it'll all be there so that you can connect in. Another thing that's always important that I emphasize to people is that, remember, you're investing in your career, you know, you know, and you get what you pay for is really, at the end of the day, there's a lot of great free resources. This podcast is one of them, I like to say. But, you know, they're. At a certain point, there are certain things. If you want to be an architect, you will need to invest in going to school and doing whatever it is that you need to do to become that architect.
Motorsport is no different.
So always keep that in mind.
But this sounds really fascinating and this is, this is solid advice. I mean, I've read a lot about, you know, the, the concepts that you've talked about in different industries, and it's all about building community.
And that's what they're saying that is the future of essentially online discourse is community based.
And then this will translate directly into real world.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: If you have a challenge, if you're stuck in some way, you can go into our chat room and you can reach out to other people and they'll respond.
If you sign up this month, we're looking for our 150 founding members in the month of June. If you sign up in a month of June, not only we get all the benefits that are listed here, but you also, if you want. It's not a big deal, but I would love to talk to you. You'll get a. You'll get a live phone call with me, a strategy call, if. If that is something of help to you. And we're doing that because we really want to build a community. We want to get a diversity of people involved. Yes, we want drivers. Yes, we want. We love sim racers with. Sim racing is so huge right now. We want to get parents of drivers, we want to get engineers, we want to get team mechanics, we want to get team owners. And, and again, we're not talking about Ganassi's Penske, Joe Gibbs. We're Talking about the 98 of everybody else that lives down below those levels. Right.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:01] Speaker A: That's who we're working with and that's who we want to help.
[00:22:04] Speaker B: So I will be put. Like I said, I'll post all the links to this so you'll find out more information and you can, you know, you can find out all about the program.
Well, I, you know, as we're wrapping things up, I have to ask this question. It's always my favorite question because I'm never quite sure what the answers will be.
What is your favorite racetrack? Current or historical?
[00:22:28] Speaker A: Okay, so I, I would say instantly, there's one track that I can say because I've driven it. And the other. Because it made me fall in love with racing.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:22:38] Speaker A: And the track that I've driven is. Is what I call my home track, Lime Rock Park. I. I love Lime Rock.
I did my skip barber school at Lime Rock. I've raced at Lime Rock. I. I think Lime Rock is. Is the most picturesque, beautiful track in America. That's what I think. But I am biased. The other track that, that caused me to fall in love with racing is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And we were just there.
I had a great honor the week before. I was called by. I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna drop names because it's.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: Oh, go ahead.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: I got a call from McLaren and they wanted me to host one of their VIP suites. And so it was a long day, Long day. But I had about 130 guests, corporate sponsors, family of drivers, a totally unique situation, something I've never done before. And in debriefing, I had to say, well, you know, really, I think I use more of my pastoral skills than my. My racing skills because there were a lot of people upset up there that Potter Award didn't win the race. But those kind of events and those kind of opportunities are incredible because they, they make you stretch and they teach you new things. And that's what I would always say to people. Look for opportunities that stretch. You may. You might be uncomfortable, you may not be sure about it. Do it anyway. Take those opportunities when you can, because they're really valuable in the long run.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: And that applies to life, that. Not just motorsport. I completely agree with you. And I saw the pictures. I saw some of the pictures that you had posted from the. The McLaren, and it looked. It looked awesome.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: It was a blast. It was.
[00:24:08] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. I definitely envied you.
Well, I really appreciate spending the time with me today. And like I said, it's. It's. It's great to talk to somebody who has a fresh approach, who, you know, understands the business of motorsport. And it is a business. Some drivers will say 80 of their time is taken up by the business of racing. 20 is actual. The actual Dr.
Something that you, you know, if you're not aware of that and you're listening, you really do need to understand and embrace it, you know, because it's not going to change. And programs like yours are programs that help you embrace that change, deal with it as a business, and hopefully move on and build a successful career. So thanks so much, Will, for being part of the podcast.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: Thank you, Mark. What a.
Thank you.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: That was. That was great. And so that's it for this week.
This is Mark from Motorsport Prospects, reminding you to stay fast, stay focused and keep chasing that checkered flag.
Thanks for listening to the Motorsport Prospects podcast. For insights, advice and the latest news racers can use, visit motorsportprospects.com.
