Today on the merch editor podcast episode number 8, you'll hear the interview I gave Carrie Green at DC Podcast last month. He's the host of podcastification.
That's a tongue twister. And go into why I started merchandising podcast, how it relates to building your 1st race, and why building races now is essential to the off road racing industry. And I'll also introduce you to the principles of a profitable race where we begin to understand why having standards will help you make better race decisions, make you money, and stay in business longer than 5 minutes.
Thank you for joining me for the Merchant Center podcast. I'm your host, your teacher, your merchant of Dirt, professional recognier and race promoter, Kyle Bondo. And if you're new to the Merchant Center podcast, welcome aboard. This is what we do. I hope you understand the business of off road race promotion. Simplify the art and science behind building, promoting, and correcting offered races, and help you make money by giving you the tools to build better races.
Our website is mergersadirt.com. We're the podcast of Reckonier.com. And today on our show, we're gonna start off with an interview I gave, Kerry Green, from podcastification of human skill at the DC Podcast. Now Curry is a podcast from Colorado. They gave a fantastic talk about how to create that are show notes for your podcasts, which helped me greatly. And Carrie owns a company also called
The Podcast Fast Track. Atpodcastfasttrack.com, where he teaches people how to make better show notes, how to engage better with social media and has a team of developers and audio technicians to take a podcast, clean up the audio, build show notes for for some of those podcasts, I just don't have time to do show now. So, Deskhart, they have the full fall card service for podcasters.
Well, Carrie was gracious enough to to interview about my podcast, versus a dirt podcast, and why I got into podcasting in the first place. And it went something like this. This.
Talking to Kyle Bondo. How you doing, Kyle? Pretty good. Yeah. We're here at DC podcast, and Kyle does there's a really cool show. I mean, he telling me about this, about about dirt bike racing and stuff. So tell me what this is all about. So I do the podcast called Merchants of dirt, and it kind of was inspired by a blog I wrote for 3 years. Trying to get race promoters and race directors to understand the business side of actually how to put a a race together.
So a lot of them are going out of business. A lot of them hold really bad races. So this became kind of this restoration of 20 years worth of doing it to, hey. Let me try to get back. And Yeah. So is this like motocross recycling? So this is mountain biking, mountain trail running, ultra running, endurance racing, a lot of its adventure racing Yeah. Which is like triathlon in the woods, things like that. Sure. Yeah. Like the place where I live, they do the Leadville Trail 100. I'm sure you've heard of it. Yep. That was 30 minutes away from where I was ski 50. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So cool races. So why a podcast why don't you start doing audio about this subject. Well, I took a a challenge. They're similar to the take a shower for 30 day challenge Yeah. To write a blog post every day. Wait a minute. Take a shower or take a cold shower. Take a take a cold shower. Right?
Yeah. I take a shower every day. Yeah. That's quite a challenge for someone to stick with it. Yeah. Was to write a blog post every week for a year. Yeah. So I started doing that, trying to block write make sure I write single blog post every single month or every single week for a year straight. And that turned into a whole stack of bricks full of different different topics. But then people are like, you know, wow, your
your blog is really, really good. But it's so damn long. Some of the some of the things are just, like, just can't read them all and, like, can't guys do 1 sitting? It'd be great if I could take it with me. So that become the inspiration for, oh, okay. Well, maybe there's a way you can take it with. And I tried video and didn't really like video too much. It's a little it's a little too much complication. But podcast seemed to be write my wheelhouse
with just while you use microphone and a computer and started taking some of my pod my my blogs and turn them into podcasts. Yeah. And became and that's how it started. Just like that. Yeah. And so and the ability to be in someone's earbuds during those times of day where they're consumed with something else that's not so important, like commuting. Or exercising or cleaning the house. I mean, you can be in their earbud talking to them about something they love.
Absolutely. What's going on? And it's it's it's it's kinda become this where the show, as I take out, my blog post is really, like, you know, very, you know, mental and very, very technical with the podcast. I can actually personality can come out. Very funny. I pretend I have a cohost called Mister Murphy because when racing, everything can go wrong and you don't want it to. So Mister Murphy is the guy who's always trying to wreck your race. That's fine. So we're always talking back and forth this pretend person about you. Hey, Mister Murphy. How are you rickin' this guy's race today? Oh, well, I'm gonna make sure this, you know, the weather shows up. Did you do, like, a different voice or something for Mister Burfinger? It started being off microphone, but every now and then, it kinda was like, you know, well, I'm gonna record your race today. Yeah. It it could That's fine. Very that's fine. So who's the ideal listener for your show?
So people who so I say race promoters, race directors, people who wanna be race promoters, race directors, and racers who have done bad races and wanna change, wanna do something different, wanna bring your race to their community they couldn't do before. Yeah. So a lot of that Yeah. Cool. That's really cool. So as you have gone on this journey of launching a podcast, first of all, how long have you been doing this? So I I launched 2 weeks ago. 2 weeks ago. So I have 4 total episodes out, and I started really committing myself in August. I was gonna do it October 13th. I missed it by couple days. But actually got it out the door. Yeah. That was So are you producing, like, an episode every week? Correct. That's what you're doing. Okay. Okay. So in your long history of 4 weeks. What
are the lessons you've learned? I mean, this is great because I I I want people who hear this episode to be encouraged, they can start a podcast. So what would you say to them? So lesson number 1, don't worry about your equipment. I heard 15 different versions of what microphone to buy, and I still bought the wrong 1 the wrong 1. I heard about all the sound editing. I know you've talked to other guys before talking about how the editing part is really hard. Sometimes
the editing is, you know, you just start recording, you hit in, but promo stuff on the end, and that's it and release it, and it's horrible. Yeah. So but getting it done
was better than thinking about it, getting it done. And they all said, keep 7 in the can. I thought, oh, I never launched. I have to get 7 episodes done. I never would have launched if I'd done that. Yeah. So getting it out there. Now I know I have an episode I need to have done by Monday. Yeah. Now I have some some skin in the game. I have a fire burning that I gotta I gotta I gotta start thinking. I gotta post edit. I have to actually start talking. So it's given me that to the motivation.
To start launching episodes. So it sounds like you've got some internal commitment. Just like personal integrity that if I commit to this, I'm gonna stick with it. Do you feel like that's something someone needs to make sure they have before they start? Absolutely. And I think it's I think it's just like racing is that
can talk about wanting to do the exercise and talk about wanting to do all this kind of thing to to better yourself all the time. But if you sign up for a race, I guarantee you when you put a $100 down to do 5 k or a marathon. Suddenly, you now have a deadline and a goal and you put money into it. So now you have some well. If I don't show up, that's a hundred bucks I was lost. It kinda motivates you. Same thing with podcasting.
You put your RSS feed out on iTunes, and you see it pop up. You see someone subscribe to it, and then 2 people subscribe, and then 10 people subscribe, you're like, oh, I have listeners. And then you're like, I have listeners. It's like, I gotta push content out all of a sudden. It'll definitely motivate you. Yeah. So that accountability
case is huge. So Carrie asked some really good questions that got me thinking about why I started podcasting, what mergers that her podcast is all about, and how ordinary people can get into podcasting with just a microphone and computer. But it also got me thinking about what it takes to get into offered racing. And can just anybody start building races? I mean, ironically, most sports with a professional level have this problem.
Mean, all the money, the fame, energy that are spent pandering to the professional level races with little emphasis placed on the beginner.
Let me think about it. If you wanted to be an NFL coach right now, how would you do it? Can you walk up to the CLC Hawks and say hi, I would like to be your coach. No. Be careful as a coach. They're gonna let you be the coach. They're gonna ask you about your credentials. They're gonna ask you whether or not you've been to school. Have you ever coached any games before? Have you coached any games at the NFL level? They're gonna ask you all these questions to make sure that you have the bona fides
to get into that level of competition. Now, some might say the beginning race, you know, beginning races are diamond dozen, while professional races that include the championship events, are the really unique productions. I mean, how many Pop Warner or Kiwi Foot games do you see on TV? Not too many. But I catch an NFL game, what, 4 times a week in the United States. So
You know, others might say the professional racers attract more media interest, which is why this is the case. They would which in turn brings more sponsors and money. I mean, think about it. If you think about an NFL football game, I mean, how many commercials do you sit through when you're watching a football game? Heck, Watch the Tour de France on TV. How many different
commercials and sponsors do that? They break away. I remember the mountain bike races from this this past Olympics in Brazil and Rio. I mean, halfway through the race, when the race was just getting good, they'd cut away to a sponsor. They cut away to commercial ops. Terrible bridge, but it kinda just reinforces my point. The beginner races,
no one's paying attention to those. It's a professional race is where all the where all the attention is, where all the media interest is, where all the sponsors are, where all the money is. So regardless of the reason why, and behind why, rate beginning race promoting tend to go out of business within the 1st 3 years of starting. It fails to acknowledge a simple truth.
Without a strong base, of beginner race promoters, you know, that amateur enthusiasts and the smaller community races that bring in more racers into the sport, Offer racing will die. I mean, NFL does not exist without the NCAA. NCAA does not exist without high school football and high school football will be hard pressed without organizations like pop Warner. As for offered racing is NFL level event, which include, like, the world, the national, the regional championships.
If there's no pop warner or high school level race promoters, There will be even fewer athletes to race, the n c, you know, n c double a, and NFL level of venture races. Mountain bike races, trail run races, and the years to come. I mean, the solution is simple. Make off road race promotion accessible to newbies. I mean, there is an opening within the outdoor and offered racing market to capitalize on beginner level small market racing events.
This incredible opportunity focuses on capturing the actual largest customer base, the amateur, by producing more races for smaller groups of athletes, This is the advantage of getting into off road racing. You don't need to make big races to be successful. Mean, this business has a lot to do with volume. Not whether or not you're on TV. Why not whether or not you have a big sponsor? Not whether or not you have the latest brands in all the attention.
A lot of this let me think about it. It's the the kind of giant pyramid. The pro athletes are a small tiny little group. The amateur athlete is huge, People getting this for his business this this racing offer racing all the time. Did they do it professionally? No. Some of them do it. For exercise. They do it for some of the prove themselves. It's a goal. It's an achievement. They enjoy it. So by producing more races for smaller groups of athletes.
In the amateur category, you're starting to understand that those racers in your small events might go on to the big events. You don't need to be producing big events to be successful. I mean, I'm only here to make it a small dent in the universe by teaching the next generation of race promoters how to be successful. And by removing the obstacles to stand in the way of race promotion education, hopefully, I can provide you with the tools you need to start building races.
I mean, you can become a race promoter. And more importantly, your sport needs you to become 1, to remain successful. My hope is that what you'll learn here each week will help you become the riskbroader we all need you to be. Because without the small market races, without the beginner race promoter, who's gonna go to the professional vents. I mean, those events, if they don't get a number of people to go to them, they're failures.
So small markets, small events, are the key to the big professional events. And sure, over time, as you build your races, you're gonna build at those events. You're gonna start understanding the connection between small market and small beginner level racing. 2, the NFL style, the professional level, the world championship type racing. Those events depend heavily
upon amateur level and beginner races. Because without that stuff, because amateurs are the ones who are buying all the gear, buying all the new tech, buying all the magazines, that are producing all the media outlets, all their content, all the races they go to,
that that stuff generates the professional athlete. These are professional athletes. Pay for their shoes, pay for their bikes, pay for their their kits. No way. They're getting sponsors wedding and sponsors because the media coverage of lots of because they want to what? What does a sponsor wanna do on a professional athlete? There's a reason their brand is on them, and it's not not to make them look pretty. It's to sell product.
And as an amateur racer sees when these professional athletes with that product on there, they're like, I wanna be like them too. That's why they do it. But if there's no amateur athletes out there to do that, couldn't be hard pressed for the professional athletes to have anything to go to, to have any sponsors. So beginner level race promotion, is the bread and butter, the core, the lifeblood of off road racing in the off road racing industry.
So the education needs to be there too. So hopefully, merges the dirt podcast and by extension, Rechinair can help make a dent in this void for beginner education. And help our industry be successful. Wow. Okay. Time is flying by. Thanksgiving is over, and now we're moving into the Christmas holiday season already. What what happened? I mean, I've already started hearing Christmas music on the radio. I mean, just yesterday, it was it was Christmas 2015 and already 2016 ready.
So how do we get through this? How do we through this this incredible time jumps that happen in our lives, especially as we get older. Well, the way you do it is through a good cup of coffee. And right now, Rich Roasters has some new coffees in stock, and they're called the Bourbon Barrel Heritage and the Bourbon Barrel Reserve. Get this. They take wooden barrels they get from their partnership with a Smith Bowman's Distillery.
And if you're unfamiliar with a Smith Bowman delivery. They're a local family owned distillery here in Fredericksburg, Virginia that opened big 1935. They've been around for a long, long time. Anyway, These barrels that Sean Ricks gets from the Bowman Distillery are barrels that were once used for aging straight bourbon whiskey. And then they take robust dark roast coffee, this blend he makes, and he puts him into the barrels for an undisclosed amount of time.
I mean, how much time well, and they wouldn't tell me. You know? Because they would have to declassify my brain via lead ventilation. That's why Mister Murphy It's a secret. Mister Murphy always wants to know the secrets. Right? But however, along it takes, the process works, the result is this smooth and silky coffee, the delivers this subtle but rich taste of bourbon. It's kind of a neat process. And I don't it somewhere there's vanilla in there. I I don't know.
He says there's vanilla in there. My wife can taste it. I can't. But I don't know how shot Rick's. He's the creative jury genius behind Rick's roasters thinks of stuff up. But his coffee results in this assortment flavors that just continues to surprise me and everybody else I talked to about this. So I can't talk about them enough. This is Rick's roasters. You can find Rick's roasters that are in Stafford, Virginia, just North Fredericksburg,
thinking up past podcast. I said they're in Fredericks for going because I find them at the farmer's markets, and they're down the butcher shop in downtown Old Town, Verdesburg. And he's got he's got a little bit of coffee, a little bit of everywhere, but his is based operations of Stanford, Virginia. And you can visit them online at ricksprosters.com. And again, they're not a sponsor. I'm just a huge fan, so I'm paying it forward.
And as a fan of a lot of things, it should not come to surprise you that I'm a big fan of offered racing. But Not a big fan of seeing race promoters struggle and fail. It's kind of a big deal to me. The whole point behind why I started wreckingear.com and the merchandiser podcast. This is why I want to spend some time talking to you about some of the fundamentals in race promotion.
I've covered some of these ideas in my earlier pod, you know, early episodes that you can find at merchandisinger.com. But today, I wanna talk about a very particular fundamental called a principle. Now what's the principle you ask? It, you know, it's a fundamental truth that serves as the foundation for a system of behavior. Now that sounds kind of like, wow. That sounds really complex, Kyle. Okay. In simpler terms. It's a standard you based decisions on. Right? Remember standards?
Okay. Maybe some of you are remember standards. These are the rules you guide life decisions by. Like, I'm never gonna work on Sundays. That's a good standard. Okay? How about only dating someone that's employed. That's a standard I would love my my kids to to embrace. But in race promotion, the principle you need are the ones the principles you need are the ones that guide you in making decisions on what kind of race you should build. And it's not easy concept to grasp right away.
So like anything I do, It's an example time. Right? Always gotta have examples. So I think examples are key in learning. The emergence of dirt podcast is all about making the art in science of race motion simple and understanding. So we're gonna do some do some examples. So does this sound familiar? You've decided to put on a race. You've named your event. Figure out your course. You have a permit.
You know, for the park and lots of races, you know Ryan, lots of racers enjoy being at this park, so you're thinking a lot of people are gonna come. Right? You went down to the big box store and you filled your garage with tables and chairs and coaters and cones that popped in the intense, oh my. And being a bit tech savvy, you bought a couple of laptops. Maybe you paid for a website. You purchased the latest timing software. You built a free ish online registration account.
And you stopped by your local insurance agent and picked up a comfortable policy that will cover you for about about any issue. And you're excited. You know, when the box containing your metals arrive, allowing you to go 3 deep in each of your 15 categories. But you're now out about $5, $5000, but ready to sell your race and recoup all that costs. So say at about 40 bucks per per racer, you should breakeven after you get about a 125 racers to pre register.
But you're sure that your event will bring twice that many on race day. Why? Because you're awesome. Of course. Right? So it So is your race? People wanna come. They heard about you. Oh, man. I gotta come to your race, man. You're people in the parking lot. Oh, that sounds great. I'll be there. Here's a flyer. Once everyone gets a look at your website registration listings, you are certain the money will start to roll in. And then register registration opens. Preregistration. No 1 signs up.
Week goes by. No 1 signs up, 2 weeks go by. You start the panic, you start sending out all sorts of Facebook posts all friends. Maybe that will generate some registrations. You start hitting people in the parking lots again, flyers go out again. By the time you're off you're online registration closes, you have 5 people preregistered. 5 people. And you think this this can't possibly happen, but trust me, this happened to me.
And then race day comes around and only third do do racers show up on race day? At the end of the day, you still make you still make some money. Make a total of, like, 1400 bucks. But remember how much you spent? You spent $5. So $1400, that's bad. Remember, the park gets 15% cut off the top, so you gotta minus 200 some of my dollars in the park. You know, that you're at what? 1190 bucks or so? You've just worked a 120 hours over the past 3 months.
All your free time planning, clearing trail, make it a quarter, setting it up, running the race, doing results, and tearing it down and all for what? The pain of having to eat a $2800 loss. That's a loss of over 70 5% of what you put in, not including the free labor you gave at race. For most people, this is where the dream of being a race promoter ends. This is the reality check.
If this is you, then you understand the hard reality of race promotion, especially if you fronted all that race start up money yourself. Now you're left holding the empty bag. Some people cause themselves this pain because they live in this fantasy world of the reality distortion field. This is a simple concept illustrate. You are a racer.
You go to plenty of races and see all the other races. You think do yourself, wow. They all paid the same registration fee as me. So this race made a ton of money. This puts this idea in your head. About how much money you could make if you promoted or raced yourself. I mean, how hard could it be. Right? You say it yourself? The truth is very hard. And you've been caught in the same field that distorts reality for many novice race promoters. What you don't see is that a race is a product.
When you are experiencing the finished product, the race you are participating in as a participant. It's the end result of a lot of other factors that took place long before you showed up. The time, the effort, the assets go into buildings at successful race are all hidden from you on race day. All you see is the race recruiter executing their plan. Lots of people having fun.
And a bucket of cash at the registration table. When caught in the reality distortion field, all you can think gov is, I could do this too. Oh, where could this be? You only see the small patch of ice on the surface. With no view of the massive iceberg of work hiding below. How do you escape from this field and know you really wanna take on this challenge? Finally, this is the right question to ask yourself before going down the race promoter's path.
Building a race and building a race right are 2 very different things. Anyone with a few bucks and some planning can build a race. The so called fictional person at the beginning of this article isn't wrong. Most of those things do go into building a race. However, If you plan on making money and creating value, building good races, you will need a much different approach. Before you get into the heavier stuff, we will start at the beginning, which is always a good place to start.
By sharing, my core race promotion principles with you. These first 3 principles, the core recurring principles, if you would, Set the stage for how you should approach any race promotion challenge. Even after your events get established and your and your will attended, these principles will remain true to your continued success. Think of them as rules, to how you approach every race you build. So let's go through them. Principle number 1. Start small.
There's not a single race promoter out there that jumped into racing with a large venue, a fat budget, or an amazing turnout on day 1. All of them. And I mean all of them started out somewhere small. From running a local 5 k fun run to organizing group rides, to volunteering for someone else's race or coaching after school, all promoters have some exposure to small event management. Your race promoter's bio needs this sort of event management origin story.
You need to get your hands dirty early on so that you can see how a race works behind the scenes. I recommend volunteering for established race promoter. But you can always try running your own mini event using a local club, a small group of friends, as your test subjects. Experiment. That's kind of the key. The kind of learning this is you have to experiment. Go see how it's done and experiment with it.
The point is not to overwhelm yourself with the many race promotion processes without having experienced the basics in a safe learning environment. The reason for this are obvious. Small allows you to make mistakes you can recover from. When your vent only cost a $100 per use, you can take a $100 loss much easier than a $5000 1. Right? Small is great for learning because when the numbers are easy to manage, you don't need to worry about things that can get out of hand.
Leave the need for professional timers and cash purses for when you are ready. The small venue, the small size events. Is something that's very manageable. Plus, it gives you the ability to to learn and to build upon that learning. And having those core fundamental of how a small event works gives you something to base upon how you scale that to a bigger event. And what pieces you'll need and what doubles of things you'll need and what systems you'll need in place for scaling to bigger events.
So principle number 1. Start small. Principle number 2. Stay simple. You need to quit overthinking everything and just keep it simple. You don't need food tables of your first race. You don't need to go 5 deep on awards. You don't need 15 categories. Just make it simple. Stick to the areas of the park that everyone enjoys. Downgrade expectations with simple prizes that you can get at the dollar store or bulk at the big box store. Or free.
Your races your races will appreciate the award, especially if it's quirky enough become a tradition later, like stuff things, those are kind of perfect for this. When you get rid of all the distractions, you just create a good backyard raise, you begin to build your reputation as a reefer owner that can deliver. Additionally,
staying simple provides you with an easy to manage event that you can keep control of throughout the day. Complexity only complicates your efforts and takes your focus away from what you should be caring about. And that's your customers. Worry about their enjoyment. Not your next trick.
Staying simple comes complete with the fringe benefit of keeping costs down. If you don't have a need, For including a petting zoo, radial frequency identification, capable of tie you know, capable of timing system, or a 100, you know, a 100 pizzas. And the savings is all your 1st. And to reiterate on that on that stick to the park since the part of the park that everyone enjoys, Don't put in those crazy challenges, those big jumps, the cliff edges. Stay away from that stuff. Keep it simple.
You don't need to worry about making it super challenging right away because we're we're talking about small venue, small market events. Amateur racers. Don't make it crazy? Keep it simple. Plus, you can manage these people. You can keep a count of these people and safety becomes a very easy thing to control. That's principle number 2. Stay simple. Principle mode 3. Is, I think, probably 1 of the most important ones. And after staying small and staying simple, principle 3 show value. You.
The cost of entry into your race should be equal to the amount of value you are delivering to your customer. If you are putting together a small simple backyard raise with an expectation of 30 or 40 razors showing up? Don't charge them 50 bucks a person. But also don't charge them $5 a person either. You need to carefully understand that although your race holds some level of value for your customer, your your time and effort in building that race needs to be considered too.
Most racers will pay you pay you more than you think. Provided that you give them a worthwhile experience in return. Just setting up the race itself is sometimes motivation enough for a racer to be thankful that you're there. A lot of people don't want to set up races. Why? Because it's hard to do. There's a lot of things going on. People don't want to take that responsibility. So they respect your ability to wanna do this, and they reward you for that.
But this also means you have to give them your best effort based on the kind of race you've created. Now you might be asking, no. What does this mean? What value? It's kind of a, you know, very subjective thing. Be nice and connect with them by, I don't know, here's a here's a really kind of bizarre thought, but try smiling and talking to your racers even if you don't want to.
Taken active interest in who they are, why they came to your event, how they did during the race, be active in their experience by getting to know them as people, not just bib numbers and dollar signs. A part of the job in race promotion is acting as the host, but making sure everyone is having good time. I mean, it's called a race, but really it's an event. It's an event like a convention, like a wedding,
Like going to dinner, it's an event. People go there to buy a product and the product is the race. You're the host. And part of the job of race erosion is acting as the host by making sure everyone's having a good time. How will you know if they're having a good time? If you're too distracted and overwhelmed by how much things cost. You will be surprised how important your active interest is to Razer's overall experience, especially in a small race.
They'll remember that. Some racers find the personal touch of the race floater to be the number 1 thing that brings them back to you. You show value by learning about the experience you provide to your racers, and they will reward you for it. You cannot be a race promoter if you don't like talking to people. Sorry, just doesn't work that way. So get out there and enjoy what you're building by understanding what your racers are experiencing.
I mean, and be part of that experience You built this thing. Find out what they what they felt about it. Get that instant feedback. They'll let you know. Hey, was it good? Was it bad? Did they enjoy your course? Did they like them? Did they like the venue? What parts of they don't like?
Yeah. You're gonna get some people. They're gonna be like, they're gonna complain about things, but a lot of people are gonna be like, this was great. I really like this. I enjoy riding here every day. Either ride here with my friends, recompeting. This is a fantastic opportunity. You'll be surprised by just taking an act of interest how much racers will appreciate that. So
remember, you can't be a race runner if you don't like talking to people. So you either need to get over that now or consider doing something else. But hopefully, you're finding that talking to people and understanding their experience and being involved in their the excitement of the race gives you some pleasure. That's showing value. That's principle number 3 is showing value. Is you give them something your best effort, and they were to reward you by showing up and paying you.
And then by showing value, by continuing the process, They'll show up again and again. This is the repeat customer. This is how Disney does it. Constantly, this is how Chick Fil A does it. With my pleasure rather than, you know, you're welcome. People like that extra touch. With Disney, it's it's constant smiling. Everyone's always smiling.
So her press to find somebody at Disney not smiling. Same thing with here. Be smiling. Be active. Be interested in what they're doing. You are the host. Act like it. Show. Value,
and your racers will reward you for it. So get out there and enjoy what you're building. And speaking of enjoying what you're building, would you like to get a head start building better races? What if you didn't have to figure out all the steps it takes to build just the race part of your business? What if you could follow a simple map? Like a road map. That showed you each of the steps.
And what order to take them? Wouldn't that free you up for other things? Couldn't you go to work on things that you really like to do like course design? We're getting out there and selling your race to actual racers, showing them what value you bring. I'm almost finished writing a short ebook that will help you identify those steps and those structures and those timelines you need to create your own offer of racing road map. But with it comes a premade easy to follow
map itself that you can use route of the box. I mean, it's an actual map with little dots on it like a little path. Followed you on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And then the this ebook, together with the road map, will show you the exact path you need to use to build a race in 90 days. Because it hasn't been 90 days? No. So I picked 90 days.
I built just let's let's build a race in 90 days. If you had to build a race in 3 months, how would you do it? And that's why I wrote. And this is the minimum amount of time you need to get a race off the ground. It doesn't sound like a long time, but if you follow this road map, you YouTube can build a race in just 12 short weeks. And it's entirely free. Yes. That's alright. Free free, and it's the best price you could possibly get. Right? Just for you and for my fellow serious race promoters,
build a race 90 days is my starter road map. And when you're done, You can use it to build a race again and again and again. And are you ready to start building races? If you are, go to reckonier.com/roadmap, and sign up with your email address. And what does that give you? Well, if you sign up this month and right now, we're talking like a few days left since the last time I'm gonna offer this for a while. So if you sign this month, I will send you my 90 day road map PDF, absolutely free.
And If you request request it this month, month of November, I will include the 98 road map supplemental ebook to you for free as well. You're gonna be my test audience. You're gonna be the ones who get it first, if anyone else, and you get it absolutely free. I still have a few weeks to work on this, but by signing up, you get it when it's released.
And that's a right now, I'm gonna I'm gonna be selling it for 39 bucks. I will give it to you for free for as long as it exists. Every time I update it, every time I add new information to it, every time I create a version 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10. Well, it does not matter. You will get it for free. That is my deal for you. So go to brekkenier.com/roadmap,
sign up today, and get your free road map and ebook. Now for some finishing thoughts. I've been there time and time again struggling with each of these principles in my own way. 1 of my first races was way too big and it devoured me both physically and financially. My next race was much smaller and easier to manage, became overly complex in its own execution. Once I figured out how to start small and stay simple,
showing value became a natural part of running the race. If you tried to build something that was too big to manage or complex to control, did you find it difficult to engage with your racers? You have, think about going back and reviewing those principles and trying it yourself by staying small, staying simple, and showing value. And now you know.
Speaking of big things to manage, money's management is always something race promoters struggle with. Do you know how much the average racing endeavor costs? On the next Merchant Center podcast, I'll be talking about putting the fun back in race budget fundamentals. And by teaching you how to budget your race, how race budgets work and how to get your race expenses
under control. Thank you so much for listening to the merch store podcast. If you have any comments or questions, please reach out to me. On Twitter at merchants of dirt. That's no spaces. And if you wanna subscribe, make sure you never miss an episode at merchants at dirt.com is how you do it. 1 click, get you every single episode for free. If you've got Android, iPhone, don't ever eat your podcast, 1 click, get it for you, and that's at merchants of dirt.com.
Thank you so much for help me build the merchandising group community and telling all your friends how they too can build better races. And I am Kyle Bon know the Rechinir, and I will see you on the next episode of The Merchants of DIRT podcast.