Today, I've merged as a dirt podcast episode number 11. Do you have a strategy for picking your race dates? Have you even started planning your race dates for next year? If you're thinking you need to pull out a calendar and pin and start making some guesses, stop. Don't do it until you've listened to this episode of The Burgess Direct podcast. We're gonna talk about race date selection strategies, how your business strategy greatly impacts your race, date choices.
And Can you get away with scheduling race on a holiday? I guess that it depends on a holiday, like the 1 coming up. I'll also introduce Seistak from a ventureracehub.com in the copy and closer segment. And talk about why I think focusing on newbies, green horns, and amateurs is a good way to bring a failing adventure race business back to life. Are you ready? Let's Carol.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays. Thank you for joining me for special episode of The Merchants of Dire podcast. I'm your professional recognier, your teacher, your merchant of Dire, your host and thinker of 6 impossible things before breakfast, Kyle Bondo. Our website is, of course, merchandered.com. And if you're due to the merchandered podcast, welcome aboard.
This is your personal trail guides with a complex world of recreational engineering. That's the Rechinir, recreational engineering wreck. In here. Just like imagine here. Where I help you simplify the business of off road race promotion and make the art and science all that crazy stuff behind building, promoting, and directing off road races and make it understandable.
Along with me is with a Grinch, the wreck curve races and the lover of his good hunting dog, bad luck, my cohost, Mister Murphy. And together, we're on a mission to teach you how to build better races and a better racing business. Let's get started. At the end of December is the the traditional seasonal part of American culture. Where we celebrate the holiday of Christmas, the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, and we start to gather our families together and
kind of take take note of what's important. Unlike Thanksgiving, Christmas is a is a holiday for giving. There's a lot of religious traditions that take place. You know, Christmas tree is part of that. A lot of the lights going up around the neighborhood. People giving gifts people coming to terms with the end of the year, this is the time that we can reflect to spend time with family and start to think about what's gonna come What's gonna come next?
But in doing that, as far as race promoters are concerned, What comes next is a big deal. And in the strategic planning cycle, this is the time of year or you need to have thought out or thinking out what it is you plan on doing next year. Why is that important? Well, because picking dates and knowing what you're going to race and knowing what races you're gonna put on for next year is kind of the the initial starting point for building any race.
You not only need to know where you wanna build a race and what you wanna build, but what date you wanna do that on. Because it involves the permit process, which can take considerable amount of time. So preparation for the permit prices depending on where you wanna do your events, is a critical step in planning a race. And this should be no mystery to you. I mean, permit planning by itself can be, of course,
that it can be taught for for days and days on end. On how to get permits, how to build permits, how to build bulletins, how to convince park managers to give you, you know, time and and resources to do an event on your property includes getting, you know, police officers sometimes are involved. It includes insurance and associations. I think it goes on and on and on. Right? So you wanna start thinking about that all in advance. But the critical thing you need to know is what is your deadline?
What is that critical time where this race has to happen, and then you gotta work backwards from that date to know how much time do you actually have because time is something you can't stop. You may have a lot of money. You may have a lot of resources. You may have a lot of volunteers. But time is something you will not have a lot of a lot of. Time is that resource that you can never get back. So
planning is critical, and this is the season for doing the planning, for starting that planning. And we kick that off by picking race dates because this is an important part of this strategic process. I mean, usually between October December, you sit down with your list of potential race offerings, pull out your calendar and pin and start considering possible dates. But you have to stop. And why do you have to stop? Because you're going about this without all the facts.
You know what you're thinking? All the facts. Yeah. Those bits of information that greatly impact your date choices.
You need to collect them first. Then you can go to the calendar and start considering dates. I wish for something else. What information are you talking about, Kyle? Well, now you're asking the right question. You're not thinking of just picking dates. You need to think about what is important to your race. What type of information am I talking about that directly is related to maximizing your turnout for each of your race dates.
Now, I'm including the following questions you need to ask yourself before you start doing any race date preparation. So this strategy has 5 parts. The first part is how many races do you plan on offering next year? The second part, what days of the week will you rate will your race to be held on? That's important. Some races are on Saturday, Sunday, some are on Wednesday. Number 3, how many races will your competition offer next year? Do you know that?
Number 4, what weekends will you consider blocked or blacked out? And number 5, what weekends are risk? Okay. By going through these questions 1 by 1, you start to create a list of dates that will not work for you next season. When you remove all the wrong dates, the right dates emerged from the calendar like a secret map revealed by Lemon Juice. Yeah. Lemon juice. Let's go let's go way back in the way back machine.
Why don't you go look up invisible ink for that 1? Yeah. It's a boy scout thing. It's also the back of the comic books. Living Juice used to write the secret messages. Right? In a world that only has 365 days in it. Okay. 366 of your those pesky leap years. Right? Next year leap year 2017. Yeah. I don't think so. They're usually even. Right? And divide by 4, carry the 2.
Okay. No more math. So you only have 52 weekends realistically, and you have a total of a 104 days available to you and your races. That's a 104 So that's worth 52 Saturdays, 52 Sundays, 104 total weekend days. Unless you're gonna do a race on a weekday,
which is rare, but summer numb summer months can have those. Right? So when you take away all the dates that will cause you problems, The number is greatly reduced. I mean, some days or some days are easy to pick. I mean, others will require you to either embrace some risk or make a change to improve your chances for a higher race turnout.
Let me think about what kind of changes you're talking about. Well, the change here could be your your venue. Your location could be something you have to change. The discipline of the format you want to race, that might change. Or maybe you need to offer something completely different. In order to get people to come. I mean, thus, is the life of the race promoter? I mean, like any other business, you need to adapt to constant change. And picking your dates is no different.
The dates you had last year will not be the same dates this year or next, and you need to be okay with that. Be flexible during this process. If you fixate on a particular date because you have to have it, you will create problems for yourself and good business. You can stand your ground on some dates but be willing to move away from competition on others. Competition is great for customers, but it is lousy for your business.
You know, you might have thinking of what I thought competition was good, not if you and your competitor are fighting over the same finite set of customers. Customers love having all the choices. However, the risk in competing directly with your competitor is that your your customers have to choose. And if they have to choose, here's a thought. What if they don't pick you? What then? Then your turnout suffers. Right?
I don't want your turn out to suffer. So we're gonna work through this process before you decide your dates. Are you with me? Let's do number 1 then. How many races will you offer next year? Pretty simple. Right? This should be a pretty easy question to answer. Are you planning a certain number of races for your 1st or next season? How many is that? Is it 1? Is it 10? Is it 20? Whatever that number. This is the number of weekends you need to find.
See? Easy. Number 2, what days of the week will your racers be held on? Now, after finding this number, think about who your customers are. Are they no matter what we can warriors? Or are they Sundays are for church racers? Your customers will be a mix of the 2. But finding out what that mix is is a challenge. If you don't know, then you need to hedge your bets on either making a principal decision or conduct a market experiment.
And you're thinking, principle decision. What's that? Think about Chick Fil A. They are you know, if you don't know about Chick Fil A, Chick Fil A is a Russ rod on the East Coast Yeah. Throughout the South, whatever. And they made a decision, a bold business decision to not have employees work on Sundays. And ironically, that's when you want Chick fil A, the most, is on Sundays,
and they're not open. But they made a decision. They will not be open on Sundays. So consider there is a strong American tradition of going to church on Sundays. You're going to have to make these decisions too. Do you make the principal decision and not hold a race on on Saturdays? Or do you decide to have your races only on Sundays? If you make that kind of decision for your races, you obviously limit your choices. Maybe you decide to make it half Saturdays, half Sundays.
Whatever you decide, your decision will appeal to a percentage of your customers. Which means your decision will also not appeal to a percentage of your customers. It's your job to figure out which percentage is more important to you in your business. The decision you make is not right or wrong. It's strategic. Which means it can change over time as you learn new things about your customers. I mean, you could take the number of races you plan on hosting
and host half on Saturday and the other half on Sunday. Then collect your data based on all the turnout of each of these days and see which day is more popular. My hunch is Saturday will be the winner. That's just a hunch. Make the data, make the decision for you. The point is your principal decision is to make a decision and then stick with that decision until you learn new new information.
Alright. Number 3, how many races will your competitors have next year? This 1 seems easy, but it can be challenging.
And I say it's challenging because, sure, some off road competitors are obvious. They offer the same racist ones you they might even offer this you know, use the same parks as you, and it's highly likely they also have the same customers as you. Pretty easy to spot those people. Right? You can check their schedules, see their plan dates, and know what venues they're targeting for next year. That's not hard to do. It's the competitors that are not so obvious that you need to be on the lookout for.
So who are they? Well, they come in 2 types. 1 is direct competition. These are the up and comers that are putting on races just like yours, but if you have to announce their presence, kind of the stealth guys. They can also be indirect competition. And this takes the form of events that will suck your customers' time away because we're talking about time here, free time, and disposable income and recreational free time. Well, time management on weekends
can be certain things can pull away customers that you don't expect. And customers have a limited amount of free time each weekend. With enough planning, they can see your race far off in the distance and work their life around everything which is why you plan your events now and not in July. Unfortunately,
there are things that will take up a customer's time. Especially here in America, that are important to family, communities, and even to the culture. So what are those? Well, first off, holidays. They're the first ones that come to mind. Holidays come in 2 flavors, a holiday that gets customers that come outside and play,
and the other kind that takes your customers away. Knowing which holiday is which is important to maintaining a healthy turnout. I mean, Columbus or Presidents' Day might be great for turnout. Thanksgiving and Christmas are never great for turnout. Knowing which holidays work for your business is critical to knowing which kind of customers are gonna show especially when it comes to getting your permits in early to capture a particular weekend
before your competitors do. When it comes to special events, graduations are easily the first 1 that comes to mind. The impact of graduation time is always something to consider when picking dates. Customers have kids. Or our kids, and likely they'll be impacted by the rotation of the May December graduations.
1st and last days of school is another kind of special event to avoid. Again, customers with kids or kids themselves may not have the energy to come to your race around that time. You might get the 1 or 2 that just needs to break everything, but the overall turnout will take a hit. This goes for college kids too. They start much earlier than the k's or 12 kids. And have things like orientation and move in days to consider.
So avoid future conflicts by understanding your community schedule along with your competitor schedule, then look at those days that have nothing planned and pounce on them as soon as possible. Number 4. What weekends will you consider blocked or blacked out? The competitor that enjoys taking all the good weekends away with early permits. We're talking like really early permits. And likes to plan all their events on the same day as your races,
is not your friend. These might be the same competitors that use your company as an example of why they are better. Those are also not your friends. Fortunately, when competitors do this sort of thing, call you out and jam you, jam up your turnout, they are doing you a favor. Are you thinking, do it be a favor? Yes. When they call out your company, call you out as competition, they are declaring you as their competitor. This makes it easy to identify them as competitors.
They may not have anything on your business in the sense of quality or value, but they are gunning for your customers. A competitor that makes their intentions known is easy to spot. Once you know who they are, you need to see what they are offering. And what are they offering? Let me tell you a little bedtime tale to help you get those sugar plums in your head and imagine reindeer on the roof.
About race promoters and their seasonal schedules. Once upon a time, race promoters released their seasonal schedules in January. Then 1 day, erase promoter. You know, we'll call him. He's the, you know, the Grinch. Right? Decided they wanted better dates So they released their schedules in December to beat the other ones to the best dates. This started a schedule arms race. To see who could release her schedules. The earliest now schedules are coming out as early as October.
Before the season's even over, I'm surprised by next year. We don't see schedules being released in July. Or maybe how about we release our schedules now? And then next month, we'll release our 18 schedules. Right? Please. This kind of 1 upmanship is ridiculous pretending that releasing a schedule early allows you to call Dibs on certain days is nonsense. Why is it nonsense? First off, No 1 can call Dibs on a date. No 1.
Let that sink in for a minute. Why can't you call Dibs? Simple. Park managers do not approve permits that far in advance, especially if you call Dibs, period. Not only do they have fiscal year issues to deal with, but race promoters do not have the first right to the park. Mccamps, after school events, other sports, farmer's markets, clubs activities. The list goes on and on and on of all the realizations. That have also have right to be at the park. Not to mention contracts.
So, I mean, we're talking after school sports and programs and graduation parties. Now off road racing is very special when it comes to parliament. Mainly because after all the other organizations I mentioned, off road sports usually does not interfere with their operations. A softball can take place in the same time as a mountain bike race. But a park manager has to worry about more than just land use. They all have to be concerned about traffic and parking and utilities and emergency access.
The result is the decision making process. At least with venues throughout the United States that can only be reserved as early as 6 months in advance. The other venues require you to submit that your permits the same year as your event. If you submit them too early, the park may just sit on the application for months before they approve it. Well, worse, ignore it outright and make you submit it again. Oh, maybe even worse than that. Take the permit, say thank you, and forget about you.
When a competitor claims a date for a certain venue and it is on the same day and same venue that you want to host your event, take it with a grain of salt, Some race promoter release schedules first and apply for permit second. If you want that date and venue for you, you might have to call their bluff. Me contact the park measure and find out what the reality is. You could even there's a a great blog article I wrote on brickandear.com.
I'll put this in the show notes. Called get your next race permit approved, where we go through the process of how race permits actually work. Is there a real permit in the works or did they just post a schedule without the paperwork to scare off the competition? Remember what I said about competition, only being great for customers and lousy for business, there's some risk to finding out if your competition is not submitted to permit.
And You're not gonna make any friends by going in and scooping that venue out from underneath them with your own real permit. I mean, unless that date is critical to your business and you are willing to stay on your ground, This could be a bad move. A bad move that could end with you losing the fight. But then again, you could win the fight I mean, there's only 52 weekends in a year. Fewer if you had holidays, weather and time with yourself and your family. Your competition can't have them all. Can you afford to let your competition have all the good dates and venues? You can either concede those dates or competition
or fight your competitors for the important ones. The choice is yours, but choose your battles carefully. No matter how flexible you are, you will at some point have to fight for a specific date at a venue. If this fight fails, take a deep breath and keep an open mind. Sometimes having your venue snaked away by a competitor, will lead you to an even better location. So consider the fight and where you wanna stand your ground before you actually go through it.
And finally, number 5. What are weakens our risk? Whether it can make your race or destroy it. Depending on where you where you live, weather can be a benefit or a curse. Why? Because it's so unpredictable. Sure. A week out, you might have a good idea what the weather's gonna be like. Well, what about 9
6, 9 months out. You'll have no clue because you can't tell the future. What was the sunny October of Virginia 1 year? May be the month that gets the foot of snow for the first time in a 100 years. You will never know, but you can guess. Sometimes, Old tools like the farmer's Almanac can help you make decisions about whether chances is far in advance. Is it perfect? No way. Seasons will have variations from year to year that will make your life difficult.
And that's a nice word. However, If you live in an area long enough, you'll start to get an idea on what months are the reliable ones. Then you roll the dice with the months that are not reliable. These are the risky months. And why are they risky? When the weather is so unpredictable, you're gambling on the chance that your race will not be canceled due to bad conditions. Most established race promoters might not have races during these months, which opens all sorts of days up for your races.
But the financial loss from canceling a race can be devastating. Hence, the risk, your risk can be minimized by backing up your dates with rain dates. You can also check out how to bounce back from everything and everything goes wrong, another idea is on how to mitigate your risk. I have another blog post atreckinger.com,
that I'll put the link in the show notes about how to bounce back when everything goes wrong. And other ideas on how to mitigate your risk, but It can also be minimized by finding venues that will allow you to race, raid, and shine. They exist. See if you can find those. Both of these options can open up new possibilities. It could work. It could not.
And do you chance it? Go back to the principal decision process we talked about earlier. Do you use dates and months you know will have bad weather? Does your season start in April and in October? Or do you run your business year round? Again, the choice is yours, and it has an impact on the available number of weekends you can use. Make a choice and stick to it.
With those 5 steps, you now have a basic understanding of how this strategic process works, Remember, number 1, how many races do you plan to offer next year? 2, what days of the week will your races be held on? 3, how many races will you have competitors asking for the same dates next year. 4, what weekends will you consider blocked or blacked out? And 5, what weekends do you consider a risk? With that information,
it's now time to start considering your race dates. And this process should provide you with the information you need to know. But you have to do that before you begin. You can now, with all of this put together, make some intelligent decisions based on the information you collected. Which race dates and venues are good, and which ones are bad. You should know that now. Right? If so, now is the time to sit down with your list of potential race offerings,
pull out the calendar, grab your pen, and start considering the possible dates. You have all the facts now. Pick your dates already. In this week's coffees for closers segment, I wanna tell you about size sack of the ventureracehub at ventureracehub.com. Sai is an adventure racing evangelist located in my hometown of Seattle, Washington, who started adventureshub.com
to help grow the sport of Venture Racing. Beside's website is more than just another of, you know, a Venture Race fan site. He's built a Venture Race Hub into a complete platform. That focuses exclusively on growth strategies, training, thought leadership, and promotion ideas for adventure racers, and adventure race directors. Mean, 1 of the latest articles I read on a Venture Race Hub was titled targeting your niche audience, and I'll have a link to that in the show notes.
It taught me the importance of getting specific about customers
and to define my target audience using 3 variables, not just 2. To which I figured out that my target audience is off road x. Race promoters. Why? Who want to build better races? See? Take it that right side? I hope so. The learning never ends. Ridge Race Hub is also a place to find races, which is I know something that really really important to eventual racers because finding races online is very tough, and Cy understands this problem. And to solve that, this is why Sci went
and created the the SciShow Venture Race Calendar. And I will link to that as shown as 2. And it's the same problem most refrigerators have in finding a race, especially a a race in your area, and 1 that matches your skill level. That's hard to do. Well, Tsai has done the the work for you. Not only does he have a list of the races that are real races, It's not just the ones that went out of date years ago, but a nice map to find out where you live and what the races are around you. Mean, this list tons of races across the United States, and size adding new ones all the time. So if you have a race, it's the omez list, and you're an adventure racer, or an event race promoter, reach out to Tsai, and I'm sure he will add it because that's that's the but this is this little tiny this tiny little part of his website is so valuable. Not to mention all the other content you find on there. So if you're interested in adventure racing or you're thinking about starting an adventure race yourself, then visit adventureshub.com.
And it's a great place to start a venture racing. So I I mentioned Psy in the Coffee of Closure segment, because he interviewed the uni for his his upcoming his upcoming newsletter or 1 of his upcoming newsletters, where we kinda got into the the discussion of what is going right and what is going wrong with adventure racing. So to that end, we started talking about Where have all the amateurs gone? Where are the beginners? What is going on of interracing when it comes to entry level?
So I wanna talk a little bit about that. And I wanna begin this by saying, talk about some of my when it comes to the Venture Racing, some of my heroes. And 2 of my heroes are, of course, Lewis and Clark. And if Louisa Clark were alive today, you don't know who Louisa and Clark are. In the early 1800, Thomas Jefferson commissioned them to go across in trace to the origin of the Missouri River.
And in doing so, they found the the route to which basically is the Columbia River into the Pacific Northwest. They connected the Rockies between the Louisiana Purchase and the Rest of History. Right? It's almost like the first space mission if you if you would think about it because they went unsupported into the middle of nowhere with there's no safety net. No spots GPS to pull them out, no rescue team, no EMS. They were on their own.
So pretty crazy. Right? So if Lewis and Clark were live today, would they be considered professional or amateur level of erasers? That's kind of an odd question to ask, but now bear with me. Knowing their will document history and how they stumbled their way across the American West, it is possible that their native American support crew would have been hard pressed to get these 2 adventurers back on the path before team Nike or team Seagate
left them in the dust. I mean, especially if they just had run out of their spare wagon wheels for their mountain bike penny furthing, and then they stopped to replace yet another wood bottom boots sole and still need the time to hunt their food prior to leaving Check Point 9. In comparison, today's event eraser is light years ahead of the loose of Hark style exploration.
They carry regularized shoe designs, concentrated nutrition supplements, bacteria free hydration packs, state of the art mountain bikes, precision topographic maps, and the training that would rival that of any Ironman triathlete. All this gear, the what if they lose a clerk's journey westward, more about endurance and less of a raw survival.
However, there's something to admire about Lewis and Clark signing up for the Thomas Gifferson's Memorial of Interrace, expedition level, Rogain style, of course. Without any of the fancy outdoor gear, endurance training, and even accurate maps, I may step into this challenge without really even knowing where they were going, what dangers awaited them along the way, and what to expect when they arrived, if they arrived.
And every single checkpoint was manned by angry American Indians who never had any ice for their camelbacks. Poor losing clerk. But why would 2 grown men attempt something so daunting? And, of course, they weren't alone. And there's all the the nuances of of what their trip was. But let's just let's just bring it down to just lose a car. Why would 2 grown men attempt to do something so daunting? Was it their sense of patriotism and duty to their president?
I mean, that might play a role. Thomas Jefferson, big deal. Right? Was it their desire for fame and fortune? Possibly. But then they would have had to to know in advance that they were going to return alive long enough to enjoy it. Now, the real reason I think that Tom Lusen Clark signed up for Thomas Jefferson's memorial venture race, was there an adulterated sense of adventure and curiosity for the outdoors? Aw. I know something that's got, you know, that's kind of touching. Right?
They did it because they wanted to see what's out there. It's the same sense of adventure and courage that brings 1000 of new event erasers into the sport every year. The problem, however, is too many of the current assortment of adventure races are geared towards advanced racers, not amateurs.
But if you're a Greenhorn event eraser, the idealism of Lewis and Clark style expedition has been lost among today's event erasing promotion companies no longer are they looking to create events that act as gateways to hard races? Why is that?
Some think it's the connection to the golden years of interracing. When Mark Burnett was producing races like the Eco Challenge, and there was Primal Quest, and the heyday of racing on TV, or maybe it's the belief that Short easy event erasing is just not event erasing, you know, the purest idea. They might see newbie adventure races as tough to produce in an era that is seeing this meteoric rise of obstacle course racing Whatever the reason it has to stop,
a venture racing will not survive without a new base of racing to carry it on. It just won't. All the sports that had this problem go through that that kind of like death phase where they start to fall away and kind of disappeared to obscurity. Is this new crop of loose and clerk style of Venturacing Idealists that need to be cultivated?
With events geared towards their newfound loose and clerk style of exploration, you know, that that just see what's out there, that outdoor adventure, Not with events that take them out of the fantasy, but producing short and interesting beginner level of enter races, newly created adventure race athletes Can't do something, even some of the advanced racers need to do, and that's learn new skills. And you can't hone these skills after only 1 race.
Newbies and amateurs need time and experience to do this. Instead of throwing them into the sport and defending the that they ceased being invented to amateurs. This is exactly why obstacle course racing is stealing all of a venture racing beginner level where obstacle course racing has thrived in its training, group activities, and team building. Venture Racing has started to go back underground again.
And that sucks with more and more attention being directed towards expedition races, Sooner for the advance level of race racer, now I'm no I'm no premature when it comes to event racing. But even ice, you know, you know, 24 hour races are not simple things to do. Not only that, it's tough to get a team especially COVID team at that level to race. It's tough. Imagine for beginners. Imagine for people who've never done a venture is me for. That the only race in town is 24 hour? Oh my gosh.
So these style of big production adventure races leave the beginner adventure race are forced with a decision to either sign up for a race way beyond their capabilities. Or what do you think the other option is? That's right. They're gonna go to the obstacle course race where the atmosphere is more inviting. Ask any adventure race pro or what choice these amateur level customers are choosing. The big money is not on adventure racing.
And the gap between beginner and advanced event erasing, the event erasers is increasing. Ironically, most sports with professional level athletes have this problem. All the money fame and energy is spent pandering to the professional athlete in the world championship like events. With little emphasis placed in the beginner. And some might say the beginners or diamond design while professionals are the truly unique individuals.
Others might say the professionals attract more media interest, which in turn brings more sponsors and money. However, the trend fails to acknowledge a simple truth Without a strong base of up and coming beginner athletes, a venture racing will die. I mean, we're already seeing a decline. And if you don't see the decline, you're not looking. Your eyes aren't open. There is a decline in adventure racing. Look around.
Promoter enthusiasm and tight knit racer communities do not bring the same amount of new racers into the sport as are leaving or ignoring of the racing altogether. Think about it. The NFL does not exist without the NCAA, the college level athletes, and the NCAA does not exist without high school football. And high school football would be hard pressed without organizers organizations like Pop Warner or Kiwi Football, to get kids interested in football before they go in high school.
A venture racing seems to be only focused on the NFL and NCAA level events. Wow, obstacle course race promoters are happy to take away all your high school and Kiwi level of interracers. The hard truth is that there will come a day When too many race trailers can't afford to put on an adventure race, when only 20 racers show up, are you 1 of these race trailers? And it's time to stop ignoring the £5000 warm elephant in the room. The solution is simple.
Make a venture racing accessible to newbies again. Right now, there is a unique opportunity within the optical course racing market that a venture race promoters can capitalize on. And you wanna know what that opportunity is, It's the popularity of obstacle course racing. Some might get you or holder knows the thought. Obstacle courses aren't a venture racing. Oh, gross. Those are the posers who all think they're doing CrossFit.
Okay. If if you want to stay in business as an adventure race router, then you need to pay attention. Because consider this for a moment, obstacle course racing is doing something that our printer racing is not, and it is getting people, customers, interested in off road endurance sports again, and you cannot deny that truth. But obstacle course racing is only getting those beginner level racers halfway there.
By producing beginner of enter races, you now allow those newly minted newbie insurance racers a new challenge 1 that is just different enough to be attractive. This in turn acts as a conduit that a channel begins with the bigger races over time. However, this can't be done alone. Aventura race promoters have to know that their biggest challenge in aventura racing is not the endurance, but the navigation. Navigation is the number 1 thing that cares beginners away from the sport.
This is why there should be an effort to cultivate a relationship with local orienteering clubs. In fact, if USA if anterian USA wanted to solve its budget problem, it wouldn't embrace and measure racing today. Hear that rain clearing USA? Venture Razors is how you solve your budget problem. But that's a rant for another time. Helping beginners become better navigators
by teaching them real or entering skills will shorten the learning curve dramatically. No more expensive clinics or venture racing schools either. These don't scale when it comes to expanding the sport. Instead, you should be making an effort to teach a venture racing navigation and strategy for free at meetup.comlikeformat. And if you haven't already tried it, you need to go to the Osco course race and see it for yourself This is what a venture racing could be like.
Don't ignore the change in the endurance racing trend and cling to the past that calls any short beginner event to race, not event to racing. Otherwise, you will soon see the day where only 20 races show up to your advanced event to race. While 5000 beginners show up to the Spartan race down the street, don't be that promoter. Optical course racing is a good thing. It's a good thing for your business because it's getting people interested in endurance sports, and you can cultivate that.
Because obstacle courses only go so far. You can only climb up enough walls and jump in enough ice or jump through enough fire pits. Before that guy gets old. So adventure racing becomes the next best thing, becomes that, hey, come over here. This is something that you can expand. And not only that, but the skills you learn in Venture Racing, you can use in real life. You can, you know, throw the zombie apocalypse at them if you want to.
You know, navigation by map is a skill that's lost among the population right now. They can learn that. Mountain biking isn't essential sport when the engines of cars don't ride anymore. You don't know how to ride a bike, a trail running. Is an essential sport. You're gonna need strong legs. They say the survivors of the apocalypse are gonna be those who do cardio. Right? Be hard to kill, get fitter, all that stuff. The optical core people are stealing your logins.
They're stealing your marketing. They're enjoying your lack of interest in the beginners, the novice, and the green horns. So Stop ignoring it, embrace it, and offer them that extra stuff, that extra when optical racing loses its its uniqueness. And now you know.
Thank you so much for listening to the merch of the dirt podcast. If you have any questions or comments, reach out to me on Twitter at merchants of dirt. If you wanna subscribe and make sure you never miss an episode, merchants of dirt.com is how you could do it. 1 click gets you every single episode for free. If you've got Android, Iphone, whoever eats your podcast, 1 click gets it for you. Thank you for helping me build the merchandiser community and for telling all your friends how they can build better races too. I'll see you on the next episode of The Merchants Group podcast, which happens to be our last 1 for the season. Until then, Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, and take care.