Would you like to get sponsored???

[JeremyC]

Its alot easer to get a salesman to cut you a deal if you help him out first. I used to get some really good deals from the guys at car toys. But I brought them alot of business, and basically worked as a sales man any time I was there and they were swamped. It was funny to see peoples faces when I told them I didn't work there. After spending 30 min answering questions and telling them about products.

And I try to do the same for people now. If they bring me a couple of people to install for, I will cut them the best deal I can. Now if they are always trying to cut corners, and I don't see them doing anything to help me. Well lets just say "It won't hurt my feelings"

[JoshKeller]

Even if it was legit, you couldnt pay me to be sponsered by a car audio company. I like to change my setup a good bit.

I am currently sponsered by 9 fishing related businesses. (I'm a semi pro B.A.S.S. fisherman). In the sponsering world, performance isnt nearly as much as you would think it is. If you can promote a product, have good speaking and presentation skills, and have a tolerable look, you can get sponsers.

[geolemon]

...If you ...have good speaking and presentation skills ...you can get sponsers.

I'm sorry, I nearly fell off my floor at the irony of this quote:
It's spelled "sponsors"

But on this same thought, I used to have kids all the time ask me if I was sponsored for skateboarding... and inevitably when I said "no", they'd say "you should try", or "why not", etc...

I'd been down that road before, and the benefits don't outweigh the responsibilities.
"Responsibilities" are key, to sponsorship... regardless of where.

No company is going to give you anything, without a contract of sorts, saying that you are going to "pay them back" for the product in the form of promotion of their product.
...and since that product has such value, such expense, that's going to take a lot of work - you'll have obligations.

That was what I didn't like about skateboarding sponsors...
When I had sponsors, I'd get a deck every few weeks or a month, for example.
And for that, they expected I'd find a way to get to contests that were hours away, and then turned out to be 15 kids in a parking lot.
Or, they'd expect me to get together with 5 other kids that I really didn't know to put a demo on at some little thing that they really didn't organize.
And it would eat up weekend after weekend.

OR...
I could get a part-time job working less hours, and get cash as pay that I could CHOOSE to use to buy myself a skateboard deck every few weeks... or do whatever I want with the money.

Think about it, it's not all "freebie!"