Belinda [00:00:02]:
Hello, Courtney, and welcome to the motorsport Coaching podcast.
Courtney [00:00:05]:
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I'm a little nervous, but very excited.
Belinda [00:00:09]:
Well, it's been a long time coming and we're finally just having a chat and telling the world a little bit more about you. So, for those who don't know you, who are you?
Courtney [00:00:19]:
I am Courtney walking. I'm the CEO and founder of career management. We are fairly new in terms of business world, but I've been in the automotive motorsport world for quite some time now, since I was about 15. I started as an apprentice mechanic, and then I did that for quite a few years, and then, unfortunately, due to injury, I had to hang up my tools and then I moved into parts. So I've been around the motorsport world for a very long time.
Belinda [00:00:46]:
Yeah. And is that from your family, or how did your love involved, actually?
Courtney [00:00:51]:
So I grew up with very nice cars. I learned to drive in a Porsche. My dad always had very nice cars, so I learnt cars at a very young age. But in terms of working on them, my father definitely was not that man. But I had a lot of friends that worked on cars and we used to spend our Saturday nights and Friday nights driving around like absolute hooligans and working on all the cars. And then one day I was just like, hold on, I can monetize this. I can get paid for this. So then I went and got an apprenticeship, and I loved every minute of mean, you know, as much as an apprentice mechanic can.
Belinda [00:01:26]:
Yeah. And then after your apprenticeship, Dan, tell us about your career.
Courtney [00:01:31]:
Yeah, so after that I got into parts because I was working for a dealership and I had an injury, so I had to get kicked out. And then I did that for a bit and decided, this ain't for me. And then I did some other jobs, just worked for a brewery, built train injectors and stuff like that. So I was kind of always around that world. And then probably about two, three years ago, I started working in the events world and started working with an activation company. And that is where it all kind of started, because I realized there was a huge gap in the market between car sponsors and actually leveraging the sponsorship. So I went into that for probably two years, honestly, probably a bit longer than two years. And then I've recently started my own company with content creation and strategy and all of that, because that is the biggest thing that sponsors need, is that leverage, honestly.
Belinda [00:02:21]:
Yeah. Well, let's go a bit more detail into all of those fantastic services that you currently offer. So, yeah, you just mentioned content creation. Tell us a little bit more about that.
Courtney [00:02:32]:
Yeah, so I do content creation for one driver at the moment and I've worked with some others in the past. Basically, I can come to the track with you and film absolutely everything, or I also offer a strategy session. So kind of going, hey, what do you want to achieve? What are you looking for? How do you want to achieve it? And really educating a lot of the drivers on making sure that you are shouting at your sponsors and working with your sponsors of, hey, it doesn't just have to be at the track or hey, I use this product, this is great, which that's fantastic, please do that. But also work with them and say, hey, do you want me to film some content, getting the car ready or using it in my home life or anything like that? So really working with your sponsors and leveraging them. Beautiful.
Belinda [00:03:13]:
And then you've also listed that you're doing some brand identity stuff in the social media management side of things. Can you tell us a little bit more about those?
Courtney [00:03:21]:
Yeah, absolutely. So everyone's on social media. That is absolutely no secret. And it's important to kind of have your own voice on social media while you're out there. And like I said before, it doesn't just have to be like, hey, I got p three, p two, woo. It's everything that comes up to that. Everyone wants to see the nitty gritty what you do outside of racing as well. So show that.
Courtney [00:03:41]:
And there's a lot of fun ways to do it. You don't have to just sit there and stand in front of the camera. You can be very creative with it. We all love TikTok. We love the gimmicky TikToks that you can make.
Belinda [00:03:51]:
Let's just back up. And not everybody loves TikToks. You know that I don't like the TikTok things.
Courtney [00:03:57]:
TikTok in itself is like killing my soul at the moment because will push out quality content and then it's like, you know what, don't like it, don't want to show it to anyone. And I'm going to give you three views. So look, we love the creativity that TikTok does, but we don't love the consistency that she pushes out. It's not the best, but it is a lot of fun on TikTok. And you can also use that content everywhere. So a lot of people are like, oh, I don't have the time. But really you just need to get really good at time management or hiring someone like myself that can help you with that because it's a lot, especially when you have to run an entire race team and work everything out and work on the car and then also do all your media. It's a lot.
Belinda [00:04:40]:
Right?
Courtney [00:04:41]:
Yeah.
Belinda [00:04:41]:
So yeah, I encourage the batching as well, and if not outsource. Absolutely. And you mentioned you've just come off like doing some activation work and you're coming from that event. So you also do help with event management side of things. What kind of services under that event management?
Courtney [00:04:57]:
Yeah, so I'm not working a lot in that, but with my background I can definitely assist. I will probably eventually get into that space, but seeing where the content creation kind of takes me, I basically am just here to kind of help people understand what their sponsors need and how we can leverage it and how you can do it yourself as well. And, yeah, working in that event space, it's about having a table and gazebo at the event and getting your brand reps to come down and actually talk about the product and have a fun game going on or everything like that. I also work with an incredible activation company that I can work with and kind of suggest working with them as well. They're more boots on the ground. I am one person, so I definitely can't do it all, but I work with some amazing people. Yes. And so you mentioned, do you work.
Belinda [00:05:43]:
With both the sponsors as well as the athletes or both together?
Courtney [00:05:46]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think I, the best way to kind of describe what I'm doing as well is I'm the middleman. Like, I'm working with your sponsors as well as working with the athlete and saying, hey, we need to get this done. This is what they need, this is what they want. Which just takes a lot of the stress off my drivers because it's a lot, like I've said before, it's a lot of work and especially when you're racing and doing everything else, it falls through the cracks a little bit and you don't want upset sponsors, you want them to walk away from the weekend going, wow, thank you. That was unreal. And now we've got six months of content from one race.
Belinda [00:06:24]:
Yeah, and that's right. And that's something really big. That something I'm very big on is that obviously once you engage with that sponsor going forward, what is your sponsorship strategy after that? So it's one thing to actually get and so inside the winning sponsors course that I've got coming up, we've got a big module about that. So then what happens after? What is your strategy looking like, and then is it a matter of engaging with someone like yourself to actually work through that strategy with them, or they can work it out and then they can work with you to actually activate it and put it all together. Because once it comes to gaining sponsorship, it's that what is the sponsor wanting to get out of that relationship? And it's like, okay, well, then how do you make it happen? So I think exactly what you're saying at the beginning of the interview is that you identified that gap and that's that gap that you're feeling. Okay, well, now that you've said yes, and now that the athlete has said that, yeah, we can have the car there or we can have you at the racetrack, you actually make all of that process happen.
Courtney [00:07:24]:
Absolutely. And I think it's just, you don't want to be a sticker slapper in the industry. You don't want to be that guy that slaps on the sticker and shakes their hand and say, thanks heaps because they are not going to want to come back. They didn't have the best experience. It's not fun for them. You want them to be included. You want them to walk away and go, wow, we wanted a sticker, but we got all of this other stuff that we can use and actually leverage and actually get a return on investment, which is what the sponsor wants. That's the point of it.
Courtney [00:07:51]:
So, yes, I'm massive on that and just bridging that gap.
Belinda [00:07:56]:
Definitely a requirement. So someone's getting started, I guess, within the industry when it comes to social media and brand identity. Do you have any tips about getting started?
Courtney [00:08:07]:
Absolutely. I feel like definitely take inspiration from people that you look up to. F one. They're a great example of what they're doing at the moment. They really shook up the industry after drive to survive and all of the media that's coming out of it. So whether it's them or whether it's an 86 driver or someone local in Australia, follow them, see what they're doing, see if you like what they're doing and just start. I think we get so many mental blocks about getting in front of a camera and posting about, people are going to say, oh, what are they doing? Or, oh, that's so cringe. But who cares? They're not doing it.
Courtney [00:08:40]:
It doesn't matter. Once you're big and successful, they're going to be like, oh, my God, can you give me a shout out? We don't want the haters. Just give it a crack. And the beauty of social media if you absolutely hate it is you can delete it and it's not on your page anymore.
Belinda [00:08:57]:
I think the biggest question that I get when it comes to social media is around about those that are introverts and they don't want to so much be on front of the camera.
Courtney [00:09:06]:
Of course, I think, look, it's something you've definitely got to work through, and I think working with someone like myself is definitely a great option for you because you don't have to show your face and you don't have to be talking. You can hire someone like myself or another content creation that we can just follow you around and we can make magic out of you. Being an introvert, I'm very grateful. I work with some people that are very extroverted, so making them look good is extremely easy.
Belinda [00:09:32]:
But I know the case studies.
Courtney [00:09:35]:
We'll give you a shout out. Cody McKay, you are the goat, like, easiest person to film. But I've also worked with people that are just like, I don't want to know the camera's there. I just want you to shoot me and capture what I'm doing, and I'm like, absolutely. So I think step one is definitely even just talking to someone like myself, and we can come up with a strategy, and I can give you a lot of suggestions on what you can do, but just be creative, even if it's about you don't want to talk on a camera like we are now. You can film behind the scenes stuff and then hide in your bedroom and do a voiceover, because that's definitely a lot less scary. Or TikTok and Instagram and stuff, they all do love the voice. You can actually type it and they speak for you.
Courtney [00:10:16]:
So that's another fantastic option.
Belinda [00:10:18]:
I was about to say, you see my face? I got it off. I'd like to say that's the only feature I love about TikTok is that you can do a voiceover now. It has that AI feature, so that's the only thing that TikTok that I do enjoy.
Courtney [00:10:31]:
Absolutely. But I think there's so many. Even, like, going into the fashion world, there's so many faceless accounts that people don't even show their face, and they're making a lot of money from it. So just be creative. Think outside the box, and if you can't reach out and we can think outside the box together.
Belinda [00:10:47]:
Fantastic. Now, you've also mentioned that you're doing some athlete management stuff. Is that side of the business taken off yet, or is that something that you're looking to add towards the end of the year.
Courtney [00:10:55]:
Towards the end of the year, possibly. At the moment, my books are very full. I think elephant in the room. The sponsorship world is a little tough at the moment. Budgets are very tight and a lot of people aren't kind of wanting to work with motorsport at the moment. So I'm definitely just focusing on the athletes that I do have. But I think working with yourself and what you're doing, I think everyone can do it themselves as well. I think it's super important to understand how to do it yourself.
Courtney [00:11:22]:
And then when you kind of get to the point where you need to reach out, definitely do so. But yeah, unfortunately my books are closed at the moment. It is a good thing. I know it's fantastic and I'm so grateful. But yeah, I get a lot of people reaching out. I'm like, I can teach you how to do it, but unfortunately I just don't have the capacity to do it for you right now.
Belinda [00:11:42]:
Yeah, but like you said, there's plenty of learnings around that people can pick it up. I think that that's one of the hardest things. When people start in motorsports, they don't realize how much stuff there is to do. And when I say stuff, I mean like the social media and getting sponsorship and brand. And that's okay if you just want to be a gentleman racer that races like once a week, sorry, once a month. But that those are wanting to actually kind of have some sort of an emitted to professional career. There is a lot of off track work that kind of goes into that, honestly, so much.
Courtney [00:12:13]:
And I feel like a lot of the work is the off track stuff, like whether it's preparing the car or preparing your sponsors. Most of the work is off track and you don't get to the track if you don't put in that work off the track and circling back to kind of massaging your sponsors post doing all of this stuff, you've really got to invest back into your sponsors because you don't want to be between every race going scrambling for a sponsor. It's not fun. I've been there. It's stressful as you don't want to be doing that. So if you're actually investing 10%, 20% back into your sponsor, whether it's hiring someone like myself or putting a brand activation on for them or whatever it is, please do that. Because then you actually get that long term relationship that they're going to want to be with you through your entire career and not just a once off thing.
Belinda [00:12:59]:
Yeah. And that's obviously, I'm very big in saying motorsport is a business and one of the first things that we go through when we're starting out with sponsorship is writing out all our expenses and that's definitely like one of the points that's in there is sponsorship reinvestment and.
Courtney [00:13:14]:
Exactly.
Belinda [00:13:15]:
Putting that 10% to 20%. Because we know in business we need to spend some money to make money and if we don't have that money to spend on our sponsors to get them, then there is a point, but there's no great point that's going to have a long lasting relationship with this sponsor if they're not really getting anything in return. And we know that that return on investment is quite minimal, especially in australian motorsports. So we have to show more fan experiences, more sponsors experiences to get them on board and get them emotionally attached to the race team, to the category.
Courtney [00:13:51]:
Yeah. And I think people need to realize it takes seven views of something for someone to actually go, oh, I'm going to buy that, or I'm going to look into that. So a secret on a race car, that's one. And if that's all you're doing, people aren't going to come back to you because you're not giving them a return of investment. Whereas if you're posting on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, you've got an aframe at the front, you've got them on your race suit, you're talking about them, you're in interviews. That's your seven that the people are going to go, oh, okay, I've heard them somewhere. I'm going to go look into them and I'm actually going to make a purchase. There's your return of investment and people don't understand that.
Courtney [00:14:27]:
And it's very frustrating because it's giving motorsport a bad name because we can do so much. And look at f one, look at what they're doing. Everyone knows every single brand on that because of what they're doing. Yeah, we need to do better.
Belinda [00:14:44]:
We do. Unfortunately, what's happening in the top tier at the moment is not really helping the grassroots. So that is very frustrating at the moment. But again, as you will agree with me, now is the opportune time to start seeking sponsors, especially for the 24, 25 year, because people, most australian based companies work off our financial year and they're pretty much starting to pull their budgets together. March and April to get signed off in June to activate come 1 July.
Courtney [00:15:18]:
Yeah, I was starting to work on sponsorships for this year back in September last year. So you've got to start now and you've got to start proving what you can do for them before. Like, even a great example of what we were doing is we were buying products that we personally use and then shouting them out on the instagram and doing videos. So then we can actually go to companies and say, look what we've done for other companies. It's about kind of taking that initiative and not just waiting for something to fall in your lap because people don't buy things that they can't kind of see that you've done. You need to go, we can do it. Here's the proof. This is what we do.
Belinda [00:15:53]:
That's right. And the sponsors are after the data. And that's pretty much exactly the data of how many viewers you've got or likes or follows shares. That kind of stuff, too. And I know this word that you love is that you're manifesting that you.
Courtney [00:16:08]:
Want to work with.
Belinda [00:16:09]:
So I know that you're very big on dreaming up of exactly what you want. So if you're wanting to work with, I'm trying to look for something, but yeah, if you're wanting to work with this coffee company, having that slight product placement inside your videos and tagging them, those little bits and so manifesting who you want to work with and the types of sponsors that you actually want to come on board.
Courtney [00:16:32]:
Absolutely. And it's also walking before you run with a sponsor as well. If you go to a company and say, hey, I've been using your product for the last five years, and look, we use it on the racetrack. Look at us. This is what we're doing. They're going to go, oh, sick. Thank you so much. That's fantastic.
Courtney [00:16:47]:
But if you're like cold going into a sponsor going, I would like a million dollars and I'm going to stick a sticker on the side of my car and I actually don't know what your product is. It's not it, it's not it. People don't want. It's, it's, it's, we don't want. So it's, I think definitely proving your worth before going in is massive. And social media is a great, easy, cheap way to do that as well because everyone can do it.
Belinda [00:17:13]:
Well, on that note where you just said it's cheap, what are your thoughts around the Facebook ads for sponsorship?
Courtney [00:17:19]:
I think it has its place. I think it needs to be done well, though. I think there's a lot of free courses out there. So before just throwing a bunch of money at Facebook and going, let's hope this works. Educate yourself or talk to someone that's educated. My biggest thing in my business is I want to be educating people to do it themselves because I don't want to just go, pay me x amount of money and I'll do it because I can. I can do that. Absolutely.
Courtney [00:17:44]:
And if you don't have the time, talk to me. I can do that for you, but go and educate yourself and absolutely. It has its place. But, yeah, just think about, yeah, I.
Belinda [00:17:59]:
Just use Facebook ads, but you can do Google Ads, you can do LinkedIn ads, you can do YouTube ads. Yeah. Like, pretty much every social media platform has ads. I just think that personally, yes, it's a time and place thing, but you're better off probably investing that money into the current sponsors that you have.
Courtney [00:18:17]:
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I think it's one of those things that sometimes you do need to pay to play, but also just making sure your content is good and you will organically grow. I think the organic growth is what you want. Sometimes it does help to pay to play, but don't drop $10,000 in ads straight away. If you've got a sponsor on the hook, you can actually go and invest that money elsewhere.
Belinda [00:18:40]:
Yes. Fantastic. Thanks, Courtney, for all that information today, people wanting to find out more about you, to follow your journey because you've got, like, a new Instagram account. She's new.
Courtney [00:18:52]:
It's like, I'm a social media manager and I have, like, 200 followers, but she's new, so just let me grow, guys.
Belinda [00:18:58]:
No, I think it's beautiful. I like it. Yes. How can people follow you? Of course, the links will be in the show notes.
Courtney [00:19:05]:
Thank you. So it's Carrera underscore management on Instagram and Courtney at Carrera management for my email. So, yes, I'm super excited to hopefully talk to a few of you and help you guide you on this wonderful world of motorsport. The heartbreaker that motorsport is, honestly.
Belinda [00:19:21]:
Yeah, definitely filling in a gap that a lot of athletes can benefit from. So don't hesitate to connect with Courtney. And, as she said, even if it's just for a strategy session, maybe an audit over their account. Absolutely. Some guidance about how to improve and how you guys can get some more eyes onto your socials as well. Make sure you reach out to Courtney. And, yeah, of course, if you need any assistance, she'll be more than happy to help and say, of course, you've heard about her from us at the motorsport coaching podcast. That would be fantastic.
Courtney [00:19:54]:
Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time and for listening, everyone, and I'm excited to speak with.
Belinda [00:19:59]:
All right, thanks, Connie, for your time. See ya. Thank you. Bye.
