Welcome to Momentum, a motorsports podcast powered by High Gear Success. I'm your host, Heather Wilson Schiltz. Here we share the stories and strategies that keep the world of motorsports moving forward. Today's guest is Amanda Van Den Elzen, a marketing strategist for a short course off-road race team, founder of Racer On Demand and co-host of the Racer On Demand podcast. So Amanda, thank you for joining me. Thanks so much for having me, I'm excited to be here. Yeah, so we have had the pleasure of knowing each other online for, it feels like at least a couple of years now. Yeah. And we finally got to meet in person at PRI and Indie back in December. So that was so cool for me. It was like meeting a friend for the first time, but you've been friends for a while. It was wild. Yes, so very cool. That was my first time ever at PRI. It was performance racing industry for those that aren't familiar with it. Definitely overwhelming. That is an understatement. And this was the biggest year so far, so it was even more overwhelming than normal. Yeah, and definitely a demographic that I'm not particularly used to. Not a lot of motorcycle stuff there, mostly I would say auto car focus stuff. lots of machinery, pieces and parts, tooling, just all kinds of stuff, but also some really great seminars, which I really enjoyed. Yeah, you know, that used to not be our demographic there either. started going, oh gosh, I think this was probably like our fifth or sixth year. And when we started going, there was really nothing about off-road there either. And now you look around and there's short course cars all over the place and there's our races playing on all the big screens and it's growing. Tell us how you got started in motorsports to begin with. Yeah. So I am probably a unique guest here because racing is really not how I got started in motorsports. My husband races short course off-road professionally, and he and I grew this race team from the ground up within the last eight years or so. But when he told me he wanted to get into short course off-road, he was doing rally racing and competitive drifting, autocross, things like that. He said, I'm going to get into short course off road. And I said, I don't know what that is. So, you know, he pulled up some videos and showed it to me and I was like, you really want to get into this instead of drifting? You know, he was doing Formula Drift Pro Am and uh he was going to trade in this 450 horsepower monstrosity of a vehicle to hop into a 50 horsepower light buggy, which is based off of like a Volkswagen chassis. And he's like, yeah, I really want to do this. And he had so much fun that, you know, we stuck it out and grew into this space and this sport. And I've really fallen in love, not only with the sport, but especially with the people and my, hopefully my ability to help those people fall in love with the sport more by making more money in it. So that's, that's kind of my journey. I had no idea that that was his backstory of how he got started in racing. So I feel like that, maybe I've missed it over the years on social media, but I feel like that's a really cool throwback story to bring up. Yeah, we should tell that story more often. He's been a gearhead since he was a kid. I mean, his parents tell the story all the time about he was three years old and he walked out with a wrench and took the training wheels off of his bicycle because he didn't want him there anymore. my gosh, that's so cool. So at what point with your involvement with the team, did you realize the value of sponsor relations, marketing, and partnerships for the VDE race team? Like how did that come into play? Yeah, that's something we've had to learn the hard way. And, you know, that's really why I'm so passionate about helping other people learn it maybe less difficult ways. But back in 20, I feel like I have to check my wall here. What years were we in? What classes? 2021 was our last year in the Pro Buggies, which is a fully fabricated, long arm, open wheel, off-road race vehicle. And that class had kind of been teetering between the sportsmen and pro ranks. Some series called it sportsmen, some series called it pro, and our series was just starting to call it pro buggy, which meant that it came with bigger price tags on pit spaces, uh lots more visibility with our TV time and things like that. And we were still living on a sportsman team's mindset. We heard rumblings that there was going to be a new class being added for 2022 called pro spec truck. And we saw a lot of opportunity in jumping into this new class, the year that it started existing, you know, being just ground zero for that class. Uh, so Chris set the goal and said, you know what, we are going to race in this new class. It's a pro truck class. That means we're paying for fiberglass. That means that we need to get bigger sponsorships, we need to get in front of more people. We really need to build our brand. And we had started building our brand in the pro buggy classes almost inadvertently. And that's something that I really do stress when I'm talking to racers is that a brand happens, whether you intend it to or not. And, know, that can be good. That can be really bad. Um, thankfully for us, it was a good brand that we had inadvertently built for ourselves. And it was really centered around us being a family team. Chris's dad races alongside of him as well, even to this day, he's 67 years old and still taking cars off of jumps. you know, we had built that brand as this family team that's here to help people. And we decided, you know, we're really intentionally going to build that brand out more, be more intentional about bringing those values forward. And we're going to match them up to the brands that best align with that brand that we've built for ourselves. So. As we moved into the truck class, that's really when we started getting a little bit different mindset about what does it mean to have a sponsor? And it's not, we're going to put a sticker on our car and they're going to give us money. We learned that very quickly. But through the likes of Megan Meyer and Alex Striler we were really trying to figure out what that actually meant for ourselves. lucky for us, we had a couple of brands that really leaned into us and and learned with us on what kind of a partnership we could build with them. nexen tire being the biggest and most forefront for us. They've grown with us and our partnership has grown as that program has grown as well. leaning into how can we service our partners instead of how can we service ourselves with the money from our partners has really been a huge learning curve for us. Those are all great points. And for you and I to talk about branding, like we're marketing people and we understand what that means and what it looks like. But for the average racer who's listening to this or even event organizer, like how would you define what a brand is? Like what does that entail? Yeah, a lot of people mistake a logo for a brand and a logo is really just a visual representation of what you stand for. Everything else about you is also your brand. And so when I'm talking to people about building a brand, I'm not talking about designing a logo. I'm talking about what do people expect from you over and over again. And that might be like we're We're the purple team, right? So purple is part of our brand because people expect us to have purple cars, but they also expect us to show up with a certain level of professionality because that's how we have shown up in the past. And if we were to show up and just be, I don't know, like just terrible people at the racetrack, yes. You know, if we were to show up with this. with this wild uh persona at the racetrack, it would be incongruent with the way that we've shown up in the past. And that's part of our brand. If we were to show up and say, yeah, you know what, we fired Chris's dad because he was too old to race. And Amanda split and this family is being torn apart and we're just hiring on crew people instead of involving our friends and family. That would be incongruent with our brand because our brand is based firmly on the backbone of having a strong family presence. And you know, if we were to tell our competitors to get lost when they break something at the track, instead of giving them whatever spare parts we have when they need it to compete against us, you know, that would be incongruent with our brand. So when I say that you're building a brand intentionally, I mean, what do you stand for? What are the things you can promise to your fans and your followers? If you're an event organizer to the attendees of your events that, you know, what What expectation can you set forward that you know you can deliver on over and over again, whether that's how you look, what you say, or what you do? When I think about branding and you hit on it there is like consistency. Um, and just, again, whether it's the colors or the logo or how you're showing up, like those are all pieces that are important that kind of fit together like a puzzle piece for sure. Yeah, you know, I do an online class on branding periodically. And one of the examples that I like to give is if you logged on to the New Year's Eve countdown and Ryan Seacrest stepped out and instead of being what you'd expect for Ryan Seacrest, he's like emo haircut, black eye shadow, you know, like a torn black shirt, you know, that would be so far off brand and your perception of him would probably radically change. as you're doing anything that's public facing at all, just be thinking like, I emo Ryan Seacrest right now? Or am I showing up the way that my fans and my attendees and my partners expect me to routinely? So you've learned these lessons as you guys have gone through the experience yourself, but when did you start noticing that there was a real gap in how other racers were presenting themselves to sponsors and what racers expectations were? So you mentioned the one thing about just slapping a logo on the side of the car. I mean, I still hear that to this day and I feel like we are constantly trying to educate racers, but that is such an outdated concept. That's like a miniscule piece of what could happen. So when did you see that there was this gap in what racers were thinking? Yeah. So, you know, like I mentioned, we really started doing our own learning and our own research on what it really meant to have. I'm going to call them partners. I think a lot of people call them sponsors. We don't really have sponsors. We have partners. A sponsor gives you something and expects nothing in return. We have partners that give us things in return for us providing value to them as well. And I think that that in itself is something that a lot of racers don't understand, but As we were learning what that looked like through the resources, we were pursuing like the sponsorship summits from Alex Striler. We did the social media classes that Megan Meyer had out at the time. As we were starting to learn this stuff, we were looking around us and going, wow, first off, short course is not doing this as a whole. You know, our competitors. uh very few of even the others in the pro ranks were really looking at partnerships in this way. And that got me thinking about how we can help that because I say this all the time, we can't be a big fish in a small pond, right? We need to grow our pond. We need to grow others in our sport and we need to make sure that we're all growing together. So, you know, that kind of led me to thinking about how I could make a difference in our sport. And then looking around and it's not localized to our sport at all. know, motorsports athletes in general tend to really miss the point of a partnership. And that's where Racer On Demand came around. Well, and I think too, even kind of broadening it a little bit, like there's the partnerships between the racers and the companies, but also between the racers and the series or the event. And then the event to partners, like it all kind of has to work together because I feel like if one party is doing way more than the other, they're just not being supported in a way that's going to have a like. I don't even know the right word, but a long enduring series for both the series owner and for the racers too. Yeah. Sustainability, think is what you're getting at. No, you're right. And you know, that partnership, really, it really comes down to the business model. And I hope I'm not getting too technical here, but I think of this, like, there's a certain amount of money in a motorsport. And I look at that as kind of a big pie, right? And racers have part of that pie that they're trying to take to fund their programs. series have another part of that pie that they're trying to take to fund their series tracks and events. You know, those are the other piece of the pie. And if we're trying to say the series needs to give racers more money, they're trying to claw money away from the series. And the series is taking it from the tracks and the tracks are taking it from the racers. You know, we're not bringing more money into that circle. We're not getting a bigger pie. So who else can we involve in that pie to grow and get more pie instead of trying to move the pie around between these three entities, you know? And that's where these partnerships really come in with the companies outside of our sports and going out and finding new partnerships, providing value that gets different fans engaged and different eyes on our sport and brings in more pie. That's a great analogy. I love that. I also think a lot of racers think that marketing only matters once they're winning. So from your experience, what do they misunderstand about when and why branding actually matters? Yeah, first off, I will say our professional sports team, our motorsports team is completely funded by our partners and they don't really care that much if we win or not. It really doesn't change the value that we're providing to them. It is true that winning will put more eyes on your program, but that is not the main thing that you have to offer as a motorsports athlete. So winning is a bonus. is not the focus. And when you're reaching out to potential partners, if you're leading saying I won this and I won that and I won this, you're talking about races and not on influence levels or things like that. you are missing a huge mark. Uh, if you have the opportunity, you'll see behind us, we've got, you know, fan favorite awards and we were just, voted 2025 pro team of the year. Those are the kinds of things that translate to value for your partners because it says, it doesn't say I won a race. It says, I won the hearts and minds of the people that follow me, which means I can probably sell them your stuff. And that's what it really comes down to for a partner is they need a return in dollars. That doesn't always mean sales. That could mean like earned media value. What is it that they would have spent on a social media ad that they can pay you instead because you're reaching the same people with the same way. Or it could be I'm turning around and I'm putting these two companies together that I have relationships with and they now have a partnership and maybe company A is getting this widget for less expensive than they would have if you didn't put those two companies together. That's still a dollar amount of return that you were able to provide as a racer and it has nothing to do with winning races. I mean, that's a great, great perspective and great insight. And even if you are the racer that is winning all the stuff, like how are you translating that? You know what I mean? Like it's more eyes, but is it actually more conversions and more engagement for your partner? Because if you're not really leveraging the more, you know, attention and more views, then it's not really that beneficial either. Yeah. And attention and views, you know, that is one part of the puzzle, but unless you can translate that to a dollar sign for your partner, you could have, you know, a thousand followers that are really engaged and actually buy your partner's stuff. Or you could have 10,000 followers and a thousand of them are really engaged in buying your partner's stuff. Those are the same numbers of people buying your partner's stuff. really doesn't matter. how many followers you have, it matters the influence that you have on those followers. Absolutely. So with Racer On Demand, you're big on the education piece for racers too. What do you feel like they need to communicate to partners when they're reaching out? Yeah. I think one of the things that racers tend to be really bad at is differentiation. And what I mean by that is you are racing next to five, 10, 20 other people that do the exact same thing in the exact same class in the exact same motorsport under the exact same series. So what are you bringing to the table that the person next to you at the lineup isn't or can't bring to the table? And that's where that brand becomes really important. The stories that you tell and your personal demographic becomes super powerful. One of the things we implemented in the pits in 2025 was we started collecting our own demographic data at the table where we give away all of our VDE racing swag. And it was super simple. We had an old race suit of Chris's that was not certified correctly. So we couldn't use it even if we wanted to. m And it was at this point, a wall hanger piece. And we said, we're going to give this away at the end of the year. If you want to enter to win this race suit, all you have to do is fill out this form on our iPad. So we just had our tablet out there and we asked some questions, you know, what's your name? What's your email address? Kind of the basics, you know, your zip code, your age. And then we asked some really tailored questions that were focused entirely on the kinds of partners we hope to attract. Some of them were, what are you planning on purchasing in the next 12 months? And it had some pieces like insurance and a new truck or a pair of sunglasses, companies that we could see ourselves partnering with in the future if our demographic matches them. Some of the questions were more about proving our influence. One of them, which was really cool, was how likely are you to support a brand that partners with VDE Racing? And they had the options of not likely, moderately likely, very likely or unsure. And we had over 80 % of our respondents say that they're more likely to purchase something from a brand if they're partnered with VDE Racing. So that is how we're standing out. apart from the people next to us because the person next to us can't say, 80 % of our fan base is more likely to buy your thing if you sponsor us, you know, but we can, we can say that because we collected the data and that's how we're standing out. Yeah, I love that. And I think data definitely speaks to a lot of partners when you really have that hard data to be able to show to them. So another thing that I love about Racer On Demand is your merch program that you started for racers. So can you tell people more about that? Yeah. So I recognize that most racers probably aren't going out there saying, I don't know how to do sponsorships and I need a resource for that. That's my passion. Uh, but I know that that is not something that most racers are actively looking for, but if they stumble upon it, it's probably pretty valuable. So I thought about what problems do racers really have that they're actively trying to solve. And one of those problems. is that merch is really expensive to have on hand. Oftentimes racers are purchasing it, they're sitting on their stock, and then they're just giving it away when they don't have the right sizes or they over purchased or they just can't move the product that they have. So they have this high overhead, they're selling at a loss and it's just a money dump. Well, when I... started Racer on Demand, I did a little bit of market research and I asked fans, what is the reason that you purchase merch from a racer? And 65 % of the people that I talked to said the number one reason that they purchase merch isn't because it looks cool. It's not because they want to get the name out for the person they're buying it from. It's because they want to put money in the pocket of the racer. Racers had the exact opposite reason that they were selling merch. They said they just wanted to get their name out there and they didn't care if they took a loss. So that disconnect was something that I wanted to solve. Now on Racer On Demand, everything that we do is a print on demand. So a racer reaches out to me, they give me their logo, like let's say this is the logo you give me, right? I put it on this jacket, get this design made up there. I give you a free storefront. You can just share the link and then when your fans are purchasing merch, they buy it from me. I have my fulfillment partner make it, send it out, typically about a two week turnaround, give or take a little bit. It goes straight to the person who ordered the merch and then monthly I pay out 20 % commission on everything that sells to the racers. So you don't have to handle any of the shipping, any of the orders, nothing. You literally just share it out, market your stuff, and then I pay you when it sells. So It takes that hands-on money dump and turns it into an opportunity to make some cash. Well, and I think the website and storefront alone is super valuable because not every racer has a website or can set up an ordering form or something like that. So the fact that they can just give you the logo and you kind of handle it from there and everything is, you know, processed and delivered, like that's amazing. And like you've got quite a collection of racers, merch now on your website. so if a fan is you know, particular series, they can go and kind of browse a bunch of different athletes, which I think is really cool. Yes, exactly. I've been really fortunate. Champ Off-Road has partnered with us since we launched in 2024. So the last two years, I've been able to feature a Champ Off-Road series portal where you can go in and shop for different racers in the different classes. Now, as I get more racers on from different series, we'll see if I get enough in one sport or series where I'll be able to do that in other pockets as well. We did You know, just launch about a year and a half ago. So we're still fairly new, but we're supporting about 50 racers right now. And in the year and a half since we launched, we've already paid out over $7,500 in commission in 2026. I'm hoping to up those numbers. want a hundred racers at least that I'm supporting and I want to pay out $10,000 this year. I think that's a great goal to have. that's so cool. Again, that it's just like low effort kind of thing for a racer. I mean, to just be able to turn it over to you is a huge relief for them. I'm sure. we had our race banquet two weekends ago and one of the racers that signed up with me, he, he was feeling pretty good. And he was telling me he's like, Amanda, you know, I put off signing up for racer on demand for a while because I kept just trying to find what is the catch? Like, why is this, why is this so good? It's gotta be too good to be true. And then he's like, Amanda, you have to tell people there's no catch because everybody is looking for the catch. They're trying to figure out what it's actually going to cost them. You have to tell them it's free and you have to tell them it really is that easy. Oh my gosh, I love that. When we're talking about what separates racers who attract partners consistently year after year from those that seem to always have to go out and find new partners, what do you think that reason is? I kind of have a little hunch, but what do think that reason is that people are able to keep such long-term sponsors and partners and others are constantly having high turnover? think there's probably two pieces to this and both of them boil down to things that we as racers can control. And the first one is the one that you will hear me talk about endlessly and that is meaningful connections. Being able to build a relationship with your partner, not just a business transaction is the number one thing. that will keep a partner coming back over and over again, even if the dollars don't necessarily come out the way that they were expecting them to the first year. And what I mean by that is, for example, we, we, like I said, work with nexen tire they're our biggest partner. In the time that we have spent with nexen tire over the last five years, there's been some turnover in the marketing team and we've worked with three completely different teams in that timeframe. There's a lot of potential when there's turnover on a marketing team for your team to get kicked out the next budget. And the reason for that is the new people coming in don't know who you are. They don't know what you have to offer. and there's real potential that a budget could be cut for you simply because of that. Now, that being said, we have made sure that we're building those meaningful connections, not just with the marketing team, but also with the sales teams. with the higher up in the marketing team, right? The directors, not just the managers and making sure that they understand how we can play into the ecosystem that they're building. But beyond that, both of the people that left the Nexen team went into other marketing roles. And the first thing they did when they got into those new marketing roles, they called us up and they said, hey, we've got a great relationship. We consider you a friend. I'd really love to see if there's a fit here at the company that I'm in now. And the ability to maintain that relationship beyond the transactional, you know, I give you this, you give me that, that has huge opportunities, both inside that relationship as it's happening, but also as turnover exists. So that's the first one, is the meaningful connections. The second one is moving those meaningful connections over to the fans and the influence and being able to really quantify that difference. So, ah you know, you can see turnover happen when you're not delivering on what you said you were going to deliver. Oftentimes that comes down to I overextended myself. I promised something that I actually don't have control over and being able to translate. What you're doing into a story that brings people along with you will help you meet the goals that you're trying to deliver. So for example, if you go out there and you have a partnership that's built on, I don't know, detailing products, we'll say, and your demographic doesn't care about detailing products, you're going to have a problem, right? You haven't made that meaningful connection with the right fans. That being said, if you recognize that as a mismatch, maybe you don't pursue a partnership with a company that doesn't match your demographics. Instead, you say, well, I'm in off-road and my people, really like flashy lights on their UTVs. I'm going to go and find a company that matches the demographic that I have. Because I have that meaningful connection with my fans, I'm able to know what they like, They trust me on what they like and then I can make that connection too. So I think there's that link between the company and the fans that we need to be a good ambassador for. And when you're talking about going back to maintaining relationships too, something that I always talk about with clients that I work with is it's like you said, not being transactional, but it's also not just like an interaction at the beginning of the year and then the end of the year. So really like keeping them updated, checking in with them. I think sending race reports after the race weekends are a great way to do this. Just letting them know whether the racers doing it themselves or they're professionally written, which is something that I do for clients that the sponsors can then turn around and utilize as marketing material as well. But that's just like a good touch point for them to see how you're doing and what you're doing for them. Checking in, hey, do you have any promotions? Like, is there anything I can help promote now? Like, it's more than just beginning and end of the year type of thing. Yes, I love that. And I will tell you our most, our most lucrative partnerships for us, the ones that pay us the most both in money, but also in just like, it feels like a good partnership, you know, like it just, feels good. There's good vibes involved are the ones that we have ongoing relationship with all year. And what I mean by that is it's not always going to be this way. Not every marketing person wants to be friends with you. But there is opportunity to treat them like more than the role that they're in nonetheless. Like Chris, my husband, he will text his marketing people and be like, Hey, I know your dog wasn't feeling great. How's that going? You know, and just they are people too. And the more you treat them as a people, the more easy it is to say, hey, by the way, that thing that we were working on, it's going really well. Because you're not coming out of the blue. You were just talking to them last week about their trip to Hawaii, you know? And I think the data and being able to prove that you're doing well is great. But if that's the only time you're talking to them, even if it's routinely, it's probably still not the best relationship. And as soon as that data turns south, you know, if if something just doesn't hit that you thought would, Maybe you didn't get as many views or engagements on a post as you thought you would. That is then the only thing that's holding value instead of the relationship itself holding value. So you want a relationship that's strong enough to withstand when things don't turn out the way that you thought it would. Another thing that you recently launched is a podcast with Megan Meyer, who is a two-time NHRA champion. And I've been a big fan of both of your work for a while, so I was really excited to see this collaboration. But tell us a little bit about the podcast. Yeah, first off, I think I did like a little fangirl like arm thing when Megan texted me asking if we could do a podcast together because like I mentioned, as we were growing our program from the ground up, not knowing what the heck we were doing, Megan was one of the people that really gave us some idea of what we should be doing for our partners. So when she reached out more as a peer than as a mentor, It was a moment of huge pride for me. She's just amazing and she's brilliant. And it's really cool to see the things that, that she excels in and the things that now I've learned maybe a little bit differently than her and being able to mesh those things together. So when she reached out, I said immediately, yes, yes, yes, let's do that. So we're recording our eighth episode on Monday and Our whole podcast is really just another free resource for racers to learn in depth about how they could be forming better partnerships, more meaningful connections, growing their fan base, and ultimately making more money for their race program. We've started doing every other episode, we're bringing in guests who are able to provide some really deep insight into those inner workings and behind the scenes. Maybe those things that racers don't often get a chance to see. speaking of, know, those relationships that we've built through our race team, our first guest was one of those people who worked for Nexen Tire and moved to a different organization and called Chris up and said, Hey, you know, I, I think there might be something going on here. and while that hasn't come to fruition just yet, we know that when it can, it will. but you know, that was a great, a great thing that we were able to deep dive into on one of our episodes. We also brought in Sarah Oettinger, who is a marketing manager at AMSOIL and she got to come on and talk about why does AMSOIL sponsor a series versus a racer versus an event? You know, how does that work? How do they strategize around those things? And so we're really being able to deep dive in with these folks and When you have an hour conversation with somebody instead of a 30 second little blurb about it, it's a lot more powerful. And I am really, really excited for the next guests that we have lined up. We've got some very big names in motorsports that are here to share lots of insights from various different points of view. That is our podcast in a nutshell and it is growing and it is exciting and you can catch it every other Thursday we release a new episode. Perfect. Yeah, I've been listening to some of the episodes. have a lot of catching up to do, but I'm always excited for the next episode. And also like another thing to keep in mind is when we're talking about all these partnerships, I think it's important to note that these are, it's like a long-term strategy, a long-term plan, right? Like partnerships typically like 99 % of the time don't happen overnight. They don't happen even in a couple of months. It can take years to build it. And so Patience is something that racers have to learn, which is very difficult when you want money to fund your race program, right? But yes, it's definitely more of a long-term game. Yeah, and I think that that's twofold. It's not just the building the relationship and, you know, planting that seed for a partnership, but it's the same thing on investing in yourself and your own skills and your own understanding. I think a lot of people, they look at this as, well, I don't know how to do that, period. End of sentence, done. Instead of saying, I don't know how to do that yet. And then finding a resource that will teach them how to do it. Like the things we have through Racer On Demand, like the things that you offer Heather through High Gear Success, right? There are a lot of opportunities out there. You just have to be willing to put the investment in on the front end that goes for growing your program, both through your skills, but also through those relationships with your partners. And yeah, you know, if you catch somebody off budget season, They're not going to get you in for a next year and a half. That's just how it's going to work. And if you don't plant that seed on the front end, instead of saying, it's not their budget season, that's a no, you say, it's not their budget season. I'm going to start building a relationship with them. So when it is budget season, I'm going to be the first person they think of. for somebody that's listening right now who feels overwhelmed by marketing. What is one small step that they could take this week to kind of move forward? think understanding who you are and being really intentional about bringing that forward. And what I mean by that is take a step back and say, why do people like me? What are the things that I enjoy the most outside of motorsports? What do I do? And how do I consistently show up? And if you can answer those four questions, then you can start doing all of those things more publicly, more intentionally. So when you're crafting a Facebook post or an Instagram post or a TikTok post, you know, any of those things, you're going to butt it up against what you just said. So people like me because I'm funny. Okay, well, lean into funny. Make funny part of who you are publicly. So if I'm posting, make it funny and consistently be funny. Well, if outside of racing, I also really like mountain biking. Okay, well, not every post should be about mountain biking, but make that part of who you are because then the people who also like mountain biking are gonna lean into you a lot harder. And I think, you know, just getting to know who you are and then being really intentional about putting that out for other people. helps with what we talked about earlier, and that is differentiating yourself from the person next to you. I love that advice. so racers, you have a little bit of homework to do after this episode. Amanda, tell people where they can connect with you and Racer On Demand. Yes, racer on demand is just racer on demand dot us. So that's where you can go to shop for merch. That's also where you can go to find out more about selling with us. There is a sell with racer on demand tab in the menu. That's got everything that you need to know about selling your own merch. And once you do sell merch with us, then you're put on our mailing list, which sends out a bunch of different. racer resources so that you have lots to learn. the racer on demand show is basically anywhere that you get podcasts. and like I said, that's every other Thursday. otherwise you can follow our race team too, for some examples. I'm not going to say that we are the best branded race team with the best social media, but I will tell you we're learning and we're growing every day. And that's VDE racing and that's on Instagram, Facebook, anywhere that's social media. And one place that I think racers should be and oftentimes are not is on LinkedIn. So I'm Amanda Van Den Elzen on LinkedIn. You'll see motorsports are not my only focus. We've got three businesses between my husband and I, but that is a great place to meet the right people for partnerships too. I'm a big LinkedIn fan as well, so I'm on there all the time. Definitely advocate for that. So thank you so much for joining me, Amanda. Thanks to everybody for tuning in to Momentum. This has been a production of High Gear Success. If you want to connect or recommend a guest, head to MomentumMotorsportsPodcast.com. Until next time, keep the momentum rolling.