Sponsored athletes please enter...

1) Get to know people.

2) Offer the sponsor a REASON to sponsor you (events you will participate in, clubs you work with, ability to go to trade events and such where you will be happy to help out, etc).

3) Have some good results to work with for some teams - not always required though - see #2.

4) Be an ambassador for the product and actually use and enjoy it.  I'd use Gu no matter what, so it is a no brainer for me to have asked them to be sponsored and I have now been working with them for the past 3 years.

Rick's 100% right. It's defiently NOT about your race results, but about how well you can represent the company. Yes, it may be more of a carrot to them if you are a top AGer, but they will trade that any day for someone who is a nice, genuine, standup person who will showcase their products in a great light, and will give positive impressions to new or existing customers.

It's all product marketing and sales. I have a few bigger name sponsors this year, and it resulted in the fact that I already use their products, believe in their products, speak highly of their products, and most importantly ASKED for their support for this year. What products do you use? Do you already speak highly of these products? Tell the company about it, and ask them to help you. If they tell you no, you have wasted nothing. Keep speaking highly of their products, and ask again for next season. Lots of these companies (the good ones) decide their "teams" for the next year, in the fall or over the winter. Be sure to apply early. If there is no formal application process, be creative. Write them a letter, send them a video, whatever - it doesn't matter as long as you show the company you can promote their product the way they want it promoted - see the "Clif Bar Taco" or the "Clif Bar Triathlon Start" videos on utube - not normal marketing, but perfect for Clif's image.

There are some very slow people with nice sponsors, and some very fast people with them.

race results help, but its not the whole picture.

You need to ask yourself, what can i offer a sponsor that they dont already have?
The more you are after (gear, discounts, cash, race entries, whatever), the more you need to be prepared to offer.

Smaller shop or order discounts are available fairly easily, pro level discounts and free gear are much harder, and cash is be far teh hardest to get.

Keep track of your race results, your upcoming races, what you do in the community that may help the sport, etc, and put this together in a resume' like you would for any other job, a brief bio and what you do/who you are/why they should sponsor you,

your race results from the past 1-3 years, and the upcoming schedule for this year/next if you have it.

If you have them also list previous and current sponsors.

Late summer through new years is usually the best time to send letters off to potential sponsors.
Be prepared to not hear back from a lot of them, or for a very long time.

It works!  I got the Triathlon start video emailed to me and had to watch it several times.  I found it hilarious!

You know how easy it would be to create a 30 second "advertisement" for a product sponsor simmilar to the Clif tri start, or the Clif fish taco bits? I imagine less than a day, and depending on how fun you make it, it could be a great viral internet commercial for your sponsor. Keep in mind, if it is a turd though, you can only polish a turd so much - even then, it's still a turd, and would not necessarily be the best thing for the sponsor for it to turn up on the internet - then again, maybe it would.