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>>>>>PLEASE DISREGARD THIS MY POSTING DIRECTLY BELOW. JAMES GILBRIDE HAS DONE AN EXCELENT JOB AND DID GET BACK IN TOUCH WITH ME WITHIN A FEW DAY SOF THIS POSTING. I SUPPOSE I SHOULD HAVE NOT COMMENTED ON THIS THREAD ANN JUST STARTED A NEW ONE>>>> JAMES GILBRIDE HAS NOT ONLY JUMPED ON IT BUT HE ALSO APOLOGIZED AS HE WAS VERY VERY BUSY AT THE TIME... ANF QUITE FRANKLY I WAS SWAMPED AT THE TIME AND TRYING TO CLEAR THINGS OFF MY TO-DO LIST THAT KEPT CROPPING UP TO THE POINT OF FRUSTRATION.>>> RATHER THAN JUST REMOVE THE ENTIRE POSTING WHICH WOULD CONFUSE EVERYONE I HAVE LEFT IT HERE SO THE REMAINDER OF THE THREAD REMAINS LOGICAL. SKIP OVER THIS AND SCROLL DOWN TO 22AUGUST...
I have held in my frustration for too long. I posted several months back about what I thougth Minardi needed to do. The bulk of that "strategic plan" if you will, was that the key to the problem was CASH. SPONSERS!
I actually tried to accomplish what I said should be done.
I met with James Gilbride @ the 2004 USGP....back when he was an assistant. This year he is promoted and now holds the title of Spnsership Manager. This year I introduced him to one of my parnters who was instrumental in a major US machine tool builder (shouldn't take much research to figure out who that is as there is only one left in the US) who is now sponsering a Winston Cup (nextel) car. Typically, this mahcine tool builder will supply 8-10 brand new CNC mills and or lathes to the racing team. This mfg WANTS to expand their international brand recognition. My partner, Tim, never got a follow up call.
I gave James the name of a first tier supplier, who is a huge F1 fan, to Linnamar and Magna...Basically the Canadian automotive manufacturers, whom I promised that if he would start a dialogue with these two companies and intorduce James I could get him in the pits at the next years USGP for a short while to which James agreed that woudl be good. My friend Hal has never gotten a phone call to make these introductions.
A few days after the USGP I was at a machinery open house and got to talking to the VP of another machine tool builder. He said that he loves racing and sponsers everythign from Busch series to drag racing in the US but doesn't have an international presense. He would be very very very interestedin speaking to Minardi, our underdog team (as I presented it) I had my laptop and showed him around rj's site here at forzaminardi. he was inmpressed. he said get me the contact information. I emailed james Gilbride his information and copied him. The USGP generated publicity for F1...this guy was actually interested in this. his deal is that he gives the teams brand new CNC equipment for use for one year adn then turns around and sells the machine as slightly used but get the racing team guys to autograph it. For those of you that have been to the factory i think it is safe to say that any new CNC machines would be helpful to the team. Roger never got a response.
I never got a response. I never got a thank you. No one has ever called or emailed me. Should I take this as pompous arrogance from a young punk who has apparantly never worked sales? Was I deluded when I thought that trying to get them US sponsers might be a good idea. If someone gives me a lead for some major cash I at least sent a thank you. I follow up with the lead and I keep them abreast of developments.
maybe james gilbride knows more than I do. maybe he's got a huge deal for sponseship brewing and doesn't want to mess that up.
Perhaps if someone actually in the marketing department worked half as hard the guys doing the actual labor then those mechanics wouldn't have to worry about trying to build one complete fuel pump by bastardizing two others cause there where not enough spare parts right before a race... soemthing we saw frist hand this year at the USGP. A little cash could go a long way according to all the guys we spoke with...
...too bad the sponsership guy is too caught up in something else to send a couple of emails and generate a "little cash' to keep thing afloat while he works on hsi major deals.
[Edited on 23/8/2005 by bernie]
Comments
get in touch with Quig and he can pass your info on to Alberto Accorsi. Alberto was our tour guide at Faenza, was at our banquet, and he is a Sponsor manager. Just a thought........
bernie - I remember your 'strategic plan' from months ago and it was perfectly sound and very feasable. What I can't understand is why on earth would a team with as small a budget as Minardi, not look in to ANY deal they could? No wonder we're doing shithouse at the moment! :spank:
Did you attempt to contact Gilbride or the sponsorship team via a phone call or a printed letter? It's harder for them to ignore that kind of correspondence.
Please check your Private Messages, Bernie.
with latin words it's up to me
Now that Doornbos replaces Friesacher some of our sponsors will change as well!!!
Will there be made new merchandise ??????????????????
FYI. James contacted me via email yesterday. He has made contact via email with the one contact I provided him and cc'd me on a sponser kit.
I am not sure if he has made contact with the others but I have forwarded on the sponsor kit (PDF promo piece with some very nice demographic information) to some of the the other contacts I have who might have an interest.
One of the email's I got:
"Dear Bernie ,
It was great to see you all again at Indy this year. Many thanks for your assistance - your loyal support is much appreciated. I hope we can do something with them. To have a company like this on board would be fantastic. There are so many areas where we have a strong alignment.
We are working hard here as always, this 19 race season this year is unreal - so much travelling we never stop!
Very best regards and look forward to seeing you all again next year!
James"
[Edited on 20/7/2005 by bernie]
I have a meeting with their Global Product Manager and thought I might hit him up for a bit of support
http://www.widia.com/about.html
When I was working for a forwarder in Holland we loaded them in Holland to Switserland !!!
I just did a google with keywords Widia Sponsor F1 and nothing really evident came out of it.
Btw, any knew from marketingman "James the slacker" ??
But rereading Bernies story it seemed to me that this James did absolutely not reply and didn't contact the leads !!!!!
Like I already said back then: maybe he saw this topic here and changed his working methods !!!!!
Good luck to him and the team !!!!!
James is doing a good job.
WAY BETTER than that clown paul Jordan ever did.
Okay, I have now spoken to the widia folks and they are no longer in control of those decisons. Those decisons are made about 1 hour from my house. go figure! I'll dig and see what I can find out.
...and yes, Widia is a huge player in the world market for hi performance cutting tools. Owned by Kennametal.
...and finally I'ld like to restate everything Emmet said:
"James is doing a good job.
WAY BETTER than that clown paul Jordan ever did."
THAT is worth saying twice.
Bernie is the slacker for not updating his post earlier !!!:hehe:
(just kidding:P)