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Making yourself marketable but also having the skills to succeed is important. You need both, or it definitely will not happen. Youtube and insta edits rule the industry so start there. Learn how to market yourself on social media which draws attention to what your doing and creates a following and people will notice. But if your not good enough from a skiing standpoint marketability means very little.
dannydevito.get s job at a shop, meet all the reps, and make connections, and make yourself available. know how to market yourself
then invite them to the local dive bar and drink them under the table until last call and then make first chair and guilt them into giving you a spanseurshop
it takes time. I have learned that coming from a ski shop for 15 years to a rep job. Most reps just don't quite the retire, there is reps that are 66 years old still doing it. Most sales reps dont retire tell they are in there 70's they guy i work with is 64 and wants to retire at 70. shit there is a guy on the east coast that is 80 and still reping. Sale rep is alot more work than people think as well. I'm always on the road traveling all the time. and as a rep you dont get to ski as much as people think.
During @danej and my sophomore year of college, our entire diet had become food and coffee from Cumberland Farms. We decided to pursue a sponsorship deal with Crumbies.
We offered them our incredible talent, in exchange for their delicious pizza.
Sent out an email, and heard back from them quickly. Corporate was interested.
They needed to see our ability, so we sent them this video:
918567
We never heard back from them after that.
Never hurts to send the email tho.
**This post was edited on Oct 23rd 2019 at 9:34:12am
-DanNah Wabs is very good at skiing so I can’t back that response. However, put me in place of Wabs there and we good.
Didnt mean to come off so douchey, I just meant relative to other pro skiiers.
You and Wabs both shit on pretty much all other professional skiiers when it comes to managing your personal brand and driving engagement with fans. (I think LSM and Meeks are also good examples as well).
For me, I filmed one well put together part, and spread that around. Gives brands a single piece of work to look at, which they're usually down for, as opposed to 100 fifteen second clips. Working at a shop helps too. Meet the boomer reps, act like you care about the carbon fiber ski tech bullshit they tell you about, work in that you are an actual skier and get them a link to your part. If you are nice and respectable a rep will usually hook you up.
You can make as many instagram park edits as you want but that market is so saturated that you probably wont find a meaningful connection to a brand online there. Unless you want to ride for proteus or some whack shit.
aaronKalatDuring @danej and my sophomore year of college, our entire diet had become food and coffee from Cumberland Farms. We decided to pursue a sponsorship deal with Crumbies.
We offered them our incredible talent, in exchange for their delicious pizza.
Sent out an email, and heard back from them quickly. Corporate was interested.
They needed to see our ability, so we sent them this video:
918567
We never heard back from them after that.
Never hurts to send the email tho.
**This post was edited on Oct 23rd 2019 at 9:34:12am
I watched your vid and read your profile. prob need to practice.......a lot. When you're can get some tricks bigger and better than a Rodeo 5, make an edit and win a comp or 2. and stop advertising Virtika. Not sure of your age but there are a bunch of pre-teens that deserve a spansership before you. LOL
Just get a good job someplace and if you make enough you can even pay full retail for your skis and still come out ahead.
IMO focusing on getting sponsored and skiing for someone else is a good way to wind up not making as much and it may even put you into a situation where you have to actually pay more for your gear etc. Also you will not be able to do whatever the heck you want when you go skiing.
Some guys get free gear from the sponsors but most don't get everything and most of the people I know that claim to be sponsored are on some sort of contract that mostly requires them to buy their own gear from their sponsor at at 'discount'
I have friends that have offered to get me gear from their 'sponsors' and I have never taken them up on it because I have always been able to get stuff that worked equally well for even less by buying last seasons gear etc.
Get a job with paid time off and then go skiing and you will be essentially getting paid for skiing and taking a crap or just sleep in and still get paid the same
VISHNUGo skiing because you like it and because it’s fun. Being spanced, particularly in the internet age, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be I promise.
This. Go skiing because you want to and go have fun! Get a job that you enjoy doing so it doesnt feel like work and then you can buy all the stuff you need and want.
freeskier865it takes time. I have learned that coming from a ski shop for 15 years to a rep job. Most reps just don't quite the retire, there is reps that are 66 years old still doing it. Most sales reps dont retire tell they are in there 70's they guy i work with is 64 and wants to retire at 70. shit there is a guy on the east coast that is 80 and still reping. Sale rep is alot more work than people think as well. I'm always on the road traveling all the time. and as a rep you dont get to ski as much as people think.
Ya being a rep is a shit ton of work and can be brutal some times, the local armada rep here works almost every day of the year driving around the west coast and barely has time for his family or even to ski much. Plus as a rep you buy all the gear and then get paid for the orders you sell, s if one year it don't sell youre in the hole.
After taking a look at your insta there's a few things you could work on:
-Take Shrek out of your username
-start hitting bigger airs
-throw some more style into your spins
-ski with more fluidity. don't stand on a cliff before you hit it, ski a line. Do something like hit a 15 footer to a ten footer to a steezed out 3 at the bottom.
Other than this you should have a solid social media presence, connections, and good footy
You say "big things" and that you want to "make a career" in the ski industry. These are definitely possible, but make yourself very knowledgeable on the ski industry itself and begin to get an understanding of how everything works.
The skiing industry and really the outdoor or "extreme sports" industry as a whole attracts a very niche group of the population (in terms of people who really follow it and consistently keep up with what's going on) so starting out in it people are already at a disadvantage (in most cases) when comparing them to the bigger and more lucrative sports.
With that being said, and I'm not trying to discourage you to follow your dreams, but if you understand the position you are putting yourself in to try and make a career in the skiing industry then you will be able to come to the realization that you most likely won't do "big things" for a solid amount of time. You will have to work your ass off on creating consistent, quality content for all of your social media platforms, as well as for companies within the industry who are looking to recruit talented athletes.
At the end of the day, you need to look at the industry now and ask yourselves if you have the talent to stand out from others who are making brand deals and everything else that make people successful in this industry and be willing to put off a lot of other things in your life to chase that. Also, ask yourselves what you really want from the industry. If you don't care about being in the main spotlight most of the time then you can still have fun and make a part-time living in the winter months, and that's enough for some people and I respect that 100%.
In terms of social media and "branding" yourself you have to have the ability to create unique, consistent and quality content in order to get people to want to follow you and want to return for more. With how things work today there is a lot more that goes into getting recognition in unique industries like this, but I don't want to rant more than I am lol.
And honestly, if you don't have the physical talent or don't think you will be able to achieve some of the same talents that top athletes have in the industry right now then there isn't much you can do in terms of making it big as a professional skier. If you are talented in other areas that could provide benefit to the industry then there are still careers to be had in terms of journalism advertising, filming, etc.
Best of luck to you guys and I hope you get something from the good information that some people are putting down in this thread!
Much of the money that was once available in skiing for marketing, and hence to pay professional skiers, has been vacuumed off the top because nearly everyone seems to be owned by something big now. Most of the companies that aren't owned aren't big enough to really contribute to a reasonable living for someone.
There's a living, and by that I mean a reasonable, 25K a year living, for maybe 50-60 skiers max. There's a few more making more, and even fewer making what a physicians assistant or doctor might make.
To do that, they travel constantly, fight injury, continually have to reinvent themselves, and face a legion of people willing to do scarier stuff for cheaper or free just to get the "recognition" of being in that spot. Most pro skiers will get a few years in the limelight if they're lucky, then fall off to other things or take a better position in the ski industry. For example: what's the number of Tanner Hall's cohort that are still skiing at anything like a professional level?
But the money needed to get started is higher and higher, and most pro skiers come from upper middle class to upper class homes where they had the luxury to work at it for a while with support. It's not a career for most.
If you love vanity and people looking at you, then it's a good route. If you love working hard to give value away just to get noticed, it's a good route. If you like risking your life consistently whilst wondering whether or not you're about to be replaced, it's a good route.
But if you love skiing instead of the idea of impressing people at the bar by saying you're sponsored, find a job that's in demand with flexible scheduling and decent pay. Many posts in the tech industry and nursing come to mind. You'll ski more, make way more, and you'll get to do it on your own terms.
Thanks for all the info and support, this has encouraged me to become my best self, my womanly self, I’m now training to be the best women’s skier known to the ski industry, after the sex change I’ll be able to win any comp i can find. Thank you all again for helping me come to this obvious conclusion that I was blind to before.
OregonDeadJust get a good job someplace and if you make enough you can even pay full retail for your skis and still come out ahead.
IMO focusing on getting sponsored and skiing for someone else is a good way to wind up not making as much and it may even put you into a situation where you have to actually pay more for your gear etc. Also you will not be able to do whatever the heck you want when you go skiing.
Some guys get free gear from the sponsors but most don't get everything and most of the people I know that claim to be sponsored are on some sort of contract that mostly requires them to buy their own gear from their sponsor at at 'discount'
I have friends that have offered to get me gear from their 'sponsors' and I have never taken them up on it because I have always been able to get stuff that worked equally well for even less by buying last seasons gear etc.
Get a job with paid time off and then go skiing and you will be essentially getting paid for skiing and taking a crap or just sleep in and still get paid the same
Very much this. There is a reason both Matt Walker and Nick Martini got business degrees at CU despite also being pros and now both of them are running media companies and not skiing.
As a side flex, I actually helped Walker win a $500 Entrepreneurship award at CU.
