Enjoy The Benefits of Being Sponsored.....
Imagine.... being paid big bucks to travel the world to do nothing but play paintball!  For some, this is the ultimate goal. While there's nothing wrong with setting lofty goals for yourself (and your paintball team), this dream is the equivalent of becoming a gold record rock star. Considering how many paintball teams there are and how few that are actually sponsored by the big leagues that get 'paid to play'; this is more like a pipe dream. But if you set this as your goal, you and your team can have a lot of great times trying to reach it - even if you fall short.

The fact is there are many levels of sponsorship and all are great to have and work toward. If you want to play in the big leagues, you have to put your time in and climb the ladder. You have to start small and work your way to the top. Don't start by asking Spyder if they will give you and your teammates all new paintball guns, jerseys and 10 boxes of paintballs every month because the answer will be 'NO'.

Remember it's the smaller companies (like www.choicepaintballguns.com) who will carry you and feed you along your way to the top. Sometimes you can score a sponsorship with a local field or brick and mortar paintball shop. These are generally good for getting reduced rates of play on the field, paintballs and general paintball equipment. Just remember, there are two questions you should be ready to answer when asking a company for sponsorship.... 1. What can I do for the company? and  2. What do I want from the company?

It's All About Business.....
Whether you know it or not, when you become sponsored by a paintball company, you've entered into a business relationship. If you're a team just looking for free stuff, your career with sponsors will be short lived. Some people are surprised and even somewhat 'put out' by the fact that they might have to do something to actually earn their 'free stuff'!  It's kind of a harsh reality, but think of who you are, where you're at (in your station in life) and what you're asking of a company.....

In the big leagues.... a big company (like Spyder or Dye for example) will pay/sponsor an athlete or top winning team by paying their way, giving the team their equipment/paintball guns to use and wear the company's logo on their backs when they compete.  The team competes in huge events and wins and this brings a lot of attention and advertising to their paintball jerseys, paintball guns and who sponsors them.  This is so all the little guys (like you and me) want to wear that company's jerseys and use their paintball guns so we can be like the awesome winners who have their picture on the cover of 'Splat' magazine.  So next the company who sponsored them sees an increase in sales.

Well this is how it works at the top of the food chain, but the reality of the matter is.... you're at the bottom of the food chain!  The fact is no one knows who you are, the meets you compete in are too small, and big (or little) companys get no more notariety from you wearing their names on your jerseys than if you wrote their names on the bathroom stall at your local Exxon.  Yes it's harsh but this is the fact of the matter.  So there must be something you can do for the company you want a sponorship from to help/work for them so they will want to sponsor you.

One definite way is to give them your business. Before even asking a paintball company/store about sponsorship, it would be best to have purchased several items from them.  Let them know you understand that a sponsorship is a business relationship by giving them business!  Doing this will also let you see whether or not they're a company you even want to represent.  If you order paintball gear from a store that has crappy customer service, sends you the wrong items, rips people off or can't seem to get their act together, you sure don't want to be sponsored by them.  Chances are high they've done this to other people and you may not want their names associated with your team.

How To Get Sponsored By ChoicePaintballGuns.com
If you want your team to be sponsored by www.choicepaintballguns.com, there are several requirements.  We are glad to sponsor teams, but you must bring something to the table!  As a store, our main goal is to sell as many paintball guns and as much paintball equipment as possible; so to be sponsored by us, you must first and foremost be one of our customers.  

As an internet store, adding new content to our website is extremely important, and a tedious, constant task. New original information (content) that's added to your website regularly greatly helps/adds rank to your website with the major search engines.... which translates into new business for us. If you look close enough, sometimes you will see questions you've asked us turned into an article or a blog on our site.  The teams we sponsor help us out the most by writing blogs and articles about paintball that we can post on our site.

Finally, paintball teams we sponsor help us get the name out about our company by wearing our name on their jerseys, wearing our T-shirts and our stickers on their paintball guns and gear.  They also bring our banner to any events they compete in whether they have their own booth or just flying our flag on the side lines.  While these activities help, they do the least for us in terms of overall sales.  Blogs and articles about paintball help us much more!

If you were sponsored by ChoicePaintballGuns.com, your primary jobs would be.....
1.  Helping us add content to www.choicepaintballguns.com and www.choicepaintballgunsblog.com by writing blogs and articles about paintball.
2.  Writing product reviews and testimonials for our website.
3.  Sending us regular updates with team rosters, happenings with your team, competition schedules and meet results, information about practices, ranks, anything interesting aobut your team (including pictures).
4.  Competing in tournaments (speedball or tactical).
5.  Conducting yourselves in a professional manner (at competitions and in the community).
6.  Representing our company in any public venue (with banners, stickers, t-shirts, jerseys, various advertising/name branding materials we may give you).
7.  Using our store as your first choice for buying your team's paintball gear.

Still Interested?
If you want to be sponsored by ChoicePaintballGuns.com, first contact us and send us your team resume'.  We will post your team's picture on our website's home page as our 'featured team'. Then start submitting your blog's and articles!  Basically, there are 4 tiers to our sponsorship program.... Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum.  Each level brings further discounts from us, but of course more responsibility from you.  It works like this....

Bronze Level Sponsorship  Bronze level is where you start.  It will require you write and submit 5 Blogs + 1 Article/month for 6 months.  After the first 3 months (15 Blogs + 3 Articles), we will send you free ChoicePaintballGuns.com Team T-shirts and you will earn 10 Bonus Bucks ($10 store credit off any $50+ purchase from www.choicepaintballguns.com).  After the next 3 months (15 more Blogs + 3 more Articles), your team will earn another 10 Bonus Bucks plus a free box of paintballs.  In order to graduate to a Silver Level sponsorship, you must have written, submitted and had approved 30 Blogs and 6 Articles (or 48 total Blogs).

Silver Level Sponsorship  To be eligible for a Silver Level sponsorship, you must have maintained a Bronze Level sponsorship for 6 months (and have submitted the correct number of blogs/articles).  Silver Level sponsorship will require that you write, submit (and have approved) 10 Blogs + 2 Articles/month for 6 months.  After the first 3 months of Silver sponsorship (30 Blogs + 6 Articles), you will earn 20 Bonus Bucks and become eligible for Special Team Volume Discounts (large discounts off volume purchases; not to be used in conjunction with bonus bucks).  We will also send you another free box of paintballs.  After the next 3 months of Silver sponsorships (30 more Blogs + 6 more Articles), your team will earn another 20 Bonus Bucks, another free box of paintballs and free Red Dot 1x30 scope.  In order to graduate to a Gold Level sponsorship, you must have written, submitted and had approved 60 Blogs and 12 Articles (or 96 total Blogs).

Gold Level Sponsorship  To be eligible for a Gold Level sponsorship, you must have maintained a Silver Level sponsorship for 6 months (and have submitted the correct number of blogs/articles).  Gold Level sponsorship will require that you write, submit (and have approved) 15 Blogs + 4 Articles/month for 6 months.  After the first 3 months of Gold sponsorship (45 Blogs + 12 Articles), you will earn 30 Bonus Bucks and we will send you a Team Banner and ChoicePaintballGuns.com Team patches.  We will also send you another free box of paintballs.  You will also become eligible for our special Gold Sponsor Discount; for every $500+ spent in our store, you'll earn 5% (of your total purchase) to add as more Bonus Bucks.  After the next 3 months of Gold sponsorship (45 more Blogs + 12 more Articles), your team will earn another 30 Bonus Bucks, another free box of paintballs and up to 6 free paintball marker/gear bags.  In order to graduate to a Platinum Level sponsorship, you must have written, submitted and had approved 90 Blogs and 24 Articles (or 162 total Blogs).

Platinum Level Sponsorship To be eligible for a Platinum Level Sponsorship, you must have maintained a Gold Level for 6 months (and have submitted/had approved the correct number of blogs/articles).  Platinum Level sponsorship will require that you write, submit and have approved 20 Blogs + 6 Articles/month for 6 months.  Platinum Level sponsors get a free box of paintballs every month.  After 3 months of Platinum sponsorship (60 Blogs + 18 Articles), you will earn 40 Bonus Bucks.  For every $1000 your team spends in our store, you will receive 7% (of your total purchase) to add to your Bonus Bucks bank.  After the next 3 months of Platinum sponsorship (60 more Blogs + 18 more Articles), your team will earn another 40 Bonus Bucks and we will buy your entire team customized jerseys.

Bonus Bucks Rules
Bonus Bucks are store credit that are earned after writing a certain number of Blogs and Articles for our different sponsorship levels.  Basically, after you've written, submitted (and had approved) the correct number of Blogs and Articles, you earn discounts you can use when making purchases from our store.  You can use them as you get them, or store them up for bigger discounts to be used off larger purchases.  If you decide to store them up, they must be used with the following schedule of purchase totals....
     10 Bonus Bucks can be used off any $50+ purchase
     20 Bonus Bucks can be used off any $100+ purchase
     30 Bonus Bucks can be used off any $150+ purchase
     40 Bonus Bucks can be used off any $250+ purchase
     50 Bonus Bucks can be used off any $500+ purchase
     Any more than 50 Bonus Bucks must be used for other purchases; no more than 50 Bonus Bucks can used at one time. 

Bonus Bucks cannot be used in conjunction with any other discounts.  For example, at the Silver sponsorship level, you are eligible for Special Team Volume Discounts.  This means you have emailed us a list of items you want to buy and we have discounted the price; you cannot use Bonus Bucks to further lower the price.

Rules on Blogs & Articles
Blogs and Articles are to be written on subjects regarding any and all material related to paintball; paintball guns, paintball gear, tactical or competition strategies, product reviews, testimonials or team updates.  See examples of possible blog/article ideas below.  You can also view examples of articles and blogs and get ideas of what we're looking for by studying the Articles/Forum section on www.choicepaintballguns.com, and the blogs on www.choicepaintballgunsblog.com. 

Blogs must be comprised of a minimum of 1-2 paragraphs consisting of a minimum of 5-10 sentences.  Articles must be comprised of a minimum of 3 paragraphs (comprised of a minimum of 5-10 sentences) with no maximum length requirement; you can make them as long as you want.  You can submit your blogs as a user on www.choicepaintballgunsblog.com (you must first register as a user) or as answers to threads on www.choicepaintballguns.com forum subjects. 

Articles can be submitted to us by email at webmaster@choicepaintballguns.com or danlvsq@yahoo.com.  If you have trouble writing enough content to make complete articles, you can substitute articles for more blogs.  Basically 1 article = 3 Blogs; this substitution can also be used with any or all of the sponsorship requirements listed above.  ALL articles and blogs are subject to editing and approval before we will count them as requirements toward sponsorship.  In other words, if we can't use the material you're submitting, they won't count towards Bonus Bucks or sponsorship requirements.

Here are a few topics you can write blogs about....
1. Your favorite paintball equipment/gun and why
2. Being on a team; advantages/why be on a team
3. What do you love about paintball - why do you play
4. What do you dislike about paintball - what would you change
5. Tips for the beginner at his first competition
6. Tips for other teams.... how to train, how to run a team, etc.
7. How does your team practice
8. Current updates about your team... upcoming competitions, what's going on
9. Scenario or speedball - which is your favorite to play and why
10. Scenario or speedball - which is your favorite to compete with and why
11. What are your goals with Midwest Assassins; how do you plan on getting there?
12. What paintball gun/equipment would you recommend for a newbie/never played before?.... guns, CO2 tank, jersey/vest, paintballs, anything else? etc.
13. Do you have any funny stories about playing paintball... stories from competitions, playing with your friends, other teams, etc.
14. What kind of injuries have you had from paintball? Suggestions about how to avoid injuries when playing paintball
15. What kind of things have you learned from paintball?
16. What kind of mask/goggles do you recommend and why? Which ones have you tried?
17. What do you think about the direction paintball is heading in; direction meaning new equipment coming out, the way competitions are run, scenario paintball getting bigger, etc.
18. What's your favorite paintball brand/company; what do you like that they have/why do you like them?  What's your least favorite paintball company and why.
19.  Product reviews
20.  Testimonials
21.  Competition results