Bill,
I started out in 1994 with my first sponsor - Daiwa. It was offered to me on a Field-Staff level through a rep group - Rogers Southeast. As I loved Daiwa rods and reels, I readily agreed to take the sponsorship. Less than two weeks later, I had a package sent to my house from Rubbermaid, which at the time, was making tackle boxes. The offer was for a Field-Staff level position also - just sign on the dotted line and return the contract. I did so, as I was just starting out, and needed tackle boxes. One week later, I was offered a field-tester position with Luhr Jensen, which I knew absolutely nothing about. I was skeptical, and held back from signing the contract and sending it back. After talking to a few people about how great how great the LJ Speed Trap was, I decided to try them out for one year - after all, if I didn't like them, I could not renew the contract the following year. Next thing I know, I'm getting boxes of stuff at my house from all of the rep groups products - VMC hooks, Rubbermaid Tackle Boxes, Yozuri Lures, Edge Plastics, etc... some with contracts, some without.
I was overwhelmed at first, but under careful guidance from another long-time Daiwa pro-staffer, I decided to accept some offers, and decline others. My friend told me "Don't be a product whore... If you don't like the product, don't take it". That was the BEST advice anyone could have given me. Those offers that I took, I made sure I wrote thank you letters to. Those offers that I DID NOT take - I wrote thank you letters to also, but also wrote a very well thought out "I am sorry that I cannot accept the position to promote your products at this time" letter also. "Don't burn bridges" was another piece of advice I adhered to. One of the products that I initially turned down with a polite letter, wrote me back two years later to show me their "new" product, which I had recently started using, so I accepted their contract that year.
There is not a single product that I currently promote that I do not believe in. That is not to say that I don't fish competitors products when conditions dictate - There are times that my sponsors don't make a particular lure or size / color that I need. It is at those times that I use a competitors product, but I do so tactfully - you won't see a bag of my competitors product laying out on my front deck, and if someone asks me what I am fishing, I'll respond with a generic term "A shallow diving chartreuse and brown crankbait". I don't lie about it - that is a quick way to earn a bad reputation. If it's my sponsors product, you can bet that I'll tell them "Culprit Stinger Worm - Junebug with a Blue tip", or something to that effect. If I happen to be fishing the competitors brand because it's a color my sponsor does not make, you can bet that I've already contacted my sponsor several times, requesting that color be produced - as I want my sponsors items being used as much as possible.
Some sponsors request things, or demand things, that can sometimes seem ridiculous. I had a sponsor one time that demanded that their logo be twice the size of any of my other sponsors logos on my tournament shirt, and that it had to be placed in a certain spot, etc... Now what would happen if ALL of my sponsors demanded the same thing? I could only have one sponsor I guess, because they all want the same spot on my shirt. I finished out the contract with that sponsor that year (and yes, I promoted their products to the best of my abilities - truthfully), but did not renew my contract the following year, partially because of that demand and partially due to other demands they were making which didn't make any sense at all.
There are some ground rules that I adhere to at shows:
1) I never bad-mouth the competition to customers. We, as staffers, will joke (sometimes pretty harshly
) with each other at shows during slow periods, but I would never do it in front o