Ep. 66 - Former Bull Rider Turned Bull Riding Agent, Vexil's Own Shawn Wiese
Shawn Wiese isn’t just a former professional bull rider, he’s also a bull riding agent with his XD Sports brand, the owner of Vexil clothing brand and a fellow podcaster, we are so excited to have Shawn on the show today. We dive deep into curating sponsorship relationships and how Shawn learned from each phase of his life different tools and attributes to take him to the next level and his next business.
Finding a Passion for Bull Riding
Growing up in southeast Texas and Louisiana areas, Shawn’s dad was a bull rider and bull fighter which allowed Shawn the opportunity to be around the sport from the time he was born. Around the age of five, Shawn’s dad stopped riding bulls competitively, focused more on bull fighting and Shawn drifted away from the sport. Still attending Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo as a kid, rodeo was still around but Shawn was more focused on the mainstream sports of baseball and football.
At fifteen, Shawn’s family moved to Lousisana and one day, while he was working on the farm, his dad came over and said, “Hey! The neighbors are going to buck some steers - want to go?”"
Wearing just shorts and a t-shirt, Shawn thought, “I can do that!” Long story short, he got on a steer and somehow ended up underneath it, it stepped on his ribs, scratched him up and Shawn jumped up and said, “That was fun!”
“My dad let me be me and let me do what I want to do but if you tell him you want to do something, he’s all in or nothing,” says Shawn whose dad had a round pen and a bucking chute built on their small farm within a week. He even had steers for them to start practicing and learning on.
“I was definitely all in. It was the foundation that I already had anyway even though had gotten away from it from the time I was five to fifteen - I was still around it and still knew my roots,” says Shawn, who had spent his early years playing with his dad’s rigging bag and play bull rider in the yard. A foundation instilled in him, it was inevitable for him to do so. “Once it became a reality, I was all in! I was so thankful to have the means to learn from [my dad].”
Most kids that end up riding bulls don’t have the opportunity for a round pen, bucking chute, and steers in your backyard. It wasn’t long after that Shawn’s dad worked a deal with a stock contractor to let them keep their bulls at their house as long as they could ride a few of them here and there for practice. Within three months, Shawn was on bulls and learning from his dad.
A natural progression took him to high school and then he filled his permit on a couple years off to ride. At a rodeo in Texas he was scouted by a rodeo coach and was offered a scholarship. A couple years of free school was something he wanted to take advantage of and he went to Howard College in Big Springs, Texas. From there, he proceeded to go rodeo.
Building Community for Others
The round pen led to having four bucking chutes and the a weekly buck-out at the house that would bring i, every Tuesday night, over a hundred people at their farm. Of that, thirty guys would be getting on bulls so Shawn’s dad created a bible study. The only rule was that you could ride for free as long as you came to the bible study. For two and half years as Shawn finished high school they had an event at their house.
“It’s really cool to look back on to see how it started from me getting on the neighbors steer to, within six months, that event,” says Shawn who can’t help but laugh because, in hindsight, he’s not sure how everyone was able to know. In the eighties, it wasn’t as easy as a social media post! Back then, someone had to know about it, call on the landline and more.
“I like my story and I like how that all developed,” says Shawn. “A small portion of my life that really made a huge impact.”
Going Professional
“I pretty much rode bulls for the next … fifteen years,” says Shawn. “Ended up out in California when I finished my career and had a couple injuries that sidelined my career at different times.”
That injury list is a laundry list, so Shawn gives the advice to “take it all in and enjoy every moment of it.” Fifteen years is an amazingly long career but know you are going to get hurt and have to sit out. You won’t get to ride your whole career in bull riding because you’ll have to sit out and recover from those injuries.
If you could go back, would you? Obviously Shawn loves his life now and his family, but if he could go back for five years with the kicker, now that they are older and wiser, as long as they are guaranteed to live through it, not die and not get seriously injured. Talk about a crazy job profession if that is your stipulation!
“I think each phase of my life is the path that I was supposed to be on and has led me to the next phase,” says Shawn.
XD Sports; Bull Riding Agent
“When you go from being a bull rider for fifteen years … and that is your identity and all of a sudden that ends and it’s not your identity,” says Shawn who shares that it took him a couple years to figure that out. While knowing that he had to get away from it, he knew it was best for his mental health that he had to go “cold turkey,” he couldn’t be around rodeo.
"So that’s what I did,” says Shawn. “I went and finished my degree in marketing and graphic design, and then I started playing golf. It wasn’t just that I wasn’t a bull rider anymore, it was fifteen years of competition … I had to fill that void … and find something that I could be competitive at.”
For Shawn, that was golf. When he realized that he “didn’t have enough years left in his life to become good enough to compete” he decided to do something different and that happened when Cody Custer asked if he would be his agent. That was the starting point and it was a tough three years of a big learning curve at the beginning for him to understand how to do it and how to make a living at it.
“I just had to stick with it and keep grinding,” says Shawn. He had a few people that thought he was ridiculous and that bull riders didn’t need agents - they weren’t NFL players or baseball players after all. Those naysayers helped drive Shawn as well, lighting the fire and putting the competition back into it.
Entrepreneurial hate fire. ~ @KtSchr0ck
Being an agent was the next phase of Shawn’s life and he was able to take that knowledge of fifteen years of bull riding into it and he firmly believes that he wouldn’t have been able to do it without that knowledge. A majority of new agents that haven’t ridden bulls fail miserably because they don’t know what it’s like on the other side. For Shawn, he has the mutual respect and the trust factor of a retired bull rider that knows the game, the sport and the personalities. They know that his handshake is worth something.
“The previously phase played a big role in the next phase,” says Shawn who laughs about how a whole podcast could be dedicated to the adventures he’s had. “It’s taken me from bringing Monster Energy to the sport almost ten years ago and one relationship can turn into another relationship that can turn into another relationship that can turn into another adventure. All of the relationships I have built over the years I am very fond of because they have brought another adventure.. I have been in Justin Bieber’s glass house at an after party and Trump Jr.’s house having a cigar.”
Agency Operations
“We are an agency but it’s me and business partner,” says Shawn whose partner is an attorney out of Michigan. In his first couple years of starting the agency, realizing it was going to be a hard job and unsure of how to make money at it, he got a letter through a makeshift website he had created. A gentlemen was reaching out who had been out of law school for a year, he had done some roping and been on a couple bulls, and was interested in working for him.
Shawn found the situation almost humurous because he wasn’t making money and here was someone wanting a job. Calling him, he told him if he flew out to the Bakersfield, CA, PBR and they could talk about it.
“There’s no way he’s going to fly from Michigan to California,” thought Shawn at the time and Brad came.
“Why did I invite him? I can’t hire him! This isn’t going to work,” Shawn almost panicked. It was the perfect match as both were big in hunting and outdoor activities so Shawn brought him on as straight commission work. “We became such good friends, I told him, ‘Look you’re an attorney and I can’t do this agent stuff without a lawyer, let’s just go in together.’”
In mainstream sports, a law degree is required to represent athletes and, at any moment, they could change the rules on how that works, putting Shawn out of a business in one simple vote. This is the value that Brad brings to XD Sports as a partner as an insurance against that potentially happening. It works out great because all of the contracts that they have has his eyes on them and his professional thoughts.
Benefits of Having an Agent for Rodeo
“The main thing, it’s hard to sell yourself, especially in the western lifestyle, we are raised to be humble,” says Shawn. As an athlete, if you’re approached with a potential sponsorship, you are going to sell yourself short and lowball yourself. As an agent, Shawn isn’t as emotionally tied and can say, “here’s the price.”
A conversation with the athlete details what the bottom dollar is and then Shawn goes to those conversations with the sponsor. If they can’t fit something that will work for both, Shawn has no problems walking away from a poor deal, which is something a rider may not be able to do.
With an agent, you are able to go do what you do; ride bulls and compete. You don’t have to worry about the sponsorship deals as Shawn will take care of your career on that end. Taking this off of your plate is great as a professional athlete already has so much pressure that is really unnecessary and can also impact your performance in the arena. If you aren’t riding good and not winning in the arena, nobody is going to want to sponsor you anyway.
Pitching to Sponsors
Rodeo is a different game than the PBR but, in general, the main thing you have to provide what kind of value you are going to bring to that sponsor. There are deals where people are rich and they just want to help rodeo athletes out - in that case, just be nice to them.
A true business that wants to sponsor you and gain exposure through your platform, you have to show them the value. If you want to be candid with them, ask them what they are looking for so you can gauge what is valuable to them. They need to sell their product and get their brand name out there and they are entrusting you with their investment to do that for them.
Importance of Social Media
In this day and age, social media is a big play, which is the number one thing for rodeo athletes these days is to grow their social media. The more followers you get, the more you are investing in yourself for the future. You aren’t going to be a team roper or rodeo athlete for forever so, when you leave the sport competitively, if you have 150,000 followers you can promote yourself, your own business or somebody else’s business. For rodeo athletes, that’s a big thing for them right now!
Don’t just post videos of you roping - while it is good to post photos and videos of you competing, also share sponsors and products. As someone on both sides of the fence, Shawn says that for him he wants to see the video of an athlete making a great bull ride or fast time, but he also wants to see him doing something and wearing his product. This could be feeding cows, fixing fence, etc. just make a short video wearing the product.
Example: Trailer Sponsorship
Do a video talking about the benefits of having and using that trailer. Show it off and share it!
This is something that Shawn thinks is really lacking on the pro athlete side of rodeo and bull riding. The roadblock he runs into, Shawn hits issues with not being able to just do it for the athletes. They have to do it themselves. When he talks to sponsors anymore, prior to signing a deal with an athlete, they want to see the following the athletes have and the sites that they are active on to see what they are doing.
If you think about it, if you are out there and winning and wondering why you aren’t getting sponsors then you need to do a self-audit of your social media. If you’re a great athlete and you win but you don’t know how to do social media - that’s what the sponsors need! Pay attention to that and, if you aren’t good at it, get the funds to pay someone to do that for you and it’ll pay off!
Sponsorships also aren’t as simple as putting the business’s name after a hashtag on every post you do is important as well. Ultimately, whatever product your sponsor is selling, use that product. If you have an audience people are watching to see what you are doing and selling.
Example: Yeti Coolers
If you are sponsored by Yeti Coolers, when you get your order of Yeti Coolers in don’t just stack them in a pile and say “Thank you for the Yeti.” The sponsor doesn’t want to see that - that’s more irritating than anything. With Yeti, just put the cooler in the back of your truck and do some video around your truck and make sure it’s in the picture - that is better than a stack of Yeti’s in a picture. People will notice it in the background.
OR if it’s a drink ware, take a drink with the product or if it’s clothing wear it!
Example: Vexil & Aaron Watson
They never ask Aaron to do any work but they just ask him to wear the product. The people who have an audience and they want to know what you use and what you’re doing. They will notice all of that! Use your sponsor product in content and show you using it to your fans.
Vexil Brand
Want to know what Katie & Rachel’s favorite Vexil products are? Jump on over to our Vexil tailored page at www.ThatWesternLife.com/Vexil to see all their favorites and to shop the code!
It will be seven years in June of 2021 that Shawn started Vexil but it was actually eight and a half years ago that Shawn designed what would become the Vexil logo. Continuously going back to the icon, he decided he needed to make a brand around the icon and started researching “V” words to figure out what he needed to call it. A “V” word because of the icon of the logo.
Vexilum is a banner that a Roman soldier carries into battle - a historical touchpoint that Shawn thought was cool. Knowing that people wouldn’t know what that was, he knew that if he did the marketing and branding right that people would make a connection. Today, many people don’t know what it means, but their search engine optimization is so good that the definition that pops up is the one on their website.
“I always wanted to create a brand and one day, after I came up with Vexil, I was like, ‘That is it!"‘“ Says Shawn. Putting the logo on some caps and starting the website and social media accounts it took off from there.
“It was very similar to my agency, “says Shawn about the Vexil business. “It was slow at first … but I was like, ‘I have been here before, I’ve done this!’ I knew that if i put my head down and kept grinding that there was a shot that if I did my part it could take off!”
Over the last two years, it has really taken off for Shawn. Make sure to check out our podcast favorites on the page here —> Katie & Rachel’s Vexil Favorites!
Returning Full Circle on Community
Going back to Shawn’s background of living on a farm and their family bull ridings with the Christianity and ranching roots, it is a natural extension of Shawn’s background to build a brand that is entrenched in the community. Already having all the tools for design and marketing, he didn’t have to hire somebody to design for him or market - he was able to do it all himself, something he still does today.
“I don’t do anything different. I don’t try to force the brand to be something it’s not, I try to make it to be something I grew up doing which is being a cowboy and ranching in the western lifestyle.”
Outdoors Section of Vexil
A quick brag on Katie’s friend from college basketball, Captain Sage Indendi, is an angler and huntress who has traveled over the United States.
The outdoor space is a crowded space, there is a lot of outdoor companies when it comes to hunting and fishing but Shawn has lived his life and created a life and career out of the things he loves.
If you find a job doing something you love, you’ll never work a day of your life.
This is what Shawn holds true and while it isn’t easy and there are tough spots that he has to grind through, he’d still rather be doing this than doing something he hates. He has always loved hunting and being outdoors and that is why that section is there because it’s something he can speak too.
“I know that the western demographic, there is a big portion that also like the outdoors and like to hunt and fish so I knew that it was a natural subsidiary to the main brand to create that component of that,” says Shawn.