Turning a Le Mans Gig Into a Motorsport Agency with Carla Welti

Carla's early career

#1. How long have you been in the industry?

I'm Carla Welti and I run with the alias CARLABELLE on social media. I started my whole social media journey in late 2019 and have been creating an agency in the background ever since. So I do hosting, presenting, social media on one end, but I have my agency on the other side as well, all in automotive, motorsport and sports in general.

#2. What was the first moment in your life that you discovered racing?

I was lucky enough to... Well, people say it's in my veins. So my dad is in motorsport. So I grew up with a big inspiration from that side of him, but also my mom was always a very big fan of cars. More so the actual driving of it rather than like a freak about cars, it's just that whenever she could, she would get her three kids into a car and drive no matter where.

For example, my grandma, she lived 1,000 kilometers away from us and we would always do that by car, we would never fly. So that's a 10 hour drive, right? So I grew up very heavily influenced by cars and the sport. I did actually take my first steps as a baby on the Hockenheimring so that's quite a nice story to use as well. Even though it didn't interest me much for the bigger part of my life, there were a few coincidences in 2019 which led me to do what I do now.

#3. What was that moment that you decided this was a place to build a career?

So basically in 2019 I had just stopped working in hospitality. I was in hospitality for roughly six years and probably if I would have gone to the doctor they would have told me that I burned myself out. And I decided that I want to take a break for roughly half a year. So that was in February 2019, which I did and I was very good at it. I did nothing for a very long time.

I stayed for a very long time, and then in roughly mid-May, I had my own little SEAT Ibiza, which was a lovely car- 2011 build, diesel engine. It took me everywhere for the lowest cost ever. It was fantastic to enjoy those six months. I spent a lot of time with my family in Italy and all of a sudden I figured, well, it's May. Isn't that when Formula 1 is taking place in Monaco? I'm just going to go. Didn't have a ticket, didn't have a plan.

So I drove there, I somehow found a parking spot in one of the buildings and I started walking and I did 35,000 steps during that day. At the end of the afternoon, midday- whatever, I found a bar which was right on one of those barriers. So obviously you don't see any of the racing if you don't have any tickets, but you hear it.

So I was at one of the bars, I sat outside, I heard the cars passing by and I had my phone set up and I watched the race on my phone while having a beer. That was my Formula 1 experience. What I didn't know is that a friend of mine was enjoying herself with her friends on a yacht at the same time and she was trying to get in contact with me because she saw that I was there since I shared it a little bit on my social media. The service was so bad that the messages didn't reach me. When I went back to my car, messages came in and I ended up having a really fun time the whole night in jeans and t-shirt going to all those clubs that people always go to and enjoying myself in this Formula 1 bubble, which, yeah, you don't get to experience so often, right? So I was very lucky there.

And then I left that place, completely infused with this experience of Formula 1 and I’m just going for it. For the first time ever I had this experience of, you know what, I want to be there, I'm just going to go there, let's see what happens. After that, I was hooked and I decided I want to go to Le Mans. So I called my dad because I knew that he would be in Le Mans and I asked him if he could take me to the race. He basically said no, he has no time to babysit me in Le Mans.

I did meet Neel Jani, the former Porsche manufacturer race driver. And I was very cocky and I told my dad, well, if you don't want to take me, I'm going to ask Neel. I met the guy, but I didn't know the guy. And he was like, well, go for it then. So I did, I think I texted Neel.

And I was like, hey, I would really like to go to Le Mans. Is there any way that you can take me along? And he was like, you know what? Yeah, come along and do my social media. Just make sure you get there somehow. I was like, okay. I’d never done social media for anyone. I myself enjoyed photography and posting on Instagram for myself. I really liked that. I like to explore it. But I've never done it on any professional level whatsoever, or for someone else, you know. So that was my first real touch of going somewhere for a client doing social media.

If it wouldn't have been for Neel, I wouldn't have had this thought of even doing that. I was not aware that people actually do that. I knew that social media was by that time in 2019, a massive thing. Vloggers were huge back then, it was this thing of vlogging. But I didn't know that this is a thing that people take social media managers to a racetrack, right?

#4. What made you even say yes to that? Why did you take this step at all?

I think it's partially how I was raised. I was raised that nothing is for free in life. You have to work for things in your life. And the fact that Neel said, come along, but I need you to do my social media. For me, it was clear that there is no way that I'm not going to do this job. I need to do this job, right? Even if I'm not paid as such, I mean, he's giving me the ticket, but I need to do a proper job.

At the end of the day, I was always very curious. I'm a very curious person. So for me, it was highly interesting to deep-dive into this and just kind of go for it and play around with something that gave me a big canvas because Neel is not someone who needs social media as such. He does it because it's part of what you do nowadays in any sort of business. So there was not much I could do wrong, which is also why he was confident to just let me do it. So I think it was this idea that I'm very much raised that way. If someone gives you an opportunity like that, you don't just hang around and drink champagne. That's not who I am.

But after that I was hooked. I tried to find a proper job online, which was really rough because you needed most of the brands who wanted to have someone who has a degree of some sort and at least three years of experience to have an intern job. I don't have a degree in anything and I don't have any experience so there's no way I can do that. And then I had a very cocky thought of, well, vloggers are being invited everywhere, might as well try that. Drop that thought, went on with my life. And in early September, I got invited to a track day at the Red Bull Ring to have taxi rides, passenger rides in an LMP2.

Then I basically decided that I'm going to film that experience and I offered it to one of the car magazines which we have here. We have a few in Switzerland. One of them is like a free magazine. Anyone can get it for free. I called the head of that magazine and I told him, "hey listen, I was invited to do these things and I think I'm going to film it. Would you be interested?" And literally what he said was, "oh my God, we had a meeting yesterday that we need someone to do online stuff for us. You're my online girl now. I'm going to pay you for each video." I was like, well, okay, I’ve never done a video in my life, but sure, let's try. And from then on, first of all, I was really lucky that they had a sort of, let's call him a CTO in the company. He knew something about editing. He knew how to set up the accounts and so on. So he helped me very quickly to get sorted with that.

So the way that automotive journalism works is they get cars to test them and they get invited to go to these international presentations to see cars for world presentations or European presentations, Swiss presentations, whatever it is. And that's a lot because there are a lot of brands. So whenever they were not available or they really wanted something for online content, they would send me to do it.

And that's basically how this whole thing kicked off. A few months later, people started to approach me and say, Hey, we like what you do. Could you do it for us? That's how my agency part started. And I've never looked back and I'm growing and growing and building on something pretty cool.

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Carla's current role

#5. How would you describe your client role in one sentence?

Founder and CEO of a creative agency with the sidekick of being a host and presenter.

It's really hard to put it in one sentence because I have these two bases, right? I have my company ArteFact on top and then there's CARLABELLE and I get booked as an influencer and as a host. There's the agency where I don't necessarily need to be around; it's the creativity, the production, the social media management, the communication, all that. So it really is two legs that the company is standing on.

#6. So what does a typical day look like for you?

My day is full of writing concepts for clients, writing offers for clients, sometimes editing myself doing social media plans and postings for my clients. One of my clients is CARLABELLE as well. And yeah, basically laying all the groundwork that it takes to execute whatever needs executing. So for example, me as an influencer or as a host being booked to be on site somewhere. So I need to do research, I need to do preparations of some sorts. I need to sometimes even do the logistics, you know, with booking my hotels, things like that.

At the same time, there's a lot of the production side as well. When I know I need to produce a video, maybe I work with videographers, with editors, I need light, need sound, I need all of these things. I need a script, I need a plan. So I work on all of these things as well to execute the production. So basically, a day at home is very, very much in the office, just getting these things sorted and done. Also, feedback rounds, I have editors working for me from wherever. So they sent me versions of videos and I get back to them with feedback until I'm happy with the final result.

And the other thing is me on site, me on the track or me at a presentation or anything like that. And that really varies from having the full scope production where people book me because they want me to be there as a production company, as someone who takes care of the social media on site during an event or during a race weekend or something like that. Sometimes with me in front of the camera, so I have like two roles at the same time. Within that, the client books different things. So it's very, very individual to what the client actually wants from me.

Greg: Do you merge the two a lot where you're there hiring the company to come up with the plan and execution and then you are the face of whatever the content is that comes out of it? Is that something that's unique to you guys versus other agencies?

I would say yes because my skill is that I'm very confident in front of the camera, so people really like to book me to be the presenter or host for a live audience or social media or whatever it is. And at the same time I do bring the skill and the knowledge about everything that it takes behind the scenes: the production, the preparation, all of that. So more often than not it is actually being booked as a whole, depending on the size of the job, I do add freelancers to it. So that I don't have to do all of the things by myself.

I did do a lot of the things by myself at the very beginning, but now I've really reached a point where I would only normally show up with a videographer. The only time I would ever show up by myself is really as the influencer who is supposed to be there with the phone and just do things on the go. That's the stuff that I do alone, given that, it has preparation in it. But that's the thing where I don't need a whole crew on site.

#7. What are the most rewarding and the most challenging parts of your job?

Challenging

The most challenging, if I want to start with that one maybe, is definitely the toll it takes on the body and probably also the mind. It's very exhausting at the end of the year. The season is very long. There's a lot of traveling. There's a lot of super, super long days. So there is a big challenge in making sure that you don't collapse on the way, that you just stay as healthy as possible in a reasonable way. I think that's a very challenging thing.

Rewarding

The most rewarding, this is going to sound really cocky, but I'm going to say it anyway. Especially on my account, it's very important to me that I only post things that I really love myself as well. So being able to go home after the weekend, scroll through the content and really love what I see, that is the most rewarding to myself. When I really know that the whole work that I do - all the time to prepare, to be informed, to just to be in this full on full time and mostly almost 365 days over a year - to then see the results and see what I got out of it content wise or production wise or communication of a client. That's the reward for me and that makes me really happy.

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A post shared by Carla Welti (@carlabelle.ch)

And at the end of the day, I'm probably not the biggest fan as such. There's a lot of fans out there who know every single thing about the sport and the history and all of that. But I have goosebumps every single time a race starts. I have goosebumps every single time I see a checkered flag. I have goosebumps every single time when I see people winning, people losing. It's just these emotions and to be able to experience them combined with what I can do with it is for me the most rewarding thing.

#8. What are the three qualities that have helped you succeed at this?

Grit

First and foremost, grit. I have no problem to just go and go and go and go and go. I get tired. Yes, I have days where I need to just throw the phone into any corner and make sure I don't look at it for the next 20 hours. But I have grit to just keep going and working for whatever the future may look like.

Networking

The other thing is I would say I'm quite strong when it comes to networking. I have no problem to be in a room full of strangers and meet new people, find out who does what, tell my story, tell them about my skills and so on and so forth to increase my network as much as possible because I think having a broad and big network is the most important thing in business.

Creativity

The third thing is a certain level of creativity. I do come up with good ideas out of the blue. Creativity helps a lot, even though creative minds are very scattered and unorganized. I fight that constantly. But yeah, this creativity has helped me a whole bunch with what I do.

Greg: Do you ideate everything yourself or are you doing it with other people? Do you have a creative director or a thought partner for a lot of what you execute on?

It depends on the project. I unfortunately can't say too much, but I'm working on two very big projects at the moment for big clients where I very consciously decided that I don't want to do the whole creative process by myself because I know I'm not the only person on this planet with a good idea. And I want to cooperate with others to extract as much as possible from this opportunity for the client.

I think that's something some people struggle with every now and then. I love to work with people who are better at things than I am. I love that. And I think that's one of the most important things. If you think that you're the best at everything, you should just stop at what you do right now, because you're definitely not. There's always someone who's at least as good as you are, almost probably even better. And if you can combine your good skills with someone else's good skills, you just double the product in the end. All I really want is to deliver perfection to my client. I love working with people who are very, very good at what they do. And we kind of, you know, level us up when it comes to creativity and coming up with ideas and concepts and so on.

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Carla's advice

#9. If you can go back and give yourself your younger self advice, what would that be?

Well, I think one of the biggest things is everything happens for a reason. There is a lot of rejection in business as well. Nothing is just golden, lovely and beautiful. I have to work with people who talk bad about me behind my back. I have to work with people who for some reason were not happy with me for some private reasons or because there was no clear communication of what they really wanted or whatever. There could be 1,000 reasons why someone is maybe not happy or why they cannot or don't want to work with me from the beginning on. And everything always happens for a reason. And this stupid saying of "when one door closes, another one opens" is just really- it's so true.

So if I could give advice to my younger self, it would be to just trust the process and just continue doing what you do best, because that will take you to a very nice place and will get you very far.

#10. What about advice to someone who's starting out and looking to be in your shoes?

I get this question a lot, have daily DMs about that actually. I was very lucky to have this opportunity to meet a lot of people and build a base network very early on in my life.

But if I could say anything, it's first and foremost, just go for it. If you want to be creatively in motorsport, which is what I do, so that's the only thing I can really judge, then just go for it. Le Mans is one of the best examples actually, or even Spa and the Nürburgring. You have these beautiful tracks which have so much access when it comes to viewpoints to actually see the track.

So even with the most basic tickets, you can be anywhere at the track, maybe not in the paddock, but anywhere else at the track. And you can actually film or take photos from a thousand different angles. And with today's world of social media, yes, of course, there are a lot of people who do the same thing or who try to get somewhere, but that really is how you start. You just have to put yourself out there and create content and try to get people to see you, to listen to you.

There are so many examples as well of people who started to talk about the sport on Instagram or on TikTok and they now get invited or they get hired even to be a host or someone who does interviews or things like that. Yeah, just go for it. Just do it, because the one thing is without doing it, no one is going to see you. And the other thing is by doing it, you get better at what you do.

And by being around and talking to people, maybe even send photos or videos to drivers or teams or championships, you never know. One day, someone will bite and will take it and will give you an opportunity. So just go for it and meet people. Just meet people, talk to people, text them on Instagram like me. It's fine. Just meet them and something will happen.

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Carla's career highlights

#11. What's been the most memorable campaign of your career so far doing this? What's been most interesting or challenging about it?

There were several key moments in my life where I knew, okay, this is one of the opportunities where I learned so much and I got to grow so much within that. So definitely one of the first clients that I had in the sport was actually Porsche Switzerland, who asked me to be the presenter and producer for their social media content within the Swiss championship.

I ended up doing four full seasons with them, which was lovely for me because in the beginning it was just me and my phone. And in the end it was me plus a videographer who also did edits. And we had like this insane setup between the two of us, how we would execute an unbelievable amount of content within no time- it was all us executing and working on that. Porsche was the client and they wanted me to be there, but this development, that was really just us who worked on that. That really was, that was a great opportunity.

But then at the same time, for example, I was able to do almost one full season with the DTM championship before they had an owner change. And there I learned a whole bunch about this whole idea of social media and how to run a social media account successfully. It was back in 2021, so that was still quite early for me. So yeah, there's several things in that area where I would say, looking back, I'm very thankful that these things happened the way that they happened.

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