I think it all depends on your goals, and those can change over time. At the heart of it all you have to have fun and enjoy it, otherwise you would be better off staying home. But this is "competitive" for a reason. You should always be striving to do better than you did before.
Winning a GC in an amateur contest is a great way to start, but it will likely drive you to try your hand at going "pro". To start you will want to just get all your entries in on time an not be DAL. From there you will want to end up middle of the pack...then top half...then top 10...then an RGC...then your GC.
You will want to improve your ranking and start to see how you do against the "good" teams, and try and start beating them too. You will want to be seen as a team to beat by other teams.
Then you will want to get out to the big contests. Along the way you will want to earn enough money to make your hobby/obsession as affordable as possible so you can do it more and justify the expense.
After doing well at the big contests you will want to just go back to having fun and realize that that was what it was all about from the beginning.
You just summarized my 11 years in comp BBQ. Nice. :thumb:
I won't do non-sanctioned events anymore. Not because I'm above it, but because I don't want to be "that guy". The one that has won the American Royal and a bunch of GC's and RGC's who walks into the backyard to compete. Not that I'm a better cook, but the perception will be that I THINK I'm better than everyone else and am trying to bottom feed for some cash, or whatever. I've learned that people can have whatever perception of you they want... if you let them
As for cash, I love and need to bring home some money to keep my hobby going. However, I don't pick contests based on total purse. I did it once and got nothing. Actually, I avoid knowing what a contest is paying out. Knowing the payouts is like a personal jinx.
However, I know teams that pick contests based on who is there, who is not there, how much it is paying, if it is a qualifier or not, what are the odds to the Jack, how many teams it has, etc... Can't say I haven't thought about most or all of these at one point or the other, and I don't think those are bad things to consider depending on what your goals are. But at one point, none of this was on my radar. It was just to win, whatever that means: GC, category, top 10, top 25%, top half, better than my last contest.
Was just thinking about the old days and thought I'd toss the topic out. Have enjoyed the responses.