sales management

How Sales Management in Pro Sports Can Catch Up to Corporate America

kirk_wakefield 2018, About S3, Integrity, S3, Sales Management, Sales Training, The S3 Program, Tickets , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Why do parents, teachers, politicians, managers and salespeople continue bad practices? Four reasons and the ways we express them are:

  1. We do what was done to us and assume it was best practice.
    • “Look at me, I turned out OK didn’t I?”
  2. We lack the depth and breadth of relevant education to recognize bad practices.
    • “See, you can succeed with any background!”
  3. We judge outcomes based on the exception rather than the rule.
    • “Look at her, she started here and is now vice-president!”
  4. We lack the courage to meet the demands of reality.
    • “I know this isn’t working, but I can’t change what I’m doing now.”

Sports sales recruiters often ask applicants, “Why do you want this job?” The wrong answer is, “I just love sports.” The irony is when it comes to pay, work hours and benefits, they literally bank on the applicant’s love for sports to compensate for, well, real compensation.

How Do We Know the Sports Sales Management Model is Broken?

Sales 101

First, consider some basic 101 principles of sales management. These quotes are directly from a leading sales textbook 1

  1. To attract and keep the best talent compensation must be uniform within the company and in line with what competitors’ salespeople receive.
  2. Salespeople who perceive the system as unfair may give up or leave.
  3. A constantly changing system may lead [salespeople] to constantly change their activities but never make any [more] money.
  4. Companies that do not emphasize service or do not anticipate long-term customer relationships typically rely heavily on commission plans.
  5. Salespeople working primarily on commission have little company loyalty and certainly are less willing to perform activities that do not directly lead to sales.

Inside sales reps in sports do not receive compensation in line with what they can get anywhere else. Top salespeople often see the system as unfair (given effort & reward) and leave as soon as a client sees how good they are (and offers multiples of current pay). Teams frequently “play with the lights” changing compensation systems in ways that rarely favor the rep by making the rep more money. The shift toward service-only reps leaves inside sales reps relying heavily upon commission and sacrificing customer welfare and service. As a result, few have loyalty and are certainly unwilling to do non-sales related activities.

Turnover

Second, consider the effects and costs of turnover. Average sales turnover across industries annually hovers around 25%. 2 Typical sports sales practice is to recruit a new class of inside salespeople every 4-6 months, suggesting something closer to the average turnover among car salespeople (~70-75%). 3 Some are promoted (internally or externally), but most leave the industry voluntarily or involuntarily.

Costs of turnover are estimated between $75,000 to $200,000 per salesperson4, taking into account recruiting, training, and lost sales. You can calculate yours here. The NBA estimates third-year reps generate 3.4 times the revenue as first-year reps. Unfortunately, relatively few get to the third year.

If I fail over half of my students each year, you wouldn’t say I’m a good teacher. In our program, we can’t blame the students. We recruited them. The same is true for teams. If annual turnover is anything much more than the non-sports corporate average (25%), at some point we must have the courage to start looking at the system and grasp the reality.

Training

Most sports sales managers are interested in training. The problem is the low proportion of these with any professional training in personnel management, compensation structure, leadership, and other sales management responsibilities. Many make great effort to learn to compensate for the lack of formal training (i.e., business management-related degrees). A few have had professional selling courses. A few have MBAs. Most were selected on the basis of being great salespeople, rather than management skills–which are two quite different things.

Sales students not taking the sports route are often hired by companies like Oracle, IBM and other major corporations who offer starting pay closer to $100,000 than $30,000, even while spending months in training before ever making a sale. We don’t expect teams to be on par with Oracle. But, $10-$20 an hour and first year commissions won’t attract the best talent among graduates who just spent tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars getting an education and accruing student loans.5

A New Model

Sales executives and managers (in sports) routinely bring in motivational sales speakers and hold weekly pep talks. Why? Because the nature of the role and associated benefits of the job aren’t intrinsically motivating on their own merits.

One of our partners, Spurs Sports & Entertainment, decided to do something about it with the support of leadership, including Frank Miceli and Tim Salier. Lindsay Beale, Director of Business Development at SS&E, walks us through the four steps they undertook.

Step 1: Look at the hard truth

We studied our sales work force and realized we were recruiting talent, investing resources into their professional training and development and they were leaving our organizations for other local corporations in sales roles.  We thought we had the hiring and recruiting figured out. We found individuals who really wanted to sell. For years we felt our compensation was competitive to other sports organizations. This helped with recruiting, but when you hire talented salespeople, they have opportunities outside of the sports & entertainment business.

Corporations look for talented salespeople from reputable organizations. They use aggressive recruiters, signing bonuses, high base salaries and competitive compensation packages to attract them.  We realized we couldn’t compete with them–specifically with our representatives with under 3 years of tenure.

We worked with finance and HR to evaluate our current sales structure to establish a plan to address our top concern of retention.  Through our research it was also clear compensation wasn’t the only place sports sales are behind the corporate sales world.  We are currently in the process of addressing sales retention by reviewing three areas: compensation, sales enablement and culture.

Step 2: Create competitive compensation

Teams may think their compensation is competitive with other teams, but that is the wrong comparison point if the goal is to retain talented salespeople. We restructured in four ways.

  1. Supplement commission in the first few years with a higher base salary to provide stability while the sales representatives build their books of business. [Among S3 partners moving in this direction, this ranges from $30,000 up to $42,000 for base pay.]
  2. Restructure commission to reward all sales revenue. We realized our commission structure heavily rewarded products that more tenured representatives were selling but weren’t incentivizing newer representatives.
  3. Provide a strong upside for top sales representatives, with clear rewards and recognition for high achievement.
  4. Hire sales representatives at a full time, full benefits position. No seasonal positions.

Step 3: Give them the tools

We established a Sales Enablement strategy applying digital tools, analytics and strategic processes to allow our sales team to excel in their jobs.

  1. Utilize data and analytics.
    • Lead Scoring
    • Appending data to sales leads to target individuals for specific campaigns
      • Examples: Outer markets for weekend plans or high net worth individuals for premium events.
  2. Invest in technology to improve sales efficiency.
    • Conversica, artificial intelligent sales assistant
    • Zip Whip, texting platform
    • ZoomInfo, business to business prospecting tool
    • Linked-In Sales Navigator
  3. Train and develop adaptive selling skills.
    • SS&EU: Classes are offered during work hours, are hands-on, and cover a variety of topics. They are facilitated live by in-house experts to encourage the cultivation of ideas and relationships across departments. SSEU is supported at the highest level of the organization and every executive teaches a different course.
    • Internal and external sales trainers
    • On the job sales training

Step 4: Create a people first culture. Really.

  • Provide a clear path for internal promotions.
  • Recognize each seller has an individual selling style. Coach, develop and set metrics to fit each representative.
  • Promote work life balance for everyone.
    • Eliminate the following phrases from management vocabulary:
      • Grind.
      • First one in, last one out.
      • Outwork everyone else.
    • Focus on quality of work and their commitment to the sales process, goals and team.
      • Commitment (you want) vs. Compliance (you must)
  • Allow flexible hours that still meet business needs.
  • Increase self-empowerment. Encourage reps to make their own decisions on how to manage time and activities to reach goals rather than micromanage to the numbers.
    • Coach reps to improve each day and strive for stretch goals they set for themselves.

Conclusion

We believe the S3 program can recruit more and better talent to the major the more teams buy into the new model aimed at development and retention. Just because teams can recruit people to fill each sales class with low wages and benefits doesn’t make it the right thing to do–either for the candidate or the team’s welfare. Basic sales management principles show us how we can do better.

Some teams are taking the lead. Since word has gotten out, others have reached out to say they are following suit. Do you want to join them? Are you in?

  1. Selling: Building Partnerships, 2014, Castleberry & Tanner, New York: McGraw-Hill. Quotes straight from the book are in italics. ↩
  2. https://www.ringdna.com/blog/work-to-retain-sales-reps. ↩
  3. https://www.wardsauto.com/dealer/maxdigital-out-stem-74-turnover-rate-among-dealer-salespeople. ↩
  4. Sales Management: Analysis & Decision Making, 2012 Ingram et al., London: Sharpe. ↩
  5. Even if it isn’t a private school (average ~$35k/year), public school still costs at least $10k/year for tuition/fees alone. ↩

Do you have your P’s in order?

kirk_wakefield 2018, Careers, Lead, Learn, Personal Development, Research, S3, Sales Management, Sell , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Do you have your P’s in order?
by Kirk Wakefield – January 2018

People. Purpose. Performance. (Pictures.)

S3 2018 Board Meeting

Paul Epstein challenged the room of executives, managers and students to truly put people first. With over a decade of managerial experience in pro sports, most recently as Director of Sales at the San Francisco 49ers, Paul shared how their sales organization was transformed by helping people “find their WHY.” When organizations put people and purpose first, performance takes care of itself.

Tim Salier, Vice President of Franchise Operations at Spurs Sports & Entertainment, shared how the Austin Spurs G-League team faced high sales force turnover and low productivity. Putting people first, the sales structure was flattened, base salaries of account executives increased above $30,000 and career planning began with stretch assignments to strengthen skill sets in other areas. The results? Revenue rose 300% and more sales reps stayed in place after rampant turnover in the years prior.

Putting Your Money Where…

Chase Jolesch, Director of Ticketing & Premium for the Vegas Golden Knights, stated, “If people truly come before purpose and performance, we must act upon it. We can’t say we care and then ask people to work for less just because it’s sports.”  Shawn McGee, Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Homestead Miami Speedway added:

U.S. Compensation Across All Industries

I’ve seen both sides—low base and high commission and higher base with less commission. In the past, I fully subscribed to mitigating risk by paying a lower base and providing a more substantial commission, as well as forcing the salespeople to drive revenue in order to increase compensation.  However, at my current company, we pay a higher base and little commission.  At first I thought it would lead to lazy salespeople and lack of urgency to hit numbers. We actually found it allows us to source better talent who are still driven to reach the goals…and we can retain those sales people.

Research from the NBA suggests sales reps accept positions with a team for the potential career path and that a lack of clear career path is the main reason for leaving. We agree. Millennials, like most of us, want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. We want to see a future and purpose in what we do.

Some studies report compensation is rarely a reason for entering a sports sales career. That’s because starting salaries are often far below other industries. The table (right) offers pay comparisons to similar positions across all industries (i.e., not sports). If we want the top talent, will we get it by paying under market rates? If we want to maximize revenue, can we do that by offering the minimum?

Those on the brand, data and agency side of sports are largely competitive with the general market. We look forward to those responsible for ticket sales to lead the way in attracting and keeping top talent.

Leadership Style

As leaders it comes down to our own personal purpose, values and approach to managing and leading others. Do we see our relationship with employees as more parent-child (Theory X) or adult-adult (Theory Y)? Which do you think achieves the best results with today’s generation? (Hint: Same as when this first came out in 1960. You have to know your Y.)

People are different. Some more different than others. We think most S3 graduates are ready to perform, but variance exists. Learning new skills requires more direction, but once learned need more support and coaching. Research shows over half of leaders use the same leadership style regardless of situation or person, which translates into not meeting the needs of employees at least half the time.

Situational leadership adjusts to the person-situation. The best leaders know when to delegate, support, coach or direct, based on the employee’s skill development. (See Situational Leadership Model below.) Managers who put people first focus on knowing individuals, what makes them tick (their why) and adapt to meet their needs. Results follow.

Source: KenBanchard.com

The Spurs Sports & Entertainment (SSE) organization puts situational leadership into action. When Allen Schlesinger took an innovative approach to social selling that gave up on cold-calling leads, SSE unleashed Allen to become the leading revenue generator in the NBA’s developmental league (now G-league).

The Cost of Leadership Failure

Replacing a sales rep takes 3-4 months and typically costs at least 150% of the reps’ compensation in lost revenue and added recruiting & training costs. We might have a different view of turnover if we pictured $75,000 walking out the door each time one leaves.

Average turnover in sales across all industries generally hovers around 25% each year. Common thinking is (a) if turnover is over 25%, the problem is management not the employees, and (b) employees leave managers not companies.

Why do employees leave managers? In the sports industry, not unlike others, we promote the best salespeople to become managers. Unfortunately, great sales people make terrible sales managers, as about 1 in 6 suited for sales are good fits for management. We know this is true in sports–the best players are rarely good coaches or managers–so why do we think it works in business?

The Secret of Success

The good news is other ways work. Members of the S3 Advisory Board, like Eric Platte at the Atlanta Hawks, have sales management training programs that identify quality candidates with the right mixture of sales competency and openness to servant leadership to develop into future managers.

The 49ers Sales Academy is a result of a culture shift based on People–Purpose–Performance, in that order. How did they transform the sales force?

First, the focus changed from a “manage up or out” to a retention approach. They asked, “How can we find people who have not only the basics to succeed but whose strengths can shine in the organization for years to come?” The search is for great talents, great people–those who want to do something special.

Second, they took the external sales philosophy of “every seat has a story” for customers and applied it internally to employees. In recruiting, that means taking deep dives into why they are in this business and their values that determine how they do what (sell) they want to do.

Third, once a part of the team, management continues the process of starting with WHY to engage and listen to employees to identify themes to incorporate systems and behaviors to accomplish purposes important to employees. (See diagram, right.) Performance is not the objective, but the result of a people→purpose orientation.

Thanks again to Paul Epstein for bringing these words and illustrations to life–and who now continues his journey to inspire others at the BW Leadership Institute. Are you interested in learning more about the Center for Sports Sponsorship & Sales (S3) at Baylor? Do you identify with the WHY & HOW of what you’ve just read–and want to join us? Visit www.Baylor.edu/Business/S3. Thanks to those who traveled to Waco to experience record-breaking cold. Check out your pics below! Click on one to begin the slide show.

Making CRM training tolerable: The 10 Commandments

kirk_wakefield 2015, CRM, Relate, Sales Management, Sales Training, Sell, Tickets , , , , , , , 0 Comment
Making CRM training tolerable: The 10 Commandments
by Chris Zeppenfeld – May 2015

One of my favorite sales reps said this to me coming out of a CRM training session a few years ago.  I think it’s the best analogy I’ve ever heard about CRM training.

“Going to CRM training is like going to the dentist….no one really looks forward to going, but when you are done, you’re usually glad you went.”

Let’s face it, CRM training isn’t sexy.   Click here, do that, fill this fill field in, make sure you do that first, blah blah blah.   However, user training (and user adoption) is the most critical element of CRM implementation.  Here are 10 axioms to follow as you set up your user training for CRM.

1. Thou shalt not have 5 hour marathon training sessions.
I’ve probably conducted somewhere between 2,000-3,000 software trainings in my life.   If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you can’t possibly hold a sales rep’s attention for longer than 45-60 minutes.  Maybe less.  An Indiana University study says that the average attention span of students is actually around 15-20 minutes.  Yikes! Make this a hardline rule right now:  Training sessions cannot be longer than 60 minutes.  The moment you hit 60 minutes…close up and stop training. Trust me, they’ve already stopped listening.

2. Thou shalt not cram all of the CRM training into 1-2 days.
We have a “CRM Boot Camp” that stretches across 10 (yes, 10!) days.    Why so long?  Repetition!   Repetition is the key in software user training.  I’d much rather have 10 shorter training sessions over a span of two weeks than to try to cram 2 marathon training sessions over a day or two. I purposely want my reps to go through the training, then go do something else not CRM related (aka forget about things)….and then come back the next day and see what they recall.   Remember, your reps need to know how to use CRM properly every day…not just this one time.   You’ll get much better rep recall when they run repetitive “sprint” sessions rather than “marathons.”

3. Thou shall not have “all staff” training sessions.
This one is brutal.  I cringe when I hear a VP/President instruct the CRM Manager to “grab everyone in a conference room and go through the whole CRM thing.”  Think back to the last time you had an all-staff meeting. How many people were fiddling with smartphones not paying attention to the speaker?  I did a quick survey with my own staff last time we had a non-CRM related all-staff meeting: 78% of my reps admitted playing with smartphones during a portion of the meeting. When the classroom size gets too large, it’s extremely challenging to make sure everyone is following along with you.

4. Thou shalt not intermingle departments.
There are two parts to training sessions: “This is HOW you do it.” and “This is WHY you are doing it.”  The first deals with compliance.   The second deals with buy-in and understanding.   How much you decide to dive in on the second part is the key.   With newbie Inside Sales reps, it’s often best to focus on the “click here, do this” part. They are still trying to comprehend the sales scripts they just spent 7 hours learning in role-playing. So, it might be information overload to start going into the intricacies of 1:N relationships in CRM.   My goal is to get newbie sales reps to do X correctly. For more experienced reps in Premium Sales, however, give them insight into why a certain form or process is being done the way it is.  Get buy-in and understanding from senior sales reps who have a far greater influence on the sales staff.  Sure, it might be “easier” on you to shove all of the departments into one training session.  However, the way you’re going to teach a “compliance” session is going to be much different than teaching an “understanding” session.

5. Thou shalt not have the CRM Manager move the mouse.
Think back to your teenage days learning how to drive a car.   Did you learn more from the passenger or driver’s seat?  Reps will learn far better if they are the ones behind the wheel. There is no prize in showing how quickly YOU can navigate CRM. It only matters how well they can navigate CRM. Have reps login as themselves on training PCs to mimic “real” experience in CRM. They see their My To Do List, their leads, their dashboards, etc.  Even in a group setting with multiple reps, always have the rep move the mouse on the screen. If they don’t do it, they won’t remember it.

6. Thou shalt make sure the rep’s boss is in the first few training sessions.
Nothing undermines CRM  quite like when the rep’s boss doesn’t show up for the first training session.   The typical dialogue between the rep and sales manager usually goes something like this, “Go see (insert CRM Guru here), s/he will run you through that CRM stuff.”   Remember, the reps report to Sales Managers, not CRM Managers.   When sales managers don’t show up for CRM training at least early on, it undermines the importance of CRM in their jobs. A special note to sales managers who don’t show:

[dropshadowbox align=”center” effect=”lifted-both” width=”450px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]What you are telling the rep is that while you say CRM training is “important,” it’s apparently not important enough for you to stay in this room and make sure the rep is paying attention.[/dropshadowbox]

7. Thou shalt not worry about anything else in CRM other than completing a phone call on the first day.
Everything the reps do in CRM falls into two buckets:  1) things they do about 100 times a day   2) things they do maybe once a day.  Guess which singular activity they do 100 times a day….phone calls!   The most important thing the reps have to do (correctly) in CRM is completing the phone call screen the way you want them to do it.  Don’t worry about anything else in CRM until you are 100% satisfied that they can complete a phone call correctly without you standing over them to monitor it.  Sometimes, you might get reps that will try to skip forward (how do I search this?  where do I go to do that?). Tell these over-achievers that you are purposely putting blinders on them and you’ll get to that training later in boot camp.

8. Thou shalt tailor the training to the type of rep in the room.
Especially when you are doing new sales reps onboarding with CRM, you tend to encounter three very different types of reps. It’s important that you identify which types of reps you have in your training room.

  1. “Soldiers” are the majority of your sales reps.   Soldiers come in with a “tell me what to click on, and I’ll do it” type attitude towards CRM.
  2. “Old Guard” are the minority of your sales reps.  Old Guards tend to be skeptical that what you are about to show them in CRM is going to be better than their “tried and true” methods.
  3. “Questioners” are the rarest of your sales reps.  Questioners want to know WHY something is the way that it is in CRM – and may not comply until they are satisfied with your explanation.

The people you should most be concerned with are the Questioners.   They are often the most influential about CRM to their sales rep brethren (positively or negatively). For more on this, check out my past S3 article that explains this in greater detail.

9. Thou shalt have mini-training sessions periodically with each department if you roll out a new feature.
Let’s say you roll out a new feature that can help them in CRM.   Maybe it’s a new view that organizes info better for them.   Maybe it’s a new process you’ve built in CRM that allows them to make appointments quicker.   Quick!   Grab the reps and huddle them together.   These mini-sessions don’t need to be elaborately planned.   It can be impromptu at their desks – or even better in a nearby conference room.   Your sales reps and managers might actually welcome it…it gives them a quick 10-15 minute breather from making calls.  I recommend doing these mini-sessions twice a month to refresh them on cool features they may have forgotten about and/or teach them new features that can help them do their job better.

10. Thou shalt make sure everyone can see the screen and read the text.
I know this one sounds really obvious, but you’d be surprised how many times this gets overlooked.   CRM from a UI perspective has a ton of small icons, menus, and fonts.  Even if you have a decent sized display for your CRM trainings (projector, large TV screen, etc.), it might still be difficult to read the text in CRM.   Remember, your software training deals with more than just icon and shape recognition….much of your training will involve the rep reading text and making an appropriate user interaction in CRM.  As you read this article now, take 10 steps back from your monitor/screen.   Can you still read this text?  If you can’t read the text, then your reps are too far away in your training room.

5 Tips For Managing in a Social Selling Environment

kirk_wakefield 2015, Lead, Sales Management, Sell, Tickets , , , , , , , 0 Comment
5 Tips For Managing in a Social Selling Environment
by Justin Gurney – April 2015

Does this sound familiar?

“Great job Brandon! You made 150 calls today, those will be sure to turn into sales, so keep it up.”

“Ryan, wow you set 10 appointments this week leading the way.”

“Mark, you were on the phone for 200 minutes today, way to dig in with your prospects!”

Whether you are a sales manager or sales rep, it probably does. It’s how most sales managers in sports manage. In fact, I did this same thing and even copied my CMO and VP of Sales on this e-mail every day so they could chime in and reinforce the point.

How did my top reps respond to this?

  • I had to write up the top performing rep in the entire company for faking calls and even fire a couple of talented ones.
  • One of the most talented Inside Sales reps I ever had went to Enterprise Rent-A-Car rather than accepting a promotion to Group Sales.
  • Rep burnout –
    • What they say: “I want to manage one day.” What they mean: : “I want to manage so I don’t have to deal with these annoying Hustle Metrics.”
    • What they say: “I want to ultimately get into marketing.” What they mean: “I can’t see myself doing this much longer.”
    • What they don’t say: “I want to be a career sales person!”

Do you want to be a manager?

When I asked one of the top performing sales reps at Linkedin if she wants to manage one day she responded by saying…

“Absolutely NOT, who would want to deal with all that comes with managing when I can control my own paycheck, have total autonomy, and be challenged by working with different businesses every day.”

Note: This particular sales professional was recruited to Linkedin from a world of “pounding the phones” because she discovered how to use Social Selling to become more efficient.

My reaction? “WOW!”

In three years working in the NBA’s Team Marketing and Business Operations Department, meeting with hundreds of sellers at various levels, I don’t think I’ve heard one sales rep, at any level, say something like that to me.

I could site a number of different research projects that show that this kind of sales environment is BAD – regardless of the source–because we know sales rep tenure drives business growth and rep turnover costs a lot.

So how do we solve this?

There is one finding, above all, that I learned directly from a Linkedin study of 100,000 business professionals that inspired me to study and understand social selling:

[dropshadowbox align=”center” effect=”lifted-both” width=”550px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]Sales professionals with a high “Social Selling Index” feel more inspired at work.[/dropshadowbox]

So, what are Linkedin managers doing differently to attract top performing sales reps that are grinding out hundreds of calls/day and turning them into inspired sales professionals?

My co-workers at TMBO and I recently took a field trip to the Linkedin office at the Empire State Building for a “Managing in a Social Selling World” training session. Here are the 5 keys to success for managers:

1. Become The Expert

Social selling is here to stay and sales managers have to master it in order to manage it. This will take time, effort, energy and intellectual curiosity. I’ve been studying this now for over a year and I learn something new every day. If we aren’t willing to to take the time to master this than #2-#5 aren’t possible.

2. Train, Train, Train

Did you know that sales reps forget 87% of sales training after a month and 70% of it within a week?[ref]Download the report from Qvidian [/ref] Once we become the expert, we must reinforce how to weave social selling into the sales process. Don’t flip a switch or pile more work on top of the 100 call minimum. Share success stories on how to build a proper profile, how to use Advanced Search, how to ask for a warm introduction or referral, how to write a proper connection request or inMail, and how to maximize groups.

3. Practice What We Preach

Be active on Linkedin. Connect with your reps’ top clients. Post sharable content. Do everything top performing reps are doing. Pull up profiles in your one-on-ones. Coach your reps on how they can use Linkedin to find a warm introduction or engage with insights. This is way better in one-on-ones than reinforcing that reps are not making enough calls.

4. Use Social Selling Index as a Primary Measurement tool

Click Here to Understand the New Formula For Calculating Social Selling Index. Caution for control freaks out there, you are going to have to learn to let go – but your reps will be more inspired and love the autonomy.

5. Reverse Pipeline Management

Rather than focusing on how many calls are made or appointments are set, first focus on sales! Sales reps gravitate to what we measure and recognize. If we continue rewarding quantity in the first stage of the sales pipeline, regardless of quality, we will continue to have high rep burnout and fake phone calls.

On the flip side, recognizing and rewarding sales performance along the pipeline, regardless of whether it was through e-mail, text, in-mail, networking events, in arena activity, etc. will lead to more inspired sales professionals. In fact, you may want to remove the term “Hustle Metrics” altogether.

 

The surprisingly simple little secret to landing a leadership position

kirk_wakefield 2014, Careers, Lead, Learn, Personal Development, S3, Sales Management, Tickets , , , , , 0 Comment
The surprisingly simple little secret to landing a leadership position
by Kirk Madsen – October 2014

What is leadership?

For everything written about leadership and management (an Amazon.com search yields over 1 million books on the topic!), we sure seem to have a lot of questions about what it is and how to do it. One of the questions people in leadership positions get asked all the time is, “How did you get to where you are now?”

Whatever their answer is, it will probably include a surprisingly simple little secret.

Ready? There is no secret.

There really isn’t much of a mystery. Leaders follow simple, repeatable processes anyone can start immediately!

But, before we talk about these processes, let’s first establish two key ground rules:

[dropshadowbox align=”center” effect=”lifted-both” width=”400px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]

Ground rule #1: Consistency is king.

Ground rule #2: A positive attitude is non-negotiable.[/dropshadowbox]

These two ground rules are the cornerstones or the foundation for all you do. Over the long haul, building success without these cornerstones is impossible. From there, focus on a few key concepts:

Concept #1: Do more, now.

Leaders work harder and generate results more consistently than their peers.

Dionna Widder
Dionna Widder

Dionna Widder, the Vice President of Ticket Sales & Service with the Cleveland Cavaliers, sums this point up perfectly: “You do not need a title to be a leader. Set yourself apart with your work ethic and results.” Everyone is capable of having a great week, or even a great month. Leaders have great quarters and great years. Sure, they have their off-days. So did Michael Jordan; his were just better than everyone else’s.

Concept #2: Lead, now.

Take on a leadership role with your current team.

Joe Schiavi
Joe Schiavi

Joe Schiavi, the Director of Inside Sales with the Detroit Pistons, offers some practical advice to practice leadership now: “Teach less experienced reps and give time out of your day to make sure that your teammates have the best possible opportunity for success.  Your manager will notice your extra efforts. Your teammates will respect you because you took the time out of your day to help them when they needed assistance.”

Concept #3: Be a student.

Every day.

Consider how much more capable you are of passing a test when you’ve taken the time to study. Widder recommends, “Schedule a meeting with your manager or other leaders in the industry to learn.  Seek out resources and dedicate time to be a student.” Books, articles, TED talks, conversations with others – there are countless resources available. Use one of them every day!

Concept #4: Pick your peers.

Immediately find mentors and surround yourself with successful people.

Do you know what I love most about being a leader? Finding others who want to succeed, and empowering them to do it. On a peer-to-peer level, spend your time and energy with people who exhibit the positive personal and professional traits you see (or want to see) in yourself. On an executive level, ask the people you admire to mentor you. The benefits of surrounding yourself with successful people will be real and immediate. “Ask and welcome feedback from your leaders, peers, and friends and develop plans to improve areas that need improving,” Widder says. “Feedback can be both positive and constructive; both are valuable to your growth.”

By applying these concepts, you’ll have a greater impact on your organization. The greater the impact, the greater your chances of breaking into leadership positions.

Cover photo courtesy of MarcMo.

 

Three things I’ve learned in starting a new collegiate ticket sales center

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Three things I’ve learned in starting a new collegiate ticket sales center
by Chase Jolesch – August 2014

In the last five years, colleges have started outbound ticket sales centers modeled after professional sports. After spending nearly three and a half  years working with the San Francisco 49ers and Legends Premium Sales, I received the opportunity to go back to my alma mater and start an outbound ticket sales center at Baylor University.

I’ve been working the past eight months to develop Baylor’s program. The three important things I have learned so far are (1) create a positive relationship with the ticket office, athletics foundation and marketing department, (2) implement a CRM system to help manage fans more efficiently and (3) hire and lead the right employees.

Create Positive Relationships with Other Departments

The ticket office, athletics foundation and marketing department all work with tickets in a variety of supporting roles. I connected with each department to learn how they work and be able to implement productive changes.

Matt Rousso
Matt Rousso

Creating these positive relationships between departments is built on communication. As Matt Rousso, Director of Ticket Sales & Service at the University of Southern California, shares,

“At USC we work closely with our ticket office on all ticketed athletic events leaning on their expertise to help improve overall processes as well as the fan experience.  There is no doubt that we will continue to improve our synergies in this respect as our tenure together increases.”

Each department has a variety of objectives, but the overlapping goal is to provide a great customer experience to each fan.

Implement an Effective CRM System

We recently implemented a CRM system that our ticket sales center, ticket office and athletics foundation all access. This helps internal communication so we know what is going on with our fans as we document calls, sync e-mail lists and make notes in the system. The ticket sales center uses CRM to prospect leads and turn them into specific sales opportunities.

Rich Wang, Associate Director of Analytics & Fan Engagement at the Minnesota Vikings, has over eight years of experience in the database world, believes

“having the right information is key in today’s world. CRM provides the level of detail and insights a sales center can act on in real time.  Further, CRM can provide data that allows an sales organization to form tangible relationships between existing clients and prospective targets.”

For a CRM system to be a productive tool, every department needs to be involved, and for that to happen you need the right employees.

Build the Right Team

We have taken a methodical approach to building the Baylor ticket sales center. The culture we want to create is one that cultivates talent, but also challenges and pushes. Finding the right candidate can be difficult, so we look for candidates eager to learn, work well in teams and want to be challenged.

Jared Kozinn
Jared Kozinn

Jared Kozinn, Director of Business Development-Premium Seating at the Detroit Lions, has experience building sales teams in the NHL, MLB, & NFL. Jared says he likes to, “look to hire passionate candidates with positive attitudes that want to learn and are open to constructive criticism.”

While finding talent through a variety of sports networks, including the Baylor S3 program and referrals, our sales center is beginning to take shape.

It has and will continue to take some patience to get things where they need to be to make it an overall success. Through positive internal relationships, CRM collaborations with fan experiences, and training the right employees the Baylor Ticket Sales Center is well on its way.

 

Sales Management: Why Process Trumps Talent

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Sales Management: Why Process Trumps Talent
by Flavil Hampsten – June 2014

Which matters more: Process or Talent? That’s an easy one.  Process always trumps talent.

Before you get upset and start defending how talented your staff is and that you couldn’t generate the numbers that you do without them, imagine how much more productive they would be if you gave them leads that close at four times the normal rate?  Or if you have sales events for them that routinely lead to $100,000 days?

I’m not going to completely define what process should be in place, but I will say that as a sales manager, process always trumps talent. Here is why.

#1 Talented Individuals Are Simply Not Enough

Sales managers need to hit a departmental goal.  There needs to be method to maximize revenue from each individual on the team.  Therefore, a process should be devised to assist everyone in order for the department to achieve goal.

I’ve never spoken to a sales manager who claims to have all A+ sales talent on staff.  Most have a mix of A+, A, B, and C sellers.  However, most have an A+ revenue budget to achieve.  Having a great process can bump the level of each seller and give the department a better chance to achieve goal.

#2 Talent Comes and Goes, Process Stays Forever

[dropshadowbox align=”right” effect=”lifted-both” width=”250px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]Brent StehlikHaving the right process in place has been an important element to the success of the teams I have managed throughout my career. The hiring process, sales process, lead-gen process….even convincing sales people to fall in love with the process of becoming great. They might not believe it right now, and I don’t think I did when I started my first job in sports, but process and persistence almost always trumps talent. ~Brent Stehlik, EVP/CRO Cleveland Browns[/dropshadowbox]With the ambitious nature of today’s sales executives, the average life of a sales executive is approximately two years.  With no guarantee to keep top talent, the only method to ensure that you keep results is to have a process that maximizes each opportunity, regardless of which salesperson in assigned to it.

Why only two years? Generally speaking, the A+ sellers are the ones who can leave first, simply because other teams recruit them away with money and titles.  Most times, sales managers hands are bound with budgets and departmental structure making it difficult to match the offer and the salesperson leaves.  However, the departmental goal does not change.  If a superior process is in place, the current salespeople will continue to deliver at a high rate, a new top salesperson will emerge, and the new salesperson will generate top numbers quicker.

#3 Talent Pool is More Like a Talent Puddle

Hard fact, but with the amount of positions to fill, the low pay, and extremely long hours in sports, it’s nearly impossible to hire all A+ sales talent.  Therefore, by default, to keep your positions full you must hire a mix of talent levels in order to achieve sales results.  A process is the only way to make this happen.

Even if you have one of the best recruiting and inside sales programs in sports there will be times where positions are empty or when talent is lagging.  As a sales manager, you owe it to your company and your career to protect yourself from these times.  The most foolproof way to do this is to engineer and implement a superior process that maximizes revenue regardless.

With work and deliberate practice talent can be created.  However, superior talent cannot be created without hard work and deliberate practice while in a superior process.  More importantly to a sales manager, you cannot have a successful sales department without a process to make everyone better.  The talented individuals are simply not enough; you need to create and train talent to optimize performance.

Want more on good processes? Read Flavil’s, No More Cold Calls

Cover photo courtesy of Rosemary Demirkok

Got a Question? A New Idea? Ask the Sports Sponsorship & Sales (S3) Forum!

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Got a Question? A New Idea? Ask the Sports Sponsorship & Sales (S3) Forum!
by Kirk Wakefield – May 2014

Post questions to the community

This month we introduce the Sports Sponsorship & Sales (S3) forum where you can post questions to others in the community. We encourage you to ask others what works for them in the area of ticket sales, sponsorship sales & activation, sponsorship metrics, sales analytics, CRM, social media, digital media, or any other category in the area of sports business.

 [dropshadowbox align=”center” effect=”lifted-both” width=”250px” height=”” background_color=”#F7D358″ border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]Click here to visit the S3 Forum.[/dropshadowbox]

Offer ideas & feedback

One of the options in the forum is to select “Feedback” as the category. Use that category in the forum to post ideas for new articles, ask for help, or offer insights/comments on how we can improve our service to the sports sponsorship & sales industry. We’ll check regularly and follow-up with each idea or suggestion.

[dropshadowbox align=”center” effect=”lifted-both” width=”250px” height=”” background_color=”#F7D358″ border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ] Click here to connect with members in the S3 Community.[/dropshadowbox]

Set your profile to public if you want to make friends

profileYou may not need another social network, but feel free to connect here to build friendships among like-minded, goal-oriented people committed to the sports sales industry.

So that others in the community can find you, be sure to set your profile to “public.” Members may edit profiles by clicking on the button in the upper right corner  where it says, “Howdy, Your Name.”

I want to join the community. What do I do?

Hey, I don’t see anyone saying, “Howdy” to me.

To join, just click on the social media button in the upper right corner! Or click here.

 

The Six D’s of Destruction: How to Recognize and Avoid Sales Burnout

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The Six D’s of Destruction: How to Recognize and Avoid Sales Burnout
by Kris Katseanes – May 2014

What happened to all the excitement?

We all seek to hire highly competent, highly energized, hard-working individuals who invest everything they have in the effort of growing a career in sports.  We strive to find individuals who have excelled in life, and are eager to translate that pattern of success to the sales floor for our team.

Yet, some of these same individuals have come to me after a few months on the job and share something like this, “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  I’ve always succeeded in everything I’ve done, but this is really difficult and I don’t know if it’s for me.”  What changed with this person over just a few months? What happened to the person who was so confident (borderline arrogant), excited beyond measure, determined, and capable/willing to take on the world?

Recognizing destructive emotional patterns

Assuming that we set a proper expectation and are managing well, the easy answer then becomes that they are burned out by the long hours, the monotony of the calling and solicitation exercises, or the feeling of being enamored with ‘working in sports’ has faded.  I believe that there is definitely a little of each of those sentiments sprinkled in throughout.  But, I also believe that a negative emotional pattern in our human nature is most often the culprit.  This negative emotional pattern was something I came across recently.  An ecclesiastical leader by the name of Kevin Pearson coined it the “Destructive D’s.”  His application was a bit different, but the core principles apply to what we do every day.

1. Doubt. Doubt is defined as a lack of confidence in self and/or ability. Doubt starts to creep in.  Anyone who has been on a sports sales floor is going to experience this.  There is too much rejection involved in what we do for it not to ever be a factor.  The key is recognizing that it grows and leads to…

2. Discouragement.  Discouragement arises from missing expectations or goals.  The goals and numbers we ask for are always on the stretched side as that’s the world we live in.  The red flag we need to watch for is if missing goals or numbers causes discouragement, resulting in the sales representative:

  •  lowering expectations,
  • decreasing effort, or
  • displaying a weakening desire to stay in the job/industry.

Someone who becomes discouraged at a high level, then experiences….

3. Distraction. The sales rep that gets to this point begins to lose focus on two things:

  • what s/he needs to be effective &
  • the ultimate goal of succeeding in the sports industry.

They also lose focus of why we want to be excellent, succeed, and move up the management ladder: The opportunity to influence this industry and to help others in their careers.

One important thing to note is that both discouragement and distraction can become habits.  We should be looking for these traits in the hiring process as much as possible, and also be very mindful of those tendencies early on in a sales representative’s efforts. Whether habitual or circumstantial, distracted sales reps then begin losing their…

4. Diligence. The distracted sales representative gravitates toward time wasting activities and excuses to avoid the extra effort needed to become successful.   The biggest concern is if  this spreads or affects the productivity and attitudes of other reps.  This is where a rep starts to bring others on your team down with them. Obviously, not doing one’s job results in….

5. Disappointment. The sales rep without diligence will miss goals and expectations, ultimately leading to disappointing performance and reviews. While not surprising to supervisors, the end result for reps at this stage if often…

6. Disbelief. The emotional disappointment grows to the level that they actually start believing that they can’t do the job, or that it’s too hard and too demanding.  The sales rep that only months before had the world by the horns, now has internalized the emotions to the point they can no longer do what is asked.

Solution: Catch it early

The key as managers is to understand that the first “Destructive D” will happen to everyone.

Coaching, encouraging, and training to ensure we curb the second and third from setting in is absolutely critical.  Once it reaches the fourth level of losing diligence it is very difficult to restore what you once had. A new setting or a new role may help, but chances are the behavioral pattern is too far down the road and ingrained in the mindset/routine of that sales representative. 

In thinking about all of the successful sales industry leaders I know well, they all have in common the ability to recognize and squash “Destructive D” number one before it progresses further.   We should work as managers to recognize doubt and discouragement and find ways to foster courage and confidence among newer sales representatives. Part of that training can simply be to show reps this article (or explain the 6 D’s to them) and give them the freedom to ask for help when they believe they may be experiencing any destructive symptoms.

One of the best cures is really preventative: We must recognize the early symptoms to mitigate turnover and increase team chemistry and production.

 

Cover photo courtesy of Molair.