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9 Ways to Best Use Time to Build Your Sports Career

kirk_wakefield 2015, Careers, Integrity, Lead, Learn, Networking, Sales Management, Work ethic , , , , , , , , 0 Comment
9 Ways to Best Use Time to Build Your Sports Career
by Jeff Eldersveld – June 2015

The most valuable thing any sports professional can give is time. It doesn’t matter what stage in the career – looking for a job, recent hire at a job, or a seasoned veteran – because how time is spent defines one’s self and, ultimately, one’s career advancement.

Time management is often not formally taught in school or even at jobs for that matter. Yet it is directly mentioned in a vast majority of sports job descriptions. Entering college, students are thrust into an environment where they have to balance a workload of multiple classes, assignments, and extra-curricular activities. So, they become self-taught time management enthusiasts. Some students figure it out. But, what worked in college may not equate to success in the sports industry when it comes time to get a job, start a job, or continue as a seasoned veteran in this industry.

How to Best Use Time to Get a Job

Let’s focus on first-time job seekers.

  • 1. Intentional Internships: To get a job you have to have experience and to get experience you have to have a job. So, the most important use of your time should be finding an internship that directly translates to a desired occupation, rather than just accepting whatever will give course credit. Sometimes that means pursuing & creating an internship where one didn’t exist. You must intentionally commit scheduled time to develop relationships & connections. Your university, as well as the sports organizations in your area, often provide opportunities to network with executives. You should be first in line and last to leave after getting their business cards.
  • 2. Navigate Patience vs. Persistence: College students work their way through four years of school (or more) and have a job waiting for them when they graduate. Wrong. Not in sports! In a perfect world, sports administration programs would have rolling graduation dates to coincide with the off-seasons of the four major professional sports. Because that is not a reality, most first-time job seekers must be patient. The hiring cycle in sports does not always fit with recruiting practices of corporate America.

While patience is necessary, persistence is required to make sure your resume floats to the top of the pile when a job opens. Time must be spent reaching out to prospective employers letting them know about a related school project, something you saw in the S3 Report (duh), or some form of warm and NOT random conversation. Then when a job does open up, the decision becomes much easier on who the employer should reach out to first.

How to Best Use Time as a Recent Hire

Too many want to rush this stage without taking the time to develop their skill sets, instead diverting focus by looking for the next promotion or better job opportunity.

Figure1-Candour1
Linking Candour to Leadership
  • 3. Train like it’s a marathon, not a sprint: Rarely does someone become General Manager or Vice President before the age of 30. Developing leadership competencies (see right) don’t happen overnight or even in a few years.  Marathon runners are known for superior endurance and mental toughness. Half of running a marathon (other than the 26.2 miles) is believing it can be done. Time must be devoted to training, learning how to crash through “the wall,” and sacrificing momentary pain for long-term accomplishment.

Recent hires need to work like this. Impress the person who hired you by showing a high level of commitment and ability to accomplish delegated tasks. It may seem tough to endure while wondering if that promotion is ever going to come. That is a mental block or wall to overcome. Stay focused on the task at hand. Gradually earn more responsibility as you train, ready to go the entire distance. Don’t be the one who stops halfway and hops on the bus for the easy ride back home.

How to Best Use Time as a Seasoned Veteran

As you develop leadership skills and are in a position to lead and help others, two of the best ways to use your time are to give back and to work with the right people.

  • 4. Give Back: To become a “seasoned veteran,” others had to help along the way. Devote time to the next generation of up-and-coming sports industry superstars. These superstars could be looking for internships, first-time jobs, or taking a step to further their careers. But one thing is the same: a knowledge transfer from a veteran is what will help pave the way for the superstar’s future success.
  • 5. Hire the Right People: There is no better way to spend time than building a highly functional team. The trick is to identify resources during one’s career that produce top talent either by coming up through a highly reputable organization (led by seasoned veterans) or college students who have been given a superstar skill set by their institutions. Once these areas have been identified, finding the right people becomes much more efficient. And with efficiency comes better productivity and more time to train – making the team that much better.

Time is Always Needed for This

Here are a few exercises to practice no matter what career stage.

  • 6. Say Thank You: Handwritten notes are still king because they take time to write. But, don’t neglect a verbal thank you, either. Whether in the office or over the phone, saying thank you preaches humility – which is also why this act should be done to subordinates as much as superiors.
  • 7. Learn More to Teach More: Take time to find your inner curiosity. Discover something new like learning HTML or attending an online seminar. Better yet, gain new knowledge and disseminate that knowledge amongst peers and coworkers. It doesn’t help anyone when knowledge is concealed.
  • 8. Call Your Family: Whether it’s a special occasion like Father’s Day or just the start of a new week or month, make a point to reach out to your family – especially Mom and Dad. They are, after all, the ultimate seasoned veterans.
  • 9. Find Your Happy Place: Everyone goes through difficult days where stress pops up in unforeseen ways. Powering through it some days may work but use these opportunities to “take a lap” around the office. With most teams, a lap means walking around the arena to clear the mind and refocus but it could also be in the form of a physical workout.

Cover photo courtesy of Jeff Davidson.

 

10 tips to shape your ticket sales career

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10 tips to shape your ticket sales career
by Stephen Gray – May 2015

Many of the tips I’m about to share I received in the classrooms at Baylor as a student. Others I learned during my time at Spurs Sports and Entertainment.  They helped me grow into management. I hope they help you with your career. Some may seem obvious; but sometimes the most obvious advice is the most overlooked. 

  1. Win! Regardless of what else you do, the most important thing at the end of the season is: Did you take home the gold?  “It doesn’t matter whether you win by an inch or a mile. Winning is winning,” – Dominic Toretto from The Fast and the Furious.  If you are working next to others that have been with the team about as long as you, then make sure you come out on top of the sales board.  Or, surprise everyone by beating out a veteran.  A great place to start winning is in a sales contest.  Winning a few sales contests to start off my career at SS&E helped get my name out there to the entire sales floor.  I started receiving nicknames like “Stone Cold Steve Gray” and won multiple trips.  I know it’s not possible for everyone to win,  but what is always possible is to hate to lose. 
  1. Trips with teammates, whether for fun or business, are always company trips. Congrats! You’ve won the sales contest and are on your way to a free vacation with your teammates.  This will very likely happen at some point early in your career, so it’s important to understand that what happens on these trips DOES come back to the office with you.  Be sure to have fun, but be responsible.  Managers want staff members they can depend on.  If you want to make a great impression, be the responsible one of the group that is looking out for your teammates.
  1. The days of sales calls are not over. Thanks to the S3 program, I came out of school knowing I needed to hit the phones harder than my peers to be successful.  As a hiring manager, I now know how truly rare that mindset is.  Many candidates say they’re ready and know it’s a big part of the job, but saying and doing are completely different things.  If you land a sale job, focus on making as many quality calls and face-to-face meetings as possible.  Never make calls just to hit the numbers your manager gives you.  Your goal for every call is to move that lead further in the sales funnel. Every person you speak to should receive your full attention.  Have effective, open-ended questions ready to go. Most importantly: Listen.  Learn what they are passionate about and this will open longer conversations and higher close rates. 
  1. Take bullets and give accolades. To be a leader everyone can trust and depend on, you must be able to take responsibility, even for things not fully in your control. Attendance may be down and your manager jumps on the team.  Take ownership: We (I) should have done a better job selling & we (I) will make up for it the next time.  Make sure you do make it up.  Next, don’t wait or ask for praise.  Instead, give it out as much as possible.  This is one of the best tips I’ve received for building a positive culture in the office.
  1. Always under-promise and over-deliver. Before unloading all of the great benefits and gifts available to a buyer, stop to think about which ones to save to add value later. Especially do this when putting together proposals and contracts.  Hold some of the good stuff back that isn’t essential to getting the deal closed.  That is how you go from a salesperson to a hero in your client’s eyes.
  1. Find a mentor. Find an in-office mentor (who holds the position you seek one day) and an outside mentor.   Meet with the inside mentor every other week to discuss those matters s/he is most familiar with.  Visit with the outside mentor each month to gain a broader perspective.  Always bring a note pad. Always take notes.  This shows respect, indicates you are listening, and demonstrates that you plan on using what you learn.
  1. Limit wasting time during work hours. Are you tempted to browse ESPN, Facebook, or fantasy sports at work? Instead, when you need a break, pick up a book or listen to an audio book for professional improvement.  This goes over a lot better when your manager sees you not making phone calls or sending e-mails.
  1. When you succeed, share it. Nothing makes a worse teammate than making a sale and not sharing anything about it.  Share how you found the lead, how you approached it, and how you closed the deal.  These stories fuel sales teams to keep going and close more deals.  Become a mentor to others.  Find a college student or new teammate that appreciates advice and wants to learn.  Help them find their way and it will often lead to you developing as well.
  1. If a teammate needs a boost, call a meeting–regardless of title. One of the most impressive things a sales representative can do is call a meeting with teammates to get them fired up about calls, season ticket campaigns, or the upcoming theme night. Sales managers can be motivational, but sometimes they need help from the leaders on their teams.  When a sales representative calls a meeting, it is typically much more effective in motivating the team than the manager calling a second or third meeting that week.  The leader of the meeting doesn’t always have to be the veteran.  You just have to be passionate about what you are saying and remind them that as a team you can accomplish the task at hand.
  1. Think outside the box. To separate yourself from your peers, you must think for yourself and come up with new ideas and strategies. Once, I met with the principal from a San Antonio ISD elementary school to present why her school should participate in our annual School Day game.  Afterwards, she said what I had heard before: “We don’t have a field trip budget.”  How could we get these lower-income schools on board? In the corner of the principal’s office was a brand new Xbox 360 and a bicycle.  I asked, “I’m just curious, what are those for?”  She said, “Our school bought those to use as an attendance incentive with funds provided by the state for this purpose. Students with perfect attendance are entered into a drawing for a big prize each month.”  I asked, “So eight students win prizes throughout the year?  What if we made our School Day game the attendance incentive next year?  That way every kid with perfect attendance will win a prize.”  The principal loved it and bought over 300 tickets for the game.  We used this model for all of the lower-income schools I met with and my School Day sales numbers quadrupled.  Soon, I was teaching my teammates and other sales teams on how to sell the game to schools without field trip budgets.

Whether these tips are obvious or not, you would be amazed by the number of people that don’t follow through on most of them.  Without these tips, I don’t know if I would’ve made it this far in sales.  It can be tough at times, but the thrill of winning, sharing, and helping others develop in their own careers has made every minute worth it.  The next step for anyone that wants to be a leader, mentor, or just a good teammate is to take note of the best advice you’ve ever received and be sure to share it with your peers.

What Do You Want To Be Known For?

kirk_wakefield 2015, Careers, Integrity, Lead, Learn, Personal Development, Work ethic , , , , , , , , 0 Comment
What Do You Want To Be Known For?
by Dawn Turner – May 2015

Is there a difference in work ethic across generations?

Some say that work ethic has decreased from Gen X to Gen Y. Others say that it varies by individual and their upbringing. Millennials need to be aware of potential generational biases and even seek to overcompensate in order to prove such theories do not apply to them.

To combat this type of thinking–whether you are a Baby Boomer, Gen X, Y or Z–ask yourself: What do I want to be known for?  A hard worker? A leader? Someone loyal and willing to do whatever the job requires? Next, think about what you don’t want to be known for: lazy, not being a team player, dishonest, disloyal, or a bridge burner.

Burning bridges

burning-bridgeAt a recent sports industry meeting, two people on the same day separately voiced similar complaints about the need to teach today’s young adults about how burning bridges early in their careers can come back to bite them. This got me to thinking about the generational attributes I have been reading about and what we can do to help educate future generations.

The first story I heard was about a young worker who moved from organization A to organization B. After being in the new position for six weeks, the worker received a call from organization A and decided to move back. This turned out to be a rather abrupt move that left organization B in a lurch. The second story I heard was about a recent graduate hired by an organization that they really wanted to work for. This person did a great job and was promoted after just a few weeks, only to decide to depart for a job with an external client.

In both situations the organizations put their faith and resources in these young workers, but were left in the lurch. Even though organizations move on, they will never forget how these two young workers handled these situations. The industry is so small, it is virtually certain word travels around to others. In any case, future interviews will be difficult because hiring managers routinely contact previous employers.

Short term vs. Long term

In the short-term these situations may not seem that crucial. But, it could come back to haunt them in the long-term. Let’s play this out hypothetically using the first example. Once the worker went back to organization A, they stayed there for five years until they got tired of the winter weather.  During that time the president of organization B decided to move to California and run organization C. Since the worker was seeking employment in a warmer climate they applied for a job with organization C. The new president of organization C saw their name come through and remembered how they handled things five years prior. They told their hiring managers not to bother interviewing this candidate and also told their friends at organizations D, E and F (also in California) that they would not recommend this worker. Organizations D, E and F shared this information with their friends at organizations G, H and I who then pass the information to organizations J, K and L. At this point it is very difficult for the worker to get an interview in the industry, let alone in their preferred state of California.

Here’s another real life example. A professional sports organization hired a college student for an internship. The intern turned out not to be very reliable and folks in the organization decided this person was not cut out for full-time employment. A few years later the former intern realized they were not mature enough to handle the work while they were an intern and called to apologize. When they called they explained how they have matured and are ready to take things seriously. Do you think the organization hired them for a full-time opening? No way! This is very unfortunate, because even though people may change, they already made negative impressions.

Who are you?

In my nearly 20-year career I have seen a variety of scenarios similar to these play out, not many of which are positive. The time to take personal responsibility for who we are and what we want to be know for starts now.  Am I a team player? Am I clear about my goals and aspirations? Am I easy to work with? Will my coworkers and managers give me a good review and 100% recommendation?

We should all ask ourselves these questions. If we present ourselves in the best way possible, it really doesn’t matter what the studies say about generations. What matters is who I am and how others see me.

Treating others how we expect to be treated should be toward the top of everyone’s list. As long as we always remember this, we won’t need to worry about making poor decisions that have negative repercussions down the line.

Cover table source: http://www.fdu.edu/newspubs/magazine/05ws/generations.htm

 

 

Four Key Strategies to Make Your Sports Career Flourish

kirk_wakefield 2015, Careers, Lead, Learn, Personal Development, Sales Management, Sell, Tickets, Work ethic , , , , 0 Comment
Four Key Strategies to Make Your Sports Career Flourish
by Deno Anagnost – April 2015

Is your career in ticket sales just starting to catch fire? Or, are you a seasoned veteran or manager feeling as though your career development is becoming stagnant?

Either way, I have four strategies which can take your career and personal brand to the next level. I have been very fortunate in my career to work alongside and meet with some of the best sales executives in professional sports. These individuals use these strategies to make a positive impact on their organizations and community. This kind of approach is worth imitation and will be noticed and contagious to those around you.

Focus on who (not what) you want to become

People dance with mediocrity because they focus solely on what they want to become. Their career goals are all about titles, money, and what they think is “success.” The short term, fast track mindset is strictly measured by timelines and dollar figures: “I need to be a manager in two years and making six figures in three years.”

Effective sales executives focus on (1) who they want to become and why, and (2) not on what they want to become and when. When you focus on who you want to become, attention shifts to what you can control. Create positive habits driven by who you are and want to be. Start thinking about others more. Establish what you stand for as a professional and why. Become a better version of yourself than yesterday. The right position will find you if you focus on being the very best at the position you have, whether it’s a student, an intern, a sales rep, or in management. The end reward isn’t the money, position or awards. It is what you now possess to give and contribute.

Lead with an abundance mindset

An abundance mindset believes an ample amount of success and resources exist to share with others.

Sales executives at every level can have a scarcity mindset. In a ticket sales environment, this means you believe there is a limited amount of success and sales to be made. Leaders with this mindset feel the need to hoard knowledge and resources. This scarcity mindset creates unnecessary competition that promotes negativity and leads to needless conflict between colleagues and departments.

When you have an abundance mindset, you congratulate and learn from others’ successes. When you have a scarcity mindset you look for ways to justify why they had success and you did not. This distracts focus from the functions of your job which leads to poor results. Someone with an abundance mindset will be consistently generous with their time, praise, information and resources. A sales executive with a scarcity mindset is highly jealous, and will shield information for fear someone else will have more success with it then they will.

An abundance mindset does incredible things for your personal brand. Your actions will show you have the big picture in mind. You will be viewed as someone who is selfless, and in return, you will become someone who receives more information, more responsibility, and more praise. Ask yourself: “Am I contributing to the greater good of the sales department? Or am I taking all that I can so I can win?”

Be present

Some of the best sales executives I have ever been around possess a piercing ability to focus. They become increasingly more accomplished than peers. How?

  1. They are professional students of time management.
  2. They work efficiently without making mistakes on the small details without getting distracted.
  3. They regulate their environments and remove potential distractions from line of sight.
  4. They aren’t on work phones while also texting on cell phones, typing emails or browsing websites.
  5. They are active listeners. When they ask you a question they are genuinely interested in connecting to uncover a way to help you.
  6. In meetings, their computer screens and cell phones are turned off to eliminate distractions.
  7. They give all of their attention to you and the task at hand; they aren’t just “checking the box.”

This approach carries into their personal lives. They aren’t texting or sending emails at the dinner table. When they spend time with friends and family, that’s what they are doing. They engage in conversations and activities that build healthy relationships. The core of this strategy is to focus on being present in all areas of your life. Put tremendous work into being present and you will have deeper, more fruitful relationships.

Don’t give or take excuses

Our biggest problem as sales professionals is when we can’t even see  we have a problem.

Every time I make an excuse I tell a little lie to myself that I end up believing. Doing this blinds us. We lose our self-awareness. These little lies exaggerate the faults of others and inflate our own egos. We quickly see the world through this negative view no matter how big or small the excuse is.

When we take action to do the tough things best for the long term we build grit within ourselves. This makes us more prepared for the next tough challenge ahead in our lives. In contrast, each time we rationalize or excuse we become more mentally weak. We become less confident. We fold when even easier obstacles arise.

Don’t let external situations control your internal attitude. Giving excuses is one thing. Taking them is another. Nothing defines a sales culture more than the excuses leadership accepts. Excuses are excuses. We all use them. What we don’t see is that excuses focus on things outside of our control. Do these sound familiar?

  • I’d sell more if I had better seats to sell.
  • If I had a different title I could get to decision makers easier.
  • I didn’t hit my goal because the team stinks.
  • This lead list is weak.
  • I don’t have enough time.

Sales leaders who accept these excuses can expect mediocre results or worse. Instead, look for ways to coach reps to identify when they are making excuses. Create habits and a sales culture built around professional, personal, and revenue development.

Conclusion

I wish I could tell you these strategies are easy to implement. These are not quick fixes. Over time, these strategies will change your approach to this business. People can try to fake this approach, but then words and actions won’t align. However, when habits and words do align with these strategies, people will see you as someone with courage, someone who can stomach the cost of leadership, and someone to admire. Who do you want to be?

4 Keys To Successful Communication

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4 Keys To Successful Communication
by Briggs Webster – March 2015

NRG, the parent company of Reliant Energy, based in Houston sponsors eight NFL teams, as well as the Texas Rangers, Houston Rockets, and the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo. As a part of sponsoring 8 of the 9 most valuable NFL franchises, we vie to be a relevant part of the football experience while leveraging assets to create an authentic connection for fans.

An ongoing task for brands with such corporate partnerships is to leverage hospitality assets. With NFL teams stretching from San Francisco to New York, our 8-person Houston-based team must balance the hospitality (aka ticket request) needs of executives and upper management. With over 10,000 tickets to distribute and allocate over the course of a year, you might think it’s an easy job that makes plenty of friends.

But, please don’t call me. Because, frankly, it is tough to keep everyone happy. In fact, we keep a motto front of mind to help keep everyone happy, from the highest executives, to the smallest entry level associates. The easy 1-step process to keeping everyone happy:

  • Understand that you cannot and will not keep everyone happy.

If you are in this role, it is your job to try to keep folks happy. But, when you can’t meet everyone’s request, what should you do?

Taking an active role in communication

Instead of passively reacting to requests, take an active role in communicating. Explain what assets you do have available and what you can do with what you have. How can you improve the way you communicate? Through my experiences with NRG, I have learned four techniques to effectively communicate with colleagues, bosses, clients, or executives.

#1. Listen.

It’s that simple. Focus fully on whoever is talking and simply show interest. If you are attentive, it’s going to be a lot easier to clarify information and avoid conflicts. Since so much communication is done via e-mail, you may need to make a call so listen. But, first, read carefully so that you have all of the details.

#2. Be aware of nonverbal communication.

How body language influences outcomes
How body language influences outcomes

The way you look, listen, and react to another person through your body language tells others more about how you feel and what you think than words ever can. You can improve effective communication by using open body language—arms not crossed, sitting on the edge of your seat, and maintaining eye contact.

#3. Manage stress.

It’s easier to communicate, respond to email, or pick up the phone to call someone when you have nothing on your plate on a slow workday. But, for most of us, those days are few and far between. So how can you manage stress? First, recognize it. When you’re becoming stressed, immediately capture that moment by taking a deep breath to calm down. You may not be able to go on a midday run to de-stress, but you can take deep breaths and re-evaluate. Before reacting in a stressful situation, take a deep breath and a few seconds to imagine the issue from the other person’s perspective.

#4. Follow up.

radio silenceOne of the best pieces of advice I have received at NRG was from our Director of Sponsorships, Christine Brown. She said that “Radio silence is your enemy.”

Even if you don’t have an answer to a question, inquiry, or problem, you should proactively update people on progress and steps you are taking. Christine used an analogy that stuck with me. Avoiding radio silence is, “kind of like a waitress coming by your table to say that the food is coming and the kitchen is a little backed up. You might still be hungry, but you aren’t annoyed and you aren’t wondering if the waitress forgot about you.” Following up, even if there is really nothing to be updated, is better than “radio silence.”

Conclusion

Effective communication enables you to communicate even negative or difficult messages without creating conflict or destroying trust.

Effective communication combines a set of skills including attentive listening, nonverbal communication, the ability to manage stress in the moment, and the simple recognition of following up. While effective communication is a learned skill set, it is more effective when spontaneous rather than robotic. The goal is to incorporate these skills into habit, so that is a part of who you are. Just like a speech read from notes has less of an impact than speech delivered from the heart, spontaneous communication is the same way. You can start by writing these four tips on a card by your phone or PC. Eventually, you’ll lose the card, but keep the practice and instinctively and spontaneously communicate with others.

Making CRM What Your Sales Staff Wants

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Making CRM What Your Sales Staff Wants
by Brooke Gaddie – March 2015

Get to know your staff

No two sales staffs are going to be exactly the same. No two reps on your staff may be the same. In order to achieve the level of acceptance that you want, you have to make the system do what they want. That means getting to know your salespeople.

My job is to make sure that 60 reps across three franchises in both sales and service utilize CRM. Roughly four months into our CRM implementation I would by no means say that we have it all figured out, but we’ve made some huge strides.

Get help. Get Ready.

[dropshadowbox align=”right” effect=”lifted-both” width=”300px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]Excel can sometimes be the frenemy of CRM. It provides a great blueprint on what is important to the rep (if a sales rep is going to take the time to make an excel sheet, it must be pretty important stuff for them to track). However, Excel is that safe, familiar security blanket that reps coming running back to at the first moment of indecision or doubt with CRM. If you can convince the reps that organizing in CRM is better than their own Excel sheet, you’ve won. ~Chris Zeppenfeld, Charlotte Hornets[/dropshadowbox]We are fortunate to work with some extremely smart people at KORE Software to help make our system the best it can be. They offer a sounding board to bounce off ideas to see if what one rep wants is feasible and will help others achieve goals. We talk frequently with the Charlotte Hornets (Chris Zeppenfeld) and Utah Jazz (Adam Grow),  who have plenty of experience and offer great ideas.

If you’re just starting to implement a new CRM solution, don’t expect to be done when launch day arrives. We spent months thoroughly preparing and thought we were in pretty good shape, but since Day 1 have adapted almost daily to tweak things to work the way the reps want. Some days it is as simple as adding a box for favorite player. Other days it’s sitting down with a rep to figure out how to put everything they once had in Excel in CRM.

Train, Train, Train Again

If I have learned anything in the last four months it is this:

You can’t tell a room full of people something one time and expect them to remember it.

Train, train often, train one topic at a time. When we began training we did it in each department’s weekly meeting. That can quickly turn into a conversation with one person about one really weird situation while the rest of the room tunes out. What does work?

  1. Pick one topic.
  2. Go to the area where that teams sits.
  3. Walk them through what they need to do.
  4. Explain how it helps reach their goals.
  5. Send a follow-up email with the links to screenshots for reference.

While this takes more time on the front end, it gets results. The reps retain the information much better. Once we began these 30 minute sessions in the department’s area, reps started to buy-in and become more productive.

Conclusion

Changing the way someone operates is never going to be easy. It will take work; a lot of work. But when you find the way to train and motivate employees to do something that helps them reach their goals, we all enjoy the outcome. The thing to remember is that not everyone, or maybe anyone, will want to look at something the same way or to complete the task the same way. You have to learn and adapt with them.

Cover photo courtesy of Andrzej.

 

Students: Finding your Perfect Sports Business Employer

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Students: Finding your Perfect Sports Business Employer
by Brian Norman – January 2015

Students: Finding your Perfect Sports Business Employer

It’s your senior year. You’ve been through hundreds of hours of classroom instruction, completed multiple industry internships, and built your network extremely well. You’ve taken advantage of every opportunity. You are ready to jump head first into a full-time position within the sports business.

Now that you’re ready for the real world, how will you choose your perfect employer?

This is a simple question I ask every job candidate I interview, yet I’ve found it is very hard for many to answer with ease.

How can you find your perfect fit? Be honest with yourself, and decide what job characteristics are most important to you. You’ll find many of the biggest factors below.

Coaching

Who will you report to? Personally, I believe this is the most important aspect of finding the right fit. Your first boss in the sports business should be someone who will actively coach you in your first role.

They should genuinely care about your long-term success and develop a personalized plan to help you accomplish your goals. You should expect them to push you to accomplish your goals while also serving as a resource and support system along the way.

This individual should be proactive in providing feedback, as it is important for you to consistently understand your strengths and areas for improvement. They should know how to best deliver feedback, and how they can assist you in applying it in real time.

Finally, their reputation matters! It is important that your first supervisor is well respected and well connected as, more often than not; they are your primary connection to the rest of the industry.

Culture

Simply put, culture matters. Some questions to consider asking your future employer:

  1. Does the leadership team promote and foster success at every level?
  2. What type of traditions are unique to their organization?
  3. Are best practices both shared and celebrated?
  4. Do employees truly root for one another?
  5. Is the organization proactive in seeking new opportunities and trying new ideas?
  6. Is executive leadership accessible?
  7. Do business departments collaborate well across the board, or do they operate in “silos?”

Training Program

You will learn more in your first 12 months in the business than you can ever imagine. Your training program is vital not only to your success in your first year, but it serves as the foundation for your entire career.

In Philadelphia, new sales executives with the 76ers go through an intensive two-week training program before they begin reaching out to prospective ticket buyers. This ensures they are truly ready to communicate with prospects, while also giving them the confidence to succeed early on.

While your initial training is important, consistent ongoing training is equally as crucial. Just like professional athletes, you must continue to fine tune your craft and work on making yourself better everyday.

In Philadelphia, the sales leadership team provides consistent ongoing training to their staff every Wednesday and Thursday morning. This training focuses on different topics each week, keeping in line with the current sales process in order to give members of the sales team the tools necessary to succeed.

Opportunity for Growth

The best hiring managers aren’t looking for the next entry-level candidate. They’re looking for someone to groom to be the next great sports business executive.

In order to do so, they must provide opportunities for entry-level employees to grow within the organization. Therefore, you should ensure these types of opportunities exist when applying for your first position.

Further, be sure to ask about additional opportunities that may exist after your first promotion. Does the organization you’re interviewing with offer their senior level employees the opportunity to further grow their careers through “track” programs? Remember, career growth doesn’t end after your first promotion!

Exposure

Your first job in the sports business should serve as an extension of your college curriculum. You should constantly look for opportunities to learn more about the industry.

In order to do gain this knowledge, you’ll undoubtedly need exposure to other members of the organization you work for.

Does your potential employer facilitate these opportunities?  Are you given access to materials to broaden your knowledge of the business?

Pay Scale

Unless you’re a 20-year-old who can hit a 100-mph fastball, throw a 50-yard touchdown pass, or guard an NBA All-Star, chances are you’re never going to get rich off of your first job in professional sports.  A typical first year sports business executive in ticket sales used to be less than $35,000 (when this was first written), but better offers today (2021) are in the $40s with a chance to make more on commissions and bonuses depending on the position and level of success.

Should an additional few thousand dollars be the deciding factor on which job you take?  My advice? It should not.  Make sure every other category measures up before relying on pay scale to make your decision.

For those looking to learn more about sports business compensation, click here to see inside sales rep salaries from Ziprecruiter of roughly $45k or $22/hour. The question really isn’t what your starting salary is; the question is where are you going?

Location

This factor is entirely personal and unique to every one.  One thing is for sure, having the ability to move out of your hometown, city, or state drastically opens up your opportunities.  There are 122 professional teams within the four major American sport leagues, or over 140 counting MLS.

Limiting yourself to 2-3 throughout your career can inhibit your growth.  Nonetheless, it is important to find what makes most sense for your personal situation. Just know that you’ll spend about one-half of your waking hours with people you work with (see the graph in the cover photo). That’s a lot of time to spend with people if you pick the “right” location, but the wrong job.

The 2014 S3 Board Meeting in Pictures

kirk_wakefield 2014, About S3, Learn, S3, The S3 Program , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 0 Comment
The 2014 S3 Board Meeting in Pictures
by Kirk Wakefield – December 2014

The meeting for the Sports Sponsorship & Sales (S3) Board was held November 11th & 12th in Waco at the new McLane Stadium on the campus of Baylor University.

The only of its kind focused on selling sports, the S3 major is a selective program in the Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University, a highly ranked Christian university. The S3 program continues to grow from its original admissions of 19 highly qualified students in 2004 to soon selecting up to 38 in each year’s incoming class. Students in the major are prepared for careers in (1) professional selling for sports (tickets, corporate partnerships & service) and (2) customer relationship management (CRM) & analytics. Read more here on the Baylor website.

Phillips 66 S3 Banquet

Dr. Darryl Lehnus, Director of the S3 program, hosted the Phillips 66 S3 Banquet attended by over 140 executives, managers, S3 alumni and current S3 students.

Dinn Mann (BU ’87), Executive Vice President and a founder of Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM), provided the keynote speech, “The Changing Landscape of Digital Media & Ticket Sales.”   Mr. Mann serves on the S3 Executive Council, along with other S3 Executive Council members recognized at the banquet, including:

  • Eric Fernandez (BU ’94), Co-founder & Managing Partner, Sports Desk Media, S3 Executive Council Chair
  • Greg Grissom (BU ’95), Vice President of Corporate Development, Houston Texans, S3 Executive Council Vice-Chair
  • Tami T. Walker (BU ’86), US Brand Management, Phillips 66
  • Jose Lozano (BU ’93), Chief Executive Officer, The Company
  • Derek Blake (BU ’86 )Vice President, Partnership Marketing & Military Programs, LaQuinta Inns & Suites
  • Drew Mitchell (BU S3 ’06), Chief Revenue Officer, Texas Legends
  • Chase Jolesch (BU S3 ’10), Manager of Ticket Sales Center, Baylor University
  • Heidi Weingartner, Chief Human Resources Officer, Dallas Cowboys

Chevrolet Outstanding Board Members

Over 60 executives and managers from over 25 teams, companies, and the NBA and MLBAM offices attended the 2014 board meeting, which included an afternoon of interviews for S3 juniors for summer internships and S3 seniors for career positions.

Special thanks to Murray Cohn, Vice President of Ticket Sales (NBA),  for leading a panel of  Sales All-Stars including Jake Reynolds and Brian Norman, Philadelphia 76ers, Kris Katseanes, FC Dallas, Joe Schiavi, Detroit Pistons, and Lacey Congdon (BU S3 ’14), Texas Rangers. As always, we are grateful to Bill Guertin for mentoring S3 students and kicking of the week along with Jason Howard (Houston Astros) and Tom Parsons (Time Warner Cable Media) as part of the “Faith in the Workplace” panel discussion.

The meetings concluded with the Chevrolet Outstanding S3 Awards given this year to:

  • Outstanding Team Board Member: Greg Grissom, Vice President of Corporate Development, Houston Texans
  • Outstanding Corporate Board Member: Lynda Carrier Metz, Chief Marketing Officer, Restaurant Management Company (Pizza Hut)
  • Outstanding S3 Alum: Bryan Apgar (BU S3 ’07) Vice President of Sales & Business Development, Website Alive
  • Outstanding S3 Report Writer: Anne Rivers, Senior Vice President, Global Director of Brand Strategy at BAV Consulting

The 2014 S3 Board Meeting in Pictures

How to Get Into Sponsorship Sales

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How to Get Into Sponsorship Sales
S3 Club Winners
S3 Club Winners: Lauren Bacon, Turquoise Early, Colten Renner
by Brooks Byers – October 2014

The Dallas Mavericks’ George Killebrew, the San Antonio Spurs’ Jeanne Garza and Baylor IMG’s Brian George shared advice and experiences in the sponsorship field at the Baylor S3 Club meeting on October 8th. Courtesy of Fox Sports Southwest and Fox Sports 1, we also provided some lucky Baylor S3 club members with court side seats at the Dallas Mavericks preseason game against the Pacers.

Why should students pursue a career in sports?

All three panelists spoke about the “diversity” of opportunities that selling sponsorships affords people. Sponsorship sales takes people outside the office, learning the inner workings of a range of businesses from “mom and pop stores to traditional giants” as Brian George put it. George Killebrew said it was great for people who enjoy “learning something new” every day.

On the other hand, the group warned of the long days that come with the job. Jeanne Garza said it’s important to remember that “it’s not what you see on ESPN.” Killebrew reminded everyone that “other jobs are more of a nine to five, Monday to Friday deal, and sports can always be a hobby. But, when the team schedule comes out for the year, it pretty much plans my life for the next few months.”

Getting into corporate partnerships

Brian George
Brian George

Killebrew’s advice for those interested in selling sponsorships was to gain experience in “multi-dimensional sales” like in the media field, where packaging groups of inventory for clients is more complex than selling individual products. Jeanne Garza suggested selling air at radio stations, since it’s more promotion-driven than TV, hence more like selling sponsorships for properties. Brian George underscored the need to be able to think outside the box. “We sell ideas, concepts and beliefs. Clients must know you have their best interests at heart.”

Women in sports

Jeanne Garza believes that opportunities for women in the field have grown significantly. She cautioned that women still have to be particularly careful in how they present themselves and in separating their professional and personal lives.

killebrew new
George Killebrew

George Killebrew believes the talent pool today is much larger, and that the leadership teams he’s seen that included women were much more effective.

Career advice for students

Killebrew said that those wishing to enter the field need to be comfortable “introducing themselves and telling people what they want to do.”

He also said that a good resume is simply a “blueprint for telling your story, and a guide for our discussion” in the interview process.

Jeanne Garza made a case for cover letters because they’re a great way to show why you’re unique and a great fit for a position. She also added that any errors in the resume or cover letter are reason enough to not consider a candidate.

Jeanne Garza
Jeanne Garza

Brian George emphasized the importance of building relationships, especially in a small industry like sponsorship sales. Even if you just meet someone new and go to dinner with no immediate job prospects, you should still write a hand-written thank you note.

Cover photo source: Courtside Jones

 

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.