4 Keys To Successful Communication

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.

#LoveJu: How Juventus & Jeep Partner to Target the Digital Fan

#LoveJu: How Juventus & Jeep Partner to Target the Digital Fan
by Alex Stewart – March 2014

#LOVEJU

Juventus, la Vecchia Signora of Italian football, may be one of the most established brands in Italy, but she recently showed the sort of innovative approach to earned media that many newer, more agile brands could only sit back and admire. Using a multi-platform approach to social media, Juventus ran a competition to design a vast choreography within the stadium during the heated match with fellow soccer grandees Inter Milan.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foKIndrO6Uc

Users uploaded their suggestions via a Facebook app for a placard-based design to be rehearsed and performed by the Juve faithful as the teams took to the pitch. The app received:

  • 3122 suggestions,
  • over 4000 registered users,
  • 290,000 views, and
  • over 18,000 users voted for their favourite submission online using the #LoveJu hashtag.

This hashtag is itself a superbly crafted example of digital interactivity, a homophonic pun that is simple and appealing, and works on a platform where English is still the most used language.

During the game, the interactivity continued, as tweets using #LoveJu were displayed on the stadium’s massive screens. Many events now have this form of interactivity and it surely cannot be long before most stadiums in Europe follow suit, with the appropriate levels of screening, obviously.

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James Horncastle

“This was a great initiative, yet another example of Juventus’ modernity and innovative thinking. A number of clubs are embracing social media in Italy and doing a really good job at engaging with their support. The other clubs that spring to mind are Milan, Roma, Fiorentina and Parma with Inter and Napoli probably a touch behind though not by much. To return to the #LoveJu initiative, though it looked great and was a real success, I do think fan choreography is at its best when it’s spontaneous and designed by the supporters rather than the club.” ~ James Horncastle[/dropshadowbox]

Proper planning

Juventus’ initiative was over three months in the planning. They have had a digital department for two and a half years, which is longer than many clubs in Europe. I asked whether there were plans to follow up the choreography event and was told, perhaps a little cagily, that “it’s something that could perhaps be considered, but we view this particular event as more of a one-off”. Of course, with the app already produced and the hashtag well established, the nuts and bolts of such an initiative are in place, so any reactivation would be fairly straightforward. Indeed, one might ask why, given its undoubted success, it would not be something that the club would commit to. I suspect that it is an example of comms smoke and mirrors, rather than a genuine likelihood that it was a one-off.

Connecting the dots for sponsors

juve twitterThe Juventus spokesman I spoke with stated that “one of the aims of our social media initiatives is to give visibility to our sponsors.” Of course, this is achieved by repeated visual exposure to the shirt and its sponsor, Jeep. Beyond this, though, and the obvious positive brand association with a widely covered and ground breaking social media initiative, it is difficult to see any immediate, tangible benefit accrued by sponsors.

The predominant benefit for sponsors, anyway, is visual earned media and positive association for fans of the club with that brand. So, in that respect, something which is globally reported and talked about as a viral event achieves that aim. Nonetheless, I suspect that clubs and sponsors are working hard to maximize the earned media potential of social media engagement.

Building the digital fan base

The Juventus spokesman told me that social media is for the club is about:

  1. building a closer relationship with our fans and football aficionados,
  2. understanding their needs and opinions, and
  3. gaining and reaching out to new international fans worldwide.

The digital age has spawned what I like to call the digital fan, someone who may live on the other side of the world, but who feels part of the supporting community and lives that support as part of a connected web of fans, using platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to participate in the supporter experience.

Before you might have been able to buy a club shirt and watch the occasional game on television, but now clubs can generate and drive support and engagement with social media. Fans feel actively part of the community through chat rooms, forums, and other online discussion platforms. Games can be watched on a wide array of satellite channels or live streams online. A digital fan can be almost as engaged as a season ticket holder who sits in the stands every week, and may even be more knowledgeable and active in their online life.

The #LoveJu choreography initiative was clearly designed to tap into this digital fan base and did so, registering interest from all corners of the globe. It is important for the digital fan to feel connected and so the participation rates for effectively planned events are high. Since this captive market puts itself forward to be part of an event, what sponsor wouldn’t want a piece of that action?

Opportunities for global brand partnerships

More and more events of this nature will be coming from clubs with a global fan base.  Global clubs and brands may partner to activate on each other’s websites and feed back into the clubs’ other communication channels to increase visibility and brand engagement. The potential is too big to ignore; where the Old Lady of Turin has led, others will surely follow.

How can sales & marketing get along?

How can sales & marketing get along?
by Lynn Wittenburg – January 2014

I’m often asked how sales & marketing should work together and if they can. There always seems to be tension between the two in most sports organizations, even though fundamentally they should be integrated.

Since I spent eight years selling tickets before crossing over into the world of marketing, the answer seems pretty simple to me. So here goes…..

For the Marketers

Remember you are there to SELL. That’s it. Pretty simple. No matter what industry you are in, you are selling something. In sports, it’s tickets, partnerships, merchandise, your brand (and on and on). You serve SALES. PERIOD. END OF STORY. In fact, you serve your entire organization. So,

Step 1: Understand their goals and objectives.
Step 2: Meet with them regularly in case their goals/objectives change. And not just with the managers. Get to the people ACTUALLY answering the phone.
Step 3: Repeat this until you get it and adjust accordingly.

For the Sales People

  1. Remember YOU are there to SELL. So, focus on your job. In sports, sales is still a numbers game.
  2. Track every sale you can. This really helps marketing since DATA DRIVES DECISIONS.
  3. Give Marketing constant feedback on what is working and what makes the phones ring or makes your job easier.
  4. Know the Marketing Campaign and incorporate it where you can.

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My sales pet peeve

Often, sales people go by gut. Here’s a sample conversation:

Salesperson: “The phones were ringing like crazy today”
Me: “Really, how many calls?”
Salesperson: “I don’t know; a lot.”
Me: “Well, what made them call?”
Salesperson: “I don’t know. I didn’t really ask.”
Me: BANGING HEAD ON DESK UNTIL I NEED ASPIRIN with thought bubble rising to the ceiling, “You think it could have been marketing?”[/dropshadowbox]

To sum up for both:  CONSTANTLY COMMUNICATE

I can’t promise if you’re in sales you will always get someone in marketing who understands selling and truly knows their job is to help you. And I can’t promise  the marketing department that sales will ever get the big picture and all you are tasked with. When you are focused on building the BRAND, not every message will be a sales one. That’s a good thing that salespeople don’t often get.

But, I do know this: Organizations cannot survive without these two departments aligned and working as one team. So, start talking. Tweet @LynnWitt below or post to your LinkedIn page!


Cover photo courtesy of Certified Su.

5 Ways to Keep Partnerships Fresh

5 Ways to Keep Partnerships Fresh
by Dawn Turner – May 2013

Keeping it Fresh

Signing a long-term deal can be compared to getting married. In the beginning the relationship and courtship are very exciting. Executing the agreement constitutes the end of a courtship process.  The first couple of years are the honeymoon phase. Then the focus switches to how to keep things fresh.

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Padres SVP
Tyler Epp

san_diego_padresWith all of our focus on measurement, impressions, ratings, and formulas, the success for our long-term partnerships are more a product of relationships with partners and consistent commitment to truly investing in our shared community in an authentic and meaningful way.[/dropshadowbox]

Keeping things fresh is a challenge all brands and properties eventually face.  But, thankfully, there are five steps partners can take to ensure things run smoothly.

1. Communicate. Maintain regular intervals of communication to make sure changes in priorities, objectives, staff or branding are shared and understood by both parties.

2. Take time. Deep relationships at multiple levels inside both organizations takes time. Doing so allows both parties to build camaraderie and strength that will become important during the latter years leading to renewal or renegotiation.

3. Anticipate staff changes. The folks that negotiate and execute the long-term deals are not always going to be around to see them through. When staff changes *on either side), both parties must work to maintain consistent communication and share past history, programs, successes/failures, etc. Doing so will ensure seamless transition when these changes occur.

4. Review terms. Terms negotiated in long-term contracts need revisiting and maybe even refreshed at regular intervals.  A good example is a 10-year contract that began in 2000. Who knew the internet and social media would evolve the way they did during that time?  Odds are that properties took the opportunity to create additional revenue streams via these channels with other partners. However, they should consider offering alternative assets to a long-term partner to demonstrate how important they are to the organization.  Parties that anticipate changes and are willing to make room for them throughout the term of the contract will find themselves in the best position for creating and maintaining long-term relationships that last.

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Wayne Guymon
Wayne Guymon

foxsports san diegoThe key element of long-term agreements is the ability to continually re-visit the partnership throughout the term.

The worst case scenario for both sides is simply being heard from at renewal time. In order to ensure continued success, a long-term partnership should be treated as an annual renewal. While the framework of the agreement stays in place, continual evolution of the elements is critical.[/dropshadowbox]

5. Renew your vows. Just because a partner signed a long-term deal does not mean properties should say, “Thanks, here are your assets. Have a nice life.”  Over time a property may come to rely on this partner revenue as “expected.” See what happens in other relationships when you take someone for granted. If you want to sustain the relationship, work closely with partners to ensure the relationships remain deep, programs relevant and results are shared on a continual basis.  Properties taking this approach rarely find themselves in divorce court, barring a massive shift in strategy, finances or other extraneous reasons.

What will you do today?

During the courtship process both parties have stars in their eyes and see infinite possibilities. What do you need to do today with your partners to create and maintain the enthusiasm you had back in the beginning?

Mutual respect takes time, effort, constant open lines of communication, openness to change and making room for change.  If you follow this road map to partner relations, odds are you’ll celebrate a series of milestone anniversaries for years to come.

 

Just trust me

Just trust me
by Lolly Daskal – May 2013

Imagine

Imagine telling someone: “I’m going to be taking you on a long, dangerous, and difficult trip. There will be times you are likely to be very uncomfortable, and there may be terrible storms. I’m not going to tell you where we are going, why we are going, when we are going, or how we will get there. Just TRUST ME.”

How do you think that would make anyone feel?

When a leader implements organizational change – when a boss makes major decisions affecting employees – it doesn’t work to say “just trust me.”

Like frightened children, people will come up with all kinds of reasons to resist and refuse why they do not want to come along on the trip – even if it’s a good one![dropshadowbox align=”right” effect=”lifted-both” width=”250px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]

The CMO’s View

Sales managers develop trust based on this basic formula:

Trust = Rapport X Credibility
Risk

Alan See
Alan See

The manager, or anyone in a relationship, does things to develop and build rapport and credibility, while also doing things to reduce perceived risks for the other. The relationship won’t move forward without trust. [/dropshadowbox]

Most of us do not want to take trips into the unknown and without a destination.

Telling people “just trust me” is naiveté at its worst.

It shows an enormous amount of disrespect, sometimes dishonesty, and maybe just delusional!

In the sports business today, trust has to be earned. In leadership today, trust has to be gained.

What is trust?

  1. Trust is  being congruent. Match your words with your actions; what you say you will do you do.  Being trusted is being dependable.
  2. Trust is embracing transparency. When it comes to trust, the more you reveal the more you can see. When trust is transparent it can be embraced.
  3. Trust is  honoring promises. Keep what you promised. Better yet, go the extra mile and deliver more than you promised.
  4. Trust is a two-way street. To make someone trustworthy, you need to trust them first. The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.
  5. Trust is risk. Trust lies between faith and probability. To risk is to put yourself out of your comfort zone. Take the risk and have the faith and trust to pull you through.
  6. Trust is a relationship. Trust begins with the self in relationship with another.  Trust others as you would wish to be trusted.
  7. Trust is the glue helping us stick through organizational change. Trust is foundational to holding us together.

[dropshadowbox align=”center” effect=”lifted-both” width=”450px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ] How am I going to lead today? 

  • Trust my people so they can engage and be part of the change.
  • Trust my people so they can enroll and add value to the change.
  • Trust my people so they can embrace and understand and respect the change.[/dropshadowbox]

Lead from within: Any leader who says “just trust me”  expecting loyalty will get a group of employees resenting the journey instead of enjoying the adventure.

Trust  grasps others on your team at their innermost core of loyalty.

The 3 Cs of Effective Media Partnerships

The 3 Cs of Effective Media Partnerships
by Wayne Guymon – January 2013

How do sponsors stand out from one another?

As advertisers’ marketing and branding objectives expand beyond simple metrics, properties must find new ways to deliver results.  Selling strictly media buys or signage assets is no longer sufficient.  By developing integrated partnerships, properties can help an advertiser’s messages stand out in a crowd.

Grasping opportunities to communicate to all of a team’s fans means spending advertising budgets more efficiently.  Commercials and signs tell part of the story, but true integration comes from investing in the 3 C’s of brand communication.

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The 3 C’s of Brand Communication for Sponsors

  1. Community programming,
  2. Customized features, and
  3. Charitable programs.[/dropshadowbox]

By taking the message these additional steps, the client reaches even further and fans receive a clearer message. As Tyler Epp, Vice President of Corporate Partnerships with the San Diego Padres, stated, “Driving revenue is more than just media numbers and spreadsheets.”

Virtually all advertisers have a community based initiative they support, whether supporting the military, civic pride, youth-based programs or health initiatives.   By activating these programs through teams and properties, they can effectively communicate to a fan base without coming across as boastful.  They can demonstrate to their constituents, both internal and external, their pride in supporting these initiatives.

One client that I worked with while with the Oklahoma City Thunder who really grasped this concept was US Fleet Tracking.  US Fleet Tracking is an Oklahoma City based technology company that wanted to demonstrate a message of pride in their community.  By partnering with the Thunder on both in-arena and in-broadcast assets, they are able to drive their message home.  US Fleet Tracking took the message one step further by creating integrated commercial spots featuring Rumble, the Thunder mascot.
Cindy Hunter
Cindy Hunter

“Looking back, it was a huge risk for us to invest at such a level with the Thunder.  But now I can state that the cost has been returned to us immensely.  The credibility we received as a “real partner” in the city for our sponsorship has led to people thanking us for our support in a sport and team that they love, ” said Cindy Hunter, Owner/Vice President, US Fleet Tracking. “General fans are appreciative and other sponsors have reached out to us on collaborative endeavors.  The in-arena signage has bred name recognition, while the television assets allow us to explain our products and services as well as highlight the different industries we serve.”

US Fleet Tracking also collaborated with the Thunder to promote the 2-1-1  Crisis Hotline to communicate its care and concern for community through this non-profit organization.

As an integral partner with open lines of communication, the Thunder and US Fleet Tracking were able to move quickly to mobilize fan passion when the Thunder made their first trip to the conference finals in 2011. Customized shirts sponsored by US Fleet Tracking were designed to blanket the arena for the first game in the series. Cindy still sees these shirts at every game and often around the community.

By taking this approach of integrated partnerships, companies stand out from their competition.  Utilizing integrated assets increases a fan’s loyalty to a brand by capitalizing on the goodwill associated with their passion toward their home team.