planning – BaylorS3E

4 Keys to Effective Ticket Pricing

kirk_wakefield 2016, Sales Management, Sell, Tickets November 6, 2016October 31, 2018emotion, planning, prices, pricing, revenue, social media, strategy, tickets, unique, variable

by Kirk Wakefield – November 2016

Leave Emotion at the Door

In a scene from the movie Ocean’s Eleven, Rusty (Brad Pitt) is teaching Hollywood actors how to play poker. During his lesson on “how to draw out the bluff,” he asks a player what the first lesson of poker is. The answer: “Leave emotion at the door!”

Does that lesson sound familiar?

One of the greatest mistakes a sports organization can make is pricing from a sense of pride–Charging what we want or need instead of setting our prices based on fan and market intelligence.

Considering these four key questions will help make good pricing decisions.

Are we pricing to move inventory or leverage revenue?

Ticket pricing isn’t only about numbers. It’s a strategic puzzle. The answer to this question provides you strategic direction and synergy for the season, games, packages, sections and seats. Pricing synergy maximizes value, retention and new sales.

What does the fan & market intelligence tell us?

Decisions based on your intuition and experience alone is basing your plans more on the past than present circumstances. Include in your decision making:

sales reports & forecasts
current industry trends
fan surveys
social media conversations (consider scraping and social listening software)
gatekeeper feedback (ticket office, ticket sales, development staffs)
direct conversations with fans

What is the unique value of each game?

Whether you’re using advance pricing software or a traditional method of pen and paper, recognize each game has unique value. Variable pricing (different price levels for differently valued games) and dynamic pricing maximizes value, revenue and sales. Analyzing what makes each game different from the others helps you set realistic price and attendance targets and also identify segments and groups to target.

What is our inventory analysis telling us?

Using past data and forecasts, ask these 7 inventory questions to maximize revenue for each game.

Which sections do we need to sell each game?
How many seats do we need to sell each game?
Which groups are we targeting for each game?
Which promotions are we scheduling for each game?
What is our plan for distressed inventory should advance sales fall short?
How do game day variables (time, date, opponent, fan experience, etc.) affect each game?
Did we objectively project sales for each group or promotion?

Have these conversations a year in advance to capitalize on year-round sales opportunities and for a runway that is long enough for your external relations team to realize success!

“Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”
Proverbs 16:18

Help us help you: How to utilize your marketing team to grow sales

kirk_wakefield 2015, Marketing, Relate, S3 October 30, 2015October 31, 2018collaborate, Dallas Mavericks, marketing department, planning, promotions, revenue, sportsbiz 0 Comment

by Alexis Sidney – October 2015

Successful sales teams build strong relationships. Client relationships are important. Building strong relationships within the company and specifically with the marketing department is also important. Marketers support revenue generating goals by crafting a strong and memorable message, building an effective and integrated promotional plan, and reaching beyond the typical target audience.

The sales staff and management can work effectively with the marketing team to maximize sales and revenue by following these five guidelines:

Build a relationship. As with any coworker, build a rapport with your marketing contact so you aren’t only reaching out when you need something. Show an interest in his or her job and learn what responsibilities s/he has. Encourage them to get familiar with your role as well.
Share your strategy. Let marketing know your goals. What does success looks like for each project? In general, salespeople and marketers provide unique perspectives on the same task. Inter-department collaboration on a marketing and sales plan will encourage teamwork and promote an understanding of each other’s goals.
Get a point person. At the Mavs, a marketing position serves as the primary liaison for ticket sales creative and promotional requests. The marketing contact collaborates with ticket sales and gains a thorough understanding of their needs while maintaining final creative approval. It also encourages a sales focused perspective when making marketing decisions such as theme nights, promotions, premium items, etc.
Plan ahead. One of the most important factors in creating a successful marketing campaign is preparation. Sales employees are sometimes shocked to learn the lead time required to send a seemingly simple message. Many moving pieces need to be coordinated internally before going public. Marketing needs time to design graphics, create messaging, schedule promotions and advertisements, and ensure accuracy before moving forward. Messages can change quickly during a season, so it is important to prioritize major or recurring sales goals in advance to ensure that these messages get necessary time and attention.
Keep open lines of communication. Marketing contacts are usually the most informed on the upcoming communication priorities across the organization. Be sure to include at least one marketing contact in your annual planning and relevant department meetings. Keep them up-to-date on your upcoming priorities. This will allow them to integrate fresh sales messages into promotional schedules and recommend additional sales opportunities throughout the year that might otherwise be overlooked.

Although we work in different departments, we are all on the same team. It’s everyone’s job to sell tickets, “put butts in seats,” generate revenue, drive fan engagement and create memories. Help us help you (and hopefully you’ll help us too).

Outbound ticket sales: How to create a sales playbook to maximize sales

kirk_wakefield 2014, Marketing, Sell, Tickets April 1, 2014November 1, 2018collegiate, commitment, departments, NCAA, new, planning, process, sales management, sales reps, start, steps, strategy, ticket sales 0 Comment

by Mark Washo – April 2014

As NCAA programs continue to adopt more revenue-generating practices, activating an outbound ticket sales program appears simple. Hire entry level sports management grads, provide a desk, phone, and email address, pull past buyer lists and watch the ticket sales role in. While most understand ticket sales is more complex, how many take ALL key aspects of successful sales into consideration? [dropshadowbox align=”right” effect=”lifted-both” width=”250px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]“Game day name capture initiatives are one of the best ways for us to connect with fans that have formed a habit of waiting to make a ‘game time decision’ and show them the benefits of reserving their seats in advance as opposed to walking up and buying a ticket at the game. We also find that database collection efforts at community events and local sports bars are a key component in creating new relationships with local businesses and organizations.” – Jamie Levitt, Manager of Ticket Sales at Western Kentucky University[/dropshadowbox]

The first step to a successful program is commitment

To maximize revenue, the organization must commit to outbound sales over a full calendar year, not month to month or short term (3 to 5 months). After committing to a 12 months sales staffing plan, with a year round sales focus, you are ready to make your ticket sales plan, your playbook for success.

Create a sales plan or “Playbook” that includes:

The past: Review past season ticket sales reports to look for strengths to build on and opportunities to improve.
The future: Goals setting; annual, monthly, sales rep goals and quotas. Set realistic yet aggressive minimum expectations for your sales professionals, including minimum sales activity expectations and sales targets. Continually track progress towards the goals.
Develop a 12 month ticket sales timeline: The timeline should include “early bird new and renewal campaigns” while existing playing seasons are happening to capitalize on fan excitement and interest while they are still engaged. Waiting until after the playing seasons are over to begin new sales & renewals for that sport is not as effective at maximizing ticket sales revenue as renewing and selling new tickets during the season.
Recruit top talent: Don’t cut corners during the recruiting process. Activate a multiple step process, including a sales role-play interview step to help recruit the strongest candidates.
Hire enough talent: Hire the appropriate number of sales staff based on revenue goals; creating realistic revenue expectations will help you draw conclusions on appropriate # of ticket sales executives to hire.
Create motivating compensation plans with commission and bonus opportunities: Compensation models should provide incentives to sell, which aid in recruiting and retaining top talent.[dropshadowbox align=”right” effect=”lifted-both” width=”250px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]Failure to prepare is preparing to fail ~John Wooden “It is vital to have a game plan for your sales approach just like a coach has a game plan to execute on the field. The key is to have an attack plan for sales prepared once a schedule is made available. Often certain groups dictate the time of year they can attend an outing. For example school base programs, scouts, and ROTC’s need a two month leeway into a school year to plan an activity. An outline will help a sales person know exactly where they stand and what needs to be accomplished at any point of the year. Also, it is a quick and easy way to keep superiors up to date on what a sales representative is currently working on and how they are planning to make the next event a success. — Tom Phelps, Naval Academy[/dropshadowbox]
Commit to data base building: Invest in CRM to cultivate leads and grow your data base. Newer web based models provide 24 hour remote access.
Analyze your pricing strategy: Based on analytics that consider situational factors, increase the average ticket price with price integrity for single game pricing. Add incentives to encourage season ticket and advance purchase. Analyze your ticket sales customers buying habits and patterns to guide pricing.
Create season ticket benefits: Find creative low cost ways to provide season ticket benefits (e.g., with corporate partners) to provide added value beyond discounts (i.e., experiences).
Create flexible ticketing packages: Explore options such as vouchers or “pick me plans.”
Develop a group sales pricing strategy: Reward groups with appropriate benefits that include group leader incentives to motivate purchase.
Commit to consistent ticket sales training: Just like in well-run corporations, sales training must be consistent and on-going.
Promote the promotion: Encourage cross-departmental integration that support ticket sales initiatives with “buy in” from other departments; gain support from marketing/PR/social media and operations.
Create a positive sales culture: Create visible team-wide goals where everyone is committed to revenue generation. Include motivating reps through sales incentives and contests.
Develop a renewal and retention strategy: Explore ways to activate proactive retention efforts and develop strong customer service, with multiple “touch points” throughout the season.
Ticket Operations: Don’t forget to recruit professional and dedicated ticket operations talent. Sound ticket operations is needed to support any proactive sales effort.

It’s important to take as comprehensive as an approach as possible to selling tickets. Find ways to activate all of the key elements, you will be in a great position to maximize ticket sales revenue! [dropshadowbox align=”left” effect=”lifted-both” width=”550px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]

“It’s always interesting to me, that all of us who work in professional or collegiate sports are exposed to elite athletes who we see practice & train every day, in order to stay at the top of their game. Therefore, it’s surprising that most ticket sales teams don’t commit to consistent sales and role play training. The most successful sales teams in sports (pro or college), have a dedicated commitment to consistent sales training, which includes sales role play, bringing in outside sales trainers and taking advantage of free sales content on social media such as this Baylor sportsbiz article.” ~ Brett Zalaski[/dropshadowbox]

Show me the money? The truth behind effective sales commission plans

kirk_wakefield 2013, Integrity, Lead, Sales Management, Sell, Sponsorships, Tickets July 1, 2013November 2, 2018changes, compensation, consistency, equity, George Killebrew, Mavericks, motivation, NBA, planning, sales commissions, strategy 0 Comment

by Jeff Tanner – July 2013

Are salespeople motivated just by the $ sign?

Perhaps the greatest myth in sales is that salespeople are only in it for the money, especially when it comes to sponsorships and premium sales in sports.

Our research regarding salesperson motivation showed money as the primary motivator for no more than 15% of all salespeople. What about the rest?

Since money should follow performance, the majority are motivated more by:

Independence, Challenge, and Genuinely serving customers

So, that’s what motivates salespeople. What’s the number one way de-motivate salespeople?

Let’s talk about the role of incentives and commissions and then we’ll get to how to lose your best salespeople.

The Value of Incentives & Commissions

[dropshadowbox align=”right” effect=”lifted-both” width=”250px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]

A commission plan must be consistent year to year and fairly simple to understand. We have made only minor adjustments over the last 12 years.

Salespeople do their best when consistency exists and they aren’t thrown a bunch of curve balls.

Money is not the only motivating factor. In fact I think it isn’t even the most important. The ability to have a sense of autonomy, to feel like you are an important team member, to feel like you work for a company that values you, are all important factors to sales success.

~ George Killebrew, SVP Business Operations, Dallas Mavericks

[/dropshadowbox]What compensation structure works best to direct salespeople’s activity?

Short term sales incentives are effective motivation when sales tasks are (a) repetitive and (b) don’t require a great deal of creativity. The intrinsic nature of the job just isn’t enough; it takes creative incentives, including well-designed contests to focus salespeople on the right activities. Dangle a carrot in front of a ticket rep and get out of the way.

Incentives don’t work as well for sales positions like sponsorships that require a lot of (a) creativity, (b) customer care, and have (c) long-term sales cycles.

How to demotivate your sales force

Commissions are excellent motivation to sell and service key accounts in sponsorships or premium ticket sales. You know you’ve succeeded at demotivating your sales force if any one of them begins saying things like, “They cut my commission!” “They keep changing the plan.” Or the worst one, “They owe me…”

In spite of the motivating power of incentives and commissions, organizations can also find ways to break the trust with their salespeople:

Delaying an announcement of compensation plan details: salespeople don’t know what to sell,
Lowering commission rates in the middle of the selling season in order to boost profits by lowering pay, and
Delay payment while quibbling over minor points in the plan.

Yes, you can just get more salespeople to replace the ones who leave. But when you finally get some good ones back on the team, how many sales were lost?

Solutions

Spend the time to run the compensation plan through tests before launching it. What’s the worst case scenario? The best case?

Think like a rep and figure out what the best sales strategy is to maximize compensation. Can you live with that result?

And plan for a surprise – like adding a bonus mid-selling season. While nothing demotivates like cutting commission after the fact, nothing has more motivating power than a seemingly-random occasional extra reward.

As Greg Grissom, Vice President of Corporate Development at the Houston Texans, concludes, ”The right compensation plan is a key tool in sales leaders tool kit to ensure you clearly communicate where success lies both individually and as a team. By incenting the behaviors and outcomes, salespeople clearly understand where they need to spend their time and effort.”

Leading: Purposeful Abandonment–The Art of Letting Go

kirk_wakefield Lead, Networking February 2, 2013November 2, 2018abandon, abandonment meeting, energy drain, not to-do list, planning, stop, what do you need to stop 0 Comment

by Dan Rockwell – February 2013

You employ systems and strategies for starting, maintaining, and moving forward. Adopt systems for stopping as well.

People who can’t say, “No,” chase all the spilled marbles at once. They’re confused and empty handed in the end. Too many yeses distract, weigh down, and waste energy.

“In order to grow, a business must have a
systematic policy to get rid of the outgrown,
the obsolete, and the unproductive.”
Peter Drucker

Abandonment conversations

[dropshadowbox align=”right” effect=”lifted-both” width=”250px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]”On a personal level, with a one-year old already at home and another child on the way, it’s imperative that I make as efficient use of time as possible to still maintain the same level of productivity others have come to expect and I expect from myself. Knowing when to say enough is enough on a project headed nowhere is key to maintaining not only a healthy work vs life balance, but in some cases your own sanity!” Andrew Brown[/dropshadowbox]Begin right now with, “What do you need to stop?” conversations with key people. Ask:

What frustrates?
What drains energy?
What wastes time?
What produces small returns?
Which customers should be sent to competitors?
Is it time to stop petting a pet project?
What distracts from leveraging strengths?
What has low impact?
What can be stopped?

Paperwork is on many lists of frustrating, energy drainers, for example. Are reports necessary or antiquated? How much time is spent completing reports that seldom, if ever, get used?

“Planned, purposeful abandonment of the old
and of the unrewarding is a prerequisite to
successful pursuit of the new and highly promising.” Peter Drucker

You’re tough when it comes to endurance. Get courageous and tough on stopping things, too.

Abandonment meetings

Schedule a monthly abandonment meeting. Carve off part of your business or organization and ask:

Do returns justify expense?
How much would it matter if we stopped …?
How are we squandering strengths?
How are these activities aligned with mission and vision?

Abandonment lists

[dropshadowbox align=”right” effect=”lifted-bottom-right” width=”250px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” inside_shadow=”false” ]

“The concept of time management grows more important as the demands placed on leaner workforces continue to also grow. Successful business leaders understand the proper balance of what is most important and what can be delegated or even ignored. We task our staff with developing a list of the 5 most important things to accomplish each week and provide the support and accountability to keep on track. Hopefully, less time and energy is spent on things simply not important to our business objectives.”
[/dropshadowbox]
I don’t remember when I first heard of a, “Not to-do list,” but it’s genius. Make one. Variations of abandonment lists:

Do less of list.
Put it off till you’re tired and grumpy list.
Don’t care if it’s ever done list.
Have someone else do it list.

Discuss with your team

How can leaders and members of our team get better at abandonment?