sales analytics – BaylorS3E

How far will analytics take You? S3 majors meet with partners at StubHub, Giants, 49ers, Sharks, & Warriors to Find Out

kirk_wakefield 2017, CRM, Digital Strategy, Lead, Learn, Networking, Personal Development, Relate, The S3 Program September 25, 2017November 2, 201849ers, analytics, BI, brightfuture, champions, Giants, NBA, NFL, NHL, sales analytics, Sharks, StubHub, Warriors

by Brad Sherrill – September 2017

StubHub and Baylor S3

StubHub and Baylor S3 created a partnership to reward motivated, analytically-talented S3 students with an expenses paid trip to the Bay area. The inaugural S3 StubHub Analytics All-Stars group visited San Francisco for three days, gaining valuable interaction time with representatives from some of the Bay’s sports industry leaders. Thanks to StubHub’s generosity, we spent three days visiting with executives from StubHub, Golden State Warriors, San Francisco 49ers, San Jose Sharks, and San Francisco Giants.

S3 Senior Ian Young said, “It was great to see the variety of career paths people have taken to get to where they are in the sports industry. I really got a feel of how closely connected people are in the sports industry and how best practices are shared among teams.” Young also commented on the value of being data-driven as an organization. Each organization relies on a data strategy to generate revenue utilizing analytics, CRM, and BI/BA to derive actionable insights.

[slideshow_deploy id=’9986′]

The StubHub Data-Driven Culture

Our group began the circuit of Bay area sports and entertainment properties by visiting StubHub’s corporate offices. Located in downtown San Francisco, the office encapsulates much of the Silicon Valley atmosphere and emphasis on creating a comfortable, enjoyable work environment.

S3 students received a tour of the office followed by interactive panel discussions with six StubHub employees whose positions touched many of the company’s various focuses. S3 Senior Jonathan Roselli found value in “understanding how analytics are used to report, optimize and predict performance.”

Adam Budelli headed the panels that included Charlie Rockman, Raymond Delacruz, Mena Alsrogy, Ryan McDowell, and Adam Tatum. These professionals work in areas covering partnerships, business development, data management, analytics, consumer insights, data science, business operations, and marketplace supply chain analysis.

Join us!

If you are interested in the Sports Sponsorship & Sales (S3) program at Baylor, visit www.baylor.edu/business/s3. Prospective students and transfers can find out more about their tickets to a career in sports. Like StubHub and other S3 Leadership partners, organizations can learn about supporting the growth of talent for the industry by visiting www.baylor.edu/business/s3/board. Look for more stories with insights from executives we met at the Warriors, 49ers, Sharks, and Giants in the coming weeks.

Since launching the first Sports CRM & Analytics track in the U.S in 2011, the S3 program is the leader in placing graduates in data analytics roles at teams [Dallas Cowboys, Dallas Mavericks, Dallas Stars, Houston Astros, Houston Dynamo, Houston Texans, San Antonio Spurs, Madison Square Garden, New York Yankees, Denver Nuggets, Columbus Blue Jackets, Orlando Magic, Miami Dolphins, , Utah Jazz, University of Southern California] and sports-related companies [KORE Software, Stone Timber River, Eventellect, E-15 Group, The Company, Legends Hospitality, and SportsDesk Media].

Increase Season Ticket Renewals by Identifying At-Risk Accounts

kirk_wakefield 2015, Sell, Tickets September 8, 2015October 31, 2018analytics, attendance, first year, identify, renewals, sales analytics, season tickets, tenure, usage 0 Comment

by Daniel Venegas – September 2015

Identifying At-Risk Accounts

Many factors go into the buying decision whenever customers receive renewal invoices. Team performance, usage, cost, and value are just a few of the buzz words we hear every year. The issue is knowing which accounts will bring these up and how to identify them beforehand.

Simplifying the renewal process has been one of our paramount objectives for the past three seasons. We focus on identifiers of at-risk accounts. Team performance is important and measurable, but beyond our control. We chose two metrics to identify at-risk accounts early in the process:

Season Ticket Tenure
Attendance

Understanding these two elements and what they indicate allows us to influence accounts at the beginning of the season as opposed to waiting to hear objections.

Season Ticket Tenure

You can tell a good deal about customers by how long they have been with the organization. Over the past two seasons alone we can tell that first year customers are 9% less likely to renew than second year customers and 17% less likely to renew than third year customers. Obviously, new season ticket holders should be a major focus of your renewal campaign. You know who they are from the very beginning so there is no excuse for not being proactive with these accounts.

“When it comes to first-year season ticket members, education can help drive success. It’s important to educate the client on every possible aspect to utilize their tickets in the most efficient way. Don’t assume a first-year account knows everything about their membership.” -Karlis Kezbers (@karliskezbers), Director, Retention and Ticket Operations, Oklahoma City Thunder

Season Ticket Attendance

Attendance at games is another great quantitative measure to identify at-risk accounts. Customers with an attendance of 61-70% are 6% less likely to renew than those customers that attend 71-80% of games and 9% less likely to renew than customers that attend 81-90% of games.

Tracking attendance early on in a season can help you identify customers that may have issues utilizing their tickets. Be proactive with these accounts and to help them identify ways to better use their tickets.

“The responsibility for getting a ticket used is slowly but surely transferring away from the client and onto the team.” -Karlis Kezbers (@karliskezbers)

Face to Face: The Throwback Solution

Now that you know the potentially risky accounts, what do you do with them? You can’t change their tenure. You may be able to influence their attendance, but probably not much.

Go meet them in person!

Take time out of your week to show customers how much you and the organization care about their business. It is your job to consult with them on the product you sold. Let them know 1st year STHs often aren’t aware of the best ways to utilize season ticket benefits compared to tenured accounts. Walk through the benefits to see how you can help. Tell customers when you notice they are not utilizing their tickets as frequently as most. Offer solutions to manage missed games or to better utilize future games. When you have done this:

Go see them again!

Sam Bays, Director of Business Development at the Arizona Coyotes, shares,

“Whether it’s at the arena, in their office, or over a lunch, nothing solidifies the relationship between an AE and a client like a face to face meeting. As a sales professional, the more you can make yourself the ‘face of the franchise’ in the client’s eyes, the more likely they are to renew.”

You may or may not be able to influence attendance or utilization of seats, but your actions influence renewal rates. Accounts that use 61-70% of their tickets renew at a rate 10% higher than average if their reps visit them more than once during the season. You also can’t change the fact you are working with a first year account, but you can show them the real value they purchased. First year accounts that have more than one face to face visit from their reps during the season renew at a rate 6% higher than the average rookie account.

Day one of your renewal should be the first day after your deadline. These numbers are specific to my organization but the relative impact can be the same for you.

Cover photo courtesy of PresseBox.

No more cold calls: Three steps to making informed calls and increasing close rates

kirk_wakefield 2013, CRM, Relate, Tickets May 1, 2013November 2, 2018buyer behavior, close, closing ratio, cold calls, informed calls, personal selling, sales analytics, seller behavior, warm calls 0 Comment

by Flavil Hampsten – May 2013

You are sitting at your desk making sales calls. But now the computer is missing. A pile of 8 x 5 cards is stacked in front of you. Each card contains only a name, address and phone number. Sliding your hand into your pocket for your cell phone, you find only lint. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over….into the Twilight Zone.

I don’t think any of us want to go back to the times of index cards and no computers. How successful would be today if all you had was a name and number on a piece of paper? Luckily for you, those days are over.

Making informed calls

Some organizations only allow salespeople to make informed calls. Analytics determine which prospects have the best chance to become customers and give these prospects to the salespeople most suitable to close.

How does this happen?

1. Data Aggregation – Collecting and centrally storing data helps the company and salespeople perform at peak levels in terms of closing ratios.

Are you on the team? This performance is not simply a function of the sales management team, but every salesperson on the floor. Sales management purchases demographic data and stores it in a system for the salesperson to use. However, each time the salesperson uncovers something about the prospect, the salesperson should also put that into the system. Failure to do so will not only hurt the current salesperson but will also hurt the ability of each salesperson who comes after them.

2. Buyer Behavior Studies – Once you have a set of data points, teams can then look to see if certain set of attributes equate to a better likelihood to close. A predictive model comes into play when management can link “like” attributes to certain buyers. For example, one may notice that most buyers of a mini-plan are males between 25-35 years of age, married, have children, and have a discretionary index of 100. Once that is identified, management can assign similar prospects to the salespeople.

In-depth analysis. Some teams, such as the Charlotte Bobcats and New York Jets have upwards of 50 data points on each person in their system. Russell Scibetti explains, “The ability to aggregate behavioral and demographic data with the insights our staff collects puts us in a position to offer the right product options for any segment of our customer base.”

3. Seller Behavior Studies – Critical, yet often overlooked, closing rates can determine which salesperson is most appropriate to call the lead. Who should get the web lead? Individual game buyer?

Jack closes web leads at a 58% margin and individual game buyers at an 8% rate.
Jill closes web leads at 35% and individual game buyers at 18%.

Analyze each lead segment. Like Jack and Jill, you will usually find a trend for each salesperson. Feed that salesperson the leads they are most likely to close and you will find that most salespeople will increase their total production. During training periods you can also help individuals improve in less productive segments.

Results

If these three elements are correctly implemented you will have salespeople making informed calls with qualified leads. This system was implemented two seasons ago in Charlotte we took our closing percentage from .5% to 4%.

[dropshadowbox align=”center” effect=”lifted-both” width=”500px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]

Moving your sales team’s winning percentage from say something like 2.2% to 2.5% may not sound like much on the surface. However, when you multiply that across 30-40 sales reps managing a total of 5,000-7,000 leads as a whole at a given time, that little 0.3% jump in winning percentage equates to about 10-20 more sales you are “winning” per week. If we can even move the needle a tenth of a percentage point better, it can mean hundreds of thousands of dollars to our sales campaign.[/dropshadowbox]

We’re glad we have moved out of the Twilight Zone. We said “goodbye” to cold calls and our customers are saying “hello” to our informed calls.