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Ticket Sales & Service

Wed, 05/08/2013 - 08:40
Steve DeLay

Sales Training Is Over, Now What?

A couple days of sales training will be a waste unless you take these steps

You’re the Ticket Sales Manager for a team.

You’ve hired an outside sales trainer to come in and train your staff. Or, maybe you did the training yourself.

Your sales staff finished the training fired up, feeling good about themselves. Everything’s peachy, right?

Not yet. If all you do is a couple of days of sales training and then expect miracles, you’re wasting your time.

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Mon, 04/01/2013 - 09:20
Steve DeLay

Desperate Men Do Desperate Things

WHEN THINGS LOOK MOST BLEAK, FEED ‘EM

No bones about it. We were desperate.

It was January 2007. Mandalay had recently bought the Staten Island Yankees in a partnership with the New York Yankees. The SI Yanks hadn’t sold out a game in six years. In fact, they averaged only about 1,000 people in stadium in a 7,100 seat ballpark. There was no demand for tickets.

We sat down with the New York Yankees and crafted what we thought was a tremendous season ticket package. The perks included:

• Priority access to New York Yankees regular season games before the general public.
• Priority access to Yankees playoff tickets before the general public.
• A free ticket to a New York Yankees game.
• A private New York Yankees “Old-Timers Day” at Staten Island’s ballpark, just for SI Yanks season ticket holders.

We launched all these perks with huge fanfare, a big press conference and ads in the New York Daily News and Staten Island Advance.

Nothing.

In the next three weeks, I think we sold ten season tickets. It was time for Plan B.

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Tue, 03/05/2013 - 20:47
Steve DeLay

Build A Superstar Sales Staff To Call On Every Project

You have your game schedule. You’ve identified your sellout targets for the next season and are ready to push forward with the Sellout Mentality.

You’ve come up with a couple solid ticket packages to complement your season ticket and group offerings and are ready to launch Full Menu Marketing from Day One of the selling season.

Now what?

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Mon, 02/04/2013 - 16:07
Steve DeLay

"Sir, I Don't Think You Should Buy Season Tickets."

Shoot for sustainable, long-term success by using full menu marketing to sell your customers what’s right for them.

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Tue, 01/01/2013 - 11:05
Steve DeLay

Seven Things That Could Change Your Life

Happy New Year to all. 2013 brings new ideas, new strategies and new ways to sell tickets and suites. Here are some of the columns you’ll see this year.

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Wed, 12/05/2012 - 09:52
Steve DeLay

If You Wanna Sell Out, You Gotta Sell Out

If Yogi Berra was in ticket sales, that would have been his philosophy.

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Mon, 10/29/2012 - 16:55
Steve DeLay

“Gentlemen, this is a football.”

By Steve DeLay
Consultant

Ticket sales isn’t rocket science, if you keep the fundamentals in mind.

Before their first practice at training camp every year, Vince Lombardi used to call together his team for a meeting.

He would prowl back and forth in front of the players with his hands behind his back until everyone was settled and he had their full attention. He then would stop, pause and look at the players with fire in his eyes. He then would bring a football from behind his back.

“Gentlemen, this is a football,” he would say. “If we block and we tackle, this game is not that difficult. It’s all about the fundamentals.”

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Fri, 08/10/2012 - 14:43
Joe Clark

Are you in a sales slump?

I recently took my three kids and a few of their friends to Sea World of Texas. While preparing to ride the Great White and the Steel Eel, I saw in my kids’ faces a sense of excitement of what was about to occur. I also knew they were up to the challenge, even though they were feeling a bit of fear preparing for what was about to come.

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Mon, 07/09/2012 - 16:32
Todd Pollock

Maximizing [Group] Sales Efforts

As a sales manager, when was the last time you fully evaluated all of your products and the associated benefits? How is what you’re doing compare to others in this industry?

Sports sales executives and managers tend to stick to the basics when it comes to perks included with a fan’s purchase. Full season tickets, partial plans and group tickets all represent a vast majority of revenues, in addition to single game tickets. We focus so much on adding benefits to ticket packages that the rest of our customers, who spend a significant amount of money, may be neglected.

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Fri, 06/01/2012 - 14:15
Dan Migala

Death of a salesman

Best of The Migala Report Archives

Every spring we’re honored so many colleges share this piece we published a few years ago. With new readers, including graduating seniors entering the sports business, we felt it was appropriate to share again with our own readers. We hope it inspires those in the industry as much as it has inspired those wanting to get into this business.The following is an adapted version of Publisher Dan Migala’s opening speech at the 2007 Baseball Winter Meetings.

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