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Issue 7

Fri, 07/01/2011 - 13:57
Tyler Epp

Would you want LeBron on your sales team? Three ways to improve team performance

“In this fall — this is very tough — in this fall I am taking my talents to South Beach and play with the Miami Heat.” Last June, the words spoken by LeBron James reverberated throughout the sports community, sending a shiver through coaches and general managers across the NBA. LeBron James and Chris Bosh chose to join their new teammate, Dwayne Wade, as members of the Miami Heat. All in the prime of their careers; all committed to honing their individual talents; all in search of an NBA Championship. It was, perhaps, the greatest collection of All-Stars in NBA history. It was certain to lead to an NBA championship, probably many…it was just a matter of putting these individual players together. How could a team with this type of individual talent possibly fail?

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Fri, 07/01/2011 - 13:44
Matt Bowman

Managing top salespeople and "The paradox of excellence"

As managers we rely on our top producers every day. These individuals are high achievers, extremely motivated, and often driven by the fear of failure. They often find that one area of sales becomes their bread and butter. In ticket sales, this could mean many things: hitting home run season ticket deals, organizing and selling groups, or maximizing partial plan volume, to name a few. Top producers become comfortable in knowing their particular areas of strength, and may choose to focus solely on that expertise at the expense of growing their skills in other sales categories.

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Thu, 06/30/2011 - 14:56
Ken Troupe

Who does Twitter well?

What’s the point of using Twitter? The same thing as with any other communication tool: To initiate and build relationships with customers in order to provide satisfying experiences with the team.

The prevalence of social media in our lives is a world away from how many of us started in this business. My first day of work, my boss ordered, “There’s the phone. Here’s a phone book. Good luck.” If we sold tickets, we went to the dummy terminal shared by everyone to pull the seats and record them in a log book before finalizing the deal with the customer. Eventually we received desktops and were able to pull-up seats in real-time. Email communications became common. More recently, CRM systems have pulled the whole process together. Throughout the evolution of digital media, improved data collection and communication processes have led to increased sales and improved customer service.

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Thu, 06/30/2011 - 14:35
Kirk L. Wakefield

Was Charlie Sheen on (to) something? How winning and a few other things lead fans to identify with a team or brand

Why and how fans identify with teams and individual players is one of the most frequently studied subjects among sports psychology academics. For instance, did you know that 15.2% of the obituaries of men mention their sports identification, but only 5.2% of women’s obituaries do the same? This might not be of any immediate help in selling sports, but some of you are making a mental note to mention to your family how you want to be remembered.

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Wed, 06/29/2011 - 11:22
Flavil Hampsten

Ever second-guess a general manager? Four principles for putting together a good team

Every person who works in sports loves sports and most think they can be a general manager. They read the sports pages and talk around the cooler about how lousy of a job the local team’s general manager is doing. It’s easy to judge others from a distance.

Think further about this. If you are a hiring manager, aren’t you, in essence doing the same job as a sports general manager? Haven’t you made that “can’t miss” hire who interviewed well but didn’t deliver on the (sales) floor? And if you have a stingy HR department that is over processed, you may as well be working with contracted employees since you can’t move the bad ones onward and outward. Seems like you might be stuck with the roster that you drafted (hired). Not so easy to be a general anymore, huh?

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Wed, 06/29/2011 - 10:25
Danny Cooper

What metrics do sponsors want from and about teams? Introducing the Sports Property Index (SPI)

Brands Require Better Data to Make a Sponsorship Decision
Companies spent an estimated $12 billion for all sports sponsorship deals in 2010, according to IEG. That was an increase from 2009 and a trend expected to continue this year. Leading brands now invest an average of $15 million in sports sponsorships annually.

As spending increases, so does the desire for more detailed data.

James Emmett, features editor of London-based Sports Pro magazine, contends that 90 percent of the time, knowing how a sports property ranks with a specific demographic is "absolutely crucial" to a potential sponsor.

Brand executives now view sports marketing as an integrated function of the company’s overall marketing plan. They want specifics about who they will reach through a particular venue and who will be most impacted by messaging as it appears in a particular property.

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