Success Is a Team Effort

Teamwork - noun - cooperative or coordinated effort on the part of a group of persons acting together as a team or in the interests of a common cause. (source: dictionary.com)


I spent the last week at our sister facility assisting with race week preparations and race weekend, along with ten other co-workers from our home office.  During this past off-season, our company had to make some difficult decisions and reduce staffing, which has placed some challenges for many of us within the company.  Many have had to take on additional tasks, some of which incorporated working for both facilities (remotely in many instances).  


While the challenges have been great and some difficult to overcome, one thing was evident this weekend; the willingness to work together and help each other out, no matter what the challenges, will lead to nothing but success.  Sales reps helping each other with their pitch and closing techniques, business development staff spending time with clients that they have never met before, operations representatives working with staff they have never met to ensure all tasks occur at their scheduled time; without teamwork your efforts will be futile.  


I am in awe of the teamwork I saw this week, and for months before, from my co-workers.  After seeing the fruits of our efforts and hearing many compliments from fans over the last three days, I know now more than ever that in challenging times, teamwork (with the right team in place) will pull you through.  

Attendance: A Growing Concern and How to Fix It

In my last blog, I discussed how fans are waiting longer than ever to make their buying decisions.  This trend is negatively impacting the sports & entertainment market and beginning to make teams/venues look at how they are approaching the customers.

If you really want to affect change and reverse this alarming trend, here are three (3) of things you MUST be evaluating:

1. Pricing

Are your price points for tickets keeping buyers away?  In the aftermath of one of the worst financial crisis’ in the history of the United States, what did you do to show the customer you truly cared about them?  Are your prices in line with other competition in-market?  What about your prices in comparison to your counterparts in other cities?  Fans are savvy; they are looking for the best deal and will search high and low to find it, regardless of where it may be.  If your fans aren’t complaining about pricing then you are lucky, and in a good position to be successful.  If, on the other hand, your pricing is causing heart-burn with potential customers, it’s time to reevaluate your price model or come up with some solid fan incentives.

2. Staffing

Ticket sales are the core of your business, every sports team/venue understands that (if you don’t, you better re-evaluate your business model, and fast).  In order to sell tickets, you need a competent, competitive and driven staff to do so; and not just two or three staff members.  The largest department in your office should be your ticket department.  You need people to make sales calls, you need staff to handle the ticket operations needs of your facility (ticket printing, mailing, invoicing & CUSTOMER SERVICE).  Your ticket office staff should not be expected to do both sales & operations, but each representative should be able and competent to handle responsibilities for each.  Each operational representative should understand the importance of, and the need to, sell, up-sell and re-sell customers.  On the same note, each sales rep needs to understand the importance of exceptional customer service, and of not over-promising and under-delivering; this will surely push future sales away. 

How many reps are right for your team/venue?  Well that is a tough question to answer.  In my opinion, any good sales department for a team/venue with less than 30,000 seats, will include four (4) sales-oriented representatives and at least one (1) manager that is also expected to sell.    The number of reps increases as your number of available seats increases.  For comparisons sake, I work at a venue with 130,000 seats and feel that to effectively manage this number of seats eight (8) sales reps is the correct number.  While there is no magic number to staffing your ticket office, the one thing you cannot do is leave it short-handed.  If you do, you will learn quickly that is was the wrong decision and you will be scrambling to correct your mistake.

3.  Sales Plan

You can have the lowest ticket prices in the country and the largest sales staff ever created and it will all be for naught without a calculated sales plan.  Forecasting ticket sales for an upcoming season (in any industry) is a crapshoot to say the least.  No one can predict the future; injuries, market woes, poor weather conditions, work-stoppages, etc.  So the question is, how does are staff hit their budgeted goal for the year.  The first thing you need to do is break your larger forecast into smaller, actionable pieces.  Where do you want to be, or better yet, where should you be twelve (12) weeks into your selling season?  How about at twenty (20) weeks?  When you are a month away from your event, where should sales be then?  These are goals you need to determine, put on paper and track.  If you fall short of one goal you may want to re-evaluate your forecast; otherwise you better get your sales reps to kick it into high gear and start closing some business. 

Sales deadlines aren’t the only goal you need to outline in a sales plan.  Who are you going to target, and for what specific programs?  Where and how are you going to generate new business this year?  Are you going to renew the majority of last years fan base?  If not, why not?  And if you aren’t, what are you going to do this year to ensure next year your fans do renew?  Unfotunately, none of these questions have an easy answer; and none of these questions can be answered the same for multiple teams/venues.  You have to look at your business model, your facility, your event and create your own actionable sales plan; one that puts you in a place to be successful with the pricing and staffing you have in place and allows you to hit your forecasted sales goals.

While I understand that the three items above shouldn’t be new to anyone, they are imperative to the success of all teams/venues and everyone needs to be reminded of their importance from time to time.  If any one of these items is lacking, then you are already failing and facing an uphill battle.  If you are behind in two or (hopefully not) all three categories, stop everything else you are doing right this minute and get your business in order.  Success is earned it’s not handed to you.  Success may not come cheap either, by putting the right plan, staffing and pricing in place, success will be recognized with packed grandstands and happy, returning fans.

Where Oh Where is the Urgency?

A couple days ago I tweeted (@JAndersonTix) "I'm noticing a new, disturbing trend in ticket sales... 30 days out is the new 90 (from event). How can we reverse this trend."  


Since the market collapse in 2008 people have become much more cautious with their entertainment dollar.  People are making last minute decisions and focusing on value.  As this trend started rearing its head, teams and venues started slashing prices in a desperate attempt to sell (a lot of) inventory.  As more teams and venues followed suit (and quickly), customers began to take notice.  Customers have now been trained that the longer you wait, the better value you will receive, thus deteriorating the sense of urgency that sales reps had worked so hard to create.


It's my opinion, and I hope others agree, that this disturbing trend needs to be reversed, TODAY!  


Now for the tough part, HOW can we do it?


Is an escalating pricing model (increased pricing as you get closer to an event) the answer?  What about significant discounts the earlier you purchase?  Maybe even a special item (gift card, "team-dollars" or player autograph, etc.)?  Or is the answer merely to engage the customers in hand-to-hand combat; making phone calls, selling your team/event, overcoming objections and earning the sale?  


Whatever the best course of action is for you and your sales team it has to be your plan for years.  A one-hit wonder isn't going to do the long-term trick, and let's face it, we would all be happy to have a sold-out venue for years to come.

Time to take off...

Welcome all.  This is your pilot speaking; please be prepared for what should turn out to be a bumpy ride of my thoughts on the Sports Business.  I'll be the first to admit, I am not an expert, I am not "all knowing" (although I have been "affectionately" called that by a few former co-workers) and I most certainly don't have all the answers when it comes to ticket sales, ticket operations, marketing, event management, etc.  

What I do have is eleven years (wow, it's really been eleven years) of industry experience in the MiLB, NFL, and Motorsports, mainly in the Ticket Sales/Operations side of the business.  Currently I am the Director of Ticket Operations & Inside Sales for Dover International Speedway & Nashville Superspeedway (owned by Dover Motorsports, Inc. - NYSE: DVD).  

As I work to develop this blog, I hope that those of you that read will comment, offer thoughts, advice, and more.  The idea would be to develop this into a forum of sharing ideas about the industry, how to sell tickets (the core of our industry) more effectively and efficiently and how to continue to adapt in a rapidly changing world.  

Oh, and you can follow me 140 characters at a time @JAndersonTix and find me on LinkedIn.