Kindness=Ghosts, Solutions=Money
The majority of teams are outbound right now…and you, #sportsbiz sales rep, are facing a wall of challenges. We don’t know when games will be. We don’t have ticket packages designed to complement no games being played. All we have is uncertainty.
We’ll have a lot of really positive conversations that will end without any resolution. So what have we really gained? The answer is, currently, not a lot outside of some good will. But I’m SURE those people know that our next call WILL be about money…so they may/probably avoid it.
Whether it’s B2B, B2C, affinity groups, or anything, getting someone to like you isn’t necessarily positive, COVID19 or not. In fact, it can be a pretty big detriment. We don’t like telling people we like ‘no’…so, in essence, if we get them to like us and just pass along information and don’t show value, we’re just creating a lot of ghost accounts.
But what can we gain from the calls we make right now? How can we make that call a GENUINE positive for both parties in this crazy moment? Solve problems for people. People or businesses may not have time or money just to spend on tickets, but people or businesses ALWAYS have money to solve the problems in their lives.
A father wanting to spend more time with their kids. A big business who needs to jump start revenue in this climate. A non-profit organization that needs to bring their volunteers back together. A small business that just laid off part of it’s staff and the returning culture is really bad because of it. A group of friends who have only Zoom’d over the last few months and can’t WAIT to get back together. These are ALL challenges that sports tickets are a potential SOLUTION for…we just need to educate our clients HOW we are.
A long time ago at CEB my boss, Ruth Stern, told me something that I still hold onto to this day. She said, ‘Businesses have tight individual budgets. But they put real, significant money towards solving problems.’ That’s not just true for businesses…that’s true for people, too. If you find their challenge right now, you can create a solution for whenever this pandemic breaks. That’s a positive result.