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1 Co-Hosted By: Follow us on Twitter: #NAATSOwebinar

2 Co-author, The Ultimate Toolkit to Sell the Last Seat in the House

3 AGENDA The Sellout Mentality Creating ticket products that drive sellouts Database building How to market those ticket products Finding salespeople to sell those products Training salespeople Most important: How to respond to the evil naysayer

4 FIRST, A MULTIPLE CHOICE TEST: You are tasked with the responsibility to increase revenue in your most important area. Would you: a. Give up control and a big chunk of revenue because you aren t sure how to do it? b. Find a way to do it yourself, keep the revenue and stand out from the crowd and get promoted?

5 THE SELLOUT MENTALITY How to get sellouts: 1. Win the NCAA championship(s) 2. Sign a big-time coach who promises a championship 3. Sign LeBron James or Johnny Manziel 4. Smart marketing of games your fans want to attend Opponent Day of the week Time of year

6 THE SELLOUT MENTALITY What about the crummy weekday games? Naysayer: We need to run some promotions for those crummy weekday games against no-name opponents just to make it look better. My response: There are several things wrong about promoting a crummy weekday game. Number one, it takes you away from your mission of focusing on just increasing the number of sellouts. Doing a promotion for a crummy game will get minimal results, will cost valuable marketing dollars, will take time and energy and, unfortunately, you re always disappointed with the results. Lastly, what promotion would you use? 2-for-1s? 50% off? Free bobblehead to the first 1,000 fans? Thirsty Thursdays? Whatever you try, it will have a minimal effect. 200 seats sold? Maybe 300 seats sold? Heck, Thirsty Thursdays at most only bring in several hundred drunks. Are three hundred drunks for one game worth it? Of course not.

7 TICKET PRODUCTS THAT DRIVE SELLOUTS Full Menu Marketing 1. Season Tickets are right for: Hard core fans with time, money and interest Companies with people, money and reason Beware: You can t create demand where none exists 2. Ticket Packages Casual fans, less affluent, less time 3. Group Tickets Looking for a fun night out with a large group of like people 4. Single Game Looking for something to do.

8 TICKET PACKAGES The best tool for driving sellouts: 1. Best games 2. Better seats than single game buyers 3. Perks and benefits that are better than single game but less than full season. Naysayer: If we package our best games with perks, nobody will buy season tickets. They ll all buy the best games package. My response: Sell the fan what s best for them, not what s best for you. Location is the #1 reason fans buy season tickets. The full season ticket holder gets the best seats. If you still have prime seats for good games and let single game buyers get those seats, you ll never sell more season tickets. By selling more ticket packages and getting more sellouts, you ll naturally sell more season tickets in future years as those fans want better and better seat locations.

9 MARKETING TICKET PACKAGES Two Truisms: 1. The least effective marketing is the most expensive 2. The most effective marketing is by far the least expensive STEP 1: Commit to Database Marketing STEP 2: Assign a List Boss STEP 3: Collect the name of every man, woman and child who goes to your ticketed games. STEP 4: Identify anyone else who has an affinity to your school STEP 5: Identify anyone else who else might be interested companies, groups STEP 6: Organize the list in CRM or Excel

10 MARKETING TICKET PACKAGES How to reach them? 1. Fans - Triple Threat Marketing 2. Corporations - Eyeball to eyeball What not to do? Spend a tremendous amount of money on mass media, slick brochures or huge discounts

11 HOW TO SELL 7,000 TICKET PLANS

12 GROUP TICKETS QUESTION #2 (Multiple choice) Which one sounds more appealing: a. Buy 20 or more tickets and you ll receive $2 off the single game price. Buy 50 or more and receive $3 off, buy 100 or more and receive $4 off. b. Buy 20 or more tickets for one our biggest rival PinHead State and each person in your group receives a limited edition $25 Big-Time University cap free as part of your purchase.

13 VALUE ADDED, NO DISCOUNTS Naysayer: Those hats cost money. And, giving away those hats will ruin our merchandise per caps My response: What is going to help us sell more tickets, get more people to the games and create a better atmosphere? The hats are of course a much higher perceived value than a couple bucks off. Instead of discounting, which doesn t work, we re creating Wow! As for our merchandise per caps, when was the last time a big donor, the University President or the head coach asked how many hats we sold at last Saturday s game?

14 MARKETING GROUP TICKETS The most effective way - the best way - is the old fashioned way: STEP ONE: Commit to the idea that group sales is a year-round effort STEP TWO: Assign salespeople to solely focus on group ticket sales. How many depends on the size of your market. STEP THREE: Apple made the phone cool, use it. STEP FOUR: Build the most valuable group sales database in town.

15 THE BIG STEP #1 HIRING SALESPEOPLE NAYSAYER: We can t hire salespeople because: (multiple choice): a. We can t pay commissions b. We re in a hiring freeze as a state university and can t add staff c. Firing them would take an act of Congress d. Employee benefit costs are too high e. Any two of the above f. All of the above MY RESPONSE: Remember, you are tasked with increasing revenue in your most important area. You can find a way. Don t be afraid to challenge the norm. Don t just give in and give up control and revenue. This is where you can make your mark if you have the know-how.

16 THE BEST JOB ON CAMPUS? Where to find salespeople: 1. Repurpose existing full-time staff 2. Students or student athletes or sports management students 2a. Donor supported LLC 100. Let someone else do it.

17 BIG STEP #2 - TRAINING Training, training, training until you get tired of training and then train some more. STEP ONE: Initial two day boot camp STEP TWO: On-going videotaping, role play, one on ones STEP THREE: Keeping track

18 WHAT S IT GONNA TAKE? QUESTION #3 (True/False) I have the guts to focus on sellouts, create new ticket packages and group products that drive sellouts, find a way to hire salespeople and train the heck out of those salespeople. NAYSAYER: We don t have the know-how to do all of this. Let s just outsource it to someone who does and hope for the best. MY RESPONSE: There is a solution. A solution that more than 100 teams and colleges are using with tremendous success. A solution that costs dramatically less than out-sourcing and hoping for the best.

19 THE ULTIMATE TOOLKIT The Ultimate Toolkit to Sell the Last Seat in the House Created to give teams and colleges the tools necessary to develop their own ticket strategy and train their own salespeople to drive tremendous increases in ticket revenue. Cost = $3,750. One time expense includes on-line access to private content and a six week on-boarding process with a three call Lifeline to get you started. Oregon Arkansas Ball State South Dakota State North Dakota Furman Miami, FL Illinois State Marquette Rhode Island Alabama Cincinnati Univ. of Portland Louisville George Mason San Diego State Arizona State

20 NEXT STEPS Steve DeLay Cell phone stevedelay@earthlink.net Philosophy

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