In my recent blog on the ‘headache of starting up a new sports team season’, I want to highlight another area that is connected and involves your key revenue source – corporate partners.
Before I comment further, I must go back to my educational upbringing and let you know that my training - and good fortune - came from a Vocational High School in Massachusetts where my trade specialty was in Industrial Design (which centered on everything to do with creating art and graphics).
That knowledge has been such a payback for me throughout my career. This may sound strange to some of you but in all my years of taking on start-up franchises and fixing others, I have never permitted the corporate sponsors to purchase "specific locations" for signage and or publications. Yes, we have always given higher consideration to those that are investing top dollar. Where you get hurt is in laying out your sponsor’s messages.
I’ll use my sport of hockey as an example: we recently sold 57 rink board signs. Most are 8' in length by 33" tall. If you are selling your property as "specific locations", it will do your sponsor no good to have a wordy white background sign placed next to another busy white background display and another because each got locked into a sales location. My graphics company will arrive with me at the morning of our signage install day and lay out all of our signs on the ice floor. I will look at each and choose the location's by contrast. The RED McDONALD’S sign goes next to the WHITE sponsor sign with a simple logo display. The last thing you want is a wall with no contrast because you committed everyone to a spot.
From the moment I ever began my selling process, I usually told each partner that I will ENHANCE their visibility tenfold if they TRUST my ability to pick & choose where to place their investment. Here’s the trick to sell my point: ask one of your local TV stations to get you a 60 second tape of your game highlights on a CD. Watch carefully and see if you can recognize your business partners? Can you see their message? If you cannot, know that your partners can’t either. You want your partner’s to see themselves. That’s why most invest in sports sponsorships – to see themselves! You want your client’s customers to see them as well so that they’ll tell the sponsor.
You also want to KILL THE CLUTTER off every sign. There are reasons why McDONALD’S or SUBWAY brand their logos. Small businesses will WIN the war in branding if they follow suit! Don’t let the client sell you otherwise. In this world, we all GOOGLE so a sponsor doesn’t need to promote their phone, website and locations on a sign board. LESS CLUTTER SELLS MORE! LESS CLUTTER GETS THE SPONSOR’S MESSAGE SEEN MORE ON TV! You gutter ball it and your revenues will suffer the consequence!
As for publications, I have taken the same approach with my partners other than COVERS. Each season, I will instruct my printing rep to provide me with every ad pre-printed out in a Low Rez Color proof as well as all editorial. My rep will meet up with me the week before we go to print and I’ll look at each editorial page and match up the advertiser to BEST ENHANCE that page. EDITORIAL DESIGN HELPS BRING OUT YOUR ADVERTISER AND THE SPONSOR'S AD DESIGN HELPS BRING OUT YOUR EDITORIAL CONTENT! Again, we do give higher priority locations to the top sponsors!
Getting your client to signature of approval is like you & I choosing a restaurant location for our next meal. Once you are inside and the dinner plate is placed before you, now it’s the “presentation display” that SELLS YOUR BRAIN within a split second to devour that plate or not. Same with a sponsor when he sees his/her image at your facility. Doing the little things and giving that business property a chance to LOOK LIKE A MILLION ON THE DINNER PLATE will go a long way in increasing your team revenues!
Jim Loria, Career Planning Expert for Sports Professionals
Email address: loria@sfstampede.com
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
HEADACHES OF LAUNCHING A NEW SPORTS TEAM SEASON!
For those readers that are affiliated with a sports team program, you’ll understand and appreciate this piece.
I remember when moving into my current position in Sioux Falls, SD to start up an expansion hockey franchise, the first thing I told my business partners was that no matter how many year’s we work together, opening up a season is one of the most difficult things we’ll ever do. It is stressful as it gets, especially in areas of sponsorship fulfillment when you are responsible for producing the signage, publication ads and promotional items for starters. This process usually takes place within 30-45 days or so before the arrival of your home opener.
In a world that is driven by high tech gadgets and computer software, you’d think every business would be so aware of these alphabet letters: EPS, PDF and JPEG. They are computer file formats so needed to complete your sponsored projects yet in dealing with the client and your graphics company prior to a season’s start-up is enough to make your head of hair turn a different shade of grey each year! Example: A signage production company all prefer to deal with e-mail files submitted in an EPS format. When assembling your game program, yearbook or pocket schedules, the local printer will want that same customer of yours to submit its art work in PDF files. Oh, and when creating your sponsor’s website banner ads and pop-up messages, a designer will want mostly a JPEG working file!
As you lead into a season’s start-up, every employee feels the intensity and you start to budget your day’s accomplishments by the minutes versus hours. Then you get that client who procrastinates and is finally ready to get their art work to you for his signage. You open up your e-mail box and see this LOW REZ piece of art staring you in the eyes that the client obviously copied off from their website. They didn’t have anything else on hand to send. Yet, you are working with client on a 10-foot wall sign for your ballpark or a hockey rink board. Your graphics company barks at you and say “It’s too weak. I can’t deal with it!” We’ve all been there. You’re probably chuckling reading this. I just lived through this for the past two months, enough that I am still fighting sleep deprivation!
Yes, I love those clients that direct me to their ad agencies to work out the creative elements. That’s when life’s a beach but trying to fulfill the package elements signed on by your smaller (local) businesses is, and will always be, extremely challenging year-to-year. Most just do not understand the complexities of today’s technology nor have they ever invested in getting their brand identification assembled in all computer formats.
As you develop relationships with your business partners, do encourage the client to seriously invest in their logo and licensed marks and get them all reformatted in all current day working computer formats! It can really take a load of stress off the client and not to mention you as the sales rep. Any graphic design shop or agency can set up an EXTRANET SITE for the company (should be at no additional cost). This is a web access site that will store a client’s logos in all formats, from color-to-black & white.
Jim Loria, Career Planning Expert for Sports Professionals
Email address: loria@sfstampede.com
I remember when moving into my current position in Sioux Falls, SD to start up an expansion hockey franchise, the first thing I told my business partners was that no matter how many year’s we work together, opening up a season is one of the most difficult things we’ll ever do. It is stressful as it gets, especially in areas of sponsorship fulfillment when you are responsible for producing the signage, publication ads and promotional items for starters. This process usually takes place within 30-45 days or so before the arrival of your home opener.
In a world that is driven by high tech gadgets and computer software, you’d think every business would be so aware of these alphabet letters: EPS, PDF and JPEG. They are computer file formats so needed to complete your sponsored projects yet in dealing with the client and your graphics company prior to a season’s start-up is enough to make your head of hair turn a different shade of grey each year! Example: A signage production company all prefer to deal with e-mail files submitted in an EPS format. When assembling your game program, yearbook or pocket schedules, the local printer will want that same customer of yours to submit its art work in PDF files. Oh, and when creating your sponsor’s website banner ads and pop-up messages, a designer will want mostly a JPEG working file!
As you lead into a season’s start-up, every employee feels the intensity and you start to budget your day’s accomplishments by the minutes versus hours. Then you get that client who procrastinates and is finally ready to get their art work to you for his signage. You open up your e-mail box and see this LOW REZ piece of art staring you in the eyes that the client obviously copied off from their website. They didn’t have anything else on hand to send. Yet, you are working with client on a 10-foot wall sign for your ballpark or a hockey rink board. Your graphics company barks at you and say “It’s too weak. I can’t deal with it!” We’ve all been there. You’re probably chuckling reading this. I just lived through this for the past two months, enough that I am still fighting sleep deprivation!
Yes, I love those clients that direct me to their ad agencies to work out the creative elements. That’s when life’s a beach but trying to fulfill the package elements signed on by your smaller (local) businesses is, and will always be, extremely challenging year-to-year. Most just do not understand the complexities of today’s technology nor have they ever invested in getting their brand identification assembled in all computer formats.
As you develop relationships with your business partners, do encourage the client to seriously invest in their logo and licensed marks and get them all reformatted in all current day working computer formats! It can really take a load of stress off the client and not to mention you as the sales rep. Any graphic design shop or agency can set up an EXTRANET SITE for the company (should be at no additional cost). This is a web access site that will store a client’s logos in all formats, from color-to-black & white.
Jim Loria, Career Planning Expert for Sports Professionals
Email address: loria@sfstampede.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
