Talking Tickets 3 June 2022: Champions League! Dealing with Uncertainty! AFL Crowds! TickPick! And, More!
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Hey There!
I’m returning to New York City to do my first in-person workshop event since 2019. Monday, September 12th, 2022 in Midtown Manhattan.
We are going to do a group “The Whiteboard Workshop”.
At this workshop, we will cover ideas like:
Setting an ambition for your business that enables you to focus on the right market, the right value proposition, and the right actions.
Understanding your market and targeting the right market for your specific product or service.
Your value proposition and how to position yourself effectively in the market.
Defining the resources you need to take action on your goals.
And, more…including ending with action items with deadlines to kickstart your use of the information.
As an added bonus, I’m going to throw in one one-to-one coaching call and a group coaching call over Zoom for attendees.
The fee for this workshop is $250 until June 15th for readers of the newsletter. On June 16th, the registration fee will rise.
Next week, I’ve got another announcement for you.
Thanks for reading and sharing. I posted a quick hit blog on Medium this week with 5 ways that businesses fail at strategy.
To the Tickets!
The Big Story: “Fake” Tickets and the Champions League Final:
Big Ideas:
“30-40,000 fake tickets” was the starting point.
Some fans never made it into the ground or it was halftime before they made it.
The next day, French fans storm the pitch with smoke bombs in Saint-Etienne.
France, call me.
The Champions League Final at the Stade de France outside of Paris became a fiasco on Saturday night as fans were locked outside of the stadium with valid tickets, tear gassed, and made to stand in dangerous conditions for several hours.
This one sucks because the Final of the Champions League is one of those events that I have on my list of must attend events.
The game was delayed for 36 minutes, but that really doesn’t tell the full story and whatever happened on the pitch was overshadowed by what was going on outside the stadium, and from the looks of it probably impacted the Liverpool team as well since their fans were the majority of people that seemed to be suffering.
Anyway, let’s look at a few topics here.
The claim of massive fraud was ridiculous from the start. In my years around tickets, in the most egregious cases, “massive fraud” would have been less than 1% of tickets for an event.
As the reports came out of what was really going down, it seems that the issue was a lack of proper training, scanning machines that were malfunctioning, and a small mix of fans trying to crash the gates and/or with fraudulent tickets.
From a project management standpoint, the key issue here is enabling people to make decisions and take action quickly in a dynamic situation. In this instance, if reports end up being true, the police, stadium staff, and officials on the ground were all held back by a chain of command that was slow to react and didn’t turn over operational authority to their staff.
On the side of the fraudelent ticket argument, from a crisis communication standpoint, the coverup is worse than the crime and you are better off saying nothing than making up easily disproven claims.
Remember the old saying from Harry Truman, “the buck stops here”. When dealing with a fast moving, problematic situation, use that advice.
As things were being fixed or resolved, there is the challenge of fans that never made it into the ground or only made it after being delayed for the better part of the first half.
I’m sympathetic to this because people may never get another chance to see their team play for the title.
People have built up this experience as being the pinnacle of their fandom.
Then, it is all ripped away through no fault of their own.
How these people are made whole will be interesting to watch.
I’m not sure if nothing will be done for them, but what a mess this is from a relationship to the team and the game.
As many commentators have pointed out, the issues around French soccer have been building recently and there was an additional situation at the ground in Saint-Etienne on Sunday where folks stormed the pitch with smoke bombs.
This is dangerous and following another smoke bomb being tossed on the pitch during the North London Derby, makes security a much bigger concern because we’ve seen smoke bombs, yes, but also many instances of fans storming the pitch around Europe.
Lots could go wrong.
How do we deal with all of this coming out of a season of football that was exciting, but also showed the strain folks are feeling and the limits of the best-laid plans?
Action Items:
Review your plans for holding an event. After the pandemic caught everyone flat-footed, I think it is important to review all of your action plans and backup plans to ensure that there is a course of action for the worst-case scenario.
Think customer first. It seems like there wasn’t much the fans could have done differently here, but the entire experience leading into the stadium could have been more thoughtfully pulled together.
Understand that people are stretched thin and struggling from the continued strains of the pandemic, the cost of living crisis, and life right now. This means that attention to mental health is important, but you can expect to see folks act out in unusual ways. So you have to be prepared.
The Road to Recovery: AFL crowds are down, but NRL is stable:
Big Ideas:
Track your numbers.
COVID brought about behavioral change.
Diagnosis is the beginning of a solution.
AFL attendance at the grounds is down to a 25-year non-COVID low and NRL attendance is pretty stable.
What does that tell us?
First, it tells us that COVID brought on some behavioral changes.
How do we know?
Look at the numbers of TV viewers of AFL matches, the audience switched over to the TV…or, so it seems.
But everywhere we look we see signs of changed behaviors due to the pandemic like changes in public transportation ridership on transit systems around the world, different foot traffic patterns in cities, and different travel habits as people might drive when they used to fly.
This matters now because we all have to be conscious of our numbers so that we can actually figure out what everything means and how to deal with it.
I’ve been reading my buddy, Simon Severino’s new book, Strategy Sprints. He talks about tracking your numbers and knowing which numbers matter. Just as importantly, Simon also teaches us how to set up our own dashboard to track the right numbers for our business because it matters.
What numbers will matter for the AFL or the NRL?
It is tough to be specific without understanding the strategy, but from the article we can see that the AFL might be interested in tracking their attendance numbers and building their sales funnel around what leads to the purchase decision.
As an example, I’m on a board in DC and I just taught the board about the sales funnel and these are the numbers we are measuring from top to bottom:
Number of kids in rec leagues
Number of kids that signup for travel
How many of these kids come from our programs
How many kids show up for the tryout
How many kids are offered a spot on a travel team
How many kids accept their spot on the travel team
Through this, we can see where our funnel leaks and we can find out what is causing that funnel leak.
The same applies to you or the AFL and NRL.
This brings us to the main point here: diagnosis is the first step in solving any problem.
I’ve visited with too many organizations at this point that just make assumptions about the real issues at play and never get to the point of real diagnosis.
Another book that I’ve been working through is called The Crux by Richard Rumelt, a strategy professor at UCLA’s business school. The hypothesis of Rumelt’s book is that for a strategy to have any hope of traction, it has to clearly define the challenge…the crux of the situation.
I couldn’t agree more.
Start with a strong diagnosis and build from there.
In action:
Diagnose the problem. Dig deep.
Figure out which numbers matter and track them.
Understand that any significant disruption in people’s lives will change their behavior…COVID was a major disruption.
How To: Plan in uncertain times:
Big Ideas:
Plan/Do/Check/Adjust.
Don’t get overwhelmed by the urgent at the expense of the important.
Test your assumptions.
I’ve been sitting on this piece for a while because I have some links that I’ve been waiting to use.
The summer vacation time will see me go through some of these links and share my thoughts, actions, and observations on these ideas.
But, first, we start with planning in uncertain times.
Last week, I shared a great podcast conversation I had with Amanda Lester about marketing research. I think we did a good job of teaching y’all why research matters and how you can get started on a small budget.
Research is the foundation of the Plan/Do/Check/Adjust way of planning in uncertain times.
You need to know what the market is up to right now, but you also have to be aware that you are going to need to be quick on your feet to deal with changes that will always be right around the corner.
What does this framework look like in action?
You pick a goal. Any goal will do.
You make a plan to achieve it.
Take action.
Check that the actions you took are getting you closer to your goal.
Adjust as necessary.
In my experience, hustle culture has taught too many folks to stick their head down and just spin the action wheel.
I call that being “Overwhelmed by the urgent” and that is something we have to pay attention to or else.
Why?
Because in every situation I’ve encountered, it is important to know what you are hoping to achieve as much as it is important to be taking action. I’ve seen advice on social media that tells you to post 100 times a day.
For what?
I’ve seen businesses just assume that 100 cold calls a day is going to ensure success of their sales teams and get them to their sales goals.
It may, but it may not. You have to know what you are selling and to what market you are selling into.
If not, you might suffer.
Focus on the actions that will get you closer to success, not just keep you busy.
The important before the urgent. Control your time and your focus.
When you combine the framework with focus on the important actions, you should learn rapidly. So it is important for you to test your assumptions.
A technique I teach folks that I work with is to make a bet with yourself to figure out what will happen.
How do you do that?
I give folks a note card and have them right out a few things that they think their actions will lead to happen.
Once you’ve moved through whatever phase you are focused on, you can reflect on your outcomes. And, figure out what worked and what didn’t work But most importantly, why did it work or did it not work?
In Action:
No matter what your role is: broker, inside sales, premium sales, marketing, etc. spend a few moments thinking about what your actions are meant to achieve and what you expect will happen. Write it down. Reflect on it after the fact.
Try out the Plan/Do/Check/Adjust Framework. It starts with knowing your goal, but it can really boost your ability to adjust to volatile environments.
Test your assumptions. Things are changing. Don’t assume that what got you here will get you to the next success.
Tech/Tools/Profile: Brett Goldberg talks with us about TickPick:
Big Ideas:
Behaviors are changing due to the pandemic.
Speculative selling doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but there are a lot of examples where it is. Getting all of the press.
All-in pricing levels the market from a customer POV.
Good conversation with Brett Goldberg this week.
We hit on a lot of topics like pricing, spec selling, where the name TickPick came from, and a lot more.
A few quick ideas to temp you into listening:
Brett shares some of the data and examples around folks changing their behavior in buying now that lockdowns have ended and events are going on as normal.
Being lean helped TickPick make it through the pandemic without having to shut down completely.
All-in pricing can be a big win for the customers. It balances the playing field from the POV of the customer.
For professional sellers to really win on TickPick, they have to be smart about the way that they price and price fairly.
Spec selling gets a bad wrap because the only time you really hear about it is when something goes wrong. But there are instances when spec selling could be of value to the market.
This was a solid conversation with Brett and we covered the change in policy that TickPick made in response to the Olivia Rodrigo tour canceling tickets overnight and a lot more.
Give it a listen.
Blurbs and Such:
No urgency on College Football Playoff expansion: Every time I hear about the potential expansion of the college football playoff, I think about the idea of “less is more”. Just because you can do something that doesn’t mean you should.
Networks of clubs has helps organizations like City Football Group grow: City Football Group and Red Bull have a good model of clubs around the world where they can develop talent, sign players, and grow their brands.
The New York Times digs into the business of the Raiders: This is pretty damning stuff. Lack of financial oversight, a hostile workplace, and outdated business practices are some of the allegations being placed at the feet of the Raiders.
NESN launches NESN Plus: $239 for the year gets you the Red Sox and Bruins, plus 8 tickets to see the Red Sox at Fenway Park. I’ll be curious to watch this because there continues to be innovation in the way that streaming products are sold to consumers. This is a risky bet, but the direct tie-in with the Red Sox tickets tips the value scale in a favorable direction.
You can find me everywhere with my special Linktree! It is all my links!
Be a part of the ‘Talking Tickets’ Slack community.
Check out my friends at Booking Protect!
Thanks again to the Ticketing Professionals Team. They’ve put together a great event and just announced the new event for 2023. See y’all in Birmingham!
I did the FREE webinar a few weeks back, but had some technology issues with the live stream on Microsoft Teams. I’m not sure if was Teams or my new desktop computer, either way…I’m going to continue to play with the tech stack and I posted the audio file in the podcast stream. So, pricing ideas to your heart’s desire.
Lots of great podcast conversations: check out recent conversations with Amanda Lester, Paul Williamson, and, this week’s with Brett Goldberg.
Let me know who you’d like to hear from by sharing your ideas with me here.