Speaking of stalled aspirational progress, as we are all now acutely aware of, the global economy hit a screeching halt by way of a COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic.
Ramifications and the related coverable topics are endless.
A globalized reckoning, which was anticipated to happen at some point by the experts, caught us all on our heels and we couldn’t react quickly enough to put it to bed before massive loss of lives and economic progress resulted.
What are we learning in the process?
Leadership and the ability to listen, emphasize and unite matters more than ever – without it, everything can unfold.
Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. The true heroes pulling us out of this mess are the service workers on the front-lines putting lives on the line to save their brethren (nurses, doctors, EMTs, social services, teachers, grocery store and “essential business” workers). These folks deserve every accolade, perk and quality of live improvement possible.
Globalization Revisited – it doesn’t matter if your GDP is greatest in the world if you can’t stock or make the basics to save your people (ie. PPE’s like aprons, masks, gloves, etc.)
We need to focus on the industries, tactics, practices and strategies proven to sustainably benefit the masses. Sometimes it’s time to stick in that fork and move on vs. continuing the life support.
Personally and professionally, we are all at a crossroads. Adapt or die (figuratively and literally so, sadly).
It’s a group exercise, too. One outlier can derail the recovery progress for the masses. We are all ready for the economy to return to normal – your non-distanced protests only hurt our chances to get there.
How we prepare today will impact tomorrow. It is well worth the extra few weeks of staying at home to not set ourselves back months more.
If all you have to give is goodwill and positive thoughts, pay it forward, spread it (especially while staying at home!) and the returns will multiply and help get us all back on our feet.
The Cleveland Cavaliers, Detroit Red Wings, Baltimore Orioles, Sporting Kansas City, Indiana Pacers, New Orleans Saints & Pelicans (among others pictured above): what do these represent? All, the latest and greatest clients of Sponsorship Buddy Inc. I, as the lead hunter, should be out celebrating in the streets to land these huge, globally embraced and recognized team brands as clients of our disruptive new platform, right? Not so fast, my friend.
Early entrepreneurial life is not glamorous (nor is the sports industry). Over the past 20 months, I’ve had to learn all kinds of new skills, competencies, and levels of resiliency and discipline. I set out with a goal of transforming the sponsorship industry in much-needed fashion for the better to help create more transparency, streamlined communications, a better client experience and improvements in quality of life. In doing so, I hoped to make my mark as an innovator, disruptor, and difference-maker and put it all on the line to do so (personal life, relationships, financial stability).
Full disclosure, it’s been the most challenging period I’ve had in life and there have been some big ones. While persistently searching out believers in my network, I’ve been aggressively pursuing careers and been so close on fantastic opportunities in sports or tech in Denver, San Francisco and here in Salt Lake City, only to be passed up on at the finish line. My closest contacts have seemingly written me off while it’s been impossible to fight off bouts of despair, depression and not feel like a failure.
One of my key strengths is my resiliency, persistence, and aversion to quitting. I thought the industry would snap up this relatively inexpensive tool but learned that it was going to take completing the marathon to change the game.
Back when we were looking for our 1st major league client after the Utah Jazz (beta customer of ours), I leaned on my former group in the Memphis Grizzlies, who have been notably innovative. In speaking with Mya Donald, activation lead for the team, I said something along the lines of, “I know this is new and daunting, but this can not only put the Grizzlies on the map as a leader in the space, but do great things for your careers.” The Grizzlies bought in, embraced the tool, and four weeks ago, Mya was on-stage as a finalist at NBA league meetings citing us as a key piece to the team’s peer-nominated Relationship Management Program of the Year. To add validation, the winners of the award, the Cleveland Cavaliers, known not only for being runner up in the 2016-2017 NBA Finals, but also for a notable Goodyear Jersey Patch Campaign and innovative 365-day activation approach have followed suit as our 5th client in the most innovative of all sports leagues (NBA).
Taking excerpts like these to market, we’ve now established ourselves as an industry-recognized brand with success stories throughout the major and minor leagues, not to mention being in the process of signing our 1st brand and agency clients. We accomplished our set growth and vesting goals a year ahead of time and have solidified our brand and platform as a force with huge upside from here while maxing out my equity shares in the company.
As we look to solve the sponsorship industry’s communication issues one client at a time, I’ve realized that I have a long ways to go to become a great communicator myself. I realized that my emails, like everyone’s texts or emails from time to time, can be misinterpreted and come off the wrong way. Instead of leaving tone, reasoning, and objectives up for interpretation, I insisted on a face-to-face meeting to speak my mind, and after a 2nd fishing trip meeting to close out the summer and further collaborate on ownership stake and employment terms. I’m now about to be in a much more secure place while being in control of day and destiny.
Lessons learned: don’t take rejection to heart. It only takes one (you). Even when everyone else loses faith in you, what you believe in and set out to do, you can accomplish anything with determination. Be mindful, self-reflective and don’t be afraid to ask for constructive feedback, advice or someone else’s time to hear you out.
After weeks of back-and-forth months after my consulting deal was up, we were at a crossroads of a) parting ways with only the entrepreneurial experience to show for it for b) forging a partnership, potentially lifelong. Both sides have nearly walked away at different times and everyone knew it was decision time, this was make or break and the call was going to be tense. That “Castaway” feeling of I’m alone, trying to scratch and claw my way to survival, hoping someone will venture into the vicinity and throw me a life raft can feel very real.
Doubts can be constant. Today’s social media age make peer comparisons dangerous. Why am I at point X when I’ve invested this much into myself whereas my former cohort John or Jane Doe is at point Y? Trust in others and myself with belief in the ability to turn up calculated returns is something I’ve banked on for years. But sometimes it feels like being stuck in the ocean trying to fight the current of a riptide, not going anywhere and expending energy reserves quickly.
Egocentrism is the inability to understand any perspective but one’s own. In this country, never has this come more into question than today’s political and social environment. Why should I think about someone over there when my own quality of life is in question? What happens when those relationships you’ve invested in and trusted would work out instead turn out quiet or egocentric? You’re left to your own story and ingenuity, losing hope with line after line being cast out only to be brought back with nets empty.
Despite better reason and needs to meet, we made the trip to Arizona for a wedding at a lavish venue, the JW Marriott of Tuscon pictured below. Sacrifices were made to get there – a bag of sandwiches made to avoid having to stop for food, not staying at the host resort and instead choosing a Marriott nearby. Bootstrapped startup life personalized.
Alli & I before the wedding @JW Marriott Tuscon
After catching up with the Joneses, and being there to celebrate the big commitment day for the newlyweds, we took a day trip to the famous wild west town of Tombstone. Despite all the Hollywood takes, never was story given due justice authentically. The Boothill Graveyard was filled with stories of men that met their fates through every means from defending their honor in gunfights at the OK Corral to getting poisoned and everything in between and their stones were stolen over time by gravestone robbers looking to get their hands on valuable relics. This made me think, how does one avoid the fate of George Johnson pictured below, who was hanged by mistake? “He was right, he was wrong, but we strung him up and now he’s gone.”
In a brutal town where the odds are stacked against you like Tombstone, George may have been on to something in life. Maybe he was looking like one of the few who’s investment was going to pay off in a big way. However, his story was lost and he became known instead for his curious cause of death. George hadn’t secured himself to avoid the traps laid down all around him and succumbed to a noteworthy fate.
On the scenic way back in Navajo country (another example of a people pushed aside), we stopped at the picturesque Horseshoe Bend in the Glen Canyon area of northern Arizona (featured above). I looked out and felt like I was stuck on that rock island pushed out further and further by the sands of time, with a storm coming nonetheless.
Months after the fact and despite undue strife, my partners came through for me on my concessions and I officially tied the ownership knot. Lessons learned include not making assumptions and instead communicating better and building and executing sound social and business contracts. Don’t be afraid to be real and speak to feelings and emotions as it leads to more authentic connections. I went from fighting the riptides to grabbing a line out and back to the island. Now, it’s a matter of navigating around the hangman’s noose and traps while continuing to better equip and target those lines cast with the hope of netting that meaningful storybook foundation off the island.
Are you fed up with the feeling that your vote won’t account for any positive change? Are you over the stodgy NFL or sick of fantasy football after losing because of weather during 1 freak game or an injury that made all those hours for naught? Are you in need of an exciting last minute Christmas gift idea?
If you’re like me and you’ve answered YES to any of those questions than consider this a call to action.
Whether you’re in Utah or not, this is your chance to actually play a role in managing and running a pro sports team. From the city (SLC over OKC) to the team name (after 101st Airborne in a nailbiter over Teamy McTeamface), to the plays ran on the field chosen through a state-of-the-art app, you Joe Fan are in the driver’s seat. It’s Madden meets a Hollywood reality show meets the pigskin meets the future of tech. The voices of fans who have signed up to participate in an industry that is incredibly hard to break in and stay in are being heard loud and clear. In 21 countries and all 50 states, they’ve secured their dream spot as Assistant GM or Analytics Department or as an inaugural Season Ticketholder.
Now it’s your turn to answer the call. If you’re believer in freedom of choice, democracy, technology and football, we need you tuned and ready to make history.
February 16th, 2017. The Maverik Center.
ESPN, GQ, Esquire and other very notable national entities will be there. Can we count on you?
Success in revolutionizing the game requires churning up good companies to sponsor that believe that the fan comes first, groups and true fans and individuals who believe in the “democracy” mission depends on your participation. Unite with me, you believers who nowadays can’t agree on 1 Godforsaken thing. Like which beer the Mav should serve. Together in this and be there with me as it could ultimately in crazy fashion help me fulfill a lifelong dream of running a pro team of which with success, will extend to a a rebranded, democratized league level in due time (2018).
Your Super Bowl hangover will long be over as will the holidays. What next?
Why not join me in staking your claim to be a part of history, giving the power of making decisions in unbeknownst fashion to you. Yes, your voice has now been heard – you make the calls.
Transparency spooks and how it’s moving forward in football, business and life. Apocalypse now?
If you’ve missed me of late, I’ve been blogging about the latest sponsorship news and best practices. We also took a quick “secret shopper” trip to the thriving metropolises of Nephi/Ephraim/Nebo, Utah, stopping at one of the more said-to-be haunted destinations of the area in Leslie’s Family Tree where the Mormon pioneers of yesteryear clashed with the Native Americans. I’ve done the research and I’m a believer in transparency – which goes beyond unexplainable paranormal phenomenon, but is increasingly and readily applicable in the sports business and our collective impending future.
“The Game” & Beyond
I just got off the phone with a friend and client of mine in Glenn “Shemy” Schembechler, son of the legendary Michigan coach Bo. Bo learned everything he knew while coaching under Woody Hayes, who would later become his biggest rival. Both Michigan and that one state school in Ohio largely played the same way for many years. Everyone knew that both teams were most likely to run the ball on 1st and 2nd down and throwing if need be on 3rd down. No frills or surprises, they’re going to rely on brilliant strategy and execution to beat you with tough, talented athletes who believe in their schools’ and coaches’ native credos. Stop it if you can (sorry, the numbers say you likely won’t as both schools are at the top of the alltime recordbooks).
Shemy, who soaked in all that football leadership along the way and utilized it as an NFL scout, has launched GES Advisory Company, designed to utilize the aforementioned institutional knowledge to benefit aspiring high school football players. His goal is to give high school athletes the chance to play the sport they love in college (he can be reached at: gesadvisory@gmail.com). Compared to other recruiting services, he goes much deeper when it comes to taking athletic measurements, gauging mental “make-up” and academic interests, and finding a scholastic fit from the “Power 5” schools on down the collegiate chain. 100% success ratio. To maximize effect from both a hand-to-hand combat success coupled with today’s demands of information transparency, he’s partnered with Sport Testing, a Canadian company with hockey (including NHL) success stories to build on, patent-pending and coming to you soon. Sport Testing, “the leading provider of sport specific player testing and a developer of athletic assessment technologies,”has developed equipment shown to be the most accurate in gauging athletic performance. It also has created a database to share this data, serving both the athletes and properties.
Man, I wish it existed back when I was playing! I was always in-season playing a different ball sport and wasn’t taught the right track technique to run a good 40. My recruiting service was my grandfather with our team highlight VHS tape knocking on the doors of his alma mater to get me a meeting (not that I would’ve made a different school choice). 5 Star football players who get a verbal offer don’t realize that it has no legal binding, nor does that official offer they received. Now, the gap is being bridged.
The Interview
I just mustered the best 30 minute phone interview perhaps I’ve done to date with Project FANchise to be President of the Salt Lake Screaming Eagles football team by mapping out and checking off what I deemed were the success criteria necessary for the position of my dreams. With the CEO in call 1 before he had seen my resume. I didn’t do it to work with just another minor league team – this is the 1st ever fan run team. Everything has been voted on by the fans from the city (they’ll be playing at the Maverik Center, where I worked and of which I had the endorsement of the President I was under) to G.M., head coach, logo and even play calls.
This group (an entrepreneurial mix of tech entrepreneurs, digital, NFL and sport business vets) has crowdfunded opportunities for fans all over the world to get involved with the Screaming Eagles. Yes, the opposing team might know what’s coming, but can they stop it? The point is, it opens up the dream of getting involved in what you were/are most passionate about to the masses, where the barriers to entry are the most extreme of perhaps any industry. Typical sports jobs field hundreds if not thousands of resumes per open position. This doesn’t even touch on how hard it is to become a professional athlete nor begin to speak to the struggle to excel once you get in on the business side when you’re making peanuts while competing with the hopes of countless others to be G.M., etc. someday let alone keep your current job.
What Project FANchise is doing is to utilize digital transparency that social media has provided us all to develop a competitive advantage – it’s giving live “recruiting tape” to not only to the players, coaches and G.M.’s looking to make a pro impact and move up the ranks, but also to Joe Schmo the fan as well (who can be G.M. for a day for $500). As the Bo’s of the world have stated, “those who stay will be champions.” Brilliant execution can open up big doors of opportunity.
All over the place, transparency has become apparent and the effects are rampant. It’s what went into the food we eat and the companies making it. It’s social media. It’s the manual processes in life that are being replaced by automatic processes that can share valuable data seamlessly. We’re starting to realize that sitting in traffic for an hour to commute to shuffle papers and sit in abusively boring meetings all day isn’t always the most productive or efficient way of doing business.
According to the Martin School at Oxford, 47% of today’s jobs in the U.S. will be replaced by artificial intelligence and robots within the next twenty years. Like the farmers of yesteryear, collaboration will likely create new opportunities.
Or, maybe Terminator was correct and machines are coming to bring about the apocalypse.
Maybe I wasn’t named the 1st President of the Salt Lake Screaming Eagles (someone else got the gig who had been a Minor League Baseball CEO). I know where I align when it comes to complaining vs. solving come the next apocalypse. How about you?
Maybe you’ll become the next lost soul tragically left behind to walk between worlds.
The Terminator fighting the apocalypse with automatic weapons
Anyone that came across Joe Theisman, either as a fan, personally or working in the ‘biz would agree. He was a first-class piece of work (to put it nicely). Everything about him reeked of arrogance – his personality, his comments, his attitude, even his steakhouse. He won one Super Bowl in a town without too many, and it’s safe to say that all the notoriety over the years made his head swell.
Sadly, this is not a phenomenon unique to Joe, who believably has made a remarkable turnaround in self-realization. Modern society puts our modern day gladiators of sports or earnings on a pedestal and it has a societal effect.
I, Charles Reynolds, had even caught the bug and this is my story.
I graduated from Michigan feeling near the top of the food chain as a part of Michigan football, put up and on the field for ESPN/ABC Sports and a member of swag-centric Beta Theta Pi. My competitive spirit was at a high, that is, until it became time to get a job. I didn’t have those players I was close with signed, so I had to find another way in.
On the field, pregame at the Big House as a Manager.
I landed in a New Orleans rebuilding from the wrath of Katrina two years after the fact making a hot $17,500 as the newest Inside Sales member for the New Orleans Hornets, who had just quietly arrived back from a positive hiatus in Oklahoma City. I had the sales pedigree and heralded Game Face Academy training, but that didn’t change that all the phone pounding equating to hearing:
He/she has relocated/died because of the storm/we’re rebuilding/who are the Hornets?
To couple that up, the group was out at our favorite bar Lucy’s after the 2nd game of the season. Spirits are high, until someone said something to the VP of Ticketing’s wife, a punch was thrown and we were out a VP and Director the next day leaving a skeleton staff. We were last in the NBA in attendance and notably, Mark Cuban called out our efforts (of which I called him out on, getting him to successfully acknowledge after an MIT Sloan Sport Analytics panel in 2012). We kept at it, took what we could get, and got some nice publicity by hosting All Star Weekend (which allowed my to sit courtside as a seat filler for Magic Johnson). The team was playing outer-worldly and Chris Paul was becoming the star he is now in leading the group.
The buzz over the Bees had caught on leading into playoffs and everybody wanted in. I was told my promotion was coming for some time and it finally did (less than 1/2 of Inside Sales reps get hired full-time traditionally). Our numbers and demands were huge as we took on the NBA’s most-gracious benefit (“Lagniappe” – Cajun speak for extra value) program, we had a great president in Hugh Weber who instilled a community culture in the mix and everything started clicking. We targeted Mark Cuban on our weekly sales contests as the face on the dartboard and the team finished 2nd in the Western Conference. We got the chance to “stop the flop” in the 1st round against Cuban’s Mavericks and our fans made sure he heard about it in his seats near the bench as we won the first playoff series since the team’s move to the city in 2001-2002. We had the vaunted Spurs on the ropes and a season ticket holder had my plane ticket booked for some love on Western Conference Finals tickets against the Lakers. Despite the series slipping away, the Hive rocked like it never had before with decibels maxing out like at the crazy Superdome across the street.
Despite the turnaround, the team had a legislative agreement to break its lease if fewer than 14,735 fans per game came out to support the team. Would we be back in OKC, where the place sold-out within days? San Diego? The new Sprint Center in Kansas City? Pressures were sky-high to hit that while finding a way to generate 10k new season ticket holders in a market with the constraints of a poor market largely ignored by our country’s decision-makers during a time of unmatched need.
Well, the grind paid off. Not only did we hit our marks, but we pushed and broke the NBA record for new full season tickets sold (a mark held previously by the Baron Davis led Golden State Warriors) – a monstrous jump from under 2,000 full season equivalents to 12,000 from year-to-year.
Celebrating an NBA record campaign with Chris Paul (CP3)
Despite the least amount of tenure and local connections (I knew 1 person in New Orleans before moving there) – I outsold the lot. $2 million produced, including potentially having to see, know and service over 700 people in the house at any game. Like those other top producers that got promoted to manager, I thought I was ready for that. I bought my dream car in cash – a black IS 350 Lexus. I flew my brother down for the cruise we won for hitting the record. I was living too fast and too hard, getting in anywhere in town, living wildly in a city with a constant party environment. My head had swelled, it had caught up to me before I knew it and I found myself back to square one, without a job.
I had opportunities to sell for the top potential major league organizations but instead regrouped, dropped off the map to put work into my GMATs and opted for grad school. Law school and the JD/MBA’s of the world were appealing, but it was late in application season. Dr. Bill Sutton, who helped start the NBA’s lauded Team Business Marketing & Operations (TMBO) department under Commissioner Stern suggested building on successes for any host of potential teams over going back to grad school, but I was determined that a grad degree was what I needed to get ahead. I then accepted a Graduate Assistant position to mentor an outsourced sales staff for the Memphis Grizzlies while pursuing an M.S./M.B.A. at the University of Memphis, where I thoroughly enjoyed teaching the ins-and-outs of helping students learn the ropes of what an official relationship with a major league team equated to, while leading a national Case Cup championship extracurricularly with “Operation BobSTATS.” In the process, we produced a 15x revenue multiple while helping place aspiring sports business pros nationwide from the program and Sport Sales Combine. Memphis wasn’t all glitz and glamour as I lived in a roach-infested place and market in need of a lot of uplift. Again, another major communication snag was realized when I demanded just average treatment while getting my car serviced – but at the wrong place (a key sponsor of the team).
With my University of Memphis Case Cup Champion Team and “Coach” Dick Irwin
Another move was in order and I found myself passing up a great opportunity to sell for the World Series Champion San Francisco Giants (who’s VP in Russ Stanley is the most legendary in the ‘biz, 2 more “even year” rings to come) to move up the importance ladder (or so I thought) in sponsorship, the nation’s capitol and a top 50 global M.B.A. program in G.W. Reality set in hard with 18 credit hours of night classes, 3 hours of D.C. traffic a day and a demanding unpaid internship of which I was putting 6 days a week into. Everybody and their sister with an Ivy League degree wanted into sports in D.C. and rights holders capitalized on this potential for cheap labor for the sake of “experience.” Warning bells should’ve been ringing when I heard “internship” and not “job” during recruitment. I graduated super-fast-tracked with two grad degrees in just over two years thanks to a back-breaking schedule allowing my a few hours of sleep at night after school and internship requirements were over.
With family after M.B.A. graduation in D.C. – including my grandfather and motivation for this platform.
I was left out to dry, though: square 1 when it came to jobs and had to move home to minimize the student loan burn I had taken on and was making no traction despite the pedigree. Months later, I set up an NYC stay with a school friend and meetings at the NFL League Office on draft day 2012 among others, which spurned other interest. I picked up IMG College’s Ticket Solutions founder at the airport and sat down to discuss becoming Pitt’s Ticketing GM, drove back to Michigan and flew to Utah the next morning for a few hours. I couldn’t wait for the property to get signed and found myself again a transplant to a strange place, taking a pay cut from my pre-grad school days in the process.
My grit was put to the ultimate test day-in and day-out. The results were there on a large-scale as I got to shape a minor league game-day experience to the tune of production unmatched going years back while influencing the next generation, bumped my partnership average to nearly $100k and 3 years per deal at a top league property despite smallest market, but never received the all-important recognition or validation (which costs nothing). More valuable lessons in leadership learned.
Luckily, I settled down with a girl for the first time who spent her life helping people. Things had been re-framed for me and I realized how important it was to not only acquire work experience and monetary or physical resources, but more so positive life experiences, especially those that could be passed on for the benefit of others and myself in turn.
Like Joe eventually found out, life is not about stuff, publicity or fame. Be real, remember where you were, who you are and what got you there, live to maximize your experiences in the world, share your “box” and you’ll leave a lot more fulfilled.
TRUE NORTH TEAM CONSULTING 