It’s keeping team owners and sales VP’s up at night – and everyone else that’s involved in professional sports. Facedwith the threat of a potential labor strike, those who are in sports ticket sales are being asked to continue to stay the course and call their prospect lists. While managers are saying “Business As…
Bill Guertin
Author Archive | Bill Guertin
Are You Victimizing Your Seatholders?
Who wants to make more money in sports ticket sales? (OK… you can all put your hands down.) And…who is willing to shame or embarrass their team’s clients in order to get there? (Keep those hands down! Shame on you in the back row!) Upselling current seatholders can be a major contributor to any team’s bottom-line…
The Cure for “Salesheimer’s Disease”
Have you ever been ‘frozen’ in a ticket sales conversation? We all get that sinking feeling every once in a while. You’ve either lost your place in the conversation, got distracted, or reached a verbal dead end. It’s been called “Salesheimer’s Disease”; your brain goes numb, and it feels like there’s nothing left to say…
How to Use a Pen to Sell On the Telephone
With cell phones, call forwarding, and the death of the land-line in the home, most often we have no idea where our prospects might be when we’re calling them about our sports ticket opportunities. They could be in the car, the supermarket, out on a date, or anywhere else you could imagine. Wherever your prospect…
Budgets are for Cowards! How to Fight Back
Every account executive in sports sales would be rich if they had a nickel for every time they’ve heard “It’s Not In The Budget” this year. It’s the all-purpose excuse for the new normal. After all, it’s an easy out for the prospect; how can any rep argue with a budget that they can’t see?…
Fire All the Salespeople
There is a common problem I see brewing in sports ticket sales organizations across the nation. It started about 18 months ago, and has been spreading like a virus, bleeding organizations dry. I’m not sure where it started, but I know how it can be stopped. Here’s the problem: We’re allowing the economy to lull…
Tips on Apologizing for Salespeople
Tiger Woods delivering his 13-minute speech was finally what hundreds of millions of people were waiting to hear. “I know I have bitterly disappointed all of you,” said Woods. “I have made you question who I am and how I could have done all the things I did. I am embarrassed I have put you…
Get Out of a Sports Ticket Sales Slump
So you’re not having the kind of success you’d like. Your calls are more difficult, you’re not closing as many sales as you’d planned, your manager is supportive but insists on results. Your check isn’t enough to do the things you want to do. This sports thing wasn’t what you thought it would be. This…
How to Get More Callbacks from Prospects
When someone has decided to call us back before making a buying decision, there’s a good chance (despite all their good intentions) they won’t follow through. It doesn’t make them liars or bad people. It’s just the law of averages. We know people get busy and have other priorities come up in their lives. Are…
Welcome Back…Now Get Selling!
The holidays have passed us by, it’s 2010, and for those of us who hibernated for several days, it means it’s time to get back to work. Over the years I’ve seen an inordinate number of people give me excuses why it’s not the “right time” to sell someone right after the holidays: “Everyone’s hung…
Selling Tickets to the Family
Nothing is quite as powerful or as meaningful to a prospect as the benefits of ticket ownership for their children. Talk about the benefits of tickets to them personally, and many will say OK… but talk to them about the benefits related to their children, and suddenly the purchase becomes much more personal and emotional….
What to Say When Your Prospect Says, “Call Me Back Later”
You have a prospect who’s genuinely interested. They’re asking all the right questions, and you’re responding perfectly. All seems to be going well, and it looks like you’re about to close the deal. All of a sudden they say, “I’ve got some other pressing things that are going on right now, so I have to…