Name: Chad Johnson
Title: Jaguars Senior VP/Sales
Age: 38
Where I’m from: Crystal Lake, Ill.
Where I call home: Jacksonville
Focusing on right now: Game-to-game sales.
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Johnson commutes to South Florida on his free
weekends to spend time with his daughter |
Best advice: Hire very intelligent people, even if you don’t have the specific role for them. Even if you're hiring them in a non-traditional role based on their background and skill set, you'll find those smart, intelligent people will find a way to get any job done.
A must for a new hire: Passion and integrity. If they are passionate about being successful, they are passionate about growing their career and they have integrity to make sure I know they're gonna do things the right way, those things I can't teach.
Exec I admire most: Legends President CHAD ESTIS. He has been the one mentor that has helped shape my career and my philosophy, and I guess more importantly my culture with the staff. He has worked very hard in all of his positions to create a culture that allows people to be successful. It’s a word that’s used a lot, but culture means the mentality in the sales environment; it means the business plan and the handling of the challenges in front of you.
Best book I've read this year: I travel a lot, so I've been doing a lot of audio books. I've been focusing on biographies of successful business leaders recently. Just in the past six months or so, I've read or listened to books on JACK WELCH, HOWARD SCHULTZ, STEVE JOBS, PHIL JACKSON, BILL WALSH. Another book I've recently read that stands out is "The Great Game Of Business," by JACK STACK.
First thing in the morning: Before I even get up, I grab my iPhone, mainly to check my e-mails and know what my schedule for the day is. I'm probably one of the last of the dinosaurs that grabs the physical paper copy of the newspaper every morning. Before I leave the house, I read through the Florida Times-Union. I read it religiously each day before I come into the office.
Talking tech: Using the iPad, I can give a full overview of our stadium, all the different seating opportunities, as well as our different marketing and partnership opportunities. Years ago, we may have showed up to a sales presentation with a general PowerPoint capabilities deck. I now have a mobile version of that with me at all times.
Must have music: I'm a diehard BEATLES fan. I listen to Pandora, too. But when I'm with my daughter, that changes my music selection quite a bit. She's a lot more into the current pop like KATY PERRY.
Food for thought: I'm a wine and food junkie. One of the things I do to relax is cooking, and I love to try new things. I subscribe to a service that delivers my produce and meats to my house each week. I never know what I’m gonna get. I love the fact when my delivery comes I have to go in there and look and then plan the meals based on what’s in there.
How I unwind: My daughter is 7 1/2 and she's still living in South Florida. So I commute there every free weekend, every non-home game. My free time and relaxing time is spent with her. She's playing soccer and other sports, so I'm spending a lot of time there. She's also really into arts and crafts, so I'm becoming an arts and crafts dad on the weekends.
Day in the life: We're having one of our best sales years that we've had as an organization, with a team that's 1-9 right now. The new pools and cabanas at EverBank Field tend to get the biggest play, but we introduced field seats this year, too. We're also the first team in the NFL to put in these four-person tables, where you actually buy a table for the game. You'll see them in a lot of minor-league ballparks, but we're the first stadium in the NFL to introduce those.
