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How one event uses fan base’s passion to recruit ticket buyers

A little over a year ago, my friend and colleague, Brian Chacos, told me about an idea he wanted to implement to sell more season tickets. Chacos, who formerly worked in sales and marketing with both the Atlanta Falcons and Carolina Hurricanes, is now the director of fan development at the University of North Carolina. His outbound ticket sales team has the challenge of getting Tar Heel Nation to think about buying or renewing football tickets in February and March, a time when just about all of North Carolina is consumed by hoops.

The idea Chacos, who is also a former Tar Heel football captain, developed revolved around National Signing Day, the February holiday for college football recruitniks who intently wait to hear what uniforms the top high school prospects will be wearing next season.

His goal was to leverage the enthusiasm surrounding signing day into a sales event. With only two account executives on his staff, however, Chacos needed a one-day sales army to call the thousands of prospects in his database. His solution: Ask current season-ticket holders to volunteer to come to campus and participate in a ticket sales call event.

As someone who teaches courses in sports sales training, I cringed at the concept. In my classes, I consistently stress to students the lessons I’ve learned over the years from many in the ticket sales industry: Effective ticket sales takes training, practice, and a focus on building relationships. A call-a-thon in which untrained pseudo sales reps cold call a random list of prospects sounded like a train wreck.

A shared bond as Carolina fans has turned season-ticket holders into effective sales agents
Photo by: AP IMAGES
First of all, what sort of person would give up a work day to voluntarily make sales calls for the department? Second, with no real sales experience or practice, how would these volunteers sound on the phone? I just could not see this event having any decent ROI, particularly for the amount of work Chacos, and his account execs would need to invest to make it happen.

Fast forward to spring 2015. Chacos and his team have now completed two Football Signing Day Call-A-Thons. This year, utilizing a staff of more than 50 recruited volunteers, including officers from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, donors who drove from as far as Charlotte, and even students from my sports sales class, the day produced a whopping 1,305 outbound calls, including more than 700 sales calls. (The remaining calls were “thank you” touch points to those who had already renewed.) After reeling in roughly $27,000 in renewals in 2014, this year’s effort produced more than $53,000 in ticket sales revenue. Not bad for a day’s work.

Why had I been so off-base in my prediction of a ticket sales grease fire? The success of this endeavor reminded me of several important sales lessons.

Passion outweighs sales skills

First, there is no replacement for the authentic and unbridled enthusiasm of college sports fans. What the volunteer sales team lacked in sales training, they made up for with their love of the product they were selling. It was easier than I expected for these “reps” to converse with fellow prospects because they shared a bond as Carolina fans. They weren’t selling to meet a quota or make a commission. They also weren’t trying to drive the conversation toward seat location or working toward overcoming price objections. Instead, they were selling passion for the product. Their sole motivation was to make Kenan Stadium the most intimidating atmosphere in the ACC. They didn’t need to share a sales testimonial; they were the testimonial.

Personal connections

Second, personal contact with season-ticket holders during the selling process is a rarity in college athletics. While professional teams often have the sales force to contact all of their accounts and prospects personally (the Philadelphia 76ers now have a sales staff of more than 100), most college outbound sales teams have no more than a handful of staff members. At UNC, it would take weeks for the two executives to have live conversations with 1,300 people. These interactions, in which prospects can ask questions, raise objections, and feel wanted, are too often overlooked as college sales and marketing efforts often focus on high-volume, low-cost Internet, social media, and snail-mail campaigns. But over time, no sales tool is more effective than one-on-one conversations. Simply having a donor, supporter, or student reach out to thank a ticket buyer for their purchase can open a critical dialogue.

Supporters want to feel valued

Third, all sports organizations’ fans desire to feel appreciated and wanted by their team. In many cases, college sports fans want to be part of the solution to improving attendance and game atmosphere. This sales call event allowed that to happen. As Chacos likes to point out, there are three reasons ticket holders renew: direction of the team, price and feeling valued. The latter is something marketers can control. With the Call-a-Thon event, volunteers were indeed highly valued. They were recruited to be a part of the team, were given UNC gear, were fed, and most importantly, were personally greeted and thanked by members of the UNC athletic department.

The event also succeeded for a few other reasons. Chacos recruited the right people (including several former Tar Heel football players). His staff spent significant time preparing scripts, call lists, and payment plan calculation trees so volunteers could quickly share price information with prospects. They also had plenty of department staff on hand to offer encouragement, coaching, and handle any difficult customers or questions. But the biggest reason the day worked was because Chacos tapped into fan passion and gave supporters a way to help the home team.

Nels Popp (nelspopp@email.unc.edu) is an assistant professor of sport administration at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

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