Name: Travis Apple
Position: Magic Senior Dir of Ticket Sales
Age: 29
Where I'm from: Delphos, Ohio
Where I call home: Orlando
Focusing on right now: Drawing fans to the NBA Draft Lottery and NBA Draft.
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Apple says he relies primarily on LinkedIn for his
social media presence
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Best advice: Control what you can control. As a sales rep, it was controlling the fans' experience; you can't control wins and losses. Now on the management end, it's giving the staff the tools to be successful and put them in a position to be successful.
A must for a new hire: Work ethic, being passionate and being coachable. I'm a firm believer in myself, and in my staff, that we can teach representatives how to make a phone call, how to set an appointment, how to ask for a close, how to conduct an appointment and all those things. But we can't make you do it. You've got to be somebody that's coachable and willing to go above and beyond the call of duty.
Exec I admire most: Pirates Senior Dir of Ticket Sales & Service CHRIS ZABER. I reported to him for several years, and he was able to really help me expand certainly on my management end of things. Truly caring about you as a person goes a long way with me: I'm a very personable guy. He also was willing to give me the autonomy to run my own shop, but then kind of help me through that process, as well, and help me through difficult situations.
Best book I've read this year: "Coaching Salespeople Into Champions," by KEITH ROSEN. It really breaks it down for you, especially on the management end. Obviously, you understand on the management end that everyone is different, but how to get in touch with people and how to really motivate them instead of just saying that everybody's different.
First thing in the morning: I read USA Today every morning. I read the national news, and then I get an e-mail every morning from the Orlando Business Journal to read about what is going on in the Orlando area.
Talking tech: I'm getting more into social media, but I'm not a ton into it yet. I use a lot of LinkedIn, I'm fairly new to Twitter and I don't have Facebook. I do utilize LinkedIn just to have contacts and connections and a network. When I was first growing up in college, Facebook was just college people. Now, everybody from your 8-year-old nephew to your 75-year-old grandma has it, so I kind of went away from that.
Must have music: I'm very open to all kinds of music. If I'm driving a car, and I've got XM Radio, it’s anything from '90s to hip-hop, country or alternative. I'm really not a huge music guy, but I'll listen to anything.
Food for thought: I'm fortunate that my wife is a very good cook, so she typically cooks dinner four or five nights a week. I'd say my favorite thing is when she makes her homemade lasagna.
How I unwind: I'm very active, so I enjoy doing anything outside: golf, basketball, football. I really like to stay as active as possible.
Day in the life: We have several different sales kiosks set up at Amway Center, and on an every-game basis, we may have 25 or 30 representatives working a game, visiting customers. So, we do a lot of prospecting events, we've got the fan experiences that we're taking care of, we've got the sales tables we’re taking care of. For me, it's about being on call and making sure everything's utilized and seeing how I can assist in any way with current or potential customers.
