Category: Podcast

In this episode of Against the Sales Odds, Lance Tyson sits down with Paul Bee, Senior Vice President of Ticket Sales and Service at the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks boast a storied NBA history, crowned by championships in 1971 and 2021. Remarkably, they achieved this feat in just their third season, setting a record for the fastest rise to the top in any major North American professional league. Paul shares his career journey in the professional sports industry, offering invaluable insights into his leadership style and philosophies. He reveals key strategies in pivoting for success, emphasizing the importance of adaptability in strategy and tactics. Guided by his principles of karma (“Good things happen to good people”) and fate (“You’ll end up where you’re supposed to be”), Paul underscores the necessity of market analysis and timing. Discover how lifelong learning and a willingness to evolve have been instrumental in Paul’s unparalleled achievements; get ready to unlock the secrets to sustained success in the competitive sales world.

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Pivoting For Success: Adjusting Your Career Strategy With Paul Bee

I’m excited about this episode of Against The Sales Odds. I have a person that I worked with when he was starting sales. I have Paul Bee on. He is the Senior Vice president of Ticket Sales and Service of the Milwaukee Bucks and Fiserv Forum. Paul, welcome back. We both got green on. We’re in good shape. I was thinking about the call.

You’re on brand. I love it. It looks good on you.

I appreciate it. Paul is a Senior Vice President. Who would have thought when we knew each other that you’d be running the major revenue piece for an NBA team? Before we get into your title, I want to give the audience perspective. When you started in the inside sales with the Cleveland Cavaliers, How many people were in that inside sales class with you? You were reporting up through Bob who’s been on this show. How many people started with that?

I came in with 15 and they had another 3 or 4 that started maybe 4 or 5 months prior. It was just under 20.

How many people are still in sports now if you had to guess?

Two. Me and Dan Rosenthal.

Senior Vice President Of Ticket Sales And Service

You and Rosenthal were in. I think he’s coming out of Indiana University if my memory is correct. I was speaking in front of a group from the Buffalo Bills. There are about 30 in the room. I said, “Everybody, look to your left and right.” Somebody said, “Why?” I said, “Only 1 out of 3 will probably end up being in sports. A lot of you’ll be asked to leave and that’s with any sales job and some will exit on their own.” It never ceases to amaze me but you played the long game, my friend. At least over half of the audience is in leadership in sales. Talk about your role right now. What are you responsible for? Talk about the scope of it.

I oversee the entire ticket sales and service team. What that means for us is we focus on full-season ticket revenue from renewal and a new sales standpoint. Partials and groups are premium both from a lease standpoint and a rental standpoint. The unique part about what we have here with Fiserv Forum is we own and operate the arena and the Deer district around it.

Pivoting For Success: Paul Bee oversees the entire ticket sales and service. We focus on the full-season ticket revenue from a renewal and new sales standpoint.

My team is in charge of selling groups for arena shows, premium for arena shows, as well as premium for concerts. We have our hand on everything including Marquette Men’s Basketball, selling premium for them. We cover the whole entertainment here at Fiserv Forum and we’ve got a full staff that’s in charge of that every year.

Talk about your org chart because it’s pretty vast. How many direct reports do you have and what does the organization look like underneath you?

I have two direct reports directly. I have our VP of Ticket Sales and Service and Premium. That’s Jen. Also, I have a coordinator who pretty much keeps everybody in line and runs a show for us at a high level named Taylor. Jen has two directors who report directly to her. One director, Erin has the inside sales manager. Our group sales manager is reporting directly to her. Erin also manages our AEs. She’s got ten account executives under her. Jen also has the Senior Director of Premium and Renewals, Matt Seu. He managed the premium sales team and then he has a service and retention premium service manager under him that has six premium service reps. Under that premium service manager, Tom, then has a manager of service of retention. He’s got six service reps under him.

It sounds like about 40-ish.

We’re like mid-40s as far as reps go and then from a leadership standpoint, I think we’re at 6 or 7. There is one more report that goes to Jen. She joined us this year, our private events team. She has a manager who reports to Jen from the private events team. That manager has two on her team that do pretty much all the non-sports or entertainment-related events. Anything from your wedding to your company buys out of the arena for a day for a conference.

It’s a pretty big organization underneath you. If my memory serves me correctly, two years ago, you guys won the NBA World Championship.

Coming out of COVID.

I remember that. Talk about the arenas. It’s a pretty new arena with a lot of revenue opportunities coming to it. Like anything else, let’s walk backward. Everybody is always wondering about their career journey and everybody wants to know what the path is. Talk about where you’re from, where’s home, how you got into sports, and maybe what that first role was, maybe school. What does that all look like?

I claim Michigan and I say claim because I was an Army brat. Both my parents are in the military. Once they retired, we moved outside of Kalamazoo to the West side of the state in Michigan. I spent fourth grade through my senior of high school there. I went to Aquinas College. I was a two-sport athlete for the first couple of years there. I played basketball all four years. I ran track the first two.

Like most athletes who want to stay in it, I realized those dreams were going to end soon. It didn’t last for that long. I started looking around. I found the NBA career fair back then and got accepted to go. That’s where I met Bob Svec, Drakes, and everybody. I had a few offers and decided I was going to go to Cleveland. Two weeks after graduation with that massive team of fifteen, I made the start there in inside sales.

You went from Michigan to there. What was your major? What did you study in school?

I had a dual major in Business and Communications. I wanted to make money and wear a suit. I did not want to work outside, so it makes sense.

You go to inside sales now. I’m thinking timeline. That’s right when LeBron was starting. You and LeBron started almost the same year of your career. You just went on the business side of sports as opposed to two-point hoops.

He might have been there I think a year. That’s when he started coming around. The lack of anything you can believe in, my first year was when we made it to the finals that year. We eked our way into it and then got swept in the finals. This is great. This is what sports is about. I soon realized that was not the case.

You’re in inside sales. Just give everybody a perspective. The responsibility in inside sales in sports could be a B2B sale. It could be B2C. You’re trying to move hospitality to fans and businesses across the board. What did you learn about yourself the first year in salesmen going in the deep end?

You remember. You saw me months into it. It was a very harsh reality check for me. I think most young sales reps, including myself, thought, “I’m going to come in. I’m going to kill it. I’m going to be number one. I’m going to be the star.” I was the polar opposite of that. In our first conversation, I think I told you how full season tickets are where you get your name.

Back then, different age, but you didn’t get your name on the board until you had your first full season tickets sold. I was dead last out of fifteen and not dead last for a week or a couple of days. It was a month and a half. I remember sitting in the conference room with Sim. I’m like, “What am I doing? I’m busting my tail right now. What is it?”

I’ll never forget it. He said, “Bee, you’re doing everything we told you need to do. Just trust in the process. It is going to happen at some point.” At that point, I had nothing else to lose. I had no fallback. I couldn’t go home so I just dive in. If you say, “Drink the Kool-Aid, I was in.” I loved what I did. I loved the people I worked with. It finally started to catch.

Trust in the process, and everything will happen at some point.

At any other point before this, are you playing hoops? You played in college, which not all people play hoops and you get to college. I don’t care what level it is. It still is the tip of the spear at the end of the day. Have you ever been that far behind in anything before that because you’re not that far?

Not that far because I could control a little bit of basketball. That’s athletic ability and that was me, but never like that. It was part of the epitome of what one could call failure at that point and the real gut check is I’m sitting there like, “Can I do this? Am I supposed to be doing this?” I think everybody goes through it that first year but it was real.

You’re working from behind at this point. In your whole first year, you’re working from behind. What happens then? You knew one thing about yourself because I remember when you were younger, you were going to put the hours in. It wasn’t like you weren’t not working. You and I know plenty of salespeople don’t put the effort in. I remember that about you. What started to turn it around a little bit for you?

Confidence And Persistence In Sales

Getting the first one was big. That was a huge confidence boost for me and I can do it. What started happening is the work you put in months before that, a little luck comes your way. A couple of conversations come your way. People started opening up a little bit more and then I was more confident. I started asking the questions better. I started listening better. That is the biggest part of that.

Also, things started coming down my way and then I caught a stride. Catching a stride for me, I wasn’t the star on top of the board still. I would say I averaged probably top third or fourth, depending on any given day. I rode that and I enjoyed it. I love what I did. To your point, I’ll work with the majority of the people around me.

It’s interesting when you say it, and not enough sales leaders even think this way but I think it’s profound. Everybody is always into the metaphor of sales of hunting. Part of sales though or a big portion of it is getting to that back 40 and planting. You got to hunt when you’re hungry but at the same time, you’re planting seeds, and what you’ve done before that, you’ll reap the benefits.

My analogy is always like you’re a hunter and a farmer. You got to be both. You got to go plow the back 40 and you got to go out in the field, maybe hunt something. It’s both stuff like you said because stuff started to come to fruition for yourself and that’s part of the job too. There is a patience to it. There’s a fisherman mentality also. The other big thing is confidence. As you said, you start getting that confidence and then you take a little bit more risk. How long were you on that inside sales team?

I did about eight months and then was promoted over to the halfway point for a minute. I then got the opportunity to go into group sales. That was one of the things that I realized early on focusing on things that others weren’t was a good way in the door. I started doing a little bit more group sales in the beginning not because I thought I was going to be a group sales. I wanted to be an AE. That was my scope but when the position became available.

There was an opportunity open in group sales for you.

It got me to stay there and I loved being there. I went over and it’s the same concept. I looked at some of the areas that weren’t being done well or people weren’t focusing on and that was the court time. I started going to all the college schools and that’s where I made my lane. I doubled the book that I inherited at that point within that first year. I did that for about a year and a half and then I missed the competition. I miss hitting the gong like crazy so I went back to account executive because I realized pretty quickly I got excited about helping the next generation come through or the next class comes through.

What was the timeframe between group sales and AE?

I did group sales for a year and a half and then went back over.

You put your time in on that one too. For every industry, group sales is an important part of any sales organization. It fluctuates based on how popular the team is sometimes too. You’re half event planner and half salesperson so it’s a different role in and of itself. About a year and a half and then you rolled into AE.

Pivoting For Success: Group sales are an important part of any sales organization. It fluctuates based on how popular the team is.

I went back to AE and polished my skills back from looking at it even from premium down to full season tickets at a higher level because I figured it helped me be more marketable. If you remember that timeframe, I was there for the decision. I had my desk ready to make a lot of money. We all know what happened with that. The smoke started to clear a little bit. I felt I was there and ready for management.

One of my colleagues got the opportunity for an inside sales manager there. I learned from it and realized that when people started saying, “We thought you were in,” I knew I was close. I was dating my wife at the time. She was in Detroit and I started putting out feelers. Drakes was gone at that point. Chad was gone. I asked Drakes, “What do you know about what’s going on in Detroit,” just to check the landscape.

A week later, Sarah Daniel called me who was with the Revenues at the time. They were starting a group sales team, which I thought everybody operated like Cleveland. I was so naive too. I was like, “They didn’t have a team for group sales. If I could help start a department.” That’s the next best thing at least in my eyes. That’s when a lot of the executives had come down from the palace at the time to join the Red Wings as they started looking at the new arena and all the things.

I got the opportunity to join them. After four and a half years in Cleveland, I made the move to Detroit for the Red Wings, Olympia Entertainment, and the Detroit Tigers. That was another slap in the face because I learned to do a little research before I took lateral moves. I learned to ask important questions so I know all landscapes of things but it was great. It was perfect timing, right before the transition was officially about to take over. That’s when I got my first management gig at inside sales. As they started, their regime time, they officially made the changes necessary.

Just to be clear, you went over to the Red Wings as a salesperson to start the group. You had the design to it, but it still wasn’t a management position.

It was open and the opportunity to change the landscape of what was going on there.

In that process of designing the group sales team or the group sales effort, what was hard about that? What was the win there for you?

Building A Sales Team

It was where to start because I came from something that was so well-established and locked in. You had your niche. You had your area and focus points, but it was a literal blank slate at that point. You know hockey. I know your sons play and hockey is gold up there. Little Caesars Hockey and that whole Youth Hockey Movement was the main point but pretty much everything was wide open.

It was, “Where do I start? Where’s the smart play to start with? Where can I start to build on,” because I want to do everything, but it’s almost impossible unless you’re not gone do it well. It was taking a step back and slowing down. I learned about planning. I learned about strategy and how to set up my own day. As a rep, I could just fly and run. With this, it took a little more patience and time.

How long did you do that? Also, you said you got the opportunity to start to lead a group team or inside team.

It was about a year. We got the group sales department up and running at a pretty high level. I think we went from 13th in the league down to 5. We were moving at a high clip. When inside sales management became available, I interviewed for that and took over a program. They had an established group, but it wasn’t the same as what I had come from. Any of my ideas of let’s train, let’s focus on the specifics and the A, B, and C’s of what to do when you are prospecting. That was all brand.

Let’s focus on the specifics and the ABCs of what to do when prospecting.

I think that’s when I got the call from you and we were doing stuff in that club that smelled like beer.

It’s the Olympia Club.

It was Joe Louis. That was good stuff. I think I even remember where I parked that one day.

Right outside the door. The one up that had a window.

A Strong Team Culture

That’s exactly right. I remember that vividly. You start getting into a more formal management position. What was your philosophy? It sounds like you’re in this scenario where you have to redesign that a little bit too. Just so everybody knows, the Cavs at one point were one of the original blueprints of an inside sales team in pro sports and entertainment. Paul had come from this place that was very well established with deep roots to now you’re having to create, invent, and all those things.

They had good people there and the management team pushed and said all the right things but I think there was another layer that hadn’t been established there that they were used to. The Cavs in me or the military in me was like, “We got to go.” We don’t have time to hope that things are going to happen to fall in our lap. The Red Wings knew who they were.

I think that would’ve been a twenty-year in the playoff win streak or twenty in the playoff streak that was still going. For me, it was saying, “Let’s recalibrate. I need to know who I have and what I have first and foremost.” For me, it was a stretch. I learned pretty quickly that I wanted good people around me. I’ve carried that throughout my entire career. It’s that I’ll take a group of good people who want to work hard over your “sales shark.” What I saw and I learned pretty quickly is that even if you have somebody that’s selling top level, if they’re cancer, if they’re a jerk, they don’t care about the job or they think they’re above, it doesn’t work well. We had to do a little bit of some shifts about personnel.

Pivoting For Success: Paul Bee will take a group of good people who want to work hard over your “sales chart.”

It sounds like you knew the profile of a person that was going to be successful or at least, who you wanted to work with. I’m with you. A lot of times, it’s who you want to work with and can I work with this person? If we share certain values, they’re good people however you’re rating that. They’re good citizens and they’re willing to put effort in. I can work with them at that level. You’re there for how long? What’s the next position there or what’s the position out of there? That’s what I’m trying to track.

There were a couple of different spots along the way in Detroit and amongst all this is the outgoing of Joe Louis and starting to build and market Little Caesars Arena. That was an awesome project to be a part of and I was drinking from a fire hose for five of those seven years I was there. After the first year, a year and a half or so, they added in group sales under me.

I was a group sales manager and inside sales manager, which is great. It’s just more responsibility and a piece of the pie that I focused on. Eventually, I think it was another year or year and a half or so, they added in a director title under me, so I had the account executives as well. Essentially, at that time, I oversaw all new business outside of Premium as we were going into Little Caesars Arena. I was there for seven years.

How did you start to evolve as a leader? What were some things you added to your strategy? Now the groups could start to get bigger. You probably have 15 or 20 people underneath you.

A lot of it was learning what real accountability looks like and it was a difficult lesson to learn from me because as I became director, these are now people that I was selling next to at one point in time. How to manage friends and manage people who were once colleagues and understand common respect and learn that you can’t manage everybody the same.

That was very quick because I had some veterans who had been there for 10 or 12 years. I had people that have been there for ten weeks and understanding I couldn’t just blanket managing everybody the same. You got to know how they tick. You have to know what motivates them, know what doesn’t motivate them, and understand. The blanket term is that we all have to join and be a part of. Also, it’s learning what motivates everybody. Keep everybody at least on a common target so we can all work and achieve those goals together.

Learning what motivates everybody keeps our body on the common target to work and achieve those goals together.

This is interesting too because so many leaders try such a broad stroke with motivation. At the end of the day, motivation means from within. The job of a leader is to understand what motivates each member of the team. Sometimes you may have some similarities, but most of the time it’s like a fingerprint. It’s a signature. Who can you press on? Who do you need to be a flower with and encourage a lot?

Everybody is different that way because there are some people you can press on and there are some people you can’t. You have to know where that gear is. At the same time, it sounds like when you first came on that planning and strategy came into use because you had to do it on repeat right up into the planning for that new stadium. On top of that too I would say from a culture standpoint, working for the Red Wings, the Ilitch are a very successful family being in the Little Caesars business and two different sports teams.

From an accountability standpoint, they had an eye for hitting certain financial metrics too to make sure things were successful. Talk to that because that’s a different level of accountability. Everybody is different. Everybody looks at how you spend. How did that affect how you made decisions? They were looking at specific metrics and certain financials. What did that look like for you? How did you have to change or look at it differently?

For me, it was understanding the big picture of where money needs to be applied to being careful. That was the first when we thought about budget. Cleveland and I didn’t have any wherewithal like, “We’re doing all these events, celebrating all the wins, and that’s just normal.” It’s not always the case. As you said the owner is very financially aware of where we stand. I had to pay attention to what I was doing.

I couldn’t budget for all these crazy contests, but I could do little things. The little things that show that no, we’re going to fight together and then we’re going to celebrate the wins. It was a bit of a culture shock from where I had come from but explaining the why was a big part of that too. They say, “Let’s do more events. If we do these events, that’s going to cost X, and if the return so far has been Y. Let’s focus on getting a couple of big ones, hammer that, and kill it over a bunch of little ones. We might have minimal success or not that we need.

For me, it was understanding real budgets and business finance. I could do sales. I could understand what we needed to do and focus on from a sales standpoint but when you got a new arena being built, you got a fifteen block of district of entertainment being built at the same time and we spent over $1 million in the previous center, how does all that interact and using our time and our money in a wiser fashion?

Pivoting For Success: Understand the real budget business finance over sales.

I think what you’re saying also too is there’s a financial perc precision. You weren’t just one side of the house driving revenue. You were responsible for showing a return on it. Most people know what sewing is. Most people don’t understand that. Sewing is not hard. Threading that freaking needle is hard. That’s the hard thing to do. That’s what it sounds like you ought to be focused on. I can even remember you and I talking about commissions. We were talking about all kinds of stuff that you were like, “I got to pay attention here. I got to defend myself.”

I think you and I had one conversation. I said, “These folks are pizza people.” They knew exactly what the ingredients cost to make a pie and they knew exactly what the return is. I told somebody else. I think I told Dave Baldwin. I said, “That’s a different financial model. It doesn’t make it wrong. It doesn’t make it right. It makes what it is,” but you need to understand that to run the business. As you said, it’s a big boy budget at that point.

I got real people to answer to. That’s for sure, but it was a great experience. It was very eye-opening. I learned a ton with it.

I’ve forgotten too. You launched off of that right up into the new arena and the next move was Milwaukee. You were right into another couple of year periods. You go from there and you leave Ilitch or essentially the Red Wings, Olympia, and Detroit Tigers ready to build Little Caesars Arena. Had they started groundbreaking by the time you had left?

We had broken ground. I got to see all the red carpet, all the grand opening and everything. My last event there was the third event that they had at Little Caesars Arena. I’ve seen all the things and got to see it come.

You saw the launch and then you get an opportunity to go to Milwaukee. What role is that?

Transitioning Into A Leadership Role

I came in as Vice President of Ticket Sales at that time and that was under Jamie Morningstar. I had a colleague who was the VP of Service. Jordan and I at the time split sales and service and then we both reported directly to Jamie Morningstar who was the SVP here at the time.

Jamie sees your talent and she knows that they’re going to be opening Fiserv Forum. They had the name then and the name rights done but how many years out was that for you?

That was about a year. I saw the last year at the BMO Harris Center that was here for decades. For me, it was the sweet spot because I remember the madness we had to go through from moving all members into Little Caesars. They’d already done that here so I just got to focus on pulling in the new revenue, which is a dream for me at that time. It was a fun project.

You didn’t have to go through that piece. Essentially, parts of the new arena were sold or some things were sold and you were inheriting, threading the needle again, getting it all away, and getting it online.

I had Premium under me at that time, which is the one piece of the business that I had a main focus on in my career yet. That was alluring. They had a majority of things sold and leased out. Those are the first ones you want to go to, but I got to be involved as the last couple fell as far as our suites and our loss. Also, you’re hitting the franchise record at the time, which was 10,000 fold. We’d never had that before.

I got to plan a celebration for that. I threw the whole champagne thing in the plaza. It was a lot of fun. It is challenging and I wasn’t here in the beginning of it, but understanding what that meant for the organization when we did hit that 10,000. We had leadership literal tears because of the blood and sweat that they had to get there. It was cool to help put the period on that to get into the new building.

What was the mindset shift from going from a director level for yourself to you are back at the NBA? What was that mindset there?

It was understanding even leading leaders is different because when I got here, there were a handful of guys that have been pretty well established. They’ve been here for a handful of years. Some in the very beginning of the uptick to get where we were years ago. It wasn’t too long. Previously, they had 70 sales reps in three different locations around downtown. Also, to understand where they came from and you know how it goes.

Some people were ready for the spot that I was able to get. I think Jamie said that the ears and eyes, just different mindset was helpful, but understanding where we needed to go from the NBA mindset was helpful as well. For me it was listening, seeing what the landscape was, and understanding the people first and foremost. As I told them in my interviews, I’m not here to change anything. You guys are a well-oiled machine. I just want to help.

I think breaking down those barriers of any time you get a new guy coming in, a new person coming in, everybody’s got the preconceived notions of their background, and what they’re looking for. I was like, “I just want to help make this thing great.” I think that was an eye-opener for me because you got to take a step back and watch. You can’t just come in and kick down the door.

You have to take a step back and watch. You can’t just come in and kick down the door.

You’re saying though that you had some people that were eyeing that job that had been there for a while so it’s that meritorious like, “That could be my role.” I’m not saying this happened, but this is anybody. You have a lot of probably daggers ready to go as soon as you walk in the door and any leader that says there’s no politics, there’s always politics. I remember saying to Mike Andreco one time. He says, “I don’t like to play politics.” I go, “Get out of leadership because you got to play politics because humans are political animals. You got to play that a little bit.

You had a watch saying, “I’m not going to come in here gangbusters and freaking change everything. I want to plug into this.” It’s interesting. Jamie is much different than Tom. Jamie is a fire burn. I’ve had her on this. I’ve known Jamie for years. She certainly has a freaking opinion and she’s going to tell you whatever her opinion is and she’s who she is. What was the difference there working with Tom and Giz is much different than with Jamie.

It was great because she’d come from Detroit as well. She knew Tom and Giz’ MO. She knew where I was coming from, but for her, it was right from the beginning because of our mutual connections of friends through Dan and people. I had to trust immediately with her. She doesn’t pull any punches. She’ll tell you straight up and I appreciated that.

You see the punch coming. She’s not going to hit you from behind. It’s coming with a right cross.

It’s real and I respected that because I told her, “I’m not going to come in and pretend I know all. I’m going to do what I think is going to work or we’re going to communicate but the minute it turns a different way, say it,” and she did. I learned a ton from her. She gave me the autonomy. Once I got the lay of what we had and what we didn’t, she gave me the keys. She said, “Make changes that you think are necessary. Anything that affects the big picture, let me know about it,” but she didn’t have any handcuffs on. She wanted to be in the know and that was good.

I learned an important lesson about how to manage up to somebody. One of the most important lessons and I think she said a couple of times while she was here is that I never let her get surprised by anything because she had so many top-level things happening. She couldn’t be dialed in with all the reps and all the leaders, but my job was to be the connector of, “We’re doing this,” or “We got a dumpster fire around the corner. Here’s how we can get ahead of it. What do you think?” That was an important key for me.

You get this the stadium online and then Jamie leaves and then you have another leader come in. Talk about that because I’ve never realized this. At this point, you had significantly different styles of leadership that you’ve had to manage up to. Raven comes in at that point.

The first three years in the new building, two-ish or three-ish, COVID hits and everybody is trying to figure out life at that point in time. During COVID, I had been promoted to Vice President of Ticket Sales and Service so they added Service under my title. Two weeks later, Jamie says you got MSG, and then that’s when pretty much Raven comes in right before Jamie leaves. Raven is here and I’ve known her for years through team-bowing things. That was awesome to work on her.

They said, “We’re going to hire this new department head. Go for it.” I went for it. I interviewed my tail off. Full transparency, I knew there were things I had not had expertise in yet but I’m very confident in myself that I will figure it out if I get the opportunity. During that time, Jamie Weinstein did receive it and that was okay.

Jamie came in. I didn’t realize that.

It’s how the universe works. The industry is crazy small. As you know, I have known Jamie for years. I recruited against her. I was an inside sales manager and she was down in Orlando. I pinged her a couple of different times. I think I even tried to get her to come here. When I first got to Milwaukee, we had some positions that were moving around. I was very well aware of her. When I knew it was down to her and me, I told my staff. I was like, “Depending on what they’re looking for, I think it’s 50-50,” because we’re different.

We manage differently. We have different expertise. When she came in, I was like, “If I couldn’t get it, working for a friend is the next best thing for me,” and we hit it off right away. You’re 100% right. Both Jamie’s joke about being a boss from me, but they’re different people but awesome too. I learned different things from both of them.

Jamie Weinstein’s an incredible human being. I am a big fan of hers. I forgot that move. I couldn’t remember if your peers or both. Now, things evolved as we bring this down for a landing. Jamie has moved on or you’ve gotten promoted up or however that shakes out. Now as you’re the senior executive, there has been a little bit of an ownership shift that changes things. What are you leaning into with your leadership now back to your past and what new skills? That’s what seems like you’ve been this master of making these not-massive shifts. It seems like these adjustments to meet the situation. What’s the next adjustment you had to make?

The corner we’re about to turn now and I know you probably heard the conversation many times right now is that the NBA as a whole or as a league is looking at full-season equivalents that matter more than just the fulls. I think for decades now, full-season tickets are gold. That’s where everybody needs to be. This is a healthy book of businesses and the whole nine yards. Now, it’s re-exploring that and they’re talking more from an FSE standpoint.

How are we looking at our goals? How are we looking at revenue generation? There are some implications there from full to partials. We’re trying to see how we make that work for our business needs. I know some teams. You mentioned a few. I have flipped just full partials and only doing partials alone. Some have done mixtures of that. I don’t know if we’ve turned the leaf of going directly one way or the other, but we have to take in the right direction and that seems to be it.

I have some strategy involved in looking at our staff because, in the last five years, we’ve been pretty spoiled. You got a new arena, you got a worldwide all-star who’s coming to his own, a two-time MVP who won the championship, and even the last year, we get Dame Lillard. Those kinds of things give a little bit of false pretense. We earned everything we got but I think some reps, some staff members, and even some leaders might be in the mindset of, “We will get this done operating how we’ve always done it.” I let them that people have to fight every year to get to where they need to be and we are just on the cusp of that so we need to change our mindset.

Talking to you and then talking about how we’re looking at it from a B2B standpoint, you’re right. It is a small movement, but everybody has to jump on board and understand. We can’t look up and be like, “We missed the mark just because we didn’t make adjustments.” Now, I’m learning lessons on how to think not just three months or even eight months down the road. I’m thinking 1.5, 2, or 3 years down to where we need to be. Good or bad, that happens.

It sounds like or a big part of your career, you’ve been looking internally at the talent and things you’ve had in that process. Now, being at the helm of where you are, you’re having a lookout at the marketplace and trying to time the market and read the market. Even what you said about the NBA, may be different from Milwaukee. That’s a global reach but you have to have a local touch and market shift. It’s interesting, Paul. If we go back to the theme here, this has all been an adjustment of strategy and tactics for you every single time. From the time you take that detour at the Cavs first and then take the detour over, you have to figure out, “How am I going to do this?”

The strategy it takes with your experience on the new stadium and then to get into it and then the strategy you have to take, you have a change in leadership, ownership, and focus on markets. That’s an interesting theme. I’ve never thought about that piece. I have even more of an appreciation of where you come from, but it’s an outward look that way. A couple of thoughts. If you had to sum up your leadership philosophy in a cliché or a mantra, what would it be? If you had to put it on a billboard, what would it be?

I tell you, it’s a two-part answer. One, I live by three things. I live by good things that happen to good people, you’ll end up where you’re supposed to be, and everything happens for a reason. If it just has to be one flat-out sentence as far as how I lead, I’ll say people matter.

When you’re getting into a big business deal or something, what’s that song you’re playing in your head? What’s that beat that’s going on? I got 2 or 3 of them that play all the time in my head but what’s in your head?

There are three, depending on what it is exactly that I’m about to step into. With big deals, it’s U Don’t Know about Jay-Z because his lyrics in there resonate with sales so much. I think he even says, “I’ll sell ice in winter. I’ll sell fire in hell. I’m a hustler baby. I’ll sell water to a whale.” I’m like, “That’s it.”

That is. Mine is Black Sheep’s This or That. You and I are similar there because both of our songs have to do with sales itself in the lyrics. I got to go listen to his lyrics on Jay-Z’s song. What are the other ones?

That’s the main one. I think when I don’t know what I’m getting into, but I know I’m going to close something, it’s a Welcome to the Jungle, believe it or not. I get to get the blood going a little bit with that one.

That’s a good song.

You can play that pretty loud and you know what’s coming if that happens. The last one is I’m a big OutKast fan. Bombs Over Baghdad gets me amped up a little bit. Those are my main three.

If you had to gift a book, what book would you give?

It’s going to feel like I’m sucking up to you, but it is the first sales book I ever got, which was How to Win Friends & Influence People.

It’s a good book.

I read it over and over again every single year. You said it when you gave it to me and I didn’t believe it. I was like, “No way am I going to read this 5 or 10 times,” but it has every couple of years. It’s still all relevant and I think that’s what’s helped me so much.

The stories are old as hell in there and you’re like, “That’s still real. I can smile at somebody.” I can 100% tell somebody they’re doing a good job. I cannot argue this. Think about your kids’ age now and just say you had a niece or nephew who is 7, 8, or 9 who said, “Uncle Paul, how do you define success?” What would you say to him? Remember, you got to give it in a 7, 8, or 9-year-old answer.

I’ll them, “Do what makes you happy. If you’re able to find peace amongst that, you’re winning.”

Well said. A way to bring the bird down for a land here. Thank you so much. Paul Bee, SVP of Milwaukee Bucks and Fiserv Forum. Thank you for being here, my old friend. I’ll see you soon.

It’s been a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Important Links:

Paul Bee – LinkedIn How to Win Friends & Influence People

In this episode of “Against The Sales Odds,” we dive deep with Andrew Sidney, SVP of Sales and Service for the Washington Commanders. Andrew shares his extraordinary journey from humble beginnings in minor league baseball to leading high-stakes sales teams in major professional sports. Discover how he navigated leadership challenges, including multiple ownership changes and team rebrandings, while maintaining a relentless focus on results. Learn about his servant leadership style, the importance of investing in people, and the strategies he employed to build high-performing sales teams. Tune in for inspiring stories, actionable advice, and a behind-the-scenes look at the world of sports sales.

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! https://www.tysongroup.com/podcast

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Listen to the episode here

The Sales Game Changer: The Importance Of Investing In People With Andrew Sidney

I’m excited about this episode of the show because I was going through my photos on my iPhone and there were some pictures of me and a group of people in Houston at this margarita bar. We weren’t drinking at this point, but we were having lunch, and then we were going to get into having a sales team do what we do at Tyson Group called Hot Seat where they have to make live calls in front of peers. We were prepping for it. My guest was in the photos in the room. I’d like to welcome Andrew Sydney, Senior Vice President of Sales and Service for the Washington Commanders.

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Welcome to the show. It’s about time we get on here.

Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here. Remembering those Houston moments. That was a fun time.

We get a lot of leaders that tune in to this, people in sports and out of sports. The audience is wide. We have a leadership audience. It’s two pieces. We then have this audience of up-and-coming salespeople or seasoned folks who want some insight into sales and what’s going on. Describe to the audience your role. You are with one of the biggest brands in the world, the NFL. Plus, the Washington Commanders really is a big brand in a major market. Talk about your role and your responsibilities.

SVP of Sales and Service for the Washington Commanders

No problem. For me, in my role as SVP of sales and service, I do two main things. One is to oversee ticketing, so all of our ticket sales. That comes from everything from season tickets to group tickets. There is service on that side too, so membership services. I work on the suite side as well, so premium sales, annual suites, suite rentals, and some of our low boxes here in the Commanders Field. Those are the two biggest areas of focus for me in generating revenue. We have about 65 or so on the team. I am managing that group to success.

Talk about the leadership infrastructure that reports to you. For anybody that’s not in sales, there’s a revenue stream in tickets but there’s also a revenue stream with premium seating, which is a very big part. You then have membership services, like customer service account management of the organization, correct?

Yeah. Structure-wise, we have two arms. One is our ticketing arms. There are new season ticket sales underneath that. There are groups. There’s also a season ticket service team. We break it up that way where we have straight-up ticketing. That’s our general admission ticket sales. We have our club-level seats fall into that as well. They’re focused there. That’s the three main teams along with an inside sales group and entry-level salesforce.

On the premium side, it’s a separate arm. The VP of premium overseas that team. They’re focused on our highest-end clientele, our suite holders. We have the utmost third-most suites in the NFL to sell as part of our stadium. That’s a huge focus for us. We have a new sales suite team focused on new folks. We then have a service team that’s activating our suite partners, upselling, cross-selling, and generating new business as well.

In your leadership team, do you have two VPs that report to you?

Two VPs.

Is there anybody else that reports directly to you?

Yeah. I have one additional. She’s the senior director of sales operations. Since it’s a pretty large group, there are a lot of things from a strategy standpoint, making sure things don’t fall through the cracks, and keeping us on point. We run a lot of sales events. This person heads up the department where we’re specifically focused on. It’s a revenue-generating leadership role, but for us, breaking it out from the two VPs and having them report to me gives us a little bit more opportunity for me to be hands-on with that piece and make sure we’re driving forward.

Before you got here, I’m curious because leaders like yourself have to deal with a lot of change, got to plan for the change, and have to be agile and pliable. You, in the last couple of months, have gone through an ownership change where you’ve gone from Dan Snyder to Harris Blitzer. From a personal leadership standpoint and productivity because you couldn’t shut it off and you probably were dealing with a lot of unknowns, talk through that. What was the hard thing about that? What did you realize about yourself?

For me in my career, and I’m sure we’ll get to this later, it’s the third ownership change I’ve been through. We’ll get to it. This was the largest scale and the biggest in terms of most well-known when an NFL team switches ownership. For me, having leaned on some of that experience, having gone through it at a lower level than where I’m at, and seeing leaders and how they went through it above me at that time helped me.

The biggest thing was like, “Let’s be the group that nobody has to worry about. Let’s continue to push forward and control what we can control.” I know everyone always says that super cliche, but in this moment, that’s what mattered most. When the new group came in, I wanted to be very open, honest, helpful, be an open book, be open to thoughts, share best practices, and also show that we can produce results. Since we continued to do our work and took the approach of, “Let’s control what we can and not be a problem here. Let’s be the ones where they look at our department and say, “They know what they’re doing,” that served us well.

Investing In People: Let’s just control what we can.

I love that philosophy because as a leader, what are you facing? With a lot of our clients consulting and things like that, they have to deal with that. There’s fear, especially for somebody at your level because the top of the organization can easily get knocked off. You’re sitting there and going, “If anything, I’m probably the object that gets moved.” With some of your key direct reports, you’re like, “You have to behave in a way that you’re very confident to keep your critical mass, your talent, or your souls underneath you moving forward. We got a job to do.” You’re in one of those businesses where the season has a start and the season has an end, so you got to keep the bus moving, right?

Yeah. For us, it was unique because, at that time, there were a lot of things in social media and the news. You don’t really know. You’re in the dark. You don’t know what’s going on. You’re learning as everyone else is learning along the way. For me, it was like, “There’s only one option here. We keep doing what we’re doing.”

There’s only one path.

There’s one path forward. The other path is not even an option. It leads to failure. It’s not really a choice. I was like, “There’s one path forward here. Let’s put our best foot forward to get there.” Did we have moments where my leadership team would come in and ask certain questions or I would have certain questions, or our sales reps are seeing things and asking their direct leader? For sure, but because we had such a strong focus on, “Let’s put our best foot forward here and show what we can do,” and let the chips fall wherever they may and be confident in that, that helped us.

Let’s put our best foot forward, show what we can do, and let the chips fall where they may and be confident in that.

In the years that I’ve known you, I’ve seen you in multiple different roles at this point. We might be going a good ten years at this point relationship-wise. Something I admire about you is you’re a no-distractions person. You’re like, “We got a job at hand.” Your answer is probably more of a metaphor for what you’ve done with your career. Let’s take that and go backward. I ask all my guests, “How the heck did you get here? Where did you start?” How do you get to SVP in one of the biggest, busiest that is our nation’s capital with a major brand or major league? How do you get there? What’s that beginning career path move for you?

I’m happy to go backward. Number one, you get really lucky and meet good people right along the way. That’s the biggest thing for me. I went to Ithaca College with a Sport Management major. At this point, that program’s great. They give you a lot of access to what sales is. At that point, they were getting started and I didn’t have a ton of info about what I was getting into.

I applied for jobs. I ended up getting two opportunities. I won’t name the team, but it was one of my hometown teams. I’m from New York. The other one was the Frisco RoughRiders down in Dallas, Texas, a minor league baseball team. The New York team was a major league team. It was a professional Big Four team. I fell in love with the people in Frisco. I fell in love with the leadership folks who were there and their track record of producing successful folks.

I wanted to take a chance, move away, and start something new. I figured that if I failed, I could come back to New York and I’ll be okay. I went down to Dallas. I worked for three years as a sales rep in Frisco. I started in inside sales, moved up to group sales, and did outside sales. I learned from some great people who are still in the industry doing incredible things. I have stayed in touch with most of those people.

My vice president of sales, Gina.

Gina’s one of them. I didn’t work when Gina was there, but I know all the names. We have this connection.

The Mandalay. Brent Stehlik, Kevin Rocklidge, and Mike Gray.

Matt Goodman.

I forgot that about you that it was the Frisco RoughRiders. You decided not to go to the big league. You said, “I’ll go to a minor league here.”

It was, for me, seeing those people move on to bigger and better things. That was the story for Frisco. It was like, “Come here for 3 to 5 years. We’re going to have to teach you the right way to sell. You’re not going to rely on wins and losses. You’re going to learn how to sell in a tough environment and sell minor league tickets in a market that has some major brands inside of it.” I did that. My boss at the time, Justin Ramquist, who works for the Indiana Pacers, took that role and I was able to move into a Director of Sales in Frisco. That was my first move into management and leadership at that time.

Before you go there, hold on a second because I didn’t know this right here.

Go ahead.

Andrew as the salesperson, who were you? Were you at the top of the board? Were you in the middle of the board? Where were you at?

The Number One Salesperson

I was the number one salesperson, but it wasn’t because I’m a great seller. I outworked everybody. I put my head down and outworked everybody. We had a sales pitch. It’s a little bit different than how we do it now, but in Frisco, you learned a sales pitch and needed to memorize it. You memorize the sales pitch and go into the meeting where these are the questions you ask. It was something that gave me so much confidence in the meetings. I set a ton of meetings and went out, out-hustled people, and put myself in those opportunities.

Did you gradually get to number one or maintain number one at the time you were there?

I started at the bottom with inside sales. You then work your way. In the last year and a half of my selling, I was at the top and then had a chance to move into leadership after that.

Out of curiosity, because I said this to a group, when you started in inside sales of Frisco, think about that incoming class that you started with in maybe the first six months. How many were there and how many are left?

We only had six in our class. It was 1 of the 1st inaugural classes for Frisco. in terms of inside sales. None of them are still in sports.

Some of them probably left where they volunteered out and some were opted out. If I know anything about you, I know you put the hours in. You said it at the beginning of our interview, “I put the hours in. I put my time in there. I outwork people.” We forget that. A lot of people looking for jobs don’t realize sometimes money doesn’t lead. Money follows and usually comes from the no. You then get to that director role at Frisco where you lead.

Most people looking for jobs don’t realize that sometimes, money doesn’t lead. Money follows.

It was my first chance to lead. It was super challenging for me. I was managing people at the time. You don’t know this either, I don’t believe. At the time, I was living with three of the people that I was moving into management with. I made the choice like, “I have to move out. I have to get my own apartment. I’m now your boss.” I quickly moved out and went through about six months of extremely challenging, for me, management. I didn’t feel like I was doing anything right. I felt like I was trying to be somebody else.

They probably felt you bailed on them a little bit.

It was like, “I’m not part of the we. I’m the they now. It was that type of thing. What’s interesting for me was about six months in, I didn’t know at the time, but I took the approach of confronting them head-on. I remember this. After one of our games, it was late at night, working a minor league baseball schedule. It was some weekday game. It was probably 10:00 PM. I grabbed 4 or 5 of the team and brought them into one of our restaurants. I was like, “What can I do better? I feel like I’m failing for you. I feel like I’m failing at this role.” They saw me being me and taking that approach. Ever since that conversation happened, after that, it got a lot better. For me, I was able to learn, “I have to be myself here.”

Was it hard for you to be vulnerable like that? I always think great leaders can humble themselves. They can be self-effacing. They can be vulnerable. The ones that really struggle with that identity crisis can’t do it because they think they have to be Teflon at all times. Was that hard for you?

Investing In People: Great leaders can humble themselves.

Being A Great Leader

Yeah. For me, growing up, I don’t know why, but in watching sports, you see leaders and what you see on TV is you see these tough guys. I was growing up watching Bill Parcells as a head coach. You never thought Bill Parcells would be vulnerable to his team. That was one of the guys I grew up admiring as a head coach from a leadership standpoint.

For me, it was not what I had seen. Honestly, I don’t know how I stumbled onto it. I was being myself and it ended up working. Ever since then, that’s the approach I’ve taken. It’s to be me. Ultimately, you get more confidence as the years go on. At that moment, it was an important change in how I was approaching the role.

You were in that for another three years. You were all in about six years.

I was two years in that role. I was there for five.

You learn, “In sales, I’m going to outwork everybody.” You then bring that into leadership and realize, “I might not be built for this, but I got to be myself. I got my own personal signature. I’m going to talk directly to people that are going to know who I am.” You go to what role after that? Where did you go?

After that, I had an opportunity to join the Houston Rockets. I was two years with Frisco. It was five years in total. Back to my earlier point, we had gone through an ownership change there in Frisco. We were purchased. Mandalay sold the team. I felt like it was time for me to move on. I always wanted to get into a Big Four league. The NBA was the league that I felt like and I had heard did it best. I had been able to connect with a few TMBO reps at the time and got to know them. My name got through to Gretchen Sheirr with the Rockets at the time and ended up connecting. I took a role overseeing their group sales and their inside sales departments for the Rockets.

What was tough and what was easy about that transition? Gretchen is the President of the Rockets, right?

Yes. I got lucky with getting connected with her. The Rockets do a great job overall. Moving into that role, what was easy and eye-opening for me was I was like, “Our sales process in Frisco is better than what we’re doing here in Houston for some levels or at least on some things.” I always got a lot of confidence from that in terms of straight-up tactical sales, helping reps through situations and conversations, and going out on meetings. I earned a lot of trust with our IS team and our groups team off the bat because I threw myself into their pipeline and said, “How can I help you close deals?” That’s an easy way to gain trust. I was able to get a couple of easy wins off the bat.

What was hard for me is I was managing people who were older than and have me been with the Rockets for upwards of a decade. It was like, “Now we have more of a younger and had never sold at the NBA minor league guy coming in as my manager or boss.” That was hard off the bat, but I was able to lean on my experience in Frisco going through the time when I was managing people I was living with. I said, “This is easier than that. I have to do the same thing.” I did a lot of lunches and a lot of breakfasts for 30 minutes getting to know these folks and building trust. That’s the first step.

It’s interesting too. The role at a minor league team as opposed to 1 of the 4 major leagues is wider and the interest isn’t there. You have to scrape. It doesn’t matter how good the minor league team is. It’s a secondary play. Frisco’s part of Dallas. There are a lot of other things to do. It’s not like Wichita. This is what I know about you that I always got excited about when I first met you. You don’t believe in motivating people. You believe in the process. You said it when you were in Frisco. You were like, “I was confident because I had a process.” It doesn’t matter if it was memorized. It doesn’t matter if you have cue cards. You still had a pathway. To build trust and credibility with the people, what did you demand from a process standpoint, or what was the design of the process that you installed into the deal?

Creating An Easy Sales Success

For me, the biggest area of focus was it truly felt like we were lacking more on the B2B side of things. I know that’s a little bit difficult for a new inside sales rep to come in, but getting them acclimated on how to talk to businesses was something that when I was their age and in Frisco, we did that and it was super helpful. For me, it was always so much easier to go B2C after learning B2B instead of the other way around, so I took that approach. They had never really leaned in on the B2B side for inside sales or groups and got some good conversations with companies and some easy wins with meetings and having some sales. That was one approach.

For me, it was all about trying to get face-to-face with people and getting them down to the arena or going out to their office. I remember driving around with reps and saying, “I have never done this before. This is cool.” Getting in the car, driving to someone’s office, and having a 30-minute meeting with them was an approach that we took. It created some easy sales success but it was more about, “This is an avenue where I can help the team right now and make a quick impact.” That was exciting for me.

As you start to work there, you start to come into your own. What I’m hearing from you too is interesting. The way you describe stuff, you don’t overcomplicate anything.

I try not to.

You’re very clear on what you’re trying to do, like, “I’m going to spend some time with folks. I need to get them to trust me.”

From that level.

It’s interesting because I talk to a lot of leaders and they do overthink it sometimes too. Simple is genius at some level, right?

I agree. It’s not rocket science. We’re not doing brain surgery here. We’re dealing with people, and people are complicated. For me, having the ability to connect with people and get to know them on a personal level is important. Showing them how you can help them professionally is equally important. The other piece of it too is you start to get an understanding of who’s bought in and who’s not.

You can then manage appropriately and either understand, “These people aren’t going to be long for this role the way that we need everybody bought in.” That’s one thing that’s crucial when you think you’re building a culture. Culture, for me, is bottom-up. It’s not necessarily top-down. It comes from your team. Ultimately, you have to have the right people to build that team. Those moments where I’m out there and building trust or having lunch, I’m also taking notes on, “Is this person bought in? What does this look like?”

Investing In People: You need the right people to build that high-performing team.

That’s probably key going back to what you did in the last ownership change. You were like, “Who’s bought into the system? I need you to buy in at some level.” Buy-in comes before ownership. It’s only a buy-in then a transaction. Buy-in comes from ownership. You’re at the Rockets for how long? Another 4 or 5 years? What year are you in?

Four years in Houston. We had some really fun success on the court. That was the first time I had tasted how winning can help. We had Chris Paul and James Harden and won a bunch of games. At that point, things were running themselves. For the first time in my career, I was like, “Am I really making an impact?”

I always felt like I was making an impact in Frisco, but in Houston in the end, I wanted to go somewhere where I could start afresh, take on a challenge, build something, and feel like I was impacting it. I got a call about a role up in Detroit with the Detroit Tigers from Dave Baldwin. I ultimately moved from Houston to Detroit to be our director of the new business and group sales overseeing season tickets and new business.

There’s a spot in there.

Go ahead.

You applied to the Colts, right?

Do you want to go there?

We have to because it’s such a great part of your story. I’ll tell it from my version. It’s a great part of your signature. Andrew calls me and there’s a good job opening at the Colts. This was before Detroit. Sometimes, it is who wants to know you. He was working on his network. I’ll throw my cards behind you a little bit because we do some business with them. I never have a challenge vouching for anybody that I  believe in. It comes down to a competitive situation. The person who got the job is a great human being too. He is still there.

I’d never seen that side but I saw the competitive side of you I hadn’t seen. You called me and you weren’t really happy. You were frustrated. You were like, “I deserve this.” You said something in the pregame here that caught my eye. The leader left that was trying to hire you, and then afterward, you went back and said what? It’s important to who you are.

At the time, I wasn’t pleased with the decision, but looking back on it, the way it played out, I wouldn’t have been ready for the opportunity that was presented to the person who’s there who got the role Ultimately. I would’ve been ready to step into that. Having the ability to have some perspective on it and looking back, it was one of the better things that has happened to me, not getting the role. I probably wouldn’t have had as much success or may have failed in that spot because I wasn’t ready. Ultimately, things worked out really well all across the board.

That’s humility though. That comment there for anybody reading is you get fired up in the moment. At some level, you became resolute and said, “This isn’t right for me.” You look back and you go, “I’m not ready,” which probably helps you in the future when you coach a lot of your people. You have to put things in perspective. Some people say, “I was always ready.” Maybe not though too. That’s such a great comment. It’s such a great lesson.

Investing In People

It taught me a lot. I’m a competitive person. I want to win on the field with the Commanders. I want our team to win. I want to win off the field. I want to be number one in everything we do. I want our people to be the best. Sometimes, you have to lose to learn how to win too.

I want our people to be the best, but sometimes, you should lose to learn how to win.

I don’t think you like to say that word though.

You don’t.

Do you like to win more or do you hate to lose more? I’m curious.

I hate to lose more.

I hate to lose more and like to win.

You can learn in those moments, and that was a key moment for me. I got fired up. Ultimately, there was one path forward. What’s the other path? I get super upset and it ends up as a spin zone. You’re comparing yourself to other people and it doesn’t work out.

It never works out comparing yourself. That’s right. I can remember you and I talking there. We went over that because we did the comparison. I remember you and I had a pretty healthy conversation. I was like, “Maybe it comes down to how you interviewed. Maybe it comes down to, “This looks better here.” Maybe it was a better fit.” At the end of the day, that was a healthy conversation. You go to Detroit and start working with another great leader, Dave Baldwin, who’s the President of the Chicago Fire.

Things work out. I got a call from Dave through another connection of mine. Dave got my name and gave me a ring. I’ve had a lot of good moments going to Frisco and Houston, but the move to Detroit changed the trajectory of getting with someone like Dave, the opportunity there, and the leadership team there with some of the other folks up there in Detroit. Some are still there and some are not.

It was that moment in time and the ability to go in and try and resurrect two historic franchises. I was on the Tigers side but we were doing the same thing on the Detroit Red Wings side. We rebuilt the staff. Both teams had had a lot of success with the Tigers being in multiple World Series and the Red Wings making the playoffs for 20 years in a row or 30 years in a row.

We hired a lot of people. We trained them from the ground up. I have a huge role in setting the foundation, seeing that growth, and going through that. COVID put a pretty big damper in all of that when we were there, but we had a lot of success off the bat implementing fundamentals and sales strategy, working hard, and hiring a great leadership team to lead the way. For two years, I was up in Detroit. It was a great experience for me. It changed the opportunities for me down the road too.

Dave moves. Dave gets an opportunity, which is relatively your role at some level or a portion of your role in Washington. He brings part of his leadership team, which is you’re part of that with him there. You entered into the Washington Commanders. You went through a name change. Was the name change pre you?

We were there for the name change. We were there when it was the Washington Football Team.

That is not a tough thing because you have some legacy with the old name. We don’t need to say that. You went nameless, and now, you’re that. You’ve gone through ownership changes and brand changes. You got all kinds of things going on. At this point, you hit four leagues. The only thing I don’t think you have hit is MLS and NHL at this point, right?

Yes.

You got two MLBs.

Minor League Baseball.

We hockey with [00:25:24]. You’re not the trifecta, the quadfecta, or whatever it is. What is the role then when Dave comes over to the Commanders? What does the role look like?

Overseeing The Sales Functions

To start off, I was overseeing all of our sales functions, so new business, group sales, and inside sales. I was overseeing the director of inside sales and the director of groups, and then I was managing the BD team or the season ticket team directly at that point. My sole charge was, “Let’s grow our season ticket member base and start a group sales platform.” They didn’t have a true group sales platform that was brand new. We had to hire a new inside sales team of sixteen people off the bat and then grow a season ticket base that had dropped pretty far down in terms of NFL League rankings with some of the stuff of name change and some of the ownership and play on the field.

You have to grow the team. You have to grow the revenue and grow the ticket base. Dave’s there for two years maybe, and then you get elevated into the position you are in. You waited it out, or not weighted it out but you held the course is probably a better way to say it. It’s interesting. As we start to bring this bird down for the landing, you worked with some pretty strong leaders. The folks at Frisco had a certain methodology. Gretchen’s a strong leader. Dave’s a strong leader. Take an amalgamation of all three of those experiences and you would say your sales leadership philosophy is what?

For me, it comes down to three things. The big theme is the servant leadership style. I’m going to work as hard as everybody else. I’m not going to ask you to do anything that I’ve never had to do before on your level. That’s the servant leadership side. For me too, it’s investing in people. It’s not just saying that but truly impacting people’s lives and going out with them, whether that’s coffee, dinner, lunch, or whatever. It’s really trying to get to know them so that we can grow their careers.

Ultimately too, it comes down to hitting numbers and being somebody who can get the job done no matter what is going on with the outside noise. That adaptability that you spoke about is crucial to leadership. Being able to go through different circumstances, adapting to them, and being flexible are keys to my leadership style.

That is so well said. The servant leadership thing can be cliche if somebody doesn’t define what it means to them. It’s, “I’m going to work hard. I’m not going to ask you to do something I haven’t done myself at some level. I might not even know my job now, but I understand it enough to take care of you. I’m going to invest in you.” The way you said it was pretty granular too because it’s not just investing resources. It was, “I’m going to personally spend some time,” like you did at Frisco and said, “Give me some feedback. I feel like I’m failing.”

What you didn’t miss, which is interesting, is all leaders depending on the role need to get results. The only problem with sales leadership is the results are very measurable. Chances are, your goals are going to go up in double digits every year, and chances are, you’re not going to the amount of resources that are equivalent to what your goals have to do. You have to do things faster and better with less, and that only comes through people. That’s that loop that comes back. You then brought it right back to the center like, “We got new ownership. We’re not going to be the problem. We’re going to get it done.”

That’s the job. We’re going to get it done. Gretchen gave me that advice. I leaned on her. We missed this along the way, but Houston was also sold during my time there. It went through an ownership change too.

There’s your third.

That’s the third. I called her the power of the network and the power of people. I don’t know what I don’t know. It was calling somebody who has gone through that at her level, which was a similar role to where I was at the time, and being able to lean on her expertise. She told me, “Don’t be the problem. Be the people that get it done and you’re good.” I was like, “That’s so simple.”

Investing In People: Don’t be the problem. Be the people that get it done.

She is the greatest example of that. She has been there for a long time and she always got it done no matter what. I love that. There are the last three questions. Are you ready? This is a speed round.

Let’s do it.

You have three children. Their age is very young, about 6 or 7. Think of a niece or nephew at 7 or 8 years old. They say, “Uncle Andrew, what does success mean to you?” Give success in the words of a 7 or 8-year-old. Go.

It’s having high integrity, being someone people can trust and come to while producing high results for whatever job that you’re in. Ultimately, whatever job you have, it’s not about moving up as quickly as possible. It’s about being the best at the job that you have, whether that’s a sales role, finance, a lawyer, or you’re picking up garbage. Be the best custodian that you can be. That’s super important. Also, do it with high integrity because without that, there’s no respect and there’s no trust. You can’t grow your career without those things.

Mission-oriented. I love it. Hype song sales-wise. You’re going into knocking a big deal or you’re recruiting somebody. What’s the song you’re playing in your head?

I’m a little bit of an old soul when it comes to music. We grew up with my dad listening to Frank Sinatra all the time on Sundays when he was home in the morning because he worked Monday through Saturday. On Sunday morning, there was always Frank coming through our speaker system. It’s My Way. Do it your way. I’ll do it my way.

You have your way. I love it. It’s a great song. It’s on my playlist. If you were going to gift a book, what book would you gift to somebody?

This one’s tough for me. How to Win Friends and Influence People is a good one. I’ll reread this book when I go through challenging times or have circumstances where I start leaning towards, “This isn’t my fault,” or, “Somebody let me down here.” It’s Extreme Ownership. You can go back and pick up so many lessons. It directly relates to what I do. It’s so easy to blame others or blame your circumstances, but how can you own it to make it better? That one has so many examples. That’s the one I’m giving up.

It’s easy to blame others or your circumstances, but how can you own it to make it better?

I love it. Jocko Willink, right?

That’s a Jocko book.

Amazing guy. No doubt. It’s great having you here. I loved the interview. Thank you so much for spending time with us. There are some great lessons here. Simple is genius. You keep it very focused and get the job done. I love it. Thanks.

I appreciate it. Thanks so much.

Important Links:

Washington Commanders How to Win Friends and Influence People Extreme Ownership

About Andrew Sidney

Andrew Sidney joined the Washington Commanders in July of 2021. Now in his 4th season, as SVP of Sales and Service, Andrew currently oversees all ticketing and premium sales for the Commanders.

Andrew began his career with the Frisco RoughRiders, Double- A affiliate of the Texas Rangers, in an entry – level ticket sales role. He spent the next three seasons selling season tickets, groups, and premium hospitality for the RoughRiders before making the transition into leadership as the Director of Ticket Sales & Service overseeing a team of 25 sales & service reps.

Following his time with the RoughRiders, Andrew made the jump the NBA and spent the next four years as the Director of Group and Inside Sales with the Houston Rockets as key member of a leadership team that set record-breaking revenue numbers in ticketing.

Andrew was then recruited to help rebuild the ticketing department of the Detroit Tigers as Director of Ticket sales and spent the next two years in Detroit leading season ticket revenue growth and contributing to an MLB leading suite sales team.

Originally from New York, Andrew graduated from Ithaca College in 2010 with a Sport Management degree and obtained his MBA from the University of Texas at Arlington while in Frisco. Andrew is married to his wife, Lexie, has three daughters, Lilah, Sloane, Kendall, and a dog, Tex.

In this short episode of In-Sights, Lance dives deep into the strategies and tactics that can help you effectively reach and engage C-suite executives. Whether you’re a salesperson aiming to pitch your product, a business leader seeking valuable partnerships, or a professional looking to expand your network, understanding how to connect with top-tier decision-makers is crucial. We’ll cover proven techniques to get your foot in the door, ways to craft compelling messages, and tips to build lasting relationships with executives at the highest level. Tune in to learn how you can elevate your approach and successfully engage with the C-suite.

Lance is the bestselling author of Selling Is An Away Game and The Human Sales Factor.

You can purchase these books at: https://www.tysongroup.com/books

Be sure to sign up for Lance’s LinkedIn newsletter here: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7123326552678805504

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In-Sights: Winning Over The C-Suite: Tactics For Success

Commitment To Prospecting Strategy

To sum this piece up, I would say that, number 1) You don’t want to be reinventing how you do prospect. Reinventing it each week or just doing it whenever you have time because if you don’t commit some time to it, I think you’re going to have a failure, you’re not going to get the volume you need. Number 2) Picking sometimes when you’re going to block doing certain things, as Alicia was saying, like the research, or like Sean was saying, this is when you’re emailing, it’s when you’re going to make a call.

If you don’t commit some time, you’re going to have failure.

There are some things to be said about linear copiers. Their motto has been for 50 years, five calls after 05:00. They banked their whole success ratio on getting decision-makers after 05:00. They learned it’s called five after five. Getting decision-makers at their desk before 08:00 is a thing. Their people will answer their phones.

Frequency

A lot of high-level decision-makers are there. That’s why I started by saying that the average or the most likely time somebody has an outbound sales call is 10:00 AM. You’ve got to beat the street at some level. You have to beat what the trend is. Then the big thing is frequency. Think about it this way, since COVID, one thing to note is most corporate phones now go out to people’s cell phones. Two, nobody can get a handle on what the ratio is people working in the office versus out.

You can’t compare it against what you guys are doing. There are these hybrid moves. There was a report the other day, I think I saw it on Bloomberg where, pre-pandemic cell phone use in New York City was X and now post-pandemic, it’s Y, it’s like half of that. That means in downtown areas like during the week, there aren’t as many people in their offices as they were before.

Little Hacks

You just don’t know where they’re working from. You have to attack in a way that your message is frequent enough. There are a couple of little hacks that work. I was just doing it to a decision-maker the other day. For instance, that frequency also ties into how you send the message out, email, social, or text.

You have a lot of people’s cell phones that you don’t even realize you have because their phones have been forwarded and when they call you back, they might be calling from their cell phone because it’s been forwarded off the office. For instance, does everybody here have an iPhone? I can send Sean a voice note specifically to iPhone.

If you go on your iPhone right now and put like Sean’s number in, there’s a squiggly blue line right next to that little monkey’s face there? If I send him, this is called a voice note. I can say, “Sean, this is Lance. I’m on a Zoom call with you right now.” I’m going to send this to you right now, Sean. You just got it. Look on your iPhone. Do you have your phone with you? Is there a little message there?

Yes, an audio message. 

There’s an audio message on his text. As soon as he plays the whole thing, it disappears on my phone, then I know that he listened to the message.

I learned something new today.

There’s a little hack there.

What if you’re going to somebody who has a Samsung phone?

Good question. 90% of the population has iPhones, so it works 90% of the time.

I would disagree with that. My husband works for Samsung.

Whatever their numbers are, it’s probably do you have an iPhone though?

I don’t, I use a Samsung.

There you go. It doesn’t work with those. Like anything else, there’s a percentage. The bottom line is I couldn’t get Al Guido, the CEO of Elevate on the phone the other day and I was thinking, “Dude, pick up.” I left a message, I texted him, and I sent him this and I knew he listened to it because it disappeared. I said, “Dude, you know that I know you listen to the message because it disappeared on my end.”

Referrals And Challenges

Then he wrote back, he said, “Are you serious?” I said, “Now I got you. Here’s my question.” There are all kinds of little hacks you can do. They’re all touchpoints, at the end of the day, you have to just think out because the touchpoints odds odds-wise, you need 9 to 12. That’s to the lowest common denominator. I’m not attributing to, how well some of you can deliver a message, or how well you can write.

You just have to think outside the box.

I’m just saying if it’s just a very common boring message, you need about 9 to 12. Some of you might be able to beat that with your personality or your messaging being really good but we can’t argue the fact that you need X amount of touch points to get in touch with somebody. That means you’re going to need the time once you target an organization, you need to go after three people minimum, and you need a certain amount of touch points. You’re going to need the time and effort to put the labor in.

The only thing you can do to beat that is get referrals. The only problem with referrals is this, they’re just unpredictable. Most salespeople don’t get referrals because they don’t ask and some people aren’t comfortable giving them. Other than that, you’re going to be challenged from a KPI standpoint, when you’re keeping forward indicators to identify the organizations we should be doing business with.

C-Suite Engagement: The only thing you can do to reduce your time and effort is to get referrals, but remember, referrals are just unpredictable.

Putting in the effort to get their attention and try and win time off their calendar. You’ve got to sell them on the idea of meeting with you. Then the third thing with that, the other reason why you have to get in touch with so many of these brands is that you don’t want to be going after one brand in one category and then not being able to sell them and not be able to leverage the fact that you may have another opportunity. It’s in your best interest to go after at least two. That would be part of that negotiation strategy.

In this episode of “Against The Sales Odds,” Lance Tyson has a conversation with legendary college hockey coach Mark Taylor, back-to-back national champion and National Coach of the Year. As the Head Coach of Hobart College Ice Hockey, Mark has transformed the team into a national powerhouse despite turning over nearly 25% of his talent yearly. Mark shares his journey, coaching philosophies, and the strategies he uses to build a winning culture at Hobart. This episode is packed with strong messages, life lessons, and invaluable leadership philosophies that have impacted hundreds of student-athletes and prepared them for their next steps. Tune in for an inspiring conversation filled with actionable insights!

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! https://www.tysongroup.com/podcast

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Coach Mark Taylor On Working Hard Vs. Competing

I’m so excited about this episode. I have the honor of interviewing somebody that I’ve gotten to know over the last five years from afar and a couple of good conversations from the side. He has made good recommendations where to get pies in upstate New York and also where to have a beer to drink in it and a glass of wine in France. I’d like to welcome Mark Taylor, the Head Coach for Hobart College. Mark is a back-to-back National Championship Coach in 2023 and 2024.

If you follow me, my son had the honor of playing for Mark for five years. He went back after COVID. A couple of stats here. Coach, I know you probably heard these a lot. Under Coach Taylor’s leadership, Hobart has gone to 406 wins, 176 losses, and 65 ties. That’s a little below the winning percentage of 700 back-to-back national championships, two-time coach of the year in 2023 and 2024, seven conference championships, and multiple different conferences that Hobart’s played in.

Here’s another bigger stat, 13 NCAA appearances and 9 consecutive. I’m not sure if that’s a record, but it’s pretty damn close. This is the most important to me, 21 All-Americans, 52, I believe, All-American scholars. Not only are we winning on the ice. We’re winning off the ice, which is huge. Mark, I’m going to call you coach because you’re in my house you’re Coach Taylor. I was standing outside, I was on Gilmore Academy’s campus on the East side of Cleveland in the summer.

Two of my sons were playing in this summer’s elite league. It’s like pro-NCAA hockey players in the summer. All these Cleveland kids and my one son had played for the Cleveland Barron. He’d asked Zach to come and play. We walk outside and Zach is talking to this guy. He’s talking about Hobart. This was right as my son had committed to play for Hobart. His name is Kyle Whitaker. He was a little older and he played on the team with the boys. They’d call him Old Man Witty because he was a little older.

Old Man Witty Kyle pulled me aside. He goes, “I understand your son is going to go to Hobart.” I said, “Yes, we’re pretty excited.” I said, “Tell me about it.” He goes, “I can tell you about Coach Taylor. Life lessons.” I go, “What’s that mean? What are life lessons?” He goes, “There’s not a week that goes by in my life that I don’t think about something Coach taught.” He looked at me and said, “I didn’t play a ton. I wasn’t like a four-year starter. I played some. It was on a new lineup, but I always think of Coach Taylor.” He goes, “Your son made a good choice.” I was like, “Okay.” It’s a crowd shooting. Who knows? It’s a life choice. Coach Taylor, welcome to the show with that big introduction. Thanks for coming.

It’s great being here and Witt’s a first-class person. He was a captain here, so he was being a little humble there.

Was he?

He earned it though. He’s one of those guys who earned every inch that he got but certainly left here a very important player. He’s a great young man.

Early Coaching Career

That summer, we were excited to come in. As I was thinking of this, I was like, “That’s probably what this conversation is all about.” As we’re doing our pregame and this is interesting, you could first maybe establish what got you to a point that you’re the head coach of Hobart. A real quick on that journey. Where did you start? Where did you go? What does that look like?

I always say, I never played for a coach I didn’t like. I got super value and I love my time with my teammates. For me, I never left the game, so to speak. I went from playing to coaching. I started at Middlebury after playing over in Europe. I had a chance to jump on with Bill Beaney, who is one of my top mentors. I went from there to Brown, to Vermont, to Cornell, to UMass Lowell as an assistant.

In my last year at UMass Lowell, I decided it was time to see if all the stuff that I’ve been learning through the ranks and every coach I coached with and coached under was coached the year, respectively wherever they were at, whether it was Cornell or Brown.

At that point, it was time to be a head coach and Hobart was open. I was excited to take it because they weren’t winning a lot there. I started at Middlebury when Bill started at Middlebury. I took a program that wasn’t a perennial power and made it a perennial power. I thought, “Maybe I can do the same thing.”

What was it about Bill? I’ve heard you say that before. What was it about Bill Beaney that made him your mentor? Why does he stand out from the other coaches?

If you peel back his resume, he’s one who no matter what he does is constantly thinking, learning, and growing as a coach. Very humble in his pursuits, but he’s constantly thinking and learning the game. I learned that coming through. You read a book. You read Scotty Bowman talking about taking the summers off, recharging, and learning more than trying to re-invent himself. There are a number of people who will say that why he was so successful is that he constantly reinvented himself. He won as his old self and he won as his new self.

Working Hard vs Competing: A great leader constantly thinks, learns, and grows.

That’s interesting. No matter how many leaders I get on this show, whether in business or sports, that lifelong learner is part of the value system. Bo Schembechler, the famous Ohio coach. He was born in Ohio, but he coached in Michigan. He said, “If you’re not growing, you’re dying at the end of the day. It’s either move forward or not.” That’s interesting you say that. Is Bill still with us? Are you still in contact with Bill?

Yes. I was in touch with him a lot. He won five national championships in a row in Middlebury, then took some time off and came back and won three. As we’re pursuing our second in a row, you knew who was on speed dial. The beauty of Bill is he’ll never just give you the answer. He’ll leave enough tidbits out there and make you dig for it. That’s the right way to do it. You have to figure it out yourself. In that process, you know what you’re doing.

The beauty of mentorship is that it leaves enough tidbits out there and make you dig for them.

If you think back to the two national championships, you’ve reached out to him. Does anything stick out to you where he said, “Mark, think of this or think of that?”

There were things about staying on the course. Don’t deviate too much from what you’re doing but also keep things fresh and new. You’re going to have to make some changes, but don’t constantly try and reinvent the wheel. Stay focused on the on the main things. Stay focused on the details that did it before or not let any of those things slip.

Building A Winning Culture

In your first national championship game in 2023, I was sitting with my family. It went into overtime and everybody I was sitting with was nervous. I couldn’t even imagine what was going on in the locker room. My wife looks at me and she goes, “What do you think?” I go, “We got this.” She goes, “We’re going over time.” I go, “We got it.” She goes, “Why can’t you even say that?” I go, “We don’t lose it over time. This is us now. It’s done.” Zach told me what you said. I’m trying to grasp. What did you say to the boys in the locker room? Whatever it was, it was very profound. It wasn’t this big motivational speech. It was something very calming, wasn’t it? Do you remember?

It’s what you said. We had been here before. We know what we have to do. We just go to go out and do it. I felt the same way. I felt confident with the group. I thought if we stay the course, play the way we play, and do what we do, it’ll take care of itself. I’m a big believer that if you focus on the process and the integrity of the process, the wins will take care of themselves.

Working Hard vs Competing: A predictable process yields predictable results. Stay consistent.

A predictable process yields and predictable result every single time, no matter what. Who do you hand the scaffold to? Let’s go to that for a second, Coach. We were talking in the pregame and I’ve said this to so many of my clients and a lot of them tune in to this show. We talk about predictable processes and predictable results. There’s some art to it also because you have different personalities. I said this in the pregame and I want everybody to think about this for a second. I’m going to set this up.

If you coach college or high school, your talents are your most important asset in any organization. On the business side, it’s the biggest investment or expense. It’s people. Maybe not on the college side, but in terms of time, it is. The amount of time you put in them. Every year, a college coach like Coach Taylor will turn over and have a forced turnover of about 25%. Depending on the size of the class, it’s 25% of all its talent.

This would go for any college coach, whether it’s Joe Paterno or Harbaugh out in Michigan. Whoever it is, they’re turning over at least 25% depending on the size of the class. About every four years, you’ll turn over about 100% of all that talent. That means as a business, I’m praying that I don’t lose any more than 5% because I know how much time it takes to put in a salesperson or administrative person or a new vice president of sales. What is it about how you lead or the process that you’re able to take a new group? Do you change the process to them or do you integrate it into a process? What does that look like for you?

The one thing you have to do is remember, you got these guys for four years. You also have to keep them fresh. It can’t just be the same old same old every year. For one, you want the players that are returning to embrace the love of ownership that they’ve got to get the new guys owning what we’re doing as fast as we can. They have to get those guys into the fold.

It’s not just me getting the new guys in. It’s the whole team getting the new guys in. You also have to reinvent that every year so it makes it fun for the returning guys that you’re changing the culture. You’re saying a lot of the same stuff, but you’re tweaking it every year. It keeps everybody fresh for those four years.

You’re saying that the culture evolves a little bit around the new group.

It’s a new group every year. That’s certainly one thing that I’ve learned through books, other coaches, and through Bill. Just because we won the first year, how we’re going to win the next year? How was the dynamic going to be and the personalities and all that? Everything is going to change. If you’re cooking, you have to change the spice a little bit. Everything gets changed around a little bit. The formula is going to be a little bit different.

You go after that every year but the biggest thing is you got to get those new guys to have ownership. I’ll hear people say buy-in. To me, it’s ownership because you can buy something and trade it. If you buy it and keep it, you own it. For me, I try and go beyond the buy-in and say, “We have got to get everybody to buy in.” To me, I want everybody to have ownership. Those first-year guys have to buy in the first semester. That second semester, they better be part of ownership of the program.

Building a successful team means selling your ideas and getting talent to buy in.

I say to them, “I’ll let you have your naive stage of being a freshman, but come the second semester. Come to the playoffs. That senior at the end of the bench, he doesn’t care if you’re a first-year or a third-year. He wants to win. It’s his last hurrah so you better have ownership.” To me, it’s like the difference between working hard and competing.

You said something profound. I’m with you. I want everybody to hear this and I want to feed you back what you just said because buy-in is transactional. You can trade it and it can evaporate quickly. Ownership though, you think of cliches that go with that. There’s a pride of ownership too. Words like pride and anger get it done at different times. That’s an emotional thing and there’s that ownership to it. There are a lot of things written on it.

I listen to Jocko Willink a lot. I don’t know if you ever listen to his podcast. He was a SEALs team instructor and he was on Task Force Bruiser in in Iraq. He wrote a book on leadership called Extreme Ownership. There’s an extreme ownership and that’s how you get that cover move stuff. Those SEAL teams’ success is because everybody has ownership of their role. It’s ownership of the role. I love that. What is something tangible? Think of the audience for a second. What are the things you’re trying to get them to own? Is it responsibility? Can you think of anything specific?

It’s everything. If I gave something specific, it would be like walking into the dressing room and you’re seeing your captain vacuuming the floor because it’s a little dirty even though you have the janitors and housekeeping do it. Maybe they miss something or whatever. That is a message from a guy that has taken ownership of the program. That’s a little thing, but it does set a standard.

The little things are everything, aren’t they? My dad used to say, “If you take care of the little things, the big things take care of themselves.” He also used to say and you’ll appreciate this, “What you lose in the bananas, you make up in the grapes.” They had to do with the same thing, but it was about those little things. It’s the little tiny things that they did.

It’s how the guys load the bus. It’s every little piece. Within the team, how we play. If a guy has taken a bad penalty, somebody else is going to say something to him. You see it in practice. My leaders over the year and my veterans over the years were winning because of the culture and how that’s carried over year after year. The one thing that I can say to a parent is your kid is going to be in the room with other quality young men. For me, I’ve been a big believer that better people make better players. Better people make better performers. There’s no question of that to me.

Better people make better players and better performers.

It’s interesting you say this and I don’t know the X’s and O’s at all like you do, but I’ve had the opportunity with my other sons to all play college hockey at a certain level. I watched what you did and I’ve watched one of my other sons. I’ll just keep it at that. I watch the coaching. I watch it carefully. It’s not like with hockey. Parents are like, “How are you doing?” That’s all you say. You don’t say anything. You don’t have a say in it.

Leadership And Tough Decisions

I’ve watched you for five years take the most seasoned vet. Even with my own son, as well as he did there, it’s settled. There’s an implication. I’ve watched organizations not have the success and that’s consistent across the board. When you look at very high-end organizations, your first liners could be anybody has stepped up. I see lower-performing organizations that stick with the same people. There’s no implication. Can you talk about your philosophy around that? You’re not afraid of that at all.

I’m going to be my hardest critic. We didn’t win in ‘09 and we didn’t win some other years. I thought we should have won. I don’t even look past the guy in the mirror. There are always things you can do. For guys who are captains for me and are veterans, the farther up your goal, the more credibility they have with me. Also, the more responsibility they have with me. If you’ve got one of your best players and the leader of your team not doing it right, you got to have the character to write that right off the bat because he’s the one everybody else is looking at. That got validated for me by one of my best players. Greg Gallagher was a captain here.

Working Hard vs Competing: Be your hardest critic. Always look in the mirror first.

Is he from Boston?

He’s a Boston kid.

He was from Framingham, wasn’t he? I met his mom.

Yes.

She was working out at Marriott and I got to talk to her. He played a little pro too, didn’t he?

Yes.

Small world.

He was our first Hall of Famer. It was all American here. Quick story, we’re playing a team back-to-back the first night. We’re going to beat them and we’re much better than them, but he floated through the game. It was a terrible game for him. Quite honestly, I couldn’t play in the next night and not play the guy farther down the totem pole.

The principle was you didn’t come and try to play your best hockey. I’ve had guys that perform fifteen nights in a row pretty darn good. They try to perform on the 16th night, and it doesn’t happen for them. They’ve earned credit. They’re going to get another crack. Gals didn’t. I walked in, sat him down, and said, “We got to talk. I got to make a tough decision here.” I didn’t even finish the sentence.” He said, “Coach, I don’t deserve to play tomorrow.” That’s what he said to me.

That’s extreme ownership.

“I don’t deserve to play tomorrow. I stunk and I’m embarrassed.” I moved on. What’s funny was Andy Brennan, who was a freshman at that time, later to be one of the captains to take us to the final four. He saw that and he brought it up years later because he talked to his dad. He says, “Holy God. He benched Gallagher, our captain, our senior captain because he didn’t play well.” His dad said or he said, “It doesn’t matter who you are. If you’re not going to do it to a certain standard, then it doesn’t work.” It’s tough to do but you got to make tough decisions. If you’re not willing to make tough decisions for the team and the flip side. I’ll hear people say that the kids are a different generation now. That’s a cop-out.

I agree 100%. I had this conversation with a senior team at the Phoenix Suns.

I’ll give you two examples. I read the captain votes every single year. The way I do captains, they’re going to put a name on a piece of paper. They go to write the name down and they go to write why. If they don’t write why, I don’t pay any attention to it. That hasn’t changed in 30-some years of doing this. The guy is still writing down who they have a ton of respect for on how they work and how they conduct themselves, even guys that they don’t get along with.

That guy that maybe doesn’t want to work and the guy that’s jamming him in practice to work harder. He’s still voting for him as the team MVP or as the captain. He’s still picking the character guy to put up on a pedestal. I addressed this at a lecture I did for a bank of managers of a North Country Bank. Before going to it, I read an article that talked to some players who were going to the training camp for the Kansas City Chiefs.

In the article, to make it short, it was about how tough that camp was and how old school that training camp was. You had this pro bowler now talking about it because when he went in, he was like, “Why are we working so hard? This is stupid.” After he went through it and saw where it got him, the Super Bowl victories. Years later, there’s another young superstar coming in from college saying, “Why are we working so hard? We don’t have to do this.”

It shows you that there might be some pushback when it’s all said and done. The right type of guys want to do it the same way that we’ve all learned it has to be done. You have to earn it. It takes hard work. It takes all those things we talk about. We’re all human. We’d like to get it a little bit easier, but there’s not one of us who’s satisfied with a job well done and well earned.

It’s interesting. Weeks ago, I was there. Buffalo Bills were building a new stadium. I was up there doing some training. There’s a company called Legends that’s helping the bills sell the new stadium. I had all 40 salespeople for two days in their leadership team. A couple of the leadership teams I work with said, “Bring back old-school Lance and hard-ass Lance.” I said, “Okay. Make sure you’re good.”

I try to protect them a little bit. They watched me do and say these things. Not that we’re demeaning anybody. They said, “These kids now, these younger professionals are different.” I go, “They are not different. The same as you guys when you started. They haven’t changed. You’ve changed.” I said, “I’ll do an exercise at the very beginning of the session.” I stood up. I asked the leaders, “When you started in pro sports, how many people did you start with?” Each one started with 15 or 20 people.

There were only 3 that were left out of the 15 or 20. I said, “You’d probably agree that some people left because they were showing the door, and some people left because they wanted to leave.” They said, “That’s right.” I had the top performer stand up. I had six of them stand up and a good group. They all had worked in pro sports. I started to ask them a question. For the top guys, I said, “What’s your number?” He got humble and I said, “What’s your sales number? Where are you on your board?”

He goes, “I only get $4,000,175.62.” Not to be exact. I go, “Where’s the next closest person to you? Just say it” He goes, “They’re within $250,000 away.” They’re less than $250,000. I said, “Do you know exactly what the score is?” I went down the next three people and there were 40 people in the room. The next three top people said the same and they knew exactly what their number was. Top performers keep score, and that’s no different than what I was or you were. We keep score.

We know where we are. We know where we stand. People haven’t changed. You can expect a lot from people. I want to comment back to Gallagher for a second. I don’t know if I told you this before. I don’t want the audience to think that you and I have sat down and had monster cups of coffee. We’ve had conversations and passing. I may have said this to you before. If I recall correctly, Gallagher had a chance to play pro hockey early or make his graduation. If he went and played, he missed that last part of his senior year, hanging with the guy and graduating. His mother will never forget the advice you gave. What did you tell him?

I can’t remember. That was quite a few years ago.

I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. I remembered. Wasn’t it like he stayed?

I think he pointed out like for him at that time because everybody’s different. That’s not a perfect answer in terms of the end of the year like that. With Gal, that year, he was pretty banged up. We went to the final four. He was there. I wasn’t sure how much juice he had left. He had done enough that I didn’t think he needed to go at the end. He didn’t need to miss the experience with his buddies. I didn’t think it was going to do anything better for him professionally. I also was being honest with him. Sometimes, you have to take care of your players in the sense that you try and put people in a position to succeed and not fail, or you keep him out of a risk to fail.

His mom will always remember. What his mom said to me, she wanted him to experience the rest of college because he played so much hockey. I went back to where she was working and I stayed there not long ago. She just retired. It was an interesting story like that six degrees of Mark Taylor. Somebody that knew you. For the audience, this is 500 miles away. I had just run to this very nice lady who worked at a Marriott at we just got talking. In her experience with Hobart years before my son and before I met, but I thought that was an interesting story that ties into all this too.

Let’s tie back a couple of more questions, then we’ll paint the picture a little bit to what we’re on because you said ownership. I’d said I never saw you ever afraid, regardless of the status of the player. You seem to make decisions. At the Naval Academy, they teach what’s the difference between the ship and the crew. At the Naval Academy, they don’t teach the crews more important. They said the ship was the leader, and then the crews built around it. It sounds like you make decisions sometimes for the crew and the ship. You’ve got to be both.

For me, you’re here to protect the program. The players are the program and the program is the players. I’ll say it to young assistants. There are times you have to make decisions and it can’t just be what’s the right thing here for this one guy because you have other guys on the team. People say, “How do you get good goalies year after year?” I said, “For one, I don’t look at goalies any different than defensemen or forwards. I don’t treat them any differently. They’re in a different position. They have different challenges of the position than other positions.”

As I say to the goalies, “The decision I’m going to make with you is no different than the decision I’m going to make with a defenseman. I have to look at the big picture.” Exactly what they do in the Navy is how I do it. It gives me guardrails to operate on too because you’re human. You got feelings in there. You also have to say, “What’s best for the program?” Usually, if you stay within those parameters, you’ll be making decision for the group.

Even though I’d like to play this guy here, you still got to remember, there are eighteen other guys out there. Who do they want playing? You have to balance that together. Sometimes those eighteen guys want you to play maybe the guy that deserves a shot. Maybe there’s a guy that talent-wise, you think is a little bit better. You feel the group wants the guy that deserves a shot to play. If that’s the case, you play him because you’re using the same equation as what’s best for the group. For me, I’ve always been there with it. Even like you were saying that overtime game. Part of me was I believed it. The other part was these guys had done so much. They couldn’t fail me. It was so easy to be so calm in that game.

I felt calm as a spectator.

If we lost, I wouldn’t have felt. You can’t say you wouldn’t have felt any different, but the level of satisfaction I had for the group that I was with wouldn’t have changed my thought of them because to win, you go to be good. You go to have some very special mojo or chemistry or whatever you want to call it, and you go to be lucky. For me, going into the overtime game, the one game this year that went into four over times.

That would have been tough. That’s right.

I don’t think of all the stuff we did to lose that one. I would have felt bad for the guys. I don’t know if that makes sense. As a coach, I feel like if they’ve given you everything, win or lose. That’s where I want to be as a coach. I know what it’s like in ’09. We lost and I thought we deserved to win. That was an awesome group. We didn’t have a locker. We didn’t have the mojo that the other team had. That was a special group. They’re a special group to me. Win or loss, I look at them the same way. That’s a championship team in my book.

It’s interesting as I watch things now as I got older, you go back to that ship or crew conversation. I went to a lot of games and I watched every game for 4 or 5 years. That’s as much as I watch anything. I do a lot in pro sports. Our business does. Sometimes I don’t go to games anymore because I get tired of doing stuff, but there’s a thing about trust. I was wondering if you could comment on this because I always find leaders are in 1 or 2 camps with the word trust.

There’s that group of leaders that will give you all the trust first, and then the people that work with them get pulled back over time. Some leaders will only give you a little bit of trust and you have to build it up. What camp do you fall in? Do you give people the benefit of the other first or do you have them earn it? What do you think there?

I would say I’m probably in between there. There’s a level of trust. For me, I have the privilege. I’ve recruited the guys. I don’t think it’s any different in the business world if you’ve hired someone. If you can’t give them a little level of trust coming in the door, you’ve done a pretty crappy job of hiring them. In recruiting, the same thing with me.

Nobody is perfect. You’re going to make mistakes hiring someone. You’re going to make mistakes recruiting somebody and people can change within months and life can change people. Things can happen. The bottom line is they should have acquired a level of trust in that process. When guys come in, I have expectations and I have trust in them already, but they still have to keep earning them more. Every time they earn it, you have to give it to them.

I was thinking also, Coach. I’ve watched your teams on the ice. I’ve been watching hockey for a while. I don’t know how to play hockey, but I watched it. I watched guys’ coaches pinch and only show a level of trust. I’ve watched you consistently and maybe I’m reading this wrong. I think it was 2019 or 2018 and you’re in the frozen forward, Steven Point.

You’re playing your fourth line all the way through. Fast forward to the championship game years ago, the national championship game. The fourth line scored game one in goal and overtime. When I think of trust with you, I don’t watch you pinch down. You suited them up. I’m trusting you. I watched you wear teams out because you play four lines. Everybody plays. Can you talk about that piece a little bit? There are two different philosophies. That carries over to business too.

I don’t want to say one is right or the other one. For me, I did the camp that I was brought up in. Especially in our team, how we go about things is everybody matters. Everybody as a piece of this. This group, their celebration for each other, and the joy they had in each guy’s success was infectious. For me, you can’t say everybody matters and then show they don’t matter as much.

True leadership shows when everyone matters and everyone knows it.

It’s like, “Everybody matters,” then the guy gets up to take his tee shot and you say, “You sit back down,” and let him shoot. You’re being a hypocrite. Even the players know. As you said, everybody keeps score. Those fourth-line guys know who the first-line guy is and vice versa. When that first-line guy is on the bench, he’s rooting for that other guy. When that first-line guy stepped out, maybe to score that tying goal, you want to make sure that fourth-line guy is rooting for him and that he’s going to do it.

That’s a two-way street. As you said, in the business world, everybody is keeping score. Everybody knows where they fit, but everybody has a big piece of it, especially in my world, these kids have watched enough pro sports. They’ve seen enough. The guys on a third line score in the Stanley Cup winner. They know it could be them.

One time, it was said to me. I don’t know if it was my Coach Terry Martin or if it was Brian McCutcheon. One of them said, “You’re all first-liners. If you’re the fourth line going against the fourth line, you got to be the better first line, fourth line.” It was confusing at the time but I knew what he meant because if you’re matching up line A versus line A, line B versus line B, and line C versus line C, each line has to outperform the other line.

In the end, which one is more important? Maybe the two first lines are equal. The two second lines are equal. I’ve always been a big believer in the sense that if your third and fourth lines are better than other people’s third and fourth lines. You’re going to win a lot of hockey games. That’s not a Mark Taylorism. Brian McCutcheon, who I played for and then worked with at Cornell, we used to have a line that we would practice and they would wear green.

Three guys would call them the money line. They weren’t always a draft picks. They weren’t always a super line, but game in and game out, those guys delivered a consistent level of play. They were a money line. They weren’t the high scoring guys, but they were a money line. A lot of times because game in and game out, they were always earning money.

All that ties back to ownership and the culture of every ship and crew just like we talked about. The reason I brought up ship and crew is because we teach it a lot in our methodology. I have a lot of things in my house that are interesting things that have come from Hobart. When you graduate from Hobart, you get an oars.

I also have another interesting oar in my house. I don’t know if the Tyson boys are all skilled laborers or not. You also have given probably some gifts to seniors that mean something on their journey. This has to do with ownership, but this has to do with these life lessons we opened up with. Would you expand a little bit on what I’m talking about? I can’t say I can pull it all together. I’ve heard boats, oars, and tools. I have them and I’m not allowed to touch them.

Certainly, that championship year, what I try and do with the guys is every year, do something different in terms of a team theme. Some place for them to go mentally that’s different than the same old talk. That year, we’re building a ship. In order to build the ship, you got to start with a certain type of wood. It’s a way of all the things you need to do as a team.

The easiest way to probably describe it for the audience is we did it one year ago for building the house. You got to dig the hole. You got to do the foundation. You got to do the foundation right. Otherwise, the house won’t be any good, so on and so forth. We built a ship. Your son’s last year. Before the playoffs, we said, “Now we need oars.”

We bought the wood. The guys had to carve their own oars. Some guys did a good job. Some guys did a terrible job, but the bottom line is there’s that mental state for them to get lost in that reinforces all the principles of how you build something that’s going to be very successful. It makes it fun. I remember when I was working at Cornell and Joe Nieuwendyk would come back for the summertime.

As a young rookie coach, I’d ask him, “What are you guys doing in the National Hockey League for drills and stuff?” Joe was like, “We do the same stuff.” As time goes on and you’re around more high-level athletes, everybody just wants to have fun. I don’t think it makes any difference when you’re in the corporate world. You want to have fun coming to work. We have that sign over our locker room door, “Nobody has more fun than us.”

Although, you know my expectations for working. It’s not working. It’s competing. Our guys have an extreme level of work and compete, but they have a fun time doing it. They love coming to the rink. To me, that’s a recipe you got to have even in the work world. You want people coming through your office store, excited for the day, and willing to compete but having a blast with all the people they’re with every day.

Building Tools For Life

Everybody wants that. I would agree, whether we’re engaging in the brains, having a contest, or whatever it is. I agree with that. Talk about the tool belts because that’s another life lesson there. My mom was like, “That is the most profound thing you’ve ever seen.” My mom is a super fan of Hobart’s. I think she’s super proud.

Again, it was that mental thing of, “Give them a tool belt, then over each year, they added different tool to it.” That’s what you’re doing life. You’re getting a tool belt. As time goes on, you keep acquiring these life skills. To me, they’re signified by a tool. Also, I looked at it as it’d be something neat when these guys are 50 years old. They’re going to hang up a picture in their new house and they grabbed their old Hobart tool belt. It reminds them of the good time they had with their teammates.

I had a very special time in my childhood and my hockey experience. I keep it simple. As a parent, your responsibility is to provide a cherished time and your child’s life. My coaches did it for me. They provided a time in my hockey playing life that I cherish. I don’t pretend like in stats and stuff like that. I pay more attention to stats of players I’m recruiting than my own. I’ve always looked at it because every now and then, I’ll get stumped.

Somebody will say, “What’s your record?” I don’t know. I take the approach of, I’m not a great golfer, but I love golf. If I focused on the birdie that I got in the last hole, I probably won’t have much luck getting the birdie on the next one. For me, I always focused on the next soul. At the end of the round, I’ll look back and say, “I did all right.”

If you go back to everything you said, we started with life skills and life lessons. We talked about culture, that ownership and that trust, ship versus crew, and then that theme back to the individual again. I was just thinking, “What did my dad leave me?” I still have the toolbox. When I got married, he bought me a toolbox. I had to handbrake and I still have it. It’s a great toolbox. I’ve never gotten another toolbox. That’s my toolbox.

That’s what it’s about. You certainly can’t argue like that going back to what drives success and when your most important asset is people. Back to what we originally talked about, you’re turning those people over, so they have to buy into this process. The buy in is the first step because it’s transactional, then it becomes about ownership. That ownership is handed off from class to class until it completely turns over.

There’s that ownership that’s still with the culture. To me, that was so profound. It is simple, but simple is genius at the end of the day. That’s what it’s about. It’s not life and complexity. It’s life and simplicity. It is what it’s all about, isn’t it? My last three questions, ready? First things first, if you are gifting a book to somebody, you said you’re a learner. If you got to gift one book, what book is it? What are you giving away?

I don’t know if I could just gift one.

You go to gift one. You go to make a decision.

I’m going to give you a category, Unbroken. I don’t know if you’ve read that book. You saw the movie. That one probably moved me as any book. Now, if I was giving it to a young coach, the book Simply the Best is a great book to learn. You mentioned staying out of Marriott with Mrs. Gallagher and The Marriott’s Way.

I read that book. It’s a great book.

A lot of good stuff in that. Those would probably be three and there’s so many more. We’re talking about ships. It would probably be Unbroken because it’s a heck of a character story.

He was a naval officer or something.

When he was shot down and imprisoned. The whole story was wow to me.

I got that book marked down.

That one there probably moved me as much as any book has ever moved me in terms of saying, “I can be way better.”

You’re up against that. I love that. Song in your head. You got that song like going into the big game. It’s the song you put in your head. I’m sure you hear all kinds of music at this point with generations of players have but what’s your song?

Probably Country Road by Johnny Denver. That’s the one that drives my wife nuts that I play over and over. I’m just kicking around the house.

Defining Success

We have a cabin down South Ohio, and as soon as we get into the foothills of the Appalachians, I play that song. I’m with you. I don’t even remember when that was popular or me even liking it. For some reason, it’s on my playlist now. If you had to say grandchild, niece, or nephew that’s 6, 7, or 8 years old, “Uncle Mark, what success mean?” You say what?

It’s giving your full effort to the best of your abilities and doing it the right way. That’s a piggyback copycat of John Wooden’s recipe for success. Some play for me. It’s what we preach. Full effort and complete character. I learned that as a kid. I grew up, I was shoving out the gutters in the barn. You’re shoveling cow manure and make sure the gutters clean. You’re mowing the lawn, make sure the lines are straight. You sweep in the floor, sweep it clean. You take it to the extreme when you’re doing something very special. You do it to that same level.

For me, it’s an easy recipe. If you give something your best effort and you do it with the right type of character. You don’t try and shortcut. You don’t cheat. You have a good attitude and good character. I don’t think you can mess up. I know that even if you get a C in a class because for me, people say, “A’s and C’s.” I’m like, “I’ve got more respect for a C student that’s capable of C’s giving me a C than a kid that’s capable of A’s giving me B’s.” Give me what you’re fully capable of. I’ve seen so many of those people that give what they’re fully capable of and didn’t never hurt some.

I have a brother that’s a professor and an older sister that’s a retired teacher. I went through it. I had some great teachers and they were proud of you if you gave everything. It wasn’t the highest grade, but it was your highest grade. Those good teachers thought the same way about you. To me, that’s all I asked for the guys. If they give me everything, win or lose. People say, “What was the turning point for you guys this year?” I don’t know what it was, but it was Babson. My guys played awesome.

We outshot them 3 to 1. I don’t know why we didn’t win that game. I saw much of my alums were at the game. I saw them and they’re like, “Coach, you won those games, you just got to walk away from.” I said to the guys, “We get back on the bus.” After the game, I saw the Babson coach and one of his players. His dad was coming home from hospice.

My player, Artie had gotten word that his dad was getting closer to the frontline in Ukraine. I remember saying to the guys, “That Babson’s kid father’s coming home to die.” Artie, your father’s still fighting. Maybe the hockey gods felt they needed it more than we did.” That was it. That was the last time we talked about that game and we never lost again.

That was the trend. That was it. Coach, thank you so much for your time. I cherish the time with you. Many good lessons in here. I appreciate the investment you made in my family. Thank you so much.

Great seeing you guys again and we’ll be in touch. Take care.

Thanks, Coach.

Important Links:

Mark Taylor Extreme Ownership Unbroken Simply the Best The Marriott’s Way

About Mark Taylor

Edward Jeremiah Award (AHCA Division III Men’s Coach of the Year): 2023, 2024

Edward Jeremiah Award Finalist: 2003, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024

NEHC Coach of the Year: 2022, 2023, 2024

ECAC West Coach of the Year: 2003, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2015, 2016

Just the fourth man to lead the Hobart hockey program, Mark Taylor continues to add to his reputation as the most successful coach in Hobart hockey history. In 23 seasons, he has compiled a record of 406-176-55, including back-to-back national championships in 2023 and 2024, the first two titles in program history. Taylor has guided the Statesmen to 13 NCAA tournament bids.

The two-time AHCA Division III Coach of the Year, Taylor was inducted into the Hobart Hall of Fame with the Class of 2023. He is a 10-time finalist for the National Coach of the Year award and has been named conference coach of the year nine times.

When Taylor was hired to lead the Statesmen in July of 2000, he inherited a program that had suffered seven consecutive losing seasons. In 22 of his 23 seasons, Taylor has registered at least 10 wins. He has produced all 10 of the programs 20-win seasons. Taylor’s team won a program-record 29 games on its way to claiming the national title in 2023.

A tremendous motivator and recruiter, Taylor has mentored 72 all-conference selections and 27 all-rookie team selections. All 21 of Hobart’s All-Americans have come during his time in Geneva. Six Statesmen have been named conference player of the year under Taylor’s leadership, including Craig Levey ’05, Shawn Houde ’08, Matthew Wallace ’11, Mac Olson ’16, Luke Aquaro ’25 and Artem Buzoverya ’24.. Aquaro and Buzoverya were the runner up for the Sid Watson Award in 2023 and 2024, respectively. Taylor has had four players earn conference defensive player of the year recognition and eight players named the rookie of the year.

Taylor’s charges have also excelled in the classroom, boasting 241 conference all-academic team honors, 52 AHCA All-American Scholars awards and two CoSIDA Academic All-Americans.

Committed to enriching the lives of his student-athletes, Taylor supervises a team trip overseas to Europe every four years. In 2004-05, the Statesmen traveled to Germany and the Czech Republic, in 2008-09 the team visited Switzerland and France, and in 2012-13 the Statesmen traveled to Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Germany. In 2016-17 the team explored France and Switzerland. Along with experiencing the countries culture’s first-hand, Hobart played exhibition games against local teams.

Last year, the Statesmen recorded their eighth 20-win season in the past 10 years. Hobart won 28 games, second most in program history and captured its second consecutive national championship with a 2-0 win over Trinity. The Statesmen ended the year on a program-record 14-game win streak and were unbeaten in their final 25 games of the year. Hobart was 16-1-1 in New England Hockey Conference play, winning their third consecutive NEHC regular season title. The Statesmen captured their third NEHC tournament title, defeating Skidmore 5-0 The Statesmen finished the year with a program record 0.97 GAA and a .958 save percentage. The 30 goals allowed this year are the fewest in program history. Hobart’s 13 shutouts this season matched the NCAA Division III record for shutouts in a season. The Statesmen’s penalty kill set a NCAA Division III record allowing just three power-play goals on 95 attempts. They killed off 96.8 percent of their opponents power-play opportunities.

In 2022-23, Hobart recorded their seventh 20-win season in the past nine years. The Statesmen finished with a program record 29 wins and captured the first national championship in program history with a 3-2 victory over Adrian in overtime. Hobart was 16-2-0 in New England Hockey Conference play, winning their second consecutive NEHC Regulatr season title. Hobart then rolled through the NEHC tournament, defeating Babson 5-1 to capture their second NEHC tournament title. The Statesmen finished the year with a then program record 1.14 GAA and a .947 save percentage. The 37 goals Hobart allowed were the fewest in program history at the time.

In 2021-22, the Statesmen recorded their sixth 20-win season in the past eight years, finishing with a record of 20-6-3. Hobart earned their seventh straight and 11th overall bid to the NCAA tournament. Hobart advanced to the quarterfinals after earning an at-large bid. The Statesmen were 13-2-2 in New England Hockey Conference play, winning their first NEHC Regular season title.

The 2019-20 season marked Hobart’s fifth 20-win season in the past six years. The Statesmen earned their sixth straight and 10th overall bid to the NCAA tournament. Hobart finished the year ranked sixth in the final USCHO.com poll, posting a 20-5-3 overall record.

The 2018-19 season marked Hobart’s fourth 20-win season in the past five years. Hobart The Statesmen earned their fifth straight and ninth overall trip to the NCAA tournament. Hobart advanced to the national semifinals after earning an at-large bid. The Statesmen ranked No .5 in the final USCHO.com poll and fourth in the final D3hockey.com poll.

In 2017-18, the Statesmen logged their 16th consecutive winning season. Hobart captured the NEHC Tournament title in its first season in the league. It was the Statesmen’s fourth straight conference tournament title and fourth straight and eighth overall trip to the NCAA tournament. Hobart ranked No. 7 in the nation in the final D3hockey.com and USCHO.com polls of the season.

The 2016-17 season marked Hobart’s third straight 20-win season. Hobart captured the ECAC West tournament title for the third straight season and earned the program’s seventh NCAA Tournament appearance. The Statesmen were ranked ninth in the nation in the final D3hockey.com poll and 10th in the final USCHO.com poll.

In 2015-16, Taylor led the Statesmen to another 21-win season and the sixth NCAA tournament appearance in program history. Hobart posted a 12-3-0 conference record, garnering the ECAC West regular season and tournament titles for the second year in a row and fourth time in program history. Hobart downed Neumann 3-0 and Utica 5-0 to capture the tournament title.

In 2014-15, Taylor led the Statesmen to a 21-win season, earning the fifth NCAA tournament appearance in program history. Hobart posted a 12-3-0 conference record to finish first in the ECAC West regular season standings and then topped Neumann 2-1 in overtime of the ECAC West tournament championship to capture its third ECAC West tournament title.

In 2013-14, Taylor guided the Statesmen to a 14-9-4 overall record and advanced to the ECAC West tournament semifinals. It was Hobart’s 12th consecutive winning season.

In 2012-13, Taylor guided Hobart to a 19-5-2 overall record and a share of the ECAC West regular season title. It was the Statesmen’s 11th consecutive winning season. Only two teams in the history of the Hobart hockey program earned more victories than the 2012-13 team.

In the 2011-12 season, Taylor guided the Statesmen to a 16-10-1 overall record and captured the ECAC West Championship for the second time in program history. Hobart finished the season ranked No. 9 in the D3hockey.com poll, No. 13 in the USCHO.com poll and No. 8 in the NCAA East Region Rankings.

An active member of the hockey community, Taylor has coached in the USA Hockey Development program for several years, most recently the 2003 Select 14 Development Camp in Rochester, and mentored monthly clinics for Geneva Youth Hockey.

In the summer of 2005, Taylor was a featured coach at the A.P.O.C. Aboriginal Prospects Opportunity Camp, in Quebec. The mission of the summer camp is to expose Cree and Aboriginal players to Junior A and college coaches.

In 2023, Taylor guided the United States to a silver medal at the FISU World University Games in Lake Placid. The U.S. hockey team went 5-2-0 in the tournament picking up wins over Great Britain, Korea, Kazakhstan Hungray and Japan. The Americans won Goup B and won just their second medal in the the tournament.

Prior to joining the Hobart family, Taylor served five seasons as the top assistant coach at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. With the River Hawks, he was involved in all aspects of coaching and was in charge of recruiting. A highly successful recruiter, he attracted five players to the program who were selected in the NHL draft, including the Montreal Canadiens 1999 first round pick (13th overall), Ron Hainsey.

Prior to joining the staff at UMass-Lowell, Taylor spent five seasons as the top assistant coach at Cornell University. Under the supervision of then Cornell head coach and current Buffalo Sabres Associate Coach Brian McCutcheon, he helped guide the Big Red to an NCAA Tournament appearance.

Taylor began his coaching career in 1987 with single-season stints at Middlebury College, Brown University, and the University of Vermont.

A 1985 graduate of Elmira College, Taylor was the Soaring Eagles MVP and an All-ECAC selection as a senior. He transferred to Elmira after a pair of National Junior College Athletic Association Championships at SUNY Canton, earning All-American defenseman honors for the Northmen. Following his graduation from Elmira, Taylor played two seasons for Ange in the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation.

A native of Canton, N.Y., Taylor and his wife, Lauren, have three sons, Alexander, Dylan, and Jonathan.

In this short episode of In-Sights, Lance discusses the crucial value you bring to your meetings. One timeless piece of advice: “Always get their opinion before you give yours.” During the evaluation phase of a sale, it’s essential to dive deeper into meetings to foster an informal yet thorough understanding of the prospect. This approach helps us craft tailored solutions that resonate more effectively. By taking the time to truly understand our prospects, we move closer to building strong, successful relationships. Make sure to tune in to future episodes where Lance walks through deals and gives strategic and sound advice to get the best out of yourself and your prospects. In-Sights episodes are for leaders, entry-level salespeople, and everyone in between!

Lance is the bestselling author of Selling Is An Away Game and The Human Sales Factor.

You can purchase these books at: https://lancejtyson.com

Be sure to sign up for Lance’s LinkedIn newsletter here: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7123326552678805504

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In-Sights: Seek First To Understand And Transform Your First Meeting Into A Lasting Impression

Progressive Building On Your Value

The Importance Of Strategic Questioning In Building Rapport And Credibility

If you’re thinking, you could almost come out of the first meeting and say, “Out of curiosity, everything we presented to you, what’s possible as one team that stuck out at you?” You could probably even ask that question at the end of the first meeting, if you’re thinking. I’m not saying that you both didn’t, but this is this progressive building of what you guys do. In an organization like yours or an agency or an elevator or legends, you have to do stuff like this because you bring so many variances to the table that if you’re not checking in, it gets lost. It’s not as simple as just going to the chargers and buying something from whoever. Ben, go.

A quick thought to build on Andy’s thought, the move oftentimes is good, as somebody was talking about it, too. It’s good for building rapport and establishing some credibility. A lot of times, for me, what I like to do in that move is rather asking, what is it that you like? What stuck out to you that you’re thinking about that you maybe like?

I would flip that and offer a suggestion on something that I don’t think would work and explain why. Based on our conversation, we talked about a lot of stuff. Here are a couple of things that I don’t think are a good fit for you. Here’s why. Is there anything else? Do you have any thoughts on that and see how that builds? Typically, that can build some rapport and credibility.

It does, too, because you’re taking some things off the table. I’m 100% in both your corners with this. The move right before that is based on everything we presented, all things we did, what made you uncomfortable and what did you like at all. What they’ll always come back and come back and say because you got to remember and think about this.

Most people will tell you your presentation is great but they won’t tell you what they didn’t like. You can come back then and say, “What do you like? What made you uncomfortable?” They would almost 99% of the time say, “It’s not what I didn’t like, but I like this better.” That’s why the strong question, emotional question, usually gets in the back off and it ricochets the other way. Even the boss talked about that and never spoke about the difference.

Understanding Your Prospect: Most people will tell you your presentation is great, but they won’t tell you what they didn’t like.

He talks about that. It’s a clinical psychologist thing. If I was talking to Randy or to Dico, what did you hate about your father? He would go, “It’s not that I hated this, but I didn’t think he was.” If I’m saying something, Dico, that is true in your life. I apologize. I know nothing. I’m just taking a stab at it here. That’s what a clinical psychologist would ask, What do you hate about your mother? What do you hate about your father? A counselor would say, what do you dislike about your spouse?

It’s not what I dislike or strongly dislike, but this makes me uncomfortable. That question off of what Ben’s saying. You can do it one of two ways. Now here is something I want to drill in all your heads, write this down. Get their opinion before you give your opinion. You’re going to be great at negotiating, great at objections, as a great leader, get their opinion before you give yours. Principle-wise, seek first to understand before you’re understood. I wish I made that up, but I didn’t. That’s spirit house, Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits Highly Effective People, but I put it since nobody’s talking about the book anymore, I’ll just redo it.

A great leader gets others’ opinions before they give theirs.

Bobols used to say that all the time.

The Principle Of Seeking First To Understand

There are powerful principles. The other powerful principle we’re talking about, too, is to think about what we’re throwing out here. I’m not in disagreement with anything anybody’s saying. I do think there’s a sequence. First thing’s first, ask first their opinion, then give your opinion because you’ll know how to be agile with it. They’re important. Good example, folks. Who wants to go next?

Let’s get at least one more up there that we can talk about. I’m bringing up things that we’ve talked about in the past. I’m just showing you alternate moves to these things. Where does this fit? All this does, if you think about the evaluation part of a sale and the words are discovery, needs assessment, evaluation, and opportunity analysis.

All we’re doing here is we’re taking meetings once and things we learned. We established our credibility. Our task is to put something together for them. We’re just doing a little deeper dive that we’re making informal so we can find out where their heads are that get us closer. Hopefully, that connects. That informal connection puts us a little bit in pole position. That’s it.

We’ll test to see how much of a priority we are. The worst thing that happens out of this is, they can’t answer Dico’s questions. We found out that they’re entertaining multiple things because I would be nervous coming out. “I don’t know. Throw us your best thing. Whatever you got.” I would be more nervous with that. I would say that unqualifies it a little bit and makes a lot more work for you at the tail end. You got a lot of work to do. If they come back and answer any of these questions, you’re in play.

Important Links

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In this episode of Against the Sales Odds, Lance Tyson sits down with Patrick Duffy, Chief Partnerships Officer at Monumental Sports & Entertainment. Monumental oversees the Washington Capitals (NHL), Washington Wizards (NBA), Washington Mystics (WNBA), the NBA G League Capital City Go-Go, and Capital One Arena, ensuring there is no off-season. Patrick shares his journey in the professional sports world, offering insights into his leadership path and philosophies. He reveals strategies that have guided his career, emphasizing the importance of devising and sticking to a plan. Patrick demonstrates the value of a marketplace strategy and maintaining a checklist to achieve goals. He also highlights the importance of hands-on leadership, encouraging his team to remain open-minded and leverage all resources, both human and analytical. For those aiming to climb the ladder or improve themselves, this episode is a must-listen. Get ready to improve your sales game and yourself!

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The Hands-On Leadership Playbook: Building Partnerships In Sports With Patrick Duffy

I’m excited about this episode. I have Patrick Duffy on, who’s the Chief Partnership Officer of Monumental Sports & Entertainment. I’m going to botch one of these up, but for those of you who don’t know, it’s Capital One Arena, Monumental, the Washington Wizard, the Washington Caps, and some minor league teams I’m going to let Patrick talk to you about. Patrick, welcome to the show.

Thanks a lot. It’s good to catch up. I look forward to a great conversation.

Patrick’s Role And Scope At Monumental Sports & Entertainment

I feel like we’ve spent a lot of time together lately. Tell the audience a little bit about your role at Monumental Sports & Entertainment and what reports to you to give them a brief summary.

You touched on a little bit at the top, but Monumental is a big and growing organization. It’s mainly the sports field, but when you look at our overall makeup, there are three areas that you can look at. Most people know us by our properties. You touched on a few of them at the top. The Capitals of the NHL, the Wizards of the NBA, mystics of the WNBA, we have a G League team. We’re big into eSports, a lot in the property space, which is known, especially those that are sports fans. The other areas and big facets are our business are the venue’s business, the crown jewel, certainly, Capital One Arena in the heart of Washington, DC, between the White House and the Capitol.

It’s a great ZIP code. We own a number of practice facilities and other venues here in the greater Washington region, then we also have a robust media business, centered by our recent acquisition of a couple years ago of what’s now Monumental Sports Network, our RSN, which produces and airs all of our real capitals, games, wizards games, mystic games, a lot of shoulder content as well. We also have a robust out-of-home business here centered around the DC area, radio, social media, you name it. It’s a big spectrum, but lots of solutions.

No doubt, especially that media acquisition. I always forget about the eSports piece, in which our group is talking to a studio down in Texas and into designing eSports games and stuff like that. I always forget that piece. I know we talk about it every once in a while. Give folks an idea of, and whatever you can share with the audience, like the critical mass of people that report up to you, maybe how many direct reports you have, and then how many the sales organization reports up to you just for scope at some level.

Our entire global partnership team is about 60 people. When you look at it, it’s different functions within that. We have a traditional sales team that’s focused on driving relationships with businesses both regionally, locally and globally. We have a partnership marketing team that’s dialed in on bringing those partnerships to life and driving deep relationships with our partners. We have a solutions team whose biggest focus is working with all the various marketing divisions within our organization.

As you can imagine, with all those properties, each of them has a different philosophy, approach and demographic. Our solutions team works with that team with those various marketing teams all the time to make sure we’re developing platforms and programs that can align with various partners. This creates a lot of efficiency and synergy there. We’ve been a long time real big believers in analytics and data. We have a business intelligence team that works throughout the entire organization, but with some that are dedicated completely to the partnerships world to make sure that what we’re developing we’re headed down the right path and we know what we want to measure up-front. We’re telling that story on the front end throughout, and then also throughout the entire life of the partnership.

A lot of people don’t realize, especially some folks who listen and read the show, how vast a partnership, sales team or sales organization would exist inside a pro sports team, especially an organization like yours that has multiple properties. You’re looking from the inception of building a relationship to being able to get into the design to tell another brand story leveraging against your assets and being able to measure that and ultimately execute. It’s a complete design build. For the readers, the only analogy that I can think of is a good customer of ours over the years has been Turner Construction.

Turner Construction takes something from an architectural and engineering standpoint, even has that in-house all the way to executing all the way through building a building. That’s what Pat’s team does. Coming out of sales, you’re managing roles that you never even had in your past with the business intelligence group, solutions group and things like that. That’s a whole different set of competencies.

I’ve been here at Monumental for many years. We’ve got a very entrepreneurial owner. There are always new things that are coming our way, which is exciting. With that, there’s an evolution. Even if you go back to many years ago, when I started. We had an analytics team, but very small. That has definitely exploded. I remember we were at the forefront of that space a few years ago. The league would always roll us up to the front of the room to tout what we’re doing in the business intelligence space. It was many years ago. Now, it’s commonplace. It’s very rare that you find a sports organization that’s not leaning into that area, but it’s good to be innovators. We’ve been able to help and be a catalyst towards that growth within the industry.

Leadership: It’s good to be innovators and catalysts towards that growth within the industry.

A couple of things whatever you’re willing to share in terms of revenue, whatever you can share, you can share there, but the growth that you’re trying to have, maybe you have to drive every year that your team is tasked with hitting. What’s that growth look like year over year that you’re trying to push?

It’s been a rapid growth year from going back many years ago. It’s funny, working with our finance folks, you constantly have to explain that percentage numbers can’t always be the same back in the day. The good thing is that, via acquisition and constantly adding more to our overall universe, the numbers have continued to grow. With that being said, it’s more about finding great partners along the way that we can lean into. We’ve gained a lot of people’s trust over time to where we’ve been able to see, “We’re doing a reach on this. What else can we do?” What we love is to get creative and constantly look across our spectrum, or are there areas that are untapped that we can lean into?

Career Journey

It’s interesting what you said that a lot of leaders, especially sales leaders, are up against it where the amount of resources you get as opposed to the growth you have to have don’t always equal out. You’re always doing things faster, better and with less resources. The innovation comment is exactly where it’s at and looking at your team, how they have to be creative with partners to, because the business you’re trying to do business with is they’re trying to enhance the brand, improve the marketing, obviously move revenue. You’re that internal agency that has driven that. You have to be innovative and things like that. Patrick, where did you start your career? How did you get here? Where’d you come from? Where’s that first job, that first part of that journey? I always ask that to leaders.

I’m a Florida State graduate. I went to school in Tallahassee, and during my time there, I did the business program, got the MBA there. I did an internship with the minor league hockey team that was there in Tallahassee, which was a lot of fun, but it opened my eyes to, “There’s a whole business side behind sports.” I’m not the oldest guy. It wasn’t that long ago. Even going back many years ago, the business side of sports wasn’t as developed as it is nowadays. It was eye-opening to me. I didn’t even know that was an opportunity to lean into. Growing up a lifelong sports fan, I was truly excited about diving into that as a career.

From there, I code-called every NHL, NBA, MLB, and NFL team and eventually landed a role with the New York Islanders, selling basically season tickets. I was there. I grew up in Long Island as a kid. It was exciting. Long Island in the ‘80s, when the Islanders were winning multiple Stanley Cups in a row. It was exciting to go back home to an area that was familiar to me. It was great. We are getting there. We are one of the worst teams in the league. We had the number one draft pick for a couple of years. I remember Newsday wrote an article that it was the season preview, and they were going through each player, but the intro paragraph was, “The hardest job in sports is to be a New York Islander season ticket salesperson.” All of us in the office loved it.

You’re probably wearing that as a badge of honor. I love it.

I put that in our cube. It was a great part of the story.  From there, I enjoyed my time and had an opportunity. I moved down to Tampa with the Lightning down there. I was with the Lightning for over ten years. I started in ticket sales, but was able to grow throughout the entire organization to managing the ticketing groove, to managing the Suites team. over time eventually we were selling more tremendous success in driving partnerships via our ticket sales group. We eventually moved over to running the entire partnership division for the Lightning.

Let’s go back to the Islanders. How long was that trip? How long were you there?

About three years. About three seasons.

A young Patrick coming out of FSU. How are you as a salesperson? I asked Chad that question one time, and it was my very first show. I said, “Where were you on the board when you started with the Cavs?” He goes, “I was a solid 5, 6 or 7.” Where was the young Pat early? Where were you on the board?

I’m probably the same thing. I thought it was a ten. The confidence level was there, but you’re learning. What I always brought to the table was my willingness to roll up my sleeves and look at it from a high volume side. In the ticketing role, that’s critical. The more people you talk to generally, the more success you’re going to have. You refine your sales approach over time. You learn a lot along the way. In retrospect, I’m glad I started in that role at the Islanders because it wasn’t an easy sell. You had to get good at your craft and hone your skills. I mean, fortunately for me, growing up, I  had a lot of connectivity and knew a lot about the Islanders. It gave me a little bit of full context. It was challenging. In retrospect, I think that’s probably what maybe helped you grow as a whole.

Leadership: The more people you talk to, the more success you’ll likely have. However, refining your sales approach over time is still essential.

That’s something I know about you. I know you work hard. I’ve talked to you on when you’ve been on trains heading to New York to get a deal done with your people. I’ve had drinks with you too. It’s always interesting that way, like, work hard, play hard. You’d get at it for those three years in high activity. No doubt that’s more of a transactional job sometimes, depending on what kind of tickets you’re selling unless you get to premium. What was something you struggled with there? The other thing is, that first three years, what started to happen with you? Did you start to realize about leadership?

From my end, being there for a while, I looked around me and saw there wasn’t a lot of room for advancement within the organization. From my end, I was like, “Maybe it’s the sports industry doesn’t allow for a lot of growth.” One of my clients at the time recruited me to move into staffing sales. It was an opportunity. I lived in Manhattan for about a year. I was in the staffing industry.

You did staffing for one year. That’s a little nugget right there that I’ve never heard. I love it.

It was accounting and finance. I had great clients in NBC, MTV, Columbia University and lots of cool companies within New York City. At the end of the day, I’m missing sports. It was such a passion of mine. That’s when the lightning opportunity came up and an opportunity to move back to Florida and get back into sports. It was exciting. I learned out of that was lining your career with your passion makes things much easier. I’m not saying anything that not everybody knows, but it makes the day-to-day a lot easier.

Aligning your career with your passion makes the day-to-day so much easier.

I’m curious because I never knew that about you. If you look back now to this, you’re in a few years with the Islanders. What people have to understand when certain folks work in sports, it doesn’t mean they have to necessarily love that sport either, but it’s the fact that you’re involved in that. You got staffing. What did you pull out of staffing that’s still important nowadays? What did you realize? That’s a whole change. It could be high volume. I get that recruit, but what else did you pull out of that?

That was a lot of focus on a lot of in-person meetings, the value of that, being able to get in front of people present, tell a good story. That’s something that use every day. Now on the ticketing side at the Islanders, they had a lot of that during game days.

Phone stuff. No doubt. You go to Tampa Bay. Is it a ticket job again, or is it advancement for you?

At that point in time, it was almost even a step back because of the way they were organized, they claimed you had to start an inside sales, but it wasn’t a legacy role. You come in, it wasn’t tenure-based. You do a good job, you get promoted. They had a whole system in place. I was in New York. That was 9/11 hit while I was there. It was rough in New York City as you can imagine. I’m certainly understanding that. The opportunity to leave New York, get back to Florida and the sports industry were attractive.

You take a step back. You had four years of experience, and then you completely reset. To give everybody a context, in sports sometimes, it’s like a Moneyball concept. Meaning on the business side, they use inside sales to track a person’s career and advance them up through so they weed out folks that can sell, train and move on, but you take a step back. That’s interesting.

An opportunity to get back into the sports industry in an area that was great. Moving back to Tampa was awesome. The role was $13,000 a year with no health benefits. My mom was giving me a lot of crap about being willing to do that. It took a little, no doubt, division that was painted to me going in there. They were honest. That’s the way it worked out. There was definitely meritocracy there, where you had success and you were able to grow.

I’m going to assume that you probably come out of the gate pretty strong because you know exactly what you need to do at this point. You’re probably in there with some newbies, but at this point, you get a year outside of sports. You got three years at the Islanders. You’re probably hitting the ground hard, quick.

Looking back on it, within like six months, I was promoted out of that role into a more elevated role. Over the course of my time there in 10 plus years, I had 10 promotions. They were great about looking at, “Who are our producers? Who’s doing a good job? Who’s doing great work? They looked internally to promote first before externally. That was a very good culture that they had there at that point in time.

I like that. 10 promotions in 10 years. In six months, you get promoted out. Does it go to a ticket role there?

It was group sales at that point in time.

Sales Philosophy

It’s more like you’re tailoring that a little bit because it could be a little bit B2B or both. You’re five years into selling. What’s your core philosophy to start to become about sales? What do you start to realize about, “This is my philosophy with how I sell?” What does that look like?

For me at that point, in the ticketing world, it was all about high volume. I had a little checkbox in front of me. I had 100 boxes there and wouldn’t end my day until I hit that on a daily basis because it was all about putting in the effort at the end of the day. If you’re telling a good story and you’re keeping consistent work ethic, even we know sales, it’s an ebb and flow. I love that everybody says yes, but that’s not the reality.

At the end of the day, it’s about telling a good story and keeping a consistent work ethic.

That’s where the numbers come from. Its activity multiplied by your skillset gets you results. It’s not an addition. What happens to some people is when they think they are getting better, their activity goes down the keys to keep going up. I talked to a guy who manages a big HVAC construction supply company, Johnstone Supply. I was talking to him, and I go, “Where did you start?” He goes, “I started at Lanier selling Dictaphones. I said to him, “5 after 5.” He goes, “How do you know about 5 after 5?” I go, “Like Lanier, they were good white labeled copiers. They made 5 phone calls after 5 or 5 visits after 5. That was the move. back to that activity thing.”

It was traditionally that group sales division. They weren’t a high volume. It was more about reaching out to HR people and being creative. I did that, but also brought that level of volume. I think that the group enjoyed me on that side was like, “This guy is coming in with high volume.” In addition to that, it was nice. It was a fun role, and then eventually got moved into more of a corporate ticket sale opportunity. I was like, “I like it over here, and things are going well.” They explained to me that that’s where ultimate promotions come through as that division.

I’m thinking that that group at Tampa at that point. There are some leaders that came out of that group when you were there that were all over-laden and pro sports with roles. It’s a good career pathing. You go more to a B2B sales role around hospitality and tickets. You are bringing the same philosophy of activity and hustle to that end?

The great thing about that is that a little bit more familiar than reaching out to companies, getting to know them, and trying to show how leveraging hospitality can help drive their business. Certainly, the volume end continues to work, but also being able to articulate in more in-person meetings too, being out in front of people, leveraging that skill you learned over time, even fortunately in the MBA program at Florida State, was a lot of presentations.

Definitely that value of getting face to face with people. You lower the risk of not getting it by being face to face and that connectivity. You’re there for ten years. What are the next couple of spots for you that are significant without going through every single promotion? When do you start getting the leadership track a little bit?

I eventually moved up to managing the entry-level staff with the Lightning, then overall the majority of the ticketing group. From there, suites as well. We did a major project and renovation too.

Leadership

before you go there, you go from the individual performer, now you start managing that inside team, which you were on two different organizations plus the staffing company. What core philosophy are you kind of into your leadership there? What’s that look like at your first move?

Going through that role, there was a lot of empathy and understanding for the individuals in that role. Getting to know them and understanding how incentives could work, especially with the staff that was in there, a little bit more junior entry level. What are things that are going to push their buttons, knowing and empathizing with that role, being through it? Laying out a clear path and laying some additional perks that are in there for them to try to strive for overall achievement and doing all you can to roll up their sleeves and help them along the way. It was the most mind flow.

Leadership: Laying out a clear path, adding perks, and helping people along the way all motivate them to strive for achievement.

Would you struggle with leadership in the first couple of roles? What was the thing you’re like, “I don’t even want to do this?” What was that one part? There’s always that one thing about leadership where you could control yourself when you’re in sales, and now, all of a sudden, and you pick up the trophy and you can carry, now you got to share the damn trophy with everybody. You’re only as good as your lowest calm denominator on the team. Not that those people are bad, but that skill, effort and all of the above. What’s the tough thing?

During that time, the product was challenged. It wasn’t an easy conversation with folks. Even then, the lighting had only been around for ten-plus years. It was still new. You’re battling with Florida, there are many great things to do with your free time. Trying to cut through that clutter and tell that story, we had to challenge ourselves on a regular basis of, “How do we do that?” We had a lot of competitors there, and our competitors could be the beach. That’s a tough one to stack up against.

You’re saying the strategy of how to handle the marketplace was tough. You mentioned you end up taking over the whole group. That probably goes from a group of 10 or 15. Now you got 30 or 40. What did that leap look like for you?

It was a lot overall mentality and strategy, but then understanding how all the parts play into each other. You’re trying to set up each division with the overall revenue in mind throughout. It was a little bit less finite, where you had one division and you’re trying to drive success within. It was the overall department to make sure that we were achieving at a high level. With that, it goes hand in hand with our marketing teams, making sure we’re all working together and harmoniously to maximize overall achievement.

Winning As A Team

I’ve learned this about you over the years. It sounds like the strategy or the blueprinting piece is something you gravitate to because you mentioned a couple of times how the market’s reacting, then, “How do I deploy my resources?” What’d you grow up playing? Were you like a quarterback? Did you play chess? What’d that look like? You mentioned that a bunch even when I talked to you, you mentioned a lot too because I feel like I’m having a regular conversation with you, and then you’re like, “There’s this over here and this over here.” It seems like you’re constantly thinking of pieces and how they play into it. Even when we open this up, you talk about the integration of all the divisions that report to you now that have very different KPIs.

Not a quarterback. Certainly, I love the NFL and football.

I couldn’t think of anything position.

I played soccer and baseball growing up. I always had that competitive spirit and enjoyed it. If you get on the field, you always want to win, but for me, the mentality is always, “You want to win as a team.” Leading the league and scoring goals or whatever are great, but winning as a team is great. I think a lot of that is to win as a team, you have to have a strong strategy. Trying to take a step back and then find a well-thought-out plan, and then being able to articulate that plan to the team and let them feel a part of it.

Leadership: To win as a team, you need strong strategies. Take a step back, find a well-thought-out plan, articulate it to the team, and let them feel like they’re a part of it.

Do you spend a lot of time planning now? Walk me through that a little bit. I’m curious because it’s one thing I struggle with. I race to the solution too many times. I don’t sit back and see where all my pieces are. Talk about how you plan. I’m interested in that.

With us in the sports industry, so much of it is based off of season to season. The seasonality to things. It’s a little bit more challenging here. There’s never an off-season. We always have things.

You’re like 365 at MSA.

We have a fiscal year. Our planning tends to be heavy in the spring heading in, trying to set that new plan for the next fiscal that’s coming ahead. At any point in time, I was always looking at that upcoming season, what’s worked well, and what hasn’t, evaluating that and then putting together a more integrated plan. In each year, you can always improve. When we make major milestone changes, it’s usually on an annual basis and then we look at that throughout, analyze and evaluate, and make some tweaks along the way, but then each year, if there are any radical changes, making those in a more systematic fashion on more of an annual basis.

You sound like you do a lot of gap analysis yourself. Is that where you’re looking at, “Here’s what we’re up against. Here’s our current situation and how to deploy inside that?” You said you’re not moving your bigger pieces. You’re moving your smaller pieces inside those.

Some years, based on whether it’s an acquisition or other things that have happened, especially here at Monumental, you may have to have more of a radical change than maybe you would in a normal year where you’re on a continued growth pattern. You’re always analyzing what’s going on, what’s not, where do we need to put some more emphasis on versus some others where maybe we’ve achieved in a good fashion already.

Patrick’s Personal System

Would you say you’re somebody from your own personal style? Are you constantly looking at the financial numbers? Are you constantly laying out action steps? What is your style? Do you have a photographic memory where you keep things lined up? What does that look like for you? Everybody has a little bit different system. What’s your personal system?

For me, it’s putting together that plan and then trying to keep on the path to that. The plans are put together with the financial model in mind, and then making sure we’re continuing on pace towards there, looking at the forecast, making sure we’re staying on course. From my end, style-wise, it’s not scary to rope the sleeves. I tell our team all the time, “There are no brownie points for doing things alone.” We have lots of valuable resources within our organization. Some of those are human capital.

Some of them are analytic capital. Deploying those at the right time and bringing those into our overall conversation, I feel like from my end I’m jumping into meetings all the time and helping play a role in those, and hopefully getting things across the finish line. Encouraging our team to be open-minded and leverage as much as you can because we have such great resources here as an organization.

I’ve been working with you the last couple of years. It’s interesting that you’ve never ever been closed-minded to an idea. As a matter of fact and I’m sure I’ve been redundant with things I brought to you, but even watching you with your team, your intake is big. It seems like your style is you’re taking all these things you’re weighing against, and you’ve never overprotected the plan. It always seems like a continuous improvement cycle for you.

Even coming from being, whether it was the Islanders as a young guy, I thought I had great ideas then, and some of them might have been better than maybe what they were acknowledged at that point in time. That goes to the leadership style of the folks that are in those roles, and certainly myself included, but I think a big part of that is checking your ego at the door.

I think that’s huge. That’s what I was trying to say. You got humility about it. I deal with it, and so do you with a lot of big ego people. I always find where’s that humbleness to it or checking in and out the door. I don’t have all the answers. I’m going to use my resources.

At the end of the day, great ideas can come from anywhere. It doesn’t need to be my idea. In a lot of instances, I prefer to be somebody else’s idea because then they’re going to embrace that idea even faster.

Great ideas can come from anywhere.

Also, execute it. People are more apt to argue your idea as opposed to what theirs are, “If you can bring them to it, let’s do it.”

A lot of different ways it’s going to cap. It’s not like some people are very finite. There’s only one way to do things, and that’s the right way, and it’s my way. In some people for instance, “That’s not the case.”

I’m starting to see that as your core philosophy, I didn’t realize that talk before we start talking, that intake and that planning, because no matter what I hit you with, you always seem to kind of know your number and exactly where you are. That’s a cause and effect to how much planning that you do or how much time you spend in that process.

It’s a measured choice, cut once. I love that because so many leaders are more worried about how to motivate their people and all that. That’s important, but there’s also process and results. Our job is two things. Develop people and get results, and/or get results from all people. It’s both. It’s not one or the other. You take over that whole team at Tampa, and then, and then how long are you there? What are the next moves that start getting you to MSE?

I was there for over ten years in Tampa. Three different ownership groups, which is interesting, each with different philosophies.

You lasted through three ownership groups is interesting in and of itself. People usually get blasted from one group to the other, like you were there. That’s great.

Three different philosophies. Three different approaches, ebbs and flows of the team and the product to experience different approaches. Great times and I learned a lot there. Ultimately, the opportunity in here in DC, of rose What was great about this is that certainly the multi properties, as we talked about at the top, but being in Washington, DC, it was unique. Tampa is a great city, and it’s certainly grown even more since I’ve left. We could have brilliant ideas, but people and brands were like, “Tampa, Florida, is not one of my core markets,” whereas Washington, DC, the greater Washington region, is the top DMA in the country when you look at DC Baltimore combined, which we can because there’s no other hockey or basketball team here.

Our TV market certainly hits that, and all the way down to Richmond as well. It’s a vast market from both a population perspective but also the sphere of influence perspective. Almost every Fortune 500 brand has one, whether it’s a GR division or some type of office here in the Washington region. You come up with great ideas for certain brands. It’s going to be a lot more likely to be relevant here than it may be in certain other areas.

It didn’t dawn on me now that you said it because, if you think like in the NFL, you have the Ravens and the Commanders that are right up against each other, but you’re right, your footprint is about as wide and deep as any, any demographic or MSA in the country in terms of what you have access to you’re with those government relation offices that are in town there. What becomes the role of monumental? Do you go back to the ticket side, or do you start getting into the sponsorship side of things?

My last few years were partnerships.

At Tampa. Was that a natural gravitation for you that you felt like, “I got to get into the partnership side,” and you started to crest that way? Was it another opportunity or promotion?

I enjoy this side of the business. I feel like a lot of reasons you mentioned earlier, the creativity and getting to meet many different brands, being nimble, learning a lot, and then trying to come back with a defined solution, can work. It’s exciting. Ticketing and hospitality still are like, “We can’t do our job unless those folks are doing a killer job. We need to have butts in seats and viewers watching.” It all goes hand in hand. For me, the biggest thing is a lot of empathy for all those people who are working on those sides. It’s critical to our business. It’s a large revenue line item and a large audience spectrum for us. It’s the lifeblood of our organization. It’s great that we’ve been fortunate to have great audiences here between the capitals, wizards and mystics, and so forth, but that allows us to do our job on the partnership band and deliver a great audience to potential, corporate partners.

Biggest Leadership Challenge

Three things as we bring this down for a landing, roll up your sleeves, it’s about activity, the strategy and planning side of your business, and I’ve written down you talked about innovation and creativity at least five times and driving that process through people. That word has come up consistently. As we bring this down for landing, as a leader, what’s the biggest challenge you have, whether it’d be an accountability thing or a coaching thing with salespeople? I’ve yet to see you at frustrated, but like that inner voice that you have to either coach or hold somebody accountable. What’s that one thing with salespeople that frustrates you a little bit based off your experience? What’s that one thing that grinds you a little bit?

A lack of open night-mindedness sometimes. Some people are rigid and, “This is the only way I do it.” I get that. There could be some core tenants that you keep. I feel like that’s why it’s great to have conversations with others who are in a sales capacity or different industries. That’s what I love about the partnership role. You get to learn so much about different organizations, but I think you have to be willing and open-minded to inject other things into what you’re doing and other approaches because there’s always room for improvement to get better. You got to be open-minded at the onset to be willing to step outside maybe your comfort zone and try new things on occasion.

It’s always beneficial to be open-minded and willing to incorporate new approaches into your work. There’s always room for improvement.

Second question, which is interesting because that goes back to one of your core philosophies that innovation no minus when somebody resists that, I can see why that would be frustrating and you get a lot of salespeople, it’s my way or the highway, or a lot of partners that act that way too and try to where and meet them. The last two questions. I know you have children. If one of your kids, let’s say, or niece or nephew who are 7 or 8 years old and they said, “Uncle Pat or Dad, what does it mean to be successful based on how you got here?” How would you communicate to a 7 or 8-year-old? What does it mean to be successful?

There are different levels of that, but it’s got to be coupled with your own sense of achievement. You got to feel like you’re doing a good job, but it’s also within your industry, whatever you’re in, having that respect of your peers. For me, it’s making sure you’re doing things the right way.  You want to have that respect as a whole. You are looked at as someone who’s a good teammate and a good person within the industry. I think that the respect you garner along with achievement is critical. Success is not intrinsic.

I love that because I hear it a lot to be liked or respected. I think I take respect at any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Last question. You do a lot of big deals. Your team does a lot of big deals. I’ve talked to you many times on your way to New York to get a big deal done. You’re in town in Washington. If you had that sales song in your head and you and I shared the love of music together a little bit, what’s that sales song for you that you play in your head?

I love music, but you’re talking about all these big pictures and stuff. You Can’t Always Get What You Want.

The Rolling Stones. That’s exactly right.

By any means, you got to go into it knowing that, but try to maximize. I love music too, like you and probably more eye than tiger.

I like that The Rolling Stones’s You Can’t Always Get What You Want. That’s true. That’s a good negotiation. I’ve yet to hear that one, brother. I love that you were on such a good perspective with your journey. The audience got out of how you think a little bit, and it’s practical. Complex problems don’t always require complex solutions, but they require consistency of effort in planning. Thank you so much for being on. I appreciate you. I’m looking forward to getting this episode out.

Thanks for your time. I’m looking forward to catching them soon.

Important Links

Monumental Sports & Entertainment

What are the key things one needs to keep in mind to be an effective sales leader? In this episode of Lance Rants, Lance Tyson dives into the realm of sales leadership, emphasizing the importance of human connection while maintaining a keen awareness of time management. As a leader, striking a balance between approachability and execution is key. Lance prompts us to ponder: Do we have the optimal talent onboard? Is our team primed for success? Can we cultivate a culture of coachability? While acknowledging the necessity of setting boundaries, Lance underscores the transformative power of assembling the right team—a catalyst for success not only for oneself but for the entire organization. Tune in for invaluable insights into navigating the intricate dynamics of sales leadership!

Lance is the bestselling author of ‘Selling Is An Away Game,’ and ‘The Human Sales Factor.’ You can purchase these books at: https://lancejtyson.com

Be sure to sign up for Lance’s LinkedIn newsletter here: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7123326552678805504

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Lance Rants: From Dependence To Autonomy – Lance’s Top Tip For Leaders

You don’t want to appear that you’re not available. That wasn’t the point. I’m not saying you’re saying that at all either. It comes from a philosophy of, “My door is always open.” You’ll realize as parents, your door is not always open. You realize that your parents are probably doors that don’t always open relative to whatever is in your life. However, you’re racing. That doesn’t matter. You can’t have total availability. I get smart-asses all the time and say, “What if I’m in a cube?” Metaphorically, maybe you’re not getting what I’m saying. You can’t always be available because it doesn’t do anybody good, then everything bottlenecks with you. It’s lethargic and it’s slow.

Sales Leadership: Anger and competition are motivators. There’s probably plenty of times that you’ve moved up the ranks because you were just flat out pissed off.

Remember and this isn’t a criticism of the generation. It is though a little bit. You guys come out of a generation. I’m not saying my generation is any better like I’m not going to be the old guy that go, “Look at the Millennials. Look at those ears.” Screw it. Like you got a generation that had everything was instant gratification. You go watch a whole seasonal Netflix and binge-watch to get in line for the movies.

What it really comes down to is profitable action. It’s not how much you get done. It’s what’s profitable.

Your Job As A Sales Leader

You’ve witnessed or you’ve participated in these helicopter parents who have told every one of your friends and maybe you, I’ve parented this way at times, that you’re special, that you are special and now all of a sudden they’re in a corporate environment maybe they’re not special, that they have one participation trophies, which devalue things like everybody gets a trophy. It devalues the trophy at some level. It is not good because it destroys the steam and everything else. All of a sudden, they’re in a corporate environment.

You have a group of people that will come to you because every time they have a sniffle, somebody’s wiping their nose. I’m not saying that makes people soft. I’m saying they were mismanaged because corporate environments do not equate playing Rec League soccer and getting a trophy. I remember my kid was playing Tim Horton’s soccer and all my kids played hockey. They were playing soccer this year and this one year, I said to one of the parents, I’m drinking a coffee next. I’m like, “What’s the score?” He looked at me. He goes, “We don’t keep score. We don’t believe in it here.” Apparently, this guy is like Commissioner Blake. I go, “Right on.”I’m not going to get into a fricking social conversation with him because who knows what awkward thing he’s into.

Sales Leadership: You want to create an environment where everybody’s looking over their shoulder. You don’t want them comfortable.

My fat little kid comes over sweaty with a red face. I go, “How are you doing there?” He goes, “Good. Can I get some Gatorade?” I go, “I’m holding it right here. What’s the score?” He goes, “Upper by nine points. I got three.” I’m like, “Who doesn’t keep score? Everybody keeps score.” It’s what we do. We’re humans. We know how many berries we collected for the long winter.

Here you are on your parents’ cell phone plan. I’m not criticizing you, but they’re still on your parent’s cell phone plan. They’re doing their thing and they get checked in all the time. You have that group of people. You have some people who are independent. They’re going to knock on your door and you can’t kill them on it because you don’t know, maybe from a mental health standpoint, they’re struggling with something. Maybe they have low self-esteem. You have to weigh it out a little bit. You don’t all in, sell out to it, but you have to manage your own time. Derek will tell you through the pandemic, he was probably a social psychologist during the pandemic. That’s the role we were playing as leaders.

If your people aren’t at some level worried that somebody may take their job, then they would get lazy.

Understanding Motivation

People have bad headspace, and you guys know it. Be human. Connect with the human, but you also have to execute and evaluate your people. You got to say, “Do I have the best people here? Do I have the right team? Can I train them? Are they coachable?” Trust me, every single one of you, including myself. You will F up and make bad decisions. You’ll make horrible decisions. It happens all the time. The key is to make a decision, sell out on it or whatever you do.

In this episode of Lance Rants, Lance takes you through the intricate world of negotiation, drawing from his own experiences with publishers. Join him as he unravels the essential strategies for successful deal-making, including the art of turning your opponent’s tactics to your advantage and gaining insight into the buyer’s mindset. Lance stresses the importance of never assuming a sale and shares the significance of empathetically addressing the concerns of the other party. Let’s explore the analogy of negotiation as a strategic game of chess, where staying several steps ahead is key to achieving your goals. Tune in to discover how Lance approaches negotiations, ensuring he plays his cards right, even when the odds seem stacked against him.

Lance is the bestselling author of Selling Is An Away Game and The Human Sales Factor. You can purchase these books at: https://lancejtyson.com/

Be sure to sign up for Lance’s LinkedIn newsletter here: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7123326552678805504

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! https://www.tysongroup.com/podcast

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Lance Rants: Negotiation Is In The Eyes Of The Beholder

Negotiation Vs Objection

It goes back to something Lisa was saying ,and it’s now tied to what you’re saying. There is a spot where negotiation is not an objection and an objection is not negotiation, but they’re cousins. When I wrote this first book, I’d never written a book before. I had to figure out how to get it done and I was meeting with a vanity publisher. I brought a part of my team down to this publisher. There were three of us and I was all in with everything that they wanted to do with the book.

When it got signed in the paperwork, we got ready to sign and I said, “I think we need to talk about terms.” They were like, “The terms Lance for 50% down and 50% when we start, and that would be in 60 days.” I said, “That’s not going to work for me.” Let’s say it was a $250,000 investment because it dealt with artwork and was going to be published. The guy said, “I’m not sure.” I go, “I guess it’s the difference between me signing here as opposed to going somewhere else.” He goes, “You’re here right now.” I said, “It’s a good statement of the obvious.”

I said, “You might want to check. You introduced me to all the publishers, the decision-makers, and everything else. You might want to ask them about terms.” He goes, “What are you thinking?” I go, “That’s interesting.” I said, “I’m more interested in what you’re thinking.” He got up and my whole team was uncomfortable because I didn’t tell him I was going to do that. He came back and said, “We can do three months.” I said, “That’s not good enough. I was looking for more like fourteen months.”

He came back again and he went up to six breaking this payment down. Cash is king. I could have struck a check. I’m like, “Cash is king. Why not keep my money as long as possible?” He came back and he said, “We’re stuck on six.” I said, “I’m actually closer to about fourteen months right now.” I pegged the number the other way. He looked at me and said, “This is really uncomfortable.” I go, “It is really uncomfortable. After everything you pitched me, it’s uncomfortable that you would seem so desperate to need 50% down in 60 days.”

Suicide Clause

Now remember, whatever they use against you, you can use back against that. It’s called a suicide clause. He came back and he goes, “Lance, it’s final. We can get it to eight.” I signed and he said, “Just out of curiosity. What have you done it for?” I said, “I would’ve done it for four months.” He goes, “You’re kidding me?” He goes, “What did I do wrong?” I said, “You just assumed the wholesale. You didn’t ask me if I had any concerns. If you asked me if I had concerns, I would’ve answered your question. I wasn’t BS-ing you. You probably should have asked that earlier.”

Negotiation: Negotiation is in the eyes of the beholder.

Now, you might say, “That was pretty stage out,” but when it’s going fast, I’ve yet to find anybody that’s that good that there’s six moves in front. I deal with a lot of people and you do too. Nobody has six moves. They are 1 or 2 moves ahead of you at best. They’re quicker on their feet. Those are counter things you got to look for, but then it has a lot to do with how you lay it out there also. Also, think a little bit like that 24-second clock in the NCAAs. Sometimes you have to slow the clock down and times’ relative too.

Negotiation Is In The Eyes Of The Beholder

However, negotiation, even if you listen to what Randy was saying, is action in the eyes of the beholder because everybody would agree that you would negotiate. Would you all agree that you all negotiate here at some level, the little things? Would you also agree that you probably have to describe a negotiation in order to say where it falls into things? Would you also agree maybe at some level that some people are just better negotiators than others for some reason?

If I could add, our tricky thing is that sometimes we don’t hold the cards that we want to learn from, for sure.

We’re going to go on that too because I think if you don’t hold the cards, we have to figure out what you do hold.

If you don’t hold the cards, you have to figure out what you do hold.

I definitely am very excited to learn more about that. How can you still negotiate well when you don’t have the cards?

I think the big thing to understand is in the process, and I don’t mean to genderfy this. It’s called steel manning. The concept is called to steelman somebody. A steelman is when a lawyer goes to law school, they learn to prep the case that they’re fighting against. The reason that concept becomes so important is that then you can recognize when people are negotiating with you very quickly.

Steelmanning

We’re going to go into that concept of whether or not you hold the cards or you own a process because if you don’t hold the cards, then maybe for instance, I’m not saying this case leads to that. Maybe you own the time, maybe you could slow it down and that becomes negotiable. I want to make sure you guys understand. First of all, there is zero in business. It’s hard for anybody.

Everybody says negotiation is a skill you should have. Nobody knows where it starts or ends. Two, most people would know a good negotiator when they see it and most business people would say, “I need to become a better negotiator.” With all that said, we’re dealing with a concept that’s ambiguous. Is that fair?

Important Links

Lance J Tyson LinkedIn Tyson Group

Lance Tyson’s guest in this episode is Jeremy Harbour, the founder of The Unity Group. Jeremy is an expert in mergers and acquisitions. And while his approach to sales may differ a bit from what you are accustomed to, you’ll find he’s governed by many of the same principles, such as the need for business and sales processes. And that people do business with people, not businesses. To be successful, you have to know your clients and prospects. So if you want to broaden your perspective of the B2B sales process, read all the wisdom coming from Jeremy, and you’ll gain insights into your own sales process.

Lance: One of my weaknesses is talking too much and maybe not listening as much as I should. One of the other great rapport builders or great empathy builders comes from some depth of experience. You can create a great rapport and great empathy if you have experience in their sector, their business or you understand. There are commonalities that you can draw upon that make them instantly think, “This guy knows what he’s talking about.” That’s another way you can shortcut.

Jeremy: What you said is true. In my book, I talk about three factors, rapport, understanding and then credibility. Credibility, trust and rapport allow you to persuade or influence.

Understanding is that EQ, that empathy or sympathy. Sometimes it’s even sympathy for other people’s ideas. You can’t go on and tax somebody’s baby after they build it for 40 years. As I was doing my research on you, you’re hard-hitting. What are you like when it comes to objections in negotiation? Are you tenacious? Are you calculated? What are your moves there?

I don’t think there’s a magic secret sauce to negotiating. You have to have a range of options, and be pragmatic and flexible around the solution that you’re providing. All too often, you’ll see this a lot in sales where they’ve got one thing they can sell you. It’s like going to a barber. They’ve got one thing to sell you.

I always see this challenge, particularly with M&A deals. Somebody who has read a book about M&A is focused on a leveraged buyout. You put some cash in, you borrow some money from the bank, and you make them an offer. If that doesn’t work, you offer them more. You go back to the bank and see if you can borrow more to see if they can finance it more. They have this one solution and they keep pushing and pushing against the one solution.

What we have are fourteen different ways we can slice the cake. If that one is not resonating, we can do or solve it in a completely different way. Having that flexibility and also the ability to deliver a different solution quickly and on your feet effectively, and to see how the physiology of that suggestion is landing with the other party is the key. It’s not necessarily a hard negotiation around a number. It’s around finding the right solution to that person’s problem, and recognizing when you haven’t quite hit the nail on the head. The physiology doesn’t match or there’s some challenge.

Lance: About 70% of our business is in sports and entertainment. I couldn’t think of a worse industry to be in than sports entertainment. Getting a bunch of groups of people together to watch things is not great. We’ve been looking at a lot of different studies and looking for research partners. One study that came up at Florida State was when they started to look at high-performing salespeople. They started to notice that the highest performing salespeople were agile.

“Develop the ability to deliver a different solution quickly to see how the physiology of that suggestion is landing with the other party.”

They use the strategy at the moment that would best succeed. I call it the new business reality. If I hear the new normal again, I’m going to headbutt somebody because that invokes that we’re going back to what it was. It’s going to be what it is, and what got us here might not get us there. What we’re suggesting now is you better go in with multiple strategies.

We had an NFL team go and pitch a big convenience store that’s going to be a partnership. It’s going to have a lot of digital components to it. It’s a multimillion-dollar deal. The prep we did for that was about 4 or 5 strategies. Lo and behold, they went into the pitch. Thank God, that big food store chain had 2 or 3 strategies because the main one was not the one they went after. It was the third strategy. If you’re not flexible and adaptable, it’s key. What’s your advice as we start bringing this down to landing? You’re from Singapore. If you’re in business now, what’s some advice around COVID that you’re seeing?

Jeremy: In my business, we make our money in recessions. About half my wealth is from the last recession. I don’t want to be gleeful because it’s a pretty horrible situation for everybody. There is a lot of opportunities that also come from recessions. Many multimillion-dollar fortunes have been created in recessions. Some of the biggest companies in the world are formed in recessions. I would encourage your readers not to let a good recession go to waste without being too trivial about the whole thing.

The thing I’ve seen in every recession is the difference between those who react quickly and make changes, and those who wait for it to go back to how it was. If you sit there and wait for it to go back to how it was, you’ll get wiped out. You’ll get dumped by the wave. You want to be riding the wave. You have to adapt quickly. You have to do something new and different.

I saw a cocktail bar in Singapore that closed down because of the crisis. I saw another one that sent people all the mixes and taught the mixology over Zoom and did cocktail evenings. I saw a beauty salon that closed down, and I saw a beauty salon that did a seven-day facial detox program with video instructions each day. They send you a basket full of stuff and then every day you get a video on what you stuck on your face on that particular day to do an at-home spa. Those businesses were thinking about how they can pivot and do things a little bit differently instead of sitting there with their salon closed, complaining and waiting for when the rules are going to change so they can open it again.

The first thing is you have to adapt. The second thing is this is a great time to consolidate an industry. If you’re in an industry that’s fragmented, your competitors are squeaking too. It’s now the time that you all get together. United we stand, divided we fall. It could be a great time for mergers to save costs and get best practices. It could be a great time to consolidate or perhaps retire owners who don’t want to go through another recession.

If you’re a Baby Boomer and you went through the European debt crisis, 9/11 and the dot-com crash, you know this movie. You know this movie is three years long and we’re right at the beginning of it. Do you want to swing your arms and not land any punches for the next three years, or do you want to do something now, get out and spend those three years doing something?

That’s such good advice. I’m going to ask you a couple of interesting questions and bring this bird down for a landing. I can tell watching you that when you start talking about deals, the covering comes over like a shark. That’s a compliment. I appreciate that. I get pretty excited about doing any sales deal, especially one that means something. I have a sale song. It’s Onyx’s Slam. It’s an old rap song that I play in my head right before a deal. What song are you playing during a deal?

I would never have thought about that. It’s funny that you chose a rap one because the first thing that popped into my head was NWA’s Express Yourself. It’s being funky but there’s a proper message in there as well. When you leave, it’s that Call Me Maybe. It’s the irritating one a few years ago.

Lance: Last question and we’ll pull this together. My favorite interviewer is Howard Stern and my favorite podcaster is Tim Ferriss. He always goes, “If you’re going to gift a book, what book are you gifting?”

Jeremy: I read a lot and I read loads of good books. Sometimes the ones that get me thinking the most are the ones that had nothing to do with business at all. It’s something left field. I remember reading Andre Agassi’s book,. I’m not a tennis fan at all. After that, I was like, “I’m going to go watch Wimbledon.” That was an inspiring and good book. I enjoyed Richard Pryor’s autobiography as well. I found that was quite inspiring. Life is too short. He talks a lot about feeling the sun on your face one more time and things like that. He was dying when he wrote it.

I read this book called The Spy and the Traitor, It’s a true story about a KGB agent that the British managed to turn. He became the head of the KGB and he was a British spy. It’s the most insane story you’ve ever read because it’s true. You’ll get sucked into it.

Hope you enjoyed this conversation between Lance Tyson and Jeremy Harbour. Listen to it here.

Sharpen your sales sword and create a winning sales culture! In this captivating episode of Against The Sales Odds, Lance delves into a compelling dialogue with Brad Fain, the VP of Ticket Sales & Service at the Detroit Pistons. Brad unveils his extraordinary journey in the professional sports realm, shedding light on his strategic leadership ethos centered around understanding the ‘why.’ Far from content with merely honing his team’s skills, Brad leads by example, perpetually refining his expertise while fostering seamless communication and alignment among his peers. Whether navigating through triumphs or challenges, Brad remains an accessible leader, investing in his team’s growth and ensuring their voices are heard. Through his unconventional path and relentless pursuit of excellence, Brad epitomizes an opportunistic spirit that ignites inspiration and propels others to new heights.

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Listen to the podcast here

Sharpening The Sales Sword: Fostering A Winning Sales Culture With Brad Fain Of Detroit Pistons

As A Leader How Do You Expect Results If You Do Not Have The Right Path?

I am excited about this episode because it’s somebody I’ve spent a lot of time with throughout his career, especially the last few years through coming out of COVID, we spent an amount of time. I like to welcome Brad Fain, who is the Vice President of Ticket Sales & Service for the Detroit Pistons. Brad, welcome to this episode. I’m glad you’re on.

I appreciate it. I’m happy to be on.

Brad, in our pre-game leading up to this, I talked to a lot of organizations that are selling an organization that’s strong where they won their championship or their crushing market share or something. As I work with Brad, if we’re measuring what he has to sell with wins and losses, I’m not being critical. They have to sell that brand to Detroit Pistons and it’s Detroit. It’s the Midwest. There’s a good NFL team up there. There’s a baseball team. There’s a hockey team. Market share is market share. Brad, help the audience understand what is your role at the Detroit Pistons in the NBA.

Leading Ticket Sales And Service

I appreciate that, Lance. My role with the Detroit Pistons is the Vice President of Ticket Sales & Service. I oversee all of ticketing on the Piston side and that includes group sales, season ticket services, premium member experience, premium sales, business development, and then our entry-level program, our ticket sales associates. Not only are we responsible for selling tickets for the Detroit Pistons, but it also includes our premium areas. It’s all things that are Pistons-related.

What’s that? Describe it to the readers. I was explaining to my banker the other day. He goes, “Lance, it’s your company that does a lot of stuff in sports and entertainment.” I said, “Yeah, it’s a part of our mix.” What are some things they sell? I said, “First of all, it’s how they sell. You go from a very consumer-based simplistic sale to somebody who might be a fan to something that you are asking for budget or B2B. Let’s start with leadership. What’s the leadership that reports to you and then the critical mass and those teams underneath that?

I can outline that for you. We have Amber, who’s our Senior Director, of Premium and Membership Development. The units that roll up to her include Premium Sales and Service and our Membership Experience team or our Service Team. We also have Clark who is our Senior Director of Group Sales. He oversees all of our group sales efforts. We have Nicole Medvitz who manages our business development team, and they’re predominantly selling to both B2B and B2C. Matt oversees our Ticket Sales Team, which is our entry-level program.

What’s your headcount because you got 5 or 6 teams there?

We have approximately 40 to 45 people on staff, the upper 30s in terms of sales reps, and then about 7 people leaders. We’re lean and mean.

Lean and mean but a lot of people reading are going, “That’s a pretty big sales team all in.” My question that themes this out a little bit is we’re going into a presidential cycle. We do a lot of business in Detroit. I can’t say that in Detroit the economy’s booming. There’s probably an argument that goes back and forth that it’s great, but it’s not great. It depends on where you stand. What’s the hardest thing right this second to keep your sales team motivated? What are you doing? What are your leaders doing? What are you focused on? What does the conversation look like?

I’d like to peel back a few layers of that. Addressing the presidential cycle and some of the economy, I think there are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to certain cities and Detroit certainly isn’t excluded from that.

There’s a moniker put on that a little bit of what Detroit is and isn’t, right?

Absolutely. I moved to Detroit from New York City and have a lot of connections. Family members asked me why. Once you experience Detroit, they have so much to offer and the city’s rebounding. In terms of city bonds, we were just upgraded from junk bonds to now we’re at least investible, which is great in terms of external investments that can be poured into the city.

Our office looks downtown and you see skyscrapers going up and that’s a big reason as to why there’s more money being poured into the city. It’s not just the motive industry, which is very important to the city, but Michigan is becoming a tech hub. Crypto is big and the cannabis industry has taken off. There is a significant financial impact occurring right now.

We even look at Detroit. You have invested just like your performance center in Detroit. You made a major investment in the city there. All the teams play downtown, which has not always been the case, right?

Correct, and it was a strategic move for us to move from Auburn Hills Downtown but to answer your question about what we’re doing to keep the team excited, I think the easiest objection and where the team gets a lot of pushback is as you mentioned on the outset is team performance. Also, just adopting more of a consultative sale to remind the team, “Let’s get back to the core basics and address in a consultative manner, but then also trying to be extremely positive.”

Are they following the right behavior of getting people out to games, hitting key touchpoints, and sticking to our process, or are we deviating and is that why results might not be coming? As a leadership team, we need to make sure that we’re doing the fun stuff. Keeping them engaged. Since the Olympics are occurring, one of the contests that we’re doing right now is Olympics-based. They’re all broken out into different countries.

We’ve got a nice internal competitive vibe going on right now with France, Jamaica, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Italy, Greece, and the United Kingdom. We’ll see how that wraps when we conclude early bird but we work in sports and entertainment and the thing that we should always keep in mind is we want to crush goals and do an outstanding job, but this is also a fun industry to work in.

Detroit Piston Sales: The thing that we should always keep in mind is we want to crush goals and do an

outstanding job, but this is also a fun industry to work in.

We work in sports and entertainment. That’s my tone at all. You know me pretty well. If you can’t sell wins or losses, then you have to sell giant human beings running around in shorts. What’s not fun about that? That would go for any sport at the end of the day because like in any business, not everybody’s a winner if you’re selling wins and losses. If your team wins all the time, that might be a little easier to sell. I think we need to go back to your core philosophy, which I’m so excited you are on because you have a certain belief system on how you manage talent and what you invest in.

I always go here. Everybody’s like, “How’s a guy like Brad?” By the way, a little background on Brad. Brad’s an Ohio guy at the end of the day. It’s the Ohio Mafia at the end of the day. All roads lead to Ohio. How do you even land here? Where do you start? Where’s that yellow brick road? How do you get from Ohio to New York to Detroit? Start? Bring us through that. Where did you go to college? What was the first role? Tell everybody what you did in college, because I think that’s interesting in and of itself. Tell us your story a little bit.

Brad Fain’s Journey

It’s in Springfield, Ohio, which is just outside of Dayton. It’s between Dayton and Columbus. I went to Ohio University. I studied Sport Management. I had the opportunity to play football in the early 2010s under Frank Solich, which was an incredible experience and instilled a lot of great values into how I lead my team now from Ohio as the Ohio Mafia as you referenced it.

I’m part of that too. I’m in Ohio.

As part of my networking in college, I got linked up with Corey Breton, who was working on his professional master’s at Ohio University at the time. He, Eric Platte, and Ben Brown ended up offering me my first opportunity to work as a Membership Associate for the Atlanta Hawks, which is their version of inside sales.

Let’s go back to Frank Solich because, for everybody who doesn’t know, Frank Solich was with Tom Osborne at Nebraska. His famous Nebraska teams won national championships and Frank was his offensive coordinator. Am I correct there?

He was the running backs coach and then climbed. He ended up being the head coach after Tom retired.

He then was at Nebraska and then he went to Ohio University. It comes out of that classic lineage of coaching. I don’t want you to breeze over that. What did you get from a leadership standpoint that you’ve pulled forward in your world?

The thing that I admired about Coach Solich was he was always stoic and consistent. It was almost as if you would know how he would respond to something before it even happened. It was always under a great deal of composure, even if we were in a precarious position as a football team or we were blowing an opponent out. I think one of his best attributes was he was extremely consistent and always had great composure at the best times whether it was the highest highs or the lowest lows.

You looked to him and there was that consistency. That’s something you’ve tried to pull forward in your leadership. I never heard you say it like that.

He would also keep you on your toes to where sometimes you would crack a joke out of nowhere and wove that in there. For someone who’s frequently stoic, he also had a great way about him to keep you on your toes or to get you to think about something differently.

Let’s hit the gas and go forward again. You land coming out of school through some networking with Corey Bretton who is a Michigan guy. I respect Corey myself. In that inside sales role, talk about that first year, eighteen months, or however long it was. Who were you as a salesperson? Was it your first sales job? Did you ever sell before that?

It was my first real sales job and for me, the reason why I chose the Atlanta Hawks was their emphasis on training and development was a respected program then, and it still is now. I think they have done and continue to do an outstanding job recruiting and training. However, for me, my experience in inside sales was a true eye-opener because I think when I look back on it, I wasn’t the best seller. I didn’t find my stride until I became a senior-level seller. I’m completely comfortable in my own skin saying that I wasn’t the best because I think experiencing that struggle made me an even better professional.

When I started out, I wasn’t the best teammate because the difference between competitiveness and my athletic background versus competitiveness and my professional background was if the person in front of me got hurt on the field like, “All right. Next man up.” They might’ve had a serious injury where they might have been done for the season, but business was completely different to where it’s not necessarily the next person up. My teammates at the left and right of me or across from me can continue to have success. I used to get so frustrated when other people would have success when I was in an entry-level role and it wasn’t meant maliciously, but I wanted to experience success.

It’s that competitiveness that they’re pulling in front of me a little bit.

Correct. I was professionally immature and I’ll never forget Dustin McCorkle, who is now out in Lubbock, Texas leading the Matadors right now. He was one of my mentors. The Hawks had a lead program where he was a senior-level seller and lucky enough for me, he had me as a mentee. He pulled me aside and I remember this vividly. He’s like, “Brad, you’re talented. You remind me a lot of myself,” but he is like, “You need to be a better teammate.”

Detroit Piston Sales: You need to be a better teammate.

I was like, “Wow,” because I did not want to blow this opportunity. I was grateful and excited to be in the sports and entertainment industry. That day, was almost like a light switch where it changed my perspective and I think I became a significantly better teammate from that day on, which lent well the rest of my career.

What a solace. Would he be pretty disappointed if he knew that or would that not even have been on his radar about being a good teammate? I’m not saying you were bad. You brought it up, but I’m curious, if he sat that beside you, would say what?

I think he would appreciate the spirit, but the execution probably could have been significantly better.

In a very stoic manner. He would have laid it out. I never even heard that stuff because I couldn’t even imagine that. I know you’re passionate. I know you hit a gear and you can go on but talking about some self-awareness. You’re in that role for how long. What’s that next move? You’re sitting there, “I was all right.” It doesn’t sound like you’re top of the pack. Were you upper-middle or mid? What does that look like?

We always had a pretty large team on the ticket sales side there. I was on the upper portion of the board, but I wasn’t number one. I had caught my stride in group sales and I had started there in September. I ended up taking an opportunity to go sell for the Jaguars that following spring. I want to say it was March or April.

You went and worked for Chad Johnson, where you talk about management styles, Corey’s style over there, and then Chad. He is about as animated as they come. That guy can turn it on. We were talking about that. Was it in group sales?

It was a group sales role. The thing that I appreciated the most about the Jaguars at the time was that there was a very small staff where it took all of us chipping in. You might have had a title, but all of us were a full menu, all of us were servicing accounts, and it was at a great time for that franchise. Shad Khan had just purchased the team at the start of the decade and he was implementing some interesting concepts. Part of my responsibilities coming in there was we were putting in these new pools in EverBank Field and I had the opportunity to go down to Jacksonville and sell those for the Jaguars.

That was that initial upgrade to the stadium. They had swimming pools they put in. I remember that.

The Jaguars have continued to expand. They’ve built an amphitheater in the stadium. They’ve developed some field seats. I think there’s another field club. They continue to make enhancements.

Going down to that with that leaner team and they get it done. I think of all the organizations we deal with, they get more done with a smaller team with very strong KPIs and move it. What did you realize about your selling then and what did you start to evolve into or maybe what kind of weight did you shed?

In Atlanta, I was certainly still carrying some of my playing weight.

I didn’t mean it that way, but I meant your style, your strategy, and your competencies. It’s interesting.

In Jacksonville, I did shed some pounds, but the leadership team there did an awesome job of investing in training and challenging us to sell the full menu. Again, my title was Group Sales Representative, but I sold hundreds of thousands of dollars in season tickets. I was able to sell a significant amount of revenue in fleets because that’s the culture that Chad had instilled down there. Again, very similar to the challenges that we experienced here or continue to experience here in Detroit, the time that I was there in Jacksonville, the on-field product was struggling as well.

As a salesperson in that role, I needed to adopt a mindset of consultative selling whether it was someone who graduated from the University of Georgia that wanted to go to the Florida Georgia game or Georgia Florida game. Depending on your vernacular, I might have positioned, “These season memberships are a good fit based upon what I’m hearing,” or it might have been as easy as saying, “I know that you went to the University of Georgia. We sell suites for this event. The suites are $20,000. How would you like to move forward?” Thankfully despite some of our on-field struggles, we had a significant amount of success down there because of the way that we were encouraged to sell.

You are saying that what started to land with you, you got it coming out of a box and you became more of an agile seller, more versatile where you could change based on the situation you were in. Is it more of that situational seller maybe what I’m looking for?

Correct. I experienced an evolution where it was less of the waiting to talk, and less of the selling what I want to sell. Again, going back to professional maturity, growing in my salespersonship to position things based upon what I was hearing my clients say. I think that’s where I started growing from the upper middle of the pack to an elite or top-level type of seller.

In Jacksonville, in my first year, I was number one in the department, which I was excited about because it was a brand new department given some of the changes that the organization was going through. I wasn’t the top person on the leaderboard. However, in my subsequent years there, I found a lot of success and developed into the top salesperson in the company.

You start to move up the ladder in terms of recognition and things. Were you there for 2 or 3 years at that point and then what’s the move?

In Jacksonville, I was there for a little over three years and again, I had great leaders above me that had been there for a while. They are still there to this day and they’re having a tremendous amount of success so I knew if I wanted to continue to climb, the most likely scenario would be an external opportunity. By way of a connection from Atlanta, it was one of our team boat reps for Atlanta and we had stayed in touch to where he had recommended me to the Miami Heat. I went to Miami and rebuilt the inside sales department after the big three had disassembled.

You were there after the LeBron era and was that your first management opportunity?

Correct. My first management opportunity was with the Miami Heat. Dwyane was gone, Chris Bosch was gone, and LeBron was gone. Later on in my tenure with the Heat, Dwayne Wade ended up returning, which was a pretty awesome experience because the city loves Dwyane deservedly so. That was my first leadership opportunity. I was responsible for recruiting college students or entry-level talent to teach them how to sell season ticket memberships and group tickets for the Miami Heat.

Sales Leadership Lessons

At this point, you have a couple of opportunities where you’re a seller and you have credibility there and you learned some things you liked about. We went back to Coach Solich all the way through. What were some things that you knew based on your experience that you were going to apply to your leadership and what’s at least one major thing you weren’t going to freaking do no matter what. “I’m going to do this when I become a leader but I’m not going to do this.”

From my experience, I’ve always tried to take the good and the bad regardless of whatever scenario I’m in. As a leader, I wanted to make sure that I positioned my team to where they weren’t going to fail because of a lack of effort or a lack of training and I was going to fight for resources. However, in terms of what I wasn’t going to do, I tried to avoid some of the leadership landmines of not making people feel like I was inaccessible. I always wanted to be an accessible leader.

As a leader, make sure to position your team to where they aren’t going to fail because of a lack of effort or lack of training.

I wanted to make sure that people felt like they were being invested in. When it came to the Miami Heat, and again, I wasn’t a pro at this. This is my first leadership opportunity. I wanted to make sure that we were growing and developing as people. We would frequently implement power hours to where we’d turn on music, crank through, and make sure we’re hitting our touch points, but then additionally beyond that, that’s an easy lever to pull. That’s basic leadership and an easy tactic.

However, to take it next level, I wanted to make sure that we’re being thorough with training. The great thing about sales in the MBA is it’s cyclical. Early on in the season, you know you’re going to have distressed inventory. You need to make sure that we’re training the staff to move group tickets and then early birds are critical throughout the summer months. You want to try to make sure that you’re moving season ticket memberships or selling mini plans. I would try to curate modules to go through training with the team consistently.

When I reflect back on it too, where I could have improved as a leader was some of those leadership conversations at the beginning when it came to accountability. I wanted to make sure people were having fun and felt inspired so they would be encouraged to hit their numbers but sometimes I would have softer conversations because I wanted to keep people motivated. Looking back on it now, I probably hurt some folks when I criticized myself looking back on it.

You’re saying at times, you wanted to make it more frictionless as opposed to holding people accountable or being a little bit more direct with them.

Correct. Now, if there’s friction, there’s friction because this is something that I’m observing that I think you need to correct to unlock your full potential. Back then looking at an immature entry-level manager, I could have done a better job embracing more of that friction to get someone on a better path moving forward.

I’m constantly coaching salespeople. I was coaching one on the partnership side with an NBA team. I’m like, “Chase, you want this sale to happen in a frictionless way and you’re so worried about somebody that’s not even doing business with for whom, for what? I don’t see another path to have a direct conversation.” I would tell you I probably literally have that same conversation with leaders all the time, especially around accountability.

What’s accountability? It means you all count the same and right now, you’re letting them off the hook to how the business counts. You’re being held accountable for X but you’re not extending that down. Ultimately, you’re creating this false sense of hope or you are making your people a prisoner of hope and hope’s not a strategy at the end of the day. I don’t want to say it’s extreme candor, but I think candor just by definition is truth. I don’t know why we shield it sometimes and that’s so interesting. If you’re there, where do you go from there? What happens? What’s the next part of the journey? Did you stay in Miami and how long are you there?

From Miami To New York

I was in Miami for a year and had the opportunity then to become Senior Manager of Ticket Sales for Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment. I lived in Philadelphia.

Back up to Philly. If you think about that geographically, you’ve gone South down to the East Coast and now you’re making your way North.

I was on a good trajectory of moving South. I’m not sure how much further South I could have gone.

You’d have been in the Keys. You were there. You were about the tip.

I had the opportunity to go work at the time what was affectionately referred to as HBSE South for Jake Reynolds and Brian Norman. With that opportunity, I managed a staff of twelve. There were nine season ticket sellers, there were three group sellers, and that team that I ever saw, several of them were former 76ers sales reps and Harris Blitzer became this massive portfolio for Josh Harris and David Blitzer, which is still acquiring properties to this day.

The two main properties that my teams had focused on at the time were the New Jersey Devils and the Philadelphia 76ers. The Sixers were in a great position though given the on-court success where we faced a unique challenge at that time of being based in a city that was two-plus hours away from Newark, New Jersey where the Devils played. That team had to reevaluate the core metrics as to how we measured success because of that unique organizational challenge.

When we as a leadership team were evaluating the behaviors that we valued most, it had become more about talk time and trying to get people face to face. Again, we had staff that was located up in Newark on-site where my team down South would tag team between them. We had great teamwork to where if people wanted to go to Prudential Center to see seats, we could have someone conduct those appointments. However, the team that I was overseeing crushed it. There were several folks that were having 2.5, 3-hour, to 4 hours of talk time per day which for those sales leaders in the industry, when you evaluate talk times, is extremely impressive.

There’s no doubt. You’re in a bigger organization. The way you’re selling changes a little bit. What’s that signature move you add inside from Harris Blitzer and the Sixers and this larger organization? How’s the leadership evolved from there and what’s that timeframe there?

One more thing that I wanted to call out that I appreciated because of those unique geographical challenges, not that I’m trying to make light of it, but it prepared me and probably that organization for some of the COVID challenges that all of us in the industry would experience later.

You understood the hybrid side of it, right?

Yeah. There were times when we would have to hop on virtual calls and that was a little bit before the times in which it became a norm. Definitely, I had to be dynamic as a leader there because it was a non-traditional sales leadership opportunity where the team wasn’t geographically located in the same place as the team was playing its game.

It is important to be dynamic as a leader.

I was there for a quick cup of coffee six months before another connection from the Atlanta Hawks. Michael DeMarino a Senior Manager of Ticket Sales at the time when I was an inside sales for the Hawks told me that the Brooklyn Nets were in search of Director of Ticket Sales. He connected me to John Baier and Dan Lefton who had later become my bosses at the Brooklyn Nets.

Let me hit reverse on something. Up until the Miami piece, you’re2, 3 years at a spot. Now, you start hitting down on the gas a little bit. Is there something in you saying, “I’m going to start taking control of my destiny and look for opportunities,” or were they getting dropped on your lap? Was it more of a push from you internally or a desire there? It’s because if you think about what you’re saying, you start hitting gas a little bit because at that point you didn’t hit the gas that often. You played it out and landed it. Now, you’re at 2 or 3 organizations and maybe two or three years and you hit the gas. What’s going on there?

A little bit of it was opportunities had fallen in my lap. Again, Miami is an attractive brand and a great opportunity. It enabled me to step into a leadership opportunity. When I evaluated the Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment opportunity, it’s an incredible brand and reputation in the industry where I thought that could expand my skillsets in terms of learning under great leaders and becoming a better trainer. Both of those opportunities were great for me and my career. I learned a lot in both places. New York is the largest market entering my late twenties where I knew eventually I’d want to get to a spot where I plant roots and settle. I utilized my twenties as the opportunity.

There was a little bit of a timer going off in your head too. You’re sitting there going, “I got some gold plans here.” You understood how to sell. You’ve mentioned several times that the training piece, the prep piece was getting integrated into your leadership style, but you’re also starting to map out where you want to be. You land in New York and you’re working with Dan Lefton and John Baier who are great people in the industry. Now, you get planted in Brooklyn.

Interestingly enough, there is no criticism, but back to what we started. None of the teams you were working for, if I can remember at the time, were killing it on the field. Part of the sale is the product on the field. It’s not like you have five rings on your hand either. You’ve had to sell through from Atlanta through. You had to sell the hospitality experience, the experience of, and not the result of the championship. Is it the same thing with Brooklyn at some level, right?

Correct. Atlanta was a front-runner city. Atlanta Spirit, which was the holding company at the time had just sold off the Atlanta Thrashers. The city had some support for the Hawks but didn’t fully embrace the team at the time despite them being a perennial playoff team but a fringe eight-seed playoff team. The Jaguars struggled on the field throughout my entire tenure.

The Miami Heat had become accustomed to this championship culture. Major superstars didn’t have that same sizzle. Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment and the New Jersey Devils had just drafted Nico. He sure at the time but again, an extremely crowded market and a fan base that had extremely high expectations given the historical success that the team had experienced.

Transitioning to Brooklyn is a completely different set of challenges too by way of the franchise was still relatively new. The New Jersey Nets moved to Brooklyn in 2012. It’s not an established fan base. Most of the folks in Brooklyn were raised to be New York Knicks fans and the great thing about Brooklyn at the time was there was a talented young core in place, Spencer Dinwiddie, D’Angelo Russell, Jarrett Allen, and Joe Harris.

Also, there was an amazing chemistry to where there was a lot of hope to sell behind that team and that was an attractive narrative. For me, being around all these challenger brands growing up throughout my sales career to where I thought leading the new business team was a great narrative in the marketplace despite the Brooklyn Nets historically not being that great on the court.

Detroit Piston Sales: There was a lot of hope to sell behind that team, and that was an attractive narrative for me.

It’s a different culture going from a Harris Blitzer. I remember being involved when they were selling the new stadium, but what was the role there?

It was so unique going in and again, I’m extremely thankful for that experience because at the time BSE Global, which again is the enterprise name still had the New York Islanders under management. However, the Islanders were also transitioning out to the Long Island Nets, the G League team, and Barclay Center Events. They are moving family shows and concerts. Boxing was big and Brooklyn and the Brooklyn Nets.

When I first arrived, during my first season there, I managed the season ticket sales team. I was the Director of Ticket Sales and I oversaw a new business. Throughout my time there, we went through restructures to where I eventually ended up overseeing inside sales in addition to the senior-level business development team.

How many people reported to you?

We had a team of twelve account executives when I first started out and then eventually ended up overseeing the manager of inside sales. She had anywhere between 10 to 15 direct reports at any given time.

Detroit Piston

The team had grown immensely at that point. You’re now starting to get a critical mass of folks. How long were you there? It’s because that’s the move that catapulted you into Detroit where it started, correct?

I arrived in Brooklyn at the tail end of 2018 and then ended up leaving in June of 2021.

We’re coming right out of COVID at that point. That’s when you’re landing there.

I went through COVID in New York City, which again was a very unique and frightening experience.

Especially for an Ohio guy, right?

Yes. I experienced some of the challenges. Also, the bubble because at that time the Nets had made the playoffs and it was unique to where they ended up playing in the bubble down in Florida. We get to where there’s light at the end of the tunnel coming out of COVID, which COVID was certainly still a thing back in 2021. New ownership comes in and it goes through restructuring again. Dan ends up coming to the Detroit Pistons as the senior Vice President of Business Strategy.

I was grateful from the standpoint of we had a phenomenal working relationship in Brooklyn and when he returned to Detroit because this is a second stint here, he knew geographically it made a lot of sense. We had a great relationship and working dynamic where he had called me to oversee ticket sales for the Pistons. I go from director of ticket sales at the Brooklyn Nets to my current role of Vice President of Ticket Sales and Service back in July of 2021.

Now, the size of your organization has doubled again. You are now at a bigger piece and you understand how to sell. You understand the dynamic of being in these different teams. You go into this role. What are the pillars that you know that you’re going to start establishing that may be in your other roles, you didn’t have a chance to do because now you have a chance to write the script even more? What’s that look like and what still stands now with that?

The first thing that I wanted to do was come in and truly evaluate. The good thing about my career path is starting new. I have been able to see different things and understand what may work and what may not work based on the amount of times I’ve made a transition throughout my career to where I wanted to come in, get to know everyone, and understand the product.

That’s the seventh move at that point. That was about seven. Atlanta, Jacksonville, Miami, Paris, and Harris Blitzer.

Knowing that seeing former leaders come in and fail, a lot of times I had seen people come in and say, “You’re doing this wrong. You’re doing that wrong. This is how you should be doing it. I understood the importance of understanding people, knowing what makes them tick, and getting to know them on a personal level. Also, building up that credibility to where once we understand one another and you know that ultimately I’m here to help that’s when I could start challenging people. I came in, evaluated, and got to know everyone. I literally had one-on-ones with every single person on the ticket sales staff. There were a few things that were top of mind. Evaluate the product offering.

Detroit Piston Sales: Once we understand one another, that’s when we could start challenging people.

Again, in July it’s hard to make significant transitions knowing that you’re already on sale for the following year because some of the ships had already sailed on that. Again, being able to understand what worked and didn’t work was important from my perspective. I wanted to instill a greater deal of accountability.

Again, I think that there’s this negative connotation with accountability. For me, whenever I’ve been surrounded by leaders who say accountability, or even now when people mention accountability, I get excited about it. I’m happy to be accountable because I know if Dan holds me accountable it’s because he’s pushing me to transcend even my expectations and he’s pushing me to be better.

Also, you always know where you stand. I think when you’re talking about evaluation, your whole career, you’ve been evaluated. You know what your talent expectations are and you can apply a process to it. The other thing, which is a big core of your offense that I feel is we do business with a lot of folks. I would say from a technique and tactic standpoint, you and I and my team spend a lot of time together talking about those tactics because you’re pretty specific with that. Does that tie a lot to how because you know where each person is?

I think that’s important. Again, leading a modern sales staff too, it’s explaining the why. Why is this a value? How is this going to impact your business? Ultimately, this is important too. Giving them the vision to understand why that lines up with our overall goals and mission. What that boils down to is having a purpose. When I evaluate purpose and feeling fulfillment in your career, I think a lot of it goes back to, “Is my leadership team pouring into me,” which brings me to my final point and something that we try to heavily emphasize here in Detroit. It’s training and development, which is why I think our relationship is so seamless.

Leading Ticket Sales And Service

For me, I think training and development is incredibly important. Throughout my first two seasons here, there were times where weekly, I as the Vice President of Ticket Sales and Service would cover training topics for the entire sales floor just trying to make sure that we were sharpening the sword. Now, it’s evolved into the leadership team that reports to me. They’ve adopted a great cadence of training and development for their individual teams just knowing that they experience different challenges at given points throughout the year.

Also, we’ve tried to make sure at a leadership team level, we are consistent in our training and development too. I coach our coaches. We do weekly training as a leadership team where we talk about challenges that we may face as a manager or how to make sure that we’re encouraging the team to be motivated and trying to anticipate other leadership challenges that we may face as a management team.

I think about what you’re saying and I wish more leaders would get this. How can you expect a pathway to get the results? I think a lot of times leaders think salespeople just go out there and sling it. No, it’s a process. There’s a sequence to it. If the people, are number one, they need to understand what it is, how it works, why it’s important, and get agreement with them. You got to sell the why to get them to buy.

Also, they need a pathway to get there because there are too many salespeople who are left up to their own devices. I think I’ve told you this a hundred times. It’s not a buffet where you go get and eat the bread pudding first. The buffet is a sequence. You can’t let the predictable process yield a predictable result. If you have enough different types of selling in that business, then have some people who are hybrid sellers.

You got people that are consumer sales, B2B sales, and then they got to pull through. Anything less than having them prepared tortures them. It’s hard. It makes it more difficult and they can’t achieve their goals. You can’t call them accountable. Brad, I respect you. You and I debate about a lot of stuff. Whether we agree on everything, we certainly get alignment, which is definitely what you do with your team.

As we bring this down for a landing, there are a couple of questions I asked everybody. If I summarize what I heard you say about sales and management, you want your people to be able to make good decisions. You want them to understand the why. You certainly are an opportunist. It means that you’re going to look and weigh out opportunities and make decisions on it and then you’re going to have your people prepared. You start with that. You end it with that

What It Means To Be Successful

Also, you’re a father. We talk about this all the time. I feel like I’ve been on that journey with you. I was watching you grow a little bit. You’ve certainly been on the journey as my kid. I have to kick my kids out of the house. We’re tail ends. Let’s say you had a niece or nephew that were 6, 7, or 8 years old and they said, “Uncle Brad, what does it mean to be successful?” What do you say?

I get this question a lot from college students.

Remember, they are 6, 7, or 8-year-old. You have to answer them in their terms and not as a college student.

Success to me is being happiest with your choices and not necessarily doing things based upon what other people anticipate being a successful path. Hopefully, I am a great example of that because I’ve taken such a non-traditional path. I’ve seen a lot of peers, and again, this isn’t a knock where they’ve had the opportunity they could grow in place and they might have made the sacrifice in terms of staying put for a couple more years than what they would’ve otherwise hoped but you’re exactly right. I’m an opportunist.

Success is being happiest with your choices.

In a very good way. There is no doubt. You got to move. If it knocks, you have to answer.

Also, because of some of these connections, I’m extremely happy with my network and where I’ve ultimately landed to where I don’t have any regrets looking back on it which again, boils down to what success looks like.

Be happy with your choice.

Be happy with your choices to where you don’t regret it because again, I don’t see fear making challenging decisions. That’s commonplace with my role, but at the time, they felt like the most important decisions in my life which again, at that time they were.

It then dictates that happiness. This is the next question. You can answer this one or two ways. It’s your choice. Two more questions. This is A or B. You have to tell the audience. It’s either your sales song. You go back or what’s that song you want them playing at your funeral? I don’t give everybody that choice so you go one way or the other. I’m interested in which one you choose. It’s at the wake, that song or it’s the sales song that you go in that’s thumping in your head. Go.

I’m going to take path A which is my sales song. Back at the Jaguars, we did have a program where we would play sales songs. My team was asking me a few weeks ago what my sales song was back in the day and it would still ring true. If you’ve ever heard I Don’t Get Tired by Kevin Gates, I love that and I think it’s a great sales song.

You stick with that. The last question. Minus my books because I know you’ve read them. What book would you gift or do you gift the most?

There are three that come to mind.

You can only give one.

I’ll only gift one because your audience tends to be more on the leadership track. My recommendation is Radical Candor by Kim Scott. I think Kim Scott comes from the world of tech. I want to say her background is Google and Apple but again, talking about some of the struggles that I had early on as an entry-level manager, she is the polar opposite. She is extremely advanced.

Radical Candor encourages you not to be a jerk about how you deliver the feedback, but to make sure that you’re driving that feedback home where you feel like your team needs to improve. That way they can improve because so many entry-level managers are afraid to give that feedback because they fear hurting people’s opinions. The worst thing you can do as a manager is withhold that feedback because they’re never going to improve unless you tell them otherwise.

Radical Candor, the whole concept, I know what book you’re talking about. I got to start reading it and to finish it requires the highest level of EQ. It requires the highest level of human relations skills. It requires the highest level of understanding of crucial conversations. Well said, my brother. I appreciate it. I’m excited about getting this out. Brad, thanks for the investment of time.

Thank you, Lance.

Important Links

Brad Fain Radical Candor

About Brad Fain

Brad Fain

Brad Fain is the Vice President of Ticket Sales & Service overseeing all of ticketing for the Detroit Pistons. Since joining the Pistons in July of 2021, Fain’s impact has been dramatic as he has overseen company record ticket sales and introduced innovative new products.

Prior to the Pistons, Fain spent three seasons with the Brooklyn Nets, overseeing the day-to-day ticket sales for the team during an era that saw the highest attended and highest grossing games in franchise history. That Brooklyn Nets ticket sales team was #1 in gate receipts for the 2020-21 NBA season and #2 in new seats and revenue for the 2019-2020 NBA season. Fain’s career has also included positions with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Atlanta Hawks, Miami Heat, and Harris Sports Blitzer & Entertainment.

During his time with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Brad was the top group sales representative in the National Football League.

Additionally, Fain is the co-founder of the Black Affinity Council for Ohio University’s Sports Administration department and received the 2022 Undergraduate Sport Management Distinguished Alumnus Award. In 2019, Fain was named to the inaugural Sports Business Journal “New Voices Under 30”, and in 2021, to the 2022 Class of Forbes “30 under 30”, both lists highlighting 30 executives who have seen great accomplishments before turning 30. In 2022, he was also named to the Board of Directors for the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame.

Originally from Springfield, Ohio, Brad earned his degree in Sports Management from Ohio University. He also played football as an offensive lineman for the Bobcats. Currently, he resides in Royal Oak, Michigan with his wife, Julie, son, Ezrah, and dogs, Yama and Woody.