Why are your maps so bad?

Tournaments

There are really only two things that send soccer parents into a rage at soccer tournaments: referees and really bad maps. The first we can’t do anything about and no matter how good the referee is, the other side will always think he/she made the wrong call. It is wasted energy to disagree. But parents do it anyway.

The other thing that send parents into a rage are the poor quality of the maps most tournaments give out or post on their Web site. My daughter had a soccer tournament in Ohio this past weekend and the map said to go south on I-270, when the fields really were north. Since I was in the middle of Kansas on my way to Colorado Springs for a conference, there was little I could do when she called in a panic, wondering where the heck she was. It was not a pretty conversation. Through the magic of Rand McNally and iPhone, we got her turned around and on the right road eventually.

But, it didn’t need to go this far.

You know where you are. Your local teams know where you are. The rest to the world does not care where you are until they need to play at your fields. And, if you maps are poorly drawn, poorly documented and you clearly had not done any quality checking, you will already be enraging most of your guests far in advance of the referee blowing the whistle on kick off. Why would you want most of your guest teams in that state of mind, especially in the morning?

Parents, coaches and team reps do not trust you when it comes to maps. They want to be able to map the fields themselves, see a soccer complex on Google Earth and plot the directions from their front door. Fromt he time the schedules are published to the day before the games, the number one question we see through the Web sites is: what is the EXACT address of the soccer field. I want to use Google Maps/Microsoft/MapQuest/etc to map the directions so I can give them out to my parents. They believe that no matter what you publish, it will be wrong.

Our Advice:
Spend time on your maps. Make sure you actually drive the route leading up to your fields from major highways. Read your own directions as you drive. Did you get lost following them? If statistics are right, you probably did. You forgot to mention that slight curve or that semi-fork in the road where you had to bear left, or that the street name changed for 100 yards through Shelbyville, etc.

Give specific GPS coordinates that are your park entrance, not “somewhere in the general area.” Use Google Earth or a variety of sites to find the coordinates. Take a look at your maps. Can you clearly see a soccer complex/fields? They are difficult to hide from a satellite view.

Include a “You know you have gone too far when…” statement if the directions could potentially lead to over-shooting a landmark and dump the driver into an unrecognizable landscape. Write the directions using BOTH “right turn” and “go east.” Don’t say things like “The southeast corner of the intersection…” For many people, SE/SW/NE/NW etc all look alike. That is over-geeking your directions. Keep it very simple and use plain language.

But, above all, make sure your right, left, north, south, east and west are accurate.

Sending your teams to the web site

Tournaments

This email came over to a tournament from a frazzled team rep.

I sent an email last week asking when the schedule would be posted and it was said that it would be no later than March 19.  I still can’t find the schedule — is it posted?  I need to get this information to my team by Wednesday as everyone is leaving for Spring Break and needs this information.  Could you please let me know when it will be posted?

I put the part in italics because that will be my point from here.

It is now 2009. Every kid under 20 alive today was born with the Internet fully functioning and Web sites available anytime, anywhere. Are team reps still printing out copies of the schedule and maps for every kid to see? Really?

I played the part of a coach/team rep for the last time in 2004 for a U19 boys team. My parting words before they went on their Spring Break was “Go to www….. and look up your schedule. Be on time for the games.”

And everyone was there, on time, in the right place, dressed to play. That was five years ago.

Our advice: Schedules are available in real time, via the Web site. That is just where things have evolved. Be sure to let the team rep know that the only and official schedule is on your Web site and that s/he should tell the parents what that Web address is.

Teams reps need to free up some of their time by NOT making copies of game schedules that cold change at the last minute. Players and their parents need to be encouraged to take responsibility for getting to the right game at the right time and place. Your Web site has all the information, in real time.

The morning after

Tournaments

You just finished a very long several months planning your soccer tournament, jostling schedules and missing family dinners, leading up to a very frantic and hectic weekend of a soccer tournament. You are tired, your arches have fallen and you are swearing that you will NOT go through this again next year.

Then, you open your email and this is there from a team:

Just wanted to drop you a line to tell you we really enjoyed your tournament over the weekend. The facilities were very nice and the fields were amazing! The competition was fantastic as well – really got us ready for the upcoming spring season! We will definately look to come back next year.*

And it makes it all worthwhile. And, you’re now already planning next year.

*Real email that was sent by a team to a tournament on March 23, 2009 at 7:37 am GMT-6. You know who you are and thank you.

Multiple team discounts; do it or not?

Tournaments, , ,

Every coach has always looked to save money on tournament fees, but with the economy where it is, there seems to be more pressure to go after the mulit-team discounts. The logic coaches use is that it is more cost-effective for you to take in multiple teams as your marketing costs are lower, your management time is less, etc. But that is a myth.

Here is why it is a bad investment for soccer tournaments.

Lower marketing costs
You have a quality soccer tournament event and the club knows it. That is primarily why they want to bring all their teams to your event, especially at the beginning and end of a season. Having all the teams together in one place bonds the players, the parents and makes for a stronger club. You have already made that investment and lowering your fees will not allow you to recoup that investment. Isn’t that why you invested marketing dollars, to attract multiple teams from the same club?

Lower management costs
The myth here is that it will take less effort to manage multiple teams from the same club because your management costs are lower. But, the opposite is actually true. A coach may have coaching responsibility for multiple teams, making scheduling more difficult as you work around coaching conflicts. Parents may have players on different teams who may also have a expectation that since their club is bringing you more business, they should be able to get preferential scheduling treatment as well. They may not ask for it, but they sure as heck will tell everyone on the touchline how they have to “choose” between kids because the tournament doesn’t care.

In addition, you still have the same number of team reps to deal with and most likely, the payments will come in slower because the teams have perceived “leverage.”

A team drops out
If one team drops out and you have already given the discount based on the number of teams they sent, but are no longer sending, do you then go back and ask for the full amount for each team? Not likely.

Hotel rooms
If the club is sending the teams to your soccer tournament as a bonding experience, most likely they will want hotel rooms close together. If you are not prepared to accommodate that or your hotel market can’t sustain that, you will be only offering the discounted teams an opportunity to gripe and complain all weekend long.

More discounts
The multiple team discount does not end with the team fees. It moves into comp rooms for coaches, comp apparel for coaches, special accommodations on the field and anything else the coach can think to ask for. After all, you gave in on the application fee discount.

Our advice: Discounts are almost always a bad idea. It leads to “privilege thinking,” additional management costs and little brand loyalty. It is always better to sink the investment money that you would have given away in discounts into building a better soccer tournament experience that teams and clubs would pay you EXTRA to participate in. (Of course, you would not accept bribes to consider an application, but it would be a nice touch.)

Servicing guest teams at a soccer tournament isn’t the same as packing multiple items shipped to the same address. The management cost does not decrease with each team; it increases. And, having a “bundle” of teams that are comprised of human beings all with separate expectations of the experience complicates that even more.

The coach may ask for a discount, but what s/he really wants is value, which includes respect. Focus on building value for your soccer tournament event and you will be able to charge more than what you ever thought you could. Recession or not.

Mary C, this one’s for you

Tournaments

This started out to be an inside joke with one of our hotel sales managers, but then got me thinking about the power of a brand, a place and a customer experience. Watch the video first.

I know the song is a parody, but I also know people who have this level of respect and need for Chick-fil-A, (Rufus being one of them!)

Our advice: Make your soccer tournament a must-attend event each year by being a Chick-fil-A. And also notice that they are not open on Sundays, probably never will be in spite of the number of critics who say you can’t be in the fast food business without being everything to everyone all the time. Yet, their drive-through lines are always busy, customers crave their food and don’t seem to mind them being closed on Sundays.

And remember, if you put on an awesome tournament, you CAN play by YOUR rules and not the rules that guest coaches want to make you do. In the end, they are coming to your event because of who you are, not because of what they want you to do for them at the moment.

Sometimes, the customer does not get what they want.