I recently installed crown molding in my house. For anyone who has ever done that, it is life’s ultimate lesson in humility. The angles and math needed to accomplish this seemingly simple task is staggering. After sawing through about 10 feet of expensive molding, I decided to seek out some help.

So, I went down to Lowes and bought a book. This book had a web site. It is clean, simple and did only one thing well — sold products and information to install molding and trim. It didn’t assume I wanted to receive CrownMolding Monthly, the e-newsletter on everything new and exciting on crown molding, take a tour of their factory, etc. The goal was to get me to solve my problem. It did that very well.

When I need to install crown molding again in the future, I know the web site will be there and I trust that I will be able to get me through any angle problems, regardless of how complex. This is the perfect relationship that a destination web site should have with its readers.

How does this all relate to soccer tournaments? Your tournament is a destination. Teams come to participate in your event and need to know only a few things: Who, what, where, when and how much. Too often, we come across tournament sites that try to engage visitors with the sponsoring organization, community information to a staggering degree, the total history of the tournament, trivia, polls and surveys, chat boards, and on and on and on. Ultimately, teams want a quality experience at a level which they can compete and get better in an atmosphere of mutual respect and fun. Anything that gets in the way of that on your web site is visual junk.

Our Advice: Stick to the basics. Seek out and destroy any web page on your site that does not contribute to streamlining the application, communication and participation process. Go to your web site link that you publish. Count the number of clicks it takes to get to your application. Is is more than one? If so, why? Can your guest teams find the tournament from the page you publish? Too many tournament events hide their tournament on a club page, forcing a potential guest team to hunt for the front door to the tournament. Each tournament should have its own domain identity. After all, teams are coming to participate in your TOURNAMENT, not watch a couple of your club games. Simple is best; less is more.

I was invited this week to the Tuesday Night Pickers by a local friend. The Pickers are a group of everyday people from all walks of life who love to play music. This group started 13 years ago in a small barn in Southern Ohio that transforms into a music studio every Tuesday night.

They continue to play each week in memory of a former host who passed unexpectedly! In his memory, they toast his love of music, enthusiasm for life and his time in the military. Then the true fun begins. Each member of the group takes turns with the microphone and begins the jam session. There are fiddle, bongo, guitar, harmonica, bass and madolin players. Not to mention the footstompers and the hand clappers. A grand total of 786 guests have signed the logbook. I was honored to be the 786th person. This book represents the sense of friendship that this weekly tradition has developed.

Advice: What traditions have you established with your soccer tournament? Do you have teams,clubs or volunteers who mark their calendars every Tuesday Night for your event? Can you create a guestbook to see who really is enjoying your event? This weekly tradition has created so much positive energy for some many! Just think how wonderful it would be to create the same buzz regarding a tradition your event started!

Bill Hodson with 90:00 Magazine shares some tips for tournaments on working with the soccer media. The rant line for 90:00 Soccer Radio is 714-693-5090, ext 310 but first listen to the podcast to see how to use it well.

Listen to the podcast and then offer some feedback. Each feedback posting is eligible to win an iPod at the NSCAA and USYouth.

I had the rare opportunity yesterday to speak with advertising sales guys with two soccer magazines. They each wanted me to buy advertising and I really want to buy advertising, so you would think this would be a win-win for us both.

The one rep told me about his CPM, per page rate, seven times impression… all the things you would expect. But then when I started talking about the soccer tournament industry, how TourneyCentral saw an opportunity to shape and guide this industry and how we saw an opportunity for a soccer magazine to help with that vision… nothing, no passion, no enthusiasm… he just wanted to sell me an ad.

Later on, I also spoke with another rep. He started off the same way.. CPM, per page, etc, etc. But when I started talking about our vision of changing the tournament world and how there was an opportunity for a soccer magazine, he threw his script out and started getting excited about how he could share in being a part of it. His magazine is young, only has a US circulation of 20% of the biggest — not ideal — but he will probably get my business… and I will help him with his. Together, we will grow and become the authority for the soccer tournament industry.

Our advice: Change the world with a passion! Don’t just have a tournament; think about how what you do changes the world for the better for each one of your participants, your sponsors, your community. Think about how your tournament will contribute to the soccer tournament industry.

SEEK OUT people who also want to change the world (in or out of soccer!) and find a way to include them in your event. The relationship is usually a lot of hard work to maintain, but well worth the effort, is a heck of a lot more fun and will allow you to grow exponentially. QUIT working with people who drag you down or don’t have your passion. Approach each sponsor, each team, each player, each coach, each parent, each stakeholder of your event with the passion that it takes to change the world. Most of the time, the passion won’t be returned with the same intensity, but when it is, change happens!

As I was reading my email today, I came across probably the dumbest reply to a tournament invitation ever. It read, and I quote As a rule, we do not attend tournaments unless we set up a relationship with the club whereby that club send us equal numbers of teams to our tournament. You can check out our tournament info on our website at ….

Wow! I was floored! The ONLY way this tournament can attract teams to their event is by getting other clubs to agree to go to theirs? Why not just hand each other a check for the entry fee and be done with it. You go first.

Our Advice: Focus on making your tournament a MUST ATTEND event for your target market by being the best in your category. You won’t have to worry about attracting enough teams to compete in your tournament, but you might have to worry about how to turn some away. Read our marketing white paper.