The GM’s Handbook "EXTRA INNINGS" Additional 3 Chapters, Quizzes, Syllabuses and Group Discussion Topics. Edited By Troy Kirby Chris LaReau Kirby Publishing, LLC Lacey, WA 98503 The GM's Handbook: Extra Innings ISBN 978-1-947863-02-6 (E-Book Form) Syllabuses, Quizzes and Group Topics are copyright of Troy Kirby. Additional Content Chapters not found in the print version of The GM's Handbook are works of the individual authors, listed in each chapter. They are used with permission of each author. Printed and bound in the United States of America. First printing July 2018. Published by Kirby Publishing, LLC Lacey, WA 98503 Visit www.gmshandbook.com for more information. [ ii ] Make Friendly Your Baseball Brand Tim Volk General Manager Tennessee Smokies Southern League, Double-A Baseball About The Author Tim Volk is the General Manager of the Tennessee Smokies of the Southern League, a Double-A team. Editor’s Note: This chapter is provided by usage consent of its author, who retains copyright of this work, and serves as additional content not found in The GM’s Handbook. hile I honestly do not remember what my first big sale in baseball was, I don’t really think it matters. It’s about selling the experience to the fan thatW matters. It’s about making sure that every day feels like a big sale opportunity. When you focus too much on how you sold, compared to the experience that you delivered on, you rob yourself of putting yourself in your customer’s shoes. They bought it because of what it gave them, not what you said the product could do for them. There is a mentality that everyone working in minor league baseball should have: I don’t believe that baseball is what we are selling to the majority of fans. No one in minor league baseball should be selling baseball solely to their customers. If we were only selling the sport of baseball, we wouldn’t have a chance of being successful. It sounds terrible to admit, but it is true. What we sell in minor league baseball is something different. It’s quality family entertainment surrounding a baseball game. I am sure that there will be those reading this who disagree with me. Some folks do not get that they are not selling baseball when they come to work for a minor league baseball team. If our fans remember the score a week later as part of their experience, we probably failed them. That is not the experience that they should be carrying with them. A connector that allows everyone inside the ballpark to forget their troubles for a few hours and enjoy themselves without the seriousness of the world that awaits them in between the times that they are in our facility. I’m a huge of advocate of striving to create fun and excitement with everything that happens within the ballpark. We cannot control what happens in terms of wins and losses, but we can create wins throughout the entire fan experience. Some of it becomes great theater, such as our specialty jerseys at the Tennessee Smokies which have gotten national and international attention. These stunts may only exist a couple of nights out of the 70 total baseball games that we host at our ballpark, but it doesn’t matter. It’s about the impact and memories that it fosters that makes the overall difference. [ 2 ] MAKE FRIENDLY YOUR BASEBALL BRAND Our largest publicity stunt was a national sensation, Star War’s Han Solo frozen in carbonite on a specialty jersey that our team wore. Think of the impact to the overall brand that it had. Not for baseball fans alone. For anyone familiar with the Star Wars films, books and comics. People who may have had nothing do with the sport of baseball paid their attention and bought tickets to experience that event. It was well worth the effort that it took behind the scenes to create that specialty jersey. Whenever you’re working with a major motion picture or theme such as Star Wars, there’s a decent amount of paperwork that you can expect to fill out in conjunction with the use of trademarked imagery. Then you have to go through an approval process with the companies owning that trademark. The Walt Disney Company, which owns Lucas Film, likes to approve everything put out related to the Star Wars franchise and provide trademark authorization, even if it’s for charity. By no means does this suggest that paperwork kills the creative process, it simply provides evidence of how much preparation you have to have in order to pull something like this off. A major portion of the creative process happens with your designer as well. Our graphics artist is part of our front office, and we expect him to go wild with potential designs. This means a couple of drafts of each specialty jersey image per night, then the office is polled on their favorites, and we select the best one. Then comes the paperwork, the approvals, and then delivery to the fans. Everything is about selling fun, creating enough of an experience that everyone attending doesn’t care if the team won or lost, because they earned a ticket to great theater. It makes it worth the effort of trying to pull off, but your organization has to have that mentality in place. They aren’t coming for a baseball game, they’re coming for quality family entertainment. And something completely different found nowhere else. Specialty Jerseys Are Only A Component It’s not about the specialty jersey. It’s about the unique situation that you are creating. The specialty jersey is a lever to get people’s attention toward your brand. If you aren’t doing specialty jerseys, but doing mascot races, it’s the same thing. It’s about drawing enough attention toward your ballpark that it brings in money for charities that you partner with. And put butts in seats. Yes, that has to be part of it. Whatever you do with your creation of theater, it has to generate ticket sales. Otherwise, it isn’t developing anything worthy of your attention. Specialty jerseys are about capturing the quick attention of the consumer. If it becomes complicated, if it takes forever to disseminate, then it doesn’t work. When [ 3 ] THE GM’S HANDBOOK you create a specialty jersey night based on a movie, it is important that you focus on one famous scene from that film. Or a character. Don’t try to do too much. Simplification is often the greatest form of sophistication. And when you simplify, more people get it, and buy tickets as a result. If you are trying to do something for a university, as we do for the University of Tennessee, we look at their current sports jerseys and team colors for inspiration. All of this has to go back to supporting the overall mission of getting the consumer to want to purchase the jersey after they are worn. This money goes back to charity. And if you do not have people wanting to purchase the specialty jersey, because you decided to go way too outside the box with your design, then you failed to simplify the message. And you then aren’t living up to the mission of what you were originally trying to do. One example of continuing to live up to the expectations of the fans buying the jersey is when we do UT Night, where all of the specialty jerseys are auctioned off with the proceeds going to the Pat Summit Foundation. We don’t mess with the brand. We do something that everyone can understand. That a UT alumnus or fan would see and want to buy. And we do it for the right reasons. The night is so popular that we also do a specialty t-shirt for UT Night, where a portion of the proceeds to back to the foundation as well. Don’t expect massive per caps to happen across the board on your regular merchandise on those nights, but it’s about the theater, and the fact you offered a specialty product that helped create that family entertainment experience. Being A MiLB GM The general manager position has always been one of the roles that I strived to earn when I was first entering minor league baseball. Now, being a general manager, I feel that I have to continue to earn the position every day, in order to keep it. I think it’s a mentality that keeps me focused on self-improvement daily. Long ago, I saw what the difference was between the title and the actual role of general manager. My impression was that the position had everything to do with the business of baseball. Focusing on sales, human resources, and understanding how fans think. I strongly feel that a general manager is only as good as the staff around them. Either you put people in the right positions as staff members or you do not. And if you do not, you will not be successful either as a general manager or as an organization. The role is about knowing what people are good at, what they won’t [ 4 ] MAKE FRIENDLY YOUR BASEBALL BRAND succeed at, and preventing failure. If a general manager cannot get the best effort out of their staff, it reflects as poorly on the general manager as it does the staff. Part of the staffing effort is also discovering cohesion, seeing which staff can work together and who cannot.