Archive for March, 2009

Think like an Elite Athlete

Friday, March 6th, 2009

Having worked alongside elite athletes you soon realise they are incredibly disciplined, focused, and competitive and have a laser vision of what they want to achieve. You might not be an elite athlete, but if you want to achieve something then you need to think like an athlete.

The first step is to know what you want to achieve. A good question to ask yourself is what would you do in life if you couldn’t fail? Dream big, because the more desire you have for something, the more you’re willing to fight for it.

Next step is to believe you can achieve it, imagine you have it, Olympians won’t tell you but they believe they are gold medallists long before they get to stand on the medal dais.

Take one step at a time. Do this by chunking your dream into achievable goals with dates to achieve them by.

Brainstorm a list of ACTION items you can do to achieve each goal, pick the best ones and here is the secret……take action. It’s amazing the power one little step will give you, the energy and confidence you get from taking any sort of action strengthens your belief to achieve it.

Stand on the shoulders of giants, that’s people who have achieved what you want, successful people love to give advice, simply ask.

Review your progress but don’t dwell on the strategy, as your desire, belief and willingness to take action will get you there. P.S. 90% of people won’t do this, and that’s why the top 10% get all the rewards.

Twitter

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

twitter-birdMore and more celebrities are starting to take advantage of the social networking site Twitter. For those who don’t understand the platform watch this video or read this text. Now why should an athlete be on Twitter?

Firstly, let’s look at one of the basic reasons why brands sponsor athlete’s. Athlete’s help put a face and personality to a product or service, and that human element helps the brand CONNECT with their target market. Brands try to achieve this connection by way of athlete appearances, consumer promotions and above the line advertising etc. These are all great, but are often expensive and sometimes a scatter gun approach to actually REACHING key customers.

So how does Twitter reach key customers? To give you a rough example of the power of Twitter, let’s say you’re selling a product and want to make 2,000 sales. Using your ambassador you decide to put an ad in the sports section of the paper (hoping it hits some of your target market), it costs you $30,000. A small percentage of your target market reads the paper, an even smaller percentage see your ad, and a smaller percentage actually take action. You make the 2,000 sales but it cost you $30,000. Now, just imagine your ambassador has 10,000 followers on Twitter, but these aren’t any ordinary people, they are fans who are INTERESTED and PASSIONATE about your ambassador. The ambassador has built incredible trust with his/her followers through daily tweets about their lives. Now instead of spending $30,000 on a newspaper ad, you ask your ambassador to tweet about your product with a direct link to a page that allows consumers to purchase that product. How many of these passionate followers do you think will click on the link? A bloody big percentage and all of a sudden they are at the check out counter. You easily get 2,000 sales (probably more) and it cost you nothing.

Twitter isn’t for everyone, but for those athletes that want to better connect with their fans and add value to their sponsors then I don’t see a better platform.

Some quick rules. Please don’t use a PR person to Twitter on behalf of your athlete, fans see right through this which defeats the power of Twitter. What you put in is what you get out. And don’t let your athlete abuse the service by over promoting their sponsors, they need to interact first, then promote, then interact some more.

Show Initiative

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

RecessionThe end of the financial year is still some months away but companies are already bracing themselves for tough announcements to shareholders. As the full impact of the economic downturn is realised, companies are beginning to make big decisions regarding their 2009/10 strategy for marketing, advertising and sponsorship spend. The decision to renew a sponsorship will most likely be made over the coming months even if that contract doesn’t expire until the end of the year. So too will decisions regarding new sponsorships. So whether you’re chasing sponsorship or hoping to renew existing deals, you need to get on the front foot now. Sponsorship guru Kim Skildum-Reid has a great white paper on strategies for both sponsorship seekers and sponsors in a scary economy.