SPORTS VISION TRAINING FOR THE PROFESSIONAL TEAM PART 4

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What we're going to suggest for Professional, College and even Olympic teams is a little different than what the current landscape of Sports Vision Training allows. In order to understand where we think the market will head, you really need to understand what the market is currently doing and look at the history of training as a whole. The current condition of the market has professional and elite organizations scraping together different programs to help their players succeed visually. Most programs work (to a certain extent), but there is a better way to do it. Often times they'll refer their players to an Optometrists who just wants the story of checking a Professional's eyes, maybe take a picture, get an autograph, etc.

 I remember talking with a doc in the industry who was the team eye doc for a team in the NHL. I asked him about how he got to become the referring Optometrist for the team and he relayed this story: He met a player out of a referral from a friend and he came in asking why he was doing so poorly on the ice. During the exam the doctor realized that he needed contacts and the player was blown away! He'd been checked by another O.D. who the team referred him to and he said his vision was fine. Turns out the other doctor was doing it for free and just wanted to meet some professional athletes. The exam wasn't thorough, but just your typical run-of-the-mill exam; "can you see this? Yes.  You're seeing fine, have a nice day." The player was so appreciative that he told 2 other teammates who were also struggling and happened to need the same thing! Eventually the doctor was able to speak with the guy in charge at the organization and said "Look, I don't know who your sending them to, but so far the guy's 0-3 and keeps missing on these assets of yours." He eventually was designated as the teams eye doctor and has opened doors for other organizations to go to him.

In order to do Sports Vision right, the team or organization needs to hire someone full time to work with these athletes. We look at this industry as what people's perceptions were of lifting weights years ago. Everyone was told that lifting weights would throw off your mechanics and mess with your swing, throwing motion, etc. It wasn't until these athletes were succeeding at the highest level while lifting weights before teams succumbed to hiring strength and conditioning coaches. Look at the landscape now! Every team, college and organization has strength and conditioning coaches. If the proper program for lifting weights merits a whole unit, then why not something as important as your asset's vision? These athletes are your organizations assets and they need the best to succeed.

An eye doctor who is worth his salt is not going to leave his current practice for less than what his practice is worth. Avoiding any debate on the economics of Optometry, you don't want to hire someone who's been working at Wal-Mart either, checking eyes for the last couple of years for the retail giant is where O.D.s go to die. You want an innovative person who understands the game that you are playing. Someone that can deal with the psyche of an athlete, read through and apply sabermetrics to their training. Someone who isn't as expensive as a doctor is going to be, but more expensive than some personal trainer fresh out of college. I don't personally know of any team or organization that has this yet, but rest assured they're coming. It will only take 1 team to hire someone and word to get out before they start budgeting for this in their payroll. Consultants are great, but my experience has been that consultants benefit more than the organization does.

SPORTS VISION DONE RIGHT PART 3 (TRAINING FACILITY)

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There are 2 schools of thought in dealing with athletic training facilities when it comes to Sports Vision training; Individual training or blanket training. When dealing with an athletic training facility, you have to keep in mind that they make their money on training teams and individuals. Since the body is different than the brain, it needs constant training so these facilities have a built in clientele and market segment that keep coming back (so long as they are playing sports). Some go with the gym mentality of lets charge a small amount for a large organization but only expect 5% to actually take advantage of the training offered.

In what we call the "blanket training" method, a facility puts everyone in a group and does 1 maybe 2 sports vision drills. They do this to look like they are innovative, but in reality they are wasting the good majority of the athletes' time. That's not to say it doesn't work, because it does, but if you facility is doing this they are just trying to keep up with the competition without investing serious time into doing it right. In reality they're putting very little effort into actual sports vision training. It's the cheap way of doing vision training.

The other way these facilities implement Sports Vision training is through and individualized program. In a perfect world, the facility would hire someone just to train their athletes in Sports Vision, but most of these facilities are operating on a shoe string budget to begin with so what our facilities do is get their athletes to do a Sports Vision Assessment. When the athlete has an assessment they are in charge of keeping a folder with the assessment and bringing it to the facility. The company then separates 10-15 minutes at the beginning or end of the class (preferably the beginning) to dedicate specifically to Vision Training. With the assessment the facility knows what the athletes' strengths and weaknesses are. Drills are then given to each athlete to work on during their allotted time. This helps the athlete progress visually, but takes a little longer in terms of maxing out physiologically (6-9 months on average). Like I stated earlier, ideally the facility has someone that can train on an individual basis, but if not this second method of training is the next best thing.

SPORTS VISION TRAINING DONE RIGHT PART 2 (DOCTOR)

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This is my background so I'm going to give you a lot of information regarding Sports Vision Training for a doctors office. This is where the general public comes and instantly trusts the training they receive simply because of the initials after the name. I've met and seen plenty of docs that don't have the slightest clue about what to do with this type of business. This type of business isn't the thing that you can just add to the services you offer and call it a day. To do Sports Vision the right way, you really have to have someone dedicated to training, managing, etc. It's not an easy thing to get going and when you finally have enough clientele you still have to pay out trainers, staff, contractors, etc. and hope there's something left at the end for you to take home. A typical session with a trainer is anywhere from $75-125 for an hour long session. Now if the doctor is hands on with the athlete and the one actually doing the training, you can expect to pay over the $125 price range I'm giving.

 Typically a doctor gives a Sports Vision eye exam and then does an assessment on top of the exam. Now if you call and ask for a Sports Vision eye exam and the person on the other line has no idea what you are talking about, just hang up and find someone that does. You'll be able to avoid a lot of headache and disappointment if you filter out who knows what a Sports Vision exam is based on that one question. After the exam, you should do an assessment on your visual performance. The assessment doesn't have to be the same day, but you should make sure you get the exam and the assessment before you really start training. There are some great tools that can give the assessment within 20-30 min, but if your doctor doesn't have them, the assessment can take up to 2 hours to complete. After you have the assessment you are free to begin training.

The doctor shouldn't do too much hands-on training with the athletes, a lot of docs have a hard time letting go of this portion of the business, but to do it the right way, they have to be willing to hand the reigns to their staff.  (If you are not an Optometrist, the rest of the paragraph can just be skipped, because I'm going to be talking directly to them) What you as the doctor need to understand is that you are best used as the science and brains behind the training. That's what you went to school for and that's where your training will succeed above all else. Research is what your staff needs to survive and stay ahead of the current market place. My doctor reads a ton of neuro-books and feeds us (his staff) the most recent revelations regarding neuro, sensory, or sports vision training. I can't emphasize this enough! I could write a whole other post on his topic alone, but I'll save that for another time.

We practice an ATA method. No that isn't some scientific term, we use it for our own marketing and branding; it stands for Assess, Train, Adjust. Then we repeat the steps over and over until the athlete maxes out physiologically to where they can't see or react any faster than what they've already trained to. We are training the brain and body to process quicker and reach maximum efficiency. I would say, on average, when an athlete is committed and coming to us weekly, we do a Sports Vision Assessment 4-5 times during the training before they reach their max. We also assess between 7-10 training sessions so you can do the math on how much of an investment will be needed to reach your athlete's potential. This will typically be the most costly, but you know you're getting the best type of training directly from a doctor. There are some facilities that do exactly the same thing as a doctor, but we'll go into those details over the coming days.

SPORTS VISION DONE THE RIGHT WAY PART 1 (INDIVIDUAL)

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I'm going to write a handful of posts on the best way to implement sports vision based on different circumstances for an athlete. I'll break them down on a personal level, doctor level, training facility level and professional or elite level. This particular post is for those individuals looking to do sports vision on their own without the help of professionals in the field. They research and figure a penny saved (in training) is a penny earned. These types of athletes are the truly educated and self disciplined athlete that doesn't need someone yelling in their ear to get better. We had a college baseball player in recently that fit this mold perfectly. He had even built his own version of sports vision training drills that he was doing at his house (a little extreme, but I appreciated the effort).

The impetus for most people practicing this version of sports vision training is cost. On a personal note, I would have probably fallen into this category when I was younger simply because money was tight. The funny thing about doing this on your own is that no matter how hard you try you're still going to have to pay for product, software, doctor's visits, etc. Just off the top of my head, I would estimate at spending $500-1000 for the first year of getting started doing vision training on your own and then another $150-250/year for each subsequent year depending on how often you go in for a sports vision eye exam.

The cons to this particular type of training is having a baseline and measuring the results throughout the training. We practice an ATA method (Assess, Train, Adjust), where we are constantly evaluating, measuring, training, adjusting, assessing, etc. It's a constant fluid type of training. So it is true; someone, if discipline enough (key factor), can practice sports vision training on their own but they have to spend hours upon hours of researching sensory training and sports vision training, while still shelling out some money for equipment and software needed. Another factor to take into consideration is the fact that this information is not going to be easy to come by. Just Google sports vision training and try to find someone freely giving their trade secrets away, not gonna happen. My opinion, only fall into this category if money is an issue.

AS COMPLEX AS YOU WANT IT TO BE

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Recently we went and visited one of our pro guys to do some vision training (roadtrip). It was nice to see him doing well, but there was a lot that came out of the visit, to see him in his element during the daily grind and really helped us in terms of further customizing our vision training for our athletes. Whenever you hear the word "customized" you really equate that with more money that you're going to have to shell out, but that's a topic for another post. During the visit we asked him how he was seeing, how his vision drills have been going, etc. Nothing out of the ordinary, but he did mention that doing the drills helped him stay sharper focused during certain aspects of the game where your mind can wander. 

After we left he called me and said that his agent called to let him know how much better his splits were during day games. In hopes to further develop the Sports Vision Training field, we started to look at his splits and see how much better he was hitting during day games. It was crazy! He was hitting a good 50 points higher during day games! So we dug a little deeper... during day games at his home field he was hitting over .400 which means that during day games away he was hitting .240. So much to analyze! So much to figure out!

This led us to analyze how the stadium is structured from a batters perspective; what does the hitter see behind the pitcher when the ball is released? Is there a dark or light background? Is it solid or mixed? If there is more of a neutral background, how does that effect his hitting? If you're one of the 2 people that read this blog, you'll know that our sole purpose is to get our athletes better through focus on their vision and sensory processing system. If that means that we provide different tinted lenses for our athletes for different stadiums, then so be it. It may mean that certain pitchers release points will require different lenses during each game. This is our next step in further customizing what we do for our athletes. We've perfected the training, now it's time to take what we know to the next level.

Duty, Fear, and Love. What is Your Driving Force?

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I had a conversation a couple of day ago with one of our Sports Vision Clients (#ChargeLife) regarding some universal driving forces that each one of us has in the world. The conversation was brief, but kept my wheels turning the whole ride home. We talked about some deeper level topics and it got me thinking about something I learned/realized while I was living in the Philippines (many years ago). There are 3 driving forces in our lives that cause us to do... well, basically anything: Duty, Fear, and Love.

Fear may be the least honorable form of motivation, but it's still motivation. For instance, I work everyday, gain clients, close deals, etc. because if I don't my fear is that I won't be able to pay my mortgage and end up losing my house. There's also an innate sense of fear that if I don't provide for my family, they will go hungry when it's time for dinner. The same can be said of obeying the laws of the land while I'm driving in my car, I have a fear of getting a ticket if I'm caught disobeying. I'm not suggesting that we live our life in a constant state of fear, but the motivating factor behind a lot of decisions we make, might very well be because of fear of the consequences.

Duty is looked at as a more admirable form of motivation. Whenever I think of the word duty, I think of my brother serving in the military (Thank you for your service brother!). He might have a sense of fear for following his commanding officers, but he enlisted because of his sense of duty to his country. He's always been a patriot in that regard. Relating back to my previous examples, I could say that I work with a sense of duty for my wife and children to provide for them because that's my responsibility as a husband and father. Anything you do really, I eat better than when I was in high school because this body is a gift and I have a duty to take care of it (something our pro guys take to another level).

Love is in fact the most noble of motivations. The more I think about this, the more I feel like the impetus for each one of our actions should be love. I can say with absolute certainty that I work because I love my family and I want to take care of and provide for them. Many of our athletes work because they love the game they play, be it Baseball, Football, Motocross, etc. They're doing what they do because they love it, money just happens to be a byproduct. In fact, I've noticed those athletes that are playing because of a sense of duty or fear are not as effective as when they're doing something they're passionate about. You can see it in their faces! When the sport they play becomes a "job" their sense of participation begins to waiver and their productivity falters. Make sure you love what you do and your motivations will always be pure. Not only that, but your production in what you do will always be at your peak.

Growing out of the Unconscious

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I read a quote by Zen Buddhist scholar Daisetz T. Suzuki that states:

"If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend technique so that the art becomes an 'artless art' growing out of the Unconscious."

So much to analyze in this statement! It's not enough just to know something. When we really transcend our craft, whatever that may be, it starts to become us. I had a marketing professor talk about his wife and whenever she was upset about service at a restaurant or a shopping experience, he would ask her to analyze where the store owner might have broken down in their value chain for their own business. He wasn't doing this to antagonize her, but he lives marketing everyday and it comes through in his unconscious. 

You can take a mental note and find out what it is that's coming through in your Unconscious making it an "artless art". I think about our athletes and they eat, breathe, and sleep their sport so they are intrigued when they come across something they know nothing about (say, sports vision training) that could help them know their trade even more so. In training these athletes on a daily, one-on-one basis, I can see pretty quickly who is playing for the paycheck and who is playing because they love the game and it comes through their Unconscious. I finished my MBA a couple months back and though I love Real Estate and Sports Vision, I've come to realize that I'm an Entrepreneur who happens to be in these industries not the other way around. My focus is to make the companies better and increase the value we bring to our clientele. 

Perception Road Blocks

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If you are one of the 2 people that follow this blog (going places), you know that my family has grown to 6 ***sigh*** It wasn't that long ago that my wife and I were moving into a little apartment wide-eyed excited about our future. We're still excited, just about different aspects of our lives. We have a 1-week old baby, weighs about 8 lbs or so; and we didn't have our other children for a couple of days. Family was kind enough to help us out while we were in the hospital and getting back to life in general. For the longest time our 3rd child, who is 2.5 now, had been the baby of the family. Carrying him was no problem at all. He is the most active of all of our kids and gifted physically, but there were times when he would fall asleep in the car or didn't bring his shoes and needed to be carried for whatever reason.

After going several days with this 8 lb infant, I picked him up to put him in his bed and he felt like he had gained 50 lbs! He had suddenly become so heavy. This caused me to think about the comparison that I was dealing with between the 2 kids. Comparatively they are 2 completely different people, but I was used to carrying a certain amount of weight and associating that with my youngest child. My perception wasn't changing, it was staying the same thinking that they are the same person.

This, I think, happens all too often in business. Companies try to make a "one size fits all" type of product to apply to everyone, but don't ever change their marketing campaign for each potential target market. This seems like one of the biggest differences between Apple and Microsoft. Apple has a great product in the iPad, but apply different marketing campaigns to teachers, doctors, parents, kids, etc. Microsoft has a similar product and from the looks of it pretty innovative, but their marketing seems to stay the same; fun, upbeat, energetic, etc. They incorporate music and dancing with their ads, but I can't say that I've seen another advertisement specifically for another market segment that wouldn't relate to these upbeat ads. It seems like they have a product and lack the experience or know-how to make the switch to apply to multiple market segments. Even though you have one product that can apply to different markets, you still have to market them as different products. Change your perception of your customers perception.

At First Glance

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My wife and I just had a baby. Hold the applause, it's our fourth which usually reminds me of Jim Gaffigan's take on having 4 kids (hilarity ensues). While in the hospital I finished the book Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell. The official title of the book is Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. The book was a fascinating read! So much information on micro-expressions and our ability to read a scenario in a split second. People call it intuition or discernment, but there's a science behind those words to prove what everyone feels. There was even a TV show that my wife and I loved until it was cancelled. 

I thought about our athletes that we train and how they can use that in their games to help give a competitive advantage. Almost everyone has a tell. Poker players are the best at keeping their emotions in check and not giving away too much from their face, demeanor, voice, etc. Those that have devoted their lives to the study of micro-expressions can tell instantly what someone is thinking or if someone is lying. What a huge competitive advantage not only in life, but in sports in general. Imagine being in a Taekwondo match and being able to know what kind of move your competitor is going to do based on tells he's giving you. Pitchers spend years trying to throw from the same arm angle with the same body movement so they don't give away the type of pitch they're throwing. 

Here are a couple of examples. I love me some Torii Hunter (though the guy does need to update his website). The guy can flat out play. Not only is he a baller, but he gets the business side of it too. He has this amazing ability to watch film of a pitcher and pinpoint what kind of pitch is being thrown based on something he saw. Often times he'll tell his fellow teammates about what to look for and they're either in awe or confused at what he's looking at. One of the coaches I work with said he was scouting a kid and noticed that he blew a bubble every time he was getting ready to throw a fastball (ikr?). Base runners have the same type of tell, you typically can't see their faces because you're too far away, but their body shift, movement, reaction after watching the third base coach, etc. gives it away. Remember when Dave Roberts stole 2nd base during the Red Sox comeback in 2004? Everyone in the stadium knew he was running so that may be too obvious on an example, but people give away their actions before they do it all the time. Why would base running or laying down a bunt be any different?

I've always said that my loyalty is to whatever will help give my athletes an advantage during competition (legal advantage that is). It's something my athletes should know about and I don't think is being utilized enough during competition. So for my athletes that read this, yes we are going to be adding this to our training. You're welcome. 

What Makes You Different?

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Had a meeting with our marketing company and I've been thinking a lot about how you get a product into the hands of your consumer. I've been stuck on this for some time now and I've come to the conclusion, with everything that I've experienced, that what my product or service does makes little to now difference if I can't show what makes me different. It's getting people to be interested in the product without them knowing it. In the real estate business, for example, everyone sells homes, everyone helps others buy homes. Some people tout their differentiateor as experience... *shoulder shrug* meh... There was a guy who owned a glass business in the city I grew up in for 30 years. He decided to retire and leave the business to his kids. Once he realized that retirement was going to drive him nuts, he decided to get a real estate license and thought just because he'd been in the community forever that people would suddenly trust his opinion of the single most important financial decision of their lives. Nothing made him different. Anybody could tell after talking with him for a couple of minutes he had no idea what he was doing. Now I don't say that to discourage people from getting into real estate, I'm sure if he stuck with it, hired on with one of the big brokers, did some floor time, put in the work, assisted a top agent, etc. he would be fine. Godin calls this being different as being remarkable. Here are some simple marketing guidelines to being different:

• Target Market - In its most primitive form, marketing will always come back to who your target market is. Let's take the example of Real Estate, if my target market is people within a certain city, you can't just say "Everybody is my target market." Even Wal-Mart doesn't say that. They have a lot of customers sure, but not everyone is their target market. There are plenty of cities and areas around the world that are not influenced by the Wal-Mart brand. If, in Real Estate you focus on a certain demographic, say, first-time home buyers for example. You can now target those specific clients with advertising. That's not to say that if someone were to come to you as a move-up buyer you would turn them down, you just don't go looking for them in your marketing pieces. 
• Mind of the Target Market - Information is key to understanding what your first-time home buyer is looking for. They are probably a little younger, either living on their own or with parents. What types of things are they into? What do they eat? Where do they spend their excess time? Where do they work? Are they going to school? I would spend hours just thinking about my target market and asking questions similar to these. Open ended questions are great to use. How do they feel about owning a home? What would they feel if they were to know this is my house? Get into their mind and ideas will start to come to you with different ways to reach them. 
• Market your Target Market - Once you have an idea of what your clientele are into you can begin to market towards them. If they're all into the social media scene, they're going to want someone who speaks their language. Get relevant on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Start integrating different aspects of their life into yours. This will give you greater understanding on how to specifically market these buyers. Days of effective print advertising are dying. It still works, to some extent, but the Mad Men radio, magazine, even television advertising is losing its grasp on the future generations. Find out where your market spends their time and get in front of them. 
• Be Different - Your target market of first-time home buyers probably has an image of what a Real Estate Agent is. Mid 40's, little overweight, slimy salesman, commission driven, narcissistic, etc. That was my thought about Real Estate Agents until I met my wife. So what made my wife different was my perception of what a Real Estate Agent is (I wasn't her client before we got married btw). The agents that are successful are the ones who are different. 

Being different requires more than just "knowing stuff". The business owner turned Real Estate Agent that I wrote about earlier wasn't different. He's now back working for his kids at the glass shop. He thought because he knew the city, people were going to come flocking to him. What he didn't realize was that having a business wasn't enough to sell people on using him as an agent. He just wasn't different enough.

Short Sale Dilemma for Agents

My brother is currently serving in the military (proud of you kid!), and sent me an email recently for a friend of him that looked like this:

"Real estate question for a friend of mine. Is there any reason short sales are undesirable for buyers? He's trying to work with an agent but she is unwilling to consider helping them with any short sales."

For all of you Real Estate Agents out there thinking 'where do I begin with this question?' the answer is, Yes.  I was thinking the same thing. There's been a turn in the market, at least here in Southern California, where things are looking up for sellers at least. It's been a buyer's market for so long that new buyers coming onto the scene still have the mentality that they won't have to compromise on their purchase, but that's not what I wanted to write about. I wanted to give a quick list as to why an agent would refuse to show their clients Short Sales above Standard or even REO listings.

• The Listing Agent - So much of the success of the short sale depends on the listing agent. They need to be someone who understands what it's going to take to negotiate a successful short sale, along with the industry knowledge and experience to deal with Asset Managers and Sellers alike. A good agent can know within a 2 minute conversation with the listing agent if they are a "Hero or a Zero" to coin a phrase by Lori Greiner. 
• Repairs - The bank will not do any repairs on a short sale. I hesitate making blanket statements like this, because I'm sure there's some guy who will pull out some experience from back in the 80's saying that the bank approved and completed some repairs to close a short sale. Those guys drive me nuts btw, always right, one-upper type personalities, me monster; but I digress. An agent that discloses the types of repairs in the remarks lets the buyers know that unless you're coming in with cash, work is going to need to get done. All roads leading back to the Listing Agent. 
• Banks and Liens - We're on the banks timeline. I've closed a short sale in as little as 2 months, start to finish, and as long as 13 months... IKR? 13 long months... I've had to pause and reflect on that transaction while typing this post. Anyway, banks, yes we are on their timeline and if it's one of the big boys, just anticipate 5 months start to finish. They're seemingly always playing catch-up with the market; introducing new policies when they should be leading the market in innovation as it pertains to the short sale policies. Smaller banks are the best to deal with. The fewer the amount of liens the better. I always ask 1 loan or 2 when talking with the Listing Agent and again, if they have already disclosed it in their remarks it makes for a much more pleasant transaction. 
• Commission - The majority of people look at commission as an evil thing. I've been self-employed for almost 10 years now and my perspective on commission is a little more skewed than the average individual, but from a purely business sense, I want to work as little as possible to make the most amount of money. I may be the only one who admits that openly, but you all think the same thing. It's the same reason Andruw Jones never shows up to Spring Training in shape. I'm just saying... and if you were given the option to work less hours for more pay you would make that commitment too. I'll give you a scenario; let's say your boss came to you and said, look I have a project that is going to take 80 hours/week to do, but I'm only going to pay you for 40, you would be thinking the same thing Real Estate Agents think only we're self employed so we have to take whatever the market gives us. Just imagine what the unions would do with a scenario like that! 

So to answer my brother's question, Yes, Agents shouldn't avoid showing short sales, but I wouldn't fault them for not wanting to deal with them. There will be some younger agent with a mortgage and 4 kids willing to work for you however long the deal is going to take.

Loyalty to the Cause (not the Supplier)

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I was speaking to one of our athletes a couple of days ago, he's got a tryout with some big league teams and we wish him the best (S/O to RB!!!). We were talking about a computer program that we integrate into our training and he asked about one that we used in the past. It got me thinking about where our loyalty stands as a company. I foster relationships and try to keep them as genuine as possible, but ultimately our loyalty stands with those companies that will provide the absolute best training for our athletes. We used to use a company who's product works great, never had any real issues with them or their product, but a new company was introduced to us and it blew us away with how much more advanced it is compared to the one we were using!

That's not to say that we despise or think ill of the one we were using, but it's capitalism to its purest sense. An old business partner of mine use to say in a loud booming voice "CAPITALISM!!! You Lose!" as he pointed to a computer screen. The original company (for whatever reason) has kept the same business model, same pricing, same program, etc. without changing more than their sales reps. This new company created a better product, introduced better pricing, and does more for the athlete than the original company. I suppose this post is turning into a competitive advantage type of post, but the point that I was originally trying to make was that our loyalty lies with our athletes. If there is something that will make them perform better on the field, that's where we will gravitate towards. I may like you and your company, but if one of your competitors enters the market and can out perform you, I owe it to my clients to see if it will give them an edge in their sport.

Turkish Airlines V. The Old Spice Guy

I was reading the Mashable article regarding Turkish Airlines recent viral ad with Kobe Bryant and Lionel Messi (cool stuff BTW) and thought about our old friend The Old Spice Guy "Ice cream? OK". I remember reading a case study in my recent MBA program about Old Spice in particular; the case stated that even though the Old Spice commercials were a hit virally, it didn't necessarily translate to more sales. Though personally I am married to the Old Spice brand and will never use another deodorant, just because something goes viral doesn't mean that will translate to more income. The question still remains; What is the impetus to get someone to buy my services?

Stay Hungry

I'm going to flip the script today and talk about my other business for a little bit in today's post. I've recently started a Sports Vision Training company and though I'll probably go into more detail about what we do, for the time being I wanted to share a distinct difference in what I've found out of the many athletes that I've trained. We've trained athletes as old as 40 and as young as 9 years old; pros, college, high school, etc. They come from all walks of life, but there is a distinct difference from a professional athlete that thinks they've made it, compared to those that are still hungry for more. Even ones that have made the big leagues before and trying to earn a permanent spot on a ball club; I'm amazed at the response we get from guys.

We made a decision to train all the pro guys we come in contact with for free. There are certain software and hardware costs that we have that we might have them pay for, but for the actual hands on training... no charge. Even at no charge we still have some elite players that decide not to do our training. I remember a coach that came in and went 0-10 the year before and wasn't interested in what we had to show him. The Doc later told me he wanted to say "You guys didn't win 1 game last year! If I had a voodoo doll or some magic beans, you should be listening!"

There were 2 distinct realizations that I've come to based on my experiences dealing with professional athletes. (1) Just because it's free doesn't mean they will want it more and (2) not everyone is still hungry to progress with what they do. The athletes that I have a strong relationship with are always asking for more drills; how can they progress, what new developments have been made in the industry, etc. Those that aren't hungry are perfectly content going back and forth between minor league affiliates and Big League ball club. You can't teach desire.

Your Industry's Achilles' Heel

We've been at it for a couple of years now, and with recent developments, we've had to relocate and essentially start over. Not to fear though, we're doing it the right way and it'll be bigger and better than it ever was before. I've been looking at some different industries that I've been a part of in the past and looking at some different Achilles' Heel they might have. I'll give a few examples of what I'm talking about for further clarification:

• VSP - In the medical world, as much as doctors hate the fact that insurance companies only reimburse a certain amount of what they charge, they're a necessary evil. Vision Service Plan is the major insurance company among Optometrists. They're a very good company to work for and great as far as customer service is concerned. When I was working for an Optometrist, I would estimate that 75% of all our patients were under the VSP umbrella. That being said, whatever VSP wanted, VSP got. I would hate to think of what would happen to your local Eye Doctor if VSP ever went belly-up.
• MLS - No not Major League Soccer, though I think there's a post there somewhere, but the Multiple Listing Service. The average agent sells between 5-6 homes per year. I say average, because that takes into account the full timers doing about 20 deals per year and the part timers closing 2-3. Any Realtor will tell you that they provide a great service through blah, blah, blah... Nobody cares. I'm an Agent, Broker in fact, but the only thing that separates me from finding a house for sale and selling it for that matter is the MLS. Any website that says they have the most accurate, up to date listings are either lying or ignorant. From being in the industry day in and day out your local MLS is going to be the most accurate and up to date and the only people that have access to it are "Realtors". Now, if the MLS were to somehow make their information available, or someone were to figure out a way to do that, Realtors would be toast. All people need (in California at least) is an escrow company to sell their home. I know my fellow Agents would hate to hear that but nobody reads this blog anyway so I'm not too worried about any backlash. 

There are tons of examples I could give; NBA, cell phones, etc. The point is whatever industry you're in, whatever provides your paycheck, you gotta make sure you have a backup plan. I sell real estate, but I do other things too for the times when it's slow and just in case something happens to the industry. It's a seller's market right now and those that touted themselves as "buyer's agents" are hurting! They can't get any offers approved. On the flip side, those that market themselves as listing agents are living it up, but when the market turns (like it always does) what are those agents going to do that have marketed themselves as "listing agents only"?