It will all start with an planetbesttech of a huge well designed board strategically located at the busiest point of your route to work. Yes that is where it will be placed, at a place where executives get caught up in traffic. In boredom you are forced to read it. You will read it tomorrow and the day after. Soon it will be part of your psyche. It’s contents will be part of your gnome.
Soon sales men of a software company I will call ‘ABC Technologies’ make contact with technology people in your organisation. They speak the same tech language and easily understand each other. The pony tailed people discuss the great stuff the new technology suit has. To most technology people success is not measured on the bottom line or return on investment (ROI), but on the new cool stuff.
Having got your technology people to their side, the ‘ABC Technologies’ sales men make contact with your office. Not being very conversant with technology, you ask your technology office for assistance. They of course give the deal a node, for reasons alluded to earlier. The sign board this technology company put along your way to work helps you make a quick decision to buy. The new technology is given a node.
The men with pony tails soon arrive at your football club’s offices to install the magic wand that will stream line everything. Training is offered on site and maintenance contracts are signed. Every one from senior executives to the players is happy. This is was the missing link, needed to fill the stadiums, sell more merchandise, and attract sponsors. Everything will be streamlined and measured you are promised. Success is here at last!
No sooner have the men with pony tails left than the technology is abandoned. Abandoned if not fully at most partially. You are stuck with the technology, with a maintenance contract and a negative bank balance. None of the anticipated advantages are achieved. Your fans continue to be alienated. You actually do not who your fans are. The stadium continues to be empty when your club is playing, you sell less merchandise and no sponsors are coming on board. There was no return on investment. In actual sense the whole software and hardware purchase added no value to the organisation.
Sales men are trained to sell. They do not care whether you get benefits, though they pretend to. To them what matters is the sales numbers and not you. If you want to succeed with your football marketing plans, do not listen to the technology sales men. They must listen to you. Start by mounting a major business strategic review of your club. Change your focus towards a more fan based system. Change the way all your people work and information flow through out your whole club. After you have done this then talk to the software men to bring a product that will support the new work and information flow processes.
Technology is very important but it must fit into your processes other than you fitting your football club into what technology offers.
Give your football club a chance to succeed beyond your wildest dreams. Fans are the corner stone of football business success, but they are the most ignored.
