The Developments Newsletter: July 11th, 2007

July 11th, 2007

TODAY is the hotel deadline for the CCS Summer Workshops

CCS Summer workshops are only 18 days away. TODAY, July 11th, is the deadline to book your guest room at the OKC Hilton Garden Inn in order to get the room rate of $109. After today our block of rooms will be released. The phone number for the hotel is (405) 942-1400.

Please remember that you will also need to register with CCS so we know that you are coming. You can register online via candidnet or use this form. Please sign up for any training sessions you wish to attend on Sunday (29th), as well as the meetings on Monday and Tuesday (30th and 31st).

The workshops are held here on the CCS campus to take full advantage of our training facilities and as always, there is no fee to attend. The agenda is full of opportunities for you to learn and grow your business. Click here to download the full agenda. Starting with the training sessions on Sunday and going through Tuesday afternoon, more than 22 hours of training sessions are available from CORE to QP2 to Photo Training. Monday and Tuesday mornings offer general session presentations on the Sports Opportunity, Software and Email Marketing updates, as well as interactive discussions on market specific topics such as Grads, Races, Groups, Weddings, Party Pics and PhotoMatch. And by request, you will also notice that our 29 city traveling “How To Make More Money In Sports Photography” seminar is Monday afternoon as another option.

Beyond the trainings and presentations, attendance and participation at CCS workshops offers other benefits. The most important, of course, are the networking opportunities with other CCS customers and CCS staff. Hear ideas that could impact your business and perhaps why you should consider growing your business into other market segments. Participate in one of our lab tours. Meet with your Support Rep. Book your hotel and send in your registration today. We look forward to seeing you soon.

Now Is the Time to Book Fall Sports
by Dan Hays

It seems like summer just started but the reality is that fall is approaching at a blazingly fast speed. One of the best photographic opportunities today is Sports and fall is a great time to photograph Sports and affiliated teams or groups. However, you cannot wait until there is a chill in the air to book Sports or you will come up short since most everything will be booked. Instead, you must begin immediately (earlier would have been better for Youth Sports) to maximize your opportunity.

The first step is to size up the opportunity. For Youth Sports and Church Leagues that means collecting all of the names of leagues and contacts for all of the Sports in your area that you would like to photograph.

For High School, Middle School, and Home School it means making a list of all the schools in your area and developing a list of contacts for all of the Sports that occur in the Fall, Boys and Girls, and associated groups like Cheerleaders.
Here is a fairly complete list of possibilities: Football, Soccer, Cross Country, Volleyball, Field Hockey, Golf, Swimming, Band, Cheer, Pom, Drill, Modern Dance, Gymnastics, Drama and Choir.

Make a matrix for each Middle School or High School in your area showing all the Sports, the contact information for the coach of each Sport, and be sure to include all of the Boys and Girls teams. Do not overlook the Middle Schools. They are often more available, there are more of them, and they frequently buy better.

There are two sales approaches that can be taken to book Youth Sports; an extensive approach or an intensive approach. Which you use will probably depend to some extent on the number of teams in your area. If you have a large number of teams, then you probably will want to focus on the extensive approach. This consists of writing a personalized e-mail to each league contact (use mail merge) touting your availability and main competitive advantages and asking them to call or e-mail you back. This is quick, cost effective, and you can cover a lot of teams in a short period of time. You then respond quickly to any interested leagues with a phone call or presentation. This has worked well for photographers with lots of potential teams. However, many team contacts will not respond, even though they have no photographer booked.

The intensive approach involves calling contacts and visiting playing fields to make contact with coaches and league officials and arranging to make a presentation to them. Have samples, flyers touting your advantages, and price lists with you at all times so that you can make a quick presentation on the spur of the moment if the opportunity arises. If you do arrange a presentation to a league official or committee, be prepared with a concise and effective presentation.

Keep good notes on your sales efforts so that you know whom you have talked with, when, what you said, what they said, and what you are supposed to do next by what date. Stay in touch with your contact until you get an answer. If the answer is “no”, ask the contact to keep you in mind in case they are not satisfied with the vendor they have chosen.

For High Schools, Middle Schools and Home School teams, the approach should be intensive, i.e. you need to visit (cold call) each school and go to see each coach of each sport that you seek to photograph. Be sure to contact the Cheerleaders and Pom Pom squads (Drill Teams) also. For these events, we recommend offering a Speculation Program where you shoot several pictures of each player individually and a team picture. You may want to offer Level 2 products. If you do, then you will need to take two or three simulated action shots as well as posed shots of each individual. Then, offer online proofs and a hard proof sent home by mail. Collect e-mail and fresh mailing addresses at the shoot and pass out web site address cards. Post proofs within 8 hours of the shoot.

Plan on getting proofs in the mail within 24 hours of the shoot. Speed of display is of critical importance in obtaining high sales. If you are turned down by one coach, don’t fail to approach the others. Many teams are not photographed at all, even though the main teams are. Also, coaches change. Photographers make mistakes or deliver slowly. If you are out there and are known to do a good job and to be available, you will book the team eventually. Call us for more details about any aspect of either of these two programs.

But don’t delay. Start planning your booking schedule right now. You can start on Youth Sports today and on School Sports within 10-20 days (when coaches are at schools).

Internet Provides a Rich Resource for Sports Teams
by Brian Speers

Before the sports photography opportunity presents itself you first have to find teams, leagues and schools to shoot. So where do you begin your search? The Internet has become a fertile resource for extracting information about potential sports clients that would have otherwise taken you weeks to research.

Today there are several online resources that allow you to locate not only teams and leagues listed by state, but also the names of league contacts, team coaches and their contact information. Using these sites can provide a direct link to the decision makers that can make or break your fall sports season. Let’s look at a few!

The site http://www.eteamz.com/ which describes itself as “your online team sports community” is a great site for mining for leads. Sorted by state, and then further sorted by zip code, this is a site where drilling down through the menus can lead you to your future customers. Spending quality time on this site can provide you with more leads then you will ever find in the yellow pages, community newspapers or local sports websites.

Another site you may want to check out is http://www.infosports.com/. Though similar in nature to Eteamz, Infosports seems more directed to teams looking for tournaments, or teams looking to add other teams to their schedule. This may be a good site for those action photographers who are looking for a constant source of new teams that have never experienced a professionally photographed game.
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CCS Makes Available NEW Powerpoint/Flip Chart Presentations for Youth Sports and Schools

In an effort to provide you with some useful sales tools so that you can make professional presentations easily, we have created two Power Point presentations which you can show on a computer screen, project to a screen, print yourself, or have us print hard copies. One presentation is for Youth Sports; the other is for Schools (Middle Schools, High Schools and Home Schools). You will be able to download these presentations from Candidnet.com starting Monday, July 16th. If you want printed copies, we will print and ship these to you for $7.50 each. The presentations have some templates for you to brand the presentations with your company name and contact information.

You should also create flyers or order forms that you can pass out to the contact or committee which detail your offering and prices. If you need help in designing your offer, please call any of our sales reps or your customer service representative and we will be happy to help you.

Level 2 Presentation DVD
by Dannette Reinbold

The Level 2 Presentation DVD is now available on-line at myleaguephotos.com password “samplesample” for $5.00. This video is a great tool to use during your sales presentation to show the flow of the photo shoot and the incredible new products available to the players. Show the video to Principals, Athletic Directors and Coaches to book sports for Middle Schools, High Schools, Colleges and Jr. Colleges. Remember, the L2 products are available only through the CORE software platform, so if you haven’t been trained on this program, contact Tech Support at 1-800-750-0494, option 2.

New Level 2 Product Pricing

The introductory price of the Level 2 products ends July 31st, 2007. The new prices listed below will be effective August 1st, 2007.