Bill Guertin, Chief Learning Officer for ISBI 360, talks about training a young staff, and how to use tools and methods to stay current with your fans and relevant to your audience. 

“I am so excited about the generation entering the sports industry – they are smart and they will make a difference. Leading us well.”

On this episode of Fired Up, Bill talks about how to build a solid and committed staff – trained well and positioned to succeed – individually and organizationally. We also dig into the need to make training affordable, scalable, and accessible – especially for entry-level people.

Chris McAdoo:

Welcome to Fired Up, a podcast from Ignite Fan Insights, powered by NASCAR, and we’re coming to you live from the National Sports Forum here in Atlanta, Georgia. I’m happy to be here with you. My name is Chris McAdoo, and we’re happy to bring on Bill Guertin. Guertin Lucky 13, as he says, the Chief Learning Officer from ISBI 360. Really excited to have you with us, and to talk with you about sales, tactics, and what it takes to make those boots on the ground work. I’m going to hand it over to Chris Wise, General Manager of Design Sensory Intelligence, the man behind the man behind the man behind the throne. He asks the right questions to get the right answers for over 30 years. Chris?

Chris Wise:

That’s a lot of pressure, Chris.

Chris McAdoo:

I’m not feeling it. That’s from Chris.

Chris Wise:

Yeah, that’s Chris. Anyway, Bill. Thanks for being here.

Bill Guertin:

My pleasure. Thank you, Chris.

Chris Wise:

Tell us about you. Tell us about yourself and your career.

Bill Guertin:

I was really born to sell. I was a licensed radio broadcaster, very early was on the air at age 16, which made me the youngest licensed radio broadcaster in the state of Illinois, went on, figured out that at age 21 I knew where the money was going to be, and it wasn’t going to be on the air. And so I went into a 25 year broadcast history of selling within metro and smaller metro markets within Chicago, which is where I’m from, and saw the iPod as the death of local radio when it first was introduced. I said, “A thousand songs in your pocket will absolutely be the death of what we can do as a small market coming from Kankakee, Illinois, about an hour south”

Bill Guertin:

So I looked for something else to be relevant in. I had done training for many years for Broadcast People selling airtime, and many of the same tenants that were used in selling radio ads could be transferred into selling tickets. And so I was fortunate enough to gain the opportunity to work with the Chicago Bulls, my very first team working in sports.

Chris Wise:

Nice.

Bill Guertin:

Scared to death. 2004, I’m outside the United Center. Those who’ve been there know the Jordan statue that’s right up front. And every day there would be people coming in as I was doing the training, and I was watching them come off the bus and take the pictures. And it was the first chance I’d had to do this, and so I studied this stuff for a very long time, came back, and so the Bulls are now my number one client. They’ve been there for the last… It’ll be my 18th year now being with them. But in that time, I’ve been fortunate enough now to work with over 100 sports sales organizations and major leagues, minor leagues, Mexico, Canada, and the US.

Chris Wise:

Incredible. Lucky you. Lucky you. I’d like to unpack a little bit more because… Well, first, what ignites your fire? What really makes you light up every day?

Bill Guertin:

The next generation of those who will lead this industry fire me up. There are such talent coming up that is misunderstood because of so many labels that have been put on this generation of being lazy, nonproductive, not really wanting to work hard. The managers who are telling them, “This is what you need to do” are the ones that actually need to be fixed first, because they aren’t working the very same way as they did when they became successful. And so what fires me up is making sure that managers understand this new generation and the talents that they can lend to a successful organization are there. They’re real, and they don’t have to be the same ones that they had gone through themselves.

Chris Wise:

Wow. Wow. Some of the organizations you’ve worked with… I’ve been inside some sports organizations. I’ve noticed in many cases a high turnover in the ticket sales office. And one of the greatest problems is how do you train them consistently so they tell a consistent message that is true and authentic and has a positive impact on the bottom line? and where do you come into play in that process?

Bill Guertin:

For many, many years prior to me, certainly and perhaps even after me, we are paying very little in this industry because it’s sexy. You can afford to pay a 21, 22 thousand a year job to someone who’s just out of school because they want to see their name next to the logo on the business card, and this appears to be success for them. For many young people getting the business card is the victory, and they shut down. It becomes this was my goal, I have achieved it, and now I’m going to work this hard maybe for three months, six months, maybe a year, and then mom or dad who spent $40,000 a year who brought him to school saying, “How much are you making out of school?” And they bring them back to mom and dad’s business, or they bring them back somewhere else, and they stay at home and save some money because they essentially didn’t make any in the first year or two that they went out of school.

Bill Guertin:

That’s the scourge of who we are. The challenge that we have is how to make training affordable and scalable for this group of young people in a way in which they absorb training now. This is the YouTube generation. These are people that are used to watching very short videos. Putting somebody in front of them for three days at a time, which is the traditional method which I did for many years, was successful to a point. But after a while, we’re just like rubber band where you’re stretched back to where we were. If we get stretched too thin, there’s no elasticity that stays there where we want to change habits.

Bill Guertin:

And so I saw as a trainer the inability of leadership to be able to maintain that energy that I brought. And so that’s how we developed ISBI 360. Short, incremental, what we call micro-learning videos. No longer than 10 minutes, with a specific concept or a theory or a practice that they can then immediately put into play in their daily habits. It’s a multi-week program that we have a certification in, and then the library becomes available to you after certification so you can go back and relook at those things that you may not have to go back again and watch for 10 minutes at a time because we don’t usually pick up everything the first time we listen to anything.

Chris Wise:

So being a 10-week program within that period, then too, you have established a habit, correct?

Bill Guertin:

Yes.

Chris Wise:

So it’s not just a one and done-

Bill Guertin:

And that’s the effort is to establish habits, especially with our young people. They have to be shown not only that the habit works, but that it’s worth it for them to do something different than what they’re used to. Many people will shut down and not try it because it’s not either been proven or that they feel as though it’s not been them. It’s not catered to me. It’s catered to you, the old fart manager that I relate to, or that hired me in the first place.

Bill Guertin:

And when they say things like, “You know, when I was your age…” It’s absolutely the worst thing to say to a young person because young people today that come in, and I don’t mean to disparage this age group, but many of those who come into the sales world in sports are between the ages of 21 and 30. People that haven’t had a lot of experience in Fortune 500 companies, that haven’t had the background to be able to discern what’s what. And so the managers that they have have to recognize that this group needs something different than they got to get to where they are. And that’s the void that we’re filling.

Chris Wise:

Have you been coming to the National Sports Forum for a very long time?

Bill Guertin:

This is my 13th year.

Chris Wise:

13th year. Tell me what impact has had toward what you do professionally, and just for professionals in sports in total.

Bill Guertin:

I came my first year wanting to impress Ron Seaver as a speaker. I wanted to speak at this forum more than anything in my professional career. I was just starting out at the time. I recognized how important the forum was in the sports industry as a whole. Ron said, “I can’t do that for you. I have to have you come to the forum one time. Put your money down.” And a thousand dollars for me at that time was… I’m putting it on credit card, two credit cards, I think, the first time I came out here. And so I learned what it took. I saw a couple of others present that do what I do in my space. And I thought, “Oh, this sucks. I can do way better than this.”

Bill Guertin:

And so I was on fire to be here. And the very next year, I was here. And I was on the platform nervous again, but boy, I was fired up because I knew what the competition was. And I was fortunate enough to have several clients that came as a result of that. And now 13 years later I can count many of those people I met there as some of my very best friends in the industry.

Chris Wise:

Wow. That’s, that’s exciting.

Bill Guertin:

Yeah.

Chris Wise:

Yeah. Oh, that’s very cool. One of the things that we’ve heard from a lot of folks is acting with purpose. And like you said, you came here, you saw those, and you’re like, “I’m going to respond to this, and I’m going to plus this. I’m going to do it better.” What are some of the best ways when we’re engaging the front lines… The kids that are out there doing the ticket sales, answering the phones, answering those emails, how do you find the best way to connect them to the purpose behind what they’re doing to understand that on a larger scale, everything that they do every time that they interact with a fan matters?

Bill Guertin:

Well, I think first and foremost, you have to understand as a manager, you have to communicate the why. Why is this important? Not only to those you’re are going to be talking to, but the ongoing health of the organization. The story of the organization needs to be able to be embodied in the people that you talk to. And what part their role plays in the success of the organization as a whole. If people are just working for the man who is taking all the money home with them at the end of the day, there’s no purpose in that. People are looking for organizations that have something beyond the bottom line that they can feel good about contributing to. And so I think it’s important that leaders today are making sure to explain the why, why it’s important to people that we’re not just money grubbing teams that are always looking for the highest ticket sale or the largest group that we can, but what impact will you have?

Bill Guertin:

One of the things that we train in the program with ISBI 360 is you don’t sell sports. You sell what happens to people as a result of a sporting event. And this changes lives. This affects people in profound ways. And so if you look at it as simply a transaction, like you’re selling an ice cream cone, it’s a very different way in which to look at this. We’re selling results, we’re selling community, we’re selling lifetime memories and lifetime experiences that you can not get anywhere else. And so I would say that making sure that all those who are touch points with your customer, whether it’s in service or sales or anywhere else, understand why the team is there and the impact that their experiences have on people’s lives, and to do the very best possible to be part of that experience.

Chris Wise:

Yeah. People in sports, the fans, we’ve done a lot of work, and it’s a total emotional connection. It is the comradery in the stands. It’s a comradery when you’re out with your friends, or even anywhere. And it doesn’t matter if your team’s winning or losing. If you’re invested, you’re invested, and it’s here, it’s in the heart. It’s not a cup of coffee. It is part of your life. It did work one time with a team where some of the research that we’re doing… We asked some fans to just take pictures and upload them to us of things that were happening. And it was at a particular NASCAR race, and we got a picture of a young man on bended knee on the track. That’s a life passage. it’s an event that they will never forget, ever, and they will relive it every year at the same time.

Chris Wise:

That was powerful for me just to see that for the first time. And then, so we take that information and tried to, I’m going to go back to ticket sales, that and there’s so much good information that if salespeople can tap into it and have a good personal connection with people, to season ticket holders or to nurture new ones, that they can know enough about them to say, “Bill, happy anniversary. Really good to talk to you again, and want you to know about this. This makes sense, let me know, whatever,” how will you ever do that? But it’s no longer, “Hey, buddy, I got a deal for you,” because it’s an emotional connection. And so is that part of your approach?

Bill Guertin:

Yeah. Our training is much, much more involved in communication and being able to connect with customers on a very different level than where they want to sit and how much they want to spend. We have a tool that we use in our training program called the Sporting 77. It is a list of 77 things that you might want to get to know about a prospect. During the course of your conversation, you may get only five or six of those over the course of the year or two or longer, but those are the five or six most important things. We train those who are doing the selling to ask and to be curious about it, not just because I told you to do it, but because you in your heart want to know what this person is all about so that you can then cater to those needs that they have. Things that are very important to people like if they have pets, for example.

Bill Guertin:

Minor league baseball has lots of Bark in the Park events, for those who are familiar with that. You get to bring your dog a few times a year, and it’s a big deal. Well, what if you were able to sell a season ticket for your dog? would that be a product that you’d be able to use? If you live in a small market and you’re not coming out unless Fifi comes with you because this is your life partner, would you come to more games? And the answer has been yes. And so for several of the minor league organizations that really dig into their customer bases and find out what their real needs are, they’re finding that there is some resonance here with products like that. So not only is it better for you to sell at that individual level, but at the collective level, what is everybody asking for that we can bring?

Chris Wise:

Yeah.

Chris McAdoo:

That’s great.

Chris Wise:

Yeah. Well, to wrap things up, man, Mike, again, thank you so much for being a part of this. Bill Guertin like 13. I just keep saying that because that’s how you introduced it. And I just love it.

Bill Guertin:

Indeed. One of the things we train, just FYI, and I don’t want to go over here, but what we have others do is to make sure that you’re memorable, that you have something within you that sticks with people. And it might be Bill who has the golden retriever, or something else. Guertin like 13 has worked very well to connect something that nobody knows, my last name, to something they do know. And it’s a technique, and again, within ISBI 360, that’s the thing that we train and have done a really good job with now almost 300 individuals, and we’re going to be doubling in size in six months.

Chris McAdoo:

That’s wonderful.

Chris Wise:

Really, that’s awesome. Well, you just said what I was going to ask you, but beyond that. Further in the future, what impact will you have in the world of sports, and what impact will you have on Bill?

Bill Guertin:

Goodness. What impact I’ll have on me? I’m not sure what your question is.

Chris Wise:

With your work, how do you want to be impacted by what you do?

Bill Guertin:

What we hope to do as an organization, and I have very smart partners that have partnered with me because they have the same collective vision, is to be able to be the definitive source for training that sticks within sports and entertainment. No one’s done that. No one’s taken that niche and said, “We are going to do this in a way that no one else has done” it because we now recognize how people learn today. We did not invent micro-learning. Micro-learning has been perfected by Google and Microsoft and Oracle, and many, many smarter people than us who now know how people learn, that this learning actually improves retention by over 80%, that people actually do it more often.

Bill Guertin:

They actually go through the training and can quote it more in their normal conversations and within their workspaces. And so that’s the kind of thing I want to do. In five years, I want to say we have impacted the sports community in a way that no one else could have by using the technology that’s available combined with the human element of a coach involved in this at the very same time. So we didn’t just put people in front of a computer and say, “watch these videos.” There’s a weekly coaching component to it that really makes it very special, And the relationship that needs to be there that’s human is still intact.

Chris Wise:

Awesome.

Chris McAdoo:

That is great. Bill, thank you so much for joining us. And to all the managers out there, the next time you get the hankering, the next time you get the feeling to say, “When I was your age,” let’s listen to what Bill has said.

Chris Wise:

Stuff it? Stuff it.

Chris McAdoo:

Why don’t we re-examine, re-invent, and realign ourselves with what the future looks like? And Bill, I’m with you, man. I’m pretty stoked about the future as well. The young people coming up… They’ve got a new energy, and we should embrace it and find the best ways to let it grow. Where can people find out more about ISBI 360?

Bill Guertin:

Very simple. Online, www.ISB as in boy, 360, ISBI360.com, and you’re welcome to reach out to me at [email protected]. I respond to every one of my emails.

Chris Wise:

I really want to know what some of the barriers are that you face, and how can you overcome them within this vertical?

Bill Guertin:

Whatever you wish, dude. I’m happy to stay around as long as you guys want me.

Chris Wise:

What are the barriers that you face today in this vertical, in the world of sports, to what you’re trying to accomplish?

Bill Guertin:

Much of it has to do with the way things have always been done.

Chris Wise:

Okay.

Bill Guertin:

In fact, it’s the same thing these managers have always said, “You know, when I was your age,” they’re saying, “Well, training is really done this way.” And I love the jolt that it gives people. What it also, from a manager’s point of view, is been it’s different in that it doesn’t pull people off the phones for two or three days at a time.

Bill Guertin:

Right now there’s some good and bad to that. The bad side, of course, they don’t want people not on the phones because they’re not making money for the company. The good side is they say, “Well, I’ve got them focused and in a room.” So human nature will dictate that you will do whatever’s in front of you, and if you’re not pushed to do something, you might not be involved in it. So the positives of live training will still be there. You’ve got a captive audience, and they have to listen to you. With our blended learning program, it’s become a little more incumbent on the person to actually pick up their computer and look at the videos and actually do the work. This doesn’t by osmosis just automatically zap into your head because you’re thinking about it. You actually have to put the work in.

Bill Guertin:

And so what we’ve found is that managers that really make sure to tell their people, “This is important to us,” and that monitor that and make sure that their progress is measured, do a much better job of completion and certification.

Chris Wise:

Good deal. We’ll end it there. Thanks.

Chris McAdoo:

Bill, thank you so much for joining us, and for all you managers out there, when you get the hankering to say, “When I was your age,” shut it down, restart, relearn, and realign. And I think, Bill, you’ve shown the way to do that, and we really appreciate your time.

Thanks for listening. And if you like what you heard, be sure to subscribe. And if you really like what you heard, please leave us a five star review and tell all your friends. Also, thanks to the good people that power Fired Up and Ignite Fan Insights at NASCAR, the National Sports Forum, and the Association of Luxury Suite Directors. To learn more about Ignite Fan Insights and what that exclusive content can mean for you, visit ignitefaninsights.com and subscribe today. It’s a wealth of information all about the fan at no cost to you. Your fan club subscription includes our e-publication, podcasts like this one, exclusive blogs, quarterly e-newsletters, and timely webinars that keep you not only up to speed on what your fans are doing, but ahead of the curve and ready to take on anything that comes at you. Fired Up is hosted by Chris Wise, and myself, Chris McAdoo. Thanks again for listening. Tune in next time. And as always, y’all stay fired up.