Podcast appearances and mentions of brett zalaski

My guest today is friend of the pod: Brett Zalaski.  We never do a straight up interview pod, we always just talk!  So we covered a lot of stuff this time like the future of the inside sales model in sports business, new ideas, the pandemic, customer service and a lot more.  Check out my friends at Booking Protect.  Visit the blog where there are lots of articles on revenue, relationships, and relaunching your business after the pandemic.  www.bookingprotect.com/home Look up the We Will Recover project.  Martin, Einar, and the entire Activity Stream team have put together a set of resources, classes, webinars, and more to help folks in the live entertainment business get back on their feet.  www.wewillrecover.live  www.activitystream.com If you are a regular listener, thank you! Give the pod a subscribe and a review. Also, you may like the Talking Tickets newsletter with 5 stories from the week, analysis, action items, and opportunities to help you and your business get back on stable ground and growing after the pandemic.  www.talkingtickets.substack.com  

Brett Zalaski walks us through some of his background plus some topics that we felt like needed to be chatted about in our industry. One of my favorite undervalued topics is Anxiety, Brett and I dive right in!

Today's episode is brought to you by Booking Protect: The Global Leaders In Refund Protection.  Any Listing!  Any Sector!  Anywhere!  Booking Protect has you covered with the world's most comprehensive refund protection product.  To find out how you and your organization can partner with Booking Protect to give your guests a better, more personalized buying experience, visit them at www.bookingprotect.com Today is another one of those special episodes where I talk with Brett Zalaski and we have a go at each other.  The back and forth is fun for me and the feedback on the last one was great, so we are doing this again.  We take a deep dive on giving sales reps in sports the tools and knowledge they need to be successful. We cover the need for sports teams to be better at marketing themselves.  We also talk about ongoing training needs, the moments that pop up in a sales process, and a whole lot more.  Find Brett at www.empoweredsalesperson.com and you'll see his blog and all kinds of stuff he is up to.  You can find me at www.davewakeman.com. You can also email me dave@davewakeman.com about my June 5th workshop in Los Angeles. We will be covering the premium selling process and doing a full day workshop where you can work with me and some of your contemporaries to find ways to get meetings, guide the sales process, and close business.   

This episode is brought to you by my friends at Booking Protect. Booking Protect is the global leader in refund protection. Visit www.bookingprotect.com and find out how offering refund protection can provide your guests peace of mind, improve their buying experience, and offer your venue a new stream of revenue.  Today's guest is me! And, my friend, Brett Zalaski.  This is an experiment in podcasting...which means, it might not work. But I have been talking with Brett about doing a series of podcasts that focuses on some of the pressing challenges in experiences, sports, and entertainment...and allows you to hear a little bit more of my philosophy and my way of working through issues.  Today, we take on the challenge of empty seats.  As anyone that has watched sports knows, getting fans into the venue is tougher than ever. We wanted to take a dive into the challenge and offer up some solutions.  In this episode, we discuss: * Empty seats * Pricing * Fan engagement * Strategy * Marketing * Sales * Discounts * Don DeLillo * Branding * MBWA  And, a lot more.  The books we mention in this episode are: Buy-Ology by Martin Lindstrom.  In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Bob Waterman The Excellence Dividend by Tom Peters Find Brett here, here, and here.  You can find me, my blog, and all the ways to connect with me at www.davewakeman.com 

Brett Zalaski returns to the podcast, after last being on 2 1/2 years ago, when he talked about sales growth and training on Ep. 368. Zalaski now speaks about his adventurous 2015 training campaign, as well as an extensive talking about the 2015 Sports Sales Boot Camp that he hosted in San Francisco in front of 300+ young sports professionals working in the field today. Zalaski discusses how getting "clams" to be talked about has been a great thing, how he continues to change up his sales training, and why PowerPoint presentations lack a lot of sincerity as an education tool. Zalaski gets into the world of social selling, applying it to ticket sales, and what future ticket sales reps will look like, from blogging to social to other types of content, in order to move more product for the franchise. Twitter: @bzalaski

Brett Zalaski has a wealth of sports sales knowledge that extends beyond just one team or one league, and crosses the threshold into creating a new selling acumen. Zalaski explains his methods on building a great sales team, whether it is at the NBA, MLS, or MLL. Zalaski talks about starting the MLS Sales Center in New York, and the pride he takes in seeing its current growth, along with what the lacrosse game has to do in order to become a true major league product to be reckoned with on the national scene. @BZalaski