Maximizing Marketing with Corporate Boxes and Season Tickets

You're listening to Podiatry Marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald.

Welcome back to Podiatry Marketing. I'm your host, Jim McDannald. Join us always by my trusty co host, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how's it going today?

Oh, fantastic today. Big Jim, good to see you again. As usual, I I enjoy our weekly catch ups.

Yeah. There's nothing better than hearing what you've been up to. The the fun Jim stories that we can't add, you know, we can't talk about too much on the podcast, but, you it's always a pleasure to discuss these different podiatry marketing ideas and topics with you on a on a weekly basis.

Oh, it's fun. What I enjoy about the topics is because these are topics that you come up with your ideas, I come up with my ideas. And then pretty much as I'm sharing it, you are hearing it for the first time as well. So therefore, your comments that you will share or that I'll share with you, basically haven't been thought out. These are just comments that happened at the time.

So when people are listening back to this, they realize only half of it is scripted. It's the person whose turn it is to talk, but the other half is all made up on the fly.

Yeah. Exactly. Sometimes I'm gonna say incredibly dumb things, but maybe, you know, every two or three episodes, I'll say something that makes sense that could be helpful to the listeners when it's when it's your turn.

That's true. So today, I'm gonna talk about the benefits of having a corporate box, or in brackets, you could say season tickets. And this relates probably predominantly to sporting events, but it could also be for other occasions. I've heard I've heard of people having a box at the theater. I've never had a box at theater, but I have heard people doing that.

Or even they might be part of it might just be a one off event, and there's a opportunity to have could be a corporate table instead of an actual corporate box. That can can be really popular. In fact, that might be a different topic altogether.

No. I think that's a that's a good topic. I think that, you know, whether it's for kind of business purposes or team building purposes, there's gonna be some different things we can get into and talk about today when it comes to the corporate box or the season tickets. What's your background and, you know, what kind of experience do you have on this topic?

Well, have a start with us. We have a a team called the Cairns Taipans who's in the National Basketball League. Very similar to the NBA, but not not quite as talented. But it is the best of the Australian teams all playing against each other. Fortunately, we have a team in Cairns.

My daughter is actually one of the cheerleaders, which is pretty exciting. When I had my podiatry clinic, we used to see a lot of their players all the time. So we struck up a deal with the with the team or with the club, and we decided that let's get a corporate box. So we had a corporate box that had eight seats in there, and we used it as part of our marketing. It was a big part of our ongoing marketing strategy throughout the season.

And I think what's interesting about it is it's not as expensive as what people think. I used to look across at the corporate boxes when we used to go to games and go, oh, I bet they cost a fortune. Not as much as what what you actually think they could be. So I think they're worth checking out in your area. Now, like, I must admit, if you're gonna watch, you know, the Boston Celtics and you wanna box there, could be a little bit more expensive than the Cairns Taipans.

But we also have one, the Cairns Marlins, which was their state league. They also, you know, played everybody in Queensland. We had a box at their court as well. Far cheaper than having it at the Taipan. So depending on your town, what teams are available, we also had some of some of the local rugby league competitions.

Because we had so much fun and we just enjoyed it, I think there's different corporate boxes at different levels you need to just go and investigate them and see what you can get away with.

I mean, there's different scales like you said. It doesn't have to be an NBA or NHL. There's there's different local local teams and different local opportunities to kind of explore when it comes to these corporate boxes or to season tickets. You know, when it comes to that, what who would you be bringing to games? What was the kind of the marketing strategy or a couple of different strategies you used with with the boxes or the season tickets?

Yeah. Well, it's good because like I said, it is part of marketing. So when we thought about having a corporate box, we're going, okay. Who are gonna invite? And we thought, well, we could have professional referrers, non professional refers.

Anyone that could actually refer patients to us were people that we could actually invite to the games. But we also used it for team building events because a lot of our team that worked with us enjoyed the basketball. So we thought, okay. So many games per year. We it's purely gonna be just our business.

And we would all get together, and we'd have a few drinks, and we'd have a bit of food and just enjoy each other's company. You get the occasional person who wasn't into basketball, but they might like the rugby league. So they would come along to when we had a rugby league game on. Or if we organized I think the Queensland Rugby Union had an event where the Queensland Reds played somebody in New Zealand, and they had this big game on in Cannes. So you could do just a one off it wasn't a corporate box.

We bought, like, a corporate floor that you have about 30 people in there. We had an absolute ball. And nearly everyone that worked with me was there, and we invited about 15 professional referrals who came along. And nearly everybody that was there that day from that there was half of them had already referred people to us. It was a thank you, And half of them were people they had not referred to us, but we want to build up a relationship with, that we had met them a few times and invited them along, and then they did refer to us afterwards.

So it is a it is a worthwhile venture. I just wanna get back one step though. If you can't afford a corporate box, even if you consider just having, and I mentioned it in the title, season tickets. Because I have heard people where they've gone, instead of getting the box, which comes with, say, alcohol, food, and everything else, they might bought buy four tickets or eight tickets. Yeah.

Four in two different rows, and they just invite people that way. And that's how I went to the Chicago Bears game last year, which was absolutely fantastic.

I think, like you mentioned, it's it's sometimes about not only the, obviously, the sporting event there, but it's also the opportunity to build a relationship, get to know people in kind of a less formal setting. You know, us in the clinic every day are calling out to referrs. It's obviously an important aspect of building a practice and getting to know people, but when you can bring them when sports kinda brings people together and unlike any other type of entertainment, you know, you can kinda share the ups and downs of a of a match or a game together. And no. I think that's a it's a great way to to build those kind of professional or, you know, nonprofessional referral network.

Did you ever get into giving away tickets to to patients or any kind of giveaway or a sweepstakes kind of a situation?

Oh, definitely. Yeah. We also used it sometimes when we'd run competitions in the clinic. Yeah. Photo competition.

And the winner would get two tickets to come along the game with us. And I will admit sometimes, you're not sure who's gonna turn up. Like, most of the time, you know the patients. So you hopefully, you draw people out that you know and you know that they're gonna enjoy your company. The only the only problem when you're doing that is you just have to be on your best behavior.

So you gotta make sure everybody in the box is aware. And it's the same as when you got professional referrers. You can't if you got someone in your team who's a total drunk, and when they're drunk, they're an idiot, you never want them in your corporate box. In fact, you never invite them. I've I've been in our corporate box, and everyone I I must admit that over the years that we actually had the thing, not once did anybody ever get out of control in our box.

However, I remember there was a dietitian's box behind us one night, and the owner of the box got so drunk, was just abusive, yelling things out, and I think it was annoying the living hell out of me. I almost got on and thumped him. It was just he was that annoying that everyone just said everyone's told him he he had to actually pretty much had to remove him. It was just that bad. So I'm thinking, you remember when you're in these corporate box situations, if it's just your team, that's great.

But just remember, there's other people in the stadium in the venue who are actually watching you. So always be on your best behavior, whether it's corporate box, season tickets. Shout out to Patrick McAenny for the tickets to the bears game. That was fantastic. But it yeah.

So always be on your best behavior. And just remember, like, we also used to sponsor Cairns Netball, And they would have and not that I don't follow Netball at all. Not a Netballs I don't mind it, but it's not something I go out and watch. But because we did sponsorship, they had corporate boxes for when they had representative games on. So we would still go along, and we just had a good time.

And usually, that was pretty much with their team. But when it comes to inviting people, we had a a bit of a criteria that we actually followed.

I'm curious to hear about this criteria.

So because what we thought, we didn't wanna invite really boring people. And we had two two main things. The first one was whoever we invited into a corporate box had to have an online presence. So if we're inviting a professional referrer, they had to be on Facebook or Instagram, Just some form of online presence so that when they were there and if we took a photo in the box and we we could tag them or we could tag their business, we knew more people would actually see it. And knowing if they were quite active in social media themselves, they would probably take photos themselves, and they would thank us for being there.

So we found, as the years went on, the more we did this, the more bang we got for our buck. Because we gotta realize when you when you have a corporate box, this is sponsorship. The idea is to have a game plan beforehand because the idea is you wanna make money from this. You wanna attract patients to your clinic. If you're not gonna make any money from it, then fine.

It's just it's an indulgement, which is nothing wrong with it. It's still tax deductible. Just gotta remember that. So one thing was that having the online presence, and we would just make sure they were aware that we wanted them to tell people that they were in the corporate box, they'd been invited or share what they thought about it afterwards. The other criteria was because we wanted it to be an enjoyable night, we wanted to only invite people who we knew were gonna be fun.

We rarely invited anyone we had never met before. So there might have been a, you know, a doctor down the road that may have referred a few patients to us, which was great. But if we'd never physically met them, we would not invite them until we met them. That's your incentive to then get out and make sure you actually have these personal meetings with people. Because the last thing you wanted and we we had done this in the past where we had a couple of tickets for one of the rugby league games.

We invited some people along. Oh my god. They were boring. They were so boring. And I'm sitting there going, why did I do this to myself?

You broke the rules. Rule two must be fun. I broke the first rule too. They weren't on social media, and rule two, they weren't fun. It it makes for a very long uncomfortable night for yourself and everybody else who's in the box if the people you invite are dull and boring.

Yeah. You've got two or three hours of just sitting there trying to like scrape up some type of conversation with someone that either you don't know or don't have a lot in common with. So it can be a tricky thing. So I think that's definitely a great piece of advice is to have some rapport built up because like you mentioned, not only maybe it wouldn't wouldn't have a fun night, but if they turn out to be, you know, somebody a little bit too wild, a little bit too into the evening, it can have a a negative effect or negative impact on your reputation just, you know, they get a little bit of wild and out of control in the box with you. So I think maintaining that, you know, your reputation is of the highest importance, and I think it's good to be selective about who you bring into the box with you for sure.

Yeah. Well, we had remember we had airbox one year, and one of the TV stations had the box next to us. And there was a person in there who this is, like, over a number of years. There are two occasions. Well, I told you one about the dietitian who was really drunk.

The other one was the TV box next to us, and we got them with that that group really well. But there were two occasions, you know, probably two years apart. There's one person there, once again, super drunk, just pretty much stumbling around and spilling drinks everywhere and knocking food over. And we're all just looking everyone was looking at him just going, not a good look for the box. And then we had another time, there was another person there who was really drunk who didn't like us, didn't like our podiatry clinic, and didn't they let us know it?

But it wasn't just that, oh, yeah. You guys whatever. We we don't know none of us could even remember this person whether they're a patient or not, but they had a gripe with their box for some reason, and they were literally swear they got dragged out by security.

Okay.

And as they got dragged out, we stood up, started clapping, a bit of applause, and so did a lot of people standing around us. And everyone was coming up to afterwards going, who was that idiot? And we go, no. We we do not know who it was. Though, that's why if you're gonna have a corporate box, if you're gonna have season tickets, if you're gonna invite anyone to anything, even if you're having a, like, a get together at your clinic, just be aware of who you're inviting because it does reflect on you.

Because you have a team member in the box carrying like a pork chop, but you have a professional referrer. The people outside of the box, they don't know who's who. So it's all a reflection on your business. But I don't know. I think the the team building side of things, I I would say we probably used it as an overindulgence and for team building more than probably anything else.

Yeah. I mean, are times you're gonna remember. It's something you can you just let you know, bring it up to to people in the office. Maybe you shared like a a really cool game or, you know, just you kinda saw some sides of people that maybe you don't see in the office, and it just can lead to improving those relationships, giving people something to talk about that's that's positive, that's a little bit it's work adjacent, but may not exactly work related. So there definitely could be some benefits of off sites and, you know, season whole season tickets or, you know, corporate boxes to kind of build that team camaraderie.

Yeah. And what I'll do is I'll anyone who goes to the website, I'll share a photo that you can put with the show notes of a photo of us in in the corporate box. And I get them coming up on my memories on Facebook because we did this for, like, over eight years, especially the basketball. So there were, I think, 14 home games times eight. So it's almost like, a certain part of the year, it's every weekend photos pop up on my timeline of some of the funny times.

And I look at all the people who were invited. I invited my accountant. I had close friends that I used to invite that came along. And it's funny. It's even those friends that came along are still probably your closest friends now.

The people that I worked with who came along to most games, even though I don't own the business, I'm still close to those people because we just got to really know each other really well. I think there's a couple of things I wanna finish on. It's just making sure if you're doing it, work it beforehand. Is this are you doing it as a business decision because you wanna promote your business, invite referrals, and use it purely for marketing? Or is it going to be a bit of fun or is it gonna be a combination of two?

And that will sort of help you determine who you invite and how much fun you wanna have. But I think you need to, one, have a a game plan on how you're gonna use the box. I think that's really important. Have all the games mapped out. Have a look at all the dates.

Find out when are you available. Are you gonna be at every game yourself? If not, you need to have a responsible person in the box. Never leave it to the most irresponsible person to organize it. If you're gonna have a corporate box, have everything in writing and have it signed.

So if you're paying money to a company to have a corporate box, read through the terms and conditions, what's included, what's not included, and make sure that there is a signed agreement. It's not just a a verbal agreement. I've had verbal agreements with some smaller organizations, and you usually always get shafted. You always get the short end of the sticks because it'll be somebody else who oh, that's their job to do it, but they're not at the club anymore. So we don't know what was going on.

So the third thing is just monitor the agreement and make sure you're getting exactly what you paid for. So if they say there's so many games and you get this or there's free food and all these drinks and all this is gonna happen, there's gonna be signage at the venue or you get a t shirt, hats, whatever, make sure you get every single thing that you're entitled to because that's part of the agreement. Everything will be different. The the more professional the organization, the more professional the agreement will be and the better it'll be run. Smaller the organization, if it's a local sporting club and and they just happen to have an area where you sit and they sort of call it a corporate area or or seating, don't expect too much.

But just, in the end, just have fun. And I think it's important that it's better if you like the sport, it makes it easier because you'll you'll go along and just enjoy the event anyway regardless of whether you get referrals or not. But ideally, you wanna get referrals. That's the purpose of doing it.

Well, that makes total sense. The team bonding and getting additional referrals is a huge potential benefit of utilizing that corporate box with the season tickets for marketing. I I definitely can see that. And even though I didn't utilize that kind of strategy when I was in practice, I definitely can see where it could be a big help.

Yeah. And and what's really funny is when I sold the business, the people that took it over, they got rid of the corporate box at the basketball. They got rid of sponsoring the state league team and got rid of the corporate box. They got rid of the nipple sponsorship in the corporate box there. So all of a sudden, they had nothing because they wanted to save money because they didn't see it as being of any value because they couldn't see the return in it.

Every staff member that was there when I sold the business is not there anymore. And when you spoke to them at different times, I said, what changed? And they went, the fun that we used to actually have together. There was no there was no more fun. It was all it was all finished.

And and having the corporate box and doing things together like that was a big part of what brought the team together. So, yeah, just give us some thought. Have a look what's around in your area. Start small. Have some fun with it.

And if you get the opportunity to do something a little bit bigger, do it. It's not as expensive as what you think, unless it's the Boston Celtics.

Yeah. NBA champions are gonna be a little bit pricey with their corporate boxes. So, yeah, definitely be be aware of that.

Yeah. Definitely. Okay. Jim, I I, like I said, I enjoyed this topic because I used to have so much fun doing it. I hope everyone gives it a little bit of thought.

Sounds like a plan, Tyson.

Okay. See you next week.

Bye now. Okay. Bye.

Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDaniel. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.