170 - Group Sales 101 — Great Reps Place Groups

Most group sales reps are order takers. The buyer asks for a date, the rep says yes, and the marquee game ends up at 55% capacity while groups scatter across midweek nights with no draw. In Episode 170 of the Sports Marketing Machine Podcast, Jeremy Neisser closes out the Group Sales 101 series by breaking down the most strategic piece of the puzzle: building an A / B / C game calendar before the season starts, leading every conversation with marquee dates, and using groups as an attendance strategy — not just a revenue line. This is the mindset shift that turns a good group sales department into a great one.

KEY TOPICS COVERED:
• Why "what date works for you?" is a strategic mistake, not a customer service win
• A real example of a fireworks game sitting at 55% capacity while groups landed on midweek nights
• How to build an A / B / C game calendar before the season starts and tape it to every rep's desk
• What qualifies as an A date (fireworks, opening night, rivalry games, marquee bobbleheads)
• When and how to fall back to B dates — and why C dates should never lead a conversation
• How hotels, airlines, and concert venues manage demand-driven inventory and what sports teams can steal from them
• Why concentrating groups on marquee games turns 4,000-fan nights into 6,000-fan sellouts
• How sellouts compound — local press, social content, repeat group bookings the following season
• Why groups are one of the few controllable attendance levers operators actually own
• How to bring all three Group Sales 101 episodes together: understand the audience, speak their language, place them strategically
• Why most group sales training misses this — focusing on objection handling instead of strategic thinking

TIMESTAMPS:
[00:00] – Opening: why placement, not just selling, defines great group sales reps
[00:29] – The problem with letting groups pick their own dates
[01:35] – "Great group sales reps don't just sell groups, they place them"
[02:02] – Why "what date works for you?" hands away scheduling control
[03:00] – Buyers default to convenience — almost never the most valuable date for the team
[03:30] – A real-world example: a fireworks game stuck at 55% capacity
[03:50] – How to prioritize your schedule with A, B, and C dates
[04:26] – What makes an A date: fireworks, opening night, rivalry, major promotions
[04:55] – When to use B dates as a fallback
[05:23] – The rule: always lead with an A date, never lead with a C
[05:52] – Steve Delay's principle: make your good dates great
[06:18] – Inside a season where concentration on marquee games moved the numbers
[07:15] – Hotels and airlines: how every inventory business manages a calendar
[07:50] – The grocery store ice analogy — inventory businesses sell into demand
[08:13] – Groups as one of the few controllable attendance levers
[08:41] – What you can't control vs. what you can
[09:09] – The mindset shift: use groups to make good games great, not to fill empty ones
[10:04] – The 4th of July fireworks case study — a sellout built off intentional group placement
[10:58] – Beyond filling seats: atmosphere, word of mouth, repeat group bookings
[11:27] – Tying the three-part series together: audience, language, placement
[12:24] – Strategy beats tactics — what most group sales training misses
[12:54] – Wrapping the series and what to do next
[13:23] – Closing call to action and how to keep the conversation going

CALL TO ACTION:
If you've got questions on any of this — building the A / B / C calendar, retraining reps out of order-taking habits, or connecting group sales to your broader attendance strategy — book a 30-minute call at sportsmarketingmachine.com. Happy to dig in.

Links Mentioned:

Episode 168 - Group Sales 101 — Part 1- Personalization Wins Group Sales
Episode 169 - Group Sales 101 — Part 2 - Apply Friction Test to Your Outreach

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QUOTE PULLS:

"Great group sales reps don't just sell groups. They place them."
— Jeremy Neisser

"Nobody wins when groups pick their own dates by default. You're going to have to guide them. Give them three good dates."
— Jeremy Neisser

"A fireworks game doing 4,000 fans becomes 6,000 with aggressive group sales outreach. That's a different atmosphere, a different per cap, and a more powerful marketing moment."
— Jeremy Neisser

"You can't control the weather. You can't control your opponent. But you can control where your groups land."
— Jeremy Neisser

"Groups aren't just a revenue line. They are an attendance strategy. The teams that treat them that way are the ones that create sellouts, not just sales."
— Jeremy Neisser

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Transcript

Jeremy Neisser (00:00.234)
Welcome to episode 170 of the Sports Marketing Machine Podcast, powered by Revelity Sports. I'm your host, Jeremy Neiser. This is the final episode of our Group Sales 101 series. Part one, two episodes ago, we talked about understanding your audience, knowing that a church, a company, a youth sports organization, a nonprofit are all buying for completely different reasons. Part two.

two just came out a couple days ago. We extended that into your outreach, applying the same friction-reducing thinking from episode 154 and continuation from part one of this series together in your cold emails, your calls, your follow-ups, and what have you. If you have yet to listen to those episodes, pop one over. I'll links in the show notes. You'll be able to take a listen to those and read all about them. Today it is part three.

We're talking about the most strategic piece out of all of this group sales puzzle here, and it might be the one that most reps never think about at all, especially young ones. When I say young ones, folks that are early in their careers. Great group sales reps don't just sell groups, they place them. Let's get started.

Jeremy Neisser (01:35.106)
Just finished that intro and it says the great group sales reps don't just sell groups, they place groups. That's what I just said, right? Most teams let the group organizer pick the date. Here's what a typical conversation looks like: a church administrator calls and says, Hey, we're interested in doing an outing this summer. And the rep says, Great, what date would you like?

Seems harmless, right? You're being helpful, you're being flexible, you're making it easy for that church administrator. But that's not really strategic. That's more order taking than anything anything else. What just happened is that that sales rep handed that complete scheduling control to that church administrator. And what buyers typically do is they pick what is most convenient for them.

Which is often not the most valuable date for the team. Group sales manager at a minor league team I sat down with three weeks ago and they had a fireworks game that was about fifty five percent capacity in mid July. So we're still a month or so away. Meanwhile, they had groups scattered across a dozen midweek games throughout that month of July. And I said, Hey,

What's going on? Why is the fireworks game the game you're spending a lot of marketing dollars to promote, you're spending a lot of promotional dollars on your fireworks night, and you're putting a lot of energy into, but none of these groups around it are coming to this game. They're coming dates around it, right? The answer was honestly, people just ask for those dates and we said yes. Nobody had ever pushed them towards those fireworks games.

The best game on their calendar that month had the fewest groups. That is a fixable problem, but only if you're intentional about it. Nobody wins when groups pick their own dates by default. You're gonna have to guide them. Give them three good dates. So, what a great group sales operations what do they do instead? Before the season starts.

Jeremy Neisser (03:56.898)
Before the first call is made, before the first renewal phone call, they build a priority list of games. Their schedule has A dates, B dates, and C dates. A dates are the ones you're trying to sell out, B dates you're trying to hit a specific attendance number, and C dates are maybe the ones that are left over after that, right? I know everybody thinks A, B, and C, like we're just gonna use that. A is your premium games, your fireworks, your opening nights, your rival games, bobbleheads.

Theme nights that have major promotions that have a lot of momentum. These are the games that already have momentum and groups can push them from good to great. A fireworks game doing 4,000 fans becomes 6,000 with an aggressive group sales outreach. That's a different atmosphere, a larger per cap, and a more powerful marketing moment than if it was just 4,000 and you had them sprinkled on other games. B dates, what are those?

These are solid promotional nights, good enough that groups will enjoy them, but without the headline draw of an A date, like a fireworks or a giveaway or what have you. These are your fallback options when an A date simply doesn't work for that group organizer's schedule. Here are your C dates. These are your lower priority games. They might be midweek with minimal promotion. Groups can go here if they truly can't do anything else.

But they shouldn't be your first, second, or even really your third offer. The strategy is simple. Lead every group conversation with an A-date. You want to sell those out first. Steve Delay, I had him on a podcast episode before, and I'll put a link in the show notes. He is a worldwide known or known for his sales training. And he talks about you make your good dates great. That's exactly what I'm talking about here with your group sales outreach, right?

If an A date doesn't work, move them to a B date and only work them way down if the list is necessary, right? If you have built an A B C game calendar at the start of every season and tap taped it to every single rep's desk, the rule is you pitch A dates first, always. If they can't do that, you go to B's. You never lead with C's. Within one season, they're grouped.

Jeremy Neisser (06:18.83)
Concentration on these marquee games jumped significantly because they were concentrating and being intentional of growing numbers on their biggest games. And of course, for a lot of teams, when you're selling out big games like that, you're getting a lot more attention locally. It wasn't just magic, it was just being intentional with how you do business. You're not forcing anyone into anything.

Guiding them toward the games that create the most value for them because a fireworks game with six thousand people is a marvelous experience versus a game on a Tuesday night when there's not many people. So you're creating the most value for them and for you. If you wanted a business analogy for this, think about how hotels and airlines operate. A hotel doesn't let guests choose their own pricing tier based on when they feel like checking in.

They have rate categories by demand. New Year's Eve isn't priced the same as a random Tuesday in March. High demand nights get pushed hard and the inventory for those nights are treated valuable. Airlines do the same thing. They fill their most profitable routes and departure times first. Concert venues do this. Floor seats get pitched before the nosebleeds. The premium section gets offered before the overflow. Every

Inventory-driven business in the world manages its calendar strategically. I can go to the grocery store right now. We're in the middle of June and they have more ice machines. They're selling more ice this time of the year than they would be in November. They're in an inventory business. They're trying to sell more, right? Every inventory-driven business in the world manages a calendar strategically.

Sports teams should be doing the exact same thing with groups. Because here's the reality: groups are one of the few controllable levers you have. You can't control the weather on a Friday night. You can't control if it snows in your community on in January and you're a hockey team. You can't stop the rain if it's coming and you're a soccer team or baseball team, right? You can't control whether your opponent is any good this year.

Jeremy Neisser (08:41.132)
You can't control whether a competing event shows up on your calendar, but you can control where your groups land. And that decision has a real impact on your attendance numbers, your per cap, and your overall budget. So this mindset shift, I want you to walk away with today because really using groups to make good games great. A lot of teams.

Spread their groups evenly across their schedule and try to find dates that work for the group buyer. Sometimes and most of the time, I want you to guide them to the games that are good for you. The group buyer will look over the calendar and they'll feel good about going to a game, and the game is here and there, but spreading too thin, groups become invisible.

They don't need to move the needle on any single game. They really need to move the needle on your good games to turn them great. The better approach is to concentrate groups strategically. Take your best games, your A dates that I mentioned, make them massive. Real world scenario here. A team I'm aware of had a 4th of July fireworks game that they knew was going to be big regardless. Their group sales team.

Made a decision early in the off season. Every group conversation starts with that game and they work from there. Hey, we've got fourth of July, we've got a Friday, it's gonna be great. Churches, companies, little leagues, everyone heard about that fourth of July game first. By the time that game rolled around, they had twenty some odd bookings on that single night. The game was sold out, the energy in the ballpark was unbelievable, and it was

A sellout that they hadn't had for years. It generated a look a lot of local press, tremendous social media content because families like posting on social media. And here's the part that really matters. Several of those groups came back the following season without being asked be because the experience was that good. That's what groups can do when you use them intentionally. They don't just fill seats.

Jeremy Neisser (10:58.294)
They create atmosphere, they create word of mouth, they create marketing, they create that kind of night that turn first-time attendees into repeat buyers. Groups aren't just a revenue line, they are an attendance strategy. The teams that treat them that way are the ones that create sellouts, not just sales. So let me bring all three of these pieces together from episode 168.

When I was talking about personalization to speaking their language in episode 169. So part one, understanding your audience. Every group type has a different motivation. Ask why they want to come out before you even open your mouth or send an email. Number two was speaking their language. Lead with outcomes and experiences, not tickets and pricing and and what have you. You gotta make it super simple. Make them feel like

You wrote something that was specifically for them with very low cognitive load. And number three here, which is what we've been talking about here, is place and push groups strategically. Guide them towards your highest priority games. Use them to make your good nights great. That is group sales one-on-one. Most times you don't hear that from a group sales trainer. They're gonna teach you how to overcome objections.

how to follow up, how to earn the win, right? Right? But in this case, it's not just understanding how to talk better on the phone. It's understanding people, communicating effectively, and thinking strategically. Those are the things that turn a good group sales department into a great one that will take you from an attendance number where you are today to where you are pushing to try to get to. So thanks for following along on this three part series.

that you've been listening to really appreciate it. If you found some value, share this with someone in your group sales office, your GM, your external relations director, someone that you know in sports, whoever runs and sells groups at an organization, hopefully they find some value in this or leave a rating and review on Apple or iTunes. It would mean the world to me, but it would help more people who are just like you. These conversations that move the needle

Jeremy Neisser (13:23.918)
They're not checklists. They're not tactics. They are strategies. If you enjoyed this series, just take a moment and leave a rating or review. It really would mean to world to me. But if you need more help and you've got questions around everything I've talked about on this group sales side, pop one over to Sports Marketing Machine, schedule a 30-minute call. Happy to dig into this with you and really talk through how each one of these can stack to really turn your group sales operation into something.

That is printing money. Until next time.