Question

The primary goal of SportsEvents magazine is to assist event planners of amateur sporting events and competitions to achieve more success with their events. The magazine includes plenty of “how-to” articles that are authored by leading event planners as well as news and information that sports planners could use. The magazine also provides stories on important topics such as information about sports complexes, interviews with leading event planners, and other things that would help planners be successful in their jobs. Akimi Hamaski is an advertising salesperson for SportsEvents, and his territory includes all of the states west of the Mississippi River in the United States. In a few weeks, Akimi will be calling on Patrick Goldman, general manager of the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority (MSFA), the owner and operator of the U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota. MSFA has never advertised in SportsEvents magazine. Akimi is not sure if anyone from his magazine has ever even called on Patrick or the MSFA. Questions 1. Assume that you are Akimi Hamaski. List your call objectives for your first call with the general manager for the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority. 2. Develop a three-call follow-up schedule and list the objectives for each call.

Answer 1

Objectives for first call to Partrick Goldman, General Manager of Minnesota Sports Facility Authority (MSFA)

1. The first step will be to introduce self and SportsEvents magazine. Give a background of what the magazine is all about, where all it is circulated, who are the target audience and how it helps sports events planners to gain knowledge about sports complexes. The call will also try to explain that the magazine has write ups from leading personalities in the field about latest techniques and methodology on event planning. Finally, the core issue will be proposed by way of an offer to promote his stadium in the magazine and request for an appointment to discuss further.

After a week of first introductory call, three call follow up can be as follows:

1. First call objective to refresh last call conversation about SportsEvent magazine and request for a firm appointment with date and time. The main objective will be to extract confirmation for appointment as per convenience of both, primarily of Patrick Goldman.

2. Assuming the earlier call resulted in confirmation of an appointment and a meeting did take place, the follow up call will be to recall the meeting and request for firming up space in the magazine for placement of promotional/informative advertisement about MSFA owned stadium. The main objective will be to confirm and finalize advertising space.

3. The third call objective will be to confirm date and time to re-visit and meet Patrick or his referred person/department to sign agreement on placement of advertisement or to collect advertising collaterals (assuming the second call was succesful in extracting confirmation for placement of advertisement in the magazine).

Since agreements and advertising collaterals can also be retrieved online digitally, the objective of third call can also be to thank Patrick for his patronage and to inform the publication of advertisement in the magazine and mailing of free complimentary copies to him.