Review of my attended concurrent sessions at ASBA TM 2019

While Gill Athletics has been a Supplier Member and annual exhibitor for many years, this was my first year as an attendee at the American Sports Builders Association (ASBA) annual Technical Meeting (TM). In my first year as the National Sales Manager of our Sports Construction business, I knew the ASBA TM was an important annual tradition to connect with current business relationships and meet many new ones. What I wasn’t expecting was the amount of educational sessions and the value they presented to attendees who made the decision to participate.

To help spread the education, I am presenting this article on LinkedIn to present my opinion based review of each of the sessions I attended as well as the link to the PowerPoint presentations used by the presenters. Click HERE for a full list of all presentations. If you are reading this and you attended any of the other sessions that I did not, would you consider writing up your review of the session to help spread the education? 

1A-Sport Fencing: Clever Solutions to Interesting Challenges presented by Todd Dettor, Fast-Dry Courts, Inc and Alex Levitsky, PE, Global Sports & Tennis Design Group, LLC.

Mr. Levitsky started by explaining different fences and their respective shapes. For example, with metal mesh fencing it tends to want to ‘stay straight’ and therefore ornamental or shaped fencing becomes an issue. He showed an interesting oval design with metal mesh fencing around a park/sports field that overcame that ‘stay straight’ property.

He then went well in-depth into the heights of fences; minimums and maximums. This was to help with liability regarding head and body injuries when persons interact with different fence heights whether in a sporting action or not. This specific portion of his presentation was very interesting as it relates to not only thinking of the material to be utilized but also the design as it relates to form and function.

Two specific points of Mr. Levitsky’s presentation were the most interesting to me. When discussing netting, he says “netting is extremely light, nearly transparent and requires very little structure.” With all the current hot topic discussion around specific types of trademarked and patented netting, there should be a good amount of consideration paid to the natural ‘nearly transparent’ nature of netting to begin with. I believe a lot of clients are being trapped into thinking netting with more transparency (and a lot more costs) is worth it. When overall consideration is paid between the already ‘nearly transparent’ nature of netting versus the costs of purchase, installation, upkeep and replacement costs, there is a lot of value in the plane boring yet cost-efficient netting used in every day applications.

The other aspect of this presentation that really piqued my interest is surprisingly not in the PowerPoint presentation listed on the ASBA website; perhaps it was a late addition? Mr. Levitsky spoke about the need for netting/screening to be away from the posts to create a safer separation. Therefore when/if a person runs into the netting near the support posts they are less likely to hit them. This type of design reduces the need for padding as well. He showed an interesting design specifically for a baseball/softball outfield where the only ‘close to athlete’ metal was the foul poles themselves, which he was quick to remind everyone should be padded up to 8’. The rest of the support posts supporting the netting was a creative design to keep 2’ between the net and posts itself. This design seemed safer, long lasting, easy to set up/tear down, functional for storage, and had the potential to support ball fields that needed multiple, non-permanent outfield walls.

Another topic Mr. Levitsky broached was the consideration of ball size to square size used in netting. He even included a very handy chart to help visualize these differences. Pinch points on different fencing were discussed with an easy fix for a particularly common pinch point problem. And the topic of the ASTM and its new subcommittee formed to discuss fencing, netting, and padding as it relates to user safety was pointed out.

This quick review is not meant to provide all the value presented during the presentation and is a summation of my personal opinion. Take it for what it’s worth. I highly recommend you look through the entire presentation for more information and to form your own opinions.

2D-USA Volleyball Presents Myths & Truths of Volleyball (indoor, outdoor, beach) presented by John Kessel, USA Volleyball.

While I focus on our outdoor sports construction business at Gill Athletics, I’m always keen on finding ways to bring value back to our other teammates. With this presentation I was excited to learn more about volleyball to bring back to our Porter Athletic team that focuses on this wonderful sport. I’m afraid based on my expectations from the title of this presentation this was not afforded to me.

First, let me state that there aren’t many more knowledgeable people about volleyball than Mr. Kessel. His records and history speaks for itself. Second, let me state that my less than stellar opinion of this presentation is based on my own pre-conceived expectations. With a title like ‘Myths & Truths of Volleyball’ and in the context that this was the American Sports Builders Association, I was expecting topics to include court size, equipment footings, venue size/needs, etc. Instead we were presented an overview of the different types of volleyball throughout the world.

Mr. Kessel started with the different disciplines of volleyball (indoor, beach, sitting, etc), then explained the age inclusiveness of volleyball by presenting the different age groups for national championships of USA Volleyball. He followed that up with the different variations of the game (co-ed, Spikeball, and even nudist!) and SFIA participation trends.

All very good and great information to have if you were considering whether to join the volleyball market in some form or fashion, however no ‘Myths of Volleyball’ had been presented, only ‘Truths’. I will say at this point, Mr. Kessel made a quick trivia question break with the winner receiving a prize (I believe it was an inflatable beach volleyball). To Mr. Kessel’s credit, no other presenter that I saw had this fun break within their presentation.

The rest of the presentation was a breakdown of the age/gender of volleyball participants as well as their educational level breakdowns. Then some rule differences, court layouts for safety, alternative ways to create homemade outdoor volleyball standards, and sitting volleyball rules and facts.

Upon further reflection, maybe I’m being too hard on Mr. Kessel regarding Truths of USA Volleyball. However I stand by that there was no comparison to Myths of USA Volleyball. I walked away with a higher appreciation for this great sport in which I already have a pretty high opinion of, however I certainly did not walk away with anything that might help any business as it relates to the Sports Builders side of volleyball.

This quick review is not meant to provide all the value presented during the presentation and is a summation of my personal opinion. Take it for what it’s worth. I highly recommend you look through the entire presentation for more information and to form your own opinions.

3E-GROWing Talent Within Your Organization presented by Jeff McManus, University of Mississippi.

As a former track and field coach at Mississippi State University, I attended this concurrent session with some trepidation. Mr. McManus immediately set me a bit more comfortable by announcing that he was a graduate of Auburn University (better than Ole Miss, but still not great). In my years at Mississippi State there were many fun jokes lobbed towards Ole Miss, however there was one we could never touch; the landscaping. Ole Miss is a beautiful campus that takes full advantage of its landscaping with beautiful creative growth. Mr. McManus’ is in charge of the team responsible with overseeing this incredible task over the entire Oxford, Miss campus, as well as the University airport and golf course. No easy feat I’m sure!

I was joined by my Senior Vice-President of Sales/Marketing Jeff Nolting for this presentation. I was impressed he would join us to learn more about how to GROW the talent within his (our) organization. Honestly, I was extremely proud to see him join this presentation as it showed the type of leadership within our own organization that I am proud to be a part of.

Mr. McManus related very well to the oversized crowd during his hour. He had a few main talking points including being proud of the awards/recognition your organization collects, the path of success is not the straight line we imagine it will be, the value of teamwork, and being asked to do more with less (budget).

However, his main point that stuck with me was the ability to make the work about more than the paycheck. He shared the theme of instilling pride into the work of his team by teaching them how their work was more important to the University than just pulling weeds and planting flowers. Mr. McManus rightfully linked the beauty of the landscape with the recruitment of students and athletes. The pride the landscaping team took in clean walk ways, proper underbrush, etc was a direct reflection on how prospective students viewed the school itself. Mr. McManus connected the pride of great landscaping with the attainment of great students and athletes. This helped create a greater sense of self when it pertains to the work of the day. I won’t spoil what GROW stands for here in this quick recap of this excellent presentation, I’ll encourage you to look through the PowerPoint presentation and research the author on your own. It’s worth it!

This quick review is not meant to provide all the value presented during the presentation and is a summation of my personal opinion. Take it for what it’s worth. I highly recommend you look through the entire presentation for more information and to form your own opinions.

4E-Social Media-Facebook Basics (Internet Marketing) presented by Mike Gelfgot, Anytime Fitness.

As someone who has spent a lot of time on Facebook (haven’t we all?!), I went into this session expecting exactly what the title said-‘Facebook Basics’. As the original creator of the Gill Athletics Facebook page which leads our industry in ‘followers’ and ‘engagement’, I checked my ego and knowledge at the door expecting ‘Facebook Basics’. I was genuinely excited to learn from someone else in this very specific B2B market space. Unfortunately I was met with someone who appears to understand Facebook Marketing very well, but missed understanding who the audience was.

Mr. Gelfgot presented two important concepts; 1) how to create a customer profile and 2) basically good advice when it comes to social media ads and their returns. Regarding the ability to create a customer profile, it can’t be stressed enough how important this activity really is. In fact, I believe if Mr. Gelfgot had taught a session just on this concept, an extreme amount of value would have been provided the participants. He was extremely knowledgeable in how to create this customer profile, as well as the nuances to a complete profile, including why it’s so important and how to utilize it in your social media (specifically Facebook in this instance) posts and ads.

When his attention turned to Facebook ads, here is where he missed the mark, in my opinion. Mr. Gelfgot stated, “If you don’t see a return on your spend in 30-45 days, you’re doing something wrong and should stop the ad immediately. Recalibrate and then run it again. Specifically if you spend $2000 in Facebook ads and you don’t get a sale(s) specifically attributed to this ad for at least $2000, you are doing it wrong. Stop immediately.” This is a decent rule of thumb for a B2C run business that sells a product/service where you can make a sale(s) totaling $2000 in 30-45 days such as an Anytime Fitness gym. Unfortunately, the majority of those in attendance are in the sports building profession where the sales funnel is much longer than 30-45 days, does not close based on a social media ad, however fortunately the sale is typically much larger than the $2000 used in the example.

I would argue that no athletic director/track coach (Gill Athletics’ target audience) has seen a pole vault pit ad on Facebook and said, “That’s a compelling ad, I’m going to call them and order that today!” While at some points in my daily business life I wish that were true, reality tells me it is a longer sales cycle with much greater nuances. So why run paid ads on Facebook at all? Well, that’s a topic for another discussion. One that Mr. Gelfgot missed completely.

Good news, he did not miss the boat completely. He did touch on the importance of thinking like a curator not always as an originator, as well as consistency in posting, evergreen types of posts, and cross promotion specifically with ambassadors and advocates. I have no doubts Mr. Gelfgot knows the basics (and more) on Facebook, however I am afraid he failed in conveying that in a manner his audience would find useful.

This quick review is not meant to provide all the value presented during the presentation and is a summation of my personal opinion. Take it for what it’s worth. I highly recommend you look through the entire presentation for more information and to form your own opinions.

5E-Social Media-LinkedIn (Internet Marketing) presented by Mike Gelfgot, Anytime Fitness.

If you read my review of Mr. Gelfgot’s Facebook Basics presentation, you may be expecting the same type of review for his LinkedIn presentation. However, it’s my opinion that he did a much better job here than in his Facebook talk. I honestly think it’s because he is so well versed in Facebook that he lost sight of his audience and strayed into incorrect waters. However, during his LinkedIn presentation he hit the mark fairly well.

Again, he hits the nail on the head with the customer profile creation. I honestly would be very interested in hearing him speak specifically on creating a customer profile. It comes across clearly he has done this important activity several times and probably hit the bullseye when doing them. This would be an excellent topic in future ASBA meetings specifically from this presenter.

While this topic was not specifically on ‘basics’ my experience shows that more people are less versed in LinkedIn than Facebook, therefore a ‘basics’ course might have provided more value to the audience. However, there was a lot of value given by Mr. Gelfgot with his given presentation. He explained very well about creating a unique selling proposition statement for your LinkedIn personal account. I also very much appreciated his serious statement about not utilizing LinkedIn for your family/vacation/friends pictures, that instead it is designed for business minded thoughts and posts. This is extremely important to keep the integrity of the business minded LinkedIn, to help ensure it does not degrade down to the personal social network that is familiar on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc.

Mr. Gelfgot stayed specifically on one’s personal LinkedIn page and skipped a company page option entirely. I believe there could have been time carved out to discuss both; however I understand his decision to stick with the personal LinkedIn page.

I really appreciate his explanations regarding becoming an authority on LinkedIn. He gave great suggestions such as there is no quick hit and content is king. While he overstates the ‘drive by interactions do nothing’, he is spot on regarding engagement and contributions on individual and industry posts. Interestingly the ASBA LinkedIn page is completely void of consistent value added content, which surprises me after meeting so many smart experienced people at this year’s ASBA TM. While more time and attention could be provided by the ASBA staff, I challenge the members to create this value added content.

Overall, Mr. Gelfgot provided a good amount of value with his LinkedIn presentation. If he ever reads this, I would highly encourage him to do a ‘customer profile creation’ presentation for the future. I would be there in the front row!

This quick review is not meant to provide all the value presented during the presentation and is a summation of my personal opinion. Take it for what it’s worth. I highly recommend you look through the entire presentation for more information and to form your own opinions.

 6B-Meet Management and How Construction Applies presented by Christopher Chisam, RLA, LEEP AP, Tarkett Sports and Duffy Mahoney, USA Track & Field.

The title of this presentation intrigued me immensely. As a former collegiate track and field coach, and now a current track and field equipment manufacturer, this seemed like the perfect merger of the two. I was not disappointed!

I’ve never met Mr. Chisam before, however he presented a really good topic with lots of images and deep explanation. Having met Mr. Mahoney before, I knew what I was in for. If you’ve met him, you know exactly what I mean, if not, well you just had to be there.

Overall, these two presenters challenged those of us who consult on track and field facilities to consider everything that goes into the design of the facility as an individual concept taking into consideration what the goals of the program are today…and tomorrow. A wide range of considerations were presented including what type of meets were to be hosted (duals, invitationals, championships, etc) and what other sports were to use the facility (soccer, lacrosse, etc) and how those different considerations affected the amount of seating, location of events, flow of athletes, parking, lighting, etc.

Correctly, Mr. Mahoney spent particular time on the radius of turns when designing a track facility. Specifically using a choice soccer coach consult he conducted once, as well as the plea to open up the turns to a greater radius for many reasons including the overall speed improvements for athletes and decrease in injury risks.

Mr. Chisam used many pictures for examples to the audience. This visual appeal was well received and helped everyone see what the presenter was saying, not just read it on a PowerPoint slide. High praise should be given to these two presenters who provided a ton of visual value and advice on how to consult with customers regarding the design of their facility. This was an excellent presentation that focused on what the customer would want in relation to hosting a meet(s) and not just forcing what ‘you know best because you’re the expert’. This was a very customer focused presentation.

I would highly encourage you to review the PowerPoint presentation, lots of good stuff here!

This quick review is not meant to provide all the value presented during the presentation and is a summation of my personal opinion. Take it for what it’s worth. I highly recommend you look through the entire presentation for more information and to form your own opinions.

If you've read this far, thanks! If you want to connect, I can be reached by email ([email protected]), Twitter, Instagram, and of course Facebook.