Rules, Drills and History of The Sports You Love

June 21st, 2010

Have you ever wished you could find just one place that brought all of a specific sports rules, drills, history, videos, etc. together in just one, easy to access spot?

If you have then you’ll want to drop by www.bonzicentral.com every so often during the rest of 2010 and watch how we slowly but steadily add new content about your favorite sports to the www.bonzicentral.com website.

If you have suggestions for us, think we’ve missed something, or just like what you see, we’d like to hear about it in your comments in this blog. If it’s a legitimate comment or suggestion we’ll respond and we’ll likely act on it. After all, that’s how we and our customers build what our customers tell us is the best sports software available on the market today.

We’ll still cover sports registration, sport team websites, great reporting, Email communication for leagues, clubs and teams, sports scheduling and how to make it all easy and fast to do… and we won’t forget all of that friendly unlimited personal support you’ve come to expect. The only thing that will change is that you’ll be able to find more interesting information on www.bonzicentral.com

Yikes, I forgot to mention the new Bonzi Content Manager; it’s just getting rolled out now with Beta testers… but WOW, is it ever cool according to the folks who have gotten a sneak peek. Just imagine, most of the web site work that required a programmer in the past can now be done by anyone who can type. So what’s in it for you and your organization? Well, first of all you’ll be able to have that website you’ve always dreamed of without all the cost and complexity of using a web designer. You’ll also be able to get it in place fast and make the changes you want fast. Above all it will be fun and save you money.

So please check back with us… good things are coming your way soon.

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Posted in Coaching, Communication, How to Choose, Parents Win, Reporting, Scheduling, Support, Upgrades, Wins for Parents | No Comments »

The Many Perspectives of Sports Software

June 16th, 2010

Sports Software, league software, youth sports software… whatever you call it doesn’t matter as much as what your perspective is when you think of it. What do I mean?

Sports software (or whatever you wish to call it) and it’s impact on your life differs by the job or role you have when you encounter it. Your role gives you certain experiences and experiences give you a unique set of distinctions… meaning you can see things that others can’t. No kidding.

For example, a referee see’s a sports activity with one set of eyes while a participant see’s it with another set of eyes and an observer/fan see’s it with yet another set of eyes. No perspective is wrong… they’re just different.

If you have never used sports software then at first glance they all look about the same… therein lies some danger that you might make a choice based upon limited distinctions and your development of distinctions might come from having a lousy first experience using sports software, league software and youth sports software. This can be especially painful if you get signed up for a multi-year contract that locks you in because you were told that “everybody” requires a multi-year contract.

If you have used sports software then you have developed some distinctions related to how you interacted with that software and the comments you heard from others. The painful thing is that it is all to easy to either have your contract with your current provider “auto” extend for a year or two… the details around this are usually in the fine print of your contract, or jump from a bad experience with your current provider to another equally difficult experience with a new provider.

Finally, it often happens that the sports software you are using may be OK for a volunteer who just does rostering or registration but a nightmare for your coaches, the person who manages the team web site or the person who is responsible for generating reports each week. The bottom line is that it is very difficult to gain enough sports software distinctions fast enough for any one person to understand all of the questions to ask to make sure that you and your organization get the best sports software for the unique needs of your club, league or organization.

Bonzi sports software knows this oh so well because our friendly team of sports software support experts speak with both Bonzi sports software users and people who are frustrated with other brands of sports software not just daily but hourly. From that experience has come something called the Bonzi sports software “Best Choice Tool Kit” and the “Bonzi Challenge”. Essentially Bonzi sports software knows that if you ask all the right questions that you’ll be in a great position to make the best choice for your and your organization. Bonzi also has good reason to believe that if you do ask all the right questions that you’ll quickly see that Bonzi, according to our customers, has what most clubs, leagues and organizations feel is the best sports software for most them.

Are you curious? Is your sports software contract going to expire soon? Are you doing it all with Excel and sheer determination? If so then you might want to check out our free, fair, and easy to use tools to help you and your organization make the best sports software choice for you and your club, league or organization by going here: http://www.bonzicentral.com/bonzichallenge

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Posted in Coaching, Communication, Costs, How to Choose, Parents Win, Scheduling, Support, Volunteers | No Comments »

Where to point the finger for performance on or off the field

June 8th, 2010

Blame just feels right in so many cases. The big question is does it get us anywhere in reality? I suggest it doesn’t usually move anyone towards the things they want on or off the field in sports.

Let’s take little league from the perspective of the coach for example. If the team loses more often than the coach thinks they should given what he or she knows of the teams average skill level who or what is to blame? Blame the kids for (fill in the blank) until the cows come home and what will really change; nothing in my experience. By contrast if the coach looks in the mirror and realizes that the practice sessions have not done enough to condition the kids and balls keep getting dropped then conditioning and drills may be in order.

So you say Duh… everyone knows that in little league sports! So if thats true… why so much noisy complaint and yelling at the kids?

The experts out there tell us that we complain anytime there is a gap between what we want and what we are getting. More specifically when we complain we usually do so in one or more of the following three ways:

  1. Complaints for recreation – it’s a social lubricant and a way of aligning on values
  2. Expressive complaints – we just have to get it off our chest but don’t want or expect that anything will be done about it
  3. Complaints for action – we want and expect that something will happen and happen soon

Discerning which complaint you are making is tough and figuring out what other people are doing seems almost impossible much of the time.

In my experience the key is to simply ask; what are the possibilities that you think we should consider looking at to address this concern? That statement usually pulls out which of the three types of complaints are occurring and what you might need to do about it. I go so far as to ask myself the question so I can get clarity… if I really think these kids can do better in their little league baseball game then what action(s) would most likely yield the needed results in the relevant time-frame?

Once I know that then I know it is up to me to take the action or shut up and put up…unless I am just complaining for recreation or to blow off steam… and even then I need to make sure that my complaining isn’t doing harm to those around me who can’t figure out what my intent is with all my noise.

Does this line up with your experience?

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What people want from their sports software providers

June 7th, 2010

Knowing or discovering what your market wants and then providing it is an obvious key to business and life success. But, like so many things in life, it’s far easier said than done. At Bonzi we know you want the following basics from a sports software provider because our clients tell us or otherwise confirm these things every hour of every day:

  • Friendly, unlimited, free support… even one-on-one training from people you know, like and trust to have your best interests at heart.
  • Lowest overall cost
  • Easy to use but with all the features and functions you need to do it your way
  • Your money in your bank account within 24 hours of a transaction
  • No surprises, no hidden costs and no contracts
  • The best registration, website, scheduling and email communications software available that will run with almost any browser
  • Speed; all of the above needs to happen fast no mater how many other people might be online

While those are all great things we’ve also realized that there are a few other elements that are also critical but at times hard to pin down:

  1. Reliable; we do what we say we will do when we say we’ll do it
  2. Good relationships; you treat me like a person, are appropriately warm and friendly and are willing to speak frankly when things need to be addressed
  3. Well run business; Bonzi sports software runs a tight ship business wise so that you can count on us being both efficient and around for the long haul
  4. Fit; you understand and give me what I need and beyond to run my club, league or organization
  5. Listen; we ask questions and don’t assume – we get to know you and your situation by asking good questions and listening well to the answer
  6. Research and innovation; you know best practices in sports software and are constantly working to keep the gap narrow
  7. Caution; we’ve done our homework so that our suggestions and direction are valid and reliable
  8. Available; you can reach us when you need us and we’ll respond
  9. Education; you’ll help us understand how things work and give us the tips that come from over a decade of working with organizations and the sports software that supports them
  10. Alignment; we have the features and functions you need to do your business – if we don’t have what you need we won’t hesitate to tell you so you can find a better alternative – we won’t waste your time if we aren’t aligned
  11. Deadline oriented; let’s face it, play starts on a certain date, standings must be posted by a certain date and your email has to get delivered so your plans stay on track – at Bonzi sports software your deadlines are our deadlines

All these may seem like subtle distinctions in a sports software provider… but they are distinctions that our customers tell us make all the difference in the world to their lives using sports software.

What do you think?  Did we miss anything?

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Posted in Coaching, Communication, Costs, How to Choose, Parents Win, Volunteers, Wins for Parents | No Comments »

Revenue from your sports league software?

June 4th, 2010

Your sports league software can help you generate revenue for your league – who knew. It seems I’ve heard it a hundred times. Cookie and wrapping paper sales are fine but they often don’t generate significant amounts of money and they can be a real pain for all concerned. Bonzi sports league software can make all that pain largely a thing of the past.

First for a couple of basics; when you hear a sports league software suggest that what they offer is “free” what they really mean is that they will advertise on your site AND likely charge you high credit card fees and a registration fee to boot; only the website is usually free. Add to that that the “free” version of the software is a pain to use and “free” becomes very expensive.

Making revenue for your club can be as easy as emailing reminders with links for things the league members can buy that will pay the league a commission. Good examples are coupon books, coffee, car washes, etc.

Alternatively, you can use Bonzi sports league software’s unique content management system to help you sell and place your own ads on your team pages, registration pages and email; unlike most sports league software vendors you are in control.

Using Bonzi sports league software you can pin-point a group within your league to get a message that is perfect for them or make an offer that is just for them an not everybody in the league. You can send that offer and test to see what kind of results you get. If you love the results then you can consider rolling out the entire promotion to the entire league.

Do you want to brain storm on how you can use Bonzi sports league software to simplify your leagues, club or organizations revenue generation? If so give Ricky Aker a call at 503-620-6661 X224 to set-up a time to review your options.

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Posted in Communication, Cost of Free, Parents Win, Revenue Generation | No Comments »

sports team software

May 24th, 2010

Sports Team Software; how do we see if a team is a fit?

When we interview a potential client for Bonzi sports software our first question is “When does the contract with your current sports team software provider expire”?

We ask because we know that some people are locked in to a contract with their current sports software provider and may not be able to change to Bonzi no matter how dissatisfied they may be.

We want to know for two reasons; 1) many and maybe most “contracts” used by Bonzi’s competition have a nasty little feature called “auto-renew” which means if you don’t notify them in writing before a certain date that the contract “auto-renews” for a specific period of time such as 1-3 years and 2) we want to begin providing you with appropriate information to help you make the best choice for you and your organization each month up to and through both your renewal window and the time by when you need to have made a decision so you can be ready for the next set of registrations using your new sports team software.

The next thing we’ll ask you is why you are not going to stay with what you have today – by the way, Bonzi has not had a customer leave in over 10 years and we don’t lock any team in with a contract. We want to know this because if we can’t do what they need done we want to let them know early. So far this has never happened but you never know when it comes to sports team software.

From there we ask what things they must have to meet their goals for the next sports team software program that they would adopt.

Once we know all that we do a bit of exploring to see what additional capabilities might be useful in their unique situation.

After all of that we simply follow-up with an email summarizing what  your sports team software conversation with us had covered so that the person we spoke with at that organization can share the conversation detail with anyone else who is going to be part of the decision making process.

Finally, we ask you what you would like to do next. Here are the choices most people make:

  1. Some want to get started right away so we do just that, get them started. Usually they can be up and running with little effort within 24-72 hours.
  2. Some want a  live demo so that they can see for themselves why the Bonzi sports team software is so famous for being the easiest sports team software on the market to use.
  3. Some want copies of the highly regarded Bonzi Best Choice Tool Kit so they can see all providers of sports team software in one place and see all the questions our research says organizations need to ask of sports team software providers to make the right choice.
  4. Some want to visit our online video demo so that they can watch, learn and listen when they want and at their own pace.

There is one common thread to all that is above and that is that Bonzi’s entire process of interacting with potential new customers is simple: we are here to do our best to align with your needs, wants and desires. If we can’t do what you need and want we’ll be the first to say so.

Our value proposition says that we’ll have the best support and totally free support, lowest overall cost, easiest to use sports team software, no contracts and we’ll put your money in your bank account everyday.

If you think we should do something different with our process we’d like to ask you to take a minute and tell us how.

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Sports Scheduling Software for Very Large Organizations

May 21st, 2010

When your sports schedule software can’t match venue with team with coach with hour with day you have a mess that will likely only be addressed by a sports schedule software specifically designed to handle your size and complexity and beyond. It only takes a little bit of growth to completely defeat your ability to efficiently and effectively let everyone know where and when their game is happening.

You’re a large sports organization with over 3,000 players and many types of programs.  Maybe the software you’re using just can’t keep up in general but you are struggling through anyway.  You don’t have the features you want in your software, your staff complains about wasting time, and the vendor won’t answer the phone for support and email support is slow at best. Despite all that pain you can still keep the game going.

There is one area that when your sports software fails you are likely forced to find an alternative and find it fast; sports schedule software.

You want a software product that can keep up with your organization and the different needs you have.  It has to support registration for your programs, handle thousands of transactions and allow a wide variety of staff members to work on the system at the same time without bogging down. Above all that, however, it must handle your schedule demands.

TRUE STORY

Dana’s sports club serves more than 5,000 players.  They offer programs for youth and adults.  They register online for camps and clinics, referees, leagues, competitive programs, try outs, tournaments and have fundraisers.  .  . all using Bonzi’s sports management software and sports scheduling software.  There’s no slow down due to volume and the system has all the features a large organization needs to exceed everyone’s expectations.  When Dana has a special need, she picks up the phone and instantly talks to an experienced Bonzi staff member about how to quickly and easily address the issue.  Her requests for enhancements are added to the software, sometimes within a few days depending on her needs.

Above all Dana knows that she simply can’t outgrow Bonzi’s ability to quickly and effectively manage her incredibly complicated scheduling requirements. Since adopting Bonzi Dana sleeps well at night.

Any software provider should be able to explain how they would serve a large club and especially address how the sports scheduling aspect of their software can handle steady growth especially for a very large organization.  They should have worked with large organizations before similar to yours and should demonstrate they understand the special circumstances you face managing a very large organization.

Bonzi software is the only sports software in the market specially designed to handle the needs, schedules and volume of large and very large sports organizations.  It provides the features and customer support that larger organizations need to stay on top of their workload.

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A Key Question in Coaching

May 12th, 2010

I have a dear friend who hit the workplace lottery big and got to retire early; lucky guy (actually he had great ideas, worked very hard at something he loved and had a bit of luck too).

He took the passion that made him a successful business person to being a volunteer coach. By all accounts he was overall a very good coach with one exception; he yelled to the point of almost berating the kids. While that level of passion might have been OK in the corporate world (even there I have my doubts) it seemed to me to really take the shine off of his otherwise superb coaching contribution.

In sports and in life I’ve discovered powerful question that I usually reserve for my own behavior but occasionally have the guts to trot out when I hear a coach going beyond the pale with kids… or even other adults. That question is “What were you trying to accomplish with what you said” followed by “If it was to motivate and inspire you might want to consider taking another tact”.

Soccer, baseball, football, lacrosse, swimming and any other sport you can name seems to get there share of parents and coaches that somehow think that yelling derogatory and at times obscene things at kids has a prayer of accomplishing some positive result. Yes, you might get a change in behavior but often at huge cost… a cost that to me if rarely worth it.

Being passionate and giving instruction is yelled is not what I’m talking about. Done right that often does inspire a kid and helps them be there best. The positive expectation that is shown with that kind of behavior has been shown to create an emotional safety zone for kids AND pushes them to more fully realize there potential.

At Bonzi sports software we have an amazing customer support staff and we are deeply grateful for it. They treat each person who calls with respect, grace and infinite patience. There folks have to simultaneously seem as though they have nothing else in the world to do other than help a volunteer who has never used anything more complicated than a typewriter 40 years ago in college get a sports registration system and a team website up and running to the satisfaction of some fairly sophisticated kids, parents and fellow volunteers… while getting the support delivered quickly enough to serve numerous clients each day.

These people on the Bonzi sports software staff are dedicated and show each day, I’m convinced, to do there level best. By the same token, I believe, that kids show up on the field each day to do there level best… given there overall circumstances. I cannot imagine anyone in there right mind yelling derogatory comments at the Bonzi sports software staff and expecting that it would improve their performance any more than I can imagine yelling at another person, adult or kid, in a derogatory fashion and expecting a positive result.

The key is to know that, from my perspective, everybody gets out of bed in the morning with serious intent to do their best given their circumstances. Those circumstances can be lots of negative self-talk about their ability to perform, a hurting knee, having had a big fight with a parent, or any other of ten million possible things that could take a person off track from delivering their best performance.

I’ll always be grateful to those coaches who had ultra high positive expectations for me when I played sports and would never accept my excuses for doing anything but my best. The fact that it was delivered in a positive almost demanding fashion did not demean me but rather showed me that they could see what I could become and had faith that together we could get there.

If you find your passion taking you to the dark side a bit for whatever reason consider giving that passion a twist towards positive expectation instead. After all, if you yelled at your co-workers I doubt that you would expect there performance to increase would you? The key question for me is “What was I trying to accomplish with what I said” . If what is said in any way belittles a person you might want to consider a different tact.

What has your experience been getting kids or adults to go beyond what they thought possible on the field?

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Committed to outcomes – Amazing Video

May 10th, 2010

Outcomes vs. activities; where the rubber meets the road.

Somewhere along the road of life it dawns on most of us that we have a choice; be committed to the activity or to the outcome.  I believe that most of us are actually very committed to outcomes vs. mindless activity. I suspect the trouble comes when, assuming we are both committed to the same outcome,  my version of how best to get to an outcome differs substantially from your version. It’s often at that point that otherwise nice and well meaning folks suggest that the other person is just “checking the box” aka doing the activity and not committed to achieving the result.

Trouble can also show up when we are committed to different results than those around us but assumed that we all had the same goal in mind i.e. the first grade soccer dad who wants to win vs. the dad who just wants his child to have fun. Both are perfectly fine outcomes but yet very different.

The trouble comes when we assume we know what outcomes those around us are committed to. Often, in my experience, I’ve found that when I asked “how would you describe a perfect season”, that I suddenly get my first real glimpse of what the other person wanted. Sometimes what I find is that the other person only has a vague notion of what they think a great season would look like. I’ts pretty hard to get aligned with vague goals, values and wins.

Just imagine a team with kids and parent who have a wide variety of ideas of what a “great season” looks like; seems to me that it could be a recipe for conflict that didn’t have to take place.

At Bonzi sports software (www.bonzicentral.com) we work everyday to be as fully aligned as possible with our customers idea of “great sports software” looks like. While our foundation brand promise is:

Bonzi sports software hasn’t lost a customer in over ten years because of…

  1. Friendly, free and unlimited support, even one-on-one training
  2. Lowest overall cost but with the most features
  3. Easiest to use but still the most powerful (according to our customers) sports software on the market
  4. No hidden costs and no surprises
  5. Your money put into your bank account every day.

While this is a good starting point and we are fairly certain it is aligned with the values of our customers and target market… it isn’t nearly enough. We really have to be lined up with what our customers want in great detail today and listening so we know what they’ll want and need in the future. Our customers will only stay our customers if we deliver the outcomes that they have come to count on us for.

Once on the field the desired outcome is of course to score or to help our team mates score. Again, we are often better off if everyone is clear on what each person involved is seeking in terms of outcomes i.e. my 11 year old son is mostly interested in skill improvement while his best friend on the team could care less about skill and just want to score. Even this little mis-alignment produces the occasional hard feelings.

So the lesson is simple; get clear on what everybody wants and see if you can put together a plan for everyone to get what they want. Without this everyone is liable to assume and when the inevitable disappointment arrives hard feelings can’t be too far behind.

Who can drive this outcome alignment effort? While a coach is perfectly positioned almost anyone can step up to the job just by asking the question: “What does a successful season look like to each of you”?

Some outcomes, let’s face it, are just a bit more spectacular than others. In the following link you’ll see a college lacrosse player who is an advocate of Bonzi sports software named Conner Martin make a goal with just 2 seconds left in a situation that seems hopeless. Hopeless, evidently, to everyone but Conner and his team at Chapman University. Conner makes that goal and does it so fast that if you are at all like me you’ll have to rewind just to see it happen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o9jxyoqbvQ

Sadly Chapman lost in overtime but there is no doubt that Chapman and Conner came to play that day.

I’d love to hear your observations on clarity and alignment on outcomes in youth or adult sports.

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Decisions; getting clear or taking a stand…

May 4th, 2010

Running a sports team, league or club… be it youth, adult or both requires making many decisions and then living with the consequences. You will never be right 100% of the time and when you are perceived to be “wrong” you will usually hear about it. Never mind that you are often either a volunteer or if paid getting the equivalent of minimum wage in 1962 if you count all the hours you really work.

We do it for the kids or the folks who used to be kids and that joy usually makes it all worthwhile.

Still, like the old skit on I Love Lucy where Lucy is at the chocolate factory (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wp3m1vg06Q) and the chocolates come faster than she can wrap them… the decisions required to run or lead a sports team, league or club often seem to come faster than we feel we can decide with confidence.

What we’ve found is something remarkably simple. And after a bit of homework it appears that the “experts” more or less seem to agree that many and maybe most decision making strategies get down to a choice between two approaches for deciding: we either get more information and then make a decision or we decide that we have all we need (or are likely to get reasonably) and we just take the plunge and make the decision knowing that we’ll never know enough but decide we must.

At Bonzi we “enjoy” a special challenge in that we are growing at a rapid rate and simultaneously are deeply committed to maintaining and even improving our customer satisfaction. So far, according to our customers, we are making the right choices to both maintain our reputation for the best customer service and easiest to use software in the industry (we haven’t lost a customer since we opened our doors over ten years ago) and being able to grow. To do this involves making the decision, seemingly every hour of the day, to either get more information or just decide and let the chips fall where they may. Like Lucy, at times, it feels like not only is there no end to the decisions but that the volume speeds up.

All that brings up the challenge of passing on the authority to others to make decisions in our place; after all, if you can’t do that you almost certainly can’t grow. Naturally you must hire or attract the best folks available. But once you’ve done that consider passing on the thought about wisely choosing between when it makes the most sense to get more information or just take a deep breath and choose.

In the end it seems to be the pattern that counts; you are never going to go long without a mistake. If you are using your head and doing the best homework you can when time allows we all hope that our decisions will be reasonable more often than not. If we largely are making good decisions we all hope that we’ll be forgiven for our mistakes whether we got all the information we needed or just took that deep breath and make a choice.

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