Impact; let’s face it, it’s what we want when we take an action in life.
When we choose something to add or subtract from our life we are hoping that we get an impact we both want and can feel. Is there anything more frustrating than to take an action that requires effort, risk, time, money, and political capital and either have nothing discernible happen or have something we don’t want happen?
When choosing youth sports software it is all too easy to not only not get what you wanted but to also be locked in to what you don’t want for years. The consequence of a bad choice in youth sports software can be deep frustration, wasted time, wasted money and heavy political cost to say nothing of compromised relationships.
Why are these consequences so high? For starters almost all youth sports software companies want to lock you in. They do this with auto-renewing long term contracts, no guarantees that what they promise is what they’ll deliver, and the most insidious is that they doubly lock up your data; you can’t export it and you can’t even report it in the ways your situation demands.
Bonzi youth sports software takes a different approach to all this:
No contracts!
Your full satisfaction is guaranteed
Your data is never locked up
If you can dream up a report you can have it; instantly
Impact
The key to the list above is #5: impact. Our theory at Bonzi is that if you get the desired impact today and every day from Bonzi’s Youth Sports Software that nothing else will matter. For over ten years 100% of Bonzi’s thousands of customers has gotten the impact they came for every month, every year. They must have because not one of them has been locked into a contract and could have left at a moments notice.
The consequences of a bad choice in youth sports software is, we think you’ll agree, very high; you don’t get the impact you wanted and you are now locked in for years to come. The consequence of choosing Bonzi is that either you’ll get the impact you sought or you’ll be free to make a different choice.
In this nation we are a bit short on trust these days. We are short on trust because many feel that they have been burned over and over again; think oil spills, Wall Street, health insurance, and any of the hundreds of other pain points that seem to pop up every day. The big issue seems to be when people or youth sports software companies want you to give them your trust instead of earning it. At Bonzi we just want the chance to earn your trust… and re-earn that trust every 30 days for ever.
Just imagine if your car company said “if we ever let you down you can bring the car back and stop making the payments immediately”. What if your employer said “if we don’t keep our promises to you we’ll step down and you can get a new manager or management team in here tomorrow”. In essence that is what Bonzi says every day to each of our thousands of customers. And, knock-on-wood, nobody has ever said “get lost”.
You see Bonzi is willing to take the consequences if we don’t give you the impact you were seeking when you signed up unlike most of our competitors who rely upon contracts and lousy software to lock you in.
So it’s you choice; do you want a youth sports software company who is willing to immediately accept the consequences if they don’t achieve the impact you were looking for or do you want to “trust” a story from a company that is so un-confident in their ability to give you the impact you seek that they have to lock you in with an auto-renew contract to keep you from seeking alternatives?
The scene in Crocodile Dundee is famous… three punks threaten with a small knife and expect Crocodile Dundee to hand over his wallet. Dundee’s date suggests he give the punks the wallet because they have a “knife”. Dundee counters saying “that’s not a knife, this is a knife” as he draws a huge knife from his belt. So what’s that go to do with sports schedule software?
Almost everyone claims to have “sports schedule software” but often it seems that this claim is either in name only or just for those with fairly modest demands. Before I go on let’s get a peek at the clip from the wonderful movie “Crocodile Dundee”:
Real sports schedule software in our book, like many of the goodies that Bonzi sports software offers, is unlimited. If you look beyond the label of “sports schedule software” you may find that what others in the sports software industry call sports schedule software is akin to what the punk in the video clip above calls a “knife”. We’d like to suggest that the Bonzi sports schedule software is like Crocodile Dundee’s knife and the rest of the industry is running around sporting the kind of sports schedule software akin to the punk’s “knife”.
Are you really confident that for your club, today and tomorrow, your current sports schedule software can really handle the job without forcing compromises and artificial limits? Maybe you already know the answer, and the answer is that you know what you have today can’t perform so you’ve gone to a separate package to get the job done. Either way we suspect you’ll love and enjoy the typical Bonzi ease-of-use and the typical Bonzi power in our version of sports schedule software integrated with our sports registration, team websites all-in-one sports software.
It is a shame that not all sports scheduling software is created equal, but the fact is that some are better than others. In this critical area we’d like to ask you to give Ricky Aker a call and see for yourself just how different the Bonzi sports scheduling software really is from the rest of the pack. Ricky may be reached at 503-620-6661 X224
New League Software; bet you haven’t heard those words said of late… possibly never.
Here is how the league software or sports software business works for most players involved:
Decide you want to get into the sports software or league software business; how hard could it be?
Buy or build a platform that covers the basics of sports registration, sports scheduling, team websites and email communications.
Begin to discover that this business is not nearly as easy nor as lucrative as you thought… but you’re now committed.
Begin to discover that your sports software or league software coding has some major problems in terms of it’s design or architecture; it’s really hard to enhance while keeping both the speed and ease-of-use high.
Realize that even the modest level of growth you are seeing is consuming all your cash and you can’t cover the support your users expect, keeping the software current and doing the marketing you must do to grow with the capital you have and the super skinny profits the business produces.
Buff up your balance sheet and seek an investment.
Get the investment.
Discover that your investors DEMAND both growth and profits
Spend most of the money they gave you on various forms of expensive marketing, like huge trade show booths and banner ads that don’t turn out to produce new enrollments – don’t spend any of it producing new league software like you had intended.
Raise the registration fees north of $5 per registration, up your credit card fees, hold on to the club’s money as long as you can to cover your cash flow issues, and start running ads on your users web sites and emails.
Only do the upgrades to the sports software or league software that you absolutely must to keep it running because you simply don’t have the cash to do anything else.
Begin to lose clubs, leagues and sports organizations because they don’t like your high registration cost, high credit card fees, you holding onto their money too long and the fact that your software is slowing down, is getting harder to use and they never get the upgrades you keep promising… and that it is nearly impossible to get support unless you pay a stiff fee.
You start requiring multi-year contracts with automatic renewals because you know that once users get past your marketing hoo haw and get a nose full of the reality of your real offer that they will leave at the first chance.
Your investors are really pushing you now so you have to raise your rates again, cut your investment in support and just keep the software limping along.
By now it might have been years since you were able to communicate to your users that you really did have “New League Software” to help them do their job easier, faster, smarter and with less cost.
By now you as the end user of the software provided by all this nonsense are at your peak of frustration.
By now the idea of getting into the league software or sports software business seems like a very bad idea for all concerned.
I think you get the picture; the sports software or league software business is TOUGH unless you do it just right.
Bonzi took a very different approach:
No debt to anyone
Lowest overall cost in the sports software or league software business
Famous for fast, free, friendly and unlimited support; even one-on-one training to get you going and keep you going
The software is being constantly upgraded and improved; the latest addition is a best-in-class content management system to allow anyone to build and maintain a website just like the professionals do
No contracts, no surprises, no gotchas
Your money goes directly into your bank account and Bonzi never holds on to it
Client requests for upgrades and new capabilities are understood and scheduled… and completed rapidly – we listen to our users
Our software design is state-of-the art so it is easy and economical to keep upgrading without losing speed or compromising capability and ease-of-use
Clients stay – we have never had a customer willingly leave
New league software is something you could hear every day at Bonzi and it would be true; the software is improved by a large staff of dedicated developers daily. We aren’t sure, but we doubt that any other sports software or league software company can say that today.
Which description above sounds like your league software provider? If you are ready to see just how good it can be give Bonzi’s Ricky Aker a call at 503-620-6661 X224 and ask for a demo; you’ll be amazed by what you see and hear about what you’ve been missing with your current league software.
I’ve done it, maybe you’ve done it too; searched for something free on the internet. After all, isn’t that one of the foundations of the internet ethic, that good things can be had for free?
The puzzle is that there are some very good things on the internet that are truly free, such as sites like Wikipedia. But while there are some “free” things of value on the internet, in my observation, there are many, many cases where free turns out to be a sucker punch.
For example take the search term “free soccer software”, it’s searched for over 1,300 times per month on average last time I looked.
Let’s take the cotton candy metaphor for example, and let’s consider that sugar is to cotton candy as free is to soccer software. Cotton candy is almost pure sugar with a bit of color tossed in for interest. Free soccer software might be nominally free but actually offer little else of use and like cotton candy, after the initial thrill is gone you are left with at best little nutrition and possibly cavities. Here’s why…
Free does not get you these important things if you have a real need for soccer software… or any other kind of real sports software for that matter:
Live, available, skilled and dedicated support; when you get into a ditch, you are truly stuck and may have just wasted a huge amount of time because you can’t get any help.
Ease of use may be lacking because there is no team of dedicated developers keeping the soccer software code up-to-date and compatible to say nothing of easy to use from a non technical person’s point of view.
Rich and necessary features – lousy features can usually only be tolerated by soccer software users who only have very, very limited needs. Even the smallest club… maybe particularly the smallest club needs the features they need because they can’t make up the difference with manpower.
Registration; when money is involved and things go south you’ll need help… that is if free soccer software even have a real and reliable registration feature.
Scheduling; I suspect that there are some free soccer software scheduling applications out there but when most of the paid soccer scheduling applications have serious limitation it seems to be a stretch of the imagination that a free application would reliably return a satisfactory result for the critical task of scheduling teams, venues, coaches and so on.
Email; free soccer software without an automated email notification system is, in my opinion, practically worthless as you miss half the point of any sports software and that is to be able to efficiently communicate with the right sub-set of parents, coaches and team members about a specific issue, event or situation.
Web pages; this seems to be what many really mean when they say free soccer software. The price you pay here is that first they’ll charge you if you need anything beyond a stupid set of minimums and you’ll have to pay if you don’t want them to advertise as they see fit to your visitors.
I’ll stop here but the list goes on and on and on. You get the idea. Free soccer software can easily end up wasting precious time, money and give you a major league case of indigestion and embarrassment if you are the one who innocently recommended going down this problem strewn path with the simple and honorable intent of saving a few bucks.
Bonzi sports software gives you everything you could ever want to support soccer and any other sport all on one ultra high quality and supported platform. The best thing is that Bonzi is the next best thing to free as it’s the lowest overall cost soccer software on the market and is viewed by its customers as far and away the best sports software available in the north american market today.
Bonzi league software offers, according to our clients who have used virtually every alternative league software, the easiest to use and most comprehensive Registration Process.
Player and Team Registration
You can register players, teams, parents and referees. Once registered, any of the data can be edited by authorized volunteers and board members. There are multiple levels of registration so you can allow authorization limits appropriate to a volunteer’s job.
Automated Schedule and Scheduling Management
Online Web Based Schedule Creation & Management
You will be able to quickly and easily generate a centralized online schedule that can organize and optimize any size league, club or organization. The schedule will be visible to parents, players and coaches when they login to the system from any internet connected computer. Any change to the schedule will be automatically updated for all users.
Games & Referees Scheduling
You can automatically generate a game schedule for all sports and little leagues. After configuration, your volunteers, administrators and board members can easily generate schedules by division or level in a few minutes.
League Volunteer Registration & Scheduling
Parents can register their children or players 24 hours a day and seven days a week; whenever it is convenient for them.
Rain Out / Reschedule Tool Emailer
Schedule changes, including cancellations and rescheduling, are a breeze with Bonzi league software. The players, parents and coaches impacted will be automatically emailed the change and given the new game information (time and location).
Automated Broadcast Email –Unlimited, free and effective
Email Players and Parents by Level, Team, and Season
You will be able to quickly and efficiently create a group to send broadcast emails to your Parents based on their level, team, season, or their answer to a custom field question.
Secure Administrative League Access
Administrative Access can be give by Menu, Access Level, and League
We put the power in your hands to give volunteers just the level of authorization they need to do their job and no more.
Secure Portal for Parent, Players, and Coaches
Secure Login for Parents and Coaches to view Roster and Schedule
Parents can login to get secure access to the rosters, schedules, photo galleries and the ability to edit their contact information: Address, Phone and Email Address.
Secure Portal for Coaches
Coaches can log in and enter Game Scores, Player Stats, Player Evaluations, and Email their team. They can also update the contact information for their players and parents if changes occur after initial registration.
Parent Portal provides secure access to their children’s information
When parents log in, they get access to their children’s data and their children’s data only including their roster, schedule, and team photo gallery.
Customizable Registration Process & Online Fee Collection
Add Steps, Text, and Custom Fields
You can fully customize your registration to fit any need. You can add custom fields to do, among many things, collect volunteer signups, jersey size, coach signup, residency, or any data you would like to collect for players, parents, and coaches.
Customizable Fee Collection
The fee structure allows you to give family or quantity discounts and to collect residency fees, sponsorship fees, payment schedule or any other payment arrangement to meet your needs.
Secure Credit Cards Processing
Your own merchant account – No fees added on
No worries if the thought of setting up a merchant account gives you a headache; we will set you up with your own merchant account. We do not charge extra processing fees in addition to your merchant. The best part is our merchant account vendor provides the service to you for the lowest fee we have ever heard of… it is very, very low.
Content Management Software
Edit Your League’s Website – No HTML
With a simple to use content management editor, your authorized board members and volunteers will be able to easily and intuitively add, edit, and delete web pages with no or little knowledge of HTML. This drag and drop system goes well beyond most content management systems on the market in terms of its ease of use and speed of results not to mention how much money it can save you.
Unlimited Years and Seasons of History
Lookup and Email Previous Year and Seasons
We keep unlimited number of years of your history so looking back and see anything you want from previously collected data.
Finally, Bonzi is the most constantly updated and modern league software on the market.
Finally, our dedicated support staff will get you up and running quickly and painlessly, no matter what your technical skill might be. These patient and helpful people have done this thousands of times and love to help volunteers, parents and administrators actually have fun with the process. When we are done with the setup, we will import your data and get you ready to register.
How would you feel if your sports software provider told you one or more of the following things?
We don’t know anything about software but we hear this sports software is one way you can make some money.
We are in debt up to our eye balls so we’ve got to find every way possible to move money from your bank account to ours
Support is for wimps – if people need support they can search our FAQ pages
Registration fees of $5, $6, $7 or more are industry standard, you can’t find anything better.
Credit card fee’s are just a fact of life at 3.5% and way beyond
It’s you club, league or sports organization but we still get to advertise on your sites, registration pages and so on
Sure, we’ve got scheduling software… as long as you don’t have more than 8 – 16 team in your organization we’ll all be just fine
Upgrades are over rated, we upgrade every 3-5 years because the sports software business just doesn’t change that often
Mac doesn’t matter; everyone knows that most of the sports world uses PC’s don’t they?
Everybody requires a contract of 2-5 years
We hold your money for two weeks or longer because we’re not sure if you’ll have charge-backs
If you find the software hard to use it’s because you just are trying hard enough…
Would you believe it if I told you that this list is actually fairly short?
Bonzi sports software is NOTHING like the list above in fact we are generally the exact opposite;
Bonzi is a software development organization that ONLY develops sports software; those who know software well love the way we do it for our customers.
Bonzi has never had any debt so we can always do the right thing for our customers firs and be the lowest overall cost in the sports software industry
Our customers who previously used our competitors software tell us loudly that Bonzi has the best and most diverse support in the entire industry
Our registration fees are the lowest that we know of given what we offer
Bonzi has the lowest credit card fee’s of any sports software provider; we are fairly certain you can’t find any fees lower
It’s your sports software and we let you do your own fund raising and advertising on it
Our scheduling software can handle any combination of teams and venues – it really has no limits
Bonzi sports software is continually updated – one of our most recent upgrades was the addition of a fully featured “content management” system
Bonzi is compatible with Mac, iPhone and most browsers
Bonzi requires no contract
Bonzi puts your money in your bank account as soon as the transaction clears the bank; usually the next day.
Bonzi is very, very easy for anyone to use
We think that the devil is in the details when it comes to sports software – we invite you to ask us any and all of the hard questions; we are confident you’ll like the answers.
For many who have worked around the quest to improve performance in baseball, football, lacrosse, basketball… or any other endeavor in life we know that often the foundation of performance amounts to the combination of willing and able.
Simply put is the person performing both willing to perform and able?
The Heath brothers, Chip and Dan, in their amazing book “Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard” suggest that change, in this example changing from good performance to great performance, may require two critical things; clarity of what is required to make the change i.e. more exercise or better nutrition… and a specific and simple action that can be taken to get there.
In our experiences with performance it also helps to have both clarity of an inspiring win in personal terms and an internally or externally imposed “what by when” or “butt on the line” to take a specific action by a specific date.
Also from our experience we’ve learned that often the first step towards performance is a “what by when” for execution of an activity or more specifically an outcome i.e. run five miles. The next step and a step often regarded as an order of magnitude more difficult is to sign-up for an outcome instead of just an activity i.e. run five miles in under 30 minutes. I like to say that the professionals sign-up for outcomes while the amateurs sign-up for activities.
In the sports software or sports registration and scheduling software market Bonzi is well known as the company and I do mean the company that signs-up to lead and perform on all fronts; Bonzi signs-up for outcomes for our clients vs. just going through the activities. So what do I mean? In the following categories:
league scheduling software
league management software
sports tournament software
sports website software
sports registration software
online league software
with versions for every sport played on this earth (or at least so it seems)… Bonzi sports software has signed-up to meet or exceed our users expectations on the following fronts just to name a few:
Free, ultra high quality, friendly and available support – even one-on-one training.
Super easy to use yet easily the most powerful application on the market… and the only sports software that has a fully functioning content manager for website creation and management.
Lowest overall cost and no forced advertising on your site and in your emails.
Your money in your bank account every day.
No contracts, no surprises and no games to have to explain to your board of directors after they’ve made the initial authorization – you’ll never feel like a dummy with Bonzi
And about a million other goodies we know you’ll love like iPhone access and broader browser support than any other.
So we started this post speaking about “willing and able”. At Bonzi our performance rests on our being willing and able to give you the best sports software money can buy at the lowest cost… all so we can support your willing and able to perform in the sport you love.
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.
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
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:
Reliable; we do what we say we will do when we say we’ll do it
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
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
Fit; you understand and give me what I need and beyond to run my club, league or organization
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
Research and innovation; you know best practices in sports software and are constantly working to keep the gap narrow
Caution; we’ve done our homework so that our suggestions and direction are valid and reliable
Available; you can reach us when you need us and we’ll respond
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
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
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.
