Details on New Sports Scheduling Software from Bonzi

July 21st, 2010

As many of you know, we at Bonzi have been working on a  new online sports scheduling software enhancement to our core sports registration platform for the last few months.  This product is based upon our powerful sports scheduling software desktop application and gives you the same scheduling power online that it does on the desktop…only it’s easier, faster and offers more benefits:

  • Schedule games instantly!
  • Teams already in the system  automatically show up when you go to schedule games.
  • The scheduler actually does the schedule work for you, unlike most of your alternatives . . . it doesn’t just pair your games and leave you to assign the date, time and location.
  • All locations across schedules and between events will be managed for conflicts when games are created.
  • Easy drag and drop game edit features let’s you know exactly where you can schedule or move games.
  • Unschedule games for a location that’s rained out, and automatically re-schedule with one click.
  • Set team conflicts so teams don’t play at the same time and allow travel time for those teams between games.
  • Add home preference game sites for teams and times when they can or cannot play.
  • All games publish to your web site AND to your team web pages automatically.
  • Choose to allow your coaches to enter game scores OR you can enter game scores yourself.
  • Standings calculate in real-time as soon as the scores are entered.

The new scheduler is scheduled for BETA release the week of July 26, 2010.  More upgrades to this great new product are scheduled after its full release.

Our next newsletter will have a “sneak peek” video of the new online scheduler so you can see how it might work for your organization.

Are you ready to step-up to a truly modern sports scheduling software and leave the whip and buggy days behind? If so give Ricky Aker a call today and book your time for a demo: 503-620-6661 X224

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

Baseball, Football, Lacrosse, Volley Ball and Performance; How to Get The Best

June 25th, 2010

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:

  1. Free, ultra high quality, friendly and available support – even one-on-one training.
  2. 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.
  3. Lowest overall cost and no forced advertising on your site and in your emails.
  4. Your money in your bank account every day.
  5. 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
  6. 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.

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Posted in Communication, Costs, Motivation, Reporting, Scheduling, Support, 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 »

Easy Transition from Season to Season

June 2nd, 2010

Doesn’t it seem reasonable that you’d be able to enter a team member’s name once sports team software and have the system remember it every year that member still played?  Amazingly though that just isn’t the case with many and possible most of the online sports team software options with the exception of Bonzi sports team software (www.bonzicentral.com or 503-620-6661 X224 and ask for Ricky Aker).

Maybe you’ve been through a painful sports season, but vowed that next year’s going to be better, right?  Well choosing the right sports team software for your sports organization can make all the difference.  Do you sigh and shake your head at the thought of getting ready for next year?  Do you want the sports team software process to be turn-key and easy?

If you want sports team software that, with just  a few clicks, gets you up and running fast next season and you want friendly, unlimited free customer support  where the staff actually remembers  who you are and how you were setup the previous year… so they can help when you’ve forgotten.

After hearing from clients, Bonzi realized that there needed to be a faster way to get clients transitioned into their next season. Bonzi also noticed that many of our sports organizations kept their team rosters the same or nearly the same year after year.   To respond to this requirement Bonzi sports team software created a new feature in the software that allowed our clients too easily to “roll teams forward” to the next age group in the next season with a few clicks.  In addition we added a feature that would automatically roster returning players to the same team they were on the previous year when their registration was approved.  This feature saved our customers a time and effort making this one of our most popular and heavily used features in the system.

So ask any once sports team software provider you’re talking to, how they prepare for the next season.  Can you simply move your teams forward, or do you have to create them over again? How do players roster the next season?

Just another example of how Bonzi once sports team software listens to its customers and pitches in to help.  If you’re interested in working with a company who’ll be on your team, give us a call today.

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Posted in How to Choose, Parents Win, Volunteers | No Comments »

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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Background check issue with free league software

May 20th, 2010

One task that’s always annoying but usually not covered with free league software is risk management or background checks.  Usually there’s a many applications and little time.  You probably worry that if they’re not quickly, you might miss a problem coach. It’s a difficult process to manage and track and just takes up more volunteer time. Despite all that, we all know it must be done and done right. What to do?

Most sports leagues, clubs or organizations want a software product that can support tracking of background checks or maybe even automate submission of a background check applications for an affordable fee. Free league software doesn’t do that as far as we can see.

TRUE STORY

Kay manually processed all of her background check applications for her organization on paper sending them a few at a time to her background check company for clearance.  She didn’t have a way to communicate or record who was “cleared” and who was “not cleared”, so no one really knew what the status was of the background check.  Bonzi helped Kay to setup a simple but effective background check management system so she could track the new applications that were submitted online, mark the volunteers cleared when their background checks were completed, and track expiration dates of those that needed a new background check application.  Bonzi is now working with Kay to setup her up with automatic background check processing significantly reducing her work load while keeping her system up-to-date with the latest clearances.  Everyone’s happy because the background checks are done fast and board members feel confident potential problems will be caught quickly.

Make sure to ask any provider how they handle background check tracking and if they support online background check applications.  Bonzi can do this; can your free league software or other alternatives?

If you’re having trouble managing background checks and want to solve that problem for your organization, give Bonzi a call.  We can help.

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Posted in Coaching, Cost of Free, How to Choose, Parents Win, Uncategorized | No Comments »

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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A Key To Easy Coach Communication

April 22nd, 2010
Most coaches have absolutely the best intent when it comes to team communication.

The challenge is even the best intent means little if time is short and the proper tools aren’t available to quickly get all the necessary communications out.

Here is how you might describe the perfect scenario:

After teams are rostered (players and coaches are assigned to the team), the team is activated on the web site.  Instantly Emails are automatically generated to the parents telling them their team roster has been finalized, coaches have been assigned, and they can log onto the member account and view the team web site.  The coach has already posted all of the necessary information on the site. Parents, kids and coach now all have one place to get all the necessary information 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

All of the above only occurs in one sports software package on the market today as a part of the standard software.
Sometimes you can purchase it separately, but it’s  not “linked” to the club or league’s “system” making for a disjointed and cumbersome system – not what you want if easy and effective communications are your goal.

Bonzi sports software is the only provider that offers the team web sites function included with its sports management software.

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Sports Scheduling Software; What Late Adopters Want

February 18th, 2010

Most groups who decide to use Bonzi sports software come to us after having had a bad experience with one of our competitors. Some, however, are trying out online sports scheduling software for the first time. When someone is adopting online sports scheduling software in 2010 or ten years after such software has been available and reasonably usable industry experts refer to those folks as “Late Adopters”.

Why should you care? The only reason to care is that “late adopters” tend to be the most difficult of all market segments to please and are therefore a good test of the true quality of a online sports scheduling software or registration platform.

Here is what most “late adopters” demand by category:

  1. Deciding to decide: late adopters wait until prices come down and the service is great and the sports scheduling software has matured to the point of truly being easy to use.
  2. Weighing Information about options: they only want the best service, support, most advanced sports scheduling and registration software at the very lowest price with no compromises.
  3. Trial: at this point in the sports scheduling and registration software business you can assume that any problem can be fixed; the BIG question is how easily and how pleasantly can it be fixed?
  4. Implementing: Will they get me up easily and quickly?

All that makes sense for a “late adopter” in my book; if you’ve waited all this time why not go for the gold as your payoff for waiting and putting up with just paper, pen and Excel.

Are you a “late adopter”? If you have not yet started using sports scheduling and registration software for your team, club or league we’d like to hear from you; you can just post a comment here on this blog and we’ll share it for all to see in the hopes that your thoughts can help somebody else make a better decision.

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