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Today’s show is a special “Office Hours – Sales Professors Unplugged” episode featuring Dr. Lane Wakefield from Baylor University.
Find Lane on LinkedIn.
LANE’S’ TIP: “We try to teach our students to choose their first job by who the manager is, and less so if it’s a sport or a team that they like.”
THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE
Fred Diamond: Lane, it’s great to see you. This is a new sub-brand of the Sales Game Changers Podcast, Office Hours Sales Profs Unplugged, and we’re talking to sales professors at top universities, typically those that have a sales degree or that have a lot of programs for college kids who are going to go into professional sales. Now, you deal on a specific side of that, which I’m very excited to talk about. You’re at Baylor, which is probably one of the top five schools that has a professional sales program. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, introduce us to Lane Wakefield and tell us about your journey to Baylor, and tell us specifically what you do.
Lane Wakefield: It’s a pleasure to be here. Just down the hall from that top five professional selling program is the number one program in sports and entertainment, sales and analytics. Sales and analytics are the tracks for students that want to work in this particular industry. A niche but one that’s very popular, as you might imagine with students that are thinking about their passions growing up as a high school athlete, or just following their favorite team with their families over the years, going to ball games or going to concerts. A lot of core memories that they’d like to help other people experience and help businesses learn how to impact as well. It’s a pleasure to be a part of a program that has such deep connections from my dad, who started the program, and Dr. Darryl Lehnus, who was with him for a couple of decades. I just get to build on what they started, and it’s been just a lot of fun.
Fred Diamond: It’s very exciting. Before the pandemic, we used to do the podcast in person, and I would go to VPs of Sales offices. We interviewed a couple people with Monumental Sports. I’m based in Northern Virginia right outside of DC. Monumental owns the Wizards and the Capitals and the WNBA Mystics. I interviewed a guy named Jim Van Stone, who’s the president of Monumental. It was literally right before the pandemic, and then of course, everything shut down. That was a tough time to be in sports sales.
Before we get into this in a little more detail, we’re doing today’s interview in April of 2025, you just had your second annual National Collegiate Digital Marketing Championship. We’re going to be talking about competitions today. Tell us a little bit about that and how it went.
Lane Wakefield: Our second annual, very excited to have 29 teams here in Waco, Texas to compete for careers and rankings in digital marketing. The whole concept is for a kid from anywhere, just like in sports, can get to the top opportunities if they are the most talented. Keep the sports analogy going since we talk about so many sports around here. If you’re a listener and you don’t like sports, this is probably not the episode for you. But if you do, it’s perfect. The analogy is whoever your favorite teams are, I think you mentioned, Fred, you’re a Bryce Harper guy, and maybe Carlton from back in the days. Thinking about your favorite ball players, they don’t get there because of who they know. They don’t get there because of who their parents might know or their university’s brand name.
All of those things all might be wonderful, and using that network, more power to you or to anybody, but we know from watching sports and going to concerts, that those people don’t get through that job market based on who they know solely. They have to be able to throw the ball, hit the ball, whatever the thing might be in sports, or you sing the songs, and you have to be really good at it to be the top notch.
In academics, we’re always playing the game of who do you know? Then where do you want to be? How can we catch all the people at the exact right time this week into this interview round? Then you can be judged more so on what you might be able to do. Even then, there’s enough bias you could probably talk through in that process. Sports is a perfect example because you get ball players that are never spoken to and are drafted and given all sorts of money for the top jobs. It’s not that you have to have the conversation to be able to see what people can do. But in academics, we don’t give them the opportunity often to show recruiters what they can actually do. It’s just indicators that they might be able to do those things.
Sales has been doing this for a long time. I just learned about it a few years back from a recruiter who went to a really large event and said it was a terrific event, but they didn’t get to hire anybody because they were an NBA franchise. They were paying a lot of money to be there, but the students that were getting jobs were getting paid three and four times what the kids who start out in sports and entertainment get. He said, “You should create one for sports kids.” I said, “Well, okay.”
We copied what we could from sales. That’s grown into its seventh year now with the Atlanta Hawks, they’re a terrific partner of ours. I guess speaking of your friends at the Wizards, I’m sure they all know each other. The Wizards actually come to recruit at that event in Atlanta regularly as well. Having success there, learning from the sales model, but then digital marketing was an offshoot of that success and a real test. Fred, you know something’s good if a few people like it, but then can you bring that concept to another arena that you don’t know anybody in and see if it still plays? We had success there.
I’ll give you a story. We had a girl last year, and similar stories this year too, but this one stuck out from last year, of a girl that was at University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley, offshoot of the University of Texas in Austin. But both schools were competing that last year’s digital marketing championship, and they were back again this year. Then we rank people individually and then also as a team. This particular girl from Rio Grande Valley, she got second as an individual and she beat all those from University of Texas at Austin because she’s stellar. If you’re there and you watch her, then of course this person’s perfect. They’re really good.
That’s no shame on the UT Austin ones by any stretch. They were terrific as well, but to have a shining star coming from RGV, without this opportunity, it’s a lot harder for those folks to be found in the typical networking circuit. Giving a kid a shot from anywhere, and even the ones from bigger schools, essentially the network system only works as well as it does. If you have a recruiter that’s only going to a set number of places, then obviously there’ll be some that won’t be in that set number. We’re helping get past networking and shifting that. If a recruiter can see that I’m going to find the top students from a bunch of schools in the same spot, it’s worth their time and value. A long-winded answer to say it went really well, and good feedback. There are plenty things to do, better when you run events with a couple people at the helm, but we’re learning a lot, having fun, and seeing kids get opportunities.
Fred Diamond: A lot of people who listen to the Sales Game Changers Podcast know that I’m primarily a Philadelphia sports fan. Harper is my current favorite player. I also went to college in Atlanta as well. I went to Emory University, and I would wrangle tickets from the Hawks, press passes. I remember spending time in the locker room listening to Kevin Loughery, who was the coach at the time, and got to interview Mike Glenn, Wes Matthews. It was Dominique Wilkins, I believe, had started after I had graduated or towards the end. But there was a lot of fun interfacing there.
Talk about a career in sports marketing and sales. What are the opportunities? What are the highs? What are the challenges? Do you want to be working for a great team where tickets might be easier to sell? Or do you want to work for a team that maybe is struggling where the upside could be higher?
Lane Wakefield: There aren’t many tickets to sell if it’s a great team. Finding a job there starting out is hard to do. For example, the LA Lakers don’t hire entry level sales because there’s nothing to sell. That happens sometimes, not as many all the time, like the case for the Lakers or the Packers, either no ticket sales jobs there, there are sponsorship sales jobs, but less likely or unlikely to be entry level. It depends.
We try to teach our students to choose their first job by who the manager is, and less so if it’s a sport or a team that they like. Maybe they can get pickier about that later or get lucky, but I think all of us listening know how important the people are no matter where you are and what logo it is. As soon as we get our students to see that, they’re obviously coming to our program because they want to go to Bright Lights somewhere and be with the Atlanta Hawks or whoever they grew up maybe idolizing, or the Phillies. That might be the perfect spot for them. But also helping them understand what are the real questions you got to answer when you go in? That starts with the people.
Fred Diamond: Let’s say if you’re an athlete, a baseball player, you got to go through the minors before you get to the Phillies. You’re right, a kid coming out of school probably ain’t going to have a great job selling for the Lakers and for the Packers, and they’re probably jobs that people won’t give up and they’ll stay in those jobs, I’m going to guess probably for their entire career. Would you recommend that somebody go to a Double-A baseball team to where they’re doing everything, not just tickets, but sponsorships? Is that part of some of your curriculum as well?
Lane Wakefield: Absolutely. I started my career with the San Antonio Silver Stars. They’re now the Las Vegas Aces. If you start in minor leagues, you learn everything really fast. You don’t learn everything, but you’re going to try everything because everybody’s all hands on deck and getting to have your hand in a lot of things. We have students that have minor league careers and they work towards major leagues, or they stay in minor leagues. We have the Chief Revenue Officer at the Frisco RoughRiders is one of our alums. He might be CRO of Texas Rangers one day or he might stay there. I don’t know what the Lord has for him, but he’s had a heck of a career so far, almost 20 years helping minor league teams be successful. It just depends on the student.
We have many students that start in the professionals. The majority of ours start for pro teams in the NBA, NHL, NFL, or MLB, but it just depends on the individual and also their talent level. Luckily at Baylor, we have incredible students. I wish I was as smart as some of our students when I was 21 and 22 years old. They’re hot commodities, and if they want to work in ticket sales, starting in the pros is going to be an option for them. But depending on their personalities and your personal interests or cities, sometimes it might be a better start for the minor leagues.
What you also learn, Fred, is that there are opportunities to sell in and around sports and entertainment that aren’t for the teams. Then you start learning that ecosystem a little bit. I think my job is to help people almost like, what do you call the guys that help people up to Mount Everest? Sherpa? Is that what it is? We’re not quite going to Mount Everest, but we’re going to a smaller mountain of sorts. My job is to guide them high enough to be able to see and understand what’s out there, and they can choose their path.
Fred Diamond: I’m just curious. I was on a plane once with a guy who was the CEO for Resorts International, a big casino and gaming company. I was going for my NB at the time, and it was just fortuitous that he was sitting next to me. I remember he said to me that his business isn’t gambling, it’s entertainment. It’s recreation. He wants people to come in and spend $300 that they might spend at a movie theater or at a show or something like that. What are people selling when they’re really selling sports? They’re not really selling sports. People have limited amount of money. Companies have limited amounts of money as well. They may have a lot, but it’s still limited. What are people selling when they’re selling tickets, when they’re selling suites, when they’re selling sponsorships?
Lane Wakefield: We can start with tickets. When’s the last time somebody invited you out to a business lunch? Probably sometime in the last couple weeks, Fred?
Fred Diamond: Yeah. Last week.
Lane Wakefield: You might say yes to some, I’m sure you’ve said no to some others too. Even I guess a rung below that, if somebody wants you to swing by their office, that’s an option. You got to fit that within your schedule. A lunch is a little bit better because you have the time carved out for it. You’re going to eat lunch somewhere, and maybe they’re buying, so even better. But if you’re a business that needs to build relationships and you’re a salesperson that’s particularly public, it doesn’t have to be sales, what invitations can you offer that hold the most value? Think about ones that I take, or maybe you might take. If I can have a lot of fun, if I can even bring my wife or even my kids too, that checks a lot of boxes for me.
Then you get to spend more than 30 minutes or an hour and a half, what a typical lunch might be. If you’re going to a ball game, it’s a two plus hour ordeal. We’re going to develop a much closer relationship with a client in that time period. I think you’re selling entertainment, that would be a good umbrella. But then within that for B2B, it’s time spent with customers in an atmosphere that you couldn’t have elsewhere, or really any other opportunity. I don’t sell tickets, haven’t for a very long time, but prepare the kids that do that. They’re selling a lot of businesses that need the impact that people are going to accept and can build and get their ROI from the trust that builds in their relationships over the course of ball games or concerts or whatever it is that they might be selling on the ticket side.
Sponsorship though, you’re selling the opportunity to change people’s minds. How do minds change? It’s the marketing result as a whole, but sponsorship is different than advertising. Similar in some ways, but you’ve got the property selling communication assets. They communicate with fans, a similar audience that a brand might be able to connect with anyway and for cheaper, but they don’t have the same emotions and attachment to your local advertising company or Google Ads network that they might do or might have with the Dallas Cowboys. When fans see the brands and logos that they love, they’re paying more attention at least. Then beyond that, having a different response to the advertising that they see through those different channels. It’s one thing when Bryce Harper is telling you something compared to when just a commercial on TV is telling you that you ought to check something out.
Fred Diamond: That’s a great point there. I’m curious, talk about the curriculum. Talk about the curriculum that the students go through in your program. What are some of the classes, who teaches the classes, and what are some of the things that you’re trying to get them educated on?
Lane Wakefield: Sales and analytics are where the jobs are. At Baylor, the business school, that’s where we’re focusing all the classes. It’s a hundred percent on revenue-generating activities. The jobs are in sales or analytics. We give students the path there, a couple sales classes, a couple analytics courses on top of their, or as part of their marketing major. I teach the sales classes, although we’re shifting in the fall, we’ve got the pleasure of having my old boss in San Antonio who was running the Spurs for decades, Russ Bookbinder. He is retired now and luckily he lives in town, and so he’s going to teach the first sales class. What luck those kids are going to have to walk in and learn from a pro like Russ. That’ll be their first sales class.
In the spring, I’ll get that bunch and they will sell actually for the Spurs more than likely. We have different clients over the years. The Spurs that work with us the last handful of years and in general with the program since it started, actually started with the Spurs, the competition with Russ, believe it or not. My dad said, “Hey, if we put this together, would you hire them?” He said as long as he can have the best ones. It’s funny to see that come full circle. They teach sales at two courses, fall, learning the very basics and a lot of role playing. In the spring it’s live ammo selling to live customers. You get lead lists from whichever team. Spurs have been a terrific partner lately with that. Then a mock sponsorship pitch with a team this year and a brand. Working through what that might be like.
We can’t quite get live ammo in a short period of time for a sponsorship given the differences there. But they at least learn what’s actually being sold. Like I said, we’re changing minds, but how does that happen and what are the evaluations of a sponsorship? It’s a little different than tickets and can be more complex. We try and shove all that in a couple semesters and they do an internship. They’re in our club maybe for four straight years, a monthly club that meets and has professionals come and chat with us. Through that experience freshman and sophomore year, getting their feet wet, maybe going on a trip to meet some people and see some things that they wouldn’t have understood before, to junior year where they’re getting in classes, understanding sales or analytics, internship, typically between that junior and senior year and their job market year, their senior year, they’re developing their relationships further and seeing what might come next for them.
Fred Diamond: Let’s talk about what the sports teams are looking for when they’re hiring the college students with these degrees. What are some of the characteristics? What are some of the personality traits that you’ve seen over the years? What do they want these kids to know? Do the kids have to love the team to be successful? Do they have to love the sport? Can someone who’s a great soccer player be successful in selling basketball tickets? He mentioned the Spurs, or soccer’s an up-and-coming sport compared to the big four. Can someone who’s a basketball star? Can someone who’s an analytics nerd? What are some of the things that these teams are looking for? Over the years, what have you seen for kids who are most successful selling tickets, sponsorships, etc.?
Lane Wakefield: The managers, there’s some things that are consistent, but I’d say most are somewhat recruiting their younger version of themselves. I say that because some will tell our students that they don’t necessarily require a lot of training, and that’s always surprising because that’s what we’re here doing. That was because usually they didn’t have a ton of training coming in themselves. But it also could be that other times you have managers that say, “Well, I’ve had ones that have training and training’s obviously great, but the training they might get from one individual or one system is different than mine.” Undoing some of those habits can be challenging. They prefer to start with someone with less experience on that. That’s always interesting, when you’re teaching classes and training, of how to have the right answer there for a student. I’m not a hundred percent sure how that ought to be all the time.
I guess more to the spirit of the question that you’re asking, the sales managers in sports want to know a few things off the top, are they there only because they want to be a super fan? They find that out in the first few minutes. It’s a tricky question though, because the reason that they’re willing to take less money and the reason that they’re there is because they love sports or music, whatever the venue or property might be. It’s true, but it’s almost the students can’t sell themselves on that or shouldn’t talk about it that much because they don’t want to trip the wire of, “Hey, is this person going to wander off and not be as helpful as they ought to be?”
In some ways, or somewhat relatedly, I don’t really care if the student is interested in their sport. It’s almost easier if they’re not, because they don’t have the emotional ties to it. But I’ve had students either loved the team that they ended up going to that they liked their whole life and it just worked out. But they’re working for who with their dream has come true. That’s awesome. You have an excellent salesperson. I don’t think that really matters, and if they’re professional.
There’s some funny conversations in the early stages of some of those, but in general, you want somebody that understands the sales process. They know how to generate revenue, how to be on phone calls, especially. I think that stands out with our program, because we have a call center. They’re doing calls for the San Antonio Spurs, with training from us and from them. On top of the internship, hopefully, that they’ve done before the recruiting period, they know how to sell. They know what it takes. They haven’t done it for more than 6 weeks or 10 weeks or however long, but it’s not their first step in. Beyond the selling or in addition to the selling, part of the process is understanding the CRM system. We have Salesforce licenses to use in our class for that second sales course. I think that sets our students far apart because managers know they don’t have to train them as much, or if they do, it’s just reminding them on some of those basic things, and they can hit the ground running.
Here’s some personality things too, people that hustle, people that have the right attitude and mindset for sales. But I think part of that just comes with experience. I don’t think it’s as magical sometimes, and the self-motivation bit, I think, that’s probably what they’re getting at. But beyond that, it’s understanding the concept, and if you get a really sharp person. Our sales competition every year, Fred, believe it or not, you have analysts are in our class too, and they’re learning to be helpful to salespeople in the future, to be better communicators. There’s a lot of reasons that they benefit. But the funny part, every year, without fail, the best seller does not win the sales competition that we do internally in class selling tickets for the Spurs, who I think ends up being the best seller after graduation almost never. It’s always been somebody on our analytics track because they understand the concepts and what we’re trying to get after a little quicker, and they put together the system and they can drive results a little faster. That’s been fun to see, that you can see somebody who’s going to be an awesome salesperson, but it takes them a hot second longer to understand how to be really efficient, whereas the analysts figure that game out a little faster.
Fred Diamond: No, that’s amazing. You’re also an advocate for mental health, we’ll talk about that in a second, and before I ask you for your final action step, talk about things that you’re teaching. You mentioned data and analytics, and obviously that would give the best sales professionals that we know that have the data that’s going to help their customer. We talk about this all the time, your customer doesn’t really need to engage with you if you’re not bringing value. Anybody can go and buy sponsorships and buy groups of tickets and those kinds of things, but the companies that may want to sponsor or the companies that may want to buy the suites or big blocks, the sales professional needs to show them the value a couple of steps ahead. Talk about the use of, in your curriculum, of AI and other types of digital analytical tools that may help the sales professionals be better at that, if you can.
Lane Wakefield: We’re learning the best ways to use it. Right now, it’s getting reps and selling through email. We actually have a new VR headset across the hall. Our IT folks are putting it together to load up a sales scenario for them to practice. You visually get some feedback as they go. I think that’s valuable. For now, we have not found or haven’t thought through the best way to incorporate some of what the pros are doing on a day-to-day with AI to help them in the classroom or in our projects. I know the front end and prospecting has changed quite a bit. In our case, we could probably do a better job of starting with the lead lists that we have to be even more efficient. I think it’s a helpful thing to think about. I’m glad you brought it up so I could be considering and learning how we can even improve our project to make it more a reality. Mostly on the practice front and not so much in the selling process as we ought.
Fred Diamond: You’re also an advocate for mental health. What else would you like to share about that? What are some things that you’ve observed as it relates to whomever you’re supporting? Just anything else that you would like to share.
Lane Wakefield: The narrative that’s out there for mental health, the most common is that one in five people struggle from mental health. If you look into the background of who’s sending that message and why, what you come to find down the rabbit hole is that it comes from the pharmaceutical companies to lead to more prescription and prescription sales and use of doctors. But what we find is with Same Here Global as a nonprofit has some sports backgrounds. That’s why we got tied together. But they are seeing things from a very different lens and using science that’s been available for a couple of decades now, polyvagal science, but looks into paths that students of all ages and professionals can benefit without a prescription, without a doctor visit.
Not that those things are bad, those might be a perfect part of anybody’s mental health journey, but having a system that says that this is only a problem for a certain number of people, not everybody else, and those certain number of people need to go to a doctor to fix it, the data’s not there to support that. It’s more of a five and five approach, and it affects all of us because we all have mental health. We have physical health and financial health and spiritual health. It’s just the narrative is not correct. Working with Same Here Global, we help to change that. We’ve got some big things coming down the pike soon there. Encourage everybody to check that out. I know we all have times of life where I think that’s more in the forefront than others. If that’s something that’s on anybody’s mind, I encourage you to check it out. It’s much different than what you find from other providers.
Fred Diamond: I want to thank Lane Wakefield for being on today’s Office Hours Sales Profs Unplugged. Dr. Wakefield, thank you so much for the great information. You’ve given us a lot of great things to put into play. Appreciate your being on the show. Give us a final action step, something specific that sales professionals, college kids, companies that are hiring them should do right now to take their sales career to the next level.
Lane Wakefield: It’s reading a book, believe it or not, so many good ones. It’s not even a sales book. It’s called The Mindful Body by Ellen Langer. This book goes through changing our perspectives to understand not just health, but the way we think and how we evaluate opportunities. I think as a salesperson, sometimes what holds us back is what’s between our own ears of what we expect to happen on a particular call or hope to happen. How’s this going to reach my goal for the year, for the month, or just as a student to get past this class and they don’t see it in a way that they could? I think we leave some value on the table just by how we’re immensely approaching it. The Mindful Body is a great read. I still think about it at least once a week, and it’s been a couple years since I’ve read it. A copy I keep and I try and share that one. If you’re a book reader, check out The Mindful Body. It will blow your mind, believe it or not. It’s crazy stuff in there.
Fred Diamond: That’s great. I appreciate that. Another book that people can read is our own book, Insights for Sales Game Changers, a book that we wrote about the highlights from the first 450 Sales Game Changers Podcast episodes. If people would like signed copies, reach out to me. It’s also available on Amazon. Once again, thank you so much, Dr. Lane Wakefield. My name is Fred Diamond. This is the Sales Game Changers Podcast.
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo