My guest today is Solene Jimenez.

She is Head of International Development for arenametrix. www.arenametrix.com

This is Solene's first podcast appearance and we had a good time. 

Of course, she didn't tell me it was her first podcast until we'd finished recording. I like to make the first podcast appearance fun and easy for folks. 

We talked about culture especially from Solene's unique experience of being from France living abroad, working for a French company, returning to France, and now focusing a lot on North America. 

She offers up some unique takes on how you have to understand different cultures to build relationships, develop a sales pipeline, and grow a business. 

All of them are relevant as my business is more global and you might have a similar situation. 

We discuss how Solene approaches bringing a personal touch to a tech business and a lot more. 

Visit my website where I am going to be posting some upcoming workshops, happy hours, and events in:

• London on 2 July
• NYC in September
• Melbourne and Sydney in November

If you are this far and you haven't signed up for 'Talking Tickets' what's going on with that?

You can get that newsletter here: https://talkingtickets.substack.com

Yesterday, I had a guest post from Bryan Ralston on group sales and I want to know what else you would find valuable. 

You can let me know by sending me an email at [email protected] 

I have a good conversation for you today with Alasdair Crawley from FanBase. 

We had a great time talking about sports business including:

• Why sports business is at a crossroads.
• The challenge of getting the basics right. 
• Data v. research
• Balancing the short term and long term in fanbase building. 
• The power of experience...

And, much more. 

I'm going to be on tour this year...

On sales will be available on my website in a few days, but you are a listener of the podcast so I want to let you know first. 

I've rebuilt 'Fans for Life' for 2024 and it is better than ever. 

I'll be hosting two sessions:

• Wednesday, September 4, 2024 in NYC. 
• Tuesday, 19 November 2024 in Melbourne. 

Obviously, these sessions coincide with the 2024 Pearl Jam world tour...but if they didn't, what would I even be doing? 

I'll get the full details up in the next few days, but we are going to cover things like:

• Developing insights and understanding of the market using free and publicly available data. 
• How to balance pricing, brand, and sales to achieve the maximum impact of your fan building efforts. 
• Establishing your brand so that your fans have an identity to latch onto. 
• The fan lifecycle and how to understand that so you can maintain a relationship with your fans, even in down times. 

And, more...

Send me a note with the city you are interested in and I'll do a pre-sale for 'The Business of Fun' listeners...

[email protected] 

I'll also be in London from 28 June to 8 July...

A mix of business and pleasure with the Pearl Jam concert at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, The National at Crystal Palace Park, and, hopefully, Wimbledon. 

But I also want to set up a time for us to get together and have a pint or a drink. Let's tentatively schedule it for 2 July, Tuesday. 

Thank you for being here and listening. 

I want your voice to be a bigger part of the podcast going forward. So send me your questions, ideas, guest suggestions, and other feedback...on social media, in the Slack Channel, or via email. 

Get 'Talking Tickets' if you don't already at: http://TalkingTickets.Substack.com

I haven't always been a champion sleeper. 

Like a lot of my friends, I haven't always had a regular bedtime due to work, school, social life, whatever. 

In college, at the University of Alabama, I couldn't be torn from the things going on in my dorm. I was so excited to see everything...I didn't want to miss a thing. 

Later on, I was working 3 or more jobs to pay for school including working nights at several nightclubs. 

During those years, I'd catch sleep whenever I could. 

Including underneath the desk in the recreation center or the tennis courts that I worked at. 

To say that my sleep schedule was screwed up would be doing a disservice to the term "screwed up". 

Eventually, I got my sleep in order. 

I'm often in bed right at 11PM and I'm out of bed sometime around 645AM. 

You'll learn that this fits right into the natural sleep rhythm our bodies have. 

Dr. John teaches us about things we can do to sleep better. 

He also covers where we might be having problems sleeping. 

And, he goes over his SLEEP NOW formula.

---

You can follow Dr. John:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Instagram

Visit Dr. Sleep Fix:

• 'Nobody's Sleeping' Dr. John's new book.
• The Sleep Assessment
• Get Dr. John's newsletter and be the first to know when his sleep course drops! 

---

Keep up with me at my website: www.DaveWakeman.com 

You can find all of my stuff like newsletters and more at my Linktree. 

Do me a favor and rate this episode on your favorite podcast platform. Share it with your friends and colleagues as well.

Okay, that's two favors! 

---

I want to get your voice into the podcast this year: so send me your questions about strategy especially around overcoming complacency in your business...

Or, if you have a guest suggestion, let me know what you want to learn more about and from whom by sending me an email at [email protected] 

--

Thanks for being here today! 

I appreciate you! 

Today's episode is personal because it is about the proposed arena in Northern VA. 

My guest is Brian Hess from I Street Advisors.

Like me, Brian lives in the area. 

We discuss the arena at length:

• The nature of the market and where attendance comes from. 
• Public subsidies.
• The 50/50 bet at the heart of the deal. 
• Whether or not the District's offer to Monumental makes sense. 
• Traffic. 
• More! 

Do me a favor, I want you to be a bigger part of the podcast this year: 

• Send me your questions on revenue, strategy, and audience building to [email protected]
• Visit my website at www.DaveWakeman.com and sign up for my newsletters so you won't miss out on my upcoming visits to London, NYC, Seattle, Sydney, and Melbourne. 

You love the podcast! Share that love by leaving a rating, review, and sharing this episode with your colleagues...

Join the 'Talking Tickets' Slack Channel and say hello to me and over 325 ticket folks from around the world. 

Jeffrey Shaw, author of The Self-Employed Life, teaches me some great lessons about positioning, strategy, marketing, branding, and sales. 

Listen and find out how selling eggs explains all of this. 

I'm hosting a FREE strategy webinar on 31 January 2024 at 11 AM Eastern called 'Beyond Boom and Bust'.

Join the 'Talking Tickets' Slack Channel. 

Send me your questions about driving attendance in 2024. I'm going to use a few in an upcoming episode of 'The Business of Fun'. We want to get you into the podcast a lot more this year. 

I'm planning a new sponsored event right now, a FREE day in Chicago that will be invite only...I'm working out the details now, but if you are interested in learning more and hearing about the application process when the time comes, send me an email at [email protected] 

This is a me episode with a recording of my 'First Wednesday with Dave' session from December where we talk about planning for 2024. 

I'm hosting a FREE strategy webinar on 31 January 2024 at 11 AM Eastern called 'Beyond Boom and Bust'.

Join the 'Talking Tickets' Slack Channel. 

Send me your questions about driving attendance in 2024. I'm going to use a few in an upcoming episode of 'The Business of Fun'. We want to get you into the podcast a lot more this year. 

I'm planning a new sponsored event right now, a FREE day in Chicago that will be invite only...I'm working out the details now, but if you are interested in learning more and hearing about the application process when the time comes, send me an email at [email protected] 

"What do scalpers really like to see when a ticket goes on-sale?"

That question popped up in my inbox about a week ago. It got me thinking about the questions that people ask me when they want to know how to "stop" the secondary market or whether or not to work with the secondary market. 

So, I had Martin Haigh from Total Tickets come on to discuss this topic since he's just put together a special report on the secondary market. 

Martin and I try to come at this topic from a neutral point of view, but Martin's thinking on the subject has changed over the years to be more pro-secondary and I mention that my thinking on the secondary market has changed because I was involved in the secondary market at a different time and different space. 

In today's episode we cover ideas like:

• Good bots v. Bad bots
• Blockchain and the claim it will eliminate the secondary market
• Creativity and why the secondary market will always find a way to get tickets
• Distribution and how the secondary market can be a powerful tool in your distribution plan.
• Why you may not want to eliminate all resale, even if you can. 

You can get the information on Martin's report here! 

Get 'Talking Tickets' my ticket newsletter. 

Visit my website: www.DaveWakeman.com 

Don't miss 'First Wednesdays with Dave' on January 3rd, 2024 at 1 PM Eastern. We will be talking about getting 2024 off to a fast start. 

I want to include your voice in the podcast.

So send me a note and tell me what challenges you are dealing with. 

Is there a specific topic you want to learn more about?

Do you have a guest you'd like to hear me talk with? 

Let me know. 

My guest today, Caspian Turner, helps me answer that question and shows us how you can take some easy steps to solve the problem for yourself. 

I want you to be more a part of 'The Business of Fun'. 

What does that mean? 

Send me your questions about strategy:

• Is there an issue you are constantly struggling with?
• Is there something going on in your business that you don't think people are paying enough attention to? 
• Do you feel like your organization is in danger of failing because everyone is always running around putting out fires with no focus?

Send me those questions.

You can email me: [email protected]

You can DM on LinkedIn or Twitter.

You can send me a letter, my address is on my website. 

You can even send me smoke signals or carrier pigeons. 

Just get me your questions. 

I'll take the best ones I use them in future episodes of the podcast. 

You can also see my handy, dandy list of new ways to work with me right here. I've gone all the way by allowing Apple Pay! 

If you know someone that is asking questions about strategy, share 'The Business of Value' with them. 

If you have a friend in sportsbiz, theatre, or other live entertainment...share this podcast episode with them, obviously, but you can also share 'Talking Tickets' with them. I offer some good ideas. 

Join in the fun in the 'Talking Tickets' Slack Channel.

Because I'm sucking on my own exhaust here, I've set up a strategy Slack as well. I want you to always be able to find me and with all of the changes to the algorithms and such. There's no better way to do that than by setting up our own community. 

I've got the TiqAssist guys on today. 

Chris Babu and Jamie Zimmerman. 

www.tiqassist.com 

We got into a bunch of stuff like:

• How feeling pain as STHs led them to start TiqAssist.
• Jumping careers to get into sports. 
• The "strain" of resale for season ticket holders.
• The cash offer that TiqAssist makes to help make people have a bit more "peace of mind"

Let me know what you think: [email protected] 

Visit my website at www.DaveWakeman.com

Talking Tickets: https://talkingtickets.substack.com

Business of Value: https://businessofvalue.substack.com 

Sign up for the 20 April FREE webinar: "Filling Your Seats NOW!"

My guest today is Drew McManus from UpStage CRM: www.upstagecrm.io 

We had a great time catching up in Seattle at INTIX and now we've gone and done a podcast! 

We hit on a lot of topics like what led Drew to start UpStage. 

I put Drew on the spot and make him define "one size fits none". We discuss where he gets his ideas from. 

Why focusing on the minimum amount of functionality is magic. 

And, a lot more. 

Hook up with my friends at Cover Genius in Birmingham for the Ticketing Professionals Conference. 

www.CoverGenius.com

I've been paying special attention to the CFAR (Cancel For Any Reason) product because the data becomes more compelling everyday. 

Guests want peace of mind in their purchases and are willing to pay for it. We've seen that really clearly at the Playhouse Theatre in Ohio where 48% of guests have taken up refund protection as the weather can be challening in the winter. 

The idea applies to health, economic issues, and THE WEATHER! 

So talk to Joe, Hayley, Chris, and the team. 

Visit my website at www.DaveWakeman.com 

You can go to my shop and get a "Pick My Brain" session. 

Keep an eye out for workshops in NYC, London, Sydney, and more! 

Get 'Talking Tickets' for my weekly ticketing thoughts: https://talkingtickets.substack.com

Get 'The Business of Value' and learn strategy, branding, and marketing: https://businessofvalue.substack.com 

Rate the pod! Review the pod! Share the pod! 

SUBSCRIBE!!!! 

I have Mark Herschberg back today to talk about his new app, Brain Bump. 

This is a really cool tool that lets you bring learning with you wherever you are. I've been taking part in the launch and it enables me to provide bite sized nuggets and insights to you so that you can access the ideas that you want to use when you need them. 

Check out my friends at Cover Genius: www.covergenius.com

Pay special attention to the CFAR (Cancel For Any Reason) product. As we get more data, we are finding that peace of mind is an even bigger factor in people's purchase decisions than it has been at any point since we've started measuring the number. 

At the Playhouse Theatre in Ohio, we've seen 48% of ticket buyers take up refund protection. 

This is stuff to pay attention to. 

Hook up with Joe, Hayley, Chris and the Cover Genius team in Birmingham at the Ticketing Professionals Conference. 

Visit my website at www.DaveWakeman.com.

You can find some new stuff in the shop including a situational consulting offer that is an hour to pick my brain. 

Also, I'll be dropping new workshops in places like London, NYC, Melbourne, and Sydney. I'm on the road, y'all. 

Get my newsletters: 

Talking Tickets: https://talkingtickets.substack.com

The Business of Value: https://businessofvalue.substack.com 

Please rate, review, and share the podcast!