We often talk about the value of showing up, and this past week, at a chance dinner during Super Bowl in Miami, we heard one of the better examples of “just showing up” and how grit and hustle got a now seasoned executive to where he is today.
Now probably many in the current sports business world, outside of longtime employees of the Miami Heat or those who were once around the minor league Palm Beach Expos, who may know the name Jared Kay. Jared actually left the sports business world behind over a decade ago to start an expansive and successful career at AT & T, where he is today. He admits he rarely even follows pro sports now, but in Miami he told us a great story of how he literally hustled himself at the right time into a career path that wasn’t planned or predicted, but is certainly worthwhile noting for those who are starting out or in transition today.
On background, we spent three busy days on Radio Row and in other places gathering a host of content for our podcast at Columbia (myself, LJ Holmgren, Tom Cerny and Scott Rosner) as well as conducting other meetings and catching up with people in the industry, but Jared’s story, and his journey to dinner, came by chance, at least to three of us. A lifelong Floridian, Jared was a campmate of Scott Rosner and they have remained close friends, despite the miles in between them (our childhood friends are usually the best correct?) so Scott collected our group for a Thursday night dinner not far from the Miami Beach Convention Center.
What the rest of us received was some amazing and fun storytelling, and some timeless examples of what it takes to succeed. Here goes…
Jared, who admittedly has the gift of gab and has had for his entire life, wanted to marry his passions for sports and something in business after his graduation from the University of Florida in 1991. Through some family friends he landed a job selling tickets for the Florida State League Palm Beach Expos, which in turn led him to a job in the sales office of the Miami Heat. This was not the glitzy Heat that fans have known for the past decade or so. The team was an afterthought in many ways in South Florida in 1995, and under new owner Mickey Arison, and American Airlines Arena needing to be filled, needed a jumpstart. Keep in mind this was also in the early days of the digital ear, when fax machines and dial up connections were still the rule, and you did not get information so quickly from texts or twitter or whatever your hand held device of choice is today.
So with that as background, Jared was in the office late one June afternoon and heard that Arison, who remains the owner of Carnival Cruise Lines, was about to make a big announcement the next morning; the hiring of Pat Riley to take over the Heat’s basketball operations. For those who don’t know the story, Riley, who had built both the Lakers and the Knicks into world class, gritty teams as head coach, came to a difficult ending in Gotham, literally faxing in his resignation to the Knicks leadership, and announcing with the same fax to talk show hose Mike Francesca on WFAN late on a Thursday afternoon. Not exactly the Instagram post or tweet of today, but a surprise that sent shockwaves through a major market and across the NBA during the late spring of 1995.
Ironically in his pitches to prospective season ticket holders in the few weeks leading up, Jared’s conversations often talked about “the new Heat” providing those willing to listen on the phone…there was little targeted marketing plans in those days that dropped custom emails on peoples phones…with genuine hope of better days ahead for a franchise that was struggling to fill seats (also keep in mind junior sales positions are still pretty much an “eat what you kill” situation, with a small salary tied to commission off of sales, so both grit and a gift of gab is required for success, especially with teams not quite near the top of the pro sports success pyramid). One of those mainstays in the conversation was the hope of new basketball leadership, and he had, without any knowledge, even occasionally offered up “Riley-like” names as a savior to get things righted.
So here was the wish coming true. Hearing the news, which was coming early the next morning on one of Arison’s Carnival Cruise Ships in Miami harbor, Jared decided to do what few, if any, of the other young salespeople thought about; to get into the press conference and see what was going on. After all, he had a team ID, and his success was going to be based upon the success of the new man at the top, so why not be there for the moment and see who is in the room. So there he went, uninvited, to the press conference early the next morning, not really knowing what to do. Luckily one of his first points of contact was another affable young hustler in the Heat organization, assistant PR director (and now team general manager, Andy Elisburg). Elisburg saw Jared enter and told him to just act as he belong and stay in the back of the room, and that he did, which gave him a great window into the rebirth of the Heat franchise, with lots of stories to go back and tell potential clients about “his meeting” with South Beach’s latest celebrity and savior.
However, that’s not where the story ends. It’s really where the next stage begins.
Now that the news was out, the mania which would start building around the Heat, even without the robust social media space that exists today, had begun, and fans wanted to be part of it. Again they could not click and buy easily in those days; there wasn’t even a schedule for the new season ready yet, but they could call the Heat ticket office starting the next day, which happened to be a Saturday. Jared’s plan? Get there early, and that’s what he did, at 7 AM the next morning, hoping to start hitting his once warm, now potentially hot, leads, but also to see if there were going to be incoming calls that he could hustle into sales.
So, as the story goes, he arrives early the next morning…to a deserted and quiet office. The news had taken the business side by surprise, so there was no activation plan that was easily turned on. What was there as he entered the building and went to the elevator, was the new President of Basketball Operations, Pat Riley, ready to go to work and learn about the franchise. Pat and Jared, first into the building, which gave Jared both means and opportunity to grow his career in minutes. As he engaged the new coach and tried to answer questions while others started coming in, he saw the ticket sales phone start to light up…with no one to answer directly…except one rising sales executive who happened to have hustled his way to a cruise ship and then into the office, all by his own volition.
The result? One person there to pick up the calls, and one person there to take the orders and hold information from very hot leads until the office officially reopened on Monday. The payoff was a rise in job stature that eventually became Director of Ticket Sales, and an immediate almost doubling of a salary overnight because of the commissions from all those inbound calls, as well as from his prospects who had been somewhat on the fence and had been cultivated over time.
Grit, hustle…and showing up. Twice in 24 hours.
The longer story is Jared stayed with the team through their rise and eventually left sports for a still growing career on the corporate side, with a different lifestyle and it’s own set of challenges, but those instincts, that hustle, that ability to storytell, to listen and to grab opportunity where others didn’t see it, was forged and formed early on in the chaos of an NBA front office. Would he have been successful elsewhere? Probably. Would someone else have been able to grab leads without showing up? Maybe. But his ability to think and act got him in a position for success, and again shows no matter what the era, you miss the shots you don’t take, especially if you don’t show up.
Even after all these years in Miami, I’m sure Coach Riley would remember and agree that a young hustling salesperson scored where others didn’t when he first arrived. Great story, and great best practice, well told.