10 Business and Life Lessons Learned Running a Kickball League

Kickball company actually, but for people unfamiliar with the industry that term is hard to grasp. To understand what I’ve learned and what I can teach you based on my experiences running GOKickball Tampa, I need to start from the beginning (doesn’t everyone say that?)In May of 2010 I was severely under employed. I was a freelance public relations consultant and my two major clients had dried up. To make matters worse, my wife and I had just given birth to our daughter a couple months prior. I needed money. Desperately! Probably not the romantic “start an empire in my dorm room” story people are used to hearing, but there are many paths to entrepreneurship.I’ve always had a desire to own a business, taking what I knew of marketing and customer service and couple that with best practices that I’ve seen over the years. I also wanted to do something completely different.  I read an article in Men’s Journal about guys who created movies about surfing and lived a fun and active lifestyle while making a great deal of money. It just resonated with me.  It was about that time that I met Jeff Kassen, Managing Partner of GOKickball LLC. They were passively looking for someone to start franchise in Tampa, FL and I was passively considering a move back to my hometown. Given the financial situation and our new family addition, it all made a lot of sense.And so began the two years of joy, tears, pain, sweat and a little blood that lead to the lessons you’ll find below:

1. Don't go it alone- There isn't a successful business in existence that is soley the product of one person. We all need a little help. Whether it be manpower, advice or a shoulder to cry on. If I had it to do again, I would have found a partner to start the business with. Because I didn't have a partner, I didn't have an extra sphere influence for finding players, I didn't have another person to vet ideas, I didn't even have another person to pass out flyers. It probably held us back in the first year.
2. Give people what they want- I kinda knew this the whole time but I think it took struggling during the first two seasons to hammer this home. When I got the call from Mike Gorecki (Sunday, November 15th, 2010), I knew then I would do whatever it took to get the WAKA Bayshore league teams. Then when I saw the registrations roll in I knew I would do whatever it takes to keep them. I think they are pretty happy. The key is making the atmosphere festive, the reffing accurate (working on this) and the setting consistent. Then celebrating with a big party after the season. I work fervently to make this happen each season.
3. Discern growing trends from singular grumblings- This is a tough one. Because we have presented an air of openess to our customers, we get a lot of request for a lot of things. Initially we jumped at everything and we still do a lot of jumping but we put a great deal more thought into requests. That may seem like we are less customer-centric, but that's not true. If we jump because someone tells us that the tournament should be one day. We change the tournament but forget to investigate customer opinion further and it turns out that six other teams can't play if we move the tournament date. We look like idiots. Do your homework.
4. Make sure your business serves a greater purpose- This is something that you have to have in the plan from the start. I always knew that I wanted use GOKickball Tampa to serve the public in a great way. And not by providing a great party or a vehicle for hooking up with the opposite (or same) sex. I want GOKickball Tampa to serve the non-profits that serve our community. This is difficult when you are just trying to get enough people to play a season or to rent a field from city or to get people to the league bar. Thankfully, things are a little better for us now and we can roll out our "Adapt a non-profit" program this fall. We will select a non-profit and create promotions throughout the season to support them.
5. Understand what you are truly selling- I don't sell kickball. I sell the opportunity to hangout with friends, meet new people, to be competitve without years of intense training and sacrifice, to be a part of a team and to party. Everything we do is with that in mind.
6. Understand what you are truly getting- When we  went from 44 to 209 players between seasons, we truly didn't know what that meant. Growth is awesome, it's amazing, it's truly a blessing. But it also means a more acute emphasis on quality, communication and business saavy. We made so many mistakes that first season. It's really is a wonder anyone came back. I think what helped is that while we didn't know that every reffing gaff would be blasted into the blogosphere and that weak refs would get abused by saavied teams, we knew that treating people right and not losing what was most fun about kickball would work.
7. To everything, there is an endorser- My chance meeting with Gorecki and Chandler Brown did more for GOKickball Tampa than months of putting doorhangers on apartment doors. Doorhangers that I sure many of you all have received at one point or another. But it wasn't until your friends decided to play, your frat brothers, your girlfriends that GOKickball Tampa truly took off.
8. Make sure you have at least a passing knowledge of how to do everything your business entails- In all honesty, this is one I still struggle with. I have a good knowledge of the rules, but I'm no expert. I know how to set up the field, but I'm not the best at it. It is important to put smart people at the place where they can serve you best, allowing you to be your best at what you are good at (I think it is building relationships), but you can understand the quality of your product better when you know the ends and outs.
9. Find someone to do your books- Now unless you are a CPA, you definitely need to spend the money on this. It will keep you physically and financailly organized.
10. Have a Plan- I haven't always shared it with people, but I have big plans for GOKickball Tampa. It is in my heart that it be more than just Thursday night kickball or kickball for that matter. I've always had this plan and while I'm not sure of the timeframe there is a plan in place to get to where I want to be. Because business and life takes you for so many twists and turns, the plan is critical. Without it, your business becomes shaped by circumstances and other people, sometimes positively, but mostly negatively.