Five Keys to Success in the Sport Industry
All too often I see college students fail to take advantage of the opportunities available to them in sport internships and entry-level jobs. Getting an internship or a job should be recognized for what it is: the first step on a long and winding journey to what will, hopefully, become a successful career in the sport industry. However, if you stumble in that first step, the rest of your sport business career goals will be difficult to achieve.
My own experiences breaking into the sport industry, transitioning between jobs, and hiring and mentoring interns and entry-level employees led me to identify five key behaviors that help ensure success during internships and jobs. Applying these principles effectively every day during your internship or job will make employers try to find a way to hire you after your internship, contact their colleagues at other organizations to recommend you for other jobs, or promote you from your entry-level position. These were the keys that helped me turn a spring training internship with the New York Yankees into my first job offer, they helped me advance quickly with the Yankees and NCAA, and I have seen the same five principles help distinguish every successful intern and employee that I have mentored over the years. My five keys to success in the sport industry are:
1. Arrive early
2. Stay late
3. Always exceed expectations
4. Pay excruciating attention to detail
5. Always be positive
These seem too simple, but I assure you that employers are making decisions about you and your potential as an employee based on these five categories. I will explain in more detail below:
1 and 2 – Arrive early and stay late: The sport industry requires a strong work ethic. Everyone you work for during an internship or entry-level job has paid their dues for many years by working long hours and many consecutive days, and they have seen dozens of interns and employees come before you who started with excitement and enthusiasm but wilted as soon as the work weeks started demanding 60, 70 or even 80 hours.
Consistently being the first to arrive in the morning and the last to leave at night sends a strong message to supervisors that you have the work ethic necessary to survive in the sport industry. Moreover, being around your supervisors early and late might give you access to networking opportunities that you would not otherwise have. For example, in my early days with the Yankees I was consistently the last employee in the office at the end of the day with Mark Newman, then the Baseball Operations Vice President, and Mark would often call me into his office to provide mentoring and give me assignments to work on. Those opportunities to work with an influential Yankees executive never would have been available if I had left the office with everyone else.
3 – Always exceed expectations: Go above and beyond what is asked of you in terms of effort and quality of work product. Beat deadlines, do more than is asked of you, produce the highest quality materials – never settle for “good enough.” Make it your goal to become indispensable; leave your supervisors questioning how they accomplished anything before you came along.
One example of an instance when this principle made a huge difference in my career was during my Yankees internship in 1996. Despite the fact that I was on the verge of earning my law degree, the Yankees put me to work during minor league spring training setting up equipment on fields, hanging laundry, mopping floors – my duties that month were nowhere near what I aspired to do in the front office. Instead of becoming frustrated and just doing enough to get by during my internship, I went so far above and beyond what I was asked to do that eventually the staff started giving me more responsibility. I did everything faster than I was asked to so I would have time at the end of the day to request opportunities to work on other projects. By the end of spring training, the Yankees staff had taken notice of the unpaid law student who was putting in the same amount of work as some of the full-time employees. During my final week, George Steinbrenner, the legendary owner of the Yankees, walked up to me while I was mopping a floor, shook my hand and told me he had heard about the great work I was doing. Just a few weeks later while back at school after my internship had ended, I received my dream job offer to join the Yankees Baseball Operations staff as soon as I graduated. If not for the way I approached my opportunity during spring training – exceeding all expectations set for me – I never would have got my job with the Yankees.
4 – Pay excruciating attention to detail: Most students and young employees do not pay sufficient attention to detail; they complete projects and leave it up to their supervisors to find and correct the mistakes. Misspelled words, grammatical errors, inaccurate or incomplete information, forgetting to complete all the steps in a project – these are just a few examples of inattention to detail that will drive supervisors crazy and cause them to lose trust in your ability to handle higher-level work. You must approach every assignment as if perfection is the only acceptable outcome.
The details make a big difference. Look at the image from the College Football Playoff’s official Facebook page.
Seriously?! This was what the CFP publicly posted when making the highly-anticipated announcement of its four playoff teams at the end of the 2015 season. It was taken down and corrected soon after it was posted, but not before thousands of fans had seen the blunder (and some captured screenshots, like my quick-thinking wife). Hopefully you will never make such an embarrassing and public mistake during an internship or job, but even seemingly minor projects you work on will be evaluated for errors by your supervisors, and if you have a habit of letting details slip through the cracks it will hold you back in your career.
5 – Always be positive: As I indicated earlier, the sport industry requires long hours and many consecutive days of work. If you were the boss, would you want to spend a 60-hour work week surrounded by a positive, cheerful, energetic team of coworkers or individuals who sulk, complain and gossip? Keep your complaints to yourself and always project a positive attitude. In the words of NFL Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith, “Don’t complain to others about your troubles. Half of them don’t care and the other half are glad.”
Professional opportunities will open up for you if you take my advice and consistently apply these five keys to success during internships, in your first job and throughout your career.