The Future Pt. 2

As the season closed in June, I had to think of a few points for review this year. The review comes in two parts. My finding and goals towards football and towards self-promotion, which is equally important as the actual football part.

Although my outcomes and goals are very personal, reading these may help you realize ways on how you can improve your own game.

Findings and Goals towards Football

• Have a clearly defined schedule and purpose in each and every session) Because I know myself better and when I need to take breaks.

• Raw improvement will come from personal game analysis and feedback)  My primary development goal for the next few years of my career is to develop my brain matter. The best approach available to me to do this is constant analysis of my own games and getting them reviewed by top coaches – something that I can use myself and develop for Effective.

• Preparation and recovery now as important as ever before) In the past years I’ve pounded on an excruciating amount of hard work and long hours towards my craft. There is limited room for growth in the technical and physical department. I sacrificed proper preparation and recovery towards games and training for the sake of development in those areas. Now is the time I have to give 100% in games and not 99% because I feel tired and that will come through proper prep, rest and recovery.

• Always have good trainings) Analysed when I have good trainings and bad trainings. I now know for certain that to have good trainings and matches, I need to sleep well, eat well, arrive early and be smart in preparing my body. I will do this by 1) Having a 5-10 minute pre-training routine. Before I go to training I will do stretches to open up back and reduce soreness from sitting. Flick through game brain of Effective. 2) Have a snack box loaded with quick energy foods (coffee, fruit, muesli bars, nuts). This will be very helpful as it’s not easy to eat regulary when you live on your own.

Findings and goals towards self promotion

I need a better promotion strategy because currently I have nothing on the table. Here is where self-promoting as an athlete is critical to your success. I need to further develop relationships with people who hear my story. Getting on people’s radar and connecting is not that difficult. They can believe in determination and can be sympathetic, but what it comes down is that they need to see you play. They need to be impressed when they see me play. They have to be able to view full games and say this guys got a great story and he has the skill to back himself up. Scouts can share with other scouts, coaches can share with friends, etc. I have to create buzz about myself.

So after some deep thought, I have a few future promotional methods:

• Step 1: Establish a core football relationship with 50-100 people) More videos so they can feel like they are with me. Establish core football relationship network of 50-100 people. These are scouts, coaches, etc that are interested in me, my story and are well connected.

• Step 2: Send a ‘scouting report’) Relationship build with email newsletters, personal calls and emails, updating with videos and highlights, tweets in social media – so the next time they hear of an opportunity I will be positioned at top of mind.

• Step 3: Organise relationship network in excel sheet) and count number of interactions with them and pump up number of interactions before transfer windows.

This can be a long-term test to prove that relationship nurturing with a core audience and constant follow-up will translate to opportunities. This is something that no player is doing right now.

My current CORE network includes…

All personal connections whom I have a relationship built up with (15-20 people) + 2014 Email Blast scouts at European and American clubs who were interested in hearing more from me (10 people) + 10-20 people from email list + 5 star email list connections.

Then keep building this list and adding people into the funnel.

Luckily we live in an online world where sharing high quality video is easier and accessible than ever + I have the technical skills and marketing know-how to make it work.

The Final Step: Take the lead out for a meeting)

This is something players just don’t do, however establishing some kind of personal understanding is very important.

Take out the decision maker (head coach, general manager) of a club out to coffee, lunch, dinner. Make them understand my story and how much potential there is to grow. Show pictures of my story. What I’ve been doing to progress. Show screenshots. Clearly state my goals. Make them sympathise.

This post was kept in draft status, last edited on October 16, 2014. Later published to public on July 10, 2018.