Brandon Kaiser is the Founder and President of Biggest Fan Consulting, and he helps schools build robust student sections.
Brandon helped build Grand Canyon University's student section (GCU Havocs) into the loudest and rowdiest student section in the country (see for yourself). Utah Jazz's All-star shooting guard, Donovan Mitchell, went as far as to say GCU was the craziest place he had ever played at while he was at Louisville. Now Brandon is looking to help other student section's across the country reach their full potential.
Sports Industry Journey:
Education
Bachelor's Degree | Exercise Science | Grand Canyon University
Career
Sales Associate | Vans
Ambassador | U.S. Olympic Training Center
College Business Development | FINAO
President | National Collegiate Student Section Association (NCSSA)
Havocs President | Grand Canyon University (GCU)
Sales Associate, Associate District Manager, District Manager | ADP
Growth Consultant | PageLadder
Founder | Biggest Fan Consulting
Twitter: @bfc_brandon
LinkedIn: Brandon Kaiser
What is the book (or books you’ve given most as a gift) and why or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?
Rhinoceros Success by Scott Alexander – There are so many books I like but this is my #1. My best friend gifted this book to me my freshman year of college and it helped shape my outlook on life. It sounds silly but it also helped my self-discovery process of who I am and how to optimize life. It covers work ethic, vocation, health, faith, finances. It’s short, has pictures and is easy to read. Highly recommend reading it.
The One Thing by Gary W. Keller & Jay Papasan– Maybe it’s because I just recently read it and it’s top of mind, but I think it’s very profound for business and life. We live in an age of digital distraction and shiny new objects and so this book helped me stay focused on my one thing.
The Bible – The Bible provides me hope, guidance, wisdom and truth. I am continually amazed at how much practical wisdom is found in the Bible when it comes to everyday life.
What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)?
Probably books… I think reading is a not-so-secret sauce on how to grow personally and professionally. It’s like receiving an education on things I’m interested in or need help developing without the busy work.
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours?
Great question. For me personally, the only way to fail is to quit. I have learned if I “fail” or something doesn’t work, it would serve as feedback and provide me a learning experience. Because of this, I’ve taken many calculated risks in life. I think success and failure are relative depending on how one defines them. Not sure I have a favorite failure. Not saying I haven’t failed, but none of my experiences are sticking out.
If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere in the world with anything on it – and you could get a message out to millions or billions – what would it say and why?
It was my personal mantra for a while, but probably:
“Honor God. Love People. Work Hard. Read Books. Have Fun.”
What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made? (Could be an investment of money, time, energy, etc.)
The time and energy I put into helping build the GCU Havocs. I went into school as a nursing major (who knows what they want to do at 18?) and then eventually changed majors so I could focus more on the student section.
Building the student section gave me practical life experience, I’d say I learned more from that experience than from my formal education. I have a bachelor’s degree in exercise science, but I used to joke that I majored in student sections. Even without Biggest Fan Consulting, that experience was worth every second of time and energy [that I put into it] because I got to be a part of something that’s bigger than myself and it taught me a lot about leadership, sales, marketing, financial management, event planning and myself.
Obviously, I didn’t know it would turn into a business so that investment of time and energy is definitely paying off.
What are your morning rituals? What do the first 60 minutes of your day look like?
Typically I get up at 7 a.m. and the first thing I do is read and have some quiet time to write or reflect. I do that for about 45 minutes and then I make coffee and breakfast and then start working. Sometimes I’ll go on a run or exercise but lately I’ve been doing that after work.
Is there an idea, belief, or trend in the sports industry that you feel strongly about, that others may not agree with and think you're crazy for thinking/saying it?’
Hmm, yes. I think there is a false paradigm that somehow a student section falls under athletic marketing’s responsibility or that their efforts or promotions will build a student section culture. My belief is it has to come from students. It’s a STUDENT section, and student leaders are the ones that change culture and will move the needle with students.
I remember being at a basketball game for one of our partner schools and talking to my client who is the Asst. Dir. of Marketing and halfway through our conversation I could see his paradigm shift in his eyes and he finally said, “I get it. The best thing I can do for our student section development is invest in our leaders and help them succeed and implement their ideas”. He was the one doing the giveaways, promotions, on-court emceeing etc. I know they will see success over the next year or two because now the athletics marketing leadership understands the key to student section success. I think it needs to be a synergistic relationship where someone in student engagement or athletics marketing can serve as a true adviser and liaison, provide insight or experience and can help implement the plans of students.
The challenge is finding the right leaders who are willing to do that work, be accountable and take ownership. So it makes sense how this has come to be with athletics marketing, because if you don’t have the right student leaders, someone has to focus on it and be responsible for it. I think this view should excite athletics marketing staff because they are typically already stretched thin with little bandwidth so taking this off their plate will open up time and energy to focus on other activities and make their job more fun.
What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student who is looking to start a career in sports? What advice should they ignore?
Make sure you want to work in sports. Get experience. I see people get into sports because they like playing or watching sports, but don’t understand the work behind it.
Ask questions, and more questions, and more questions. Find a mentor and extract every bit of knowledge or insight that you can.
Work hard, put in your time. Be innovative. Just because you’re in a situation where things have been done the same way for years, take a step back and ask why? Find ways to improve or try new ideas.
What are bad recommendations you hear in athletics or specifically in your area of expertise?
Online influencer marketing probably. I wouldn’t say it’s bad, but it's just not as effective as people think. I’m seeing a recent trend of a lot of schools relying on this to promote games to students. Even if some Instagram influencer student has 35K followers and the whole school follows them, and they post about a basketball game on Thursday night… is that influencer going to be in the front row, with their face painted going crazy? Will that influencer even be there? Even if thousands of students do show up from that post, is there a structure and culture for those students to stand up and engage? Or would students just show up and sit on their phone? That’s not ideal in my opinion.
Now, if you have a top 1% student leader who leads the energy in games and does all the work behind the scenes and they just so happen to have a large online following, then absolutely they should use that influence, but that influence alone won’t build a student section culture. To me, you need to realize the end goal, and then ask why and reverse engineer the process until you have a solution. So if the end goal is a full student section all standing and engaged, does an online influencer posting about a game help that end goal? That’s not for me to decide.
What are some tips you have for building and maintaining relationships in the sports industry? (It could be with a mentor, client, donor, co-worker, etc.)
Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone or put yourself out there. Whether it’s a client or potential client or possible mentor, nothing beats real connection. We are all human. Write thank you notes, something that was ingrained into me as a kid and something I still try to do in business. You never know until you ask, so ask. Fear often cripples action.
What advice would you give to a young person who has an entrepreneur mindset and is looking to start their own company?
I’ll pass along some advice given to me early on. Get a sales job early on, learn how to sell, work hard, save money and pay off debt.
Then, take a step back and observe the world. Find a problem or need, ask yourself if you can find a solution or provide value. If the answer is yes, put all your energy and effort into solving that problem.
Don’t be afraid to take risks and don’t compare yourself to others. It’s easy to see people your age crushing it in their jobs or start huge successful companies, but comparison is paralyzing. Find your one thing and go for it. Invest in mentorship and find people willing to help. There are plenty of people willing to help.
Let’s say you're 22 and entrepreneurial. Why not try and put all your effort into trying to start a company? If you fail once, keep trying and trying and trying. Before you know it you’ll turn 30. If you have kept trying with focused effort, my guess is you will have launched something successful or found yourself a dream job between your efforts and network. Or you turn 30 and you figure out the entrepreneur life isn’t for you, you tried some cool ideas, you worked hard, you learned a lot and then you go get a job with no regrets.
I think the last thing is don’t worry about looking successful. So many young entrepreneurs try and look successful with their fancy cars or houses (sometimes real, sometimes not) and it can be tempting. Who cares? I’d rather try and build a solid business, provide real value to customers than try and look successful to impress people that I don’t know or care about.
Okay and one more thing. Be patient. Overnight success is a lie. Stay focused, work hard and understand the law of compounding success.
Comments