Tag: CBPersonal

“Did the Futsal Secretary Kill my Promotion Chances?” – Rodric Leerling

It was an important futsal night last Friday. On the roster a real futsal champions game. I checked the tables and realized the home team being nr.1 could become champion with just a draw, whereas for their opponent, nr.2 of the table, only a win would suffice. And on top of that my 3rd assessor’s report would be drafted based on this game.

I had ordered two chairs for penalty times and moved both sub benches five meters from the middle line and told both teams that they were facing the player sub area so don’t mess around! The indoor futsal hall was slowly filling with spectators.

I even requested a linesman to help me out. This is only required at next level games, but I didn’t want to take chances. The guy who was planned to be my secretary offered to take on this role while a former player was told to handle the scoreboard and clock. When I saw his sullen face, I suddenly realized I knew him as I had cautioned him in the past for dissent. A bad omen. OK, so this is how you start and stop the clock. And give me the last minute ok?

The game was tense from both sides but I hardly made any errors and was in full control. No cautions needed, so the chairs stayed empty. The shit hit the fan at the end of 1st half when the secretary forgot to give me ‘my last minute’. And shortly after, at the start of the 2nd half, he now forgot to start the clock and only after me shouting across the hall he did with 10 secs delay. Everything went fine and the home team was hitting home fast to become champion and get promoted to 1st class.

But my lousy secretary wasn’t paying attention again and he forgot to stop the clock at the last minute. Being fully concentrated, I noticed this immediately and started shouting across the hall to stop ‘the bloody thing’. And just when I looked up and then to my secretary, a home player took revenge (at least that I was told later) and tackled a guest player exactly at the same time. I only saw him drop and scream of pain, but didn’t see what caused it. I was still yelling at my lousy secretary, running across the hall and suddenly realized I missed a massive foul.

Spectators and players were yelling and screaming for justice. Why no cards ref? Come on, at least yellow? I quickly decided a free kick which seemed the minimum to everyone around me, but I didn’t know what else to do. I just ran the last 50 secs of the game with a deep feeling of frustration. The home team had won fairly easy and were celebrating their earned promotion. The away team realized they had just lost against a much better team.

Handshakes from both teams but I was still dazed and confused. I told the linesman that I was very upset about the stand-in secretary letting me down so badly. But he didn’t seem to care as the champagne bottles were popping and he just thanked me for a good game and walked away. Would the assessor have recorded what happened (from my perspective)? If not, I’m toast and can forget the hard worked promotion. All for nothing.

“Did You See What Google Said About You?” – Rodric Leerling

If you didn’t know already – we are living in a reputation economy. And Google has become the new background check. Everyone is googling, all the time – to find information, opinions, background info, but also checking out people. Did you know that 80% of people will google you before they decide to meet you? Asking themselves: Who is the person I’m meeting? What makes him or her tick? What does he or she do outside their job? Where are they heading for in life?

Questions that Google can easily answer by showing what’s being posted online. On all social media channels, just recently or maybe some time back. If nothing fresh is being posted, this keeps popping up and you might not like it. Basically, you are who Google says you are. My question to you: is your online reputation in line with you are?

The index (10 hits each page) is based on available online content and is taken from websites and blogs, but also articles, news and social media posts. And this picture drawn on Google page 1 will determine whether people choose to do business with you, or go elsewhere. You might never know why you missed the much needed investment, got skipped for the new job or that board position you pitched for. It’s just inevitable: Google has become the first stage of the background check and the first elimination point.

My advice would be to start producing new, or re-purposing older, content. This will help to get your ‘online-me’ in sync with your ‘offline-me’. Uploading good content (including photos and videos) improves your chances of being found online. And remember that in order to rank on search engines, you need to have fresh content that is relevant to your audience. Google not only indexes your page based on keywords, but also the relevancy of a page’s semantic relevance and back links to credible websites.

Key to all this: a strong online reputation will help generate more business opportunities. And who doesn’t want that?

“I decided to, whatever people say, always stick to my approach” – Rodric Leerling

It felt like another satisfying game last weekend. A pretty good U17 match under nice Spring weather conditions. But not everyone would agree. As usual.

Once on the pitch, the home coach shook my hand and asked me if I hadn’t reffed them before this season. I confirmed but wasn’t sure which game exactly. He suddenly seemed to realize something and took his AR apart and started a secret looking conversation. Was he telling his club AR how to support me?

Maybe he remembered my stubborn way of reffing, not blindly following the (often biased) AR signals. So what would his advice be, exactly? I didn’t want to eavesdrop, but guessed he had just two options: either be very honest especially on off-sides, and thus gaining my confidence. Or wave the flag from kick-off on anything that looked suspicious. Again, I’m just guessing, but I assume he took the first option, for at least 60 minutes, right until the away team scored the well deserved equalizer (1-1). His flag was up and I heard shouts of “hands ref!” As I hadn’t seen anything, I signaled him to drop the flag. And he should know why, as the instructions were clear: no signals from the AR for fouls, especially in the box.

The home team soon after started wiping the floor with their opponents, scoring four more goals and I decided to call it a day after the official 80 minutes and score 1-5. The away team was complimenting me with a “terrific game”. The home coach, though, walked towards me clearly hesitating whether he would shake my hand. I didn’t wait for his decision, but just reached out to him, leaving him no choice. He started to say something about fouls I missed, but I immediately ‘overruled’ him saying I thought it was a great game, despite his teaming losing big time. He shouldn’t complain. He nodded and wished me a good weekend. See you around coach!

“Being Googled is one thing, being YouTubed is next” – Rodric Leerling

We are living in a ‘reputation economy’ where people are ‘googling’ all the time. Google has in fact become the new background check, not only for products and services, but also for people. People are just googling all the time and actually making critical decisions based on what they find. What will they find about you?

For many people, you are who Google says you are. Isn’t that scary!

Google and other search engines are primarily text based, their algorithm programmed to find text and pictures based on tags and keywords. Indexes (to fill the 10 slots or hits on each page) are made not only on keywords but also based on the relevancy of the page’s semantics and back links. So it’s adamant you publish fresh, short bits of content regularly, relevant to your audience, illustrating who you really are and what you stand for. People will read and link to your (WordPress) home page and website.

Start making sure you are being found online. Google page1 will then soon read like a personal brand story. With the right tags in text and images, and back links, you will boost your online reputation and eventually create more business opportunities.

But the next step in your online reputation building is video content. YouTube, owned by Google, is the second largest search engine in the world. While people are watching videos on YouTube, they will use it as their new search engine. So whenever possible, check if a video was made during your performance and ask for footage when you give a presentation or interview. Add it to your online presence and show what you are made of!

“When you think you did a terrific job, there are always criticizers” – Rodric Leerling

I had a relatively easy game last Saturday, reffing two teams in the Dutch U15 national pro youth league. Interesting to know: the home team are the only amateur club playing in this competition. The guests from the north were so smart to mumble during meet&greet that this might be changed soon and only professional clubs would be allowed to play from next year. Big frowns all around me.

The game itself was ‘do or die’ for the guest team. Losing this game would bring them closer to relegation and their opponents were just ranked above them, hence a true 6 points game. A game packed with scouts all around the pitch. Several of the home team players were offered contracts to play for pro-teams from next season, I was told. At the start of the game, I told both captains I would keep a close eye on holding and pushing, but would prefer to play advantage in order to keep the game rolling.

As a result, I was shouting ‘play on’ almost every 5 minutes of the game, whenever possible, and tried to keep the number of free kicks to a minimum. No comments or complaints from any player as they knew when a foul was committed, hearing me shout ‘play on’. After several verbal warnings for holding, I had to eventually issue two yellow cards for it, one to each team. Quite a logical outcome of having been tolerant, but with a clear limit.

Big was my surprise, though, when I returned to the admin area to register the subs, yellow cards and 0-0 score. The away couch told me he didn’t like my strict refereeing with the many free kicks. My mouth dropped. Was he talking about another game perhaps? Nope, my game. I told him I had never in my career played on advantage so often. And I didn’t share his game experience at all. “Well, we are all allowed to have our opinions, can’t we ref?” he ended the short conversation. I left it there, realizing he must have been very disappointed to have made the 2x2hr drive for a useless 0-0 draw. Somebody had to be blamed. I happened to be me. As usual.

“My hobby: dealing with players totally out of control” – Rodric Leerling

It happens once in a while, especially at indoor games: players behaving like they are on steroids.

Nr11 of the guest team last night behaved as if he had taken a pile of cafeine pills. A popular performance enhancing substance among football players. Not illegal because it’s easily confused with drinking 3 cups of coffee.

The away team played brilliant futsal and dominated the game. They are heading for promotion to the highest Dutch futsal league. Nr11 got his first warning after 8 mins. I was secretary for this game so had to control him on his penalty seat for 2 mins. Fuming over “the low quality referee” while he had just hit an opponent on the attack.

In 2nd half it became quite tense when nr11 was suddenly screaming with pain and dropping to the floor. In an effort to get the ball, his direct opponent touched him on the shoulder. I could see it from less than 10m distance. Even his team mates were taking a step back. No support for what seemed to be a ridiculous piece of acting. The ref told him to get up and act normal, which made him scream even louder. Everyone around him looked in utter disbelief.

A 2nd yellow for acting and unsporting behavior would mean expulsion and 5mins time penalty. I saw the ref taking his time while nr11 was crawling on the floor. Eventually, his coach would speak the magic words: sub! He was told to sit on the bench and cool down.

The aspirant champions scored some more amazing goals and won the game easily. I had a quick chat with the center ref before my own game would start. He admitted considering a 2nd yellow but feared the outcome of that. I was disappointed. A higher raking ref with no guts. Time for me to step up. Bring them on, you futsal-on-steroids-players.

“How I survive tough games and obnoxious players” – Rodric Leerling

Last night I was assigned to replace a colleague ref on two late night futsal games. Maybe he preferred watching Champions League or the outcome of the Dutch national elections. Two events close to my heart, but I decided to go refereeing anyhow. I need this distraction.

The hall was still empty when I arrived, so this game could have been scheduled earlier. Checked the digital player passes and got the game on track. The away team was ranking low, whereas the home team was close to promotion. But the away team scored early goals and got the other team frustrated. The game needed my full concentration from scratch.

This focus helped me to spot a handball near the home team goal: yellow and penalty kick. Made the call and got compliments from the home team for spotting it and taking the correct measures. But they eventually made more fouls and I had to send off three of their players in total with yellow.

I ignored all their comments and showed yellow where appropriate. The game resulted in a narrow one goal difference victory by the away team. Handshakes from most of them, but still a talking home captain and goalie. I told them I heard enough and said I now understood why the futsal FA sent me to this game. He looked at me surprised. “Seriously? Are we being scrutinized?” He walked off steaming.

I was already into my second game when I saw him walking towards me with his sports bag and wet hair. With a smile this time and a hand on my shoulder. “Sorry ref, we were a bit frustrated.” Sure, I understand, I said. “But what was that about the FA and you reffing us?” Ha ha, got you bro. I pulled your proverbial leg and you went for it. He laughed and wished me a good night. I used my second game to cool down and left for home with a great feeling.

“Social Media” – Rodric Leerling

Being invited to train people in an international school is a welcome deviation in the life of an ad sales man. Especially when it’s a school in an exotic location. Admission marketers working hard everyday getting the seats filled for next education season, only 3 months into the current school year. They were invited to join a 2-day training course to be initiated in the world of social media. Despite being inundated by work, they managed to keep their phones off and gave it their full attention. The national government demands a list by last day of November of all pupils attending next school year, so work was piling up in the meantime.

We talked about creating more virtual touchpoints with the help of social media tools like Twitter and YouTube where prospective parents would be able to get a good feeling about the school, the teachers and the USP’s of their teaching plan. Happening all before they visit the school website and schedule a (short) visit. How to become that ‘purple cow’ (Seth Godin) among the many international schools in their city – what makes them stand out of the crowd? Extra curriculum activities, mother tongue teaching, flexible child care before and after school hours. How to reach the new generation of parents, the millennials, who demand a mobile communication platform and look for multiple referrals before they decide on a purchase.

We set up some new online profiles, checked the competition and I helped them with first social media tool choices and suggested schedules to fill the tools with content. All in all, a heavy but satisfying training project with that neat extra touch of exotic destination to tick off the list of ‘been there, done that’.

“Elevator Pitch”- Rodric Leerling

It was one of those weird meetings. The introduction call and elevator pitch on Friday morning had been successful. “Sounds like a great concept, let’s meet next week and show me a bit more”, was the reaction. I sent an Outlook invitation for Monday the following week.

But no reaction. As it was a Friday and the client seemed very busy, I didn’t worry. There was a date in my digital agenda and I even could work another meeting into the schedule. I even used a little trick and confirmed once again from my end before the weekend started and updated with a slightly later time slot. But still no confirmation, change or cancellation.

After two earlier meetings in town, I arrived on time at the prospect’s office. The 1st floor receptionist lady waved me in and I was picked up by another colleague at the main doors on 2nd. Told her whom I was meeting and got a cup of tea while ‘he was still in meetings’. And then a big silence. People came and went, briefly looking at me but no questions asked. I decided to start walking a bit to make sure I was noticed.

After 30 minutes, I decided it was time to take action and announce myself once again. The first person walking the corridor was approached and I told her I was waiting for so and so. Whether he was still in meetings? No, he is at his desk. Let me tell him you are waiting for him. The guy turned up and looked real puzzled. I had seen his pic on LinkedIn but he was now wearing spectacles. Why I was here? Our meeting was only ‘next week’. But this IS next week, we spoke LAST week. Yes, but I’m extremely busy this week, didn’t check your email. Really sorry.

Well, how long do you have? I’m taking a 15 minutes coffee break. he told me. Great, that’s my other elevator pitch version. We went through the slides and I repeated the key advantages of our platform. It worked. he was glad we made the quick tour after all and agreed for another bigger meeting in 2-3 weeks. I left his offices 45 minutes after entering. As always.

“A sales guy who never stops” – Rodric Leerling

It doesn’t happens very often, so it really took me by surprise. The lady I had found in my social network looked like the right person to talk to for my social media proposition. She also shared the same nationality and I tried the friendly native language approach, despite her probably English business environment.

Wrong choice, or just the wrong moment? I probably will never know, but she didn’t give me a chance and yelled at me why I called her! Well, that’s a question that can be answered in 30 seconds – the elevator pitch. Before I even could try to explain my reason and asking if she could help me find a better person, she just threw down the phone. So much for an international brand manager!

Ouch, that hurts. Of course, we sales people just start when we hear ‘no’, but I decided this time to leave it and dial another number. Just to get over it quickly and not to take it personal. The next person at the same company listened to me and suggested another colleague to talk to, who proved to be the right person. The door opened and he wanted to hear more.

I might bump into the bad-tempered brand person at my next visit. I will behave like a pro and will just tell her we have been on the phone, briefly, but maybe I should introduce myself properly this time?

Rodric Leerling