Finding a Way

I applied for a job.

It isn't a recoil in horror moment, I promise.  Working on my businesses is still the best decision I've ever made and I'm still doing that, but this is different.

It was for a senior marketing role with my 2nd love Oldham Athletic.  A job I make no qualms about admiting was my 'dream' job 5 years ago.  I even went so far then as applying my cheekyness to arranging a meeting with the then Director of Marketing, Sean Jarvis to discover more from him about how he had made such a position, and how I could get into football marketing.  In a way I wasn't interested in general football marketing, I just had a burning ambition to be involved in my club.

Similarly, I don't mind admiting that my ambitions have changed on that front.  Certainly one of my dream goals is not just to have a marketing job with my club, but own it!  Ok, I'll rephrase that (I'm not that stupid), have a piece of it.  It may seem a silly goal, but for me it frames lots of smaller goals into a very exciting an tangible conclusion.

So why go for this job?  Well one thing I've realised over the past few years is that there are certain key things any business needs whether it is serving customers, providing a service, selling a box or playing football.  These are:

• A clear vision filled with positivity
• Clear effective communication with customers and staff (placing their needs at the heart of decision making)
• Innovative thinking
• Persistence

All seemingly simple things and so often missing or muddled.  And that it is a lack of those that I've noticed at Oldham since the owners known as TTA (The Three Amigos) came face to face with the stark reality of life at Oldham Athletic.  Over the last few years there has been a steady decline from within the club and that doesn't just apply on the pitch.  I should at this point point out that I have a great deal of admiration for TTA and indeed some of the staff within the club for what they have done and there has been plenty especially in terms of financial support.  They deserved more for the efforts they put in. But there is no doubting that so much concentration has been on 'old' methods of selling the club.

And that is where I can see so many possibilities.  As you all know I'm definately in the 'glass half full camp' and although you can't suddenly fill a stadium with clever marketing ideas (we are a cynical bunch us football fans when it comes to our own club), you can put the structure in place so that when the day comes when the on-field product flourishes, you are ready to maximise the off-field opportunities.  After all the success or failure on the pitch is fundamentally they key to any off-field successes.

Oh how I'd love to get into the club and just seeing what could be achieved.  After all for anyone out there willing to give it some investment the picture in many ways is quite an interesting one.  Certainly in terms of divisions the club could go lower.  But in terms of crowds in my opinion we're now pretty close to the bottom.  As the economy still struggles to recover, outside of the Premier Greed there is an increasing supply of out of work footballers, which will make lower wages a reality in the lower divisions eventually.  This again brings costs down.  Financially the club is fairly stable and certainly in no danger having cut its cloth accordingly over the past few years. In Paul Dickov, Oldham Athletic have a young, ambitious manager keen to mould a squad of young, hungry and talented individuals into a winning team.  A new stadium could be on the way, and there is an owner who wants to sell.  All these add up to a tasty looking investment for someone with deeper pockets than me.

So I applied to get in through that class door, it wasn't to go back to working life, it was to try and inject a little of the entrepreneurial spirit into a business that means so much to me.  A business that I want to see thriving even if that doesn't always translate to trophys and promotions.  A business that I want others to feel the way I do now 100 years in the future.

I didn't get it!  But that's ok, because the way I see it, it could be me making that decision in a few years time.