New vs. Renewals: Stop Settling for Stagnation
Throughout my early career in sports, I’ll hear from my managers about the focus of retention. "It's cheaper to keep them!" "Focus on the foundation!" While great renewal rates are necessary, a fixation on maintaining the status quo is the fastest way to get comfortable, and getting comfortable is how you lose in this industry.
If you believe your front office should be focused on growth, then the prioritization is clear: New Business must be the primary driver.
Renewal revenue is maintenance. New sales revenue is momentum.
Why New Sales Must Dominate the Conversation
When resources are lean and decisions must be made, placing your best talent and the most resources into hunting new accounts is not a gamble—it's a strategic necessity for long-term health.
1. New Business Defines Your Ceiling
Renewal revenue defines your floor. It tells you what you have. New sales revenue defines your ceiling. It tells you what you can be.
Teams that over-invest in retention often find themselves trapped in a cycle where they perfectly execute the same revenue every year. Matching last season is the goal. They become reliant on a shrinking, aging customer base. New business is the only way to continually inject the organization with new demographics, new corporate partners, and new, higher-value revenue streams. If you aren't growing your base, you've found yourself in a spot of complacence and place a limit on your team’s revenue potential.
2. Growth is the Best Defense Against Attrition
The market is fluid. Teams move, leagues evolve, and fan preferences shift. If you are only focused on holding on to who you have, the moment a major sponsor pulls out, or a natural churn event occurs, your entire budget is exposed.
A robust new-sales engine acts as a natural hedge against inevitable attrition. By constantly bringing in more accounts than you lose, you ensure that market turbulence is absorbed without threatening the operational budget. The goal shouldn't just be to plug the leaks; it should be to ensure the reservoir is always overflowing.
3. New Blood Fuels the Organization
New business brings energy. It requires sales reps to continually refine their pitch, learn new objection handling, and master solution-based selling. This process keeps the sales team sharp, hungry, and competitive.
Furthermore, new accounts often mean premium inventory is moving—suites, major partnerships, and high-level season tickets. This not only increases revenue but also signals a positive direction to the rest of the organization, boosting morale and attracting even more high-caliber talent to the front office. Inventory - or lack of inventory - can be a primary driver.
The Renewal Trap
The danger of over-prioritizing renewals is the mindset it creates: comfort. It allows reps and managers to rely on existing relationships rather than the skill of selling. Renewals should be an automated, organization-wide customer service process, not a high-touch sales initiative that drains resources from new growth.
Your best salespeople should be dedicated to the high-stakes, high-reward world of new business.
Final Thought
In baseball terms, you don't win championships by only re-signing the players you already have; you win by aggressively recruiting and developing new, high-ceiling talent.
New sales are the engine of organizational momentum. Invest in the team, the process, and the drive to bring in more business than you ever have before. Growth is not optional; it is the mission.
At GameDay Advising, we help teams structure their sales organization to aggressively pursue new business while implementing operational efficiencies that stabilize retention. Click here to schedule a 30-minute conversation about how we can help you build a true growth-focused strategy.
