Since November I have had the privilege to be working for Soccer Smart, one of the UK’s leading soccer recruitment agencies. Elliot Livesy, the director of Soccer Smart put me in charge of the company’s marketing and development which was a huge opportunity for myself to test my skills in a competitive industry.

Responsibilities

My role varied from day to day. Implementing, maintaining and improving our various social media platforms was something I focussed on for the first couple of months and this proved extremely successful, with our social media following increasing by over 400% on top of increased website traffic. This lead to the number of players wanting to be involved with Soccer Smart drastically increasing.

CRM System Implementation

I have also had the exciting opportunity to help create and implement the company’s first CRM system through the platform of Bitrix24. With CRM increasing in importance in major organisations, having some experience with this is highly beneficial and I would highly recommend to anyone to get experience with this if possible.

Soccer Smart have a customer database with thousands of players all around the world and this CRM system allowed myself and the Soccer Smart team to organize and track interaction with our current and potential clients.

Showcases

Soccer Smart often have showcases in Preston to allow potential clients the chance to show the team (of whom all have previous playing experience at a high level) that they have the ability to play abroad in Australia or the USA.

Elliot allowed me to the opportunity to help out on the showcases and experience the analysis process the team use to determine which players are up to the required standard, first-hand. This gave me an insight into the decision making process of the team.

Ongoing Work

Over the past few months I have been given some more freedom within the business with Soccer Smart looking to market itself on an even bigger scale. I am currently in the process of looking for sponsorship deals and advertising placements at some teams in the north of England which is exciting as it’s something that a few years ago I never thought I would be doing at the age of 19.

The past seven months or so have been incredible. I have learnt plenty of new things working in the football industry and I feel I have given plenty back to Soccer Smart. The next few months are going to be extremely exciting for myself and the team and I plan to make use of every minute of it to continue to develop my skills.

Written By Dan Morris – BA (Hons) Football Business & Marketing student at UCFB