A Soccer Match - Enjoyed through a television

Television viewing options are often the center of intra-family squabbles.  Who gets the remote, what does the family watch, and the list goes on.  Soccer in many ways can serve to quell these arguments.  It is the ultimate team sport and can bring a group of viewers together like nothing else on the hundreds of channels that cable TV provides.

So why, you ask, should we allow our children to spend hours watching 22 people chase a ball all over a grassy field?  Here are just a few reasons:

1.   The teams work towards a common goal – How many times have you heard someone on a little league team be accused of being a ball hog?  Watch the professionals show you how to work the ball around as one.  If you need a prime example, just go enjoy a Barcelona match.  The team resembles a pinball machine as the ball literally bounces around each player as they progress towards the opponent’s goal.  When there is a goal the whole team usually celebrates in one grand heap, because they each played an important role in the set up.  Working together is something your child should learn from a young age.

2.  Soccer Inspires Passion – There is no greater celebration than when a team scores a dramatic game winning goal.  As such, there is no greater frustration than when a player collapses in vain when he misses that glorious opportunity.  This is the passion of soccer.  Players truly get lost in the heat of the game, and it happens because they care so much.  So much importance can ride on every touch of the ball and in its finest moment, soccer shows everyone what hard work and discipline can lead to.

3.  Soccer teaches respect – Watch a man slide tackle an opponent to the floor and get a yellow card for dangerous play.  But then watch that player lend a hand out to help him up.  When a player goes down injured, opponents usually kick the ball out of bounds so the medical staff can assist them.  Players always shake hands before and after the match because they respect one another.  Common respect is something your child should understand from a young age, and soccer is a great way to show your child just that.  And, in the occasional moment where a player refuses to offer another respect, the commentators usually criticize them so young listeners will learn what’s right and wrong.

4.  Soccer is a cultural experience – All the clubs are made up of multicultural members.  The English club, Arsenal, is often criticized for not having enough Englishmen on the field because the team has so many French, Spanish, and even Cameroonian players.  In most parts of the world, the sport is referred to as football (since it is played with the feet), and everyone comes together to share in the sport that transcends any national border.  Go watch the World Cup and you’ll see people of every color and shape all united in their love for that single sport.  Do you want to learn a new language?  Go turn on a game from a foreign country and listen to the commentators speak in that country’s tongue.  So much of the world can be seen in the game’s global sport.

5.  Watching the sport teaches the sport – Have you ever heard the saying, “you don’t have to teach a kid to turn a double play, they’ve seen it happen a million times.”?  The same thing applies to soccer.  If your child plays the game, what better way to improve than to learn from the best?  You can watch how they move off the ball, how they keep their heads up to make passes, and how they dazzle our eyes with their feet.

So with that said, next time you pass by a soccer match on TV and skip on by, think about how much you and your child could learn if you just gave the beautiful game a chance.

For information about buying soccer uniforms, please visit Totally Soccer.

Nike USA Home Jersey

With a lot of fanfare, Nike released the new USA Authentic 12/14 Home Soccer Jersey this week. To us, the shirt is astounding on two fronts:

1. It looks like it was designed out of the “Where’s Waldo” books
2. The astronomical price of $149.99 for the authentic jersey; $84.99 for the replica

As a direct from the factory supplier, sometimes we just scratch our heads at the pricing manufacturers deem reasonable to put on their products. Is there no threshold over the price points that are reasonable when it comes to licensed products? I often wonder what happens in the future as the prices creep to the moon completely defying gravity (and the economy). Will the authentic replica business soon die off like baseball cards who eventually prices themselves out of reasonableness? Or as we look at Google search results and see cheap-o companies show up with complete rip-offs for twenty bucks?

We’re often asked, “Why not simply knock the product off?” The answer is simple: Unlike other companies who gladly knock-off competitors, we respect the intellectual property and designs. If you love their jersey style, we believe you should reward them with your business; if you love our style, then reward us with your business.

We just know that without the cache of slapping the US Soccer Federation logo on jerseys that we have to be better on every front: pricing, customer service and delivery lead the way. We do everything we can to make buying soccer jerseys: easier, cheaper and faster.

For information about buying soccer uniforms, please visit Totally Soccer.

Sharks Logo

When Karin Holt from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina called she was in the market for high School soccer jerseys. With her main school color of sky, there wasn’t a lot of choices for her as companies have focused their product lines to core colors. She loved the look of the Breez jersey, but with a complete home and away uniform option.

One of our team experts helped Karin by suggesting the Customizer, where you can design your own custom soccer jerseys. Despite having sky/black as a standard option in the Breez, Karin was looking for more of a sky/white combination. She opted for custom white/sky and sky/white with a Shark mascot logo on the left chest.

We think they turned out great – and they were ordered, produced, personalized and shipped within two weeks.

For information about buying soccer uniforms, please visit Totally Soccer.

For information about buying soccer uniforms, please visit Totally Soccer.

For information about buying soccer uniforms, please visit Totally Soccer.

To capture the detail and vibrancy of the logo, she opted for the multi-color decal to create that *pop* on the jersey she was expecting. Digital transfers have been developed over the past number of years and enable you to create gradients, unlimited colors and fineness of detail that cannot be captured through a traditional silkscreen printing process. At about $6.00/jersey for custom decals, they do add to the price, but for customers looking to upgrade the look of their logo, it is a great choice. We particularly see this application in Corporate customers who demand brand integrity of their logos.

Below, you can see the execution from the artist proof of the decal we receive for approval to the actual application on the H23 jersey. Clicking on any image will provide you with a higher resolution image to view.

For information about buying soccer uniforms, please visit Totally Soccer.

The Magical "Drop Dead Date"

Drop dead dates. It’s a recurring call, so I thought I’d address it.

No matter the time of year, we receive calls like this, “If my soccer team’s first game is September 9th, what is the drop dead date that I have to order my soccer uniforms?”

We totally get it.

If you’re like every team we outfit, you’re trying to organize your team, figure out whether to buy jerseys, uniforms or home/away packages, determine whether you should go with custom colors, what team logo you want, make sure everyone has their favorite number, collect money, grab everyone’s sizes…and you want the very most amount of time to do all these things. Because, of course, your teammates just have only a smidge of respect for the time, energy and effort you’re putting in to get the team on the field.

Unfortunately, this is an impossible question for us to answer. It’s all crystal ball type thinking based around experience. You should plan on team jerseys taking 1-10 days in production and club orders normally take 1-5 weeks.

To ensure timely arrival of all our commitments, everything we do is based around production cycles: manufacturing  soccer jerseys, personalizing those jerseys and shipping all happens in the blink of an eye. With every inbound call, it’s always a moving target. But, by controlling every aspect of the process – from production to printing to shipping – no one can deliver soccer jerseys faster. We even offer a delivery guarantee. This is how confident we are in everything we do.

But, we never know what the next phone call will hold. This is what makes “drop dead dates” so difficult to answer.

Will the next call be a club ordering 600 purple Copa Jr. jerseys that were plentiful when you called in just five minutes before? It happens. And, it changes the production cycles in the blink of an eye.

Our best advice? Time is the enemy! Order as soon as you can. And, we promise to give you honest answers about when you can expect to receive your uniforms.

After all, you’re not going to move your season’s first game.

For information about buying soccer uniforms, please visit Totally Soccer.

The Wannabe Rocker

I could have been a rocker. Based around my only stage performance (yes: big hair, zebra striped tights), I’m glad I didn’t. Instead, I began working in the soccer business in 1990 – over twenty years ago – and have spent more than half my life in the business. I have literally traveled the world for the game, been certified as an expert in the US retail soccer market and have outfitted a ton of teams through the years. I know soccer. I don’t know music quite as well.

When I started TotallySoccer.com, I aimed to solve the headaches buyers faced and strove to achieve a simple, guiding principle:

Totally Soccer makes buying soccer gear easier, cheaper and faster for our buyers.

For the last ten years online, I believe we’ve achieved that promise. But, while having a business conversation with a friend at a dinner party, he asked a simple question about our business: “Are you still easier, cheaper and faster?”

Boink.

I thought we were…but it had been quite some time since I had “checked in.”

For a month straight, I called every one of our “competitors” in the Top 50 search results from Google. I learned so much. Talk about industry blindness! As I listened to the explanations on the phone, I was struck by how hard we, as an industry, make it for buyers to purchase custom soccer uniforms. It is insane! Some of the pricing explanations required a PhD in mathematics and industry jargon like “availability” and “life span” left me with a headache. It made no sense. I truly felt sorry for soccer buyers.

I also hopped on the phone and spoke with our customers – and non-customers. I wanted to learn why people loved shopping with us. And, perhaps just as important, I wanted to know why potential customers selected another vendor. People were brutally honest. And, being from Philly, I really liked that in my calls. I appreciate everyone who took the time to speak with me.

This experience dramatically changed my view of our business – for the better. I want to share with you five of the changes we’ve made at TotallySoccer to ensure we continue to lead the soccer market: easier, cheaper and faster.

Guaranteed by Game Day

The #1 headache that team buyers face is receiving their uniforms by Game Day. During my calls, no one would pin down exact timelines of when I could receive my uniforms. The best answer most companies gave was a timeline of, “It takes about two to three weeks, so you should be good.” If I was a buyer, this isn’t good enough because it provides me with no certainty.

Our manufacturing processes are so good…so tuned into exactly what we do…that we’ve rolled out “Guaranteed by Game Day.” We know our production cycles as a manufacturer of the product and the printer of the product. We control every aspect. And, unlike other companies who will take your order and hope, we’ll tell you exactly when you can expect your uniforms.

There is no other company that packs this promise and puts their money where their mouth is. If we tell you you’ll have it by game day, then you’ll have it by game day. Guaranteed!

Free Means Free

Personalizing your team jerseys is confusing. It’s the reason why I include a free team logo and back number with your purchase. Since teams need it, it just made good sense to include it for you. Including a free number and logo saves teams about $7. In time, we also added a collection of 200+ stock soccer logos to help teams that didn’t already have a logo.

In order to print a logo, you have to prepare the logo and setup the machines. As a result, there was a $25 fee to complete this process. And, then you have to print the logo – which is included for free.  While this setup is a real and tangible cost, it is hard to explain to customers, negates the concept of free and confused buyers. After listening to some of our competitors try and explain it, I decided to drop it. You flat out needed a PhD in Physics and Aerospace Defense to figure it all out.

Ultimately, I figured that if I couldn’t understand how other companies price their products than you couldn’t either. And, even though it would cost us money, I wanted the process to be easier for our customers and cheaper. So, we dropped the art setup on your free printing of your pocket sized logo. This saves teams an additional $25 – and more importantly, it makes it easier on buyers.

We’re the Experts & Better Act Like It!

One of the first postcards I ever developed included, “We specialize in first-time buyers!” I wanted to sincerely convey that we really understood how to outfit teams and clubs and would take you by the hand to explain the process and make it easy. Buying soccer uniforms shouldn’t be hard! Even though I think we have the best-trained salespeople, we’re investing in additional training. We’re the experts – it’s what we do everyday. And, our goal is to make it as simple and easy to understand. Unlike selling other people’s products who we’re unfamiliar with – we can guide you to the right soccer uniforms for your team. Additionally, we’ve invested a ton of resources on the website to help better explain and show our products. We realize that most of our buyers are volunteer moms and dads or part-time coaches. You don’t do this for a living; we do. Let us help guide you.

Investing in Manufacturing Decreases Costs

With a difficult economy over the last few years, customers have been focused on squeezed budgets. Our business is laser focused on selling soccer uniforms to teams and clubs. We don’t sell retail product; it isn’t our business. With unemployment rates hovering at 10%, it means that 1.5 kids on every soccer team of 15 players have parents who are unemployed. We get it.

As a result, we dug into our manufacturing systems. We re-worked our product flows and crushed  inefficiencies.  We are able to pass those savings along to you. We’ve invested internally and it enabled us to lower prices to teams by more than 10%.  Our uniforms, packages and volume pricing represent savings of more than 25%. 25%!!

Through rigorous production testing we lowered our price breaks too on volume orders. Instead of price breaks being at 51, 201 and 501, we’ve pounded them down to 10, 101 and 251. There are no additional economies of scale we can achieve over 250, so smaller clubs receive our best pricing.

Not only were we able to lower prices in total, we were able to lower the price breaks too. When it is all said and done, teams can buy jerseys with free team number and for around $20 including delivery and uniforms land in the $30-40 range – delivered and packages in the $45 – $55 range (best value!). We’ll put that up against anyone in the industry for quality, delivery and value.

Published Business Hours

As stupid as this sounds, we’ve never had published business hours. We’re on the east coast and “normal” office hours are from 9:30 am – 5:30 pm. But, since we work with customers around the country, lots of times we’re here much later than office hours. As a result, we left it as an “open” item. It was stupid. I didn’t realize how frustrating it was to customers – but I sure did hear about it when calling customers. I’m sorry. And, I promise that we’ll return your call when you leave a message. We want your business!

Color Customize your Jerseys

Teams want unique looks on the field. We pioneered custom color soccer jerseys back in 2009. Due to our manufacturing capabilities, it’s become a significant part of our business because of the cost and the short lead time. We’re going to expand this program in 2012. As always, there are no surcharges and team uniforms can be delivered in about two weeks. You can check out our “Customizer” where you can design your own soccer jerseys.

On top of all the other great aspects of our business, we believe these 5 changes place us ahead of the pack when it comes to fulfilling our promise to you:

Totally Soccer makes buying soccer gear easier, cheaper and faster for our buyers.

We will continue to work as hard as possible to be the best choice for your soccer uniforms. Thanks, as always, for your support!

For information about buying soccer uniforms, please visit Totally Soccer.

This story is a great reminder of the impact we have as soccer coach – on players and young people. We may not have opportunities to realize this impact in person – but rest assured that you made an impact. It is simple moments of appreciation – those players who see you years later and pass the “cross the street test” – who you know you reached and impacted as a player…and a person.

Enjoy the article – it’s a good one!

Does anyone have stories of players and families who showed gratitude for the efforts you made and the vital role you played?

Here’s the original story:

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My younger son was feverishly working on writing a paper when I arrived home from work one day this week. I inquired about the assignment.

The teacher asked the class to write about someone who played an influential role in their lives, he replied. I immediately thought “I bet he’s writing about me.” I prepared to give him a big hug and shed tears of joy.

“I’m writing about Joe,” he said, a reference to a soccer coach from two years ago.

After I overcame the blow to my ego, I quickly appreciated how my son would pick Joe as the subject of his paper. My son’s now in his third year of playing club soccer in Winston-Salem, and he’s had four different coaches. My older son, by contrast, has only had two coaches in his five years with the club, including the same one for the past four years.

While all the coaches have been very competent, Joe certainly made the biggest impact on my son. He still often quotes things Joe told the team. He uses skills he learned from Joe during games.

I thought my son did an outstanding job on the paper. He recalled many details about Joe, both his appearance, mannerisms and stories he told. Joe only coached the team for a little less than one year before moving to Charlotte to attend law school. I scanned the paper and emailed a copy to him, as it’s the type of tribute that means a lot to people.

Coaches play such an important role in the life of young people. Some, like those in high school or club soccer, are paid for their efforts. But many others volunteer out of a love for a sport and a willingness to pass on knowledge to impressionable youngsters. My sons have been fortunate that most of the coaches they’ve had showed competence in their efforts.

Youth coaches often determine whether a youngster will stick with a sport. If a coach makes practice fun and teaches skills that a child sees helping them to improve, then the chances are great the youngster will remain in the sport and perhaps move to more advanced levels. But a poor coach at a young age can cause a child to give up a sport, one in which he or she might have excelled in the proper environment.

Good coaches come in many different forms. Some are strict and put up with no foolishness. Others goof off with the team and emphasize fun. Some are loud, others quiet. The best ones strike the proper balance between teaching, fun and winning. That often is very difficult, too, especially keeping winning in its proper context.

I coached both my sons in basketball and soccer when they were younger. I enjoyed my time coaching, and I especially liked practices, where a coach’s primary role is teaching. Games were more challenging, as my competitive instincts sometimes got the better of me. Certainly I recall specific situations that I would handle differently, and I was definitely too hard on my own children at times.

The coaches who especially deserve praise are those who continue to coach even when they no longer have children playing. They receive no money for doing this, but they simply love the sport and want to share that with children. Perhaps some day once my children are in college I’ll return to the sidelines (although my days of demonstrating certain skills might be passed by then).

Words similar to the way my son ended his paper could be printed on appreciation plaques that outstanding coaches receive at the end of a season from grateful parents and players:

“Joe was the greatest coach I’ve ever had, and it’s hard to express in a paper how much he impacted me at the age of 11, as a soccer player and, more importantly, as a person.”

Source: http://www.the-dispatch.com/article/20120114/COLUMNISTS/301149994/1018/news?p=1&tc=pg

For information about buying soccer uniforms, please visit Totally Soccer.

Original Hand Drawn Artwork

The great news is that we have an artist on staff to convert this logo into a usable format. Recreating a logo and digitizing it for printing is a service we provide for just $25. We also provide you with the three most common formats via email when the process is complete: Illustrator, pdf and jpeg. If you need it in the future, you’ll have access to it.

And here is what our terrific artist Dina was able to generate into a printable, camera ready piece of artwork for Aubrey’s Hudson soccer jerseys. You’ll see that the entire image is completely black (not varying shade of black) and everything has been smoothed out to ensure a great quality print on the jerseys.

Digital "Camera Ready" Artwork

Even with having to create the artwork from scratch, Cadet Boswell and her classmates received their custom soccer jerseys in two weeks.

For information about buying soccer uniforms, please visit Totally Soccer.