Plant the Seed, Play the Long Game
Keith Baulsir - 19-year sports sales veteran, former SVP of Brand Partnerships for the Vegas Golden Knights, and founding member of Clemson Ventures, the Clemson University first in-house sports marketing group, he responsible for hundreds of millions in partnerships revenue closed across pro sports, college athletics, and beyond.
Keith Baulsir sent a single image, a mockup of a company's name on a building, to someone who had told him no years before. No lengthy pitch. No follow-up sequence. Just the right idea delivered to someone he had never stopped believing in. That one touchpoint turned into a tens of millions of dollars naming rights deal. That's what playing the long game actually looks like.
ABOUT KEITH BAULSIR
Keith Baulsir is a 19-year sports sales and partnerships veteran who has closed hundreds of millions in revenue across some of the most iconic organizations in sports. He was one of the earliest employees at the Vegas Golden Knights, helping build the brand from the ground up before the team had a logo, letterhead, or a single sale and was there six years later when they won the Stanley Cup. He has worked across pro sports, college athletics, minor leagues, and nonprofit organizations, and is now the driving force behind Clemson Ventures, a first of its kind in-house sports marketing group at Clemson University. He is also the author of Sales Is a Contact Sport.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
Why your reputation is literally your repetition and what that means for how you show up every single day
The shift from shotgun to sniper outreach and how the best sellers do less but convert more
Why internal follow up breaks down between sales and service teams in almost every organization
How Keith closed a naming rights deal during COVID with a single image and a long memory
The evolution from commission breath to abundance mindset and what it actually takes to get there
Why visibility creates accountability and how showing up consistently builds a career others can't replicate
What the data says about how many touch points it takes to get a response and why most people quit way too early
How to play the long game when you're in startup mode and need results now
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Your reputation is your repetition. One of Keith's mentors gave him this line early in his career and it has driven everything since. What you do over and over every day, how you show up, whether you cut corners, how you treat the people around you, becomes your reputation before you even realize it. It's not a strategy. It's a byproduct of who you actually are when no one is watching.
The naming rights deal that started with one image. During COVID, Keith mocked up a rendering of a company's name on one of the Golden Knights' community facilities and sent it to someone who had told him no years earlier. He hadn't spoken to them in over a year. The image alone was enough to get the wheels turning. A year of conversation and negotiation later it closed as one of the biggest deals of his career. That's the seed planting business in action.
Shotgun to sniper - the natural evolution of a great seller. Early career it's volume, make as many calls as possible and cast a wide net. But as you mature, the game shifts. Less outreach, higher quality, more customized. Keith breaks down how that evolution happens naturally over time and why the sellers who figure it out faster are the ones who make the biggest leaps.
Why internal follow up breaks down. Sales gets the deal across the finish line. Service has to deliver on it. And when those two sides don't communicate, trust breaks down, clients get disappointed, and the entire culture suffers. Keith talks about how he has always invested in those internal relationships - Starbucks gift cards, coffee runs, lunch with the legal team, because a small token of appreciation for someone who helped you close a million dollar deal goes further than most people think.
Commission breath versus abundance mindset. Early on every deal feels like life or death. You need it to survive. But the best sellers eventually evolve out of that desperation into something different, they love the game itself. The creativity, the detective work, the relationship building. Keith talks about what it took to get there and why that shift from survival to passion is ultimately what separates the people who last from the people who burn out.
CONNECT WITH KEITH BAULSIR:
Keith's LinkedIn
Keith’s Book
Clemson Ventures
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