Day 18 - February 24th (6hrs)

Today was an extremely interesting day as it was the first time that I was on an official team meeting call for Athletes USA. Once a week, the whole scouting team comes together to go over current updates, new members and different events that are planned or will be going on in the future. Given the fact that Athletes USA has over 100 scouts worldwide, these meeting usually take a very long time. I had the pleasure to meet Linus, who is one of the head scouts of Athletes USA and the CEO of the department in Sweden. Linus was using me as an example of how to teach new scouts through an interview process. We started the meeting off with a mock interview between me and a potential new recruit. I was quite nervous as I was put on the spot without being able to prepare, but it was an extremely valuable lesson. After the mock interview, Linus was briefing us on news regarding scouting strategies and current opponents in the scouting industry. There is a new company in Sweden that has stolen some of our recruits, especially in the Golf department which is the specialty of Linus. We used the meeting as time to brainstorm a strategy to work against the new company and win back out customers. We came to the realization that they promise recruits unrealistic things (Scholarship money etc.) which we do not want to do. Eventually, the lie will come out and recruits will turn back to us. The last part of the meeting consisted of Ben Deets, who is the lead scout for all sports at the company, to give us updates on the current financial situation as well as recruiting numbers. We already signed over 60 new athletes in 2023, which is more than an athlete per day. The last point on the agenda was the planning of an event in Sweden. As a result of lacking numbers in the Golf department, we want to plan a golf tournament which is run like a college tournament in Sweden. We were going over potential locations, dates and set-ups for the tournament. It was an extremely long but also very educational call where I learned a lot about the company, the workers and also the dynamic within the scouting team. I spent the last 2 hours of the day with re-evaluating the call, taking notes and what happened and highlighting the most important points that I took from the call and want to include into my own scouting strategy.