Marketing Yourself Part 1
Marketing, this is what some people pay “agencies/agents” to do. Of course agents have a lot of contacts and a larger network consisting of scouts/recruiting coordinators from both the college and professional levels of football. I learned the hard way when I was a sophomore in high school. My family and I decided that I should register with this website that claimed to market high school football players. We paid a hundred dollars and I don’t even think my player profile ever was published. And I never heard from any staff members of that organization. Basically, they got us. Just like that, we didn’t know much and we fell for it. That was the first and last time I would be scammed by a so called agency.
I didn’t really know much about marketing until I graduated from college. An associate of mines provided me with a list of contacts for professional football teams and their contact info. He told me to make my dvd with a 5min highlight at the beginning. And when I felt ready, start sending it to the addresses he had provided me with. Then it hit me, this is what football players pay an agent to do -market you. Its simple and personally I’d rather do it myself because I don’t have to pay someone for barely helping me. It takes a little time to get into the swing of things; using the right software, video editing, duplicating the DVD, going to the post office to ship it.
I remember speaking with a coach overseas and it was Thursday afternoon. He told me to have the DVD in the mail by Saturday. So here is how my schedule went on that Friday: 3:00pm Went to the football office at my college 3:15 I had gathered all of the tapes that I wanted to use 3:30 I began converting tapes from VHS to an avi file on my computer (Avi is the file need to create the dvd)10:30pm I Drove home, ate a quick dinner 11pm -4am Video editing (creating clips for highlight, labeling clips, organizing dvd menu)5-6 Burning the files-creating the DVD6am Went to sleep 8am Woke up and drove to the post office to ship the DVD.
The steps to creating your dvd. Make sure you have 100GB of free space on your hard drive, or buy one with 100GB. Then get the software, I use Nero 8 Ultra Edition. Convert the VHS to a dvd(Only necessary if you have a VHS). To do this you need a dv converter. I used a Canopus –advc converter. It will cost you a few hundred, you could find it cheap on the internet or check with your coaching staff to see if they have a dv converter. A cheaper alternative (cheaper but low dvd quality) is using a Video Capture Card or Tv Tuner. I have used an HP tv tuner, this method was simple but the converted video was very low in quality. Also you will need to use a software to capture the video. You can use Nero 8 Ultra Edition for this also. I like nero because it allows you to see the video while it is converting. Once you have the video capture you edit the video. Nero is very good for video editing. You can add text, you can make “cut ups” or clips and you can add numerous types of video transition affects(what you see in between clips). The final step is buring the dvd. It takes about an hour to burn your finalized dvd. After nero finishes burning the dvd it will ask you if you want to save the file, select yes because this will be the file you use to duplicate the dvd. The end of Marketing Yourself Part 1.
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