Today, it emerged as a dirt podcast episode number 20. I'm gonna talk to you about timing. Why having an accurate timing process starts off with being essential to deciding who won or who lost your race and ends up helping you pay for future races. By the way, Mister Murphy called, the timing computer just crashed. And it was the only way to make the chip readers work. Now you have no results. And it's only the middle of the race. Now what?
Thank you for joining me for the Merchant Center Podcast. I am Kyle Bondo, your professional recognier and race business coach. I'm here to make the art and science behind building, promoting, and directing off road races. Simple and understandable. Along with me, of course, is my cohost that everyone loved to hate. Mister Murphy and together, We're on a mission to teach you how to build better races. Our website, merchandisinger dot com. And if you're new to the merchandisinger podcast,
Welcome aboard. We got a lot to talk about today. Tommy's a big subject, so let's get right into it. Today is all about timing. Timing is 1 of the processes that Mister Murphy likes to wreck the most of your race. This is why you have to get timing right. Timing is not only 1 of your core race a services, but if you don't present a way for people to win, then there really is no race.
This makes timing the method to which you ultimately decide who won and who lost and it is your essential tool for race day arbitration. It decides finality
of who actually won and who didn't. This makes you as a race promoter the neutral party and all for all the competitors enforcing the rules of the course in providing an unbiased accounting of everyone's time across the finish line. Sometimes, there are officials to step in to take on this role, but in the end, it is the race promoter that takes the heat if things go wrong, and that is you. And if things do go wrong, Mister Murphy wins. And we don't want Mister Murphy to win. So here's how you can get your race timing right.
And that is thinking of timing as a tool. If you think of timing as a tool, you can kind of dissect dissect that tool into essentially a timing process. And we know that if you have a process, you have a beginning and an end. Timing is just like that too. Timing has a beginning and end that you need to understand in order to successfully make timing work for your race. And I see timing divided into 10 steps, so you can easily
digest how timing actually works. And those steps include 1. Make sure all bibs are correct. 2. Have a dedicated team or dedicated teams. 3. Have a clear finish line. 4. Use timing technology with caution. 5. Provide timing training to all timing teams. 6, give yourself some power. 7, present your results. 8, deal with complaints quickly and decisively. 9, go to the video. And 10 website posts.
Your timing process might have more or less steps, but these are the 10 steps I believe you you need to consider. To make your race timing work. So let's go through each 1 of these 10 steps 1 by 1. So number 1, make sure all bobs are on correctly. The art of timing a race is twofold. First, you need to know who is in your race. 2nd, you need a quick and easy way to identify them on the course. Registration solves this first issue, bib numbers the second,
but both come with their own challenges. Registration is a challenge when racers handwrite their own own information in a scroll that is barely legible. When given to a registration person to put into the computer, For computer timing, that scroll becomes bizarre spellings and bad data. Issuing a BIP number is another challenge. You can lead a racer to a BIB number, but you can't get all BIB numbers on a racer. You've probably experienced this yourself.
Plenty of veteran racers can get this part correct, but the world is full of novices and even some vets even forget this part. Bib numbers need to go on a certain way. Front of the jersey pinned on the back of the backpack, on the front of the bars, the bike, come the side of the jersey, if they're running, whatever the timers need to record the the number correctly. Trust me. It seems simple, but a lot of racers will screw this up. The starting line is your last chance to fix this.
Now, hopefully, you will spot the bib numbers that are upside down, they're on the wrong side, folded under, or just plain missing. It needs to be quick too because once the gun goes off, there's no coming back. The trail will do the rest of the damage for you mud, wind, water trees, rain, dirt, sand, people who fall, collisions, you name it. Will take your well placed bib numbers and create havoc with them.
This is why you have to to have dedicated teams of timers While 1 is recording the BIV number, the other can move, you know, move, move around. Talk about in between Shadow Racers, do whatever they need to do to figure out what that Bib number that is coming at you really says. So this goes right into number 2, have dedicated teams. I prefer to have 3 teams of 2 person timers. 1 person records, this is the timer,
and the other has the watch and calls out the BIV numbers to the timer to be recorded. This is the caller. Y 3 teams, 1 team uses the computer and works with timing software. The attention needs to punch you know, the attention needed to punch in numbers takes away from a like, your capability to read numbers as they go by. We try it sometimes. Try to have someone call out numbers as they go by and try to punch them in and look at see if you can see them as they go by too. It's difficult.
So you wanna have that team on the computer. Another team is paper and watching paper and watch timing duo. So 1 holds the clipboard to the timing sheet and the other calls out the bib numbers, and the times, more approximate times. Why do you do the paper when you have a computer? Because technology is a fickle beast. If a computer dies, you need a backup. Repeat after me. This is probably something you've heard in past podcast. 2 is 1 and 1 is none.
Repeat it again. 2 is 1 and 1 is none. So you have a computer. This helps you with printing out results and getting timer results to the podium. But then you have the paper timers as well. Right? And the 3rd team, the 3rd team is special. This is your top 3 team. All you care about is the top 3 razors in each category. So why do you need this team?
This is your podium. In case all things go wrong, if the computer timers mess up, if the computer fails, if you have a you have a quick and dirty way to have an award ceremony within 30 minutes or less. It's not pretty And those in 4th place and beyond will not get their times until you can compile your paper timesheets, but you will be able to still award the winners and keep things running.
Your paper teams are your backup. No matter how good your time and technology is, you should always have paper timers. Always. So what should you always have? Paper timers. Right? Remember that? What should you always have? Paper timers. Enough sand. 1 racer at a time is easy. 5 racers in a pack is daunting. So the timer doesn't miss the number, you know, flip a number, like a 6 so 9 or a 3 to a 5 or a 7 for a 1. Or transpose numbers. 135 becomes 531 or 71 becomes 17, 808, becomes 880, etcetera.
Of the recorded bib, 1 person shouts out the bib number to the timer and the timer punches in as they are called. It sounds simple, but you can be very stressed when a big pack is coming through. This is why your computer timers should be more experienced than your paper timers. But you don't need to just have 3 teams. 3 teams is the minimum you should have. Computer timing, paper timing, and top 3. You can have more paper timers.
You can have 2 or 3 teams. Of just simple paper timers, have a top 3 team, and a computer team. You have 5 teams, depending on how many volunteers you have. But this gives to you the minimal amount of coverage when you're talking about a race, high speed race, loop race, point to point race. Any kind of race on where you're gonna have packs of people come coming in. This is how you this is how you do that.
Okay. The 3rd element, have a clear finish line. Having a finish line may seem obvious, but you would be surprised. Not all Finnish lines are created equal. To make timing easy on your timers, you need a good open space for viewing erasers as they come in from a distance. You might be thinking from from a distance. Some timers have really good eyes and they can see bib numbers from way off. But just knowing eraser is coming is enough to get timers attention.
Distance also helps with packs of racers. When they bunch up calling out bib numbers fast enough for the timers is tough, If you don't have time to react, a bib number gets missed every time. Seeing racers coming up at coming at you from a distance, we'll immediately tell the timers how many numbers they are dealing with in a pack
and they'll know if they miss 1. And maybe 1 timing group will catch 1 that the other 1 didn't, then they can share that information. Distance also gives the callers a chance to start calling before the pack even arise. This reduces that stress on on everything coming at the timer once. Because your timer's gonna be standing there, in the middle of in the middle of waves of racers, and they're gonna get bored. And they're gonna start chatting with each other or chatting with other racers.
And if the if the race just come around a corner and surprise the timers, they're not gonna react in time. They're gonna miss bib numbers all over the place. Especially on on on loop wraps, on on making races where they have laps. 15, 20 minutes apart between laughs between groups of people. You're going to have race you have race timers who are gonna be bored. They're gonna start losing focus. And when you have
a finish line, what you have a good distance, 100, 200 yards off, you can see your razor start to come in towards you. That gives them a chance to Stop what they're doing and focus on the race. Alright. Number 4. Using timing technology with caution, Timing technology comes after registration, bib numbers, and timing teams because it is your best friend and your worst enemy. Computer timing can benefit you greatly if you can get all the times into the computer
and in the correct order. However, computers do not like the outdoors. It's just the nature of computers. Dust and heat are not friends. Even water, these are all, you know, heat, water, and dust is the computer nemesis. Power 2 can be an issue. Especially if you have a long race with no generator. You have to plan for your computer to fail because it will.
And when it does, you have to be able you have to rely on the paper backups to get you through the rest of the race. Remember from 4, 2 is 1 and 1 is none, Use the computer timing to make your race results quick and easy, but always out of the paper just in case. The same goes as chip timing, radio frequency, the navigation, RFID, that's all the rage. Right? When it works, it works well. When it fails, oh my gosh, it is it is a grand mess. Don't let anyone fool you into believing that this the
they that they only use computer timing. That RFID is the the the holy grail of computer timing. That you don't need to do anything else. If you got chip timing, you don't need anything else. Delending to unfreeze with that because somewhere in their finish line area is a team to either write down big numbers or collecting big numbers in the order they arrive to the finish. Old school manual timing will always be the backup to computer timing. Learn now or pay later.
Alright. Number 5. Provide timing training to timing teams. I mean, training is your timers before a race. They also seems like an obvious thing to do. But if you ask, Moe, if you race promoters actually do it. Most train timers on race day with maybe handling the the clipboard and the watch and saying, go to timing. You know, baptism of fire. However, if you want your timing to be correct,
or written down in a way that makes some sense. You need to try to train them at least once we've talked before they raised This is especially true with computer divers. Using most computer timing software requires a PhD, and some software engineering just to get the racers into it. Now take a new timer and force them to learn in minutes before the race starts. Good luck. Let's face it. Software for computer race timing sucks.
For chip timing and playable spreadsheet timing, not a single vendor out there has a clue of what user testing or easy to use really means. It's it's there are some that's starting to to come around. Most, however, are proprietary methods that are great for crunching numbers in the back end, but really allows you for teaching somebody in 5 minutes. The result is the complex Rubik's cube application that needs serious explaining.
If you do that explaining in 10 minutes before the starting gun, your computer results are going to be they're gonna be bad. Do yourself and your timing teams a favor. Train them before the race. When the computer timer knows what the software is supposed to do, they can react faster, record times better, They can respond to error messages without freaking out. Plus, your results will get processed and presented to you in a way that makes sense. Training makes you and your race look good.
Don't skip it. Plus, computer timing. A lot of people can take that home. They can practice at home. Huge advantage if you can do this before the race. So number 6, give yourself some power. Now, we're not talking about empowerment here. We're talking about computer power. Your computer timing will require more than just the power of your laptop battery. Why is that? Because laptop batteries will fail.
And they will fail right in the middle of your race every time. Mister Murphy guarantees that if your laptop battery is about to die, it'll happen right in the middle of the race. Whether it's the parts power or a generator or a portable battery, Your laptop will never have enough battery life to finish everything you need to do. Sam goes with other things you need to be connected to computers like printers and displays. No power means no printer. It means no displays.
So don't press your luck, have some powers to anybody, or available during entire race. And, you know, just a FYI. Always check the printer ink before you do this too. That's just a tiny little sidebar. Call that a secret tip. Right? Anyway, on to number 7, present your results. The easy way to present results If your computer timing is working, is to print out each category, and then just tape and staple them to a sheet of plywood. It doesn't have to be fancy.
Posting your results, this way allows racers to gaggle around the board and inspect the accuracy and note discrepancies. Racers also like to take pictures of their place. Especially if they're the first if they're 1st race
and they've finished with a podium win, maybe if not, if they're just finished. They wanna take a picture. Show their loved ones, posted on Facebook. Having a board for this allows you to do for them to do all that without bugging you, It also provides a great way for you to read off the names of presenting awards and prizes to finishers. While everyone
switches their focus to the podium, You can use the board as your cheat sheet for the top 3 or top 5 depending on how you wanna work it. If you really want to get fancy, you can keep your computer timing sheets all digital and use a big screen display to show off your results. This is a great way to save some trees. Now that's the you know, going green, not printing, of course, using power. So, you know, 601, half a dozen the other. Right?
But you do still save a lot of paper doing this way, but just having the screen, but not printing a bunch of paper copies of results. However, like computer timing, you need to have a good backup for this when your display fails to show anything because it will. It'll go dark, and then you'll what are you gonna do? Saving trees is great by all means, having a bunch of really upset racers, 20 pieces of paper, and a small piece, is a small price to pay for happy customers.
All just stable to a piece of plywood. Besides, you can go plant some trees afterwards, to help get your karma right. So even if you craft all those papers, go to some Trailmans afterwards, plant a few trees, balance the world out. The point is to have a place for you to present results so that those racers that care and to see how they did can see it. I mean, it is a race after all. Check your results is kind of the point.
And if you can't present results, then you need to revisit the tips above and do some to do some changing and thinking about how you actually present the race. Because timing is essential. Results is the you know, we're talking about going through that process. Results is a key piece. So let's go to number 8. Deal with complaints quickly and decisively. When results get posted, someone is going to complain. There's no escaping it. It will either be where you place them.
You know, if someone say, I beat that guy to finish, why is he ahead of me? That you didn't place them at all. Hey, I raced today, but I can't find my Bib number, or that you didn't give them the right time. You know, it'll come up into you and say, you have me at 25 minutes 31 seconds, but my garments said I finished at 25 minutes 15 seconds, man. What's the deal? This puts me for another guy. Right? It's your job to correct these issues.
However, it doesn't really if it doesn't really impact top 3 or top 5, it is an issue you may not need to correct on a race date. It seems a little cold, and it might be. But you have a race to run. Fixing an issue with a guy or gal that finished 26 plates out of 27 racers is important. It's just not important enough to stop the whole race. I mean, some of these issues can be fixed quickly. Missing bib numbers are often the computer oversight. Maybe you missed a checkbox.
But Timing issues where someone's device giving them a different time is another problem you can deal with later. Sorry. Their Garmin is not the official course timer. Any finished order, however, that can be a sticky situation. Often, it's not something you can fix until you see the paper timing team's records come in. And if you if they have recorded BIP numbers correctly, you should see where the discrepancies are in the computer results. By comparing them with the paper results.
You'd be surprised the delay that takes place between when a caller shouts out the number and the timer's fingers punching the number. And if they have a hard time hearing that number, they might ask for it again. They could also have they made a mistake and had to reenter the BIM number. You know, in packs of racers, that delay could mean the difference between 5th and 8th place.
Simply by what order the timer punch in the numbers and win, paper timers tend to have a better handle on order. I don't know why, but it just seems to be the case of when writing numbers happens to be better the computer 9 times out of 10.
Maybe someone could do some do some analysis on why this is. Maybe it's just maybe the PIN's faster. Maybe it's just because you have to find usually the extra step. You have to think about the key and press the key where the pin just kinda comes naturally because of, you know, what? Years of use. Maybe that's the reason. So when a doubt, I'd like to say, trust the paper record. Chip timing, has the same problem.
Because because the electromagnetic field near the race the finish line excites the chips in different rates. And do the weather body parts, clothing, angle, weather, or water, dirt, interference damage, not all chips read at the same time. In a pack, this could show the racer in the middle of the pack that was first across while making the racer who was actually first appeared to be 2nd or third, chips are only good as a read rate. I'm guessing, what the heck is a read rate?
Well, read rate is the chip gets excited enough. It's enough energy. Electromagnetic field is powering the chip. There's no actual power in the chip. For the cheap ones. So the electromagnetic field they enter excites that chip and actually shoots off a radio signal.
Now if that depending on what where that chip is and how that chip is excited, energy level that shoots off that radio signal could happen at different times of different chips no matter where they are in a tight pack, you're the the chip reader's not gonna do the difference. It's not that sensitive. People could claim that RFID is that sensitive. It's not.
Nice try, but it's not. Technology's not there yet. Not unless you wanna have them pack around, you know, very, very expensive powered RFID sensors, then maybe you could probably get chip timing to that to level accuracy. But when you're talking the the the the disposable chips, it's just not that not that sensitive. So as they come across finish line, packs could get read wrong. So they have no idea which chip did what and type groups. So again, paper is a great backup.
I mean, doesn't make chip timing bad. It's just that chip timing isn't perfect. Understanding the limitations of chip timing is a good way to keep yourself out of Mister Murphy's clutches. So number 9. What's another way to back yourself up? Number 9. Go to the video. 1 way to sort out placement issues is record a finish line to the video camera.
GoPro makes perfect product for this. But there are several other brands in the market do the same job. But the idea is if you can even use your smartphone,
You may need a backup battery for your smartphone. You need burn you know, use that for video for the entire raise. My your phone might die. Right? But it can do fantastic photo finishes just as just as well as any other camera, selfie stick or even wooden poles, the broom handles, they're all good at getting the right angle to see everything. The advantage of the camera at the finish line is how easy it is to end dispute with a simple replay.
The camera footage at the finish line is something you should you you use with both computer and time and paper timing fails because sometimes paper can fail too. That's when the the man, mostly when paper fails, it's either because it's pouring down rain and the paper just disintegrates or the timers aren't paying attention. This is why if you have redundancies, you build in multiple teams. 1 team is paying not paying attention, another team is.
So you can attempt to rebuild the race day finished by watching each ratio come across.
If you can see the bib numbers, Depending where you put the camera, you might not be able to see big numbers in certain aspects. You might have to you could maybe a redundancy for cameras too. Multiple sides of the race course see the the left hand side of the finish line. And bib numbers are always easy to read from the Canada's point of view, but it should be enough to figure out why your computer timers had 1 finished order and your paper timers had another. And it solves the dispute right in its tracks.
Fact, even when people disagree about what they thought they saw, this is why I witness accounts and and jury trials are usually the least credible. What do you think you saw and what actually happened? Open to interpretation. The camera at this finish line solves this deadness tracks. Alright. And on to number 10, website posts. Once you have everything worked out, awards presented, and your race day event concluded,
it's time to post results as fast as possible. Getting the results out and up onto your site is important for 2 reasons. The first It allows racers to review them with a critical eye. I mean, they may not have had the chance during the race or even maybe had to leave early. And never said anything to him at all.
Never said anything to you at all that that there was a problem. They were you know, their review will help you catch things like miss spelled names or Bib numbers that didn't have any racers associated with them. And the second thing it does is satisfy those racers that did not win. They will see your post results as the official finding of the race and know what they need to do to improve.
They can also share it with their friends and family, report their finish to their clubs, or just be satisfied that Where they thought they were on race day is still the same place they were on the official on the official results. I mean, delays in posting results only serve to hurt your reputation. So the quicker you are imposing results, the more professional you appear to the average to the average racer. So do not underestimate quickly getting results posted.
Remember that the mid pack and maybe even the backpack racers are gonna be your primary customer. And if you remember from from past to from podcast, especially where I talked about, you know, customers, you know, how to create customers for life, and some of the customer service aspects,
the elite racers are not necessarily gonna be your repeat customers. They're gonna people who show up every now and then. It's those mid pack. Those back of the pack. Those people come for fun. People come to race with their friends and local guys. Local gals, that's gonna be your primary customer. They wanna see their results.
Yeah. The podium's great. Yeah. The elite racers are the people who are fast. Seeing their results up are great. It's the people in the mid pack who wanna see how they did. That's important. And if you're if you're customer focused, Getting results up on your website as quickly as possible is important. So timely race results is 1 of the most important aspects of any race. That part, we even think we've I think have already established. I hope you agree with that.
So it goes without saying that you have to get the race results just right to be successful. We all know about the challenge of collecting times correctly. And the stress behind posting results that are contested, you and I just went through the timing process for managing a successful timing effort. However, it's time to address a problem that many racers have with timing. And you may have a lot to do with this. Because it may be you, the race promoter, but that is the problem.
You're like me, what did what did I do? Well, it might not be you, but then again, it could be you. Let's see if you have a problem when it comes to results. Do you fit into 1 of the following descriptions? So the first description. I'm in no hurry. I mean, results are just not that important to you. Or maybe I should say that you do not treat your results with any sense of urgency.
And you're thinking sense of urgency. Yeah. Nothing upsets a race or more than when the race promoter does not post results, just after the race is finished. I just talked about that with a web posting. Who you're who's your target customer? Who are you trying to please? Now to be fair, some promoters might need some a little time after a race has just finished to get results reviewed and printed out. This is especially true. For Venture Racing. Sometimes, the punch cards
are dirty, nasty, you know, scribbles cram that gets handed to the to the finish line, and that takes a little while. But if you have a process in place, you should not take a week. Racers have a certain fundamental expectation during any race And a big 1 is posting the race results once the race is finished. At least you could do is put up the results within a few minutes of the last finish, hours later is not going to cut it, especially when everyone who cared has given up and gone home.
So maybe you're the race promoter that says, it's just too complicated that you've decided to post your race results later in the week. They're just too difficult to compute right now. The the race promoter that cannot post race results on race day is even more disliked. This is a race. Right? How do you have a podium at the end of the day if you do not have results? You might say, well, I've got top 3. If you can do top 3, then you can repost all the results too.
A race without results might as well be a picnic without food. Add to the fact that racers races are not free. Racers paid you. You. Good money to come out and race your event. Not having results on race day is downright unprofessional. This could be a sign that you are not ready for this business. So if you do not have a way to do this, then you need to find a way to do this. You need to build a process that allows your racers to understand where they stand. It could be rough.
It doesn't have to be super perfect as far as, like, split times and down to the milliseconds. But you can get a pretty good idea where people are at and you can post that and people can see it. I've seen in 1 race where they had a whiteboard. They had a whiteboard. They didn't have a printer. They didn't have, you know, super cool printer deal with timing timing computers.
The practice, surprisingly, use an an acabus to do this. But pen and paper, crunch the results for for times, and put it up on a whiteboard, and you knew within a couple minutes of where you stood in that race. That's quick and dirty. It doesn't have to be super complex. It doesn't have to be branded printed sheets that go on-site a framed board It doesn't have to be a giant 60 inch display. It could be a whiteboard. It could be a cork board.
I mean, heck, it could be even the the flipped numbers. You could be, you know, could be chalk, could be paper, handwritten things on there. There's all sorts of ways you can do it. Doesn't have to look professional as far as the printing, the the the results have to be correct, but it doesn't have to be super, super professional in giving someone the idea of where they stand. Okay. Well, maybe you're this person. Only the top finishers matter to me. But I post my race results. Yes. You do.
But are you 1 of those race promoters that only list x number of results or maybe only the top 10. What about those racers that have yet to come in? You you mean the slow ones that mess up my schedule? Hope you're not thinking the slow racers don't get results. If there were 30 racers in that category, how difficult would it be to post the first 20? Then post the whole list when everyone was finished. Yet, too many race promoters do not bother to go back to with a complete list.
Oh, in this special category, you added for your race after the officials left? I guess they have to go online long after the race is over. And what do I mean by that? Well, in a particular race, there was a gravel race. You know, cross, you know, cycle cross bikes doing their gravel stuff and having a good time, and they added on a mountain bike race at the end. Only the Cyclo cross race was being overseen by officials and had official results. The mountain bike race was not entirely official.
So the officials left, and it was being actually timed by the club. Who didn't bother to time it? Didn't bother to put the race results up at all. They knew top 3. But that was it. So no 1 knew what their time was. Didn't post it on any website. Just this vanished. It says if you just did it for fun. And because of that, probably never going back to that race. And there were other people that probably aren't going back to that race either. Did I come in first? Heck no. Did I come in mid pack?
Probably versus the back of the pack, but for this particular race. But there's an expectation. At least find the results somewhere. So, yeah, if you think this way, don't expect many racers to come back. They will care about your next race as much as you cared about the their race results on race day. Fair. Fair. Right? So those are 3 personas that are existing today right now in the rate in the off road racing.
People who are not in a hurry to get their their race up, their their race results up, they're not there's no sense of urgency. People who are just you find it just too complicated, so it takes them a week to get the races the race results up long after people cared about the race, and people who only think the top finishers matter.
How do you fix this? How do you fix? How do you get rid of the that so if you're within those 1 of the categories or maybe you don't want to be among those categories, how do you fix this? How do you fix this result problem. Some of you I mean, some of you are probably feeling the heat right now. And if you are, it's time to change your ways today. And if you're just wanting not to be 1 of those people, then
This is for you too. So you need to amend your results system or your lack of 1 and start treating them like the currency on which your future racers are built upon. What do I mean by that? You may not know this, but many racers will judge you based on your capability to correctly time a race.
It won't matter about course, won't matter about what you give away, what your t shirt looks like. Won't matter about kind of music you play. Won't even matter about it won't matter about the venue. Or how well that you're a nice nice person. You can't get timing right? They're not coming back. Like I said at the very beginning, It's not a race if you can't do timing. It's a friendly ride and run-in the woods.
And people are there are a lot of competitive people out there that give a give a really big this is a big deal for them. May not be a big deal to you or other people to them. It's a very big deal. So treat it with the respect that that they're looking for. Because you want them to come back. You want the repeat repeat customer. I mean, the great course, great venue, wonderful volunteers, all fantastic announcer, all don't matter.
If you can't quickly produce accurate times, they're just not gonna come back. So this is why fast results or having results at all equals money. How fast are, you know, are we talking about here? Well, I I see 3 tried and trued ways each are timing to work for your races. And these are timing tactics. They might seem like common sense.
But if you it goes a long way to improving your reputation, number 1. But if they were common sense and everyone was doing them, then I wouldn't have to talk about them. Because I know plenty of you have been to races of those 3 people I talked about who just, you know, I'll get the race results out whenever I want to. You know? Oh, well, it just do complicated. So it just didn't we just we just didn't post them. You know? Or, you know, I do top 3. No 1 really cares after that.
You've been to 1 of those races. I know you have because I've been to a lot of them. So I know they're out there. So let's talk about talk about 3 tactics, just 3, just 3, double 3, to fix your results once and for all. Alright. So improvement number 1. Have your race day results presented 2 razors in 30 minutes or less. So your first initial improvement is to make sure you post your race results on race day, all of them no matter what. Now, unfortunately,
races do not always end when you want them to. This means your first benchmark is to adopt this 30 minutes or less rule with result posting, you know, like a pizza. You can even give stuff away before the award ceremony to buy yourself some time when you're having difficulty in that 30 minute goal. Here's how this concept works. When the 10th place race across this finish line, start your clock. After 30 minutes
or less depending on how your race is, you know, how your race is doing. Print the results list and post them. This is your first shot, your first cut. Of those races, those racers that will be on the podium and will be all you need to have your word ceremony without a complete list. When the last place, racer crosses the finish line, post the final results list, so you have a complete list now on the board. This final list is for those racers that are there,
for your race, for the challenge of it, not for the podium. This is your target customer. So treat your target customer with the respect that you they deserve if you want them to come back.
So this allows you to first is, like, posting all your results is your first benchmark and then trying to get it under the time frame. It allows you to have an award ceremony when people are still coming in freemium race. If you have a large enough race where you just can't wait for everyone across the finish line. I mean, people are still, like, you know, half an hour an hour away before the cross finish line. You might need to have a podium. Just to have a podium.
Now, you're not closing down your race. You're not packing up. This is just simply the ability to have a podium at a certain time. An expectation time. So maybe even post the number. Maybe you figure out that the average time for the course is x. So you figure 30 minutes after you're so many minutes after the average time, you're gonna have the podium. So You have to be fair to
to to some of the racers too. You can't just wait for everyone across the fish line. It'd be great if you could. But you can. So you have to remember that racing is emotional. You have to give all your racers something to help them evaluate the racing emotions on race day. And results go a long way to making them think about returning for another try. And capitalizing on their emotional state in this special moment
is a good way to show them that you care about their accomplishments. So this in turn could win them over to becoming 1 of your best repeat customers. Also, it allows you to to have an award ceremony, but also when you post the final result, allows the people who are the back of the pack to see the results on race day. Let me think about it. How many races have you been to where the people come in the back? Never see the results. They gotta wait till they're online.
But if you can do that on a race day, that could be could be an interesting accomplishment that could bring these people back. And we won't know till you try. And what's the and what's a final printout if you're just using paper or even even a drier race board. So think that through. Think through the process of how you would do 30 minutes or less results. Alright. Number 2, way to fix your results is have all your results posted within 24 hours or less.
We live in the information age when computers now fit in your pocket. A race promoter without some kind of digital result software even if it's a spreadsheet is not trying hard enough. Buy a computer already. If you are 1 of those rich founders that don't believe in computers, go buy a computer already, or go hire a college kid to do it for you. If you're not a computer savvy, I mean, the hiring someone to do this is how you get around that. I'm sure you know somebody.
So online results are here to stay. And you need to be on the ball when it comes to posting them on some kind of website. Having results up in 24 hours is very doable if your results are already in the correct format. Formatting them to fit onto a web page or putting them into a database is something you can do over the winter. For now, a PDF version or a spreadsheet that will satisfy your racers.
Give me a thinking a PDF. Why a PDF? A PDF is that universal document that it can read just about any machine, and it's easy to share. And your racers are eager to share their experience with everyone they know, but they can't do that until you give them something to share. I mean, you're talking about people who are going to be the word-of-mouth representatives
about your race, your race company, and they're gonna share it with all their friends and family. They're gonna share it with people they know, you wanna cash in on that social gold. So complete their experience by helping them post their race results the night you get home from the race or the morning after. Help them do that. Have it someplace. Have the link someplace where you've sent it out an email because you've recorded all the emails. Right? Don't wait to capitalize on this opportunity.
Razors that see results posted in 24 hours will notice. With that notice comes a level of respect and admiration for your work, that you cannot buy. So it's the seeds that grows customers for to lifelong customers. And if you care enough to get results up this fast, racers will reward you by coming back, they will reward you by sharing with their friends and with just a little bit of branding help, you can spread the word of your race and more people come next year.
Okay. The third thing you can do to improve your race results is keep your past results posted for 1 year or more, and your past race race data needs a home. Hopefully, you have a website that you can post everything too. Note that I said website, not Facebook. Facebook is temporary. Social media is temporary.
Your results need longevity. Razer's judge, their present race efforts by looking at their past results, and social media is hard to search when it comes to posting race results on on, you know, say, Facebook. So it's just not designed to do that. It just holds content for a couple days, not finding your race results from a year ago, 2 years ago, 5 years ago. So your result website on the other hand is designed to be the home for those results for 1 month, a year, maybe even 10 years from now.
It must act as the home of record for all your race results for as long as you plan on running your race. This could mean keeping several years worth of results on-site. You know, thinking about why do we need several years or razors need and want to look back? They're nostalgic. It could be just a way to prove they did the race. They might use the results, the results site, to fill in, to maybe their race portfolio, or
to go up a category for maybe they're trying to get to a regional or national event. They may use it to help prove their placement when it comes to a club routine point. Or just review previous results to compare them to this year's efforts. They wanna know if they improved. In all cases, your site becomes an official record of that race You also becomes a platform for racers to use to come back when it's time to see what you're planning next.
If you maintain it as a consistent home for past and present results, it will be the connection you need to remind Razer's return each year This is how you sell to them. This is how you tell them about your new events. They go back to look at their past race results. They're like, oh, yeah. That race is coming up. To do last time, and then they remember that I wanna do that again.
So if you maintain that persistent home, you can use the results as a means to connect your razors long, f they've moved on to their events. Hook them in returning to your next race by reminding them of their experience. Send a link to them to the results page and say, remember what you did last year? Maybe you can do better. You know, if they had a good time, at your race before, their memory of that experience could be the 1 thing you needed to get them to do it again.
Remember, they gave you your their their email when they signed up.
So if you need a reason to reach out to them that isn't spam, this is a great way to be that reason. Is you have a new event coming up. Hey. Remember me? You raced my event last year. Here's my event this year. By the way, here's a link to the results. See how you did. What you'd like to do better. I bet you you could. This course is the same as last year, challenges of it, or maybe it's not the same as last year. We changed the course to even better.
This is that this is how the why results matter. So think that through. 30 minutes or less, definitely something you wanna consider. 24 hours or less up on the site, definitely something you need to do. And you need to keep past results because it's a perfect marketing tool and it's a way to link your racers to the nostalgia and the experience they had before. So you can capture their attention so they come back again and again. And now for some final thoughts. Take your results seriously.
Decide today to not be that race promoter that does not take results with any level of urgency. Decide to post early and often, sticking to the time box that works for both you and your racers. If you can't decide what your time box will be, use the 30 minutes, 24 hours in 1 year, and beyond rule of thumb that I that I talked about earlier. Or you could just call it the just after next day or and forever results posting rule. The result you get from making your racers wait for results
or having to ask you where they are will be the 1 result you didn't want to receive. Don't force yourself to experience that mistake. Make results a primary part of your timing system and never leave a racer guessing again. And now you know. In our next episode, every race depends on volunteers. Love them or hate them. The race promotion industry depends on them at every level.
Volunteers are the key element to any race of success. Why is that? I'll tell you why on the next episode, Immersion's repodcast. Thank you so much for listening to the Mercer podcast. I'd love to hear from you. Please reach out to me on Twitter at merchants of dirt. And send me your questions, tell me what your concerns are, and let me know what your race promotion experience has been.
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and select your device and then Bob's your uncle. 1 click gets you every single episode for free. If you got Android, iPhone, however, get your podcast, 1 click gets it for you. Meanwhile, while you're getting ready to go out there and start to start fixing your timing process and making sure your results are are going out on it on good continuous cycle. I'll see you on the next episode of the Merchant Center podcast. Until then, go build better races. Take care.