How Optimize IS Helped SportsForce Reimagine Their Recruitment Management System
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SportsForce got its start about 20 years ago when Andrew, a former college baseball player, saw a big problem: talented high school athletes struggling to get noticed by college coaches.
Having faced recruitment challenges himself, Andrew created SportsForce to help these kids connect with college programs. While they're mainly focused on baseball right now, they've got their sights set on expanding to other sports soon.
SportsForce bridges the gap between talented high school athletes and college coaches, addressing the challenge many athletes face in getting noticed during the recruitment process.
Jeff Morgan serves as Director of Operations and manages both client and sales teams while overseeing the operational engine that powers SportsForce's recruitment services.
Before partnering with Optimize IS, SportsForce struggled with scattered information and inefficient workflows:
"We had a ton of information, and it was in 50,000 different places," Jeff explained. "Google Drive, our CRM, our CMS... you'd have to search through emails to find old information. It was just scattered in so many different places and kind of a nightmare to find everything."
This disorganization created significant operational challenges:
This disorganization created significant operational challenges:
No centralized tracking of client progress through the recruitment pipeline
Time-consuming manual processes that prevented strategic growth
Limited transparency for both internal team members and external advisors
Difficulty generating timely reports for management and stakeholders
In the summer of 2020, SportsForce engaged Optimize IS to transform its operations using Airtable as the centralized platform. The implementation focused on:
The solution leveraged Airtable's relational database capabilities while connecting to other systems through Zapier integrations.
1 .
Creating a relational database structure that connected student-athletes, advisors, and projects in a single ecosystem
2 .
Developing status-based workflows to track client progression from signup to college commitment
3 .
Implementing automation to replace manual processes and trigger notifications
4 .
Building Slack integrations for real-time alerts and updates
5 .
Creating specialized interfaces for different stakeholder needs
6 .
Establishing advisor management systems, including commission tracking and performance metrics
7 .
Integrating video production workflows with client management processes
Four years into the partnership, Airtable now powers approximately 80% of SportsForce's operations, with remarkable improvements:
Enhanced Transparency: "If my boss comes to me and says 'How many athletes are in stage two of the recruiting process?' boom—I can see everything. I know exactly where they're at, when they got added, and how long it took them to get there," shared Jeff.
Proactive Issue Resolution: "I'll get notified if something goes wrong essentially. There's no putting out fires after they happen because I'll know about them before they get started most of the time."
Operational Efficiency: By automating manual tasks, the team focuses on growth strategies and initiatives rather than repetitive work.Advisor Adoption: The system gained buy-in from external advisors by providing documentation that protects their work and demonstrates their client interactions.
Client Success Tracking: The platform enables complete visibility into every stage of the athlete's journey, from signup to college commitment.
Data-Driven Decision Making: Management can access up-to-date metrics and reports with visualization tools that present information in digestible formats.
SportsForce continues to refine its Airtable implementation, with future goals including enhanced reporting capabilities for external users, improved data visualization, and potential AI integration to generate customized responses and reports on demand.
Jeff summarized the impact: "I rarely say you can't put a price on what you've done for our company, but you really can't. No amount of money would be too much to explain how big a difference you and your team have made when it comes to transforming us into where we are today."
The Optimize IS and SportsForce partnership demonstrates how a thoughtfully implemented Airtable solution can transform not just operations but the core client experience in a specialized recruitment business.
