Marc Riccio on Creating a Competitive Advantage
b'Marc Riccio is the CEO of USA Lacrosse, a nearly 400,000-member organization that serves as the governing body of the sport in the United States. A former collegiate lacrosse player at Hofstra, Riccio\\u2019s professional experience has led to specialties in media, fan engagement, sport and entertainment business operations, building new companies, revenue generation, executive leadership, and employee development.\\nPrior to joining USA Lacrosse, Marc was the Chief Commercial Officer for KlarisIP, a boutique intellectual property and media consultancy. He was charged with advising major sport and esports properties on strategy, growth, revenue generation, and organizational transformation.\\nMarc\\u2019s experiences include leading his own consultant business, MR21 Advisory where he advised global esports and gaming companies. Prior, Marc was the EVP of Commercial for Lagard\\xe8re Sports (now Sportfive), a full-service global sports agency. Marc spent 17 seasons leading business operation and development for the New York Jets (NFL) and he worked for Hofstra University, leading marketing and development for intercollegiate athletics.\\nMarc has also taught as an Associate Adjunct Professor at Hofstra University and continues to advise and mentor in the technology and esports Venture capital accelerator community.\\nMarc has a Juris Doctor from St. John\\u2019s University School of Law, and an MBA and BA from Hofstra University.\\n\\xa0\\nMarc had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:\\n\\u201cThe thing that really resonated with me was how Bill Parcells could lead and how he could connect with people\\u201d (6:20).\\n\\u201cDistraction is the number one enemy of high performance\\u201d (7:15).\\n\\u201cThe first thing we\\u2019ve focused on [at USA Lacrosse] is simplifying our mission\\u201d (8:30).\\n\\u201cEach of our business heads has to submit three things they\\u2019re not going to do this year\\u201d (10:35).\\n\\u201cHow do we look at our fans and our players like customer acquisition planning in the private sector model? What does it cost to acquire a player? What does it cost to retain a player? And not just players from a community with resources, also players from a community without resources\\u201d (15:30).\\n\\u201cLacrosse was an access point that changed my life\\u201d (20:30).\\n\\u201cLacrosse changes people\\u2019s lives\\u2026 you hear that more from lacrosse players than I\\u2019ve heard it from any other sport\\u201d (21:20).\\n\\u201cI\\u2019m very comfortable being uncomfortable\\u201d (21:45).\\n\\u201cYou need coaches of color to work with the kids of color\\u201d (23:00).\\n\\u201cThe more we talk about this lax-bro culture, the more we perpetuate it\\u201d (24:30).\\n\\u201cOne of the things we want to do is teach cultural competency to our players and coaches\\u201d (25:10).\\n\\u201cThe MBA was a competitive necessity, not a competitive advantage\\u201d (29:05).\\n\\u201cI\\u2019m very competitive. I\\u2019m driven more by my hatred of losing than my joy of winning\\u201d (37:20).\\n\\u201cWhat I\\u2019ve learned is to take the foot off the gas sometimes\\u201d (37:30).\\n\\u201cIt was about how do I put myself in a position to be competitively different than everybody else\\u201d (41:00).\\n\\u201cDon\\u2019t let the job change you\\u201d (46:30).\\n\\u201cThere are no throwaway comments as a leader\\u201d (47:30).\\n\\u201cWhat you do sometimes matters more than what you say\\u201d (47:35).\\n\\u201cDisagreement leads to better decision making\\u201d (48:30).\\n\\u201cThink in years, not in months\\u201d (49:20).\\n\\u201cIf I don\\u2019t know something, I\\u2019m not going to fake it\\u201d (49:55).\\n\\u201cPeople remember stories more than they remember numbers and stats\\u201d (53:45).\\n\\u201cWe need to tell stories and we need to tell them often\\u201d (57:10).\\n\\u201cFor all of us, our greatest strength is our greatest weakness\\u201d (58:40).\\n\\u201cMost people have a lot of value sitting on a shelf that they don\\u2019t use\\u201d (1:11:00).\\n\\xa0\\nAdditionally, you can follow Marc on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I\\u2019d also encourage you to check out the USA Lacrosse and World Lacrosse websites.\\nThank you so much to Marc for coming on the podcast!\\nI wrote a book called \\u201cShift Your Mind\\u201d that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally,'