Social Media platforms are incredibly popular and therefore a necessary part of any web content plan. You can’t participate on Facebook, Twitter, etc. without a roadmap for what you are going to publish, when, and who’s responsible for it. This doesn’t mean planning out each individual Tweet in advance, but it does mean understanding what is and is not helpful from the perspective of helping the team accomplish its goals. It is especially important because too often businesses diving into social media do so by using it to broadcast messages, when the real purpose of, and success stories in, social media involve listening to and interacting with fans/customers.

Twitter should primarily be used to provide news, behind-the-scenes info and pictures, and answer fans’ questions in real-time. While it should be used several times per day year-round, it provides the most value to fans (and therefore sponsors) just before, during, and just after races. Not even live TV, radio, or cycling media text updates can provide a complete picture of everything that’s happening at a race, making team-supplied updates a valuable commodity. Since races are incredibly hectic, a plan needs to be in place for who is responsible for tweeting, what they can and cannot say, and, if they have to stop to care for a rider, who steps in to let fans know why the stream has gone quiet. One thing I have yet to see, but would be a fantastic use of Twitter, would be a staff member answering questions during the race about what is going on. Hard? Yes. Sure to generate growth in engaged, interested followers? Definitely.

Where Twitter is the live update and interaction stream, Facebook is the place to cultivate deeper connections with fans. Its robust capabilities to share news, images, and video, and for fans to share the same with you, creates a unique environment where you can interact on a meaningful level. It provides the ability to create an incredibly detailed portrait of your technology savvy fans through polls, surveys, and day-to-day interactions – it is the environment online where people feel the most comfortable sharing personal information. This also makes it a great place to introduce your sponsors to fans in a meaningful way. Polls and contests are ubiquitous and expected, so don’t seem so much like the interruption marketing we all hate so much – just be careful not to overdo it! While the creation of a Facebook page is simple, the maintenance of it (which is the critical part of success), is time intensive. Even though updates can be less frequent than on Twitter, because it is a less anonymous medium, they take longer to create and fan interactions must be more personal.

Video is one of the most effective media for attracting fans, but means frequently updated content, which can quickly use up server space and bandwidth, the two potentially large variables in Internet costs. Fortunately, hosted platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, and Ustream provide a cost-effective way to provide video content on a consistent basis, and also to allow fans to post their own videos, further drawing them into the experience. The quickly falling price of quality video components has driven the cost of video down from the 10s of thousand of dollars into the low hundreds, with little discernible loss in quality. Ubiquitous Internet access makes it possible to upload video from virtually anywhere, but has created the expectation on the fans’ part that video will be uploaded from anywhere. Because of that, a simple, realistic plan for uploading video on a regularly scheduled basis is a requirement of any modern web content strategy.

The Internet isn’t a place…

…it’s a communications technology. It took me a while to realize that. Most websites, whether in sports or not, still treat the internet as a place, a storefront if you will. But it’s not been that for some time. Seth Godin talks about a website being “a step in a process.” For cycling teams, there’s the process of turning casual fans into team fans and the process of marketing their sponsors’ products/services. The creation of easy-to-use social media applications has shifted the website’s place in the process, but it is still a step along the way.

Modern web strategies that reach out to and interact with fans must incorporate social media (where the fans already are), which means your website is a critical hub for all your online activities. Like a hub, its spokes reach out to where fans are on major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc., but the hub is where the process is driven. It should include:

• Basic Content – like a FAQ, the site should clearly and compellingly explain who you are, who your riders are, who your sponsors are, what they do, when you are going to be where, what you’ve accomplished, and how fans can interact with you. Just because it is basic content does not mean that it needs to be presented in a simple and boring manner. Multi-media should be used to make the site a destination. Content must be updated regularly, giving fans a reason to come back again and again.
• Media Resources – particularly in sports, the media is a key tool for spreading word about your team and your sponsors. Media resources can no longer include only boiler-plate press releases and stock photography, but should include a full suite of resources in a variety of media that help reporters tell your story, as well as being consistently updated with new story ideas. If there’s one thing reporters love, it’s subjects that make it easy for them to file interesting stories on tight deadlines.
• Clear Links to Social Media – since fans are going to be on Facebook, Twitter, etc. anyway, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to find you wherever they go. Direct links out to your fan pages, video channels, podcasts, etc. are more critical than aggregating that content on your own website. It is also important to think about where on your site a fan might click across to, say, Facebook and what you want them to see when the land there. The two experiences have to flow seamlessly together.
• Robust Data Capture – While there are several effective tools for monitoring social media statistics, none of them yet match the ability for you to gather accurate and detailed data on your own site. This data is used to adapt your content plan on the fly and provide detailed evidence of the value you offer your sponsor. A with-it sponsor will be a data-analysis partner to maximize the opportunities available.

Site Design and Content Concepts

A study has shown that website visitors decide in 4 seconds whether or not they are going to stay on a site. The best content in the world won’t keep fans at your site unless they immediately have a visually arresting way of telling them that your site is worth their time. Fortunately, cycling’s innate beauty makes it easy to capture fans’ interest immediately.

The design of the site is the key factor in making a first impression. Detailed attention must be paid to cleanly integrate sponsor graphic themes in a manner that generates a strong mental impression, but doesn’t overpower the rest of the site content. Fans have come to expect that in a sport as visually compelling as cycling, team websites will have beautiful images that dominate every page of the site. A great design gives fans the conscious impression that you have great images of the races and riders that they love, while leaving them a subconscious visual impression of your sponsors.

Visual design is not the be-all-end-all though, because once a fan’s interest is captured, you have to provide them something of value to keep them around. The major cycling news sites have captured the market for general race reports, news, and press releases, so don’t even go there. Sure, you can put up your press releases in a newsroom, but a great team website must therefore provide something more, a deeper connection to the team that they can’t get from Cyclingnews or Velonews. This content should change throughout the year to emphasize and focus on the riders and events that hold center stage in the cycling news media at that time. Augmenting your text with images, audio, and video is now easy, inexpensive, and from the fans perspective, expected.

Now that we’ve got a basic structure in place, next week I’ll cover integrating it with your social media accounts, both technically and strategically. As always, if you have any thoughts, comments, or questions, hit me up in the comments or on Twitter.

Once upon a time, a cool website was a “nice-to-have” element of a cycling team’s marketing assets. But as individuals and corporations both large and small lead the way onto the social web, it has become a vital core of the marketing portfolio. Complicating matters even more is the speed at which web trends and technologies develop. Twitter and Facebook were nice-to-have elements last year, this year they are a must-have. Within the next year, some new technology that is just on the fringe now will become a vital element of a sports marketing portfolio.

Sadly, you can rarely look to traditional marketing and PR firms for support in keeping on top of the web. Some agencies have areas of competence, and some digital agencies can create spectacular looking websites, but they usually come at a price and rarely understand the unique opportunities cycling presents to teams and their sponsors. Of course, if you are concentrating full-time on running a team, you don’t have time to keep up with what works, where fans are, and how they interact with each other, you, and your sponsors. So you put up a quick blogger “website”, or if you’re lucky a Wordpress or other CMS-based website, posting content in the form of race reports that get written by whoever has the time or was at the races that week. There’s no season-long plan, little adoption of the variety of inexpensive multi-media tools, and too often a lack of follow-through (how many teams last posted content in September, August, or even July of 2009?).

The move of corporate marketing dollars from traditional media outlets to online and customer engagement outlets demands that sponsored properties create and manage modern online media programs, regardless of time-intensity. This series outlines a strategy for creating an engaging team website, integrating it with social media outlets, and populating all of them with content that engages fans, delivers value to the current sponsors, and establishes a framework that increases the value of the team to existing and future sponsors.

This series will cover four separate areas teams need to consider when developing a strategy for creating web content:

• The website as an online hub
• Connecting with social media
• Integrating Multi-media
• Measuring, measuring, measuring

We won’t talk about everything in detail, and we won’t cover ever last potential item, idea, or tactic. The idea is to give you an idea of what the landscape is like, what the basics are, and give you a way to measure yourself against a benchmark. The idea is that you can improve in a few areas depending on time and budget, deliver more value to your sponsors (justifying more money), and take the next set of steps. Hit me up in the comments or on Twitter if you have questions, thoughts, or topics you’d like to make sure I cover.

The problem is pretty straightforward: Jokes that are funny when you’re in your mid-teens tend not to be funny to other groups – in this case women, or most adults in general. But with some very quick searching, I found this prospect was not alone; some of his peers also left an unseemly electronic breadcrumb trail that, I would have to expect, could illicit [sic] some pretty damning questions when the NHL draft combine comes up in the summer.

To further complicate matters, you not only have to worry about what you say, you also have to worry about what your friends say. This, of course, is more of a problem on services like Facebook where mutual consent is required than on Twitter, where you can’t possibly be expected to be held accountable for your followers. What this means is that, like the rest of your public communications, you need to have a process and strategy for establishing friend connections, creating and posting materials (text, photos, videos), curating what other people post to your wall, and managing your privacy settings.

My process and strategy for posting on the blog and/or Twitter is fairly simple – I call it the Mom Test. Basically, would my Mom be offended if she were to read this? Not “tut-tut-that’s-not-nice” but actually “can’t-look-her-in-the-eye” offended. If it fails that test, it doesn’t get posted, period. Same goes for things that get posted on my Facebook wall. Same goes for photos and videos (I’m lookin’ at you, Iinterbike!).

My Facebook friending strategy revolves around actual connections. Family obviously makes the cut, friends that I’ve known, and work connections that I have a more-than-professional relationship with. People that I ran into that one time at a race or bar don’t make the cut, nor do people I quickly did a project for (they end up on LinkedIn). If I actually had success in any of my sporting endeavors, all of those people’s friend requests would have been directed to a Facebook Fan Page with a polite note saying something like, “my friend list is confined to close, personal friends and family. I have a fan page, and look forward to connecting with you there!” Nice and polite.

The curation strategy goes back to the Mom Test. If it’s written on my wall and would offend Mom, it comes down. That goes for both the personal page as well as the fan page.

Finally there is the matter of privacy settings. My personal preference is to set everything to only be visible to Friends, and remove the ability for others to tag me in photos and videos. Especially because images can be taken out of context, you don’t want to be explaining away photo after photo. Make sure your settings notify you every time you’re tagged in a photo, and if it doesn’t pass the Mom Test, remove the tag and/or ask the poster to take the photo down.

That prescription might sound terribly restrictive, but it really is the best way to nip problems in the bud before an employer, team, or sponsor walks away from you.

Back in the days when women’s cycling was developing, most, if not all, sponsorship was “in support of”. Meaning, there’s little-to-no business value, but someone at a company had influence over the budget and chose to spend it due to an interest in women’s cycling. We’ve moved beyond those days, and women’s cycling is now well past the point where sponsorships can justify themselves from a ROI standpoint. Cycling in general offers a great return for corporate sponsors used to multi-million dollar investments in Baseball, Soccer, or F1, and women’s cycling offers what is, IMHO, the best ROI value in all of sports.

Despite a top women’s team offering great sponsorship value, I don’t think anyone in their right mind could assume that The Team would help Skyter move more 30+ ft. yachts. There is one cyclist in the world that runs in that kind of crowd, and he’s not on The Team. That means this sponsorship likely came about due to the old boys network being activated, and since even a team of that stature is a tiny percentage of Skyter’s budget, a contract was agreed. But in an economy like this, when big yachts don’t sell/lease quite as quickly as they used to, even small percentages all over the budget get analyzed. Somone at Skyter figured out that this was not a good use of a few hundred-thousand euros and the deal was called off.

But was that really the company’s fault? Of course they bear responsibility for entering into a contract, but contracts are modified and canceled all the time. I place a significant amount of blame at the feet of The Team. When you have a squad of that caliber, you owe it to the riders to create a sponsor relationship that makes the best use of their incredible value. The demo- and psycho-graphics of women’s cycling open up a variety of valuable markets and market niches that companies struggle to reach. Cyclists’ early adoption of social media (they are probably the most active of any pro sport) gives potential sponsors a low-cost and easy way to figure out that landscape. It is, in short, valuable well beyond the “support the sport” stage.

The Team would have been much better off using their Skyter connection to be introduced to customers that would receive a much bigger benefit from sponsoring a women’s team than Skyter itself. Until teams (and events and riders) stop looking for people to “support the sport”, they will always pigeonhole themselves into that corner. And that corner lends itself to small prize lists, poor support, and low salaries, not to mention easily canceled deals.

If the only reason you don’t do something is because you never did, that’s not a good reason. If the environment has changed dramatically and you are feeling pain because of it, this is a great reason to question yourself, to ask why. -Seth Godin

Unless you’re Alberto Contador, you’re probably feeling the effects of the global recession. Whether you’re an athlete, managing a team, or promoting an event, the pinch probably has you worried a bit. The natural inclination I see is to rush headlong towards the activities that have always brought in money in the past, and push them harder than when times were good. Trouble is, that’s probably not the best strategy.

For those companies that still have money, the same-old same-old is not an attractive investment. When consumers are spending less and less, companies want the most direct and efficient route to whatever consumer dollars are out there. No longer can they throw money at a general opportunity and guess which 50% of their budget is bringing the returns. Every dollar needs to be accounted for and producing returns.

If you’re ready to step outside of the usual, this is a great opportunity for you. I’m sure the Specialized/Alberto Contador/Team Astana negotiation was unusual, and the result certainly is. My guess is that the result was a good sponsorship deal for Specialized, a guaranteed contract for Contador, and we’ll now see AC staying at Astana even if their Pro-Tour license isn’t renewed.

But what about missed opportunities?

Daniel Holloway’s personal Ustream of the Munich Six-Day from his laptop was one of the only ways to know what was going on there. What if the promoter set up a couple of cameras, a mixing board, and streamed the event on the Internet? The riders could stop in and chat with fans live between events, and sponsors would have live access to engaged fans. I would bet that they could attract an international audience as large or larger than their current in-person audience, giving them a reason to pitch more and larger sponsors. Critically for six-day promoters, when the event grows in stature internationally, locals will be more likely to show up – who doesn’t want to be part of an EVENT?

Does your local event have a unique feature that stands out from other events? Maybe your men’s fields have gone up and down in quality, but the women’s fields have gone from strength to strength. What would happen if you doubled-down on that and, heaven forbid, made it a women’s only event? Promote the hell out of it using social media – which would be incredibly effective – with the goal of becoming the premier women’s event in yourstate/yourcountry/theworld. Can you make more out of less? Sponsors would love you for that!

What if you’re not winning as many races as you used to? What are the possibilities if you spent a ton of your non-training/racing time forging real connections with fans over social media? How valuable is it to your team and/or sponsors if you have 300-500 die-hard fans that will follow and support you wherever you go, even if you’re struggling? Damn valuable, that’s the answer.

Your Iron Curtain

Anything different that you might do is a risk. But if you’re already struggling, is it really a risk? Isn’t it a risk to keep doing what you’re doing? I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal about red deer in Germany and the Czech Republic. Throughout the Cold War, there was a fence, a road, and guards that constantly patrolled the border, making it impossible for even wildlife to cross. 20 years after the fence has come down, almost all the deer – even those born AFTER the fence came down – refuse to cross the old Iron Curtain. Yet two bucks – one from each side of the border – cross to feed and mate. They will, if they haven’t already, become the alpha males of their herds, having their choice of food and mates.

Is that fence really there for you, or are you pretending that the Iron Curtain is still there? What border can you cross that might have great success on the other side?

Psyching themselves out

There were slightly fewer people in attendance this year, and a good chunk of them are likely earning less than before, but the core group of people who bid on and win the big-ticket items are not hurting for money. Still, they did not bid aggressively for signed jerseys, posters, and other memorabilia that has little practical – but high sentimental – value. Yet the items – bikes, wearable clothing, etc. – that had higher utilitarian value still sold for reasonably high amounts. The difference to these bidders was not a financial one, but a psychological one. Even though they are not concerned with losing their house or where their next meal is coming from, they still bid and spent more conservatively than they would have in a growing economy.

This post is not meant to excoriate these people, but to identify a psychological trait of recessions that affects us all – fundraisers, athletes, teams, and events. If a charity has to deliver items of utilitarian value, what does this mean for sponsored properties? It means you have to “move the needle”.

The Nike model

Nike has long been a master of this, sponsoring only those athletes, teams, and events that will result in increased sales of their products. Properties like Ohio State, LeBron James, and the Tour de France are sponsorships that return more through product sales than they cost Nike, and the measurement of this is easy.

Lately it seems that the talk has been about sponsorships that look past the “move the needle” metrics to larger branding and consumer engagement metrics. I’d be willing to wager that, given the current state of the economy, more sponsors are concerned with the effect on next quarter’s sales than are prepared to admit it. Accepting that as true, the challenge for you is now two-fold; how do you increase sales, and how do you do so in a way that is measurable by you and your sponsor?

There are no quick answers to those questions, but the first step is to ask them. Your pitch should focus mainly on the audience you can deliver anyway, while figuring out exactly how to connect to that audience is part of the discussion/negotiation. Soliciting feedback from the sponsor on how they want to best utilize their dollars sets you apart from the majority of pre-packaged pitches that focus on signage and impressions. If you additionally invest time and a bit of money into tracking metrics, it will return dividends for both your current sponsor and for you as you go out looking for renewals or new deals. While sponsors can be excused for focusing on the short-term, you must think long-term to ultimately be successful.

My dad was in sales, so he taught me a few basics, worked with me on my pitch, and then sent me off into the cold, cruel world. I was enthusiastic. I was going to sell so many sponsorships, I would make money playing hockey, and I was only 13! (we’ll stick with that age for now) I walked a long way up one side of Pearl St., going in every business, talking to the manager, and getting nowhere. I walked a long way back down Pearl St., going in every business, talking to the manager, and getting nowhere.

By this point, I was getting depressed. Not only was I not going to make money, I wouldn’t sell a damn thing and have to beg my parents for the full fee. This was not going to go over well.

Just as I got back to the corner of my street, I walked into a Great Cuts feeling pretty down. Still, I psyched myself up and delivered my pitch to the district manager, who happened to be in the shop at that particular time.

“Huh, that’s interesting. We could probably do an ad for you,” she said. “How big of an area do you cover?”

I was SO excited! “Man, if I tell her about all the different places we go to for games, she’ll probably want to take out a full-page ad! Maybe even a two-pager!” I told her about all the different places we go to; Detriot, Buffalo, even as far as Chicago and Toronto! Then I started counting the money in my head.

“Oh, for an area that big, we’ll have to run this through the regional office then. Give me the info and I’ll pass it along.”

As you might guess, nothing happened, I got no ad from them, and I was not a Pro pee-wee player. Weak.

The sales manager in me looks back on that experience and cringes. It’s a common mistake, and one that occurs all too often in sponsorship sales. A property walks in to a potential sponsor and spends more time talking about what they have and what they need than finding out what the sponsor is interested in and how they can help.

Thinking back, the audience for that yearbook – the parents and grandparents of the players in the Cleveland area – were exactly the audience she was trying to reach. But since I never asked what she wanted, the opportunity was lost for both of us. Too bad I didn’t have sales training videos to learn from…

Kimi’s reputation as a party animal has followed him since his early success in F1, and probably before that for those that knew him in karting. As he stood on more and more podiums, and gave many more interviews, it also became clear that he was rather aloof and at times cold to the press and fans – often seeming downright grumpy. Lately, he has been mixing his F1 responsibilities with fun trips out to Finnish rallies and other motorsports adventures.

Now, let’s think about his sponsors. At McLaren, the main sponsors were Vodafone (a communications company), McLaren (a supercar builder), and Mercedes (luxury car builder). At Scuderia, it was mainly Ferrari, an unbranded Marlboro, and Mubadala (a mid-east investment fund). With the exception of Marlboro, and possibly Ferrari, I can’t see an enigmatic, aloof, uncommunicative, carefree, party animal as the ideal person to be representing those brands on the world stage. Now comes news that Toyota (motto: One Team, One Aim) has offered Kimi a contract for next year (Scuderia Ferrari are letting him go). This is all wrong.

Kimi belongs at Red Bull Racing.

What image is Red Bull trying to portray to the world? B Mliaros writes,

Unique positioning strategies targeting high-school burnouts and college students, nightclubbers, and athletes have built the brand’s equity. Grassroots marketing campaigns emphasize the drink’s image as being a cool and trendy drink for cool and trendy young adults. Word of mouth and an intentionally vague strategy have made the brand mysterious. By not emphasizing what the company itself feels are the products strengths, it allows consumers to decide for themselves, as well as facilitates the emergence of rumors, some quite outlandish, adding to the drink’s perceived value and increasing the brand’s equity.

So, ideally, you would be looking for a cool, somewhat mysterious, extreme party animal. If he is an athlete at the top of his sport, so much the better!

So it would seem ideal for Kimi to become a Red Bull athlete. It’s that last word that is key to making this whole thing work, “athlete.” All of this works better if Kimi’s contract arrangement is unusual by F1 standards. Rather than be all for F1, cultivate the image that Kimi is a cool customer, unusually talented, that he can pop in to a rally or supermoto race on a F1 off-weekend. Other teams might freak out if he gets hurt, but Red Bull just gives him a branded cast and crutches and he comes out to the next weekend and parties with the guests. Red Bull achieves its objectives, Kimi gets to go fast in whatever form of motoring catches his fancy, and because of that, is probably more successful than if he were constrained to Vodafone/McLaren/Mercedes black-tie sponsor dinners and an exclusive F1 focus.

So the lesson is simply that not every sponsor is the best fit for every athlete or team. You should develop and own your “brand”, extending it with sponsors that fit. You’ll be happier, they’ll be happier, and you’ll both most likely be more successful for it.

In these information overloaded times, broad messaging from companies is becoming less and less fruitful. We have been seeing a dramatic shift away from traditional advertising and towards highly-focused and targeted marketing campaigns. For many, this means spending money on a Google AdWords campaign and refining the keywords they bought ads against. Though spending will continue to grow in this area, return on investment (ROI) will decrease. The latest rage, fueled by the success of Twitter and Facebook, is in building and connecting with communities. In 2010, the US spend on social media is projected to be nearly $1Billion(Forrester), up from only $50Million in 2006(PQMedia) . That is astronomical growth in such a short time, and with a projected $3.1Billion in 2014, it will only continue.

Though there were many others, Seth Godin led the charge in talking about “Interruption Marketing” and how building a “Tribe” would ultimately be more successful for companies looking to reach new customers (or stay in touch with existing customers). From Seth’s Blog:

It starts with permission, the understanding that the real asset most organizations can build isn’t an amorphous brand but is in fact the privilege of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who want to get them.

It adds to that the fact that what people really want is the ability to connect to each other, not to companies. So the permission is used to build a tribe, to build people who want to hear from the company because it helps them connect, it helps them find each other, it gives them a story to tell and something to talk about.

Despite there being no lack of information on the topic, most companies are having a hard time figuring this out (how many useless Facebook ads, irrelevant/spam Twitter followers, etc. have you seen?). They spend tons of time and money trying to build their own communities, and while there are some definite success stories, there is a far larger number of failures. This is made all the more difficult by the fact that social media is in its infancy, and the methods, tools, and norms are changing quickly. This is one of the reasons that you are more valuable than you think. You’ve already figured all of that out and have built a community, and sponsors are willing to pay for access to it!

Creating value from your community can be a bit like walking a tightrope, but the great thing is that this tightrope (your community) will tell you when you’re off-balance and about to fall. I’m sure some reading this might view what I propose as selling out, but IMHO, if you are honest in your communications, the messages are going to be relevant (and amplified by your community) anyway. Providing useful information isn’t selling out. One of the cool things about being a pro athlete is that people WANT to know about your day-to-day life. This is a great opportunity to serve both your sponsor’s needs and keep your fans happy.

Sharing information about industry sponsors is easy, but non-industry sponsors can be a bit more difficult. The key is always to continue sharing honest reactions.

• Confused by or just not-interested in a product or service? Share it. “Just sat in a training on what ABC business software is. Still don’t get it. Do any of you?” The replies you get can be quite useful in guiding your updates for the rest of the year.
• Can you do a video or photo montage of you coming to grips with a sponsor’s product or service? Your fans want to know what that’s like for you, and the content is exactly what the sponsor wants to get to the fans anyway.
• Looking for sponsors? Ask your community. It’s pretty powerful to be able to say to a potential sponsor, “I’m presenting this opportunity to you because 99 fans asked me to. They’re excited about your stuff.”

As winning is only one part of your job, figuring out how to use social media to your professional benefit is just one more part of the big picture. Participating in your fan community by honestly sharing your interactions with sponsors, while noticing and responding to fans’ reactions, will keep you from “selling out”, as will continuing non-sponsor driven communications. With your community already built, you have a valuable asset that sponsors want and are willing to pay for, and you need to include that in your calculations.