Brandi Bryant, a former Senior Level Collegiate Administrator, has been on “both sides of the coin” of the vendor/collegiate institution relationship. If you know Brandi, you know that she lights up every room she enters and will leave you inspired, recognized, and appreciated. We are now lucky to have her at Teamworks and are excited to share a few of her secrets about how Teamworks can help you excel as a Senior Administrator.

Knowledge is Power

Administrators make decisions based on information. This information comes from multiple inputs, including grades, class workload, travel schedules, and extracurricular activities. As an administrator, when you can look at all of this information in one location, you can make better decisions because you are seeing the complete picture of each of your student-athletes.

An example of this could be an extra check-in with a student-athlete who’s been on the road for the past two weeks, ensuring she has all the support she needs to keep up with her classwork.

Create a Sense of Belonging

In Brandi’s former roles on campus, she became a DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) advocate, utilizing specific functionality in Teamworks Hub to create an environment where athletes felt seen, heard, and connected. By using Hub to implement small everyday measures like intentional roommate pairings, custom profile attributions, and safe space conversations, this sense of belonging became a part of the organization’s fabric. 

Lead with Compassion

 Brandi defines her compassionate leadership style as coming from a place of love and caring. As a sports supervisor who oversaw multiple sports she focused on driving relationships through connection. Using Teamworks’ one-to-one messaging, Brandi created meaningful interactions by wishing athletes good luck in their games or congratulating them on wins. These personal touches showed her student-athletes that she was paying attention and cared about their wellbeing.

Driving Departmental and Campus Unity

A team extends beyond just the rostered players; it expands to trainers, dietitians, administrators, media, other student-athletes, and many more. Teamworks can create unity across the athletic department by being the one location where important home games and events are listed on the calendars. This awareness helps to improve student-athlete support and also helps to drive attendance to non-primary sports (Olympic), all while driving a strong sense of community and belonging. Additionally, Teamworks allows for transparency beyond the athletic department and across different groups on campus. An example is adding staff photographers to team calendars and communications; if there is a schedule change and the 6 a.m. practice is canceled, the photographer will be in the loop and won’t show up to an empty court. These seemingly small measures go a long way to creating respectful relationships with the different groups on campus who support athletics.

Intentional Fundraising 

Through Teamworks Hub, Brandi and her coaches could send messages directly to supporters that the donor received as a 1:1 SMS message. All replies and communications in return from the donor went through Teamworks”the benefits of customization but the simplification of one messaging portal. This functionality prevented personal cell phone numbers from being shared with donors but allowed Brandi and her coaches to cultivate personal relationships with key supporters.

These examples are just scratching the surface of how senior administrators can use Teamworks to connect with student-athletes, engage their department colleagues, and excel in their positions. In her new role at Teamworks, Brandi is available to connect with you and dive deep into how you can get the most out of Teamworks. Schedule a 15-minute conversation.