Inspired by a Bolt from the track
Pretsel Morar aims to give more legs to sportspeople’s careers.
WATCHING a 45 second television interview with legendary sprinter Usain Bolt was a ‘‘game changer’’ for Preetesh Morar.
Nicknamed Pretsel during an inter-school fixture in Christchurch playing for Wellington College’s 1st XI hockey team as a teenager, the Wellingtonian and self-confessed sports nut now runs a business that helps sports professionals and organisations build their presence off the field.
Originally a branding and marketing expert, he delved into helping athletes develop their profiles after watching Bolt’s interview during the 2012 London Olympics.
‘‘That was a massive catalyst for me. At the end of the interview he looked down the camera and he said ‘thanks for supporting me Down Under, look out I’m coming your way, you can follow me, Usain Bolt, on Twitter’.
‘‘I’ve watched countless hours of sports and he was the first person I’d seen to take five seconds to take advantage of an opportunity, to say thanks and this is how you can follow me.’’
At a crossroads himself, Morar realised he could use his expertise to support athletes to build their personal brand and online presence, just as Usain Bolt had.
‘‘You can be the best you can be on the field, but off the field and when your professional career is at an end, we can be a bit like deer in headlights.’’
Since that revelation Morar has gone on to help a number of athletes increase their profiles, mostly using digital and online strategies under the brand name Legado.
Among his successes are Australian hockey players Anna Flanagan and Chris Ciriello, Australian sprinter Alex Hartmann, former Kiwis league
star Sam Perrett and New Zealand Lacrosse player Jess Page.
‘‘Anna was one of my very first clients, she was playing under-21s at the time and was just getting a foot into the national team.
‘‘We’ve built her profile over the years, given her some strategies for social media and helped her to land some major sponsors, like Red Bull and Nike.
‘‘She has a journalism degree now, so she’s got a great social media presence and now she’s working for Fox Sport when she’s not training in the Australian squad. She’s a really cool success story.’’
Morar has regular conversations with Alex Hartmann too, helping him to build, run and change his website and online profile.
As for Sam Perrett, who retired from the Canterbury Bulldogs NRL team at the end of last year, Morar has helped him build a personal website and revamp his business website.
‘‘Most recently, Jess [Page] went over to the UK for the world champs and to get there we built a profile to help her raise money for sponsorship – those strategies helped her raise over $5000 in less than 12 weeks.’’
Morar has also had presented about the importance and value of personal branding to the senior playing group of the Hurricanes Super Rugby franchise.
‘‘I’ve had individual conversations with Ardie [Savea] and Nehe [Milner-Skudder] about having a game-plan off the field.
‘‘They are so good on the field, it’s a matter of making the athletes aware of that ripple effect, that their off-field presence is needed and must be managed too.
‘‘Sponsorship is not free money – it’s an investment in you and your personal brand, and most people and businesses who give sponsorship want a return, though they might not always tell you.
‘‘You’ve got to look at what you’re doing to give them. It’s not as easy as just putting a logo on a t-shirt anymore, they’re being savvy and selective about who they invest in.’’
It’s those simple concepts Morar is pushing in the sports arena, and on the Wellington scene he’s been working with other sporting bodies including Sport Wellington, Wellington Hockey, and New Zealand Hockey.
‘‘I’ve done several bits of work with Sport Wellington creating videos to share what members of the organisation do and highlights from the annual Sports Person of the Year Awards.
‘‘With Wellington Hockey, we created an online video series for hockey to help them promote the game, to share their news and improve engagement with their community.
‘‘For New Zealand Hockey we produced a behind the scenes video when the Black Sticks went to Malaysia earlier this year.’’
Morar has also had a couple of
meetings with the NZ Warriors and NZ Cricket Players Association, and with Wellington Firebirds assistant coach Glenn Pocknall in particular.
‘‘We’ve set up a simple website for him, he’s a local boy starting to share his story and it’s great to be able to support and empower people like Glenn to do that in the online space.’’
Moving forward, raising profiles of organisations, coaches and athletes is where Morar believes he can add value.
Such is his belief that he calls himself a ‘‘game changer’’ and ‘‘legacy builder’’ and even his business name is Spanish for legacy.
‘‘The legacies athletes want to leave behind is huge, we need to support them because they’re not only representing us and our province/country, our brand and our businesses, they are also inspiring our future generations – they are our role models.’’
Having played sport himself – Morar is a former Wellington rep hockey player who now coaches the Wellington under-15 boys team and plays for Indians– he is well aware of the stories athletes want to leave behind.
‘‘I’ve seen friends represent our country, they go through blood, sweat and tears to perform at the highest level, they even win medals at the Olympics, but as they come out of their career many of them almost have to start again.
‘‘It’s a bit like a triathlon – when you get to transition you stop, change, start again and then build that momentum. It’s a big challenge in the sports space in terms of taking a profile and
leveraging off that.
‘‘But to give them platforms to start sharing, there is so much opportunity in that space.
‘‘Sport is always going to be around, especially in New Zealand where we are so sport hungry, so there’s a lot more value that can be given off the back end of people’s careers.’’
Morar has been sharing that message and building up his own brand and reputation within the sporting fraternity since he returned to New Zealand from living in Australia and Malaysia just over a year ago.
Armed with a degree in consumer and applied science from Otago University, he initially put those new-found skills to use back in Wellington at LV Martin, now Smiths City, and then the Bank of New Zealand before heading to Melbourne for almost seven years.
‘‘I did everything from knocking on doors through to working in a call centre, in customer service for Telstra, to Suncorp Bank doing customer service and retention for personal insurance.’’
There he also took on one of his biggest roles to date, national programmes manager for Chifley Business School, looking after staff and events and involved in organising courses and developing its business across Australia.
At the same time he began a community TV show called The
Hockey Show with friends to promote the game, picking up a couple of national TV awards along the way.
He also picked up skills in film, editing and broadcasting and
managed to land a contract to televise an international hockey series for the Federation of International Hockey.
‘‘Our show had a prime spot with several thousand views on a regular basis, we were pulling in people outside of hockey and lifting the profile of the game while also having fun with it.
‘‘The sport has given me a lot and it’s one thing I wanted to do, give back, it’s that legacy concept of leaving it better than I found it.’’
A move to Brisbane to be with his now wife saw Morar still working for Chifley, managing short courses, introducing a distance MBA and transforming one paper into a video format.
All the while he’s focused on personal development, with a course in Thailand with internet business coach David Cavanagh having the biggest impact.
‘‘I learnt all about websites and how to build them, it started to bring everything together in terms of my video skills, marketing skills and everything else I’d picked up along the way.’’
A restructure at Chifley saw Morar take redundancy and he first set up a business working with small and medium-sized firms creating video products, websites, social media profiles, marketing and branding strategies.
At a time of soul searching for a way forward came the ‘‘Bolt moment’’ and the switch from supporting businesses to supporting athletes, sports professionals and organisations in the sports space.
One of his very first clients was the Brisbane Roar A-league soccer franchise, producing a series of short videos for use on social media and game days to increase participation in the sport at a grassroots level.
After a move to Malaysia he continued to help athletes from around the world and also helped to create a coaching resource website for Malaysian Hockey and he hasn’t looked back since.
‘‘I love working with someone and then see the result of a conversation I might’ve had with them over coffee manifest itself.
‘‘Anna and Glenn are good examples of that. Glenn is just starting to share his journey about playing cricket to coaching though LinkedIn and his website, and the more people hear those stories, the more inspired they become.
‘‘Being around high achievers, and getting them to realise the reach and impact they actually have when they open up and share their stories and their wealth of knowledge
. . . sitting back and watching that engagement happen is just priceless.’’