Alison Scott’s HOTSHOTS Action Events puts a new spin on the traditional pre-conference golf day.
(Story Shelley Dempsey, photography Ingrid Maack)

For a long time now, golf, footy and racing have been the favoured sports of choice for corporate people – mainly men – who wish to network, cultivate or reward VIP clients, colleagues or staff with a special hospitality event.

But now a former Australian international tennis pro has spotted a new gap in the sports hospitality market – the gentle, pampered and slightly lavish art of corporate women’s tennis.

Alison Scott, 37, set up HOTSHOTS Action Events in 2003 at Sydney’s White City tennis centre – staging corporate tennis days which target professional women.

Scott, who has slammed it out with Martina Navratilova and other world tennis luminaries at the net, knows her tennis and has been self-employed from the age of 16, never working for anyone else and living solely off the proceeds of her own results.

She is now applying the business acumen and focus gained from her own high-profile career to her latest role as managing director of HOTSHOTS. Scott says that market research conducted on companies before setting up the business showed that many firms were asking for events which cater to women exclusively.

“Women are sick of the golf theme, which they feel is the men’s theme,” she says.
“They enjoy the social side of the tennis, where you’re in a smaller space, but you’re not spread over 18 holes with the same two people all day.”

The market research also showed that there was strong demand for something sporting which wasn’t too competitive, where women of all ages and all athletic ability levels could have fun and mix freely. Scott adds that the service she provides meets demand in the market, because women perform and behave very differently to men when it comes to mixing sport and corporate hospitality.

“There are a lot more women in executive roles now, so they have a lot more say over what they want. And we find that when women get together, they have a whole different energy about them than men. “Men are much more competitive and aggressive, not necessarily in a negative way. They just really want to win. But if you get women together, they are just happy to have a great time.”

Scott stages corporate tennis days that cater for up to 100 women at a time – and there’s an element of pampering involved. Between bouts of tennis leading to a finals match, women can have their neck and shoulders massaged by professional masseuses, drink freshly squeezed juices, then indulge in a threecourse champagne lunch under a marquee, where they are presented with prizes and gift hampers.
“We can make it as lavish or simple as anyone likes,” says Scott. She became director of her events business in 2003 after meeting fellow communications consultant Marita Knight-Smith, 43, who is now HOTSHOTS marketing manager. Since the business was set up, it has staged about 15 events.
Knight-Smith, who is also a florist, is not a financial partner in HOTSHOTS, but has played a pivotal role in its development as a marketing and theatrical specialist. “What we wanted to do was set up corporate events that would get people out and about and back in communication,” says Scott. “We’re very aware that technology, while it’s very handy, can lead to a lack of interaction on a personal
face-to-face level between workmates in the office.”

The three major themes that Scott and Knight-Smith wanted to address were health, wellbeing and communication.

“And the word action does mean action,” says Scott. “There are lots of events that don’t necessarily involve activity in a physical sense – they might be dinners, or a function.
“But the difference that I wanted to make with this business was I wanted people to do something from a health point of view by getting fitter, or getting outside, because a lot of people tend to spend a lot of time inside.”

Using tennis as the medium, Scott also finds that participants really respond to getting away from the office. “It’s a great leveller or equaliser,” says Scott. “People can really let go of the identity they use in their particular role in their business. You can find that the bosses aren’t the bosses anymore and they become more equal, if you like.”

Workers also welcome the opportunity to express themselves in another avenue different to that of their office roles, she says.

The rewards gained from the corporate day out then tend to feed back into the office environment, with staff feeling happier and performing more effectively at work.

“The whole company will benefit from the investment of doing something like this and they will get returns,” she says. “That’s the long-term gain. I really make it a win-win for everybody. The whole spirit behind it is that everybody enjoys themselves and that they come away feeling better about themselves. That all flows back into their work lives and also their personal lives.”

Some participants have not played any sport for 20 years, but find they have an enjoyable day out which is accessible to them anyway. “Some of the feedback we’ve had is just incredible,” says Scott. “Some have said it’s the most enjoyable corporate event they’ve ever attended.”

Starting the business from scratch has been challenging and Scott has changed her business plan along the way, as the firm has evolved. She started sourcing business leads from door-knocking corporates and phoning marketing managers to make an appointment to show them what is on offer.

Hotels were the first businesses she approached, in order to attempt to tie in her corporate tennis days with upcoming conferences. However, that strategy proved unsuccessful, as too many people were in the communication chain, and she moved onto more direct clients such as banks, food companies, such as caterers, and newspaper groups, which are yielding better results.

“We wanted companies that we knew have a lot of clientele who need looking after,” says Scott.
“One company would say: ‘I want to get all my clients, the ones who have spent the most money with us this year, and take them out for a day and put on a really nice event for them’.”

Establishing credibility and making sure that corporate houses know that an events business is here to stay has been one hurdle to cross, says Scott. “Sometimes when you’re new, they often want to wait to see if you’re going to stay around or not before they trust you.”

While the HOTSHOTS corporate business builds, Scott also performs other sideline work, coaching private clients at lunchtime from Credit Suisse First Boston and Macquarie Bank, giving lessons in fencing and ballroom dancing, coaching schoolgirls in tennis and hosting tennis camps for children and children’s parties.

She says she can host events, which may or may not involve tennis, for up to 500 people anywhere in Australia, however, most events are 100 people or less. After experiencing all the highs and lows of professional tennis, Scott says she now formulates her business strategies using the qualities that propelled her in her early career.

“Being a professional tennis player, you have to be very persistent and you realise you have to practise over and over again, in order to get better at it,” she says. “You have to be very determined.”
Scott’s own devotion to tennis started very young. Aged just 10, she decided she wanted to be a professional tennis player, and at age 15, she won a tennis scholarship to the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra.

Ranked at number 64 in the world by the age of 23, Scott played the big names of the day, including Jana Novotna, Pam Shriver, Gabriela Sabatini and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in all the Grand Slam events, including The Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open.
Highlights of her career involved scoring a freak point against Martina Navratilova, who was then ranked world number one, and even playing a celebrity match with Elton John. “there are lots of highs and lots of lows in professional tennis that people in ordinary life would never experience, because you don’t push yourself that much,” observes scott.

Early in the 1990s, after the game had dominated her life for nearly 15 years, scott started branching out from professional tennis into life coaching. She had discovered meditation and communications training through an Australian organisation called Kenja Communication, which is where she met Marita Knight-smith.

For the next 10 years, as a personal communication coach, scott worked with people from all walks of life, giving public presentations, organising large events, and on a one-to-one basis, training clients to improve their effectiveness.

Combining her talents in communication and tennis then seemed to be the next logical step, says scott, who says she has a genuine interest in people that “is not a selling thing”, but rather a desire to see people bring out the best in themselves.

Applied to the corporate world, this concept can be very powerful, she says. “some businesses can have the best themes, the best logos and the best financial backing, but they can’t put it together, because they’re not receiving what’s happening with their staff,” says scott. “that’s where getting away from the office can help.”