Growing a sports coaching business is no easy feat. All business must balance operations, marketing, sales, HR and Finances but with a sports coaching business where half of your time is away from a computer out on the field it can be difficult to manage. I still remember a day in the middle of winter, with freezing cold hands tying up a kid's wet, muddy shoelaces and then only a few minutes later taking a call for a contract worth over £10,000. This is the reality of running a sports coaching business! I have been through four different stages in my career. I want to help you move into the next stage with your business.
The Four Stages Are:
One Man Band
Small Team
Stepping Out
Management
Read this article to find out just how you can grow your own sports coaching business, and watch my YouTube video on this same topic for even more detail!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4izlnaTaN0&t=4s
How to move from a one man band and build a small team...
The first step to growing your small sports coaching business is to move away from just being a one man (or woman) band. To do this you need to employ people! You need to start thinking with the bigger picture in mind. The business will come to a natural time within this first stage and it will probably be one of two situations:
You have two schools/nurseries wanting a session at the same time
You have too many children in one place for you to manage on your own
This first step will allow you to start building your management and leadership skills as whoever you bring in will need to be able to deliver at the right standard. As your small team grows you may find yourself needing to bring someone into the office to support you with a few hours a week of admin too.
Don't forget to enjoy the early stages of your business though! This is the time you have full responsibility for everything and it's much easier to keep an eye on the quality the customer is receiving.
How do you start to step away from the sports coaching side?
As your business continues to grow and builds upon word of mouth, increased marketing content and a credible reputation; you will find the coaching hours increasing and increasing. At some point, you need to start looking at stepping away from the delivery to ensure all of your customers are receiving the quality that your brand is built on.
You might not want to step away from the hours in front of the kids delivering your sessions BUT if you want to grow your business to half a million in turnover, you need to bring good people that you can trust into your sessions to allow you to oversee the quality. Trust me, you will find coaches that are better than yourself so don't worry about this stage!
The hardest bit will probably be those few schools that have come to expect you as their one and only coach and won't want to see you step away. If these customers deeply care about you and your career they will understand why you need to be able to step out of the delivery. When you have 5 after school clubs all booked in at the same time, you need to be there on back up and to support the coaches to make sure they know the expectation.
So when do you start to employ additional managers within the business?
Even with your time freed up from hours out coaching, you will come to find that you just don't have enough time to oversee everything within the business. Your time will soon be filled with the oversight of the delivery, recruitment, HR, finances and marketing. So, what do you do?
Well you need to identify the roles within the business that could be run by someone else. What ones would I prioritise? In order, I would prioritise...
Operations Manager - Someone to run the daily admin tasks and daily staffing of sessions
Community Manager - Someone to oversee those evening sessions, parties, one to ones, toddler sessions and holiday camps.
Schools Manager - Someone to manage the relationships with you r schools and nurseries
Branding Manager - Someone to be marketing your new sessions, updating the website, ordering merchandise and all things branding!
Finance Manager - Someone to be organising the payroll, paying suppliers and ensuring you are getting the money in from all your customers.
Once you start to have managers in place you need to have trust in your team to allow you to take a step back from the operations of the business and focus on the marketing and selling in your business.
Is this achievable?
Yes. Without a doubt, you can accomplish this all in 3-5 years. It will not be easy, you will have a lot to manage but at the same time if you manage your team effectively and use the right systems with the right marketing you can accomplish this.
Watch my YouTube video on the four stages of
However...
Having gone through all this myself from the start of 2018 I know how difficult this can all be. To make this all so much easier for people looking to start or grow their sports coaching business, we have created uSports partners. A platform that allows you to grow your business without all the stress.
To find out more about uSports partners and to begin your sports coaching business journey, click this link: www.u-sports.co.uk/partners
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