 I got into business because my mother and father ran an online entrepreneurship website where they basically sold websites to people that came by and buy them and they would buy the business. So that kind of inspired me to get into business. And I was playing college soccer for a while. I was playing up at a Division I school in Asheville, North Carolina. And then I had to transfer over to a NAIA school over in Oklahoma City. And I lived there for about six months. And I was dead broke. I mean, I could barely pay rent. I didn't have any money to my name. Maybe 500 bucks, 600 bucks. I mean, I'm asking my grandparents for money. It was that bad, right? So I eventually about month three, when I was in Oklahoma, I was like, you know what, like, I can't do this anymore. I don't want to be living paycheck to paycheck or, you know, door to ash to door to ash payment, you know? So I was like, all right, let me, let me start a business. All right, how do I, how do I start? What am I good at? All right, well, I'm a soccer player playing my whole life. So let me start coaching soccer. So I looked up Ben's YouTube video and I actually saw Ben in February of last year and reached out to him, texted him for a couple back and forths. And then he never responded to me because he totally forgot about it for the next two months. And then two months later, I got a text message from him. It's like, yo, I am so sorry, man, like, let me get you on a free phone call and we'll talk about it. And we jumped on me and him and he, you know, just blew my mind with some information. And then I started and then once that ball started rolling, I just kept going and about month two in, I realized I had something good here. And then I was like, all right, well, the market's not good enough here in Oklahoma City. So let me move to carry North Carolina, which is a massive market for private training and all the private trainers here are not like what we do. So I saw the niche and I moved over here, made the jump and haven't regretted it since. Awesome. So for the audience, how old are you, Noe? 22 years old. 22 years old. So what was the motive behind the switch from Oklahoma to North Carolina? Was it specifically to start your business? Well, so I grew up here in this area. So I know a lot of people there. And I personally, I didn't enjoy the Oklahoma City area. And this is the only place where I had a home. So I was like, all right, well, let's go start here and start building my life. And, you know, eventually I moved out, got my own place, and kind of just kicked it up from there. Okay, awesome. So tell us a bit about your your business. Okay, so right now. So what we do is a lot of private one-on-one, two-on-one and small group training, soccer training specifically. Now, you know, I've got multiple different programs anywhere from, you know, a one-on-one and then all the way up to a group program that we're actually just launching this month. But basically, you know, we've noticed and I've noticed a niche in this area is the problem is there's a lot of private trainers here. It's loaded with private trainers actually in this area. But the problem is they only coach soccer and they only do it for an hour a week. You know, what our business model is we train each player, each client one hour a week. And then we've got an in total online community with the school academy, as you guys know, and then I've got my own mobile app to where I assign drills to specific players based on, you know, what they need to work on. They say they need to work on some technical ability. I'll give them some technical drills. And as they get better and better, I assign them harder and harder drills. So the development never stops, right? And people have been eating that up and they love it and the kids are getting so much better from it. And, you know, that's kind of where we're rolling right now. And I'm trying to, you know, the one-on-ones and two-on-ones are great. It's just margins are hard, right? So we're starting to move into some group stuff. But we're all coached every single coach that I have on staff. So former division one division two soccer player, you know, high level players have played in college. You know, we're not guys that, you know, we went and bought of our own little license to coach, you know, with some time on our hands, you know, we're legit players, legit players coaching legit students. That's really what our business model is. Okay, like it. So talk to us about the importance of having accountability for clients in your business. Because as you mentioned, there's a lot of trainers but I can probably guarantee you over half of them don't have accountability for clients. They literally see them once a week and then that's it. So how important is that accountability for them? Well, it's extremely important, right? Like for the players to get better, they have to be doing the stuff that we work on at home. If they aren't doing that at home and being held accountable for it, they're not going to get any better, which is for, it's just a poor business model for us. And it's very poor for the kids, right? For the players, they won't get any better. So, you know, with kind of that mobile app that we do have, like I'm able to see, all right, who's doing the trainings? Like I see, I see, all right, they last logged on two days ago, three days ago, 40 days ago, you know, multiple different, right? And I'm able to reach out and be like, Hey, why hasn't so and so done its homework in recently keeping them accountable? And then, you know, as they do more and more homework, they get better and better. So accountability is a massive part of it. So talk to us a little bit about the beginning phases of your business. So what were some obstacles you faced when you first started? Yeah, I mean, shoot, I'm still, I'm still kind of in the beginning stages, right? I mean, I moved back here, like, seven, eight months ago, right? But in the very beginning, I mean, biggest obstacles and still the biggest obstacle to this day is field availability, right? Like, all the local clubs, they own all the turf fields. And they leave grass fields, right? But, you know, we get rain, we get storms. And so to make this business, you know, something that you can rely on, something that's bulletproof, you need turf fields at the end of the day, right? And it's, it's very, very difficult to rent those fields off of the local clubs. Now, we finally just nagged some Friday turf sessions. So we'll be renting all the field out for all of the fall and winter time on Fridays, which is huge, no other trainer's going to be doing that in this area. But that's 100% the biggest obstacle is finding where the availability of space is. That's cool. So you, you obviously mentioned that because that's something when I speak to a lot of coaches out in the US, they do mention that finding, finding turf fields availability. How did you overcome that? What piece of advice would you give a trainer watching that is going through that similar problem? So know every single field in your area. I mean, every single one. I don't care if it's a local park with a playground in the middle of it all the way up until your turf fields. Know all of them, find all the schedules online. A lot of the places around here, they post the field availability and the rentals online so you can see the calendar. So I'll go in and I'll look at the calendar, be like, okay, this field's available here, here, here and here. And I'll schedule accordingly, right? But learn all the fields in the area and find a field that can't be rented. Find a, if possible. So there's a couple and carry, it's called a, it's a multi-purpose field where no, no companies allowed to come in and rent the field, meaning that it's open to the public at all times. So go in there and you can just start doing your one-on-ones, two-on-ones small group sessions and, you know, build up income and stack some cash and then eventually go out and rent those turf fields, rent the indoor facility, that kind of stuff. Okay, awesome. So how many clients are you currently working with? Currently, we've got about, I want to say, 32 to 35 kids. And we coach a lot of siblings. So probably 26, 27 total single-year payments. Okay, awesome. And you, you reached a huge milestone with your business. And I know because you updated, updated it on the, on the community. So talk to us a little bit about that milestone you reached, how you did it and what piece of advice you'd give other coaches who are trying to get to that level. Yeah. So I hit my first 10k month between April and May, which was huge for me. Because again, I had just started, right? And, you know, kind of how I did that is I'm hungry. You know, I work every single day. I grind on this stuff every single day. But the biggest thing is going out and talking to people and going and doing the marketing and calling people up and following up on text messages. And a really big referral program was also thanks to that as well. You know, a lot of, a lot of clients, they don't want to, they don't want to do the referrals for two, 300 bucks. They don't care about bringing somebody, if you're going to be paying 250, you know, 300 bucks, you got to throw a lot of money out, right? So if you, you know, give them 400, 450, then their eyes start to open up a little bit, right? And then they start bringing in clients. It's, it's fine if, you know, you, you just get over positive just for that, you know, three months of training, but it's your business model only works if these kids stay within your program, right? So after that, then you'll be making money with the kids that come in. But I mean, one huge thing that helped me drive in a lot of clients is Facebook. Parents are all over Facebook. All I do is simply just go into the local clubs in the area. I look at the posts, you know, who's interacting on the posts. And then I hit every single person on that post with the singular message that Ben gives us in the community. You know, hey, I'm a private soccer trainer. I see your, your son or daughter is a competitive soccer player, you know, blah, blah, blah, and try to get that, you know, I'll send out 200 messages a week and maybe six or seven of them respond and maybe three, two or three of them will actually get their phone numbers. And then maybe two of them, I'll get to a phone call and then maybe one, I'll get to sign with us. But that one out of that, you know, so you do that once a week and that's four times a week. I mean, you're signing for people just from Facebook DMs. And then, you know, it's hard. You can, I've hired, I've actually, I've hired my little brother to do it because it's so simple. I say it's funny because I say it's a monkey could do it because it's so simple. So I did a little job, pay him a little money to do it, send all the messages. And you know, that's something you guys can do, right? Like just hire somebody simply just to send out all the messages, if it's not worth your time, but it's definitely worth putting in that 30 to 45 minutes a day, just sending out messages. Yes, absolutely. So 22 years old, you hit 10K of your business, right? Now, for me, that's not normal. Okay, because I speak with a lot of coaches of your age, and a lot of them are just distracted. A lot of them want to do well, but they have a lot of excuses. So talk to us a little bit about discipline and the importance of discipline in this type of industry. Well, I mean, discipline is very important, right? But for me personally, I think at the end of the day, you either got it or you don't. Like you either want it or you don't want it. If you want it, then you're going to do whatever you have to do to get the job done. If you don't want it, then you know, it's not for you because the guys that want it, the guys that want to make a lot of money to help a lot of kids like they're going to be working every single day, putting in the time, getting smarter, reading a ton of books, financial books, learning self-help stuff, right? To just progress their mission, right? So discipline, if you're not showing up every single day, there's no point showing up at all. You know what I mean? And you don't have to, you don't have to give up, you don't have to be 100% every single day. You can be 60%, but you still showed up and you put in 60%. The guy behind you who decided to take the off day did nothing. You did 60%. So you're going to put in so much more work than everyone else by purely just being disciplined and showing up, you know, six days out of the week, right? Absolutely. Great, great piece of advice there. And also, congratulations on hitting that milestone. I've got no doubt that, you know, in two, three months' time, you'll probably double that if you continue what you're doing. Hope so. I hope, man. That's the plan, right? It's just got to keep reinvesting and see if we can keep growing the company and go in the right direction. Absolutely. So tell us a little bit about where you see this industry going in these five years. So where do you see private training? So, I mean, in this area or in the US, like it just overall, like... Yeah, I mean, in general. I mean, in the US, in your area. Okay, so, I mean, the way that Ben does it in the community is that's how I see private training in that direction going, right? Like online training, online is a huge part of, you know, what marketing will be for us and, you know, people moving forward and training online will be huge. I think there will always be a niche for in-person training because, you know, players and parents, they love that one-on-one connection, two-on-one connection and just connection with a coach, somebody that cares, right? So there will always be a market for that. It's just the direction that I think honestly, I think you'll stay stagnant and there's just going to be a lot of trainers that keep doing what everyone's doing now, which is just showing up and, you know, shooting the Venmo over for the little hour training session and then maybe you show up next week, maybe you don't show up next week. You know, who cares? They don't give you drills. They don't give you homework. They don't do make-it workouts. That's just not what they do, right? So people like us who are advancing the cause, we're going to be moving a lot online, giving them everything and anything we'll ever need outside of soccer training because these kids can go and get soccer training from wherever, right? You know, it's not like, you know, we're the only game in town that will coach the kids. We are the only game in town who are going to give them work off the field and talk to them off the field and mentor them off the field, right? Putting that extra time to care for them at the end of the day. That's really what it is, just putting in a ton of care into it for those kids to really succeed. Absolutely. So tell us a little bit about what do you look for when you bring a new client into your program? So what I look for typically is, first off, I look for somebody who is responsive to my text messages. So somebody who seems like they actually care, right? Like somebody who's actually like wants to get on the phone calls, not pushing it off to another day, you know, not another hour, being very up and volatile with it, right? Somebody who cares, who wants their players or wants their son or daughter to get coaching. Then, you know, when I get on the phone call, you know, I see if they're on time. I see if they're, you know, asking lots of questions during the call, how responsive they are and how they talk about their child as well, right? Like some parents will be very, you know, lackadaisical and sound like they don't care. And some others sound like, you know, it's the end of the world if they don't get private training, right? They need help. So the, you know, the clients that I'm looking for are parents like that who are very responsive and care a lot and really, really want to see their child grow, not to just get them babysitting, you know, for an hour each week, but to actually have them come in and be a part of the program and take advantage of it and get to the next level and get to play in college. Like all that kind of great stuff, you know, that's really what I'm looking for at the end of the day. So how long roughly are on average your clients staying in your program? So on average, so the first since, you know, I started up like eight months ago, right? Like pricing is a lot different. I mean, it's about near doubled, right? Because I'm offering double the double the services, right? And, you know, at first, a lot of it was knickknack, you know, recreational players, you know, just looking for some cheap private training. So eventually, I kind of had to filter those people out. And, you know, the price, the price will do that for you, right? Like the people who are committed, they will make the investment. The players who are not committed, won't make the investment simple as that, right? So for somebody who's watching this, like, it's not a problem to keep your prices cheap in the beginning and, you know, filter into lots of clients, build some content, get some social media running. And then once you start picking up steam and you actually want to take on better, better players, the business model only works with players that are, you know, elite level or are looking to take their game to the next level year round, right? So the price, you'll have to raise your price to reflect that. So I mean, all the, I've probably, I mean, I've kept, I started here in all last August or September. I've had two, three of them that have been with me for a full year. And then about four of them that stayed with me since October. And then I think I've lost, I mean, I've lost maybe eight or nine of them. I've had to just kind of, they didn't want to do it anymore. Just, you know, didn't think it was worth the investment. But, you know, I'm starting to pick up, I'm now starting to pick up a lot more clients that are, all right, we're going to do this for a while. Like this is going to be something around for us. We believe in this, you know, we want our kid to get better, right? So it's just finding those people is the hardest part. But once you start tapping into that, it's, it's kind of, you go from there, right? Yeah. So on average, would you say more than three months, they stay with you? Oh yeah. So three months is the minimum. I make it a three month commitment, a commitment minimum. You know, I'll give a month lease, but it's still a three month. I'd say probably on average, I mean, they probably say like five, six months. I'd say six months is probably the average right now, which honestly, isn't that great? Just because that average is getting held down by, you know, people who were in the program before and didn't think it was worth the investment now, right? But I've also had a lot of people that have stayed for a while. So it's, it's such a go, right? That will get better as we progress as a company. Nice. So you, you just said that six months isn't great. Okay. A lot of coaches, well, majority of coaches out there will be listening to you thinking, you know, you're nuts because most coaches can't hold on to clients for more than a month. Okay. And it's mainly because the way they structure their business is like a week to week thing. And I'll see you on a Saturday morning. Oh, I can't make it. All right. We'll see you in two months time. So talk to us a bit about how do you build that commitment? How do you keep clients for long? And how do you make clients stay with you for three, six, nine, 12 months? Well, so first off, I mean, I mean, like I said, making it a three month commitment, right? Like bare minimum, that should, you shouldn't do anything less than that because clients, a lot of them, they want to see results like that. Like they want that instant pleasure from that being much better. They think they're going to come in into one month's time, players going to be so much better and they won't need the training. It's just not how it works, right? For the first month, month or two, the kid comes in and is quiet, real quiet, real shy, doesn't want to talk to you is real reserved. And then they start to pick up some confidence and start talking to you a little more. And then they start getting into the training around month two, when they really start taking advantage of it. And it doesn't really start to pick up for them until about month four, month five, really for them. So, you know, for coaches that are doing week to week, you know, if you, if you really value what you provide them and your training is a lot more than just that one hour of soccer training a week, and you know that you can make this kid better over time, then state that you tell that to the parents, make them understand because all the trainers in your area, I can guarantee you is across the country, across the world, they're all doing the same thing, which is the week by week thing, where parents think they can do whatever they want and, you know, show up and come in and out and kind of just operate that way, right? Explain that to the parents, make them understand that your child's not going to get any better in one, even two months time. They're going to get better in three, four, five, six months. That's where it's really going to start to be a very good investment and be very, very valuable. So just make it a minimum commitment. And, you know, I know it might be scary. It's, of course, scary. There's going to be people that reject you, of course. I mean, one in four sales calls. I mean, I get rejected. So it's, it's, that's just how it works. You got to, you got to learn to deal with the rejection. Just go get more leads. That's it. Great piece of advice. Like that. So, so talk to us a bit about what you currently do to sell a market. So how, where are your clients coming, coming in? So believe it or not, this, I have not really been able to do much marketing, to be completely honest with you. That 10k month came from completely this Facebook marketplace and referrals. You know, we've been swamped and it's, it's difficult, right? When you're trying to build something and going out and marketing is, it wasn't really, so many clients were coming in that I didn't, I haven't seen it to be necessary. It's, it's necessary. Now I have to do it this month and start. I haven't even gotten to the promotions and kind of all that stuff, which just kind of blows my mind a little bit because of how much value and how much more money you could actually make. But it's really how I market it is purely through Facebook. Post a couple pictures of you at training, you know, with the kids, enjoying, maybe post a video or two on your personal Facebook page, then take that personal Facebook page and just start hammering out parents on those, on those club, those club pages on Facebook, just go to the comments, the lights, get each individual parent and you have to be consistent. Like it worked very, it's working very well for me because I'm consistently doing it every single week. I used to just do it for a couple of weeks and then take two weeks off and then come back and do it another three weeks and take a couple of weeks. Like that doesn't work. It's not consistent enough. So just posting and, you know, keep consistently sending out messages. But I mean, outside of that, if you're a new trainer, just starting, get on coachup.com and lessons.com. That's going to be your, that's how I started my business. If I didn't have those two platforms, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you right now. So simply just get on those websites, get your bio up, make it sound real good. You know, if you haven't played before, you don't have much playing experience, you'll go get a coaching license. Just have something to where parents are going to take you seriously as a coach, get onto those sites and then just start hammering all the leads there, get them in for free evals even, you know, free evaluations work really well as well. And just get them in front of you, show them what you can do. And then I can assure you, if you think that what you have is valuable enough, they will love what you're able to provide if you can get to them in person. Perfect. Love that. So, so, Noe, tell us, tell us, where do you see your business in the next five years from now? So the next five years from now, you know, I hope to continue to dominate this area, like continue to grow it. And because I mean, right now, we're really the only one on one, two on one air trainers in this area that are doing it like us, right? So I look to, and we just started rinsing out the Friday fields, every turf field. So now I'm looking to, maybe next spring, we go into now Tuesday, Friday, and then move into Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday. And eventually, you know, this business become bulletproof, and we'll stay in this area for five, 10, 20 years and produce numerous college and pro athletes. If we can get fields that are ours, that where we can stay and have those fields. And eventually, you know, I'd love to buy some land and throw up our own field with our own property, you know, maybe set up some concessions, different stuff like that, right? But definitely, definitely getting the field down. That's going to be that's going to be the number one, because right now, like, you can't you can't create a bulletproof business model without fields that you can rely on. Unfortunately, and that's just a hump you have to get over, and you just got to make enough cash and then eventually just reinvest it. You know, the 10k month was fantastic, but it's not I don't have any of that money. I had to put it right back into it, right? Just so you can need to grow, because we care about the business, right? We don't care. I don't, I don't care about having nice shoes and nice clothes or a nice car. Like it's that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to create something in my local community that's going to be around for decades, and people are going to be talking about it. And we're going to have hundreds of kids that went to college because of what I did and what I started. That's really what we're in for, right? Some legacy within our own community. I absolutely love that. And I've got no doubt you will, you will reach that. And hopefully one day you will have your own facility. At the rate you're going, I've got no doubt that you will do it. So keep up the great work. It's been a pleasure having you on. I know your story is going to definitely inspire coaches who watch our channel on a regular basis. And to finish off, if there is any coach that wants to connect with you, what's the best way for them to follow your page or getting contact with you in any way? So if you want to get in contact with me, you know, you guys can always shoot me an email. It's at contact at nv5performanceacademy.com. You can always send me an email. I'm on Instagram at Varner underscore NOE. So Noah, you can contact me through my, you know, my personal Instagram, you know, reach out to me via email. I'm in Ben's community as well. So, you know, you guys can always reach out to me there. And I'm on Facebook as well. Just search on my name, NOE, and then Varner, V-A-R-N-E-R. And you can find me. Just send me a message. I'm willing to talk to anybody. Perfect. Love that. Awesome. All right. No, well, thank you very much again for jumping on. It's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast. And I wish you all the best. You know, I'll see you in the community at some point. I'm always on there seeing what coaches are doing. So, all the best. And we'll catch up very soon. I appreciate it. Let her know. You have a great day. All right, Emma. Take care.