 really relates to any coaches who are in the starting phases of their business. I've spoken to many coaches already at this point and something I always say to coaches is you've got to get experience. I'm going to go through the first six steps of acquiring certifications, licenses and how to build your coaching expertise. Number one is volunteer your local football club as an assistant coach. This is something I did when I was 18 years old and I knew I wanted to become a football coach. The first thing I did is I contacted the FA and at that time there was one person who put me in contact with local clubs. So at the time there was an email that went out I think once a week. I don't know if they still do that and on that email was basically an announcement that there is a coach in whichever town or city you're in looking for coaching experience or wanting to volunteer their time to build that coaching experience. So first thing I would do is look at your local football clubs and go and volunteer as an assistant coach. This might be just helping out picking up equipment, this might just be running the off-side line, just be in and around the environment so that gives you a bit more experience of what it's like working with kids and what it is like working in a youth football environment. Now once you have that little bit of experience with you, that that volunteer experience, now the second one is complete your FA level one coaching license. So that's essentially what I did after about five weeks of volunteering. I went and I did my FA level one coaching license. It's very basic but what that started to do is it started to open up my knowledge and experience of what it is like learning as a coach. And the good thing about doing coaching licenses is that it gives you an up-to-date information on what are the latest coaching trends in the UK. So if you're a coach in the UK watching this or going through this lesson then the FA is obviously the number one place where you will go and do your coaching license. If you're not in the UK then just visit your local football slash soccer association and they will have coaching licenses that you can go through. Now the third one is volunteer as a head coach of a youth football team. Now so once you have your FA level one, once you've got that little bit of experience volunteering as a coach, the next bit would be to move up and volunteer to become a head coach. Now there's a difference between head coach and assistant coach. The head coach now you're kind of in charge of the team and you're in charge of registering players, you're in charge of the scheduling, you're in charge of making sure that your team has a place to play every weekend. But there's a little bit more responsibility that comes with the role but it's great because that's going to give you a bit of experience in the organization of a team. When I talk about a team it's pretty much the same as it would be a business. When you become a business owner your responsibility is to look for the location, look for the venue and make sure that venue is booked and making sure all your players are up to date with their monthly subscriptions, dealing with complaints, dealing with problems, dealing with inquiries. So that is essentially what a head coach does and it's going to give you a great experience of how to build that organization and that experience of kind of managing a team now. Now once you've got that little bit more experience as a head coach then what I would do is the next one complete your FA level 2 coaching license. So once you have that move on and apply for your FA level 2. You won't be able to do your FA level 2 until you've completed the first one but the level 2 is another level above the level 1 and I mean it not just in terms of the coaching but in terms of what is involved. Now the FA every single year they change in the courses so the best thing to do is go to your FA website and have a look what are the requirements for the level 2. Now the level 2 is a lot more advanced than the level 1 so make sure that you do your research, make sure that you're getting that experience and that's why I said becoming a head coach of a team will be a requirement because some of the some of the courses will require you to be part of a club or a team. Okay so the fifth one is apply for a paid coaching role right so once you've got your level 2 once you have some experience coaching now it'd be a great way of getting paid to coach which is applying for paid for a paid coaching role. There's hundreds and thousands of companies all across the UK that are hiring part-time trainers so go on to Indeed or go to Jobs in Football and look at what is in your local area and who is offering or who needs extra coaches to help with their sessions. Alright this is going to give you a good insight into now becoming involved in an actual coaching business and what is required to manage and run a coaching business. Now it's the case of right how do we deliver to clients and how do we make sure that our sessions are up to scratch making sure that our sessions are quality and now you're going to have that that responsibility of showing up to the the sessions that your manager is going to be require you to. Right now the sixth one is very simple it's kind of just a continuation of the fifth but it's literally just keep building your coaching experience aim to work with every age group and in different environments such as one-on-one groups camps clinics residential camps and so just keep building that coaching experience to the point where you've kind of worked with every single age group you've worked with boys you've worked with girls you've worked with toddlers you've worked with adults you've worked with teenagers you've kind of you know it all now that is when I feel it's like right I've done it all now let's take the next step and get going with our with the starting the coaching business okay so just kind of siding on the bottom so there is no official coaching certification needed to become a private football coach at the moment but I feel that having a lot of experience and a minimum coaching license is going to help you to succeed in this industry all right so at the moment not that I know of I'm pretty sure there will be in the future okay because private training is getting more and more popular and the FA is starting to see this but at the moment there's no official certification to become a private football coach or to start a private football business football training business right just make sure you continue to get lots of experience continue to grow and get your certifications and continue to seek mentors that can that can help you to then move to the next stage which will be now starting and growing your business