 Sure. Probably about almost 12 years ago I got into coaching. It was about the time when my oldest son was getting into sports. He was about five. I figured it was time to start signing him up for soccer, starting at the indoor leagues and then put him into the recreational programs. My dad was a coach for me growing up. He coached for 20, 30-some-odd years. So I knew that if I wanted my kid to be coached, probably need to educate myself and go volunteer here to do that. So I got into it that way. As my kids kind of progressed through and moved on to club soccer, I ended up helping out some directors at local clubs here in town. Eventually got pulled in to do team coaching myself. And then as parents, we started to get to know them as part of my kids' teams, asked if I would do private training, started to do a little bit on the side, and then finally realized I probably should formalize this into a business. Did that a couple of years ago? I've been running Fletcher Soccer Academy since 2020. Okay, love that, love that. So what does their Fletcher Soccer Academy specialize in then? We specialize in a lot of technique work. So I'm really big on an importance of proper technique. Obviously, ball mastery skills are a big part of what we do. But coaching the teams also with the local clubs, kind of understanding the younger ages all the way through the high school groups, being able to see where we're actually struggling with some of our player development and seeing just some of the fundamentals, you know, proper passing technique, passing over distance, weight of pass, being able to, you know, rotate hips and body. So all those kind of basic fundamental technique stuff, kind of think those are core and foundational to everything that we do. So those are our primary things. And we do some position-specific defender, striker, winger side of training as well. But technique is at the core of everything that we do. Okay, love that. So taking you back to when you first started, why did you decide to start your business then? Because I know a lot of coaches that are in the club environment, they just want to stick with teams and just they're comfortable doing that. So what motivated you to start your own thing? Yeah, I think the individualized attention, you can provide a player that you can, the team environment. When I coach a team, obviously you've got, you know, depending on what 77, 99, 11, 11, you could have a whole bunch of kids in the field. They'll get some personal interaction, but you're more teaching the team concepts, the tactics as they get older, seeing the need for the individualized attention to hone in on those techniques, sort of aspects. And I've always loved the development aspect of it. I'm big on growth mindset. So being able to do that at a smaller scale, we don't do very large groups. We typically do eight or less just to keep that personalized attention and loving seeing those kids kind of progress as time went on. And the initial kids we had in the academy, the first summers they went through the programs, the first winners, seeing the difference when they came out for the next season and hearing it from their parents and families, they could kind of see those light bulb moments go off. So then that just kind of springboarded them. And I think it ties into the confidence aspect. We actually do a lot of surveys to our customers too. And confidence is one word that is in a lot of the responses that we get. I think that's an important part of the individualized training is not just the technique aspect of it, but you're really helping them build that confidence. So they are competent to do that in the games when they get back to their teams. I love that. So currently, how many clients is your company working with at the moment? We have about 30 players within our summer program. And for the last, probably winter and summer, that's about the number that we've been at. Okay, so good. So in terms of taking you back to where you said confidence, because this is a very common one with a lot of athletes and a lot of clients that that the coaches are working with. So what is confidence to you? What's confidence development? Is it a technical side? Is it a mental size, a combination of both? Definitely a combination of both. The technique aspect of it, I think, is kind of building that muscle memory. So doing it the right way repetitively. There's a quote by Andrew Apirlo of don't practice till you get it right. Practice until you can't get it wrong. And that's kind of one thing that we kind of drill into our players of. That's great. We just had success. We did that movement perfectly. Let's do it again. Let's get another rep. Let's continue to build that success. And I think as they do that internally, the mental aspect starts to build the confidence in themselves to where you see the smiles on their face. They feel good about what they've just accomplished. And then they feel more confident mentally and they're trusting their mechanics that when they get to the game, maybe something they wouldn't have tried before. Maybe they're taking a shot from outside the box. Maybe they're closing down a defender. Now they know that they've done it in training and they feel that the internal confidence to go implement that in the game. And I think it's that combination of the physical and the mental aspect. Would you say that's something that's missing in club teams? I don't know that it's necessarily missing. I just don't think the coaches have an opportunity being one myself to always spend as much time on that aspect of it. Just because, again, you're not getting that individualized attention. You might have multiple players playing the same kind of position. And if one player is just not at that right level yet, you'll go through the training aspects and the activities you're doing in training, but you don't have that full time to really dive in and break down what's going on in their technique that would give them more success the next time through. So you're moving on to the next tactic where the private training, we can focus on it for that full hour that we have them. And we know, okay, let's carry that concept into the next training also for this one individual or this group of individuals. And we can really drive that home. I love that. So Tony, I'm going to take you back to when you first started your Soccer Academy. What was the biggest obstacle you faced at the beginning? Well, that's a good question. I think externally it was more name recognition a little bit. There are some other trainers here, some from the club that I work with. So they already had existing presences. So knowing that that competition's out there, I think externally too, just I started close to the winter time. So teams are going back in the facilities, there's not a, there's a lot of facilities, but not enough to where the team training and the private training can take use of all that. So I think that was a little bit of a limiting aspect. And then bring it maybe internally, the imposter syndrome a little bit, feeling internally, just making sure, you know, we coaches like to project that we're always confident in the field, but internally, even some of the best of us still, are we, are we good enough to do this? Are we doing the right things? Are my providing the right value to those clients? So I think those two, those two things that the externally internal were, were things for me. Awesome. So as a coach and a business owner, how do you self evaluate your performance? Kind of, I also work in technology. So I've had a pretty, pretty long career and part of that is in product management. So part of that process is always trying to evaluate, are we building the right things? Are we returning value to our customers, to our shareholders? Kind of constantly doing that implemented that into the academy business as well. So we do regular surveys after each kind of group, the winter training blocks, the summer blocks to get feedback from the parents. And then also just, you know, even as I'm going through a session, I'm trying to evaluate, is what I've planned for this session, actually making through and translating to the, to the players, or maybe I'm sitting down the night afterwards and maybe jotting down some notes about, Hey, I tried this with a younger age group. It really wasn't working. That might be a little bit too advanced for them. Let's figure out something else that can do that same concept, or maybe even with an older group, maybe I haven't challenged and pushed them enough with something. So kind of just always going through my plan, always evaluating daily, weekly, and then obviously after the summer and winter blocks. So it's just constantly asking yourself questions, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. So how did you get your first client then? First client was actually from a teammate of my youngest son. They saw that, you know, he was playing well, knew that I had worked with some players before and asked if I would work with their son on a regular basis. So kind of brought him in quickly thereafter, his sister joined up, formalized everything from there. And then they've kind of been one of the biggest champions and word of mouth referrals that's kind of helped grow to where we are right now. Love that. And what did you look for when you bring in a new client into your business? Definitely look for someone that's, it's not just the parents asking for that the kids want to be invested in it, that they're looking to be on that development journey, that they know that there's areas they want to improve on, that they have an idea of what that is. But then they're also willing to put in the work to get there. You know, you'll have scenarios whether you're on a team or individual where the kids are there because maybe mom or dad signed them up, but you really want the kids that are invested into their own growth and development, both the soccer portion of it, but also that kind of mental aspect of it as well. Cool. So tell us a couple of ways that you keep your clients accountable for their development. So we do regular check-ins. We always ask how we have some clients that train with multiple trainers. So how are their other trainings going? How have their games been going? Kind of get a rundown before and after sessions of, you know, have they implemented anything that we've worked on in training in any of their games in a tournament? What success are they having? Hear back from the parents about, you know, obviously, if they've done really well in a tournament and they've scored two or three goals or they've played outstanding on the defensive end, we try to engage in those kind of conversations. And then we have some things in our pipeline that we're kind of working on from a virtual standpoint to add some additional value. But that'll be coming. We're in the works of creating some of that content right now. That's good. I like that. Perfect. So where do you see private training going in the U.S. in the next two to five years? I think it's going to continue to explode. I think even in the last year, I've seen it grow exponentially in the area that we're in. There were a handful of well-known trainers when I kind of got into the arena. Myself and a few others have kind of popped up since then. And now you continue to see more and more trainers, more and more Instagram accounts. There's a couple of new facilities that popped up. So you see trainers start to go to those locations and kind of promote them as well. I've even seen some high school kids, some high school players starting to train as well. So I think it's just going to continue to grow and explode. Not just in soccer, but I think across sports in general. So where in the world are you currently at for those that are watching? A little bit north of the Cincinnati, Ohio area. So kind of the Mason, Ohio. There's a big amusement park, Kings Island. It's kind of well known up in this area. So that's the part of the world we're in. And what's soccer like in that area? Soccer is definitely a hot thing here. We had a bunch of notoriety because a new MLS team popped up a couple of years ago. We started it in the lower leagues and it quickly grew from there. And we went into one of these expansion teams. Soccer in general has kind of always been hot in Cincinnati and it just continues to grow. The club I work for has some teams in the national competition right now. So there's a lot of good players and a lot of star power here. So what would you say to another coach that's watching this interview or listening to it? And they're in that startup phase where they want to start a business, but I don't know, it might be because of fear or they feel like they're not ready. What would you say, what would be your number one piece of advice before starting a business? I think number one piece of advice is find your why. So make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. If it's just to make some additional funds on the side of whatever else you're doing, whether it's soccer training or otherwise, that might not be the long-term success you're looking for. If you're truly invested in helping kids grow and grow the game and whatever country or area that you're in, I think then you're probably in it for the right reasons. I would say next, go to the resources like this podcast to what Ben's put out there previously about making sure you're formalizing things in the right manner. That was a good resource for me when I was starting out, making sure you have your business insurance, you have your business entity set up, you have all of your technology things kind of squared away to make sure you're legal and all that's taken care of. And I think you've got to jump in at some point. There's no perfect time to start a business. If you're in it for the right reasons, you're prepared as much as you can. You just got to jump in with both feet and trust that you'll make it happen. Yeah. So talk to us a little bit about the importance of having a proper legal business set up. Why is it an advantage rather than doing it as like a sort of side thing where you don't have anything legal set up? Yeah, I think it gives you some legitimacy to what you're doing, right? I think that helps project that image out to parents in particular. They're the ones who are paying for their players to sign up with you. So having them understand that you are an actual business, you invest it enough from your end to say, I'm formalizing this. This is a real company. It's not just side of desk kind of stuff. You're not collecting just money on Venmo and trying to stash that away. Yes, you'll hit some additional fees if you set up credit card payments and whatnot. But I think it's well worth it to make sure from a legal standpoint, you're set up to make sure you're protecting yourself and your clients too with things like insurance, just should anything happen. It's always there. It's, you know, to do things the right way. Excellent. So how long have you been in business, Tony? Been in business about two years. We started, I think it was October of 2020. 2020, excellent. So how did you find the COVID and how did you overcome the COVID times? Yeah, it was definitely challenging. I figured if there's any good time to start an academy during COVID, and if you can prove it out, it's no better time to try then. We were kind of in a lull, I think, when I started it. So the facilities were just opening back up again. And I started with some small clinics that that first winter time. So we had to be masked up indoors. The players didn't yet. They were allowed to, if they were training to be unmasked. So there was definitely some hesitancy. Some clients who wanted to sign up for some of the clinics or some of the other indoor training we were doing, there was hesitancy from some parents there. But I think overall, everyone was kind of still wanting to keep their kids moving, keep things going. So as much as we are allowed to per the protocols, I didn't see too much of a hindrance at that point. So talk to us a little bit about your current sales process then. So how do you guys market sell your business? How do you generate leads? Where do you get leads from? Probably the majority of the leads have been word of mouth. So a lot of our existing players talk to other family members, talk to other players and families. And we've had a lot of kids come in the summer as a result of that. Just whole groups coming in together from teams. Do some email marketing. So we have a growing email list, a pretty good number of folks right now. So we do send marketing out regularly to through that channel. Done a couple of Facebook ads to kind of some mixed success, but those are kind of small denominations, nothing too crazy there. We've actually found more success on the Facebook communities. So there's multiple Facebook groups for the neighborhoods and local communities out where I am or for some of the schools if my kids happen to go there. So we'll do a lot of advertising in those and get a lot of responses in that regard too. And then obviously just generalized our Facebook page, our Instagram page. And then we have a website. We collect information of a lot of contacts come in through the contact form and set up phone calls and make sure that we're the right fit for them and they're the right fit for us. So how important then is it to be a good communicator with parents? Oh, I think it's critically important. Part of probably one of the benefits of being able to do that in my technology job too and doing a lot of presentations is not just the presentation aspect, not just the communication to a specific person, but communicated different levels. Communicating to a U8 is a lot different than communicating to a U16 player. Similarly, communicating to a player and communicating to a parent, there's different skill sets involved there too. And even within that group, you might have a player, a parent that played at a very high level. They have a much greater understanding of it and a parent that didn't grow up playing the sport, but they love it. They enjoy it. They see their kid doing it. Being able to storytell at those different levels of communication, I think is highly important. Excellent. Yeah, because some coaches that we speak to on a regular basis, they want to run Facebook ads, but a lot of them forget that even if you run Facebook ads, at some point you have to speak to the parent. Sure. So it's about repetition, right? So getting on the phone, talking to the parent, asking the right questions. Was that something you'd say you struggled at the beginning or because of your work, that's something that just came naturally? I wouldn't say it came naturally. It was definitely nerve wracking the first few phone calls I took, just not having gone through that process before, the kind of sales process of it, but try to prepare as much as you can ahead of time. So writing down the kinds of questions you want answers to, making sure you kind of have a script that you're going off of, that definitely helped me out a lot. And then I think to your point, the repetition of it, the more you do something, whether it's skills and soccer or sales with parents, the more repetitions you have under your belt, the more comfortable you get. And then it's kind of second nature. You know your script off the top of your head and it just kind of flows and it's you. It's not you reading off of something any longer. Perfect. And also, what's the difference? Because some coaches, they're scared to get on the phone with parents, but instead they want to communicate via text. Would you say there's a difference between actually making the effort to get on a call with a parent or just text messaging? Yeah, I think it's a cultural thing too. Everyone wants a text message these days, that getting on a phone call seems like a foreign thing to a lot of people, but I think that personal connection is important for them to hear your voice, for you to hear their voice. And I think it's also that kind of deeper connection of if they really want this, or if they're really invested in it, a phone call is not much to ask of somebody. If they are really hesitant, they want to push that off. They only want email, they only want text, just send me your info and we'll make a decision. I really want that conversation, so I'll understand what they want for their player, what their player wants to get out of it. Can't always get that through to text. And then just that conversation, right? There might be things that you're communicating to them that might spark a question on their side that wouldn't in a text thread. So I think that personalized communication is critically important. Yeah, I agree, 100% agree. So Tony, tell us then, where do you see your business in the next five years from now? On the next five years. We'd definitely like to begin some camps over the next couple of summers. I think in accordance to do that would have to be bringing out some additional trainers to do that as well. So those two aspects, one of the parents who I'm quite close friends with, we've talked quite a bit about investing in some real estate and having a facility. So that's something that we're kind of constantly evaluating. If there's existing buildings and structures we can repurpose, or if there's land where we can do something like that. But those are kind of the main three things over the next five years I'd like to implement. Very lovely. How many facilities do you want to have? Ideal road, I'd like to have multiple of them across town and across different locations. My partner and I, we go back and forth on the smaller locations specialized in training, or the larger ones, the whole tournaments and whatnot. So we've got different visions for different purposes. We're trying to narrow down what that would look like. Awesome. So how many decision makers are there in your business? Just me right now. I kind of run solo. My wife helps out as an admin. She's got an admin background. So she helps out in that regard. Okay. So in terms of making decisions, do you find it hard when you're by yourself or who do you kind of ask for advice or what would you do, et cetera? For the most part of decisions myself, bouncing things off of my wife, making sure that it sounds good from another parent aspect. And then some other parents I'm close to that were friends with outside of just the soccer part. If it's something else marketing wise, hey, does this resonate with you? Does this make sense? Is this the virtual training we're talking about kind of pitching that to them, explaining what it is to get their feedback of it? And then again, we'll send out surveys too of at the end of the season, it's not just a recap and asking for feedback on how the sessions went. We'll actually ask our folks in our academy also, here's some things we're looking at potentially for the future. Would these be interesting to you or not? Just to gain the kind of broader perspective. Love that. Perfect. All right, Tony, I'm going to finish off with two questions, two final questions. These are a bit more personal questions. So the first one is what does failure mean to you? And the second one is how important is taking risks in business? Okay. Failure to me is a learning opportunity. I've read a lot and watched a lot of Carol DeWick and the growth mindset. And definitely something I believe in and I want my players to believe in is that just because you didn't have success in whatever the activity was or in a particular game, what can I learn from that? And what can I take to improve that next time? So I think that's a huge important aspect of the mental side of the game and the training is making sure that it's only failure if you let it be permanent. But if you're continuing to figure out what I did wrong, how do I correct that? How do I make myself better in that development aspect? Then failure is just another part of the process. Love that. And the second question was how important is it to take risks in business? I think it's definitely important. I'm a little risk averse, I'll say at times. So I'll say it's more important to take calculated risks. I think you can do a good job of mitigating as much as you can by being prepared. So things like having your business entity and all your legal stuff taken care of is a measure to make sure that no matter what else you've kind of taken a preventative risk or you're mitigating some risk there. I think you can do as much research and analysis as a part of my job too in technology. So analyzing data as much as you can, but then at some point you have to trust that you've done as much as you can. Don't have analysis paralysis. Get a good foundation and then trust what you're doing and go take that risk and do it knowing you've done the homework in the background. Love those answers. Perfect, Tony. So if any coach is watching this interview, how can they follow your journey? How can they follow your academy? What would be the best way to do that? Best ways are probably Instagram. So FletcherSoccerAcademy.com or Fletcher Soccer Academy on Instagram, Fletcher Soccer Academy 2020 on Facebook, website FletcherSoccerAcademy.com and email is always great too, Tony at FletcherSoccerAcademy.com. Okay, perfect. And what we'll do is we'll add that to the video below. So if any coach wants to get in contact with you or follow your academy, they can do that there. So Tony, thanks again for jumping on here, taking the time out to share your journey with us. Love what you're doing. Wish you all the best in the future. Continue to grow. And I hope to see some Fletcher Soccer Academy facilities opened in the near future. Sounds good. I really appreciate you guys having me on here. Okay, take it. Thanks you too.