 So I started coaching kind of to supplement my income when I was doing some trials and tryouts as a soccer player myself. So I was traveling across the US and actually a little bit in Europe as well, chasing the dream and trying to break into the pro scene. So while I was doing that, I started doing some private coaching on the side to kind of supplement that journey. I originally started in Tacoma, Washington actually got my first client out there. I was recommended a client by a teammate and so I jumped right in. I didn't really know what I was doing during my first session, but I kind of picked up the flow of things and from there I was kind of hooked. I really enjoyed training that first client and we just kind of scheduled out some future sessions and from there I just started getting different referrals over time and kept building from there. But originally it was kind of a side venture for me while I was playing. So why did you make that decision to start your own business? What was the motivation behind it? Yeah, so I had just, I started gaining more and more clients and it was something where I just kind of sat down one day and asked myself, you know, how seriously do I want to take this? Is this something that I think I could do as, you know, a career as my main form of income, also playing soccer as well, kind of combine those things. And I thought it would, I thought it would work out pretty well. So I kind of formed an LLC and took things seriously back in 2019 and formed the company officially and went from there. So it was just kind of a natural gradual process of kind of gaining one client at a time and getting my feet wet and just kind of sitting down and saying, hey, let's do something with this. That's awesome. So tell us a bit about your company then. What do you guys specialize in? Yeah. So my company's MS Soccer, we're in the St. Louis area. We specialize particularly in technical and skills training. So we do one-on-one training environments, small groups, clinics, we do summer camps as well over the summer. So a little bit of everything, but I would say our niche is really that highly technical, highly focused training environment where we have players come to us and say, you know, I want to learn X, Y and Z skill. I want to reach a certain level of play for my age group and we kind of sit down, we form those goals and then we just kind of nail out every single session what specific areas of their game that we need to work on. So that's really what we focus on. Awesome. Awesome. So I obviously speak to a lot of soccer trainers like yourself every single day, but tell us a bit about what is the number one, shall we say, struggle that you see in soccer at the moment? Why are clients going to train with you? So the biggest thing or the most common thing that I hear from parents and players is that the club training they get, A, is not enough for where they want to go with their goals and aspirations. So they have team training during the week, but they feel they might not get the individual attention they need to kind of take their skills to the next level or do something above and beyond what they're getting out of that team training. Or number two, the training that's offered by clubs, so skills training over and above their team training that they may have access to depending on what club they're at, again, isn't individualized enough in that they're just having really large sessions of large numbers of players on one field at a time, one or two coaches there. So it is skills training, but again, they're not getting any individualized attention. It's very general skills that they're learning and they're just not happy with the curriculum that they're getting. So typically those are the two reasons that parents come to me to find a way to come up with a plan to work on some skills that may be overseen or missed during the club training. So since 2019 when you started your business, what's been your biggest obstacles that you faced as a business owner? Yeah, I mean, over time, there's always, as a business owner, you're always putting out fires or different things that come up. I would say the main obstacle I'm facing now is expanding the company, so it's a good problem to have them at the point where I want to expand and reach different geographical areas and get to more clients than I can personally do myself in a given week. So my biggest thing right now is hiring, going through the hiring process. So it's been tough. You want to find coaches that are bought into the same vision that you had when you first started the company and that you continue to have when you train players from week to week. You have a certain vision. You have a certain style of coaching and you want to bring in individuals who are bought into that as well. So that's kind of one aspect of it. And then the other aspect is just kind of the logistics, going through the legal framework of drawing up contracts and getting the right insurance in place. So it's kind of a new arena for me and I'm kind of figuring it out week to week here. But that's kind of the biggest thing for me right now. Okay. Awesome. So where do you see this industry going in the next two to five years from now? I think it's only going to grow. I mean, I know, so it's a little bit of a battle between individual trainers and clubs and that clubs are offering more and more services for players, which is good. But again, I think the more services that they offer for all of their players, it still is allowing players to slip through the cracks. Like I mentioned before, there's still areas where players need more individualized attention. They need a different voice, a different perspective outside their club team. And I think that's where individual trainers are going to have a lot of success in the next two to five years. I see it as a growing industry. I know there's a lot of leaps and bounds happening with online training too. So it will be interesting to see where that goes online specific training. But I think it's only up from here because I know how serious players are taking soccer in the US now as the game grows. So the need for that specialized training, even at younger ages, is only growing as well. Absolutely. So you've been in our sports accelerator program for a while now. So talk to us a little bit about your experience with the program, how your business has changed, has it improved at all? Talk to us a little bit about that. Yeah. So my experience with the program has been great. For me personally, the program has helped transform my business, essentially, because I had come to the program with a lot of questions and ideas on how I could expand my business or what I should do to expand my business and working through the community and talking with Coach Ben has really kind of clarified the path that I want to take and sped up the process as to choosing what steps I should take moving forward. So for me, it's been a big help to the business. And it's something that I would highly, highly recommend. Just having voices and like-minded coaches that you can balance ideas off of daily has really helped grow my business quite a bit. That's awesome. And what would you say to any coach watching this video who is in the process of wants to start a business or is scared to take the leap? What's the number one piece of advice you would say to them about starting? I would say just, I mean, I know a lot of coaches say this, but just start. I mean, I started with one client. I kind of felt it out. And over time, I gained more and more players that wanted to train with me just through word of mouth. And, you know, if you're good at what you do and you're passionate, you're going to have players that come to you. And if you enjoy doing it, then, you know, continue to explore, continue to grow it. The other thing that I've realized over time is that you don't have to do everything at once. So I consider myself a pretty ambitious person. I, you know, I really enjoy growing a business and creating a business. And there's a lot of steps in that. There's a lot of different pieces to the puzzle, to creating, you know, the company that you want to create. But you don't have to do it all in one week. You don't have to do it all in one month. Take it step by step. And, you know, you're going to figure out solutions to problems that come up over time, trial and error. So it's always good to realize, you know, time is on your side. You know, take things step by step. You don't have to have the leading training business. You don't have to have everything perfected right away. Just go one client at a time and kind of enjoy the process and just really take it one step at a time. Absolutely. So a question for you is if you weren't doing what you're doing right now, what would you be doing? It's a great question. I mean, it's hard to imagine anything but soccer. So for me, I still play professionally here. I play indoor soccer professionally and I do coaching outside of that. So I'm soccer, soccer, soccer, all day long. If I weren't doing that, gosh, I really enjoy playing the drum set. So maybe I'd be in a band. I don't know my hobbies. I like playing the drum set. So that would that might be it. But right now I'm full soccer mode and I'm loving it. That's awesome. Good. Good. So so tell us a little bit about how did you get your first client and how many are you currently working with at the moment? Yeah. So specifically the first client I was playing for a team called the Tacoma Stars out in Washington, a professional indoor soccer team. And I had a teammate that I was living with who was a club coach and he did some private coaching as well. And he said, Hey, you know, I have this girl that's looking for extra training. I don't personally have the time would you be interested in taking on a client? And I had had some experience doing summer camps and some group coaching and things like that. And I just said, Yeah, you know, I'd never done individual one on one training before, but I was interested in taking that step. So I brought her in one week. And from there, you know, she enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. And we started going twice a week after that. And it just grew and grew from there. So from that first client until now, gosh, I train hundreds, hundreds of clients over the years. Currently in my my coaching program, there's probably 40 plus 50 players that I'm working with right now. And that's individual and group environments. OK, what do what do you enjoy more? Do you enjoy the more the individual or the group training? Gosh, great question. I'm sure I've traditionally enjoyed the individual training quite a bit because to me, it's just really enjoyable to watch a player really hone in on a specific skill they're trying to learn or a specific technique and watching them struggle through it and learn and make progress. And then finally had that moment where it clicks and they nailed it. So it's always fun creating individualized curriculums for players. But I've really been getting into small group training lately as I've expanded my business. So groups of like four to eight players really competitive. Again, having that balance of, you know, that group environment with the individualized attention. So I've really been enjoying that as of late as well. So a little bit of both. OK, good. So something I get I speak to a lot of coaches who want to transition from from individual training to groups. But a an obstacle they kind of face is that they don't understand how to differentiate group training from actual like team training. So what a lot of coaches do is they stick to individual training because they know how to add a little bit more value. So how how do you differentiate like your group training from your players team training? How do you make it different? What what what are a couple of things that you do to add value so that you can keep that personal and attention and that that individualized experience for the player? Yeah, so I mean, I was in the same boat as a as a coach, you know, in past years, I was very heavy into, like I said, the one on one training environment. And I started adding groups in the last few years to offer another option for players. When I started creating those groups, I did want it to be different than their team training environment because I wanted it to offer, again, a different perspective and a different set of challenges to promote development in a way they might not get in that team environment. So for me, number one, my kind of my rule of thumb is groups should be no more than four to eight players, especially if it's just me on the field. I wanted a lower number of players per coach in my sessions. Again, that way I could give some sort of individualized attention during the group sessions and also with with a lower number, players get more touches on the ball. They're not standing in line as much. They're not rotating between stations as much. They're involved in whatever drill that we're doing and they're getting touches more so than they are under team training. So that's why I try to keep it in that range of four to eight players per coach. The other thing that I try to offer with group training is that I try to connect what they do with their team training to what I call a higher level of thinking. So whatever their coach is telling them, whatever happens in their game, we discuss that in our team training and we discuss alternative solutions to what the coach might be bringing as well. Not that we're undermining the coach or trying to say don't listen to the coach, but we want to bring in alternative perspectives, especially from my professional background, my playing background that I've had in the U.S. and overseas as well, just to give the players a little different perspective. And then the third thing that we try to do is add a little bit of the mental side of the game to the sessions. So talking about some confidence training for players, talking about some tactical things that the coach may have not touched on before that could kind of help fill the gaps for players. So trying to also stimulate how the players think about the game, not just always show up to training, let's shoot on goal, let's play three on three, right? Trying to try to talk with the players a little bit about those aspects as well. Great piece of advice like that. So talk to us now a little bit about the importance of good communication with ultimately the parents of the players you work with, right, because at the end of the day, you can be the best trainer, but the parents are the ones that pay and they're essentially the clients, right? So how important is good communication? How important is having like terms and conditions with them? Talk to us a bit about that. Yeah, I mean, communications, everything. So from top to bottom, from the moment you first come in contact with the parent for however long their child's in your program, communication is going to be the thing that keeps them around and keeps them happy. So I mean, right away, you know, when you're talking them through the sales process, communication as far as scheduling, as far as being prompt to any calls you may have, being upfront about pricing. Like you said, having contracts and policies in place that are very clear for them to follow is going to be very important. It's going to make their life easier and it's going to make your life easier as a coach. So having those systems in place is very important. Once the players involved in your program, the communication with the parents is typically going to be about the players' progress. So I mean, you might obviously you'll have logistical things about scheduling and everything like that. But most of the time, the communication is going to be about how the players doing, talking to parents about coming out to games, watching games, if that's what you're doing as a coach. And then what I like to do is having basically check up points throughout the players' time with me. So every month I have the player do some journaling. I check in with the player. I check in with the parents every quarter. I do a write up on the player. I also do game evaluations when I come watch. So giving parents written information as well as verbal feedback is going to be really important. So they're happy with with the progress their player is making. And then they can see right away the value is worth what they're paying for. So communication is going to be very key if you want to keep parents and players involved in your program. Absolutely. So talk to us as well a little bit about the importance of having those clients on contracts, because I know a lot of coaches don't want to do that because of like, it's just they're scared and all they want to just simply avoid it. But talk to us, maybe maybe talk to us a little bit like when you first started, were you a bit hesitant to do it? And then how did you evolve to get in those clients on contracts? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely so I was very traditional when I started in the fact that it was per hour per session. Maybe I would offer a discount if you pay for five sessions ahead of time. There's nothing wrong with that. But again, if you're looking to scale your business, that's a tough model to really branch out on. So when I switched over to a contract basis, I was looking at three and six month commitments from parents and players. And like you said, you are a little hesitant as a coach to require that kind of commitment from families when beforehand, you were only requiring one session at a time sometimes. So it's a big jump, but there are a lot of benefits from it for both the parents and obviously you as the business owner. It's more consistent income for you as the business owner. You know, you're going to have that commitment for three months. So there's a big financial piece of that. Also, as the coach, it gives you a concentrated time to be with that player and really focus on the development. You're going to make a bigger impact in three months that you're seeing the player every week versus being with the player for a year and you see that player 10 times in the year. So that concentrated period is also going to be really important if you can get them to agree to that type of contract. For the parents, obviously it's a bigger ask for the families. But it's going to benefit them and that they're going to be bought in to what you're doing for their player. They're going to have more confidence in what you're doing because you have confidence in the fact that you want that player to be with you every week for whatever time period it may be. So it goes both ways. And in the end, I think it's to the benefit of everyone. Absolutely. And I personally think it looks a lot more professional. Yeah. And you'll probably get more trust from parents as well. I found that as well. I agree. Yeah. Cool. So tell us a bit about how you currently recruit new clients into your program. What's your sales and marketing process? Yeah. So for me, I would say the majority has been referrals. So I'm grateful for that. And that word of mouth has really helped my business quite a bit. Just training players, getting good results for players. It's going to reap a lot of benefits for your business because your player does well in the field. Parents are asking other parents, hey, I see so-and-so is doing so much better on the field. How are you doing that? And then word of mouth spreads. So that's how I've been getting a lot of my business lately is through referrals. What I also do for marketing is I have a space in actually in a mall that I use for indoor training during the winter. So I have a storefront space that I use for some marketing as well. And then I do reach out on social media every once in a while. I don't do any paid ads or anything like that, but just reaching out to parents that have maybe interacted with posts of mine or that seem interested. They're liking, they're commenting, things like that. I do that as well. I think another key thing for coaches to think about is having an email list that you keep on hand at all times. When I first started, I didn't really keep track of things like that. I didn't keep track of contact information that much, unless the player was training with me at that current time. But it's important all your past clients can, A, become clients again in the future or B, provide referrals for you. So I use a pretty extensive email list that I kind of refer back to at different times. Awesome. Awesome. Love that. So Mike, tell us where do you see your business in the next five years from now? Yeah, I mean, for me, I hope to keep expanding. I my goal kind of in the next year or so is to lease my own training space that I can use year round, an indoor space. And then from there, again, the hiring process, I'm going to start with one or two coaches here to help you run some camps and clinics. But kind of building out that coaching staff to help assist me in servicing more clients. So that's kind of my goal. I'm hoping to be the best training service in the St. Louis area for all players, club neutral. Yeah, that's kind of the vision. Awesome. Love that. All right, Mike. Well, thanks for jumping on, sharing your story, your knowledge with us. If there's any coach that wants to connect with you, what is the best way for them to do that? Yeah. So on social media, you can do at Mike Sharf Soccer. So that's where you can find my my company and a little bit of information on what we do. Awesome. Perfect. All right. Well, thank you. Thanks, Mike. And look forward to connecting with you in the near future. That sounds good. Thank you very much for the call. Take care. Yeah, bye.