 track in college and I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. I knew I always liked the athletic realm. Sports performance was kind of new at the time when I was a freshman in college and I had just learned about it. So, I went that direction basically right away, fell in love with it and just it worked. Never thought that I wanted to or would own my own business. From my like, what 22-year-old perspective was like, I don't know how to run a business and I didn't, of course, but I didn't also know how to be a coach really at the time. So, I moved to Florida from Missouri for a job that was awesome in performance. Working with NFL Combine, it was kind of like exactly what I wanted to do. Didn't realize that the business was actually tanking so it wouldn't last a year. So, I was kind of throwing the fire. What are you gonna do? There was an ex-employee of that gym who actually had left before I was there who started another gym around the corner. That was basically, everyone starts their own business and you can just train out of there. So, I had the connection there, although I hadn't known him before, had the connection there, just decided to like, okay, go for it. And, you know, at the time it was very, you know, whatever business I would, I wouldn't really call it a very official business at 23. It's kind of like freelance training. But it kick-started the journey and then I realized, like, oh, this is actually awesome. This is what I want to do. So, built down to that. Okay, love it. So, tell us a bit about your business then. What does your company specializing? We specialize in speed development and injury prevention for middle and high school athletes. So, our main population is soccer players. We have a ton of soccer players, but we're going to have basically any field and course for athletes. So, baseball, softball, football, lacrosse, basketball, volleyball, anybody who needs to like really just improve their performance, whether they're trying to make the next level team, earn a college scholarship, or stay healthy and available so that they can keep training. Okay, awesome. So, when clients join your program, what's the typical, like, struggle that they're facing when they join you? So, I get that a lot in soccer where they're like, every coach I've had, they tell me that my skills are amazing. My soccer IQ is top-notch, but my speed is holding me back. So, if someone's really good, but they can't win 50-50 balls, they can't create separation from the opponent, they're not able to use their skills in their IQ. They're no good on the field. So, it's really working for like, okay, I need to gain that edge. I need to be quicker. I need to be faster. Okay, awesome. And you said as well that you do, you work on injury prevention. Yes, that's going to be a huge part of any athlete, whether they've been injured in the past or not, whether they're at risk or not. Like, if you play a contact sport, if you play a sport, you're at risk. And so, our philosophy is like, okay, let's prevent injury. However, the thing is, once you start preventing injury the correct way, you're learning to absorb more force safely, efficiently, correctly. And so, now like, you're stopping sooner and the sooner you stop, the sooner you go, the more force you absorb, the more force you can produce. So, you're in turn getting faster. It's really killing two birds with one stone. Awesome. So, what made you specialize more on the speed, speed side of performance? I always kind of gravitated towards that. I think going into an NFL combine really like, I was like, oh my gosh, I love this stuff. You know, they're going hard on the 40 and the 510-5. I really liked that. But what heightened that was I had a mentor and he was big into all of this. And he was the first coach. I was very lucky to have amazing coaches who were 10 times smarter than me and better than me and everything. And I learned from all of them. Yeah. But Troy was really the one. I was like, oh my god, I'm you. This is who I need to like, learn from. So, I would just follow Troy around everywhere and just realize, this is my style. This is what I've been looking for as a college athlete, looking for those tools. And then this is definitely who I am as a coach. I just needed to find myself. Okay, that's cool. So, I'm mainly from a soccer background myself. And I know like the game is changing a lot and speed is obviously becoming really important because the intensity of the game is going up. So, for you, where do you see the sports performance industry going in the next two to five years? I think that's, I think there's always going to be a need for it because like I said, you know, when I was a freshman in college, I didn't really see as many people training on the outside, but just the difference between when I was in grade school versus grade schoolers now, same thing with, you know, middle school, high school, college, and the competition's going up. And the athleticism needed is going up. So, I think that there's definitely a need for it, as well as a demand for it. More people are wanting extra training. So, I think COVID also provided opportunities for people. People got creative. They realized that now I can reach a wider audience. I can do more things. I think there's just more opportunities. So, I think that in the next two to five years, it's going to just continue growing. Continue to grow. Yeah, absolutely. So, how many clients are you currently working with? I have, summer was busier. We had 30. So, we have a very involved 12-week mentorship. We had 30. I have about 20 now that we're into the school year. Yeah. Okay. Cool. And is it all mainly in person or do you do online stuff as well? Everything's online. Oh, everything's online. Okay, cool. So, how have you found working with clients online? Because that's something where a lot of coaches do reach out to us and they want to transition to online. So, how have you found that experience? I have. Yeah, I've loved it personally, but more so, I've loved it for the athletes. So, you know, obviously there was a learning curve, you know, COVID kind of like pushed you there. And I was still training in person, but at the beginning of COVID, there was always that like fear like, is this part going to close tomorrow? Is this rule going to happen tomorrow? This is really early in COVID. So, I started just like playing with it and getting something up there and it wasn't good. But I was just like, let me do something. And I remember the first guy out of Texas was like, hey, I've been following your stuff forever. This is so cool. I love that there's the opportunity. So, I got him up and his daughter up going and it was really cool. And I know that it wasn't where I wanted it to be. I wasn't charging that much. But then I'm like, okay, there's the possibility. And so, eventually, I just was like, okay, I actually need to go online. So, I started like doing everything 10 times better. And I found that once I was able to streamline a 12-week program, I'm asking for a big commitment out of the athletes so it's not for everyone. But because they're saying, yes, I'm in for 12 weeks, as opposed to in person, where you only have so much time, you know, an hour here, an hour here, I didn't get to give them everything. So, the classroom side, the video analysis side, the education side on top of the workouts was missing. And so, now that I'm only taking athletes who are like, I'm all in, they're getting better results. They're learning more and they're walking away from our program, understanding how I can keep doing this without someone holding my hand, where I didn't necessarily feel that way in person. Okay, like that. So, what do you look for when you bring on a new client then into your program? Number one, can I help them? Are they someone who needs to get faster? And you know, there's going to be varying degrees of that. So, this, you know, the person who's like, I've had three ACL injuries and I need to make sure that I'm doing things better. The other person who's like, I won't play if I don't get faster. And then there's also the person who's like, everything's good. I'm already fast. I'm already this. I'm already healthy. But if I want to be the best of the best, I need to gain that edge. So, all of those people I can help. Now, if it's someone who's like, yeah, my soccer IQ needs to be better, like, nope, I'm not your person. So, number one, can I help them? Number two, are they all in? They meaning the athlete? Yes, the parents want it. But at the end of the day, it needs to be the athlete who's like, let's go. Yeah, I agree. So, what makes a really good online coaching program? So, what do you need in order to do that? I think it's going to vary by like, what's your goal? So, for me personally, if I'm working with, you know, the majority of our people are 12 to 15. I'm as young as 10. I have as old as 18. I have college students every once in a while. It's harder with a college student because they have a very busy schedule. But I would say 12 to 15 is really our sweet spot. So, I'm working with young kids. And then the communication is different. You know, if I tell an adult something, if I tell a 25 year old something, you got to get it done. It's on you. But if I tell a 12 year old something, you know, I need to understand that it's 12 year old. So, number one is having the correct coaches in place to make sure that that 12 year old or whoever it is is being nurtured and guided correctly. Not just given the program and saying, okay, let us know how it goes. Like, let's make sure that we're following up. I think that's really important. Obviously, what they're doing needs to be valuable. Do you have a proven system? If you don't have a proven system, you need to figure out your proven system. And what your proven system is is different from anybody else's. So, what works for me? Like, this is my coaching style. And I even tell my coaches underneath me, of course, we're doing my program. But I want you to match it to how you are. So, you have creative liberty to understand who this athlete is, to understand who you are. Make sure that you're coaching in a way that gets results. Number one, proven system. Number two, the right people in place, making sure that you're meeting the needs of your people. Okay, awesome. So, how many coaches do you have under you then? Six. Six. Okay, that's awesome. And talk to us a little bit. How do you build a really good team of coaches? What do you need? I started with people who have been around me already. So, who had known my coaching, whether they, I had like one person who was a assistant coach in person. So, she already got it. I had my little brother actually, who's a performance coach. He has another full-time job, but he does this, like he already got it. I kind of branched out into other coaches I've met who've already known certain things and matched my style. And then I've also had ex-athletes who, like in high school, they just trained with me in person every day, know my stuff like the back of their hand. So, I've been pretty lucky to have people who have already known my stuff and it was an easy transition. I hear that not just from me, but from everyone, it seems like people, like getting the right people is one of the biggest challenges from everyone. Absolutely. So, I want to take you back to when you first started. First of all, how long have you been in business at the moment? Six years. Six years. Awesome. So, what was the biggest obstacle you faced at the beginning when you first started? Confidence in myself. I remember a conversation. I don't remember what I was charging. The first time I was going to charge for one-on-one sessions and I had no athletes, right? I had just moved to Florida. I didn't really know anyone left the business right before it closed down because it was about two. I had a handful of people and I think I might have been charging like 45 for an hour session or something, which is not enough, right? It's not enough. And I remember being so uncomfortable with it because as a broke 23-year-old, I was like, well, would I do this? And it's like understanding your value, understanding your worth. That was definitely a challenge. And then just putting yourself out there and owning your role and owning the confidence in yourself. So, I think that was a really big thing that I had to learn is like who I am and the value I offer. And how did you overcome that? Because that's a very common one with a lot of business owners we speak to. I think reps. I think you just got to I won't forget ever one conversation I had, kind of like a mentor of mine. He's one of the first people I met. He was a chiropractor and he was the dolphins chiropractor for 20 years. He's awesome. We've kind of jumped around facility to facility together. And I remember sitting in his office and we're talking about what you charge. And I don't remember what was going on, but there was a number breakdown and just like, Laura, how much did you pay for school? How much did you do this? How much did you do that? And I remember sitting in his office wanting to just cry, but also not wanting to leave because I was like, I see how valuable this is, but I'm so uncomfortable. And so I think that's something is like, put yourself in uncomfortable positions and get over it. And a lot of people don't want to be uncomfortable. And I was like, I literally wanted to cry. I don't think I did. I wanted to do so bad. But again, that's like, that was a very transformative conversation that I had to have. Yeah, absolutely. So if I understood correctly, you moved to a new area, right? Where you didn't know anyone. Correct. Okay. So that's obviously a very common thing with coaches. And that happens. So how did you, like, how did you start your business from going into a place where you didn't know anyone, you didn't have any connections? How did you get your first client through that? So I had been at the other facility for about six months. And so I had some connections. And I think when I left, everyone knew it was already going under. I didn't say anything. I was like, okay, I'm just going to leave. And then there's a couple of people who followed me from there. The owner of the new gym was in the soccer community. And then he was like, okay, I want you to help assistant coach here. And I really like jumped into the soccer community. And I did really well. Found out that I like really resonated with these, especially at the time it was like middle and high school girls. And I just did really good with them. So that's kind of what like kick started everything. Okay. So talk to us a bit about your current sales and marketing process. So how do you sell and how do you market your business? So marketing, I actually just hired a new marketing agency. So we're in like the testing phases and everything. But Facebook, Instagram ads. There's a lot of organic. I've been doing organic for really two years ago is when I would say I became like an official business. And I started having systems and processes before I just my business stayed alive because I was a good coach and I'm good with people. But now it's like, let's actually have some structure. So in the last two years, I've done a ton of organic stuff. I have an assistant just working through Facebook. And then the advertisement agency, more Facebook, Instagram ads. And then as far as the sales process, so I have just like a like a two call closed kind of, you know, I'm having a call with the parents, just a quick 15 minute call understanding what's going on. Obviously, I've already like spoke to them or my assistant spoke to them. So I have an understanding like, okay, cool. You have a 16 year old soccer player who's getting ready for college and needs to be whatever it is. So I'll talk to them quickly, understand what they're looking for, understand their needs, be able to like very briefly describe what we do. And then from there, we'll schedule a 45 minute call that I have both parents, I have the athlete on. We really take a deep dive into their needs, map out a plan for 12 weeks. And if we're ready to go, we hit the ground running. Good, I like that. And how important is that call with the parent? So important. Meaning, how important is it to have the parent on the call or how important is the call in general? Yeah, so the call in general, because a lot of coaches that we work with at the beginning, what they do is they communicate everything through text message, because they're scared to jump on a call and speak to a parent. So tell us how important is it actually to physically speak with the parent over the phone? Absolutely imperative. Like, number one, again, you have to understand that you can help them. So if you don't know who this person is, and if you don't talk to the athlete, and so my call is very much directed at the athlete. So I'm asking this 12 year old, okay, where are you? Obviously the parents are jumping in and helping, but understanding what their needs are and understanding how to get them to their goals is really important. Again, I think back to my younger days, where I did just have a quick call with the parents like, sure, you can jump on in and join a session here and there. It's not much risk. But now if I have a very involved 12 week mentorship, I need to understand who they are. I need to understand what they need. I need to understand that we can help them. So from like a fulfillment side of things, like are you being, are you giving value? That's super important. But then also from like the sales side of things, they need to understand who you are and what you can do. Even hearing someone's voice brings resistance down. So now they know that this person behind all these words. And so I think just being on a call and talking to them and being personable is going to help both you and them. And asking good questions, correct? You have to ask the right questions. Yeah, yeah, awesome. I love that. So Laura, tell us where do you see your business in the next five years? That's something that I don't know exactly, but I would like to keep scaling the one-on-one mentorship, which we have. I would really like to get into coaching coaches as well. So that's something that I'm kind of working on a little bit. So whether that's with like a club or with a major school, but being able to essentially give them my program that I'm doing with my athlete. And I don't expect them to be me, you know, if they're soccer or basketball or baseball coaches or whatever, like they don't have to be sports performance specialists. But if they have a good program and have a base understanding of what we're doing, that's something that you can use with your team. So I would really like to get into more like helping coaches have a base understanding. It's going to be the same as like being in my one-on-one mentorship with me and the coaches, but it helps a team drastically just because, you know, you see a bunch of team sport coaches that are like, okay, we need to get ready for the season. Let's run a million miles and let's do a bunch of jumps and let's do some math. Like no, let's give them purpose. So I would like to like scale into that, which could also be a great way of feeding the one-on-one mentorship because I do love that we can help athletes one-on-one. So clubs and they all see our content all the time. Yeah. It would be nice to be able to like pull from there as well for anyone who's looking for more in depth. Awesome. Love that. Cool. So last question for you and this is a two-part question. Now the first one is what does failure mean to you? And the second part is how important is taking risks? What does failure mean to me? It's not fun, right? But I also see how it's really important. And every time that you're pressed in any way, like I think as business owners, there's all the net time like, wow, I just spent like $50,000 on my business and I have no money. And so that's a failure. But I know you feel me right now. Can I pay rent? Can I do whatever? You have to trust the process that you're doing the right things, but it feels awful. And so I think when you feel pressed, that's when you think creative and you've come up with solutions. Now that's an extreme example. But also sometimes you have to like, okay, maybe I spent, you know, 2000 on this thing and it didn't work. Okay, well I learned from there and that's where you have to think critically, what didn't work? What did work? What's the next thing that we have to try? So you need to be constantly evolving. Again, this is what you want, you know, like how far do you want to take? Do you want to have an okay business? Do you want to have a good business? Do you want to have a great business? What's your vision? So I think that this answer is going to change depending on what you want to do. But I think failure is important to be able to learn and go. I think most people would say that. I've also heard the opposite. I've heard some people say like, you don't have to fail. Like you can just win like, you know, I like failing to an extent. And then how important is it to take risk? You have to. Like you have to be willing to try something new. So if my goal is to like, okay, well, I need to double what I'm doing. I need to try something different. If I've never done that, we need to do something different. So instead of you do something different, that's a risk. Now a risk doesn't have to be a $50,000 risk. It could be a time risk. It could be a comfort risk. It could be a financial risk. It could be a whatever risk. But like, if you want to do something you've never done before, you have to risk. Absolutely. Love those answers. Perfect. All right. Well, Laura, thank you for taking the time out to jump on and share your story. Talk to us about your business. If there is any coach out there that wants to get in contact with you, or wants to follow you, what's the best way to do that? Social media, probably. So Instagram is stark.strong.performance. Stark, S-T-A-R-K. On Facebook, we have Stark Strong Performance. Also Laura Stark. Website, starkstrongperformance.com. There's plenty of links there. Email Laura at Stark Strong Performance. Okay, awesome. Perfect. And what we'll do, we'll add that to the bottom of the video so people can reach out to you. So yeah, thank you again, Laura. And hopefully looking forward to catching up again with you in the near future. Thank you. I appreciate it.