 Hey Coach, what's going on? My name is Ben Neighbors and in today's video I wanted to break down confidence and how this is going to be so essential for you when you start your soccer academy and I wanted to share my story because I think it's really important that everybody who watches these videos, I want you to know where I started and how hard it was for me at the beginning and how it's transitioned to now where I feel ultra confident talking to any parent, getting any player that I choose to end my academy but it wasn't always like that. So I'm going to take you back to 2009 and this is right when I graduated from college. I started my academy out of desperation. I knew that I wanted to help players privately. I didn't know at the beginning. I didn't know I was going to turn it into a business. I was doing this as, you know, I was doing it for fun. I would just like most people who start anything, they're doing it for fun because they like it and this is what I did at the beginning but the big problem I faced was the lack of confidence to talk to parents over the phone about my program. I didn't have a lot of self-confidence either about what I was offering and I know a lot of coaches who approach me via email if they're on my newsletter, if we're ever on the phone. This is a common problem that a lot of coaches had and I know for myself I faced this for at least two and a half years at the beginning and I had to do something that really broke me out of my shell and I was a very shy person. If you would have asked any of my friends around that year when I graduated they would have never thought that I would be in the position I am today where I'm doing videos. I'm helping coaches over the phone. A lot of what I do now is conversations with people to help them with what they do, help coaches with what they do and since 2009 my academy has helped over basically 3,500 kids and so you can imagine the amount of conversations I've had to have with parents over the last eight, nine years and so at the beginning though I really struggled talking to parents. I remember even sometimes we had a website set up parents would call me and I would avoid my phone because I didn't know what to say over the phone. I wasn't confident about when we were going to train, where we were going to train, how much my program was. I didn't have a clue about how to do any of that so my level of confidence was very low and if this is you, if you are struggling with your confidence that's okay. It's only going to grow depending on how much you try to get outside of your comfort zone and this is one simple exercise that I did that helped me a ton because I was I'm still kind of naturally a shy person but I knew that if I was going to stay in my little comfort zone if I wasn't going to talk to parents, talk to players about what I do then I wasn't going to get any attention with my academy and ultimately that would lead me out of business. So one simple exercise that I did that will help you if you are that type of person, if you need more confidence with starting your business is I would go out to the field every single Saturday and what I did was I would go watch the players who I trained but I would also talk to their parents. I would get to know the parents better. I would always make sure that their parents understand that I'm here to help and not only that but I would also go out talk to other parents. This is something that helped me become way more comfortable around other parents. I would also get other parents phone numbers where I could follow up with them, where I could call them. I was the one who was being proactive rather than being reactive and waiting for people to call me. I would be the one who would take charge and once I started doing this over and over again I literally put myself in front of thousands of parents in my town because I was willing to get outside of my comfort zone and start communicating better with parents. And if you think about it with your academy, with your business, everything really revolves around communication. If you have good communication skills with parents they're going to know, like and trust you better. If you are very shy over the phone, if you don't pick up your phone, if parents are unable to reach you via email, via cell phone because you are not willing to talk to them or maybe you're nervous, that's not going to attract anybody into your program. And I know this because I've already been through that and my goal helping trainers is for them never to have to go through what I did. And you could be the shyest person in the world just like how I was and still succeed with this if you're willing to get outside of your comfort zone. And I know for myself the better that I got at communicating, the more efficient I was when I was out the fields talking to multiple parents, getting people's phone numbers, following up with them, setting up days, setting up times to schedule phone calls and really put myself out there where I was forcing myself to get better talking with parents, the more successful I became. And I know right now, if someone called me, I would feel so comfortable and confident knowing that I could lead them through my detailed process on getting on the phone and ultimately getting into my program if I choose that that player is the right fit. So if this is something you need help with, I actually created a four week, it's called my four week accelerator program. This is where I help coaches get that confidence. I give them phone scripts exactly what to say exactly what questions I ask. And I have, I think around 30 to 35 different videos where I have tutorials on not just that, but how to grow your company, how to get more players, how to become the authority in your city or in your town or in your state. And the reason why I created this is because I want to help six coaches every single month go through that program. So by the end of the four weeks, they have all the tools necessary to run their academy at a very high level. So if you're interested in that, go in the link in the description. It's soccer entrepreneur.com slash coaching. You will click on that, go watch a short three minute video where I break down what's included. This is a program where I can help you one-on-one with your academy over the phone. And this is probably one of my highest level programs I can offer you based on where you're at right now. This way you can get my one-on-one help with your Soccer Academy and pretty much just copy and paste everything that I've already proven to do within my own academy. This way you don't have to worry anymore. You can follow something that's proven that's worked not only for myself, but for tons of other coaches now across the world. So go ahead, check that out. It's soccerentrepreneur.com slash coaching and I'll see you on that page.