 Hey, what's up coaches? Welcome back to the YouTube channel now in today's interview coach Leo had the opportunity to speak with Tom Owens. Tom is a monster in the soccer training industry He's based in the UK and there is so much to learn in this interview The thing I want you to do after you get done watching this is go watch what he does on social media He has one of the most like Captivating social media pages. I've ever seen he's on Instagram He has a big following there and what they do on there is very different than what most coaches are doing So go check out what he does after you watch this interview. You'll learn how he got started How he's grown his business. I think you'll leave this interview really inspired This guy like I said, it's a monster in the space very good coach very high quality and I think you're gonna learn a lot from this interview. So sit back enjoy the interview and I'm looking forward to seeing your feedback from this one I was a Playing a Preston orphan here in England until 18 and then went out to America on a scholarship So spent five years in Ohio two years in Illinois Get me masters degree and as I was out there that my priority was always to be a professional footballer Everything and everything that I wanted from the game of football was a professional contract. I didn't want anything else I just wanted the professional contract and that was it But what I would say in doubt is that you know what I actually got from the game of football was way more than just the professional contract now that I fast forward and kind of Reflect on what the game of football has done for me. And so while I was out in America I was playing and then I was you know, I was trying to go pro at some usl clubs So I was at like six usl teams and for one reason or another They didn't pursue a contract for me. It didn't work out So, you know very quickly over that period of thought to figure out, you know I might need to do something else other than Kicking the ball around the pitch. I might need to provide value in other ways and I'd always been I've always been the captain of every team I played for so I was always I always sort of took it upon myself to Place myself in a leadership position in all of the groups and teams that I was a part of So I knew I guess I didn't know in the early years, but I guess when I was coming to the end I sort of knew that coaching would have been Would have been in alignment with my values in alignment with some of my skill sets that I already had from the game of football whether to be Taking responsibility leadership communicate and get along with different people and being in the changing room and you know having different personalities and and I really I was always curious and I always You know sometimes as you're playing you kind of get you see players who gravitate towards it in groups and stuff And I always I always seem to want to go and sit with everybody And I wanted to try and connect with everyone even though some people were different And you know what it's like in a football changing room Everyone's they've got different personalities different interests But a common goal of trying to win and I always found myself connecting with everybody no matter You know what they were interested in what they would do and I was always curious curious in that sense And the same when I was in school You know even early years of being in school I always whether it be people who were into tennis people who are really studious people who were into football I always felt like people in my year No matter who they were I was always curious to get to know them to chat with them to connect with them And I think that was a good alignment in terms of the skills that you need to be a good football coach From there I Took me me visa was running out so to stay in America. I would have had to Get another student visa so I pursued me master's degree in Illinois And that's when me coaching journey started. I was the assistant coach at Quincy University And that's when I really got my teeth stuck into coaching Awesome, awesome. So so tell us a bit about your your current business then what does your company specializing? And so I'd say we specialize in confidence and mindset and teaching it through online courses and through Football training. I think something that was what we has always been unique I believe in in in the sense of when I when I look at what the way that we do and then you know There's obviously hundreds of private training coaching companies nowadays. They weren't that many when I started six years ago But now they seem to be one on every corner, which is a good thing because there's options and to make sure it's in, you know, the Getting that type of individualized personalized working is so vital, which is why it's got so big I feel like and it's why it's the other growth and it's really accelerated over the last five six years But I think so and that's quite unique to us is is our level of intensity and emphasis on Confidence and mindset through everything that we do on the pitch. So I think that blend of Mindset football training details intensity energy sort of that combination. I think is is what makes us unique Awesome. Awesome. So What what let me take you back to the beginning when you first started your your training business then what was your biggest obstacle? when you started And Mean there's loads there's lots of obstacles when you just start and nobody knew who I was so that was an obstacle Especially, you know, particularly for myself. I had a lot of self-doubt. It was actually me or the brother who forced me to start pretty much And he was basically because I've done coaching in it in so when I was at Quinty University And I was the assistant coach because I was already coaching the guys there I was staying behind after trainer sessions and I was saying to the guys listen if you want to do some extra work Like I'll do some so sometimes one guy would stay maybe some Sundays three or four guys would stay and I then have done some sort of small group specific positions specific stuff for them and Because I see when I was in America I seen that the basketball for American football for baseball individualized training was like Was the norm? It was a normal thing to do It was a standard procedure and it was never like that for football So so so when I was in America, I thought why why is it? Why do the why is it such a common thing? And it's it's so normal just to get individualized training for baseball basketball American football But in football or in soccer in America, it wasn't normal thing So I thought I'll just start off and it's the guys who are more of the coaching So I started staying behind doing a lot of coaching and I loved it really enjoyed it So when I come home, I was still trying to play professional football But I was also because I didn't have any money. I was working in a factory So I was working from 7 p.m. To 7 a.m. in a factory. I don't know if you're familiar with the ok magazine Are you familiar with the ok magazine? Yeah, yeah, so I don't read it, but I was the one who was organizing it So basically I was picking the magazines up from here putting them here and I was doing that for 12 hours in a factory So I was miserable and I was wondering what value I could provide I'd just gone from being on a high in America of being the captain of every team close to being a professional footballer in the USL And I'd won the PDL. I think it's called something different nowadays But I won the PDL championship, national championship in the summer three times in four years And so I was just coming from a high then all of a sudden in a factory on minimum wage Like surrounded by people who are probably still there right now And I was in a bad place. So in my older brother was like, listen, what else are you going to do? Like you need to do something. So he really I was just and I had a lot of self-doubt around people Appearance in the UK won't pay for it. Who am I to train anybody? Why would someone going to believe in me? You know, I'm not a UEFA A coach. I haven't been in Liverpool for seven years or actually including me time away I pressed them that's probably nine years nine years away from Liverpool So I'm like, nobody knows me. Just all this self-doubt and all these Limit and beliefs that I was creating in my own mind. That's why it wasn't gonna work and and then eventually I got to a point of desperation because I wasn't in a good place in the factory for obvious reasons And so I just said, you know what? Me older brother was like, listen, you'll be great at it And I think, you know, because he knew the enthusiasm. He knew me passion for football He knew the communication skills and so he saw those things in me before I saw them in me And before anybody else saw them in me. So I'm forever grateful for him. And then from there I did my first session and then and then and then that was it So so that was an obstacle for me. It was like, nobody knows me I had to try, you know, I had to get myself out there into the scene of people who've got all the badges in the world Done all the courses in the world and then all of a sudden there's like, who's this new guy on the block? There's Tom Owens. Why should we go to him? Why should we believe in him? So that was an obstacle and I mean, I could go on for two hours talking to you about obstacles. I mean, there's even today there's I could name 10 obstacles that I've got today. They're never going to end, you know But the challenge is just to make sure that the problems that you've got My problems are getting juicier and they're getting bigger and as long as the As long as my problems are getting bigger, then I know that I'm growing and all that I'm in good shape That's awesome. So let me keep you back to the beginning when you first started So how did you get your first client and how many are you currently working with at the moment? So I sent a tweet out on Twitter just saying I'm doing private training sessions And my older brother's friend Neil, he got in touch. He had a son called Leighton And basically it was just like Tom will want to do it. So once he responded on Twitter and said Yeah, I'm going to get Leighton in for some sessions. And I think at that time I was charging like £5 an hour or because it wasn't about the money at that point. It was more about the obstacle Of obscurity. Like nobody knew who I was. So I needed to increase the exposure. I just needed to Get out there and transact with the world. So yeah, Neil was my first client. It was through Twitter I think he spoke to Lee, my older brother and just said this and I've just seen that your Tom has put a tweet out and he's doing coaching. Can you give me his number? And so I went in, I was in the back of a church. There was a local church by my house. I had like a 10 by 10 space. I had about four cones and about three footballs. And that was me for a couple of weeks. So I just, you know, I gave him a blast and saved him as Best as I could so that he would go away and talk to other people. He'd put it on his Twitter page And on his Instagram page and somebody else would get in touch and then I would save the Hell out of them and coach the Hell out of them as best as I can and provide as much Value as possible. And then they went and spoke to somebody else. They put it on their social media page and then, you know, and then it was from me. That's awesome. So how many are you currently working with at the moment in your business? How many clients do you have? So we've got memberships. So we've got about 75 clients who are on memberships who are in a subscription base for our training model. So those players are getting weekly sessions, they're getting development sessions, they're getting discounts off of camps. We're going out and doing match analysis. We're doing video breakdowns, video analysis. So we have basically a package that is anything and everything that a human being needs to become a better footballer and a better person. We've got it in a package and it's quite a new thing. You've only been doing that for about three or four months. So we've got about 75 people who are on those regular memberships every single month. And then on top of that, there's probably another 50 to 100 players that are coming out and training with us, just buying single sessions, joining our group sessions as and when they can. So yeah, so we're probably looking at about 200 players a month. Awesome, awesome. So what is your current sales and marketing process then? How do you guys promote and sell your business? Content, content. We've got a social media person, he names Megan, needs to give Megan a shout out. She's actually here right now with me, but needs to give Megan a shout out. Megan's, the camera's always rolling. Megan basically values the social media so much. And before Megan came, we were doing little bits as much as we can, but Megan's been with us now for three years and ever since she came, she was like, you know, we need to, I think she was like, this product is amazing and what is going on here is amazing, but we need to share it with the world and we need to post as much as we can. So yeah, I know even today, Megan's always given me a hard time because she's like, we need to post more, we need to post more, we need to post more. But content really, ever since Megan joined us three, four years ago, you know, the amount of inquiries we get through social media is just skyrocketed, because all we do is just, we just post all day long and we share as much as we can. We've tried to pull the curtains back and let people see what's happening behind the scenes and how we think and how we do our processes for session planning, for delivery of the sessions. So yeah, I mean, our sales and marketing processes pretty much post as much as we can and provide as much value as we can, connect as much as we can with our followers, which we definitely do a better job of still. From there, you know, providing value and making content that is actually helpful and is actually helping people, you know, that sort of inspires people to get in touch with us and then all of a sudden they're coming out and training with us and becoming clients. Fantastic, fantastic. So where do you see private training going in the UK in the next two to five years then? It's definitely grown really fast. I think I can see it being an integral part of academies. I can see it being integral part of it and I think it's already happened and I think some clubs already have this but I feel like academies and clubs are actually going to have a specific departments for private training because obviously, you know, a lot of academy players are going elsewhere to get their training and we've got a lot of academy players ourselves but I'm sure in the academies, I'm sure the academies want to control the developments that their players that they've got. So I'm sure I wouldn't be surprised if in the next few years they've got departments where they are purely hiring for experts and people who specialize in private training and in that isolated individualized football experience and I feel like they're going to have departments dedicated to making that level of commitment to players and families. So I wouldn't be surprised if that starts to happen and then, you know, even first team environments, you know, we've got a lot of first team players coming to myself. I also see on social media a lot of Premier League players and pros going to other places to train. So I'm sure first team managers are going to want to do all that stuff in-house so I wouldn't be surprised if also in a first team environment there's a specialized one-on-one small group expert trainer where the players have access to that level of work if they want to. Awesome, awesome. So what would you say then because you've been in business for a while now, so what would you say to any British trainer coach who's either watching this or listening to it and they want to start a business but they have that fear of starting? What would you say? What would be one piece of valuable advice you'd give them? Well, when I started I didn't have any belief in myself so I think the first thing is is that, you know, don't worry about your lack of belief, you know, you just need to kind of get around someone. So for me I was fortunate that it was my older brother and my older brother believed in me so much that I just went off of his belief and I almost, I just tried to ignore the fact that I had a lot of limiting beliefs going on in my own head and I didn't have lots of self-belief myself and I just went off of his belief and it's proven to work out so far for me and I think what I would say to somebody who's sat there right now and is maybe looking at my page or my work or my stuff or listening to this interview is waiting to pull the trigger, I would just tell them to, you know, it's as long as you're willing to provide value, real value and you're actually genuinely, you know, deep down in the recesses of your heart really want to make the world better, make footballers better, actually light a fire underneath people to make them better human beings and better footballers, you know, if you've got that deep feeling in your heart then, you know, it's inevitable that things are going to work out so I would disregard any sorts of self-negative talk that you've got or lack of self-belief that you've got and just go off of my belief because, you know, if you're listening to me and you need to hear it from me then I believe in you and I believe that you can, because we need lots of people doing what I'm doing I think and there's lots of people doing it which is great but, you know, I can't train eight billion people and there's eight billion people on the planet so there's lots of people who need training, there's lots of young people out there who need the mentorship, they need the guidance, they need the help, mental health is obviously intensified over the last few years so people need, if there's ever a time where people need role models and people need guidance and strong solid mentors in their life, the time is now so I would say to someone sitting there right now that, you know, people need you, you are needed in the world so step up and as long as it's your passion and the reason why I'm emphasizing the heart and the passion stuff and the desire is because it's tough, it's bloody hard and it takes a lot of hours and sometimes, you know, you're up in the middle of the night trying to figure things out there's plenty of excuses and reasons why that I could have used to quit a long time ago so the days are tough, the days are long especially when you're trying to grow it and it's intense and it gets hard and I think if you're really not, if you haven't got a deep level of commitment to making, to providing value and you haven't got a deep mission and purpose to really get out there in the world every single day and roll your sleeves up and get after it then, you know, I think you'll be swallowed up by the intensity of the job because it requires a lot of hours and it requires a lot of work but it's all worth it if you're in it for the right reasons. 100%, couldn't agree more, love it. You've even inspired me. It's all good stuff. I was inspired, Jeremy, even when I'm talking now I'm thinking, you know, the work that you guys are doing, you guys are trying to spread more people to do this stuff and encourage more people to do it so we are needed in the world, you know, people need us. 100%, perfect. So last question for you then, Tom, where do you see Tom Owens UK in the next five years from now then? Everywhere, hopefully. Tom Owens worldwide. Yeah, I want to help as many people as I can, you know, but in the same breath, I want to make sure that the infrastructure is there so we can actually help and we can maintain the help and so, you know, I want right now I'm at the mercy of public facilities, which I'm sure everybody listening can probably relate unless there's, you know, I'm sure there's some fortunate people out there who are doing what, who are in the industry who've got their own facility. I'm jealous if the people are listening in and you've got your own site, I'm jealous of you, but also celebrating you because I know that you were the bandit, but that's what I, that's the next level for me is to have my own site, my own facility where people are walking in and it's through the Tom Owens UK gates and you're coming in and it's our own facility that we can do whatever we want, whenever we want to do it, at our own site. Right now there's limitations with us using other people's sites and just being a tenant in public facilities which is okay because you've got to start somewhere and that's where, you know, that's where probably 100% of private trainers have all started once upon a time is renting public facilities because, you know, unless you're born into a family that have got millions and millions of pounds then, you know, you can't really haven't got that funding up front. So then in the next five years I would like a facility in the north of the UK to start with. That's where the base is at the moment and then from there may be a facility in the south and we've got a lot of demand for our services in the south, you know, we're your base at the moment in London so I've made a couple of trips to London and there's a lot of exciting stuff down there and there's a big demand for the work that we're doing so maybe a facility in the south as well and then maybe we start exploring other realms and other corners of the planning. That's awesome, I love it. And just one more for you then because I know a lot of coaches we work with in our program, they want that goal of their own facility so if they're watching or listening the question for you is what does your company need in order to achieve that? I think something that's been big for me is the, you know, up until three months ago I mentioned the memberships earlier on in one of the questions that you asked me and, you know, sort of for me up until three months ago the memberships it was more of a guessing game and same as a financially because even though the things that we're talking about in this interview it's a lot of it's desire to help and it's providing value into people but at the end of the day it's also you've got to be paid for it too and otherwise, you know, you could, if you're not getting paid for it and you're not getting paid whatever you think your waif is then you can't go and hire coaches and you can't get the best coaches, you can't get the best equipment, you know, you're one day you won't be able to get the best facility so I think for me it's something that I've tried to tap into over the last, last probably 18 months is me knowing my waif, you know, and really believing that my product is waif a certain amount so, you know, in the UK in terms of the rates and what we charge, you know, yeah, you could go get a private session down the road for 50% cheaper but you just wouldn't get us and you wouldn't get our experience and I haven't gone and watched other people's experience so this isn't me giving, you know, talking down on anybody else's setup because I have no idea, I've never been into anybody else's setup but what I do know is that in terms of the waif that we do, it's waif a certain amount and I believe in the value of what we provide and so, you know, actually standing by that and charging a certain amount and being like, you know what, yeah, maybe that maybe there are premium rates but also you're getting a premium experience because we're going to make these, you know, we're going to make A, B and C commitments but we're actually going to follow through in a big way and we're going to go above and beyond these commitments and so that was hard for me at the start because I was worried about like, do I increase my prices, do I do this and do I do that and but I really had to tap into like, you know what, like, you know, we are waifing and the amount of time and energy and sacrifices and the commitment that we have made to get to where we are today, I believe that we deserve to be paid for it for the value that we put into the world and I believe that we provide that value and more to anybody that also makes the commitment to us so I think standing by your value, knowing what your value is, standing by it strong and then at the end of the day, you know, because if you don't get paid for what you're doing, you're really, you're putting yourself in handcuffs really and then in the same breath you've also got to get, you've also got to build the brand too so, you know, anyone who's listened to this and you've only been going for a while and maybe not that many people know about you that don't go and up your prices by 100% after this interview because that's not smart either, you know, so there's two games going on, there's like, you need to prove yourself, you need to get the reps in, you need to actually validate what you can offer and show to the world, prove to the world the value you can provide and then once you've done that and that phase might require you to be at a lower price, but once you're out of that phase and you're like, right, okay, I believe we've proven ourselves and I believe we've actually leveled up and are offering is next level, then, you know, prices have kind of got to follow. Perfect, perfect. Well, Tom, thank you so much for taking your time out to come on here, share your story, share your journey. So if any trainer watching this, because I know there's going to be loads that are inspired by you, they want to follow you or get in contact with you, what is the best way to do that then? Tom Owens UK, so Tom Owens UK is the Instagram, that's our main platform, we have a posting all the time, if anyone's on Facebook, Tom Owens UK on Facebook and then from there Tom Owens UK.com, if anyone wants to check out our services, if anyone, you know, there's contact pages in there, you know, we've got a lot of offerings from the Mindset Academy work where we're, you know, we're instilling that confidence in Mindset through our courses for young people. We're doing a lot of one-on-one performance, Mindset mentoring at the moment, a lot of Mindset culture on a one-on-one basis via Zoom, so no matter where anybody is in the world, that service is available to them, so if you want to tap into any of that stuff, then I would love to hear from them and I would love to play a role in their development or their child's development. Perfect, perfect. All right, awesome. Thank you so much Tom again and look forward to connecting with you in the near future. Good night. Thanks a lot guys, appreciate it. Take care.