 years ago actually I was in college and I was already getting my degree in exercise sport science and it was my last year 2011 and you know I was kind of sitting there what do I want to do with this a lot a lot of other people were going off the physical therapy school nursing school that kind of stuff cardiac rehab I hadn't really quite decided and then I saw it was actually on ESPN sports science they're kind of talking about different training styles and the science and philosophies of based on the type of kids they get for University of Oregon versus Auburn football because they were the teams playing the national title that year with Cam Newton so that kind of I loved working out love sports and I was like oh cool you know like maybe I'll go into athlete training but still not really knowing what I was going to do because the first main thing you think of especially that segment is coaching for a college or a protein so started looking at that that's what I decided to do I had an internship left over to do spring 2012 after I graduated and I was able to meet my mentor Sean Dassey and he had already done division one strength coaching pride performance in California and he had actually relocated into my area of Texas and so I began to do my internship under him and I mean that was 10 years ago and he's still he's still a mentor to me this day we actually live in the same city still still talk back and forth so we kind of work together for a little bit and then we went our own directions and then the corporate gym goals Jim didn't work out for me working for somebody else I decided once I left there to go on my own and you know I've been doing independently under my own name so performance training for seven years now good awesome so for those for those watching you do you specialize more in in sports performance correct right yeah I mean in a nutshell get stronger build muscle you know uh speed vertical agility all that stuff that um away from the sports skills basically okay cool so tell us a bit about your business then uh so uh like I said it's been seven years since I started it uh been on my own uh I'm in San Antonio Texas uh mostly what I do is uh one-on-two training and so uh since I get mostly volleyball and football players then it's pretty easy to pair them up uh you know they bring teammates siblings and everything like that uh right now I rent out of a gym um here in San Antonio and I share space and so uh but outside of the training I also handle nutrition because I'm all about the total uh you know human body performance uh not just the physical in the gym so I handle uh nutrition anything from simple guidelines to you know not eating as much fries and candy to um yeah to you know game day snacks uh that kind of step through critical times of the year and then of course like a lot of coaches uh we know tapping more into the the mindset inside uh you know get the mind right and everything else will kind of follow usually yeah so how is it working with athletes from different sports them uh it's as far as how is it like how difficult is it because they're different sports or is it kind of different in terms of working like with a football athlete and a volleyball athlete uh it can be but to simplify it no matter what sport you uh train if you're in the performance side is you gotta think strength to strength powers power jumping higher getting faster is getting faster um so I I lay the foundation from a general athletic standpoint y'all don't have any sport right now um lay the foundation uh the way it would be uh if they went to college and their strength coach you know took a hold of them uh so everything is pretty simple in that way and I do like to uh train the same sports with each other if I can uh you know 99% will be that way and um and then as they go through the season uh less like you know club you know volleyball players they play club right over the fall and so I will have them in that major time of the club season for like you know seven to eight months and so then I might get a little bit more specific uh to uh their sport but a lot of that uh you know even then 90% of programs still gonna be the foundations of athletic performance what makes you a better athlete their coaches uh whether it's the ones they go to clinics for or their team coaches at school or in club they're the ones who are going to take care of the more technical side so mine is just to supplement that uh with my training okay cool so it's actually really simple but it can be seen pretty complicated uh you know break it down right so it when you when you do workouts with your athletes do you focus more on like specific movements within that sport um strength and conditioning or I mean the the strength side uh even with uh football players who are known to be just bigger and stronger than everybody else um I still keep it uh once again very foundational uh but obviously with volleyball compared to if I have an offensive lineman uh in football then the volleyball player will need a little bit of everything a little bit more agility a little bit more uh broad jump and sprints a little bit more vertical the offensive lineman he can still benefit from that but um it's definitely in a shorter space so then yeah then within all those there's degrees of change uh based on what they need but that's also why I continuously evaluate their agility test um their vertical uh their their sprint test uh during sessions cool cool sounds good so you've been in business for over five years now so tell us talk to us a little bit when you first started what what was your biggest obstacle you faced uh biggest obstacle um I will still like I said right now I rent out of facility and I wouldn't say the biggest obstacle uh in the you know in the grand scheme of things was the fact that I was training out of a football field plenty of people go to the field and train um the biggest obstacle is how do you get people to notice you if you're out of field versus a public gym that always has traffic so I had to figure out um who to talk to and that's your youth coaches of different sports uh other trainers you know like uh guys like Ben were doing soccer training another guy I know uh named Yale he does quarterback training getting to know other trainers who don't quite do what I do but we can supplement what each other do um to get noticed uh knowing how to use social media properly um a lot of my friends and family they all my social media they you know they didn't have kids in sports yet now it's totally different it's seven years later a lot more of them do uh to where I get my eye uh more eyes on me on my you know everyday friend list but uh back then I had to learn to find where that was instead of just trying to like you know DM and you know click uh friend requests on everybody so I so I found Facebook groups uh that actually solved a lot of the problems that put me um in front of a lot more people in my community so um but through that time uh learning how to get more uh money up front which something you know we talk about in this program um so there's it always starts off sessions okay that's what the first thing we're ever taught is sessions so in the beginning I was getting people who were just kind of dropping in money okay there's a risk to that um and then it's the next test would be uh either getting more per session or more sessions together and then uh you know learning later on uh getting more of a monthly amount and then they kind of come up to a certain amount per month so everything kind of progressed that way um and in Texas I would say the biggest obstacle you can't control is uh the heat yes yeah we had over uh I think we had over 100 degrees starting like in April this year so that was pretty so luckily I was training inside yeah yeah yeah with with air conditioning I'm guessing no yes very awesome so at the moment in your program what's what's the minimum commitment a client is is making with you uh the minimum is um one time a week and I actually sell the most of those because uh once again I have volleyball players they have they go to they go to privates clinics for all their skills they play for schools so they have school demands they play for clubs they have those nights uh and uh weekend afternoons they have to go to they have siblings who are in sports and other curricular activities mom and dad have worked so uh the one time a week is like an extra credit tutoring uh you know level that ties in everything else I sell the most one time a week summertime they'll usually upgrade the two to three times a week though so I take advantage of that um you know usually May through mid-August I uh take advantage of them bumping up and upgrading um a lot of them will do um month to month and they'll they'll do that throughout the you know usually October or November through um you know mostly through mid-August I'll retain them and then there's those people recently um uh in the last year Ben taught me how to uh get more months up front you know the different the different ways to do that you know they save a little you get more up front it's secure it's in the bag and then you kind of move on to the next so I get a mixture of those you pay six months up front those who will still do month to month but they're still waiting for nine months yeah yeah so for for many coaches that are watching that aren't too familiar with say more the performance aspects of sport right because a lot of the trainers we work with are more skills development right and performance goes along like it's it's more than just skill and so for you what was what's like one or two um like problems your clients face when they come to you um well just like it's a common problem uh even when they hire a lot of other coaches like y'all who take care of the skill side is they played for a school mainly that um it's overcrowded they don't get enough reps the camps they might have gone to not enough reps they don't have control over the the itinerary at club practices to get more reps more one on one attention uh at times and so for me um they say okay I need more uh help getting faster and you could be like well you just got to go to track practice and everything like that you got to play faster but there might be something technical they need uh just to learn okay once again just the fact that they get in front of somebody you can make it more personalized and biggest attention that's what they usually get the advantage of so running faster uh they're in the weight room but sometimes you don't always get the the best attention or most attention in the weight room either uh and if you do you uh need to learn how to do it without um you know depleting yourself for all your other hours in a week with uh you know from us you know skills training club practices and all that so that's the biggest problem is learn how to work hard and smart basically yeah yeah yeah so in terms of like the nutrition side this is something that that interests me as well right how do you as as a coach keep your clients accountable to the nutrition first every time they come in I'm always going to ask what they've been having for lunch and dinner that week that's a very uh very simple easy going conversation um you know a lot of them know that they they don't always have the best options at schools sometimes they have very good options and so um so a nutrition I'm always quizzing them when they come in whatever they looks like I do have group text with parents they send photos of what snacks they're doing in between school practices and training they always ask me questions on what they can do especially when you're out of time crunch going from point A to point B all the time yeah um so that's uh that's the most basics of that um not keeping them accountable is just always asking questions like what have you been doing uh keeping an open door for the parents ask him how it's going um and then you know when they bring the problems up of why accountability is hard then you know then you try to once again like we always do create solutions for that all right yeah like that so where do you see the sports performance industry going in the in the next two to five years it's going right up with the rest of the youth sports industry it's uh it we're we're um I don't know if this ties into a next question or not uh but initially when I read the questions I said it's probably gonna double you know in the next three to five years and that was just a very honest answer but then I decided why haven't googled this in a while let me look up where youth sports is going and I know in the United States it said in 2010 2017 um it went up 55 to like 19 billion dollar youth sports industry that's just playing sports um and so automatically with y'all who do baseball basketball uh sports performance and all that on the side we piggyback with that okay that's not even including us I think um and so I was like okay we're gonna double that but I kept reading uh some research that even even though there was a slight dip in 2021 during COVID with some uncertainties in different areas of the world um in the United States that they still project based on research groups that and by 2026 it'll hit about 70 billion dollars in the United States so so sports performance is just gonna go right up for that that's like I don't I don't have an exact number but I know if that's going up and with my experience it's just gonna happen yeah yeah no I completely agree like every single day every single week you see more and more coaches entering this this industry this niche and 100% like for example I'm I'm in the UK and and I'd say we are we're about five years behind the US in terms of like private training okay um but once we've caught up in terms of private training I can definitely see a lot more parents investing into the the stuff that you do with the performance aspect and now with a lot of kids being um well on their tablets a lot sitting down for a lot of most of the week I can see a lot more parents now maybe looking at other alternatives options to get their kids more active more stronger and not just the physical side right the mental side as well right something you touched on so 100% agree with you I think it's definitely gonna continue to grow and hopefully the UK will we'll at some point catch up so perfect so you've you've been working with Ben so talk to us a little bit about how your business has changed since since you started working with Ben yeah uh so even so I was uh when I first met Ben I was slowly getting smarter while after a year in the gym my name had already built up so getting people in the door um because of some momentum the first two years athletes did really well parents uh loved my training that wasn't as hard um getting smarter and how I took payments so to where I'm not just like chasing after checks and credit cards um not having to do as much accounting work um that's where Ben came in handy uh so it was okay here's uh session packages and then it was okay here's at least getting automatic payments every two weeks four weeks that kind of stuff is what he did and so so so a lot of times I would sell um okay here's a package for one time a week but you know he told me a lot of the words is don't say sessions you do a whole monthly program at least it's monthly training you give homework you give nutrition advice uh an accountability service sell it as monthly coaching they're paying for uh at least month to month you just so happen to get one time a week or two times a week okay so you kind of flip the words and the model around a little bit so that was a big changer right there getting things once again automatically charging no matter how often you get them charged getting automatically charged to where you don't have to remind about checkbooks cash credit cards everything's a lot more organized and once it's automatic it's more organized going straight to your bank you don't have to worry about it the only thing you worry about is a few card declines but people's cards stay pretty active every three to four years so that's not a huge issue right there um so that's been the biggest thing is once you're not worried about you know working with them once you're not worried about people always having the money at the right time to repay you every time then you can focus on training smarter improving coaching services outside the sessions um marketing to take on more people okay so you you can just go back to what you love doing you don't have to you know be a money chaser anymore and then people stay committed longer because one less thing to worry about yes yes completely agree so tell us a little bit so what what's been your best month since working since working with Ben and being part of our program now you don't have to say financially what was the best month but in terms of like adding clients and your your business growing um so the first couple years working with Ben there was always uh my goal was to you're always going to have some kind of slow month my goal was to never have as slow as the other uh yeah like you know the year before so always try to grow percentage even if it's gonna be slower it's not as slow so um summers we're getting busier and then i would say this past year um a lot of things i did on my end and then you know luckily other things that other trades my area weren't doing correctly benefited me that i would say this whole entire year has just been really awesome it went from usually beginning of the year uh you know i got like 20 uh 20 sessions one or two kids per session i was hitting like 40 hours a week a lot faster than before and so when i went into the summer it was uh i had you know 80 percent of the kids that i needed already to be ready for the summer and then it was just a matter of can i fit more kids in where can i fit them in and and next thing you know in the summertime when i'm already busy um i was hitting like even with two kids per hour maxed out my gym i was hitting 55 hours and four and a half days wow so and and my problem before with when i worked with ben was i was only selling one-on-one and i got so busy and i was like man i'm doing the same football players the same volleyball players like i don't need one-on-one attention i can cut that price down a little bit still make my money still get all the kids in that i want all the traffic coming in and i remember after i took his first time taking his advice i went from 55 hours a week uh one mostly one-on-one to the next year i made the same amount of money but that summer it was only um that summer i only did uh 35 hours a week but i was making the same amount of money so it was awesome i more free time more energy more enjoyment uh but now i've hit a ceiling where um i'm doing everything i'm supposed to i just have a lot more demand so this whole year has been like you know a flood gate mm-hmm so you made a great point so a lot of coaches think that in order to make more money they they need to work more so how you were doing 55 sessions per week and then you went to 35 but you were making the same amount of money doing this hours how how does that happen so any coach watching or listening tell us how does that happen um so i mean you get two kids per hour and if those two kids add it up exceed how much your one-on-one was trained before then um you know you you make more per hour and you have one more kid than usual and so um you don't always have two kids per session but um when you get busy enough you will um you'll force it into that way when you have control of your business like uh that you have been had taught us so uh you know everybody has their own balance uh some of y'all uh some of y'all's coaches have you know groups of six to eight but they've realized that same balance you know they can make two to three hundred dollars a day uh doing that at least versus trying to get more one-on-one clients and then the retention's a loss a lot bigger when we find that healthy balanced everyone correct yeah yeah agree so tell us a bit about your your current sales process then how do you sell and market your business where are your clients coming from uh so a lot of uh once again word of mouth from current parents and athletes that i have uh i've been getting closer to a lot of their uh you know the volleyball coaches are club coaches uh football coaches for my other guys at school uh some of them i grew up some of their coaches i grew up with and have known for years so i get a lot of uh word of mouth referrals between that you know very organic and then like i said i stumbled on to some uh community uh facebook pages and and one that worked really out for me was just for uh the one that i used for years where the was all at use for it but it was mainly football dads and parents in there overall uh this other one was purely just uh and it helped me a lot this year was just volleyball parents in my city okay and they are very good about uh they're like actually the best networking at if you want to sell volleyball skills they will tag you 10 times in a row like they're that good at referral networking tagging trainers um so i found a lot on there uh and then some people will find through the website also um i will get i will get people who are always google search and i guess i've been searched enough to where it's kind of popped up enough um on there and so usually depending on how they find me some will message me through social media some will email me depending on where they found me and so what ben has always taught us and i've done i've mastered a lot more is always pushed to get their phone number email and find a day and time to call uh if you just message them you respond right away hey this is my prices that's it it's a 50 50 chance so get them on a call uh sometimes you know get them on a call or get them in person meeting so that's so that's my process um and then you know working with ben getting more structured with your uh your interview questions with them um get to know the parents name the kids name what club they play for positions uh schools they attend or will attend their needs um relating it to other kids that you train and their problems and how you solved it and just showing you understand all that and this is how your program can solve it but also showing understanding that hey your kid is a little different here's what we'll look into to changing things up that way no matter if you train one on one one on two one on eight they always feel like it's it can be personalized to them yeah no uh that's the thing and then uh you know from there it's like uh you've been have taught for over the years is that alone will help you uh send them a link and then sell on the phone basically correct correct yeah so are you currently doing this full time yes i've been doing it full time for seven years good good so for anyone watching how do you get into training or how do you turn this this business from part-time to a full-time business what what do you need because it's not just about business right you've got to be also disciplined in your personal life right so talk to us a little bit how how do you go about starting it maybe as a hobby turn it into a part-time thing and then go and fill in and doing it for a living yeah i mean i would say even if your goal is to let's say you have an eight to five job and you just want to do it for an hour a day after you get out of your main job and you love it maybe one day you want to get into a full time i would say even if you're only going to do 10 sessions a week to start off part-time or you want to jump into 40 like you said you got to make your your lifestyle has to be a certain way um that's being more serious uh with everything uh the the seriousness that you would want your athletes to have you need to have also um taking care of everything else in life um outside so that way it doesn't interfere always looking to be more than on time being a great communicator um you know throughout the schedule each week is big um even if it's a hobby if you want to be taking it seriously like it may be 10 hours a week then you have to train serious you have to pretend like you know you're gonna do this to be the number one person in your area okay don't don't treat it like uh it's extra money you know let's kind of goof off and everything and you know i hope they like me and everything like go in it like you're gonna make this your full-time income tomorrow okay me my goal was always to make training my full-time income i just had to get better at sales uh and then i started taking more advantage of my free time every time i go to the gym the last five of seven years i always bring my backpack uh note spiral a couple books to read but then also my laptop i'm always there's always something you can do on your free time uh it revolves around uh talking to clients finding uh finding more clients uh improving your uh your training program and everything like that you have to improve every other area getting serious you can't just even if it is a hobby you don't want to treat like a hobby or it's going to end like most hobbies very soon yeah i like that one that's good so how how do you how do you balance like work and life um you know or is there no balance no there's a balance but it looks different uh person to person and it's gonna look different uh over the year um you know summertime uh kids are not in school you're gonna be working a lot more if you want to and uh and so you know for one thing go back to communication if you have a significant other and other family members that you have shared life with communicating how things will look in the busiest times how you project them based on the amount of calls the emails you get the better you do that the better y'all can solve as a unit um so and then you gotta establish what hours you want to work in person with athletes what hours you do or you don't want to take phone calls responding emails uh that's uh that's the hardest part for all of us is getting off our phone and responding because in the beginning we're we're very ambitious but we also feel like if i don't respond to this person right now 10 p.m on a friday i will not make the sale yes that's not always true that's not always true like they're sometimes they do that 10 p.m on a friday because they're bored i agree yeah so it takes just like with athletes getting better it takes practice it takes reps to slowly change one thing at a time uh so don't try to rush into it and make sure it's perfect because it won't be perfect but do try to put on a slow gradual efforts and everything do communicate with everybody in your life on how things are going what you foresee um you know if you have kids uh it'll be a problem that i have later on is how will we manage uh who takes the kids to school or daycare who picks them up who takes them to their sports that's probably my biggest nightmare later on it's a problem that i'm going to enjoy having is who's going to be taking my kids to sports if i give them like you know why be ready to step back some days to take them there um you know all that stuff um because i will have to tap into my kids the same way parents tap into theirs i can't be saying well no like you're going to figure that out i i want to be at their games but i at least want to be at one practice a week you know i do want to i do want to be able to go and just be dead so yeah i agree and a lot of that i would say um if you know trainers in your area that have mastered it have an honest conversation with them and they will open up about it for like several hours talk to the parents of the kids you train because they are doing it right now mm-hmm like they are they're doing it right now every single day and if you want to learn from somebody learn from those who are already doing it and understand you and they have the same goals and intentions that you do yeah yeah i can't agree more so jim tell us where where do you see your your business in the next five years from now uh so right now i am going to be uh i'm in the process with this partner actually looking to open up my own uh training studio in 2023 so by doing that uh my one on two where most kids are doing one time a week or sometimes two times a week uh three in the summers uh you know for that short time uh we will keep prices around the same but because it's a group and we have more eyes and we can deliver a uh a better experience with more kids at once um the prices will be the same but uh we'll be offering to where they can come in automatically three to four times a week in a group yeah and so um so that's my thing uh the amount an athlete pays will be about the same give or take but they have the chance to come in more times in a month that opens up so that is going to be great uh still deliver personalized attention and care uh that's gonna be the big focus while still being in a group and my business partner uh has awesome skills at that because he's worked at the collegiate level strength conditioning he's worked for a high school where he had to look over 100 football players but then there is the the school coaches who didn't know how to coach as well as him for the weight room and he had to make sure that they were doing a good job also so it's one of those things where if he can do that and i had the personalization skills we can build that together then you know one on 12 two on 15 or 20 is is a you know it's easy yes so so my thing is going to be moving into uh adding in those uh small groups to where um you know right now my ceiling um at the 55 hours and four and five days i was my ceiling was at two kids per hour however many hours i could allow myself to work now that ceiling's more open because even if i only get four kids per hour that's still double okay that's still double um everything is only increased we're not i'm not as fatigued um so there is you know it does become my own baby but the ceiling is higher because i could double every hour at minimum i can probably triple two of those hours after school and then the summertime we can run stuff even bigger and stronger so that's where i see uh the next three to five years and hopefully longer running that and tied into that will be a lot of stuff that ben has helped other coaches with with bigger camps whether that's something you want to do on a regular basis or just something to give back to like you know a three hour experience to everybody and you have other coaches kind of come in plenty of other guys like ben they do soccer they do football maybe i do my speed and agility thing and then they do a big a big camp on the side or those guys are already doing something and their athletes pay for just an extra 45 minutes on a saturday and uh that gets us the parents information to see what we're about we're going to talk to them while they work with other coach they know uh so that's probably where the next three to five years is just to be bigger and then you know hire some coaches underneath us good awesome all right jim well thank you for for coming on here sharing sharing your journey sharing your story with us and would love to to bring you on in 12 months from now see where you are and hopefully your business looks a lot different in a good way in 12 months from now yeah i'd love to come back awesome all right well thanks for coming on and look to connect with you in the near future all right thank you talk again see you