He Wanted to Reach $20k/month (here's how he planned to do it)

You know, in the past, this happened to me all the time, I would just say, here's how much it is to commit to the program. And what they do is they bring out their mental calculator, and they're like, okay, well, that's $100 per session. Like this guy in CoachUp charges $15 per session. So, you know, if I want to save $85 per hour, I'm gonna go with this cheap guy. And it's easy to lose out clients to those other competitors, strictly based off the price. But, when I reworked what the actual value is for my program, that's when I started to realize, this has nothing to do with me, has nothing to do with soccer, has everything to do with the transformation that they're investing into. And when that started to happen, I started to raise my price, because I became more confident. And also, you know, a lesson that you probably learned a lot this year is like, it's okay if you talk to someone and they say no, you know, they're not the right fit. They're not the right fit. I love when people don't do it. I don't know, like, it's just like, feel like good. I don't want you to, like, I care more, even though I obviously I want to make money, but like, I don't want to deal with your ass. You know, I just, I don't want to deal with somebody like you, because you're going to show up late. We can't make it to, can we have a, can we do a makeup session? You know, all that. And it's like, I don't want to, I don't want to deal with you. You're very nonchalant, show up late. You know, I don't want to, I know, I already know who you are based on, because I'm not gonna, I'm gonna attract people. I want to attract people how I am, just like how when you told me, like, when I read, I always tell you, like how you said, you know, if you miss your, you missed the call, or something, I think, like, you don't get the, you don't get another one. Or you don't get like, when you said that, I was like, this, I like this guy. Because that's how that's how I look at things. But if you miss it, you messed up. All right, I let and that, that meant that made me want to work with you even more. Right? That's something else that I that I learned. And it doesn't scare people away. They're like, Oh, you're, you're an asshole. Good. You're right. I am an asshole. I'm not going to work with you. Right? Yeah. It what it does is it raises the accountability level of the clients that you work with. And yeah, it's funny, man. Like, when I show up to the sessions I have with kids, 10 out of 10 times, they're there early. They're stretching, they're warmed up. They have their journal. They, they look like they're in the military. Yes, sir. No, sir. Like that type of language. It's a complete difference than how it was when I first started my business. I remember, I don't think I've told you this, but there was these three really annoying girls I used to train. This is like back in 2010. Their mom had a had a it was I remember it was a white Range Rover. I remember everything about these kids. And I remember, I think it was at our second session. Of course, they were late. Of course, back then I was accepting cash. And the mom came and she like slapped two, I think it was two $20 bills on my hand. And you know, like, that was like half the amount that they owed me that day. And I remember I like I opened my hand, I looked at it. And I was like, I was like, Miss Jones is 40. This is $80. She's like, I'll give it to you next time. And I remember that day very clearly, because right after she left, the girls like didn't want to train. It was it was a hot day. And they're like, they're like, all we want to do is play duck duck goose. And I was like, we can play duck duck goose with you. And it shows you how soft I was. We ended up doing that bullcrap. And I remember, it was funny, because there was like, no one at the park. It was just me. But I was like, if anyone is watching this session, they're gonna think I'm a complete clown. It was you and the three girls. Yeah. And I remember the next session, of course, mom did not bring the money that she owed me. That happened for like six months. Constantly. And they, you know, they would, they would text me right before the session can't make it today, I would be out there getting like bit by mosquitoes. And it's funny, man, because like, that's how I used to be. Because I did not have a way of commanding, you know, clients who were committed. Now it's complete opposite. It's funny, because at the same field that I go to now to this day, I see coaches out there every single day, who are out there, they're waiting for their clients are looking at their watch. They're sitting there, some of them sitting there for hours. And their clients aren't showing up. And I look at that, I was like, dude, that was me. 1011 years ago, I freaking hated my business back then. And it's so funny, because now it's like, if I show up and all of my clients decided to not show up that day, I already got paid. I'm chilling. I'll just go home. I'm there for 15 minutes and no one's there. I'm driving home. Nothing to worry about. And I think this is really important for me to ask you, but like, when you think of clients that were annoying, how, how annoying was that for you to deal with those types of people? I would say, you know, during this process, because I'm sure there's still people that try to fight you on price, or they try to say, we're not going to make it on time or whatever. But like, I guess, before you start to tighten things up with your business, how difficult and annoying was that for you just as a business owner to deal with clients like that? Well, like, I mean, I didn't have a bit when I was doing things like that. And I was I was very sporadic with with training at the time, like, because I couldn't get anybody. I didn't know. I didn't know how I should I didn't have strategies. But I hated it. I hated because like, just like you said, I hate asking people for money. I hate it. Like if I if I owe somebody money, the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna hand you the money, like right away. And then people would get there. And I'm like, does the kid have the money? Do you have the money? Are you gonna pay me after? Are you here? One guy jipped me he jipped me out of $70. One time, I never said anything. Because I'm doing you know, you're dealing with the cash thing you have, I have no system set up. And I just, it's just so frustrating. It's just and now I get an email notification. So and so paid. They didn't show up. Like you said, Okay, oh, we could sorry, we couldn't make it. That's okay. I'll see you next session. Right? Didn't come again. That's okay. You're still you're still on. You're still on reoccurring. Right? Right. Yeah. And it's, it's funny, just like knowing how it's set up right now. Like how you have it. It's very professional. I've been through most of your payment pages, everyone signing the terms, everyone knows what's up before they sign. And if they don't, you can send them back to reflect on what they registered for. Oh, I love doing that. I don't know if you're using Apple clipboard. But on Apple clips, you can make arrows. People ask me, Oh, yeah, we'll just so I'll tell you a story. So somebody, somebody said, Oh, you know, Johnny can't come this month. We you know, we're gonna start this at this time. So like, okay, no problem. I'll push the payment back. It's gonna go through on this day. So I didn't hear from it went through. Two hours later. Um, yeah, we're not gonna do it anymore. Um, we're gonna wait like another month. And, and I know like, things are weird right now. Because like, you know, we went indoors. And then I get it. I get it. So I was like, okay, no problem. You know, I'll push it back. When do you think you're coming back? I'll push it back again. And then you'll still you'll still get the training or what you paid for. Right? So then she's like, um, actually, we'll just like, we'll just take the money back. And I'm like, Oh, okay. And I got so excited. Because I pulled out my phone, I just started doing screenshots of the terms and conditions, making arrows like this, arrows like this that says there are no refunds. Over here, all sales are final. If you do not let me know, if you do not let me know, before your payment goes through, the sale will not be refunded. Boom over here, FAQs. There are no refunds for any reason or service. Yeah. I said this woman, I said this woman of like, of different of different ways on the page that I said it, because I said it, I said it 20 times, conditions. And what can you say? You can't she couldn't say nothing. Can't say nothing. All right. Like, this is what you signed for. This is what you agreed to. You click the box, right? And that protects you. Based on you know, the progress that you've made. This last year, you talked about your your goal of wanting to reach 20k a month next year. Like, for someone that's watching this, that has watched your first interview, they're watching this one now. Like, what would be one thing that you would tell them like, that would encourage them, you know, to keep going with their business if they already have one or like a strategy, something that you've learned that they should start doing that they're probably not doing? Like, what would be like one thing you would tell a coach who is, you know, they got through this year, most coaches had a difficult time in 2020. What would be that one thing that you would tell them? I would say, I'll tell you two things. Number one, get somebody to help you. Because it cuts down on so much time that that you could be wasting, instead of learning it faster. And number two is what we just mentioned, kind of what Sam car is get people on a reoccurring, reoccurring payment and not do session by session. Do not agree to that. And if they do want to, if you do have drop ins, raise the you just raise the price on them, because you're looking for committed people. And if they're not going to commit, and I'm going to, I'm going to give a discount to people who are going to commit. And if you're not, and you want to drop in, cool, but you're going to pay a higher price. And using checkout links, just being able to send it to people's phones. It's it helps. It helps a lot. So yeah, get somebody to help you. Number one, number two, have people on a reoccurring subscription. Right? Yep. makes it a lot makes a lot easier. Cool, man. So last thing is, I'll kind of turn this around on you. If you had to ask me one question, something that either you need help with or something that whatever it is, any any sort of question that you have for me, that could possibly help someone else who's watching. And this is a real question I do have for you is how would you lock down one on one clients for a longer period of time without diminishing your time per session? Even though that's not what it's just about? Right? I don't know. I don't know if that makes sense. You know, I mean, like you. So for example, if I'm charging you, say we do nine hours of training, and I'm charging you like $950. Maybe it's like a six week thing, we do an hour and a half session. How do you discount them enough, but not discount them to the point where it's like, is it worth your time to do a one on one? You know, I mean, if you lock them down for like a year, six months. Does that make sense? I don't I'm not sure if it makes perfect sense. So there's two things that I would look at. And I would do this with a calculator. But if you know this off the top of your head, I'll help you work through this. So when you do a group session, based off of your model that you have right now, how many kids are in in one group? About so say 20. Cool. So 20. And how much is each client paying? It differs to be honest, because some people got in at a discounted rate at the time. So which is the current rate? The current rate is is 149 per month. All right. So this is this is how I look at it. For one group, if they're all paying 149. All right. I don't know if you can see this. Yes. 2980. That's the amount of revenue that would come in per month. And that group is training one session per week. And that session for you is one hour, right? Yeah. Well, so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take 2980. Divided by four sessions, you're making $745 per hour. So now if you think about that number, most people on the planet can't make $745 per hour. You're like a lawyer or doctor. I don't even know if they make $745 per hour. So this is one of the rare industries where you can maximize your time with group training and make more than $500 per hour, in this case, $745. Now, if I look at that number, though, I'm thinking, all right, well, you're gonna do anything one-on-one, it has to feel like it's really, really worth your time. And I wouldn't use the word discount. I would replace discount with the word premium. And this way, those who sign up for your one-on-one program, it's a very exclusive type of opportunity that not everyone qualifies for. And only those who will qualify, like financially, they have to have the means to be able to qualify. And the commitment, they have to be able to qualify for either an annual commitment or even if it's you're doing 12 sessions or eight sessions or four sessions, like that comes down to you. What I recommend is when you introduce this is I would do a three-month minimum. If I was you, I would offer it starting in March. And I would take on between three and five clients. And I would do the numbers to where if you have five clients, that's going to add at minimum, I would say between $2,500 to $5,000 of monthly income. So I'm looking at how much you're making per hour right now, $745 based off of that model that we talked about. I mean, I would think in order for it to be worth your time, I think you need to be charging somewhere north of $200 per hour, but we don't base it off per hour. We base it off of- That was my next question though. So if we say that we're not basing our program off hour, we can't really base that number off. You know what I mean? Because it's not like, because I'm doing, I'm working all day for the program like that, everything else that I put into it. So in terms of an in-person, yes, but it's really not. You know what I mean? So that's what I struggle with is that I don't want to be hypocritical to my side versus their side when a parent says, oh, there's so much money per hour. Totally. Totally get it. Yeah. We have to frame it to where what they get, and I don't exaggerate when I say this, but what they get with you, they can't get anywhere else in the US. So like for example, if I'm going to train someone one-on-one in soccer, my rate for that is $25,000. For the year? For one-on-one training for a year. Now with that, they have to be in high school. They have to want, they have to be good enough to be recruited to play in college. So I'm going to have to verify that. I'm going to have to talk to their coach. I'm going to go watch them play. Their end goal is getting a college scholarship. So $25,000 is nothing for someone who gets a $100,000 scholarship. So you won't work with somebody who's not? Well, in that specific type of program, I wouldn't want to work with someone who's eight years old. What about like middle school, high school? I mean, the only way I can, for me, the only way I can justify that price is if they want to play in college because they're looking at as an investment. Like I pay $25,000, we get a big scholarship. Like we don't have to go and get student loans. We don't have to go. I get that one because you're investing in yourself and you're potentially, that number could actually potentially be saving them a lot more money. So, but what if you don't train kids that are in high school at the moment? Coming in my group. Coming to the group. So you wouldn't, so you personally, you just wouldn't do it? Yeah. Everyone's going to train in my group training program. And if someone really wanted to you know, fork over the 25K, I'll be there every, every Thursday at 4pm for that session. And that kid will get recruited to play in college and they'll get a big scholarship. So like all, I'll live up to my word on that. But they have to be the right fit. How can you achieve that? So for me, like I wouldn't accept them into my program unless I know that they're at a certain level. So the ideal type of kid for that, for example, it would be someone who plays club soccer that's probably a sophomore or a junior in high school. That is, is good, but they crumble in big games. They are, they play timid, but they have the talent to go play in college, but they just don't appear. They don't have like the, the tools to perform in big moments. Because like getting a scholarship is all about just performing when you're under pressure, when coaches are watching you. Right. So it would be, I would be solving that problem. And then I would be solving the problem of getting recruited. Most kids don't know how to get recruited. They're paying these bronies on, on the internet, $3,000 to make a highlight tape. My method of recruiting has worked for over 250 kids now that have gotten scholarships. So I can point back at results. So if someone's going to tell me about, you know, why is it so expensive? Well, I can say, well, what's the school they want to go to? And then I'll pull it up. I'll say, great. It's going to be a hundred grand to go there, work with me. You're going to end up So I would calculate things that does your one-on-one training right now. No, but the thing is if someone really, really wanted that, I know they would do it now that that doesn't work for someone who can't afford it. Right. They're not there. Would you suggest for somebody who's not training perspective college athletes at the moment to train younger kids? How would you, how would you say? Yeah. So, so for example, if you're training a kid in middle school that wants one-on-one Nick, right. Now your time is very valuable, right? It's not like you're, you're not just going out there doing crossovers for an hour, like you're talking, you're teaching, you're helping them with the very smallest details with their game. And there's no other kids there. So they get all of your attention. So I look at that. I feel like based off, especially where you are right now with your business, I think if you're charging anywhere between six, like I would say 500 and $800 per month or 500 and a thousand dollars per month, people will do it again. If, if they have the finances down, if they have the commitment level down, they will do it. And if they don't want to do it, they should jump into your group program and that they will save a lot of money and still get great training. But I wouldn't devalue what you do one-on-one. I would increase the value of it and make that a premium program. Very similar to like trying to give you like a concrete example, very similar to if I flew up to the Hamptons, right. I've never been there, but have you been there? Gotcha. I'm sure if I went there, every dude is going to be wearing their little sweater vest. Right. And like, it's going to feel like I don't belong there if I'm wearing my Nike basketball shorts and my flip-flops. And if I wanted to live there, I would need to adjust to their culture and be making probably the same amount of money that all of them are making and feel like I'm included. Right. With private training, it's the same thing. You want to create a country club for your one-on-one training. It's the most exclusive thing not everybody gets in. And it becomes this thing that's very sought after. And there's a lot of people out there, especially parents. And I see this happen every day when I get on the highway, even out here in the country, I'm driving, I see a Tesla drive by, right? $75,000 car, boom. Why are they paying 75 grand? Well, their friend that has a Tesla that showed it off to them last Christmas, bragging about it. Now they want one, right? So it's the same mindset. Some parents want the best possible thing and they want to feel elite. They want to have that feeling when they pick up their kid from the one-on-one session. They want to see all the other kids in your group session that are about to train and feel proud of like, I can't afford this. We get Nick all by himself and all these other kids have to train together. I know that sounds arrogant. That's how it is though. Like some parents think that way. So we have to offer them something that is like, it goes hand in hand with their mindset that they have. And the more expensive it is, dude, the more serious that they're going to take it and the more committed they're going to be. And I've looked at, you know, I can see this across the board. It's like this with coaches that I've helped. Like there was a coach I helped this year. In 2020, he invested over $18,000 in my program. Wow. Doing $300,000 a year. Pretty good investment, right? Pretty dang good investment for him. Coach making $300,000 a year? Yeah. And he took a lot of action because he put a lot of skin in the game. Like no dude in their right mind would pay me that much and just not take it serious. If I told him to go jump off a cliff and that would help him get clients, he would have already jumped. So again, with parents though, same concept. You make it a country club atmosphere, only caters to those types of clients and you give them an experience that they can't get anywhere else. So that could be possibly once a month, you get on Zoom individually with kids one-on-one and you talk about their goals that they have. Maybe once every two months, you go watch them play in their game. You have them fill out the game report, the thing we talked about in the past. Once a month, you have a 20-minute call with their parents and you update them on what the progress that their kid is making. You have them do things at school that stretch them outside their comfort zone so they become a, you know, more well-rounded type of kid. I remember you and I talked about how I have kids sit in the front, they raise their hand. I don't know if you remember that.