The Tennis Business Academy Podcast

If you've been in business for any length of time, you've probably noticed that other people don't seem to care about your business as much you do. Not a massive surprise, right? But the question is, how should you react to it? In this episode I propose 3 ideas to help you navigate this issue. HINT: the solution isn't to try and force other people to care. You can read the transcript for this episode here:...

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard coaches and club managers say something along the lines of “word-of-mouth is the only marketing we need”. Well, I think they’re wrong. In fact, unless they’re in the 1% of clubs and coaches in the world, they should definitely be proactive with their marketing and not rely on word-of-mouth alone. In this episode I explain exactly why word-of-mouth isn’t enough and what you should be doing instead. You can read the transcript for this episode...

What you do on-court is crucial to the success of your tennis club or business. No doubt about it. But there are also a million other things that you need to do off-court in order to make your tennis business or club successful. In this episode I cover 31 of these off-courts tasks that are important to get done to ensure the success and longevity of your tennis venture. You can read the transcript for this episode here:...

How much is each player worth to you and your tennis coaching programme or club?And I don't mean from a sentimental or subjective point of view. I mean from an objective $ or £ perspective. Building strong, longstanding relationships with players is key for the success of any tennis club or coaching business. And the best objective measure of how successful you are at building these types of relationships is customer lifetime value. In this episode I explain what customer lifetime value...

In our industry, player retention is key. We all know this and work towards keeping people in the sport for life and ideally at our clubs and coaching programmes for years or even decades. But from my experience, even though we know that player retention is important, most of us don't measure it consistently. So, in this episode I address this. I will show you how easy it is to measure customer retention by measuring two simple metrics: customer churn and average customer lifespan. You can...

Email marketing can be a very powerful tool to help build better customer journeys while at the same time bringing people closer to your world and help them develop a sense of community and loyalty towards you and your tennis coaching business or club. In this episode I go through a step-by-step guide that covers everything you need to know to get the email marketing system for your tennis coaching business or club set up. You can read the transcript for this episode here:...

Email marketing can be a very powerful tool to help build better customer journeys while at the same time bringing people closer to your world and help them develop a sense of community and loyalty towards you and your tennis coaching business or club. In this episode I answer cover the 6 basic components that you'll need to set up in order to be able to use email marketing effectively for your coaching programme and/or club. You can read the transcript for this episode here:...

Here in England we're counting down the days to go back on-court. So, now is the last chance to finish off the last few important tasks before we get extremely busy throughout the summer. With that in mind I thought it was appropriate to re-run the most popular episode of the podcast which covers 21 things that we could all be doing to move our coaching programmes and clubs forward while we not as busy on-court! This episode was originally recorded in November of 2020. You can read the...

Email marketing can be a very powerful tool to help build better customer journeys while at the same time bringing people closer to your world and help them develop a sense of community and loyalty towards you and your tennis coaching business or club. In this episode I answer some of the most common questions that I get about email marketing, like for example: "What email marketing tool should I use?" and "What types of emails should I send to players and when?" You can read the...

A big part of why I enjoy discussing and talking about business is because I've always seen it as a game, just like tennis. But I appreciate that a lot of people don't see it that way. In this episode I make the case that business is indeed a lot like tennis and I cover 19 different ways that show this is true. If you've never felt like business was your 'thing', I hope that after listening to this episode you'll pause and consider that maybe business can be interesting and fun, as long as...

Any decent tennis player knows that winning a match isn’t about hitting fancy shots every once in a while. It’s about staying consistent throughout the whole match. And the same idea applies to running your business or club. Winning at business isn't about doing lots of things all at once. It's about finding a little bit of time to work on what matters every single week, so that you can incrementally improve the organisation and make it more successful. In this episode I cover this idea in...

Do you have lots of happy players playing in your coaching programme or club? I bet that you do. But do you have lots of customer testimonials that prove to other people that you do indeed have happy players? If you do, then you can skip this episode altogether. But if you don't, make sure to listen to it as I will explain why social proof is so important, how you can get good customer testimonials and where you should then showcase these for maximum effect. It's all very simple, but it...

What do you sell? If you're a coach or a club manager and answered that question by saying tennis lessons or club memberships then you're right and wrong at the same time. At the surface level that's definitely what you sell. But I'm sure that you'll agree that you provide much more than just 'tennis lessons' and 'club memberships'. In this episode I go through 72 different benefits of playing tennis and how you can use those to help you sell what you do. I also give you some real-life...

Websites can and should play a crucial role in helping you sell what you do. But unfortunately, in the tennis industry there are many more terrible websites than there are effective ones. I know because I've spent the last few years looking through hundreds of them! In this episode I go through the 7 key sections that you must have on your tennis website if it's going to be effective in selling what you and your business or club do. You can read the transcript for this episode here:...

Websites can and should play a crucial role in helping you sell what you do. But unfortunately, in the tennis industry there are many more terrible websites than there are effective ones. I know because I've spent the last few years looking through hundreds of them! In this episode I cover the pages that you actually need to add to your coaching or club website to make it effective. HINT: You probably need fewer pages than you think you need. You can read the transcript for this episode...

Websites can and should play a crucial role in helping you sell what you do. But unfortunately, in the tennis industry there are many more terrible websites than there are effective ones. I know because I've spent the last few years looking through hundreds of them! In this episode I cover the number one thing that you need to get right if you're going to have any chance of building a website that will help you sell what you do effectively. It's something simple, but that gets overlooked on...

Coaches play a key role in the success of any coaching programme. So, if you're in charge of the programme you should probably create a system that allows you to measure their performance so you know who is doing well and who might need more support. In this episode I cover 7 different metrics you should consider tracking to measure coach performance objectively. You can read the transcript for this episode here:...

Retaining customers for the long term is key for the success of any coaching programme. In this episode I explain why and provide 9 ideas that you can implement into your coaching programme to increase player retention. You can read the transcript for this episode here: https://www.tennisbusinessacademy.com/9-ways-to-increase-player-retention-in-your-coaching-programme You can download the Ultimate Business Checklist for Tennis Coaches and Clubs here:...

There are 2 main payment models used in coaching programmes: the course by course model and the direct debit model. In this episode I break both of them down and explain why I think that the direct debit model is better. I also cover the 2 simple reasons why I couldn't imagine running my coaching programme any way other than through direct debits. You can read the transcript for this episode here:...

I get asked about the software I use on my coaching business a LOT! So I thought I'd record a podcast episode to answer this question for everyone at the same time. You can read the transcript for this episode by clicking here. And you can check out the Academy here.