Welcome to Sports Facility Expert – your one-stop shop for building, running and growing your sports facility
Understanding Your Sports Facility’s Sales Funnel
The most valuable services at your sports facility usually require a big investment from your clients. And big investments aren’t made on a whim. People might sign up for a one-off camp or even a birthday party without much deliberation, but that’s not the case for long-term memberships and training packages. These bigger products are […]
Tips for Photography at Your Sports Facility
Images are a huge part of your sports facility’s marketing. Unfortunately, I see SO many bad photos in sports facility marketing.
Lack of natural light and always-moving athletes make it pretty tricky to get a clear shot without some serious equipment and expertise.
However, there are ways to get great photos. Here are some ways that have worked for me and other facilities.
Seasonal Sports Marketing: Three Points for Your Facility
As your sports academy transitions from busy season to slow season and back again, creating seasonal sports marketing and staying ahead of it will be a necessity.
If you’re struggling to plan your marketing more than a few weeks or months ahead of time, it’s time to try a simpler method.
Even a marketing plan that only covers the basics can make a huge difference in your bottom line.
Do You Need One-On-One Help with Your Sports Business?
For a while now, I’ve avoided offering consulting services. I’ve wanted to focus my time and mental energy on my sports facility scheduling software instead. When owners have come to me for advice on sports facility management, I typically direct them to this blog, where I’ve already covered most of the topics they ask about. […]
Planning a Parents’ Night Out at Your Sports Facility
You need to keep your space full for as many hours of the week as possible. That’s one of the pillars of running a profitable sports facility. And for many boutique-type sports academies, it’s easy enough to do during after-school hours and weekend days. What’s left is to fill in the gaps — such as […]
Before You Invest Money in a Sports Facility, Read This
Lots of aspiring sports facility owners lack the cash to get started. If they want their own space, they start out small, or seek funding from banks or partners. A second group of aspiring owners, however, already has the cash. These owners often don’t have experience training athletes. They’re just looking for a good financial […]
How to Create Sports Facility Sponsorship Packages
We sports facility owners are always looking for ways to boost our profits. So if local businesses partner with us by sponsoring our teams, players or programs, it can be a big win. There many ways to structure sponsorship packages successfully. However, there are also lots of ways to let sponsorships distract from your mission […]
Marketing Research Basics for Sports Facilities
Every potential business starts with a great idea — or at least what seems like one. Getting market data for your sports academy is one way to test whether your idea will hold up. Detailed market research is essential if you’re seeking investors or plan to purchase a big piece of physical property. However, it’s […]
To Fix Your Programming, Focus on Your Ideal Customer
Introduction When it comes to creating sports academy programming, we often get it backwards. First, we get excited about a new technique or idea to help our athletes. Then, we try to convince our customers how cool it is. We should start by focusing on our customers’ problems instead. When we package programs as tailored […]
Managing a Sports Facility: Cash Flow Can Kill
There are lots of factors that go into opening and managing a sports facility. But just one truly determines your business fate. That factor is cash. If you have enough on any given day to cover your expenses, you can stay open. If not, you’ll shut down. Keeping enough cash on hand trips up a […]
The Top 3 Energy Killers at Sports Facilities
You can feel a sports facility’s energy as soon as you walk inside.
Over years of working with sports facilities, I’ve noticed that certain factors tend to creep up and drain our sports facilities’ energy. These energy killers can be tough for most owners. Do any apply to your facility?
Unreasonable Team Parents? These Baseball Teams Don’t Have Any
One of the biggest headaches involved with running a sports academy that hosts teams? Unreasonable team parents. Confrontations with these parents are draining, persistent, and distract from important coaching work. That’s why I was so impressed when one of my eSoft Planner clients mentioned he doesn’t have these types of problems in his organization. Anthony […]
Your Sports Academy’s Approach to Preventing Overuse Injuries
We all know that families have been taking youth sports more and more seriously in recent years. This trend toward competitiveness tends to help our businesses. The most dedicated athletes are usually our best clients — they’re happy to spend on quality training for elite skills. But the pressure to perform younger and more frequently can […]
Get More Clients with Better Marketing Messages
Many sports facilities stick to the basics when it comes to marketing. However, even an extra 20 minutes improving your description of a camp, membership, or new instructor can result in another enrollment — and hundreds more dollars in revenue.
Try spending 20 minutes on one of these five simple and free marketing tactics.
Top Posts of 2016
In our day-to-day lives, we tend to put off long-term, big-picture planning in favor of urgent tasks. We also tend to hope for big goals without breaking them down into the smaller tasks that make them possible to reach. This week may be the perfect time to work on both of those things. That’s because […]
Not Letting Clients Schedule Themselves? Here are the Top 3 Excuses I Hear
Letting clients log in to schedule for themselves is a huge benefit for your sports facility. When customers can buy online, it eliminates confusion, cuts admin costs, improves customer service, and can even improve sales. These days, most sports facility owners have already invested in a web-based system that can enable client scheduling. However, too […]
How to Create a Sports Facility Hall of Fame
We all like to brag about our players’ accomplishments. We do it because we’re proud of them, and of course it makes us look good, too. Plus, when we highlight our players the right way, it creates a sense of community around our sports academy. Players feel more ownership in their training when their achievements […]
7 Best Practices for Selling Sports Facility Rentals
Rentals are a major source of income for most of our sports facilities. They’re also a nice complement to the services that require more energy to run, such as classes and camps. However simple rentals may seem, though, they’re also more likely than any other service to ruin your profit margins. Use these best practices […]
Dealing with the New Overtime Law Changes (2016)
UPDATE: A few weeks after this was written, a federal judge issued an injunction that put a stop to these new rules for now. See a whole article explaining the status here. I will try to get back here and post updates on the issue as it develops. *** By now, I hope you’ve heard of […]
Tips for Running Profitable Concessions
Whether they’re visiting for a tournament, double-header, or even a long birthday party, families spending hours at your sports complex are going to get hungry. Why not feed them? Concessions stands are a great way to boost revenue and keep your clients happy — but only if they’re run professionally and efficiently. Brad Bischoff worked […]
A Winter Checklist for Sports Facilities
Things start to get hectic at indoor sports facilities this time of year — at least for those of us who don’t enjoy year-round warm weather. That’s why it’s a good idea make your winter plans now. Along with the heavier work schedule winter typically brings, we also get much busier in our personal lives […]