Welcome to Sports Facility Expert – your one-stop shop for building, running and growing your sports facility
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 […]
The Easiest Ways to Improve Customer Service at Your Sports Academy
If you want to keep customers coming back to your sports academy, you need three things. First, you need to deliver what they paid for: excellent physical training in a professional environment. Second, you need to invest time in marketing that will show your appreciation and keep clients away from competitors. (Related: The Ultimate Guide […]
A New Sports Complex Birthday Party Idea: Nerf Wars
If you haven’t updated your party packages lately, here’s a new birthday party idea to consider for your sports complex: Nerf Wars. DNA Sports Center, the sports facility I used to own, recently started offering Nerf Wars as one of its birthday party themes. When I looked into the idea, I noticed the popularity of Nerf […]
Use a Web Form to Land More Sports Facility Clients
When someone new visits your web site, they’re not usually ready to become a customer yet. If you don’t get their attention and keep it while they’re on your site, you risk losing it forever.
Unfortunately, most of the sports facility web sites I see (and I see a lot of them) don’t take the few simple steps available to keep in touch with these prospective clients.
Marketing Lessons From a Standout Soccer Club
To rise above the competition and get clients excited about your business, you need more than a unique mission. You need to be able to explain and sell your distinct advantages to potential players and their families. For a great example of how it’s done, we can look at Alchemy Sports Complex, home of Alchemy […]
4 Tactics This Big Indoor Sports Complex Uses to Stay Profitable
Running a big indoor sports complex comes with big overhead expenses. Add in seasonal cash flow changes throughout year, and business management can get pretty tricky. So when a three-person team opened Center St. Louis in a shuttered, bank-owned facility with eight volleyball courts, a fitness gym, and a 90-by-135-foot turf field, they knew they […]
How to Make Profitable Recruiting Videos for Athletes
Not long ago, getting a college coach to notice an athlete generally meant a lot of traveling and overcoming some pretty long odds. Times sure have changed. These days, even novice videographers can put together a basic recruiting video and email it to a coach with a few clicks. Recruiting and highlight videos can make […]
How to Open a Volleyball Facility
Most volleyball clubs start out practicing on the rented courts of school gyms, health clubs, or multi-sport complexes. However, if you have the capital or have been running a well-established club for a while, you might be considering finding a place for your club to call its own. Running a facility with multiple indoor courts […]
How to Start a Volleyball Club
Wondering how to start a volleyball club? Want to run your own club? Start by making a basic business plan. Sure, your end goal isn’t to make big money. Like most club directors, you’re probably doing it for the love of the game and a passion for helping kids, and it won’t even be your full-time job at […]
Why You Should Get Ready to Sell Your Sports Facility Now
Most of us go into sports facility ownership with little idea how we’ll get out of it someday. That’s because having our own sports academy or sports complex is often our dream job, something we’ve worked toward for years. It takes so much energy to get our doors open and keep them that way that […]
How Much is Your Sports Facility Worth?
How much is your sports facility worth? Not in terms of what it means to you personally or even what it means to your athletes or the community. I’m talking about the dollar value. Most of us don’t really know. I didn’t know much about it myself until I decided to sell my sports academy. […]
3 More Easy, Low Risk Ways to Add Revenue at Your Sports Academy
Relying too much on any one service for your sports academy’s cash can put your business at risk. As I explained in this post, you can hedge against that risk by adding more variety to your services, which many sports complexes do by selling retail products or concessions. However, the easiest way to diversify your […]
The Ultimate Customer Retention Guide for Sports Academies
Sometimes providing great service isn’t enough to keep your clients coming back to your sports academy or complex year after year. Markets change, clients’ needs evolve, and new competitors appear. Keeping clients interested and coming back through your doors takes work. Don’t overlook these customer retention strategies for your sports training business. Remember that retaining […]
A Sports Academy That Runs Perfectly – Even When You’re Not There
No sports facility owner can stay in their facility all day, every day. But many of us still try. When you’ve worked so hard to create a brand and have invested hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars, it’s tough to let go of control. Maybe you’ve even convinced yourself that you’re so essential to […]