10 Minutes of Tennis: How to Find the Right Coach with special guest Kenyon Generette-Oliver
Episode #33 Season 24: Shaun Boyce & Justin Yeo
In this episode of 10 Minutes of Tennis, Shaun and Justin talk about finding a good tennis coach. Kenyon Generette-Oliver joins the conversation.
YouTube LIVE Replay: https://youtube.com/live/2o_tkxh6SbY
Shaun Boyce USPTA: [email protected]
https://tennisforchildren.com/ 🎾
Justin Yeo: https://www.instagram.com/yeocoach/
Bobby Schindler USPTA: [email protected]
https://windermerecommunity.net/ 🎾
Geovanna Boyce: [email protected]
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Transcript
[Music]
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Speaker:With that said, let's get started with 10 minutes of tennis.
Speaker:[Music]
Speaker:Good morning. My name is Shaun. This is Justin Yeo, world-renowned tennis pro in
Speaker:Puerto Rico, but he's an Australian. Not sure how that works out,
Speaker:but he does find there. I'm sure he's working on his Spanish,
Speaker:but we want to ask him to speak in Spanish today.
Speaker:What is this? What is this?
Speaker:There we go. Why don't this?
Speaker:Very nice.
Speaker:What do we get? What is what is...
Speaker:Exactly. Well, we are talking today about how to find the right tennis coach,
Speaker:and it is not easy. It is not.
Speaker:Potentially as easy as some might think, or maybe it is, because I guess some are just
Speaker:constricted by how far they're willing to travel.
Speaker:We've got a few different questions on how to pick that coach.
Speaker:I've got up in my view a whole bunch of options for online ability to find a tennis coach,
Speaker:but I think that might be a little more swiping right than people are really looking for.
Speaker:This isn't an online dating thing. You really need to find out if the coach is the right fit.
Speaker:So, where would you tell someone to start, Justin, on finding the right coach, and why is this the right
Speaker:coach actually matter? I knew this was a huge question. I was thinking about all the different
Speaker:directions this could go. They could tell me.
Speaker:Well, the good thing is you've got to focus on audience. So your audience is Atlanta.
Speaker:Atlanta is like a lot of this tennis city in the world, but the most tennis coaches in the world.
Speaker:And the only difference there is that I learned from working at, obviously, in coming and then
Speaker:Roswell, and all the coaches in the town very well. Mr. Mark McMan, who was the man of Dumwitty,
Speaker:who has his own management company now, coaches. He always described three different coaches.
Speaker:You have an independent coach. You have a sort of what we call a country coach.
Speaker:And then you have a performance coach. In the independent coach, it's one that can,
Speaker:it has the skills to be able to deal with ladies, men, juniors, community, be on the call for hours,
Speaker:construct great, you know, great activities that have fun by the way. High performance coach needs to
Speaker:be a guy who's, that's it, man. His intense, he's full on all of the response. He doesn't have many
Speaker:clients, because he has too many, he can't be in too many places at once. I see performance coaching
Speaker:has changed and I don't think anyone's talking about this enough, but adults are looking just as
Speaker:much for high performance as a junior. And it's a market that is, I think, I'm tapped that if I
Speaker:do scaling, I do businesses now. So I don't get into it. But if I move back into Atlanta,
Speaker:that would be a business I would do is do high performance in adults as well as juniors.
Speaker:Because there are a lot of adults that want to do better and keep growing and go and travel.
Speaker:And they're the ones that have the money and they can do all the traveling. So,
Speaker:anyway, little secret tip there for high performance coaches in Atlanta. You want to expand your
Speaker:business, make better money and don't have to pull your hair out, dealing with juniors every day.
Speaker:There's one plug for you. And then you're the one that's your
Speaker:country club coach. Country club coaches, you know, he's pretty broad spectrum, but usually he's either
Speaker:head pro or system pro or director, director. Again, I find it difficult for the reason that
Speaker:the head pro is usually the guy that's building the business and doing most of it and gets paid
Speaker:half the guy that's sitting in the office. So all those guys, USPTA, USPTA, and all those people tell
Speaker:me right now, "Shut the hell up." It's something I think should be considered. I think head pro should be,
Speaker:they really are the soldier of the whole thing. And sometimes there's tennis director in the
Speaker:stripes and you've got there and probably the best knowledgeable coach, but really if he's knowledge,
Speaker:he should be on the court more than being in that office. So anyway, let's sneak in there. Is that
Speaker:in the country club world, which usually isn't what we're targeting because these are going to be
Speaker:people that don't already have their country club membership that limits your pro. Like you've got your
Speaker:choices of pro from the club that's pretty much what you get, but it's like promoting your best sales
Speaker:guy to sales manager. He's not outselling anymore. Sometimes it isn't the best coach that gets promoted
Speaker:to director. It's often the guy who can handle the administration in the politics.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, yes and I mean everyone works their way up. I mean, good mates with Madi Grison and
Speaker:Bill Anderson, those guys, and they work their titles to get to where they get to and they deserve all
Speaker:the great coaches. Yeah, they deserve the boards they get, but at the same time, I hope you've got
Speaker:your best coach sitting in the high the desk or to be on the court and is he, you know, a final
Speaker:difficult sometimes because when I ran my academy in Melbourne, I had my coaches on the court. I was
Speaker:on the court and I spent a lot of time every single week doing workshops with my coaches so that they
Speaker:my knowledge was passed down and they were mised and ears more on the court and if they sounded or
Speaker:acted more like me, it gave me the free reign to speak to parents or grow the program or do a few
Speaker:different things. I'll go to a tournament and know that the program is still going to run.
Speaker:So, you know, when you talk about coaches, that's a different perspective, but what I guess what I'm
Speaker:trying to explain that if there were people looking for coaches, make sure you both have the same
Speaker:goals and have some mission into your tennis. I still teach a bunch and I still get how
Speaker:to do every single week. Like, I need you, I need you and I'll be like, "Why do you need me?" Well,
Speaker:because you show me, you know, this is where I am and this is where I want to be. You also
Speaker:profile me as a player and say, "This is how I'm going to be and this is what kind of player I am
Speaker:and this is what I need to train to be that way." Whereas most coaches sometimes they don't do that.
Speaker:They just focus on grip or focus on this or focus on that. You know, so I focus a lot of building the
Speaker:player with whatever age, whatever level they are so that they feel like they've got a mission and
Speaker:a goal and they're going somewhere. But that's where I would say picking your coaches, you know,
Speaker:you got to know your audience and if you're not in a country club, you need the independent
Speaker:pro, but if you're looking to do performance and you need a final performance pro, is that sort of
Speaker:the easiest way to sum it up? Yeah, that's more of which coach to find. Yeah, that would be, all right,
Speaker:we've narrowed down to the types of coaches so you can find the right coach. But in this case,
Speaker:we want to find out how. So we've got a special guest today and we're going to bring in Kenyan,
Speaker:who hopefully can help us with the how and hopefully our connections all work and everything's
Speaker:great, so we didn't test Kenan really. That's another that's a really cool thing that you've added to
Speaker:your website because USPTA and USPTA used to do sort of, I mean, you meet again, but they just
Speaker:put a media open and didn't allow each of the community to go find a pro in their level or in their
Speaker:demographics. And hopefully you can work with them and because the advantage they've got
Speaker:reviewed is that you can then see the who's really educated. And I think that's one of the
Speaker:biggest problems we have still with coaches I'm in Puerto Rico and education wise, they're not
Speaker:doing enough. You know, I see a lot of coaches still teaching what they taught in the 80s and the 90s.
Speaker:And I'll lead in Kenyan. Kenyan, thank you for joining us because we've got, I've got the GPTA
Speaker:member list up. I've got the USPTA find a pro up and I'm looking at them and decent search features.
Speaker:I'm guessing nobody knows these pages exist and it's hard because I think, okay, I want to go into,
Speaker:what do I type into Google? Tennis coach near me and then who's going to pop up? It might be the
Speaker:guy online. It might be the local independent pro. It's probably not going to be the Matt Grayson or
Speaker:the, or the Bill Anderson because the country club guys don't go to you and play your court, so to speak.
Speaker:But I've also got to play your court guys up looking at it. Thinking, okay, these guys are trying to
Speaker:help with this, but it's not really going to work in Atlanta because you got to mark up that's too high
Speaker:and Atlanta people know better. So Kenyan, again, thanks for making time. What would you say from a
Speaker:how to find that coach? Justin's walked us through the types of coaches that are out there. But do you
Speaker:have any ideas on which website works better? Is it all word of mouth and referrals? Do you have any advice?
Speaker:It's typically, again, it's word of mouth. I mean, it gets hard. I know everyone wants to be involved in
Speaker:internet and Googling this and googling in that, but the best form of trying to find anything
Speaker:that you need is has this person used this person before. And that's always going to be, you know,
Speaker:we talk about street signs before just posting up something in the yard at times. It's sometimes going
Speaker:that old school is the way to do it. And that I'll think you, we're not going to be able to go out and say,
Speaker:hey, I'm looking for a blonde headed pro that's six foot one or something like that. I mean, it's really,
Speaker:what are you really looking for? You know, it was my play or recreational player. I just, I just want
Speaker:them that fun and the second and I think another mom sometimes there's mom chat groups that have things
Speaker:like this posted, you know, I've noticed that they found at least us through another mom in a chat group
Speaker:or something like that. And that sounds a bit like next door where you've got that kind of local
Speaker:group of people of parents usually with looking looking for their kids or an adult looking for lessons.
Speaker:But there's no compiled group and that's one of the things go tennis is done now. And our page
Speaker:isn't perfect yet, but it's built and it exists. And it is let's go tennis.com/coachfinder. And it doesn't,
Speaker:it's not a competition. It's not who's going to get the right coaching list. And while we have
Speaker:or those in Georgia and all we have are certified coaches, GPTA as a membership or USPTA or PTR.
Speaker:And in that case, I can go in and say, okay, not just find a coach near me, but it's also I can look
Speaker:at the list of certified coaches. I can find out if that guy that Kenyans friend referred me to,
Speaker:hey, if you worked with Coach Rob or if you work with Coach Bobby, because in that case, they may not
Speaker:have an online presence. So that word of mouth can potentially be helped, but there is no place right
Speaker:now, which is what go tennis is trying to become or going to become. I'll be more positive about it.
Speaker:But the word of mouth thing is hard to direct. It's hard to try to bring it into one place. But also,
Speaker:we all need different coaches. So how do we do that referral? How do we do that word of mouth thing?
Speaker:Justin, when you were here, you were in the clubs as much as you were ever independent, right? So
Speaker:it was less of driving around with the basket of balls in your car. So we didn't really experience it
Speaker:in that way. Yeah, I mean, you know, you're typically is, well, actually, shouldn't say differently,
Speaker:your market for what you're creating and you're talking about right now is a big market as far as
Speaker:I'm concerned. If you look at Cummins Hutton right now, and I'm talking like LinkedIn and others,
Speaker:resumes are switching every 18 months, like people moving locations, people moving in thousands,
Speaker:people moving towns more than that has been in decades. So there's more chances now they're going
Speaker:to move to a man ago. So where do I find the right pro? Where do I find the right place to go play?
Speaker:Where do I find? I mean, those questions are going to continue coming up more and more than it ever
Speaker:has before because there's so much movement between jobs and towns and, um, letting people moving around.
Speaker:I mean, it just, it's the way if you look at the patents, even rental rentals are higher than
Speaker:buying. I mean, the patents are showing people are moving and changing and, uh, and then look,
Speaker:if I had a kid, I lived in New York and I had a kid, it was really, really good at tennis.
Speaker:I'd be looking at Atlanta. I'd be looking at Charlotte. I'd be looking at Miami. You know, I'd be looking
Speaker:at places and when you first move into town, you're going to be like, where's this pro? Where's the best
Speaker:courts? What's that, you know, what, how can I get there quickly? So I'm not wasting time in a car,
Speaker:you know, um, access the most romantic kids to play with. Actually, I mean, all these things are all
Speaker:questions that there is what you're pointing at is there's no central location to be able to just go
Speaker:get. And right now, we're definitely moving into that technology world. But I mean, I agree with Ken
Speaker:and it's, um, most of it's all word of mouth. Again, um, but, you know, the coach is a look at
Speaker:for business too. It's, it's not that hard to just rock up to fit, you know, facilities and,
Speaker:and be watching and people ask your questions and next thing, you know, you've got a whole bunch of people.
Speaker:Yeah. How do we help those people? That's because that, that would be my, my question back to Kenyan and
Speaker:Kenyan having been in Atlanta, even actually a few years longer than me and, and knows it better,
Speaker:even where we say, okay, how do we help the people here? Because I'm on court. I got that parent or
Speaker:that guy that's standing around kind of eyeballing me and like, all right, well, what do you want, dude?
Speaker:And we don't all have that card to just say, hey, you know what? Yeah, I'm tennis for children,
Speaker:go check it out, give me a call because I'm not going to stop my lesson and go talk to somebody. So,
Speaker:assaulting someone on a tennis court usually isn't appreciated, but also just find a coach online
Speaker:doesn't necessarily work. So how do we help the people here, Kenyan, without just building the next
Speaker:website? I've always thought that USDA could probably kind of jump in somehow as well because they're
Speaker:putting out all these extra leagues now. They got the red hair league. They got the sets in the city.
Speaker:We got all these different things. So that's got to be one way, but the other thing too that
Speaker:I'm sure that Justin has brought up when I was on mine here, but in fact, Justin and I took our
Speaker:USDA test together. I don't know if he remembers that, but who did? So one of the things too that I find
Speaker:to struggle still is that there's not enough certified people here in Atlanta, okay, because if there's
Speaker:enough courts here that these guys just ploppin up everywhere and just coaching, I also don't want that
Speaker:atmosphere either here. So I mean, you need to be dropping your kids off with reputable people,
Speaker:okay, and I think that it's too easy sometimes in Atlanta for just people just to just do that. And then,
Speaker:you know, some of these parents have gone down these roads with some of these coaches, you know,
Speaker:and they're two, three years in and they're no better than they were two years ago, okay, so,
Speaker:and I think I heard Justin right when I first walked in that some of these guys are still coaching
Speaker:when racquet, you know, stop, okay, so I've always thought that USDA could be a little more involved.
Speaker:I think they should be a little more willing to jump in with something like this if everyone's
Speaker:in it for the right reasons. And that's my saying on that. And then my other say is I just,
Speaker:when we go the independent route, just make sure that they have either been doing this for a
Speaker:little bit and they're actually certified either through PTR or PTA, one of the two that has,
Speaker:that's made them go through some sort of criteria to be coaching your kid or coaching you. And that's
Speaker:only thing I would throw out there as well. And in that case, how many? You say there aren't enough
Speaker:certified coaches. I don't think that means we need more coaches. Are you saying not enough coaches
Speaker:are certified? Because by my count, there's about, there's about a, my guess is about a thousand coaches
Speaker:in Metro, in Metro Atlanta, maybe even including arguably the rest of Georgia, about a thousand coaches
Speaker:and about 600 of them I've found are certified. That's a lot of coaches that are certified,
Speaker:but you've also got almost half as many. You've got 40% and these are estimates in my world,
Speaker:40% that are unsertified out there with a basketballs, teaching a lesson, uninsured is probably the other
Speaker:thing, but right now more people care about the safe putt. I mean, parents aren't asking,
Speaker:are you going to be able to cover the cost of a broken ankle? Parents are asking, is it safe for me
Speaker:to drop my kid off with this guy, right? So that's another thing is, is it more getting those people
Speaker:certified and encouraging them because that's going to be more of a PTA or PTR thing than a USTA thing?
Speaker:Well, that's in collaboration. I totally agree with you. Or a lot of pros have let their dues
Speaker:laps because they didn't want to pay that because they're not coaching enough, let's say. So they don't
Speaker:want to pay the $300 whatever it is for the year. Okay, so you've got a lot of those pros out there as
Speaker:well. But then as, as Justin knows, when you go to the country club route, which I have to,
Speaker:you have been in the country club as well, the one thing that you do know when that person leaves that
Speaker:club, if they decide to leave it, they're going to be certified because that's one of the things
Speaker:that's one of the criteria that when you first get hired there, you're either already certified
Speaker:or you're about to be. So there's no director in town is going to have anyone there, even as an
Speaker:independent, they're not going to take that risk. So that's just, that's my personal opinion. I
Speaker:think, but see, I think that USTA being the biggest organization that we that we all have
Speaker:up money into at some point, they've got to be the one that kind of takes the pyramid on this and say,
Speaker:we've got to get everyone involved somehow because too many times you just kind of feel like you're
Speaker:floating on your own. And that's, that's not a good feeling either. And I'm, and I'm good with that.
Speaker:And we can all have our complaints on USTA and what they accomplish and what they don't accomplish.
Speaker:So in this case, we'd probably just talk USTA Atlanta and see if we can even start there. But I would
Speaker:even say GPTA because that's the organization. I think USTA is more focused on getting players to play
Speaker:than they are. And I haven't read their mission statement recently. But arguably they're probably
Speaker:more interested in getting someone to win the US open. Then they are actually just getting the next
Speaker:kid into a league. But the, but the GPTA in my opinion should be targeting getting coaches connected
Speaker:with players more, more of a mission statement than the USTA. So how do we help the GPTA do that
Speaker:directly beyond just like I said, we've built another, we've built another website to help find a pro.
Speaker:There's find tennis lessons.com. There's book lessons.com. I'm looking at play your court. We all know
Speaker:those guys. There's the US PTA find a pro again. I doubt the US PTA or GPTA are running ads saying,
Speaker:hey, check out our GPTA pros, which I think arguably they should be. They might not be a big enough
Speaker:organization. Go tennis is doing this because we just want to help. And we're investing in this to help
Speaker:players find coaches. Canyon, how do we help? And I jump, Justin was texting me the other day. He's
Speaker:like, it's not that hard to actually help players connect with coaches complaining about the GPTA.
Speaker:But Canyon, how do we help the GPTA help itself to help the coaches find the players? And maybe we
Speaker:can just kind of target it from a different direction? Yeah, you know, that's a good question because I
Speaker:think that tennis has been, especially in Atlanta has been kind of deemed this is the tennis
Speaker:method in Atlanta. But it's in my opinion, it's pretty isolating in a lot of ways because I don't
Speaker:feel like the people here who coach tennis are actively involved with one another to the point where
Speaker:they're they're let's pretend that I get a call and it happens all the time. I get a call from
Speaker:someone from Petrie City. Okay, I'm most likely you're never going to see this person. It makes no sense.
Speaker:Okay, but believe it or not, there's plenty of coaches out there that would get that same call and
Speaker:try to figure out a way they're going to hit this kid. Okay, so that to me is why I say isolated
Speaker:because either, A, you don't want to turn a kid over someone because you think that's either money
Speaker:out of your pocket or your instant fame that you thought you were going to have. Okay,
Speaker:it's sad because us being this mecca that we're supposed to be rarely do any of these coaches get
Speaker:together ever except for the PTA thing that we have in December where you got to get all your points
Speaker:and I've been guilty of this too. So I'm not throwing anyone at the bus. I'm just as guilty. But
Speaker:but I'm definitely not going to do a lesson with the kid in Petrie City. I'm not driving to
Speaker:Petrie City to do a lesson with the good or I'm not going to have them drive down to me 55 minutes to
Speaker:a lesson. If I thought there was someone there that they could easily be with. Okay, and what you're
Speaker:saying and these points are their valid points because I just don't think that we even know these
Speaker:people in other areas. I don't know and you're right. The GBTA should be the biggest one, but if you go
Speaker:to a GBTA meeting, it's the same people that are kind of going to those meetings all the time.
Speaker:And it's so it's you're not getting new blood in there either because there's people who have not
Speaker:pushed their new blood to go. And we've been trying, we've been trying, you know, just stewards credit.
Speaker:He's huge on this and he's involved in this. We've been trying to get our new blood to go, but
Speaker:I'm thinking it's the time of day that they do it that makes it a struggle. That's the only thing I
Speaker:could think of because those are key times when people could put money in their pocket. That's all I
Speaker:could think of. That's the original. Back to when my head pro Justin at the time, my first head pro.
Speaker:And the Darrell Lewis is of the world we're encouraging me to go. I just never saw the value. You
Speaker:just you just couldn't talk me into it as a 25 year old tennis pro to see the value there.
Speaker:And I get that, but I'm thinking less along the meetings and more along maybe referrals. Justin,
Speaker:if you look at scaling out a referral program and now if I were to say, okay, Justin gets an
Speaker:incoming call and says, Hey, I'm in Atlanta. Justin, can you coach me? Well, Justin's not getting
Speaker:on a flight to come teach you every week. If you're in Peachtree City, you can't get me. Sorry,
Speaker:I'm an hour and a half away. Now, we might all just get together and go take over the Peachtree
Speaker:City location because I hear they're looking for new management. But Justin, how do we, from an
Speaker:outside point of view? You've been out of Atlanta for 10, 15 years. I don't know more now, right?
Speaker:And what would you look in and tell me and Canyon to do if we were to task with this to say, okay,
Speaker:GPTA, here's your referral program. Let's actually incentivize the young coaches to be part of the
Speaker:GPTA because they're going to get that incoming referral of the coach. Let's say I'm new at
Speaker:Peachtree City and I want that call. I want Canyon to refer that player to me.
Speaker:What's Canyon's incentive? What's my incentive to be part of it? And can we kind of
Speaker:hook the GPTA in the butt and get him to do it? Well, my head was going to, as I've been
Speaker:data these days, my head's going towards the data. The data is how many players do you have
Speaker:these days currently? So what we say, audience or community, how many coaches do we have?
Speaker:Start mapping out the demographics of where the coaches are because that's really a key two,
Speaker:right? Because if all the coaches live here could achieve, but all the audiences over here
Speaker:are pretty screwed. So Peachtree City could be tons of audience but no coaches, you know? So I'd start
Speaker:there because again, you're focusing on GPTA and start scoping what you can have to bring these two
Speaker:things together because they're both a very important element to the length and long term of
Speaker:the sport because people drop out if they're not getting this guy and then people are progressing if
Speaker:they, you know, so they, they, they, they rely on each other as far as I'm concerned if you think
Speaker:about it that way. As far as certification, that's been a big thing for a long time and it's
Speaker:only been because, you know, people say, well, I spent 300 bucks when I don't get anything out of it
Speaker:really and then they also find me insurance that's that solid for $300 a year. Right, well,
Speaker:I don't know you'll get anything out of it. Right, but see, I've been coaching this in my 30s,
Speaker:almost my 37th year never had to rely on insurance. Neither have I. Never had anyone hurt their eye
Speaker:or twist their ankle or I mean, I've been doing this for a very long time and I haven't had any injuries
Speaker:on the court. So, you know, touch wood. Right. But, you know, people start adding up those things and they
Speaker:start adding up education as well. You know, I really want to do this. I really don't do that. I've
Speaker:got my clients, I've got enough money, I'm doing well, you know. I want to put Marcus Hurtie
Speaker:down to the bus, but man, the guy had personality and he was energy and he was a great, great,
Speaker:energetic coach, but he really, very rarely went to educational stuff or certification or whatever,
Speaker:but man, the guy crushed it, you know. So, you know, it is, it landed to me if they could do that and
Speaker:bring those two, they'll bring some data to it and then rebuild GPTA to a, what I would call
Speaker:an educational opportunity where I would then, I'm going to throw Maddie under the bus, Maddie
Speaker:and Bill and all those boys and go pay it forward, show up once a month, each one does, hey, this is what
Speaker:you can do to improve this. Hey, this is what you can do to improve that. Ask all your coaches,
Speaker:what would they like to learn and invite those people in to the once a month meeting, you know,
Speaker:because I remember the one time I went all the way to Shudalo to see the little Taiwanese guy
Speaker:that this eye who builds the racket for Wilson, who couldn't speak a word of English, but we all
Speaker:showed up because we wanted to hear about how they build a rack, right? So, you know, you don't have to
Speaker:give out food and drinks and all that stuff. I think you're best to design something, redesign GPTA
Speaker:around education within its town, you know. I mean, if they asked me, I would find, I would find
Speaker:to do a workshop for GPTA. No question. And you can give me any subject and I'll be able to help
Speaker:those pros and I'll be there the whole time, you know. Sometimes the guy that comes in and talks,
Speaker:you'll talk about half an hour ago, I'm off to you, I got to run a business or go over to the family,
Speaker:you know. But that to me would be a way to start, if you ask me.
Speaker:You target education. I want to turn GPTA into a better networking system,
Speaker:not just that circle of guys all staring at each other and giving each other awards, but facing out,
Speaker:trying to draw in the players. Right. Would you build the relationships first to then be able to do it?
Speaker:With the coaches. So I see from an educational point of view, it's getting the coaches to know each other.
Speaker:I now know Kenyan, I didn't know him before. Right? I want to know who's in pastry city so I can
Speaker:send that referral. But what if I don't know him? It sounds to me like we need to take that data.
Speaker:Let's find out where all the coaches are. Right.
Speaker:And then you think we can do this Kenyan? We can say, all right, Billy Ewells, Billy Anderson,
Speaker:all the bills evidently. Justin, Kenyan, Sean, Harp, all the guys, right? Everybody, all the girls,
Speaker:everybody, right? And stick them on a map and say, okay, you want to be part of this referral program.
Speaker:And for every incoming referral, you got to make sure you're willing to do that outgoing referral
Speaker:because Kenyan, would you say that's not a natural tendency of the coach? I think that was the one
Speaker:of the first things you mentioned. His coach is not wanting to give up players.
Speaker:Yeah, connecting the dots. I mean, that would be like connecting the dots, what you're saying. But yeah,
Speaker:it's not natural for a kid to come to our program or kid to go to another program. And they say,
Speaker:you know what, you'd be a better fit here or this coach would be a better fit to the data.
Speaker:I mean, we, we, again, we're a little bit larger in the sense. So if a kid is not the right fit for me,
Speaker:I try to pass them along to one of our pros and our, you know, in our organization. But we definitely
Speaker:try to pass people along in a sense that because the one thing that could drive someone from playing
Speaker:is where you're located. So just the distance. So we try to avoid that by San Luis. And here,
Speaker:we have a location over here. This is 10 minutes from you. We love having you. So if you want to
Speaker:continue to drive 45 minutes because of the ratio, that's great. And we have plenty of people do that.
Speaker:So, but we also have plenty of people that are, you know, take that advice and say, you know what?
Speaker:10 minutes is better. So therefore, they'll go over there. So you're usually going to lose people
Speaker:because of the distance. Rarely are you losing people because of the finance part these days.
Speaker:Because I thought that was always one of the reasons why you would lose people. I don't see that happening
Speaker:as much. In fact, I think there's more people playing tennis now since, you know, March 16th of,
Speaker:was it 2019 COVID? I think I think that social distancing thing really helped tennis, you know. So,
Speaker:I don't see the finances being one of the reasons why people are leaving the sport like they once were.
Speaker:They're leaving the sport, you know, so that's my opinion.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm with the adjusting. So you start with your numbers.
Speaker:Because, you know, the other thing, the other thing that if they're going to join your ambassador program,
Speaker:and we call it an ambassador program, because then it sounds like it's open, and people are just helping
Speaker:each other and we're supporting the support. But then, you know, given the little question here,
Speaker:like how many kids do you have? How big are your programs? How many schools are you connected to?
Speaker:Blah blah blah. Like, get an idea of their business as well. Because, you know, when you start to put
Speaker:all this together, they're going to say, "Oh, yeah, I want to get it, you know, Jim Harper's round
Speaker:at corner call." Oh, he's got 289 kids, all high performers. But good luck getting time with Jim,
Speaker:then, you know, like, let's be real. So, let's, so I think what you really want to do is start,
Speaker:start there with the numbers. And then, you know, because I remember he was all the way up past
Speaker:Warp Warp, but that neighborhood at that stage was growing now. It's probably
Speaker:ginormous. So, he's probably got tons of business. I like the Jim Harper reference, Justin, because
Speaker:he's at Castlebrook. He's still at where I met you in 2001 or whatever it was. Where you and I met,
Speaker:that was my first club job. Where Jim Harper is now. But you're right, he's busy. He's busy. And
Speaker:then in that case, if you refer him out, you say, "Hey, you know what, Jim's not right. Maybe we
Speaker:refer over to James Creek." Or maybe we refer over to Windomere. But where's the incentive program
Speaker:to get these people to do it? Okay, if you took finance, like, like, can you just say, it's not going to work.
Speaker:You can't look at a pocket. You cannot, you look at what's best for the tennis and what's best for the
Speaker:game and what's best for the client or the best for their kid. I think that's true. I
Speaker:don't think that's true with the tennis coaches. I think tennis coaches are money-oriented. And I think
Speaker:they're not going to forward somebody on unless they think they're going to get something in return.
Speaker:Well, okay, but forwarding on is all this effort of, you know, making sure they get connected,
Speaker:making sure they do this, making sure they do that. So they're not going to do a lot because
Speaker:this is going to be a problem. I know, but if your system can allow that, it will be an easy
Speaker:handball and you're doing it for the sake of the sport. And that's really what it has to come down to.
Speaker:It kind of comes down to...
Speaker:One other thing, I cannot remember his name. It's driving me absolutely crazy. He was in Dunwoody
Speaker:forever. He had a court in his backyard and a tie-fuller. Tie-fuller. Do you all remember that name?
Speaker:Tie did an unbelievable job with kids and he... That was his thing. He did an unbelievable job with
Speaker:kids. I think it was nine. I think that was kind of his wheelhouse say. So ten and under or whatever.
Speaker:So he was kind of on that, you know, red dot green dot orange dot ball before it became that, okay?
Speaker:He did an unbelievable job because he would always refer the kid out afterwards.
Speaker:The problem that I see in this community at this current moment is people are taking on kids
Speaker:that quote unquote want to be high performance, I'd say, okay? And they take them on and they ruin them.
Speaker:And then now these parents are in search of what they just screwed up with. And it typically happens
Speaker:when you're dropping your kid off at some park because this guy can play tennis. He's played. And now
Speaker:the sudden he's coaching. And I don't know if anyone else is witness when I'm talking about, but that's
Speaker:what I see is that a lot of people, because I think that it's going to be stronger than just adding
Speaker:this database that we're talking about. We're going to also have to put in there that here's what
Speaker:your strengths are at this facility or at this whatever or at this academy, okay? We know harp.
Speaker:Everyone knows harp because harp's coach, you know, high performance kids for a long time and
Speaker:some of us have spent some time with some of the kids at harp has spent time. So we know that,
Speaker:hey, I don't have the time to do it, but hey, I'm going to shoot you this way because I know he's
Speaker:going to do a great job. He's attentive and that a better because I would do that for him. And I think
Speaker:he would do that for us because we have a relationship. I just think that right now the hardest part,
Speaker:not only with your database, is we got to get the pros that are even at other facilities to want
Speaker:a help one another. And maybe because I've been in this business for 32 years of coaching,
Speaker:that I see things differently. And maybe I was that selfish and that arrogant when I was 25, 27.
Speaker:I hope I wasn't, but maybe I'm getting better at it. But I just feel like these pros, they just don't want
Speaker:to recognize what their strengths and what their weaknesses are to the point where they're
Speaker:willing to admit that this is the wrong move for me, let's say. I need to stick with coaching
Speaker:ladies out to teams, let's say. So I wish you all the best, Sean, because this is a beast that's
Speaker:been around a long time. And the beast they're getting in the high performance, which is obviously
Speaker:the big conversation. That's it. That's being around the day. Absolutely. We've already got those
Speaker:guys. And I think, I think what Kenyan says is right, this is a culture change. And that's what
Speaker:go tennis is all about. We're here to help the culture. We're here to make tennis better than it
Speaker:already is in Atlanta. But it's understanding that we're going to have to convince some people to
Speaker:do things differently. And then to convince you would be to build the platform and categorize things.
Speaker:I used to have that. I mean, anyone that would come to me and they'd say, you know, I'm three or three
Speaker:five and I want to learn and want to get out there once or twice a week. I'd be like, well, this
Speaker:pro is right around the corner from your neighborhood. And that's his specialty. That's all he does. So
Speaker:see you later. When you feel like you can start to hit forehands the back ends and we're really
Speaker:starting one play, then you can come back and say, you need to categorize things that way so that
Speaker:you can start to recognize what throws away. I mean, Kenyan, if he's been teaching that long, he's
Speaker:got a new cycle pre-deer in his head. But he's basically going out, he might be that way anymore,
Speaker:about wanting to be on the court that much. So he should be trying to teach some teachers.
Speaker:So there's a whole bunch of different things that you need to, and I see coaches all the time,
Speaker:go this way and then this way. So our careers rock, I mean, I'm 50 now and I'm learning, I'm
Speaker:going to go out and play again and play the high level again. So you just never know where the person's
Speaker:at, where they're coaching that. And I see changes all the time, but Atlanta itself,
Speaker:as far as being the MAKA, no one's really being able to. And I think that's what you would
Speaker:try to do with the GPTA, the Austin. Yeah, and I think this is less of a how you should find the
Speaker:right coach, but I'm pretty sure we just asked ourselves the question, how to find the right coach,
Speaker:because it is not an easy thing to answer. Justin, thank you so much, Kenyan. We'll definitely have
Speaker:you back. I appreciate it guys. Have a good week. Good to see you, Kenyan. Hey, good to see you.
Speaker:Well, there you have it. We want to thank reGeovinate.com for use of the studio and be sure to hit that
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