21 Things You Could Be Doing During the Lockdown to Move your Tennis Business or Club Forward
TRANSCRIPT
Ok, for today’s show I’m going to re-run the most popular episode in the podcast.
I thought that was appropriate since here in England we’re now counting down the days to be allowed back on-court.
So, this is the last chance to get a few more boxes ticked before we get incredibly busy.
And if you’re not in England and maybe haven’t been in a lockdown for a while, or ever, well, I can guarantee that at least some of the 21 things that I cover in this episode will still apply to you, so it’ll probably still be worth your while to listen.
Ok, without further ado, let’s get to the actual episode, which, for your reference, was originally recorded in November of 2020.
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As we in England have gone into a lockdown again I thought it would be useful to explore some ideas of things that we could all be doing throughout the lockdown to give ourselves the best chance of coming out of it in a stronger position than when we entered it.
Now, make no mistake, I’d rather there was no pandemic, and no lockdowns. Not being able to be on-court is certainly not a positive thing.
But this is what we got, and, as far as I’m concerned, we have to try and make the best of it.
Just sitting around and waiting is not the best use of our time right now.
So, with that in mind, and with the help of the Academy members, I’ve compiled a list of 21 things that you could be doing to move your coaching business or club forward over the next few weeks, even while you’re not allowed on-court.
But before I start going through the list, I just want to mention that I don’t think that you need to do all 21 things in this list.
Some of them might not even make sense for you and your business or club, right now.
But even if all of them make sense, let’s face it, you probably won’t have time to execute on all of them in what we hope will only be a 4-week lockdown.
So, I would recommend you make a note of the ones that resonate with you the most while you’re listening, and then make a plan to execute on those.
It’s better to execute on just 2 or 3 things well, than it is to try and do all of them half-heartedly.
Ok, with that out of the way, here are 21 things that you could, perhaps even should, be doing to move your business or club forward over the next few weeks, while we’re in a lockdown.
1) Keep in touch with existing customers
This is the most obvious and perhaps most important thing we should all do.
Just keep in touch with your players and members throughout this period, in any way that makes sense for you and them.
That could be via email, through social media, whatsapp or any other way.
The idea here is that the people you keep in touch with will be appreciative of your effort and will be more likely to come back quicker once things open up.
Which is what we want!
2) Make adjustments to the coaching programme
If there were some sessions that you weren’t happy with before we entered the lockdown, now is a good time to review them and potentially make some changes.
This might be because they didn’t have enough sign-ups, or because the timings didn’t really work, or something else entirely.
And on this note you should also consider what the programme will look like if there are limits on numbers when we’re allowed back.
If what happened after the first lockdown is any indication of what will happen with this lockdown, then we should expect that the government will ease restrictions slowly.
This might mean that we’ll only be allowed individual lessons first, and then groups of 5, for example.
Make sure that you consider how you’ll manage your coaching programme if this turns out to be the case.
3) Run a customer feedback survey
Now is a great time to create and send a customer feedback survey.
You have more time to put it together and analyse the results and some of your customers will probably also have more time to fill it in.
This is something that I’ll be doing in my own coaching business in the next couple of weeks.
If you haven’t run one in a while or maybe ever, this one is a no-brainer to go ahead with, in my opinion.
4) Offer free in-school curriculum coaching
This is something that we didn’t have the opportunity to do during the first lockdown.
But in this second lockdown schools will remain open. And the government has said that external coaches are allowed to deliver sessions in the school, as long as it’s during curriculum time.
So, you can definitely offer some free in-curriculum coaching to schools near you as a way to create goodwill with the school and to build your reputation amongst pupils and parents.
This might just help you get a few more juniors to join your club and your coaching programme once the lockdown is lifted.
5) Help out at the club
Do what you can to maintain and perhaps even improve the venue where you work during this period.
This could be simple stuff like clean some leaves off the courts, fix a net, paint a court bench, or whatever else that needs doing.
If you work in a committee led club, this will create goodwill amongst the committee and membership, which can only be a good thing!
6) Define a comeback offer
On the next podcast episode I will talk about offers, so I won’t spend too much time on this right now.
But basically, if you want to attract new players to your club or coaching programme once the lockdown is lifted, you should create an enticing offer that will persuade people to give tennis a go.
If you have no idea what constitutes a good offer, just listen to episode number 4, which will come out in a couple of days!
7) Set a marketing budget
Just think about how much you want to, or can afford to spend on marketing initiatives when things start opening up again.
The idea is that the more you’re willing to/can afford to spend, the easier it will be to reach more people and hopefully get them to give tennis a go.
8) Set up a referral scheme
If you know me, you know that I’m a big fan of referral schemes as they’re the best way to supercharge word-of-mouth referrals.
If you don’t have one set up, now could be a good time to set it up and advertise it to your customer base.
This might be the time that some of your players persuade some of their friends and/or family to join.
9) Create a Facebook Ad
If you listened to episode number 2 of the podcast you know why Facebook Ads are one of the best ways to reach a large audience at a very affordable price.
You could use this time to create a Facebook Ad ready to run as soon as the lockdown is lifted.
And if you don’t know how to create a Facebook Ad, you should join the Academy as I have a step-by-step course on how to create them in there - just saying!
10) Design flyers/posters/banners
Or update the designs you already have.
You might not be able to use these for a while, but you’ll be glad that you spent the time creating or updating them now, so they’re ready for when you do need to use them in the future.
11) Create a player onboarding email sequence
This is an automated series of emails that are sent to a player when they join the club or the coaching programme.
The idea here is that you write the emails once, and an email marketing tool like ActiveCampaign, for example, will automatically send them to any new players that join your club or coaching programme.
Do the work once, benefit from it forever.
12) Work on your website
Use this time to fix, update or completely redo your website.
If you don’t know where to start you can join the Academy to get access to my ‘Creating a Tennis Website Course’.
I know for a fact that a few of the Academy members used the first lockdown to completely redo their website, so this is something that you can also definitely do!
13) Set up an online shop
Maybe now is the time for you to create an online shop to sell your own branded apparel or even to sell other equipment like rackets, trainers, etc.
Setting up an online shop doesn’t need to be that complicated as there are services that do it all for you.
14) Change any business system that needs changing
This could be around how you take payments, how you manage lesson bookings and registers, how you manage court bookings, or how you give feedback to parents, for example.
If there’s a particular system or process that is a pain, or that you think could be improved, then now is the time to change it and fix the issues!
15) Create or update your Terms & Conditions document
I know, pretty boring!
But if you don’t have a Terms & Conditions document you should probably create one.
And if you do already have one, perhaps now is the time to check what might need to be updated on it.
16) Find and organise all your marketing collateral
By marketing collateral I mean all your videos, photos, logos, graphics, etc. that you’ll potentially use in future marketing campaigns.
Now is the time to find all of these bits and bobs and organise them so it’ll be easier and quicker for you to find and use them in the future.
17) Clean up and organise your email list
Another element that should always be clean and organised is your email list.
Make sure to purge any old email addresses that haven’t opened one of your emails in a long while, and tag all other emails as either customers, past customers or Leads.
This will allow you to keep track of who you’re emailing at all times.
18) Learn a new relevant skill
Like for example learning how to edit videos for social media, learning how to create a Facebook Ad, learning how to run a customer feedback survey, learning how to create a website, or any other skill that you think will be relevant to you and your club or coaching business.
Just bear in mind that if there’s something that you really do not want to do yourself, or that you think you’re not the right person to do, then hiring someone else to do it for you might be the best option.
19) Complete your independent learning for CPD points
If you need to get CPD points to renew your coaching license, now might be a good time to do some independent learning and get it out of the way.
20) Restock equipment inventory
Take a little bit of time to look through your inventory and maybe replenish it if necessary.
21) Look at club strategy documents and policies
Do these even exist? And if they do, do they need updating?
This is the boring work that we never have time for when we’re busy, but now is a good time to get it done and out of the way, before we get busy again.
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Alright, there you have them. 21 things that you could be doing during the lockdown to move your tennis club or coaching programme forward.
Now, I’m in no way suggesting that these are the ONLY 21 things you could be doing.
In fact, maybe you’ve already got a few other things that you’d like to execute on that I didn't mention.
If you do, I think that’s great!
My hope is that we as an industry will use this time as productively as we can, instead of just ‘freezing’ and waiting for the lockdown to end.
Alright, that is it for this special episode of the podcast.
Hopefully some of these ideas were useful to you.
I’ll be back soon with another instalment of the Tennis Business Academy Podcast.
Until then and thanks for tuning in!