I sincerely believe that many tennis academies have fantastic websites. There are so many academies out there it is hard to choose where you send your son / daughter if they are exceptional players. You need to think of what direction they may want to take i.e. should they aim to become a pro straight from their academy, or do you want them to play College tennis first?
There are so many decisions to make when choosing an academy. Do you go with the reputation of the owner? Do you choose an academy owned by a top player? Do you send them to an academy in a certain tennis destination or keep them near you, or do you just keep them with their current coach who has a reputation as a top pro? When should you take them out of full time studies to start a career in tennis?
All of these questions you should ask yourself as a parent, and whatever you decide is up to you. Myself, as a business owner in the tennis industry, I would always want to send my child to the place with the best coaches… So, what I would do first is consider a few different academies and go with the coaches that best fits my child. Now, if an academy had little or no information on the coaches they employ, how could I possibly choose that Academy?
Problem is, there is very little on coaches in general on Academy Websites. I have done a fair bit of research checking out the profiles of the coaches on many Academy websites, some have nothing at all on their coaches, others have very limited profiles on their websites and very few have lots of good information.
In fact only 3 out of 100 + Academies I reviewed had what I would call enough information on all their coaches. I aim to change that. As the owner of sportsprosconnect.com, I aim to change how Academies perceive their coaches and the importance of a good profile.
For me, if you click any of these links below, you will see all the information you should see on a coach. I feel that most coaches are not profiled in the correct way and whether this is the fault of the Academy they are employed by or the coach themselves that is open to interpretation. The most important thing is that a coach is profiled in a positive way, surely if they are profiled accurately this will bring more business to the coach and therefore more business to the academy!! All the coaches below have nice profiles, some of which I have subsequently heard have been head hunted to work in higher positions, some have gained consistently more clients since signing up to the web pages, and others havent benefitted at all.
https://www.sportsprosconnect.com/titonavoni/
https://www.sportsprosconnect.com/susannardi/
https://www.sportsprosconnect.com/robcherry/
https://www.sportsprosconnect.com/nickjacques/
Why havent some benefitted you may ask? The simple answer to that is what they have done after the profile has been set up… The successful coaches have added their domain names to business cards and email signatures. They have profiled themselves on social media outlets and have worked to make the pages a success. They have also updated their profiles with new photos, new videos and new text. The unsuccessful coaches have done nothing. They have set up their profile, but have done nothing since. In a world of social media, coaches need to promote themselves and cannot expect clients or employers to come running at the drop of a hat …
In conclusion, I can honestly say that coaches in an Academy are not profiled well. I cannot understand the reasoning behind this, logic tells me that Academies who look after their staff and who profile their coaches will be more successful. Perhaps they are successful already and dont want to better themselves. However, if you run an Academy and want to run your business efficiently or are just struggling for numbers, then please consider profiling your coaches better.
Thanks for reading, and dont forget any feedback on this gratefully accepted.
Mark Wylam https://www.sportsprosconnect.com/markwylam/
