How to Market a Youth Sports Club: Brand First

[0:00] Hey, guys. Welcome back to the podcast. And one conversation wasn't enough with Ben, so I have him on the podcast again. And again, last time I met Ben, we had a wonderful conversation, but we didn't realize how quickly that more than one hour passed by. And a good chunk of the time we spent on learning the values of Ben, the values that he has ingrained in VABA, the character development, how important character is. And as we were sort of ending that conversation, I saw that Ben has a business side to him. He understands, he understands how people operate, how to get the buy-in of the people. And I thought I want to do another podcast with him. This time I want to focus it all on the business side of running the club.

[0:57] So welcome back, Ben. And and I'm glad you're here again, I guess quickly introduce yourself if anybody hasn't watched the first episode. And again, they're tuning in for the first time. Sure. My name's Ben D 'Alessandro. in central Virginia here in Charlottesville and established a nonprofit organization called the Virginia Basketball Academy. The acronym is VABA, V-A -B-A, here in Charlottesville, Virginia. Background was a Division I college assistant coach at University of Virginia as a grad assistant and then moved on to James Madison University and then Clemson University. And during that time, I was coming back to this area to run a basketball camp.

[1:50] And over time, came to understand that maybe my gifts were better shared working with younger athletes. And in doing that, founded the Virginia Basketball Academy. And since those days, it's grown to quite a large organization. So we have about, I would say, anywhere from 2,200 to 2,400 kids come through our program annually. So it's quite an undertaking. And our mission is building character shaping lives through the game of basketball. So that's been really our banner and something we stay committed to. And over time, we've developed a very nice brand here locally.

[2:40] 100%. And I'm going to put the link in the description. Definitely go watch the first episode, we went more deeper into the culture. But again, I guess diving straight into it, Ben, so you just mentioned again, that your club surfaces and you are from 2,000 to 2,500 kids, athletes annually. It's no joke to have those 2,500 people or get their buy in. So what's going to happen is, again, solely from business perspective, imagine there's another club director listening to us, who has the ambition to be where you are with these many athletes. What would you say, I guess, are good sales slash marketing, like concrete things that you guys have done really well, not only getting new clients, but also retaining them. I guess I'm more interested in getting new clients, because obviously retaining again, gets back into how coaching is all of that stuff, good coaching. But how do you acquire new clients?

[3:50] Like, if you were to break it down, what are different methods, whether it's social media, word of mouth, like whatever it is, what's your guys's process, because I'm sure internally, you guys have some goals, something. But yeah, how do you go about that? So one thing to keep in mind, nowadays, is a referral has probably a 90% success rate when it comes to just a word of mouth referral. And that I think is in general for all sales. In other words, we never had some grandiose marketing plan. I never really got consumed with marketing or numbers or how many kids were there. I would say to any small business owner or anyone trying to start a youth basketball league, if you're in it for the business success of it, you probably are going to struggle, at least at the outset. So really, I don't want to I was so consumed with addressing things I saw within the youth sports culture that I thought were negatively influencing kids or done in such a way that it wasn't an honest approach to coaching and developing, that I just focused on doing things the right way.

[5:27] And listening to what people wanted, you know, I think so long winded answer. But there's no, we do a lot more intentional marketing now, if you will, but it shouldn't be the focus of the beginning of any business per se, you really got to get your philosophy down, you have to get your culture solid, you have to get your belief system in play. And that's what develops your brand, if you will. Can you differentiate between a brand or branding and marketing for someone who might not understand the difference? Sure. So branding is what's the instant quick reaction to the name that you say, for instance, you have a brand, Devansh, your friends have somewhere to say, Devansh, tell me about Devansh in three words quickly.

[6:23] That's your brand. It's the first thought. It's the first. It's the first reaction. Yeah, that makes you that makes you unique. And we talk about branding to our players, to our kids, to our, to our student athletes, we tell them, look, what does your coach think about you? What do your teammates think about you? What's your brand? Are you positive? Are you encouraging? Are you a hard worker? Are you a good listener? What would they say in a bite size, quick synopsis of you, your character, your personality, what makes you you? That's your brand. So what I hope VABA's brand is, and I believe it is, true is we're, we are a well-organized, principled organization that brings good quality coaching, develops the character and the skill and the knowledge and the love of the game of its, of its, of its players, and that we sincerely care about the growth and development of our players.

[7:40] So over 20 plus years of doing this, and I think we counted, we're over 20 ,000 alumni. My hope, my hope is that if we were to send out, you know, a survey to those alumni and say, describe VABA, that, that there would be a level of consistency in their answers. Marketing is different than branding because marketing is what you were talking about. I think there are two phases to marketing. There's, there's acquisition, customer acquisition, if you want to call it customers. In our case, we, we, we call them families. So how do you acquire new families? And then there's retention. How do you retain those fans? How do you keep them coming back? I think that goes right back to branding. And I think that goes right back to the original thing that I mentioned, which is culture and belief system and philosophy.

[8:33] Mission, mission centered branding is, is critically important to any successful business. And I think in a particular, any youth sports group. And I'm talking about a sports group that's not just, you know, running tournaments. I hate to say, but anyone can do that. Like running tournaments, you can run quality tournaments and kids can come and go. There's no instruction per se. If you're, if you're in the process of teaching and developing young people, you're talking about higher level stuff. It's, it's more difficult to, to do that and to stay consistent with it. Yeah. No, I fully agree with you. I, in, I guess you might also be watching this, I guess for me, the difference between branding and marketing is what marketing is, why someone says yes to go on a date with you. Branding is why they choose to date you after meeting you for the first time. So marketing is why someone comes to you.

[9:38] Branding is why someone stays with you. If I may say that and use that analogy, I can see that. I would say, and I guess another thing to add there is marketing could be more short-term. Branding is more long-term, correct? In long-term it pays off once you, you're an established brand. Whenever you do something, there's so much credibility, characteristics behind that, that it takes less time for you to convince someone versus someone new. Yes. But, but the differentiation I'm making between branding and marketing is it would be similar to what maybe John Wooden would say is the difference between character and reputation.

[10:29] I think branding is who are you? Like you have to have a brand to market. What we want to market is our brand. I don't think they're the same thing. I think the quality of your marketing is dependent on the authenticity of your brand. sense. Right? Because you can try to create a brand and want your company or your organization to be about certain things. And then someone experiences it firsthand and says, they're not what they say they are. I think a lot of youth organizations don't intentionally brand because they're just trying to be all things for all people.

[11:19] They're trying, they don't really care about, sincerely care about developing young people. They're more concerned with short-term, flashy social media highlights and all those kinds of things that that's marketing. That's not true branding in my opinion. Or your brand might be, what might just be that? Your brand might be a flashy, cool, highlight superstar type of, that might be your brand. That's not us by any stretch. That makes sense. In terms of, I guess, marketing, what people see on the superficial level is also obviously necessary. What do you think and what do you guys personally implement? What are the top social media channels?

[12:15] Is Facebook at the top of everything? Facebook is now because we've been on it the longest. I will admit that I am not the social media expert at all. If there's one area of marketing that I have started to really study and invest my energy and time into learning more about, it is social media marketing because I, in my personal life, am not, I think, really into promoting myself personally. But I do think it's worthwhile for me to have a major role. I've crossed the Rubicon a little bit when it comes to this in being the credible authority for VABA. We're making intentional steps to try and talk about our brand, why we're different, what makes us unique, who we are, what we've accomplished over the course of almost three decades, which I think says quite a bit. The best way to do that now is through social media.

[13:24] Facebook was the more popular, the earliest version of social media and parents were really, and still are, very much into Facebook. And it also depends on the area because in the Valley, which is west of Charlottesville, we have a Valley VABA. Facebook is bigger there than it is here in Charlottesville for whatever reason. Of course, Instagram, TikTok, things like that. Those are areas we've very mildly dabbled in, but we are fully embracing the next step to try and get the word out about who we are through the social media platforms that, you know, better develop our brand.

[14:13] And that's the part of any good business now has to do that. Yeah, that makes sense. And I even as I think about it, audience that is paying the fee is the parents who are most likely on Facebook versus the athletes you're serving are more likely on Instagram. So I guess then the decision becomes like, what's the split between how much we're focusing on the person actually who's going to take the cash out versus who's going to come in and play. Yes. Right. Would you agree with me? That's the 100%. 100%. However, when I first started VABA, all my kids on Facebook were very young and I was the same age as many of our parents. Now, I think I'm a lot older than most of our parents.

[15:10] And so I think you might have the parent of say a first, second, third grader who's in their mid 30s. And it's an Instagram is part of their daily routine, part of their daily life. They've got an Instagram page, they communicate through Instagram, they meet people through Instagram, they talk about so I think as we progress in these times, more and more people will be using Instagram, although you're 100% correct. Initially, parents were the ones on Facebook. And we that's part of the reason why I don't think we made an intentional effort to be on Instagram because but but I think it's important. I think parents listen to their kids. I think if kids are are getting phones earlier in their life, and there's all kinds of content out there, we should be pushing the content we feel is edifying to a youth's character and what would be positive for them and their family.

[16:14] and I am I'm trying to translate what I just said, for my own company, very sport. Because that is something I'm constantly thinking. So people always ask me, So I'm so we're also not that active on Instagram. And the reason being, who like we are a B to B business, I'm selling to club directors like you, and many others, right? If why, if I'm on Instagram, but your age people like the club directors, again, they're not on Instagram, is it worth for Waresport to still post on Instagram? Yeah, I guess that comes back to branding. That's, I guess, a bigger reason of why I do that. Because across platforms, there needs to be a constant theme of character and constant theme of values to keep everything together.

[17:12] But I guess framing it more as a question for you. What do you think, like, from Waresport perspective, what is the channel that we tap into to get to club directors like you to sell the software? What's the best way for Waresport or reach club directors? Correct. So we I'll give you a list of things we do. And then you tell me which is good, which is, you know, bad. So we cold call. I know most club directors hate it, but we do it anyway. Second, there's value in that. Second, we do cold emailing. That's how I reached out to you. But again, it was for different contexts. I wasn't trying to sell you anything. The third is DM on LinkedIn. That's, I think, pretty much the three big ones. And the fourth one is people find us through our website.

[18:03] That's all we're doing right now. But you being on that side, being the target audience that I'm going after, what do you think we need to double down on? Or what do we do differently? Like, I, with pure, you know, being super humble, I think we have a 10x better product than I don't want to name them, you know, XYZ competitors. Sure. One of them that you're also using. So, but how do I get that point across to the club directors? Yeah. Why would they trust me? Well, I don't know. I really don't have any, I think we get pursued all the time by everybody. Correct. Because of our size, I suppose maybe I don't know. I don't know how people would know how many kids we have or how many families participate.

[18:58] But whether it's, you know, I don't have to list all of them, but they continually pursue us even after we say no. Typically, the initial contact is through email. Every now and then we'll get phone calls. And I think the old fashioned cold calling and being consistent, just like in any sales market, is probably the best way to do it. I think you're on to something though, even with say Instagram and other sort of, I hate to say it, but sort of cheesy, you know, sort little Instagram ads where it's like, hey, you know, are you trying to run a youth sports company? I swipe through those. I set up appointments with those people, even though I'm satisfied with where I am.

[19:50] So I think you just have to have a multifaceted approach. I don't necessarily know what other club directors would say. I'm probably more responsive than others because I'm constantly trying to get better. I've made mistakes trying certain things that didn't work. But I also think it's important. You know, whoever the club is with, they have to do a good job to keep their business. So, you know, how where they make their lives easier is I can tell that's what you're trying to search for. That's what I try to convey. But I think there's a lack of obviously, a big company has been around there for 10 years, 15 years.

[20:39] Most people that I've spoken to, they hate using it, but they use it anyway. Yeah. And I'm like, you hate using what you're using. I'm telling you we have a better product. And I, I'm even saying use it for free. Don't give me anything. Use it for free. Or I guess I'm saying it on zoom right now. If anybody's seeing it, I'll give it to you for free for two months. If you don't like it, never come back to me. So I'm, I'm even ready to do that. But I feel like it's very hard for club directors to change, to change and believe, even though I, yeah, what happens is the club gets dependent on, on the company they're with. We made the shift once from one company to another and that transition can be very difficult because A, your constituents are used to a certain way of doing things.

[21:34] B, your staff is used to doing certain things a certain way. So if a club can find a better way and, and, and feel comfortable about the transition to something that's new, the change, you know, that takes leadership to do that. And we did it for a short stint and it was a mistake. It was a mistake. We, we, we, my staff did not like it, but I felt like it was worth trying. And so that's, that's, that's, that's how we ended up kind of back where we are now. And honestly, it's more difficult now to consider leaving now because our staff had a bad experience. So everybody's already sort of, they have it in their mind that, is it even worth it? Is it even worth it?

[22:24] That's right. I'd have to have something really compelling that makes a prop, you know, something very compelling that, that would, that would cause us to leave. However, I'm always open. Like I'm always open and always searching. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's, that's good too. And I, I think I, being from this side, I really appreciate it. You being open to it because I think a lot of people are not even open to that, which, you know, no matter how hard then I work or my team works, then it's all going to waste. But anyways, I, I, I think, yeah. And if I'm not to give you advice, but I think if you can get someone for the first time, yeah, it was newer and there's a lot more of these popping up, but yeah, I, yeah, I fully agree with you. I think a majority of our clubs that we've gotten are the ones starting new and they love us. Exactly.

[23:23] The others, I would say there's a 70, 30% split. 30% is what switching, but I think it again takes either a deep pain point with your existing software or you must be, you must have a high appetite of risk and openness to just try something new. Sure. But no, I was just curious. I think this is also a learning opportunity for me being with you. But anyway, coming back to your side of things, what's your guys's pricing model and how do you come up with that pricing model? Again, thinking from the perspective of someone new trying to start a basketball club, how do you price? Because I think it's one of those harder questions. Marketing, go Facebook, make a post, go Instagram, make a post, have a website, blogs. That's more of the standard stuff.

[24:18] Pricing could be a little tricky, especially someone with no business background. They might be under pricing, over pricing. How have you guys approached it? I know, again, you guys are more relationship oriented. Pricing is secondary. No, no, no. I mean, you have to pay the bills and you have to make sure you're properly staffed. That's probably obviously our biggest expense. It's just making sure we're staffed properly, not just quantity, but quality people that believe in the mission. Those people can be, won't say difficult to find because we've got a lot of them, but you want to take care of them. You know? So we don't have big margins. I mean, we don't really, no one's - So without, I guess, giving away your margins, what's your base pricing model?

[25:13] Do you charge by program? Do you charge for a class? How do you charge people? I guess, what's the different revenue streams? So we have four seasons, fall, winter, spring, summer. Winter is our most popular, obviously, because it's basketball season. So as in like right now, as we're speaking? Yes, sir. And so margin's very, very thin because we try to be as competitive as possible, price wise, but we're not going to compromise on the quality. There's so many ways you can cut corners.

[26:04] So like the overhead, say on a winter league is extensive when it comes to apparel, printing, gym space, rental, staffing, insurance, you name it. We move into the springtime and that's where our travel teams really get ramped up. So in essence, they're all-star teams from our winter league. And similar, you have apparel, you have all kinds of apparel. Travel teams get geared up pretty good. We try to find the right balance on that. And then summer camp, we now run only day camps, although in the old days, we used to run overnight camps. Overnight camps have all kinds of extra equipment.

[26:57] They sleep and stuff? Yeah. That was the original VABA camp, to be honest. It was very much like the old school summer basketball camp model, but now it's mostly day camps and it just saves on overhead. Kids have lots of things going on. Some are unable to commit that much plus the price point on an overnight camp has a lot of overhead. I can imagine logistics. Where do they sleep? Lodging, food, the whole electricity, all of that. Lodging and food are the two big ones for an overnight camp. You're feeding everybody and you're housing everybody. You just eliminate those two things on a day camp and we set up our camps around meals so we don't have to feed anybody.

[27:47] They can bring a snack and we've got that type of thing. And that's our summer model. Fall is very limited on activity because everyone's doing a lot of fall sports and we're also trying to maximize our time to prepare for the winter. So we do have four seasons. We've considered a membership model. In other words, we have families that participate in every season. So we've thought about incentivizing a membership model and putting together a cool type of perk package, if you will, that a family might get. And they would pay monthly dues and then get discounted rates, reward them for their patronage type of thing. But that's on hold just because the ability to keep track of that is would be a major expense when it comes to the bookkeeping and that kind of thing.

[28:50] It's something we've considered, especially with the size and scope of our organization and how many loyal followers and fans we have to our program. So if you're seeing the same families who really love, you send out some type of email marketing and the same family sign right up and their kids love basketball and they love VABA and they're getting better and they're developing and the love and the skill set, then they're going to tend to be your most loyal families. Why not reward them for the build and maybe incentivize a family who might be coming to three seasons to add a season on and save a little bit. So we've just got to put that model together at some point, but it's something we've considered as well. And that's actually a good idea that as soon as you said it, I was like at the infrastructure level, I can also add an ability for you to start a loyalty program where XYZ activities get them points. Those points could be redeemed for ABC things.

[29:53] Correct. We have that a little bit. With our sort of our elite program, if someone participates in that, we do give them a sort of what we call discount. Yeah. So the program is called Bruins, our Bruins program. We have Bruins Bucks. They can earn Bruins Bucks by participating in that program and it gives them skill sessions. It gives them a credit for skill sessions. And how do you track that? Does your existing software help you track? Our existing software does not, but we have a staff member that does handle that. That's a good gap for me. Yeah, that would be. And it creates extra work for that person who's got to keep track of who signed up for what, how many Bruins Bucks do they have?

[30:44] How many have they spent? So absolutely. If there was an automated way to do that, in other words, they sign up for this program and then they receive a code that can be applicable to another program. If that was an automated process, that would probably be a good thing. And again, loyalty could be directly correlated with the revenue you guys make in future. I guess if I added that it could be a great selling point, right, which is very different than any software. But that's good to know. And you said, so it's also for all the best time, then Waresport to approach club directors is that when you're, if there was one season you could choose, which is that season, which you will feel the most convenient to switch to spring for me, spring spring across basketball.

[31:42] We are a unique organization because we're not an AAU program. We're unique in our format, so I wouldn't use my, but for us, when we finish up the winter, we're preparing for the summer, but it's probably the least intensive period of time for us. August is also probably a good time when our summer camps end. But I would say probably April. Okay. April, May. April, that's good to know. So apparel, summer camps, and obviously the winter is your peak. Yeah. Spring, spring, the spring, we have anywhere from 200 to 300 kids play basketball in our spring travel program. We have a lot of ways in which the kids participate in games during that time. We have what we call Friday night hoops.

[32:44] So on Friday nights in the spring, we bring all of our teams, they play inter squad scrimmages. This is an effort to save families on two things. One is money. They don't have to go to these travel tournaments with these exorbitant admissions fees. Anybody watching this who has a kid who plays AAU basketball, they probably have their head in their hands right now thinking about the exorbitant admission fees that these tournaments charge just to come watch your kid play. So that's the racket going on in the travel basketball world. Are you aware of that? I was not. I'll tell you how it works, Devansh. You have a kid, you sign them up to play basketball with VABA. You're all pumped up and excited. My son's playing basketball for VABA.

[33:33] VABA says we're going to, you're on the Bruins fifth grade team, Elite A. We're going to a tournament in Richmond. You pay VABA the money. We give you all your gear. We give you a great experience. You're practicing every week. You show up at the tournament in Richmond and you and your wife and your daughter come to watch your son play and they say 30 bucks a They're making money off of audience. They're making money off of the athlete. Honestly, they charge us a team registration fee. So the team pays. We embed the cost of the tournament into the cost you pay us. So the VABA pays for your team. But then when you travel to that tournament, you're paying admission. It's like going to watch an NBA game or something.

[34:24] And how do you, I guess there's so much logistics involved with traveling hotels, car rides, or you don't care about that. They have to take care of that. Some programs will take money upfront on that type of thing. We don't do that. Okay. We are essentially just taking it for the tournament fees. The tournament fees is a very small portion of our registration fee. Our biggest is probably gym rental. We provide options in the registration for parents to purchase apparel and we do our very best to maintain the same design and the same accessory for our apparel so that the kid doesn't outgrow something. He doesn't have to buy it again. So we do all kinds of things to try to keep costs down for families. The point I was making had to do with the racket that is travel basketball, where they charge families admission fees to come watch their kids play.

[35:25] And that's just the world we live in. True story, my son played in a tournament. I drove all the way to Pennsylvania, pulled in the parking lot. As I was pulling in parking lot, there's a guy that says 20 bucks to park to go watch my kid play. I go to the door, they say $50 to watch your kid play. And you can't even do anything now because you've driven so much. So you have to pay. See the racket that they're selling these families, and this is big for VABA, is that's what you've got to do to get your kid exposed to get a college scholarship. Really, what you got to do, if everyone wants to know the secret, is develop the character, skill, knowledge and love of the game of basketball for your child. So they pour themselves into developing their their skill and their knowledge and their love of the game. And then that's the best way to maximize a player's potential.

[36:26] And then think about, okay, what's the next step, but you get eight year olds and seven year olds and nine year old parents spending a lot of money to go to these travel tournaments. Now we do attend travel tournaments, we think there's value in traveling to play teams from other areas and going up against different defenses and different things. We think it's an exciting experience for the kids, for the families. But we try to do it in a very measured, discerning way. That's a positive for the families. And we've failed in that sometimes. We've tried certain things that turned out to be a negative experience. And we say, okay, well, we learned from that. I'm one of those guys that kind of swings for the fences.

[37:16] Let's try this. Let's give it another try. It didn't work. Let's give it another try. It still didn't work. Okay. You know what, guys, scratch that off. Let's, let's try something else. That's really how VABA has become what it is today, trial and error, lots of error. And I think we're pretty honed in on what works to develop the person and the player, what, what encourages the families to feel their child's in a safe, positive, encouraging environment, yet also challenging enough to stretch the child, the player to become better, right? To overcome some adversity. I don't think everything should be sunshine and rainbows. Not everyone gets a trophy. Your team's going to lose games. They're going to, you're going to get outscored.

[38:08] You're going to have to suffer disappointment. You might play on a travel team and not play a lot of minutes. Now, how do you handle that with your coach? What's an appropriate response to, so building character shaping lives through the game of basketball, it's not supposed to be sunshine rainbows. Everybody kumbaya. There's a lot of challenges that we need to face when we go through sports. So finding that balance is, is really what we're about. Uh, but at the same time, players should not be denigrated by their coach. Parents should maintain proper decorum at game sites as should coaches model poise and confidence and sportsmanship. Um, and youth sports, I think has, um, made lots of compromises in those areas and in so doing affected the ability for players to properly develop their character, their skill, their knowledge and love and, and parents should, should be wary and make sure they find the right program that's doing the right things for their kid.

[39:14] That's, that's incredible, uh, Ben. And I don't know how each time we speak an hour just goes by like that. I, I had so many other pointers that I had listed and we couldn't even get to that, but that's a good thing. We had, you know, so much to talk about the other points, but I don't know. We were going to have to do episode three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. We'll keep going when we'll keep going. It's, uh, yeah. It's thank you again for