You Are Your Own Brand…Now What?
Personal Brand and Marketing 101 From a Pro
As a sports management, marketing graduate and former-tennis-professional-turned-branding-guru, I have learned extensively how competitive the sports coaching market is. What do I mean by that? I mean that every club, coach and co-worker around you is your competition. Oh, and other sports are also in that bucket. That’s a lot.
How do you stand out from the crowd and differentiate yourself? I had to ask myself that many times, not only as a female in a male-dominated industry, but when I was up against coaches who were former ATP/WTA players. These were a few key gaps I noticed:
- The Consumer Needs to be Educated - Tennis is such a specific and technical sport, making it wonderful but also very challenging for consumers to know what they are looking for in a coach. They often rely heavily on word-of-mouth referrals or hard facts (i.e. "I coached X player to reach X ranking). While that isn’t bad, it also can lead to those customers grabbing the first shiny object they see because they don’t know what a "good coach" looks like.
- Your Facility Isn’t Going to do All the Work for You - While it’s great to work for and be affiliated with a reputable club or federation, I have seen tennis professionals teaching at local parks with a loyal following that bootstrap their business by leveraging local organic and paid marketing approaches (more to follow).
- You Are the Product You Are Selling - In short, your personality, your credentials, your own playing ability, reputation and results are what makes or breaks a purchase decision (someone taking you on as their coach). The ability to built trust and credibility from the first lesson is crucial for retention.
- The Majority of Tennis Professionals are Not Tech or Marketing Savvy - This is my observation. However, this is a huge opportunity to leverage free (or nearly free) marketing tools that are right at your fingertips to get ahead of the curve and stand out. Which leads me to...
- Start With Some Self-Reflection (FREE) - Yep, I said it. Plan on spending 1-2 weeks simply giving yourself some quiet time to dig deep and figure out what kind of coach you want to be seen as. Ask yourself questions, such as:
- Who is my customer? How can I attract this type of clientele?
- What tone/voice do I want to use both online and in person?
- What are my core competencies/differentiators from other coaches?
- Why do I coach/what is my passion and how can I translate that to others?
- Create a Business Instagram Account (FREE) - Of all social media channels, this is my top recommendation. Why? Because Instagram has become a digital magazine of YOU. It is highly visual, simple to use and also contains a larger amount of followers in the Millennial age category. Use this opportunity as one to create content featuring tips, stories or promotions you are running. This gives the viewer the opportunity to see for themselves who you are as a coach and visualize themselves working with you. It also gives your current customers a chance to learn from you outside of their lessons and get to know you better, as well as interact with your posts - building trust with potential new clientele.
- Learn the Basics of Content Creation ($) - No, don’t worry - we aren’t talking about you becoming the next Photoshop guru (though we love it!) The holy grail here? Canva. There are now sites like this offering extremely easy and beautiful templates tailored to social media specs and include graphic and video stock assets that are endless. It also features the ability to schedule posts to post up to months in advance - giving you more time to be on the court. We highly recommend starting with a free account and using the 30-day pro trial, getting your feet wet and then paying for an annual pro subscription (a little over $100/year).
- Build a Hub to Send Interested Buyers to ($-$$) - While building traction and a following through social media are great, you are missing out on leads if you have nowhere to send people for more details, pricing and valuable contact information. You can pay for a website developer or go a significantly cheaper route and use websites like SquareSpace or Wix to create your own. Like the website version of Canva, these sites make it extremely easy (no coding knowledge required) to pick a template and plug in your assets, customize text, pages and so much more.
Building Your Brand Foundation
You Are An Entrepreneur of YOU
If you can successfully follow through with these 4 steps, you are already miles ahead of your competition. While these options are free to low-cost, it is not to be ignored that every hour spent not on the court is an opportunity cost. However, these hours will translate to much more revenue in the end, and I advise not to take any shortcuts.
Through my 10+ years of coaching and marketing experience, I have learned that there are many parallels between some of the most successful coaches I have seen and business entrepreneurs. These individuals have learned how to sell their value proposition and product(s) with few financial resources and time - but they both know how to hustle and grind with tenacity and creativity.
While there will be more blogs to come on marketing and business help for tennis professionals like yourself, I will leave you with a few quotes to light your fire:
"Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue."
- Andrew Davis, actor and writer
"Your brand is a story unfolding across all customer touch points."
- Jonah Sachs, American storyteller, designer, author and entrepreneur
Keep Calm and Market On!
