Coaching Full Time – Providing a Plan
Innovate to Elevate
Innovate to Elevate is the theme of the 2013 National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) Convention. The event is billed as “The World’s Largest Annual Gathering of Soccer Coaches” and traditionally attracts roughly 8,000 attendees – 4,000 of which are soccer coaches.
The convention features a collection of classroom and on-field sessions that focus on “innovative and new techniques, training plans and more meant to help coaches elevate their teams and their career” according to the NSCAA website.
Demosphere, the leading provider of web-based administrative tools for sports organizations, has exhibited at the Convention and worked with thousands of coaches and their respective organizations for over 10 years.
Making the Transition to Full Time Coaching
From speaking with many youth and college coaches over the years, a primary challenge they face is earning enough income from coaching to make it a full time profession. More often than not, coaches also hold other full- or part-time jobs to make ends meet.
One way coaches can earn more consistent income throughout the year is to do more coaching! Organizing and running camps, clinics, and even private sessions can be the difference between being a part-time coach and making a living from coaching.
Help!
For many coaches, building a business from scratch is quite intimidating.
To assist with the 2013 Innovate to Elevate theme, I applied to conduct a classroom session titled “Personal Branding – How To Sell Yourself.”
The focus of the session is to provide a plan and offer best practices to help get coaches on the right path to success – especially by marketing to local clubs and the community.
During the session, a range of topics would be covered, including:
- An analysis of the target customer and how to reach them.
- How to build trust and confidence amongst your potential customers in you as a coach.
- A discussion of where and how should coaches market their services locally.
- How to plan and prepare for success year after year.
A Surprising Result
To make the session viable, I realized it had to be both unique and interesting. I reviewed classroom sessions from both the 2011 and 2012 Conventions, and the only topic remotely related to this one was a brand building topic led by a Seattle Sounders executive. Valuable, sure, but not geared to the personal success of youth, high school, and college coaches.
I submitted the session to the NSCAA for evaluation and was excited to help coaches nationwide achieve their financial goals by leaning on their own coaching expertise. I thought the session would be a slam dunk.
After a multi-month review period, NSCAA’s Education Subcommittee informed me that the session was not accepted. I asked NSCAA Director of Events Geoff VanDeusen for more information, and he replied, “New this year to the Convention will be the Experience Tracks, the committee identified topics that would fit into those tracks. With the overwhelming volume of proposals sent in we have had ample amount of topics to cover the Experience Tracks in which your proposal was not selected.”
Bringing the Session Online
While not being able to present in-person at the Convention is certainly disappointing, we have decided to present the session later this year (and before the 2013 Convention) as part of our Maximize Demosphere webinar series. The free, monthly webinars cover a variety of topics including website best practices, how to set a tournament timeline, and lots more. Our Personal Branding session for coaches will fit nicely and provide a ton of great information heading into 2013.
To learn when we’ll be hosting this session, please sign up for ExtraTime – our monthly email report. Each month we discuss a number of important youth sports topics and we announce the date, time, and topic for the Maximize Demosphere webinar. We hope you can join us!
