All right, welcome back to the Buying Sandlot podcast. I am Kyle Scott, founder of Buying Sandlot. On today's episode I speak with Will Bartholomew. He's a former University of Tennessee fullback and the founder and CEO of D1 Training. D1 is a national network of coach led athletic based training centers built to bring Division 1 standards to everyday athletes. They're attacking youth sports with age based programs, certified coaches and holistic approach that D1 wants to build stronger, faster and more confident athletes. They currently have 165 franchise locations across the US and are looking to add more. Before we get to the interview with Will, two quick things. Number one is we continue to plan our Buying Sandlot Youth sports business conference for next spring, most likely April in Philly. Stay tuned to Buying Sandlot and our newsletters for details on that. Sometime mid to late October we should have dates, dates, venues, early bird tickets, sponsor opportunities, so keep an eye out for that. Second, I do want to mention that D1 is a sponsor of our Buying Sandlot newsletter. But given that they are one of the biggest players in the training space and the business Will has built over the last 20 years, I thought they would be an incredible guest to have on the podcast. Not only for some of the franchise opportunities for the facility owners in our audience, but also about how youth athletes are training today versus how they used to train 10 and 20 years ago. So onto the interview with Will. All right, Will, welcome to the podcast.

Kyle, thanks for having me on man, really appreciate it.

Yeah, you're welcome. Why don't you give our audience a little bit about your personal background from Tennessee to Denver and founding D1 and then we can kind of go into D1, the brand itself.

Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. I was a three sport high school athlete in. I was fortunate enough to go to University of Tennessee to play football. I was there to date myself. 90, 97 to 01. Got to win a national championship, got to block for a guy named Peyton Manning, got to be captain of the team there. And then I was fortunate enough to go sign with the Denver Broncos and in training camp I blew out my knee. It was actually a non contact drill. You know, you think of these like guys getting wrecked and I was actually just running and so those are the.

Worst kind they always look at.

Yeah, and had multiple knee surgeries trying to come back and man, I, I wanted to dedicate my life to something that, you know, really had a lot of meaning and I had found a refuge. I talked to a lot of athletes about this. I found that the weight room for me was like sacred ground. It was like the place where I could go refine and lift and get better. And man, I just, I love the weight room almost, you know, way more than probably playing football. And so my dad had always told me, hey, if you find something you love, you know, you dedicate your life to it, you know? You know, you never work a day in your life. And so I came back to Nashville, Tennessee and opened up my first gym. And back in the day, you know, when I was like, they were like, hey, who, who, who are you? You know, who's the gym for? I was like, it's for the middle school, high school athlete. And people would look at me like, I'm crazy.

Yeah.

You know, because they'd be like, who's gonna sign up to do that? And man, I just had so much fun training these young athletes to come in and you'd watch them just transform their bodies, transform their mindset, go out at a higher level. And parents just really gravitated towards it, to signing up their kids. And, you know, fast forward, you know, I started growing gyms around the country. I did corporate owned big box gyms, so 18, 000 square feet. They were big, big turf fields, A lot of logistics, a lot of organization. And I made a big pivot in the business about 15 years in and I franchised it. We simplified the model. We're now 4,000 square feet. So we went from an 18,000 square foot box to 4,000 square feet. Just really honed in on going, hey, we want to be the private coach for these athletes. And Today we have 165 locations open around the country. We're opening a bunch more locations and man, really trying to serve all these communities in a world class way. That's the, that's the quick, abbreviated story.

No, no, that's good. I want to go back for a sec. So, I mean, lots of people own and operate facilities in our audience or entrepreneurs in some form or fashion, myself included. And I know the difficulties of starting a business go back, you know, just briefly to that moment. You know, Jim's gym space is a tough business, right? Lots of, lots of failures. Right? What, what was the challenge early on? Right? And then what made you feel like you were onto something that you can grow and scale? And then obviously the frame, you know, it's probably not something's on your mind on day.

No, definitely not on day one. You know, when I first started, it was, it was, you know, sometimes some, some great Decisions are made when you just don't know all the factors. You know, I just, I was so young and naive. I was like, man, T shirt, gym shorts, listen to rap music. Heck yeah. Who wouldn't want to be here when.

You know too much, sometimes you see the problems and then you just don't even try that road, man.

When I first opened, I didn't understand pre sales, I didn't understand pricing levers, I didn't understand coach compensation, I didn't understand CRMs and follow up and how to customer service and all of these things that we have built today. I just, I didn't know what I didn't know and I think that actually kind of helped me because I just jumped in with a ton of energy and tried to use just common sense. Like, you know, like, hey, what, what, what do I want? You know, I want when I walk in to be greeted well, great, let's create a process around that. You know, when I, what do I want? I want like nutrition guidance. I want, you know, my coach to talk to me more about not just strength and conditioning, but also like the psychology, like hey, motivation and inspiration. So man, it was a lot of just common sense. And then, you know, throughout the years I got a little smarter. You know, I'm a fullback, so it takes me a little bit. I have to hit my head a few times before it goes off. And I just got around. Some really smart people, started hiring smart people and that really helped me expand and grow. I got to give a credit to the team because I couldn't do it without a world class team. And I feel fortunate enough when I, when I look back as you asked that question, it's like, man, I, I think that really served me well of just going, you know what, I don't know what, I don't know. Let's bring in experts and really listen. I've always been a collaborative leader. You know, I don't like to like be the guy who think, who has all the answers. I was like, man, I don't have the answers. Like, how would you do this? And so I think that that spirit has really helped me and served me well. And so, you know, pick up little things along the way. And I think ultimately if anybody's out there right now and you're in the, you're in the business and you're, you're, you're scrapping and you're fighting and you're trying to figure out payroll, you're trying to figure out how do I get more members lead gen all these different aspects of the business. I think one of the most powerful things in my life that I've done is I've created a great network and where I can lean on people and call on people and go, hey, how would you do this? So to me it's like, don't reinvent the wheel. Go find out what other great people are doing and then just iterate. And so that's, that's some, some lessons learned, you know, hitting my head a few times.

Yeah, it's a good one. You want to go, what is it saying? You want to go fast, go alone, you want to go far, go together? Something like that.

That's right.

So talk about. You said somewhere along the way you kind of pivoted from just like we want to train middle school and high school athletes and you kind of refined the model. Talk about the product of D1, the service you guys offer to customers. What, where it is today? Verse, you know, verse then. And what's sort of that one line pitch you may give to a parent, 16 year old athlete and then like a 42 year old former athlete who wants to stay in shape like myself and you know, can never find enough.

Time, man, all of us, right?

Yeah. So I didn't, I was not, I didn't make it to the NFL like you did. But I say former athlete, I say high school, but it counts.

Yeah, I mean, look, we all, we all get to whatever level we get to. But what I love about sport is that it teaches, teaches you so many different things in life. It teaches you how to take risks, how to bet on yourself like you've done with this, that you've created that, you know, buying sandlot, which is such a great idea. Talking about youth sports and talking about what's going on. And you learn some of those things from, you know, your coaches along the way. You know my pitch, I'll go to that question first. Like at the end of the day, our why, like why we exist is to inspire and motivate athletes to reach their goals. I had a coach when I was in high school, so. So back up a little bit of my story. When I was in eighth grade, I tore my acl, so. And then fast forward. The same doctor that did my ACL surgery in eighth grade, he actually did it when I was with the Denver Broncos. It's kind of a surreal moment. So I tore my knee when I was in eighth grade and they told me like, hey, you might get a shot to play high school ball, like much less go play, you know, at Tennessee or have the chance to go to the NFL. And I'm, you know, as an eighth grader, that's like devastating. You're like, what? And so my dad always taught me, like, hey, if you go work really hard, you can give yourself the opportunities to be great, but you got to work really hard just to get the opportunity. So I had this work ethic in me and I had a strength coach in high school. He was a volunteer strength coach and we would lift together and he would, he would talk, he would quote scripture in my ear. Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another, you know, and he would like preach these things in my ear. And all of a sudden I was watching my body transform. I was getting bigger and faster, stronger. And I was like, man, that, that, those, those incremental moments of lifting in high school just made me realize that, man, he inspired and motivated me to reach my goal. And my goal was to play at the highest level. And so that's what we want to do at D1. We want to create these gyms where you walk in and you see that, that brand, you know, I got the branding going here. You know, you see, you see the D1 brand, you go, man, I'm going to get inspired and motivated by this coach. Because there's a lot of coaching out there, as you know, that's tearing kids down, beating them up, telling them they can't do it. And to me it's like meet the athlete where they're at, inspiring to motivate him to get a little bit better. And that might be just a couple more push ups, right? That might be just to start or just to have the confidence to go out for the team. It doesn't have to be, to be the five star athlete. But man, if you walk in the D1 doors and we're inspiring and motivating athletes, man, that's what it's all about. I used to think back in the day was about the programming and it was about, and don't get me wrong, really were hyper focused on programming. And I used to think about the coaching points. Don't get me wrong, the coaching points are super important, but like, when you walk in today, man, it is a lot of inspiration. It's a lot of motivation. It is. And so the psychology part of it is really important way more than just sets and reps, because as we all know, we can go out in the, you know, backyard and do sets and reps, but if you can get inspired and motivated to go a little bit More man. It can be a game changer. And so we purposely put. If you walk in any D1 franchise today, we have 12 words on the wall of every D1. Words like perseverance, respect, discipline, fearless. And to me, that's what it's all about. Like, you're learning, you're getting bigger, faster, stronger. All of a sudden, your bench press goes, you know, from 185 to 200, and you're feeling great about yourself. But really what we're doing is we're building that character that's gonna. That's gonna last a lifetime. And that's what happened to me in the weight room, and that's what we're constantly focused on.

It almost sounds like, you know, if you kind of take the business analogy there, you're almost describing compound growth, right? Like getting 1% better every day. And it's funny you mentioned that, because I'm in Philly. I went to Villanova, right? So I've seen. I listened to, like, Nick Sirianni speak now, right? I've listened and consumed everything Jay Wright said for 20 years, which he was still coaching, right? And Bill Belichick, guys like that, there's always this, like, through line of, like, their players sound like robots, because the next day it's like, we just want to get better tomorrow. In practice, you hear the great teams, even after a big win, you always hear them say, we're just excited because we can get a little bit better tomorrow. And I don't think, especially at the youth sports level, I see it from other parents. Everyone just expects their. I mean, my kids are 9 and 7, so that's. I see some parents who want their 9 year old to make the leap to high school baseball player to professional pitcher. And it's like, man, if he could just, like, figure out how to field a ground ball a little bit more efficiently tomorrow, like, that's the next step on his ladder. So I think that's such an important message to have, you know, in your facility. How do you tailor that message for the younger athletes, right, and then have commercial success? You know, you need, you know, you need adults in there who are. Who are training, who maybe don't have pro or college aspirations, but they want to stay in shape, they want to be their best self. Is that message differ or is it really just the same across when somebody comes in, whether you're a kid or.

You know, I think it's the same underlying message. I think it's. The delivery is different, right? Just like, man, if we want to get more explosive and powerful as a 47 year old man, you know, I'm not going to do the same exercises my 17 year old son's doing right now. So I think the delivery is a little different, but the underlying message is like, man, we gotta train with intensity. We have to train with perseverance, we have to train with character, we have to follow a really good pro. I, I, we do eight week cycles so we follow a periodization program. So we're constantly getting better and straining the system. And then, you know, sometimes you have to dial it back depending on where you're at in the athlete journey. Right? So my son, so I got three kids and so this is kind of like my life, right? So my daughter just finished playing soccer at the University of Tennessee, so she had a whole Division 1 experience. And then my middle boy is a middle linebacker at Vanderbilt right now and he's battling through just towards ACL in the spring game. So he's going through the mental, the mental rigors of going. I put myself in position to get on the field. Now I have to go through this whole medical redshirt year in rehab and keep my head in the game, but yet, you know, persevere and come back stronger than what I was. And then I have a 17 year old, he's a quarterback in high school and we're going through the journey of going, hey, listen, like I keep telling him, it's, it's, to me it's about to your point, it's the next game, it's playing great. The scholarships, the nil, the like, all that will come and it'll come in God's timing. Don't try to force this. This isn't, this isn't like, like to me that's the beauty of sport. It's like at the end of the day, you know, whatever, you know, walk of life you are, you know, you could be the, the, the kid who has a dad in the sports performance business. You could be the kid who has nothing, you know, who's just out in the park playing. And when you step on that field, everything gets leveled, right? The best players prevail. And so I love that because that is just a great thing in life because it's like, man, you got to go put in the work. And so when I look at, when I look at like the business and where everything's going, it's like, man, you really, we really want to teach these young athletes like, hey, you got to put in the work, you got to come in day in day out just to get yourself the opportunity to play. Well, that doesn't mean you're going to do it all the time because we all make mistakes.

What you guys talk about, where you're seeing youth sports go, before we got on, you kind of mentioned that like some of the things you're seeing today would have been unimaginable 20 years ago. What are the trends you're seeing and how recent are they? Is this like in the last. Since COVID Is it in the last 10 years, 15 years? Give me big picture stuff you're seeing in, in youth sports. Used to train youth development.

Yeah, I'm fortunate enough to be, you know, I founded the company in 2000. So you think about it, you know, here we are 23 years later, man, I've seen some, at, you know, some cycles here of where you athletics has gone and youth sports. I think, you know, there's, there is such a great thing that's happening in my opinion, which is there's a, a hyper focus on having an unbelievable youth sports experience to one set you up in life and it might not set you up for that full ride scholarships. Now some kids are going to have that, right? They're going to get that full scholarship and then because they get the full scholarship, they get the opportunity to play at a pro level or they don't and it gets them in the door for a job. But what, what I love about what's happened throughout the cycles is like, man, I think there's been a really big emphasis on kids and having, I'm going to call it, I'm going to call it enjoyment at the youth level. I think when my, when I first got going it was like, man, a lot of kids would get burned out by coaches, you know, really. And I think, I think, I think throughout the years that has gotten better. Now what's also, what's also increased though is how much time people are spending on it and there's a competitiveness to it and I personally love that because, you know, there's competitive teams out there. Whether you're at soccer or whatever. You just have to always. Archie Manning gave me the kind of the best advice I was asking. I was like, hey, my youngest is a quarterback. You know, like, you know, you raise these amazing men and quarterbacks like what would you advise advice would you give me? He's like, he's like, will, man, when you are in the stands as a parent or you're watching them and you want the win or you want him to do well more than he Wants to do well, you're in the wrong. He's like, you always want him to be the one who wants to go work and go practice more and do things. And so. And I think that's just such good wisdom. You know, the unhealthiness side of, of youth sports is like, man, you're trying to live through your kid. And so what you want to do is, man, just fan that flame, put your kid in great opportunities and let them learn lessons that's going to serve them the rest of their life. Because when I talk about inspiring, motivating people to their goals, sometimes their goal is like, man, just building that character, that, that character value of going, like, man, I'm going to go work at something really hard and it's going to take a while to become great. And I think that's what business is. I think that's what marriage is. I think that's what life is, is like, man, you gotta work really, really hard a lot, you know, to become great. And so, and. And I just think what's happened now too, in youth sports throughout the years is like, I'm seeing more and more where just the. I'm gonna call it the born with gifted talent. Like the DNA side, like that has to. You still have to work. You can't just be born super talented and not work because you will fizzle out pretty quick, you know.

Go ahead. Good.

Sorry, I was just gonna say because kids are working really hard these days. Way more. Way more than, you know, 20 years ago.

Yeah, you need that. Anybody, any walk of life, you need that inner, inner desire. Somebody else wants it for you. Then that almost sometimes I feel like that suppresses it. You see it. I've seen it in parents, like, just. It's coming out and it's, it's taking the enjoyment out for the kid. And you're like, this kid, this dude's gonna burn out at 13. They're not gonna be able to do this.

And that's why I love what you're doing. And I mean this in. You know, there's a lot of resources now, about four parents that are out there going, hey, this is how I raised my kid. Or this is how we're viewing it. You know, a lot of great athletes are coming out going, hey, you know, my dad pushed me here or my mom or what, you know, whatever it might be in. I think it's because we're talking about it like, man, it's getting healthier and it's getting better and better. And so these kids are These kids are getting, you know, really excited to go out and compete and I think competition is so good. So I love, I love it because I just think, you know, when we sit back and we look back on our lives, it's like man, you, you look back on the things that you worked really hard for whether you won or lost, right? You're like, man, I worked really hard for that and that was really enjoyable.

Probably not anybody in the world to get better quarterback parental coaching advice than a Manning.

Yeah, exactly right.

One of the topics there and kind of last one on this thread but like lot's been made a specialization and the need to create well rounded athletes. Guys like LeBron James and Bryce Harper, you know, two of the most famous sort of high school aged athletes over the last couple of decades and they've talked about like, hey, like we played other sports, like we were known for this but we were able to do other things. How do you guys balance, how does D1 balance elite athlete training for a single sport versus overall fitness? I know you mentioned it earlier and there's a lot on your website about holistic well being. We already talked about the mental health aspect but talk a little bit about balancing like getting better to be a D1 quarterback but also like, you know, overuse injuries, things like that.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of multi sport. I was a three sport athlete. My son who's a quarterback, he plays two sports, he plays football, he had basketball. I'm a big fan of multi sport. When it comes to training in multi sport, it's really, I do believe that every athlete needs a season to train and it might be just, you have June, right? And we're going to get bigger, faster, stronger because you, you're doing so many different sports. It might be, you know, my son, he, he trains in season and some people might think like hey, maybe that's too much. I would tell you, like for me it's like man, he's, his training's completely different. You know, he's working on fast switch muscles, he's working on flexibility and you know, if you look at any great athlete, you have to train year round. Now there are certain seasons when you're like, hey, this is a bulking season, right? I got to put on some muscle or I got to get really fast in this season. So you know what I, what we really encourage our athletes to do that come to D1 is like, hey, let's, let's mark out the calendar, let's understand what you're into, what you're not. And so, hey, when you're in season, you're in football season, you're going to come to D1 twice a week. And here's what we're going to work on. When you're off season, we're going to come four times a week, and we're going to do a structured program. And so we really want to encourage athletes to play as many sports as they can, because I do believe it helps to your point about being well rounded, especially in, you know, middle school, high school ages, and then at some point, they are going to have to specialize. Right. My son's getting to that point. Like, he's a junior in high school right now, and we were just talking about that. This is probably his last basketball season. He might play a senior year, but if he goes to college to play quarterback, you know, he's going to be training for that. You know, it goes by really fast for all. Any parents that are out there listening and your kids, you know, 10, 11, 12, I will tell you, it goes so fast.

Like, really, I always hear that.

Really soak it up and enjoy it. And then, you know, I. Once again, I. I love the. I just love, love, love what the weight room teaches these athletes of, like, hey, I can get bigger, faster, stronger. I need to work. It's not about just playing. It's about the work that goes into playing. So if you think about the business, I'll use this podcast as an example. There's preparation that goes into this. You know, you had to look it up. You got to find the person, you got to do it. And to me, that's what the weight room is. It is extra preparation for to go out and play. Right. You have practice, but then you have, like, you got to take care of your own mental body as well. And so, you know, I'm. I'm a big believer in that. Every athlete should have a coach. You know, everyone, you know, not just a sport coach, but actually a physical coach. You know, a coach that can. A strength conditioning coach that can get you mentally fired up, can inspire you and motivate you. Because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, when sports are all done, as we all know they're gonna be, you know, you want to look back and go, man, I did everything I could to put myself in the position to be the best, the best I can be.

Yeah. And it's a good segue there because it's also what you're talking about, capitalizes on this trend over the last Five, ten years, like this general health and wellness trend, like physical health and wellness, right?

Yeah.

And I think you said earlier it was around 2015 where you decided like, hey, we're going to go the franchise route. So let's, let's make a hard pivot to the business side of the business now.

Sure.

Talk about that moment, like when you're like, okay, we, we have these owned and operated facilities and now we're going to go franchise. What's the why? Right. And then how does, how do you need to kind of reconfigure the business for something that is repeatable and scalable? Start there and then we can kind of like pull on that thread.

Yeah. So in 2015, I had 32 corporate gyms. And when I looked around and looked at those locations, when the general manager almost became the owner of that community, like, they acted like the owner. I would go in the market and they'd be like, oh yeah, Bron's the D1 guy. Go to the high school football games or the basketball games, they'd be like, that's the D1 guy. And the light bulb went off. That, man, the business really needs to be around the franchisee being the D1 guy in that community. So, so that really, you know, and when you start looking at franchising in general, you start going to service based business, which we are, we're serving people, we're coaching is the act of service. Like, you have a localized ownership and attention. Man, the business just does a lot better. They care about things, they invest in the community, they know it better. And so that started bending my, my mindset towards franchising. And then, then when you got under the hood, you go, man, we have so many athletes in small town USA that were like calling us and going, hey, how can I get your programming? What. What did you do for Tim Tebow? What did you do for, you know, all these star athletes that, you know, Chris, Paul, these guys, you guys are training, like, what are you doing? And so we would send a program and we're just helping the community, you know, helping athletes out around the country. We're like, man, you know, small town USA needs a D1 for these athletes to go get great coaching. But the economic model was like, man, we need to tighten up the square footage to get exactly what we need. So that's how we reduced it down to our 4,000 square foot model. Six racks, you know, 20 yards of turf. You walk in and it's like, man, this is it. This is what a D1 university looks like. And then we go, man, we really want world class coaches. At the end of the day, that's. They're our product. Our coaches are why people come to D1. So if you're out there right now and you're listening, you're, you know what, what makes D1 special, I will tell you. It's the coaches. And so we spent a ton of time on educating our coaches on how to inspire and motivate athletes to reach their goals. And we talk about that nonstop. It's like, how do we inspire and motivate? So, and that's a balance. That's a delicate balance, right? Because we want someone, I always say, you know, our strength coaches, we want them. We want them like really smart, like book smart, but with a WWE personality, right? Because you want to go in there, you want to be like inspired and motivated. Like, yeah, I want to be around this guy. But yet they know what to do and they know how to teach it. And they have the discipline to show up day in, day out with that athlete and help them get better. And so, man, all of that kind of packaged up, we, we put it together, we put all the processes. It obviously we had been in the business at that time, 16 plus years, and we repackaged it to teach this to our franchise owner and go, hey, this is how you become the D1 owner in your community and impact your community. And so we're really proud of our franchise owners. I mean, our franchise owners, I will tell you, they are. You talk about a world class people. They are their servant mindset. They have the great attitude, they know what right looks like and they're following this, what we call the playbook, which is our processes. And man, they're hiring great coaches and impacting their communities and impacting their community exists because we are, you know, if you peel back everything, you go like, why are you here? We're here to serve athletes. We're here to serve athletes. And that athlete mindset, man, I just love, I get super excited about it.

I can tell. I can tell. I mentioned a couple times we have a lot of facilities, folks in our audience, we surveyed them a couple of months ago and we were able to sort of pull out some of their pain points. Right. A lot of them came to infrastructure, but a lot were about like, just efficient utilization of the space. What to do during down times of the day when, you know, kids are in school and they have this space. How do you guys think about that? You said you took these larger square foot facilities shrunk it down into something that's, you know, more repeatable. You seems like you've perfected that. How do you guys think about that? Efficiency. Right. And how do you think about just like maximizing the space, especially during downtime.

Yeah. So efficiency one. Let's talk about when, when, when it's busy. You know, we use a thing called a profit margin calculator where we look at the number of athletes that are training, we look at our profit margin on that. And the way you look at the way we calculate a profit margin is basically the revenue we're taking in. We like our compensation to be around 30%. So 30% of whatever we're bringing in that's going to the coach to coach it out. And so when you start looking at it from a profit margin standpoint, you start understanding, like, how much money you're actually making per member that signs up for personal training, per group session, that type of thing. So the profit margin is really important of when it's busy. I think that is like the number one thing. The other thing is it doesn't take a lot of hours depending on, you know, if you got facilities out there that are larger. And this is why we shrunk it, because it doesn't take a lot of hours to make great money in this space. When I say when, you're actually, like, running the business. So think of it like if you compare it to a restaurant, you know, if you were only open for dinner, can you make money when you're just open for dinner? Now, as we all know, all the admin stuff, the sales, everything else is happening during those other, what you're calling downtime time when. And so to me, that's not downtime, that's time when it's time like, hey, I need to get in the office. I need to do my sales calls. I need to follow up with people. I need to deliver great content to my athletes so they stay right. And make sure I'm communicating well with them. That is actually. I mean, it's. It's a really important time. Almost more important than when the athlete is in there. Don't. I mean, they got to have both of them. But, like, when we look at facilities, we want to make sure you're maximizing what you're calling downtime. We want to maximize that time. And there's some really great industry stats out there. So if you guys are in the facilities right now and you want to know, like, you can research some just amazing stats, you know, the health and fitness space, it takes Seven reach outs to get, you know, an athlete to, we call them athletes or member whoever to come in the door. Like people think like, oh, I called the person back, they reached out to me and I called them back once. Like, we're not, we're not really working work in the business, right? So it takes seven reach outs to get one person to come in the door. When they come in the door, they got it. You got to have a scripted experience. It's got to be a great experience. And then when they leave, you gotta have great follow up, you know. And so just like our athletes come in and put in a lot of work. I tell our coaches, you got to put in a lot of work to keep athletes.

I think that's one of the, one of the big things that lots of individual mom and pop, smaller scale owners really don't think about is like the process behind the product. And listen, I'm in media, it's kind of the same thing, right? Like, you know, I've been in media 15 plus years and I've always ran the business. But our product is the content. We put out this podcast number, podcast the newsletter. And in some ways you gave the restaurant example. I always considered it like a baker. Right. Like we're getting up every day and we got to bake the cake. Our cake is the content. And then at some point you got to spend some time growing the business side of it.

Right? That's right.

And from just what I'm seeing, again, I'm relatively new ish to the youth sports space and the kind of sports training space. But of the people I've talked to see a lot. You see the passion about the sport and about the training and oftentimes, not always, but not as much thought like you guys have about the process and how you kind of maintain the business side of it. Talk out what D1 offers to franchisees. Right. Why you can, I don't say, take a little bit of that load off, but give them that playbook to be successful and like, hey, we know this works. If you follow, if you follow the script, as you said, like you're set up for success here.

Yeah, I mean, look, we built the business around what I wish, I wish I had when I first started. I laugh at it because, like, I didn't know, like we were talking about earlier, I didn't know what I didn't know. And throughout the years, man, I've gotten a lot of scars, bumps and bruises, made a bunch of mistakes. You know, I remember being the guy who was like, man, I should be making $10,000 a month on smoothies, right? And so I became, I was like, I started mixing smoothies and then all of a sudden I'm like looking at my profit margin, I'm like, why am I losing money? Well, I started figuring out my coaches are eating all the smoothies during break.

You know what I mean?

And I didn't have the processes in place. So what a franchise does is it really cuts the learning curve for these owners because if an owner goes and they open XYZ Gym, which the barrier to entry in the fitness space is low, that's why I think you see a lot of people failing. And then, you know, when you, when you, you can basically skip the line by being a part of a franchise system and learn all of these bumps and bruises that I had to go through in my 20s and 30s. And I'm fortunate enough. What I love about where we're at is I was fortunate enough to not franchise until for 16 years. I think a lot of businesses, they get into it, they have one location that's successful and they're like, they haven't been through the scars and bumps and bruises and they franchise it. Now you're trying to teach it to a new owner when you haven't really scaled it, you've just run one or two. And so we were fortunate enough to be 16 years in and don't get me wrong, we don't have everything perfect. But when you come into the D1 franchise system, you're not just going to be a part of a world class brand. You're not just going to be a part of Industry of Fitness, a segment right now with this youth enrichment, youth fitness category that's booming. You're going to have a playbook and you're going to have a checklist to everything. You're going to have all the best practices from our locations and all the learnings and then you're going to be able to compare yourself to locations all around the country in different markets and segments. And that is what the beauty of franchising is. It is like being a part of a world class team. And so to me, that's where we've really tried to set ourselves apart. We're super picky on who our franchise owners are. We constantly, when people apply, we do a lot of steps to make sure they're the right partner. And at the end of the day, we want to make sure we pick, we pick great people that are going to live, live the, the, the vision out and the Mission out in their communities and be able to follow that playbook. The last piece of this, if you're out there and you're like, you know, where do, where do I start? Maybe if you're running a business, I would tell you like an adage that I really like is, you know, win in the draft. If you win in the draft, if you draft Tom Brady, it's a lot easier to have a championship football team. And when you're picking a business to be a part of, you know, win in the draft, pick, pick the right, you know, people that you want to be doing business with. Because at the end of the day, there are definitely ebbs and flows of fitness. Like things have come in and out. There's certain ways to get more people to train. There's certain, you know, there's, there's all these things that have happened throughout, you know, the course of even, you know, a 20 plus year career. Like, I've watched fads, I've watched all the things happen, you know, and for me, what, what has been a constant is great people win, people work that, work really hard that keep showing up, people that are committed to the cause, that are on the mission, that have a great value system like, that wins. And so if you're out there and you're like, where do I start? I would tell you, like, man, be hypercritical of your current team. Elevate them. Right, elevate your current team and then add, you know, when you once again win in the draft, go get people that have done it and done it really well, that that helps speed things up.

So that one of the questions I had here is what type of, for you guys, in your experience, what type of person for you guys succeeds or maybe struggles a little bit? Like, is there, is there a mindset or something? You could see early on, they're like, this person's gonna, gonna win for us. This person, you know, like, it's not the right type.

Yeah. So, you know, we have all different types of winners within the D1 ecosystem from franchise owners. I think one of the common traits that we see is, is someone who can embrace their community. I would say sales, but like, I've had people that aren't really like, sales oriented, but they just love their community. When you can network in your community and people do it in different forms or fashion, like, hey, we might sponsor the youth sports league. I was just on with an owner before this call and they were, we were walking through, they were getting involved in the, their youth sports organization in their Market. And to me, if you can network in your community and the community wants to be a part of what you're doing, man, that is, that's what this business is all about. Because at the, you're gonna like for us, we, you hire a general manager and you hire coaches and we have recruiters that help run kind of the front admin. And so you're gonna have a team that runs the business. But the, the, the X factor is like, man, if that owner embraces the community and people, people love it. People love it.

So much discussion in the youth sports space about tapping into sponsorship dollars at scale. And as you're talking there, I'm like, man, you guys make a great sponsor for, for youth clubs. Like it's the, you're almost the perfect, the perfect sort of business to sponsor.

Yeah.

And for us, by the way, for.

Us, I will tell you, like anybody out there with it, people might be listening to this that have you sports organizations reach out to us because for us, at the end of the day, what we want to do, do, and we do this all across the country. We do free assessments. It's basically free testing. So like, hey, bring your athlete into D1, we'll test them. We do a 10 yard dash, a vertical, you know, we have body fat. If they want to do that broad jump, you know, depending on their age, you know, a bench press or squat. And when we test them, what happens is all of a sudden it's like the athlete knows where they're at or the parent knows where they're at. And so it's like, then we can talk about training. And so for us, I think it's, if I were running a youth sports organization, I would want all my athletes tested because I want to know where they're at. And then it's like, okay, the ultimate goal is not just to run a good practice or a good club or a good organization. The ultimate goal is to get these athletes better. And so you got to know where they're at. And I will tell you, I've watched, I've watched kids that have come in and have tested and they're on the C level club soccer team and they've tested and then they've trained and all of a sudden they're on the A level of the team. And to me that's what a club's job is, is to make these athletes better, not just, not just organize the competition.

As a quick aside, I have another one on the franchise aspect. But as a quick aside there, how important do you Think standardized metrics, right? And for education we have the SATs, right? For, we have FICO scores as adults, right? How especially with the money flowing into college and you know, players are now getting paid, obviously it's hard for a lot of times, I think it's hard for universities to really get more than qualitative analysis of a player. Talk about the importance of standardized scores. How are you guys thinking about that? You kind of touched on it there, but I want to expand on that.

It's really important. I think it's really important. And you know, those scores just like an SAT score, you know, look, I didn't have a great SAT score, but I've got common sense and so, so like, you know, I think that's helped me in business a little bit more than testing. Well, but I, I do think the testing gives you a level of confidence in the athlete to be able to compete at that certain level. Because if you're not, and I think for a parent, you kind of want to know where your kid is, right? You want to know like, hey, are they fast enough to be able to play at that level? Are they big enough, strong enough? Those types of things. And so I think testing is extremely valuable. We have an app where we log all our testing and are able to give that feedback to the parents. And then obviously you definitely want to test multiple times because they were initial. You're always going to do better because if you just do it multiple times, you're going to get better. But then if you have ADD training to it, you can get exponentially better. And so I think it's really important. I think where we're, where we're seeing things go. And I'll give you a little clue into the long term vision of D1. I, I am a really big believer in habits. You talked about it earlier of showing up day in, day out, daily 1% better. And to me those are habits. Like we want to create great habits. Drinking water, getting our sleep, you know, doing some mental work, you know, like I would rather have an athlete, you know, do 10 push ups a day, you know, for the entire year than do one day of, you know, 3,000 push ups, right? I'd rather have every day just keep be getting a little bit better. And so where we're seeing D1 serve a role in these athletes is building those habits and being able to give them the information and going, hey, if you want, hey, if I click in the app, this is where we're going. If I click in the app and I want to be the best soccer player. I click on it. We have all the data of all these soccer players that have trained throughout the years and how they become great. It's like, okay, here's the checklist, here's my habit list if I want to become great at this. And much like if you want to become an engineer and you go to college, you have a checklist of courses that you need to go take and you need to get certain grades on those to become an engineer. To me, that's the way I would love to see athletics. Because don't get me wrong, I do believe my meathead DNA that my dad and grandfather and all them, I love that they gave me that, that I was gonna, you know, my whole family is kind of this naturally thicker build, build body, right? I had to work really hard and I just want like, just tell me what to do and I'll do it every day. And so to me, that's what I want to be able to give athletes. That's what I see the future of D1 being is like, man, if I want to become the greatest lacrosse player, what do I need to do? It's like, here's the checklist. Do it every day. And here's also the training program. Because I think that's what coaching is, is like being able to give the information to the athletes. The athlete can do it and that's serving them really well. And then it's to inspire and motivate them, even when they're down to go. Do it right. Because some days, some days, as you know in business, you don't, you don't feel great, you know, you just gotta show up.

You show up and you may not. It doesn't need to be perfect, but you know, you just move it forward a little bit. Maybe some days it goes further than other days.

Yeah, that's right.

Latest one on the, on the franchise piece. If someone wants to own a D1 franchise, what does that process look like from their standpoint?

Yeah. Please click on d1frank.com, d1frankre.com or d1training.com we also have a link there d1training.com man and submit your info. We our process looks like this. When you submit, one of our team members calls you immediately. We do an introduction call, give you the high level information, understand where you're looking, to see if that territory is available. And then we have a series of phone calls. So our process is a two month process. We have a series of phone calls where you meet with current owners Leadership. We walk you through kind of every aspect of the business and then if you go through that, we invite you to what we call a recruiting day. Similar to the D1 experience. You become a recruit and you come to our headquarters. I personally meet with every franchise owner and we want to know their why, like why are you doing this and that type of thing. Much like you know an athlete who walks in the door. I want to help everyone. Fortunately, like man, we only have a certain number amount of territories and a certain number amount of communities that we're going to be putting D ones in. And so we want world class people. So if you're out there and you're listening and we'd love to talk to you and then I, I'm a big believer in sharing. So like I don't, I'm not a. People try to hide these like secrets. I'd rather just let everybody like this is what we do, this is how we do it. We're just wide open like that. So if you're out there and you're in the, in a competitive business, we'd love to talk to you. If you're out there and you're in a, a gym business, you're trying to maybe I hit something like you want to talk about like a profit level, just reach out. We'd love to, love to talk to you.

Awesome. Big picture stuff. What are some trends you're seeing? I know like women's sports, super hot right now. Tech and data in every area. But in sports, what do you guys think about the future beyond just, you kind of alluded to the habits. What else are you guys looking to in the next two, three, three to five years?

Yeah, I think the trend is going towards. We all need coaches. We all need coaches. Whether it's in business, whether it's, you know, your physical fitness, whether it's in sport, we all need coaches to help us realize our goals and dreams. You talked about it earlier about, man, it is really hard to go far alone and in this day and age where we're seeing a lot of isolation because of phones and insta, you know, all the social media stuff and everything, it is so important to have an in person coach because you can feel that energy, you can get excited, it can help motivate you to go beyond what you're capable of. And so what we're seeing is we're seeing a massive trend towards private coaching and people really, you know, having a customized program to help them reach their goal. We're really leaning into that especially in the youth space. I will tell you, like, in. You know, it's funny. It's like, I'm sitting here, I got two Division 1 athletes, and then I got one about to be. And, like, they listen to their D1 coach almost more than me. And it's, you know, you all. I always said it was like, man, like, I got more. I was talking about that strength coach earlier, and, you know, my dad played Division 1 football, and, you know, like. But you. You want your dad to be your dad, you know? And so it's like, man, when you get a coach out there who can really inspire, motivate, and really help create a path for your athlete, man, I just see that's where it's all going. Like, more and more athletes are coming in, going, this is what I want. This is who I want to do it with. Or, hey, Keem, tell me who can help me do this, right? That type of thing. And so private coaching is up and to the right in a big way.

That's a really good spot to leave it when I tell our audience again, Will, where they can find out more about franchise opportunities.

Yeah, d1training.com. D1training.com. Check us out. Love to. Love to talk to you. Just. Man, I gotta tell you, Kyle, I love what you're doing in the space. Really appreciate you leaning into youth athletics and. And helping business owners as well. That's. That's a real passion of mine, is helping business owners win.

Appreciate it. Thanks, Will. Thanks for joining.

Thank you.