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Jordan and Alexis Decision Run Unleashed Potential, a skill development program based in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Jordan is Carlisle High School's fourth all time leading scorer with over 1000 points and a Big 15 selection.

He played Division 1 basketball at Fairleigh Dickinson before transferring to play at Shippensburg University where he graduated with a Bachelor's in Communications and Public Relations.

He furthered his education by completing his Master's from La Salle University in Professional and Business Communication.

Alexa was an all state and Big 15 selection at Trinity High School.

She played at Franklin and Marshall College where she compiled an impressive list of achievements.

She was named a two time Division III All American, two time Preseason All American Centennial Conference Player of the year and scored 1,486 points.

She graduated with a Bachelor's in Psychology.

She also coached at Dickinson College for a year as an assistant coach.

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You'll want to take some notes as you listen to this episode with Jordan and Alexis Decision from Unleash Potential in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Hello and welcome to The Hoop Heads podcast.

It's Mike Cleansing here tonight without my co host, Jason Sunkel.

But I am pleased to be joined by two members of the Decision family.

Not Joe, who we normally have on, but Jordan and Alexa.

Welcome to the Hoop Head spot from Unleashed Potential in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Guys, welcome.

Cool.

Appreciate you having us, Mike.

My dad's been on a few times.

Love the podcast.

Obviously heard nothing but great things and appreciate the opportunity.

Super excited.

Can't wait.

We are thrilled to have you guys on.

Wanted to dive a little bit more into the training business that you guys have been able to build through Unleashed.

But before we dive into all of the details there, want to go back and just learn a little bit about you guys as people and sort of get an idea of where you came from in terms of your basketball background.

So, Jordan, why don't we start with you.

Obviously we know your dad had a lot of conversations with him.

Anybody who's listening to the podcast has probably heard him.

But just kind of walk us through again your introduction to the game, growing up with your dad as a coach and the influence that he had on you and just kind of walk us through your basketball background.

Yeah.

So born and raised here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

It's actually where we have our training business, Unleashed Potential now, really as far back as I can remember.

And pictures take it even further back.

You know, the basketball and the crib.

I was born into the game and from a really early age, you know, my early, earliest memories of it are, you know, shooting around in the driveway with dad.

Also when he was head coach at Carlisle, you know, attending all his practices and being on the sideline, shooting and, or watching and learning as well as when he was an assistant at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

They used to call me Little S, you know, his mini Me.

Pretty much if he was in the gym, I was beside him, you know, watching, growing and learning.

My passion for the game, though, in terms of developing as a player and really being committed, I would say came when I was in like fifth or sixth grade.

My dad, as you guys know, has spent a lot of time at Duke University and it was his first year as a.

A camp counselor there.

He was working Coach K's camp and I went down there for my first camping experience and they used to work out the.

The Duke players during the afternoons in front of the camp.

And that was my first real peek outside of what my dad had put in front of me at what high level players are doing and what real work looks like.

So I remember the car ride Home as a fifth grader from that camp, my dad and I had a conversation and I said, you know, I love the game.

I want to reach this level or the highest level I can.

I was like, if that's what it really looks like, you know, will you help me on that journey?

And he already had been teaching me and helping me, but that's when we really locked in, him and I, father and son, coach and player.

And I really found a love for true skill development from my fifth or sixth grade year on.

That took me up through my playing days at Carlisle, where I'm now currently the fourth leading scorer, 1600 career high school points, but behind two future pros and Billy or former pros, and Billy Owens and Jeff Lebow and a player I actually had the privilege of coaching when I was a JV coach there.

I went on to play basketball at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

A smaller Division 1 just upset Purdue a couple years ago.

Their program did.

So we play the likes of Mount St. Mary's Robert Morris and actually finished my career Division 2 at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.

PSAC School, really good Division 2 conference.

So, you know, now in hindsight, looking back on my playing career, a lot of my experience playing at both, you know, Division 1 and Division 2 level really helped shaped my views and understanding of how not only it works from a player perspective, but also, you know, the business side of that level.

And it's grown even more from that perspective, you know, now with the nil and all these different rules or lack thereof with the ncaa.

So one thing that's just reigned supreme for me and my whole career is the love of skill development at every single level.

I love putting in work and getting better and now that's, you know, transferred over the last decade.

Plus to me being on the coaching.

Side of that, you always know you want to be.

And as for me, I.

Sorry, did you always know that before we get to Alexa, did you always know you wanted to be a coach?

Was that something because your dad was coaching?

Did you always know that coaching was where you wanted to end up or what was your thought process as you graduated?

Yeah, so, yeah, I always, you know, just internally as a young, as a young boy and then, you know, into a young man, thought that when I was done playing, I would want to be an actual head coach or head assistant at the college level.

And long story short, when I graduated from Shippensburg, I got offered the grad assistant position at Villanova, one of their two grad assistant positions when Jay Wright was There head assistant was Billy Lang, who we had a nice family relationship with, the both of them.

And I did a three day sort of crash course there to see, you know, what that would entail and if I liked it.

And after my three days and they're a first class program, I mean, they treated me like gold and everything they did was, you know, everything you would want, I walked away from that.

I was like, man, I played at the Division 1 level.

I know the time and commitment that it took, and I'm just not sure at this point that coaching is actually for me.

And just the carousel of college coaching, you know, getting in that rat race to get job security one day and be a head college coach.

And that's sort of how we, in a roundabout way, came to the skill development side of things.

And I always tell people now, you know, when they leave our gym, you know, we're the saviors.

Everyone gets better in our gym, and if anything, we get you playing time.

We don't control taking it away.

So I thought I wanted to be a coach.

And now being, you know, in skill development and quote, unquote, trainer, I'm very happy that I ended up where we are.

Makes sense.

Especially when you have a family.

There's no question that being a college coach and a fan, having a family is definitely a challenge.

So, Alexa, why don't you share your backstory and then we'll get to the point where you guys come together.

Absolutely.

So similar background to Jordan.

I'm a coach's kid through and through.

My dad didn't coach basketball, but he, he played football in college.

He coached football from the time I was little all the way through my, my high school career.

So I always was a very active kid.

I played every sport imaginable.

Basketball was, hands down, the first sport I started to play.

So I naturally fell in love with it.

I literally thought I was Allen Iverson.

I had the sweatbands on, on the forehead, on the arms, on the legs.

Like you could see more sweatband than you could body.

I just had such a love and passion for the game.

And I played other sports as I grew up.

I mean, we're, we're pretty big on telling kids, you know, don't just specialize on one sport too young, too early.

That's a whole nother conversation.

But I went to Trinity High School and had a really successful career there.

Competed for a bunch of districts and state titles.

I was all state.

I was big 15, which is like our local recognition.

And then I actually went to Franklin And Marshall College, which is a smaller D3 school where I had a good career.

I was a two time all American thousand point scorer and had some really, really good times there.

So for me, same thing with Jordan.

I, I really gained a deep respect for skill development, more so when I met him.

But there was always something about like the grind for me, just a lonely gym by yourself if you were lucky, a friend and a rebounder.

So I just fell in love with the, the work ethic and just seeing that progress in myself getting better, my team getting better.

So I think that's definitely something that myself and, and us as a company have carried over and tried to instill in our athletes.

Did you think when you were in school that you wanted to end up coaching or in the game in some way or what was your thought process as you were going through school?

So I actually coached at a, a school that was in my, my college conference, Dickinson College for a year and I really enjoyed my time.

I, I was, you know, I had the privilege of being under a coach who took me under her wing and, and taught me a lot, showed me a lot.

She ended up leaving after that year and I just really realized, same thing as Jordan, I just wasn't into it.

And by that point we had actually both started to train kind of independently when we were in, in our college years, just trying to earn know, extra money for food and whatever, whatever else when we were in school.

And by the time I was a senior and decided to take that job, we had a decent bit of clients at that point.

So for me, when I kind of came to that crossroads of okay, do I look for another coaching job or do we continue to do the training which we have more flexibility, freedom in and quite honestly we just both enjoyed more.

It kind of was a no brainer and an easy decision for, for both of us.

All right, tell me the story of how you guys met.

So I'm going to give a big shout out to Jordan's sister Kelsey.

She, she introduced us, she transferred into my high school and she kept saying, hey you, you have to meet my brother.

You just have to meet him.

You two would get along so well.

And at the time I was only in high school and he was in college.

I was like, yeah.

I was like, oh man, he's an old man.

I'm still in high school, I'm not, I'm not interested in that.

And long story short, we ended up connecting.

Not right away, but I transferred out.

Of my first school outside New York City back to Shippensburg which was local.

That's when we ended up connecting that today social media.

I slid in her DMs.

There you go.

Been together ever since.

There you go.

There you go.

A love story around the game of basketball.

And there's nothing, nothing better than that.

So.

All right, let's, let's talk now about the, about the training business and how you guys go from sort of being independently working, doing your thing with your own individual clients.

Obviously, Jordan, your dad ran again a national training business and oversaw all of that and that piece of it.

So just kind of give me the inner workings of how it went from sort of the beginnings to what you guys have built now with Unleashed.

Yeah, really what happened was, and like I said, I grew up, you know, doing this in home with my dad and you know, he was doing that with our program and everything else.

And when he did that, you know, across the country, his national experience, we were looking and there was a group that did it back home.

This isn't throwing to anybody but there was a major void in this area of like there is no training and development.

Not saying people aren't out playing to work on their game.

And know you go back 13 years ago with that.

Nowadays everybody thinks they're a trainer, you know, or whatever you want to call themselves.

But there was a major void there.

So all we did was and we said it's been organic growth.

We've never spent a single cent on advertising.

You know, we've never messaged a kid and asked them to train with us.

We just posted on social media, hey, we're starting this training.

If you want to work out, shoot us a message.

And there's a church I grew up in in Carlisle that we started in our gym, you know, pretty much in hours that were available.

And what started with one or two clients and some pre existing ones, you know, turned into 4 and 5 and then 5 turned to 10, 10 turned to 15, 20 and it just started to snowball a little bit.

Next thing you know it a team brought us in, another team brought us in.

The AAU group we're partnered with now brought us in and really from day one we've just been really focused on forming real relationships, telling the truth, just doing things the quote unquote right way and providing a high level service.

You know that when you come into our gym, we're results driven, you get better.

And you know, since then, I would say, you know, the first four or five years was a steady growth and then the last six to seven and we've you know, hired a staff now that's in the gym a lot.

You know, we do all that we can to keep up with demand, which is a really good problem to have, but really just started with, I go back to my dad working, you know, do camp, you know, just be great where you're at, do things for the right reasons and do them the right way.

No shortcuts, not looking for any handouts or anything like that.

And, you know, people will flock to that.

Everyone.

You know, the kids.

You can't hide with kids.

They know when they're getting better.

Parents know when they feel good about investing their time and their money on their kid, and they're seeing results.

So that's been our motto from day one, is we treat every single day or every single client like it's day one.

And we formed a lot of really good relationships and had the privilege to work with a lot of really good basketball players, you know, in that time.

Tell me a little bit about the process for onboarding a kid who comes to you for the first time and says, hey, I want to get involved.

I want to get training from you guys.

What does that look like?

From the moment they say, hey, I'm in.

What do you guys go through in terms of evaluating, figuring out what they need, how they need it, and then designing a program for them as an individual?

So basically what we do is we.

Everybody comes across and acts like their kid is, you know, Steph Curry.

So for us, we get a lot of inquiries where we have no idea who, you know, the parents are.

The kid is, their contact is our first, you know, introduction to them.

So we correspond back and forth a little bit, collect as much information we.

We can about them.

We offer a whole host of different things.

If a kid is a complete beginner, we always recommend they.

They come in and do an individual session.

You know, you could have an individual that.

That just started with basketball, and they're really raw, not quite sure what's going on, where the free throw line is for some of our younger kids.

And then you could get another kid that's in seventh grade and picked up a basketball, and they're really, really talented.

So we typically recommend that at first, and then based off of that first session, we see where we're at and then basically guide them towards, you know, the best fit for them and what's going to help them the most.

There are a lot of kids who just struggle with basic skills, so we try to keep them in smaller, more private settings so we can almost Catch them up to speed if they're a little bit behind just with, you know, their peers.

So when we do eventually push them to a more group setting that's has more of like a team atmosphere to it, they're not completely a fish out of water.

And then there are a lot of kids who, you know, they need game experience.

And a lot of what we do is skill development, but we do a lot of like game development as well where we do situational things, small sided games.

We, we compete heavily in our groups and we actually run special programs that revolve around 3v3 or 5v5.

So it just really that that initial starting point in meeting and then we just evaluate them based off of that and push them where they need to go.

And just because a kid starts in one thing that we do, they might stay in an individual setting for months.

Some other kids, they might come in once or twice and we say hey, you know what you're, you're ready to come to our small groups or this program would be perfect for you based off of what your weaknesses are and what we think that that or what we see that you need to get better at.

When you say is the percentage of time that you and your staff are spending in the gym, what percentage of it is with kids that you're working with individually and what percentage of the time you're in the gym are you working with groups?

It can vary day to day.

One big thing just to sort of piggyback on your first question too, what she said is there's no trial session, there's no, you know, you guys come in and see what it's like and we're going to evaluate this and that from workout one for everybody.

We say it's a foundation of what we do.

We come in and treat you because you may not come back for whatever reason.

You know, we have people that travel from out of state so you might come in for one, we may not see you for a year, whatever it may be.

You come in and we're going to go put the foot on the gas right away on energy, on effort and on all around skill work.

So after we've seen you a few times and you, you're a big or a post.

Yeah, we're going to tailor some things to you obviously.

But from workout one we treat you like you've been in there for a lifetime and we're going to give you a high level, high intensity workout.

Now the skills may be dumbed down but the way we get after it and the expectations of what you're going to output in that hour are the same from a perspective of time breakdown.

We, we have set times for certain age groups each week where they come in a group setting, we have nights set aside for special programs.

Our individual, we call them private or semi private.

Maybe there's more than one kid, maybe two or three in a private setting, they almost fill in around them.

So if we're in the gym for five hours every single day, especially during the school year 3:30 to 8:30 or so, we're going to have two or three hours at our group or program and one or two hours that are private.

So for us it's probably a 60, 40ish balance and that allows everybody the options they need to get in.

Absolutely, that makes sense.

So when you're putting together your groups and obviously now you guys have grown, but I'm thinking back, even if you go back a little bit to closer to when you guys get started, how do you balance out?

Because I think this is one of the things when I talk to trainers and I know in my own experience that a lot of times if I'm trying to put together a group and let's say I'm trying to do some small sided games or I'm trying to get some three on three going or whatever, you have to have kids who are of a similar ability in order for it to be beneficial.

Right.

If I have one kid who's in seventh grade who's a player who plays on a high level AAU team, and then I got another kid who, yeah, he's in seventh grade, but he's maybe just touched a basketball four times in his life, those two kids aren't going to get much out of competing against one another.

So how do you guys monitor, tailor it to the particular skill set or experience level to make sure that your groups are putting everybody in the right spot so they can be challenged and not be in over their head or not be way above some of the other people that are in their group.

So we actually, how we break out our, our groups that he was talking about.

We offer them a couple times a week.

We go fourth through sixth grade and then seventh through eighth and then we have our, what we call like our high school group.

We have some flexibility within that.

So you know, if we have a sixth grader that is completely dominant and just obliterates everybody and is just ready for higher level skills, we will occasionally.

Right.

I gotta, gotta watch what I say.

I don't, I don't need everybody Saying hey, I want my fourth grader coming with the high schoolers because it has been asked for before too many times.

Yeah, way too many times.

We, we are really big in th.

That's our general layout and framework age wise.

But if you need bumped up, we're absolutely going to bump you up.

We've even in certain situations have told people, hey, like that your actual age group, you're not quite ready for this.

We run a building blocks program which is for third and fifth graders that is very, very beginner.

So if we have a, you know, fourth grader, fifth grader that's not quite ready for the fourth through sixth grade groups, we'll recommend the building blocks program.

And then we even have, we go down to first, second graders that we actually run a program on a lowered hoop.

So we have a lot of different options to fit different ages and different skill levels.

And we're also really big on splitting up on opposite ends of the court.

We reserve that, the gym the entire hour for you know, just that age group that's in.

So if we have a really high leveled sixth grader and then you know, some fifth and sixth graders that aren't nearly as skilled quite yet, they'll be on opposite sides of the floor.

And we typically do a very similar plan and workout but we have like he said, a little bit more of a dumbed down version for the younger, more.

We're all skilled kids and then you know, the kids that are a little bit more talented on the other end, we can throw a little bit more complex stuff at them, but it's still the base of the same drill.

Here's the thing, Mike, we say this all the time.

So now in any given situation, if it's a kid's first time, we may not know them.

You know, you may have a kid that's a little bit behind in a said group with maybe some better players.

But we say all skills all the times or all the time, all skills for all positions.

We're not just talking about basketball.

So you know, when a parent says, well my kids dominate, they shouldn't be in the fourth and sixth, they should be a seventh and eighth.

I say look, if they're dominant, just skill and it's glaring difference, they're going to come up anyways.

But our criteria to really move a kid up is dominant skill.

You better be the most vocal in the gym.

You better be setting the pace of that workout by dominating effort.

Here's the other part too.

Just like in a game and on a team where you have a best player and a worst player.

You better be making the other kids in that workout better.

So if you're the dominant player and you're standing there looking at flies on the walls, you think you're too good to be with that group, there's not a chance in hell that we're going to move you up.

So that's a very realistic thing for the kids of maybe on this said day it wasn't the exact fit.

We will get that right for you the next time you're in knowing what we know now about you.

But when you're there, I don't care who you're with.

You need to come in and get in work and put in at a high level.

So is that a conversation that you're having with the kid?

And obviously it depends on the age exactly how you can phrase that.

And is that also a conversation you're having with their parent?

Always.

It's always, it's always a two way like street in our gym now our way is going to be the end all, be all.

But yeah, we're big on, you're investing your time and your money with us.

You're trusting with your kids development.

We will put you in the best spot for you.

We promise that.

But we are, we have built ourselves on, we will go out of business before we stop telling the truth.

We will tell you the truth every single time.

There's gonna be times where that's a truth you love hearing.

There's gonna be times where that's a truth that's a little bit uncomfortable.

There's gonna be a times where it's a truth that it may hurt your feelings a little bit.

But we're gonna tell you where you're at and if you're, if you can get over that.

My dad always says mad, sad and hard, get over mad, get over sad and hard.

And the long run, we have proven time and time again that if you trust the process in our gym, we will make sure you're getting what you need every single time.

That makes 100% sense.

And I think that's one of the things that when I think about the training business, right, and you think about just the business of basketball, there's a big problem with that truth telling piece of it because it is much easier in the short run to tell people what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear.

Because when I tell you that hey, little Johnny's great and he's going to be a high school star and that's not the case, well, hey, I'm going to come back to you because you said, my kid is my kid, my kid's a great player, even though I might know that they're not.

And unfortunately, again, I've seen that many times where you're looking around and here's the kid that, you know doesn't have the requisite skill level, and you hear what they're being told by somebody that's working with them.

You're like, you know, that's, that's clearly, that's clearly not the case.

And again, in the short term, that might get you that person for a month, three months, six months, until their next season rolls around and a coach actually has to coach them.

And then what, what you, what you've been telling them doesn't end up being the truth.

And that's what it all goes south versus what you guys are talking about is right, you might lose somebody because maybe their AAU coach or somebody else told them, hey, you're this, you're that.

And then they come to you guys and you're like, well, yeah, they're not telling you the truth.

And maybe then they take their business elsewhere.

And so in the short run, maybe you lose a client or two because of that, but in the long run, the track record that you guys are building is what keeps people coming back.

Well, it's actually funny you say that too.

We, We've been at this for a while now.

We were actually sitting here trying to, you know, put a number of years to how long we've been at it.

And most people that we do lose, not everybody, but, you know, mad at a truth that, that we told them, and us being 100 transparent, they usually show back up.

And a lot of the times a lot worse of a position than we last saw them.

So.

And then, you know, sometimes, you know, they're.

They're free to go wherever they want and, and do whatever they want.

And we'll.

We'll be here for them if and when they do come back.

At the end of the day, we just want the best from, for all of our clients.

Sometimes that means that we have to have some really hard conversations with people.

Yeah.

Also said all the time, too.

And this is a misconception or it's a, it's a problem in youth sports in general is just because you pay us for a service doesn't mean we own the rights to you, you know, so it's not, you can't train somewhere else now what gets at us?

And, you know, it's Just, you know, caring about what we do is, you know, if you're going somewhere else and you're not receiving what you're paying for, you know, it's a bad product.

Maybe they don't do a great job not saying there's others that do a great job or they're not getting what they need to hear, they're being told they want to hear.

You know, that's one thing.

So there's others out there do a tremendous job.

And you know, Mike, you might teach shooting to a certain kid and it may resonate and click with them.

Even though we're teaching the same thing a way you do, it might click with that kid better.

So multiple voices are good, but a lot of times to your point, they're hearing too many voices that maybe aren't qualified to be doing what they're telling them or teaching them what they are or also are just, you know, that transactional relationship of, you know what I'm going to fib.

I'm going to say what I need to say because, you know, they're keeping the lights on at our facility or at our home.

So when you go, you know, for profit businesses and how big of an industry youth sports is, there's going to be a lot of that.

Yeah, I think the other thing that I found, at least here in the Cleveland area is to some degree, and I think you guys, just by the availability that you have, if you're training from 3:30 to 8:30 every day, you're pretty available.

But I know that in my experience when I was just doing some training on my own and then also just with guys that are still training right now, that there's some aspect of it being almost a commodity in that I might have a kid that's working with me.

And let's say I'm available three days a week for three hours each one of those days and the kid might love working with me, but maybe they can't fit into my schedule.

And so I'm working with a kid, I think it's going really well.

I'm doing all the things, I'm telling the truth, they're getting better.

And then all of a sudden their availability or mine switches and you can't have a day.

And then now I see them with trainer X who's they're working with and the guy's sitting in a chair and he's got a baseball hat on and he's eating lunch while he's working with the kid and the parent is still happily paying whatever the amount of the money is it?

And you're just looking around going like, like what are we, what are we, what are we doing here?

And I'm sure you guys see similar, just based on your reaction, I'm sure that you guys see similar things there.

But I felt like at times it becomes like, gosh, like I feel like I'm providing a tremendous amount of value and I'm doing a, I'm doing a great job and then just because I can't make it work at 3:30 on a Tuesday, now you're over here, you might as well be lighting your money on fire as opposed to, you know, working with somebody who's doing a, who's doing a great job and really taking the time to find.

So I'm assuming you guys see some of that same thing where, where you guys are.

Yeah, I think one of the, there are, like he already said there are trainers on every corner.

The good, the bad, the ugly.

And a lot of times it's, we find kids and parents, not all of them, but a lot of people don't love once they've had an individual being told, hey, you would really benefit from being in a group setting.

The number of kids that look like all stars in an individual setting and then come to group and they're just, they're completely lost.

They can't pay attention, they can't follow drills.

They're just completely on another planet.

And that's one of the main reasons why they should be in a group setting.

Those people tend to kind of fade away once we tell them, hey, this is really what's good for you.

Not saying that you can't get individuals here and there, but this is what we're recommending and this is what's going to benefit you the most.

So it's almost a comfort thing I think for a lot of the kids and the parents because you know, they're going in with one other trainer, they're messing up and they're, they're laughing, they're giggling.

In our gym, you know, you're doing that around other kids.

There's that, I don't want to say the embarrassment level, but yeah, lock in, pay attention, don't mess around and let's get after it.

And you know that that isn't what some people are looking for.

So it's easy for them just to find somebody else and kind of move on.

Yeah, and here's the other thing too.

And this is another truth we tell a lot.

And like I said, we have great relationships with our families.

It's our, you know, our email.

A lot of it is we don't get quote unquote paid for this time, but we're dealing with all the stuff in between.

You know, they have confidence, is down.

Any suggestions and whatever it may be, but this apparent issue, to your point of just go somewhere else.

They think they constantly need to be doing something with somebody.

And I get, you know, in Cleveland and the Northeast, all this stuff, we have weather that, you know, you can't be out there in zero.

But we have a rule in our gym.

You cannot book more than one private session per week with us.

Now, that might be.

You might fall in a group of four.

You can do our normal groups, but after you book one private session, you're in our gym on a Monday for an individual workout.

That same kid will not have another private session or gym.

If you care and want to do it that much, you find time to do that on your own.

Take what we worked on and your parents paid for and you go do it.

Like they're paying for that service.

They're also paying for the drills.

They ask all the time, what can I do at home?

90% of what we did in the private workout, I was the passer, she was the passer.

Throw the ball out to yourself.

So that's another thing with us is the parents, they'll be like, well, they have a game.

They can't get there till 6.

We don't want to see them on game day.

How are they that locked into their game knowing they got a workout?

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Yeah, stuff like that.

I think when I think about how I grew up in the game, and I was obviously way before there were any trainers when I was growing up and developing as a player, but I just always tell people that, look, I can work with your kid and I can do it X number of times in a month or X number of times in a week and whatever.

And it's great and they're going to get better.

But if they don't touch the ball in between the times that they're seeing me, then you're throwing your money away.

Because ultimately, if that kid doesn't have some drive and some desire to improve on their own outside of the confines of their team practice or their training sessions, whatever, the three of us all know that their ceiling as what they could be as a player is certainly capped when they're just not willing to put the time in.

And I think by you guys being that clear with them, putting an emphasis on, yeah, you're going to improve while you're with us in the gym, but that improvement is going to be limited unless you are willing to put the time in.

And that's something that I don't think that a lot of parents understand, especially parents of kids on the younger side of that, because again, they just see whether it's social media or they talk to their friends or they're at an AAU tournament or whatever it might be, that they don't see the connection between their kids love for the game and wanting to do it on their own, not just when a coach is pushing them or when mom and dad are dragging them to session X or Y.

It's really that love for the game when you're on your own, that that's what drive, that's what drives success.

And you guys are there providing them the framework to be able to do it effectively when you're not there.

Yeah.

Just one other thing to add to that too is I think the balance of especially starting at younger and younger now, AAU and games being played and skill development.

I mean, it's completely turned on its head.

I mean, we have kids that are in third and fourth grade playing winter series as well as playing on their school teams.

And this is most sports these days.

There's no through season anymore.

Everything is year round.

And a lot of these kids are playing way more games and they do skill development maybe once a week, if at all.

So I, I just think that balance has really gotten lopsided over the years.

Yeah, you don't need to specialize.

We're not saying that we're big proponents of multiple sports, but that says parents all the time.

There's times where you must prioritize, so you don't need to specialize, but you got to prioritize your time.

So, you know, if you're getting into eighth, ninth grade and you still have aspirations of college basketball or varsity basketball and you're a three Sport athlete.

You know, there's times where if basketball is what you're setting your goals on in your future, you're going to have to carve out some skill development time during soccer season, you know, without jeopardizing your body and your health and all that stuff.

Because rest is equally important.

But there are some decisions and prioritization that needs to take place as a family, as a player, you know, you name it.

Or if not, kids that love the game and are doing that because they're out there, the best players still do that.

They will pass you by if they're not ahead of you yet.

And they will further that gap if they're already ahead of you.

And ultimately you can't get those years of development back.

Just like in the classroom, you know, that fourth to eighth and ninth grade year and obviously past that too.

But those are crucial years of development that you need to be prioritizing skill development or they're very hard to get back.

There's no doubt about that.

I think when you look at the skill level of players today, it's higher than it's ever been.

And to your point, when you look at the opportunity and the window for when those skills can be developed, if you are falling behind again, it's great to be able to play multiple sports.

There's so many benefits from an athletic standpoint and just the way your body moves and the non repetitive injury and all that kind of stuff that that goes along with it.

But I think you make a great point when you're talking about a sport that requires a tremendous amount of skill.

Basketball, I think about like in our community here, girls soccer is a huge sport where I live.

And if you are not developing those skills in fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh grade, if you're just playing soccer during one season or you're just playing basketball during one season, then you're not picking up a ball or picking kicking the soccer ball.

Your chances of playing at the varsity level in one of those sports is pretty low.

Just because again, as you said, Jordan, there are people that are kids that are doing that that are developing and you are going to fall behind.

And there are some sports I always think about football, right, where if you're a really good athlete and you get to high school and you're a freshman and I'm the football coach, I can probably throw you out on the football field and say, hey, you're going to be a middle linebacker and you could probably make it work.

But a sport that's as skill intensive as basketball or Soccer.

If you're not continuing to at least put some time in during your off season, during the main season of another sport, it's going to be really tough.

And then to your point, if, if you want to play in advance beyond the high school level, then certainly what you're going to need is going to go beyond just hey, I'm going to pick up the basketball for five months during the basketball season and the rest of the time maybe I'll just, you know, occasionally go out and throw up some shots on my driveway.

That's just, that's not going to work in today's game, unfortunately for people.

No, definitely not.

Tell me a little bit about your guys planning process for a workout.

Whether that be an individual workout, whether that be a group.

I know you guys talked about having specific programs where somebody could sign up for, hey, you're signing up for four weeks for this particular program or maybe there's a specific focus.

So you could take this question in whatever direction you want.

Whether you want to say this is how we do it for individual, this is how we do it for group, this is how we do it for programming.

But just give me an idea of the planning that goes into the sessions that you have with a player or players in your gym.

We're super organized on that front.

We literally could have a senior that we work with now that we've had since, you know, fourth, fifth grade.

We write every single workout down.

We have books upon books in our house saved.

I could go back to the year, you know, 2020 and find that kid a specific workout that we did.

So we're really big on having a starting point and then building on that and, and growing and, and tailoring workouts to, to the kid.

In terms of our programs that we run, we typically run our programs in like four week stints.

So Mondays are our program nights of the week.

Every Monday for four weeks straight they'll come in and each workout a lot of the same focuses.

We cover a lot of the same topics and ideas, but they're getting brand new drills and new skills layered in.

And week over week we build into higher concepts and ideas.

So we literally can go back and point to a program about, you know, any, any years ago.

We're very detailed and organized on that front and I think it's been huge and helpful for us kind of as we grow.

Yeah, and I'll chime in too, just to paint the picture a little bit.

So if it's not a specialized program, you know, a four week shooting program, four Week, dribble, drive, whatever you want to call it.

Our any group workout on any given day is a standalone workout.

Like, you know, if you come every Tuesday to group, you're getting a fresh general workout every time.

But if you only come one time, that stands alone itself.

So if it's a all around workout, like all of our stuff is, unless we say it's specialized, we do everything.

You will handle the ball, you will finish multiple ways.

Obviously my dad always has the two main separators, footwork and shooting.

There will be more of that whether, no matter what skill does of footwork, but more footwork and shooting in our session than anything else.

And here's a really big one of the reasons why we advocate group the kids will pass the ball now in group workouts, we may throw the ball every now and then, depending on the drill and what we want to accomplish there.

But 95% of the time, and this is such an underrated skill and skill development, the kids have to pass and that also forces them.

The kids have to communicate to get the ball.

So we're really big on that.

As far as a staff, we obviously live together.

So we, you know, eat, sleep, breathe it probably too much sometimes.

She hates the NBA playoffs because I watch it every night.

It's like her basketball.

But as a staff with our other trainers, two that are teachers, one that has a full time job, if they have a kid for their first two times in our gym for a private workout, we have sort of a standard progression that we're going to work them through so they become, you know, quote unquote, like an unleashed player here.

They know our terms, the skills we're going to work on.

We compare notes.

So if I'm going in on workout three with a kid that, you know, coach Matt has had twice, I will touch base with Matt.

We will have a full conversation about that kid.

Here's a specific area in their shot we already discussed they've improved on or are struggling with.

So when I show up, it's a new voice, but it's the same expectation, same workout.

And they feel like I've been there because I have history on that kid.

So we're not just plugging and playing here.

We have some standards, you know, some protocol for how we progress through stuff.

But we are always sharing notes and everything is handwritten.

We take pride in that because now I can on the spot, you know, write down.

Doesn't appear like I'm on the phone for a parent, you know, she'll take my book to Work out sometimes and refer to a past plan rather than, you know, being in my notes of the phone, she can actually have the entire book.

So that's a big part of our planning process, is information sharing amongst our staff.

What does it look like in terms of building your bank of drills and what you guys like to do?

So obviously you're writing down the plan, but clearly you're drawing from your knowledge, your past history.

What does that look like in terms of where you're coming up with, hey, this is what we want to do with this group, or hey, this is what we want to do with this kid.

And then how do you continue to build that?

Once you have it where you're drawing from, then you're obviously adding to it over time.

Right.

You're trying to continue to innovate and learn and all that kind of stuff.

So just talk to me about the creation of the drills and then pulling drills for each particular kid, group session, whatever it is that you're doing at a given day.

Yeah, for me, you know, we have, I don't even know the number of drills at this point, but, you know, standards that, you know, we'll just make this up, throw a number out.

If we had 20 finishing drills.

Right.

We're going to work through that progression.

We're probably not going to do finishing drill number one, you know, next week.

Now, what was really helped us adapt and grow, my dad took another coach Joe saying, here, hide the vegetables and the sauce.

You know, we will have a drill that we've maybe been doing for 12 years, 13 years.

But if I have more, you know, bigs or players that play a four of and five position in a drill than guards, well, we might be running the same drill, but now while the guards are making this cut, someone that's going to get to a different spot on the floor, they're doing the same drill, but they'll get here.

So some of our best innovation in our drills adapting and progressing to almost not even looking like the original form.

Where kids recognize it is if we see the signups for group and there's certain kids that need to work on certain specific parts of a drill, we'll form our offshoots off of that.

We might even come up with an entirely new drill off of that.

So while we've had stuff that's been with us from the beginning and a ton of it, we're constantly stealing from other trainers, other coaches, you see, but really based off the personnel in our gym and us making sure that, you know, kids aren't getting all the same stuff when it wouldn't apply to their position in a game or what they plan to said team at the time.

We'll make sure that we're always adapting plan by plan, month by month, whatever it may be, so that it's not a one size fits all.

We have a program that we run, that's our program, but we are constantly tweaking, fine tuning for any specific group on any given night.

Yeah, the only other thing I would add to that too is so whether it's group or individual, semi, private, we have a general framework and it changes.

We have kids that say, hey coach, my shot's been super off lately.

Can we just get a straight shooting workout?

And you know, we can, we can roll on with shooting, you know, drills for days.

But our general framework is we're going to give you a, like a warm up a starter.

Occasionally we'll do something where they're not scoring right away.

We're going to hop right into some type of ball handling finishing drill.

Then we're going to go into shot breakdown and then we'll get into more shot movement cuts, game like movements.

And then we might add a little bit of a movement series of ball handling.

And then most of the time, especially at a season, even in season with the younger kids, we will have some type of competition.

So you're not coming into our gym unless we're running a, a 5v5 or a 3v3 specific program.

We're going to give you a small sided competition, whether it's one on one, 1v2, something where we're going to give an advantage or a disadvantage to one player over the other.

So that's like our general framework for a normal workout.

Do you find that it's easier to innovate and adapt your drills while you're sitting in front of your computer or at your legal pad on your desk or while you're actually on the court and maybe you're doing a drill and you're like, ooh, maybe I could just adjust or adapt this and let's try this because I know for me when I'm training or when I'm coaching a team and I used to do this all the time when I'm practicing.

Like I'd have a practice plan written out, be like, okay, I want to do this drill or whatever.

And then I'm out on the court and I see something that's happening and I'm like, oh, if we just make this tweak, I can really get this working Better or maybe it allows me to teach it in a different way.

But me sitting in front of a computer or sitting down with a legal pad, not on the court, at least for me, I'm not very good at being innovative when it comes to sitting with pen and paper or typing on the computer.

But when I'm on the floor, I feel like I can adapt and adjust on the fly.

So I don't know if you relate to anything that I'm saying there in terms of just the adaptability from moment to moment with the drills that you already are using.

Yeah, I mean, I think most of our drills, especially the ones that we've been doing for years, they've evolved, you know, with us and, and they change.

We already talked about how we kind of tailor things to our personnel that are in the gym we actually go through.

And this is only something that, that him and I actually know what's going on.

We actually have to talk our trainers through some of these things.

But we'll have a drill and we'll have, you know, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0.

It just kind of keeps going and each point, whatever is a, a new wrinkle or, or caveat to, you know, the original framework or, or base drill.

So, yeah, we're, we're constantly evolving, making changes on the fly just because we saw it can be done better or it needs to be done differently based on who's in the gym.

Yeah.

My best innovation has come really two ways.

For me personally in, in our gym, we're huge on ratio.

So like, we will cut a group session off at 20, 24 kids, but have three coaches in there.

So they're getting a one to eight ratio.

Like, nobody goes through rep.

It is unseen ever.

You might go through two or three unspoken to and then we'll get to you.

But like, we're big on ratio.

My best innovation because we work with a lot of organizations and travel.

I, I've run so many camps for like high school programs.

So I ran a local camp, had 120 kids in the camp.

We were in their high school gym with four baskets that we could use at the same time.

So 120 kids.

We are.

We will never let you stand still knowing that in my planning, I got super creative with adaptations off of drills to make sure.

And there's some standing at that point, but like make sure everybody's involved moving.

We spaced it different.

We gave them an extra action so they weren't watching or when I get surprised.

So like, you know, going to work with a team.

And they say, hey, I'm expecting 12 of our high school guys.

There's.

And then all of a sudden, you show up.

And now we have 15 8th graders.

The whole JV and 9th grade team showed up.

So on the spot, I had my plan.

Like, wow, I went from 12 to 28 and on the fly.

But you know what?

Instead of that cone there, that's going to be somebody, you know, flashing middle or somebody coming up for a high ball screen or whatever you have.

So it's been both ways, but my dad always calls it a basketball classroom.

That's for the players.

We expect you to conduct yourself like you would in a classroom and also like a lesson plan.

You know, my parents are both teachers.

Lessons.

Lesson plans change and evolve by the minute depending on what people need or what you're seeing going on.

Yeah, I think that's true.

The ability to adapt is one of the things that I think I see it all the time with the camps that I run, that there's some coaches that I've hired that have a really good feel for how to take what they're doing and adapt it, depending on how many kids they have in their group.

And then you have other coaches who I'm like, hey, that's a great drill.

You're running like, I love it.

But you have 12 kids, and you have three kids that are involved in the actual action.

So take that group of 12, put them in three lines, have it be more chaotic, but have kids getting more reps.

Right.

And maybe you can't watch every single one of those kids reps, but they're at least active as opposed to having kids standing in line.

And it's one of those things that.

And I'm sure you guys feel the same way.

There's a lot of things that I'm sure you guys do that I do that I take for granted the ability to do what you just described, Jordan, which is to adapt on the fly and just figure something out.

And there are a lot of people who maybe don't have as much experience working with kids that they just can't do that.

And I kind of take it for granted in myself.

Sometimes I look and I'm like, what do you.

Like, what are you doing?

I. I don't understand how you don't.

I don't understand how you don't see that.

Like, if you just split this group into two lines, you could be getting way more kids involved, and then you wouldn't have the two kids slapping each other's butts at the back end of the line and you just eliminate all these different things.

That to me, it just is naturally intuitive.

Like, I just figure that out.

But there are people that sometimes struggle with that.

And I think that adaptability is really key to being able to provide consistent and constant value through activity.

As opposed to standing.

Yeah, I'll give you two, like little hacks that we have learned from, you know, and we've always prided ourselves in not standing, but we've gotten even better two hacks.

For anyone listening, that runs, you know, a team by yourself or, you know, you're a trainer or, you know, want to be one.

We very rarely anymore in a group setting, do stationary shooting.

So, like we have a stationary shooting drill where, okay, we might be working on this moment and that moment, whatever.

Well, what we do now is in a group of 20, we have three lines.

And instead of starting stationary at the spot, they'll go a full speed attack down from half court.

So now we're off the attack.

Get to your stationary moment.

Work through our shooting progression.

So it's basically still a shoot stationary drill, but as soon as that person's releasing the ball, the next person's filling.

So all of a sudden, right there, we incorporated some conditioning, some ball handling.

You're also finding balance in your shot.

And the other one too, and this is a great one, is if we go three lines instead of.

And now if you have young kids, I can't figure it out, maybe a little bit different, but even then, majority of the kids don't go back to your line.

Everybody rotates left.

So now a kid shooting in this line, get the rebound, they rotate to the middle.

Middle shoots, they rotate to the other side.

So now you have constant flow too.

They gotta be aware of where they're at.

They gotta be aware of getting outside the drill or where they're going.

It adds a whole new layer of constant movement, controlled chaos.

And now instead of one kid just shooting everyone standing, you might have three kids shooting three kids on their way to the spot.

All those kids funneling back to line.

Now you got 12 kids moving at once, even though only three are getting their actual shooting rep. Yeah, keeping that.

Activity level high and keeping the kids engaged is a huge piece of A, their development.

Right.

But B, it also keeps kids a lot happier because nobody likes to go to a camp, a training session, whatever, and stand around.

The reason why kids are there is to be active and to participate.

And I always say to anybody that's coaching at camp with me, Is like, try to keep every kid as active as you possibly can and figure out that whatever activity you want to do, whatever drill you're doing, how can you do the same thing?

How can you teach the same concept and keep as many kids engaged in what you're doing and not standing around watching?

Because again, you don't, you don't get better at a camp or in a training session standing around and watching.

It just is, it's just a fact.

Let me ask you about the design of your specific programs.

So as you guys are talking and trying to figure out, hey, we want to have these different group offerings where there's a specific theme to them.

How do you go about thinking about what those are going to be and then what's the planning process for putting them together?

And then if you're going to run them multiple times, let's say I'm going to run a dribble drive four times a year or three times a year.

So you know, whatever.

So for three months I'm going to do that every, every third month or whatever it might be.

How do you continue to keep that fresh so that you keep people coming back and signing up and being a part of that?

Beyond just what we've already talked about, which is the improvement and all the relationships and all that kind of thing.

We try to keep things as fresh as possible for kids.

I would say we have, I'd have to go through and try to count them out, but we have a bunch of different specific programs that we do that.

A lot of them we only do once a year.

So you know, that program comes and goes.

If you, you missed it, you missed it.

But then we have other ones that we run on a more regular basis.

Our building blocks program for third and fifth graders, or third through fifth.

We run our shooting program multiple times a year.

We run our 3v3 program multiple times a year.

So we have our staples that we know people are interested in year round and then we have our other programs that we kind of sprinkle out throughout the year.

And one thing that we have found to be really successful, we originally just offered a lot of four week programs where, you know, you sign up, you're locked in for these fourth date four dates.

As crazy as schedules get for people, we found that, you know, they can't commit to a four week stint.

So what we do is we, we've actually started to do one day workshops where it's a four week program, but you can sign up for all four or you can sign up for Two, two out of the four, whatever fits your schedule.

And each one of those workshops is a different focus.

So we've found that to be really helpful to us.

Yeah.

And as far as like what they're going to get.

So I think we ran maybe last year a three on three, three times.

Like we run our shooting program a lot.

Even if it's just part of the one day workshops, having those notes is pure gold.

Like I went on the calendar the other day because one of our current workshops in season a dribble drive is a four week program we also run.

So I punched into the calendar, you know, dribble drive.

And I saw for like the last two, three years of dates went in my book.

And I reviewed every single plan.

I was like, wow, man.

I've been using this new, this drill a lot in our group workouts.

Had a lot of success.

We haven't done that in the last three dribble drives that's going in.

And also there's some like, like we said, some staples where like whether it's a stride stop playing off of two feet or you know, every kid you say two foot finish, they jump stop, Right.

So we rarely jump stop.

Like we'll teach jump stop to young kids, but we're working on gathers spin off of two.

So like we'll build in.

Okay, well, you know, this is a young crew.

We know most of these kids, they can all jump stop.

We're going to introduce a gather in this program.

So now they play off of 1, 2, but still have a 2ft.

So having those notes is absolute gold.

But there's also ones.

And I say this too.

We talk about this a lot.

This is one of those corny sayings, you know, skills never graduate.

Like there'll be times where we check ourselves and always trying to stay new, stay fresh.

Like, man, these kids have been here for six, seven years.

But guess what?

They could still use the basic shooting drill, the same finishing drill, the stride stop they've been doing every year, multiple times a year with us.

Maybe we just do it in a new location this time.

So if our stride stop was driving from the top of the key to the block, stepping through, turning our back to the basket.

Let's introduce a stride stop on this one.

Driving to the wing to make a post entry.

It's not there.

And we rip through to create a new angle.

So that's where we're going to work and hammer those same skills different ways.

But a lot of people will find too.

And this almost become like you know they don't even ask questions anymore.

We've been around long enough and built enough of the reputation where they'll sign up for the same thing over and over, knowing that.

And we always get.

It's new people that ask the questions.

Well, it's only an hour long session.

We're like, you know what, come in for this hour, make sure your kid has two water bottles because there's no time wasted.

Like we're going to really push them hard.

So like it's sort of like a learned behavior there.

But yeah, we, the note taking is absolute gold because we know a kid that hasn't come in three years.

I know what they did their last workout they were in.

And from those programs, it does keep a fresh take on a lot of very similar stuff.

And I would just say the, as we grow and add more trainers, the notebooks are huge for us to be able to, you know, hand over.

Hey, here were literally the last 10 plans that we did with this kid just to make sure it's fresh, it's not repetitive and they're progressing and they're not doing, you know, drills that they, I don't want to say master to skills because to his point, they always can be working on the basic fundamentals.

But we want to make sure that we're tracking this kid in the right direction for, you know, their, their goals and aspirations.

And so to go along with that.

When you are onboarding a new trainer, so we talked about bringing on a new player, but when you are bringing somebody into your business, obviously again, when the two of you or your dad is doing the training, right, it's, it's in house.

You guys know what the expectations are, you guys know what your reputation is, you know what you want to teach, you know how you want to teach it.

You have all of that experience.

It can be for a trainer who's looking to expand, that can be a scary thing, right?

To take your business and put that into somebody else's hands and have them doing the work with clients within your business.

Again, if you haven't done that before, if you haven't tried to expand, to delegate, to hire someone.

So what's been the process for you guys to find good people and then what do you do to make sure that the experience that a player gets from someone who is new to your program as a trainer, that it's the same as what they would get as if they were working with you guys?

Go ahead, you go.

That's a challenge.

If it was up to me, I'D still, you know her.

Myself, my dad, my sister started the company with us.

She moved away.

She's now back and actually helps train as well.

She's a head coach on our local high school girls program.

But aside from us four that were there from the beginning, I would have never hired anybody.

I'd run myself into the ground.

I probably have three years left on my life at this point.

But for us, we bring them in.

They spend a lot of time with us helping run groups.

They all have coaching experience.

So like from day one we know and a lot of them are pre exist relationships, high energy, high effort.

They know basketball now.

Just because you're a good player doesn't mean you're a good trainer.

Just because you're a good coach doesn't mean you're a good trainer and vice versa.

What we will do is after a bunch of group workouts, we will let them demonstrate a drill.

We'll let them take the lead on some stuff.

They hear our lingo, we will let them say it's a new kid coming in, parent emails and says, hey, you know, I have a fifth grader, sixth grader, seventh grader, they're just learning to play.

Maybe they were cut from the school team.

So we'll turn the reins over to them and say, you know what?

And you're going to give them a normal session.

We're not taking anything away from the kids getting.

But here's your like trial run.

They know the plan, they're going to run.

You coach it how you want with our guidelines a little bit like what they want to learn to expect.

But we let them do one or two privates on their own where we'll watch.

And then the feedback sort of like you said earlier is typically, hey, they got a tremendous workout, but there's a way for you.

You could have got them 40 more shots off if you just would have picked the pace up with your rebounding or passing or your voice, you know, don't coach every shot.

Boom, boom, boom, five reps and then give a little bit of feedback, five more reps. Another nugget of feedback, five more reps.

Okay, they don't get it.

Let's stop and teach.

So a really big piece of it is they come in, they can figure out our drills.

They know basketball.

We're teaching, space the drills wider, make them instead of one cut, force a second cut, get the ball out to them sooner, go more reps without teaching.

So once they adapt, even though they're high energy to the pace of our Workouts, that's when they really start to feel comfortable and we feel comfortable with them.

It's very rarely, if ever a knowledge thing.

It's a, we are, we are always trying to figure out more efficient, more ways to get them the reps and just quality, quality, quality, but also quantity in there too.

Yeah.

The only other thing I would add to that is, and it, it took us a while to work up to this.

We actually have probably 75 to 100 of our staple drills, competitive small sided games filmed.

So a lot of times, especially when we have newer trainers or you know, maybe we're not here for a weekend, it's family vacation and they have all the groups, you know, for the week.

We can say, hey, go check out in the finishing folder this drill.

And we have a very detailed voiced over video of that drill that they can look at and reference as you.

Guys create those videos.

You're looking at it.

Yeah.

When we were in a little bit better shape.

No, we actually had a guy, Matt Smith, he ran the clinic my dad spoke at twice now at the Hoosiers gym.

He had United Basketball believe was the name.

It was something we had talked about and wanted to do.

We just didn't take the time.

And he said, you know, get me 30 videos to start.

I'd like to host these on the website.

So we went and filmed ourselves doing the drills.

Lexus, she runs our website, does everything you see on these potential, she's designed it, the artwork, you name it.

So she would chop and edit them out.

We voiced them over and then since then we did a few more.

We got some of our kids that have been around for a very long time training.

They've probably filmed about 30 or 40 of them where we've actually filmed them.

But yeah, it's just some good old fashioned, you know, hard work.

They're not shorts, they're not the reels, they're not 15 seconds.

These are like two, three minute voiced over version of it so well.

And we're so particular and we want our drills run a certain way.

We do, we give our trainers freedom because you know, they do things a little differently and it's good for kids to see and hear different ways of teaching.

But I mean we're zooming in on feet to make sure, you know, they have everything down and certain drills.

So we would love to do more videos and that's actually on our list of, of to dos and, and things.

We want to keep expanding and growing.

I think we, we have a seven month old so we Put the brakes on that for now.

But she gets a little bit more independent.

We'll, we'll get back to the videos here.

And here's the thing too.

My, like with the way we run this and when it's yours, you take great pride in it.

Obviously I was always.

I struggled.

I've gotten better personally with this growth really thanks to her of, you know, I wanted to control every detail and what we've really found success in.

And now our team expanding.

We have a team of three or four trainers.

My sister, Coach Matt, Coach Morgan, coach Ryan.

And we have some people that like fill in and help even in different spots is we are never going to bend on the way we do things.

So a lot of our, what seems like we're a little controlling and we're hyper focused on.

We are because when you come in our gym, there's, we cannot have any disconnect in what you experience as a player or a parent, how we teach it and how we run things.

Now in each session, you know, here's some drills we're doing.

Our trainers have brought us great drills.

They may not think a way that we, you know, filmed it is resonating with that kid.

So they may change the drill and they have complete freedom to do that.

But where we're hyper focused on and you have to be when you're growing is as we expand and somebody gets her one day or somebody else one day, the product stays the same.

You know, fourth grade girl might like her or female trainers a little bit better.

This just might be their favorite.

But they love when they have me or our male trainers because they're getting the same workout.

So you might have a favorite trainer, but it's not for a lack of or a reason of, you know, this person does a better job or that person doesn't.

The, the different voices in different ways are great, but we are ultimately the same product.

And only other thing I'll add to that is I think a big thing that we've realized over the past year or two is we have brought on more help and more trainers.

You need to put them in situations to lead and run drills.

You know, there have been so many times where him and I just kind of take over a session from top to bottom.

And it's just easy to do that because we know we're doing it how we want it to be done.

We know that we're not misspeaking or setting things up incorrectly.

Your other trainers are never going to gain the confidence to, to speak in front of the group or learn to do things how you expect them to do it if you don't give them opportunities to actually do it on their own and they may mess up.

I mean, we're all human.

They're, they're not going to, you know.

No one even knows though.

Yeah, the parents and kids have no idea.

We're the ones like, oh my gosh, did you see where, you know, he or she put that stone?

And the end of the day, it is what it is.

And if they mess something up really bad, you know, we, we pull them aside after the session or, you know, shoot them a text or an email later and just say, hey, like you did this and that.

Great.

But in that one drill, you could tweak this a little bit differently to make it more efficient or we don't quite word things the same way you did.

So just little stuff like that.

We, we've learned a lot over the past year.

So.

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Yeah, I think what I hear you guys saying is that the process of what everybody is doing is the same and there may be some details along the way that get changed, but the expectation, regardless of who is in front of that group of kids, you're going to get the same level of energy, enthusiasm, effort.

You're going to get the same skill work.

It may be delivered slightly differently based on each coach's personality, but you're going to still walk out of the gym knowing that the workout that you just had was given to you by unleashed potential.

Regardless of whether it's Alexa, whether it's Jordan, whoever it is that's that's providing that they're getting, they're getting a very similar, a very similar experience.

I think that, that, that is key.

The process of being able to again, evaluate, be there, watch somebody who's new, take them through a workout, take them through a group session and then to be able to give them feedback and again try to push them in the direction of, hey, we want everything to.

Be.

Done in a similar fashion again within the confines of everybody having a slightly different coaching style and a slightly different way of, of presenting things.

But ultimately a kid is going to come out of that workout with what it is that you've tried to design for them to be able to have.

And I think that's, again, it's challenging because we all know that we've, we've seen as, as we've said a couple times, you see the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to training.

And so you obviously, when you're putting your name and reputation on the line, you want to make sure that you have the best people there that are going to bring something to the table and, and make it, make it worth everybody's while to be a, to be a part of your organization.

Without, without a doubt.

Yeah.

The video stuff that you guys were talking about, like back in 2015, I put together this video series of stuff that I was, I had a buddy of mine and he and I filmed it and like we filmed it on his.

At that point, I don't know what iPhone6 or who knows what it was back in, back in 2000, back in 2015.

But man, those videos are labor intensive when you're trying to get them right.

And you know, mine were the same way you guys, like two, three, four minutes.

And I try to explain the drill and then I'd have a couple of my players out there trying to do it.

Then of course you want them to execute it right.

Then what kid would miss a shot?

They'd be like, you know, they put their head down and you know, they're like a cut.

We got to do it.

You know, you got to do it, you got to do it over.

And it takes like, people see the final two or three minute video and they're like, oh, look at that, it's super easy.

And then you think, you think, yeah, that, that two or three minute video took like an hour for us to shoot the thing to get it right.

Because I don't know if she mentions earlier she was a two time all American.

So like when you talk about motors and competitive, I mean one of our first dates we were at Ocean City, Maryland on the boardwalk, mini golfing and you know, she's a couple F bombs and you know, the putter into the, you know, the, the makeshift creek.

My family is like, they already know her well, you know, they knew she had that drive.

But our bloopers, I would only be shown after midnight on, on TV because there's some crazy moments from our miss shots.

Rule number one is a trainer in a workout never shoot the ball.

Yeah.

Because the kids expect every shot to go in.

That is true.

That is so true.

I've, I've discovered that the older I get and the further removed I am from actually doing any real shooting that I always end up, I end up getting.

All right, we're going to shoot.

I get, I get to about right here and then.

And I'm done.

I cut, I cut it off, I cut it off right there.

It's.

Yeah, I leave that to, I leave that to my son who's, you know, who's 20 years old.

He wants to shoot and do stuff, go for it.

But I'm not gonna be, I'm not gonna be that guy anymore for that exact reason that you guys just, you guys just talked about, without a doubt.

Tell me a little bit about the website and the business side of it.

What do you guys like about the business side of it?

What have you found that's worked well in terms of just again, word of mouth, the website, getting things out in front of people.

Obviously the best advertisement you have is the players that you work with and the success they've had.

But just talk about the business side, what part of you guys enjoy and maybe what part of it you find challenging.

I would say for me, obviously the basketball aspect of it, like what we do in the gym, that's hands down my favorite part.

But for me, I've always had a little bit of a creative side.

So I took art classes when I was younger.

I even took some art classes in college as, you know, some of my electives.

I love getting to just be creative and get in.

I use Adobe Illustrator.

It's awesome.

It takes my mind away from, you know, everything basketball related and I just kind of get to tap into another part of my brain and I, I have personally really enjoyed that.

Yeah.

For me, especially as we grew or as we are and still growing, it's almost non functional without the organization of a website for too long.

You know, in group workouts, they weren't even registering online.

You know, they would message us, hey, we're popping in.

Which was awesome.

Great.

We love those messages.

But it got to a point where, you know, we can't even keep up.

20 people are handing us cash at the door.

I mean so early on.

I think there's so many expenses with any business.

Like you don't need to pay someone to do your website or host this and that.

You can start small and organically grow.

But once you.

And it definitely makes it more professional appearing.

Having a website, being able to process, especially for groups and programs, payments online and not have to deal with that back and forth is absolutely huge.

The way we do it is if you book a private session or a like a semi private.

So anything private, you set that up like a doctor's office visit with us.

So you will email us, we will correspond at a day and time that schedule's aligned.

You pay for that in person.

Anything group is registered, paid for.

And we don't even communicate back and forth.

It's online also for us.

I think something that helped us with our growth.

100 organic is we maybe have, I don't even know, close to 4,4000 followers on Instagram.

I know we have like 4, 000 like likes or followers on Facebook.

100 organic all we have ever posted.

There might be like a handful of them, but there are still photos of like you know, your kid, you know Ethan from Boiling Springs.

Ethan comes in, he's a senior now after maybe four workouts.

We post a picture of Ethan after the workout.

And this is not right or wrong, but here's one thing I think is huge.

Everybody is so quick to in this day and age because of what we have social media wise.

Film the workout, take the clips on video, you know, to post it and get engagement.

That's completely fine.

But nothing irks me as another business owner more.

Or if I was a parent, which I am now, even kid's not old enough.

Seeing a trainer on court coaching a kid with their phone in the hand, you know, while they're encore giving instruction, they're filming, rebounding, you name it.

That stuff's great for advertising, but if you want to do that stuff, hire a high school intern, pay them 15 bucks an hour, have somebody else film for you.

So we've actually and it's part of our organic growth.

We've never filmed a workout for promotional purposes.

This was a special event.

We hire a cameraman.

We've been big on growing our social media page just through when a kid pops in, you know, they see us on social media, they follow us, we'll post their picture A group picture.

So that's been a really big part of our brand is social media, but it's really come from just organic engagement versus feeling the need to advertise ourselves, you know, through filming people all the time.

I think that's something that's such a today thing.

That's not.

Sometimes we'd be hurting more than it's helping.

Depending on the way you're doing it.

I think the filming thing, it's funny that you say that because I know that like when I'm training or I'm at camp or I'm working with a group of kids, like there are times where I feel guilty looking at my watch to see what time it is and taking my eyes off the workout.

And then to your point, I mean you'll see, you'll see guys that are again eating their lunch or walking around, they're talking to the parent for 30 minutes out of the 60 minute workout or they're doing who knows what.

And again, the phone, the phone is obviously a big, a big part of it.

Like I, there was times where I'm like, I should really try to keep track of like a kid's shooting percentage.

There I was on a kick for, Let me, let me see if I can track this so I can give them, hey, look, look, they're getting better.

And every time then I found myself like I couldn't coach and be trying to track in my head or have my phone or have my clipboard.

I'm trying to, I'm like, I got, I just, I, I got to put all that stuff, I got to put all that stuff away so I can just focus on what it is that I'm trying to do, which is help the kid to improve and watch what they're doing.

But you do see a lot of people that are doing lots of things other than being focused on being focused on the basketball piece.

And it is interesting when you think about how pervasive the social media part of it has become in terms of just people posting about every single thing.

And in all honesty, I feel like I probably don't do that good of a job.

Like there's times where I'll run like the last.

I have a guy that took over a gym near me and so I've done a couple of like one day, like three four hour clinics and I didn't take one photo at either.

One of the things.

I'm like, oh, I wish I would have taken a picture of something.

So I would, so I would have had something to be able to share, like, hey, you know, great, great work with this group.

You know, they were.

Whatever.

And I just.

It.

It's one of those things that I'm just focused on what I'm doing and probably should focus more on at least getting a.

At least getting one or two pictures that I can use to be able to, you know, for, for those promo purposes.

But I totally understand what you're saying.

Yeah, we document everything.

I mean, we take pictures of, you know, any team we work with, they're going to get.

We're going to take a picture.

We don't miss that for sure because it's a great free way to advertise your business.

We just.

And my dad always says you can call it old school, whatever you want, new school, whatever it may be.

We do not film the workouts because we always say too, like, our best workouts are imperfect.

So, like, we're not looking.

We're gonna have great workouts with a lot of success, but we're so huge on.

You're gonna be challenged.

Challenge yourself.

If a camera's there, especially, you know, a kid that's not.

Most kids aren't used to being filmed.

So if a camera's there, some part of them is aware of that and that's gonna affect some part of their performance.

Are they scared to make the mistake?

Are they playing it safe?

We don't play anything safe.

So while social media has been a great tool for us, and it's like I said, no knock to anyone that films, you're completely fine too.

It's not saying you're doing anything wrong, but we just don't want any distractions in our gym that are going to take away from a kid's like, authenticity and feeling completely comfortable in, you know, their growth, whether it's success or failure and anything to distract us.

That's why, you know, we have a trainer that does, you know, notes on his phone, but he's on, on the court with it.

You know, it'll be over by the wall.

And when a kid's getting a water break, he'll.

He'll make sure he's on track.

But that's why we hand write plans, because we're undivided attention there.

We have a clock that hangs on the wall and that's how we're checking time in a workout.

So we just been really big on, like, if you do a good job and do things the right way for the right reasons, your growth will come at the rate that it's supposed to without forcing that.

So many People are social media specialists versus basketball trainers.

It's like, just develop the kids and the rest will follow.

This stage of your business where you guys are right now, what is the one thing that is the biggest challenge that you have on a day to day basis?

It could be a challenge that you're in the process of overcoming.

It could be something that you want to add or try to do in the future.

But when I say the biggest challenge that you guys have day to day, what, what comes to mind besides trying to manage your new family and your business?

For me, and it, it, it stems from, you know, us growing our family.

I think the hardest thing has been managing more people, trying to coordinate schedules, making sure that we have, you know, enough help in the gym.

We have appropriate help in the gym because we can go from, you know, an individual with a fourth grade boy to, you know, two to three back to back hours of big groups, followed by a team on the back end of the evening and, you know, at the end of the day.

This is our life, this is our livelihood.

So we're always in 110%.

We can't expect the same out of, you know, two teachers that worked all day with kids.

And then they're coming to us, they don't want to be in the gym for, for four hours.

So for us just being able to kind of puzzle piece our help together and making sure we're not overworking our help so that when they are in the gym, they're fresh, they're giving us what, you know, we expect out of them and, and what our clients expect.

Yeah, also I'd say, or ourselves.

You know, my dad always calls like the hamster wheel.

You know, we train with, we'll do teams, special programs.

We have an event this Saturday.

There's things we do, but like we'll take Saturday off.

It's our one day.

But Monday through Friday and Sunday, like it's all day every day, especially in the summer.

I mean, there's days I'll be in the gym 12 hours straight or traveling to a gym, learning to say no.

Like Thanksgiving morning, no, we're not training.

New Year's Day, we're not training.

But for me, the biggest challenge to me is, and this is a great problem, to have training 70 some different teams in a year, training probably 1500 different players in a year.

Now that's the volume we get.

Making sure that to your point earlier, the right kids are in the right groups, making sure that we're not overfilling programs, but also not turning People away.

You know, there's.

We could sell out certain programs.

We could have 60 kids in that gym in an hour.

And we're.

We're going to cut it off at 24, depending on what the program is so that the reps aren't jeopardized.

And, you know, that 1 to 8, 1 to 7 ratio, maximum we want isn't, you know, bet either.

Certain programs can allow for more of that, like, you know, a dribble drive program.

Everybody's got a ball in their hands, everybody's finishing.

There's not as much cutting or, you know, you know, passing in there, so things flow quicker, so some will bend.

But that's what the biggest thing, like in our small gym in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, you know, and we love the place.

Put a hole in the wall.

People come for the product.

You know, just managing that crazy amount of kids that now come to us and finding spots for everybody, not just on the calendar, but also, like, that's a good fit.

We do a really good job of it.

But that's the stuff that we're constantly tweaking and, you know, maybe spending more time than you would per se want to, to make sure the right kids are together.

That makes sense to me.

That's the key, I think, in anything that I've ever done.

The most challenging aspect for me is always how do I balance the levels, how do I give the really good players what they need?

And yet at the same time, how do I make sure that I find space for the kids who are just starting and make sure that those two groups are both getting served?

And that's always been my biggest challenge in a camp setting and in training.

It.

It happens too.

But for me, it's been a lot in the camp session.

How do I.

How do I make sure that both of those kids are getting a great experience?

The kid who just is touching the ball for the first time and the kid who has multiple years of experiences and is a really good player.

And I think that will always continue to be the challenge in terms of just figuring out what that looks like and how to make sure that I'm giving those players both the best possible version of myself, my camp, my training, whatever it, Whatever it may be.

All right, I want to ask you guys one final question before we wrap up.

So when you think about what you guys get to do every day, there aren't many people that get to do and work full time in the game of basketball and do what you guys do.

So what is it that about what you guys do that you love the most.

I mean, for me, when we, when I was in college and I speak speaking for him because I know he felt the same way.

You know, basketball was literally your entire life up until that point.

You eat, sleep, breathe basketball.

I never in a million years thought that after I graduated and hung up my playing sneakers, I would still get to have a ball in my hands every day.

So I think it's, it's very humbling and we're very grateful to be able to continue to do what we love.

Like he said, we could be in the gym for 12 hours and body can feel exhausted.

Now that we're getting old, we might have some, some muscles that are feeling, you know, tender and sore.

I will never take for granted what we get to do every single day.

And aside from the basketball, we are so blessed to have great families that come in and out of our lives.

There are a lot of people we keep in touch with where, you know, their kids don't even play basketball anymore.

They're, you know, having kids and getting married now.

So it's been really fun and special to build this over the past, you know, decade or so.

Yeah, we both work full time jobs.

So I, we, I worked for seven years for the state.

She worked for a marketing media company.

So we did that while growing this from.

We've never, never had the intent for this to be full time.

We didn't even know that was possible, never thought it would be possible.

So like we were just loving what we were doing.

And we still do.

And we've been so fortunate that one like a couple years ago, about six years ago, we're like, oh shoot, if one of us doesn't quit, our, the training business is gonna like suffer.

And then ended up, we both ended up quitting and it's been the best thing ever.

For me.

Two aspects is I've never felt since I quit that state job like I've had to go to work.

I didn't tell people I gotta go to work.

It's not work.

So you'll never hear me complain about that.

But really for me it's the relationships.

And also too at the size we're at, you know, Baba, number one player in the country.

Baba's coming in for a workout.

And then in the next hour it might be a fourth grader never picked up a basketball.

And the hour before is a kid that got cut from a seventh grade team later that night, kid that plays at Penn State.

The improvement of the kids that aren't the great players is probably the most satisfying for me, like, being able to train and develop a kid that is terrible is way more rewarding.

Even though they're both as equally enjoyable.

Way more rewarding than making, you know, a varsity starter comes into us, you know, even better.

Love the process the same.

But, like, that has been the biggest thing to me is we've turned more kids that have been dejected or like, rejected into positive moments in their playing career that ends a lot of times shortly after that.

They'll take that with them as a young person, young player, as a life lesson more than anything, basketball wise, you can give them.

So that's been a really, like, big joy of ours, is helping those kids as much as the ones you read about in the paper.

Yeah, that's awesome.

I mean, it's well said.

And I think that, again, it goes back to being able to make an impact on people through the game of basketball.

And you guys are very fortunate, as you said, to be able to do that full time and to be able to have that kind of impact through what you guys do day in and day out, I'm sure is tremendously satisfying.

And I always say that the game of basketball has given me so much that there's no way I could.

What.

No matter what I do, I can never give the game back.

What it's, what it's given to me.

And so whenever I get to do something with the game or.

Or utilize it to be able to have an impact on somebody, I never take that for granted.

I'm always thankful for it.

And I know you guys feel exactly the same way.

Before we get out, I want to give you guys a chance to share.

How can people reach out to you, get in touch with you, find out more about what you guys are doing with Unleashed, share website, social media, email, whatever you guys want so people can find out more about what you're doing.

And then after you do that, I'll jump back in and wrap things up.

I know you're racking your brain.

God, I know.

I was thinking, I was like, what's.

Her email website is www.unleash717.com email info is actually info@unleash717.com we are on social media at.

On Instagram at unleash717.

And I believe that's the same on X and then on Facebook.

Unleash potential.

You would see us, we have the dog with a basketball in his mouth as the logo.

I know people give out our phone, their phone number a lot.

I am not doing that.

We try to disconnect our phone number from people and hey, you want to talk, you're going to email us.

So infoleash717.com if you want to pick our brain.

Happy to share any information on stuff we talked about.

We call them home and away games.

Home games.

Based in Carlisle, Pennsylvania where we're at.

We travel to teams within 15 to 20 minutes up to, you know, two hours.

My dad flies across the country in the world so we're very mobile.

They can really look forward to actually going to anywhere you know someone would be at want to bring us in.

So we certainly appreciate you having us Mike.

Really humbled to get to do what you want to do and you do a great job.

You've been really good to my family and we, we appreciate you having us on tonight.

Yeah, this has been awesome.

Thank you so much.

Absolutely.

Jordan and Alexa, I cannot thank you guys enough for taking an hour and a half out of your schedule getting, getting your baby to sleep, which is always key as, as young parents.

But I, I really appreciate your time.

Again get it's been a pleasure getting to know the two of you after Jordan, getting to know your dad over the last number of years.

Like I said, I consider him one of the, one of the original hoop heads.

So it's, it's nice to keep it in the family.

And again, thanks to you guys tonight for taking the time and to everyone out there, thanks for listening to the episode and we will catch you on the next one.

Thanks.

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Thanks for listening to the Hoop Heads podcast presented by Head Start Basketball.