CourtReserve Webinars

(1:07) Well, hello everyone. This is Ashley
(1:09) with Court Reserve and Old Coast Pickle
(1:11) Ball. Thank you so much for joining us
(1:13) today. We are so excited uh to to just
(1:17) talk about so many things uh that’s
(1:20) happened in the last year. Um I am
(1:22) joined by one of my favorite humans, uh
(1:25) Jack Johnson. He is our director at Old
(1:28) Coast Pickle Ball. Welcome, Jack. Uh,
(1:30) you’re just up the road from me in
(1:32) Jacksonville. So happy to have you here
(1:35) today. Hey, Ashley. Thank you so much.
(1:39) All right, so well, we know that we have
(1:42) a lot to get started with today and so
(1:44) we know also that you probably have a
(1:46) few questions for us and so if you’ll
(1:49) just put those questions in the chat or
(1:51) the Q&A, uh, we’ll kind of go through
(1:53) what we want to share today and we’ll
(1:55) try and get through all of your
(1:56) questions at the end. We of course will
(1:58) put this on the court reserve YouTube
(2:00) channel. So if you want to share this
(2:01) with um your friends later um and
(2:03) hopefully you know we’re going to give
(2:05) you at least one takeaway today, even if
(2:07) it’s what not to do when opening a
(2:10) pickle ball club. All right, so let’s go
(2:12) ahead and get started. Last call. Next
(2:16) week we are having a court reserve
(2:18) catalyst user conference in Austin,
(2:20) Texas. If you love barbecue, which we
(2:22) do, uh, or you want to supercharge your
(2:25) court reserve platform, I highly
(2:26) recommend you go out to courtresve.com
(2:28) and just go to resources and you can
(2:30) sign up or learn more about Catalyst.
(2:32) It’s at a beautiful club in Austin,
(2:34) Texas. We’re going to spend all day.
(2:36) You’ll get like a one-on-one meeting
(2:38) with one of us at Court Reserve. You’ll
(2:40) also learn so much about our latest
(2:42) integrations and all the things we’re
(2:44) doing. So, next week we’re in Texas.
(2:46) Please come join us. We have such a good
(2:48) time. people walk away with a lot of
(2:50) great information. And then if you can’t
(2:52) make it to Austin, we just announced our
(2:55) next Catalyst stop is going to be this
(2:57) June. It’s going to be in the desert,
(2:59) Palm Desert, California. We’re going to
(3:01) be at a beautiful club out there um in
(3:02) June. So definitely I highly should see
(3:05) all of my California, my you West Coast
(3:08) folks out there um because the next
(3:10) Catalyst stop will not be until the
(3:12) fall. So, if you are a new court reserve
(3:15) client and you’re really trying to get
(3:16) in there and learn so much, I would
(3:18) highly recommend uh that you do that as
(3:20) well. The next thing I really want to
(3:23) talk about is since we’re talking about
(3:25) pickle ball today, if you don’t know
(3:27) about pickle ball club mastermind, I
(3:30) would highly recommend that you look
(3:31) into this. I believe we have a special
(3:33) guest today, Devin from Club Pickleball.
(3:35) Hi Devin. Hey Ashley. How are you? I’m
(3:38) good. So, you know, we have learned so
(3:41) much from coming to mastermind about how
(3:44) to run a pickle ball club. Now, frankly,
(3:46) uh we had the benefit of coming a lot
(3:48) and learning a lot from you and what you
(3:50) guys have done at your many facilities
(3:53) in Salt Lake County. Uh tell us why
(3:55) people should come to the June
(3:57) mastermind. Well, uh yeah, I mean the
(3:59) first thing that I would say is just
(4:01) that mastermind is this cohort and
(4:04) cooperative of clubs that are hoping to
(4:06) help each other. And as an independent
(4:09) club owner, you might think or feel like
(4:11) you’re on an island and you’re stranded
(4:13) and nobody’s there to really assist or
(4:15) or answer questions and that everyone’s
(4:17) really protective of their intellectual
(4:19) property and nobody want mastermind
(4:22) breaks down all those barriers and says,
(4:24) “Hey, why don’t we just help each other?
(4:26) Why don’t we collaborate? Why don’t we
(4:27) share best practices?” And I actually I
(4:29) was looking at the people that are on
(4:30) this call. You know, shout out to Chris
(4:32) Sears and Ben Ipa. There’s a bunch of uh
(4:35) mastermind members actually tuning in.
(4:37) So, hello and and and uh you know, kudos
(4:40) to all of you. I can just share quickly.
(4:43) Um I could think of dozens and dozens of
(4:46) stories out of mastermind, but the one
(4:47) that immediately comes to mind is
(4:48) actually a player of ours. Uh we got
(4:52) started, one of the reasons that we
(4:53) started mastermind is that we’re some of
(4:55) the ancient, you know, uh origin like
(4:59) original people that got involved in in
(5:01) founding pickle ball clubs back in 2020.
(5:03) And one of our players, uh, Shelton, um,
(5:07) he was, you know, trying to go pro and a
(5:09) number of other things in pickle ball.
(5:11) Eventually, he just came around to the
(5:13) fact of that he wanted to own and
(5:14) operate a pickle ball club and he was
(5:17) going to do it in Houston, Texas. And
(5:19) so, we went from, you know, a player at
(5:21) our club to a mastermind member that
(5:24) launched his club in Houston. He now has
(5:26) the same number of locations that I do.
(5:28) He has three locations in Houston. And
(5:31) uh if you talked to Shelton today, he
(5:33) would say mastermind, mastermind,
(5:35) mastermind, you know, helped him get to
(5:37) that point. And uh so I can just promise
(5:40) you if you came to mastermind, you’d be
(5:42) blown away at the value, the strategy,
(5:44) and all of the uh you know uh I guess
(5:48) just mind share that happens there. And
(5:52) uh we give you the club pickle ball
(5:54) model and approach and that then you
(5:57) don’t have to reinvent the wheel and you
(5:59) don’t have to walk into a model
(6:01) wondering and and speculating about what
(6:03) might happen. You can you can work off
(6:06) of a a fair, you know, a proven track
(6:08) record of the number one club on duper
(6:11) for three years running. And so anyway,
(6:13) I I uh would be honored to chat with
(6:15) anybody that’s interested. And if you
(6:17) don’t mind, maybe Ashley, I’ve got a
(6:19) little QR code if anybody wants to
(6:20) schedule a phone call with me to just
(6:23) sync up for like, you know, 101 15
(6:26) minutes about mastermind and how we
(6:28) might be able to help. Uh then, uh, you
(6:31) know, this this might be able to, uh, be
(6:34) the fast track for that. And maybe give
(6:36) me a thumbs up to that QR code show up.
(6:40) Good. All good. Perfect. So, if you just
(6:42) scan that, take a screenshot of it on
(6:44) your phone, it’ll give you direct access
(6:45) to my calendar. Candidly, my calendar
(6:48) right now is a little bit full. I was
(6:49) telling Ashley uh this morning, I’ve got
(6:52) like 42 appointment 42 appointments in
(6:55) the next two weeks of people that are
(6:57) hoping to come to this June 19 to 21
(6:59) mastermind and they have some questions
(7:01) about it. And so, my calendar, you might
(7:03) not be able to book with me until week
(7:05) after next kind of thing. Um, but I’m
(7:08) I’m eager to chat with anybody that’s
(7:09) serious about growing their club, you
(7:11) know, expanding their operation or uh,
(7:14) you know, just getting off of the ground
(7:15) and doing it the right way. So, thank
(7:17) you Ashley for having me on and, uh,
(7:19) absolutely really appreciate the
(7:21) relationship with Court Reserve. Love
(7:22) you guys. Yes. Back at you. Yeah, I
(7:25) think that club mastermind also what I
(7:27) love about it too is that each month
(7:29) Devon does a call um and it’s all the
(7:31) people who have been to mastermind so
(7:32) you can get on and we always learn
(7:34) something new each month and now we have
(7:36) a network of people that are doing the
(7:37) same business we’re doing all over the
(7:39) country and so if I have specific
(7:41) questions or concerns then I can jump on
(7:43) and take Devon’s going to take my
(7:44) question and we’re going to get a roundt
(7:46) about it. So it’s just a good group to
(7:48) be a part of um and so thanks Devin.
(7:51) Yeah, absolutely. Glad to glad to be
(7:53) here and uh wishing everyone a happy
(7:55) day. Yeah. All right, so we’re gonna
(7:58) continue on down our road. I think uh
(8:01) Jack’s still here hopefully because I
(8:03) don’t want to do this one by myself. So,
(8:05) Jack, while we get started, why don’t
(8:08) you tell people a little bit about
(8:09) yourself and how you got into pickle
(8:10) ball? Oh, wow. Okay. A little bit about
(8:14) myself. Um the self intro I wasn’t
(8:17) expecting. That’s not That’s all right.
(8:19) So, um well, a little bit about me. Um,
(8:21) I got into pickle ball uh probably about
(8:24) the same time that a a lot of the people
(8:26) in here probably did. Uh, shortly after
(8:28) COVID, I actually was deployed for
(8:31) pretty much all of CO um, and with the
(8:35) Navy. And when I came home, I was on
(8:37) just a run and I saw the city had built
(8:42) these courts and I just saw them and I
(8:44) was like, “What the heck?” And so I went
(8:47) home, I YouTubed how to play. I grabbed
(8:50) my wife. I’m like, “Hey, let’s go out to
(8:51) these courts.” And and with like I got
(8:52) the YouTube on my phone. Like the
(8:54) YouTube, how old am I? But I got the
(8:56) YouTube on my phone and we go out to the
(8:58) courts and we didn’t know anything about
(9:00) paddle racks or how how the etiquette
(9:02) is. And so we didn’t even like there was
(9:06) people in line and we just saw a court
(9:08) with no one on it. So we walked right
(9:10) past everybody, went right out onto the
(9:11) courts and then sat there with our
(9:13) phones and we’re like, “Okay, you hit to
(9:15) here.” And we’re just sitting there
(9:16) doing it. And finally this old guy comes
(9:18) out and he’s like, “Look, young man, I
(9:21) can tell you don’t have a clue.” He’s
(9:22) like, “But we’re all waiting for this
(9:24) court and you like you have to play with
(9:26) us.” And we had no clue. But as we
(9:29) experienced what most people experience,
(9:31) they came right out. They showed us how
(9:33) to play. They showed us how to be
(9:35) involved in the community, how to get on
(9:36) the courts and immediately we were
(9:39) accepted into this super vibrant
(9:42) community of 70 plus year olds and uh
(9:46) and who could beat our butt and uh and
(9:48) then from there on it just became I got
(9:50) into coaching it and then got into
(9:52) playing more seriously, coaching
(9:54) full-time and eventually I ended up
(9:56) meeting up with you and Tim and now I
(9:59) run Old Coast pickle ball for you guys.
(10:01) Yeah, that’s that is that is a great
(10:03) story for sure. We all got to start
(10:05) somewhere. That’s right. All right, so
(10:07) let’s talk about our launch. So, you
(10:09) know, Tim and I we moved to St.
(10:10) Augustine four years ago. Court Reserve
(10:12) was already a viable existing business
(10:15) um that we bootstrapped. You know,
(10:16) people often ask, well, how did you get
(10:18) the money for Old Coast? Do you have
(10:20) investors? No, it was good old we saved
(10:22) our pennies and then when we had the
(10:24) opportunity, uh we started looking at,
(10:26) you know, all options for Old Coast
(10:28) pickle ball. started looking at small
(10:30) buildings, big buildings, uh land, do we
(10:33) build, do we wait? And so, fortunately,
(10:36) here in St. Augustine, we have a lot of
(10:38) boats, and boats live in big marinas.
(10:41) And so, there was a big place uh the
(10:43) shipyard marina uh that’s located here
(10:46) uh close to downtown St. Augustine, and
(10:48) there came open a space. Basically, it’s
(10:50) three spaces into one. Um and we went
(10:54) and took a look at it. It was the
(10:56) perfect amount for two courts. And what
(10:58) we were really trying to do was take the
(11:00) community of pickle ball that was here
(11:02) in St. Augustine and put them indoors
(11:04) because at that time a year ago there
(11:07) were no real indoor more than one or two
(11:10) courts within an hour and a half of us
(11:13) here. Uh there was one or two up in
(11:15) Jacksonville and then you had to go to
(11:16) Orlando which is about almost a two-hour
(11:18) drive. So uh we had automatic air
(11:21) conditioning, no wind, no sun, no
(11:24) downpour rain. Um, and so we decided to
(11:27) go for it. So we we got started. We knew
(11:30) we wanted to have a really nice player
(11:32) area. We actually had that summer uh
(11:35) been out to Colorado and visited a club
(11:38) in Colorado that had a beautiful player
(11:40) area with turf on the floor. So you can
(11:42) kind of see the pictures here on the
(11:43) slides that we knew we needed turf. We
(11:45) knew we needed um just a very small pro
(11:48) shop area. Um and as you can see in the
(11:50) top picture on the right hand side,
(11:51) that’s we had the the nice bathroom laid
(11:53) out. um and and we just went. So, we
(11:56) actually were working with a lighting
(11:58) company at that point um that we were
(12:00) considering putting into court reserve
(12:02) as a lighting um option, you know, to
(12:05) have within the court reserve platform.
(12:07) So, we worked with this company. We got
(12:09) all of the lights. We rented all of the
(12:11) lifts. We put all of the lights in. We
(12:15) launched early
(12:17) April and the lights stopped working.
(12:21) And you can just as a business owner, if
(12:23) I’m sure if you raise your hand,
(12:25) business owners out there, you’ve worked
(12:27) so hard. We had all of our pickle ball
(12:29) community come out. They painted the
(12:31) blue walls you can see around. So, we
(12:33) had plenty of friends. We ate plent
(12:35) plenty of pizza. We had people, you
(12:37) know, doing all kinds of things with us.
(12:39) We launched. We offered free open play
(12:41) that first weekend. Everything went
(12:43) well. And then on that Monday, the
(12:45) lights started going bonkers on us. And
(12:47) so, come to find out, there was a recall
(12:49) on the lights. So, we had to shut down
(12:52) basically for an entire week. Uh, and we
(12:55) had to redo all the lights all over
(12:57) again. So, that was definitely a tough
(13:00) time for us, you know, just making sure
(13:03) that everything, you know, came into
(13:05) play, the permits, the city, the fire
(13:08) inspection, the insurance, uh, and
(13:11) everything, you know, about that. So,
(13:14) Jack really wasn’t a part of that. It
(13:16) was really uh the Tim and Ashley working
(13:18) at the desk. Our entire focus was really
(13:21) uh to build culture. Um and all those
(13:24) operational realities came into play
(13:26) when we were trying to sit down and
(13:28) check people in at the front door. We
(13:30) were trying to get people with their,
(13:31) you know, what kind of membership they
(13:33) wanted at Old Coast Pickle Ball. We were
(13:35) trying to figure out based on what we
(13:36) had learned at Mastermind. No kidding. I
(13:39) know we’re we’re flying the flag for
(13:40) mastermind, but we followed Devon’s
(13:42) membership model um for a twocourt
(13:44) facility as much as we could. Um and we
(13:47) started, you know, getting folks in the
(13:48) door for sure. Um and so I know you guys
(13:51) are putting some questions in, but we’re
(13:52) just going to keep rolling and then
(13:54) we’ll we’ll come back to that. So, Jack,
(13:56) you came and you actually came to know
(13:59) us about that same time, May, Juna last
(14:01) year. you and Tim were playing a lot
(14:02) together at another facility and then we
(14:04) decided that we could not run court
(14:07) reserve and run old coast pickle ball at
(14:10) the same time. We needed a community a
(14:12) culture builder and so when you came
(14:14) through the door tell us about your
(14:16) first couple weeks um and the
(14:18) operational things that you did at Old
(14:20) Coast Pickle Ball. Yeah. So when you
(14:24) know when I came on board the vision was
(14:27) never to have a twocourt facility. The
(14:29) vision was we had you know we had made a
(14:32) deal with another building that was
(14:33) being you know constructed and we had
(14:35) the floor plans laid out. We are going
(14:38) to have had this 12court facility for
(14:39) our area and uh and all of even going to
(14:43) mastermind and things like that. All the
(14:45) models were based around this is what
(14:47) we’re going to do. And so we had this
(14:48) twocourt facility though that we were
(14:50) going to be able to open a year a year
(14:52) early and build our name and build our
(14:55) reputation and build relationships with
(14:57) the players in expectation of this uh
(15:02) larger facility opening and we have
(15:04) faced delays and with the larger
(15:06) facility with construction and things
(15:08) like that. And so now we found ourselves
(15:09) in this twocourt facility. And you know,
(15:11) right off the bat though,
(15:14) um, everything since we were started
(15:16) with the mindset though of we’re moving
(15:18) to somewhere bigger. Everything was
(15:20) about geared around the player
(15:22) experience. Everything was about, hey,
(15:24) how do we make it so that when people
(15:26) play here, they’re like, I don’t want to
(15:27) play ever anywhere else. Um, a lot of
(15:30) people the idea when they think of
(15:32) opening up a club, they think about, oh
(15:34) yeah, you just like put the courts in
(15:36) there and then, you know, tell them to
(15:38) go have fun and it quickly becomes Lord
(15:40) of the Flies. Um, and what we discovered
(15:43) is you think, hey, your local parks and
(15:45) wreck department, four courts or six
(15:47) courts or eight courts or whatever it is
(15:49) can become chaotic. Well, two courts
(15:52) with no structure becomes absolute
(15:55) mayhem because there’s nowhere that you
(15:57) can get away from like if there’s a bad
(15:59) apple on one court, they’re not going
(16:01) anywhere. It It’s going to control
(16:03) everything. And so we quickly realized
(16:06) we have to be organized. We have to have
(16:08) somebody who has a heart for the hole
(16:11) being the one who is the like the with
(16:15) their hands on the steering wheel
(16:16) instead of having it be just for
(16:18) whoever’s the local court bully telling
(16:20) everybody where to go and who’s going to
(16:22) be here and we’re 5 so this is our court
(16:24) and you can go down there with the two
(16:25) O’s and you know no one under this tall
(16:28) allowed like you know that kind of
(16:29) attitude which you can see sometimes at
(16:32) local courts whoever’s the loudest they
(16:33) get to run the show and we quickly
(16:35) realized that we had to be organiz
(16:37) organiz. We had to control how things
(16:40) are going to flow, how long they’re
(16:42) going to be on the courts, and and
(16:43) honestly, we had to create ways of
(16:47) having objective standards of how to
(16:49) measure the player experience. Like we
(16:51) don’t want people having to sit around
(16:53) so quickly, we had to go to rally
(16:55) scoring. Yep. So, originally, you know,
(16:58) like most of us are used to regular
(17:00) scoring. Well, the problem is you’ve got
(17:02) two people off the court and now you’ve
(17:04) got people waiting for 45 minutes
(17:05) because they’re over there going 002 001
(17:08) 0 and it’s just like good grief. Like
(17:10) somebody let these people score and you
(17:12) know and they’re missing their serves
(17:14) and you’re like oh we’re going to be
(17:15) here forever and rally scoring made it
(17:17) so that literally I have two courts.
(17:20) Each court will end their game if we
(17:22) start them at the same time roughly 90
(17:24) seconds within one another. And so we’re
(17:26) able to then predict how long people sit
(17:30) and we can have rotations. We can even
(17:32) have full-blown tournaments that we know
(17:34) how to move the people because rally
(17:36) enabled us to verify how long these
(17:38) matches are going to take. And and yes,
(17:41) it took a little bit of getting used to.
(17:42) And for sure, we don’t count it the same
(17:44) as if we had like all of our money ball
(17:46) players come in for $1,000. We’re not
(17:49) going to necessarily do the same
(17:50) scoring. But when it came to wreck play,
(17:52) there was a little bit of push back
(17:53) right at the beginning. But people began
(17:55) to love how they knew that if they
(17:58) showed up, they were guaranteed they
(18:00) won’t sit longer than 10 minutes. They
(18:01) they guaranteed that if they showed up,
(18:03) they would play their entire event in
(18:06) the time that was allotted with their
(18:07) work schedule or whatever it is. And so
(18:10) um you there’s an author Jaco Willink.
(18:12) He talks about discipline equals
(18:14) freedom. And we discovered very early on
(18:16) for us that the more disciplined we were
(18:18) in some of these things, the more free
(18:20) people felt on the courts and just the
(18:22) better experience they had overall. So
(18:24) it ended up being those like those
(18:26) things that we were controlling at first
(18:28) ended up making a better experience in
(18:29) the long run. All right. So before we
(18:31) move from this, what comes to mind is
(18:33) the fact that you know when Tim and I
(18:36) started and then when you came on board,
(18:38) we all had some really great ideas,
(18:40) right? Um and you know, let’s talk about
(18:42) duper, right? because we were a duper
(18:44) out the door. Everything was duper
(18:46) rated. And let’s talk about the reality
(18:49) of how we ended up where we are with
(18:51) duper today. Not in a bad way, but we
(18:53) just had to learn what worked for our
(18:56) club. Take it away. Yeah. Yeah. And so,
(18:59) um, it’s interesting though because like
(19:01) now that I realize like I don’t know
(19:02) who’s on this call. So, like as as I go
(19:05) to discuss duper, it’s like man like uh
(19:08) because I actually We love Duper. I mean
(19:11) Yeah. Yeah. and I’ve been featured like
(19:13) they’ve quoted me on their social media
(19:15) platforms and stuff and I’m like oh gez.
(19:17) So, uh, which if anyone from Duper is
(19:20) listening, I could use a bump in my
(19:21) rating, but, uh, I’m just almost there.
(19:25) But, um, the, uh, so yeah, we started
(19:27) off as everything was in duper. So, and
(19:31) the goal was there to be able to really
(19:33) get an accurate uh rating for all of our
(19:36) players and then be able to sort them
(19:39) and because from what we’ve experienced,
(19:43) the best player experience on a pickle
(19:45) ball court is when you’re playing
(19:46) against people who on the same skill
(19:47) level. That’s the best overall
(19:50) experience you’re going to get. And it’s
(19:51) the biggest complaint from higher level
(19:53) players and lowle. I have players that
(19:55) their duper is a 28 and they’re
(19:57) complaining that they have to play with
(19:59) the bad players like because there’s
(20:01) still skill gaps. And so it doesn’t
(20:02) matter if you’re a 5 or a 3 0, you don’t
(20:05) want to play with people who are
(20:06) drastically in a different skill range.
(20:08) And so the goal there was to get
(20:10) everybody rated and to uh maybe take the
(20:15) pressure off of duper like off those
(20:17) games if you play them all the time.
(20:19) Well, so what happened for us though was
(20:22) because we were only two courts and
(20:25) because we’re a small town where we’re
(20:27) where I mean St. Augustine doesn’t have
(20:28) a huge population and so the player
(20:31) community is small. So whereas instead
(20:33) of going to a tournament where you’re
(20:34) playing people from all over the state
(20:36) and things like that, the player pool,
(20:38) some of these people were only playing
(20:39) like the same eight people in duper
(20:43) and they were having to rotate partners.
(20:45) So then they were taking losses and the
(20:50) numbers, the math was just some of them
(20:51) were just spiraling down. Like it was,
(20:53) it was very difficult for them to level
(20:55) up. And we literally got to a point
(20:58) where our players just decided I’m not
(21:00) doing this anymore. And this is kind of
(21:04) we’ll probably talk more about this, but
(21:05) like where we’re at now with Old Coast,
(21:08) like I want to write a curriculum on how
(21:10) to open a like how to have the worst
(21:12) idea possible because we’re in an
(21:15) environment where just down the less
(21:16) than 10 minutes away, the city built 12
(21:19) brand new courts. Less than 10 minutes
(21:21) the other direction, the city built six
(21:23) more courts and they’re covering them.
(21:25) Like we have pickle ball everywhere in
(21:27) St. Augustine and the city just keeps
(21:30) adding more benefit and so like we like
(21:33) our players had other options y and so
(21:36) quickly we were faced with they’re like
(21:38) look I don’t want to play for duper and
(21:40) I don’t have to play. It’s not like I’m
(21:42) not like not to pick on Devon, but it’s
(21:44) not like in Utah where there’s snow half
(21:46) the year. So, you kind of have the only
(21:47) show in town when it comes to some of
(21:49) that. Not they don’t have competition,
(21:50) they do, but we there there’s courts
(21:53) everywhere. And so, we got to a point
(21:56) where we actually like basically to save
(22:00) our player base at all, we had to just
(22:02) say, okay, we’re we’re dropping that.
(22:05) But then we also had to then say, okay,
(22:08) well, how do we sort these people? How
(22:10) do we then still get that? And I
(22:12) personally am still a believer in
(22:14) objective ratings is the long-term best
(22:17) way to do it. And currently, Duper is a
(22:20) way of doing it. I don’t think it’s
(22:22) perfect. And if there is anyone from
(22:24) Duper, I would love to have that be in
(22:26) that conversation and get to have to
(22:27) say, you know, it’s my opinion. So would
(22:28) all these other people. Yeah. I Yeah. So
(22:31) everybody, I’d love to be able to know
(22:32) what’s some of that’s going on. But um
(22:36) we we really had to listen to our
(22:39) customer and realize that yes, this is
(22:42) we think this is a solid way of doing
(22:44) it, but it was hurting their experience.
(22:46) Yeah. And we we had a lot of players who
(22:50) they can’t necessarily organize their
(22:51) own games out in town. And so they loved
(22:55) us because we were guaranteeing them
(22:57) round robins with teammates and things
(22:58) like that. But then their dupers because
(23:01) they weren’t winning or whatever were
(23:02) getting hurt and it began just people
(23:05) duper became whatever your duper is
(23:07) that’s more important than having fun
(23:09) and they literally stopped coming and we
(23:12) we reached out and and it was like hey
(23:14) if you guys don’t like if you’re not
(23:16) going to count them in duper we’ll come
(23:18) and so and then now I will say though
(23:20) after a year we’re getting more and more
(23:22) requests for dupers. Um, but I will
(23:25) probably say there’s a lot of
(23:26) selfdeception when it comes to dupers
(23:29) and ratings and things like that. And so
(23:31) we have a lot of people who will be
(23:32) like, I can’t get my duper to go up. I
(23:34) don’t understand this. The algorithm is
(23:35) broken. And it’s like, well, I’m looking
(23:37) here and you’ve lost your last 15
(23:39) matches. And it’s like, were you
(23:40) expecting to get go up from losing to
(23:43) these, you know? And so there is a
(23:45) little bit of that. Um, but yeah, we I
(23:47) mean, we were hardcore. This is what we
(23:49) should be doing. Um, and I still think
(23:51) objective standards are good. Um, but
(23:54) just because it’s good on paper doesn’t
(23:56) mean it actually applies to your
(23:58) specific demographic because our
(24:01) community, the best way for us to serve
(24:03) them was to pivot a little bit on that.
(24:06) And we’re still working. I mean, that’s
(24:07) a constant debate. Uh, and that’s a
(24:09) constant struggle even for us is how do
(24:11) we serve our player base the best? Um,
(24:14) even if it’s not necessarily the way
(24:15) that we as coaches and things like that
(24:17) would necessarily want it to function,
(24:19) if that makes sense. Yeah, that was
(24:21) good. And again, like Duper’s great for
(24:23) so many things. Uh, but we just had to
(24:25) figure it out. And as a club who we are
(24:29) renting space, right? We have a lease
(24:31) and so we have to get we we have a
(24:34) membership model where the players still
(24:36) pay when they come in. It’s not an open
(24:38) play model necessarily. And so if people
(24:41) stopped coming and paying, then we had
(24:43) an issue. So we had to create ways to
(24:47) get that culture back into the building.
(24:50) So all right. So, let’s talk about like
(24:52) early mornings and late nights. And the
(24:54) reason I bring this up is because we
(24:57) integrated, and I’m going to share my
(24:58) screen again. We integrated with this
(25:00) company called Brevo. Um, and it’s a
(25:02) lock system. We did this in court
(25:03) reserve. Um, it’s where the members get
(25:05) their own unique um, pin code. Um, and
(25:08) then you can kind of see on the left is
(25:10) our pin code box. This is actually at
(25:12) Old Coast Pickleball. And on the right,
(25:13) I took a picture of the door. Um, so
(25:15) just spend a really quick second, Jack,
(25:17) because I know we have a lot of members
(25:19) that come in like early early morning.
(25:21) And from an operational standpoint,
(25:23) Brio’s really helped us save from having
(25:25) to pay a person to get up and go unlock
(25:27) the door. Yeah. So, this is great. And
(25:30) honestly, when we first got it, I I’ll
(25:32) be honest, I was kind of like, cool,
(25:34) whatever. It’s a duad. We pay money to
(25:36) be feel fancy. Um but and uh now that
(25:40) we’ve used it though um we are able to
(25:44) be 247 if we want to be and you know we
(25:47) are also cashless which does help takes
(25:50) a little bit of the pressure off of us
(25:51) feeling like oh man they’re going to
(25:52) take something. It’s like well you can
(25:53) go in there and take something all you
(25:54) want you’re not going to get much. Um
(25:56) and um and we have cameras. Um, but by
(26:00) far pickle ball is a community and so
(26:03) the pressure to behave is from the
(26:07) community. Um, they want to be I mean
(26:09) the city shuts off the lights at 9:00,
(26:11) you know, and so they want to be able to
(26:13) have a place to go in early or to stay
(26:15) late or if it’s pouring down rain and
(26:18) they have a flex league that they want
(26:19) to be able to finish their match or
(26:21) whatever. Um, and so yeah, I mean
(26:23) honestly it’s core reserve. I mean, I
(26:26) I’m obviously I’m wearing a t-shirt and
(26:28) I’m here on the Zoom call, but I don’t
(26:29) work for Court Reserve. I I work for Old
(26:32) Coast and um and so I’m a customer of
(26:35) Court Reserve and Court Reserve enables
(26:37) us to I mean they go in there, they book
(26:39) their window and we set the buffer time
(26:43) 15 minutes prior, 15 minutes after they
(26:45) that their code will work. Um and so
(26:48) they can’t, you know, even if they
(26:49) booked it at like 10:00 p.m., they can’t
(26:51) show up at 9:00 and take advantage of
(26:52) the system. they can show up at 9:45,
(26:55) you know, and and code in. Um, and and
(26:59) honestly, it’s great. We’ve had we
(27:01) actually have had zero issues. We’ve had
(27:03) not a single person take advantage of it
(27:05) and have players come in who didn’t pay.
(27:08) Um, it’s actually been the opposite.
(27:09) It’s been people that are grateful. We
(27:11) have people who are like, they’ll text,
(27:13) my members will text me and say, “Hey,
(27:15) we locked up. I double check the door
(27:17) and we took the trash out.” And I’m
(27:19) like, “Okay, makes sense.” you know, did
(27:22) you clean the restroom? I mean, like, we
(27:24) know, you know, what what more can we
(27:26) make this happen here? And so, it’s
(27:27) Yeah, it’s been nothing but We have I
(27:29) have no bad nothing bad to say. It’s
(27:32) never once failed, right? And we’ve been
(27:34) able to I can remotely unlock it from my
(27:36) phone anywhere. We’re able to open up
(27:38) for we had the courts clean the other
(27:40) day, so the building was just closed.
(27:41) So, I locked it until the guy arrived.
(27:43) They gave the maintenance guy, the
(27:44) company a code to get in. They did all
(27:47) the work. And then later when the
(27:48) employee showed up at the halfway of the
(27:49) day, the door just unlocks for him when
(27:51) he gets there. I mean, so it’s really a
(27:53) uh a lifesaver and you can get kind of
(27:55) nervous at first and you let your
(27:57) members in there when you’re not there,
(27:58) when no one’s there. Honestly though,
(27:59) it’s been nothing but good. They care
(28:01) about the club. If your members care
(28:02) about the club, it works out. Yeah, they
(28:04) do. All right. So, the next thing I want
(28:06) to bring up because I think this is
(28:08) super important is at Mastermind, Tim
(28:11) and I heard Devin talking about selling
(28:14) parts of your club for sponsorships.
(28:17) Especially when you’re new, especially
(28:18) when you’re opening up, you need that
(28:20) cash flow to kind of get things going.
(28:22) So, we had already built some community
(28:23) here in St. Augustine. And so, Tim and I
(28:26) actually went out to some of our friends
(28:28) who had businesses and we offered the
(28:31) naming rights to certain parts of our
(28:33) club. Uh we offered it to a local
(28:36) accountant and a local like sports
(28:38) embroidery company and they got uh they
(28:41) paid us an amount of money for
(28:43) sponsorship for an entire year. We put
(28:45) their name up on the court. Um they got
(28:48) their name in the court reserve app on
(28:50) the court. So every time a player logs
(28:52) in then they see the Klui um and T-Balt
(28:56) court or the sports corner court. Um and
(28:58) so it’s constant brand recognition in
(29:00) the local community for these um folks.
(29:03) Uh, we also have a local like stretch
(29:05) lab that has a banner in our club and we
(29:09) have a bathroom sponsor. One of the best
(29:12) things I’ve ever seen is that we have a
(29:15) local physical therapy office in St.
(29:18) Augustine and they are the bathroom
(29:20) sponsor. So, what does that mean? It
(29:22) literally means that they have gone in,
(29:24) they purchased a table. They’ve
(29:26) purchased all of the products for the
(29:28) bathroom. They keep it stocked with
(29:29) paper towels, toilet paper, soap,
(29:32) cleaner. It always smells good. They
(29:35) have a little blurb in there. But Jack,
(29:37) since we’re coming up on the next year,
(29:39) I know you guys have worked with some
(29:41) other folks. Talk just quickly about
(29:42) some of those sponsorships because I
(29:44) think sometimes people miss out on this
(29:46) and it’s a great way to drive some
(29:47) revenue for the facility.
(29:50) Yeah, it’s a great it’s a great way to
(29:52) get, you know, especially depending on
(29:54) your cost that you’re a facility that
(29:56) you’re running. If you have, you know,
(29:58) if you get I it’s I I’ve always been
(30:00) told in real estate, you make your money
(30:01) when you buy. So, if you buy low, you
(30:03) can sell it pretty much any high as you
(30:04) want and you make money. But if you buy
(30:06) high, you’re in trouble. Um, and so if
(30:08) your rent or your purchase building is
(30:10) cheap enough, well, I mean, potentially
(30:12) a $1,000
(30:14) uh sponsorship is huge. I mean, you
(30:17) could have players empty for weeks and
(30:19) you’re make you’re making money still.
(30:20) And so, um, I know for us it is big, but
(30:24) it’s also big with your members. So,
(30:26) like, for example, Cluki and Tibo, the
(30:28) law firm or the accounting firm and
(30:30) Sports Corn are owned by partially owned
(30:32) by the same families. Well, when they’re
(30:34) in there and the coats are coach the
(30:36) coaches, the coaches are telling
(30:38) everybody where to go and they’re like,
(30:39) “Okay, I want these players over on
(30:41) Kluki and Tibo court and I want you guys
(30:43) on Sports Corner.” Like I I watch and
(30:45) like those owners like they they like
(30:48) hearing their business names called out
(30:50) in the club all day every day and they
(30:52) like seeing on the YouTube the you know
(30:54) the the YouTube how old am I? They they
(30:56) like seeing they like seeing that stuff
(30:58) and anyone who’s a business owner in
(31:00) here like that feels good. And so in
(31:03) pickle ball it’s a community. these
(31:04) players in here all the time. And for a
(31:07) lot of your members, especially
(31:09) realtors, I mean, if a realtor sells one
(31:11) house based off a pickle ball
(31:12) membership, like a real like a
(31:14) interaction, they someone saw their
(31:15) stuff. I mean, that’s there’s no way
(31:17) they’re spending one commission check on
(31:18) a house in sponsoring your club
(31:21) depending on what their sponsorship deal
(31:22) is. Um, but what it also does is it
(31:25) builds community involvement into like
(31:29) investment. So your sponsors are
(31:30) invested now into your club because they
(31:33) don’t want their name associated with
(31:35) something bad. So like our bathroom
(31:36) sponsors, their business is on the line.
(31:39) If people go in there and that bathroom
(31:41) looks bad, it’s not going to go well for
(31:44) them. So when they when when like they
(31:46) have they have like mints in the
(31:49) bathroom, which I don’t know what you’re
(31:51) doing in there that you need a mint. I
(31:52) think you question things, but you know
(31:54) I they have mints in there. They have
(31:56) deodorants, disposables. They have like
(31:59) towelettes that you can wash up and
(32:02) spray stuff for women’s hair and all
(32:04) this kind of stuff or anybody’s hair I
(32:05) guess. But um it’s a it’s a comfort zone
(32:09) and to to and it builds that brand
(32:12) recognition. But one of the perks of our
(32:14) facility is and then we have to and
(32:16) since we do have so much competition in
(32:18) St. Augustine with free courts, we have
(32:21) to constantly our staff motto is what
(32:24) can we offer that they can’t get for
(32:26) free. Yes. And so what the city’s
(32:28) there’s no way of getting around it. The
(32:30) city is giving them concrete, nets,
(32:32) lights, like all these things. Okay. So
(32:34) now what can we offer? Okay. Late night,
(32:37) the doors are locked except for code. So
(32:39) I can bring my wife and 2-year-old in
(32:41) there and it’s safe environment. She she
(32:44) has, you know, for a long time my wife
(32:46) was playing while she was pregnant. And
(32:49) having a bathroom that was nice and well
(32:51) stocked right next to the courts was
(32:54) infinitely better than the portaotties
(32:56) set up at the public parks that were a/4
(32:58) mile away in the dark alley like you
(33:02) know and so the all these things you but
(33:04) these partners that you developed the
(33:05) the sponsorships become a part of what
(33:08) makes your court better. Um, this year
(33:10) we’re opening up, we purchased a
(33:11) hydration machine. So, like we have the
(33:14) most filtered water possible in our in
(33:17) our area and it comes premixed with
(33:19) electrolytes and it comes out this
(33:21) machine and they can fill their water
(33:22) bottles and stuff and we allow a company
(33:25) to come in and pay for that and that’s
(33:28) as part of that. Like, so the members
(33:29) see that and literally it’s a one of
(33:32) your members who’s paying to make your
(33:34) club better. And so whether it’s a
(33:36) bathroom sponsorship, whether it’s a pro
(33:38) shop sponsorship or a snack bar
(33:39) sponsorship, even a court sponsorship,
(33:42) you better believe, you know, if you can
(33:44) get a court sponsorship to pay whatever
(33:46) the number is. Let’s say it’s $3,000 for
(33:48) the year. And then included in that
(33:50) though is also that they have to pay to
(33:53) have the courts cleaned, you know, twice
(33:56) in that year. Well, now you’ve got, you
(33:58) know, they’re they’re investing into
(34:00) your own club to make it nice. And so
(34:03) that’s really the magic is when your
(34:04) members and other businesses are
(34:06) investing into you the same way that you
(34:08) are. Well, and I bring up this screen
(34:10) because here you can see again uh we
(34:13) have two YouTube channels. We have Old
(34:15) Coast Pickle Ball Court one, Kluki and
(34:17) T-ball and Old Coast Pickle Ball Court
(34:19) Two, the Sports Corner. And so again,
(34:21) it’s bringing that brand recognition to
(34:22) our local sponsors. And again, this also
(34:25) has led to corporate events because
(34:28) corporate events are a great one way for
(34:30) us to drive money. And we’ve done that
(34:32) several times at Old Coast Pickle Ball.
(34:34) And with both of these businesses,
(34:36) they’ve then turned around and paid us
(34:38) to bring their entire, you know, team
(34:40) members of their offices into our
(34:42) facilities. Uh we’ve had church groups
(34:45) come in. We’ve had uh large uh
(34:48) earthmoving machine people come in. Like
(34:50) Jack, how many corporate events? I mean,
(34:53) it’s made a difference every month when
(34:55) you can bring in a couple of corporate
(34:56) events to your space. For sure.
(34:59) Corporate events are big because, you
(35:01) know, most at least I say most, I have
(35:02) no way of knowing that statistic, but
(35:04) there’s uh a lot of companies have
(35:06) budget allotted for team building
(35:08) events. It’s a tax write off, you know,
(35:10) whatever it is. And so, there’s money
(35:12) there. It’s not like you’re asking and
(35:14) even if a per like so say one of your
(35:16) members works uh in our area, we have
(35:18) Caterpillar, the construction company.
(35:20) And so if one of our members works
(35:22) there, well, they like want to bring all
(35:24) their co-worker friends to the club,
(35:27) well, we’re not billing them. It it’s
(35:29) it’s the company. And so they a lot of
(35:31) times have money allotted. And then that
(35:33) that employee though is your sales rep.
(35:36) They’re the ones going to their boss
(35:37) being like, “Hey, we should do this.
(35:38) Hey, we should we should go there.” I
(35:40) don’t you’re not even trying to sell
(35:41) them. Your your people are selling them.
(35:43) But also, uh they’re renting your whole
(35:45) facility out. And so you’re charging a
(35:48) premium because you’re taking time from
(35:50) your other members. You’re taking
(35:52) opportunity for other members to be
(35:53) reserving it and you’re setting this
(35:55) side time directly and they get the
(35:57) whole play. So no one else is going to
(35:58) be in there. They get to have only their
(36:00) people. They can talk without
(36:01) interruption. They can make
(36:02) announcements to the business or
(36:04) whatever it is. But if you have a
(36:06) payto-play model, this might make up for
(36:10) slow days. This might make up for slow
(36:12) weeks. You know, in our in our region,
(36:14) when the weather’s nice, people go
(36:15) outside. Uh you know, when the weather
(36:17) stinks, which is like now that I’m in
(36:19) this business, I’m always like, “Sweet,
(36:20) hurricanes.” You know, it’s like, you
(36:22) know, that’s right. Come on in. But, uh,
(36:25) you know, when the weather’s bad, people
(36:26) are in. So, the corporate events are
(36:28) huge because, yeah, the markup is, and I
(36:31) say markup, uh, everything’s a markup
(36:33) when it’s just a court, but what people
(36:35) are paying to be on there as a corporate
(36:37) sp as a corporate event is is definitely
(36:39) different than an individual just paying
(36:41) to drop in. You could have a $10 event
(36:43) as opposed to a company renting out your
(36:45) whole facility if you’re a small
(36:46) facility or like Devin with his 15
(36:48) courts. They have a raid just to get one
(36:50) or two courts and set aside. And it’s
(36:53) fun. The the players, anyone who plays
(36:55) pickle ball knows pickle ball is
(36:57) addicting. And so you get some guys out
(37:00) of the boardroom and you get them on a
(37:01) pickle ball. I mean, I I’ve seen it
(37:02) where the bosses get have never played
(37:05) before and they are fired up out there
(37:08) on the pickle ball courts. And we, you
(37:09) know, we also offer a hourly rate that
(37:12) our coaches can teach the entire time.
(37:15) And so, and a lot of times they want
(37:17) that. So, they have a coach there who
(37:18) gives a quick, we usually do a learn to
(37:20) play pickle ball class in an hour. And
(37:23) that’s where the coaches takes them from
(37:24) never having played before to where they
(37:26) can run their own games in an hour. And
(37:28) then they spend the remaining hour or
(37:30) two that they’ve rented playing the
(37:32) games. But the coach can either be paid
(37:33) to stay out there or he can, you know,
(37:35) the staff go back to the desk or
(37:37) whatever. But after that point, they’re
(37:38) running it on their own. And uh the best
(37:41) environment though is when they
(37:42) definitely say, “Hey, we want to coach
(37:44) the whole time.” And the coach is out
(37:46) there, if you have a good coach who
(37:47) knows how to move people and hurt the
(37:49) cats a little bit, he’s encouraging
(37:50) them. He’s cracking jokes. He or she is
(37:53) like making their experience super fun.
(37:56) Even for the players who aren’t very
(37:58) good, and they every single time, we’ve
(38:01) never had a corporate event who has not
(38:02) said, “Hey, we’re coming back next
(38:04) quarter,” or “We’re coming back next
(38:05) year.”
(38:06) They always have this again. This was a
(38:08) blast. We finally get why, you know,
(38:11) Suzie in HR is always missing, you know,
(38:15) for stuff for pickle ball. Like, this
(38:16) makes sense now. And we all we want to
(38:18) play here now. And then you get more
(38:19) members, too. We’ve had many corporate
(38:21) events that led to, oh, now you’re a
(38:22) member because your business, you know,
(38:24) your your work took you here. You had
(38:25) mandatory funday at Old Coast Pickle
(38:27) Ball. That’s awesome. So, um, let’s talk
(38:30) about our classes, a little bit about
(38:33) our programming. I know that you guys
(38:35) have created a try me free pickle ball
(38:38) uh class. Um and I also know that we’re
(38:41) working with some juniors um some young
(38:43) kids. We did summer camp. We also um I
(38:48) mean you guys you guys will be watching
(38:50) somebody play offer to do a class for
(38:53) them and take that one person that
(38:55) you’re going to do a lesson for and make
(38:56) it into a class. So take us through a
(38:58) little bit of this. Yeah. So when you
(39:01) only have two
(39:03) courts, everything has to be focused on
(39:05) the players. You can’t force anything
(39:07) because
(39:09) if we need max participation in order to
(39:13) have a successful event because we’ve
(39:15) only got two courts. So either the event
(39:17) signs up and then the courts are four
(39:19) full or nobody signs up and then the
(39:21) whole facility is just empty. So, we
(39:24) basically our coaches and our front desk
(39:27) people, which usually are the same
(39:29) people. We have a couple front desks
(39:31) that are just front desk, but our front
(39:33) desk people are not a receptionist. Our
(39:36) front desk people are, we call them our
(39:38) guest experience coordinators. So, they
(39:40) are the people who they know from the
(39:43) moment someone walks in the front door,
(39:45) everything about their experience is
(39:47) going to be a touch point with the front
(39:49) desk person. So, they’re going to as
(39:50) soon as they come in, what do they need?
(39:52) Okay. Well, even that we’ve discovered
(39:55) if you got a room full of 50 players,
(39:57) what they need is very different than
(39:59) the 3 0 player who’s in her late 60s.
(40:02) Uh, it’s a very different the the the
(40:04) first time player who comes in, they’re
(40:06) nervous. They’re terrified. They’re
(40:08) socially awkward in that moment. They
(40:09) don’t know what’s going on. They need
(40:11) they want to see a warm, friendly face.
(40:13) They want you to explain what’s going to
(40:14) happen in the next 20 minutes, where
(40:16) everything is. the 5 walks in and a
(40:19) front desk, new front desk person stands
(40:21) up and says, “Hey, what can I get you?”
(40:22) And he’s like, “Nice try, scooter. I’m
(40:24) good.” Like, you know, he’s like, he
(40:25) just walks past him, you know? It’s
(40:26) like, I know, I know you’re here for me,
(40:28) not here, you know, that kind of thing.
(40:29) Like, we we are different people. And
(40:32) so, there’s an attitude, but it’s okay.
(40:34) Our front desk people have just learned
(40:35) like, look, each demographic serve them
(40:38) as they need. And so, as far as program
(40:40) is concerned, we listen and we watch on
(40:43) the courts. And so when our coaches are
(40:45) standing on the side of the courts
(40:47) watching them play their wreck round
(40:48) robins,
(40:50) uh when they get frustrated at things,
(40:52) we ask them, “Hey, what do you know
(40:54) what’s wrong?” And they say, “Man, I
(40:55) stink at whatever.” We say, “Hey, do you
(40:57) want me to do you want me to schedule a
(40:59) clinic for that?” And immediately
(41:00) they’re like, “Yes, I need help.” And
(41:02) say, “Okay, guys. Hey, would anybody
(41:04) else, you know, like, you know, what
(41:06) time works for you?” And if we can get
(41:07) one person to give us a time that works
(41:09) for them, I say, “Great. I’ll put it in
(41:12) the system right now and I’ll sign you
(41:13) up. How about that? And then that
(41:15) person, we tell them, hey, go tell
(41:17) everybody else that you think would be
(41:20) that we’re going to have this clinic.
(41:21) And we al they also know that if we
(41:23) don’t get people for the clinic that it
(41:24) gets canceled. And so they want that
(41:26) clinic. And so because a clinic is
(41:28) cheaper than private lessons and so if
(41:31) they want the clinic, they’re getting a
(41:33) public rate. It’s it’s cheaper. There’s
(41:34) more players. So in order to make that,
(41:36) so they become your sales staff. they go
(41:38) out and they’re try and invite all their
(41:40) friends cuz they want this clinic to
(41:41) happen at the cheaper rate and cuz they
(41:43) don’t want to be they want they want the
(41:45) experience. And so then uh that’s
(41:47) phenomenally how we at first we started
(41:49) to have set curriculum and honestly if
(41:52) you’re doing a class on drop shots and
(41:54) no one that week is particularly feeling
(41:55) bad about their drops well great no one
(41:58) signs up. Um and so it’s really kind of
(42:00) a wasted effort because you’re trying to
(42:02) run your program and you’re stuck in
(42:04) your ways when that’s not what they
(42:05) needed. They needed to be served. We’ve
(42:07) done it to where the same group of
(42:08) people wants a serves and returns clinic
(42:11) four weeks in a row. Yep. And and it’s
(42:14) like really it’s like it’s like man did
(42:16) you learn? Yes. We loved it. We won it
(42:18) again. And it’s like wow. Okay. So
(42:20) there’s a social aspect. They enjoy it
(42:22) also. Um we also create um like I run a
(42:25) class called Liveball. I didn’t come up
(42:27) with it. I stole it from somebody else.
(42:29) Um but even in that we quickly realize
(42:32) it doesn’t work for everybody. So live
(42:35) ball, when you come into my class, the
(42:36) first thing I tell you is, “Hey guys,
(42:38) you ever played this before?” Even here,
(42:39) I make up the rules as I go and we’re
(42:42) going to change this on the fly. And so
(42:44) your best coaches are always able to
(42:46) work on the fly and to adapt their
(42:49) lesson for that day with the room
(42:51) temperature. They’ve got to be able to
(42:52) tell what’s needed in the room at that
(42:54) moment and just go with it. And so our
(42:57) programming very much is based on what
(42:59) our coaches feel the players need
(43:01) currently.
(43:03) and we just listen. So, last month we
(43:06) ran a four-week boot camp because we had
(43:08) people that were like, “Man, I would
(43:09) just love to do I just need a lesson on
(43:12) every subject.” So, we scheduled out
(43:14) four weeks in a row, scheduled it with
(43:15) them, and boom, they all signed up
(43:17) because they signed each other up
(43:18) together. Um, and so, uh, yeah, that
(43:22) that’s kind of how we do it. I know
(43:24) other clubs run it differently. And I
(43:25) think that if you have a larger club
(43:27) with a larger demographic, kind of like
(43:29) selling chocolate covered ants, if
(43:31) you’re in New York City, I’m sure
(43:32) there’s enough people that 1% equals a
(43:35) lot of customers. If you sold
(43:36) chocolatecovered ants in rural North
(43:38) Carolina, you you’re going to need like
(43:40) 100% of the population to want them. And
(43:41) that’s not going to happen. So, um, for
(43:44) us, it’s similar. We’re a smaller
(43:45) facility, so we really have to make sure
(43:48) everything we do is successful. And so,
(43:50) in order to do that, it has to be pretty
(43:51) much pulsebased. like we constantly are
(43:54) asking what do you want? What do you
(43:56) need? We’re not running our program for
(43:57) you to fall in line with. We’re catering
(43:59) everything we do to you. Yeah, that’s
(44:01) great. So, I want to go over a few
(44:03) things, too. Um I’ve seen some of the
(44:05) questions in just a few minutes, we’re
(44:07) going to go through all the questions.
(44:08) Um and they’re really good. Um you know,
(44:11) Jack and we have one more full-time
(44:14) employee. So, Jack’s our director
(44:16) full-time salary and we have one
(44:17) full-time uh instructor as well. We do
(44:20) have another part-time instructor. Um,
(44:22) and then we have a couple of part-time
(44:25) front desk or guest experience folks,
(44:27) kind of like Disney World. Um, and so
(44:29) that’s what we do. That’s how we run
(44:31) things at Old Coast Pickleball. And then
(44:33) I did want to share some of the things
(44:35) um because I work so hard on all these
(44:38) slides and so we should share them. Uh,
(44:40) so of course if you’re a court reserve
(44:42) customer, you probably heard us talk
(44:43) about patch. Um, and Tim was able to
(44:46) pull some of our uh patch uh
(44:49) screenshots. Um, and you can kind of see
(44:51) here, patch is a great way to just get a
(44:53) quick pulse on how we’re doing with new
(44:55) customers and customer attention. It’s
(44:57) an integration in court reserve. It
(44:59) pulls the data from court reserve and
(45:00) you can go in and you can see, you know,
(45:02) how many new customers you’ve had in the
(45:04) last 30 days. Returning customers,
(45:06) you’re inactive. Looks like we lost one
(45:08) customer in the last 30 days. Boo. Maybe
(45:10) they moved. Uh, and we can get really
(45:13) good details on our customers. Um, and
(45:16) then we can also see, you know, who our
(45:18) best customers are, who our loyalty
(45:20) customers are. It’s a great way to see
(45:23) those top rated customers. And we
(45:25) actually have even a list. And of
(45:27) course, I blacked out all of their
(45:28) names, but you can see how much that
(45:30) customer is actually worth to your
(45:32) facility over a period of time. So, if
(45:34) you’re interested in that integration,
(45:36) um, we have that in court reserve now.
(45:38) Just reach out to the court reserve
(45:39) team. One of the questions was, “How do
(45:41) you guys record on your courts?” Uh, we
(45:44) use Save My Play. Those folks at Save My
(45:47) Play are incredible. They make it super
(45:49) easy for players to decide that they
(45:52) want to record their sessions while
(45:55) they’re in the building. And we uh just
(45:57) announced this week um this is actually
(45:59) an integration in Court Reserve now. And
(46:01) I know Jack and the team and a lot of
(46:03) our members at Old Coast Pickleball,
(46:05) they’re our guinea pigs. Old Coast is
(46:06) the court reserve guinea pig station.
(46:08) Um, and so a lot of our players have
(46:10) been, you know, when they go into their
(46:12) court reserve app, they’re record
(46:13) they’re they’re asking to record my
(46:15) session and they show up and it’s
(46:16) emailed to them afterwards. Um, and it’s
(46:19) fantastic. And if you go to the Old
(46:21) Coast Pickle Ball YouTube channels, um,
(46:23) Old Coast Court one or two, Clukey and
(46:25) T-Balt or the other one. Uh, you can see
(46:27) the camera quality is incredible. It is
(46:30) really good. And so, Save My Plays there
(46:32) now. And then Poor My Bev, uh, we just
(46:34) did an integration with in court
(46:36) reserve. We actually have a Pormy Bev
(46:38) machine at Court Reserve, but we do not
(46:39) have a beer and wine license yet. So,
(46:42) uh, to be determined to come. Uh, but
(46:44) this is also another great integration
(46:46) for us as well. The last thing I want to
(46:49) talk about really, uh, before we go into
(46:51) your questions because it’s going to
(46:52) lead us into a couple rabbit holes. Get
(46:55) a good website, uh, Old Coast Pickle
(46:58) Ball website. If you want to know how we
(47:00) do our memberships, how we do our
(47:02) pricing, how we do our courts, if you
(47:04) want to see how our lessons are done, if
(47:05) you want to look at our calendar, the
(47:07) events that Jack and and his team have
(47:09) come up with, you can go to old coastp
(47:11) pickleball.com. Now, I will say people
(47:14) are going to say, “Wow, this is a great
(47:16) website.” It is a great website because
(47:18) we are working on having this as an
(47:20) option for court reserve customers in
(47:22) the future. If you already have your own
(47:23) website, there are some APIs that you
(47:26) can um have use of if you’re a scale or
(47:29) enterprise customer um with Court
(47:31) Reserve. Um but also hopefully this
(47:33) summer we’re going to launch the ability
(47:35) to have similar displays like the Old
(47:37) Coast Pickle Ball website available um
(47:39) in our upcoming WordPress plug-in
(47:41) release uh over the summer. I don’t have
(47:43) a date on it, but that’s very exciting
(47:45) uh because you know we’re always trying
(47:47) to listen to feedback from our customers
(47:49) at Court Reserve. And this is one of the
(47:51) things uh that’s been talked about as
(47:53) well. So I’m gonna stop the share
(47:56) because we’re just gonna go through all
(47:57) these questions because right now Jack,
(47:58) we have 24 questions. So if we don’t get
(48:01) started, we’re never going to get
(48:02) through them. Um so the first question,
(48:05) uh Lauren’s going to start us out.
(48:06) Before launching, how did you gauge
(48:08) interest or demand in your area? That’s
(48:10) a great question. So all of our friends
(48:12) when we moved to St. Augustine four
(48:13) years ago, we met on the pickle ball
(48:14) court. And so we just started playing
(48:16) with all these people on the free public
(48:18) courts here. And of course, I am married
(48:20) to an entrepreneurial mindset, Tim. And
(48:23) Tim’s always wanted to have his own
(48:25) pickle ball club. And so, we just
(48:26) started the work. Um, and so we started
(48:28) getting enough friends together that we
(48:31) thought we could make it work. Um,
(48:33) actually, if you watch one of the oldest
(48:35) court reserve YouTube webinars that I’ve
(48:38) done, it’s probably been about three
(48:40) years ago. Um, I did one with the pickle
(48:42) ball zone up in Ben, Oregon with Warner,
(48:45) and he talks about, you know, having at
(48:48) least a couple hundred committed pickle
(48:50) ball friends if you’re going to open up
(48:51) a pickle ball club because you got to be
(48:53) able to pay for things. Um, and so, did
(48:56) we have demand in our area? Absolutely.
(48:59) Because when it rains and it’s really
(49:00) windy and it’s really sunny, I mean,
(49:03) there’s always room for pickle ball with
(49:04) air condition and a nice bathroom, for
(49:06) sure. Uh, financial lessons that we
(49:08) learned. What were the biggest
(49:09) unexpected costs in year one? Well,
(49:12) nobody has to nobody prepared us for the
(49:16) amount of money that commercial
(49:17) liability insurance would cost. Uh our
(49:20) first year because we were in a building
(49:22) and signed a lease, that lease came with
(49:25) some extra insurance because they had
(49:27) high-end yachts on the other side. And
(49:29) so we were paying about $500 a month for
(49:32) commercial liability insurance. Uh we
(49:34) have since been able to find another
(49:36) policy and it’s a little bit less. So
(49:37) that was a big uh cost we were not
(49:40) expecting. Um and then
(49:43) nobody prepared me specifically for the
(49:46) amount of people who would go after a
(49:49) ball and run into the wall and run
(49:52) through the wall and break the plywood
(49:54) or the drywall or whatever. Uh I know
(49:57) that when we first opened, Tim and I
(49:59) were working the desk every day. Um, and
(50:02) one day Tim calls me on the phone and he
(50:04) said, “Babe, I almost saw a lady die
(50:07) today.” And this older lady had gone
(50:10) after a ball to one side of our courts
(50:13) and she didn’t stop and she ran right
(50:15) into the wall and fell right to the
(50:17) floor and Tim’s heart broke. And so we
(50:20) had to pay about $6,000 for some pads to
(50:23) go on a wall that’s a little bit closer
(50:25) than the other. Now granted, Jack, how
(50:28) much? There’s like what four feet from
(50:30) the the the net to the wall. Like
(50:32) there’s plenty of room to stop. She did
(50:35) not stop. So, we didn’t realize that we
(50:37) were going to have to repair walls as
(50:39) much. How many holes have we had to fix,
(50:41) Jack? Yeah. I uh I was I didn’t have any
(50:44) prior drywall in plywood, you know,
(50:47) really good experience. But I really
(50:48) know how to patch walls now. Um Yeah.
(50:52) And and honestly, that’s Yeah, that’s
(50:54) been a big thing cuz you would not
(50:55) believe what padded walls cost. Uh, like
(50:58) I mean like Ashley said, it’s six it was
(50:59) like six grand for a short section and
(51:02) then you find out that honestly if you
(51:05) put pads on a wall, people now decide
(51:09) that means I can hit it and it won’t
(51:10) hurt. And so they actually run into it
(51:13) more often. Um, if we put spikes and
(51:16) like a lava moat, I think we’d have more
(51:18) success keeping people off the wall
(51:20) because when you put pads, it’s a fun
(51:21) house. They’re like, I got this. Boom.
(51:23) Right. Yeah, for sure. So that that’s
(51:26) been one of our biggest um and I think
(51:28) just you know I guess in the beginning
(51:31) we didn’t realize that we had a water
(51:33) fountain but the water fountain kind of
(51:34) sucked actually and so then we got a
(51:37) water bottle system where they’d bring
(51:38) you the big like five gallon water
(51:40) bottles and we didn’t realize that
(51:42) people would not fill their water up at
(51:45) home. They would just wait till they got
(51:46) to the club and they would take and fill
(51:48) their entire water bottle up and then
(51:49) before they left they would fill their
(51:51) water bottle up again. And that was very
(51:53) costly to us. So that’s why we went with
(51:55) the hydration. What is the name of our
(51:57) water hydration system, Jack? Do you
(51:58) know? Um I believe it’s called maybe
(52:03) like is it Optum or Opa? I’ll let you
(52:07) look for that. Optimum Water Solutions.
(52:09) Optimum Water Solutions. So it’s this
(52:11) great machine that of course they have
(52:13) to come and hook up. It’s like I don’t
(52:15) know 130 bucks a month. It makes ice and
(52:18) the water with electrolytes and it’s
(52:20) fantastic. And we don’t have to pay for
(52:21) the amount and boiling water. Yeah. So,
(52:23) we don’t have to pay for the amount of
(52:24) water. Um, that’s under our lease, thank
(52:26) goodness. Uh, but now we have a great
(52:28) way for people to stay hydrated, get
(52:30) hydrated, and we’re not going through
(52:31) bottles and bottles of water again. Um,
(52:33) this next question from Lauren’s really
(52:34) good. How did you respond? Uh, not if,
(52:37) but when all the new competitors entered
(52:39) our market space, did it change your
(52:40) pricing, programming, or marketing? Um,
(52:43) I would say it didn’t. And the one thing
(52:46) if you go to mastermind um out in Utah,
(52:49) you know, you got to out market, you got
(52:50) to out culture, you got to out community
(52:52) your competitor. It Jack’s been talking
(52:54) about it the entire hour. You just got
(52:56) to create an environment that people
(52:58) just want to come to. They want to come
(53:00) and play. Um you know, and it’s funny
(53:03) because we see some competitors in our
(53:05) area who are now copying what we’re
(53:07) doing. Uh and so that’s very, you know,
(53:09) we had poker night. Uh we we put puzzles
(53:12) together. There’s been puzzle night. it.
(53:14) You know, it’s not just about pickle
(53:15) ball here. It’s about a community of
(53:17) people. We know when people are
(53:19) brokenhearted, happy, joyful. We’ve
(53:22) celebrated weddings and deaths and all
(53:24) kinds of things. It’s it’s a great big
(53:26) family here in our community. Um, now
(53:28) you’re going to have your outliers and
(53:29) people coming and going and tourists and
(53:31) things like that. Uh, but again, we’re
(53:33) building something here that, you know,
(53:35) competition. If you have o eight courts
(53:38) and you’re doing open play all the time
(53:39) and it’s the Wild West indoors, have at
(53:42) it. If you want to come to Old Coast and
(53:44) build relationships and community and
(53:46) play at your own level and have a great
(53:48) time, that’s what we’re we’re doing here
(53:50) for sure. So, um yeah, and Ashley, real
(53:53) quick, I just want to add that with that
(53:55) in any market, I think for pickle ball,
(53:58) everyone needs to realize that every
(54:00) competitor that comes in your area,
(54:03) honestly, they’re not competitors.
(54:05) They’re they’re team members. uh they’re
(54:07) your your partnerships in growing the
(54:09) sport because reality is going to set in
(54:11) when you a new facility opens and we
(54:13) have free competition and in less than
(54:16) an hour from us there’s multiple clubs
(54:19) opening all the time it’s it’s we have I
(54:21) mean right down the road we have 15
(54:22) minutes away in Newland’s opening up
(54:24) nine courts and it’s um and the but what
(54:27) you have to realize is let’s say I’ll
(54:30) make up a number you’ve got a thousand
(54:31) players in your city and well everyone
(54:34) can’t just share those thousand players
(54:36) And so every new
(54:38) club means new players and player and
(54:42) clubs need to be focusing on new player
(54:44) acquisition. That’s why teach me pickle
(54:47) ball is free class at old coast because
(54:49) we want people to come in and become a
(54:51) new player and then that builds the o
(54:53) our player base up and down the street
(54:55) their player base will grow and then
(54:57) when they’re putting on special events I
(54:59) don’t care if my players go and play
(55:01) there at special events. That’s not
(55:03) taking from me. But it is taking from me
(55:05) if we all only have the same hundred
(55:07) people and we’re just, you know,
(55:08) shifting around four nights a week, you
(55:10) know, to each other. But if we’re all
(55:11) building up the the bottom ability
(55:13) levels and growing them up and it’ll
(55:15) just continue to we can all share a much
(55:18) larger player pool. And so the fastest
(55:20) way I think to kill the sport overall is
(55:23) to treat each other like competition to
(55:25) where you’re almost acting like people
(55:27) shouldn’t play at other courts. You need
(55:29) you need the competition because we need
(55:31) more players. Every city needs like an
(55:33) extra 100 thousand more players. That’s
(55:35) better for business. Absolutely. Yes.
(55:36) Absolutely. All right. So, let’s just uh
(55:39) I’m just going to head through these. Um
(55:41) time scoring for round robins. Our round
(55:44) robins, our organized play is literally
(55:46) two hours and so they’re in and out in
(55:47) two hours and it’s a fabulous consistent
(55:50) experience and they love it. Um do you
(55:53) recommend using duper as well as a club
(55:55) custom pickle ball rating as well? We
(55:57) actually have our own pickle ball rating
(55:59) with internal at um Old Coast
(56:01) Pickleball. Tell us what the ratings are
(56:03) real quick so folks will know.
(56:05) So we have we we created uh pickle ball
(56:08) like the round robins are done by
(56:09) levels. So our bottom tier which
(56:12) honestly is kind of really been
(56:14) shrinking would be anything below 275.
(56:17) And then our we call it level four which
(56:19) is 275 to 325. That’s the range self
(56:23) assessed. Um, and then level three would
(56:26) be 30 to 375, which covers some of level
(56:30) 4 and some of level two, but it’s just
(56:32) because a lot of those people are maybe
(56:34) their spouse is a 36, but they’re a 32.
(56:37) They want to play together. Um, and so
(56:39) they’re more of like a social 35 if
(56:41) you’re looking at duper. And then our
(56:42) level twos would be 35 to 40. Um, and
(56:45) that’s pretty much your 35s who are want
(56:47) to be 40’s. Like that’s the people who
(56:49) want to they’re competitive. They want
(56:50) to go to that next level. And I don’t
(56:52) mean that as an insult. I mean that as
(56:53) these are people who want to compete at
(56:54) the next level and then above that level
(56:57) one is 40 plus and that’s duper verified
(57:00) right now for us. So um and now you
(57:02) might say man we have players who are
(57:04) you know they’re 47s and they’re not in
(57:06) duper though they don’t have any
(57:07) matches. Well we do a lot of events
(57:09) where it’s same partner so they register
(57:12) uh for the evening with a partner and
(57:14) they’re going to play a double round
(57:15) robin against like five other teams that
(57:17) are there and so they’re going to play
(57:19) all the other teams twice. Only the team
(57:21) captain has to have the duper rating. He
(57:24) can bring he or she can bring any
(57:25) partner they want because you’re stuck
(57:27) with them. So, uh there’s no real
(57:29) downside to the other teams. And we even
(57:31) have it now to where I think this is
(57:32) pretty unique. Um because I’ve worked at
(57:35) other places and your 5’s don’t mix with
(57:38) other groups, but we’ve really created
(57:40) an environment where we encourage our
(57:42) 5’s to play in the 40 plus events. And
(57:46) what it allows our four’s to do is to
(57:48) get the experience playing, but we don’t
(57:50) force our 5’s to necessarily pick a
(57:52) partner that’s lower level. So they can
(57:54) sign up with another 5 and they might
(57:55) run the table on everybody, but it
(57:57) allows the lower level players to get
(57:59) some of that experience. And then it
(58:01) allows if you’re a 44 but your duper
(58:03) doesn’t show it. Um, if you can convince
(58:06) a guy who is a 5o to team up with you,
(58:08) well, we’re not going to stop you. But
(58:10) if you don’t have if neither of you has
(58:12) the rating to prove it, that’s where we
(58:13) begin to limit it. But that’s a work in
(58:16) progress always. And then we have 45
(58:18) plus, which we call OCP pro. Um, and
(58:21) even that, that’s just us being generous
(58:22) to ourselves, calling ourselves pros,
(58:24) but we’re that’s uh we’re pros in in
(58:27) heart. I love that. All right, we got a
(58:29) few more questions. With only two
(58:30) courts, how do you manage or balance
(58:32) court availability at peak time so
(58:34) members can get court time at least once
(58:35) a week? Well, there is no guarantee that
(58:38) they’re going to get a court once a
(58:39) week. Um, and so we run, like you
(58:41) already heard him say, when we can get a
(58:43) class or programming, um, you know,
(58:45) we’ll put that on the books. Uh, members
(58:47) can always come out and they can rent
(58:49) courts with their, um, reduced fee. Um,
(58:52) because if you are a member here at OCP,
(58:54) you get reduced court rates. So, anytime
(58:56) you can come in, you can book courts.
(58:58) Um, as well as there’s there’s plenty of
(59:01) open time. Um, definitely on the
(59:02) weekends I would say more than during
(59:04) the week because we do have most of our
(59:06) organized events that we put on during
(59:07) the week, whether they’re in the morning
(59:09) or in the night, uh, they’re usually
(59:11) pretty full. Um, and then I know Jack,
(59:13) they’ll do classes and stuff in the
(59:14) afternoon. Anything else on that? Yeah,
(59:17) just the more organized you are, if you
(59:19) have if if court space is an issue, the
(59:21) more organized you are, the more you can
(59:23) work within that. So, uh, and during the
(59:26) evenings, honestly, you’re not going to
(59:27) rent a court from us for for a private
(59:29) group. But if you and two f if you and
(59:31) three friends wanted to get games every
(59:33) night of the week there are different
(59:35) levels of people that are playing where
(59:37) you could show up sign up as a team and
(59:39) play against other teams that are in a
(59:40) rotation. And we again we listen to the
(59:42) teams the players. So we might try to
(59:44) put ladies on Tuesday nights and they’re
(59:47) not showing up and we call them and
(59:49) they’re like well half of us have a
(59:51) thing that we do on Tuesday nights and
(59:52) so it’s like well what about Wednesday
(59:53) night? They’re like, “Yeah, we’ll fill
(59:54) it up.” And it’s like, “Geez, no one
(59:56) told us that.” You know, and so
(59:58) listening to your players and and and
(60:00) just being organized. We Yeah, we have
(60:02) ladies nights on Tuesdays. We have level
(60:04) four does every Wednesday night after
(60:05) the ladies. Thursdays are OCP pro night.
(60:08) We give them a three-hour window to play
(60:10) competitive games and we guarantee the
(60:12) level. Tuesday night is kind of like 40
(60:14) plus. Friday night 35 to 40. So,
(60:16) different nights of the week. And again,
(60:18) we’re not going to be every like right
(60:19) now with only two courts, we’re not
(60:21) guaranteed to play uh every single time,
(60:23) which is also why like for us, our
(60:25) membership, we want our members, if
(60:27) you’re a member here, we want you to be
(60:29) here. We don’t want you stuck in a
(60:30) membership that you don’t want. So,
(60:32) right now, we’re not a you’re not stuck
(60:34) in a contract. So, if you pay for the
(60:36) membership and you’re like, man, I don’t
(60:37) get enough opportunities to play, no
(60:38) problem. Like, we we’re not we’re not
(60:40) harm we’re not no harm, no foul. And I
(60:43) would say honestly our membership our
(60:46) daily up I don’t know 50/50 like
(60:49) visitors are a massive part of our
(60:51) revenue and Devon from mastermind will
(60:53) tell you you don’t want to down you
(60:54) don’t want to make it rough on your
(60:55) visitors you want visitors they’re extra
(60:57) revenue um but also too they like they
(61:00) pay a higher premium to be there but we
(61:01) have a lot of players who I mean I got a
(61:04) guy who drives two hours away to play on
(61:06) Thursday nights because it’s a
(61:08) guaranteed game a guaranteed competition
(61:10) for him but he’s not he’s not gonna be a
(61:12) member It it cost him 15. It cost him 15
(61:14) bucks. So, you know, why would he be a
(61:15) member just to come down once a week?
(61:17) You know, that kind or once a month, you
(61:18) know, whatever it is. That’s awesome.
(61:20) So, here’s another great question.
(61:22) Sponsorship. How do you determine
(61:23) pricing? So, did you do any comps in
(61:25) your community with other sponsored
(61:27) facilities besides signage? Do you give
(61:30) them extra benefits? So, basically what
(61:31) I did was I listened to mastermind. I’d
(61:34) been there a couple times and and
(61:35) listened to that and then I just kind of
(61:37) pulled a number out of the cloud
(61:39) honestly in the beginning and it stuck
(61:42) honestly it did. Um and so they do get
(61:45) signage within our club. Now of course
(61:46) court sponsorships are way more than
(61:48) just like our bathroom sponsorship or
(61:50) just hanging a banner. Um and we did
(61:53) include a couple of free memberships but
(61:55) again our free memberships have a
(61:58) reduced court fee. they still pay to
(62:00) play even if they have a you know that
(62:02) type of membership. Um the next
(62:05) question, do you have to get members
(62:06) approval to broadcast all the time? So
(62:08) when our members or when you come to
(62:10) play at OCP, you sign a liability waiver
(62:13) and you also sign a media release
(62:15) waiver. Um there are two waivers in
(62:17) court reserve. Everybody signs them. So
(62:19) you’re basically waving your right to,
(62:21) you know, all media being filmed or, you
(62:23) know, your picture taken or anything
(62:25) like that here. Um, Jack, are lights
(62:28) direct or indirect? And would you
(62:29) recommend indirect or direct lighting?
(62:33) That’s a great question. Um, when it
(62:36) comes to So, we we are direct lighting.
(62:38) Um, but we get a lot of indirect bounce
(62:40) because the way that our ceilings are
(62:42) built. Um, I do personally think that
(62:45) indirect is a is a super like premium,
(62:50) especially if your ceilings are lower.
(62:52) Our ceilings are extremely high. We’re
(62:54) in a massive marina building, so we can
(62:56) have direct lighting and honestly the
(62:58) lights aren’t an issue. Even if the ball
(63:00) gets up in the air and you’re looking at
(63:02) it, the lights are so dis the lights are
(63:04) so high that it’s not something that’s
(63:06) an issue with the ball. If the ceilings
(63:08) are lower in your facility, I would
(63:09) definitely recommend looking into
(63:10) indirect just because it’s obviously
(63:13) you’ve got a bulb that’s that much
(63:14) closer to the ball, it can affect it.
(63:16) Um, but again, I think also too it it
(63:18) matters your area. So, if you have a lot
(63:20) of highlevel players, you might want to
(63:22) look into having that premium lighting
(63:24) setup. If the majority of your players,
(63:26) if they get lobbed, they’re just letting
(63:27) it go because they’re like, “Look, I I
(63:29) made it this long. I’m not going out on
(63:30) rolling, you know, rolling an ankle.”
(63:32) You know, you don’t need to worry about
(63:33) the lighting. So, that’s some of that’s
(63:35) kind of splitting hairs if depending on
(63:37) the the level that your community, I
(63:38) mean, if you’re in a 60 plus community
(63:41) that you don’t need to worry as much
(63:42) about the lighting, you know? Yes, for
(63:44) sure. Uh, a couple more questions. Uh,
(63:47) let’s see.
(63:50) Somebody’s asking for a copy of our
(63:52) media release waiver, liability waiver
(63:54) and con and contract. Um, we won’t share
(63:57) that with you because it’s by state. And
(63:59) so even in court reserve, we do not
(64:01) provide any liability waiverss, anything
(64:04) at all. You have to go through your own
(64:06) state. We are um what I did in the
(64:08) beginning was I went through Rocket
(64:09) Lawyer. It’s an online system that you
(64:11) can go and pull general liability and
(64:13) waiverss all day long. Um, and then what
(64:16) we did was once we had a little more
(64:18) time and money, we actually took that to
(64:19) a lawyer and he kind of um, mapped it
(64:21) up, but not much. But Rocket Lawyer is
(64:23) great for things like that. That’s how
(64:24) we kind of got started with our own uh,
(64:26) media release and liability waiver. Um,
(64:29) we’ve got a lot of questions around like
(64:31) opening up an indoor club, eight courts,
(64:33) what’s a good number to max out for
(64:35) membership, you know, things like that.
(64:37) Again, there’s no real number. You have
(64:40) to figure out what works for you. Um, go
(64:42) to mastermind. I know we’ve said it a
(64:44) couple times, but you’re going to learn
(64:45) so much about how memberships work and
(64:48) the max membership per cord and things
(64:49) like that. And it also depends on, you
(64:52) know, your competition in the area and
(64:54) what you’re up against. Um, let’s see.
(64:56) Did we use Swish or other software? Yes,
(64:58) we use Swish to run our round robins.
(65:00) And there’s an integration in court
(65:02) reserve uh coming out where once you uh
(65:05) have your players register for your
(65:07) events in court reserve. You can hit one
(65:09) button and it says sync to Swiss and all
(65:11) those player names will go right into
(65:13) the Swiss app and then you can run those
(65:15) round robins and those things. And so
(65:17) that’s a great integration that we have
(65:19) um as well. Um and that’s fantastic even
(65:22) for a large facility because they can do
(65:24) it on their phones so they can do their
(65:27) own scores, inputting all that kind of
(65:28) stuff. But the the integration is
(65:30) awesome. We have it live both the Save
(65:31) My Play and the Swiss integration and
(65:33) both of them are amazing. Yes,
(65:35) absolutely. Uh, is cushioned court
(65:37) surface worth the extra cost? Uh, we did
(65:40) not do a cushioned court surface. Uh, we
(65:42) had a local court surfacing come in and
(65:44) do a great job. I’m not sure if the
(65:46) cushion’s worth it. Jack, any thoughts?
(65:49) I’ve played at um a club right down the
(65:51) road from us um has it. Um, and a lot of
(65:55) our players play on both. They play at
(65:57) our club and their in their club. And I
(65:58) even play at their club. Um and uh don’t
(66:01) tell anybody. But um uh I honestly I
(66:05) don’t I don’t none of our members have
(66:07) said, “Man, I just want to play there
(66:09) more because it’s it’s better.” I it’s
(66:11) it’s one of them things. And honestly, I
(66:13) can say this and they’re they couldn’t
(66:15) argue with me here. Their courts have
(66:18) more like holes and blemishes and things
(66:21) that have happened than ours do. And I
(66:24) don’t know that could be just a that
(66:26) could just be they’ve been open less
(66:27) time. So that that could be something
(66:30) that’s just happens to be circumstantial
(66:32) or that could be that there is some
(66:33) maybe some durability issues there. I
(66:35) don’t know. But they have some spots
(66:37) that have gotten worn out and things
(66:39) like that. And so I I have but I haven’t
(66:41) had anybody um say, “Man, I wish you
(66:44) guys were were just as cushioned as the
(66:46) other place.” Right. That’s Yeah. Um a
(66:48) couple of things about Point of Sale.
(66:50) Um, we do have a small pro shop at Old
(66:52) Coast Pickle Ball. Um, it is small. It’s
(66:54) literally the back wall. Um, and we do
(66:56) use the Court Reserve point of sale uh
(66:58) for our pro shop. Um, we are a Yola
(67:02) shop, if you want to call it, but we do
(67:03) have some other paddles. We uh have some
(67:05) old coast hats and shirts and and things
(67:08) of that nature. Um, we sell some um uh
(67:12) some sports drinks. Um, anything else
(67:15) I’m missing? I mean, it’s a pretty small
(67:17) pro shop. Uh, anything about the
(67:19) paddles, Jack, that you want to mention
(67:20) about? Yeah, so paddles, honestly, it
(67:22) dep it depends on your uh how much money
(67:25) you want to put into it. If you want to
(67:26) stock your revenue, if you want to pay
(67:27) to have that revenue um to stock your
(67:30) walls with paddles and then have to deal
(67:31) with inventory, that that’s 100% up to
(67:34) you. Obviously, you can make a lot more
(67:35) money if you have a lot more people
(67:37) coming in. You can sell paddles. Some of
(67:39) the paddle companies are offering, you
(67:41) know, almost a 50% markup margin for
(67:44) you. Some of them, it’s getting razor
(67:46) thin. And honestly, at that point, it’s
(67:48) pretty tough. We only carry the ones
(67:50) that we know that are going to have our
(67:53) highest selling, you know, ones. Um,
(67:55) that’s because our coaches like them.
(67:57) So, because whatever our coach is using,
(67:58) it’s obviously going to be easier to
(68:00) sell. Um, there also are um other
(68:03) vendors that are willing to like if you
(68:05) want to share with them where they can
(68:07) be the one to stock your pro shop for
(68:09) you and then they share in the pro like
(68:11) you get a percentage of the profits and
(68:13) things like that and you don’t have to
(68:14) carry the overhead. Um, but if you’ve
(68:16) got a small player base, do not expect
(68:18) them to be buying a paddle every
(68:19) weekend. Uh, but if you’ve got thousands
(68:21) of players and sure, go ahead. Um, but
(68:24) that’s a big one based on your people, I
(68:26) think, and how much money you want to
(68:27) have sitting on the wall because every
(68:28) time you walk in, you see those paddles,
(68:30) you’re going to see dollar signs. Yeah,
(68:32) for sure. Uh, somebody asked a great
(68:34) question. Do we use utilize the batch
(68:36) billing feature in court reserve where
(68:39) we can bill people like once a month or
(68:41) something or do we have people pay at
(68:43) the time of reservation? We h we if you
(68:46) pay, you play. If you play, you pay all
(68:49) on the spot. Uh our folks um the only
(68:52) way around that is uh Jack and them. If
(68:54) they’re from out of town, he’ll get grab
(68:56) a credit card or something and then
(68:58) they’ll use it when they walk through
(68:59) the door. But when people are signing up
(69:01) on the court Reserve app, they are
(69:03) paying to sign up. Um and if they have
(69:06) to cancel or refund, then they get a
(69:08) credit back to the club. Um, you know,
(69:10) we do not refund back to a credit card
(69:12) because we could talk about payments all
(69:14) day long. We’ll have another webinar.
(69:16) I’ll give you all, hey, come to Austin
(69:18) next week to Catalyst and we’ll talk
(69:20) about all kinds of refunds and how to
(69:21) save money on transaction fees. Uh, but
(69:23) again, it’s just the way we do it
(69:25) because you want people to have skin in
(69:26) the game. You don’t want them to sign up
(69:28) because we’re two courts and everybody
(69:29) counts for us for sure. Um, somebody
(69:32) asked, “Our website template will be
(69:34) available.” No, it’ll be part of court
(69:36) reserve and so it’ll be an additional
(69:37) feature within the court reserve. uh
(69:39) platform that you can um work with us to
(69:42) do that WordPress plugin for the
(69:44) website. It’ll be a template um or you
(69:46) can use our APIs um and and work with
(69:50) and build your own websites as well.
(69:52) Somebody asked, is Jack available for a
(69:54) 101? Uh is the Swiss integration up and
(69:58) running? So, the Swish integration is up
(69:59) and running at Old Coast Pickle Ball
(70:01) because there are beta there are guinea
(70:03) pigs and so I’m not sure exactly when
(70:05) the Swiss um press to let’s see I’m not
(70:09) sure if that’s coming out. I I don’t
(70:12) know soon. We’re working on it right
(70:14) now. It’s already done. Um somebody
(70:17) asked is it going to replace the
(70:18) organized play? No. Organized play is
(70:21) still going to stay in court reserve. Um
(70:23) it’s an additional part of you know
(70:25) something that you can use that’s
(70:26) different. And Swiss is great too
(70:28) because it does pickleball, it does
(70:29) tennis, it does a lot of things. Um, so
(70:32) check out the folks at Swish. Uh, they
(70:33) are great people for sure. Um, let’s
(70:38) see. Oh my goodness. So many questions
(70:41) we’ve answered. How high are our
(70:42) ceilings, Jack?
(70:45) Man, high. Um, 21.
(70:49) Well, no, no, no. Higher. Closer to 30.
(70:52) 30. Close. I’ve seen 30 and 40. We can
(70:54) love the heck out of some people at Old
(70:56) Coast. Yeah, they’re very high. It’s a
(70:57) boat. It’s a boat storage building, so
(70:59) they’re expecting multiple stories of
(71:01) yachts being stored in there. They’re
(71:02) very high. Um, honestly, they’re they’re
(71:04) they’re too high. They’re more high. We
(71:06) probably lose money in the air
(71:07) conditioning just because of the the the
(71:09) empty air space. That’s true. That’s
(71:11) true.
(71:13) Let’s see. Yeah. Ashley, do you mean to
(71:14) address a couple of them real quick that
(71:15) I see you real fast? Yeah. Let’s see.
(71:17) Rally scoring real quick. Rally scoring.
(71:21) Yeah, I mean honestly a YouTube video is
(71:22) probably the best way to to learn it,
(71:23) but rally scoring is every single time
(71:26) that the ball is served, there’s a point
(71:27) scored. You don’t have to serve in order
(71:28) to score the point. And then you don’t
(71:30) have to switch sides. You can make
(71:32) iterations of that if you want, but the
(71:34) way that works then that guarantees and
(71:36) a point will be scored every single
(71:38) time. We play games to 15. That’s going
(71:40) to take roughly 11 minutes. And so that
(71:43) enables it so that every single time
(71:45) that ball’s hit, there’s a point scored.
(71:47) the max point the max rallies that you
(71:49) could even play would be 15 to 14 so 29
(71:53) um as opposed to a regular game where
(71:55) you could play 180 rallies and no one
(71:58) got anywhere. Yeah, for sure. Uh how do
(72:00) you set expectations with your members
(72:02) that they may not be able to use the
(72:04) courts because of a corporate event or a
(72:06) tournament? Uh because we have
(72:07) relationship with the most of our
(72:09) community. um they’re well aware of the
(72:11) things we’re doing, charity tournaments
(72:12) or if we’re going to have a corporate
(72:14) event, you know, we like to celebrate
(72:16) these folks. Um we put out a monthly
(72:18) newsletter where social media is big. We
(72:20) have a social media coordinator. Um and
(72:22) that she’s great. And so um you know, if
(72:25) it’s something that’s going to close
(72:26) down the courts, you know, we use court
(72:28) reserve. We send out an email or a push
(72:30) or a text. Um but other than that, our
(72:32) community uh kind of knows what’s going
(72:34) on at the club. Um and so we don’t have
(72:36) to necessarily tell them um that they
(72:38) can’t. Um, a lot of times they have the
(72:41) option to participate as well. Um, and
(72:44) that’s the advantage of paytoplay. Yeah.
(72:46) U, you know, they’re not getting I mean,
(72:47) honestly, if your club runs an unlimited
(72:50) play model, I hope that you’re getting a
(72:52) lot of revenue from that client because
(72:54) that does block you in. And granted,
(72:56) yeah, if I’m paying if I’m paying, it
(72:58) doesn’t matter if I’m paying $20 a month
(73:00) for unlimited play, if I’m paying $300 a
(73:01) month for unlimited play, I’m expecting
(73:03) unlimited play as a customer. And so the
(73:06) paytoplay allows us some wiggle room
(73:08) because if the courts are blocked off,
(73:10) well, what are you complaining about?
(73:11) Like you’re not paying you didn’t pay
(73:13) anything, you know, so there’s a little
(73:15) bit less of friction there. All right,
(73:17) just a couple last things because I know
(73:18) we’re over our hour, but wow, just great
(73:20) participation. Thanks for all the
(73:22) questions. Um, you know, uh, oh, Ryan
(73:25) wants to know how we can become a guinea
(73:27) pig and learn about all the cool court
(73:29) reserve stuff. Uh, just wanted to thank
(73:32) you guys again. Um would love to, you
(73:35) know, hear your feedback. Um you know,
(73:38) you can send us a email to support uh
(73:41) supportreserve.com. It it’ll come to me,
(73:43) it’ll come to Jack. Um you know, but
(73:46) we’re just so thankful that you guys
(73:48) have just, you know, helped to watch us
(73:51) walk along. Um and we’re just trying to
(73:53) get better with everything that we do.
(73:55) And we hope this is helpful. Um and if
(73:57) we can do anything else, you know,
(73:59) please let us know. Jack, any final
(74:01) thoughts? What’s your best advice for a
(74:03) club owner, Jack? Yeah, one thing. So,
(74:06) real quick, I I’m I’m gonna hit really
(74:08) fast a bunch of things really really
(74:10) super fast. We do use court reserves
(74:12) point of sales system. It’s awesome.
(74:13) Live ball is a game that I made up the
(74:15) rules for. Um, but Court Reserve for
(74:18) sure does that. Um, we do them annual
(74:21) versus monthly charges. We same as
(74:23) programming. We are current even now
(74:25) we’re about to roll out a new membership
(74:27) offering that is because we think it
(74:29) equals better what the players want
(74:31) currently. So we don’t get stuck in a
(74:33) model. We constantly are trying to
(74:34) update that. Uh players overstaying on
(74:37) the courts. Our our policy is a biblical
(74:40) one. We teach generosity. Um so we are
(74:43) generous with our court time. If the
(74:44) courts are available, our coaches go out
(74:46) to on the court and tell the players who
(74:48) are out there, hey guys, if you want to
(74:50) play a few extra minutes, feel free. uh
(74:52) but they won’t take from us. So we do
(74:55) not have a culture of where they get to
(74:57) expect. We go out and we tell them,
(74:58) “Hey, if you guys want to play, feel
(75:00) free.” Um other times though, we go out
(75:02) there and say, “Hey guys, I’m wrapping
(75:04) up.” Like, and so we are always generous
(75:06) with our court time. We win. Obviously,
(75:07) we don’t lose money there. We gain
(75:09) friends by giving away stuff, but the
(75:12) culture is not that you can just stay
(75:13) out there as long as you want. So we
(75:14) have coaches coaches wrap it up and
(75:16) coaches give it away. Each day it could
(75:18) be different. Um, and then my number one
(75:21) tip for running the club would be serve
(75:25) your players. Make the players the
(75:27) focus. Make their liv make make it so
(75:29) that they tell themselves, “This is the
(75:32) most fun to play pickle ball. This is
(75:33) the best time to play pickle ball. These
(75:35) are the people that love me the most.”
(75:37) If you focus on serving the player, your
(75:40) club will be where they want to play.
(75:41) Because at the end of the day, they can
(75:42) get concrete in a net at a lot of
(75:45) places. And the only thing that’s going
(75:47) to make them choose you is the way they
(75:49) feel when they’re at your facility. Now
(75:51) granted, that’s how we run it. That’s
(75:53) how I think the best way to run it is.
(75:55) You can go to a great restaurant where
(75:57) it’s a chain and it’s a good experience.
(75:58) You know what to expect. Or you can go
(76:00) to a restaurant where the little Italian
(76:01) lady in the back is going to cry if you
(76:03) insult her food. It’s a different
(76:05) experience, but what they’re different
(76:07) experiences. And so we are definitely
(76:09) the homegrown restaurant kind of feel.
(76:11) So my customers, I care. If they’re not
(76:13) happy, that bothers me. And I want to
(76:15) serve them. And I think that’s the best
(76:16) overall. That’s great. Well, last thing,
(76:19) uh, pickleballfacilities.org,
(76:21) uh, they are a great organization. Um,
(76:23) Josh Karns is on our web webinar today.
(76:27) Um, and, uh, we’re a platinum sponsor
(76:30) and they’re going to be hosting some
(76:31) things around the country. Um, and so,
(76:33) Freedom Members, um, it’s just a great
(76:36) partnership. We’re all about educating
(76:37) people all over the world about pickle
(76:39) ball and how to run pickle ball. So, you
(76:41) can check more out about them at
(76:43) pickleballfacilities.org.
(76:44) Don’t forget about club pickle ball
(76:46) mastermind. If you want to hook up with
(76:47) Devon and forgot to take a screenshot,
(76:49) you can re reach into support at court
(76:52) reserve and we can get you that
(76:53) information as well. Jack, thank you.
(76:56) Thanks for the last year. We’ll do it
(76:58) again next year. All right. Thank you.
(77:00) Have a great day, everyone.

(00:04) hi everybody Welcome to the webinar we’re excited you’re here today uh we are going to get started here in about what 60 seconds so um we’ll uh we’re excited we’re seeing a lot of people come in we had gosh about 300 people register today we’re excited for the big crowd we’re excited to take your questions so as people filter in here over the next couple minutes we’ll be on camera be able to see that slide um we’re excited that Ashley’s here from Court Reserve um so you’ll be able to see us in our uh in our natural habitat
(00:36) here for the next 30 seconds or so as we get started so I’m going to go on mute for just a second and then we’ll get started shortly all right everybody let’s get started thank you for uh joining us today we’re excited you’re here we’ve got a really big crowd and people are still filtering in what we find with these is people usually uh you know will filter in over the first few minutes but we’ll get started and start on time we’ll try to keep keep this relatively short and get you back to the rest of your day we know
(01:32) that’s important you’re busy and uh but we’re really excited for this so uh today we’re going to talk about the patch Court Reserve integration we’re going to explain to you what it is what it does how to use it how to get signed up and we’ll explain a little bit about uh about patch for you a few housekeeping items before we get started um we really do want you to ask questions so on your uh screen there on your go to webinar screen you’re going to see a little question area you’re going to see a little chat area you can
(02:02) ask questions in either of those we’ll see them we’ll address them as we can as we go through but we’ll probably address most of them frankly towards the end just maybe they’ll flow a little better that way so um uh but please ask questions there we’ll try to get to as many as we can the presentation itself we’ll try to be quick with 20 25 30 minutes and then take whatever time we need for your for all your questions um the second thing we I know we’re going to get asked about is uh is the recording we’ll make the recording
(02:31) Available to You Court Reserve is going to put it I think on your YouTube channel right Ashley um which is awesome and then we’ll send it out probably in about a week week and a half via email um and then we’ll have team members who will reach out with the recording personally as well so we’re excited you’re here today so first of all let’s do introductions Ashley let’s start with you you are a co-founder at court reserve and you wear so many hats I love it so much just tell us a little bit about yourself about court reserve and
(03:02) about you well hello thank you so much for having us uh so Court Reserve we turned eight years old this past year so we’re going on nine years uh you know if you guys are familiar with court Reserve you know that everything we do is about what the club the facility needs and this isn’t just for pickle ball this is for pickle ball tennis padel badminton whatever you need because this is really an integration that you guys have been asking for and instead of Court Reserve taking the time to build it um we know
(03:32) that the patch team has built a phenomenal product for you to review and see if this is what you’ve been looking for for member attention Outreach communication special events so I’m really excited for you guys to see this Tim and I have been using this at Old Coast pickle ball for several months now and we have seen some results and so I know that McKay and the team at patch they’re going to go through um a lot of information today and just know that we’re here for you you and we’re excited to be here yeah awesome that’s great
(04:03) great introduction um and then my name is McKay Allen I’m the CEO at patch um and you know just to reiterate what Ashley said we are so excited for this integration for this partnership as we’ve gotten to know the court Reserve team over the last couple months as we’ve built this and worked with them they’re awesome they’re great people and um that makes a partnership like really fun when you’re working with good people and then the technology piece I I think Ashley said it really well like we’re dedicated to making sure this works for
(04:31) your businesses and um we’re learning stuff along the way like we were talking just before we went live here just about some of the things we’ve done during the onboarding process to try to make it simpler make sure people are engaging with the products so we’ll talk about that today um so let’s Dive Right In here and talk about what we’ll discuss on the webinar so first thing introductions we did that already we just knocking things off here um why this integration we’ll do an overview of what the integration does um I’ll do a
(04:58) few slides just explain who patch is um what we do who we are we’ll talk about how specifically some clubs are using the integration and then we’ll do Q&A um so again I’m seeing uh some questionspop in already which is awesome so keep those coming um okay why this integration um let me share this from the patch standpoint and then actually maybe you can just take a second and tell us why this integration from the court Reserve standpoint as well so from the patch standpoint and you’ll see this as we dive in our system is really
(05:27) really powerful when we have things like transaction membership and and Revenue data um when we’re able to capture that data man our system can do some really cool stuff with triggering texts and emails and full automations based on that data it becomes really powerful and when you’re a hammer and you’re trying to trigger cool automations and texts and emails everything looks like a nail and so when we talk to court Reserve about this initial my first thought was like holy cow imagine the cool things we can do for these businesses if we have
(06:03) this data that Court Reserve already has and that’s why we were really initially excited about this integration and then the other thing that we learned really quickly and there’s this sense I think in the industry that this industry is like because of of how new um you know many of the businesses are there was this sense of like gosh there’s not a lot of like technology that are pouring into this industry that are ready to serve these businesses and so I think that’s why the court Reserve patch marriage was such a good match is
(06:36) we’re both dedicated to you know seeing businesses in this space succeed so for us that was an no-brainer um as from your standpoint why was this integration important well I’ll just tell you from you know Tim and I of course we we have court Reserve so everything we build is from our customer feedback but from an old Coast pickle ball perspective so now I’m a I’m a business owner I’m a director of a club I’m in a facility I’m opening my doors and now I’m using Court Reserve but of course Court Reserve doesn’t have the ability to Auto send
(07:11) out something when you know Bob comes to my pickle ball club for the very first time I want to make sure Bob comes back I want to make sure Bob signs up for all the open plays the round Robbins I want to know when Bob’s birthday is I want to know if Bob hasn’t been to the club lately so yeah you can go in court reserve and you can pull out data right but there’s no automated data to keep pulling at Bob to let him know that we want him back so from just Tim and I our standpoint of being club Owners or Club directors we needed a way to do that
(07:45) Outreach to trigger things like that to I mean everybody if you know Tim he loves Automation and data right so when we found out about patch we knew from our standpoint from being the the people who were paying the light bill that we needed to know when these customers were going to come back through the door and try and drive that in engagement and that interaction with them so when when we get through a couple more slides you guys are going to see wow this is exactly what I’m looking for because now what we’re seeing at Old Coast pickle
(08:17) ball is that these Journeys are written and So based upon the activity of the player now these Journeys will continue to let us know how often Bob’s come into the club how much you know if we need to send Bob a discount to lure him back in those are the kind of things that Tim and I were excited about for our own club and I know that a lot of our other clubs will be excited to to learn about this as well awesome love that so let’s get down to the Brass tax what will the actual integration do and then what can
(08:46) you do with it so essentially and I’m I’m like the the folks that are more technical on the call who who helped build it are going to be like geez he really was high level with this but basically it’s sending contact information from Court Reserve to patch so your customer’s name phone number you know email that kind of stuff but also and most importantly things like membership data and transaction information so we’ll be able to know based on the information Court Reserve ascending patch um if they’re a member
(09:15) if they’ve attended classes and lessons um if they have spent money while they’re on site and with those pieces of information you can then then trigger texts to be sent to them like Ashley was saying you can trigger emails to be sent to them you can actually start a loyalty program within our system within patch you could create really basic or more complex automations based on these triggers right so you can say okay if someone has not spent money in the last 60 days I want to send them an email and three days later I want to send them a
(09:52) text and if their expiration for membership is coming up I want to send them a text and then two emails those are the types of things that we’re seeing that uh that businesses are doing with the integration right now you could also follow up after a class or a tournament um and try to get them to uh do the next thing the next logical classor become a member or upgrade their membership however your business is structured those are the types of things that you can build uh with patch and with with core Reserve um so to
(10:22) reiterate contact tax revenue bookings check-ins all of that is syncing from Court Reserve to patch um we also can help you get opt-ins for texting or for email we can help you create forms so you can put those forms on your website and get paid at or for paid ads to get them into the club and then um build help you build automation so like I mentioned membership expirations one of the really popular ones is to get people to leave a Google review after they leave for example or people to um a send them an email or a text or both on or around
(10:56) their birthday so things like that are things that we’re seeing really successful uh so far uh that clubs are using anything to add on all that Ashley no I think it’s important any anything you can automate that way you can do the other 14 jobs you need to do that day right you’re on the court you’re clean in the bathroom whatever that looks like this just really helps manage your time and make better business decisions based on what you see here love that okay this I think is really important to know so um couple questions
(11:32) I’ll is um you know is this part of Court Reserve or is patch like a separate product company how does that work and how do I get signed up for both so just to be super clear um patch and Court Reserve are still separate companies you’ve got to be a customer of both to use this um so you’re a court reserve customer we’ll work with you to get signed up for patch um for our our our pricing we have a discount if you’re a court reserve customer and then once you’re signed up for both within Court Reserve you go back into your settings
(12:08) go to add-ons and you’re going to see patch retention is the little uh little circle on the far right and then our team will help you connect the two systems on that initial call and then data will start to flow so it’s it’s fairly simple we’ll help you will walk you through it and within one call once you’re a customer probably on the first onboarding call we’ll make sure the two systems are talking and data starts flowing um and I just huge compliments to the court Reserve team who’s made it like really simple with just the patch
(12:42) retention logo right there in the add-ons functionality in the add-ons area so um and then on the back end of uh of patch you can see the exact same thing like this is where you actually go to connect the two and again help you do this um on the back end during that first onboarding call as well anything to add there Ashley yeah so if you guys after this call today uh what you’ll need to do is we’ll need to get you on an onboarding call with patch first to go ahead and we’ll need to you’ll you’ll just easily be able to go
(13:14) into court reserve and under add-ons like you always do with other Integrations and click that on so that you’re ready to go um and again if you have additional questions that are specific to patch the patch team is probably best to answer those um but if you do come into court Reserve live chat then we can certainly get you connected with the patch team after today’s call as well that’s right yep we’re connected with the with the court Reserve team and so we’ll make sure that we’re able to answer questions you have but just to
(13:42) reiterate you would need to be a customer of both patch and Court reserve for the integration then to work and for you to start seeing the benefit all right why don’t I walk you through what patch is what patch does um at a high level and then we’ll kind of go through that may answer more questions as well and we’ll kind of walk through the integration in that context and then uh talk talk to you about how customers are using it and then take your questions so about patch what do we do what do we focus on first is customer retention you
(14:11) have a database you probably have members part of our job and the most important part of it is to help you retain those customers and those members second is new customer engagement engagement third is new subscriber list growth and then fourth is to save you time like the goal once everything is set up is for you to set some of these automations and forget about them and they run in the background forever and you just get revenue from the from the automations that run and that’s really powerful and that’s what we’re hearing by the way um
(14:47) from the court Reserve customers that are signing up so far the biggest thing that we’ve seen and this is why we went with the name patch is every single business has a leaky bucket you’re losing members it depends on the we as we’ve dug in a little bit we are learning like it wildly varies in terms of how much membership churn you’re seeing every year but every business sees membership churn and sees customer churn people who came to your Club a year ago eight times over the year someof them probably only came two or three
(15:18) times this year so our John is to help identify the leaks help you patch that bucket and then reinforce uh that bucket so part of the way we do that is we use what’s called rfm analysis to help you segment your customers so things like recency frequency and monetary and then we categorize your customers into buckets like are they loyal are they at risk are they new are they promising or are they already lost and once we’re we’ve determined what those buckets look like based on the data that comes from Court Reserve
(15:53) we then able to help you um attack and and really focus on those customers to move them up into different categories so you’re going to see dashboards about which things are working the best our texts working the best our emails our automations which are actually producing the most revenue for you and for your business will help tell you how many of your customers are are lost and what that Revenue opportunity could be if if we could recapture that that’s important as well and then this is I think really interesting this was some
(16:29) data um that I think changed my view a little bit on on our customers sometimes if members cancel if they let their membership lapse um or if they just stopped coming to your club we think ah they went somewhere else or there wasn’t enough value or they had a bad experience the bathroom wasn’t clean whatever it was sometimes that’s the case but most of the time it’s because they just haven’t thought about you you’re just not top of mind and that is the biggest thing we can help with is keeping you top of mind so the members
(17:01) continue to show up and pay their membership fee and for those who aren’t members to transition to a membership model or just keep coming and paying on a single play basis so how do we help with that um we will help you um build some of these automations so you can actually engage with these members and with these customers so for example these are just some examples um if someone’s been a member for a year you could say Okay I want to set up an anniversary automation so a year after they signed up for their membership I want to send them an email
(17:42) and a text great that’s easily set up within our system if they’re already lost if they’re a lost member they haven’t been in a year let’s say you could set up a lost campaign that says okay if they haven’t been in a year they’ve lost their membership I want to send a text then I want to send another text or if they’re not opted in for texting I want to send two emails so there’s just kind of an infinite number of ways that you can use this based on their behavior and based on if they are engaged based off if
(18:16) they’re not engaged to make sure that you’re staying t top of mind uh for them one of the most effective use cases we’ve seen so far is a lot of the pickle ball clubs that have and and clubs of all types that have signed up so far have done a welcome campaign so they have said okay someone signed up as a new member or they’re visiting for the first time they’ve actually signed up we will send them an email a text another email another text and get them in a welcome campaign that has been really really effective to this
(18:53) point you can also build even more sophisticated campaigns if you want to so you could say Okay somebody who is new I want to try to get them into the loyal category and I want to send a text and then an email and then 23 Days Later another text and another email and with a a customer in the industry what we found is that 58% of the time when they engaged with someone that was in the the new or promising categories they became loyal after getting into the campaign after going through the campaign that that was
(19:32) built um for returning customers you can ask for reviews so probably the most simple automation to start out with is once they have have shown up is to the next day or the day of send a text asking for a Google review that works really well also asking for referrals from their friends or for their friends and then they show you the text they show you they’ve done that when they arrive the next time and you give them a discount on single play or something so we have customers using that functionality as well which is really
(20:07) powerful um I mentioned the Google review campaign this is one that is really effective um so once they show up we wait 10 minutes we send a text how did we do we have one customer who’s tripled their Google reviews in 60 days doing this just a very basic campaign the thing that’s cool with this is the texts associated with the Google reviews have a 98% open rate and then here’s the other cool thing that third bullet point on the screen there if someone says they like you it’s the text will say if you loved us click here if you didn’t like
(20:42) us leave us feedback so they click on the link if they liked you and that takes them to Google the one that uh where they don’t don’t like you if theyhad a bad experience that goes directly and only to you so you’re we’re trying to help you filter the good reviews and the bad reviews out and then if somebody’s lost or they haven’t been in in some time and by lost I mean maybe they’ve let their membership lasts or or perhaps they haven’t been in six months whatever it is you can do some winback campaigns and and try to send them
(21:15) emails or texts to get them to come back with discounts with reminders things like that that will engage them and we’ve seen clubs that have had massive success doing this so far um this is a more complex one that came from the industry so getting at risk customers to engage so these are customers who hadn’t been I think in this case it was like six months and they were able to send a text then what is that 7 Days Later send another text another 7 Days another text another s days another text and 40% of those that were essentially gone
(21:52) re-engaged and spent money at the business again so there’s real world success here that we’re seeing which is pretty powerful um Ashley anything you want to highlight there before I jump into kind of another aspect of patch uh but anything about those automations that I should I should add on or answer questions on here well no I guess I want to make sure that folks understand you know patch still still has to honor you know if someone unsubscribes from you know text or email you know we’re not going to continue to you know they won’t
(22:27) continue to send just like we do in court Reserve um we’re not you know they’re not going to go after you know they’re not sending things to your customers unless you guys have built the automation so there’s nothing in patch that’s GNA go Rogue and you know send your customer stuff without you guys building it and knowing about it so this is just know that you know a lot of times people are asking for this in court reserve and so it is a function now that we have um and I would also say one of my favorite things that Tim and I
(22:58) have gone through especially at Old Coast is looking at the revenue per player in a span of time so it’s great to see your top players maybe you make those special members at your club or coordinators or you know those are your most valuable people those are the people that are probably bringing other people to your Club so being able to identify those top players at the club who spending more money than anybody else or spending more time is Super valuable to you as a club owner or director because then you can take that
(23:28) data reward those people or make them your ambassadors at your club and I just wanted to mention that because that’s been really effective for us I love that that’s really cool and the thing that’s cool with with what Tim and Ashley have done is because they own old Coast they’re they’re such experts in the space right so we’ve taken a lot of cues by what they’re doing in patch to to help build some templates for the other businesses that are joining um that’s been super helpful and then two qu we’re getting a ton of questions which is
(23:59) awesome I see them Jen Wendy Alex Amy Wendy again Michael I see them all we will get to them I promise um but two questions I want to hit right here the first one is how does the texting work like are they going to think it’s from patch or they going to think it’s from your business um you’ll have dedicated either local or toll-free numbers that you can use for texting through patch so they they’re from you like they’re not from us so you are sending those texts from your business they’re regular phone numbers they’re not like the five-digit
(24:33) short code things those weird ones you see um they’re regular numbers they’re just it’s just like their mom texted them or whatever so those those show up as regular text and they’d be from you you you know you’d say hey it’s from you know business whatever your name is and to be from you so so they won’t think it’s from patch um and then Ashley brought up something really important which is we will never like this is your system right so we’ll help you set it up we’ll help you with like hey these templates and these types of things are
(25:04) working really well in the industry but like we’re never going to send anything like we’re not an agency right so we’ll never send anything for you um you send when you want to send you start the automation you want to start will help you of course but yeah don’t don’t worry about us like going rogue like that we we have no interest in doing that so we won’t do that um all right why do reviews matter I’ve mentioned reviews I just want to highlight this so 93% of consumers use reviews as their first step in choosing where to purchase
(25:42) something where to spend their time particularly when they’re trying to determine where to spend like their their discretionary or Le your income and that’s why getting reviews really matters a lot so we can help you with that they’re looking for things likequantity they’re looking for new reviews so you can’t just say okay we’ve got a 100 reviews we’re done getting reviews for our natural life you can’t do that you have to continue to get new reviews and we can help you with that I think we showed that that one customer in the
(26:10) industry that’s tripled their reviews in 60 days using patch which I think is really important the other thing that we offer and we’re actually seeing a lot of customers do this is we can help you put a little widget on your website that will instantly um pop up when someone enters your website if you want it to and engage with them they put in their information and suddenly they’re texting with you so it it transitions like a traditional web chat into an actual texting back in fourth with you in a onetoone basis and that is really cool
(26:43) and you will see leads increase from your website if you do that um your customers will want to communicate with you in that way more than they’re going to want to call you or fill out a form on your website like that’s how they’ll want to contact you so that is something that that is part of this as well we also offer things like checkins um you can have people check in you can also have people fill out forms I think that’s really important we can help you build forms for your website um and then this is just kind of
(27:16) a highlight of everything that is is coming with platform so email you can send emails to segments to your whole list to anybody you want you can use patch as your email platform you can also use patch as your texting platform so whether it’s onetoone texting or texting like large groups of people we had a couple of early adopters who were signed up in December and they actually sent out um text messages to Big segments of their list um right before Christmas and did holiday specials and saw massive massive increases in membership from doing that
(27:52) um we showed you the journeys the automations that you can do you can build rewards programs you can build Google reviews programs the text Chat thing that that texting widget I just showed you and then also ask for referrals and the the DAT I showed you a little while ago all those things are on on patch and you get as part of this integration which is really cool um okay let’s just go through just exactly what you get with the integration already so you can automatically sync your court Reserve data to patch will help you with things like
(28:30) lead capture and then you can do texting you can do email you can do automations things like hey your membership’s expiring soon your birthday’s coming up um you just had a class you just attended a tournament uh so there’s all sorts of ways you can build camp campaigns using patch um and we’re constantly like we’re working with the team at court Reserve to even get more specific data about like hey we can see that you attended a class we’re working with court Reserve to get the data for which class it was like the actual name of it
(29:04) so then you can even do more specific marketing to that that person if you want to as well um and then like Ashley said at the start it’s super easy to sign up um and and a simple process to engage with us so um with that why don’t we engage with uh some of these real businesses and show you how they’re using it right now and then we can take questions and go through everything that everybody’s asking which is awesome so first uh uh this one’s a pickle ball business that is based in Ohio how are they using this
(29:40) so they put texting on their website they have sent text and email blasts to their members and then they’re using basic automations so some auto replies for messages they’re also doing like hey you’re a new member welcome sort of those campaigns and then on somebody’s birthday they’ve sent a text on birthdays um and with that they produced about $20,000 in Revenue so far that is tied directly to those campaigns so that’s a huge deal for that business as you can imagine another one in Georgia um they are using text and email
(30:16) blasts most commonly and when I say blasts what I mean is basically you can go and say hey I want to send an email to people who um have been members for six months and send an email to everybody at the same time um or I want to send a text to people who have spent money in the last 30 days and send that text to everybody at the same time um they’ve also used texting on their website and then they use patch to actually help build their form and then for automations they’re doing a basic new member automation Journey a
(30:53) welcome Automation and a birthday Automation and they’ve produced about $11,000 in Revenue so far which is really cool so real customers using patch using Court reserve and using this integration are seeing like Real Results which is which is always so fun for us uh to see customers using the product so Ashley I just went there for about 15 minutes uninterrupted so any any uh thoughts you have or anything things Ishould mention there before we dive into Q&A yeah lots of thoughts you know one of the things I’ll just say from my own
(31:21) experience in the beginning when we opened up our club now just because we’re a pickleball club we could have been a padel club or a tennis club or whatever yeah but when you when we opened up our club you know there’s a lot going on and then four months in there’s a lot going on and you may be having to change your business model change your programming change all of this but what I was doing is nights and weekends I was in Facebook and I was in Instagram and for those of you who do your own social media marketing some of
(31:49) you may hire that out some of you may not do it at all some of you may do it you know what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to drive initial interest in your facility whatever that looks like hey come by facility sign up for a free lessons free class beginner whatever but then you know it it takes a lot of time to create the graphics to create everything and I’m talking about just social media in in its how we use it today so if any of you are out there and you’re using this I was spending a lot of my nights and weekends trying to
(32:18) engage people to either come the first time to Old Coast pickle ball or at least come back come join us for this that’s what this automation does for you guys it really does save us time because now I can be focused on well of course Court Reserve but I can be focused on a lot of the other things that I have to do and when you set these automations up they’re going to do it for you once it’s just like a said it and forget it and that’s what it we’re always trying to help you guys manage your day better so you do have work life balance and you
(32:48) know and so again I just that that’s my biggest takeaway from what you said in the last 15 minutes is because I was able to kind of not have to be in the constant pulling of hey let me get some new people in the door or at least now I can get these return people in the door even if they’ve come to Old Coast pickleball one time love that that’s awesome you make such a good point so there’s like two ways you can you can engage with with with uh with patch like and be Hands-On keyboard on this right and and dive in so we have some
(33:19) businesses who are they’re in there every day they’re sending emails they’re sending texts like you can tell they love it and then you have others who are like look I just want to build out like some basic automations one time right right I want to send out a Google review request when somebody shows up I want to send a new I want to build like a a four-step new member welcome campaign I want to build out a birthday campaign and I want to send an automation to anybody who doesn’t show up for six months right and that’s it and I never
(33:53) want to log in again fine like cool that is totally fine both use cases are great so um we love that so let’s do this as let’s go through these questions um and go through as many as we can go through here in the next 20 minutes or so and um and try to answer these as best we can so hopefully we answered some of the early ones on as we went through but we’ll just double check with everybody so um will this be part of Court reserver is this an extra cost we hit that one it is an extra cost patch is a different company so you’ve got to
(34:27) be a patch customer as well so um do and what does that involve basically like we’ll do a demo with you we’ll show you the product we’ll make sure you understand it that you want to do it we’ll make sure that pricing works for your business and um then you sign up um once you’re signed up you have an onboarding call with our team well there where they will help you actually like connect the court reserve and and Patch integration um so hopefully that answers that question Sarah ask will this be available in all regions yeah wherever
(34:56) Court Reserve is uh we’ll be there too um yeah everywhere should just I think I’m in everywhere which is great um let’s see Wendy asked kind of the same question is this part of Court Reserve no it’s separate separate business so it is a additional cost um Alex says will The Client see patch Court Reserve or our club is the one who sent like an email or text your Club completely your Club so imagine white labeled almost right white labeled yeah that’s right so it’s going to be a text from a number that that is associated
(35:32) with your business um it’s going to be an email from a domain that’s associated with your business so like yeah it’s from you you run it that’s all um Tim asks different Tim not your Tim Ashley thanks Ashley McKay we’d love to see some actual Roi metrics um since it’s been deployed at Old Coast good question I I don’t we didn’t go through that before this call but yeah what are you seeing so far in terms of like what’s what benefit is this producing for old Coast specifically Ashley yeah well I can say you know just the couple
(36:08) of things that we’ve set up uh we’vealready done the texting within the platform within our own website I’ve told you we already we’ve seen where we can you know locate which players are driving the most Revenue at our organization and making those kind of ambassadors or coordinators at our club um I can talk to Tim my Tim and ask him if there’s some specific metrics that we can show you guys and if you’re interested in seeing those metrics you guys can send me an email Ashley atcr reserve.com it’s not a problem um I’d
(36:35) love talking to all of our great Partners um and so send us an email can see what we can show you um just so you can see from beginning to end you know and what we’re using uh I I think that’s a great question actually and I wish we would about that today yeah yeah no that’s a great question the thing that’s cool so on the home screen when you log into patch once you’re a customer and you’ve started to send some stuff you actually can see um we call it conversion Revenue so basically it’s like okay for everything that you sent
(37:09) did did it actually produce Revenue and we’ve had some people like ask well how do you track that like what does that mean basically what we do is say look if you interact with a campaign um like if someone let’s say if one of your customers interacts with a text or an email and then they spend money with you in the next seven days we count that as like conversion Revenue that it’s associated with the campaign um is it perfect no but it it’s the best we could come up with to like try to tie it back to some action that they would
(37:40) have taken so good question um let’s see can we link this to our social media campaigns in some way great question currently no so we’ve actually had a couple people ask this recently is like could we link this to like a Facebook post or something could we post on Facebook with patch right now no we don’t we don’t do that it’s texting an email mostly um let’s see Josh asks is there a way for someone to fall off if they give if they’ given a review or would they keep getting the message with every visit oo really good question yeah so if they
(38:14) actually click on the review link you can actually build part of the automation to never have them get that campaign again so by clicking on the review link they would never get like an ask to leave a review again really good question um let’s see you know what I’ve actually logged in to patch for old Coast pickle ball and I’m happy we got real time here love it let’s go okay so but I can’t share my screen oh no you can’t can’t share your screen do you want screen or do you want to just tell us no like I mean sure I
(38:56) can just tell you because you won’t let me sh my screen so um so right now customer activity over the last 30 days um you can it’s a graph almost and what I can do is again if you sharing so you can share so the middle button right there you can share it let um it says you need to make me a presenter oh dear okay well now we’re testing my go to webinar expertise in real explain it yeah explain it see well I’ll just talk through in the last 30 days it shows that we brought in 77 new customers the revenue of that was
(39:39) $1,774 my returning customers is ,3 that revenue is over $22,000 it shows me that I’ve had zero loss customers in the last 30 days it shows me how many total contacts I’ve made in the last 30 days total sales in the last 30 days conversions and recaptured customers and also what our retention um percentage is as well um again it goes through and it talks about how that’s just what we’ve set up but we can ALS and you’re you’re now a presenter actually you should be able to SH now all right so I’m just GNA show
(40:19) this let me go back over here let’s see yes so again just real quickly can you see my screen yes L looks great so so folks look at this December right you can hover over when you see new customers leads opportunities Revenue I could dig in even more I can change this from 30 days to last month last quarter I can go through sales last month last quarter year to date so again this is just a screenshot of what we’ve done at Old Coast pickle ball in just the last 30 days and let’s be clear you know we’re a two-court facility so we are a
(40:59) lot smaller than a lot of your facilities but the decisions that Tim and I can make just using this data right here without even digging in any further is really powerful awesome I love it and here’s the cool part with this if you scroll down a tiny bit on your screen there Ashley and you’re going to see that conversions card um so that conversions card is the one I was talking about where that is the actual Revenue that is that someone that someone spent with old Coast within seven days of interacting with a text or an
(41:33) email and that that’s incredible like think about that that’s a 7day snapshot um now now someone Skeptics Among Us will say like well gosh you would have gotten some of that without this yeah probably absolutely you certainly wouldn’t gotten all of itthat’s the other part right like it’s so it’s it’s really cool to be able to see that data and um and there’s very few systems that provide marketing um tools that actually even try to tie it back to Roi it’s just like hey we send emails and stuff um so we’re trying to to tie it back to Roi which is
(42:08) good um okay cool all right let’s keep going here great great job look at us working on the Fly Ashley man awesome how we here high five for Ashley here um okay um let’s see social [Music] media software system reserve and Patch I’m trying to find here okay we have family memberships um Santos says we have family memberships and children under 18 or list with their email addresses are they excluded from email campaigns yeah so we we can tell the difference between a guardian and a minor within patch that’s really
(42:50) important as you can imagine to not be texting and emailing people under 18 so um yes we are able to tell the difference between them and it won’t allow you to send emails or texts to folks under 18 as a general rule um for texting is it possible to Port over an existing phone number yes it is Joshua really good question question um it is possible to do that generally it’s easier to just get a new number for the texting and here’s the people get like oh my gosh are they going to recognize it’s my number I got
(43:19) news in 2025 no one knows any numbers anyway I think I remember my home phone number from when I was a kid and my wife’s number and that’s I couldn’t tell you my kids numbers on their phones um I just know that it shows up as their phone so like no one knows your number it’s hard to hard to realize but in yes we can not a big deal to do that though frankly um let’s see is there an email builder in patch to so we can build the email campaigns yes there is an email Builder you can do just plain text email if you
(43:54) want you can also do like more sophisticated emails with images and headers and colors and fancy stuff so yes there’s a very simple email Builder within patch really good really good question um let’s see do we charge for text and email in addition to the fees so yeah let me walk through this we’re getting a lot of questions about costs let me just kind of walk you through how we charge so you pay whatever you pay court Reserve that doesn’t change we have nothing to do with that yeah um patch has a subscription
(44:30) cost um and then we charge for each text that is sent beyond that that’s it so unless un you have like an absurd number of contacts which most businesses in this industry don’t like have some crazy number um but we charge for Tex because we have a hard cost with with that we have a hard cost associated with that so we try to recoup that cost um but yeah that’s the additional charge so you you would pay patch and you would pay court Reserve separately it’s not like one bill but yeah Ashley go ahead yeah so Court Reserve is not charging you for
(45:05) this this is part of what you so if you guys just know upfront like we we know that this is something that we have needed over the past couple years we know this is important we don’t charge you for this let me just kind of stand up because I know people are like oh why do I have to pay extra for text if you use text in court reserve it cost it costs you would you would be surprised how much text messaging costs for any business who sends text even if you go to make a resi dinner reservation resi’s paying for a text to send to you so
(45:33) unfortunately texting just part of the what most businesses have to recoup um so I don’t want people to think that oh just nickel and diing me because text cost everybody and that’s why if you’re Court reserve customer we tell you to use push notifications so okay go on no it’s a really good point um so yeah just to reiterate Court Reserve doesn’t charge you any extra for using this integration right not a dime extra right patch we charge a subscription fee by the way that’s discounted because you’re a court
(46:02) reserve customer so if you were just a random business who signed up with us the cost that we would charge you would be about 15% % more than what we’re going to charge you because you’re a court resered customer it also depends on how many locations you have that kind of thing um and then we just charge a per text fee on top of that that is nominal it’s 1.
(46:24) 5 cents per text so that usually is adds up to very little as as people text so um yeah good questions um so Joshua asks in the conversion metrics how do you define engagement in the last s days does this mean clicking on an email or just opening an email I believe it means opening so it’s anything that they actually do so it’s not like did they just get it Joshua it’s a good question it’s like did they open it did they click on it did they do something with it um good question Douglas asks how do we set up patch so um after this call we’ll have a team
(47:01) member reach out to you and see if you want to set up a demo of patch um we’llget you on a call we’ll walk through the platform talk with you about what cost looks like for your business and um see if you’re interested in signing up if you want to sign up we’ll um sign you up and then we’ll schedule an onboarding call where we’ll set up the integration and help you with setting up the first few like emails and automations and stuff like that and uh get you get you squared away so usually it’s like one call to you know to make a
(47:31) decision if you want to buy or not and then um and then you like one additional onboarding call to get the integration set up but we’re available to help beyond that I don’t want to make it sound like we’re not we are one thing I was telling Ashley before the call that’s interesting so when we when we onboard a new customer we try to set them up with like hey here’s some ideas for emails to send and here’s a few like templates for automations to send like a Google review one and a welcome one and what we found was that customers were
(48:02) super excited and then we call them a week later and be like hey you haven’t sent anything and they’ be like oh I haven’t had time to write the copy for the dang email and we’re like oh okay and so what we started to do is actually put a little bit of Copy in there as a baseline for you so you can change it and you don’t have to use it but we just wanted to give you something to like help start the engine a little bit because we know you’re you’re really busy and while he’s looking at the next questions I just want to mention I’m
(48:34) trying to talk McKay and the patch team you know Court Reserve Catalyst are user conferences for all of our admins uh we already have the next two dates Phoenix is in March Austin Texas is in April we’re coming to Seattle we’re going to do the desert and California in June you can go out to court Reserve look for Catalyst I’m trying to talk McKay and some of the patch team to come out with us so you could meet them in person and kind of you know if you’re interested or if you’ve already got it set up they can
(48:59) sit down with you work on this so again like don’t think this is the only time that we’re going to be you know doing things together because we are going to you know try and do things together this year as well so yeah we’ll we’ll be there um whenever whenever Ashley will let us show up we’ll be there and we might just wait outside the hotel if she doesn’t let us show up we’ll just um no we’ll be there and then we we’re going to host like regular webinars too with court Reserve like I think we talked with Tim about doing something like
(49:27) every quarter and then for people who sign up as customers for for patch as well we’re going to start doing like monthly Ashley suggested calling it like office hours where it’s almost like hey come and we’re just going to like train you on how to do something so in addition to the SE customer service we’re going to provide and the onboarding we’ll do some sort of office hours like that so don really good segue she asked the question what kind of customer support do you have beyond the onboarding phase great question so um
(49:56) I’ll two things first is the onboarding phase can be kind of as long as you need it to be like we will work with you until you’re till you understand the product so I’ve been really clear with our onboarding team like hey this isn’t like a two phone call thing and then it’s like see you later we Rite off into the sunset so we will like stay with you until you feel really comfortable and then beyond that once you’re logged into patch there’s a little like texting widget in the bottom left hand corner that um you can
(50:28) just click on and immediately start a texting conversation with us about something in patch that you have a question on you can also so call us at the number on our website or email support patch retention. and we’ll answer any question at any time um and uh try to help so our CS team is is awesome they’re super busy and I’m trying to get them to hire more people but they’re so busy they’re like having a hard time hiring people quickly enough so it’s a good problem but we’re trying to hire more their as well so if you
(50:59) know anybody um let’s see yes someone saying hey Florida’s nice this time of year I don’t know about that I just saw you guys got snow down there so uh I don’t believe you no we did not get St Augustine no snow St Augustine no snow just in Dustin and some other places all right um cool so again I think we’ve hit most of the things um cost like I’ll give you a ballpark but again it differs by the business so like I’d say 300 to 350 a month is where most businesses are going to be plus the texting charge and there
(51:32) is a court Reserve discount associated with that but again there’s some variability so my sales leader who’s probably on the call just like wanted to punch me as I said that but because it is going to be variable but um that’s roughly where you’re going to be and you know sometimes I mean like I’m I’m abusiness person right and you know when you think $300 a month oh my gosh right but how much would you spend in regular marketing or man hours to grab $110,000 or $20,000 extra per month so I know that it seems like a lot but I would
(52:06) definitely recommend you get on with them and help them help you understand where you need help with your automation because you may not want to send out birthday text you may just want to set it and forget it for all your new existing or your lost customers so again you have to look at the return on investment just like you do with court reserve and make a good business decision based on what they show you on your own call with them yeah well and here’s the other part too is like what we found is that most businesses and in in this space are
(52:44) usually paying for like an email marketing company that amount anyway just for email blasts like none of the automation none of the loyalty programs none of the texting they’re just like yeah we’re paying like 400 bucks a month to MailChimp um and they’re just sending like three emils every once in a while it’s like look we can we can help you do a lot more than that and and in a far more automated way plus you get texting and a ton of other stuff so the ROI is really clear and and Powerful so awesome um so what’s the next step um um we’re
(53:19) getting asked a couple of times so yeah book a meeting with patch is probably the next step like we’ll we’ll schedule a demo with you um and sit on the demo see if you like it see if it works for your business and uh then we’ll walk you through what the onboarding looks like and go from there and again the thing I want to stress you will not pay an extra dime from Court reserve for this like Court Reserve will charge you zero extra pennies for having this integration save your pennies for texting that’s right
(53:53) that’s right save your pennies for texting um so yeah you won’t pay anything extra for to court Reserve you will pay patch separately for this um if you guys I know that the patch team is going to be reaching out to those who are on the webinar today but if you are truly interested and you want to go ahead and say Hey I want to book my time with you guys you can come out to court Reserve live chat and say hey Ashley I was on the demo can you hook me up with the patch guys just leave me you know who to contact your email your phone
(54:25) number and then we have an internal way to send that over to the patch team um if you want to go ahead and do that before McKay’s team reaches out to you guys so yeah great um Britney asked a good question here to close there’s so many good questions here guys I’m sorry we’re trying to get through as many as we can um Britney says is this built mostly for fitness centers country club sports facilities it’s a really good question so that’s where we’re actually seeing the most um like obvious use case right now it’s interesting when you
(54:53) build a product sometimes you don’t know like who’s going to use it and what they’re going to use it for um but yes we’re seeing a we’re having 40 to 50 new pickle ball and fitness center country club sports facility type businesses add patch every single month right now so it’s like very clearly working for businesses like yours and with this integration in place man it’s pretty powerful stuff so that’s pretty cool um and then JY says can you email a monthly newsletter we don’t email it for you to be super clear but yes you can set up an
(55:26) email for a monthly newsletter in the system so yeah cool Ashley any final thoughts final words final bits of wisdom before we close here no I just hope that you guys know Tim and I are always you know doing our best um to find or build the things that we know you guys need to run your business and be more effective efficient time management um and this is one of them and so I hope that you’ll um take a good look at it and see if it’s the right Avenue for your business and um yeah send me an email if you want to
(56:02) know more love that thank you so much guys we’ll have people reach out so if you get a call from somebody from patch like that’s that’s what they’re trying to do is just follow up from this webinar we’ll make the recording available as well and uh yeah we’ll we’ll try to do we’ll do this again in a couple of months and uh answer questions and share a lot more customer success thanks so much to Ashley and to the court Reserve team for like working with us on the integration for this webinar and uh like these things are fun fun when you get a
(56:34) really good partner and Court Reserve is that so thanks to court Reserve thank you all for taking time we know you’re busy so have a fantastic day a great week and survive the snow down there in Florida my word like the winter wonderland all right thanks guys see you

(00:08) everybody will start coming in hello [Music] everyone we’ll just give everybody a minute to hop on [Music] hello everyone my name is Ashley Owens I’m with court reserve and we are so excited today to talk with Michelle all about cardio tennis welcome Michelle hello everybody thanks for being on well before we get started uh just wanted to do some housekeeping uh for those of you who use Court Reserve uh we are having uh user conferences uh we’re taking it around the country coming closer to you do not miss out on a day spent with us
(01:04) we’re going to talk about all of the new things in court Reserve how to supercharge what you’re using bring your front desk person your general manager whoever um the first two that we’re registering for Phoenix March 10th Austin Texas April 16th uh you can go out to court reserve and find the Catalyst registration links it’s one day what what do you got to lose and you know maybe we’ll play cardio tennis after that I don’t know maybe or triples little triples that’s right so also this is going to be recorded it’s going to be
(01:36) on the court Reserve YouTube channel and then Michelle’s gonna have it as well so well let’s go ahead and get started Michelle tell us about you how’d you get started in tennis yeah so I think like most of us as a very young person but also not like most of us I did not I was not doing tennis at a high level like I was not one of those I was not the one of those high performance Junior players um I did not play college ball um I went to Arizona State which yeah there is no way um that I could have done that and
(02:11) that’s fine and I think in some ways I I take that as it worked out for me because I feel like a lot of our um female tennis players they play college ball and then they get so burn out and they leave the industry so I just reflect on it like that it worked out it worked out for me and that so I’ve been teaching since I was on and off since 18 did not intend it to be a career it became the career um so I worked at clubs in different countries in on the west coast I built a tennis and fitness facility in Puna
(02:49) Florida and then um Hurricane Charlie hit in 2004 and my house was condemned and the whole town was leveled and at that time I was not fun and I thought I’m leaving the tennis industry and then there was an uh advertisement uh looking for cardio tennis manager USA and I saw the job description and I said wow this is like this is me like my picture should be here and I um submitted my resume and they picked me and here we are 20 years later wow that’s an incredible story like lemons into the lemonade there yeah yeah and
(03:37) and it is this is the 20 year anniversary of cardio tennis so it was launched at the US Open in 2005 so we’re very excited that’s a big anniversary 20 years wow that’s incredible so um you you were a part of building the first cardio tennis programs then yeah so um it initially cardio tennis was under the banner of the tennis industry Association and uh Jim B who was the president of the Tia and a US board member at that time and Jolene deor she was the executive director they came up with the concept Etc and then they hired
(04:16) me and you know here we are here we are today all right so tell us exactly because I’m an adult tennis player right I go and I play tennis at my club and I personally love cardio tennis but but my cardio tennis probably looks a little different than what your cardio tennis looks like so tell us the vision and what cardio tennis is supposed to be yeah thank you for that so I I think if we put it into perspective of what is somebody seeing what is the visual okay when somebody comes across a cardio tennis court okay and it
(04:55) should look very it should look and sound and feel from an energy standpoint ex opposite polar end of what traditional tennis um historically is so what I mean by that is if you were coming up on a proper great cardio tennis court okay one you’re going to hear the music and the music is very uh high beats for per minute it’s dance it’s electronic um you should feel like you are in a nightclub all right that’s why we say cardio tennis is a party on the court so you’re hear you should be hearing that so that that’s starting the
(05:38) vibe that’s creating part of the energy the court is going to look different okay you’re going to see an agility ladder you’re going to see flat markers you’re going to see red and orange cardio balls okay so visually it should look different there is specific equipment um you’re going to see a a group of of six to eight athletes who are in constant motion and having continuous touches on the ball and they’re doing cardio blasts and they’re just smiling and they’re laughing and they’re feeling empowered so that’s
(06:17) cardio tennis wow so this sounds like they have to be like really good tennis players like what’s our athletic ability when it comes to like a cardio tennis class so that’s one of the beauties of cardio tennis and and I’ll backtrack andremind everybody that it is group fitness so it’s not a tennis CL class unfortunately it’s being delivered as a tennis class and not group fitness so one of the greatest benefits of cardot tennis is its inclusivity okay we are all about that so it doesn’t matter what your tennis or
(06:52) Fitness level is and let me say that Fitness level is equal to or more important than tennis skill and our coaches need to recognize that okay because when you use the tools the standards which is the red and the orange cardio balls we also have the two bounce rule which we can discuss those are all the great equalizers okay so we want to be welcoming to everybody because that’s the only way we’re going to grow our sport I love that so from what I’m hearing so there is a a class maybe that we can learn as instructors or we could
(07:35) if we’re a club we can send our instructors or or teach have them taught how to do a cardio class talk more about how that works yeah so I will say I’m pretty proud of our education over a 20y year time span as you can imagine um our education um has grown morph gotten better every single day changed has gone through many different phases um of course I’m biased but I would say that our education is some of the very best tennis education out there and and because what it’s teaching somebody even if they never do cardio tennis okay it’s
(08:14) teaching an instructor how to better manage groups how to do modifications okay how to keep things exciting how to um coach better from a you know queuing standpoint and not just constantly talking talking talking those sorts of things so um one of the things that we’re very proud of um is we did have um we have a product uh we don’t promote it as much but it was um we partnered with TRX suspension training and we worked very closely with them for many years and so this amazing product of a combination of TRX suspension
(08:57) trainers on the tennis court uh with the cardio tennis and I think what is resonates most there is that course that eight hour course was on the TRX professional development page okay meaning tennis has never never been included in the fitness world and you know I I cannot um give that enough credit for how like critical that is and and we always say that tennis is Fitness so there’s TRX cardio tennis um our current live courses um right now they are five hours we pack a lot into five hours um like anything it’s a it’s
(09:42) a taste it’s a snippet okay like getting good at Cardio tennis just like anything you would have to you have to practice so you know you’re not with us for five hours and we’re May waving a magic wand you know go do c no don’t go do it tomorrow because you’re having to put together a lot of stuff like 8 to 10 unique activities okay is the foundation of a proper cardio tennis workout um we have a course coming up in Chicago um we have a course coming up in Las Vegas uh we’re always adding um to the uh the course schedule and you can
(10:22) find all of our information at Cardio tennis instructor okay well we’ll make sure and Link that in the YouTube video as well so so talk about like when why coaches should consider learning cardio tennis like what is what have you seen that do to like retention at a club or even introducing players to tennis in the beginning I mean like what has that done and why should coaches you know be interested in cardio tennis well I would say number one reason money oh that’d be my number one reason if you as a tennis teaching
(11:03) professional want to make more money then cardio tennis is your answer right so um there have been uh there are coaches in the US that have said you know Michelle because of cardio tennis I put my kids through college okay that’s a huge that’s a huge statement okay um we have coaches in the states that that’s kind of all they do like they don’t have to do anything else because their cardio tennis programming is so strong and maybe they’re doing they might be doing 15 hours a week of card tennis programming so they’re not having
(11:47) to do um a lot of extra maybe privates or or group things because they’re making a really good amount of money we’re not going to make a lot of money putting one person on a court it’s just it’s just it’s it it doesn’t make sense for anyone it doesn’t make sense for the tennis coach and it doesn’t make sense for whoever owns that facility okay this is why tennis courts get taken away because we are not generating Revenue per square foot all right so you need cardio tennis so that you’re putting at least eight people on
(12:23) a court at a time and I would go so far to say and especially if you’re indoors okay there should be no private lessons Okay minimally you should be putting four people on a tennis court every single hour how else are we going to survive as an industry wow what is the go and like how long is a normal cardio tennis class and what have you seen rates for that class for students yeah so it’s one hour and I’m going to be very clear that it’s a60 Minute it’s not 90 minutes and there are 90minut C C things out there okay so
(12:55) what happens at 90 minutes is it’s not cardio tennis anymore because cardio tennis is high-intensity tennis training high-intensity interval training okay most hit classes hit Fitness classes in 2025 are 45 to 50 minutes so if you’re doing cardio tennis for 90 minutes one of two things is happening you’re either overworking the athlete okay and or you are underw working them and okay and I would air on it’s mostly being under worked so 60 Minutes um prices across the country uh the average in the US is about
(13:43) 2223 per person okay so you’re going to see it maybe at the low end at $15 per person um I have literally seen it as high as60 to70 per person wow those courts are special they’re special um I will tell you that those are those higher prices you’re you know we’re talking in some markets in Northeast cold climates resort resort um and I would say that some of those especially the resort the quality of the cardio is very very poor yeah so um I think you know you’re going to find most people in that 20 to $30 range per person yeah so just
(14:36) multiply that by eight yeah wow have you seen it with like Juniors or is this mostly an adult Fitness class it it’s it’s earmarked for adults I mean we say that um basically the age it’s 12 years old and up okay so so 12 and up can do c it’s great for high schoolers all right so I mean all high schoolers should be doing cardio tennis right I mean what is cardio tennis it’s friends it’s social there’s music there’s games there’s technology if you’re using heart rate monitors I mean that is what that age bracket that is what they’re all about
(15:18) um so yeah so we try to be at a lot of the High School coaches conferences Etc and know try to you know educate them and and you know help them to understand um but yeah it’s it’s an adult program because our adults are neglect it okay it’s getting a bit better but if you look back um adult tennis players I feel have been neglected and there’s not enough offerings for them um and we need to do better well it’s like I told you earlier so I mean I work full-time right and so I have limited time to actually go and
(15:56) play tennis and there’s nothing like knowing that I can go to my local club and play for an hour and get all my workout in because I don’t have two and a half hours to go play a social match during the day or first thing in the morning and so I love the fact that the class is compacted and I can get all those calories out within 60 minutes right and when it was when it was born back in 2004 2005 one of the main key factors was because again this was not just made up all right everything is very purposeful okay and when it was
(16:31) created at the time uh the Tia Jim and jolen they looked at they looked at data okay and and Jim was like you know how Fitness activities are kicking the butt of traditional Sports again I’m going back to 20405 how can tennis compete with that and that’s how cardio tennis was born so part of that whole scenario was Americas are Americans are time well we’re all time crunched we’re time crunched okay you and I work really everybody works really hard we got 60 Minutes or Less right we got to get it into that and has
(17:13) to be effective yeah right yeah and fun I wna have fun oh my goodness for sure so we’re uh we’ve got a couple questions coming in and we will answer your questions um I want to talk about a few more things before we get to those questions so I know that in a couple weeks at my club we are doing a fundraiser and we’re using something called triples can you talk about triples because we did a little Showcase of it at the club the other night and I had a blast yeah so those who know me they will know that I will say that triples
(17:46) is the greatest game in the whole world okay so it’s a signature cardio tennis game um it kind of like um represents everything that cardot tennis is all about um so on cardot tennis instructor. comom we have uh free online education uh there is a course on how to run a triples event and we come back to making money so charity events making money for your own personal at your Club Etc um and we do call it cardot tennis triples because it’s pretty specific how it’s played um it also works on the pickle ball court okay okay it it also
(18:30) works on the padel court okay but but the only difference with padel because how we position triples is again inclusivity okay so we could take a complete novice tennis person get them onto the triples court and within 10 minutes they’re doing just fine now what why are they doing just fine okay because you look at pickle ball and again we have a um it’s an easy it’s easy to get started with okay in triples because we put three athletes on the court we’ve now Shrunk the size of the playing field so that makes it easier okay we use the orange
(19:16) cardio ball that makes it easier we use the two bounce rule that makes it easier all right right so it’s very very uminclusive um and there are we do a self feed so it’s just an underhand an underhand put the ball across the net it can go anywhere in the court and it’s fast and furious with tons of tons of touches on the ball so I live in Sarasota Florida I always say triples is cultish here um everybody does it uh we’ve always said like we my vision is that and it does happen here in Sarasota my vision is that athletes will
(19:55) they will go out and play triples on their own like just like they do doubles now granted I know it’s harder to find it’s hard enough to find four people let alone six but it can it can be done um and you know the the amount of you know fundraising charity events that can be done with this a lot of the high school teams they need to do fundraising uh we do big one here in Wellington Florida it’s for dog rescue um I think 15 to 19 courts of of triples going um making just a lot of a lot of money so it’s um everybody should play triples I can’t oh
(20:34) backtrack to pedel so the difference with padel is that padell you actually have to be a good padel player and here’s why because again it’s a it’s a smaller Court you’ve got you’re putting three people it’s too dangerous okay so so triples and padel you have to have athletes that actually know how to play padel fairly well because beginners it will not be yeah it’s I mean because everybody’s getting hit in triples anyway under normal circumstances um so yeah we just Safety First safy orange Ball please I say this over and
(21:23) over again please never use the yellow ball in triples no matter how no matter how good no matter how good your athletes are okay because it’s about the workouts right right it’s not it’s not it’s not tennis it’s Fitness all right and I’ve you know I’ve had D1 Ballers X Tour players on the triples Court using the orange ball big huge forehand guy gets hit right here next orange ball next day massive black and blue Mark orange ball not even the yellow ball wow not even yellow ball so please don’t please please out there remove Universe tennis
(22:09) Universe do not use yellow ball for triples thank you goggles and orange balls please yeah yeah yep all right so let’s get a couple of our questions uh let’s see the first one Michelle I know you talked about cardio tennis being an equalizer regarding various levels on a court but what’s your thoughts on students who want to form their own groups specific to their level great question I love that I love that and you should be doing that so first it’s always about you’re offering both okay so if you’re starting cardio if you’ve
(22:43) never done any cardio program at your Club you need to start with the inclusivity in all levels okay um because you have to grow your program and again that’s kind of the whole purpose and you should always always have that I would position it more as um private cardio tennis okay so let’s say that you have a men’s 4.
(23:04) 0 team and remember cardio tennis is how we train for tennis okay that is like its biggest purpose all right so telling somebody to go out and J dog one mile five miles in a straight line that is not helping their tennis play okay riding your bike is not helping your tennis play training cardio tennis is the very best way to train for tennis competition right so then what you do is you say Okay so this men’s 4.
(23:44) 0 team this is going to be your Fitness and conditioning part of your week this is your time slot whatever it’s only these people and you’re going to charge a little more because it’s private okay now let me add on to that I I do not recommend in general having skill based like publicly skill-based cardio tennis classes because as soon as you do that we’re not being inclusive okay and if you’re doing cardio tennis correctly with using the orange ball and the two bounce rule level doesn’t matter very good I hope I hope that
(24:31) answers yeah that was good um another question can we use green dot balls for other games and drills yeah um so green is better than yellow okay but it’s still too hard and too fast all right so one of the best B and believe me the green Ball’s my favorite ball that’s what I that’s what I personally train with all right but for cardio tennis again a lot of our games are three people on the court okay and safety is our number one priority so if you if one steps on an orange ball the chances of someone turning their
(25:09) ankle are slim to none okay that probability goes up higher with green highest with yellow of course again you get hit with the green ball in your eye it’s not that far off from yellow yeah the orange ball does not come to you does not come to the athlete the athlete has to go to the ball this is a fitness class okay so just with that ball and that movement you’re training First Step quickness you’re training the ability to get better at digging out low balls so remember everything has a purpose so I would say if you need to use it use
(25:52) it it’s better than yellow okay but the standard is the orange ball okay verygood um we have something uh let’s see Bill riddle is asking is it true that Michelle is known as the cardio Queen of the world he’s asking for a friend so hello Bill hello Bill we love you all right uh tell us about National hit to be fit day yay my favorite thing all right so last year was our first inaugural event um and it was I feel it was um we had a lot of really BigTime goals um we’ve got really close to our goals but but here’s how that all came
(26:33) together um this is a day one day so so we know that well a lot of people don’t know may is national tennis month so it’s surprising I can go around the country and many people don’t know that may is national tennis month so it’s a celebration of tennis um so one day is about the industry as a whole coming together to Showcase and celebrate the health and wellness benefits of tennis and the inclusivity um all on one day we’re on one day we’re all essentially doing the same thing um which the format for this day this event is there’s an adult red
(27:22) ball piece okay and then there’s cardio tennis triples so what better way to Showcase inclusivity right like anybody you’ve never played tennis you can do hit to be fit day um again cardio tennis nothing really um exemplifies the health and wellness benefits of our sport of our great sport um than that so you’re putting those two things together it can be a 90 minute to 2hour event um we’ll have some incentives um those those aren’t quite set in place yet but we’ll have incentives for those that um you know want to be involved in participate
(28:05) on that day we will have a registration um so there’s going to be each year our national tennis month keeps getting bigger and bigger so our Flagship uh location is Lake Nona and um our goal we had 110 athletes last year at Lake Nona our goal this year will be 1160 so that should be about 20 courts and then um our goal for providers across the country will be 300 locations um doing the event that day last year we’ve got 200 so um I think we should pretty easily get 300 this year well we’ve got uh over a hundred registered for this so
(28:50) we’ll just start emailing them about getting them on the that’s 100 more right there so that’s 100 more and it doesn’t and and again I want everybody to look at this like you can make money on this okay we’re not asking you to offer this for free all right so like you should be you know you should be charging you know charge what or you can do it for free too but free remember free people get they’re not as committed all right um but you know be on the lookout for you know myself and Ashley cardot tennis instructor. comom when you
(29:22) know we have some of those other pieces in place that’s exciting um so we’re starting to get a couple pickle ball questions uh and how that relates to cardio tennis so I guess right off the bat pickle ball and cardio pickle ball tell us a little bit about what you know how is that going to work yeah so I appreciate all those questions and I get um for many years uh that question comes up a lot um I want to be clear I think there’s people out there that think I’m anti- pickle ball and I am not okay I mean I am happy for anybody doing
(29:55) something that they’re not lying on a couch um and they’re getting out and exercising um I I you know I don’t appreciate them taking our courts all right but I think that’s I think that’s fair um so yeah there’s a so can I do cardio pickle ball I guess I’ll say just because one can do something does not mean that they should do something right and this goes back to what what are what are the origins of cardot tennis there was a big need for that all right because again we’re putting two people four people on a
(30:37) court they’re not we know the tennis at at a little more skill level is the most amazing workout but that was not happening for the majority the beauty of pickle ball okay the beauty of it and why people like it so much because it’s just great in its own form okay so you are getting a lot of touches on the ball you are getting a workout I’m not saying it’s as good of a workout as cardio tennis okay but you’re but there is a decent workout happening there and I’ve seen so so if you are going to do cardio pickle that’s obviously your choice but
(31:13) you I think you have to understand cardio tennis first and we do get pickle ball coaches that come to our training okay all right so because a lot of the cardio pickle that I see out there online video sadness like what what is cardio about it okay just because you’re playing some music so what what I’m seeing with cardio pickle is okay now you’re trying to put six or I don’t know eight people on a in a very small space and nobody’s moving oh okay yeah so that you lost the fitness part of it so so if you want you know again
(31:55) anybody can do anything they want um and so I but I just would recommend if if you if you want to do cardio pickle then I would get I would understand cardio tennis first and all the pieces okay that because cardio tennisit’s a format it it purposeful okay there are time hacks just like any great group fitness brand all right there’s another question like a followup to that how would you adapt triples to pickle ball so there’s really not I mean I’ve done it with eight people on the court I’m actually going to be at fiser Island Miami um
(32:38) this weekend and we’ll be doing triples both on the tennis court and the pickle ball court um you know just again safety’s always first so if you’re going to choose to use the pickle ball okay which is pretty normal um you know just caution your athletes to not try to intentionally hit one another um it it work you’re not going to use the two bounce rule okay because we’re already in a very tiny tiny space um you could use the red ball um but I think for most people you know they want to stick with the um the tra the standard pickle ball
(33:12) which is fine and there’s really not there’s really not any add but also understand triples so please go watch the course online okay so that you know all the ins and outs of it all right we got like several more questions in here great um do you notice a resistance from some of your better adult players about having to use orange or red balls so I think we get caught up on that okay and um number one I’m never bringing attention to those balls it’s just like here it is all right so let’s talk about the better player and and I
(33:46) find that it’s not really usually the better player the better players get it so 40 and above is get it it’s the middle section that really doesn’t get it okay so one we’re there for a workout like you you just have to keep repeating that if you want to play tennis and do traditional tennis then go play singles or go play doubles okay it is it is a workout so for the advanced player um they can still the beauty of that orange ball is that they can still hit that orange ball at their Mach 1000 okay or whatever their speed is and the
(34:29) beauty is that the whoever’s across the net from them they still have a chance so it’s not hindering their workout at all all right and then people will say well Michelle two bounce rule well I’m so good I don’t need that okay right um we’re all so good um benefits for the two bounce rule for the advanced athletes is one now their brain has been trained their whole life one bounce so now they have this other option so that is that is a that is mess with all the synapsis in the brain and you’re having to like it’s
(35:18) scrambling and you’re having to like readjust and you’re having to readjust your space your positioning and your timing to the ball so that essentially is making one of better athletes okay number two with the two bounce rule um the angles that are created by that better athlete are completely insane okay and the balls are now staying in play like nobody came to hit and rotate okay we came to touch we came to touch the ball so um I I think as coaches um that’s why we’re the coaches that’s why we’re the certified tennis
(35:56) teaching professionals um because we have been educated on what is best for our athletes so it’s there’s empowerment there’s um you know there’s again it doesn’t matter total beginner Advanced athlete there are benefits um of that advanced athlete hitting with an orange or a green ball it’s a training it’s a training tool okay oh Ashley I’m gonna I’m gonna say my I’m gonna say my statement that we talked about before we got call okay so um the true sign of a great tennis player SL racket sports athlete is that they are are good at
(36:40) hitting all four balls so red orange green yellow I’ll throw the pickle ball in there too okay so they can hit all of those balls well and they can do it on any quartz size that’s the sign of greatness in a racket Sports athletes oh I love that that’s good stuff um another well this is a great follow-up question what adjustments would you make to do this on a clay Court none none so that’s how we have the two bounce rule I mean we’re in I’m in Florida you know Florida’s all clay but yeah I would make no no adjustment
(37:30) and you use the two bounce rule for all the games during card so two bounce rule um is obviously it’s more specific to games um you you can do it in the drills like here’s the thing where on my court if they need three bounces take three bounces like if you need 20 bounces take 20 bounces I I want to empower that athlete all right so obviously in Florida we have a lot of senior athletes okay um or you have beginner you know you have new people it’s terrible for them to not get to the ball or miss the ball like they they
(38:08) then they’re going to feel they’re going to lack in confidence they’re not going to come back okay now what you know we do doovers okay so if you miss if you miss the first ball in the game it’s a doover because why would you want to miss and have to rotate there is this is not tennis everybody this is Fitness make it make it accessible that’s all right give them all the bandwidth right to get that ball backover the net I love that um here’s a question how do you manage the noise coming from the cardio tennis court
(38:42) sometimes people complain on the other courts about too much noise many times it’s group lessons that run you know are running on other courts that’s a good question sure sure so that’s been a question since the dawn of time um pickle ball has that question as well too um so number one um with your cardio programming and I think this is where Court Reserve could is probably helpful yes um it should be like if somebody is booking a court next to the cardio tennis court they should know that they’re booking next to the cardio
(39:20) tennis court so that they have that option of choosing not to book that court so that is so can Court Reserve help there Ashley yes absolutely yeah and I also think too you know cardio tennis could also be on specific teaching courts that you have all your classes on not just for card tennis as well and so there’s a lot of scheduling um recommendations that we can do for that as well okay so I think that’s the beauty of Court Reserve also do not put cardio tennis on the back 40 it needs to be front and center
(39:58) do you want to create excitement on in at your Club do you wanna I think the greatest thing is you have tennis and fitness and the fitness building is like next to the tennis court and there’s windows and they’re on you know bikes and treadmills they should be looking out at the cardio tennis court seeing all that action and activity um so you got to put it front in Center so again knowing um okay you know if you’re booking this court for your doubles cardio tennis will be next to you the noise okay it’s not the music
(40:30) and if you’re you know don’t be playing your music too loud and I think that’s a mistake that a lot of coaches are doing okay you know the music should be at a nice level the noise is coming from me is the instructor it’s coming from the athletes on my court because we’re yelling and whooping it up and laughing and you know that sort of thing so if if if if music’s your issue um think about what level you’re playing the music at I mean we’re we’re we’re kind of gonna drown out the music the flip side to that is you’ve got you know permanent
(41:02) Court time whatever where you have people that have that court and the one day that you don’t have the cardio class they’re disappointed because they love the music music okay like music is rhythmic it just it kind of breaks my heart Ashley that we’re in 2025 and we are still having music issues on the court okay again pickleball look at pickle ball uh they’re playing a lot of music a lot of the time right and here we are tennis oh we’re not going to play any music so we have a lot of facilities out there that
(41:39) do get it they’re playing music all day long at their facilities okay maybe not during league matches but that music is pumping throughout the M the facility the majority of the day so I hope that helps yeah how often do you have to get new balls uh I’m a I I’m probably the worst person to ask for that because like I will use a ball until you know it’s disintegrated more or less um so I’m probably not the best maybe Bill riddle wants to if he’s still on the call maybe he wants to chime in there on that um you know it just depends on if you’re in
(42:24) clay hard how much you know how much usage you’re getting I mean I think you you kind of know when your orange ball has uh exceeded its lifetime its life limit but but let’s talk about balls here for a second again a myth okay you do not need a gazillion balls okay what you need for cardio is a travel cart okay not the big old huge metal clunky carts okay and in that travel cart 60 70 balls that’s all you need okay because it’s a games based product we do so many partner activities in the warm-up and cool down drill is 10
(43:00) minutes 10 minutes that is it okay so there’s very little ball pickup so don’t I I I still see I can go to some clubs and I’ll see them bring out two ginormous metal carts all full of yellow balls and that’s their cardio tennis and it’s all drill based and the court is just covered in yellow balls not safe not fun not cardio tennis wow look I’m getting all on my bouncy ball here okay I love it uh that’s it let’s see um in Australia they had cardio classic for intermediate players and cardio play for more advanced players cardio play
(43:42) appealed to more men and cardio classic appealed to more women and created a split you recommend not following this model question mark correct um I’m going to put all people on the court together why are we separating men and women um orange ball all levels it’s just orange ball all levels okay again have people form their own private cardio tennis class but make it private okay like don’t now again I’ll give you an example um a lot of reasons why this is happening or why this happens is because one there’s no
(44:26) education the the deliverer has not taken education and it’s being made up if you follow if you do the education ifyou follow the format these things become just a non they become a non issue um so yeah so I would say um the majority out there is is not following the the people that are making money the people that are sending their kids to college on cardio tennis they’re following the format well you got kids who want to go to school follow cardio tennis format uh it’s it’s arguably you can say that midtone Chicago in is is the most
(45:08) successful cardio tennis programming from a financial standpoint okay they ballpark they make half a million dollars a year on cardio tennis programming okay half a million like wow okay like like even if you made 30,000 more like that’s huge right but they that’s they generically make about a half a million um so they probably have on average 25 hours of cardio programming on a weekly basis okay now they are a facility that does um they do segment VI ability level okay but the reason they they’re an anomaly okay
(45:45) because if you’re not in a program you’re not getting on a court essentially because they’re that busy right so so you can say that’s great okay we’re not all it is a unique it is a unique scenario essentially just it’s Chicago it’s a ginormous city there’s only so many courts Etc um but that just shows you the revenue making potential wow I’m about in I’m about inclusivity on the ten and that’s again I’m gonna go back to pickle ball everybody that’s why people love it because they’re all playing together that’s right yeah right so we you know
(46:29) we we we need to learn some things from pickle ball that’s all all right just a few more questions here um I guess the orange ball for cardio tennis they could just get from their regular um company that they buy their other tennis balls from correct yeah so right so the the the manufacturers like your Wilson your babot your head onc court offc court uh I think you can get orange balls on Amazon um yeah but again don’t go crazy you only need like 60 or 70 and red ball you need maybe three three dozen red balls okay uh let’s see what are some
(47:04) great ideas we as tennis coaches should steal from our group exercise colleagues to make cardio tennis even more exciting so I think number one if uh if you tennis teaching professional and you have never been to any group fitness class you need to go okay so every time I do live education I will ask the group who here has done group fitness okay and that is a spin class that can be a boot camp a hit an orange theory an f45 I mean the list is endless right as if I have a group how many people do you think raise their hands not many very
(47:43) few okay so if you’re going to deliver cardio tennis you need to go to some type of group fitness class okay to understand what the vibe okay and what you should be modeling okay as a coach all right so so group fitness instructors actually make amazing cardio tennis instructors okay because guess what they don’t need to do technical stuff okay we can teach them how to feed the ball very easily because they don’t have bad habits right so and if need be they can throw the ball into play all right but they understand group management they have
(48:27) that energy that Mo those motivating factors so um you know if you do a spin class or you do orange theory pay attention to the instructor they are rock stars all right and that’s what we that’s what we so if you’re take any thing away from group fitness you’ve got to take group management skills modification uh and progressions and be a rock star wow that’s great um let’s see do you have people who pay for several classes in advance or do they pay per session great question and I think this is where Court Reserve can help us out
(49:01) as well too um so I I I think it depends on your Market [Music] um again it depends on your facil your your facility and your unique your unique circumstances so there’s going to be many facilities that it’s like okay this is a six- week cardio tennis session all right and I know that in court Reserve that can be done very easily right ashle or or you can do it as a you however oneoff okay well we you know we have cardio on Saturdays and you you sign up as a as a one-off scenario so I think or you can do a combination
(49:37) of both okay maybe you have and again limit it to eight people um I know Court Reserve has weightless capabilities right um so maybe you actually I’m not sure if this will work you’ll help me help me out here but maybe six spots are okay they’ve paid Upfront for whatever four weeks of classes they get a discount and then two spots are open for what we would refer to as drop in and they can drop in but they’re going to pay a slightly higher price absolutely yeah or even sell them a package of it right sell them P cardio to Fitness for
(50:16) the price of nine or something so there’s a lot of different ways that there’s right there’s a lot of different ways and I think Court Reserve can really help everybody with that yeah absolutely all right a couple more questions uh Tariq Francis uh he’s gonnaanswer Bill’s question from Belgium and France point of view the answer is you are the queen of cardio so just so everybody know just just so every every body knows we’re happy tck is on the line and he is one of our Global cardio tennis trainers so he manages um cardio tennis for us in
(50:47) Belgium and some of the French speaking countries I feel like we should take this webinar over there just for the next time right in in person that’s right all right so um we have someone who joined late resources for learning to run a cardio tennis session online videos um so you can tell them a little bit more about how to reach you and how to get educated on cardio tennis one more time right so cardot tennis instructor.
(51:14) comom and what you’ll find here I mean this is your resource okay so you’re there’s free online education when you do the online education when and you complete it you get um a certificate and that certificate can be submitted to rspa PTR um Global organizations for your continued education credits we know it’s very difficult for people to come to a live course it’s not always that convenient um but if you do our online education uh you’re going to be off to a great start um resources also there you will find um in the getting started course module
(51:51) number 10 you’re going to find all the activity diagrams uh a signature lesson plan um and some other things so that’s your go-to we also have a YouTube channel um I would if you’re Googling and youtubing and all that please just go to our our site because everything else out there is not authorized and not card mostly mostly not cardio tennis um and then uh we can put my email up there if needed which is um michelle.
(52:27) krowy that’s long sorry michelle. krowy contractor. us St ta.com that’s a long one for sure yeah you can you can text texting is good 941 I’m fine with my phone number 941-4766 okay and if you have further questions or need her information reach out to court Reserve live chat and we’ll get you uh the information uh for sure all right um oh we have a uh a five star review for you Michelle uh the online education is amazing Jennifer said but if you can swing live session with Michelle it’s completely worth it and I would agree so yeah Michelle any final
(53:12) thoughts you want to tell our audience today um well one thanks for everybody for spending some time with us I mean we know how Val valuable your time is um I would just you know cardio tennis um it’s part of our cult it’s part of our tennis culture right so when we you know started this 20 years ago it’s like oh this will be good you know and this will be popular in the United States and now pretty much everybody all over the world um does it so we really didn’t realize what type of reach it would have but um
(53:47) you we want to continue to attract new players to our sport um we want to retain um our tennis players and we also want our coaches to be able to make a really great living and be very successful so if you can put together you know good cardio tennis programming triples um a lot of our facilities do a big triples event once a month um you know you you will be you will be in good shape financially and so will so will your facility that’s awesome um I am going to a couple people have asked for your email so I’m gonna grab it really quick
(54:29) and I’m G to put it in the chat so everyone can have it and if you want to say your phone number one more time um and again I’m happy to receive text messages um 94145 77880 okay everyone has your email and phone number thank you so much for sharing the love thank you for being a teacher of teachers and mentoring us we all remember who our teachers and coaches are and the difference they make and so we know you’re making a difference in our world so thank you again so much for today thank you so much fun really appreciate it see you
(55:14) everyone thanks again bye have a great day