Part 2 - What makes a successful Tennis Academy? Where do you want to be?

Last month we looked at: - What makes a successful Tennis Academy? Part 1 – what do you want?

To recap my May ’20 blog – https:// www.topspinsa.com/post/

“So, what does a successful coach look like? It all depends on how you look at life and what you value. Words like “a great coach,” a much-loved coach,” or “a happy coach” comes to mind. What is your definition of the above? And how would you measure if you have achieved it?

If you choose to be “a happy coach,” you could end up a “much-loved coach” with multiple students, making you a successful coach. Or you could be called “a great coach” due to your technical abilities, but without being loved by your players, which could or could not make you happy – although outwardly successful… So, ultimately, I believe that your definition of what kind of Tennis Coach you want to be will significantly influence your vision and strategy for your Tennis Academy.

Remember your academy remains a business, and all companies need to be managed effectively with a vision, mission, strategy, and action plan to achieve your goals.”

It is essential to decide what you want and follow this as a guideline for your academy! As I have said before, the way you look at life and what you want out of life gives you gives. What is your purpose goal?

So, Purpose is about defining who you want to be, what difference you can make, and what your Tennis academy stands for. The next step is to put your ideas onto paper simply. By clearly defining your Vision, Mission, Strategy, and Action plan, you will help your team understand:

Not only will this help to motivate your team, but it will also enable them to make decisions independently.

Purpose, mission, and vision statements have some grey areas, and everyone has their ideas about what it means. The way to success is to not merely “have” a written Mission and Vision statement, but actually to believe in it and “be” it – thus to have the will to execute what you believe in! If you don’t believe in what you have construed, don’t even waste your time on it because it will not work if you don’t consistently follow it yourself. I love the following as a simple guideline for a very confusing topic:

This is probably the most logical and practical summary on one page - Reference - https://www.aespire.com/.

Remember the saying “be careful what you wish for,” well? Well, the purpose is very much the same. PurposeThe purpose is the WHY? PurposeThe purpose is the reason you want to do something or make a difference to guide you in your decision-making. The purpose is what you measure by the impact you have on others. Your purpose of having an academy could be (to be stinking rich, to be a happy person, to have a balanced life, to be good to others, to develop kids, to be the greatest no matter what), or for whatever reason, that's important to you. Still, it’s easy to see how these can and will influence making decisions in your business.

Once you have decided your purpose, you can ask, “WHAT?” I advise following a 4-step approach to put your ideas to paper, and this is probably the single most significant step to start, re-evaluate or improve your business/academy:

Remember, Keep it Simple – I start with the Mission statement is that I begin with Mission statement because it is focused on the present and is actionable NOW.

Mission – A mission statement is a simple statement that explains your tennis academy’s goals and how you operate. It summarizes what your business does for its clients, employees, and owners. As I mentioned, it’s focused on NOW immediately actionable.

You should write a mission statement if you want to identify your business objectives and get your employees, investors, and clients to understand what your academy is all about.

Vision - A vision statement is more inspirational or motivational. It focuses on the future and is more aspirational:

In short: The mission is the “what,” and the vision is the “where and what you want to be.” And remember your purpose - your “why” should guide you. Many organizations even include the purpose meaning in their Vision statement.

The strategy and action plan represent the “detailed HOW.”

The following memorable and distinct vision statements may inspire you to write your own.

Here are examples of a few:

Ok, now we have a mission (answers to these questions):

And a vision - (answers to these questions):

What then? The next step is to generate a Business Plan and Strategy, followed by an Action plan to ensure it happens! So many great mission and vision statements have never resulted in success due to no strategy in place. Remember, achieving something you believe in and genuinely want to happen is an end-to-end process. To achieve something you believe in and want to happen is an end-to-end process! An essential ingredient to success is to get your team on board with feeling in and behaving according to the Tennis academy’s mission and vision.

Business Plan – This part of the process is basically to:

Taking your Vision and Mission statements into consideration considering your Vision and Mission statements, determine the total of your potential expenses. Points to consider here include: how many kids you need to gain, the cost of new equipment, bigger, more significant, more extensive facilities, and better-trained Tennis coaches. Whatever your goals are, build them into your existing strategy. A business case is a regular income vs. expense finance sheet over a 3 to 5-year period, with a Net Present Value calculation. If you have an existing business, you will revise and utilize your current business figures in a new Business Plan to reflect your goals.

Look out for a complimentary Business Case Template in TopspinSA's next Blog!

Strategy – The experts have many definitions for design, but it comes down to one thing, it is an action to achieve your objectives (vision and mission), and if it does not work, you should change it!

Here is but a few that I’ve googled:

“Business strategy can be understood as the course of action or set of decisions which assist the entrepreneurs in achieving specific business objectives.” - https://businessjargons.com/

“Business strategy is the firm's working plan for achieving its vision, prioritizing objectives, competing successfully, and optimizing financial performance with its business model.” https://www.business-case-analysis.com/

"...the direction and scope of an organization over the long-term: which achieves advantage for the organization through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfill stakeholder expectations". - Johnson and Scholes
 

A business strategy can be defined as the combination of all the decisions taken and actions performed by the business to accomplish business goals and secure a competitive position in the market. https://www.feedough.com/

The definition of strategy is a long-term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal or a set of objectives. https://onlinemasters.baylor.edu/

So, what should be included in our business strategy? Remember again to keep it simple and therefore break it down to answer these questions:

A SWOT analysis is a simple way to brainstorm a strategy session and add real value to a Business strategy. You can use many analytical tools, but again, keep it simple! In the S.W.O.T. analysis, we break all ideas into Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. You can see how integrated your Business Strategy and Plan are as every decision or objective usually has a cost to achieve or a reward when completed. Therefore, in asking the above questions, think of numbers- to include in your business plan. If the numbers don’t work, you need to rethink your goals. If your strategy doesn’t achieve your goals, change the strategy system. Everything boils down to a numbers game.

Once you have written up your strategy, which is your plan to achieve your goals and objectives as set up in your purpose, mission, and vision statements, you need to activate this plan to action.

To recap, we now have clarity about the following:

Now for the last step…

Your Action Plan - An action Plan is your strategy broken down into actions or tasks. It is a vital part of the strategic planning process.

An action Plan is exactly what it says – it is a plan of action plans to make something happen by someone within an allotted timeframe according to a set of agreed standards. It is a checklist for the acts or tasks you planned and need to complete to list the activities or charges you planned and need to complete to achieve your goals or objectives.

An action Plan is relevant to every step so far explained in this BLOG. If you want to do something, put a name and completion date to it, monitor it, and it will happen!

There are very sophisticated planning tools, but all you need is a piece of paper or an excel worksheet.

Herewith is a simple Action Plan -

Remember, nothing in life happens if not driven by someone; people need managers to guide them, help them and mentor them. These basic steps will help you find direction if required, set clear goals for yourself and your team, and hopefully take your Tennis academy to new heights.

I hope this helps you in some way to re-think or re-evaluate your academy or to motivate yourself and your team to achieve more. Any comments will be most welcome.

Watch out for Part 3-5 of this BLOG series over the next four months, where I will cover the following topics:

About the Authors - Juan-Philip van Antwerpen has been playing tennis since he was 7seven and has played tennis for Gauteng province for 10ten years. I received a Tennis scholarship at the Davenport University in Michigan, USA, and played for them for four years. He was appointed as the assistant Tennis coach for this respected University while studying for his MBA, which he achieved in 2019. He is the marketing manager for Beckwith & associates and manages their Kalamazoo office. He was currently living in New Canaan, Connecticut, as a tennis pro teaching tennis.

Philip van Antwerpen - Is an entrepreneur and business consultant. Philip is an International certified project manager (PMP) with over 29 years of experience. He has been a PRINCE2 Practitioner for the past 13 years and has several Agile qualifications. He is an experienced Portfolio Manager and Strategic implementer. He has managed and set up several successful Project Management offices and, for the past 11 years, has mainly been involved in turning struggling projects into successful projects.

He obtained his BSc (Qs) degree in 1990 and registered as a Professional Quantity Surveyor after completing his board examinations in 1993. The same year, he received his Project Management Diploma from the School of Project Management.

He has been involved with numerous projects over the past 29 years. He has gained valuable experience as Senior Project Co-ordinator, Group Project Planner, and Group Estimator for the Gold Fields Group in project management. His experience as a Mining Investment Analyst, analyzing and evaluating business opportunities, adds to his most expansive field of expertise. Worked at the executive level for 3three years at OMInsure, assisting with their turnaround strategy.

He formed Ants in 1998. In 2007 he co-founded Ants Training and Development to provide specialized project management services. He transformed Topspin SportGear into a successful online shop and well-recognized well-recognized brand.