- The Art of Tennis How I have run a successful tennis business for over 15 years with my phone on silent.

I started Scarborough Tennis Academy in 2005 as an ambitious 25 year old ready to prove he could create a great tennis coaching business.

I worked 7 days a week building numbers from the ground up. Every new player was a win and I would hand flyers out to any kid, adult or parent pushing a pram. It grew quickly and I started to take on other coaches. Currently we provide coaching services to 300-500 kids year round and have a team of between 8-12 coaches depending on the mix of fulltime/part-time staff.

Before I started the business I had gone on a pretty intense self education journey. After 1.5 years of university, I dropped out and became a coach. But I promised myself I would learn everything I could about coaching tennis and running a business which was my goal from the get go.

One book in particular influenced me the most. I loved the story and the lessons. This book was called The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. The main message? Systems run businesses. People run systems. This is best demonstrated by the franchise model such as McDonald’s. Every process needs to be systemised to ensure a consistent customer experience. Work ON the business, not just IN the business.

Systems themselves don’t really float my boat but making my life easier certainly did so I was motivated to automate as much as possible. Learning how to delegate was the next important part and training those who you delegate to on how to operate that particular system.

Early on I had to outsource my book-keeping. My brain just cannot handle doing that type of work and I was really bad at it. But as soon as possible, I also had little mini systems such a email templates that I would copy and paste to people to save time on the same old questions and answers. My growing team of coaches had basic bare bones systems on what to do in lessons and those running any competitions had a process to follow.

Enter online booking

This morphed to channeling everything through the website with the introduction and pure joy of online booking! From paper enrolment forms which had to be manually written into an excel database to an automated process which got the player details, class formation, capacity and court with the payment details done with zero work required.

I also removed myself from the operations role and had a very capable operations manager who took new enquiries and liaised with parents and players in the program as well as making sure the classes were all set. I was still involved operationally of course but spent my energy on helping the other coaches, marketing and further working ON the business, not just IN the business.

After my operations manager (who was also a coach) started a family I pivoted towards a different model and instead employed a permanent part time office manager (not a coach) who just focused on the enquiries, enrolments, liaising with current players and parents, invoicing, court booking, coach scheduling, make up lessons and other administrative duties. Importantly though, the Coach Director (which is me) has regular meetings with the office manager to review and problem solve where required. This works very well. My office manager has flexi time and 90% of the communication is done by email. He still carries the business phone and for pockets of time each day will answer or get back to people who have called. But we educate people to email so we have a clear record of our communication. We also have a weather cancellation policy which basically states that if a lesson is cancelled, clients will receive a system text 30 minutes before lesson time, otherwise the lesson is running. This prevents untold amount of phone calls.

So I do still use my own phone where I liaise with private clients regarding any lesson changes and to communicate with club committee members and anyone who is a part of our team. I sometimes do not have my phone next to me and when I do I’m using it more as a message device via text/email/whatsapp as well as any content done via social media. For our more passionate junior club players, I am happy to arrange a call with parents at a suitable time and for anyone else keen to have a chat, I set up a phone call. The other reality is I still coach 20 odd hours per week which means I am not contactable in any form during this time.

I know my friends, family and others have gone through the frustration of not being able to reach me and I am sure there are plenty of people who think that not being contactable is not professional or will upset people. I disagree and believe we can design our life and business to best suit us and there are no rules. Personally, I do not like my phone ringing as it distracts me from whatever else I am doing at that time. This could be leisure time, family time or deep learning or work being done which requires focus on the task at hand.

So if you are a coach running a small business,, think of ways you can systemise and delegate. As a business owner we must have systems to onboard new clients and nurture current clients. Even if you are responsible for the main phone and email, there is nothing stopping you from having ‘office hours 11am-1pm’ or whatever suits best. Point being, as long as you educate your potential and current clients on how things work at your business, you can do as you please.