Key 1) The player:
Let me first share with you the formula for player success:
- 1. Present situation/Intake
- 2. Task (set targets/goal)
- 3. Evaluation/feedback = Evolution
- New situation. Repeat steps 1 to 3 every time.
You look at your present situation, set a goal, train, and afterward, you evaluate. There’s a new current situation, and you start again.
So developing players is easy?
Unfortunately, it's not so easy, and a lot can go wrong if tennis professionals don't work with the right technology. In the development of a player from a young age, a lot of aspects have to be managed well to secure optimal results.
Ask yourself these questions. Do you:
* show your players their progress over time?
* show your players what they can expect in the next training? (E.g. video program and online lesson plan.)
* offer players online support/coaching?
* store your player's feedback after every practice and match, as well as video feedback?
* update the parents, are they involved in the process, or do they only see the results?
* Work as a team? Are all of your coaches fully updated and informed before they start their training with the player?
If you don't, read the rest of this blog so you can help yourself improve your tennis business.
Key 2) The coaches/expert team:
If you work with different coaches in your academy, club, sports center or federation and you all work with different players, how do you make sure every member of the staff is fully updated and has access to all player data? How do you make sure you are not losing information? How do you ensure that all this information is available to your staff?
A few examples of why you need data and how data can help you develop better players:
1) Imagine you have a Junior “low level” development program. This summer season, player A is coached by coach A. They are working good together, and player A is developing in a great way. The next season player A is going to a new level and gets a new coach. Coach B is now in charge of this player. It's very important that coach B gets all the necessary information, so he knows the full history of player A. Without technology, this is not possible. With the right technology, this is automated. The player AND his entire history is available for the new coach. The new coach is fully updated and can continue to work in the best possible way.
2) Imagine you have a high-performance players development program. They train full time and travel the world with different coaches. During the training weeks, they have three tennis coaches and two physical performance coaches, and during the tournament weeks, they have two traveling coaches at their disposal. Without the right technology, it's impossible to get every member of this team updated. Let alone the specialists and parents who want to be informed. Imagine that coach A could upload his training and match reports, videos, and feedback, together with all the communication between the team members in one system, so everybody was fully updated. What would that mean for teamwork and continuity?
Make sure you have the right automated, all-in smart software. Without online connection and software, you are missing data, and without the correct data, wrong decisions are made. So make sure your team is connected, and you have all data available to all your team members.
Key 3) The parents:
Every junior player needs their parents. Without parents, a junior player has no chance of success. The parent takes the player to training and matches. The parent has a crucial impact on the player's success. How much time do we spend with the player, and how much time do we have for the parent? How much impact can we make if we can keep parents informed all the time? What happens if parents know our program, the exercises, the goals, and if they can follow the progress and feedback online in their account?
We can even send the parents additional information with our internal communication system. This way, the parents are involved, fully updated, and we can spend our time with the players. Most tennis coaches have bad experiences with their parents. Often because they didn’t update the parents enough. The parents don't see the progress of their children, and when the results are wrong, the parents complain. This is because the coaches have no time, and without the right technology, it's not possible to spend so much time with parents.
Investing in parents will pay for itself for sure. If you don't update the parents, you can imagine this will result in players who receive different information from their coaches than from their parents, and that leads to .... right, time to change this right now.
* New business opportunities
Players and parents love to be involved, informed, and see their progress over time. You can offer them extras, like online training with video programs and online coaching with video feedback. An excellent extra service for players and parents that will improve your player development and your business in a big way!
