There is a change coming to the industry and we can all feel it. These are my biggest 3 pieces of advice to be prepared for what is coming.
The Cheer Biz Podcast
There Is Change Coming To The Industry
you're listening to the cheer biz podcast where we dive into the business of running and owning your gym join us as we speak to industry experts business gurus and discuss how we can take your passion and turn it into profit let's get to it hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the cheer biz podcast i'm your host Dan cotton and today we are talking about the fact that the cheer industry is changing now this is something that has been weighing heavily on my heart it's something that i've been thinking about a lot i've been traveling around the country uh teaching camps and just also got done at our next gen conference where i got to talk to so many different owners and it was really great to do it's it's great to travel and be in other gyms because i get to be reinvigorated i get to be around the energy of other gym owners i get to be around the energy of other kids but i also get a really unique glimpse at what it's like across the country in different gyms now even though i i get to go to a lot of different gyms i get to go to very few comparatively to how many gyms there are in the united states but at our next gen conference in dallas there were almost 400 gym owners and coaches there and i was able to talk to so many of them and i think that there is an overall feeling that the industry is changing now we can determine whether or not that is a good thing or a bad thing i am choosing to be optimistic and feel like this is a good thing in the long run for our industry so the fact is is that there is a shift happening in the industry there's a number of things that are going on we've obviously seen the various rulings that have caused some changes within varsity in the way that they do things in some of their settlements we've seen more and more iEPs coming up and springing out of nowhere to offer new events we've seen different end of season events and we've seen a diversification of the industry when it comes to competitive cheer over the last couple years really since covid it's it's started to kind of grow again in there being a lot of different options we've also seen more and more and more outside providers coming in to offer services to the cheer industry now some of these outside providers i think are absolutely phenomenal and they are truly trying to solve an issue in the cheer industry some in my opinion are really just trying to kind of grab more cash and looking at an industry that spends a lot of money and just trying to get some of that money flowing to them and i can respect both sides i can respect the hustle of an entrepreneur but ultimately i think we need to be looking at solving issues within the industry rather than just continuing to squeeze more revenue out of it i think we also need to be very very aware of the fact that all-star competitive cheer feels like it's a little stagnant or shrinking a little bit especially as we head into an economically challenging time where there are more and more families that are struggling to have disposable income we are a sport that is geared around disposable income especially at the elite all-star level where a competitive season is very expensive whether you're from the midwest or the east coast or west coast if you want to compete at certain events it's the same price wherever you come from so while i was just in manila arkansas with my awesome friends at nsf doing a camp and food in arkansas is like 20% to 30% cheaper than it is where i'm at in Oregon and gas man we looked at those gas prices and we're like we need to just take this gas station put it in Oregon is like two bucks a gallon cheaper those things are cheaper in those areas but those areas that people have an expectation of things being within a certain price range when they go to a nca nationals their price is the same for nca nationals so they don't get a like well you're from the art you get the arkansas rate so we are seeing a in my opinion a contraction of elite people who can afford all-star cheerleading the industry is also changing in a lot of ways that we are starting to see the industry going back to some standards that i didn't really love seeing where we're starting to see a more transient nature of our elite athletes leaving their homes going and staying with host families and that was something that we kind of got away from for a few years and covid i think certainly impacted it but i i really appreciated seeing less and less kiddos kind of throwing their name out there and trying to make big name programs to try and win a world championship at a really young age do i fault anyone for doing that no i don't i certainly can understand the allure i can certainly understand wanting to be on the best program you can but i do find it really concerning to see 14 year old athletes moving away from home living with host families and doing those kind of things i don't think it's it's healthy long-term for the home gyms i don't think it's healthy for the kids i think there is a potential time and place that that makes sense to do and to potentially experiment with but ultimately you know sending your kids away from home at young impressionable ages i just don't think is good for them in their long-term growth and at the end of the day what we do is just cheerleading and although it is a amazing sport that has provided tons of opportunities for me it is only the sport of cheerleading and i would actually say the same thing if they were playing football i would say you guys it's just football it's just a sport every it has a it has a short duration of time is it important yes are the relationships you create important yes are the memories important absolutely is do we provide an amazing service that i think is priceless to our clientele i a hundred percent do but can i provide that service without having athletes move away from home live with host families go through that whole experience at a young age yes i believe we can so anyways that's me soapboxing and kind of rabbit trailing there for a half a second but the industry is changing because we're starting to see that happening again so we have a smaller and smaller pool of fish of people who can afford to do elite level cheerleading that travels and does all of those things we have a number of different shifts going on and i think if you've been in the industry long enough you can feel those shifts are starting to happen so here is my advice to be prepared because i think if you are not prepared for the shifts that are going to be coming in the next two years you're going to potentially be left behind and if you are prepared you are about to potentially have a an amazing opportunity to grow your business and grow your gym and really do some amazing things in kiddos lives so number one now this is going to sound very anti who i am because i'm always talking about pricing and pricing accordingly is you need to have a lower priced but still profitable option to get people involved in competitive cheer now if you are a gym that only offers elite and prep and that is what you offer first off prep and elite are basically the same thing now one just competes for one day less in my opinion that's what i see in the industry you need to have additional funnels to get people involved in the sport that are a lower cost option and i actually think you need to have other things to get people involved in competitive cheer that are a lower priced option that are still competitive so for us right now at the moment we have fundamentals which is performance-based novice which is also performance-based prep and elite and i think we're missing the boat we need to be adding some sort of programming that is competitive that is not competitive at the elite level because it is the it is the cost of competition and the cost of admissions and all of those other things that are really in my opinion pricing people out of the sport the cost of uniforms and all the extra bells and whistles it's not my tuition my tuition is reasonable my tuition when you factor it out i think is less than seven dollars an hour that kids are paying in the gym it might might have gone up a little bit okay my tuition is not that crazy so it's not tuition that's the problem it's all of the other things that you have to purchase to participate in the sport of competitive cheer and that is where i think that we can make some changes now i know some people have done this with stunt i've mentioned on previous episodes we've seen a huge growth in the non-affiliated recreational style division and i think that those are both areas that gyms can look at growing their client base without increasing their elite presence now i'm going to stop for two seconds because i know my lovely friends who are and the ussa for like dan please stop telling people to do this because what this is not meant to be is a place to hide kids this is not a place to hide athletes and cheat the system so you can stay in d2 and have elite kids that should be on elite teams that want to be on elite teams but you put them on an na team and compete them na across the country but don't report them to ussa sf that is not what this is meant for this is an opportunity to get more kids involved in cheer at a lower price point so they're not traveling they're not doing those kind of events they maybe do one small you know drive three or four hours style travel event a year and otherwise compete locally at like local high school competitions or things like that there are a number of ways to do it and you have to figure it out for your demographic but i think everyone needs to be looking at how do i get involved in this you know i've got clients that are getting involved with actually just running the recreational programs in their area but they run out of their gyms so they actually do go and cheer on football games they do those things but those things also run out of their program it gives them a practice play space which is a challenge for a lot of these na youth programs they don't really have anywhere to practice because they're not sponsored by the school and so they've found ways for things to be mutually beneficial it continues to grow the sport of cheerleading it continues to get kids who eventually could afford elite cheer funneling into the sport and it increases revenue for the programs so i think there's a lot of ways that you could be strategically attacking this problem by having lower priced but still profitable again don't forget that but still profitable options to get people involved and cheer number two the thing that is changing in the industry is people's expectations for the amount of time that they contribute to something to how quickly the outcome comes to them their expectations are increasing so because of the amazon prime culture netflix all of that people are impatient they want things quickly and unfortunately we are in an industry we are in a sport that requires lots and lots and lots of time to get better at it just doesn't happen overnight but we are seeing more and more and more athletes and parents and even gyms who are like we opened last year and we haven't won summit yet we're failing no you opened last year yes there's a couple gyms that go and open in their first year they go win worlds but most of the time those gyms are off shoots of another program that consolidate into another location it's pretty rare for people to just open a gym and immediately start winning that's like a very very unlikely scenario so we want to make sure that we are doing things to make people feel the progression because we as a coach we as a gym owner know that that athlete who started training with us two months ago has gotten a lot better even though they haven't seen the direct result they don't have that handspring yet they don't have that walkover perfect they don't have those things perfect they've grown a lot and if we don't have small incremental benchmarks especially for our beginners we're going to be a lot less likely to retain those kids in the sport because we're relying on them to believe in the process and enjoy the process of working really really hard to get an accomplishment so we've got to have strategies to reduce the speed to outcome for our clients as well as celebrate small victories throughout right think of it like how video games have added all these different achievements you know you've played this many hours you get an achievement you completed this level you have an achievement trophy it gives people these little you know atta boys as they're working their way through something that can take a lot of time number three is that this is kind of one of the shifts or challenges i i see is that the industry as a whole is afraid of making a change because we're afraid of impacting the status quo of our current clients and i find myself in this same mode where there are certain things that i know might be better for my program in the long run but i know that initially making that shift is going to make people really really unhappy because it's not what they know and what we do know is that people don't like change even if change is good oftentimes people are very resistant to it unless it is something that they sought out and are implementing so when a change comes from outside people become very very resistant to it so the strategy for this is to soft introduce things that you think are important changes to your program so whether it be going to a different style of competition or adding another piece of programming you start soft you know you you open it up with like hey we're gonna offer this opportunity for people to participate in our stunt programming stunts another great diversified program that you can have and you just open it up you don't push people that way even though you might be like hey my whole program needs to go to stunt it's just the right way it's cheaper it's more affordable better season gives people time off etc etc etc you may not be ready to pull that trigger because you know you'll lose people but if you can introduce it get some people who are willing to check it out try it out on board and then as they have an amazing experience they recommend it to everyone else they're like oh my gosh this is the this is the deal you got to do it you've now got buy-in from people where they are now choosing to go the route of change now we as an industry don't have that luxury completely because the reality is is things like the economy and things like the world are not fully in our control so we have to start pivoting and preparing early and so I want everyone to just continue to be open-minded that's what I'm really trying to remind myself to do is just be open-minded and realize that change is not always a bad thing oftentimes it's a really really good thing so embrace that change what I don't want to be is I don't want to be the the person who sat back when the internet first started and was like eh I don't need that stuff I've got my my business information in the phone book I don't need a website or back when Facebook marketing started the people who were poised and ready to embrace that change and get that really high ROI on super amazing marketing get in front of tons of eyeballs for super cheap those people who were poised and ready they crushed it the people who were like ignored it were like oh it's a flash in the pan it's stupid I don't need to be ready for that I don't need to engage in that those people got left behind and I'm I think that we need to be really really ready for that by having some of the things that I already mentioned in place so we don't get left behind with the coming tectonics shifts that are happening in the industry the reality is if you want to survive more than 10 years in business you need to be capable of pivoting some of those things you're not going to see coming none of us saw covid coming coming we never had any idea what's going to happen those of us who survived it who pivoted who made things work or who came back from it are I think more mentally capable of realizing okay this is a situation but I can pivot I can adjust I can do this you have to be prepared for that now some of the things you're going to see coming and I think some of the things we've talked about in this episode are the things that you can see coming they're there they're out there you can see them in the distance I would rather be prepared for those things to happen and prepare like they are going to happen then be shocked when they do because the reality is is none of the things I'm talking about are things that are going to make your business worse I'm not suggesting you hoard money or close your doors or cancel programming that's not what I'm talking about I'm talking about being diversified I'm talking about being capable of weathering the storm I'm talking about creating more low barrier offers reducing friction to get people involved in the sport because ultimately getting more and more people involved in our sport is better for our sport as a whole and then you will be less likely to be left behind if change happens as you leave the episode the biggest things I want you to do is I want you to sit down and do a SWAT assessment strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats and I want you to start building your strategic programming so you can look at what diverse programming or what opportunities make sense for you if you've never done a SWAT assessment or you don't know how to set strategic priorities please reach out to the next-gen academy we have a few more spots I think we have about five more spots left to join the academy at this moment we'll be opening up some more later in the year but I think we only have five left to join probably before September so if you've been thinking about it if you've been contemplating joining the academy and you need help doing a strategic priority or a SWAT assessment then get in the academy get with a coach we can walk you through it and we can help you be prepared for the coming changes all right everyone I hope you enjoyed the episode and with that we'll catch you on the next one what up party people this is Jason Larkin's host of the let's talk cheer podcast and I've teamed up with Kristin Wheeler of the cheer mom podcast and Dan Cotton of the cheer biz podcast that's right hey everybody Kristin here we know that you love cheer so why not dive into more perspectives tune into my podcast the cheer mom podcast for cheer issues spoken from the parents perspective then head over to Dan's podcast the cheer biz podcast to learn from a gym owner on how to run a successful cheer business and of course don't miss the let's talk cheer podcast featuring Jason Larkin's the one that we all know and love where they talk about cheer from a coach's perspective which means whether you're a coach a cheer parent or a gym owner we've got you covered find all three podcasts on apple podcasts and Spotify and stay tuned for new episodes each week thank you for joining us for this episode of the cheer biz podcast if you would like to be featured on our podcast click the link in our description to apply if you're interested in joining next gen visit our website at www.nextgenowners.com and lastly don't forget to subscribe to this podcast to make sure you don't miss any future episodes thanks for listening [BLANK_AUDIO]