The Business: Move Mentor Academy, youth sports coaching venture; owner, Justin Williams
The Challenge: reach and scale
When Justin Williams started his youth sports coaching venture, Move Mentor Academy, his primary goal was to tailor his approach to fit the individual needs of his young clients. Each training program was meticulously crafted to create a customised experience for the parents and the adolescents. The approach not only allowed Justin to build strong relationships with his adolescent clients, but to work with their parents in the background.
Unfortunately, Justin soon realised that his hyper-personalised approach to training would be an impediment to growing the business. After all, his time was a finite resource. While the business initially found success due to his reputation as a trainer and mentor, there were limits to how profitable it could be.
“Since the business is built around me as the primary one-on-one trainer, my time directly affects my income,” Justin says. “I needed to find ways to diversify my strengths and energies to maximise my impact and extend my reach to a broader audience.”
Justin says he thought long and hard about the impact he wanted to have with his program, as well as the most effective way to achieve it. Eventually, he decided that the best solution was an all-inclusive app that would put his training insights in front of more clients.
“[Developing the app] required a significant investment of both capital and time to ensure it met my standards,” Justin says, “but I am proud to say the vision has been realised.”
The app had to target a wide range of training areas to mimic the comprehensive nature of Justin’s face-to-face training. He says that, through the app, individuals can access four ‘key pillars’: strength training, nutrition, wellness and mindset training.
The success of the app paved the way for further expansion. At the moment, Justin has entered a collaboration with different senior schools in the development of a 12-step lifestyle program for students called The Movement Program. This program includes follow-up presentations to reinforce lessons and foster high-performance habits, along with ongoing support through the Move Mentor App, to which participating students will have full access.
Both the app and the Movement Program have allowed Justin to deliver his knowledge and life lessons to hundreds of students. Though he also has plans to widen his physical impact via gym expansion, the trainer’s current activities allow him to expand his business’s footprint without necessarily needing to address each of his new clients face to face.
Justin says he would suggest that other small-business owners in his position explore different ways to leverage their unique strengths.
“It’s a cliché, but time really is money,” he says. “If you can come up with strategies or ideas that allow you to work on the business, rather than just in it, you’ll likely see growth at a pace that you’re comfortable with.”
This article first appeared in issue 46 of the Inside Small Business quarterly magazine
