WAYNE MAYS – EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT AND REVENUE AT BASKETBALL TRAINING SYSTEMS – EPISODE 1250

Website – https://www.basketballtrainingsystems.com/

Email – wmays@basketballtrainingsystems.com

Twitter/X – @BTS_usa2016

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Wayne Mays is the Executive Vice President of Training & Development and Revenue at Basketball Training Systems, a full-service platform that provides everything that is needed to own and operate a successful youth basketball business. In his role at BTS Wayne leads the creation and execution of scalable basketball training systems across all academies nationwide.  His focus is on standardizing operations, strengthening sales processes, and building structured training platforms that ensure consistency and growth across every location. Wayne is committed to using basketball to develop confidence, discipline, and life skills in young athletes.

On this episode Mike & Wayne discuss the operational intricacies of establishing successful youth basketball academies, underscoring the imperative that basketball should be accessible to all, irrespective of financial resources. Mays shares his commitment to empowering passionate coaches and trainers, providing them with the requisite tools to initiate and cultivate their own programs. Additionally, we explore the importance of structured curriculums and the implementation of standardized operations that facilitate the growth of basketball training initiatives across the nation. Mays and BTS serve those seeking to contribute positively to the basketball community, emphasizing that the pursuit of passion and purpose can produce immense impact on young athletes’ lives.

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Grab your notebook before you listen to this episode with Wayne Mays, Executive Vice President of Training & Development and Revenue at Basketball Training Systems.

What We Discuss with Wayne Mays

• How BTS aids aspiring coaches and trainers in establishing their own training facilities, particularly in underserved communities
• Basketball facility ownership should be accessible to all, transcending the barriers of financial capital that often limit participation in sports programs
• How the curriculum developed at Basketball Training Systems is structured to provide consistent training and development opportunities for players of all skill levels, ensuring comprehensive growth
• Effective coaching requires not only technical knowledge but also the ability to connect with young players
• The integration of technology in training programs aims to enhance the coaching experience and provide personalized feedback to young players
• Building relationships with players and families is paramount in creating a supportive basketball community that nurtures both athletic and personal growth
• His role at Basketball Training Systems, which involves creating structured training systems for all aspects of the business
• Why coaches should be aiming to make a lasting impact on their players
• The need for standardized operations and training protocols to ensure consistency across basketball academies
• The development of scalable training systems

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THANKS, WAYNE MAYS

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TRANSCRIPT FOR WAYNE MAYS – EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT AND REVENUE AT BASKETBALL TRAINING SYSTEMS – EPISODE 1250

[00:00:00] Narrator: The Hoop Heads Podcast is brought to you by Head Start Basketball.

[00:00:20] Wayne Mays: Most trainers, coaches don’t have the capital to find a location, rent a space, build out an entire gym. So what we’re really trying to do, and what I’m trying to do personally, is to find these passionate coaches, trainers, pro basketball players that want to just help their own program get started, and what the tools they need to get that started and progress.

And so I’m trying to broaden, hey, basketball should be for everyone, not just people with capital to build an entire program.

[00:00:50] Mike Klinzing: Wayne Mays is the Executive Vice President of Training and Development and Revenue at Basketball Training Systems, a full-service platform that provides everything that’s needed to own and operate a successful youth basketball business.

In his role at BTS, Wayne leads the creation and execution of scalable basketball training systems across all academies nationwide. His focus is on standardizing operations, strengthening sales processes, and building structured training platforms that ensure consistency and growth across every location.

Wayne is committed to using basketball to develop confidence, discipline, and life skills in young athletes. Are you or an athlete you know planning to go D3? Check out the D3 Recruiting Playbook from D3 Direct. Their playbook gives you a clear step-by-step roadmap to the recruiting process, what coaches value, key milestones from early high school through application season, and how to build a targeted list of schools that fit your needs.

The playbook demystifies researching D3 programs and how to stand out without chasing every camp or showcase. The modules cover things like writing emails to coaches, building an effective highlight tape, using social media well, planning camps and visits, and navigating application strategy. You’ll get templates, checklists, and an outreach plan to communicate confidently, learn how to compare financial packages, and avoid common missteps.

By the end, you’ll have a prioritized school list and a decision framework you can use to land your best fit opportunity. Click on the link in the show notes to get your D3 Recruiting Playbook from D3 Direct.

[00:02:29] Dre Baldwin: This is Dre Baldwin from Work On Your Game, Incorporated, and you are listening to the Hoop Heads Podcast. Work on your game.

[00:02:40] Mike Klinzing: Give with Hoops is the first platform turning basketball analytics into fundraising impact. Every stat tells a story, and now every story drives sponsorship, engagement, and team growth. Programs nationwide are transforming basketball stats into funding power. Learn to use performance data to attract sponsors, engage fans, and raise more with every play.

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Grab your notebook before you listen to this episode with Wayne Mays, Executive Vice President of Training and Development and Revenue at Basketball Training Systems. Hello, and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co-host, Jason Sunkel, tonight. But I am pleased to be joined by Wayne Mays from Basketball Training Systems.

Wayne, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:03:46] Wayne Mays: Thank you very much for having me, Mike. I appreciate you letting me on. I’m very excited.

[00:03:49] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. Thrilled to have you on. Looking forward to diving into your role at BTS. I think what we should do before we even start is let you give an overview of what is Basketball Training Systems.

Let’s get that out of the way, and then we’ll dive into your background next.

[00:04:04] Wayne Mays: Yeah, absolutely. Basketball Training Systems is a company that originally started out of St. Louis founded by Larry Hughes, and the whole goal of Basketball Training Systems is to create structure and help these coaches and trainers find a place to build their own brand, understand what it takes to start their own sort of basketball training facilities, and not just that, give the opportunity to help the community around them.

And, we help give the structure when it comes to operations, marketing analytics just day-to-day things that you need to do to make sure that a basketball trainer can turn into something much more and help the community around them, because that’s how, Larry started the whole program, was just to, benefit the local youth around him.

[00:04:47] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. And there are a lot of people that are in the, quote-unquote, training business that I’m sure could benefit from the expertise that you guys bring to the table, just in terms of the experience that you’ve had, the people that are involved in your company, and we’re going to dive into all that as we go along.

Let’s talk a little bit about your background. Take me back to when you’re a kid, your athletics. What was your experience like as a kid with sports and, a- and just talk a little bit about your upbringing in the athletic world.

[00:05:15] Wayne Mays: Yeah, absolutely. I’m actually from a little small town in Ohio named Miamisburg, Ohio.

Went to school in Carlisle. But very small town, Midwest vibe, and sports was kind of everything, and that’s how it all started. I was drawn to it as soon as I saw a basketball, and I was around kinda the time when MJ was everyone wanted to be like Mike, and so obviously I wanted to as well.

And, it wasn’t just basketball. It came to football, swimming, tennis, track and field. It didn’t matter. If there was some sort of sport that I could compete in, that’s what I wanted to do, and that’s how I’ve always been growing up, especially in the Midwest. It w- that’s all we had out there was sports.

[00:05:52] Mike Klinzing: Did you think at that time that you might end up with a career in sports? Obviously, you’re probably like most every kid, right? You’re dreaming that you’re going to play in the NFL or the NBA or whatever it may be. But at some point for all of us, the reality sets in that, eh, maybe that’s not going to happen.

So just talk about kinda how you eventually went about your career path.

[00:06:15] Wayne Mays: Yeah I’m very fortunate and very lucky in my life to be in this position that I’m in. Originally, when I was a kid, I was going to be in the NBA. There was no doubt about it. Once I started realizing that, my ankles are bad and, you know-

I’m tearing ligaments and all this kind of stuff- … that maybe that dream wasn’t for real. And I actually joined the United States Coast Guard right out of high school. I wasn’t ready to go to college or start, my dad out of business. I didn’t want to do that, and I wanted to travel the world and help people, and so that’s what I did, joined the military.

I was in there for six years. Lucky enough to find a wonderful nonprofit in San Francisco. because that’s where I was stationed in the military as well, and called the Marine Exchange, oldest… It’s a very small company, one of the oldest nonprofits in San Francisco. I believe it is the oldest, to be honest.

But it’s very small and there was no room to grow for me there, and I started throwing around my resume and happened to find Basketball Training Systems. And I’d always been involved in the military when it came to, military leagues and things of that sort. We actually went to China on one of our cutters and played the Olympic team over there in China in basketball.

The B team. They weren’t the- … top of line. We still got smoked very badly. But- … so I was always involved. I played every sort of intramural sport when in the military and so on and so forth and, found Basketball Training Systems. Didn’t think I was going to be a part of it. I threw out my resume and was brutally honest to a default about everything that was wrong with me, what I could do, and luckily enough I landed at the general manager for the Bobby Jackson Basketball Academy in Sacramento.

And just fortunate enough to meet some great people, great coaches, great trainers, great families, great kids and, have just worked my tail off and had a great relationship with all the people that were involved at the high level at Basketball Training Systems and got lucky enough to be in this position to help on a much higher level as well.

[00:08:00] Mike Klinzing: We’re going to dive into your exact role there and the transition from military nonprofit into Basketball Training Systems, but I want to ask you one military re- related question, and that is when you think about who you are today from a personal characteristic standpoint and what’s allowed you to have the success that you’ve had in your career, what’s something that you took from the military that you still feel like you apply in your life every single day that’s made you successful?

[00:08:29] Wayne Mays: I would say more than anything it’s discipline and structure, right? That’s all it is in the military. It’s everything’s structured, everything’s in line for you. You follow directions, you work your way up, and you work your tail off, and that’s always been my philosophy from when I was a kid. I worked for no money until I was old enough to get my own job and- That kind of really settled that and also being in the military and being from a small town, you get shell-shocked, right?

You’re seeing all these different cultures of people and realize, “Oh, I’m not the most important person in the world, and other people’s opinions are amazing, too.” And but it was a great experience. But I would say more than anything, it’s that structure and discipline that kinda stuck with me more than anything.

[00:09:07] Mike Klinzing: Makes sense. Again, when you think about the military experience, those are probably the first two things that, for most people, come to mind, right? The discipline and the structure and what that does for your life and gets you where you’re incorporating that into your regular, quote, “civilian life” and to be able to put those to work to be able to benefit you as you move on in your career.

So tell me what… You said you threw your resume out there. What was the pitch? What w- what was it that you felt like you were trying to… What were you trying to sell in order to be able to get that job at BTS?

[00:09:43] Wayne Mays: You’re selling yourself in every, resume you throw out. And the biggest thing is I’m not going to…

I’m going to be the hardest worker pers- that you’re going to find. It doesn’t matter in what position I am. If I’m scrubbing floors, if I’m scrubbing decks on a boat, I’m going to be that person that’s going to do the smallest thing to the largest thing. It doesn’t matter. I’m going to be the hardest worker that you’re going to find, and that was always my pitch.

And that was always my go-to. I may not have all the knowledge in the world, but I’ll find it, and I’ll make sure that I’m going to, work my tail off to get the job done.

[00:10:14] Mike Klinzing: Tell me about the general manager role at the Bobby Jackson Academy. When you say general manager, my mind goes in a bunch of different directions as to what exactly that job description could look like.

So tell me, what was the job description? What was your day-to-day like? What did you like about the job initially? Obviously, you’re still there, so the job was one that you enjoyed doing, so just talk a little bit about what you did day to day.

[00:10:39] Wayne Mays: Absolutely, yeah. And it… I’m so fortunate to be a part of that group.

It wa- it was so mu- I’m still involved with them as well. We work with them on a day-to-day basis. But being a general manager, it’s finding the right team of coaches that can be out there, put the product on the floor, get into relationships with these kids, the families. And day to day is setting schedules.

You’re making phone calls. You’re sending text messages because people would come out to our academy and try it out for free and see if they like what they see. And so my job was to make sure that as soon as they come in, they’re already a part of the family. And the coaches know what they’re doing. Our sales specialist knows what they’re doing.

Everyone’s on the same page, and we’re out there just having fun. And it was a lot of work because there is no real hours set. It’s not a nine-to-five. As a general manager at a basketball academy, you’re taking phone calls and text messages and emails Any time of the day, any day of the week, it doesn’t matter.

So there’s no real set schedule, but it’s just making sure everyone’s on track, everyone knows what’s coming up, whether it’s an event, the class, what the curriculum is, what the schedule’s going to be, who’s got private lessons, who’s in classes, all that kind of stuff, and just making sure everyone is in the know exactly to what they’re supposed to be doing each night.

[00:11:48] Mike Klinzing: Let’s start with this. I think that most people who are in the basketball business, no matter what it is, and I’ll speak to this as someone who runs camps in the summertime, that one of the most difficult jobs that I have, or one of the things that I find to be the most difficult, is to find good coaches who are reliable and are going to show up when they’re supposed to show up, and then are going to do a good job in doing what they do in such a way that it’s going to be beneficial for the kids, the way that they design what they do.

So talk about the hiring process that you used then, and maybe you can even extend it into your current role. Just w- when you guys are looking for coaches that you’re going to bring into one of your academies, what are you looking for? And then what’s the process for actually going about from the beginning of you get someone’s resume to, hey, you’re actually hiring them and onboarding them.

Just talk about the hiring of coaches.

[00:12:51] Wayne Mays: Yeah. And I came in on a unique kind of perspective on this from most of our academies, because they already had established the coaching staff and what was going to be, and they brought me on as a general manager about a month into their grand opening and all that, and Larry Hughes came out, and they had a big grand opening.

So I had to identify who my coaches were, what’s the best way to, communicate with them, all that kind of stuff. But with that being said, you have to set a culture, and as a general manager, you have to find the right people. You hit it on the head. That’s the most difficult part of being a general manager, is finding the right dependable people and coaches.

because there’s a lot of great coaches out there. They’re fantastic. They have knowledge. But the game of basketball is a game for a lot of people, and it’s not their life, and they’ll go… there’s a lot of turnover, so you have to find the right dependable people. So the best way that I found, and, we’ve done Indeed, we’ve done, hiring online, all that stuff, but it’s a hassle.

You’re sifting through resumes, and unless it says specifically on there, “Hey- I’ve been coaching for 20 years, or I’ve been a semi-pro basketball player. It’s hard to sift through that. You’re not going to find the information. So the best way I found once I established what our culture was at the academy, what we wanted to bring out, and what my message was, it was finding the people that I knew had that same philosophy.

And it was reaching to, out to my coaches, talking to parents that were in classes, reaching out to local coaches that were nearby coaching already. Not so much to, hey, steal them from their teams or anything, but, “Hey, who do you know?” “We’re in this area. We’re new. We want to find someone that we can depend on.

Do maybe past players, past coaches that you’ve had?” Anything like that. I found the best way to find the right coaches is to just go out there and find people yourself. Ask questions, find people that are in the same business as you, and try to find those dependable people that have been doing it for a very long time because they know how it’s done.

That’s always the best way to go. Now, you can find… I’ve had success from finding Indeed, resumes, and they stuck around for a while. But, when you find someone yourself, even just… we worked out of a 24 Hour Fitness. I would find some– I’d play pickup basketball with them and see some players and be like, “Hey, you’re pretty good at this.

Have you ever thought about doing this part-time with us?” And they’re like, “I never thought about it, but that sounds like a lot of fun.” And they were with us for as long as any of our coaches that we had. So that personal touch of actually communicating with someone face-to-face or through people that you know has always been the best way.

Same with what we’re doing at the, basketball training systems level. It’s yes, you can find a quick fix by looking online for people, but you’re going to find the best people by making the connections, understanding the people around you, and trusting them of, oh, I actually have someone that works perfect for this.

And, putting them through the process of the interview, putting them on court to make sure, you pass the eye test, and all that kind of stuff. And then, of course, getting them ready for what our system does.

[00:15:39] Mike Klinzing: Let’s talk a little bit about that in terms of the coach training part of it and what you guys are looking for and how you try to standardize.

because clearly there’s one thing that I think is sometimes a challenge, right? Is for an individual trainer or somebody who’s trying to start a basketball business, you may have what you do, right? And you’re dynamic, and you’re great at interacting with kids, and you’re great at designing drills that keeps everybody engaged and all these things, but you may not be great about hiring or training another coach.

And all of a sudden, maybe you’re running a class and it’s going great, or you got this camp and now you put the camp in somebody else’s hands or the training in somebody else’s hands, and all of a sudden you’re like, “Oh, what… what’s going on with this guy? They’re not doing the things that we talked about or that we wanted them to do.”

So how do you get that coach training part of it going? What is that end of the coaching, hiring practice slash keeping everything standardized? What does that look like?

[00:16:36] Wayne Mays: Yeah, and that’s really what kind of makes Basketball Training Systems stand out from a lot of training facilities, is we have so many structured, SOPs and things that make sure that people are doing everything the right way before they come on.

Because some of the best coaches I had weren’t honestly the greatest players in the world, and some coaches I had were fantastic players, but you really had to teach them on the coaching end of things, right? So making sure the first thing right out the gate, they go through me. My kind of role is EVP of training and development for all of our academies.

So understanding the right way to communicate is number one, right? Going through soft skills with them, not just, yeah, I know you can teach basketball, you know the game very well, but it’s going through that proper training and communication portion of how do you deal with if things go wrong on the court with a young child, or how do you deal with, problematic parents that are, getting too involved or whatever it may be.

Or maybe, and our biggest message is how can we make a lasting impact for these kids, not just as basketball players? Because the biggest goal is to create something that I took away from playing sports my whole life, is getting those life skills, that confidence, that commu- those communication skills, that work ethic.

How can we do that without, shoving it down their throats and saying, “You need to be more confident. Work harder”? No. Okay. It’s getting that relationship with them and making sure we’re here for the right reasons. And this is why a lot of coaches out there who are doing it by themselves have a hard time building their own kind of brand, right?

Because we already have all this set up for them. So before they even go on the court with us, they’re ready to go.

[00:18:14] Mike Klinzing: What are some of the things when you talk about building those relationships and being able to have those interpersonal skills when you’re working with a kid or when you’re working with a parent, what are some of the things that you talk with the coaches about in terms of how you want them to interact with those families, with those players, so that you are building the types of relationships that not only have an impact on the kids as players, which obviously you want to do, but you’re also having that greater impact on them as people?

[00:18:44] Wayne Mays: Yeah. The first and foremost thing is positivity and encouragement, right? We’re not h- And especially in our academies, it’s not just the top echelon athletes. We want someone who’s never touched a basketball, who’s, just wanting to try something new. So the biggest thing is being positive, being encouragement, right?

Soon as you walk in the gate, we should be having fun, right? If you’re having fun, everyone’s having fun. The second thing is actually getting to know every kid on the court, and that it can be hard to do, especially for the bigger academies. For example, CP3, Chris Paul’s academy in North Carolina, they have, I couldn’t tell you how many members involved.

And these coaches have to really get to know them, right? There are so many camps and clinics that I’ve seen in basketball training where it’s one coach, 50 kids. There’s no way you’re going to remember all of them, right? You have to make sure that- Every single day you’re saying their names, you’re making eye contact, you’re esta- talking to them, not just, “Hey, here’s how you dribble basketball.”

“How’s your day going? What’s going on? How can I help you?” And making sure that it’s okay if you’re not doing it correctly the first way. We’re having fun, we’re learning, and establishing who they are. Because the more you can get to know these kids, the more you can really understand what’s going to work for them.

There’s no black or white answer to basketball. You have to be able to find different avenues for every single player. Some person, some kid might have a great reaction to one certain drill, they’re doing it perfectly, while the other is not so much, but they can do it a different way. So we need to find out what that is, and that’s just getting to know them.

[00:20:13] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely. I think that I always tell people one of the things that the secret sauce for me in the camps that I run in the summertime has always been that I’ll have a camp with 75 or 80 kids, and I’ll learn every kid’s name on that first day. And maybe on the second day I’ll have one or two kids that maybe they look like a past kid that s- whatever.

There’s just… You always get like one or two that you’re like u-” Yep … “For some reason I just can’t. I just can’t get that one kid for th- whatever reason.” But for the most part, after a day or two, I know every single kid who comes to camp. And people always ask me, they’re like how do you do that?

What’s your trick? Do you have some kind of secret for figuring that out?” I’m like, “Not really.” I’m like, “I just… That first day, I make sure I’m at every station when we’re doing our thing, and I’m saying, like you said I say the kid’s name over and over again Johnny.'” And I just keep repeating it until I’m able to get that.

And there’s so many benefits to that. If you’re a trainer or you’re a coach, learn every kid’s name who’s involved in your program because, one, when that kid walks in the door with their parent and you say, “Hey Steve, how you doing?” Mom or dad look and they’re like, “Wow, this guy knows my kid.” And not only is it beneficial just in terms of the relationship, but that’s beneficial from a business standpoint because the parent now knows that you’re invested in that kid, and I think that’s a huge piece of it.

And then the other thing that I always think is beneficial of knowing every kid’s name is when you’re trying to organize things and a kid is not where they’re supposed to be, or when the kid is doing something great, now you can use their name. And like you said, everybody likes to hear their name being used, and so it makes managing everything so much easier when you know everyone’s name.

A- and it’s so important. And then I’ll give you a story on the other s- on the other side of this, Wayne. Yeah. So there was a guy at a place where my kids used to go and shoot, and he would do training with kids. And one day I was over and there was a kid that he was working with that had done something with me like, I don’t know, six months ago maybe, and I wanted to say something to the kid before he left, and I couldn’t remember his name, and I know that this guy had been working with him for a- a bunch of times.

I’m like: “Hey, what’s, what’s the kid that you’re working with? What’s that kid’s name?” And he was over getting a drink, and the guy said to me, he’s like: “I just call him Big Dog.” He goes: I call…” He goes: “I call every I call everybody I work with, I call them all Big Dog.”

I’m like: “You’ve been working with this kid for six months and you don’t know their name?” I’m like: “What do you say to the parent? ‘Hey, Big Dog’s really getting good at his layups.'” One of those things that you could kinda look at both sides, but I will tell you, knowing the kids’ names is a critical piece of anything that you’re trying to do on the basketball side of it, building a business.

I- if you know the kids’ names that you’re working with, it’s going to benefit you in so many ways.

[00:22:54] Wayne Mays: Oh, yeah. And plus, as a coach, and if this is especially your job, you’re doing a j- it is a job, right? It’s still fun. We’re playing basketball, but it’s a job. So it’s part of your day-to-day. A lot of your interactions aren’t as special to…

But when all eyes are on them, you don’t know what you say to each kid that’s going to make a difference. because I can look back at a time when I was just a little youngster learning to play any sport and thinking “Oh, I didn’t realize my coach had a really big kind of a, brought me up in the world,” and I didn’t even realize until way later on.

So you never know, understanding that, hey, eye to eye, all eyes on you as a coach could make that kid’s day, make their week, might affect the rest of life. We don’t know. And

[00:23:34] Mike Klinzing: those are all things that are not basketball related. We didn’t talk at all about the actual ability to teach the game, because the first part of being a good coach is the connection with the people, whether that’s the kid who you’re coaching, whether that’s the family.

I think being able to make that connection takes you a long way. And obviously there’s basketball knowledge that you have to have if you’re going to be teaching and doing coaching and those kind of things. But by the same token, that interpersonal piece of it is so big when you start talking about the business aspect and on getting people to…

getting a coach to understand that what you’re trying to do is have an impact on those kids in a positive way, and by knowing their names, by getting to know them, that’s how you’re going to be able to get them to come back and continue to benefit from the basketball knowledge that you have by building that relationship.

And I think that’s really well said, and I think it’s an important point for anybody who’s in the coaching business to be able to be able to do those kinds of things when it comes to being a coach yourself, or if you’re looking to hire coaches, those are the kind of things that you want to look for.

So when we’re talking about setting up an academy, and obviously as you go along in the process, you’re now much more involved on that side of just getting things in line. And one of the things that you mentioned is a curriculum, and I think this is another area where somebody who is a solo trainer sometimes can have a hard time putting together a cohesive series of Private lessons, classes, what’s the order?

I’ve got a kid that shows up here, then shows up over here. How do I make sure that wherever they show up in my business, that I’m getting them what they need? So talk a little bit about the curricu- curriculum development side of BTS, how you guys approach that, where does the curriculum come from, how do you get it into the hands of the coaches?

Just walk me through the curriculum piece.

[00:25:33] Wayne Mays: Yeah, and that’s what really makes us stand out for a lot of trainers and coaches that are trying to, start their own programs, is that structured curriculum. And it all originally started from, when La- Larry Hughes started it out in St.

Louis, he was doing his own running around, finding different gyms, and once he found his brick-and-mortar, we teamed up with a great company they’re a martial arts academy in northern California named Kovars. They introduced what if you created a year-round structured curriculum? And so Larry started the whole thing of just, he…

it must have taken him months. I don’t know how long it took him, but it must have taken forever, where he sat down and said, “Okay, what’s a good starting building block to go off of and what you need from day one? Okay, how do we build off from there? What’s, should be another drill added on that and what should be progressed?”

And we do 10 cycles throughout the entire year, and each cycle’s five weeks long. And what makes it so unique is everything is for a reason in the curriculum, and it’s, you’ll see as you move along that curriculum where it started from and how we got to that next point, how we’re getting to the next point, what we’re introducing next to it.

And every day you come out, every week you come out it’s pretty much new. There are things that we’re building on top of, but it’s fresh every time you’re out. You’re not doing the same thing over and over again, but you’re still keeping the basis of what you’ve learned and moving forward.

And th- we have it set up for entire… And it’s always changing. I’m not saying “Yep, we did it. It’s done. We have it.” This is something that Larry’s still working on, our CEO Jason Fry is still working on, who is, just a amazing, hard-working, and basketball-minded type of person that really…

he’s co- I couldn’t say how many years he coached. He’s fantastic. But they’re still tweaking it as they go and making sure it has the right terminology, the right progressions, and constantly moving and changing, especially with the game. It’s always evolving, and you have to make sure you have that in there, not just for, like I said, the top echelon athletes, but someone who’s brand new to the game.

How can we coach One thing to someone who’s never dribbled a basketball compared to someone who’s pretty advanced. And so you have to have those, and that’s also part of the coaching as well, is being flexible while you’re teaching that curriculum. But it’s laid out for them, so every coach that walks on the floor knows what you’re teaching that day.

And of course, you make audibles on, what people can and can’t do, but there’s no questioning. They know exactly what they’re going to be taught. And so we put out all, to all of our academies, all of our coaches, all of our general managers, they have the curriculum set up for at minimum a week.

Most of the time we’ll go three weeks at a time so you know what’s coming up next. You can do your research. You can look up, drills on YouTube if you want. You can ask our own, trainers that have been involved, like Larry and Bobby and Monte, and all that kind of stuff. So everyone, as soon as they step on the court, they have the drills ready.

It’s just a matter of what’s the best way for you to teach it.

[00:28:22] Mike Klinzing: How many levels of skill do you have in terms of someone … I know when I talked to Rick and Larry a few years ago, that one of the things they talked about was I’m going to use the word graduating. I don’t remember if that was the exact term that they used, but you go through that five-week curriculum, and i- if you’ve mastered the skills in that particular area of the curriculum, then you bump up to the next level.

So I don’t know if I’m explaining it right or if that’s even still the way that you guys do it, but just walk me through if I’m a kid who, all right, I’m a kid who’s never touched a basketball and I’m at this level, and then maybe I’m an elite high school player, how do I, what’s the process for me moving from one level to another as I progress through the curriculum?

[00:29:05] Wayne Mays: Yeah. We’ve actually changes quite a bit. We’re always making changes as we go. The way we structure it now is as soon as you come out to the floor, y- you try it out for free, see if you like the program. But what we do is we do an actual assessment with them, and it’s a basic, five-minute assessment to really see what your skill level is, and that’s how we kinda get that basis on understanding where they belong in our program.

Should they be in just our skills and drills classes? Should they do more private lessons? Would a camp or a clinic be better beneficial for you? Or maybe you’re ready for team play. This is what we have to find out in this. And if you’re a basketball coach with us, you get trained up on what you’re looking for, and there’s things that’s already laid out for them that says, okay, this is what you’re looking for when it comes to ball handling.

This is what you’re looking for when it comes to your shot and the proper form and all that kind of stuff. So you can make a quick assessment on that. And the way we work it from here is if they join our program, become a member or start doing private lessons, what we do is we also keep up with them to make sure that we’re doing another assessment, right?

And it’s usually in about a 10-week program. Once we start doing that, okay, this is where your starting block was. This is what we’ve seen so far. Let’s do this again. And let’s see how much you’ve improved. And then you start progressing at that assessment. So it’s not just doing the same thing over and over again.

You’re adding more things that you know they can do that maybe they need to do next time or ad- advance from there. And so everyone, not just the coaches, but the players and the parents, are seeing that progression as they move through. And, as you age up, as you get more advanced, we might bump you up to the next class, which is, a much more advanced class, or maybe just higher in age if you’re keeping up with that level, making sure that they’re progressing all throughout.

[00:30:48] Mike Klinzing: When you come in and work with BTS and you’re at an academy, and I’m a player in a family I have a kid, I’m a parent, I come in with my kid, and we’re working in a particular area, right? I get my assessment done by a coach, and I’m coming to classes or I’m going to a camp or a clinic. How much connection is there between one coach and one player?

In other words, if I show up and I have this coach for my first five-week session, am I going to keep with the same coach, or is it that I rotate somebody in so you get different people, different perspectives? How do you guys handle the player-to-coach relationship as it relates to a kid who’s progressing through the curriculum?

[00:31:31] Wayne Mays: And it’s different for every academy and different for every player and different for every coach, right? It depends on what they’re into. Yeah, our skills- Yep. Okay … and drills classes is what we do as our group classes. And w- and so they’re seeing new coaches every night that they come out, and they’re going to gain different relationships with different coaches as they progress.

For me personally, I used to love when every coach had their own personal, touch to every single player because, maybe the one way you teach a box-out drill isn’t going to be the same as another coach, but hey, a player might pick something up from one coach and something completely different from another coach, but they’re learning something new and tr- getting a much more well-rounded game.

But if they’re more on the private lesson side, we try to find the coaches that are going to suit just for them, right? So if they’re like, “Hey, I want to do a five-pack of private lessons, and I don’t know what coach I want,” we’ll maybe try a couple out. “Hey, what do you want to work on the most? Okay this coach is probably our best shooter and has the best technique.

We’ll put you with that if that’s what you want to learn for shooting. If you’re ball handling, hey, we’ll put you with this coach. Or maybe one day we’ll try something different, put you on a different one,” depending on what they’re wanting. If they don’t know what they want, we’re f- going to find it out, right?

We’re going to do not a trial and error, but almost an assessment to see what they need to work on and put them with the coach that’s going to work best for them. And some people have one coach that they immediately are like, “I love this coach. I want to be-” That’s good … “with this coach the entire time I’m here.”

And I’m like, “Yeah, great. Absolutely.” What’s worked, what works for them and what the kids get the most enjoyment out of and what the parents feel more confident with is what we’re going to supply to them. There’s no, right or wrong magic pill I can give you that says, “This is going to work for you.”

We have to find that out

[00:33:05] Mike Klinzing: Makes sense. And I think, again, like you said, it’s not a one size fits all, right? There are some players and families who I’m sure are like, “I like this guy. This is the guy I want to work with.” And then there are other families where, “Hey I like to get a variety,” like you said, because I can pick up one thing from this coach, and I can pick up something else, and again, everybody has strengths and weaknesses.

And so I, I can definitely see both of those tracks making a lot of sense. Let’s jump back to your story within BTS. So after the general manager job with Bobby Jackson, what’s the next step in your career at BC- at BTS? What happens next?

[00:33:41] Wayne Mays: I’m very excited about my… And it’s still a fairly new role.

I’ve only been doing this for probably about not even a year yet. But my biggest role that I wanted to bring out for the basketball training system side is making sure everything is trained and structured for all the development of our academies. And because when I first started, it was a, and the people we had in our positions, besides Larry Hughes, of course it was boast- mostly “Hey, figure it out.”

“Here’s what your goal is. Make it happen.” And so I had to figure it out myself, and trial and error, and ask questions from other managers at our other academies and, just do my research and dig into it. So what I wanted to really bring out for these academies is making sure everyone, when they come on board, whether it’s from a coach to a sales specialist to a general manager, knows exactly what’s to be expected.

And I- it’s so much more beneficial when you know what the expectations are before you go in and have to figure it out. And so my job is to make sure that everyone’s comfortable. You may not feel comfortable in getting it all done, but this is what’s supposed to be done. This is what we can do to help you get it done.

And I also do weekly check-ins with all of our general managers and, and it… Training never stops. We’re always improving, so there’s not, “Hey, I’m going to train you for a week and, you’re done. Go ahead.” We want to make sure that I’m always keeping in contact with them and understanding what the struggles are, what we can help with, whether it’s from dealing with troublesome coaches, whether it’s dealing with our system that we’re working with, or maybe just, I’m having a hard time hitting my goals revenue wise.

How can I change that? Okay, let’s talk about it. Let’s, what have you done? What can we do from here? And so on and so forth. So that’s my biggest thing to move forward with when I started this position. Now I’ve transitioned as well into kind of growth for our entire basketball training systems, because when we first started, it was you’re going to build a full program.

That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to just find programs, find people with the capital, and make sure that we can build these programs. But I’m sure, as you know from the basketball world, most trainers, coaches don’t have the capital to find a location, rent a space, build out an entire gym. So what we’re really trying to do, and what I’m trying to do personally, is to find these passionate coaches, trainers basketball, pro basketball players that want to just help their own program get started, and what the tools they need to get that started and progress.

And so I’m trying to broaden, “Hey, basketball should be for everyone, not just people with capital to build an entire program.”

[00:36:11] Mike Klinzing: So I want to get to that in a second, but I want to go back to what you said at the beginning in terms of you’ve basically, from what I can gather, and you mentioned it earlier, that putting together the SOPs, right?

You’re putting together an operations manual that’s written down. So if somebody comes to you with a question about, “Hey, how do we do X?” It’s not I don’t know. We just let’s just figure it out.” It’s now we know exactly how we want to handle that particular situation. Am I reading that correctly?

[00:36:42] Wayne Mays: Exactly, yeah. And that was something that all of our… And it wasn’t just myself doing this, by the way. It was all of our managers that have been involved and our leadership team that we have now that have had this experience of being on the floor, being a coach, being a general manager, doing sales. And ev- we all have this, unified knowledge of this is what’s worked for us.

Okay, this will work for them because of this. And obviously, being from the military, I had to put some structure on it. So we laid it out- … in Google Classroom training, and I do, full sessions with them. And we do, post-interviews with them to make sure that everyone’s comfortable, and we’re checking on with them on a weekly basis and making sure everyone knows where to find the information.

If they don’t, you can give me a call. This is what I’m here for, is to make sure everyone knows and is comfortable with what, can be done.

[00:37:28] Mike Klinzing: We talked about the coaching role. We talked about the general manager role. The other role that you’ve mentioned a couple times is the sales role. Talk me, talk to me about the sales role.

What is a person who’s in that position, what do they do on a day-to-day basis?

[00:37:42] Wayne Mays: Yeah. So depending on the location, we have sales specialists, we call them membership specialists, and they’re going to manage kind of all the background communication with our families. When it comes to our system, we use a system called Mindbody who will sign people up, do a sales pitch.

When people come in for a free trial, they give them all the information. “Here’s a packet of what we do. Here’s how we can help. Here’s our prices.” They’re– But my biggest role that I love for them is being that person as soon as you walk in the gym, which I always tried to be when I was, but is being that person when someone walks in the gym, you’re here with open arms.

“I have answers for you. Are you excited? I’m going to make sure you’re having fun. I’m going to make sure you’re happy about it and give you all the information you need to know.” So they’re doing most of the work when it comes to following up with people and making sure they’re having a good time, and understanding what all of our programs are and, what we can do for their kids.

And they’re communicating directly with the general managers. They’re communicating directly with the coaches. “Hey- We have this many free trials coming tonight. We need to do this many assessments. I’m going to talk to A, B, and C. You’re going to do the assessments. So they’re very integral, really helping out the general manager and easing a little bit of that load so they don’t have to do all the back end, “Hey, did you have a good time?

I’m going to call you. I’m going to give you a text,” and all that kind of stuff.

[00:38:54] Mike Klinzing: Makes sense, and I think, again, like you said, that interaction that public relations of making connection like we talked about earlier. As soon as somebody walks in the door, you’re being greeted, you’re being told and shown what it is that you’re going to experience.

And so I can certainly see the value in that without question. How many academies do you guys have open right now across the country? And just to give people a sense of kind of the scale of your business.

[00:39:22] Wayne Mays: Sure. So we have six that are open right now, full facilities. Four of them with NBA players.

Larry Hughes, obviously, Bobby Jackson in Sacramento, Monte Ellis in Texas, and we have Chris Paul in North Carolina. We’re also talking with Byron Scott right now to be starting one in Los Angeles. And then we have two others that are full programs that are not NBA based, but of course our NBA players all they’re a part of it. They– Larry just went out to our one of our most recent, Sutton Basketball Academy and Pro Elite Basketball Academy, head coach for the Wildcats Rodney fantastic guy. So it’s not just our NBA players, but we have six full facilities, and we’re also helping out with different coaches when it comes to our different programs, right?

So not j- We call it our BTS Flex, where, they’re just wondering about marketing materials or curriculum materials and different things like that. So I couldn’t tell you the exact number on how many we have right now on that one, it’s a constant day-to-day basis on what we’re helping with.

[00:40:18] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. Understood. All right, so let’s look at the full facility piece of it. When you think about the ideal size for a facility, I always think it’s interesting to look at some of the different places that I go with my own kids or that I’ve been involved in and see, okay, this place has four courts, this place has X number of shooting machines this group has this.

When you think about the ideal or kinda what you’ve had success with, what do you think is the right size? And again, maybe it’s all, maybe it’s different just depending upon what you have available. But in your mind, from an ideal business standpoint, what’s the size type of facility? If you could design it from scratch exactly the way you wanted it, what’s the ideal size?

[00:41:03] Wayne Mays: Yeah. When it comes to- Generating revenue growth, we found that the smaller facilities are much easier to handle, right? And that’s because the overhead, the rental space, building up the court themselves. And you can still… you’d be surprised how many kids you can still fit in a smaller gym of just one full court, of making sure everyone has the space.

You’re still getting one-on-one, connections with these coaches. You’re still being able to fit them in groups. We do have large facilities. CP3 in particular is a very big facility, and they are the most successful and, with Chris Paul involved, how could it not be, right? But there’s so much overhead in this, and we’ve found that, yes, they are bringing a lot, but there’s also so many different expenses that go with having that big of a space.

So you don’t particularly need a giant, huge facility with four courts to have success as a program. We found that the smaller, courts, Larry Hughes’s in St. Louis, it’s not even a full court, and that’s much easier because the gym rental is easier, putting everything together is easier.

It’s much more cost-effective, especially if you’re a licensee for us. You want to find something that’s going to give you return the quickest, and that’s what we’re trying to find, and we found the smaller programs tend to be the best way to go for that.

[00:42:17] Mike Klinzing: Feels like I know this is something that I talk with people about all the time, and often you’ll go to an AAU tournament or you’ll go to this particular whatever, and you’ll show up on a Saturday afternoon at an AAU tournament where the facility is packed and there’s people wall to wall, and people come up to you and be like, “Wow, like this place must just be minting money.

They’re just… It’s crazy how… Look at how packed it is.” And I’m like come back on Monday morning at 11 AM and see what this facility that has eight courts, let’s see what that facility looks like on a weekday at 11 AM.” And that kinda speaks to what you’re talking about, right? That the overhead and the rental and again, the utilities and everything that go all…

There’s all this stuff filling the court time and how do you do that? And it’s way more challenging, I think, than people think who only see it during the peak hours where, yeah, it’s packed on a Saturday for an AAU tournament, but there are lots of times during the week where you have to hustle to be able to fill it with whatever, whether it’s your own basketball programming or a lot of times whatever you can fill it with just to be able to have people inside the facility.

So I can certainly see where from a standpoint of a smaller facility being easier to manage makes a lot of sense to me. So then let me take it a step further. So if I have a one-court facility, let’s say, what’s the structure in terms of membership, number of kids that I need to be coming through the door in order to make my biz- my business viable so that I can have Not just success with my coaching piece of it, but so I can have financial success.

What does that look like? Again, let’s just use a one-court facility to kinda make it relatively simple.

[00:44:04] Wayne Mays: Yeah. It all, again, it depends on where you are in the country, what that gym rental is, what the cost is, and we usually have a pretty structured price line when it comes to all of our programs.

Some are a little bit higher, some a little bit lower. California’s obviously going to be a little bit higher because people can afford it in California. But ideally, because when I was a gen- when I was a general manager at Bobby Jackson, my number to hit to kinda, and I was fortunate as well because we were 24 Hour Fitness, which we have a contract with 24 to, put these programs in where we see fit, which is where what we’re doing with Byron Jackson, or I’m sorry Byron Scott over in Los Angeles right now, is being able to…

you’re just paying rents and you don’t have to do anything else. But if you are owning your own facility or if you’re renting from a place and building it up, roughly for one court, I would say you want to get to around that 80, 90 mark of memberships when it comes to a monthly, because they’re monthly memberships.

That’s where you kinda start to make that break-even point, right? Now, again, rents and all that and your extra costs you have to put into the factors of what that’s going to be, but usually for a one-court facility, that’s usually about where you want to be. Then you start doing private lessons, the small groups, the camps, the clinics, the league play, different things like that.

That turns into more profit. And we like to base it around our skills and drills classes, because it’s year-round classes. We want to get those memberships in to start with, get that base level of what our break-even point is, and then constantly every single month create some sort of a new revenue maker, whether it’s just a holiday clinic or a back to school event or, just a, we have parents night out at some places where you just drop your kids off at night and, all that different sort of thing.

So you have to be creative at your own facility, know what your market is, and understand, okay, this is what I want for my break even and then I’ll add things on top of that.

[00:45:55] Mike Klinzing: What does a membership look like for the player and their family? If I come to a BTS facility and I sign up for a membership, do you have tiers?

What do I get for my membership, I guess is what I’m asking.

[00:46:10] Wayne Mays: Yeah. Most of our memberships are going to be, you have your choice of wh- our monthly memberships are going to be, usually you pick for a one day a week program, which can range anywhere depending on where you are in the country. Could be $69 a month to $99 a month, and you get to pick.

We’re very flexible with that schedule. You, you don’t… We like to schedule for a single day a week, and we like to keep you on that one if that’s possible, but we understand. Life is busy. You’re moving all over the place. You can’t make it that day, come in another day. No big deal. We also have an unlimited package, and that’s where you can come in any day of the week you want, as many times a week as you want.

That could range anywhere from, I think our lowest is around 145. You can go up to 175 depending on where you are, and just come, and you’re doing the skills and drills classes every single day of the week if you want. You can come in two, three, four times a week if you want. We also have our private lessons, and those are pay by scheduling in, so if you just want to do one session, you pick and choose when you want to do that, or you could do the five-pack and just use them whenever you feel.

You just have to schedule them ahead of time with us and understand what you’re working on. Small groups are the same thing as our private lessons, just, five, six, seven kids in a group with one coach. It’s a cheaper price usually. You can also do that as a single session or a five-pack. And so they have all the…

These are our regular programs, but then we also have, of course, the camps, clinics, league play, depending on where you are.

[00:47:29] Mike Klinzing: How many coaches do you need to staff a one-court facility in order to have somebody available for r- for all the offerings that you have?

[00:47:38] Wayne Mays: So we like to do on all of our academies a very base minimum of 10 to one ratio when it comes to players to coaches.

So if, you’re in a facility like CP3 when you have, so many kids in one class, we want to make sure that we have the right amount of coaches, so that way each player’s still getting that one-on-one attention even if you’re in a big group. You’re still getting all eyes on you while these classes are going on.

So that’s our baseline of what we usually like to do, but we’ve had some facilities that, some classes on certain days will have less than 10 kids some days, depending on holidays and summer and all that kinda stuff, so you could do it with one coach, one general manager in the gym with you as well.

I know when I first started at Bobby Jackson, there was times when I was still trying to figure out my coaches. They’re part-time jobs, so people call out, and so I had to run everything, and I did the coaching, I did the sales specialist, I greeted them in. I, and that’s just how it goes sometimes.

But-

[00:48:31] Mike Klinzing: Yeah …

[00:48:31] Wayne Mays: depending on what your schedule is throughout the week, you want that 10 to one, and you want to hire as much as you can around it. I’m a big fan of over-hiring so I get the right people in the right places, and making sure that, hey, if someone calls out, because in today’s days, I’ll tell you this right now, there are so many last-minute call-outs, and as a general manager, it’s frustrating.

So you have to have people ready to go, “Hey, can’t make it in today. Who’s available? Perfect. Get in the gym. Let’s go.” So it’s different for every location, but you want to keep that ratio in the court

[00:49:03] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. Tell me about the scheduling and how you go about putting together what program is available at what time.

How do you balance that with the individual sessions, the group sessions, the camps, clinics? How do you make sure that you fit everything in? And then obviously, again, since you’re dealing with kids, there’s a certain time, especially during the week, where you’re not having anybody in the facility at 9:30 AM- to do a class because the kids are all in school. So just walk me through what it’s like putting together a schedule. What’s the biggest challenge of putting together the schedule? What comes together relatively easily? Just again, walk me through that process of putting together a schedule.

[00:49:44] Wayne Mays: Yeah. It depends on the location that you’re at.

We have some facilities in our programs that it’s their gym. They can have it as many hours of the day as they want. They can put in programs, private lessons any time of the day, any time of night Someone like myself who worked out at 24 Hour Fitness, we’re renting the gym for them, so we have to establish exactly when those days are going to be.

Ideally, especially for those skills and drills classes, you want to have consistent classes throughout that week in the evenings. because during school time, people get out of school, you have to make sure they’re late enough that you’ll have time to get out of school, go home, get changed, get something to eat, then come to the gym.

You’ll– But then you don’t want it too late to where our last class of the day, our high school or advanced level classes, where you’re like, “Oh my God, I’m exhausted. I can’t play basketball right now. What am I doing?” So you have to ideally anywhere from, 4:30, five o’clock, through 8:30 to nine o’clock is usually that best window throughout that week.

And weekends, obviously, depending on the availability of your facility, you can kinda schedule it however you feel. Me being at 24, we had to have a contract with them of during this time to this time, this is going to be our gym, and Sundays we’ll have it from this time to this time. But if you have your own facility, you can map it out, whatever works best.

But the main point would to be having that consistent weekly class to make sure people can come to the gym. And you have different options. It’s not just you’re here one day, this is when it has to be. We want to make sure that people have that flexibility in their schedule to come when they can. When it comes to our clinics, we like to build out an entire yearly, a roadmap when it comes to what we’re going to be doing.

Obviously, the holidays, what sort of specialty are we doing. We try to do some sort of a clinic or specialty event once a month. So understanding a few months ahead of time, “Hey, we want to try to do something on this date so we can put out the marketing, let our, members know, let all of the staff know, and everyone’s on the same page.”

And then, of course, our summer camps. Depending on what your location is and how much you have the gym, you want to make sure you map those out before the year even starts, so that way people have time to make their summer plans and you’re not just scrambling last minute of, “Oh man, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.”

So we want to make sure everything’s mapped out for them, and sometimes we have to change it depending on what’s going on in our areas and things like that, but we want to make sure we have a plan before the year even begins.

[00:52:02] Mike Klinzing: When it comes to your pro guys, how hands-on are they expected to be?

How hands-on do they want to be? Obviously, every guy is different, but just talk a little bit about what it’s like working with your pro guys.

[00:52:19] Wayne Mays: It’s always a pleasure working with the pros. Some have more availability than others. Chris Paul obviously can’t make it as much. He’s quite busy with the, being an NBA player and all that kind of stuff.

But- … Larry, he lives down the street from his academy, and he likes to pop in and out any time he sees. Bobby Jackson, obviously he’s also coaching for the Sacramento Kings right now, so his availability during the season is scarce. When there’s a home game, you’re giving him a call like, “Do you have a minute?

Come to the gym.” But off time, he’s there two, three days a week. Monte Ellis in Texas, man, he’s there- I think he might be there every day. I don’t know for sure, but he’s constantly there, and that’s such an important part of these pros being involved, is having them in the gym, because that’s…

Even though a lot of the kids don’t know who they are, the parents know who they are they want to see and feel what it’s like and understand how they got there, what it took to be there. Just having conversations with these pro guys for these kids can make such a lasting impact. And I have to say, every single one of them, fantastic at…

you’d think being an NBA player and NBA star in some cases, you’d be a little bit above, talking with someone like myself. But no, they’re understanding. They want to be involved. They’re very smart, all four of them, and understand what it takes and what we need to do together. And so any time they’re around and they’re involved, it makes our jobs easier.

Kids are having more fun. It’s just so much… it’s a pleasure to work with them all around.

[00:53:45] Mike Klinzing: That’s awesome. And I think, again, somebody to get involved in something like this, you have to have a passion for obviously the game, but also for kids and wanting to, in some way, give back to the game that has been so good to those guys and given them their livelihood and the notoriety they have that goes along with that.

And so I think to be able to put together and put your name on an academy, and then to be able to, again, give back in your community and give back to the game, seems like it would be something that, again, there’s a lot of guys out there that would be willing and want to be able to do that at some point in their either career or their post-career life.

And that goes to something that you talked about a little bit earlier in terms of somebody starting their own facility and getting their program off the ground. And you have, again, as you said, capital is required depending upon how you want it structured. Are you building your own building?

Are you buying your own building? Are you just renting? Are you at an LA Fitness? Are you renting in a warehouse that has a court in it? How is it that you’re going about and designing this? So from a business standpoint for you guys, how do you go about attracting new business to get started with a new academy?

What’s the strategy for you guys to grow BTS from where it is now and the number of academies that you have into a- just adding more locations? What does that look like?

[00:55:17] Wayne Mays: Yeah. And there’s different avenues that we’re definitely doing a lot more of now other than just finding the academies. But m- the basic that I’ve been trying to do from my point of view is just Reaching out to most people that are involved in the game, having conversations, especially with someone like you, and being involved in something like this, is being able to tell people that you don’t have to be an NBA player to do something like this.

You don’t have to have this en- giant retirement capital from the National Basketball Association that can help you get started. You can start something from the very ground level, get your name out there, get a brand going, and work your way up. It doesn’t just have to be, “Hey, I have some money. I want to spend it on a basketball academy.”

It’s finding people that are passionate, know the game want to be involved in basketball throughout their lives, and make sure that they’re getting their name out there. And, our team does a great job of being able to find the right people that just need help, and this is my number one job besides training our already people that we have on staff, is finding people that do need that help, and making sure that you’re in it for the right reasons.

Not just I want to make a bunch of money playing basketball.” No, we want to make a difference in our community. And you don’t have to have a lot of money to just start training people, and build a roster, and find more people around you. Get your own brand involved, and make sure that people can find you.

Where’s your location? Are you bouncing around? Ideally, you want to be in a single place where everyone knows where you are, and then you start to get recognized, and then more people start coming, then you start to have a little more capital. Then we start trying to find you a place and market even harder, and so on and so forth.

But there’s so many different paths to go besides just saying, “Hey, find me a location. I’m opening something.”

[00:57:03] Mike Klinzing: What’s the marketing strategy, both for academies that have been around for a while, and as somebody gets started new, what are some of the strategies that you guys use to get the word out about what you’re doing in the communities that you serve?

[00:57:17] Wayne Mays: It’s a digital world, and you’ve already mentioned the AI and everything that’s going with technology before we jumped on here, and that’s really how we have to do a lot of our marketing. It’s through our ads when it comes to Google, when it comes to Facebook, Meta, all this kind of stuff.

Instagram, TikTok, doesn’t matter what it is. People just have to find you, and they have to be able to see you, and they have to see you quick. Because when people are scrolling, they’re scrolling fast, so you have to find something that’s going to grab them, something that’s going to stand out. That’s the number one battle that you have to deal with is that’s how most people are finding everything nowadays, and that’s how we have to use it as well.

But you as a coach, as a trainer, who, maybe don’t have a lot of followers, whatever it is, or don’t have a lot of money to throw into an ad marketing campaign, you can do a lot of grassroots marketing of just boots on the floor, let’s go find people. And we have all the tools and different things that you can use To get out in your community, find those kids that need help training, understand who you are, what your, style of coaching is, what’s going to work best for them.

So there’s so many different things you can do besides just putting an ad out, which, nowadays that’s how the world is. But going out, putting up flyer street signs, talking to people, going to events, making sure people can see you, that’s really how more people in your own personal community can find you.

[00:58:37] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. I think eventually you start out with that broad general, the digital world of m- making a campaign that gets people aware of what you’re doing, and then eventually I would guess that what you hope to transition to is, in addition to that digital stuff, is it’s word of mouth, right? “Hey, Coach Wayne does a great job over there at his academy.

You should go and try that. Little Johnny’s been working with them for the last six months. If you’re looking for a great place to do basketball, that’s where you should go.” And I, what I’ve found for me is that, again, so much of what I do just ends up being the mom of the kid who went last year tells her friend, “Hey, you should send your kid to this camp.

They do a really good job.” And that kind of marketing, A, it’s cheap. Yep. And B, there’s it’s way more effective, right? Because it’s a personal touch of the person actually experienced working with you, now they’re telling somebody else, “Hey, you’re going to have a similar experience if you go and work.” And I think that, again it goes to the very beginning of our conversation when we talked about how do you hire the right people and the right coaches and put them in position.

If those people are doing a good job, now people talk, “Hey, you want to go work with this coach at this place.” And that’s really how you start to … Again, that gets the flywheel spinning, right? Where it just, as you do a good job, more and more people start talking, and that’s how you build your b- your reputation within the community, and that’s how you really go about building, building your business.

When you think about your current role right now, Wayne, what would you say is the biggest challenge within your business right now? What’s something that you’re working on to, to try to make better? What’s the biggest challenge i- in having the kind of success that you want to have?

[01:00:30] Wayne Mays: I think the biggest challenge we have is getting the word out that you don’t have to be an NBA player to run your own program.

Finding the right people, right? And we’re going all … we’re not just in the US anymore. We’re actually going to India and things of that sort. It’s all about making those right connections and finding the right people. The biggest challenge is finding people that love the game enough, but don’t understand how they can make this something that they can make a reality of their own living as building a basketball program and putting them in the right position.

So personally, for me, that challenge is finding people who are– know what they’re doing in the game of basketball, are passionate about it, and want to find a home and make it something serious for them, because people think if I don’t play pro basketball, what can I do in the basketball world if I’m not just coaching at a college level or a NBA level?”

There’s so many different things you can do, and just getting the word out to them and making sure that they know that is probably the biggest challenge.

[01:01:30] Mike Klinzing: And you talked about earlier that you don’t just have the full-fledged academy piece of BS– of BTS. You have some other offerings. Can you talk a little about what those other offerings are for somebody who is a trainer in a local area that maybe just wants to see what they can do to grow their business a-and scale it in some way?

Just what else do you guys have available on the menu besides, hey, you’re going to open up your own facility and have this whole big academy piece? What’s the other side of what you guys do?

[01:02:00] Wayne Mays: Yeah. We have a br- actually two new programs that we’ve just started. The first one’s called BTS Ignite, and it’s pretty much a monthly membership with us, and we supply you with what you’re looking for.

It can start as low as $99 a month, which is w- like you’re a student at a basketball facility almost. And- … we give you all these kind of tools. We have a resource library that is so long and so in-depth from all the knowledge that we’ve gained throughout the years from Larry first starting it to what we’re still building right now of when it comes to any piece of the puzzle that you’re looking for, when it comes to just, hey, how do I start marketing?

How do I make a structured program throughout my entire year, or just six months at a time, or three months at a time? How do I create a template for an entire days of camp for a basketball camp, for a two-hour clinic? Different– we have drills that I don’t even think I’ve gotten to the end of just how to teach a certain drill, and there’s, five or six different things just for one drill that you can…

So all this is just for someone that wants the basic level okay, I just need some information. And there’s tiered levels to it, and each one you get, a once-a-month call with our leadership team. The more obviously that you’re involved into, because we have a $99, a $499, a $1,299, you’re– depending on how much you’re, wanting to invest is how much time we’re going to give you of our own.

So it’s going to be, could be once a month, could be once a week, depending on what you’re looking for and what you’re building. And, once it gets to that higher level, we are a little bit more picky. We want to find people that are established, know what they’re doing already, and we can guide them and put them to that next level.

We also have what’s called a BTS Flex, where for a lump sum, you could just get, hey, I need a full year curriculum done. We can set that up for you. You have an entire year curriculum for it, and we train your staff. We still do all the training with myself and our leadership team, our CEOs, COOs, give everyone the understanding of what’s a great way to get you started, get you moving forward, the correct tools that you need to coach and communicate, and all this sort of stuff.

And, or maybe someone’s saying, “Hey, I just need help marketing. How do I do this? What are some templates I can use for online for my ads if I want to do it myself? What are things I can do in my community that have worked for you that you can do yourself without any cost to you?” And there’s all these pieces of the game and training facilities that we use in our academies that are just at our disposal that people can get from us a la carte, right?

You don’t have to have an entire program. I just need a piece of the puzzle. I’m doing good in these areas. I need help in this area. And so we can supply… We want to kinda be a one-stop shop for any sort of trainer or coach that is trying to build something.

[01:04:44] Mike Klinzing: I think what’s interesting there is that most people who start, and let’s just use trainers as an example, most people who start training, maybe they’re a high school coach, maybe they’re a former player, and they’re just kinda trying to figure it out, right?

They know some kids. They know a couple parents, whatever. “Hey, you want to train my kid? Boom, it’s whatever X number of dollars per hour, and I’m doing this, and I show up at the gym, and I work with the kid for an hour, and it’s going this.” A-and then all of a sudden, they’ve done two, three, four, or five lessons, and then they’re looking around “Man I need some ideas.

What do I do next?” And yeah, I’m making I’m doing two or three hours of lessons a day or, a week, whatever. How do I turn this into an actual business? And I think one of the mistakes that people typically make, and I know that I’ve been running camp for however number of years, and during COVID, I kinda put together a curriculum.

I did a presentation for one of the millions of online coaches clinics that were going out at the time of how to run a youth basketball camp, and that was honestly really the first time that I took all of my ideas and thoughts that I could just kinda run from the back of my head and put that down actually in a file on a piece of paper in a slideshow that I could then show to somebody else of, “Hey, here’s how you do it.”

But it took not me doing that from a business perspective. There’s so many things that sometimes, Wayne, I look at that I do and I’m like, “I should have better systems in place so that Person X could just…” If I’m sick or I just say, “Hey, let’s– why don’t you take this week?” That I could just hand them that curriculum and say, “Just go ahead and follow it.”

And there’s a part of you that I think this is one of the things that, and I could speak to myself as a quote entrepreneur that I’m not very good at, which is delegating, right? Which is having the systems in place so that the camp isn’t just Mike’s camp, and when Mike’s not there, it falls apart.

It’s a basketball training system where if Wayne’s not there, and in Wayne’s place is Mike, I’m still going to get the same experience. And that’s one of the thing– I think the challenges that someone who’s trying to start a basketball business has, and from what I know about what you guys do, that problem could be solved by, A…

Again, if you’re talking about the big facilities, sure. But if you’re talking about these smaller programs, those are things that, and resources that I know from my own experience, but also the experience of people that I see doing training and this kind of thing, that if you put those systems in place, it makes it much, much easier for you to go from, “I’m a trainer who’s working six or eight hours a week and doing some training,” versus, “I actually have a training business.”

And to me there’s a big difference between the two and you’re helping to facilitate getting people to that next level.

[01:07:41] Wayne Mays: Exactly. And also too, there, you have to be able to understand how to track revenues, right? That’s also a big part of not just being a general manager running your own program, but how do I track all th- my revenue numbers?

How can I put this into a system to where I can easily find it, and so on and so forth. So there’s a little bit of everything. And, a lot of pe- a lot of basketball trainers may not have, operational, understanding yet. They may not have business understanding yet. They may… you know the game how can I translate that into myself and being able to sustain it?

And that’s what we’re trying to help with.

[01:08:15] Mike Klinzing: All right, two-part question to kinda put the bow on things. So part one, when you look ahead over the next year or two, what are you most excited about that either you’re doing right now or that is in the works that you see coming that you think can be a big success?

So what are you most excited about? And then the second part of the question is, when you think about what you get to do day in and day out working with the people that you do at BTS, what brings you the most joy? So what are you most excited about moving forward, and then what brings you the most joy?

[01:08:46] Wayne Mays: I would say when it comes to BTS as a whole right now, I’m most excited because we’re rolling out brand new tech, and it’s something that I think a lot of places are trying and brand new, but we’re, just getting in this kind of beta testing phase of it’s not just tech for tech.

Hey, how many shots you make? We can track that ourselves. It’s how we’re getting a personalized hands-on experience with our USA, certified basketball coaches with this tech, and how we can g- make a real impact immediately with these kids. And also our work in India. I think that is super exciting th- because it’s such a huge growing sport worldwide now.

We’re– basketball’s coming for soccer, or football, if, depending on where you are. It’s c- it’s coming. Look out. And so working internationally is going to be so exciting because there’s so much potential in all that, that can just spread like wildfire. So I think that’s probably the most exciting for us coming up.

What was the other question? What’s I’m sorry. S- second part, biggest joy. What brings you the most joy about what you get to do day in, day out? Honestly, the biggest joy I have is the relationships that I’m gaining with all the people that we’re working with, whether it’s our leadership level, which are just fantastic people.

The– I can’t tell you, I’ve… being from the military, I played sports, in the ’90s, and so everyone yelled at you. They screamed at you, they cursed at you. Then I went to the military, and they kept screaming and cursing at me the whole time. I didn’t understand it. And so being in an environment of such support brings me so much joy on a regular basis of it doesn’t feel like work.

It feels like we’re a part of a family. And it’s not just our leadership team, it’s our academies as well. And making a difference in these people’s lives of seeing their kind of goals coming to fruition. It’s so great to see that I can just be a part of that and give them any support that I can, because that’s really the most lasting impact for me personally.

That’s the way it was when I was a general manager. What were those relationships with the coaches I had, with the families I had? I’m still in touch with some of the parents the kids that I had, the, conversations I had with them. It’s that same level with myself now, just on a bigger experience of nationwide.

[01:10:47] Mike Klinzing: That’s good stuff. I think it’s a theme that’s run through the podcast and run through this question is one of the answers that I often get is very similar to what you just said, which is the connection that you make with people through the game of basketball and the impact that you can have. And not everybody gets to get, have that impact with something that they love the way that you or I love the game of basketball, right?

And to be able to use the game to have that kind of meaningful impact, I think is where the sweet spot is for basketball people, that you want the game to grow, you want the game to be better, and you want the people that you’re impacting through the game to improve, not just as players in this case, but also to improve and as people and improve their lives, and that’s really what it’s all about, what you guys are doing.

So- Before we wrap up, how can people find out more about what you guys are doing? How can they reach out to you? So if you want to share website, email, social media, where can they go to find all the information about the programs that you were talking about? Whatever you want to throw at us, Wayne, throw it at us, and then after you do that, I’ll jump back in and wrap things up.

[01:11:57] Wayne Mays: Yeah, absolutely. So you can find all the information if you’re looking to build your own program at basketballtrainingsystems.com. And you can find plenty of other information on all of our facilities. I’m not going to give out the websites on our academies, but basketballtrainingsystems.com. You can reach me personally anytime at wmay@basketballtrainingsystems.com.

You can reach out to me about any sort of thing when it comes to growth. You can also reach out from our learnmore@basketballtrainingsystems.com. That’s our general email when it comes to, our licensees, people reaching out or wanting to know information. Easy to remember.

Learn more. People don’t remember. WMays, it’s always @basketballtrainingsystems.com. Even our website, so it’s very easy to find.

[01:12:39] Mike Klinzing: Perfect. Wayne, cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight to join us. Really appreciate it. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening, and we will catch you on our next episode.

Thanks.

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[01:13:42] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Hoop Head’s Podcast presented by Head Start Basketball