FlyGirl

Business Consulting

The business of cheerleading is a wonderful opportunity that can be rewarding both financially and emotionally. The challenge of course, is combining your great ideas for expansion, new programs, travel opportunities, clothing, etc., with the business plans to make them happen.

FlyGirl's president, Mandy Cheetham, is well versed in the business of cheerleading, and can help your organization maximize profits while providing the best possible, most competitive product for your customers.

After an assessment of the business, Mandy will create a report with recommendations on how, and why, to focus on certain areas of your business. Mandy's comprehensive report on your business will provide insight into the challenges your company faces and how to overcome those obstacles, as well as pointing out opportunities for expansion.

Maximizing the potential of your apparel market (ordering, designing, marketing)
Staff recruitment
Staff training (discipline, motivation, time management, technical skill improvement, how to teach technical skills, leadership, choreography, music creation, and more)
Customer recruitment
Building your organization's mission
Communicating effectively with parents
Building your business plan
Advertising

Mandy has consulted with several cheerleading organizations, including building two cheer gyms in Ontario, and two Canadian cheerleading companies. She has also provided assistance and advice to the Finnish Cheerleading Association, AusCheer in Australia, and has run competitions for the Ontario Cheerleading Federation.

References and portions of a sample report are available upon request.

Business Success Articles:

Staffing Your Cheer Gym

"90% of the problems in business are people problems." - Robert Cheetham (my Dad)

Running a cheer gym may make you one of the busiest people on earth. In this fantastic industry of ours growth is your middle name and keeping up with it is your game. You have a split personality. One half of you is a coach and the other is a business owner, and the two often collide like side by side tumblers on wet grass.

This tension between planning for your business and managing your business is never more evident than in the area of staffing. If you are like most gym owners you are coaching, hiring, managing budgets, talking to parents, traveling, making sure uniforms get ordered . . . did I mention talking to parents? You go from try outs to the Battle of Champions and back to try outs again with little time to hire a choreographer – never mind finding coaches for the four new mini teams you suddenly have.

So what do you do? You go to your senior team and ask the most dedicated, strongest kids to spend some hours coaching in the gym in return for discounted fees. They are able to keep cheering while they save for college, and you are getting a coach that you know and trust.

In the early stages of your gym’s growth you may have even trained these athletes-turned-coaches, sat in on their practices, and had them coach with you for a time before they went out on their own. Now it’s three years and 10 teams later and you go to a competition and see your level II teams struggling to hit their extensions and want to hide your face. How did this happen?

You got too busy, you delegated the task of training to another coach - who was either also too busy, or not particular enough, and it did not get done properly.

There are four reasons why training your staff is the most important investment you will make in your business.

1. You can not afford the liability risk of not practicing due diligence in this area.

Just as each coach is responsible for the proper training and supervision of their athletes, you are responsible for the proper training and supervision of your coaches.

2. You are marketing a product that is visible at every level in your gym.

Every time one of your teams steps onto the mat they are representing you.

3. The teams that have been most neglected are the ones that generate the most income. The lower level teams are the least expensive teams to run because they have fewer coaches, attend fewer competitions, fewer hours in the gym etc. Recreational programs can be the bread and butter for your business if you give them enough of your energy.

4. Hiring and training new staff is expensive, and your gym will grow and profit more quickly if you have a solid staff that work together and stay with you.

Over the next few weeks we will explore each of these reasons in detail. . .

But since you need answers now . . .

Here are a few quick things you can do to get your gym on track.

1. Focus on the basics.

Take ALL your teams back to basics. Make it mandatory that each team incorporates drills into their practices once per week (we do them for 5 minutes at every practice – each group hits 5 elevator cradles, 5 extension cradles, and 5 liberty cradles together in a circle as a warm up). To be pro-active you can or spend the first three practices of June doing ONLY elevators, extensions and liberties. This can be the week that you attend all practices and make sure that everyone is using the same technique. This will make your athletes more versatile and allow your entire gym to progress much faster come routine time. 2. Write it all out to cover yourself.

Ok, so maybe you don’t fancy writing a manual on coaching cheerleading, but there are plenty of them around that you can borrow from to create a manual for your gym. Each coach should have a copy of this manual and reading it should be one of their job expectations. It should include job descriptions, emergency procedures, technical progressions, policies regarding appropriate behaviour and certification expectations.

FlyGirl has a manual that has proven to be a fantastic resource for coaches at many levels that goes into great detail in these areas. We also have a detailed instructional video that could greatly enhance your coaches training program. The video teaches coaches the reasons why a flyer is bending her knees in a stunt and what correction to give her to get her to stop doing it – it goes way beyond just telling her to stay tight and look up. We explore how to teach athletes to feel confident first to cut the risk of their freaking out in the air, and to help bases to be aggressive with their flyers without getting themselves hurt. Most importantly, we show what it looks like when the group is doing it wrong to help new coaches to identify common mistakes.

We can also create a custom staff manual that covers all of your staff expectations, policies and procedures.

In the next two weeks we will explore the ways in which you can limit your liability when hiring and training coaches, and some effective ways you can invest in your staff and keep them around for years to come.

In the mean time, we want to hear your horror stories! Tell us about your staffing nightmares . . . the best story will receive a FlyGirl instructional DVD from our Elevation Series v.1 – Coaching Confidence in Cheerleading.

If you are interested in a customized staff manual and training video please contact mandy@flygirl.ca.

To receive more information like this: Subscribe to FlyGirl President Mandy Cheetham's Business Newsletter (this should be a link to the subscription page).

For more information contact Mandy at mandy@flygirl.ca.

In this section:

Cheer Tips