How to fill a basketball facility

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the episode above.

Brandon Evans: Welcome back to another episode of the CoachIQ podcast here. I'm your host, Brandon Evans, a fellow basketball training facility owner. Today we have also Brandon on the show here. You have your facility out in central Illinois, correct? Yep, and talk about where your facility is at right now. How did you get there? Kind of talk about your story, how you even are at where you're at right now, 'cause you have a pretty awesome facility.

Brandon Heyen: Right, so my name is Brandon Heyen. I run Heyen Hoops here in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. I started out about nine to ten years ago. Had never once thought that it would kind of turn into this. I started out, you know, I gra I played at Illinois Wesleyan and Bloomington-Normal, which is a division three, really good division three. Graduated from there, got a sales job in Chicago, lasted for nine months. I was actually funny enough, I was gonna quit after nine months. And the company sifted through my emails and found out I was gonna quit, so they just went ahead and fi they just went ahead and fired me. So I can say I have been fired before. And they f they fired me a month early. So basically I went through there's a whole lot more of this that whole nine months and what happened in that nine months, but you know, I was just like When I was playing at Illinois Wesleyan, I had three ankle surgeries in three years, battled through a lot of injury. Didn't have the best individual career, college career I wanted, but team wise we were really good. So I was happy, but I j I just kept battling back from every surgery. I found Pure Sweat basketball and Drew Hanlen. Early he was building, you know, things early on. And I actually used funny enough, I used his workouts to kind of get myself back into game shape after all those surgeries and everything. So I kinda fell in love with, you know, the process of like basketball training and just workouts and everything like that. Cause, you know, division three at the time, you know, you don't have anybody to put you through workouts and stuff, at least when I was in college. So you had to do everything on your own. And you know, I found Pure Sweat. Graduated, got that job nine months in, and then I found Drew, went to some clinics of his and things like that. And he kind of gave me my start. But then, you know, I knew I had to move somewhere that I had already built relationships, people knew the, you know, the okay, he played Illinois Wesleyan, he's at least got a good reputation. And yeah, I got my start. And for about six to seven years I was doing stuff without facility. You know, can't went through COVID, didn't have a facility then. I was training on at a park. When I was done with the you know, when it would get too hot by noon, I'd go inside for about five hours and then even in the afternoon I did ball handling zoom ball handling workouts on my at my apartment. On the deck at the time, just in my little one bedroom apartment. And you know, then I would go, you know, hop driveway to driveway. And yeah, just made it work. And then finally I kind of saw the writing on the wall about three and a half, four years ago. Leased a facility that already had the court, already had baskets and everything, and started with one court, grew into the second one and now we've grown into the third one and now I got three full courts and twelve baskets and actually today getting Hudl cameras installed so we're making another big jump. So but yeah. So now you know it all of that and all that time and effort and jumping around gym to gym and you know now you got you know I obviously I don't own the facility but You know, I just signed another three year lease. So the hope is to eventually own a facility, whether it's that one or another one in town. So

Brandon Evans: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, talk about grinding your way there.

Brandon Heyen: Yeah. I mean it I had no idea. I mean, just the whole journey is like the one full time coach I have on staff, Nana, he was a manager at Illinois State while he was in college. And you know, he literally said like the other day, like, man, I don't I don't think people realize you if you're really gonna do this, you almost have to have like zero life outside of it. At le especially like in the beginning, because like I think about like if I were to start right now, and obviously I had probably the best arguably like obviously he works with like Jayson Tatum, Joel Embiid, you know, Tyrese Haliburton, you know, I probably had the best mentor I could possibly get. But I also didn't just like wake up one day and have that mentor. Like I put a lot of effort into like showing up at everything and like trying to constantly communicate. So it's like, you know, I was just trying to always be the guy that's there. And you know, I just don't think you know, ten years ago it's like, okay, you work for you know, the I'm getting ready to do career day at my high school tomorrow. And speak on that. And it's like, you know, I gotta talk to these high school kids about like, okay, what how do how would you suggest getting started? And like, man, ten years ago, I don't know. Like looking at it now, like when you tell somebody to work for people for free or, you know, try to get info or like experience with this stuff, like it's hard. It's not easy. So

Brandon Evans: Yeah. No, it that starting out process. Like I don't have as massive of a facility as you. Like I don't even have one full court. But

Brandon Heyen: And you know what? Sometimes I wish I'd I honestly sometimes I wish I didn't have all that. Half of it. Right. But it's like sometimes you actually wish you had you know, I think after getting the third one, I think it ended up being like just the market we're in. You know, and Bloomington-Normal is a good size, but like adding that third court, I thought it was gonna

Brandon Evans: Yeah, I've been there's times I don't wish I had all I have.

Brandon Heyen: It is, I mean it's great. Like our three on three league we have, 144 kids sold out, all six courts playing at the same time, like you know, six half courts. It's all it's amazing. It's awesome to watch and like run and like just the atmosphere and energy in there. But like but then other times that court, if you don't have anything running on it or somebody renting it, it's just like, you know, it just sitting empty. So it's not always it's a nice to have, definitely. But you know, if we didn't have it and I only had a two court facility, I think w in my market at least, like we'd fill it no problem. But so

Brandon Evans: Yeah. Yeah. And that's something that I wanted to touch on. 'cause I mean we have a ton of facility owners that are on the platform and watch the podcast and all that. And I mean, I think the number one question is how do I get more people into my facility? So you mentioned your three on three league. Talk a little bit about what you do to get people in. Like what does your marketing look like? Do you run Promotions. D I know we talked a little bit on the phone the other day about that, but like what things do you do or offer that fill out a facility of that size?

Brandon Heyen: Right. So I think it really does have to d I think it does depend on the time of year. Obviously free trials free trial sessions. Like, you know, you want to get as much info about them. You want their first session there to feel like just feel amazing and different from anything they've ever done. So free trials, I think we started doing that probably a year and a half, two years ago, and that's been great. You know, and then obviously the follow up of that, you don't just want them to have a free trial and then not show up. You want to have things in place where, you know, whether it's an automation message or something, just to, you know, capture them and make sure they, you know, they have a great experience. Okay, now follow up on that experience. The other big thing is you know, I know memberships are a big thing. And you know CoachIQ, you know, just as far as information and stuff like that, people really say membership's the way to go. I agree with that. You want recurring, you know, revenue to be coming in. I have seen like we're making a small switch to where we're selling more like, you know, like eight. Eight like an eight-week program or like a twelve week program, that kind of stuff. Just because you know what I've found in at least in our market is that it really depends on the time of year. So for example, we're heading into winter here soon. So winter is a tricky one, right? Cause you got Thanksgiving, you got Christmas, you got you know, New Year's and like now me being a I married into three kids and now I have a fourth. So like me having four like four kids now and like just seeing the parent side of things too with the travel stuff. It's like you're almost you're hesitant or like not just travel stuff but like additional, you know, training and stuff like that. You're almost hesitant to sign up for certain things that you're like, well, I'm not gonna get you know, we're going into Thanksgiving and Christmas. Like why am I why do I want a membership for Christmas if they're gonna be closed for a f a fourth of the month or a third or a third of Or whatever, like that. So, like with this winter, you know, we're selling like you two six week programs, or you know, you can sign up for all 12 weeks type thing. And then just kind of go back to answer that question. The main question is like, how do you fill stuff? Something we changed, something we adjusted with our And obviously the three on three leagues are big hit during the fall because kids are going into their basketball seasons. And so you we time it up like perfectly. So like this Sunday is the last week, the fourth week of our fifth, sixth, and seventh, eighth boys. They start their season on that Monday. So they literally Yeah, perfect. We timed it. It was a perfect timed league this time. And so the The thing that helped us a lot with getting kids in our gym that normally don't is we used to just sell the three on three league. Okay, they all sign up individually. They can sign up as a team, but they sign up individually. And I used to make all the teams. Now it's so big that like so I used to imagine a hundred forty four kids and I have to make teams for all that. That's just insanity.

Brandon Evans: Yeah, I know.

Brandon Heyen: Cause then you're thinking about, okay, does this kid know this kid? Does this kid know like this kid's not gonna this they need height over here? My god. And now they luckily, you know, I got smarter and they sign up as teams. The other crazy thing we did was like, you know, color coded t shirts. So everybody had a different color t shirt and the my god. And then people would miss anyway, giant mess. That was awful. I was an idiot.

Brandon Evans: Yeah, you think about the matchups.

Brandon Heyen: Fix it all with a black and white practice reversible practice jersey. Fix it all. No, you can't. But what we started doing was okay, they can sign up for the league. They can sign up for the league plus one time a week, or they could sign up for the league plus two times a week. And now we just got a huge boost of revenue. And now our gym is like now our sessions like overflowing, like You know, like our fifth through eighth session tonight has twenty four kids in it. And a lot of that has to do with just you know, just the fact that we added that little you know, additional training 'cause the a parent looks at it like, they're getting practice, you know, to on top of just the games, I guess.

Brandon Evans: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's I like what you're talking about with that. I mean, you just use your league, of course, as a revenue source because end of the day, kids want to play. Like we all know that. Like we can tell to train all we want, but you're using that league as a way to get parents into your training, which One, they need it, and two, they may not have even known it existed, like or even considered doing it. And now they come to it and they're like, I'm getting better. Like maybe I should do this. And to your point on selling the you say it was six weeks. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's I was gonna say it's just it's essentially the s same thing as a membership, it's just dressed up differently.

Brandon Heyen: Right. Right. And Yeah, like six week you know, through the winter. Just because he got you yeah, go ahead. It really is. Right. Right. And I think, yeah, it's weird because my buddy that's also affiliated with Pure Sweat basketball, David Mason, he runs Elevate Hoops out in Tulsa, Oklahoma area. And him and me talk a lot about, you know, different ways to do stuff and everything. The funny thing is like I tr he's killing it out there. He's got two locations. He's got very little overhead. He's got multiple coaches on staff. And but the way he runs things on membership is entirely different to how we do stuff. And yet it doesn't matter what season. Now his membership numbers are gonna fluctuate, but it doesn't to him, it doesn't his demographic or however it's set up there, it doesn't really matter if kids are in season or not. Like they find a way to make his membership work. Even like during the week, which like, you know, I battle a big thing is like I got good amount of people that come from out of town, like 30 to 60 minute r you know, a radius or whatever. And I look at it as okay, if a parent's bringing their kid, you know, even thirty to forty-five minutes. And they're in our gym for like 75 minutes. Like, I feel like that's a good-ish trade-off. But if I'm if I got a kid in there for 60 minutes and they drove 45 minutes, I personally feel terrible about that. Now, when I talk to others, they're like, Man, it's they know what they're signing up for. Like it is what it is. Like your product is this. And I'm like, Yeah, I agree. But like time is everything. So we try to, I try to maximize time and everything, but Like to your point, like, it's just dressing things up differently. That's a really good way to put it because I th I think something because I took what my buddy David does and I tried it like in the spring and it flopped. It was awful. It was terrible. I didn't like the flow. I didn't like the crossover of kids. And so like he'll go He'll go like four to nine PM and he'll go skill session, shooting skill session fifth through eighth, shooting session fifth through twelfth. Then he'll go skill session ninth through twelfth, shooting session mix. So he mix it. So you can, you can sign up for a skill session and shooting session in the same night.

Brandon Evans: Yeah, that's how mine's set up. But yeah, but there's my shooting sessions, when you say shooting session or his like just shooting machine, is that pretty much what it is?

Brandon Heyen: Is it? Yeah. And so No, no, the he's got people instructing and everything.

Brandon Evans: Okay, mine's different. I just put open up the gun and like kids get on.

Brandon Heyen: Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean he's got I know he's got at least six baskets going, but like I'd love to I and you know, I only know it to a degree to a degree. I think it'd be something that I'd definitely want to v I need to go visit him one time and just see how it how he operates everything in person 'cause it i it is weird 'cause there's no you know, there's no one way to kind of do this thing, you know what I mean? So Look at like if you know who Mike Dunn is, shooting coach unbelievable. Does doesn't own a facility, but his my god, his content's unbelievable. He works with people individually. He travels the country and does, you know, shooting stuff or fade away fit, same deal, just clin clinic, clinic, clinic, clinic, clinic. I you know he's come over here and done clinic

Brandon Evans: Yeah. Just talk to him. Insane.

Brandon Heyen: With me before and yeah, there's no one way to kinda do it, which I think is really, really cool. But again, how we go back to how do you get started?

Brandon Evans: Yeah. No, it yeah, I mean you nailed it with there's no one way to do it. Like there I think there's principles that everything comes back to. And like ultimately the number one principle is how can you keep people engaged with what you're doing? No matter how like I you know, memberships are great. How can you consistently keep people engaged with what you have at your gym? Like that is the principle that it all comes back to. Memberships it works because No, they're on subscription, they like it, they continue to go. Like that it just works like that. But I mean, like your if you do your six week transformations, like parents also like that because they're like, Okay, I can knock off six weeks. I know I do this, this, and this during the six weeks. They're gonna get better out of that. Boom, done. And then maybe they'll send it for the next one, or maybe they'll skip one and then come back for the next one. But I think that

Brandon Heyen: Yeah, I got people I have people that only I ca I call it my clinic crew. I they're they only sign I only see them when I do clinics. So like I got Halloween I got Halloween's on a Saturday, so we're doing a Halloween clinic to where people can like it says basketball, can't remember the wording I put for it, but like, you know, costumes, You know, you can wear a costume, but make sure you're able to play basketball and it type thing. So we're f doing that for the first time. Thanksgiving clinic, Christmas clinic. You know, I dress up as the Grin I wear like a full-on Grinch suit for the Christmas clinic and like just swatting, you know, kindergarten through fourth graders. You know, so those are all fun. Those are great ones too. But again, you get ki you get kids in the gym that you never see you only see them on clinics. Or you Or if I do like a multi-day camp, you only see them in camps. Or, you know, when you do the three on three league, you only see them in three on three league. Which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just the parent kind of looks at it. Yep, it's that time of the year. Let's do it. Something that, you know, Drew Hanlen told me early on was like, you know, the only thing that matters is results. So it's like doesn't matter how you get there, like. Did you get did you get results? So like, yeah, million ways to do things. Did are you getting results? And so that's the way I kind of look at it is you know, it is kind of a like you said, six weeks. Okay, that's a month and a half. Okay, kind of a membership. Just like you know, we run teams and stuff now. We've been doing that for a year and a half. If you look at like right, our academy teams, we call it academy.

Brandon Evans: Yeah. I wanted to touch on that. Yeah.

Brandon Heyen: 'Cause I want it to feel like I want it to feel like less travel, more like this is basketball school, type thing. You know, spring summer season, that's a good four months. You're locking it that's a four month membership. Three to four month membership, you're locking them up for. You know, obviously everybody does payment different, but you know, if you can make it to where you got two options, hey, you know, pay you pay the team fee up front or you can, you know, pay the deposit and then next three months are like a monthly amount. That way everything feels like a membership. You see that number coming in, you know your numbers better.

Brandon Evans: Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to touch on that teams aspect. Because like I don't do teams personally, but I know there's a lot of coaches who also do teams within their facility. So I'm curious on how do you do it in a way, because I know when we talked on the phone, like There's the whole narrative about travel sports, like, you know, it is what it is. How did you implement Teams and how do you run it now? And how do you weave it into your normal training?

Brandon Heyen: So we implemented it a year and a half ago, in the spring and summer. And it's something that I put a lot of like I made a, you know, I made a deck, kind of really explained like how we're different from everybody from a marketing standpoint. Tried to just have a deck. I did I did some Google Meet calls or whatever Zoom calls where, you know, people fill out an interest form if they want to learn more. So I tried to get as much information out as possible. You know, I relied on a buddy of mine, Gavin Sullivan, who runs Mid Pro, Midwest Prospect Academy. It's Mid Pro Academy. He r he runs it out of Peoria, Illinois, which is close to Bloomington-Normal, about 45 minutes. And he runs it out of there. He's also got, you know, different like mid-pro south or south of Bloomington-Normal. Mid-pro West, which is over in Quad Cities, like kind of by Iowa. You know, so he's they've kind of expanded and people f Not necessarily franchise, but kind of affiliate and stuff like that. So he's my guy where if I got the funny thing is, you know, I s I started the team stuff because every parent or every kid wants some sort of team anyway. And so people have pe a few parents joked with me about it and I said, No, no, no, no. But then when you have when you

Brandon Evans: Yeah, I get that too.

Brandon Heyen: All of a sudden get three courts, it's like, okay, so we could do one of two things. I could either I could either keep saying no about it, no to it, or what's gonna end up happening is we're gonna tr let's say, okay, I got a fifth grade boy. We train him one time a week because that's all they can handle. But then two times a week, on top of that, I'm renting court space to his team and he's there anyway. So you see the problem with that? That's a giant, that's not, that's not smart from a like, if we want to talk just from a business perspective, that's not smart. Or even worse, those other two days, he's in some, he's in a now again, I don't know. He's in a different gym. He trains with us once a week. So there's a problem with that. And a buddy of mine that was also in Pure Sweat, Dustin Van Lu, he put it he put it best. He's like, Brandon, if they're not doing it in your gym, they're gonna find a gym, they're gonna find another gym to do it in anyway. And he runs a very like low I don't know, I don't know, I don't even know how many teams or anything, how he does, but I know he runs it. He's out in New York. Somewhere in New York, New Jersey, Orange County, New York area. But he runs it at like at a lower I don't think it's just something they did they do, right? But it's not they don't get crazy with it. But to his point, it's like if we don't offer it, they're gonna take their time and their money and they're gonna go somewhere else with it. So my whole thought a year and a half ago is like, okay, if we do this It's not going to be perfect the first time. I know we know that anything, I don't even know what the quote is, but typically if I'll try to put it together here, but if anything's perfect the first time, it probably wasn't worth a crap to begin with. You know what I mean? So we knew that and even then, like we told parents, like, this how we're doing it, this is how we're gonna do it differently from everybody else. Is it gonna it's not gonna be and I was very upfront with parents the first time. I go, it's not gonna be perfect at first because we just don't do this. But I'm getting as much information as possible to try to do it to the best of our ability because I want it to be different. I want it to be more okay, we're getting these kids better for whatever their next step is, not winning games. Yes, we want to win games, but like my hope is that. Where you we grow something to where, okay, kids are part of our teams, they're a part of our program, they're a part of our gym. And you just see the constant growth over time. And now, you know, two you got a kid that starts as a fifth grader two to three years in. Okay, now maybe they weren't winning as many games at first, but now they're winning more games because of the approach we're using.

Brandon Evans: Yeah. Yeah, that's like the ongoing debate in facility trainer world is should I have teams?

Brandon Heyen: Yeah, I the har the hard part is I don't think it's I you know, with anything, right, the pendulum kinda swings. I don't know I don't know how it swings back. I d I just think there's I don't know. I don't know. Especially like you know, I talked like Chicago area is ruthless like Chicago's ruthless. I mean, when I lived up there for nine months, I was trying to

Brandon Evans: Yeah. I don't know. That's where I grew up, yeah.

Brandon Heyen: You know, I had no idea what I was doing from a basketball standpoint, but I was working my desk job, making a hundred plus phone calls a day, and I'm like, man, I gotta stay around basketball. So I looked and looked in the kind of the suburb I was in. Finally found a guy that ran like a small program, like fifth, sixth, seventh girls. I never once got to practice or anything just because like we you know, we got down You know, we met for dinner one time, kinda talked to him, everything, and then just you know, the way he talked about like other programs stealing kids and all this stuff, I'm just like, this is not what I wanna do. I just wanna coach basketball. Like I don't wanna get into this like rat race with fifth, sixth and seventh grade girls that like I don't know at all. And like there's no like I'm living in a one like a studio apartment in a Chicago suburb. Like I'm just like what I'll just play I'll just go play pickup at health clubs. I'll just do that. I'll stick to that's how I'll get my basketball. I don't need to I don't need to do all this. This is crazy.

Brandon Evans: So funny. Well, yeah, I one last question here for this. Where are you looking to go in the next few years with your facility? Are you just I know you mentioned the beginning that you're interested in potentially owning the building one day. Are you just f content with your three courts? Are you looking to focus more area more on your or more effort on your teams? Where are you looking to take your facility at in the next few years?

Brandon Heyen: I think in the current facility I'm in, you know, we have the three courts, we have the programming. You know, after having a full year kind of under our belt with the third court, we are and you know, honestly this helped. A health club in town just recently closed about a month ago that had a bunch of court space in it and like they're selling they've been selling the building for a while, but they finally like they're still selling the building. They closed the entire building. So that, you know, that moved some groups to our place like Badminton, which it's like that's a great rental. Like you know, so filling in so what's been big recently is that we're filling in the gaps of you know, when You know, if we're not using a court or it's dead time, you know, like eight thirty at night on a Monday, if I can fill that, like beautiful. But you know what I mean? I don't want to be there at eight thirty at night. Most people don't, right? Not on a weekday, not on a school day type thing. So, you know, so continuing to fill what's funny is we've we're filling a lot of our dead time and stuff like that, which is great. But overall, I'd say growing the team program. And when I say growing the our team program, that does not mean add more teams. That means making, okay, finding the right, the right number that we can efficiently coach. So I'm looking over the next three years to really grow less externally and really grow. At least in this facility, grow more internally and feel like we have a good we have a good group of people coaching, people kids that are people that want to coach because we're primarily like we have na I've got Nana full time on staff and I want him to take a bigger role. But then the coaches we have assisting, they're all Illinois State students currently and it's so like, you know Growing our coaches is a huge priority because, you know, the more we can trust them as with coaching, you know, that makes our that makes our teams better, that makes our training sessions better, that makes our league better, that just makes it just makes everything better and it makes it easier for me to kind of spend more time. I wanna spend more time with my college and pro guys. Like that's one of my big goals for this winter. Is to do a lot more film for my college and pro guys, be able to leave and go visit them at their schools. That's something that's really important to me this winter. As far as like another facility, I am actually we are I am looking I not gonna go too in deep with it, but we are looking at other places. I actually am looking at some places this week, like in a sixty mile radius, just because you know, I think we can you know, when I didn't have a facility and I was doing stuff in Bloomington-Normal, maybe I got a gym for three days in Bloomington-Normal, but you know, I need to fill maybe I get a gym for like Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday. Bloomington-Normal, but Monday, Wednesday, you know, or set Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, I can get a I can get a gym like 60 miles away or something like that. So yeah, that was, you know, looking back, that was always fun when you didn't have a facility. It's like, okay, you know, how can I fill the time here? How can I get time here? What can I do for them to get time here? Who knows this person? Like what program? I sell a program because that's when you really were selling programs is when you don't have a facility. You know, you can't sell a membership if you don't if you're not in a facility like dedicated. So it's tough. So yeah, I'd say kind of to sum up what I'd like to do in the next, you know, depending on what happens to the building I'm currently in, you know, can't really cross that bridge until we actually get there. But grow our teams. More internally than externally, meaning, you know, not necessarily add teams, but just make what we make our current system continue to make our current system better and better. Have better have coaching and coach education behind that. Giving that should give myself more time in the winters to kind of focus on my college and pro guys as well on top of all the team stuff. And then And then yeah, maybe find another location. I don't know.

Brandon Evans: Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. That the coaching and hiring coaches and developing coaches is typically the hardest thing to do. Like it's yeah, yeah. I've tried to release that from my personality as much as possible. I've been blessed to have.

Brandon Heyen: It's super hard, especially when you're a control freak.

Brandon Evans: Very, very great staff, but I've heard the horror stories and I mean I've seen a few with myself. Like my staff right now is great, but fast people come through that weren't as great. It's just it's it takes a lot to build up that trust when you've put, like you said, all of the hours and everything into something. And I mean, like for yours isn't literally your name. Like

Brandon Heyen: Yeah. Yeah, and like to touch on that, like it's funny, but that's why it's even that's why when we were looking to, you know, start team stuff a year and a half ago, it's like, Am I really gonna put my name on a you know, I'm like, I don't know. And then it's like You know, y like or say something cheesy in a practice like you're playing for the name on your fr on the front of your jersey. I'm like, that's mine. Like you can't say that, you know what I mean? But it's like I honestly just with how our logos turned out and our color scheme and all that, like It's fine because I don't want the team stuff to be like a you know it's not like we're on EYBL circuit or something like that. Like no, I want it to serve its purpose. So and it serves its purpose. I tried to honestly I'm such a I'm a huge, huge Kobe guy. Like if you can see this, one of my players like made that.

Brandon Evans: Yeah. That's cool.

Brandon Heyen: Made that for me for my birthday one year. I'm a huge Laker and Kobe guy. And so like I tried to make that our Academy logo kind of look like the Mamba Sports Academy. So it can't it worked a it worked pretty well with the HH but yeah to your point I mean it's literally my name and so well I do feel weird about that sometimes. Especially like okay you're coaching for me and And you know what? I think I have kind of ran into that before. Where I have, you know, kind of tried to get some people to coach for us. And I think that I can't for sure say whether it was or not, but I could see why maybe they wanted would want a pass because it's not, you know, their name on what they're doing or It's not like a you know, like I don't know, like my buddy David, like it's not D Mason hoops, it's el Elevate Hoops. So it's like, hey, I'm a coach or trainer for elevate hoops, not I'm a coach for a Heyen Hoops Academy. Like I don't know. I don't think it's as big of a deal if you're just like My thing is if what you're doing is if you're getting again going back to get if you're getting results and you're educating coaches, like that's what matters. So

Brandon Evans: Yeah. I mean, regardless of if it's your name or if it's a random name, like if you produce good results, that's gonna be the rep behind it. If you produce bad results, that's gonna be the rep behind it. Like just is what it is.

Brandon Heyen: Right. But like I could yeah, and I could talk about, you know, my full time guy, I could talk about him for hours. Like he eats, sleeps, breathes basketball, and it's like, you know, yeah, it's high in hoops, but like I joke with him all the time. He's like his name's Nana and I'm like, Nana, like you know, half the time like he may not be there yet or anything, and I got a session going already and he shows up maybe you know, a little late for something. I don't whatever. Hit he'll show up and like everybody's it everybody's attention goes to him in the gym and it's like it I joke with him all the time. I'm like, well we could just call it Nana hoops. Like it's not a big deal. We just gotta change the name and you know ch logo won't be that hard to change. But I mean I th I think it's about kind of the culture you're creating in your facility. And yeah, I think it's more about we tell any coaches helping us, especially for the younger the kids are, the more this applies is like our currency is sweat and smiles. As long as they're sweaty and they're smiling when they leave, we're good. Like a lot of times it's less about like all the basketball stuff you wanna do and like I could do this game or I could teach this thing and like It's less about all that, it's more about okay, you know, obviously are they getting results, are they getting better, but like are they enjoying like do they enjoy being there? Are they gonna come back?

Brandon Evans: That's the biggest thing. Get them to continue to play the sport.

Brandon Heyen: Yeah. What is it? L T V long term value? Yeah.

Brandon Evans: Yeah. Yes. That's just get them to continue to play the sport. Like that is it. Well this was this is great. I appreciate your time. This was this super fun to learn about it. And how you even came about having three facilities. We will put your socials and everything up on screen here. We'll get this all blasted out to social. But yeah, other than that, that was awesome. I appreciate your time. It was very fun.

Brandon Heyen: Okay. Awesome. Sweet. You got it. You got it, Brandon. Thank you.