43 : The SNAP Soccer Story with John Guidroz

Great business ideas are often born from personal frustration. @snapsoccerofficial is a great example of that. 

Founder John Guidroz started it after facing chaos at youth soccer tournaments—unorganized fields, missing refs. What began as a side project turned into a company managing 50+ events annually, with a dedicated team and regional collaborations. Despite challenges like COVID-19, John’s resilience and focus on relationships helped him grow and improve youth sports. 

John joined the Practical Rebels podcast to share his story of turning frustration into opportunity and his unexpected advice for entrepreneurs.

👉  snapsoccer.com

👉  pbfcrush.com

Transcript

Introduction to John Guidros

R 0:00

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Practical Rebels, the podcast. How are you doing out there? It's been a minute. We're glad to be back. How are you doing?

V 0:09

I'm wonderful.

R 0:10

And I rambled on really excitedly because I have one of my buddies on I'm excited too, john.

V 0:18

I feel like we go back a few years.

R 0:20

We do.

V 0:21

Talk to you in a minute, so I'm excited to catch up and hear about all the cool things you've got going on.

R 0:24

And we have John Guidros of Snap Soccer and Coastal Rush in the house. How are you doing over there, brother, doing?

John 0:29

well Doing well. I know we talked about this for a minute, so we made it happen.

R 0:33

Yes, we did Just like we made our mandate happen. Oh, we did.

John 0:38

We did. We said, yeah, football it's all good, let's do it, family Bye. Guys got to have that time.

R 0:45

They do, they do they do that's important. All right, so before we get into the meat of this podcast, can you tell us a little bit of your history, like how you got here, where you're from, all that kind of stuff?

John 0:55

Are you local? No, no, not local. From Baton Rouge, came over here in 03. Over here in 03, uh, hung out. Yeah, 03 hung out ever since. Um, wife's over here. We met before college and started a family. We had a her family's from here in military, okay, and so started working corporate been.

John 1:16

I enjoyed pensacola, you know I was able to find a job here. That that's the hard thing is like. Coming over, you know, 18, 19 years old and you kind of look at pensacola like oh, it's got the beach, it's got this, but like where am I gonna work? Right, but uh, yep, got into sales early and kind of did that for the last 20 plus years and so day job is we'll talk soccer, but, like you know, day job been in sales, primarily in healthcare, for the last 15 years. I'm still managed that. I did a lot of adjustment after covid, which if we want to get into that, we can but manage that. I did a lot of adjustment after COVID, which if we want to get into that, we can, but ultimately found a passion for both the area. And then soccer kind of presented itself to me in a couple of different ways through my own kids and my friends' kids and man. That was a long time ago and we are still we are still like going.

John 2:04

It's kind of crazy to think about how much we've been through but also achieved up to this point.

R 2:08

Okay, okay.

V 2:09

And then you met very neat through the we were involved in the spring together, yeah, which is like a mentorship program here, and I do some marketing advisement and John's team was was one of them that went through the program. So I've seen this kind of grow over the past what probably four or five years or so. You guys were one of the early ones.

John 2:27

Yeah, we got a call early, so Snap Soccer was at CoLab in downtown Pensacola.

V 2:32

Yeah, we may have been there at the same time.

John 2:36

I think we overlapped there for a little bit. We did, but essentially, for y'all that don't know, pensacola has this phenomenal program that Florida West runs and it's called CoLab in downtown Pensacola. So we were. This business has always was treated to me like hey, when I'm done with work, it's like a side gig. And they're like well, you know, we can give you office space and we can, you know, help you with internet, and like, actually let you build the business. And it was a massive move for our team. And then through that, we got into the spring, which was a studer backed program where you know, veronique and several other local business professionals and people who have kind of been there done that, came and sat down with us. And I'll never forget the first meeting. It was so funny.

Origins of Snap Soccer

John 3:18

Snap soccer originated out of a need to help other soccer programs, right, but I'm talking like we tried to do everything. We were an e-commerce store, we did online gaming, we did parent education. I mean, we were all over the place. And I'll never forget the first meeting. I was so excited. I'm like, oh, I can't wait to show them all this stuff. The first thing I got was, hey, man, we need to stop and focus, you might be able to do this, but your team is going to go crazy. So, um, that was many, many, many years ago. But then obviously, uh, veronique was moved onto my team and the program was incredible. It helped us. We wouldn't be where we are today with the growth and the different achievement half, if we didn't get that kind of advice.

John 3:59

So when I say like really fell in love to pensacola, like the whole whole area has really, I feel like embraced it.

John 4:06

And as a young professional, when I started all this, you know I did not work in Pensacola. I had to travel, so like I travel into hospitals, like all over the country and trade shows and all that, but I was always able to come back to Pensacola, right, and so being able to have that kind of career, then seeing a business here grow, and you, you know we've been promoted and gotten a lot of awards. We were runner-up for small business of the year. We got uh, I think last year we won uh. Well, we just got uh coastal, just got uh economic sports excellence in uh, economic tourism. Wow, we get a bunch of other awards for the different events, but it's been really cool and I feel like the city has given us a big hug back and we employ a lot of people. We, you know, try to promote. We try to pay out as much as we can locally, pays it all back in, but through the programs they've had it's allowed us to expand and get into some really cool stuff.

V 4:54

Yeah, I think this is one of the best cities that I've seen for entrepreneurial development and support. Like we're small but there are so many resources and everybody is like one degree away from somebody that you might need to have access to ask questions to or get advice from, and everybody's so giving it their time.

John 5:12

I could not agree more. I mean, the spring was great because I met people I didn't know. Really, pensacola's got a lot of successful people that like to stay below the radar. Yes, agreed, and I've been shocked at how many conversations I'll have with somebody and, like Veronique said, is like you. You talked to somebody and said, oh, you need to go talk to bobby and bobby's like hey, let's go to lunch or dinner and all of a sudden the solution to your problem that you've been racking your head over for so long was so simple you just you know. It was the whole saying is like not what you know, but who you know, but who you know. And sometimes that who you know is a big deal in Pensacola. I agree, if you, if you want to put in the work it's a great community to do it in.

V 5:50

Yep, Exactly so when you started Snapshot it sounds like I just made a connection. You are like at your core sales guy and you said I can build the solution and sell it.

John 6:01

It was a, it was a little so. So, yes, and really what it came out to, I was a pissed off parent yeah, that's how it started.

V 6:07

Start at the beginning like what is for the people who don't know what is snap soccer?

John 6:10

snap soccer is an event management company that runs youth sporting events, primarily soccer. We both run them, own them, manage them all throughout the country. So a typical client for us is either a municipality that wants to build a multimillion dollar sports complex and wants to fill it up with people and let them enjoy the city, or it's a sports club that you know youth soccer program that has an event that, through the volunteerism, is just struggling to get it, maintain it. There's an expectation that people start to have.

John 6:41

As a young father, you know, I would go to a tournament and I worked all week and I was traveling and I wanted to go watch my kid play or watch my kid's friend play. And then when I first got into it, I mean it was like the I show up at nine o'clock for a 10 o'clock game. The lines are not painted, the field, the goals aren't anchored, no corner flags are out, you know the referees are and like. It was just the professionalism was like man, I have literally I just want to watch my kid play, right, don't like. And so the games are starting late. My, that's how it all started. So I was like to your point. I saw, I saw a name and I was like, well, if I run it this way, I'm gonna make sure that, if you know, ramsey's gonna watch this kid, the game's gonna be on time, the refs are gonna be on time. The refs are going to be on time, the fields are going to be pristine, the lines are going to be painted, the goals won't have any holes in them, like all those little things that comes as a. You know, it's not the World Cup, but it is a World Cup event for these kids and they deserve that attention.

John 7:48

No-transcript help us. And so the phone calls kept coming in. Uh, people needed more help and you know, I'm like a big believer in, like, servant leadership, so the idea of being able to help more people, and whether it's like a conversation to get them going in a better direction, um, or just help them with everything, like they just like turn it over to us and they hire us to do it. The phone calls kept coming and the company kept growing and then it turned into wow, I cannot treat this as a you know, just something I did on the side anymore. So we started hiring people and moving it to the point. Now, like you know, we're over. You know, 50 plus events a year.

John 8:27

We've got six full-time employees. We hire over 130 contractors a year. I mean it's turned into like, you know, we'd hire a COO. I mean his name is Zach and Zach is a. He's a former player of mine. I coached him. He was like like 11, 12, 13 years old guy. He's another great story though, cause, like he's from Pensacola, got his MBA from UWF, was looking to find a career that he could stay here and luckily this all kind of played into it where he could, where otherwise he's going to Atlanta or he's going to Birmingham or he's going to.

John 8:55

Tampa. But I mean he's a phenomenal person. He's been with us for a long time and we've got other people, you know Gail and Parker and Nick. I mean the whole team's been around for a while. We have a lot of people that once they're on, they stick.

Business Growth and Spring Program

John 9:07

And it's been a good thing, but that's the kind of the origin story it came out of just me being a pissed off parent and I wanted to see things. I just felt there was a better way to go about doing it. And throughout the year we've done some innovative stuff with the technology we use and how we, you know, manage the weekend, as you could imagine. Like, uh, for y'all that don't have never been to a tournament, you know, if you get 100 teams, that's about 1500 people. Uh, kids playing, that's about three to five thousand people in the park over the weekend, and 100 teams for us is like a small event now. Oh, wow. So it's uh, I mean the one. We'll have one coming up in two weeks. That'll be 230 plus teams. I'll be there there, you're hanging out. So to do that and do it effectively, you know you have to keep a lot of people happy and, uh, the team is uh. You know that's what we're here for.

V 9:54

Yeah, so, and I guess this is something that grew, it makes sense. It grew so organically because you have parents coming in and out of town from other areas. Yep, they see it, you automatically start getting plugged into other cities.

John 10:07

You nailed it.

John 10:08

Um word got out quick and you know we do a lot of I mean, I started doing a lot of pro bono work, where, if a soccer club and this was my philosophy if a soccer club from, uh, let's just say, huntsville, alabama, is got a good setup, they just need they need that, that knowledge, that industrial knowledge or that you know specific stuff that they can grow and they grow their club and they're able to build long-term parent relationships and the kids are staying together longer.

John 10:34

Because in youth soccer, like in eu sports, like, sometimes you have that cyclical cycle of oh, everything's going great, then the new board members change, coaches change, everything falls apart and then you got to rebuild it. So, my well, if I can help all these clubs grow and give them the insight of how to really get good at what they do, they're going to have more teams and those teams all need somewhere to go. So that was the first attitude of like just giving away everything I know and everything that we've experienced, and then that turned into well, can you just come do this for us experienced, and then that turned into well, can you just come do this for us?

John 11:06

And, um, luckily, I mean where we are. Soccer has been a growing sport for the last 20 years, 30 years, and you know it's just going to get bigger. So we're in a position now where, uh, we're able to serve a lot more people. But to do that we had to go to the like, the spring, and we had to get we had to get advice.

John 11:22

We had to. We needed a lot of ways that we could, uh, grow and scale this Cause. I mean, the beginning was literally my wife and I. I mean she came up with the name the acronym stands for soccer needs, for all programs, that's what snap stands for. So you know it's her and I with binders on the ground and like. We're organizing everything like and this is after, like she was was running a property management company. I'm on the road traveling and then on Friday night we're emailing. So that's the origin of it, which I don't want to go back.

John 11:52

But, I love those memories. It's pretty cool, and so now we get to do it on a different scale and it's a different animal, and it's been good though.

V 12:02

Yeah, I think you have to do that, though you have to know how to like run every part of the business to then be able to pass it off to somebody else and train them to do it really effectively.

John 12:12

Yeah, like that's what teaches you how to do it all and figure it all out in the first place couldn't agree more and, like, one of the things that y'all told me when we go through the spring is like this thing is going to grow, you have to get out of the way, and nobody had ever told me that Cause I'm like, I mean, I can't get out of the way.

V 12:26

I'm like.

R 12:26

I've got to put, I got to. I know everything. I got to. I know everything, I know how to do it.

John 12:30

So we tasked the team, we started doing a lot better on building out SOPs and like how to work on the things, and there's so many different scenarios.

John 12:38

I mean in a typical, you know, one typical event is probably going to generate, you know, four to six hundred inquiries before the event, then after the event, it's like there's always something that's going to go wrong. It's not. It's not if it's something's going to go wrong and we have to troubleshoot that and understand the customer service, but trusting the team and letting them. I mean I got a smart team and I stopped trying to feel like I needed to be the person in the middle of it and since then it's just been so much better, like they're so much more talented than I could ever have done this by myself. And so getting out of my own way was the advice, and it was a good one, because they I mean y'all said you're too busy doing all this other stuff Like this, this thing can do it, this thing can live and breathe without you in every piece of it, and you won't go crazy in the process.

John 13:26

Tell you what that piece of mine. You know I love my wife to death and she's been my biggest supporter through all this and I don't know how she did it. But, like you know, she sees me and like I get home from work and I'm going from the a couple teams and then I'm managing the schedule, then there's a rain. I've got to do this over here.

John 13:46

So we're through all that now yeah still help out, like I still coach my kids. I mean I'm coaching high school soccer now at catholic high school with my daughter, and coach of the year, by the way. Yeah, that was a fun journey. We can chat about that later. But uh, all that to say is those, those little nuances of the growth is having the right people to tell me what I needed to hear and, secondly, having the right team in place to and we needed to hire a couple more people to make it right. But that all was organic in how we got to where we are now.

V 14:17

Has the growth from a marketing perspective all been organic or have you done any actual traditional marketing stuff to spread the word?

John 14:25

No. So it's I would say it's 80% organic, because even if somebody, even if we did push out, we did some marketing, but it comes back down to the relationship is really what they were buying. There was never a flyer or a slogan or anything like that that was going to do it. I mean this is a pretty involved relationship and it was really that's what that's to do it. I mean this is a pretty involved relationship and it was really that's what did it.

John 14:49

Now our team goes to conferences. Like there's a bunch of conferences in the sports tourism space that you go to and what we're considered is an event right holder. So people come to us and they'll solicit us and so say, hey, we want you to bring events or want you to help us with events. And so we get to kind of reverse the sales cycle now where we're not really chasing, we're just taking it as it comes in and we've uh, we've said no a lot.

John 15:12

There's some venues that we've looked at and locations that, um, don't make sense to operate in, and I'm gonna give you an example Like if the community doesn't want sports tourism, you can never force sports tourism on top of them.

Coastal Rush: A New Soccer Initiative

John 15:29

So we had to really look at that, because I mean, I've been to some place I had to get one person to talk to and that one person does the fields and the hotel contracts and the you know sponsor, like it's like so easy to work with that city, or another one's like, well, you need to talk to the cvb guy, then you need to talk to the local parks and rec and then you got to call the club and then you need to rent.

John 15:49

You know all this stuff over here, and so before you know it there's nine or you know eight to nine people you're dealing with to operate an event that you could do in the city next door. That's streamlined exactly. So it's been. Um, we've been able to kind of identify that early, which in the past we weren't able to, and we took a couple on the chin where we tried and we worked so hard to make it work. But at the end of the day I heard Quint speak one time at an entrecon and he was saying he gets people all the time asking him to open up like the coffee shop or a bodacious type store and they go, do and they do the studies, and he's like sometimes you look at it and it's not going to work there.

John 16:22

They go, do and they do the studies and he's like sometimes you look at it and just doesn't, it's not going to work. There's no amount you can give me free rent, you can pay me to like, and it's just not going to work. And I think that attitude on the growth has been important. But to your point, originally we, you know, we do online ads, we do pay-per-clicks, we do, you know, google, we are using Facebook ads, instagram, I mean, it's all there. So it's all stood up from a marketing perspective. It's just not something that we're probably leaning in as a. You know, we're not looking at it in a way that that's what we have to do to keep the lights on. It's a we want to do it because we've got the branding well enough established that, you know, top of mind awareness. People want to see it. And we're marketing to two different people. One is the coach in the club who want to come to the event.

V 17:05

Then it's the other municipalities who are saying we want to be in the youth sports business and we think soccer is a sport we want to talk to yeah, yeah, exactly Okay, and I think it's also two-tiered marketing too, right, because you have Snap Snarker as the brand and then also with this, you were teaching the different clubs and cities how to actually grow their own presence. Is that correct?

John 17:27

Yeah, and so after COVID we did a big pivot. So we used to run everything under the single LLC, and so what we ended up doing through again this was advice of a good friend and business colleague we separated it and so we branched off another arm that just worked with the clubs, and so locally it's the brand that's under Coastal Rush, and so we ended up being able to bring together a lot of what you could call rivalry clubs and working together and helping each other grow, where in the past we were all about like who's going to beat, who's going to win? Is it going to be Niceville or Pensacola or Perdido or Mobile? And so now we're all working together, which has allowed us to have a better footprint. So if you were from Atlanta, you didn't really know or care about what the soccer was on the panhandle or you know, through coastal we've been able to build some things that are really special for the local, like youth players to kind of get to know each other earlier.

John 18:25

Like your son, like you go to winter club, you're meeting all these kids from all these other different clubs, and he's like competing, but not in a way that's adversarial. It's more of like yo, I'm going to beat you because I want to beat you, but we're going to high five and go get pizza after Right, right, right. And so at the very top, the kids who are taking it to a level of they're like. You know, you've heard people say A players want to play with A players, a players don't want to play with C players. Right, if you put A players and C players together, they're going to go different ways. It's very hard, right.

John 18:52

A B player is going to be influenced up and down. Some days they're going to be pushed with the A. So you know, essentially with the kids that were saying, hey, I want to do this at the highest level possible, we put them together, we put them in some leagues. We had a couple of national championship bids and so we're trying to do something where that was for me, the ability to have that company focus and not have it confused with what Snap was doing to say I'd love to see the Gulf Coast be represented at a national championship level.

V 19:21

Right.

John 19:21

And so it starts with community building. It starts with, you know, parent education. It starts with the coaches development, and that has been the project that we've been starting. We started that in 2021.

V 19:31

Okay, okay. So this is specifically player development tournaments like the kids that are really serious, want to bring it to the next level and everything tied to the development.

John 19:42

Yeah, so, and that's the and it's the cool that one is geography wise, like we, panama city to mobile is kind of like our footprint that we've been working in and so that, uh, those kids in those communities we've just kind of leaned in and, um, you know, I got a big shout out for, like, coach Bill Elliott, he's the head coach at UWF and you have Joe Barlinski, he's the UWF women's coach. So they've been in this community for a long time and they've helped in the youth space since they've been here. I mean they're both, you know, some of the most well-recognized coaches in the GSC Division II. I mean just highly respected. They typically win GSC most years and so they've been getting heavily involved and, you know, dropping just an enormous amount of time that we could never compensate them for to help this happen as well, and so through.

John 20:29

I guess it's bringing people like that together that's been really helpful and for me it's been able to channel energy. That says okay, if I'm talking about the snap side, it's a very different conversation than working with coastal, so separating those two has been beneficial. So it it's a very different conversation than working with Coastal, so separating those two has been beneficial.

V 20:41

Yeah, so it sounds like with SNAP typically you're dealing with cities, municipalities, things like that Coastal, directly dealing with parents.

John 20:49

It's. I mean, yeah, I would say local parents, players and clubs, but they're all under. I mean, it's a, it's a partnership that we all work together but we still have to run our local clubs. And so, um, it's just it's, and that one is a completely different animal than what we do at Snap, like it. It just like it needed to separate itself because the conversations I was having, like it, was getting very confusing for the team, um, and there was a lot of squirrels in the office. You know, like I'm talking to Ramsey about one thing and all of a sudden I was like, wait, we got to talk about this. And then Ramsey's like what are we talking about? So all that to say that was a great move to change, and taking some of the same advice I'd gotten out of the spring and stuff, yeah, clear mission, clear focus, clear direction and it's been, it's been good.

V 21:35

Is that something that you envision to like? Multiply across different regions in the country?

John 21:39

So we had a couple of clubs reach out from outside the region and they're they want the same advice, they want the same like connectivity that we have to some of the leagues and everything. But what we've kind of focused on is we will help them in any way we can from afar. I can't like like tonight I'm going to be on the field at the like working with some of the coaches. Tonight I'm gonna be on the field, I think, like working with some of the coaches, like coach elliot goes on the field he'll drive. We can't do that well with all the other stuff we have going on. So if somebody like we had a good friend of mine called me from another club and we're helping them, like you know, but then they're gonna and they're they're having record tryouts, they're having record growth, they're having like new stuff, but we're just giving them the information they need to grow that. So that initial mission we had at snapper was like well, if we just help them, we're good.

John 22:28

But there's uh, it's a very, very different relationship when you're working together, like we are at coastal, like we have calls every week that are you know, again, these five years ago these clubs did not talk. It's like, and you can if you take soccer out of it and just use it as business. I mean it's essentially, you know, if you took any any business marketing, if you took AC contractors, attorneys, like, imagine that landscape and you're all competitors one day, and then somebody snapped their fingers like, hey, we're now all best friends and so like, we still have our uh, we still have some things we want to improve on. But I will say, the product for the kids, which is, you know, the big thing I always go back to, is like is it doing right by them? Is it doing right by the families that are involved in it? And it's not perfect, but it's. It's about as best of a community environment than I've that I've seen. I've been here doing this for almost 20 years.

R 23:19

Yeah, it's a. It's a pretty impressive uh story. You got there and businesses, you got there. Man, I didn't realize when we became buds that you were over all this, and I actually refuted I'm like no, he's not doing all that wow, I, I don't, I don't I that for me it's always like I like it below the radar.

John 23:38

Um, I'll do, I'll help and I'll talk, and you know, some parents that I've known for years will have no idea, and I'm okay with that. I mean, again, it's not, I'm not doing it for me, right? But, um, you know, and you can attest to this because, I mean, you've had kids that have been in soccer for a long time. So you have your youngest coming through, that's going. He's going to experience a different level of community and soccer and development than your older kids were able to, and that's what I get excited about.

R 24:05

And he already has. It, already has. We already mean we. We have been around the Gulf Coast in different leagues and this league is definitely more community based. I mean the Wilson's, just I mean the team, the team moms. Like everybody, I'm just like, wow, this is really like, we are really one team, yeah, and we're one people going forward, so I I'm very impressed about what you've done there. Um quick question how do y'all leverage social media with snap and with coastal so?

John 24:35

we have two separate marketing teams. So the, the mission and the, the message that we put out with snap versus coastal, is very different. So they have their you know their own um action items that they have to achieve and they're just, they're very, very different messaging. Okay, so, going back to like, sure could you have one person try to do it, but it just it wasn't as clean. So we've basically drawn a line Very few I think I have only one employee that still kind of sits on both ends, but everybody else is. There's a very, very clear dividing line and that you know.

John 25:13

What we realized is you know you have to sometimes hire people to help with marketing and if you don't have that right person in house, you better go find the right agency.

John 25:24

Uh, because it's changing so rapidly and the stuff I was doing 20 years ago compared to what I was doing now, like it's, it's completely I mean not even like and I'm not talking like if you turn a dial, it's not even like it's a full, like the dial has spun, like it is a completely different world and the platforms and how you deliver it. So, uh, I recommend anybody that if you are trying to do it in house and you don't have cause. You know what happens. I mean, y'all see this every day, right, it's like well, you know, we have Bobby and you know Bobby's got a little bit of free time on his side, so we'll just let him do social media. And there's like a difference in like doing social media than actually like, hey, we're going to actually spend money and we're going to track row as and we're actually going to lean into this thing and, you know, drive it and so putting people in the position where they can be the most successful. Um, yeah, big, big win.

V 26:11

Yeah, and I think that's awesome. So has your solution been in-house or is it agency?

John 26:15

Uh, so we do it kind of a hybrid. Um, what I found is, through my health care, we had a couple agencies we worked with and we found a phenomenal team that does all the online pay-per-click, all the stuff that I mean.

V 26:28

There's so many a good team makes all the difference.

Marketing Strategy and Team Building

John 26:32

Yes and so we, we did bring creative in-house, so we hired a gentleman named John Cross and John is a 20-plus agency.

John 26:41

I mean, the guy could, could. If he lived in New York he'd be one of the top agencies, like, the fact is he loves to surf, he loves to skateboard, he loves to be on the beach and we happen to be good friends. So you know John, john joined us for several years and I mean completely revolutionized our branding and he helped with both companies, made it all happen. He helped me in health, healthcare with some of my clients there, and you know he's now um, I don't know his exact title, but he's now over the marketing over at navy federal credit union. Just to give you an idea, like that's the type, like wow, that's the level that john is, wow. So we had to. That's not cheap and but it was worth every penny and so, uh, having that hybrid was a big deal and I just found that if I really don't understand, I need to hire it out, and I just did enough research myself that I could read the reports.

V 27:27

Yeah and I that's what we've seen works really well for a lot of clients. For some of our clients we're handling everything. They have no creative, they have no marketing in-house, but there are ones that have, like you know, a marketing lead or something like that internally and then we help support execution of everything and it works out super well. To like get that hybrid model honestly seems to be really ideal, because you have one person that's kind of driving the ship internally and then you have a team of people that have a variety of capabilities on the outside to kind of fill the gaps of all the things that you know the commander is saying need to be done.

John 28:02

There's a lot of gaps yeah, that's the thing is like um, you know, there's some of these businesses, especially like they live and die based on their marketing. You know one bad marketing campaign and it could be detrimental for their quarter or for their year. Yeah, and having a team like. One thing I love is when the team comes to me and says, hey, we are forecasting X, y and Z, or we see this coming and we want to try this. Love that. Yeah, that that feedback loop is something that was was not there. It used to be like, if I didn't say it or I didn't direct it, it didn't get done Right and it was all like just, and I mean the feedback that we started getting on, you know, from the agencies or through conversations and just meeting people that do this all day long for a living, like they have more. They're just better at what they do.

John 28:49

So it's you know having that team is essential and for us hybrid made sense. You know, at times we thought about completely outsourcing, but then you know you do lose something and you have your brand and your culture and there's certain things that nobody. If you're a tech person and you're doing the like the pay-per-click ads that's not so much like the emotional side of the business, it's a technical feature.

John 29:14

So it's, yeah, just finding out what works and I think, just through good conversation and discovery, you know that is something that has been beneficial to have and basically can just run itself now.

V 29:25

That's awesome. Yeah, um, what has been and it sounds like Ramsey kind of alluded to this Um, it sounds like you guys have put a lot into not just we're running your tournament but making like the very best player experience. Have you found that that is something that is unique to your approach?

John 29:45

You know, I think there's others that do it and they can do it. Well, geography, for what we do, I mean there's a lot. I've got several other buddies that run companies similar to what Snap is on different parts of the country. But for what we do in our backyard, we look at themes and activation as a big deal. So if you just went to the same park every weekend and it was the same fields and you know, nothing changed, you know we, we want the kids to feel like it's something special. You know the we get a lot of teams that travel. So for our community, like if it's in Pensacola or Foley or Destin or Panama city, like we'll have teams come down from Illinois, minnesota, dallas, I mean, uh, we have really good airports now that the flight markets kind of changed the game a little bit, so when they come down we want them to feel like there was a little bit of a production that was brought into it.

John 30:36

So on the tournament side, yeah, every, every event has a theme, every event has a brand, and so I told you we do 50 plus events now. So like we typically have 50 different brand guides that we run and that brand, like the colors on how we do the marketing, how we pitch it. It's something that we've. We've seen people appreciate, yeah, and then when they're there, we always do a surveys after everything because again something's going to go wrong. You know it. We need that feedback loop and once we learn it, we this happened or that happened, like one. One year we had an event and it was August and it was hot. So we're like what if we put misters on the benches or the field? And it's like that alone. We got straight like, oh my gosh, thank you, we've never been to a tournament that has misters for our kids, like it was so simple. But you know, those are little things that in the activation we're looking at to say how can we make this better?

V 31:20

Yeah, and constantly improving. Based off that, do you make a lot of your decisions? Based off of that feedback?

John 31:26

Oh, and yeah, I'm a, we would. I say that's probably 70% of our decision-making comes from the feedback we get, and that's with both companies, cause, like in a parent, if you're at the club and you give us feedback, there's some feedback that can like okay, wow, I wasn't at the club and you give us feedback, there's some feedback that can like, okay, wow, I wasn't at the field, I didn't know that was happening. This is really good information I can fix. And then on the event side, um man, some of the events have like 34 to 40 fields going at one time, and so we just had one in Destin and we had a, you know, a situation with an official that didn't really handle a situation really well and the parent was super professional, gave us good feedback that we can now actively help them and teach them and like help them grow.

John 32:09

And then you just have the situation of, you know, we had a hotel that wasn't really ready to serve the community, like it wasn't. Like Ramsey, you and your family aren't going to go to this hotel, like it's just not, not, it wasn't a spot that we needed to be promoting. So things like that. We take those and then the decisions we make are. It's probably 70 percent coming from that information and then the 30 percent is coming from just the industry knowledge that we're getting from what we see coming down the pipeline and different things we hear in at conventions and other other event. You know other event rights holders that. Hey, I tried this.

R 32:45

It worked out really well, but always looking to make the experience a little bit better. So you know, what I'm hearing is a lot of organic growth, and feedback is what's leading to the success of Coastal Rush and Snap Soccer and to the marketing, because people are like, hey, we want you to come run an event here. How do you all get in? How? How do you work with the sponsorship? How do you build that partnership? How do you go about finding sponsors to market to or whatever?

John 33:09

Yeah, and honestly, we probably should be doing a lot better job with sponsors. We had a dedicated team that was working on this pre-COVID and I've heard me mention COVID a couple times. We were one of those companies that, when COVID hit, like we, like we honestly I was really considering shutting the doors for everything. Like we were I mean, I was running payroll for a couple of months out of my own pocket just to get everybody. We didn't want to hire anybody, we didn't want to fire anybody, we want to. We felt it was going to come back. But like you're just like gosh, it's like how much longer is this going to go on? And the other day, like nobody knew, right. So I mean, I had a long talk with my wife and I was like, listen, maybe this has been a good run, maybe we just shut the doors, like somebody else will pick it up or we left it off and I can just go do this healthcare thing and like it was all good. Um, yeah.

V 33:57

Healthcare was doing fine during. Covid Dude, I was stuck in the middle of like two completely different industries being impacted, I had to completely redo my healthcare company.

John 34:08

So, um, I ended up, uh, ended up getting laid off from the company I was working for that was my corporate job, Right and got the layoff, got a little bit of a severance. So I was like, thank you, but okay. So with that I had switched over because all these facilities didn't have anybody work. So, within my context, I just said, listen, I'm open my own agency. I found four different vendors that were in the space that typically these people needed and so, like you would call me as a hospital and a colleague and say, listen, I don't have people to work, I was like, great, no problem, I've got my buddy who has a staffing agency that can do all the remote billing for you.

John 34:45

One other call said, hey, we don't have a, we need a statement vendor. No problem, I got a statement vendor. So I started getting commission where everything I've ever done it's like it's procedural. So that was killing it and doing great and still doing great to this day, Like probably the best decision that you know I ever made. And like, again, my wife, biggest fan here she's like why are you waiting on these other people to make the decision?

V 35:05

Just go do it.

John 35:06

Like you know everybody, you know what they need, like make it happen. So. And the other you know, the caveat was doctor's offices were empty because nobody could go back. So my brother he was with me at the time, he is in marketing and, um, we basically got a bunch of clients, where they were the doctor's offices that needed to get their office filled back up. Wow, so that eventually, I mean not only lasted like six to eighteen months, that like that phase, and so eventually, once they were good, I told him I was like you don't need my help anymore, you're backed up for three months again. Yeah right, so we basically were able to, you know, hand those clients back and they took a lot of their, because the marketing we were doing was much different than the marketing they do nowadays. I mean, y'all know what it is. You get to a. It takes a little minute to get into most of the doctors we have now. So yeah.

COVID Challenges and Pivot

John 35:47

Yeah, that was. It was stuck, we got. It was a very weird time, but you know, through, you know suffering and sacrifice and all that you know, sometimes something great happens and at the other end, we made the decisions to change what we were doing at Snap and Coastal. We created Coastal. We, I mean, realigned what we were doing in health care, and so it ended up playing itself out really well. But that all started from a conversation where you were asking about sponsors, right, and we got on a little tangent there, but it's okay, it happens.

John 36:16

The coming back to why I'm telling you all this is after COVID. Sponsors were the last thing on our brain, right, we were like literally in survival mode. I mean, the question is like, do we have to find, like, do I really have to go put more money back in for another payroll? And so, luckily, florida, our governor in Florida at the time, said hey, outdoor sports are open. Like you, you guys, you can go play. That saved us. So, while we had our worst quarter and quarter two and quarter three of 2020, we had our best two quarters in quarter three, quarter four coming out of it, and a lot of it was the relationships and the fact that we we went full tilt like perfect as we could, covid protocols and how you can go play. We went full tilt like perfect as we could, covid protocols and how you could go play. So when all that spun back, coming back to where we are now, I have people that will contact us all the time about sponsoring and you know we need to do a better job of it because essentially we are.

John 37:11

We have a huge reach and we we were I mean Publix has been a sponsor for those 10 years. We were talking to the big corporate ad agencies, like with the subway brands and like you know, all these different brands that want to be in it, like we have, uh, you know gatorade was calling us anyway, that being said, that packaging needs to be better, it was, uh, just something that got lost in both the transition and the new setups that everything we were doing, like we just did brand coastal. We just brought on a uh awesome company called we care and like air conditioning and electrical, like they're going to come coastal. We just brought on a uh awesome company called we care and like air conditioning and electrical, like they're going to come in and like they're a huge, going to be a jersey sponsor for us next year, nice. But like, what was cool is they're a family company, everything.

John 37:45

And I. He asked me what are you gonna do with the money? I was like 100, like so you know, like the interclub play dates and stuff. I was like, dude, it's going into more event production for the little kids, like done like it's like easy, we know what to do with it.

John 37:57

So we we do a lot of sponsorship with the summer team, like the Pensacola 1559 Pelicans, like that's been a really good community. You know buy-in and which. We can talk about that, or we get it, we get to it, but it just it's not something that unfortunately, when there's a list of things to do that day that hasn't made it to the top.

R 38:16

Yeah it'll come and you know, if you're out there and you want to sponsor, you can hit Snap Soccer Up or Coastal Rush dot com and they will love to have you. We put it to good use. You know we've been talking and you've talked about all the many hats you you wear. Talked about all the many hats you wear. How do you balance? You know, coastal Snap, coaching the girls at Catholic High Coach of the Year, by the way and being a dad and coaching Lily.

John 38:47

And healthcare. So I get this question a lot and the reality is is like the work ethic that I had I mean, I was a dad at 20 years old, right, it was not about like what I wanted to do is what I had to do, right? So by 25, you know, you know, chaz and I are married, we got a house, we got two kids and like it was just it is always been in my DNA that you start working when the sun comes up and you don't stop until it's done. So that is not a healthy lifestyle and I do not recommend it. But if you do not quit, you will never lose.

John 39:28

And so I was able to build enough success in, uh, healthcare to again everything's residual. So as a client pays, I get paid, and so you know it builds up enough that I had free time to focus and do some of this other stuff. But really what it comes down to is a phenomenal support system. So at the house, like you know, my wife supports me, I support her. Like we've been able to make that and still maintain our marriage and raising three kids and like doing all that.

John 39:56

So that was big. And then the other piece is starting to listen and take advice when I needed to hear it. So the when doing. When I got asked to coach at Catholic my daughter's there I was like I'm already gonna be at the games. I was like, okay, if I'm going to do this, I got to find a really good support staff. So I found a phenomenal assistant coach in Kat Venitazi. I found a phenomenal JV staff. I found like three or four parents that I said can y'all, just, if y'all will do this, I will make the kids, I will, I will take everything and pour into them, but it's gotta be a team Right. And it's the same thing we do at Coast.

John 40:33

So it sounds like when you just extract hey, how do you do it? It sounds like, oh my gosh, when is the guy sleeping? Don't even run. I like to put in the hours. I don't mind the work, but the reality is I have been able to build really good teams around it. All that it's kind of like that. I am by no means anywhere near where like a Tim Ferriss and a four hour work. We did work week, but if you've read the book. Right, you know you, you focus on two to three major things a day. Um, you know you say no, and you and I talked about this a little bit before the podcast is.

John 41:02

Uh, you know, I'm Veronique is very like, yeah, I mean it's so easy to be like I can help you with this and I can help you with this, and so it uh, just over time it was putting people in the right place, saying no one, I needed to, but then just having a priority list that trying to build things that didn't require my involvement as much, happy to make decisions, happy to go in there, and then you know I've just and the last thing is, I think I've just been lucky. I think some of it comes into the right people have come into my life and been able to help this thing go. I mean, obviously I'm not a didn't do it by myself, though been able to help this thing go. I mean, obviously I'm not a didn't do it by myself, though Good Lord's been helping me and there's been a lot of good people around me that allowed this to turn into what it is now.

R 41:42

Teamwork makes the dream. Work Can't do without the team. What are we're going to? We're going to get out of here in a minute, but what are? Some upcoming things, exciting things coming for a snap and for Coastal Upcoming things, exciting things coming for a snap and for Coastal.

John 41:59

So the couple things coming up we got. So let's start with Coastal. We this time of year it's all tryouts. It's like letting the kids go out to the club. Some kids like transitioning from rec. They're trying to like, oh, I want to get into this whole club soccer scene, so all that's happening. And I mean you could be in mobile or in foley or perdido, pensacola, orange beach, I mean uh gulf breeze, niceville, and uh gulf south, which is like santa rosa beach. So all those are our campuses oh, wow, so if you're like, hey, I want to get involved.

Work-Life Balance and Team Support

John 42:27

All those are great campuses and that's it now. Our teams that have been playing in, uh, what they call ecno region league um, we just had six, and we're hopefully this weekend going to have seven teams win the state championship in Florida, so they'll be heading out to Dallas over the summer. Wow.

John 42:41

So then again going back to like we wanted our kids to be on a stage and now we have seven of our 12 teams in that league are going to go play in Dallas and represent our community and people are like oh, it just never stops.

John 42:57

I mean, we have events pretty much every weekend and we're constantly, you know, for that one I would say we're constantly looking for help in the officiating, in the weekend management. So we're always looking for good people to come in there and help. Okay, but that machine, just like our team, will get a little bit of a break in June. July kicks it all right back off and they're back at it again.

John 43:19

But I will say, if you're a soccer fan and you're listening and you really want to like, if you're into like some of this soccer stuff, like Ramsey and I start talking, start geeking out on a bunch of stuff, but this summer.

John 43:28

So, like Justin Wicken, a good friend of mine, local attorney he has put together and built a phenomenal brand which is called Pensacola FC 1559. And it's a semi-pro men's and women's. So it's been so successful that we now have two men's teams and two women's teams. Let's go. Women's team has won national championship in WPSL a couple years ago. So over the summer if you go to PensacolaFCcom, they play at Ashton Brosnan in the stadium. They're going to be playing in the two different leagues Men's have their league, women's have theirs and they compete and they play all summer. A lot of these guys are college players looking to stay in shape. Some of them are former pros, some of them are local kids that are getting those minutes to prepare for college and it's a great family atmosphere, really good time. So if you're looking for getting involved over the summer, like that's a really cool spot to go to.

R 44:18

Okay, okay, big things on the horizon, my friend, I love it. And you know we're about to get out of here, unless V you got any questions.

V 44:26

No, this is great. I'm just so happy to hear that this is going so well. I remember when we first talked you were. You had your hair on fire, fire. You're running around doing a million things and it feels like it's turned into something that you're still at the helm of. But you know, you've got your people doing your things and it's, it's all just sorted out really beautiful hair on fire, very nice.

John 44:50

So it's great about that part. Like you come in and right and you're like I had to be accountable to the coaches and like put everything out and hair on fire is exactly what it felt like and uh, you're just doing a lot and doing everything yourself and not quite delegating quite yet, but it's it was all fight or flight mode. It was.

V 45:06

it was fight or flight, but you guys also like it was, that was, that was COVID times.

John 45:10

Yeah, we were coming right out.

V 45:11

We're in a very intense, like pressured situation with everything being shut down.

John 45:14

So that was the. You know, if we're going to do it, we're going to do it and here we are. But yeah, it feels good and I couldn't have done it without all y'all's help and the feedback. And if you're an entrepreneur or a business owner and you don't know about, you know CoLab, or you don't know about the spring and some of these other resources, like you know, you can reach out to any of us on this call or, you know, look it up on the internet. It's there. It's pretty phenomenal stuff of what they got going here in Pensacola.

R 45:42

So, with that being said, I do have one question. If you have one piece of advice to give anybody that you've learned from Snap and Coastal and all around general business, uh, what would that be? One piece of advice, one piece you're on the hook for one piece. Okay, um, one piece of advice, one piece. You're on the hook for one piece.

Upcoming Events and Future Plans

John 45:54

Okay, take care of your health first. That's the one piece. If you don't have that, you got nothing. You could be a multi-multi-millionaire and sitting in a chair.

V 46:07

Wow, I think that's our first host, or guest who said take care of your health and I love it.

R 46:18

So, with that being said, john, thank you so much. I appreciate y'all. Thanks for having me on. It's a good time. Um, make sure you check out, if you're interested, coastal rush or snap soccer. Um, I'll be at those tournaments. If you got any questions, just holler at me. Yeah, you'll find them. He's over there cheering. You can find, uh, coastal rush on instagram. Oh yeah, so coastal rush is on instagram. Snap soccer official on. If you got any questions, just holler at me. Yeah, you'll find them. He's over there cheering. You can find Coastal.

John 46:37

Rush on Instagram. Oh yeah, so Coastal Rush is on Instagram. Snap Soccer Official on Instagram, and then, if you're into semi-pro soccer, check out Pensacola 1559.

R 46:47

Love it, love it, love it. So if you're out there listening and this has done you some good, make sure you hit that good, make sure you hit that, make sure you smash that like button or hit that share button, because it helps the algorithm get this podcast out or social media posts the more people who need to hear this and with that we're going to do a big old practical rebels. I'm gonna say practical rebels and you're gonna say out, you ready? Yeah, practical rebels out.