06 - Scaling Up: The Truth About Moving From Rented Spaces to Your Own Facility

🎙️ Owning vs. Renting: The Big Decision for Sports Coaches & Business Owners!

Ever thought about taking the leap from renting spaces to owning your own sports facility? 🤔 Today’s guests, Mike Layfield (ML Sports and Fitness) & Rick (Junior Sports Stars), have been through it all - the risks, the costs, the surprises, and the rewards.

In this episode, we cover:
✅ Why they took the plunge into facility ownership instead of continuing to rent
💰 The hidden costs (including a shock bill that blindsided Mike! 😱)
📈 How owning a facility unlocked new revenue streams & future-proofed their businesses
🚧 The unexpected challenges—and how they tackled them
🏆 Their best advice for anyone thinking of doing the same

🎧 Listen now and let us know - would YOU take the leap?

Edited by Mike at Making Digital Real

Transcript

Okay, right, welcome back everyone to another episode of the podcast. Today we have got Mike from ML Sports and Fitness and we've also got Rick from Junior Sports Stars, so I think this is going to be a great one. What do you reckon, Mark? Yeah, I'm looking forward to this, nearly as excited as Rick about his first podcast. 

Yeah, and so what I'm going to do, as always, I'm going to hand it straight over to the main man, so over to you, Mark, and as always, really looking forward to this one and yeah, we'll get straight into it. Okay, thanks, Mike, really appreciate that. So yeah, so this one's a bit different, we've got two different businesses here, so can I ask you guys to introduce yourself, maybe starting with Mike? So I'm Mike Layfield, I have ML Sports and Fitness as my business and we're basically a sports coaching company that does, we move into our own coaching facility, we have an on-site gym, we do facility hire as well as sports coaching. 

My background is sort of primary school sports, holiday camps and then cricket, sort of a more performance-based cricket coaching. So our facility is sort of an indoor cricket centre, which is basically high-level cricket coaching, 3G football pitch, which is more participation-based along with our academy stuff and then the coaching outside is primary school sports, so your curriculum PE, your after-school clubs, your holiday camps and then alongside that we have our gym facility, which is like an S&C facility. Rick, do you want to explain your business? Yes, so I'm Rick from Junior Sports Stars, we've been going for around 16 years, we deliver, we're a sports coaching provider, we deliver in-school sport provision, parent paid after-school clubs, holiday provision and our school of gymnastics, which relates to this podcast with the facility, which we moved into about six years ago. 

My background was sports coach for a long, long time, it's set up the business and then it's just grown and developed from there. And obviously, you know, we've worked together for a long time both of you but when did you move into your own facilities, how early was it into the business and just give us a bit of that story. Are you okay, Mark, to go first? Yes, so for me, so my initial role was England funded, so I did that for about four or five years sort of employed, then went self-employed through that same route. 

I was self-employed sports coach for maybe two years before I then took the plunge to get their own facility and that was in 2016 that I took on the coaching centre. What about you, Rick? So we started doing gymnastics around 10 years ago and then we moved into the facility six years ago, so both our smaller school hall-based venues were getting busier and the natural next step was to look at how we would move into somewhere that was sort of our own, that was not restricted by sort of bookings and booking times and days. So yeah, it was just a case of me working out what I'd need to do and all the pieces that I need to put together to try and make it happen.

And just starting this question off with you then, Rick, so why do this? Because, there's loads of people that do sports coaching like you guys do and they're out in the community and they're renting facilities and they don't have fixed overheads, they've just got staff and venues as and when they require. Why take on the massive risk of getting your own centre? It's a huge outlay and all those sort of things that you probably cover off, but what was the thinking? To keep growing for us, it was just to keep growing and increasing the numbers. I could see we were sort of on to something with gymnastics and the classes were really popular and risk reward, what a mindset. 

It was just a case of, yeah, if we can grow and develop this and take on our own place, then there's only positives down the line. Because I remember you were about three, four hundred gymnastics kids, weren't you, in various facilities across your area? Yeah, that's right, yeah. And I think Breakeven was seven hundred, wasn't it? Yeah, between six and seven hundred, yeah.

Yeah, so it's great. What about you, Mike? Obviously, you're sports coaching more cricket sort of specialist. Yeah, just the real drive to grow, really. 

Without the facility, we're quite restricting what we can do. So I say my background is cricket. So I was finding, through the summer months, absolute flying because I could use outdoor facilities. 

But the demand for coaching was still there throughout the winter months. And I was trying to get facilities and it was a general lack of facilities within the area, which was just a huge gap in the market anyway. So I was just trying to get higher net facilities, lugging bowling machines around. 

It wasn't really working, though, as you say, not competing with indoor netball, football, everything like that, and just not able to get enough slots to meet demand. So the demand was definitely there for it before I took the plunge with it. But also just in the back of mind that with the growth I was wanting more revenue streams. 

I didn't want to be coaching myself long term, at that point now where I still do coach, but I've stepped back quite a bit from it. Whereas at the initial point, I was pretty much 40 hours a week just coaching with the long term goal not to be doing that and just having my team out there and having my own inside facilities to be able to put my spin on things as well. So just a real passion to build something a bit different in the area as well that just wasn't there.

What was the question? Just kind of why? Why do this? You've got a decent business, you're coaching in schools, you've got 400 kids on a Saturday morning or whatever doing gymnastics across various village halls. Why take the risk? When we look around the country at all these gymnastics facilities, proper set up places, they were all full with waiting lists all over the country. So although there was risk, in my head it was, it's going to be tough at the start as we grow into this building. 

But once we get past that break even and beyond, we were quite confident with the service and what we delivered. And as we got busier and busier, then that early pain would mean later gain. And so yeah, it was calculated, it wasn't just full risk, but we wanted to grow. 

And I like the idea of having a centre and I didn't know too much about it when we did it. There was a lot to learn and a lot of curveballs thrown our way. But yeah, we just wanted to continue to grow. 

It was your own drive, ambition, risk to reward, all those sort of things. And I seem to remember us doing a fairly basic business plan on, like you said, it'd be six, 700 before it broke even with all the additional costs and everything. Yeah. 

And also on the back of that, you say that you've had loads of things thrown at you and things like that over the years, but what would you say, and either of you can answer this or both, but what's one strategy or decision that you've done that's had the biggest impact on the growth of the business? Making the step, making the step and getting the facility as was the one, taking the step is the one thing that's rocketed our business more than staying doing what we were doing. Yeah. Cause, you know, from recollection as well, there's only so much you can grow it in village halls and so on and so forth. 

There's only so much you can do. And you're restricted. There's loads of things they can, they can shut you out. 

It's parent's evening. You shut this week. Are we shutting for Christmas this week and next week on the first week of January, you can't make bookings and there's loads of things that are thrown in you that sort of hit your revenue streams. 

Whereas with your own place, you can run the hours you want, the days you want. There's a lot more flexibility there. And yeah, it's just that control factor, isn't it? It's of, as you say, controlling what your revenue streams are and you're not being dictated to by external suppliers.

And that was always my issue that we're always competing with school facilities or tonight, they've got a school match on, so you can't use the hall or, and you just constantly, constantly sort of like stood still in that respect. So it's, there's always a ceiling of what we can do when we didn't have the facility. The next question, I guess that, you know, people listening to this are in a similar sort of position that you guys were. 

How do you go about finding your own facility? What's the, because I don't imagine that's an easy thing. So that's probably, that was probably my biggest challenge. Sorry, Rick. 

So I looked at a few places and the couple that I did look at actually that would have worked for one part of the business, whether the gym part of the business, but we wouldn't have been able to do the cricket or the sport side of it anywhere near as well as what we could do with the current facility. And it wouldn't have worked one without the other. So it was a little bit of a luck involved in terms of the actual, the building I came across that had a big enough unit to have a full indoor cricket centre and a big enough unit to have a good sized gym and one complimenting the other. 

So while the gym was getting established, the coaching side of the business took the brunt of it and sustained it while that was getting set up. And with the cricket centre being busy all winter, but then quieted down in the summer, it sort of, it wouldn't have been financially viable just to have a cricket centre that didn't do anything, only did work for six months of the year, whereas the gym does all year round now. So yeah, I looked at a couple of places, but I'd say I decided against them and then, bit of luck, this building came up like right on the doorstep, perfect location for me and where I'm based and went from there really. 

But yeah, it was a little bit of luck that the right size of building came up in the right location. And how long did it take you? Because I know from obviously working with Rick, it was a couple of years before. Yeah, I think it was probably between the gap, because I'd sort of started looking and just as a bit of a, right, I've got this idea, not really ready to go for it yet, but I'm keeping my eye out on what's out there. 

But it probably, it was probably two years or just under before this building became available. And I did look at it twice, because it was, what was it? It was an indoor skate park, which was really run down. So there's a lot of work that needed doing to it, which actually probably worked in my favour, because it was cheap. 

And so it was quite a run down building initially, there was a lot, basically a full gut of the place. And we ended up being able to do quite a lot of the work, sort of ourselves over time, because we had a period where this building was sat for, I think the skate park went bust, and the building was sat empty for about a year. So the landlord wanted a tenant, couldn't get a tenant that wanted to take on the project, because of the size of the building, we needed the size. 

So we ended up with a rent free period of about, I think a year. So it gave us that initial sort of real cushion to get it, get it where we wanted it before we even had to have that expenditure on it. So again, a little bit of luck in that respect, just right place, right time, really.

And Rick, obviously, I just kind of said, we spent a couple of years looking for the right one, we kept finding ones that, you know, were right, but the landlord didn't want it or... Yeah, change of use and things like that. A lot of landlords, especially like, I mean, private landlords are found were the best ones, you'll find privately owned properties, they're more open to change of use. But yeah, I mean, I would just hound the property agencies.

There might have been seven or eight different agencies, and I'd be ringing them every couple of weeks and saying, remember me, eventually, they start noticing you and trying to help you find somewhere. And we, yeah, luck, like Mike said, there's a big, there's a luck factor to it, finding the right place in the right area. And then the next step would be is the planning and all the hoops you have to jump through to get that done. 

And I mean, we use a planning specialist for that just to help make sure there was no mistakes made and try and get it through as quick as possible. But yeah, we definitely didn't get a year's rent free. How did you handle that one? It was, there was a lot to do, like it just did. 

And I think because it had been sat for so long and there was no takers on it. So yeah, I think he just wanted it, wanted it. Yeah, we had three months.

He wasn't bothered. And I did say to him, look, it's going to take, cost this much for me to cut it out and tear it down, which is to do what we need to do with it. So, yeah, I think it was a year, might have been eight months, but it was a good, it was a good chunk of time.

And it was a really good lesson. Yeah. When you're moving in, kind of negotiating with the landlord and not being afraid to ask some questions. 

One of the, I think, key things to pass on as well, really useful to get your input on this, I guess, starting with Rick, but what were the challenges of moving from this kind of, you know, temporary locations into your own location? How long did it get? Yeah. When you first do it, it's all kind of, you know, you think it's quite idealistic. You think it's going to be all sunshine and rainbows, don't you? But what is a list of challenges you can give us an idea of? Yeah. 

I mean, the biggest challenge for us was money. So we funded everything through a mixture of finance, loans, overdrafts and personal savings. So we had to find quite a big chunk to get all the stuff that we need doing. 

When we moved into the, when we got the keys, the whole place needed sort of ripping out, reworking, putting walls and new doors in and then all the equipment to come in. And so, yeah, money was a big one. But once you get past sort of the, once you've got the money organised, it's just all planning and organisation. 

I think you've got to be really sort of on it with, I mean, as soon as I sort of got it set up, I had a wall in my office with post-it notes. The whole wall was post-it notes and the sort of end goal was open and when that was scheduled for and I'd sort of worked back on everything. So once we got the keys and we were okayed on that, the next thing was, right, now I need to really get this money sorted. 

And it's sort of a knock-on effect. Once you've boxed off one thing, you can then move on to the next part of the process to get there. And so everything had, this needs to be started here.

This can't be started until that starts. And just, yeah, there's quite a lot going on. Yeah, I remember that. 

That was the fishbone diagram we did, wasn't it? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's, you know, that's a project management tool. 

That's effectively what it is. It's a big project, isn't it? And if it's the first one, you know, there's loads of learning because you can put as much as you want down on post-it notes, but there's probably loads of stuff you haven't thought of or changes along the way, isn't there? Definitely. And be cheeky. 

Do you know what I mean? We asked every single person we bought anything from, we asked for a discount and we probably saved thousands in asking and just being cheeky with it, really. Some people will say no, but yeah, ask for discounts and things, save as much as you can, everywhere you can, because once you move in and open up, you'll need as much as possible as you grow into it, depending on what you're doing. Yeah. 

And I guess this question is especially poignant for you, Mike, because you're now in stage two of your facility where you've taken on the building next door and you're expanding. So, you know, just kind of elaborate on that. What are the challenges of getting a facility and then expanding a facility? So for the initial facility, because I had, it was the time commitment initially. 

Financially, yes, like Rick says, there's always that financial, but because I had that rent-free period initially, it wasn't a massive pressure. It was just, I knew I had to put the time in. So we're working, the business was still running, so I was still doing the full-time role, but it was, the challenge was, not really a challenge, but if you're going to do this, you have to be comfortable with, right, you've got to be working a 70, 80-hour week for periods.

So that was the initial building. We've taken on next door's premises last, when we had it, June 23, I think we took it on. So we've just finished the fit out or probably 60% of the fit out of next door. 

Just give people an idea of the square footage of that as well. So I've got square meterage here. So it's, so the original building, I've not got the square footage, it's a thousand square meters, be over two buildings. 

The new building has more than doubled us. So we've got 1,200 square meters of outdoor space and 2,400 square meters of indoor space. So it's, yeah, we've more than doubled in size since we've taken this building on. 

So the challenge has been, I didn't quite get the same sort of rent-free period I did in my first one. So I knew a few people were interested in the building that we've just taken on, and I sort of, I wasn't willing to take the risk of pushing the landlord too far and missing out on it basically. So I think I ended up with, I think a three month period where I wasn't paying rent. 

So the biggest challenge of like fitting out the expansion has been paying two sets of rents and increased rates while that business, while that building has not been operational. So we've been, there's that expenditure plus the cost of all the fit out. So basically we've been, as I say, we've been financing it. 

We've been, any working capital has been plunged into the new build. And again, it's, things have taken longer than, some things have taken a lot longer than initially we thought due to tradesmen being slower or unreliable or plans have changed or cashflow is not being as good as it should have been. So that was the challenge is actually expanding. 

It's just, you've got that extra expense that the current operation is basically footing the bill for, along with a bit of financing. And again, the time commitment. So we've still been obviously operating while we've been doing this. 

So I did, when I first took, when in the first building, didn't have kids, wasn't married, could just put everything into that. Situation has obviously changed since then. So it's balancing sort of home life as well as sort of being fair at home as well as putting a lot of time into the new build. 

So that's been my biggest challenge in the last year or so is actually just managing time. But we are open, we've been open for basically second week of Jan. We opened the sort of the new gym facility and we'll just keep ticking off parts of it. 

So we've gone from cricket centre gym on site to 3G football pitch, which to be fair that was done last November because that was the first bit we got boxed off as it was just the first easy win ready to go. 3G football pitch, squash courts have been operational now. Cricket centre is again improved and the new gym's open and we've got a couple of studio rooms now and the next phase is to add a bit of a recovery suite, sort of your sauna, your steam and sort of make it a bit more of a boutique gym rather than sort of just your functional fitness facility. 

But yeah, it's all time and it's all money is the challenge basically and just making sure you're just not over committing and sort of I think understanding it and allowing it to take time has been sort of is a challenge in itself. If you've got the funding, you've got the backers to be able to just go right there is get it done in two, three months, fantastic. But I would imagine majority of the time that's not reality, especially for sort of small independent businesses. 

So, just go a little bit of paying threshold with what you're taking out of the business and then understanding you're going to reap the benefits in the long run. Yeah, and that's kind of the next question to both really, starting off with Rick. Obviously, we talked about all the risk and all the challenges and all those sort of things, but what's been the benefits of moving to your own facility? Because obviously, you've done it, you've been there six years now.

So, yeah, once you get past that sort of year, I mean, we had two years because we had COVID after our first year and you get past that break even and the revenue goes up, profits go up. It's a really, so it just gives the business more security. Is there something for the staff as well with having bricks and mortar in? Oh, definitely. 

Yeah. I mean, previously, they were all, they were going into a sports hall, setting everything up, doing the lessons and then packing it all down at the end of the evening. Every single time they were going in there, whereas now they're going in and it's a really cool place to work. 

And yeah, there's a lot in that, I think, and the mentality of the staff and the happiness of the workplace they are now in compared to where they were before. And it just provides really consistent revenue for us. We've got a subscription model and due to the size it's grown to now, it means if other areas of the business dip, which happens from time to time, we can sort of ride the storm more comfortably.

Whereas before it's that tight because you're that restricted on numbers and it's more difficult. So it's given us more security and freedom, if you like. Yeah. 

And it enables you to kind of keep staff full time and you give them a lot more hours if you're open Monday to Sunday and all those sort of things. So yeah, same question to you, Mike, you know, how has it benefited your business? Yeah, it's just different revenue streams. It's just massive. 

So I say not being reliant, like I know you mentioned staff there, but also not being reliant on people and the human factors sometimes. So like our gym facility, we have, it is staffed, but we have access system that allows us to be staffed, unstaffed in periods. So that's sort of, it gives us that sort of rolling, rolling the income constantly that is, it's not reliant on providing sessions, staffing sessions. 

And then obviously hiring facilities, whereas when I first started, I was hiring a cricket net to run a one-to-one session. And now if I'm not running one-to-one sessions on my team now running one-to-one sessions, we're hiring cricket nets out to clubs and general public and same with the football pitch. It's, it just gives us that sort of diversity in where the money's coming from. 

And also just having your facility, just, it's not just a, it's not just a booking on a football pitch. It's, if we've got 30 parents there, hopefully we're selling 20 coffees and it's just having that, turning that hour of that might've made us 25 pound into, we've made a hundred pound because we've sold a few coffees and a bacon booty or something like that. So it is just maximizing what we're doing on, so what we're able to offer and not upselling people, maybe the wrong word, getting the maximum amount of footfall through the door. 

So now we should have like what gym members, we've got cricket users, we've got footballers, we've got squash goers, we've got people coming for classes, we've got parents of kids coming. So we have a lot of footfall through the door. So being able to tap into that and not being reliant on how many coaching sessions we've got, how many kids we're getting at holiday camps is massive. 

So when I say it just, it means that one term as a sports, like I don't want to be coaching when I'm 50 years old. It's just like, it means that I should have a stable business that has these revenue streams that just sort of evergreen and just keep rolling over if it's done well. So yeah, but I'd say in terms of staffing market, it's a lot easier to recruit someone if you can give them a full-time contract.

Whereas before you're sort of reliant on sort of getting school contracts and it's not sometimes not very appealing just working after school club, then coaching on an evening at football academies of it. So being able to offer someone a job where actually you can't, maybe not a nine to five, but certainly a late morning to early evening job is pretty standard for my coaches now. And then we've got the other staff that are gym related who can be a nine to five or whatever it is. 

So it opens a bit more doors in terms of recruiting as well as the type of the quality of staff you can get in. Now from my perspective as well, I find it fascinating that kind of you two guys doing a similar sort of thing in schools and then they're just completely sort of a different type of centre to do. So, you know, there's loads of different options for people and it's, you know, obviously working with loads of people like you guys, I find it really interesting how people diversify their businesses and, you know, go off in different directions and stuff. 

Just as another lesson for someone maybe thinking of this, what's one thing that you haven't thought of that you found out kind of the hard way or whatever that you could pass on? Start with Rick because you're laughing. How expensive everything is basically. It's all the hidden things like your water bill, like your water bill is not just paying for your water. 

It's all the waste water and it's based on the size of the property, like gates, car park and all. I had quite a shock when I got that first bill through once I did that. Just the hidden costs, all the other things that you need to do that you wouldn't necessarily do as like you'll have insurance and things like that as a company, but there's the building insurers, there's all the utilities, there's the fire, there's the fire alarms and alarm systems which need maintaining and servicing and just there's a whole host of additional things which I didn't really see at the start how much it was and what that additional cost would be basically. 

What about you Mike, anything that you can? Very similar, it's just like this thing you sort of account for, it even rates at the start of it whereas you sort of like I knew there was going to be business rates but I didn't appreciate what exactly and it sort of wound me up that there was business rates but in terms of you just got to include that in your mindset and your rent and it's like that. We got a shock with music license fees because there's a standard tariff which I thought we would be paying and there's a gym tariff for running classes and group sessions and having music on in these sessions and it's I think PRS and PLS but you pay them I think it's about £1.80 each per session you run and I had no idea about this tariff and so I got a bill for about 16 grand and I was just like oh what like that and they were like this is three, I think it was two or three years worth of classes they had, they'd scoured my Facebook and said you have done these classes and it was just like so I think I ended up having to pay, I think I paid about 11 and to them so it was just completely out of the blue and it was sort of at the point as you need to pay this money. I thought it was a wind-up to start with as well really so that was just one example of just like an oversight on our part or my part that I wasn't aware of these tariffs, nobody had ever told me about these tariffs and we were just on the assumption it was about £200 a year something like that for a music licence and it turned out to be a bit of a shock bill but I say that's sort of a little bit of an extreme example of just being very sort of diligent on understanding your overheads and what things cost. 

I guess it's planning and contingency isn't it as part of that? Yeah. Just as a kind of penultimate question and kind of part of the reason for this podcast is other people might be thinking of this so what other learning or what one thing would you pass on to them or tell them to think about or whatever can start and do it that's right? Planning and make sure you build a spreadsheet and you keep working at that and adding the bits in as you learn more and you can research other similar side properties to find out what the prices are going to be or there's someone in there you can speak to them but it's getting your numbers right and whatever you think you need contingency double it. I mean I think we had about 10 grand contingency pot when we did it and we probably needed three times that and so it's making sure you've got your numbers right and when you're doing your projections and things like that make them realistic and attainable.

You're not going to say we moved in with 400 members we're not going to jump to 800 in the first year. It's making sure that it's step by step so you can actually see what the actual numbers are most likely to be against what you're going to be spending so that you don't get these shock moments of there's money there to cover the things that you will have missed and you will miss things. Yeah plan for me planning numbers. 

Yes similar one really I had sort of when I first moved in in 20 I sort of like a worst case scenario plan where if the building and the gym and the centre didn't make a penny I was still able to cover the cost through the other side of the business. So while we were getting established and set up if we didn't have any gym members I still knew I had peace of mind that I was still going to be able to pay the rent on that building I was still going to pay the rates in the building my staff were getting paid I was getting paid it just the profit wouldn't be as much but I didn't by no means came to that because it did go pretty well straight away but again it was it was well planned it wasn't a snap decision on yeah it was a quick process but as we touched on before it's a two-year period of looking for a building so all this planning it was in place and sort of your contingencies and different scenarios. Obviously Covid hit and it was actually beneficial for us in terms of a reset and that's one thing I would say when you're taking on facilities they get tired quite quickly and with the nature of sports facilities and gym facilities they're in constant use majority of the year so you very rarely get a period where you have time for a reset or a refresh of facilities. 

We've moved across into our new place we closed the gym for three days so that's the since Covid that's the first days we've had closed apart from sort of the obvious bank holidays because we needed that period but during Covid we were able to completely redo like decorate revamp the gym and it just freshens things up so we ended up being three years in and we had a fresh look on the space another sort of three years down the line we've got three four years down the line and got a new building we've got another fresh look in the place and it just gives the place that that buzz because there are there are competitors that have newer that can have newer equipment your place is getting tired and it's just it's quite it's important to keep remembering that let's say customers want the want the the latest latest service not just the the one that's just established and sort of I say it gets a bit old gets a bit tired and so that's one thing sort of I'm putting into plan for sort of the next like obviously everything is new currently but actually scheduling in right this is when we're going to do a bit of a refurb in whether that's three years time and we have a refresh of kit and equipment again but by and it seems like the the cricket center flooring needs to be doing so that's like the next next project so it's been since we've been in for this is the eight years so it's been the had the original floor it's got the current floor now and then we're going to upgrade again so it's just constantly trying to keep the product as current and as good as possible and and as much as that costs you're probably going to get well you should get that boosting boosting numbers but also that customer retention and and they shouldn't go go looking for new gyms new facilities and it just keeps you keeps your head at the competition that's uh that's key I think and there's only so much we've been covering a gas length episode you know so but I think there's been loads of really really good lessons there from your experience and so on and so forth so so what's the next stage for you guys you know rick what what's the next step um so we are we are looking for another venue but we've got a certain area in mind and it's been tricky to find somewhere it's back to the look thing if we get a better look and something comes available and we can get that change of use on it then we will start planning and probably go for a second one but I'm not rushing into it we'll just keep developing and improving what we're currently doing keeping it looking good like Matt was just saying um and just yeah keep evolving where we are yeah and you're kind of in the middle of this next step aren't you right yeah yeah yeah so sort of the sort of the immediate term is like I say we've just moved across into the new new space we've got a nice new reception area nice new gym nice change so the next step is just sort of just ticking off little projects so we've got say the squash courts recently completed um where the the space we've moved the old gym from um we're putting an extra cricket sort of coaching zone in there which is sort of sort of the next next sort of mini projects and then that whole space we're going to put a couple of like pickleball courts in um but make it a multi-use hall um so again it just adds another another space to utilize to put more on higher more space out um and just keep offering more um but yeah it's just the I think we're probably about 60% done in terms of the new space and say it's a big space um but sort of down we've got we've got plans for a couple of paddle courts um say physio rooms are pretty much sorted another studio room and then probably it'd probably be the the last space we're going to put like a recovery suite in um where it's got a small recovery pool um the sauna and steam will be in in that but sort of once that's sorted the promises will be complete really so I'm hoping this time next year will be somewhere near yeah and so again just to reiterate I think there's loads of lessons there for somebody that's maybe thinking of this or you know considering it so just like thank you both for your for your time have you got any further questions like or any no just want to say another really insightful um conversation and I know there's going to be so many people in the same sector on a completely different pathway or a similar journey who are going to take away so much from this so brilliant as always really really great one thanks for your time guys thanks guys cheers see ya okay um just hold on just to make sure