The last two professional development events I’ve been to have been filled with several conversations with other coaches about TeamBuildr. How do you use it? Does it help? Do you like it? Is it affordable?

All the major questions.

I love conferences that allow conversational opportunities for attendees. You know, more than the standard, “Hey bro, did you write down that last slide?"

Most recently, the PLAE and NHSSCA conferences were excellent at literally forcing (in a good way) dialogue between attendees and presenters. It’s awesome. That’s how it should be. Coaches not only love to learn, but also love to discuss this new knowledge -- and, let’s be honest, we love to talk!

Being the “young-ish private sector” guy at events dominated by high school and college coaches, I always try to overly extend myself to be conversational and try to create real relationships that can bridge the gaps for the betterment of the kids we all share. I ALWAYS bring up TeamBuildr during these conversations. Not because I planned to write this article, but because it was one of the cornerstone investments of our gym.

From day 1, we wanted to have some kind of cloud-based, digital programming software. We actually planned on making up something on Google Drive until some research lead us to a way better version called TeamBuildr. I met Hewitt and the rest was history.

Basically, I wanted to take some time to summarize those conversations and share some of the ways that TeamBuildr has helped me/our gym. I figured, what better place to do it than on the TeamBuildr blog, full of readers from high schools, colleges, pro teams and people like myself in the private side of things.

In the world of S&C,  time is a massive commodity. Money is important, too, but maybe not as much as time. These are the ways TeamBuildr has helped me save time, earn or save money… or a combo of both!

TIME

I’d rather have an extra hour a day than an extra $10 a day. Time is way more valuable. TeamBuildr has saved me time in numerous ways. The first of which is specific to the private setting, but it’s a huge benefit for us and you may be able to apply it to whatever situation you’re in.

Video Embedding

The video embedding tool in the app has saved me an unreal amount of time of answering emails, texts, phone calls, etc. about what an exercise is when athletes are working on their program remotely or on their own time (not during a session). The videos come in handy to refresh an athlete’s memory on what the exercise looks like.

Copy & Paste Programming

Another huge time saver for us is the ability to program long term strength & conditioning plans for several groups or individuals. Basically, you do it one time, copy and paste it, make any subtle individual changes needed and then move on. It saves hours weekly, not even joking.

The real game changer is the ability to save a program or a block of a program to later be applied to an athlete’s calendar. For example, if you have a set program for certain sports, age groups or athletic levels, this can be clutch for you to save time by programming in bulk.

Reporting

Lastly, the ability to access progress reports and data on individuals or groups is a really great way to save time. Since TeamBuildr is all cloud-based, all of your info is stored immediately and populated accordingly for reports. This is a no-brainer compared to thumbing through filing cabinets of old workout cards and comparing numbers, or even looking through old Excel files.

It’s unarguably a game changer when it comes to time ROI. Make the app do all the hard work for you so you can just worry about coaching and developing relationships with your athletes.

MONEY

Since nobody really has the same situation, I can’t really tell you specifically all of the way TeamBuildr can save you cash. With that being said, TIME IS MONEY, and I can for sure reiterate how much TIME it has saved us. I feel like this time-saving piece is universal for whatever situation you may be in.

More time on your hands means many things. And one of them is that you’ll potentially have the extra time to execute financially beneficial projects that were previously not possible. Again, our budgets are different, but we all share the same 24 hours in a day.

Grow Your Program

I can vouch for how an extra several hours a week due to time management sparked by TeamBuildr has allowed me to grow my program. I feel strongly in saying that you can also find ways to boost revenue with the newly found “free time” TeamBuildr will create.

The key is to really audit your schedule and fill any gaps with productivity that drives revenue. For me, it’s prospecting clients, checking up on current clients, using social media for marketing, getting out into the community, so on and so forth.

If you’re in a school setting, it may look much different but you can still apply it to your situation. Fundraising events, special team gear or school spirit items to sell, reaching out to restaurants or food companies to provide snacks for athletes, etc.

Whatever the case may be, remember your time is money, so stay focused on making every minute count.

TIME & MONEY

Earlier I mentioned the double-whammy: Save time AND money. How? This is where your creativity comes into play.

Marketing

Marketing. Ah, a world many coaches hate. Like it or not, and especially if you’re a business owner or independent contractor, marketing is a non-negotiable part of growth. In today’s society, content is a very vital tool.

TeamBuildr creates content. Simply by using it, you will build individual stories and timelines for every athlete in the app. Tell those stories! After all, that’s all marketing really is… telling a story. Painting the picture.

Using the features already within TeamBuilder, that you’re going to use anyway, to create content. Show progress, show PRs, show reports, show attendance, show programming. Don’t be the coach who thinks he has some secret formula to GAINZ that can’t be seen by anyone. You don’t.

Share your passion, knowledge and the effort your athletes put in by simply re-using the data TeamBuildr creates.

Athlete Buy-In

Last but not least, TeamBuildr helps develop buy-in from athletes and parents by using it as a coaching tool and progress report. Let me first acknowledge that daily conversations deeper than, “What set are you on?” is key for developing relationships.

I understand that going deep into personal conversations, earning trust, showing unconditional love, displaying genuine interest in others and wholeheartedly listening to what others have to say are the true ingredients to building relationships. Do all of that. But don’t be afraid to use technology - and in this case TeamBuildr - as another useful ingredient to that already awesome recipe.

This can strengthen player-coach relationships as well as relationships between teammates. Really, it can be a helpful resource for any two people with access to the app, such as a parent-kid relationship too.

This can also drive retention and referrals. This can be the missing piece of your program simply by showing people progress, data and encouraging trends in their training. If you work with kids, they spend too much time on their phones as it is, so you may as well try to steal some of that time from Fortnite and use it for accessing training data!

All jokes aside, this program is much more than a “fancy way to look cool,” which is how one coach described it to me. It’s actually not fancy at all. It’s very simple. It’s easy to use both as a coach and an athlete. It’s undoubtedly worth the investment and I’m developing looking forward to the growth of the company.

TeamBuildr has the best interest of the S&C community in mind in the most authentic way possible. These are my experiences with the program and basically a summary of some of the many conversations I’ve had with other coaches. I’m not trying to convince you to use it, that’s their job. I just know as a coach how valuable I find the opinions of other coaches and hope that maybe I can help guide you in any way if you’re ever in the market for strength & conditioning programming software.