Coming on board as a Head Coach at the Football Fun Factory is without doubt a massive decision to make, and for me it was no different when I joined the team some four and a bit years ago now. For the first time in my life I was in charge of my own destiny, my own boss, running my own franchise, it’s safe to say I was absolutely buzzing, very proud of myself, and very scared all at the same time. But that sense of ownership convinced me I had made the right choice and looking back now it’s one of the best choices I’ve ever made!
Now our business was very different back then, there was no in depth business planning, no onboarding days and intricate training, it was meeting up together, James telling us what we needed to do and us doing it to the best of our ability, but it was exciting and we were all convinced we could be successful. I’m not going lie it also felt scary and a little intimidating being a franchise owner but again that responsibility made me even more determined to succeed.
In the early days despite my enthusiasm I was a terrible franchise owner, the reason for this was that I didn’t truly understand what a franchise was, and in my own egotistical mind I thought that I knew best and didn’t think certain tasks where that important so there was no need for me to put time and effort into doing them. I also didn’t think I needed to, I was an ex-professional footballer so surely kids would just attend my programmes regardless of me following all the systems and processes right? How wrong I was, the plan and procedures are there for a reason and to build a successful brand we all had to follow them.
After a very honest conversation with James and Jonny I had to decide which path I wanted to take, whether to throw in the towel and give up a few weeks after starting or commit to the franchise, follow the guidance and build a successful business. I’m delighted to say I chose the latter and absolutely loved the challenge, I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and started doing all the things I wasn’t comfortable with or thought weren’t important and you know what happened? I grew a successful business, and it felt so good and gave me so much confidence in the systems and processes of what James and Jonny had created.
Now these days coaches step into a completely different business in terms of the support and systems in place, James always says that we made all the mistakes in the early days so our team now doesn’t have to. In my role now I am in charge or recruiting new Head Coaches and I love telling interested coaches all about our business and how it has evolved over the few years we have been franchising but rest assured the ethos and values will always remain the same and the be all and end all has never changed since James launched on day 1 and that is children enjoying football having fun in a pressure free environment.
It’s not a very hard thing to agree with, and that’s a massive reason over 80 football coaches have joined our team, because they share our vision and we are so grateful they have put their trust in us to support them grow a hugely successful business. It was a massive decision for them to make and we’re determined to work with them to make it the best decision they ever made. We’ve all made brave choices to join the FFF family and so far fortune has certainly favoured the brave, and the most exciting thing is this is still so early in the journey!
Last July we held our inaugural franchise conference, this event saw us bring together a number of our FFF Head Coaches for a day of
What’s all this about football introducing a new Blue Card that will see players sin-binned for ten minutes if they receive one? At the FFF
