A Proposal For
Coach Jake Tillery
You grew Surge from four teams to 134 kids without ever once asking anyone to join. You took a Riverside player's shooting up 37% in a single year. And you just put in a Noah system that nobody else inside a hundred miles is even able to buy.
The problem is that nobody outside your circle knows any of that, and everything good in this business still requires you to be standing in the room.
Four things worth naming out loud.
The first is what you've already built. The next two are what's capping it. The last one is the thread running through all three.
The Noah system on the goal, tracking arc, depth, and left-right on every shot with instant feedback, is an impressive perk of the Future Ballers gym. You're the only one inside a hundred miles who can even have one, because the gym qualifies as a home gym and you got it in writing. On top of that, you've had real success coaching, with before and after numbers to show for it.
All of this points to great programs and good work on your part… but
You have to be in the room for anything to work
Your coaching is good, parents and students are happy, and you even want to hire. You haven't yet, because you haven't found a way to bring on coaches you'd trust to work at your standard. Clients literally ask whether Jake will be there.
That's not a hiring problem. It's that the method lives only in your head, so there's nothing to hand a new coach. Until it's systematized and written down, every coach you add is a gamble on your own reputation, which is exactly why you haven't added one.
Parents are frustrated by the process of trying to pay you
SimplyBook runs into Stripe, so the money works. The problem is what a parent runs into. Buttons and options that don't make any sense to somebody seeing them for the first time, and plenty of them quit halfway through while actively trying to hand you money. Four parents reached out just this week to tell you they'd given up. Those are the four polite enough to say something instead of just moving on.
Under that sits the rest of it. No dedicated website of your own to reassure a parent of the value they're getting. Waivers that are a checkbox somebody else wrote and nobody has read. And no system at all for following up with the hundreds of kids who've been part of your program before and aren't with you now.
Back to the Noah system, because it points at a bigger problem
That machine should be plastered all over your Facebook page. Two weeks in, nobody in this area besides your current clients knows it's installed in the gym. Same story with the Riverside player whose shooting went up 37% in a year. That is documented, provable, before-and-after evidence that you make kids better, and there is nowhere online a parent can go and find it.
When a family searches, or asks ChatGPT, they aren't asking who in Jonesboro has a basketball gym. They're asking who is going to help my kid get better, and how. You have the best answer to that question in Northeast Arkansas and you've never once said it out loud in public.
It's the same story with the program itself. You know exactly how to make a kid demonstrably better, and none of it is written down, filmed, or sitting anywhere a family who hasn't met you could find it. That's the thread running through all four of these.
37%
One Player's Shooting · One Year · Zero People Outside The Gym Know
This is the whole thing in one number. You have hard, documented proof that you make athletes better, and it lives nowhere a family could ever find it. Everything in this proposal exists to take proof like that and put it in front of people who have never heard your name.
Three things in the way of the next level.
Each one has a fix, and the fixes aren't the same size or the same price.
There's no front door
And the door you do have loses people.
The only path in is a SimplyBook page that works mechanically and confuses parents in practice. Four of them told you so in one night. Everybody else who got stuck just didn't message you.
The story never gets told
The Noah system, the 37%, three years of Surge. New families have no clue.
You have better evidence than anybody around here, and none of it is written down, filmed, or published, so families stay comfortable with cheap, beginner pricing. They never see the story of the value they're getting. And if you're looking to raise what you charge for private coaching, doing that takes telling that story before a parent approves a higher session cost.
It can't run without you
You'd hire tomorrow if you could hand someone the method.
You've already thought about certifications and about everyone using the same words for the same moves. What's missing is the playbook. You need a written, repeatable system that can be handed to and taught to every coach you bring on. Then hiring stops being a risk to your name, group work stops being something you dread, and the ceiling stops being how many hours you personally have.
Two businesses. Two different jobs.
The call with Logan clarified the order. Surge needs a clean home for tryouts, registration, and payment. Your coaching business needs a way to reach families outside the word-of-mouth circle. Those are related, but they should not be mashed into one giant project.
Start Here
Fix the front door
Build the website first: a clear place for Surge and private coaching, a dedicated tryout path, and a payment flow that does not lose parents halfway through.
Then Test
Build the coaching pipeline
Five strong organic pieces each month plus one paid ad campaign, focused on the coaching side: the Noah system, measurable player improvement, and the reasons a family should choose you.
Later
Systematize what works
The playbook, coach training system, deeper follow-up automation, and other scale work still make sense. They just do not need to be part of the first check you write.
Start with the website.
This is the immediate priority: give Surge and your coaching a legitimate home, make the tryout process easy to understand, and remove the friction between a parent deciding to sign up and actually paying you.
Website Build
Surge + Tillery Coaching
A pared-down, high-quality site with the pieces that matter now. Target launch: about three weeks after kickoff and receipt of needed materials.
- Up to four core pages. Built around the jobs the site actually needs to do now: introduce the brand, explain private coaching, give NEA Surge a clear home, and handle tryout/registration information without turning the build into a sprawling site.
- Surge and private coaching kept distinct. They can live under the same Jake Tillery umbrella without making parents decode which offer they are looking at.
- Dedicated tryout / intake path. A clean registration form organized around the information you actually need from a player and parent, with confirmations routed where they need to go.
- Stripe payment flow included. Payment is built into the experience instead of dropping parents into a confusing third-party maze. Funds go directly into your own Stripe account.
- The proof, out loud. The Noah system, measurable results like the 37% shooting improvement, and the credibility you already have get put where a new family can actually see them.
- Copy, build, launch, and handoff. I write the site, build it, connect the core pieces, launch it, and show you how to make basic updates yourself.
Future Ballers itself remains a separate brand/site conversation with Jason. This build covers Jake's side: NEA Surge and private coaching. It does not need to wait on the gym's website situation.
Deliberately Not Bundled
What We Are Not Cramming Into $2,500
The point of the revised scope is clarity. These can be added later if they become the next highest-leverage move.
Website Video Shoot
LaterThe homepage intro video, filmed FAQs, and a larger on-site content package are not required to launch this version well. We can add them once the site is working and you want to level up the presentation.
Automatic Follow-Up Engine
LaterLonger email/text nurture, reactivation of former players, and deeper CRM automation can be a second step. The initial site includes the core forms and routing, not a full lifecycle automation build.
Jake Playbook / Coach System
LaterThe written coaching method still matters if you want other coaches delivering at your standard. It is simply being removed from the initial engagement so you can prove the website and marketing engine first.
Then test the marketing engine for ninety days.
Not a giant brand transformation. Not twelve different initiatives. A focused three-month test designed to answer one question: can we consistently put your coaching offer in front of Northeast Arkansas families who do not already know you?
Organic + Paid
Ninety-Day Coaching Growth Test
Use organic content to show the proof, then use paid distribution to reach beyond the referrals and AAU families already in your orbit. The marketing focus is private coaching, not trying to overfill an AAU program that is already close to capacity.
- 5 organic videos per month. Student results, technique, the Noah system, your coaching philosophy, and the things a family cannot understand from word of mouth alone.
- 1 paid ad campaign per month. I develop the angle, write the script and copy, film/produce the creative, build the campaign, and handle the launch.
- $600/month in Meta ad spend. Included in the $3,000 monthly planning number but paid directly from your own Meta ad account to Meta, not routed through Dangerous Archive.
- Content capture included. I handle the shooting needed to produce the agreed monthly content and ad creative; this is not an extra website-video package.
- Campaign setup and optimization. Audience setup, tracking, delivery, and budget adjustments based on what is actually generating attention and inquiries.
- Simple monthly performance review. What ran, what people watched, what produced inquiries, and what we should keep, kill, or double down on next month.
This first 90 days does not include the Jake Playbook, a full CRM/follow-up automation build, online coaching products, or a separate Future Ballers campaign. If the test works, those become much easier decisions because we will be building from evidence instead of guesses.
The longer-term upside is still worth seeing.
The playbook is no longer part of this first engagement. But the reason it came up in the first place still matters: eventually, the coaching business becomes much more valuable when every additional dollar does not require another hour of Jake's time. Use your own assumptions below. Nothing is saved anywhere.
What could the coaching business look like once you are not the only coach?
This is future-state math, not a promise and not part of the initial scope. It is here to show what becomes possible if demand grows enough to justify building the coaching system later.
Today, you are the product
Coaches trained on your method
Those coaches bring in $93,600 gross. At 40% that's $26 a session to the business and $39 to the coach. Change it to whatever split you'd actually run.
Training only. This doesn't count memberships, online coaching, a shooting program built on the Noah data, Surge, or sponsorships. The revised ninety-day plan is not promising this outcome; its job is to start building reliable demand. If that demand proves out, the coach system becomes a much more grounded next investment.
Start with the front door.
You already have the hard part: 134 kids, three years of momentum, equipment people cannot get anywhere nearby, and measurable proof that your coaching works. The immediate move is to make it easy for a new family to understand that and pay you.
Website: $2,500 one time.
$1,250 to start.
Once the site is moving, the revised marketing test is available at $3,000 per month all-in for 90 days: $2,400 in production/management plus $600 in Meta spend paid directly to Meta.
The goal is deliberately smaller than the original proposal: fix the website, then prove we can create demand outside word of mouth before adding the playbook, automation, or bigger-scale systems.