Best Tips to Build a Team

In part two of best tips to join a new team, we’ll talk about how coaches can help increase the chances of bringing on more players to form a team.

One of the hardest things to do as a youth coach is build a team and keep it. It’s not easy. I’ve built teams from scratch and it always takes time.

Here are my best tips to build a team and be successful –

• Be accessible – if you’re part of a club make sure your contact information can be found easily by parents looking online. Being part of a club means there are other coaches too. Make sure you know them and they know you. I’ve referred players to coaches and vice versa.

• Be quick to respond – parents are looking to join a new team so as a result you will either get an email or phone call. Be quick to respond to these inquiries. They are probably emailing multiple coaches. Win the race to be first.

• Speak honestly – this is a big one. There are a lot of coaches that will say anything to get you to join the team. Do the opposite. Speak honestly about who you are and why you love to coach. You’ll build trust right away.

• Have a philosophy and stick to it – you’re the coach. What do you believe in? What kind of playing style do you like? Make sure to stick to what you believe in. Personally, I always tell parents I coach for individual player development.

• Consistent schedule – we all like routine especially parents. Make a habit of having set practice days and times. Play in the same leagues for more than one season. Play a certain number of tournaments.

• Try to have two teams – this is a game changer. Following the first four steps can get you here. It allows you to have players of every skill level which results in letting each player develop at their own pace. As you grow from 4v4, to 7v7, to 9v9, to 11v11 you can combine the groups almost seamlessly.

There you have it. Those are six of my best tips to build a team. Later, we’ll talk about the most important piece – the player.