Culprit Athletics in Dalton, GA is celebrating their fifth year of business this October and Owner, Austin Culp, certainly did not plan the path that they are on but it’s been incredible.
Austin Culp started coaching tumbling classes in a church gym when he was 17 years old. It grew into a full cheerleading program and then full gym.
Three years ago, they moved the business from 3,000-square-feet into 30,000-square-feet and a LOT of free space. At first, the space was sub-leased to different programs, but a little over a year ago, Parisi entered the picture.
Austin saw the success of the Parisi Speed School at Champions of Dalton and knew that they were doing what he wanted to do. In fact, they were doing it so well that Austin chose to stay in his niche of cheerleading and gymnastics. However when Champions took a different path, Austin picked up the Parisi license in August of 2017 and the training was implemented into all of their programs. Even though speed and strength might not be specifically used in cheerleading and gymnastics, they were great as supplemental training.
A year later, Culprit Athletics has grown from $12,000 in monthly revenue to $40,000. The Parisi program now trains athletes of all ages, from 6-year-olds to collegiate. This year, they have moved into team training and hope to keep that going into the second half of the year.
The Power of Parisi
After watching Champions, Austin had a solid understanding of the Parisi model, so he knew the value of what he was getting.
“The most value has been in the Parisi curriculum. It’s not rocket science, but it’s a methodical program that gets results,” said Austin. “Implementing that across the board in all of our programs has been key to our success. Even in tumbling, our athletes are learning acceleration, and it makes them faster and better at tumbling. The programming gets results, and results bring us success.”
Austin and his team get better with what they teach and how they teach every day. They continue to improve their skills with the help of our Master Coaches.
“One of the greatest unexpected benefits was that our adult programs also grew as a result of Parisi programming,” said Austin. “Our lead generation was so much easier because we offered the Parisi classes. If we have a 5-year-old sign up, I can sell their parent. If an adult comes in for training, I can sell their kids on joining Parisi.”
Advice from Austin
“Our growth from 12k to 40k happened because the number of offerings expanded. If one offering wasn’t succeeding as we wanted in a season, I knew which ones we could leverage to make up for it. For example, everyone plays football in the fall, but it’s the high season for people signing up for gymnastics. So if we have fewer athletes in our Parisi program due to football season, then we can count on more attendance in our gymnastics classes. And vice versa when gymnastics is in season.
For Parisi owners (and gyms in general), master your own schedule first and then focus on leadership. You can only duplicate yourself so many times before your quality drops. You have to manage yourself 100% first and refine your own skills, then pour into your staff, which pour into your clients.
And lastly, If you want to grow, the first step you need to take is to focus on lead generation. Find leads anywhere you can. Step 2 – you have to have a consistent sales process to convert those leads. Focus on lead generation first, conversion second and the rest will take care of itself.”