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Meet Sophie from Cheer London Allstarz, who brings an infectious energy straight from South East London. Learn about her inspiring journey into cheerleading, driven by her dance background and love for the Spice Girls. Sophie shares why cheerleading is more than just a sport—it's a powerful tool for building teamwork, confidence, and essential life skills. Get insights into how this dynamic program has grown and adapted post-pandemic, leveraging passionate coaches and retaining a vibrant community spirit.
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Get in touch with us directly today
Meet Sophie from Cheer London Allstarz, who brings an infectious energy straight from South East London. Learn about her inspiring journey into cheerleading, driven by her dance background and love for the Spice Girls. Sophie shares why cheerleading is more than just a sport—it's a powerful tool for building teamwork, confidence, and essential life skills. Get insights into how this dynamic program has grown and adapted post-pandemic, leveraging passionate coaches and retaining a vibrant community spirit.
Get Social with Us:
I'm so excited. I'm finished yeah, I'm just setting up my new phone.
Speaker 2:I can see that. Is that your new work phone?
Speaker 1:this is my new work phone and the most exciting thing is uh, huh. I've now got Teams on my phone oh, you've changed so much.
Speaker 2:You've changed so much.
Speaker 1:It means I can message people at whatever time. Can I see it?
Speaker 2:no, because it's more no, I just want to see if it's good, it's more premium than yours. I know that.
Speaker 1:Well, you didn't need a SIM, I didn't need a SIM, because at the Access Group we now have eSIMs activated which Brian and Stephen didn't get. Can I just have a look at it? No, I don't trust you with it. This is my phone. Now we're doing a podcast.
Speaker 2:Put that phone away. Okay then, welcome to In the Club everybody. Sorry about that interruption, but Rebecca's very excited because she's got. Yeah, and do you?
Speaker 1:know, what I'm most excited about is the fact that I got a different SIM card from Stephen. I got a phone case included in mine and he was so raging about it, so anything to one-up him. You know what it's like, guys. You've been on the podcast long enough.
Speaker 2:There's a bit of rivalry over here. Quite disappointing, actually, that I didn't get him. Anyway, never mind, we still like working for access and we still like the phones we've been given. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm good. Thank you, stephen. How are you?
Speaker 2:I'm very good. It's been a crazy, crazy busy time here, as always at Clas.
Speaker 1:Well, I've been on annual leave for a week, so I've come back.
Speaker 2:That's why it was so busy, because you just left the whole load and I'm sitting here juggling the whole time, and it was just all me. It just felt like it was me holding this whole place and confirmation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. Well done, Steve, on that. So a wee round of applause.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:He finally did his job.
Speaker 2:Finally, Before we get into the podcast today, we've done lots right. I just wanted to reference some of it over the last kind of month. We've got a great guest today, but we're not long back from the Blackpool Cup. We're not long back from Louise Brough's Mastermind session, from Brian being out at a Dramatauts shoot he's waving across there, you can't see him and Res Diary.
Speaker 3:Mmm, our new police.
Speaker 2:This has been quite a month. Yes, it has been. Tell us a little bit about Res.
Speaker 1:Diary. Well, I think it goes beyond even Res Diary, because what was the Class for Kids office, since we were acquired by Access, became an Access office and, more excitingly, in the past month it's been announced that the Class for Kids office, formerly here, is now becoming an Access hub, and it's the first Scottish hub for Access in the UK and with that we have an acquired company that wasn't too far around the corner from us.
Speaker 2:Everybody will know this name ResDiary. Everybody's used ResDiary.
Speaker 1:And if you don't know the name, get to know it, because it's likely what you're booking your restaurants on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I'm sure we'll be sitting some of them down here in the future because they're going to be our colleagues and share an office with us at this Access Glasgow Hub.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean it goes even beyond Res Diaries. I see more colleagues from across Access that are working in Scotland are going to get the chance to come into. Yeah, but anyway it's really exciting obviously to have the Access Hub here. You never know, we might have watch parties where everybody around the Access Group tunes into different things that we're running across the group. Yes, and it might be a place for watch parties. So who knows? We'll see on our social channels in the future, that's quite a good idea, I phone no, I didn't get it from my new phone.
Speaker 1:I read an email and I was like why isn't the Glasgow office mentioned?
Speaker 2:have you got TikTok on that phone yet? No, not yet.
Speaker 1:I just know, give it like three minutes and then I'll be on it actually, in case you missed it, in our latest TikToks I had the lowest screen time in the team guess who had the highest. Nicole. I got it right. No, it was Nicole. How old was she?
Speaker 2:five hours all right, okay, well look at you. You were so proud as well. No, when I double checked it remember it was five hours and 58 minutes. Oh well, but Felicia would only allow me to report on the four hours odd.
Speaker 1:Anyway, we digress.
Speaker 2:We talk about new things.
Speaker 1:So anyway, back to the podcast, yes, back to who's featuring.
Speaker 2:Who have we got on this week?
Speaker 1:We have Sophie from Cheer London.
Speaker 2:All Stars unique podcast. I would say we've only ever had one other cheer school on the podcast. But, as we've said, we do continue to see cheer as a dance discipline grow and grow. So yeah, it's great to have another cheer school on. I had some pom-poms out when she was here.
Speaker 1:I didn't end up bringing them out because it turns out it's not that kind of cheer no, I think that's maybe to do with like stereotyping back in like the early 2000s when films like bring it on and things like that were out. But what we actually learned that cheer is much more about sportsmanship. It's about building the foundations that are core to other sports and also about teamwork and community building. And Sophie was honestly such a breath of fresh air, so much energy, so tenacious, and I just think she was a brilliant person to have in the office and a great episode coming up for the listeners.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a great intro. Let's go straight into it. Here's Sophie from Cheer London All-Stars. We are here today with Sophie from Cheer London All-Stars. Yay, who is visiting Class for Kids for the first time. How are you today?
Speaker 3:I am brilliant today. I've brought the sunshine with me from South East London all the way up to Glasgow, so I feel like I packed it.
Speaker 1:It is the first time it's been sunny in a long time, so thank you, sunny.
Speaker 2:Sophie for bringing in the sun in the morning there was actually sun coming in my windows. You know it was like oh, but it's like.
Speaker 1:Scotland like we open, open the curtains and you're like, oh, what's that blinding light coming in. So thank you, and first time ever on a podcast. We were just chatting about that before. How are you feeling do?
Speaker 3:you know what I'm really excited, I feel like when it comes to the Cheer London All-Stars and who we are, I can speak about it all day long. So I feel like I'm actually really excited. Yeah, excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:You are very welcome. So you're from Cheer London All-Stars. Cheer is kind of this thing that we've been hearing in the background, a bit of conversation, especially of up and coming in the uk, obviously really popular in america and has been for many years popularity there to some degree in the uk, but it seems like it's on the rise. So what can you tell us? What inspired you to start a cheerleading academy?
Speaker 3:and, yeah, tell us a little bit about the cheerleading is just an incredible sport because it is so team-based and obviously I've mentioned earlier that. You know the spice girls. For me was like part and parcel of growing up. Who was was your favourite? Oh my gosh, do you know what? My favourite growing up was? Gerry, obviously it has to be, but when I saw them live in London, oh my Sporty Spice.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:What a woman. She can sing, she can sing. She's got some lungs on her, doesn't?
Speaker 2:she, yeah, she does. Yeah, were they all there? I mean was Victoria, she was my favourite.
Speaker 1:Was she.
Speaker 3:And the Spice Girls? She was, yeah, maybe we could try tagging them in this podcast.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely absolutely so I was really kind of brought up around that and that female empowerment and I was in the dance industry, performed professionally and kind of like, kind of fell back into doing cheerleading as part of dance teaching in a very different setting and just totally fell in love with the sport. And then it is just amazingly snowballed from there because there's this incredible togetherness, there's this like empowerment, this teamwork, that just it's just I believe in the sport and everything that it kind of yeah, it kind of seems like a foundation sport in many ways, and what I mean by that is it's kind of like the skill set that people learn there.
Speaker 1:They could apply to loads of different things. So I'm assuming you could bring a lot of that learnings into gymnastics, you know, like core skills that you take, but then also the teamwork side of things, like that's something you can bring into professional careers in years to come. So it kind of seems like it's a foundation for like life skills in a way absolutely and it's like it's it's working on those people skills that you're constantly.
Speaker 3:You know you're in a team, your stunts if some stunts, you know don't, if they fall, or you know there's an issue in the team, you kind of take on that as a collective responsibility, as you know, and it's not finger pointing you you let this drop, you did this. It is the collective, it is about the team and the skills that they learn, especially confidence building as well, because I say to my kids that we teach and they'd be like, oh, you know, sometimes when you can feel the energy's a bit off and I'd be like your friends are probably at home playing on their phones, watching telly, you're lifting another girl above your head. Do you know how incredible you are? I was like this is just yeah. So I think those skills that that come through in the sport it's much more than just the competing and the kind of you know that team sport. There is so many skills that do run alongside cheer as a sport.
Speaker 2:And cheer itself. The camaraderie in that, and the way that I mean having seen the videos and every single player in this play, is needed. You spoke earlier on outside to one of our salespeople, sophie, about what she called it when she said have you got a no-nonsense? It wasn't no-nonsense.
Speaker 3:So she spoke about making sure that everybody was there. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So that if there is a performance, everybody's so key to it. And in some clubs if somebody's like, oh, I'm not coming to the practice this day, they're out.
Speaker 3:But you're not like that so we we do try to enforce that, because within cheerleading, if you've got a stunt team, someone's missing. That stunt team can't go up, they can't do the stunt zero tolerance, zero tolerance yeah, absolutely so. In the run up to competitions, absolutely. Zero tolerance, yeah, absolutely so. In the run-up to competitions, absolutely. We're in red zone at the moment where we're like everybody has to be there. We understand, there's illnesses, yeah, there's the school events. So we do have authorized absences.
Speaker 3:We're like school discos are not authorized absences oh no, just to let you know, um, but so we do try to, you know, really enforce that as best as we can. But we are community, so we do understand that side of it. But as a sport, accountability being there is so important.
Speaker 2:I think it's great. I mean, it makes the team tighter, I think, because you can't be throwing somebody from this side to that side and then going, oh, they're going to be off today, and you're like whoa, this person's going what They've been catching me for weeks, what they've been catching me for weeks. Somebody two foot smaller comes in and you're like whoa, I don't think it's gonna work.
Speaker 3:no, no, no really important and like with the grips and the way they have to catch and the technique, you need to be there to catch your flyer, yeah, and it you know one person's missing, it affects your entire training session. So we are. You know you have to commit if you're gonna, and you know what our kids do commit, we, they. They understand the importance of being there and the parents do as well. Parents are brilliant, they understand. Sometimes they don't when they first join and it feels a bit like and they come and do the first performance and they're like oh, we get it now. We understand what the sport looks like, because they see that everyone has a place, everyone is needed.
Speaker 1:Um, you know you can't actually hide someone in a chair routine, because it is, yeah no, I think one thing that's interesting, one that is obviously your retention rate right is going to be pretty much 100%. Like you know, you're taking kids from one age right through to the whatever your maximum age cap is. How do you go about retaining your students? So how do you keep them engaged, your students? So how do you keep them engaged with cheer because that's sometimes an issue we see when we talk to club owners. It's, you know, I'm finding that actually their attention to like this sport or this thing, or actually just wanting to come to class, it's, it's gone, it's gone. So how do you retain students? What do you do? I mean, we are.
Speaker 3:everything's been really organic with with us, which you know we're really blessed to have. It's a really dynamic sport and it's really quick moving. So our season runs from September to July. The way that we run our program is we work towards a performance in December and then the summer we have a huge performance at the Catford Broadway Theatre in Lewisham and we do like national competitions, so it's always fast moving. Every season they have new music, new routine, yeah, new stunts, um, and because cheerleading is an incorporation of the stunts, the tumbling, the jumps, the dance is so fast moving. You, you, you can't physically get bored because it's like it's so quick moving that you've got to be on your toes the whole time so you think that?
Speaker 1:keeps the kids engaged now tell me this does tiktok factor into what you're doing in terms of, like, what's trending in that space, like with dance routines or like audio, like that kind of stuff?
Speaker 3:I wish I knew, but I am the least social networky, tiktoky person you're ever gonna meet. Honestly, I'm a little dinosaur at times, so for us I'm gonna say no. My coaches might differ, but, um, I don't know.
Speaker 2:No, does the direction from that then come from the coaches see if they're going to put something on? Is it you that's sitting kind of planning this?
Speaker 3:big. No, do you know what? My, my, our coaching team are incredible, so they will choreograph their routines. Um, you know their stunts because it we do go to competitions, there are compulsory elements, depending on level, depending on what level the teams are at, that they have to have in their routines. But our coaches are so creative, they're fantastic, so that's all in their hands. If they need my help, they can come to me, but they're um, yeah, I mean, I think I, I talk about them all the time, but we, I feel I have the best team in the world because they are so independent, they will go and create and work and they're so proactive with what they do.
Speaker 3:If they need me, I'm here, if not, the ball is rolling.
Speaker 1:So you're the program director yeah, founder of CLE. So what does that look like in a day-to-day role? Because you're saying that your coaches are kind of like, you know, running the classes and you're there if you need them. What is it that you're focused on then?
Speaker 2:it was always that way um. There must have been imagine a handover moment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it's kind of done a bit of a 360 really. So it was me. I was literally delivering the sessions, running the business, chasing the payments, doing all of that. And then you know, there's moments of growth where you're like, okay, and I was speaking about it earlier, we won't talk about too much, but the pandemic for me was a real. I thought I'd lost everything and I was like it's gone and I was so devastated because for me it's one of my biggest loves is the business, because I've grown it from this beautiful space of um, real community, real grassroots, and I love my job so much oh, it was just felt really unjust. So for me, on the back of the pandemic, I had this fire. What I literally said if it comes back, it comes back bigger and better than it's ever been. And this is it.
Speaker 3:Now we hit the floor running and then ever since then, I've kind of taken on opportunities, open opportunities, taken on more staff. In terms of the staff we have are, you know, coaches that have come up through the program, that have then gone off to university, come back and have been like I want to coach for you and I'm like we want you because they're trained up and ready to go. So my job looks really different now because I have this incredible team of coaches that go out and deliver. I suppose sometimes I feel like I'm firefighting because you're like sorting this, sorting that. Rather than being in the business, I feel like I'm kind of on top of it, looking in and doing all of the the gross stuff to move it to the next level, like to keep us moving forwards.
Speaker 3:Um, and I do. You know what I was. If you asked me this five years ago, I would never have seen myself sat in the position I'm in now, because it is sat on a laptop most days. Yeah, um, but I get to do all the stuff that I love. I get to go for meetings with the schools and talk with people. I get to deal with, um, you know, like the parents to a certain degree, where it's all the kind of moving forward stuff. So we have an office manager who deals with the kind of admin-y side, so to speak, but I get to do the growth stuff now, which is I get to be here which is really exciting.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I feel like I have the best job in the world at the moment, which is really nice.
Speaker 1:And then the growth element. Then I guess like, how did you, what was your journey to growth? So, first of all, kind of what are your coach numbers, your student numbers? And then, when thinking about growth, what do you think was the key thing that propelled that? Was it hiring the right people? Was it, like you know, building a strategy to growth? And how did you go about that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so when we came back from the pandemic we kind of retained all of our kids pretty much, which was amazing because we have this incredible, uh, family community kind of setup that we have. But to be honest, our club teams were we probably only had about 80 or so children in our club teams. We heavily relied on our work within the schools. The schools couldn't go back, they wouldn't have us back broke my heart, but I understood, because you know to have an external person in on the back of the pandemic, um, but now we're kind of at the place. I mean we're so blessed we work with just over, well, 1200 children a week amazingly.
Speaker 3:Wow, wow so four schools, was it so? So that's no. I mean we're in about 25 schools in southeast london yeah and we have.
Speaker 3:I think it must be about 35 classes a week in teams that that we have. Um, so yeah, I mean with the kind of coaching side of things, it was when I had coaches that wanted more work. I passed the classes that I was delivering onto those coaches who. So then that was, and for me I had these incredible people because they came to us as children. They've trained up so, without knowing it, I trained up these incredible coaches because they were part of our program as kids and now they're like I want to coach for you.
Speaker 3:My second in command, um, lily, is an incredible manager and she was one of my first ever kids. When I started the business. She was in year seven. Yeah, came up through the program, she went off to Erdang, incredible dancer, and she came back and was like I want to coach for you and I was like brilliant, and she is like a bit of a clone of me, apart from she's really strict and she makes me have boundaries. Now she's like boundaries, bastard, she. She just says you, you, no, we're not doing that. I think we need to have strict about yes, we have to, we have to do that?
Speaker 2:What's her name again? Is it Lily Lily Lily, you spoke about her briefly before as well.
Speaker 2:That was the handover moment. Yeah, and we've heard this before, when, because you like to travel, you said Love to travel. Oh, love it. But there was the time that it was kind of okay when you had to hand the phone to Lily when she was going on holiday. Now we've heard it from John Leach Exact same story. It was like, oh, okay, and he's a football coach for those who listen to their podcasts. But it seems a common growth, not problem.
Speaker 3:But there is that moment. I think that was one of the biggest turning points in my business was to know that it survives without me there, because you feel like you are the heartbeat. The minute you turn your head away, you turn your phone off, it's going to fall apart. Yeah, that is not actually the case, because when you've, when you've got this amazing team of people there and you give them the accountability and I went to Vietnam and Cambodia, I did some traveling I was like Lily for the first time ever, I'm going to give you the work phone and we had systems in in place. You know, when I came back and I handed her the work phone, it was the strangest feeling ever and it was like giving a child away Take the baby, take the business.
Speaker 1:And I came back and, yeah, just in a brilliant job, and I was like, and I think that was a real turning point for me it sounds like that hire sort of being the thing that's allowed you to delegate, to step back from the business and look in on it and sort of really think about what you're doing. So, you talked kind of about growth and sort of looking in on the business. What does that look like?
Speaker 3:So you know, if I was to ask you the next three years what kind of your aspirations for CLE, so we are South East London and obviously, you know, when you're looking at growth, there is a kind of thought process and people have said about, you know, maybe franchising out, and I was like no way. Like we are South East London, we started there, we'll remain there. What we have is amazing and it has such an amazing heart and sense of community. For me it's about spreading that throughout southeast london. We really want to get into more schools because we see the positive impact that these schools we work with and the children what just for their confidence. It's just incredible. So for us we really want to get into more schools because once we're in the schools, we're there for years and years and years. So we have such great relationships with the schools that we work with.
Speaker 2:It's very interesting, isn't it? It's unique. We spoke a little bit about it earlier on and I was a bit like okay.
Speaker 1:I think it's unique in the sense of the model and the success that you had on it. I think more club owners definitely aspire to get into schools. It's how do you go about that?
Speaker 2:Like what's the practicality of it, but it sounds like most of your bookings are kind of in the school space. So more, more than that.
Speaker 3:Okay, not not franchising, but yeah, we want it. We want to dominate, but we just want to dominate here it's. It's that famous saying um, you can't be everything you want to be, but you can be everything you are. And I know that one of our amazing things about cheer and all stars is the heart, is the community, is the. I mean, I'd love for you to come to one of our big events to see it in person. I feel like it would blow you away, because even now it makes me quite emotional thinking of it, because we do have this. I've never seen it in another cheer program. I mean, cheer programs are close, they are tight-knit and I'm sure they have similar to us, but in terms of what we have, it is really special, um. So, yeah, it is that keeping that heart, keeping us all on the same page, really with the same morals, with the same ethos.
Speaker 3:Um, and in terms of getting into schools, up until now all of our work in schools pretty much was word of mouth teachers talking to teachers, getting into new schools. I've spoke to this teacher at this event. We're now looking into, kind of proactively, going into more schools to deliver, to show what we have and seeing how we can make that work. Especially in secondary schools, we offer coaching programs where, for scholarship places where they get their competitions, their fees, everything paid for we go in and we train. You know, the kids that really show a flair for coaching, we train them up and we qualify them to be cheer coaches.
Speaker 1:So it's just creating these opportunities really and who do you think the key person is to speak to somebody? Listening to this podcast is like wait, I'm really inspired. I want to go and try and get into schools in my local area, like who's the person they should speak with and how do they get in contact with them?
Speaker 3:yeah, I mean that this is something we're still playing around with at the moment, um, but it is, like you know, the the key decision makers. I think it's really it's really hard to get into schools because you have the gatekeepers, you know, and the office staff have so much work to do. You can imagine it's just like you know, kind of another email comes in and it's missed. What I really like doing is going into the schools.
Speaker 3:If they can somehow get even just a sit down with somebody yeah for me, especially if your business like me is is really part of who I am. When I sit down with a key decision maker you know a club leader or SLT within a school and they see your passion for the sport. You know they want that in their school because they know it's going to really benefit the kids. You know you're not just going in and being like this is our model. Yeah, I will say, like you know, how does your, what is your female participation like in your school? Like how can we help you with that? Because we've just done a new school.
Speaker 2:Yesterday we did a trial session and we had like 65 children from year 7 to 11 turn up females, you know, students of a school and I'm just thinking it's incredible you know, getting females in sport it can't hurt that when you're sitting in front of these people, when you do, I mean I really like that, like and that's some advice for people out there we've had kennis talk about before as well on the podcast you can send emails, you can send letters, go, go to them. And I think that what's helped you guys as well is that you're not a foreign voice coming in in terms of like from, from other parts of the uk and whatnot. Yeah, it's, it's your mantra that we are south london, we are south we are, south east london, we are.
Speaker 3:We're gonna get on a t-shirt yeah, yeah and like.
Speaker 2:So you're sitting there with them. That's going to come across as well. They're not. They're not bringing in a franchise from somewhere else. It's kind of okay. We see the way it's your eyes and we understand that you are.
Speaker 3:You understand us in this area and we also bring the kids together so we do a big show at the end of the year. All of our southeast london cheer teams come together. The kids meet each other, they see each other. We're in. You know all the kids. We've got an amazing guy that we work with who, um, does all of our team individual t-shirts. He's like a small business hashtags there. He does all of our branding. So every team has their own team logo, their team bows and it's a real sense of and they all meet each other and then some of them then come to our club teams and it's it's just again, it's a community, it's a real bringing together of this sport within the southeast london schools southeast london is one of the most kind of multiculturalities in the whole country as well.
Speaker 2:So you must have people from all walks of life and that's definitely what.
Speaker 3:What makes just what makes us really. We're so diverse, um, and we are so, you know, open in terms of irrespective of financial background. Your child has a place to train within this sport with us. We always make it work. Um, that is one of our real kind of ethos things that every child is has a place on our on our program. So I think that also instills this real sense of community and and to like togetherness really.
Speaker 1:I think you've got kind of a few strands running through that. It's almost like what's your sales pitch almost going into these schools and it's that kind of leaning into the sort of mental well-being, the benefits of doing the sport together and also the female empowerment angle is sort of really interesting and actually giving young girls who maybe are lacking self-confidence, aren't quite sure of who they are, like this space to just go and sit with other kids and, you know, learn like a sport. That's going to be really interesting. And I guess that kind of leads me on to my next sort of thought process around how cheer is becoming more popular in the UK and I guess you're kind of almost paving the way to success. Like where do you think the industry is going to be in the next two years? Like how many cheer academies are we going to see popping up?
Speaker 3:Do you know what I was speaking about this earlier? This? Year I think all the event providers have just sold out really quickly. This cheer is just becoming huge and that is so amazing for our sport because it's really turning a corner, um, in terms of making the sport accessible and also having a sport that incorporates, you know, the, the gymnastic element, the dance element, the fitness, the strength training. I mean, I do crossfit, so I like to lift. So for me I'm just like, wow, these kids, they're lifting other girls above their heads it's absolutely incredible, so I'll try it later, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, I can't wait to teach which we, which we the flyer.
Speaker 3:The fly is the one on the top oh, really, yeah, okay, we need this terminology.
Speaker 2:So the flyers are on the top, absolutely on the bottom. Faces need this terminology.
Speaker 3:So the flyers are on the top. Absolutely. What's the? One on the bottom bases, bases, back spots, back spots. Yeah, the back spot we say, is the scaffolding. You're the scaffolding holding it up your bases. I love to base, love to be on the floor. That's the. You know the strength and the flyer. People think it's the smallest person, but it's not. The flyer at the top of a stunt has to have incredible body control. Okay.
Speaker 2:So not Stephen in. I don't know, I can barely control my mouth. Do not let him be a flyer, sophie, obviously later on this afternoon you're going to come out and do some demonstrations for us, absolutely we can maybe get some of the staff members being the flyer.
Speaker 1:Now Stephen's usual line. Sophie, I'm just going to caveat this with this I'll do some filming. He's not doing filming today. He's not allowed to do that.
Speaker 2:You've got to be in Usually last week when we had somebody in, I was able to kind of dip out of the task because I'll just take the camera and stand behind it.
Speaker 1:The camera wasn't even on, so we know that cheer is kind of up and coming in the uk. It's been here for a little while. How do you, or what do you think you could potentially do in the future, like, do you see yourself kind of coaching these academies as they sort of come to the uk? Because you know you've obviously got a lot of experience in the industry and there's sort of the more we see kids activity clubs. It's more like I'm looking for a network, I'm looking for somebody to kind of guide me on business strategy, business growth. Is that something you can see yourself sort of diversifying into, as you're focused solely on? We are southeast London, we are, you know, cheer? Yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, I don't know what that really looks like, if I'm honest, because, um, at the moment I just see us keeping what we are and just growing it bigger. I think I'm really enjoying that side of it at the moment and that's kind of where we see things going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, definitely, because I think you know there's definitely that kind of space and place for you to almost like just from hearing what you're doing, like how successful you are definitely spaces and places where you know if anybody's sort of listening to the podcast is looking for that kind of advice. I was chatting to somebody the other day and I'd ask them do they use canva? And they said, well, no, I don't. Actually, what is that? Because I've actually seen a session with such and such and we're big fans of canva.
Speaker 2:Um, but they mentioned that more than anybody else come on, it's been two years.
Speaker 3:I love a day on canva.
Speaker 1:It's one of my favorite days but they were saying, actually I don't use it, but I've, I've joined this like group for, you know, whatever sport they're working across and I'm going to get a session on it. So you know, it's just interesting to see, like, is there that in the cheer space? And if not, like you know, how do people look to diversify, sort?
Speaker 3:of you know what? I don't think really. I mean we have there are like groups online where the cheer coaches together, but, um, yeah, I mean really it would be nice to have something like that you know where you can have authority in this space, somebody just to coordinate.
Speaker 2:I'm not dissimilar to louise that we often talk about on this with the dance business lounge, but again, a cheer business lounge.
Speaker 3:I mean we have, like a governing body that's recently come through, which is still quite in its infancy.
Speaker 2:You know what are they called.
Speaker 3:That has come through a sport cheer.
Speaker 2:OK.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, so they. So that's a quite a recent thing. I think also, especially within the industry, it's good to have like-minded program directors that come together, because I'm aware that we don't really fall into the category alongside other cheer programs. We're very different because we are community, because we are grassroots. I would love to have something where it was programs similar to us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, because there are a lot of elite programs in the UK who are incredible, amazing. They compete at Worlds. We are not in that category and I am really honest about that. Again, you can be. You know not everything you want to be, but everything you are, and I'm like stay in your lane.
Speaker 1:It's your niche, absolutely.
Speaker 3:There were times when we first formed and we would lose kids to these programs. A, that's a massive pat on the back to us for making these athletes. You know, get to that part and you kind of say to yourself you either sit there and you go. I wish we could be, you know, like these huge programs that are going to worlds. But I'm like, but that's not who we are. We are grassroots. If you want to be in the sport, you are welcome and everyone has a place on our teams. We don't handpick the teams and then once you really kind of sit in that and you really accept that when and if children want to go off to bigger programs, sometimes they come back because they miss what we have. You kind of wave them off and you wish them well because that's not who we are.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So it is kind of like staying in your lane, yeah, and just being really at home with that. Well, I love that.
Speaker 2:I think we spoke before um, the podcast started and you were talking about some of the competitions. You might not come first and second or third. You're a bit down, but then you'll still just go on and g these kids up on the buses. You use to be the best loser.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, do you know what we always say if we're not last, it's some kind of a win for us. Um, because you know, we don't train multiple times a week, they train once a week. You know, and we, we, we do try and train them to the. You know the best of our abilities and they are good, but the cheer industry is just incredible in terms of the elite teams that are out there. We're not an elite team, we're grassroots. You know, grassroots, absolutely.
Speaker 3:And we um, I was saying earlier that we used to go on the coaches at the end of the competitions and I'd give them all right guys, and they knew what was coming. I said you might not have won today, but you're all winners in my eyes. And it got to the point where they knew it was coming every time and you know what they absolutely. They're at home with who we are and what we do. You know we don't go to the competitions to necessarily compete. I just want to offer that opportunity and we want to offer the opportunity to the children to kind of for them to be a part of it, because they are incredible days when they go to the comps and they have all the dances and the awards and they cheer each other on and all the parents get together. It's a really amazing opportunity. So we like to make sure we can still give that to the children.
Speaker 2:So I mean, it sounds like an amazing business, Sounds like amazing fun. It sounds like you've got a kind of market that you want to conquer all of. Where did we fit in and where did?
Speaker 3:we come along. Oh, class for kids. Heart eye emoji. I love it. Do you know?
Speaker 1:I love that because we were described as organisation that slays, and now we're getting heart eye emojis.
Speaker 3:I love it honestly so I mean my system that was in place before Class for Kids. I can't even tell you how ridiculous it is was it spreadsheets, whatsapps, facebook messages?
Speaker 1:don't tell me, was it paper, oh god yes no and highlighters. Okay Well, I like, I like, I like the plan of organization there. But you know, class for kids is the best. Obviously no paper, no spreadsheets, no highlighters.
Speaker 3:Let me tell you the difference it made in the scaling of Cheerleaders and All Stars is a lot of. It is down to class for kids. That's why I am number one fan. I can get, get. I think I need a badge.
Speaker 2:You need a foam finger we've got a badge we've got a badge. I think we have a foam finger as well somewhere we do, we've got a lot of weird stuff okay, I want to pick up on that then.
Speaker 1:So you said it's in terms of helping you scale. It's been a huge thing. Tell me, what does that look like?
Speaker 3:massively so. Everything before was literally this huge thick packet of registers that had different highlighters, different colors, different post-it notes, and it made sense in my head. Everything's in my head. It's in my head and I feel like I was cheer coach, slash debt collector. Literally our fees were due, you know, the third of each month, and then you're chasing 95% of people and but do you know what? It's not just chasing, because our parents are busy, they have busy lives. I think they are super moms. You know the majority of our parents are busy, they have busy lives. I think they are super moms. You know the majority of our parents that we deal with 85, 90% are the cheer moms, basically. And I get it. And it's hard to remember when you have to pay things.
Speaker 3:So as soon as we started, we had class for kids in place and you know, on the first of each month, bam, it's out of your. You know it's taken. It's green if you've paid, it's red if you haven't. I mean, could it be any more simpler? I don't think it could. And I was like, are you telling me? I press a button and it reminds them, and I just couldn't get over the actual ease of it. And then suddenly we've got all of our schools teams on there, we've got our monthly yeah, and you see the monthly subscriptions going up each month organically, because it's a really simple process. You give them the link, they sign up, and also for gdpr, and also you know health, medical records, everything is in one place.
Speaker 3:My poor coaches I used to print off their registers. They'd give me a little eye roll because I feel like I'm a dinosaur and they'd be like they call me fee. They were like fee registers. This has got to be an easier way. Suddenly, class for kids. They were like absolute game changer because we coach so many classes and you know one of my coaches, samara incredible coach. She is full-time and she is in the schools and she's at club teams and she's six days a week non-stop and she literally everything is on class for kids all in one place. You know she runs it off the work tablet done, easy peasy. So really that kind of it runs itself. If that makes sense I just feel like is, if you can get systems in place that take that job, work, workload away, you are winning, because then it gives me the mental capacity, the space to focus on the next things. Because that side of things. Class for kids have taken care of it. Yeah, you just hear that all the time.
Speaker 1:We do, and it's kind of like we always think of ourselves as the tool that's running the business 24, 7, 365. Like we're just there all the time. You can be taking bookings over the christmas holidays if you want to be, when you're not in business, and things like that. And I think I like the kind of when you mentioned the first of the month and you immediately you meant subscriptions, because that's when we sort of run the subscription payment method and I think that's a key feature of the class for kids. That's really pivotal in terms of scalability, because that is the prediction of what your income is going to be what you've done.
Speaker 2:Before we started the interview, we met Connie. They just happened to be in the kitchen. I said oh, connie this is Sophie and she's like Connie. You set up my subscriptions.
Speaker 3:She held my hand, basically yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You were in a bar.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, yeah, I don't know where I was actually. I was probably at Aperol Spritz oh Feeblip making uh changes. I was really scared because I am not tech savvy. However, everyone at class for kids has literally held my hands all the way through. No matter how much support you want, I'd be like I'm really sorry, connie, it is me again. Could we have a call? And she was like Sophie, absolutely tomorrow, let's sort it. And it was a case of fear of the unknown and it felt like a risk, but when you actually have it all set up, there's no risk in it. It's a no-brainer really well, the subscriptions especially.
Speaker 1:That's kind of like, as I say, what regulates it. But then you know that month to month I've got this coming in, so therefore I can plan to spend here or I can know that I can invest more money in advertising here. And I think again like touching on that at class for kids like one of the things is the bespoke sort of you know, you speak to somebody in sales, you get on board to buy an account manager and then you can be passed on to support, is that kind of thing. I think, um, we had a sort of big company presentation just last month, I think it was, and sort of our CSAT scores or customer satisfaction score was at 98.4%. So it's like that kind of bespoke service and um, sort of I guess you know hand-holding to a degree, but it is.
Speaker 1:You know, if you're afraid and you are tech savvy, we get it. Like. You know, setting up these things can be scary but, like you've said, now it's the thing that just runs constantly and actually you and your coaches can focus on the class content, growing the business, like what are we doing in the community? Like those kind of things, and that's why class for kids is that kind of tool that supports. It's like the foundation to support all those different definitely.
Speaker 3:I'm glad it's heart eye emoji absolutely, absolutely. And it's also you know, you, as a business owner, you just want ease all the time and also to know that you are supported, because if something happens, you can get on a call with someone and and it's not, you're not speaking to someone that's over in America and it's, it's the time difference and all of that. It's like you just want ease. The easier it is the bad. Life is great when it's easy isn't it?
Speaker 3:yeah, you know so the the easier that it can be and it just it does feel like that. We've got an office manager, stacey again. She's incredible and she also loves class for kids. It's made her job really easy so I feel like it's just helped everybody across the board just kind of manages that side of things. Then we can just look forwards now. Favorite feature what's your favorite feature? Oh, favorite feature I've got loads. It's the red, green buttons. It's like you don't have to be going through that. If they've paid it's green, if they haven't, it's red. Then it literally couldn't be any easier.
Speaker 2:You mentioned several earlier as well. You're talking about the auto enroll as well, like that I love it.
Speaker 3:So with our schools teams we run like a different kind of format. We it's half termly um, and what we really love is especially because we're a team sport. So this is actually really poignant for cheer teams. You don't want new kids as in a totally new set of kids every half term. That doesn't work for us in this sport.
Speaker 3:We want the same kids from september to july, the whole season. So with the auto enroll, we literally auto enroll, then they go on and they pay. New children can join. Yeah, it's the same kids. And that for me is like, especially with a team sport, it's worth its weight in gold and it's easy for the parents. They're like well, you just have to go onto the basket and press.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's all I suppose for people that are listening in and wondering what auto enroll is. That's what we call our rerun and auto enroll and it's literally like what I mean a five minute setup process where you copy and paste everything from um, the, the amount in class, the kids that you want to go into those registers and the parent details, and then, of course, you can change dates and things like that if you're wanting two prices of classes. But it is literally like a copy and paste copy that term, change these little details and then get it out to parents and then they compete before it was a week process generating invoices, emailing everybody individually, then getting the.
Speaker 3:It was. It was such a huge process, whereas in now it is 10 minutes. You just load a new term, click bam, done, sorted so it goes from a week to 10 minutes.
Speaker 1:So that's there you go. There, you have it.
Speaker 2:That's the golden piece of information we need to work out those hours. I know I was trying to do 24 times seven but. I couldn't do it. I'll get my calculator out right now, right, okay quick maths, quick maths, okay, like okay so it's. I mean, I think we are delighted it's always the same and we hear nice stories from like when the software has been able to help people grow, support them and things, and it's brilliant to have you as part of the class for kids community, as we call it, um.
Speaker 1:But I think yeah, I think we can wrap it there. But my final question for you then, sophie, is if I was to say where's cheer london all-stars going to be in two years, three years time, where do you? I can give you the answer, oh go on.
Speaker 3:Then they are south london. We are south london. Yeah, I think, just exactly who we are. But just incorporating more children in the community and really sharing just our incredible sport, it does change lives. You know I'm sure you hear that about lots of different team sports but yeah, just literally, we are South East London. That's exactly it.
Speaker 1:That's where we're going to be well. I think it's safe to say we're looking forward to tracking your journey and seeing where you are and visiting, definitely, please come and visit.
Speaker 3:We would love to have you.
Speaker 1:Please do Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and I hope you've enjoyed your experience podcasting for the first time. It's been great to have you and you've been very good, so well done, thank you very much Okay, thank you, thank you. Thank you. What a fantastic character. She, Sophie, honestly, is just amazing. Yeah, as I said in the intro, she's tenacious. She's got loads of ideas, in fact, around what cheer is about?
Speaker 2:Really, really positive energy.
Speaker 1:One of the interesting things is that when we were chatting to her in the podcast and even out with the podcast, was what does expansion look like for her? And you know she's got such a successful business model. I would assume let's expand into different areas of London. Let's maybe franchise this business, let's grow it. But no, she is happy where she is and I think that's something that, for me, is. You know, growth doesn't always look like more venues or expanding across different locations. It could just be we're going to be the number one cheer school in this area and people are going to come to us because we have a really good unique selling point. We've got really good values. We've got really good people coming to the school. Parents are happy, kids are happy. And what is it that she said? We are South East London.
Speaker 2:We are, and they are also crazy. They got us well. Sophie got us involved in some hijinks when we done our Friday at four.
Speaker 1:Yes, so when customers come into the office, you? Know this, guys, and you might know this if you've listened or watched our podcast. You've been on our social channels. The customers like to get us involved in their activities and well, sophie didn't hold back. We were doing quite, quite advanced cheer moves, you think?
Speaker 2:I think we're perfect. We had five minutes training from Sophie.
Speaker 1:Pretty sure we could take on any cheer squad in the world now yeah, sophie, if you're listening or watching your podcast back, you better watch out, because we'll be competing, yeah we're going to start cheer Glasgow All Stars and we're coming for you.
Speaker 2:No, sophie had us doing some really nice things.
Speaker 1:She made us build like a pyramid out of people yeah, so there was like a dance and it was like oh yeah, remember that one, yeah, yeah yeah, so she had us doing that and yeah, I just remember you and I were like the person supporting actually Lindsay, our head of sales, at that point in time well, rather Lindsay at the top than me, nobody really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wouldn't have and I think we were really good. And then what we did on the Monday for when the people who weren't in it Friday at four on the Friday, we actually did the whole class for kids and it really looked cultish.
Speaker 2:Do you remember it fully?
Speaker 1:I'm not going to do it on camera right now.
Speaker 2:Okay, we'll do a separate video that we can put on socials later.
Speaker 1:Okay, then a few weeks have passed since then and I don't know how confident I am in my cheerability just off the cuff. Are you confident?
Speaker 2:No, is it class for kids?
Speaker 1:I can't remember now.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's terrible. It is Sorry Sophie, Sorry Sophie, we're really bad students.
Speaker 1:We only did one five-minute session. You need to come back up, or in fact, we can go down. Brian, what do you think about that? Yeah, he's nodding.
Speaker 2:Brian is nodding and he has got pom-poms out. We need to explain to him that bite the thing. But we'll get there with it. We'll get there with it a great podcast a great podcast all in.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Sophie was a great guest and really happy to have her on the podcast here in the club indeed and let's end this in our standard, usual way that's become world famous over the years, absolutely world famous right.
Speaker 1:Okay, three, two, one bye.