01 - Taking On Challenges - Active Ambitions with Mark Whitwood of Active Sports Group

In their first ever episode of "Playbook for Success," Mark Rasche and Mike Roberts sit down with Mark Whitwood, founder of Active Sports Group. 

Discover Mark's journey from a passionate sports enthusiast to leading a successful children's activity business. He shares valuable insights on overcoming challenges, the importance of resilience, and strategies for business growth in the children’s activity sector. 

Whether you’re an entrepreneur in the making or looking to inspire change in your field, Mark’s story provides actionable advice and real-world wisdom for navigating the complex landscape of children's sports and leisure activities. 

Join us to learn how dedication and a clear vision can transform passion into a thriving enterprise.

Proudly edited and distributed by Mike Roberts of Making Digital Real

Voiceover by Rebecca Christian of RL Coaching 

Edited by Mike at Making Digital Real

Transcript

Rebecca Christian: 0:01

Welcome to playbook for success. The ultimate podcast for professionals in the world of children's activities, play, childcare, sports, leisure, and beyond, hosted by industry veteran Mark Russia and digital marketing expert Mike Roberts. This podcast is your go to resource for invaluable insights, strategies, and stories from inspiring leaders in these dynamic sectors. Join us as we sit down with experts, entrepreneurs, and innovators to uncover the secrets to success, navigate through failures and glean essential learnings from their journeys. Whether you're seeking to get to the next level, build a thriving business, achieve your ambitions or strike the perfect balance between work and life, among many other things playbook for success is your roadmap to excellence.

Mike Roberts: 0:57

Right first episode in welcome everyone to the playbook for success Podcast. I'm going to start with some introductions, first of all, so my name is Mike Roberts. Thank you, everyone for tuning into this first episode. I am the founder and director of making digital real. And I'm going to let my co host Mark introduce himself now go for it, Mark. Thanks,

Mark Rasche: 1:19

Mark. My name is Mark Russia. I work in a business called sport and activity professionals and we work with businesses in franchising, kids activities, sport, leisure, childcare, health, fitness, play, lots of fun, interesting sectors that have been in myself for 30 odd years and helped build businesses in that space. And we kind of help them grow, improve, overcome challenges.

Mike Roberts: 1:47

Brilliant. And before we bring on our first guest of the series, do you want to just tell the listeners a little bit about what we aim to provide with this podcast series and who it's for and what it's all about? Yes,

Unknown: 2:01

sir. It's for providers in those sectors and kids activities and playing, and those sort of things. And hopefully it provides some useful content, you know, interviewing other people in the sector and learning from their successes and their challenges and how they overcame them and their failures and all those sorts of things. Just stuff that will that will help them grow, improve. Think differently.

Mike Roberts: 2:30

So there's going to be lots of takeaways and lots of things that people can can use to grow their own business and learn from the best of the best like our first guest today, right? Yeah, exactly. So let's introduce him then. So Mark Wedgwood, you are the founder of active sports group. Thank you so much for being our first guest of our first series. Please introduce yourself, buddy. And tell us more about you the business and why you do what you do.

Mark Whitwood: 2:57

Yeah, sure. No, thanks, Mike. And Mark as well. Let me be numero uno on the podcast, really looking forward to chatting all about sort of children's activity sector sport, and just Yeah, challenges etc. And so my name's Mark, I'm the founder of the Active Sports Group. We're a children's activity provider and have been in the sector since 2005. Yeah, nearly 20 years now. I guess we've expanded our services into other areas alongside sort of our delivery within the children's activity sector as where we're based. We run a small, like community facility that has fibre side foot like football pitches, as well as but sort of everything that we do is all focused around getting people active of, of all ages, really having fun and fun in the benefits of living an active lifestyle.

Mike Roberts: 3:49

Well, thank you so much. And over two marks, I know you've got some awesome questions for Mark, what would you

Unknown: 3:57

say you've been in since 2005? What do you enjoy about it? What keeps you in for so long?

Mark Whitwood: 4:03

It's just I suppose it's passion is the key is the key word but literally ever, ever since I was, you know, the age the children are that common art programmes and started participating in sport and activity at school. I realised that was what I wanted to sort of do from a very, very young age. And I ended up playing a lot of different sports and managed to play at some quite good levels representatively in cricket, football, and ended up running for Great Britain as well and got to sort of Sixth Form age of 18 going to university and it didn't quite work out in terms of that path of wanting to become a or being able to fulfil the dream of being a professional athlete. I went over to university to Leeds to study sport. And there it just really continued my involvement in sport and in terms of If becoming in learning to become a coach, and that was the next best thing for me rarely was like, How can I stay in sport. And that opportunity that was given to me to start coaching the youngsters was something that grabbed the two hands really, really enjoyed. It waits for Legion it did for for a few years, which was a fantastic experience with some great people, some ex pros as well and learn a lot from from some, some incredible people. And that really helps inspire me even further to sort of want to stay in this in sport. And then the opportunity came where I could start my own business really was held by the Prince's Trust, it's just awesome to go on their enterprise programme, get the support and back in from an amazing charity, who just empower young people and let you follow your dreams and everything. And like you said, my dream was to be in sport from a very young age. And I was 24 at the time when I began to start the business back in 2005. And, yeah, can't believe it's nearly 20 years next year. But it's passion mark and Mike, to be honest, that's what keeps you there thing, wanting to make a difference helping other people. And you can do that in what we do. What

Mike Roberts: 6:13

What was the business then in 2005? Because you've grown it to a huge level now where you've got your community facility, all these amazing things. What was it in 2005? Was it just you and some ideas? Yeah, pretty much,

Mark Whitwood: 6:28

I suppose at the time, but then it wasn't always the plan to start a business kind of bit forced upon us rarely, Leeds United had been going through some some problematic times as a football club. And a lot of people ended up losing sort of jobs in the redundancies right across the football in the community department and everything and got to the point where I just had to sort of make decisions on what would be the next move. And I wanted to stay in football coach and some of the people that I had met, whilst I was at Leeds, were doing some of their own bits on the side as well. And I was getting some ideas from what they've been doing. And at that point, I thought, you know, I could apply some of the skills I've learned at university and in other areas of my life and have a go at trying to launch a business. And that's when I got in touch with the Prince's Trust, obviously, from a football in background, having been at Leeds and going out to America, the business was launched as a as a football coaching business initially called active soccer. And that's that was how it was introduced back in 2005. The whole ethos around the introduction is of the company was to provide fun, healthy and inclusive opportunities for young people, it didn't matter about your ability, it was it was about coming and finding somewhere where you can enjoy participating in sport, building your confidence, and most importantly, having fun. And that was that was the starting point. Rarely. So

Unknown: 7:52

what wanted to focus on this podcast, or this first one is, is the principle of taking on big challenges. So can you talk us through the history of that, and the latest one you did? Which, to me and Mark seems absolutely mental. But yeah,

Mark Whitwood: 8:07

so who Han for Comic Relief 14th of March, myself and one of our team members who sort of planned the middle of last year really, that we wanted to make a difference, get more kids active, and take on a bit of a crazy challenge ourselves in it. We were just chatting and then came up with the idea of running 100 miles from Loughborough University, back to our head office in McGill. And we when we when we went on and had a look at the maps and we're looking at the logistics and everything that was actually 100.1 miles, we couldn't believe it, you know, it was just a stab in the dark really to see like would love for work in terms of like, the distance and everything had to be because it was literally 100 miles back. So we looked at it started to look further into sort of what we'd need to do to be able to get down there, get to the start line and try and achieve this massive goal that we've set ourselves and that was to run 100 miles without stopping no sleep and complete the challenge within 24 hours. He

Mike Roberts: 9:11

had some amazing words of support, didn't you from some celebrities and things along the way, whether it

Mark Whitwood: 9:16

been for Comic Relief, they they were really excited by the I guess the magnitude of the challenge really what we were preparing ourselves to do so they kindly invited us to a few events and things prior to the to the run, commencing which also included going to the London Palladium to their the last ever show that led me to sell any Henry David as well. So that was a really great evening. Comedy, lots of fun and laughter got to meet a few people sort of that evening, talked about what we were going to do. And then just in the in the few final few days sort of leading up to the to the challenge. So I have received an inbox email saying click this link. This is somebody who's wishing you good luck and it was their nightmare. From the gladiators.

Unknown: 10:02

Hello, Mark, hello, cue nitro here, I hear you're taking on the 100 mile challenge Red Nose Day. That's awesome. As you tackle those challenging miles remember that you are not only pushing your own limits, but also inspiring students to move law, be a part of something bigger and make a difference. So for me, and everyone to comment really, massively. My

Mark Whitwood: 10:23

daughter has absolutely loved that because they've they've been obsessed with the gladiator since it came back onto onto our screens. And then yeah, it was it was all good fun. So yeah, lots of canned messages and support from from various people.

Unknown: 10:37

So something like that seems incomprehensible to normal human beings like myself and Mike and, and everyone else. I just, I don't kind of conceptualise how you how do you approach a big? No, there's not a big challenge. That's a huge challenge. 100 miles in less than 24 hours? How do you approach? How do you get your head around it?

Mark Whitwood: 11:01

Like one of the tools I've I always use in everyday, everyday life, whether it be for the business or, or something that I might be doing myself from from a sporting perspective, or even with my family's just visualisation, really visualising sort of what that end goal could look like patron sort of finishing, for example, with this one that the 100 miles. And then working back from that rarely, and just breaking it into really sort of small bets. And not sort of making any challenge too overwhelming. And that's sort of done with everything really with it, whether it be running the business or running 100 miles, it's just getting through each sort of next stage of the development the run or whatever it be. And then moving on to the next thing. And I found that sort of really helps in terms of being able to process it, plan it and get to where you want to be and be prepared for things not to go right as well in manage, manage it when it doesn't. And you know that that happened in the run on a couple of occasions, it happens in the business every day, you know, it's just been able to sort of adjust and, and be prepared to take that on when things don't go right and accept it. And then I think the biggest thing is, is just really believing in what you want to do. And anything's possible that you can really achieve anything. If you put if you put yourself to it, it's an incredibly big challenge to draw to 100 miles in 24 hours. But you know, it's It's mind over matter with a lot of stuff. And when you really put yourself to it, anybody can can surprise themselves with what they can achieve. What

Unknown: 12:39

did you learn from taking on such a massive challenge? And what did you learn about yourself? And what what did it teach you for other aspects of the business? I know we've covered off a little bit of that. But, you know, there's a lot of time to think on 100 miles. Yeah,

Mark Whitwood: 12:55

a lot of time to think think we're singing as well at certain points and trying to keep ourselves entertained it was running through the night was It was incredibly difficult, especially in sort of torrential rain as well. And I think it just taught me like, don't, don't give up. Remember, like, what you're doing something for as well. When things aren't going well. There's always a reason that you're doing something in anything that you're doing in life, it could be just personal gain, over doing something for your family, for your friends for somebody else. And that sort of really got us through the challenge in terms of what what I've learned. I think he's gaining confidence again, from just being able to plan out a challenge and execute it. fulfil what we want it to do. It just gives gives you confidence to apply and say to all the other periods or the other challenges that lay ahead rarely suppose they're the biggest ones to be honest mark like like

Unknown: 13:48

so for someone like me, I can't conceptualise it and all I can think about is a knee pain. I wouldn't be in and and obviously only people only ever see the end result they see the 100 mile run and a fantastic success with that. But it must be loads of training and hard work that goes in before that. Yeah.

Mark Whitwood: 14:09

But I'm actually just recovering at the moment because of Kiss out like a big challenge. I just did the Manchester marathon on Sunday, which was probably a bit too soon. Yeah, just a small

Mike Roberts: 14:21

did you get another PB? No,

Mark Whitwood: 14:23

not on this one might not be doing the Manchester marathon on Sunday. I was running with it with a mate actually who gave and joined for a bit on the 100 miles and he managed to and I was trying to stay with him for for half of it and then the body was telling me no after everything started cramping and yeah started loads of pain and hamstrings and quads and stuff but managed to finish which was, which was good. Do you

Mike Roberts: 14:47

think the mindset that you've put into these challenges and things like that affect the level of success that you're getting in business and how you interact with your teams and the way that they respect you Do you think there's a connection there?

Mark Whitwood: 15:02

Yeah, certainly, like, I suppose, if there was a superpower that we've all got a superpower, suppose if there was one that I could think was my own, it'd be resilience. And I certainly find that through these challenges that I've done over the years, and most recently, the 100 miles and, and just being able to apply that and know that you're gonna go when you've been through dark times, and you've been through credibly hard moments that you can dig deep and apply that into the business. And I suppose if, if the team know that you've been capable of doing something extraordinary, I suppose. And they know that you're, you're going to be able to rise to a challenge when there is one. And it's just trying to set an example as well, rarely, I'm not one to be sort of going on and telling everyone about what we do and what we've done. But yeah, I suppose quietly, if you can set an example to the team and to others about, you know, what you want to do? thing, it's only a good thing. Really,

Mike Roberts: 16:00

yeah, you put your energy levels, from what I've seen from knowing you over the last year, I think you're the type of person that would put a lot of their energy, and throw away all that negative energy into sport and getting yourself out there in active and just keeping yourself grounded and on track when it comes to business. That's the type of person that it looks to the outside world. Is that Is that how you try and perform?

Mark Whitwood: 16:27

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think it's important to be grounded. And fortunate that we're still in business, that you have your health and that you're able to do all of these things. But yeah, it's just it's all about working, working with other people, and helping other people. And that's, that's the, that's the, the driver for the business. That's the driver sometimes for these challenges as well. You know, what, what can you do to help the person next? Yep. And we very much sort of take that on board in the active sports group as well.

Unknown: 16:56

How useful, you know, the actual act of running and training and all those sorts of things. Did you find that easy or hard, or was it useful for other areas of your life or takes a lot of time imagine it

Mark Whitwood: 17:13

doesn't. I've got three daughters as well, sort of 10 and under. So you know, juggling the day juggling the business, juggling the family, and then trying to put the run in. And it was a challenge within itself, but often meant that it was either squeezing it in in the middle of a day, sometimes for an hour, or getting up very early, or attempting to run after you've put all the kids to bed and everything. And that was quite good in terms of the from the training aspects of the challenge, and putting myself through a 25 mile run at nine o'clock at night, sometimes on a Sunday evening, as well. Because I was so tired from just having a busy weekend with the family and everything that I was kind of putting myself through like a moment of what it might have felt like on the 100 mile challenge as well, that had been on my feet all day, I was mentally sort of drained, exhausted, and then sort of going out and running on your own as well in the dark because it was sort of January, February time this year miserable weather, you know,

Unknown: 18:14

from taking on a massive challenge like that. What advice would you pass on to somebody else who's thinking of, you know, taking on a big challenge and those that can be completely different? You know, not everyone's going to click on your mouse for some people might be starting their own business, you know, going out on their own, you know, whatever their version of a big challenges because you don't start off with 100 miles, what have you learned what would be your best tips to pass on to someone going to be taking on a big challenge or thinking about taking on a big job.

Mark Whitwood: 18:50

It's funny, because after, after the challenge ends up going into where we finished it at a primary school in front of like 400 children and all the stuff and we're out as well. And then ended up going in the week after and doing an assembly to the children about sort of following your dreams. And that could be applied to anything, any challenge that they were, they were undertaken in their young lives. And after I'd done that assembly, some of the teaching stuff that had been on the playground that week before for the finish it came and came and spoke to us and they'd been inspired from that finish to go and start with Parker and go do a 5k and that that following weekend and they were like, ah, you know, it's nothing compared to running 100 miles and I said look, it's not about that. It's yeah, okay, that extrordinary I suppose to go in attempt to run 100 miles. But it's a it's a challenge that you face and that, you know, that can be of any size and running a 5k for somebody could be could be a massive, massive challenge. They've never run before and and it's so it's just breaking it down to what that looks like. Few. And what I mentioned before is just start with the visualisation of like what you want to achieve what you think it would look like. And then start to plan, it just needs to properly plan what you're going to do make sure that you're, you're giving yourself the, the time, the resources in the in the support that you need, combined with the willpower and the vision. And like I said, anything, anything is possible, whatever that might be, whether it's running, cycling, writing a book, you know, it could, it could be anything really, it's just really just having a, in a belief in yourself, you know, and you don't really realise what you're capable of until you push yourself a little bit out of your comfort zone. And I always tried to say that to everyone at work as well, like, you'll develop more, if you try take on a project or, or reply to an email are a difficult conversation. We don't like having them who does it. But like if you go and do that, the development that you get from it is amazing. And I think I think that's all apply to these challenges. Rarely, it's just pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. And you rarely rarely, rarely can surprise yourself with, with what you can achieve.

Unknown: 21:15

And we know each other from the children's activities association. So you know, you're a fairly recent member. So you want to explain why, why you joined and, and how it's been beneficial, how it is just

Mark Whitwood: 21:31

I think we've been members for just over 12 months now. And I've been aware of the children's activities Association and sort of what it stood for, and, and the members that that were already part of the CAA. And I just found it very inspirational to be honest, in terms of sort of what that group and what the CEA stood for what it was hoping to achieve. And it was all about sort of standards and quality within the children's activity sector. And having been in this in this sector for for as long as I have both sort of as a founder of a company. But prior to that, you know, working for various different other holiday schemes and different places in the UK, I'm massively passionate about making sure that practices, the environment for children, is the best it possibly can be that it's safe and accessible. And I think that's everything that the CIA stands for, really. And I just wanted to add the active sports group to be part of that it was it was certainly a great decision for us to apply to become members. And join a network of people who all share that same belief and passion, really. And it's about collaboration. And that's that's what I absolutely love about sort of the CAA and the involvement we've had so far. And having attended the the conference last year for the first time. It was an amazing day and amazing to be in a room of so many people that just want to make a difference. Everyone was there for the for the right reasons really. Mikey

Unknown: 23:06

worked in previous sector before, one of the things I liked about the children's activities space, and I work in other sectors, as well as you get two people doing pretty much exactly the same thing in a similar sorts of area. And they actually get on really well because generally because they they see that they do that they're in it for the right reasons, whereas I don't I don't know what you think, Mike, but if you think of other kind of business sectors, they tend to be very competitive don't then tend to automatically assume that anyone that does similar sort of thing you've

Mike Roberts: 23:37

known me well, a long enough now to know that I'm not corporate and and one of the things that I like about being part of this community is you're exactly right. It's all about collaboration, not competition. And and even as suppliers to the CIA. I've there's a few people out there that does the same thing that I do we work together. It's all about collaboration. And yeah, I think the CAA is a great group to be part of, and I'm definitely proud to be a trusted supplier. Definitely. Mark,

Unknown: 24:09

you know, you so bought into the CA or shoe shoom. you volunteer to be a committee. Director. Why did you throw your hat in the ring?

Mark Whitwood: 24:21

About taking on challenges, isn't it? Well, it's two reasons. Rarely, I think firstly, just echoing what I was just saying before about the reasons why we wanted to join in the first place was to be part of the CEA and then once we're in it, how can we make a difference? Really, how can I make a difference and try and encourage more members and try and help help the CA grow? I'm just so passionate about our sector that when the plans were unveiled for for the for the strategy for the CIA and how they were looking to, to grow over the next 1224 months, with all of the new sort of committed The roles in both roles, I just saw it as a real opportunity to put my name in the hat. And then again, push push myself into a different sort of role that I've not done previously. And take on that challenge and and just hopefully make make a difference. How to attract new members help help the CAA try and achieve its ultimate goal. Rarely. So

Unknown: 25:24

for anyone that's, you know, if they haven't heard the CA, or if they if they haven't thinking about looking into what would you say to them?

Mark Whitwood: 25:33

It's picking up on something Mike just mentioned before as well. Collaboration. Yeah, you talked about competition. Yeah, competition, I suppose, exists in lots of other sectors and everything. But what's so special about the children's activity sector is that word collaboration and people coming together, and it doesn't matter if you're, you're working sort of independently within the the children's activity sector, or whether you manage a team of 50 to 100, coaches or franchises. And you can come and join and learn from other people. And there's so many amazing, talented people that have got so many different experiences within within the sector, that and they openly just share with each other. And I think that, for me, is massive, you know, running a business can be a lonely place. And I think joining the network and being able to get in touch or, or reach out to someone is such a strong thing, rarely enough, I'd recommend that you can come and learn so much and and develop by being part of the the CIA, tell

Mike Roberts: 26:44

us about what we can expect from active sports group this year, or moving into next year, what big things have you got happening that you want to tell the world about,

Mark Whitwood: 26:53

we're continuing to grow our our franchise network. So we've we've got three new franchisees joining, joining the team at the moment one that's just launched this month in Manchester. And so our objective is to try and sort of continue to grow the network over the coming years, but certainly this year, hopefully with another sort of 10 area directors. I'm going over to Dublin. At the end of next week, when who's our first sort of franchisee an area director in Ireland has been nominated, along with some of our programmes for awards at the Irish Franchise Association, Karla, that's taking place next week. We want to try and support and grow that grow the network further over in Ireland as well. And then alongside that, we're, we're looking ahead at some of the other schemes that we can develop and support. And we're having a big focus at the moment on on wraparound care and our new brand, the x t Club, which supports primary schools, you know, with pre and after school club care, and we're looking at developing that right across our sort of network.

Mike Roberts: 28:09

Do you want to wrap up then No, I

Unknown: 28:10

just like to say thanks to Mark, for coming on and giving us the benefit of his experience and what it feels like to take on big challenges like that what you can learn from it and like said, you know, someone at your 100 mile run for somebody else, that's a completely different thing. You know, everyone's big challenges is different. Some people won't be starting the business, some people might be taking the business global or getting investment or getting to the next stage, whatever it might be, like, personal challenge. Whatever it is, I just like to thank you for the, you know those tidbits of really useful information. I think it'd be helpful for anyone to listen to it and you can learn something out of it. Even better, yeah.

Mike Roberts: 28:58

Cheers. Cheers for being our first guest, but I really, really appreciate it.

Mark Whitwood: 29:02

Thanks so much for having us. I've really enjoyed it. And good luck with the podcast, guys. Thanks a lot. Thank you.

Unknown: 29:09

Thank you for tuning in to playbook for success. We hope today's episode provided valuable insights for your journey in play kids activities or sports franchising. If you found this episode useful, please subscribe, leave a review and share it with your network. Your support helps us deliver quality content. Keep striving for success. And remember, with the right playbook, anything is possible