Upper Hand Biz Pod
Ep.01 | Jeff Halsema, LK Soccer
Data has the power to change the way a business thinks, grows, and evolves.
It offers opportunities to better understand your clients. Your operations. Your team of staff.
Kevin MacCauley recently sat down with Jeff Halsema of LK Soccer to discuss how their business is relying on data to achieve business success, and how he envisions predictive analytics will continue to change the game.
Here are some of the highlights.
About LK Soccer - A Child Development Organization
Operating out of the Chicago and Milwaukee areas, LK Soccer is a franchisee of Lil’ Kickers and Skills Institute. Right now, they operate out of 17 locations, with an 18th location that opens during the summer seasons.
Lil’ Kickers runs classes for kids as young as 18 months, up to 8 to 9 years old, with an emphasis on child development. Soccer is the conduit/ means to achieve that progress.
As the VP of programming for LK Soccer, Jeff’s role not only entails leading the organizations’ programs through mentoring their coaches, but he also plays a significant role in shaping a young child’s experience with soccer.
“You can shape an experience within a matter of one 50-minute class. You can spark something that just clicks with them. We’re trying to inspire younger kids to enjoy soccer for the first time ever, to explore their physical prowess, social prowess, emotional prowess, cognitive function. We’re training them and training their mind on how to do things repetitively week after week the right way.”
Mentoring Adolescents & Young Adults
In addition to creating opportunities for young kids to explore soccer and physical activity, Jeff notes that Lil’ Kickers also provides opportunities for adolescents and young adults to gain leadership and coaching experience.
If Jeff had to guess, 130-135 of the 150 employees at the organization are under the age of 22. He uses this opportunity to help mentor and motivate high school and college age kids on what it’s like to run a business, and what it’s like to lead other people, to manage staff.
“We’ve got part-time college students and high school students running locations on the weekends, being the face of LK Soccer, in front of customers, parents, kids. They’re signing them up, evaluating coaches, giving them feedback. Teaching them all of those things from a leadership standpoint is really essential in this space and on this scale to be able to run as many locations as we do.”
Jeff tries to remain mindful of their experience and provide opportunities for growth and continued mentorship.
Shaping Sports Experiences from Month 18
People often question – “A one year old, that’s pretty young. What’s the point or value of starting there for a parent?” For LK Soccer, enrolling young kids is less about developing young soccer stars and more about developing children in all aspects of their life. Classes open beginning at just 18 months of age, with a focus on exploration.
In this stage, kids learn about shapes, colors, textures, and how to interact with other kids. Classes consist of games involving bubbles, pool noodles, and hand-eye coordination exercises that engage children while helping them develop their motor skills.
Starting early helps these kids build confidence through repetition and establishing strong physical and mental foundations.
Strengthening Parent-Child and Athlete-Coach Relationships
Parent-child classes are a significant component of LK Soccer’s programs, especially for the younger children. The classes and programs that LK Soccer offers give parents a chance to bond with their child in a focused, distraction-free environment. This helps foster deeper connections while working through activities and challenges.
“Bonding in a hyper-focused way is the gift we give to the parents that really buy into it. Those who want to participate and fully engage are the ones I think see the biggest benefits with their kids being able to take those steps every week.”
In addition to this parent-child bond, LK Soccer is also focused on the coach-athlete relationship, ensuring that coaches are meeting the athletes where they’re at and work their way around the class to engage with each child. This helps foster a love for the sport as well as build a sense of independence.
The Importance of Data in Managing LK Soccer
With amazing repeat customers across age groups, beginning at 18 months, and a number of locations, it could quickly become challenging to manage all of the data associated with an operation of that magnitude.
How is one location doing over another? Do you have enough inbound leads coming in? Do you have enough repeat clients? Do you have enough coaches and staff? Comparing indoor vs outdoor locations…there’s a lot going on at once.
To find these answers and make decisions, Jeff and the LK Soccer team have relied on data.
Initially, LK Soccer relied heavily on Google Sheets to track registration and session performance, coach evaluations, program scheduling, and more. While time-consuming and manual, this diligent tracking has only paid off for the LK Soccer team, as it provided a critical foundation for understanding the business’s Key Performance Indicators. Jeff and Kevin both stress that for any business, having a reliable method to collect data – even if it’s manual – is essential. These processes help inform important decisions and avoid “blind guessing.”
From Spreadsheets to Upper Hand AI
It’s essential for Jeff to have a pulse on the data they are bringing in.
In his case, he was running a number of spreadsheets for each of the 17 locations, and updating things weekly, monthly, annually, and seasonally.
“Coming into it, it was honestly overwhelming. Google Sheets can be extremely time consuming with formulas and coding and trying to update things regularly. You’re constantly in a spreadsheet doing updates.”
This meticulous data tracking was chaotic and time consuming. Getting information updated could take days, or even weeks. And for a business like LK Soccer – you have to be more efficient to be successful and continue to scale.
That’s where Upper Hand AI has come into play.
“One of my goals was how can we automate as much as we possibly can? How can we set things up to where the spreadsheets are automatically updating themselves. Upper Hand AI has been a huge piece of that automation.”
The introduction of automation has allowed Jeff to focus more on leadership and business development, reducing the time spent on manual data entry and updating spreadsheets.
“I was spending three or four hours every day just updating spreadsheets. And that’s not my role. So I quickly had to realize that, although it’s working, it’s not efficient. And, it’s not effective for me.”
With the implementation of Upper Hand AI, Jeff has been able to gain that time back to focus on mentoring his young staff as well as growing the LK Soccer brand and community.
How LK Soccer Uses Their Data to Drive Growth
With data at the heart of LK Soccer’s operational success, it has become an integral part of their internal communications.
Weekly leadership meetings as well as individual check-ins with each location ensure that each location is performing well, has what they need to be successful, and understands the data of their location.
“We set an agenda every week with the things we want to talk about. We used to not get our coordinators involved in a lot of the data. We’re at a point now where we are having them come prepared with talking points based around the data.”
One example that Jeff dives into is around their free trial class.
“We have a lot of data around our free trials – who shows up, who registered [for additional classes] on-site, who registered online when they went home, what’s the percentage of no-shows, who do we need to follow up with, what’s our close rate?”
Jeff mentions that the two things a business needs to grow are 1. Can you keep and maintain your current customers, and 2. Can you get new customers in the door?
Areas of Data LK Soccer Explores
Jeff is using the data he receives from Upper Hand AI to monitor and make decisions around a number of areas in his business. In addition to the data around their free trials, he also examines data related to retention of current customers, marketing and lead generation, revenue, and their client demographics.
Seeing all of this information helps Jeff to make decisions about opportunities for growth, refinement, and an improved customer experience.
“We are more likely to close new customers on-site. We shoot for about 40% on-site that same day [as the free trial]. As a company, month to month, we’ll end up somewhere around the 60% range, with another 20% through follow-ups or just natural online registration capture. That’s a pretty key indicator of a healthy close rate.”
Jeff notes that “You’ve got to take time to make time. By taking the time to be able to utilize Upper Hand AI to make real-time, real-world decisions without spending hours upon days upon weeks researching, we’re really just starting to understand that.”
The Role of AI in Sports Business
AI has been a game-changer for LK Soccer. Upper Hand AI, in particular, has allowed them to centralize their data and make more informed decisions while increasing the efficiency of their operation. Upper Hand AI has also started a conversation around exploring predictive analytics. While they are still in the early stages of utilizing AI for predictions, Jeff sees incredible potential.
“We haven’t even hit the tip of the iceberg yet with what we could possibly do from the predictive side of making more informed decisions. We’re just now starting to dip into the predictive analytics of being able to mesh some of these numbers that we have and get them to learn and work off of one another.”
In the future, AI could predict which classes to run based on past registrations, age demographics, and local census data. This could help ensure class schedules are optimized for each location, eliminating much of the guesswork that currently exists.
It also helps reprioritize time for his staff. Much like he was doing previously, Jeff does not want his coordinators to be spending their time in spreadsheets.
“I don’t want them to have to be analyzing numbers when they are the front-facing, customer side of the business. They should be working on relationships, training coaches, training site leads, working with kids.”
What's Next in the World of AI?
When asked about the future of AI in the industry, Jeff emphasized that it’s still early days, but the possibilities are endless. From predicting which areas have the highest demand for new locations to optimizing class schedules and improving retention rates, AI will continue to play an increasingly central role in LK Soccer’s strategy.
“The most interesting thing I’ve learned is the ability to pull information out of a source and teach it to read it a certain way. One of the things I was a little weary about was how “dirty” our spreadsheets were. The fact that you can really tell it, and rename it whatever you need to get it to understand and tie that all together to get the end result…there really are no limits.”
Ultimately, Jeff believes that AI will allow LK Soccer to focus more on building relationships – with kids, parents, and coaches—and less on administrative tasks. With the right tools, they will be able to deliver even better experiences for their kids, helping them build skills, confidence, and a love for the game.
To listen to the full conversation, click here!