LocoPro

Golfers are always looking to improve and without a doubt, the best way to achieve this is by signing up for lessons with a qualified Professional golf coach.

But how do you find a golf coach near to where you live? How do you find a golf coach who can provide the specific coaching (putting, bunker play, beginners, driving, etc.) you may require? And much more besides…

One way to answer those questions is via LocoPro, a new online platform that enables golfers to find a golf coach in their location who can provide tuition aligned to the type of golf coaching they seek.

LocoPro is the brainchild of Jack Vickery and Tyler Everitt. Although Jack and Tyler play to a very similar ‘high handicap standard’ (their words not mine!!) they are both incredibly passionate about golf and wanted to create a platform that establishes a golfing community comprised of golfers and golf coaches.

Golfing Herald recently met up (albeit via MS Teams due to the current Covid-19 restrictions) with Jack and Tyler to find out more about their golfing business venture.

Hope you enjoy

First Tee

(Golfing Herald): I ‘teed off’ by asking Jack and Tyler how they knew each other…work, college, golf club…

(Jack): We went to school together so we have probably known each other for about 10 years.

(Tyler): We went to the same secondary school and I guess it was when I came back from University that we started hanging around again. We actually both work in the same office at the moment, though due to the Covid-19 lockdown we are both having to work from home.

(Golfing Herald): That was going to be one of my questions…whether you are still working full-time in your respective careers and burning the midnight oil for LocoPro or whether LocoPro is now a full-time business venture.

(Jack): LocoPro was a business idea that we thought we would like to develop and see what happens but with the overall end goal of working full-time on LocoPro and be a business that can support us. That would be the dream.

(Tyler): So at the moment it feels like we are working 24 hours a day!!

Origins

(Golfing Herald): Just taking a step back, how did the idea for LocoPro originate?

(Tyler): We are both entrepreneurial and we are always chucking ideas around, mostly very bad ideas!! But the idea (for LocoPro) popped into my head one day just before Xmas last year when I was out for a run I thought this is a great idea. When I got back home after my run I had a look to see if it was something that was already out there….and it wasn’t. So I messaged Jack…and pretty much he started work on it 5 minutes later!! And within about a month LocoPro was live.

(Jack): It all happened very quickly. The first version of the website was up and running within a couple of weeks.

(Golfing Herald): I take it you designed and built the LocoPro website yourselves?

(Jack): Yeah…my background is in Web Design, SEO and Marketing and I do a bit of Web Design in my spare time.

LocoPro Launched

(Golfing Herald): What other names did you throw into the mix before agreeing upon LocoPro?

(Jack): We had a list of about a hundred possible names on a Spreadsheet…names such as ‘FindYourGolfPro’ and ‘ReachMyGolfCoach’.

(Tyler): We just bounced loads of names around.

(Golfing Herald): So when you came up with LocoPro as a possible name did you just instinctively know that’s the one?

(Jack): As soon as we said LocoPro it was always a favourite…always in the top 3 and we always kept coming back to it…easy to remember and a bit different.

(Tyler): It was definitely my favourite.

(Golfing Herald): You said a couple of minutes ago that LocoPro was live within a month of the embryonic idea…so when did LocoPro officially launch?

(Tyler): We officially launched on Friday 22nd January so just over two months ago…and before that, we had a few coaches who helped us to ‘test pilot’. I think we got about 4 coaches to sign up the day we launched and it has been madness ever since!!

(Golfing Herald): Better to be really busy in a mad sort of way rather than quiet and thinking what the hell have we done?

(Tyler): Absolutely.

Coach Membership

(Golfing Herald): I would like to drill down and explore in a bit more detail some of the services that LocoPro offers. So firstly, what is the process for professional golf coaches to register with LocoPro?

(Tyler): Most of the time recently we have been leveraging Social Media to share information about the website and a link to the website. It is a simple, easy process in that a coach would click onto our Home Page, click Register, select what type of coach they are (Golf Coach, Fitness Coach or Virtual Coach). From there they choose the Basic or Premium Membership and from there the coach would then create their profile.

(Jack): Some coaches just set up their name and location whilst other coaches spend more time setting up their profile adding lots of nice images and a really detailed bio.

(Golfing Herald): What does the Premium Membership offer a coach over and above the Basic Membership?

(Tyler): With the Premium Membership the coach will be featured on the LocoPro website…so they get a little blue tick and that provides additional visibility. For example, on our Home Page, there is a Featured Coaches carousel that changes every few minutes which means a coach with a Premier Membership is seen more often. Then on their profile, they can add videos, additional photos, have links to their Social Media and website which is good from an SEO perspective.

(Jack): And we also promote our Premium members via the LocoPro Social Media channels, such as sharing their Instagram stories.

(Golfing Herald): In total, how many coaches are currently registered with LocoPro and how do you ensure their details are kept up-to-date?

(Tyler): We currently have 245 coaches registered.

(Jack): And it is the responsibility of the coach to keep their profile up-to-date, so if they move to a different Golf Club then they would very quickly and simply update their profile. But if there is something obvious that we spot such as an incorrect phone number or a link that is not working then we will either change it or let them know.

Search and Find

(Golfing Herald): We have focused very much on LocoPro being a portal for coaches to join one of your membership schemes and effectively advertise their respective services, but how would a golfer, who might wish to engage a golf coach for a one-off lesson or set of lessons, find LocoPro?

(Tyler): If you type into Google ‘Golf coaches near me’ or ‘Golf lessons near me’ then we are really focusing on these for our SEO. With ‘Golf coaches’ we are now quite high up the search results, usually on the first page. ‘Golf lessons’ (as a search phrase) is something we have started to focus on over the last couple of weeks but we are shooting up (the search results) very quickly. So golfers should come across us quite organically. When they do find LocoPro they can then search by location. You can also set the proximity to your location and all golf coaches matching your search criteria will be listed. The list will also include ratings and reviews of the coaches.

Ratings and Reviews

(Golfing Herald): So if a golfer has found a coach, had a lesson (or lessons), they can then leave a rating and/or a review commentary about that coach via the LocoPro website?

(Jack): Yes they can…the commentary is probably the main focus of the feedback about a coach. I think with golf lessons it is important to have that narrative as you might have a golf coach who is a specialist in a certain area and you want to find that they are suited to the specific aspect(s) of golf you are trying to improve.

(Golfing Herald): I know from my own experience with Golfing Herald that at times I will have to moderate comments (about an article) where the comments have been ‘marked’ as potentially abusive or offensive…so do you have a process to moderate the ratings and reviews ‘just in case’?

(Jack): Yes we do. A user has to create a profile on our website before they can leave a review and when they do leave a review it comes straight to Tyler and myself to approve before it goes live…so we can discard any ‘dodgy ones’.

(Golfing Herald): Linked to reviews, I noted one of your tweets the other day about one of your registered coaches attaining 50 ‘5-star’ reviews and thus receiving a ‘Bronze Club Member Certificate’. Does this mean you also have Gold & Silver Member Certificates?

(Jack): We have not quite worked out yet the criteria to achieve Gold & Silver but we thought it was important to recognise coaches who have received so many ‘5-star’ reviews and we thought 50 would be the cut off point for Bronze.

(Tyler): Maybe 100 for Silver and 250 for Gold but we haven’t quite decided yet.

(Golfing Herald): I am sure it won’t be long before you have coaches being recognised with Silver and Gold. In preparation for our chat, I spent some time navigating around the LocoPro website and what really impressed me was how easy it is to use…searching for a coach by whatever criteria you enter and the presentation of the subsequent results. In particular, one of the neat features is the various search criteria you can select…so how were those criteria developed?

(Jack): We were in contact with many of the coaches who initially signed up and outlined to them that the site was to be developed on an ongoing, incremental basis…and so we asked them what search criteria would they like to see. But if additional criteria need to be added then that is something we can easily accommodate. Then there is a correlation between the criteria and the coaches profile as they are asked which Tags they would like to add to their profile.

Feedback

(Golfing Herald): I also really like the ‘View Map’ option where instead of entering search criteria to find coaches in your location you just zoom into your local area and you are visually presented with the coaches in the area…have you received positive feedback about this feature?

(Jack): People tend to prefer that sort of visual feature where they can just play around with it.

(Tyler): And the feedback we have received so far has been very positive.

(Golfing Herald): And what about feedback in general, from coaches and users in terms of the concept and the actual LocoPro website?

(Tyler): Really good feedback from the coaches and from people who have used the website. So we are really pleased with how the first few months have gone.

Pro-Am

(Golfing Herald): Do you have any plans over and above the current online offering?

(Jack): Yes we do. We are in regular contact with a few of the professionals as we want to keep improving the system and the services that we offer. We don’t want it to just be a static online portal. We have just finished booking our Pro-Am event which we have organised for the 6th and 7th October 2021 as a way of getting to know some of the Professional coaches much better.

(Tyler): And once we meet up with the Professionals we will get the opportunity to really build relationships.

(Golfing Herald): So where will you be staging your (inaugural) Pro-Am?

(Tyler): At the Welcombe Golf Course and Hotel, Stratford-upon-Avon…really nice course and a lovely Hotel.

(Golfing Herald): I am sure the Pro-Am will be a success and hopefully the weather gods will behave themselves!! For a bit of fun I normally ask my guests to pick a Fantasy Fourball but with you mentioning the Pro-Am, who would you pick as your (Fantasy) Professional partner for a Pro-Am?

(Jack): It would have to be Bryson DeChambeau. I think we would get on quite well and I think he would be fun off the course as well. If we lost I would just buy him a drink in the Clubhouse and have a laugh!!

(Tyler): I think I would pick Ian Poulter. I follow him on Instagram and he seems quite a good laugh and he wears some outrageous clothes which is pretty much what I do!! I think spectators would hurt their eyes watching us walking down the fairways!!

(Golfing Herald): Brilliant, thanks for that guys. On a more serious note, how are you looking to grow and develop LocoPro over the rest of 2021 and beyond?

(Jack): To start with we would love to reach 1,000 coaches by the end of the year. If we could hit that milestone that would be really good. We will add additional features and functionality if we think they are needed and focus on continuing to attract high calibre coaches.

The Nineteenth

(Golfing Herald): On that last point, when I was doing some searches to ‘try out LocoPro’ I came across coaches such as Chris Hanson, Rich Pace, Alison Johns and Steve Astle (to name but four), which readily highlights the quality of coaches already registered with LocoPro. Finally, any plans to expand globally as at the moment LocoPro is very much aligned to coaches based in the United Kingdom and Ireland?

(Tyler): Like Jack said we want to refine the current offering and once we have that in a good place then yes we will be looking to ‘going abroad’ and hopefully the model will be easy to replicate for additional countries, such as the United States.

(Golfing Herald): A great way to finish. Thanks so much for your time today and all the best with LocoPro over the coming weeks, months and hopefully years.

If you are a coach wishing to register, or a golfer searching for a golf coach near you or just wish to find out more information (including the Pro-Am), then please visit the website by clicking LocoPro.