Coach Koko (00:00:00):
Try to see something and then if I find it to be something that I can see in the long term, I'll go after it. Because I think that life is too short to be afraid and life is too short to not go after things that you want. And if you don't try, how do you know you're gonna fail? And I mean, my coach used to tell me fail is first attempt in learning. So you have to fail to get better. Oh, I'm just, this is my TED talk. , you have to get better. So if that's what somebody needs to hear today, I mean it's true. You have to really try. And that's why I tried on this channel, and this is why you tried with your company.
Mark Burik (00:00:34):
I got called for an legal substitution. She went in out of rotation or something, or somebody had subbed in for somebody else who's the second sub and they had to take all those points, but she absolutely did not care. Our whole team was still flexing off. So we lost the points but we won the battle for sure.
Coach Koko (00:00:54):
, that was a moment for her. She probably remembers that moment as the first time when you do something that somebody told you that you weren't gonna do because growth is revenge.
Mark Burik (00:01:08):
Hey everybody and welcome to the Better at Beach Volleyball Podcast. My name is Mark Burik, and if you are here, you are most likely interested in some way in getting better at beach volleyball or volleyball in general, whether you're a player or a coach. If you guys want to get a hold of my 36 favorite beach volleyball drills, all you have to go is go under the show notes before or after this and you can download them. You just click in a form. I'll send you my 36 favorite drills. However, whenever you want to go and download them they're my gift to you. And then that'll put you on our email list and then we send you everything that we do. And you are actually set up to get four years of free lessons into your inbox if you ever wanted to do that. So if you want free beach volleyball advice for coaches and players, you're more than welcome to go in and click below.
(00:02:03):
So our fall and winter camps for 2023, 2022, and 2023 are now on sale. So if you wanna join us in St. Petersburg Beach, Florida for seven days of training and playing and meeting other volleyball players with built in friends as well as hanging out with some pro players. More than welcome to join that. Go ahead to better at beach.com/camps. Now on today's show, our guest today, I've secretly been following her for I wanna say four years now. She is really, she's a volleyball influencer. She has an amazing YouTube channel. She is growing all of her social media. She's incredibly talented. She connects really well. And when I look at all of the comments and everything that she's doing, I see that she really connects with her audiences and teaches everybody volleyball. I'm excited to learn from her about how to grow an audience, how to grow a business, and as well as chat some volleyball. So please everybody. Huge round of applause. Please welcome Coach Koko. Hello. Hello, Hello. How you doing?
Coach Koko (00:03:16):
I'm doing good. I'm giving the applause for you. That was a beautiful intro.
Mark Burik (00:03:20):
. Great. Thank you.
Coach Koko (00:03:21):
I feel really welcome. Thank you. Yeah,
Mark Burik (00:03:23):
There are thousands of others ready in the wings applying and cheering. They just can't we turn their audio off?
Coach Koko (00:03:31):
That's okay. excited about a podcast because this is actually my second podcast and I like to talk. So it's really fun to talk to somebody who's so passionate about volleyball because you have to understand, some people don't get it.
Mark Burik (00:03:45):
Some people don't get it, they
Coach Koko (00:03:47):
Don't get it. But when you find your people, it's really good to talk about it.
Mark Burik (00:03:51):
me and Brandon, who is one of the partners in the company, whenever we go out to a big volleyball tournament, we see how many people are there. And then at our camps as well, we start our training at eight 30. Some people are out there at seven getting private lessons and we wake up bags under our eyes desperately trying to reach for a coffee. And we look at each other where you go, People love volleyball
Coach Koko (00:04:17):
. They do. They do. And then you have to remember that when people are training for the first time, that's their first time interacting with you. And you have to make that experience amazing. If you were a kid going to Disney, those actors better being on point if that's you're there for the first time. So I think about it like that. Every eye is the first time they're meeting you and it, that's their first impression. So it has to be important.
Mark Burik (00:04:41):
100%. People don't realize, I think something that you and I might both realize is whatever sort of clout you've built up, whatever audience you've built up, you've got 202,000 subscribers on YouTube, which is insane,
Coach Koko (00:04:58):
I know
Mark Burik (00:05:00):
It. But when somebody just comes to your channel and sees one video for the first time, you can't act like somebody who's got 200,000 followers in that this new person is somehow beneath you or anything. Like your reputation to somebody meeting you for the first time doesn't mean anything to them. It's how you make that person feel and how you interact with them or show them. And I think your channel does a really good job of welcome, thank, welcoming new people and saying like, Hey, this is me. This is who I am. Now we're gonna teach you something.
Coach Koko (00:05:32):
Right? I like to keep it. I wanna be direct. But at the same time, remember that it costs $0 to be a good person. And I try to be kind every single step of the way. Cuz I was a beginner once. You were a beginner once, all of those elite players were beginners ones. And we have to remember that when we were a little beginner stepping on the court the first time, we didn't want somebody to go serve that ball jump. We wanted somebody to say, Let me show you something. Right? Let me show you what I know.
Mark Burik (00:06:00):
Is that why you started? The reason we started, we saw a huge lack in beach volleyball coaching for adults. There was nowhere
Coach Koko (00:06:09):
Right
Mark Burik (00:06:10):
To go to learn it. There were a lot of juniors coaches out there, but nowhere that you could search and find just high quality, easy accessible information. So that's why we kinda started ours. But what was the impetus that made you start posting on YouTube at the
Coach Koko (00:06:24):
Very least? I think for me there was a lot of different reasons. But one of the biggest reasons was I started playing volleyball really late by volleyball standards. So I wasn't one of those children who was passing a ball at three or in middle school junior camps in seventh grade. I started playing in 10th grade. I'm talking nothing, zero experience. And I remember feeling like there was this huge gap between me and the other players because they had been playing for so many years. And I was just this athletic girl who could bench like nobody's business and who could serve a volleyball over the net. I tell, I'm telling you, I hit the ball the first time and it hit the back wall. And I think the coach said
Mark Burik (00:07:07):
We could work with that.
Coach Koko (00:07:08):
Okay, we're go. We're gonna work on it. So I think I started my channel to bridge that gap because I didn't want any players to feel the way that I did. I didn't feel like there was that accessible knowledge from somebody literally going on the school website and saying, I want to play volleyball to making the team. I
Mark Burik (00:07:28):
Like that. Yeah, I, it's weird that we always create things that come out of a little bit of past pain. For me it was like, man, where do I find a coach out in California? I'm in California now. Shouldn't there be coaches waving flags that there are coaches? And there definitely we're not people saying, Here, come here. I will help you learn how to play volleyball at an elite level. There needs to be a couple people raising their hands and saying, I'm here to help you
Coach Koko (00:07:55):
Mark Burik (00:07:55):
And standing
Coach Koko (00:07:56):
Out. And it's difficult to find places to look. I mean there are a lot of talented coaches out there. They really are. But you have to know where to find them.
Mark Burik (00:08:04):
Right now you played in high school and then I did. You went on and you played club in college.
Coach Koko (00:08:10):
I did. Great experience. Nice.
Mark Burik (00:08:12):
And where'd you play club in college?
Coach Koko (00:08:14):
I went to UNC Charlotte. So I played club for four years and then I went and transitioned from club to open level adult volleyball. And that had, I'm still in that scene now and it's been a lot of fun. I think I learned some really crazy stuff and open level adult volleyball that I didn't know in club. And it's just a little bit more flexible in a way. And I really enjoy it. It's a lot more social, if that makes sense.
Mark Burik (00:08:40):
Was there anything that you learned playing cluber in high school that you had to unlearn later on when you're playing open? Was there something that you were taught by a few coaches and then as you progressed through your talent and your skill, you're like, actually that's not what we should be doing.
Coach Koko (00:08:56):
Okay, I'm gonna give you an analogy cuz I do these a lot on my channel. It's like when you're learning high school Spanish, you are learning from the textbook. And then you go out and you try to speak Spanish and they're like No, this is not how we do this here. So this is the same feeling that I had then I was volleyball in high school, in college and club. It is very procedural in a way. There's a certain way things will work. There's a certain way you're gonna learn your serve. There's a certain way you're gonna learn your attack. And then when you go to open level or maybe beach or grass, you start to become more one with yourself and you're still using that foundation, but now you're adding on the dynamics of your own body in a way. So I think I hit differently now than I did
Mark Burik (00:09:36):
Then. I mean, I hope so
Coach Koko (00:09:38):
To a better result.
Mark Burik (00:09:39):
So you hope that everybody, they used to tell me in college, they would say, Hey, you're just at the beginning right now. You don't understand that in the next six, 10 years you're gonna become a much better player than you are in college. And being a 29 year old cocky kid, you're going, No, this is, I'm at my athletic peak. This is as high as it gets. And then now I look at myself in college and I would absolutely wipe the floor with me. It would be an embarrassment. ,
Coach Koko (00:10:06):
Let me ask you, if you could play one on one with your college self, how would that match go? Oh,
Mark Burik (00:10:12):
I'd crush 'em. See,
Coach Koko (00:10:14):
Then that's growth.
Mark Burik (00:10:15):
I would crush. There's
Coach Koko (00:10:16):
Growth.
Mark Burik (00:10:17):
Yep. Absolutely. So you said that there were some different techniques that you've learned now that you didn't necessarily or were too sticky for you, I guess in high school and college. What were they?
Coach Koko (00:10:29):
I was a middle blocker. She is now retired. . Okay. I considered myself an outside hitter now, but I was a middle blocker. So my main priority, as we all know was blocking the ball. But my passion was to attack the ball. I dreamed of hitting 10 foot line. I was like, Give me the opportunity, give me the quick. The quick never came. So I just kept blocking. And then when I started to transition out of club into adult, I started hitting the ball on a men's neck and the skies opened up for me. I was like, Ugh, this is what I've been meaning to do the whole time. And that's why I teach on my channel. It's important to try different skills to find one that you connect with so you can build that longevity. I don't want anybody to be playing the libero if they're not passionate about being the libero or the setter and they're not passionate about being the setter. Your experience is up to you to a certain degree and you have to take some advocacy with
Mark Burik (00:11:25):
That, right? Yeah. I mean, first of all, you have to be able to play different positions. You do, this is indoor and this is beach. You can't get stuck as a blocker and say, I'm only a blocker. Or you can't sit there and put on a pouty face when you have to play another position because your team needs you there. But if you do wanna play that other position, you gotta work for it. You have to develop the skills. If you wanted to be come an outside hitter while you were being trained as a middle, well guess what? Everybody else is getting two more hours of passing reps than you are. So now you wanna be an outside hitter, you owe another two hours per day in the gym. And that's up to you to do that . And for teams and players that are just trying to hit the next level, I've always thought that showing up to practice is the bare minimum. Correct. You hear the parents and everybody like, Hey, my daughter showed up. She went to every practice, every workout. Congratulations. Your kid just did the absolute minimum requirement to be on the team, not to start on the team, not to get all that playing time.
Coach Koko (00:12:28):
And that's why, I mean, I've always taught about, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the term grit, but grit is so necessary. You have to be able to really dig deep and stick your heels in the ground and determine what you want and manifest it. You have to go after it. If you know that you wanna be a libero and you wanna be a libero so bad, and right now you're a right side, you have to really go for it. And that means taking the time to learn the skills, talking to the setter, Can you back? Can you set me a back row attack? I'm trying to practice it. Things like that that can push you forward. And I think that a lot of players don't really know that you can kind of push the coach by saying, Hey, so I've been practicing in my own time and I want to show you what I've learned. And that shows that you're coachable in initiative. I mean, I would be like, Whoa, respect.
Mark Burik (00:13:17):
I like that. I like the non silence of that. There's a better way to put that. But not just saying, they never let me hit. They never let me hit. How many times have you asked to hit? Do you do it every day in a cool sort of friend nudge, nudge way? Or do you walk back to the end of the middle line and be like, They're still not letting me hit outside. Well, you gotta A earn, earn it. And then B, also ask for it. Because if you're working in the dark, if you're in the gym for two hours or you're on the beach for two hours when nobody else is watching, which is what you should do, somebody has to then know about it. And then you have to open your own opportunities to be able to do it. Right. I mean it looks to me you're the person who opens a lot of her own opportunities. Who me?
Coach Koko (00:14:01):
Yeah. I mean, look, I try to see something and then if I find it to be something that I can see in the long term, I'll go after it. Because I think that life is too short to be afraid. And life is too short to not go after things that you want. And if you don't try, how do you know you're gonna fail? And I mean, my coach used to tell me fail is first attempt in learning. So you have to fail to get better. Oh, this is my Ted talk. , you have to get better. So if that's what somebody needs to hear today, I mean it's true. You have to really try. And that's why I tried on this channel and this is why you tried with your company, you tried something and it's working right?
Mark Burik (00:14:40):
Yeah, it's working, growing. What do you attribute, other than trying, maybe we'll dig into a little bit of the influencing and channel building. Yeah. Do you remember your first channel when you started your YouTube channel? Did you say, I'm going to make a YouTube channel, or was it just a post that you needed to put up for somebody?
Coach Koko (00:15:00):
Well, Coco Valley is my second channel. I had another channel and I had been doing social media for quite some time, just a little, just hidden in the shadows of I'm gonna do something. I don't know what yet, but I'm gonna do something. And when I first started on YouTube, I want it to be this health and wellness, really holistic, kind of like we should self care and things like that. And I still talk about those in my channel. But then I realized, okay, I'm playing volleyball and a lot of people are coming to me asking me for tips. Maybe I can just record these tips and put them somewhere. And I was out to dinner with a friend one day and she said, You know, should put this on YouTube. And I said, Huh, that's interesting. That's real interesting. And then I took that and I sat on it for six months. And then one day I posted it and I saw a little bit of a need. And then it started getting shared and it started getting shared. And I started having my community come in and going, Oh my God, can you teach me how to overhand serve? And I was like, I'd be honored. . Yeah. And it went from there.
Mark Burik (00:16:04):
Six months. You sat on it? I think
Coach Koko (00:16:06):
I sat on it. So it was that fear. It was that fear. I was afraid.
Mark Burik (00:16:11):
Was it fear or were you just, I don't know if this is gonna have any value. Did you see the value potential? Cause to me, no one could make it clear to me. In the beginning, somebody said, Hey Mark, just start a YouTube channel. This is how you're gonna start growing your brand. And this was one of the guys in Tony Robbins, like six person circle. He knew his stuff and he was a volleyball junkie and he brought out a camera and we still have those videos on our channel. And I was just frozen and robotic in front of the camera. I had no idea what to do it. And I said, What is this even gonna turn into? It seems people are gonna see it. So I didn't realize what it could have been otherwise. I definitely would've started it way earlier. I'm happy where we're at now, but it took a while, but it wasn't fear for me. It was why I didn't understand. Yeah,
Coach Koko (00:16:56):
I'm gonna correct my previous statement. I also would say maybe not fear, but why? Because I mean, when you think about it, when I started my chin on 2017, YouTube was somewhere you'd go to change a tire. How do I change a tire? Or how do I carve a pumpkin? Not how do I overhand serve a volleyball? So I didn't know if there was really an audience for it yet . But then I realized, oh, okay, people really like the sport. And then people started wanting to play and then it just kind of, I don't know, manifested from there. But I just didn't think YouTube was the place for volleyball content in the beginning.
Mark Burik (00:17:35):
Right. It's a
Coach Koko (00:17:36):
Weird thing. But now it is. I mean, social media has gone crazy. I mean crazy.
Mark Burik (00:17:41):
Yeah. And there's so much into the YouTube part of it is, all right, now I have to search what people are searching for. And then even when you think you have what they're searching, for me, I kind of thought that there was a lot of information out there on the basics of how to pass. So when I started my first two videos, I immediately titled them advanced passing techniques, like how to pass a short ball or How to pass a high ball There. Those have no search terms. So nobody is typing those into that. The only thing that we know, cuz we didn't even put volleyball on the title. So in terms of search, there was no way people would've found that. And it took hours of podcasting, of not posting a podcast, listening to podcasts to understand, Oh, you gotta figure out what people type in the search bar when they're actually looking for this advice. And then you gotta double check it on YouTube and the keyboard's everywhere and all that.
Coach Koko (00:18:34):
It's a lot of back end work. I don't know about you, but my coach told me you practice before the season and you play during the season. It's kind of like that where you gotta do all of this research and then you put the video out. But you've already spent a week trying to research this one video. So it's a lot of backend work.
Mark Burik (00:18:52):
Do you love that stuff? Do you love the keyword
Coach Koko (00:18:54):
Research? I love, I love editing. I love seeing
Mark Burik (00:18:57):
Keywords. Oh, you're an editor Lil.
Coach Koko (00:18:58):
I love editing. Oh,
Mark Burik (00:19:00):
I hate it. That is, Have you seen
Coach Koko (00:19:01):
I don't
Mark Burik (00:19:02):
Transition
Coach Koko (00:19:02):
Of editing. I have rainbows and sparkles and I'm like, so I like editing, but with keyword research, I'm always interested to see what I see. Cuz sometimes I'm like how to do a i? I'm surprised by people what people wanna know. So that surprises me. That's my thing with keywords. I think it's sometimes it could be a little tedious because you have to comb through so much . So yeah,
Mark Burik (00:19:27):
It's always interesting. And then the misspellings you go through and you're like, Oh, I have to do, I really have to make one video that spells volley with a single L. Yeah. It's like, yeah. All right. I guess I gotta get that fake keyword.
Coach Koko (00:19:40):
. Yeah. I mean if you strike gold, you better go for it.
Mark Burik (00:19:44):
What's your number one video right now? Do you know what your top performing I
Coach Koko (00:19:48):
Do. What is it I do? How to overhand for beginners. That story I went back to, Can you teach us how to overhand it? Was that one?
Mark Burik (00:19:55):
Oh yeah. What is your best serving advice? Go through it. Teach the audience.
Coach Koko (00:19:59):
My best serving advice is gonna be kind of non-traditional. I would say. You have to really think the ball is going to go over. If you are stepping up to that line and you're like, I have never made a serve in my life, it's not gonna happen. It's gonna suck. It probably might suck. So you need to really think in your mind. Positive affirmations can take you far. If you start to tell yourself over and over again, I'm gonna do it over. I'm gonna get it over. Maybe not this time, but I'm gonna get it over. And you start to get that technique, you start to really change your habits. When you start thinking positively, naturally, you might start to get more into the rhythm. You might get your bow and arrow a little better. You might remember to step in. I like to get that mindset part of it. Cause I think we forget about that a
Mark Burik (00:20:42):
Lot. Do you use any visualization with them? Do you say, Okay, imagine yourself hitting this to the wall?
Coach Koko (00:20:46):
I do. I do. I recently had a client who was trying to make their high school volleyball team, and we were talking about the power of not necessarily visualization, but of them thinking about the game. I wanted her to really think about herself very in detail, stepping up to the line, What are you wearing when you're stepping up to the line? What does it sound like? What does it look like? So that way when we're actually going through it, she has that recording and that routine and it works. So I think that that was helpful because when you can see it, you can go after it. You can't drive without a map or a gps. Some people can't, but a lot of people can't. You have to really see it.
Mark Burik (00:21:26):
I like that. That's good advice. I had one story from coaching club years ago. There was one girl that we had on our team, her coach told her high school coach told her she would never jump spike surf. She would never jump surf. And I was like, Why? I said I needed to know. Why did he think that you could not ever jump surf? I goes, That's completely bogus. And so we had to work on it week after week. Every one of my players for indoor, One of the first things that we learn is how to jump surf. Because I think that when you practice a jump surf, you're practicing a spike at the same time. So I think it actually gets you two skills. Hey , you can practice attacking and you can practice serving. And of course the arm swinging mechanics and strength by developing this. And even if you start jumping from behind the 10 foot lines to make sure you get it over. Sure, start there. You'll eventually back up. But we put her in the game in a club tournament against her old, her old high school coach. I subbed her in specifically to serve jump serves.
Coach Koko (00:22:19):
I'm liking the way this is going. I hear revenge story. Okay good.
Mark Burik (00:22:23):
Oh, it was so revenge story. She rattled off three ACEs and earn five. Wow. Here's the funny part of being a new coach. After all of that , I got called for an illegal substitution. She went in out of rotation or something, or somebody had subbed in for somebody else who was the second sub and they had to take all those points, but she absolutely did not care. Our whole team was still flexing off. So we lost the points but we won the battle for sure.
Coach Koko (00:22:53):
. That was a moment for her. She probably remembers that moment as the first time when you do something that somebody told you that you weren't gonna do because growth is revenge when you show that you've made progress. Right. I'm proud of her. You go girl.
Mark Burik (00:23:07):
Yeah, Brittany Baker. That's
Coach Koko (00:23:08):
Good. Yeah,
Mark Burik (00:23:10):
Brittany with her
Coach Koko (00:23:11):
. That's awesome. That's awesome story.
Mark Burik (00:23:13):
So tell me about your audience a little bit. Mm-hmm. finding you. Who are you helping and why would people find you? And I know that they can hire you, they can take some online coaching as well. So tell me a little bit about your business and your audience.
Coach Koko (00:23:27):
Okay, so I want you to think about you at 13. Maybe you haven't played volleyball before. Are you thinking about it? Okay. You haven't played before. You were literally walking in to the school and you see a sign that says volleyball tryouts. No experience. That's my audience. Got it. The person who has just now experiencing it for the first time, they're on YouTube. They're like, Maybe I'll try a sport this year for school. Okay. Volleyball. What the heck? Boom. Coach Coco. Hi. What's up you guys? My name is Coach Co. There we go. So that's me.
Mark Burik (00:23:57):
Very nice. Okay. And then what do you do? So obviously you're giving away tons of great free advice on YouTube, on Instagram, I'm in TikTok, right? You also have a, So are you going through sponsorships? Are you relying on the income from YouTube or do you get a lot of those coaching clients, would
Coach Koko (00:24:16):
You say? I think it's a combination of both. I do in person coaching because I like to coach in person, so that way we can kind of translate some real skills. And then I do clients that are online. We do confidence coaching, we do online overhand serve, coaching, things like that. And I have courses which breaks it down even further than YouTube. And then I do sponsorships selectively based upon if I think it's appropriate for my brand because I would never bring anything to my channel that I do not support or believe in because they are the utmost importance.
Mark Burik (00:24:52):
That's nice. How do you go about getting a sponsorship for a YouTube channel? Is that outreach or do people, I get a few emails every week, but they're all shady. Like a gambling or a gaming site. And it's like I've gotten enough of them where I know to just delete them. Every now and then it's written. Okay. But we are still for our podcast, for our channel, we're still looking to support other businesses. But no one's reached out and said, Hey, we'd like to sponsor your podcast. Hey, we'd like to sponsor channel. We have the audience for sure. But I'm also so focused on building my business and I'm not trying to reach out to other people. So if they
Coach Koko (00:25:28):
Came, I think for a lot of YouTubers it's a different story. But for volleyball, because we find volleyball so important and we are so passionate about volleyball and our audience is so passionate about volleyball, but sometimes businesses don't know what volleyball is and they don't understand the value of the volleyball audience. Cuz we're some good people and we deserve to be able to see different items and see different product that influencers are bringing to us that they care about us. So they wanna show us something. A lot of it is outreach because you have to show your value to the business and saying, Hey, my name is Mark, this is what we have, I'll bring you here. Boom. So a lot of it is outreach in the beginning. And then once you start to build a repertoire, sometimes that connection will share with another connection, then another connection. Yeah. So
Mark Burik (00:26:17):
What do you think are the best products that align with volleyball players? If you had, we'll say three, we're not gonna make a giant list, but three dream companies that you think would be perfect for you or me. The more audience. Yeah. Well not you, but perfect for your audience and you. Oh
Coach Koko (00:26:35):
You know, tough question. Okay. Yeah, that's a tough one, man. Okay, listen, I would love to work with Gatorade. Just give me drink cause and I will show the drink. Of course the bigger brands like Nike and things like that, those are literal dreams. But I think in volleyball in general, we need a lot of different things for you. Maybe sunscreen, , I would go after sunscreen I would go after glasses, things like that. That would be beach volleyball players find a necessity. For me, the sunglasses probably wouldn't fly, but for you it would, Right? . But then for both of us volleyball shoes. So I think that we have to look at first the level of play. Then we have to look at the age. It's a lot of different realms that you have to look at. But think about things that you usually use on a daily basis and go after that
Mark Burik (00:27:33):
And then just reach out to those. How
Coach Koko (00:27:35):
Do you adjacent
Mark Burik (00:27:35):
For people who, there's a lot of players on tour who, and I mean I did this in my twenties, I would try to do that. I would try to reach out to a protein supplement and say like, Hey, I've got 5,000 followers. I'm on tour, people are gonna watch me play, so do you want to sponsor me? And then I would spend hours and end up with a free tub of protein. And
Coach Koko (00:27:59):
Sometimes it's like a thousand emails and you get Tim back. Yeah,
Mark Burik (00:28:04):
That became a waste of my
Coach Koko (00:28:05):
Time. The same
Mark Burik (00:28:06):
Grit.
Coach Koko (00:28:06):
It's that same grit. I know it is, but it's the same grit. So
Mark Burik (00:28:11):
I guess maybe my ask was too small. Instead of saying this is what it costs for a season, I'd be like, Well, do you have any product or something like that. And then you really have to prove yourself too, that company that they're actually getting clicks and you say, Look what I generated for you. You can't just associate yourself with somebody and then expect it from there. And then you gotta care for the relationship, right? Hey, thanks for all that stuff. And then they never hear from you again. What's gonna happen there?
Coach Koko (00:28:38):
Yeah, I mean I would think about it as like, hey, I'm Mark, I have 47,000 subscribers. This is what I can do for you. This is my audience and this is what they want. Your product meet you. Let's do it very, this is what I'm gonna give you. This is what you are going to get out of it. Because when they think about it from the business standpoint, they're not thinking about, Oh he plays beach, that's awesome. My daughter plays beach, let's go with him. They're thinking about it. Well how many people are gonna cl? It's very business oriented. I got into business with this and I never thought I was gonna do business. So people don't realize how professional YouTube can be and how, Oh yeah when we put a video out, that's our passion. But then to keep putting videos out, we have to be very analytical about how we do it. So there's a lot that goes into bringing you this new product. We sponsored this, we signed this this three months ago for you to see this now. Okay.
Mark Burik (00:29:36):
So do you have any current sponsors of people that are helping you out? Any companies that you're working with in the immediate time?
Coach Koko (00:29:43):
Well, I am a long-term partner of all volleyball. Love them. Oh,
Mark Burik (00:29:48):
Evb, they're great. Such great
Coach Koko (00:29:49):
Guys. I love them. So yes. And I recently finished a sponsorship with Under Armor on TikTok.
Mark Burik (00:29:56):
Oh Snap. That's nice. So
Coach Koko (00:29:59):
Yeah, right now we're still buckling down in coaching, but I'm open for sponsorship if you see me. Hey, so that's
Mark Burik (00:30:09):
Awesome. Okay. What questions do you get from your audience the most? I know you said over hand serving. It's definitely a big one and that's one of the intimidating ones. I think adults as well as kids. And I think a lot of parents are worried about their kid starting to overhand serve. And I tell everybody, just start overhand serving. Do it in practice all day long. Learn the underhand serve just so that when it comes time to the match, if your team needs you to make one in all right, you make in that underhand serve. And it should be relatively easy compared to learning that. But don't lose the reps from attempting overhand spiking because then it'll just drag that time timeline out before you learn it. So what other than overhand serve you get most questions.
Coach Koko (00:30:57):
I get a lot of questions about, Okay, this one's a good one. I get, I'm a boy, how can I play volleyball? I get that a lot still. I get that a lot. Wow. I get that a lot. And I have some great advice for that. I also don't feel like I'm good as other people. What do I do? And I get a lot of passing questions, but most of, I would say generally most are serving the social emotional things. You can come into my channel, we can just have a whole sit together and we can go hug and whatnot. So it's a lot of not only skill based things, but mental, social, emotional questions. More
Mark Burik (00:31:39):
People than I thought really want to hear about the mental and partner side of it. And that's wild because it is so difficult. Learning how to communicate with somebody, how to talk to them, how to help them or help their technique without offending them or making them feel bad about what they need to fix. That's tough. And then like you said earlier, talking with coaches saying, Hey, can I hit outside for a few reps right now? I know I'm a middle, but can I pass some
Coach Koko (00:32:09):
Balls? And I think the reason why my channel has done so well is cause I break things down very easily. But also because I seem very approachable. Because I am very approachable. But in it, I went through great lengths to make sure my channel's a safe space. You have psychological safety over there. You can ask anything and then you'll see as you've seen, you can see other people commenting. You got it, it's gonna be great. And I love that. I love that so much because it's such an encouraging environment because sometimes you can't ask those questions in practice. And for the fear of being wrong, for the fear of being judged, for the fear of somebody thinking, well that was a dumb question. That's why I want my channel to be a place where the coach taught you a new skill. My coach told me this today and I don't know what it means. Can you tell me what this term means? And then I explain it and they're like, Oh okay. And they go and apply it. So it's a safe volleyball haven for the new players to come and collect together and chat. I
Mark Burik (00:33:12):
Like that. Do you find yourself talking back or commenting more in conversing more with people on any specific channel? Is it TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, or your members?
Coach Koko (00:33:24):
I talk a lot to a lot of people on Instagram a lot. And a lot of people through email like Instagram DM and through email we're voice messaging each other back. We're like, Hey, yeah, so it's a lot of Instagram. And then I try to comment back on YouTube cuz we get a lot of questions that are very similar that I like to message back and I try to be as accessible as possible. And if I notice something that's being asked by a lot of people, it's obviously something that people want to see. But then also people want that personalization. They want me to reply to them. So yeah, a video's one thing, but she replied to what I said, she took the time out of her day to really read it. I think that's a great feeling.
Mark Burik (00:34:07):
How do you measure your time with that? At the point where we have, I mean we're not even close to your following on YouTube and our Instagram is growing, so we're getting 500 new followers a day just on Instagram. It's like it's crazy the growth. But now it's so many people are asking questions and commenting and wanting responses that I would literally need another 24 hours in each day to ask to answer those questions. So we've hired a few coaches. So now we've, we've are really starting to develop a team and kind of invested in more coaching, more of the courses so that people have better faster answers. But between my text messages, emails, Zendesk, the YouTube comments, there's no way Facebook comments, Instagram, they're all good questions. And like you said, we wanna summarize a lot of them and then say, okay, enough people are asking this, Let's make a really good post on this or a good video on this . How do you handle that influx of messages and comments?
Coach Koko (00:35:13):
Well the first step is to not panic. I'm a one person team. I've been a one person team this whole time. So
Mark Burik (00:35:23):
To me
Coach Koko (00:35:24):
It's easy for me to feel bad because I'm not getting back to everybody and I'm like, oh my gosh, they took other time out of their day to write an entire paragraph. I have to respond. But then I also have to be grateful to myself. You can't feel bad. You have to do what you can do. So what I do is I set a specific time each week, a specific time block. This is when I'm gonna do Instagram. Okay, this is what I'm gonna do YouTube, this is so that way I feel like it's scheduled. So I don't start to feel that overwhelmed creeping up because I know that time's coming back.
Mark Burik (00:36:05):
How big are those blocks of time with all of your
Coach Koko (00:36:09):
Followers? Maybe two hours. So I try to go Instagram like two hours of just drinking a smoothie
Mark Burik (00:36:17):
.
Coach Koko (00:36:17):
So YouTube I try to do about two hours. I try to, I'm a big kind of person who likes to chunk my time because I have so little time. But even sometimes fitting it in where I'm at the DMV waiting for my license to get renewed. Just small times that you can fit things in. But that doesn't mean over oversaturate your day just when you can. Cause you have to also remember that they understand. They understand.
Mark Burik (00:36:46):
Well some of them do. Yeah,
Coach Koko (00:36:47):
hopefully they understand.
Mark Burik (00:36:49):
Hopefully the influx of negativity and you're just like, just brush it off and you're just like, some people just need to be negative for whatever reason. Did you really take the time out of your day to be angry on the internet?
Coach Koko (00:37:04):
But you remember I'll press is good press. Sometimes they take the time to send it to you . So that means they're watching you, which means they clicked on it, which means there's a view, right?
Mark Burik (00:37:15):
Right. They're supporting the algorithm,
Coach Koko (00:37:17):
They're supporting you
Mark Burik (00:37:19):
. Okay, so you talked said one of your most common questions is, I'm a boy. Where do I play volleyball? What's your response?
Coach Koko (00:37:26):
So I get that question quite a bit and I'm so happy that in the United States where we both live, male volleyball is becoming much more popular. Here in North Carolina we have some different clubs that are now having men's volleyball accessible to a lot of male players. High school volleyball is a different story. We're seeing it becoming more developed. I know that where you are in California you probably see it much more popular. But here on the east coast of the states, it's still developing. And I like how the more we ask about it, the more people think about it, the more it happens. , we have to be proactive. And I know I've said it before in the podcast, we have to be proactive about what we want. We want more men's volleyball teams. We have to be proactive and take the initiative. I've actually had some players who say, Okay, I'm really inspired. I'm gonna ask my school about it. That's that first question. That's great. That first question gets popped up to the athletic director, then they might go to the superintendent and it might happen. Yeah, my college at UNC Charlotte, they had a men's volleyball team. I don't know if it's in existence anymore. This was like circa 2014. But they had a men's volleyball team. A lot of colleges are starting to happen and it's just becoming more popular because it's becoming more visible. YouTube has made it more visible for us.
Mark Burik (00:38:49):
. Yeah. One of my best friends in high school, he really wanted to play lacrosse in the spring season. Our school didn't have it. He went to the athletic director. He went to the dean and he is like, Hey, I wanna start team, I wanna start a team, I wanna start a team. And he pushed it and he's like, Well do you have enough guys? Do you have this? He was 16 years old doing all of this paperwork, filling out things and plans and what was needed and where do the other teams were. And he got a win. But he also got a loss. He made it happen . But the lacrosse team existed for the first time. Its first season after he graduated.
Coach Koko (00:39:25):
Oh god.
Mark Burik (00:39:27):
So
Coach Koko (00:39:27):
The sports of his labor paid off though. Just not for
Mark Burik (00:39:30):
Him. They did just not for him. But look at what he laid the groundwork for other athletes that would otherwise not have that sport in our school. And so I was right. So proud of him to just like, wait, you can just start a sport team. That was bonkers to think about and he just went after it and he did it.
Coach Koko (00:39:50):
I think a lot of people don't know this, but a lot of universities you can start a club with, I don't know, eight members and then a faculty member to sponsor your club. That's just me giving y'all some tea. Yeah, you can go to your university, go to the club area, get one faculty member, a certain amount of people to join and then boom club, drop some bylaws, collect dues, boom. Men's volleyball. Think about it.
Mark Burik (00:40:18):
We did that at University of Delaware. That's how I did. You started getting into it. One of my guys was, he pushed really hard. He's from Pennsylvania and n Amar, he actually became one of the very influential in the coaching scene and the selection of all Americans for high school and college. And he pushed and pushed and pushed to get and keep this club and there's a lot of work as a club president. But he created a legacy there. And then when I got in there with a little bit of extra mentality, we had two practice times per week. We really pushed them and were able to get us up to four practice times per week. So then we had eight total practice hours and it was great. We're strong. We went to nationals and that's nationals is where I really fell in love with volleyball.
Coach Koko (00:41:03):
So was why
Mark Burik (00:41:06):
That was one of them. There's a bunch of different sports that I was playing, but when we were
Coach Koko (00:41:11):
Oh, so you're multi-sport athlete. Yeah,
Mark Burik (00:41:14):
I think everybody should be, should be trying different sports and attempting them cuz you'll develop a different sense of movement. Little bits specializing into one thing and only learning one thing. I just don't think it's that great in life in general. You know wanna be a well-rounded person and a well-rounded athlete. Yeah, why not? Because if you are born in one sport, your parents tell you to play one sport and then you only do that. You don't even know what the other ones feel like.
Coach Koko (00:41:45):
Right.
Mark Burik (00:41:46):
Volleyball was probably my fifth or sixth sport being on a, Yeah. Yeah.
Coach Koko (00:41:53):
I'm trying to think of which one of them was mine. I played multiple sports in high school. I did track and field Nice. But I threw the discus into the shop put I still have my school record. You think they're gonna retire my jersey? I hope they do. That would be awesome. Yeah,
Mark Burik (00:42:08):
They'll probably make a ceremony about it.
Coach Koko (00:42:10):
Oh my god, I want a ceremony. I want them to cater food and step up to the stage.
Mark Burik (00:42:15):
All fame. That'll be another YouTube video for you.
Coach Koko (00:42:18):
It's been too long. They forgot about me. It's fine. But yeah, I definitely agree. I definitely think that you won't know what you like until you try multiple things and one will just stick out to you. But volleyball's the best. I'm just putting that out there for anybody listening.
Mark Burik (00:42:34):
It is. People love volleyball.
Coach Koko (00:42:36):
It's great. It's so great.
Mark Burik (00:42:38):
Yeah, just recently started and this has been a long time coming, but I just recently started doing some jiujitsu and getting into that. Oh I came from football, so, okay. What I've always known that I missed from volleyball is the physical contact, the impact. Something about it just is fun for me and the raw strength of it. So now getting into jujitsu, feeling that one on one, your physical strength versus my physical strength. I love it. There's so much more technique that I haven't even tapped into yet. I'm a total beginner at it, but it's so much fun. And then just enjoying another sport. I'm 37 and now I'm trying another sport so I'm still
Coach Koko (00:43:23):
Right. I do have a question. So when you were trying jujitsu and because you've been through the process of learning volleyball and how it was for you to learn how to play volleyball and all of those stages that came with it, the anger stage, the I'm doing great stage. The anger stage again the I'm doing great stage. When you went to Juujitsu, because you already went through that process with volleyball, is it easier for you mentally to understand what stages you're going through? Or is it just completely different?
Mark Burik (00:43:55):
I think for me it's a little bit different because now I've been coaching for so long. So when I was playing volleyball I had done a bunch of coaching. But as a kid, as a teenage coach who you're working with juniors or really old ladies. So now it's interesting, I'm critiquing the coaches as they coach inside my mind. But I'm also really trying to learn it because jujitsu is this endless puzzle with changing pieces at all times. There's one piece of the puzzle that you're about to put it in there and then something changes and you're like, no, it goes here. Oh. So there's so much to constantly think about that It's really mentally intensive and it's right for me learning right now, it's way less physical and way more just mentally intensive. So I'm enjoying it in that way.
Coach Koko (00:44:49):
I mean you have to keep growing and learning new things cuz it keeps your brain ripe. I mean, during the lockdown I tried tennis and let me tell you, I don't know if it was a great experience for me. I'm still trying. I'm dedicated. Yeah, I'm dedicated. I will learn how to serve a tennis ball. I'm telling you, it's just, But then the only issue with tennis for me, I'm sorry, tennis fans, , there's like this directional control. You have to have some real good depth perception . And for me, I try to swing the racket as if I were attacking a volleyball. So it goes straight down and not at an ink. It's a lot of cardio man. It's a lot of running
Mark Burik (00:45:33):
Those forums that underhand stroke is different for people. So tennis was my first sport. I,
Coach Koko (00:45:38):
Oh my gosh, are you a tennis person? I'm so sorry. I can't do it. I'm
Mark Burik (00:45:42):
Trying. Not at all. I, I'm, I love it. I still love it. I just chose other sports over it. Baseball season took precedence and then never got back to it after high school cuz I tried real hard but they wouldn't let me play ball sports at the same time. And now I'm doing a little bit of beach tennis, which is the perfect combination.
Coach Koko (00:46:04):
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, what is that? Beach? I learn a new sport every day. What is beach tennis? Is that the one where they had the boom kind of thing back and forth?
Mark Burik (00:46:13):
basically, I think you're just describing rackets sports, but
Coach Koko (00:46:16):
. Ok, ok. I've never heard beach tennis.
Mark Burik (00:46:21):
It's a smaller tennis court with a little bit of a higher net. The rackets are kind of fiberglass slash wood so you don't have power that comes from the strings. So it's a smaller court, higher net and it's on sand and obviously you can't let the ball bounce.
Coach Koko (00:46:36):
Oh, okay. That is the bong one. I'm sorry, I sound crazy. That's the bong. Okay. Yeah, that sounds like it'd be a lot more fun.
Mark Burik (00:46:43):
Yeah, it is lot. And then if you're playing beach volleyball before you go into that, it's a quick pickup. It's really, you're already above all the rest of the beginners and if you had played tennis before you played that, you have a real advantage. So it's something that I can kind of jump into and feel competent right away. It's
Coach Koko (00:47:04):
A crossover of the best of both worlds for
Mark Burik (00:47:07):
You. Yeah, it's a good merge.
Coach Koko (00:47:09):
Have you ever played spike ball?
Mark Burik (00:47:11):
Yeah, of course. My life's on the beach. We got all that stuff.
Coach Koko (00:47:15):
. Oh they look so cool. Every time I go I'm like the spike ball people, but I'm not going over there. But it's so interesting to play. It's just so cool that we can talk about all the different sports and how they've influenced their volleyball journey. And as you know, sports are just awesome. So
Mark Burik (00:47:34):
If somebody were to, let's say, let's say there was a club director out there, or somebody who has a facility and they were starting, either they had the choice to start Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. What do you think would be the best path for them to growing their following, creating a community so that maybe they could grow a club or a team and what would be their first steps? Could you lay out the first three days of what they might try?
Coach Koko (00:48:06):
I would first do research on the area I live in and determining if volleyball is necessary a need in that area. And if it is, so I would first do a simple Google search of volleyball near me and seeing what comes up. And then I would click on the research results, probably the first page to see where audience they're targeting kind of events that they're doing. You shouldn't reinvent the wheel if the wheel's already there and just looking to see where the direction the community's going to. If you live in a smaller community, it's going to be harder. So check a major city near you. So if you live in the middle of nowhere, which some people do live in small cities, look at a bigger city near you. And then after you kind of see exactly who is looking for you, then you start giving them what they're looking for. Are these adult players, are they middle school players? Are they high school players? Are they looking for summer camp is school out? You have to look at the time of year. There's a lot of different things. The time of year,
Mark Burik (00:49:16):
How do what they are looking for?
Coach Koko (00:49:19):
So I used a search bar for everything. So if you go into the search bar and then you type in, let's use a hypothetical volleyball near me, and then the first letter of something, it will start to populate results in the search bar . And that's what people are looking for.
Mark Burik (00:49:36):
Google book
Coach Koko (00:49:37):
Populates results for you,
Mark Burik (00:49:39):
. So you kind of get the most popular searches just by starting to type certain words,
Coach Koko (00:49:44):
Correct?
Mark Burik (00:49:45):
Huh?
Coach Koko (00:49:46):
So it lets you see different things you're looking for. So if I were the club director, you have to meet the demand and you have to provide value to who's looking for you. And you have to be in the right places that people are looking for. Try to make connections with athletic, athletic directors at schools. Try to make connections with church representatives.
Mark Burik (00:50:06):
Oh this is good stuff, keep going. I
Coach Koko (00:50:09):
Mean they have children's churches. I mean try to make connections with, I don't know, Y M Cs if they don't have a volleyball program, there's a need for volleyball. You have to put yourself in the space. Volleyball is in.
Mark Burik (00:50:22):
Those are good key figures. Yeah. Church organizations, Y M C A athletic departments, maybe even local basketball courts. Like hey, do you have the volleyball inserts, ? Does anybody use it? Yeah, , . And then cuz some people might say, No, we don't have volleyball. And since they're not a volleyball person, they might just be saying no and never hearing from that again. But maybe they're saying no 20 times a week. No, we don't have volleyball. No we don't have volleyball. And then if you call them they go, No, but we get a hundred people asking every year. So then you can jump onto it and say, do you have their numbers? Or
Coach Koko (00:50:57):
Could, I mean you need to have your card on deck, you don't have volleyball, but you could do you have volleyball, But you could so that,
Mark Burik (00:51:08):
Okay, so if they're searching, go on Google, see if there's, see there's more people who are interested with those searches, but then finding them becomes the harder part.
Coach Koko (00:51:20):
It does.
Mark Burik (00:51:22):
I give similar advice, but I always steer people towards Facebook groups. I go search on Facebook for volleyball, insert city volleyball, , insert state and town, and then join those and see those. But getting training groups together is usually a big thing that my audience, mostly adults from my side is, Hey, I love beach volleyball, but there's like five players in my town. How do I find people that actually wanna practice and everybody wants to play, No one wants to improve. And for those people, I always say you get in the Facebook group, , you very specifically say, I am doing passing reps, not playing volleyball. You say, I am doing passing reps from this time to this time at this location. Does anybody want to pass for an hour and a half with me? I'm working on server receive. It has to be very specific for the training because you can cast a wide net and maybe grow from zero, but if there's already a partial community there, but you're just looking for something specific of, like I said, my audience is, everybody plays and they hate that.
(00:52:40):
They're like, I want to get better. I don't just wanna play, I wanna get better. So for us it's always find the people who want to train, put them into a private WhatsApp group and then say, Do you know anybody else who wants to just pass for 90 minutes? Cuz that's a very specific type of person. Most people say, No, I wanna play. Or they'll get there and they'll say, Yeah, I wanna pass. And then 15 minutes in they'll try to turn it into a game and it's like, this isn't your person, you know, need to knock them out and it reinsert somebody else.
Coach Koko (00:53:09):
What about offering those type of services before some type of tournament? I mean, I know in my area we have tournaments all the time. Yes. I'm talking every weekend. Super fun. And people tend to play more right before it.
Mark Burik (00:53:24):
That's a brilliant idea. Connecting with a local tournament director and saying, Hey, could I do a free clinic or training session?
Coach Koko (00:53:34):
or volleyball open gym here. Hey guys, I know you guys came for open gym, but my name's Mark and today, I mean that is click bait. Don't do clickbait in real life. I'm just kidding.
Mark Burik (00:53:46):
.
Coach Koko (00:53:47):
But we play
Mark Burik (00:53:49):
Tend to play. Oh, bring them in for open gym and say No, actually we're running suicides.
Coach Koko (00:53:54):
Yeah. Don't do real clickbait in real life. I don't think it's gonna work out. Well. They have their car, they're gonna leave.
Mark Burik (00:54:01):
Gotcha. We're doing drills for next three hours.
Coach Koko (00:54:04):
, right? Yeah, don't do that. I was, But I mean it gets them into the door. So yeah. mean we tend to play a lot more before our tournament. If I know it's coming. I'm like, Okay guys, we gotta get it together. So where are we gonna go? Oh, we could go to that gym that Mark rented. Oh well .
Mark Burik (00:54:27):
. Yeah. Well he is kind of a crazy
Coach Koko (00:54:29):
Man. We're gonna run, we're gonna run. But it's ok.
Mark Burik (00:54:32):
Yeah, I'm not trying to do jumping drills for the next two hours. I wanna walk on Monday. ,
Coach Koko (00:54:38):
If it gets me better, shoot, I'll do it.
Mark Burik (00:54:42):
I do like that idea of reaching out to very specific personnel who would be in charge. That would be a heck of a list to just come up with and give out to the audience. Not, and say like, Hey, church leaders Y M C a gym leaders, anybody who manages any sort of gymnasium, CYO in New York, we had the CYO Catholic Youth Organization. It was like the church league . But there are people who are control that gym and the timing of it. And we used to be able to get gym time from our church.
Coach Koko (00:55:10):
Get on the schedule. Get on the schedule.
Mark Burik (00:55:13):
Yeah, that's good advice. How do you grow an Instagram channel?
Coach Koko (00:55:17):
Well, I think my Instagram grew kind of organically off of my YouTube . My YouTube is the real baby and the Instagram is supplementary to that real baby. I think it depends on who really utilizes Instagram. So for me, Facebook is not a bit large audience for me cuz my audience is on the younger side, so they don't really use Facebook very much. They're much more on the TikTok and YouTube. So I focus primarily on those. But I do have those who utilize Instagram and everybody's family here. So I make sure to make accessible content dependent on the platform. And sometimes the content will look different dependent on the platform. Instagram is more I don't wanna say cut and dry, but it's very straight to the point and very, this is what you need to know and this is how I'm gonna give it to you. TikTok is also, this is what you need to know. I'm gonna be funny here and this is how I'm gonna give it to you.
Mark Burik (00:56:18):
Insert a shuffle Dance
Coach Koko (00:56:20):
. And then YouTube is just like, Hey guys, it's me editing transition wipe. I'm here.
Mark Burik (00:56:28):
So yeah, there's no time for transitions in Instagram. That's when they're swiping away. It's such crazy. It's crazy how the attention span is so different from platform to platform. Second,
Coach Koko (00:56:39):
I'm
Mark Burik (00:56:40):
Talking like Facebook wanna talk. They actually want conversations and they want to get into the conversation and fill the comment sections. Instagram just wants your quickest advice possible . And then YouTube is like, I'm gonna dig in. I'm sit here for an hour and learn about volleyball. So now I'm looking at YouTube. But
Coach Koko (00:56:59):
I mean YouTube has a certain level of presence compared to other social media because you can see people on TikTok not translate to YouTube at
Mark Burik (00:57:09):
All
Coach Koko (00:57:11):
Or Instagram and not translate to YouTube at all. It works much better from YouTube and then to others than others onto YouTube. I don't know why that is, but maybe because this is a shorter platform, which requires less stage presence or less personality. versus YouTube. You gotta carry a conversation with yourself. If you weren't here, I'd be talking to myself. So
Mark Burik (00:57:36):
, we got quite a few podcasts in the beginning that I did where just me teaching
Coach Koko (00:57:42):
And I mean when you started channel in the beginning as you're kind of like, Hey guys, welcome to my, And you watch it back and you're like, What the heck? This is awful. And then as you get better, you're like, okay, this is good. I can see myself. You see your own self come out.
Mark Burik (00:57:59):
There's
Coach Koko (00:57:59):
Also,
Mark Burik (00:58:00):
I think when you make the longer form content, the longer videos that you can post on YouTube, if you teach for eight minutes, 15 minutes on a video like that, you can turn that into eight to 15 bits of content for Instagram, TikTok, the shorter ones. And then as soon as you do that, it's like, oh, you know what? That was a one minute video. Can we take the main idea out of that video and just make it into a Twitter post?
Coach Koko (00:58:27):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would 100% agree that if you feel like you have gotten really great keystone content as using it somewhere else, because somebody on YouTube, somebody on Instagram might not have seen that. But you know how Instagram works and how TikTok works, you just have to make sure that the camera quality doesn't decrease as you go. It needs to be the camera quality mean in recent years, back in the day, you could start a YouTube channel in a webcam and it's cool. And nowadays it needs to be like I'm talking Xbox 360 3D animation level camera quality. I need to be right here. Camera quality. So you have to make sure that you have the quality consistent, the sound consistent, and those are things that will help your channel grow in the long run , because we want content that's gonna be continued to be watched over time. It can't be filmed on potato. Some of my videos early, early on were filmed on a potato. So I had to private them because I was looking back like, Ooh,
Mark Burik (00:59:31):
On a potato, what does that mean? Ooh,
Coach Koko (00:59:33):
It's a joke. It means it was filmed just horribly. Oh horribly. Just horribly. It's not even a camera. Somebody had a . Yeah, it was awful. It was awful. But you want content that people are gonna look at for years and years and years. I mean, people watching my videos from five years ago.
Mark Burik (00:59:51):
And that's the one thing that, so I don't do any editing. I am bad at it. I'm slow at it and I don't enjoy it in any way. I have a fantastic editor. I have three fantastic editors. One of them, Tanya Stu Hauser has essentially with her editing single-handedly built her YouTube channel. It was our teaching, but all of her editing. So she's been fantastic. But she got so concerned when we started moving over to Instagram, she's like, We already posted that. And I said, That was six months ago. And only 20% of your audience even sees any post that you put out. So really within a six month period, you should post the same thing five times. If you actually want to serve your audience and if it's good information, how many times has your best coach told you the same thing? A lot.
(01:00:45):
You need to hear it again. So we're now in this big kind of reposting time with our, not YouTube, cuz that becomes hard. But definitely with our Instagram and with our TikTok, we're going and saying not just keep recycling it. Keep recycling it. It'll hit somebody at the right time when they most need it. When they just messed up on Match point or when they're going into a tournament and like, oh yes, I gotta remember that today. So it's not harming anybody to put that out. Some people unfollow you and okay, they don't need you right now, but when they do they'll come back and you haven't hurt their feelings.
Coach Koko (01:01:24):
. Right? I mean that's something I had to learn in the beginning as well. When people unfollow, you don't take it personally. In my mind I take it as, okay, well maybe they don't play volleyball anymore.
Mark Burik (01:01:37):
. Right?
Coach Koko (01:01:38):
Or
Mark Burik (01:01:38):
Maybe you got a store, they came into your store and then looked around, liked a bunch of stuff, but weren't ready to buy anything so they left. That's not them being a jerk, that's them. They had a good time seeing some nice stuff in your store. Probably come back later
Coach Koko (01:01:53):
. But I mean sometimes when people have a very small YouTube channel and where it's easier to notice the followers, they're like, Oh, I had a hundred subscribers and now I have 98 you that can hurt. I mean that can hurt. But then as you grow, you start to realize that you are valuable, your content is valuable and you have to be confident in yourself because this massive people like what you do. And it's okay if some person doesn't cuz not everybody's gonna like what you do, but a lot of people do.
Mark Burik (01:02:27):
And if you're going out there with a good heart, good heart, and you're doing good things, you can be happy with your place in the world. So long as you're following your heart, you're doing something that you love and you're doing it in a genuine way. And we can always, for the amount of work that we've put in with admittedly quite little return, but a lot of growth in terms of audience like man, we're doing a good thing. And then people will stop us at tournaments, they'll come, they'll say Hi, yes or pictures and it's like this is cool. This is why we did it.
Coach Koko (01:03:01):
So does it make you feel good?
Mark Burik (01:03:03):
It does. It really does. You found your place in the sport and you're able to give something. Cuz I started playing indoor and then moved to the beach. And for me it was never enough to just have that contract and play in front of a bunch of people. Like hey, watch me. And that will make your life better cuz you're entertained. I never thought entertainment for entertainment's sake was any good. I said, how do I give something to make my place in the world meaningful and I wanna be able to help people. So in my contracts, I've said this on a few other episodes, but in my contracts I always said Can you include that I get to work with the juniors club or another team within the program. And that always made me feel better to be able to help somebody. It got me out of my own head. Even when I was playing bad. I said, now I get to help somebody so I can't feel bad and be all pissy. I have to go and actually help this person not make the same mistakes that I did. And now the world's becoming a better place because of me. It's not just people
Coach Koko (01:04:09):
Watching. It is, I mean it really is. And then when you get to the place where you taught somebody everything they needed to know that's gonna come back and really hit you hard. I've had players who started on my channel and now they're playing in college and it's like, oh my God, I taught you how to serve and what I'm serving for. It's really emotional for me. Yeah. Cause it's like, wow, the person that I went, I really helped you fly from the nest. It makes me feel really, really good. And just side note, I'm a teacher in real life. So sometimes I have students who will go on my YouTube channel and they're like, Well hey . And I'm like, I'm inspiring you to play volleyball here and then I see you during the daytime. So it's the smile that you get from somebody who they really get something from you is just irreplaceable. I love playing volleyball more than anything in this world. And I love hitting the volleyball more than anything in this world. But to watch somebody else do it because I've helped them learn how to do it is just fantastic because their joy literally is my joy. It is. To be able to see them get it and that light bulb goes on for the first time and you're like, You got it, you've got it. It makes me feel so
Mark Burik (01:05:28):
Good. Oh we got the same heart. I swear coach, we got the same heart. It's that face when somebody does something for the first time and it surprises them and they're like, Oh it works. I told you, I told you I love the it worked statement .
Coach Koko (01:05:44):
Yeah. So I told you what's gonna happen and then we jump up, you know, win a game show and you're hugging each other. That's what we do.
Mark Burik (01:05:53):
. Yeah, you do the hides real quick.
Coach Koko (01:05:55):
Yeah, we have so much fun. I mean it's a great thing. Playing volleyball is an amazing thing and I feel like if you get to a level that you are just spectacular at volleyball, there is another you out there who needs you right now. Oh that's a word. That's a whole line. That's
Mark Burik (01:06:13):
Nice. That's a soundbite right there.
Coach Koko (01:06:14):
Yeah, there's another you who needs you right now. And I think it is just so helpful when you can tell somebody else, I've gone through the fire here so let me help walk you through. So I think that it's really great and I really wish that more volleyball players would take mentees under their wing. Maybe they're playing middle school for the first time or high school for the first time. It would be so fantastic to have somebody to, I'm having a really hard time with this game and I don't know how I feel about this. Somebody you can talk to about that safe space, creating a safe space for them because volleyball's a wonderful, beautiful thing. But that relationship you can build with others around volleyball is just chef's kiss.
Mark Burik (01:07:01):
A hundred percent. That makes me think that so many people are missing something. Cuz I was in a fraternity for two years and we had bigs and littles. So when I came into the fraternity, I had a big brother, somebody who was supposed to guide me on my way to being a man and to making sure that I could actually weather the storm of college. And there are some programs I've learned from studio fitness programs that they say, introduce your new members for that class to one of your veterans and say, Hey, can you show 'em around? Make sure they don't get lost. But for teams, why aren't more high school club teams pairing their new members or a younger team and saying that's your big, anytime you need something, you get to go to her. The amount of personal growth that first of all, the mentor, even if they're two years older, the mentor gets to have because like, oh, I'm kind of now responsible for somebody else. And they get to now have to have a respect for their own image because of how their little's gonna look at them. And then giving somebody, I was lucky enough to have older brothers, but giving somebody young, somebody older that they can talk to about things or saying, No, your questions, your problems, your concerns here, direct them here. That's what this person is for. I think a lot of high school teams can, and college teams can really benefit from that.
Coach Koko (01:08:28):
I think that would be a wonderful thing because it's one thing to do and it's another thing to teach. And sometimes you learn better to teach something than we may do something. And I know that college players are so busy with life, with school, with practice, all of that. But to take a younger high school student and show them maybe a high school student who didn't think college was in their plans, , and now they're going to go and they may be a first generation college student, but you were the difference that made them want to go to college. Or are you the way, the difference who helped them feel better if they maybe were going through depression and this sport really healed them. Volleyball can do a lot of different things, but if we have this mentor mentee relationship, it's just like a next level. It's adding a layer onto how great it is. I think that that can open up a lot of doors and this is something that people should pursue.
Mark Burik (01:09:20):
We touched on something here. We touched on something.
Coach Koko (01:09:22):
Look, I mean, so true.
Mark Burik (01:09:26):
Okay, so let's gonna kinda wrap this up, but I do want one good meaty piece of advice for somebody who is trying to build a following for their club, for their team, for their organization. Do you think that with your experience, so mainly TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, that was your biggest experience. Of course you have a website as well, , where people can book you for online training and take one of your courses. That's awesome. And I have it here, but you can say it out loud. Sorry, it's in the background here.
Coach Koko (01:09:59):
No, it's okay.
Mark Burik (01:09:59):
It's just the name of your website.
Coach Koko (01:10:01):
It is www.kookovolley.com. That's www.cocovo.com.
Mark Burik (01:10:08):
You can go there, learn indoor volleyball, get some coaching, get some mentality training and confidence training, a love that you're doing that it's so necessary. But for anybody who wants to develop their organization and get some eyes on it and they say what's important to them right now is just that enough people know that there is a juniors club that they're starting or that there is in open gym that they're starting. What would be some good meaty piece of advice either on YouTube or Instagram and what do you think that they should start or continue posting or doing?
Coach Koko (01:10:46):
I think in the real world, they need to make connections with people around them that have connections to the players they're looking for. Like I said before, looking at those athletic directors, looking at those church directors because they have the people that you're looking for. They have the students who would play in club, but for social media's sake, you have to think about what does the player want. You could wanna teach something, you might wanna teach how to, I don't know how to set, but it's a player looking how to set. You need to look at what they want to know and give that to them. A lot of the times we have a plan in our mind of how we think our coaching is going to go or how we think things are supposed to go. And it doesn't go like that. So talking to your players and saying, or the players you have existing, what would you want me to work with you on?
(01:11:42):
And taking that feedback and giving that lesson and then stacking on a new piece of information we need to review overhand serving. And then we're gonna start talking about the float serve. Okay, we're gonna talk about the float serve. Okay, let's talk about the footwork to jump serve. Okay. It's a building blocks of tools and players are so easy to overwhelm. So keep that in mind when you think about progressing skills too quickly. Because when you're trying something new, you can't just go and bake a cake with no instructions, you need to start at the beginning. So just remember that players can get overwhelmed quickly and to be kind and be understanding of where they're coming from and having that open level of communication, opening that channel of communication can do wonders. Wonders. I wish that, I mean I had a communicative coach, but I wish that more coaches would go to their players and say, How do you feel today? What's going on? How was school today? You look upset. Talk to me. This is a safe space. So asking your players what they need to know, what they wanna know and using that to create content around your club.
Mark Burik (01:13:03):
I like that. That's a lot more, it sounds like to summit, to sum it up a little bit, sounds like more finding out what your players want to know and what the people in your community organization, future organization would want to know. And posting more about that or more how you teach it instead of just views of you doing it. And I think when I started my business, it was just kind of pictures of people playing and our Instagram, it's stagnant forever. As soon as we started giving you useful advice on our social media stuff, that's when followings came. People started sharing like no one's going to really share a picture of a bunch of people playing now. So that won't actually help you grow, but if it's a great piece of advice, all of a sudden that growth will then be shared. People will save it. The algorithm helps you and everything like that. So I love that piece of advice. Just
Coach Koko (01:14:05):
Mean start. You have to remember that social media is either entertainment or value. Which one are you gonna be?
Mark Burik (01:14:12):
Right. I like that. And
Coach Koko (01:14:16):
I mean, I like to be entertaining. It's
Mark Burik (01:14:17):
Entertainment. I know, right? That's something I like being entertaining so bad. We're so not entertaining. We're just like teachers. I
Coach Koko (01:14:24):
Mean, you're entertaining right now. This is a whole vibe.
Mark Burik (01:14:29):
I appreciate that. I appreciate
Coach Koko (01:14:31):
That's what you gotta get the person to have to have be somebody that they just wanna like, I like that guy. He's funny. Give it a way that just super casual. Super casual.
Mark Burik (01:14:44):
You got it. I'll be more casual from now on.
Coach Koko (01:14:46):
I mean, you seem casual now, so .
Mark Burik (01:14:48):
All right, I'll continue being me then.
Coach Koko (01:14:51):
. Yeah, always. That's what people want. People want you, They don't want Mark's representative. They want Mark.
Mark Burik (01:14:59):
I feel that. Coach Coco, thank you so much. It's so cool to get to meet somebody that I looked up to, somebody who built something that I was just like, Man, how did she do this? It would be so cool to be able to pick her brain and figure out what she did, how she grew such a massive audience, and then how much you're helping players. It's not just entertainment, it's very entertaining, but you're also teaching, so you're giving yourself to the world, which I think is something beautiful and not to be taken lightly. So thank you for your channel and for all your education and for helping all of the players out there. And thank you for providing inspiration for somebody like me. Seeing the way that you grow your channels and me saying like, okay, it's possible. Greater things are possible. So you did that in two ways. You, you've inspired a creator, whatever. I can call myself out. Yeah,
Coach Koko (01:15:55):
You're creator
Mark Burik (01:15:57):
And all of the players who follow you. So you're touching on more than one audience. And I just wanna say from everybody and definitely from myself, thank you for doing everything you do. Thank
Coach Koko (01:16:08):
You. I appreciate that. It has been a long journey in a long road. I never thought that I would hit 200,000 subscribers. I swear I didn't. I really didn't. And then I hit 100,000 and then I got the plaque and then I had a party for it and now we're here. So I don't know what's from here, but all I know is I'm gonna keep teaching y'all how to serve and we're gonna keep going.
Mark Burik (01:16:32):
I love that. I love that. Do you have any parting advice for anyone in my or your audience before we sign off here?
Coach Koko (01:16:40):
I do. One thing that you should always remember is the growth mindset. Nobody is born with a specific set of skills. We all have to learn and remember that comparison is the thief of joy. So don't compare yourself when you're trying out for your team or you're learning how to play beach volleyball for the first time. Don't look at other players and say, Well, why does he do it? And I can't. Progress is not linear. You have to take your time because your journey is different than another person's journey. And with that growth mindset, you can do it.
Mark Burik (01:17:16):
I love that. Thank you so much for coming on. I'm gonna do all of our sign off stuff, but really appreciate you, Nice meeting you and I hope we get to talk a lot in the future.
Coach Koko (01:17:28):
Yeah, just send me an email. I'm one email away.
Mark Burik (01:17:31):
Awesome. And for anybody who's trying to get in touch with coach co, coach Coco or follow any of her accounts, those are all linked in the show notes in the description. Go ahead, give it a click, give her a follow, give her subscribe, and help our fantastic sport grow so that we can get it bigger and bad than it. We
Coach Koko (01:17:51):
Need it, than is we need it.
Mark Burik (01:17:53):
Yep. Yep. All right, coach, you have a great night. Thank you for coming on. Bye-bye guys. Thank you so much for listening. That was a cool episode and I know I kind of fanboyed out there for a little bit. So excuse that, but it was cool to see somebody so far ahead of me in their teaching game and it's quasi digital marketing slash social media, but there's so much to learn there and it's crazy intimidating. And she has done all of her channels with a ton of positivity and a ton of, I'm just going to teach this basic to get you from zero or just starting up to that intermediate level. And then I'm sure she didn't take you beyond that. She's got a number of levels on her website, which you can check out by clicking underneath the link. So go ahead and make sure that you give her a follow and a subscribe and check out her website.
(01:18:47):
It's really cool stuff from us here at Better at Beach. And like I said, our camps are ready to rock. So this fall and winter and then going into the spring of 2023, we should have some openings. One of them is already sold out, that's sold out within two weeks. And the rest of them, there are no more than 20 spots left in each in any of our weeks. So go ahead to bitter beach.com/camps. Come hang out with us in Florida. If you want to book us for a clinic, if you want to bring us to your hometown, me, Brandon, any of our fantastic and growing coaching staff, go to better beach.com/clinics. There is a form there that you can fill out just now. All we need is a court that you can control whether it's permitted or not, or it could be in your backyard.
(01:19:37):
Just know that we need a fixed court. We need a minimum of 12 players committed for the day and for a one day clinic, which is three, two and a half hour sessions. We are currently, as of this time of filming, currently charging 2 58 person. So if you want to get us out there get all that stuff fixed up, then fill out that form and let's rock and roll. It'll be cool to hang out with you for a weekend. Currently, our Ultimate Defender program, better at beach.com/ultimate defender is rocking. Remember, we have recorded courses, which will show you a tutorial, give you the drills that you should do for that, and then move you progressively through techniques and strategies. So we have the recorded courses and we also have our online coaching program, the Complete Player program, which means that you'll get all of the courses and hands on coaching, which means that once you do the drills from that course, you get to converse with us, send our coaches messages, post your videos of the drills so that we can help you fix your technique, take you to the next level.
(01:20:42):
If you have any ideas for who we should have on the podcast or things that you want us to talk about, ideas that you want us to cover. One good way to tell us about those is going to chat on Facebook. It is the Better at Beach Volleyball Official Public Facebook group. We have a ton of people in their asking rule and technique questions and getting quick answers. Conversations are in depth, and we have avp, F I V B, referees, players and coaches. So you're getting great answers in there and we keep a very close eye on that group. So if you want us to cover a certain topic in a video or on a podcast, go ahead and post in there. Also, if you wanna check anything out, you can follow us on Instagram. You can follow me at Mark Burrick, M A R K B U R I K, or our Instagram, our company Instagram channel, Better at beach volleyball.
(01:21:39):
Would love to hear from you coaches always, always reach out, whatever you're thinking, whatever trouble you're having, love coaches. So come and ask me, message me if you're having a problem, if you have an idea, if you're stuck or wondering what you should do to design a practice to figure out what drills you can do or how to teach X. We are starting coaching clinics this year, but before we start those coaching clinics, I'm just happy to help. So reach out anytime you want. All right. That is all from us. This is my third episode of the day, But for you, it comes out once a week. I am. I'll tell you what, I'm fired up after talking to three cool people today. This was really good day for me and I hope you got a lot of value out of this episode and all of our episodes. If you like it, go ahead and subscribe. Share it. Share it with somebody who wants to hear about more volleyball stuff for me and all the gang at Better At Beach. See you later. See you on the sand. Bye-bye.