Ben Durbin had always been passionate about training and athletics but didn’t expect to turn that passion into a career. In 2015, he decided to take a leap of faith. Ben’s idea to create a resource for Olympic-level training with Premier Athlete Training eventually led him to PaySimple. The PaySimple team helped his dream become a sustainable reality, increasing revenue by 400%. Premier Athlete Training now serves over one thousand athletes weekly.
Background
In 2015, Ben Durbin’s leap of faith meant quitting his career in events management to pursue his dream of wrestling in the Olympics. In order to be eligible, however, he needed to rank 3rd or higher in the U.S. As a relative “nobody” in the sport, he had his work cut out for him. Thankfully, hard work is what Ben does best. To financially fuel his personal Olympic dreams, Ben began training youth athletes on the side.
When Ben started advertising his training services to youth athletes in his area, he quickly realized a larger demand for his services existed and founded Premier Athlete Training.
“We teach everything from sprinting mechanics, to balance to agility and conditioning. We want our kids to be true athletes in every sense of the word, not just in one sport.”
Premier Athlete Training went beyond training elite athletes to focus on teaching kids of all skill levels. With the launch of his company, Ben began learning not only how to be a business owner, but that he had a newfound passion: building the confidence of young, aspiring athletes.
“The best part of my job is when a parent says, ‘My child didn’t feel like they fit in because they struggled with sports, but now that’s changing!’ We’re great for elite athletes but we’re even better for the kids who just need to learn to learn basic skills.”
Challenge
Like many business owners, Ben found the start-up stages of Premier Athlete Training to be difficult and time-consuming. He needed to find a way to simplify and automate administrative tasks so he could balance his business with his personal Olympic training.
“The hardest part about setting up our business was the behind the scenes stuff: creating a website, bookkeeping, figuring out how to accept payments. That all takes up a ton of time.”
Since the majority of Ben’s customers were on monthly training plans, Ben wanted to offer recurring payment options. However, setting up an online payment solution that was easy for his staff and customers to use was anything but simple.
“In today’s world, people expect everything to happen instantly and easily. The second there’s a barrier to signing up or paying, they start to look elsewhere. That wasn’t a risk I wanted to take.”
Making matters worse, Ben and his staff spent countless hours per month contacting clients, following up on payments, and trying to determine the correct amount owed.
“We were losing thousands of dollars a month on missed payments because we didn’t have a system that worked for collecting dues. A lot of our clients would make note to pay on time, but I knew it was a pain for them to remember to pay each month.”
Ben was losing time dealing with billing issues that he wanted to spend growing the business and working with his students.
Solution
Knowing that a payment solution was his answer, Ben began extensively researching options. After speaking with multiple product experts and viewing demos, Ben felt confident that PaySimple was right for his business needs.
For Premier Athletes, convenience was non-negotiable. Ben and his staff needed an easy-to-use solution for their internal processes and customers. Ben loves that PaySimple’s payment forms easily capture clients’ information and create a profile for them. With recurring billing, they don’t have to log into an account to pay each month.
“These days you need to create a profile and a password for everything. I didn’t want to put that on my clients. I wanted to make it easy.”
PaySimple’s online payment forms and recurring billing gave Ben and his customers exactly what they wanted. After filling out a simple online payment form, PaySimple securely captures customer information and creates a profile for them.
From there, customers can enroll in recurring payments so their monthly memberships occur automatically. Ben’s customers can also access their own customer portal to update and manage personal payment details as needed.
“It says it right in the name. Everything about PaySimple was simple and easy to understand for me and my customers.”
After an easy setup, Premier Athlete Training began using PaySimple to book new customers, process monthly payments, and complete online training camp registrations. Ben also found value in the PaySimple mobile app, which allows him to sign new kids up or accept payments right on the spot.
With PaySimple’s online and mobile payment solutions, Ben can now focus on his customers, staff, and personal athletic goals. As a result, his business has benefitted well beyond what Ben thought possible.
“Our revenue has grown by nearly 400% since signing up with PaySimple because of all the time we’re saving on billing. Before, I would be calling customers trying to track down a check, now I can call and have a meaningful conversation about our service and how it’s helping their children.”
Premier Athlete Training now serves over one thousand athletes weekly in a state-of-the-art training facility. Ben’s hard work and dedication has paid off in another way as well, as he was recently selected as Iowa State University’s Olympic Strength and Conditioning coach.
To learn more about billing, payment collection, and customer management with PaySimple, contact us today. Our team is here to help you achieve all your Olympic-sized dreams.
