About Me – Pat Beith

Being a business owner, it has been great not having to create a resume over the years (I think I only made one for my first job out of college).

But I was thinking that many of you may not really know who I am besides that guy that sends out a lot of promo emails for products. I’ve been in the industry for so long that I even forget what I have done.

In previous emails I said I will be sharing more of my experiences, what I have learned, mistakes I’ve made, and also what’s working for me now. I’ve done a lot in the past 20+ years in the sports performance industry outside of training and coaching athletes that I don’t really talk about much.

I started Athletes Acceleration in 2004 (had a business partner at the beginning who I eventually bought out). Before that, I was a personal trainer (running the largest personal training department in Boston), a high school track coach, and interned for Mike Boyle. I was a Division 1 sprinter and graduated with an Exercise Science degree.

– Athletes Acceleration’s sports performance facility is located in North Attleboro, MA and is over 22,000 sq/ft (with an amazing staff)

– I am the owner and founder of the National Sports Performance Association (NSPA), a certification company focused on providing coaches sports performance training information (started in 2016).

– I’ve run a ton of camps and clinics. Large camps of 550+ athletes to smaller intimate clinics of only 10 athletes.

What you may not know:

I was an owner in two franchises.
In the Entrepreneur Franchise 500, one franchise was ranked #193 and the other was ranked #271 – along with recognition among the Fastest-Growing, Best Low-Cost and Top New Franchises along the way. In 2014, they were ranked #1 Personal Training Franchise by Entrepreneur Magazine and the other franchise was ranked #1 Youth Fitness & Sports Performance Training Franchise by Entrepreneur Magazine.

In addition to that, Franchise Business Review ranked us as the Top Fitness Franchise and Top Midsize (all industries, under 500 locations) Franchise in North America (basically the franchisor that had the happiest franchisees). We had close to 300 franchisees. I ended up selling my shares in each, but that will be a story for another time.

When Athletes Acceleration was started, we were only running camps and individually training athletes.
It got to the point where we couldn’t fit any more kids in our groups. We didn’t have time. And because of the volume of athletes we had that wanted to get faster, and coaches that were coming by to see what we were doing, we decided to create DVD’s of our total system that we were using. This product was called Complete Speed Training (and became the best selling speed training product of all time). This was the start of creating and selling courses online.

I have created and published more products and courses than I can remember but…
When our first product was created in 2004 (Complete Speed Training), I had no idea how to film, edit, or create a product. No idea how to create a website or write sales copy. No idea how to get traffic. No idea how to capture email addresses or send out emails to them. No idea how to take orders. No idea how to make DVD’s, manuals or ship them out. Had no list. Had no money. Started from exactly zero. That product ended up selling tens of thousands of copies.

Because of the success of our first products, I was involved with launching some of the most successful products in sports and fitness (outside of Athletes Acceleration). Helped some local youth coaches and local trainers with no exposure become ‘household’ names in our industry. I have a crazy story about launching for the first time a product that wasn’t my own and making over $100K in the first day (I will tell you that story later).

The NSPA was not the first certification company I was involved in.
I was a co-owner of the International Youth Conditioning Association (IYCA), I am not anymore – again, another story for another day.

I started the Complete Speed & Power Summits because Coach Dos and Wil Fleming convinced me to.
The format of the CSPS events are perfect where you can learn from a coach during a presentation, ask questions, and also learn by performing their system in a hands-on section. We have had some amazing coaches throughout the year – coaches like Dan Pfaff, Rachel Balkovec, Joe Kenn, Carmelita Jeter, Lee Taft, Mike Boyle, Teena Murray, Joe DeFranco, Robert Dos Remedios, Nicole Rodriguez, Eric Cressey, Bobby Smith, Chip Morton, Dave Gleason, Joe Defranco, Bo Sandoval, Ron McKeefery, Duane Carlisle, Pete Bommarito, Chris Mohr, Andy McCloy, Matt Durant, David Padilla, Mike Robertson, Jim Kielbaso, Adam Feit, Zach Even-esh, Justin Kavanaugh, Josh Henkin, Lauren Green, Tony Holler, and Boo Schexnayder. But it took Dos and Wil to push me to make them all happen.

My first event I ever ran was around 2002-ish and I got Tudor Bompa, Mark Verstegen, Mike Clark, and Vern Gambetta to speak. Legendary. I had no idea what I was doing and need to figure out how to pay for them all to come, but I wanted to learn from them all so I made it happen.

I’ve also:
– started businesses and programs that failed- taught a college health & fitness class for a year
– had multiple business partners (some good, some bad, but makes for some great stories)
– invested money and lost (the best investments have always been in myself)
– (and I also believe myself to be a bourbon and coffee aficionado)

I don’t speak much.
I’ve only spoken at a couple of my friends conferences and podcasts, as I turn down most speaking opportunities. I convinced myself earlier that most people don’t take action on information so I shouldn’t commit time to do them – but as time has gone by, I really think that I made excuses because I don’t like public speaking and it’s something I need to get over and work on. If I’m in front of athletes, I’m good. If you want to talk about growing a business or how to get an athlete faster, I can talk for days. I have been brought in as a guest to some of my friends’ Master Mind groups (Pat Rigsby, Todd Durkin, Craig Ballentyne) and I think I dropped some actionable knowledge. I think my disconnection with things like podcasts is you can’t see the listener and also hold them accountable for taking action??

I am a life-long learner and value education and experience.
Which is why I am so heavily involved in creating coaching education courses and certifications. And is also why I want to share more of what I have experienced and learned along the way with you. I have a ton of S&C certifications and business certifications. I’m pretty sure there are not many people with as many certifications than me – I don’t recommend all of the certs I have (and probably don’t recommend getting as many as I have), but I realize that learning without implementing and trying things out is almost a waste of that education.

I spend a ton of money on education each year.
If there is a topic I want to learn about or am interested in, I buy everything. (I probably own every speed training course/book out there). Along with S&C info, I make sure that I keep learning how to be better at business. I am a big fan of Master Mind groups (I’ve been in Yanik Silver’s, Frank Kern’s, Ryan Deiss, and Andy Frisella & Ed Mylett MM groups) You can not only learn a lot from the main coach, but the knowledge of the people in the room is invaluable.

I don’t believe that balance exists
There are ebbs and flows to everything and there are times when you need to spend more time in one area in order to succeed. I do love coaching and growing my business, but my family is the most important thing to me and they always win when I need to choose.

This email has been all over the place and I’m sure I left some things out. I also used the word ‘I’ more times in this email than ever before. Talking about myself isn’t my favorite, but hopefully some stories and experiences I share with you, you can take and grow your own business or training.

Talk soon,
– Pat Beith