Who is Jason Lampkin?
First things first - can you tell us a bit about your background?
So I, like every young boy in the UK, wanted to be a soccer star. I was on track to emulate one of my idols, Michael Owen. I'm from the same village as him in North Wales (Hawarden). Everything was going very well until a week before my 18th birthday.
So I was in the academy system at Man United and I was then a professional at Aston Villa, but a week before my 18th birthday, in the Youth Cup semi final against Newcastle, I ended up tearing my ACL, MCL and both cartilages in my right knee, which is more or less a death sentence for all athletes. So I knew that I wasn't going to go on and achieve what Michael did, and I decided to come to New York and study business, on a soccer scholarship. It was my way of keeping the dream alive while working on a contingency plan.
That was 13 years ago. So I ended up staying out here, working for massive digital marketplaces including ClassPass and Fiverr, and met the love of my life. And now I’m here working at Whop as Head of Fitness and Sport verticals.
When you were a professional athlete, were there any other ways to monetize other than playing the sport?
I don't think it's something people really think about. And having conversations with sports stars now, it becomes quite apparent that they're all very focused on their careers. But like I found out too soon, the career can often be over before you realize, and even people who do go on and play then reach 35 years old and haven’t planned for a life after sport. So they're not really thinking about monetizing their audience. They sometimes don't even know that there are companies to help you monetize as a sport professional.
So I hadn't considered it at the time. But now, looking back, if I was to go on and be a professional athlete and I could build a massive community, I would, because I could create something that is engaging, fun, and ultimately making me money.
Helping Sports and Fitness Professionals Monetize Their Skills
Now that you are Head of Sports and Fitness at Whop, how do you help professional athletes and fitness gurus to monetize their skills and passion?
When helping anyone to monetize we really listen to the creator. This means having detailed discussions with them, figuring out how they're currently monetizing or if they thought about any ways that they want to monetize.
Not everybody, every athlete, actually does want to monetize. Sometimes they just want to build a large, engaged community. So we can help them build that, and then we'll help them figure out if they do want to monetize in the future and what they should do then.
There's so much that we can do to help sports and fitness professionals to monetize given that we have this incredible platform and app functionality, it's really about getting as creative as possible, and we can help with that.
You’ve touched upon creating communities - what are some other ways that people in sports and fitness can monetize?
There are so many opportunities. One way to monetize is to sell a course - we currently have an NFL athlete who sells a wide receiver course. Others sell ebooks, others sell access to private forums and chats. Some sell all of the above.
There’s also the option for high-ticket items, through which athletes can sell access to one-on-one calls, so every Friday they may host a call to analyze someone’s performance from the previous week and coach them through how they can approach an upcoming game. Then you have downloadables, like workout programs and nutrition plans created by personal trainers. And there are new apps and experiences being added to our platform all the time.
That’s what gives us our competitive advantage - we’ve not pigeonholed ourselves into a ‘course creator’ platform or a calendar booking app. We’re everything all in one: a true all-in-one solution.
Is there any one particular monetization channel that is best for fitness and sports professionals?
It's really a combination of everything. The beauty of Whop is that you don’t have to follow one path - you can create a community, sell access to it, build a course as an add-on and offer up one one-on-one coaching sessions on the side. Multiple opportunities for monetization.
Getting Started: How Athletes and Fitness Experts Can Begin Monetizing
How can fitness experts and sports professionals find their audience and grow a community online if they don’t already have one?
First we have a conversation with the creator to figure out, number one, all the ways that they can monetize; number two, how they want to monetize; and number three, how engaged their existing community is. What channels are they using? Then we can then build around that.
In terms of finding new community members, we have this huge digital marketplace, which is a great discovery tool for a lot of creators. Whop currently has around 4 million unique visitors per month using the marketplace, so we get a lot of traffic. The marketplace offers great visibility for them, particularly if they're one of the first creators within this new vertical.
Once they are on Whop, what analytics of insights can you provide to help fitness and sports professionals understand their market, their audience, and optimize the content that they’re putting out?
We have the Whop dashboard, which is where you can see all the statistics there are. It's effectively a CRM and has marketing capabilities including an affiliate program and a resolution center as well. So it's everything rolled into one. It's a really robust all in one solution for any sort of creator out there.
Advice and Insights for Aspiring Sports and Fitness Creators
What are some of the most common misconceptions people have around monetizing their knowledge and skill set?
Two common misconceptions that their audience isn't big enough. I've come across that a lot. But really, we focus on the engagement over audience size, so somebody could have millions of followers, very small engagement, and if they don't offer the right value to that audience, the audience is not going to pay.
On the other hand if you have ten people who are hyper engaged and love everything that you do, you can offer them this seamless platform where they can purchase your services and any sort of digital product that you offer. Size doesn’t matter, we can help you grow and engage your audience.
Finally, do you have any advice for sports and fitness professionals who are looking to monetize, but not quite sure where to start or how to get started?
Reach out to us for support. We're fully aware that Whop only succeeds if the creators on our platform succeed first. That is why our business model is simply a percentage of the revenue and we don't charge upfront fees. So if you end up processing zero, we want to figure out how we can help you scale to process as much money as possible. Because that's the only way that we win is if you win.
Sports and Fitness Professionals - Monetize Your Skills with Whop
Athletes and fitness trainers - you don’t have to trade your time for money. There are more ways to make an income, including ways that can generate passive income.
From personalized meal plans, to workout routines, paid communities, courses, coaching sessions and more, you can monetize your experience, knowledge, and skills. Whop is here to help you along the way.
