(upbeat music) - What's up everybody? Welcome to this episode of "Short Shifts." I'm your pilot on this magic carpet ride. Jeffrey J. Helovecchio, Tofur, Christopher, Ryan, Scott, has zero idea what the question of the day is. Tof, tonight's topic. If you choose to accept it. I wanna talk, I don't know if you saw my tweet last week. My phone again, every now and then I throw one out there and my phone does not stop ringing. I had a junior player in the gym last week. As the workout finished, picked up his phone. He's like, guys, advisor won't stop texting and calling me. It's like two to three times a day right now. And I'm like, who is it? So we talk about it, okay, like that's a lot. He's after you, like, what's he charging you? And he shows me his phone and it's not on a website or else I would have blasted that on Twitter. It must've been a PDF he sent him. And the breakdown of this guy's advisor's pricing, one of the packages was $19,000. 19,000, but oh, hey, you save $1,000 on that package by buying that one. - What was in the package? - I remember seeing in that package, you get like four calls a month. You're allowed four calls a month that I believe was like up to like four hours. The first package, you got no calls. I don't remember how much that one was. - So hold on a second, hold on, hold on. Just so we're clear, the word advisor is a subset of the word advice, right? Like an advisor is supposed to advise and give advice to the people that they are working with. But you're not allowed to call them for the, there's no lowest package. Nothing about calls. Second package said, I believe it was like you get two calls a month up to this much time and on the second package and the third package where you get like two or you get four or something like that. It said between the hours of nine and five Monday through Friday. - Oh, so that is cool. - So then I'm like, you're in school and your games are on the weekend. And what if a college comes and talks to you and you wanna talk to them or you're getting traded and you've got to call them? I literally, like a lot of my junior guys, especially 'cause this is a newer guy, they haven't seen me like snap and I was literally red. I was like trying not to break stuff. I was like, do not go with this guy. You will not, I will call people. Do not go with this guy. Like this is disgusting. These prices are disgusting. So many people reach out to me. Some people defending it, which is abhorrent. Some people is being like, oh, whatever. So I wanna talk to you about this whole state of advisors. And there are some good ones out there who like Tope said, actually advise, actually break down some film, actually talk to the parents, talk to the players and are working with players who actually have a chance at attaining whatever their goals are. And then there's some that are scum and are bottom leading and going after, you know, tier nine junior hockey players who really don't have a chance. And there's nothing wrong with advising them, but what I see and when I get brought to my attention quite a bit, especially from social media people, is that these advisors are going after kids who really don't have a chance and just charging them a bunch of money to basically call a buddy and get 'em a tryout somewhere. It drives me insane, it's disgusting. It's usually not real hockey people who do it. There are some that played and I think they're disgusting. And if they, if their younger self knew what their self is doing now, you know, they would time to a chair and take snapshots at 'em on the ice. So I just wanna talk about this whole thing and everything to do with advisors in the youth world. And what can we do? And if you're looking for a good one, what are some things that they should hopefully be providing? - Yeah, yeah. Wow, that's 19 grand. - And it's said right below it in little writing with an asterisk, you save $1,000 on this package. I was like, oh, so that one's supposed to be 20? Oh, okay, I don't know how many years that's for like, but like it's just like, dude, what is happening? What is happening? - Oh man, here's what I will say. Do you need an advisor? No, you don't need an advisor. The only time you potentially can use an advisor is number one, if they're actually advising you, using 'em as a, or her as a person, not to get a tryout or not to ascend to another league or whatever, but somebody that like knows your kid and can help them develop. Like for all these advisors, there better be some sort of like video or some sort of like advice calls, mental skills training part to it. Like that I think should be a given, honestly, it should be a given. And so like for me, I feel like if that's the case, like if it's like advisor in the sense of the word advice, giving advice, like sure, like if there's a good person that can help your kid be better, that's okay. Like there's nothing wrong in spending money on that. The other side of it too, like I said, there should be a developmental aspect to it. So like I've had advisors come to me to work with their groups. So advisors have come to me to do like, you know, a resilience talk. Advisors, I know VEX, you have people who come to you to do talks and different workout type stuff as well. And so like there, that's the thing is like, there are good advisors out there. Like people who are in it for the right reasons, people who do a pretty good job, people who can place kids based on their knowledge and expertise and their relationships in the business. What I will say is like, I think the best time to get one if you want to from like an advancement standpoint is like after 18U because junior hockey is nuts. Like it's changing all the time. There's so many leagues. There's so like everything, it's just whacked out, right? And so like if there's an advisor who understands that business and can help you get placed on a team that's good for you, that's great. Also what I would say is like in the process of getting one, like vet the ever-loving, you know what out of them. Like first thing is, is ask them about your son or your daughter's strengths and weaknesses. Tell me about my kid. And if they can't tell you, run. If they just send out an email or if they tell you exactly what you want to hear, run. Like if you're going to have somebody that's giving your son or your daughter advice, you would want that advice to be honest upfront, the good, the bad and the ugly, you know? It's not like, hey, you know, I can get him five different junior tryouts or whatever. No, it's like, hey, I talked to X and Y junior coach and this is where they think your kid is at. This is what your kid needs to get better at for him to be able to play at that level. Those are two very different conversations. Now you know that they have contacts in the business. You know as a parent, a lot of the times like what your kid's strengths and witnesses are. If you take the rose colored glasses off a little bit. And so like having somebody that you know is going to shoot you straight. I think that goes a long, long way. Talk to other people that have had that advisor, the good and the bad, right? Like get different perspectives. Ask for their client list. Hey, can I reach out to X, Y, and Z? Can I reach out to their parents? Would you mind if I did that? Just do as much upfront information gathering as you can and really focus on is this person feeding me a line and telling me exactly what I want to hear? Or is this person like actually telling me the truth about where my kid is at and can back it up by the fact that I've watched them. Here's some video, this is what I see. Like that's a non-negotiable. Like I think that should be a given. Love that and absolutely love that. And I'm not against advisors. I'm against the predatory ones. You know, like that's, then there's so many and they just seem like they're everywhere, you know? Like Toph said, there are good ones out there. I work with Hawkeye Hockey Services. And the reason is because they had one of my guys and I talked to his parents about them. I talked to the player, they were doing video, they were getting them, you know, help with like mental training and all, and actually providing services. And I was like, wow, I love that you guys do this. And this was, I've been working with them for probably like three to four years where I helped train their guys in season or off season and stuff like that. And I talk to them a lot and they actually offer services. So also when you're looking at these advisors, okay, like what is it included? What's the fee and what is included in this fee? Like what are we getting? You know, like the guy had packages. You should know if there's not actual advising, if there's not mentorship, you know, I'm not saying that you should be able to call this advisor all day and night every day. No, like obviously that's not a thing, right? But they should be helping you with all of the different things that are gonna help your player get to that next level. More like mentorship, you know, and that would be really helpful. I just have a problem with these guys who take a bunch of money, make a call, get your kid a tryout somewhere, and that's what they call advising. That is not advising. That's taking people's money. Actually provide a service that benefits the family and the player. Hockey, you, your own business advising and the player, everybody is better off for that type of thing. This is bull corn, doing nothing, taking money, backdoor deals with your buddy who's a junior coach or a midget coach to get a kid, a tryout. Like that is a joke. You are scum enough of that stuff. Let's actually help players get better. Yeah, and I think it's important to say, first of all, like I've had advisors like reach out to do this stuff too. Like Chad McDonald, who's based out of Michigan, he had me do like a five session thing with his kids on my five hour presentation. And you know, it's cool to hear him like talk to his guys and he's like shooting him straight. Like, hey, this is like, this is what it is. It's, you know, and it was awesome. It was awesome to hear that. And so like as you're going through the process and stuff like that, like really, again, I really liked what you said there. Like make sure you're getting something for it outside of, you know, I'm going to get you a tryout. Like there's got to be some kind of player development because getting you a tryout doesn't get you on a team. I'll tell you that. - Your coach, your coach should be helping you with that stuff, calling you. Especially if you're a midget, and we're talking about juniors, which is usually where this type of thing enters into play age wise. Like your coach should be calling teams too. Like your strength coach, like I'll call any team for any of my guys that have earned the right for me to call that I've seen them work. I've seen their character. I've seen all that stuff. I will call all the time. I will take no money, right? So if you get an advisor, make sure he's doing something that you can't be getting done for free by a coach, by your own email, you know, by whoever, somebody who knows where you're doing. Like advisors could be good and they could do so much good. We just need to make sure that we root out all these dummies and only keep the good ones in the game. (laughs) - All these dummies. All right, we went over again. We're over two this week, but that's okay. We should do another one on this. This is not a 10 minute one. This is probably like a full episode one. But honestly, like I think too, like if you're getting reached out to by people, like Vex and I know a lot of people in the business. And that one that you tweeted about, you texted me right away. And I was like, yep. - No. (laughs) - You know, and like, so, like if this is, and I have, that's one of probably the most, like consistent calls that I get is like, hey, an advisor reached out to me. Do you know them or do you have, do you have any recommendations? And I typically don't, like I actually, I've started to a little bit more. Typically, I like to stay away from that where I'm like, hey, I want you to do your own research. Like I don't, because I don't, but I have started like telling people of some people that I know that I know do a good job. And so. - And it's not hard to like differentiate yourself in that space. If you're an advisor listening to this, add more services, provide a better service and your business will take off if you actually help players with nutrition, with mindset, with books to read, with video. Like it doesn't have to be crazy, like, but just like help them, advise them, whatever to set the breakdown in Latin, breaks down to advice, or whatever, E. Puller, Biz Unum, he's talking about from Cornell. (laughs) You know, like the breakdown Latin words, you know, like it came from this and the, anyways, now I'm there, I'm gonna do that at Western. Time's up, share the show. - Share the show. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) You
On today’s SHORT SHIFTS episode, Vechs is bringing his Twitter/X rant to the podcast with some opinions about advisors who don’t actually ADVISE.
TEN MINUTES ON THE CLOCK STARTING NOW!
We appreciate every listen, download, comment, rating and share on your social sites!
