We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Hans Gilliam. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Hans below.
Hans, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?
I have always wanted to own my own business but never could figure out what. I completely stumbled into the driving school industry because of a frustration. Then I found a similar frustration with the BMX program. With both the Driving School and the Non-Profit I saw a complete lack of compassion for the students. Starting a business is probably the hardest thing you will ever do or so I thought. Now starting a whole new program in a sport for the local youth is probably harder. This is a path that has never been done before and It’s a lot of work to figure things out. The positive of it is I did have the experience of figuring out how to start and run a business for 7 years prior. I have learned that there is always a way to do something, you just have to figure out how. It all started from an argument with my older son. Before entering high school as a freshman we were discussing what sport he was playing for the high school. His response was “Dad, I race BMX” I responded telling him he had to choose something else because the high school doesn’t have a BMX team. After a long back and forth conversation, I agreed to look into why the high school didn’t have a team. The more I pursued it, the more frustrated I got. I finally realized the I needed to do something about it. After a lot of hard work and obstacles beyond what I realized, we successfully started a team for my son’s high school. This was just the beginning of what I didn’t realize was something bigger than me and my son. It turns out that this is the first time in history that a high school had a BMX team. Then we started having students from other high schools ask for us to help them start a team at their school. Now that a year has passed. we have 7 high schools and 3 more on the way.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I have 2 now. Motor Vehicle Academy, LLC it’s a local driving school. The other is a non-profit Maryland High School BMX (DBA of The Academy Foundation, Limited)
Motor Vehicle Academy, LLC – we are a locally owned and operated driving school that provides classes for students wanting to get their drivers license. We pride ourselves with hands-on interactive learning. We have won the best of Annapolis award for 6 years, since 2017. We treat our students like family and care about our community.
The Academy Foundation, limited – We have grown over the years into a very meaningful nonprofit. We started out as a nonprofit help in smalls ways to address a variety of needs around the local community. We have now started the first ever High School BMX racing program (DBA Maryland High School BMX) to provide opportunities for students to participate in a nontraditional sport. This could also provide potential college scholarship opportunities for some students. We currently include 7 high school and we are in the process of starting several more around the state of Maryland. We hope this will grow to a nationwide initiative. With BMX being an Olympic sport, young athletes can participate in a fun sport with a positive atmosphere with dreams of taking it as far as they want.
How did you build your audience on social media?
All we use is social media. We have tried everything and have paid many companies to market our companies. The one and only marketing tool that worked was free. Social media has been the backbone of our marketing. The most successful way to build our social media was the easiest and turned out to be more rewarding. The obvious tool is to use our students to spread the word. The most successful way is to attend and volunteer at as many community functions as possible and have them help us spread the word about our company. This has turnout to help us in a way that we couldn’t even dream of.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
Our reputation is built off of honesty and trust. Given the nature of the business, this has to be the most important part of how we operate. We are available 24/7 to answer question, provide guidance and help in any way that we can. We even have student come back to us years later just to talk. I consider everyone of the students to be family and we are truly a family business.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://theacademyfoundation.org/maryland-high-school-bmx
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarylandHighSchoolbmx/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarylandHighSchoolBMX/