We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alando Durrett a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alando, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share a customer success story with us?
A client of mines that i will keep nameless, He was transitioning from soccer to basketball permanently summer before his freshman year of high school. We trained 3 days a week in a roll for the summer, So July & august. Going into his first basketball Season ever, his first game he scored 26 points. He actually had a few 24/26 point games his first season In high school and he averaged About 18 points a game as a Freshman. We continued to train twice a week throughout the school year and the next following summer he played travel ball and had a 46 point game and won the championship with his team and he was named mvp of the tournament. When you dedicate the time, effort and really put in the work You can achieve almost anything.
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’m Alando Durrett founder of Gifted Handles basketball training & apparel Company out of Los Angeles,CA And i got into my industry by interning For my coach/trainer Tom Newell while being an active player at the time. He always told me to be a model to follow and so i did with starting my own basketball company. Gifted Handles provides Elite basketball skill development, life development, mentorship to young and older clients. We have an apparel Store as well so you can look good on and off the court. We believe when you look good you play good. We also provide services for tv shows/movies and social media content.
One of the things that’s sets us apart from other brands/companies we really care about the athlete and their development, at Gifted Handles we are a family. We go show support at games, Different school activities, even family functions etc. We believe our athletes/clients should be a student first and athlete second when it comes to school, so We even help with homework or making Sure school work is done first.
I’m most proud of seeing my clients/Athletes succeeding on and off the court and being a great person in life. That lets me know I’m doing my part. I want potential clients to know that Gifted Handles really cares and we win when you win, so we win together. Rather if that win is in the classroom on the court or in everyday life.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
I first built my audience on social media by posting basketball content of my own self from dribbling videos, to me playing basketball against others and doing tricks with the ball. You have to pull your audience in on with you are doing. You have to be consistent especially just starting off, your content will get pushed through the algorithm getting more eyes on what it is that you do and who are. One thing That set me over the top was when i trained the rapper The Game son’s and nephew. Game would post me on his story and call me the super trainer which Put a lot of eyes on me and that helped with building my social media following even more. I think i got an extra 20k followers from him doing that shoutout Years back. Big ups to Chuck aka The Game. Now thats not going to happen for every person. But definitely try to put yourself in position to get in position.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
One lesson I had to learn, you have to stay on your path and build and master Your brand/company before you can shift gears and start working on other things. The back story on my lesson, i got off track from building Gifted Handles and started focusing more on other industries/things that were really big distraction. It was my wife Herlinda Durrett that had to sit me down and get on me about refocusing back on Gifted Handles and rebranding. I got a new logo and ever since then Gifted Handles has been flourishing. Moral of the story is stay focused and continue to build and build multiple streams of income within that business just like Apple, Microsoft and Tesla. What i mean by that is apple has iPhone,AirPods,computers etc they don’t just have one thing. Tesla- cars, solar roof, charging stations etc.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://giftedhandles.com/
- Instagram: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi0m6HZ0eSAAxWnJUQIHfWVC0cQFnoECA8QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fa3presidential%2F%3Fhl%3Den&usg=AOvVaw07ap212yhExhqPFKvknYWm&opi=89978449
- Youtube: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjQkPD10eSAAxXlPUQIHe_3B1wQFnoECBAQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fchannel%2FUCdO2ag83VEE5ZmgYIq9kh3A&usg=AOvVaw3TtuVEzgoEbz2ho7atzWkV&opi=89978449
- Other: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiDrKGp0-SAAxVtIEQIHbeKDukQFnoECA8QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fgiftedhandles%2F%3Fhl%3Den&usg=AOvVaw1_SLFyrP4mHBegRW3R5oej&opi=89978449
Image Credits
Alona for team photos