Instruction

9 steps to market and grow your golf instruction business

Published

9 years ago

Jun 30, 2015

I’m often asked by up-and-coming golf teachers for advice on how to set up their instructional programs to create more demand and increase revenue. My answer? Look at the market you’re in.

If you pay attention to the market and add in some critical thinking, it will give you all the answers you need. You’ll learn to make the proper adjustments to your program to reach the next level in golf, or any area of business you choose.

Here are my nine steps to set yourself up for success:

Understand the market.
Focus on filling the demands of your market based on your current skill set.
Set your program apart from the masses.
Create programming using your technology/training to better fill the demands of your current market.
Develop programs with a proper price point.
Use social media to your advantage.
Chart and analyze your revenues by month, time and hour.
Use a spreadsheet to adjust your programming or price points.
At the end of each peak season, go back to Step 1 and start the process all over again.

As you can see, there are many steps to become a top teacher within your market, but I promise if you follow these nine keys you will make better business decisions and your bottom line will improve.

So let’s take a few seconds to analyze each of these in more detail.

No. 1: Understand the market

Have you ever stopped and really looked at where you live, the demographics and economics of the people within your area? Have you noticed any geographic or socioeconomic consistencies that are more common than in other places?

Every place is different and every market is unique; demands of the people in Beverly Hills versus people in Memphis are very different. It could be age, weather patterns, course designs, disposable income, etc. Have you taken the time to see what your competitors are doing to combat the above? If you have not done either you are just following the trend. That’s not the way to become successful.

Create your OWN trends by knowing your market.

No. 2: Focus on filling the demands of your market based on your skill set

Now that you understand your market, you must look at the skills you currently possess. Can you fill these demands with your current business? Do you have the skills? The patience? Do you enjoy teaching in this manner?

All these questions form the basis of what you do and where you should go as a teacher. Case in point, I have never been good at teaching younger kids, because their natural lack of attention and focus has always been a sticking point. So if I analyze my market and see that there is a void in junior instruction, it would NOT be in my best interest to try and conquer it because it’s not my professional passion. The best thing I could do in this case is find another focus, or hire the most motivated junior instructor I know.

We ALL have weaknesses as instructors; identify yours and either fix it, or work around it as I explained above.

No. 3: Set your program apart from the masses

So you’ve found your market’s void and you’re set to take the world by storm… but how do you provide a unique service? The answer is simple: offer instructional training and/or technology that others do not.

The world of golf instruction is on fire with new technologies like AimPoint and Trackman. If you believe that putting is your calling, then you need to have the necessary training (since few people do), thus reducing your competition. Investing in yourself and your business is a necessary cog within your instructional wheel.

This is where I see 99 percent of young instructors fail, as they don’t spend the time or money to better themselves on the technology and/or training side. If you won’t do anything different than the masses, why would anyone come to the new guy on the block? Technology and training are always great long-term investments for your business.

No. 4: Create programming using your technology to better fill demands of the market

So you’ve found the void and invested in yourself. Now is the time to arrange programming around your strong points that your competitors do not possess.

When I first started teaching in Memphis back in the early 1990s, there was only one guy who was using video (single-view only) within his lessons. I decided that since I didn’t have his experience, the only way to gain market share was to buy a split-screen video system so the better players could see themselves from both angles. This was revolutionary at the time. Then, I created a swing-view program so that players taught by other teachers could come by and see their swing in my studio. I gave them a print out of their swing from both views as well.

It wasn’t long before they were my students.

I never “sold them” to come over to see me; I just exposed a weakness within my current market and filled it with technology and unique programming that subconsciously sold them on my academy.

No. 5: Develop programs with a proper price point

This is something that teachers at ALL levels fail to understand, costing them money on the backend. Please take this point to heart so you don’t make the same mistake!

Every area has unique trends and shifts within its local economy that can end up costing you in the end if you don’t focus on what your clients really want. For example, if you live in a community with people that are mostly on a fixed income, then you must pay attention to the stock market and the real estate trends, as these investments are the ones that usually govern these types of clients spending habits. When the economy is down, price will become a factor, and if you do not have programs that cover all price points then you will lose a segment of your market for no other reason than you are now too expensive based on their retirement setup.

So make sure you set up programs that focus on the individual and group programs that will help make you money when simple shifts in the economy happen. If you don’t, you will be left with an empty lesson book.

No. 6: Use social media to your advantage

Putting your ideas out there is a scary thing for many golf instructors because it cannot be taken back, but I think writing is a MUST for all young teachers. Why? Because it forces you to make thoughts simple for the layperson to understand, and this will help make your in-lesson delivery more concise. Start with blogs, then move to regional publications and try to work your way up to the national golf magazines. It will increase your credibility as well as your business.

The next area of focus is one that’s new to me as well, but it’s a VITAL area moving forward for the younger teachers. Do you have you own web site, YouTube channel, professional Facebook page and Twitter account? Do you use these tools to interact with people who can help your business? Networking is so important, and if you don’t interact through all possible outlets you’ll lose a piece of the pie you didn’t even know was there.

Social media can open doors to relationships with people from across the world. Think about it: What do you do when you want to find out about anything in your world? You go to the web and run a search. Why should you be any different as a golf instructor?

Use these (almost) free tools to your advantage and you’ll be glad you did.

No. 7: Chart and analyze your revenues by month, time and hour

Do you know which days of the week are your most productive or which hour of the day provides you with the most revenue consistently by month? What is the return rate of your customers and what packages do you sell the most?

These are the questions that most instructors can’t answer with specifics. Do you know any truly successful company in the world that doesn’t have an accounting department? I can’t think of one that doesn’t know what their revenues are or what products sell the best.

Time is your asset and you only have so much of it to sell daily. If you move a program to the wrong hour or book a school during the wrong month you are wasting necessary time and expenses that you could use for yourself and your family. The more you know about your business, the better decisions you can make as to what programs to add, subtract, or move.

Here’s an example of a spreadsheet I’ll use to track daily/monthly revenues:

No. 8: Use the spreadsheet to adjust your programming or price points

Now that you have charted data for a season or two, you’ll have an archive of data available when making decisions. This way you are using facts to base your answers upon, not just guessing!

Having facts gives you the best chance to be instantly successful in adjusting price points or programs that can instantly improve your bottom line. Face it, you will make mistakes with your programming over the course of your career that you’ll have to alter, but use data as a roadmap and don’t make the same mistakes twice. Each down period costs you and your business revenue, not to mention how it affects your own personal bottom line.

No. 9: At the end of each peak season, go back to Step 1 and start the process all over again

I always sit down at the end of two seasons and introspectively reflect on the job I did. Doing this helps me to figure out what parts of my operation need work, which programs worked well, and helps me to determine areas in which I need to improve on personally. It’s these quiet times that really make you get better as an instructor. The only thing I wish I had done years ago is use Survey Monkey to help me to REALLY understand what my clients think of my work and my operation.

Hopefully by now you have a better idea on how to set up your instructional business; if not, please do not hesitate to contact me.

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Instruction

The Wedge Guy: The easiest-to-learn golf basic

Published

3 weeks ago

Mar 29, 2024

Terry Koehler

My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.

As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.

The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.

Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:

Mis-aligned hands

By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.

The position of the grip in the upper/left hand

I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean. Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.

To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.

Too much lower (right) hand on the club

It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.

Gripping too tightly

Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.

So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.

Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!

Published

2 months ago

Mar 4, 2024

Shawn Clement

Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?

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Instruction

How a towel can fix your golf swing

Published

2 months ago

Feb 26, 2024

Todd McGill

This is a classic drill that has been used for decades. However, the world of marketed training aids has grown so much during that time that this simple practice has been virtually forgotten. Because why teach people how to play golf using everyday items when you can create and sell a product that reinforces the same thing? Nevertheless, I am here to give you helpful advice without running to the nearest Edwin Watts or adding something to your Amazon cart.

For the “scoring clubs,” having a solid connection between the arms and body during the swing, especially through impact, is paramount to creating long-lasting consistency. And keeping that connection throughout the swing helps rotate the shoulders more to generate more power to help you hit it farther. So, how does this drill work, and what will your game benefit from it? Well, let’s get into it.

Setup

You can use this for basic chip shots up to complete swings. I use this with every club in my bag, up to a 9 or 8-iron. It’s natural to create incrementally more separation between the arms and body as you progress up the set. So doing this with a high iron or a wood is not recommended.

While you set up to hit a ball, simply tuck the towel underneath both armpits. The length of the towel will determine how tight it will be across your chest but don’t make it so loose that it gets in the way of your vision. After both sides are tucked, make some focused swings, keeping both arms firmly connected to the body during the backswing and follow through. (Note: It’s normal to lose connection on your lead arm during your finishing pose.) When you’re ready, put a ball in the way of those swings and get to work.

Get a Better Shoulder Turn

Many of us struggle to have proper shoulder rotation in our golf swing, especially during long layoffs. Making a swing that is all arms and no shoulders is a surefire way to have less control with wedges and less distance with full swings. Notice how I can get in a similar-looking position in both 60° wedge photos. However, one is weak and uncontrollable, while the other is strong and connected. One allows me to use my larger muscles to create my swing, and one doesn’t. The follow-through is another critical point where having a good connection, as well as solid shoulder rotation, is a must. This drill is great for those who tend to have a “chicken wing” form in their lead arm, which happens when it becomes separated from the body through impact.

In full swings, getting your shoulders to rotate in your golf swing is a great way to reinforce proper weight distribution. If your swing is all arms, it’s much harder to get your weight to naturally shift to the inside part of your trail foot in the backswing. Sure, you could make the mistake of “sliding” to get weight on your back foot, but that doesn’t fix the issue. You must turn into your trial leg to generate power. Additionally, look at the difference in separation between my hands and my head in the 8-iron examples. The green picture has more separation and has my hands lower. This will help me lessen my angle of attack and make it easier to hit the inside part of the golf ball, rather than the over-the-top move that the other picture produces.

Stay Better Connected in the Backswing

When you don’t keep everything in your upper body working as one, getting to a good spot at the top of your swing is very hard to do. It would take impeccable timing along with great hand-eye coordination to hit quality shots with any sort of regularity if the arms are working separately from the body.

Notice in the red pictures of both my 60-degree wedge and 8-iron how high my hands are and the fact you can clearly see my shoulder through the gap in my arms. That has happened because the right arm, just above my elbow, has become totally disconnected from my body. That separation causes me to lift my hands as well as lose some of the extension in my left arm. This has been corrected in the green pictures by using this drill to reinforce that connection. It will also make you focus on keeping the lead arm close to your body as well. Because the moment either one loses that relationship, the towel falls.

Conclusion

I have been diligent this year in finding a few drills that target some of the issues that plague my golf game; either by simply forgetting fundamental things or by coming to terms with the faults that have bitten me my whole career. I have found that having a few drills to fall back on to reinforce certain feelings helps me find my game a little easier, and the “towel drill” is most definitely one of them.

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