Let’s begin this edition with some solid tips on tennis programming by USPTA and USPTR professional Larry Karageanes.
1. First Larry shared the idea to package a ball machine rental with a lesson or to simply encourage students to spend 30 minutes practicing on a machine within 24 hours after taking each lesson. This simple concept can potentially generate thousands of additional dollars in ball machine rental income each year plus will help students improve faster.
2. Then he shared the idea to offer a free service for a particular period of time. For example, how about promoting a free racquet check-up where string tension and racquet weight are checked along with the grip size and condition. You can even add an inexpensive give-away like a shock absorber. What a powerful way to increase business plus deepen customer relationships, often said to be a benchmark for success for the specialty store owner.
3. How about targeting certain groups of clientele during certain times of the day. For example, how about a men’s program on weekend mornings. Try charging only $10 for ninety minutes. For this nominal fee, guarantee the participants a lesson part of the time and a match with players of their own ability, plus a $10 gift certificate in the pro shop. This type of promotion is guaranteed to bring results and, based on the fact that most items in a tennis pro shop are key-stoned anyway, your investment in the gift certificate is really only $5. Generally, they will purchase much more than that anyway.
4. The last tip from Larry for this issue is to carefully computerize your customer list and work it properly. An example is to know the ages of the children of your customers. Perhaps there are 30 children who are in the three to four-year-old age bracket. This fact alone is a tip-off that it’s the right time to begin promoting a high-visibility Little Tennis or Munchkin Tennis program.
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For a club or any facility that is looking to purchase a high-quality ball machine and generate on-going income through ball machine rentals, here is a success story from USPTA professional Brent Hardy. He paid about $5,000 for a high-level ball machine and pre-sold lots of time using coupon books for various amounts of use. Optional time blocks can include monthly usage, quarterly usage, six-month usage, or annual usage. He was so successful with this program that he was able to pay for the machine before it was even delivered. He simply posted a picture of the machine and promoted it in his club’s newsletter with an offer to pre-sell blocks of time in advance at a discount.
And as far as using ball machines are concerned, here’s a great ball machine drill from Brent that is guaranteed to create plenty of on-looker interest. Get some multi-colored balls and mixed them into your ball machine hopper with regular yellow balls. Whenever a multi-colored ball comes out of the machine the player has to hit it in a certain direction. When the yellow ball comes out they hit it in a different direction.
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Now let’s share a tip on selling racquets to left-handed players by Tom Parry, known internationally as one of the premiere racquet technicians in the world. Knowing that the grips on all new racquets come pre-wrapped for right-handed players, Tom recommends offering a very sensible but seldom performed personalized service for left-handed customers. Promote the fact that for all left-handed customers purchasing a new racquet, your staff will rewrap the grip specifically for them. What a great service to offer to 17% of new racquet owners who happen to play tennis left-handed. And there’s one more important benefit -- this is one service that none of the large discount operations or superstores would ever think about offering!