Let’s begin this issue’s column with a creative idea on ball sponsorship from USPTA Texas Division professional Ken DeKoning. In a recent telephone interview Ken explained that the average tennis program in the United States spends between three and eight thousand dollars on tennis balls each year for clinics, leagues, tournaments, or lessons. For the last several years Ken has successfully worked with a leading ball company to get all of his tennis balls monogrammed with a sponsor’s name on it. It’s been easy for him to get a local sponsor excited about that much guaranteed exposure all year round. One year it was a large chain of pizza restaurants and another year it was another well-known local retailer. If a penny saved is a penny earned, then certainly five thousand dollars saved is just like five thousand dollars earned.
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Next is an idea from USPTA professional Jimmy Livesay who is the tennis director at the Pierremont Oaks Tennis Club in Louisiana. Jimmy designates certain days of the month as racquet demo days and brings racquets out onto the courts for players to test during a popular time when many players are on the courts. He offers this service in addition to making ongoing demonstrator racquets available to members, since this effort has proven to decisively increase the testing of demo racquets and subsequent sales. Once someone starts demoing a racquet you can rest assured that others will want to try out that same racquet as well. Jimmy also recommended educating the players about the various types of racquets and how they fit the different games.
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Now here’s a tip from Mid-Atlantic USPTA professional Anne Cook on using the internet to benefit her students. She has correctly observed that there are many free web sites with high quality instructional tips. These include:
http://www.tennisserver.com
http://www.tennisone.com AND
http://www.tennisw.com
She advocates carrying a folder containing internet articles pertaining to various aspects of tennis. Hand them out at your lessons and clinics according to each student's needs. She has even had success giving a specific hand-out to someone who has never taken lessons before. The player will definitely be impressed that the pro had the interest to notice a specific problem with their game. And, who knows, you might possibly gain a new student.
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Now let’s move to a seminar on programming by Larry Karageanes at a recent USPTA National Convention. He used the analogy of putting wheels underneath a vehicle. The more wheels underneath a vehicle results in a more stable ride. If one tire goes flat, the vehicle with more wheels would be less effected. Whether it’s an individual pursuing a career in tennis or a club manager desiring year-round success, diversity of income sources is a critical issue.
Larry also proposed that members of the audience start thinking in terms of developing what he called "USP" or Unique Selling Points. The first step is to identify a problem or obstacle. An example would be that many working people have schedules too hectic to allow getting exercise, attending drill sessions in which they could improve their games, and just getting out to have fun. Once this problem is isolated the solution is simple: create programs which overcome these obstacles. In this example, how about a working men’s night or working ladies’ night which includes a 30-minute high movement drill session along with a one hour competitive mixer supervised by the professional.
Then Larry proposed that promoting a guarantee for lessons might work wonders for increasing participants. For example, what if a guarantee was offered for a beginning junior program that after six weeks in the program the junior would be guaranteed to be able to sustain a rally with the professional a certain number of hits, would be able to keep score and know the basic rules of tennis, and will have played a set of doubles with his or her peers. The guarantee is that if they didn’t reach these goals they would play in another six-week program free of charge.
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The following promotional tip was shared by USPTA master professional Fernando Velasco, tennis director of the Landings Club in Savannah, Georgia, a facility listed by Tennis Magazine as one of the top twenty in the United States. Although the idea is simple, Fernando says that it has worked wonders for his facility. He conducts a weekly exhibition match with his staff and the strongest players of his region, who he invites in participate. He publicizes it broadly to his members and offers free beverages and light snacks for all who attend. In addition, he advertises that anyone who would like their racquet re-gripped during that evening can have it done free of charge. At a very exclusive club such as the Landings which is typically not that busy, I was amazed to hear that he averages an attendance of 125 people for this weekly event alone.