Kim Kleinle, a PGA Certified Professional in instruction, is a PGA golf instructor at Great Bear Golf Club in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.

Kim Kleinle on the importance of offering value to spur clinic participation:
When I offered my free quick-start clinics to begin the season while I was working at Pinecrest Lake Golf Club in Pocono Pines, Pennsylvania, a small, price-conscious private club, I typically received good participation. It was a great way to get the membership excited about the season, and as the participation was almost exclusively female, I looked at it as a way to kick off my women’s clinics, too. Inevitably, after the free clinics were over, the women would ask, “When’s the next clinic?” The “next clinic” was the start of my women’s clinics for the season, which meant a charge of $20 per person. That’s when participation would drop off to almost nothing. The women were willing to learn, but not everyone included lesson fees in their family budget. I had to find a way to make my weekly clinics a better value. For the first week, I offered a coupon for $20 off any regularly priced apparel in the golf shop; that’s like getting the clinic for free. When I mentioned the value, women started to sign up. Each week, I offered a different type of special for clinic participants. For example, 40 percent off a particular brand of women’s shirts or 15 percent off hard goods. The coupon was only good on the day of the clinic, so that was an incentive to get them shopping and move some merchandise.

Kim Kleinle on the business impact of offering value to spur clinic participation:
I had just two women signed up for my first clinic of the 2013 season until I added the $20 off coupon. Participation jumped to 12 sign-ups when they realized that with the coupon, they would get the clinic for “free.” After the clinic, the women enjoyed shopping, which became kind of a social activity for them. They helped each other pick out items. None of the merchandise sold below cost, and some women added items to their shopping spree. That was a bonus I hadn’t anticipated. My goal was to increase clinic participation, but the result was increased shop sales, by as much as 50 percent on any given clinic day, in addition to better participation and lesson income from the clinics.

If you would like to email the author of this Best Practice directly, please email kkleinle@gmail.com