Filling your first clinic

"Group lesson" fills slowly because nobody reads it and thinks "that is for me." "Beginner intro to pickleball" or "Third shot drop workshop" does the opposite: it tells one specific person exactly what they will walk away with. Put the audience and the outcome in the title, and keep the description to what happens in the hour.

A seat priced at roughly a third to a half of your private rate feels like a deal to the student and still multiplies what the hour pays you. Set capacity at the number you can actually coach well, not the number the court can hold. When the cap fills, signups close and a waitlist opens, so a dropout on Friday night becomes someone else’s seat on Saturday morning without a text from you.

A multi-week program is one clinic with a session each week. One signup and one payment covers the whole run, which builds a committed group and puts the full fee in your account up front. Price it for the program, not per week.

A weekly drop-in series is a set of separate clinics where students pay per date. It lowers the commitment bar and works as a permanent funnel, but nobody is enrolled past the date they picked, so every week needs its own push. If what you want is a cohort that shows up for six weeks, that is a program.

Every clinic gets its own page. Each seat is paid at signup, parents do not need an account, and a waiver set to All offerings goes out on its own after payment. On the day, the roster is on your phone. Add-ons at checkout, such as a jersey, a ball, or a photo package, raise what each registrant spends without touching the seat price.

Your current and past students are the warmest audience you will ever have, so send them the link first. Then post it in the local groups you belong to, following each group’s rules on promotion, and let Promo Studio turn the real offer, photo, and price into a finished graphic for the post.

If seats are still open a week out, run a local ad against the clinic: about fifteen miles around the venue at fifteen dollars a day, paid for one week. Grant’s $180 filled twelve of twelve. For the last two or three seats, a discount code that covers everything works at clinic checkout. Give it a reason and a deadline, then switch it off.

Afterwards, send the students who asked the most questions a booking link for a private lesson. The clinic paid for the hour, and the follow-up is where the season comes from.