The between-lesson period is valuable to instructors and tends to be under-utilized, even wasted. Here’s how to make it a business asset.
For coaches who are back-to-back with lessons all day, deploying between-lesson time effectively isn’t an issue. But most teachers have a fair amount of down time. This time should be managed wisely, if you wish to become as effective and financially successful as possible. Poor use of in-between time tends to be particularly common with instructors who are building a book of business and starting to become quite busy.
As for those full-book coaches mentioned above, they actually need to create schedule breaks. Blocking a half hour of time on your schedule in the morning and a half hour during the afternoon (as well as a lunch break) allows you to recharge. Even coaches who appear to have endless energy run into challenges if they try and grind through the day without breaks.
If nothing else, they’ll tend to fall into a pattern of always running late—a prime source of customer complaints. And while they seem to have unlimited energy it’s an open question whether the last student of the day got their best effort. Making time in your book to regroup leads to consistent performance. Your customers will appreciate it.
Extra time has to be used effectively. It’s the key to being able to finish the day and truly leave things at work—instead of going home to a pile of business-maintenance chores. Vow to yourself that you’ll accomplish as many business tasks as possible during scheduled breaks. In-between time should first be used for outbound calls and emails to students who currently aren’t scheduled. Call them and see how things are going, with your goal being to book their next session. Using this valuable time to call people who have left you a message to book another lesson is a misuse of time. Nothing addresses this issue like a good online booking service—set one up, if you haven’t already.
Again, some of it is recharge time. After you’ve reviewed key takeaways with your students, delivered their homework and booked their next lessons, you need to get away by finding a quiet place on property where you won’t get sucked into conversations that aren’t productive.
Also, don’t waste your unbooked time by simply going long in your lessons and eating up your break time. The longer lessons go, the more likely teachers are to give students too much information. And a confused student does not make for a successful student. Don’t try to wrap up your lessons by “ending on a good one,” as you may be there all day. Yes, there are times when you need to give someone an extra few minutes, it just can’t be standard procedure. Students appreciate starting on time and ending on time. A coach who is constantly behind schedule creates frustrated students.
So, study your habits. Seek the opportunities for productivity and organization that you may have been missing. Do this well enough and you may find time to actually practice your game a bit between lessons! Want to learn more tips of the trade? Check out more instructor articles on our knowledge base