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There are some golf instructors out there who believe that the best way to put themselves out of business is to be too good at what they do. They believe that an improved student won't need them anymore.

This philosophy won't get them very far. It may be the case with some students, but it's not a long-term plan for success in golf instruction. Do you think Butch Harmon, David Leadbetter, etc. have gotten where they are today because they intentionally kept their students frustrated and looking for more help?

The reality is that most students who get frustrated with their games and don't see improvement after seeing an instructor will simply find another instructor or give up the game entirely. Conversely, if a student sees marked improvement in his/her game after seeing an instructor, they will only want to get even better. Golf is very addictive, and it's also impossible to master. This means that as long as people are improving, most will only want to keep working on it and getting better….practically forever. That's the kind of student every instructor wants.

So, besides just getting better, what is it that students really want? What is it that you can do as an instructor that will result in satisfied students that want to keep coming back to you for more lessons? Here are some rather obvious, but strangely often overlooked tips. These tips come straight from members of the AspiringGolfer.com community, a group of highly motivated, dedicated golfers who have taken plenty of lessons from golf instructors. They are the kind of students every golf instructor would like to have. Are you the kind of instructor they would like to have?

1. Help them improve

As mentioned before, every student wants to improve. They come to instructors because they realize they can't get where they want to be on their own. They are looking for solid improvement and you can bet they won't be returning if they don't feel like you're providing that. So, give it everything you have. Don't hold back fearing you'll put yourself out of business.

2. Build a personal relationship

Besides not helping a student to improve, the second fastest way to lose a student is to fail to make a personal connection with them. If a student doesn't like you, he/she will find it much easier to walk away and simply find another instructor. Also, because of the nature of golf and the varying ability of students, you will struggle to help some golfers improve. If a student really likes you, he/she is much more likely to stick with you when their improvement isn't so great. You can do this first of all by being friendly and open during your lessons. You can also do this by getting to know more about your students than just their golf games. Find out what they do for a living, what their interests are, what big events might be occurring in their lives. Keep notes on your students and find ways to "remind' them of the things they've told you that might show you were listening and you care. Find out their wife's name, their birthday, their kids' names, etc. Send them a card, ask about their wife's big project at work, etc. A new system by AspiringGolfer.com will help you with this by allowing you to create personalized accounts for each of your students.

3. Communicate well and often

Students need to feel like you really do care about their improvement. They don't want to feel like you're just part of another day on the job. They want to believe that you teach golf because you love to teach golf and because you genuinely want to help people. Show them you really do care by asking them about their games and about their lives. Send them emails between lessons letting them know you're still there. Send them swing tips periodically, remind them of their next lesson, inquire about a tournament they said they were going to play, coordinate a tournament and invite all your students, etc. The aspiringgolfer.com my instruction system will help you do this by providing a simple web-based means of posting general messages for all of your students or private messages to a specific student.

4. Provide them excellent lesson notes

It's not enough to simply give a student good advice during a lesson. As tough as the game of golf is, students want and need to practice the things you teach them between lessons. They also need to be able to look back at the lessons you've given them in the past. Rarely can a student master a technique, drill, swing movement, etc. and never have to think about it again. Even if a student works very hard on particular aspects of his or her game, it is almost certain they will slip back into old habits at some point in the future. They'll move on to new swing changes and eventually their bodies/minds will experience sensory overload. That's when the changes made six months ago get lost and related swing flaws return.

Providing students with videos of their lessons or digital images of their swings is a great way to allow students to continually review their previous lessons. However, it's not the only way, nor is it sometimes the most convenient for the student. If a student has hours to spend watching video tape after video tape to find what they are looking for, it is a great tool. Usually however, a student has something in particular they want to find, and they want to find it quickly. The aspiringgolfer.com my instruction system will help you provide your students with this by allowing you to put all of your lesson notes online for them to review from their own private account. Adding lessons notes is quick and easy because you set up your own electronic instruction book from which you can easily add tips, drills, and references to student lesson notes without having to retype them for each lesson note or student. Students can then quickly search through prior lessons by date, keyword, or areas worked on.

And, once you create your personalized account for a student, that student will not want to lose that convenient lesson history information and consequently will be less inclined to leave you for another instructor.

5. Ask the student for feedback

It's a very tough thing to do to intentionally ask for criticism. Most golf instructors are very proud people who are passionate about what they do and how they do it. They don't want to know that people may not like them or the way they teach. However, difficult as it may be, your students' opinions of you really can be a positive thing for you regardless of the feedback. Good feedback can bolster your confidence reinforce your teaching style, while bad feedback can give you ways to improve. As an instructor, your objective should be to make every student a happy one. Without asking every student for an honest opinion of you and your instruction, how are you going to know whether or not they are as happy as they can be? Often, a slightly dissatisfied student will return to you if you've at least made the effort to find out what they were dissatisfied about, whereas they will simply never return if you do not make that effort. The aspiringgolfer.com my instruction system will allow your students to complete instructor evaluations on you from their own private account.

These are just some of the things that you, as an instructor, should be looking to do in order to help create satisfied students who return to you for their next lesson instead of going elsewhere or quitting the game for good. They are relatively simple tips that many instructors take for granted. Don't be one of them. Take the time to look at yourself and how you teach. Do you incorporate these tips? Do you incorporate them as well as you could? If not, you might consider the aspiringgolfer.com my instruction system to help you out. Even if you do incorporate these tips, you may find that using a new web-based system will be easier for your students and make your life much easier.