Congratulations! You’re on Facebook now...?

So it’s 2011...and after seeing over 550 million people join and/or start Facebook pages, you have (finally) created a page for your course! 

Now what?

If you’re like most courses I see you’ll:

        1.  Announce your presence on Facebook in your monthly newsletter, but (for some reason) won’t put a link on your website.

2.  Commit to doing a weather report for a few days but then lose motivation because you haven’t gotten any responses thinking no one reads the feeds you post.

3.  Announce a sale of some sorts with no call to action or specific’s.

4.  Post less than 10 pictures of your club/course thinking just having a page on Facebook is plenty.

5.  Post a joke from 96’ (because it's a classic!).

Can I offer some unpaid consulting? 

You need to decide (today) if you are going to embrace this powerful medium or not.  Trying to "sort of" do it could actually make your business look worse.

What should you be doing with your Facebook page?  Building excitement and traffic! It is the most powerful, and to boot...free marketing available today.  Use it!

To create demand, imagine what pertinent information your customers/members might want.  

Here are a few recommendations to start:

·  Do a brief weather report EVERY DAY.  Yes, I know the weather channel can provide this information, but you want people to check your page, not them.

·  Post your anticipated or actual play load for the day.  Include any tournaments you may have or maintenance issues you may be working on.

·  Do you have a daily lunch special?  If not, create one and post it EVERY DAY.  I don’t care if you are only discounting the offer .50, post it!

·  Did you just get a shipment of new shirts?  Post it!  Bonus points if you post pictures of the various selections.  Triple bonus points if you have a member or customer pictured wearing one of the new items!

·  Did a member get a hole in one or shoot a record low?  Announce it to all of his/her friends.  Bonus points if you post his/her picture. 

·  Got a new member or a customer that plays often?  Post their picture here and tell your customers/members a little about them.

·  Does your Pro write a swing tip article for the local paper (if not, why?) post it on your Facebook page.

·  Do you have some professionally shot pictures of your course?  Post them!

·  Did a famous person review your course?  Post it on your page!

Get the idea? 

“Should I really do this every day?”

Yes!  Let me reiterate, 1) it is FREE.  2) Many, many people read it every day and it is 3) now the first place many people look in lieu of your companies website. 4) Your marketing stinks any way.

“Will that many people really see my companies Facebook page?”

Yes!  If they ‘like’ your Facebook page, they will automatically get daily feeds of the information you post.  Think of it as a free daily commercial. 

Still not convinced Facebook is for you? 

Pretend it’s 2006, Facebook doesn’t exist and someone told you that in 2008 someone will create a website that is free, connects millions of users, and people WILLINGLY read it every day on their phones, ipads, or laptops.  What would you say?

Does your club need an Ambassador?

When would you say a customer is most excited after a purchase:  The day of or a month later?

If your answered, the day of, you are correct!

If new members are most excited the first few days after joining a golf club, why don’t more clubs capitalize on this brief, yet fertile opportunity?

What formalized program does your organization follow for integrating new people into your club?

Do you even have one?  And if not, why?

“Well yes, our Pro/GM usually blows the dust off our new member welcome packet when they join, isn’t that enough”?

Sure…it is plenty if it’s 1955 and your club is still the only place to get a drink or decent steak.  Sadly though, it’s 2011.

Have you ever considered starting a formalized Ambassador program at your club?

Here’s how one could work:

1. Find ten to twenty very active club members that live and breathe your club and ask them if they would like to be Ambassadors for the club (most would love to do this).  An Ambassadors job is to integrate new people into the club, make them feel welcome, give them a positive (members) perspective, and to expose them to all facets of your club.  They are the name and face for your club and more often then not, they are better than ten email blasts you probably don’t send anyway.  Why not utilize them?

2. When a new members joins, the GM/Pro/Membership directors mission is to make the new person feel at home.  He/she will accomplish this by arranging lunch and a round of golf with the new member within the first 72 hours of joining.  Based off of this meeting, the new member will be introduced to the various programs (you do have something besides a weekly dog fight, right?) you offer, possible new members to play with, and the expectations of the club (yes, I said expectations) with regard to their conduct.  Hand-written thank you notes should also be a sent by at least two members of the staff during this time.

“Why 72 hours”?

Why not?  The first few days are the most excited your new member will probably be so take advantage of it!

“Well our GM/Pro/Membership director is very busy and we don’t want them thinking their job is to play golf all of the time.  We would rather see him/her inspecting the number of ounces of ketchup we burn through in a month.  Trimming the budget is key in our operation….”.

If your club is still surviving by having your GM/Pro/Membership director wait in the office on the off-chance someone walks in, then by all means, the Ambassador program is probably not for you.

3. Have one of your ambassadors (based on ‘fit’ from your initial meeting) call the new member to set up a round with his/her normal group within the first two weeks.  This will let the new member quickly feel like a part of the club and will stoke his/her excitement.  Who knows you might even get a referral by doing this?

4. On the thirtieth day, have your club’s President and/or GM meet with the new member over lunch (see the theme?) again.  In this meeting, you will want to ask the new member what they like and dislike so far about the club?  How you could improve?  And if they know anyone else that would like to join, etc.

“These ideas seem a little, um, aggressive.  We want to project the image of prestige and grandeur.  We want members to feel lucky we took them instead of the other way around”.

Again, in 1955 this model probably worked great but if you haven’t noticed there are countless restaurants, bars, and new golf courses that didn’t exist back then.  Things change.

5. Follow up immediately on any new potential members your brand member suggests by adapting some of suggestions in steps 2-4.  Get your new member involved and I bet your closing ratio will double with potential members and retention will go through the roof.

Sales and Marketing is EVERY staff members job.  It is a fact, the clubs most resistant to out-of-the-box thinking are often the ones with the least referrals and most attrition.

It’s the economy...and your lack of service

“It’s the economy, nobody can keep members right now...”

“I heard XYZ club dropped their initiation fee altogether and are now offering a $500 credit in the pro shop for any new member they bring...”

“I guess we are just going to have to weather the storm...”

Nobody will deny the last few years have been pretty tough on the golf industry, worse though is when a private or public course runs the customer off for non-economic reasons. 

Howard Feiertag outlined in his book, “Lessons from the Field” the real reasons why people stop doing business with you.  The results could be eye-opening:

1% - Death.  Members and customers pass away, but only 1%?  Hmmm?

3% - Move.  People take different jobs from time to time.  Others may move to a larger home after having a few children or to a smaller home after the kids have left the nest.  

4% - Buy from a friend.  It’s always good to have a friend in the business and sometimes that is all it takes to steal a good customer away.

9% - Decide to buy from the competition.  Has your competition dropped the bottom out of their rates?  Have they offered buy one, get one on certain days?  Have their e-offers finally enticed your customer?  Has the elimination of initiation fee’s finally swayed the person sitting on the fence?

14% - Product dissatisfaction.  Are your bunkers hard as bricks or hardly ever raked?  Do the tee boxes look more like your rough?  Are your bent grass greens really poa annua?  Surprisingly, only 14% will leave because your “product” has deteriorated beyond an acceptable level.

68% - The attitude of one or more employee’s.  Ouch!  You can’t prevent death, a person moving, or a friend getting your customer/member a deal.  And let’s face it, there will always be a low-ball competitor, but chances are they will violate the “product satisfaction” item and will only get the cheapskate’s.  It is almost unfathomable that people will leave for such a (seemingly) innocuous reason, but 2/3 of your customers will dump you because of an employee’s poor attitude!  That should be a wake up call...or is it really par for the course when you consider most employee’s get less than a days training on what the expectations are with regard to how they are to treat the member or guest?  

What can your team do to prevent this?

1. Handle things promptly - When your customer or member has a issue, speed matters.  Handling something competently and quickly extinguishes what could be a big fire down the road.

2. Dump your under-performing and poor-attitude employee’s - I have never understood why businesses feel the need to keep people that really don’t do much more than fill space but it happens every day?  Why?  The old adage certainly applies here:  “It’s the people you don’t fire that end up costing you more than the people you do”.

3. Interview your best clients - We have already talked about this one, but it stands to be repeated.  Your best customers or members are a wealth of information...that almost no one uses or misses...until they are gone.  Don’t make that mistake.

4. Hire the best you can afford.  If it took 5-10% more money to get the very best person for the job, would you spend it?  Of course!  Then why don’t you?  Your team is often only as good as your worst employee.  Somebody has to be on the bottom, just make sure your bottom would be among the best if they worked for your competition. 

Free Appetizer anyone?

I turned thirty-nine today and my wife asked, “if you could do anything you wanted today, what would it be”?  I said (of course), “probably play golf”.  

Before I left out, I checked my phone which was going crazy with emails from friends wishing me a great day...and even more surprising was the number of emails I received from businesses offering me “Free dessert for your special day” or “Free Appetizer in the next week as a thank you for my loyalty as customer”.  

What neat offer did I receive from the area golf courses I play?  Nada.

Did I expect something from them?  No, not really but I find it strange that restaurants I barely spend $300 a year with or less send me offers, but none of the area golf courses do, and I’ll assure you, I spend quite a bit more playing golf.

“Our customers don’t like giving out their personal information...”

“We don’t have a very good way to track birthdays in our system...”

Then how do other businesses do it?

My course of choice could have been an easy win for some proactive owner or GM if they would have sent any of the following:

“Bring three of your friends and your round/cart is on us!  Happy Birthday”!

“Complimentary greens fee on your Birthday!  Thanks for being a loyal customer”!

“Come into XYZ golf club and receive a free sleeve of Pro V’s for your Special Day”!

Guess how many people I would have told had I received an offer like any of the above?  

It makes you wonder...when margins are tight and the number of rounds played is down, some things never change.

What is your Identity?

In a down economy, being all things to all people is usually a fiscal loser.  It is impossible to please everyone, but many businesses in a good economy can get away with it solely because of the economy.  Specialization, unless you are selling commodities (think Wal-mart), is the trend today especially with businesses that rely heavily on service as their calling card.  

When I say “Starbucks”, what comes to mind?  

When I say “Donald Ross course”, what does that name conjure?

When someone mentions your golf course or club, what do your customers think?  And more importantly, is that the message you were hoping to convey?  

Your message or identity has nothing to do with the feel-good mission statements of the 90’s that no one read but President’s of many top companies spent days crafting (and framing), today, it has to do with your viability.

What should your Private club or course do in the next thirty days?

1. Identify your identity.  What is the one thing you are know for?  How can you make it your northstar?

2. Live your identity.  If you are a Golf club, make the Golf course the star.  If you are a country club, make the events and family atmosphere your focus.  If you are known as the beginner’s course in town, find a way to make it more novice friendly.

3. If you can’t raise your price, raise your value proposition.  If you are a Private club trying to grow Golf members, why does the Tennis pro always have more events than your Golf pro? How many email blasts a year do you send to your customers offering them tips on the golf swing?  


4. Change your marketing!  Most Private and public course websites are lacking.  If you haven’t changed the look of your site in 2-3 years, a fresh coat of paint may be in order:

• Are your pictures up to date or do you still have those embarrassing ones of your ‘gym’ circa 1987? 
• Were your website pictures professionally shot or do they look like someone took them on an old iPhone?
• Is your site easy to navigate? 
• Why are you hiding your club’s monthly newsletter?  
• Golf is subsidizing your food and beverage business, why does your food/beverage business appear to be the focus?
• Does your website build enough interest that people will come back again and again
• What compelling reason would a person have to visit your club or course after viewing your website?

5. Survey your best clients (do you know who they are individually?).  Find out why they come back consistently.  Find out their likes and dislikes.  Ask them for suggestions...and then listen closely, don’t justify anything, just listen.  Whatever they say will probably be the thing you need to keep doing or implement going forward.

“I doubt any of my customers would fill out comment cards, we have tried that”.  

I didn’t say, “fill out a comment card”?  Meet with them.  Buy them lunch.  I guarantee, it will be the best $7-10 you ever spent.