The economy still stinks. You have let go of many of your key employee’s and the only difference in you and the upscale cattle farm down the street is essentially your club’s pace of play for roughly $25-50 more per round. Tough sell? You bet.
Have you considered going temporarily or permanently semi-private (behind closed doors)? Well, don’t...yet.
Why you ask?
1. It's very tough once you start down that path.
2. You instantly risk running off 25-30% of your members who view the move as desperate.
3. You stop the flow of potential new people from becoming members (now) because they can get access to your course just like if they were members without paying monthly dues.
4. If private clubs are built on a certain image, this move ruin’s it.
5. You aren’t fixing the core problem...your poor value proposition.
“But you don’t understand, this economy has weakened us to our lowest point in fifty years. We were thinking of opening the course up to everyone just for the month of September. We could use the jolt in cash and it would be a great way to show off the club to potential new members”.
I know it sounds good when you put it on a white board, but in practice, it never fixes the main issue which is the value you offer in trade for the dollars you charge.
Unless you are going to start discounting your membership, temporarily allowing the public in will only slow the bleeding. The reality is, most clubs would do very well to pick up less than 2% of the people that come as “guest’s for the month”.
I have heard every excuse in the book for this NOT working:
“Guests give us the wrong contact information...”.
“They act bothered when we try and sign them up after playing...”.
“We don’t have an effective way to track who is playing and who isn’t...”.
I’ll add a few (more) reasons why this won’t work:
1. You have probably fired too many staff members - when traditionally public course players visit a private club, their expectations are high. They expect to be treated differently. They expect a more attentive staff. They imagine a more member-centered and friendly atmosphere. They all have a picture, right or wrong, of what being a member is supposed to look like. When you don’t have the staff to pull it off, you make your club look worse because now their expectations are lowered and people don’t join places they aren’t excited about.
2. Your members haven’t bought into the move - it’s a sad fact that many members want a club where everyone pays, but no one plays (at least when they are there). When suddenly tons of new people show up and ruin their golf utopia, they don’t like it. Worse if these newbies don’t know where they are going, what they are doing, understand proper etiquette, or worst of all, play like turtles.
3. 95% of the people playing aren’t financially a fit - if most of the people playing under the guise of “guest’s for a day” aren’t really qualified financially to be a member (and you know this going in), why not just bring in a few more tournaments spread throughout the year instead?
What should you do?
Put your members in charge of bringing in new people.
“We have done that for years...it doesn’t work”.
You are right, simply announcing a membership drive NEVER works, but I have a feeling this approach might:
Be honest with your membership. If your membership roles are down significantly, insist on having a town hall meeting with EVERYONE at the club, staff and members alike. Tell them where you are and where you need to be, and let them see what life will be like in 6-12 months if things continue as they are today. Nobody wants increased dues, less service, or worse, to close the course. Being real with your members is a good first step to getting buy-in.
Offer reduced fee guest passes to each member. Give each member eight passes (if you are really gutsy, tell the members they have to buy them). Inform them that the goal isn’t cheap golf for their neighbor Larry, but a plan to hopefully grow new members with their help. Tell them specifically that these passes will be tracked. The people they bring in WILL be contacted by someone on the membership staff or committee, and that this is an overt gesture to bring in new members. Period!
Have your staff ready. If there ever was a time to have your staff read, “How to win friends and influence people”, “Hug your customers”, and “Customer satisfaction is worthless, Customer loyalty is priceless”...it is now. Your staff should make your guests and members feel like they are getting the red carpet treatment. Anticipation, execution, and WOW is the goal.
• If members/prospective members have a few minutes to kill before teeing off, offer to change their spikes.
• Do their clubs look dirty? Grab a towel and tell them, “I’ll have these clean before you finish on the practice green”.
• Especially hot? Offer them a little sunblock.
• Do you keep ice at the pro shop? Offer to ice their cooler down before teeing off.
• Tell them about your lunch/dinner/happy hour special after the round and say, “...and I would be glad to polish your shoes while you dine with us”.
• Does your club re-grip clubs? How about offering the customer a 24-hour turn around on new grips purchased from the club?
• Do you have a clinic they might be interested in? Why not ask?
4. Reward, reward, reward. If the reward is valuable enough, current members will work hard to help you sign up new people. Would members be excited to have their cart fee’s waived for a year? How about a lesson per month for a year? How about a set of custom fit irons? Be creative.
The difference in success or failure in many businesses comes down to inches, not feet.
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