Thursday, April 7, 2011

The Guest List (a step by step guide to converting guests to members).


It’s the first of the month and time for your (monthly) board meeting.  What should be, without fail, the top three topics you need to discuss every time you convene? 

1. How do we get new members?
2. How do we keep our current members really happy?
3. How do we keep the bottom 10% spenders from leaving?

Today, we will address the first action item, getting new members.  

Usually this falls on the lap of (if you are a larger club) your Membership Director.  If you don’t have a Membership Director, than your Pro or Gm may handle these duties...or worse, your former Assistant Pro turned Head Pro/Gm/Restaurant Manager/Membership Director.  Whatever the situation, you still need to review new membership acquisition with someone.

Here is what they should be able to tell you:

1. Who visited the club as a guest in the last thirty days?
2. Did a representative of the club eat lunch or play a round of golf with them?
3. Who else on the management team or board did they meet on their visit?
4. When you called them the next day after their visit, what were their impressions of the club?
5. Are they married? Have kids?
6. Does their spouse play golf?  How about their kids?
7. Where do they generally play?
8. How often?
9. Out of all of the golf courses in town, why do they consistently choose answer #7(convenience, cost, conditioning, where their friends play, etc.)?
10. When you showed them your monthly event calendar, did they act disappointed or excited?
11. What marketing material are you going to send them in the next thirty days?
12. When are you scheduling another invite for them to the club?
13. Does anyone know the guest personally that may be able to give them a personal testimonial about the club?
14. Who else is in the pipeline for the next thirty days?
15. Who signed up as a new member in the last thirty days?
16. Which members did you set them up to play with for their first few rounds?
17. When you asked for a referral, how many names did they give you?
18. Did they feel pressured when you gave them guest passes or were they excited?
19. How many web hits came through on the home page?
20. Did we capture any new email addresses/names when they looked at the course layout page?
21. How many new people signed up on the club’s Facebook page?
22. How many potential members did we contact from the outside outing(s) we hosted?
23. Are they (the person responsible for gaining new members) getting enough resources from the club to properly mine for new members? 

Guess how many clubs out of fifty are this thorough each month?  0.00%.  

Guess how many should be doing this each month?  Only the one’s that need new members.

Are they too busy deciding whether to add the blackened option to the Sea Bass dinner?  Who knows?

One thing is for sure, if you aren’t at least following a few of the steps listed above, your potential for new members is very high...and in the words of Carl Spackler, "you've got that going for ya'".


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