7 Keys for Growing the Game.
7 Keys for Growing the Game.
Hi, I’m Mel Sole, Director of Instruction at the Mel Sole Golf School, headquartered at Pawleys Plantation Golf and Country Club in Pawleys Island, SC. We conduct 1, 2, and 3-day golf schools, hourly golf lessons, and senior golf schools—any golf instruction program your heart desires. Give us a call at 800-624-4653 or 843-237-4993. We will be happy to book a commuter school or a package that contains accommodations, golf, and golf school.
Golf Blog by the Mel Sole Golf School.
Andrew Wood of Legendary Marketing is no stranger to controversy, and he recently stated that the Golf Course Owners Association should hire him as their CEO. Don't hold your breath, Andrew!
But Andrew has some valid points in growing the game, and I think further discussion and immediate action on the follow-up is warranted.
Here are Andrew Woods's 7 Keys for Growing the Game in America!
1. Focus 80% of the industry education efforts on sales and marketing.
Cut out the hundreds of wasted education hours on diversity training, leadership, customer service and motivation. Radical, I know but when a patient is sick, sometimes radical lifestyle changes are what’s needed. Not that I don’t think these are worthy topics just not nearly as worthy as sales and marketing. If you are one of the hundreds of people in the golf business who right now don’t think a business can survive with a great marketing program backed by poor leadership and lousy customer service a just think of Bank of America, Santander or the last time you tried to get a real person on the phone at Facebook, Sprint or Paypal. That ought to change your mind!
Unfortunately sales and marketing, not service, drives the vast majority of successful businesses!
I can provide members with hundreds of hours of FREE audio and video instruction on Sales and Marketing for immediate use!
2. Focus 80% of the game imitative on reactivating the 10 million white, middle-aged males who already have clubs and shoes in their garage.
Thus saving the costly process of equipping for the game! Yes, we still want juniors, women and minorities but we cannot afford for them to be the main focus when we have 10 million lapsed players who just need a nudge!
3. Immediately take an aggressive stance against third-party tee vendors.
This is the elephant in the room and the NGCOA can’t seem to get out of its own way! This despite having studied the problem for nearly a year with no report in sight. So here is the issue resolved in 5 seconds.
Third party tee time vendors are BAD for golf course owners!
Now that wasn’t so hard was it?
Because all third party vendors care about is selling their trade tee times at whatever price they can get destroying the value of a round and breeding a market of Pavlovian discount hounds. Beyond that maybe you get some additional revenue but at what price?
The message should be loud and clear, build your own database because that is the main power these tee time vendors have. But I will go a step further…
4. Build, partner with, or buy a tee sheet and create a website portal for NGCOA members.
No trade, no barter, no rounds below an agreed upon percentage of rack rate!
Use this portal to build the world’s largest database of golfers for the explicit benefit of NGCOA members.
Data is power! Take back that power from third party vendors by building a bigger database and communicating with it in an engaging, educating and entraining way that enhances their golf lifestyle. Not just bombarding them with mindless discount offers!
5. Sell the world on the amazing benefits of golf.
I will immediately provide multiple articles on why golf is such a great game for distribution by every club in the NGCOA. If every club used the media they have at their disposal in the form of their website, blog, email list and Facebook our collective message would dwarf that Golf Digest, Golf Magazine and the Golf Channel combined!
6. Start an Ambassador Corps.
There are hundreds of thousands perhaps even millions of senior golfers with plenty of time on their hands who would like nothing more than to spread the joy of the game to younger people and beginners. Let’s tap into that market by creating a structured Ambassador program and then let’s provide the tools to help them do it. Along with some great prizes and bonuses for those who bring the most people to the game!
Sort of like the peace corps or big brother programs but for golf. There is strength in numbers and 50 seniors at each facility can bring a lot more results than saddling the poor PGA pro with the task among the 50 others he is supposed to do daily!
7. Use Speed as a strategy.
Really it’s in all the books on winning anything yet the golf industry takes months, nay years to make decisions. I would follow the Churchill doctrine who stamped on each document; ACTION THIS DAY!
It’s not just speed of action in running the NGCOA either. I would immediately distribute my strategies on how to speed up play. This more than anything is dragging the game down and it’s our own fault. My last club, a high-end private one suggested playing the course in 4.15 what a joke! 3.30 in a cart was easy but people play up or in this case down to expectations, Let’s talk 3.30 not 4 hours. If they can do it in Scotland walking, why can’t we do it in carts?
We can but it all starts with expectation!
Source: Andrew Wood, Legendary Marketing Mel Sole Golf School.
Pictures: Peter Mackey
Thank you for reading - 7 Keys for Growing the Game. Do you have any other thoughts that you think might help? Please post them in the comments section below.
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