Yesterday, my new guest writer, Aimee Burke (Sales & Marketing Director at Kemper Sports @ The Ridge Club), began explaining to us the challenges of expanding golf club membership.
Today she will give us three tips on how to improve our sales performance:
How do you capture guest information and provide added value for a follow-up?
A third opportunity for referrals is golf outings. Don’t be too quick to put the transaction into the “golf outing” bucket.
Analyze your current workflow regarding outings. Who is coordinating the exchange of the contract? Food & beverage? The Golf Pro?
Often, our club experts in specific areas have their own agendas (as they should) when executing golf events.
Discussions of golf club membership opportunities or the capturing of participants’ information could be nonexistent.
This, in part, is a training opportunity; however, having a dedicated sales professional in the mix will only help extrapolate the lead opportunities that lie dormant.
Does your current golf outing process provide you a lead funnel?
Here’s how we tackled these 3 challenges at the Ridge Club in 2015:
#1 Be available, be friendly, ask for referrals. OK this should be a no brainer.
I literally set up shop next to the Golf Pro Shop, not because it’s a great view – it’s where the traffic is! You can socialize all you want at the club’s restaurant, but in the Golf Shop, members have golf top of mind. Access to members is critical.
The Ridge Club also implemented a 50% Off Golf Guest rounds ticket that we gave and mailed to every member. Ticket – not a flyer. Tickets still hold their value, like cash. People will hold onto them and pass them along to a friend – especially if there’s a great value (like ½ off a round of golf). And guess who they had to contact to get on the course? Yours truly.
#2 At the Golf Shop, the guest registration process needs to have a guest book at the very least. Offer an incentive for members’ guests to fill out the guest book (like a raffle for a round of golf once a month). You can also provide an online tee time guest registration with a specific hyperlink and a unique form inquiry page that members direct guests to for pre-registering for tee times.
Coach your golf pros to engage in conversations with guests (yes, sales training) and inquire if they’ve ever considered a golf club membership. (It works a lot better when your sales person is in the background waiving to them to send them over).
#3 Golf Outings are the most enormous underutilized opportunity for lead capture. Involving the salesperson during this process ensures that the primary contact will be provided with multiple offers – from special guest rounds and member-for-a-day promotions, to being available to answer questions about golf club membership and the club.
Current golf outing processes have been historically transactional.
When sales, golf, and F&B come together and work with a large charity or organization, it can provide dividends for years to come.
As a strong proponent for B2B relationships, I firmly believe it is imperative to identify the key businesses that your golf club should be aligned with (ex: large hospital).
It will help provide golf club membership leads, golf outing leads, and event leads on a year-over-year basis.
These are just a few short examples of how to capture lead information.
What I want to impress upon you is that there are already many names, phone numbers, and emails walking through your club every day.
If the phone isn’t ringing or the email inquiries are not coming in, check out who’s in your clubhouse. Become a hunter and you’ll reap the rewards.