Sitting here looking at the yachts in the harbor, each one worth millions more than the next I can’t help wondering how each owner made his money. Having studied the biography’s of hundreds of the world’s most interesting people I suspect that most of these fortunes were fueled by the power of a single great idea!
One of the interesting parts of being a marketing consultant is trying to get people to pay you for great ideas. For while people will gladly pay you for designing stuff, writing stuff or building websites few people truly understand the value of a great idea!
A single great idea can launch any business or turn any business around, but instead of searching for the great idea, most businesses (especially golf clubs) are resigned to looking only at cutting costs and incremental growth at best!
Where are most great ideas found?
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A change in positioning, going up market, down market or better still finding a USP that no one in your market can touch.
With the stroke of a pen, you would instantly have number one positioning, plenty of PR and an excess of potential members.
In a similar move to attract red-blooded males, Battle Lake Golf Club in the heart of the Texas Bible Belt has “Birdie Girls” think Hooters! The difference they made to his business was, according to the owner, staggering!
If either of these fine examples are a little too bold for your taste how about an ethnic play? Like the several courses that added Korean pages to their websites and put Kim chi on the menu to successfully attract a growing and affluent Asian population in several major cities!
The Only Gay Golf Club In a Major City – it’s bold it’s audacious and in a place like San Francisco or Houston, Texas (strangely the second largest gay population in the USA) it would work! - Switch Media from say print to direct mail or web 1.0 to 2.0! Although I have built my success on the back of our Golf Marketing Commander websites, my most successful campaigns ever have come from direct mail. Few clubs try direct mail because it’s expensive and they have most likely done it in the past and failed, but they did it wrong.
They had tried and failed with direct mail before but they had never tried Thunderbolt Marketing. This simple change in marketing approach had a massive impact on their business. It’s an approach we have had tremendous success with in selling all kinds of outings, vacations and even memberships but few clubs use the approach because it scares them! They don’t understand why it works so they avoid it!
Get ahead by adopting web 2.0 and social media now. It will be ten years before the golf industry catches on!
In the five years I used direct mail at Garland we produced over four million dollars in sales (More than seven million including onsite spend) from a mailing list that was never larger than 1148 people and at a total cost of less than $100,000 for all the campaigns. - Change Pricing- Few people ever consider going up in price, but going up and adding value is almost always more successful than discounting, yet few clubs ever try it! At one club we doubled the dues and added 198 members by throwing in a bunch of free gifts!
Add a lifetime or VIP category to get big bucks up front, pay off debt or re-model. Last year I came up with a new pricing plan for my largest client that included one option 300% higher than his current membership options. The result – over one million dollars in additional membership income! - Change in Sales- The foundation for my first small fortune in the karate business was made on the day I bought my first marketing book! It went into overdrive the day I bought my first sales book and I never looked back!
http://www.cunninglycleverselling.com/
What you and your staff don’t know about selling is most likely killing your business! A single sales book or audio can easily increase your business by 25% or more! - Triple or Quadruple Your Prospect List
There is NO quicker way to increase your business than to tap into the list of people you know at least play golf, in your area! If you can instantly grow your list from 500 to 5,000 that’s a massive leap. Even just getting another 50 people on your mailing list can be worth several thousand dollars a year!
The better the offer the better the chances they start a relationship with you.
We no longer sell lists but here are a few companies that do that we have heard good reports about data quality http://www.golfmarketingassociation.org/ list or you can try these guys http://www.golfclubservices.com/
Buy, rent, trade or form alliances with other clubs or businesses to reach more prospects instantly! - Look Outside Your Industry. The next great idea will most likely be something that you adopt from another industry. All of my financial breakthroughs have come from looking outside my current industry.
People in the golf industry all tend to do the same thing, always look to do things differently. -
A Change of Staff. Sad to say but many clubs are held back by the outdated ideas of their manager or management company. It’s said now that if you do not double your business knowledge every five years you are falling behind. Few people come even close to doing that. One person who does is Bob Devitz, CEO of http://www.legendarygolfmanagement.com/ He is full of new ideas to invigorate your staff and we don’t even charge if we don’t increase your business!!
Now that sounds like a great idea, pay for performance golf management why don’t all the management companies do that?
Brainstorm the GREAT IDEA in your next staff meeting and let me know what you come up with!
