Tag: attract

Practice Areas and the Pandemic

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If you’re thinking about adding or enhancing a practice area at your course, here are some things to keep in mind. This article was authored by Henry DeLozier for Golf Course Industry magazine.

Searching for a silver lining to a pandemic is mostly a fool’s errand. But many golf courses fortunate enough to stay open during the last five months have found something for which to be thankful: Thousands of golfers and would-be golfers are discovering (and rediscovering) a love for the game.

In many places, their affection is being stoked by short-game practice areas that are introducing new players to golf and giving more experienced players a place to hone their games, all the while boosting incremental revenues.

Bradley Klein, a veteran golf travel, history and architecture journalist and Golf Course Industry columnist, observes that the role of short-game practice areas is evolving. “Time constraints were the initial impetus, but that’s changed of late.” He says the trend is toward “more fun, family-friendly” areas that also provide practice opportunities for serious golfers. “They also constitute efficient use of land.”

What’s more, in this era of social distancing, short game areas are a safe space for youngsters to learn the game while socializing and exercising, according to Jan Bel Jan, president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects. She believes the trend will continue to gain momentum. “Short game improvement areas provide benefits to seasoned golfers, promote a welcoming introduction to golf for adult beginners and help courses remain competitive with other area facilities,” she says.

Pinehurst Resort injected new credibility for areas dedicated to the short game and demonstrated its revenue potential when it opened The Cradle — nine holes, all par threes, measuring 789 yards and covering 10 acres — in September 2017. In the last three years, The Cradle has hosted more than 100,000 rounds while becoming one of Pinehurst’s most popular courses.

If you’re thinking about adding or enhancing a practice area at your course, here are some things to keep in mind.

Know your customer.

New practice, training and game-improvement facilities require planning, which starts with understanding the type of player you want to attract. What skill levels will you prioritize? What will be the hours of operation? How will you price access? Member surveys and information exchange sessions with golfers will help you better understand your target audience’s needs and expectations.

Don’t get sloppy.

“Serious design, with interesting greens contours and variety of tee shots” are keys to effective planning, Klein says. “It has to be run like a real golf course and not like a sloppy afterthought.”

Make it fun.

Jim Wyffels, director of operations at Spirit Hollow Golf Club in Burlington, Iowa, is an innovative thinker when it comes to making golf fun. Spirit Hollow’s Shankopotamus Golf Academy, which features TopTracer technologies, was designed with two goals in mind, Wyffels says. “The first was to create an additional amenity for our stay-and-play guests in the evening and during inclement weather. The second was to create a new revenue stream in the evening and during winter months that would target our local market. Our plan was to create a fun, game-like family atmosphere where all age groups and skill levels, including non-golfers, could be entertained.”

Keep your superintendent in the loop.

How will the golf course superintendent maintain the short-game area? Engage the superintendent to ensure design characteristics that can be efficiently and cost-effectively maintained. Concerns such as adequate turning radii, slopes that can be consistently cut and safely navigated by staff, and shapes that match existing terrain on the adjacent golf course are planning priorities. Bel Jan advises planners to be mindful of optimizing drainage, building putting surfaces to established standards and minimizing shade impacts to enable turf recovery.

COVID-19 really has no upside; it has wreaked havoc in unprecedented ways. But if a crisis of its proportions has encouraged more people to take to the course, and prompted golf managers and leaders to think more innovatively about amenities like short courses and practice areas, then it has left something of value in its wake.

Does Your Club Have An Identity Crisis?

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“Today, brands are stories. (…) carefully developed and aimed at preidentified market segments whose wants, needs and expectations align with the intended benefits of the product.” – Henry DeLozier

But change can often bring about a mismatch between the story and the segments you want to attract. GGA’s Bennett DeLozier outlines how to determine whether your club’s visual identity is true to what it represents.

A lot of things have changed in the last decade. In politics, in society, in the environment we all share. This impacts how we feel, how we interact with each other, and what products and services we want to be a part of our everyday lives.

These changes are evident at the club level, too. Aspects of your club may be unrecognizable from what they were ten years ago, from membership categories, to club amenities, to the profile of your members, and even the culture of the club. Sometimes this change has come as a result of proactive planning, sometimes reactive necessity.

But while many clubs have changed dramatically, we often find the brand pillars and visual identity (logo, colors, mission, values, purpose, positioning, voice, tone, look-and-feel of the club) get left behind. In other words, the club is missing the opportunity to illustrate and communicate what makes it different, compelling, and worth someone’s interest.

Given the state of over-supply for clubs in most metropolitan markets, brand management which enables effective market differentiation is essential. But before embarking on a rebranding effort without professional guidance, clubs can and should seek to periodically assess the state of their brand identity and how compelling a proposition it is to target member or customer segments

Stick or twist

How do you go about assessing the current brand and the potential need for change?

First, club managers and leaders must understand the power of brand. This means knowing the market segments the club serves and those it aspires to serve in the future. It requires a grasp of buyer motivations and the reasons people are motivated to join the club.

Second, and in order to evaluate whether there is a need for change, you should engage your board in a strategic brand audit and follow a clear process, similar to the indicative one below:

1. Ask your members, past members, stakeholders, and staff for their thoughts via a bespoke survey.

It’s also valuable to solicit input on brand perceptions from those outside of your intraclub community, particularly from competitors and people with whom current and prospective members are likely to interact (such as realtors, local community groups, fitness centers, apartment complexes, senior living homes, or neighboring schools). This will (quickly) help you to gain a sense of how those most important to the club view it, and allow you to identify any potential mismatch between what the club is, and how it communicates that with the wider world.

2. Assess the costs and benefits of a brand change or an identity evolution.

For instance, how will repositioning the club’s brand help to open up new target customer segments? How might it affect your typical core customer base? What is the cost of any proposed change, both financial and perceptual?

This exercise need not be overly complicated, a good old-fashioned SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) will cover off most of the key points to consider. Outline the opportunities and threats in a rational, pragmatic way to determine the most suitable outcome.

3. Marry your findings with your strategic plan.

How strong is the desire for change and how does this synchronize with your club’s future plans? It’s crucially important not to get drawn into making a decision for the now and foregoing any sense of futureproofing.

For instance, if you are set to launch a multi-sport facility and fitness center next year, are planning to unveil some luxury lodges the year after, and have been considering enhanced family programming for months, all this needs to be factored into the new identity you create.

Charting the future

Change is never easy. It feels uncomfortable. And risky. But sometimes standing still will only serve to do your club an injustice, poorly reflecting its attributes, story and emotional value to those that engage with it.

In that case, the benefits are there to be seized: appealing to new customer segments, futureproofing the club (socially and fiscally), and uniting those closest to the club around a clear sense of what it is and what it represents.

Walking in the Customer’s Shoes

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This article is written and produced by Sue Shapcott, PhD. Sue is the founder of Change Golf Instruction, a golf coaching business that partners with public golf courses, and Sports Query, a consulting business that assists sports organizations incorporate social science into their policies and practices. Sue is based in Madison, WI.

Club staff, including managers and coaching professionals can, over time, become immunized to the customer experience and the various touch points that form it. Guest writer, Sue Shapcott, reveals how clubs should take the time to understand this experience – and why it’s crucial when it comes to attracting women, minorities and families.

Without knowing it, club staff can be reinforcing an experience that is off-putting and unwelcoming to prospective members and (current) minority groups.

In a male-dominated sport such as golf, gender stereotypes play a significant role in shaping and affirming people’s views of a club – particularly women.

Think about it: walking in to see a large group of men congregated at the bar, being greeted with a wall of products for men in the golf shop, clubhouse walls adorned with pictures of men in quintessential golfing attire. All of these cues serve to induce stereotype threat. Stereotype threat, by definition, is the demotivation someone may feel when they identify with a negatively stereotyped social group. The traditional golf environment, unfortunately, is likely to induce stereotype threat in women, children and minorities because it underscores who is, and who isn’t a typical golfer.

As well as inducing stereotype threat, the golf club environment will also impact the sense of belonging women and minority groups experience in traditional golf clubs. Conforming to a club’s traditions means accepting this ecosystem which may feel unfair, unbalanced, and ‘just the way it is (and has always been)’.

But importantly for clubs seeking new members, these groups are making a choice based on their experience at that club. Is this somewhere they visualize spending time (with their family)? Do they want to spend time here? Does it have the potential to become a core part of their life or lifestyle?

If they feel forced to conform, and conforming means signing up to an experience that will not enhance their lifestyle, then, simply put, they will not.

Why does it matter?

Removing stereotype threat experienced by women and minority golfers can be a difficult challenge for many clubs out there. It can mean unpicking a culture which, understandably, takes time.

But allowing the cycle to continue will restrict growth and diversity in your current membership base, as well as your prospective target markets – especially at a time when we know younger generations value family time together. So much so they will base purchasing decisions on how these will enhance their collective lifestyle.

Where to start

Shifting the culture starts by seeing the world through the eyes of women and minority groups.

Accompany existing and prospective members on a customer walkthrough and all of a sudden, things will become more apparent. You’ll quickly see what and why things need to change. For example, does your leadership team look like the face of golf’s past, or future? Does the club have photos that celebrate both men and women players?

Unite all the club staff around this process. Educate them on the prevalence of stereotypes, and their effect. You can then arm staff with the knowledge they need to neutralize the environment. Tackling the issue in unison will ensure that staff are conscious and aware, and there are no gaps in the club’s approach.

What areas can you expect to confront and overcome stereotype threat typically experienced by women and minority golfers? Here are some areas which are common, yet often overlooked:

Marketing – if you market to the spouses of existing members what images and/or videos are you choosing to include? What is that telling them about the club? Chances are, you could be confirming stereotypes without realizing it. It’s not about provisioning certain types of images and videos ‘because it’s the right thing to do’. It’s about doing it because clubs need to understand their influence and not inadvertently confirm certain stereotypes – especially when it will harm their goals in the long run.

Coaching – coaches should make it clear to women that they have a high expectation of their ability and performance (dispelling the stereotype that women are somehow not as strong in their ability).

Clubhouse – a contemporary environment which suits the needs of all members is what clubs should strive for. Remove unnecessary imagery which serves to reaffirm certain stereotypes and make it a place where all profiles of member can enjoy, relax and spend time.

Golf Shop – being greeted by rows of hardware, mainly for men, can be a daunting experience – especially so for women new to the game. Make service your priority, and dispel any fears minority groups may have by handing them the knowledge they need to make informed purchasing decisions.

On the course – tees labelled by gender are extremely commonplace, yet are a constant reminder that women don’t hit the ball as far and that this somehow makes their ability inferior. By changing your tees to difficulty-based rather than gender-based creates more of a level playing field and removes the gender factor and associated stereotype threat.

A rallying call

Change at clubs is always difficult when there’s a threat of alienating a certain group – in this case the core membership. But this is where it’s important to take a step back and assess the fork in the road in which we find ourselves:

Road A: We do the same thing. Members age, member numbers recede, and the cycle of stereotype threat experienced by women and minorities continue.

Road B: We open up, we see our club differently, we remove stereotype threats and create an environment a more diverse range of prospects want to be a part of.

As a stakeholder in this industry, I know which future I would rather be a part of.

 

Connect with Sue Shapcott

The Family Opinion

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Member surveys are not as clear cut as simply gauging satisfaction or opinion of members. GGA’s Andrew Milne explains how, by reaching out to include spouses or family in club surveys, you can gain invaluable insights on how your club is viewed in the context of modern family life.

Renewing a club membership used to be a straightforward matter. The member receives dues notification, pays a subscription, and club life continues. But as much as club managers may want that to be the case, increasingly, it simply is not.

The perfect storm of increased time, family and economic pressures for members means leisure outings are more heavily scrutinized and, occasionally, result in the end of membership and/or the club’s prominence in an individual’s day-to-day life.

Rather than having these decisions debated behind closed doors, with no prior knowledge that they even exist, clubs do have a vital tool at their disposal, in extending a bespoke member survey to spouses and family members.

Branching out

GGA spouse and family member surveys were introduced nearly a decade ago and what we have learned during that time unambiguously supports their role in helping club leaders develop a product and service that is relevant to the whole family.

Among the headline findings collated from across North America, we found:

  1. Clubs typically underestimate utilization by spouses and families. The introduction of spouse and family surveys helped clubs better understand utilization patterns in order to:
    • Realize greater operational efficiencies
    • Develop better informed events calendars
    • Target specific groups of spouses and families with relevant information
  1. Significant variances in capital project support. Spousal and family member support can vary up to +/- 15% when compared to primary member support. Combine this with their increased involvement in the membership purchase decision, and the importance of building a plan which appeals to all comes into sharp focus.
  2. Restrictions to access are a key concern. When contemplating any membership alterations which involve increased time and/or amenity restrictions, input from all member categories will help to arrive at more reasonable, rational and accepted changes and mitigate any negative impact to satisfaction levels.

A club for the entire family

Identifying the importance of both spouses and families is one thing, making changes to the club operation to increase their satisfaction levels (alongside those of primary members) is another.

Do the benefits outweigh the time and resource investment?

If it’s about an underlying connection, then yes. More interaction with spouses and family members will inevitably put the club more front-and-center in their minds, and help clarify its attributes and future role among these individuals.

There are more reasons to engage this audience too:

  • It improves buy-in for future decisions (as supported by survey findings). For example, if family members indicate their dissatisfaction with the current junior leagues at the club and provide insight on how they wish to see them improve, they are more likely to participate after the club implements an updated junior league program.
  • Spouses and family members will feel valued, and appreciate their opinions are being solicited, captured, and considered with care.
  • With the increasing influence of spouses and families on lifestyle and recreation choices, engaging them can help shape the future relevance and strategy for the club and drive overall membership sales.
  • A key challenge for clubs around the world is finding and engaging young prospects to grow the membership pipeline within the club. Collecting feedback from family members can identify the key drivers for this demographic and help position the club to best appeal to this group.

Moving out of the comfort zone

It may seem counter-intuitive to develop a future vision for your club formed from the views of those who may appear not to spend a great deal of time there.

However, across the world we are witnessing clubs making moves towards developing amenities and services which appeal to the entire family and encourage them to spend more time there. These are the clubs already profiting from family and spousal survey insights, building out the core of their membership to now include spouses and family members, and simultaneously becoming a more appealing destination to prospects.

Taking the first steps are difficult, but by seeking a wider base of opinions you might be surprised by what you learn and the future opportunities that arise.

Is Your Club Relevant?

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If your club is relevant, it is closely connected to members’ lifestyles and appropriate to their wants and needs. But how do you determine if your club really is relevant? GGA’s Ben Hopkinson offers three points of guidance to help you self-evaluate and a handful of tactics to deploy in response.

Longevity requires relevance.

Survival in the modern club economy hinges on your club’s ability to remain relevant, both to existing members and prospective ones.

While building relevance is often the easy part, sustaining it is trickier. If left unmonitored, relevance diminishes as the years pass and the club’s value proposition suffers alongside member retention and satisfaction.

What does it mean to be relevant?

A relevant club is closely connected to members’ lifestyles and appropriate to their wants and needs; it’s the ability of a club to instill the notion that, by being or becoming a member, it will enhance their own and/or their family’s lifestyle.

It’s a simple equation. The more relevant you are, or become, the better placed your club is to achieve high levels of member satisfaction, retention, and recruitment.

But how can you understand and become more relevant? Here’s some pointers:

1. Gain a deep understanding of your market and membership

Who are your members really?

The first step to becoming more relevant is knowing your members fully and dispassionately. A thorough understanding of your membership’s demographic, psychographic, and emotional characteristics allows for a tailored Club experience.

This means knowing the answers to questions such as: Where do members live? Where do they work?  Do they belong to other local clubs or have vacation homes? Do they have children or grandchildren? What are their ages? How do they use the club?

Tracking utilization of each facility and space at your club allows you to understand the importance (and appropriateness) of each of them, helping to drive the strategy towards becoming more relevant.

Where does your club stand in the marketplace?

Get to know your potential market i.e. your members of tomorrow by sourcing demographic, psychographic, and participation data to quantify the number of candidates that match your member profile. Your market research should help you understand:

  • Relative to your competitors, how are you positioned in terms of cost to join, payment plans, and annual cost to belong?
  • What features and programming are your competitors offering that you don’t? And vice versa.
  • How do your attrition rates and sales compare with industry targets or, if available, those of competitors?

This exercise allows you to understand your club in the context of the marketplace better and helps establish your competitive advantages and points of differentiation. Leveraging that knowledge, you can enhance or develop your club’s strategy around demand and where it has room to grow.

2. Focus on enhancing individuals’ lives (and the lives of their families)

While understanding your members and marketplace should be your primary starting point on the road to relevance, this is a snapshot of the successful shifts in the approach of clubs across North America in a bid to enhance what they offer:

One-of-a-kind experiences

Members have an appetite for experiences they can cherish and share with their families and friends, so offering tailored, unique and memorable opportunities can not only help build relevance, but the emotional connection members have with your club. Examples might include: tickets to the special events such as the PGA Championship, concierge-type experiences that only your club can facilitate, or access to speakers they would not be able to get in front of otherwise.

Intentional member networks

Offering clubs-within-the-club are very important in today’s environment because building communities and networks drives engagement and connection within the club.

Think about a robust speaker series, associating your club with other clubs or professional organizations in exclusive relationships, creating a wine club or travel groups.

Some clubs have developed virtual membership clubs with their speaker series or programming where members can pay a small monthly fee to participate remotely. It promotes continued engagement and also drives a new revenue stream with no impact to your facilities.

Diverse wellness programming

Physical health, in the form of fitness and wellness, remains highly relevant. The decision to add fitness is a leading trend that clubs are considering, particularly in seasonal and winter climates to keep members connected year-round.

Beyond adding a fitness facility, newer trends in wellness programming that are highly relevant include group exercise classes, off-site activities and excursions, ‘socializing’ fitness activities into events, and increasing the variety of fitness offerings and their frequency of change.

Your club’s wellness programming should not be limited to physical training. Mental exercise is just as critical as physical exercise in keeping one’s brain fit and healthy, introducing more wellness programming around brain health is relevant to your club’s longer-tenured members and can connect them with what are often construed as ‘young people’ activities.

Amenities that support year-round use and lifestyle

The ultimate goal is to make your club the third most important or relevant place in members’ lives, next to home and work. Amenities that best support year-round use and lifestyle benefits go beyond traditional sports to focus on the clubhouse and socialization aspects of membership.

The top amenities that our clients are considering include:

  • Contemporary bar/sports lounge
  • Multiple dining experiences
  • Health and wellness facility
  • Indoor golf teaching area with a bar and HD simulators
  • Outdoor casual dining with fire pits
  • Tennis/pickleball courts
  • Outdoor pool featuring a modern children’s area and adult area with outdoor bar
  • Babysitting/children’s play areas

3. Measure, evaluate and act

Member feedback is key.

Soliciting member feedback tightens the connection between the club (as an organization) and its members (as individuals). Capturing member feedback generates actionable insights to improve all aspects of the club experience, while also helping to isolate which are most critical to their wants and needs.

Relevance can be measured in many ways and the best indicators to watch are attrition levels and the demand to join your club. Constant member feedback is needed to be proactive and instill a culture of measuring, evaluating and acting.

 

The relevant club of tomorrow

Think about relevance on a spectrum. One that changes through different actions or developments.

For instance, introducing new family amenities shifts and broadens the spectrum more towards a younger demographic of members and prospective members.

Similarly, the introduction of mental health training shifts and broadens the spectrum more towards an elder demographic.

In any case, the objective should be to find your club’s sweet spot on this spectrum. As we already know higher relevance = higher levels of member satisfaction, retention and recruitment, so find and occupy a position which is relevant to as many stakeholders as possible. This, ultimately, will be your club’s gateway to longevity.

For help and advice on making your club more relevant to existing and prospective members,
connect with Ben Hopkinson.

Inspiring Member Introductions

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New members can be difficult to come by, especially during times of economic turbulence. But your existing core membership can hold the key to unlocking a wave of new members. GGA’s Michael Gregory explains how.

Why are your current members a valuable avenue for new members?

Members who have developed an emotional connection with your club will be proud to show it off to friends and peers. Friends and peers who will typically be of a similar income bracket, age and family profile.

Since the club’s membership proposition already appeals to those existing members, its relevance to their friends and peers is naturally much higher than it would be for a typical prospect.

Add in our findings; surveys of over 50,000 private club members each year reveal that ‘friends and family who are members’ is consistently one of the top three factors in the decision to join. For millennials, it’s even more important. All of a sudden, the importance of existing members comes into focus.

But what is it that gets these prospects over the line?

Ordinarily, a club employee will be the one selling the benefits of membership to prospects. In this case, however, its existing members. They’ll be your best advocates, your best sales men and women. They can express what it means to be a member, told through the eyes of the members themselves. A compelling and convincing message, and an effective mechanism to generate new members.

Should there be an official referral scheme in place to incentivize current members?

Before developing a formal or informal scheme you should scrutinize the current numbers. How many member referral leads do you generate? In our experience, over half of member leads usually come from referrals. If your number is far lower, you first need to ask why.

A member satisfaction survey can provide the answers. If satisfaction is low in areas central to your club’s value proposition, then existing members will not be as forthcoming in promoting the club to their friends and peers.

After your survey, isolate the areas in need of improvement and build these into your strategic plan. With the root causes of dissatisfaction being addressed, the club will organically become somewhere that members have a stronger connection with, and in turn a place they are more likely to recommend to potential new members.

It’s true that a catalyst may still be required to supplement this process and to help overturn a culture of non-referral. But a word of caution on this: a referral scheme should not be rolled out as a short-term solution to get more members. It could come across as desperate, distorting the value perception of membership at your club, and you could give too much away if not carefully developed.

We have found that recognition can be just as motivating as monetary incentives. So, before opting for the financial route, give some recognition to those who have referred members in a given month or year (which could be as simple as acknowledging the individuals in the club newsletter), then see if this spurs on more to act.

Is there something else club managers should be doing to ‘activate’ their members?

A lack of satisfaction can be one cause of low member referral numbers, but it might be as simple as not having created the opportunities for referrals to happen.

The good news is there are some simple and effective tactics you can roll out to create a fertile referral environment:

Golf days – the most obvious but often overlooked. Open days, invitation days and corporate days are a great way for prospects to experience what the club has to offer and provide the opportunity to spend some quality time on the course with other members.

Social events – allow members to invite guests along to select social events. It will introduce them to the club environment, they’ll get to meet other members and begin to feel what it’s like to be part of the membership community.

Crucially, welcome families along to these events too. We know how important spouses can be in the decision to join a club, so they need to get a first-hand look at how membership could enrich their life.

Discovery days – host a discovery day for existing members to bring along selected guests. Put together a dedicated itinerary where prospects can experience what it’s like to be a member, and give them the opportunity to join at the end of it.

Membership toolkit – arm your members with a “membership tool kit”. This can provide them with clear guidance on what to do should any of their friends or relatives want to visit or even join the club.

Is it all a numbers game?

The thing to remember is, a typical club’s attrition rate stands at around 20-35 members. With conversion rates between 8-12%, that means a club will need at least 200 prospects on any given year just to replace what they lose.

So the numbers are important. Your current members should be your most important pipeline for new members, and if less than half of your prospects come from your existing members, it’s time to pay attention and act. Your future depends on it.

Community… and How To Build It

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A member’s relationship with your club will feel infinitely more connected, more substantial and more emotional if they are part of a community. But how do you create a community at your club? Can you create a community? GGA’s Henry DeLozier has the answers.

It is a genuine sense of community – and the opportunity to be a part of it – that attracts members to a private club.

Members need their club to be a safe place, populated by people with shared lifestyle expectations, and built on experiences that create a feeling of fellowship.

But how does a club create an authentic community?

The foundation of any community is shared values, and for a private club these may be values such as safe haven and healthy lifestyle.

In private clubs today, this culture of common attitudes, interests, and goals cannot be left to chance – it must be facilitated and fostered by the club leadership.

Successful club leaders and managers understand that this requires an intentional plan of action; one which establishes and sustains several key elements within the club’s culture:

Setting the Standard

Clearly stated standards of conduct are essential to establish a shared understanding of the community’s behavioral norms. Members rely upon a common understanding of acceptable – and unacceptable – behavior.

In clubs today, such standards of decorum include dress, usage of technological devices such as mobile phones, and personal conduct. In the main, club members are highly supportive of rules and rule enforcement… for others at least.

How can club leaders effectively implement respected community standards?

  • Engage input from many members when formulating and updating the club’s rules. The more members who participate in establishing the community’s standards, the more widely the standards are supported.
  • Communicate the commonly accepted standards for all to see, question, refine, and accept.
  • Make such standards the backbone of new-member orientation and communicate to existing members that new members are being so informed.

At The Ford Plantation near Savannah, Georgia, the sense of community is a point of pride among club members.

CEO Marc Ray observes, “Everything we do, including our Mission Statement, refers to Ford as a community of “friends and neighbors”. The members, and the staff, genuinely care about each other, and it is a culture that permeates the community.

“We travel together, dine together…and sometimes cry together. There is nothing fake or contrived. It is an ingrained culture that people want to, and get to, belong to. Something bigger than themselves.”

Firm but Fair

Establishing a sense of unity and togetherness is a powerful asset for any club, and this is something that needs to be protected.

From time to time, there will of course be people who do not honor the standards set, and knowing how to address those individuals and the situations that arise is critical to uphold the standards of the community.

How should clubs approach these situations? The best are consistent and firm in the enforcement of community standards with very few exceptions. So too, top clubs enforce their rules evenly regardless of status, tenure or importance.

“If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything” is a commonly referenced quote with mixed attribution and, yet, its aptness is clear. Members like to know that their community and its traditions stand for something worthy of their respect and support.

Behind the Curtain

Employees are a vital component of club communities. In many clubs, it is the staff that hold the club together and keep it the safe haven on which members rely.

This is particularly prevalent at Desert Mountain in Carefree, Arizona, as Damon DiOrio, the Club’s CEO, describes, “Establishing a safe, positive, healthy and energized work culture, built on trust and respect for your employees, is the first step in developing a strong and inclusive brand.

“Having a united and caring culture for your team is critical to forging an environment that emanates membership loyalty and a sense of community. As leaders, we can only fulfil the dream of having pride and harmony in our membership by being open, honest, engaging, transparent and authentic.”

The Power of Tradition

A sense of community also relies upon treasured traditions which celebrate friendship, family, and fun. These are key ingredients to a feeling of “belonging”.

Traditional special events and celebrations at many clubs help to crystalize the community’s values.

Take the ‘Big Little Show’ at Westchester Country Club, for instance, where family is the tradition placed front and center every summer with the club’s vibrant talent show.

Events which celebrate patriotism and love of country are other popular examples that serve to bring club members closer together through shared, cherished moments.

Your club could have all of the facilities and amenities in the world, but it is the sense of community – of being a part of something dear to them – that makes members proud and dedicated to their club for generations.

Facilitate and foster the emergence of this community, and it could fast become your club’s strongest asset.

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