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Maintaining Relevancy

Sustainability is a favorite catchphrase within private clubs across America today. The phrase is mostly relevant with how clubs operate regarding their energy use and water consumption, how well the club lives with nature in the products and chemicals it uses both in the clubhouse and especially on and around the golf course, and many times how the club recycles. Some clubs are converting their used cooking oil into biofuel that powers their utility carts. Others have planted herb and vegetable gardens or are raising chickens and growing bees to harvest their own eggs and honey. While all these earth-friendly acts are good examples of ecological goodwill on the part of a club’s members and management, they are great examples of how a club is maintaining relevancy within its membership, management, and staff community and within its market place. What is even more interesting is many of the clubs that are adopting these green initiatives are traditional and successful golf and sports-centric clubs.

Private clubs of all types are evolving to encompass more than what their founding members’ original charter proclaims. “Member-owned private clubs today are first and foremost, recreational and social fraternal communities of like-minded people who share a common bond rooted within their shared personal core values.”

Over the past 20 years, many clubs have maintained relevancy by incorporating the needs of women and children beyond providing segregated golf availability and adding programming and amenities for the whole family. This continuing evolution now shows signs of success.  

To maintain relevancy, clubs must evolve and change. This becomes a journey of staying aligned with what has significant meaning for its members and requires reaching beyond a great golf or tennis experience which clubs could rely upon in the past. One cause and effect of this evolution is because people, socio-economic times, and the definition of fun for all its members change over time. Another is because the club has grown in significance as a placeholder in their members’ family structure today. In many instances the club has evolved to become the nucleus of the family structure imposing a greater responsibility on the club for their family unit enrichment and happiness. The demographics of our clubs are changing.

Understanding your club’s purpose and member desires plays an integral part in creating members who are not only “satisfied,” but “very satisfied” today. Data from McMahon Group shows that at least 50 percent of club members at top clubs fall into the “very satisfied” category—with some as high as 60-70 percent. What contributes to creating the happiest club members? What are the best measures or indicators that clubs should consider when creating very satisfied members? How does relevancy affect member retention? What are the rules clubs and management must follow to ensure their members are very satisfied today and stay very satisfied well into the future?

At the highest rated clubs:

  • Members consistently receive what they want, when and how they want it.
  • Fun and hospitality are easy to experience and are a “frictionless” commodity at their clubs.
  • Members’ daily club experiences are consistently reliable and satisfy their personal egos.
  • There is a close correlation between the value received both emotional and relational, for the cost of membership.
  • Their membership at their club fulfills their need for a sense of belonging for all members of the family.
  • Their club community is aligned with their personal core values.
  • Their club has Synergy: Where member’s individual contributions to their club combined with others create a sum greater than all its members collectively.

Maintaining relevancy for the club requires there to be an alignment between the club’s mission and vision.

Mission; who it is today, what is its purpose, what it provides for its members and community, at what value point, and most importantly how their club is unique?

Vision; the club’s aspirational goals, where the club is headed, what it aspires to become; in five, ten and twenty-year increments?

Successfully maintaining relevance requires a strategically driven process. It doesn’t happen by listening to the loudest personality in the board room nor on your management team. Harvard Business Review has articulated the interdependent components of a strategically aligned enterprise. I’ve adapted them to fit our private club industry.

  • Understanding the enterprise’s purpose (your club’s Mission): Is it relevant to your club and members of today?
  • Developing a business strategy: How well does your strategy (goals, actions, and tasks) fulfill your club’s Mission? 
  • Organizational capability: Is your club’s organizational structure aligned with the right fit positions and capable of achieving your club’s Mission?
  • Resource architecture: Is your club sufficiently tooled to support its staff both financially and professionally?
  • Management Systems: How well do your management systems utilize your valuable resources to drive the performance of your organization toward achieving its Mission?

The discussions in the board room and with your club’s department head professionals need to be strategic especially when seeking to ensure your club is maintaining relevance with your membership.

McMahon Group’s research, based on surveys completed by approximately 20,000 club members over the past three years, indicates that the five most important factors among all members contributing to their original decisions to join, in decreasing order of importance, were:  1) The appearance of the clubhouse facilities, 2) the friendliness of the club’s membership, 3) member dining, 4) golf and 5) the location of the club in relation to where members live. The purpose of showing these McMahon survey results is to demonstrate member’s opinions, wants and desires and therefore relevancy changes over time.

McMahon Survey Results

Joined Within the Last 5 Years

Joined 5+

Years Ago,

Rank

Original Decision to Join Club

% of Importance

Rank

% of Importance

1

Appearance of the Club

90.0%

1

87.6%

2

Friendliness of Membership

87.3%

4

82.8%

3

Member Dining

86.6%

2

83.4%

4

Location of Club in relation to home

82.7%

5

78.8%

5

Golf

78.5%

3

82.8%

6

Monthly Cost of membership

74.3%

7

66.0%

7

Initiation Fee to join the Club

69.4%

12

57.9%


Regardless if it is learning about the significance of great golf experiences, the importance of family, growing herbs or raising chickens and bees that drive the highest level of maintaining relevancy between your members and your club, the key to the answer is through a thoughtful strategic process involving your members, enabling them to lead the board and management forward in how they have, and therefore the club must evolve. The rocket science behind achieving 50 percent plus of your membership trumpeting they are “very satisfied” is first, asking them what is most important to them in why they first joined the club, and second, what is most important today as to why they remain members.

 

Club Trends Winter 2019

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