Most clubs need to refresh and refine their strategic plans in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Strategic priorities have shifted and, most importantly, members’ wants, needs and expectations have changed. Here are keys to updating your club’s strategic plan and putting it to work post-coronavirus.
Strategic Review
Most clubs have experienced transformative demand for memberships, usage and member expectations for innovative programs and events. Whatever your club’s strategy before March 2020, three factors in clubs have changed significantly:
- Utilization – Participation for golf and sports in clubs has grown by margins of 25% to 35% in most clubs. Club members—and unprepared club leaders—are overreacting with the notion that limiting a maximum number of memberships (“membership cap”) is an attractive solution. Membership caps are a blunt instrument that lacks the agility to change as demand and participation change. Stopping the in-flow of new members is poor long-term strategy.
Waitlists and doorstep membership options are better choices for keeping the club’s membership pipeline flowing. Doorstep memberships are entry-level membership categories that enable new members to participate in under-utilized categories, such as social or sports with little or no golf access.
These options sustain membership enrollment into a time when demand for new memberships diminishes. The day will come when many clubs will be seeking new members. Sound strategy is to keep adding to the membership pipeline.
- Expectations – Members who have been locked down or isolated to one extent or another have enthusiastically returned to their clubs. This new enthusiasm seeks three key features in clubs: a) a robust platform for socialization; b) new and engaging special events and programs; and c) improved or expanded amenities.
There is no going back to old standards and programs. Members want new, different and more.
- Discipline – Like bears emerging from hibernation, some members are returning to their clubs grumpy and stubborn and wanting the club to meet their own expectations and needs. Forgetting that a private club is a community of shared behavioral norms, some members are acting out inconsiderate or selfish behaviors that require disciplinary attention from boards and managers.
Rules and their enforcement are under pressure. And clubs that do not honor their own rules will find that members do not honor them either. Growing pressure to discipline members is evident in many clubs. From a strategic standpoint, rules enforcement is about preserving the club’s brand promise through the enactment and enforcement of its core values.
Putting Strategy to Work
Club boards need to re-start and update their strategic plans. Doing so is a five-step process:
- Update market knowledge. Understand how migration patterns and people’s lifestyles changed during the pandemic and refine the club’s market reach and footprint.
- Refresh the club’s operating model. Services have changed in most clubs and will take time to revert to old practices—if at all. Silver linings—like take-out food services and reduced reliance on outside parties and events—proved that some clubs are better served with a more deliberate and self-supporting approach.
- Update club governance. Most clubs are limping along with outdated bylaws and governing practices in matters such as diversity, access and board service.
- Fund for the future. Few clubs fund capital reserve accounts and fewer still fund depreciation. Now is the time to reset your club’s capital funding approach to remain vibrant and attractive. There is power in saving a little at a time.
- Empower more members. Expand the audience of participants in your club’s governance. Engage new voices through committee assignments and plan for leadership succession.
Pandemic impacts continue to ripple through clubs. Those clubs with refreshed strategy will prosper more and longer than those without.
Henry DeLozier is a principal at GGA Partners, an international club management consulting firm that provides specialized services to more than 3,000 clients from offices in Toronto, Phoenix and Dublin (IR). He can be reached at [email protected].