golf pro podcast

Are you looking to hire team members on your golf staff?  GBN's Recruiting Services make hiring easier with our best in class network of Golf Professionals that helps you reach deep into the market to locate your next staff member.

Go to www.golfbusinessnetwork.com/recruiting to get started and get ahead of the competition.

Welcome back for part two of my conversation with Seth Waugh, the CEO of the PGA of America.  In part one we focused on a critically important topic for Golf Professionals today, the supply and demand issues in the labor market.  Every PGA Professional should hear what Seth had to say on the topic.  It was an honest and frank conversation and personally I think we should be encouraged by what we heard.  

Now we get into two more important topics.  As you know, prior to the PGA, Seth was the CEO of Deutsche Bank Americas.  I took the opportunity to ask him about his leadership philosophy and what it takes to lead organizations of such immense size.  Any leader can benefit from his thoughts on the topic, especially his “Golden Rule”, which you’ll hear him explain.  Leadership is such an important skill when it comes to retaining great people, and in this labor market, it’s never been more critical.  This is a great opportunity to take some leadership insights from an experienced and successful leader.  

Lastly, I ask him the question about LIV.  One perspective we haven’t heard much is how that tour can impact the PGA of America and specifically PGA Professionals.  Seth will be at the forefront of some of the most important decisions that golf’s governing bodies will make regarding LIV.  You’ll get his thoughts.  You won’t want to miss them.

GBN is the leading private network for today's most successful PGA Professionals. Exclusive events at premier facilities, vendor partnerships to grow your business, education to increase your knowledge, and access to the top Professionals in the industry are just some of what membership in Golf Business Network will get you. Go to www.golfbusinessnetwork.com to find out more and become a member.

Are you looking to hire team members on your golf staff?  GBN's Recruiting Services make hiring easier with our best in class network of Golf Professionals that helps you reach deep into the market to locate your next staff member.

Go to www.golfbusinessnetwork.com/recruiting to get started and get ahead of the competition.

In this season of Getting Better Now, we’ve talked a lot about the state of the golf industry.  We heard from the Golf Professionals when we highlighted “The Club Pro Crisis” in Episode 01 of this season.  We heard from the CEO of the PGA of America himself in a candid conversation with Seth Waugh in Episode 02.  Now in Episode 04 of Season 8, we hear from another association chief, Jay Karen. 

Jay is the CEO of the National Golf Course Owner’s Association (NGCOA), where he’s spent nearly 17 years in multiple roles with the association.  He has a pulse on the issues impacting owners throughout the country, many of which end up impacting us as the PGA Professionals working for those owners. 

A self-proclaimed “learner”, Jay is actually pursuing his membership as a Class A PGA Professional and you’ll hear his own war story about passing the PAT.  In addition, we’ll obviously get into the labor situation from the perspective of the owners as well as Jay’s personal feelings about how we got here, and more importantly how we can fix it. 

Jay also watched the downturn in golf happen after the “Tiger Boom” and has great insight into how we can avoid that from happening again, post COVID. 

Jay is the co-host of Golf Business LIVE, where he shares the screen with the PGA’s own Don Rea.  You can catch up on past episodes on YouTube.

Not only was Jay fun to talk to, he is really knowledgeable on the issues impacting golf so I know you’re going to get a lot from this conversation.

GBN is the leading private network for today's most successful PGA Professionals. Exclusive events at premier facilities, vendor partnerships to grow your business, education to increase your knowledge, and access to the top Professionals in the industry are just some of what membership in Golf Business Network will get you. Go to www.golfbusinessnetwork.com to find out more and become a member.

Are you looking to hire team members on your golf staff?  GBN's Recruiting Services make hiring easier with our best in class network of Golf Professionals that helps you reach deep into the market to locate your next staff member.

Go to www.golfbusinessnetwork.com/recruiting to get started and get ahead of the competition.

Most of you listening to this are working at golf clubs that are busier than they have been in a long, long time.  Maybe even busier than ever before.  Rounds of golf are high and membership rosters are full.  Now that we’re settled into this new reality, the focus is on retaining all of these golfers so our clubs don’t return to the struggles that existed before this recent golf boom.  

How can we do that?  If you ask Shep Hyken, it’s by creating an amazing customer experience. 

Shep Hyken, calls himself the CAO (Chief Amazement Officer) of Shepard Presentations. He’s a customer service and experience expert and a sought after keynote speaker, as a Hall of Fame Speaker from the National Speakers Association.  For decades, he’s worked with companies that want to build loyal relationships with their customers and employees. 

As a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author he’s written 8 books focusing on delivering amazing customer service, customer engagement, managing the customer experience and creating customer loyalty.  His new book “I’ll Be Back” on building returning customers, is a perfect fit for the situation in our industry today.  He’s also the host of “Amazing Business Radio”, a podcast where he profiles leaders and their customer service expertise.  

With all this said, Shep is a big golfer and as a member at his local club, he understands the customer experience at clubs from both the staff’s perspective and from the members’.  That’s why this is such a valuable conversation.  There are plenty of takeaways in this conversation to help you and your team build a better service experience at your club.  

GBN is the leading private network for today's most successful PGA Professionals. Exclusive events at premier facilities, vendor partnerships to grow your business, education to increase your knowledge, and access to the top Professionals in the industry are just some of what membership in Golf Business Network will get you. Go to www.golfbusinessnetwork.com to find out more and become a member.

For close to half a century as a PGA Professional, John Kennedy has supported, coached, and mentored people for a living.  Whether it was his team of Assistant Professionals and other staff at the famed West Chester Country Club where he spent 26 years as the Director of Golf , the students he loved to help on the lesson tee, or bringing the game of golf to military veterans, he’s used his role as a PGA Professional to enrich the lives of others by helping them improve in both golf and life.  

Along the way he was recognized by the PGA of America for 3 National Awards, 10 Metropolitan Section Awards and inducted into the Met PGA Section Hall of Fame in 2020.  Even since his retirement in 2016 he’s still counseling and consulting with PGA Professionals, always available to share his advice and experience.  

That was on full display in this conversation as he talks about the current state of the industry, how to succeed at your facility, the critical importance of having a time management system, and more. 

GBN is the leading private network for today's most successful PGA Professionals. Exclusive events at premier facilities, vendor partnerships to grow your business, education to increase your knowledge, and access to the top Professionals in the industry are just some of what membership in Golf Business Network will get you. Go to www.golfbusinessnetwork.com to find out more and become a member.

Whether it was managing golf course operations as a Superintendent or now heading his own consultant and search firm, Tyler Bloom has always been a problem solver.  After working at some of the top clubs in the country as an Assistant Superintendent, Tyler landed his own job as a Golf Course Superintendent and spearheaded some innovative ways to address the challenges of recruiting and retaining people to his team.  

And now in the nearly two years since he left his position to start his own business, Tyler Bloom Consulting, he’s quickly becoming a go-to resource in the areas of recruitment and workforce development.   Working with clubs for placements in  multiple roles across all departments, he’s been battling the current labor market, and in most cases, winning that battle.  

How can you implement some of his strategies to help your own recruiting efforts?  Let’s learn how.

https://golfbusinessnetwork.com/

GBN is the leading private network for today's most successful PGA Professionals. Exclusive events at premier facilities, vendor partnerships to grow your business, education to increase your knowledge, and access to the top Professionals in the industry are just some of what membership in Golf Business Network will get you. Go to www.golfbusinessnetwork.com to find out more and become a member.

This episode is brought to you by GBN University, powered by Golf Business Network.  GBNU is where leading PGA Professionals come to improve their skills, build their careers, and increase their impact.  Go to www.golfbusinessnetwork.com/gbnuniversity for more info.  

Whenever you hear anyone talk about Caves Valley Golf Club, the first thing they’ll mention is the “experience”.  From the moment you arrive throughout your round and after, the emphasis is on creating a lasting memory that few other clubs can match.  

And throughout the club’s existence, until the end of 2021, a single individual was at the head of the golf experience at Caves.  Dennis Satyshur, known to some just as “Football”, spent 31 years fostering the original vision for the club, where in its early stages success was not a foregone conclusion.  Caves Valley was a new model at the time, committed to a National members, committed to caddies, committed to hosting Championships, committed to the community, to inclusion, to the game of golf, and committed to the “experience”.  

In retirement, Dennis will be joining the team at Golf Business Network as a consultant.

We pick up our conversation with Dennis discussing his recent departure, as well as their equally tenured General Manager, and passing the torch to Dennis’s faithful and highly capable Assistant and Head Professional, Matt Fuller.

GBN is the leading private network for today's most successful PGA Professionals. Exclusive events at premier facilities, vendor partnerships to grow your business, education to increase your knowledge, and access to the top Professionals in the industry are just some of what membership in Golf Business Network will get you. Go to www.golfbusinessnetwork.com to find out more and become a member.

In this episode, we flip the script as Dean takes questions about his career, the development of Golf Professional Growth, how he actually left the golf industry while in college, and much more! 

Thanks to Ricky Potts, host of the Wednesday Match Play Podcast for the opportunity to share my story.  Be sure to check out Ricky's show and subscribe HERE

With the record numbers we're seeing at courses throughout the country, Golf Professional's are now faced with the challenge of often having to say no to their members and customers.  No there aren't any tee times, no there isn't any space in that event, no we can't host your outing...and so on.  This is new for many of us since we've been trained to say "Yes" and to constantly seek out ways to grow rounds and revenues.  

As I found out in a conversation a few years ago, knowing how to say no and tell someone something they don’t want to hear, is literally a science.  Experts in behavioral psychology have studied the tactics that are most effective at delivering your message in a way that diffuses angry situations and will limit the push-back you get from our now disgruntled members and customers.  

Our expert that we’re learning from is Richard S. Gallagher, author of “The Customer Service Survival Kit”.  Some of the critical lessons we’ll hear from him are: being nice and polite is great, but it doesn’t help an upset person feel better, leaning into criticism is much more effective than explaining “why” or playing defense, and the key to diffusing a difficult situation begins with acknowledgement.