400th Episode The Greatest Hits

Transcript

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Hey everybody, welcome to the Private Club Radio Show, where we give you the scoop on all things private golf and country clubs, from mastering leadership and management, food and beverage excellence, member engagement secrets, board governance and everything in between, all while keeping it fun and light.

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Whether you're a club veteran just getting your feet wet or somewhere in the middle, you are in the right place.

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I'm your host, denny Corby.

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Welcome to the show In this episode.

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It is our 400th episode here on Private Club Radio.

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Wow, cannot believe I got this far.

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Not I, we, all of us you, the listeners.

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Gabe Aloisi, who used to have Private Club Radio, who I acquired the show from.

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Listeners Gabe Aloisi, who used to have Private Club Radio, who I acquired the show from.

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Who started it?

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The OG was doing podcasting before.

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It was cool, but we did it.

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We got here.

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400 episodes, wow.

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Thank you all so much for being here, thank you for listening, thank you for being listeners, thank you for being subscribers, thank you for being great club people Appreciate each and every one of you for an episode of just some of my favorite spots, some of my favorite parts of interviews, and I hope you all enjoy that.

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I want to thank you all.

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Once again, so much for being here.

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Thank you to our show partners here on the channel.

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You'll hear more from them later on in the episode, but thank you to each and every one of them Kenneth's member, vetting Gulf Life Navigators, concert Golf Partners and myself.

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The Denny Corby Experience.

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If you or your club is looking for one of the most memorable fun event nights, look no further.

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There's excitement, there's mystery.

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Also, there's magic, mind reading and comedy One of the most engaging interactive comedy magic shows you can have at your club.

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If you want to learn more, dandecorbycom.

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But this episode is about you all in the 400th episode.

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So buckle up, straddle up, get your headphones ready.

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However you want to hear it, we're going to get started.

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So let's get started with an episode that's not too old but is a goodie.

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We're going to start off with episode 389 from our friend Casey Smith at Chenal Country Club.

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Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast.

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And you know it also says that culture eats strategy for breakfast, which I think is an interesting statement.

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You know because Say that one more time.

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Yeah.

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So culture eats strategy for breakfast.

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Because you know strategy as important as that is, you know your culture at the end of the day drives it.

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Because you know there's going to be times where the winds come and the storms come, the challenges come and you you need to be able to pivot, change your strategy.

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But at the end of the day, your core belief does not change and that's your why, for us, is creating memorable experiences.

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We don't ever stray from that, no matter what's going on or comes our way, and I think that it's you know.

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Once you know what you stand for, decisions are pretty easy to make.

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In my opinion.

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You know, at the end of the day, know what our core belief is and and that's what we stand for.

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That was a good one now and I would say 99 of my interviews and chats here on private club radio.

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I chat with the people before and that helps me figure out the episode a little bit.

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Uh, where we want to go, what I want to talk about, points I want to hit um, and sometimes I know, sometimes I don't know, sometimes it's just really it's just a fun, natural conversation.

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But in this one, when I was talking with Alfredo, he said something in our chat early on that really hit home.

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I shouldn't maybe not hit home is the right word, but he just said a few things that really resonated and I thought was really good and it was.

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He said he creates bomb teams and that he comes from a line of studs and with that he said that he was picking his boss and not his club.

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And I was like, ooh, that is good.

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So this one is episode 364, pick your Boss, not your Club, with Alfredo Hildebrandt from Lakewood Country Club.

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You said creating bomb teams.

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What does that mean and how do you create your bomb teams?

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For me, I try to recruit and retain world-class humans.

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I'm a believer that you can teach anybody what to do day to day on the hospitality industry.

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But finding a world-class human that's going to have compassion for your team is going to have the ego of teaching, coaching.

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That's a really hard part and above that is even that sense of hospitality, of making somebody feel at home.

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Finding those people is key and I've been privileged through my years that I was able to create some bomb teams some great and create the buzz around the club from Lakewood my first stay to Second Ward to here.

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I do believe through our team we left a great legacy behind.

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But the other thing is I'm honest to them too.

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I paint a picture pretty clear when they come into my program.

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I go listen, I want to show you some top love, I want to give you all the tools and resources that I can give you to make sure you become a world-class human but above all a great leader, a great manager, and you want to be in a great position and I'm going to do everything in my power.

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But it's not going to be easy and I'm up front with them and everybody who's in my program since I started is doing fantastic, great things in the club industry and I think it's just a top-of-the-loss situation where it's honest and also I provide a good environment.

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It's a fine environment where I go.

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I like to have fun.

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At the same time, I like to get stuff done, but it's all about having fun and that's my mentality.

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It's a hospitality industry.

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We're not saving lives, we're not doing anything, we're just making people happy and it's supposed to be easy and it's supposed to be fun.

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Yes, Can, and this is supposed to be easy and it's supposed to be fun.

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Yes, can you talk about picking your boss and what that meant, coming from a lineage of studs?

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Well, first off, where did you pick this up?

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At that, you were like I'm going to pick my boss and not your work.

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You know my first year when I was, I will say like it was a blessing from the sky.

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When I was, I'll say like it was a blessing from the sky I got hired, the general manager left and right after that the club hired a young general manager, chris Hampton, who was a good friend of mine, a mentor, a life coach, but above all, a good friend.

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He came along the way and we really connected.

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He always says that he felt in me the energy, the passion that I want to do and he gave me all the tools and resources just to be the person I want to be and just be able to give me a platform to keep growing.

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I worked for him for almost 10 years and picking almost 10 years in two different clubs and both clubs would turn those clubs around.

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I say that I'm in the business of making people happy and also in the business of fixing clubs, but it was 10 years and we went through everything.

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And Chris Hampton if you don't know Chris Hampton, he's a fourth-generation club manager he worked for, under the great managers, tom Wallace again 10 years.

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I wasn't the same.

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He called me the school of hardness with Wallace.

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He worked for 10 years for Tom Wallace, who was a leader in his industry and then came from Algermon to here to Lakewood and he put me on the same path.

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He showed me some tough love but, above all, a lot of grace, a lot of compassion and just the willingness to making sure that I'm growing as a human being, as a leader, and eventually be able to make some good money.

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This next one is really good.

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It's episode 325, mentorship, resilience and Purpose with Passion Graham, ccm.

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If you know Passion, what a wonderful, wonderful person.

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So much energy, so much life, so much excitement, so much passion.

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And now she's off doing her own thing.

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She left the club space recently to do speaking, coaching and consulting, among some other amazing things, and her story is fantastic.

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She's fantastic Her energy, the things that she has done, where she's come from, what she has built for herself, for her club, for her community, for her people around her.

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And, if you know her, the words we and us are very, very popular, very, very common, and I had to throw in this episode.

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This is episode 325 with my good friend, passion Graham.

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To whom much is given.

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Much is required, and this industry has given so much to me from being able to walk into places that, growing up, I didn't even know existed, much less feel like I would have access to, and far be it for me to not reach back and open the doors and give back to this industry that has given so much, and so, whether that's going to schools and speaking to students, I actually have the opportunity to speak to some students tomorrow.

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University of Nebraska, our friend, ben Lorenzen teaches a course, and so he typically will say hey, once a semester, but the answers he knows will always be yes.

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I love giving back, especially to students.

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I have the privilege of also sitting on the board at the University of South Carolina and their hospitality, school and advisory capacity and, yeah, that type of work really makes my heart sing.

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It really really does.

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Diversity is the prerequisite for innovation.

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So, with the way our clubs are diversifying, with having younger families coming in and it's not just, you know, retired people who have all of this money, but families and so innovation, you have to not be afraid of it, and I think that innovation and not being afraid to kind of rattle things and have fun is what has allowed me to be so successful in my career, because I'm not afraid to do that and I'm not afraid of allowing people to push their limits of having fun, because I believe it does.

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People are people, regardless of whether you're black or white, or you're old or young, or you have money or you don't.

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People want to have fun, people want to smile, people want to enjoy themselves, and so I remember one event it's actually a golf tournament that we have at and I say we, but I'm no longer at Desert Mountain, but it's called the Rattler, and so part of what I wanted to do for this event was just have these blow up rattlesnakes everywhere, and I found some on Amazon and I bought a ton of them and my director of operations was like passion, I don't know.

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And I'm just like, just trust me, just trust me, and do you know, having these blow up six foot, eight foot, 20 foot snakes everywhere became a hit and now it's something that we can't take away and, believe it or not, we had executives that were like, hey, I give you 100 bucks.

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These were blow up snakes that I found on Amazon for maybe 20 or 30 bucks, but it turned into people wanted to buy them, to take them home, to throw them in their pool, to have around.

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But it's little things like that not being afraid to do things and innovate, and it doesn't always have to cost a lot of money, but just having fun, allowing people to have fun and not having these preconceived notions of what fun could possibly look like.

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You know, this next one is really really good.

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This is from episode 307, the power of inclusion, with Max Orleans.

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If you don't know Max, a real inspiration in the club and sports world, and I highly encourage you go back, listen episode 307.

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It's really really good and what we talked about is inclusive education, and I'm going to let Max talk about what that is, and in our just total episode we talk about his pursuit for inclusive education and the struggles that he's gone through over his entire career and his fascinating rise in the industry.

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So I'm going to let him talk about this.

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I think the whole episode is great.

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This is just a quick little tidbit, just talking about the power of inclusion and inclusive education, so check it out.

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You mentioned what is inclusive education.

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Can you shed a little bit more light on that?

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Is inclusive education, can you?

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shed a little bit more light on that.

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I think people with all different types of challenges, but for me I talk about inclusive education and intellectual disability and people that have challenges being more included and all around more.

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Being more included in all around, more in mainstream classes and not just around people with their own challenges or disability.

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More about everybody coming together and, you know, being involved with the University of College, being on campus, being a day-to-day fan, being involved with, you know, other college students.

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I was fortunate enough to be involved with a baseball program there and basketball.

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That was a terrific way to be involved and learn and make people learn from me.

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It was a good structure.

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That's key in life, having a structure and having a sportsism and I find my passion through sports and I feel like my peers that helped me in class or in sports management major or in a baseball basketball program in the athletic department kind of helped me lift myself up and I helped them them and I think I would not have the same wide resource or friendship if I was going to a more selective program with not as much as outreach of different interactions and different type of people around me.

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Um, and I, you know, I, you know I could not live in a dorm back then um because of because of the um cessation, but it might have changed now because I was graduating college in 2010 and that's back then.

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But you know, that's why advocacy is very important, because it's people that I always want to.

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I always have a desire and goal and aspirations to strike out of it, and I would love to start a foundation to raise money for people that financially, resourcefully and supposedly thankfully I have from family and people on me might not have, and I would love to create a foundation that has Gat that raised money for education or disability or you know, even some of the privileged places I've worked in my sports career and now golf.

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People don't have the opportunity and chance because they don't have the support financially or resource.

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So if I can create a foundation and gather, raise money for a good cause to support, help, support people and give people an opportunity to financially have a broader experience in college and university and different opportunity in the work field with challenges, that's my desirable, that's something I'm driven to the stars about and I want to do.

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But at the same time, I realize there's a step process to everything and yeah, I mean you can keep asking me questions.

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I mean I'm just going on and on this, this, this, this one is good.

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This is from episode 356 from one of our friends and show partners, kenneth's member vetting, and we talk about what is a ghost account.

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If you don't know kenneth's member vetting, you have to check them out.

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If you're a fan of the show, you've heard all about them, you know what they're about.

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They utilize fact-based membership vetting for private clubs and in the entire episode we talk about what is a ghost account, um, and what clubs need to know about them.

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This is just a quick little snippet, but this is this is probably one of my favorite ones, because I think it's something that is so it's out there so frequently that I think we look past and don't realize that some of these people with ghost accounts are people in our communities, in our backyards.

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So this one's really good.

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356 member vetting ghost accounts with Paul Dake.

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So if you're not familiar with the concept of a ghost account, it's an anonymous account.

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You want to express yourself or engage in some behavior, but you don't necessarily want anybody to know it's you.

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There's a lot of things that we do, especially searching Google, that makes sense for us to want to be anonymous, right?

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You know how do I get rid of this kind of rash?

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I don't blame you for not putting that on Facebook or not putting that on Facebook, but sometimes we want to have anonymous social media accounts, not just to observe what's going on as a voyeur, but to be a participant, and our character can show up in this.

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So this is an example.

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This was somebody that we were able to connect to a club who had an account.

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It is a bit older, but this is their mindset at this club.

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Obviously, this kind of mindset doesn't fit.

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So they have another Twitter Now X account, which is their day-to-day account where they engage, grandma and talk to their friends.

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But they also decide that they want to put this other stuff out there and, as you can see, when they had this account working, they had a lot of engagement.

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Yeah, I think that's why my mouth was like I'm like the retweets and the likes.

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I was like man most companies would die for that.

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I was like holy cannoli.

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And again, you know I've talked about the fact that sometimes people think the upper tier of society doesn't engage in this.

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That's 1000% not true.

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You have people absolutely everywhere doing this.

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You have the most surprising people doing this.

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It's a strange thing.

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When we think we're anonymous, we change our behavior.

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It's almost like the group behavior.

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You ever seen how, like after you know the Stanley Cup playoffs are going right now, you get these cities and the team loses the game or wins the game and the herd mentality takes over right?

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There's something in us.

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Young guys are worse than anybody, but there's something in us that sometimes that demon comes out.

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People have this idea that online, if they can feel secure that no one knows who they are, they can act any way they want to.

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If that's where your mindset is at, how good of a member are you going to be at the club?

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Now?

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You know that people are watching and listening, so you're probably not going to be as overt, but this is who you really are.

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This is how you spend your time.

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That says something about right.

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That says something about you.

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This next one is from episode 268.

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Another one of our show partners, board, chats with concert golf partners, boutique owner-operators of private golf and country clubs nationwide, and they're a great group who really knows how to keep the integrity, keep the culture and keep the feel of a club.

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And in this episode, in this little snippet, it was just common misconceptions about private club finances that boards should be aware of, because, as we all know, that's where a lot of the issues come from with clubs oftentimes is.

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Sometimes it starts up top with the board.

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So this was just a small snippet of a really good episode.

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So this is from episode 268 of Board Chat's Boardroom Finance Essentials for Club Stability with our friend Peter Nanula.

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What are some common misconceptions about private club finances that boards should be aware of?

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Maybe even like address.

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Well, there's lots of those Misconceptions.

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I think a lot of people in the club industry think you need to lose lots of money on food and beverage and subsidize that with your golf operations.

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That's a pretty typical one.

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We've seen them all over the map.

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We've seen clubs that lose $2 million a year on food and beverage $2 million a year but big club people paying a lot of dues, initiation fees and they're very profitable and the other part of the business and their view is let's subsidize that.

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We see other clubs that manage to break even or eke out a little profit in food and beverage.

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So a little bit of a misconception there.

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Some make maybe common financial challenges Like what are like the ones that you see.

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Yeah, I think one of the biggest ones is, like we talked about before, lack of board member education about the club business and finances, and that's why I think it's become sort of a best practice to get a subscription to club benchmarking, which is relatively inexpensive for most clubs.

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You get data from them.

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Here.

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Here's my club where you are in Pittsburgh, and here's the seven other clubs in Western Pennsylvania that are at a similar size and kind of price point.

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Well, how come they lose $200,000 a year in food and beverage and we're losing a million?

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How come their payroll is 47% of total revenues, right Staff payroll, and ours is 58.

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Oh, well, maybe we should sit down and talk to our general manager about why our payroll is so out of control.

00:23:42.151 --> 00:23:47.873
So I think club benchmarking data is good Introductory education for new board members.

00:23:47.873 --> 00:23:52.786
So I think just sort of lack of new board member education is a key challenge.

00:23:53.605 --> 00:24:00.349
Another one, I think, denny, is moving targets, changing priorities, personal agendas.

00:24:00.349 --> 00:24:02.891
You and I joined the board of our local club.

00:24:02.891 --> 00:24:04.932
You're a big tennis guy.

00:24:04.932 --> 00:24:06.653
I'm a low handicap golfer.

00:24:06.653 --> 00:24:10.974
I really want the greens to be at 13, 14 on the stint meter.

00:24:10.974 --> 00:24:16.198
You don't want to spend any money on golf because you're a big tennis player, you want to put it in a tennis bubble.

00:24:16.198 --> 00:24:19.700
Because you're a big tennis player, you want to put it in a tennis bubble.

00:24:19.700 --> 00:24:20.779
Okay, everyone's got their different agenda.

00:24:20.779 --> 00:24:23.422
How about, once we make the annual business plan?

00:24:23.422 --> 00:24:25.063
That's just the plan.

00:24:25.063 --> 00:24:26.403
We're just going to stick to it.

00:24:26.403 --> 00:24:33.700
We're not going to come to every meeting and whipsaw between changing priorities.

00:24:36.944 --> 00:24:39.371
So yeah, those are a couple of the biggest challenges I see with member-owned, member-governed clubs.

00:24:39.371 --> 00:24:39.771
So this was from a.

00:24:39.771 --> 00:24:42.157
I think I always keep saying these are from one of my favorite episodes.

00:24:42.157 --> 00:24:48.258
All my episodes are my favorites because I get to chat with people who I enjoy chatting with.

00:24:48.258 --> 00:24:53.247
So I guess I sort of say that all my episodes are favorites, but this one's really good because I love good stories.

00:24:53.247 --> 00:24:58.878
I love people's backgrounds, I love what got them to where they're at, what drives them, what makes them tick.

00:24:58.878 --> 00:25:06.488
And this was from episode 372 from valet to GM, a journey of perseverance and innovation with Joe Smith.

00:25:06.488 --> 00:25:09.415
Josiah Smith down Florida.

00:25:09.415 --> 00:25:12.673
And this was just a fantastic episode.

00:25:12.673 --> 00:25:14.750
His story is great, the whole episode is good.

00:25:14.750 --> 00:25:15.869
The takeaways are great.

00:25:15.869 --> 00:25:21.626
This is episode 372 with Josiah Joe Smith.

00:25:21.626 --> 00:25:28.646
Any strategies for that or things that you try to implement in your teams and the way that you lead and manage.

00:25:28.666 --> 00:25:32.711
It's going to sound cheesy and too simple, but it's the truth.

00:25:32.711 --> 00:25:37.960
Cheesy and too simple, bring it, but it's the truth.

00:25:37.960 --> 00:25:48.789
And when this board recruited me, I told them flat out I don't serve members, and their jaws dropped they're like what?

00:25:48.789 --> 00:26:15.251
I don't serve members, I serve those that serve members, and I see the employee experience and the member experience as parallel, and whatever effort or initiatives or all the work we put into the member experience, it needs to be parallel and identical to what we put into the employee experience, and the rest takes care of itself.

00:26:15.251 --> 00:26:27.027
I'm not perfect at it, by no means, and I don't think any company is, but that is something that is at the forefront of my focus and always has been is.

00:26:27.027 --> 00:26:31.655
I mean, it sounds again, it sounds simple, but we should be.

00:26:31.655 --> 00:26:41.058
We should be, we should be putting forth and having the same, wanting the same experience for our employees as we want for our members.

00:26:41.058 --> 00:26:51.191
And as long as, as leaders, we can put the focus on that, or keep that at the high, you know, at the top of our priority list, everything else falls into place.

00:26:51.325 --> 00:26:55.351
I truly believe that there's nothing that I do that is like that.

00:26:55.351 --> 00:26:57.634
I would sit here and say it's revolutionary.

00:26:57.634 --> 00:26:58.336
I do that is like that.

00:26:58.336 --> 00:26:59.699
I would sit here and say it's revolutionary.

00:26:59.699 --> 00:27:15.096
It's just, you know, knowing making sure that your people know they're appreciated, that they look forward to coming to work, that they, they, they know they can talk to you at any point, they know they're not in the way of your day or they're bothering or they're bothersome to you.

00:27:15.096 --> 00:27:21.255
Just again, just, they need to feel like they are just as important, if not more important, than the members.

00:27:23.647 --> 00:27:27.829
It takes two parties to create a club it's the membership and the employees.

00:27:27.829 --> 00:27:34.115
Leadership's a privilege and sometimes we need to be reminded of that.

00:27:34.115 --> 00:27:57.699
I've been reminded of that in various ways over the last year and you know, for those, if I could send one message to the industry or to peers of mine, whether general managers or, you know, managers at various levels, it's that leadership is a privilege and, um, you know, we have to treat it as such.

00:27:57.699 --> 00:28:08.905
Um, we, as leaders, we hold the livelihood of others, you know, in our, in our grasp, and we have to, we have to be responsible with it.

00:28:09.926 --> 00:28:11.107
Do you elaborate on that?

00:28:11.689 --> 00:28:15.093
Well, I mean member again, our members and our employees.

00:28:15.093 --> 00:28:32.319
You know we we have we have the ability to grow people to influence people, influence their lives, good or bad, depending on how you interact.

00:28:32.319 --> 00:28:39.858
And nobody's perfect I'm not perfect by any means but we're all just people.

00:28:39.858 --> 00:28:44.717
We're all carrying things around that nobody realizes.

00:28:44.717 --> 00:28:53.278
You know, we've all got our demons or traumas or whatever we deal with outside of work.

00:28:53.278 --> 00:28:58.453
And you know, being in a leadership position, um, I think.

00:28:58.453 --> 00:29:14.334
I think we just need to stay cognizant of that and know that it's a privilege to to, um, you know, it's a privilege to have so much influence on the lives of others.

00:29:14.334 --> 00:29:19.685
It's not something to take lightly on the lives of others.

00:29:19.705 --> 00:29:20.567
It's not something to take lightly.

00:29:20.567 --> 00:29:25.598
Now, this part of this next episode is another one of my favorites because it is with somebody who is not from the club space.

00:29:25.598 --> 00:29:37.192
He's a member of a club, doesn't really engage with clubs, but he is a very successful and popular thought leader, all about email marketing.

00:29:37.192 --> 00:29:41.769
His name is Jay Schwendelson and a lot of you listeners here will know his name.

00:29:41.769 --> 00:29:47.411
He and I have become friendly over the years and years a couple of years, two years, a couple of months.

00:29:47.411 --> 00:29:48.334
What am I trying to say?

00:29:48.334 --> 00:29:51.347
But it's about this episode.

00:29:51.407 --> 00:30:02.828
What we were talking about is email isn't dead, and it was effective strategies for clubs to utilize email properly, and I think that was the keyword using email properly.

00:30:02.828 --> 00:30:30.434
He's the founder of subjectlinecom, which is where a free source you can see how yours tests out and it gives you ways to make them better, because they have so much data and so much knowledge and information on emails and email subjects and subject lines Literally the experts on it.

00:30:30.434 --> 00:30:33.795
So this is the cool part and something I think all clubs can take away from.

00:30:33.795 --> 00:30:37.536
So, episode 342, email isn't dead with Jay Schwendelson.

00:30:37.536 --> 00:30:39.807
Hey, it's like like oh, go, go back to basics.

00:30:39.807 --> 00:30:41.332
Uh, so what?

00:30:41.332 --> 00:30:45.525
Because actually my basics in our basics might be different than your basics.

00:30:45.525 --> 00:30:46.827
What are your basics?

00:30:47.829 --> 00:30:51.159
well, I, okay, the the easiest win in.

00:30:51.159 --> 00:30:57.273
So subject lines are a big deal to me, right, and I think that clubs miss the mark with their subject lines.

00:30:57.273 --> 00:30:58.156
What do I mean by that?

00:30:58.156 --> 00:31:02.292
Within a club you have different activities.

00:31:02.292 --> 00:31:10.611
You have people that play pickleball, people that play tennis, people that play golf, people that are interested in book club, people that are interested in the upcoming buffets or whatever.

00:31:10.611 --> 00:31:12.675
That's what's going on at a club, right?

00:31:13.176 --> 00:31:24.818
And every time you hit send very rarely unless it's like a new fee that everybody has to pay in the club does everybody in the club care about what's inside that email?

00:31:24.818 --> 00:31:26.441
Right, it's not for everybody.

00:31:26.441 --> 00:31:28.993
It's always for some subset of people.

00:31:28.993 --> 00:31:41.192
And if you carve out that subset and you delineate it in the subject line, you say this is for pickleball fans, right, this is just for the best golfers.

00:31:41.385 --> 00:31:44.673
Literally in your subject line this is for all the foodies out there.

00:31:44.673 --> 00:31:48.125
You know, this is for the book lovers who wanted whatever.

00:31:48.125 --> 00:31:57.140
And you actually say basically the subset audience that you're about to talk about inside the email.

00:31:57.140 --> 00:31:58.885
You carve it out at the start of that subject line.

00:31:58.885 --> 00:32:09.654
You will see the engagement on those emails skyrocket, because what normally clubs do is they just go new information, new whatever, and it's like.

00:32:09.654 --> 00:32:12.810
You open it up and it's like, or you don't open it up because you think it's for everybody.

00:32:12.810 --> 00:32:22.512
The secret to email is the sooner you could tell somebody it's for them and not for everybody else, the faster they're going to engage, and I think clubs miss the mark on that a lot.

00:32:24.885 --> 00:32:27.866
And once you, oh my goodness, because no matter what.

00:32:27.866 --> 00:32:39.279
So if the email subject is like for the best golfers only, even if I suck, I'm definitely going to open it Without a doubt, or you can even say secrets of our top golfers.

00:32:39.560 --> 00:32:45.035
You know, whatever, you want to create that interest that oh I gotta check this out.

00:32:45.035 --> 00:32:47.848
You know what I mean, uh, and that's what you want to do.

00:32:47.848 --> 00:32:51.328
You want to create that suspense, that little bit of urgency, that little bit of intrigue.

00:32:51.328 --> 00:32:55.684
I also think clubs don't use emojis not nearly enough in their subject lines.

00:32:55.684 --> 00:32:58.661
It's like every other category.

00:32:58.661 --> 00:33:02.413
That's marketing to consumers, because essentially clubs are marketing to consumers.

00:33:02.413 --> 00:33:06.170
They use emojis and they use capitalization in their subject lines.

00:33:06.170 --> 00:33:11.009
They use all question subject lines which do great, and clubs don't.

00:33:11.009 --> 00:33:12.934
They just write the same basic thing every week.

00:33:12.934 --> 00:33:13.636
It's literally.

00:33:13.636 --> 00:33:21.371
If I printed out emails from all the clubs in south florida, it would be wallpaper, because it's just like one giant image.

00:33:21.371 --> 00:33:23.836
It's super boring, not actually.

00:33:23.836 --> 00:33:25.788
The club where I live is actually pretty good.

00:33:25.788 --> 00:33:30.887
Uh, they do a decent job, I have to say but a lot of clubs do not, what's that?

00:33:31.388 --> 00:33:40.403
good save, good save right, I know I don't want to be kicked out of my club yeah, excuse me, sir, we, uh, we heard your episode Right right, right Exactly.

00:33:41.467 --> 00:33:46.155
And then, right after the email out to the entire membership, membership kicked out.

00:33:46.155 --> 00:33:47.778
Exclamation point Emoji.

00:33:48.384 --> 00:33:49.228
That's 100% right.

00:33:49.228 --> 00:33:50.634
You nailed it Exactly.

00:33:51.025 --> 00:34:04.384
Now we're going to head over to episode 340 with Billy Panagiotopoulos from the Country Club of Darien, and it was all about rethinking employee spaces and I'll let him go into it, into the episode that we talked about.

00:34:04.384 --> 00:34:18.713
But I saw on LinkedIn he had this phenomenal employee hangout area where they can eat, hang out, relax, take a break, and it was probably one of the best ones I've ever seen.

00:34:18.713 --> 00:34:20.887
Ever seen Even to the point.

00:34:20.887 --> 00:34:24.255
They have like musical instruments in there so they can let loose a little bit.

00:34:24.255 --> 00:34:28.565
Or if they play an instrument, they could just, you know, let off some steam, whatever it is, they can just.

00:34:28.565 --> 00:34:31.856
They have this space where they can get away for a little bit.

00:34:31.856 --> 00:34:34.172
They can eat, they can relax, they can, they can do whatever.

00:34:34.492 --> 00:34:38.644
But I just thought it was fascinating and one of the nicest places I've ever seen.

00:34:38.644 --> 00:34:45.896
So that was the reason for the episode, and he goes into why they did it, how they did it, the who, what, where, when, why, house.

00:34:45.896 --> 00:34:52.679
So this was episode 340, the employee oasis rethinking employee spaces with Billy Panagiotopoulos.

00:34:52.679 --> 00:34:56.909
Did you build this employee area?

00:34:56.909 --> 00:34:57.909
Was it already there?

00:34:57.909 --> 00:34:59.311
Did you just upgrade it?

00:34:59.311 --> 00:34:59.871
Was it already there?

00:34:59.871 --> 00:35:00.391
Did you just upgrade it?

00:35:00.391 --> 00:35:01.393
What was the story behind it?

00:35:01.773 --> 00:35:02.974
Yeah, so I'll tell you.

00:35:02.974 --> 00:35:05.996
I mean, when I first started I started a little bit over a year ago.

00:35:05.996 --> 00:35:10.461
I started on Martin Luther King Day and it was a Monday.

00:35:10.461 --> 00:35:16.239
I came in and I like my beverages either very, very cold or very hot.

00:35:16.239 --> 00:35:17.871
So my coffee's gotta be like.

00:35:17.871 --> 00:35:22.769
It's to the point where I'm not going to sue Starbucks.

00:35:22.769 --> 00:35:29.666
And I come in and I'm like, okay, I want to got a heat of my coffee.

00:35:30.027 --> 00:35:32.072
And there was a gentleman here, one of the maintenance guys.

00:35:32.072 --> 00:35:38.978
He was putting my name on the door, which was pretty cool, and he said well, why don't you go up to the employee lounge?

00:35:38.978 --> 00:35:40.829
There's a microwave in there.

00:35:40.829 --> 00:35:56.672
So I go up, make my way up there, and I see a couple of people eating in there and the buffet was and this was in the morning, you know they had some eggs and they had bacon wrapped scallops.

00:35:56.672 --> 00:36:01.764
This is at, you know, 10 am and I'm looking at it.

00:36:01.764 --> 00:36:06.594
I'm like this is a very odd buffet and I noticed that it didn't look great right.

00:36:06.594 --> 00:36:17.971
Then I opened up the microwave to put my coffee in there and if you've seen the movie Gremlins, when the gremlin blows up, that's what it looked like in there and I'm like, wow, this is terrible.

00:36:17.971 --> 00:36:22.996
And so you know, I see these guys kind of eating.

00:36:22.996 --> 00:36:39.217
And later in the day and later in the week, I noticed all of our hourly employees were eating off of this like afterthought of small little buffet, and our leaders were ordering off of the restaurant menus.

00:36:39.217 --> 00:36:52.074
So you have this person eating the eggs with the bacon wrapped scallops from like two days ago and you have this, the, the manager, walking in with a quinoa salad or a beautiful piece of salmon on top.

00:36:52.074 --> 00:36:57.117
It's like two, two classes of citizens, right, which I thought was totally wrong.

00:36:57.759 --> 00:37:00.487
So what I did was my second board meeting.

00:37:00.487 --> 00:37:02.431
I asked the president.

00:37:02.431 --> 00:37:06.407
I said I would like to have the board meeting in the employee lounge.

00:37:06.407 --> 00:37:11.795
So he said to me he's like we must be busy.

00:37:11.795 --> 00:37:14.606
Then, right, I mean we must be busy.

00:37:14.606 --> 00:37:15.068
I told him.

00:37:15.068 --> 00:37:16.449
I said, well, no, we're not busy.

00:37:16.449 --> 00:37:23.106
I think that it's important that for the board to see where the employees relax and eat, you know when they take their break.

00:37:23.106 --> 00:37:28.057
So he says to me, he says okay, that's, that's fine, billy, we'll do that.

00:37:28.980 --> 00:37:32.592
Next day pops up in my office and he says, hey, do you mind taking me up there?

00:37:32.592 --> 00:37:33.615
I've never been there before.

00:37:33.615 --> 00:37:44.623
So I said absolutely Take him up there, looks around and he says you prove your point.

00:37:44.623 --> 00:37:52.831
Took the executive committee there the next day and then after that we looked at like capital budget.

00:37:52.831 --> 00:37:56.385
There was some reallocation of some funds to get it done and then I designed it Essentially.

00:37:56.385 --> 00:37:57.773
I knocked down some walls, I just kind of set the whole thing up.

00:37:57.773 --> 00:37:58.516
And then I designed it Essentially.

00:37:58.516 --> 00:38:00.505
I knocked down some walls, I just kind of set the whole thing up.

00:38:00.505 --> 00:38:06.438
And then I worked with a company that actually built the kitchen area as well.

00:38:08.286 --> 00:38:23.931
I mean you did a fantastic job, from the signage to the actual details, of putting like the values and everything of the club and what's expected of the staff and everybody like that's all up on the walls.

00:38:23.931 --> 00:38:27.246
So you didn't just do part of it like you took it and ran.

00:38:28.931 --> 00:38:43.175
Yeah, I mean, that whole setup was created from scratch, right, so what we said is we need to develop a vision and a mission and our core values, who we are, um, as a brand.

00:38:43.175 --> 00:38:45.661
We didn't have that here.

00:38:45.661 --> 00:38:55.030
Um, so, really from yeah, we didn't have any of that here, so this is all new, oh so, so, so this is way more than just, uh, just an employee area.

00:38:55.070 --> 00:38:59.039
This was, this was a slightly bigger thing going on, wow.

00:38:59.684 --> 00:39:19.572
Yeah, so this was big and I think that in clubs, there's some clubs that really do it well and then there's some other clubs that really it's an afterthought, right, but I come from luxury hotels, which I'm fortunate to have been a part of some really amazing cultures, which I'm fortunate to have been a part of some really amazing cultures.

00:39:19.592 --> 00:39:21.273
I've also been a part of toxic cultures as well.

00:39:21.273 --> 00:39:22.393
So I've learned.

00:39:22.393 --> 00:39:46.976
I've learned what to do and what not to do, and I've been a part of three employee space renovations in my career, but this one was the most important because I was the GM, like my voice was the one that was able to push this narrative that we have to make sure that not only keep the employees we have, but we want to find new ones.

00:39:46.976 --> 00:39:52.452
But in sales they teach you keep the customers you have before you find new ones.

00:39:52.452 --> 00:40:10.233
And you really got to look at it at your employee base that way as well, because people have options these days, right, and hospitality, like the labor market is, it's tough to deal with, right, you're competing with everyone, right, so it's definitely difficult, so it's important to create that culture.

00:40:19.204 --> 00:40:22.175
People who aren't in the hospitality industry know to look at the hospitality industry for to for like their own.

00:40:22.175 --> 00:40:25.746
You know greedy, you know company reasons, so it's not just about having good people there.

00:40:25.746 --> 00:40:35.355
But so you know you, they don't get poached by, you know, like your, your, your members or somebody else or you know, whoever you're right, you're right, you're.

00:40:35.396 --> 00:40:36.398
You're in competition.

00:40:36.398 --> 00:40:41.293
You're in competition with everyone, especially people want hospitality facing people right.

00:40:41.293 --> 00:40:45.907
I mean people that love what they do and and create great experiences.

00:40:45.907 --> 00:40:51.445
And there's no different in in the local deli right or or hotel right.

00:40:51.525 --> 00:40:54.793
Hospitality is everywhere yeah, and you guys have.

00:40:54.793 --> 00:40:57.018
Do you put a little little music area there?

00:40:57.018 --> 00:40:57.371
What's that?

00:40:57.371 --> 00:40:58.523
Did you put like a little little little music area there?

00:40:58.523 --> 00:40:58.777
What's that?

00:40:58.777 --> 00:41:02.664
Did you put like a little, like a little music area or like some musical instruments?

00:41:02.664 --> 00:41:05.608
Yes, yeah, we put like an eat and play area.

00:41:05.688 --> 00:41:16.099
So we put a a keyboard, we put a guitar and you know just a little kind of fun area there that people can go up there play a little music if they'd like.

00:41:17.500 --> 00:41:20.505
Tickle the ivories, yeah, up.

00:41:20.505 --> 00:41:31.565
Next from episode 385, another more recent one was with Luann Giovinelli, ccm, cam, cmaa fellow, and it was about club management and drag racing.

00:41:31.565 --> 00:41:38.393
That was the episode title, because her and I had a fantastic chat Even during our pre-interview chat.

00:41:38.393 --> 00:42:06.315
Just clicked immediately the vibes, the energy was all good and just her stories and from being a female club leader in the industry for so long that when we chatted and it's what this part is about is she said that she has seen it all and she said she's watched the evolution of everything and that really clicked.

00:42:06.315 --> 00:42:14.947
So I let her go into that and just seeing what she has seen, heard what she's heard and just, uh, there's so many lessons here in this one.

00:42:15.086 --> 00:42:18.797
The whole episode is fantastic and I put the episode for drag racing too.

00:42:18.797 --> 00:42:23.364
We don't talk about it in this particular part of this episode, but uh, she's also a drag racer.

00:42:23.364 --> 00:42:24.507
Her and her husband drag race.

00:42:24.507 --> 00:42:33.233
They have like the dragsters Like not like drag racing on the highway, like the legit dragster cars those really long, like cigarette style looking things.

00:42:33.233 --> 00:42:38.195
Well, not really cigarette style, but the long draggers that have the big parachutes that come out Wild stuff.

00:42:38.195 --> 00:42:42.945
Just such a good human and I love the whole episode.

00:42:42.945 --> 00:42:50.490
This is from episode 385, club Management and Drag Racing Lessons with Luann Giovinelli.

00:42:50.490 --> 00:42:57.492
I remember when we first chatted you said the line you've watched the evolution of everything.

00:43:00.126 --> 00:43:01.192
I like that line a lot.

00:43:02.025 --> 00:43:23.273
Yeah, I feel like I have, you know, I mean it's not like I'm the beginning of club management, but I certainly have watched the evolution of women in club management and the evolution of the I don't want to say kids the students and the generations that we're dealing with now, and how things have changed.

00:43:23.273 --> 00:43:26.235
You know, in my day we worked 70, 80 hours a week.

00:43:26.235 --> 00:43:28.306
We felt like that was expected of us.

00:43:28.306 --> 00:43:37.597
You had to do that to prove that you were really good at what you do, and I kind of really love it that the young people today are like, hey, I'm not doing that anymore, I'm not doing that.

00:43:37.597 --> 00:43:45.576
And there are a lot of people that think, oh, they don't have a work ethic or they don't have this or that, and I think, heck, why didn't we think of that?

00:43:45.576 --> 00:43:48.340
You know, why didn't we say, hey, we're not working 80 hours a week?

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You know we want to be with our family, we want to go.

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I don't have children, but you know I see people not being able to go to their children's events and sporting events.

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You know, I've also watched the evolution of boards and clubs where they've also they're not so rigid about hey, we want our GM in the dining room every night.

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You know you have that old maitre d' syndrome, I call it.

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