Your Team Is Your Sales Team 
The start of the golf season is always a busy time for golf course operators. If it isn’t one thing NOT working it’s something else. It is also the time of year when you bring on most of your seasonal staff, some returning and some brand new to your operation. Orientation and training programs vary widely from facility to facility but there is one thing that all operators need to consider…
Who Is Your Best Salesperson?
You may likely have a Sales and/ or Marketing Manager, maybe it is you, the owner or General Manager? But who is it really?
It is your front line staff, the people who answer the phones, engage and interact with customers and ultimately book/ reserve your business on a daily basis.
These front line staff need to be your BEST sales people during the season!
Focus time and effort on sales training for your front line staff early. The season is short and there is no time to waste. We have always tried to do this but recently we’ve taken a new approach to sales training. We now focus on one item every week that the team will up-sell. This keeps the team focused and gives them less to learn all at one time. It also keeps them engaged and fresh because they are learning and promoting something new each week.
To keep this process going we create a weekly schedule of promotions. This schedule should coincide with the content calendar for your newsletter and social posts. If you do this in advance it is easy to keep yourself, your mangers and your team on track.
For this week, at one course we work with, we are focused on driving range passes. Every customer who comes in the door to purchase a bucket of balls must be reminded, “Did you know if you purchase a 10 bucket pass you can save a dollar per bucket?”.
That’s it. Pretty easy right? It’s up to the managers to listen and hear the team asking the question. Early results… we’re averaging 2 to 4 ten bucket driving range passes PER DAY at this facility! These golfers may have purchased 10 buckets at the full price throughout the season (or maybe not). But we have received the revenue up front and the next time they come in we can try to up-sell them on something else.
We can’t wait to see how next week’s promo works and what revenue we can generate running this program all season long.
Focus on one sales or promotional item per week. Give it a try, we bet you will see great results!
We, Jeff and Tara Ciecko of CK Golf write two blogs, one is our 19th Hole Blog where we share personal experiences and the other an Industry Blog where we comment on general business and internet marketing best practices, sales strategies and give golf industry related opinions. We have owned CK Golf for 14+ years and provide business services to the golf and other industries. We have recently started hosted online video chats on current topics and issues facing the industry. You can watch Golf Industry Conversations here. As of July 31, 2016 our life and our business became ‘location independent’. Our 19th Hole Blog is about the places we visit and the things we do. If you have any questions or comments, or happen to be in the same location as us please reach out and contact us anytime.
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