Golf facilities need more sales - sales & marketing manager

The sales employee at German golf courses - why sales is so important

Golf facilities in Germany need more sales power. And yet at the fewest golf clubs there are contacts for sales & marketing.

Both the right marketing and sales are incredibly important for a company. In today's article we want to look at the part of the sales employee or the sales manager. I have a very clear opinion here. Golf courses need an employee in sales.

How is sales currently organised at golf facilities?

If we leave aside the few golf facilities that have already made the decision important for them to hire a sales colleague, then two further strategies emerge for how sales is currently organised at German golf courses.

Sales organisation at golf courses - "sales is the boss's job"

Golf facilities have golf managers, managing directors, owners or another kind of facility manager. One of the two current ways of organising sales at golf facilities is: "sales is the boss's job".

And frankly, I like this option better than the second variant I present to you afterwards.

Because in the variant "sales is the boss's job", the golf manager or even the owner takes care of the sales activities. Golf managers and facility operators commute for months through golf trade fairs for acquisition. And we observe the owner advising the prospects for memberships themselves. In a detailed conversation in the old-English clubhouse and over a hot cup of coffee, the prospect is supplied by the owner with information about the golf facility. Perhaps it even comes to a close.

But what problem hides behind this form of sales organisation at golf courses?

Is it really the golf manager's task to carry out all fairs and field events themselves? Or shouldn't they rather be at the golf facility and serve the operational concerns?

Should the owner conduct the sales conversations for golf memberships themselves?

Or would it not perhaps even be better if these tasks were delegated to a sales manager. The sales employee brings the necessary qualifications for this. They know how to respond to the prospects and are trained in sales. The owner (who is, after all, an entrepreneur) in turn gains time through this relief to concentrate on their main tasks. Because their task is to work ON the company and not IN the company. They are responsible for the vision and the mission, have to steer the company in the right direction with new ideas and measures. It is not necessarily their task to run themselves. Instead they should set the path.

Variant 2 of sales organisation at golf courses: "whoever has time takes over sales"

Let's come to the second and most widespread variant: here the sales task is distributed across the whole team. The lady at reception, the staff in the pro shop and office and now and then the colleagues from the restaurant. Sales conversations are taken over by whoever has time.

Whether that can go well? Possibly, but the probability for it is very low.

Sales staff are trained for this task. They possess special skills that significantly increase the probability of closing a sales conversation. The close rate can rise here from 20 to 90%.

The advantage for the rest of the team? Relief and a more pleasant working climate. Not everyone is made for sales (even if these skills can be learned). Much more important, though, is the point that every employee (every professional) can thereby concentrate exactly on what they can do best. This way a higher efficiency in the processes can be achieved quite simply.

What does sales at golf courses currently look like?

Sales does not only mean using opportunities when they arise. Opportunities also have to be created. What I mean by that? It is of course nice and very pleasing when, on a sunny August day, a prospect wanders into the freshly renovated clubhouse and is interested in a weekend membership.

There is a sales employee at the facility? Congratulations, the chance that this prospect becomes a member has thereby almost quintupled.

However, the prospect's visit is not a result of sales. In the best case it arose through functioning marketing. In the worst case it was simply luck that the prospect got lost and wanted to stop somewhere anyway.

Sales does not only mean turning the walk-ins into paying business. Sales also means creating new opportunities to enable even more business.

Advantages of a sales manager at the golf facility

The main argument here is probably that the company has more money in the till at the end of the day. But that would be too simple. Let's look at a few more interesting points that arise from hiring a sales employee.

Professional sales at golf facilities is important, because it leads to

► higher revenues

► more effective marketing measures

► sustainable new income

► measurable success

► more members

► less member fluctuation

► higher average prices

► cross-selling effects

► upsell effects

My golf facility cannot afford a sales employee

Really? Is that so? I like to calculate it through and then make a sound statement. For our example let's calculate with a sales employee who receives a salary of €2,000 gross. In addition there is a commission scheme on sales; this works very motivatingly.

Calculated over the whole year, we have (commissions aside) a cost block of €28,746. The sales employee is important for the survival of the company, here I would never recommend offering the employee only a seasonal contract.

Through climate change we in Germany now benefit from the golf season being able to last up to 10 months. The costs are thus spread over 10 months. So we have to earn €2,874.60 monthly. Not so hard, is it? Let's set the bar a little higher and assume a factor of x10 to x15 here. So in the best case an addition of €287,460 to €431,190. Choked on your coffee? Don't worry, we will break the revenues down again shortly.

Earning money through sales

So here we start at several points at once. One of the fields of activity is turning the walk-ins into paying members. From my sales training I know very well that staff are afraid of selling. That and the lack of training lead to deficient sales skills, which in turn lead to fewer closes.

For the calculation we have a monthly membership fee of €120. Everyone can now calculate the average length of membership at the golf facility individually. But 2-3 years it may well be. Here the sales employee also starts through customer-loyalty programmes.

To make the field a little more realistic, we should also factor in that through better marketing more walk-ins and contacts with prospects arise too.

If we now also factor in that each of these members stays with us for 3 years, the calculation looks as follows:

Golf trade fairs are not dead

In the next step we look at marketing activities such as fam trips, golf trade fairs and other field activities. Of course a fair with everything involved costs up to €10,000. However, we should also take into account the high impact here. In addition the costs can be reduced well to a quarter through cooperations with regions.

We can measure this well, for example, through competitions that we hold at these events. Thereby not only does the in-house newsletter get more power, but we also have a good control instrument. The collected data we can compare with our bookings after period XYZ. And a group won through a golf fair can flush a lot of money into the till. It becomes particularly lucrative when there is also a hotel at the golf facility.

In this calculation you see how a group with 5 nights and 3x green fee for €35 leaves a revenue of €6,360 at the facility. And we don't only want to generate one group, but a few more.

If we set ourselves a target of 15 groups at a fair, almost €100,000 is also quite quickly in the till.

Oh, and we don't only want to visit one fair, but a few more.

Available here are, for example, the Hanse Golf in Hamburg, the Golftage München, the RheinGolf in Düsseldorf, the fair in Herning in Denmark, the Fespo in Switzerland, the 1st Austrian Golf Show in Vienna or the CMT in Stuttgart. Personally I find the fairs most successful where there is a demarcation from the rest of the exhibition halls. In London and Amsterdam there is also a golf fair each. The latter two, however, I have not yet visited. Corona got in the way.

And that's not all - further areas of impact of a sales manager at golf facilities

The conversion of prospects into members or the active visiting of golf fairs are only a few of the ways in which a sales employee can make themselves useful. But the sales (& marketing) manager of a golf facility can do much more.

For example, a good CRM system, a newsletter, a sales-oriented website, dynamic pricing, the integration of sales tools such as Campo or the contracting with tour operators can be implemented.

And these too are only some of the possible points of attack.

Conclusion on the golf sales & marketing manager

The world is changing, and golf facilities have to adapt to it too. The times in which we sold lifelong memberships are over. And only the fewest still want to pay a five-figure membership fee. It is moving away from club-run golf facilities subsidised by the members. More and more purely commercial facilities are starting in Germany. And the offer of these golf facilities is very impressive. More and more a cost and revenue pressure arises.

In times like these, doing without a manager for sales & marketing is no alternative for me.

The effort with website, newsletter, Google advertising and marketing activities alone exceeds the time budget of a managing director or golf facility manager. In addition the sales manager has a correspondingly sound and comprehensive training and expertise here.

No sales professional, no profit.