Page 16 - GBC Spring 2023 Eng

Recruitment Services at a Price All Courses Can Afford
Your one stop source for golf industry news, education & job postings
Our team assists courses with finding the right leaders with an à la carte options to fit every budget.
Canadian partner with Australia’s EnvoyGolf in finding seasonal staff in a reciprocal program.
freshgolf.ca
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Golf Business Canada
BUILD BRAND LOYALTY
Many of us in sales and marketing came up learning the traditional sales funnel. This was how we were supposed to think about and treat other humans - as they moved, or were converted, from “hot leads” and prospects to customers. That was before social media shifted more information into the hands of our market, and a negative review could spread around the world in a matter of hours. The traditional funnel focused on sales and conversions. Once customers moved through the funnel, they were off the radar.
Today, consumers come to you prepared and educated, with trusted referrals in hand before they ever hear your sales pitch. Today, we can’t have funnel vision. Rather, as we shared in UnSelling; The New Customer Experience, we should think of a Sales Cloud. Your customers don’t stop being important once they’ve finished playing your course. Once they move through your sales funnel - if you’ve been able to get them in and keep them happy during the process - they join other voices in the Sales Cloud. Was their experience as a customer good enough to share? Did they leave unhappy? Making the sale isn’t enough; we need to be creating shareable experiences for our customers through great products and service.
Leading with awareness removes our blinders, ensures we connect and lead with purpose, and helps create a solid foundation, which is particularly important during disruptive times. Our book, UnBranding, 100 Branding Lessons for the Age of Disruption, showed how building loyalty is the key to surviving and thriving during disruptive times. Brands build loyalty by focusing on comfort, cost, convenience, and convergence,
all of which require an awareness of both the strength and challenges of your workforce and the needs of your market.
All the successful brands we saw brought their customers from a feeling of need/want into comfort. They focused on answering a question for the market - whether it be with a product or service. Once the need was met, customers walked away confident that the company would rise to the occasion again in the future, and trust was born. Until an innovation comes about where we do not exchange currency for goods and services, the cost will always be important.
This does not mean to create loyalty; one should race to the bottom price-wise. In fact, many of our most habit-forming brands are among the most expensive in their market. Focusing on cost means focusing on perceived value and giving people what they paid for. Our most successful brands made it their job to ensure customers felt their money was well spent, explaining why they are of value and keeping the price promise.
Products and services do not only cost customers money; they also cost time. This factor relates to all your business processes, from the number of hoops people need to jump through to book a round to how far they need to drive to your course. Everyone is busy, and our successfulbrandsearnedloyalty by appreciating and saving customers time. Loyal customers feel their ideals line up with the companies they work with.
The most successful businesses understand their customers and what they believe in, making their products/services part of the individual’s identity. There isn’t one ideal for everyone, which is why when some people flee from a brand for aligning themselves with