GENERATING QUALIFIED SALES LEADS FOR GOLF CLUB MEMBERSHIP
Everyone knows that when it comes to selling golf club memberships, you can’t just wait for potential new members to come to you. Yes, it’s possible to have people who were referred by current members reach out to learn more about joining your private club or have interested parties who found your club online. However, typically when private clubs want to exponentially grow their golf memberships, they need to have a process for going out and finding prospective members.
It all comes down to having the proper strategy of generating and then qualifying sales leads to convert them into new memberships. Or, if you like analogies, this means the membership sales department of a private club has a bigger job to do than just catching the fish. They also need to know the best lake to find plenty of fish, the right bait to use and the surefire ways to reel that fish in before they can claim victory.
Generating leads and converting them into new memberships is both an art and a science, something that we’ve studied, measured and perfected here at Capstone Hospitality. We’ve developed both the methodology and the tools to source new sales leads, track and measure touch points with those leads and convert them into private club memberships.
If your club is actively working to expand membership and bolster sales lead management, then you’re surely looking for reliable ways to generate and qualify leads for sales, leading to a higher percentage of conversions. We’ve put together some of the top things every club should consider as they build out their process for how to generate sales leads, follow up with clear benchmarks and touch points and finally convert to new golf memberships.
1. Determine the True Value of a Golf Club Membership
The value and benefit of a private club membership might seem obvious to a membership director who is familiar with the ins and outs of the club, but you would be surprised by how often the true value of a golf club membership isn’t adequately communicated to potential new members. Or worse, clubs think they know the most appealing aspects of membership but fail to understand the priorities of a potential new member and the benefits most influential to them signing.
Say you’re speaking to a prospective member who loves golf. It might make sense to you to really highlight the golf-specific benefits to win them over, without realizing some of the family-oriented aspects of your club (pool access, kids camp in the summer, excellent dining options, etc.) might actually be a bigger selling point. Being able to justify membership as something benefitting the entire family might showcase the value of a membership to this particular prospect more than anything else.
The way to avoid this pitfall is two-fold. The first is to really familiarize yourself with all the benefits of your memberships and learn how to sell them with value in mind. The second is to ensure you get to know prospective members well enough to pinpoint exactly what kind of value they would like to get out of a golf club membership. This will ensure you know what to highlight and how to frame the value proposition.
At Capstone Hospitality, our first step is to provide an in-depth assessment to the club which dives deep into your value proposition and club values. We then use this information to determine how to best sell what you offer. We aren’t changing the product, we’re helping you package it better.
2. Chase the Right Sales Leads
To hook the right fish, you need to better understand your targets. In other words, is your team talking to the right people? It’s important when seeking sales leads to think of them not just as leads but as people with their own interests, values and reasons to join a club.
When sourcing leads, you want to ensure all of these facets line up to both the types of members you currently have in your club and the qualities of potential new members who are most likely to follow through with a new membership. It’s not a good use of your time to chase a lead that seems unlikely to join your private club from the outset based on these characteristics.
There are several ways you can ensure your leads are the right ones, also known as “qualifying” leads. You can get a sense from them of how likely they are to buy a golf club membership by their initial interest, whether they would get value out of club membership and whether they fit the profile of current club members.
It’s critical when qualifying leads to track exactly where a lead initially came from and whether or not they converted. By not tracking this information, you might be accidentally chasing down leads from a source that has already proven itself to not be fruitful or you’re missing out on sources that have generated conversions in the past. You’ll want to continue to tap into the sources that have delivered results previously.
This is why Capstone Hospitality’s custom built CRM system creates an organized system of tracking lead sources and outlining trends in reporting that will inform strategy moving forward.
3. Dedicate a Team to Sales Lead Management
We’ve been involved on the ground with private clubs for years, and one thing we’ve noticed time and time again is how many different responsibilities General Managers and Membership Directors have on a day-to-day basis. When they have staffing and billing issues to oversee, programmatic duties and member communications to execute and member relations on their plate, chasing leads can take a back seat.
As we’ve mentioned, generating, qualifying and converting leads is an art. It can take time to develop these relationships and get them over the finish line. It’s essential to have a dedicated team to strategize how to generate sales leads and follow through with these potential new members.
We’ve found prospective members of private clubs need to receive an average of twelve touches from membership sales representatives, from initial inquiry until close, in order to convert. If your staff has too much on their plates to identify and qualify leads and then create these different touch points, you risk losing out on substantial new business.
This is why the cornerstone of Capstone Hospitality’s offering is to get one of our highly trained professionals on the ground to do nothing but generate leads and create those touch points in order to sell memberships.
4. Develop a Foolproof Sales Leads Process
Once you’ve identified and qualified the strength of a lead, you need to have a plan in place to make those twelve touches. This sales lead management process should include tracking how many times you’ve already made contact, making notes about how the conversations went and determining how close they are to finally making their decision to buy a club membership.
This is all valuable information as you create a process to close. Even if you don’t close a sale, having a record of all the touches you made and how the conversations went can give you insight into what might have gone wrong and help you learn for next time.
This process is something Capstone Hospitality has built out and mastered. Our proven process for following up with leads and managing our strategy is multi-faceted and relies on advanced software we’ve developed to meet all the needs of our membership sales professionals. Not only are we able to follow and replicate our processes, but we’re able to narrow in on data, analyze trends in our sales lead management system and then instantly pull reporting to understand what’s working and not working at the highest level.
If you’ve identified any of these areas of generating and qualifying leads as something your membership sales department is currently struggling with, take action and reach out to Capstone Hospitality today. Chasing qualified leads for sales is our expertise and just one of the many ways we can help you grow your golf memberships and help your club meet its full potential.