Country Club Speaker for Marketing
Anyone that has been a professional marketing speaker for any length of time can tell you that one of the advantages of being a professional speaker is that you get to know so many different people and industries.
I would have never thought a few years ago that I would help 100’s of Interior Designers grow their business. But after speaking at three different events and doing a webinar, I know that I have done that.
Country Clubs are another area that is interesting. When you are asked to speak to a group, the first thing you want to do is get to know the unique issues around the industry. With country clubs, I was speaking to vendors and managers, so it was a mixed message.
The country club managers wanted to increase membership and retention. Twitter is not going to do that! Country clubs have an issue with their entire business model. I would argue that the problem for Country Clubs is that business is less exclusive than it used to be. Resources are spread more evenly and there are less people willing to pay a country club membership fee. Especially if they cannot take their family in to use the pool. It is actually a very interesting thing to watch them try to retain their older members while reinvent themselves for the new reality they face.
Then there are the vendors that sell to country clubs. These people will spend a year or more trying to build a relationship and get their products into the country club. With how quickly the board members for the country club change, they can spend a year or two building the right relationships only to see it evaporate when the board members change.
In both of these cases, online buzz, social media and Internet Lead Generation may not seem like a perfect speaking topic. However, there is a variety of ways it fits in.
For the country club, having public events to get new people to experience the club can be very powerful. I recently drove two hours to Pittsburgh to attend an event I saw on Facebook.
For the vendor, managing and enhancing their online reputation and visibility can increase the odds of a sale – sooner. It may also help them jump start the new relationships. Since the online reputation is something you can do essentially for free in the evenings, it does not cut into your business hours.
I am often surprised at how Internet Marketing can be adapted to any audience. Obviously, some groups can get more out of it than others, but it is rare to not find some way to tie it in.
