343: Communication Summit Recap: A Decade of Evolution w/ Jackie Singleton, Victoria Burns, & Sean Bleyl

Transcript

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Communication is critical in clubs.

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It makes or breaks a member-owned club and that one was by Ray Cronin in his opening session and I just think that so often to Victoria's point, communication can be kind of seen as this either admin role or just kind of this afterthought that maybe has to exist or somehow we have to write something out.

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But truly clubs are becoming more strategic in how they present their messages and communication is critical.

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Hey everyone, welcome back to Private Club Radio, the private club industry source for news, trends, updates and conversations.

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When we say private clubs, we mean country clubs, city clubs, yacht clubs, golf clubs, athletic clubs, all the clubs.

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I'm your host, denny Corby.

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There was the CMAA Communication Summit held in Boston.

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It is their 10th year and I really wanted to go, couldn't go, couldn't make it happen, but some of my friends were there and I brought them on and we are gonna talk about review and just learn all about what went down, some of the takeaways, some of the key points at the cmaa communications summit.

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So I'm bringing on victoria burns and sean blile from members first, and also the director of member in community engagements, jackie singleton, over at tcc, the country club in brookline, which is where some of the conference was held too, and jackie is an og which which you're going to hear, she was there from day one, big proponent, helped bring it all together and still seeing it go strong, and to hear from that perspective, that point of view, is very nice to hear too.

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You hear this passion, this fire, this excitement about this part of the industry.

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Now in the episode, victoria is going to mention a project planner that will be available in the show description in the show notes below.

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Make sure you check that out, get it.

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If you get it and use it, it can be extremely valuable.

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So let's please welcome to the show from members.

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First Victoria Burns and Sean Blyle and Jackie Singleton from TCC, the Country Club at brookline.

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I'm really upset, though, that I wasn't able to come to cma a summit, uh, communication summit but, um, things happen.

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But you guys are here to tell us all about it.

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We have victoria burns, sean blile from members.

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First we have jackie singleton, who's the director of Member and Community Engagement over at TCC, and this is Jackie.

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This is the 10th year, the 10th year of the Communication Summit, and it started in Boston, and now you just had it back in Boston and there's been some tremendous growth.

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I was talking with Sean earlier.

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He mentioned you started with 15 clubs and then now you're at 95 clubs attending the Communication Summit, which is I was trying to do the math on it, but that's like I think it's 50% growth every year at least minimum you have.

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That's massive growth.

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Yeah, it's been an amazing 10-year run.

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Back in 2013 timeframe, we had a long range plan, a governance chair who started with our communications committee and said how does Jackie not have a network in the industry for communications?

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And so they worked with our general man, our then general manager, david Shag, and we put together a list of some clubs, invited them out to Boston and basically said let's take a chance and figure out where club communications can go together.

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So we had put together a day and a half of education back then and we had about 20 people, 15 clubs, represented.

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Some were GMs, some were comms professionals.

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Some of the GMs were just trying to figure out the role at the time because the role didn't really exist.

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So it was somebody who was likely wearing multiple hats at a club and just kind of took on project management.

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And then throughout the next five years, we made our way around the country to different locations, again basically just through the club network which is amazing and finding places that would host us, and grew the clubs a little bit each year, usually regionally, depending on where we were.

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And then we were able and fortunate to meet with in conjunction with the NCAA World Conference and then the CMAA World Conference and after that it had, you know, pretty much exploded after five years and as a volunteer it was hard to manage everybody's travel plans and everything else.

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So I approached CMAA and said you know, what do you think Is this within your wheelhouse?

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And at the time they were really in the midst of, with Jeff Morgan, changing from club managers association to club management and looking at those verticals that they have.

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So at the same time they were also absorbing the CSFA for fitness professionals and, you know, starting to take on summits for various topics.

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So at this point there's all kinds of summits HR chef networking, etc.

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So it's, it's, it's right into their wheelhouse and it's been a wonderful time to see.

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This year we had about 125 from those 95 clubs and then we had some additional people also in attendance, so we were around 140 total and that was really the max on space and also keeping it intimate enough that everybody can still network and get things out of the summit.

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We also had 40 people on the waitlist.

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So it's amazing what CMAA has done with it.

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It's definitely one of those things that when you see the registration open up you need to get your name on the list quickly.

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There were so many people that had reached out that were like how do we get into this event?

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So it was really cool to see kind of how it's gone from the 15 clubs all the way to 95.

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And people are just trying to get in as quickly as possible.

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It's really amazing.

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I'm pretty sure it was sold out within two weeks, so that marketing really hit the wavelengths.

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I mean, they're communications professionals.

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They're looking for dates and looking to get on the calendar, for dates and looking to get on the calendar.

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But also the Communications Connect community that CMAA has put forward for assisting that throughout the year and having a place where electronically people can connect and share ideas, I think has also contributed to that growth and really knowing about what's going on with the industry.

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I still can't believe that, like you said, Jackie, that it started 10 years ago where they wanted to make sure that you had a network.

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It's amazing to see the type of networking that happens at this event.

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I think I've been lucky enough to go to five of those 10 summits and for communications professionals, they all like to communicate and they are just sharing ideas throughout the entire event and, like it's, it's really cool to see kind of all the networking that happens and having this start from an individual wanting to help those, all these professionals kind of create that network throughout the country, which is really great to see.

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It's also been awesome to watch some of the organic groups that are forming around the country in different areas, where it's just kind of offshoots.

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They might meet each other in one of these cities at this event but then realize that their clubs are actually 5, 10, 15 minutes away from each other.

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So they're then getting together throughout the year, which, again, like all hospitality people, we love to chat and get together and really share ideas.

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So I think all of that organic growth has also been wonderful to see.

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Have there been people who have love to chat and get together and, um, you know, really share ideas?

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So I think all of that organic growth has also been wonderful to see every single one Like.

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Are there like 10 year people who have like the 10 year badge of honor?

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So there are definitely clubs that have been to everyone, but I would say, as far as people, I have to give a shout out to Doris from Westchester Country Club because she is like my ride or die when it comes to this communications event.

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She has been at every single one and she is amazing.

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She is the publicity director up at Westchester.

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The titles are definitely all different in the mark-off profession.

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It's amazing to look at the number of titles that we all have.

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The pd she is the publicity director at wc at westchester man, we, we got to get her on pc, but she's, she's all in and she has some amazing stories.

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victoria and I, on day number two, had the opportunity to have lunch with Doris and it was just really interesting to hear somebody's perspective, not only on the communications world, but also she knows everything about her club.

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You know members that have grown up and then gotten married at the club, and then they're having kids too, then they're having kids too.

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It's just amazing to see kind of how like the tenure of of people in this position and how much they know about every single thing that happens at clubs because they have.

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They're the ones that are communicating that out to the membership.

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And correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe, yes, humble, humble hats off to you guys.

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But members first and club benchmarking are some OGs too.

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They've been there since day one also.

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Yeah, yes, actually, right in our presence, sean Blyle was there day one.

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So, yes, we had Members First there day one.

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They were so supportive from the very beginning and actually had created a website for us before we had a real organization that they hosted, which was amazing and presented in that first year, and club benchmarking as well.

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They took on the not so light task of creating an entire survey for the original attendees and then sharing out that data, personalized for each club, for where they fell as far as using different types of software and kind of how clubs were communicating 10 years ago.

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So it was wonderful to have Ray Cronin, the founder, back this year to give a keynote opening session and really talk about how the growth and change has happened in clubs, not just clubs in general, but really specific to club communications.

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10 years ago, when you look at the survey, most clubs didn't have an app.

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Obviously, life has changed and so just looking at how that's all changed and what's being asked of club communications professionals at this point and how they've taken on some of the role of membership, which Victoria has been wonderful about leading, and also I think they have really done a great job for the clubs in general and showing how the growth of the department to some clubs going from zero to one and some clubs going from zero to three people in a department because of online reservations and how much has changed in the course of the world over 10 years.

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For communications and what members expect I mean everybody expects to be communicated with yesterday, not a handwritten letter that's coming through snail mail a month from now about something that happened six months ago.

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Club Benchmarking and Members First were really two of our original supporters of this group, which was amazing and we're so thankful that they were back again for this year and really have supported us throughout the 10 years.

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But Members First also became a presenting sponsor for this year's summit and working with CMAA directly and that kind of support across the industry just means a lot to all of us that are working with Members First day to day and we know how great they are.

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But seeing them as a presenting sponsor and really getting involved with the education was tremendous for us as an organization and group.

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The other people that I would like to thank in all of this are really Jeff Morgan for his leadership from the CMAA perspective, as well as Jason Koningsfeld from the education department.

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Those two have heard a lot from me over the years and Jason really has been truly a rock as far as moving the education process forward with clubs, and just what he brings to the table is phenomenal.

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Yeah, and I think just to piggyback on that is Dawn Coleman.

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She worked on the education for the whole event and bringing that together from CMA and Kyle Jennings, melissa Lowe and Sarah, who you would have seen right there at the event.

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You know, we're just really thankful of all the hard work that they put in to bring this group together.

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It's truly amazing the number of people that it takes to pull something like this together, which is why we're just really grateful for CMAA and Members First, and the partnership that's there supporting the communication summit.

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Yeah, I think it brings out the best in our team and our products.

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The communication summit yeah, I think it brings out the best in our team and our products, but it also helps us think differently and seeing how everyone is building, you know, relationships and it helps us build partnerships with you all and go beyond that typical communications that we're seeing and you know, evolve over time over these last 10 years.

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Thank you, jackie, for everything that you have done to bring this communications community together.

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Yeah, and I think there was an average.

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I just pulled up some of the stats from that survey.

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I was able to work with Ray on coming up with some of these questions to mimic some of the original survey questions to see where we're at from 10 years ago.

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And the average number of comm staff was 1.7 per club, so a .7 of a person extra.

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But there were some clubs who had one person up to six people and obviously there's not as many with that four, five, six, but it was nice to see a big push towards two or three within a comm department.

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I'm still thinking about that original event that we had.

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I think I still have the printed out flyers and presentations.

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Oh, yeah, yeah, this one right here this booklet yes, it's a binder.

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I mean, technology has changed.

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Victoria now has these fun downloadable things instead of a book, but she'll have it.

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I feel like I like the book.

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I mean I like it.

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It's got a nice word cloud on it.

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There was the manual printouts, thinking back 10 years as to like that's what we were doing back then.

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But also I remember there was one presentation that has stuck with me since then and it was at that point everybody was trying to figure out can private clubs be on social media?

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There was a whole presentation not done by us, it was actually done by a lawyer who was there and it was really interesting to get her perspective on that.

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So 10 years ago we were trying to figure out, hey, can clubs be on social media?

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And then fast forward 10 years to today.

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Ultimately, I can't tell you how many social media posts we saw from the people in the room during the summit and all the ideas that they were sharing throughout every single presentation as to how that's made just a giant impact in everybody's world.

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So it was kind of neat to be there from the beginning and then also see it to where it is today it to where it is today.

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It also is pretty amazing because there's a whole environment out there that you can have private accounts and still have your membership flourish in some of those, and so that was on display a lot in roundtable discussion of how they're doing that to bring their newsletter in different forms.

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You're creating all this content and how are you using it multiple times to connect and communicate and market your events that Marcom experience for your membership and everyone has a little bit different way and you can take pluck little things and ideas out and you could just see there was like a buzz.

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The first day was so fun for me because it just started to pump everyone up about like these were their people.

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Everyone else understood where they were coming from.

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This is communication is a very, very important thing in a club, but also one challenge that a lot of these professionals are facing is that not, there isn't a buy-in everywhere, that communications is a key, imperative thing that the club should be focusing on strategically, just as they strategically plan other things.

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So you know it was great to have Jackie's team share a little bit about themselves, of having the squirrel squad type of view from the public, but also they have private engagement and a lot of clubs are taking format of that, doing really cool minute videos of their newsletters, and that's all on a private Instagram and it's really engaging for their club as well.

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So there are options whether you're publicly facing for your social media and having a mixture.

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So let's we've talked broadly, let's talk about some takeaways that each of you took away from the summit.

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know, like let's what are some of, like, your favorite takeaways, your favorite moments, uh, learning lessons, golden nuggets, whatever you want to call them I had several uh, and I think I wrote down a couple of quotes that I really uh, that really resonated with me, and one of them was communication is critical in clubs.

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It makes or breaks a member owned club, and that one was by Ray Cronin in his opening session, and I just think that you know so often to Victoria's point, communication can be kind of seen as this, like either admin role or just kind of this afterthought that maybe has to exist or somehow we have to write something out.

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But, like, truly, clubs are becoming more strategic in how they present their messages and communication is critical.

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And the other piece that backed that up was the data changes, the dynamic Most people will yield to the data when it is communicated properly and people who know me know that I've been a big fan of data for 10 years and Members First does such a good job with teaching us all about our analytics, but it's something that for us, reporting on monthly at the board level really helps to then drive the conversation about how we're going to communicate for people, and this really reinforced that, and I have a lot of conversations with other clubs really about making your case based on data, not based on feelings and I think similarly, if you can have those kinds of conversations at committee meetings, it just it changes the dynamic of what the conversation is versus like I feel like nobody's reading this or I feel like this is happening, you know it's.

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Instead, you have actual, real data of an 80% open rate is going to squash that conversation pretty quickly.

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Right and I think, to piggyback off of what Jackie said, one quote I did an education session on Monday was to say you know, great communication anticipates your needs of your membership.

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It's about informing before they inquire and then guiding before guessing.

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Informing before they inquire and then guiding before guessing.

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And this is just key to providing clear communication, looking at data and then creating an experience for your members before they even ask the questions, and being really, you know, transparent with what you have to offer them, because they want to know how they can engage and enjoy your club.

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It's not a secret anymore to your members.

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There was a.

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The third day of education was really great and it actually kicked off with Natalie Bourne and she had this whole presentation about thinking differently about how they communicate.

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And, to Jackie's point, if people are going to make decisions based off of data, we also have to think differently as to how we communicate.

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Most often, people will think that it needs to be verbal or written communication, but visual communications is really important to get your point across and how you are communicating the data in a way that is digestible or it doesn't have to be a lot of words to ultimately get your point across.

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And we're starting to see that throughout, you know, throughout clubs, where they're testing the waters with how people digest content, and it's how we all digest content as well.

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So it was really interesting to see how, on that last day of education, like you know.

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But Natalie hit the nail on the head with how to tie it all together and make sure that you're visual with your communications as well.

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So Natalie wrote a book it's called Set it On Fire, and I'm just a big proponent of sharing things when I hear about them.

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So I bought the book immediately.

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Like during her session went on, amazon was like I'm buying the book and I also bought it for my team and I think as two days later when it arrived thanks Prime I had multiple texts from other people who had been in the room being like I just got my book, and I think there was just this kind of invigoration by what she was speaking about and, to Sean's point, really tying all that messaging together, that everybody was like well, I want to go get the book and it's totally doable, it's like a small book, it's not.

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It's not something overwhelming.

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So I gave it to my team, told them there's no pressure, but we are dying to know what else is on Jackie's desk.

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Jackie, was that original book from 10 years ago Did you bring?

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Did you bring props to the recording.

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Yes, it's now an artifact.

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Yes, that just lives on my desk so that I remember where we've come from.

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I have a TCC cup here.

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Oh, I love that I saw your memories.

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First cup what do you got?

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Oh, I saw your memories First cut.

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Well, now I feel left out.

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I've got my Carolinas.

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I got my Carolinas New chapter book.

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And I spy a U S open poster back there.

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I always have that.

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That's a great memory from a great club, but also great memory with my dad, yeah.

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Yes, you had some data and takeaways.

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Do you want to share?

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Share some of those.

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Yes, it's the good, bad and the ugly, I guess.

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So a few of the stats that I pulled out when I was reviewing my session.

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My session was on being transparent, thoughtful and tailored with your communication strategies for your new member journey, and this includes your current existing members as well as your new members coming in.

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And, in my session, elise Mackin from TCC and then Denise Sari from Addison Reserve.

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They shared the stage with me and it was amazing to have, like they are two of the leaders in the Marcom industry, I think, right now, just showing what clubs should do in how they're presenting their club, bringing technology in and communicating really well and effectively for their existing members and new members coming into their clubs members and new members coming into their clubs.

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So we had two really different takes and they gave examples of how to really bring this transparency to your club, and I would really recommend for you to go on to LinkedIn and follow them and connect with them, because there's much to learn from them.

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And so a few of the data points that we talked about were 41, we use all of the data from the survey that club benchmarking did to, you know, really make our presentation relevant to what everyone was learning and it was supported by the data right, so we can get behind that data to make change at the club.

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So 41% of the summit attendees did not think their current admissions process reflects their club brand identity effectively, and that's a pretty big number.

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A lot of room for everyone to grow in the room.

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A lot of their biggest challenges were saying that it's hard to get people engaged with or consume the content.

00:23:57.164 --> 00:24:03.939
Again, being transparent, answering questions before they even come up, are ways to get more engagement.

00:24:03.939 --> 00:24:29.237
Being more strategic is a challenge for them that it isn't viewed that way and one that really stood out from a lot of those answering from the attendees group was departmental and board buy-in getting support of successful and cohesive brand rollout you know, just getting that buy-in and support to making communications really strategic for their club.

00:24:29.237 --> 00:24:37.614
And then a very high number here was 67% sometimes to never use technology to personalize communications.

00:24:37.614 --> 00:24:40.708
So I'm here to say right now that is a very big number.

00:24:40.708 --> 00:24:47.492
And segmenting if you can't get people to engage and consume your content, we need to segment them more.

00:24:47.492 --> 00:24:49.030
We know what their interests are.

00:24:49.030 --> 00:25:00.848
Let's use some technology to help us be more personalized and really up our game in the communications, and that means we have a lot of growth to happen.

00:25:01.388 --> 00:25:18.077
So one really great thing that we created from this presentation and knowing that this was a really big need for everyone, was a task organizer, because there's so many tasks and, as we can see, there are people with one you know, they're a department of one.

00:25:18.925 --> 00:25:47.987
There was a fairly split mix of having some membership or onboarding across the board, of having some membership or onboarding across the board, so like if there were two people, most of them had a touch on membership and onboarding for their membership, and then I would say like 50-ish percent still had maybe it was like to be exact, I think 57% really still need to promote their memberships in some way, whether it's referral or however they're getting their leads.

00:25:48.047 --> 00:25:56.354
So a lot of them had a struggle with just organizing themselves, and so we have like a task planner that groups all of their information together.

00:25:56.835 --> 00:26:17.017
And then a big part was, you know, creating a communication strategy that was proactive, member focused and strategically aligns with their club's vision, so really arming with everyone in the room with identifying their challenges, finding solutions, but those solutions all being based on member benefits.

00:26:17.017 --> 00:26:56.713
So what can they do to implement services and communication strategies that will benefit their members and that should be their approach in trying to get buy-in to also solve that high challenge of getting buy-in from a board or management, placing those member benefits ahead, getting their club approval process checklists for them to make sure that they're staying on track with everything they're doing and aligning with their club objectives and their vision of what they want to accomplish and executing new communication plans.

00:26:56.713 --> 00:27:04.258
So I would love to give everyone who's listening that project planner so that they could also use it.

00:27:04.258 --> 00:27:19.526
I just think that that's a really high number and we want to be able to support the greater community of MarCom communicators with tools that can help any club you know really see success and move the dial in their communication strategies.

00:27:20.146 --> 00:27:51.221
One of the unique things I thought about the the one of the presentations that Victoria just mentioned was how many different types of clubs were in the room, and for me, being in the audience for a lot of the presentations, it was really interesting for me to see both Denise Sari from Addison Reserve and Elise Mackin from the Country Club, two completely different clubs from two completely different areas.

00:27:52.244 --> 00:28:09.070
And Addison Reserve is down in Florida and then you've got the Country Club in Brookline, which is up here in New England, and a lot of times I think that or I hear that clubs can't do what these other clubs do in different regions, and that's just not true.

00:28:09.070 --> 00:28:44.534
It was really unique to see both Denise on stage and Elise talk about similar things, but how they approach the solutions was different, but they were the same challenges that every club is having, the same challenges that every club is having, and seeing those two people collaborate on stage probably generated so many ideas for themselves, but I think it was really great for the audience to hear that just because you're a club in this part of the country doesn't mean that you can't implement certain communication strategies or membership strategies at your club.

00:28:44.534 --> 00:28:53.238
So that was really inspiring for me to listen to those two clubs talk about their challenges and how they go about solving them.

00:28:55.145 --> 00:29:05.569
Yeah, I think you know Denise was coming from a perspective of spending 14 years and building a program and some people are like, wow, how could I ever get to the robustness of her program?

00:29:05.589 --> 00:29:12.497
And some people are like, wow, how could I ever get to the robustness of her program, and she's transparent in saying it took me a long time.

00:29:12.497 --> 00:29:39.134
It was one thing at a time, focusing on the member benefits, and that project planner was really developed out of sitting and talking to the two of them as we're developing a presentation to share with everyone to say here's the tactics that these leaders are using to make one project happen at a time to improve on their communication strategy and bring the best to their membership.

00:29:39.134 --> 00:29:50.272
And that was just really, really awesome to see the cohesiveness come together and kind of the same structure that they're using to see the dial move and to see movement, not just talk about it.

00:29:50.272 --> 00:30:01.394
Right, when we come out of big education things like this, we want to see movement and we want it to inspire us and move on to the next thing to bring better communications at our club.

00:30:01.775 --> 00:30:05.569
Jackie, what was that quote that you mentioned during your presentation?

00:30:05.569 --> 00:30:07.275
I always mess it up when I say it.

00:30:07.275 --> 00:30:08.848
It was something about the middle.

00:30:08.848 --> 00:30:10.434
It was like a middle.

00:30:10.434 --> 00:30:14.476
It was like the middle, the middle, the end.

00:30:14.476 --> 00:30:17.073
It was more props.

00:30:17.904 --> 00:30:24.673
It was don't compare your middle, don't compare your beginning to my middle.

00:30:24.673 --> 00:30:39.555
So and that actually came from another education session that we were at with the New England Club chapter previously a couple of weeks prior to the summit, and that quote just resonated with me because you can listen to me get up and speak.

00:30:39.555 --> 00:30:44.152
But if I've been in the industry for over 25 years, we've been running this conference now for 10.

00:30:44.152 --> 00:30:50.297
And if somebody is a first timer, maybe in their role for six months, that could feel totally overwhelming and unrelatable.

00:30:50.297 --> 00:30:51.490
It's like where do I start?

00:30:51.490 --> 00:30:55.005
And it's like, well, you're at the beginning and I'm halfway through.

00:30:55.005 --> 00:30:57.570
So you can't compare those two things.

00:30:57.612 --> 00:31:07.786
But I think what Victoria did a really nice job in moderating that discussion with Elise and Denise is that Elise has not even been taking on the membership component of her role.

00:31:07.786 --> 00:31:23.018
She's been at the club for over five years but the membership portion hasn't even been a year and she's implemented all of these tools and really revamped that whole communications aspect of the membership component with a committee in the last nine months.

00:31:23.018 --> 00:31:30.157
So to be able to see that that it just feels relatable for people, especially where a lot of our attendees are younger.

00:31:30.157 --> 00:31:31.565
They're breaking into an industry.

00:31:31.565 --> 00:31:56.134
They may not have been familiar with the industry, they may not know golf, like I mean, there's so many different backgrounds that people are coming from and then trying to tackle something that typically your committee members are older the average age is older, like you know you're trying to work upstream and figure it out and so I think hearing from somebody like Elise, who's still young and relatable and, you know, nine months in on our membership journey, it was just, it was fantastic.

00:31:56.315 --> 00:32:02.618
Yeah, Elise was like you could see light bulbs going off, like, okay, these are the projects I have going on now.

00:32:02.618 --> 00:32:16.426
And she was inspired by like hearing Denise speak and strategically thinking, okay, how can I present this?

00:32:16.426 --> 00:32:18.069
And I'm sure she has to come back to you, Jackie, and talk about it too.

00:32:18.069 --> 00:32:22.950
Right, Like you guys are cohesively working in a department and I'm sure you're proud of her right.

00:32:22.950 --> 00:32:26.902
She wants to be strategic in that, Like, how can this benefit she?

00:32:26.902 --> 00:32:30.109
She approaches everything like what are my benefits to my membership?

00:32:30.109 --> 00:32:33.356
And it's not about just making her life easier.

00:32:33.356 --> 00:32:37.433
At the end of the day, creating efficiencies creates efficiencies for yourself.

00:32:37.433 --> 00:32:45.616
It helps you be a clear communicator, but it also creates a more enjoyable job position you have wherever you're at.

00:32:45.616 --> 00:32:47.640
But very well said.

00:32:48.385 --> 00:32:48.887
She doesn't.

00:32:48.887 --> 00:32:54.513
She understands clearly and you have set that tone that it doesn't start with.

00:32:54.513 --> 00:32:55.256
How can it?

00:32:55.256 --> 00:33:00.355
I make things better for myself, but what am I doing to benefit my membership and my communications?

00:33:01.005 --> 00:33:10.096
Yes, I mean not to be funny, but we really are here for members first Like our job is for members and then to figure out the administrative side.

00:33:10.845 --> 00:33:22.298
So, you know, as we develop those tools and working and prioritizing the member experience, it then naturally, to your point, will create a better employee experience as well and workflow.

00:33:22.298 --> 00:33:25.374
And I think we all left there with a ton of ideas.

00:33:25.374 --> 00:33:29.750
And then it's also the balance of we can't implement every idea tomorrow.

00:33:29.750 --> 00:33:36.903
So, to your point, let's put a strategy together that, if we're going to look at the next 12 months, where are big wins that we can get?

00:33:36.903 --> 00:33:39.329
Where are the quick wins and like, what can we do?

00:33:39.329 --> 00:33:43.386
And how do we bring our communications committee along in that conversation?

00:33:43.386 --> 00:33:48.494
Because we are a member owned club club to the point of the different types of clubs and getting buy-in.

00:33:48.494 --> 00:33:56.179
So I think all of that is we are very fortunate with the group that we're working with and definitely have a lot of support.

00:33:56.179 --> 00:34:02.457
So it'll be fun, it'll be a fun year to see what, you know, what things we can implement before the next communication summit.

00:34:03.404 --> 00:34:13.295
So I thought one of the when you get a bunch of communications people in the in the room, there's also a lot of laughs.

00:34:13.295 --> 00:34:21.713
I think you, I think you learn a lot when you're laughing throughout an education Right, and I think that you also, you know it's how you build really great relationships too.

00:34:21.713 --> 00:34:31.059
I learned so much from the, from the education session, where I don't know if I've ever seen this before.

00:34:31.059 --> 00:34:39.878
But, Jackie, you got the opportunity to interview your two bosses, right, you know.

00:34:39.878 --> 00:34:49.300
You had Kristen LeCount right, who is the general manager at the Country Club in Brookline, who is also, I think, was it this past year in Vegas.

00:34:49.300 --> 00:34:51.172
She was recognized as a CMA fellow.

00:34:51.172 --> 00:34:55.164
It was really cool to see her on a panel.

00:34:55.164 --> 00:35:03.135
But also you had Nigel Smith, one of your communications committee members, on a panel as well, on a panel as well.

00:35:03.155 --> 00:35:21.067
I laughed so hard throughout that entire message, mainly because it actually, I thought, broke down the barriers as to how your club has developed their communications plan and the approach that you take, and it was just done in such a lighthearted way that it made a huge impact with me.

00:35:22.108 --> 00:35:33.878
And hearing from, hearing from Kristen, I thought was really, really fun to see and I think that she offered up to talk to any person in the industry who does not think communications is important.

00:35:33.878 --> 00:35:40.148
She said I will call that right now so she could see how important it is, and that's carried through the entire club.

00:35:40.148 --> 00:36:08.887
But, nigel, coming in from a member's perspective, nigel coming in from a member's perspective, one quote that I took away, that I've written on my wall here, is ultimately, when you're communicating with members, you need to be on message, on target and consistent, and those three things are the keys to success with any business, including clubs, success with any business, including clubs.

00:36:08.887 --> 00:36:14.490
And so I thought that hearing you know what's important to him as a member is going to be completely different than what's important to another member at the club.

00:36:14.490 --> 00:36:26.938
So I just think that the communications can be tailored to the specific person, and hearing that from you know, one of your committee members, was really special for me to hear.

00:36:27.585 --> 00:36:29.132
I thought that was a great session.

00:36:29.132 --> 00:36:37.391
Again, I think I have been in the industry a long time but I think those relationships have changed over time.

00:36:37.391 --> 00:36:52.637
Right, I'm not new, I'm not in my first year of the business, but I think getting to see how I interact with my general manager and with the communications committee member is really important for others because it really does start at the top.

00:36:52.637 --> 00:36:54.070
It starts with the members.

00:36:54.070 --> 00:37:04.693
It starts with your general manager, coo and their buy-in for a communications plan and that has to infiltrate the entire business Because if that support's not there, you're swimming upstream.

00:37:04.693 --> 00:37:14.610
It is really hard and I think the industry has changed over time and thankfully I work with a bunch of people who have also evolved over time and really bought into that.

00:37:14.610 --> 00:37:17.034
I mean we've had the communications role since 2006.

00:37:17.034 --> 00:37:29.393
That's a long time as far as clubs go and the position has changed over time and it's been really fun to see and be part of and you know we're just going to continue to go up from there.

00:37:29.844 --> 00:37:35.070
Hope you all enjoyed that episode, Enjoyed that recap Once again down in the show notes below.

00:37:35.070 --> 00:37:38.157
Make sure you download the project planner.

00:37:38.157 --> 00:37:41.784
Such a cool resource, such a cool guide and promise.

00:37:41.784 --> 00:37:44.829
If you use it, it can help you tremendously.

00:37:44.829 --> 00:37:49.579
If you're enjoying the content, enjoying the episodes, make sure you like, share, subscribe.

00:37:49.579 --> 00:37:53.755
Anything you can do to help move the content and channel forward means the world.

00:37:53.755 --> 00:37:57.057
Until next time, Catch y'all on the Biddy Flip.