This past week has been one heck of a ride…that is if you are into a rollercoaster ride. I ended up today with some many things rattling around in my head to blog about I could not begin to sort one subject out to write about. So, I thought I would do what all bloggers do from time to time and just blast away at everything that popped up since the first of this month. I am calling it..My Brain Dump.
Great Start
Started week of with my blog What Private Country Clubs Will Have to Do to Survive being picked up by WalletPop.com site which has really brought in a lot of discussion on the worthiness of Country Clubs. It is really good to see that even though this article published by WalletPop was recommending that country clubs not be joined, it does validate what I have been telling country clubs is the word on the street. Country Clubs have got to modernize their clubhouses and quit restriping the parking lot and planting brighter flowers in hopes to draw in the younger golfers.
So, that got week off to a good start.
Golf Survival
Really, from where I am sitting, which is balanced squarely between the old and new of both business and golf, I have true concern on the survivability of both if more is not done to strengthen both economically. More jobs everywhere have to be generated quickly or nothing else will matter. Answers to how to do this come from dealing with change and there are many people in business, and even more in golf, who need to drop the crap that they are recession proof and deal with the change they have to make. There are many on both sides now saying they are hearing what I am saying, but need someone to show them the way. Duh!!! Can’t ya see me waving??? geez.
My business partner, Dave Bisbee , and I have been ‘heads down’ working on a few projects since last summer we have now formed into our efforts to Put Business Back on Course. These programs are not veiled attempts to cover up a high price golf outing many of the old school corporate outing businesses are producing. These are actual ‘load the briefcase up and take home with you’ tools to use to improve business and golf. We see this program as just the first of many things we have rattling around in our heads that will help business and golf.
So, working on golf’s survivability is what stays in my mine all the time along with all the other things I deal with in my business. More on Putting Business Back on Course will be coming out after the PGA Show
Social Media for the World
Sometimes the only way I can describe how misunderstood Social Media is to most people is by saying…WOW! Then OMG usually follows right behind the WOW! What I have been seeing and actually having people tell me they were told to do, as far as promote themselves online, is simply…nauseating. Why so many people online think simply amazes me but then disgusts me at the same time.
What I am finding is I am discounting too much my years of practical business experience, and life experience in general, as not being worth much anymore. Many of these young people (not that I am real old) never worked in traditional business models, or done or lived through what I have done that disproves all the crap they are doing to market themselves and business online. Many of these people who are making fools of themselves online truly feel they are doing the correct thing.
Naturally, they are defensive of what they are doing. I would be too if I spent $35k on a internet marketing strategy developed by a PR firm that still thinks Billboards on the highway produce profitable business. Geez, there are a lot of these people out there and the golf industry is filled to the brim with people who think OLD ways of marketing fit well online..NOT.
Anyway, this week has been filled with dealing with the idiots of the business and golf world. Good news is, most of these people are seeing that none of what they are doing is working. Bad News is..they are blaming it on the ‘Internet’..geez…Dude, find a mirror and look at yourself and how foolish you look online…that’s the message I have to those who blame the train for taking them where they bought a ticket to go.
Deception
Yep! Not a week goes by out here in La-La-Land that some form of deception is not discovered or dealt with. Since I have been out here I (and in a few cases my attorney) have been dealing with people who just don’t get it. Truly, I think some of these people I run into who want to do business are some of the people I heard about that have been sipping on the Pink Kool-Aid too much.
Yes, it is part of being out here in today’s version of the Old West, but does it have to be? I say No and the encouraging thing is I am finding a large number of people who feel the same.
Enough said about this depressing subject..there will be another opportunity to read more about what I have been dealing with the last six months in the blogs I write each day.
New Energy
Finally, after two and half years of adding on a garage to the house, adding on to the old garage to convert into an office for my wife and then finishing off the pantry to the kitchen that developed around all of this remodeling to my home..I am now about two hours away from hitting the golf course for a few months. YEAH! Long roads taken to follow a solid plan usually lead to self satisfaction that generates more energy for the next journey…it never stops.
This will now open me up to take on more clients asking me to work for them and training them on using social media and business golf..the stuff I REALLY like doing. So, I am pumped and ready to go.
New Client
I have a very exciting New Client coming on board soon.. Give Through Golf. They launched their site this week and will be formally present their program to many at the 57th annual PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, Fl. I will doing their social media consulting and promoting them here. Naturally, this is a solid effort to help golf, business and charities, so this fits right in with what my mission is for business golf. I’ll be filling you in on what GTG has to offer the charity fundraising and golf world (and beyond) around February 1st.
So all that strategy has been rattling around in my head..exciting stuff.
PGA Show
Every year for the past five years I am told by someone..”Dude, you need to be at the PGA Show!” Duh!(Yaw, I use that word a lot out here..seem to sum up what I hear a lot of) I would love to go and will probably go someday. Maybe someday someone will sponsor me to go and let me report for them on what I see a Real Golfer would be interested in seeing in golf merchandise..or would that expose too much of the show as not really being about the Real Golfer? Humm… or maybe not.
The PGA Show came up in a lot of my conversations this week. The show is where the change in Golf should take place, but will it? or will golf do what the auto industry keeps making mistakes by creating a five year product line and not changing the strategy for that plan until it is completed. Then it is way too late to change.
The golf industry and equipment manufacturers have to move quicker to change. Consumers are not interested in buying another $500 driver. What do they need to change to…? That is the $Trillion question that I know there is an answer
Healthy Living
I wrapped my week up with signing on another very exciting client.. Natural Weight for Optimize Living . Along with training Mykala Morin, the owner of the Dallas branch, on how to use Social Media effectively I will be blogging about my progress on the weight loss program. As all of you know..I DO NOT sign on for just any project. It has to have merit for me to get involved and I can honestly say..this one has merit. So, I hope you will stay tuned for my frequent reports on Twitter and here on how I am doing with the weight loss. And..for you golfers..stay tuned to find out how I add golf to this program..I know you are going to like the results.
Rattled Out
So, that is just a glimpse of what is rattling around in my head this week. OH, yaw, there is always Twitter and the infamous Facebook to rant about, but I will leave this blog today with just hoping that a change is coming in those massive social networking platforms that will make them more useful and trustworthy while still keeping them fun. Now off to unclog a sink or something worth while…Let Me Know How I can Help
