Time is always at a premium for golf professionals. That’s why working smarter, not harder is something we can all benefit from. In this article, I want to share some advice on how to use technology as a way to increase efficiency, while reducing the amount of man-hours you apply to certain areas of your job.
Reuse Everything
If you find yourself giving the same lesson over and over, make a YouTube video of the problem and how to fix it. Having a library of your favorite drills on YouTube makes it easy to send your student a follow-up email with the drill without having to re-record every time. This also lets your students improve faster by referring to the drill on their own.
The same process can be applied to mundane tasks in the clubhouse. If you find yourself constantly telling new staff how to do the same thing (like opening and closing procedures), make a video of it. Then simply send them that video to the employee for them to reference on their own.
Follow Up Like a Pro
By using automaton for things like lesson follow ups, appointment reminders, tee time reminders, etc. you decrease the chances of no-shows or cancellations. Even having calendar reminders sent to your clients can decrease the chance that they’ll miss a lesson or a tee time. Most of the software you already use probably has this built in. It just takes a little time to set up correctly. But that initial time spent setting it up is well worth the saved hours down the road.
Online Forms and Payments
Having your customers pay online reduces the friction and the amount of time it takes to check in or get started. If you’re giving a golf lesson to a new student, have them fill out an online form that gathers all the initial information you’d like to know about them. This will ease them into the lesson, and it gets all the “housekeeping” out of the way early – letting you focus more on the student’s needs.
Take Pictures of Everything
Did you write down an important phone number on a cocktail napkin? Use your phone’s camera to capture that important piece of data and file it away in an app like Evernote. Then you can easily search it later on. The same can go for business cards that you get – take a picture and now it’s a digital, leaving less clutter on your desk.
Your Personal Assistant
Services like Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant come with most of the devices we already have. One of the best features I have found is simply the voice dictation feature that lets you turn voice into text. Using this to compose emails or text messages can cut down on time, especially when you have an inbox full of unread emails. However, this is the most basic feature of what they offer. They can also help with all kinds of simple tasks – setting calendar events, reminders for tasks, and even ordering directly from Amazon or your favorite restaurant.
Sharing Files
Instead of keeping copies of Word documents on your computer, trying using something like Google Drive or Dropbox to keep them in the cloud and synced across your devices. If you need your staff to access the documents, you can grant access and let them edit the doc without having to send them an email. As a bonus, it also keeps track of all revisions in case someone made a mistake.
Automation is Your Friend
When you get in the mindset of trying to automate all the repetitive tasks in your daily life, it might become apparent how those tasks can be simplified (or even eliminated). Sometimes it’s hard to give up control over certain tasks, but often you can find ways to cut down on the amount of time it takes to do them if you apply some initial work. Services like IFTTT can really help with automation. IFTTT connects the services you already use and makes them work together.
Hopefully, this article will help you start to think about ways you can work smarter and more efficient. Sometimes, there is no substitute for hard work but make sure you’re not just throwing man-hours at a problem that could have been solved in smarter, faster way. If you have some tips you’d like to share, then head on over the Golf Web Design blog and let us know your thoughts.