The Information Overload Era

When was the last time you went to car dealer without knowing what you already wanted? With the amount of information on the internet, who wouldn’t look up the details of the car they want to buy before stepping onto the lot? The actual act of making the purchase often becomes a formality. The salesman usually just facilitates the deal. Of course there are exceptions, but for the most part this is how car shopping goes. We live in an age of information, which is instantly accessible at our fingertips. Often there is no more discovery once you enter the dealer’s lot. It’s simply a matter of driving the car to make sure the online reviews live up to their promise.

This very example is what almost every industry is facing, and ours is no exception. Consumers are more informed than ever because of their access to the almost infinite amount of knowledge on the internet. So how do you as a golf professional stand out from the crowd when your customer is already so well informed? How can you provide value when your customer already knows what your answer is going to be?

The answer lies within the question that I posed. Value. Whether you are a full-time instructor or a golf professional running the entire operation have something the internet doesn’t have – experience. Your experience brings value to your customers. Your customers aren’t just looking for a way to fix their slice – they already know how to do that from the hundreds of YouTube videos they watched the night before. They are coming to you for your experience on how to translate that information into the real-world. Knowledge can only go so far, but you can provide real value by relaying the experience you’ve had with other students on the best way to fix that student’s swing – and deliver it to them in a way they will actually understand.

The information overload that customers are experiencing often comes to you in the form of questions and comments such as, “well, so-and-so from Revolution Golf said I should do it this way”. So in your customer’s mind, your competition is the internet. How are you supposed to compete with the Internet?

The way to combat this is by being unique. Anyone can repeat lines from a script. But your voice is unique – the way you deliver it is unique. I could take a lesson from a hundred different golf professionals who say the same thing, but they’re all going to say it in a different way. This is what your customer wants – your unique personality to shine through in whatever it is that you deliver. Whether it’s a golf lesson or the way you sell them a new set of clubs, the way you stand out to your customers is with your individuality.

The internet is only going to provide more and more information to our consumers, but it will never replace the value that you bring from your years of experience and unique outlook. The way you present yourself, your tone, personality, and even weird quirks are what make people connect to you and trust you over the faceless knowledge they receive from the internet.


This article appeared in the January edition of PGA Magazine:

List Building

If you’re like most businesses, you could stand to drive a little extra revenue. To help you do that, we’re going to talk about the “how” and “why” of building your email list. Email marketing is still the best way to connect with customers vs. social media. According to the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing on average sees a 4300 percent return on investment (ROI) for businesses in the USA. 

Fun fact: You are 6x more likely to get higher click-through rates through emails instead of tweets. Also, email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter. 

If those stats aren’t convincing enough, consider how often you check your email inbox. Probably several times a day? If you’re like me, then several times per hour. Email is a personal way to communicate with people. It’s extremely targeted in that once a user subscribes – you know for a fact they have some interest in what you have to offer. It’s now up to you to give them more of what they want to hear.

Now that we’ve stressed a strong email list is one of your most important assets, let’s dive into a few proven ways you can build your email list.

  • The first and most obvious way to start collecting emails is to simply ask. Any chance you get, ask your customer for their email address. Some customers might blindly give you their email, however most will require more convincing.
  • Next, describe what your customers will get out of subscribing to your emails. Your creativity can come into play here. The first offer is just a newsletter. Some people will simply want to hear what you have to say if you tell them they’re going to receive a weekly or monthly email with club happenings or important information.
  • Another way to get people to sign up for your list is by inviting them to “join the club”. This can mean anything from a birthday or anniversary club that rewards them with a special offer to a subscribers only club that receives a coupon for free golf or lessons on a periodic basis. It’s meant to be used as a way to build their trust by offering something of real value.

Here are a few ways to actually show potential customers your signup form. 

  • The first way is to drop a form onto your website. It’s probably not a bad idea to show this form on almost every page of your website. There are many tactics to showing your signup form – too many to list in this article. However, talk with your website provider to see how you can integrate a form – maybe via a subtle popup, slide-in, or call to action.
  • Social media can be a great way to promote your email list. There’s often no need to deceive users or try to trick them into signing up – simply tell them the benefits of signing up and ask them to give their information. 
  • Other non-digital ways to collect emails are simple signup sheets. If you’re at a trade show, tournament or other golf event, collecting email addresses in person can be as easy as putting out a signup sheet and encouraging people to write down their details.

Hopefully you are now convinced that building your list of emails is a great idea and you have a few ideas of what you need to do in order to get started.

Staying Secure

In an increasing “online” world, security is becoming more and more important, especially for PGA Professionals. We may handle sensitive information of all kinds, especially that of our customers and members. In light of the recent data breaches over the past few years, this article is going to give you some actionable information on how to stay safe online and protect your information, and the information you may handle.

In 2018, there were a reported 1,244 data breaches which exposed 446.5 million pieces of personally identifiable information. This type of information that was hacked is anything from usernames and passwords to medical records and tax information. Typically, large corporations are the victims of this kind of theft, however there are thousands of unreported smaller breaches each year that go unnoticed or never reported.

Ready to find out if your information has ever been leaked?

Head over to haveibeenpwned.com and type in your email address (it’s safe to enter your email). This website will let you know if you have been part of a major data breach by a large company that had your personal information on file. What you find may be startling.

In the case of a data breach by another company, there’s often not much you can do. But we’re going to focus on what you can do in order to protect hackers from getting into your personal accounts and your computer.

Passwords

Do you use the same password for all of your online logins? Of course you do, we all do. Well, whether you know it or not, this is absolutely the worst thing you can do when it comes to online security. So it’s a good idea to use a unique password for each of your online accounts. The web will tell you that a strong password contains at least 10 characters and includes numbers, symbols, and capital and lowercase letters. In my personal experience and talking with industry experts, the main concern with password security should be length. The longer a password gets, the harder it is for a hacker to crack your password. So go for length if nothing else.

Of course, remembering all of your passwords may be challenging. This is when a password manager will come in handy. I personally use LastPass, however there is also 1Password, Dashlane and Keeper, which are used to remember your passwords for you. Then you just need to remember your “master password” in order to access your account. They even suggest strong and unique passwords for you based on your preferences.

Multi-Factor Authentication

This is something that websites will ask you to participate in, and it’s very secure. The way this typically works is you enter your
username and password on a website, then you’ll get a text message with a unique, time-sensitive code to enter on the website. This double verification tells the website that it’s definitely you logging in. I highly recommend adding this to any sensitive accounts that contain your personal information.

Security and Software Updates

Sometimes it can be a pain, but make sure you take the time to update your computers with the latest software and antivirus versions. Running an old, out of date computer is what hackers want you to do – because they are much more exposed to virus vulnerabilities. This includes keeping your security software, web browsers and operating systems updated with the latest versions.

Backup Your Files

Finally, backup your computer. This isn’t so much a “proactive” security measure as it is reactive. However, the peace of mind knowing that your data is safe should something ever happen to your computer is priceless. If you keep all of your student’s lesson data on one computer, then that computer crashes – what do you do? There are tons of services and software that will automate this process for you. Two popular services are Carbonite and BackBlaze, which do all the work for you on a regular basis. Anytime you are connected to the internet, your files are being backed up securely.

Online security is tough because it’s all “invisible” – there is nothing to see and it’s hard to know if you are fully protected or not. However, if you follow these best practices, you’ll be far ahead of the average online user when it comes to securing your information.

Smarter Not Harder

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.

Getting Things Done

Time Management. It’s one of those life skills that we would all love to be better at. However, most people never actually “learn” how to manage their time properly. Personally, I always thought a better to-do list app would be the solution. After reading a great book called “Getting Things Done” by David Allen, I realized the app wasn’t the problem. It was the way I approached interruptions and opportunities that come along during the day. This book gives you a way to improve your productivity, organize your schedule, and provides guidelines for creating a system to get things done.

David’s basic approach is that there are five simple steps you can do right now to help you become more efficient with your time and productivity. Here are the ways you can “apply order to the chaos”:

Step 1: Capture Whatever It Is That Has Your Attention

Write down (physically or digitally) what the task is that you are needing to accomplish. There are a bunch of great “task” apps like, such as “Things”, “Todoist” or “Notes.” A standard notepad app, or an actual notepad, also gets the job done.

Step 2: Clarify & Process

Determine if this is something you can do right now – is it actionable? If it’s not actionable, meaning it’s not something that can be currently dealt with then delete it or file file it away for a later date. If you can take action right now then decide what to do with it. If it can be done quickly (in less than two minutes) then do it immediately. If the task is going to take longer than perhaps delegate parts of it or schedule a time to address is soon.

Step 3: Organize

Establishing a plan of action for your task is important so that it doesn’t get delayed inevitably. A simple “to do” action item may be organized in your to-do app. An idea that you want to address at a later time may find a home in your notes app for future reference.

Step 4: Reflect

This is an important part of the process so that you can make sure you are staying on schedule. Making an effort to review your lists so that you can prioritize tasks / ideas that haven’t been accomplished will allow you to set new goals for completing those items. Frequently delete / update your lists so that you know what is left, what’s no longer important and what needs to get done soon.

Step 5: Do

Make an effort to clear your list. Take action on as many items as you can. The longer you procrastinate, the more improbable it will be that you actually complete the important tasks on your list. The satisfaction that comes with checking items off your list and accomplishing tasks can be very rewarding and self fulfilling.

Each person is unique in the way they handle priorities throughout the day. This simple five step system is a framework to get started and may need to be modified to fit your needs. When it comes to using technology to aid in this process, there are literally hundreds of apps for your smartphone and computer that can help with this method. Selecting one is a matter of personal preference.

The important thing to remember is that apps are only tools, you alone must do the process in order to make things happen. An app won’t accomplish your tasks for you and that is why sticking to a system like GTD is a great way to remain focused.

If you have another system you use to get things done or if you have other favorite apps that you’d like to share, we want to hear about them. Check out golfwebdesign.com/gtd for more information and links to apps and books that will help you get your schedule and your time management under control.

Get Your Calendar Under Control

The golf professional’s day is often filled with meetings, lessons, member events, work at the computer and hopefully some golf. While we wear many hats it’s important to make sure that time is not wasted.

We always hear golf professionals say they are “busy” – but what does this actually mean? Are we actually working every minute of every day? Or is there wasted time that could be better used to make yourself more efficient and less stressed? This is where good time management comes into play. Volumes of books are available on the subject and it’s something that technology can help with – when used properly.

Starting with the calendar, it’s important to use a digital calendar like the calendar offered from Gmail (GSuite) or Office 365. Both can be synced with your phone so you always know what’s coming up on your schedule. Yet, having a calendar app alone isn’t enough. You have to use your calendar the correct way to get the greatest benefit from it.

One such example is when you book a meeting with someone (staff member, new hire, spouse, rep from a clothing company) it’s best to send a calendar meeting invite. This can be done right from your phone and it only takes a minute. What this does is more than block time in your calendar. It clearly sets the expectation for both parties of how long the meeting will run and exactly when and where it should occur. Too often, if a calendar invite is not sent, at least one person will be late because of poor communication. Calendar invites are a sure fire way to communicate your intentions for a meeting. This confirms that both parties are on the same page.

Taking it one step further, there is a way to allow other people to book appointments with you that feed directly into your calendar. One service that does this is called Calendly. It’s a fantastic tool that syncs with your calendar and allows others to book time on your calendar. You both get notified when a time is booked and you can set certain rules that allow certain time slots to be booked.

Another productivity boosting feature offered by the Gmail calendar is having your daily list of events emailed (or texted) to you each day. Instead of wondering what your schedule looks like, a simple message each morning will give you a complete agenda for the day.

As Golf Professionals, a big factor in our day to day life is the weather. Both Gmail and Outlook calendars have the ability to embed upcoming weather forecasts into your calendar. This can let you make decisions faster on meeting schedules or lesson times.

Finally, there is the issue of having multiple calendars. You might have a personal email address with it’s own calendar that you use outside of work. It would be nice to see both calendars at the same time to avoid double booking, right? Well, there’s a solution for that. Both Gmail and Outlook let you sync outside calendars. You can sync your spouse’s or other employee’s calendars right into your own and toggle them off or on when you want.

We realize that researching ways to help manage your time and improve efficiency can be overwhelming. The best thing to do is experiment with different ways of managing your time and finding something that is unique to you. Everyone’s job, day, schedule, and life is different, therefore no single application will be perfect for everyone.

Organizing Your Digital Life

It has never been easier to stay connected (or harder to disconnect) from our work related responsibilities. We all care about time management and efficiencies, but tend to rely on old methods of organizing our day. We’ve compiled some of the software that we recommend to clients and business professionals in hopes that it can help to streamline your digital life and make you more efficient with your time.

Dropbox: This file management software lets you sync files to the cloud and access them from anywhere (desktop, phone, tablet) even without an internet connection. You can share files with employees, customers or vendors and easily track when changes have been made to your folders. This tool is tremendously helpful if you have a lot of important excel files or documents that need to be kept safe or backed-up. Sharing files via email and tracking changes can be cumbersome if you don’t pay attention – Dropbox solves that problem and lets you sleep easier at night too.

Evernote: This all-in-one digital notebook lets you keep track of almost anything – anywhere. It’s easy to take notes, pictures, record audio clips and to organize your content through a notebook management system. We recommend this tool as an easy (and free) way to keep track of the lessons you give your students. The search feature is extremely powerful, it quickly searches anything and everything you ever uploaded to your account, making it easy to find that million dollar idea you had last year. Evernote has been around for a long time, and with millions of users it keeps getting better year after year.

Slack: This powerful communication software allows teams to be more efficient. If your operation has many departments and a larger staff we would recommend giving Slack a deeper look. Their streamlined approach to how groups of people communicate is on par with how many of the social platforms work today – making the learning curve pretty easy. They use a feature called “channels” that allows you to restrict conversations to certain people (pretty handy with a bigger staff). An example of this feature would be that the golf staff has their own channel, while the food and beverage staff would communicate on their own channel. Management could be included on many channels so that they could always know what was going on, the instant it was said (drastically cuts down on emails). Slack keeps all your communication in one spot instead of relying on email, text, phone calls or however else your staff communicates. Slack can easily be searched for past conversations and it has the option for team members to chat directly with one another. This can be a wonderful way for your entire operation to stay in sync with each other, especially with constantly changing staff schedules.

News Aggregators: We all want to stay current with what’s happening in the world, and news aggregators are a wonderful way of doing just that. There are several great apps in this category – Flipboard, Google Newsstand, Feedly, Inoreader, Pocket and Apple News are the ones we recommend exploring. They each offer slightly different options, so try them out and find the one that best suits how you like to consume your news

These are just a few of the digital tools that can help you become more organized and improve your daily workflow. There are many software tools available, we’d love to hear your favorites and share them with the community (we’ll update this article with your recommendations).

Your Sales Funnel

Sales funnels have been around since the beginning of business itself, and now everything can be tracked, analyzed and specific to each businesses’ unique needs.

A key part of any successful business is the implementation of a solid sales funnel. Most businesses will have multiple funnels focusing on different sales goals. Your sales funnel should always be evolving, and adapting to your customers behaviors. Each business has different needs and requirements, so don’t worry about what your competitors are doing, focus on your needs and improving your funnel every day.

While there is no cookie-cutter sales funnel for everyone, there are some guidelines that can help you begin the process, or improve your current funnel. All sales funnels essentially have four main areas of focus: Awareness, Interest, Decision and Action. Most funnels will have added levels based on specific sales goals and market conditions, but the overall idea is to attract your ideal customer and sell them your product or service.

Let’s breakdown how a traditional basic funnel can work.

Awareness: Located at the top of the funnel, potential customers learns about your products or services. They may also become aware of problems they didn’t know they had, leading you to help solve those problems. Customers will visit your website for the first time, hearing about your business from an ad, blog article, social post, word-of-mouth, etc.

Interest: Your potential customer is now looking for a solution to their problems. They may be searching Google and that’s when businesses can enter through video or written content. Once the potential customer is interested in your product or service they may follow you on social, subscribe to a list or visit your business.

Decision: At this phase, the potential customer is looking at your business to solve their problem. They are wanting to learn more about what you offer, and if your solution fits their budget. Now is a great time for sales pages, one-on-one interactions and listening to their specific needs.

Action: The potential customer now becomes a paying customer. They purchase your product or service (or your conversion action). The funnel does not need to end here, adding more levels to produce brand loyalty and word-of-mouth advertising is a good idea.

It’s now time to begin creating (or modifying) your sales funnel. The first place to start is with gathering data about your potential customer. Talk with them, ask them what their frustrations are and how you can help to solve them. You will gain valuable data and perhaps adjust your products or services to fit specific needs. Using all this data will help you to create content surrounding your solutions to those problems, leading to more qualified potential customers.

You can then begin driving traffic to your website through paid advertising or organic reach. The latter cost money, the former costs time. Usually a balance between the two is a great solution for most businesses.

Engaging your potential customers all throughout the sales process with video content, articles, and social media posts is a great way to increase conversions.

No matter your sales goals, understanding your potential customers and how to solve problems they are having will lead to better conversions and increased profits. Each funnel will be different, and each demographic may need a slightly modified funnel from your “standard funnel”, but focusing on improving each level of your sales funnel is an important part of growth for every business.

If you found value in this article please let us know. You can read the entire Digital Business series via our blog: http://golfwebdesign.com/blog.

Google Will Penalize Your Business To Keep The Web Safe

Google continues its assault on non-secure websites with its latest round of updates this month. This Chrome update (version 62) will have the biggest impact on small / medium size businesses. How will you know if you’re being affected? If your business doesn’t have what is called an SSL Certificate your customers are going to see “NOT SECURE” in the address bar. The easiest way to determine if your site is secure, is to add an “s” to your URL.

Example (without SSL): http://
Example (with SSL): https://

Once you add an “s” to the “http://” and hit enter, your website should load with a “secure lock” in the address bar. If your website fails to load, then that means that you don’t have a secure website – and Google is about to penalize your business.

Why is Google doing this now? Google actually began this shift to a more secure web in 2014. They began with subtle changes like rewarding businesses with better rankings if they had an SSL Certificate. They transitioned into adding an “alert” (via a circle icon) that could be clicked to tell customers the site they were on was not secure. This latest update now adds the “NOT SECURE” text to the address bar. Google plans on changing that text to red, with a bolder alert icon, then eventually showing a full screen takeover that informs visitors your site is not safe.

If you own, operate or manage a small business you will want to take action immediately. Google Chrome is the world’s most used web browser (59.3%) and with that large of a market share they affect consumer behavior. The data released thus far shows a 23% decrease in web traffic to unsecure websites – that number is going to grow as Google continues its crackdown on websites that are not secure for users.

Google already penalizes non secure websites in their search engine rankings and now with the addition of a “NOT SECURE” warning label, non secure websites will further be penalized with decreased traffic.

What is an SSL Certificate? They are actually small data files that help encrypt connections from your web server to the browser. They allow the browser to establish a secure session with your server so that all web traffic between the user and server is safe. With the increase in cyber attacks and increase in websites that collect user data (credit cards, contact forms, etc) it’s no surprise that Google is tackling this issue head on. Their search engine business relies on providing users safe, secure and relevant results – not having users information hacked.

The good news for businesses is that getting an SSL Certificate is relatively pain-free. You should contact your webmaster or hosting provider and ask if they are able to install the proper files to make your website secure. We highly recommend making sure that a professional service or server technician install your certificate. They will make sure that all your file extensions and connections get updated so that your certificate works correctly.

If you have questions, need help, or found this article helpful in some way please let us know.

Claiming Your Google Business Profile

Google Maps. You probably have used it at some point or another when trying to find directions from your phone or your computer. But did you ever think about how all of these businesses actually got their address and other information on Google Maps? It’s through a free service called Google MyBusiness whereas any business can claim their listing or create a new one.

Your golf course or teaching academy might already have a Google MyBusiness profile. However, if you don’t know how to login and update it – or even worse yet, you don’t have one – then keep reading. The importance of having an updated business profile on Google MyBusiness goes beyond just being listed on Google Maps.

When a user searches Google for your business or a keyword like “golf course” while geographically close to you, Google knows what results to show based on a multitude of factors. One of the most powerful reasons to show your business in the search results is because you actually have a physical location, in close proximity, that matches what the user is searching for. The more updated and relevant your business listing is, the higher your business will appear in the search results. So if you don’t have your listing claimed, then you are losing out on valuable business.

Update Your Profile Information

The most relevant information in your business profile is your physical address so customers can find you, your phone number so they can call you, your hours of operation so they know when you’re open, and your website address so they can find more information about your business. Google MyBusiness also lets you add special hours for holiday closures or special events. This can greatly help customers if they are unsure about your hours during non-peak times.

We get asked all the time to help golf courses with their search engine optimization. The first thing we look at is how complete their business listing is with Google. The next thing we look at is how many reviews they have. The power of user generated reviews is incredible. Google places a priority on authentic and genuine reviews that provide value to other customers. Tip: It’s not necessarily having 100 “5 star” reviews that will get you ranked higher than your competitor – it’s having “real” reviews that came from genuine people who left a review that is actually helpful. This is a common misconception that businesses have.

Google also provides powerful insights that you can use to optimize your business listing. You can use these insights to take real action on your business. For example, Google might recommend that you post more pictures to your profile in order to get more clicks to your website. There’s a good chance that your facility has lots of scenic areas that would make incredible pictures to show your guests. Once you start posting more images, the traffic to your website might increase which could cause a spike in online tee times booked.

Another great feature of Google MyBusiness is the ability to add events and specials via their “posts” section. Creating a post is fast and easy and can be done from the MyBusiness app on your smartphone. Letting customers know about upcoming specials, deals or fun events via your business listing lets Google know your business is active and engaging with your audience. This typically results in a boost in your Google ranking – a win-win.

To get started with Google MyBusiness, go to google.com/business and follow the instructions.