With an unrivalled set of features, innovative technology, and outstanding support, Golf Genius helps organisers offer outstanding branded tournaments, while delivering the back-end functionality to dramatically reduce set-up time and laborious tasks.

Golfing Days and NGL Golf, two of the leading specialist event providers in the market, have utilised Golf Genius’ software to organise and manage their corporate events, pro-am’s and society golf events for their portfolio of clients.

Mark Hatton, Founder & CEO of Golfing Days, commented: “We offer all types of events to avid golfers, from holidays, to pro-am’s, open events, corporate golf and more. We’ve built our reputation on delivering exceptional, tailor-made golf events, here in the UK and overseas, and for us, the Golf Genius system is a game-changer.”

“In the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, we were cautious about how events would work, but with the support and innovation of Golf Genius, we were able to keep our roundage high and deliver some of our most notable events like The National Golf Club Team Championship.”

Director of NGL Golf, Rob Cooper added: “As one of the earliest adopters of technology within corporate golf events, Golf Genius has been the perfect fit for us. We were amongst the first to bring in Golf Genius and have developed a very strong relationship in the years since.

“We are passionate about creating industry-leading events for our corporate golf clients and Golf Genius supports us with our event management, registration portals, branding, scoring and our unique Electronic Scoreboard Tournament Office, which also integrates seamlessly with the software.

“There is still some hesitation in the market about returning to corporate golf, but with Golf Genius we have the offering to make it easy and deliver great experiences that keep our clients coming back.

Craig Higgs, Managing Director of Golf Genius International commented: “Running great golf events is all about delivering over and above on client expectations.

“With continual product development, we’ve been able to bring in new technology on our roadmap to digitisation and offer a product offering that can support event providers in running any type of event.”

If you are interested in finding out more about Golf Genius, contact the international team at intlsales@golfgenius.com.

Faergemann, a Danish native, brings a wealth of golfing experience to his new role with Golf Genius including 17 years at GolfBox. With his background in golf management software, he will bring expert knowledge and new ideas to the company.

“We are thrilled to welcome Christian on board our international team. Christian will bring his proven experience of the industry to Golf Genius, specifically as we look to expand our operations in EMEA and internationally,” said Craig Higgs, Managing Director for Golf Genius International.

“Our opportunity is to expand our customer base in the core products of Tournament Management System and World Handicap, as well as open new product markets internationally. We will be looking to Christian to help us do this in all of our growing international markets,” continued Higgs.

Golf Genius currently operates across 62 countries, serving private clubs, public courses, national associations, and tours worldwide. With recent product launches, such as integrated event marketing tool, Golf Hub, Golf Genius continues to push digital boundaries and leads the way in providing the most efficient solution to help run golf events.

Commenting on his new Senior Advisor role, Christian Faergemann said: “I am looking forward to joining the Golf Genius team. I have always seen software and data as one of the critical factors for growing this great game and Golf Genius has this as its core. I am excited to be a part of their continued growth.”

If you are interested in finding out more about Golf Genius, contact the international team at intlsales@golfgenius.com.

Private clubs, public courses, and resorts are now able to seamlessly create a promotional Golf Hub landing page for any competition, open event, league, or clinic, with optional online registration and payment as required.

Golf professionals and administrators can then embed these professional-looking pages into their club website, email campaigns, and social media posts to amplify promotional efforts and drive increased participation.

Golf Hub pages are customisable, allowing clubs and resorts to showcase their sponsors by embedding their logo and linking directly to their website. After an event is complete, the Golf Hub Page automatically shifts to display the tournament results and leaderboard.

“We are excited to launch Golf Hub, which can be used as a tool to support and promote any type of event,” commented Craig Higgs, Managing Director for Golf Genius International.

“While sophisticated player registration and online payments have been important features of our offering for several years, Golf Hub combines this concept with automated marketing to provide powerful promotion to our customers.”

Another feature of Golf Hub is the ability to automatically aggregate your event pages into your Club Hub, a single page that showcases the playing and learning opportunities at your facility.

Easily embedding into an existing website, Club Hub allows golfers to see all upcoming events. They can click on any individual event to visit the Golf Hub Page to see more information, register, and view tournament results.

If you are interested in finding out more about Golf Genius, contact the international team at intlsales@golfgenius.com.

Within their familiar Golf Genius TM experience, golf professionals at private clubs, public courses, and resorts will be able to instantly create a promotional landing page (a “Golf Hub Page”) for any event, league, or clinic, optionally enable online registration and payments as needed on each Golf Hub Page, and automatically create aggregated pages (“Hubs”) to showcase the playing and learning opportunities at their facility. Golf professionals can then embed these Hubs into their club website, email campaigns, and social media posts to amplify promotional efforts and drive increased participation.

“Last year, over 750,000 events such as golf leagues, outings, and tournaments were managed by the Golf Genius TM user community,” stated Chris Kallmeyer, Co-CEO of Golf Genius. “We realized that in the vast majority of cases Golf Genius TM users were spending additional time to create promotional marketing materials and collect registrations by paper or phone. We’re always looking for ways to save time for golf professionals while helping them deliver a superior golfer experience. Golf Hub achieves this by automating the creation of highly professional digital marketing materials and streamlining the promotion, registration, and payment process.”

While sophisticated player registration and online payments have been important features of Golf Genius TM Club Premium and Golf Genius TM Association for several years, Golf Hub combines the concept of registration and payments with automated marketing pages and hubs to provide powerful marketing services to the entire Golf Genius TM community, which includes over 10,500 private clubs, public courses, and resorts in more than 60 countries. Golf Hub will be especially useful in promoting leagues, clinics, and outings.

“We are particularly excited about helping public golf facilities market leagues and clinics to their current and potential customers. Leagues are a key source of revenue for public facilities, and clinics are a perfect way to introduce new golfers to the game and convert them to golfers for life,” added Golf Genius Co-CEO Mike Zisman. “Today, Golf Genius services over 12,000 golf leagues around the globe, and Golf Hub will be a tool of great value to every one of these league managers by saving time and automatically generating high quality digital marketing materials.”

Unlike its publicity-courting cousin, running, walking is rarely associated with leadership and success. There are relatively few examples of Fortune 500 CEOs ‘powering through’ a 20k stroll on their way to work, nor prime-time comedians ‘sauntering’ through the Sahara Desert for their latest charity/publicity drive. Walking is an also-ran in more ways than one.

And yet, a quick flick through the history books reveals enough famous walkers to more than rival their more fleet-footed counterparts.

From Beethoven to Steve Jobs and the Queen, walking has helped many a historic heavyweight to achieve success in their chosen field, even if they haven’t yet felt the need to brag about it to their favourite financial journal.

As scientists will attest, walking offers an array of benefits for regular practitioners.  Aside from the obvious physical perks of regular exercise, there are the various mental benefits to consider.

Walkers tend to enjoy lower stress levels, as well as increased cognitive function.  To add to this, a recent study by Stanford University found moving around led to an increase in creativity in 81% of participants who had previously been seated.

The only area where walking really falls short (aside from the crummy PR team behind it) is the obvious time commitment involved.  This may explain why it’s rarely the activity of choice among time-pressured modern professionals.

The flipside to this is that, contrary to more aerobically challenging activities, it can be crow-barred relatively easily into the working day.  As well as being the perfect option for a reinvigorating, yet sweat-free lunch break, it is a great way to put a new angle on interviews, one-on-one meetings, and brainstorming sessions.

The most potent pro-ambulatory argument, however, is perhaps the fact that walking is what we humans are originally designed to do.  Not pounding the pavement clad in lycra or expensive running shoes, or – worse still – wedged in behind a computer screen for 10 hours straight.

Walking may not win you any awards in the image stakes, but your body (and possibly career) will thank you for it.

This content appears courtesy of Abintegro, experts in career management, transition technology & e-learning for today’s modern, mobile and technology-savvy workforce – Find out more at www.abintegro.com

Credit: LinkedIn; Design School; Inc.com

But this is set to become the new norm for many – short-term for most but may even become more of a long-term solution for others as well considering the current Coronavirus [COVID-19] circumstances we all face (especially as working from home may enable better working than ever in some cases).

The CPG network is a wide one across 31 countries with over 12,500 PGA Professionals. Of those 31 PGAs then a number already work remotely, or at least are able to relatively normally under the current circumstances, whilst others are working out how to be effective given their new situation.

For the vast majority of the 12.5k+ PGA Professionals, and all PGA Professionals in those countries where the virus restriction measures have taken hold, then this is will be a different and possibly unnerving experience.

The following are just a few useful links and resources that can hopefully a) help you to work and be productive at home, and b) utilise the time proactively to develop yourself and your business/organisation. None of this situation is ideal, but, as we are often told in golf, we must focus on the positives.

WORKING FROM HOME PRODUCTIVELY:

Communicating From a Distance: How to Ensure Remote Working Works Best For Your Organisation | Thomas International

The great team at Thomas International explain how “…a greater understanding of how you, your managers, colleagues and teams prefer to communicate can help with the transition to a greater degree of remote working than your business may currently be comfortable supporting…”

Read More – https://cp.golf/33SUzto

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Three Secrets to Effective Remote Working For Your Employees | Thomas International

The Thomas International folk follow up with a 3-point plan to ensure working remotely is as effective for the people in your organisation as possible.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2UMKUjN

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Coronavirus and Remote Working – A Practical Guide | Medium.com

iubenda have had remote workers since 2011 – here Andrea Giannangelo explains how to organise teams, use software tools, provide clear guidelines, and keep workers healthy and engaged.

Read More – https://cp.golf/3dy3GnA

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Online Business Tools to Work From Home | JotForm.com

JotForm, an online form building tool, give examples of tools for project management, remote document access, video conferencing, internal communications, and online payments, along with how JotForm itself is useful when working from home.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2UJQvHO

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Why Working From Home is Good For Business | Ted.com

Matt Mullenweg uses just 4.5 minutes to explain how useful working from home can be and how he does it effectively.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2ykPdvh

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New to Working from Home? Here Are Some Tips to Help You Meet Like a Pro | Zoom.us

Using Zoom for video calls, meetings, etc. is a must – engagement is key to keep workers up to speed and involved (although Skype, WhatsApp, FaceTime, etc. of course have their uses too). This guide from Zoom shows how to get set-up and then use Zoom effectively in your organisation.

Read More – https://cp.golf/3atTVoF

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USING YOUR TIME TO DEVELOP YOURSELF AND YOUR BUSINESS:

ed.TED.com – Online Lesson Building

TEDed offers a fantastic service [FOR FREE] where you can build an online lesson around any TED or YouTube video. You can add notes and questions to help guide a student through the lesson and all you have to do is share a link/URL with the student for them to take part (no registration necessary). A great way of engaging students no matter where you are.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2xvLlai

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TED.com – Ideas Worth Sharing

TED’s main video service contains hundreds if not thousands of TED Talk videos of 18 minutes or less that allow people to get their ideas across. Whatever subject you can think of then it’s likely there is a video on there about it. Great for developing your own thoughts and ideas.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2vZ0bpj

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How to Stay Active While You’re Home – SportEngland.org

Developing yourself is not just about being mentaller active – when working from home (especially in cases where social distancing/self-isolation is in place) then you need to stay as physically active as possible. Sport England have brought together useful tops and advice on staying as healthy as possible when at home both for adults and for kids.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2Uq4L9A

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Work Smarter Playlist – TED.com

This playlist brings together a series of TED Talk videos that offers unconventional advice on working more effectively.

Read More – https://cp.golf/3bCie40

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Work Happier Playlist – TED.com

This TED Talk playlist looks at how being happier at work actually comes from focusing on the happiness part rather than the work part.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2JoyhGj

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LinkedIn Learning – LinkedIn.com/learning

LinkedIn’s Learning service offers a huge number of online courses that can help develop your skills in a variety of areas. You can enrol in various courses and then once complete add certifications to your LinkedIn profile.

Read More – https://cp.golf/3asCmoN

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Working From Home Learning Path – LinkedIn Learning

During this time when more and more people are having to work from home then LinkedIn Learning have opened up their ‘Remote Working: Setting Yourself and Your Teams Up for Success‘ course, including time management, productivity tips, video conferencing, and more.

Read More – https://cp.golf/39q1n2F

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p.s. The real working from hero tip is to make sure you choose the right snacks. Shoutout to gingerbread men and blueberries.

Graphic Designed by macrovector / Freepik

In addition to the current agreement, the new agreement provides access to all GolfBox add-on modules, which will enable the Norwegian Golf Federation and especially the golf clubs to take full advantage of GolfBox’s golf management platform.

The GolfBox platform provides a centralised golf management solution for the Norwegian Golf Federation, including delivering the World Handicap System (WHS) to Norwegian golfers from spring 2020. Moving forward, Norwegian Golf Clubs will have access to a single software solution to deliver member engagement, including members administration, tee time booking, PGA lesson booking (GolfBox ProPlanner), handicapping and tournament software.

”We are very pleased with this new 5-year agreement with GolfBox. It ensures that we continue to be at the forefront of technology advancements as a Federation, but more importantly the updated agreement also provides further access to GolfBox to Norwegian golf clubs.

“In addition, this new agreement helps us to ensure a smooth transition with the upcoming implementation of the World Handicap System in 2020” said Tor-Anders Hansen, General Secretary of the Norwegian Golf Federation.

“GolfBox is looking forward to extending our long-term partnership with the Norwegian Golf Federation”, said GolfBox Chief Executive Officer Christian Faergemann.

“We are happy with the trust the Norwegian Golf Federation continues to put in us, including our vision for the future and our focus on technology innovation.”

GolfBox is the leading software company experienced in operating a cloud-based administration platform for the golf industry, having done so since 2003. By combining its established global solutions and market opportunities they are the leading provider of handicapping services to national associations. In Europe alone, GolfBox currently supports 15+ Federations with software, servicing 1 million+ golfers and approximately 1,000+ golf clubs with handicapping and golf management solutions.

Find out more about GolfBox here

What is GolfBox’s ProPlanner?

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There is a well-known phrase: ‘people leave managers, not companies’. Ensuring your organisation is made up of leaders with the right characteristics, level of self-awareness, potential and ability is fundamental in fostering an environment of high engagement and high performance, both of which are key drivers of business success.

Leadership goes beyond the successful delivery of projects or achievement of strategic targets; it’s about engaging your people on the journey towards realising a vision. We surveyed over 200 HR and business professionals on their views on leadership, engagement and talent, and a host of recommended actions from industry experts that you can implement in your own organisations.

This whitepaper aims to reflect on the relationship between leadership and engagement, covering the following themes:

• The role of leaders in driving engagement and performance through team values
• Psychological methods of defining talent and measuring potential
• The impact of employee engagement upon performance

Click Here to Download the Free Whitepaper [ThomasInternational.net]

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Reuben Conibear

Reuben has worked in the Marketing team at Thomas for just over 3 and half years. As Marketing Executive, Reuben’s core focus is to ensure a high quality experience for Thomas customers at all times. In his spare time, Reuben enjoys kayaking, bouldering and spending time with his friends and family.

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As Thomas International continues to roll out the High Potential Trait Indicator (HPTI) worldwide, a vast amount of data is being collected and analysed alongside a great deal of data about workplace and leadership outcomes.

These results were presented in a symposium at the 2018 International Test Commission Conference in Montreal [read more about it here]. This represents one of the largest HPTI studies done to date, including nearly 10,000 participants.

One of the defining features of the HPTI is it’s optimal trait levels for leadership. The HPTI goes beyond identifying personality traits and provides clear guidelines for identifying high potential leaders based on their personality traits. The recent studies confirm and reinforce the importance of personality traits for leadership.

The Process

Good scientific research involves thorough testing to build on theories and collect large amounts of data. This helps to confirm findings and improve the knowledge and understanding of the topic under investigation. Thomas International have been testing and validating the HPTI with workers around the world to ensure HPTI results and reports are valid, reliable and useful in workplaces around the world.

This process ensures the HPTI is a scientifically validated tool, and allows the continuous development of additional knowledge and resources to improve the utility of the HPTI in practice.

One of the papers presented at the 2018 International Test Commission Conference in Montreal looked at the results from a study of nearly 10,000 participants. Alongside the HPTI, various workplace outcome variables were also examined. The results demonstrated that the theoretical underpinnings and psychometric properties of the HPTI are valid and useful for North American populations.

Key Findings

First, the items and personality traits tested by the HPTI can be used in workplaces in North America. This research also involves a localisation process for the HPTI, so population norms and optimal levels of traits tailored to North American workers, leaders and businesses.

Second, this is the largest study to date examining HPTI traits at different levels of leadership. The results show very significant differences in HPTI traits at the different levels of leadership. The results confirm the importance of HPTI traits for leadership, and show the importance of HPTI traits increases with leadership seniority.

The chart below show increasing levels of each personality trait in each leadership category. This is a clear pattern which shows how important optimal HPTI trait levels are in leadership, and senior leadership in particular.

The results also show a greater spread between some traits. For example, those not in leadership tend to have average Ambiguity Approach levels. Senior leaders show substantially higher Ambiguity Approach which is essential for the level of complexity and uncertainty they face in their work.

Competitiveness, on the other hand, shows a relatively narrow spread. Although Competitiveness rises slightly higher at more senior levels of leadership, the differences are relatively modest. This is consistent with previous findings that extreme levels of competitiveness can be counterproductive in leadership positions.

Overall, this clearly shows the importance of HPTI traits in leadership and highlights that the HPTI traits are even more important in senior leadership. As HPTI research is conducted around the world, the research results clearly and consistently demonstrate how important HPTI traits are for leadership potential.

Implications for Business

HPTI personality traits are incredibly useful in assessing high potential at work for three reasons (discussed in more detail in High Potential: How to spot, manage and develop talented people at work).

1. Personality is stable

Personality traits are relatively stable from early adulthood into later life. It is a consistent pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving. This means personality is a very useful early indicator of potential at work.

2. Personality is rooted in the brain and biology

Personality comes from neurological processes and structures. That means personality is essentially hardwired in the brain, and very difficult to change except in cases of extreme psychological intervention. Unlike factors such as motivation which can change day-to-day or year-to-year, personality is a useful long-term predictor of both performance and potential.

3. Personality traits interact

Personality traits do not exist in isolation. The traits interact to form a whole, overall personality structure. Having high or low levels of one particular trait will influence how all other traits are experienced and expressed. This means it is important to look at all the HPTI personality traits in combination. The research described earlier in this article reinforces how important all of the HPTI traits are for overall leadership potential.

Getting a full picture of a person’s personality traits provides important information about making decisions related to identifying, managing and developing high potential at work.

Read more about each of the 6 traits of high potential in leadership and how the HPTI can support you in recruiting and developing your (future) leaders.

To find out more about the real-life applications of the HPTI, please get in contact on info@thomas.co.uk or call us on +44(0)1628 475 366.

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Ian MacRae

Ian has been an organisational psychology consultant for over a decade and is the director and co-founder of High Potential Psychology Ltd. He is the co-author of High Potential: How to Spot Manage and Develop Talented People at Work and the High Potential Trait Indicator (HPTI), a measure of leadership potential, which is available to Thomas clients.

When team members work well together, there is little they cannot accomplish. Looking at the bigger picture when it comes to your teams, such as their behavioural and emotional preferences and the impact they have on each other, can greatly increase your chances of developing a high performing team.

Patrick Wright from the Rugby Business Network (RBN) uses Thomas assessments to do just that. Thomas tools allow them to gain a deeper understanding of an individual’s preferences, something the RBN have used to develop athlete performance, enhance transition programmes and ultimately deliver results.

Developing self-awareness in the USA 7’s Rugby team

Mike Friday, Head Coach of the USA 7’s Rugby team, has been working with Patrick at the RBN to embed Thomas assessments into the team’s training programme in the lead up to the Rio Olympic Games, in order to improve consistency in performance through greater self-awareness amongst team members.

As a high performance sporting team where effective communication is crucial to successful performance, the team needed to develop their understanding of each other. As a result, they implemented Thomas’ Personal Profile Analysis (PPA) to identify their strengths, limitations, motivators and communication preferences; helping team members and coaches to tailor communications to individuals, so as not to misinterpret them and stifle learning.

The PPA compatibility report was also used between players, coaching staff and the management team. The reports uncovered a number of potential challenges to effective team relationships, which allowed them to put timely strategies and development plans in place to help individuals to modify their behaviour to the preferences of others.

The players also noticed an immediate impact after implementing Thomas assessments. Madison Hughes, player and captain of the USA 7’s Rugby team comments, “The Thomas PPA helped the team take a different perspective on communication with each other. In particular, it helped us realise the different ways people see things and therefore that with each individual, different approaches are necessary.

Mike concludes, “it has been very insightful working with Thomas International. It has encouraged open communication within the squad and has created a foundation for us to create winning performances on the pitch and to be a more united squad off the pitch. I would highly recommend teams looking to find the edge in high performance to explore this approach.”

For more information, visit ThomasInternational.net.

Photos provided by Mike Lee/KLCFotos

What this example demonstrates is the power – and danger – of negative thinking. Research into negative thoughts has shown how they lead us to dissociate from the outside world and turn our focus to one thing only: the thing that is making us feel angry, scared or bad about ourselves. As a result, we stagnate.

Positive thoughts have the opposite effect, opening our minds to see a whole range of possibilities and therefore welcoming new ideas and perceptions. Barbara Fredrickson, a professor at the University of North Carolina and researcher of positive emotions, believes thinking positively can even have long-term benefits. In her ‘broaden and build’ theory she describes how the broadening of our sense of what is possible generated by positive thoughts can lead us to develop new skills and so progress in life.

For some of us, looking at things from the bright side is something that comes easily; others find it harder. That doesn’t mean all hope is lost, though: thinking positively is something that you can train yourself to do.

First of all, you’ll need to start making a conscious effort to not give in to negative thoughts. Recognise when you start dwelling on the bleaker side of things and put a stop to it by asking yourself what you could do to make the situation better. Then start setting actionable goals for yourself – reaching them will empower you.

The next step is to foster positive thoughts. Easier said than done? Not necessarily. While positive thinking creates positive emotions, this process also works the other way around. This means that doing things you love, that bring you joy, can help you to think more positively. Think, for example, of a time where you engaged with something you are passionate about: perhaps you went to a concert or saw a film you really loved. Did you feel inspired afterwards? Perhaps it even led you to actively pursue a goal related to that passion?

Or you can try something new. Meditation has been proven to help cultivate positive thoughts, while a study published in the Journal of Research in Personality showed that writing about positive experiences can have the same effect.

Thinking positively means getting out of your head and looking for solutions. It’s something you may have to practise to get better at, but ultimately it can open doors that you may otherwise have walked right past.

This content appears courtesy of Abintegro, experts in career management, transition technology & e-learning for today’s modern, mobile and technology-savvy workforce – Find out more at www.abintegro.com

Credit: Huffington Post; National Centre for Biotechnical Information

Composite Graphic Credit: iconicbestiary / Freepik

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Read the entire story behind this here from James Clear.

Will’s first suggestion – The Ivy Lee Method

1. At the end of each work day, write down the six most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow. Do not write down more than six tasks.
2. Prioritize those six items in order of their true importance.
3. When you arrive tomorrow, concentrate only on the first task. Work until the first task is finished before moving on to the second task.
4. Approach the rest of your list in the same fashion. At the end of the day, move any unfinished items to a new list of six tasks for the following day.
5. Repeat this process every working day.

Read the entire story behind this here from James Clear.

The biggest killer of everyone’s day is opening up emails first things in the morning.

Everyone is always asking “how” questions. What really matters is the “why”.

Take some time to improve your business / sales skills if it’s something you struggle with and go outside of the typical education / certifications. Give yourself permission to try some new ideas out with the framing of an experiment or challenge.

3 Morning Questions:

• What happened yesterday?
• How do I feel about that?
• What am I working on today

Will’s past episodes on coaching programs:

Group Coaching Q&A part 1
Group Coaching Q&A part 2
Working with Groups

Links / Resources

Charles M. Schwab productivity story – Ivy Lee Method
2017 Coaching Workshop in Orlando
Will’s Consulting Company RGX
BJ Fogg – Tiny Habits

Jane Carter looks at the growing trend to put PGA Professionals at the heart of what is often a golf club’s biggest challenge: growing the business.

Too often conversations with golf club committees start with the words, “We have stopped the PGA Professional’s retainer. We just didn’t think we were getting value for money.” When you quiz them further it’s clear that, in their eyes, value for money is all about driving more revenue. Quiz them again on how they are expected to do this and ‘marketing’ is the buzz word.

A quick scan of the Situations Vacant pages reveals much the same: ‘Be responsible for a marketing strategy which covers all areas of golf operations,’ ‘boost membership,’ ‘increase green fee income’ and ‘improve the visitor experience’ are just some of the things clubs now want their PGA Pros to be responsible for.

Like it or not, the trend of putting a PGA Professional at the heart of revenue generation is a growing one, and what a fantastic position for you to be in. As I have written in this column before no one should know the business better than you. Are the members happy (retention?). Is the golf course busy? (Visitor/society business) If not why not? Is there a steady pipeline of potential new members? All of it revolves around the PGA Professional.

Many Professionals worry they don’t have the right skills but I guarantee that if you understand your golf club business, selling it is not that tough. You are already doing more than you think. The trick is to leverage that even further – and make sure the business knows you are at the heart of it.

However, the biggest issue facing the Professional when asked to market a golf club is simply whether the club really means it: I have seen enthusiastic marketing committees, newly recruited marketing managers and PGA Professionals buzzing with ideas to drive more revenue, suddenly hit a brick wall when it starts to actually happen. What started out as a happy collaboration can quickly turn to recriminations.

So if a golf club is turning to you to take the lead in revenue generation, here is my top ten checklist of the steps that you need to have in place:

• Check that the golf club is really signed up to increasing the business. They may say they want more visitors but when they start appearing do the moans start coming? Setting revenue targets is the best way to test that commitment.
• Know the business. Understand the green fee yield; course utilisation; membership attrition (especially in the newer member category); membership recruitment and how successful it has been in the past. Deal in facts not fiction.
• Sit down with the golf club committee and set revenue targets around visitors and societies. Be realistic and careful to manage the expectations and fear of committees about too many visitors. Interestingly, they never feel they can have too many members!
• Write a marketing plan. Perform one activity every week in the summer and less frequently but still regularly in the winter. It sounds a lot but consistency and repetition are the key.
• Pricing is crucial. Sit down with your committee and agree a green fee pricing matrix for all times of the day, week and year. You would be surprised how innovative you can be. Discounting is part of any price matrix but also look for revenue generation through better green fee yield, upselling and repeat business.
• Collect data. It will be at the heart of everything you do. Remember the old adage that 80 per cent of business is driven by 20 per cent of customers. It’s vital that you know and communicate with that 20 per cent on a regular basis…and your golf club will love you for it!
• Surround yourself with the right tools: a marketing plan, a pricing matrix; a easy to manage and segmented customer database, an email campaign system, a mix of offers and promotions and a spreadsheet to monitor results.
• Get ahead. Successful marketing happens because of successful implementation. Write your green fee marketing schedule for 2017 now. You know what is happening next year and the key events you can target. Don’t wait until they are upon you and probably at a time when you are at your busiest.
• Agree a commission structure. If the business grows (and it will) you want to be rewarded for your efforts. Make it performance related and set realistic and achievable targets. If the green fee revenue is currently £30k and you believe you can grow it to £40k ask for a higher rate of commission on that £10K worth of ‘new’ business.
• Tell them what you are doing and show that it is working. This is even more crucial in a volunteer structure where members don’t really see the day to day operation of their golf club. Set up a simple report covering the key revenue streams and send it round every month. Ask for a regular slot at the main general committee to give your report.

Building their trust in you to do a good job will take time and it’s important not to drive things too quickly. Green fee business is the simplest way to start but ultimately membership recruitment and retention are all significant revenue generators and as the trust builds so can your input in those key areas.

This article appears courtesy of Golf Retailing. For more information and to subscribe to the Golf Retailing Newsletter visit www.golfretailing.com.

Jane Carter is the Director of Golf Unlimited offering marketing strategy and implementation advice to golf clubs. She regularly delivers ‘Visitor and society marketing’ and Membership retention and recruitment’ workshops on behalf of England Golf.

For a full list of workshops now and in 2017 go to www.golfeducation.co.uk or contact her directly at jane.carter@golfconsulting.co.uk.

Being mentally strong is one of those personal attributes that everyone could benefit from. Since we all encounter personal challenges and difficulties in our life, the ability to stay psychologically strong is invaluable. But is mental strength something we are just born with? Or can it be developed? Luckily, there are ways to enhance and amplify mental toughness. Here are six of the best.

1. Stay on target.

A major component of mental strength is the capacity to focus in on the pursuit of long-term goals. People who are mentally weak allow the minor hindrances of life to distract them from their objectives, which inevitably leads to underachievement. Surviving the inevitable setbacks and disappointments of life requires focusing on larger goals and plans.

2. Look at adversity as an opportunity.

Tough times aren’t necessarily a bad thing–in fact, they can often be a positive. That’s because you only really learn and grow through overcoming difficulties. The simple act of embracing a challenge can be a massive psychological step forward. Such a change in attitude can alter your whole outlook on life, helping to increase your mental fortitude.

3. Focus only on what you can control (my favorite).

Worry and fear are the enemies of mental stability and strength. While fear and worry may be impossible to totally avoid, many people bring trouble upon themselves by obsessing over things they cannot really control. For example, worrying about how a project will be received once it is submitted is pointless and accomplishes nothing. Focusing on whatever task is at hand–and letting the rest take care of itself–is simply smarter.

4. Develop resiliency.

No matter how much the perfectionists among us might wish otherwise, no individual can completely avoid setbacks and failure. In fact, what’s far more important than avoiding error is developing the mental strength required to bounce back quickly from a mistake. Learning how to get back on your feet, without spending any time malingering or feeling sorry for yourself, is essential. This is the entrepreneur’s armor.

5. Don’t spend too much time thinking about what other people think.

While everyone should be able to accept constructive criticism and other kinds of helpful input, there’s a definite limit to how much attention should be paid to the opinions of others. Ultimately, other people are responsible for their opinions, not you–and there is no point in dwelling on something that isn’t your responsibility.

6.Strive to be emotionally even-keeled.

Getting either too high or too low emotionally is almost always a barrier to true mental strength, something I’m especially guilty of. However, being out of control emotionally makes it impossible to proceed forward in a rational, constructive way. Those who experience excessive emotional turbulence have a hard time dealing with life’s problems. That’s why the ability to keep control of powerful, disruptive feelings is such a crucial aspect of mental discipline.

Whether it’s in sports, career, or another of life’s competitive arenas, mental strength is often more important to success than natural ability. Fortunately, psychological strength is not an innate talent but rather a trait that can be acquired. With the recommendations above, almost everyone should be able to enhance their mental strength.

Tom Popomaronis is a serial entrepreneur, an e-commerce expert, and a proud Baltimore native. He has been recognized for technology and startup leadership by Fast Company, Entrepreneur, The Washington Post, and Forbes. Tom was also named “40 under 40” by the Baltimore Business Journal in 2014.

@tpopomaronis

A study by the Institute of Psychiatry for Hewlett Packard found that constant distractions resulted in a 10-point drop in the IQ of workers. That’s twice the impact of marijuana!

According to another study of Microsoft workers it took them 10 minutes to deal with a distraction, caused by an alert, and then another 10-15 minutes to get back into their primary task. Many workers also used the alert of an incoming message as an opportunity not only to check their messages, but then to look at several other applications, which sometimes resulted in a two-hour gap before the primary task was resumed.

Sound familiar?

How often do you get to the end of the day having achieved a tiny percentage of what you set out to do because you’ve been ‘multitasking’ all day? Did you realise that the effect on your mind of these constant distractions is equivalent to missing a night’s sleep? So to top a frustrating day’s worth of unproductiveness you’re probably damaging your brain cells too.

If you recognise that maybe you’re just a bit addicted to the beep, then you can deal with it. Switch the sound off, cover your phone up or just use good old fashioned will power and finish what you’re doing before you check your messages. It’s probably just an email offering you 10% off your next airport transfer anyway.

This content appears courtesy of Abintegro, experts in career management, transition technology & e-learning for today’s modern, mobile and technology-savvy workforce – Find out more at www.abintegro.com

Credit: HBR; Microsoft; BBC

You’ll notice that I made the title of this post sound quite impressive (at least I hope I did!).

But the great thing about this story is that anyone can have such an impressive outcome, and it’s not at all as daunting as it might sound.

In fact, all these outcomes came from doing small things every day over a long period.

I’m a big fan of working smarter, not harder and finding small ways to make my work more efficient. As Buffer’s first Content Crafter about two years ago, I got the chance to explore these topics quite a lot.

Now I’m excited to be back to show you exactly how I came by these wins in 2015.

• From a habit of practicing French for just 5 minutes a day, I can now read, write, and speak basic French.
• From a habit of reading just a page every night, I managed to increase my reading list by five times over the past couple of years.

Basically, I used small, everyday habits to build up into big, long-term outcomes.

There are four principles I try to stick by whenever I’m building a new habit. Through everything I’ve tried, these are the principles that seem to work every time.

1. Start small: Repeat a tiny habit daily

When I first started focusing on building more healthy habits a few years ago, one of the biggest mistakes I made was to ask too much of myself.

I would go from reading hardly ever to attempting to read one book per week. Or from getting up at 9 a.m. most days to trying to roll out of bed before 6 a.m. every morning.

The distance between where I was starting and where I wanted to be was so great that I would fail a lot. And each failure made it harder to succeed the next day.

At their heart, as James Clear explains, habits are about routines.

And what I really needed was small wins and visible progress to help me create new routines I could keep at every day.

Finally, I came across this idea of starting small. The point is to focus on repeating the habit every day, but not worrying about how effective that habit is. In other words, quantity first; quality later.

A great example is flossing. Say you want to floss every night, but you haven’t flossed for years. If you take up flossing out of the blue and expect to spend 10 minutes doing it every night, you probably won’t last more than a week. It’s a very big ask.

But starting small is so effective, it’s almost like a super power. Here’s how it would work for flossing: you take the tiniest part of the habit you can work with—in this case, it would be to floss just one tooth. It’s still considered flossing, but you won’t make huge leaps in dental hygiene this way.

But here’s where it gets powerful: at first, you focus on just flossing one tooth every night. And you stick with it for more than a week. Then, more than two. Then three, four weeks. You can stick with this habit because it’s so easy. There’s barely any effort involved with flossing one tooth, so it’s hard to make an excuse not to do it. And once it’s become easy and automatic to floss one tooth, you start flossing two.

For a while, you floss two teeth every night. Then, you increase to three. And slowly you work your way up, never taking such a big leap that it becomes a chore.

By starting small you focus on making the behavior automatic, before you worry about making the behavior big enough that it produces a useful outcome.

As Scott H. Young says, we tend to overestimate how much we can get done—especially when we’re stepping into the unknown. Scott suggests planning as if you can only commit 20% of the time and energy you’d like to, in order to be more realistic.

Here’s how I applied the “start small” process to my habits in 2015:

Reading: One page a night

I started by reading just one page of a book every night before bed. Often I would read more, but if all I could manage was one page, I would count that as a win.

Later, when the habit was already strong, I would put on a timer and read for 15 minutes, and eventually I was reading for 30 minutes before bed and another 30 minutes most mornings.

Just starting with one page added up: In 2013 I read 7 books. In 2014, 22. In 2015, 33. That’s almost five times what I read in 2013.

I worked on this habit over about a year and a half. That probably sounds like a long time, but it only seems that way in retrospect.

When I’m working my habit, all I think about is how much I need to read today to count a win. It’s always a small, daily effort that I focus on. But when I look back on my progress, I realise what big achievements those daily habits have developed into.

French: One lesson every morning

I had dabbled in French with before, but I wasn’t very good at sticking with it. When I decided I really wanted to improve my French, I started by building a habit of doing just one Duolingo lesson every morning while I drank my coffee. (If you haven’t tried it, Duolingo is a free web and mobile app to help you learn lots of languages.)

One lesson takes around five minutes, so it’s a tiny commitment, and quite easy to do when I’m sitting around drinking coffee anyway. Eventually I started doing more than one lesson—two, three, sometimes even four or five, if I was enjoying it.

I did as many as I felt like, but I always did at least one.

Only one lesson was required to check off that habit for the day, so it was easy to stick to, even when I didn’t feel like doing any more than that. These days I also use Babbel (a paid web and mobile app for language learning) to get a better idea of the grammatical rules and structures of French, and I’ve finished the whole French section in Duolingo.

According to Duo, that means I know about 41% of French! That’s a big achievement from just five minutes a day!

2. Focus on one habit at a time

One of the hardest things for me when it comes to building new habits is to not take on too many at once. I always have such grand plans for the things I want to get better at, and so much enthusiasm when I first start out, that I want to build several habits at once.

Every time I’ve tried that approach, I end up failing. Usually a few of the habits don’t stick, but sometimes none of them do. It’s just too much to focus on at once—a bit like multitasking, where your brain has to switch contexts constantly, because you really can’t focus on multiple things at once.

So my new rule is to work on just one habit at a time. Only when that habit is so automatic I can do it every day easily do I start on a new habit.

With the example above, I was reading every night before I started focusing on French. And I was easily doing a French lesson every day before I started focusing on getting up early.

Sometimes building a habit can take a long time. Getting up early was one I really struggled to do consistently. I spent around four months focused on that same habit: trying different approaches, tracking my progress, and reporting in to friends who helped keep me accountable. I was determined to make it a consistent habit, but that meant not building any other habits for months.

These days I’m glad I committed to building that habit for so long, because I get up early almost every day without even trying. It didn’t come easy, but it was worth the effort.

How long it takes you to build a habit will vary, so four months might be longer or shorter than you need. We often hear the idea that it takes 21 days to build a habit, but studies have shown we all take different lengths of time to build new habits. In one study, the average time it took to build a new habit was 66 days—about two months.

The lesson I’ve learned is to treat each habit differently, depending on how hard you find it to stick to consistently, but also to focus on just one habit at a time so it gets your full attention and energy.

3. Remove barriers: Have everything you need at hand

I find it much easier to complete my habits when the equipment I need is at hand. For instance, having my phone in my hand already while drinking coffee made it easier to build a habit of doing a quick French lesson at that time. Reading a page of a book every night became a lot easier when I kept the book by my bed.

Malcolm Gladwell calls this the tipping point. It’s that small change that tips you over from making excuses to taking action. One great example of the power of a tipping point comes from a study of tetanus education at a university. The study tested whether trying to induce higher levels of fear about tetanus would encourage more students to get vaccinated against it. The fear level of the education program didn’t seem to make any difference, but one surprising change did: adding a map of the university campus showing the health center and the times vaccinations were available increased the vaccination rate from 3% to 28%.

The tipping point is that tiny change that makes it easy enough to take action that you’ll actually follow through. I like to think of it as removing any barriers that make it easy to not follow through on my habits.

One habit I want to build in 2016 is to play piano more often. Right now I play whenever the mood strikes me, which isn’t often enough to get a lot better. But I have noticed that I tend to play more often when the piano is easily accessible. Right now it’s in a corner of our lounge/dining/kitchen area, so I can easily sit down and play a little while waiting for something to cook or when I visit the kitchen for an afternoon snack.

Another habit I want to focus on this year is exercising more regularly. I’ve noticed that once I put on my exercise clothes, it’s pretty much certain that I’ll go outside for a run, but until those clothes are on it’s a lot easier to think of excuses for not going out. Getting out my exercise clothes the night before and putting them on quickly in the morning before I can think of excuses tends to help me get out the door faster. This is something I plan to do more regularly when I’m focusing on building this habit.

4. Stack habits: Build new routines onto existing ones

One of my favorite ways to build new habits is to stack them onto existing habits. This builds up several habits into a routine, and each habit acts as a trigger for the next one.

The cool part about this is you already have lots of habits you probably don’t realise. Brushing your teeth before bed, getting out of bed in the morning, making coffee at the same time every day—these are all existing habits. So long as you do something at the same time every day without thinking about it, it’s a habit you can stack others onto.

If you do your new habit after completing an existing one, you can rely on the strength of your existing habit to help keep your new habit on track. For example, when I get out of bed, the first thing I do is go downstairs to make a coffee. When my coffee is made, I start my French lesson. My existing habit of making coffee acts as a trigger to complete my French lesson.

And when I go to bed at night, I open the book sitting by my bed. Getting into bed and seeing the book act as a trigger to do my nightly reading.

Research has shown a cue to work on your new habit may be the most effective way to ensure you stick to the habit long-term. When you stack habits, you use the existing ones as cues for each new habit you want to build.

Over time you can keep stacking new habits onto your existing ones to take advantage of automatic behaviors you’re already doing.

Building new habits has become something of a hobby for me. It’s exciting to think of all the skills I can gain and improve over time, just by building tiny habits that I repeat every day. It makes huge accomplishments seem much more achievable.

If you’d like to learn more about how I build habits that help me work smarter, not harder, you can sign up for my course, Productive Habits.

P.S. Get all our posts on workplace culture, productivity, transparency and more in your email.  Sign up now.

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Written by Belle Beth Cooper (@bellebcooper)

Belle Beth Cooper was the first Content Crafter at Buffer. She’s the co-founder of Melbourne startup Hello Code, an iOS developer, and a writer.

Whether you are a PGA Professional working at a golf facility or an individual working within a PGA, we are all very lucky to say we work in the ‘golf business’. But with such a broad term it is easy to forget some of the key fundamentals that we are all involved with in some way – it might not be directly, but an understanding of how a business functions, grows and prospers is essential to maximise your value.

It is also possible to forget these basics after being involved with something for a long time or in one specific area of the business – time to reflect on all areas of your business and as always applying steps to improve them all through passion and hard work is the key to success. As the quote above from Basketball legend (and avid golfer) Michael Jordan says “Everybody has talent, but ability takes hard work”.

This issue of IGPN aims to provide a snapshot of articles across a variety of subjects that are important for people working in and/or running a business. You could even use it as a type of checklist to see how much you know about areas such as finance, human resources, commerciality, and marketing in your business.

None of us can offer the ultimate piece of advice for a business to make it succeed, but there are key things that you can get in place to give it the best chance of succeeding, all of which can be taken and moulded to fit your business.

It is especially important in our context of PGAs and businesses that their PGA Professionals operate in, when very often people wear many hats in an organisation. General Secretary, Membership Coordinator, and Head of Training – or Coach, General Manager, and Operations Manager.

Our hope is that this IGPN, along with a huge repository of information on the A.S.K. section of our website, can help you to create the most productive or profitable business possible. Managing your business effectively, keeping a track of its progress both financially and operationally, boosting productivity and efficiency, making it more attractive to sponsors/investors, and – something that I definitely feel is central to success – knowing how to build a great team of people around you to operate the business are all massively important.

Enjoy the issue and as always feel free to get in touch with Editor Aston Ward (aw@CPG.com) if you have feedback, ideas or would like to contribute to IGPN and A.S.K.

This article originally featured in International Golf Pro News. Visit the IGPN Page to find out more and subscribe for free.

This is something Tribal Media‘s Mel Kirk faces on a daily basis as her business goes through rapid expansion, and being a self-confessed geek, Mel understands how technology can help people in any business, so we asked her to share some of her favourite digital tools that she uses on a daily basis to ensure she stays ahead of the game…

Google Drive

This allows me to collaborate on documents with my team, which is great as it’s updated in real-time and because it’s saved on the cloud can be accessed on any device in any location, which really speeds up the process when multiple people are working on one document.

Google.com/Drive

Feedly

A great tool for consuming content from your favorite news sites and blogs, particularly with the recent death of Google Reader. With the ability to read articles offline, this is really handy for catching up on news during the morning commute.

Feedly.com/Drive

Tweetdeck

Handy for managing multiple social media presences from one location, scheduling future updates, but also keeping on top of mentions of brands/organisations that you manage.

Tweetdeck.com

Pocket

A beautifully designed bookmarking service that allows you to save articles offline to go back to read at a later date.

GetPocket.com

Salesforce

We use this to manage all of our contacts, as it can be accessed by any member of the team, is automatically updated and allows us to save every piece of correspondence that we have with our contacts. In turn this means that any one of the team can pick up a conversation with a contact should someone be out of the office sick, for example. What’s great is that it’s also stored in the cloud and therefore accessible from any location.

Salesforce.com

Storify

The best tool out there for collating tweets, blog posts, Instagram pictures, YouTube videos etc. into one simple story. We use this to showcase our work and the coverage that we’ve gained for our clients/campaigns all in one place, and then we can access and share it to anyone at any time.

Storify.com

Pinterest

We use this less conventionally than most. We use this as a way of visualising campaign ideas, especially creating mood boards for events. This makes it much easier for our clients to imagine what could be produced and takes less time and effort than a traditional mood board.

Pinterest.com

Evernote

This has a few uses – you can save articles or links for viewing on any device at any time a bit like Pocket, but it also lets you save notes, images, and almost anything else to different notebooks based on personal or business use, or for different projects or subject matter. I know the Confederation of Professional Golf team use this one a lot in their day-to-day work.

Evernote.com

EasilyDo

Great little iPhone app for putting all of your “handy stuff” together. It will proactively check traffic before you drive somewhere, warn you of bad weather, organise contacts, merge duplicates, file receipts, remind you of conference calls with all of the details – It’s like my digital PA!

EasilyDo.com