Do you Care? Private Country Clubs, Businesses and Professionals

 Email Article |  Twitter |  Facebook |  digg it |   delicious |   StumbleUpon |   LinkedIn |   Technorati |  reddit 

Do you care? Do your employees care? Does your board care? Do your vendors care? Three simple words, one small question but the answer may hold the key to whether you or your organization will survive. 

Care 

In his recent book - Crush It!, Gary Vaynerchuk (host of the fabulously popular website and on line TV show - Wine Library) includes a brief chapter entitled "the best marketing strategy ever". The chapter is so brief in fact, that it consists of only one word - "Care". I think the point that Gary is trying to get across is pretty evident. We need to care about what we do, how we do it and the customers we serve.

We are Starving for Care

As a society, we are starving for care. We want it, even yearn for it and are more than willing to pay for it. Think about how you feel when you buy groceries at that trendy, freshly stocked "market" compared to when you shop at the big box store with the endless rows of bargains and self check-out lanes. Do you feel like one cares more than the other?

Let's face it, we do a lot of business with a lot of companies that don't seem to get the "care" concept. They may care about their paychecks, bottom line and maybe even their shareholders, but do they "care" about their customers?

To prove my point, let me share a couple of personal experiences I have had recently. The names of the offenders have been disguised to protect the guilty. 

How many days does it take to deliver a "3 day air" package?

I recently shipped a trade show booth across the country using a popular shipping company, let's call them OOPS. I paid over $600 for OOPS to deliver my package in 3 days. My package arrived 5 days later, halfway through the show. I bet you're thinking OOPS cared about this - think again!

When I called to ask when my package would be delivered, I was told it was unknown, but what was known is that my package was audited during shipment and additional postage was due. No explanation, no solution, no apology - no one seemed to care that I had no booth for my show.

After several weeks and dozens of calls, we have discovered that "3 day air" doesn't actually mean that the package will be delivered in "3 days" OOPS! Apparently there is some small print that excludes the company from actually delivering on its promise - not very caring.

How do you spell OOPS?

My next story involves a major credit card company, we'll just call the company Capitol Two. While trying to dispute the above referenced charge for services not delivered, the following conversation actually occurred. There is no way to do this justice folks, but to just give you the transcript.

Apparently we don't have enough idiots in this country, we now need to export these jobs overseas. Is it just me or is anyone else tired of dealing with these companies that don't care about you, your time, your money or their integrity?

I regret to say the story only goes downhill from here folks, but I care too much about your time to digress any further. Let's talk about something more positive.

How to profit from others' lack of care 

If there is a bright spot in all this, it is that the lack of caring on the part of many businesses, both large and small, open up an incredible opportunity for those of us who do care. Recession or not, people like to be around people and buy from businesses that care about them.

This plays right into the hands of private country clubs. Our clubs are a place that members can go and know that they will be cared for. We can be the oasis for a membership that has to deal with an uncaring world day in and day out. When we create this type of environment, our member will say "Screw the Recession" when it comes to maintaining their club membership.

An influential manager from a prestigious country club recently asked me if I had any ideas that might help them engage their employees and get them motivated for the upcoming season. I am going to send him a copy of this article and my single word of advice - CARE.

Care about the quality of the meal, the cleanliness of the club, the condition of the golf course, the smile on the face of the server, the punctuality of the team. As the management team, care about your employees, their personal and professional goals, their families and the tools they need to do their jobs.

As a vendor, ClubPay cares passionately about what we do. We provide a way to help make a tedious and libelous process (payroll) easier, faster and less expensive. When our clients have a need, we care about them, their time line and getting their problem solved. We care about our clients success.