Private Club Radio Show
Welcome to the Private Club Radio Show, the industry's weekly source for education, news, trends, and other current developments in the world of private clubs.
Hosted by the talented entertainer and industry expert, Denny Corby,
the podcast offers a unique perspective on the private club industry, featuring expert guests, product spotlights, predictions, and more.
Whether you're involved in a golf club management, yacht clubs, athletic clubs, or business clubs, the Private Club Radio Show is the essential podcast for
anyone seeking valuable insights and information on the latest trends and developments in the private club industry.
Private Club Radio Show
400th Episode The Greatest Hits
Welcome to the 400th episode of Private Club Radio! We’re celebrating this incredible milestone by taking you back through some of the most insightful and memorable moments in the show’s history. In this special “Best Of” episode, host Denny Corby revisits highlights from our most popular guests as they share hard-earned lessons on culture, leadership, mentorship, and the keys to success in the private club industry.
This episode is packed with essential takeaways on everything from building strong team cultures to mastering email marketing and mentoring the next generation of leaders.
Here’s who you’ll hear from:
•Casey Smith (Ep. 389) on why culture drives success, even more than strategy
•Alfredo Hildebrandt (Ep. 364) on choosing the right leader over the right title
•Passion Graham (Ep. 325) on diversity as a powerful driver of innovation
•Max Orland (Ep. 307) on the value of inclusive education for a richer club environment
•Paul Dank from Kennis Member Vetting (Ep. 356) on the surprising risks of “ghost accounts”
•Joe Smith (Ep. 372) on how employee experience shapes member satisfaction
•Jay Schwedelson (Ep. 342) on email marketing strategies for boosting engagement
•Billy Panagiotopoulos (Ep. 340) on the importance of creating spaces that value staff
•LuAnn Giovannelli (Ep. 385) on how work-life balance and flexibility are changing club management
•Kevin Daniel Lalumiere (Ep. 391) on mentorship and developing future leaders
•Tom Wallace (Ep. 366) on building a standout personal brand
•Audra Lucas (Ep. 380) on her “coach” style of leadership and inspiring team performance
Thank you to all our guests, listeners, and partners who have made these 400 episodes possible. Here’s to 400 more! 🎙️
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Hey everybody, welcome to the Private Club Radio Show, where we give you the scoop on all things private golf and country clubs, from mastering leadership and management, food and beverage excellence, member engagement secrets, board governance and everything in between, all while keeping it fun and light. Whether you're a club veteran just getting your feet wet or somewhere in the middle, you are in the right place. I'm your host, denny Corby. Welcome to the show In this episode. It is our 400th episode here on Private Club Radio. Wow, cannot believe I got this far. Not I, we, all of us you, the listeners. Gabe Aloisi, who used to have Private Club Radio, who I acquired the show from. Listeners Gabe Aloisi, who used to have Private Club Radio, who I acquired the show from. Who started it? The OG was doing podcasting before. It was cool, but we did it. We got here. 400 episodes, wow. Thank you all so much for being here, thank you for listening, thank you for being listeners, thank you for being subscribers, thank you for being great club people Appreciate each and every one of you for an episode of just some of my favorite spots, some of my favorite parts of interviews, and I hope you all enjoy that. I want to thank you all. Once again, so much for being here. Thank you to our show partners here on the channel. You'll hear more from them later on in the episode, but thank you to each and every one of them Kenneth's member, vetting Gulf Life Navigators, concert Golf Partners and myself.
Speaker 1:The Denny Corby Experience. If you or your club is looking for one of the most memorable fun event nights, look no further. There's excitement, there's mystery. Also, there's magic, mind reading and comedy One of the most engaging interactive comedy magic shows you can have at your club. If you want to learn more, dandecorbycom. But this episode is about you all in the 400th episode. So buckle up, straddle up, get your headphones ready. However you want to hear it, we're going to get started. So let's get started with an episode that's not too old but is a goodie. We're going to start off with episode 389 from our friend Casey Smith at Chenal Country Club. Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast.
Speaker 2:And you know it also says that culture eats strategy for breakfast, which I think is an interesting statement.
Speaker 4:You know because Say that one more time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So culture eats strategy for breakfast. Because you know strategy as important as that is, you know your culture at the end of the day drives it. Because you know there's going to be times where the winds come and the storms come, the challenges come and you you need to be able to pivot, change your strategy. But at the end of the day, your core belief does not change and that's your why, for us, is creating memorable experiences. We don't ever stray from that, no matter what's going on or comes our way, and I think that it's you know. Once you know what you stand for, decisions are pretty easy to make. In my opinion. You know, at the end of the day, know what our core belief is and and that's what we stand for.
Speaker 1:That was a good one now and I would say 99 of my interviews and chats here on private club radio. I chat with the people before and that helps me figure out the episode a little bit. Uh, where we want to go, what I want to talk about, points I want to hit um, and sometimes I know, sometimes I don't know, sometimes it's just really it's just a fun, natural conversation. But in this one, when I was talking with Alfredo, he said something in our chat early on that really hit home. I shouldn't maybe not hit home is the right word, but he just said a few things that really resonated and I thought was really good and it was. He said he creates bomb teams and that he comes from a line of studs and with that he said that he was picking his boss and not his club. And I was like, ooh, that is good. So this one is episode 364, pick your Boss, not your Club, with Alfredo Hildebrandt from Lakewood Country Club. You said creating bomb teams.
Speaker 5:What does that mean and how do you create your bomb teams? For me, I try to recruit and retain world-class humans. I'm a believer that you can teach anybody what to do day to day on the hospitality industry. But finding a world-class human that's going to have compassion for your team is going to have the ego of teaching, coaching. That's a really hard part and above that is even that sense of hospitality, of making somebody feel at home. Finding those people is key and I've been privileged through my years that I was able to create some bomb teams some great and create the buzz around the club from Lakewood my first stay to Second Ward to here.
Speaker 5:I do believe through our team we left a great legacy behind. But the other thing is I'm honest to them too. I paint a picture pretty clear when they come into my program. I go listen, I want to show you some top love, I want to give you all the tools and resources that I can give you to make sure you become a world-class human but above all a great leader, a great manager, and you want to be in a great position and I'm going to do everything in my power.
Speaker 5:But it's not going to be easy and I'm up front with them and everybody who's in my program since I started is doing fantastic, great things in the club industry and I think it's just a top-of-the-loss situation where it's honest and also I provide a good environment. It's a fine environment where I go. I like to have fun. At the same time, I like to get stuff done, but it's all about having fun and that's my mentality. It's a hospitality industry. We're not saving lives, we're not doing anything, we're just making people happy and it's supposed to be easy and it's supposed to be fun.
Speaker 1:Yes, Can, and this is supposed to be easy and it's supposed to be fun. Yes, can you talk about picking your boss and what that meant, coming from a lineage of studs? Well, first off, where did you pick this up? At that, you were like I'm going to pick my boss and not your work.
Speaker 5:You know my first year when I was, I will say like it was a blessing from the sky. When I was, I'll say like it was a blessing from the sky I got hired, the general manager left and right after that the club hired a young general manager, chris Hampton, who was a good friend of mine, a mentor, a life coach, but above all, a good friend. He came along the way and we really connected. He always says that he felt in me the energy, the passion that I want to do and he gave me all the tools and resources just to be the person I want to be and just be able to give me a platform to keep growing. I worked for him for almost 10 years and picking almost 10 years in two different clubs and both clubs would turn those clubs around.
Speaker 5:I say that I'm in the business of making people happy and also in the business of fixing clubs, but it was 10 years and we went through everything. And Chris Hampton if you don't know Chris Hampton, he's a fourth-generation club manager he worked for, under the great managers, tom Wallace again 10 years. I wasn't the same. He called me the school of hardness with Wallace. He worked for 10 years for Tom Wallace, who was a leader in his industry and then came from Algermon to here to Lakewood and he put me on the same path. He showed me some tough love but, above all, a lot of grace, a lot of compassion and just the willingness to making sure that I'm growing as a human being, as a leader, and eventually be able to make some good money.
Speaker 1:This next one is really good. It's episode 325, mentorship, resilience and Purpose with Passion Graham, ccm. If you know Passion, what a wonderful, wonderful person. So much energy, so much life, so much excitement, so much passion. And now she's off doing her own thing. She left the club space recently to do speaking, coaching and consulting, among some other amazing things, and her story is fantastic. She's fantastic Her energy, the things that she has done, where she's come from, what she has built for herself, for her club, for her community, for her people around her. And, if you know her, the words we and us are very, very popular, very, very common, and I had to throw in this episode. This is episode 325 with my good friend, passion Graham.
Speaker 6:To whom much is given. Much is required, and this industry has given so much to me from being able to walk into places that, growing up, I didn't even know existed, much less feel like I would have access to, and far be it for me to not reach back and open the doors and give back to this industry that has given so much, and so, whether that's going to schools and speaking to students, I actually have the opportunity to speak to some students tomorrow.
Speaker 6:University of Nebraska, our friend, ben Lorenzen teaches a course, and so he typically will say hey, once a semester, but the answers he knows will always be yes. I love giving back, especially to students. I have the privilege of also sitting on the board at the University of South Carolina and their hospitality, school and advisory capacity and, yeah, that type of work really makes my heart sing. It really really does. Diversity is the prerequisite for innovation. So, with the way our clubs are diversifying, with having younger families coming in and it's not just, you know, retired people who have all of this money, but families and so innovation, you have to not be afraid of it, and I think that innovation and not being afraid to kind of rattle things and have fun is what has allowed me to be so successful in my career, because I'm not afraid to do that and I'm not afraid of allowing people to push their limits of having fun, because I believe it does.
Speaker 6:People are people, regardless of whether you're black or white, or you're old or young, or you have money or you don't.
Speaker 6:People want to have fun, people want to smile, people want to enjoy themselves, and so I remember one event it's actually a golf tournament that we have at and I say we, but I'm no longer at Desert Mountain, but it's called the Rattler, and so part of what I wanted to do for this event was just have these blow up rattlesnakes everywhere, and I found some on Amazon and I bought a ton of them and my director of operations was like passion, I don't know.
Speaker 6:And I'm just like, just trust me, just trust me, and do you know, having these blow up six foot, eight foot, 20 foot snakes everywhere became a hit and now it's something that we can't take away and, believe it or not, we had executives that were like, hey, I give you 100 bucks. These were blow up snakes that I found on Amazon for maybe 20 or 30 bucks, but it turned into people wanted to buy them, to take them home, to throw them in their pool, to have around. But it's little things like that not being afraid to do things and innovate, and it doesn't always have to cost a lot of money, but just having fun, allowing people to have fun and not having these preconceived notions of what fun could possibly look like.
Speaker 1:You know, this next one is really really good. This is from episode 307, the power of inclusion, with Max Orleans. If you don't know Max, a real inspiration in the club and sports world, and I highly encourage you go back, listen episode 307. It's really really good and what we talked about is inclusive education, and I'm going to let Max talk about what that is, and in our just total episode we talk about his pursuit for inclusive education and the struggles that he's gone through over his entire career and his fascinating rise in the industry. So I'm going to let him talk about this. I think the whole episode is great. This is just a quick little tidbit, just talking about the power of inclusion and inclusive education, so check it out. You mentioned what is inclusive education. Can you shed a little bit more light on that? Is inclusive education, can you?
Speaker 8:shed a little bit more light on that. I think people with all different types of challenges, but for me I talk about inclusive education and intellectual disability and people that have challenges being more included and all around more. Being more included in all around, more in mainstream classes and not just around people with their own challenges or disability. More about everybody coming together and, you know, being involved with the University of College, being on campus, being a day-to-day fan, being involved with, you know, other college students. I was fortunate enough to be involved with a baseball program there and basketball. That was a terrific way to be involved and learn and make people learn from me. It was a good structure. That's key in life, having a structure and having a sportsism and I find my passion through sports and I feel like my peers that helped me in class or in sports management major or in a baseball basketball program in the athletic department kind of helped me lift myself up and I helped them them and I think I would not have the same wide resource or friendship if I was going to a more selective program with not as much as outreach of different interactions and different type of people around me. Um, and I, you know, I, you know I could not live in a dorm back then um because of because of the um cessation, but it might have changed now because I was graduating college in 2010 and that's back then.
Speaker 8:But you know, that's why advocacy is very important, because it's people that I always want to.
Speaker 8:I always have a desire and goal and aspirations to strike out of it, and I would love to start a foundation to raise money for people that financially, resourcefully and supposedly thankfully I have from family and people on me might not have, and I would love to create a foundation that has Gat that raised money for education or disability or you know, even some of the privileged places I've worked in my sports career and now golf. People don't have the opportunity and chance because they don't have the support financially or resource. So if I can create a foundation and gather, raise money for a good cause to support, help, support people and give people an opportunity to financially have a broader experience in college and university and different opportunity in the work field with challenges, that's my desirable, that's something I'm driven to the stars about and I want to do. But at the same time, I realize there's a step process to everything and yeah, I mean you can keep asking me questions. I mean I'm just going on and on this, this, this, this one is good.
Speaker 1:This is from episode 356 from one of our friends and show partners, kenneth's member vetting, and we talk about what is a ghost account. If you don't know kenneth's member vetting, you have to check them out. If you're a fan of the show, you've heard all about them, you know what they're about. They utilize fact-based membership vetting for private clubs and in the entire episode we talk about what is a ghost account, um, and what clubs need to know about them. This is just a quick little snippet, but this is this is probably one of my favorite ones, because I think it's something that is so it's out there so frequently that I think we look past and don't realize that some of these people with ghost accounts are people in our communities, in our backyards. So this one's really good. 356 member vetting ghost accounts with Paul Dake.
Speaker 7:So if you're not familiar with the concept of a ghost account, it's an anonymous account. You want to express yourself or engage in some behavior, but you don't necessarily want anybody to know it's you. There's a lot of things that we do, especially searching Google, that makes sense for us to want to be anonymous, right? You know how do I get rid of this kind of rash? I don't blame you for not putting that on Facebook or not putting that on Facebook, but sometimes we want to have anonymous social media accounts, not just to observe what's going on as a voyeur, but to be a participant, and our character can show up in this. So this is an example.
Speaker 7:This was somebody that we were able to connect to a club who had an account. It is a bit older, but this is their mindset at this club. Obviously, this kind of mindset doesn't fit. So they have another Twitter Now X account, which is their day-to-day account where they engage, grandma and talk to their friends. But they also decide that they want to put this other stuff out there and, as you can see, when they had this account working, they had a lot of engagement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's why my mouth was like I'm like the retweets and the likes. I was like man most companies would die for that. I was like holy cannoli.
Speaker 7:And again, you know I've talked about the fact that sometimes people think the upper tier of society doesn't engage in this. That's 1000% not true. You have people absolutely everywhere doing this. You have the most surprising people doing this. It's a strange thing. When we think we're anonymous, we change our behavior. It's almost like the group behavior. You ever seen how, like after you know the Stanley Cup playoffs are going right now, you get these cities and the team loses the game or wins the game and the herd mentality takes over right? There's something in us. Young guys are worse than anybody, but there's something in us that sometimes that demon comes out.
Speaker 7:People have this idea that online, if they can feel secure that no one knows who they are, they can act any way they want to. If that's where your mindset is at, how good of a member are you going to be at the club? Now? You know that people are watching and listening, so you're probably not going to be as overt, but this is who you really are. This is how you spend your time. That says something about right. That says something about you.
Speaker 1:This next one is from episode 268. Another one of our show partners, board, chats with concert golf partners, boutique owner-operators of private golf and country clubs nationwide, and they're a great group who really knows how to keep the integrity, keep the culture and keep the feel of a club. And in this episode, in this little snippet, it was just common misconceptions about private club finances that boards should be aware of, because, as we all know, that's where a lot of the issues come from with clubs oftentimes is. Sometimes it starts up top with the board. So this was just a small snippet of a really good episode. So this is from episode 268 of Board Chat's Boardroom Finance Essentials for Club Stability with our friend Peter Nanula. What are some common misconceptions about private club finances that boards should be aware of? Maybe even like address.
Speaker 3:Well, there's lots of those Misconceptions. I think a lot of people in the club industry think you need to lose lots of money on food and beverage and subsidize that with your golf operations. That's a pretty typical one. We've seen them all over the map. We've seen clubs that lose $2 million a year on food and beverage $2 million a year but big club people paying a lot of dues, initiation fees and they're very profitable and the other part of the business and their view is let's subsidize that. We see other clubs that manage to break even or eke out a little profit in food and beverage. So a little bit of a misconception there.
Speaker 1:Some make maybe common financial challenges Like what are like the ones that you see.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think one of the biggest ones is, like we talked about before, lack of board member education about the club business and finances, and that's why I think it's become sort of a best practice to get a subscription to club benchmarking, which is relatively inexpensive for most clubs. You get data from them. Here. Here's my club where you are in Pittsburgh, and here's the seven other clubs in Western Pennsylvania that are at a similar size and kind of price point. Well, how come they lose $200,000 a year in food and beverage and we're losing a million? How come their payroll is 47% of total revenues, right Staff payroll, and ours is 58. Oh, well, maybe we should sit down and talk to our general manager about why our payroll is so out of control. So I think club benchmarking data is good Introductory education for new board members. So I think just sort of lack of new board member education is a key challenge.
Speaker 3:Another one, I think, denny, is moving targets, changing priorities, personal agendas. You and I joined the board of our local club. You're a big tennis guy. I'm a low handicap golfer. I really want the greens to be at 13, 14 on the stint meter. You don't want to spend any money on golf because you're a big tennis player, you want to put it in a tennis bubble. Because you're a big tennis player, you want to put it in a tennis bubble. Okay, everyone's got their different agenda. How about, once we make the annual business plan? That's just the plan. We're just going to stick to it. We're not going to come to every meeting and whipsaw between changing priorities.
Speaker 1:So yeah, those are a couple of the biggest challenges I see with member-owned, member-governed clubs. So this was from a. I think I always keep saying these are from one of my favorite episodes. All my episodes are my favorites because I get to chat with people who I enjoy chatting with. So I guess I sort of say that all my episodes are favorites, but this one's really good because I love good stories. I love people's backgrounds, I love what got them to where they're at, what drives them, what makes them tick. And this was from episode 372 from valet to GM, a journey of perseverance and innovation with Joe Smith. Josiah Smith down Florida. And this was just a fantastic episode. His story is great, the whole episode is good. The takeaways are great. This is episode 372 with Josiah Joe Smith. Any strategies for that or things that you try to implement in your teams and the way that you lead and manage.
Speaker 9:It's going to sound cheesy and too simple, but it's the truth. Cheesy and too simple, bring it, but it's the truth. And when this board recruited me, I told them flat out I don't serve members, and their jaws dropped they're like what? I don't serve members, I serve those that serve members, and I see the employee experience and the member experience as parallel, and whatever effort or initiatives or all the work we put into the member experience, it needs to be parallel and identical to what we put into the employee experience, and the rest takes care of itself. I'm not perfect at it, by no means, and I don't think any company is, but that is something that is at the forefront of my focus and always has been is. I mean, it sounds again, it sounds simple, but we should be. We should be, we should be putting forth and having the same, wanting the same experience for our employees as we want for our members. And as long as, as leaders, we can put the focus on that, or keep that at the high, you know, at the top of our priority list, everything else falls into place.
Speaker 9:I truly believe that there's nothing that I do that is like that. I would sit here and say it's revolutionary. I do that is like that. I would sit here and say it's revolutionary. It's just, you know, knowing making sure that your people know they're appreciated, that they look forward to coming to work, that they, they, they know they can talk to you at any point, they know they're not in the way of your day or they're bothering or they're bothersome to you. Just again, just, they need to feel like they are just as important, if not more important, than the members.
Speaker 9:It takes two parties to create a club it's the membership and the employees. Leadership's a privilege and sometimes we need to be reminded of that. I've been reminded of that in various ways over the last year and you know, for those, if I could send one message to the industry or to peers of mine, whether general managers or, you know, managers at various levels, it's that leadership is a privilege and, um, you know, we have to treat it as such. Um, we, as leaders, we hold the livelihood of others, you know, in our, in our grasp, and we have to, we have to be responsible with it.
Speaker 1:Do you elaborate on that?
Speaker 9:Well, I mean member again, our members and our employees. You know we we have we have the ability to grow people to influence people, influence their lives, good or bad, depending on how you interact. And nobody's perfect I'm not perfect by any means but we're all just people. We're all carrying things around that nobody realizes. You know, we've all got our demons or traumas or whatever we deal with outside of work. And you know, being in a leadership position, um, I think. I think we just need to stay cognizant of that and know that it's a privilege to to, um, you know, it's a privilege to have so much influence on the lives of others. It's not something to take lightly on the lives of others.
Speaker 1:It's not something to take lightly. Now, this part of this next episode is another one of my favorites because it is with somebody who is not from the club space. He's a member of a club, doesn't really engage with clubs, but he is a very successful and popular thought leader, all about email marketing. His name is Jay Schwendelson and a lot of you listeners here will know his name. He and I have become friendly over the years and years a couple of years, two years, a couple of months. What am I trying to say? But it's about this episode.
Speaker 1:What we were talking about is email isn't dead, and it was effective strategies for clubs to utilize email properly, and I think that was the keyword using email properly. He's the founder of subjectlinecom, which is where a free source you can see how yours tests out and it gives you ways to make them better, because they have so much data and so much knowledge and information on emails and email subjects and subject lines Literally the experts on it. So this is the cool part and something I think all clubs can take away from. So, episode 342, email isn't dead with Jay Schwendelson. Hey, it's like like oh, go, go back to basics. Uh, so what? Because actually my basics in our basics might be different than your basics. What are your basics?
Speaker 11:well, I, okay, the the easiest win in. So subject lines are a big deal to me, right, and I think that clubs miss the mark with their subject lines. What do I mean by that? Within a club you have different activities. You have people that play pickleball, people that play tennis, people that play golf, people that are interested in book club, people that are interested in the upcoming buffets or whatever. That's what's going on at a club, right?
Speaker 11:And every time you hit send very rarely unless it's like a new fee that everybody has to pay in the club does everybody in the club care about what's inside that email? Right, it's not for everybody. It's always for some subset of people. And if you carve out that subset and you delineate it in the subject line, you say this is for pickleball fans, right, this is just for the best golfers.
Speaker 11:Literally in your subject line this is for all the foodies out there. You know, this is for the book lovers who wanted whatever. And you actually say basically the subset audience that you're about to talk about inside the email. You carve it out at the start of that subject line. You will see the engagement on those emails skyrocket, because what normally clubs do is they just go new information, new whatever, and it's like. You open it up and it's like, or you don't open it up because you think it's for everybody. The secret to email is the sooner you could tell somebody it's for them and not for everybody else, the faster they're going to engage, and I think clubs miss the mark on that a lot.
Speaker 1:And once you, oh my goodness, because no matter what. So if the email subject is like for the best golfers only, even if I suck, I'm definitely going to open it Without a doubt, or you can even say secrets of our top golfers.
Speaker 11:You know, whatever, you want to create that interest that oh I gotta check this out. You know what I mean, uh, and that's what you want to do. You want to create that suspense, that little bit of urgency, that little bit of intrigue. I also think clubs don't use emojis not nearly enough in their subject lines. It's like every other category. That's marketing to consumers, because essentially clubs are marketing to consumers. They use emojis and they use capitalization in their subject lines. They use all question subject lines which do great, and clubs don't. They just write the same basic thing every week. It's literally. If I printed out emails from all the clubs in south florida, it would be wallpaper, because it's just like one giant image. It's super boring, not actually. The club where I live is actually pretty good. Uh, they do a decent job, I have to say but a lot of clubs do not, what's that?
Speaker 11:good save, good save right, I know I don't want to be kicked out of my club yeah, excuse me, sir, we, uh, we heard your episode Right right, right Exactly.
Speaker 1:And then, right after the email out to the entire membership, membership kicked out. Exclamation point Emoji.
Speaker 11:That's 100% right. You nailed it Exactly.
Speaker 1:Now we're going to head over to episode 340 with Billy Panagiotopoulos from the Country Club of Darien, and it was all about rethinking employee spaces and I'll let him go into it, into the episode that we talked about. But I saw on LinkedIn he had this phenomenal employee hangout area where they can eat, hang out, relax, take a break, and it was probably one of the best ones I've ever seen. Ever seen Even to the point. They have like musical instruments in there so they can let loose a little bit. Or if they play an instrument, they could just, you know, let off some steam, whatever it is, they can just. They have this space where they can get away for a little bit. They can eat, they can relax, they can, they can do whatever.
Speaker 1:But I just thought it was fascinating and one of the nicest places I've ever seen. So that was the reason for the episode, and he goes into why they did it, how they did it, the who, what, where, when, why, house. So this was episode 340, the employee oasis rethinking employee spaces with Billy Panagiotopoulos. Did you build this employee area? Was it already there? Did you just upgrade it? Was it already there? Did you just upgrade it? What was the story behind it?
Speaker 13:Yeah, so I'll tell you. I mean, when I first started I started a little bit over a year ago. I started on Martin Luther King Day and it was a Monday. I came in and I like my beverages either very, very cold or very hot. So my coffee's gotta be like. It's to the point where I'm not going to sue Starbucks. And I come in and I'm like, okay, I want to got a heat of my coffee.
Speaker 13:And there was a gentleman here, one of the maintenance guys. He was putting my name on the door, which was pretty cool, and he said well, why don't you go up to the employee lounge? There's a microwave in there. So I go up, make my way up there, and I see a couple of people eating in there and the buffet was and this was in the morning, you know they had some eggs and they had bacon wrapped scallops. This is at, you know, 10 am and I'm looking at it. I'm like this is a very odd buffet and I noticed that it didn't look great right. Then I opened up the microwave to put my coffee in there and if you've seen the movie Gremlins, when the gremlin blows up, that's what it looked like in there and I'm like, wow, this is terrible. And so you know, I see these guys kind of eating. And later in the day and later in the week, I noticed all of our hourly employees were eating off of this like afterthought of small little buffet, and our leaders were ordering off of the restaurant menus. So you have this person eating the eggs with the bacon wrapped scallops from like two days ago and you have this, the, the manager, walking in with a quinoa salad or a beautiful piece of salmon on top. It's like two, two classes of citizens, right, which I thought was totally wrong.
Speaker 13:So what I did was my second board meeting. I asked the president. I said I would like to have the board meeting in the employee lounge. So he said to me he's like we must be busy. Then, right, I mean we must be busy. I told him. I said, well, no, we're not busy. I think that it's important that for the board to see where the employees relax and eat, you know when they take their break. So he says to me, he says okay, that's, that's fine, billy, we'll do that.
Speaker 13:Next day pops up in my office and he says, hey, do you mind taking me up there? I've never been there before. So I said absolutely Take him up there, looks around and he says you prove your point. Took the executive committee there the next day and then after that we looked at like capital budget. There was some reallocation of some funds to get it done and then I designed it Essentially. I knocked down some walls, I just kind of set the whole thing up. And then I designed it Essentially. I knocked down some walls, I just kind of set the whole thing up. And then I worked with a company that actually built the kitchen area as well.
Speaker 1:I mean you did a fantastic job, from the signage to the actual details, of putting like the values and everything of the club and what's expected of the staff and everybody like that's all up on the walls. So you didn't just do part of it like you took it and ran.
Speaker 13:Yeah, I mean, that whole setup was created from scratch, right, so what we said is we need to develop a vision and a mission and our core values, who we are, um, as a brand. We didn't have that here. Um, so, really from yeah, we didn't have any of that here, so this is all new, oh so, so, so this is way more than just, uh, just an employee area.
Speaker 1:This was, this was a slightly bigger thing going on, wow.
Speaker 13:Yeah, so this was big and I think that in clubs, there's some clubs that really do it well and then there's some other clubs that really it's an afterthought, right, but I come from luxury hotels, which I'm fortunate to have been a part of some really amazing cultures, which I'm fortunate to have been a part of some really amazing cultures.
Speaker 13:I've also been a part of toxic cultures as well. So I've learned. I've learned what to do and what not to do, and I've been a part of three employee space renovations in my career, but this one was the most important because I was the GM, like my voice was the one that was able to push this narrative that we have to make sure that not only keep the employees we have, but we want to find new ones. But in sales they teach you keep the customers you have before you find new ones. And you really got to look at it at your employee base that way as well, because people have options these days, right, and hospitality, like the labor market is, it's tough to deal with, right, you're competing with everyone, right, so it's definitely difficult, so it's important to create that culture.
Speaker 1:People who aren't in the hospitality industry know to look at the hospitality industry for to for like their own. You know greedy, you know company reasons, so it's not just about having good people there. But so you know you, they don't get poached by, you know, like your, your, your members or somebody else or you know, whoever you're right, you're right, you're.
Speaker 13:You're in competition. You're in competition with everyone, especially people want hospitality facing people right. I mean people that love what they do and and create great experiences. And there's no different in in the local deli right or or hotel right.
Speaker 1:Hospitality is everywhere yeah, and you guys have. Do you put a little little music area there? What's that? Did you put like a little little little music area there? What's that? Did you put like a little, like a little music area or like some musical instruments? Yes, yeah, we put like an eat and play area.
Speaker 13:So we put a a keyboard, we put a guitar and you know just a little kind of fun area there that people can go up there play a little music if they'd like.
Speaker 1:Tickle the ivories, yeah, up. Next from episode 385, another more recent one was with Luann Giovinelli, ccm, cam, cmaa fellow, and it was about club management and drag racing. That was the episode title, because her and I had a fantastic chat Even during our pre-interview chat. Just clicked immediately the vibes, the energy was all good and just her stories and from being a female club leader in the industry for so long that when we chatted and it's what this part is about is she said that she has seen it all and she said she's watched the evolution of everything and that really clicked. So I let her go into that and just seeing what she has seen, heard what she's heard and just, uh, there's so many lessons here in this one.
Speaker 1:The whole episode is fantastic and I put the episode for drag racing too. We don't talk about it in this particular part of this episode, but uh, she's also a drag racer. Her and her husband drag race. They have like the dragsters Like not like drag racing on the highway, like the legit dragster cars those really long, like cigarette style looking things. Well, not really cigarette style, but the long draggers that have the big parachutes that come out Wild stuff. Just such a good human and I love the whole episode. This is from episode 385, club Management and Drag Racing Lessons with Luann Giovinelli. I remember when we first chatted you said the line you've watched the evolution of everything.
Speaker 4:I like that line a lot.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I feel like I have, you know, I mean it's not like I'm the beginning of club management, but I certainly have watched the evolution of women in club management and the evolution of the I don't want to say kids the students and the generations that we're dealing with now, and how things have changed. You know, in my day we worked 70, 80 hours a week. We felt like that was expected of us. You had to do that to prove that you were really good at what you do, and I kind of really love it that the young people today are like, hey, I'm not doing that anymore, I'm not doing that. And there are a lot of people that think, oh, they don't have a work ethic or they don't have this or that, and I think, heck, why didn't we think of that? You know, why didn't we say, hey, we're not working 80 hours a week? You know we want to be with our family, we want to go. I don't have children, but you know I see people not being able to go to their children's events and sporting events. You know, I've also watched the evolution of boards and clubs where they've also they're not so rigid about hey, we want our GM in the dining room every night. You know you have that old maitre d' syndrome, I call it. You know so. Clubs and people in clubs and boards and the next generation, I mean all of it has evolved into what I hope will continue to be a much more balanced life experience, you know. So I mean it's not like you can take every holiday off, but you know you can at least alternate. You know my staff here, when we have holidays my beach club manager does a shift in the early day and a shift at night. So you get to at least experience that holiday with your staff, I mean with your family, and they have a little bit of life balance.
Speaker 4:But it is interesting, I mean right down to how we dress and how we wear our hair. You know I can remember my hair used to be very, very long and I used to wear it in a bun every day of my life because that was the expectation. You had to have a suit on and you had to have your hair in a bun and you had to, you know. And stockings and you know all that craziness. So you know, and now I never wear my hair up, you know I wouldn't even think about it, and my members don't have that expectation that I have to look like, you know, a librarian. Nothing against librarians, but you get it. You know. I mean that whole like persona. So you know, and even the way we dress you know everybody doesn't wear the. You know the suit and the. You know every single day you can be a little more casual. So I think it's all evolved into a, into a more casual and life balance kind of situation. So that's a good thing.
Speaker 1:How do you? How do you handle your staff? So, like you know your, your staff comes to you and says hey, I'm not doing this, I'm not doing that, for lack of better words. How do you? How do you?
Speaker 4:handle and work with your team, and how do you find that balance for everybody? Well, I mean, we have multiple departments here, but we, we set the expectation when they're hired. You know this is, this is the expectation that we need you to work these days, x number of hours, um, holidays, weekends, whatever. And we will, we will do our best to give you time off whenever you'd like to. And you know all of our department heads are super flexible with that, you know, to even to the extent where they my security director will work a shift for one of his guys if they, if they, really need to be somewhere. So I think we all have recognized that it's important to give our staff you know that time, and that doesn't always happen. I mean, there's lots of times when we say, gee, just can't do it. But they also know that deep down, we're flexible and we care about them. So you know we will if we can. So I think initially we just set the expectation and do what we can as we go.
Speaker 1:This next episode is another recent episode as well. It's episode 391, mentorship and Prepping for Y2K with Kevin Daniel Lelumiere. And that was a joke for the Y2K part. There was a funny reference early in the episode and I made a joke to him that I'm going to put it into the title. So I had to put it in.
Speaker 1:But there's certain people that you just meet and just click with and I'm very fortunate that there's been a lot of those people in the club space. But I would say KDL, kevin Daniel La Lumiere. La Lumiere I can never say his name right, but he's from the Country Club of New Canaan and our big thing was talent acquisition, mentorship, building resilient teams and when I released the episode you don't know how things are going to go it got such tremendous feedback I was blown away. And with that, this part of the episode is talking about mentorship, mentees and how to develop the next generation of leaders in clubs and hospitality. So this is episode 391 with Kevin Daniel Lelumiere.
Speaker 1:With Kevin Daniel LeLumiere, mentorship being a big thing and I've had some of your mentees on here without knowing or realizing. But the workforce is changing, people are changing. There's new generations coming in. The club world could be difficult GM burnout. There are ways and things that that's being changed as well, but are there any strategies that you use to mentor and develop the next generation of leaders and clubs and hospitality?
Speaker 14:So in terms of strategy, I would say, look and again, it's an interesting segue because I think that that too is another asset for someone thinking about working here. So if I can say we've got a legitimate internship program, we have a legitimate mentor-mentee program, that might cause somebody to choose our club as their employer over another, because it's more than just a paycheck. So I would say it in a different way. To say someone works here for three years, of course we're going to pay them for those three years, but if they can walk away and say, wow, I learned something from Kevin or the chef or golf course superintendent or CFO, there's value out there for sure.
Speaker 14:In terms of strategy, real life I tried to listen in equal parts to mentoring. It's funny. I've had a couple of really strong mentors in my career and I'm forever grateful. But there were times where I was kind of like let me talk for a minute. I get that you've done A, b and C and you're a champion of your industry. But I think any good mentor listens carefully 50% of the time or 40% of the time, something like that. So that would be my strategy is. It's conversational, much like you and I chatting here. It's very conversational. Things pop up that you wouldn't anticipate. I could walk into a mentee session and say, okay, we're going to talk about insurance today, and then it ebbs and flows. We end up talking about five other different things their personal life or their goals. So, yeah, I think 50-50 listening and talking Like in any interview I find myself, as I am here too, went on with you is that I was actually coached by one of my mentors who watched me interview another candidate and they're like you talked way too much.
Speaker 14:You're supposed to let them talk. They're supposed to do the majority of the speaking. But again back to your earlier point. If I'm trying to sell them on the club and tell them how wonderful it is to work here, that involves me. You know describing those things. But, yeah, feel really strongly about that. Look, I would tell you that as a GM now, as I'm getting to be an old man, 20 years in the industry, I set as a smaller priority making sure that Mr and Mrs Hook and slice in the dining room think I'm really cool, or or you cool, or they've seen me five times a week. I think I would say to my board and my president pull my department heads in Ask them one by one Is this person a leader? Can they make a concise decision? Do you feel like you know where you stand? Are they ethical? Is the direction clear? Do you feel like he's got your back? Those are the things I would measure myself on. So with mentorship, that's a big part of it for me.
Speaker 1:Can you go into your mentorship program? How does that work and is it for? This might be a dumb question. Is it for everybody who comes and applies? Is it for a certain age, demographic? What does that entail? When is that brought into the conversation? Is it like? What does that entail Like? When is that brought into the conversation Like? Is that part of like? When they first are applying it's like hey, we have X, y and Z. Is this part of like that? I don't want to say that promo package, but what you put out to the world, is it once they kind of are interested, then you start explaining what the whole process is and part of the, you know, part of the um, the role like what's, what does that? What does the mentor program entail? At country club in new Canaan.
Speaker 14:Yeah, so I would. I w I'm not going to lie to you, denny, it's not a super formalized thing and and and maybe shame on me for for, uh, for it not being like that I would say I'm I'm grateful and proud that we have that sort of program. I have two at the moment, mentees that I meet with regularly, and then I encourage the hell out of my department heads to do the same thing. And part of that is selfish. Part of that is continuity and succession plan, meaning like if we don't have that and someone takes a bullet or gets hit by a bus, shame on me for not having groomed someone to sort of step up. And the other part of it, to answer your question, is it's a little bit of. It takes two to tango.
Speaker 14:So I don't really just point at somebody and say, hey, you, we're going to meet every week for an hour and a half, whether you like it or not. I kind of look at an employee to kind of say to me hey, you know, I'm just thinking about furthering my career. Can I ask you your advice? I'm just thinking about furthering my career, can I ask you your advice? And most of the time, as I said, not super formalized or structured. It sometimes just happens organically and it's such a great investment. It's such a corny cliche line coming out of my mouth. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:And continuing just with people who you just connect with, just good people. Uh, this next one is episode three 66, creating a standout personal brand with Tom Wallace from KKNW. I mean, his story is great. We there's if you go back, there's a couple episodes I've done with Tom Uh, but this one in particular.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about personal branding and what that is, what that means, especially in the club space, cause I think he does a great job at it by where he posts not just on LinkedIn but all the social media channels. It's cohesive, it's good, it's clean and he helps put people in the position. So he knows what people are looking for. He knows the goods, the bads, all of what that encompasses, and his story is just fantastic. Just starting off in a shoeshine at a club to running some of the most prestigious clubs and now helping put people into the most prestigious clubs is fantastic. So if anybody knows about personal brand and personal branding to me, it is Tom Wallace. This is from episode 366, creating a standout personal brand with Tom Wallace. Are there like three things that people need to do when it comes to their personal branding? Whether they're, you know, already doing it, great. But if they're not. Is there three things people need to do, or at least need to be doing or start, if they are not already?
Speaker 12:Yeah Well, I mean first is, you know, be able to easily articulate what's compelling about you. You know what you know. Tell me. It's amazing how many we in my what I do now for the last 11 years you know. Tell me what is different about you as a chef than every other chef that's applying for this job. And it's amazing how few of them can tell you you know really, yeah, well, it's just it's, and I'm like, listen, we're just having a phone conversation and you can tell you, you know well, yeah, well, it's just it's. And I'm like, listen, we're just having a phone conversation and you can tell they're stammering and I'm like, boy, you, you know. You need to be able to say that.
Speaker 12:You know, these are my, these are the things that I, I'm, I'm best known for. This is what my team would say about me. This is what my boss would say about me. This would this is what anybody that works under me would say. And you know why I'm in this industry is this, this and this. And you know, I don't want to hear what you cook. Well, we just assume you can cook, you know, and some people go into that like you know, they start, they almost don't understand that how to brand themselves. They're like well, I'm really good at Italian, but I can do French, and it's like no, no, no, no you, because we're in the leadership business, whatever we're hiring for chefs, pros, superintendents, gms, cfos, I just want we're in the leadership.
Speaker 12:What sets you apart as a leader? I am assuming you could. If you're a CFO, you can count and add and subtract and do all the finance stuff you can. But what separates you as a finance leader and as a culinary leader? What sets you apart? So you know, being able to tell a compelling story is really important to me about what separates you. I think, obviously you have to have executive presence, even at a. You know, even at a, the starting out of the starting blocks. You still have to have a few of the pieces that I think make up.
Speaker 12:You know composure. You know, are you succinct? Are you consistent as a leader, as a human being? Do I get Tom, this version of Tom on Thursday, this version of Tom on Saturday, cause he was out all night? Are you confident? There's a delicate balance between cocky and confident, but do you have those things? Can you tell a great story about yourself? Do you have executive presence or the beginnings of executive presence.
Speaker 12:If you're not going to have the composure you need to get up in front of a thousand members and ask them for an assessment of $10,000 if you're just getting into the industry. But could you stand up in front of your classmates and tell them why you're going to go work at Acme Country Club and articulate what would be great about that? You know how do you get up. You can be an introvert but still be a great extrovert. It just as we know. You know as well. You just have to take extra energy to make that happen.
Speaker 12:So I think the three things is telling that compelling story. You know, having having that executive presence either in full bloom or at least it's been planted and there's a couple of small flowers starting to come out. And last but not least, I just think you've got to know what's important to you. What do you stand for, what are the things that you just won't bend on For me? I always used to say everything has to be past my stink test. Is it equitable, is it ethical? Stink test, the stink test You've never heard that.
Speaker 1:Like S-T-I-N-K.
Speaker 12:Yeah, like stink. Yeah, I don't know. I think that might be a culinary term, like you know. Nope, that doesn't. Yeah, no.
Speaker 1:I just wanted to make sure I heard the word stink and I was like, okay, you definitely heard the word stink.
Speaker 12:But you know, I always used to say here's how I make decisions. Is it effective, is it efficient, Is it equitable and is it ethical? And I think you need to be able to tell someone how do you make decisions as a leader, even if it's just the floor leader of a dining room or, you know, an assistant, food and beverage manager, assistant superintendent, what are the things that I need to know about you that separates you from the pack? I think if a young person has that executive presence and can articulate to me what it is how they kind of think about decisions, I'd be like wow, that's really, really impressive. And then I always like to ask them what are you obsessed about? You know, are you, are you, are you someone that is interested or are you obsessed? And what I want to hear, tom Wallace, when I was a manager, I wanted to hear I'm obsessed with success. I'm obsessed, I'm competitive, I love competitive people.
Speaker 12:And some people didn't meld with me as a leader because I was always like we're going to. You know, I had to make up stuff like Michael Jordan, I, you know, I I work like this with Jim Butler now at, but when I was at Mediterra, jim Butler is at Club Benchmark, but when I was at Mediterra he was at Gray Oaks and I used to walk around and literally my first year there, our mantra amongst the staff was we're going to destroy Gray Oaks. And I didn't mean that in the physical sense, I just said they're the big, successful high-end. Everybody in town talked about Gray Oaks and I said that's our target. And it was funny.
Speaker 12:Our HR director used to say why do you need a target? I was like I don't know, I just need, I need, I need a North Star so we can, so we can focus and go after it. And so I like competitive, I like servant hearted, I like if you're going to get in this industry, you've got to thrive on feedback. That's a big differentiator. I think you could be successful in many, many industries, but if you're not in the hospitality, if you can't take feedback as gasoline, you're in big trouble.
Speaker 1:We've made it to the last segment, the last little part, and this was from episode 380, Leading Like a Coach with Audra Lucas, who is the general manager of Shelter Harbor Golf Club, and we talk about coaching. So this is from episode 380, Leading Like a Coach with Audra Lucas. What is, if you can go a little bit deeper into your coaching style? Coaching leadership? What does that mean? And maybe what does that word mean?
Speaker 10:I think for me, coaching comes from playing athletics in college and I think that learning the structure, learning expectations, learning how to win quote unquote, right, that's really the overall goal is to win when you're playing sports. I think that for me, coaching means that you have that mindset of always wanting to perform at the highest level, always wanting to be passionate when you're going into a game or when you're going into work, every single day. And I think that when I look at myself as a coach and I look at myself as someone who my team looks to for guidance or inspiration or motivation in a really tough day, I think that it's very important the way that we communicate to our teams to inspire them. I think that that has a lot to do with how we actually coach and how we actually are communicating. I think inspiration in this business continues motivation and it kind of fuels that drive to be competitive. I think that that comes out in my leadership style.
Speaker 10:I think that always having that competitive mindset kind of is an influence in my leadership. I think of how I can inspire my team to be better than they were yesterday, or how can I inspire myself to be better than I was yesterday. I think that for me, that's what coaching is. I think it's always in the moment little tips to improve yourself. I think that it has a lot to do with sharing feedback. It's a big part of learning and growing and getting better every single day. So for me, that's what coaching means.
Speaker 1:We did it. We made it to the end. Thank you all so much, each and every one of you, for your continued support, for your listenership, for your you being you. I appreciate everyone who's been on the show. I appreciate everyone who has sent nice words and comments and letters and engages on the social medias and everywhere else. Um, thank you for getting private club radio to where it's at and where we continue to go and grow Means the absolute world. So thank you all so much. Hope you all enjoyed this, this episode, the best of, or some of the best of, as we reach our 400th episode. That is this episode. Until next time. Catch y'all on the flippity flip.
