EPISODE 110

Tucker A lot of them come back to differentiation. How do we differentiate ourselves across all the local different clubs that are trying to compete, whether we’re a bundled community that’s kind of going against the real estate market, or we’re a traditional club in which we’re just trying to buy for that next generation of members? It becomes a really interesting conversation. And so there are a bunch of questions that we’ll walk through today. But I think that where I want to start is when we sit across the table from a club leader, when we do our initial conversations, we ask what makes this club any different from the club closest to them. And they almost always give us generic answers. Do you see the opportunity to talk about how you’re different as a communication challenge, or do you see that as a signal in which the club lacks a more unique sense of identity around who they are versus how they communicate?

Derek I think it’s both. I think differentiation’s probably at least one of the three most important things when it comes to this clarity of identity. Some clubs, I think, it is a communication challenge. I think some clubs know that they’re unique and special. For whatever reason, they’ve been trained, or we as people default to those external, tactile, tangible things, and we differentiate based on what we have. That’s when it’s a communication problem. I think that when it is a deeper identity problem is when they can’t describe why what we have makes our members care.

Tucker If someone were to pin me down and say, tell me the difference, how would I know if it was a communication challenge or an identity challenge? I’d say, if I walk around the club and it doesn’t feel special in any way, shape, or form, and it just feels like a normal club, it just feels like a standard club, nothing really unique happens, there are no unique experiences, there’s no sense of this place has a different feel to it and you can tell right when you walk in the door, or whether it’s the art on the walls or the way that you’re greeted or the events that you hold for your members. If none of that really feels special in any different way, I’d say that’s a lack of identity. There’s really nothing unique going on here. And I go into that, not to say that that’s a huge problem, but that doesn’t help you differentiate. It’s really hard to convince a new member that what makes your club so much better than someone else is something in which the other club can claim as well. And where I get into if it’s just a communication challenge, I have a lot of people that come to me, and they go, you just have to be there to feel it. You just have to be there to sense it. And then I do go there, and it absolutely is true. It’s like, wow, when you get on property, it’s completely different, and it has this different vibe to it, and it feels special, and it feels different. But it’s hard to articulate that unless you’re there. That’s a communication challenge. So if it is special. And it’s really hard to try to put it into language and visuals so that someone who isn’t on property can understand it. That’s where it’s like, we need better communication because we have something great here. We just need to find a way to communicate it better. If there’s really nothing special about the place, then that’s an identity challenge where you just lack this sense of where we are going and what makes us different.

Derek We talk about values and vision as part of a differentiator, back to not so much the communication challenge, maybe, or maybe it is. When you read a vision statement or a mission statement or a list of 12 core values, and it’s all of the same ones that you tend to see, like it’s usually integrity, innovation, or honesty, when you review a mission or a vision or a set of values, what are some cues to you that it could be a communication challenge or an identity challenge?

Tucker I don’t want to sound like a broken record. It’s the same thing when I see that, because if someone’s like our mission is to make a great experience for our members, well, every club wants to do that. If you show me a club that doesn’t want to have a great experience for its members, I would love to meet that club. I’d actually be very interested in that club because they have a very differentiated mindset. If I look at those values and I look at that vision, I could probably bet you a lot of money that 95% of clubs’ mission and vision is undifferentiated. Does that mean that they don’t have an undifferentiation experience? No. But that’s where it gets into whether it’s communication or it’s identity. If you’re using your generic mission and vision statements as the guiding light to your generic experience, that’s an identity problem because you’re not really doing anything. If your mission and vision are symbolic, in which you don’t actually use them, and you have a really interesting, unique experience, and then you have these generic mission and vision statements, that’s a communication problem. And I think that a lot of people look at guiding principles like that, mission, vision, and values, as the core for identity. And I think that might be true. To me, they’re the core of communication because they are the foundation for how we communicate internally around who we are. Whether we know who we are or not is identity, and whether we can communicate that is a challenge for me.

Derek For sure.

Tucker When we talk to clubs, they tend to reach to the same things. And you kind of alluded to this. Where they talk about, hey, we have great amenities. We have a great history. We have a welcoming culture. We have great service quality. All those things are the things that every club claims. I don’t think we’ve ever had a conversation in which a club hasn’t called out one of those four things to say, No, this really differentiates us. Our staff is really good. What separates a club who have actually earned real distinction in their marketplace when those things are things that anyone could claim?

Derek First of all, before I answer the question, I think one of the problems is that this is a very Me Too industry. People are following the leaders. There are a few visionary clubs out there that are willing to challenge the norm and own who they want to be and are really true to themselves. And then there’s a whole pack that says, Well, we need to be like them. Look what they’re doing. We need to be like them. So they’re following, they’re not leading. And by following, they’re just replicating what was authentic to somebody else that probably isn’t authentic to you. So when you say, We have all these great amenities, I almost want to say, So what? How do those tangible things translate to an emotional benefit to the very specific culture and membership at your club?

Tucker Right. I would say the exact same thing, just reworded, is that our amenities, our history, our culture, and our service all contribute to X experience. I’ve been playing around with this idea of identity as an operating system. And I think that clubs need to adopt this because identity being your operating system, it’s not your logo. Your logo doesn’t matter. To say everything is focused on delivering on this specific uniqueness, that is where you really separate yourself. The one thing that I do say in our diagnostic process, which is the first step in our process in general, when a club comes to us, and they say, Hey, we think we have a challenge, the first process is to say, Let’s have a conversation. Let’s go through this process to really figure out what that challenge actually is.

Derek The point that you made where it said all these amenities create a certain kind of experience, and like you said, it’s not the best experience. I would even say the filler of the word there isn’t an adjective. It’s not world-class or industry-leading or best or first or greatest or biggest or whatever. I think it’s our club’s experience. And then you have an opportunity to define exactly what that experience is. And maybe that takes more than a word, and that’s part of this articulation. For somebody to have an identity, a true identity, it must be authentic. And so when you’re describing a club that gets described by somebody from outside that club, not only in the correct way, but in the way that you want them to be thinking of you, then you’re walking the walk. Then you’re living the brand at all the touch points. For them, there are two sides to that. One is that other person that you’re asking, the outsider, they’ve either heard of you, and they’re speaking to what they’ve heard about when I say, Tell me about that other club, or they’ve experienced you. And if their description is coming from their experience, like I said, then you are crushing it at walking the walk. Or if their description of you is less than positive, then you’re reinforcing that as well. We talk about crafting perception and deciding what our reputation should be, what we want it to be. That’s only at the beginning of the process. Following through and delivering on that day after day, not when we know that somebody’s on site to judge us or critique us, but just because that’s the way we are. Again, that’s the gold standard type of stuff that we were delivering.

Tucker I go through this process all the time with clubs. And the thing that I want clubs to understand is the first step. If someone were to say, how do I come up with my identity? How do I find my identity? I would say, take your strategic plan that can’t be longer than one page. That can’t be a 65-page document. And to say, take your 65-page strategic plan document and shrink it into one page and say, here’s what our club is all about, and here’s how we know it, and here is what we’re going to do to make that even better over the next 10 years. And if you can do that, then you have a really strong argument for, okay, our club is moving forward. But if the truest test of differentiation, in my mind, is whether your competitors, or maybe you call them comparative clubs, because I know clubs don’t like to think of themselves as competing with each other, and that’s totally fine. But if the other clubs in your area agree with how you describe yourself, then where does identity actually come from? It’s a great conversation. It doesn’t come from sitting in a boardroom and saying, I think we’re this. It can start there, but how do you find your identity, or how do you discover that? In your opinion, is it something that is already existing or is it people who are deciding who they want to become?

Derek All right, that’s a tough question. That’s where the hard work comes from. Most clubs that we talk to, they have an identity. It’s already there. They haven’t uncovered it, they haven’t figured out how to articulate it. But if they’re successful in any way, shape, or form, and members are coming there, they’re doing something right. So there must be something there. At the same time, I think if we lean too hard into what’s already there, then we risk doing things the same way because that’s the way we’ve always done them. And so I do think there’s an aspirational quality that’s growth, that’s a continuous improvement type of mindset. So many of us say, We’re going to be world-class. And you’re like, Awesome. What’s that look like? My favorite analogy is I’ve got buddies that say, Next year I’m going to lower my handicap by four strokes. And I go, That’s awesome. How are you going to do that? And they go, What do you mean? I said, Is it fitness, exercise, workouts, journaling, meditation? How are we going to get there? Are we just going to wish our way to world-class? Are we just going to wish our reputation to be better? Are we just going to talk about how great we are? Or are we going to implement it? And what are some of those measuring ways that we can prove that we’re on the right path?

Tucker We go into all these different things. And you know what? This is our podcast. So I could go off the rails a little bit. I’m allowed to do that. Going back to the whole golf analogy, I think it’s really interesting. I spent last weekend talking to a guy who’s probably in his fifties, and we were talking about golf. And we were going through what do you want out of this? It’s funny because we are basically having this conversation – why do you play golf, and what do you want to get better at? And he goes, I don’t really even care if I score well, but if I have one awesome shot a round, then I’m happy. And so he said, this year, instead of focusing on all the little things that make my scores better, I’m focusing on how to shot shape. I’m focusing on how to do some really cool things that get me out of weird situations, because that’s what makes him happy. And I think I go back to clubs and say, it matters for you guys to be successful. But the benefit is you guys get to determine what success looks like because you’re crafting the future. You are building that. This is a club. This is not an organization in which you have shareholders and stock prices, and you need to do all of those other things. You are investing in experience. You get to decide what that means. And that’s when the opportunity just explodes when you realize that everything you do operates at a loss because your end goal is to create something unique and fun and different. I wish that more clubs realized that they are in the business of experience rather than in the business of satisfaction. Those are different.

Derek That’s what makes the club industry awesome. When we think of the retail clients that we work with, or have worked with in the past, where they’re trying to attract hundreds of thousands of consumers or customers for a transactional purpose, what you just described might be an experience for three or 400 people. And when you start comparing creating that experience so that it’s for another club down the street, now maybe you’re creating an experience for 1500 people, a thousand of which aren’t even members at your club. So it’s a challenge, but I think it’s an incredibly powerful opportunity because you can hyper-focus on very specifically your group, your culture, who’s coming in, who’s kind of moving there. We talk about this all the time. That might not be for everyone, and it shouldn’t be for everyone, because if it is for everyone, then it’s basically for no one, and then it is watered down and generic, and you’ve lost that opportunity to create something really experientially powerful.

Tucker I think a lot of people take pride when you walk through their facilities, and they go, Yeah, this is like a personal version of Lifetime Fitness, or this is a personal version of Four Seasons. And they feel pride in that. In my opinion, while you might want to have the aspiration of it feeling as nice as the Four Seasons, you don’t want to be the Four Seasons because the Four Seasons is transactional to your point. The Four Seasons is one night, and you don’t really remember each one that you go to. You go there because you’re doing something else. And so I think that clubs get stuck in this, like we’re a part of hospitality. But you’re more than that. You’re a part of someone’s memories and lifestyle. And you have this great opportunity to not think like other organizations. I think probably Lifetime Fitness or all these other places wish they could be more like clubs. And clubs wish they could be more like those facilities. And so it’s just this backwards thing. The grass is always greener, I guess. But it’s really an interesting dichotomy.

Derek Is the grass is always greener your key takeaway, or is there something else that also rises to the top?

Tucker I think for me, the key takeaway from this conversation is a lot that has to do with identity guides a lot of things. And I go back to that idea around identity as an operating system. It’s not just the way you visually express yourself, but it’s the way that you consider your experiences. It’s the way that you consider hospitality at your club. It’s the way that someone gets greeted, but it’s also the way that you look at your facilities. It is your operating system. We are about X here, and that guides everything that we do. That is powerful to me. And that leads to success in my opinion.

Derek Well said. Let’s end there. Great conversation. This was a fun one. Looking forward to the next one. Thanks for joining us, everybody. Talk to you soon. At Sussner, we help private clubs build brands that create belonging. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone in your club world. And until next time, let’s create something worth celebrating.