EPISODE 120

Crosby Anyway, after I pretty much retired, I found this house out in California. I had known about this community before and was sort of interested in it because of the architecture. But I realized there was so much truth there that was not being told very well. To me, this was partly an investment. And so, to me, that left so much value on the table.

Derek What an awesome statement. I’m going to use that credit to McCann Erickson or the founder – whoever said that – that’s amazing. So I’m thinking of your career being on the sending side of messages or creating the communications and creating the messages that would then get sent out on behalf of your customers, which I’m guessing, for the most part, were for-profit companies, large companies, who were sending communications to either customers or prospective customers who had no obligation to opt in and listen. So the need for that messaging to connect, to tell the truth, to engage, was critical. Now I’m jumping to you as the member of a private club, and I’m thinking of all of the communications that you received that you didn’t choose to opt into that you get because that’s the way the club tells you about what’s coming up or when your bill’s due, what dinner specials are tonight. When you switched from being in the mindset of being on the sending side of that communication to then that first few experiences of being on the receiving side of that kind of club communication, what perspective did you gain as the receiver that maybe you didn’t have as the sender, or vice versa?

Crosby Yeah, I think as the sender in advertising, I was solving a puzzle. It was really a business puzzle, figuring out what was the sort of most leverageable message. And once that got decided on and agreed on, it was going out to an invisible mass audience. So I didn’t really care. But now, being the receiver of these, I feel like this club – I want it to reflect my identity. And when these communications come in, and they don’t match what I expect of this place I’ve joined emotionally, then that makes me want to fix them.

Derek Well, that’s why you’re on the board. I’m assuming that’s part of why you’ve gotten involved. Clubs are such an interesting business. They’re such an interesting industry. They’re so quirky and unique. And especially the private clubs that are nonprofits that aren’t looking at hard ROI, but are focused on fostering what you just said – that sense of member belonging, of nurturing your engagement with the club, with how you view your membership, how you value your membership. It’s the crux. It’s the crux of what we focus on at our firm and how we agree that clubs should be communicating, that that should permeate in addition to just what time the dinner is or what’s the special tonight.

Crosby And you know, Derek, your recent newsletter, I think, hit it spot on that it’s not just about the information. You’ve got to connect with them emotionally first and then give them the information. Make them open that communication and say, I am very proud to be part of this. And then they’ll take in the information much better.

Derek The interesting thing too for me is the opt-in. You mentioned our newsletter, and thanks. I did not pay you, just in full transparency, no promotion.

Crosby I sent it on to our president of the board of directors too, because I think it’s so true. We keep feeling like, look, we’ve looked at this as a business, we’ve got the data, this is what we must do. We’re dumbfounded that people don’t all go, uh-huh, I get it. But they are so emotionally involved in the club, and each one of them has quite a different emotion attached to it. And we’re not speaking to that first, to tell them, the data I’m going to tell you, the reason it matters to you, is because of this club, what it means to you and your identity and your humanity.

Derek Back to the agency side, even back to our newsletter, we’ve promised that we would never add somebody to that list. It’s opt-in only. I’m never going to fill up somebody’s email box with something that they don’t want. But club communications, they’re a captive audience. And you are marketing to them. You’re promoting special events. You’re trying to get them to come to the club more often, engage deeper, spend more of your money there. So the members have already opted in. They haven’t had a choice. They’re a captive audience. I wonder, because the club doesn’t have to earn the attention of the members, if that affects how they approach communicating to the members.

Crosby But also what we have to realize is this isn’t millions of people that we don’t know. At Marrakesh we have 400 members, and they’re basically 400 bosses or 400 constituents that all have an opinion about that communication. So you get a lot of feedback, and then you sort of throw up your hands saying I can’t answer. I can’t be everything to everybody. I’m just going to continue doing it the same way.

Derek The other complaint that I’ll hear from the marketing or the communications director at a club, who’s often, in their defense, a team of one. I guess, at your club, it’s probably one. Sometimes it’s not even a dedicated role. It might actually be the membership director.

Crosby That’s what it is at our club.

Derek Who is doing the communications on the side, in an already overwhelming. So one criticism of a club is why aren’t you staffing for that if you agree that this club communication is critical?

Crosby Yeah, I think we just expect people to know this stuff.

Derek For sure. And I think you and I, from my perspective, from the agency side of the world, I take for granted, because this is the world I live in. I take it for granted that people know some of the sort of table-stakes components of what’s important and why it’s important and how to do it and why you need to do well. I think I take that for granted, and I maybe forget that the person who is in charge of administering all these communications – maybe it’s their primary function, or their background, or their training.

Crosby And it’s not their background. Definitely. The country club industry generally recruits from hospitality. They haven’t been to business school generally and haven’t really worked for for-profit corporations. And what they’ve done is they’ve worked for restaurants and clubs where their job is to greet people and make them feel welcome and to serve them good food in a gracious way.

Derek That’s the one thing that I joke about, but it’s not a joke. That’s one thing every member wants is good food. The one thing – not everybody golfs, not everybody plays tennis, but everybody wants good food.

Crosby Yeah, but the problem is that country clubs are very different businesses than restaurants. And it is very difficult to deliver the quality and service of a really fine restaurant at a country club because the hours go up and down. You’re only open four nights a week. Wednesday night, not many people come in. It’s just not consistent. So much of the staff is seasonal, and we often have to rehire every year. So food and beverage is the biggest complaint of members across the country club industry. And it’s just a tough one to really please them.

Derek I was talking with a member, a marketing director at a club, the other day that we’re working with. And he was walking me through the quantity of emails that he sends out and the flyers that he produces to promote events. And one of the things he was frustrated with was he’s sending, and he’s really diligent about all the information that gets sent out to the members all the time, and I would argue he’s probably sending too much information. But his frustration is that then he sees a member or gets a call from a member who asks him for the information that he’s already emailed out several times. From your perspective, either from the board perspective or as the member who’s receiving these, what’s the why, or what’s behind that? What’s going on there?

Crosby Part of it, I think, is that members are lazy, and they don’t pay attention until they want to know something. Part of it is, in our case, we haven’t gotten the members’ website really organized so that it’s easy to scroll through to find the things that you’re interested in and then click on those to find out more information. What we do is give them all the information about everything and their loss. And, yeah, our emails cover too much because they tell us, don’t send us emails every day. Okay, so we send them three times a week, but boy, those emails are long. And we try to make them pretty, but then that obscures the information. It’s a really tough challenge.

Derek You’re leaning towards a great segue, thinking about that version that moves somebody who wants to learn more, who wants to dig in, versus just feeling informed. Again, from my experience, so many club communications that we see seem to be approached as if it’s an obligation. We have to do this. We have to send this out. Like this is our duty and our responsibility. Get the information to the members, check the box, cover ourselves. But as a member, and you already alluded to this earlier, what a member wants from that communication actually goes beyond just what tonight’s dinner special is. It leans into your identity as it’s tied to the club identity. I don’t mean to answer that for you, but maybe you could expand on that a little.

Crosby No, no, I just think our opportunity is every communication. When they open it up that email, they should say, I know the fees are high, but God, I love this place. And how you do that is not easy. But you should at least reflect the pride and beauty of the place in everything you do.

Derek I wonder, and I’m not asking you to solve for this yet, although for people listening to this, this might be a potential takeaway, but if a club is communicating well, if they’re doing it right, maybe you’ve seen examples, because I know you’re working on this on behalf of your club, what does successful communications look like when it’s coming from the club, not just with sharing all the information about events and what’s coming up? But the emotional side of continuing to nurture and reinforce that member’s sense of belonging.

Crosby Well, I think it’s going to be different with every club, what their emotional connection is to it. It’s kind of like a magazine that you love. If there’s a magazine you love, the way you go through it and the way it’s organized and laid out in the graphic organization of it keeps telling you the same information that you already like. That’s why you subscribe to that magazine.

Derek As a member, I’m thinking like, as you first joined, you were onboarded, you kind of got accustomed to it, and then got into the rhythm. Now you’re on the board. Coming from your professional life of executing, of sending out that messaging, like you said, to the invisible person, although motivated to engage somebody – I mean, you’re sending it to millions and millions of people, where a very small response rate of 0.1 something percent is probably considered successful if that converts business. Compare that to you now being on the receiving end of club communications. Is there anything that jumps out the most as the most surprising or the biggest difference in the mindset of how an agency might approach that type of communication versus how a club does it?

Crosby What we’ve decided is restraint is imperative. We’re not like every other club that is talking about luxurious lifestyle and championship golf course and all this global luxury. We are very confident in who we are, so we are very restrained. We don’t oversell. We’re quieter. And when we communicate, it’s with a soul.

Derek And to an audience of 400.

Crosby Yes, right.

Derek That you know. That you’ve surveyed so that you know what they want. You know what they value, and they’re captive.

Crosby Exactly.

Derek I think organizations tend to look at other organizations in their same industry for inspiration. Car manufacturers are comparing themselves to the other brand of car. Sporting goods are doing the same. Even professional sports teams, even NFL teams, are looking very closely at how other NFL teams are looking. But in our experience, some of the best inspiration is to get outside of our own industry and look at what other industries are doing.

Crosby And I’m just amazed by how country clubs all sell the same thing. They sell the Range Rover coming up to the clubhouse door and the long fairway shot with the drone. Lovely couples having cocktails in the sunset. And to me, the thing that for-profit companies learned long ago, that country clubs still don’t get, is that you have to differentiate. You have to create your own identity. And what I look at is hotels, particularly boutique hotels, that have decided that more of the same is a bore. And they want their clients, their customers, to feel that they’re interesting. That they have a soul, that they have a heart. So to me, country clubs are such a fertile place for business development for companies like yours. Because they all sell the same thing. And it’s not doing that. They’re spending money, and it’s going down the drain because people are seeing that everywhere. What’s the difference? You know, sparkling pools with kids jumping off the high dive. Big deal. Yes, I know that. But what else? How are you going to make me feel like I belong, that this is part of my identity? There is a guy. Do you know Jeff Klein?

Derek No, I haven’t had the pleasure yet.

Crosby He started out as a hotelier, and he owns a Sunset Tower in Los Angeles and was the Jane Hotel in New York. And then he started the San Vincenti Bungalows Club. And actually, Kara Swisher did a podcast with him. I’m going to send it to you. This guy understands what clubs are about. And he understands how the next generation – why there’s a boom in clubs, and what it is – particularly in the next generation that has grown up in a digital world, that they need the bonding and the human connection. And I feel like your traditional country clubs see it as competing on the golf course, that that’s kind of the pinnacle of belonging. And I think the next generation doesn’t see it that way.

Derek Yeah, and I’m not sure whether I’m just flat-out criticizing them or giving them a pass because it’s the way that they’ve always done it. And they just don’t know it better, but I agree. So many clubs are stuck in comparing themselves to the club across the street. Or even nationally, they’re like, Look what they’re doing. We want to do that. There are clubs, though, that are visionary, that have visionary leaders that see that they can be looking outside of that industry and setting their own path and deciding who they are and who they’re for, and then figuring out what that looks like and sounds like. But there’s a very kind of keep-up-with-the-Jones, follow-the-leader look. If they’re doing well and we look and sound like them, then that means we’ll do well. But you have a different culture, a different membership. Even if you have the same exact amenities and you cost the same at the point of entry, you’re not the same.

Crosby No, right. Totally different people, totally different culture. Everybody wants to be interesting. Some people want to just hang with wealthy people. Other people want to hang with interesting people.

Derek And somebody said to me, the key with that might be, as the club leadership, being interested. So think about a great networking conversation. Some people walk into that conversation wanting to be the interesting person, but sometimes the best person in that conversation that takes the most away is the one who’s expressing being interested and open and learning.

Crosby Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody who listens.

Derek I’m thinking back to the membership director who’s in charge of internal club communications, or if they do have a marketing director. And what I love about what you said, and I’m thinking of a couple of people that I know that if they were listening, I think they would like this, is that your solution might be less is more. Telling them to do more isn’t the answer, but giving them some clarity would help them do less better.

Crosby I think you’re right. Less is more, and more is too much.

Derek Are there any examples that you can think of from outside the club world, from hospitality, from hotels, or from companies that you worked with on the agency side where clubs can look specifically to the tactics of how they communicate that we could learn from? You mentioned the boutique, like the independently-owned boutique hotel industry. That’s fascinating.

Crosby Yeah, I think that’s the really relevant area where they make it feel like you’ve come home. And it’s not a big white box like a Four Seasons that has really generic luxury. People see that on Instagram all day long. It’s nothing special anymore. It doesn’t engage them. I really think hotels that create this very bespoke atmosphere and, particularly service, the power of calling somebody by their name is immeasurable. That simple thing, that kind of service, does make people feel like they are special. And it works.

Derek If a club is thinking, you know what, we can do a better job. We can evolve how we communicate. What’s the first thing that they should do? What’s a first step that would help set them on the right path? You’re going through some of this right now at your club. What’s that foundational piece?

Crosby I think what makes them different is figuring that out and hammering it home every time. It can be something simple, but you’ve got to focus on it. It’s generally going to be something that people will agree with, but you have to bring it to the fore.

Derek There are two super tactical examples that I can think of. One, a club that we worked with reestablished their vision and their mission and got it down to seven words or less with real clarity, and then put that mission statement that explained to the staff, here’s what this club is all about, here’s who we are, here’s what makes us different, unique, and special. And in that mission statement, it helped that staff member see how, in their role, they could help the club continue to be working towards achieving that vision. And they put that seven- or eight-word mission statement right on the back of their name tag so every morning when they get up to go to work, and they’re going to put the name tag on their shirt, they could see those seven words or less. It was a small, but I thought a really nice, strategic way to continue to remind and nurture with the team member what their role was in fostering that sense.

Crosby As long as the mission statement wasn’t generic, because so many of them are.

Derek It didn’t include the words integrity, honesty, innovation. I think those are the top three that we see that, you know, we pick on people about.

Crosby Financial responsibility, yes. No kidding.

Derek Yeah, or championship golf. That usually works its way in with those other attributes.

Crosby That’s right, exactly.

Derek Let’s make it meaningful. Another club I saw added a version of that statement, not the cold mission, but a narrative, like a nicely worded caption of that at the bottom of every email that went out. It was just a little reminder of who we are and what’s valued here. Because if you’re not reminding your members, or you’re not giving your staff that guidance, if you don’t have clarity on who you are, people are going to decide who you are in terms of their own interest.

Crosby Right. They could be looking for networking, and a lot of clubs can provide that, but that’s not going to be a good way to pitch yourself.

Derek Last one. From your perspective, when you think about the private club industry and where clubs are heading, even thinking about your club over the next several years or the next 10 years. When we look back over the last 10 years, the club industry has changed dramatically, especially with the pandemic. From today, looking forward to the next ten years, what makes you optimistic about the possibility of where clubs are heading and how they can continue to evolve and improve how they engage and connect with their members?

Crosby Well, I do think that the idea of a club is going to be increasingly valuable because so much of our lives are digital, not really human one-to-one. You’re on your phone, you’re on your laptop, people are going to the office less, so they have less connection there, going to church less. So I think that the idea of the club is very valuable. However, there’s a big difference between residential country clubs and sort of standalone country clubs. Standalone country clubs are on the upside of the demographics, with 40-somethings that have kids that are like, yeah, let’s get those kids at swimming lessons and tennis lessons. The residential country club, like Marrakesh Country Club, the average age of a new buyer there is 60 years old. And the number of 60-year-olds is going down considerably just because of the generational change after the baby boomers. And it really won’t be until 2033 that it bottoms out. In the Coachella Valley, it’s mostly residential country clubs. So, we have a smaller audience, a declining audience, and the same number of clubs competing for that. So we really have to define a space and a differentiating point of view to get those people to want us more than any other club.

Derek Highly, highly competitive part, neighborhood, country. My stat might not be exactly right, but I think that concentration of that radius around the Coachella Valley and the seven cities that make that up, it’s the highest concentration of private club communities, maybe in the country.

Crosby Yeah, I think there are a hundred clubs.

Derek I think it’s 150. Especially if you include the private clubs that don’t have the residential component, but it’s highly competitive. So figuring out what makes you different, what makes you special, what makes you stand out, to identify with that smaller potential prospective audience that sees themselves there and aligns with what you’re all about is really critical.

Crosby I’ll say. A lot, like Madison Club, which really differentiates on the fact that they’ve got very wealthy celebrities. That’s their thing. But they still sell the same stuff – long fairways, expensive cars coming up the drive, and cocktails in the sunset.

Derek Yeah, for me, it would come down to culture. That’s what I would be leaning into. If our amenities are the same – we all have a golf course, a pool. So for them, it is the culture. It’s the culture of having a culture of a celebrity membership that you want to be part of. You want to be around the celebrities, or you’re a celebrity, and you want to know that you’re going to be treated with discretion or whatever. When I look at your club, or any other club who’s also looking to make sure you have a waitlist or to sell homes, et cetera, I’d be leaning into that cultural makeup of the people that you have there right now, the right-fit people, the ones that are aligned on values and are excited about your future. Because I think that individual makeup, there’s always something in there that will inspire that story to come. But to your point, it goes back to figuring out who you are first, first and foremost.

Crosby Yeah, and I think we want to be creative and curious and energetic people that are interesting.

Derek We’ll have a separate whiteboard. I’m imagining going back inside the agency and getting on a whiteboard and just doing some creative brainstorming around some fun headline strategies and campaigns, but we’ll save that for another conversation. Awesome. Really appreciate you joining me. This was a lot of fun.

Crosby Thanks for asking, Derek. I appreciate it.

Derek One thing that I’m taking away from today’s conversation with Crosby is that clubs have something almost every other brand would want – an audience that already said yes. That advantage can quietly turn into a liability the moment it becomes a reason to stop asking whether a message is worth sending. Volume can fill the space where clarity should be. And when a club knows who it is and what it’s building toward, that small team’s output starts working a lot harder with less, because every message is carrying that same idea forward. Another thing worth sitting with is where Crosby’s perspective comes from, which is outside of our private club industry. In our work, we don’t look at other clubs for inspiration. We look at them to make sure that what we’re doing is distinctive, and then we look somewhere else entirely for inspiration and for thinking and for approaches. The private club world tends to study itself, and there’s a ceiling to what that can teach you. If this kind of thinking is something you want more of, I’d love to have you as a reader of Clubs Made Meaningful Insights. It’s not episode recaps or show highlights, but rather original thinking, frameworks, perspectives, and ideas on identity, belonging, member experience, and club culture. Something you can bring to your board or leadership team, and you can sign up at clubsmademeaningful.com. 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.