EPISODE 98

Tucker Yeah, you have robust responsibilities, is how I would say.

Alyssa Yeah.

Tucker You get a lot to do and a lot to talk about today. I think when we went through our process, we had the three steps of our process, which are strategy, development, and then activation. And you were involved in all the strategic part and the development part of the brand, but then you really took a lot of it and guided that activation portion of it. I want to start there with the activation. So let’s say we have all of the brand elements, we’re ready to go, we’re ready to tell our story. What, to you, are the most significant priorities and even potential risks when you saw introducing a refreshed brand to a community?

Alyssa I think the biggest thing was developing trust. This was a big project, and it’s only one of many big projects going on right now. So it really was important to prioritize building that level of trust with our members that not only were we doing this for them, but we were doing it the right way. And it just made sense as a part of our strategic planning and our long-term capital model that we rolled it out at the time that we did. Obviously, there were risks, right? We had a lot of opportunity to time this in a few different ways. We could have done it the way that we did it, which was we did this last year, right before season. We led into season with a brand new brand. We could have waited until the launch of our clubhouse, which is coming this fall. We could have timed it differently, which I think was the biggest risk, but in the end it worked out. It was well received, not at first. It took a little bit of time and building to get there. But that was really the significant priority for us was that our members trust us to roll this out correctly, because for those listening who might not know, we’ve had the same brand for 30 years. Our community opened in 1985, when it was a public golf course turned over to developers. At that time, they created a logo. They didn’t create a brand, they created a logo that eventually built its own brand. But that sentimental piece is what existed for 30 years, and so it was really important to reestablish that trust of, we’re not losing the value of Frenchman’s Creek, we’re just modernizing it for the next generation.

Tucker When you look at that example, I think a lot of people listening would say the exact same thing. They’d say, We have a logo, we don’t have a brand. Or we were developed in the eighties or maybe the nineties, or even earlier, like the sixties or the fifties, and we never really had a brand. So when we roll out a brand versus just a new logo, you even said, at first, people are really iffy about it. Change is hard for a lot of people, right? I don’t think we want to shy away from that. But how do you overcome that? It’s almost educational in the sense that we’re not changing a lot, and it’s not just about the primary symbol that’s changing.

Alyssa Sure, I think consistency, right? You can deliver a message, and it may sound great, but are you consistent in how you continue to deliver that day in and day out? Where we’ve created this entire brand strategy, we’ve created an entire system that we know from the ground up makes sense. It has an amenity system, it has strategic pillars, it has voice and tone, and really great visuals, but you have to be consistent with it because I’ve seen other clubs do it, and this is not a knock to anybody in the industry, but they refresh their visuals and they don’t refresh their brand. And so there’s a big difference between I’m going to modernize what we look like versus I’m going to modernize who we are, and that starts from vision and mission and culture and voice and tone. It’s not just the pretty logo that ends up on screen. You know, we were fortunate enough to get a great logo out of it. I love it. You can see it here, here, here. It’s all over my screen, but it’s more than that. It’s more than this F wave and C. It’s who are we? It’s our brand, it’s our voice, it’s our tone, it’s how we interact with our members and our staff and our external audiences. It’s not just, hey, here’s Frenchman’s new logo.

Tucker Right. And that comes to life in all your experiences, and how that rolls out with everybody is super important. You guys did a great CMAA marketing summit recently that I got to watch. I wasn’t a part of it, but then I remember in that conversation, you guys said how you launch matters just as much as what you launch. And I think that that goes into multiple ways. It’s almost like if you bite off too much and you don’t do it well, then that won’t go well, rather than having something simple and straightforward, and doing that every day all the time makes it so much more important for your membership.

Alyssa I agree. When we talked about how you launch mattering as much as what you launch, it kind of goes back to, yeah, sure, it looks great, but are you developing everything? Because even the best brand is going to fall flat if you don’t introduce it correctly. So that initial introduction to your members really becomes a statement of who are we, but also where are we headed? So it’s identifying your today and your tomorrow, not just your temporary timeline. And that launch for us, that initial launch really helped us to set the long-term expectations and tone for what was going to come over the next few months and even leading down the next few years, because it’s no secret that we’ve got this long-term strategic plan for more and more. And our launch, one of the things that you had previously asked was, what was important to us, what was that priority? It was more about reassuring our membership, not just revealing it to them, because they had seen it by the time that it had gone through the board. They started to get glimpses of it, but they never got the backstory of, okay, it looks great, but why? And so that reassurance really helped them to not only understand what we built, but to start to harness that pride of being a part of the next era of what we were doing.

Derek Some seasonal clubs that go through this process, and they will time it so that when the members head back north from Florida in the spring, that that’s when the entire brand gets implemented so that when they come back in October, there might even be a launch party that unveils it, that celebrates it during a welcome back in one big evening event. You guys chose a different strategy for that rollout and pasted over, you know, nine months or even more, but there was a lot of reasoning in doing it that way. Give us a little bit of background as to why that gradual rollout made more sense for Frenchman’s.

Alyssa For sure. The slow rollout made the most sense for us in a few different ways. One, I’ll start with the sustainability piece of it. We’re on the beach, right? We’re a beach club. So sustainability is a really big piece of reducing your waste and being conscious of what you’re doing. And we had a lot left to give in terms of our old identity system was on bags and shirts and merch and tees and hats, and everything. And it would have been not only incredibly wasteful, but also overly expensive to just make that cold cut switch where we would have created thousands of dollars in waste. And our community is really invested in sustainability and long-term support. And so for us, we did a slow rollout to minimize that waste where we made that initial switch digitally. As soon as the full brand guide was ready, we made the digital switch because there was no cost, no waste. It was the easiest way to introduce our members to that. The next step was retail merchandise. Once everybody started to get small digestible pieces of it, they wanted to wear it. They wanted the hats, they wanted the shirts, they wanted more and more to be a part of it. And so we did two big events that really helped us deploy this slow rollout. So the first one was an all-staff town hall. We brought all of our team into our temporary facilities, had music going, had our executive team present, we gave out beach towels, and we got the staff really excited to be a part of that next era. And then we took that to the members, and our women’s opening day golf event was themed New Beginnings. So all of the women received golf balls and a small purse and small merch and a keychain that embodied that new identity so that they could begin the new season with that new package, knowing that there were still old logos out there. So on our courses, on our practice facilities, on our food and beverage to-go bags, it was a big piece of we’ll replace it when we run out of it. Fortunately, a year later, we’ve started to run out of those items, and so now we’ve started to make that changeover. But for the next two years, I can promise you that any visit to Frenchman’s Creek will still show you a bird somewhere. Our golf facilities are in the pipeline to be redone. And until we have a formalized plan of what our facilities are looking like, we’re not going to replace the furniture because that’s incredibly wasteful. So we did a really slow and tailored rollout strategically, picking pieces that were ready to be redone. And then we just started with the digital tools because that was the easiest way to visualize what the new era of our brand truly was.

Tucker When you guys roll a brand out, and I know because I was a part of that. So I understand some of the challenges. I can think about the background a little bit, and you get a little bit of pushback right away, right? How difficult is it from your seat to just be like, we’re going to commit to this, we are going to do this? People are going to push back in the first couple of months, and we are not going to slow down on how we do this because eventually it might turn over. If someone were to say they’re launching a brand and they’re saying, Alyssa, my members are pushing back, what would be your advice to them? What should they do?

Alyssa I think consistency. There are a lot of lessons to be learned in life, but consistency is truly the one piece of it because if you don’t deploy your brand with consistency and you don’t have templated materials, you don’t have strategy, you don’t have a formalized plan of how you’re going to do this, and you’re just shooting off the hip, you lost that consistency and now you’re losing your trust. So while it may be difficult for that initial swallow to happen, they’ll get there, they will, but you just have to be consistent with them because this is new, and change is uncomfortable, but it’s really powerful. So, taking that piece of let’s build trust with you, and then let’s continue to deploy it in a strategic manner where you’re comfortable with it, we weren’t forcing it on them. It was a nice, slow, and tailored rollout so that those who did hold sentimental value to the old logo or the old identity were given a chance to appropriately digest the new piece of it instead of just forcing it at them and saying, This is it. It was we appreciate the history of our community, and this is why we’re moving forward in this direction.

Tucker And we all know that there are twenty percent of people who don’t like it, they’re going to be the loudest.

Alyssa Of course.

Tucker To say, well, this is for the community at large. This is not for this one person who has a problem with the way that we’ve done things. One time throughout this process, you had said it’s important for us to meet members where they are, meaning they don’t fully understand certain things. It’s important for us to make sure that they have as much information as they possibly can have, and they make sure that they are educated. And I say educated, that’s maybe a little too formal, but they’re informed, right? And how did you meet members, quote unquote, where they are in communications, whether that’s digital or print or in person? How did that come to life?

Alyssa We are really fortunate here at Frenchman’s Creek to have such a diversified and accomplished membership. And these are really intelligent individuals who have accomplished a lot in their lives. And so it wasn’t hard for them to accept what the change was, but I had to meet them where they were because everybody’s in a different place. Maybe some of our newer members are more tech-focused, but some of our more seasoned and mature members still read a print newspaper every day. And that’s perfectly fine. So when we were switching over our communication vehicles, we made sure that it was still equitable across our demographic of does this reach every member? Not just the ones that were convenient for us. Did we reach all of them? So we changed over our newsletter and still made sure to have hundreds of print copies around the community. We met them where they were. We’ve had app sessions to train them of here’s how you get this information. You have a question about the brand, here we are. Come and ask us. You want to know how to submit a story. Okay, here’s how you do that. So it was a lot of direct communication and boots on the ground, where typically marketing departments kind of sit in the back end, sit in their office. So we had to do a lot more forward-facing member engagement, like a food and beverage team would, instead of like a traditional marketing team.

Derek You just mentioned a temporary facility. We probably should have mentioned this earlier, going all the way back to why Frenchman’s Creek took this on in the first place. For people who aren’t aware, the community is in the process in its last stages of building a brand new, incredibly state-of-the-art, large, comprehensive, beautiful clubhouse. Five restaurants, not to mention the new office that you’ll be moving into here shortly. So, coordinating to Tucker’s point, all that change, where the members have been eating out of a temporary dining facility for the past two or three years, they’re, I’m sure, super excited for this upcoming clubhouse. Now they have a new brand. Now they’ve got new merchandise. I’ve had the opportunity to see some of the spreadsheets with all of the things, literally all of the, maybe I want to say hundreds or more, tactics of every single touch point that’s on your purview that’s coming. So you keep mentioning consistency. I’m overwhelmed when I see that quantity of responsibility. What are some of the things that you and your team will be doing to help make sure that this new branding stays consistent across all those departments and channels within the club?

Alyssa I think it’s really a case of you don’t know what you don’t know. And so it was really giving my counterparts the tools to succeed. So we first started with an accountability matrix of here’s who’s responsible for that pipeline. Because when you’re introducing a new brand, and especially one like ours that has a robust amenity system, it could be confusing at first of which logo to place where, and what needs to be ordered when. So we created an accountability matrix that was accessible to everybody. And we used a digital project management tool to help everybody identify here’s how a project should be managed from start to finish, here’s your responsibilities, and here’s mine. But then we also created brand spreadsheets. So this little guy here, which I think you know pretty well, I was really thoughtful in distributing to my counterparts so that they can see here’s how to use a logo, don’t squish it, don’t stretch it. Here are your minimum and maximum sizes, and here are your color variations. Give them the tools to empower them so that it wasn’t overwhelming on my team to control hundreds of decisions, where, to your point, most clubs do this. It’s everywhere, right? So from your tees to your plates to your forks to your bags to your hats, I mean, all over the place. So being able to identify each of those individual items required organization. And for us, it was a working Excel sheet broken down by department to take an inventory, take two weeks to go through every single department, and find out what exists and what needs to be updated. And that really helped us to stay organized.

Tucker Thinking about the amenity system, that’s a new approach for Frenchman’s to say we’re going to really dive into how these experiences ladder up to who we are and what we offer. From your side, what was the real value in making sure that different parts of the club, whether it’s racket or golf or beach, have their own place in the spotlight to actually tell them to membership?

Alyssa I come from a corporate and nonprofit background, and this is actually my first hospitality job. And in my first two months of training, somebody said something that stuck with me for three years now. Everybody eats, but not everybody plays golf. Not everybody plays rackets. And so while everybody comes to the dining room to enjoy all of the delicious food that’s going on, not everybody is a part of those subsecs. And so giving those groups an opportunity to be a part of something bigger really resonated with our members because now when you go into our racket complex, you see Frenchman’s Creek, but when you go to the amenity stations, you see Frenchman’s Racket, and it’s like, wow, I’m a part of that. And so it gave them an opportunity to collectively divide their interests to be a part of I’m Frenchman’s Rackets, I’m Frenchman’s Wellness, I’m Frenchman’s Golf. And so it creates those different experiences within one big campus because, while we’ve only got 600 homes, we have a lot of acreage here. And so there’s a lot of real estate to identify different experiences within one big experience. So when you come through the gates, yes, you’re at Frenchman’s Creek, but your golf experience is intended to be different than your racket experience and intended to be different than your beach club experience. So by creating that amenity system, it helped us almost create subsects. I think about it like an amusement park. When you go to Disney or to Universal or whatever, you walk around to those different areas, and it’s a different experience in each one. And that’s what we’ve created to not only increase the member experience, but to create a long-term divide of not logo overkill, because that’s what you’ll experience previously at our own club and even at other clubs. You go somewhere and it is the same logo in 6,000 places, and it’s a little oversaturating. So by creating an amenity system, you break up that monotony, but you also give people something to invest their interest in.

Tucker I think that it’s important for us to look at brands, especially within the hospitality world, as their own world. So if we look at Frenchman’s Creek, when you go inside the gates, that means that you’re in our world right now. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to have the F and the C in front of you across every single experience. But as long as it all feels the same, it all feels and looks and functions the same, then I can have a unique experience across different areas of the club without, like you said, oversaturating my desire to see this F and C everywhere. That’s really interesting.

Alyssa You just hit that nail right on the head. Where we’re really fortunate to be in South Florida, there are a ton of really, really amazing clubs, but we all offer different experiences. And so when you come through the gates of Frenchman’s Creek, we don’t have to throw the logo at you to know that this is the environment that we’ve created. That’s where your bigger brand comes into play. Yes, you saw the logo on your way in, but now you’re getting to experience the culture. And you really get to start to understand our vision and our mission and why we show up every day to provide this level of hospitality. So it really is more than the visual, it’s the brand overall that creates that experience.

Derek Let’s dig into one of those amenities and go to the pro shop. Merchandise and how that logo gets displayed on swag and on clothing is a super visible part of the club. And members who are proud of their club, who are proud of what that brand represents, love to wear that logo. I just read an article in the Golfer’s Journal where the author was criticizing golfers wearing too many logos. And it’s because they’re symbols of where they’ve been, places they’ve been to or visited or whatever. But he said, Let’s get rid of all the logos. He said, However, if you’re a member of a club, throw all those rules out. If you’re a member somewhere and you’re proud of being a member there, then you should be able to wear and represent that logo as much as you want. But doing that and going through the process that you and the team there did, with you, we tried to be really thoughtful and really strategic in how to turn the merchandise over in that shop so that the new merchandise was introduced to the members in a thoughtful way to support that pride, versus confusing them. So, when we looked at that nine-month rollout and the soft rollout, the merchandising kind of was its own beast. So I think listeners who are in your shoes, especially at their club, would love to hear some insights as to what are one or two things that you did there that worked really well? And is there one thing that, if you could do it all over again, you might address differently in turning over the Pro Shops merch?

Alyssa I appreciate you providing the accolades, but I’m not worthy of them. They really do belong to Stacey Collins, who’s our director of retail. She has been an absolute rock star at making this change. She runs an incredible retail shop. And for those who don’t know, who maybe aren’t familiar with our area, she’s been doing it out of a double-wide trailer for the last four years and has still just absolutely rocked it. She is amazing. And there are two tools that I’ll talk about that really helped her succeed in her role here. One, she started with you guys. She started with the Sussner team, developing a working spreadsheet of here’s all the items that we carry, here’s the correct logo placement, and how do we deploy this so that there’s no confusion. Because a part of this consistency and trust is not to confuse them. Make it straightforward so that they are more eager to accept it and get on board with it. And so creating a guide of what kind of merchandise should support which kind of logo was really beneficial. And then the other thing that she did really well was sticking to the brand colors because it’s really fun and exciting to look at all of the Peter Millar patterns, and G/Fore, and B. Draddy, and Bad Birdie Golf, and all these things. They make really incredible merchandise. But when you’re initiating something new, you can see behind me, or for those who are just listening, our colors are navy, light blue, and white. So it wouldn’t have made sense for me to deploy a hot pink shirt as the very first thing that came out. So, in addition to her guide on how and where to place the logos, we stuck to the basics. We stuck to cool tones, simple patterns, and really easy-to-identify merchandise where your logo wasn’t hidden within the pattern of your shirt. And on your hat, we started with two or three options right off the bat, so that if somebody preferred the primary symbol versus the primary badge, they could have their choice of what they wanted to be their initial rollout. And those two things with structure and with choice really helped her to be successful.

Derek My guess is, at some point, Stacy, given her skill set, would feel limited by only providing a select, subdued, simple set of offerings for that first year. But do you think she’s now more excited going into the second season, learning what’s worked and now how to start expanding on that system within the merchandise?

Alyssa Absolutely. I think it’s fair to say that when you make this changeover, your first round of merchandise is not the best it’s ever going to be. You’re testing the waters to understand what your membership likes. Because, for us, we knew what they liked for the last 30 years, but with change comes an opportunity to find new interests and new areas to go. And so for Stacy, it was really easy to get a good collection of items and then measure that success from, okay, they really like the FC on the shirt, or maybe they like it on the sleeve, or they like this kind of hat, but they didn’t like this logo on it. We actually engaged a retail consultant to help us with that, the same way that we engaged you guys to help us with the branding, because as much as we can do in-house, it’s okay to admit when you need that external resource. And so we measured it by the purchasing rate. We also measured it by the logo rate, just in terms of which one they were buying more of. They were verbally asking for the difference because they’ve seen it across campus. They’ve seen our primary logo, our primary badge, our circle badge, our logo badge, and our primary symbol. They’ve seen it all, and they’re like, hey, I want one of those. Okay, well then, let’s find the right merchandise to make that happen, because when they’re coming to us and asking for it, we want to deliver on that. So we’ve found ways to identify each of the different amenities into our merchandise so that they could have what they wanted. It’s their club.

Tucker When you zoom out for the whole project that we’ve worked on, our start of this project was almost two full years ago now.

Alyssa I know. Isn’t that crazy?

Tucker Yeah, it is crazy.

Alyssa Two years.

Tucker And I think it’s interesting from your perspective. I’d love to know what did you not expect out of this that you got or that you received, not just from our team, but from your membership, the whole process in general? What happened which you were unexpected, good or bad?

Alyssa We’ve made some mistakes. I’m the first one to admit when I’ve made a mistake. There’s a lot of creative opportunity in the digital space right now. I think that something that every club should take away from this is that you want your teams to feel empowered, but you need to harness that empowerment. And what I mean by that is Canva is great, but everybody has access to it. It’s a free tool. And so by really maintaining control on our templates and our standards and my expectations, that was the hardest part of it. And I wasn’t prepared for how much my peers would be excited about it and how much they would want to help. They wanted to create designs and to be helpful, and that was the piece that I wasn’t expecting was how much internal control that we would have to do of I love that you want to be a part of this, but let’s sit down so we can show you how to use the brand correctly to empower them to do it better the next time. So that was, I think, the biggest unexpected piece of it. So that was staff. The other piece of it from a member side was how well received it was right away. So when somebody doesn’t like something, in a room of 600, there’s always going to be two or three that are the loudest. And that’s okay. It happens everywhere. It’s going to happen here, at McDonald’s, at Walmart, it’s going to happen everywhere. So it’s not unique to our situation, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well-received it was right off the bat, because people started to understand the full picture and a lot of our identity, which, for those of you who are either listening or watching, I hope that you check it out. Our identity really is what is different about us. It’s low-density and it has access to a private beach club. And so by harnessing that beach club piece of it, which is something that our members love the most, it really made them resonate with it because we finally embraced that piece of it. In our old brand and our old logo, it was completely forgotten about, and it’s one of the best things that our community has to offer. And so by bringing that piece into them, they were accepting but also just more engaged with it because they love the beach so much. And so that was a big bridge to help us make that connection.

Tucker When you look at that whole process, you said right away, the reception was pretty warm. At what point did people, even the naysayers, and maybe they haven’t gone away at this point, but how long did it take certain people to fully understand what’s going on and how this is a benefit for the club moving forward rather than a negative?

Alyssa I don’t know if we’ve reached that line yet. I don’t mean that in a negative way. It’s simply that this club is rich with generational history. There are people who have been here since the beginning, and many of them have come to really adopt and love the new brand. It’s not just our more seasoned members. There’s a crowd who just aren’t there yet, and that’s okay. I think that they will be. I think that Frenchman’s Creek, in general, is in a very big time of transition. We’re opening a new building, and we have a long list of capital projects coming. And so I don’t think that the objection is to the logo itself. I think that they’re just in a state of fluctuation where once we have stability again, because we haven’t had that, as Derek mentioned. We’ve been in temporary facilities for three, four years now. So when we give them a sense of stability again, there will be a bigger rate of acceptance. And we foresee that coming really soon.

Derek One of the smart things that Miles did in starting this entire initiative was to bring you in at the beginning. Other than giving the advice of including the people who are going to implement and activate this brand in the strategy portion so that they understand and are part of that whole process, is there a single piece of advice that you would give to somebody in your role at another club who is at that starting line and just considering a brand fresh, a brand implementation project?

Alyssa Yeah, harness your network. That’s something that I did not have a year and a half ago. I guess Tucker just mentioned it’s been almost two years, which feels really crazy. Two years ago, I really wish I would have had somebody in my same position who was going through this level of change. Because it’s really easy to lean on your own team and your consultants and your professional teams. I think it’s more meaningful to have a connection with somebody who does this in a day-to-day capacity. And so I think harnessing your network is probably the best thing that you can do. We’ve been through it for two years now. So there’s trial and error, and happy to provide more insight on what worked and what didn’t. But I think really leveraging those connections is the biggest thing that you can do in addition to choosing the right company to make this happen. I mean, Derek, you guys know we looked at three other companies before deciding to move forward with Sussner, and we don’t regret our decision at all. We’re very happy that we’ve gone through this process with you guys. But I think there are multiple steps. Do your homework. Look at what company is going to best fit your club because it’s not a one-size-fits-all. I mean, I would recommend Sussner to anyone. You guys get calls because I can’t stop talking about you. But pick the branding strategy company that works for you in your club and your demographics, and then lean on your local network. It’s really important to have that shoulder to lean on when you’re like, I don’t know, this is my first time going through this, and I have a pretty big question about this. So I think your network and just trusting that it’s all going to work out. Nothing’s ever clear twenty-twenty vision. If it were, I don’t think any of us would be sitting here. AI would take over the world. But we’re very fortunate that it’s worked out for sure.

Tucker I think the big thing I took from this conversation is it’s all about consistency. When we talk about rolling out a brand, it’s about being consistent. Not just how you roll it out within the graphics and making sure the graphics all look consistent for sure, but it’s about your actions and your experiences and saying here’s who we’re going to be and how this goes forward. And sometimes it’s okay to try things and they don’t work out, and that’s just what it is. And I think my wife will listen to this conversation and nudge me and say, Yeah, admit when you’re wrong.

Alyssa Thank God my husband doesn’t know that I’m doing this.

Tucker I think it’s okay sometimes for clubs that perfection can be something that they really strive for, but that also limits them on their ability to try something new that might be much, much better than what they currently do. So I think it’s really important for people to understand that you might not hit a thousand when you’re trying to do all of these things, and that’s okay. But if you’re doing it consistently and it makes sense for the brand that you’re trying to create, you will, in the long run, build something that members will enjoy. It’s not the corporate world. These aren’t corporate brands. This is hospitality, this is fun, this is supposed to be people’s leisure time and recreation.

Alyssa Yeah, this is not so structured and rigid as the corporate world. This is fun. It’s hospitality. People invest in these clubs, and you’ve got to return that to them. Let them have some fun. Let them try something new. I’m a risk taker, maybe that speaks a little too much to me, but I’m not afraid to try something new. I mean, we’ve done all sorts of stuff, so definitely have fun with it, but also maintain that level of consistency because if you lose your organization, you’re going to lose track of what the end goal is.

Derek I think if people want to see a glimpse of that consistency and that fun, I’d highly recommend they check out Frenchman’s Creek Beach and Country Club’s Instagram page. Alyssa and her team, from the videos to the member events that are captured, to just killer drone photography of the golf course, you guys do a great job with your Instagram. Not only from a member’s perspective, but also for people who want to get a little bit of a sense of what the club is. But for a marketer’s perspective, I think seeing what you guys are putting out there is a great example.

Alyssa Thank you, Derek. What I’ll leave you guys with is that I do recognize that I’m in a very fortunate position. Most hospitality marketing departments exist with one or two people. I’m really fortunate to have five. And so I would be absolutely remiss not to be transparent that none of this would be possible without my team. We’re very, very fortunate to have on-site photography, videography, graphic design, and a professional writer. So while this isn’t the norm for everybody, I’ve been really lucky that I have that. But there are a million and one consultants out there that certainly can help you achieve those same things.

Derek I think this conversation with you, Alyssa, shows that a brand isn’t finished when the design is approved. It’s finished when it’s activated and implemented so that it’s lived every day. And when the brand becomes part of that daily experience, it stops being marketing and it starts being culture, it starts being identity, it starts being all about the place that members love to belong to.

Alyssa Frenchman’s Creek, life as it should be.

Derek Catch you next time on Brands Made Meaningful. Thanks. Thanks for listening.

Alyssa Thanks, guys.

Derek Thanks for listening. Sussner is a branding firm dedicated to helping make a meaningful mark, guiding member organizations into the next chapter of their story. Learn more at Sussner.com.