“PGA PROFESSIONALS ARE IN THE PERFECT
POSITION TO UNDERSTAND THEIR MARKET
AND BUILD ON THE RELATIONSHIPS THAT
THEY HAVE ALREADY ESTABLISHED. THEY
HAVE CREDIBILITY AND TRUST, BUT I WOULD
ENCOURAGE THEM TO THINK MORE ABOUT
THE NEW NEEDS OF THEIR AUDIENCE.”
—RICHARD BRASSER,
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER/PRESIDENT,
THE TARGETED GROUP
ties across the world have led the charge.
Indeed, while no one will ever know for
sure, without the teaching and growth of
the game programs largely managed by
PGA of America members through Play
Golf America, the industry might be experiencing far fewer rounds and far fewer
golfers. PGA Professionals conduct junior clinics, camps and instructional programs, and manage a litany of programs
for men, women, children, families, couples, corporations and church and social
groups designed to promote participation. PGA Professionals are not only
being looked at as influential to growing
the game, they are being depended upon
at the facility level, at the national level
and even at the international level.
Woods won his first major championship in April
of 1997. And total rounds played has not fared
any better.
The truth is, that no one person, or one entity
even, can drive the game alone. The industry has
come together and The PGA of America and the
actions of its
28,000 PGA Professionals at facili-
4Demands on time have intensified as people devote hours to families, are working harder than ever, and have
more and more entertainment options.
Revenue Generation Expert: Q&A
Eric Kurjan, President
Six Disciplines
Eric Kurjan is the president/owner of the Six
Disciplines Ohio/Indiana. He and his team are
responsible for partnering with top-performing business leaders to adopt,
implement and integrate the Six Disciplines,
and supporting business systems in their
pursuit of continual process improvement and
lasting business excellence. Kurjan’s work as a
business coach, keynote speaker, published columnist,
television and radio guest, and executive mentor has created
tremendous interest in applying the Six Disciplines for top
performing organizations. The basis for Eric’s coaching
comes from the top-selling book: “Six Disciplines for
Excellence: Building Small Businesses That Learn, Lead and
Last.”
PGA Magazine: This past January, you were a keynote speaker
at the PGA Magazine Merchandisers of the Year Conference. As
the president of a private golf club in Findlay, Ohio, and a
management consultant – with a particular expertise in
strategic planning and implementation – tell us, are PGA
Professionals more influential than in the past in the success of
the organizations that they represent? If so, why?
Kurjan: I believe the PGA Professional’s job has never been
more important than it is right now. Take the combination
of tougher economic times and competition for recreational
time and you have a very challenging environment for a
club to survive, let alone grow. The economy has changed
the business model for nearly every club with fewer
members, fewer corporate memberships and fewer dollars
for outings. And in this part of the country (the Midwest) the
number of rounds has fallen as well. So with that rosy
picture in mind, the PGA Professional has his/her work cut
out for them. The days of the waiting lists and full
memberships have vanished along with the revenues from
dues, food, beverage and the golf course. The captive
audience is much less captive. Not to take anything away
from our club and PGA Professionals, but the money is not
flowing in the doors like it once did. As the
president of the board of a 500-member club,
I have gained a real appreciation for what it
takes to survive and thrive right now.
PGA Magazine: Henry DeLozier, who helped build and managed
26 courses for the Pulte Corporation, agrees that PGA
Professionals have to step up and be more influential in
building revenue. Can you share with the readers the “Six
Disciplines” strategy covered in the book and how it might help
PGA Professionals to chart a successful path?
Kurjan: In the book “Six Disciplines for Excellence,” author
and founder Gary Harpst goes into great detail on the
processes employed in Six Disciplines. It is the roadmap or
blueprint for leading the business to the desired
destination/result. Let me try to summarize the key points
of the book and, in particular, the importance and balance of
strategy formation vs. strategy execution. So what does an
effective strategic planning process look like?
Strategic planning is actually the easy part of the two-part process for business success – strategy and execution.
Let’s discuss a couple of key thoughts about strategic
planning, starting with the fact that it needs to be a
repeatable process. This process should be one that can be
used continually, without changing major elements based
on management whims or MBS (Management by Best
Seller).
Here are the key steps in Strategic Planning:
1. Step Back, Take a Look Around. We need to look at
where we have been before we can decide where we want
to go. Companies rarely track performance against long-term plans. Less than 15 percent of companies make it a
regular practice to go back and compare the business’s
results with the performance forecast for each unit in its
prior years’ strategic plans according to the Harvard Business
Review. So the Step Back process should include a consistent
method for reviewing external factors (i.e., economic
influences, competitive trends, governmental requirements,
etc.) as well as internal factors (i.e., achievement of current
year goals, key performance measures, stakeholder
satisfaction surveys, completion of a SWOT analysis) plus a
process to prioritize a long list of actions into a reasonable,
achievable list. I recommend using what we call the 100-
Point Exercise to boil down the list to the top items. The 100-
Point Exercise allows each participant in the planning
meeting to apply up to 100 points (I like increments of 20
points) to the items on the SWOT or brainstorming list they
see as having the most impact on the business or
organization in the coming year. Then you add up the scores
for each item across all participants and the highest scoring
items are the winners. It makes a big list manageable and
something you can actually work on and complete vs. trying
to work on a list of 10 or 15 items, which is virtually
impossible to complete.
2. Decide What’s Important. The process must include a
predictable, repeatable method for assessing your
organization’s mission, shared values, vision, strategic
position, and vital few objectives (a.k.a. goals). In this step
we are setting or renewing the vision. Vision is the picture
of “where” we want the organization to go in the next 10
