Return & Ridicule - My Mercurial Relationship with the PGA Show

This week is the golf industry’s annual pilgrimage to Orlando for the PGA Show and I’m hitting the double-digit mark for years attending at 10.  I’m looking forward to seeing old friends, meeting new ones and checking out the latest and greatest.

One of the things I noticed last year was an overall sense that folks were opening up.   There wasn’t the feigned confidence of the mid 2000s.  There wasn’t as much of the territorial isolationism of the early 2010s.  The overall vibe seemed to be “this has sucked for a long time so let’s recognize that and focus on making it better.” 

Take a deep breathe of that fresh air, folks.  Feels good.  Let’s keep it going.

Writing this from the plane, I find myself reflecting on the mercurial relationship I’ve had over the years with the PGA Show.  I used to cringe on the flight over as I prepared for a week’s worth of frustrating conversations.  I’m not great at small talk and I’ve historically struggled with managing the traditionalist culture of the golf industry. 

We receive our fair share of criticism at TGA.  People disagree philosophically with our for-profit model.  They think golf should be taught solely at a golf course.  They disagree with our decision to employ coaches who aren’t PGA Professionals.   They believe we’re glorified babysitters since we teach kids under the age of 10.  They dismiss us solely for being in the same vague realm as The First Tee.  And so on.

We have responses to all of this, of course.  You can check out our website for our positions on these subjects.

What has frustrated me about the PGA Show was the feeling that I spent a week answering these questions and defending my company.  We’ve introduced hundreds of thousands of kids to golf, created hundreds of jobs, provided business ownership opportunities to dozens of entrepreneurs, and yet I still felt like a punching bag.

But these past few years, the feeling has been different.  I’ve learned something important.  The concept of return and ridicule.

I realized that not only are naysayers and critics part of life for an entrepreneur, but they’re things that should make us smile.

Yes, smile.  Why?  Because skepticism is a sign of one of two things:

The first is that you may just have a weak concept.  In which case, be thankful for the honest feedback.

The second is that, if you’ve had some early wins, you’re likely making people uncomfortable.  People have a lot riding on the norm – job, identity, etc. – and your innovation is threatening that sense of security.  When people feel uneasy, they push back.  Bad for them, good for you.

One of the things I enjoy most about the PGA Show is the countless amount of entrepreneurs who arrive hoping to strike gold.  For many, with the investment a booth requires, they’ve put all of their company’s young eggs in this show’s basket.  I have tremendous respect for the magnitude of these three days for them.

For my partner Josh and I, we’re going to meet with a bunch of PGA Sections and try to recreate with them what we’re doing with the SCPGA.  We’re also going to meet with leaders from the PGA and other industry associations.  And I’ll spend some time looking for products we can incorporate into our programs across the country.

We’ll undoubtedly have some interactions this week with questions/criticisms like the ones I described above.  Assuming they aren’t too frequent, I’ll smile at the uneasiness I’m causing.  Because that’s what entrepreneurship is all about. 

And, hopefully, there will be an equal amount of conversations about how our concept is a key solution to a nagging and challenging problem.  I’ll smile then too, because that’s also what entrepreneurship is all about.

For all the entrepreneurs descending on Orlando this week, I wish you all the best and encourage you to embrace the feedback.  Learn from it.  Win with it.

Have a great week, everyone.  Happy entrepreneuring…

Are Your Competitors Really Who You Think They Are?

Back in 2004 when I started with TGA, I had an Outlook folder titled “Competition” where I would put emails/information related to other junior golf programs.  I chuckle about it now as it demonstrates how little I initially understood the business I was about to spend the next 8+ years helping to build.

I’m asked daily about TGA’s competition.  Usually the question comes from a franchise candidate and goes something like this – “My city has a First Tee chapter and several local golf facilities have good junior programs.  How does TGA compare with these competitors?  Can the business be successful coexisting with them?”

As TGA grew in size and scope, it became clear that our market was not the same as The First Tee’s. They are a non-profit focused predominately on programs for under-resourced youth that emphasize life skills and take place at golf facilities.  TGA is a for-profit focused predominately on parent-funded programs for middle/upper income youth that emphasize "enrichment" and take place at elementary schools.  Both causes are important and needed, but besides having golf as the common denominator, they’re very different.  TGA franchisees overlap with First Tee chapters across the country and our paths almost never cross.

It also became clear that TGA’s market was not the same as a golf facility's.  When a golf course holds a junior program, almost all of the kids who register have played golf before and/or come from golfing families where mom or dad has taken an active interest in getting them into the game.   When TGA offers our enrichment program at a school, almost all of the kids who register have never played golf before and come from non-golfing families – meaning, they’re not the ones showing up at the local golf facility.

At TGA, we’re not focused on competing for the 2.4 million kids who play golf but rather on capturing the 74 million kids who don't.  As a result, our competition does not come from other golf organizations or programs.

We compete for kids’ limited time and parents’ limited budget.  When parents make their purchase decision with TGA, they’re comparing us to karate and chess club and art class and soccer and basketball and drama and the many other activities available to kids.  That's our competition.  They are not analyzing whether they should sign up for TGA or The First Tee or the program at the local golf club.

And that, to me, represents three important things:

1. It’s a great example of the entrepreneurial journey and how your “competition” folder can end up looking nothing like it did in the beginning.
2. We have made important strides at TGA to become more razor-focused on who we serve, why we matter and what we want to accomplish.
3.  There is a staggering number of kids in the U.S. not playing golf and we should all be obsessively focused on bringing the game to them as that is where the true opportunity exists.

Knowing your competition is a crucial element of understanding where you fit into the industry ecosystem.  A business professor once said something along the lines of – “if you can’t identify and describe your competition within 30 seconds of being asked, you don’t understand your business.” 

Eight years ago, I had no clue.  Most entrepreneurs don’t.  That’s what the entrepreneurial journey is all about.  Thankfully we have a great team at TGA that figured it out together and did so fast enough that I'm able to write this blog from TGA’s office as the COO. 

And with that, now I must get back to figuring out how to strengthen TGA’s value proposition against swim class, gymnastics, baseball, music lessons and cooking class.

Spend 2012 on the Right Side of the Haimish Line

After a break for the holidays and the birth of my beautiful daughter Eva Grace Tanner, I’m returning to my weekly blog with a renewed vigor for 2012.

I’ve been reading a lot lately and one of the more interesting pieces was a Mark Suster blog titled “Spend 2012 on the Right Side of the Haimish Line" in which he references this NYT article by David Brooks.

Brooks defines haimish as “a Yiddish word that suggests warmth, domesticity and unpretentious conviviality.”  The concept is that you risk crossing the haimish line into a less happy existence if you blockade yourself from normal folks.  Examples of doing this would include staying at super-private hotels, working solely from behind a desk, etc.  As I read these articles, I took the concept a step further by thinking about the professional consequences that would arise from boxing in one's experiences.  i.e. If you play golf exclusively at private and luxurious clubs, yes, you'll miss out on the congeniality of playing with weekend warriors who are making friends, drinking beers and playing for the love of the game.  However, if this same person is then responsible for addressing the challenges faced by these weekend warriors, they probably wouldn't do a very good job.  They'd be too far removed.  The challenges themselves would fall outside the false sense of reality that their experiences had created.  And thus, professionally, they'd be operating from the wrong side of the haimish line.  

As I went through this intellectual exercise, I thought a lot about the golf industry.  And I’ve thought a lot about this concept of the haimish line since as several interesting headlines and observations appeared in the first few weeks of 2012.

First, at the PGA Tour’s season opening tournament in Kapalua, Commissioner Tim Finchem announced the Tour’s commitment to raise $100 million for The First Tee this year.  Since 1997, The First Tee has been the sole junior golf organization supported by the golf industry and it operates on a $13 million annual budget.  And yet, despite The First Tee’s claim that they’ve had 4.7 million participants, there are less kids playing golf in the U.S. today than there were the day it was founded.  (2.8 million in 1995 vs. 2.5 million in 2010 - National Golf Foundation data.)  Instead of opening their doors and offering support/resources to other youth programs, industry leaders are doubling down on their single all-in bet.  That, to me, is a decision made from the wrong side of the haimish line.

Then, earlier this week, Finchem proposed a change to the Q School format. One of the great things about professional golf is that anyone can pursue their dream of making it on Tour. You don’t need to get drafted, you don’t need an agent, you don't need to be a certain age … you just need to pass through Q School, which is open to any good player. The new format would be a 3-tournament series that is only available to select Nationwide and PGA Tour players, thus eliminating the opportunity for college golfers, club pros and anyone else who’s been working meticulously on their game to bypass the mini Tours and go straight to the big leagues. The new format benefits existing tour players, adds three new tournaments and their corresponding revenue, and undoubtedly builds more prestige in the Nationwide Tour (which, perhaps coincidentally, is in need of a new title sponsor after this year). But nevertheless, it's a closed format. Derived from closed-minded thinking that, to me, comes from the wrong side of the haimish line.

On the flipside, Golf 2.0 has done a great job of identifying golf’s many challenges and it has the industry’s undivided attention.  Its presence is everywhere at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando this week.  The much harder and more important part is to now identify viable solutions and execute on them.  Nevertheless, I applaud the PGA for hiring Boston Consulting Group to provide them with a sobering analysis.  I also applaud them for recruiting the perfect person to lead Golf 2.0 in Darrell Crall.  These are all things happening from the right side of the haimish line.

Additionally, the PGA of America clearly has a new social media strategy on Twitter that is much more active and open-minded.  Historically they would only tweet well-manicured PR messages but now they’re engaged in an active dialogue with industry members, including retweeting criticisms and all.  I’m also a big fan of the hashtag they’ve been promoting - #growgolf.  These are smart, engaged decisions made from the right side of the haimish line.

All of these topics require further discussion and there are other smaller examples as well, but the point I want to get across is this concept of this haimish line.  The golf industry has been operating from the wrong side of it for too long.  And it’s understandable – industry leaders don’t pay for golf, probably haven’t experienced a six hour round in their professional careers and aren’t working shoulder-to-shoulder with the PGA Pro who’s folding shirts in the shop and struggling to get by.  It’s good to see that they’re taking steps in the right direction to understand and address the challenges being faced by golfers, industry members and the game as a whole.

With that, I have a challenge for everyone, myself included - let's make sure we spend 2012 on the right side of the haimish line.