Using Golf Strategies to Drive Your Business

While golf is primarily associated with networking in business, many of the strategies that professionals use also can be applied to the corporate world. At Northstar's Destination Southeast — hosted at the PGA National Resort in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. — Jennifer Layman, a former professional golfer and president of Forward Thinking Marketing Consulting, shared tips that translate from the course to the corner office.

C – Commit to building a strategy

Layman broke down her advice into an acronym for "clubs," the first being "c" for "commitment." 

"Commitment is a huge step because it's not a one-day thing or a one-week thing or a one-month thing," she pointed out. "Commitment is doing something different to get to a higher level of results and sticking with it." 

This can be a challenge in and of itself, as making such a commitment typically means changing our routines. "We like those routines, but there comes a point where you want the better results more than you want your routine, and that's where commitment is going to help you out," she said. 

Layman knows a thing or two about dedication. During her career as a professional golfer in Canada, she had joined the Canadian women's tour, which meant registering, booking flights and making hotel reservations ahead of time — essentially spending a lot of money before you even have a chance to earn it back. Since the tour only consisted of four events, she had to find other ways to be competitive locally and signed up for the Pro-Am tournament at the club where she worked, and was the only woman between both the professionals and the amateurs. And then she was told she'd have to play from the men's tees, challenging her ability to hit the ball far enough to be competitive. 

"Sometimes when you are out there going for something, you run into some challenges along the way, stuff that's not necessarily in your control," she said. "I wanted the opportunity more than I cared about what the setback was."

Layman's team didn't win the tournament (this is real life, after all), and aside from some profitable side bets that her teammates made, no money was earned. But after the event, two members handed her a check to help out with expenses for the women's tour.

"Sometimes the wind shows up in a little bit of a different way," she said. 

L – Learn from your competition

It's a wise move to garner all you can from your competition, but don't be led by them. In golf and business, there is always going to be an opponent. 

"In golf, your competition is a couple feet away from you," said Layman. "In business, you may not be that close to your competitors all the time. They could be down the street, they could be around the world, but they still have an influence and managing the influence is really important."

In her consulting role, Layman had a client that was an agricultural company with a small frozen-meal business on the side, selling about 200 meals a month. The company would have had to increase their sales tenfold in order to scale the operation into a full-time business. While they couldn't compete with the national brands that could afford nicer packaging and sold faster at the grocery stores, they found a local Meals on Wheels program that had eight outposts in the region and needed 200 meals each per week. Where the small business could beat the larger suppliers, however, was in flexibility: They didn't have a minimum order on meals and they could deliver any day of the week. Despite costing 50 cents more per meal, the program gave them a chance and in less than one year the agricultural company went from 200 meals per month to 2,500. 

U – Use your assets

"Use the assets you have, get the assets you need," Layman noted. A friend of hers is the director of golf at a country club in North Carolina. To engage the women's membership more, her friend decided to offer an instructional program. But instead of calling it a women's golf clinic — like most clubs would — she came up with "Sips and Tips," a 30- to 45-minute instruction on the putting or chipping green, followed by a specialty drink in the clubhouse.

The golf director took advantage of the assets available to her by using the putting and chipping greens, which are often underused at golf facilities, as most players either go straight to the first hole or warm up at the driving range. She also chose to teach short-game tactics, which appealed across a broad spectrum of women.

"Whether you're a new golfer, you're an established golfer or somewhere in the middle, you can always use some tips on the short game," Layman said. 

The other resource the friend engaged was club's food-and-beverage abilities for cocktails, which led to some women ordering appetizers, some staying for dinner and some coming back on the weekend for dinner with their families.  

Sips and Tips also benefited the ladies' member-guest tournament. As the women grew more comfortable playing golf, they would enter the event and invite a friend who did not belong to the club, which drove inquiries about memberships and, eventually, a waiting list for new members.

"She didn't do anything different than any other club in the whole country," Layman pointed out. "She just made it a little more interesting and that ended up drawing in all sorts of people and benefiting everywhere in the club, including the pro shop with a lot of women's apparel sales."

B – Build the game plan

In Layman's terms, the game plan in professional golf is the little book that players and caddies reference on every shot. The playbook contains information that every player has — the length of the hole, where the hazards are, etc. — but every golfer jots down tips that are specific to them. For example, if a player hits the ball from right to left, they would make a note to target a tree to the right of the hole.

"That's where it becomes their individual strategy," said Layman. "When you build the game plan it's only for you. Somebody else could pick up [your book] and it's not going to work for them because it's built for you. That's what the benefit of building this is."

Layman applied this strategy to another client: A small law firm in a rural area that wanted to attract talent. Larger firms had the upper hand by being able to offer more money, benefits, urban living and more areas of law to practice. Much like with a golfer's playbook, the smaller firm had to play to its strengths. 

One advantage was that on day one of being employed, an attorney could work on a client file; at large practices, new-hires often shadow an established lawyer for a while. Since the small business couldn't provide the "big city life" that is typically entwined with working at big corporations, it marketed the fact that employees could actually afford to buy a house in the town. It also promoted the clientele that new talent could represent, which was everything from a solopreneur to a multimillion-dollar forestry organization.

"We just took everything about the community that was great and we put that in the ad," Layman said.

The result was five applicants: four new lawyers who were excited to work on client files right away and one who had 15 years of experience, and wanted a change of pace and space for their two dogs to run around. 

"Being able to attract an established, experienced lawyer was the dream situation; [they] never even thought that that could happen" she said. "Sometimes on your way to what you're doing, you find opportunities that you hadn't expected."

S – Show up for the opportunity

Just showing up is key, but it's not always that simple. 

"Whenever you're doing this strategy work, there's no guarantee that any of it is going to work," said Layman. "There's no guarantee that you're going to put your time and effort into this and you're going to make it. There's no guarantee you're going to make the cut, there's no guarantee you're going to win the client."

But the alternative is accepting the status quo and watching life pass you by, crossing your fingers and hoping something good comes your way or that you will get lucky along the way.

"Luck is success that happens by chance; strategy is success that happens by choice," she added. "And when you can choose success, that's always a better option."