By Jim Butler, CEO - Club Benchmarking

Originally published by the National Club Association in Club Director Magazine, Fall 2019

Recently, we came across a 2014 article in the McKinsey Quarterly that captured our attention with its relevance. “Building a Forward-Looking Board” was written in the wake of the 2008-2012 economic downturn. Reflecting on the demise of companies that succumbed during that period, authors Christian Casal and Christian Caspar cited “negligent, overoptimistic, or ill-informed boards” as a major contributing factor. They observed that governance suffers most when “boards spend too much time looking in the rear-view mirror and not enough scanning the road ahead.” That condition, in our experience, is endemic in the club industry.

Changing Club Dynamics
The club industry has undergone fundamental changes as a result of both the economic downturn and the market’s transition from Baby Boomers to less golf-centric Generation Xers. Member counts dropped due to decreased discretionary spending and a shift in the interests of prospective members. Clubs once focused solely on golf were forced to reevaluate their culture, traditions, programming and infrastructure in order to remain competitive.

Club leaders who recognized the impact of those societal changes were compelled to break their focus on “the rear-view mirror” in order to develop more forward-looking strategies. Some have been successful, but for many clubs the evolution has been difficult and slow. The upshot of the article by Casal and Caspar is this: Building a forward-looking board requires a clear roadmap if current and future leaders are to function as a truly strategic governing body. In the club industry, boards ready to lay a solid foundation for the future should consider the following steps:

• Evaluate and Re-Center the Board Agenda: If agendas focus on operations and the income statement’s budget vs. actual (rear-view mirror) rather than strategic (scanning the road ahead) it’s time to make a change. Make time in every meeting to review the strategic plan, evaluate risks and opportunities in the local market and assess the effectiveness of your governance model.
• Connect Strategic Plans to Operating Business Plans: A strategic plan not directly tied to the club’s operating business plan will wind up gathering dust on a shelf. The most effective plans identify where you want to go AND how you’re going to get there.
• Ingrain Balance Sheet Focus in the Boardroom: Board turnover necessitates repetition. Every board and committee orientation should include an introduction to the club’s balance sheet and those metrics should be revisited on a regular basis throughout the year.
• Develop a Forward-Looking Capital Plan: Sustainable financial success is rooted in the capital ledger and manifests on the balance sheet as property, plant & equipment. Clubs must have a comprehensive (including an up-to-date Capital Reserve Study) and accurate capital plan that assures future capital resources meet future capital needs. Seventy-five percent (75%) of clubs in the industry are not generating the capital necessary to properly maintain and re-invest. The shortfall of capital must be addressed prior to the next recession.
• Monitor the Competitive Landscape: Scanning the road ahead requires a clear understanding of your local market and the external factors impacting your members’ connection to the club. Introduce reliable business intelligence into the planning process to promote informed decision-making and stimulate strategic discussions.
• Partner with Industry Allies: The business of running a club has grown increasingly complex and boards are often faced with issues outside the skillset of volunteer leaders. Invest in partnerships with service providers and associations like NCA that offer the club-specific resources, expertise and experience to support you on your path to strategic leadership.

Jim Butler is a recognized leader in data science and academic research. Serving more than three decades as a professional club manager, he has a wealth of operational experience and a proven track record in real estate sales and capital improvement and renovation in gated communities. Jim welcomes your questions or comments and he can be reached at jbutler@clubbenchmarking.com 

The industry debate over how much a club should budget to maintain its golf course seems never-ending, and that’s understandable. The course consumes a significant portion of the cash required to run a club and it is also one of the most visible and member-impacting amenities, so a high degree of focus is justified.  

As a start, let’s consider the following scenario: While the median club in the country spends close to $1.2M on course maintenance, two clubs within a few miles of each other spend $700K and $1.75M respectively on their 18-hole courses. We all know, and have probably played at, clubs on both ends of this spectrum.

The Usual Discussion
Since we began working in the club industry in 2010, we’ve had the opportunity to interact with leaders of hundreds of clubs across the country. Typically, the discussions we hear about course maintenance budgets involve benchmarks such as cost per hole or cost per acre and a variety of specific characteristics ranging from type of grass to geographic location. To understand the way in which these factors might be used determine how much money a club spends on course maintenance, we undertook extensive analysis of club industry data, studying clubs that range in annual revenue from $1M to $40M, exist in nearly every state in the country, have nine through 108 holes, grow every type of grass and see variation of seasonality, weather conditions and rainfall.  

The Business Model View
The data revealed that while traditional benchmarks (cost per hole, cost per acre, cost per member, type of grass or geographic location) may represent the actual spending of an individual club, the simple fact that the club up the road is spending more on their course than you are is not enough to justify a decision to beef up the budget. So, how much should you be spending? Contrary to conventional wisdom, our research clearly shows that the answer is ultimately not determined by some combination of physical characteristics. The reality is that clubs spend what they can afford to spend.

Before you dismiss this idea as random or arbitrary, consider this: The amount a club can afford to spend is eminently quantifiable and can be easily and accurately benchmarked. The proportionality of spending in clubs is highly consistent and represents the foundation of the common club business model. See the pie chart below for the proportionate distribution of gross profit (the money a club has for funding fixed operating expenses) including the portion spent on course maintenance, across all clubs. It is important to note that the proportions shown, +/- a few percentage points, are consistent across the entire industry, independent of club size (based on total operating revenue) or geographic location.The business model of clubs, as defined by data from the industry itself, defines these proportions as the benchmark. So roughly one-third of a club’s gross profit (don’t think revenue) is the affordability at the average club.

Course Maintenance + Sports/Recreation Spending = About 40 Percent of Fixed Operating Expenses
We also studied the range of club types among those with golf— from pure golf clubs to full-service country clubs with more diverse amenity sets. What we discovered is that for a diverse club, like the one on the right in the chart below, the combination of course maintenance spending and other sports/recreation spending uses about 40 percent of a club's gross profit. With no other sports amenities to fund, a club with only golf like the one on the left in the chart below, typically spends a little more on course maintenance—around 40 percent of its gross profit. That pattern has proven to be consistent across the industry.

Different but the Same
Going back to the range of course maintenance spending referenced at the beginning of this article (from $700K to $1.75M), would you conclude that one club is spending $1M too much or that the other spent $1M too little? Of course not. We know each course can be beautiful and a pleasure for its members. In fact, those examples are from real clubs located just a few miles from each other. They are spending 32 percent and 34 percent of their gross profit respectively on their course—nearly identical spending from the business model and affordability perspective. Any of the traditional measures, cost per hole, cost per acre, geographic location, etc., would have led to a very different, and incorrect, conclusion. The broad value of this model is further realized when one understands that it doesn’t matter whether a club has 18, 36 or more holes. The affordability, a.k.a. the proportionate spending on course maintenance, doesn’t vary based on hole count, number of acres, type of grass, etc. As supported by industry-wide data, the only driver of a club’s course maintenance budget is affordability. Clubs spend what they can afford! 

On the margin, there is naturally some variation. Golf-only clubs, with less competition for cash resources going to other amenities tend to spend a higher proportion of their gross profit (into the low 40 percent range) on their course, while very large clubs, or clubs with significant non-golf sports facilities tend to spend in the high 20 percent range. The national median is 30 percent of gross profit going to course maintenance. The split between course spending and non-golf sports spending is actually an indicator of the "golf club vs. family club" strategy of the club. Geographically, there is variation on the margin, but only a few percentage points from the national median, as per the data map below. 

Conclusion
So, what does all this mean? We now know that individual data points, without the context of the bigger picture, can be misleading and are not an appropriate source of guidance and support in the decision-making process. Next time you’re in one of these discussions, remember that your club, like all clubs, is subject to the common industry business model and your budget is driven by your gross profit. Having a clear understanding of what has been revealed by the study of industry data will help you have strategic fact-based discussions about your own course maintenance budget.

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Finding Common Ground Through the Language of Finance
The most successful private club executives are in a class of their own when it comes hospitality. They are experts at delivering an extraordinary club experience and managing large teams of people, but we’ve only met a handful that would be comfortable calling themselves experts in accounting or finance. While that’s not surprising since the skillsets are so different, it does present a challenge.

In the club boardroom, even strong managers can find themselves at a disadvantage when they come face-to-face with business owners, hedge fund managers, CPAs, private equity managers—people who are extremely well-versed in finance and business.  In that scenario an imbalance of power exists, due in large part to the vast difference between the way finance is discussed in the outside business world and the kind of discussions that take place inside the club boardroom.

It's a serious communication gap and it leaves many managers struggling to explain the club's results in a way that satisfies the board. The language of business is finance and it is certainly the native language of your board. Our goal is to help managers learn to speak the language of finance so they can feel more confident in the boardroom and communicate with their boards more effectively. 

Business people, like those who populate club boardrooms, understand financial modeling and they know the key performance indicators for their own businesses. They know their gross margin; they understand their fixed expenses as a proportion of revenue; they understand return on equity. Business owners explain their business using numbers every single day. For private club managers, knowing the club’s numbers, putting them into context and presenting them with confidence is the key to getting the board’s full attention and advancing their understanding of the club business.

Let’s look at just one example of how numbers and context can be used to address questions and explain an important aspect of the club business:

Explaining Club Payroll: Focus on Data and Context

• “What are all these people doing here?”
• “We have way too many people.”
• “Our payroll is way too high.”

Every manager has heard those statements. They’re uttered every day in clubs across the country, in the boardroom and by members in the 19^th hole. Absent data and context, those statements amount to little more than conjecture and responses like “We need all of these people” or “We have a smaller staff than XYZ Club up the road” are equally unproductive and unsatisfying. Thus, the debate continues.

The question boards and managers should be asking (and answering) is this: “Are we staffed at a level that balances the club’s financial results and our member service expectations?” The first step in answering that question and introducing numbers and context to the great payroll debate is to calculate the club’s payroll ratio (total “loaded” payroll as a percentage of total operating revenue).

The chart below shows the Payroll Ratio for clubs with golf using club industry data for fiscal year 2015. As you can see, the median Payroll Ratio for this data set is 56 percent. For half the clubs in the set (those between the 25^th percentile and the 75^th percentile) the Payroll Ratio ranges from 53 percent to 58 percent. It's a small spread but as you can see from the overlay of median operating profit, the impact of a few points is significant.

The blue dot in the lower quartile (payroll ratio of 49%) represents a real club – one that was, until recently, stuck in the payroll debate. A small contingent of the membership was actively working to convince others that the club had “too many people” and that those people were being paid too much. Clearly, having the number (payroll ratio) and putting it in the context of hundreds of other clubs via a comparison set is powerful. What the chart confirms is that this club has a payroll ratio lower than 88 percent of the other clubs in this data set.

In the example above the number was well below the median, but some clubs may find that their Payroll Ratio is at or above the median. Whatever the case, it’s important to remember that the number itself is not a conclusion but rather a starting point and foundation for a fact-based discussion about financial realities, club culture and choices. As an example, adjusting a higher-than-typical Payroll Ratio back toward the median is ultimately a matter of choices. Are members happy with current service levels? Would they be open to a reduction in staffing levels or service hours? Is the financial impact of the Payroll Ratio such that the board must make difficult decisions regardless of the members’ preferences? Without numbers and context, the payroll debate is bound to continue as a contentious guessing game. Armed with numbers and context, managers are equipped to bridge the divide and discuss the club's business with the board in their native tongue—the language of finance.
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General Manager’s Perspective

The private club industry in the United States has been a work in progress for more than 200 years. Clubs are deeply grounded in history and tradition, which may help to explain why the pace of change tends to be slower than in other industries. The evolution of clubs over the last few decades is apparent in areas such as social and culinary trends, but not as easy to recognize on the business side of things, so we turned to a veteran club management professional to get his perspective.

EXECUTIVE PROFILE:
Jim Butler, CCM, PGA
President & General Manager
Grey Oaks Country Club, Naples, FL

As a college student in 1985, Jim Butler took his first club job as a seasonal employee at The Forest Country Club in Fort Myers, FL. Three decades later, he’s moved through the ranks and navigated some significant challenges along the way: golf course and clubhouse renovations, new golf course construction, a transition from developer to member ownership. He currently manages Grey Oaks Country Club in Naples, FL and its two related property associations. In addition to learning the club management ropes from the bottom up, Butler holds an undergraduate degree in chemistry and a MBA in real estate development and finance.

Q: Over your 30-year career, what changes have you seen in the world of club management?

A: I’d say education and research – those areas have advanced since I started in the club business. Today, the education is available to help managers operate the business enterprise and we understand the business from a holistic point of view as opposed to a silo-view. 

Q: Your degrees are in chemistry, real estate development and finance. How does that translate to your career in club management?

A: I enjoy digging into things to understand how they work and that’s been my approach to the club business. Data and research have always been extremely important to me and that’s particularly true at this club. The leadership, meaning the original owners and my board members, are all very smart, business-oriented people. So are the members. They expect to have fact-based discussions about the club, just as they do in their own business environments. As a manager, I have a vested interest in making sure they get the right kind of data – it needs to be relevant to whatever it is we’re working on. I’ve found that when we incorporate data into the decision-making process, it’s easier to maintain a strategic focus and that moves the club forward.

Q: What kind of information is important to you and your board?

A: We rely on all kinds of research. We use the club’s internal financial and operational data as well as a variety of regional and national market research and club industry data. That information definitely wasn’t as accessible early in my career as it is now. What has been done in the club industry in terms of research over the last decade or so has really been transformative. Groups like McMahon, RSM, Club Benchmarking, and Global Golf Advisors have all played a role in progressing the industry to catch up with the rest of the business world.

Q: In your opinion, what have those groups done to move the industry forward?

A: In terms of having an impact, I’d say each group has brought something game-changing to the table. RSM was really the first to do club-on-club analysis by region and club size. They are an audit partner for a lot of clubs in the Florida chapter and their annual trend reports are highly regarded. It’s a comparison on prior year and year-over-year data that we all use and refer to. The Florida chapter considers them an important part of the local industry.

McMahon Group has broadened their approach to include lifestyle and strategic management and research is a key component of that effort. They’ve been working with research scientists like Dr. Jim Fisher for more than 20 years. When you can take a scientific data-driven approach to something as critical as a facility improvement plan, that’s powerful. Clubs are able to make informed decisions with the data. It’s much harder for emotions and politics to get in the way and derail the process.

Club Benchmarking has introduced a level of sophistication in the way we think about our clubs by framing a business model for the industry and bringing it to my desktop. I can access the analytics easily and I use them on a daily basis. My board and I can dig in and really study our business now and being able to filter our comparison sets allows us to look at it from a variety of different angles.

CB also created a level of education that helps managers who maybe don’t have a background in accounting or finance discuss core concepts with their boards. When a question about something like golf course labor expense can be answered with data, it takes emotion out of the discussion. I know my board appreciates the use of key performance indicators that include standard strategic business terms like gross profit and gross margin. That by itself has been one of the most significant changes I’ve seen.

Global Golf Advisors is focused on the industry at a global level and they recognize the need for the private club sector to think outside traditional boundaries. Henry DeLozier is a tremendous advocate for and teacher of strategic management with an emphasis on utilization of data and research. The fact that we’re seeing those concepts taught at the entry level, as young managers start learning about club finance and eventually working toward their certification is certainly a positive shift.

Q: Where do you think all of this is headed?

A: It’s the private club industry, so maybe change doesn’t always happen as quickly as we’d like it to, but it is happening. We’ve made a lot of progress just in the last decade. Boards and managers are already starting to come together around these business concepts in a way that benefits their clubs and that’s going to improve the overall health and stability of the industry.  

Charting a New Course for Your Club

Every business charts the course for the coming year through the annual budget process, and private clubs are no exception. For many, the experience can be drawn out, difficult and fraught with struggles over tactical items, but we believe we’re seeing a positive change on the horizon as more clubs recognize the need for a strategic, fact-based approach to budgeting.

Try to imagine going into the boardroom to present next year’s budget and walking back out, mission accomplished, in under an hour. That’s the inspiration for a story we’d like to share about a club where a shift toward data-driven, strategic decision making has transformed the budget process. For the sake of anonymity, we’ll call it Anytown Club.

The Background 
By industry standards, Anytown is a relatively small club – in the bottom 25 percent in terms of annual operating revenue with less than 300 members. The board is made up of high-powered individuals; a few with names you might recognize, many holding memberships in a dozen or more clubs and all with an equal supply of business acumen and opinions. On a small ship, every move makes a ripple and the GM of this club (we’ll call him John) is well aware of how quickly things can veer off course when emotion seeps into the decision-making process.

Historically, John would prepare his annual budget and deliver it to the finance committee prefaced by several pages of notes on individual line-items he thought might require additional clarification. The approach is not unusual and clubs using it know the end result can sometimes be budget discussions that digress down into the tactical line-item details. Even though a manager clearly understands the relationship between the budget and the club’s overall strategic objectives, the board doesn't always grasp the same high-level perspective.

The wind and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigator.
Edmund Gibbon

The Change 
After joining Club Benchmarking in 2014, John made an important change to his budget process. He replaced the tactical, line-item notes he'd been using with eight or nine charts from his Club Benchmarking Executive Dashboard reports. The charts showed industry norms for high level key performance indicators and the club’s position on each curve was clearly marked. He chose carefully, focusing on strategic ratios like gross margin, dues and capital.

The finance committee spent some time studying the charts and asked just a few questions about the source of the data and the anticipated effect of the proposed budget on their current position. Satisfied with what they heard, they signed off. The meeting was over and done in 45 minutes. The following year, James repeated the process with identical results.

The Impact
For John and his club, that one simple change has had a significant impact that goes beyond the sheer beauty of a quick meeting. Bringing data to the table introduced the board to a more strategic perspective on their club. The standard business terminology and measures presented were relevant and meaningful to them and John’s strategic approach to the budget process made it clear that he has a solid grasp on the ongoing health of the business that is their club.

Heading into the 2017 fiscal year, there are a number of changes in the mix for Anytown Club, including a dues increase. In a recent conversation John told us that in light of the decisions to be made, the data will be more important than ever, for him and for the board.  For more on how to use benchmarks in the budget process, watch the video.

Which Mode are You In?

Clubs share a common business model, but when it comes to more qualitative aspects like culture, each individual club is truly unique. At the highest level, a club’s culture is defined by factors such as history, mission, traditions, member demographics, location and the mix of amenities enjoyed by its members.

Below the surface, there is another very important but less obvious factor at work that influences the member experience on a daily basis and ultimately shapes the club’s future; the operational mindset. Are the club’s board, management and members focused on value creation or are they operating in a mode of extreme cost control?

In a culture of value creation, club leaders seek to continually add to the benefits of being a member. The focus is on things like innovative programming that considers every member type, diverse offerings within the club’s physical environment that go beyond the basics, a careful balance of exciting new events and longstanding traditions. In a culture of value creation, the emphasis is on growing and evolving the member experience.

Cost control mode is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of seeking opportunities to enhance the member experience and boost revenue through increased dues revenue and activity, leaders search for an ever diminishing lowest common denominator where members are just satisfied enough. They’re literally attempting to cut their way to health. Over time, a culture of cost control leads to chronic dissatisfaction among existing members, an inability to attract new members and expanding financial stress.

In a strong economy and fertile member market, maintaining a culture of value creation comes naturally for most clubs. But what happens when the business environment weakens? In challenging times, clubs without a clear understanding of their own business model and financial drivers are vulnerable to making poor decisions that cause them to shift away from value creation into the cost cutting mode.

Over the last seven years of studying club industry data, we’ve learned that benchmark analysis reveals a club’s story and we can get a pretty clear picture of what’s going on just by looking at the data. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can be used to assess financial sustainability, show the impact of the choices or decisions the club has made and identify the telltale signs that a club’s culture is focused on either value creation or on cost cutting.

There are two key measures from the Club Benchmarking Executive Dashboard that are particularly revealing and easy to calculate; the Dues Ratio and the Net Available Capital Ratio.

The Dues Ratio
Picture a two-cylinder engine where one cylinder is the number of full member equivalents and the other is the dues amount each full member pays to belong to the club. We refer to that as the club’s dues engine and every club has one. Under the influence of a weak dues engine, clubs commonly slide into negative patterns like extreme cost control. They focus on treating the symptoms and ignore the root cause, which is too few members and/or dues rates that have not kept up with annual cost increases.

You can assess the health of your dues engine by calculating the Dues Ratio (total dues revenue as a percentage of operating revenue). It’s a critical measure since dues is the club’s most powerful financial driver with a margin of 100 percent. In the industry overall, the median Dues Ratio is 48 percent. Looking at the middle 50 percent of the industry (all clubs between the 25^th and 75^th percentile) the Dues Ratio ranges from 41 percent at the low end to 54 percent at the high end. Clubs with a healthy dues engine (indicated by a Dues Ratio at or above the median) are in a much better position to have money available to support value creation even after fully funding operations.

Net Available Capital Ratio
The ability to reinvest to replace aging assets and enhance the physical plant defines whether a club is or is not financially sustainable. Insufficient capital triggers a spiral of gradually decaying and out of date facilities which leads to an inability to attract new members and higher than normal attrition of existing members.

While a comprehensive capital reserve plan is required to fully determine a club’s capital needs, you can calculate your Net Available Capital Ratio by taking Net Available Capital (net operating result plus capital income minus lease payments) as a percentage of your total operating revenue to determine where your club is relative to the industry median of 12 percent. Clubs well above the median are considered capital rich and those well below the median are considered capital starved. The more capital rich a club, the more readily a healthy culture of value creation can be nurtured and sustained.

Running these two basic calculations—Dues Ratio and Net Available Capital—is an important first step in assessing your club’s operational mode and aligning the board and management around a fact-based view of your position on the cultural spectrum of value creation to cost control. If you would like to schedule an online session to review and discuss your benchmarks with one of our trained analysts, send an email to info@clubbenchmarking.com 

Learn More About Value Creation in Clubs

Whether you're just starting next year's budget or you're further along in the process, benchmarking is a great way to "fact check" your decisions.

Consult high-level reports like the Executive Dashboard for strategic perspective on performance and the sustainability of your financial model. Department-level reports (Food & Beverage, Course Maintenance, Labor etc.) provide a solid, fact-based frame of reference and credible third-party support for your decisions. Club Benchmarking Essentials and Premium plan subscribers can also use the new Financial Forecasting feature to track progress throughout the year and get a look ahead at where those decisions are taking them. 

Fact-Check Key Areas of Your Budget

• The Dues Engine: Are the club's dues rates and member counts really in balance with its cultural goals? Is the "dues engine" providing sufficient revenue to support future operational needs or is it time for the board to discuss a tune up?
  VIDEO RESOURCE

• F&B Goals and Results: Are results in the F&B department within industry norms? Are board expectations realistic or in need of adjustment? This is an area where presenting facts based on industry data can be a game-changer. Start by running the Available Cash/KPI report to get the big picture. For a deep dive, run your CB Food & Beverage report.
  VIDEO RESOURCE

• Course Maintenance Spending: The golf course is sacred turf which makes it an easy target for opinion-driven decisions. It's important to keep an eye on the facts: What percentage of the club's gross profit is going to maintain the golf course and how does that number align with the club's goals and culture? For most clubs, the combined allocation for course maintenance and non-golf sports is 40 percent of gross profit. Again, the high level view is in the Available Cash report. Run the Course Maintenance report for the breakdown.
  VIDEO RESOURCE 

• Capital Funds: Many clubs burned through capital reserves to fund operational needs in the worst of the downturn, and getting deferred capital projects back on the front burner will be critical to survival for those clubs. Does your club have a viable, sustainable plan for funding capital? Study Capital Generation KPIs in the Executive Dashboard report, and get additional detail in the Balance Sheet-Capital-Debt report.
  VIDEO RESOURCE

• Payroll and Benefits: Payroll is a private club's largest expense, but the staff is integral to sustaining the unique culture that draws members in and keeps them coming back. Getting it right in this area of your operation is critical and the Payroll to Operating Revenue ratio shines a spotlight on how you're doing. In fact, it's such an important KPI that you'll find it in the Available Cash report, the Executive Dashboard report and in the Labor report. If you need additional detail, specific benchmarks for salaried and hourly positions are available in the Compensation & Benefits section.
  VIDEO RESOURCE

Learn more by watching our recorded webinar: 
Using Benchmarks in the Budget Process

Do you have a question about benchmarking your budget or would you like to learn more about Club Benchmarking? Email us at info@clubbenchmarking.com 

A Proactive Approach
to Capital Income

You know it when you see it. A private club facility that looks tired and outdated can leave you with the feeling that the club’s leadership either doesn’t care or can’t afford to make improvements. It’s not an impression anyone wants to make on current or prospective members. Unfortunately for many clubs, in today’s sluggish membership market, the flow of initiation fees typically used to fund capital improvement projects has become extremely inconsistent and unpredictable. A proactive understanding of this strategic aspect of your club’s finances is the key to avoiding the dangerous downward cycle we call Capital Starvation. It starts with three key questions.

Are You Asking the Right Questions?

#1. How much capital does the club need?
It isn’t unusual for clubs to ask “how much do we have in the capital reserve account?” That question usually comes up right after something major breaks—like the irrigation system or the HVAC system. Some clubs take a slightly less reactive approach by attempting to save at a rate that will at least cover depreciation. In a truly proactive approach to capital income, the question becomes “How much do we need and when are we going to need it?” How much money a club needs to address its capital projects is not a mystery. The number can be predicted and many clubs commission a Capital Reserve Study to get a clear picture of their long-term capital needs. Naturally, capital needs vary from club to club.

Chart Shows Data for All Clubs

#2. Are you producing enough capital to meet the club’s needs?
About 63 percent of clubs say they have a capital income account, but for roughly 25 percent of those clubs, the balance of the account is zero. You either are or are not currently producing enough capital to keep up with projects as they come along. Remember that in a proactive approach, the focus is on understanding what the club’s needs will be over the long term. How much is “enough” varies from club to club, but for scale, we like to look at capital generation in relation to the club’s total operating revenue. Industry data shows clubs at the median produce an amount equal to about 11 percent of their total operating revenue. At the 25th percentile, the number is 6 percent, which is a position we consider somewhat Capital Starved. About 15 percent of clubs are in the dangerous position of having either zero money for capital improvement or worse, depleting capital funds to support the club’s operational needs.

#3. Are the club's sources of capital predictable and consistent?
The three most common sources of capital are Initiation Fees, Capital Dues and Capital Assessments. In larger clubs, surplus from operations can be a significant source of capital income. Smaller clubs tend to lean more heavily on capital dues and capital assessments. Capital Dues represent about 33% of Total Capital Income for the average club.

With no real way to predict how many members will join the club in any given month, depending on initiation fees from new members as a sole source of capital income is risky. To smooth things out, many clubs (about 60 percent) use Capital Dues to serve as a baseline for choppy Capital Income. In that scenario, initiation fees become an additive to capital dues, giving the club a much more reliable and predictable flow of funding for projects, replacements and improvements.

Understanding your club’s capital needs and managing its sources of capital income proactively is the key to avoiding capital starvation and keeping your club on a healthy, sustainable path.

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Originally published June 2014 on the CMAA Back of the House Blog
The structure and focus of the typical club management team has changed significantly over the last two decades with the addition of Membership Marketing Professionals, Member Communications specialists and, most recently, the position of Human Resource Manager or Director. The people taking on these new roles must be provided with appropriate tools and a supportive network of peers in order to be successful.
 
“In the 25 years I’ve been doing this, I believe the single best position I’ve added was HR,” said John Schultz, General Manager of Carmel Country Club in Charlotte, NC. “Not just for managing the tactical issues like I-9s and general tax and legal compliance. All that is certainly important, but adding someone who could address HR strategically has really been a game-changer for us.”
 
In 2009, Schultz hired Ann Van Dyke, an experienced HR professional whose résumé includes more than a dozen years as a top HR Manager for luxury retail giants Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus and a Masters Degree in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University. Van Dyke came to the club industry at a time when club-specific HR tools were limited. 
 
“In a corporate setting, we had data, training programs and other resources readily available. When I started in the club industry, I really had to be creative,” Van Dyke said.

 
In 2010, Carmel subscribed to Club Benchmarking, which provided Van Dyke with the relevant industry-specific compensation and benefits data she needed. Fast forward five years and Van Dyke has positioned herself as a strategic partner to the leadership team.
 
“Ann makes us better at what we do,” Schultz explained. “She has made me a better manager and made us a better employer by improving the way we recruit, train and retain employees. As a result of that work, we have a team of great leaders here at Carmel.” 
 
Schultz said the one of the most dramatic improvements has been the creation of an HR strategic plan, a project in which club industry benchmark data played an important role. “As an HR tool, the data made it possible for us to start answering some key question like what are optimal staffing levels for this club or where do we want our compensation to fall in the continuum of industry norms?”
 
For example, Schultz believes the level of compensation should reflect the club’s high expectations for service performance and he uses industry benchmarks to monitor progress toward that goal. “Where we find ourselves at the median or below within a specific peer group, we are working to move toward a position that better reflects our standards and the value we place on our employees.” 

Across town at Charlotte Country Club, Human Resource Director Stacy Applegate came to the club industry two years ago. Like Van Dyke, Applegate spent more than a decade in a corporate environment. She was used to having access to compensation data and national surveys to help her understand the norms of her industry and was pleased to learn that similar resources existed in the club industry via Club Benchmarking and the CMAA Annual Surveys. “Having data is the only way to know whether you are leading or lagging the market. I want to be able to tell if we’re achieving our recruiting goals or how our compensation packages compare to industry norms.” 
 
Van Dyke and Applegate are currently working together on an event both believe is a great addition to the tools available to their club HR peers—a Human Resource Symposium developed by Master Club Advisors (MCA) with data gathering and analysis provided by Club Benchmarking for the first time this year. The event will be held at Charlotte Country Club on July 30 through August 1.
 
Bill Schulz, senior partner and principal of MCA, said the idea for the Symposium actually came from a Director of Human Resources after she sat in on a MCA Managers session at her club and recognized the value that could come from exchanging information and ideas with her own industry peers. 

 “We held the first HR Symposium in 2008 and even then it was clear that the human resource function in clubs was evolving into a very important specialized position,” Schulz explained. “We felt the time was right to develop a symposium for that group. The original vision was that it would develop into a great resource for club HR professionals and we believe it has. It’s gratifying to see the Club HR Symposium participants develop into a network that continues to share information and ideas throughout the year.” 

For more information about the 2014 Symposium and HR data-gathering effort, visit www.clubbenchmarking.com/mca-hr 

What Spending on Golf versus Other Sports Says About Your Club’s Identity

Dividing the Pie 
In the club world, much like in our private lives, the need for funds is often greater than the supply. As individuals, we prioritize competing interests on a regular basis—a new car, college tuition, family vacation, etc. For the club manager and board member, the struggle manifests itself in the budget process, where the true tribal nature of clubs comes to the surface. One group of members may be focused on golf while another contingent is keen on non-golf athletic amenities such as tennis, aquatics, fitness, squash, croquet, etc. Some golf-focused clubs may be feeling the pull to add non-golf facilities in order to re-connect with existing members or win over less golf-centric prospects.

While the money to build non-golf amenities (fitness centers, tennis courts, etc.) most often comes out of capital funding sources, sustaining the new amenity requires operational dollars from dues or other surplus generating departments. Simply building a tennis court or fitness center does not necessarily mean it will generate incremental operational funds, which raises an important question: "How much will it cost to operate the new facility and where will that money come from?"

Patterns in the Pie
The Financial Insight Model is a strategic framework for understanding a club’s proportionate sources and uses of gross profit. Early on in our study of industry data, it became clear that clubs typically spend about one-third of their gross profit on course maintenance. That number has proven consistent across the industry. Another very interesting pattern that emerged from the data is a direct relationship between course maintenance spending and the spending for non-golf sports amenities.

Club Benchmarking data shows a marked consistency across the industry where the combined percentage of gross profit going to course maintenance and the operation of non-golf amenities typically totals 40%. Golf-only clubs spent about 40% of their gross profit on the course and nothing on non-golf sports amenities, while clubs that have very significant non-golf sports/spa facilities are spending an average of about 15% on those facilities and 25% on the course. Within the spectrum, we find clubs allocating 30% course/10% non-golf, 36% course/4% non-golf, etc. This is one of the most clearly-defined patterns we have seen emerge since we began studying club industry data in 2009.

Walk the Talk
Does your club’s allocation of operational dollars align with its goals? Does your spending reflect that of a dedicated golf club, a diverse country club with a family focus, or some variation on those themes? There is no right and wrong here. Just the revelation that a club can instantly see and understand whether its actual spending is in line with its stated strategy -- or not. If you claim to be a family-friendly club with amenities for the whole family and you are allocating 30% to the course and 10% to non-golf sports, you are staying pretty true to that objective in your proportionate spending. If the balance is 37% to course maintenance and 3% to non-golf sports, your spending is inconsistent with the family-friendly claim.  When it comes to facilities and club culture, you can't be all things to all people. You have to make a strategic decision about what kind of club you want to be and then target spending in a manner that supports those goals.

Additionally, with this new-found understanding, a club thinking about expanding its offerings can extrapolate and estimate the impact of those changes on their budgets and funding needs. Most often we see golf clubs attempting to build and offer non-golf activities. The net result could mean a reduction of course maintenance spending to support the new operations, or it could have no impact on the course budget if the new amenities succeed in attracting new members and the associated increase in dues revenue.

Conclusion
The club business model is defined by the relative uses of operational funds. One of the relations made clear by actual industry data is that 40% of a club's gross profit is allocated to the combination of course maintenance spending and non-golf sports spending. Understanding the direct connection between course maintenance spending and non-golf sports spending as it relates to the club’s strategic goals is pivotal for managers, boards and members as it can serve as a catalyst for meaningful discussions and help align disparate tribes (e.g. golfers vs. tennis players) around a common goal.

CB Member Note:
Login to your CB account and run the Gross Profit - KPI report from the My Reports tab to check your Golf/Non-Golf spending pattern.