By Vanessa Salomons, Director Of Retail for Monaghan Golf Group

How To Turn Your Golf Retail Operation Around With One Feeling

Growing your retail operation in a downward market turn can happen. It can be as lucrative as it once was. How? You have to find the passion that was once there.

The Golf Business is notorious for creating "Jack's of all trades", you all know what I am talking about. As a professional, you are expected to do everything from taking green fees, creating budgets, teaching, running your retail operations, managing tournaments and countless other jobs that I sincerely do not have room to list. As I write this, I cannot think of one other career out there that has this much diversity.

Because of this diversity, and lack of time during our busy and short golf season, you can imagine how easy it is to get pulled in so many different directions. This leads me to the point at hand… Retail in your operations CAN produce positive results if you can find a way to make it a priority.

I am continually asked about small shop retail (pro shops in general) and how to build something more. More sales, more clients, just more. I am not going to lie... there is a general frustration about the business - from all of you and from me as well. I still have the passion though. I want nothing more than to see every single golf shop in Canada exceed their own expectations. I believe that we need to start back at reigniting the passion for the retail aspect of our world, you know... the cool stuff that goes along with this great game!

I know for a fact that many of you absolutely love the products in our business, the equipment, the clothing, the accessories… THE STUFF!

You must take an inward look at your approach to retail in your operations and ask yourself these questions:

• Are you faking it? By this I mean are you truly involved in your business or just pretending to be? While you can look at the numbers via your Point of Sale and have the hard facts, how often are you in front of the products? Using them? Talking about them? Being present to the newness of the product and the benefits of it will put you in a whole new mindset about selling it. We always sell more of what we know about and it is so much easier to become passionate about what you know about. So learn about it, bring back the PK sessions, invest some time in this area. You will not be sorry.
• Do you have staff that are sales and retail passionate? Always remember passion is contagious. Passion allows sales people to be persistent. So really think about the people you have in your organization, do they bring this aspect to the workplace? All you need is one. One person can be the difference in a whole team. So find that person or develop them. Build that type of culture and sales will follow.
• Can you trust in the power of the law of attraction? Sound hokey? Maybe, but it works. If you are running around with the gloom and doom mentality then this is what you will attract. Through adversity and change come great things. The most successful people see that there is opportunity when the market is down. Remember what you are passionate about and you will notice that the world will bring more of this. Finally, your passion must be greater than your challenges (whether the challenge is real or created by your own mind).