Development – How is your business moving?
We’d like to welcome the new Regional Bowls Manager for Central QLD, David Barnes. David will be contributing to the Development column in the Queensland Bowler magazine with fellow RBMs, Lesley Bates and Micheal Sorrensen. David’s first article for the Bowler magazine, “How is your business moving?” is about remembering to ask ourselves important questions about our club and how to see our club through others’ eyes. Welcome David!
By David Barnes
- Is my business running at a profit? All members who have an interest in the club should know and understand if the club where they are members is running profitably or not.
- If not, why not? What is costing the club money and what needs to be done to reduce this loss? This is where we need to do some navel gazing and think about what we are doing to attract new members to the club.
- How does the club look to our patrons? A lot of the time I used to walk through my club from a door not used by our patrons. I had to change my attitude and see what they see when they walk through the door. How is the carpet? How is the lighting? How is the welcome? How is the smell, does it smell like the seventies/eighties? How are the amenities, clean and smell fresh? How is our food offering if we have one? If we wouldn’t feed it to our family, why would we expect someone else to eat at our club?
- What am I doing to help our club? Behind every club there are hardworking volunteers. What am I doing to help my club? It doesn’t have to be for a day or a week, every little bit helps. If you are handy at something then lend a hand. If you aren’t handy, like me, then come along and learn something new and offer some camaraderie on a working bee day.
- What do we do to thank our wonderful volunteers? As previously stated, hardworking volunteers are the lifeblood of our club. They don’t do it for monetary gain but to help the club out, so what do we do to say thanks? Do we put on a sausage sizzle, give them a coffee or cold beverage? Have a Christmas party at the end of year?
- How do we let all our members know what is happening and what is coming up? Emails and social media are a great way to keep the community engaged. If potential patrons see something that looks like fun on a regular basis, then we are more likely to visit. Theme nights can be an inexpensive way of setting up a fun night.
- If we have staff, how happy are they? Have a chat with the team when you are there. They have as much buy-in as we do, as this is their livelihood. We need to ensure the club is a friendly and inviting experience for everyone who comes through the door.
- Entertainment, what do we have? Do we have raffles, jag the joker, barefoot bowls, jack attack, music, charity nights, morning teas, Melbourne Cup? The list is only limited by our imagination. We need draw cards to have patrons come into our businesses.
- Do we have a future plan (strategic)? We need to be planning for years ahead and not just next week or tomorrow. Where would like our club to be in five years time and what can we do to be there realistically without damaging our club financially?
Remember we are at our club because we love it and the lifetime sport of bowls. ENJOY!!!
