In an attempt to revamp our junior golf program this season, I took the reins on our elite junior program. I was already coaching several very good junior players so I came up with a system that I thought would bring them together and help take their games to another level. I was already doing many of these things with my kids so I just gathered all of the information and created this program to enhance some teamwork amongst the kids. My program includes 2 hours of private lessons per/month which allows me spend one on one time to work on mechanics and then bringing them together for two group coaching sessions twice a month where I can create a supervised practice atmosphere (similar to a football practice) and I have partnered with the best TPI trainer in Charlotte, Mark Kane to get the kids working on agility, mobility and power. My vision is to bring these kids together to promote some teamwork and also a competitive atmosphere that will drive the kids to become better. It is amazing how much more they tend to focus when their peers are watching and participating. I am also instilling in them the work that is required to become proficient players that might have the ability to play at the collegiate level. I give them homework every session that will include:
journaling about their practice sessions, lessons and results of their required drills
entering scores in their shotbyshot.com accounts to track results and give us direction on the area of the game that we need to work on in our private sessions
the word of the day. So far we have discussed Accountability and Trust
I also created a Facebook group page to allow me to communicate and they can send me results of tournaments, questions that they may have and I can post pictures, articles and videos that I think would be helpful for the group.
Our first month was a huge success as Mark Kane worked the kids out last night and did an amazing job connecting and motivating the kids to push themselves through the “Cyclone” stations. Check out the video and meet our new stars or the future.
If you need more information about this program or have questions, feel free to email me at jasonsuttn@aol.com or check out the Dana Rader Golf School website @http://www.danarader.com or call 704-542-7635 to schedule a lesson
Please share if you feel this information is helpful and thanks for checking out my blog.
Here is the 2nd part of the social media presentation that I did at Innisbrook for the Golf Inc. Conference. I am joined by Justin Smith (GM @ Olde Homestead GC) and Ricky Lee Potts (content specialist for IMAVEX) www.rickyleepotts.com. This guy is a master blogger and you should check out his site. Follow them both on twitter. I will post the last 7 minutes of this presentation tomorrow. How is your social media campaign working? What are you doing? Fee free to share your story or link up your blog. I am always anxious to learn something new. Feel free to share this but clicking on one of the social media buttons at the bottom. Leave a comment below and check back later for the end of the presentation.
Check out our website at www.danarader.com or call to schedule a lesson with the Guru @704-542-7635
This past Tuesday I had the opportunity to speak at the Area vi spring meeting of the Carolinas P.G.A. A big thank you to Woody Allen our area director for asking me to present to the group. I was very excited to share with my fellow professionals some of the things that I have learned in the past few years in the realm of instruction and also how to use social media and marketing to help their business and themselves grow. I have to thank a few important people who helped me construct my presentation and gave me outstanding feedback and ideas on how to deliver this important message. First to my lovely wife, Tiffanie who helped me with my Powerpoint and made sure that I had the presentation that I wanted and also for putting up with my long hours on the computer and on the phone with my mastermind crew. I don’t deserve her but without her support I would not be where I am today. To my mastermind crew who allowed me to bounce ideas and gave me great insight on the information that I was presenting: John Graham (johngrahamgolf), Rob McGill (golfprorob), Jason Helman (jasonhelmangolf) Jay Reid (jayreidgolf) and Scott Fossum (scottfossumgolf). Special thanks to my student and friend, Gene Casiola for helping me with my opening. I have a lot to work on with my public speaking but I wanted to share the video and allow my peeps to give feedback on how I can improve. I really enjoyed my time and I appreciate everyone who came up after the talk to thank me or ask for advice. If you ever need to ask a question or if I can help any of you in any way feel free to email me @jasonsuttn@aol.com or hit me up on twitter.com/onplanegolf. I broke the presentation into 5 parts because it was about an hour and 15 minutes so if you don’t get to all of it I will house it on my corporate speaking page. Let me know if I can be a speaker at your function or group. Enjoy the video and please leave a comment below or share with someone. I appreciate your support and your feedback:
See you on the lesson tee. To schedule a lesson please call 704-542-7635
In this current economy, many businesses are looking for ways to cut costs, yet still get the most out of their marketing dollar. Advertising budgets are being cut and people are being laid off as to just keep the business afloat. It is no different in my business as a golf instructor working for a top 25 golf school. We are a small business trying to maintain our piece of the instruction pie while maintaining our brand recognition as well as our current standards of service and golf instruction to our customers. I don’t care how good you think you are at your craft, if you don’t get yourself in front of and stay in touch with your customer, they will find somewhere else to spend their discretionary income. The days of waiting for the phone to ring and setting back and doing what you used to do to drive business is over. The way I look at it as we enter the second year of this recession, is you can choose to be in one or two camps. 1)continue to do what you did the last 10 years and get walked on or 2)grow and move with the latest and most efficient way to market/advertise and communicate with your customer……...SOCIAL MEDIA/MARKETING!
A year and a half ago as we started this downturn, I knew very little on this subject. I look at every adverse situation as a time to grow, learn and get out of my comfort zone. You know me, I am always uncomfortable with complacency and am always looking for the next big thing to learn and grow as a person and a professional. So I went on a quest to figure this stuff out and see how it can help myself and my golf school. So I did what I always do when I don’t understand something…..I bought some books to read and started scouring the internet. The first book I bought was “Crush It” by Gary Vaynerchuck which got me fired up to try some of this stuff. So here is a small synopsis on what I call the four corners of social media and how I think it can help you in whatever business that you are in.
youtube.com
YOUTUBE.COM – This is where It all started for me as I encourage you to always listen to your customer. I used to send out a weekly newsletter with a golf tip to my students. I then started taking pictures of me doing the tip. This evolved into me linking up a professionals swing demonstrating what I was talking about. One of my students commented, “I think the video is great but it would be better if you were doing the tip,”….AHA! So I bought a flip cam, created a TV show called Guru TV. I currently have about 50 videos that I have filmed in the last 10 months. One of my videos “How to drive a golf ball straight” just went viral and youtube is now paying me for the video (very unexpected). Create an account, which is very easy and start filming. You can use your vids as an advertising tool or just a way to get information to your customers or future customers. the main thing is to connect with people. People will subscribe to your channel and you can link it to the next 3 corners that I will discuss.
FACEBOOK – probably leads the way in connecting friends and/or people who don’t know each other. Great way to keep up with customers or post updates on specials that are going on at your company. If you are using it for strictly business, I would recommend starting a fan page. Drive customers to your page through your email marketing or twitter, youtube or word of mouth etc. The more fans you create, the more eyeballs that get to see what you are doing in your business. The more eyeballs, the more chance to cultivate new customers. Using the direct message or the IM feature allows you to communicate with people in a private setting.
TWITTER .twitter.com is the newest craze, even though it about 5 years old. Most people who know about twitter get the wrong idea of how to use it for business. Even though you can only type messages of 140 characters or less, there is great opportunity to reach out to people and communicate ideas. I have met so many outstanding golf professionals and people who just love the game, by using twitter. You can post messages that you want everyone to see (your followers), or you can send a direct message that is just between you and the other participant (similar to a short email). The key is to get followers so more people can see your posts. This is a great way to promote your website or notify your followers of a new blog post…..which is my 4th corner of social media.
WORDPRESS BLOG – This is the biggest reason for the other three avenues…..DRIVING PEOPLE TO YOUR BLOG OR WEBSITE. A blog is another way to promote your business and share information through text or hook up your videos that you have shot on youtube.com. Blogging has become a great venue for many people to share information about a subject of their choice. I use my blog site to share information that I think will help my students and also to create more opportunities for golfers that don’t know me or the golf school to learn more about me. There are many other blog softwares to choose from. WordPress is very well-known, easy to use and had all of the functions that interested me. I would suggest doing your homework, reading other blogs on subjects that interest you and start writing. The cool thing about blogging is you don’t have to be perfect, just write whats on your mind or vlog (video blog) and be prepared for comments. Again, you can link up youtube, facebook and twitter to notify people who you have a blog or have a new blog post.
Click on the links to view my personal facebook, youtube or twitter pages. Friend me up or follow me if you would like. There is plenty of room in Guru Nation. This is just an overview as if I went into detail we would be here all day. The coolest thing is that all of this stuff is FREE!!!!!!!! All it will cost you is your time. If you are willing to put in the work and the hours as I have, I can promise you it will pay off in the long run. Most of the people who criticize Social Media, 1) are too closed-minded to learn something new or 2) Don’t understand it so they bash it.
All I can tell you is that if you aren’t using it (and there are plenty more tools out there), You will be left behind.
So this is the Guru signing off and I AM LOOKING FOR THE NEXT TWITTER……WHOS COMING WITH ME?
The Golf Guru Show 