February 5, 2025 • 50 mins
In this episode, we chat with Dave Porter, CEO and GM of Greystone Golf and Country Club, about how he transformed his club's governance from a traditional committee-based structure to a CEO-led model. Dave shares his journey of building trust, empowering staff, and creating a more efficient decision-making process that's helping the club thrive.
Key Moments:
- Setting the Stage [00:00:00]: Ed introduces the challenges of traditional club governance and why change is needed in today's competitive landscape.
- The Early Days at Greystone [00:05:01]: Dave discusses his initial requests when hired, including changing how committees report and operate within the club structure.
- Building Trust [00:11:05]: Insights into how Dave gradually built trust with members and staff through focus groups, operational changes, and transparent communication.
- Pandemic Innovations [00:03:48]: Discussion of creative member engagement initiatives during COVID, including the still-popular sunset cart cruises.
- Committee Evolution [00:15:15]: Dave explains how he streamlined committees from 12 to a more focused structure, making them advisory to management rather than the board.
- Culture Creation [00:40:23]: Exploration of how the new structure enables better staff culture, using the example of "Wimbledon on the Green" event to show improved interdepartmental cooperation.
- Leadership Qualities [00:43:54]: Discussion of what GMs should consider before pursuing a CEO model, including risk tolerance and leadership style.
- Member Communication [00:17:16]: Dave shares his approach to keeping members engaged through informal channels like "Happy Hour with Dave" instead of formal committees.
- Board Meeting Changes [00:32:40]: How board meetings evolved to become more strategic and focused on big-picture items rather than operational details.
- Final Thoughts [00:50:34]: Dave emphasizes the importance of staff retention and positive culture in creating sustainable club operations.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
'You are listening to Crushing Club Marketing, a podcast for progressive club leaders ready to increase their club's revenue. Time for change begins right now. For years, clubs have been led, governed and managed by its Board of Governors, leaving the general manager with little authority beyond managing a budget and fielding member complaints. Today, more clubs are operating like businesses and moving to a CEO-led model, giving the GM latitude to lead and manage without board interference. In this episode, we talk to Dave Porter, CEO and GM of Greystone Golf and Country Club. Dave shares with us the story of his club's transformation and what it means to the club and his team. Well, thanks for listening. You know, I've been in and around private clubs for many years, and one thing that's always amazed me is how we expect general managers to run multi-million dollar operations with their hands basically tied behind their backs. You think about it, in what other industry do we have committees of volunteers, often with no hospitality or business management experience making operational decisions. In essence, in the club industry we have the customers running the business, the traditional club model, where board members and committees are deeply involved in day to day operations, was actually was born in a different era. In back at that time, clubs were truly member owned and operated social institutions. But today's clubs are really pretty sophisticated businesses with a lot of customer satisfaction issues, member satisfaction challenges. They have complex operations, large staffs and significant budgets with a good amount of competition out there. So before we get into this, and full disclosure, Dave's Club is a client of ours at StoryTeller. But what I didn't know in working with Dave and conversations in the past is that Dave had led a transformation of his club away from the traditional committees and board member oversight into a CEO led club. And what's really interesting about Dave's story at Greystone is that it represents what many industry experts believe is the future of club management. It's a case study of what happens when you empower a professional leader to actually lead, when you remove the bureaucracy of committee approvals for every decision. When you let your CEO focus on strategic growth, instead of navigating political waters with board members who might have their own agendas. But it isn't just about making the GM's job easier. It's actually becoming about club survival. And in today's competitive landscape, clubs have got to be able to make quick decisions. They have to adapt to changing member expectations, which is huge, and they have to operate efficiently. And they can't do that when every decision has to go through three committees, two board member board meetings, rather, and all sorts of other internal approvals. And granted, not every general manager in his or her role today may be capable of running a business like this, and they may be better suited truthfully as a day to day club manager. But for the clubs that want to take the next step to build a team for the long haul, you may find this interview with Dave Porter to be helpful. Dave, thanks so much for joining me today.
(03:33):
Thank you, Ed. Super excited to be with you.
Yeah. So we actually had a conversation during the pandemic, I think. And it was really interesting because we were talking about all the the stuff that you guys were doing at Greystone, and now that's like a million years ago, it seems like, you know.
Yeah, it's amazing how much of that stuff is still in place because they loved it.
(03:54):
Yeah, I was just going to ask.
Experience that this.
As a follow up to that. Like did you end up keeping a lot of that? It sounds like you did like, I mean, you guys were so innovative with the things you're doing for your members.
Know, what's funny is the most popular thing that we still keep doing is sunset cruises. So we, when one of the, one of the courses is closed like once a month, we'll let people sign up, make a reservation, and we'll give them a golf cart and they can just go ride the course while it's closed. And we'll have a bar set up at the backdrop and everybody gets a complimentary free drink and we'll have the beverage cart person out there, little mini charcuterie boards that they can take out there and purchase from us. So it's become a tradition that they don't want to let go of.
(04:37):
Yeah, that is so cool. Well, I mean, talking about some changes in club operations, you recently at Greystone went through a change in, in some operations and I should probably let you explain what what was done and where you are today versus where you were, what maybe just a few years ago.
(05:01):
Yeah, absolutely. So way, I guess taking it back from the beginning when I got hired, I mean, I've been doing this a long time. I know what works for me. Doesn't mean I'm right as far as for the industry, but hopefully this will resonate with a lot of people that listen. And you know, I look at it like there are so many incredible managers out there that maybe like the governance the way it is when it's committee driven and they like that support or that deep involvement or collaboration, that's okay. And I'm sure they're super successful. But those that like to have a little more autonomy and what I call more of a current day leaning toward the CEO model of clubs, it started out when I got hired, I just the number one thing I asked for is only one thing was to get it headed in the right direction in my mind was we needed to change the bylaws where the board was kind of took a step back with committees and the committees would then report to me, they'd be advisory to me and not to the board, and then none of the board members would be committee chairs. And so in the beginning, what we did is that I'd made the, I had a board member that was a liaison each committee, but it was a member at large. And then we changed the selection process so people would actually fill an application to join a committee and they put their one through three as far as top three choices. And you you're guaranteed to at least get your top three, I mean, at least your third choice at the worst. So everyone that volunteered got an opportunity to be on a committee. We'd go up to about 12 to 14 strong, which is a little bit much in my mind, but I wanted to keep everybody involved and make it more of a democratic process. So.
(06:48):
Let me just let's start with this. How many years have you been at Greystone?
This April will be ten years.
Ten years? Wow. All right. So you were saying when you first took the job, it was with that belief that this is going to run a little bit differently. You know, this adopting this more CEO type of role. What was the most the leadership's response to that in the interview process?
(07:17):
I think it's probably what got me the job because they were not in a good situation. They had great leadership, great member leadership. They had a great department heads. Previous GM did a great job, was just he was with the developer and then came in when it became member owned. Probably put him in a tough situation. But he had a lot of really great strengths and did a great job. But it was kind of like I was the right guy for the job at the time. They're in kind of dire straits because they're only like five years out of being transitioned to a member owned club. So my whole point was, Do you want to be the greatest club, want to become a platinum club? Well, you got to give me the autonomy. I got to... I can't just be going and asking for permission to go buy something for $5000 or I can't ask permission to start changing the way we do things. I need to just keep it rolling. I'll keep you abreast. I'm not going to keep you in the dark, but I got to be able to keep rolling. I can't have too many checkpoints. And they agreed, they were like, we got to do that. That worked out really well for several years. And then what I would do is I'd slowly try to reduce the amount of committees because I knew this was a long process. You come in with the hammer and you're not going to get a warm reception. So that started out good because, and the most important part for me there is that, so in their advisory to management and the board member's a liaison, so the board member's hearing things, but the staff, that's my biggest concern. I don't want the staff to think they have two bosses. So they're taking direction from the board member or the committee chair. And then it's coming from me. Who's who am I supposed to listen to? Because in I'd say probably still today, I'd have to take a stab at that 75% of the clubs there is, the greens' chairman's going down to the superintendent's office and seeing them and those kind of things. I would never, ever happen here. Okay, I was kind of step one, so step one got done and then step two was start to reduce the amount of committees. We had 12 when I got here. So then we went from 12 down to I think it was 9 or 8, something like that. So what I did was greens and grounds and golf became one committee. And then we took tennis committee, we took pool committee and we took fitness committee and we made them one and we call them swim tennis fitness. And then we had our dining and social membership committee, and then we just kept going. And as we worked with you guys and have had such success with growing the membership, we were able to eliminate the membership committee phase. After that was now removing the board members as liaisons and just trusting me, after I'd earn their trust that I'm going to report everything that comes out of committee because now it takes the committee. What was happening is they're looking at me and respecting me that I'm going to take their input and their collaboration. But they would always tend to look at the board member and be like, You're going to get this done for me, right? Even if it's an operational issue. This could be about adding mac and cheese to the menu. And that was their advice or their suggestion, and they're looking at them. So finally they agreed. The board like, I get it. So they came out. So there was never you know, I always joke around saying if the governance isn't right, you know, you should have a sign on your door instead of your name plate. It should just be like, who's running this place anyway? Because, you know, nobody's really sure, you know, yeah, you're not title, but the board, the committee. So we had a real crystal clear from the beginning and it just kept evolving.
(11:05):
And yet for so many clubs, there's a lot of trust that has to be built and developed in that role, especially if, you know, a lot of traditional clubs that haven't operated that way, where the members are the boss and, you know. Right. It's it's not easy to let go of that. How did you in your mind, when you took over that role, how did you map out how you would build that trust and slowly make that change?
(11:33):
Yeah, it's it's a tough one. I mean, my my process is always get everybody to buy in as fast as you can, whether it's the staff or the members, because you know very well from being a member of the club that the staff talks to the members about, what do you think of the new guy and how's he and what's he like? And so got to get the staff to buy into the culture changes and what we're doing. That's a good step forward because the staff's happy. Then the members are like, All right, this is good. And then, you know, results. So we start with I did member focus groups to try to understand what they weren't happy with at the club, try to tackle some of those things early so I can build some momentum, some trust. But I also walked in a strange time where we were in the middle of several million dollars worth of construction, and I also had to convince them to let me run that and get and try to pull back on some of the things that they had already decided, because maybe they weren't the right operational ideas as far as when we're done with it, the way we're going to function. So it was a lot of a lot to take in, and I'm really blessed that they let me do what I what I wanted to do.
(12:42):
That's... It... And, you know, you can kind of take what you're saying. It sounds easy, but you're talking about members that in many cases have been very successful in their work and may not, you know, be able to trust someone that's new, let alone, you know, like a totally different way of operating the club. Did you have in your mind, like, I hear what you're saying about, you know, just like gradually, you know, inserting yourself in this. But did you did you try to like. I don't know. I think it's so interesting for some people who like to see the construction in the, you know, the responsibilities of that, to say I could just see a lot of members going, Dave, this is actually our thing. You know, I mean, it's like and how do you infiltrate yourself into that, where people really look at you go, Man, Dave knows this stuff.
(13:37):
Yeah. And I mean, they definitely didn't 100% think that at first, that's for sure, because. You know, I had to make a lot of operational changes, personnel changes, and you know how that goes. If you say hire a new chef, it's not like day one and everything's stellar. I mean, it's a with any new manager, it's going to be, you know, 3 to 6 months before you start seeing massive results. So, you know, while you're encountering all those things. A lot of it, I have to be honest, is just begging for patience and saying, you know, trust me, this is going to be good in the end. And I think it was just, you know, our references, my track record, they just kind of blindly just let me go because we were in a tough spot. I mean, they were getting assessed by a half $1 million a year for about five straight years because the developer was filling that gap all those years and the dues were just artificially too low. So, you know, those are the unpopular decisions that I had to request. I mean, I don't get to make those decisions, but. Raising dues, raising capital dues or getting engaged with companies like Club Benchmarking and, you know, getting getting data in front of them. So when I had support from outside folks, you know, I mean, with Ray Cronin and Club Benchmarking, it's so much better to they hear from him and then they're like, Oh that's what Dave's been telling us for the last two years. You know, we do need to increase our capital fees.
(15:04):
Yeah. So you had in fairness, you had the reputation and the references that supported the vision and direction that you wanted to go to move into.
Yeah, it's I mean, I was blessed with that because the last club I was at, we ran under that same governance model. So that's why I was making the request I did. I didn't. I just learned that was over time of being in that environment. This is like a really good style for me because it's not that I want to be autocratic or I want full autonomy. I want them to set the guardrails. I want to collaborate, but I don't want to collaborate on, you know, minutia or operating issues. If I have if I need help or advice, I'll raise my hand. I'm not scared of that. But I have resident experts here in every topic in my team and plus the thousands of managers out there that I can reach out to. So I don't think that guidance from a member that isn't in this business is kind of a weird thing. Is, the key is you have to be listening in and listening to the members and hearing them. And I don't I'm not a person that doesn't, because of what everything with our governance would make everyone think that I'm super against member feedback or input. It's not that way. I just rather do it in different ways. Like, so for example, I'll do Happy Hour with Dave once a month and members come in for an hour. I'll do like 20 minute presentation on just hot topics that are happening at the club and then they can open up, have a little town hall, usually get 20 people, 30 people, and I'll buy them drinks, but make myself accessible in formal ways and informal and not just walking around the club and interacting. That's a given, but it's actually having a set time where they know, Hey, I can come talk to Dave or I'll just do a massive focus group out of the blue and invite some of my team members and then do another one where I invite different team members. We always want feedback, but I think like surveys are so dangerous to me. I like the one hit surveys like, you know, people that dined with you or after a tournament, things like that. But when you do a overhaul survey, unless you're doing a master plan for the club, there is an expectation you're going to do something. Right?
(17:16):
Right. Don't ask me unless you plan on doing something.
And if you do, if you sift through 20 pages of analytical comments. Oh my gosh, how can you combine all that? Now, five of them are saying fire that person, fire this person, the services, this or that. And then 20 people are saying how great it is. It's my favorite thing. And it's just not. That's just my two cents on that.
(17:39):
'Yeah. So I want to just touch on the culture part of it because it, you know, we we started the conversation, many of us there are dysfunction and how dysfunction of so many clubs can be and who, at Greystone, who sets- How does that work, Who sets the vision for the club and and who's responsible for the culture between your role in the board? Like if you think of it like an org chart, how does that actually work?
(18:10):
'I mean, I lead up and they real- they rely on that. They actually like it and then they provide feedback to what I'm proposing and we massage it together versus them telling me what to do or that me telling them this is what we're going to do. But they don't. They want to be presented with it. They have full time jobs and they they like that, that they actually get to enjoy the club. And I say the average outside of the president, the average board member probably spends about four hours, three hours a month max. And then the board, the president probably maybe 6 to 7 hours a month. And that's a this isn't including your golf buddies giving your time about stuff. But formally, there's no one on the board spent more than four hours. Except for the president, maybe up to six. And it's just because he has a couple other meetings.
(19:03):
So when you say you're leading up, you've got ideas or you're seeing things that you know on an operational level or an idea comes to you and you say, Hey, I'm going to go to the board and talk to them about this idea or this change. And they chime in and together you sort of, as you said, massage that idea. And then I'm assuming you leave with a unified vision and direction for where the club will go and you're ultimately executing on that. Is that kind of how it works?
(19:34):
You nailed it. That's exactly right. Except for I mean, I'm blessed after ten years now. It's like there's a lot of things I don't even go to them for. And, you know, within my spending authority, you know, if I wanted to do add a new service, for example, or do something, I'll tell them, obviously. And if there's a if their eyes go, I don't think that's a good idea, then I'm not stupid. But most of the time they're they know what I'm doing is in sync in the best interest of the club, and they know that we want to be the most innovative and creative club. So some of the outlandish ideas that I have and we do, they're they're fine with it and excited. They want tradition and a good professional culture at the same time. So I don't get I mean, I know my boundaries now and I always have. I mean, I've worked at some very traditional high end clubs, so I understand the balance. But it's finally at that point where I can just go for it for the most part. But yes, you're absolutely right. When we're going to start talking about rule changes, culture changes, strategic planning, master planning, golf course renovations for sure. I wouldn't just surprise them with that. If we're going to go replace bridges and car paths that are deteriorated, we're going to do things like that. We're going to we're going to tell them. We're going to talk about it before we go do any projects on the golf course. You know, there is no committee now, so we're not going to just blindly go do it. But, you know, if it's big enough, you know, like once a year, I'll have my superintendent come into the room and we'll do a presentation on, Hey, here's six things this year we want to do to improve the golf course that we think these three we can do in house, these 2 or 3 we probably can, going to need to sub out and here's the cost of them and here's where they're going to fit in the capital budget.
(21:25):
Right. And how how does it work, though, Dave? If you've got someone on the board or, you know, people in club leadership or in your leadership, which is, I guess your board anyway, how do you handle it when a board member has a wacky idea? You know, I heard someone told me what we should do, like. I mean, you know that. How does that work in your environment today?
(21:49):
If it's really that outlandish? And I I've either tried it or I know it's not going to work and I can provide real explanation on it, then I'll just deny it right there and in a polite, professional way, but give some facts behind it. If not, I'll say, Hey, let me look into it. I'll get back to you the next board meeting, and they'll bring it up to everybody and I'll put it on my agenda and look into it just because if I don't do that, then how about all the ideas I have. You know? Like.
(22:19):
Exactly. So that's what you're right. Is it easier in some ways for a club like Greystone to make this change? That's, you know, in the scheme of private clubs, it's a fairly young club, right? I mean, it's not like hundreds of years old or 100 years or whatever that is. How does how do you think that impacts the ability to make the change that you've made there?
(22:45):
'That's a great, great point because that's exactly why there's probably at least half of the reason why we didn't have enough steeped tradition and, you know, processes and ways of doing things set in stone that it was hard to overturn. I mean, the person at the hundred year old club's going to listen to this and be like, I'm never going to be able to get there. And it might take a lot longer. You might never get all the way there, but you start making changes. Yeah, I mean, committee is everything to me of, of where you need to change because the confusion with the staff is what needs to stop. Where the superintendent the golf course does not need a member that's the chair of a committee coming down to their office once a week and telling them you can't take that tree, take that tree or just sit in in their office and ask them, hey, what's going on? Same thing with the chef and the House committee or, you know, keep going down the line and the members actually getting to the point of picking out tournament gifts from member guests and stuff like that. I know that's happening. And half the clubs in America and people feel like they're throwing them a bone. But no, why do those 2 or 3 members pick out tee gifts for 200 or in our case, 256 players? So I just think that there's that's where it needs to start for all these, you know, historical clubs because we're teenagers like you, you know, we're pointing at. That's the way I look at it. We're 30. We're going to be 34 this year. We're- we're teenagers. We're only been member owned since '09. So we're really teenagers and that's why we're getting to our first ever waitlist. And that's a hard thing to get to when you're inside a gated community and it's not mandatory membership. So with all those things, the person that's less than the 100 year old club, tackle the fact that the committees report or advisory to you and they don't commun- the chair does not get communicate directly. The chairs are not appointed. They're chosen by the GM. And start there. If you can get that, oh my gosh. Life will change. The board members are either out or they're liaison's only. That will change everything.
(24:55):
'Wait, so you're saying I just want to double back on that because. And to make sure I'm clear on that. So for the. The 100 year old club, you're saying get rid of- like move towards getting rid of the committees? Or is it or is it a reporting thing? Like what's the..?
Sorry, I just meant the reporting mechanism.
(25:15):
Okay, so.
'Yeah, they're not going to be able to get rid of the committees or probably even reduce them. But if you can change the reporting mechanism where committees are not advisory to the board and they don't make policy decisions or programing decisions, they ma- they provide feedback and they're advisory. But if they're advisory to management, so the GM and the department heads for that committee and the person who's the chair of the committee is one of the people that volunteered. So we put them in terms, two year terms, and three on three. You know, there's a series of people coming on off. So I'll take somebody that's in their second year and make them a chairperson. And your one year, you're your chairperson. That's it. So it's not the board members picking their best friend or somebody that's been the chair for 20 years of the Greens committee, but I get that approved by the board. So here's the people, here's a sheet of everybody in their terms. You know, Mr. So-and-so was on it last year and there's some people that re up, so they've been on it for three years and they haven't been chair yet. But now I think that person should be chair. Could be a great leader. And you put them in. So you put that list together at the beginning of the year and give it to the board and they approve or disapprove it. They've always approved it for me, but that way no one's, there's no personal agenda of somebody who's just actually done the work. They're getting the chance to lead. And then you collaborate with that person as the GM and the department heads. So we would do a little, when I used to have committees, would do a little pre-meeting where it would be myself and say the golf pro and the superintendent would meet with the chair of golf, the golf committee, because golf was golf and greens and rounds. We'd meet with them for 20 minutes, 30 minutes like the week before. By the time we were done, we were ended up just doing it on Zoom or something, or just a phone call or we'd present him with the agenda and just go with it. But to get out of the gate and make that change is so key.
(27:16):
Yeah, that is exactly like so that helps clarify so much because so often when at a club, when someone gets to the chair level, they say, this is what we want to do.
Right.
We want to get money for this or we want to make this change at the club or, and it goes up the food chain. Instead, what I'm hearing you saying is that committee actually, you know, in the beginning, if you're an early in making this change, the committee is actually kind of like the focus group that you, you know, evolved into.
(27:49):
Right, yeah. Absolutely.
Down the road where they're saying, hey, this is what we see, this is what we think. These are observations. And they kick it up to the board or into leadership, right? That says, hey, this came out of that committee and it just it seems like such an easy thing just to flip. Yeah. And is it is it easy? Am I...
(28:10):
It is easy. It's just it's just an acceptance by the members. And to be and be able to be open minded enough to see it because what happens is it's actually better for the members in the end because when they when we have all that dialog at the actual committee level, when I when I had six committees and if we had made half the transformation, what would happen, which was very positive, is, you know, if it's an operational suggestion, we can make it happen right away. We don't need the board to have a board meeting to get there. And then if it is something that needs to go to the board, then I would take it. And so I'm not going to not follow through with something that the committee is recommending or suggesting. I'll bring all the pros and cons. If I need another meeting... So, for example, if it's something that's capital nature, I'll look into it, I'll get pricing, I'll come back to the committee and say, Hey, I looked into this, I researched it. Good idea. This is why it'll work or why it won't. And here's our, here are some of our obstacles, but I'll bring it to the board. And then or maybe it's not going to work because we don't have enough land for that capital, whatever it might be. Right. Bring it to the board. All right. It sounds good. Let's put it into the five year capital plan or. No, thats, I don't, we don't want that at all or whatever it might be. So that's how it was developing, is that there was like a split here. If it's big enough to go to the board or part of their responsibilities, I'll take it. If it's not, we can just deal with it. The the challenging part is if so, for example, the director of rackets and I don't agree with what they're suggesting and just don't think it's a good idea, is you got to deliver that news back and not be like arrogant about it. And autocratic is a tough delivery, that your idea is not going to work here.
(29:53):
Well, yes. So that becomes more of a leadership type thing anyway, in communication, how you handle that. So just so I get the mechanics right, what you have done then is the committee chair takes the feedback perspective from that committee. They report to their, they share that with their liaison who then takes it to the board? Is that..?
(30:14):
No they, no we, well, that's the first step is they would they would you're correct if there's as an older club starting to transition you know the GM and that liaison need to have a good working relationship and and so it's kind of like, hey Dave put it on the agenda for this month. I'll I'll bring that up under my report that that liaison. Well if you can get away, get to the point of having no liaison that's just on the GM. So it was all those phases that I talked about in the beginning. When you finally get to the phase where you might be you, whether you reduce the committees or not, if you can get the board members completely off the committees and they're truly advisory to management and a chair, somebody from at large, then everything's on the GM to bring forward. You just have to build that trust where they know you are going to bring it to the board and report back to them what happened. And they're going to see the board members around be like, Hey, did Dave bring that up? So you're not going to not bring it up.
(31:09):
Right. That is such a, and I can see how pivotal that that one move can just be reversing that.
It is, because... I'll give you one silly little example is like I could see it now when we used to have a rackets committee or even that grouped swim tennis fitness committee, there'd be somebody talking about a couple of ladies talking about the need to improve our food for the tennis matches because ours isn't as good as 2 or 3 other clubs. Can you imagine that going to the board?
(31:42):
Oh my gosh, no.
The board's talking about that. So in this case, board liaison's not in the room because we had evolved our governance at that point and we're like, Oh, really? I'm so sorry. I didn't know that you all felt this way. Let me, let me give it to chef. Let's get a few of you together and try to realize what you want to have and we'll make the change. No big deal. So there my director Rackets gets the chef, gets three ladies, they meet off to the side, they work out the menus they really want, he improves it. Everybody's happy. But the board didn't even know about it. And not that I'm trying to keep it from them. But why do they want to know?
(32:15):
Yeah, right. To get into the minutia and they're totally distracted.
Right.So gosh, there's so many things I want to, I'm trying to think of the next best question, but how have your board meetings changed? Like, do you change like how things are? Have you changed from 2014 or 20? You know, when you first started to board meetings, now what's been the most significant change operationally?
(32:40):
'We're more strategic now. We always save time for strategic discussion. We're still never more than an hour and a half. And it's it's just a lot more productive. But it also goes to other things along the way. Like I talked about what Club Benchmarking is. You know, every year we'll, either it's on Zoom or in person we'll have... You know, we were very blessed to have had Ray do it himself, but so that as new board members come on and Finance Committee, we'll just put them all in one room. But to hear how clubs operate, not just from me as far as a form of financial standpoint, gets you out of the weeds of, Oh my God, why does the restaurant lose money or why is it- why aren't we pricing this at that? Or why aren't we more efficient with labor? And because people see people stand around in the backdrop or there's too many servers when they happen to walk in the dining room. But then when you do a global thing and we're only at the 50% mark for all clubs on labor versus total gross revenue, they're like, all right, good job. So yeah.
(33:46):
Interesting. I mean. There's a reason why. Go ahead. No, you go ahead.
I think once you get that that piece, the other piece goes a lot easier to have more time. And then once you evolve the governance, because right now I have no... I have a finance committee. And that's actually by bylaws chaired by the president. And the vice president is on that committee. And then there's eight members at large and they volunteer for it. They have to be regular equity members. And so we have that committee. And so when I'm reporting on the financials, my president, vice president, already been through it with the Finance Committee and then the steering committee, we assign one board member to every meeting. So there's at least one of them that has to be there. And then this was my decision. I mean, my idea and a backstop so that I'm not trying to totally keep them out, you know, and any board can come. So sometimes I'll have 3 or 4 or members of the steering committee just because they want to see what it's all about and check it out. And we pop them on one of those subcommittees, and they listen. Because I've got to the point where that doesn't make me feel insecure that they're showing up. But if that was like my first year here, are they like, why are they checking on me? You know?
(35:03):
Right. Yeah. The. So now this has been this has been going for a while for you or at least the evolution. And everyone, I'm assuming, is very aware of the change and what, you know, what's happening, I guess probably for a lot of members is just how it's always worked now, right? I mean, it's like. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, literally 450 of our 1100 members have come in since Covid. So.
(35:27):
Gosh, it's crazy, right? I mean, so so given that the kind of the culture of leadership, the process, the operational part of it is understood in how it works. I mean, does that make it easier to to make sure you bringing on the right people as board members? And are the board members still elected by the membership? Or how does that work?
(35:51):
We have a nominating committee that we go with. We do have a slate. So it's not it's not a true ballot, but people can run from the floor if they want to get a petition signed if they thought the board wasn't doing a good job or there was something wrong. But they've done a really good job by picking people from different aspects. So a lot of people are there either coming on through the Finance Committee or they've been very involved in the committee. When we did have all the committees that were involved back then, they've stayed in tune. But you just know, I mean, after all these years here, you just I mean, we're only looking for two a year. And to be president, you have to have already been on the board. So you're reaching back to a small group there to to come on. So it's it's pretty easy to target who you want. And and you have to be a regular member or we only have equity members, so we only have 500 of those. So it's it's you start whittling it down pretty easy. And I say to people on our finance committee right now, because that's a three year term. Okay. I know.
(36:57):
Finance Committee is a three year term? Got it.
Yes, sir. So that that kind of shows you who's who's involved, because those committee that committee meets monthly. So, yeah, they're usually a good target, but it doesn't have to be that. But since you're only looking for two, you know who's been involved and who's really supportive of the direction of the club.
(37:18):
So what is your leadership structure then?
'All you got the members ultimately at the top and because of its still member owned club and they still vote anything that's going to be significant. And then after that, we have those trustees, who are kind of like, they're actually a dotted line off of the board, but they're backstopped, you got the board of directors, and then me. And we have the one, one committee is kind of like a, the Finance Committee is kind of like. Off of the board, really. I don't- they don't- they're not advisory to me. I mean they are in in form but in the bylaws are advisor to the board and then the steering committee is under me and then I go all my department heads. I have 12 director boards. So even though we're a big club dollar volume, we're at 16 million. Not not the most massive that way but you're also in Birmingham Alabama that so some of that's sitting in New York and there $25 million club we're probably about equal. Yeah but it's right you know two campuses and everything that goes with it.
(39:30):
So many clubs struggle with culture within the team. Even the staff department heads and things like that. And one of the things that you'll hear clubs talk about quite a bit is that, you know, the if the staff is setting culture with the membership, the member is going to have, you know, it's sort of like it all can, it's all one in the same, you know. Lousy staff culture will impact the culture of the members as well. How much more control, for lack of a better term, or how much more are you able to sort of facilitate that culture with this rathe r than having, you know, department chairs or I'm sorry, committee chairs that are going to sit in the superintendents office and, you know, in getting into the operations, how much more are you able to sort of direct the culture?
(40:23):
Oh, so much more. Because what happens is, and I because I lived in the other environment. So that's why I can say for real, how it works is if you have a great relationship with, you know, let's just keep using the superintendent as an example, then it works okay. It's fine. They believe in what you're trying to do. They understand your role. But if they think, you know, it really doesn't matter what Dave does or thinks because Mr. Smith is the guy and he loves me and he's going to make sure I get the new contract and all this pomp and circumstance that Dave's doing and trying to build our team and synergy and all this excitement, it doesn't really matter to me. I'll I'll go along with as much as I can, but I don't care. That's where it gets a killer, right there is, you know, and you know that your boss is truly your boss. Then you can get excited about it. You know, you can believe in it a little bit better. So what's happened here is when I, for example, we do an event for synergies, everything to me. So we do an event called Wimbledon on the Green. So we take the, other clubs probably do this and that's great, but it wouldn't happen if you don't have the right synergy and the right culture. Is that our superintendents are working for three weeks to take a piece of the driving range and create it into a grass tennis court so that we can do an event out there with grass tennis court and have an exhibition with let members play on it for a week of an exhibition with other pros in the area. This year we're actually working on getting the Bryan brothers to come in and do it and pay them. So you can't do that stuff if you don't have the right culture because the superintendents going to be like. Can you believe this stuff, Mr. Smith? This is B.S.. I don't want to do this. And the Mr. Smith's going to go to the board and talk to them, and then they're going to come tell me. He's not doing that. Let's kill that event.
(42:21):
Right. It automatically creates a subculture. You know, it's like the club leader has or the GM has a vision and trying to do one thing and then this little they're like little fiefdoms all over the, all over the club, which is so counterproductive.
I mean, that's the number one reason why we've been successful is that I have the ability to set the culture with the staff, and then that sets the culture with the members to an extent. You know, it's up to the members themselves and the board at a certain point.
(42:50):
Right. I mean, there are so many issues where you have members talking to the staff a certain way or just a lack of respect sometimes and things that are allowed at clubs that, you know, that I think are sort of part of that, that whole, you know, culture culture issue. Not all general managers or people who have been hired as general managers or who even aspire to be general managers are able to lead in this way. What what are the things let's say let's I want to ask this in two ways. What are the things that a general manager should ask himself or herself before trying to take on something like this, before saying, hey, I want to be in this role, because it's not easy. There are a lot of different skills that need to be, you know, need to be addressed or I guess skills that you must have to do this. So let's start with that. Like, what should a general manager really ask themselves if they're listening to this going, Dang, I wish we could do that.
(43:54):
'I think it's a great question. I mean, because I think they think about it a lot, that they have skills I don't have in the sense that, yes, I could work in a committee-driven club. Heck, when I was coming out of college and I worked at a club in Philadelphia, we had an entertainment committee and we would watch VHS tapes about bands and the committee would pick the bands they wanted. So I get it. I've been there, but they have to ask themselves, I think, to start what's comfortable for them. What part of their business do they love and where are they willing to put their own risk factor? Because I've taken on an enormous amount of job security risk because it's all on me if it goes wrong versus when you have a lot of committees, you have a backstop. And I'm not saying that mean someone's scared or they're not have enough guts. I'm just saying sometimes it's more comfortable and you have a family of livelihood, you enjoy the business, you enjoy the environment, and you've been there a while or whatever it might be, and maybe you just want to get a little bit, you know, you don't want to go all the way that I went. So that's where maybe you just want to start with getting the committees to be advisory to management.
(45:06):
You know, sometimes I wonder if the clubs, you know, clubs will put a certain GM in to fit how they operate. But if a club is really serious about changing and saying, Man, we got to make this change and they look at their general manager, what do you think are the things that the club leadership should look at? What are the qualities they should look for in their general manager or in a future general manager if they want to go in this direction?
(45:40):
That's an awesome question because I've you know, before I came to Greystone, I sat at that table several times in those interviews and they say they want to change. But then when you start pressing them a little bit, you can't change overnight. It's just not going to be successful because there's going to be an uproar to the membership or, you know, it's just going to fall flat. So you have to be able to take it one step at a time. But, you know, it's like that. A Few Good Men movie with Jack Nicholson. You can't handle the truth.
(46:08):
Right? Yeah. Yeah.
You want me on that wall? You need me on that wall.
Right? Yeah.
'I just. I mean, I think it's just trying to convince them that the leadership qualities that you need in that person are somebody. When you start doing those tests on people's leadership abilities, you need somebody that's going to have an insane amount of fortitude, positive outlook and innovation, and just a real inclusive, collaborative behavior. Because if somebody is autocratic and I just do it my way is the highway, you know, it's like you want that personality of someone that's that driven, but you don't want that because then it's just theirs. Like mine's still collaborative. It might, everything, somebody might have listened to this and felt like it is collaborative because of all the happy hours with Dave and the the big steering committee and the focus groups that we do periodically and then the ability to make sure you're in the right place at the right time to talk to members and get feedback. So I think the boards need to just be ready, though. They need to be able to at least take one step forward to release the committee. It's really all about the committees to start, and then it's about the board's belief to let somebody somebody lead. Like if you don't if you have for ten years, you don't have them printing fake money. That says In Dave We Trust or in your name we trust, then we there's probably a problem, you know. Yeah. Like, I mean do they look at you at the board meeting? So the board needs to self-reflect too, is my point. Like not only when they hire, but when they're leading that new GM or the current GM is are you giving them the tools and are you supporting them or are you trying to look to shut them down every time? Because then maybe you're just that GM's in an unhealthy situation.
(48:00):
Right. That's helpful. I just want to bring this together with a couple of things. One is, you know, this is about, in many ways, growing your club. You know, and how impactful is it to have. I mean, I'm going to give you the softball. How important is it that you have great leadership structure, great culture when it comes to attracting new members?
(48:26):
Right. I mean, that's it's so huge. I mean, I think when people come here and they feel the comfort of the club and the, you know, the way that the staff interacts with them, it's because we've been able to set the tone and the members understand their role, too now. I mean, they understand because like when I came, I forced the staff. I know it's simple stuff and most clubs are doing it, but force the staff, call everybody. Mr. or Mrs. and Dr.. Because it wasn't that way before it got so far that the members still to this day think I want to be called Mr. Border. And I'm like, No, no, it doesn't work that way. You don't need to do that to me. They're like, They thought that's what I wanted. And I'm like, No, I want you to be respected. And we're not... We're going to be friendly, but we're not going to be friends. That blurs way too many lines. And that's very hard for me after ten years, especially working closely with board members and people I consider very dear friends, but I don't fraternize with them at all outside of the club because it's our policy and that's set the tone big time for us is that we have a zero tolerance on that.
(49:35):
Yeah, interesting.
They wear, we wear nametags. They wear bag tags.
So I'll just give you my, my my thing in my head, which is that great culture is going to be more important than ever in the future for private clubs. Having sustainable business models is going to be more important than ever, especially if the interest in private clubs dries up. Or, as we know, there's more competition for discretionary income, especially among the target demographic that so many clubs are going after and without tight business operations, I don't know how clubs survive. What is your what is your advice or what's your recommendation to clubs that maybe are feeling, you know, the strain of dysfunction in their organization that shows up in all their operations and then ultimately the culture? How do they make that change? What do you...
(50:34):
That's a great question because one of the things we all know is retention on the staff and the members is critical. So starting with the staff, that's what really sets culture as a staff is the experience as much as the amenities. And if you got a different bartender every month or, you know, it's know all the positions are super important behind the scenes, sometimes more than the front. But those front facing people, you know, with the members is part of the experience. So I'm really focused on retention. I mean, we've actually gone we went up from 3.2 this year to 3.8 average tenure next year. We're trying to go even further. It's never going to be perfect because of the industry we're in, but also the seasonality. But the culture becomes how how great is it to work there.
(51:27):
Dave, this is so helpful. And I feel like I could go on and on and ask you a million more questions and I really appreciate your time and all the insight and perspective..
(52:39):
It's been fun talking about our club. Thank you for asking me everything.
And thank you for listening. If you find this podcast helpful, be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, keep crushing your club marketing.
'You are listening to Crushing Club Marketing, a podcast for progressive club leaders ready to increase their club's revenue. Time for change begins right now. For years, clubs have been led, governed and managed by its Board of Governors, leaving the general manager with little authority beyond managing a budget and fielding member complaints. Today, more clubs are operating like businesses and moving to a CEO-led model, giving the GM latitude to lead and manage without board interference. In this episode, we talk to Dave Porter, CEO and GM of Greystone Golf and Country Club. Dave shares with us the story of his club's transformation and what it means to the club and his team. Well, thanks for listening. You know, I've been in and around private clubs for many years, and one thing that's always amazed me is how we expect general managers to run multi-million dollar operations with their hands basically tied behind their backs. You think about it, in what other industry do we have committees of volunteers, often with no hospitality or business management experience making operational decisions. In essence, in the club industry we have the customers running the business, the traditional club model, where board members and committees are deeply involved in day to day operations, was actually was born in a different era. In back at that time, clubs were truly member owned and operated social institutions. But today's clubs are really pretty sophisticated businesses with a lot of customer satisfaction issues, member satisfaction challenges. They have complex operations, large staffs and significant budgets with a good amount of competition out there. So before we get into this, and full disclosure, Dave's Club is a client of ours at StoryTeller. But what I didn't know in working with Dave and conversations in the past is that Dave had led a transformation of his club away from the traditional committees and board member oversight into a CEO led club. And what's really interesting about Dave's story at Greystone is that it represents what many industry experts believe is the future of club management. It's a case study of what happens when you empower a professional leader to actually lead, when you remove the bureaucracy of committee approvals for every decision. When you let your CEO focus on strategic growth, instead of navigating political waters with board members who might have their own agendas. But it isn't just about making the GM's job easier. It's actually becoming about club survival. And in today's competitive landscape, clubs have got to be able to make quick decisions. They have to adapt to changing member expectations, which is huge, and they have to operate efficiently. And they can't do that when every decision has to go through three committees, two board member board meetings, rather, and all sorts of other internal approvals. And granted, not every general manager in his or her role today may be capable of running a business like this, and they may be better suited truthfully as a day to day club manager. But for the clubs that want to take the next step to build a team for the long haul, you may find this interview with Dave Porter to be helpful. Dave, thanks so much for joining me today.
(03:33):
Thank you, Ed. Super excited to be with you.
Yeah. So we actually had a conversation during the pandemic, I think. And it was really interesting because we were talking about all the the stuff that you guys were doing at Greystone, and now that's like a million years ago, it seems like, you know.
Yeah, it's amazing how much of that stuff is still in place because they loved it.
(03:54):
Yeah, I was just going to ask.
Experience that this.
As a follow up to that. Like did you end up keeping a lot of that? It sounds like you did like, I mean, you guys were so innovative with the things you're doing for your members.
Know, what's funny is the most popular thing that we still keep doing is sunset cruises. So we, when one of the, one of the courses is closed like once a month, we'll let people sign up, make a reservation, and we'll give them a golf cart and they can just go ride the course while it's closed. And we'll have a bar set up at the backdrop and everybody gets a complimentary free drink and we'll have the beverage cart person out there, little mini charcuterie boards that they can take out there and purchase from us. So it's become a tradition that they don't want to let go of.
(04:37):
Yeah, that is so cool. Well, I mean, talking about some changes in club operations, you recently at Greystone went through a change in, in some operations and I should probably let you explain what what was done and where you are today versus where you were, what maybe just a few years ago.
(05:01):
Yeah, absolutely. So way, I guess taking it back from the beginning when I got hired, I mean, I've been doing this a long time. I know what works for me. Doesn't mean I'm right as far as for the industry, but hopefully this will resonate with a lot of people that listen. And you know, I look at it like there are so many incredible managers out there that maybe like the governance the way it is when it's committee driven and they like that support or that deep involvement or collaboration, that's okay. And I'm sure they're super successful. But those that like to have a little more autonomy and what I call more of a current day leaning toward the CEO model of clubs, it started out when I got hired, I just the number one thing I asked for is only one thing was to get it headed in the right direction in my mind was we needed to change the bylaws where the board was kind of took a step back with committees and the committees would then report to me, they'd be advisory to me and not to the board, and then none of the board members would be committee chairs. And so in the beginning, what we did is that I'd made the, I had a board member that was a liaison each committee, but it was a member at large. And then we changed the selection process so people would actually fill an application to join a committee and they put their one through three as far as top three choices. And you you're guaranteed to at least get your top three, I mean, at least your third choice at the worst. So everyone that volunteered got an opportunity to be on a committee. We'd go up to about 12 to 14 strong, which is a little bit much in my mind, but I wanted to keep everybody involved and make it more of a democratic process. So.
(06:48):
Let me just let's start with this. How many years have you been at Greystone?
This April will be ten years.
Ten years? Wow. All right. So you were saying when you first took the job, it was with that belief that this is going to run a little bit differently. You know, this adopting this more CEO type of role. What was the most the leadership's response to that in the interview process?
(07:17):
I think it's probably what got me the job because they were not in a good situation. They had great leadership, great member leadership. They had a great department heads. Previous GM did a great job, was just he was with the developer and then came in when it became member owned. Probably put him in a tough situation. But he had a lot of really great strengths and did a great job. But it was kind of like I was the right guy for the job at the time. They're in kind of dire straits because they're only like five years out of being transitioned to a member owned club. So my whole point was, Do you want to be the greatest club, want to become a platinum club? Well, you got to give me the autonomy. I got to... I can't just be going and asking for permission to go buy something for $5000 or I can't ask permission to start changing the way we do things. I need to just keep it rolling. I'll keep you abreast. I'm not going to keep you in the dark, but I got to be able to keep rolling. I can't have too many checkpoints. And they agreed, they were like, we got to do that. That worked out really well for several years. And then what I would do is I'd slowly try to reduce the amount of committees because I knew this was a long process. You come in with the hammer and you're not going to get a warm reception. So that started out good because, and the most important part for me there is that, so in their advisory to management and the board member's a liaison, so the board member's hearing things, but the staff, that's my biggest concern. I don't want the staff to think they have two bosses. So they're taking direction from the board member or the committee chair. And then it's coming from me. Who's who am I supposed to listen to? Because in I'd say probably still today, I'd have to take a stab at that 75% of the clubs there is, the greens' chairman's going down to the superintendent's office and seeing them and those kind of things. I would never, ever happen here. Okay, I was kind of step one, so step one got done and then step two was start to reduce the amount of committees. We had 12 when I got here. So then we went from 12 down to I think it was 9 or 8, something like that. So what I did was greens and grounds and golf became one committee. And then we took tennis committee, we took pool committee and we took fitness committee and we made them one and we call them swim tennis fitness. And then we had our dining and social membership committee, and then we just kept going. And as we worked with you guys and have had such success with growing the membership, we were able to eliminate the membership committee phase. After that was now removing the board members as liaisons and just trusting me, after I'd earn their trust that I'm going to report everything that comes out of committee because now it takes the committee. What was happening is they're looking at me and respecting me that I'm going to take their input and their collaboration. But they would always tend to look at the board member and be like, You're going to get this done for me, right? Even if it's an operational issue. This could be about adding mac and cheese to the menu. And that was their advice or their suggestion, and they're looking at them. So finally they agreed. The board like, I get it. So they came out. So there was never you know, I always joke around saying if the governance isn't right, you know, you should have a sign on your door instead of your name plate. It should just be like, who's running this place anyway? Because, you know, nobody's really sure, you know, yeah, you're not title, but the board, the committee. So we had a real crystal clear from the beginning and it just kept evolving.
(11:05):
And yet for so many clubs, there's a lot of trust that has to be built and developed in that role, especially if, you know, a lot of traditional clubs that haven't operated that way, where the members are the boss and, you know. Right. It's it's not easy to let go of that. How did you in your mind, when you took over that role, how did you map out how you would build that trust and slowly make that change?
(11:33):
Yeah, it's it's a tough one. I mean, my my process is always get everybody to buy in as fast as you can, whether it's the staff or the members, because you know very well from being a member of the club that the staff talks to the members about, what do you think of the new guy and how's he and what's he like? And so got to get the staff to buy into the culture changes and what we're doing. That's a good step forward because the staff's happy. Then the members are like, All right, this is good. And then, you know, results. So we start with I did member focus groups to try to understand what they weren't happy with at the club, try to tackle some of those things early so I can build some momentum, some trust. But I also walked in a strange time where we were in the middle of several million dollars worth of construction, and I also had to convince them to let me run that and get and try to pull back on some of the things that they had already decided, because maybe they weren't the right operational ideas as far as when we're done with it, the way we're going to function. So it was a lot of a lot to take in, and I'm really blessed that they let me do what I what I wanted to do.
(12:42):
That's... It... And, you know, you can kind of take what you're saying. It sounds easy, but you're talking about members that in many cases have been very successful in their work and may not, you know, be able to trust someone that's new, let alone, you know, like a totally different way of operating the club. Did you have in your mind, like, I hear what you're saying about, you know, just like gradually, you know, inserting yourself in this. But did you did you try to like. I don't know. I think it's so interesting for some people who like to see the construction in the, you know, the responsibilities of that, to say I could just see a lot of members going, Dave, this is actually our thing. You know, I mean, it's like and how do you infiltrate yourself into that, where people really look at you go, Man, Dave knows this stuff.
(13:37):
Yeah. And I mean, they definitely didn't 100% think that at first, that's for sure, because. You know, I had to make a lot of operational changes, personnel changes, and you know how that goes. If you say hire a new chef, it's not like day one and everything's stellar. I mean, it's a with any new manager, it's going to be, you know, 3 to 6 months before you start seeing massive results. So, you know, while you're encountering all those things. A lot of it, I have to be honest, is just begging for patience and saying, you know, trust me, this is going to be good in the end. And I think it was just, you know, our references, my track record, they just kind of blindly just let me go because we were in a tough spot. I mean, they were getting assessed by a half $1 million a year for about five straight years because the developer was filling that gap all those years and the dues were just artificially too low. So, you know, those are the unpopular decisions that I had to request. I mean, I don't get to make those decisions, but. Raising dues, raising capital dues or getting engaged with companies like Club Benchmarking and, you know, getting getting data in front of them. So when I had support from outside folks, you know, I mean, with Ray Cronin and Club Benchmarking, it's so much better to they hear from him and then they're like, Oh that's what Dave's been telling us for the last two years. You know, we do need to increase our capital fees.
(15:04):
Yeah. So you had in fairness, you had the reputation and the references that supported the vision and direction that you wanted to go to move into.
Yeah, it's I mean, I was blessed with that because the last club I was at, we ran under that same governance model. So that's why I was making the request I did. I didn't. I just learned that was over time of being in that environment. This is like a really good style for me because it's not that I want to be autocratic or I want full autonomy. I want them to set the guardrails. I want to collaborate, but I don't want to collaborate on, you know, minutia or operating issues. If I have if I need help or advice, I'll raise my hand. I'm not scared of that. But I have resident experts here in every topic in my team and plus the thousands of managers out there that I can reach out to. So I don't think that guidance from a member that isn't in this business is kind of a weird thing. Is, the key is you have to be listening in and listening to the members and hearing them. And I don't I'm not a person that doesn't, because of what everything with our governance would make everyone think that I'm super against member feedback or input. It's not that way. I just rather do it in different ways. Like, so for example, I'll do Happy Hour with Dave once a month and members come in for an hour. I'll do like 20 minute presentation on just hot topics that are happening at the club and then they can open up, have a little town hall, usually get 20 people, 30 people, and I'll buy them drinks, but make myself accessible in formal ways and informal and not just walking around the club and interacting. That's a given, but it's actually having a set time where they know, Hey, I can come talk to Dave or I'll just do a massive focus group out of the blue and invite some of my team members and then do another one where I invite different team members. We always want feedback, but I think like surveys are so dangerous to me. I like the one hit surveys like, you know, people that dined with you or after a tournament, things like that. But when you do a overhaul survey, unless you're doing a master plan for the club, there is an expectation you're going to do something. Right?
(17:16):
Right. Don't ask me unless you plan on doing something.
And if you do, if you sift through 20 pages of analytical comments. Oh my gosh, how can you combine all that? Now, five of them are saying fire that person, fire this person, the services, this or that. And then 20 people are saying how great it is. It's my favorite thing. And it's just not. That's just my two cents on that.
(17:39):
'Yeah. So I want to just touch on the culture part of it because it, you know, we we started the conversation, many of us there are dysfunction and how dysfunction of so many clubs can be and who, at Greystone, who sets- How does that work, Who sets the vision for the club and and who's responsible for the culture between your role in the board? Like if you think of it like an org chart, how does that actually work?
(18:10):
'I mean, I lead up and they real- they rely on that. They actually like it and then they provide feedback to what I'm proposing and we massage it together versus them telling me what to do or that me telling them this is what we're going to do. But they don't. They want to be presented with it. They have full time jobs and they they like that, that they actually get to enjoy the club. And I say the average outside of the president, the average board member probably spends about four hours, three hours a month max. And then the board, the president probably maybe 6 to 7 hours a month. And that's a this isn't including your golf buddies giving your time about stuff. But formally, there's no one on the board spent more than four hours. Except for the president, maybe up to six. And it's just because he has a couple other meetings.
(19:03):
So when you say you're leading up, you've got ideas or you're seeing things that you know on an operational level or an idea comes to you and you say, Hey, I'm going to go to the board and talk to them about this idea or this change. And they chime in and together you sort of, as you said, massage that idea. And then I'm assuming you leave with a unified vision and direction for where the club will go and you're ultimately executing on that. Is that kind of how it works?
(19:34):
You nailed it. That's exactly right. Except for I mean, I'm blessed after ten years now. It's like there's a lot of things I don't even go to them for. And, you know, within my spending authority, you know, if I wanted to do add a new service, for example, or do something, I'll tell them, obviously. And if there's a if their eyes go, I don't think that's a good idea, then I'm not stupid. But most of the time they're they know what I'm doing is in sync in the best interest of the club, and they know that we want to be the most innovative and creative club. So some of the outlandish ideas that I have and we do, they're they're fine with it and excited. They want tradition and a good professional culture at the same time. So I don't get I mean, I know my boundaries now and I always have. I mean, I've worked at some very traditional high end clubs, so I understand the balance. But it's finally at that point where I can just go for it for the most part. But yes, you're absolutely right. When we're going to start talking about rule changes, culture changes, strategic planning, master planning, golf course renovations for sure. I wouldn't just surprise them with that. If we're going to go replace bridges and car paths that are deteriorated, we're going to do things like that. We're going to we're going to tell them. We're going to talk about it before we go do any projects on the golf course. You know, there is no committee now, so we're not going to just blindly go do it. But, you know, if it's big enough, you know, like once a year, I'll have my superintendent come into the room and we'll do a presentation on, Hey, here's six things this year we want to do to improve the golf course that we think these three we can do in house, these 2 or 3 we probably can, going to need to sub out and here's the cost of them and here's where they're going to fit in the capital budget.
(21:25):
Right. And how how does it work, though, Dave? If you've got someone on the board or, you know, people in club leadership or in your leadership, which is, I guess your board anyway, how do you handle it when a board member has a wacky idea? You know, I heard someone told me what we should do, like. I mean, you know that. How does that work in your environment today?
(21:49):
If it's really that outlandish? And I I've either tried it or I know it's not going to work and I can provide real explanation on it, then I'll just deny it right there and in a polite, professional way, but give some facts behind it. If not, I'll say, Hey, let me look into it. I'll get back to you the next board meeting, and they'll bring it up to everybody and I'll put it on my agenda and look into it just because if I don't do that, then how about all the ideas I have. You know? Like.
(22:19):
Exactly. So that's what you're right. Is it easier in some ways for a club like Greystone to make this change? That's, you know, in the scheme of private clubs, it's a fairly young club, right? I mean, it's not like hundreds of years old or 100 years or whatever that is. How does how do you think that impacts the ability to make the change that you've made there?
(22:45):
'That's a great, great point because that's exactly why there's probably at least half of the reason why we didn't have enough steeped tradition and, you know, processes and ways of doing things set in stone that it was hard to overturn. I mean, the person at the hundred year old club's going to listen to this and be like, I'm never going to be able to get there. And it might take a lot longer. You might never get all the way there, but you start making changes. Yeah, I mean, committee is everything to me of, of where you need to change because the confusion with the staff is what needs to stop. Where the superintendent the golf course does not need a member that's the chair of a committee coming down to their office once a week and telling them you can't take that tree, take that tree or just sit in in their office and ask them, hey, what's going on? Same thing with the chef and the House committee or, you know, keep going down the line and the members actually getting to the point of picking out tournament gifts from member guests and stuff like that. I know that's happening. And half the clubs in America and people feel like they're throwing them a bone. But no, why do those 2 or 3 members pick out tee gifts for 200 or in our case, 256 players? So I just think that there's that's where it needs to start for all these, you know, historical clubs because we're teenagers like you, you know, we're pointing at. That's the way I look at it. We're 30. We're going to be 34 this year. We're- we're teenagers. We're only been member owned since '09. So we're really teenagers and that's why we're getting to our first ever waitlist. And that's a hard thing to get to when you're inside a gated community and it's not mandatory membership. So with all those things, the person that's less than the 100 year old club, tackle the fact that the committees report or advisory to you and they don't commun- the chair does not get communicate directly. The chairs are not appointed. They're chosen by the GM. And start there. If you can get that, oh my gosh. Life will change. The board members are either out or they're liaison's only. That will change everything.
(24:55):
'Wait, so you're saying I just want to double back on that because. And to make sure I'm clear on that. So for the. The 100 year old club, you're saying get rid of- like move towards getting rid of the committees? Or is it or is it a reporting thing? Like what's the..?
Sorry, I just meant the reporting mechanism.
(25:15):
Okay, so.
'Yeah, they're not going to be able to get rid of the committees or probably even reduce them. But if you can change the reporting mechanism where committees are not advisory to the board and they don't make policy decisions or programing decisions, they ma- they provide feedback and they're advisory. But if they're advisory to management, so the GM and the department heads for that committee and the person who's the chair of the committee is one of the people that volunteered. So we put them in terms, two year terms, and three on three. You know, there's a series of people coming on off. So I'll take somebody that's in their second year and make them a chairperson. And your one year, you're your chairperson. That's it. So it's not the board members picking their best friend or somebody that's been the chair for 20 years of the Greens committee, but I get that approved by the board. So here's the people, here's a sheet of everybody in their terms. You know, Mr. So-and-so was on it last year and there's some people that re up, so they've been on it for three years and they haven't been chair yet. But now I think that person should be chair. Could be a great leader. And you put them in. So you put that list together at the beginning of the year and give it to the board and they approve or disapprove it. They've always approved it for me, but that way no one's, there's no personal agenda of somebody who's just actually done the work. They're getting the chance to lead. And then you collaborate with that person as the GM and the department heads. So we would do a little, when I used to have committees, would do a little pre-meeting where it would be myself and say the golf pro and the superintendent would meet with the chair of golf, the golf committee, because golf was golf and greens and rounds. We'd meet with them for 20 minutes, 30 minutes like the week before. By the time we were done, we were ended up just doing it on Zoom or something, or just a phone call or we'd present him with the agenda and just go with it. But to get out of the gate and make that change is so key.
(27:16):
Yeah, that is exactly like so that helps clarify so much because so often when at a club, when someone gets to the chair level, they say, this is what we want to do.
Right.
We want to get money for this or we want to make this change at the club or, and it goes up the food chain. Instead, what I'm hearing you saying is that committee actually, you know, in the beginning, if you're an early in making this change, the committee is actually kind of like the focus group that you, you know, evolved into.
(27:49):
Right, yeah. Absolutely.
Down the road where they're saying, hey, this is what we see, this is what we think. These are observations. And they kick it up to the board or into leadership, right? That says, hey, this came out of that committee and it just it seems like such an easy thing just to flip. Yeah. And is it is it easy? Am I...
(28:10):
It is easy. It's just it's just an acceptance by the members. And to be and be able to be open minded enough to see it because what happens is it's actually better for the members in the end because when they when we have all that dialog at the actual committee level, when I when I had six committees and if we had made half the transformation, what would happen, which was very positive, is, you know, if it's an operational suggestion, we can make it happen right away. We don't need the board to have a board meeting to get there. And then if it is something that needs to go to the board, then I would take it. And so I'm not going to not follow through with something that the committee is recommending or suggesting. I'll bring all the pros and cons. If I need another meeting... So, for example, if it's something that's capital nature, I'll look into it, I'll get pricing, I'll come back to the committee and say, Hey, I looked into this, I researched it. Good idea. This is why it'll work or why it won't. And here's our, here are some of our obstacles, but I'll bring it to the board. And then or maybe it's not going to work because we don't have enough land for that capital, whatever it might be. Right. Bring it to the board. All right. It sounds good. Let's put it into the five year capital plan or. No, thats, I don't, we don't want that at all or whatever it might be. So that's how it was developing, is that there was like a split here. If it's big enough to go to the board or part of their responsibilities, I'll take it. If it's not, we can just deal with it. The the challenging part is if so, for example, the director of rackets and I don't agree with what they're suggesting and just don't think it's a good idea, is you got to deliver that news back and not be like arrogant about it. And autocratic is a tough delivery, that your idea is not going to work here.
(29:53):
Well, yes. So that becomes more of a leadership type thing anyway, in communication, how you handle that. So just so I get the mechanics right, what you have done then is the committee chair takes the feedback perspective from that committee. They report to their, they share that with their liaison who then takes it to the board? Is that..?
(30:14):
No they, no we, well, that's the first step is they would they would you're correct if there's as an older club starting to transition you know the GM and that liaison need to have a good working relationship and and so it's kind of like, hey Dave put it on the agenda for this month. I'll I'll bring that up under my report that that liaison. Well if you can get away, get to the point of having no liaison that's just on the GM. So it was all those phases that I talked about in the beginning. When you finally get to the phase where you might be you, whether you reduce the committees or not, if you can get the board members completely off the committees and they're truly advisory to management and a chair, somebody from at large, then everything's on the GM to bring forward. You just have to build that trust where they know you are going to bring it to the board and report back to them what happened. And they're going to see the board members around be like, Hey, did Dave bring that up? So you're not going to not bring it up.
(31:09):
Right. That is such a, and I can see how pivotal that that one move can just be reversing that.
It is, because... I'll give you one silly little example is like I could see it now when we used to have a rackets committee or even that grouped swim tennis fitness committee, there'd be somebody talking about a couple of ladies talking about the need to improve our food for the tennis matches because ours isn't as good as 2 or 3 other clubs. Can you imagine that going to the board?
(31:42):
Oh my gosh, no.
The board's talking about that. So in this case, board liaison's not in the room because we had evolved our governance at that point and we're like, Oh, really? I'm so sorry. I didn't know that you all felt this way. Let me, let me give it to chef. Let's get a few of you together and try to realize what you want to have and we'll make the change. No big deal. So there my director Rackets gets the chef, gets three ladies, they meet off to the side, they work out the menus they really want, he improves it. Everybody's happy. But the board didn't even know about it. And not that I'm trying to keep it from them. But why do they want to know?
(32:15):
Yeah, right. To get into the minutia and they're totally distracted.
Right.So gosh, there's so many things I want to, I'm trying to think of the next best question, but how have your board meetings changed? Like, do you change like how things are? Have you changed from 2014 or 20? You know, when you first started to board meetings, now what's been the most significant change operationally?
(32:40):
'We're more strategic now. We always save time for strategic discussion. We're still never more than an hour and a half. And it's it's just a lot more productive. But it also goes to other things along the way. Like I talked about what Club Benchmarking is. You know, every year we'll, either it's on Zoom or in person we'll have... You know, we were very blessed to have had Ray do it himself, but so that as new board members come on and Finance Committee, we'll just put them all in one room. But to hear how clubs operate, not just from me as far as a form of financial standpoint, gets you out of the weeds of, Oh my God, why does the restaurant lose money or why is it- why aren't we pricing this at that? Or why aren't we more efficient with labor? And because people see people stand around in the backdrop or there's too many servers when they happen to walk in the dining room. But then when you do a global thing and we're only at the 50% mark for all clubs on labor versus total gross revenue, they're like, all right, good job. So yeah.
(33:46):
Interesting. I mean. There's a reason why. Go ahead. No, you go ahead.
I think once you get that that piece, the other piece goes a lot easier to have more time. And then once you evolve the governance, because right now I have no... I have a finance committee. And that's actually by bylaws chaired by the president. And the vice president is on that committee. And then there's eight members at large and they volunteer for it. They have to be regular equity members. And so we have that committee. And so when I'm reporting on the financials, my president, vice president, already been through it with the Finance Committee and then the steering committee, we assign one board member to every meeting. So there's at least one of them that has to be there. And then this was my decision. I mean, my idea and a backstop so that I'm not trying to totally keep them out, you know, and any board can come. So sometimes I'll have 3 or 4 or members of the steering committee just because they want to see what it's all about and check it out. And we pop them on one of those subcommittees, and they listen. Because I've got to the point where that doesn't make me feel insecure that they're showing up. But if that was like my first year here, are they like, why are they checking on me? You know?
(35:03):
Right. Yeah. The. So now this has been this has been going for a while for you or at least the evolution. And everyone, I'm assuming, is very aware of the change and what, you know, what's happening, I guess probably for a lot of members is just how it's always worked now, right? I mean, it's like. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, literally 450 of our 1100 members have come in since Covid. So.
(35:27):
Gosh, it's crazy, right? I mean, so so given that the kind of the culture of leadership, the process, the operational part of it is understood in how it works. I mean, does that make it easier to to make sure you bringing on the right people as board members? And are the board members still elected by the membership? Or how does that work?
(35:51):
We have a nominating committee that we go with. We do have a slate. So it's not it's not a true ballot, but people can run from the floor if they want to get a petition signed if they thought the board wasn't doing a good job or there was something wrong. But they've done a really good job by picking people from different aspects. So a lot of people are there either coming on through the Finance Committee or they've been very involved in the committee. When we did have all the committees that were involved back then, they've stayed in tune. But you just know, I mean, after all these years here, you just I mean, we're only looking for two a year. And to be president, you have to have already been on the board. So you're reaching back to a small group there to to come on. So it's it's pretty easy to target who you want. And and you have to be a regular member or we only have equity members, so we only have 500 of those. So it's it's you start whittling it down pretty easy. And I say to people on our finance committee right now, because that's a three year term. Okay. I know.
(36:57):
Finance Committee is a three year term? Got it.
Yes, sir. So that that kind of shows you who's who's involved, because those committee that committee meets monthly. So, yeah, they're usually a good target, but it doesn't have to be that. But since you're only looking for two, you know who's been involved and who's really supportive of the direction of the club.
(37:18):
So what is your leadership structure then?
'All you got the members ultimately at the top and because of its still member owned club and they still vote anything that's going to be significant. And then after that, we have those trustees, who are kind of like, they're actually a dotted line off of the board, but they're backstopped, you got the board of directors, and then me. And we have the one, one committee is kind of like a, the Finance Committee is kind of like. Off of the board, really. I don't- they don't- they're not advisory to me. I mean they are in in form but in the bylaws are advisor to the board and then the steering committee is under me and then I go all my department heads. I have 12 director boards. So even though we're a big club dollar volume, we're at 16 million. Not not the most massive that way but you're also in Birmingham Alabama that so some of that's sitting in New York and there $25 million club we're probably about equal. Yeah but it's right you know two campuses and everything that goes with it.
(39:30):
So many clubs struggle with culture within the team. Even the staff department heads and things like that. And one of the things that you'll hear clubs talk about quite a bit is that, you know, the if the staff is setting culture with the membership, the member is going to have, you know, it's sort of like it all can, it's all one in the same, you know. Lousy staff culture will impact the culture of the members as well. How much more control, for lack of a better term, or how much more are you able to sort of facilitate that culture with this rathe r than having, you know, department chairs or I'm sorry, committee chairs that are going to sit in the superintendents office and, you know, in getting into the operations, how much more are you able to sort of direct the culture?
(40:23):
Oh, so much more. Because what happens is, and I because I lived in the other environment. So that's why I can say for real, how it works is if you have a great relationship with, you know, let's just keep using the superintendent as an example, then it works okay. It's fine. They believe in what you're trying to do. They understand your role. But if they think, you know, it really doesn't matter what Dave does or thinks because Mr. Smith is the guy and he loves me and he's going to make sure I get the new contract and all this pomp and circumstance that Dave's doing and trying to build our team and synergy and all this excitement, it doesn't really matter to me. I'll I'll go along with as much as I can, but I don't care. That's where it gets a killer, right there is, you know, and you know that your boss is truly your boss. Then you can get excited about it. You know, you can believe in it a little bit better. So what's happened here is when I, for example, we do an event for synergies, everything to me. So we do an event called Wimbledon on the Green. So we take the, other clubs probably do this and that's great, but it wouldn't happen if you don't have the right synergy and the right culture. Is that our superintendents are working for three weeks to take a piece of the driving range and create it into a grass tennis court so that we can do an event out there with grass tennis court and have an exhibition with let members play on it for a week of an exhibition with other pros in the area. This year we're actually working on getting the Bryan brothers to come in and do it and pay them. So you can't do that stuff if you don't have the right culture because the superintendents going to be like. Can you believe this stuff, Mr. Smith? This is B.S.. I don't want to do this. And the Mr. Smith's going to go to the board and talk to them, and then they're going to come tell me. He's not doing that. Let's kill that event.
(42:21):
Right. It automatically creates a subculture. You know, it's like the club leader has or the GM has a vision and trying to do one thing and then this little they're like little fiefdoms all over the, all over the club, which is so counterproductive.
I mean, that's the number one reason why we've been successful is that I have the ability to set the culture with the staff, and then that sets the culture with the members to an extent. You know, it's up to the members themselves and the board at a certain point.
(42:50):
Right. I mean, there are so many issues where you have members talking to the staff a certain way or just a lack of respect sometimes and things that are allowed at clubs that, you know, that I think are sort of part of that, that whole, you know, culture culture issue. Not all general managers or people who have been hired as general managers or who even aspire to be general managers are able to lead in this way. What what are the things let's say let's I want to ask this in two ways. What are the things that a general manager should ask himself or herself before trying to take on something like this, before saying, hey, I want to be in this role, because it's not easy. There are a lot of different skills that need to be, you know, need to be addressed or I guess skills that you must have to do this. So let's start with that. Like, what should a general manager really ask themselves if they're listening to this going, Dang, I wish we could do that.
(43:54):
'I think it's a great question. I mean, because I think they think about it a lot, that they have skills I don't have in the sense that, yes, I could work in a committee-driven club. Heck, when I was coming out of college and I worked at a club in Philadelphia, we had an entertainment committee and we would watch VHS tapes about bands and the committee would pick the bands they wanted. So I get it. I've been there, but they have to ask themselves, I think, to start what's comfortable for them. What part of their business do they love and where are they willing to put their own risk factor? Because I've taken on an enormous amount of job security risk because it's all on me if it goes wrong versus when you have a lot of committees, you have a backstop. And I'm not saying that mean someone's scared or they're not have enough guts. I'm just saying sometimes it's more comfortable and you have a family of livelihood, you enjoy the business, you enjoy the environment, and you've been there a while or whatever it might be, and maybe you just want to get a little bit, you know, you don't want to go all the way that I went. So that's where maybe you just want to start with getting the committees to be advisory to management.
(45:06):
You know, sometimes I wonder if the clubs, you know, clubs will put a certain GM in to fit how they operate. But if a club is really serious about changing and saying, Man, we got to make this change and they look at their general manager, what do you think are the things that the club leadership should look at? What are the qualities they should look for in their general manager or in a future general manager if they want to go in this direction?
(45:40):
That's an awesome question because I've you know, before I came to Greystone, I sat at that table several times in those interviews and they say they want to change. But then when you start pressing them a little bit, you can't change overnight. It's just not going to be successful because there's going to be an uproar to the membership or, you know, it's just going to fall flat. So you have to be able to take it one step at a time. But, you know, it's like that. A Few Good Men movie with Jack Nicholson. You can't handle the truth.
(46:08):
Right? Yeah. Yeah.
You want me on that wall? You need me on that wall.
Right? Yeah.
'I just. I mean, I think it's just trying to convince them that the leadership qualities that you need in that person are somebody. When you start doing those tests on people's leadership abilities, you need somebody that's going to have an insane amount of fortitude, positive outlook and innovation, and just a real inclusive, collaborative behavior. Because if somebody is autocratic and I just do it my way is the highway, you know, it's like you want that personality of someone that's that driven, but you don't want that because then it's just theirs. Like mine's still collaborative. It might, everything, somebody might have listened to this and felt like it is collaborative because of all the happy hours with Dave and the the big steering committee and the focus groups that we do periodically and then the ability to make sure you're in the right place at the right time to talk to members and get feedback. So I think the boards need to just be ready, though. They need to be able to at least take one step forward to release the committee. It's really all about the committees to start, and then it's about the board's belief to let somebody somebody lead. Like if you don't if you have for ten years, you don't have them printing fake money. That says In Dave We Trust or in your name we trust, then we there's probably a problem, you know. Yeah. Like, I mean do they look at you at the board meeting? So the board needs to self-reflect too, is my point. Like not only when they hire, but when they're leading that new GM or the current GM is are you giving them the tools and are you supporting them or are you trying to look to shut them down every time? Because then maybe you're just that GM's in an unhealthy situation.
(48:00):
Right. That's helpful. I just want to bring this together with a couple of things. One is, you know, this is about, in many ways, growing your club. You know, and how impactful is it to have. I mean, I'm going to give you the softball. How important is it that you have great leadership structure, great culture when it comes to attracting new members?
(48:26):
Right. I mean, that's it's so huge. I mean, I think when people come here and they feel the comfort of the club and the, you know, the way that the staff interacts with them, it's because we've been able to set the tone and the members understand their role, too now. I mean, they understand because like when I came, I forced the staff. I know it's simple stuff and most clubs are doing it, but force the staff, call everybody. Mr. or Mrs. and Dr.. Because it wasn't that way before it got so far that the members still to this day think I want to be called Mr. Border. And I'm like, No, no, it doesn't work that way. You don't need to do that to me. They're like, They thought that's what I wanted. And I'm like, No, I want you to be respected. And we're not... We're going to be friendly, but we're not going to be friends. That blurs way too many lines. And that's very hard for me after ten years, especially working closely with board members and people I consider very dear friends, but I don't fraternize with them at all outside of the club because it's our policy and that's set the tone big time for us is that we have a zero tolerance on that.
(49:35):
Yeah, interesting.
They wear, we wear nametags. They wear bag tags.
So I'll just give you my, my my thing in my head, which is that great culture is going to be more important than ever in the future for private clubs. Having sustainable business models is going to be more important than ever, especially if the interest in private clubs dries up. Or, as we know, there's more competition for discretionary income, especially among the target demographic that so many clubs are going after and without tight business operations, I don't know how clubs survive. What is your what is your advice or what's your recommendation to clubs that maybe are feeling, you know, the strain of dysfunction in their organization that shows up in all their operations and then ultimately the culture? How do they make that change? What do you...
(50:34):
That's a great question because one of the things we all know is retention on the staff and the members is critical. So starting with the staff, that's what really sets culture as a staff is the experience as much as the amenities. And if you got a different bartender every month or, you know, it's know all the positions are super important behind the scenes, sometimes more than the front. But those front facing people, you know, with the members is part of the experience. So I'm really focused on retention. I mean, we've actually gone we went up from 3.2 this year to 3.8 average tenure next year. We're trying to go even further. It's never going to be perfect because of the industry we're in, but also the seasonality. But the culture becomes how how great is it to work there.
(51:27):
Dave, this is so helpful. And I feel like I could go on and on and ask you a million more questions and I really appreciate your time and all the insight and perspective..
(52:39):
It's been fun talking about our club. Thank you for asking me everything.
And thank you for listening. If you find this podcast helpful, be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, keep crushing your club marketing.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com