Managing Shifting Demographics in Private Clubs - John Schultz, CEO of Club Leadership Alliance

John Schultz, CEO of Club Leadership Alliance, has been around the block - a bunch of times! Prior to his current role, he was the GM for over 20 years at Carmel Country Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. Taking over a club with financial challenges, he put his flywheel in motion and turned the club around with more than 60 million dollars in capital improvements in 2 decades.

Balancing the shifting demographics of new, younger members with longstanding members, facilitating town hall discussions, managing the conflict and debate that goes with member assessments and day to day communication challenges that are hand-in-hand with running a club, Schultz has done it all. John Schultz built his career at Carmel Country Club with more than 20 years of service AFTER doing 9 years of military service as a United States Marine. There were probably some days as a Staff Sergeant in the Marines that were easier than his days as a General Manager, but that’s another story! Needless to say, when you stay in one place for over 20 years, you did a lot of things right and you also dealt with a lot of change. 

Today, John Schultz is the CEO of the Club Leadership Alliance which is a collaborative effort between The McMahon Group, Club Benchmarking and Kopplin, Kuelber and Wallace. Their mission is to aggregate the best practices they’ve seen from the hundreds of clubs that they work with and then help clubs take advantage of the knowledge they have gleaned. What better guest could we have for an episode on change management and managing shifting club demographics and dynamics?

Episode Notes

• 4:29 - John talks about taking over a club that was experiencing financial distress early in his career.
• 9:03 - John talks about how he approached relationships with the board.
• 11:18 - John talks about how the "Flywheel Approach" started to help grow the club with the right members.
• 13:00 - John shares his most challenging initiative and how he handled it.
• 15:47 - Building trust again is difficulty. John talks about how he approached it while at Carmel CC.
• 22:02 - Member unrest led to some tense times in his leadership and John talks about how he handled a group of members who opposed the club's direction.
• 26:29 - In 2016 the member demographics began to change at Carmel and he talks about how he handled the influx of younger members with the established legacy members.
• 30:31 - Words of wisdom from John on how to handle bridging the generation gap between members.

Episode Transcript

Ed Heil [00:00:01] You are listening to Crush and Club Marketing, a podcast for progressive club leaders ready to increase their club's revenue. Time for change begins right now.

John Schultz, CEO of the Club Leadership Alliance, has been around the block. Prior to his current role, he was the GM for over 20 years at Carmel Country Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, taking over a club with financial challenges. He put his flywheel emotion and turned the club around with more than $60 million in capital improvements in two decades. In this episode, John Schultz shares his stories of change management, navigating, shifting club demographics, member assessments and of course, member conflict.

Balancing the evolving needs and goals of private clubs, including the shifting demographics of new, younger members with long standing members, town halls, conflict and debate that goes with assessments and day to day communication challenges that frankly, just go hand in hand with running or leading any business, including clubs, are endless, all you club leaders know. Our guest in this episode, John Schultz, has been there and done that. He built his career at Carmel Country Club with more than 20 years of service, after doing nine years of military service, which I'm sure there were some days in the Marines that might have been easier than his days as a GM, but that's probably another story for another podcast. Needless to say, when you stay in one place for over two decades, you do a lot of things right, and you also had to deal with a lot of change. Today, Schultz is the CEO of the Club Leadership Alliance, and it is a collaborative effort between The McMahon Group, Club Benchmarking and Kaplan, Keebler, and Wallace. Their mission is to aggregate the best practices they've seen from the hundreds of clubs that they work with, and then help clubs take advantage of the knowledge they have gleaned. What better guest could we have for an episode on change management and managing shifting club demographics and dynamics? Thanks so much for joining me today. 

 

John Schultz [00:02:13] Glad to be here. Appreciate being invited. 

 

Ed Heil [00:02:15] Well, this i