Clubs Made Meaningful

Every club has a handful of spaces and traditions that carry more weight than everything else on the property. Almost none of them have decided if that weight deserves its own name. Join Derek and Tucker as they get into the discipline of building brand sub identities inside a club, from a grill room that becomes its own culture to a golf course that finally needs an identity of its own. They cover the test for knowing when an ...

Every missed event, every confused member, every call that should have been a click. That is the gap between what a club intends and what members actually experience. 

Join Derek with Jason Lisi, founder and president of ClubLISI, who has spent more than two decades building websites and communications systems exclusively for private clubs. Jason is also a longtime club member himself, which means he feels the friction he is t...

Most club events are planned from the front end. Pick a date, book the entertainment, set the menu, and hope the feeling takes care of itself. Denny Corby works in the opposite direction.

Join Derek with Denny Corby, entertainer, magician, and host of Private Club Radio, who has performed at hundreds of private clubs across the country. Before Denny does anything, he asks one question: what should people feel when they leave? Every...

Clubs have something almost every other brand would want: an audience that already said yes. That advantage can quietly turn into a liability the moment it becomes a reason to stop asking whether a message is worth sending.

Join Derek with Crosby Renwick, who spent 30 years in advertising sending messages that had to earn attention, and now sits on the board of Marrakesh Country Club.

The clubs winning on communication aren't the o...

Architecture and brand are not two separate projects — they're two answers to the same question. 

Derek and Howard are both designers working in different mediums, and when they compare notes, the process turns out to be nearly identical. Both start with listening, both are doing discovery, and both are chasing the same result: how a member feels when the work is done. 

The conversation covers where architecture and...

Nobody in this industry sees more clubs at once than a CMAA Chapter Director.

Join Derek with Kate Scott, managing director of the Carolinas Chapter of the CMAA, one of the largest and fastest growing chapters in the country. Her job puts her in the room with club leaders across the Carolinas constantly, which means she doesn't just see trends. She sees them forming.

Right now that story includes a labor market that isn't letting u...

Most clubs think they have a strategy towards the future when what they usually have is a list of tactics to deal with the now.

Join Derek with Avi Olitzky, president and principal consultant at Olitzky Consulting Group, who has spent his career helping membership organizations understand and close that gap. Avi came to this work not through club management but through years of leading congregations and advising nonprofits, and tha...

Half of all clubs have a waitlist right now, and the difference between the ones that do and the ones that don’t usually has nothing to do with the golf course.

Join Derek with Ed Heil, founder of StoryTeller Club Marketing, who has spent two decades helping clubs figure out why their story isn’t landing the way they think it is. 

Ed walks through what that disconnect actually costs a club, from the 18 month window...

Satisfaction tells you whether someone enjoyed their last meal. It doesn't tell you whether they feel like they belong. April Seifert of Sprocket CX on what clubs aren't measuring, and why the most important question isn't how members feel about the food.

Most clubs survey their members annually. The...

A milestone is only as meaningful as the intention behind it. A logo on a napkin and a one-night gala check a box. What Casey Newman did at Lakeside Country Club for their 75th anniversary was something different entirely.

Join Derek with Casey Newman, General Manager and ...

A new website won't save you. Neither will a new logo, a pickleball court, or a redesigned menu if you haven't defined the problem you're trying to solve. Are you mistaking a solution for a diagnosis?

Whether you're a GM navigating a board pushing for quick fixes, a club l...

Member satisfaction scores look solid. But when the survey asks about value, the numbers soften. Most boards reach for pricing adjustments or reworking their messaging, but what do you do when that shows no results?  Join Derek Sussner and Aaron Dawson, founder of Viewpoint EQ and a club leader with more than 30 years in the industry, as they unpack why that gap between satisfaction and value has almost nothing to do with cos...

A new general manager inherits more than a title. They inherit a culture, a team, a membership — and a window of clarity that closes faster than most people realize. Join Derek with Luke Burbach, the new general manager at The Club at Golden Valley. This conversation is an on-the-ground look at what principled leadership looks like in motion: how to build structured listening into the calendar before acting, how to find quick...

Most clubs describe themselves the same way. Great amenities. Welcoming culture. Excellent service. And most of the time, the club down the street says the exact same thing.

Join Derek and Tucker as they dig into one of the most persistent and underexamined challenges ...

A membership director's job isn't just filling seats. It's curating the first year of someone's belonging—one introduction at a time.

Join Derek and Tucker as they sit down with Melissa Hanson, Director of Marketing and Membership at The Club at Old Cypress in Naples, Florida. With 15 years of experience living the brand daily, Melissa reveals what it really takes to transform prospects into advocates, new members into ambass...

A new general manager doesn't just inherit operations, they inherit a once-in-a-decade opportunity to see what everyone else has stopped noticing.

Join Derek and Tucker as they explore why the first 90 days of a GM's tenure matter more than most boards realize—and wh...

Training isn’t just about teaching tasks—it’s how culture becomes real.

Join Derek and Tucker as they sit down with James Cronk, co-founder of Guru Collective and creator of Golf Industry Guru, to explore what private clubs can learn from the public golf world about building engaged, accountable teams. James shares why public facilities have been forced to master service and culture in order to survive—and h...

"We've always done it this way" might be the seven words of a dying organization—unless what you've always done actually means something.

Join Derek and Tucker as they untangle one of the most contentious challenges facing private clubs: knowing the difference betwee...

Join Derek and Tucker as they sit down with Sean Bleyl, Client Development Executive at MembersFirst, to explore how private clubs can transform their digital presence into something truly meaningful. Sean shares real stories from the field to reveal how the best clubs are planning their digital communications strategy years in advance, treating it as essential as any clubhouse renovation.

Whether you're a general manager navigatin...