Business lessons from golf caddies sounds hard to believe. Popularly seen as roguish, itinerant, irresponsible journeymen the golf caddie doesn’t come naturally to mind as a font of business acumen. Until you’ve seen both sides of the coin, that is.
Through my career I’ve sold everything from outsourcing to debt collection, and from mainframes to milking machines. I’ve managed big teams and been a solopreneur. I’ve pumped gas, driven cabs and caught cans in food factories. After all those experiences I learned even more business lessons about selling, customer service and the facts of life on the golf course – as a caddie.
Any golf caddie knows more about being a business owner than most entrepreneurs and managers I’ve known.
Here’s a few of those business lessons.
Constrained by resources.
Every caddie I ever met only had two shoulders, two legs and 24 hours in the day. It doesn’t matter how much s/he wants to grow there are limits – the resources available – so we’d better make the most of them.
There is always more in the deal
When the Caddie Master says “you’re up” the bag fee is as good as in your pocket. Now we’re working for the tip. A $50 bag fee looks a lot better with a $20 tip on top. That’s 40% more revenue and worth working for. But it has to be earned.
The customer is always right.
Caddies are guides, companions, educators – sometimes just colleagues, and unfortunately at other times servants. Ultimately they don’t dictate what the customer perceives as value. They just have to discover it, then deliver it. Usually they have only the length of the 1st fairway to do that.
There’s always another customer.
If this bag doesn’t work out in our favour the next one will. Lets make sure we get round without the customer complaining to the Caddie Master. Caddies are really good at swallowing their pride.
Ultimately it’s about delivery.
Caddies don’t get paid on the 1st tee. They get paid in the car park, when they’ve counted and cleaned the clubs and stored the bag in the trunk. It’s about delivery.
And finally there’s the caddies prayer:
Please Lord let the bag be light
Let the tip be heavy and
The idiot put the ball where I tell him.
Watch this space for more caddie tales.
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