Noob School - The Playbook Behind Golf Trek’s Success with Parker Smith

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

In this episode of Noob School, we’re joined by Parker Smith, president of Golf Trek, a premier provider of Myrtle Beach golf vacations and packages. Since taking the helm in 2006, Parker has played a key role in shaping the company’s growth and establishing its reputation for exceptional service in the competitive golf tourism market.Parker talks about his journey into the family business and the sales strategies that have been crucial in expanding Golf Trek’s reach. From building long-term customer relationships to understanding the value of personalized service, Parker shares how his approach to sales has kept Golf Trek at the forefront of the industry. He also delves into how Golf Trek is embracing new technologies like artificial intelligence to enhance their sales process, improve customer experiences, and streamline operations.In this conversation, we also explore the power of customer loyalty in sales. Parker explains how providing excellent service and going above and beyond for clients has been key to Golf Trek’s success and growth. Whether it’s through tailored golf packages or expert advice, Parker emphasizes how a strong customer service philosophy can drive sales and foster long-term relationships.If you’re looking for actionable insights on sales strategy, customer loyalty, and leveraging technology to drive business growth, this episode is packed with practical takeaways from a seasoned entrepreneur in the tourism industry.Get your sales in rhythm with The Sterling Method: https://SterlingSales.coI'm going to be sharing my secrets on all my social channels, but if you want them all at your fingertips, start with my book, Sales for Noobs: https://amzn.to/3tiaxsLSubscribe to our newsletter today: https://bit.ly/3Ned5kL#SalesTraining #B2BSales #SalesExcellence #SalesStrategy #BusinessGrowth #SalesLeadership #SalesSuccess #SalesCoaching #SalesSkills #SalesInnovation #SalesTips #SalesPerformance #SalesTransformation #SalesTeamDevelopment #SalesMotivation #SalesEnablement #SalesGoals #SalesExpertise #SalesInsights #SalesTrends

All right, welcome back to Noob School. Episode 137. Nine. 139. Episode 139. I skipped a few episodes. I've got a really good friend going back, I think, 20-something? Yeah.

20-something? 1995. Yeah. This is our 25th. It's our so far anniversary. There we go. So I met Parker 25 years ago, and he was, I think you just graduated from Furman? Or you were graduating?

Yeah, I just graduated May of 1999. Okay. And you became one of our all-time best salespeople at a very young age. And, yeah, that's kind of what we're here to talk about, that story. But how did you hear us, how did you know to even contact us when you were at Furman? It's actually an interesting story. so I had no idea what I wanted to do. Four years graduating, put the resume out on the Furman Web, I guess, and beautiful spring day, you know, when finally warms up.

It was a tradition that we moved all the couches out of the house and put them in the grass and drink some cold beverages on a Friday afternoon. And so I was in a fraternity and pledge answers the phone, pledge so-and-so. And it was John Byron. And he's like, is Parker there. And so he runs out of the house. And so I come in, I have no idea. This is the fact we had the phones on the wall and all that. Remember that?

And so we were pretty deep into the afternoon. No, I don't have a job. Not sure. So you come talk to me. And so I did and obviously come and love Greenville, stayed and didn't know I wanted to do sales. I had done some interviewing for financial services. I'm just not a detailed person. And so that didn't really fit very well.

So, you know, things happened for a reason. Yeah. And so, yeah, right. Graduated May, I guess, of 99 and straight to work. Wow. There you have it. So things happened for a reason and hadn't thought of. sales. I think a little bit of background at Furman and some internships if I had, I had a little bit of

experience with database and a little bit of technology, which probably caught J.B.'s eye. And so, yeah, it was glad it happened and hard to believe it's 25 years later. It's crazy. But you've done a lot in 25 years. I feel good about that. So J.B. saw your resume. You put it out there on the Furman site, and he was just, checking the sign. Yeah, as a Furman alum, he was just looking and came in and getting kids right out of school. And I didn't even know. I like technology. Yeah. You know, what do you know when you're 21 years old? Right. Just been through education. So, but it's turned out I continue to like and play in that for my own, you know, so it's that background and that start and some of the

the same things that I was taught through you and through data stream still apply. Right. And I'm still dangerous. I can't actually do anything on a computer other than know what it all does and get the right people to do the hard part and the actual coding and all that work. Right. Let's back up just a little bit. Don't, from your accident, it doesn't sound like you're from around here. No. Actually, I guess no one really knows where I am from anymore because I've been, you know, the first 18 years, my father was in the Air Force. So I grew up in Massachusetts, but they were both from North Carolina. And so they encouraged to look at Southern schools. My dad was NC State, and they're just North Carolina through and through.

And so we did a college tour and a bunch of kind of similar schools to Furman, but that just kind of felt right. And again, things happened for a reason, so it worked out. So I had 18 years in Massachusetts. And other than I did probably four or five years at Datastream in as Inside Sales, and then got promoted and did outside sales and moved up to Boston for a couple years with my now 20 years wife from Myrtle Beach and we enjoyed it as one winter. But after that, you know, where you're shoveling out your car and this, that and the other,

it's three degrees out. We decided we had enough of Boston and came back to South Carolina. So really, say, 20 years in Massachusetts and 28. More here. Yeah. In South Carolina. So I wouldn't even even, no family there, no connections there. Just my dad was in the Air Force.

You're just there for a little while. That's why. So you came to data stream out of school. You did four or five years and inside sales. And your territory at the time, was it Massachusetts? Was it Boston? No, it was kind of jumped all around because back then it was by, area code and there was she kind of roughed around and then someone left and I got New York City.

I had New York City in 9-11. Wow. Which was interesting. You know, so difficult and customers that were in the middle of that, like the fire department of New York and others, all those buildings. Didn't we go up there together to see the, I met the fire chief up there one time. Yeah, we. Maybe you just sent me up there.

Yeah, I don't think I was with you. I'm separate. they were a good customer, but just that whole kind of an awkward to be in sales. And I can't, I can't try to sell anything. But New Yorkers were very resilient. Yeah. Back to business pretty quick. But yeah, I'll always remember that.

You know, everyone has their story and that's what we're not here to talk about. But all the phones were fast busy on a Tuesday morning and September, whatever it was. Like, what in the world's going on? I can't even get through to anybody. Jeez. Yeah. But yeah, it was, so I had various territories and, you know, I enjoyed the inside sales, but I think you sensed it and others probably sensed it.

I was kind of bored after a while. I got this, but this is, what's the next challenge? What's the next thing? And so you were nice enough. You paid for me to go to Dale Carnegie training and some other stuff to kind of. I think I was by that time, like 24. And I think most of the outside salespeople were 44, 54. So it was, and it wasn't a thing for whatever reason to go have a path.

So I think I, I guess was thank you for the opportunity to, whatever was, it's like, oh, these are just two parallel things. They can't, one can't go to the other. So I guess I, I think I proved that wrong. Maybe you started the trip because eventually that became a path. Yeah. But with you, since you were so much younger, I think we gave you that extra training just to kind of catch you up on that kind of stuff. But we knew your work ethic and your ability to understand more complex things is what allowed you to sell bigger.

Yeah, and I think what I was at this was the relationship that I could establish with prospective customers because I had that inside sales and that phone rapport from years of doing that. So like being together in person, like, this part's, but I didn't have that, you know, presentation, PowerPoints, public speaking thing. And so I try to set myself up to not play to your strengths, right? You know, and inevitably when, you know, got more comfortable with that, just like anything, you grow and learn and with experience, you get better at it. So when you went outside, you and Meredith moved up to Boston, I suppose. Boston? Yep. Yeah.

Yeah. What was that like? It was great. you know, right down town is actually parallel with the move up there. So it was 2004, the first year the Red Sox won the World Series. So we were there that year and the whole city was like on fire because it was 80 whatever years since that. But good traveling around and, you know, I had familiar, commonplace with the people being I had grown up there.

Nice to be in the, you know, in the city and all that. You know, a lot of driving around to different. But eventually somehow I got into these bigger organizations and through these, and I ended up flying around to a bunch of places. I don't know why, just for different plants or different locations. So there was a good bit of travel, but certainly we both look back fondly on it. In fact, we were looking, you know, now showing our kids. And, you know, we lived right near the Bunker Hill monument from, you know, Revolutionary War and showing our kids and all that. So we're reminiscing with that, but it's certainly a different place.

And nothing against Boston and love it or grow up, but I much prefer South Carolina. It's cold, yeah. Yeah. Well, so when you went as a 25-year-old, let's say, and you went to visit some Fortune 500 executive, what was that like coming from, you know, the headset, inside sales world? You know, I guess I've always been easy to talk to people. So they're just like me, maybe more experience. And I don't know if there's any prejudice against then.

Or what does this kid know or not know? If you know your stuff, you know your stuff. Yeah. That's it. I agree with that. You know, so. I agree with that. And if I didn't know it, at least I acted like I know it.

So as long as I know more than them, I guess that's all that matters, right? Yeah. And you, you know, we should know more than the customers because we're calling on these people about our application every day. We should know more. And then it's probably getting them to trust. and one of the things that the thing you do really well is we had an exercise of ROI calculators and go through this so let's not look at this one by one let's peel back the layers of the onion and okay if you don't agree with me let's let's figure it out and like what do you agree to

but at the same token you're getting their buy-end by going through the exercise together and so then you got it so you thanks thanks to your couch outside and your pledge you didn't answer the phone which doesn't always happen. Yeah, right. You know, you got the job. You did very well inside. You got an early promotion to outside sales. We moved you.

And you did well there. But then you had an opportunity to buy a golf track, right? Which wants you explain what it is. Yeah, so we are essentially a golf concierge, coordination of adult men spring break, putting together golf rounds of golf, lodging and everything that goes into a package. And so it was, but really that technology and that background is golf still in the Stone Ages technology-wise.

My understanding of what technology could do enabled me to see what it could be and not what it was currently. So we're talking about a system that was folders and highlighters and red pens and purple pens and my, I couldn't wrap my mind around that. But, you know, and I didn't, I didn't grow up playing a ton of golf. And I just, you know, wanted to be, you know, part of that was I was on the road a lot and, you know, then married and not, hey, the draw not to be on the road. And in, particularly South Carolina on the coast is all tourism base. There's not a lot of industry and whatnot.

So it was, it was an opportunity. And it was, I think it was 2006. And so we had a good year and then... So you left in 2006? I think so. Huh. So 1999 to 2007 years. Yeah.

That makes sense. That makes sense because we sold the business in 2006. Well, and that's part of it. I kind of knew that was happening. Nobody knew. Yeah. And I remember I called and I was living in Mount Pleasant because when we moved back, somehow I convinced you.

I did a good sales job on you and say, I don't want to, I'm moving back, but not to Greenville, but to Mount Pleasant. And so we lived at Mount Pleasant. And I had, I think, territory all over or whatnot. But I called you and I said, John, I need to come see you. And you're kind of like, okay. I kind of know you probably gotten that call before, knowing I'm three and a half hours down the road or whatever. And so I drove from Mount Pleasant to here, chat with you. You're super gracious.

You knew it was happening. I think one of the most salient moment on kind of encouraging me to, or my thought, I never thought I had of my own business. I didn't know anything about anything graduating is. So I started June 99, and I think that was, you know, back, that was eye procure and cars parked up all in the grass and crazy. And then the real world hit and the dot com became the dot bomb. And I remember, like, Friday of Fourth of July weekend, probably one of the most things you remember, probably most vividly about that, I think half the company had to. Yeah. It was awful.

Yeah. And I was kind of, and I had done well at sales. And so, like, I mean, there were boxes and, you know, the, that was tough, but you got to run a business. So those left have a job. So it was just the run up that. So many tech companies were like that then. But that was like, man, maybe I should. I'd like to do my own thing.

And I grew up doing my own thing as my parents were very supportive of like even, Daystream was the only job like I had. Okay. Growing up, I started my own lawn mowing business and I pushed the lawn mower around the neighborhood. You've had one job basically. Yeah, I've had one job, which is probably unique. And so I had that and, you know, my folks were.

supportive of, hey, yeah, we'll enable you to do all this. And so it was in making that decision, just like most people starting business, what do you do? You take a second mortgage on your house and get about 10 credit cards and run those up and start your own business. So in the first, to 2006 to, I guess it was 2008 when it really, the economy really changed. But that was a way, you know, that was a wake-up call. I mean, I guess getting old 25 years, those are these Black Swan events. Yeah.

And that was one of, I mean, 9-11, I guess was probably one. COVID-COVIDs one. So then three in my career so far, knock on with it. So not more, but, you know, and so coming out or reacting to those and how that is a big part of it. And I would say just speaking,

like probably more recent years. And I even look back, was COVID three years, four years ago now? I think it was 20. So one thing that really helped jump golf track ahead further is I have, you know, 50 or 80 competitors all in Myrtle Beach.

And I don't know how I just thought it was the right thing to do. When COVID happened and the whole place shut down, we refunded everybody. Less, say, a 3% credit card processing fee. but I don't know how. Like back with anti-fraud, I had to go sign my life away to give money back.

Like the credit card companies for anti-fra, I wouldn't even let you give him back. So the outflow of money was just insane. Most people were doing a credit or something. It's all credit card. I mean, most people were saying, we can't do the golf nuggets of a company. Give me my money back.

But you have a credit for three years from now. Or it's gone. It's just gone. Sorry. It's a act of God. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

force majeure you know so um my competitors didn't and so um this i don't even i don't know like we're all just reminiscing and how did we do that it was like 12 weeks of just every day i just go refund refund refund and our sale like you know because we're working together we go look at the sales go look at the sales like i went back and looked at our sales like you know and now it's like whatever it is, easy six or seven figures a month. But our sales were like $600. I was like, who is the dumb guy who bought a golf package? Right.

We need to go back. Yeah. So it was crazy. But like you just, I guess, you know, do the right thing in your mind. So all those people that booked with my competition that didn't get their money back or weren't handled properly, I think. you know, we were the beneficiary of that when they were looking for somebody else down the road.

Yeah. So, but I'd be kidding you if I said I was smart enough to think all that was going to happen. You just thought that you were doing the right thing. Yeah. And I think if you do do the right thing and hopefully that still holds some weight with some people these days.

Yeah. Well, you have built it up. As I recall, when you bought the company, it was relatively small, maybe a couple of salespeople. Yep. It was about $750,000 gross revenue. Yeah.

Now you've got 20 salespeople. Yeah. I don't know what your gross revenue is, but you booked over a million rounds of golf last year? No, we booked, yeah, $300,000. 300,000 rounds. One of our advertising is only taglines over a million rounds booked, which we should update, because that was years and years ago that we'd done a million rounds about it. But, I mean, so it's $300,000.

A year, yeah. So we could change that to... We could change it to $5 million rounds of golf. Or we could change it to, like, like 10, 3, 9 million holes of golf. Easily, yeah, yeah, for sure. You could do it based on the hole. Or how many shots?

We figure everyone shoots in 85. Yeah, right. How many swings of golf? We once do the thing on how many combinations of golf there is to be because you got 80 golf courses, 18 holes, and how many places to stay, how many different combinations there are as a marketing thing to try to get interest.

So now we're basically a sales and marketing organization. Yeah. Yeah. People call you, they want to book a golf trip to Myrtle Beach with a group or 12 or 24 or whatever they want, and your team puts together a package. You want to stay on the beach front, you know, what part of the beach you want to stay on, what courses you want to play, transportation, whatever they want. Yep, you got it. Yeah. So it's, Myrtle Beach kind of originated the idea of a golf destination. and now everybody and their brother has, you know, a couple of golf courses in a hotel makes a golf destination. So we have a lot more competition about where people can go and what the options are.

But we feel like we, I mean, South Carolina in general for golf is, you got Florida, South Carolina, and Arizona. Yeah. The three biggest golf destinations in the country. And you've got how many courses in Myrtle Beach? We've got about 80, down from 120. Back in the heyday, there was one new course. a year opening, but kind of got overbuilt, and now Myrtle Beach is one of the fastest growing

area in the country. Owners of those courses could take a big check, and they're passing it down to their next generation. They don't want to run a business. They would rather just take a big check, and now, so they're building a lot of, so it went from 120 down to about 80, which is probably about the right supply and demand naturally supplies it, because it was overbuilt. So a lot of them are getting.

getting turned into housing? Yeah, probably is 10 years old now, but there was some attrition because people could take a big check and just not have to do anything. And then so the housing and the building was pretty nuts down there. So over 27, like it's been,

has it been 15 years since you bought it, right? 19. 19. So over that time, you built it up from a very modest small company to 20 salespeople, a lot larger, the largest player in Myrtle Beach easily.

And you're putting a runway left. We do, yeah. More people. Yeah, so we do about 40% of the golf there. So that means 60% is done by somebody else. Okay. So I feel like we can. And I'd always thought, you know,

I'll get Myrtle Beach and then I can go to other destinations. But like, you know, our growth rate has been happy with it. it not sufficient to try to go figure another destination out. You know, I thought at some point we'd be saturated, but, and really the technology that we use makes us super efficient so that we can do it better, faster, cheaper than the next guy. So that's enabled us to scale. Right.

So I look your sales team is doing real well. Yeah, we've got a good sales trainer lately. Yeah, thank you. I've been lucky enough to look in there and see what's going on. But what do you think that? biggest opportunities are for the sales team to improve on for next year. Being that, being the guy, you know, I think everything can be commoditized, but differentiating ourselves based on that rapport, the knowledge, the customer service, doing

doing what no one else is doing, the little things. And, you know, responsiveness, but generally when all this is equal, people buy from people they like. Right. And all our team is all in Myrtle Beach. They're all into it. They're golf a fictionalite. So they're living it.

And so you're, you know, I have to remind her. And I say it a lot of times, we're talking about golf here. We're not talking about selling medicals, you know, nothing against that, all that stuff. But this is fun. Right. So it's good. It should be, yeah, you should be excited. And this is, you know, people love golf.

I mean, this is, you know, fun. Yeah. Keep that in mind. And we're not, you know, fortunately, or I mean, there's all different sorts of things out there, but we're in the fun business. Yeah, the fun business is exactly right. And it should be such a fun conversation. A lot of people, this is their best week of their year. Yeah.

I'm away with my buddies. You know, I don't have, you know, no strings attached. And, you know, I can let loose and have fun and reminisce and pretend like you're 18 again if you want to and just have some fun. Right. You know, those friendships go a long way and lifelong memories. Yeah. We have a group that's been coming to Myrtle Beach and spans three generations, 50 years. Wow.

What else can you do that you could have a 12-year-old have something in common with an 80-something-year-old? Yeah. So, yeah, it just brings everyone together. Yeah. So it's pretty cool. I've been watching Charlie, Tiger Woods' son. He looks tough. Yeah.

He's a player. Yeah. I mean, it moves the needle, too, on the big tournament this weekend. You've got to look at Tiger as a dad to have a son to play. That gets him excited. So for someone like that to get him. So what is this, a father's son? Yeah, this weekend in Orlando.

And Tiger has hardly played anything. But he's like, I'm playing with that because it's son. And I would imagine it's pretty hard to choose for Charlie to fill the best golfer of all time. But, you know, to have that drive and passion, it seems, you know, because you could say a lot of other folks wouldn't have that. So it's probably character trait probably passed down from Tiger. I guess so. I hope so. It very rarely happens, but it would be nice if it does.

Well, one account I would like to talk about backing up just a little bit with the data stream time you had. was you somehow, you know, at a very young age, got a hold of a great grocery store up in the Northeast called Wegmans. And when you told me about it, I didn't know what Wegmans was. I didn't either. You didn't know either. But I mean, it's kind of like a Whole Foods, kind of, a Whole Foods, but it's just in the Northeast, very special.

Yeah, I guess it's moved down this way. But, yeah, it was so different, and it was, I think, still unique to Whole Foods. I wouldn't compare it. I mean, I hadn't been in a Wegman's. since, you know, forever. But they, you know, kind of pioneered to come eat at the grocery store. They had a restaurant in the grocery store. They had so large that, you know, they had brick oven pizza.

They had sushi. They had just out of this world. Yeah. And it was all just, you know, in our, I don't know why I remember, Onyx, our CRM, just calling these numbers and doing, being a good doby and trying to just establish that relationship. and, you know, from a person that wasn't really senior in the organization, but, you know, it was a nice family-run company that they were very tight-knit, just through that relationship, kind of grew it.

And I remember so, oh, such and such has been trying to sell something to that company forever. And so either I was just lucky and the timing was right or, you know, the stars aligned. But, yeah, there was some pretty neat stuff. I still remember going and I'm sure it's gotten a lot more sophisticated now but their warehouses they had cold, damn cold and GD colds

and that was like 30 or like 40 like 10 degrees and negative like so guys are out there and like suits and full covered like seeing how it auto picked and put it on like so it was some really neat stuff so they took me around to the

maybe I just showed genuine interest they took me around all these things and showed me what what they were doing and and uh yeah that turned out to be uh one of the one of the bigger bigger deals and i know they've expanded to be successful but um yeah it was uh definitely pretty interesting to see the different businesses and how they do things as a 20-something year old kid yeah i mean not even not even thinking about how things happen you're like oh this is so it's exposure to a lot of different businesses yeah yeah so you sold saar software that helped them maintain all their equipment

in all these stores? Stores and their distribution centers and warehouses and trucks. Yeah, it's pretty big. I want to say they maybe had 60 or 80 grocery stores. I'm sure they probably continued to grow. But yeah, it was mostly,

yeah, Rochester, New York's a great place to go in the winter. Yeah. And it was it Tony? Tony Pisa. Yeah, he was our content. Yeah, yeah. And he kind of hadn't,

I think he's left there and does his own thing now. But yeah, The interesting part about the family business is there was a lot of employees that started as like stock boys at age and adolescents that work for that company in their entire life. So that's pretty cool. That is cool. So in your business now is what effect is AI having on it, like ChatGPT or any of those things? It's funny. You should say that.

It's not there yet, I don't think. I'm super interested in it. But even as recently in the past week, I had a couple of Georgia Tech AI PhDs fly in to talk about what we could do in golf. They've had some successful ventures and or golfers themselves. So I've got some cool ideas that I literally want to roll out in the next couple weeks to test. I'm not afraid to just put it out there and see if things. work. But to me, to be natural, like I think, let's see what your thoughts are. We all text. So I've got it set up where you can text for a tea time. If you just don't want to talk to

somebody or we're multitasking. I can set up a tea time right now with the AI while we're still talking. It can know my cell phone number. And hey, John, welcome back. You still want to play. So I think text is the medium by which is already accepted. Yeah. And it's easier for it to interpret and respond. Yeah. So I'd like to get some stuff going pretty soon and start it. Like there's so much low-hanging fruit because golf is really archaic.

I mean, there's still some old school golf courses of paper tea sheet with a pencil and the erasure. So we've used technology to. aggregate and make things easier. And I think it may work out to golf's advantage because they're so archaic to embrace AI and skip generations of what others have done. You know, one of the things we did during COVID is I have developers and a staff and had recently taken the family to Disney World. And we had to, you know, with two girls, we had to go meet the princess.

And so the app told us it's 15 minutes and go this way and that way. and the app. So COVID hit later. And so I just said, all right, developer, we're doing an app. And so we took from, I remember it was March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, we all shut down because I opened a restaurant on March 15th, which was great. If you open a restaurant two days before and you go to takeout only on day two, yeah. So I'm good with restaurants.

So proved the concept. But yeah, so March 17th shut down. We had development staff. So we worked hard on an app. And by I think it was July or August, we had an app out of Myrtle Beach Golf app. So now we got 65,000 people on it where you can book tea times and trips. And it's our delivery mechanism for the trips. So I guess I'd say that's successful.

And it's a customer service mechanism. So instead of getting emails, and I'm sure you get as many emails that I do, and I just can't keep up with it all. But here's my trip. You know, and so that's worked really well and shifted to get us on people's phone. And so I think AI is the next step. Well, we don't even need that. Yeah. You know, so it'll be fun to see how it all interacts.

And I know it's been, everyone says everything's AI, and, you know, that's the buzzword. But I don't know. Do you know of any examples where it's success? and proven in business? Yeah, I do. I mean, certainly for people who need to write speeches or write articles or books or, you know, really helps get that first draft out there quickly.

And then for chatbots, for customer service, works great. And I think for booking something smaller, not really what your sales guys are doing, but I want to do a short weekend with four people, you know. And then with the option to kick out to a real person, I think those things work. Yeah.

Well, we use it. We've used it for a couple years now for like all our content marketing, content writing. It can, what I call, hallucinate and lose its mind and you've just got to have humans verify the accuracy. But, I mean, a marketing writer, I mean, that job's gone. Gone. Yeah, which is, I guess your business has got to be efficient, better, faster. So you used it in that respect. And I could see a chat bot. And I'd like to, you know, so the first test would be for more finite, people, hey, I want to play golf this Friday.

Like very transactional, which is what we're trying to opposite of doing and selling golf packages, to be, you know, a relationship-driven, experiential-driven sale. But there is still some of that transactional stuff that I think we could get a short win. And maybe if you're playing with a lead with that, then we can do more other stuff. I see how it could potentially. I think it's the consumer acceptance. Are you okay communicating? Are you accepting that I'm not trying to be a person?

and I'm not trying to fake you out. I think at some point people will be rather do, because it's smarter, the AI smarter, better, faster, it's kind of a market acceptance of that kind of technology. You're right. I think it starts small, right? And then as time goes on, it'll get bigger and bigger. But one of the advantages you can do it right now, right?

We're both impatient. So immediately we can start the process versus left a message, call me, all that stuff, you know? Yeah, I'm gone. But then that's why I think if we could in our sales process moving forward to better qualify me as a potential customer, I would like that. Hey, I'm getting the instant answers I want. And then if you need to, you know, get it to a salesperson. But if that takes the, you know, say out of 100 leads, it prequalifies down and you got 20 that are better prospects.

I mean, I don't need a sales force to support the 100 leads. I could do equal sales with a lot less. You'd have your guy on the bigger release. Yeah. I agree. I think that could definitely, you know, I think as a potential customer, I would love the instantaneous results of typing. And I wouldn't mind if you kept reminding me,

if you want to kick out to a real person to put together the package and give you the specials and, you know, whatever it is, I think you got the right idea. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it would be really fun to see it's transformational how companies embrace and utilize it. You know, it's funny you mentioned, and you mentioned Marty earlier. Yeah.

He always would say, so what? So what? You know, you talk about all this fancy stuff. So what? What happens? Like really tell me, what does that mean? Yeah. How does that help?

Yeah. So I think that's where we are right now is kind of in the so what face. Yeah. You're right. But again, I think it's starting down here and it's going to, it'll move up. Yeah. So let me ask you this. Can you talk about your new development?

Sure. Up in North Myrtle? Is it North Merd? Yeah, you know, you've been there recently black. I went to see Parker and I went to the wrong place, which is like an hour away. Yeah. It was good. So, yeah, so Sunset Beach, North Carolina.

Sunset Beach. Just over the North Carolina border. So it's about 45 minutes from the center of Myrtle Beach, which is part of the general grand strand area is kind of a hidden gem of a place that um of a vacation rental company i've been there since uh 2018 uh managing vacation rentals there we got about a hundred rentals and it was purchased by it went golf was tough for a long time yeah so and uh courses were herding closing and uh a chinese businessman bought it sight unseen back in 2008 and just proceeded to do nothing with it And so I was in their ear for three or four years.

Hey, if you ever this, you're ever this, let me know. And so that finally came to fruition November of 2023. We closed on it. It was an interesting process for me. We had to deal with a town and zoning. So we got a hotel approved, all this legalese and stuff that not my bailiwick. But got that three. got that approved and there was uh i was the you know i guess i wouldn't say i'm in sales now

but i was i guess now looking back even a year ago in sales trying to find investors and so i was the little dog and pony show for for a number of different potential you know big golf businesses private you know um wealthy individuals and and so we were uh fortunate enough to find a good investor out of the D.C. area. And so we closed last November. And it's been an interesting year, kind of a crazy year. You're talking about not just one golf course, John, three. With a 40,000 square foot convention center and a 20,000 square foot clubhouse and another

15,000 square foot clubhouse. So in the span of a year, we have renovated the convention center and having all sorts of events and stuff. multiple times a week now. We closed one of the golf courses in May and reopened it in the middle of October and the same time we've renovated a clubhouse

which you saw briefly, which you saw briefly unintended. And we have an amenity center we've renovated. So 15 years of kind of neglect, it's kind of instead of flip this house we're like flip this golf course Whereas we want to build it up, you know, reputational. You can't just snap your fingers and get people to come back. So we're building bridges and feel like next year is going to be the baseline come out year.

But, yeah, learn a lot about, I've been in the golf business for 20 years, but just selling it. But behind the scenes and underground, there's a lot of stuff that happens at a golf course that can be real expensive. You don't even see it. Right. you know, to the tune of, you know, lots of little surprises. Yeah. So it's been good, but it's fun to see the changes happen. I mean, we now own logging equipment.

So if you need a couple thousand trees taken down, we've got all this. So, yeah, we took, you know, just totally re-engineered a golf course and brought it back. And, you know, fortunately, golf is strong. So many people are moving to the area. Yeah. We feel like we got a lot of things going. And so that should be a lot of fun. and next year will be all the hard work, I would say, should come together and reestablish it.

I mean, I have been down there twice now, and it's three golf courses. You're just a couple minutes from the beach. You've got the big convention center, great restaurant, clubhouse. It's, again, I think it's going to be a wonderful investment in the future. It's just going to take a while to kind of get a lot. So we got a hotel site. So if anybody's interested in building. a hotel, let me know. We hadn't gotten to that yet, but we got 150 room hotel approved,

and there's enough room for 450 additional vacation rentals on a few tracks of land. So, I mean, really, a lot of people are moving to the coast. Yeah. You know, and really COVID pushed people out of the big cities and found out that, hey, if I can work remotely, so the population is really growing, and it's a good place to be on the coast of North Carolina or South Carolina. I think you can crush it there. Well, let me ask you a couple of quick hitters.

we can get close to the finish here. What's your favorite book? Favorite book. I'm kind of all over the road. It'd be hard to say one single book, but I kind of, I don't know why, and I'm kind of a historical fiction guy, particularly on the Old West for some reason,

but I will, I kind of jump around. I like the storylines plus the history at the same time. I'm a big reader. every night just kind of a way for me to shut it down and get all this stuff going on in my head to sew down a bit. I'll read for an hour or so. I'm trying to think of what. And I read a lot. It comes and goes.

Some minutes comes and goes. But other than that historical fiction, wouldn't be a surprise. I like to read a lot about golf. John Feinstein's a fantastic writer about all sports. I'm sure even in basketball. He's a fantastic writer. Some of his books about whether it's the Gusta or the majors or whatnot. Like I just find that stuff fascinating.

So I love golf. So I guess it's, you know, what's the old saying? If you like what you do, you never work a day in your life. Yeah, yeah. You know. That's good. You done a good job with that. You know, I would even, you know, probably for you, like, I mean, I'm 48 now.

like for others like what's retirement? I'm a long way from that, but like I don't see myself ever. Maybe you slow down a little bit and you kind of enjoy life a little bit. I heard a definition that's close to what you're thinking, which is when you can do every day what you want to, you can work on what you want to work on every day. So you're lucky you like working on your business in Myrtle Beach, in the Gulf. You know, you like that.

But some people might say, I've done well enough at this thing I don't like, that now I can be a woodworker and work on the woodworking because I like that or teach kids or whatever it is. So it's what I try to teach people in my book, you know, the young people, is you know, try to find something, an ecosystem that you like and get in that ecosystem somehow. Like if you like writing music and playing your guitar, you might not be able to, McCain one day. Right.

But you can sell guitars. Sure. Or you can sell, you know, tickets or work with bands or, you know, something where you're kind of in that game. And I think you've done well there. Yeah. What about a favorite band? I guess I'm probably, I would, I guess I'm, my wife and I, we, Zach Brown, kind of

of that country rock kind of genre. Okay. Like me some South Carolina, Darius Rocker and Hootie. Yeah. You probably know those guys. But yeah, you'd think I'd have more time in the car, but unfortunately I'm always on the phone in the car. So I mean, so imagine, so I had, you know,

four and a half hour car ride and just tee it up with, like I could work as effectively in the car riding up and down the road as I can sitting in an office or whatever. So that's kind of liberating. And, man, I'm already here. Yeah. You know, so that versus. looking at it though you got a four and a half hour car ride so yeah i remember that i think that's

great it is great it is great you can be very productive or you can listen to a good podcast well let me ask you know you mentioned in some of our sales trade and have i caught you at a bad time as a for someone i don't like i had some two or three calls today where i'd never talked to a person before i'm sorry i'm in the just a i'm in the car you got my undivided attention but if you hear some road noise or whatever, just as a, I don't know if they would perceive it as rude to take a call in the car or whatnot, but like, not at all. I feel like you're just riding down the road and a good use of time. You're like, I'm focused.

Yeah, I think it's completely fine. I think you can get away with murder if you tell people up front what you're doing and you ask their permission. Yeah. And I didn't want like, hey, if you go into a bad spot and it drops or whatever, I'm kind of preconditioning like, hey, I'm not hanging up on you or whatever. but, you know, just don't ask me to look at a Zoom thing or a presentation. Like, let's just talk.

Yeah. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. What about a favorite word? Favorite word. Well, this would, let's go back in an ode to you. Absolutely. Absolutely.

That's my favorite word. That's good. That's good. Well, that's certainly the way we want our team to be thinking is that we're, you know, are you going to make your quota? Absolutely. Yeah. Well, that even goes back to one of a, someone you now know,

through our sales trading and last year about this time our goals everyone does 20% better company's goals 20% better your goal is 20% better and one person that can't do it right from day one just just got it can't do it I was like well you already defeated yourself

you've already given up why don't you try it and he was the person on the call this morning that said he's up 30% Ah, ha ha ha ha, yes. So. It's funny you turned him then because he was very proud of that. Yeah.

It's great. Like you've already defeated yourself. Let's try or and maybe that sense of optimism versus, you know, glass half full versus glass half empty. So, you know, Henry Ford said the man says, says if he says he can, if he says he can or he can't, you know, he's correct. Either one. You know, they're both correct. And, you know, I just, hell also, if you got to say, well, have you seen what Elon's doing? He's landing rockets and catching them with a fork, you know?

We can grow 20%. Yeah. Come on. I think that's the most amazing thing in the world. I'm showing my family, like, this thing just landed like, and they're like, eh. You know, like, I was like, I mean, that's crazy. Your children are just getting absolutely spoiled. Yeah.

This is the craziest thing in the world. Yeah. We just landed this thing, the size of a destroyer or a battleship on a dime. Yeah. First time. Yeah. Got it. Yeah.

I think it's, I mean, the pace of technology and how things are right now is crazy. Yeah. But he inspires me. And I try to use him in training something. He inspires me to say, well, you know, I could probably do more. Yeah. I might not be able to do what he's doing, but I can do more than I'm doing, you know. For sure.

And you're doing that, which typically with your three. golf golf courses you purchase. That's a big move. Yeah, people say, I don't know how you do what you do to me, but I don't know how he does what he does. Right. I mean, that's. Right.

And he's not, he's not afraid. I mean, it's inspiring to, like, he's not afraid to do something. They asked him one time, this is before he became crazy wealthy. You know, when he, I think he had a hundred million and he bet it all. Yeah. On SpaceX and Tesla. They said, what are you going to do if you lose at all? And he goes, I suppose I'll have to go make some more money.

Yeah. Did you hear the story about how he's even in a business for himself? No. He put out his resume to, he was graduating. I think he was a Pennsylvania grad. Yeah. He put out his resume to tech companies and even went into Netscape's office to see if he could talk to somebody who's so shy and introverted. He didn't do it.

And so he's like, no one. would hire me, so I just started my own business. Yeah. I believe it. I never want to compare myself to Elon Moss, but like that was, that's nuts. That is nuts. That is nuts. Well, again, that's very Elon, though.

He's like, I tried this. That didn't work, so I'll try this. You know, logically, that would be the conclusion. Yeah, visionary for sure. So let's talk about this. The last thing here is just promoting golf track. I mean, you want to promote golf track and tell people how they could contact your team and book a, book a dream of a,

A trip of a lifetime. Yeah. Well, it's very easy. We're blessed with good presence. Myrtlebeachgolf.com. Sweet. How can you not remember that? That is awesome.

Yeah, so that's our flagship website. We've got a whole team that'll take care of you. And for those that get away and escape from the normal everyday grind of life, we've got a lot of good things going on on the coast of South Carolina. And we'd love to have you. Good. Good. Well, you've done great work, me.

Did great work when we got you at Datastream, and you've done great work since. You built a great company. And I appreciate you coming down here today. Sure. Meeting with us. Yeah. It's been great. Thanks for having me.

Thank you. All right.