E702 | Business Lessons From The Masters Golf Tournament

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Podcast Transcript

Danny: Hey, real quick. If you were serious about starting or growing your cash based practice, I want to formally invite you to go to Facebook and join our PT entrepreneurs Facebook group. This is a group of over 6, 000 providers all over the country. And it's a pretty amazing place to start to get involved in the conversation.

Hope to see you there soon. Hey, are you a physical therapist looking to leverage your skill set in a way that helps you create time and financial freedom for yourself and your family? If so, you're in the right spot. My name is Danny Matta and over the last 15 years I've done pretty much everything you can in the profession.

I've been a staff PT I've been an active duty military officer physical therapist. I've started my own cash practice I've sold that cash practice and to date my company physical therapy biz has helped over a thousand clinicians start grow and scale their own Cash practices. So if this sounds like something you want to do listen up because i'm here to help you What's going on, dr.

Danny here With the PT entrepreneur podcast. And today we are talking about brand. We're talking about a specific brand at that. And it's top of mind for me because on Monday. Today's Tuesday. I guess you're going to hear this on a Tuesday, but on Monday I got to go to the Masters Monday at the Masters, the practice round.

And for those of you who don't know, the Masters is at the Augusta National, which is a golf course where they host the Masters golf tournament. And it is a very difficult place to get a ticket to to this sporting event and We were fortunate that my wife was able to win the lottery.

That you, by the way, you can go on a masters. com sign up for a the lottery to get tickets. And if you win, you get four practice round tickets or you get two tickets to the tournament. It's, I don't know how often, somebody wins. My brother's won once my and Ashley has won once.

So it's pretty hard to win, but if you do, you get tickets and it's awesome. You get a chance to go. For me, I grew up. In Augusta, partially when I was in high school for a couple of years, I was there actually worked at this golf course. When I was in high school, I was on the litter control. If those of you who've ever been there before, I wore a yellow jumpsuit and picked up trash all around the course and put out new trash bags.

They don't do that anymore. Now, these guys have nice khaki pants and windbreakers and hats that they don't look like they're in prison. But that's what my job was. So I take this course for granted a little bit. I don't really look at it the way that most people do as this sort of revered place.

It's just, it's fairly normal for. Me as a, younger and growing up working there and being, having a lot of friends that went there every year and having a chance to go a few times, it's, I didn't really look at it as the way that I did when I went back on Monday and mainly because I went with three people that had never been before.

And so it was cool because I got a chance to see this through the eyes of somebody that had never experienced it before. and just to watch my family, just like how amazed they were at what it looked like at The little details of the facility and everything about the actual course and the facilities and everything it's in a really impressive place And for me, I thought about it as wow, these people are creating such an amazing experience And I want to talk a little bit about that because I think there's a few lessons you can take from the Augusta national in the master's tournament when it comes to experience and, and how you can apply that to your own business.

And you might have to think outside the box a little bit with some of this and how you can apply it. But I would say the first thing, number one, they do an amazing job at communicating. What you can expect, what you should do, what you shouldn't do, what you can expect, and they do all that on the front end in email letters.

Like when you get your badges, your actual tournament tickets, um, the big thing is just like what not to do. So you. For those of you that have never been or are unfamiliar at this golf course, you are not allowed to bring a cell phone in. There's literally a bank, multiple banks of landline phones.

If you have to make a call, you have to go to one of these phone banks and you have to type in a number, like dial in a number and then you can call somebody. You cannot bring a phone in you can't bring any sort of electronics except for you can bring a DSLR or just any sort of camera if you want to take pictures, but no phones and they do that.

They don't want any distractions. They don't want anybody on their phone. They don't want phones going off. They don't want people. They're not being present. In the, at the course together and watching golf and being, in this beautiful place, they work so hard to maintain.

So in order to let people know that though, they do that in communication on the front end. Otherwise you'd have. Tens of thousands of people to show up and they would have to take their phones and put them in some sort of storage and then give them back to them. That's one big thing, the communication on the front end.

And for you, you might be saying, okay what does that have to do with my clinic? It has to do with what do people, what can people expect when they come to see you in your office? They come to your clinic and it could be what do you wear? What shouldn't you wear? What can you expect? When should you be here?

Like what? Or where's the location? How do you find it? And maybe a video of what it looks like and you and how to get to the office and where people should wait and take away some of the stress of the unknown is a huge part of a positive experience. And it's something that the masters does really well.

The next thing. Is apparel. Now this stat blew me away. I couldn't believe how much like apparel they sell. So apparently a few years ago, so I haven't been to the course. I don't even know the last time I went, Oh, I'll take it back. I went 2017, maybe 2018. Anyway, it's been a few years, but they have a pro shop that they have.

Masters branded anything you can imagine, basically, anything. And they even have these collectible gnomes, which sounds strange that people would collect gnomes, but they do. And these are a hard thing to get. We got there at 6. 30 in the morning. 640 maybe. And we waited in line for an hour and a half to get in the pro shop thinking we're going to be able to get one of these limited edition gnomes.

And they were all sold out by the time that we actually got in there. And I was, it's. Not about the gnome so much. It's about the brand. It's about the swag that people want to have in association with the masters, right? And I guess you can buy master stuff from like third party groups but You know if you're wearing a shirt that has a little masters logo on it and you're on a golf course I mean it ain't that ain't much cooler you can wear Then that, and people know it.

And so they go bananas for this stuff, but it's the guy in front of me that checked out from the pro shop, spent 5, 000 on stuff, but he got so many hats. I had no idea. Like you got 50 hats. I'm assuming he's getting stuff for a bunch of other people, but people go crazy in there. And if you have a brand, put that on apparel, put that on stuff that people can wear, that people want to wear.

Where and then would even want to buy because your brand should be able to care some carry some amount of significance and appeal associated with Your company like that's the ultimate goal right is to build a brand because people associate with a brand They're not price sensitive with a brand They are like they're very tied to that brand, they create communities and they congregate around a brand and they do this so well.

And what I read was like the revenue side of the pro shop, they sell a million dollars worth of apparel and merchandise every hour that they're open. Like what a million dollars per hour. And it is a. Sight to see just the efficiency of this place. Crazy. And even my nephew was working in the pro shop and it was cool to see him, busting his ass restocking stuff and all this.

And his it was cool. He looked really tired, which was funny. As he's 16 and he's working his butt off but the brand's crazy. The brand is amazing. And you want to build a brand that people want to associate themself with and not necessarily just a company, you want a brand. So think about yourself with branded shirts at a minimum, we gave out so many shirts at athletes potential.

It's one of the smartest marketing things I ever did. People wore them and we didn't just buy the cheapest cotton shirts we could possibly get. There were like three bucks a shirt. We got, tri bill tri blend, like nice fitting comfortable t shirts that people wanted to wear. They wanted to wear to the gym.

They wanted to wear when they, they were going for a run and The only way to get one was to work with us. You couldn't buy it. You had to work with us. And what was cool is people would bump into each other wearing an athlete's potential shirt, take a picture, send it to us, and now all of a sudden they've met somebody else that's similar to them because they work with a similar brand.

And that's something that really keep in mind and think about is how do you build a brand? How do you get people to associate themselves with your company? And they want to associate yourself with your company. And they want to stand in line for an hour and a half to get a freaking gnome. That's what you want to build.

Like it's so impressive that people do that. The third thing is the attention to detail in your space. So I don't care if you have a subleased office in a gym with no windows, like I started, or if you have a beautiful, facility with rubber floors and turf and, all the stuff. You should take pride in your space.

It should be clean. It should smell great. It, it should down to the detail look right, feel right. And you should expect everybody on your space to Your staff and your company to uphold that same standard. They should put things away whenever things are, equipment is is out.

It should not look messy. It should look well organized and it should look professional. Now on a golf course, it's huge place, right? This is how you know, They've done it the right way. I literally saw multiple people pick up trash that had, I'm a, I'm hoping blown out of a trash can or off of somebody's, lap or out of their bag or something like that.

Cause I can't imagine somebody in their right mind littering at this course, but pick up trash and put it. In a trash can. How many times day to day life do you see somebody walk by trash and not give a fuck about it? Not at all. And maybe that's just day to day, walking around, normal store street, whatever people don't think about it at all at a place like this It's impeccable and not just the staff, but the patrons keep it that way That is amazing that you can get literally people that are just there watching as a spectator to police self police Like putting trash in the right place.

It's amazing. And that's something that you got to keep in mind It's because the standard they uphold is they want a perfect setting as no other way for me to put this. I can't even describe you the way the grass looks or the way these areas look like it looks fake. It looks like when I moved to Hawaii and everything looked more vibrant, that's the way that this place looks.

And they work hard at doing that. They do it on purpose and they expect that it's kept that way. As best as possible in your space, it's your space. You can make it look like whatever you want. You can make it feel like whatever you want, but you damn well better make it look professional because nobody wants to associate themselves with a sloppy ass brand.

It's literally black and white. Keep your place looking great. Keep yourself organized. Keep your staff organized. Make sure that they're professional. And you have a standard that you uphold and you can stick to that and you can hold people accountable to that because you'll develop a culture that self polices that is doing what is correct based on the standard that you have.

And people feel that they feel it whenever they're in a place where it is a high standard. People want to be around high performance teams. They want to be a part of that. And when those standards are set, you feel compelled to be a part of it. And that's a really cool thing that you can pull over. Into your own clinic and it's up to you.

So put things away, keep things clean. It may sound simple. It may sound insignificant to you, but I'm telling you it is significant to how people associate your company with whether they want to refer a friend or family member to your place. And which brings me to my next point. And that's status.

Here's something that the masters does. That's interesting. There's different like types of individuals out there. The elusive, the most like the highest status one you can have is a green jacket. That's a member of the Augusta National. That's like Peyton Manning and Condoleezza Rice, right? Like you're talking about famous people that are incredibly, powerful wealthy individuals, lots of people that, I actually don't know who all the members are.

I don't know if they have it listed, but you see a green jacket, it's big deal there, right? But you can take that same green jacket. You could go to. I don't know, somewhere they know nothing about golf, some other country, some other city that doesn't know a first thing about golf, and that same person, they could have their, sweet green jacket on, walking around, and no one gives a shit, couldn't care less don't care, they're just some weirdo with a green jacket on, why are you wearing a green jacket, bro, that's weird, but at the Masters?

It's the highest status symbol that you could possibly have besides, winning the tournament. And then you guess what you get a green jacket, you get the same damn jacket. So they give out these green jackets to members. And obviously there's a lot of, I'm sure things that involve becoming a member.

But then there's also other types of people out there, right? There's people that are wearing blue jackets, so they're like supervisors and stuff like that. There's people that are. Volunteer positions that are holding, the ropes where you cross or they're calling in scores and they have like different basically uniforms associated with that.

And these are all status things and people will volunteer for an entire week out there complete for free for status. Being able to, have a certain uniform and if they volunteer and they actually get that job, which is very hard to do, they get to play the course like a month later. So status is compelling.

And when you think about this for a second, you can't always buy status. Let's say you wanted to be a member of the masters and you're incredibly wealthy. That doesn't mean that you're going to become a member of the masters. It doesn't mean you're going to get a dream jacket. Everybody that tries to, become a member of the masters is wealthy.

It doesn't mean that they want you to be there. There's a lot of other factors that go into that and that increases your status if you're able to do that now for you with your clinic, what ways can you create status within your own clinic? Maybe it's as simple as something like some sort of, Specific swag, right?

Let's say somebody has, come in and worked with you for a couple of years and you get them a, I don't know a sweatshirt, a hoodie, that's they can't buy that specific to their, like recognizing that they're such a valuable member of your community and have supported your business.

And you give that to them as a status symbol, right? That's something that they can't pay for. They can't buy, of course they could buy a 50 hoodie, but they can't buy it in this specific situation. They have to earn it via loyalty to the business, via working with you, via sending people your way, being somebody that is an integral part of your community like that.

Type of status can make a big difference in how somebody feels. It's already a big promoter of your business that you just made a super promoter of your business. We do this with our mastermind members. So in our mastermind, this is something that we, we have status built in. And it's because we want people to view business for what it is, which is a game.

So depending on your revenue. In your business, you get a different colored name tag and the name tag colors. We have six different colors. They just designate, what revenue bracket you're in. So if you have a million dollar business, you get a gold name tag. So you're over a million and you get a gold name tag and there's other colored name tags that are below that.

But everybody. Wants to get that gold name tag and it's it works very well like incentivizing people with something like they can't They can't buy a gold name tag they can't fake a gold name tag. They have to earn it. It's earn a gold name tag via building a business that is over a million dollars.

And you can't do it by yourself. You have to have more people than just you, which means you have to learn how to hire, and you have to learn how to be a good leader, and you have to learn how to scale your business and more about finance and all these things. And you earn that. And I tell you what, when you get that, you're going to walk around, you're going to be two inches taller.

At a live event here, just, it is a status upgrade. Like you wouldn't believe, and you earned it and it's. It's something that incentivizes people to put the hard work in. Like little things like that can make a big difference in how people associate themselves with your brand. And they feel compelled to want to associate the associate themselves with you as well as do things that they need to do to really grow to where they're trying to grow within their business, at least in our situation.

So in your situation, I think about what things can you do that'll help people build status that they can't pay for. Cause that is really important. that's far more valuable than any sort of like referral incentive you can give somebody or anything like that. Like status is huge. They want us to feel valued.

They want to feel a part of something and they should, it's something that they've earned. That's huge. It's something that, in this case, Like you get a green jacket, that's rare. It's so rare. And people see it, and they, and it's funny how people interact with people with a green jacket.

It's like they're meeting like an Avenger or something. It's really interesting. So think about that. What's, what status things can apply to your own business? The last thing I would say is do something that you're, maybe you can be known for because. Yes, the Augusta National is known for being a really amazingly, beautiful course.

But the other thing that they're known for, and this is a funny, like little thing that they're known for, but people go here and they're just excited about this is food. A it's cheap and B it's awesome. So a sandwich. There's two primary sandwiches that they're known for a pimento cheese sandwich on white bread and a egg salad sandwich on white bread.

I ate four egg salad sandwiches, by the way, might've been a mistake. Worth it, but they're known for these dollar 50. It's what it costs. Sweet tea. Amazing. Let's go two egg salad sandwiches and a sweet tea. That's my breakfast. Let's go. But people are just as excited about the damn food as they are about the course and they're known for it They even ship masters watch party packages where It's pre made egg salad and pimento cheese You can make your own sandwiches and watch the masters need egg salad and pimento cheese And it's something that they're known for it's something unique to them.

What things You Can set you apart that you're known for. I'll tell you the one thing that we did at our office was we had a we bought an espresso machine and we actually even had Ashley in our office manager, go to barista training to learn how to make a proper latte and Americano.

And when someone would come in. And our office manager, Ashley, I'd say, Oh, Hey, do you want some water? You want a coffee? And I say, I'd love a coffee. And the next thing they hear is great. What do you want? A Americano, a cappuccino, a latte. What do you want? And they would, if they're new blown away what do you mean?

What is this? This is a coffee shop. What the heck is going on? And we had barista trained people. the office. They were literally making great coffee for people while they were sitting and waiting on their appointment. And we would have people that would like, they'd get one on the way out. They would stop by and get a coffee.

Like it was something that set us apart in a significant way in terms of experience that they were known for. We had great coffee and it was something that took a little extra training and it was something that took a little extra training And a little bit more of like detail about how we're going to do that, which we want to serve and all that stuff.

But such a big upgrade to a customer experience to something pretty simple. You know like that you're talking about a few hundred bucks for a machine And a few hundred dollars, per person to send them to a coffee, barista class, right? And it made a world of difference. So think about what other things do people, what will they associate your company with besides just being an amazing physical therapy location, which frankly, let's check the box, right?

If you're a great clinician, that's awesome. We expect that when we work with people, you can't just be that you've got to be that and have a great experience wrapped around it. If you can do that, then you can really build a bulletproof business. So take a note from the masters when you're watching it.

Or hopefully actually by this point, it'll probably be over, but hopefully you watched it. If not watch it next year, think about these things that I'm talking about. If you ever get a chance to go do it. It's great. Sign up for the lottery. You'll win once every 10 years or something like that.

And if you really are desperate, go to a practice round stand outside Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. And if people leave. Ask them for their badge. Ask them if they can, if you can buy it from them. I left one year on a practice round and there was this little couple from Wisconsin, the older husband and wife, and you can only go in and out twice.

So if I give somebody my badge. I'll just tell them, I'll say, yeah, you can have it, but I'm going to watch you go in because people will resell these and they'll be like, Oh yeah, I'm just want to go and see the masters. And they go and they sell it for 500 bucks on the street. So I said, yeah, you can have them, but I'm going to watch you go in.

And they were like, Oh, we're so excited. This is like a dream come true for us or whatever. And I watch them go in and they're just like. So ecstatic, like skipping on the way in. And they, I hope they had an awesome time, but if you really want to go do that, don't you don't have to get a lottery.

You just gotta get to, you gotta get to Augusta, which isn't the easiest place to get to, and you gotta, get lucky outside there. Hopefully somebody will give you their badge. So hopefully you guys like this one. Hopefully you're a golf fan. If you are, this probably might be your favorite podcast.

If you're not a golf fan, this might be your least favorite podcast. Either way. We'll keep putting these out Tuesdays and Thursdays. Hope you like this one. And as always, thanks for listening. We'll catch you next week. Hey, Peach entrepreneurs. We have big, exciting news, a new program that we just came out with.

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