What’s your job title and where do you work?
Assistant Racquets Professional/Pickleball Director at Belle Haven Country Club
What’s your story, and how’d you get here?
I have been in the racquet sports/tennis industry for 15 years in various leadership positions. My parents introduced me to tennis at a young age and I have always been passionate about playing. Coaching at Belle Haven Country Club has given me a love and appreciation for teaching not just tennis but other racquet sports including Pickleball and Platform Tennis. I have always been a big proponent of continuing education so I can serve those I coach in a more productive and positive way. I grew up as a junior playing competitive tennis early on and did play varsity college level tennis for Presbyterian College in Clinton, SC where I graduated.
What brought you to apply to the DORS certificate course?
I was looking to increase my skill set and understanding in the areas of leadership the program focused on.
What are 3 of your favorite things about the course?
1 – Great interviews, lectures and presentations throughout the course
2- The initial self reflection tools at the beginning
3- The various written assignments
What surprised you the most as you worked through the course?
How open and informative the exchange of ideas through the yellowdigs part of the course was (Yellowdigs is the forum where course participants can communicate)
Have you been able to apply anything you’ve been learning so far?
Yes! The program helped me in numerous ways in terms of my leadership confidence and skill set. While there were many benefits from doing this course that I have been using in my daily work, I will say that one that has stuck out has been the idea of creating member delight (the specific steps) when doing events or classes and not just hoping to provide member satisfaction. The idea of customer mapping was also helpful for doing special events. Specifically, the focus on creating customer delight before assuming you will get customer loyalty has been crucial for me when doing events. The member delight concept and customer mapping has really helped me in creating a great environment for Pickleball socials and parties that has allowed players of all levels to enjoy playing during the same event and in each event bringing in some people who never played any type of racquet sport at all (golfers for example). These concepts helped me increase participation in my Pickleball socials by 66% from May of this year to one we had in December. The budgeting (zero based budgeting in particular) and marketing principles were very helpful as the Pickleball program is getting more fully going at our club this year (start of this year). It helped me set up a full fiscal year budget for the program including several types of programming and better understand more effective ways to market various class offerings. Points in the course about great programming and growing it have helped in my job responsibilities for junior programming I spearhead. The principles such as knowing your audience, creating a compelling and clear purpose, and getting members involved in growing the program themselves has really helped with a 10 and under match play program (red and orange ball players) I helped organize/start and coach for Belle Haven. For example, we normally have it just during the school year but I was able to promote and add a two-month summer session for red ball age kids for the first time this year.
Interested in our Director of Racquet Sports Certificate?
You, too, can develop the business and leadership competencies required to successfully manage a tennis and racquets operation. Visit our website for more information.
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