What is your scale? Not how much you weigh? The size and scope of what you do.

Here’s a tid bit about me. I went to school for Architecture (program was taking too long so I just got my business degree and moved on). Buildings fascinate me. I love how you can make old fit in with new, or how you can take something that’s too big and make it feel small. For instance, making a schoolhouse from the 1860’s function as an actual house in 2024 – yep, I almost bought that one in 2019…

The first time I went to Disney, it was about 1990. I was 24. Fresh out of my Architecture “career”. I walked into Main St., USA and I was immediately drawn to the down home feel of a Main St. in “Anytown, USA”. It looked like Main St. It felt like Main St. Something felt different. The buildings looked small. As I looked up, I realized the windows were little. They got littler as the floors went up. The three story building in front of me was not three stories at all – It might have been two stories. The Scale was made smaller. I wondered why. Then it hit me. Full scale to someone 3 feet tall would feel overwhelming – this didn’t. As I looked around, everything was built to that scale. Retail displays went to the floor, they didn’t start at table height. Little eyes are lower. Because of this, it felt bigger, but more importantly, it felt the same. The smaller buildings made the parade floats look larger than life. They made the castle look bigger. Nice play. Disney understands it’s audience. If the little audience is captivated, the big audience brings them back. What is your audience? Do you know what needs to be done to bring them back? Disney pays a fanatical attention to detail. They have to. They need the little guests AND the big guests to be impressed. It’s no small task. As you walk around your facility, Do you pay that same level of attention to detail? Is it OK to have empty boxes in the middle of the golf shop floor? Is it OK to have ladies clubs mixed in with Men’s clubs? Tour balls mixed in with lower compression, value balls? A dusty corner or display? Or who knows what. Maybe you take it for granted because you see it every day. Disney doesn’t. Your members notice it. Do you need to up your “Attention to Detail” game?

Every facility has a “scale”. I call it a feeling. Some places “feel” larger than life. They feel “big”. Can we create that “big” feel? Yes, some of it is stature – this place hosted PGA Tour events, that place had a US Am, they always host the local district championship… That stature has a feeling – a level of expectation that you feel before you even get there. Perhaps it’s the grandiose feeling of bigness you get. Or the smell of old wood in the clubhouse. Maybe the smell of fresh paint in the new clubhouse. Or maybe, it’s the way you are treated when you contact the facility. Fanatical attention to detail is part of the scale of your facility.

We can create our own scale – whether it’s physical or interactive. Simply changing a display or dusting can change the physical scale of your facility. Brewing a pot of coffee, lighting a candle or using Murphy’s oil soap on the wood in the shop makes it smell different – that changes the physical scale. Here’s the beauty – anything you do to change the interactive scale doesn’t cost anything. How you treat people is how you make them feel. Changing that scale elevates your facility. You don’t have to make it look big to make it feel big, and you don’t have to do more than give your best effort to make every person feel like they are a big deal. Give them your best and your scale changes.

Your work, your way.

Happy Professionalism. Enjoy your work/ life balance.