The Entrepreneurial Spirit
According to Wikipedia, a great source of information, “the newly and modern view on entrepreneurial talent is a person who takes the risks involved to undertake a business venture”. According to My Golf Retail Guru, this entrepreneurial talent is a dying breed.
I cannot tell you how many times I am contacted by companies looking for assistance with some level of expertise, whether it is my own or someone else’s. Then these entrepreneurs want the expert to take the risks. For many of these ventures, the business plan is extremely weak and not likely to become successful. But rather than offer cash for assistance, these underfunded businesspeople want to offer either stock or performance pay. Unfortunately, most of us need cash to sustain, not to mention that we believe the stock will be worthless in the future.
I once had a newly developed golf ePoS company call me to look at the product. I signed the NDA, so I cannot tell what this product’s unique claim to fame was–but I will tell you that it did have one unique set of interrelated features that I have not seen offered elsewhere. The rest of the product was weak. Selling an item required a lookup–you couldn’t just enter a product code.
When I told the company that in order for me to offer any advice, I would want cash not stock. One partner thought that was a dandy idea and the other, who won this battle, did not. The next offer was to give me a referral fee for every course that I could get to install the product.
Now I have worked with a lot of golf courses in looking at systems and I have two simple rules. (1) Only one side of the table can pay me–either the golf course or the software company–no double dipping–and I don’t like to accept compensation from a software company for a referral. (2) I do not have a favorite software company.
I remember when the dot-bombs acquired many of the software companies back in the late 1990’s. I went to the Orlando show looking for systems for three different golf courses. They all selected different software. Of course, the reason was that they were all different types of courses with different needs.
So where is the entrepreneurial spirit? Probably out there with the old dot-bombs that wasted $60 million plus trying to “buy” and industry that doesn’t generate that much in annual sales. Thank goodness there were a few golf ePoS companies that kept their integrity during those years, weathered the storm, and are still around today.
Alan Fisher is the leading expert on inventory management in the golf industry. He has conducted numerous seminars across the US and Europe for the golf industry and has authored numerous articles on maximizing retail inventory. If you would like to know more about how you can make your retail a profitable part of your business, please contact him at any of the following:
alan.fisher@mygolfretailguru.com
866.32 RB101 (866.327.2101) toll-free (US)
+1 760.724.0385 direct
+1 619.723.4653 mobile
+1 760.208.4653 US Skype
+44 20 3239 9619 UK Skype
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