Do Small Business Owners Like to Play Golf?

Guest Contributor: Albert Luk

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With the summer upon us, the obvious question turns to whether it is an effective sales technique to take your small business clients golfing?

Golfing is typically seen as a great way to develop business simply because you have your client or potential client to yourself for 3-4 hours straight. Given that the venue in which you are developing this relationship is outside of the office, it is also a good opportunity for your client to not be focused on their day to day worries and focus on larger strategic issues with you.

Having said that, in my experience, I have found: (i) very few small business owners can golf; and (ii) if they do, they don't play very often. More often than not, small business owners spend so much time running their business that they do not have too much time to develop a golf game or could find more productive means to spend 3-4 hours; the practicality of the situation being that if a small business owner had 3-4 hours of free time, they would probably spend it with family.

Golf seems to be one of those business matters where there is a large business/small business split. Most small business owners, unless they have to golf to woo their own big business accounts, like to use their business development time in other activities (there are obviously exceptions to the rule).

Remember, in most cases, that the small business owner is the ONLY manager and there's no such thing as a day out of the office. Taking them out of the office for 3-4 hours may be seen by some small business owners as a poor use of time and, by association, you are seen as a time-wasting element in their lives.

Instead, I would suggest as a practical summer small business development tip to invite your small business accounts to a lunch on a patio and invite other small business owners to be in attendance. It is typically under-estimated how alone small business owners feel. The ability to create an event where they can interact with an opportunity to exit at the end of lunch, or to stay longer, will be greatly appreciated.

Speaking of the summer, there will be no column in August since I am off for several weeks. Enjoy the summer.