Finally understanding VGM Club
I’ll admit it: I never really understood the business model of VGM Club. I didn’t understand the way it works. Luckily, I had the opportunity to visit the company’s Golf Industry Show trade show booth and got to talk with VGM Club’s Vice President of Marketing Cam Schultz. He cleared things up pretty quickly.
“We bring solutions,” he told me. The company started out as VGM Golf in 1994 and focused on providing discounts to pro shops using collective bargaining agreements with golf-related companies. For a small fee, a club could become a VGM member and receive these discounts. VGM Golf became VGM Club in 2001 as it expanded into agronomy, clubhouse and food and beverage solutions.
This expanded business model has helped the company grow, with more than 3,500 clubs now participating and receiving quarterly cash rebates and savings on purchases. VGM Club also offers discounts and rebates on turf equipment, chemicals and fertilizers, replacement parts and other maintenance items.
This expanded model apparently works, as Schultz says the company in the last six years has grown from 28 employees to 55.
“We want to be the help desk for clubs,” he notes, because the company’s goal is the be “the most trusted service provider in the club industry.”
That’s something even I can understand.