What Does Golfing Have to do With Business?

There are more than 24 million golfers in the US and nearly 10,000 golf courses. And while many golfers think of golf as merely a pleasant past-time, many businessmen like Shalom Lamm, the real estate developer in New York, think of golf as an outdoor business meeting.

It takes typically 3 and a half or 4 hours to conduct a round of golf, while generally, most business meetings take significantly less than 45 minutes. So the parties have plenty of time to engage with each other. not just rush to meet.

Another unique factor is the limit of the players. Often no more than four players at a time will play, and even if another four remain in their golf cart, the entire party consists of a maximum of 8.

At many traditional business meetings, everyone from the president to the legal counsel, the marketing manager, and more are fully represented, with as many as 12 people represented for each side. As a result, golf business meetings are much smaller and represent only the key players.

As Shalom Lamm notes, conducting a business meeting on a golf course is a time-honored tradition. And naturally, golf meetings lighten the mood. In particular, if businesses have been antagonistic to each other, having something to do besides stare at each other face to face tends to significantly reduce the animosity.

One way to accelerate the flow of business in a natural way is to mix up the players on a cart. The CEO of the Company should golf and ride in the cart with the CEO of the other business represented rather than with his attorney or another major member of his own management team. Pairing the decision-makers together helps cut through a lot of the red tape.

Another good reason why golf as a business meeting is a great idea is that there are no PowerPoint slide presentations and no business charts. Many people discover that at a typical business meeting, Powerpoint presentations and charts and graphs tend to confuse the main issues rather than to make them clear.

During a golf meeting, without so many people and without all the charts and hoopla, the two parties can often get down to the main sticking points. And sticking points are often the real problems with business meetings. And since you’ll be on the course for several hours together, there is no need to rush. Both parties, of course, understand the general purpose of the meeting is not to see who is the better golfer, but to bridge gaps between one another to conduct business.

And if your purpose for being on the links is not to close a deal immediately but to see if the companies can form a bridge towards working within one and another, then consider hosting a network golf event where you have as many as 12 or so foursomes just getting to know one another. Golf is a great way to accelerate business and there are relatively few companies that don’t relish getting to know one another.

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