GreatLIFE – “The Other Side of the Coin”: A Success Story in Sioux Falls

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Our mission at GreatLIFE is “To enrich the lives of families and individuals through golf, fitness and healthy lifestyles.” Our primary goal is to “Be the best in Guest satisfaction, value and convenience for golf and fitness.”

Almost three and a half years ago, we introduced GreatlLIFE Golf & Fitness to the Sioux Falls market with three golf courses and one fitness center.Our model of unlimited golf, unlimited fitness and free bowling at very low costs has gone over very well.Today we operate seven golf courses, have another 18 “affiliate” golf courses where our Members get free green fees,16 fitness centers, a bowling and family fun center plus two “affiliate” bowling centers.

Our background has been in the hospitality and service industry for the past +40 years. We have been successful in building pretty strong Teams of caring, committed Leaders that are passionate about impacting people’s lives, especially those of children.We focus on being the “friendliest and the cleanest” and that “you only get one chance for a first impression.”We have invested significantly both in our facilities and our Teams in delivering on our mission and goals. We have completely built two new clubhouses; major remodels on two others including fitness centers in their former banquet rooms.We have added GPS and Bluetooth to all our fleet of carts plus a cooler with four bottles of iced water, towels, tee, ball markers along with sand and ball washers.

Sioux Falls is a city of about 175,000 people with two major hospital systems with large wellness centers with aquatics as well as three municipal golf courses, so the competition has been challenging.Our model has almost 15,000 memberships with annual contracts and over 32,000 members. We do free family clinics on Sunday afternoon with a little competition and reception afterward, adult clinics on Monday and Tuesday afternoons and children’s clinics on Tuesday mornings throughout the summer.

We have “Play Everything” clinics throughout the year to show kids the connectivity of sports, that same motion for golf is the same for tennis, baseball, throwing a football or kicking a soccer ball. We have over 80 fitness classes per week from yoga, spin to Zumba.

We have more than doubled revenues within three years at the most, rounds and food and beverage

is well over double as well. Our two courses within Sioux Falls average over 250 rounds/day seven days a week during the summer. Importantly, our member attrition is low with people moving out of Sioux Falls as the biggest reason for canceling. We are in our third year of hosting a LPGA Symetra Tour event called the GreatLIFE Challenge with 144 of the most talented young ladies pursuing the LPGA.

We have always been heavily involved with charities and civic organizations, especially children’s charities. We started the GreatLIFE Cares Foundation from day one with GreatLIFE. Though the golf events we host and sponsor at our courses and through our Symetra GreatLIFE Challenge, we help raise over $500,000 annually.

In the last month,we have introduced the GreatLIFE “PLUS” program where our Members get free movies at our local 7 theaters, free baseball and football game tickets, big discounts at numerous local attractions like our zoo, butterfly house & aquarium, water parks and much more at no additional cost for our Members.We are constantly working on getting “added value” Member benefits to encourage families to get out doing things together, getting healthier and building stronger relationships. For further information, go to www.joingreatlife.com or download our member brochures here:  Download

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